James Holland’s book The Battle of Britain is very good. Delap Sarker’s series of books is supposed to be excellent, just haven’t bought them yet.
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Ah it makes sense now….
Trump ‘very frustrated’ and Zelensky must strike minerals deal, says adviser
I can’t see what Ukraine has to gain from the deal. The US has already stopped shipping weapons and won’t defend Ukraine against Russia. The security of Ukraine must be ensured by Europe, not the US.
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Seeing Trump say this afternoon something to the effect of “Ukraine holds no cards in this”. As in, a deal needs to be made, they have no leverage.
It’s not about bloody leverage or “cards”. It’s about defending what’s right and fighting back against this Russian aggression. This deal isn’t just about peace. It’s not peace at any cost. It’s lasting peace and reclaiming Ukraine’s sovereignty.
How and what will be the costs?
ETA to this date we probably have on both sides near 1,000,000 dead military and civilian and 3.5,000,000+ injured with a war bogged down in a WW1 situation, now how to solve this?
We have to reframe our minds in what these “costs” actually mean. People see big headlines like “£500m of weapons being sent to Ukraine”, and they think that’s £500m in taxes gone down the drain. I like to point out that what it’s actually a £500m investment into the UK R&D/Defence/Manufacturing sectors.
The whole thing of spending more money on defence has many more advantages than just having more guns and tanks. If done properly, it means creating thousands of jobs across different sectors.
So in that sense, I don’t really care for the cost financially.
(Just seen you edit to add about the death toll cost)
My response to that is that if we had supplied better and more equipment earlier on, we potentially could have stopped it escalating into what it is now.
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We didn’t and don’t have the equipment stockpiles to do that, and the German government were positively obstructive to countries doing so. Plus, in the UK, our forces are a hollow shell of what it was 34 years ago when we went to Gulf War 1 and nowhere to what we were in 1995 when the Berlin Wall came down.
The money comes from the taxpayers, so taxes overt and covert would have to rise exponentially to pay for the weapons, infrastructure, and personnel. Are you in favour of conscription to use this increase in defence posture?
I agree. When I say ‘we’ needed to give and do more, I mean the UK, EU and America. There was too much walking on eggshells going on. Combined, ‘we’ had more than enough resources. But there were too many governments not willing to give them as much help as they should have.
If I had to pay slightly more tax to increase our defence spending, I would support that. Conscription is different matter entirely, I’m not sure I follow your point there?
How many of the present 18 to 25 year olds male and female are prepared to go to war for the country, are they mentally robust enough, how many abuse drugs frequently or just at weekends, how many are actually capable of following orders?
To expand the armed forces quickly over a period of six months, you need conscription.
Ask what is the ratio of cadets joining HM Forces per year to the numbers within the RAFAC, and these are motivated young people.
Slightly more tax, no a hell of a lot more tax or a very big cut in public services. The private sector is starting to see the results of the tax and follow through cost increases in the sector, shops, bars and restaurants closing and companies looking to downsize or not recruit staff. If you move to a new job, will your company replace you?
ETA, Ukraine nearly ran out of heavy artillery shells as they were firing so many, which got to the point that NATO war stocks were very seriously depleted and manufacturing capacity couldn’t keep up with demand leading to serious delivery delays. And, these prices were two years ago.
Id be tempted to call putins bluff. Let Ukraine join NATO. See if he still picks a fight with the rest of the modern world
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Let’s not oversell the french
they eat slugs
GF is french…
I can validate this statement
I think the Polish would be quite keen for the Russians to try, they very much haven’t forgotten the USSR.
The guy on the mandatoryfunday account on the social medias agrees with that assessment of the Polish, I think.
But they still have the Germans behind them
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We’re already paying far too much tax: it just needs to be allocated better. Defence is the first duty of government and should have the biggest slice of the pie. The effects of cuts elsewhere are far less serious than the existential threat to our security.
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I’m sure Doctors would argue that the Health of the people Is most vital
Teachers, educating the masses
Homeless people, housing the Populus etc.
I don’t disagree that defence is vital and underfunded, but we must not go down the Yank route and have a crumbling Internal state for the sake of a Big military
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The state cannot do a single one of those things if it ceases to exist under hostile occupation.
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Costa Rica must be a failed state in that case.
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Russians going for the (understandable) strategy of deterrence for foreign volunteers. Although it was always going to be a harsh sentence with him having been captured on internationally-recognised Russian territory.