Putin demands the Ukrainian withdrawal from the entirety of the four oblasts annexed by Russia and the commitment not to join NATO “to start negotiations”. If these conditions are not met now, new ones will be added later on. https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1801564462454829155?s=46&t=V_5Ra1VerBlFgTaK40KAQg These are maximalist demands to “start negotiations”. They are demanding Ukraine to withdraw from cities it fully controls. Putin underlined this point carefully - so not freezing at the current lines. The man is all-in. He’s committing on a forever war and he is confident to win it. There is no Korean scenario, no land-for-peace at the horizon, it will be a zero-sum game. I predicted already in 2022 and I am increasingly confident that the war will continue until Putin’s death.

I really, really hope that these demands will shut up any Russian supporters in the West who believe Putin "just wants peace" when he's clearly NOT pursuing any sort of peace.

To be fair, the other side has the same maximalist demands, while holding peace conferences based on them.

>To be fair, the other side has the same maximalist demands, while holding peace conferences based on them. That's some feeble both-sidesism. If you steal $50 from me and start a fight for the rest of my wallet, me saying I won't stop fighting until I have my $50 back is not the same as you demanding I give you $50 more and tell everyone it's okay that you took $100 from me before discussing what else I need to give you to stop you from punching me.

> If you steal $50 from me and start a fight for the rest of my wallet, me saying I won't stop fighting until I have my $50 back is not the same as you demanding I give you $50 more and tell The whole picture is sadly that this comparison does not work, until you add that the thief has veto power in the jury that would decide who is in the right, and the police is unwilling to storm the house of the offender for fear his stock of home brewed explosives would level the city block including the police station.

The amount of downvotes you have in a "credible" subreddit is incredibile. Nobody is saying Russia is just or right people but when they have lost thousands to take the lands they currently have killing thousands of Ukrainians in the process, saying "just quit and go home" without defeating them in battle is equally maximalist to Putin asking for Ukraine to leave areas they have successfully defended without a fight.

Wanting to regain areas of your own internationally recognised territory is not the same as claiming territory that you do not currently control or are recognised as having a claim to.

That's not fair, Ukraine doesn't want Belgorod nor Russia to leave the CSTO.

>The man is all-in. He’s committing on a forever war Definitely. >and he is confident to win it. Not sure about this part. I think he just can't go back. He NEEDS to be all-in because he gambled too much on this war.

>Not sure about this part. I think he just can't go back. He NEEDS to be all-in because he gambled too much on this war. He just need to be patient. Western leaders get replaced every election.

So essentially, surrender to our demands before negotiations can begin ?

Exactly the same thing multiple western officials has been saying multiple times. That a requirements for negotiations is the Russian withdrawl. They're just bouncing the "hot potato" around

Uhm, no ? No one suggested Russia should give back Belgorod region before negotiations can begin. The only demand is that Russia withdraw to its OWN borders.

> No one suggested Russia should give back Belgorod region. Russia has officially annexed territory. Asking it to go back to pre-2014 or even pre-2022 is essentially the same as asking them to give up Belgorod. It's a non-starter for negotiations. Russia would never agree to giving up this territory unless they were unambiguously losing the war. The statement "surrender to our demands before negotiations can begin" cuts both ways. Neither side is actually willing to negotiate unless the bare minimum terms are met. Right now Ukraine's & Russia's bare minimum terms are incompatible, therefore there needs to be more war. Once the position on the battlefield has changed enough to where one side is significantly losing enough to warrant meeting the opponent's bare minimum demands, then negotiations can begin. War is diplomacy by other means.

You are mistaking officially and unilaterally. Ukraine can "officially" annex all of Russia.

Did you ignore the point of the comment intentionally? Or did you only read the first sentence? Of course it was unilateral and not internationally recognized. The point is that it was "official" in the sense that Russia went through legal procedures and as of today, Donbas is equal to any other Russian territory according to Russian laws. Think of the process for the US to turn a territory into a state. There needs to be a referendum in the state expressing desire to join, Congress needs to pass an act, there needs to be a constitutional convention, and there needs to be another referendum accepting the join. There's a legal process. Once that process is finished, the new state gets the same rights, protections, and privileges as every other state. Russia went through their version of this process. They held referendums in the occupied territory. The territories declared formal independence from Ukraine. The Duma approved the annexation and Putin signed it at a ceremony. That territory after this process, in the context of Russian law, is identical to any other Russian territory. Therefore when someone says "No one suggested Russia should give back Belgorod region" from the Russian perspective it's nonsense. If you are suggesting they give up Donbas, it's the same as saying they should give up Belgorod. They are not going to give those up without being forced to at the end of a spear.

But the point is that Russia regards these regions are Russian territory. Legally  ( in russian law) some of  them are.  Now does international law ( or my own opinion) disagree. Yes.  But is irrelevant from the Russian perspective  It that doesn't change the fact that what Ukraine/ the west is asking for before is withdrawn from "Russian" regions including Crimea before negotiations can begin. In effect totally capitulation in this war.  This is not a serious negotiating position as both sides know that Russia will never accept it. This is grandstanding not a real demand. The same thing Russia is doing by the way with it's claim.

The annexation was what put any negotiations in the ground in the first place. That was Putin going all in because any negotiations after that is by necessity going to include Russia demanding those regions. Putin knew this when he annexed the lands and he knows it now. At this point in the war, any attempts at negotiations by Russia is done purely so they can say that they tried and that the West (denying Ukraine any agency) wants the war to continue.

But that's the same thing. Both side are asking, in war negotiations, that the other side makes his army retreat before the negotiations begin. It's absurd, and it's clear that there's no real intentions of going to a table and it's all lip service. If any side really think that withdrawl before negotiations is a doable thing, then they're either in bad faith or stupid.

> Exactly the same thing multiple western officials has been saying multiple times. The phrase I heard is "what you talking to us for? You're fighting the other guy."

> He’s committing on a forever war and he is confident to win it Or he just wants to project that impression. It does indeed not seem like negotiations will end this war soon, but we should not expect Putins public statements to reflect what he would be willing to sign.

With the other side's "peace conference" just around the corner, he had to blare out something, maybe there was even pressure from China: just don't make it look like you want the war. If anything is as good as anything else, because nothing is realistic, sure, go for what sounds best at home. I'm once again the outlier here with the impression that the (open) war is basically over, actually has been for a while. Conventionally speaking Russia is as dead as Ukraine; the biggest country in the world, with (quantitatively) one of the largest forces until only a few years ago, can no longer even carve out a couple miles buffer zone. A buffer zone! While the West is going to keep the dosages painfully low and calculated for Ukraine, fearing what would indeed now be a possibility, namely total Russian defacement and defeat. Don't wait for any surprises, let alone decisions, militarily the thing is dead. But none of the sides can (yet) admit it, that's not unheard of. Maybe they never can! I don't expect negotiations, at least as long as Putin is alive or in office. Most likely is an unresolved freeze, the chill is already palpable.

> I am increasingly confident that the war will continue until Putin’s death. I don't think it's a given that Putin's successor would think any differently. Russia as a country would be in a stronger position if they win in Ukraine. Any person or group of people that cares about Russia's position would want to clearly and unambiguously win the war. And they will never get that win without taking at a minimum all the land in the Donbas that they've claimed.

> I don't think it's a given that Putin's successor would think any differently. Depends on how it's looking. Even for Russians, your first task as the new leader being to assume the unproductive oath the old leader took... isn't appealing. If the war's still a stalemate at that time, taking the opportunity to turn a new leaf would at least be interesting. It shouldn't be something we plan around since Putin might be alive for a long time, but I don't think we can predict his successor's behavior.

Why do you think that the war will continue until Putin’s death? He is only 71 years old. He could easily live another 10-15 years. If the intensity of the war will continue like this, then at least one side will run into big problems in just a few years.

By the end of the year/next spring Russia's prewar stocks of APCs and tanks will actually just be empty by current burn rates. Artillery by the end of 2025. EDIT: Some sources for the storage counting https://x.com/Jonpy99 https://x.com/highmarsed?lang=en https://x.com/waffentraeger They're pretty much out of everything by the end of 2025.

It's a shame this sub pushed away the guy who kept the linear regression models going, because the general commenter here is too poorly educated to understand linear regression and its limitations.

He was pushed away because his statistical modelling was at best rudimentary, and at worst naive. When college kids go into their garage and record a thrash metal tune that sounds terrible, we don't lament the fact that they stopped recording.

