I'm largely in agreement with you, especially since Russia herself holds so much of our currency. But besides constituting an act of theft, why the performative act of contempt? Don't tell me, I know.
It's my understanding that the vast majority of the money allocated to Ukraine is going directly to US military contractors, not Kiev. The Zelensky regime will receive around $7.5 billion in the form of Lend Lease, in other words, a loan.
One thing is certain -- whatever form Ukraine takes this year or next, it'll be an indebted rump state, forever vassals to its EU creditors.
"...the vast majority of the money allocated to Ukraine is going directly to US military contractors, not Kiev."
That's where the moral cretinism comes into play. Forget that the money isn't worth the paper it's printed on, Raytheon is getting its fair share! Win win, baby.
The future is not in the battlefield, in conquest, in taking by war, either directly or via proxy. It is in building more sustainable systems, exploring the oceans and space, realizing the dream of fusion power, creating newer and more humane and equitable living arrangement, and so on. It is not in this ass backwards pseudo-Rome imitation thing was have going on. Honestly, put these guys in togas and they would fit right in with the Senate around 300 ad, when Rome was long past its high water mark. Pathetic morons, all of them, trying to take a Paleolithic mindset and apply it to the modern age. I doubt that dummy with the Ukraine flag underwear even knows that the internet exists. I don’t know who will replace, but hopefully they learn from our mistakes.
So the future is to get on board with parousiastic gnosticism, then? Frankly, I am fed up with the "promise" of new technology. We need local solutions by local communities. We need to rediscover what's been tried and found true before running after the new as an idol.
You are mistaking technological progress with social progress. Military conquest and confrontation doesn’t work. Technology is a piece of that, replacing cheaper resources gained through conquest with better systems. A return to “tried and true” is…what? We don’t need to discard good things that work, just the bad ones that don’t.
Surplus of food from the agricultural revolution allowed for specialization of labor. Printing press allowed for broader education. Is that enough enlightenment or would you like me to taunt you again?
Please separate your ideas, sir. The parousia is the 2nd Advent of King Jesus , on the day of the Lord. Judgement Day. Gnostics do not believe that Jesus was a human being with a physical body. A totally different thing. The Nicene creed answers the later question. Jesus was fully God and fully human. Case closed.
Oh my Rod, you have children commenting now with little theological understanding now. This is not a good thing.
As far back as 1975 scientists and engineers used to joke, "Fusion power is twenty years in the future, and always will be." The scientific complexities are daunting.
The STEM folks, including, surprisingly, engineers, not infrequently lose sight of the difference between theory and practice. The practical, if you like, technical obstacles to the implementation of fusion are, to say the least, daunting.
The problem is that these successes are taking place on the margins. The technical, engineering, basic materials science challenges to crossing the threshold of sustainable and economically feasible fusion are overwhelming. In practical terms, it seems to me, while it’s all fascinating science, the fusion effort isn’t producing much more of substantial benefit than dissertations for Physics and Engineering PhD’s and articles in learned journals.
You do realize we have a nuclear triad as well, right? We have subs with nuclear missiles on them too. And we’ve had the same situation with nuclear "detente" with Russia since before most of us were born. We’ve been fighting via proxy wars for decades without lighting each other up with nuclear bombs. There was a certain amount of danger before, and there’s a certain amount now. Nothing has changed.
Sure. My point is this has been the case for many decades. Nothing has really changed, and the dilemma of relations and fights between nuclear armed states is a problem that has not yet been solved. Nothing about the Ukraine war changes any of this.
There are fewer nukes out there these days. A miscalculation could still produce the Most Lethal Event of History-- but it would be an order of magnitude less than what could have happened in, say, 1985.
It is true but the subs were not on the coast of the US for a long time as far as I know. The Russian Atlantic fleet is now a lot more active and the subs are the real threat because they are so fast. Anyway, I don't really have any special info on this; its just a shame that we are back to Cold War trigger levels.
Indeed (I assume our fleet is also a lot more active now). What I question in all these discussions is the apparent assumption that if we back down more / take Russia's or China's considerations more into account / mind our own business more, then that will make the world safer. It seems more likely to me that this makes Russia, China, Iran, etc. *more* likely to take aggressive actions and big chances. I'm not being blasé about nuclear war; I just don't see any magic steps to make all these awful possibilities go away.
The winner of the 21st century will be the nation that creates and generates the most raw and intense energy density and transmission of it. This could be the USA if we neutralize the green energy Nazis. They have no useful ideas. We need small nuclear power generation sites. Hundreds or thousands of them. Every single American data center will need its own nuclear power generation plant to power their AI complex. Start with that idea.
I’m not opposed to fission, for now. Green energy, as it currently exists, is a bromide. The problem with your statement, though, is that there is no definition of “winning.” In fairness, mine doesn’t have one, either. What does winning really mean? Creating conditions where there is housing and food security? Sustainability? I’m not sure anyone really ever asks that question, not to any real degree, so we wind up with the same stupid, broken model that doesn’t really work anymore. Maybe decided on what that actually looks like would be a good general first step.
Politicians are all mendacious opportunists with absolutely no principles but Johnson gets the gold medal here. I don't think I've seen anyone in public life with such an absolute lack of principles, the man will say or do anything. To call him a liar is a massive understatement, he is a true narcissistic sociopathic shell.
Yes, this taking a long time to defeat Ukraine thing is a ploy to lull NATO and the West into a false sense of security. Putin has brilliantly come up with a strategy wherein he looks like he's winning and losing the war at the same time.
I don't get it. Is Ukraine doomed to lose no matter what to a Russian army that the West can do nothing to stop yet won't do anything worse than make Ukraine not join NATO or is it possible that Western aid could force Russia to accept a stalemate/peace agreement that doesn't make Ukraine a Russian satrapy?
Russia has no reason to negotiate at this point but I have read colonel Douglas MacGregor state that they are trying to limit civilian casualties by going slow. They are looking at ‘the after’.
The Russian army has been incompetent at aggressive wars for centuries, with just a very few exceptions. Even on the defense they'd be in trouble without General Winter as their ally.
The least you could do, Rod, is be gracious in defeat. Beware of becoming a mouthpiece for Orban. There is that danger, and as a journalist,one must not become predictable.
It seems that Rod is reporting on Orban, something the US press never does, save to call him a “strong man” and then move on breathlessly with the Narrative.
The problem is that the defeat which is before us isn't 1956 style domestic political defeat. Stevenson was a fine fellow, there really were no significant policy differences between him and Eisenhower, and the public rightly judged that Eisenhower was better suited to carry on as President. Things went on. You can afford to be a good loser in such a situation.
In our current Cold War, the one which we brought upon ourselves with our refusal to accept that "spheres of influence" exist, the Russian dictator has threatened the use of nuclear weapons. I remember the most tense years of the Cold War well. ( Robert Lowell's poem, "October, 1961" captures the barely subdued terror better than anything else I've ever read. ) And during that five year period, 1957 - 1962, Khrushchev, the Russian dictator, never did that. He blustered, he threatened with euphemisms ( "consequences" being the one which seemed to be most common ), but he never threatened to use nuclear weapons.
Do you really believe the current situation is more dangerous than during the Cuban missile crisis or other heights of the Cold War? Really? Putin can say whatever he wants (the point of his bluster is he realizes how weak our leadership is and that we may cower where formerly we wouldn’t have), but the reality of nuclear war has not changed. We have a nuclear triad for a reason. It is not possible for Russia or anyone else to take out our entire nuclear capability in a first strike, so they are well aware they will lose their top 5 cities of whatever when we fire back. Putin is a ruthless devil, but not suicidal.
I wrote a much longer response, then with an ill advised incautiousness, lost it. This is an abbreviation.
I was ten at the time of the missile crisis, and remember it clearly. You're right, it was the most dangerous week in world history, and you probably know why.
If Khruschev had just snuck missiles into Cuba, which everyone assumed at the time, it still would have been the most dangerous week in world history. What no one knew until the declassification of The Venona Papers is that the maniac, Khrushchev, had also put tactical nukes in. If Kennedy had acceded to what the entire ExComm group, including Robert, wanted to do, a massive invasion to capture the missiles and decapitate the Castro regime, it would have provoked the Cubans to use a tactical nuke or two, after which all bets would have been off. There was no Washington to Moscow hotline. Public opinion would have compelled Kennedy to at least knock down the Berlin wall and move into East Germany, and possibly use a nuke back at the Russians, targeted at Minsk, let's say. God knows what would have happened after that.
Almost certainly, you know about The Man Who Saved the World, the third ranking officer on the Russian sub the captain of which ordered the third ranking officer, whose job it would have been to fire the sub's nukes, to unleash them. However, and here again, you see the working of God in history, the Russian nuclear submarine fleet was so constituted at the time that this officer had the right to refuse the order without putting himself in jeopardy of a court martial. Thank God, he did.
We weren't to know for twenty - eight years just how close to immolation we really were.
Yes, of course, history has lessons for us. And acting on history's lessons could come with something we're so sure it wouldn't, a nasty surprise.
As an example, it never would have occurred to me until last October that I would see an eruption of anti - Semitism in my lifetime. For most of my life, anti - Semitism was the province of the world's solitary, muttering creeps, yet here it is again, all over the western world. And just because Khrushchev did have the sanity to pull back from the edge doesn't mean that someone always will.
I'm sorry for the Ukrainians. But it was never our fight, and a big part of statesmanship is recognizing and yielding to the line between what we'd like to do and what caution tells us we had better not do.
I agree with a lot of that. I just don't end up in the same place in the end. Is Israel our fight? What about Taiwan? South Korea? If (when) Iran get its nuclear weapons (and thanks to Teams Obama/Biden their ballistic missiles are great, and they're working on ICBMs), do they get to wipe Israel off the map because they have nukes? We can't do anything because nuclear war? I don't know how we find the line you're talking about, nor do I know how it's changed since the height of the Cold War.
I can imagine Putin using a tactical nuke in Ukraine if it makes sense for him to do so at some point (although why hasn't he is an interesting question). What I can't imagine is Putin launching WW3 and thus ensuring Moscow and St Petersburg (and not only) are erased from the world because we give money and weapons to Ukraine. Nothing is impossible, but (just as we have for decades) we have to find our way and decide whom to help how and for whom to look the other way, without any magic formula and in a world of nuclear weapons. Nothing has changed, except that we're weaker and everyone knows it. I don't see how broadcasting that reduces the risk of war. I think it increases the risk of war.
It's the kind of idiotic mess that George H.W. Bush got himself into when he said of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, "This will not stand!" And we've been paying for it ever since. Everything ever written about bin Laden says that what set him on his path was the stationing of infidel troops on Saudi land.
We knew in early 2022 that the Russians were likely to invade Ukraine. In other words, we had advanced awareness. How in the name of only moderately low intelligence could the President and the Congress not have been prepared for it?
And how would that have gone? Very simply, by our doing what we should have done after Saddam took Kuwait: issuing a lament that the malefactor had done what he had done, informing the world ( primarily Putin ) that we would be engaging in passive combat, such as sanctions, denunciations, whatever, but announcing that no, as appalling as the fate of those whose lives had been ruined or destroyed was, or would be, it was a fight which was not in our national interest.
