Ukraine Always Get What You Want

I think the reason there's been an almost visceral reaction to this conflict as opposed to say the horrific situation in Yemen, is at least twofold and part of it is because they look like the average white American.

Since WWII ended, all the proxy wars were in Asia, for the most part. Our soldiers fighting in Korea and Vietnam. Soviet soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. Our soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. It is far easier to look past the 'enemy' and to disregard human suffering when it is clearly not us. I think there's probably some psychological term for that, even. OK, then consider the multiple African civil wars and, yes, Yemen. Yemen, in particular, is a horrific, catastrophic civil war to which we are a party and in which children are being savaged all the time. But not only does it not look like a western Democracy, there's no chance it will engulf the world. Same with the insular strife inside African countries over the last decades. Containment.

But then we have Ukraine. Could be an American street. Could be a street in Paris or Rome or Lisbon. There's an immediate gut check with that. So, that's on the surface.

Then, let's talk history. American understanding of 'modern' world history is largely pinned on the retelling of WWI and WWII. We know that conflict in Europe can become all consuming. This country and the world has lived it twice. The spark that lit WWI was small, yet real. The spark that lit WWII was evil incarnate. (I can't help but wonder if we had a 24/7 news cycle then how it would have impacted both the Holocaust and the spread of war, but I digress). So, the horror of war in Ukraine, especially sparked by one maniac with grandiose aspirations, tightens our buttholes. Putin is attacking the West, pure and simple. He is attacking a Western style Democracy. He is fighting an ideological war against the very substance we hold most dear, our democratic freedom.

For those of us of a certain age, we have been waiting for this our entire lives. We have. We grew up in the cold war with nukes pointed at us. We consumed fiction about it. We watched both countries dance around it. Then we won. The Soviet Union collapsed. A series of Russia leaders seemed to fold into the world order. Then Vlad reared his ugly head and severed Russian democracy before it ever took hold. We have been waiting for this, from him, for 20 years because our Cold War childhood said that it would happen. Now it is.

We know that if democracy in Europe, long our buffer (that's NATO, stripped naked, our buffer), is at risk then so are we. So, yeah. This war cuts at our hearts. We knew it it would come. Now we see it. And I'm afraid that we, that the West, is going to have be the one that ends Vlad. Ukraine will suffer. But when push comes to shove this is our war. We're already supplying it, which is not nothing. Eventually, we'll be firing the weapons, too.

 

This is the best post so far on this thread.

 

That is assuming he bothers to get his people out first.

 

This is exactly the sort thoughtful, cautious approach on the part of the West that got Putin Georgia and Chechnya and Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

Why would he think it won't get him the whole of Ukraine?

 

Having chosen lots of bad wars over the last 30 years, we're about to choose a very bad peace.

 

No one is recommending boots on the ground or launching nukes, but sanctions alone won't work. An uptick in NATO readiness status might get Putin to choose peace talks and ceasefire.

Playing for time simply cedes Ukraine to Putin.

 

I do wonder if at some point, Ukraine tries to sneak a few people across the border and plant some bombs in Russian cities.

Not so much for strategic purposes as to just do it to mess with Russia’s head a little.

 

In large part we can't remember because there hasn't been a major war fought on American soil since 1865. A couple of buildings and 3,000 people on 9/11 and the country was devastated with grief.

Here's Aleppo in Syria after the Russians got through with it. Imagine this was a city near you.

 

If Putin does use a nuke, I expect one of two things to happen. He might fire one to air burst over the Med as a "See? I'm plenty crazy enough to use nukes, you damn well better respect the threat" gesture. The other option is to use a tactical nuke to wipe out a stubborn pocket of resistance or a tank brigade. The Russians have two or three thousand of them, while we have a maybe couple of hundred. Most of our are in Europe, as it happens, due to previous expectations that when war with the Russians came it would kick off with a swarm of tanks coming through the Fulda Gap into Germany.

He can lay maximum frightfulness on the table without dropping one on a city, and if things get bad enough the bastard just might.

 

I read through this whole thread and forgot to post what I came here with (and I will crosspost to the open-wheel thread) …

Haas F1 has terminated with both Uralkali and Mazepin, whose father basically owns Uralkali. No Russians in F1 this year. Expect a replacement driver to be named next week.

F1's Haas cuts ties with driver Mazepin, sponsor

 

It might happen, but at least in the short term, if it does I think it would be an action by Ukrainian partisans, not the Ukraine government/army. A mass bombing would be a propaganda bonanza for Putin, would harden the Russian public's opinion, and would cost them in the Euro public's eyes. Less true if it hit a purely military target successfully, that might be cheered as a David and Goliath sort of thing.

Putin might do it as a false flag, though. Again.