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There’s a long discussion downthread on the possibility/desirability of a truce between Ukraine and Russia. Moral considerations aside, a large number of commentators thought that it would be foolish to sue for peace under pretty much any circumstances because Putin wouldn’t keep to it.
It seems to me that refocusing efforts towards fortifying at/near the current de facto borders would change the calculus by making it much more painful to break a peace. I’m thinking especially wide-ranging minefields. As I understand it, this has made it quite difficult for Ukrainians to advance, could the same be made to work in reverse? And if so, how practical would it be to build up such defences in the current climate with current levels of international assistance?
One of the issues would be you can’t spend to rebuild Ukraine until you have a permement war ending. That has very real costs. Why spend $300 billion in infrastructure if a lot of it is destroyed when Russia builds up missile supplies. It’s possible Ukraine could harden up some and make defending easier.
If we have a war thread the Houthi Red Sea stuff has a few interesting considerations https://twitter.com/aristos_revenge/status/1736991083471454681?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
The US Navy is using million dollar missiles to shoot down cheap drones. As the world changes this will not be affordable in a bigger war. The Ukraine war etc seems to be giving the US military a chance to figure out the technologies of the next war. I am sure out attack drones will be fine but how we defend drones needs to be learned.
The thread above indicates that Suez revenue is 30% of Egypts revenue of $10 billion. I guess the west could write them a check but Egypt has a few stressors going on right now and this is a lot of money to them.
No one has talked about this that I know of but I’ve always been like wtf are we supporting the Saudis doing their stuff in Yemen. I now support them. The Houthi’s probably have some issues doing Irans bidding here because western support against them is no doubt going to increase.
The missile costs thing is irrelevant and not even worth discussing since in an existential scenario they could glass Yemen and be done with it. The many-million-dollar missiles are an act of mercy by a rich country, not a necessity.
It’s not worth discussing in terms of the Houthis. It is an issue in a wider war where our weapon systems now seem to have a big vulnerability.
The US still has pretty extensive domestic manufacturing capability that could be, in extreme circumstances, retooled to build huge volumes of ‘dumb’ weapons. The pentagon’s big supply chain issues with armaments now are that unlike WW2 you can’t just convert a normal car or industrial material or widget factory to make highly complex smart weapons overnight.
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