[trabant00]

As long as the war in Ukraine lasts I don't think we are going to see any improvement. A lot of money is going there and so the value of the money remaining for investing, development, spending, is diminished.

As for the war I initially guessed 3-5 years, now I'm guessing 10. So I'm quite pessimistic about the near future.

[marcinzm]

The US sent something like $100 billion to Ukraine last year which comes out to a grand total of 1.5% of the US budget and 0.4% of the US GDP. Large in absolute terms but not relative terms.

That is also about how much the US spent on Afghanistan per year and that was sustained for over 20 years.

[lesuorac]

I mean typically the US doesn't airmail dollars to the warzones.

Typically it's a numerical value for the goods & services provided. This means the USG is paying Americans to do stuff for Ukraine which increases demand for US stuff which helps the US economy.

[badpun]

> I mean typically the US doesn't airmail dollars to the warzones.

A significant portion of the help wasn't dollars, but obsolete weapons and ammo from the army's stockpiles, that US gave Ukraine instead of basically disposing of it locally.

[maerF0x0]

Except that it's $100Bn more "printed" and against a high interest backdrop.

The fed had to create that $100Bn to loan it to the US govt. The US government has to pay going interest rates for debt.

It's a very very expensive choice for something that is not our war.

It's something like $1200 per tax payer[1]. I do not support us funding Ukraine's war to the tune of $1200, personally.

[1] - https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income... ~50% of people even work, and 99% of the taxes paid are by the top 50% of earners. ~350M ppl in US --> $100Bn / (350M ppl * 50% work * 50% pay) ~= $1200

[marcinzm]

And all that matters to the discussion how? We're talking about the long term economic impact on the US of supporting this war. By your own math each tax payer already pays $75k/year to support the federal budget. An extra 1.5% isn't going to destroy or slow down the economy even if it's literally burned. And as others have pointed out that 1.5% will mostly go back into the US economy so it's an upper bound on the impact.

Fun fact is that the US made something like $4billion/month last year from gas exports to the EU. Significantly more than previously due to increased demand and increased prices caused by the ongoing Ukraine war. That alone covers half the cost of the aid provided last year. I suspect if you count everything the US aid to Ukraine has already been a net positive for the US economy in terms of ROI.

[cmrdporcupine]

In cold hard political-economic terms this war will pay off for the US far more than the Afghan or Iraq wars did. It's dark and imperialistic, but a weakened Russia is a stronger US. They're an economic competitor (petroleum exporter) of both the US and many of its G7 partners, as well as a geo-political rival and competitor for control of post-colonial markets. That was made clear by their (Russian) interventions in Syria, especially. US elites are expecting to see a payoff from funding a war in Ukraine by weakening Russia.

And at the same time European elites are clearly rattled and threatened by a war on their borders, so are seeking enhanced security. And I'm sure quite tempted by the prospects of integrating Ukraine's (cheap) labour force and agriculture exports into the European market & trade area.

[lisasays]

Fun chart. Let's take your math up a notch, shall we?

Because you know - the share of taxes paid also has a distribution within the upper 50 percent. Using that fun table you posted, let's see how 100b splits across the following 3 segments:

  Top 5%     - [95,100)  62 billion
  Upper 45   - [50,95)   35 billion 
  Bottom 50: - [0,50)     3 billion

If you're in the top 5% - screw you, I don't want to hear your whining about having to pay your fair share to support matters of this nature.

If you're in the upper 45 - I can see how $1200 would start to hurt. But that's not what the math says. Which is that there are 157.5m of you pooling together for a 35b share of the tab. Which comes out to $222.22 per head.

Is that what you're so indignant about?

[obscurette]

As someone living nearby and having relatives in Russia ... I don't see a way Russia is able to fight years. They just don't have resources for that. The war in Donbas since 2014 was a tiny and very different one compared to the war since 2022.

This doesn't mean that Ukraine will stop to get resources from West if war is over though. Ukraine needs a lot of help years and even decades after the war is over.

[cmrdporcupine]

As long as the political-economic strategic situation remains the same, the west as a whole has intrinsic interest in making sure Russia does not succeed in taking territory from Ukraine and forcing it to submit back into Russia's economic control.

The question is how long Ukrainian morale holds up and how long they can keep recruiting and training troops.

Also Turkey's recent moves don't bode well for Putin's regime. It's clearly asserting itself as the power in the Black Sea and likely soon in and around Syria and the Caucasus as well, attempting to displace Russian power in the regions where it has been dominant. It's likely we will soon see Turkish navy escorting Ukrainian grain out of the Black Sea without Russia's agreement or cooperation. Whatever Erdogan and Zelensky discussed in private last week, it's culminated in some significant shifts that are very negative for both Putin and Assad.

[marcinzm]

The US economy alone is over 10x that of Russia. The US can fairly easily send enough military aid to Ukraine that matching it would eat more than all of Russia's yearly GDP growth. In other words they'd slowly strange Russia's economy over time. And it'd cost the US about as much as they spent on Afghanistan pet year and that was sustained for over two decades.

[lesuorac]

Russia has enough foreign reserves [1] to fight for decades [2]. An unfortunate fact but if they're willing to fight until they run out of money its going to be a while.

[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1188294/monthly-foreign-....

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_budget_of_Russia#2020-...

[grumple]

600 billion in reserves, much of which they probably can't spend due to sanctions. 84 billion military budget. Sanctions have supposedly frozen about half of their reserves [0]. I expect the situation will continue to worsen for Russia though, in terms of revenues, expenditures, sanctions, and money going missing due to corruption.

0. https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-crisis-russia-reserv...

