JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 952
- 714
- 910
The American and Western governments needs to stop playing nice with Vladimir Putin and the Russian government with respect to the Ukrainian/Russian war; strongman political leaders cannot just redraw borders and take other peoples sovereign territory because they want to. The Free World must make it clear to bad leaders that this pre-21st century behavior of dictators and tyrants where they military invade other countries and take their land will not be tolerated. This plan of President Trump and the U.S. Congress where secondary tariffs will be placed on countries that buy Russian oil in order to stop the financing of Russia's war machine isn't cutting it is weak and stupid beyond words it is so disheartening to see that America's leaders resort to low life politician behavior offering essentially rhetoric when prudent behavior changing responses are needed.
Secondary tariff's will hurt India, China and Turkey Russia's major trading partners none of these countries America can afford to get into a major conflict with that doesn't have prudence behind it. India has a population of one and a half billion people many of whom have meager incomes we shouldn't be doing anything to this country to cause economic instability; China we need there rare earth minerals which are vital to key industries in America and Turkey is a vital strategic partner and their neighborhood is volatile we don't need to weaken a stabilizing force! Vladimir Putin's Achilles heel is Russia's energy industry the Free World significantly reduces Russia's energy sales it significantly reduces the power of Putin's war machine it is that simple and the Free World needs to stop dancing around the issue and get the job done!
The specific task at this juncture that must be done to adequately fight against this Russian invasion is to stop the oil sales of Russia's shadow tanker fleet. This fleet brings into Russia's treasury about $30 billion dollars a year and that buys a lot of Russian artillery shells, missiles and drones. The Free World's got to sink this shadow fleet it numbers like three hundred ships everyone's got to forget about the environmental harm that these acts will bring the evil from this war dwarfs any environmental harm. This is what should happen the U.S. navy should track these tankers and after they make their delivery they should relay the return route to a Ukrainian ship it doesn't have to be an elaborate ship it doesn't even have to be a military ship it just needs to have the ability to deploy a half dozen speed boats into the water and when the Ukrainian ship is about twenty five miles from the Russian tanker deploy the speed boats with Ukrainian special forces the speed boats will come along side the tanker and board the tanker once boarded the tankers crew will be removed to the speed boat and the Ukrainians will have in the vicinity a ship that can off load the oil the tanker is using to power its engines once this relatively small amount of oil is removed the tanker can be sunk and the Ukrainian Special forces can evacuate on the speed boats. Why use speed boats the Russian tanker could call in Russian combat planes that could sink a large Ukrainian ship Ukrainian speed boats would be harder to sink and they could be manned with soldiers that had Stinger missiles to shoot down Russian combat planes. If the tanker crew had Russian fighters on the tanker fighting to repel the Ukrainian Special forces the Ukrainians could just deploy drone vessels like the ones the Ukrainians used to sink a lot of Russian ships on the Black Sea. Some of these shadow tankers are flagged under countries not being Russia, not a problem the Ukraine government could send notice to every country in the world that tankers flagged under your country that are transporting oil for Russia are deemed to have entered the war on behalf of Russia and therefore are considered as fair game to be commandeered or seized or sunk by the Ukrainian government. Critics who say that if you do this you are going to send the price of oil skyrocketing and thereby cause a world -wide recession; we're talking around 1.4 million barrels of oil a day the shadow fleets throughput and Opec and American oil producers can easily replace this oil loss!
America should take the gloves off to stop Putin from raging this bloody war by helping the Ukraine's miliary really go after Russia's energy infrastructure. President Trump doesn't like giving military aid to Ukraine, okay, so he should sell on credit to Ukraine cruise missiles and missiles that can be fired from HIMARS equipment and drones to solely go after Russia's energy infrastructure there should not be a Russian oil storage tanker field, Russian LNG terminal and Russian oil refinery that isn't heavily bombed; the days of playing nice with Vladimir are over!
