"If Russian President Vladimir Putin orders his forces to invade, analysts believe it would come before the spring thaw. 'The best time to do it is winter because it's going to be a mechanized advance and the mechanized divisions need hard frozen ground'... At a news conference Wednesday marking his first year in office, President Joe Biden warned Putin against an invasion, threatening a strong response by the US and NATO, but waffled over what would happen if Russia made a 'minor incursion,' in an awkward statement he sought to clarify afterward. 'The Russian dictator has not been subtle or secretive about what he wants. He might as well make the national anthem the Beatles' "Back in the U.S.S.R.,"' wrote Max Boot, in the Washington Post. 'He definitely wants to resurrect the Soviet empire, thereby undoing what he has called "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century. And that requires bringing back into the fold the second-largest former Soviet republic (by population) — the independent state of Ukraine.'"
From "Putin confronts the mud of Ukraine" (CNN).
***
From a 2011 post of mine, collecting mud quotes:
"We sit in the mud... and reach for the stars." — Ivan Turgenev
"I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French." — Charles de Gaulle
"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance..." — Thoreau
"My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring, diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?" — Virginia Woolf
Russian, French, American, British.
Posts
206 comments:
1 – 200 of 206 Newer› Newest»Thank GOD we got rid of the Orange Man (BAD!)
Do you realize, In my entire life; the Only president that didn't get us into a war,
was Orange Man (BAD!). Now we can get back to it
Thousands Dead.... Trillions Wasted
Now we've got Jo Biden, that will us back into greased grooves
I forget the order, Adam (adamah, dust) and watering. checking ...
When there was as yet no shrub of the field upon earth, and as yet no grasses of the field had sprouted, because Yahweh had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the soil, but a flow welled up from the ground and watered the whole surface of the earth, then Yahweh molded Adam from the earth's dust (adamah), and blew into the nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living being.
The mud is an insignificant consideration.
Any Russian incursion will be caused by Ukrainian maltreatment of ethnic Russians living in Donbas.
Ukrainians better not start evicting ethnic-Russians living in Donbas from their homes.
If that happens, then Russia's reaction will not be determined by how muddy the ground is.
======
The USA reacts often to trouble in foreign countries by deploying US naval forces near those countries' shores.
That routine US precaution is similar to Russia's deployment of military forces near Ukraine's border.
=====
A plausible resolution of this problem would be a referendum in Donbas. If two-thirds of that region's citizens vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, then simply redraw the border. Everyone can stay living where they are living now.
“Hold your mud, son.”
—- Pops Iman
Putin doesn't want a USSR: clearly NATO is run by neocon retards like Max Boot who don't understand what they've blundered into. No state can tolerate losing major naval bases- the US would have words if they lost their facilities in Europe or Japan.
Does anyone feel confidence in the Biden regime?
The Donbas economy is based on coal mining and on metallurgical industry.
The economic value of Donbas to Ukraine is declining. In that regard, Donbas is like Western Pennsylvania.
The secession of Donbas from Ukraine would not be a tremendous economic loss.
The secession of a large number of ethnic Russians from Ukraine would help Ukraine become more purely Ukrainian in its language, culture and politics.
Mud is a long way off. The situation will resolve itself well be that. Putin is not going leave his 100K troops at the border for 2-3 months. That gets expensive.
Brinksmanship at it's finest. Who will blink first? I would say Biden, but in his current medical state, I am not sure he can blink. My money's on Blinken.
It's a treat
To beat your feet
On the Russian border mud
This is the point at which I enter and say something banal about living in interesting times.
Enjoy the Olympics, if you aren't boycotting NBC. If the frozen ground matters that much and his plans are long term, Putin won't wait for it to finish. If he does wait, he's not planning to stick around for any long interval in Ukraine after he makes his point. If he screws up Xi's party, the price will be high to Russia both short and long term with the Chinese.
The worst possible scenario is an inability to get your stuff/people out when you want. Putin's uncertainty is our good ally.
Does anyone feel confidence in the Biden regime?
It would help to know who is running things in the Executive. It isn’t enough to conclude ‘deep state’ or something like that. It’s important to know who is talking to us through the Peppermint Patty lady…
Mike Sylvester --
I think your proposed solution makes sense for both Ukraine and Russia, but I don't think for a second that it will satisfy Putin.
A cooperative effort amongst multiple entities seems unlikely. In a power vacuum lefties squabble like seagulls over a box of Ritz crackers. Something, someone brings relative stability. Why don’t they want the credit?
What's Russian for Lebensraum?
In Vermont we have a word for it, "Mud Season" and it's right up there at top of mind with the other four.
General Winter was in large measure the undoing of both Napoleon and Hitler, along with mud from usual rains in the Fall and the Spring thaw.
How about we dig a rabbit hole in the mud of Ukraine:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Ukrainian president back up Trump when they were trying to impeach him over Ukraine and didn't he confirm the story that Biden threatened to withhold US aid dollars to prevent exposure of corruption involving Burisma and Hunter Biden? My memory is a little vague on the details now, but vagueness is a plus when you're conspiracy theorizing.
Maybe Biden has made a deal with Putin for a regime change in Ukraine and the rest is all theater. Putin will get effective control of Ukraine and Biden will claim he has prevented a major land war in Europe.
tcrosse at 7:23 AM
What's Russian for Lebensraum?
Russia has plenty of естественная среда.
In this situation, Russia is not motivated by some compulsion to seize Ukrainian territory.
Rather, Russia is motivated by a compulsion to keep Ukraine out of NATO.
When Viktor Yanukovych won Ukraine's 2013 Presidential election on a platform of improving Ukraine's relation with Russia, the hope of Ukrainian zealots that Ukraine would joint NATO and the European Union were spoiled.
Therefore, those zealots conducted a sustained, devious outrageous campaign to prevent Yanukovych from governing normally. In that regard, Yanukovych was mistreated similarly to how Donald Trump was mistreated after his election in 2016.
The Ukrainian zealots should have allowed Yanukovych to govern normally and should have prepared to vote him out of office in the next Presidential election.
The Obama Administration should have advised and pressured the Ukrainian zealots toward that political remedy. Instead, the Obama Administration encouraged and enabled the Ukrainian zealots.
The consequences were that 1) Yanukovych was evicted from his elected position, and 2) Ukraine's ethnic Russians decided to secede. where possible.
The Obama Administration's "point man on Ukraine" was Vice President Biden. I think that's why Obama later remarked, "Don't underestimate Biden's ability to f*ck things up".
tcrosse said...What's Russian for Lebensraum?
Exactly what I was thinking as I read Sylvester's comments--the ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland would have been happier in Germany if only those warmongering Brits and French didn't try to stop the peoples' right of self-determination.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up" - B. Obama.
Does mud mean much in the age of airplanes, missiles and drones?
New England has a term for that too, mud season.
tim maguire at 7:41 AM
the ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland would have been happier in Germany if only those warmongering Brits and French didn't try to stop the peoples' right of self-determination.
Suppose that a referendum had been conducted in Sudetenland and that its population voted by a super majority (e.g. 2/3 majority) to secede from Czechoslovakia and to join Germany. Would that have been worse than what did happen?
The counter-argument that Czechoslovakia crucially needed the defensible borders and key resources that Sudetenland provided. Maybe so.
However, the wisdom of resolving some such situations by conducting secession referendums should not be dismissed reflexively. A referendum might be the best resolution.
=====
In the case of Ukraine, the turmoil was caused by the Maidan Protest Movement, which evicted pro-Russia President Yanukovych from his elected position. The Obama Administration was delighted by that Movement, because the Obama Administration wanted to cause trouble for Ukraine gratuitously.
The Obama Administration's "point man on Ukraine" was Vice President Joe Biden.
>>Any Russian incursion will be caused by Ukrainian maltreatment of ethnic Russians
Will you please stop with this nonsense? There are a million 'ethnic Cubans' in Miami. Some of them are no doubt being mistreated.
Is that a reasonable premise for a Cuban invasion?
>If two-thirds of that region's citizens vote to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, then simply redraw the border.
Shall we try that with, say, Utah, or the Dakotas, or Quebec? As I recall, we experimented with this idea in the 1860's. Maybe you read about that?
Jeeez, what nonsense!!
Never listen to Max Boot. He’s full of it. I have Russian friends who say the threat of invasion is BS. We’ll see, but never listen to Max Boot, because he is a mouthpiece of the D.C. military industrial complex and deep state. He wants us to still be killing kids in Afghanistan.
Suppose that a referendum had been conducted in Sudetenland and that its population voted by a super majority (e.g. 2/3 majority) to secede from Czechoslovakia and to join Germany. Would that have been worse than what did happen?
I doubt it would made a lick of difference, especially considering that that is essentially what the Munich Agreement achieved.
DanTheMan at 8:08 AM
Is that a reasonable premise for a Cuban invasion?
Russia has not invaded Ukraine.
The USA has invaded Cuba.
Weight limits have been relaxed on roads in northern WI because the frost depth is sufficiently deep now. I suppose this is related.
I can think of about 3.9 million reasons that Ukrainians, in the Donbas and elsewhere, would have reasons to hate and not trust Russians. It was 90+ years ago. Ukrainians have not forgotten. Nor should they.
VT has a 6th season-
Stick Season! It’s even a wiki thing-
Despite Biden's invitation, Putin won't invade (incur?) Ukraine until after the Olympics are over. Same with the ChiComs and Taiwan.
Too much bad publicity. So look for some action beginning toward the end of February.
" ... in an awkward statement he sought to clarify afterward."
There's been a lot of that lately.
Defense Department officials on Saturday presented President Biden with options to send "several thousand" troops to Eastern Europe to bolster NATO allies, a Pentagon official told CBS News.
Yeah, just what we need.
What is their purpose? To serve as a "tripwire" so we have an excuse to go all in in yet a 3rd European war that is none of our business?
We have no dog in this fight. We don't even have a hamster in this fight.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
Mud has a successful TV show. It's called "The Curse of Oak Island."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-biden-us-troops-eastern-europe/
Forgot the link
On the topic of mud (not Russia):
Mud is another of those things, like cholera and hunger, that modern wealth and science have almost completely eliminated from our experience. Traveling across a muddy Ukrainian field is a very big deal even on foot, much less in a fifty-ton tank. I tried to remember the last time I had personally experienced serious mud and couldn't think of a single example.
Lebensraum...that is all...
If Biden messes up this situation any further, his name will be mud.
Mike Sylwester said, "Russia has not invaded Ukraine."
What is the Crimea?
Sure. Russians will point out that it belongs to Russia. And depending how far back you want to go, other countries can lay claim to that region. But in 2014 it was part of Ukraine...until Russia invaded, claimed it, held a vote to back their claim, then just took it, while the world poo-poohed and continued to work on their golf game.
They have sent arms and men/soldiers into the Donbas previously. Hence the conflict there. And yes, if they could, they'd walk in, hold a referendum election to secede from the Ukraine, and claim that part as Russian soil.
Does it stop there? Is this a necessary move by Russia? Are the citizens of Russian descent in the Donbas beings persecuted? Perhaps not. But if so, it might have something to do with their pointing guns at their former neighbors. As you know, there's history between Russians and Ukranians. Ugly, murderous history. It's not forgotten.
And, look- the US has invaded too many countries mistakenly, and caused much death and grief over the last few decades. I'm not saying the US is clean. None of these actions are right. Where does it end?
How many paratroops does Putin have?? Cargo planes that can carry tanks and soldiers?
See Putin just might bring them in fast... real fast... while the muddy roads slows down NATO. Or... just bring them all in at once, by road and by air... NOW!
