Redbrickbear said:
Doc Holliday said:
whiterock said:
Doc Holliday said:
whiterock said:
Doc Holliday said:
HuMcK said:
Lol I'm 34, take your "boomer" nonsense elsewhere.
You can disclaim support for Russia all you want, but your rhetoric is an exact mirror for their narratives, and I'm not just talking about during this war either. Of course you throw in a token statement of condemnation every now and then...and then the rest of the time you argue that we should step aside and let Ukraine founder while also blaming us for initiating the conflict in the first place. Saying "Russia is wrong" loses some of its bite when you pair it with "but we should not help Ukraine", which is the tightrope you are attempting to stay on.
We are sending Ukraine tanks because stalemate favors Russia. Ukraine isn't losing, but they also can't win or make further gains without help. We should provide that help against our enemy for as long as Ukrainian soldiers are willing to use it. I don't want to hear any whining about money either, we are sending them second rate surplus equipment that was bought and paid for long ago. Not to mention this is is literally the enemy we designed and stockpiled all that stuff in order to counter. The time to counter is now, when they are invading their neighbors and openly meddling in our domestic politics (which you deny the very existence of, another gift from you to Russia), and we don't even have to deploy any of our own soldiers to do it.
Support for Ukraine is the most justifiable and effective use of our bloated defense budget since the second World War, and it has no relation whatsoever to errors of Iraq/Afghan and the war on terror. I get what you are saying about the WoT, it was stuoid should not ever be repeated, but this is not even close to being that.
My rhetoric is not supportive of Russia. I'm just calling it how it is.
I want peace deals now, and if that means Ukraine and Russia both don't get exactly as they want, fine.
What I don't want is exactly what its become: a proxy war for the US/NATO to weaken Russia at great cost. We moving in tanks. Next we'll move in our own military and boots on the ground. This escalation of resources doesn't line up with the narrative we've been fed about Russia being an easy opponent.
Of note: the Ukrainians don't.
Also of note: our security position is degraded by a Russian victory.
The Russians are indeed a shockingly weak opponent, far less potent than we ever dare assume, and particularly so now after a year of getting mauled by the Ukrainians. They have a third world quality army. The fight wouldn't last long if Nato were to intervene. But Nato won't. There is no evidence, anywhere, that Nato wants to escalate to that level. Everyone, with a remarkable degree of unanimity, agrees that we have limited risk of escalation as long as it remains a proxy war but significant risk of escalation if direct conflict occurs. That's why we see what we see happening. Russia is in a quagmire it cannot win unless the West withdraws support. All it can do is to withdraw, or to endure long enough that western will to continue breaks. Either way, Russia suffers mightily. (which is why the Russo-Ukrainian war is a strategic situation which will be studied by scholars and soldiers for centuries...so many classic lessons be re-learned.)
Neither is there much evidence in the last 50-70 years of proxy wars and small wars in which we are directly engaged inevitably escalate to full-blown direct conflict. The historical record shows that we have been loathe to disengage a few times (Vietnam, Afghanistan) but otherwise have demonstrated a very solid record of avoiding what we need to avoid to pursue overall policy. (notwithstanding non-martial policy errors like China policy of the 1992-2016 period).
The entire western world is sending resources, weapons and technically manpower in the form of mercs against Russia. That is unofficially NATO vs Russia.
That we are acting in concert with allies is discordant with the "boomers are responsible for everything" narrative. We are in fact leading NATO, largely against German inertia, and Nato is coming along because they see the obvious.
Russia being the big bad boogeyman that needs the counterbalancing of the entire western world against them, doesn't coincide with the idea that they're a weak third world quality military power. That narrative doesn't make sense.
That is no conflict at all. Russia has a population which outstrips every European country by half, and is multiples of the former WP nations in Eastern Europe. They in fact would have already run over Ukraine had it not been for western support. They would do so against all but 3 other Nato countries, who would be pressed every bit as hard themselves as Ukraine. More to the point: The barbarians were for centuries weaker than the Roman Empire. It was not weight of numbers or technological superiority which caused Rome to fall. It was the burden of sustained assault. Yes, Rome had internal issues as well. But plain fact is...WINNING a war is costly. Ukraine is going to win this one. But look at the cost. Nato will win any conflict with Russia. But it will devastate the nations on whose soil the conflict occurs, and it will cost all the allies dearly in blood and treasure. That is why deterrence is so important. You do not want to have to fight at all. you might lose. And even if you win, the cost is frightful.....decades of Russian poking, prodding, seeping in, sapping our resolve to get us to appease them.....THAT's the only way Russia can win. So now that Russia has spent two decades pushing testing around the margins, trying to influence, intimidate, then finally outright invading a sovereign nation....how do we RESTORE deterrence? Answer: by showing the resolve to stand, right now. On the Dnieper. In the Donbass. The cost doesn't really matter, because at the end of the day it's cheaper than doing it with our own troops on Nato soil in the future, and we can afford it today and Russia cannot.
