- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
Interesting article that talks about the similarities between now and 1938, and the sort of lessons we can learn from history.
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“he almost mocked the inability of the west’s $40tn economy to organise a battlefield defeat of Russia’s $2tn economy.” <- this really bothers me. There is no will here for Ukraine to succeed.
Very interesting link, thank you.
There is no will here for Ukraine to succeed.
Yep. The vast majority of liberal and conservative politicians are doing the absolute minimum to support Ukraine, if they’re doing anything at all in the first place. I can understand conservatives wanting Russia to win because they idolize Russia, but how everyone else seems to also be fine with the idea is just mystifying.
It’s unbelievably frustrating, because most people at the outset of the conflict were horrified and strongly against just letting Russia do what they wanted.
Instead of capitalizing on that fairly universal public outrage and doing the right thing, the ossified thought processes of pretty much everyone in charge of anything in the west made them hem and haw and delay and prevaricate and play right into Putin’s hand.
It’s pretty clear that Putin’s geopolitical tactics, while completely malevolent and fairly transparent to a HUGE number of people, clearly work incredibly well on our political leaders - in fact, that’s ultimately the only audience he’s ever been playing for.
It’s unbelievably frustrating, because most people at the outset of the conflict were horrified and strongly against just letting Russia do what they wanted.
FYI, the outset of the conflict was in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and sent special forces into Donbas. “Most people” did fuck-all from 2014 to 2022, when Russia escalated to try to take the whole country.
Oh, yeah, I 100% agree. That was the time to step in if anyone actually gave a shit about nuclear non-proliferation.
I consider the complete lack of meaningful response to the 2014 invasion to be both Obama and Merkel’s single most egregious foreign policy failure. Merkel also rapidly thawed relations with Russia after that, and continued to aggressively push for closer ties with Russia, and this is the result. She continues to insist that her approach at the time was correct; she’s going to be remembered alongside the likes of Neville Chamberlain because of it.
How does this argument work, the military spending of the Nazis was insane in the build up to the war, up to 40% in 1939, no such numbers in Russia. Even now it’s just estimated at 10% and they clearly need all of it just to fight the war in Ukraine. How are they ever gonna steamroll Nato with those numbers, there is no tangible proof that they are planning for this.
The Putin is Hitler mantra also doesn’t make any sense, he has been a moderate (all be it an authoritarian) politician for decades, and now he suddenly is the rebirth of Hitler. Just looking at his politics he’s clearly not a fascist.
We’ve been sold that Ukraine can win this war militarily, and the collective west can cripple the Russian economy with sanctions alone. Now that this turns out to be complete BS, they (a subset of western politicians) are looking for a way out, and clearly their preferred way is further escalations. So now they are selling us even more BS to justify this.
I mean the percentages are different, but the argument remains the same, Russia is attacking a sovereign nation and feels they can do it with impunity. Getting access to all of Ukraine’s resources helps them rebuild faster and help destabilize the West more since they would be able to affect food supply chains.
Putting being “moderate” is irrelevant (though I didn’t agree Putin, who is homophobic is moderate), his similarities are with his actions in attacking a country for personal Gain.
There is no other option to counteract Russian aggression, supporting Ukraine and sanctioning Russia are the major tools the West has. Ukraine can defend themselves but the West has been slow to provide sufficient support, quickly. This stems from Russian influence on the West as well (Republicans warming up to Russia, or things beneficial to them). Sanctions take time, to affect countries. Russia is currently selling oil at discounts and also may have to begin to import more oil. These are all problems for Russia that will continue to get worse.
If Russia succeeds in occupying Ukraine completely it will take an immense amount of resources to subdue the population, I don’t see why this will be any different than Iraq. Given the current resistance it might even be impossible for Russia to simply occupy Ukraine and extract its resources, this is also probably the reason why they have tried to sue for peace multiple times.
Putin is a moderate in Russian politics, and it is relevant because it means there are ways to negotiate with him.