1. This is true if and only if the United States signs up, completely, for security of the entire European Continent. The armies of Germany, Poland, and Great Britain are just too small to do this (France isn't even worth mentioning)[1]. And, as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan made painfully clear, the rest of NATO is unable to conduct air operations without direct support and coordination from the United States. There's a high cost to this, and we should go into it eyes wide open if this is the security responsibility we are assuming. To top it all off, the US Army is facing a serious recruiting crisis. We may need to consider a draft if we are going to shoulder the burden of securing all of Europe (again).
2. Aid to Ukraine is over $100B at this point, but I agree that there is some significant return on investment here if the aim was to degrade Russian military power via a proxy war. While we're sending some high-end stuff (HIMARS, rumors of MIM-104s) that would be useful in the pacific theater and are hard to replace, doing so has ground Russia down so bad that they're stuck in the defensive for the foreseeable future.
3. I don't really care about this. I'm interested in what makes sense for the security of the United States and what makes American citizens better off - economically or otherwise. It's like saying "murder is bad, we should punish murderers really hard so that other people don't murder". Sure, I agree.
4. I think this is mostly fantasy, or an insane game of chicken. If we're in Ukraine until the Kremlin collapses, that would catastrophically reduce security for an entire hemisphere because of the ensuing chaos a fractured and broken Russian Federation would represent. Many, mostly on the Left, seem to think this is actually a good idea but it isn't. I doubt this is actually the goal of the State Department, and since China isn't stupid they likely doubt it as well. So on balance, whatever the US does in Ukraine I'd judge to have very little impact to PLA's calculus on a Taiwan invasion.
[1] It is worth mentioning that Poland has plans to double the size of it's ground forces. But until this actually happens, this remains a plan and not existing combat power.
It sounds like we're mostly on the same page, but to argue the 3 point a little harder- war is bad for business and I don't like gas prices going up. Everyone should sit down and chill the fuck out and it is good (for us) to ensure that's in their best interest too.
Yeah the gas thing is a whole different dimension to this, that involves absurd domestic politics in Germany. It's actually a little surprising that the State Department let Germany go as far down that path as it did, and didn't stop the pipeline in its tracks back in 2010-2011. Maybe we were still in the "Russia Reset" fever, and were okay with letting Germany spread its wings a bit and build it's own energy policy.
Of course, this admits that these other NATO members are client states of the Americans, which is an ugly (but mostly true!) thing to say out loud.
1. This is true if and only if the United States signs up, completely, for security of the entire European Continent. The armies of Germany, Poland, and Great Britain are just too small to do this (France isn't even worth mentioning)[1]. And, as the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan made painfully clear, the rest of NATO is unable to conduct air operations without direct support and coordination from the United States. There's a high cost to this, and we should go into it eyes wide open if this is the security responsibility we are assuming. To top it all off, the US Army is facing a serious recruiting crisis. We may need to consider a draft if we are going to shoulder the burden of securing all of Europe (again).
2. Aid to Ukraine is over $100B at this point, but I agree that there is some significant return on investment here if the aim was to degrade Russian military power via a proxy war. While we're sending some high-end stuff (HIMARS, rumors of MIM-104s) that would be useful in the pacific theater and are hard to replace, doing so has ground Russia down so bad that they're stuck in the defensive for the foreseeable future.
3. I don't really care about this. I'm interested in what makes sense for the security of the United States and what makes American citizens better off - economically or otherwise. It's like saying "murder is bad, we should punish murderers really hard so that other people don't murder". Sure, I agree.
4. I think this is mostly fantasy, or an insane game of chicken. If we're in Ukraine until the Kremlin collapses, that would catastrophically reduce security for an entire hemisphere because of the ensuing chaos a fractured and broken Russian Federation would represent. Many, mostly on the Left, seem to think this is actually a good idea but it isn't. I doubt this is actually the goal of the State Department, and since China isn't stupid they likely doubt it as well. So on balance, whatever the US does in Ukraine I'd judge to have very little impact to PLA's calculus on a Taiwan invasion.
[1] It is worth mentioning that Poland has plans to double the size of it's ground forces. But until this actually happens, this remains a plan and not existing combat power.