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The Ukrainian Verdun
American Greatness ^ | 27 Jul, 2022 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 07/28/2022 7:25:47 AM PDT by MtnClimber

The United States is nearing a gut-check on Ukraine.

Five months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war is now reduced to one of attrition. The current dirty, grinding slog is fought mostly with artillery and rockets. Everything from Ukraine’s shopping centers to apartment buildings—and the civilians in them—are Russian targets.

Most outsiders have already forgotten the heroic Ukrainian winter repulse of the botched Russian shock-and-awe effort to sweep into Kyiv, decapitate the government, and declare the eastern half of the country a Russian protectorate within mere days.

Months later, the long war devolves further into a contest of mass and weight—tons of explosives blowing up pathways for massed troops grabbing a few more charred miles of ruined landscape.

Vladimir Putin bets he can throw in more men and more shells than Ukraine and its Western suppliers can match. He is quite willing to “win” by laying waste to eastern Ukraine even if it means losing three Russian soldiers for every Ukrainian.

When war becomes such gridlocked carnage, each side looks to new game-changing diplomacy, strategies, allies, or weapons to break the deadlock.

For Putin, such escalation means more flesh, steel, and explosives. His country is 28 times bigger than Ukraine, and over three times more populous, with an economy 15 times larger.

As for Putin’s financial reserves, the Western oil boycott means increasingly little to him when 40 percent of the planet’s population in India and China are eager to secure near-limitless Russian energy.

Another 750 million people in Europe once talked tough. But as a second winter nears, their gas and oil imports from Russia will further wither. Then their Churchillian rhetoric may chill.

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: History; Military/Veterans; Society
KEYWORDS: americalastneocons; chechens; chechnya; deathtochechnya; deathtoputin; deathtorussia; globalism; globohomoagenda; neocons4biden; pedos4biden; putinlovertrollsonfr; putinsbuttboys; putinworshippers; russia; russianaggression; ukraine; ukraineislosing; ukraineslushfund; vdh; victordavishanson; zelenskyazzlickers; zelenskyworshippers; zottheneocons; zottherussiantrolls; zotthezelenskybots
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To: Rebelbase

“...The new Americans don’t even know who David and Goliath were.”

I’m afraid that is becoming more and more true. We’ll fight that ignorance.


21 posted on 07/28/2022 8:01:59 AM PDT by Monterrosa-24 (To the barricades !!!)
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To: MtnClimber

Billions of ChiCom borrowed dollars to prop-up Ukraine’s criminals, and they will tell us to do without.

OUR Veterans living in poverty and homelessness, with battered bodies and minds.

Fentanyl destroying swaths of America.

US borders overrun with people from all over the world.

An electric grid that’s on it’s last legs.

100,000 US Factories closed

Housing out of reach for millions

Remember EVERY person you know that voted for this.
Remember the Politicians who did it.

We are definitely gonna need more rope . . .


22 posted on 07/28/2022 8:02:00 AM PDT by Macoozie (Handcuffs and Orange Jumpsuits)
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To: MtnClimber

Hanson has been wrong on this from the beginning. He totally discounts NATO’s aggressive expansion among Russia’s most virulent enemies. Hanson has no problem with this expansion to within 300 miles of Moscow. Hanson seems to have missed NATO’s proclaimed goal of regime change. He totally discounts assurances made by DC and Brussels that this would never happen. Shocking to me that VDH would so misread this. Putin is not leading a revanchist Soviet Union. That seems to be how Hanson saw this starting.

To understand Russia’s position , it is necessary to review the reassurances then US secretary of state James A. Baker made to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev during a meeting on February 9, 1990. In a discussion on the status of a reunited Germany, the two men agreed that NATO would not extend past the territory of East Germany, a promise repeated by NATO’s secretary general in a speech on May 17 that same year in Brussels.

Russia and the West finally struck an agreement in September that would allow NATO to station its troops beyond the Iron Curtain. However, the deal only concerned a reunified Germany, with further eastward expansion being inconceivable at the time.


23 posted on 07/28/2022 8:03:27 AM PDT by hardspunned (former GOP globalist stooge)
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To: Monterrosa-24
Tell me, how does one resisting an invasion

You're not resisting crap. You're sitting safe in your abode playing keyboard commando, like all good leftist.

24 posted on 07/28/2022 8:05:49 AM PDT by BlackbirdSST (Trump WON!!!)
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To: Monterrosa-24

“You do not understand Western thinking. The fact that a giant country invades much smaller ones like the Republic of Georgia and Ukraine means it is a bully criminal.”

You’ve nailed it. Americans instinctively dislike bullies. It’s ingrained in our nature. We love seeing David cut Goliath off at the knees. It almost doesn’t matter that in this case David isn’t any better than Goliath.

Toss in the the well documented atrocities the Russians have committed in Eastern Europe over the last 80 years or so and the initial support for Ukraine becomes a forgone conclusion.

No one in America gives a rip what the “status” of Ukraine was in 1757, 1893, or 1927. Most Ukrainians don’t either. All they see is a bully picking on the smaller, weaker kid who lives next door. It doesn’t really matter to most Americans that the smaller kid is just as nasty as the bigger kid.

We want to see the smaller kid smash the bigger kids face in.

And our current government is taking full advantage of that. They’re blowing all kinds of BS about Ukraine at us from every possible angle.

There are no “good guys” in this fight. But that doesn’t mean that Russia shouldn’t be roundly condemned for blatantly violating international law by starting a war of conquest.

