You keep asking me rhetorical questions like this, as if you know more about Ukraine than I do. You're just a propaganda copy and paster. My dog could do that. How about this. You do realize how most proxy wars turn out, don't you?
If Russia could win this war, they’d have won it already. Seems to me from here it is uphill for them. They continue to drain troops, deplete equipment, etc. Even if it stays this way, thst is a net win for the US. Russia has chosen a path that is a threat to the U.S. and Eastern Europe. While I don’t see them invading France or Germany, I’m not sure how far they would have gone in Eastern Europe if they had been successful. From a geopolitical perspective, having them drain military capabilities is a net win for us, and it also also creates headwinds against their drive to create populist backlash >> authoritarianism throughout the west. Now can Ukraine actually be victorious? I don’t know. That really depends on Russian internal politics. How long can Russia continue with the current state of affairs? I have no idea. I really think part of Putins plan is hoping for a Trump victory which would signal a decrease in our level of Ukrainian support. As to Ukrainians dying on the battlefield and elsewhere, that is up to them. If they want to fight Russian occupation, and are willing to die for it, who are we to stop them, as long as it plays to our benefit? If Ukraine gets tired and wishes to have some sort of negotiated settlement, I’m Ok with that. But if they want to keep fighting I see little downside to it. Seems to me Biden has done a pretty good balancing act. He takes crap from the isolationists for being involved at all, and takes crap from neocons for not going all in with weapons systems. Biden has kept enough distance, such as avoiding attacks inside of Russia, such that Russia has chosen not to escalate against us and our interests. If Putin did escalate against our interests, it only makes things worse for him. Also, this whole things sends a message to China and any other future invaders that if they choose to go down this path, it will be very costly. Is that enough to keep China from invading Taiwan, I don’t know, but it has to give them pause.
Well, in short, you are not going to get your end state desired until and unless Russia reverses its glaring cycle of defeat and starts turning in some real victories. Real victories, by the way, does not mean more of the current information campaign wherein words substitute for success on the battlefield: “Never mind what you see. Russia is winning in glorious manner. Little Russians will quit obeying Nazi masters any day now and return to loving arms of Motherland.” As long as Ukraine continues to successfully resist, I see no reason not to continue our support. The overwhelming majority of Americans agree with me, not just the infamous “neo-cons” who want to bleed Russia. The only people who don’t are the far Right, who simply want to hang another defeat on Biden no matter how bad it is for America, and the far Left who would rather spend the money on nonsense, no matter how bad it is for America. If you want to have Russian strategic victory, however you care to couch the term, then pray for Ukrainian defeat in the field, because it’s the only way you’re going to get it. Trying to convince the majority of Americans to turn off the tap so Ukraine is forced to quit just isn’t going to work.
Biden has been too conservative with advanced weapons systems. Putin isn't going to attack NATO or go nuclear anymore tham McCarthy was going to force a default. And even if Ukraine agreed to the current lines, Russia has already lost as long as the west sticks to their sanctions. OTOH, even if Ukraine takes Crimea back they will have lost with all the death and destruction they have suffered. Nobody wins in war.
You mean, like the U.S. proxy war against the USSR in Afghanistan? I think that turned out pretty well for us, now that you mention it. It turned out pretty well for Afghanistan, too, as far as gaining their freedom and removing the Russians from their lands. How about that? Apparently, I do know more about Ukraine than you do. Maybe you should let your dog do your posting for you.
Sino-Soviet proxy war in Vietnam; U.S. proxy wars in Greece, Philippines, Nicaragua against the Soviet Union, Iraq against Iran. That’s just 20th Century and off the top of my head.
