"What would have happened if the US had stayed out of WWII?"
Neither of us know the answer to that.
And you 'assuming' I have no sense of geopolitics means nothing.
Posted on 08/11/2023 10:09:13 PM PDT by Cronos
To understand Russia’s current obsession with Ukraine, it is important to recognize that Russia was never a state in the common usage of the term. Unlike the modern Turkish state that emerged from the Ottoman Empire, or Great Britain, which acquired and lost an empire, Russia never had an identity separate from empire. As British historian Geoffrey Hosking observed, “Britain had an empire, but Russia was an empire.”
The Kremlin’s preferred narrative of Russia rising from present-day Ukraine (“Kyivan Rus”) is a Moscow-concocted fairy tale. The officially endorsed 1000-year history of Russia is a self-created and self-perpetuated myth that generations of Russian dictators have promoted to justify their external expansion and internal repression.
Instead, what we think of today as Russia started out as a loose collection of independent city states that included Novgorod, Pskov, Smolensk, Tver, and Moscow, the last of which attained particular significance toward the end of Mongol rule a little over 500 years ago. Kyiv was no more a part of Russia then than it is now. There was no common language, no common administration, and no joint identity. Indeed, it would be centuries before the rulers of Muscovy attempted to assert their dominance over Kyiv and the lands of today’s Ukraine.
...Under Ivan III (“The Great”), Muscovy established itself as the strongest of the city states to emerge from the Mongol period. Ivan called himself “Tsar of all Rus,” but he was actually more like the mayor of Greater Moscow. It was Ivan who started the expansion of Muscovy, initiating the so-called “gathering of Russian lands.”
...Expansion demands inward Russification and repression, and further outward expansion. As Catherine the Great famously said, “I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.”
Beginning in the late 1940s, American strategists had to deal with two realities: (1) since Russia had nuclear weapons, a general conflict using such weapons would have catastrophic consequences and had to be deterred; and (2), economic, technological, and political developments and non-nuclear military conflict could still result in catastrophic defeat if it resulted in the US becoming isolated with most of the world's strength against her.
During the ensuing Cold War, three key tenets of American national security policy were carved in stone: (1) isolationism was no longer possible in a world poised and ready for war on a global basis; (2) the US should have enough nuclear and conventional strength to deter a general war; and (3), the US should use its economic and political strength and its WW II alliance system to prevent or break up any hostile combination of powers and to assure full and preferential access to the world's resources.
Many conservatives have a problem with (1) and (3). They have a temperamental attachment to isolationism without realizing that to make it work under contemporary conditions, we would have to be a national security state with a military draft, armed to the teeth, a lower standard of living, and facing an often hostile world. That is why during the Cold War, most isolationists became interventionists. Now, after a long era of relative peace, there is a renewed desire for isolationism without a sense of the consequences.
Here is my Reagan style policy toward enemies of the United States: we win, they lose, and we get to run the world as the victor. Most countries and people around the world prefer that because the US is generally a good ally and friend. By history's standards, we are honorable, easy-going, and well-intentioned. And, realistically, NATO, helping Ukraine, and putting a boot on Putin's neck are part of how we keep on top and make the bad guys behave.
In return, the world mostly defers to the US on the big issues, uses the dollar, and finances our massive federal debt. Yup. The world -- including people who do not entirely like us -- use the dollar and pay for granny's Medicare and Social Security because we keep really bad stuff from happening.
I do not understand why so many people support Russia’s aggression.
Welcome to FR. Some of us value an external take on our views. Some not so much.
As for me, I'm a natural born citizen, both sets of maternal grandparents had their exit visas from the Austro-Hungarian Empire signed by Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
I don't know what the empire at that point had to offer them, but mining coal in Colorado looked like a step up...
Yes.
No they don’t. Lets see a link for that.
"What would have happened if the US had stayed out of WWII?"
Would you be willing to send your own countrymen to the U.S. to protect our borders and take care of our problems, while your country has issues that are more important to your country than getting involved in other country’s problems?
You can say that about yourself. Others here love the way Putin operates and they love the Russia does things. Internally and externally. As far as rampaging over nations, Georgia and Ukraine and bullying other ones. Circa 2000 The Russian army bombed the shiit out of Grozny and Chechnya. Blasted them to bits with artillery.
So....Speak only for yerself.
We'll find out very soon who comes out on bottom. Just in case, brush up on your Mandarin.
Years ago, I posted on FR we needed to team up (sort of - friendlier terms) with Russia before they teamed up with China against the US.
Zelensky and Putin could end this right now but neither will. All that will ever come of this, whatever the ^&%)&% this is, is dead bodies. Dead bodies there and dead bodies around the world.
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This is just hubris stacked on top of delusional exceptionalism.
The US no longer has the military, economic, industrial, financial, demographic or diplomatic power to "run the world".
In 1945, the USA had 50 % of world GDP. Now it is 25%.
In 1945, the USA produced 57% of world steel. Now it is 5% (and China produces 50%).
The USA can't even produce 7000 artillery shells a day to keep Ukraine going.
The US military says less than 25% of the core draft age males are capable of military service.
The USA is a Formerly Industrialized Country with incurable trade and budget deficits, propped up only by being able to print the world's reserve currency.