[obscurette]

Ta all replys above – although economics matter, it doesn't matter too much. It's about people – Russia is already running out of people who are willing to die in Ukraine. I can't see it to last years.

[badpun]

I don't think it matters that much if they're willing. They'll be motivated by NKVD-style second line troops which shoot all deserters.

[obscurette]

I don't it's 1942 any more. Or even 1978. While it's possible to attempt it, it's not possible to frighten whole country any more. And even more importantly – it doesn't matter in which line you are in this war.

[epolanski]

> They just don't have resources for that.

They have more than Ukraine which is entirely dependent on foreign aid and that's what matters.

[cmrdporcupine]

As I said above, the current US regime at least has an economic interest in throttling the current Russian regime's economic and political prospects.

Remember the US these days is an energy exporter. Russia is a competitor in this market. The intensification of hostilities with Russia in the 2010s coincide with the US switching from a net importer of energy to one that is beginning to export more than it uses: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2019.01.29/main.png

But more importantly, Russia is a rival in control of the middle east and Africa as well.

And bonus for the G7 as well if the US and Canada (whose energy companies are on the whole dominated by US capital anyways) can get a significant market for liquified natural gas and other export energy products into Europe now that the trade relationship with Russia is disrupted.

It is a bit unclear how a Republican administration would behave if it replaced Biden's. It depends a lot on which sector has the ear/control of the president at that point. Trump's administration seemed to be tangled up in the Russian energy sector in a way that made it conflicted (e.g. Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, etc.)

It's all a bit cynical. But at the same time, Ukraine also needs to be defended on principle from an aggressive neighbour.

[cmrdporcupine]

If the war does continue in the long run and the west remains committed to it (which means commitment from the next US presidential administration, too) then it will heighten and spread (scary) and there will end up being significant economic restructuring -- a real reworking of industrial capacity to support arms manufacturing -- and all bets are off on what the tech investment scene will look like.

I have no doubt that the collective west can easily bury Russia in terms of an arms industry economy (it's done it before), but this is a major retooling.

Time to learn to start writing software for drones/UAVs?

[iammjm]

At the current attrition rates on both sides i can't imagine this was going on for 10 years. Then again i don't know your definition of "war"

[cmrdporcupine]

This war has been going on in some form since 2014, when Russian troops first initiated hostilities in the Donbas. Even if this very active phase ends and the bulk of mobilized troops pull back from the front, as long as the Russian regime stays the same or similar I expect we'll see continued shelling and engagement along the border, and cruise missile attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets for years.

There's too much cost to the current Russian regime in letting a Ukraine that is not a direct client of theirs succeed and potentially thrive. It would have a domino effect and the Russian federation could disintegrate or at least the ruling elites there lose control and privilege. It does not matter to them if Russian quality of life suffers as long as Ukraine suffers more.

[rcarr]

I reckon the war will continue, even if it’s massively scaled back, until Putin is either deposed or dies. When that happens, whoever takes over will end it and will lay all the blame on Putin. The Western governments and media will be happy to go along with this because it means Russia as a country is allowed to save face and everyone can scapegoat it on the madness of one tyrant. If that’s the case there’s probably at least another ten years to go, but I think it will be a massively scaled back affair of token skirmishes along the front line. I’d say it will probably start getting to this point some point after Ukraine finally get fighter jets.

I could be massively wrong though, there’s all kinds of different scenarios. Ukraine might be able to win entirely once they’ve got jets. Things might kick off elsewhere in the world e.g Taiwan. There could be some calamity at one of the nuclear power plants etc. There’s any number of black swans that could influence events.

[cmrdporcupine]

If the Russian people have been told constantly (and apparently believe) for the last 10-15 years that Donbas & Crimea is Russian and that Russian speakers are being brutally oppressed and its the Russian Federations "historic mission" to unite all Russians and/or defend them... do you really think that they'll just be like "ok, let's withdraw and go home peace is nice" ? Esp once revenge/reprisal actions against Russian collaborators happen in territories that Ukraine liberates?

The Wagner incident a couple weeks ago seems to show there's no alternative to the Putin regime that isn't worse. Prigozhin got on the blowhorn and talked about the action in Ukraine in very negative terms, but mainly he seemed to want to execute it more efficiently (and probably brutally), he never truly questioned the underlying rationale of it.

Ethno-Nationalism is one hell of a drug, it's omnipresent in that region, and it seems like even the "opposition" in Russia is hyper nationalist. Worse, a defeated Russia has extremely poor economic prospects. In many ways they have "nothing to lose" by just grinding on and on.

There doesn't seem to be a real opposition in Russia that isn't ideologically bought into a pro-war position.

[rcarr]

> Prigozhin got on the blowhorn and talked about the action in Ukraine in very negative terms, but mainly he seemed to want to execute it more efficiently (and probably brutally), he never truly questioned the underlying rationale of it.

Yes, because Wagner are mercenaries. They don't give a flying fuck about politics, they're there to do a job and get paid.

The actual Russian Army has literally resorted to conscripting randomers and criminals to try and boost troop numbers - I'm not convinced many on the Russian side of the front line are there for ideological reasons. From what I've read, the people who believe in the Kremlin line are basically the Russian boomers and older who are going to die off in substantial numbers over the next decade. And Russia is probably going to get substantially poorer over the next decade as the world accelerates the transition over to green energy and the brain drain continues to neighbouring countries.

Once Putin is dead, the head of the snake is cut off and there'll be a period of chaos where all the potential successors start playing their hands to try and seize power. Once someone seizes the mantle, they'll have a much easier time of things if they're focussed on consolidating power internally rather than trying to do that and simultaneously manage a war, so I reckon it will be called off pretty quickly.