Germany Is Buying F-35s.

[Ame®icano]

Ukraine is holding her own, but she isn't winning. Russian forces are still gaining ground. When the enemy makes more progress than you do, you're not winning.

I posted few weeks back when Russia invaded... quick math.

The Ukrainian Army has 215,000 active soldiers who have been armed and trained close to NATO standards.
There are another 200,000 reservists, 50,000 border guards, and 60,000 National Guards. They've also mobilized civilians/territorial defense.

Russia has assembled some 200,000 forces in the vicinity of Ukraine, 100,000 of whom have actually entered Ukraine.
Normal attacker-defender ratios call for a 3:1 advantage for the attacker. Russia is attacking with a 1:7 disadvantage.

As defender, you don't put all of your defense at the border. It's expected that attacking forces make initial gains, and add reinforcements where needed. The same goes with the defense, where reserve is allocated to protect vital and strategic points.

From what I've seen so far, and I am surprised, Russians are not using their newest tanks, all of them are versions of T-72. Maybe that explains high Russian loses, or Putin expected Ukraine would cave at first signs of war. Russia is stretching their supply lines which make them more vulnerable, and gives Ukraine opportunities to flank and cut off, or capture some equipment they could use.

It turned out, Ukrainians did not accepted Ruskies as "liberators" as they were told they are, and NLAWs / Javelins are making a huge impact on Russian armor loses. All that makes Putin even more mad, and it will force him to make reinforcements. He doesn't have much time left, since his weapon reserves can run thin in few months, therefore he's asking China for help.

Why is this important? Imagine Poles get a hunch about Russians running out of supplies...

 

[Rogue AI]

How soon before Germany would have them, how soon before they are fully trained on them? A fine gesture if there is enough time to see it through. If the West is really worried about Russian expansion beyond Ukraine, they need our troops and equipment on the way now.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

I posted few weeks back when Russia invaded... quick math.



It turned out, Ukrainians did not accepted Ruskies as "liberators" as they were told they are, and NLAWs / Javelins are making a huge impact on Russian armor loses. All that makes Putin even more mad, and it will force him to make reinforcements. He doesn't have much time left, since his weapon reserves can run thin in few months, therefore he's asking China for help.

Why is this important? Imagine Poles get a hunch about Russians running out of supplies...

I think he's setting a trap to draw NATO into a shooting war.

 

[Rambunctious]

Silver lining...
This is going to backfire on Putin...Europe is going to arm up big time after this little excursion of Putin's....
You can bet China is watching too....

 

[Ame®icano]

I am not very familiar with the Euro fighter. What's the issue?

It was great plane on the paper. It was good plane of its time.

But question, would Germany be looking into F-35 if Eurofigher wansn't a hot garbage? No wonder French split off from the program on time to pursue their own design. The French splitting off from anything is usually a good thing though, because sooner or later they'll backstab you.

To give you an example of their backstabbing... New information came out about France discreetly equipped the Russian army between 2014 and 2020, despite the European embargo. This equipment which has contributed to modernizing the Russian land & air forces could've been used in Ukraine. They exports mainly thermal cameras intended to equip more than 1,000 Russian tanks, as well as navigation systems and infrared detectors for fighter planes and combat helicopters of the Russian air force. And just like that, Macron run to Putin at the start of invasion to talk about... peace?

Back to Eurofighter. Its a Gen 4 fighter, while F-35 is a Gen 5. It's already been in service for more than two decades, and the production lines are closed down, after having build almost 700. Its ok to buy the newer plane that's actually available for purchase, the design of which started after the end of the Cold War. The Eurofighter program started in 1983, as a superiority fighter, or dogfighter. But who really needs dogfighter when F-22 or F-35 in tandems with F-16 or F-15 can blast you from 100 miles away?

Germans are capable to design their own Gen 5 plane, but it will take them 10-15 years, while US is already working on Gen 6. It's cheaper to just get F-35s and calm down the German population from being openly called out by Trump for not providing for defense enough, while Russia is knocking at their doors.

