Now there was a a leader.
Posted on 05/18/2022 3:22:18 AM PDT by dennisw
A vast superpower with a proud Communist history launches a brutal war on its far smaller neighbour, sending thousands of troops over the border.
The objective is the utter humiliation of that country — its demilitarisation, as well as regime change and a complete overhaul of its political structure so that it becomes a client state.
I am not talking here about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This brutal assault across national boundaries took place more than 40 years ago when China invaded Vietnam.
But the parallels between the two wars are uncanny and, as I shall explain, they hold a vital lesson for president Putin. One that he is steadfastly — and very foolishly — ignoring.
Former Yeltsin aide Alexander Temerko: 'Putin is trapped by all the myths of military power that underpin his legitimacy, and which serve as the main ideological foundation of the Russian state. The fact is that today, Russia is an aggressor and a pariah, and its "legendary" army turns out to be a barbarous and shameful gang of war criminals and marauders'
It was in February 1979 that the Red Dragon’s soldiers started pouring over the border.
The Vietnam War had ended just four years earlier, and China had been instrumental in ensuring North Vietnam’s victory against the US-backed South.
But the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s relationship with the new Communist government in Hanoi had deteriorated dramatically — and he wanted to teach them a lesson.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
MORE>>>>>
Vietnam had been weakened by war and poverty. No analyst, political scientist or military expert gave the country more than a week before the Chinese captured Hanoi.
Yet the 100,000-strong Vietnamese Army halted the Chinese People’s Liberation Army — which dwarfed it six times over — in its tracks. Suddenly, the world saw that the legs of the Colossus were made of clay.
In the space of two months, the myth of the ‘invincible’ Chinese war machine had been relegated to the dustbin of history.
Ultimately, the nuclear superpower was incapable of defeating the small but well-equipped, trained, battle hardened and motivated Vietnamese Army.
Now, look at the situation in Ukraine. The Russian Army has given up any attempt to take the capital Kyiv from a hugely motivated Ukrainian Army.
It has also just pulled back from Kharkiv, only 30km from the Russian border, echoing the Chinese retreat from Lang Son, so close to China’s border.
Deng Xiaoping only needed a few weeks of such ruinous warfare to understand that his army was only good for set-piece parades past Mao Zedong’s mausoleum on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
Russia is/was/has been doomed for a long time. This was the final straw so to speak.
I want to know what exactly was the United States doing in Ukraine that would motivate Putin to invade. The idea that it was Ukraine joining NATO is not enough. There is something that caused Putin to say “enough”. Maybe it is the NATO thing, combined with the chemical/bio-weapons labs and graft that was the tipping point.
Good article but tough to read from all the click bait and ads....
This whole notion of a nuclear power being brought to its knees using conventional weapons and strategies, can go right out the window with the use of nuclear weapons.
It’s clear that Taiwan will stand up to China if it tries to attack, but what if they go right to nuclear weapons...Are we prepared to use them too.
The war in Ukraine is far from over.... Unless Putin dies, this could drag on. If he’s ousted or dies, what happens to those nukes....
Something to think about...
“Good article but tough to read from all the click bait and ads....”
I always use an ad blocker. I never see any advertisements. Or use the Brave browser which automatically blocks advertisements.
Glory, conquest, and a place in history have been enough for most aggressive leaders throughout history.
Not sure where he’s coming from, but Yeltsin had the same red line as Putin regarding Ukraine.
Gorbachev and Yeltsin are universally reviled by Russia today for selling the country out to oligarchs and the west.
“I want to know what exactly was the United States doing in Ukraine that would motivate Putin to invade. The idea that it was Ukraine joining NATO is not enough. There is something that caused Putin to say “enough”. Maybe it is the NATO thing, combined with the chemical/bio-weapons labs and graft that was the tipping point.”
I’m a huge cynic. I don’t believe for one minute that a shred of that is credible.
The labs stuff wasn’t even on the Kremlin’s nag list until American conspiracy theorists started spamming chat boards about it. It was a convenient red herring that appeared at the right time. Doesn’t mean it’s a false flag, but it does mean that Russia really wasn’t furious about it.
It can’t be that Russia didn’t know - some of these labs are residual facilities that are 2-3 decades old. It’s not like they were being hidden.
It can’t be a consequence of moral opposition to chemical warfare - Russia has no problem with using that itself.
Biological weapons? Yeah, MAYBE. Not convinced that Astra-Zeneca and Pfizer are in that line of business,but who knows.
If these labs were really massively dangerous, and have wmds in them, what careful method did Russia use to secure and destroy them?
