I would submit we could break the blockade, so that just takes you to SHOULD we break the blockade? What are the alternatives? I guarantee you that #4, going to the Russians, would require stopping all arms shipments to Ukraine as a condition, minimum. Putin might even go the whole nine yards and say Ukraine has to capitulate and give up the Donbaz and Crimea.
Are there alternatives? It would seem that we are running in equipment by rail. So the question would be, could we bring grain OUT by rail and get it to other ports, etc. and get the Russians to agree not to attack designated rail lines ONLY used for export of grain. This might be doable, but the Russians will want some kind of concession we might not be willing, or able, to make.
If you try it and the Russians renege, then at least you know you tried before you have to try to bust the blockade. Then it depends on if Russia wants to be froggy. I would surge so many ships and planes into the area that Putin would know it was not going to go the way he would like if he fires on our ships.
Of course, I would end this whole thing in about a week. Day 1, I surge all attack boats into the North Atlantic and put all available ships at sea - Atlantic and Pacific. I activate all reserve and National Guard forces, give warning notices for movement of all air mobile and light infantry divisions to begin plans for transport to Europe. I also mobilize the 5th and 7th Corp to assemble at ports of embarkation to Europe and begin loading on ROROs ASAP. Surge fighters and bombers in theater.
Announce all of these steps, the final sentence is, "It is time for this to stop now."
Day 2, fly troops to mate up with pre-positioned armored stores in Europe, get them maintained and moving by Day 4 or 5 - movement to designated points opposite Kaliningrad and borders with Belarus and Ukraine. NATO allies likewise mobilize everything they can.
Announce all of these steps and continue them. The only other statement from the US and NATO is, "It is time for this to stop." No big speeches, no fan fare. Just that flat statement.
All the pieces are moving for a rapid and overwhelming effort by NATO, but nothing has happened yet. Let's see how Putin responds when we aren't taking his calls and all he hears is, "It is time for this to stop!" Per your clip, this is talking in language he will hear and understand.
#5 Russia reacts kinetically against the blockade leading to escalation.
I’m not in the Ukrainian camp. To me, Ukraine made their bed and can lie in it. Cost of doing business with the mob. I’m also not ignorant of the 2nd and 3rd order effects. We need an alternative. I submit we stop all wheat contracts with the communist Chinese and reroute via our own NGO’s to the famine areas now.
This is by design. Our ship of state has at best a missing captain on the bridge and at worse a man pretending to be the captain. Either way, the crew doesn’t have a lot of faith nor the stomach for the fight.
Running a blockade without Russian permission means war. Is this partially our fault for convincing the Ukrainians to give up their nuclear weapons? Yes. However, there’s nothing to be done about that now. We have NATO countries to defend. What you have proposed is not a vital interest of the USA. It is not worth risking war with Russia over.
no, he laid out the vital interests of the USA quite clearly. If you want to argue with his logic then pick the point to take issue with in the causal chain:
1. Lack of these wheat exports creates a supply shortfall, since demand is non-elastic
2. Supply shortfall means that some of the least-stable countries in the world, from Syria to Libya, and perhaps even Egypt, have people starving to death and the rest of their populations worried that they'll go likewise.
3. When people are literally starving, they will take to armed violence VERY readily because the alternative is death for themselves and their families. And the countries we're talking about, generally, are not very stable to begin with.
4. The instability can very easily take the forms of civil war, proxy fights, refugees fleeing by the hundreds of thousands, and state-level fights over food supplies.
5. Those foreseeable consequences could easily result in many more deaths than the starvation itself, to say nothing of unforeseen consequences.
6. The impacts those would have on the stability and security of NATO countries and the US itself are material to our interests.
Place against those considerations the odds that the Russian navy will be cowed by an actual show of force in the Black Sea, if given Salamander's note that Turkey is on board and allows vessels through the straits. It's possible they'll fire back. It's possible ships will get sunk. But since they'd understand our calculus (i.e., get the grain out of Odesa, not assault the Russian homeland or support Ukraine's military from the sea), they'd in turn calculate that the cost to themselves of not-fighting would be low. So, no, there need not be escalation - if communication is clear and the actors are rational (and contrary to popular memes, the Russians *are* rational, they just value different things than we wish they'd value). It need not "mean war".
Lithuania, Poland, et al, are demonstrating great leadership by simply speaking out with the moral clarity the rest of the West prefers to avoid.
The Smartest People in the Room™ always want to apply this four-stage strategy from "Yes, Minister" for doing absolutely nothing of consequence:
Bernard Woolley : What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley : What's that?