The water-lily springs from mud;
From cow-dung sprouts the lotus-bud.
~ India
Mike Sylwester @ 8:20: "...The USA has invaded Cuba."
What?
The mud blood and the beer was a Vietnam veteran memoir and a common description of Rugby Football.
Out here in Northern California the approved term is “wetlands” because “save the mud” doesn’t do as good a job in halting development.
I see that the "run away and hide" on Afghanistan crew is back in force.
Mud, depending on the native soil, resembles chocolate pudding.
Biden knows pudding.
All is well.
Mike Sylwester said...Suppose that a referendum had been conducted in Sudetenland and that its population voted by a super majority (e.g. 2/3 majority) to secede from Czechoslovakia and to join Germany. Would that have been worse than what did happen?
As Frederson points out--we have no reason to think this would have made the slightest difference in how events unfolded (just as we have no reason to think it would now). More to the immediate point, land is a lot more than simply the people who live on it. What country would give up land simply because some segment of the population wants to leave without leaving? And what about the Czechs and Poles living in Czechoslovakia and Poland who lose the referendum? Why should they be forcibly changed into Germans living in Germany? If the Germans want to live in Germany, they can move there.
The Germans learned this the hard way back in WW2.
If we taught history today this wouldn't seem like a newsworthy event.
"In this situation, Russia is not motivated by some compulsion to seize Ukrainian territory."
Just like they weren't motivated to invade the Crimea in 2014? If not, wonder how they were able to annex it after ripping it from Ukraine.
Just like the Russian perpetrated Holomodor (Ukrainian for "death by starvation") in 1932/3 did not directly result in the starvation deaths of some 28,000 Ukrainians per day nor turn the former "breadbasket of Europe" into a waste land nor cause their farmers and intellectuals to be shipped to concentration camps to ensure there was no recovery.
Just like the Russian troops did not invade Poland from the East while the Nazis invaded from the West in 1939? Just like the Russians did not execute 22,000 Polish army officers and intellectuals in the Katyn Forest massacre in April and May of 1940?
Just like the Russians did not invade and occupy the Baltics in 1940 under the pretense of protecting ethnic Russians, then incorporate Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia into the Soviet Union for fifty years?
Just what kind of dope are you smoking?
LOL. Its not 1941 anymore. Yes, the roads are muddy and rivers are often overflowing their banks, but 21st Century armies can deal with it. Even in 1944, the Red Army attacked during the thaw in their famous "Mud offensive" which knocked the Germans back a 100 miles.
There's no reason to believe Putin is going to invade anyone. And no reason for us to care if he does. But there's always a group of Americans who love to play Risk, and pontificate about "The Great Game" and how This power or that power is going to Seize Taiwan, Ukraine, etc. etc.
They really miss the Cold War.
"I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French."
Wow, that's a pretty brutal quote from De Gaulle! He made the same point in a nicer way:
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?
For decades the Democrats have told me that the USSR was better than the US. But I think that changed after Hillary said Putin was Trumps secret master. Certainly the Russians want defensible borders which implies a "Sphere of Influence." Fact is, if you are in that sphere your options as a nation are limited, similar to South America.
Burnside's famouns "Mud March" of January 1863. Now, there's where the mud really made a difference. Cannons stuck in the mud. Wagons and mules stuck in the mud. Mud so deep the horses sunk to their bellies and had to be pulled out or shot.
Sheridan would compare the infamous mud in Virginia to the easy task the Prussians had in 1871.
Howard: "The mud blood and the beer was a Vietnam veteran memoir and a common description of Rugby Football."
The permanent shape of my nose remains a testament to the latter.
From WikiPedia:
"Tullahoma was little more than a rough frontier outpost, and had no paved streets. 1863 was a wet year, and the place became known to the bedraggled troops of both sides as a place of endless mud. An aide on Confederate General William Hardee's staff is said to have written his own account of the origin of the name: "It is from two Greek words – 'Tulla' meaning mud, and 'Homa,' meaning more mud."
meanwhile the real threat has all the bases covered,
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/23/schweizer-biden-family-have-received-31-million-from-individuals-linked-to-chinese-intelligence/
one should be reminded it was the democratic government of yeltsin, that engaged in the first quagmire in chechnya, a relatively brief affair they thought would end with the death of dudayev
Mud isn't just mud. There's levels. Gumbo, for instance.
We are living in the sequel to Being There.
Now get this honkey. Tell Raphael that I ain’t taking no jive….
jaydub: "Just like they weren't motivated to invade the Crimea in 2014? If not, wonder how they were able to annex it after ripping it from Ukraine."
Because almost 70% of the population in Crimea are ethnic Russians who themselves were getting pushed around by the ethnic Ukrainians. Only 15% or so of that population ethnic Ukrainians.
So there's that in case you were wondering. Not to mention that Crimea, and most of the rest of Ukraine, was a part of Russia for 200 years prior to the Soviet years.
Worse, obama-Biden's Earpiece pulled a color revolution on the elected leader of Ukraine, Yanukovych, who was more sympathetic to Russia, and installed a new western puppet leader in Kiev.
In addition to the above, the only warm water port the Russki's/soviets have/had was at Sevastopol and losing that was like the US losing VA Beach/Hampton Roads bases.
Then as if that weren't enough, the US moron's have continually pushed to get the entire balkans along with Ukraine into NATO....which obligates the US to fight wars on any of those crazy nations behalf and pushes NATO right up to Russia's border! Anybody up for allowing the ChiCom's to enter into a strategic military pact with Mexico?
All this saber rattling with Russia by our self-styled elites is done to serve primarily 3 purposes:
1) Keep the cash flowing to the Defense Contractors and lobbyists
2) Keep attention off of our real long term existential threat: the ChiComs (who have successfully purchased the services and loyalty of most of DC and European Capitals)
3) Keep a ready made boogeyman (Putin!) available for political narrative purposes as we saw all too clearly over the last 6 years.
the original russians, invaded under catherine the great, and displaced the tatars, four wars later, they displaced the ethnic ukrainians,
The warhawks here should come clean. How much skin do you have in the game? How many of your children and grandchildren can you spare?
How many American (Ukrainian, Russian, what-have-you) kids have to die to prevent the catastrophe of some minor border changes in the Donbass?
We an all recite historical sins and wrongs, and I can sure as hell understand the bitterness and hatred that exist still between peoples in that part of the world--and that's all the more reason not to stick our stupid snout where it doesn't belong.
Temujin at 8:24 AM
I can think of about 3.9 million reasons that Ukrainians, in the Donbas and elsewhere, would have reasons to hate and not trust Russians. It was 90+ years ago. Ukrainians have not forgotten. Nor should they.
Ukraine has lots of reasons to distrust Russia, including the collectivization famine.
Keep in mind, though, that the collectivization famine was caused by the Communist Party, which was headed by a Georgian and which included members of various ancestries -- Russians, Jews, Latvians, Armenians, Uzbeks -- and lots of Ukrainians.
Keep in mind also that lots of Ukrainians fought on the Bolshevik side in Russia's revolution and civil war. Ukrainians played a key role in defeating the White Army. Ukrainians fought to make Ukraine into a Communist republic of the Soviet Union.
-------
Ukrainian zealots brought the current secession movement onto Ukraine.
All Ukrainians should have respected the election victory of Viktor Yanukovych, who ran on a platform of improving Ukraine's relations with Russia. The European Union observed the election and declared that Yanukovych won fairly.
Ukrainians should have allowed Yanukovych to govern normally and should have prepared to vote him out of office in the next presidential election. Instead, the Ukrainian zealots in Kyiv evicted him from his elected position.
That unlawful cancellation of their votes was why the ethnic-Russian regions -- Crimea and Donbas -- decided to secede from Ukraine. That decision was based on events in 2013 and 2014 -- not on events in the 1930s.
Modern warfare in Europe, even mechanized warfare, is more mud and blunder than blood and thunder.
One big difference between Putinfor and Hitler's legions is that just maintaining a dozen divisions near Ukraine is difficult for the Russians, and even a successful Russian attack will garner a small prize.
Forget about the seasons. The age of blitzkrieg ended long ago.
100 points to anyone mentioning the Sudetenland, Munich, Chamberlin, or appeasement.
Cause it always 1938. Which happened yesterday. Or 84 years ago.
Temujin at 8:58 AM
... in 2014 it [Crimea] was part of Ukraine...until Russia invaded, claimed it, held a vote to back their claim, then just took it ...
Russia had a naval base in Sevastopol. After President Yanukovych was evicted from his elected position, riots broke out in Crimea. In that situation, some Russian special forces were deployed from that naval base into the city center, where they occupied some government buildings temporarily. After order was restored, those troops returned to their base.
That was the Russian "invasion" of Crimea.
A referendum was conducted and Crimea's population voted overwhelmingly to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia. That vote -- not some "invasion" -- is why Crimea now belongs to Russia.
why did Catherine (more likely her generals suvorov and potemkin move west, because it was the Ottomans's land, Romania was the next morsel over, lands that would be contested over and over,
The mud in the southeast US is red. The mud in the northeast is black. I didn't know this until my northern cousin disbelieved me and laughed at me when I told her my mud was red in North Carolina. The mud out west is brown around rivers, black on prairies.
Caliche and bentonite and bauxite, mud, cob, adobe, silt, clay. Liquefaction changes dirt, dust, crushed ore into mud. Mud works in two dimensions as a friction reducer, slicker than grease or ice, and in three as a glue trap, flowing around to form a vacuum tight grasping seal, and into, to create havoc where holes were.
Here's hoping for an early spring and lots, lots of mud for the Ukraine.
Strange notions are afloat. The notion that the Rissians would not have built their T-90 tanks and BTR-80 APCs without taking Eastern European spring mud into account seems a bit unrealistic to me. The notion that 5000 US troops are there to be anything but a speed bump for the Russian troops is ridiculous. And the notion that we can win a conventional war with the likes of Joe Biden as C-in-C, Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense, and Mark Milley as Chairman of the JCS is even more ridiculous.
But it's not spring; it's January.
It's remarkable how regularly smaller countries with Russian forces massed on their border for purely defensive reasons do something stupid that leaves Russia no choice but to invade. You'd really think they'd have learned by now.
You want mud? Try Colorado Front Range bentonite. High clay content, incredibly slippery-greasy, and it swells when you add water. Basement walls and pads will lift and shift wildly.
Blogger Mike Sylwester said..."Russia has not invaded Ukraine."
Good grief.
Countries don't let parts of their country secede, especially to another country. It always results in a brutal crackdown or civil war.
You'd think Americans of all people would understand this.
In 2013, many Ukrainians aspired for their country to join NATO and the European Union. They hoped that the 2013 Presidential election would move Ukraine's future in that direction.
Unfortunately for them, however, the election was won by Viktor Yanukovych, who ran on a platform of improving Ukraine's relations with Russia. Ukraine's ethnic Russians voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovych, and also many Ukrainians voted for him. Because of this political coalition, Yanukovych won the election. (The European Union observed the election and declared that Yanukovych won fairly.)
In some regards, the election of Yanukovych was similar to the election of Donald Trump in the USA's 2016 election. In each case, a novel political coalition resulted in an upset victory.
Ukraine has its own Deep State, ruled by Ukrainian nationalists. Ukraine's Deep State sabotaged Yanukovych similarly to the sabotage of Trump in the USA. Ukrainian zealots in the capital city of Kyiv protested in the streets relentlessly for many weeks.
Ukraine's ethnic Russians watched this happen to Yanokovych, and they did not like it. Their reaction was similar to the reaction of Trump supporters in the USA.
