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$175 billion spent, zero results. What should we have expected?

Photo above - US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives in Saudi Arabia for Russian peace talks. He is apparently receiving tips from renowned assassin and oppressor crown prince MBS.

I can just see Elon Musk rolling his eyes now. “We spent HOW much? $175 billion!!?? And we have nothing to show for it? Pull the plug . . .”

That $175 billion of course is the total US aid sent to Ukraine so far. To save the nation from Russian invasion and atrocities. Military aid, humanitarian aid, the whole ball of wax. Russia may have spent less on it’s invasion, in terms of rubles (they used outdated legacy weapons and cheap Iranian drones) but has lost hundreds of thousands of men – soldiers, forced conscripts, prisoners on parole, malnourished North Korean dwarves . . .

The progressive press is apoplectic: “How can we abandon Ukraine at a time like this?” How, indeed?
There were only a couple of ways this war could have ended:

- Russia wins in the first 2 weeks, like the Pentagon advised Biden. To everyone's surprise, Ukranian troops and generals proved smarter and more motivated than Putin’s invaders.

- NATO enters the conflict. Either by enforcing a no-fly zone, or activating ground troops. Europe vetoed this because Putin kept going on TV and promising to nuke various nation's capitols. The Biden administration had no maneuvering room and refused to call Putin’s bluff on its own.

- A negotiated settlement, which ratifies the real estate captured at that point in time, and allows Putin to save face, while giving him time to re-arm. This is where we are today.

It’s okay to blame Trump for tossing Hegseth and Rubio into the furnace before they even unpacked. But please recognize that negotiations were Biden's 2025 plan all along. Keep Ukraine out of the news until after re-election, then begin negotiations to decide which flag stays where. If you’re not going to use NATO, or send in US troops unilaterally, it’s your only option. You can't keep spending hundreds of billions forever. The US public is war weary. And unlike war weary Russians, we get to vote about things we don't like.

So yes, Putin wins. If you have another solution, please post it below. In the meantime, let’s move along, shall we?

I dismiss the bluster of French President Macron, who threatened to send French troops to Kiev. This is the guy who was flummoxed by a few dozen striking railroad workers.

Germany is a joke. They're still buying Russian oil and natural gas, keeping Putin’s murderous dream alive. And at the same time wringing their hands and bemoaning the atrocities.

England isn’t going to do anything unless the US does. They only have 10% of US troop strength and only spend 10% as much on their military. And England, Germany and France are all behind on their NATO dues. Besides the USA, only Greece and Poland are up to date. Poland shares a border with Ukraine, and is watching this thing play out nervously.

Defense Secretary Hegseth is a disaster so far. Rubio seems a bit more polished and astute. I don’t buy the notion that Russian negotiators are “experts” who will eat him for lunch. However, I certainly DO buy the notion that Russians are ruthless thugs who don’t care how many people die. That is their secret negotiating power. "Look !!! We just crashed a drone into the Chernobyl containment dome! Bwaaah . . . you're all gonna die!"

I find it both hilarious and deplorable that PBS, CNN and other mainstream media are now screeching in anguish over negotiations. They would have been cheering if this was Biden. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. And those pundit probably couldn’t even figure out the 3 ways this war could end, so they’re morons too.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

How Much U.S. Aid Is Going to Ukraine? | Council on Foreign Relations

US, Russia wrap first Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia. Europe sidelined

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Khenpal1 · M Best Comment

Every war can be won. Nixon's China trip ultimately throw Taiwan under the diplomatic bus. Ukraine gave up nukes for security guaranties from US. With the current arrangement set to expire at the end of the 2028 fiscal year, Mr Trump has the chance to negotiate a new deal, although the actual budget approval will go through Congress.Israel is the largest recipient of aid from the US
Cumulative aid from fiscal years 1946-2024 350bn , Egypt 150bn Donald Trump administration presents the US with another opportunity to send billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, an unknown amount of which will be funded by taxpaying citizens.

Part of the funding will be provided by US taxpayers, the largest source of income for the federal government. For a variety of factors, it is almost impossible to say just how much taxpayer money is appropriated for Israeli security assistance. So don't worry about money , you are going to send it anyway to other parts of the world.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@Khenpal1 i'm marking this as "best reply" because you advance is simple truth in your first sentence.