Whoa. Someone has a false understanding of reality. Your position on this is in a very distinct (and shrinking) minority. Based on your posting history, I'd place you in the 8% of Americans who want to "weaken/defeat Russia." If I'm being generous, I could bump you up to the 18% who think we should help liberate all territories occupied by Russia. Either way, your viewpoint and quest for war is far from an overwhelming majority belief and the numbers get worse for you with each passing month since the war started, so it's not like your position is going to improve. Biden's numbers on the war are pretty god awful as well. Most Americans are sympathetic to Ukraine, as am I, but your war mongering is in a very distinct and collapsing minority. Wars that drag on with no end in sight tend to age pretty poorly in American public opinion polling. Frankly, I find it pathetic that you assume one is supporting Russia if they don't support funding a war in the hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign soil, with more death and destruction a guarantee. America is no less safe today with Russia adding a few kilometers to their territorial gains than we were in 2014 when we made the ceasefire deal in Minsk. That is really all that should matter and for the most part, throughout American history, that is all that has mattered to the American people. And yeah, some of those leftist spending initiatives are pretty far out there, but I'm guessing there's probably some hungry kids or medicare bills for elderly widows that we could have used that $100 billion on. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling the situation with Russia and Ukraine? 43% yes, 57% no CBS News poll: Think your town could house migrants? That may depend as much on your politics as where you live.
Yeah, that worked out beautifully for us on 9/11, didn't it? And look how free Afghanistan is today. Jeebus. You're right. How could I forget about our glowing success in Afghanistan. I should be as glad as you we helped OBL and his buddies get the freedom you feel they deserved, but unfortunately, I can't be.
So we've got Afghanistan (OBL and the Taliban), Vietnam, Nicaragua and Iraq as your signature examples of why we should continue a proxy war in Ukraine. Wow.
You said proxy wars never work. They are like any other kind of war, sometimes they are successful and sometimes they are not. I pointed out several that succeeded in war aims for the side providing material support. If your riposte is “Look what happened after the war!” then that’s a separate matter. Your argument was that proxy wars never work; if you want to say instead that the U.S. sucks at conflict resolution and remembering why it went to war in the place, then I agree with that.
This certainly sounds like the offensive is on Ukrainian drone operator dodges Russian TOR-2M missile, then catches up to it — incredible video Several units of Russian military equipment were destroyed in a single blow, Ukraine’s SBU Security Service shared a video of the attack on June 3. [COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)]Namely, three Tor-2M SAMs, a Buk-M1, three Nona self-propelled artillery systems, three infantry fighting vehicles, two tanks, an electronic warfare station, and enemy fortifications were taken out in the attack. Artillery also destroyed another 84 units of enemy weapons, including seven tanks, six Grads MLRSs, 11 cannons, six self-propelled artillery systems, 21 armored vehicles, and other equipment thanks to the SBU's adjustments of their fire.[/COLOR]
Hard to say until ground changes hands. You just can’t tell anything from select footage one side or the other wants you to see. I’ll bet if everyone was walking with a smart phone at Normandy, the Germans could have strung together footage that would have convinced anyone the Allies were getting smoked decisively on the beaches or, conversely, that they were kicking a— and taking names during the Battle of the Bulge. Just let it play out.
With proxy wars, you have to grade the totality of the outcome, not just the part that seemed to go well for us in the beginning. After all, what is the point of America funding proxy wars if we're not going to grade the ensuing years of the government we aided? The idea is to lay a better foundation for America in the future. Helping Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega isn't a good record to brag about when it comes to our performance with proxy wars.
Wow. You aren’t understanding that Brookings poll if you think it indicates only 8-18% continued support. That’s a comical misinterpretation of what this poll claims. The poll is forcing respondents to choose ONE as the “primary goal”. It isn’t asking a Y/N approval for each if it is a worthy goal. This is why each response adds up to 100% when you add them up for each group (R/D/I). It’s an odd poll, as the goals sort of overlap. If you push Russia out of Ukraine aren’t you simultaneously making Russia “weaker” ergo ALSO preventing Russian expansion? So how to choose just one as a so-called primary goal? Seems to me the poll resulted in an almost meaningless spread of answers. Should have just focused on the “return to Jan ‘22” vs. “completely evict from Ukraine” question. The only thing slightly interesting in the poll as presented , which we already knew, is that substantially more R’s are sympathetic to Putin and think the U.S. should do nothing (reflected in the 25% vs. 6% who chose “none of the above” as a worthy primary goal). But if you dig into other polls by Brookings, there is overwhelming bipartisan support for Ukraine. The only divides are just how much and how long. More R’s are saying stay the course 1-2 years, whereas greater # of D’s say “as long as it takes”. But even the R’s think we should be supporting Ukraine somehow.