In a couple of regions -- Crimea and Donbas -- it was plausible for those ethnic Russians to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia. That effort succeeded in Crimea, but not yet in Donbas.
That is the dynamic in this situation. This is not about the collectivization famine in the 1930s.
The US Government could give good advice to Ukraine and Russia. Otherwise, we should stay mostly out of the dispute.
In 2014, the US Government should have advised Ukrainians to accept Yanukovych's election victory and to prepare for the next presidential election. Instead, the US Government -- our "point man" was Vice President Joe Biden -- encouraged and supported the subversion and sabotage of the Yanukovych presidency.
For that reason, our current advice and threats are not respected by Russians.
Jaydub: you could fairly add 1939 invasion of Finland and 1940 seizures From Romania.
doctrev said...
Putin doesn't want a USSR: clearly NATO is run by neocon retards like Max Boot who don't understand what they've blundered into. No state can tolerate losing major naval bases- the US would have words if they lost their facilities in Europe or Japan.
Mike Sylwester said...
tcrosse at 7:23 AM
> What's Russian for Lebensraum?
Russia has plenty of естественная среда.
In this situation, Russia is not motivated by some compulsion to seize Ukrainian territory.
Rather, Russia is motivated by a compulsion to keep Ukraine out of NATO.
What a pathetic load of bullshit, by both of you.
1: Yes, Putin mourned the loss of the USSR, and wants it back
2: NATO is absolutely no threat to Russia, and every person who does not live life with his or her head up his or her ass knows it. including Putin
3: If Japan kicked the US out, we wouldn't go to war with Japan over it.
4: The only country on Russia's borders that's a threat to Russia is China. Everyone else is merely threatened by Russia. No, Russia has NO legitimate interests with respect to those countries. It' has no "natural sphere of interest", because Russia is, and always has been, a vile shit hole
5: Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons because the US signed a treaty to guarantee their safety if they did so. If we don't fulfill that treaty, that will be a horrid failure on our part
The Ukraine kicked Russia out, because they don't like being enslaved by evil monsters like Putin. They were utterly right to do so.
When Viktor Yanukovych won Ukraine's 2013 Presidential election
He did it with illegal help from Putin. There is no country outside of Russia where teh people of that country want to be part of Russia, or more connected with Russia.
Pretending otherwise just marks you as a dishonest ass
Sydney said...
Does mud mean much in the age of airplanes, missiles and drones?
Airplanes, missils, and drones don't carry significant amounts of supplies to keep your troops going. For that you need trucks
Two of Stalin’s favorite generals were General Winter and General Mud. Mud and winter seemed to have affected the Germans more than the Russians in World War 2. Winter because the Germans didn’t have the proper clothing for their troops with an early winter in autumn of 1941 and their equipment wasn’t up to the harsh winter conditions of the Russian steppe. One reason the muddy season was a problem for the Germans were the tanks and half-tracks (along with horse drawn trailers) that the Germans had in 1941 and 1942 had much narrower tracks than their Soviet counterparts, with a higher weight per square inch than the Russian tanks (despite the Russian tanks being heavier than the Germans’) and thus sinking into the soft ground while the Russian tanks with wider tracks didn’t have this much of a problem. In 1942 and 1943, the Germans would stop winter attacks in mid-March and then resume in mid-May once the mud had dried.
I don’t think Russia has forgotten those historical notes in equipping and training their army. They may want to be finished by the spring thaw but only because if they drag out invading (if that is their intent) because of the West shipping weapons to Ukraine as fast as they can right now. Weapons that will make any invasion a little more dangerous, causing more deaths among Russian troops and destruction of their equipment.
Mike Sylwester said...
tim maguire at 7:41 AM
the ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia and Poland would have been happier in Germany if only those warmongering Brits and French didn't try to stop the peoples' right of self-determination.
Suppose that a referendum had been conducted in Sudetenland and that its population voted by a super majority (e.g. 2/3 majority) to secede from Czechoslovakia and to join Germany. Would that have been worse than what did happen?
Yes, it would have been. Because rewarding aggression is always wrong
If a bunch of "ethnic Mexicans" voted to take Arizona back to Mexico, we would rightly tell them to FOAD, and get to work on making the "die" part happen.
If those "ethnic Russians" are really so deranged and stupid that they want to be under Putin, they are welcome to sell their property, and move back to Russia.
They're not welcome to destroy the lives of the "ethnic Ukrainians" who are living in Ukraine,a nd want to stay that way.
In the case of Ukraine, the turmoil was caused by the Maidan Protest Movement, which evicted pro-Russia President Yanukovych
Because the only correct response to any "pro-Russian" politician or movement is to tell them to GTFO and go to Russia.
What part of the Holodomor are you unclear on? The part where mass murder is wrong?
Mike Sylwester said...
Russia has not invaded Ukraine.
The USA has invaded Cuba.
What sort of moronic Putin stooge are you?
Ukraine was a separate country until Russia invaded it. The USSR was forced to disgorge it.
Now Putin wants it back, because he's every bit the dictator Stalin was, just facing more limits on his behavior
Last I checked, Cuba is a dictatorship under the control of (formerly) Russian backed satraps.
Do you just not know any history at all?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper%E2%80%93Carpathian_offensive#Second_phase.
The Russian mud offensive in the UKRAINE in Feb-April 1944. The mud didn't stop them, because they had American 4 wheel drive trucks. The Russian tanks had wide tracks with low Ground Pressure.
So, no the Russians aren't going to let MUD, stop them. If they decide to invade. Which they won't. So, who cares?
Watched the beginning of NBC Nightly News last night (for the first time in a long time) and they made it clear that the Russians would be invading that other country over there real soon for sure unless the threats of a serious response by Biden and Blinken scared them off.
It's a staged event. I believe that because I don't believe Putin is stupid or uninformed and he would have to be stupid and uninformed to think that an armored land assault would be anything other than a total disaster.
Not because of the mud, but because defensive anti-armor weapons have the edge in today's up-to-date armies - if they have troops willing to fight. Ukrainians aren't Iraqis. Or Afghans. He won't sacrifice his tanks.
Putin will get minor concessions after, at worst, a few skirmishes near the border and the event will fade away with both sides declaring victory.
Biden's braggadocio will be nauseating.
This country can barely function. We have tons of domestic problems, and yet we have people who want to spend all our time arguing about whether we should go to war over Ukraine.
Incredible. I think large numbers of well off Americans just think Domestic policy is boring, they alway get excited when we can create some foreign policy "crisis" and maybe even more exciting get some Americans killed. Woo Hoo, another war.
I cut them off and had a purpose now
To lead out many to the Holy Land,
Lest rest and lying still might make them look
Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels;
In the end… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nq9sEq6pass
"Does mud mean much in the age of airplanes, missiles and drones?" and others who have said it can be done by air drops and plane landings.
Modern infantry needs heavy equipment to bring in supplies of food and ammunition. Infantry needs artillery support in the form of tanks and howitzers. Infantry needs protected transport of personnel and ammunition to advance on roads and across farmland. Infantry is boots, tank treads, and vehicle tires on the ground.
Frozen roads and fields, good. Muddy roads and boggy fields, bad.
5: Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons because the US signed a treaty to guarantee their safety if they did so. If we don't fulfill that treaty, that will be a horrid failure on our part
@Greg, excellent point. However we, the US of A, have ignored agreements and treaty obligations before, and probably will again in the future. I’m not saying it’s right, just that it’s reality.
Greg The Class Traitor summed up Biden's predicament: "Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons because the US signed a treaty to guarantee their safety if they did so. If we don't fulfill that treaty, that will be a horrid failure on our part."
Will the USA keep its promise? Sending small arms ammunition on pistols doesn't cut it.
Instead, the Obama Administration encouraged and enabled the Ukrainian zealots.
Part of Obama's world war. A coup in Kiev. A coup in Libya. A coup in Syria. Iraq War 2.0. Afghanistan with our arms tied behind our back. Iranian transnational terrorism. Catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform at home and abroad. So many "burdens".
Greg The Class Traitor: "If a bunch of "ethnic Mexicans" voted to take Arizona back to Mexico, we would rightly tell them to FOAD, and get to work on making the "die" part happen.
If those "ethnic Russians" are really so deranged and stupid that they want to be under Putin, they are welcome to sell their property, and move back to Russia.
They're not welcome to destroy the lives of the "ethnic Ukrainians" who are living in Ukraine, and want to stay that way."
That's a wonderful set of thoughts.
Now, if we could return to the facts on the ground we should probably identify what you believe are the steps the US should take to stop any Putin-backed ethno-russki activities in those areas of Ukraine that the ethno-russki's already declared "independent states" in 2014 after the US booted out the previous president and installed their own dude who well understood the phrase: "10% for the Big Guy".
So, a full blown conventional war okay with you? How many brigades? Do you expect to be dropping lots of bombs in support of Ukrainian national forces as they enter in large numbers the ethno-russki controlled areas? Blockade/shelling of Sevastopol?
I mean, don't hold back now. Lets see how far you are willing to go here......
...but as you do that, remember, thus far the Germans have made it explicitly clear they won't be doing anything, the French are "considering" possibly/potentially/maybe sending a couple hundred advisors/supply chain dudes, the Spanish are "considering" sending a couple for fighters (that's not a joke by the way), the Belgians are willing to send around 4 fighter aircraft (that's not a joke by the way), the brits will send a couple of ships maybe, and on and on it goes.
It would be an all-American show in Eastern Europe.
Greg The Class Traitor: "What part of the Holodomor are you unclear on? The part where mass murder is wrong?"
When do we liberate the Uyghurs?
Greg The Class Traitor,
I'm a lot closer to your point of view than the opposing one, despite my [I hope obviously sarcastic] comment above. Still, I would disagree with the second part of this:
"NATO is absolutely no threat to Russia, and every person who does not live life with his or her head up his or her ass knows it. including Putin"
I think key leaders in Russia absolutely believe NATO's purpose is offensive, and that accepting former Warsaw Pact nations and former Soviet republics is at least establishing a potential course of action to invade.
I don't agree with them. I don't even much sympathize with them. But I sure do think they think that.
I understood and cheered as nations with recent memories of the Soviet yoke applied for membership in NATO. But the part of me that tries to be evenhanded, sometimes through gritted teeth, still asks, OK, how would we feel if the Cold War had gone otherwise and Mexico joined the Warsaw Pact? Hell, how can we proclaim a Monroe Doctrine and then object to a Russian sphere of influence? What, again, was our objection to Soviet missiles based in Cuba?
I can make arguments on all of these that I actually believe, but they won't get me far with some commenters here, let alone scared European neutrals or actual Russians.
There's a bike race in Vermont (I think) called Rasputitsa. It's known for sloppy conditions. I didn't know where the name came from until now.
As for a referendum for the Donbass to secede, I have no idea why Ukraine would go along with that. Why would they want Russia to continue to slice away territory? Not that I have a better solution. Maybe there are no good solutions.
If Putin is deterred by mud, even though it's January, will that be a benefit of global warming?
Where's the mass murder, Greg? And when do you ship out?
Speaking of mud, it’s good they have Pskanki out front today to clear this up…
/sarc
Btw, as Biden's Earpiece arrangement with Putin unfolds in Europe, the democraticals and GOPe's ChiCom allies are sending across regimental scale incursions into the Taiwanese air defense zone.
Because, why not?
After all, its almost as if the more certain parties wish for us to avoid addressing the ChiCom challenge, the more the russian bear threat is amplified.
Russia, with a GDP significantly less than Italy, gets all the attention and the real existential threat to the US, the ChiCom's, get a free pass from our self-styled "elites".
