Ukraine Always Get What You Want

All true. We've also come closer to war with North Korea than many people realize.
Analyses - Examining The Lessons Of The 1994 U.s.-North Korea Deal | Kim's Nuclear Gamble | FRONTLINE | PBS
https://www.cato.org/commentary/1994-north-korea-crisis-military-force-bad-idea-then-worse-one-now
Van Jackson on Dealing With a Nuclear North Korea

 

Now you claim to care about all those other wars, but I don't ever remember you posting about them. You are right in saying that if we have done something in the past, that doesn't mean we have to do it again. That you didn't care about all those other wars doesn't mean you can't care about this one, but perhaps try being honest about it. Perhaps it is the high profile of this war. Perhaps it is an excuse to criticize the current administration. Perhaps you feel some kinship with the people of Ukraine that you didn't feel with other people being slaughtered in all those wars you ignored. Whatever the reason, your position here is a bit hypocritical.

You can also kindly stuff the implication that you have some special understanding of this war that others here lack right where the sun doesn't shine. I don't know your history, but I had great grandparents from Ukraine. From the first time I heard my great-grandmother flip out on someone for daring to refer to her as Russian because that's what people often did when the Soviet Union still existed, I got curious about the history involved. I understand the current situation every bit as well as you do. I simply understand that there have been other times that NATO remained on the sidelines even though they knew atrocities and war crimes were being committed, and that was without the threat of nuclear war.

I'm not okay with it, but I understand the stakes. It seems as if you don't.

 

This is an excellent point. Not aiming specifically at WriteThinking here, just at an alarming number of people in general who seem to want us to bullrush our way into this war without fully playing out what that leads to.

The choice here really boils down to two bad options:
1) Do we help Ukraine in every way we can without sending in our troops, knowing it means the country might be overrun and thousands — perhaps millions — might die and Ukraine will become a wasteland for a generation?
Or
2) Do we send in troops knowing it means there's a very good chance it'll lead to a nuclear exchange in which billions will most certainly die and the entire world will become a wasteland for generations to come?
This is not a think tank hypothetical anymore. This is the nightmare scenario playing out for real.

For those of us advocating a calculated, restrained approach, we're not being cold-hearted monsters blind to the horrors that are likely to unfold in the coming days and weeks. Like OOP said, we're not OK with it. Russia needs to be defeated and punished. This might be one of the few times since WWII when there is a clear good guy/bad guy situation that has galvanized world opinion on one side. In that regard, the only other conflict like it that I've seen in my lifetime is the first Gulf War.
But this is also a delicate situation where every step and every response needs to be carefully measured. Where the future of the world, quite literally, is at stake. Our various world leaders need to play chess and not checkers, and look six or seven moves ahead to the ramifications of every action. Take emotion out of it and be pragmatic, sometimes ruthlessly so. Try to see what Putin is trying to do and counter it. Don't play into his hands. Realize that sometimes doing nothing and not doing what the opponent is baiting you to do is the best path.
So far, thankfully, they seem to be doing that.

 

I find the discussion fascinating because I don’t know which side is right. I don’t think anyone but Putin knows who’s right. Nobody knows where he’s willing to go.

I was watching Keir Simmons’ interview with Putin from last summer, and while Putin was combative, he seemed a rational actor. I’d love to know how his face-to-face with Biden went, what toll the pandemic has taken on his psyche over the last seven months and if there’s something medically wrong with him or if forces within Russia (or outside of Russia) were on the verge of deposing him; Something, anything that would turn a calculating, methodical chess player into a guy who put all his money on a number and spun the wheel. How the commander of one of the most feared military powers in the world failed to do the most simple math on supplying an army. How everyone in the military thought they were going on a training operation and ended up stuck on a road without food or petrol in the Kyiv suburbs. How does this happen?

It’s horrible but true: If this invasion was planned correctly, he’d have bloodlessly marched into Kyiv and had the country in hours and we’d be talking about a negotiation to carve up Ukraine. Instead, the country will be destroyed and a people subject to genocide. Putin half-assed an invasion of a giant country. What is anybody to do with that information?

 

One thing is clear: One way or another, judging by what they have mobilized in reserve, Russia will shoot its conventional wad on Ukraine and may have already done so.

It'll take months to years for Putin to ramp up a conscript army to replace their losses in sufficient numbers to hold Ukraine AND defend the rest of the country. Those soldiers won't have any vehicles thanks to war losses, breakdowns and sanctions. The Russian bear will be weak as a kitten for some time to come. Which is dangerous because Putin will be more eager to play the nuke card.

How did Navalny let it get to this?

 

Couple of others from Angry Staffer today.
"I have to say, I’m skeptical of the whole “FSB passing assassination plans to Zelensky” story, but it’s a beautiful PSYOP - Putin is already furious that we leaked all his plans, as well as some of his conversations. He’s going to be feeling like he can’t trust anyone."

"Putin doesn’t want a war with NATO anymore than NATO wants a war with Putin — we’ve been content to kill each other via proxy for decades to avoid exactly that scenario."

 

All of this.

And let’s assume for the sake of argument, Putin knows better than to use nukes but he does expand the war if NATO gets involved. Are we willing to watch Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland go through similar total-warfare woes? Sweden? Finland? Germany? There is more to consider than just one country because the war will expand if we commit forces. As horrible as what is going on is, we have more to think about. And then there’s nukes. It’s a bad and worse scenario for Biden.

 

Here's the thing, dude, all of the world leaders think they're Bobby Fischer who can crush all of the other egos and souls out there, with a shit-eating grin.

A nuclear power plant was on fire last night, on purpose, in a war. Lotta ego breaking right now.

 

Biden leaked all the intel for one good reason: He wanted Putin to know we were in his kitchen, raiding his fridge, drinking all of his soy milk and microwaving all of his frozen breakfast chimichangas.

Didn't stop the war, but I'm sure it planted the seed in Vlad's brain there was a mole in his posse.

 

I had an awful thought at one point, though.

I HAAAAAAATE when my wife tells me what I’m going to do before I do it. It makes me irrationally angry. I hope to God Putin didn’t plan on limited invasion and then when we started telling him we knew what was going to eat for breakfast petulantly decided to put a bunch of forks in the microwave.

Speaking of which, the number of carbs Americans have started eating again has to have doubled since last week. If anyone questions the spare tire I’m about to put on my body, I’m just going to say, “Putin.”