Do you think Putin is intimidated by our protestations, or by our dopey congressmen who wave the Ukrainian flag, or even by the money we waste in aid to Ukraine? I don't. I think he's amused. It's all flash and no substance. I think that makes us look weak.
I think Israel is our fight. Twenty years ago, we would have said the British were our foremost ally. Now? Obviously, Israel is. And while we want to think the Ayatollahs are rational, they may not be.
Do we have special forces in Iran and Pakistan? I'm sure we have. They have to be in Pakistan to capture their nukes if an Islamic state supersedes the reasonable government which is there now. They have to be in Iran to keep the regime from getting nukes. I think that that is less likely to be done by airstrikes than by the kind of commando action the world hasn't seen in eighty years, and that if it does happen, it will be with Israeli participation.
I don't know what the Hell to do about Taiwan or South Korea.
I have to say that I am deeply confused by this comment. The President and the Congress were prepared to do exactly what you say you wanted and in fact have basically done that. Before Russia attacked the Biden administration was telling everybody that Russia was going to invade. Ukraine didn't really believe them and the America First branch of the Republicans branded their warnings a nefarious plot of some sort (maybe Biden was trying to gin up animosity towards Russia because Trump or something? I can't really remember). After Russia attacked, the US denounced the attack, talked about sanctions, and offered to help get Ukrainian government officials get out before the Russians took Kiev. The big surprise was that the Ukrainian military was actually much more successful at stopping the initial Russian campaign than our government expected. Once it became clear that the Ukrainians had a chance of holding out for extended time against the invasion with nothing but supplies from the US and EU we started giving them supplies while saying that while we fully support the Ukrainians' right to fight for their country against this unjustified aggression, this isn't our fight and we would do nothing more than give them supplies and intelligence.
As far as Israel goes, they have always been our only real friend in the Middle East and we rely on them for intelligence, but they don't really pay any attention to what we want them to do. I definitely wouldn't give them credit as our foremost ally, though I admit I'm not sure what exactly the term means.
"This lot that governs us, and the imperial Ruling Class, are like Late Ottomans."
That's a fascinating historical allusion, but unfortunately I don't have a strong grasp of the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. This would be a fascinating topic for you to explore in a post.
Indeed, I would welcome it. A hell of a lot of the woes not just in the Middle East but in the larger Islamic world came because of the destruction of the Empire.
I agree. The same applies to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I would prefer both to have been reformed rather than destroyed.
It's not that I support empires particularly, but that big, baggy, cumbersome polities, making pragmatic allowances for traditions and history, are preferable to ethnic nationalisms. Both those two empires were preferable to what replaced them.
There's actually a book titled "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire", which I just purchased from Amazon as a Kindle e-book. So perhaps in the next few weeks I'll have a little more insight into Rod's historical reference.
I'm really not sure where to stand in regard to Russia and Ukraine. I'm pacifist both by tradition and doctrine. Yet it's hard to fully buy the newfound (or at least newly rediscovered) skepticism of empire from many on the right in regard to Ukraine, when they seem to be adamantly pro-empire in the Middle East. That's all to preface my main point in the next paragraph by clarifying that I am not a reflexive Ukraine hawk.
My core comment: the comparison between 2003 and now seems badly flawed for one glaring reason: Putin actually IS on the march. Saddam in 2003? Not so much.
Where is Putin on the march, aside from Ukraine? I just don't see this. A year ago he offered Ukraine peace in exchange for them agreeing to be a neutral country (= no NATO), but Boris Johnson talked them out of it. That does not sound like a Russian leader who intends to invade Poland or anywhere else.
Thanks, Rod. My point is only that even being "on the march" (or however it might be described) in Ukraine is hugely different from what Saddam was doing in '03. There certainly are complicating factors like NATO membership, etc. and I don't dispute those being complicating factors.
That is a complete misrepresentation of anything Russia has offered at any point in this war (Putin has actually been pretty consistent). Do you really believe that? Did you not even watch Tucker's interview with Putin where Putin himself basically said the German invasion of Poland was a good analogy to the Russian invasion of Ukraine despite all chances Tucker gave him to deny it?
Yes, I watched it. My understanding is that the 2022 peace deal would have let Luhansk and the other two mainly Russian speaking/Russia loyal areas be part of Russia, or administrated or protected by Russia in some way. Thus the Germany into Poland analogy. It was a Lebensraum analogy as I understood it. Putin wants parts of Ukraine in addition to Crimea which he already has. The rest of Ukraine can remain a country as long as it does not join NATO.
I wonder: Did Trump support this deal because he wants Ukraine to hang on for a few more months until he can come in an "end the war in days" as he claims? I think Trump's plan is to make both sides conform to that 2022 peace deal.
Finally, my understanding is that Boris Johnson did what he did at Biden's behest. Biden wants this war. Ukraine gave him lots of money, he does not want Russia to have Ukraine, Biden likes giving money to arms dealers, - but mainly, Biden wants Russia for our Eastasia ("1984" reference).
Yes, it was a Lebensraum analogy, in particular, it was a Lebensraum analogy that said Poland should have just given Hitler what he wanted so they could have the same fate as the Czechs instead of what they got. This is not an analogy somebody who wants to let Ukraine remain free would make unless they are a complete fool. Putin is not a complete fool.
As far as Boris Johnson goes, there seems to be a number of different stories out there about what happened. The most likely one (to me) seems to be that Boris told Ukraine that the UK/USA would not be able to give Ukraine a protection guarantee comparable to article 5 of the NATO treaty if they accepted the agreement. In any event, the agreement seems to have died over how what remained of Ukraine would have it's protection guaranteed, not just because Boris said he didn't like it.
Yeah, that's a big part of what makes the analogy so terrible if you are trying to convince people that you aren't just going to annex all of Ukraine later.
Russia isn’t about to invade Poland. If they did they know perfectly well it would be very bad for all concerned. But the idea that all Putin really cares about is that Ukraine not join NATO and everyone will then be fine, is to put it mildly questionable. Yeah I know the Boris Johnson story. His mesmerizing powers prevented peace from breaking out. If Putin wanted a peace based on Ukraine not ever joining NATO, he could simply say so. I think it’s reasonable to assume he wants to dominate the country. Again not our problem.Now if Putin ‘s war was genuinely defensive, it would broadly speaking be a just war. (Granted an argument could be made as to how the war was conducted).By the way - NATO seems to be the equivalent of an empty suit.So why would anyone be so scared of it? I believe that Russian intelligence remains first rate . They know the European armies are a joke and under our moronic leader , US armed forces are being degraded. As Mao would have put it NATO is a paper tiger. The Russians have their own problems. In particular a demographic collapse. The notion that the country is Orthodox is laughable. I think Muslims in reality outnumber Christians. The decline of the west extends to the east.This is all very unfortunate. But the West- and that actually includes Russia once you get past Eurasian BS is obsessed with destroying itself. Most clearly this began in WW1. Total ruin takes time and massive ideological stupidity.
Do we know that actually happened? Not trying to be snarky; it sounds like something one dude said happened. I assume I should be skeptical about far more seriously reported stories than that about anything foreign policy related (many of which turn out to be intel-driven disinformation). It sounds to me like a major stretch - Boris Johnson does not have that kind of gravitas; Putin's idea of "peace" is a lot more involved than "no NATO"; it's hard to believe the Ukrainians were in any mood to accept "peace" after what the Russians had just done to them.
I don't see how we get from the Iraq war was highly misadvised; the government lied (like governments have been doing to their citizens since they were created) to every other thing the US does in FP is wrong/misguided/based on lies. Nor do I see how giving money for military or economic assistance (which we've been doing to friends, temporary allies, and enemies of enemies since the beginning of time) is "forever war". It's too bad that Bush's absurd moves followed by Obama's and Biden's feckless weakness and decadent LGBTQ posturing poisoned the well for so many conservatives that the US is left rudderless and myopic.
It's interesting to hear Russians arguing about Ukraine. I can assure you they are not getting their opinions from any Western media. When my wife's old school friend was here it turned into a late night scream fest - my wife (and most Russians I know) strongly anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine; her friend the exact opposite. My Russian is not nearly good enough to keep up with that kind of discussion so I went up to bed and tried not to listen to them yelling at each other. My point is, neither of them could care less what WaPo or CNN or NYT says or what press release Team Biden puts out. It is not all about Western manipulation (but Western cluelessness certainly is involved).
Putin has been testing the waters for years - Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, then full invasion. If I were in Moldova or Estonia or Lithuania or Poland I would certainly not take comfort in your belief that he is "not on the march". The Baltic countries are worried - but also very glad that NATO expansion happened!
You're leaving something out, tho - the US’s unclean hands in instigating the matter. The CIA likely color revolutionized Ukrain and then went around poking Russia with a stick by, for example, setting up CIA listing posts right on the Russian border. Etc. There is a lot of dirt on our hands in this whole affair. We basically instigated it.
Putin is "on the march" to the extent he's trying to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. Any idea that he's "on the march" because he's trying to extend the Russian empire is - just like claims Saddam was "on the march" to extend his country's influence - ridiculous
You are dreaming. Or giving credence to propaganda. In any event nothing that purportedly happened in 2023 can be a cause of Russia's invasion in 2022. Putin is not a time traveler.
Meanwhile Putin's feckless invasion did induce one country with whom Russia shares a border and which used to be part of the old Russian Empire to join NATO-- Finland-- to join NATO. Why no Russian invasion there?
FACT: NATO ALLIES agreed at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. FACT: NATO started expanding toward Russia in the 1990s when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were no longer in existence. Russia was prostrate in the 1990s and posed no threat to NATO, yet NATO continued its march towards Russia. These are past events. Last time I checked, past events still cause future events. It's called causation! We are supposed to have diplomats at work to make sure events do not spiral out of control and develop into World War III!
For decades, Putin has used imperial language when discussing Ukraine. He's spent more time describing Ukraine as actually being part of Russia than expressing concern about NATO expansion. When he invaded the Donbas in 2014, he referred to the conquered territories as Novorossiya, or New Russia. He and his lackeys have repeatedly offered historical summaries as justification for their invasions of Ukraine, claiming that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian. A Ukrainian is actually a Russian.
Agreed, but I do think Putin will settle for the areas that he believes want to be Russian, i.e. ":On 30 September 2022, Russia, amid an ongoing invasion of Ukraine, unilaterally declared its annexation of areas in and around four Ukrainian oblasts—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia:"
I think Putin might not insist on Kherson and possibly not on Zaporizhahi, but he will insist on Donetsk and Luhansk. That is must imho.
One reason I'm supportive of the current aid package is to secure the defense of Kherson. This blog post talks about the aid package as being used to beat Russia. Anyone watching this closely knows that isn't what this is about. Kherson, which was secure last year, is now in danger in large part because the Ukrainians have run out of weapons (especially artillery shells). They can hold Kherson and other parts of the country if they have the needed weaponry.
I agree with you, though, most of the donbas is lost.
Thank you! I see you are following closely, more closely than I have recently. I did not know they had explained the aid package in that way. I also calculate that 61 billion is less than $200 per American. The best thing would be if the reprehensible Biden administration with back to the 2022 peace deal or negotiated a new deal. But they won't.
