whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

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a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

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Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

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When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

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We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

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Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

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uh?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

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I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

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How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

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To loosely quote Don Draper…."I don't think/feel about them (Cuba) at all."

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Cool….then let's leave.

We have long out grown the need for a early 20th century coal refueling station in the Caribbean

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It is obvious that you have no idea how limited is your understanding of the logistics of maintaining armies and navies

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What logistically advantage does having tiny GITMO in Cuba gives us that having the entire island of Puerto Rico does not?

Seriously, I would like to know.

whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

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I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

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UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

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Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

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non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

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That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

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I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

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Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

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In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

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Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

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I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

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So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

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Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

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In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

My favorite quote of the day …

Quote:

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See those bushes said Cpt Fritz…That's where some Russians are hiding. I want to wish them good morning…. He jumped out of his trench with a grenade launcher perched in his shoulder.

'Good morning you xxxxxx's! and let loose with a succession of swear words in Ukrainian, Russian and English"

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

So we displace the majority for the minority? Anyway you cut it, it is Ukrainian - physically, ethnically and legally. So, we should support Putin's request - Why?

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because Ukraine believes it is worth fighting and it is THEIR Nation.
Because Putin can't be allowed to take territory he wants because he wants
International borders have to be respected and have been in the modern era until both Russia and China.


Say what you will about US wars, but we leave. Everywhere, in the modern era, we left. If there is one place that I think we screwed people it is Hawaii. Even there, make the situation right but the US is not making Hawaii a Kingdom again!

FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because Ukraine believes it is worth fighting and it is THEIR Nation.
Because Putin can't be allowed to take territory he wants because he wants
International borders have to be respected and have been in the modern era until both Russia and China.


Say what you will about US wars, but we leave. Everywhere, in the modern era, we left. If there is one place that I think we screwed people it is Hawaii. Even there, make the situation right but the US is not making Hawaii a Kingdom again!

---

1. Why should we be paying for it? Why is the secession of the Donbas something we are willing to help fight against and pay tax payer money to prevent....but we supported the secession of Kosovo, East Timor, and South Sudan.

2. We leave places because thank God the American people demand it. We can get suckered into supporting these foreign interventions and adventurism for a little while but the people eventually demand it ends. If we left it up to the ghouls in D.C. we would still be in Afghanistan today.

Thank God for the common sense of the American people!

Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because if we don't, in twenty years the people of Romania might vote for a government that's less anti-Russian than we would like.

And that can't happen.

Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because if we don't, in twenty years the people of Romania might vote for a government that's less anti-Russian than we would like.

And that can't happen.

---

Oh no democracy in action....that sounds terrible.

I mean what will we do it the people of Romania don't vote the way we want them to?


p.s.

When did the American people become existential enemies of the Russian people? We have never even fought a single war against Russia....we in fact were their allies in two world wars.

Redbrickbear said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because if we don't, in twenty years the people of Romania might vote for a government that's less anti-Russian than we would like.

And that can't happen.

---

Oh no democracy in action....that sounds terrible.

I mean what will we do it the people of Romania don't vote the way we want them to?

---

We'd have to "expand the war zone," I believe is the phrase.

Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

trey3216 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because Ukraine believes it is worth fighting and it is THEIR Nation.
Because Putin can't be allowed to take territory he wants because he wants
International borders have to be respected and have been in the modern era until both Russia and China.


Say what you will about US wars, but we leave. Everywhere, in the modern era, we left. If there is one place that I think we screwed people it is Hawaii. Even there, make the situation right but the US is not making Hawaii a Kingdom again!

---

1. Why should we be paying for it? Why is the secession of the Donbas something we are willing to help fight against and pay tax payer money to prevent....but we supported the secession of Kosovo, East Timor, and South Sudan.

2. We leave places because thank God the American people demand it. We can get suckered into supporting these foreign interventions and adventurism for a little while but the people eventually demand it ends. If we left it up to the ghouls in D.C. we would still be in Afghanistan today.

Thank God for the common sense of the American people!

---

Disagree with the policy all you want. I get it.

I also see the investment in our closest allies (EU) and the importance Ukraine CAN play in NATO. I also agree with supporting Japan and Taiwan. Bottomline, I believe we need allies and making them stronger will help us in the long run.

We leave places better than when we found them, at least by Western standards. China and Russia don't.

Western Europe, Israel and the Pacific Rim (Japan, Korea, Taiwan and ANZUS) I believe are our most important areas of support. You don't. We disagree, but it is a good conversation.

FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because Ukraine believes it is worth fighting and it is THEIR Nation.
Because Putin can't be allowed to take territory he wants because he wants
International borders have to be respected and have been in the modern era until both Russia and China.


Say what you will about US wars, but we leave. Everywhere, in the modern era, we left. If there is one place that I think we screwed people it is Hawaii. Even there, make the situation right but the US is not making Hawaii a Kingdom again!