Pouring an endless stream of borrowed money into Ukraine when America is in recession is insane. If Ukraine wants American weapons they can pay cash on the crate for them. Then they can use them to kill every Russian in Ukraine for all I care.

L


25 posted on 07/28/2022 8:06:25 AM PDT by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: Monterrosa-24
"Americans want to help."

Americans were tricked into wanting to help.

The US has no strategic interest in the nation of Ukraine.

It sucks that the Ukrainian people are being killed, just like it sucked that the Iraqi and Iranian people were killed during their war - two corrupt governments fighting each other. Not our problem.

The same could be said for WWI - Americans were tricked into that mess, too. Didn't concern us, Europe had been doing that to each other for centuries.

26 posted on 07/28/2022 8:07:02 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("You'll never hear surf music again" - J. Hendrix)
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To: MercyFlush
If America suffers because of Moscow then Moscow will cease to exist.

America suffers because of its own elites. And your statement is perfectly representative of those neocon ideologues and empire-builders inside this country who will need to be purged. Which, sadly, will likely only happen after you have gravely destroyed it.

27 posted on 07/28/2022 8:08:34 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: Psalm 73; Monterrosa-24
"Americans want to help."

This person seems to believe this nonsense. It only shows the great power of propaganda, which has possessed their mind.

28 posted on 07/28/2022 8:10:25 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: MtnClimber
About Verdun. I read something years ago that has stayed with me over the years.

The Germans knew the French inclination to repopulate villages after they were destroyed, so with that in mind they positioned their artillery outside of Verdun and waited Verdun to fill up with Frenchmen.

Repeat and rinse.

29 posted on 07/28/2022 8:12:22 AM PDT by JonPreston
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To: Monterrosa-24

You don’t speak for anyone but yourself about what Americans want


30 posted on 07/28/2022 8:13:02 AM PDT by markman46 (engage brain before using keyboard!!!you)
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To: hardspunned

VDH also misses that it is likely that the USA intentionally touch off the war by telling Chinese officials that Ukraine joining NATO was a done deal, knowing that they would inform Putin. Putin had already stated that this would be a red line.


31 posted on 07/28/2022 8:16:37 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: Psalm 73

Have you ever been to Ukraine? I was not tricked into anything. The Ukrainian people are great and are fighting for their survival. You brainwashed sheep who cheer Putin’s “Russia knows no borders” astound me. What justification exists for the invasions of the Republic of Georga and Ukraine? The real reason is a land grab for Putin’s perverted ideas for a Soviet restoration and of course Ukraine’s black soil areas, Ukraine’s coal producing areas, Ukraine’s petro rich areas, Ukraine’s mill towns, etc.


32 posted on 07/28/2022 8:20:36 AM PDT by Monterrosa-24 (To the barricades !!!)
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To: MtnClimber

The entire corrupt facade of this mess was revealed when the darling of the left, Zelynskyy, not only banned opposition (press and political opponents) but then tried to ban US politicos (e.g., RPAul) from even asking about the billions of $$ being funneled thru Ukraine. It is US money and this tinpot dictator is telling our politicos to shut up.

Any of y’all who ever supported the UK ought to take note. This has always been nothing more than protecting money laundering and slave trading on behalf of EU elites and the Bidens. Now, he is insisting on silencing everyone who simply asks a question.

It is like having “voted” for Biden and seeing what that corrupt Ahole is doing — and still insisting that everything is OK.


33 posted on 07/28/2022 8:21:10 AM PDT by bobbo666 (Baizuo)
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To: MtnClimber

“heroic Ukrainian.....”

Stopped reading right there.


34 posted on 07/28/2022 8:22:10 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: MtnClimber

They are heavily invested in Putin, too.


35 posted on 07/28/2022 8:32:23 AM PDT by Eagles6 (Welcome to the Matrix . Orwell's "1984" was a warning, not an instruction manual.)
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To: Monterrosa-24

“ Americans love a good David and Goliath story. Americans want to help.”

Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc, etc.


36 posted on 07/28/2022 8:33:29 AM PDT by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: Chauncey Gardiner
Nice article but to topple the government within days was never Putin’s goal. It has always been destroy the military and de-nazification.

Destroy the military = strip Ukraine of the ability to defend itself from Russian aggression and domination.

De-nazification = Russian definition of Ukrainian Nazi: Ukrainian nationalist who views Ukraine as an independent country distinct from Russia.

37 posted on 07/28/2022 8:41:15 AM PDT by Petrosius
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To: MtnClimber

As much as I despise Putin and his meglomaniac goals, it’s time to end this. Zelensky has to come to an understanding that he cannot win unless the West actually joins the fighting. And that will not happen. Russia keeps the East and the corridor to Crimea. Ukraine keeps Odessa and the SW coast.


38 posted on 07/28/2022 8:46:32 AM PDT by xkaydet65 ( )
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To: MtnClimber
Apparently, American moralists intend to fight for the principle of the sanctity of national borders to the last Ukrainian.

Crocodile tears for The Ukraine they overthrew in the 2014 Revolution causing 3 Oblasts to secede. Now Russia is helping those embattled Republics and they are morally outraged…
39 posted on 07/28/2022 8:46:52 AM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: Lurker

Except David didn’t cut Goliath off at the knees, he hit him in the head with a rock.


40 posted on 07/28/2022 8:51:38 AM PDT by webheart
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