if UA doesn’t win this and get back all its territory, the West will look like a fucking joke. good-bye post war world order, hello “multi-polar world.” the Russians will never shut up about it
Another European land war that will end at the table where no one is happy.
Make no mistakes, a Ukrainian defeat means the collapse of the credibility of US security, NATO imploding, Europe getting overwhelming by 15-20 million Ukrainian refugees and Israel probably a noble ding they actually have a nuclear arsenal.
We(the west) should have kicked Russia’s ass the moment they invaded Georgia, we failed, we failed again with the Crimea invasion, and we are failing now.
And yet I still see people saying Harris will solve this – she won’t. She’ll continue Biden’s failed policies.
And Trump will probably hand Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter.
We will reap what we have sowed.
Third year into the war with Biden administration and clowns are still blaming trump. Delusional.
He make some claims based on arguments and some claims that are just ..claims..
>The most visible sign of a failure of collective determination to defeat Russia was the decision not to seize Russian financial assets frozen in Western banks, but instead to use them as collateral to raise a much smaller loan.
Money is the thing Europe has been best at providing so I don’t agree this is “The most visible sign of a failure of collective determination to defeat Russia”. I would argue that both artillery ammo and long range missiles deserver the top spot more.
>In any such deal, Zelensky would be unlikely to secure the recovery of Crimea and the Donbas, reparations for the massive damage to his country, war crimes trials or membership of NATO. He might be able to bargain the Kursk salient in return for control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. But, without NATO membership and its Article 5 guarantee, there would be nothing to stop Putin from continuing the war after a couple of years of recovery and rearmament.
He contradicts himself here, the last part is true and any deal without Ukraine then being protected by NATO Article 5 is identical to a blank sheet of paper. So why then speculate what the “deal” could say and then claim there would be any Art 5.
>What would a betrayed Ukraine look like? At least it would retain some 82% of its territory. A guilty West would doubtless provide aid to rebuild infrastructure. It might be given a pathway to eventual EU membership (unless that option had been bargained away at the negotiating table), but joining the Western club may have lost its appeal at that point.
Joining NATO is “unlikely” so “there would be nothing to stop Putin from continuing the war” but some how he come to the conclusion that “At least it would retain some 82% of its territory.” This makes absolutely no sense..
Not a lot of effort was spent on this article
If only we could’ve saw this coming. There’s absolute *cough Syria* cough *Libya* cough *Iraq* cough *Afghanistan* cough no precedent whatsoever for the west abandoning allies and or strange bed fellows the moment one or all of their geopolitical goals are met.
Reading the article, the tone (to me) has the feel of someone trying to talk their way through several points that they’ve connected loosely with little and/or poor substantiation of why they formed their opinion the way they did.
That’s not to say he’s wrong, necessarily, but rather that this is the sort of approach used by car salesmen and people selling fake jewelry on street corners. They give a long spiel with a lot of words, but if you stop and work through how they connected or reached their conclusions there is not [shall we say] much thinking or analysis going on.
In this guy’s case it seems [to me] that he is simply regurgitating a bunch of headlines he’s encountered and is flashing them around as if they are certain facts rather than each individual point being a deep or nuanced discussion on its own, never mind when taken as a collection of inter-related topics that are each complex even before being combined with other complex topics.
Could this guy be right? Potentially, but as an opinion piece it’s not adding any new information or making a new connection between two points previously regarded as separate by most people. I would not waste much time doing anything more than a brief read of this, and put my time into other authors who can contribute meaningful argument to the larger/ongoing conversation.
edit: the author’s bio suggests he’s had a career in international relations, in both government and business – he may be knowledgeable, but that doesn’t mean he submitted a particularly good/useful piece. Experience in no way protects you from submitting a “puff piece” to an opinion page and my response (that this is a poorly prepared article) is not substantially altered. He may be right (or may be wrong), but this is still a poorly argued piece of writing.
I say Ukraine “declares” war on Poland, or any NATO member really, launches a missile into a large conspicuously empty building so an Article 5 is triggered and NATO just floods into Ukraine’s with troops. Ukraine’s troops “retreat” towards the east at Russia while NATO troops “occupy” the western half or more.
Like what is Russia going to do? Say, “Hey, this is our war stop!” I doubt they’ll do shit they already haven’t done or continued to do up until this point.
Once Russia is pushed out Ukraine quickly surrenders and is immediately “annexed” into NATO. Win win I say.
The betrayal of Ukraine occurred in 2008 when the US wanted to extend a NATO invite but it was blocked by Germany and France. France and Germany wanted to manage the Russian danger by keeping them close – meaning tighter economic and political integration. Make it hard for Russia to make dumb decisions because of the cost it would create.
The US wanted to manage the Russian danger by bringing Ukraine under the NATO umbrella but that was too escalatory for Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Why betray? Ukraine was helped by the west, the west had no responsibility or any obligation in helping them but they still did. If NATO wanted to secure Europe they could just armed Poland instead and reinforced the borders, Ukraine wasn’t betrayed they endured as much as they have because of the west…
If Ukraine is betrayed, then SBU should be unleashed on the people responsible.