Every Russian "leader" since Peter the Great, and likely before him, has put at the top of the list of foreign policy priorities a stack of fat buffer states between Muscovy and the West. If they have to be actual provinces (Poland post 1794) or satellites (Poland 1945-1989) doesn't matter. This is the kind of thing students of international affairs ought to learn as undergraduates. You may not like it, but you have to at least take it into account. If Ukraine is going to be independent, and Lavrov's proposals did not stipulate anything else, then Russia needs the Donbas as a buffer and will take it if she has to. Putin demonstrated that he was willing to take what he wanted in Georgia and in Crimea. Why did we doubt him here? Why?
At the time I thought this famous quote from (most likely) Karl Rove was stupid and deranged, but now it seems quite apt and prescient (if too long to fit on a national tombstone):
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."
That arrogant blather was blurted in defense of the Imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, which (tellingly for our moment), were 1) total disasters that achieved none of their stated aims, wrecked millions of lives for no real purpose, were mostly forgotten in a few years and yet; 2) had zero negative consequences for any of its architects, whose lies and mistakes were swept under the rug by the press (aka the Empire's PR/propaganda wing), and were more or less treated by Americans as if they were a slight speed bump on our road to the glorious future.
But just as apt here is the novel that best explains how Americans see the world and are seen by the world, Graham Greene's "The Quiet American", where no possible reality-based incident could ever dent the bulletproof self-regard of the crusading proselytizing American, who believes in his blood and brain that he is God's chosen vessel, the literal embodiment of the Superman slogan (Truth Justice blah blah) and who can walk away from any and every disaster saying and believing: How can I be held responsible? I meant well, and my good intentions are all that matters....
But I think more a more apt analogy here is a rich kid who's never had to suffer a single consequence from a bad decision bc he has a wealthy papa and a bunch of older brothers who beat the snot out of anyone who hurts his feelings: Americans, but really our rulers and parasite class inside the Imperial City, have never once had to face the ugly results of their reckless behavior, if anything endless war provides endless opportunties for graft, promotion and re-election, and every one of our supposed leaders will die in their gilded beds imagining themselves as some cross bw Churchill, the French Resistance and the Freedom Fighters, and nothing can change or dent their monumental self-regard.
Like all other Empires, we will just have to wait for the inevitable cataclysm up ahead, whether that's an environmental or financial collapse or the loss of a war, but it will take a straight, hard shot to the head for Americans to at last give up their/our fantasy life and return to reality.
"Like all other Empires, we will just have to wait for the inevitable cataclysm up ahead, whether that's an environmental or financial collapse or the loss of a war..."
We've unfortunately lot several wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, ?Ukraine), but they continue on their course.
These wars were like losing a game of tennis in your backyard court on a sunny day while your servants pour lemonade between sets. Inconveniences that are forgotten before sunrise and that leave no wounds larger than a few bad memories. A few trillion here or there, a few million dead or mutilated children that you would have never known or cared about anyway, no problems that a bottomless checkbook can't fix.
When something happens that makes America have to abandon its 750 global military bases, then we'll know that our age of Imperial triumphalism is over and our buffoonish "I'm Churchill, you're Chamberlain (and/or Hitler)" political class, who all lie the moment they take their oath of office and go downhill from there, will at last be swept into history's graveyard.
It will be financial, and my retirement (and likely yours) will go up in smoke with it. Which will fuel the radical reaction, because I tell you, when millions of Americans who've saved (if only via 401k plans) see that savings go up in smoke, they are going to be furious. For all the good it'll do them.
And why is there any reason to think that will happen? I don't mean that there won't be ups and downs in the markets, including bad, horrible, no good days. But a total collapse? I can't see anything other than some immense physical catastrophe that could cause that. This is not 1929-- we don't have people buying on margin which limits the amount of speculative excess that can happen; and FTC regulations prevent large scale corporate fraud which could create gross overvaluations subject to collapse. The worst we've seen-- the tech bust of 2000-01-- didn't wipe out the market and recovery followed quickly enough.
Because the stock market is ridiculously overvalued, completely gamed by the big players, and counted upon by the powers that be to provide a sense of security to a citizenry which otherwise owns little. At best we're overdue for another 2008 correction. I'm sure it'll come the year before I'm looking to retire...
I don't know—it seems like much of our economy is an unreal and speculative bubble at this point; feels like any number of things could go horribly wrong. But we'll see.
So, which inning of the Chastisement ball game then are we in? If the game hasn't started yet (seems it has), we're at least getting valet parked on the stadium grounds.
There is a good case to be made against backing Ukraine in a war it would appear it can’t win but that does not require parroting Russian talking points. Russia’s security was never remotely imperiled. This is an imperialist war. Now you can argue- sensibly- it’s not our problem anymore than Libya and Iraq were our problems. We do not have the power to micromanage the world. And that’s probably a good thing.
What do you mean Russia's security was never remotely imperiled? Had Ukraine joined NATO, it absolutely would have been imperiled. Do you think the US would tolerate Chinese bases in Mexico?
You’re caught up in a bit of confusion that is similar to what John Mersheimer articulates. Instead of explaining what the actual NATO threat was - you switch topics and talk about how the US would react to Chinese bases in Mexico. I’m not talking about, although I’m perfectly capable of doing so. Was NATO preparing to invade Russia? No . Is Putin preparing to invade Western Europe? No. Please articulate what the peril was.
NATO (aka part of the American empire) aggressively pushed East towards Russia for decades with the goal of forcing the breakup of Russia. American has been the aggressive hegemon of the post Cold War era.
And your basis for saying America was trying to break up Russia is what? By the way , I’d be fine with NATOs dissolving. What I keep trying to point out is, you don’t need to buy into Russian talking points that it is actually fighting a defensive war. It’s fighting a war of conquest. You can say this is none of our business.
America policy makers have been saying it for decades. Zbigenew Brezinksi wrote a book on it at the end of the Cold War. There are a many many talks, policy papers, etc. about this. It isn't a secret.
Yeah, but there are also cold hard facts that Putin has imperialistic aspirations, which he has repeatedly exhibited over the years, and this latest invasion is a continuation of his plan.
That’s not exactly true. The Russians were certainly interested in installing a friendly government, but I doubt they want to conquer & hold Ukraine. I think the Russians understood the west was playing all the way for Crimea, ultimately, which was insane, given it’s been in Russian hands since 1783 and has been their only warm water naval port with access to the sea. That’s why Putin went straight in on that one. The US provoked that too with its color revolution in Ukrainian. Basically the US has been behaving like a prowling burglar right on Russia’s border. A burglar with a long rap sheet to boot.
Russia has a Black Sea coast and port., See: Novorossiysk. And I would suggest googling "Medvedev's map of Ukraine" to get an idea what Russia regards as a good fate if that country.
See, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria. Etc. The Nato/US are like bulls in a China shop, making one mess after another. The Russians know too that the US would give anything to send Russia spiraling, to break up even. Who wants that? No one but the grifters and psychopaths who run our national “defense.”
Let me ask you some simple questions. Who has started more wars in the decades since the USSR cracked up? (They should put this topic on Jeopardy.) The US or Russia? Who do you bet has the higher body count? I think the answer is pretty obvious.
The US has already conquered Ukraine by destroying it with its duplicitous behavior toward Russia throughout the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and by supporting the extreme nationalist factions in the overthrow of the democratically elected President Yanukovych. Provoking Russia into a war and keeping it mired in it is a page right out of the US foreign policy playbook. The foreign policy analysts in the corporate media like to talk about Putin's playbook, which no one has ever seen, but the US playbook can widely be accessed. Brzezinski let the cat out of the bag when he published his book, The Grand Chessboard. Listen to the interviews he gave around that time. It never was about rapprochment with Russia or capitalizing on the so-called peace dividend. It's always about weakening Russia, hence another recently approved tranche of US tax dollars approved by Congress that will go to our Industrial Military Complex and Ukraine at the expense of more dead Ukrainians.
"Russia's security was never remotely imperiled" maybe. "Russia is 100 percent certain Ukraine joining NATO would imperil it's security". True. Thus causus belli.
When one says Russia was 100per cent certain that NATO imperiled its security- that means what exactly? Who or what actually believed that? Why did they believe that? What is it NATO was going to do that imperiled Russia?Or might we embrace the possibility that carrying on about a NATO threat was rhetoric designed to justify a naked bullying imperialism. When the US attacked Spanish colonies in 1898 it annunciated all kinds of high minded nonsense to clothe a naked imperialist grab.Hitler at points argued he was fighting a defensive war. This is typical war state rhetoric.
So Russian perception that Ukraine joining NATO threatened its security (which I reiterate makes no sense- and even if Ukraine wanted to join NATO , it wasn’t clear that would even happen).That gave Russia just cause to invade Ukraine ? That would appear to be the argument. The US argued Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. That wasn’t true but I gather that justifies the US invasion of Iraq.All you need for war is a perception of threat or a claimed or contrived perception of threat. Finland has at points been at war with the Soviet Union. It has a border with Russia. It has possible irredentist claims to occupied Karelia- didn’t it threaten Russia by joining NATO? Would it have been ok for Russia to invade Finland to prevent it from joining NATO?
I can’t figure out why people
who think the US should not be involved in this and feel that this is a conflict that is of no real interest to the US , feel compelled to say- Russia was provoked into the war. No this was a war of choice. Ukraine posed no clear and present danger. However, Russian Slavophile nationalists had always been irked by an independent Ukraine. I think that’s not in dispute. Russia was somewhat legitimately irked by Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea but that was more or less addressed in 2014. (Until Khrushchev assigned it to Ukraine in the 50s , it had never been considered part of Ukraine. Ethnically it was predominantly Russian and yes a key port for the Russian navy).Now you can argue that grabbing Crimea was wrong but at least you can argue that in that , Russia was pursuing a comprehensible national interest. Not so with the push west.
<<<When one says Russia was 100per cent certain that NATO imperiled its security- that means what exactly?>>>
I did consider wording that as Putin or as the Russian Government. That is what I meant. It is a claim (my opinion) and is based on Tucker's interview.
Russia was pursuing a long term strategy to unwind NATO and draw Europe closer to itself and this was very slowly succeeding. Putin should have stuck with it as Xi has struck with China's slow plans to become the Necessary Nation. The Ukrainian War blew all that out of the water and will leave Russia in a much weaker position and probably a vassal to China.
Exactly. So why do we always get this would we tolerate Chinese based in Mexico. Further, bad as our relationship with China is, it’s not on par with what our relationship with the Soviet Union was.
Before Bush43's pronouncement, there was Bill Clinton's Enlargement doctrine, which espoused the same philosophy. I've always argued that if Bush41 had had a second term, many things would now be different.
The man who was castigated for refusing to march on Baghdad and topple SH's regime? The man whose legacy was undone by his son, which was a very bitter pill for him? Nah.
Yes, Bush 41. Somalia, Yugoslavia, Kuwait. Bush refused to let NATO die. He didn't want Europe to be out from American domination and control. The man wanted to extend the Unipolar Moment as long as possible.
Bush did not "refuse to let NATO die." That's a nonsensical way of looking at it, especially in 90, 91, 92. It is presentism to suggest Bush wanted to "extend" the unipolar moment since it was under his watch that the Cold War ended! Your comment leads me to wonder whether you were an adult during the 41 years.
