Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 to "enforce peace". Same with Crimea in 2014. Then Luhansk and Donetsk a few days ago. Now the rest of Ukraine. Discussion with Putin is futile. When Russia started sending troops next to the Ukraine borders, NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev. It's too late now.
>> NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev
And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia, and we basically all die? Because like....there is no other good option out of this you know. By placing American(or NATO) troops and assets in the harms way, you need to be prepared for what you are going to do if those troops get attacked - and the current strategy is to attack back, which again = end of the world. Arming Ukraine to the teeth and letting them fight back was the second best option and that's exactly what the west has done.
Also, there was a meme recently - it's all fun and games being an expert on the internet, but then you remember you are an able bodied male who would absolutely be drafted in to actually fight. "West should do something" - great, you first. I have kids and family, as a Pole the risk of actually being involved in military operations is making me extremely uncomfortable right now.
>And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia, and we basically all die?
If we are going by the game theory, mutually assured destruction only works if both sides believe the other is willing to engage. If one side knows the other side will not engage, it becomes easy for the aggressive side to take advantage of the passive side.
Putin also doesn't want to die so the hope would have been that if the west was stronger and made it clear that an invasion would lead to war, there would be no invasion. Putin didn't see that commitment so he attacked.
Like I said above - Putin has literally made a career out of calling west's bluffs. Would he call that one? Would he literally attack American/NATO troops to see if we'll really end the world over it?
I really don't want to find out. It's one hell of a gamble.
>Putin has literally made a career out of calling west's bluffs. Would he call that one?
Well that is the point. As I said the west needs to make it clear that an invasion would lead to war. It can't be a bluff. But we all know the west wasn't willing to end civilization over this so here we are. Seems like Putin is going to keep prodding the west until he finds the line he is convinced we won't let him cross. That line was never going to be Georgia, Crimea, or the whole of Ukraine.
The Russian military doesn't have the resources for a prolonged guerilla conflict against a motivated resistance.
With the current actions, the Ukrainian population won't easily forget what Putin has done and even dictatorships need some level of approval from the population.
There is a reasonable chance that Putin excavated his own grave with his reprehensible actions.
A guerilla assumes that Russia occupies Ukraine. I think this is improbable, I do not think that Russia want to deal with guerilla warfare and probable terrorist attacks coming from extremists from there. The east part of Ukraine in Donbass, recognized as independent by them, is precisely the part of Ukraine with more ethnical Russians that is against the Ukrainian government and were de facto independent and more pro-russian since years ago during Ukrainian civil war. From there a guerilla would be improbable. This attacks probably are more to send a message against NATO expansion there and to defend Donbass independence, not an invasion for occupation.
I am not a native English speaker and may have badly expressed myself. I am not urging the "west" or "allieds" to intervene nor i am condemning them for not to. But if they were serious about stopping Putin, they would have sent troops weeks before the invasion. When Joseph Biden went everyday on television to warn that the invasion was imminent and that usa will not send troops but instead establish more economic sanctions, it was pretty clear to me that they already had accepted to abandon Ukraine to Russia.
They can send equipment because if equipment is lost it's no big deal.
If you send NATO troops and they are killed then all out war between NATO and Russia is inevitable and that could easily be world ending.
Essentially sending troops to Ukraine has a very poor risk/reward. If it works and Russia is discouraged from attacking then great, everyone goes home. If it doesn't work then it's WW3.
I don't understand. You're not urging the "west" or "allies" to intervene, but you want them to have sent troops to fight russian troops? In what world isn't that "intervening"?
My understanding of the comment in question is: "Sanctions are not an effective deterrent; if the West truly wanted to put a stop to this they should have sent troops because that's the only thing that Russia would listen to."
Debatable as to the truth of that sentiment, perhaps. And obviously ... NATO and Russia being at war would be incredibly disastrous. But, I do think it's possible to hold that sentiment in good faith - I feel something similar. I desperately do not want to be in a "hot" war with Russia, but at the same time I recognize that sanctions are ineffective.
The lesson here, perhaps, is that the options range from "bad" to "worse." :(
Are you truly comparing the "accidental" shooting down of a military plane to an actual boots on the ground invasion of a sovereign nation? These are so wastly different that mentioning apples and oranges doesn't even come close to it.
