The other thing is that NATO communicating to Russia that they’re aware there has to be a line and are reining themselves in to avoid crossing it has value. It doesn’t matter that the line is vague and arbitrary. In a situation where you don’t want to escalate, you don’t want your opponent thinking that you are just going to encroach more and more into the gray area and that it’s up to them to demonstrate to you that you’re over the line.
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Glenn comes off better than Martinez in this, mostly because Martinez’s arguments are a bit cringeworthy and bombastic and he does a lot of ad hominem or just dumb insults at Greenwald.
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Worth noting btw that this kind of policy is not a hypothetical; the US armed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, but former administration officials later testified under oath that the policy of the Reagan administration was to ensure that neither side won. Which - after 8 years of fighting in which upwards of half a million people died - is exactly what happened.
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It’s entirely possible that this is the policy, although I think being weak-tight is still the parsimonious explanation. But even if that is the policy, and it’s a bad policy, the moral failure is not giving Ukraine enough, not giving them arms in the first place. If giving middling aid to force a protracted stalemate after years of conflict were the policy, it is far better than leaving Ukraine to be subject to genocide. That this potential policy is suboptimal is not an argument in favor of Keeeed’s Reek-esque foreign policy of unlimited appeasement even in the face of genocide.
I don’t think the bleed-Russia theory makes much sense. For one, Russia has already basically destroyed its army, so if that was the goal, it’s Mission Accomplished. I think what Washington wants is a stable negotiated settlement to the war. Providing high-end offensive weapons creates an immediate escalation risk (how will Moscow react if an F-16 blows up an apartment building in Russia due to a targeting error?), but it’s also long-term destabilizing. It’s harder for Russia to end the war if the result is going to be a vengeful Ukraine rocking M-1 tanks and F-35s hungering for a rematch. In a perfect world, you’d arm Ukraine with a death ray that only functions against targets on Ukrainian soil, but in the real world, the best you can do is provide high-end defensive weapons (Javelins) and mediocre offensive weapons (Soviet-era surplus tanks and planes).
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Surely it’s possible to install some kind of electronic kill switch on some of the toys we’re giving Ukraine such that they stop working after a set time.
True, but the Russian Hacker Brigade seems about as ineffective as the rest of their military.
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You don’t have to take his word for it. What he says publicly is of course propaganda. But it is what Lloyd Austin said.
eta: Surely there are lots of different reasons for lots of different influential people.
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I don’t think it’s clear that the Russian army has been destroyed, how is a destroyed army making progress against the Ukrainians in the east? I think they might have quite a bit of combat power and capability still, but I’m no expert at all. And then whatever Ukraine support strategy the US foreign policy elite has, it’s not something that started a few weeks ago, it goes back years. So the success that the Ukrainian army has had in hurting the Russian army is due to the training and weapons that the US gave Ukraine before the war, as well as the weapons and intelligence since the invasion started.
The rest of your post is basically saying the same thing I was as far as I can tell. If you give Ukraine too much military capability, then maybe they take all of Donbas. Maybe they take Crimea. Will Russia just accept this? What happens then? I don’t know. I’ll bet the West doesn’t want to find out. I mean, yes, you’re right, too much Ukrainian success culminating in Russia nuking advancing Ukrainian columns would make a negotiated settlement difficult, very true.
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this is another war crime and often happens in conjunction with genocide. it will be added to the ICC case.
Kissinger lived in Germany. It was just the laws against Jews there that made his family leave, not the sweep across Europe. He went back to Germany in the war and won a Bronze Star.
1938 was when the “Munich Agreement” happend which gave parts of Czechoslovakia to Germany. The hope was that it appeased Hitler but it didnt and he took the rest anyway.
Are you saying Kissinger lived in Czechoslovakia? Because I didn’t say Germany didn’t start invading counties in 1938, but that it wasn’t the reason Kissinger left.
I am not.
I think you are misinterpreting what is said. The author is saying that this event was the reason to leave for the Kissinger family but thats not what Selensky is saying.
But if you want to nitpick that he fled because of the laws then I ask what is different for Ukrainians right now? If they live on occupied territory they get deported, torturted or worse? Sure they can flee like Kissinger but Kissinger came back and fought the Nazis. Now he is advocating for a negotiated settlement and potentially give up territory. But 1938 also showed that appeasement might not work. Who is to say that Russia wont take the Rest eventually? By now they know that the West wont risk war for Ukraine. Take a year, train your people, you probably already got relaxed sanctions to upgrade/replace some material and then come back for the Rest. Ukraine is in shambles. They need so much money to rebuild they wont have enough to upgrade their army as well. And the flow of weapons will probably stop anyway.
I didn’t say it’s what Zelensky said. And I didn’t say anything about Ukraine. And I didn’t say anything about appeasement. I saw some words in the post I read and suggested a correction. I read that post and decided to check out Kissinger’s wiki to see more about what happened to him during the war. I wasn’t even thinking about Ukraine.
The reason I asked if you were saying he was in Czechoslovakia was because he was in Bavaria and I thought maybe part of that is/was in Czechoslovakia and you were correcting me, but I had thought he was German.
Oh, and I added the bronze star part just because I thought it was interesting.
New reports suggests that Germany hasnt sent any weapons since end of March. They sent only mines which the Ukraine cant use right now. More and more I think the German government wants it to be over one way or another. Realpolitik in the 21st century.
Shameful
This post is best if you imagine he said it:
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