this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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[–] shanie@mastodon.tails.ch 133 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Everyone looking at the price tag vs the results knows a proxy war with a well-trained army, the side of the US and Ukraine, against formerly your biggest adversary is the least costly way to cripple your foe while hardly lifting a finger.

~$125 billion TOTAL, including humanitarian, in a sea of $800B+/yr is play money in war, and throwing Russia back with dollars is the largest blow to a man who thinks he’s militarily strong.

It even makes China hesitate. I’d pay a lot more just for that.

[–] JWBananas@startrek.website 61 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Edit to add: This is a sad justification to be involved in ending human life, regardless of merit.


It's especially peanuts when you consider that the VA won't have to take care of the veterans either. In the long-term, that's where most of the funding actually goes after you put boots on the ground.


Edit to add:

The costs of caring for post-9/11 war vets will reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion by 2050 — most of which has not yet been paid.

Source:

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/economic/budget/veterans

That is roughly 1/3 of the total estimated past/future costs of the wars.

[–] pensa@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] WHYAREWEALLCAPS@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It is Patton by proxy - "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard to die for his." Except instead of "the other bastard" being an enemy, it's your allies.

[–] Gramatikal@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not just that. It's about oil & gas too. Ukraine is gar friendlier to the US and the EU. They also has the ability to sever Europe's need for Russian energy.

Every dollar is worth it.

[–] Spzi@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And it provides your weapons industry with real life data from a large-scale conflict with equipment from multiple origins.

And it advertises a competitors products as inferior, and yours as superior.

I despise all these things, but from a purely economic viewpoint, this is interesting for business.

[–] BNE@lemmy.blahaj.zone -1 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You can blame those deaths on Putin.

Ukraine wouldn't need those equipment if Putin didn't invade a sovereign nation.

He can literally decide tomorrow to pull back and no deaths would follow anymore.

[–] Spzi@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago

True, but unclear what that implies. Some people say weapons kill people so we should not produce / supply weapons, expecting less people would die. Others point at aggressors using (their home made) weapons to kill people, pointing at the need to supply their victims, expecting less people would die.

Comparing the track records of Russia (frequently invading and killing neighbors) and Ukraine (not so much) it's easy for me to take sides. But the tragedy exists, which is why I despise all these things.

[–] bobman@unilem.org 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn't call $125 billion "play money", even if the US yearly military budget is $900 billion.

The US military budget is egregious, and this just shows how much war is about funneling taxpayer money to the MIC.

[–] mayo@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Idk, nearly a trillion dollars a year is hardly easy to overlook so I find it hard to believe that this of all things is a red line.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

proxy war: a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.

Please don't call it a proxy war, because it's not.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think the definition of "proxy war" must include "instigated".

Amusingly, with North Korea providing munitions to Russia and Korea providing munitions to Ukraine, it's now a proxy Korean War, which never ended.

[–] zephyreks@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Russia's military budget in 2019 was $65 billion. It's a waste of money that's only practical because the US is literally swimming in taxpayer money (mostly because the US doesn't invest in itself, but that's another issue).

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

At the federal level, taxes don't pay for anything. They literally used to be burned when we still collected actual dollars. These days a number in a digital ledger gets set to 0. Taxes are the primary anti-inflationary device that government has to maintain inflation.

Deficits don't cause inflation, if they did Japan would be in hyper-inflation because of the massive deficits they have been running for 30 years. Instead they are barely able to hold off deflation of the Yen.

[–] shanie@mastodon.tails.ch 2 points 1 year ago

(Accidentally deleted my previous post, sorry for the confusion!)

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interestingly China could still invade and expand their territory, without the rest of the world getting involved. Not Taiwan. Vladivostok. That peninsula was part of China till Russia took it, and a fairly large section of the population is ethnically Chinese. They would just be "looking out for the interests of 'their people .'"

This allows Xi to take advantage of the current situation, expand territory to look strong at home, and maintain the status quo everywhere else.

[–] AssPennies@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Sometimes when I'm bored, I'll do some google maps "tourism", and just cruise the globe. One of those spots I've visited, is right at that tri-border with Russia, N. Korea, and China.

I always thought it was weird that China doesn't have a direct shore/port on the Sea of Japan. It doesn't really look like the Tumen River would cut it to give sea faring ships access either. Annexing Vladivostok would fix that.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh thousands of people are dead but at least it wasn't me and all it cost was billions of dollars.

[–] SCB@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We didn't start the invasion. We're helping the defenders of the invasion fight off the invaders.

Everyone would be better off if Russia packed it in, but sometimes the barbarians are at the gates and you do in fact have to fight them off.

[–] shanie@mastodon.tails.ch -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah bro just roll over when you're getting taken over and if you ask for help you should think of the thousands you're going to kill.

Way to victim blame.