It was not accidental. A plane capable of caring nuclear bombs was in their airspace.
I'm not comparing anything - I was referring to "end of the world". According to Turkish strategist, nuclear weapon is not usable, so they have no problem to retaliate.
> And when those American soldiers are killed by Russian missiles, do you then declare full on war on Russia
You are assuming here that Russia would be willing to cause a World War by attacking those American soldiers.
> as a Pole the risk of actually being involved in military operations is making me extremely uncomfortable right now.
But the alternative, to let Russia have Ukraine, will become very uncomfortable in the long term. It's naïve to assume that by giving Putin what he wants he will be satisfied and not invade any other countries in the future.
The analogy with 1938 is striking.
I’m afraid while I support strong action against Russia, I think we should have kicked them off Swift in 2014, sending us troops to Ukraine wouldn’t achieve anything. The Russians would simply ignore them.
If they got hurt during the invasion, the Russians would just claim, possibly entirely legitimately, that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and the US is using it as an excuse for escalation. Which in fact is exactly what you’re suggesting. It would be a serious misstep we can’t afford. We should have acted decisively sooner, but now we’re here we should act decisively now. Close the pipelines completely and shut off Russia from swift. Ban all foreign travel for any Russian government employees. We’re at war with this guy, we need to act like it.
>>You are assuming here that Russia would be willing to cause a World War by attacking those American soldiers.
I think Russia has been "calling the bluff" of the west for a long time. Attacking American soldiers on Ukrainian soil to send a message "look what I can do, you aren't going to attack me back because you know what it will cost you" would be entirely within the standard Russian strategy. And it would place US and NATO into an extremely uncomfortable position - attack back = world war 3, don't attack back = send a message that you can kill American troops without punishment. That's not a position anyone wants to be in.
>>It's naïve to assume that by giving Putin what he wants he will be satisfied and not invade any other countries in the future.
I don't think I'm naive, I fully realize that this is what will happen in the future. But again, there's having a nicely formed opinion on the internet, and then there's receiving a letter stating you are to report to your nearest military base for training and deployment. We should do something. I don't want to leave my wife and kid and go fight in Ukraine. Those aren't contradictory statements.
It's not NATO -> nuclear war, but it can head that way though. NATO is currently desperately trying to not get into a limited-scale shooting war with Russia, because that's an escalation game which then depends on the other side recognizing the scope of the conflict.
Look at the long history of authoritarian leaders thinking they could act without triggering escalation, e.g. Taliban, Saddam, and consider again if you want to take the risk that Putin will be rational enough to avoid further escalation and the consequences of doing so given the failure to defeat even the Taliban.
Yeah, and send a message that says "you can kill American troops without consequences"? And if that's your strategy - why send them there in the first place?
So.... Afghanistan? How many soldiers from several Western nations died there, and of the US in particular? Only to recently withdraw unconditionally and even hand over lots of military equipment to the enemy they had been fighting for decades?
...but how many of those were killed by Russian forces? If Russia attacked US troops in Afghanistan then yeah, that would have been a comparable situation. US isn't going to nuke Afganistan over killing American soldiers, because that's not the stated policy.
Nobody seemed willing to fight for the government and the taliban were hiding in pakistan waiting for the US to leave. Sometimes you just have to call it quits.
> shipping some people over to die and then walking away
Eh??? This is exactly what happened. Soldiers were sent to Afghanistan. Thousands died. The US left, and the enemy took over, both government and equipment.
Also, the parent had said
> Yeah, and send a message that says "you can kill American troops without consequences"?
and again this is what happened. No consequences for the Taliban for killing American soldiers, just as the parent wrote.
The nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed ~200k people. Any target worth nuking, (say Nato HQ) will result in millions of casualties. Urbanization & increased population density have many benefits, but they make for mind-bogglingly disastrous targets of nukes.
If there's a choice between nukes raining down and between Putin ruling the world, I'll happily choose the latter. No matter the cost, there cannot be a nuclear war.
"Although appeasement, which is conventionally defined as the act of satisfying grievances by concessions with the aim of avoiding war, was once regarded as an effective and even honourable strategy of foreign policy, the term has since the Munich Conference symbolised cowardice, failure and weakness. Winston Churchill described appeasement as "one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last".
