I mean, I don't personally know if the juice is worth the squeeze, but at least he's not parroting the usual talking points. He's actually thought it through.
1. Historically countries that have surrendered without a fight, have been treated far more poorly than those that fought to an armistice. There are exceptions to this rule (WWI Germany, those that fought against Genghis Khan, and a couple of others,) but it’s still a good rule of thumb.
2. From NATO’s perspective, it sends two messages: 1) We will support any invaded nation in Europe against aggression. 2) Hey Russia, this was the C team, and they were a real pain in the ass for you, fighting with our gear that we were willing to give to someone not in our alliance, who used it with minimal training… just enough to not kill themselves with it. Imagine what facing OUR troops, with years of training, and the gear we were NOT willing to share is going to look like. Do you really want to go? Do you?
3. Every Russian soldier Ukraine kills, even if Ukraine loses, is one less that NATO will have to face. Every dead Russian troop, or wounded to the point that he can’t fight, takes with him to the grave, or to the begging bowl on some corner, the knowledge, training, and experience (if any) that he had.
The guy's a pragmatist, I'll give you that.
How can this not benefit an organization created to defend the west against Russian aggression? Why would we NOT help Ukraine, with this consideration? My personal biggest fear is having to fight a two-front war against Russian and PRC aggression simultaneously. The longer Ukraine bleeds Russia into “White Russia” if you will pardon the historic reference, the happier I am.
I can see his point. The problem that I have is that we're printing money we don't have in order to throw over a hundred billion dollars into a corrupt oligarchy with no oversight, and we're some how expected to believe that it's going to help defeat Russia.
I can't buy that, not when a bunch of Krains have already decamped to other countries where they hope to not get extradited. Other than our equipment, which may or may not survive the first contact with the enemy, I'm willing to bet that the money we're sending is getting funneled into certain people's pockets and the troops on the ground aren't seeing much of it at all.
Why whould I think that? Well, because that's what Ukraine did BEFORE the conflict, and I don't see any indication they're changed their ways.
I guess this is my "A pox on both their houses" kinda moment.
4 comments:
Most of the concerns don't overlap. The Ukraine is a land war. If we get to play against China, it will mostly be a naval and air fotce game. Tanks and artillery don't work well in the south China Sea. What we might send to the Ukraine would not be all that useful in Asia. It would be a tricky balance.
I get your point, but have to wonder if the return is worth the investment. Especially when FJB has said that we will stick with Ukraine however long it takes.
It makes for a strange world, when Vladimir Putin is the one holding back possible nuclear war, due to the warmongers in both the U.S., and in the Russian Federation. If Putin were to die, I have no doubt that Russia's Generals would not hesitate to first threaten, and then actually unleash at least limited nuclear weapons, such as small enough to maintain control of an area, yet large enough to wipe out any more resistance from a small city.
If the Russians eventually do take over the Ukraine, no doubt they will not want it to be so radioactive that they cannot use the territory for 500 years.
I tend to be optimistic as a rule, but that has changed since our demented leader took over. I just think that the man who supposedly has control of the stockpile of nuclear weapons in America should not have need of a nap and an ice cream cone to keep him in line.
Okay, Ukraine is not a Jeffersonian Democracy of yeomen farmers but are they really more crooked than the US government? For heavens sake, when we were facing Hitler, who, evil bastard that he was, had no weapons that could reach the US, we pumped billions of dollars (1940s dollars!) to Joe Stalin!
Do you know how much money has been dumped into Ukraine with zero accountability? How many hundreds of billions of dollars do we need to flush into a corrupt oligarchy before we the people can say "Hey, maybe slow down with throwing our money into that pit"?
And for the record, I don't think we should have been friends with Stalin, but FDR was a "progressive", so he saw what Stalin could get a way with and thought "Hell, I want me some of that here!"
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