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.
I don’t care what Winston Churchill would do. I know what I would do and after research and reviewing intel, it would be the right thing.
Churchill would beg the U.S. to go war just like he did in WW II. Churchill couldn’t stand that the U.S. stayed out of the war until we were attacked.
WC would have not allowed unchecked mass immigration into the UK. He would have viewed the same in Europe as a serious threat. That probably would have generated a change the current situation.
Would he have bought into the climate change lie, however? I’m sort of undecided about that. On one hand, people in his time had more respect for science than they do now. (No, the Left’s slavish worship of science is not respect.) On the other hand, it takes a lot of setting-up to get people to believe such a big lie. I would hope he would listen once and snort, then laugh, then throw the pesky science guy out of his office.
Of course, that kind of hard-nosed pragmatist would never attain a place of power today. (He thought WWI was the stupidest thing in the world, by the way, according to the history I’m reading.)
Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Philippines, Spanish-American War, and interventions in Central American banana republics by Marines on a regular basis.
Yours is a well-reasoned point of view. Ukraine is getting a lot of help, but not enough and not of the nature really needed to help them defeat Russia. So I believe Ukraine will fall to Russia eventually because they can’t withstand this kind of pounding indefinitely. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. Only Putin knows, and even he might not know yet. It depends on several factors after Ukraine is wrapped up.
Those are all excellent examples of wars that do not involve conquest because we LEFT those countries after the warfare.
I’m more of a “what would George Washington do” type of guy
Don’t forget that there is some evidence that, as a Royal Navy bureaucrat in WW1, he may have allowed the Lusitania to travel into a submarine trap without being warned.
Churchill would have done anything to get the US into a war if it suited his purpose.
"Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Philippines, Spanish-American War, and interventions in Central American banana republics by Marines on a regular basis"
I'm counting Grenada since it's in the Gulf of Mexico, though it's probably more South America. And I'd say Afghanistan was very much justified after 9/11 (I'd a gone into Pakistan too, and not "win over hearts and minds" in either country). So we're pretty much left with Iraq and the Philippines.
Churchill was the right man at the right time for the UK during WW 2.
But he sure did make his share of major mistakes. For example, Churchill was heavily involved in the planning for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during WW 1.
And his dealing with Stalin were often naive. As WW 2 was ending Churchill and Stalin made a secret agreement on how to divide Eastern Europe into “spheres of influence”. For example, the UK was to get something like 20% influence in Hungary. Who is his right mind would think Stalin would honor that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentages_agreement
Nothing in the word ‘conquest’ requires occupation. You lose.
Which of those were wars of conquest?
The actor, Richard Burton, in preparing to play Churchill, read of and said, "What man of sanity would say on hearing of the atrocities committed by the Japanese against British and Anzac prisoners of war, 'We shall wipe them out, every one of them, men, women, and children. There shall not be a Japanese left on the face of the earth?' Such simple-minded cravings for revenge leave me with a horrified but reluctant awe for such single-minded and merciless ferocity."
In this light, your question seems poignant. What might the Rambam have done, especially considering how he had to serve his master and patients in various manners and ways? As to the Russia/Ukraine conflict, which is more Amalek?
I’m not asking what he would do as Prime Minister of England. What would he counsel us to do as an adviser?
Good points but I’m not asking what he would do if he made the mess in the first place. What would he do now with the situation as it is?
That's obviously true by design.
Everything Putin has been telling the Russian people is true -- the West wants to foment a revolution in Russia, break it into six or so different countries and gain control of it and its natural resources.
Fomenting a revolution in Ukraine in 2014 and using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia was part of that objective.
The discovery of the biolabs in Ukraine, in addition to a heavily-armed Ukraine joining NATO, is most certainly a security threat to Russia, far more so than Iraq was every a threat to us.
He would probably be holding a gun on ChoMoeJoe right now.
Foolishly defend the British Empire?
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