---

1. Why should we be paying for it? Why is the secession of the Donbas something we are willing to help fight against and pay tax payer money to prevent....but we supported the secession of Kosovo, East Timor, and South Sudan.

2. We leave places because thank God the American people demand it. We can get suckered into supporting these foreign interventions and adventurism for a little while but the people eventually demand it ends. If we left it up to the ghouls in D.C. we would still be in Afghanistan today.

Thank God for the common sense of the American people!

---

Disagree with the policy all you want. I get it.

I also see the investment in our closest allies (EU) and the importance Ukraine CAN play in NATO. I also agree with supporting Japan and Taiwan. Bottomline, I believe we need allies and making them stronger will help us in the long run.

We leave places better than when we found them, at least by Western standards. China and Russia don't.

Western Europe, Israel and the Pacific Rim (Japan, Korea, Taiwan and ANZUS) I believe are our most important areas of support. You don't. We disagree, but it is a good conversation.

---

I agree with that general assessment. Well the Levant is far less important than Western Europe or Japan...but over all I don't disagree.

Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because Ukraine believes it is worth fighting and it is THEIR Nation.
Because Putin can't be allowed to take territory he wants because he wants
International borders have to be respected and have been in the modern era until both Russia and China.


Say what you will about US wars, but we leave. Everywhere, in the modern era, we left. If there is one place that I think we screwed people it is Hawaii. Even there, make the situation right but the US is not making Hawaii a Kingdom again!

---

1. Why should we be paying for it? Why is the secession of the Donbas something we are willing to help fight against and pay tax payer money to prevent....but we supported the secession of Kosovo, East Timor, and South Sudan.

2. We leave places because thank God the American people demand it. We can get suckered into supporting these foreign interventions and adventurism for a little while but the people eventually demand it ends. If we left it up to the ghouls in D.C. we would still be in Afghanistan today.

Thank God for the common sense of the American people!

---

Disagree with the policy all you want. I get it.

I also see the investment in our closest allies (EU) and the importance Ukraine CAN play in NATO. I also agree with supporting Japan and Taiwan. Bottomline, I believe we need allies and making them stronger will help us in the long run.

We leave places better than when we found them, at least by Western standards. China and Russia don't.

Western Europe, Israel and the Pacific Rim (Japan, Korea, Taiwan and ANZUS) I believe are our most important areas of support. You don't. We disagree, but it is a good conversation.

---

I agree with that general assessment. Well the Levant is far less important than Western Europe or Japan...but over all I don't disagree.

---

I can see that, might be left over from a time by-gone.

Now, this concept will probably be met with disagreement from isolationist, I think we do a pretty good job of meeting the Founding Father's goal for the US. Almost all the Core Functions of Govt were set up to support commerce. Our Nation was born on commerce. Where we support with money, ships and troops pretty much support commerce. From the EU to the Horn of Africa to taking China on in the S China Sea. We are about free trade. That is who we were and who we are. I view us as the Netherlands on steroids...

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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S said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

---

S said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

---

Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

---

S said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

---

Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

---

Can we stay in the modern era? Say, after WW1?

FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

---

Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

---

non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

---

I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

---

Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

---

In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

---

Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

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Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because Ukraine believes it is worth fighting and it is THEIR Nation.
Because Putin can't be allowed to take territory he wants because he wants
International borders have to be respected and have been in the modern era until both Russia and China.


Say what you will about US wars, but we leave. Everywhere, in the modern era, we left. If there is one place that I think we screwed people it is Hawaii. Even there, make the situation right but the US is not making Hawaii a Kingdom again!

---

1. Why should we be paying for it? Why is the secession of the Donbas something we are willing to help fight against and pay tax payer money to prevent....but we supported the secession of Kosovo, East Timor, and South Sudan.

2. We leave places because thank God the American people demand it. We can get suckered into supporting these foreign interventions and adventurism for a little while but the people eventually demand it ends. If we left it up to the ghouls in D.C. we would still be in Afghanistan today.

Thank God for the common sense of the American people!

---

Disagree with the policy all you want. I get it.

I also see the investment in our closest allies (EU) and the importance Ukraine CAN play in NATO. I also agree with supporting Japan and Taiwan. Bottomline, I believe we need allies and making them stronger will help us in the long run.

We leave places better than when we found them, at least by Western standards. China and Russia don't.

Western Europe, Israel and the Pacific Rim (Japan, Korea, Taiwan and ANZUS) I believe are our most important areas of support. You don't. We disagree, but it is a good conversation.

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I agree with that general assessment. Well the Levant is far less important than Western Europe or Japan...but over all I don't disagree.

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I can see that, might be left over from a time by-gone.

Now, this concept will probably be met with disagreement from isolationist, I think we do a pretty good job of meeting the Founding Father's goal for the US. Almost all the Core Functions of Govt were set up to support commerce. Our Nation was born on commerce. Where we support with money, ships and troops pretty much support commerce. From the EU to the Horn of Africa to taking China on in the S China Sea. We are about free trade. That is who we were and who we are. I view us as the Netherlands on steroids...