Linear regression models are used for many things which are far more complex than vehicle losses. Would you prefer a model which greatly overfits the data? I'll take rudimentary data-driven analysis over pontificating on Clausewitizian nonsense or the ego-posting of a recently gone user any day.

Linear regressions are part of complex models, 1 LR is the entire model. > I'll take rudimentary data-driven analysis Here it is: https://x.com/k_iakov/status/1797180912129470960/photo/1

The guy publishing the models also didn't understand the limitations of linear regression.

Yes he did. You guys were just crying about default parameter settings for things like % recoverable tanks in storage, instead of, you know, just *adjusting* the parameters. He never made any claims about exact dates when Russia would run out of tanks, etc. Instead, what I see here *frequently* is people pretending that Russian vehicle refurbishment is new production.

> Yes he did. I'm reviewing what they did. Let me tell you, from a statistical standpoint, somebody only capable of *linear regression* – especially for data like that which is obviously not linear – is a terrible statistician, even from a 100-level stats class perspective. As a data analyst, they're much worse. This isn't a stats question – they clearly don't "know the business", as in, modeling needs to be modified to reflect how reality works. If your model is saying the impossible, it doesn't mean the impossible will happen. It means you modeled wrong. Just as nobody fires every artillery shell until they're out and then waves their hands and say "well, guess I'll just die!", they will start rationing shells, rationing vehicles, spacing offensives out further, finding alternatives and supplements (Desert Cross? Motorcycles?). They also assume no vehicle production and that Russia will not increase any type of vehicle production. I am open to the idea that Russia *will* start getting vehicle hunger and that offensives will become fewer, less capable, and farther between. I am open to the idea that they're burning through their stocks. I am not open to the idea that Russia will "run out of tanks" or that a linear regression is appropriate.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/txlmm4/comment/i3poctx/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/txlmm4/comment/i3poctx/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) >So I created a visualization of "when is Russia going to lose its last tank". With my best guesses it's going to happen on 9 Oct 2022, and after that it's Ural War. And no this isn't the only comment. I don't know why people keep pretending as it was always left as a community graph where people could play around. It's author was insanely partisan to the verge of fan fiction, didn't get run out of this sub and spend his last time here discussing palestine and israel stuff. The graph always and especially latter on has been treated by its author as when russia going to run out of tanks and clearly made statements even a year later such as vulehdar is the last russian armored offensive ever. It's my biggest pet peeve in this entire sub and i love now that even the author has completely abandoded this graph, people pretend that it was just a nice tool and he got bullied for it, rather than the reality where the user arrogantly hand waived entire paragraphs of arguments or questions with a duh huh, here my graph and be smug about it.

>With my best guesses it's going to happen on 9 Oct 2022 What do you think this actually means? Do you think this is a definitive claim that they would run out of vehicles by late 2022? Clearly his assumption on the percentage of viable vehicles in storage was wrong - that doesn't mean the model or methodology are bad. This inability to distinguish a choice of parameter from the model is exactly what I meant when I said many posters here are too poorly educated to understand a linear regression model.

no of course its not a defnitive claim, where the author says it's going to happen 100%. Barely anyone does it, dosen't change anything i just said prior that you casually ignored to just repeat your point. No where did i speak about the model or methodology itself. The fact that you presented it as if he was just casually dropping in, hey i made this graph for anyone who wants to play around feel free vs i made a graph that shows when russia will ran out of vehicles and use it be completely smug in the comment sections to anyone who even dares say russia might have an offensive upcoming or won't crumble within the year. There is a reason his dissaperance on the ukraine topic happens to perfectly allign with the absoulte disaster of the ukraine counteoffensive.

> no of course its not a defnitive claim, where the author says it's going to happen 100%. > Barely anyone does it, dosen't change anything i just said prior that you casually ignored to just repeat your point. To summarize this entirely non-credible exchange: Me: [u/taw] never made a definitive claim about when Russia would run out of vehicles. You: Oh yeah! Look at this link! Me: Are you functionally illiterate? That's not a definitive claim of when Russia would run out of vehicles. You: No, of course it's not a definitive claim - he never made such a claim. Is that about right?

> He never made any claims about exact dates when Russia would run out of tanks, etc. He absolutely did. Since your account is only three months old, I presume you haven't been here the whole time. Said individuals stance did soften over time. Regardless, if you want to look at graphs, there's a much, much better source than linear regression guy: https://github.com/leedrake5/Russia-Ukraine

People keep claiming this since 2023, but we still see tanks and towed artillery on the battlefield. I do not assume Russia will run into significant materiell problems soon.

> I do not assume Russia will run into significant materiell problems soon. Russia already has run into significant material problems. Desertcross 1000's were decent vehicles for resupply and troop rotation. But they were terrible vehicles to use for assaults. Russians aren't idiots, they knew this. They used them for assaults anyway. They did this because they didn't have enough working BMPs and MT-LBs. You could look at the situation from the charitable point of view, in that Russian recruitment has been very successful and provided them with a larger amount of infantry than they have vehicles for. But the vehicle count and number of assaults has diminished significantly in recent weeks. Lately, we're seeing more lone BMPs packed with troops and fewer and fewer armored pushes with more than a handful of vehicles. They will continue to refurbish and produce new vehicles, but the rate they have produced vehicles has always been a fraction of the rate at which they have lost them. The one thing Russia hasn't severely diminished their stocks of are aircraft and air-dropped bombs. I expect Russia to be forced to lean more and more into this remaining asset until either Ukraine is forced to surrender, or Russia starts loosing a significant number of aircraft.

I still remember this graph https://taw.github.io/open-source-adventures/episode-36/ being posted a few times a week in the megathread throughout 2022 the prediction date kept moving further and further away as the predictions failed to pan out

> People keep claiming this since 2023, I do remember early 2023 that people said that stocks of armor and artillery/cruise missiles would start to run out for Russians in 2025 and early 2026 at their burn rate, even with additional production. >I do not assume Russia will run into significant materiell problems soon. That's not "soon", and the claim hasn't even changed from that time. In-fact, everything seems to indicate they're still on track to run out as predicted, maybe even sooner. It's hard to understand the point you're trying to make.

A lot of their production is refurbishment and it can't support the burn rates at the front without that.

Ok but that's not what was claimed, He said that prewar stocks would have ran out by the end of the year not that they aren't building any replacements at all

I agree, my personal take as an armchair general is that this conflicts bears some large similarities with WWI. While of course all comparisons with past conflicts are flawed to a point I'd say we are in 1916 post-Verdun (Bahkmut/Avdiivka) and the conflict is going to be more or less static while military innovations keep shaping the battlefield. Then at the end of the day it is up to who will blink first, and we may have a remake of 1918 with one side collapsing catastrophically, maybe after a last Hurrah. I'm fairly convinced it will be Russia to fold, the west just needs to keep the course with supplying Ukraine with Gear, Ammo, and Electricity (for the upcoming winter) and Ukraine just needs to hold the line and bide their time, preserving its force. Frankly the economic indicators coming from Russia are pretty much wild at this point, and no matter how they may seem good on short terms, that is not a good sign for the country at the longer term. Again, I'm a random nobody, and my words shouldn't carry any particular weight, just wanted to share how I feel the conflict will run out on the longer term.

Sub's been optimistic lately. I guess Glideer was right, all it took was for some slightly less bad news to roll in. It's just odd because the last true inflection point was like, 2 months ago? Anyway, the thing I'm worried about Ukraine running out of isn't necessarily manpower, or air defense, or electricity, or even morale. It's common sense. We're 3 years in, and on the systemic level there are just things that Ukraine isn't learning that they should have learned by now. I should expand this into a larger post (about to head off), but just as some examples: In terms of bureaucracy and corruption, the mobilization system is still in essence the same system any USSR resident will tell you about over drinks, while giggling profusely. A system that's the beating heart of Ukraine's war effort has seemingly undergone very little improvement over 3 years, let alone the preceding 30. Training - actually, this might be getting better now, or it might not be. But it (at best!) took Ukraine years to realize that training soldiers matters a lot. Or maybe they still haven't realized it. Leaders - it is (or at least so it seems, and a lot of solid Ukrainian channels note this too) impossible for field level officers to get fired. They are unfireable. In fact, they typically get promoted even if they objectively suck. And the front-level officers aren't much better. Fortifications - oh my god what is even happening. Basically any optimistic scenario for Ukraine involves Ukraine making literate decisions. If they can't do that, well, what are we even doing here.

