With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.
Plus who knows, 😜, maybe I don't have to work tomorrow!
I mean, if I was mangled into 30753 pieces mixed in with the neighbors dog and Misses Jane's tits on someone's windshield which is also in 1000 pieces and on fire tomorrow, then I don't have to go work.
But all good 👍 if we can possibly get sadam putin in a bag and toss him into the ocean with honors. Or just in to a bag. Tomorrow or this coming week would be a good time for that.
At the start of the invasion Russia was claiming they finally had hypersonic nuclear missles. Meaning they could get nukes past defense systems. That is the reason the US was hesitant to let things escalate.
Since then we’ve found out that Russias hypersonic missles had some misfires and still didn’t have the ability to steer at hypersonic speeds if I remember right.
That plus the fact that Trump is months away from helping Russia changes the strategy.
This is actually great news. No reason to have a nuclear strike on US or its naval/military assets globally as a response.
Kursk was by far the stupidest Ukrainian move in the war, and they are losing badly there now. If Ukraine hits the nuclear plant or gas terminal though (not a defensive move outside their area of combat), US better immidiately cut off aid/support or get nuked.
This has the potential to be mostly nothing, and get Ukraine to negotiate withdrawal from Kursk to keep some of its last Ukrainians.
I believe NYT makes you login, even on a gift link. Here is a TLDR:
President Biden has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike Russian and North Korean forces in Russia, a significant shift in U.S. policy. This decision comes in response to Russia’s introduction of North Korean troops into the conflict and their anticipated assault on Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region.
The move reflects growing concerns over Ukraine’s ability to withstand simultaneous assaults while defending territory. The authorization aims to bolster Ukraine’s defense, target high-value military assets, and deter North Korean involvement. However, it has sparked debate among U.S. officials over escalation risks, as Russia might retaliate against the U.S. or its allies.
President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to reduce U.S. support for Ukraine, is set to take office in two months, adding urgency to the decision. The Ukrainian strategy may include using captured Russian territory in Kursk as leverage in potential future negotiations. Meanwhile, the risk of Russian countermeasures remains a central concern for Biden’s administration and its allies.
My take: I’ve been waiting on this since the US election. It’s sound strategy of we believe Putin won’t want to escalate with NATO before Trump takes office.
While they won't be able to reach Moscow with these, even from within Kursk, I am willing to bet the authorization was withheld on intelligence grounds. A lot of things in the war make sense if you look at it from the perspective that arms support can't be guaranteed.
Instead of letting Ukraine just burn through weapons, the US and allies have waited until they have the full operational capability to deploy the weapons with extreme effectiveness. They've had ATACMS for a while, so I suspect they held off deep strikes until the most effective targets had been identified and the likelihood of effective strike was near certain.
They failed long before the Trumpanzee was voted in. This is just last moment desperation after they not only failed to support Ukraine, but failed to stop the Russian propaganda and bribery machine in the US.
But, Americans aren't wrong that they also failed long before this. They failed to support the people in favor of corporate interests. They failed to deal stop the Republicans from stacking the courts.
They failed because time and time again, they would rather try to appeal to Republican voters who will NEVER switch sides or change that minds in any significant number, while ignoring the issues that have decimated support with their own base and claiming to have the moral high ground.
Thks isn't just on the people that didn't show up to vote, but also the people in government that let it get to this point by continually failing to act.
What's the issue you have with a non democratic country?
I genuinely think most people (I used to just think most Americans) don't understand the alternatives.
Democracy has been proven not to work, and those involved in it will tell you that they agree, but there's no better option. -
Which if you think about it, isn't really an answer.
It's like saying:
Democracy doesn't work, mathematically or otherwise. Try something that doesn't breed corruption. They all do, democracy is just the best corruption.
Which is bullshit.
Mixing it up is the best way to stop the corruption.
We need a lot of anarchy in the world right now, otherwise we're just the fertilizer for power families.
Our grandkids are fucked in general, except for the few that get a break.
I’m seeing a lot of comments taking this literally or saying why didn’t he do this before –
You all realise this is a very powerful symbolic gesture, right? This is a diplomatic move, not a literal one. The president of the US would never strike at this time in this kind of proxy war, and this is the closest ‘fuck you’ he can issue at Russia (which, again, would not be said aloud).
There’s nothing the US president could do to poke the Russian bear –other than escalate it to a hot war – other than this. This is an outgoing diplomatic move, and that is all.
There's obviously no logic whatsoever in allowing Russia to attack Ukraine freely from within its own borders while Ukraine is allowed to only defend inside its own borders. And Russia even thinks Crimea is part of Russia by some fucked up kindergarten bully logic.
No war ever in the history of mankind has followed such logic and neither does this one. If Russia threatens the use of nuclear weapons, then it is doing that without any sensible reason and it might have just as well done that without any war going on anywhere.
something about this seems kind of fucky. the time to do this was years ago. what is brandon's calculation? that russia won't do shit because their bitch is taking over? or is he finally convinced, somehow, that russia could never do shit in the first place?
I feel like I'm alone in perceiving this as a bad thing. Ukraine will never win this war because Russia will just throw warm biddies in the front lines like they always have. And if something like this does end up making an impact they can fall back on nuclear weapons and then we're all dead.
There is alternative to MAD. Nuking US ships and foreign military bases, is not missiles headed to US, and doesn't trigger 6000 missiles back. It is only launching 1000+ ICBMs that triggers MAD response, and US destroyed, btw.
Russia isn't gonna nuke us. At most he'll nuke Ukraine. Nuking Ukraine will not lead to western countries nuking Russia, but if russia nukes a nato country, they're dead too.
Perhaps you're missing the end result of applying your logic everywhere. For instance, in place of Europe, there would be Nazi Germany, still existing, and looking forward to actually being a thousand-year reich.
I don't see any way this logic could work without the world turning into fascist hellholes.
The rational move by Russia would be to withdraw from Ukraine before launching nukes. Nobody wants to conquer irradiated land, and the Ukranians would agree to a ceasefire.
Yeah, Biden need to set the stage for Trump to try to force Ukraine into surrendering its land to a murderous dictator so that the dictator can further his plans to take more land later gah.