Sir Richard Wharton : Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton : In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton : In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we *can* do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby : Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
Zelensky screwed up their strategy by not fleeing the country and putting Stage four into action.
I would submit we could break the blockade, so that just takes you to SHOULD we break the blockade? What are the alternatives? I guarantee you that #4, going to the Russians, would require stopping all arms shipments to Ukraine as a condition, minimum. Putin might even go the whole nine yards and say Ukraine has to capitulate and give up the Donbaz and Crimea.
Are there alternatives? It would seem that we are running in equipment by rail. So the question would be, could we bring grain OUT by rail and get it to other ports, etc. and get the Russians to agree not to attack designated rail lines ONLY used for export of grain. This might be doable, but the Russians will want some kind of concession we might not be willing, or able, to make.
If you try it and the Russians renege, then at least you know you tried before you have to try to bust the blockade. Then it depends on if Russia wants to be froggy. I would surge so many ships and planes into the area that Putin would know it was not going to go the way he would like if he fires on our ships.
Of course, I would end this whole thing in about a week. Day 1, I surge all attack boats into the North Atlantic and put all available ships at sea - Atlantic and Pacific. I activate all reserve and National Guard forces, give warning notices for movement of all air mobile and light infantry divisions to begin plans for transport to Europe. I also mobilize the 5th and 7th Corp to assemble at ports of embarkation to Europe and begin loading on ROROs ASAP. Surge fighters and bombers in theater.
Announce all of these steps, the final sentence is, "It is time for this to stop now."
Day 2, fly troops to mate up with pre-positioned armored stores in Europe, get them maintained and moving by Day 4 or 5 - movement to designated points opposite Kaliningrad and borders with Belarus and Ukraine. NATO allies likewise mobilize everything they can.
Announce all of these steps and continue them. The only other statement from the US and NATO is, "It is time for this to stop." No big speeches, no fan fare. Just that flat statement.
All the pieces are moving for a rapid and overwhelming effort by NATO, but nothing has happened yet. Let's see how Putin responds when we aren't taking his calls and all he hears is, "It is time for this to stop!" Per your clip, this is talking in language he will hear and understand.
#5 Russia reacts kinetically against the blockade leading to escalation.
I’m not in the Ukrainian camp. To me, Ukraine made their bed and can lie in it. Cost of doing business with the mob. I’m also not ignorant of the 2nd and 3rd order effects. We need an alternative. I submit we stop all wheat contracts with the communist Chinese and reroute via our own NGO’s to the famine areas now.
This is by design. Our ship of state has at best a missing captain on the bridge and at worse a man pretending to be the captain. Either way, the crew doesn’t have a lot of faith nor the stomach for the fight.
Running a blockade without Russian permission means war. Is this partially our fault for convincing the Ukrainians to give up their nuclear weapons? Yes. However, there’s nothing to be done about that now. We have NATO countries to defend. What you have proposed is not a vital interest of the USA. It is not worth risking war with Russia over.
no, he laid out the vital interests of the USA quite clearly. If you want to argue with his logic then pick the point to take issue with in the causal chain:
1. Lack of these wheat exports creates a supply shortfall, since demand is non-elastic
2. Supply shortfall means that some of the least-stable countries in the world, from Syria to Libya, and perhaps even Egypt, have people starving to death and the rest of their populations worried that they'll go likewise.
3. When people are literally starving, they will take to armed violence VERY readily because the alternative is death for themselves and their families. And the countries we're talking about, generally, are not very stable to begin with.
4. The instability can very easily take the forms of civil war, proxy fights, refugees fleeing by the hundreds of thousands, and state-level fights over food supplies.
5. Those foreseeable consequences could easily result in many more deaths than the starvation itself, to say nothing of unforeseen consequences.
6. The impacts those would have on the stability and security of NATO countries and the US itself are material to our interests.
Place against those considerations the odds that the Russian navy will be cowed by an actual show of force in the Black Sea, if given Salamander's note that Turkey is on board and allows vessels through the straits. It's possible they'll fire back. It's possible ships will get sunk. But since they'd understand our calculus (i.e., get the grain out of Odesa, not assault the Russian homeland or support Ukraine's military from the sea), they'd in turn calculate that the cost to themselves of not-fighting would be low. So, no, there need not be escalation - if communication is clear and the actors are rational (and contrary to popular memes, the Russians *are* rational, they just value different things than we wish they'd value). It need not "mean war".