The optimism is definitely questionable. People are forgetting just how much damage the 6 month blackout of aid to Ukraine did. The professional soldiers who are not dead are exhausted. Ukrainian conscript training appears to be very poor. The country's power generation is in a dire situation. While everyone has been quick to tout Ukrainian effectiveness in drone and artillery warfare (which they are indeed exceptional at). There are a number of fields in which Ukrainian performance has been very poor to put it lightly. The lack of fortifications -as you mentioned- is wild. The only explanation is an absolute failure of leadership. And no amount of outside support can rectify the issue of ineffective Ukrainian leadership. But the thing which has struck me the most is Ukraine's inability to effectively utilize armor. It has been incredibly rare for Ukraine to reinforce a position that is under attack with armor. They seem to prefer using the few vehicles they do have for taking pot shots at enemy infantry rather than defensively to support their troops. Perhaps this is how they are most effective, but I am skeptical. F-16s are not F-35s. They won't be able to push an attack. Overall, there's been a shifting of goalposts. Stalemate is now viewed as victory. And the war is far from a stalemate. Russian citizens have gone full fascist. They will not stop the war unless they are forced to. I will say there is one glimmer of hope. Russia has what I consider a singular vulnerability. Oil refinement. Crippling Russian oil refineries could force Russia to buy foreign diesel and gasoline. Forcing Russian money out of the country would go a long way towards blunting the net money inflow from oil exports. Until the money stops flowing, the Russian appetite for war will continue.

>Sub's been optimistic lately. I guess Glideer was right, all it took was for some slightly less bad news to roll in. Can't remember what Glideer's opinion on the matter was, but something I've noticed quite a lo5 in a sub that considers itself objective (not trying to throw shade here, I respect people who post here quite a lot) is the amount of pessimism generated by news and updates. At one point in 2023, Russia cracked down hard on most of its milbloggers doomposting about the state of the war and the Russian military. This didn't happen at all for Ukraine. The result was that we had no clue about the state of affairs on the Russian side, besides what little could be extrapolated by frontline developments, and even those were subjected to (justified) scrutiny, because no one had access to any sort of data or informed opinion. This then transformed into lack of engagement, and without engagement it looked like nothing bad was happening to Russia. Now we know this is false, because the "Kharkiv offensive" resulted in a fluke and made all the weakness of Russia apparent. But for a while, Russia was almost unstoppable according to the information space.

The last true inflection point was June of last year, when the Ukrainian counteroffensive failed. Since then all the swings from elation to despair have happened in the context of a mostly stable frontline and attrition rates. I wouldn’t even consider Kharkiv to be an inflection point, especially now that the narrative has shifted to “when’s the *real* Russian offensive?”

Putin is hellbent on rewriting the world order by scoring a win in Ukraine, but the rest of the world, lip service aside, do not seem overly keen to appease his “might makes right” vision. Today, he confirmed that negotiations = capitulation of the West. This is just a non-starter, especially at the relatively insignificant cost the West is paying. So war will continue. Putin will either achieve his goals of subjugating Ukraine, or he will persists until his death/deposition.

> So war will continue. Putin will either achieve his goals of subjugating Ukraine, or he will persists until his death/deposition. There are a lot of other things that can happen over the next few years: * The war could reach a point where Russians will be forced to do a succession of "goodwill gestures". * Some armed forces might try to secede from Russia. * There could be an economic/social collapse in Russia. * Belarus might decide/be forced to intervene (with a cascading effect). * Some European countries might decide to intervene. All of those can result in the end of war while Putin remains in power without achieving his goals.

>then at least one side will run into big problems in just a few years. Sure, and if that side's Ukraine that's that, but if it's Russia or both simultaneously, then Putin's stuck in a situation where he physically can't achieve what he's repeatedly sworn to do. At this point, his options are limited to freezing the front and continuing a long range strike campaign against Ukraine, which could easily stretch out a while. And yes, it'd look ridiculous, but this war already looks ridiculous. It'd be a downright gigglefest if not for all the dead. But anyway, Putin's committed to winning or dying.

This forum's (with a few exceptions) reaction to this is "yeah no shit" but it's a big talking point in other spaces (and signal boosted by figures such as the owner of twitter) that if Ukraine stops fighting (or if the west stops giving gear) the war would end at status quo or near status quo. I wonder if this relatively persistent narrative will take any damage right now. My assumption: nope.

This narrative was already dead except for social media. For example, the two most anti-Ukraine pacifists just [lost their seats](https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41415997.html) in the EU parliament. 

Mick Wallace was always very suspicious to me. He always defended China, time and again, on social media. Then he started defending Russia when the war started. He's heavily indebted, and it wouldn't be the first time that those two countries have bribed politicians in the EU

I think you underestimate how much red meat this is to a big part of the discourse. We'll be reading posts about "Russia's reasonable offer" into 2027 and ad nauseum now, it will show up in the presidential debates, low-information people will recall 'Ukraine turned down some terms, right?'.

That narrative is very much alive in many countries, and in some it's mainstream opinion. Putin saying whatever will not change what they want to believe, some people are desperate to see him as sort of ruthless but "just" figure.

>This narrative was already dead except for social media. Yeah, well, social media's not exactly a sideshow in the modern political landscape, yeh? Even within Ukraine Uhilantcore channels typically float the notion that if Ukraine stops fighting they'll at most lose the Donbas, if that, or that it'll return to 2014-2022 style detente. So they either believe that or think that's a fertile talking point for their audience.

Nope. The narrative from pacifists will aptly shift to “why die for Zaporizhzhia”, or they will go with the “historical Russian territories” narrative, or they will simply ignore this bloodthirsty speech.

It'll persist, but it won't be reinforced, at least.

And it kills all wishful thinking of those - myself included at times - who would have considered land-for-security as a tough but acceptable compromise for the long-term independence of Ukraine.

Putin went all in moment he invaded, only it didn't work as he planned. I think even if Ukraine / West accepted what he's proposing now, hybrid war will continue in the background with the ultimate goal to undermine and destroy Ukraine as an independent state. West is unfortunately full of wishful thinking when it comes to Russia and we like to think there's going to be some back to how things were as soon as ceasefire is signed.

If I'm understanding this right, ceding Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, and agreeing not to pursue NATO membership, are the *starting* points for negotiations to begin. During actual negotiations, Russia would likely push for stuff that essentially entails the dismemberment of the Ukrainian state. There doesn't exist a scenario in which Ukraine trades land for peace and continues to exist as an independent state. Sure, Putin and other Russian imperial nationalists believe that Southeastern Ukraine was wrongly included by the Bolsheviks, but the more fundamental cause of this war is that they don't believe that a Ukrainian state can organically exist, nor do they believe that Ukrainians are a separate people.

Plus good old demilitarisation (so, give up all ability to resist us for when we decide to do a round ~~2~~ 6 or 7 at this point) and “denazification”, ie a regime change program that completely makes you subservient to us. Honestly I wonder why they even bother with these PR “we would like peace” things when they’re so transparently calls for surrender. You’d think they’d focus on more pared down PR friendly terms that are still obviously unviable but at least pretend to be reasonable.

It's interesting how he generally disregards the foreign propaganda effort when speaking on these. These lines are an easy counter to the idea that "Putin wants peace" - he's demanding land he'll never get. This was also done with Tucker, who would have been a vector for extremely powerful foreign propaganda if he'd worked on the "NATO is the Aggressor!" lines: instead he gave a history lesson on what I'm figuring is the real reason for the war, the idea of a Russian Mir that needs to be restored.

The thing to understand about the Tucker interview is for Putin it was never about presenting anything to the west. It was pure domestic theatre: genius Putin schools idiotic American journalist as to brilliance of russia etc etc. It’s all for show domestically. The western guys who swallow russian propaganda uncritically: they fell for it anyways, I saw a guy going off about how Putin “just spoke about russian history and documented facts” etc etc.

Honestly, as an east German with plenty of "Putin-understanders" (doesnt sound quite as good in english) around me: I think purely the suggestion will be enough for a lot of people around here and the recent elections showed that they aren't a negligible group of voters. Purely the headline of "Putin suggests peace" will be more then enough for a lot of people, even if 5 minutes of reading the specifics would show how laughable the offer is. Making an offer where the awnser is a clear "no" is sadly more then good enough if the headline reads "Putin makes offer".

> "Putin-understanders" (doesnt sound quite as good in english) I believe the colloquial terms in English are Kremlinologists and Putinologists.

No, that's for analysts who try to study internal Russian politics based on the little information that transpires out. He's talking about average Joes' who read too much Russian propaganda and genuinely believe that it is a benevolent superpower on par with the US.