 

[Ame®icano]

How soon before Germany would have them, how soon before they are fully trained on them? A fine gesture if there is enough time to see it through. If the West is really worried about Russian expansion beyond Ukraine, they need our troops and equipment on the way now.

Not so long ago Putin said that Russian cannot fight whole NATO, but he warned he has nukes. I don't think he's crazy to attack any NATO country.

Even Germany alone would be for Russia almost too big to swallow (despite their armed forces being limited to 350k soldiers), since they have some 150 Eurofighters and 100 Tornados, excellent tanks and artillery. How long to get them, probably 5 years before operational.

 

[Ame®icano]

I think he's setting a trap to draw NATO into a shooting war.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

Can you elaborate?

Putin is using second rate troops in Ukraine. He's trying to create the illusion of weakness to draw NATO into a fight at which time he'll deploy his more elite units and exploit NATO's overconfidence.

 

[Cougarbear]

Ukraine is the one who's losing, and Biden is facilitating that. I wonder what Putin has on Biden? Maybe that $3.5 million his son Hunter got from the former Mayor of Moscow? You know Joe got his 10%, if not more.

Hey Russia, if you're listening: Go right ahead and spill the beans on this idiot President. The media will thank you for it.

Spot on! When will we be allowed to know what's on Hunter's laptop? I'm sure it's all about the money he gave to pops from Russia, Ukraine and China. I think he is being blackmailed by Putin so his involvement of Hunter isn't exposed. That's why he's slow to react to Putin's aggression. Give just enough for his brainless followers to think he's helping Ukraine but not enough soon enough to make any difference.

 

[Ame®icano]

Putin is using second rate troops in Ukraine. He's trying to create the illusion of weakness to draw NATO into a fight at which time he'll deploy his more elite units and exploit NATO's overconfidence.

NATO will not be drawn in the war with Russia. Europe is too dependent on Russian energy, and it will take at least a decade, of not more before they're able to potentially replace the energy they're getting from Russia.

Also this...

Ukraine is the one who's losing, and Biden is facilitating that. I wonder what Putin has on Biden? Maybe that $3.5 million his son Hunter got from the former Mayor of Moscow? You know Joe got his 10%, if not more.

Hey Russia, if you're listening: Go right ahead and spill the beans on this idiot President. The media will thank you for it.

Although I don't agree that Ukraine is losing, as is expected to lose some territory at the start of the war, they have the support from EU, that barely allows them to breathe.

As JGalt pointed out, Biden gave Russia everything they wanted. The moment he got into office, he cancelled Keystone XL, and made every possible obstacle for big oil he could come up with. Since then gas prices were on the rise, and inflation as well. We have inflation above 5% every month since last May, and since last December above 7.5% even without Russian invasion of Ukraine. Biden removed Russian sanctions, and approved Nordstream 2. He gave Putin OK to invade with his "if he do just a little"... he did nothing to prevent it, to slow it down, or to take a charge. The EU couldn't wait for him and took the charge, first with sanctions, than with stopping SWIFT, blocking Nordstream 2, and Biden was following with at least five days late, when he didn't have any choice but to do so.

In my opinion, none of these sanctions really hurts Putin. They do, but not as we say they do. Putin already switched his payments to Chinese UnionPay, he offered India oil and gas commodities at discounted prices, and they're taking it. He has half of the world still doing business with him, and the only industry that he does not have to replace is semiconductors, but China does. I also heard he might be getting back on gold standard, and that's where he can actually screw us. But that's another story, maybe for later.

Back to Germany... and EU who brought this on themselves. If you're willing to read, here is what I posted about week ago.

With an economy smaller than that of Texas, and average life expectancy ten years less than rest of Europe, how does he manage to launch unprovoked full scale attack on another country, how is he able to pull this off? Here is how... the first answer is mathematical, and second purely (ideo)logical. He wants Ukraine to be part of Russia more than the West wants Ukraine to be free. Putin is willing to risk tremendous loss of life and resources to get what he wants. There are serious limits to how much the US and Europe are willing to do militarily and Putin knows it. Missing from that explanation thought is a story about material reality and basic economics.

