Der Zeitgeist

Have to jump in on that one.
As the gas was sold on the world market the whole planet benefited from the Russian supplies dampening down the market price of such gas. When the Russian supply is cut Europe buys its gas elsewhere and the global price spirals effecting everyone. So everyone worldwide that uses gas helped build the Russian army.
Same way we are all still benefiting from Saudi oil worldwide and other nasty regimes even if our countries don't buy directly from them.  It's a pity that Western democratic countries are dependant on any crappy regime for any natural resource but we are. Fuel, rare earth metals, you name it we buy it and in the process support despotic countries that work to undermine us at any opportunity.
It's a problem all democracies have built up over decades and it really isn't the responsibility of one or two democracies to take all the flak for that situation developing.

Reposting this here from "that other place" I frequent...
What I find interesting is that if you leave out all the theatrics and simply look at the packages that were announced at each Ramstein meeting, you get very distinct phases of weapons shipments that were highly coordinated across NATO and partner nations:
Handheld AT weapons/ATGMs/MANPADS Ex-Soviet MBTs & IFVs Artillery (tube and rocket, self propelled as well as field-artillery) APCs & MRAPs (M113, Dingo, etc.) Western medium-range SAMs (NASAMs, IRIS-T, SAMP/T) Western IFVs  <---We are here This poses the question if the entire thing is actually more coordinated than it might seem and how much of the public hysterics about the "next step" of weapons shipments is simply a useful theater play to make the West look weak and fragmented, possibly to manage escalation risks vs. Russia. Some article I read recently called it "boiling the frog". You gradually heat the water, just like you gradually escalate weapons shipments, instead of sending everything at once and risk Putin doing crazy things.

Helmets! Don't forget the helmets! 😄

Helmets! Don't forget the helmets! 😄

Reposting this here from "that other place" I frequent...
What I find interesting is that if you leave out all the theatrics and simply look at the packages that were announced at each Ramstein meeting, you get very distinct phases of weapons shipments that were highly coordinated across NATO and partner nations:
Handheld AT weapons/ATGMs/MANPADS Ex-Soviet MBTs & IFVs Artillery (tube and rocket, self propelled as well as field-artillery) APCs & MRAPs (M113, Dingo, etc.) Western medium-range SAMs (NASAMs, IRIS-T, SAMP/T) Western IFVs  <---We are here This poses the question if the entire thing is actually more coordinated than it might seem and how much of the public hysterics about the "next step" of weapons shipments is simply a useful theater play to make the West look weak and fragmented, possibly to manage escalation risks vs. Russia. Some article I read recently called it "boiling the frog". You gradually heat the water, just like you gradually escalate weapons shipments, instead of sending everything at once and risk Putin doing crazy things.

Reposting this here from "that other place" I frequent...
What I find interesting is that if you leave out all the theatrics and simply look at the packages that were announced at each Ramstein meeting, you get very distinct phases of weapons shipments that were highly coordinated across NATO and partner nations:
Handheld AT weapons/ATGMs/MANPADS Ex-Soviet MBTs & IFVs Artillery (tube and rocket, self propelled as well as field-artillery) APCs & MRAPs (M113, Dingo, etc.) Western medium-range SAMs (NASAMs, IRIS-T, SAMP/T) Western IFVs  <---We are here This poses the question if the entire thing is actually more coordinated than it might seem and how much of the public hysterics about the "next step" of weapons shipments is simply a useful theater play to make the West look weak and fragmented, possibly to manage escalation risks vs. Russia. Some article I read recently called it "boiling the frog". You gradually heat the water, just like you gradually escalate weapons shipments, instead of sending everything at once and risk Putin doing crazy things.

Helmets! Don't forget the helmets! 😄

Helmets! Don't forget the helmets! 😄

Reposting this here from "that other place" I frequent...
What I find interesting is that if you leave out all the theatrics and simply look at the packages that were announced at each Ramstein meeting, you get very distinct phases of weapons shipments that were highly coordinated across NATO and partner nations:
Handheld AT weapons/ATGMs/MANPADS Ex-Soviet MBTs & IFVs Artillery (tube and rocket, self propelled as well as field-artillery) APCs & MRAPs (M113, Dingo, etc.) Western medium-range SAMs (NASAMs, IRIS-T, SAMP/T) Western IFVs  <---We are here This poses the question if the entire thing is actually more coordinated than it might seem and how much of the public hysterics about the "next step" of weapons shipments is simply a useful theater play to make the West look weak and fragmented, possibly to manage escalation risks vs. Russia. Some article I read recently called it "boiling the frog". You gradually heat the water, just like you gradually escalate weapons shipments, instead of sending everything at once and risk Putin doing crazy things.

Reposting this here from "that other place" I frequent...
What I find interesting is that if you leave out all the theatrics and simply look at the packages that were announced at each Ramstein meeting, you get very distinct phases of weapons shipments that were highly coordinated across NATO and partner nations:
Handheld AT weapons/ATGMs/MANPADS Ex-Soviet MBTs & IFVs Artillery (tube and rocket, self propelled as well as field-artillery) APCs & MRAPs (M113, Dingo, etc.) Western medium-range SAMs (NASAMs, IRIS-T, SAMP/T) Western IFVs  <---We are here This poses the question if the entire thing is actually more coordinated than it might seem and how much of the public hysterics about the "next step" of weapons shipments is simply a useful theater play to make the West look weak and fragmented, possibly to manage escalation risks vs. Russia. Some article I read recently called it "boiling the frog". You gradually heat the water, just like you gradually escalate weapons shipments, instead of sending everything at once and risk Putin doing crazy things.

