True. Increasingly, Europe as well. Most of the West just wants it to be over. Oh, and they’ll get what they want, but I doubt they’ll want what they get when we see Russia and/or China’s next move. It is darkly humorous to me how our history textbooks excoriate the isolationists in the early days of WW2, and we tell ourselves with such certainty how obvious it was that the world should have stopped Hitler at Munich, that the U.S. should have obviously joined the Allies sooner. Then we are faced with the same grave decision today, and we find ourselves more sympathetic to the isolationists than we ever believed possible: “Sorry, but it’s not our war. Maybe if we let them win here, it will just go away …”
History is often revisionist. I don't think it was obvious that we should've stopped Hitler at Munich. It wasn't obvious back then that warfare had changed so much that the Germans could avoid the stalemate of WWI. It's pretty obvious though that the Russian army isn't gonna steamroll anyone the way the Wehrmacht did.
“Steamroll” not in the sense you mean (and most people mean) of defeating quickly with contemptuous ease, I agree. But “steamrolling” in a more literal sense of slowly, deliberately crushing everything in its path is precisely what the Russians are doing to Ukraine.
It does make one wonder if there were no such things as nukes whether a full blown war would have already come from this conflict. Based on history I would tend to think so.
I think so, too. Without question, nuclear weapons, awful as they are, have likely saved us from the outbreak of global war several times because of the cooling effect they have had on decision making. The Cuban Missile Crisis, for example (set aside for a moment that the dispute at hand was over nuclear weapons): if neither of us had had atomics and the matter at hand was still over a Soviet arms buildup that we could not tolerate in the Western Hemisphere, then I have no doubt we would have invaded Cuba, the Soviet Union would have retaliated by taking Berlin, and NATO would have been at war with the Warsaw Pact. The general understanding has been up until now that neither side could undertake direct aggressive war because of the risk of nuclear escalation. But now Russia has done something strange with the model: They have essentially stated, “We can go ahead with a war of conquest, but you cannot do a thing about it because of our nuclear weapons.” And we seem to agree with that logic instead of retorting, “Uh, no, if you engage in conventional warfare, we get to match you stride for stride until you realize what a bad idea it was … and escalating to nuclear warfare (or even threatening it) is not in your interest, because you know ours work and you’re not positive if yours do or not.” I find our collective “What are you gonna do? They’ve got the bomb” mind blowing, because that can be our excuse for doing nothing no matter what Russia or China do.
So you'd engage in a conventional instead of proxy war with Russia over Ukraine? There's a reason your proposed strategy has never been practiced between nuclear superpowers, not in Vietnam, not in Afghanistan, not in Syria, not anywhere. Once you do that the stakes become too high for both sides for what those territories are worth, and it's difficult for either side to extricate itself. It used to be that we could tolerate some losses of some "advisors", but now we're trying to replace even those losses with sanctions.
I think I’ve been very clear on that since this war started. I would not do it all at once, of course. But I would steadily increase military pressure, giving the Russians an off-ramp at each stage, up to and including limited naval and air intervention. I understand the risk as well as the Russians. The problem is that they correctly assessed that we would be too risk averse and would give them freedom of action and maneuver indefinitely. I don’t believe Ukraine can win under those circumstances, no matter what material assistance we offer.
Russian TV Suggests GOP Midterm Wins Will Scupper U.S. Support For Ukraine Putin et al hoping a gop win in november spells a reduction or even a halt to US aid for Ukraine.
It won’t, and there’s no reason to suggest it. There are about 10% on the extreme edges of both parties who support doing nothing for one reason they say and another reason they actually mean. But the 80% of us in the middle support Ukraine and only differ on the degree and means of that support.
Supporting Ukraine in this is really a no-brainer in my opinion. The country was attacked by Russia who had granted them autonomy when they gave up the nuclear weapons in a treaty. Also, the US military has to be gaining valuable intelligence on Russia's military equipment, what works, what doesn't work.
And it is is our national security interest to stop them now, or they will continue their expansion until it becomes too late to stop them.
Not hoping for. He is counting on it. Unfortunately the present GOP is more supporting of Putin than they are pro-Democracy.
Having a hard time picturing a GOP majority house (especially if dominated by maga and q anon types) working with Biden to authorize billions in more aid for Ukraine. Call be cynical, but....
agree. Maga reps voted against helping Ukraine the first time. And there will be more of them and a overall, less patience with the war. But they won’t be in power for approx 7 months.
They can’t keep this up. Can we turn the screw again on sanctions for Russia? “A senior Ukrainian presidential aide has told the BBC that between 100 and 200 Ukrainian troops are being killed on the front line every day.” Ukraine losing up to 200 troops a day - Zelensky aide
Tough call when we can't take care of our own people with skyrocketing inflation, highest gas prices ever in the history of the US and going higher daily, cities dying in the wake of crime that the DAs refuse to stop and an invasion at our southern border.
It’s good thing we didn’t have serious economic or criminal problems in the 1930s then. We might have used them as an excuse to let Hitler run free over Europe for years until we were inevitably dragged into it.
Those problems are really independent of each other. Poor policy from the administration has led to high gas prices, we don't need poor policy on Ukraine as well. The Ukrainians need support, and we can do that without putting troops on the ground. Having said that, I do support Senator Paul's call for an Inspector General overseeing how we are spending the aide.
