When Did Anything Good Come From War? Unity Can Lead To Disunity. When Rubber Hits The Road. Bend Over America. Over Russian Barrel. Shrunken Fleet.

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When did anything good come from war?

Nothing Good Will Come From This War › That's right...

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It is one thing to be united against Putin. It is another to agree on what to do about it.  Here is where my thesis on "disparity" comes in to play.  NATO is comprised of a multitude of disparate nations and I daresay Germany, the most dependent on Russia and largest and most powerful, will take as kindly to what Finland is willing to agree to or England etc.  When the rubber hits the road unity can quickly turn into disunity. This is Putin's bet and it is probably a good one. Particularly is this so because America no longer leads because we have a doofus for president.

Will Europe heed the advice of a man who won't protect his own nation's borders?

The West's best but unlikely, fool's hope, is Ukraine stands tall and bloodies Putin enough to where his own people rise up against him.

And:

Breaking: Biden Blasted Over His Total Weakness

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Brendan Boyle: I saw in Brussels how NATO nations have united like never before against Putin | Opinion

Fresh from leading the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels this past week, Congressman Brendan Boyle reflects on the need to come together as Russia invades Ukraine.

U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (PA) chaired the session of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022, in Brussels.

Growing up in the 1980s, I have vivid memories of the Cold War. I recall listening closely to neighbors’ debates about whether we were falling behind the Soviets, passionately rooting for Team USA against the despised USSR in sports, and watching fictional TV shows about what life in the aftermath of a nuclear war would look like.

Then came that day in November 1989, when the unthinkable happened. All afternoon and evening, the Big 3 TV networks — there was no 24/7 news cycle back then, let alone internet — broke into regular programming with special reports. A little-known bureaucrat named Günter Schabowski stunningly announced on East German television that citizens could travel to West Germany, effective immediately. Within hours, hordes of East Germans flocked to the Berlin Wall, literally chipping away at it with hammers. The armed soldiers opened the gates. No shots were fired.

Just like that, the Berlin Wall ceased to exist, signaling the end of the Cold War.

In the beginning of 1989, every Eastern European country was Communist and under Soviet domination. By the end of 1989, every one of those nations was free. Only two years later, the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist. In ways both large and small, conscious and unconscious, my worldview was formed by this experience.

As I flew back home to Philadelphia after leading the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels this past week, I could not help but reflect upon the seminal importance of this moment.

Another person whose worldview was also shaped by the fall of the Soviet Union was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who once said the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” I’ve thought of that quote often this week, as his warmongering toward Ukraine has brought us to the brink of global crisis.

Those who implicate the United States or NATO for spurring Putin’s actions, as Thomas L. Friedman recently did in his New York Times column, are dangerously naive. This is all about one thing for Putin: restoring a long-lost empire and reclaiming Mother Russia’s glory.

However, Putin has badly miscalculated.

He has united the 30 NATO nations as I have never seen before. I experienced this firsthand in Brussels this week.

Typically, NATO Parliament sessions include internal bickering. Parliamentarians from the Baltic states, for example, push for stronger statements and actions, while those from France and Germany tend to resist. Sometimes the delegations from Turkey and Greece will hijack a meeting to argue over their long-running bilateral disputes. But none of that happened in Brussels this week.

I observed a remarkable resolve and seriousness of purpose. My European colleagues spoke passionately, and sometimes quite emotionally, about what war in Europe means for them. One member with whom I spoke recalled with tears in his eyes what it was like to grow up in the ruins of World War II. He spoke of older relatives he never got the chance to meet, killed in the war.

For us Americans, the world wars fought in Europe are events that happened “over there.” But for my European colleagues, it is markedly different, intensely more personal.

Putin and his oligarch enablers must pay an incredibly severe, personal price for their actions. The retaliatory efforts we have begun to take are a good start, but they must only be a start. If the United States and NATO fail to respond with appropriate strength, then Putin will likely take steps that could lead to the deaths of many civilians and cause potentially irreparable harm to Ukraine, and the world. We are dangerously close to the first large-scale land war in Europe since April 1945, when Nazi Germany surrendered.

The recent days should, if nothing else, forever silence those who doubt the central necessity of American power. In a time like this, we are the one nation that free people look toward for help and leadership. For in the end, the only thing that will stop a full-scale land war in Europe and contain Putin’s aggression is the rock-solid resolve of the United States of America.

Brendan F. Boyle is a member of Congress from Pennsylvania and chair of the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

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BEND OVER AMERICA!

 

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Meanwhile, does Putin have Biden over a Russian Barrell because of Hunter?

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In Teddy's Day a soft voice and big stick worked. In today's world a soft voice buttressed by launched ships is more appropriate. I have argued for years our shrinking fleet could mark the end of American superiority both in defense of our nation as well as in commercial dominance. We are now there.

America Needs a Bigger Navy

The disconnect between U.S. commitments and the current fleet is huge.

By The Editorial Board 

Storm clouds are gathering as authoritarians reach for global power, and the U.S. is going to have to decide if it wants to spend what it takes to defend itself. On that score it is good to see fresh focus on the need for a larger, more lethal Navy—which is more urgent and will be more costly than the public understands.

At a conference last week the Navy’s top officer, Admiral Mike Gilday, said the country needs “a naval force of over 500 ships,” a figure informed by exercises and Pentagon analysis. The Navy, Adm. Gilday said, is “thinking about how would we fight differently” across “a wide vast ocean like the Pacific?”

The ship count includes a more diversified mix of expensive and cheaper stuff: 70 attack submarines that can operate undetected and take out targets; 150 unmanned or lightly manned vessels; 12 aircraft carriers; 60 workhorse destroyers; 50 frigates, and so on.

One certainty is that today’s 296-ship Navy is listing even under peacetime demands. Last summer the Navy had to divert its only Pacific aircraft carrier to deal with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Congress made the goal of a 355-ship Navy—in the rough ballpark of Adm. Gilday’s sketch when excluding unmanned vessels—official policy in the 2018 defense authorization, but the Navy hasn’t grown.

Force plans are no more real than a Battleship board game without money. The Biden Administration has been leaking that its 2023 budget request will focus on shipbuilding, but last year’s pathetic budget proposal trimmed the account and would have put the fleet on track to shrink had Congress not intervened.

The truth is the Navy will need tens of billions of dollars a year to expand and maintain the force. Only roughly 30% of a ship’s lifetime cost is acquisition; the rest is operations and sustainment. More pricey than ships are proficient sailors, and the Navy is short more than 5,000 for crucial billets at sea. The possible return of land wars in Europe should disabuse policy makers of the fiction that this money can be sucked out of the U.S. Army.

The Navy deals in shipbuilding plans over 30-year time horizons, and Adm. Gilday is describing a force for the 2040s. But China may strike Taiwan in the near term, before Beijing must cope with demographic problems in the mid-2030s.

This combustible decade arrives as many Navy assets are reaching their expiration date without replacements. Congress has forced the Navy to keep two of seven Ticonderoga-class cruisers it asked to retire—a compromise to retain some of the fleet’s missile power while conceding that some of these antiques struggle to get off the pier.

Adm. Gilday nonetheless deserves some credit for pressing the issue, and too few flag officers are educating Americans on the threat of Russia and China. Tedious argot like “distributed maritime operations” has been a substitute for clear articulation of a strategy.

It’s up to the Biden Administration to devote the money and political capital to protect the country, and so far it has been willing to spend on every priority except defense. Americans born since World War II have no frame of reference for the magnitude of casualties and damage that would accompany a Pacific conflict with a peer military like China. The way to avoid this is to prepare for it without delay.

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