Posted on 12/11/2021 3:57:54 AM PST by Kaslin
On December 7, 2021, resident Biden had a two-hour telephone conference with Russia's President, Vladimir Putin, to discuss the tense situation on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Mr. Biden's objective was to dissuade Mr. Putin from his apparent, imminent plan to invade Ukraine. However, given that Putin is a former KGB officer, cold, calculating, and a sharp thinker and President Biden is not exactly known for his intellect, it is unlikely that Biden convinced Putin to order Russia's troops on the Ukrainian border to stand down.
A war between the United States and Russia over Ukraine is doubtful, and Putin knows it. Still, a Russian invasion of Ukraine would certainly increase European stress and lead to military build-ups in Western and Eastern Europe, increasing the likelihood of armed conflict between the NATO allies - including the United States - and Russia. It is, therefore, time for someone in charge to start thinking thoughtfully and strategically about Putin's ambitions, where those ambitions may lead us, and about exactly who we are and what we stand for.
First, does the Biden administration understand why Russia is doing this? What does Russia stand to gain by destabilizing the region? Various media platforms have speculated that Russia believes an invasion of Ukraine would allow Russia to increase its natural gas exports. Other outlets have offered psychiatric diagnoses, opining that Putin is mentally unwell and is using nationalism to drum up domestic support. These explanations are unhelpful and miss the point. Dismissing Russian motivations as opportunistic or crazy simply because they don't align with the sensibilities of Senator Bernie Sanders and The Squad is not productive and will eventually get people killed. Those same sensibilities caused the death of 13 of our soldiers and Marines at Hamid Karzai International Airport and our humiliating retreat from Afghanistan.
Ukraine and Russia are two different countries, but with an intertwined history and culture. Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, was the capital of ancient Kievan Rus, a proto-state that existed a thousand years ago but eventually became today's Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia. All three nations claim Kievan Rus as their cultural forefather. Putin's vision for a return to greatness includes reuniting and incorporating the territories which made up Kievan Rus into Russia. It is worth noting that Russia has been talking with Belarus about unifying those two countries. Ukrainians are less amenable to the idea. The Ukrainian and Russian languages are similar, and in many parts of Ukraine, a mix of the two languages known as Surzhyk is spoken. While this linguistic and cultural blending results from the two countries' shared lineage and proximity, it is also a result of past Russian imperialism. For example, Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's the Crimean Peninsula was nothing novel. In 1783, Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, annexed Crimea, and for essentially the same reason as in 2014. Russia then, and now, needed Crimea's warm water port, Sevastopol. Most of Russia's coast is frozen much of the year and useless for seaports. Crimea gives Russia access to the Black Sea; the Black Sea gives Russia access to the Bosporus; the Bosporus gives Russia access to the Mediterranean, and so on. Putin is dusting off Catherine the Great's playbook, and for a good reason. During Catherine's reign, Russia gained recognition as a European powerhouse. Putin wants to do it again.
Second, can Russia take Ukraine? Analysts estimate that Russia is building a force of about 175,000 troops on the Russian border with Ukraine. Ukraine's defense minister told CNN that Ukraine currently has about 450,000 active duty and reserve troops. This war would by no means be easy for either side and would almost certainly result in widespread death and destruction on both sides. Nevertheless, if Ukraine survives Putin's invasion and thereby prevents European militarization and instability, it will need material and logistical assistance. If history shows us anything about Russia at war, it shows that Russia is a savage enemy.
So, given the grim possibilities, should the United States worry about Putin's apparent ambition? First and foremost, the United States military needs to protect America and its strategic interests. But, before we can do that, there needs to be an honest assessment of America's NATO allies. For several decades now, Western Europeans have demonstrated a belief that Americans, not necessarily them, should be willing to die for Western European interests and objectives. For example, our Western European allies yoked us into sending significant numbers of troops into a disintegrating Yugoslavia to beat back Serbian aggression in the 1990s. They were too comfortable and too broke from their extravagant social programs to lead the way in confronting chaos in the Balkans, even though the crisis presented an immediate threat to European stability. So, the United States did the heavy lifting even though there was no immediate threat to the United States. Likewise, Western Europe hopes the United States will do the heavy lifting in Ukraine should Putin carry through with his plans.
If Russia plans a march into Ukraine, the United States needs to complete this assessment of its allies before committing American lives to any future fight. We should not put our most dutiful and patriotic young people at risk if Europeans have decided personal comfort and social equity are more important than freedom and national sovereignty. Moreover, Ukraine has a long history of deadly confrontation with Russian aggression and abuse. That experience will inspire Ukrainians to fight for a free and independent Ukraine. Sending American troops is probably off the table as the Ukrainians themselves have said they don't need them, but NATO should not abandon Ukraine. At a minimum, Ukraine deserves support in the form of military equipment and intelligence sharing. The question of sending troops is for another day when there is a broader conflict and hopefully when we have an informed and serious-minded commander-in-chief.
