Posted on 03/06/2022 4:39:39 PM PST by artichokegrower
A trade of Königsberg for a neutral Germany?
Poland did not annex land from Germany. Russia seized land from Poland and added it to the USSR. Then they took land from Germany and added it to Poland as if that made it all good.
In any case the Germans really don’t care because it’s all in the EU now.
Yes.
Ukraine should never willingly go under Russian authority ever.
I understand while they will fight with no surrender.
Stalin (the Georgian) wanted the Ukrainian breadbasket to provide food to Moscow because the revolution destroyed farming ability in Russia. Also, the revolution, as revolutions tend to do, became blood thirsty and saw the Ukrainian kulaks (small farmers and businesspeople) as needing to be destroyed.
So Stalin kicked them out of their homes and starved them. It was particularly brutal and sadistic. Read up on it. The kind of thing a person should be aware of.
Fine and dandy, but what about the considerable part of Ukraine that does?
And a hell of a lot of ethnic Russians will never accept Kyiv rule
.
Putin could have gotten a deal years ago, probably, by making a demand for, perhaps, a series of regional plebiscites, sweetened by some concessions for the rump of Ukraine. Honey is better than vinegar. His real achievements in economic improvement in Russia would have improved the deal he offered, vs the Ukrainian economic malaise.
Ukraine as an economic basket case simply isn’t a prize, certainly not at the cost of this war. The other European empires fell, long ago, because they were eventually seen as white elephants, absorbing more money than they returned. The productivity explosion during the industrial revolution and the universality of global trade killed any special benefits of owning another country. This realization became common in France in the 1880s-1910s, when it became clear that even Algeria was a money-sink. Simple sentimentality and pride kept rationality from prevailing for another few decades.
Putin, and Russia, still seem to be governed by such sentimentality. The old empires still seem glorious. But that model is obsolete.
Well, it comes down to figuring whether one “hell of a lot” is bigger than another “hell of a lot”. A series of regional plebiscites seems a much more pleasant way to sort it out than this war.
That is very interesting. I would hate to play you in Diplomacy.
Russia was a bit ham handed at the end of WWII.
Or another model for a solution - based on the old Catholic political principle of subsidiarity, rule at the lowest level feasible. I suggest an implementation of it as in Spain, which is split into regional “communities” along ethnic and liguistic lines, each with one or more provinces. Ex. The Basque community with three provinces. Each community gets local self rule on nearly all domestic matters, even to taxation and all service bureaucracies, health care, schools, including school curricula (they require the Basque language for instance), most workplace regulations, etc. The national government retains the military, the rural police, international relations, tarriffs, etc. It seems to work well enough even in a place with greater cultural difference than Ukraine.
It’s hard to hold a country together when there is a large ethnic pull towards another centre of gravity across a line drawn on a map. If a large segment want a split than it will happen eventually. Unless Ukraine was to ethnically cleanse itself of Russians it must live with the reality of border realignments etc.
If a large segment wanted a split, then it should have asked for a split, and Putin should have asked for a split, and both should have followed a peaceful route through reasonable means, such as a plebiscite.
It should have been any easy case to make, on the grounds of self-determination. Heck, it could have been had with minor security concessions, like EU membership or NATO membership up to the line of the Dneiper maybe.
Poisoning Ukrainian politicians seemed like a cooler way to go it seems. I suspect that Putins intentions were not exactly as benign as self-determination for Russians in Ukraine.
You could be right. But Ukrainian hubris might never have let it happen. Sending nazis to the regions agitating for seperation was counterproductive and inflamed things. Poroshenko was a disaster. And maybe he deserves as much blame as Putin
IIRC, the sending of Nazis in 2014 happened after the rebels in the Donets had already attacked and taken several cities, and were advancing on others. The shooting started long before any Nazis showed up.
Putin as acting like a thug vis a vis the Ukraine more than a decade before Poroshenko was president. He has Yushchenko poisoned in 2004 for heaven sake.
Ever hear of Lieutenant Col. Vindman?
Remember peach-mint (”Peach foty-fi”). ?
Also Ukranian. He bragged he had been offered the position of Minister of Defense for Ukraine.
“And a hell of a lot of ethnic Russians will never accept Kyiv rule”.
What are you talking about.
Crap nonsense idiocy.
Trivial who cares stuff.
What’s trivial about it. Isn’t this what is fueling this conflict in part Russian separatists.
“What’s trivial about it. Isn’t this what is fueling this conflict in part Russian separatists.”
In part.
No reason to invade and start a war with all Ukraine about it.
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