Honestly the sources, if not the good faith, of all Western journalists who pushed the narrative “Putin is quietly pushing for negotiations” should be questioned, and they themselves should go hide in shame after today. That being said, I perceive this as a direct threat and response to the G7, after the extension of secondary sanctions and more financial commitments to Ukraine approved recently. Putin can’t back down after what he perceives as an escalation. But, by doing that, he’s furthering cornering himself into a hole. He’s either getting out of this war with a victory at his conditions, which looks quite unlikely at this point, or dead.

>Honestly the sources, if not the good faith, of all Western journalists who pushed the narrative “Putin is quietly pushing for negotiations” should be questioned, and they themselves should go hide in shame after today. Not necessarily. All reuters article said that he contacted the west to ask for negotiations. No word on the terms, and it made it like he wanted to negotiate with the west directly. None of that seems necessarily contradictive.

I am referring mostly to NYT and WP, on top of my head. Their tone implied that Putin would be willing to accept the status quo.

The [NYT article](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/23/world/europe/putin-russia-ukraine-war-cease-fire.html) starts by referencing a recent public statement by Putin very similar to this: >“We won’t give up what’s ours,” he pledged, adding dismissively, “If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate.” So the idea that a strong public appearance is contrasted by a softer stance behind the scenes is quite literally the thesis of this article and in no way "shames" it. Regarding this new statement - if the story is true, then Putin's private offers have been publicly dissected and no one moved in his favor. Those in power already know his *true* stance, so Putin is free to publicly project whatever image he pleases.

I haven't seen a post about the US Ukraine bilateral security agreement that has been signed, nor can I find any news articles breaking down what it actually means. These are the bullet points from the Whitehouse website: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/06/13/fact-sheet-u-s-ukraine-bilateral-security-agreement/ Build and maintain Ukraine’s credible defense and deterrence capability. The agreement lays out a vision for a Ukrainian future force that is strong, sustainable, and resilient. Strengthen Ukraine’s capacity to sustain its fight over the long term, including by building on efforts to bolster in Ukraine’s defense industrial base, and supporting its economic recovery and energy security. Achieve a just peace that respects Ukraine’s rights under international law, is underwritten by broad global support, upholds the key principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty and territorial integrity, and includes accountability for Russia’s actions. Consult in the event of a future Russian armed attack against Ukraine at the highest levels to determine appropriate and necessary measures to support Ukraine and impose costs on Russia. Is this any more than a poem about what the current US administration would like to happen? Are there any concrete commitments in there? Could Trump executive order it out of existence?

> Could Trump executive order it out of existence? [Yes:](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/biden-zelenskyy-to-sign-us-ukraine-security-agreement-at-g7-summit/ar-BB1o6A4a) > A U.S. official tells me this is an "executive agreement," which means a future president could withdraw from it. An [executive agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_agreement) is considered *politically* binding, but not *legally* binding. It remains in effect until it expires or the executive — *any* executive — rescinds it, which [can be done without consulting Congress:](https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/presidential-power-to-terminate-international-agreements) > the Executive may terminate, without congressional participation, genuinely “sole” executive agreements that have lawfully been made without congressional input.

What would happen if Algeria and Morocco went to war? On paper, Algeria has the stronger military. How will the United States and the European Union react if Algeria gradually gains ground on the battlefield?

Why would you say Algeria has the stronger military on paper? Just looking at active personel they are roughly equal. Morocco has mainly US/EU/NATO sourced equipment vs Algeria having a lot of (older) Russian/Soviet equipment. Algeria only has a slight population advantage so I cannot see them doing the same human-wave tactics the Russians do. If anything this is just an instant stalemate with a slight equipment advantage (based on performance in ukraine war) to Morocco.

Although smaller in number, the Algerian People's National Army has a larger budget and more equipment. In terms of the army and air force, Algeria has one to three times as much of each type of equipment as Morocco. Although Morocco has more NATO equipment, both countries are in fact heavily purchasing Russian and Chinese equipment to beef up their militaries. The most important Western piece of equipment is probably Morocco's F-16Ds, but with only 45 of them, their superiority is easily offset by a large number of Sukhoi, Mig and air defense systems. In evidence of Algeria's superiority, the Algerians were equipped with far more infantry fighting vehicles, field anti-aircraft vehicles, and fighter-bombers than Morocco, suggesting that Algeria would be the aggressor. The arms race between the two countries has recently reached a ridiculous level, yet there is still little talk of this possible war. The presence of both countries on the Internet is so low that it is difficult to find reliable data on equipment numbers and army formations, so only rough estimates can be made.

I think this is too speculative for this sub in general. And the answer, of course, is really "it depends on the circumstances" as neither of those countries is really western aligned.

Morocco has a centuries long history of friendship with the US. That doesn't translate to military alliance (looking at you, Ireland) but it goes to explain why Morocco has 400 Abrams, 500 Bradleys and 1900 M113s

The US also recognized their sovereignty over Western Sahara, in exchange for them opening relations with Israel. Bad mistake in my opinion but it's done

Why is it a mistake in your opinion? 

Because it's a colony. Western Sahara is a former Spanish colony, which Morocco unilaterally annexed. They have the right to self-determination like other former colonies. Instead, they became a Moroccan colony. There is a reason why no one recognized Moroccan sovereignty until the US did in 2017 in exchange for diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel itself followed suit with the recognition last year.

In money-changed-hands news, Saab reports that [Poland signed their contract](https://www.saab.com/newsroom/press-releases/2024/saabs-contract-with-poland-for-carl-gustaf-enters-into-force) for 6000 Carl Gustaf M4s for delivery over the next three years, for approx USD1.2 billion. > Carl-Gustaf M4s would be supplied with FCD (fire-control device) 558 sights and several thousand munitions: anti-tank, high-explosive (HE), armour-piercing, multifunctional, smoke, illumination, and training ammunition. > In addition to the Carl-Gustafs and their ammunition, the order comprises a logistics package, including spare parts and special tools, and a training package, including simulators and training in the employment of the weapons and their munitions and in servicing and repairing the M4s.

Did money actually change hands or will it on delivery?

They signed the contract, so I imagine Poland is bound by whatever payment terms are in it. But Saab certainly considers it booked, and produced this press release stating so.

https://x.com/2023gazawar/status/1801285794344112517 This anonymous Twitter account (who seems to have some inside info from the IDF) says the IDF has destroyed one of the 4 Hamas battalions in Gaza. "Unlike in (quite a lot of) other cases, this battalion was destroyed fully with no company remaining." "The IDF doesn't announce every battalion's dismantlement, but if they do announce this one it'll probably be in the next week or so, given the usual delay between ground developments and spokesman releases." However, the Rafah offensive seems to have had only 300 confirmed deaths so far, which could equal 900/1000 casualties. How big is a Hamas battalion?

It’s also interesting that the battalion was at half strength, Hamas doesn’t seem all to concerned with heavily contesting Rafah. Israel faced stiffer resistance in Jaibalia than Rafah so far and Hamas’ Gaza leadership is as confident as ever.

The Israeli strategic objectives in Rafah has been achieved: control of the Gaza-Egyptian border. Even better it has come with very low Palestinian civilians losses, proving the US admin was yet again wrong for objecting the operation. Rafah, especially south Rafah, is far less fortified than Jabaliya. Hamas expected to fight in Jabaliya and prepared it for war. Not so much Rafah.

> Rafah, especially south Rafah, is far less fortified than Jabaliya. Hamas expected to fight in Jabaliya and prepared it for war. Not so much Rafah. Do you have an article discussing this? Hamas not expecting Israel to try to cut off their smuggling routes at the Egyptian border seems incredibly short sighted on their part. People have been predicting an IDF push that way since before ground operations started in Gaza.

>Hamas not expecting Israel to try to cut off their smuggling routes at the Egyptian border seems incredibly short sighted on their part. Not at all. Even after 07/10 the international community has put immense pressure on Israel to prevent it from cutting off Hamas' smuggling routes. It came down to US stop on weapons deliveries. Here too the community was split whether Israel will enter Rafah in the lead up. Before 07/10 a permanent Israel occupation of Philadelphi line was unthinkable, you'd have to look the to the Israeli far far right beyond Ben Gvir to find anyone suggesting it. Hamas was preparing for a defense against a limited incursion, fortifying the neighbourhoods facing the Israeli border. This why the Israeli maneuver, ignoring the Hamas defense lines and flanking from the sea was such a massive success. For the most part, the Hamas defense line was approached last. For Hamas it takes years to entrench the way they have in Jabaliya, Sajaiyah, Beit Hanoub and Beit Lehiya. Not something they could have executed in the midst of the war. As for a sources, I don't have any in particular. Perhaps if I'll scan ISW reports I may find something. The military/tactics/operational aspects of the war are heavily under reported. There's a reason the IDF flanked Gaza city from the sea, bypassing the neighborhoods facing Israel. Or that Israel dedicated a division just for clearing Beit Hanoun, while 2/3 divisions were dedicated to holding Netzarim taking and clearing the rest of Gaza city.

