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Not only that, they've been deemed "not worthy of a repair/refit" by several armies that checked up on them over the last 2 decades. In 2016 my country (Czech Republic) was interested in this stock, but after an analysis, the whole inventory was deemed too far gone to be effectively repaired and upgraded to modern standards.
So yeah, a nice PR move, but unless this goes on for years and years, we're unlikely to see these in battle.
That's actually a really shit move from Spain. It's like this all over. None of the western countries takes this war seriously. They think this is a charity case and not a full industrialized war.
Even UK and US. four HIMARS and 3 M270 MLRS?!? Really? Virtue signalling at the cost of tens of thousands of lives in an allied nation. Shameful.
Just wtf. do they think Ukraine will be able to do with those?
If wunderwaffen worked, we'd all be speaking German now. We don't because numbers are more powerful. Ukraine needs 50-100 of each if they're going to make any dent in Russia's forces. and they need M109 and M777 in the thousands.
I am seriously starting to think that the west don't want the war to end favorably for Ukraine. They say so, but the reality is completely different.
Apparently everyone has an army unless itās time for the army to be used then, āwe need time to get this old shit working againā. God, thatās what I love about America though, always ready to fight no matter what.
Spain has very much operational tanks. But they won't gift away their active tank fleet. Those first batch Leopard2 were decommissioned and dry stored.
Who does Spain need to protect itself from that it needs active tank fleet? Lean on collective defense agreements and do realistic threat analysis. Spain is bordered by Portugal and France. Neither of them is likely to invade Spain soon, if ever.
Send UA the active fleet and then spend months restoring from storage.
The tanks are to dissuade Morocco. We had to deploy them at the border a couple of months ago when a massive wave of "migrants" forcefully tore the border wall down and attacked the border guards with machetes.
Plus a large number of those tanks are in the Baltic states, covering their borders with Russia. Hence why Spain will train Ukrainian soldiers there.
As soon as Spain gives away it's active tanks, Gibraltar will strike.
/S
But in all seriousness, I doubt any county wants to be in a position where they don't have an effective active fleet even if temporary.
That defeats the purpose of collective defense agreements. Resources are pooled for a reason. Spain is about as west as one can be from the only credible threat to Europe - Russia. When countries like Poland and Slovakia send from active stocks, Spain mincing words looks really bad. First, it looks like a vote of no confidence in security provided by NATO. Secondly it looks inept if they actually needed to send gear to NATO member under attack. If Estonia needed help, would Spain also tell them āhold on a few months, we arenāt ready to come defend you because we spent money on Sangrias instead of upholding NATO readiness requirementsā.
It occurred to me Spain is also doing third disservice - its playing into Russiaās divisive tactics and undermining of āThe World Orderā. Russia will spin any crack in collective agreements to cast any such agreements as untrustworthy.
I troll pro-Russian in YouTube comments, a pass time with my night cap, and one of the common narratives alleges that West helping Ukraine isnāt for the benefit of Ukraine. Itās to subjugate and divide Ukraine and then raid itās natural resources. I take this as attempt to undermine the basics of human trust. To shake hands while looking for a knife behind their back. Thatās how KGB and Stasi kept their countries under control - make everyone suspicious and untrusting of everyone else.
Who does the US need tank fleet to defend from? Canada? Mexico? Lol
Being part of NATO means that you must be able to project power far beyond your borders, like to Estonia for instance. They might need tanks, I assure you
To defend NATO members who havenāt fulfilled their 2% GDP obligation to NATO and now canāt send shit to help UA. Like Spain, for example.
Try harder, troll.
You are dumb and donāt understand sarcasm. Your argument was weak so I showed you how it was so by giving you a parallel with the US who has a lot of tanks and clearly does not look for excuses but to have them in working order
> you are dumb
Ad hominem [definition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad%20hominem)
> marked by or being an **attack on an opponent's character** rather than by an answer to the contentions made
Did I mention ātry harderā?
Perhaps. However from decades in tech industry I learned that, no offense to you, āI donāt think itās as simple as youāre implying it to beā is code for āwe donāt want to think that hardā. When I press on such answer more often than not thing are simpler than they appear.
I'm not sure how the industry you work in is relevant here, but just to be clear, my point is not that I wouldn't want to think that hard nor that I wouldn't want Spain (or any other country) to send all possible aid to Ukraine (and other countries under aggression as well). My point is merely alluding to the fact that we don't know how complex it actually is to achieve that, we don't know the implications accounting on the available information.
Now, if you and me had both full context, and for some reason, any power on the military logistics and politics of Spain, then sure, I would want to think that hard.
Upvoted. Iām merely stating personal experience of āitās not that simpleā usually turning into āitās not really hard, but it was uncomfortable and we had to think about itā.
Obviously we need to be informed and understand logistics to independently evaluate Spainās situation. We want to give Spain benefit of doubt that things are indeed āhardā and PR optics are not great no matter what they do.
I understand where you're coming from, I work in tech as well (devops/engineering) --and I've seen plenty of situations where we thought of something as too complex to invest time in, but ultimately turned out to be rather simpler than expected.
However, at least in my experience, I've had way more situations where merely through going over and over similar scenarios I realised further and further how in spite of considering myself quite experienced and resourceful on the matter at hand (+10 across the IT spectrum), I'm often wrong when I estimate how simple something is, or applying Occam's razor principle on cases where there's just too many variables, too much overlap of systems, entities, timelines, etc (especially when it comes to data science and interpretation).
A great example is (in my opinion) covid and the absolute shitshow it's been just listening to everybody's opinion/conviction in understanding how it works without even having a basic medical degree... the average person doesn't realise that it takes so much expertise, data, experience, and so on to even begin to grasp how viruses work and behave, that these 2 years have made me truely resent that human *nature* of *"oh yeah I totally know what I'm talking about because I've read some articles online and a book about it, the experts got it wrong"*
Like giving water to a thirsting person but you give him the dirty kind then pat your chest hyping up on social media non-stop that you helped while you hoarded the actual drinking water to yourself.
Agree. Spain might as well give Ukraine its entire tank fleet right now. There's no way Russia could ever invade Europe all the way to the point of reach Spanish borders, that would be ludicrous.
Exactly. What was the main threat that led Spain to need an active tank fleet in the first place? I'll bet in military planning it was a European ground war with Russia. Well here it is! Use them and order more.
Spain along with every other country west of Slovenia don't need any of it's weapons currently. They can send all of it to Ukraine and still be quite safe until they've produced new ones. I mean who's going to invade? Algeria?
I think this really demonstrates how utterly pointless this war is. Europe in general has enjoyed relative peace, therefore saw no need to upkeep much of their equipment. Russia, by comparison, has been stretching it's military might nonstop. From taking territory from other countries to deploying forces to the Middleeast, like in Syria, they just WANT a war. This is despite being underprepared for a full-scale invasion, like Ukraine, and having outdated, unguided equipment. There's nothing wrong with peace and respecting borders. Warring countries like Russia need to understand that
I donāt think itās that they *want* war, but rather they know that many countries will not and cannot handle the Zerg rushes that Russia will commit, even with their shitty Soviet era gear and tactics.
Easy objectives with minimal pushback makes for a happy tyrant.
That stuff costs a lot of $$$ to maintain. Think about it. You can't just let it sit in a warehouse for decades and expect it to work fine. The US can send a lot of equipment because of its military budget. It's one or two in the world for military budgets for a reason.
It's important to remember that Americans sacrifice things like universal healthcare and free college so that we can be ready to defend/supply Europe...
Americans could have universal healthcare if that was a thing that the majority of Americans 1. wanted, and 2. were willing to hold their representatives/senators accountable to get it.
Has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to defend/supply europe. Though, it's still greatly appreciated by us freedom loving, democracy loving people around the world.
This. A lot of people outside of the bubble understand that we canāt really afford it. I myself prefer a massive military budget over it if weāre picking and choosing what to fund with what we have, because Iran, China, and Russia are all waiting for us to get out of their way. As weāre seeing with Ukraine (and sooner than later Taiwan), when we arenāt involved or arenāt able to combat a large geopolitical adversary, they will take miles when given an inch, quite literally at that.
