Army Bob: We must continue our support for Ukraine

by Robert M. Traxler

Watch conservative media, the very small percent of media that is conservative, and you will see many are against giving the Ukraine military aid.

The argument is that Ukraine is a corrupt nation and that some of the aid, military, and humanitarian, will be stolen by corrupt officials. No debate on that, it is a fact. However, if we bottom line the war between the Russian Federation and the Government of Ukraine, the undeniable fact is that the Ukrainian forces are killing Russians, estimates go as high as 10,000 with twice that number wounded. They are killing Russians in very large numbers; Russia is losing soldiers, tanks, and vehicles at a rate they cannot replace.

The Russians invaded and occupied portions of the nation of Georgia and we did nothing, greenlighting them to invade Ukraine. The first time they occupied the Crimea, the world did nothing, greenlighting them to invade the Donbas Regions of Ukraine. However, this time Ukraine had a president who fought back.

History teaches us that socialist nations like Nazi Germany, Nicaragua, the Russian Federation and others invade neighbors to expand the glorious revolution. Had the Nazis not allied with the Union Soviet Socialist Republics in invading Poland while the Poles were counterattacking the Germans, opening a second front, it may have ended World War II before it started, defeating the Germans.    

Let’s look at what Russia will get from conquering Ukraine. There are 43.81 million people, an industrial base that will increase Russian manufacturing by 30% giving them the ability to increase military production. There is an agricultural capacity to feed 10% of the world in addition to what the Russians produce, totaling 36% of the world’s wheat. Food and fuel are power, and the Russians would be a vastly more powerful nation, especially in the third world — rare earth metals worth 3 to 12 trillion dollars, large natural gas reserves and the hard currency it brings to name a few.

The Russians conquering Ukraine will make them in a very short time the most powerful nation in Europe once again. As Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has stated, he intends to rebuild the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics back to its Cold War glories. We as a nation cannot afford a standing military of some 3.5 million like we did during the Cold War.

The argument is made by those who do not want to support the Ukraine that we are destroying our own strategic reserves of munitions and equipment. In the short run it is a valid argument; however, most of the 10 classes of supplies and equipment we are providing Ukraine are older, and will be replaced with up-to-date munitions and equipment that are more reliable.

Even a quick reading of the history of WW II tells us that the Nazis gained a huge amount of strategic advantage when they “annexed” Czechoslovakia before the war; with its tank production and munitions production capabilities along with its energy and agricultural excesses it vastly increased Adolf Hitler’s war machine. Ukraine could be President Putin’s Czechoslovakia. 

The Russian tactics going back thousands of years call for massing artillery and armor for a sustained offensive action; using their military as a blunt force object, they attack with massive losses but overwhelm their enemy’s defenses with sustained artillery, numbers and combined arms attacks. The Ukraine would be well advised to use offensive action before the Krasnaya Armiya, the Russian Army, can mass its strength.

I do strongly disagree with many of my conservative friends. We should do more to support the Ukrainian forces, we cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. The government of Ukraine is not perfect, but we can stop the birth of a new cold war by helping stop the new rise of soviet-style socialism in Europe.

My opinion.