Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that President
Trump’s idea for a deal among US, China, and Russia to scale back
military and in particular weapons spending in favor of more productive
uses “deserves attention and high regard.“
Peskov says Russia broadly favors discussion of any calls for disarmament.
Trump made the suggestion Thursday during a meeting with China’s Vice
PM Liu He. Liu said that the idea had merit and warranted further
discussion.
Russia has the least to lose from such a proposal, as their military
spending is already far lower than China, and less than 10% that of the
United States. Their inclusion at all seems to be a nod to historical
spending, as Russia’s military spending is small compared to the others,
and already planned to decline going forward.
Trump’s proposal could be a big break for the US budget, which has been
struggling with soaring military spending for years, and between the
three nations, nearly a trillion dollars in annual spending is up for
discussion, with the idea to replace spending it on military with
virtually anything else.
Then DoD emailed Bolton and afterwords Trump changed his mind again.
Too bad Trump isn’t serious about this or anything. Don’t the Russians know that you can’t take Trump literally, except when you can.
Anyway, all he’d do is plow the savings into yet another tax cut for the extremely wealthy, because trickle down works.
Interesting to see how it plays out. The US has massively increased spending the last 2 years, while Russia has decreased theirs. Trump seems to be playing the old retail schtick where you raise prices for a couple weeks, then take it back where it was and call it a “sale”. Sure, Putin won’t figure that out.
It’s really just a ploy to justify MORE SPENDING because after Russia refuses to reduce their paltry budget, Trump can say he “tried”, but they rejected, so now we “HAVE TO” spend a trillion every year.
Ya, hard not to expect a bad outcome.
I am lost. Are we talking literally the dollar amounts or military capabilities? Rusdia has merely taken the money from military, to boost space projects. Remember, Rogozin supervised military procurement, and following the completion of the new technologies, he moved on to the space agency. China and Russia share scientific work, and are eliminating duplications. There is very little discussion on issues of military technologies, and how are we either going to bridge the gap or have countermeasures.
What has money got to do with results? The way we do procurement, even ten times more would not be enough. Privatizing NASA has proven to be a failure. Proven. Neither contractor produced replacement for Russia’s heavy duty rocket engine, RD-180. Every time US uses the heaviest rocket, Atlas V, it must piwer it with Russian engine. Also, since shuttle was grounded, US has not sent a single astronaut to space station using its own space vehicle. There are two companies with a vehicle getting ready — Space X and Boeing. They are both delayed, and two additional seats were purchased on Soyuz. The unmanned version of Space X Crew Dragon has been tested for docking. This is an important step — sure. But it may have escaped our attention that Russian Soyuz has been ferrying up crew to and from the Space station for years? And taking supplies to the Station , and trash back to earth? And even when a manned launch malfunctioned, the decoupling of crew capsule and the rocket brought crew down to Earth unharmed. Russia is getting ready to place orbiting station to Moon, to facilitate landings to/from Moon. Modifications to Soyuz is in works.
We are also behind in nuclear technology for civilian uses. Trump is talking about nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia? We have not build a nuclear power plant since seventies! And just added one additional reactor to an existing plant. Russia has put in operation floating power plant, with ten more planned. Russia has built many piwer plants in China, and now they are working jointly on a new generation technology plant in China. Russia is maintaining many power plants in Eastern Europe, build one in Iran, building another in Turkey and starting one in Egypt. Saudis are looking into one fir desalinization plant. These are just samples off technological challenge we face. Nothing symbolizes more the decline of our corporate culture then the Boeing tragedy.
And while we are decrying Huawei 5-G network hardware, our premier network company, Cisco, is not capable of producing it. Its current 4-G hardware CISCO is manufacturing in — China, Romania, Germany and Canada. Huawei certainly did not steal 5-G hardware and software from us. We can buy from Erricson (Sweden) and Nokia (Finland) the necessaty hardware for limited rollout of 5-G
The Brass isn’t going to like this idea.
Neither will Trump. Give him a week and he’ll be talking about our space force again.
Kind of like the three biggest meat eating Dinosaurs agreeing to not eat each other but the rest of the swamp creatures beware.
Russia’s spending may be 10% of the US, but its nuclear arsenal is larger, and its weapons stockpiles are huge, and its technology is good enough to improve China in things like jet engines and aircraft design and ship design. US nuclear subs may be better, but theirs are still good, and their conventional subs are extraordinary. Their space program is also very advanced, and for example provides the rides to the US to the space station.
Underestimating a rival is a serious error.
Don’t think anyone is underestimating Russia. The US probably spent 10s of millions on combating Iraqi “donkey rocket launchers”. Numbers of warheads is not important per se…10 hydrogen bombs in any 3 of these countries, ends them as a nation.
“Trump’s proposal could be a big break for the US budget, which has been struggling with soaring military spending for years, and between the three nations, nearly a trillion dollars”
Right, and between the three nations, which one spends, by far, the biggest piece of that trillion dollar pie?
