No, I’m saying that thinking “never again” is some sort of consistent foreign policy principle that the United States has held to after ww2 is laughable. We’ve caused more genocides than we’ve stopped. As far as I can tell we haven’t stopped any genocides at all. And thinking that the US government’s policy now is aimed at genocide prevention in Ukraine is equally laughable.
I don’t think that there is much we could have or should have done in any of those cases. Certainly nothing we can or should do to china short of sanctions.
I don’t think the interpretation of the tweet has to be that thinking too much support to Ukraine is the same as being pro-Russian. Even if only half of the people who think the US is providing too much support to Ukraine are actually pro-Russian, that’s still a sign that the pro-Russian position is gaining momentum, but it probably overstates the probability that the Republicans taking the House will end US aid to Ukraine.
Do you think the percentage of Republicans who say we are giving too much aid to Ukraine can increase that much without a significant increase in the percentage of Republicans who are pro-Putin or pro-Russia?
That’s a fair point and maybe your right - but my sense is that these R voters changing their tune on Ukraine aid aren’t doing it to be more (or less) pro-Russia but just changing their tune based on what they are being told to think. So if Trump says less aid to Russia, they’ll say less aid and if he says no aid, they say no aid.
So in that sense, I don’t think there is really a change in R voters being pro-Russia, but that R’s have been beating the drum recently that Biden is wasting US money supporting Russia when we have all these domestic troubles. However, given most R’s are still voting for all the aid packages, I think it’s mostly just bluster and they’ll keep voting for, but criticizing the aid (same way they are all voting against, but taking credit for Biden’s domestic spending).
I think it’s more a matter of more Republican voters identifying being pro-Ukraine as a Democratic position and reflexively taking the opposite position of wanting to decrease aid.
But if I had to guess, I would guess that Putin’s favorability rating among Republican voters has risen since the start of the invasion, while fear of nuclear war has increased.
To expand on this, I’ve said before that probably the US is managing escalation so Ukraine doesn’t win decisively. I don’t think that the US actually wants Ukraine to take Donbas and Crimea because what Russia would do in response is unpredictable and dangerous. If that is actually what American support is aimed at, and/or actually what happens, then I think things could escalate dangerously from there in unpredictable ways. What happens if Russia loses a war that the Russian elite thinks they must win? I suppose you could make a just war case for this but to me the risk is absolutely not worth it.
The more likely US government strategy is providing a level of support that will lead to a bloody stalemate. If that’s the strategy then I think pretty clearly it doesn’t conform with just war theory.
it is the ukranian gov’t’s policy aimed at genocide prevention, for which they are requesting resources from many nations.
and many people would agree that NATO interventions in Yugoslavia did stop genocide from continuing. if you recall, there were many NATO strikes with UN authorization, prior to the one in Kosovo in 1999.
once again, Bill Clinton and military commanders disagree with you, that a third of Rwanda’s genocide could have been prevented with a peace-keeping force as low as 10k. but OTOH there’s “nothing-we-can-do” Keeed, keeeeding it up
what bloody stalemate are you talking about? AFU is going to make a mockery of the red army. to a large degree, they already did, and their actions are proportional and just to acts the russian army already commmitted.
I applaud your optimism, but most things I’ve read indicate that it’s going to be a long and tough fight from here. Ukraine still has tons of land to take back to get to the pre-2021 borders and taking areas that Russia has held for a long time is likely going to be a lot tougher as I would assume they’ve had time to build much more defensible positions. I would be very shocked if they ever managed to invade Crimea, but Ukraine has proven me (and most analysts) wrong before, so maybe they continue to surprise.
i am a pessimist on capturing crimea with military means. i think it would have to happen after dnr/lnr are recaptured, although there are actual military opinions that say otherwise.
i think a more likely path for crimea is the fall of putin regime, and a subsequent separatist movement within crimea. ultimately, Zelensky is correct that they will eventually be negotiating peace with another administration.
Unlike other wars, this is a war with clear military objectives and an obvious endpoint upon reaching those objectives. I don’t think the onus is on the US to be clairvoyant about all of the branches on Russia’s decision tree.
I don’t think the goal is a stalemate, but I do think that the war effort probably involves grinding down support for the war among both Russian elites and the masses and that takes time, maybe several years. It’s not unjust to follow that long-term strategy.
The escalation management comes in the form of not providing long-range munitions, tanks, and jets. Other than that, there is no unified policy other than Biden’s personal inclinations about how Ukraine should conduct the war. Many US military, diplomatic and congressional folks would be in favor of Ukrainian going 100%, including vs Russian territory to the extent possible.
This is not a strategy, it’s conspiracy thinking. Management of the Ukraine war, to the extent there is “management” from the US, is a complex distributed effort, not the result of implementing some secret plan no one has heard of.
It’s more accurate to describe the probable next phase of the war as a point of equilibrium rather than a stalemate but whatever you call it, it’s likely to be less bloody than what is happening now.
What’s the conspiracy? Like you said Biden can prosecute the war how he wants. If that was his strategy he sure as hell wouldn’t tell us that. They wouldn’t tell the Ukrainians that either. But what Biden’s actual strategy is doesn’t change my thoughts on the matter: if Biden is trying to win the war and is providing a level of support that’s sufficient for Ukraine to win, I think that’s a terrible idea because the possible Russian escalation in response to getting Donbas and Crimea taken is extremely dangerous. If Biden agrees with me that pushing Russia out of Donbas and Crimea is dangerous and modulates the appropriate level of support accordingly, then that’s cynical and callous.
I think Biden would be fine with Ukraine giving up Crimea and even part of Donbas. It’s a difficult issue that Ukraine’s friends are more than happy to leave to Ukraine.
As far as concerns about Russian escalation, if it’s not this dispute, it will be the one in five years, or the one 10 years after that. Russia needs to learn that having nukes is not a get out of jail free card for bending the world to their will.
spotted on pro-ru telegrams, the new nickname for ukranian nationalists who execute pro-russian civilians is ‘Elves’. sounds like ‘orcs’ is hitting a nerve, now that special operation isn’t going well.
“To yield to nuclear blackmail, however, would be folly. Give in now, and anyone with nuclear weapons will learn that the secret to success in a negotiation is to froth at the mouth, roll up one’s eyes, and threaten a mushroom cloud. To yield to Putin would be, as Churchill said in a different but not entirely dissimilar context, to take “but the first sip from a bitter cup.” What then to do, and to threaten to do, particularly if Russia does indeed detonate one or more nuclear weapons, either as a signal or against some Ukrainian target?”
If Russia takes what it wants of Ukraine and leaves a rump state that joins NATO, where’s the next domino to fall? Everything else in Europe is in NATO and an invasion would lead to a direct conflict with the US. Those red lines are extremely clear. I don’t see where Russia could possibly go next that wouldn’t immediately lead to direct and open war with the West.
sounds like ‘orcs’ is hitting a nerve, now that special operation isn’t going well.