Apparently these were cranked out in 3 months, so that tracks. I’ve heard 2027 being thrown around as a target from several sources.
And an argument could be made, that the current admin is trying to end the Ukrainian conflict by any means necessary, in order to shift focus into the Pacific. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, that Europe does need to get their military industrially complex back into swing, and I’m not sure how else you can compel the Europeans who usually just write whitepapers and have thinktanks instead of… building tanks. The Wikipedia page for WWIII will start the story in 2014, we’re all just in denial at this point.
Trump has figured out the easiest way to end the war in Ukraine is for Ukraine to surrender, which is always the easiest way to end a war and that will make Putin happy, who Trump has admired for years. Shifting focus to the Pacific? That depends on what Musk wants as it’s apparent he is calling the shots and he does have deep ties to China. Interesting times ahead. Nothing us peons can do but sit back and watch.
Russia is more or less surviving because it has fully transitioned into a war time economy, if the war stops, things are going to be bad in Russia, without a 180 on global sanctions. Trump forcing a Ukrainian surrender will “Make Putin happy” per say, but rather give him some breathing room to regroup before continuing to push NATO away from Moscow geographically.
I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but it’s the best way I can rationalize us turning our backs on our ally’s and NATO in general, as laid out by this open source intel guy. And it does make a lot of since, given we are seeing unpresented cooperation between South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines along with US Top brass, and China’s top bras saying an invasion is likely in 2027-2030. There are other countries in the US, and they all are starting to posture themselves like it’s going to get hot, Trump be dammed. As we have seen, Trump can not just say “Stop the war in Ukraine” - those are in fact other countries who are free to do as they’d like, rapidly developing their own weapons systems without NATO restrictions. Mosco just got hit more than it should have this week by Ukrainian built munitions.
PS> When the war ended there were several pier sections still at the USWC building yard, One of those became the J/U drilling rig John C, Martens, which operated in S.E.Asia in the mid- and late 1970s. It was one of my favourit rigs. Never a dull rig move on this 8-legged unit.