Ukraine Always Get What You Want

Until it's not. Having just been in Romania for several days, I spent most of one of the days with people who grew up there. I had forgotten the facts of the fall of communism in that country. The urgency of the revolution and the immediacy of the revolution was breathtaking. I'm pretty sure that that can still happen anywhere.

 

I think the difference here is that no one wants to humiliate or punish the Russian people. Certainly not Applebaum.

She wants Putin - and Putinism, such as it is - undone.

Can't say I disagree.

 

Not really sure how you accomplish one without the other.

 

The trouble after WWI had a lot to do with the backbreaking nature of reparations demanded by the allies.

I think in this case you have a country run by a mob boss, and the allies' primary interest is unseating him, not in punishing the Russian population.

 

The very modest pace at which the West's economic measures are being deployed would seem evidence of this.

Ukraine Live Updates: E.U. Appears Closer to Imposing Russia Oil Embargo

E.U. Appears Closer to Imposing Russia Oil Embargo

is a helluva headline given the circumstances.

 

Except to unseat him you have to punish the Russian population, including tanking their economy. At least, that’s been the strategy so far.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/24/russia-ukraine-war-news-live-updates/

Russia-Ukraine war: Russian attack in Donbas ‘largest on European soil’ since second world war, says Ukraine – live | Ukraine | The Guardian

 

Some more additions to the Russian submarine fleet coming soon.

 

Couple things.

First, the allies learned their lesson after WWI. Instead of punishing Germany and Japan after WW II, we rebuilt them using the Marshall Plan. So rebuilding Russia and Ukraine has to be part of whatever comes of all this.

Second, we have been assured repeatedly on this very message board that V Putin has been democratically (and repeatedly) elected by Russian voters. The Russian voter has to reckon with that. It's also worth remembering that the only country with less democratic experience than Ukraine is . . . Russia.

So getting Putin out is part of the painful democratic birthing process for a new Russia.

It's all pretty complicated.

In part because no one in the West stood up to Putin when it would have made great sense to do so.

 

Russia has to be made to pay financially for the destruction to Ukraine it has done and make reparations for the people whose lives have been lost and destroyed.
When this is over, Russia doesn't get to just say, "Our bad."

 

I look forward to Garry Kasparov’s restraint during the war’s aftermath.