---

There are no factions in United States politics that could be classified as "isolationist".

Even the most Paleoconservative wing of the Republican party (minority and powerless group in the GOP) has made its peace with the two Ocean navy and the idea of having a large number of bases around the world.

Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

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I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

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UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

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Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

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non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

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That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

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I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

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Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

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In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

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So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

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Ethnic Ukrainians already are the majority and were before Putin did his thing. Whiterock showed that earlier.

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Slight majority...yes

At least if we are to go by the self declared census info.

[According to the 2001 census, ethnic Ukrainians form 57% of the population of Luhansk Oblast and 55.9% of Donetsk Oblast. Ethnic Russians form the largest minority, accounting for 39% and 38.2% of the two oblasts respectively.]

[According to the 2001 census, Russian is the main language of 74.9% of residents in Donetsk Oblast and 68.8% in Luhansk Oblast]

He also said the demographic situation has changed since that time.

Lets play that out and assume it is in fact true.

Are you willing to use force to change the demographic profile of Donbas back to what it was in 2001?

---

As for 2001 or whatever date. When Ukraine became sovereign and that territory was part of their Nation, it is Ukraine. You seem to be making up reasons to give that area to Russia. Why? I can't figure out, you seem to be a fan of Putins.

---

Why do you want to encourage a war that has been going on for 8+ years in the Donbas to go on even longer. I can't figure it out.

This area is a rusting out post-industrial ex-coal field with less value than our rust belt or West Virginia.

The populace has kept up a near decade long fight to break off from Kyiv...yet we are supposed to continue to pretend this movement has no legitimacy among the rank and file citizens.

Not to mention the leadership in D.C. has supported just about every secessionist movement you can image over the past 30 years (East Timor, South Sudan, Kosovo) but now we are supposed to pretend that this secessionist movement in Donbas is where we draw the line?

This war has of course now escalated to being nation wide....300,000+ casualties and rising...along with costing the U.S. tax payers more than 100 BILLION dollars!

In order to help Kyiv keep Donbas are we willing to turn this into general large scale European war (possibly world wide)

Why?

---

Because Ukraine believes it is worth fighting and it is THEIR Nation.
Because Putin can't be allowed to take territory he wants because he wants
International borders have to be respected and have been in the modern era until both Russia and China.


Say what you will about US wars, but we leave. Everywhere, in the modern era, we left. If there is one place that I think we screwed people it is Hawaii. Even there, make the situation right but the US is not making Hawaii a Kingdom again!

---

1. Why should we be paying for it? Why is the secession of the Donbas something we are willing to help fight against and pay tax payer money to prevent....but we supported the secession of Kosovo, East Timor, and South Sudan.

2. We leave places because thank God the American people demand it. We can get suckered into supporting these foreign interventions and adventurism for a little while but the people eventually demand it ends. If we left it up to the ghouls in D.C. we would still be in Afghanistan today.

Thank God for the common sense of the American people!

---

Disagree with the policy all you want. I get it.

I also see the investment in our closest allies (EU) and the importance Ukraine CAN play in NATO. I also agree with supporting Japan and Taiwan. Bottomline, I believe we need allies and making them stronger will help us in the long run.

We leave places better than when we found them, at least by Western standards. China and Russia don't.

Western Europe, Israel and the Pacific Rim (Japan, Korea, Taiwan and ANZUS) I believe are our most important areas of support. You don't. We disagree, but it is a good conversation.

---

I agree with that general assessment. Well the Levant is far less important than Western Europe or Japan...but over all I don't disagree.

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I can see that, might be left over from a time by-gone.

Now, this concept will probably be met with disagreement from isolationist, I think we do a pretty good job of meeting the Founding Father's goal for the US. Almost all the Core Functions of Govt were set up to support commerce. Our Nation was born on commerce. Where we support with money, ships and troops pretty much support commerce. From the EU to the Horn of Africa to taking China on in the S China Sea. We are about free trade. That is who we were and who we are. I view us as the Netherlands on steroids...

---

There are no factions in United States politics that could be classified as "isolationist".

Even the most Paleoconservative wing of the Republican party (minority and powerless group in the GOP) has made its peace with the two Ocean navy and the idea of having a large number of bases around the world.

---

Yup, necessary if you want to control your own future. If not, be prepared to become the EU and be at the whim of who does control those shipping lanes.

FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

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Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

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This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

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We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

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So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

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a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

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We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

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Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

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False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

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The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

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Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

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Can we stay in the modern era? Say, after WW1?

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sure

George Barros of the ISW:

Meanwhile the Russians have "been doing pretty well so far," Barros said, engaging in "tactically sound defense" at the local level because "some of their more competent generals" have been assigned to the frontlines in the south of Ukraine.

Here's what they claim: pic.twitter.com/QO6zRqHHMS

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) June 14, 2023

"The big fireworks are still to come," the Institute for the Study of War's George Barros told The Counteroffensive. "The fact of the matter is that the Ukrainians have not committed a significant portion of their forces, from what we've seen so far."

