US weapons exports up 50 percent in 2023 as Washington challenges Russia, China. “The Russian defense industry is failing and continues to fail,” said a top State Department official.

5 comments

1. Which is why we should be taking full advantage of Ukraine’s desire to use our stuff to further degrade and destroy ruZZias offensive capability.

   What are we? Stupid?

2. Why they want any new deal DOA now. Russia knows that any package from the US in any form right now along with ones from Europe. Is the end for them, they are seriously on their last legs.

3. But it has yet to crumble

4. The more stuff that the US gives to Ukraine, the more stuff other nations will buy from them…

5. *edit: I started out about arms packages and ended up in an obscure corner of recent American history, the politics of this war are really convoluted.* Anyway:

   Biden: “Let me help our allies & friends”

   MAGA: “Nah, fam”

   MAGA: “Let’s play the [trolley question](https://image.winudf.com/v2/image1/Y29tLmNvbXBhbnluYW1lLlRyb2xsZXlfc2NyZWVuXzBfMTU1MTc5MzA3Nl8wOTU/screen-0.jpg?h=710&fakeurl=1&type=.jpg) game, do you know what the trolley game is?”

   Biden: “N… tell you what…let’s play ‘poker’ instead”

   MAGA: “No not like that!

   Biden: “It would be too bad if some of our allies accidentally ended up with way more military stores and had to get rid of some”

   Also Biden: “It would be too bad if I offered more money, personnel, and authority for the border agents to do their job”

   MAGA: “Fine, armed standoff at the border it is”

   ​

   And yes, an armed standoff in Texas is a *very* real possibility right now. Without going into the history of these (which goes back a *long* way and can be pretty complex) there is a tiny but very active far-right element in the country with a history of armed violence against federal efforts/agents. They use the words “The Constitution!”^(TM) a lot but when you make an inquiry it becomes clear they either have never read it (much less considered legal questions related to it), or that they’ve read a very different Constitution than the rest of us.

   But I digress, we’ve had several standoffs in the last 30 years (*not* including January 6 which is related but not the same thing) and these usually take *weeks* to resolve. Most end without shooting but there have been deaths, these sometimes get messy. And this has all the makings of another one –

   * many of the same characters are making statements and positioning both with words & geography,
   * Trump is encouraging other states to send people to join the Texas guard the governor already has on the ground, far-right politicians are throwing around incendiary rhetoric,
   * A lot of who are sometimes called “Meal Team 6” or “Gravy Seals” are posting pictures of themselves dressed for a gun battle with words like “On my way to Texas!” or “Truck loaded, can head to Texas!” *(note: this is a pun on Seal Team Six, who are a team of Navy Seals…I’ll let you figure out the pun from there)*

   Trump was a candidate during the last major standoff back in 2016, but it was early enough in the campaign period that he didn’t have the weight he has now. And I mean metaphorical weight, his physical status hasn’t changed much. Anyway, that standoff took five weeks to resolve. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_National_Wildlife_Refuge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Malheur_National_Wildlife_Refuge)

   Many in that incident were also involved in another one two years earlier that very nearly ended in a shootout (the Feds backed out in that one, and spent the next months/years arresting the main actors one by one). There have been others…and this is shaping up to be another one. Not everyone from that one will jump into this one as motivations vary between the groups, and some from January 6 may jump in, too. A lot of the organizers and violent actors for J6 have been arrested and sentenced, but some are still on the lam and could well show up here.