21 thoughts on “Ukraine”

  1. Hi Rand
    This article is SOO unlike all the others you have posted. Its nice to see a discussion rather than pure propaganda.

    Why are we even there? Its about our political class’s corruption and money laundering. Just remember Joe said, if you don’t fire the prosecutor, you won’t get the billion $. Now that we are spending 100’s of Billions on Ukraine, where do you think the money is really going? Can you say Hunter, Nancy, Soros, Obama, McCain and many others?

    1. This article is SOO unlike all the others you have posted. Its nice to see a discussion rather than pure propaganda.

      Performance art, right? Arizona CJ called this one. And well, Christopher Caldwell is genuine pure propaganda and Russia remained more corrupt than Ukraine – just with less Democrat politicians.

      I do wonder what is this ludicrous attraction to the tyrants and strong men of the world. Sure Putin is a cold hearted thug who is robbing Russia blind and causes an amazing amount of suffering in the world, but he looks so dreamy when he gallops along on that bear! My current guess is that Putin fills a wish fulfillment fantasy. He gets to do whatever he wants, tells off the right people, and he’s rich too! The minor flaws can be brushed off.

      It reminds me of Hitler and Stalin in the 1930s. They figured out how to cultivate these same useful idiots. Sometimes the idiots would even hop between ideologies to get a better deal (such as Vidkun Quisling did in the 1930s).

      All I can say is that must not be good for your soul to do that.

  2. Wow, the BS is strong and polished in this article. I particularly liked the laying of blame on the Nov 10th declaration from Blinken, for a war Russia has been planning and preparing for since April of that year.

    I wasn’t surprised that there was no mention of the Belgrade accords (that would sure be awkward, considering the thrust of this piece.) No mention of genocide either, and of course the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine’s Donbas region as well as Crimea in 2014 is glossed over. Instead, it’s the usual lefty drivel of “blame America!”, which seems to have suddenly become popular with some segments of the right.

    Russia, BTW, was informed well before this war (by the German Chancellor, amongst others) that Ukraine would not be joining NATO anytime in the next three decades.

    As for the easy dismissal in the article of Putin’s plans for after the Ukraine war (and BTW, the claim that Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet Union comes from Putin himself) that Russia “doesn’t have the guns” for further ambitions, such the Baltics, is pig-ignorant at best, because of geography. Indeed, NATO war plans for responding to a Russian invasion of the Baltics acknowledge that they could not be defended, and call for retreat, with a possible counter-offensive six months later to try to retake them.

    And of course, the contention that what we’re doing in Ukraine has forced Russia and China into a shotgun wedding is a hoot; much like the blame of Blinken’s Nov 10th statements (which I opposed, BTW), it requires a healthy dose of time-travel in order to be plausible, let alone true.

    1. IMO, it is as wrong to think our actions have had no impact on Russia’s decision making progress as it is to say everything they do is a reaction to our actions. The truth is in there someplace and doesn’t matter much now with the current war but our failures/successes and their motivations should be analyzed for foreign policy decisions going forward.

      Whatever we were doing before the war wasn’t sufficient to stop it but again, maybe there wasn’t anything that we could have done because Russia has agency over their actions. I think there was a lot that we could have done that maybe wouldn’t have stopped Russia but improved our standing should events played out the way they did. We and our partners have willingly adopted a lot of strategic weaknesses. The same people doing the skulking and scheming are the ones who put us in strategically weak positions.

  3. So whatever Russia wants to do to its neighbors, it can because, what they’re paranoid or have historical grievances or want buffer states or a sphere of influence?

    The countries of Eastern Europe don’t want to be dominated by the corrupt system of governance proffered/promoted/imposed by the Russians since the 1400s. They have a right to band together to fend off the blood-drenched paw of the Russian bear.

    We aren’t imposing democracy in the area. We are supporting peoples who are trying to defend the democracy they already have.

  4. “We” aren’t there. Our weapons are there and helping Ukraine fight a battle that we don’t want Putin to win. Putin hasn’t invaded a NATO country yet, but that is in Putin’s plans as it is his goal to control the gaps in Europe that have been used by invaders of the past. That means all of Ukraine must be taken, along with Moldova, the Baltics, and large pieces of Poland, Slovakia and Romania.

    People keep denying that Putin does not want all of Ukraine. They have neglected his statements on the matter as well as the geopolitical considerations.

    1. This war has shown Russia is incapable of taking on NATO. They had to already know that looking at the recent performance of Russia and NATO in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, ect.