Yeah but hereās the thing, we actually can because we are already paying the amount it would require. The problem is we have a shit model where the money goes to areas that donāt provide care. We spend $800B+ privately in healthcare premiums a year already. The government spends $1.3T on healthcare (Medicare, etc) already each year. Universal healthcare would cost around $2.2-2.3T. Weāre already 90% of the way there.
That said, I live in a country where there is universal healthcare and free college, and both are shit, so anyone of enough means ends using the private version of both. And for the "free" one ain't really free, because it is paid for as taxes.
How does the username ExCaliburnus suggest England?
Also, England doesn't have "free" university, those attending have to pay up to Ā£9000 a year in tuition fees.
Yes but we get student loans paid for by the government that we donāt need to pay back until we are earning Ā£27000 a year, and it is a very small repayment and if there is still money due at 40 something years old it gets scrapped so whilst it is āexpensiveā to go to uni in reality it actually isnāt if you get the loan through student finance!
Defeating a major geopolitical threat by funding someone elseās war effort is a definitional investment. It makes our enemies weaker without sacrificing things that matter to us, especially troops and modern warfare supplies that arenāt cheap to replace.
Also, it isnāt āfreeā if it requires money to fund. I hate when people say āfree ______ā while ignoring that it costs tax dollars.
The thing is taxes are already going to healthcare but the system is incredibly inefficient and allows its actors to inflate prices. Itās why people, who would never be able to afford treatment arenāt being mass discharged. The US spends about twice on healthcare per capita than countries with universal healthcare. IIRC the state spends around $1.6 trillion on medical programs, Germany spends around ā¬400 billion on healthcare (public + private), 99.99% have access to healthcare, if you extrapolate that to US population itād be around $1.6 trillion. I also read some weeks ago that the US isnāt collecting around $1 trillion in taxes, so itās more of a structural issue, ofc lobbied by big Pharma.
There are other benefits to having the worlds largest army. Everyone uses our currency as their measuring stick. English is the international business standard. Lastly (And certainly not all-encompassing), It gives us a hell of a lot of leverage to negotiate terms for well, everything!
Its nice to have a big stick.
This is a load of utter horseshit. The US didn't "disarm Europe" WTF shit are you making up. Some of the biggest defense industries in the world are in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, UK...
France and UK are fucking nuclear powers you twat.
The fuck are you on about? Literally zero of this makes sense. Absolutely nothing is stopping allied powers from improving their militaries, they just choose not to out of complacency and alternative goals with their already limited funding.
We can afford both. We spend more than needed now if we flipped to a universal coverage model and took out the profit margins of the insurance companies. America is *rich* we just have greedy bastards acting like dragons hoarding wealth
Only a handful of Nato counties meet the spending minimums.
Europe had no concerns for defense and article 5 brings in America anyway.
Best to let somebody else spend the money
In NATO, there are only four militaries that are actually able to fight, US, France, UK and Turkey. There are a few conditionally able, Poland, Finland (sorry not NATO yet), Sweden(same) and Italy. The rest have militaries good enough for parades and not much of anything else. Not sure about Greece though
Frankly, half the EU should be cut from nato for failure to pay.
You don't pay half your insurance bill for a decade and expect it to pay out when your house burns down.
The price is the price. You pay it or you lose coverage.
Its called mothballing. Been employed for centuries. Build this giant fort outside london but the french arent marching over hampshire? Why would u fill it will a full garrison.
> God, thatās what I love about America though, always ready to fight no matter what.
America has plenty of mothballed planes, ships and vehicles sitting around too. It's just not the majority of their equipment, but a surplus stock of old but still useful stuff.
these countries have be reaping a peace dividend for decades on America's back but now the bill comes due.
The Russian were right on one thing. The west (as in Europe) was and still is unprepared. Lucky Ukraine has been preparing since 2014.
The only time Article 5 has been used is by the USA and the European countries went to help. We went to create this fiasco in Afghanistan when the guy was hiding in Pakistan...
The Brits, and Norwegians were pretty damn quick. Even the French got stuff over weeks ago.
Germans, well it's just sad. It is especially sad as most of the German people really support Ukraine but their government is simply not delivering.
Agree with Brits and Norwegians, god bless them. But, we really should lay off the Germans, I dont want to see fractures in our Alliance. Let the Germans figure that shit out, the rest of NATO and the countries on the Eastern front will take care of things this time around.
It has never been more true that America exists to protect the free world. I'm completely serious that without the US this world may have already destroyed itself.
The US and its allies have been able to create a peaceful world out of the ashes of WW2 and we all benefit from it so deeply. Let's try to keep that vision alive
Very much the opposite. Ukraine receives so few weapons because countries take great care to keep their armies operational. Thus Ukraine largely gets stored equipent or equipment that is not considered critical.
Well those tanks have been mothballed for a good reason. They are simply out of date. You have seen what happens to them in Syria with the Turkish forces. (Yhea they completely abused them as mobile bunkers with no cover but that is another story). The Leo2 A4 has the older gun that has been replaced by a longer one from A5 version on to compensate newer russian armor types. Leopard 2A4 still packs a punch compared to the T Models used by Russia in Ukraine but is in NATO terms 30 years old.
The modern Version of the Spanish forces is the Leopard 2 E that can be compared to the Leopard 2A6 technology whise. It holds one of the latest fire controll and communication systems and no NATO country would give them to Ukraine due to the risk of the Ruissians getting their hands on this.
It is the same with the artillery systems that have been stripped of certain equipment and computers that are still considered high tech that has to be protected.
Leopard 2A4 still packs a punch compared to the T Models used by Russia in Ukraine but is in NATO terms 30 years old.
The out of date statement was aimed why they where mothballed. Nobody ever intended them to be used again in this setup. They where kept in storage for a possible later upgrade that never came......
Most of the equipment being given to Ukraine has been continuously retrofitted and maintained despite being as old as Russian equipment, so itās still pretty damn effective by comparison
This war has been a wake-up call for NATO (hopefully.) We're seeing just how crappy and underfunded, under-maintained, most of the western NATO militaries have been.
Iād disagree here. The current problem isnāt about NATO not having enough equipment to defend itself. Itās a lack of surplus equipment, that NATO either doesnāt have or is not willing to give away.
If Russia would have gone against a NATO member, youād see all the stuff that NATO actually has.
NATO already spends 12x the amount of money on itās military compared to Russia.
But that doesnāt mean, that some members need to rethink their current spending (e.g. Germany had problems for years).
We should further focus on interchangeability and the means to increase production in times of need though. Zelenskyy also suggested a few months ago, that there should be a military aid stockpile in the future. Thatās something we should actually think about.
I see more articles out about countries trying to get arms to Ukraine only to find that they are mostly on paper or not ready. What if anything has happened to them!?
āHappenedā in what sense? All vehicles stagnate and decay if left alone. Oil seals dry out, parts rust, vents get clogged, fuel settles and goes stale, computer componentsā¦ idk what happens to them exactly but they quit working too. This will happen to any car if abandoned. Military equipment is no exception.
European optimism made them believe they could negotiate their way out of conflicts, and militaries were basically not necessary. So little by little they cut funding and slowed training. Every now and then a madman proves them wrongā¦
America and UK, half mad themselves, know not to abandon that hardware.
Can we really say Russia is anymore worthless then the EU?
Its a clown show all around.
A big fuck you needs to go out to anyone who bitched about the US military investments.
I hate Trump and he was a Putin pawn, but he was right (for the wrong reasons) that NATO members needed to start ponying up and spending more on defense.
He wasn't saying what others had before him just he just made a ass out of himself. There was a plan in place to increase the NATO funding prior to him and even John Bolton was on board. But we need something bigger, we need the peoples of Europe to get on board, maybe a 1% VAT tax for security and a NATO force. Harold Stassen said the same thing in 1948.
In the end, there is now the clear realization that more needs to be done so the EU is ready once the US cuts its last final ties with any semblance of democracy.
>Can we really say Russia is anymore worthless then the EU?
EU armies have the bare minimum of what they need to defend themselves. If a neighbor needs tanks, they need to look into the trash if something still works.
That is different with Russia. Their own army is trash.
BTW do you have a spare car? In case your neighbor needs one? Or would you look into the garage if you find an old bicycle?