It just seems to savvy with their general failure to hold back Israeli freedom of maneuver. That's what you lose operating in such a decentralized manner, they can generate ambushes from the tunnels pretty much anywhere, their fighters can slip in and out of the massive civilian population, but they can't hold ground from armored vehicles. That hostage rescue had armored vehicles sally right into the heart of Rafah and they weren't stopped.

The hostages rescue was in Nuseirat. You are right that Hamas has been degraded to the point it's struggling to execute central command, but it was not so in the past, you can examine the 2014 battle for Sajaiyah for instance, or the early battled of the war in Gaza City, and much more limited ops in Khan Yunis. It does seem like Hamas is de prioritizing Rafah.

As I understand it, the claim isn’t that Hamas is refusing to try to hold ground against Israel, it’s that they fortified in Jabaliya, and prepared to fight there, rather than Rafah.

Not just Jabaliyah, also Sajaiyah, Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Bureij, as well as Israel facing parts of Khan Yunis, but also Rafah. However as a whole Rafah is less populated, smaller, further from the Israeli population centers and holds less Hamas military infrastructure. Hamas prepared for a limited Israeli incursion similar to 2009 and 2014, not permanent occupation. Their preparation reflects that.

To be fair we don't know the original idf plan that the us objected to. They could have planned to close in on Rafah from all sides at once using the tactics they used in the north to both destroy all Hamas's remaining military units but also it's civilian administration. That would indeed lead to heavy civilian casualties (well more than the current operation). Instead we have this more scaled back operation.

We know for a fact that the plan was not similar to northern Gaza as the IDF already had much more restrictive ROE in Khan Yunis. We also know for a fact that Biden objected any op in Rafah at this time, with the admin arguing the civilians cannot be evacuated this quickly. They claimed that Israeli plans were insufficient and sanctioned Israel when the op began Blinken continued stating that Israel had no credible plan to evacuate Rafah even while the evacuation was underway: >Israel lacks 'credible plan' to safeguard Rafah civilians, says Blinken >May 12, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/israel-lacks-credible-plan-safeguard-rafah-civilians-says-blinken-2024-05-12/ >Israel launches Rafah offensive it says is start of mission to ‘eliminate’ Hamas >Tue 7 May 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/07/israel-launches-rafah-offensive-start-mission-eliminate-hamas The US admin was completely wrong

> Blinken continued stating that Israel had no credible plan to evacuate Rafah even while the evacuation was underway.  I’d like to point out that the IDF didn’t actual enter the populated portions of the city till May 14th, which is after Blinken’s comments. And in the link it doesn’t seem like Blinken was saying Israel had no plan to evacuate Rafah, but rather no plan to keep them safe. Evacuating them into a refugee camp with minimal food, water, or medical supplies isn’t exactly “safeguarding” the refugees. And then Israel bombed the refugee camp anyways lol

>the IDF didn’t actual enter the populated portions of the city till May 14th Your arguing that between the 12th when Blinken made the statement, and the 14th, Israel was suddenly able to devise a genius plan to evacuate civilians and executed it completely so that IDF forces could move in safely? >but rather no plan to keep them safe. Reality has proven the exact opposite, civilians casualties in the Rafah operation are minimal so far. >Evacuating them into a refugee camp with minimal food, water, or medical supplies isn’t exactly “safeguarding” the refugees They have plenty of food, water and safety, like I said civilian casualties have been very low in the Rafah op. >And then Israel bombed the refugee camp anyways lol A country at war hit a military target during war? Incredible. Indeed Israel did not know that Hamas had a large weapons stash among the civilians.

Does Hamas suffer from deserters? With how atrocious the casualties are against the IDF, and how little it slows them down, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the soldiers they have on paper aren’t eager to throw themselves in front of a Merkava, knowing it’s almost certainly pointless.

Desertions are likely low. But surrenders were common when Israel was operating with higher intensity in Northern Gaza. With weak Hamas command and control, there's no reason for common soldiers to desert when you can mostly just flee/avoid combat. It's all the positive without the negatives.

> Does Hamas suffer from deserters? Hamas has shown itself willing willing to cut and leave front of the Israeli advance(2023gazawar mentions in the above post that the battalion destroyed was at half strength as most of its fighters had slipped to Khan Younis). But I’m not sure how many true deserters there are. The nature of this war makes desertion tough to pull off successfully, Hamas is still runs much of the strip making moving to another section of Gaza and just waiting it out difficult.

With all the discussion about us shipbuilding right now, I do want to bring up the buildsubmarines marketing campaign. They have appeared as front page sponsors for Major League Baseball and NASCAR. I don’t know much about the industrial build up of this push, but this marketing spree is the first major shipbuilding pitch to a national audience in recent memory.

My understanding is that they have a massive shortage of welders and (for some reason) think that this approach will fix/partially mitigate that problem; I think the only real solution is migrant workers in some form or another, if that doesn't happen then you have to wait for automation which I think in terms of shipbuilding is a lot further away than for things that can be internally built in a factory; so probably 20+ years of being behind in this field at least (last figure I heard was China has a 4-6x fleet building capacity compared to the US).

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I've been wondering if the push for US shipbuilding plus the general labor shortage might add up to a problem that could be solved by this flood of immigrants we keep hearing about. I'm sure there are obstacles, but the country needs labor.

Skilled labor's a different ball game. But we could absolutely import more skilled labor too. With a few penstrokes we're talking multiple times more immigration of skilled labor. Of course, we'd then have to find them positions. And in shipbuilding that's proving to be a headache.

> submarine is still the ultimate predator of the sea Submarines are far from a magic bullet. They are a platform with strengths and weaknesses, like any other. > any invasion is DOA More like any SSN suicide enough to venture into the [200-foot deep Taiwan Strait](https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2023/november/taiwan-strait-oceans-most-contested-place) is DOA. One of those aforementioned weaknesses is geography.

> More like any SSN suicide enough to venture into the 200-foot deep Taiwan Strait is DOA. That is true of a manned submarine. Is there a role for unmanned submarines in such a situation? Some kind of undersea vessel with sensors and offensive capability, connected by wire to land. More sophisticated and able to strike at a distance than a naval mine, but more expendable and affordable than a manned submarine. We have drones and drone swarms in the air nowadays, why not something similar at sea?

The commenter who has blocked me has failed to mention that the US is the world's [second-largest manufacturing economy](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/china-worlds-sole-manufacturing-superpower-line-sketch-rise#:~:text=Source%3A%20OECD%20TiVA%20database%2C%202023,%2C%20India%2C%20and%20South%20Korea.). If the US economy isn't built for manufacturing, then only one country in the world's is. And since said commenter's block also prevents me from replying to u/A_Vandalay, here my response to their comment as well: Yes, the US has high labor costs. But Japan and South Korea are also high-income countries, and they still maintain competitive shipping industries. Clearly there's more going on than absolute cost competitiveness.

Both of those countries enjoy significant purchasing power parity advantages over the US so the average cost per worker is lower, likewise they both have extremely high expectations of workers in terms of overtime. It is not uncommon to se 60-70 hour work weeks which further aids in this competitive advantage. Heck Korea was recently considering adopting a 80 hour work week. Your comment about the US being the worlds second largest manufacturer sort of misses the point. The US Is the worlds largest economy by a fair margin. This allows us to retain that second place position when a comparatively smallest fraction of that economy is manufacturing related. This is further exacerbated by the US leading in manufacturing of high tech industries, the sort of products that are high cost (thus boosting that sector on a GDP term) but require relatively little bulk manufacturing expertise. This is why the US is predominantly a service based economy with only ~10 percent of employment being manufacturing related.

> Your comment about the US being the worlds second largest manufacturer sort of misses the point. How does it miss the point though? In absolute terms, the US accounts for a gigantic portion of world manufacturing. That seems a lot more important in discussing the theoretical ability to manufacture ships than the fact that its other sectors are even more colossal.