"Every war can be won".

But not if your aim involves any of the following:

- preserving the governments in power of your client states
- avoiding US casualties
- keeping energy prices low
- winning re-election

we had an opportunity to use NATO. we allowed Germany and Turkey to veto us. Which is how the rules of NATO were drafted. It was all perfectly legal. This illustrates the folly of immensely large mutual defense treaties where most nations don't contribute squat, but get to dictate policy to the big fish.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

Actually it's Britain not England-only but all the European countries seem now to have accepted not spending enough on defence; and the UK Government is trying to work out how to spend more taxpayer's money on defence without cutting services or raising taxes too much.

Same in the other countries; and probably very much on German minds as their General Elections are this coming weekend - though of course they also have their domestic matters to consider.

About the only certainty is that Vladimir Putin is ruthless and wants as much land and power as can safely obtain. Ukraine now, whom next? Georgia? Moldova? Hungary or Poland - less likely militarily as they are NATO members?

That a lot of his armaments are old does not really matter if they can still destroy and kill. A senior Russian army office who defected recently, has said that Russia has kept its remaining ballistic missiles maintained, too. He explained he'd defected after his treatment for having objected to an order to tell his subordinates to regard all Ukrainians - civilians too - as legitimate military targets.

However, Putin has other weapons against Europe and the USA, and been using them for a long time now: subversion now mainly on-line, sabotage on land and of undersea cables, assassinations even in foreign countries. These are easy, physically safe and quite cheap to employ, and to employ without warning. You can see tanks from satellites, can detect and even shoot down a missile, but not a secretly-planned attack by [Enter]. Even using a ship's anchor to break a cable, or an arson attack on a warehouse, is not noticeable in advance.

Starkly, the Russian Federation has been waging war on "The West" for some years, and so far at low key, perhaps simply to test our defences....

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@ArishMell Putin isn't winning the ground war. Or air war. He had to beg for 10,000 north korean footsoldiers. he's buying garage built iranian drones, and flying them into nuclear plants, shopping malls, and apartment buildings as a terror tactic against civilians.

that's reason enough to get NATO involved.

Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

To answer some of it
If a country is buying aviation fuel from India it is buying Russian oil repackaged as with a good few Indian manufactured petroleum products

India is breaking no rules they are part of BRICS so the sanctions don't apply and they also have been ignoring the Price Cap that was supposed to be imposed on Russian Oil

There were exemptions granted to Hungary and Slovakia as far as Russian Gas and oil went as it is the only way they can get it, but further to this it was a trade off because for the EU to give any aid they all need to agree and say yes if just one abstains or says NO it cannot happen, the Ukraine turned off the pipeline that actually goes through the Ukraine itself and Slovakia and Hungary threatened them that they would block all EU aid until they turned it back on

The Russian Military equipment is not outdated or legacy at all, yes they have fired a lot of very ancient stuff at the Ukraine but that is a deliberate ploy as is using the cheap Iranian drones as the bulk while they fire a few good ones at he same time .
Because this causes the Ukraine to use lots of the nice expensive Patriots and other nice expensive air defence missiles to knock them down. With the Cheap Iranian drones about 20k but using a million dollar Missile to knock it down sooner or later it was going to get to the point where it was going to get too expensive to supply the expensive stuff and it also takes longer to assemble than a cheap mass manufactured drone with very basic components

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Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

@SusanInFlorida I wouldn't give too much credit to the dogfight scenario most of that is computer generated and depending on which you view it gives one or the other the superiority, what it comes down to in real is the pilots skill and nerve.

Yes the F16 is a very good aircraft but which has been supplied to the Ukraine I doubt if it is the same model the USAF have so which have they used in the simulations ???

Most of the aircraft you mentioned have also undergone various upgrades in systems and weaponry
There is also the MIG 31 that is fully upgraded and flies very high and is one of the fastest military aircraft about

Both the SU 35 and the MIG 29 are much faster and have a longer range and in the case of the SU 35 it has something called thrust vectoring

There are also SU 57
But both the SU 35 and SU 57 as you have noted haven't played to bigger a part

What Russia has been using is another derivative the SU 34 which is more suitable for what they are doing dropping bombs and for a while now Glider Bombs up to 2000lbs , it is an old bomb that has basically had a glider section fitted and a very cheap guidance system and can be dropped from a good distance away. The bad news is unlike a incoming missile it cannot be tracked and shot down easily with air defence missiles.

