I repeat the comment I made on youtube - with regard to Ukraine:

Meersheimer regrets that the US involves itself with the Middle East and Ukraine. Note that he doesn't give any alternatives - so according to him, just "focus on China" and to hell with everyone else! How absolutely stupid! His pro-Russia comments contradicts everything that politicians and economists are saying! Politically, Russia is weak and under the control of a corrupt regime, and is falling apart. With 100 rubles to a US dollar Russia is an economic basket case. To call Russia "a great power" is bulls_ that could only come from someone who is totally out of touch OR in the "financial pocket" of Russia!


Ukraine, as a democratic sovereign State was guaranteed political autonomy and Russia was a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum! Its borders were guaranteed, and Ukraine gave up all of their nuclear arsenal as part of the deal. None of this is mentioned by Meesheimer! Nor does he mention that "Russia" is dispersed into many ethnic groups that Russia controls - for now!! The time is coming where internal revolution in Russia will destroy it as a united hegemony.

His analysis of the present war is so full of bulls_! Particularly when he says that Russia will win this war and control at least 40% of Ukraine! I burst out laughing when I heard this idiot make this prognosis without ANY rational justification for his weird assessment

to claim the Albanese government is pro communist is deranged nonsense, so why do it?
SteeleRedux,
being Communist/Left is the same as being stupid, so why lean that way ?

The war of the future will be largely fought by machines and AI! And we need to gear up so we can service what have in military gear/machines and manufacture missiles, smart bombs, and modern jet airplanes!

We also need to get busy manufacturing alternative fuel from blue green algae and native wisteria. Both of which grow well here! And from digested organic matter. That in total will give us every fuel type needed and lots of it.

With nuclear power at our disposal, we can even source all fuels locally, fertilizer and plastics from seawater.

We need to upgrade the Collins class subs with nuclear reactors so they will serve us until we get the US Nuclear subs.

Given China has perfected MSR thorium, we should ask if she would sell us a couple for mine site power. So, we can keep sending them our rocks and LPG.

We could then copy the reactors and mass produce same here for the Collins class and self-defence manufacture. Nuclear reactors bring steam driven venturi drive systems on to the table.

Venturi drives will enable the subs to all but fly fully submerged and without telltale cavitation. 50 knots would not be out of the question and make the subs a lot safer!

They could carry some rear loaded torpedoes that don't attack anything under 200 hundred feet and lock in on cavitating props. We had same toward the end of the last war.

Meaning any destroyer trying to drop ashcans on our subs would get their ass kicked to kingdom come. Literally.

Anything else is just burying the head somewhere warm and comfortable. As we may need to stand on our own two feet in self-defence terms, given the US's current Load. We need to make the cost of attacking this nation too dear for any hostile aggressor!

And that isn't possible relying on battery and pumped hydro backed renewables! Refugees could earn citizenship by a term in the military and on active service?
Alan B.

Russia has always been a third world country with first world weapons and that remains the case today. But as their economy unravels (collapsing rouble is just one symptom) their ability to maintain their first world weaponry also unravels. Its very true that Russia will probably 'win' this war if winning is defined as ending up with more real estate than you started with. But given that their stated aim was to keep NATO at arms-length, they've already lost with Finland and Sweden signing up and Poland now racing to become the foremost European military force.

Its true that the US has run its land-based armaments down in order to support Ukraine but that doesn't affect its ability to operate elsewhere. Additionally, however the war concludes or peters out, I can't see the US putting boots into Ukraine. I do see a western Ukrainian stump being absorbed into the embrace of an increasingly confident Poland which in turn will be able to halt any further Russian ambitions, acting as the west's proxy.

Equally, the US is supplying ordinance and backup support for Israel but, again, its difficult to see how that diminishes their ability to operate in the western Pacific.

There's all sort of issues as regards Chinese ambitions vis a vis Taiwan and the rest of the western Pacific nations. While its true that China is rapidly developing a blue water navy which now out-numbers the US, numbers aren't the sole determinant of success. Quality of the armaments is also of importance as is historic experience. The Chinese navy is completely untested and its success in a full shooting war with the US is uncertain

While the US has been expending ordinance on the Eurasian steppes and now in the skies over Israel, none of that comes from the US navy. It remains as ready to fight and as fully-armed as any time before Putin's adventures.

Its very true that the US is currently led by the greatest group of incompetents in its history and that fact calls into question its ability to withstand a determined Chinese push. But when the shooting starts the incompetents in the White House take a back-seat to the, likely, more competent leaders in the Pentagon.

I fully discount the chances of China attempting to take Taiwan via siege. That takes time and China wouldn't have time. Were China to instigate a blockade of Taiwan, Taiwan's allies wouldn't necessarily need to fight to break the blockade. They could and probably would simply cut China's supply-lines for oil and food through Malacca and the race would be on to see which Chinese entity succumb first. Knowing that, China would need to take Taiwan so quickly that they presented the west with a fait accompli. Its possible they'd succeed but my guess is they'd fail or the costs would be so enormous as to be not worth it.

China is now a power at or near its peak with diminishing prospects. It remains a manufacturing powerhouse but this declines each year. This year, for the first time, more investments funds left China than entered. Manufacturing is being withdrawn at an accelerating rate and is going to India, Vietnam and Mexico. Yes, they have a current temporary near-monopoly on rare-earths, but again, that is recognised and rapidly being rectified.

That means that China is both less likely to be a medium term threat but, perhaps, more likely to be a near-term threat as it sees its prospects disappear in the rear-view mirror. The US and its Asian allies may or may not be able to successfully face that near-term threat. But what is happening on the Eurasian steppes or the Levant won't affect the outcome in the western Pacific.

Two can play at the siege game. The sea lanes that bring middle eastern oil to China are as easily closed as any in the world. Much of their oil & coal supplies are just as vulnerable to interdiction as our oil supplies, & they know it.

We have no need to be vulnerable. We have a few hundred years supply of oil right here, both liquid & by fracking. It is criminal that we let tinpot governments like Victoria prevent harvesting of their own gas, while bitching about the price other states want for theirs.