11 comments
if UA doesn’t win this and get back all its territory, the West will look like a fucking joke. good-bye post war world order, hello “multi-polar world.” the Russians will never shut up about it
Another European land war that will end at the table where no one is happy.
Make no mistakes, a Ukrainian defeat means the collapse of the credibility of US security, NATO imploding, Europe getting overwhelming by 15-20 million Ukrainian refugees and Israel probably a noble ding they actually have a nuclear arsenal.
We(the west) should have kicked Russia’s ass the moment they invaded Georgia, we failed, we failed again with the Crimea invasion, and we are failing now.
And yet I still see people saying Harris will solve this – she won’t. She’ll continue Biden’s failed policies.
And Trump will probably hand Ukraine to Putin on a silver platter.
We will reap what we have sowed.
Third year into the war with Biden administration and clowns are still blaming trump. Delusional.
He make some claims based on arguments and some claims that are just ..claims..
>The most visible sign of a failure of collective determination to defeat Russia was the decision not to seize Russian financial assets frozen in Western banks, but instead to use them as collateral to raise a much smaller loan.
Money is the thing Europe has been best at providing so I don’t agree this is “The most visible sign of a failure of collective determination to defeat Russia”. I would argue that both artillery ammo and long range missiles deserver the top spot more.
>In any such deal, Zelensky would be unlikely to secure the recovery of Crimea and the Donbas, reparations for the massive damage to his country, war crimes trials or membership of NATO. He might be able to bargain the Kursk salient in return for control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. But, without NATO membership and its Article 5 guarantee, there would be nothing to stop Putin from continuing the war after a couple of years of recovery and rearmament.
He contradicts himself here, the last part is true and any deal without Ukraine then being protected by NATO Article 5 is identical to a blank sheet of paper. So why then speculate what the “deal” could say and then claim there would be any Art 5.
>What would a betrayed Ukraine look like? At least it would retain some 82% of its territory. A guilty West would doubtless provide aid to rebuild infrastructure. It might be given a pathway to eventual EU membership (unless that option had been bargained away at the negotiating table), but joining the Western club may have lost its appeal at that point.
Joining NATO is “unlikely” so “there would be nothing to stop Putin from continuing the war” but some how he come to the conclusion that “At least it would retain some 82% of its territory.” This makes absolutely no sense..
Not a lot of effort was spent on this article
If only we could’ve saw this coming. There’s absolute *cough Syria* cough *Libya* cough *Iraq* cough *Afghanistan* cough no precedent whatsoever for the west abandoning allies and or strange bed fellows the moment one or all of their geopolitical goals are met.
Reading the article, the tone (to me) has the feel of someone trying to talk their way through several points that they’ve connected loosely with little and/or poor substantiation of why they formed their opinion the way they did.
That’s not to say he’s wrong, necessarily, but rather that this is the sort of approach used by car salesmen and people selling fake jewelry on street corners. They give a long spiel with a lot of words, but if you stop and work through how they connected or reached their conclusions there is not [shall we say] much thinking or analysis going on.
In this guy’s case it seems [to me] that he is simply regurgitating a bunch of headlines he’s encountered and is flashing them around as if they are certain facts rather than each individual point being a deep or nuanced discussion on its own, never mind when taken as a collection of inter-related topics that are each complex even before being combined with other complex topics.
Could this guy be right? Potentially, but as an opinion piece it’s not adding any new information or making a new connection between two points previously regarded as separate by most people. I would not waste much time doing anything more than a brief read of this, and put my time into other authors who can contribute meaningful argument to the larger/ongoing conversation.
edit: the author’s bio suggests he’s had a career in international relations, in both government and business – he may be knowledgeable, but that doesn’t mean he submitted a particularly good/useful piece. Experience in no way protects you from submitting a “puff piece” to an opinion page and my response (that this is a poorly prepared article) is not substantially altered. He may be right (or may be wrong), but this is still a poorly argued piece of writing.
I say Ukraine “declares” war on Poland, or any NATO member really, launches a missile into a large conspicuously empty building so an Article 5 is triggered and NATO just floods into Ukraine’s with troops. Ukraine’s troops “retreat” towards the east at Russia while NATO troops “occupy” the western half or more.
Like what is Russia going to do? Say, “Hey, this is our war stop!” I doubt they’ll do shit they already haven’t done or continued to do up until this point.
Once Russia is pushed out Ukraine quickly surrenders and is immediately “annexed” into NATO. Win win I say.
The betrayal of Ukraine occurred in 2008 when the US wanted to extend a NATO invite but it was blocked by Germany and France. France and Germany wanted to manage the Russian danger by keeping them close – meaning tighter economic and political integration. Make it hard for Russia to make dumb decisions because of the cost it would create.
The US wanted to manage the Russian danger by bringing Ukraine under the NATO umbrella but that was too escalatory for Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Why betray? Ukraine was helped by the west, the west had no responsibility or any obligation in helping them but they still did. If NATO wanted to secure Europe they could just armed Poland instead and reinforced the borders, Ukraine wasn’t betrayed they endured as much as they have because of the west…
If Ukraine is betrayed, then SBU should be unleashed on the people responsible.