I have been fortunate enough to fly in both a MIG 29 and a MIG 31 to the edge of space awesome experience the views down are magical and high adrenalin rush when the afterburners kick in also did the aerobatics part in the 29 as birthday presents.

I have fond memories of the Sokol factory in Nizhny Novgorod my husband proposed to me in the middle of the factory canteen and we got serenaded by the workers at lunch.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@Avectoijesuismoi long range only matters if you're escorting bombers someplace. Our carrier based fighters are feared worldwide, and don't have much range. the carriers "project power".

There were actual dogfights (unarmed, electronic buzzers) between F16s, F22s, F35s. and various captured soviet aircraft.

The F16's acquitted themselves so well, that some senators asked "why are we building so many F22s and F35s then?"

Avectoijesuismoi · 36-40

@SusanInFlorida The only issue with captured aircraft is where they were captured because like the US doesn't supply the most up to date variants of the F 16 even to it's allies, equally the Russian's do exactly the same to those they sell aircraft to so it could be a lesser variant and less upgraded version and in some cases aircraft they want to get rid of and get some money back

The main difference between the US and the Russian strategy as far as aircraft go is the USAF will spend a lot of Dollars per aircraft and pack it full of tech and build only a few like the F 22
Russia on the other hand build a lot of cheaper aircraft and they are far quicker to build as well as there being a lot of standardisation The SU27 became the SU 30 with upgrades which then became the SU 35 with further upgrading it also somewhere along the line became the SU 34 which is designed to be a bomber/fighter.

The biggest issue for the F 16 is the runways in the Ukraine they need very good ones compared to what the MIG and SU can operate off

With the F22 and F35 the Russian version is the SU57 which also is proving costly to build in great numbers and the more complicated the aircraft becomes the more maintenance and the higher number of people needed in specialist fields to do it that is a big hidden cost that they really don't want the public to know about.

As an example take a Gulfstream G650 business jet if it spends 400 hours flying or there abouts in a year, maintenance cost you are looking at between 400-500 K per year per aircraft there is nowhere near what has to be maintained on a fighter jet on it. At a rough guess I would say you can safely double if not more that per year for a F16 and probably add even more for the more specialized F22 and F35

wildbill83 · 41-45, M

business as usual; Europe will keep bashing Trumps attempts at negotiations/ending the war, whilst being too incompetent/lacking the courage to do it themselves. They criticize us for being warmongers & getting involved in things we have no business in, yet when they do it, they expect us to rush to their aid and provide them funding & weapons.

nato's purpose was to prevent a war with russia, not start one; and if they keep antagonizing russia with continued expansion, that's exactly what's going to happen eventually.

most Americans are tired of holding up NATO with their tax dollars with absolutely nothing to gain from it; Europe has had since the end of the cold war to build up their defenses/NATO; the fact that they squandered the opportunity, and wasted time and funds on things like all the greenie bullshit is their problem, not ours.

Europeans have a long history of being petty cutthroats (they started two world wars after all...), I see absolutely no good reason to help them start a third... (and have to bail them out of one, again...)

Ukraine just picked a poor time to try and switch sides; as a former warsaw pact country, they used to be an enemy of the west; they made another huge blunder when they traded much of the former soviet unions nuclear arsenal (which resided mostly in Ukraine after the collapse) back to Russia, effectively eliminating any strategic deterrence; They also agreed not to apply for/join nato, then broke their word by lobbying for membership.

We can't fault Russia for not wanting to have potential nato enemies right on his doorstep; we didn't allow the soviets to put missiles in Cuba (even though we were putting them in Turkey at the time...).

The wisest decision would have been to establish a buffer zone treaty between nato and russia with ukraine, belarus, latvia, estonia, finland, etc. remaining neutral.

simple fact of the matter is, they made themselves a target and let it happen, and nato, despite all their saber rattling & rhetoric, didn't have the balls to prevent it either...

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@wildbill83 There are some valid points in that lot but the mere anti-"Old World" abuse is of neither use nor ornament to anyone, and only demeans you.