A more accurate calculation of US strength would include our treaty allies (NATO, Australia, Japan, South Korea) along with those countries who are economically and politically aligned with US (most of the rest of the world). As for military production deficiencies, those can be remedied if political will is applied toward those ends.
There is a vast difference between the US Navy, which is a “blue water” navy that is regularly at sea for extended periods and navies that mostly remain in port or in home waters when they put to sea. China does not yet have a blue water navy, while Russia had mostly lost theirs due to economic problems.
“A more accurate calculation of US strength would include our treaty allies (NATO, Australia, Japan, South Korea) “
Forget it. This is like a bunch of drunks holding each other up.
History shows Empires rise and then decline. The decline usually occurs over the course of centuries.
But the decline of the GAE (Globalist American Empire) is setting some sort record.
From a 1991 peak to 2030? would be a world record, and a true example of America “Exceptionalism”.
The peak was 1949, right before the Russkies got the bomb.
I don’t think so. In 1948 the Communists took over China and the USA could not prevent it.
The US had declined a lot economically by 1991, but the competitor collapsed, leaving the field clear.
Cheering ?
Every night I pray for the Downfall of the evil rulers, elites, and leaders of the West.
And that the Lord will raise up God-fearing replacements..
Christianity recognizes that evil has its place in this world and asks in prayer only that the Almighty "deliver us from evil," not that evil things and people be destroyed. The customary Christian prayer is for leaders to reject evil and seek to do what is good, not that leaders and classes of people be destroyed.
The Lord answers all prayers.
Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no, and sometimes not yet.
The Lord is able reject foolish prayers without me prejudging it.
From Luke 18 (Parable of the Persistent Widow)
And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.
You missed my "Beetlejuice" reference.
"I don't know who you are, maybe you are a very kind, generous person offline. But what you have done here is not."
You may not like my tone, so be it. But I've reached the point of Jesus flipping over the tables. We've got a big problem here. Remember, you're the one who said you'd rather let the people who created most of today's problems continue to run the show. That's bad.
"I would not get all worked up about this issue at all if it weren't for the rhetoric. I think I could have a reasonable conversation on the Ukraine situation, even if I don't agree with your position. I have said many things over the past year and past 24 hours that I regret. I don't think anyone is happy about the state of the world, even those who are getting their way seem more miserable now than when they started."
The left are almost never happy, and they want to inflict that misery on everyone else. I learned that a long time ago.
"There is something dark going on. I have tried to train myself not to be superstitious, or mystical over the last 20 years plus. I have tried to live as a rationalist, without crossing over the line into atheism."
This is a correct assessment. Satanism has been running rampant since the start of the 20th century. All these wars, societal breakdowns, mass-murders, abortions, sexual deviancies, mass-corruption. People think this is perfectly normal. It's not. Others choose to ignore the problem.
"But apparently there is a lot going on that doesn't make sense to me. I have seen people change, and not for the better. There seems to be a tide turning against the left, but I am scared that we are going to muck it up."
The left will do anything to stay in and hold power, because they are backed by the forces of darkness.
"There isn't the optimism of Ronald Reagan in conservatism anymore. There is a spirit of vengeance and retribution. I have seen it in myself. You are aware of the situation in Canada. Sometimes I have been so enraged, that I have actually wondered what I am turning into. I can see the "mistakes of the past", and can see myself repeating them."
This is not the era of Reagan anymore. That was a different time and a different country that embraced different (better) values. This is a colder, deviant and more deceitful and evil era. Sadly, Reagan made some errors that led to where we are now in choices like promoting the Bush family (Derp State apparatchiks), not playing hardball with the Demonrats in reigning in spending, making sure our borders were enforced and aggressive deportations occurred. They say Reagan couldn't be elected today, that's true, but that's because he couldn't get elected as Governor of California because of its slide into darkness. It's been 37 years since CA last elected a Conservative Governor, George Deukmejian. 1964 since they last elected a Conservative Senator (George Murphy). Communist Senators uninterrupted since that awful year of 1992.
"I really value my time on Free Republic, but I think it has had the effect of turning my attention to all the things that worry me. I have become someone I don't like. There seems to be little of the joy that there once was, if only in fits and starts."
Like I said, if you've reached the point where you think leftists should be the ones running the show, this is not the place for you to be. And if you think this site is depressing, try one of the leftist ones. You'll see what real ugly and evil is. Maybe better to just get offline entirely, go get in your car and take a drive across Canada. At least you guys have magnificent national and provincial parks. Might refresh your soul, at least for a little while.
"I remember when I first joined here, and I stated that even though I was only 19, I was scared for the future. Someone sent me the advice "don't take this place too seriously. Go out, have fun, and live your life" (not a direct quote). I wish I had taken that advice. For better or worse FR has been one of the biggest influences on my life. I am 43 now, well into middle age. I have wasted my life, and that is on me, not FR. But be that as it may, I sometimes wonder what effect being here has had on me. I have always had a sense of the end of the world. A sort of vague sense. I don't know if all my worrying and reading an fretting made any difference whatsoever. Likely not."
Your description is not far afield from myself and others that have been here for 20 years or more. Like I said, perhaps you'd be better off following my advice in the prior paragraph. Typing words on a screen is no substitute for living life.
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