Posted on 03/21/2022 7:52:57 AM PDT by JewishRighter
What would Winston Churchill do about the Russia/Ukraine war? This is by no means an original perspective, but, in the melee of argument back and forth (Neocons! Putinbots!, etc.) I'd like to break it down, perhaps a little more thoughtfully.
Despite my FR name, I am not a neocon. I have always been conservative and held my own counsel about whether it was in the best interests of the United States to engage in combat abroad. That should be the touchstone for everyone claiming to be an American Conservative.
Just because I refer to Churchill does not mean that intervention is automatic. His analysis of Hitler's hyper-aggressive worldview might not apply to Putin. Does Putin have the same kind of territorial ambitions? I honestly don't know and don't think it helps to quote what he says given his track record for deception and thuggery. At the same time, the calculus is radically altered by the Russian nuclear threat. Regardless of MAD theory, a desperate Putin, desperate at losing, desperate at being dethroned, desperate at being humiliated, is a very dangerous prospect.
Let's say that there is an objective logic to Putin's position: one that would apply regardless of who occupies the Russian leader's chair. Such a logic is purely strategic: Ukraine, or parts of Ukraine, are essential to the security of Russia. I personally don't believe that but let's just say that is the common Russian view, that Ukraine or allies of Ukraine would use Ukraine's geographic advantages to attack Russia.
In a civilized world order, that subject can and should be resolved through diplomacy and negotiation, not by unprovoked military onslaught. Either way, what can/should we do today? What would Winnie do? There is no doubt he would counsel a strong position, but how strong? Obviously, the dividing line is somewhere around what point would push Putin over the edge of nuclear madness.
Since the exact demarcation line is impossible to discern, I would say that everything should be done to assure a stalemate, without direct American military involvement. I know the argument goes that supplying weapons or applying sanctions can be viewed as acts of war, but there has to be a line drawn to where both Putin and the US have an avenue of retreat: if he has not been directly attacked by Americans, he can explain to his own people that attacking Americans or American interests was not justified; if we have not attacked, we can maintain a position that our goals were not to hurt Russia, but only to protect another independent nation.
Churchill's classic formula is along the lines that aggression must be confronted or it will lead to more aggression. Our task is to measure the extent of confrontation with the greatest precision possible.
Sort of a footnote: I sharply disagree with the idea that Putin or the Russians in general are perfectly justified to fear NATO or American aggression as an excuse for attacking Ukraine. In the whole history of the United States, outside the North American Continent, we have never waged a war of conquest against another nation. NATO never waged a war to seized any part of Eastern Europe. Inclusion of the Baltic states was founded on their well-justified fear of Russian imperialism rather than the other way around. So, no. Not buying that.
Churchill wasn’t above buying into the current trendy thing of the day. He was a proponent of eugenicism before Hitler’s role in actually applying these theories made them unfashionable again.
You just highlighted America’s abject failure of Foreign Policy since after Reagan. Russia will Annex Russian speaking / sympathetic portions of Ukraine. After this war, Ukraine will be a little over half it’s current size
After the Spanish-American War, we colonized Cuba until the FDR administration.
We leave after installing appropriately compliant governments, eg Panama. Actually taking over and running colonies is expensive. It is much better to have the exploitation done by a cooperative elite in the colony.
Let me add the Mexican War, the Texas War of Independence, and the entire sequence of Indian Wars starting with King Philip’s War.
You might be capable of making Bill Clinton blush! You are being insincere... again. When people think of Churchill, they think of bold action against Hitler as opposed to the appeasement characterized by Chamberlin. Asking “What would Churchill?” do has an easily assumed meaning. Don't try to pretend to be a fool. It is not becoming in adult conversation.
Oh please! Pretending to be a victim? LOL! All people have to do to check out what I have written in this thread is click on my name in one of my posts and go to my posting history. I am very capable of been a lot more insulting; you caught me on a good day.
outside the North American continent
You just highlighted America’s abject failure of Foreign Policy since after Reagan.
***We INVADED Philippines after Reagan? Spanish-American War? That was in the 1800s.
Afghanistan: We left.
Iraq: We left.
Panama: We left.
Central American banana republics? You’d have to be more specific. We never invaded Nicaragua. Only Panama and Grenada come to mind.
Russia will Annex Russian speaking / sympathetic portions of Ukraine. After this war, Ukraine will be a little over half it’s current size
***Just a completely different subject. Since that kind of activity is allowed, we should just invade northern Mexico.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/4043681/posts
coup that took place .... But no, those don’t count as “wars of conquests” do they?
***No, they do not.
What would Winston Churchill do about the Russia/Ukraine war?
It depends on which Churchill you are referring to. Churchill was forced to accept the liberal government and had to work around their theories which effected the foreign spectrum.
The decline of the British Empire had been accelerated by the Second World War and the post-war government pursued a policy of decolonization. Churchill and his supporters believed that maintenance of Britain’s position as a world power depended on the empire’s continued existence.
A key location was the Suez Canal which gave Britain a pre-eminent position in the Middle East, despite the loss of India in 1947. Churchill was, however, obliged to recognize Colonel Nasser’s revolutionary government of Egypt, which took power in 1952. Much to Churchill’s private dismay, agreement was reached in October 1954 on the phased evacuation of British troops from their Suez base.
In addition, Britain agreed to terminate her rule in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by 1956, though this was in return for Nasser’s abandonment of Egyptian claims over the region.
