Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

Well, now … was that a Ukrainian strike, or a bunch of new recruits mishandling poor quality North Korean ammo? If it was the Ukrainians, that depot is less than 100km from Moscow and on the "other" side of the city from Ukraine. Were I a military parade planner, I'd be getting a bit jittery about the security of my event.

Yet another nail in coffin of the US arms industry

No one in Europe can depend on US for the security of their country if they depend on anything from US

To me this was one of the greatest f*ckups and display of shortsightedness of the current US Administration.

The US arms industry had the coziest deal imaginable with Europe , now properly awoken to the threat of Russia and increasing it's defense spending. "Hey buy our weapons, look how much damage a couple of HIMARS and Bradleys have done to the Russian army, see how effective the Patriot is at shooting down Russian cruise missiles".

In just a few short months the US has:

• Had Trump declare live on TV that we'd be getting watered down new plane tech. (Just in case we're the enemy someday).
• Had their representative in the UN actually vote against us on resolutions about Russian aggression in Europe. Not just abstain, actually vote fully against us alongside Belarus and Russia. Even f*cking Iran abstained!!
• Trump regularly threaten Canada and sh*thead, many faced, JD Vance essentially threaten Greenland with annexation.
• Displayed complete incompetence in intelligence Opsec via SignalGate.
• Shown they are fully willing to cut off all of said intelligence and material supply to allies they aren't currently getting along with.

And I'm probably missing a few.

Yes Europe needed to take it's own defense more seriously. But we'd be absolutely f*cking bananas to keep purchasing US equipment in the same vein as we have long term. If I were a major shareholder at Raytheon, Lockeed, Boeing or General Dynamics etc…. I'd be livid with Trump and his envoy of clowns snubbing their nose at their largest non domestic customer base. There was a deep honeypot of future business to be comprehended. But Mr Art of the Deal would rather just suck Putin's nutsack.

@Virgil° while they had a cosy deal, European countries were not buying American weapons in enough bulk to save our own skins. Artillery shells alone we should have been buying a million 155mm shells from the US for the last 20 year's. A stockpile that big would have done serious damage to the Russian army and given Ukraine much more scope to counter attack.

I don't think anyone knew what to expect of the war in Ukraine. If you told me 4 years ago we'd be looking at dji maviks dropping grenades on people's heads and homemade fpv drones decimating entire columns of armor by suiciding 5 rpg rounds into each I wouldn't have believed you. Equally I don't think that Europe nor the US expected the sheer volume of shells required for this kind of warfare.

By the same token if European countries were to directly combat Russia I doubt we'd be looking to get into an artillery trench warfare slugfest.

My point was just that this was a future honeypot of sales for the US and they've squandered it badly. But sure I'm just an Internet pleb so what do I know?

I get what your saying and agree to an extent. The problem would be the US given its current authoritarian regime would no doubt block Ukrainian membership of NATO.

Exactly. The combined EU + Ukrainian army command* would trump the old NATO.

*No need for the EU army. Just the logistics and shared intelligence and planning between national militaries.

Stockpiling millions of rounds of ammunition only for it to go up in explosions like we seen today due to the Russian assets/mafia in Europe (like happened actually already in one em Central Europe countries)

No the money would have been better spent maintaining tooling and the knowhow expertise to rapidly scale up production when needed

Funnily enough the Soviet doctrine was just that with a disproportionate amount of officers that would rapidly scale up, with whole cities and heavy industries in Urals (that are gone), but Putin and corruption dissembled Soviet structures

This is why Ukrainians were and still are scratching head as to why there is such fear of Russia despite overwhelming evidence to corruption and incompetence

In short the money would have been better spent on competence and capability, something that’s not possible to recreate or replicate in a mafia state

Ah well. That deal can f*ck right off so.

wouldn't rule it out but the key point is what form of security guarantee for Ukraine the deal entails, and Putin's attitude to that. If he's prepared to swallow a credible America-backed arrangement we will know he is seetlling for what he has taken to now and has no intention of coming back for more unless circumstances change dramatically…

In the last 12 month's Russia has lost 3 or 4 of these colossal Arsenals. Many Ukrainian lives spared in that puff of smoke. Billions worth of damage prevented. The timing has been fantastic just as a new Russian offensive is launched. Weren't the one's last year just before Russia was due to begin the counter attack on Kursk?

Sure, throw in Alaska as a goodwill gesture to Putin while he's at it, why not?

Trump does not care about Ukraine - he just wants the war over so he can spin how great he is to his brain dead followers.

There are no "guarantees". As we've seen in the US, administrations can change and a trustworthy ally becomes a cuntry in the space of a year.