If we're going to be quoting that page, we might as well do it right:
> But when Britain and France did go to war in 1939, they were still unable to save Poland from being conquered and occupied. Clearly, had they gone to war a year earlier, they would not have been able to save Czechoslovakia, either
Churchill is probably not someone we should ascribe too much wisdom to...
How is quoting one fragment of a quote appearing in the page (without an indication that it's a quote or by whom) more right than quoting a full paragraph?
Giving up everything trying to avoid a nuclear war is the surest way to get it. I know, it's counterintuitive, but if you want peace you must be willing to go to war.
> Giving up everything trying to avoid a nuclear war is the surest way to get it.
Nobody is giving up everything, what is given up at the moment is a strip of land in East Europe that could be claimed back via diplomatic arrangements as soon as Putin is gone.
The west has been giving up stuff since Putin gained power. Nothing has been claimed back yet. And he won’t be gone any time soon. He has plenty of targets after Ukraine too, for example Moldova which already has a separatist Russian mole region inside.
We are watching Hitler raising, not Stalin dying here.
I agree in a way, but I also think that in avoiding conflict, it is possible to see yourself pushed back into a corner to where a bigger conflict becomes necessary.
Unfortunately for people with your worldview, this isn't the way the world works. You're thinking under a framework that one set of actions will certainly prevent it, and the other is more likely to cause it.
At this point, neither intervention nor non-intervention is likely to prevent this. It's entirely likely that if Putin loses this assault, or faces an intractable insurgency, he could launch nukes out of a desperate attempt to save face. He's old — at this point, only the reputation he leaves behind is what matters to him, and it's clear that he wishes to be remembered as a fearful and powerful figure. What better way to do that than nuking someone?
Your attitude is the same entrapment that allows abusive spouses to hold their spouse in thrall. I've actually witnessed that backfire to its ultimate degree; in my hometown, a woman in an abusive relationship called her husband's bluff on his threats to kill her if she left, and he wasn't bluffing. Killed her in broad daylight at a local bank, and then killed himself.
The question you have to ask is whether you think her leaving him was the only thing that precipitated him killing her, or whether his killing her was because he realized she no longer loved him.
>>At this point, neither intervention nor non-intervention is likely to prevent this. It's entirely likely that if Putin loses this assault, or faces an intractable insurgency, he could launch nukes out of a desperate attempt to save face. He's old — at this point, only the reputation he leaves behind is what matters to him, and it's clear that he wishes to be remembered as a fearful and powerful figure. What better way to do that than nuking someone?
I do agree that if he's pushed against the wall he can nuke one Ukrainian city saying it was the hideout of the rebels or whatever, effectively sending a message that he's not afraid to use nuclear weapons, without directly attacking a NATO state. I can only assume that at that point whatever is left of Ukrainian government would voluntarily step down to prevent further destruction.
You're right that he's a madman, and any sort of logical strategy just doesn't apply here.
Many NATO members have strong enconomic links with Russia. For example Russia is building nuclear power plants in Turkey and Hungary, which are in very advanced state of construction for example.
Turkey is only in NATO as a legacy play. They gave up on EU membership a while ago, and have been mostly pushing their own agenda, stepping into the middle east power vacuums left empty by Syria and Iraq falling apart.
They'll lean on NATO when they need to, but they also live next to Russia and don't want to pick fights if they don't need to.
> Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 to "enforce peace". Same with Crimea in 2014. Then Luhansk and Donetsk a few days ago. Now the rest of Ukraine. Discussion with Putin is futile.
Just remember that the USA played the same kind of playbook (maybe worse) in Syria and Iraq. It's equally condamnable, but it can give you some perspective to see through media portrayal.
Kosovo is a more apt comparison. There's no way of condemning annexation of the breakaway regions, while defending doing the same with Kosovo - without coming out as a hypocrite who bends the facts to fit his needs
In a way the comparison is understandable, but in Kosovo and Bosnia there were systemic etnic persecution and genocide by the Serbian government.
A more similar comparison would be the US and USSR funding of factions in Italy during the Anni di Piombo. And then say US or USSR officialy arming and sponsoring Forza Nuova (or another militant organization) for indipendence of Padania.
> but in Kosovo and Bosnia there were systemic etnic persecution and genocide by the Serbian government.
