NATO and others send 'game changer' weapons to Ukraine

Streiff:

On Thursday, NATO held an emergency meeting about Russia’s increasingly horrific and atrocity-filled invasion of Ukraine. However, unlike most NATO meetings, this one was substantive.

For starters, the attendees were not only NATO nations; there were also observers present: the European Union, Sweden, Finland, Georgia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Ukraine. If Putin was afraid of being surrounded before, he should take a quick look at his map now (just a reminder that Japan and Russia still have an unresolved border dispute, see Russia conducts military exercises in disputed islands).  As if to validate the stereotype of the Germans being either “at your throat or at your heel,” the German Foreign Minister showed he was definitely at Putin’s heel by leaving early.

The main issue on the table was weaponry. Quantity, quality, and purpose were all concerns. To date, the weaponry supplied to Ukraine has been defensive, and the defensive weaponry has been careful not to tip the balance of power....

...

Even as the meeting took place, individual NATO countries, particularly those from the old Warsaw Pact, started to act, leaving the tired German-dominated NATO hierarchy to follow.

Australia had already committed to sending at least 20 of their version of the MRAP, the Bushmaster, to Ukraine.

...

The conference did break a logjam.

This morning, Poland announced it was transferring a large number of modernized T-72 tanks to Ukraine. More importantly, Slovakia is transferring its S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Ukraine.

...

The S-300 system is a potential game-changer as 1) the Russian Air Force has shown itself to be monumentally inept at attacking surface-to-air missile sites, and 2) the range of the system allows targets to be engaged shortly after take-off from bases in Belarus and Russia.

The meeting seemed to augur a shift in NATO’s attitude from February. Then there was a feeling of resignation, and sending aid to Ukraine was just throwing good money after bad. Now NATO appears to be working more from the idea that not only can Ukraine win this war but that Vladimir Putin cannot be allowed to walk away looking like anything but a loser. The Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, penned an op-ed for the New York Times last week titled: I’m the Prime Minister of Estonia. Putin Can’t Think He’s Won This War.

...

There is more.

I am also seeing an attitude shift by former US commanders that we need to get game-changer weapons to Ukraine to defeat Russia.  That is being seen as a win for NATO with long-term implications to keep the Russian bear away.  These former generals are sending a message to Biden to get off his duff and get the weapons to Ukraine that will allow them to defeat Russia.  Whether Biden is smart enough to do it is still an open question.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more