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) June 14, 2023

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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trey3216 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

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UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia?

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Ukraine was a military non-entity until we started pouring weapons and advisors into the country. So tell me one thing. When we've used this sock puppet of a military not just as a proxy army but as the new regional hegemon, of all things, will you still maintain that we're not an empire?

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non-entity? 2014, maybe. 2022, no way.

They may not have the numbers but the change from 2014 to 2022 is stark.. In 2014, Ukraine asked NATO to help them get to NATO standards, they now have civilian control of military, diversified chain-of-command (Jr staff can make battlefield decisions), volunteer force, NATO quality weapons, and they NATO training (40 battalions trained by NATO). They may not have been a top 5 military, but they were top 20.

---

That was my point. It's been a radical transformation since 2014 (in disregard of Ukrainian popular will and duplicity against Russia, needless to say).

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I will disagree with you on the last part. I say it has happened because of the Ukrainian popular will after Russia too Crimea and there was nothing Ukraine could do.

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Polling shows the invasion overwhelmingly galvanized Ukrainian nationalism

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In Central & Western Ukraine? Certainly.

No one has any proof that it galvanized any sort of Ukrainian nationalism in Crimea or Donbas....if anything those areas have had substantial uptick in russian ethnic/cultural/national identification...and a corresponding out flight of those who would have considered themselves staunchly Ukrainian in identity.

Would make a good case for an area like Kharkiv or Odessa being more Ukrainian in identity today than it would have been just 2 years ago.

---

Makes it easy when Russia was just able to move a bunch of Russians loyal to Russia into the area, and arm them heavily to fight for a breakaway. Or directly send in Russian special forces units and Russian Paramilitary groups to help the breakaway factions who were getting the crap beat out of them by the Ukrainian military.

Let the circle be unbroken.

---

I won't argue with that...but what do you suggest the West do about that? Use force to expel millions of ethnic russians from Crimea and Donbas?

The Poles (with Stalin's help) were able to expel millions of ethnic Germans from East Prussia after world war II...only took systemic mass murder, industrial scale rape, and several years to ethnically cleansing the area and make sure it would forever remain Polish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944%E2%80%931950)

Are the elite in D.C. planning that? If not then at some point we have to accept that the current citizens of Crimea just don't want to be ruled from Kyiv.

Similar situation would be Tibet....does it belong in a very real sense to the natives of Tibet...absolutely. But lots of Han live there now. At what point in geo-political terms do you have to accept the situation on the ground?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinicization_of_Tibet

Same could be said for Palestine for that matter....once a new population has been established on the ground its hard to change things.

---

Some facts:
-- pre-war population of the Donbas was approx 3.6m.
-- About 60% identified as Ukrainian; 40% as Russian.
--Roughly 1-in-4 of those "Ukrainians" spoke Russian as primary language.

A 6-digit number of the Ukrainians have fled for refugee status. A six-digit number of Ukrainians were hauled off to distant parts of Russia. And some Russians have moved in. So the numbers have probably flipped.

The post-war scenario will involve international support for return of all Ukrainian residents to the Donbas, to include cash incentives. I'm sure Ukraine will offer amnesty to Ukrainian citizens, but not Russian citizens. Further, we can expect life for Russian nationals in Donbas to be pretty tough in the post-war, due to social ostracization. Knowing what they are likely to face, a great number of them will voluntarily repatriate.

Donbas could end up, 10 years from the end of the war, 75-25 Ukrainian.

You can bet Ukranian and International policy will, below the surface, be working toward a goal like that pretty hard, with juicy carrots and very soft sticks, as it will make it far harder for Russia to repeat the "little green men" gambit they used to destabilize the Donbas. The whole "Donbas should be part of Russia anyway" argument was weak to start with, but it was seized by war opponent with such gusto, we have to drive a stake thru the heart of it if we are to avoid repeating the nightmare.

Interesting reading:
https://theconversation.com/most-people-in-separatist-held-areas-of-donbas-prefer-reintegration-with-ukraine-new-survey-124849

---

So you are in fact supporting the idea of forced demographic change in Donbas to make it a more pliant province of Kyiv.

At least you are not beating around the bush about it.

The ethnic russians have to go and the ethnic ukrainians have to be made the majority....by "cash incentives" or by means that are a little more brutal.

You would fit in well as a "security" advisor to the Likud party.

---

I didn't say anything of the sort. The people Russia shipped off to Siberia should be returned. The refugees who left westwards should be returned. And there will be international assistance for that. As there should be, with Russia paying the cost.

And in that context, given all the returning Ukrainians who are rightfully upset at the disruption Russia caused in their lives, many Russian nationals will no doubt conclude it would be wise for them to go home rather than try to make a go of it where they are not wanted. That, all factors considered, should naturally wind up with Donbas seeing a greater percentage of Ukrainians.