Europe and US failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine because the West is lost in soft renewable energy delusions, whilst Putin was grounded in hard physical reality of nuclear energy, oil, and natural gas. And now, Ukrainians are paying for our wishful thinking. The reason Europe doesn't have a muscular deterrent threat to prevent Russian aggression and in fact prevented the US from getting allies to do more, is that Europe desperately needs Russian oil and gas. How is it possible that European countries, Germany in particular, allow themselves to become as dependent on authoritarian country over the thirty years since the cold war ended? Well, these countries are in the grips of delusional leftist ideology that makes them incapable to understand the hard realities of energy production. Green ideology insist that we don't need nuclear, and we don't need fracking, it insist that it's just matter of will and money to switch to all renewables, it insists that we need to de-growth the economies, and that we are facing looming human extinction because of the climate change.

Two things that Putin seems to understand far better than his counterparts in the free world and especially in Europe, first is that Europe produces 3.6 million barrel of oil a day but uses 15 million barrels of oil a day. Europe produces 230 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, but uses 560 billion cubic meters a year. Europe uses 950 million tons of coal a year, and produces half of that. At the same time, Putin knows that Russia produces 11 million barrels of oil per day, but only uses 3.4 million barrels. Russia produces over 700 billion cubic meters of gas a year but only uses around 400 billion. Russia mines 800 million tons of coal each year, but uses 300 million tons. That's how Russia ends up supplying about 20% of Europe's oil, 45% of its gas and 20% of its coal. The math is simple, a child could do it, but none of the leaders on the West do. Even if Europe cut all supplies from Russia, Putin already have buyers for it.

Than there is John Kerry, the guy who will only marry you if you are a widow with shitload of money, and he is the US "climate envoy". This guy is such a pseudointellectual, it's mind boggling. He perfectly captured myopia of the view that West holds, when he said two days before the war that "the Russian invasion of Ukraine could have profound effect... profound negative impact on the climate". WTF?

It's the West that focused on healing of the planet, soft energy renewables, and moving away from natural gas, and nuclear, that allowed Putin to gain stranglehold over Europe's energy supply. As the West fell into hypnotic trans about healing relationship with nature, averting climate apocalypse and worshipping Greta Turnberg, Putin made his moves. Whilst the expanded nuclear energy from Russia was kicking ass, Europe was shutting down their power plants and importing more and more gas. Western governments were spending their time and money obsessing over carbon footprints, (the term that was created by the advertising agency working for BP), they spend thousands of hours for climate anxiety therapy in order to ban plastic straws, whilst Putin expanded his oil and gas production and doubled his nuclear energy production to allow more exports of his other energy sources. Europe shut down their nuclear plants, closed their own gas fields and refused to develop advance methods of fracking.

The numbers tell the story the best, in 2016, only 30% of gas used by Europe came from Russia, in 2018 it jumped to 40%, by early 2020 it was 44% and by early 2021 it was 48%. Love him or hate him, Trump defied diplomatic protocols and called out Germany publicly in 2018 for its dependence on Moscow. He said that Germany is captive to Russia and he was right. He also called out Germany for not fulfilling their NATO obligations. At the time Angela Markel (former commie, by the way) was widely praised for her environmental conciseness, and just as socialist being wrong in just about everything, it turned out they didn't disappointed this time. She was saying that "Germany can make their own policies and decisions in regards energy" and the result is the worst energy crisis since 70's. These policies are driving price of all electricity and gasoline high around the world, and it's crisis fundamentally because of inadequate supply. The scarcity is entirely manufactured. The Europeans, led by figures like teenage idiot, who got rich of it, and green party leaders, supported by American idiots like John Kerry, believed that "heathy relationship with mother nature" requires to make energy scarce, but by turning completely to renewables, we are maybe saving a planet a little (which is questionable, given amount of energy needed to produce renewables), but we're completely destroying Ukraine by giving it to Russia. In service to green ideology, we made the perfect the enemy of the good, and the enemy of the people of Ukraine, and next potential victim country. And while Germans turned off three of the last six of their nuclear power plants, France's Macron right after his visit to Moscow announced that France will build 14 more reactors. He knew something that others didn't. It's worth to mention, since France is not ally that could be trusted, that back in nineties, during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, unlike majority of the EU and NATO countries, France along with Greece sided with Putin in their support of Serbia.