Go, Peppermint Patti, go!
Meanwhile, as the all the tough guys beat their chest armor, here's what's really going on in the background:
According to government statistics, energy imports from Saudi Arabia more than doubled from Dec. 2020 to Oct. 2021. And our imports from Russia more than tripled from Feb. 2019 through Sept. 2021.
Yes, that's right: Biden's Earpiece/Obama's Mouthpiece Klain have increased our dependence on Putin and the ChiComs (via other reduced sanctions) while removing all US sanctions on BOTH the Russian Nord Stream II pipeline company as well as, and wait for this one....wait for it....wait for it...Matthias Warnig!
Who is he?
I'm glad you asked: Warnig is the CEO of the Russian NordStream II company AND was a former Stasi guy in East Germany who is very, very good friends with Putin!
Hooray for The Return To Normalcy!
Sylwester and Drago: Here's the timeline for Russia's annexation of Crimea from Wiki:
Date 20 Feb – 26 Mar 2014
1. Russian masked troops invade and occupy key Crimean locations, including airports and military bases, following Putin's orders.
2. The head of the Ukrainian Navy, Admiral Berezovsky, defects, followed later by half of the Ukrainian military stationed in the region.
3, Russian forces seize the Supreme Council (Crimean parliament) on 27 February. The Council of Ministers of Crimea is dissolved and a new pro-Russian Prime Minister installed.
4. The Supreme Council declares the Republic of Crimea to be an independent, self-governing entity, then holds a controversial referendum (controversial because the Russians held and counted the votes) on the status of Crimea on 16 March, which results in a majority vote to join the Russian Federation.
5. Treaty signed between the Republic of Crimea and the Russian Federation at the Kremlin on 18 March to formally initiate Crimea's accession to the Russian Federation.
6. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are evicted from their bases on 19 March by Crimean protesters and Russian troops. Ukraine subsequently announces the withdrawal of its forces from Crimea.
7. The Russian State Duma officially passed the Federal Law Admitting to the Russian Federation the Republic of Crimea on 21 March.
8. Russia suspended from G8.
9. International sanctions introduced on Russia.
This is no different than Mexico creating a mini rebellion by ethnic Mexicans on the Texas/New Mexico border, then invading Texas/New Mexico, dissolving the respective state governments at the point of a gun, holding trumped up elections, and then annexing Texas and New Mexico. There's no clean or pretty way to describe this other than taking another country by force. This general sequence of events has been the Russian MO in every country they have raped, from the Baltics to the Balkans and every place in between. Your point has to be made in either ignorance or malice. Either way it's despicable.
Sylwester, describing the Holomodor as being the result of "collectivization" is like describing Lon Nol's atrocities in Cambodia as agrarian reform. which is true in either the Ukraine or Cambodia cases if you consider forced labor in the fields, confiscation of food stores, leaving the people to eat grass, imprisonment of the farmers and local officials to prevent recovery, and then working everyone left to death to be mere collectivization. My God, man, we're talking about over 3 million men, women and children in both Cambodia and Ukraine purposely being starved to death for no reason. What kind of sick mind rationalizes that?
Mike Sylwester said...
Russia has not invaded Ukraine.
Mike? you Keep saying this, over and over and over again Are you stupid? Or just a liar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation#Russian_invasion
On 27 February, 2014, Russian special forces[120] seized the building of the Supreme Council of Crimea and the building of the Council of Ministers in Simferopol.[121][122] Russian flags were raised over these buildings,[123]
On the same day, more troops in unmarked uniforms, assisted this time by what appeared to be local Berkut riot police (as well as Russian troops from the 31st Separate Airborne Assault Brigade dressed in Berkut uniforms),[134] established security checkpoints on the Isthmus of Perekop and the Chonhar Peninsula, which separate Crimea from the Ukrainian mainland.[124][135][136][137][138] Within hours, Ukraine had effectively been cut off from Crimea.
Seriously, Are You STUPID? Or Just a Liar?
The word "Rasputitsa" is interesting. So was the monk Rasputin 10 miles of bad road?
VT has a 6th season-
Stick Season! It’s even a wiki thing-
OK, I just read about it, these are the times when it is clear that I am not a native Vermonter. It makes sense, though, probably more from an NEK POV.
I can't help but imagine that if the press and the infra-government of the US are interpreting Putin in the same invidious light that they interpreted Trump, which I think is probably the case, the US is creating a hot war out of appearances and a deliberately obtuse foreign policy.
Those of you who want to head over the Ukraine to "protect their borders," don't let me stop you, but don't send American kids to fight, kill, and die there. We don't even give a shit about our own borders.
Robert Frost's poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time" provides interesting images of the season of mud and uncertainty. The poem depicts uncertainty and indecision, now under discussion.
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.
A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And fronts the wind to unruffle a plume
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake: and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn’t blue,
But he wouldn’t advise a thing to blossom.
The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheel rut’s now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don’t forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.
I think that referring to the Holodomor as the collectivization famine euphemistically downplay's Stalin's deliberate policy of
genocide and murder in order to bring the Ukrainians under communist control. Anne Applebaum's "The Red Famine: Stalin"s War on Ukraine" provides an accurate and compelling account of this tragic policy. Russian state media tends to rationalize the terror famine as the inevitable consequence of rapid industrialization, while it also claims that it was not genocide. The Ukrainians, however, insist that it was genocide. Moreover, the Wikipedia entry on the Holodomor has been raided by Russian trolls attempting to down play the famine's seriousness. It is interesting to look at. The Holodomor was genocide. For a film
version of the terror famine see "Bitter Harvest", a somewhat fictionalized account produced by a group of Canadian Ukrainians from Manitoba and Alberta, provinces with large Ukrainian populations.
:
Why do the Ukrainians believe 'the West" / USA has any genuine interest in their wellbeing and welfare and peace and prosperity ?
what evidence do they have ? or just wishful thinking?
My God, man, we're talking about over 3 million men, women and children in both Cambodia and Ukraine purposely being starved to death for no reason. What kind of sick mind rationalizes that?
---------
if 1930 NYT did not make it fit to print is it true? or did the inteligentzia pay any never mind
"100 points to anyone mentioning the Sudetenland, Munich, Chamberlin, or appeasement."
The problem with pooh-poohing parallels between what Putin is doing and what Der Fuhrer did is that at this point Putin has swallowed more "ethnic Russian" territories than Hitler swallowed "ethnic German" enclaves prior to his Soviet-assisted invasion of Poland. In all of this debate, no one has mentioned Putin's "adoption" of the "ethnic Russian" enclaves in the Caucuses. Putin's annexations in Ukraine are of a piece with those annexations, and suspiciously similar.
Beyond Ukraine, shall we discuss the "ethnic Russian" enclave in Estonia? Are there any further "ethnic Russian" enclaves on Russia's borders that Putin might wish to "repatriate"?
I guess the "Military Industrial Complex" now runs our country via Biden's earpiece.
Who wants energy independence anyway ? Not Biden's earpiece.
"Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons because the US signed a treaty to guarantee their safety if they did so."
Russia also signed and it wasn't a "treaty," it was a memorandum between leaders.
Naturally, Putin only wants to invade the Ukraine if you don’t want him to do it. If we say it’s OK he won’t bother, like an older brother, he just wants to make us scared and angry. Why else would he invade, to feed the poor and offer investment capital?
ADDED: Thank God we have a mentally competent President.
Do we? We did before last January, but do we now? Are you being sarcastic? Or merely self-deluded? Not always easy to tell.
It's fascinating that we are all essentially arguing the exact same points that Americans argued from 1933 to 1941. What does America care about border disputes in history-entangled areas of Europe? Do we care about stability over there? Should we just let the Europeans handle it? What are the intentions of this ruler of a major European power? What's the end game?
We have fans of the strongman, we have detractors. We're at about the temperature of 1938 or so, where the US acknowledged the problematic nature of the events but were not at all convinced it was "our problem".
And at the same time we're watching a regional hegemon, newly modernized and undergoing a massive military build up and pushing against its current boundaries in the Pacific.
The question: Is this a replay of the run up to WWII? Or are the players and the interests different enough that this time the outcome will be something less catastrophic? Or possibly more catastrophic?
It's just fascinating.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/01/24/confused-ukraine-calls-biden-diplomatic-pullout-premature-excessive/
actually we've seen putins act, in chechnya, georgia and ukraine, with declining levels of utility, in the former you had filtration camps which made abu ghraib seem like club med, (essentially open pits, that are interrogation centers) zachistas, which are their search and destroy (this is soviet military tactics taught to Algerian Egyptian even Syrians
jaydub at 1:38 PM
Sylwester, describing the Holomodor as being the result of "collectivization" ... if you consider forced labor in the fields, confiscation of food stores, leaving the people to eat grass, imprisonment of the farmers and local officials to prevent recovery, and then working everyone left to death to be mere collectivization. My God, man, we're talking about over 3 million men, women and children in both Cambodia and Ukraine purposely being starved to death for no reason. What kind of sick mind rationalizes that?
The Holomodor was caused by the Communist collectivization of agriculture. That statement is not a "rationalization". What makes you think that I am an apologist for any of that?
Anyway, the current dispute involving Donbas is not caused by those events that happened 80 years ago.
By the way, many Ukrainians blame Jews a lot more than they blame Russians for the collectivization and the Holomodor.
TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed: "The question: Is this a replay of the run up to WWII? Or are the players and the interests different enough that this time the outcome will be something less catastrophic? Or possibly more catastrophic?"
Russia in 2022, with a GDP less than that of Italy, and who had difficulty projecting power effectively in Syria, is not even in the same ballpark of a strategic threat that Germany of the late 1930's represented.
"Are you being sarcastic?"
Really? Does the well-known quote from "Being There" not make it clear to you?
TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed: "The problem with pooh-poohing parallels between what Putin is doing and what Der Fuhrer did is that at this point Putin has swallowed more "ethnic Russian" territories than Hitler swallowed "ethnic German" enclaves prior to his Soviet-assisted invasion of Poland."
That is irrelevant to the strategic discussion regarding any potential threat Russia presents to NATO nations.
Which is zero. Which is why the Deutschers aren't concerned in the least and will provide zero real support to any effort.
Every discussion of the "russian threat" should begin with what skin our European "allies" are willing to put into the game.
And we can all see that the answer to that question has already been provided: zero.
The equivalent of a couple canoes and a popgun.
jaydub at 1:30 PM
4. The Supreme Council declares the Republic of Crimea to be an independent, self-governing entity, then holds a controversial referendum (controversial because the Russians held and counted the votes) on the status of Crimea on 16 March, which results in a majority vote to join the Russian Federation.
You seem to think that most of the votes were against secession.
You seem to think that the votes were counted falsely by Russians.
Jaydub: "This is no different than Mexico creating a mini rebellion by ethnic Mexicans on the Texas/New Mexico border, then invading Texas/New Mexico, dissolving the respective state governments at the point of a gun, holding trumped up elections, and then annexing Texas and New Mexico. There's no clean or pretty way to describe this other than taking another country by force. This general sequence of events has been the Russian MO in every country they have raped, from the Baltics to the Balkans and every place in between. Your point has to be made in either ignorance or malice. Either way it's despicable."
Whatever you say Rambo.
Joe Biden just called Steve Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch” after he asked him a question about inflation. Is this the man we should trust to manage our policy on Russia and the Ukraine?
jaydub: "Sylwester and Drago: Here's the timeline for Russia's annexation of Crimea from Wiki:
Your timeline is woefully short. Woefully. Purposely?