Most European countries acknowledge they should pay more to NATO and on their own forces and equipment, without harming taxpayers and public services too much in the process. A difficult balance.

Ukraine gave Russia the former USSR nuclear weapons back, (or scrapped them?), in return for independence and sovereignity in a deal made by the UK, USA, Ukraine and Russia.

Would a neutral "buffer zone" work? With Russia normally, perhaps. With Putin in charge, who knows?

The removal of Russian missiles from Cuba was matched by removal of the US missiles from Turkey; but I remember it was a very frightening time indeed.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@wildbill83 agree that nato's (imagined) purpose was to "prevent war", not win one.

not that war has started, should it's mission change? or should we just disband it and approach this problem unilaterally, or with a smaller "coalition of the willing?"

exchrist · 31-35

@SusanInFlorida yes i agree; whats next? it could escalate. There is a reason not to negotiate with terrorists. It makes the terrorist feel justified and empowered; inspiring others to do the same and the terrorist to do it again. Also given that italy is a member of nato ukraine is mediteranean adjacent and the precedent seems to be thats enough. Therefore if ukraine cannot be a member italy has to go too. And several others.
Assuming trump is trying to give favortism to russia. In its war with ukraine (a democracy) something does not add up. And trump is increasingly unpopular.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@exchrist i have consistently (since before Russia's invasion of Ukraine) suggested we are misusing NATO. Some of my complaints

1 - there are too many NATO members. Drop the security risks like Turkey, and those without credible air forces. Planes and missiles win modern wars, not foot soldiers and tanks.

2 - NATO's premise has been proved wrong. We were never willing to deploy troops to stop "thousands of tanks and infantrymen" marching west from Moscow.

3 - NATO needs to create strict "no cheating" rules. You have to keep your armed forces at an agreed on level. You can't buy energy or grain from a nation which is attacking a NATO adjacent democracy..

4 - Strict no travel rules on nations like Russia which launch wars. No landing rights for aeroflot. no travel visas for the top echelon of civilian and military leaders.

exchrist · 31-35

This should be europes problem. America needs to fix things at home. We could send old equipment munitions etc. The u.s. has bills to pay. Instead ww2 mindset military funding forever. Ppl think trump the felon and multiple bankrupted is going to do the right thing? Yea ok.

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exchrist · 31-35

@SusanInFlorida maybe the wall should be on the border between ukraine and russia?

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@exchrist i think its strategically short sighted to promise Ukraine can "never" join NATO. why should the United States have unilateral and perpetual control over NATO membership.

Suppose Russia starts demanding that Finland and Sweden can never join NATO?

exchrist · 31-35

@SusanInFlorida agreed

exchrist · 31-35

Ukraine is a republic with democratic election. Exactly like the united states, bc ukraine does not have an electoral college it is actually a more direct democracy than the united states. Wtf.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@exchrist a "direct democracy" is one where citizens themselves get to vote on things like taxes, federal spending, and when to declare war.

ukraine is "republic" - a form of representative democracy where you send politicians to your nation's capitol and they can do whatever they want, unless they are recalled or arrested.

it dosen't matter how your president or prime minister got into office. that's not the point.

in places like England and Canada, people NEVER vote for the prime minister. whichever political party wins a majority of legislative seats can name it's own leader to become prime minister.

try reading "roller coaster europe" https://www.amazon.com/dp/0141980443?tag=wwwthetrave06-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1

i can recommend additional books available on European history, if you're interested.

exchrist · 31-35

@SusanInFlorida i made the point that the electoral college specifically removes the principle of it being a democracy. Instead that ("check and balance") was created to account for non-voting slaves as part of a states voting and population total. Therefore once slavery ended the electoral college ceased its validity. As such America has at best always been an indirect democracy. And since the abolishion of slavery is only a Republic with indirect "democatic elections".

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SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@tenente we are in broad agreement. So do you endorse

1 - heavy lifting to get all 32 NATO member states onboard with a response? (And what should we do about turkey, which is leaking NATO secrets to Russia)

2 - A "coalition of the willing" (like in Iraq). This would probably involve the USA, Britain, France, and perhaps Poland.

3 - some sort of air strike, or seal team 6 scenario to "nullify" Putin

4 - continue as is, with entrenched infantry, random drone strikes, and no discernable progress (the world war 1 trench scenario)?

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