Don't try to revise the history. Donbas was never a "disputed" territory. It never had a Russian majority. Russia tried to steal it, by first destabilizing it, then using that instability to justify invading it, ostensibly to rescue a noble oppressed minority of kinsmen. But really it was just empire building with little green men.

Counter-offensive predictably not going well for Ukraine.

Quote:

---

CNN -- Ukrainian forces have suffered losses in heavy equipment and soldiers as they met greater than expected resistance from Russian forces in their first attempt to breach Russian lines in the east of the country in recent days, two senior US officials tell CNN.

One US official described the losses which include US supplied MRAP armored personnel vehicles as "significant."

Ukrainian forces managed to overrun some Russian forces in the east around Bakhmut. However, Russian forces, armed with anti-tank missiles, grenades and mortars, have put up "stiff resistance," with their forces dug into defensive lines that are several layers deep in some areas and marked by minefields that have taken a heavy toll on Ukrainian armored vehicles.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/politics/ukraine-forces-resistance/index.html

---

whiterock said:

---

George Barros of the ISW:

Meanwhile the Russians have "been doing pretty well so far," Barros said, engaging in "tactically sound defense" at the local level because "some of their more competent generals" have been assigned to the frontlines in the south of Ukraine.

Here's what they claim: pic.twitter.com/QO6zRqHHMS

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) June 14, 2023

---

Correct.

whiterock said:

---

"The big fireworks are still to come," the Institute for the Study of War's George Barros told The Counteroffensive. "The fact of the matter is that the Ukrainians have not committed a significant portion of their forces, from what we've seen so far."

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) June 14, 2023

---

Also correct.

Their depleted uranium vs. our depleted uranium pic.twitter.com/Kr92CrQQXs

— 38Parrots (@Parrots38) June 14, 2023

WashPost: “As he heads into next year’s reelection campaign, Biden needs a major battlefield victory to show that his unqualified support for Ukraine has burnished U.S. global leadership, reinvigorated a strong foreign policy with bipartisan support and demonstrated the prudent… pic.twitter.com/0T2lSz87li

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) June 14, 2023

Bear8084 said:

---

whiterock said:

---

"The big fireworks are still to come," the Institute for the Study of War's George Barros told The Counteroffensive. "The fact of the matter is that the Ukrainians have not committed a significant portion of their forces, from what we've seen so far."

— Tim Mak (@timkmak) June 14, 2023

---

Also correct.

---

The heavy brigades have not been committed, so the main stroke apparently has not occurred.

Looks like thus far Ukes have launched fixing attacks to draw up reserves, to force Russians to rush their reserves up to the front. Presumably Russian Arty has been set to support Russian trenches, so the action appears to be designed to draw Russian troops out in front of their arty support and increases their exposure to HIMARS. That grinds them up, reduces the numbers of troops to man the trenches at the main assault.

Lots of unconfirmed reports of gunfire in vicinity of Tokmak and Melitopol as well as numerous photos of blown rail lines, all of which presumably is insurgent action. Pretty much all the maps show the largest area of insurgent activity in occupied Ukraine is that area. So it would make sense to escalate the insurgent activity to coincide with the offensive.

Melitopol is the prize and Russian defenses are all organized to defend it, so much so that I've assumed Ukes would choose an easier target. But they're making me question that....

If Ukes recapture Melitopol, it'll be a race to the Crimean approaches.

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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S said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

---

Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

---

You badly misapply history to fit the "American Imperialist" narrative.

WHY was Mexico forced to cede territory to us?
They lost a war with us.
WHY did that war happen?
Mexico tried to enforce territorial claims NORTH of the Rio Grande.
HOW did Mexico try to enforce those claims?
They attacked a US military unit in sovereign US Territory.

We actually offered to PAY them for the disputed territory (and more).
They refused.
Then they attacked.
Then we won.
So, WE are the oppressors?
Did we send in little green men?
Did we just invade and take it all (like Russia did in Ukraine?)

No.
Of course not.
Congress approved a Declaration of War after a Mexican attack on US military units on US soil.

whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

---

Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

---

You badly misapply history to fit the "American Imperialist" narrative.

WHY was Mexico forced to cede territory to us?
They lost a war with us.
WHY did that war happen?
Mexico tried to enforce territorial claims NORTH of the Rio Grande.
HOW did Mexico try to enforce those claims?
They attacked a US military unit in sovereign US Territory.

We actually offered to PAY them for the disputed territory (and more).
They refused.
Then they attacked.
Then we won.
So, WE are the oppressors?
Did we send in little green men?
Did we just invade and take it all (like Russia did in Ukraine?)

No.
Of course not.
Congress approved a Declaration of War after a Mexican attack on US military units on US soil.

---

Again,

You have to place words in my mouth in order to have an argument.

I never said the USA was an "imperialist" power toward Canada or Mexico.

The question was asked when the USA invaded Canada or Mexico. And if it was ever contemplated to have all or parts of these nations join the Federal Union.

I gave the relevant dates and said yes....some parts of Mexico were brought in to the USA as States. And that there was in fact discussion all through the 1800s about Canada possibly joining the USA.