The U.S. literally came into existence via proxy war. I’d say that was a good outcome. Sometimes the morality is clear, this is one of those times. This isn’t a proxy war because of Middle East oil interests or some minor strategic nonsense. It’s much more existential. Freedom vs. Tyranny. Putin must be stopped. It’s a rather laughable situation as arguably the only reason Putin is even still alive right now is the threat of nuclear annihilation. But that he is using that threat as part of the “hand” he is playing with the invasion of Ukraine, is also the reason he must be stopped in his tracks. It’s not even really comparable to the Vietnam situation, as then U.S policymakers put boots on the ground to show the communists the U.S. would sacrifice its soldiers. In this war, Ukraine is doing all the fighting to maintain their own sovereignty. It’s much more comparable to Afghanistan - which actually brought about the fall of the Soviet Union. That the U.S. later made its own mistakes in Afghanistan is a separate issue. Rather than a lesson on “proxy wars”, I think we arguably should have taken a lesson from the Soviets and never tried to control Afghanistan. The “war on terror” in Afghanistan was anything but proxy, it was direct involvement.
Pure ignorance. Let me educate you. Al Qaeda happened because the U.S. (and the international community) ignored Afghanistan AFTER they defeated the Soviets. Not one dollar was spent on rebuilding Afghanistan. Afghanistan actually had a pro-western president and the beginnings of democracy. But they were so dirt-poor and devastated from Soviet-style destruction of their cities that they could not recover on their own. They certainly could not eat the weapons that we gave them, or use them for housing. They couldn't even provide security for their president, who was assassinated when a supposed reporter aimed a camera at him in a press conference and fired a bullet from a gun concealed inside it (a KGB invention, BTW) and killed him. With no hope and no leadership, Afghans turned to religion to deal with their problems. Since they still had plenty of weapons, warlords got together and formed the Taliban to twist and exploit the newfound reliance on religion and take power. Afghans resented the U.S. abandoning its heroes after the war was won, so they tolerated a group of anti-western terrorists training on their soil. And so Al Qaeda was born. And that's how 9-11 happened. The proxy war is only part of the story. Abandoning your friends in their time of need is the much greater part of the story. Easily George Bush, Sr.'s biggest mistake as president. Sometimes history is more complicated than what the simple-minded would have you believe. Afghanistan is not that different than Germany (although on a much smaller scale), who was heavily punished after WWI, and became dangerous in the years leading to WWII. Starvation does terrible things to the mind and makes a population desperate. Consider yourself educated. You're welcome.
In Vietnam, the U.S. was the country sticking its nose into the affairs of another country (for relative noble--although ignorant--reasons, not for conquest and occupation) while China and Russia were supplying weapons to North Vietnam. The U.S. was defeated in Vietnam. So yes, China and Russia won their proxy war against the U.S. in Vietnam, which supports the idea that proxy wars can be successful. No one is saying that the U.S. was engaged in a proxy war in Vietnam because there were U.S. troops on the ground fighting.
Here is a poll for you, Lil' Tucker: How do you want the Florida Gators to do in their first football game of the season? a) I want them to win. 25% b) I want the other team to lose. 20% c) I want them to beat the other team senseless and put up 90 points. 15% d) I want the defense to record a shutout. 40% This just in: only 25% of Florida Gator fans want their team to win the first football game of the season! Therefore, 75% of Florida Gator fans do not want their team to win! News at 11:00.