Clinton just extended what Bush did. Your comment makes me wonder if you ever thought about foreign policy for the last 41 years.
There were numerous articles back in 91-92 in magazines such as Foreign Affairs discussing extending the moment. I discussed this issue with Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41's National Security Advisor in 1992.
There was some reluctance by Democrats about continuing the American hegemony. They talked about the "Peace Dividend". In discussions the issue with Senator Harry Reed in 1992, I pointed out there was no "Peace Dividend" as the military budget at that time was less than the annual debt. He agreed, though he was surprised someone could see through the BS.
Once Clinton was elected, the Democrats continued and extended Bush's policy to extend American hegemony to the entire world.
I have followed these issues closely and have studied foreign policy in graduate school. The biggest problem I find in discussing these issues is that most people barely pay attention to world events and have limited knowledge they attempt to rely on.
OK, son, have it your way. I've been in meetings with Baker, Scowcroft, and Bush41, too. And the reason they stepped back from the precipice in all of these areas, including refusing to take Baghdad, is that they wanted the NWO, which was not the same as American hegemony. That was made very clear by Bush41, who certainly didn't see it as a unipolar moment to seize, and this is expressed in the reticence their FP concerning many of these farflung areas. The DoD did want a unipolar moment, of course. But it was Clinton who cottoned on to the unipolar moment through "Enlargement," and big mistakes were made in FP under that administration--mistakes Madeleine Albright eventually regretted, despite her views on the indispensability of America, as she told me in conversation.
I have followed these problems closely and have a doctorate in international relations. The biggest problem I find in discussing these issues is that most people barely pay attention to world events and have limited knowledge they attempt to rely on.
Happy to continue to discuss the Bush41 legacy all day long . . . it's a particular interest of mine.
Seems like they want Ukraine to be the next Israel.
In very much the same flavor, US foreign policy and the DOD budget has been continuously drained by massive commitments to that country. It's very arguable they were the main driving force behind the whole Iraq War (remember how Netanyahu adamantly pushed the WMD theory before congress and painted Iraq as a post-9/11 target? Despite Israeli intelligence knowing that info was bogus I might add).
Now that public opinion seems to be shifting quite rapidly about Israel, it may be that the Military Industrial Complex needs their next cash cow lined up, and Ukraine fits the bill perfectly
Although there can be antisemitism involved in the support of Palestine, I can assure you that being kicked out of one's home, becoming a refugee, being occupied, subject to arbitrary arrest, little to no freedom of movement, villages destroyed, olive groves burnt, water seized, completely excluded from the political life of the government that rules over you, tends to make one resentful of the ones responsible for it. Whether it's the French in Algeria or the Zionists in Palestine, the feelings are the same. I can assure you that if it was the Mongolians or Ethiopians who illegally entered into Palestine and declared their own state that they would be equally resented by the Arab-speaking Palestinians (who are of the same genetic stock as the Jewish people).
Of course, if you are going with the incoherent definition of antisemitism such as that from IHRA, then I could understand considering any questioning of the origin, history, and current situation in Palestine as "Antisemitic", well, so be it.
Assuming that by ‘you guys’ RC meant Muslims (I know you’re not Palestinian), it’s possible to recognize both that the Palestinians are in the right and that a lot of dysfunctions do seem, with broad brush strokes, to be associated with Islam.
It is what it is. There's a sense of inevitability...destiny even.
The Regime is serving up its client state Ukraine to be sacrificed on a Wokeist altar for the sake of this insane proxy war with Russia.
Zelensky and his friends in the Regime's Kiev sub-chapter aren't worried. They know they'll be handsomely rewarded with tickets out of town no matter what happens. But what if the temple is pulled down on their heads too?
I'm often reminded of some words attributed to an ancient Greek playwright: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
I think he’s missing something. But only a bit. The cause of all this crap in Ukraine (other than Putin) is probably the fact that our politicians in the U.S. have for years used Ukraine like a piggy bank.
I think that’s why they went after Trump. He was starting to ask questions. So they flipped it all around and blamed Trump.
So the money is literally hush money to keep Zelensky from spilling the beans on generations of American graft.
One thing to remember about today's Democrats is that they are literally always doing what they accuse others of doing: the projection has gotten so compulsive at this point that an accusation from them may be treated as a de facto confession.
The conviction is that unless the rest of the world is “converted”, not just to democracy, mind you, but to “Western values”, there will always be rivalries and conflict between competing systems, and this is unstable. So, the “answer” is for the US to basically force the other “centers” in the world (not just of hard power, but centers of different values from Western values) to convert.
This is not a new policy, it goes back to the 1990s.
In the earlier phase, the thought was that if prosperity and free enterprise were spread, democracy would inevitably follow, and if that happened, Western values (which they consider universal in much the same way Christian missionaries viewed their only mission) will inevitably spread automatically because once free and prosperous, people everywhere will choose more or less the same values.
As we know, it didn’t turn out that way. China turned out to be quite, um, “recalcitrant” in its reluctance to embrace Western ideas and values despite modernizing its economy and creating many more middle and above income people than have ever lived there. Russia went through a period of kleptocratic rule by oligarchs, which was replaced by Putin’s authoritarian order, and Western values have not spread widely there. Iran has a large movement of young people who oppose the theocratic rule of the Mullahs, but even if the Mullahs were to go, as many Iran-watchers have reported the likely successor would be a nationalist Iranian regime that would be no more accommodating to the US or the West. India, while democratic, is in the grasp of an ethno-nationalist party whom the West largely despises. And we all know what happened with “nation building” in the Middle East over the past 20 years.
So what happened, writ large, is that the “carrot” approach (ie, get people rich by free trade, give them democracy by ejecting their tyrants, etc) failed. Instead, the other “centers” have retrenched in their opposition to American/Western global hegemony, both in economic, political and cultural terms. This has resulted in a shift from the carrot to the stick. The attitude is very much “well, okay, if you want to be like that, things are going to be much harder for you, and we’re going to stop you from achieving what you want to achieve, because we still have the raw military power (the “stick”) to do so — so it’s your choice, you can convert the easy way, or the hard way, but you’re going to convert.
This is all that’s happened. The underlying policy is the same as it was 25-30 years ago, it’s just flipped from the carrot side to the stick side, since the carrot side failed.
And we will now all get to experience whether the stick side fares any better.
I remember sitting in a Godfather's Pizza just outside the gates of LSU, eating lunch and poring over The New York Times's reports on the Tiananmen Square massacre the day before. I remember thinking that we need to hurry up and accelerate their transition to capitalism, so they will be properly democratic and peaceful, just like all the smart people were saying was going to happen.
Similar note: my brother, a leftist and newsie, is completely unaware of news stories that are a big deal to the rest of us. I mean, hasn’t even *heard or seen* them. At all. It makes me wonder what we haven’t heard.
Also fascinating: when their big stories such as Russiagate turn out to be a lot of hot air, he exhibits not even the slightest curiosity as to what happened to them. They just go poof and that’s it.
I have family members who still get their news from the networks......sponsored by Merck and Pfizer. If I bring up things that are taken for granted here, it's like I'm speaking a different language. I catch "knowing" glances between them....lol. I have learned to use more subtlety, and to show more charity, in recent years.
I understand! Yes, they have no idea of much of anything on the left in the USA these days. But in China, it was virtually no one knowing what happened in Tiananmen Square - government censorship is that strong. Too bad my graduate school Chinese friend, after about 3 years in the United States, did not know. But I have to admit, her statement early in our friendship, "I am not political" led me to think politics just was not a good subject between us. Imagine the embarrassment to he if I tried to tell her that her government was bad - I'm sure she knew bad things about it from experience, but she did not get much news. We did talk about Christianity, which was more important than talking politics.
I am not from BR. My friend is. He said the pizzas were on a conveyor belt in the oven, and on busy nights such as Fridays, a pizza might fall off the belt and onto the floor. They would rearrange the toppings and put it back on the belt.
When he was telling the story and we all looked horrified (many of us had eaten there), he reassured us that this was rare to infrequent (hmmmm)
Godfathers only had deep dish. It was a new type of pizza in Kansas and we loved it. I worked at a knockoff called big cheese pizza that made it the same way. I was so thin and could eat it every day and not gain a pound.
The dollar remains solid, backed up by powerful assets. Few nations care about the Russian assets any more than they cared about Iran's in 79.
Russia cares.
Of course. And Iran cares about it assets. But the rest of the world will not flee the US markets.
I'm largely in agreement with you, especially since Russia herself holds so much of our currency. But besides constituting an act of theft, why the performative act of contempt? Don't tell me, I know.
It's my understanding that the vast majority of the money allocated to Ukraine is going directly to US military contractors, not Kiev. The Zelensky regime will receive around $7.5 billion in the form of Lend Lease, in other words, a loan.
One thing is certain -- whatever form Ukraine takes this year or next, it'll be an indebted rump state, forever vassals to its EU creditors.
"...the vast majority of the money allocated to Ukraine is going directly to US military contractors, not Kiev."
That's where the moral cretinism comes into play. Forget that the money isn't worth the paper it's printed on, Raytheon is getting its fair share! Win win, baby.
The future is not in the battlefield, in conquest, in taking by war, either directly or via proxy. It is in building more sustainable systems, exploring the oceans and space, realizing the dream of fusion power, creating newer and more humane and equitable living arrangement, and so on. It is not in this ass backwards pseudo-Rome imitation thing was have going on. Honestly, put these guys in togas and they would fit right in with the Senate around 300 ad, when Rome was long past its high water mark. Pathetic morons, all of them, trying to take a Paleolithic mindset and apply it to the modern age. I doubt that dummy with the Ukraine flag underwear even knows that the internet exists. I don’t know who will replace, but hopefully they learn from our mistakes.
So the future is to get on board with parousiastic gnosticism, then? Frankly, I am fed up with the "promise" of new technology. We need local solutions by local communities. We need to rediscover what's been tried and found true before running after the new as an idol.
You are mistaking technological progress with social progress. Military conquest and confrontation doesn’t work. Technology is a piece of that, replacing cheaper resources gained through conquest with better systems. A return to “tried and true” is…what? We don’t need to discard good things that work, just the bad ones that don’t.
I'm interested to hear how technological progress produces social progress. Enlighten me.
Surplus of food from the agricultural revolution allowed for specialization of labor. Printing press allowed for broader education. Is that enough enlightenment or would you like me to taunt you again?
And these things have brought social progress? Look around you, fella.
We got rid of some ancient evils like slavery-- in large part because such things no longer made sense in a world of machine power.
Please separate your ideas, sir. The parousia is the 2nd Advent of King Jesus , on the day of the Lord. Judgement Day. Gnostics do not believe that Jesus was a human being with a physical body. A totally different thing. The Nicene creed answers the later question. Jesus was fully God and fully human. Case closed.
Oh my Rod, you have children commenting now with little theological understanding now. This is not a good thing.
You do realize that Rod used the term in his post? Did you read his post?
"realizing the dream of fusion power ..."
As far back as 1975 scientists and engineers used to joke, "Fusion power is twenty years in the future, and always will be." The scientific complexities are daunting.
