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.
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.
“Cripple them economically.” That requires that their primary source of hard currency, the sale of oil and gas, be minimized.
***The Russians weren’t even interested in western Ukraine until oil was found there. Their interest is simply in raping that country. Russia gets 60% of its revenues from oil exports. Europe gets 40% of their oil from Russia.
In 2012 massive oil and gas reserves were found in Crimea. Crimea signed a $10 billion exploration contracts with Shell and Chevron to develop the new found oil and gas fields. These oil and gas products would compete in Europe with Russia’s oil and gas, reducing Russia’s oil revenues, which we recall amount to 60% of their total GDP. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, cancelling the contracts with Shell and Chevron.
But Ukraine still had massive reserves in, you guessed it, Donetsk and Luhansk, and other areas East of the Dnieper River. In 2019, Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited Ukraine, and soon after Ukraine awarded exploration contracts to a consortium of U.S. oil companies. Again, these oil reserves would compete in Europe with Russian oil, so Putin is invading Ukraine to shut down this latest attempt to extract Ukrainian oil and sell it in competition with Russian oil.
This explanation makes more sense to me than the “Putin feels threatened by NATO expansion” excuses for the invasion.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4044221/posts?page=1#1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CmdSzVFSKc
If the Ukes allow some small region in the west to be its own republic, but the OIL belongs to Ukraine, do ya think Pootypoot would allow that? Nope.