Posted on 03/20/2022 6:10:45 AM PDT by Travis McGee
To understand current events, you need to understand history, and to understand history, you need to study the maps. I've been doing this for a while, and now I have enough of them to make a Ukraine map study thread. Naturally, your opinion may differ, but maps are history frozen in time. In an important way, maps are the historical record.
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Russia purchased Crimea from the Ottoman Empire in the same manner that the USA purchased Alaska from Russia. (In gold, FWIW.)
If Russian Crimea has to be handed over to Ukraine, again, then for sure we have to give Hawaii back to the Hawaiians. Our annexation of Hawaii was done by brute military force, under the policy of "Manifest Destiny." We just outright stole Hawaii, because we wanted it due to its strategic location.
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By all means, the independent nation of Ukraine MUST be kept together, within its modern borders, which go all the way back in time to 1991!
Better to escalate to Nuclear World War Three, than to alter these ancient unchangeable historic borders.
/sarcasm
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How would America react if, during a national economic depression, in the future a stronger China formed an alliance with Canada, Mexico, Cuba and Latin America, and moved troops, tanks and missiles, country by country, closer to the borders of the USA? This is how Russia views NATO in the post-Soviet era.
You can scoff, and protest that NATO is purely a defensive alliance....but tell that to the Serbians, the Libyans, and the Afghans. And don't forget Kosovo, carved out of Serbia by NATO.
The Russians are now faced with American "defensive" ABMs in Poland and Romania. What is the difference between an ABM and a MRBM? Its launch angle, and its warhead.
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I realize they don't teach much history in American schools, but the "Great Patriotic War" map shown below is extremely real to Russians, and very much on their minds. The USSR came within a whisker of total defeat by Germany in 1942. If the Nazis had not been stopped at Stalingrad, Germany would have cut off the Soviet Union's oil supplies, and total defeat and racial extermination would have rapidly followed.
Ukraine joining NATO, with Article 5 guarantees, would mean that American, German and British troops, tanks and missiles would be staged directly against the heart of Russia. The NATO tanks would be just days from cutting off Russia's oil. Missiles would be bare minutes from Moscow. At least the German Nazis had to fight hard to get across Poland and Ukraine to get to Stalingrad.
Ukraine in NATO means that the next time, European military forces will already be located in an advanced attack position. Yes, NATO. Russians are very aware of history. Last time, the Germans were joined in their attack by French, "Viking," and Ukrainian SS divisions, as well as the Spanish Condor Legion, Romanians, Italians and other national military formations. So yes, in NATO, Russians see the potential for a reprise of 1942, but this time with NATO getting a head start by being pre-positioned in Ukraine.
You can laugh, you can scoff, but trust me, this is no laughing matter to the Russians.
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As shown in the last map, much of Ukraine's strategic importance is still related to energy transportation.
Why do you think Hunter Biden was paid millions of dollars to be on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas conglomerate? Why did the sons of John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Mitt Romney and other American elites all have their snouts in the trough in Ukraine?
It's about controlling the distribution of energy from Russia to Europe, and mega billions of dollars are involved for the players in charge.
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So who believes that possible escalation to World War 3, with nukes involved, is a better solution than a national divorce in Ukraine?
Yugoslavia was created on the map from whole cloth by politicians in 1918 at the Versailles Conference, and it broke apart into separate nations during a bloody civil war in the 1990s, but at least nuclear weapons were not involved.
Czechoslovakia was also created by politicians in 1918, and after the fall of the Soviet Union it amicably divorced to become the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Ukraine, invented by V.I. Lenin as the Ukraine SSR within the Soviet Union around the same time as Versailles, is also an artificially invented political construct. The entire history of the current version of Ukraine as an independent nation goes back only to 1991, and the collapse of the USSR.
So which is a better solution? A national divorce, or risking World War 3, with nukes?
Pole Killer!
When you ally with a devil you don’t walk away with clean hands.
Besides be thankful you never had to make such a choice!