The STEM folks, including, surprisingly, engineers, not infrequently lose sight of the difference between theory and practice. The practical, if you like, technical obstacles to the implementation of fusion are, to say the least, daunting.
Wasn't there an experiment last year where a fusion reaction finally produced more energy than it consumed, or something?
The problem is that these successes are taking place on the margins. The technical, engineering, basic materials science challenges to crossing the threshold of sustainable and economically feasible fusion are overwhelming. In practical terms, it seems to me, while it’s all fascinating science, the fusion effort isn’t producing much more of substantial benefit than dissertations for Physics and Engineering PhD’s and articles in learned journals.
Russian subs are right off the coast of Washington D.C. Missles can arrive in 5 minutes. This is a scary reality.
You do realize we have a nuclear triad as well, right? We have subs with nuclear missiles on them too. And we’ve had the same situation with nuclear "detente" with Russia since before most of us were born. We’ve been fighting via proxy wars for decades without lighting each other up with nuclear bombs. There was a certain amount of danger before, and there’s a certain amount now. Nothing has changed.
But remember: all it takes is one miscalculation or misapprehension, and then…
Sure. My point is this has been the case for many decades. Nothing has really changed, and the dilemma of relations and fights between nuclear armed states is a problem that has not yet been solved. Nothing about the Ukraine war changes any of this.
There are fewer nukes out there these days. A miscalculation could still produce the Most Lethal Event of History-- but it would be an order of magnitude less than what could have happened in, say, 1985.
It is true but the subs were not on the coast of the US for a long time as far as I know. The Russian Atlantic fleet is now a lot more active and the subs are the real threat because they are so fast. Anyway, I don't really have any special info on this; its just a shame that we are back to Cold War trigger levels.
Indeed (I assume our fleet is also a lot more active now). What I question in all these discussions is the apparent assumption that if we back down more / take Russia's or China's considerations more into account / mind our own business more, then that will make the world safer. It seems more likely to me that this makes Russia, China, Iran, etc. *more* likely to take aggressive actions and big chances. I'm not being blasé about nuclear war; I just don't see any magic steps to make all these awful possibilities go away.
True and you need trust to establish an agreement which is lacking at the moment.
That statement is all poppycock.
The winner of the 21st century will be the nation that creates and generates the most raw and intense energy density and transmission of it. This could be the USA if we neutralize the green energy Nazis. They have no useful ideas. We need small nuclear power generation sites. Hundreds or thousands of them. Every single American data center will need its own nuclear power generation plant to power their AI complex. Start with that idea.
I’m not opposed to fission, for now. Green energy, as it currently exists, is a bromide. The problem with your statement, though, is that there is no definition of “winning.” In fairness, mine doesn’t have one, either. What does winning really mean? Creating conditions where there is housing and food security? Sustainability? I’m not sure anyone really ever asks that question, not to any real degree, so we wind up with the same stupid, broken model that doesn’t really work anymore. Maybe decided on what that actually looks like would be a good general first step.
I was a big fan of Boris Johnson. But he brought both the UK and the Ukraine to their knees. What a horrific disappointment.
Politicians are all mendacious opportunists with absolutely no principles but Johnson gets the gold medal here. I don't think I've seen anyone in public life with such an absolute lack of principles, the man will say or do anything. To call him a liar is a massive understatement, he is a true narcissistic sociopathic shell.
I'm getting my Johnsons confused here...weren't we talking about Boris?
happens to all of us
Last I heard The Ever Victorious Ukrainian Army was driving the Russian Army into the Pacific Ocean! Has something changed?
Yes, this taking a long time to defeat Ukraine thing is a ploy to lull NATO and the West into a false sense of security. Putin has brilliantly come up with a strategy wherein he looks like he's winning and losing the war at the same time.
I don't get it. Is Ukraine doomed to lose no matter what to a Russian army that the West can do nothing to stop yet won't do anything worse than make Ukraine not join NATO or is it possible that Western aid could force Russia to accept a stalemate/peace agreement that doesn't make Ukraine a Russian satrapy?
Russia has no reason to negotiate at this point but I have read colonel Douglas MacGregor state that they are trying to limit civilian casualties by going slow. They are looking at ‘the after’.
The Russian army has been incompetent at aggressive wars for centuries, with just a very few exceptions. Even on the defense they'd be in trouble without General Winter as their ally.
The least you could do, Rod, is be gracious in defeat. Beware of becoming a mouthpiece for Orban. There is that danger, and as a journalist,one must not become predictable.
It seems that Rod is reporting on Orban, something the US press never does, save to call him a “strong man” and then move on breathlessly with the Narrative.
Of course I support his view of the foolishness of the war.
Have you even considered the fact that Hungary's Visegrad neighbors have very different views?
Absolutely not. Rod can't see that far away, at all.
The problem is that the defeat which is before us isn't 1956 style domestic political defeat. Stevenson was a fine fellow, there really were no significant policy differences between him and Eisenhower, and the public rightly judged that Eisenhower was better suited to carry on as President. Things went on. You can afford to be a good loser in such a situation.
In our current Cold War, the one which we brought upon ourselves with our refusal to accept that "spheres of influence" exist, the Russian dictator has threatened the use of nuclear weapons. I remember the most tense years of the Cold War well. ( Robert Lowell's poem, "October, 1961" captures the barely subdued terror better than anything else I've ever read. ) And during that five year period, 1957 - 1962, Khrushchev, the Russian dictator, never did that. He blustered, he threatened with euphemisms ( "consequences" being the one which seemed to be most common ), but he never threatened to use nuclear weapons.
Do you really believe the current situation is more dangerous than during the Cuban missile crisis or other heights of the Cold War? Really? Putin can say whatever he wants (the point of his bluster is he realizes how weak our leadership is and that we may cower where formerly we wouldn’t have), but the reality of nuclear war has not changed. We have a nuclear triad for a reason. It is not possible for Russia or anyone else to take out our entire nuclear capability in a first strike, so they are well aware they will lose their top 5 cities of whatever when we fire back. Putin is a ruthless devil, but not suicidal.
I wrote a much longer response, then with an ill advised incautiousness, lost it. This is an abbreviation.
I was ten at the time of the missile crisis, and remember it clearly. You're right, it was the most dangerous week in world history, and you probably know why.
If Khruschev had just snuck missiles into Cuba, which everyone assumed at the time, it still would have been the most dangerous week in world history. What no one knew until the declassification of The Venona Papers is that the maniac, Khrushchev, had also put tactical nukes in. If Kennedy had acceded to what the entire ExComm group, including Robert, wanted to do, a massive invasion to capture the missiles and decapitate the Castro regime, it would have provoked the Cubans to use a tactical nuke or two, after which all bets would have been off. There was no Washington to Moscow hotline. Public opinion would have compelled Kennedy to at least knock down the Berlin wall and move into East Germany, and possibly use a nuke back at the Russians, targeted at Minsk, let's say. God knows what would have happened after that.
Almost certainly, you know about The Man Who Saved the World, the third ranking officer on the Russian sub the captain of which ordered the third ranking officer, whose job it would have been to fire the sub's nukes, to unleash them. However, and here again, you see the working of God in history, the Russian nuclear submarine fleet was so constituted at the time that this officer had the right to refuse the order without putting himself in jeopardy of a court martial. Thank God, he did.
We weren't to know for twenty - eight years just how close to immolation we really were.
Yes, of course, history has lessons for us. And acting on history's lessons could come with something we're so sure it wouldn't, a nasty surprise.
As an example, it never would have occurred to me until last October that I would see an eruption of anti - Semitism in my lifetime. For most of my life, anti - Semitism was the province of the world's solitary, muttering creeps, yet here it is again, all over the western world. And just because Khrushchev did have the sanity to pull back from the edge doesn't mean that someone always will.
I'm sorry for the Ukrainians. But it was never our fight, and a big part of statesmanship is recognizing and yielding to the line between what we'd like to do and what caution tells us we had better not do.
I agree with a lot of that. I just don't end up in the same place in the end. Is Israel our fight? What about Taiwan? South Korea? If (when) Iran get its nuclear weapons (and thanks to Teams Obama/Biden their ballistic missiles are great, and they're working on ICBMs), do they get to wipe Israel off the map because they have nukes? We can't do anything because nuclear war? I don't know how we find the line you're talking about, nor do I know how it's changed since the height of the Cold War.
I can imagine Putin using a tactical nuke in Ukraine if it makes sense for him to do so at some point (although why hasn't he is an interesting question). What I can't imagine is Putin launching WW3 and thus ensuring Moscow and St Petersburg (and not only) are erased from the world because we give money and weapons to Ukraine. Nothing is impossible, but (just as we have for decades) we have to find our way and decide whom to help how and for whom to look the other way, without any magic formula and in a world of nuclear weapons. Nothing has changed, except that we're weaker and everyone knows it. I don't see how broadcasting that reduces the risk of war. I think it increases the risk of war.
It's the kind of idiotic mess that George H.W. Bush got himself into when he said of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, "This will not stand!" And we've been paying for it ever since. Everything ever written about bin Laden says that what set him on his path was the stationing of infidel troops on Saudi land.
We knew in early 2022 that the Russians were likely to invade Ukraine. In other words, we had advanced awareness. How in the name of only moderately low intelligence could the President and the Congress not have been prepared for it?
And how would that have gone? Very simply, by our doing what we should have done after Saddam took Kuwait: issuing a lament that the malefactor had done what he had done, informing the world ( primarily Putin ) that we would be engaging in passive combat, such as sanctions, denunciations, whatever, but announcing that no, as appalling as the fate of those whose lives had been ruined or destroyed was, or would be, it was a fight which was not in our national interest.
Do you think Putin is intimidated by our protestations, or by our dopey congressmen who wave the Ukrainian flag, or even by the money we waste in aid to Ukraine? I don't. I think he's amused. It's all flash and no substance. I think that makes us look weak.
I think Israel is our fight. Twenty years ago, we would have said the British were our foremost ally. Now? Obviously, Israel is. And while we want to think the Ayatollahs are rational, they may not be.
Do we have special forces in Iran and Pakistan? I'm sure we have. They have to be in Pakistan to capture their nukes if an Islamic state supersedes the reasonable government which is there now. They have to be in Iran to keep the regime from getting nukes. I think that that is less likely to be done by airstrikes than by the kind of commando action the world hasn't seen in eighty years, and that if it does happen, it will be with Israeli participation.
I don't know what the Hell to do about Taiwan or South Korea.
I have to say that I am deeply confused by this comment. The President and the Congress were prepared to do exactly what you say you wanted and in fact have basically done that. Before Russia attacked the Biden administration was telling everybody that Russia was going to invade. Ukraine didn't really believe them and the America First branch of the Republicans branded their warnings a nefarious plot of some sort (maybe Biden was trying to gin up animosity towards Russia because Trump or something? I can't really remember). After Russia attacked, the US denounced the attack, talked about sanctions, and offered to help get Ukrainian government officials get out before the Russians took Kiev. The big surprise was that the Ukrainian military was actually much more successful at stopping the initial Russian campaign than our government expected. Once it became clear that the Ukrainians had a chance of holding out for extended time against the invasion with nothing but supplies from the US and EU we started giving them supplies while saying that while we fully support the Ukrainians' right to fight for their country against this unjustified aggression, this isn't our fight and we would do nothing more than give them supplies and intelligence.
