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You don’t have to be a professor of international relations to see why this idea is retarded. So you accept Russian control of Eastern Ukraine and lift all sanctions on Russia, and then Russia has to ‘exit’ (ambiguous) its ‘military alliance’ (something that only partially exists on paper anyway) with China….or else…what? Vivek restores sanctions on Russia for not sufficiently breaking ties with China (pointless, even a temporary break in sanctions will allow for large scale repatriation or transfer of Russian capital in anticipation of future sanctions)? Are you going to trust Putin? How will that be measured? Why wouldn’t cooperation continue in an underhanded way? Once you force a Ukrainian defeat and unilaterally lift sanctions you’re not in a position of strength toward Russia, you’re in one of total weakness. And Vivek can’t threaten Putin with Ukrainian NATO membership because, as Putin knows, there are other member states that would be amenable to vetoing it regardless of what the US says.
And most importantly, Russia can never be a ‘strategic check’ on China’s designs in East Asia. What does Vivek think he can do, get Putin to invade Manchuria in case Gyna threatens to bomb Taiwan? Send Russia’s three remaining seaworthy warships to the South China Sea? And Vivek is an isolationist who only cares about Taiwan until 2028 or whatever anyway (when he believes TSMC will no longer be critical) so why care about a long-term ‘check on China’ at all?
Still, Vivek is a high verbal IQ arch-grifter who has never created a substantial, profitable business, bilked investors out of $400m to buy a $5m failed drug from GSK (and burned through that entire capital in a doomed pivot) and then himself pivoted into politics when the cheap money dried up. He has never accomplished anything that is both impressive and good for society in his entire life. Even Trump is a better businessman, so perhaps this is what America deserves.
What would you offer Putin? Other than "nothing, the trap is shut and it's not coming open until you die and whoever replaces you crawls back to grovel".
The PLA is small for a country the size of China, because China, like the USSR before it, is afraid of its own army even with commissars and the CMC.
If Russia ends up in the American sphere of influence, China will have a 4000 km long border it will have to adequately man, drawing both funds and manpower away from its other military endeavors. It will also end up locked out of Central Asia. Outbidding Russian interests is one thing, outbidding Russian interests backed by American interests is another.
Direct, immediate, quid pro quo total sanctions relief (codified, in a treaty) in exchange for a withdrawal from all occupied territory (except Crimea), with the withdrawal happening first. Once a withdrawal occurs, sanctions are lifted and the US helps build a fortified defensive line in Eastern Ukraine, the risk of future invasion is minimal.
Putin's not going to go for that. It's defeat.
It's a better deal than the one the West is offering him now. If he doesn't want to take it, the flow of arms to Ukraine can continue indefinitely at only a tiny percentage of US/Western European GDP.
GDP is irrelevant, production is everything. US officials are openly declaring that they can't sustain the flow of supplies that's going to Ukraine. It will take at least 5 years just to have a chance of refilling reserves of key munitions like Javelins and Stingers.
The US might have a high GDP, based on financial trickery and service sector shenanigans but its actual military production capacity is pathetic. It's a bare shadow of what it was in 1994. 100 Stingers per year!
https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/230109_Military_Inventories_Graphic.jpg?V07Bh5IFz5cOgg9qXyu.wrwD7BYakT7C
/images/16933586986378465.webp
US is now trying to get obsolete Hawk anti air missiles from Taiwan..
Yeah, great supply situation
To supply Ukraine. A lot of the material transfer is older equipment (with higher maintenance costs) or retired equipment which is being paid for at "prices" that are more closely correlated with the cost of replacing old equipment with newer equipment than the actual market value of the old equipment. A fun accounting trick along the lines of a taxi company selling off every pre-2010, 100,000+ mile vehicle not currently on the road but rather sitting in the back lot (but still having regular storage maintenance) in case of a sudden surge in demand for something like a major event, to demolition derby company at prices that let the taxi company effectively buy the same number of brand new from the factory vehicles which get three years maintenance coverage handled by the factory, have much higher MPG and general QoL improvements.
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