Mitch McConell says the quiet part out loud.
Exact full quote from CNN:
āPeople think, increasingly it appears, that we shouldnāt be doing this. Well, let me start by saying we havenāt lost a single American in this war,ā McConnell said. āMost of the money that we spend related to Ukraine is actually spent in the US, replenishing weapons, more modern weapons. So itās actually employing people here and improving our own military for what may lie ahead.ā
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4085063
If Russiaās aims are āimperialistsicā, is it losing money?
Yes, you spend blood and treasure to conquer land and then brag about it in history books.
You impose your rule on that land and your peasants rejoice at your statesmanship and feel blessed to join such a great nation, or elseā¦
My point is that nobody doing that would be doing it for free. This applies the apologia for all other empires to Russia. I.e. that empire builders do it sometimes by accident but always for benevolent reasons. Thatās incorrect. Empires are built by extracting wealth and to extract wealth.
I think you agree with this as Iām reading your second paragraph as sarcasm. If you do agree, then itās not possible to conclude that Russia will lose money. It may do, if it loses, although even that is questionable. If it wins, it will gain wealth. Or itās capitalists will do so. Thereās a contradiction between your two paragraphs.
If Russiaās motivations are imperialistic (I havenāt seen evidence for that, myself, but it depends on oneās definition of imperialism), there would be no point if it cost more money to achieve than would be recouped after. Until itās over, itās not possible to say that itās already lost money. Itās costly, but thatās different, and doesnāt answer, āCostly for whom?ā
(Please donāt misunderstand me ā Iām not saying that Russia will not exploit whatever parts of Ukraine it keeps hold of. Itās capitalist. Of course it will. Iām suggesting that this war doesnāt amount to a land grab simpliciter.)
One counter to this is that the US is spending money to ensure that Russia does lose money. Time will tell whether Iām right or wrong but I think this drastically overestimates the strength of the US. It doesnāt have an industrial base (except in vassal and puppet states). So it cannot match Russiaās military output.
And the industries the US does possess are governed by the logic of finance capital not industrial capital. Money spent does not indicate how much has been bought. $10bn spent on weapons, for instance, doesnāt mean you get $10bn worth of weapons by the time you factor in all the sales teams, admin, embezzlement, and middle managers, etc.
The US seems incapable of providing Ukraine with the arms that the Ukrainian military is asking for. Itās publications have started to admit this more and more. Due to the above-mentioned logics, the US doesnāt have the intellectual-ideological or industrial capacity to ramp up manufacturing. The US certainly has people bright enough to figure it out but theyāre inconsequential in the face of a military-industrial complex designed to make as much money as possible rather than to āwinā wars.
Oh look, the āNATO is anything I donāt likeā Russian apologist tankie guy is back at pulling out fake shit out of their ass.
The US is the second largest manufacturer on the planet, and insources its military production.
Ukraine is complaining that we canāt send them Soviet era military structure compatible weaponry. The US had largely phased out ādig a trench and use artillery to make a breakthroughā back in the late 80s, because we could attain air superiority against Soviet tech.
I see youāre coming at me with another semantic argument. This one based on the notion that by ādoesnāt have an industrial baseā I can only mean ādoesnāt have any industrial baseā. Thatās a rather strange reading as it assumes I have zero grasp of logic. The existence of the tiniest fragment of industry would render my argument incorrect. Itās acting in bad faith to assume I meant that.
Which leaves the search for an alternative interpretation. Such as the US doesnāt have a sufficient industrial base to achieve its goals militarily in the Ukraine. The figures are hard to come by as there are lots of definitional issues. Still, trade publications and Congress are worried.
US manufacturing can be as large as it likes but if it canāt join up itās thinking and produce what fighters on the front line need, it doesnāt count for much. Itās DIB is not set up for wars against industrialised countries that are determined to fight back. It doesnāt matter what weapons and compatible ammunition the US does produce, either, if it isnāt working to supply them to the people doing the fighting and isnāt willing to use them itself for (rightly) being at least a little bit reluctant to start a nuclear third world war.
Iām a little skeptical of the extent of the claims about the weaknesses of the DIB and more so of the framing of the solution. The details are coming from people who want to increase the military budget (without otherwise wanting to change the underlying political economic system). Still, there does seem to be some movement to use the Ukraine war to justify costly improvements to the US DIB.
Will the changes come? And will they come in time to defeat Russia in Ukraine within a reasonable time frame? The plan will struggle against the existing contradictions unless thereās a change in logic, which doesnāt seem to be on the cards. So itās unlikely to be a complete success even if some fixes are implemented.
Itās irrelevant whether you accept what Iām saying. Iām only summarising what the US military is saying. This is public information. If youāre interested, search for āus defense industrial baseā. What Iāve explained is such a hot topic, you donāt even need to add e.g. āproblemsā to the search terms for articles about the problems to be returned.
Your position literally is the NATO is all the imperial capitalists in the world, and somehow Russia is not involved in either of those definitions and deserves to be apologized for. Itās internally inconsistent and is shill behavior.
You have an agenda, and itās pro imperialist, as long as the imperialist is not the US. Congrats; If you were in the US, youāre dumb enough that youād be shilling for Trump because āHeās gonna drain the swamp!ā
Youāre only summarizing what the US Military Industrial Complex is saying, which isnāt the US Military. National Defense Industrial Association != US Military, again going back to the āNATO is whatever I define it asā that you keep insisting.
Mark Milley is the mouthpiece of the US Military as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and heās not mincing words: Russia will lose militarily in Ukraine. It will take time and blood, but the US is responsible for 34% of the worldās military industrial output and claiming
Is not reality. Weāve only faced off once, and the Battle of Khasham did not go well for the āindustrialized country determined to fight backā