Which turned to be false. The Racak massacre that provoked Bosnian intervention was a lie used to make a case for an invasion. Similar to mass weapons in Iraq that were never found. The same in Bosnia, where Markale incident used to accuse one side of war crimes later appeared to be organized by Muslim paramilitary to provoke military intervention and make a press.
The only thing Serbian side did wrong, is that it was ruled by socialist (ex-communist) party.
I’m glad you’re willing to play armchair general with other people’s blood.
I served, did you? I’m 100% disabled as a result.
If you didn’t wear the uniform, don’t be so quick to volunteer others for what you aren’t willing to do yourself.
> When Russia started sending troops next to the Ukraine borders, NATO and especially USA should have responded by sending two thousands soldiers to Kiev. It's too late now.
That would have escalated the situation further and would have helped Putin's narrative, like the Russian mobilisation in WWI which only pushed things over the edge.
Yes I can. A "modern military" isn't a guaranteed victory if your enemy is fighting in it's own turf in difficult terrain. The best armies in the world have failed to do this in Afghanistan (several times now).
Stalin also gutted the Soviet Army and Navy via The Purges before the Winter War, and the Army had attempted to impliment a lot of "New Soviet Man" style of changes that were detrimental.
The modern Russian army has experience in several different theaters, has experienced and professional leadership, and rocks a small but highly modernized kit backed by copious amounts of older Soviet-era gear.
The Ukranians just got slammed with huge cruse missile attacks -- how will the Fins neutralize that with conscripts carrying skis and rifles?
I respect their bravery, but boldness doesn't stop JDAMs -- they need NATO.
But also a country with a history of coming to terms with the USSR, and notably one that didn't receive a NATO membership invitation guarantee (working of Wikipedia). Ukraine and Georgia did, both also want to join NATO. Finland has no such plans (again, working of Wikipedia).
Having just watched the Finnish president and prime minister address the situation, the press' pressing questions about joining NATO were continually downplayed, as is customary.
Finland is almost militantly neutral, since that was the original condition to independence in the first place. On the other hand, Russia just voided the Minsk agreement with Ukraine to attack, so...
Imagine being Russia's border neighbor, man. It's seriously stressful.
But if any country is prepared for russian invasion, it's Finland.
> Finland is almost militantly neutral, since that was the original condition to independence in the first place.
Finland a long time ago voided/broke the Paris peace treaty on their own. Basically once the Germany unified in 1990 Finland went "nope we don't like this peace treaty anymore".
If Finland was still following the treaty we would not be allowed to have aircraft that can deploy bombs, mere than 60 planes (including civilian airfact registered to Finland), more than 34k total infantry+border guard, 10k tons total displacement of navy, no sea mines or torpedoes. Finland has gone way past these since.
The only part of the Paris peace treaty we still follow is the no nukes part and that due to signing a separate treaty about not getting nukes in the 70s.
Being a border nation with Russia now, without a staunch pro-Russian government, is pretty scary right now. Even if you are a NATO member, because I don't trust NATO to go to war with Russia.
Why do you think Russia would attack NATO member? War has its own costs, Russia probably has some calculation. I don't think we will see any combat from Russian sides, at least on NATO member.
At least Finland doesn't, to my knowledge, have a meaningful amount of Russian population to "liberate". Compared to countries that used to be soviet republics, I'd say they are relatively safe.
Why would Finland be the next? Because someone wants to scare them to join NATO?
Finland was already able to resist Russian aggression once not so long ago (by European standards), and Russia paid a dire price for attacking in man life. Later, Finland also paid its toll, but in territory.
Both sides learned their lesson. Finland is not going to provoke Russia, and Russia is not going to attach again without reason.
Germany and France have much better reason to actually defend Finland. The Euro.
Basically if a Euro country gets invaded and the other countries do nothing that crashes the value of the Euro which would destroy the economies of the other Euro countries. And the non-Euro EU countries have a good reason to follow the same logic as Euro crashing would also destroy their economies.
Also agree. It's also an alliance mostly built on trade and laws, with some intelligence thrown in if the parties feel like it. The EU has stayed away from military allegiance.