As far as Israel goes, they have always been our only real friend in the Middle East and we rely on them for intelligence, but they don't really pay any attention to what we want them to do. I definitely wouldn't give them credit as our foremost ally, though I admit I'm not sure what exactly the term means.
I wonder (I hope) can both of the Dynamic Duo cling to.life until November? How has it come to this?
A rare election where maybe you do essentially vote for the Vice President.
"This lot that governs us, and the imperial Ruling Class, are like Late Ottomans."
That's a fascinating historical allusion, but unfortunately I don't have a strong grasp of the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. This would be a fascinating topic for you to explore in a post.
Indeed, I would welcome it. A hell of a lot of the woes not just in the Middle East but in the larger Islamic world came because of the destruction of the Empire.
I agree. The same applies to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I would prefer both to have been reformed rather than destroyed.
It's not that I support empires particularly, but that big, baggy, cumbersome polities, making pragmatic allowances for traditions and history, are preferable to ethnic nationalisms. Both those two empires were preferable to what replaced them.
There's actually a book titled "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire", which I just purchased from Amazon as a Kindle e-book. So perhaps in the next few weeks I'll have a little more insight into Rod's historical reference.
I'm really not sure where to stand in regard to Russia and Ukraine. I'm pacifist both by tradition and doctrine. Yet it's hard to fully buy the newfound (or at least newly rediscovered) skepticism of empire from many on the right in regard to Ukraine, when they seem to be adamantly pro-empire in the Middle East. That's all to preface my main point in the next paragraph by clarifying that I am not a reflexive Ukraine hawk.
My core comment: the comparison between 2003 and now seems badly flawed for one glaring reason: Putin actually IS on the march. Saddam in 2003? Not so much.
Where is Putin on the march, aside from Ukraine? I just don't see this. A year ago he offered Ukraine peace in exchange for them agreeing to be a neutral country (= no NATO), but Boris Johnson talked them out of it. That does not sound like a Russian leader who intends to invade Poland or anywhere else.
Thanks, Rod. My point is only that even being "on the march" (or however it might be described) in Ukraine is hugely different from what Saddam was doing in '03. There certainly are complicating factors like NATO membership, etc. and I don't dispute those being complicating factors.
Countries can get swept away in irrational emotionalism, like all of the men who followed Napolean into Russia.
That is a complete misrepresentation of anything Russia has offered at any point in this war (Putin has actually been pretty consistent). Do you really believe that? Did you not even watch Tucker's interview with Putin where Putin himself basically said the German invasion of Poland was a good analogy to the Russian invasion of Ukraine despite all chances Tucker gave him to deny it?
Yes, I watched it. My understanding is that the 2022 peace deal would have let Luhansk and the other two mainly Russian speaking/Russia loyal areas be part of Russia, or administrated or protected by Russia in some way. Thus the Germany into Poland analogy. It was a Lebensraum analogy as I understood it. Putin wants parts of Ukraine in addition to Crimea which he already has. The rest of Ukraine can remain a country as long as it does not join NATO.
I wonder: Did Trump support this deal because he wants Ukraine to hang on for a few more months until he can come in an "end the war in days" as he claims? I think Trump's plan is to make both sides conform to that 2022 peace deal.
Finally, my understanding is that Boris Johnson did what he did at Biden's behest. Biden wants this war. Ukraine gave him lots of money, he does not want Russia to have Ukraine, Biden likes giving money to arms dealers, - but mainly, Biden wants Russia for our Eastasia ("1984" reference).
"Biden wants this war." Yes, indeed. Let that sink in.
Yes, it was a Lebensraum analogy, in particular, it was a Lebensraum analogy that said Poland should have just given Hitler what he wanted so they could have the same fate as the Czechs instead of what they got. This is not an analogy somebody who wants to let Ukraine remain free would make unless they are a complete fool. Putin is not a complete fool.
As far as Boris Johnson goes, there seems to be a number of different stories out there about what happened. The most likely one (to me) seems to be that Boris told Ukraine that the UK/USA would not be able to give Ukraine a protection guarantee comparable to article 5 of the NATO treaty if they accepted the agreement. In any event, the agreement seems to have died over how what remained of Ukraine would have it's protection guaranteed, not just because Boris said he didn't like it.
Re: so they could have the same fate as the Czechs
Well the Czech half of Czechoslovakia was soon incorporated wholly into the Reich.
Yeah, that's a big part of what makes the analogy so terrible if you are trying to convince people that you aren't just going to annex all of Ukraine later.
Russia isn’t about to invade Poland. If they did they know perfectly well it would be very bad for all concerned. But the idea that all Putin really cares about is that Ukraine not join NATO and everyone will then be fine, is to put it mildly questionable. Yeah I know the Boris Johnson story. His mesmerizing powers prevented peace from breaking out. If Putin wanted a peace based on Ukraine not ever joining NATO, he could simply say so. I think it’s reasonable to assume he wants to dominate the country. Again not our problem.Now if Putin ‘s war was genuinely defensive, it would broadly speaking be a just war. (Granted an argument could be made as to how the war was conducted).By the way - NATO seems to be the equivalent of an empty suit.So why would anyone be so scared of it? I believe that Russian intelligence remains first rate . They know the European armies are a joke and under our moronic leader , US armed forces are being degraded. As Mao would have put it NATO is a paper tiger. The Russians have their own problems. In particular a demographic collapse. The notion that the country is Orthodox is laughable. I think Muslims in reality outnumber Christians. The decline of the west extends to the east.This is all very unfortunate. But the West- and that actually includes Russia once you get past Eurasian BS is obsessed with destroying itself. Most clearly this began in WW1. Total ruin takes time and massive ideological stupidity.
Re: if Putin ‘s war was genuinely defensive, it would broadly speaking be a just war.
If I had a million dollars I'd be a millionaire. Russia's war is no more defensive than RuPaul is really a woman.
Do we know that actually happened? Not trying to be snarky; it sounds like something one dude said happened. I assume I should be skeptical about far more seriously reported stories than that about anything foreign policy related (many of which turn out to be intel-driven disinformation). It sounds to me like a major stretch - Boris Johnson does not have that kind of gravitas; Putin's idea of "peace" is a lot more involved than "no NATO"; it's hard to believe the Ukrainians were in any mood to accept "peace" after what the Russians had just done to them.
I don't see how we get from the Iraq war was highly misadvised; the government lied (like governments have been doing to their citizens since they were created) to every other thing the US does in FP is wrong/misguided/based on lies. Nor do I see how giving money for military or economic assistance (which we've been doing to friends, temporary allies, and enemies of enemies since the beginning of time) is "forever war". It's too bad that Bush's absurd moves followed by Obama's and Biden's feckless weakness and decadent LGBTQ posturing poisoned the well for so many conservatives that the US is left rudderless and myopic.
It's interesting to hear Russians arguing about Ukraine. I can assure you they are not getting their opinions from any Western media. When my wife's old school friend was here it turned into a late night scream fest - my wife (and most Russians I know) strongly anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine; her friend the exact opposite. My Russian is not nearly good enough to keep up with that kind of discussion so I went up to bed and tried not to listen to them yelling at each other. My point is, neither of them could care less what WaPo or CNN or NYT says or what press release Team Biden puts out. It is not all about Western manipulation (but Western cluelessness certainly is involved).
Putin has been testing the waters for years - Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Eastern Ukraine, then full invasion. If I were in Moldova or Estonia or Lithuania or Poland I would certainly not take comfort in your belief that he is "not on the march". The Baltic countries are worried - but also very glad that NATO expansion happened!
You're leaving something out, tho - the US’s unclean hands in instigating the matter. The CIA likely color revolutionized Ukrain and then went around poking Russia with a stick by, for example, setting up CIA listing posts right on the Russian border. Etc. There is a lot of dirt on our hands in this whole affair. We basically instigated it.
There is so much disinformation floating around and everything is second hand. I wonder if the truth will ever be known.
Putin is "on the march" to the extent he's trying to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. Any idea that he's "on the march" because he's trying to extend the Russian empire is - just like claims Saddam was "on the march" to extend his country's influence - ridiculous
Ukraine joining NATO has never been on the table.
And it’s never been off it, either.
I guess I must have dreamed that the NATO leaders agreed to expedite Ukraine's NATO membership last year. Funny how dreams work.
You are dreaming. Or giving credence to propaganda. In any event nothing that purportedly happened in 2023 can be a cause of Russia's invasion in 2022. Putin is not a time traveler.
Meanwhile Putin's feckless invasion did induce one country with whom Russia shares a border and which used to be part of the old Russian Empire to join NATO-- Finland-- to join NATO. Why no Russian invasion there?
FACT: NATO ALLIES agreed at the 2008 Bucharest Summit that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. FACT: NATO started expanding toward Russia in the 1990s when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact were no longer in existence. Russia was prostrate in the 1990s and posed no threat to NATO, yet NATO continued its march towards Russia. These are past events. Last time I checked, past events still cause future events. It's called causation! We are supposed to have diplomats at work to make sure events do not spiral out of control and develop into World War III!
The NATO website has this:
"In September 2022, following Russia’s illegal attempted annexations of Ukrainian territory, Ukraine reiterated its request for NATO membership.
At the 2023 Vilnius Summit, Allies reaffirmed their commitment that Ukraine will become a member of NATO."
Please note "In September 2022 following ..."
This was not the cause of Russia's invasion in February of that year. Putin is not a time traveler.
You said "Ukraine joining NATO has never been on the table," which is not true, notwithstanding your trying to change the subject.
The context of this discussion was the reason for Russia's invasion and whether it was justified. So don't you try to change the subject.
Only if you're presuming NATO leaders will never deliver on their promises.
Funny how we have films of the US Secretary of State recently saying that Ukraine would be a NATO country.
"Recently"? Then it;s hardly relevant to the Russian invasion in 2022. As I just told someone else here, Putin is not a time traveler.
For decades, Putin has used imperial language when discussing Ukraine. He's spent more time describing Ukraine as actually being part of Russia than expressing concern about NATO expansion. When he invaded the Donbas in 2014, he referred to the conquered territories as Novorossiya, or New Russia. He and his lackeys have repeatedly offered historical summaries as justification for their invasions of Ukraine, claiming that there is no such thing as a Ukrainian. A Ukrainian is actually a Russian.
Agreed, but I do think Putin will settle for the areas that he believes want to be Russian, i.e. ":On 30 September 2022, Russia, amid an ongoing invasion of Ukraine, unilaterally declared its annexation of areas in and around four Ukrainian oblasts—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia:"
I think Putin might not insist on Kherson and possibly not on Zaporizhahi, but he will insist on Donetsk and Luhansk. That is must imho.
One reason I'm supportive of the current aid package is to secure the defense of Kherson. This blog post talks about the aid package as being used to beat Russia. Anyone watching this closely knows that isn't what this is about. Kherson, which was secure last year, is now in danger in large part because the Ukrainians have run out of weapons (especially artillery shells). They can hold Kherson and other parts of the country if they have the needed weaponry.
I agree with you, though, most of the donbas is lost.
Thank you! I see you are following closely, more closely than I have recently. I did not know they had explained the aid package in that way. I also calculate that 61 billion is less than $200 per American. The best thing would be if the reprehensible Biden administration with back to the 2022 peace deal or negotiated a new deal. But they won't.