 

[Osiris-ODS]

Ukraine is holding her own, but she isn't winning. Russian forces are still gaining ground. When the enemy makes more progress than you do, you're not winning.

Not to mention, according to reports many of the Russian losses at this point were conscripts, not their trained forces. There's no way to know what to believe with all the competing propoganda from the worldwide media, but if it's true that the bulk of Russian deaths thus far have been cannon fodder conscripts, the situation could change for the worse in the near future. I just can't help but think our enemies are playing 3-D geopolitical chess while our leaders are playing hungry hippos.

 

[Ame®icano]

For those who were patient enough to read, and maybe learn some of the history, and facts, here is the second reason why Putin invaded Ukraine. Some of you maybe heard of Alexander Dugin, who captured Putin's attention with his ultranationalist neo-fascist ideology and anti-West, anti-liberalism, anti-globalism, and strong disprove of US hegemony. That's enough of attention that made him Putin's adviser at the time, and here is why:

"Russia rejects everything in globalism... unipolarism, atlantism, on the one hand, and liberalism, anti-tradition, technocracy, Grand Reset in one word, on the other. It is clear that all European leaders are part of the Atlantic liberal elite. In Ukraine, Russia is in war with them exactly, as they reacted exactly how liberals are expected to react. Russia is now excluded from the globalist networks, and has no choice anymore: either build her own world or disappear.

Russia has set a path to building its world, its civilization. And now the first step has been done. But sovereign in the face of globalism can only be a large space, a continent-state, a civilization-state. No country can withstand long a complete disconnect, and in order to prevent that, Russia is building a global resistance camp. If Putin succeed, that would be a victory for all the alternative forces, including everyone in a way of globalist agenda.

What does it mean for Russia to break up with the West? It is the salvation. The modern West, where Rothschild, Soros, Schwab, Bill Gates and Zuckerberg triumph, for Russia is the most disgusting thing in the history of the world. It is no longer the West of Greek-Romanian Mediterranean culture, nor the Christian Middle Ages, nor the violent and contradictory 20th century, and the sooner and more completely Russia is getting rid of it, the sooner it returns to its roots.

Dugin also said that Russia is out to defend traditional values against the modern world. It's just that "revert against the modern world". And Europe must break up with the West, and the United States must also follow those who reject globalism. Then everyone will understand the meaning of the modern war in Ukraine. Russian breakup with the West is not a breakup with Europe. It's a breakdown with death, degeneration and suicide. It's the key to recovery. And Europe itself - the European peoples - should follow their example: topple the anti-national globalist council. And building a real European house, a European building, a European cathedral."

Whether or not you're willing to admit it, what Russia is doing now is just the first step in the complete and utter annihilation of the New World Order you hate so much.

Putin likes Dugin, and for the same reason he likes him, I don't like him, because he's Bolshevik, or modern version of fascist, in the same way our liberal demagogues are. However, he is right in that there are larger forces at play in Ukraine, using it as a proxy battlefield. This is similar to what Putin said in his speech before the invasion, which many of us took lightly, accusing him of being revisionist.

I know, Putin speaking of restoring Russian empire and returning to traditional values is pretty odd, since Russians deviated from exactly that some 100+ years ago. I believe this has been cooking for years, they covered all fronts of the war, the propaganda, the ideological agenda, the rhetoric, everything to the detail that neither Europe or US are capable to do anything by force, anything but financially. And I think they're kind of ready for that too with partnering with China, and since they're on their way to adopt gold standards.

 

[Delldude]

So we couldn't afford to sell them to the Poles, for giving their old Migs to Ukraine?

Who is writing Biden's war strategy? Goofy?

