Where did I put my tinfoil hat... Oh; here it is. Let me put this on...
To get
really wild on the prognostication front, and an imminent attack on Poland seems sort of farfetched, but a few bullet points to consider:
- Financial sanctions against Russia have pretty much done squat other than annoy some oligarchs; Russian oil and gas is still selling like crazy. Russian GDP has actually been growing. Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Russia's GDP was $1.489 trillion in 2020; $1.779 trillion in 2021; $1.837 trillion in 2022; and as of March 2023 the data projections indicate $2.240 trillion for 2023.
- The U.S. GDP for 2022 was $2.332 trillion.
- According to the CBO, Biden is going to match Trump's addition to the national debt in just three years, reaching a total of $7.1 trillion over his four years. That would be $1.5 trillion more than Trump contributed during his term, which included all the 2020 one-time COVID emergency spending. Biden's 2024 budget adds as much in total to the national debt as Trump and Bush 43 combined.
- Consider how much money and munitions the U.S. and other countries have sent to Ukraine. Since the war began, the U.S. has sent more than $75 billion in assistance to Ukraine. I'm not dissing the decision, but read on...
- Even some EU countries remain dependent upon Russian energy. Biden has essentially drained and not replaced U.S. oil reserves and has been on a policy warpath to destroy the U.S. fossil fuel industries. We have no way to help our EU partners if they lose Russian oil and gas.
- By far the strongest entity in NATO is the United States. If there is to be any global police work, it's going to have to be led by the U.S.
- Look who we have running the United States, and who his backup is if he can no longer serve.
- We swear in a (I hope new) president January 2025. Until then, we have weak leadership, a military that has lost much of it's operator experience base following the full withdrawal from the Middle East and Central Asia, and a military that can't meet its enlistment goals and keeps lowering the minimum requirements every year.
- Russia and China have become more and more chummy of late. Nuclear power (whether we like it or not) Iran is chummy with Russia and, after all the U.S.-led sanctions, dependent upon Russian oil & gas. China is super chummy with nuclear power North Korea.
- The People's Republic of China very much wants Taiwan. The top two semiconductor exporters in the world are China and Taiwan, followed by Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea. The U.S. is down in 6th place, yet we're the worlds largest consumer of semiconductors.
- The Center for Strategic & International Studies wrote in June 2022: "All major U.S. defense systems and platforms rely on semiconductors for their performance. Consequently, the erosion of U.S. capabilities in microelectronics is a direct threat to the United States' ability to defend itself and its allies. Moreover, the U.S. civilian economy is deeply dependent on semiconductor-based platforms for its daily operations.... U.S.-based chip manufacturing has declined to around 10 percent of the world total and lacks the onshore capability to make the most advanced devices..."
So, what if...
Putin was actually playing the long game. What if he never really cared about Russian casualties in Ukraine and never bothered to send a full press of the army against it. The goal being to draw the U.S. and allies into spending tons of money and sending military resources to Ukraine.
Oh, and by the way, we did just recently abandon a few dollars worth military equipment with the well-planned and carefully orchestrated withdrawal from Afghanistan. Estimates are that the U.S. gifted the Taliban over $7 billion (some unofficial numbers are
much higher, some upwards of $80 billion when you include all the aircraft) worth of our military's vehicles, weapons, and ammunition, and that doesn't include the over $28 billion worth we gave to the Afghan military. Point being that we haven't met projections of next-gen weapons development; we've been sending scads of money and military equipment elsewhere; rank-and-file confidence in our military and political leaders is low; and we are consistently failing to meet new military recruiting goals. Sounds like a weakened superpower to me.
With 15 months left until the next U.S. presidential election, what if Russia and China are coordinating their desired timings to act while the Biden/Harris clown show is in office? The U.S. has a contractual commitment to NATO. It also has at least a spoken commitment to Taiwan...but moreover, it can't afford to lose Taiwan for things like semiconductor chips.
What happens in the Oval Office if, simultaneously, Russia throws everything it has at Ukraine--and maybe even crosses into Poland--while Xi Jinping actively moves on the military "annexation" of Taiwan? Does the U.S. have any hope of responding to two, simultaneous military crises? And what if "the axis of evil" brings Iran into the picture and there is escalated aggression against Israel at exactly the same time? What if U.S. commitments to its allies has, simultaneously, war in Ukraine and Poland, Taiwan and the South China Sea, and Israel and the Middle East?
Now I'm really sorry I put this tinfoil hat on...
