War in Ukraine

Zelensky regime the Karen of the world …

https://x.com/defensepolitics/status/1691154947294011392?s=61

 

Perhaps, but we wouldn’t even be in Ukraine if Putin had not attacked first.

You despise US foreign-policy, but do you approve of Russian foreign-policy? They’ve long had expansionist plans: Chechnya, South Ossetia, Crimea. Do you approve of Russian expansion?

Did you approve of Russian interference in US elections?

One of my questions still remains. Who do you want to win in Ukraine?

 

Baloney. The primary purpose is to see that Ukraine is a free nation, including all territories stolen during the 2014 invasion. Why else do you think the U.S. is slowly supplying Ukraine with weapons and ammunition? If defeating and destroying Russia and deposing Putin was the primary motivation, why wouldn't we transfer all weapons and ammunition up-front? Why did we wait so long to agree to supply Abrams tanks, then F-16's? The F-16's would be the fastest way to humiliate Putin, as the Kremlin might not be standing right now. We are obviously trying to supply just enough weapons to help Ukraine on the battlefield with their current needs.

You obviously have little or no understanding what hegemony is. The U.S. is the one that created the United Nations, and led the way in creating a system of international laws and trade agreements, which Russia and China repeatedly violate. Doesn't sound like U.S. hegemony to me. If anything, it sounds like Russian and Chinese hegemony, or attempts at it. Apparently, you are gullible enough to accept the idea that rules and laws do not apply to your favorite countries, just to the U.S. and everyone else.

And by the way, almost every major war that the U.S. was involved with in the last 80 years, another nation was involved in supplying and aiding our opponent. Russia not only supplied modern fighter aircraft to North Korea in the 1950's, but they supplied pilots as well. Can you imagine the uproar if the U.S. slapped a Ukrainian flag sticker on a few F-35's and sent in U.S. pilots to attack Russian positions? Russia and China supplied North Vietnam in the 60's, Iran supplied Iraqi insurgents in the 2000's, etc. The only reason that a foreign country was not involved in supplying Iraq in the 1990's was the fact that we whipped Saddam too quickly for any aid to arrive. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and what goes around, comes around. Deal with it.

Russia is more like the corpulent guy (Mr. Creosote) at the dinner table who is eating everyone else's dinner before his own, while everyone else is off listening to speeches. Putin is not standing up and saying no, he's sitting down and saying YES--I NEED MORE ! ! ! Sooner or later, you know he's going to explode. Strange that you don't know the difference between "yes" and "no", something most children out of infancy figure out.

 

It's not that our troll approves of Russian expansion; he approves of U.S. humiliation. And he believes that a Russian win in Ukraine will give him that satisfaction. Any country that can embarrass or humiliate the U.S. in any way has his approval. It doesn't matter how many people have to die, be maimed, or tortured. Besides, its all America's fault, anyway. As long as a country has some historical connection to the country its invading, then there is nothing we can or should do to interfere.

He thinks the U.S. needs to be much more humble and ask permission before doing anything, and only fight when defending the U.S. homeland, not in defending U.S. allies or interests. There would be no need for ANY U.S. bases overseas. Countries like Russia and Ukraine would be free to invade their neighbors to their heart's delight, and could continue to do so until they were equals of the U.S. Then everything would be wonderful, unless Russia and China team up to attack the U.S.

Sounds like a good recipe for World War III. And that might be his ultimate goal. I can't see that far into his clouded mind.

 

Thanks for your thoughtful response. Regarding your analogous situation, if Russia tried to install a pro Russian regime in Ottawa, I would agree with opposing it. However, I would not agree to invading Canada and killing Canadians, and claiming that Canadian territory should now become the US.

 

Sounds like playing the board game Risk on the spherical board.

 

That completely depends on whether the Canadian people went along for the pro-Russian ride. Perhaps you wouldn't support such a measure, but especially with our current government, there's zero chance they wouldn't send military into Canada, even if that meant killing Canadians. Canada leaving NATO and aligning with Russia and China would be a no go. Besides being such an important partner, Russia would have an easy point of entry for an invasion if Ottawa was a pre-Kremlin satellite. There's just no chance we would allow that.