Issue was to replace the Mig-29's with F-16's.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

NATO will not be drawn in the war with Russia. Europe is too dependent on Russian energy, and it will take at least a decade, of not more before they're able to potentially replace the energy they're getting from Russia.

Also this...



Although I don't agree that Ukraine is losing, as is expected to lose some territory at the start of the war, they have the support from EU, that barely allows them to breathe.

As JGalt pointed out, Biden gave Russia everything they wanted. The moment he got into office, he cancelled Keystone XL, and made every possible obstacle for big oil he could come up with. Since then gas prices were on the rise, and inflation as well. We have inflation above 5% every month since last May, and since last December above 7.5% even without Russian invasion of Ukraine. Biden removed Russian sanctions, and approved Nordstream 2. He gave Putin OK to invade with his "if he do just a little"... he did nothing to prevent it, to slow it down, or to take a charge. The EU couldn't wait for him and took the charge, first with sanctions, than with stopping SWIFT, blocking Nordstream 2, and Biden was following with at least five days late, when he didn't have any choice but to do so.

In my opinion, none of these sanctions really hurts Putin. They do, but not as we say they do. Putin already switched his payments to Chinese UnionPay, he offered India oil and gas commodities at discounted prices, and they're taking it. He has half of the world still doing business with him, and the only industry that he does not have to replace is semiconductors, but China does. I also heard he might be getting back on gold standard, and that's where he can actually screw us. But that's another story, maybe for later.

Back to Germany... and EU who brought this on themselves. If you're willing to read, here is what I posted about week ago.

With an economy smaller than that of Texas, and average life expectancy ten years less than rest of Europe, how does he manage to launch unprovoked full scale attack on another country, how is he able to pull this off? Here is how... the first answer is mathematical, and second purely (ideo)logical. He wants Ukraine to be part of Russia more than the West wants Ukraine to be free. Putin is willing to risk tremendous loss of life and resources to get what he wants. There are serious limits to how much the US and Europe are willing to do militarily and Putin knows it. Missing from that explanation thought is a story about material reality and basic economics.

Europe and US failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine because the West is lost in soft renewable energy delusions, whilst Putin was grounded in hard physical reality of nuclear energy, oil, and natural gas. And now, Ukrainians are paying for our wishful thinking. The reason Europe doesn't have a muscular deterrent threat to prevent Russian aggression and in fact prevented the US from getting allies to do more, is that Europe desperately needs Russian oil and gas. How is it possible that European countries, Germany in particular, allow themselves to become as dependent on authoritarian country over the thirty years since the cold war ended? Well, these countries are in the grips of delusional leftist ideology that makes them incapable to understand the hard realities of energy production. Green ideology insist that we don't need nuclear, and we don't need fracking, it insist that it's just matter of will and money to switch to all renewables, it insists that we need to de-growth the economies, and that we are facing looming human extinction because of the climate change.

Two things that Putin seems to understand far better than his counterparts in the free world and especially in Europe, first is that Europe produces 3.6 million barrel of oil a day but uses 15 million barrels of oil a day. Europe produces 230 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, but uses 560 billion cubic meters a year. Europe uses 950 million tons of coal a year, and produces half of that. At the same time, Putin knows that Russia produces 11 million barrels of oil per day, but only uses 3.4 million barrels. Russia produces over 700 billion cubic meters of gas a year but only uses around 400 billion. Russia mines 800 million tons of coal each year, but uses 300 million tons. That's how Russia ends up supplying about 20% of Europe's oil, 45% of its gas and 20% of its coal. The math is simple, a child could do it, but none of the leaders on the West do. Even if Europe cut all supplies from Russia, Putin already have buyers for it.

Than there is John Kerry, the guy who will only marry you if you are a widow with shitload of money, and he is the US "climate envoy". This guy is such a pseudointellectual, it's mind boggling. He perfectly captured myopia of the view that West holds, when he said two days before the war that "the Russian invasion of Ukraine could have profound effect... profound negative impact on the climate". WTF?

