Ukraine Map Study

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Interesting. I just googled and the Senate voted 91-2 to admit Macedonia as a member of NATO. The two NAY votes were Rand Paul and Mike Lee:

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1161/vote_116_1_00327.htm

I would have been a third NAY vote and argued it purely from a geographic perspective: “Let me know when you get a border with the Atlantic Ocean, and then I will consider your membership application.”

It’s pretty obvious why Putin doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO, not cause NATO has ANY chance of ever invading Russia or is somehow otherwise “a threat” (LOL) but because if they were in a military alliance that obligated the US to come to their aid, that would be the end of his efforts to take over the country.

I think people in Crimea and Donbas as well want to be with Russia and that’s fine with me but clearly he has designs on the entire country and we can probably assume he’d love to take over whatever Russian neighbor he could.

I think sovereign nations can do what they want, including join NATO. I see no reason to deny membership to any European country including landlocked ones (the name of the organization doesn’t really matter) so long as they are willing to pay their fair share in military spending. It’s entirely reasonable that countries over there want to join if that protects them from being forcibly annexed into the Russian empire.

I only wish these countries didn’t also want to join the horrid EU but that’s their choice if their citizens vote in favor.

All of the word’s waters that are not surrounded by land (such as lakes) are divided into one of four oceans (there is no such thing as a “Southern Ocean” or “Antarctic Ocean”; if you think that there is, please tell me its geographic boundaries without using arbitrary lines of latitude). Just like the Gulf of Mexico, Long Island Sound, Caribbean Sea, English Channel, etc. are part of the Atlantic Ocean, so are the Mediterranean Sea (and the smaller seas within it, including the Adriatic, the Aegean, etc.) and the Black Sea (and the Sea of Azov, etc.). And since the dividing line between the North Atlantic Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean is the Equatorial Counter Current (which runs from about Venezuela to about Liberia), the Mediterranean Sea is clearly part of the North Atlantic Ocean.

So, while North Macedonia is landlocked (as are NATO members Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Hungary), the external waters to its west, southwest, south, southeast and east are part of the North Atlantic Ocean; in fact, the countries longest river, the Vardar, empties into the Aegean Sea less than 50 miles from the North Macedonia-Greece border. There is no geographic reason to exclude North Macedonia from NATO.

I'm not sure what Rand Paul and Mike Lee's reasons for opposing Macedonia's entry into NATO was (maybe they're totally against NATO itself "on principle" or something, although NATO isn't nearly as bad as the EU and the UN).

As I noted I'd oppose their entry purely for geographic reasons (if Ireland petitioned to join NATO I'd vote "yes"), though having Rand Paul and Mike Lee as the other two solo "no" votes reinforces the idea that my position is the correct one. :-)

NATO's charter is a confusing one, the whole point of the organization is that its by nature a transatlantic coalition, but the charter only specifies rules for European countries to join. I suppose they figured it would be a non-issue since the U.S. and Canada together make up 95% of the land on the North American side of the "north Atlantic", but that puts the situation in political limbo if some tiny island nation like Antigua and Barbuda ever wanted to join, or if Greenland ever became independent and wanted to sign up for NATO on their own (and that would actually make sense since an independent Greenland really wouldn't have the manpower to defend itself in a war)

Another fun fact: apparently the UN charter and rules are silent on the mechanism for a country to LEAVE the UN (I got flamed on FR about a decade back for saying I was against having the USA leave the UN, though I'd certainly support us leaving the absolutely horrible UN "Human Rights" Council). NATO, the EU, etc., have methods for countries to leave, but the UN specifically avoided spelling out a way to do so, because they didn't want a country using "we'll leave the UN if we don't get our way on so-and-so-issue!" as political blackmail. Indonesia apparently tried to leave the UN a few decades ago, and just issued a statement saying they wouldn't show up for meetings anymore. The UN "regretfully accepted" their decision, then Indonesia ended up with a new government and "rejoined" a few months later, and the UN just acted like they had never left in the first place.

BTW, interesting little clause here... geography is indeed still instrumental to NATO’s operations, especially in Article 6, which specifies its obligations are limited to activity in the north Atlantic. For example, if NATO retroactively existed in 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor would NOT require all the other NATO countries to retaliate:

Article 6 states that the treaty covers only member states’ territories in Europe and North America, Turkey and islands in the North Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer, plus French Algeria. It was the opinion in August 1965 of the US State Department, the US Defense Department and the legal division of NATO that an attack on the U.S. state of Hawaii would not trigger the treaty, but an attack on the other 49 would. The Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the North African shore are thus not under NATO protection in spite of Moroccan claims to them. Legal experts have interpreted that other articles could cover the Spanish North African cities but this take has not been tested in practice. This is also why events such as the Balyun airstrikes did not trigger Article 5, as the Turkish troops that were attacked were in Syria, not Turkey.

If Article 6 has been interpreted to exclude attacks on Hawaii, then it needs to be amended to clarify that any attack on U.S. territory needs to be covered, since the U.S. *is a freaking member of NATO*. Even dumber is that attacks on California, which like Hawaii borders the Pacific, are covered, but not attacks on Puerto Rico, which is on the Atlantic but just south of the Tropic of Cancer. And Ceuta and Melilla are in the Mediterranean Sea and are an integral part of Spain; how could attacks on those cities not trigger Section 6?

I believe the ONLY time Article 6 has actually been activated in entire 70+ year history of NATO was in the aftermath of 9/11, when the terrorist attack on NYC was considered as an attack on the rest of NATO, and they responded accordingly during the War on Terror.

Article 6 seems to have a pretty narrow range to actually qualify. If was broad enough to mean "any and every hostile attack on any and every part of the territory of a NATO country for any and every reason", it would be activated routinely.

Article 6 is yet another reason why its a bad idea to have Turkey as a NATO country. Theoretically, if a western country were to reignite the Crusades and overthrow the repressive Islamofascist regime there and allow the indigenous Christians to return, Turkey could invoke "Article 6" and demand that the U.S., U.K., Spain, France, Canada, Poland, etc., all rush to their aide and expel the Christians and restore the Erdoğan regime.

“Imagine the U.S. military building a “military cathedral” in 2022. It would be dedicated to LGBTQ Trans Marxism, including St. Fauci, St. Obama, St. Alinsky and St. Sanger.”

Your prediction is reality: The USAF Academy is rebuilding the famous Christian chapel on campus.

“It serves as an all-faith center of worship for cadets and includes Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist chapels, an All-Faiths Room, and a Falcon Circle (Wiccan) , each with its own entrance. The Chapel is capable of holding services in all rooms at one time.”

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