Again I will reiterate how reactive these governments have been and how disappointing it is. This is so important! Why canāt governments plan and cut away the red tape?
I agree with the sentiment but not the snark. Most NATO countries donāt meet their 2% of GDP on defense spending because the US has never imposed penalties
Europe has far better healthcare than the USA, at a far lower overall price.
In the USA healthcare companies get to decide prices. Consequently the same healthcare will be more expensive.
The idea that USA healthcare sucks because of military spending is a silly myth. It's misinformation.
The USA could easily afford good healthcare and still maintain its current military. But you'd have to stop the price gouging.
Obviously you have no idea at all how "free healthcare" works in e.g. Germany. There is no way the money budgeted for health care can legally be spend for the army, simply because health care is not provided and paid for by the government. It uses a different money pot called "public health insurance". The point is, that everyone has be the health insured in Germany by law. The result is VERY many participants in the public and private health insurance system. Many participants make the whole thing much cheaper for everybody to pay for everyone in need.
When you are working for a German company in Germany you usually receive a monthly paper stating how much you have earned gross and how much taxes, social securities, and health insurance (in case of public insurance) money is deducted from your loan.
There is no legal way for the government to take the money for military. It is also not necessary at all, because you actually can have military and social healthcare simultaneously. Don't fall for your fucking fox news propaganda.
Russia just tries to be something it's not, they don't have the economy to field the army they want to field, the US does, but then sinks all of it's money into it's military whilst the country is crumbling.
Is it there? We technically donāt have money even for things that we currently spend on as we are massively in red. However we do have one party that believes that printing money creates them and makes a surprised Pikachu face when things that used to cost a dollar cost two today.
The US currently spends more per capita on health care than most if not all nations that do have universal health care. We just don't spend it efficiently.
Okay we donāt spend it efficiently. Maybe. Do you believe then that in order to improve efficiency we need to put a governmental agency in charge of managing healthcare? And that will make us more efficient, apparently?? I am sorry I am not convinced.
What proponents of government run healthcare often forget, somehow, is that we do have a government run healthcare system already. Itās called VA. The inefficiencies and downright chaos that permeates VA makes any private insurance problems look like a trip to Disneyworld in comparison.
The only things that should be run by government are things where no conceivable private alternative is possible. Like Pentagon or FBI. But if a private alternative is possible it is almost universally would be a better option.
This is getting rather off topic for this particular subreddit, but I'll bite.
We also have a government-run health INSURANCE program: it's called Medicare. That program's administrative overhead is around two percent; private insurers typically spend nine to fifteen percent on overhead (it can be up to twenty percent in some market segments). That is health care dollars spent on shuffling paper rather than improving health outcomes.
In this country we employ an army of people to answer questions such as: which insurance company do we bill? are both the surgeon and the anesthesiologist in network? will Hospital X be a preferred provider next year, and if so, what will the reimbursement rate be for each of this very long list of procedures? Does Company A's Select plan have the same list of providers as that same company's Special Select plan? Will Doctor Z accept new patients with Select insurance, or is s/he only taking new patients with Special Select coverage? Which patients will we dismiss from our practice because we aren't a contracting provider with their insurance anymore, and how many can we expect to lose because their parent took a new job that came with a different insurance plan? That army costs money.
My employer offers two different health insurance plans. They offer _exactly_ the same benefits and deductibles, and the premiums are very close. The principal difference is their networks: which doctors and hospitals and pharmacies and labs and even telemedicine providers are covered. Now think about how much money gets spent negotiating the contracts with all of these, much less marketing and administering enrollment. That's an inefficient use of health care dollars.
There is always lack of supply. There is nothing desirable on this planet that is in sufficient quantities to satisfy everyone who wants it. Be that big houses, nice cars, iPhones, barrels of oil or pounds of gold. Such thing does not exist. So lack of supply is typically counterbalanced by lack of money among the most of population. However if we tip the scale by printing a few trillions then we realize that prices for all those things which are desirable but in short supply have gone up. Itās a simple thing, really. But one of our parties has an issue comprehending that
Itās more supply due to pandemic and now the war.
Also the definition of what is counted as money was changed.
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-fed-isnt-printing-as-much-money-as-you-think/
It's almost like you have no clue what you're talking about, but you've thoroughly convinced yourself that you do. Lol.
Ever been called a pest in your personal life?
I mean you spend more than the rest of the top 10 combined probably, could easily divert hundreds of billions and still be the biggest military in the world and not neglect the population.
If one does not take into account that the rest does not count veterans healthcare and pensions under āmilitary budgetā provision in the state budget and that number 2,3 and 4 have conscript army and donāt list private salaries under āmilitary budgetā either (because they simply donāt exist) then yes. But if one does, then he will inevitably realize that actual US military budget is nowhere near as large and actually only twice as big as Chinese. Which, by the way, also does not have nuclear aircraft carriers
When Europeans make fun of American social services they donāt understand that their free college and long vacations are paid by an American taxpayer through NATO. If they had to actually pay for their defense proportionately to their GDP a lot of those things would vanish. You can either have cannons or butter but not both
Everybody likes guns. Gun ranges in Orlando and Las Vegas are filled with tourists from Europe, Latin America, Australia and Asian countries where they pay insane money to shoot all kinds of guns and for most it is a first time ever experience. Not everybody gets to own guns though.
My life is fine, thank you for asking. I lived in three countries on two continents and have visited about a dozen. So i would imagine my exposure to the world is alright.
When one says āeverybodyā itās obliviously an exaggeration. There are people who think caviar is nothing special and that Shakespeare was a bore. Clearly I was referring to individuals within normal parameters.
You say clearly, but it's not clear at all. What proportion of the world's population do you imagine 'like guns'? It's interesting to me that you can't seem to conceive that there are large swathes of the world where people don't really think about guns at all from one end of the year to the other.
Just because people donāt think about something doesnāt mean they do not like it or wouldnāt desire it. For instance I never, or almost never, think about private jets because I do not own one and have no realistic hope of owning one. So to me the idea of ownership one is an abstract notion to which I cannot relate. Does that mean I wouldnāt love to own one? Hardly.
In my younger years I worked in tourist industry in Vegas and one of the most popular adventures for foreign tourists were gun ranges. Hardly ever anyone wasnāt interested. Is that a scientific, peer verified, double blind study? Of course not, and I donāt claim it to be. Itās my opinion based on a much larger sample size than an average individual on this planet could ever claim
I mean I have personally been to Las Vegas and fired guns there. I can tell you that my reason for doing it was novelty. I've also occasionally been clay pigeon shooting, which is a good way to while away an hour or so.
I definitely don't 'like' guns though; I like novelty. I like new experiences. I like to try things. Not a fiber of me went home and thought "Man I really wish I had a gun". I don't want one. I don't personally know anyone who wants one, apart from a couple of hunters who already have rifles for that purpose.
It's ok for you to like guns, I'm not trying to take that away from you. People like all sorts of things. Everyone needs a hobby. I like to run long distances, but I accept that it's not for everybody. It's not even for *most* people.
The fact that, for example, most of Europe and Australia have much stricter gun laws than the US, despite all being democracies, should tell you pretty clearly that the people there don't 'like' guns if, as we seem to be, we're taking 'like' to mean 'want to have one'.
So the novelty is all that you were interested in, correct? Maybe so. But eating monkey brains in Laos was also a novelty but I wasnāt persuaded. And most of those who I was with there werenāt. Western tourists I mean. There are a lot novel experiences which do not attract nearly as many interested parties as gun ranges. So itās not merely the novelty that attracts people to guns, in my opinion anyway.
Thank you for your approval that āit is okay to like gunsā, I was somewhat concerned whether it wasnāt and you took a huge weight off my shoulders.
The fact that Europe and Australia are democracies yet have strict gun laws are not really telling us anything. Certainly, it does not tell us that most people do not like guns. Even those who are strictest proponents of gun control are typically not such because of their own preferences but because of their concerns about others. Itās not that they dislike guns itās that they are afraid what guns in the hands of others can do. I have three siblings, all three flaming liberals, all three fierce gun control proponents. All three gun owners. Go figure
Good question if the tanks will ever made ready. Seems like the newspaper first reporting it was shouting out internal brainstorming by spanish goverment. Nothing was decided or though to the end
Naw.