Let's add a few more items for you:
9) 2014-Wife of Moscow Mayor pays Hunter Biden $3.5M directly
10) 2021- Biden's Earpiece Administration removes sanctions on NordStream II project and Putin ally and former Stasi officer Matthias Warnig, allowing construction to be completed on the gas pipeline which will provide a strategic energy stranglehold on Germany
11) 2021- NATO nations refuse to increase their funding commitments to ensure NATO readiness which is effectively, in an operational sense, non-existent (Germany has 14 submarines-none are operational, for instance, and don't get me started on their Aviation readiness, it would make you weep like a little girl)
12) 2021 - Biden's Earpiece disallows completion of Keystone XL pipeline and increases imports of Russian oil to the US
10) Jan, 2022: Ukraine publicly asks to join NATO with a promise to build NATO bases near the border with Russia
11) Jan, 2022: Germany & France meet jointly with Russia while purposely, and quite publicly kicking the US to the curb
I could go on, but with every factoid offered up I'm afraid jaydub is going to go full political Tourette's and keep shouting "ignorance", "malice" "Despicable".
I'm sorry the realpolitik of the situation upsets you so.
Mike Sylwester said...
Ukraine has its own Deep State, ruled by Ukrainian nationalists.
Damn. How dare those Ukrainian nationalists actually value their own country!
You're pretending to actually back Trump, and pretending that Yanukovych is like Trump.
What a pile of bullshit.
Trump's an American nationalist. Yanukovych was utterly opposed to the nationalism of the country he took power over. The two are about as far apart as anyone could possibly be
Richard Dillman at 3:36 PM
I think that referring to the Holodomor as the collectivization famine euphemistically downplay's Stalin's deliberate policy of genocide and murder in order to bring the Ukrainians under communist control. Anne Applebaum's "The Red Famine: Stalin"s War on Ukraine" provides an accurate and compelling account of this tragic policy. ....
I have read Applebaum's book, but I was not convinced by her arguments.
I think the collectivization of agriculture was a logical progression in the communication of the Soviet Union's entire economy. Industry was expropriated. Retail businesses were expropriated. And then the farms were expropriated.
I do not perceive the expropriation of the farms as motivated primarily by a desire to suppress Ukrainian nationalism and to starve Ukrainians massively.
The Communists intended to communize the entire economy of the whole World, and the collectivization of agriculture in Ukraine was just one part of that grandiose, global plan.
There were plenty of Ukrainian Communists, and they participated actively in the collectivization. There were plenty of Jewish Communists in Ukraine, and they participated likewise, and they are blamed primarily by many Ukrainians.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union included people of all the country's nationalities. All those Communists, including many Ukrainians, were complicit.
Of course, many Ukrainians now say that the collectivization and the subsequent famine were caused by Russians and/or by Jews -- as if all Ukrainians were purely victims.
======
Anyway, those events happened 80 years ago.
Practically none of the ethnic Russians in Donbas were even alive that long ago. Likewise, practically none of the Ukrainians who are resisting the secession were even alive that long ago.
All those people are fighting about events that happened primarily in 2013 and 2014.
TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed at 3:59 PM
In all of this debate, no one has mentioned Putin's "adoption" of the "ethnic Russian" enclaves in the Caucuses.
I would favor conducting a secession referendum in Chechnya (and any other such region), and if the vote is 2/3 to secede, then the secession happens.
I would go along such a referendum in Chechnya -- and also in Donbas.
Would you go along with such referendums in both places?
Is now a good time to speak about how there weren't European nations falling all over themselves in the 1930s to put their nations at the economic mercy of the Nazi regime like Germany is doing right this very second with Putin?
Inconvenient truths.
Richard Dillman: "Joe Biden just called Steve Doocy a “stupid son of a bitch” after he asked him a question about inflation. Is this the man we should trust to manage our policy on Russia and the Ukraine?"
Since both Ukraine and Russia have compromising info on the Biden'S Earpiece family corruption, along with the ChiCom's who supplied Hunter with all that blow and underage hookers, so, you know, the answer to your question is a fairly emphatic "no".
Drago said...
Greg The Class Traitor: "If a bunch of "ethnic Mexicans" voted to take Arizona back to Mexico, we would rightly tell them to FOAD, and get to work on making the "die" part happen.
If those "ethnic Russians" are really so deranged and stupid that they want to be under Putin, they are welcome to sell their property, and move back to Russia.
They're not welcome to destroy the lives of the "ethnic Ukrainians" who are living in Ukraine, and want to stay that way."
That's a wonderful set of thoughts.
So that would be "ok, you're completely right, and my side is utter shit, but I don't care"?
Now, if we could return to the facts on the ground we should probably identify what you believe are the steps the US should take to stop any Putin-backed ethno-russki activities in those areas of Ukraine that the ethno-russki's already declared "independent states" in 2014 after the US booted out the previous president and installed their own dude who well understood the phrase: "10% for the Big Guy".
Hmm, I don't know, how about "Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for US security guarantees. If Russia invade Ukraine, we will give them back an equivalent number of nuclear weapons."
You don't have to announce it publicly, you can just tell it to Putin straight up.
Now, is worthless piece of shit Biden going to do that? of course not! This is the guy who green-lighted NordStream@ after Trump had it stopped.
But I do find it very curious that people who normally call themselves Trumpists are backing Biden's dictator, teh one that Trump opposed.
Or have you all forgotten that Trump sent Ukraine actual weapons to fight off Russia, as opposed to Obama / Biden?
So, a full blown conventional war okay with you? How many brigades? Do you expect to be dropping lots of bombs in support of Ukrainian national forces as they enter in large numbers the ethno-russki controlled areas? Blockade/shelling of Sevastopol?
So, if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is you favor a chickenshit foreign policy, and rather than be honest with what you're doing, you're going to make up bullshit so you can pretend that you're not as much of a morally wretched creature as you're actually being here?
Greg The Class Traitor: "What part of the Holodomor are you unclear on? The part where mass murder is wrong?"
When do we liberate the Uyghurs?
Right after we sign an agreement to protect their freedom.
TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed: "The problem with pooh-poohing parallels between what Putin is doing and what Der Fuhrer did is that at this point Putin has swallowed more "ethnic Russian" territories than Hitler swallowed "ethnic German" enclaves prior to his Soviet-assisted invasion of Poland."
That is irrelevant to the strategic discussion regarding any potential threat Russia presents to NATO nations.
Which is zero. Which is why the Deutschers aren't concerned in the least and will provide zero real support to any effort.
Bzzt, thank you for playing, but you appear to be majorly historically ignorant.
Germany in 1933 was a joke, and not a threat to anyone. They way you keep dictators like Putin from becoming
not a joke" is by never letting them expand
Oh, and the Deutschers are concerned enough that they're not going along with the feckless Biden* Admin
Unlike, apparently, you
12) 2021 - Biden's Earpiece disallows completion of Keystone XL pipeline and increases imports of Russian oil to the US
You are so full of shit! We import about 20,000 barrels of petroleum and petroleum products from Russia per month (and that is about twice what we were importing during the trump years, which means you are technically correct). The US consumes about 18 million barrels per day. Russian imports are literally less than a drop in the bucket.
Hey, is now a bad time to remind everyone how the EU nations sold everything under the sun to the Iranian regime that the US had sanctioned?
Good times, good times.
Drago said...
9) 2014-Wife of Moscow Mayor pays Hunter Biden $3.5M directly
10) 2021- Biden's Earpiece Administration removes sanctions on NordStream II project and Putin ally and former Stasi officer Matthias Warnig, allowing construction to be completed on the gas pipeline which will provide a strategic energy stranglehold on Germany
So, we're agreed that teh Biden* Admin, unlike the Trump Admin, is pro-Moscow and pro-Putin.
Biden's at least getting paid off. What's your excuse?
Mike Sylwester said...
jaydub at 1:30 PM
4. The Supreme Council declares the Republic of Crimea to be an independent, self-governing entity, then holds a controversial referendum (controversial because the Russians held and counted the votes) on the status of Crimea on 16 March, which results in a majority vote to join the Russian Federation.
You seem to think that most of the votes were against secession.
You seem to think that the votes were counted falsely by Russians.
Why, yes, we do.
We also think that when the Fulton County Democrats kicked out the poll watchers and press, and then starting "counting" ballots again, that was a clear sign of vote fraud.
You're now such a Putin lover that you're going to claim that of course Russia holds honest elections?
Mike Sylwester said...
The Holomodor was caused by the Communist collectivization of agriculture. That statement is not a "rationalization". What makes you think that I am an apologist for any of that?
Because the Holomodor was caused by a deliberate Soviet policy of mass murder. Is your excuse that you're just utterly ignorant?
99% of those "ethnic Russians" in Ukraine and other countries around Russia are there because they or their ancestors were moved there by the USSR as Russian power projection on conquered States.
How sick is your soul, that you are so desperately eager to back up Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, and Putin?
If Afghanistan is any indication as to how Biden retaliates-
If Russia commits an act of aggression towards Ukraine, Biden will respond by bombing Poland.
Greg The Class Traitor: "How sick is your soul, that you are so desperately eager to back up Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, and Putin?"
You're either with us and our plans for a multidecade "war"/police action/nation building effort that will hollow out the US military, waste tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, enrich defense contractors and the lobbyists...or you're with the Terrorists!!
Sound familiar?
You know, come to think of it, during these tough economic times, the US lobbyists and Defense contractors could probably really use a never-ending commitment to US forces en masse being moved to Ukraine.
Can you imagine how much money would be made available via Biden family members to build the new bases and create the capabilities in Ukraine to hold off the russki hordes?!!
And the timing would be perfect for those who actively support ChiCom advancements across the globe.
It's a win-win-win for the global "elites"...again. With the unwitting and kneejerk assistance of so many conservatives who fall for it every time.
Greg The Class Traitor: "Biden's at least getting paid off. What's your excuse?"
Yes, of course, I'm a Putin asset too!
Everyone is!
Well played Greg!
Pelosi and Schiff could not have said it better.
Greg The Class Traitor: "You're now such a Putin lover that you're going to claim that of course Russia holds honest elections?"
Channeling Bill Kristol and David Frum and Ric Wilson I see.
If you move fast, you can snag one of those discounts for The Bulwark and the Lincoln Project.
Malcolm Muggeridge Gary Jones and Robert Conquest all categorized the Holomodor long before applebaum got around to it,
For putin getting the band back together, which he has convinced himself the dismantling of the Soviet Union as a great crime, even though and his stasi associate who heads Gazprom, profited well from the exercise,
Its strange, isn't it, that Greg and jaydub refuse to comment on just how compromised the entire EU leadership, and especially Germany, happen to be?
And they continue to act as if that isn't a consideration whatsoever in any analysis of what the US response should be.
Worse, there is zero discussion by these geo-political rocket scientists regarding the US' global commitments and threats and just how empty our Options Cupboard happens to be with regards to other threats.
But hey, whatever. Lets just get bogged down in "no end in sight" commitment of US forces in the Ukraine to support our NATO "allies" who themselves will contribute nothing....NOTHING to the effort....and permanently hamstringing our US ability to counter the real threat in the pacific.
Hey Greg, how much is Xi paying you?
Even more amazing is Putin will simply be taking their increased profits from increased sales of oil to the US (so DC lobbyists representing those interests get paid off and win along with Putin) and increased gas sales to Europe to pay for russki operations in Eastern Ukraine against US forces backing Ukrainian forces (with the US forces naturally shoved to the front so Ukraine wins) with Ukraine pocketing billions in aid money (so US lobbyists, the Biden family, corruptocrats in Kiev and defense contractors win) and it entirely removes the US ability to respond to anything the ChiComs are doing (so Xi and the bought off western lobbyists and "elites" win).
