Larry Wrote An Excellent Counter-Argument To...

 ... Scott Ritter and it also fits well with what I posted today just below. It is about this $40 billion "aid" package to Ukraine. Larry makes an excellent point:

Money may make the world go around but it does not magically produce trained, enthusiastic troops willing and capable of using such weapons. During my time at the U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, I was the Deputy Director for the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Training Program (ATAP). We discovered that no matter how much money the United States wanted to supply to a specific country to combat terrorism we reached a saturation point. We learned that you reach a point where there are no more people to train or the recipients of the training could not absorb the support. Ukraine’s problem right now is not a lack of equipment. The had combat aircraft, helicopters, tanks, artillery and drones. Russia destroyed a significant amount of that materiel and killed the soldiers and pilots who were trained to operate those systems. Training replacements–competent replacements–can not be accomplished in a one or two day seminar. Training a pilot or an artillery crew, for example, requires weeks and, in some circumstances, months of instruction before the trainees are ready to go to battle.

Moreover, here is the thing which Scott Ritter seems to not-understand, as Larry notes:

Scott also asserts that intelligence sharing gives the Ukrainians an edge. When you provide intelligence on Russian troop movements, locations or plans, there is an assumption that the recipients of that intelligence will be able to do something to hurt the Russians. How did that work out in Mariupol? How about fending off the Russian missile attack in Desna. In my view, sharing intelligence with Ukraine is an effort in futility. Am empty gesture that will not change anything on the ground.

And Ritter is obviously misinformed about Russia's recon and targeting capabilities. Not only they are on par with those of the US, but Russian means of counter-measures ranging from jamming or "spoofing" radar satellites, or jamming signint are the best in the world.  There are NO "game-changers" for NATO in Ukraine, not to mention the fact that Pentagon never experienced anything of this nature and judging by steady annihilation of VSU completely misinterpreted Russia's aims and capabilities involved, not to mention the fact that de facto direct Pentagon's Command and Control of VSU failed miserably and that doesn't reflect well on the US, especially after humiliating debacle in Afghanistan. In general, read Larry excellent piece.