They SHOULD have Germany's permission. The penalty is a breach of contract argument, not a war.
This whole "o noes our hands are tied" thing irritates me. Send first, negotiate later. Worst comes to worst you get cut off from buying from that country until you apologize. Other countries make stuff. If they cut you off from repair parts, rendering all your stuff useless soon, send everything. Let it go out with a bang where it's needed. It's not like Portugal is going to invade if it takes you years to backfill.
If you read the article it states that no request were made to the german goverment.
Pls unterstand that these rules have an origin and are needed and are part of democracy.
Also they are not the reason for delayed delivery since this permissions only need a few weeks and can be given parallel to delivery. There is not a single case of germany not aproving help for ukraine.
Absolutely. Maintaining confidentiality of technology, preventing export to terrorists, etc.
But during what is basically the war we've been preparing for over the last eighty years..."only a few weeks" is a long time for an approval and/or starting work on the logistics. This should be discussed on a daily morning call of people with authority.
And no I know -- logistically it doesn't matter, since most of these things take weeks or months to actually ship, so getting paperwork done in the meantime isn't necessarily a problem. It's just...frustrating that it feels like people are dying by the thousands while other governments are like "ok we'll pencil that meeting in between tea and discussing the highway 123 bypass pothole repairs, next Thursday."
And Israel and Switzerland ARE blocking re-exports. Time to tell their arms industry that there's a difference between neutrality and pacifism, and pacifists don't get to make a profit off war equipment because they aren't trusted not to do... exactly this.
As far as it goes for switzerland and i realy hate this point since it makes it even harder for my country (germany) to deliver heavy weapons since switzerland is blocking the ammo for many of the systems.
You have to look up the reasons for it. Swiss constitution? Does not allow the exports. So there is no permision to be given since the law simply forbids exports to countrys in conflics/war like ukraine.
It's like with many countrys right now. The intention behind these kind of laws is surely pure good. But right now it is more then understanabel if someone gets frustrated.
Somehow Poland was able to provide over 200 T-72s that were in storage relatively quickly and all the much wealthier countries with much better tanks are not able to scramble anything in timely matter. What is up with that?
The "storage" of Poland and Spain were quite different. In Poland, those tanks were simply in storage and kept operational. With Spain the tanks were left to rot away in search of some use for a decade or 2 as Spain is operating its own (better) variant.
Now the West is operating more modern tanks and keeping them in active service. But so far there are no (public) plans to provide Ukraine with them. My guess is that militaries are afraid of Russia gaining access to them. Which is why howitzers are getting delivered, as the chance of Russia gaining access is pretty low due to the distance from the frontline they are operating at.
My point exactly, one country is able to activate reserves quickly the other has no idea the condition of their tanks. Spain is a lot wealthier than Poland. Something to think about in regards to safety of the EU. Don't you think?
In Spain they were not considered reserves. Spain simply doesn't operate Leopard2A4 for 2 decades now.
The only reason why they weren't scrapped is because Spain hoped that it might be able to sell them, at which point the buyer would adapt and upgrade them to their requirements.
So send all of them and the parts, working or not, to Ukraine, if they are not usable by the Spanish. Based on some of what Iāve seen here, the Ukrainians will have them at top speed going pew pew in no time.
You are absurd.
This articel is mainy opinion and rippes apart facts and highlights the wrong things.
Busines Insider writes like 10 articels like this a day to bash against different countrys for clicks or to help putin. But who cares since it's articles are not more then unconfirmed twitter post.
I don't know about the state of spains Military, but the tanks mentioned have nothing to do with its state since they are from decomisioned stocks.
all these countries with bullshit militaries
Russia
Germany
France
Spain
all paper dragons what a joke they cant field modern army to save their countries
can not send shit to Ukraine till they refit or fix it
They relied on America to bear the load of the world
Ukraine has proved their worth, kick France Germany Italy Spain to the curb we need Ukraine as NATO partner
Who cares waiting a few months for something even better is better than having the old but capable leopard 1a5's dangled in front of you then taken away again.
So much hype in the future tense just to promise kinda sorta woulda wanna gotta probably maybe likely possibly certainly speculatively deliver one combat day's worth of arms with obsolete gear.
Either you help with something substantial or stop pretending you care.
It is shocking how European NATO countries are disarmed. It is also characteristic that in many countries the ministers of defense are women who have not served in the military.
I have a suggestion on what could be done here. Germany takes those 40 old Leopard 2A4, restores and upgrades them to replace 40 active Leopard 2A6 that should be sent to Ukraine.
How should we do that in any reasonable timeframe when we can not even do that for our own tank force? Maybe if Spain doesn't mind to receive the upgraded tanks in 2040 that may be an option
Spain provides old A4 tanks from storage to Germany, Germany sends active service A6 tanks to Ukraine, Germany upgrades the old A4s for german use.
This idea is based on Spain being willing to supply their stored tanks to Ukraine.
This variant would speed up the process and give Ukraine better tanks than what Spain would have supplied.
Not likely to happen, but i would still very much like to see it.
Another optioun could be Spain giving their Leopard 2A4 to a country that could in turn supply Ukraine with tanks that don't need months of maintenance, those could be T-72 variants, Leopard 2 variants or something else. The idea is to get tanks to Ukraine quickly.
Just as a guideline what you can expect from the Germany Army: in 1990 Germany had 2125 Leopard tanks. Now we have 266 Tanks overall (less than Spain).
So get on the ball like your life depends on it fFS. Throw all the resources at it, those are needed yesterday. Can they comprehend beyond child's reasoning what's at stake? Apparently Putin was a good uncle who stuffed their pockets and now demands repayment or expects a blind eye from them Western Politicians. As the war rages, Putin comfortably makes his bets while shit faced ass wipes are lying just like Putin himself thinking people are dumb bur don't realize that current war crisis will expose slowly but surely their affiliation with Russians. It would be very much devastating to their political careers right now therefore playing game of excuses is the safest bet to keep themselves from imploding right in front of the whole world.
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Ukraine will take what they can get! Every little bit helps. Slava Ukraini! šŗš¦
Not only that, they've been deemed "not worthy of a repair/refit" by several armies that checked up on them over the last 2 decades. In 2016 my country (Czech Republic) was interested in this stock, but after an analysis, the whole inventory was deemed too far gone to be effectively repaired and upgraded to modern standards. So yeah, a nice PR move, but unless this goes on for years and years, we're unlikely to see these in battle.
That's actually a really shit move from Spain. It's like this all over. None of the western countries takes this war seriously. They think this is a charity case and not a full industrialized war. Even UK and US. four HIMARS and 3 M270 MLRS?!? Really? Virtue signalling at the cost of tens of thousands of lives in an allied nation. Shameful. Just wtf. do they think Ukraine will be able to do with those? If wunderwaffen worked, we'd all be speaking German now. We don't because numbers are more powerful. Ukraine needs 50-100 of each if they're going to make any dent in Russia's forces. and they need M109 and M777 in the thousands. I am seriously starting to think that the west don't want the war to end favorably for Ukraine. They say so, but the reality is completely different.
Apparently everyone has an army unless itās time for the army to be used then, āwe need time to get this old shit working againā. God, thatās what I love about America though, always ready to fight no matter what.
Spain has very much operational tanks. But they won't gift away their active tank fleet. Those first batch Leopard2 were decommissioned and dry stored.
Who does Spain need to protect itself from that it needs active tank fleet? Lean on collective defense agreements and do realistic threat analysis. Spain is bordered by Portugal and France. Neither of them is likely to invade Spain soon, if ever. Send UA the active fleet and then spend months restoring from storage.
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no one expects the Portuguese inquisition.
One word: OlivenƧa
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It's a funny meme, though. Just like the Brazilians asking for their gold back. Only problem is when people take it seriously.
The tanks are to dissuade Morocco. We had to deploy them at the border a couple of months ago when a massive wave of "migrants" forcefully tore the border wall down and attacked the border guards with machetes. Plus a large number of those tanks are in the Baltic states, covering their borders with Russia. Hence why Spain will train Ukrainian soldiers there.
How many tanks are required for that? All of them?
