Posted on 03/06/2022 4:20:35 AM PST by MtnClimber
I’ll skip the chocolate/chocolate-chip.
Not just the “bread basket”.
Ukraine has immense natural wealth—including Titanium.
“Apparently done with no protest by the Duma”
Um, you didn’t protest at the Duma. You go along or get killed.
In short, as a matter of choice, Russia and her people are hostile toward us at best and enemies by most ways of reckoning such things. Ukraine is friendly and wants to become a friend in full through NATO and EU membership.
No matter how long Russia and Ukraine have been at odds, Russia is an adversary while Ukraine is friendly. And one of the tacit rules of life carries over to strategy: you must oppose your enemies and support your friends. That puts us on the side of Ukraine as a matter of self-interest.
The war is not going well for Russia, which planned on a quick dash to Kiev and the installation of a Russian puppet government that would sign a pro-Russian peace treaty. Ukraine would thereby be incorporated into the Russian sphere of influence, with Russia's oligarchs permitted to loot Ukraine's resources, with kickbacks to Putin.
Instead, Ukraine has bravely fought the Russian invasion and established the basis for popular resistance and a guerilla war. With inadequate troop numbers and weak performance, Russia cannot fully defeat and occupy Ukraine but can bloody her for years to come. Military and economic support from the US, NATO, and the EU will help to impose costs on Russia that cannot be sustained.
With skill and commitment, the US and her allies can force Russia to accept a political solution that secures peace and independence for Ukraine and diminishes the Russian threat to us. And there is a good chance that Putin will end up being killed or ousted by the Russians themselves, potentially in favor of a peaceful, new pro-US government based on democratic principles. That would be a net gain for the US.
Michael Feldman, who hosted Whadyya Know? had one of the best lines ever (and absolutely true..) “It sits in your stomach like a third Bratwurst…”
The best thing to do is strengthen NATO. Allow Sweden, Finland, Moldova, Andy Kazakstan into the alliance.
Why we're here in a nutshell.
It’s obvious Putin wants to reconstruct the USSR.
A bunch of people who only like us when out libnutz are fawning before the EU or giving them a billion dollars worth of something.
That is a fairly rosey description of the current state of affairs. But its probably the best we can hope for. We can certainly make matters worse without trying real hard.
Just missing the magic unicorn.
Worse yet, they provocatively and falsely accused Russia of interfering with the 2016 election.
“-- with the exception of Trump’s --”, which is why he had to go and why they have gone to such extreme measures to insure he can’t return to power again.
President Trump was perhaps our and the world’s last painless chance to interrupt their plans for the world, but next came their covid plandemic and all that followed.
So … now here we are, step by stepping our way to their “great reset” that will restructure our world in their image, apparently.
“Nothing can stop what’s coming”?
From the somewhat ignorant, sub-linked Conrad Black piece, some clarity:
“There are essentially three possible outcomes to this war: the total subjugation of Ukraine, as Putin evidently desires; some sort of compromise, probably based on the Russian-speaking eastern provinces, which Russia has already declared to be autonomous, joining Russia and leaving Ukraine, which would then be entirely autonomous, but forced to commit to not joining the western alliance, though it could have a security guarantee from it; or an indefinite and horribly costly war — an urbanized and more intensely conducted version of the Russian experience in Afghanistan and the American experience in Vietnam, though with nothing like the domestic support that America received from the South Vietnamese army and population.
The first alternative, complete subjugation of Ukraine, would be impossible for Russia to sustain, even if it were tentatively able to achieve it, and it would degenerate into the third alternative of an indefinite, horrible and costly semi-guerrilla war.
A negotiated end to this war, though perhaps not imminent, does seem the most likely outcome. This would avoid the disaster of another horrible defeat for the West, following the excessive shutdown in response to Covid, the fiasco in Afghanistan, the astounding spectacle of national self-hate, rising urban crime and violence, and mass illegal immigration into the United States, and America’s abandonment of energy self-sufficiency for spurious ecological reasons in order to treat Mr. Putin with $100-per-barrel oil with which he pays for his evil occupation of Ukraine.
It is now clear that the United States has botched and wasted its period as the world’s only superpower and it is having an aberrant moment of political feebleness and absurdity.”
Golly, isn’t that how the old USSR ended? Maybe the ex-KGB autocrat’s effort to revive the USSR will end the same way.
As always, things can get worse or be made worse.
It seems to me, after reading the whole article Feldman referred to and recommends (What is Russia to Us?
Angelo Codevilla), that Feldman completely misreads Codevilla’ excellent article.
Putin’s actions in Ukraine during the past few months seem to negate everything that Codevilla was counting on as Russia’s rational response. The article is not very supportive of Feldman’s position, as a result.
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