Gee, isn't that just like the 1930's?
According to jaydub and Greg is most certainly is.....even though it most certainly is not.
But what do I know? I'm just a Putin asset, or so claims the increasing Pelosi-like Greg.
Now might be a good time for Greggy and Jaydub to thrill us all with a high level overview of just what they want the US to do and for how long, while knowing that behind the scenes our NATO "allies" won't be lifting a finger to help.
Go ahead jaydub and Greg.
Hit us with your best Clausewitzian brilliance!
I on pins and needles.
narciso: "For putin getting the band back together, which he has convinced himself the dismantling of the Soviet Union as a great crime, even though and his stasi associate who heads Gazprom, profited well from the exercise,"
Shhhh!
We are supposed to pretend NATO and its constituent nations are all on the same page here and not completely selling out to Putin's energy blackmail capabilities.
If you keep writing things like that you are really going to upset some commentators.
Freder, you need to add 3 zero's to your import number.
Lot of war-stiffies around here. I understand that Cheney's Chickenhawks are looking for a few good men, women, or non-binaries to bring the Russkies to heel.
Who do you think frightens Putin the most? The Fighting Fags (motto, Never Leave Your Buddy's Behind), or the Dykes of Death? The Rainbow Flag and the NATO banner deployed side-by-side at last, with the battlecry "Pale Man Bad!"
It's an oddly stirring image.
I would not have expected the demand by Althouse conservatives for the Vindman/Max Boot/Liz Cheney course of action to be quite so pronounced.
Still, if one lives long enough, one sees everything.
Here's to Halliburton increasing their budgetary top line! That's going to make alot of democraticals and GOPe-ers quite happy!
Correction:
I think the collectivization of agriculture was a logical progression in the communication of the Soviet Union's entire economy.
I think the collectivization of agriculture was a logical progression in the communization of the Soviet Union's entire economy.
(I think this was an auto-correct.)
The most relevant question re: Ukraine asked today during a press conference:
“Considering that NATO allies have not held up their own agreement to spend 2 percent of their own GDP on their military preparedness … if Europeans are not willing to expend their own blood and treasure on their own self-defense why should Americans be expected to do so?”
There was no answer to that question provided.
Nor has one been offered up on this thread either.
Nor will one be.
Because there isn't any answer that would be palatable on any level.
All else is sound and fury signifying nothing.
we depend on putin's exports in reverse relation to our dismantling of our fracking and other extractive efforts, that was the 750 k in lobbying fees from Gazprom were about, the oil runs farther south in the caucasus from Azerbaijan and Chechnya,
This comment section is mostly a waste of time. The original post was about mud, not Russia/Ukraine.
You know, if Biden and his Bidenettes move fast enough, they might be able to create a brand new Tonkin Gulf/Black Sea "incident" which would precipitate getting a hundred thousand US troops onto the ground in Ukraine, just in time to rescue Biden and the democraticals at the polls....and if you oppose that You Are With Putin!!
By the way, there is also potential NATO membership for Georgia and those insaniacs in Albania.
Gee, how many troops will we have to commit to protect Georgia next? It's going to be a lot no doubt.
Not a problem for some apparently. To them, the US military is a bottomless pit of resources with brilliant leadership..........
Gerda Sprinchorn: "This comment section is mostly a waste of time. The original post was about mud, not Russia/Ukraine."
If some have their way, there will be lots and lots of American's dealing with that mud.
Some people say, some very smart people you'd be surprised, expansion of NATO played right into Putin's base of power. It's true, very smart people. The sins of the father's is beared by their sons contrary to what Ezekiel Elliott says.
More good news from our NATO "allies": with the russkis sitting on about 1,500 combat/tactical aircraft, our solid, not to be questioned, above reproach, willing to pay any price to defend the freedom of other european "allies" have, thus far, committed a grand total of an additional 6 (yes, 6) combat aircraft to this critical deterrence mission in Ukraine.
Does that impress Greg or jaydub? I was suprised our "allies" offered that much.
Next up, maybe a tank or 2 and a bazooka could be tossed in the mix along with an espresso machine from our Italian allies.
Now don't get me wrong. The italians are fantastic hosts and throw some amazing parties, so they've got that going for them...and us.
Which is nice.
Howard: "The sins of the father's is beared by their sons contrary to what"
Does that explain Mark Davis?
Drago said...
Greg The Class Traitor: "How sick is your soul, that you are so desperately eager to back up Lenin, Stalin, Brezhnev, and Putin?"
You're either with us and our plans for a multidecade "war"/police action/nation building effort that will hollow out the US military, waste tens of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, enrich defense contractors and the lobbyists...or you're with the Terrorists!!
Sound familiar?
Yep. And the Democrats, esp. the Biden Admin, were with the terrorists.
Now so are you.
Not clear why you think that's a good thing.
Hey Drago:
Pick one
Either you're in favor of realpolitik, or you're in favor of sucking up to Putin. Which is it?
If it's the realpolitik, then STFU with all the bullshit excuses. You think the cost to the US of adhering to its previous agreement to protect Ukraine is too high, so fuck them.
Then drop all the moralistic bullshit and whining, and stick to your position.
Trump sent Ukraine anti-tank and anti-air weapons they could use against Russian invaders. We could do the same right now, and work to raise Putin's costs if he invades.
If you're against that, justify why. If you can't, the do us all a favor and STFU
Drago said...
Greg The Class Traitor: "You're now such a Putin lover that you're going to claim that of course Russia holds honest elections?"
Channeling Bill Kristol and David Frum and Ric Wilson I see.
If you move fast, you can snag one of those discounts for The Bulwark and the Lincoln Project.
I'm not the one claiming that there was nothing wrong with the vote counting in Fulton, Drago, that's you.
So I'm not the one sucking up to North American Man Boy Lincoln Project, that's you.
It takes a pretty powerful level of "moron" to pretend that Putin holds honest elections. It's much like claiming that there was nothing wrong with the 2020 elections
Drago said...
Its strange, isn't it, that Greg and jaydub refuse to comment on just how compromised the entire EU leadership, and especially Germany, happen to be?
And they continue to act as if that isn't a consideration whatsoever in any analysis of what the US response should be.
Its strange, isn't it, that Drago keeps on pretending to be an American nationalist and Trump supporter, while fighting hard to destroy the nationalism of every country threatened by Russia, and sucking up to all the people Trump opposed, and Biden / Obama supported
If the Germans want to sell their country to Russia, that's insane, but their problem.
The Ukrainians don't want to sell their country to Putin, and avowed enemy of the US.
Drago, however, appears very eager to make sure Ukraine is enslaved again. And Georgia, and then the Baltic Republics, then what? Hungary and Poland next?
WTF is it that you actually pretend to believe in? Anything?
What, Gerda, you don't see mud-slinging as relevant?
"Waist deep in the Big Muddy,
And the big fool says, press on!"
My house in Vermont sits on the dried mud of the brackish bay connected to The Atlantic that existed here for three thousands years, drying up 8,000 years ago. The mud is pretty deep, and in the spring, you could lose your truck in it, but in August, it's brick hard and you could land the space shuttle on it, if the space shuttle were a thing anymore.
The reason I don't give a lot of weight to the "rethinking" of the Milankovitch hypothesis on ice ages and melts, BTW, is that the "experiments" are done on models that assume that CO2 is the primary driver, and so Milankovitch sits out there kind of embarrassing rebuke to them. As Scott Adams says, and he is right from time to time, models are launderers for assumptions.
It never ceases to amaze me how the same people erect the straw men time after time. Tim in Vermont, Sylwester and Narr I'm looking at you. It's either nuclear war or surrender monkeys for you. No in between and no nuance, which is why none of you have an ounce of credibility and all of you are civilians. First I'd like to address the asshole who calls himself Drago:
"Go ahead jaydub and Greg. Hit us with your best Clausewitzian brilliance!" I don't claim to be brilliant or Clausewitz. I only studied European defense strategy at the National War College and wrote a masters thesis on the same subject, primarily concentrating on the Fulda Gap. I don't claim to be an European expert, only to know more than Drago.
"Its strange, isn't it, that Greg and jaydub refuse to comment on just how compromised the entire EU leadership, and especially Germany, happen to be?" Perhaps that's because it's not the subject under discussion. We're talking about Ukraine dip. Try to pay attention. The European leadership is trash, but that's because the US after Trump presents itself as a candy ass, a subject which I suspect you know something about. If the US wanted to make an impression on Germany, then what the US should do is withdraw all the US troops from German soil, relocate them to Poland, close the German bases, send the dependents home and watch the German economy collapse. That's one of the options between nuclear war and surrender that your limited perspective would never consider. The problem with Germany is that Biden isn't Trump and Trump is gone. Live with it.
"According to jaydub and Greg is most certainly is.....even though it most certainly is not. But what do I know? I'm just a Putin asset, or so claims the increasing Pelosi-like Greg." No you're just a bullsitter who doesn't understand the first thing about warfare because you've never been involved in combat. You have no experience so everything is theoretical to you, which is typical of armchair generals and as well as bullshitters. Personally, having had five combat commands, I am in awe of your Sherman like strategic brilliance. I only wish I could have you under my command and put you on the point and give you the opportunity to demonstrate your courage under fire instead of behind a keyboard. I submit that your men would frag you in the first week. And if they didn't, I probably would.
But, what I really resent is the non-combatants posting here opining as to how the ones who have actually served their country in combat are "chicken hawks." Personally, I served four combat tours in two wars, two in command, and always led from the point. I don't know any chicken hawks, however I'm becoming vaguely familiar with chicken shits. No one is more antiwar than those of us who have to actually do the dirty deeds, and that includes me. You would know that if you had ever served yourself.
Now, I'm through with all of you. Life is too short for battles of wit with unarmed opponents, but I feel obligated to leave you with one piece of advice: ESAD.
Ukraine paid Hunter Biden a shitload of money not so long ago.
They are probably expecting some consideration from "the big guy" now that he is resident of the US.
They fucked up...they trusted us.
You can tell the historical-geographical-political sophisticates easily in cases like this.
They are the ones who see Hitler in every bad guy, and 1938 on every calendar.
All Greg has offered is hysteria, without a ghost of a hint of a clue of reason.
Sign up to fight now, Greg. It's the right, the classy, thing to do.
Greg the Missing the Point Guy": "Trump sent Ukraine anti-tank and anti-air weapons they could use against Russian invaders. We could do the same right now, and work to raise Putin's costs if he invades."
Who said Biden couldn't sent weapons?
Are you even listening?
I'm saying no US troops on the ground and there better be the EU punks stepping up to do the "heavy lifting" on air support.
Because we have bigger fish to fry elsewhere in the world. Not that you've given any indication that you understand that.
But what do I know? I'm just a Putin asset. Greg and Stephen Colbert say so.
Greg The Liz Cheney Of Althouse Blog: "Yep. And the Democrats, esp. the Biden Admin, were with the terrorists.
Now so are you."
Well, that explains Merrick Garlands comments about us, doesn't it?
But what do I know? According to Greg and Merrick Garland, I'm just a Putin asset terrorist now!!
Bad news everyone: I was thinking of attending a parent-teacher conference soon! I hope Greg doesn't report me to his new found friends on the Jan 6 Committee and in the DOJ!!
Wish me luck everyone!
Greg The Guy Who Needs To Pay Much Closer Attention: "I'm not the one claiming that there was nothing wrong with the vote counting in Fulton, Drago, that's you."