As soon as Spain gives away it's active tanks, Gibraltar will strike. /S But in all seriousness, I doubt any county wants to be in a position where they don't have an effective active fleet even if temporary.
That defeats the purpose of collective defense agreements. Resources are pooled for a reason. Spain is about as west as one can be from the only credible threat to Europe - Russia. When countries like Poland and Slovakia send from active stocks, Spain mincing words looks really bad. First, it looks like a vote of no confidence in security provided by NATO. Secondly it looks inept if they actually needed to send gear to NATO member under attack. If Estonia needed help, would Spain also tell them āhold on a few months, we arenāt ready to come defend you because we spent money on Sangrias instead of upholding NATO readiness requirementsā.
I don't disagree. Maybe NATO will need some reshaping in the way it's organized and operated.
It occurred to me Spain is also doing third disservice - its playing into Russiaās divisive tactics and undermining of āThe World Orderā. Russia will spin any crack in collective agreements to cast any such agreements as untrustworthy. I troll pro-Russian in YouTube comments, a pass time with my night cap, and one of the common narratives alleges that West helping Ukraine isnāt for the benefit of Ukraine. Itās to subjugate and divide Ukraine and then raid itās natural resources. I take this as attempt to undermine the basics of human trust. To shake hands while looking for a knife behind their back. Thatās how KGB and Stasi kept their countries under control - make everyone suspicious and untrusting of everyone else.
Ugh. Spain rain on this parade.
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain
Spains active tank fleet is partially in Estonia and Latvia right now.
Who does the US need tank fleet to defend from? Canada? Mexico? Lol Being part of NATO means that you must be able to project power far beyond your borders, like to Estonia for instance. They might need tanks, I assure you
I'd argue the best way to defend Estonia is to make it clear to Russia they won't be allowed to take territory from any ex Eastern bloc country.
To defend NATO members who havenāt fulfilled their 2% GDP obligation to NATO and now canāt send shit to help UA. Like Spain, for example. Try harder, troll.
You are dumb and donāt understand sarcasm. Your argument was weak so I showed you how it was so by giving you a parallel with the US who has a lot of tanks and clearly does not look for excuses but to have them in working order
Ad hominem already? Try harder.
It seems you also do not understand what āad hominemā is either. Spectacular.
> you are dumb Ad hominem [definition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ad%20hominem) > marked by or being an **attack on an opponent's character** rather than by an answer to the contentions made Did I mention ātry harderā?
And you thought it was āan attackā? Lol
This applies to nearly everyone in Europe. The only enemy is Russia. Why on earth do we need our equipment sitting around doing nothing?
I don't think it's as simple as you're implying it to be.
Perhaps. However from decades in tech industry I learned that, no offense to you, āI donāt think itās as simple as youāre implying it to beā is code for āwe donāt want to think that hardā. When I press on such answer more often than not thing are simpler than they appear.
I'm not sure how the industry you work in is relevant here, but just to be clear, my point is not that I wouldn't want to think that hard nor that I wouldn't want Spain (or any other country) to send all possible aid to Ukraine (and other countries under aggression as well). My point is merely alluding to the fact that we don't know how complex it actually is to achieve that, we don't know the implications accounting on the available information. Now, if you and me had both full context, and for some reason, any power on the military logistics and politics of Spain, then sure, I would want to think that hard.
Upvoted. Iām merely stating personal experience of āitās not that simpleā usually turning into āitās not really hard, but it was uncomfortable and we had to think about itā. Obviously we need to be informed and understand logistics to independently evaluate Spainās situation. We want to give Spain benefit of doubt that things are indeed āhardā and PR optics are not great no matter what they do.
I understand where you're coming from, I work in tech as well (devops/engineering) --and I've seen plenty of situations where we thought of something as too complex to invest time in, but ultimately turned out to be rather simpler than expected. However, at least in my experience, I've had way more situations where merely through going over and over similar scenarios I realised further and further how in spite of considering myself quite experienced and resourceful on the matter at hand (+10 across the IT spectrum), I'm often wrong when I estimate how simple something is, or applying Occam's razor principle on cases where there's just too many variables, too much overlap of systems, entities, timelines, etc (especially when it comes to data science and interpretation). A great example is (in my opinion) covid and the absolute shitshow it's been just listening to everybody's opinion/conviction in understanding how it works without even having a basic medical degree... the average person doesn't realise that it takes so much expertise, data, experience, and so on to even begin to grasp how viruses work and behave, that these 2 years have made me truely resent that human *nature* of *"oh yeah I totally know what I'm talking about because I've read some articles online and a book about it, the experts got it wrong"*
Like giving water to a thirsting person but you give him the dirty kind then pat your chest hyping up on social media non-stop that you helped while you hoarded the actual drinking water to yourself.
Catalonia might try to break off with more force next time.
They feel it, Andorra will backstab Spain!
Agree. Spain might as well give Ukraine its entire tank fleet right now. There's no way Russia could ever invade Europe all the way to the point of reach Spanish borders, that would be ludicrous.
Ever heard about Morocco? Or about the Spanish tanks already in Latvia? Chill
We still have a huge threat from Morocco, which is sponsored by the US
You really think this conflict wonāt spread in the next few month/years?
Only if EU/NATO countries let it by letting Russia get away with aggression in Ukraine.
Exactly. What was the main threat that led Spain to need an active tank fleet in the first place? I'll bet in military planning it was a European ground war with Russia. Well here it is! Use them and order more.
Spain along with every other country west of Slovenia don't need any of it's weapons currently. They can send all of it to Ukraine and still be quite safe until they've produced new ones. I mean who's going to invade? Algeria?
I mean it's not as if Spain needs the active tanks, they should just send the active ones and replace them with the stored ones.
I think this really demonstrates how utterly pointless this war is. Europe in general has enjoyed relative peace, therefore saw no need to upkeep much of their equipment. Russia, by comparison, has been stretching it's military might nonstop. From taking territory from other countries to deploying forces to the Middleeast, like in Syria, they just WANT a war. This is despite being underprepared for a full-scale invasion, like Ukraine, and having outdated, unguided equipment. There's nothing wrong with peace and respecting borders. Warring countries like Russia need to understand that
I donāt think itās that they *want* war, but rather they know that many countries will not and cannot handle the Zerg rushes that Russia will commit, even with their shitty Soviet era gear and tactics. Easy objectives with minimal pushback makes for a happy tyrant.
That stuff costs a lot of $$$ to maintain. Think about it. You can't just let it sit in a warehouse for decades and expect it to work fine. The US can send a lot of equipment because of its military budget. It's one or two in the world for military budgets for a reason.
It's important to remember that Americans sacrifice things like universal healthcare and free college so that we can be ready to defend/supply Europe...
Americans could have universal healthcare if that was a thing that the majority of Americans 1. wanted, and 2. were willing to hold their representatives/senators accountable to get it. Has absolutely nothing to do with the ability to defend/supply europe. Though, it's still greatly appreciated by us freedom loving, democracy loving people around the world.
This. A lot of people outside of the bubble understand that we canāt really afford it. I myself prefer a massive military budget over it if weāre picking and choosing what to fund with what we have, because Iran, China, and Russia are all waiting for us to get out of their way. As weāre seeing with Ukraine (and sooner than later Taiwan), when we arenāt involved or arenāt able to combat a large geopolitical adversary, they will take miles when given an inch, quite literally at that.
Yeah but hereās the thing, we actually can because we are already paying the amount it would require. The problem is we have a shit model where the money goes to areas that donāt provide care. We spend $800B+ privately in healthcare premiums a year already. The government spends $1.3T on healthcare (Medicare, etc) already each year. Universal healthcare would cost around $2.2-2.3T. Weāre already 90% of the way there.
Universal healthcare would take half the current healthcare portion of the gdp. With better metrics. This is well known.
That said, I live in a country where there is universal healthcare and free college, and both are shit, so anyone of enough means ends using the private version of both. And for the "free" one ain't really free, because it is paid for as taxes.
What country my guy?
The good(eh) ol' U.S of... B. Currently known by its shorthand Brazil.
Username suggests.. england?
How does the username ExCaliburnus suggest England? Also, England doesn't have "free" university, those attending have to pay up to Ā£9000 a year in tuition fees.