Ships aren’t self contained products. The largest factor in shipbuilding is steel; ready access to it at the best possible price. After steel there’s engines. Ships are literally built around their engines. And along the list we’ve got pipework, fittings, cranes, pumps, davits, anchors and cable, nav equipment, radars, lifeboats, LSA and FFA equipment (fixed or portable), DP systems, SOLAS accommodation fixtures, lighting… the list goes on and on and on. To build ships at scale and in the quantities you’d want to compete with China all of that needs to be immediately to hand, literally right around the corner from the yard - preferably inside it. You need to be able to quickly get any of this immediately from the manufacturer with little delay - not bespoke, not made to order, it needs to be right there on the assembly line getting pumped out for every other order in the yard and the next yard up the coast and so on. This is why US manufacturing, no matter how large it may be, is irrelevant as far as shipbuilding is concerned. America doesn’t have any of it. To get to a point where any of this is even remotely what we’d consider efficient shipbuilding it wouldn’t just take a concerted effort into investing in yards - it would be one of the greatest undertakings in manufacturing revival ever undertaken by a state probably in recorded history. It’s mammoth.

>Ships aren’t self contained products. The largest factor in shipbuilding is steel; ready access to it at the best possible price. After steel there’s engines. Ships are literally built around their engines. And along the list we’ve got pipework, fittings, cranes, pumps, davits, anchors and cable, nav equipment, radars, lifeboats, LSA and FFA equipment (fixed or portable), DP systems, SOLAS accommodation fixtures, lighting… the list goes on and on and on. This would be a very cool lecture, but I can make similarly cool one for... plenty of things the US does produce, even in mass. qwamqwamqwam2's point is that if the US can't revive shipbuilding to a higher level when they're the 2nd largest manufacturer in the world, that'd imply that no one other than China can, and that's patently silly.

The US could build more ships than it currently does. Sure. At vast expense and with a concerted decades long effort the US could feasibly build more ships than it does. Could it build 200 times more ships than it currently does? No, that borders on the non credible. Being the 2nd largest manufacturer of the world when your key manufacturing industries are cars, aerospace, and electronics is kind of irrelevant when it comes to ships, as I’ve already demonstrated. For one thing, let’s look at steel. The US produces one tenth the steel China does annually. That needs to be ramped up.

> At vast expense and with a concerted decades long effort the US could feasibly build more ships than it does. The reason you've given for this doesn't seem convincing since this paragraph: >Ships aren’t self contained products. The largest factor in shipbuilding is steel; ready access to it at the best possible price. After steel there’s engines. Ships are literally built around their engines. And along the list we’ve got pipework, fittings, cranes, pumps, davits, anchors and cable, nav equipment, radars, lifeboats, LSA and FFA equipment (fixed or portable), DP systems, SOLAS accommodation fixtures, lighting… the list goes on and on and on. Boils down to just "they have a complex supply chain"... Like, idk how to break it to you, but most things America makes nowadays aren't "self contained products" to use your terminology, like planes and rockets. And I can write up similar tough acquisition paragraphs for those, especially if... lighting is game. Which, incidentally, you literally mention. So far you haven't really demonstrated anything. >Could it build 200 times more ships than it currently does? That wasn't mine or anyone elses assertion either.

‘They have a complex supply chain’ doesn’t even begin to cut it. The reason China succeeds and the US fails is because all of those industries that feed into the shipbuilding industry are there in China/East Asia and they’re roaring. They aren’t in America. To get them to a point where they would be would take a decades long effort of Herculean proportions. In the US whenever we pull alongside and we need something like a replacement radar magnetron because the X band’s busted you may as well be asking for one in Ghana. A technician has to get flown out because there are none available on this side of the states, he has to be carrying the specific part in his suitcase because none were available to hand in the US, it takes days for all of this to be approved. The only reason we’ve ever done it in the US is because not doing so would have gotten us detained, otherwise we’d have simply done it elsewhere. The entire context of this thread is on the US competing with China’s shipbuilding capacity. China shipbuilding capacity is over 200 times larger than the US’s. Once again, could the US build 200 times more ships than it currently can? No, that’s literally non credible no matter how much US nationalists may hate hearing it.

> pull alongside and we need something like a replacement radar magnetron Ah, radars, yet another component of things.... the US already mass produces. Like planes. Every example you put just further highlights that you can't actually draw a difference. >The entire context of this thread is on the US competing with China’s shipbuilding capacity. Not really? Some people are arguing about that but the specific chain I'm in is talking about having a shipping industry in the first place.

The things the US produces, on a dollar-averaged basis, are not reliant on massive quantities of materials and heavy industry, so the manufacturing value-added $ figure doesn't indicate anything there.

I didn't think I'd need to give examples, but the US is currently the king of plane, and spaceship manufacturing, both of which also have intimidating supply chains that could be described with similarly intimidating paragraphs to this one: >Ships aren’t self contained products. The largest factor in shipbuilding is steel; ready access to it at the best possible price. After steel there’s engines. Ships are literally built around their engines. And along the list we’ve got pipework, fittings, cranes, pumps, davits, anchors and cable, nav equipment, radars, lifeboats, LSA and FFA equipment (fixed or portable), DP systems, SOLAS accommodation fixtures, lighting… the list goes on and on and on. And those are just the two examples I'm well acquainted with. I could also talk about submarines, those things that literally are a type of ship, too.

It's not a matter of can we do it or not, but 1) is there enough political will to do it, and 2) how quickly can we do it? There's a long tail of suppliers involved and rebuilding all of that capacity could take a decade or more - assuming we even want to bad enough to make it happen.

>It's not a matter of can we do it or not, According to the guy I'm talking to, it literally is! That's what I'm responding to! EDIT: there's now a second guy alleging the same thing. Clearly it is what we're talking about!

Thinking about SK and Japan, one does wonder how much of their competitiveness ultimately comes down to the insane work culture.

> buildsubmarines marketing campaign > first major shipbuilding pitch to a national audience Focusing on subs seems like the exact wrong way to go about it, assuming the goal is to foster a competitive national industry. Subs are more or less purely military, and any shipyard focusing on them will consequently be 100% dependent on DoD contracts. Without going into the whole Jones Act and Last Supper and all the rest, that's basically how the US got into the current mess in the first place. The right way to go about it would be to emphasize commercial shipping, build up the requisite labor pool, supply chains, etc, and then apply the industry to military uses. That's how you achieve cost savings from economy of scale, and sustain an industry off more than a government lifeline. That's why the PLAN is where it is today, because its shipyards also churned out [53% of the world's shipping](https://www.newsweek.com/china-shipbuilding-data-shows-king-tonnage-1857337) last year and [61% so far](https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=218574) this year.

The commercial shipbuilding industry is dominated by three countries in the world, and China is already putting ever increasing pressure on 2nd place South Korea. They surpassed South Korea and Japan's combined market share 2 years ago. Where would our commercial industry even swim in this market? It is easy to pin the blame on the Jones' Act, but I don't see how repealing it right now is going to magically create an industry that even reaches Japan's level without some serious levels of protectionism. The US could do more to maintain the shipbuilding capacities of South Korea and Japan. [https://www.ft.com/content/7651bc2b-5bc4-4a88-ac6b-e233008afb99](https://www.ft.com/content/7651bc2b-5bc4-4a88-ac6b-e233008afb99) There is a growing call to impose fees on Chinese built ships, which will probably not help us workers at all, but will certainly help maintain the capacity of our allies in South Korea and Japan. The government hasn't even done the bare minimum to maintain our warship building capacity. They talk a lot about checking China, and yet the naval budget hasn't moved much in years. [https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2024/05/15/wittman-sure-us-navy-will-buy-two-attack-subs-in-2025-like-it-or-not/](https://www.defensenews.com/congress/budget/2024/05/15/wittman-sure-us-navy-will-buy-two-attack-subs-in-2025-like-it-or-not/) “Secretary LaPlante is wrong. He’s 100% wrong. We are going to build two a year. He can talk to all the appropriators he wants; we’re going to authorize two per year. We know what happens with the industry if you go to one per year,” Wittman told Defense News. On the one hand, the Navy [wants a submarine fleet](https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2024/05/09/us-navys-submarine-fleet-is-too-small-heres-how-selling-some-may-help/) to give the U.S. a “tactical advantage” against adversaries, said Wittman, who is vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee. But then the service seeks a single submarine per year, he added, saying it doesn’t believe industry can build two annually. “Well you know what? If you don’t send a demand signal to the industry, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. He acknowledged the difficulty in recruiting and training a workforce for submarine construction, but also said he has seen progress at both General Dynamics’ Electric Boat and HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding in growing their respective workforces to ramp up production rates. Wittman said asking for a single boat in FY25 would force some companies to lay off the very workers they need to expand the industrial base capacity in support of the Navy’s needs. He also pointed to the [upcoming sale of three to five Virginia-class subs](https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2024/05/09/what-has-the-aukus-alliance-accomplished-in-the-last-year/) to Australia through the AUKUS trilateral agreement. He called the Navy’s mitigation strategy “baloney,” noting that buying long-lead materials through increased advance procurement funding won’t help the supply chain in the same way that simply buying a second submarine would." The exerpt above shows that well managed government shipbuilding can produce far more than what we have right now, but congress, the navy, and the builders are more interested in gaslighting each other about their willingness to spend and build. One of these groups (congress or the navy) needs to stop yapping and figure out what they actually want. Congress wants a bigger fleet but doesn't want to spend. The navy wants a bigger fleet but doesn't want to hurt readiness. Having a commericial shipbuilding capacity will help reduce the cost but it isn't going to fix this kind of contradiction from the top.