Yes, that's right folks. Greg has decided he would take one of the biggest complainers re: the corrupted vote "count" in Fulton and the other swing states (that would be me) and has decided that my constant and continuous noting of the corrupted vote "fortification" processes employed by Team Democratical/Zucker/Soros now means that.....wait for it....wait for it...
....wait for it....Yes! A defender of the corruption!
I have to admit, this is moving even faster than I first expected.
Time for a summary: According to Greg, I am now a destroyer of nations, a terrorist and defender of democratical vote policies!!
Note to self: Research to determine if Greg is a writer of fiction as his chose profession.
Greg The Rather Excitable Fellow: "If the Germans want to sell their country to Russia, that's insane, but their problem."
Actually, that's our problem. And NATO's problem. And the rest of Europe's problem. But don't sweat that. Biden needs your assistance in this latest war making task.
Greg continues: "The Ukrainians don't want to sell their country to Putin, and avowed enemy of the US."
I hope you are sitting down right now when I tell you this: Are you ready? Really? Maybe pour a scotch or something to prep yourself?
Okay then: If the russkis want to take the Easternmost portion of the Ukraine....there is nothing short of all out war with the US, that could possibly stop them.
Nothing.
Sanctions? Laughable. The EU nations will sell to Russia whatever the russkis want, in precisely the same way the EU nations sold to Iran what they wanted....and Iran didn't have the leverage to turn out the lights in the EU, did they?
Wait, there's more Gregisms!: "Drago, however, appears very eager to make sure Ukraine is enslaved again. And Georgia, and then the Baltic Republics, then what? Hungary and Poland next?
WTF is it that you actually pretend to believe in? Anything?"
I believe in reality, because I and a lot of other guys had to listen to strategic buffoons like you who act like they know something and then lots of really good guys get whacked because of the idiocy that you have put on display today. Much better guys than either you or me.
So, yeah, no thank you Greg....and no thank you Bill Kristol and Max Boot and Ron Klain and Liz Cheney and Nancy Pelosi......no thank you to all of you.
Greg Of The False Choices: "Either you're in favor of realpolitik, or you're in favor of sucking up to Putin. Which is it?"
Uh, yeah, those aren't the only 2 options there tiger.
Wanna try again?
I'm still waiting on the Althouse Napoleans to let us know what an appropriate commitment of US forces to Ukraine looks like, and where deployed, and for how long, and with what ROE and with what theater's of operation.
I get the feeling we are going to be waiting for a long time for something like that.
But hey, giving lots of weapons to the Ukrainians makes sense too....those things fetch a pretty penny in the weapons black market.
Oh, what's that you say? There'll be strict controls on any weapons we give the Ukrainians?
LOL
Yes, of course there will be..........of course.
We can chose a middle ground
https://mobile.twitter.com/SohrabAhmari/status/1485217072850345989
Greg The Class Traitor said...
"The Ukrainians don't want to sell their country to Putin, and (sic) avowed enemy of the US."
When and where did Putin make such an "avowed" statement? Was it after he said this?
https://www.voanews.com/a/putin-russisa-not-us-ennemy/3901672.html
"Russian President Vladimir Putin says he does not believe his country and the United States are enemies and downplayed fresh sanctions levied against his country by the American lawmakers.
During his annual nationwide call-in show Thursday, Putin said Russia and the United States had fought beside each other during two world wars and “the Russian empire was key in securing U.S. independence.”
"I know the mood of our people, we do not believe America is our enemy. ... There is hysteria in the media and it affects the mood, but many people in Russia admire the achievements of the American people, and I hope relations will normalize,” he said."
****
Now that you've been shown to be making shit up, do you still believe that Russia actually influenced America's 2016 presidentail election, and if you do, would you like to compare what it did with Obama's open and notorious attempts to prevent Netanyahu's re-election in Israel?
Even the GOPe suckup and fully owned by Paul Singer Ben Sasse gets it, though with the requisite and incorrect dig at Trump when Trump was the ONLY President since....forever...who demanded the EU nations up their commitment to meet their minimum budget targets for NATO....which Germany sure the hell didn't.
“[H]as Germany effectively left NATO?” Hewitt asked. “And I am deadly serious. If they are preventing overflights of British supplies to Ukraine, and they’re refusing to allow the Baltic states to send the mortars that Germany sold them to Ukraine, they are effectively returning to the position of Central Europe arbitrator between Russia and the West. They have left NATO, I believe.”
“It certainly feels in a de facto way, maybe not a de jure way, but in a de facto way, it feels like Germany has tried to move to a pre-NATO time in history,” Sasse responded. “And obviously, that’s a terrible time. I mean, the American people have not been brought along. It’s a failure of leadership. And we’re, you know, we’re three straight administrations into people undermining NATO. But now, we’re at a place where NATO clearly isn’t what it was and what it should be, and it feels like Germany’s act in the last days and week sure feel like an abandonment of NATO in reality.”
This is reality. NATO doesn't exist anymore in real terms and hasn't for a very long time.
Which is why if Putin really and truly wants the far eastern part of Ukraine where the russian ethnics dominate (at around 70% of the population), and he controls the flow of energy into the EU, and he knows he can get whatever he needs from the west regardless of any sanctions because there will always be a seller, even the ChiComs, then he can have it....unless the US goes to a large regional war footing.
A russia that clearly has compromising information on Biden't Earpiece and his coke snorting/underage hooker doinking son isn't going to allow that to happen.
And there you have it.
Greg: "It takes a pretty powerful level of "moron" to pretend that Putin holds honest elections. It's much like claiming that there was nothing wrong with the 2020 electionsd"
LOL
Greg has now officially hypnotized himself into believing I said anything Putin and "honest elections".
Too funny.
This one is for Greg and jaydub who are anxious to pump up the arms black market in Ukraine:
"Why Sending Ukraine Shoulder-Fired Missiles May End Badly" ....amongst other arms.
"Many applauded the U.K. government for its decisive action in providing military aid to Ukraine this week. While the U.S. appeared to vacillate over the difference between an incursion and an invasion, and Germany continues to block arms exports to Ukraine, Royal Air Force C-17s made special flights to Ukraine to deliver a consignment of much-needed light anti-tank weapons. Later in the week, Washington authorized the Baltic states to send U.S.-made, shoulder-fired anti-tank and anti-aircraft missile systems to Ukraine as well. But hastily transferring portable weapons to an area known for criminal diversion of military hardware might end badly.
Ukraine has a big problem with weapons ending up in the wrong hands, and pilferage takes place on an industrial scale. There are roughly 1.2 million legal firearms in Ukraine – and around 4 million illegal weapons, many of them fully-automatic military weapons, according to the Small Arms Survey. That is about one per ten people.
Such arms are big business.
Ukraine is believed to have one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe. While it has long been a key link in the global arms trade, its role has only intensified since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine,” according to the Organized Crime Index."
Its all going to go so swimmingly. I'll bet it goes as smoothly as....as.....hmmmmm. Nothing has gone smoothly for the last 75 years.
The EU types are laughing at the panicking Endless War With No Defined End Goal Americans:
#BREAKING The EU is not following the US in withdrawing its diplomats' families from Ukraine, top European diplomat Josep Borrell says, adding there is no need to "dramatise" the situation while talks with Russia continue https://t.co/Br2VXdEKlD
It gets even "worst-er" for the Ever War types here.
And believe me when I say this, if you've lost anyone at the Rand Corporation, a crew that has never met a war it didn't fall in love with or a weapons system it didn't want to build and deploy, then that should tell you something.
There is so much actual, real, truth in this report that, quite frankly, I'm surprised the Ultra-Respectable-Establishment Foreign Policy (FP) magazine team published it.
Or maybe because of the horrific decision-making over the last 2 decades by our Fabulous Self-Styled "elite" leaders has left FP with a sense of dread of getting the next one this horrifically wrong again.
The West’s Weapons Won’t Make Any Difference to Ukraine
U.S. military equipment wouldn’t realistically help Ukrainians—or intimidate Putin.
So many good takeaways so read the whole thing, but here's a couple interesting points:
"In short, this war will look nothing like the status quo ante of conflict in Ukraine, and that undermines the first justification for U.S. aid: deterring Russia. The Ukrainian military has been shaped to fight the conflict in the Donbass and thus poses little deterrent threat to Russia; provision of U.S. weapons can do nothing to change that."
"In short, the military balance between Russia and Ukraine is so lopsided in Moscow’s favor that any assistance Washington might provide in coming weeks would be largely irrelevant in determining the outcome of a conflict should it begin. Russia’s advantages in capacity, capability, and geography combine to pose insurmountable challenges for Ukrainian forces tasked with defending their country. The second argument for aid—changing the course of the war—thus does not hold water."
"The third argument for aid is to provide assistance to enable a Ukrainian insurgency to impose costs on a Russian occupying force. Many have in mind the historical analogy here of U.S. aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion in 1979. Indeed, some are even recommending providing the same Stinger shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles that plagued the Soviet air force at the time.
If Russia attempts a long-term occupation of areas with lots of hostile Ukrainians, these forms of support could, on the margins, complicate matters for Moscow. But U.S. support to a Ukrainian insurgency should be a matter of last resort during an extended conflict, not a centerpiece of policy before it has even started. The prospect of a marginally more costly occupation is unlikely to make a difference to Moscow if it gets to that stage; it will have already absorbed far more significant costs."
"In normal times, there are many good reasons for the United States to provide military support to Ukraine. But these are not normal times. Military assistance now will at best be marginal in affecting the outcome of the crisis. It might be morally justified to help a U.S. partner at risk of aggression. But given the scale of the potential threat to Ukraine and its forces, the most effective way Washington can help is to work on finding a diplomatic solution."
Again, this is the Rand Corporation and Foreign Policy magazine!
But then again, what do I know? According to Greg, I'm a Putin asset and a (I have to admit, I kind of like this one) DESTROYER OF NATIONS!
Not figuratively. Literally, a DESTROYER OF NATIONS!
I made it all caps for Full Effect as I know Greg would appreciate that.
You're welcome.
One doesn't have to be a Putin stooge to understand that a war with a nuclear power is a bad idea. It's such a bad idea, no one seriously thinks the West will risk it's soldiers to defend the Ukraine. Putin might face economic sanctions, but he won't face NATO troops. Risking WWIII over this isn't in the cards.
I doubt that any heads of state are considering their country's entry into a conflict between Russia and Ukraine. I think they are very much considering how to deter Russia's appetite for Ukrainian resources under the guise of "liberating" ethnic Russians from "Ukrainian tyranny". For the moment, Putin is holding back and waiting to see how his gambit might play out. Absent a little more push-back from key NATO countries, he will move his knights.
Jaydub (to Drago): "No you're just a bullsitter who doesn't understand the first thing about warfare because you've never been involved in combat. You have no experience so everything is theoretical to you, which is typical of armchair generals and as well as bullshitters."
LOL
Perhaps we should compare service records sometime over a beer.
Ooooh, the Fulda Gap!
Interesting story: I had the pleasure of working with a fellow flag staff member who had been an armor officer (out of the Point) who was stationed there in the Fulda Gap prior to a cross-service transfer where he rose to command a Navy Squadron!
Interesting guy.
But hey, what do I know? According to jaydub and Greg my 20+ year career as an officer is now officially washed away and I am a Putin asset, a terrorist and a DESTROYER OF NATIONS!
What a moronic demonstration you two put on overnight!
But hey, you teach a course at a staff college!
Lets hope you are a better "instructor" than many I encountered...but I am suspecting "not".
And by the way, I was one of many at Althouse long cheering the push Trump made to shut down German bases and relocate to Poland.
So, maybe in the future Mr Impressive Instructor at a staff school, you might work on improving your attention to detail.......a key requirement for good planners...