Just askin’ because the biggest threat in the region has been Chernobyl for 30 years and not one person in the Kremlin doesn’t know what Chernobyl is.
Nonetheless, the troops were told to shoot up the admin buildings, hold the maintenance engineers hostage for weeks, cut the power off to vital monitoring kit, and dig trenches in areas with near lethal levels of fallout.
By the way, Russia has apparently attempted to destroy a seed bank in Ukraine. Anyone who understands what the point of a seed bank is, is completely at a loss on that one.
Occam’s Razor would point to, we’re all looking for rational explanations and external provocations where there are none. A country that literally blows up part of a global safeguard against a horticultural catastrophe AND plays silly buggers with a destabilised nuclear plant really isn’t clutching any pearls over the existence of a bio lab that might contain bioweapons.
More likely, they’re P’d off that it’s not THEIR bio lab, and if it has bioweapons then they want those weapons for themselves.
Now there was a a leader.
Taiwan is about 6% of the size of Ukraine. If China wants it, it will take it and, the west, being completely dependent on Taiwan’s chip industry, will gladly deal with the new government installed there. Sad but true. America had a One China policy right up until the Biden administration which is publicly walking back that political stance on multiple fronts. That’s just the sort of thing that’s going to start another war. Raytheon has an amazing new friend in the Biden administration with Austin.
The West kept Russia propped up as a threat for various reasons. Other than 6K+/- nukes and a paper tiger military, Russia was in decline and had long been in decline.
They’re just scapegoats for the stabbed-in-the-back myth.
Oil was record low so Russians were poor. Putin got lucky that he came to power at the same time that oil prices shot up and his propaganda declares him a genius the same way Chavez declared himself a genius.
Deng Xiaoping only needed a few weeks of such ruinous warfare to understand that his army was only good for set-piece parades past Mao Zedong’s mausoleum on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
The ‘Great Helmsman’ did not retreat into paranoia and manically search for external enemies, nor desperately spend his dwindling war chest to re-equip his smashed army with new tanks and rockets.
Instead, he decided to withdraw his troops, and realised that global integration and a booming economy were more important for the Celestial Empire than maintaining the myth of the fiercest army in the world.
Putin, however, is not nearly as clever as Deng Xiaoping. He continues the war — and in so doing, remains hostage to his own propaganda.
Putin has stated many times that Ukraine as a country has no legitimate right to exist.
"On the Historical Unity of the Russians and Ukrainians - Ukrainian independence is an unsustainable historical anomaly'.
https://www.prlib.ru/en/article-vladimir-putin-historical-unity-russians-and-ukrainians
When Zelensky was elected he promised to stop the warring on the people of the Donbas by mostly the AZOVs. That never happened. The people there were constantly under attack. There were constant efforts to force them to drop their native language and anything defining them as Russians. Over 14000 people had been killed in a period of over 8 years.
This was another major reason along with the NATO threat.
In his speech before the war, Putin laid out all his reasoning. He had also stated that he had tried to have talks with Zelensky to no avail.
All of this could have been stopped.
The reasons we are involved is where the deep seated problems lie. Biden and his DOD and State Dept have let slip what they are up to. After they have revealed that, they always try to take it back.
Another thing. Russia is no more doomed than America if we don’t stop this Global takeover of the US. We pay more attention to Ukraine than we do America.
Daily Mail propaganda is always good for a laugh!
these headlines are hilarious.
.
As DM would say,clearly the attack on Mariupol has failed.
Soon Russians will be fleeing en masse while making the false claim of redeployment....
doesn’t Zelensky sound a lot like Monty Python’s black knight? “tis but a scratch”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmInkxbvlCs
The Chines declared victory.
“We taught them a lesson!”
And pulled back.
I just cannot comprehend why Putin is not doing the same.
He cannot win this war, all what is doing is spreading misery. WHY?
I think he can. He just needs a little push because he might still think he can somehow win it.
1984 turns are nothing new to Russia.
Before Feb 24th it was “Of course we aren’t going to invade you hysteric panic mongers!”
Russians and their shills went along.
Then it turned into “We will conquer Ukraine in 48 hours! It will be the quickest war the world has ever seen,” and the usuals went along with that.
After getting destroyed near Kyiv and later driven out of Kharkiv it turned into “It was all a brilliant feint. Our soldiers soaked up all their ammo to divert their attention from our real goals”.
That’s what the shills are still saying.
If Putin were to say “Mission Accomplished” tomorrow they’d still praise his brilliance.
Deng Xiaoping only needed a few weeks of such ruinous warfare to understand that his army was only good for set-piece parades past Mao Zedong’s mausoleum on Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
—
Nothing has changed since.
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.