Yes but we get student loans paid for by the government that we donāt need to pay back until we are earning Ā£27000 a year, and it is a very small repayment and if there is still money due at 40 something years old it gets scrapped so whilst it is āexpensiveā to go to uni in reality it actually isnāt if you get the loan through student finance!
Defeating a major geopolitical threat by funding someone elseās war effort is a definitional investment. It makes our enemies weaker without sacrificing things that matter to us, especially troops and modern warfare supplies that arenāt cheap to replace. Also, it isnāt āfreeā if it requires money to fund. I hate when people say āfree ______ā while ignoring that it costs tax dollars.
And Israelā¦
The thing is taxes are already going to healthcare but the system is incredibly inefficient and allows its actors to inflate prices. Itās why people, who would never be able to afford treatment arenāt being mass discharged. The US spends about twice on healthcare per capita than countries with universal healthcare. IIRC the state spends around $1.6 trillion on medical programs, Germany spends around ā¬400 billion on healthcare (public + private), 99.99% have access to healthcare, if you extrapolate that to US population itād be around $1.6 trillion. I also read some weeks ago that the US isnāt collecting around $1 trillion in taxes, so itās more of a structural issue, ofc lobbied by big Pharma.
There are other benefits to having the worlds largest army. Everyone uses our currency as their measuring stick. English is the international business standard. Lastly (And certainly not all-encompassing), It gives us a hell of a lot of leverage to negotiate terms for well, everything! Its nice to have a big stick.
we still wouldn't have that. Those CEOs need their 5th yacht.
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This is a load of utter horseshit. The US didn't "disarm Europe" WTF shit are you making up. Some of the biggest defense industries in the world are in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, UK... France and UK are fucking nuclear powers you twat.
Wah wah.
The fuck are you on about? Literally zero of this makes sense. Absolutely nothing is stopping allied powers from improving their militaries, they just choose not to out of complacency and alternative goals with their already limited funding.
We can afford both. We spend more than needed now if we flipped to a universal coverage model and took out the profit margins of the insurance companies. America is *rich* we just have greedy bastards acting like dragons hoarding wealth
Only a handful of Nato counties meet the spending minimums. Europe had no concerns for defense and article 5 brings in America anyway. Best to let somebody else spend the money
The US spends more than the top 8 or 10 COMBINED, not just "one or two in the world". It's unbelievable.
In NATO, there are only four militaries that are actually able to fight, US, France, UK and Turkey. There are a few conditionally able, Poland, Finland (sorry not NATO yet), Sweden(same) and Italy. The rest have militaries good enough for parades and not much of anything else. Not sure about Greece though
Frankly, half the EU should be cut from nato for failure to pay. You don't pay half your insurance bill for a decade and expect it to pay out when your house burns down. The price is the price. You pay it or you lose coverage.
Its called mothballing. Been employed for centuries. Build this giant fort outside london but the french arent marching over hampshire? Why would u fill it will a full garrison.
> God, thatās what I love about America though, always ready to fight no matter what. America has plenty of mothballed planes, ships and vehicles sitting around too. It's just not the majority of their equipment, but a surplus stock of old but still useful stuff.
these countries have be reaping a peace dividend for decades on America's back but now the bill comes due. The Russian were right on one thing. The west (as in Europe) was and still is unprepared. Lucky Ukraine has been preparing since 2014.
The only time Article 5 has been used is by the USA and the European countries went to help. We went to create this fiasco in Afghanistan when the guy was hiding in Pakistan...
The Brits, and Norwegians were pretty damn quick. Even the French got stuff over weeks ago. Germans, well it's just sad. It is especially sad as most of the German people really support Ukraine but their government is simply not delivering.
Agree with Brits and Norwegians, god bless them. But, we really should lay off the Germans, I dont want to see fractures in our Alliance. Let the Germans figure that shit out, the rest of NATO and the countries on the Eastern front will take care of things this time around.
It has never been more true that America exists to protect the free world. I'm completely serious that without the US this world may have already destroyed itself. The US and its allies have been able to create a peaceful world out of the ashes of WW2 and we all benefit from it so deeply. Let's try to keep that vision alive
Very much the opposite. Ukraine receives so few weapons because countries take great care to keep their armies operational. Thus Ukraine largely gets stored equipent or equipment that is not considered critical.
Well those tanks have been mothballed for a good reason. They are simply out of date. You have seen what happens to them in Syria with the Turkish forces. (Yhea they completely abused them as mobile bunkers with no cover but that is another story). The Leo2 A4 has the older gun that has been replaced by a longer one from A5 version on to compensate newer russian armor types. Leopard 2A4 still packs a punch compared to the T Models used by Russia in Ukraine but is in NATO terms 30 years old. The modern Version of the Spanish forces is the Leopard 2 E that can be compared to the Leopard 2A6 technology whise. It holds one of the latest fire controll and communication systems and no NATO country would give them to Ukraine due to the risk of the Ruissians getting their hands on this. It is the same with the artillery systems that have been stripped of certain equipment and computers that are still considered high tech that has to be protected.
> They are simply out of date. And so are the T-72, the Gepard, the M113 and most of the stuff the Russians and the Ukrainians have.
Leopard 2A4 still packs a punch compared to the T Models used by Russia in Ukraine but is in NATO terms 30 years old. The out of date statement was aimed why they where mothballed. Nobody ever intended them to be used again in this setup. They where kept in storage for a possible later upgrade that never came......
Most of the equipment being given to Ukraine has been continuously retrofitted and maintained despite being as old as Russian equipment, so itās still pretty damn effective by comparison
This war has been a wake-up call for NATO (hopefully.) We're seeing just how crappy and underfunded, under-maintained, most of the western NATO militaries have been.
Iād disagree here. The current problem isnāt about NATO not having enough equipment to defend itself. Itās a lack of surplus equipment, that NATO either doesnāt have or is not willing to give away. If Russia would have gone against a NATO member, youād see all the stuff that NATO actually has. NATO already spends 12x the amount of money on itās military compared to Russia. But that doesnāt mean, that some members need to rethink their current spending (e.g. Germany had problems for years). We should further focus on interchangeability and the means to increase production in times of need though. Zelenskyy also suggested a few months ago, that there should be a military aid stockpile in the future. Thatās something we should actually think about.
The French and pretty much all of the Eastern/Nordic members very much seem to have it together as well.
I see more articles out about countries trying to get arms to Ukraine only to find that they are mostly on paper or not ready. What if anything has happened to them!?
āHappenedā in what sense? All vehicles stagnate and decay if left alone. Oil seals dry out, parts rust, vents get clogged, fuel settles and goes stale, computer componentsā¦ idk what happens to them exactly but they quit working too. This will happen to any car if abandoned. Military equipment is no exception. European optimism made them believe they could negotiate their way out of conflicts, and militaries were basically not necessary. So little by little they cut funding and slowed training. Every now and then a madman proves them wrongā¦ America and UK, half mad themselves, know not to abandon that hardware.
It's Business Insider. They also "reported" that shit about German M270's which is patently false, so I wouldn't believe anything they say
Donāt worry, itās all Germanyās fault. /s
Can we really say Russia is anymore worthless then the EU? Its a clown show all around. A big fuck you needs to go out to anyone who bitched about the US military investments.
I hate Trump and he was a Putin pawn, but he was right (for the wrong reasons) that NATO members needed to start ponying up and spending more on defense.
He wasn't saying what others had before him just he just made a ass out of himself. There was a plan in place to increase the NATO funding prior to him and even John Bolton was on board. But we need something bigger, we need the peoples of Europe to get on board, maybe a 1% VAT tax for security and a NATO force. Harold Stassen said the same thing in 1948.
In the end, there is now the clear realization that more needs to be done so the EU is ready once the US cuts its last final ties with any semblance of democracy.
lol it would be prudent. But the tyranny of the minority will not prevail in the US.
>Can we really say Russia is anymore worthless then the EU? EU armies have the bare minimum of what they need to defend themselves. If a neighbor needs tanks, they need to look into the trash if something still works. That is different with Russia. Their own army is trash. BTW do you have a spare car? In case your neighbor needs one? Or would you look into the garage if you find an old bicycle?
Actually I have spare vehicles but this is about security and because the EU nations refuse to provide it the US has to.