The comparison between 2003 and now is also badly flawed due to the fact that the US is not actually invading anyone here unlike in 2003.
Every Russian "leader" since Peter the Great, and likely before him, has put at the top of the list of foreign policy priorities a stack of fat buffer states between Muscovy and the West. If they have to be actual provinces (Poland post 1794) or satellites (Poland 1945-1989) doesn't matter. This is the kind of thing students of international affairs ought to learn as undergraduates. You may not like it, but you have to at least take it into account. If Ukraine is going to be independent, and Lavrov's proposals did not stipulate anything else, then Russia needs the Donbas as a buffer and will take it if she has to. Putin demonstrated that he was willing to take what he wanted in Georgia and in Crimea. Why did we doubt him here? Why?
At the time I thought this famous quote from (most likely) Karl Rove was stupid and deranged, but now it seems quite apt and prescient (if too long to fit on a national tombstone):
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."
That arrogant blather was blurted in defense of the Imperial adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, which (tellingly for our moment), were 1) total disasters that achieved none of their stated aims, wrecked millions of lives for no real purpose, were mostly forgotten in a few years and yet; 2) had zero negative consequences for any of its architects, whose lies and mistakes were swept under the rug by the press (aka the Empire's PR/propaganda wing), and were more or less treated by Americans as if they were a slight speed bump on our road to the glorious future.
But just as apt here is the novel that best explains how Americans see the world and are seen by the world, Graham Greene's "The Quiet American", where no possible reality-based incident could ever dent the bulletproof self-regard of the crusading proselytizing American, who believes in his blood and brain that he is God's chosen vessel, the literal embodiment of the Superman slogan (Truth Justice blah blah) and who can walk away from any and every disaster saying and believing: How can I be held responsible? I meant well, and my good intentions are all that matters....
But I think more a more apt analogy here is a rich kid who's never had to suffer a single consequence from a bad decision bc he has a wealthy papa and a bunch of older brothers who beat the snot out of anyone who hurts his feelings: Americans, but really our rulers and parasite class inside the Imperial City, have never once had to face the ugly results of their reckless behavior, if anything endless war provides endless opportunties for graft, promotion and re-election, and every one of our supposed leaders will die in their gilded beds imagining themselves as some cross bw Churchill, the French Resistance and the Freedom Fighters, and nothing can change or dent their monumental self-regard.
Like all other Empires, we will just have to wait for the inevitable cataclysm up ahead, whether that's an environmental or financial collapse or the loss of a war, but it will take a straight, hard shot to the head for Americans to at last give up their/our fantasy life and return to reality.
thanks!
They are parasites. And they're killing the host which is America and We The People.
So how do we make them face the ugly results of their reckless behavior, that's what I want to know
The French may have something to say on this.
"Like all other Empires, we will just have to wait for the inevitable cataclysm up ahead, whether that's an environmental or financial collapse or the loss of a war..."
We've unfortunately lot several wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, ?Ukraine), but they continue on their course.
These wars were like losing a game of tennis in your backyard court on a sunny day while your servants pour lemonade between sets. Inconveniences that are forgotten before sunrise and that leave no wounds larger than a few bad memories. A few trillion here or there, a few million dead or mutilated children that you would have never known or cared about anyway, no problems that a bottomless checkbook can't fix.
When something happens that makes America have to abandon its 750 global military bases, then we'll know that our age of Imperial triumphalism is over and our buffoonish "I'm Churchill, you're Chamberlain (and/or Hitler)" political class, who all lie the moment they take their oath of office and go downhill from there, will at last be swept into history's graveyard.
It will be financial, and my retirement (and likely yours) will go up in smoke with it. Which will fuel the radical reaction, because I tell you, when millions of Americans who've saved (if only via 401k plans) see that savings go up in smoke, they are going to be furious. For all the good it'll do them.
???
What's going to send them up in smoke. Unless you mean nukes I can't see how that could happen
I think it's about a stock market collapse.
And why is there any reason to think that will happen? I don't mean that there won't be ups and downs in the markets, including bad, horrible, no good days. But a total collapse? I can't see anything other than some immense physical catastrophe that could cause that. This is not 1929-- we don't have people buying on margin which limits the amount of speculative excess that can happen; and FTC regulations prevent large scale corporate fraud which could create gross overvaluations subject to collapse. The worst we've seen-- the tech bust of 2000-01-- didn't wipe out the market and recovery followed quickly enough.
Because the stock market is ridiculously overvalued, completely gamed by the big players, and counted upon by the powers that be to provide a sense of security to a citizenry which otherwise owns little. At best we're overdue for another 2008 correction. I'm sure it'll come the year before I'm looking to retire...
I don't know—it seems like much of our economy is an unreal and speculative bubble at this point; feels like any number of things could go horribly wrong. But we'll see.
We will be too old to do anything about it.
I'm pretty sure that God feels about America the same as He's on the record as always having felt about arrogant, degenerate empires.
So, which inning of the Chastisement ball game then are we in? If the game hasn't started yet (seems it has), we're at least getting valet parked on the stadium grounds.
That is a perfect game of a comment, C.P.
Thanks!
There is a good case to be made against backing Ukraine in a war it would appear it can’t win but that does not require parroting Russian talking points. Russia’s security was never remotely imperiled. This is an imperialist war. Now you can argue- sensibly- it’s not our problem anymore than Libya and Iraq were our problems. We do not have the power to micromanage the world. And that’s probably a good thing.
What do you mean Russia's security was never remotely imperiled? Had Ukraine joined NATO, it absolutely would have been imperiled. Do you think the US would tolerate Chinese bases in Mexico?
You’re caught up in a bit of confusion that is similar to what John Mersheimer articulates. Instead of explaining what the actual NATO threat was - you switch topics and talk about how the US would react to Chinese bases in Mexico. I’m not talking about, although I’m perfectly capable of doing so. Was NATO preparing to invade Russia? No . Is Putin preparing to invade Western Europe? No. Please articulate what the peril was.
NATO (aka part of the American empire) aggressively pushed East towards Russia for decades with the goal of forcing the breakup of Russia. American has been the aggressive hegemon of the post Cold War era.
And your basis for saying America was trying to break up Russia is what? By the way , I’d be fine with NATOs dissolving. What I keep trying to point out is, you don’t need to buy into Russian talking points that it is actually fighting a defensive war. It’s fighting a war of conquest. You can say this is none of our business.
America policy makers have been saying it for decades. Zbigenew Brezinksi wrote a book on it at the end of the Cold War. There are a many many talks, policy papers, etc. about this. It isn't a secret.
Yeah, but there are also cold hard facts that Putin has imperialistic aspirations, which he has repeatedly exhibited over the years, and this latest invasion is a continuation of his plan.
That’s not exactly true. The Russians were certainly interested in installing a friendly government, but I doubt they want to conquer & hold Ukraine. I think the Russians understood the west was playing all the way for Crimea, ultimately, which was insane, given it’s been in Russian hands since 1783 and has been their only warm water naval port with access to the sea. That’s why Putin went straight in on that one. The US provoked that too with its color revolution in Ukrainian. Basically the US has been behaving like a prowling burglar right on Russia’s border. A burglar with a long rap sheet to boot.
Yes Russia is an innocent victim.
Russia has a Black Sea coast and port., See: Novorossiysk. And I would suggest googling "Medvedev's map of Ukraine" to get an idea what Russia regards as a good fate if that country.
See, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Syria. Etc. The Nato/US are like bulls in a China shop, making one mess after another. The Russians know too that the US would give anything to send Russia spiraling, to break up even. Who wants that? No one but the grifters and psychopaths who run our national “defense.”
Let me ask you some simple questions. Who has started more wars in the decades since the USSR cracked up? (They should put this topic on Jeopardy.) The US or Russia? Who do you bet has the higher body count? I think the answer is pretty obvious.
The US has already conquered Ukraine by destroying it with its duplicitous behavior toward Russia throughout the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and by supporting the extreme nationalist factions in the overthrow of the democratically elected President Yanukovych. Provoking Russia into a war and keeping it mired in it is a page right out of the US foreign policy playbook. The foreign policy analysts in the corporate media like to talk about Putin's playbook, which no one has ever seen, but the US playbook can widely be accessed. Brzezinski let the cat out of the bag when he published his book, The Grand Chessboard. Listen to the interviews he gave around that time. It never was about rapprochment with Russia or capitalizing on the so-called peace dividend. It's always about weakening Russia, hence another recently approved tranche of US tax dollars approved by Congress that will go to our Industrial Military Complex and Ukraine at the expense of more dead Ukrainians.
"Russia's security was never remotely imperiled" maybe. "Russia is 100 percent certain Ukraine joining NATO would imperil it's security". True. Thus causus belli.
When one says Russia was 100per cent certain that NATO imperiled its security- that means what exactly? Who or what actually believed that? Why did they believe that? What is it NATO was going to do that imperiled Russia?Or might we embrace the possibility that carrying on about a NATO threat was rhetoric designed to justify a naked bullying imperialism. When the US attacked Spanish colonies in 1898 it annunciated all kinds of high minded nonsense to clothe a naked imperialist grab.Hitler at points argued he was fighting a defensive war. This is typical war state rhetoric.
So Russian perception that Ukraine joining NATO threatened its security (which I reiterate makes no sense- and even if Ukraine wanted to join NATO , it wasn’t clear that would even happen).That gave Russia just cause to invade Ukraine ? That would appear to be the argument. The US argued Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. That wasn’t true but I gather that justifies the US invasion of Iraq.All you need for war is a perception of threat or a claimed or contrived perception of threat. Finland has at points been at war with the Soviet Union. It has a border with Russia. It has possible irredentist claims to occupied Karelia- didn’t it threaten Russia by joining NATO? Would it have been ok for Russia to invade Finland to prevent it from joining NATO?
I can’t figure out why people
who think the US should not be involved in this and feel that this is a conflict that is of no real interest to the US , feel compelled to say- Russia was provoked into the war. No this was a war of choice. Ukraine posed no clear and present danger. However, Russian Slavophile nationalists had always been irked by an independent Ukraine. I think that’s not in dispute. Russia was somewhat legitimately irked by Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea but that was more or less addressed in 2014. (Until Khrushchev assigned it to Ukraine in the 50s , it had never been considered part of Ukraine. Ethnically it was predominantly Russian and yes a key port for the Russian navy).Now you can argue that grabbing Crimea was wrong but at least you can argue that in that , Russia was pursuing a comprehensible national interest. Not so with the push west.
<<<When one says Russia was 100per cent certain that NATO imperiled its security- that means what exactly?>>>
I did consider wording that as Putin or as the Russian Government. That is what I meant. It is a claim (my opinion) and is based on Tucker's interview.
Russia was pursuing a long term strategy to unwind NATO and draw Europe closer to itself and this was very slowly succeeding. Putin should have stuck with it as Xi has struck with China's slow plans to become the Necessary Nation. The Ukrainian War blew all that out of the water and will leave Russia in a much weaker position and probably a vassal to China.
NATO membership for Ukraine was not on the table.And we did tolerate Soviet bases next door in Cuba, as long there were no nukes there.