    2. I think you are kidding yourself if you don’t think there are U.S. military personnel in Ukraine, right now, assisting the Ukrainian military in everything from training to surveillance and intelligence.

      1. Richard M
        And helping them rain bombs on civilians in the Donbass, as they have done since 2014.

        1. Is that supposed to be a serious rebuttal. Looks to me like one of the consequences of US involvement is weapons with much more accurate bomb placement – meaning less raining of bombs on civilians, more raining of bombs on Russian military targets.

  5. We’re arming the Ukrainians to resist a Russian invasion. Tge Russians had no right to invade Ukraine in 2014 and they still were wrong to do so in 2022. Like the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, the US and other countries are sending arms so Ukraine can protect itself. The Ukrainians are using those weapons effectively to weaken the Russian forces. Six months after Russia invaded, they still are no where near winning. Since the beginning of the Cold War, the US has spent trillions on weapons and personnel to oppose the Soviet Union/Russia and to a lessor extent China. For pennies on the dollar, the Ukrainians are weakening the Russian military, perhaps permanently. I’m sure that China is paying attention to what’s happening. To me, that’s money well spent.

  6. The US invaded Iraq in 2003, why? Did the US have the “right” to do so? Afghanistan?
    Given what has come out since 2016, Hunter/Joe Biden, 2020 election is the US or any western country (and I include Australia) less corrupt than Russia? Stones, glass houses etc.

  7. Mike,
    As you know. Putin didn’t put yours and my families in Lockdown, force all of us and our children to wear choking masks for NO scientific reason and force Jab many of us with an experimental drug that is now showing horrific effects of heart disease and pre-mature death. This is a kabuki theatre to hide the real criminals.

  8. ISW pointed out the other day that in the last six weeks since the Russians took a “pause” (due to exhaustion) they’ve managed to conquer an additional area in Ukraine about the size of Andorra.

    1. I glanced at that ISW observation. This is what they said:

      Shoigu’s statement may also represent an attempt by the Russian MoD to set information conditions to explain and excuse the negligible gains Russian forces have made in Ukraine in the last six weeks. Since Russian forces resumed offensive operations following a pause on July 16 Russian forces have gained about 450.84 km2 (roughly 174 square miles) of new territory, an area around the size of Andorra. Russian forces have lost roughly 45,000 km2 of territory since March 21 (the estimated date of Russian forces’ deepest advance into Ukraine), an area larger than Denmark. As ISW has previously assessed, Russian forces are unable to translate limited tactical gains into wider operational successes, and their offensive operations in eastern Ukraine are culminating. Shoigu’s statement is likely an attempt to explain away these failings.

      And the Western world is for the most part less corrupt than Russia. I include the US in that.

  9. ISW pointed out the other day that in the last six weeks since the Russians took a week-long operational “pause” (due to exhaustion) they’ve managed to conquer an additional area in Ukraine about the size of Andorra.

  10. There seem to be a lot of people here who are very certain of what they know about the situation. Yet, isn’t all our information filtered through the mass media? I don’t know about the rest of you, but after all the lies that have been exposed over the last several years, I am no longer confident in what I have been told.

    The only things I am fairly sure of are:

    – Russia is a corrupt state run for the benefit of its ruling elite
    – Ukraine is, too, and our ruling class has been making bank there
    – Biden is senile and incompetent and leads an incompetent administration
    – This debacle didn’t happen under the last guy.

  11. I see many of my American friends who simply cannot comprehend that the situation is more complex than “Russia bad, USA good”.

    Do you really believe that the USA is less corrupt than other nations?
    Do you really believe that Ukraine is a democracy?
    Do you really believe anything presented to you by the “mainstream” media and government as balanced and truthful?

    Time to take off those rose colored glasses. We live in a world of lies, and the lie that hurts most is told by one you trust.

    1. I believe the US is less corrupt than a lot of nations, but that is a low bar. But, even that is a simplification. We have a dual personality. I believe we are more corrupt when Democrats are in power. When we have Republicans in power, at least our media hold them to account.

    2. When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, a country that was most definitely not a democracy, the US opened up Lend-Lease to them. Over the remainder of the war, we sent vast amounts of war materials to the Soviet Union at great cost in money and lives. This was the right thing to do because while Stalin was one of history’s worst mass murdering rat bastards, at the time Hitler was the bigger threat. Ukraine is far from perfect, but Russia is vastly worse.

      1. Is it?

        Russia is a poor nation in decline. I don’t think they have the ability to reimpose the USSR even if they wanted to.

        But, sure, I guess we’ve got no choice but to prevent them winning at this point. I’m just angry it got to this point. I do not think it needed to.

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