Resident Byedone. Love it!
We get 2 weeks paid vacation every year. Germany gets a month. We work 2 more weeks every year to help pay for their defense;. They’re sucking on our teat. Why didn’t anyone point this out in the last 50 years?
Trump did
The region was destabilized by Victoria Nuland and Hillary Clinton.
Restoring the status quo ante is not destabilizing.
No, I don’t really care. With the collapse of representative government in the US I’d say we have more pressing issues to deal with.
We never should have been involved in WWI. Kaiser Wilhelm had no intention of taking over the world. But we kept helping the allies with our shipping, so he kept sinking our ships and before you know it, the US is in WWI, Germany falls and gets ready for Hitler, and the Bolsheviks dig in in Russia. We made a mistake.
WWII is more complex. Seems like more of a Just War. Japan attacked us. Germany declared war on us. Hitler was power hungry and seemed insatiable. I understand why we got involved in WWII.
But Ukraine? Sorry. Seems like a left-over internal affair of the Soviet Union. I’m tired of saving Europe from itself. This is not our fight. Russia doesn’t scare me. It’s not like they’re going to cross the Atlantic and invade us.
Ukraine has big economic problems, even bigger than Russia’s.
Many in Ukraine are fed up and think things would be better in CCCP II.
Russia would like to not have a NATO vulnerable underbelly.
“With that idiot in the White house I wouldn’t be so sure.”
Agree. Scotty, on Star Trek, famously said that the best diplomat he knew was a fully loaded phaser bank. In other words, no one will take you seriously UNLESS you take yourself seriously first.
So, my advice to The Junta is that if they want this country to have respect in the world, do what Jimmy Carter did after Afghanistan was invaded and call for a massive military build up. Most people don’t know it, but Carter’s proposed build up wound up being larger than Reagan’s real build up.
Until that happens, we’ll simply get walked over, until we step in it, only to realize that our 30 year ‘vacation’ from modernizing our military, while Russia and China did not take that ‘vacation’, was a very costly mistake. Then we’ll quickly learn our place in what will be The New World Order for the next 100 years.
First, we should not care, seriously what matter is it of ours what Russia and his former republics do? Our focus, our concern, should be our southern border. Our focus should be on removing 30 to 60,000,000 illegal aliens or others that have been allowed to enter the US in the last 20+ years. It’s a shame that we focus on Russia, we allow China to become a super power by using them instead of American labor, and we allowed tens of millions of Mexicans and others invade our country. I think history will write the demise of the US is the result of those three actions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss
I don’t agree with the tone of the Wikipedia article about the German-Austrian Anschluss, but the situations are similar.
“massive military build up”
China’s industrial might is far superior to that of the United States.
Chinese and Russian will to fight is far superior to that of the United States.
Given a choice of fetal cell vaccines or loss of VA benefits, the general unwillingness of the rank & file of the US military to fight is known worldwide.
At least Russia is now a Christian Nation.
Or maybe they had just a little more wisdom than us.
Surely, the devastation of two world wars has taught Europeans the folly of fighting a stupid war in a foreign land just because a bunch of @ssholes in your government say it’s a good idea.
We don’t have military bases over there to defend Europe from the Russians. We are over there to occupy Europe and defend it from the Germans.
Agree with China and Russia, and one of these days we’ll figure out that China is Number 1 in the world, even though it’s been OBVIOUS to many for some time (as they now consume half of the world’s resources), but not as obvious to the flag-wavers who seem stuck in a pre-China world.
As to our will to fight...that can’t be certain until tested, so I’m not sure that anyone knows yet.
Western Ukraine, which was relatively free under Polish rule while the rest of the country was suffering under Lenin and Stalin developed a strong nationalism. There may be some kind of a lesson there. Central Ukraine doesn't want annexation either.
It is more than a little unsettling how similar the argument now is to what Chamberlain and Daladier heard and said in the Thirties.
An English diplomat or general remarked soon after the founding of NATO that the purpose of the alliance was; “to keep the Germans down, the Russians out and the Americans in”.
and the US spent an enormous sum on European infrastructure and industry providing them a life better than at any time in their history. In world history Europe had never know a peaceful era until post-WWII, thanks to the US. The US has invested a fortune in Europe to keep the peace. Perhaps because the vast majority of the immigrants who built the US were of European stock. Europe owes the US big-time. The last generation knew this, but now......
please replace that with those in your post, after all there is more than one idiot in the white house these days.
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