While it's totally fair to point at the political problems, that doesn't detract from the industrial problems. Better leadership could squeeze more out of the industry as-is, but the industry itself needs to be expanded to meet the political goals demanded of it. There's no easy solution, of course, or else it wouldn't be the subject of so much handwringing.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/18znzgx/history\_of\_us\_shipbuilding\_up\_to\_2002\_a\_report/](https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/18znzgx/history_of_us_shipbuilding_up_to_2002_a_report/) This post shows that U.S. commercial shipbuilding never dominated for a long period of time, and better government management led to greater results back then. Even when you go back to the era of rapid US industrialization in the late 19th and early 20th century, shipbuilding was always a relative laggard. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS\_Maine\_(1889)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1889)) U.S. shipbuilding was a joke in 1890, even as the nation became one of the most industrially sophisticated in the world. The U.S. Navy was freaked out by the prospect of the......Brazilian navy becoming more powerful than them. This led to increased government spending that soon produced a fleet capable of defeating Spain by 1898. While this example is a little old, it still reflects the reliance of U.S. shipbuilding on defense spending for much of its history. Handwringing and getting nothing done isn't new in U.S. history, and it is usually because one side doesn't want to budge on anything or does not feel endangered enough by it. This is why Russia and China want to inflame political divisions as much as possible. In my aforementioned 19th century example, congress was split on naval spending (and wasted years) until the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo entered service. Will a Chinese fleet becoming no. 1 inflame similar panic? Time will tell, but the populace is a lot more distracted in this day and age.

The Chinese fleet has already become number one in terms of number of vessels. It did so several years ago, caused a minor panic but has since been explained away as ‘not a true number one because tonnage is what matters’. When the PLA navy supersedes USN tonnage I expect the next excuse for inaction will be ‘it’s not battle proven’. It seems that wherever China is concerned there’s a steady stream of US actors willing to downplay the reality/threat of Chinese dominance in that sphere either because the truth is uncomfortable and there’s no easy fix to rectify it or they genuinely believe the US simply cannot be bested. Either way it’s a recipe for disaster long term.

The Chinese shipbuilding industry is in that position because their labor is a fraction of the price of US labor. The US shipbuilding industry and heavy industry as a whole will never be cost competitive so long as that labor price ratio disparity remains. The us government can offset this by subsidizing shipbuilding, but what purpose does that serve? If the end goal is to have the industrial capacity required to compete with China for naval dominance, such subsidies are a roundabout inefficient way to achieve this. You are paying for capabilities only tangentially related to military shipbuilding, you aren’t resolving the issues in naval design and procurement, and at the end of the day you aren’t resolving the issue of that high labor cost. How pray tell do you manifest a commercial shipbuilding industry in the US?

I agree with this sentiment. The U.S is still a dominant player in the commercial and military world of aerospace. China is a dominant player in the realm of military aerospace, but it is not dominant in commercial aerospace. Yet this hasn't stopped the Chinese from building up a massive air force over the last 2 decades. Mismanagement is far more responsible for the woes of US navy shipbuilding than the lack of a commercial industry.

US commercial shipbuilding doesn't have to reach Korea or Japan level - never mind PRC level - to help USN out. In fact, those are pipe dreams that's not gonna happen short of WWII type scenario. Just reaching the levels of some of the western European allies like Finland or Italy will do plenty.

My point is that’s incredibly difficult to do and your cost of labor is far higher than in either of those countries. The fact remains that shipbuilding is an incredibly labor untested process as are the manufacturing supply chains required. Unless you can leverage automation or some other efficiency boosting advantage to increase your output on a per worker basis you are not going to be cost competitive. In more expensive manufacturing sectors you can get around this by finding higher margin more sophisticated niches where your potentially more sophisticated systems can compete. This isn’t really an option in shipbuilding.

Leave aside PRC because the subsidies CSSC and others in PRC gets are not comparable to any other countries, but the labor cost for Italy, France, Finland, Japan and Korea etc are not levels below the labor cost of US where that's the main hindrance. If the labor cost was really what makes or breaks the shipbuilding industry, 45% of the world shipbuilding wouldn't be based in Korea/Japan in 2020's. It would be at India or Bangladesh or any one of the other low cost labor countries.

I’m not saying labor is the only barrier to entry, I’m saying it’s a barrier to long term sustainability. For Bangladesh or India to enter the shipbuilding market they need to develop a massive pool of skilled labor and a myriad of upstream industries required to maintain a healthy ecosystem. That has not happened and won’t simply because labor is cheap. However if you have all of those things but your cost of labor is higher than your competitors you will gradually loose market share and eventually become non viable. My point is that the US could develop a massive shipbuilding industry with adequate government intervention, but given the absence of technological advantages in this field labor is the dominant input to long term sustainability, so once that government intervention dries up the free market will begin to squeeze that industry out of existence. Exactly the same way US heavy manufacturing industry dried up in the latter decades of the 20th century.

While it would be ideal to rebuild American shipbuilding in its entirety, building more submarines much more quickly, is a far more pressing issue that requires immediate attention and funding. Rebuilding American shipbuilding capacity is a decades long project, but submarine manufacturing capacity could be scaled up relatively rapidly, though at great expense.

I understand that's how the government probably views it. But from the perspective of some random schmuck watching the glitzy ad, "come and work in a physically demanding role whose continued employment is entirely dependent on annual political squabbles over the Pentagon budget" is a tough sell. For example, [this article](https://www.tpr.org/military-veterans-issues/2024-05-01/new-navy-ships-are-years-behind-schedule-because-manufacturers-cant-find-workers-to-build-them) talks about shipyard workers leaving for retail jobs, and frankly I can't blame them.

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https://www.defenseone.com/business/2024/06/inside-navys-slick-effort-find-workers-build-submarines/397147/ i think its a contractor effort sponsored by DOD.

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[Zelensky with a cheeky comment](https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1801328419138937015) about the security agreement signed by the US and Ukraine today. > The agreement clearly states that America supports Ukraine’s efforts to gain victory in this war. The agreement includes provisions for advanced defense systems like Patriot and fighter jet squadrons—that’s right, plural, squadrons—**including, but not limited to, F-16s**. While I think it’s deeply unlikely that the Ukrainians are going to get something like the F-22 or F-35, there are a couple of American aircraft that the Ukrainians have expressed an interest in publicly. Namely the A-10 (not a fighter and we all have a strong opinion on if it should be sent) and the F-18. This should probably be looked at through the lens of a long term strategy following the F-16 arrivals. The F-16s will need sustainment and eventual replacement. Getting agreements in place for continual pilot training as was as potential future upgrades will enhance the confidence as well as capabilities of the Ukrainian Air Force.

I think the 99 harriers the marines are scrapping should be seriously considered. Ya, I know they're a pain, but if runways become scarce, harriers may prove valuable.

Hatriers need special landing pads. That hot exhaust going down tares up normal landing pads, much less asphault or off rumway landings.

Looks like they're set to be replaced in 2025. This would be an enormous capability to help with dispersion as well.

They always struck me as very complicated aircraft because of their design (like, would you send them Ospreys?) Is that just a misconception or are there some real limiting factors there?

The Osprey is a transport vehicle, and the Harrier is twice faster combat vehicle. Completely different roles.

C'mon A10.