Soon, it will be time for the other shoe to hit the floor. Trump’s trillion dollar tax cut for the rich has resulted in a trillion dollar hole in the budget. How will the budget be balanced – reinstate the taxes; cut the military; or take it out of Granny’s hide by cutting Social Security benefits? We all know which is the easiest path for Congress, both neo-feudalist Republican and the neo-liberal Clinton Democrats – bend over, Old Dear. It will lead to Revolution and socialism, It will be folly, but greed is a master that will not be denied.
Have Social Security benefits ever been cut?
Mr. Knapp, I don’t know – I do know that the Social Security Trust Fund has been raided for about 2.6 Trillion $ – to pay for General Fund obligations that should have been met by tax increases. So we do have that precedent.
And as Mr. Heymann notes, the working class is unorganized and leaderless. This would give the under-taxed rich the idea that the working class can be dazzled by propaganda and thereby, ripped off. But even the underdog can sometimes turn and win. The so-called “full employment” of the Trump Administration is a fraud – the next Recession will be a deep one and the working class may be stupid but not that stupid. An empty stomach diverts a lot of blood flow to the brain.
“The trump full-employment is a fraud”…yup, slaves had full employment too.
Why should those General Fund obligations have been “met by tax increases” instead of just not incurred at all? Everyone seems to want the government to just keep doing more and more. And nobody seems to want to pay for it.
It’s not that “the rich” pay too little in taxes. It’s that everyone pays too much.
Same reason as the purchase of a new bass boat should be paid for out of someone’s bar money and not from the money being set aside for braces for the kids’ teeth. The Social Security Fund should go strictly for its intended purpose – old age and disability benefits. Social Security is paid from wage taxes – used to be a sacrosanct fund until wiseass (LBJ I believe) decided to mix the funds.
I will agree that some expenditures are unnecessary – like I wouldn’t give Israel the sweat off my ass for foreign aid. And having been “Shanghaied” into the military, I’d give them just enough money for haircuts and shoe polish.
The Supreme Court announced that Social Security is just another welfare program that happens to be connected to a particular tax, and that no one has any entitlement whatsoever to benefits, a year before LBJ became vice-president (Flemming v. Nestor).
Anyone who still fell for the scam after that can’t say they weren’t warned.
Mr. Knapp, Just because of some arcane advisory, is not going to defuse the fury of some barely literate SSI receivers when they figure out that their minimal monthly check has been cut allow more crap to be sold by Lockheed.
I am sure that anyone taken in by the Bernie Madoff scheme somewhere along the way was given a legal advisory that no financial rewards were guaranteed. Comes a time, though, when implied rewards had better be delivered
Well, like I asked — have Social Security checks been cut? Ever? If so, I’m unaware of it. You were suggesting that was the easiest thing to do versus raising taxes or cutting military spending, but both of the latter have been done a number of times while Social Security checks have remained pretty much sacrosanct.
The easiest thing to do of the things you named is “none of the above.” The easiest thing to do is to borrow the money to give every special interest lobby (including the middle class retiree lobby — the structure of Social Security is set so as to allow middle class white women to retire at the expense of poor black men) what it wants. Which is exactly what happens.
The nasty truth is that the easy way out is the choice not only of Congress and political parties but also of administrations and the influential in Washington. I am certain that you know that.
Revolution? Which class is going to make and lead that revolution and is prepared to take the till of a nation and make sure that, at the very least, people get fed, housed, and clothed? The middle class which is the most docile class ever? The working class which is essentially unorganized and leaderless? It does not look good to me.
The last great opportunity for fundamental change of 1932 was torpedoed by FDR and his gang. Almost nothing stirred in 2008 when much of the middle class was threatened with sinking down to standards of living which it had not experienced since 1932. Any stirring was then torpedoed by Obama and his conservative gang.
It is amazing, is it not, that these politicians pooh-pooh J. M. Keynes except when they need him.
Given the current state of political savvy of the middle class and its leaders, making revolution would be a criminal, bloody disaster.
The most stunning aspect of this arms race is that the leaders of these three nations must know that driving a nation into near or real bankruptcy with military expansions and adventures is not new. It has happened many times before. Textbook example: Spain under King Philip II.
What drives this madness? I look at our closest biological species, the great apes, especially the chimpanzees. They exist in (small) “nations” each with their own territory which they defend, if needed with violence.
Evolution has apparently preserved the territorial genes in us. As long as that is not understood by all of humanity non-armed peace is hopeless.
This won’t go anywhere; the US military industry is too used to their fat paychecks and long-term contracts. No way they’re going to stand for having to take a pay cut from the taxpayer gravy train.
The same asshole triggering an arms race by withdrawing from nuclear limitation treaties now wants to scale back military spending. Good luck with that, Horace!! Putin should say Nyet!