Elsewhere, the Malayan Emergency, a guerrilla war fought by pro-independence fighters against Commonwealth forces, had begun in 1948 and continued past Malayan independence (1957) until 1960. Churchill’s government maintained the military response to the crisis and adopted a similar strategy for the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya (1952–1960).
He ended up in a whole lot of losing campaigns because the inflicted areas were unsustainable so the Brits had to bail both politically and counting their blessings from further pain. It was a series of disputes they couldn’t win and probably shouldn’t have been involved in to begin with by releasing their hold much earlier. The US was a perfect example, in earlier times, of the same type of conflict.
Probably the latest of the efforts of major British satellites to slide away was Australia. They actually started in 1901 but didn’t reach a separating agreement until 1986 with the combined settlements of the Australian Act built separately by both.
Wy69
If the US is “exceptional”, why would “manifest destiny” stop with one continent?
No argument from me on that, especially since they were my own words.
Because our destiny was manifest on this soil. Duhh.
Is it really that hard to get? I'm just trying to make sure us FReepers argue our points with legitimate facts. We are on the right side of things, but we lose the argument when we argue with lies.
Thank you for trying to interject a bit of sanity along with the most likely outcome. All the propaganda and posturing by western leadership in reality does not amount to a hill of beans. Are some Russians going to be inconvenienced by Western sanctions? Obviously, but how many are going to starve or be killed? The “sanctions” are merely driving the Chinese and Russians together and changing the shape and basis of all of our economic futures. Once again the roll played by the US dollar is being weakened. Long term is going to hurt our economy more than the Russians and Chinese.
A lot of people here do not want to hear it, but your longtime experiences and knowledge of the region should be considered by all. You are an asset to the community.
I am also a very right-wing Jew. My paternal line comes from what is now Ukraine (though they only considered their nationality to be Russian), and my maternal line from Poland. I am somewhat invested in this war from an emotional POV.
However, I am FULLY invested in what is best for this country. It gave my family refuge, and if it hadn’t I simply would not be alive - for certain my mother (if my grandparents had been able to meet over there) would have been slaughtered in the Shoah. Further, my family - past and present - have fully enjoyed both the freedom and the opportunities available here. Unlike the “bad old days” in the old country, there IS no refuge if this country goes down - it would be like the fall of Rome, meaning chaos and lots of violence, starvation, disease, etc. for many decades, if not longer. So I am interested in what is best for this country (i.e. America first - not America alone, but first).
You made this statement: “Regardless of MAD theory, a desperate Putin, desperate at losing, desperate at being dethroned, desperate at being humiliated, is a very dangerous prospect.” I agree with it. I also know, having lived through it, that there’s a way to fight the Russians and thoroughly damage them without the necessity of fighting a war, with all of the blood & treasure that would naturally be expended, as well as the risk of a nuclear exchange. We did it once before, and we’re inching in that direction again - cripple them economically.
“Cripple them economically.” That requires that their primary source of hard currency, the sale of oil and gas, be minimized. We did this in the ‘80s under Reagan by basically bribing the Saudis to ramp up the production of oil from about 2.5 MBD to over 12 MBD in about 6 months. Oil declined at one point to about $8/bbl. Between that, cutting their then-proposed twin natural gas pipelines to one and delaying that one by 2 years, and by forcing them to spend enormous sums to keep up with our massive defense build-up, we broke their backs - with no war, no nukes flying around.
Here’s the thing: Putin may be desperate (which is why we have to give him a somewhat face-saving way out), but in the final analysis he has family. Yes, the close members will be kept as safe as he, himself - but then they will all face (along with the rest of us) living in a post-nuclear environment. If Chernobyl was bad (and it was), what will a nuclear conflict do to Russia’s ability to grow food? To whom will they sell oil and gas - the nations that they just nuked? I don’t think that he will go that route - but, again, we HAVE to give him a face-saving way out. In the best case scenario, this war gets ended, the Russians keep minor areas of Ukraine, and in the next 2-3 years he faces the same fate as Khrushchev - forced retirement. With all of his billions, it wouldn’t be so bad.
“we have never waged a war of conquest against another nation”
“Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Philippines, Spanish-American War, and interventions in Central American banana republics by Marines on a regular basis.”
This "vanity" started with a misleading premise and contained "Clintonian" style qualifiers which were intended to lead the reader toward a desired conclusion. It was not unlike a push poll where you get called on the phone and the real goal is to change your opinion and not record it. I do not object "vanities" being used to start threads and I do not disagree with many of the points that JewishRighter made. But I do not believe that the conversation should be limited by the game rules that you believe were set by the author.
I’ve said this quite a few times now on this board: This was supposed to happen in 2016 with Hilldog’s election. That they were put behind schedule by We The People electing DT has caused unending wailing and gnashing of teeth. That’s why we have ChoMoeJoe and CarpetKneesKamala: It’s paybacks. They are getting their revenge. If we get rid of Joe, we get Kami. Either way, we’re S-C-R-E-W-E-D.
I’ll be surprised if there isn’t at least one nuclear strike in this somewhere. (Won’t that make the climate change people happy?)
B4rack was supposed to be the end of our system of electing leaders.
Thank you for the insight and telling us of your personal experience. My wife and I live in a community with many Russian and Ukrainian people who arrived here in recent decades. For the most part they are very good and prospering citizens. They are typically indistinguishable from one another by outside observers and even during this time of stress I am not perceiving any animosity between them except possibly from young people easily swayed by propaganda. And why should there be... they mostly left because they were not happy with the government(s) that were in control and causing hardships.
the whole history of the United States, outside the North American Continent, we have never waged a war of conquest against another nation.
>>>>
You never heard of the Philippines????
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.