Saw a counterinsurgency guy on CNN yesterday who said you need 5x the attacking force for urban counterinsurgency. Referenced 100k Iraqi troops going after 10k poorly trained isis fighters in Mosul, which took like 6 months. He seemed to think Ukraine had a significant advantage in Kiev.
But, of course, that doesn’t take into account just carpet bombing Kiev to rubble. I guess that is something Putin could do, but it would make Russia’s current international relations situation seem downright rosy.
OK so we agree that Russia very much wants direct or Belarusian-type control over Ukraine, right?
And then do we agree that they’d probably rather have a Belarusian-style Ukraine and not have to invade? That they’d probably only invade if they don’t think that they can make Ukraine a similar puppet state?
So, what I’m saying is that a Ukrainian military buildup and integration into Western military intelligence is threatening, not to Russia (Ukraine isn’t going to invade Russia, obviously), but to Russia’s designs on Ukraine. I understand that this is Not Fair and that Ukraine should be able to build up its military however it sees fit, but that’s why it’s called realism I guess.
Well, Trump literally blocked their delivery, and apparently Biden was not fast in restarting/increasing lethal aid, so there’s only been a few months of deliveries.
Everything you said here we agree on. What makes no sense is attributing blame for the invasion to the West (despite not having taken any material steps towards inviting Ukraine to NATO) rather than Russia’s imperial designs, or the argument that Ukrainian should totally submit to Russia rather than get invaded, because it’s not obvious that a war, as bad as it is, will be worse.
It’s not really performative correctness. It’s more like how I used to pronounce Iran and Iraq incorrectly, but then I learned the proper pronunciations somewhere along the way and started using them.
We all used to get Kyiv wrong. No reason to keep being wrong for performative reasons.
We get it, it’s just not really an interesting point at all except the part where he calls it the US’s “fault,” which is moral commentary that is rightfully mocked.
Mearsheimer argued in 2014 that Ukraine should reject Western overtures, explicitly reject NATO and EU membership, and try to tread a sort of middle path. Trying to maintain some independence but being semi-aligned with Russia. Would that have been better for Ukraine? I think so but I don’t know. This war seems really bad. As far as “blame” goes, I think it’s fair to criticize Western engagement with Ukraine as pointless and counterproductive and shortsighted, accomplishing nothing and antagonizing Russia with no clear endgame. I think it was reckless. Does that mean that the Russian leadership is not to blame, in a moral sense, for their offensive war? Of course not.
He absolutely did not think Ukraine was on that path on February 15. He thought they were aligning more and more with the west and the Russian deployments were a signal for Ukraine and the west to wake up and cut it out.
I, too, took a trip to the USSR in high school, I went in 1989. Visited Leningrad, Rostov, Pyatigorsk, and Moscow. Was supposed to go to Tblisi but there was civil unrest.
Like you said, the people were great. Did a ton of drinking with locals wherever we went. Brought jeans and cigarettes to trade for stuff. I still have a full-on extremely heavy Soviet army winter coat.
Got busted trading money in Moscow and dragged into a little interrogation room. Nothing happened to me, they were after the housekeeper with whom I had traded.
Also, saw Gary Hart in the gift shop at the Hotel Cosmos.
Just using some basic logic, even going back to 2014 this is all a result of Putin’s own idiocy. You know one way to guarantee a country will not go down a “neutral” East/West path? Annexing chunks of territory with citizens aligned towards the Eastern way out the country….