In keeping with the West's stellar record of supporting Ukraine, they provided 0 all during the time when it would have been crucial, and now they're handing them over and standing around waiting for applause, at the point when what Ukraine needs is totally different.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nobody else is offering fighter (or multi-role combat jets), but if they were, Ukraine would be better off with those. I wouldn't trust that the US government won't just shut them off at some point, in the sky or not. I also have no doubt that our government has the capability to do so; I find out completely unlikely that someone, at some point, didn't ask, "what of this falls into the wrong hands and is used against us?"

The planes are enormously expensive, though, and it would be foolish to not use them. It's just a devil's bargain.

It is... hmmm... uncharitable to complain about the US not giving jets to Ukraine earlier, when the EU has a perfectly good multi-role fighter in the Typhoon that it any number of countries could have offered to Ukraine. Except the standard response has been "it would be too expensive." It's not fucking cheap for the US to hand out F16s, either.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah. F-16s are fourth generation fighters, they were first made in the mid-70s. I think at this point they're partly just sending them so they don't have to keep maintaining the things. They are expensive on paper but I'm not convinced that there is any other use to which they ever could be put that would be better than putting them in Ukraine and having them spend time fucking up some Russian air assets before they're completely obsolete.

They would, also, have been super useful back in the early days when Russia was fucking up the whole country in a conventional 20th century air-supported invasion. I won't say they don't still have an important role to play, I don't really know, but it's clear that at this point the meta has moved on into a 21st century war. I don't think Russia is doing big conventional air attacks anymore (probably because they lost a bunch of important stuff to defenses that were not fighters once Ukraine got its air defense up and working), and I'm not sure what F-16s are going to do against a grinding land advance or a drone bombardment which are the two problems Ukraine chiefly faces currently. I'm not an expert but that's my take on it.

I think a lot of the F-16s they've been getting are from European countries. I'm talking about the whole West's support of Ukraine here, not singling out the US specifically, although the US has also been part of that whole lazy complacency bordering on active betrayal in how reliable they've been providing kit for Ukraine to use to defend themselves.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I don't disagree that the US should have been more aggressive and generous in its support of Ukraine. The Biden administration was a disappointment in many ways.

I also think countries like Poland have done much more, comparatively. I'm an atheist, but I think the Christian bible story is appropriate, in which Jesus admonishes the rich man for his donation as being lesser than the poor woman's paltry donation, because it cost her more to give what she had than it did the rich man to give his. Regardless, we all in the West could have done more.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 1 week ago

Yeah. The technology and intelligence support from the US has been pretty crucial, but if you look just in terms of total money spent on defending Ukraine, it's something like 50% from Ukraine, 25% from Europe, and 25% from the US. The US likes to pretend it is 1% / 9% / 90% just because that is our mentality (and because that's what it should look like, given the military budgets available for the countries involved), but it's not accurate.