So instead of just accepting the true of these statements you run some defense of a position I never took...."muh Mexico lost land because it lost a war with the USA!" Uh I never said or implied anything different.

p.s.

If you want me to take a position on these things.... I personally think Polk was betrayed by his negotiator in Mexico. We almost got all of modern Northern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur...maybe all or parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Len, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas) but instead he undermined the negotiations and settled for far far less.

[Trist's negotiation was controversial among expansionist Democrats since he had ignored Polk's instructions and settled on a smaller cession of Mexican territory than many expansionists wanted and felt he could have obtained. A part of this instruction was to specifically include Baja California. However, as part of the negotiations, Trist drew the line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana/San Diego instead of from Yuma south to the Gulf of California, which left all of Baja California a part of Mexico, and Polk was furious. In the end, Polk reluctantly approved the treaty since he wanted to have it signed, sealed, and delivered to Congress during his presidency. Trist later commented on the treaty:

Quote:

---

"My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans' could be

---

Upon return to Washington, Trist was immediately fired for his insubordination, and his expenses since the time of the recall order were not paid. After his dismissal, Trist moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and then to Philadelphia, where he worked as a railroad clerk and paymaster. Trist finally recovered his expenses in 1871, at the urging of Senator Charles Sumner

Trist supported Republican Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president in 1860]

Trist decided to let is own personal views be placed above the will of the American people and the elected President's own specific instructions.

I mean how many times have we seen that in modern times were career bureaucrat decide they know what is best.

So instead of the USA getting most of Northern Mexico (basically uninhabited/low population at the time) we got far less than what we could have.

Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

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Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

---

Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

---

You badly misapply history to fit the "American Imperialist" narrative.

WHY was Mexico forced to cede territory to us?
They lost a war with us.
WHY did that war happen?
Mexico tried to enforce territorial claims NORTH of the Rio Grande.
HOW did Mexico try to enforce those claims?
They attacked a US military unit in sovereign US Territory.

We actually offered to PAY them for the disputed territory (and more).
They refused.
Then they attacked.
Then we won.
So, WE are the oppressors?
Did we send in little green men?
Did we just invade and take it all (like Russia did in Ukraine?)

No.
Of course not.
Congress approved a Declaration of War after a Mexican attack on US military units on US soil.

---

Again,

You have to place words in my mouth in order to have an argument.

I never said the USA was an "imperialist" power toward Canada or Mexico.

The question was asked when the USA invaded Canada or Mexico. And if it was ever contemplated to have all or parts of these nations join the Federal Union.

I gave the relevant dates and said yes....some parts of Mexico were brought in to the USA as States. And that there was in fact discussion all through the 1800s about Canada possibly joining the USA.


So instead of just accepting the true of these statements you run some defense of a position I never took...."muh Mexico lost land because it lost a war with the USA!" Uh I never said or implied anything different.

p.s.

If you want me to take a position on these things.... I personally think Polk was betrayed by his negotiator in Mexico. We almost got all of modern Northern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur...maybe all or parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Len, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas) but instead he undermined the negotiations and settled for far far less.

[Trist's negotiation was controversial among expansionist Democrats since he had ignored Polk's instructions and settled on a smaller cession of Mexican territory than many expansionists wanted and felt he could have obtained. A part of this instruction was to specifically include Baja California. However, as part of the negotiations, Trist drew the line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana/San Diego instead of from Yuma south to the Gulf of California, which left all of Baja California a part of Mexico, and Polk was furious. In the end, Polk reluctantly approved the treaty since he wanted to have it signed, sealed, and delivered to Congress during his presidency. Trist later commented on the treaty:

Quote:

---

"My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans' could be

---

Upon return to Washington, Trist was immediately fired for his insubordination, and his expenses since the time of the recall order were not paid. After his dismissal, Trist moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and then to Philadelphia, where he worked as a railroad clerk and paymaster. Trist finally recovered his expenses in 1871, at the urging of Senator Charles Sumner

Trist supported Republican Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president in 1860]

Trist decided to let is own personal views be placed above the will of the American people and the elected President's own specific instructions.

I mean how many times have we seen that in modern times were career bureaucrat decide they know what is best.

So instead of the USA getting most of Northern Mexico (basically uninhabited/low population at the time) we got far less than what we could have.

---

Those career bureaucrats spend their lives working on areas and develop expertise that the majority of elected officials need.

Ever talk to an elected official? They are expected to vote on a myriad of things without any knowledge about them. Even their ideas, which may be great, they have no idea how to actually get it done. That is what the bureaucracy you make fun of excels at doing. Try getting something accomplished without the supporting structure, you end up Trump. Just yelling.

FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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S said:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

---

Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

---

You badly misapply history to fit the "American Imperialist" narrative.

WHY was Mexico forced to cede territory to us?
They lost a war with us.
WHY did that war happen?
Mexico tried to enforce territorial claims NORTH of the Rio Grande.
HOW did Mexico try to enforce those claims?
They attacked a US military unit in sovereign US Territory.