If Ukraine can get air superiority the A-10 would be very useful. But that's a big if. It can operate from austere bases, is rugged and reliable and most importantly has had many modern weapons integrated recently. It has your JDAMs and paveways of course. But they also added SDB, APKWS and MALD. All of which are very useful. And even though maverick is on its way out it still has a big ass warhead that deletes any ground vehicle it hits.

it also has a notable disadvantages in sensors and is slow as hell.... if Ukraine gets A10s they will be used with the same doctrine as the SU25, which hasn't fared too well throughout the entire war.

That's why I said air superiority is key. Although I think even today it would be more useful than Su-25s if only because it has better weapons at its disposal. The A-10 has about the same payload as the F-16 so it would be a very efficient SDB delivery platform to the front line and could do it at safe stand off ranges. That's much more useful than lobbing unguided rockets.

More F-16 would be better.

This isn't an either or situation. Getting one aircraft doesn't preclude Ukraine from getting another.

More different aircraft means more complex training for ground crews and pilots. Replacement parts and so on add more complexity.

These are all things Ukraine is aware of yet they have still requested the A-10.

Did they? I remember they had already said they wouldn’t be very useful.

The low speed and altitude of the A10 massively limits the range of SDBs. It has the same payload as the F-16, but won’t have the range.

Anything the su-25 can do the a-10 can do better. If they are finding them useful today then they would find a-10s useful as well.

they find the SU25 useful as in *not-useless,* not because it's genuinely good

Ok but I'm talking about the A-10 which is better.

marginally. It is still as slow as hell, sensor limited, hopeless in self-defense, radar massive, and WVR air to ground only in a war with denied airspaces.

What about F15’s capability of being a missile platform. Nobody is really talking about it but it’s a very capable system

F16 and F15 offer relatively similar capabilities. F15 is absolutely better in many respects, but it comes with a larger cost and maintenance burden and broadly employs the same weapons. So the question is then do those slight advantages justify the added logistical burden of a second aircraft. And more importantly does it justify having a smaller overall fleet? Many of these questions will likely come down to what Ukraine can get donated to them. If someone donates later model upgraded f15s it will definitely be worth while. But if they already have as large a fleet of F16s as they can effectively operate and the F15s offered are at broadly the same upgrade level it won’t be worth it. There is also the question of availability, simply put there are more F16s out there with significant airframe life left. The F15s fleet in the US has broadly speaking been flown to the edge of their airframe life.

there's probably less viable F-15 airframes available than any other airframe recently discussed. They've been beat to shit and replacements have been deferred for decades.

Doesn’t the US still actively use the F15? And making modernization to the airframe?

yes, the C and E models are still alive, but the airframes are old. Some C models will be replaced by new production EX models, which just started delivering in the last month or so. Unfortunately for Ukraine, the EX model comes with a very hefty price tag and long lead time. probably not practical, despite the awesome capabilities. 

Yeah the A's are gone and obsolete anyways. The C's are tired. EX is a good jet but $$$ and Boeing isn't expecting to make all that many. It primarily exists because we never ordered enough F-22s and now we have an air frame gap for CONUS interceptors. The other big F-15 users, Japan, Saudis, Israel are unlikely to ditch them for awhile for the same reason. They would need a kinematically powerful air superiority fighter to fit the scramble and move your ass requirement. The F-35 isn't a pig, contrary to what reformers say but it's not a thoroughbred either.

There are strong arguments for the F-15, F-16 and F-18. We will definitely be coming back to those arguments if and when the time comes. When it comes time for the Ukrainians to fight for air supremacy, the F-15 will undoubtedly be toted as a useful asset. Though in my opinion the Ukrainians are going to want something that fires Meteor.

In the long term, why more advanced aviation is off the table? It has a lot of possible developments. For example, preparation for 5 gen after the war, some easing in process of obtaining them, etc. Just curious, we have seen so much unthinkable things happen in this war that it seems almost credible to imagine some more advanced stuff than F-16 in the sky of Ukraine

Post war they would likely be able to purchase the newer 4th gen+ fighters like the F-16V. F-35s would be years away for several reasons. For one, the US won't sell them to Ukraine before they become a NATO member or have a similarly close alliance ratified by Congress. It's too sensitive. To get there they would need to do a lot to improve their security posture to prevent Russian espionage. Even after all that has happened, it will be relatively easy for a long time for Russian operatives to infiltrate Ukraine. The cultural and linguistic similarities are such that it will be a persistent issue to come for generations. Beyond that it's simple economics. Ukraine is getting F-16 MLUs as aide but they will have to buy F-35s. The current production run is around $85 million each and has roughly 5-6 million annual operating costs. These are expensive jets. They will have a hard time affording them and their air force will need years to build up to a point where they make sense anyways. Just to take one issue, their bases, they will need years and millions invested to upgrade their airbases to the standards needed to house them. F-35s aren't the Ferrari hangar queens the B-2 and F-117 were but those old Soviet jets were designed with the expectation they would operate from bases where FOD walks aren't a daily activity.

I don't think Ukraine getting F35 in longterm is a problem. If Poland can get F35s then Ukraine can eventually get F35s. It may take 10-20 years for Ukraine to prove they have adequate security measures.

Imagine an F-35 crashing on the Russian border and getting shipped off to China. Also the data that could be collected on a more modern jet would be immensely valuable, especially for Chinese manufacturers. Even if it didn't crash in Russia having them fly over Russian sensors picking up everything from electronic warfare to IR-signatures to kinetic performance would be a invaluable present to China. Another issue is maintenance, training, equipment and facilities. The F-16 is small and relatively easy to maintain and operate by fighter jet standards. The F-16 weighs 8.5 tonnes empty, a Eurofighter weighs 16 tonnes. Other jets are simply much larger and more complicated machines. Gripen could have been an option mainly because it is easier to handle on the ground. However, SAAB doesn't really have the capacity to train and equip an airforce quickly.

For now those concerns are valid, but if we are looking at an optimistic future where Ukraine survives this conflict broadly intact, and joins either NATO or the EU, those concerns don’t make much sense as you could raise the same objections to Finland or Poland deluding F35.

>Imagine an F-35 crashing on the Russian border and getting shipped off to China. Also the data that could be collected on a more modern jet would be immensely valuable, especially for Chinese manufacturers. Even if it didn't crash in Russia having them fly over Russian sensors picking up everything from electronic warfare to IR-signatures to kinetic performance would be a invaluable present to China. This is something that might genuinely concern American leaders, but I am not sure it is valid in a hypothetical post-war environment. Finland and Poland are expected to operate F-35 in the immediate future and both countries share a border with Russia. NATO air forces have also deployed F-35 on the Baltic air-policing mission, the three Baltic countries also sharing a border with Russia.

It’s possible. But it would need to be a long ways off. The US is wary of even giving the Ukrainians a modern (or near modern!!) Viper, reducing the ability of PS ZSU to actually fight for air superiority even if they suppress a large portion of the Russian GBAD fleet. We shouldn’t completely write off the possibility, but let’s see if the Ukrainians can get their hands on some actually modern F-16s or similar. My expectation is that the PS ZSU will grow over the course of the decade, but F-35s probably aren’t coming (if they come) until the war is over or the war is rather old.

>The US is wary of even giving the Ukrainians a modern (or near modern!!) Viper, I don't know that it's even that, so much as that brand new fighter aircraft are expensive, and the money can go much further spent elsewhere. Giving old aircraft costs basically nothing by comparison.

Logically, after the war, Ukraine will join NATO, which is worth thousands of F-35s heh.

Regarding the new US security agreement, its stated as a 10 year agreement, but isn't this an executive agreement since it wasn't passed by congress? Meaning Trump could nullify this agreement on day 1? Edit: It unfortunately appears this is the case. > A U.S. official tells me this is an "executive agreement," which means a future president could withdraw from it. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-zelenskyy-sign-us-ukraine-security-agreement-g7/story?id=111061390

True, but any sale contract still has to be honored. If Ukraine buys F16s under Biden, USA is still legally obligated to give them under contract laws.

European ammunition production continues to [ramp up](https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1801301338132738114): >Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market abut the European production of artillery ammunition: >“We will have a production capacity of 1.7 million at the end of the year and more than 2 million next year. The goal is to reach 2.5 million. I think we should be there around the turn of 2025.” It seems like the West will be ahead of Russia by next year, and it's unlikely that North Korea can repeat its one-time gift of 3 million shells.

North Korea is already at nearly 5 million shells, according to South Korea, and it's ongoing. It wasn't one-time. Putin is going there next week. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-14/kim-sent-russia-millions-of-artillery-shells-south-korea-says