70k casualties vs. 300k, don’t ever try to invade Finland in the winter, son.
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I said that I thought it would be unwise to send in troops! I agree with you that avoiding any risk of war with Russia is very important, but I think that risk basically doesn’t exist if there are no Western troops in Ukraine. Russia’s not going to preemptively invade Poland or something to cut off support for Ukraine.
You’re also dodging the question of how this all affects Russia’s strategic position. I think it’s pretty clear that if Russia is committed to dominating Ukraine at any cost, it’s clearly worse for them the higher that cost is.
At the end of the day, the cold-blooded strategic answer is that the West should support Ukraine in any way that doesn’t lead to direct confrontation with Russia, because making it hard for Russia to dominate its neighbors without incurring serious costs to do so is a huge win. But also from a moral point of view, supplying a democratic government with weapons and supplies to defend its territorial integrity and autonomy from outside invasion is the correct thing to do, especially when you’ve guaranteed that country’s territorial integrity. It would be immoral to manipulate or force Ukraine into fighting Russia to serve our own ends, but that’s emphatically not what’s going on. As long as Ukraine wants to fight Russia for its territory, we should support them to the extent it’s in our national interest to do so, and if they want to find an accommodation with Russia, we should go along with that too. You’re greatly over complicating this question. Ukraine and Russia are the countries with hard problems. The West’s hand pretty much plays itself.
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You don’t think we have CIA paramilitary advisors and special forces in Ukraine right now? We do! There’s been reports of the US training Ukrainian special forces and it seems extremely unlikely that’s not going on. You’re correct that this is dangerous and inflammatory, but I doubt it’s going to stop if we increase arms shipments to Ukraine. It’ll probably increase along with the arms shipments. Someone has to train the Ukrainians to use their shiny new weapons to kill Russian nationalist scum in eastern Ukraine.
I’m not dodging the question. Or maybe I am, but it’s because I don’t want to make costs for Russia as high as possible. Not for something as inconsequential to the West as Ukraine. And anyway, making the cost as high as possible to the Russians will also make the cost as high as possible to Ukraine. And for what? How does the West benefit? How does Ukraine benefit? OK, we hurt Russia as much as possible? Great, that and $1.50 will get us on the bus.
What’s the vital national interest at stake in defending Ukraine?
The rest of this reads like domino theory. But I just don’t see it. Ukraine is the end of the line for Russian influence expansion. Bulgaria and Romania and Poland are in NATO, that’s over. Same with the Baltic states. The Russians have to live with that. Belarus is fairly friendly with Russia and that’s OK with me. Letting Ukraine fall into Russia’s orbit isn’t going to lead to the old Warsaw Pact countries falling into Russia’s sphere. If Ukraine wants to fight I guess they can have at it but I don’t see why the West should support them.
grunching
putin is bluffing
if he were going to invade he would have done it already
nothing but downside by drawing this out longer and allowing nato to put a bunch of forces all over the map
I don’t know what’s going on right now. There’s doubtless some gray areas, but I think the most important thing from our perspective is to ensure that US soldiers don’t end up shooting at Russian soldiers, so if we’re doing something that poses a risk of that happening, we should stop. It’s clearly possible to send supplies without also sending troops to train the Ukrainians. We should just do that.
I’m not dodging the question. Or maybe I am, but it’s because I don’t want to make costs for Russia as high as possible. Not for something as inconsequential to the West as Ukraine. And anyway, making the cost as high as possible to the Russians will also make the cost as high as possible to Ukraine. And for what? How does the West benefit? How does Ukraine benefit? OK, we hurt Russia as much as possible? Great, that and $1.50 will get us on the bus.
Russia’s a strategic adversary. They run around starting wars with countries who try to strike up trade deals with us. The benefits of making that kind of behavior costly are two-fold. First off, despite what you keep saying, maybe they’ll decide that further escalation in Ukraine is not worthwhile and then they’ll back off. Or maybe they’ll decide to intensify the invasion of Ukraine and then they’ll tie up a bunch of their resources in Ukraine for years and years, lessening their capacity to do things we don’t like in other places.
What’s the vital national interest at stake in defending Ukraine?
The rest of this reads like domino theory. But I just don’t see it. Ukraine is the end of the line for Russian influence expansion. Bulgaria and Romania and Poland are in NATO, that’s over. Same with the Baltic states. The Russians have to live with that. Belarus is fairly friendly with Russia and that’s OK with me. Letting Ukraine fall into Russia’s orbit isn’t going to lead to the old Warsaw Pact countries falling into Russia’s sphere. If Ukraine wants to fight I guess they can have at it but I don’t see why the West should support them.
I don’t think the West has a “vital national interest” in Ukraine. It would be mildly nice if Ukraine ends up as a successful Western-aligned county and mildly not nice if it ends up as a satrapy of Russia. The argument is not that there’s a hugely compelling interest on the “support Ukraine” side of the scale, it’s that there’s absolutely nothing on the other side. What is our national interest in Putin dominating Ukraine? I understand why Russia wants to dominate Ukraine, but I see no reason whatsoever that it’s desirable for the West.
I totally agree with the bolded!
Should the US be slanging money and weapons around the globe every time we mildly would favor some outcome rather than the other? I don’t think so. Particularly when the outcome we mildly prefer is strongly opposed by a country with thousands of nuclear weapons. My argument is: war is a very serious undertaking, and the US should only engage in or support wars when vital national interests are at stake. I understand this is a departure from longstanding US foreign policy.
The only reason there is a need for a buffer is Russia’s aggression.
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Dude really looks like Jeffrey Epstein
you are perpetuating a line put forth by russian propaganda, which i need to follow to be able to spot who is supporting putin this week.
yeah, i jump on it instinctively (rather than passive-aggresively) but it’s not personal because of you. i jumped on this thread because there’s clear misinformation peddling going on by the OP, and a few others.
what misinformation am I peddling? Be specific.
that putin has a legitimate claim over a promise that never happened and couldn’t have been made several presidential terms ago. and by extension legitimizing the unlawful way putin’s administration annexed crimea and precipitated conflict in donbass.
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All of it
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Sure if you want to hallucinate what I wrote rather than read it. I never said that Putin’s annexation of crimea was legitimate.
Thanks for your contribution to the thread.
putin’s strategy to legitimize annexation of parts of ukraine is to claim that ukraine cannot seek membership into nato. that’s their propaganda line. try to keep up.
Right, I agree with Putin that Ukraine membership into NATO is a horrible idea. What’s the misinformation?
everything coming out of the kgb agent’s mouth
Compelling!