We actually offered to PAY them for the disputed territory (and more).
They refused.
Then they attacked.
Then we won.
So, WE are the oppressors?
Did we send in little green men?
Did we just invade and take it all (like Russia did in Ukraine?)

No.
Of course not.
Congress approved a Declaration of War after a Mexican attack on US military units on US soil.

---

Again,

You have to place words in my mouth in order to have an argument.

I never said the USA was an "imperialist" power toward Canada or Mexico.

The question was asked when the USA invaded Canada or Mexico. And if it was ever contemplated to have all or parts of these nations join the Federal Union.

I gave the relevant dates and said yes....some parts of Mexico were brought in to the USA as States. And that there was in fact discussion all through the 1800s about Canada possibly joining the USA.


So instead of just accepting the true of these statements you run some defense of a position I never took...."muh Mexico lost land because it lost a war with the USA!" Uh I never said or implied anything different.

p.s.

If you want me to take a position on these things.... I personally think Polk was betrayed by his negotiator in Mexico. We almost got all of modern Northern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur...maybe all or parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Len, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas) but instead he undermined the negotiations and settled for far far less.

[Trist's negotiation was controversial among expansionist Democrats since he had ignored Polk's instructions and settled on a smaller cession of Mexican territory than many expansionists wanted and felt he could have obtained. A part of this instruction was to specifically include Baja California. However, as part of the negotiations, Trist drew the line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana/San Diego instead of from Yuma south to the Gulf of California, which left all of Baja California a part of Mexico, and Polk was furious. In the end, Polk reluctantly approved the treaty since he wanted to have it signed, sealed, and delivered to Congress during his presidency. Trist later commented on the treaty:

Quote:

---

"My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans' could be

---

Upon return to Washington, Trist was immediately fired for his insubordination, and his expenses since the time of the recall order were not paid. After his dismissal, Trist moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and then to Philadelphia, where he worked as a railroad clerk and paymaster. Trist finally recovered his expenses in 1871, at the urging of Senator Charles Sumner

Trist supported Republican Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president in 1860]

Trist decided to let is own personal views be placed above the will of the American people and the elected President's own specific instructions.

I mean how many times have we seen that in modern times were career bureaucrat decide they know what is best.

So instead of the USA getting most of Northern Mexico (basically uninhabited/low population at the time) we got far less than what we could have.

---

Those career bureaucrats spend their lives working on areas and develop expertise that the majority of elected officials need.

Ever talk to an elected official? They are expected to vote on a myriad of things without any knowledge about them. Even their ideas, which may be great, they have no idea how to actually get it done. That is what the bureaucracy you make fun of excels at doing. Try getting something accomplished without the supporting structure, you end up Trump. Just yelling.

---

So they never make mistakes or fail to carry out the lawful orders and instructions of their constitutionally elected superiors?

Man you love and trust the Federal government and its ever growing army of bureaucratic workers almost as much as Trey and Whiterock

But I do love you swinging in to defend helpless Nick Trist (and the honor of Federal bureaucrats everywhere) he obviously knew better than the President of the United States.

[the British commissioner Dr. Richard Robert Madden wrote U.S. abolitionists about Trist's misuse of his post to promote slavery and earn fees from the fraudulent document schemes. A pamphlet detailing Madden's charges was published shortly before the beginning of the sensational Amistad affair, when Africans sold into slavery in Cuba managed to seize control of the schooner in which they were being transported from Havana to provincial plantations. Madden travelled to the United States, where he gave expert testimony in the trial of the Amistad Africans, explaining how false documents were used to make it appear the Africans were Cuban-born slaves.

This exposure of the activities of the U.S. Consul General, coupled with the complaints of ship captains, caused a Congressional investigation and eventual recall of Trist in 1840.]

[President Polk was unhappy with his envoy's conduct which prompted him to order Trist to return to the United States. General Winfield Scott was also unhappy with Trist's presence in Mexico...
However, the wily diplomat ignored the instructions to leave Mexico. He wrote a 65-page letter back to Washington, D.C. explaining his reasons for staying in Mexico]

Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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whiterock said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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FLBear5630 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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whiterock said:

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S said:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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Quote:

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I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Veracruz

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---

False equivalence?

FLBear asked when was the last time we invaded mexico, canada, or cuba.

I gave him the relevant dates.

I made no argument or statement as to the justification or wisdom of those invasions/interventions.

---

The proper answer is, we've never invaded them with the intention of including them into our union.

---

Well we certainly invaded parts of Mexico & Canada with the intention of placing them in our union (or large parts of them in our union)...some times successfully and some times not so successfully.

https://www.history.com/news/how-u-s-forces-failed-to-conquer-canada-200-years-ago

In both the revolutionary war and the war of 1812 the U.S. tried to conquer Canada and bring it into the Federal Union.

