Some of you see to have it in your head that I’m a Putin fanboy or something. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m too much of a libertarian to ever put up with that authoritarian crap, and don’t like Putin or have any desire to live in Russia. I just consider myself a realist, and accept how things operate over there and their nasty evil politics. It’s not like I can do anything about it, that’s up to the Russian people to take care of. My issue is the US unnecessarily sticking our nose in another mess, how did things turn out in Iraq or Afghanistan? Both had leaders who were even worse than Putin and our interventions did absolutely nothing to improve the situation in either place. And both came at huge cost, trillions of dollars, all down the hole for nothing.
These countries exist in a rough neighborhood and have to deal with things accordingly. I’m not interested in us rescuing anybody, or pretend we are gaining some geopolitical advantage, because it never works out that way. If you want to play hero and go rescue them then take you ass over there and do it, and leave the rest of us out of it. We have enough issues right here at home we need to deal with, we don’t need to complicate things by getting involved in every sh!thole in the world.
+1000. You are one of the few who truly understands what is going on. It is a difficult situation.
There’s something of a difference between Iraq and Ukraine.
Gulf War 1 was entirely justified. A rogue state invaded another, in complete violation of international law, conventions, treaties and UN membership expectations. So a multilateral response was merited, and the aim of the game was to put Saddam back in his box.
Ukraine is comparable to that.
Gulf War 2 by contrast was a misuse of the NATO invocation following 9/11, just as was Turkey’s attempt to draw NATO into its personal beefs. It’s misuses like that, that empowered Putin. Not legitimate action in accordance with the UN Charter like we took in the 90s.
Irrespective of any belief in a Deep State takeover, regime corruption, presence of nazis or islamists,the world cannot afford to have any sovereign state invading any other sovereign state on the flimsiest of whims and justifications. If it has a compelling argument for “peacekeeping” or “special military operations” in another country it should be capable of securing multilateral support first.
Question is, why would any superpower voluntarily submit to that higher authority. Russia clearly doesn’t care what the rest of the world thinks. China often doesn’t. The USA often doesn’t. The UN Security Council veto makes it impossible to sanction the most egregious abusers of UN founding principles,if they have an ally at the table.
You’re completely right. If America really has had a gut full of the thankless job of acting as the World Police, maybe it should leave the UN Security Council and leave NATO, declare itself neutral, and join the international club of hermit states.