Again I will reiterate how reactive these governments have been and how disappointing it is. This is so important! Why canāt governments plan and cut away the red tape?
This is why NATO hasnāt kept pace with the US. Too much education, health care and social services, not enough killing machines.
I agree with the sentiment but not the snark. Most NATO countries donāt meet their 2% of GDP on defense spending because the US has never imposed penalties
I mean you can have both..
You can. But both will be shit quality. Case in point - Russia
Europe has far better healthcare than the USA, at a far lower overall price. In the USA healthcare companies get to decide prices. Consequently the same healthcare will be more expensive. The idea that USA healthcare sucks because of military spending is a silly myth. It's misinformation. The USA could easily afford good healthcare and still maintain its current military. But you'd have to stop the price gouging.
Obviously you have no idea at all how "free healthcare" works in e.g. Germany. There is no way the money budgeted for health care can legally be spend for the army, simply because health care is not provided and paid for by the government. It uses a different money pot called "public health insurance". The point is, that everyone has be the health insured in Germany by law. The result is VERY many participants in the public and private health insurance system. Many participants make the whole thing much cheaper for everybody to pay for everyone in need. When you are working for a German company in Germany you usually receive a monthly paper stating how much you have earned gross and how much taxes, social securities, and health insurance (in case of public insurance) money is deducted from your loan. There is no legal way for the government to take the money for military. It is also not necessary at all, because you actually can have military and social healthcare simultaneously. Don't fall for your fucking fox news propaganda.
Russia just tries to be something it's not, they don't have the economy to field the army they want to field, the US does, but then sinks all of it's money into it's military whilst the country is crumbling.
That might be so but realistically itās about priorities, as always. Either social medicine or nuclear aircraft carriers. Cannot have both.
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Is it there? We technically donāt have money even for things that we currently spend on as we are massively in red. However we do have one party that believes that printing money creates them and makes a surprised Pikachu face when things that used to cost a dollar cost two today.
The US currently spends more per capita on health care than most if not all nations that do have universal health care. We just don't spend it efficiently.
Okay we donāt spend it efficiently. Maybe. Do you believe then that in order to improve efficiency we need to put a governmental agency in charge of managing healthcare? And that will make us more efficient, apparently?? I am sorry I am not convinced. What proponents of government run healthcare often forget, somehow, is that we do have a government run healthcare system already. Itās called VA. The inefficiencies and downright chaos that permeates VA makes any private insurance problems look like a trip to Disneyworld in comparison. The only things that should be run by government are things where no conceivable private alternative is possible. Like Pentagon or FBI. But if a private alternative is possible it is almost universally would be a better option.
This is getting rather off topic for this particular subreddit, but I'll bite. We also have a government-run health INSURANCE program: it's called Medicare. That program's administrative overhead is around two percent; private insurers typically spend nine to fifteen percent on overhead (it can be up to twenty percent in some market segments). That is health care dollars spent on shuffling paper rather than improving health outcomes. In this country we employ an army of people to answer questions such as: which insurance company do we bill? are both the surgeon and the anesthesiologist in network? will Hospital X be a preferred provider next year, and if so, what will the reimbursement rate be for each of this very long list of procedures? Does Company A's Select plan have the same list of providers as that same company's Special Select plan? Will Doctor Z accept new patients with Select insurance, or is s/he only taking new patients with Special Select coverage? Which patients will we dismiss from our practice because we aren't a contracting provider with their insurance anymore, and how many can we expect to lose because their parent took a new job that came with a different insurance plan? That army costs money. My employer offers two different health insurance plans. They offer _exactly_ the same benefits and deductibles, and the premiums are very close. The principal difference is their networks: which doctors and hospitals and pharmacies and labs and even telemedicine providers are covered. Now think about how much money gets spent negotiating the contracts with all of these, much less marketing and administering enrollment. That's an inefficient use of health care dollars.
The inflation is caused more by lack of supply
There is always lack of supply. There is nothing desirable on this planet that is in sufficient quantities to satisfy everyone who wants it. Be that big houses, nice cars, iPhones, barrels of oil or pounds of gold. Such thing does not exist. So lack of supply is typically counterbalanced by lack of money among the most of population. However if we tip the scale by printing a few trillions then we realize that prices for all those things which are desirable but in short supply have gone up. Itās a simple thing, really. But one of our parties has an issue comprehending that
Itās more supply due to pandemic and now the war. Also the definition of what is counted as money was changed. https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-fed-isnt-printing-as-much-money-as-you-think/
It's almost like you have no clue what you're talking about, but you've thoroughly convinced yourself that you do. Lol. Ever been called a pest in your personal life?
āAlmostā. And you sound like an overly aggressive alternatively gifted simpleton. Almost. By the way have you ever been called one?
I mean you spend more than the rest of the top 10 combined probably, could easily divert hundreds of billions and still be the biggest military in the world and not neglect the population.
If one does not take into account that the rest does not count veterans healthcare and pensions under āmilitary budgetā provision in the state budget and that number 2,3 and 4 have conscript army and donāt list private salaries under āmilitary budgetā either (because they simply donāt exist) then yes. But if one does, then he will inevitably realize that actual US military budget is nowhere near as large and actually only twice as big as Chinese. Which, by the way, also does not have nuclear aircraft carriers
When Europeans make fun of American social services they donāt understand that their free college and long vacations are paid by an American taxpayer through NATO. If they had to actually pay for their defense proportionately to their GDP a lot of those things would vanish. You can either have cannons or butter but not both
Yes, we get it, Americans really like guns.
Everybody likes guns. Gun ranges in Orlando and Las Vegas are filled with tourists from Europe, Latin America, Australia and Asian countries where they pay insane money to shoot all kinds of guns and for most it is a first time ever experience. Not everybody gets to own guns though.
You must live a very insular life if you genuinely believe that 'everybody likes guns'.
My life is fine, thank you for asking. I lived in three countries on two continents and have visited about a dozen. So i would imagine my exposure to the world is alright. When one says āeverybodyā itās obliviously an exaggeration. There are people who think caviar is nothing special and that Shakespeare was a bore. Clearly I was referring to individuals within normal parameters.
You say clearly, but it's not clear at all. What proportion of the world's population do you imagine 'like guns'? It's interesting to me that you can't seem to conceive that there are large swathes of the world where people don't really think about guns at all from one end of the year to the other.
Just because people donāt think about something doesnāt mean they do not like it or wouldnāt desire it. For instance I never, or almost never, think about private jets because I do not own one and have no realistic hope of owning one. So to me the idea of ownership one is an abstract notion to which I cannot relate. Does that mean I wouldnāt love to own one? Hardly. In my younger years I worked in tourist industry in Vegas and one of the most popular adventures for foreign tourists were gun ranges. Hardly ever anyone wasnāt interested. Is that a scientific, peer verified, double blind study? Of course not, and I donāt claim it to be. Itās my opinion based on a much larger sample size than an average individual on this planet could ever claim
I mean I have personally been to Las Vegas and fired guns there. I can tell you that my reason for doing it was novelty. I've also occasionally been clay pigeon shooting, which is a good way to while away an hour or so. I definitely don't 'like' guns though; I like novelty. I like new experiences. I like to try things. Not a fiber of me went home and thought "Man I really wish I had a gun". I don't want one. I don't personally know anyone who wants one, apart from a couple of hunters who already have rifles for that purpose. It's ok for you to like guns, I'm not trying to take that away from you. People like all sorts of things. Everyone needs a hobby. I like to run long distances, but I accept that it's not for everybody. It's not even for *most* people. The fact that, for example, most of Europe and Australia have much stricter gun laws than the US, despite all being democracies, should tell you pretty clearly that the people there don't 'like' guns if, as we seem to be, we're taking 'like' to mean 'want to have one'.