Yesterday, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal that was disturbing because it highlights a shortcoming of Ukrainian military command that the Ukrainian people and world have seen repeatedly throughout this war where Ukrainian military command mismanages the withdrawal of its troops on the battlefield they essentially abandon them where they often end up getting captured or killed and this needs to stop! First to address a point the WSJ article mentioned that small Russian units penetrated Ukrainian lines and could have been eliminated in much larger numbers than they were but there is a shortage of Ukrainian drone operators. Ukraine drafts young men into the Ukrainian army to fight this existential war why doesn't the Ukraine government draft young Ukrainian women into the drone Corp of the Ukraine army amongst a certain age group of Ukrainian women use a lottery system to select the women that would be drafted (America used a lottery system in its draft in the Vietnam war). Two regions in the war that really stand out where Ukrainian command really breached its duty of care to its soldiers in coordinating a military withdrawal was the Battle of Bakhmut and the Battle of Kursk Ukrainian units were allowed to be cut off when the merits of the battle compellingly dictated that they should have been withdrawn before the cut-off occurred; if media reports are accurate Ukrainian command was so bad there that officers responsible deserve to go to jail over the botched withdrawal. Apparently part of the problem is that low level and medium level officers are afraid of getting into serious trouble with Ukrainian command if they order a withdrawal of their troops even though the merits of issue calls for it. Because Ukrainian command has mismanaged so many withdrawals the Ukrainian legislature and President should take some of the power of withdrawal out of Ukrainian commands hands; they should pass a law that says no Ukrainian officer will be court marshalled or go to jail for ordering and/or conducting a withdrawal of that officer's troops if the Ukrainian forces in the area have been losing ground to the enemy or the enemy forces have attacked Ukrainian lines in overwhelming numbers and the following facts exists one; the Ukrainian lines have broken or clearly reasonably expected to break and no reinforcements are coming to reverse the situation, two; Ukrainian supply lines have been cut or clearly reasonably expected to be cut imminently and no reinforcements are coming to reverse the situation 3) communications with Ukrainian command has been cut with no imminent prospect of it being reestablished and the military situation is precarious meaning it is unstable it is not clear Ukrainian forces will be able to hold the area; and the one caveat is that the officer should try to notify Ukrainian forces on either flank of the decision to withdrawal so the officers commanding those respective units can assess whether they should withdrawal that is assess what is the right thing for them to do!
Secondary tariff's will hurt India, China and Turkey Russia's major trading partners none of these countries America can afford to get into a major conflict with that doesn't have prudence behind it. India has a population of one and a half billion people many of whom have meager incomes we shouldn't be doing anything to this country to cause economic instability; China we need there rare earth minerals which are vital to key industries in America and Turkey is a vital strategic partner and their neighborhood is volatile we don't need to weaken a stabilizing force! Vladimir Putin's Achilles heel is Russia's energy industry the Free World significantly reduces Russia's energy sales it significantly reduces the power of Putin's war machine it is that simple and the Free World needs to stop dancing around the issue and get the job done!