If you read any of the books on the concentration camps, Ukrainian and Lithuanian guards were among the worst. In a similar way its written that among the worst behaved Japanese POW camp guards were Koreans ! (Note there were two Lithuanian SS division!)
Good work
Here’s some other background
Geopolitically Russia
https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE
The origins of Russia - Summary on a Map
https://youtu.be/qUgzqkCW6A4
The Russian Empire - Summary on a map
https://youtu.be/kjDjnhOzqIU
And out our promise not to expand nato
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
The problem I have is people for all sides right, center, and left.. since the fall of the USSR were telling you this was going to lead to war
Oh and on Crimea here is NPR in 2014
History doesn't set new borders, it can only help us to understand the motivations of the people who live in the area around them. Borders are almost always set and maintained by direct military action like we are seeing today.
Was this post made just to avoid the type of heated discussion with you co-host last week?
Lol.
Look forward to listening - as always.
The entire world, the entire EU, the entire US knows Ukraine is a country.
You 3% LiberalTarians are the exceptions.
outmanned and outgunned Ukraine is putting up one hell of a fight
“according to the same Mockingbird Media who told us...”
It’s objectively true, just ask Putin or the surrender monkey Russian conscripts. Serious military analysis already under way.
I hope the Russkies don’t break any ankles running back home to the Motherland...
Yawn.
They’re running away from the Russian Motherland.
You need to double check that with the Langley disinformation office—I hear they do work on Sundays.
(second post)
There is another big problem. When borders are determined by current ethnic composition, it can motivate ethnic cleansing. This happened at the end of WWII, when Ukrainian OUN-B (Banderite) troops mass murdered 60,000 polish civilians in hopes of strengthening claims over Ukrainian and Polish territories. Ukraine after 2014 attempted large scale ethnic cleansing of ethnic Russians in east ukraine, with systematic war crimes from banderite troops like Azov and Aidar battalions.
And today Ukraine forces only Ukrainian language teaching at schools and universities. Lots of minorities chafe at this. In university, where both teacher and student are often most fluent in Russian, they are still forced to only teach in Ukrainian. Many Romanian communities have taught their kids in Romanian for ages.
I suppose your FSB KGB connections have your confidence.
People have short memories and are easily led around by their nose rings. If they are told it is over then they will move on.
>>The problem I have is people for all sides right, center, and left.. since the fall of the USSR were telling you this was going to lead to war
Many of them high up old-school Cold Warrior types with extensive NSC / State Department backgrounds, people who knew geopolitics. People like George Kennan, who called it in the 1990s IIRC.
To defeat your opponent you must study your opponent to know what makes them tick
And in that knowledge you something figure out how to win by not fighting in the first place
People with an ajenda set the war in motion along time ago
This looks great. Thank you for posting.
Following.
BKMK
So the Kieven Rus were just the first time the Swedes invaded what is Russia/Ukraine. Didn’t know that.
I did know the Mongols swept across the steppes like a flood.
I did run across a good article in The Atlantic about Russia and it’s geography problem. Explaining why Russian leaders do what they do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/10/russia-geography-ukraine-syria/413248/
“Living on open plains means constant invasion, and developing a very different military rationale than, say, Great Britain (Island nation) or the USA, a continental power guarded by oceans.”
No doubt. And explains Putin’s desire for an at least neutral Ukraine. I guess the Russians have good reason for their paranoia.
Kind of like battered spouse syndrome.
There will be a divergence between more or les aggrieved and more or less hawkish Western democracies.
Even when the party in power would like to return to peace, the opposition automatically becomes the war party baying for retribution.
“Carthago delenda est”
They are essentially defeated
Surviving became Putin hasn’t gone Grozny and I hope he doesn’t
Putin is no communist
He’s a dictator pretty much but no commie
He idolizes Solzhenitsyn....I mean seriously venerated the man to hero of Russia status and then some
And liberalized relation with Jews and orthodox
Not the mark of a communist in my opinion
Great work Matt
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