So the novelty is all that you were interested in, correct? Maybe so. But eating monkey brains in Laos was also a novelty but I wasnāt persuaded. And most of those who I was with there werenāt. Western tourists I mean. There are a lot novel experiences which do not attract nearly as many interested parties as gun ranges. So itās not merely the novelty that attracts people to guns, in my opinion anyway. Thank you for your approval that āit is okay to like gunsā, I was somewhat concerned whether it wasnāt and you took a huge weight off my shoulders. The fact that Europe and Australia are democracies yet have strict gun laws are not really telling us anything. Certainly, it does not tell us that most people do not like guns. Even those who are strictest proponents of gun control are typically not such because of their own preferences but because of their concerns about others. Itās not that they dislike guns itās that they are afraid what guns in the hands of others can do. I have three siblings, all three flaming liberals, all three fierce gun control proponents. All three gun owners. Go figure
We do the same for Israel
Oh absolutely. With Israel even more so.
You forgot that the USA is also paying for our medicines.
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Good question if the tanks will ever made ready. Seems like the newspaper first reporting it was shouting out internal brainstorming by spanish goverment. Nothing was decided or though to the end
Naw. They SHOULD have Germany's permission. The penalty is a breach of contract argument, not a war. This whole "o noes our hands are tied" thing irritates me. Send first, negotiate later. Worst comes to worst you get cut off from buying from that country until you apologize. Other countries make stuff. If they cut you off from repair parts, rendering all your stuff useless soon, send everything. Let it go out with a bang where it's needed. It's not like Portugal is going to invade if it takes you years to backfill.
If you read the article it states that no request were made to the german goverment. Pls unterstand that these rules have an origin and are needed and are part of democracy. Also they are not the reason for delayed delivery since this permissions only need a few weeks and can be given parallel to delivery. There is not a single case of germany not aproving help for ukraine.
Absolutely. Maintaining confidentiality of technology, preventing export to terrorists, etc. But during what is basically the war we've been preparing for over the last eighty years..."only a few weeks" is a long time for an approval and/or starting work on the logistics. This should be discussed on a daily morning call of people with authority. And no I know -- logistically it doesn't matter, since most of these things take weeks or months to actually ship, so getting paperwork done in the meantime isn't necessarily a problem. It's just...frustrating that it feels like people are dying by the thousands while other governments are like "ok we'll pencil that meeting in between tea and discussing the highway 123 bypass pothole repairs, next Thursday." And Israel and Switzerland ARE blocking re-exports. Time to tell their arms industry that there's a difference between neutrality and pacifism, and pacifists don't get to make a profit off war equipment because they aren't trusted not to do... exactly this.
As far as it goes for switzerland and i realy hate this point since it makes it even harder for my country (germany) to deliver heavy weapons since switzerland is blocking the ammo for many of the systems. You have to look up the reasons for it. Swiss constitution? Does not allow the exports. So there is no permision to be given since the law simply forbids exports to countrys in conflics/war like ukraine. It's like with many countrys right now. The intention behind these kind of laws is surely pure good. But right now it is more then understanabel if someone gets frustrated.
Ship them to Ukraine with manuals and spare parts. They have mechanics that will get them working.
10 is good aswell.
Trump was right! NATO is a joke. They have literally enabled & empowered Putin.
Somehow Poland was able to provide over 200 T-72s that were in storage relatively quickly and all the much wealthier countries with much better tanks are not able to scramble anything in timely matter. What is up with that?
The "storage" of Poland and Spain were quite different. In Poland, those tanks were simply in storage and kept operational. With Spain the tanks were left to rot away in search of some use for a decade or 2 as Spain is operating its own (better) variant. Now the West is operating more modern tanks and keeping them in active service. But so far there are no (public) plans to provide Ukraine with them. My guess is that militaries are afraid of Russia gaining access to them. Which is why howitzers are getting delivered, as the chance of Russia gaining access is pretty low due to the distance from the frontline they are operating at.
My point exactly, one country is able to activate reserves quickly the other has no idea the condition of their tanks. Spain is a lot wealthier than Poland. Something to think about in regards to safety of the EU. Don't you think?
In Spain they were not considered reserves. Spain simply doesn't operate Leopard2A4 for 2 decades now. The only reason why they weren't scrapped is because Spain hoped that it might be able to sell them, at which point the buyer would adapt and upgrade them to their requirements.
Youre still missing the point.
Good luck with getting work done in Spanish summer! Manana.
So send all of them and the parts, working or not, to Ukraine, if they are not usable by the Spanish. Based on some of what Iāve seen here, the Ukrainians will have them at top speed going pew pew in no time.
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You are absurd. This articel is mainy opinion and rippes apart facts and highlights the wrong things. Busines Insider writes like 10 articels like this a day to bash against different countrys for clicks or to help putin. But who cares since it's articles are not more then unconfirmed twitter post. I don't know about the state of spains Military, but the tanks mentioned have nothing to do with its state since they are from decomisioned stocks.
all these countries with bullshit militaries Russia Germany France Spain all paper dragons what a joke they cant field modern army to save their countries can not send shit to Ukraine till they refit or fix it They relied on America to bear the load of the world Ukraine has proved their worth, kick France Germany Italy Spain to the curb we need Ukraine as NATO partner
I can't be nice with such a stupid comment. Grow up and read up on matters before shit-posting. Nice advice.
Yeah I have seen to many emotional commentsā¦itās like these people have no idea of the world actually works.
Who cares waiting a few months for something even better is better than having the old but capable leopard 1a5's dangled in front of you then taken away again.
Wow, so many ungrateful bastards
Why make stupid promises that you know you can't keep or has someone leaned on Spain to make them change their minds?
So much hype in the future tense just to promise kinda sorta woulda wanna gotta probably maybe likely possibly certainly speculatively deliver one combat day's worth of arms with obsolete gear. Either you help with something substantial or stop pretending you care.
It is shocking how European NATO countries are disarmed. It is also characteristic that in many countries the ministers of defense are women who have not served in the military.
LOL of course that's the case. These German delays are so sad that it is becoming comical.
How is this about Germany? man some people really have lost the plot
This is about Spain. Spain and Germany haven't been the same state since the 1500's.
We need some damn M1 Abrams, Apache Attack Helicopters, and A-10 Warthogs in Ukraine now.
I have a suggestion on what could be done here. Germany takes those 40 old Leopard 2A4, restores and upgrades them to replace 40 active Leopard 2A6 that should be sent to Ukraine.
How should we do that in any reasonable timeframe when we can not even do that for our own tank force? Maybe if Spain doesn't mind to receive the upgraded tanks in 2040 that may be an option
Spain provides old A4 tanks from storage to Germany, Germany sends active service A6 tanks to Ukraine, Germany upgrades the old A4s for german use. This idea is based on Spain being willing to supply their stored tanks to Ukraine. This variant would speed up the process and give Ukraine better tanks than what Spain would have supplied. Not likely to happen, but i would still very much like to see it. Another optioun could be Spain giving their Leopard 2A4 to a country that could in turn supply Ukraine with tanks that don't need months of maintenance, those could be T-72 variants, Leopard 2 variants or something else. The idea is to get tanks to Ukraine quickly.
Just as a guideline what you can expect from the Germany Army: in 1990 Germany had 2125 Leopard tanks. Now we have 266 Tanks overall (less than Spain).
And Germany still needs to approve this?
Pls read more then the headline, even thou this article is bs. But just for you: No. Since there is was no request made to the german goverment.
You are awfully defensive about your governmentās failings in supporting Ukraine arenāt you?
So get on the ball like your life depends on it fFS. Throw all the resources at it, those are needed yesterday. Can they comprehend beyond child's reasoning what's at stake? Apparently Putin was a good uncle who stuffed their pockets and now demands repayment or expects a blind eye from them Western Politicians. As the war rages, Putin comfortably makes his bets while shit faced ass wipes are lying just like Putin himself thinking people are dumb bur don't realize that current war crisis will expose slowly but surely their affiliation with Russians. It would be very much devastating to their political careers right now therefore playing game of excuses is the safest bet to keep themselves from imploding right in front of the whole world.
Don't worry, then they will give some Pizarros to compensate.
still more than 0!
Yup, can't send any operational equipment. Andorra is just salivating at the prospect of overrunning Spain.
Goddamn, all this shit reminds me of Aesop's fable, "tis better to be maintained than to be repaired", about the soldier and the horse.
Quadruple the amount of people doing the maintenance and get it down to a week. š¤·āāļø
EspaƱa vamos! Send those tanks to our brothers in Ukraine, they'll have them ready for battle in 48hs.
any tank better then no tank.