The specific task at this juncture that must be done to adequately fight against this Russian invasion is to stop the oil sales of Russia's shadow tanker fleet. This fleet brings into Russia's treasury about $30 billion dollars a year and that buys a lot of Russian artillery shells, missiles and drones. The Free World's got to sink this shadow fleet it numbers like three hundred ships everyone's got to forget about the environmental harm that these acts will bring the evil from this war dwarfs any environmental harm. This is what should happen the U.S. navy should track these tankers and after they make their delivery they should relay the return route to a Ukrainian ship it doesn't have to be an elaborate ship it doesn't even have to be a military ship it just needs to have the ability to deploy a half dozen speed boats into the water and when the Ukrainian ship is about twenty five miles from the Russian tanker deploy the speed boats with Ukrainian special forces the speed boats will come along side the tanker and board the tanker once boarded the tankers crew will be removed to the speed boat and the Ukrainians will have in the vicinity a ship that can off load the oil the tanker is using to power its engines once this relatively small amount of oil is removed the tanker can be sunk and the Ukrainian Special forces can evacuate on the speed boats. Why use speed boats the Russian tanker could call in Russian combat planes that could sink a large Ukrainian ship Ukrainian speed boats would be harder to sink and they could be manned with soldiers that had Stinger missiles to shoot down Russian combat planes. If the tanker crew had Russian fighters on the tanker fighting to repel the Ukrainian Special forces the Ukrainians could just deploy drone vessels like the ones the Ukrainians used to sink a lot of Russian ships on the Black Sea. Some of these shadow tankers are flagged under countries not being Russia, not a problem the Ukraine government could send notice to every country in the world that tankers flagged under your country that are transporting oil for Russia are deemed to have entered the war on behalf of Russia and therefore are considered as fair game to be commandeered or seized or sunk by the Ukrainian government. Critics who say that if you do this you are going to send the price of oil skyrocketing and thereby cause a world -wide recession; we're talking around 1.4 million barrels of oil a day the shadow fleets throughput and Opec and American oil producers can easily replace this oil loss!
America should take the gloves off to stop Putin from raging this bloody war by helping the Ukraine's miliary really go after Russia's energy infrastructure. President Trump doesn't like giving military aid to Ukraine, okay, so he should sell on credit to Ukraine cruise missiles and missiles that can be fired from HIMARS equipment and drones to solely go after Russia's energy infrastructure there should not be a Russian oil storage tanker field, Russian LNG terminal and Russian oil refinery that isn't heavily bombed; the days of playing nice with Vladimir are over!
Yesterday, there was a story in the Wall Street Journal that was disturbing because it highlights a shortcoming of Ukrainian military command that the Ukrainian people and world have seen repeatedly throughout this war where Ukrainian military command mismanages the withdrawal of its troops on the battlefield they essentially abandon them where they often end up getting captured or killed and this needs to stop! First to address a point the WSJ article mentioned that small Russian units penetrated Ukrainian lines and could have been eliminated in much larger numbers than they were but there is a shortage of Ukrainian drone operators. Ukraine drafts young men into the Ukrainian army to fight this existential war why doesn't the Ukraine government draft young Ukrainian women into the drone Corp of the Ukraine army amongst a certain age group of Ukrainian women use a lottery system to select the women that would be drafted (America used a lottery system in its draft in the Vietnam war). Two regions in the war that really stand out where Ukrainian command really breached its duty of care to its soldiers in coordinating a military withdrawal was the Battle of Bakhmut and the Battle of Kursk Ukrainian units were allowed to be cut off when the merits of the battle compellingly dictated that they should have been withdrawn before the cut-off occurred; if media reports are accurate Ukrainian command was so bad there that officers responsible deserve to go to jail over the botched withdrawal. Apparently part of the problem is that low level and medium level officers are afraid of getting into serious trouble with Ukrainian command if they order a withdrawal of their troops even though the merits of issue calls for it. Because Ukrainian command has mismanaged so many withdrawals the Ukrainian legislature and President should take some of the power of withdrawal out of Ukrainian commands hands; they should pass a law that says no Ukrainian officer will be court marshalled or go to jail for ordering and/or conducting a withdrawal of that officer's troops if the Ukrainian forces in the area have been losing ground to the enemy or the enemy forces have attacked Ukrainian lines in overwhelming numbers and the following facts exists one; the Ukrainian lines have broken or clearly reasonably expected to break and no reinforcements are coming to reverse the situation, two; Ukrainian supply lines have been cut or clearly reasonably expected to be cut imminently and no reinforcements are coming to reverse the situation 3) communications with Ukrainian command has been cut with no imminent prospect of it being reestablished and the military situation is precarious meaning it is unstable it is not clear Ukrainian forces will be able to hold the area; and the one caveat is that the officer should try to notify Ukrainian forces on either flank of the decision to withdrawal so the officers commanding those respective units can assess whether they should withdrawal that is assess what is the right thing for them to do!