Obviously we know that Mexico was forced the cede half its territory to the United States.... "55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming"

So while there has been not real invasion with the intent to annex these areas for over 130 years....we can't pretend there were never any instances where this happened.

---

You badly misapply history to fit the "American Imperialist" narrative.

WHY was Mexico forced to cede territory to us?
They lost a war with us.
WHY did that war happen?
Mexico tried to enforce territorial claims NORTH of the Rio Grande.
HOW did Mexico try to enforce those claims?
They attacked a US military unit in sovereign US Territory.

We actually offered to PAY them for the disputed territory (and more).
They refused.
Then they attacked.
Then we won.
So, WE are the oppressors?
Did we send in little green men?
Did we just invade and take it all (like Russia did in Ukraine?)

No.
Of course not.
Congress approved a Declaration of War after a Mexican attack on US military units on US soil.

---

Again,

You have to place words in my mouth in order to have an argument.

I never said the USA was an "imperialist" power toward Canada or Mexico.

The question was asked when the USA invaded Canada or Mexico. And if it was ever contemplated to have all or parts of these nations join the Federal Union.

I gave the relevant dates and said yes....some parts of Mexico were brought in to the USA as States. And that there was in fact discussion all through the 1800s about Canada possibly joining the USA.


So instead of just accepting the true of these statements you run some defense of a position I never took...."muh Mexico lost land because it lost a war with the USA!" Uh I never said or implied anything different.

p.s.

If you want me to take a position on these things.... I personally think Polk was betrayed by his negotiator in Mexico. We almost got all of modern Northern Mexico (Baja California, Baja California Sur...maybe all or parts of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo Len, Sinaloa, Sonora and Tamaulipas) but instead he undermined the negotiations and settled for far far less.

[Trist's negotiation was controversial among expansionist Democrats since he had ignored Polk's instructions and settled on a smaller cession of Mexican territory than many expansionists wanted and felt he could have obtained. A part of this instruction was to specifically include Baja California. However, as part of the negotiations, Trist drew the line directly west from Yuma to Tijuana/San Diego instead of from Yuma south to the Gulf of California, which left all of Baja California a part of Mexico, and Polk was furious. In the end, Polk reluctantly approved the treaty since he wanted to have it signed, sealed, and delivered to Congress during his presidency. Trist later commented on the treaty:

Quote:

---

"My feeling of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans' could be

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Upon return to Washington, Trist was immediately fired for his insubordination, and his expenses since the time of the recall order were not paid. After his dismissal, Trist moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania, and then to Philadelphia, where he worked as a railroad clerk and paymaster. Trist finally recovered his expenses in 1871, at the urging of Senator Charles Sumner

Trist supported Republican Abraham Lincoln for U.S. president in 1860]

Trist decided to let is own personal views be placed above the will of the American people and the elected President's own specific instructions.

I mean how many times have we seen that in modern times were career bureaucrat decide they know what is best.

So instead of the USA getting most of Northern Mexico (basically uninhabited/low population at the time) we got far less than what we could have.

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Those career bureaucrats spend their lives working on areas and develop expertise that the majority of elected officials need.

Ever talk to an elected official? They are expected to vote on a myriad of things without any knowledge about them. Even their ideas, which may be great, they have no idea how to actually get it done. That is what the bureaucracy you make fun of excels at doing. Try getting something accomplished without the supporting structure, you end up Trump. Just yelling.

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So they never make mistakes or fail to carry out the lawful orders and instructions of their constitutionally elected superiors?

Man you love and trust the Federal government and its ever growing army of bureaucratic workers almost as much as Trey and Whiterock

But I do love you swinging in to defend helpless Nick Trist (and the honor of Federal bureaucrats everywhere) he obviously knew better than the President of the United States.

[the British commissioner Dr. Richard Robert Madden wrote U.S. abolitionists about Trist's misuse of his post to promote slavery and earn fees from the fraudulent document schemes. A pamphlet detailing Madden's charges was published shortly before the beginning of the sensational Amistad affair, when Africans sold into slavery in Cuba managed to seize control of the schooner in which they were being transported from Havana to provincial plantations. Madden travelled to the United States, where he gave expert testimony in the trial of the Amistad Africans, explaining how false documents were used to make it appear the Africans were Cuban-born slaves.

This exposure of the activities of the U.S. Consul General, coupled with the complaints of ship captains, caused a Congressional investigation and eventual recall of Trist in 1840.]

[President Polk was unhappy with his envoy's conduct which prompted him to order Trist to return to the United States. General Winfield Scott was also unhappy with Trist's presence in Mexico...
However, the wily diplomat ignored the instructions to leave Mexico. He wrote a 65-page letter back to Washington, D.C. explaining his reasons for staying in Mexico]

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Trust, no just the millions of thankless professionals that get you water, roads, air travel, products from overseas, pipe away your **** (literally), deal with waste, try to protect the food supply, law enforcement, run prisons, try to manage the border etc...

You seem to think this stuff just happens.