The EU itself has no military but its member states do and are obligated to help if a member is invaded
"If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States
shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power"
This happened several times with Trump, who despite all his faults, was a master bullshitter and master at seeing through other bullshitters. A notable episode was an attack by Russian Wagner group on a small outpost held by 30-something US special forces soldiers guarding a gas plant in Syria. Signals intelligence was later able to capture a few phone calls of survivors describing what had happened[1]. Russians were used to fighting poorly trained rebels, but now fell under combined arms fire from a modern army and it was a total massacre. They got hit from drones, artillery, Apaches and F-22s. Russian casualties: some 300 dead out of 600, American losses: 0.
After that, Russians were much less eager to provoke the US. They test every president like this. Obama failed ("red lines" in Syria), Trump succeeded, Biden... depends on what he does next.
You're omitting a critical detail: Russia denied that those forces were Russian, effectively green lighting the US response. That's not a useful "test".
Denying involvement is their modus operandi, which backfired in this case. They obviously didn't expect one of the worst humiliations in modern military history.
Look, nobody has any doubt that USA is very powerful. But that doesn't mean they must annihilate the world.
And Russia is no slouch.
Diplomacy is the need of the hour.
As somebody who lives far far away from Europe and North America (in a country that's supposed to have no skin in this game), I don't want to get killed because Uncle Sam wants to show who's boss.
> Look, nobody has any doubt that USA is very powerful.
Russia obviously doubts. All that power is useless if you are afraid of using it. Russia conquered Crimea in 2014 without firing a single shot in the best spirit of Sun Tzu because everyone else was so deathly afraid of what might happen that it utterly paralyzed them.
Congratz on being far away. I live next to a strategically important rail bridge that will get hit by a missile in the next round if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine. I don't think appeasement is going to achieve that.
You still don't get it. Do you doubt that Russia is powerful? Hence, the diplomacy.
> strategically important rail bridge
That's kind of the problem isn't it? Strategic assets near Russia (I think it's safe to assume the aforementioned bridge isn't in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is concerning to them.
Every country involved is protecting their own interests.
I have no sympathy for any of the governments involved. On any side.
However, I hope that you and your family would be safe.
There was no diplomacy because the position of Russia was completely ignored. Surprisingly China stated openly that it was the fault of the west. That is ridiculous because they are not the people to invade here, but at no point was there effective diplomacy. On the contrary, everyone called Putins hand and now he put it on the table.
It failed because the US diplomats were too ignorant to take Putin's "red line" demands (Ukraine never getting into NATO) seriously and they discarded any possibility for immediate negotiations on that matter too eagerly.
Not so sure if Trump succeeded. All Trump did was tell Putin "do whatever you want with whomever, as long as you leave my interests alone" (as in my personal interests). Did you forget the Helsinki summit, the one without interpreter? Or the Russian bounty on US troops in Afghanistan?
It was the only way to tell Putin to stop and to prevent an invasion; you send troops at the border, we will do the same on our side and they will stay as long as yours stay there.
In 2009 Ukraine was under the control of Yanukovych, a Russian stooge installed through repression and rigged elections. He was Putin’s pawn and his posturing against NATO or Romania can hardly be used as criticism of the current Ukrainian government or the will of the Ukrainian people.
You’re implying that Ukraine didn’t try to make any friends before the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea. In fact it was Ukraines improving relationship with the west (including Eastern Europe, so not really even ‘the west’ anymore, really just Non-Russia and China the axis of autocracy) that lead to the Russian annexation.
Even if you are right about that, right now it doesn’t matter. I don’t think it’s possible to argue now that the Ukrainian people are pro Russian or anti EU and NATO. It’s entirely legitimate if they changed their mind about Russia given what’s happened since 2014. After all Ukraine is a big country and ‘they’ have a huge variety of opinions. The democratic will of the people now is what matters, and whether the rest of the world is prepared to defend their right to self determination.
Except for Ukraine (East Slavic, formerly part of the Soviet power structures), Belarus (also East Slavic, also formerly part of the Soviet power structures) and Moldova, (who doesn't know what they want to do...) everyone else turned West ASAP.
How come:
Estonia (ex-USSR)
Lithuania (ex-USSR)
Latvia (ex-USSR)
Poland
Hungary
Romania
Bulgaria
Czechia
Slovakia
didn't also have rigged election results? Well, most likely because their people wouldn't allow them. The popular consensus was that turning West was the only option and even populists and wannabe dictators didn't dare go against the people.
My opinions are crude and ghastly and I'm a jerk. But I'm also right.
