I suppose Iran doesn't have many other options, and at this point most anything would be an upgrade - but after the last year, I've got to imagine there's not much market demand for Russian hardware anymore.
The best time to unfuck our relationship with Iran was in the past, but they can’t feel great about tying themselves to the anchor that is modern Russia, right? I hope (although it is obviously a long shot) that we’re making some overtures toward Iran right now.
Not only in the dissolution of the USSR, but Ukraine was a founding member of the UN, and during USSR times always had its own permanent rep in the UN General Assembly. Obviously, the rep always voted with the USSR party line, and this was used to expand the USSR's influence;
ROFL. Just shows you how perspective changes things. Obama was a middling community organizer who never scaled, and Bill Clinton a weak-charactered wuss (never inhaled. Sure) who never had guts to do anything despite his rep as a policy wonk.
There are so many things which could be improved about the US system.
FWIW, specifically re the Iran treaty, Biden isn't interested either. The Iranians broke existing agreements too many times.
I am responding with an argument-less post just to
I will counter that 2000 was a fundamentally different time.
Sorry about that. I got there because of certain flashbacks.
I mentioned that on the previous page, but it got lost in the stupid constitution noise. We're also sending 8 AS90's, with another 22 to follow on.
The simple answer is logistics and training. Here is an article about the first Ukrainian unit that is getting the Bradleys and they mention it is an all volunteer (no conscripts) unit. It is going to take some time to get those guys trained up on them and then you need to make a decision on if you stick them on the front or use them train up additional units. I doubt that most of the ones in storage are in a drive away and start shooting bad guys condition. Most likely you are going to need to strip them out of National Guard units and back fill those units with the equipment being turned in by active units upgrading to the M2A4. Then you can add in the time to transport them from the US to Europe. Not saying that they can't go faster but it is a pretty complex operation.
I understand the logistics and time involved. I'm not complaining about that. I'm complaining about the numbers. Rather than promising 50 and setting up the training infrastructure for the AFU, better to promise 2000 and do the same training, so the Ukrainians can turn around and definitely start training their countrymen. If they know from the outset that 2000 of the things are waiting in the wings, the AFU can better prioritize which of the 457 new equipment types they're getting they want to focus their training resources on. Meanwhile, we can bring Ukrainian maintenance crews over to do the hands-on work of getting the stuff in cold storage up and running again, so they can learn how to maintain the things while also providing a useful service directly in furtherance of the war effort. With so many of them to bring back up to snuff, you could probably rotate maintenance crews out several times, training each one, before they run out of Bradleys to rework. These things aren't HIMARS launchers. They don't shoot and scoot from well behind the front lines. They will get blown up by the Russians over time, and they will need more. Rather than 10, 20, or 50 of each type from a half dozen countries, it would be much better to consolidate and coordinate the aid such that the AFU can focus on one equipment type. Give them what they need to win and win quickly, rather than trickle out aid in fits and starts, only keeping Ukraine alive but the war at a standstill. I've mentioned similar things in the past here with the Abrhams: we've sold over 400 of these things to the Saudis over the years, so I don't know why we'd be concerned with Ukraine having a similar number, given the situation. It just seems weird to me that, after spending decades arming the Middle East to the teeth to keep them on "our side" why we'd all of a sudden be hinky about arming a country which (nominally, at least) shares the values of the West, which the KSA certainly does not.
I remember that. It does become interesting that Russia thinks those Su-35s are more valuable as barter than putting them to use in-theatre. Are they more pilot constrained than airframe? Or some other aspect of logistics? Or they think with the current state of air defense, they need cruise missiles more than another two squadrons of air superiority/interceptor aircraft that can't overfly Ukrainian controlled soil?
Our National Guard needs armored vehicles? Really? OK, a few for training but seriously, considering the threats faced in the United States and the weapons we have at our disposal to deal with them, we could send them all as fast as we could load them on transports and who would miss them?
From what I’ve read, the main issues are (lack of) training and poor coordination with the ground troops. This has lead to the Russians not being able to establish dominance in the air due to failing in knocking out Ukraine’s air defences, as well as being worried about getting shot down by their own air defences. The Russians do have anti-radar missiles, but don’t seem to have put nearly as much effort into SEAD as the US has. So they mostly keep their aircraft out of Ukrainian airspace and lob air-to-air and cruise missions into Ukraine. The aircraft themselves are much better than what Ukraine has, so I don’t this is as much of a limitation.
Most likely at this point. They failed to destroy Ukraine’s air defences in the beginning and seem more interested these days in destroying infrastructure rather than SAM batteries and the Ukrainian Air Force. With all of the cruise missiles and drones Russia has launched, Ukraine shouldn’t really have much more than machine guns to fire back with.