Context is everything. Remember Russia has been invaded three times via Ukraine. Two of those were Napoleon and Hitler. Those were difficult times, as I suspect you well know. So Russia citing Ukraine as a vital national security red line shouldn't be necessary viewed as "world conquest." Sevastopol is the only warm water port they have. Lugansk and Donetsk were opposed to Kyiv after Kyiv passed a law that made Ukrainian the only official language in all of Ukraine. Lugansk and Donetsk is 90% ethnic Russian. Their rebellion was legitimate. They voted overwhelmingly to secede to Russia, but Putin rejected it at first, seeking only restoration of language rights in those regions. Ethnic Russians were tortured by neo-Nazi forces in Donetsk and Lugansk. Zelenskyy won the election based on Ukraine remaining neutral. Then the goal posts started shifting.

Ukraine doesn't need NATO if they enshrine neutrality in their Constitution. That's all Russia has asked for. Guess what? Zelenskyy was agreeable to it in March 2022, after the invasion began. The West told him not to do it, but it's well documented Ukraine was okay with neutrality. This agreement is what lead to the Russian pullback in the north. Then Boris Johnson showed up in April 2022 and peace talks were largely scuttled going forward.

 

Context is everything, like you said. Sure, if NATO armies were massing on the western border of Ukraine, then Russia would have a right to be concerned. European countries cannot even finance their own defense departments to the extent they agreed to--does that sound like a group of countries gearing up for war?

History is useless, if you don't understand the events within it. A war does not happen just because it happened before--there are other events besides history that lead to war (disagreements, buildup of armies, threats, etc.). Looks like Putin was so nervous about a war starting that he started one. That's idiotic. If he takes Ukraine because he is nervous about a group of countries that has never threatened anyone since WWII, he is a worthless imbecile and should not be leading a country with nuclear weapons. The truth is that Russia, under Putin, likes to threaten other countries. Putin likes to be feared. He likes to get what he wants with threats. He likes to have the option of violence. There is a reason that Russia has the most tanks in the world, and it's not because Russia is committed to peace on earth.

Furthermore, it is unlikely that NATO would have taken Ukraine if Russia had not invaded. NATO is on the hook if they take a country that starts a war with Russia (because of a dispute or something) and asks for help. Ukraine had a long road to follow to make it into NATO if this war did not happen.

 

Only if you soak the spherical board in gasoline, and light the game with candles.

 

He didn’t fear a NATO military threat. He feared Ukraine trending more EU and more support for democracy and capitalism, which would put more pressure on Russian authoritarianism.

 

Or we could actually listen to what they're saying and accept that it is a security threat to them. Which happens to be consistent with what Russia has been saying about Ukraine for the past 24 years. Laughable that you'd say the primary motivator is fear of democracy spreading with Finland and the Baltic states next door. But as we've covered numerous times already, you love being lied to.

 

Won't solve anything like last time the RUB:USA climbed to 120 and they raised the key rate to 20% and here we are a year and a half later? I don't blame investors for holding out for the higher rate of return.

 

you don't get to dictate to other sovereign nations what is and what isn't their security threat. "We're going to put our missiles in Poland and Romania and you're gonna be okay with it." It doesn't work that way in the real world. JFK wasn't pro-Russia because he negotiated with Khruschev to remove the missiles from Turkey. Once he placed himself in Khruschev's shoes, he understood he wasn't bs'ing. So we agreed to remove our missiles from Turkey and the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba. Was a good enough solution to keep the Cold War cold for 30 years until it ended.

 

Putin didn’t attack Ukraine in 2014. That’s the year the US engineered a coup and began, in earnest, to radicalize a generation of Ukrainian nationalist and to arm and train Ukrainians to be used as a military proxy vs Russia. I don’t even believe it is true that Putin attacked in 2022 if it is true that Ukraine was massing troops, in the East, and increasing their attacks on ethnic-Russians.

 

We’re way past Cold War now and are verging on WWIII.

Add: just saw Oppenheimer.

 

Russians not languishing economically …

https://x.com/olgabazova/status/1691336801758126080?s=61

 

The difference is that back then, Putin's government had over $100 billion in cash reserves (maybe closer to $200 billion). Now he has less than $30 billion. Things are rapidly heading south for Russia, and other things (the war, for example) are not heading west fast enough.

 

And naturally, since the distance from the Estonian border to Moscow is nearly the same as Ukraine-Moscow, they'd be the next security threat. But wouldn't you know the border to Latvia is also about the same so there's another security threat. Poor russki's have to invade ALL the neighbors just so they can get along!