It’s in NATO’s interest to look a little conflicted among members publicly while being unified in the back rooms.  It helps avoid looking like it’s RU against NATO and giving support to Putin’s propaganda.  It also helps to be arguing about tanks publicly while quietly shipping trainloads of long range rockets.

Liked. We're also at the Patriot stage, which I'd consider as premium Western AA. Let's see whether fighter aircraft will be added to the mix.

Reposting this here from "that other place" I frequent...
What I find interesting is that if you leave out all the theatrics and simply look at the packages that were announced at each Ramstein meeting, you get very distinct phases of weapons shipments that were highly coordinated across NATO and partner nations:
Handheld AT weapons/ATGMs/MANPADS Ex-Soviet MBTs & IFVs Artillery (tube and rocket, self propelled as well as field-artillery) APCs & MRAPs (M113, Dingo, etc.) Western medium-range SAMs (NASAMs, IRIS-T, SAMP/T) Western IFVs  <---We are here This poses the question if the entire thing is actually more coordinated than it might seem and how much of the public hysterics about the "next step" of weapons shipments is simply a useful theater play to make the West look weak and fragmented, possibly to manage escalation risks vs. Russia. Some article I read recently called it "boiling the frog". You gradually heat the water, just like you gradually escalate weapons shipments, instead of sending everything at once and risk Putin doing crazy things.

Reposting this here from "that other place" I frequent...
What I find interesting is that if you leave out all the theatrics and simply look at the packages that were announced at each Ramstein meeting, you get very distinct phases of weapons shipments that were highly coordinated across NATO and partner nations:
Handheld AT weapons/ATGMs/MANPADS Ex-Soviet MBTs & IFVs Artillery (tube and rocket, self propelled as well as field-artillery) APCs & MRAPs (M113, Dingo, etc.) Western medium-range SAMs (NASAMs, IRIS-T, SAMP/T) Western IFVs  <---We are here This poses the question if the entire thing is actually more coordinated than it might seem and how much of the public hysterics about the "next step" of weapons shipments is simply a useful theater play to make the West look weak and fragmented, possibly to manage escalation risks vs. Russia. Some article I read recently called it "boiling the frog". You gradually heat the water, just like you gradually escalate weapons shipments, instead of sending everything at once and risk Putin doing crazy things.

It seems quite fitting how we're on page 1938 of this thread.😑

It seems quite fitting how we're on page 1938 of this thread.😑

It seems quite fitting how we're on page 1938 of this thread.😑

The thing is, Scholz scholzing it like this makes complete sense for him and the SPD because it doesn't alienate the leftist base of his party, it doesn't make the electorate go crazy (remember, Scholz was only "forced" to send the tanks by the evil warmongering Americans 😉), and it also manages overall escalation risks with Russia by showing the West as weak and fragmented. In the worst case of direct NATO-Russia military escalation, Germany will have the least responsibility for it. That's Scholz's thinking, in essence.

The big fallacy in these discussions is the assumption that German behavior on the issue of weapons shipments for Ukraine is somehow strange or unusual.
It's not. Reluctance and restraint in military matters has been the single constant in German foreign policy for both CDU and SPS-led governments essentially since our current version of the country existed.

The thing is, Scholz scholzing it like this makes complete sense for him and the SPD because it doesn't alienate the leftist base of his party, it doesn't make the electorate go crazy (remember, Scholz was only "forced" to send the tanks by the evil warmongering Americans 😉), and it also manages overall escalation risks with Russia by showing the West as weak and fragmented. In the worst case of direct NATO-Russia military escalation, Germany will have the least responsibility for it. That's Scholz's thinking, in essence.

The big fallacy in these discussions is the assumption that German behavior on the issue of weapons shipments for Ukraine is somehow strange or unusual.
It's not. Reluctance and restraint in military matters has been the single constant in German foreign policy for both CDU and SPS-led governments essentially since our current version of the country existed.

I wonder what that does to real estate prices... 😄

The big fallacy in these discussions is the assumption that German behavior on the issue of weapons shipments for Ukraine is somehow strange or unusual.
It's not. Reluctance and restraint in military matters has been the single constant in German foreign policy for both CDU and SPS-led governments essentially since our current version of the country existed.

The big fallacy in these discussions is the assumption that German behavior on the issue of weapons shipments for Ukraine is somehow strange or unusual.
It's not. Reluctance and restraint in military matters has been the single constant in German foreign policy for both CDU and SPS-led governments essentially since our current version of the country existed.

The big fallacy in these discussions is the assumption that German behavior on the issue of weapons shipments for Ukraine is somehow strange or unusual.
It's not. Reluctance and restraint in military matters has been the single constant in German foreign policy for both CDU and SPS-led governments essentially since our current version of the country existed.