If we don't stand here and now, then where? This is the best, easiest battlefield we will have. It's not our boys & girls doing the fighting. All we have to do is provide money and munitions. That's pretty easy, compared to my daughter having to dodge incoming ordnance & repair fuel depots and replace parts warehouses and repair maintenance sheds to keep the F-whatevers in the air to defend the other sons & daughters out there on the front lines getting shelled by Russian arty, all while managing the flow of caskets back to Dover (where on her first tour after the Academy she ran the warehouse that received all those caskets from Afghanistan....). Or. We could just let Russia have Ukraine, then a decade or three down when they start the process again in Romania or Hungary or wherever.....we just let Nato crater & we come home & let the chips fall where they may. How will that improve the national security of the American people? The easiest, cheapest, best way to prevent Russia from becoming the hegemon in Europe (and China from becoming the hegemon in Asia) is to deal with Russia right now in Ukraine = Beat up their army so badly their government collapses and will take decades to reform and rebuild an army. (make no mistake. that is the policy aim here.....)
Russia still holds a significant chunk of Ukraine.
Yep. For now. Slightly more than a few weeks ago, and a helluva lot less than they held nine months ago. If we supply Ukraine with what they're asking for, it'll likely start shrinking quickly again. It is not unreasonable for Ukraine to drive Russian troops from all Ukrainian soil within 12 months. But they will not do it if we keep dribbling and drabbling equipment out to them.
I see this going like Vietnam/Afghanistan. To the spoils are too good for it not to be planned that way. DC obviously didn't care what US citizens thought about the war on terror, what makes you think they care about how we feel if this turns into a very long expensive proxy war for many years?
American troops won all the battles but the policy failed in both countries, because our troops were directly involved and we were attempting to stabilize countries that were not viable states as drawn. Pointedly, that is not the dynamic at play here. Ukraine is a sovereign people of one ethnicity, language and most notably one mind, previously engaged successfully in social contract via democratic process. Whatever valid criticisms might be made about the Ukrainian model, and they are not small in number, Ukraine was successful enough that Russia assessed it necessary to invade rather than engage in diplomacy. So unlike your two examples, there IS something to build upon. Most importantly, WE are not doing the fighting. Ukrainians are. We are not trying to create order out of chaos. We are supporting a nation who is trying to honor its voters wishes to permanently join European liberal democracy, against an autocratic nation intent on stopping that policy by force of arms.
See bolded above.
Enormous error to compare Ukraine to Afghanistan or Vietnam. As noted above, totally different scenarios. And that's before we realize that both AFG and VIET were always on the ragged periphery of core US interests. Neither of them share a border with a key strategic ally. Not so Ukraine. Ukraine itself is not itself of strategic interest to the USA. But it's neighbors are. And Ukraine itself has resources of value to anyone allied to it. To the degree that Ukraine is incorporated, formally or via alliance, into the Russian sphere, it materially strengthens Russian ability to negatively impact US interests around the world.
not tiddlywinks we're playing here....
If Russian obtained Ukraine and they're a third world military power...they're not gonna further expand out and take on the west. I don't buy for a minute that they're a threat to Europe or the west if Ukraine fell.
My position isn't to leave Ukraine on its own, its actually to directly threaten Russia and make them bend the knee and end this. I want peace TODAY. I don't want to use this proxy war as a means to hurt Russia to the point where they can't be a threat to the west...because they're not actually a threat to the west.
My plan saves money, time and lives.
Making people think that after Ukraine the next stop for Russian troops is to water their horses in the Seine river is what Washington-Brussels propaganda is all about. Its what you have to do to get the general American and European publics on board for a expanded war (possibly nuclear).
Obviously as we can see on this thread...that kind of propaganda works.
Now you are certainly right that the only moral position in this war for the West is to push for a peace deal...or just straight up military intervene with ground troops and push Russia out.
Turning the Ukraine into a Syrian civil war type place is horribly wicked. That war has gone on for 10 years and completely destroyed Syria.
Doing that to the people of Ukraine is monstrous.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
Not a single post on this thread has argued that Russian victory in Ukraine this year will lead to invasion of Nato next year. I in particular have noted that Ukrainian battlefield successes thus far has already made such unlikely for possibly a decade. That in no way means we should not continue to give the Ukrainians the means to continue chewing up the Russian Army. Indeed, it proves the point. The purpose of helping Ukraine shatter the Russian Army pushes the threat to Nato ever further out into the future. That Russia is too weak to run thru to Paris like the US Army ran thru to Baghdad is not at all the point. Russia is going to lose the war in Ukraine. Look what victory has cost Ukraine! The lesson is deterrence. You owe your citizens a solemn duty to maintain deterrence, to make sure your enemies do not miscalculate and start a war they don't realize they can't win, because the cost of defeating them is far more dear than the cost of maintaining sufficient deterrence to keep them from invading at all. And, of course, the critics of US Ukraine policy would have us end support and effectively cede Ukraine to the Russian orbit almost immediately. That would actually reward Russia with substantial new resources. It would grow the Russian population by over a third. It would facilitate quicker Russian rearmament.
The easiest way to grow your economy is to invade and take over another country's economy....... With exception of China, Ukraine is the wealthiest nation on Russian borders.
the Syrian Civil War is not an analog for Ukraine. Yes, it is contiguous to Nato, but no, Syria was not a threat to Turkey prior to the civil war, and it will not be a threat after the war. Further, Russia has a naval base at Tartus with deployed Air Force units as well as Special Forces units, but Russia has not invaded the country to seize it or even effect regime change. In fact, NO ONE has invaded the country for that purpose. Foreign powers involved have mostly backed proxies. The primary issue in Syria was about a potential gas pipeline from Persian Gulf to Europe. Russia effectively stopped that, for now, and protected a client regime. Our involvement was initially to support the objectives of Persian Gulf allies (regime change), and later was limited to counter-terrorism operations.