It's the West that focused on healing of the planet, soft energy renewables, and moving away from natural gas, and nuclear, that allowed Putin to gain stranglehold over Europe's energy supply. As the West fell into hypnotic trans about healing relationship with nature, averting climate apocalypse and worshipping Greta Turnberg, Putin made his moves. Whilst the expanded nuclear energy from Russia was kicking ass, Europe was shutting down their power plants and importing more and more gas. Western governments were spending their time and money obsessing over carbon footprints, (the term that was created by the advertising agency working for BP), they spend thousands of hours for climate anxiety therapy in order to ban plastic straws, whilst Putin expanded his oil and gas production and doubled his nuclear energy production to allow more exports of his other energy sources. Europe shut down their nuclear plants, closed their own gas fields and refused to develop advance methods of fracking.

The numbers tell the story the best, in 2016, only 30% of gas used by Europe came from Russia, in 2018 it jumped to 40%, by early 2020 it was 44% and by early 2021 it was 48%. Love him or hate him, Trump defied diplomatic protocols and called out Germany publicly in 2018 for its dependence on Moscow. He said that Germany is captive to Russia and he was right. He also called out Germany for not fulfilling their NATO obligations. At the time Angela Markel (former commie, by the way) was widely praised for her environmental conciseness, and just as socialist being wrong in just about everything, it turned out they didn't disappointed this time. She was saying that "Germany can make their own policies and decisions in regards energy" and the result is the worst energy crisis since 70's. These policies are driving price of all electricity and gasoline high around the world, and it's crisis fundamentally because of inadequate supply. The scarcity is entirely manufactured. The Europeans, led by figures like teenage idiot, who got rich of it, and green party leaders, supported by American idiots like John Kerry, believed that "heathy relationship with mother nature" requires to make energy scarce, but by turning completely to renewables, we are maybe saving a planet a little (which is questionable, given amount of energy needed to produce renewables), but we're completely destroying Ukraine by giving it to Russia. In service to green ideology, we made the perfect the enemy of the good, and the enemy of the people of Ukraine, and next potential victim country. And while Germans turned off three of the last six of their nuclear power plants, France's Macron right after his visit to Moscow announced that France will build 14 more reactors. He knew something that others didn't. It's worth to mention, since France is not ally that could be trusted, that back in nineties, during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, unlike majority of the EU and NATO countries, France along with Greece sided with Putin in their support of Serbia.

Europe will be ready for war, if Putin turns off the faucet. Is his plan to draw NATO into a trap? Who knows? Is it possible? Absolutely.

 

[Zincwarrior]

Putin is using second rate troops in Ukraine. He's trying to create the illusion of weakness to draw NATO into a fight at which time he'll deploy his more elite units and exploit NATO's overconfidence.

That's not coherent. Drawing NATO into a shooting war means you die.

 

[Wild Bill Kelsoe]

That's not coherent. Drawing NATO into a shooting war means you die.

Who is "you"?

 

[Zincwarrior]

Who is "you"?

The Russians derp.

 

[scruffy]

Under threat, Germany is coming to senses.

Germany to buy US F-35 stealth fighters​

Woo hoo. Lockheed stock is going up.

 

[Ame®icano]

Issue was to replace the Mig-29's with F-16's.

I don't see issue with that, especially because their MiG-29s would go to Ukraine. And F-16C/D block 60 is one fine plane. If we can sell it to Jordan, why wouldn't we sell it to our NATO ally?

Well, it's one thing what Biden and Democrats are saying publicly, their reluctant and passive actions are clearly saying, at least to me, that they have no interest helping Ukraine. It's not about Poland getting F-16s, it's about Ukraine not getting MiG-29s.

So why $13.6B approved to Ukraine by the Congress in the middle of the night? I believe Ukraine will not see a single penny of that money.

Edit: Poland already have 36 F-16C, and 12 F-16D block 52. So definitely, it's not about Poland not getting planes, it's about Ukraine not getting planes.

 

[Ame®icano]

For those who wants to learn more about Ukraine / Russia / US relations since Cold War ended, I recommend excellent documentary by Oliver Stone.

Must watch on Youtube, hurry up before it gets deleted.