While it's possible that this is all a pack of lies, it is at least being discussed as if it IS on the table.
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3455199/leaders-agree-to-expedite-ukraines-nato-membership/#:~:text=NATO%20leaders%20agreed%20to%20a,Vilnius%20NATO%20Summit%20in%20Lithuania.
Exactly. So why do we always get this would we tolerate Chinese based in Mexico. Further, bad as our relationship with China is, it’s not on par with what our relationship with the Soviet Union was.
And we seem to tolerate China gobbling up our farmland just fine.
I hear there's also a hyper-rich alien of the reptilian kind going after our farmland, and we're not stopping him either.
Oh, yeah, that thing, too. I try to forget about that reptile. But, you’re absolutely right.
Before Bush43's pronouncement, there was Bill Clinton's Enlargement doctrine, which espoused the same philosophy. I've always argued that if Bush41 had had a second term, many things would now be different.
Bush41 worked hard to prevent the American retreat from the world. He is the father of the post Cold War American empire.
The man who was castigated for refusing to march on Baghdad and topple SH's regime? The man whose legacy was undone by his son, which was a very bitter pill for him? Nah.
Yes, Bush 41. Somalia, Yugoslavia, Kuwait. Bush refused to let NATO die. He didn't want Europe to be out from American domination and control. The man wanted to extend the Unipolar Moment as long as possible.
Black Hawk Down--Clinton
Balkan Wars--Clinton
Kuwait--gimme a break.
Bush did not "refuse to let NATO die." That's a nonsensical way of looking at it, especially in 90, 91, 92. It is presentism to suggest Bush wanted to "extend" the unipolar moment since it was under his watch that the Cold War ended! Your comment leads me to wonder whether you were an adult during the 41 years.
Clinton just extended what Bush did. Your comment makes me wonder if you ever thought about foreign policy for the last 41 years.
There were numerous articles back in 91-92 in magazines such as Foreign Affairs discussing extending the moment. I discussed this issue with Brent Scowcroft, Bush 41's National Security Advisor in 1992.
There was some reluctance by Democrats about continuing the American hegemony. They talked about the "Peace Dividend". In discussions the issue with Senator Harry Reed in 1992, I pointed out there was no "Peace Dividend" as the military budget at that time was less than the annual debt. He agreed, though he was surprised someone could see through the BS.
Once Clinton was elected, the Democrats continued and extended Bush's policy to extend American hegemony to the entire world.
I have followed these issues closely and have studied foreign policy in graduate school. The biggest problem I find in discussing these issues is that most people barely pay attention to world events and have limited knowledge they attempt to rely on.
OK, son, have it your way. I've been in meetings with Baker, Scowcroft, and Bush41, too. And the reason they stepped back from the precipice in all of these areas, including refusing to take Baghdad, is that they wanted the NWO, which was not the same as American hegemony. That was made very clear by Bush41, who certainly didn't see it as a unipolar moment to seize, and this is expressed in the reticence their FP concerning many of these farflung areas. The DoD did want a unipolar moment, of course. But it was Clinton who cottoned on to the unipolar moment through "Enlargement," and big mistakes were made in FP under that administration--mistakes Madeleine Albright eventually regretted, despite her views on the indispensability of America, as she told me in conversation.
I have followed these problems closely and have a doctorate in international relations. The biggest problem I find in discussing these issues is that most people barely pay attention to world events and have limited knowledge they attempt to rely on.
Happy to continue to discuss the Bush41 legacy all day long . . . it's a particular interest of mine.
"because Hitler, or something"
Well? ... Happy Birthday!
Seems like they want Ukraine to be the next Israel.
In very much the same flavor, US foreign policy and the DOD budget has been continuously drained by massive commitments to that country. It's very arguable they were the main driving force behind the whole Iraq War (remember how Netanyahu adamantly pushed the WMD theory before congress and painted Iraq as a post-9/11 target? Despite Israeli intelligence knowing that info was bogus I might add).
Now that public opinion seems to be shifting quite rapidly about Israel, it may be that the Military Industrial Complex needs their next cash cow lined up, and Ukraine fits the bill perfectly
I think the public is much more skeptical of Israel than our AIPAC-sponsored politicians. Still, it is a shift in the Overton window.
Most Americans are mildly pro-Israel, but view the Middle East as something we should avoid getting entangled in.
The Palestinian cause is just too thuggish and radical for normies.
What's "thuggish" and "radical" about wanting to have political rights?
Nothing!
It's mostly the anti-Semitism, the anti-Americanism, and the low-level violence that follows you guys around that we normal people object to.
Does that adequately answer you condescending, bad-faith question?
Although there can be antisemitism involved in the support of Palestine, I can assure you that being kicked out of one's home, becoming a refugee, being occupied, subject to arbitrary arrest, little to no freedom of movement, villages destroyed, olive groves burnt, water seized, completely excluded from the political life of the government that rules over you, tends to make one resentful of the ones responsible for it. Whether it's the French in Algeria or the Zionists in Palestine, the feelings are the same. I can assure you that if it was the Mongolians or Ethiopians who illegally entered into Palestine and declared their own state that they would be equally resented by the Arab-speaking Palestinians (who are of the same genetic stock as the Jewish people).
Of course, if you are going with the incoherent definition of antisemitism such as that from IHRA, then I could understand considering any questioning of the origin, history, and current situation in Palestine as "Antisemitic", well, so be it.
And I can assure you that I don't give a damn about your sob story. Tell it to someone who cares, pal.
Assuming that by ‘you guys’ RC meant Muslims (I know you’re not Palestinian), it’s possible to recognize both that the Palestinians are in the right and that a lot of dysfunctions do seem, with broad brush strokes, to be associated with Islam.
Right on target, Rod.
It is what it is. There's a sense of inevitability...destiny even.
The Regime is serving up its client state Ukraine to be sacrificed on a Wokeist altar for the sake of this insane proxy war with Russia.
Zelensky and his friends in the Regime's Kiev sub-chapter aren't worried. They know they'll be handsomely rewarded with tickets out of town no matter what happens. But what if the temple is pulled down on their heads too?
I'm often reminded of some words attributed to an ancient Greek playwright: "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."
The madness is now far advanced.
I think he’s missing something. But only a bit. The cause of all this crap in Ukraine (other than Putin) is probably the fact that our politicians in the U.S. have for years used Ukraine like a piggy bank.
I think that’s why they went after Trump. He was starting to ask questions. So they flipped it all around and blamed Trump.
So the money is literally hush money to keep Zelensky from spilling the beans on generations of American graft.
This is a little starkly phrased, but there's a hard nugget of truth in the center of it. Yessiree bob.
One thing to remember about today's Democrats is that they are literally always doing what they accuse others of doing: the projection has gotten so compulsive at this point that an accusation from them may be treated as a de facto confession.
The conviction is that unless the rest of the world is “converted”, not just to democracy, mind you, but to “Western values”, there will always be rivalries and conflict between competing systems, and this is unstable. So, the “answer” is for the US to basically force the other “centers” in the world (not just of hard power, but centers of different values from Western values) to convert.
This is not a new policy, it goes back to the 1990s.
In the earlier phase, the thought was that if prosperity and free enterprise were spread, democracy would inevitably follow, and if that happened, Western values (which they consider universal in much the same way Christian missionaries viewed their only mission) will inevitably spread automatically because once free and prosperous, people everywhere will choose more or less the same values.
As we know, it didn’t turn out that way. China turned out to be quite, um, “recalcitrant” in its reluctance to embrace Western ideas and values despite modernizing its economy and creating many more middle and above income people than have ever lived there. Russia went through a period of kleptocratic rule by oligarchs, which was replaced by Putin’s authoritarian order, and Western values have not spread widely there. Iran has a large movement of young people who oppose the theocratic rule of the Mullahs, but even if the Mullahs were to go, as many Iran-watchers have reported the likely successor would be a nationalist Iranian regime that would be no more accommodating to the US or the West. India, while democratic, is in the grasp of an ethno-nationalist party whom the West largely despises. And we all know what happened with “nation building” in the Middle East over the past 20 years.
So what happened, writ large, is that the “carrot” approach (ie, get people rich by free trade, give them democracy by ejecting their tyrants, etc) failed. Instead, the other “centers” have retrenched in their opposition to American/Western global hegemony, both in economic, political and cultural terms. This has resulted in a shift from the carrot to the stick. The attitude is very much “well, okay, if you want to be like that, things are going to be much harder for you, and we’re going to stop you from achieving what you want to achieve, because we still have the raw military power (the “stick”) to do so — so it’s your choice, you can convert the easy way, or the hard way, but you’re going to convert.
This is all that’s happened. The underlying policy is the same as it was 25-30 years ago, it’s just flipped from the carrot side to the stick side, since the carrot side failed.
And we will now all get to experience whether the stick side fares any better.
I remember sitting in a Godfather's Pizza just outside the gates of LSU, eating lunch and poring over The New York Times's reports on the Tiananmen Square massacre the day before. I remember thinking that we need to hurry up and accelerate their transition to capitalism, so they will be properly democratic and peaceful, just like all the smart people were saying was going to happen.
My friend worked at that Godfather’s in high school! (Sorry to get off topic)
I went to China with my friend from graduate school and a guide her family hired in 2012. Neither had any idea of what happened in Tiananmen Square.
Interesting
Similar note: my brother, a leftist and newsie, is completely unaware of news stories that are a big deal to the rest of us. I mean, hasn’t even *heard or seen* them. At all. It makes me wonder what we haven’t heard.
Also fascinating: when their big stories such as Russiagate turn out to be a lot of hot air, he exhibits not even the slightest curiosity as to what happened to them. They just go poof and that’s it.
I have family members who still get their news from the networks......sponsored by Merck and Pfizer. If I bring up things that are taken for granted here, it's like I'm speaking a different language. I catch "knowing" glances between them....lol. I have learned to use more subtlety, and to show more charity, in recent years.
I understand! Yes, they have no idea of much of anything on the left in the USA these days. But in China, it was virtually no one knowing what happened in Tiananmen Square - government censorship is that strong. Too bad my graduate school Chinese friend, after about 3 years in the United States, did not know. But I have to admit, her statement early in our friendship, "I am not political" led me to think politics just was not a good subject between us. Imagine the embarrassment to he if I tried to tell her that her government was bad - I'm sure she knew bad things about it from experience, but she did not get much news. We did talk about Christianity, which was more important than talking politics.
Godfather's is my favorite chain pizza, bar none. Wonder if it still exists anywhere...
Godfather’s exists (apparently), but not the one to which you referred: https://godfathers.com/home
I am not from BR. My friend is. He said the pizzas were on a conveyor belt in the oven, and on busy nights such as Fridays, a pizza might fall off the belt and onto the floor. They would rearrange the toppings and put it back on the belt.
When he was telling the story and we all looked horrified (many of us had eaten there), he reassured us that this was rare to infrequent (hmmmm)
Oh gosh. We were in high school then.
Probably pretty par for the course.
Godfather's Pizza exists in Sicily :)
deep dish or thin crust? which toppings?
Godfathers only had deep dish. It was a new type of pizza in Kansas and we loved it. I worked at a knockoff called big cheese pizza that made it the same way. I was so thin and could eat it every day and not gain a pound.