Jaydub: "No you're just a bullsitter who doesn't understand the first thing about warfare because you've never been involved in combat. You have no experience so everything is theoretical to you, which is typical of armchair generals and as well as bullshitters. Personally, having had five combat commands, I am in awe of your Sherman like strategic brilliance. I only wish I could have you under my command and put you on the point and give you the opportunity to demonstrate your courage under fire instead of behind a keyboard. I submit that your men would frag you in the first week. And if they didn't, I probably would.
But, what I really resent is the non-combatants posting here opining as to how the ones who have actually served their country in combat are "chicken hawks." Personally, I served four combat tours in two wars, two in command, and always led from the point. I don't know any chicken hawks, however I'm becoming vaguely familiar with chicken shits. No one is more antiwar than those of us who have to actually do the dirty deeds, and that includes me. You would know that if you had ever served yourself.
Now, I'm through with all of you. Life is too short for battles of wit with unarmed opponents, but I feel obligated to leave you with one piece of advice: ESAD."
I'm considering having the above emblazoned in large print on a poster to display on my "I Love Me" wall and near my shadow box.......
...what do you think?
jaydub at 8:33 PM
... Sylwester ... I'm looking at you. It's either nuclear war or surrender monkeys for you.
That remark does not address anything I ever wrote.
The Soviet Empire or the Russian Empire? By this point, Lenin and Stalin may be seen as chapters in a longer history.
I have no love for Putin, Russia, or the USSR, but what Soviet sympathizers were long saying about Russia and Western imperialism does strike a chord now. We have to oppose Putin, but we haven't been innocents or heroes over the last 30 years of US-Russian relations.
Drago said...
It gets even "worst-er" for the Ever War types here.
And believe me when I say this, if you've lost anyone at the Rand Corporation, a crew that has never met a war it didn't fall in love with or a weapons system it didn't want to build and deploy, then that should tell you something.
There is so much actual, real, truth in this report that, quite frankly, I'm surprised the Ultra-Respectable-Establishment Foreign Policy (FP) magazine team published it.
Gee, Drago, and the fact that the Deep State published an article in an Establishment Journal saying "don't do this, it won't work", THAT to you is the stamp of approval?
Do you have any core beliefs at all?
News flash: if two guys from RAND are publishing something in FP magazine, it's because that's what the Establishment that you claim to be against wants us all to believe.
Obama / Biden didn't send weapons to Ukraine. Trump did.
FP is telling you "Trump bad, Obama good", and you're touting it as received truth?
Drago:
Are you agreeing with Mike S that the referendums "supporting" Putin annexing parts of Ukraine were legit?
Yes?
Then you're engaging in "Fulton County vote was honest" levels of stupidity.
If you don't like the charge, then don't earn it
What is YOUR exact plan for Ukraine?
Sit by with our thumbs up our asses while a Country whose independence we guaranteed gets destroyed?
Do whatever RAND and FP tell us to do?
Something else?
jaydub at 8:33PM: "... Sylwester ... I'm looking at you. It's either nuclear war or surrender monkeys for you."
Mike Sylwester: "That remark does not address anything I ever wrote."
Oh, it gets worse!
Greg was actually accusing me of being a democratical defender on elections! And jaydub the Magnificent Staff College instructor called me a coward and accused me of never having served.
But when you get past all the sturm and drang those two muddied the waters with last night, neither Greg nor jaydub engaged on a single item of substance in the entire thread.
Drago, Narr, etc:
When you reward aggressors, you get more aggression. Maybe you're such historical ignoramuses that you think this was never demonstrated before the 1930s, but that's pretty much the reality of all human history.
Those who expand by force keep on expanding until they're stopped. Why wouldn't they? After all, it worked.
If you think Putin is not a direct, committed enemy of the US, you have your head so far up your ass you might as well be Hunter Biden.
If you think rewarding our enemies and letting them build their power bases is a good idea, you're too f'in stupid to breathe without help.
Is the Biden* Admin a bunch of feckless anti-America scum? Yes
Are "leaders" of Western Europe a bunch of pathetic losers? Yes
Does that mean we should therefore sit back and celebrate Putin, and work to clear his path?
Only if you're a complete f'in moron
Starting principles:
Putin has no legitimate interests of any sort
Russia has no legitimate security interests WRT anything but China (they used to have one WRT Islamic terrorists, but Putin's spent enough effort supporting them when they go against others, that Russia no longer deserves any sympathy when they go against Russia)
Any attempt by Putin to expand his power outside of Russia should be automatically opposed, because any victories he gets make him more of a threat to the US
An excuse given for why "this time" Putins actions are reasonable / acceptable / whatever BS term you want to come up with that has any sort of positive connotation is a BS line by someone with his or her head up the backside
I officially withdraw my imputation of 'chickenhawkism' to jaydub. He's just wrong on the resemblance between Putin and Hitler/Stalin and 2022 and 1938/1939.
It remains true that there is simply no political will in the richer parts of Europe to confront Putin over a few provinces in the Ukraine, and no logistical basis for meaningful deployment of 'NATO' troops.
I leave it to those with better contacts in the services to judge the real combat-readiness of US forces, but given the political climate it can't be very high for use against a serious military on their ground.
And just to be clear, I have no referendum or plebiscitary suggestions to make, and don't see any great diplomatic masterstrokes to solve a problem that was designed to be hard.
Some questions are settled by blood and iron, and this may be one of them.
Other people's blood and iron, if we are smart, not ours.
Greg remains a chickenhawk.
"It's either nuclear war or surrender monkeys for you."
Did I ever say you were not welcome to head on over their and join up?
Greg: "If you think Putin is not a direct, committed enemy of the US, you have your head so far up your ass you might as well be Hunter Biden.
If you think rewarding our enemies and letting them build their power bases is a good idea, you're too f'in stupid to breathe without help."
I was wondering when Greg was going to expand his hallucinations to new and improved weird things never said or implied to replace his previous hallucinations.
I guess we have our answers.
Everything I had to say is laid out in complete and comprehensive detail above, which is why you've moved on to new BS and won't address the points already made.
I can't wait to see what you have up your sleeve for round 3 of Greg Hallucinates New Straw Men.
Good luck idiot!
Greg: "Drago,
Are you agreeing with Mike S that the referendums "supporting" Putin annexing parts of Ukraine were legit?
Yes?
Then you're engaging in "Fulton County vote was honest" levels of stupidity.
If you don't like the charge, then don't earn it"
I never did any such thing.
You see, that's the kind of lying someone pulls when they've completely lost the discussion on the merits.
And my favorite part: asking a question and then immediately answering it in a way that is completely contradicted by everything I've ever written.
More evidence of your mendaciously feeble attempt to....whatever it is.
First I have jaydub telling me my 20+ military career never happened, and now your nonsense.
Sadly pathetic.
I wouldn't have expected that from either of you, but there you go.
Greg For Whom the Point Flies Effortlessly Over His Head: "Gee, Drago, and the fact that the Deep State published an article in an Establishment Journal saying "don't do this, it won't work", THAT to you is the stamp of approval?"
I'll type this slowly...so you can follow.
I didn't make any appeals to think tanker analysis or "respectable institutional assessment" until your Co-Idiot (on this subject) jaydub, decided he would post an entire non-response "response" that dealt with credentials and appeals to authority while assuming I never served.
So I am simply showing you both, not that it will work, but what the heck, lets press on, that others with equal credentials and potential appeals to authority as jaydub came to different conclusions...conclusions that match my own personal experience in military planning (which jaydub claimed without evidence I never had) as well as match some of my on-going conversations with people who are still....shall we say..."in the biz".
Did. I. Type. That. Slowly. Enough. For. You?
Not to worry, I'm sure another hallucination is on the way. You'd think out of common courtesy when you assign to me your hallucinations that you'd at least include Morgan Fairchild somewhere in there.
Greg the King of Strawmen: "Does that mean we should therefore sit back and celebrate Putin, and work to clear his path?"
You know Greg, why don't you sign up your Army of Strawmen and send them over to Ukraine to protect against Putin.
You apparently have a limitless supply of them.
jaydub at 8:33PM: "... Sylwester ... I'm looking at you. It's either nuclear war or surrender monkeys for you."
Mike Sylwester: "That remark does not address anything I ever wrote."
Yes, with you it's "I love Putin! Everything he does is wonderful. Of course we shouldn't interfere!"
Not seeing that as a better position, but you do you
Sure, Greg, powerful countries with ambitious leaders often go as far as they can. That's not the issue.
The issue is, does a more powerful Putin in his near-abroad threaten the vital interests of the US in the world? You are free to demonstrate that he does, whenever you've got the childish insults out of the way.
I freely admit that I'm an autodidact in military affairs, so you are free to dismiss my opinions. But there are a lot of things about foreign and military affairs that are open to study, and being educated--let alone being a good citizen--should include some knowledge of that sort.
One thing Clausewitz offers is this: what is the object of the war? (I'm assuming that Biden's Redline will be as Platonic as Obama's, which means either a US climb-down again or shooting.)
Greg: "Yes, with you it's "I love Putin! Everything he does is wonderful. Of course we shouldn't interfere!""
Incredible.
Who are you and what have you done with the real Greg?
Narr said...
Sure, Greg, powerful countries with ambitious leaders often go as far as they can. That's not the issue.
The issue is, does a more powerful Putin in his near-abroad threaten the vital interests of the US in the world?
Here, let's turn that question around:
Which vital US interests are not threatened by Putin gaining more power?
Care to offer a list?
Drago said...
Everything I had to say is laid out in complete and comprehensive detail above
Everything you've said is incoherent and all over the map.
When I tried to pin down teh details, you went into BS whining rather than responding with yours.
I distilled my points from multiple posts into two. You responded by beating up straw men. You feel free to have fun with that.
I'll respond if you write a comment that lists exactly what you think should be done WRT Putin attempting to rebuild the USSR. Posts from you like this make it look like you're going to cheerlead for the whole thing:
Because almost 70% of the population in Crimea are ethnic Russians who themselves were getting pushed around by the ethnic Ukrainians. Only 15% or so of that population ethnic Ukrainians.
So there's that in case you were wondering. Not to mention that Crimea, and most of the rest of Ukraine, was a part of Russia for 200 years prior to the Soviet years.
But, you insist that's not the case.
So, lay it out: What do you want the US to do in response to Putin trying to rebuild the USSR?
What would Putin have to do for you to be in favor of a US military response?
"What would Putin have to do for you to be in favor of a US military response?"
Drago can answer for himself. For me, Putin would have to invade an important ally of ours, say a country demonstrably more democratic and less corrupt than Russia, and not a venal craphole like Ukraine.
So again, what are YOU going to do, or what have you done in a uniformed role?
How do those experiences, if any, inform your opinions of the situation and possible solutions?
Narr said...
So again, what are YOU going to do, or what have you done in a uniformed role?
I don't share personal information on the internet
"What would Putin have to do for you to be in favor of a US military response?"
Drago can answer for himself. For me, Putin would have to invade an important ally of ours, say a country demonstrably more democratic and less corrupt than Russia, and not a venal craphole like Ukraine.
So, Baltic States? Or can Putin have them all back?
Finland?
Poland?
Ukraine is a corrupt country with a lot of natural resources. You're not worried about giving those resources to an avowed enemy of the US?
I asked: Which vital US interests are not threatened by Putin gaining more power?
Care to offer a list?
No answer?
Putin's trying to rebuild the USSR. Which most certainly was a threat to the US, no? How many resources does he have to get, how much more powerful does he have to get, before you're ready to stop the recreation of the USSR?
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