Joe Biden has condemned Vladimir Putin, saying he thinks the Russian leader is a killer and that he told him he did not have a soul. Biden’s remarks were made on ABC News in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. The interview coincided with the release of a declassified US intelligence report that bolstered allegations Putin was behind Moscow’s interference in the 2020 election. When pressed on the allegations against Russia, Biden said Putin ‘will pay a price’ for the attempts to swing the vote in Donald Trump’s favor.
If you are Vladimir Putin do you think that you can trust or reason with Joe Biden?
But this is not just an isolated ranting by dementia Joe Biden. A Newsweek columnist insisted in April that Russia is unchanged and ready to attack:
Russia’s conventional weaponry and warfare tactics directly threaten the 29 European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as its partners. By treaty, the U.S. and other NATO members are obligated to “seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area” and are “resolved to unite their efforts for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.” This one-for-all and all-for-one arrangement commits the U.S. to come to the defense of any NATO member attacked by any foreign power.
And there is more chest thumping coming from our Department of Defense:”The Russian military is an existential threat to the United States,” Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing about worldwide threats.Berrier said the country’s military is being used to maintain influence over states “along its periphery, compete with US global primacy and compel adversaries who challenge Russia’s vital national interests.””Moscow continues to invest in its strategic nuclear forces, in new capabilities to enhance its strategic deterrent, and that places the US homeland at risk,” Berrier said.
Now consider this simple set of facts.
- Russian military expenditure has grown significantly over the past two decades. It increased by 30 per cent in real terms between 2010 and 2019 and by 175 per cent between 2000 and 2019. Although Russian military spending decreased in 2017 and 2018, it rose again in 2019 to reach $65.1 billion (see figure 1 and table 1). The military burden on Russia’s economy—that is, military spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP)—was 3.9 per cent in 2019. This was higher than in 2010, but much lower than the peak of 5.5 per cent reached in 2016.
- The USA’s military spending in 2019 was over 11 times greater than Russia’s, while China’s was four times greater. In contrast, Russia spent about 30 per cent more than the largest West European spenders—France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Russia’s military burden in 2019 was much higher than that of China and the other large European spenders and slightly higher than that of the USA.
Got that? The United States is spending close to a $800 billion dollars a year on defense while Russia is less $70 billion. And Russia is a great threat that the United States and all of NATO must unite to defeat?
We live in a country that is beholden to private companies profiting from selling pricey military equipment to the Federal Government. There is a revolving door between the Pentagon and these defense companies. The current head of the Department of Defense, retired General Lloyd Austin is a case in point. His ties to the defense industry, most notably his membership on the board of Raytheon Technologies, is certainly a conflict of interest.
But less well-known is his membership on the board of Nucor, a steel company that’s a subcontractor to at least two major defense contractors.
I am all in favor of protecting our Republic from genuine foreign threats. But Russia is not accusing us on a daily basis of stealing an election. Russia is not conducting military exercises on our border with 26 other countries. It is time we put America first and stop this madness.
I think the issue with U.S. interactions around the world is the level of fear that Americans harbor about everything. We can’t let people fuck up anything anywhere without our permission. Why do we feel we have the right to tell everybody how to do things or we will bomb them? Even when they do what we want there is still the threat of either bombing or destroying their economy. This threat is double for Russia. True not only for Neoclowns in DC but the whole congress and white house. The whole f**king gov. should get f**ked up.
We need to discontinue the word “elites” in reference to “our leaders.”
“Greedy, barbaric, lying madmen” would do much better.
Well said Larry.
Lt. Gen. Berrier’s statements make it clear he is fully signed up to the PNAC/Neocon agenda. How dare Russia defend her “vital national interests”. Helpfully Berrier also states what is really driving such policy, defense not of the US homeland but “US global primacy”.
Andrei Martyanov just wrote an excellent post highlighting his long-held fear that these kind of people might just get us all killed. I agree and pray something stops this hubristic belligerence before Russia is provoked into a response – one I feel sure will be a devastatingly unequivocal demonstration of the means and motivation available to defend those vital national interests.
This morning I emailed both of my senators. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) received the following message:
It has come to my attention that a 300 million dollar military aid package for Ukraine is working its way through the Senate.
Why are we giving any military aid to Ukraine?
The last time I checked, Ukraine was not a member of NATO. Ukraine and the U.S. do not have any formal mutual defense treaty. The U.S. has no critical national security interests in the Ukraine.
Giving Ukraine this kind of support just encourages them to not come to the table with the Russians to negotiate a settlement of their differences (none of which are any of our business).
What is the U.S. going to do when the Ukrainians get in over their heads? They are never going to be able to match the Russians militarily, no matter how much aid we provide them with. Are we going to send U.S. troops to Ukraine to assist them? I doubt it!
Getting into a proxy war with Russia, using the Ukrainians as our proxies, is a very bad idea.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just came out with their 2021 review of the Russian nuclear arsenal. Moscow has approximately 1600 thermonuclear strategic weapons, the overwhelming majority on land-based ICBMs and SLBMs on nuclear submarines. Ten percent of these weapons would end life in America as we know it. Brush up on your physics: thermonuclear weapons have anywhere from 100 to 1000 times the explosive yield of the bombs we dropped on Japan.
It is time to end this nonsense. What happens in the Ukraine is an existential national security issue for the Russians, and they will behave accordingly. It is none of our business.
It is past time to end all military aid for the Ukraine. I urge you to vote against military aid for Ukraine.
It is deeply depressing that it is necessary to point out to one’s elected representatives that antagonizing the one country on Earth which can annihilate America may be a bad idea. Bravo for doing so so eloquently.
I found your letter inspiring and thought to emulate until I remembered that one of my senators is Chucky-boi Schumer. The other is a completely ridiculous woman with a name too long to bother remembering. At least I don’t live in AOC’s district, though I, an old man, was nearly killed or injured last year by one of the convicts released onto the streets due to the enlightened policies of people such as her (daughter of a multi-multi millionaire Westchester county dwelling architect) and mayor bill deblasio who painted “black lives matter” on the boulevard facing Trump’s former high rise tower residence. Painted it twice if I recall. During a pandemic for which the governor found time to send over ten thousand elderly to death in nursing homes.
While we continue to discover that good doctor Fauci is actually a germ warfare doctor who promoted (possibly illegally, or so one might hope) gain of function research specifically on Corona viruses in order to make them either more deadly, more infectious or both. And they call Trumpy a crook! He certainly is, but the competition is fierce.
Let’s see .. Dear Senator Chuckee Schumer, I, long resident of the glorious state you and the various mafias keep snugly in your hip pocket, would like to bring to your attention..
Short answer and you all know it: Because we (still) can and the Russians have not yet found a way to deter it and/or are amused and unbothered by these provocations.
Institutional and cargo-cultish Russophobia detracts from pursuing real national interests. A little bit of wokeism can explain this.
‘The Battle of Russia’ in the ‘Why we fight’ series of movies produced by the US Dept. of War in the lead up to WW2 must be made compulsory viewing. In addition to being a quick primer in Russian history and national character, the movie talks in glowing terms about Russia’s natural resources. And clearly they have more than their ‘fair share’.
I think the Russians know these exercises are nothing more than Kabuki Theatre and a parade of 28000 troops and their equipment isn’t a serious threat to Russia. Now if we were to start pouring hundreds of thousands of additional troops and their full complement of equipment into the same area? They’ve seen that before, after all, and they would understand the difference.