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?
Thanks for the hard work putting the maps together. It gives a bit more to take in. Good stuff.
Russians have been famously infamous about their paranoia. It seems justified since Napoleon and Hitler did so much damage to them. If Hitler hadn’t called his southern army back north then turned them south again he would have had Russia’s nads in a vice.
I can see where Russia (Putin) is feeling closed in. Missiles in Poland and possibly missiles and troops in Ukraine? This is the end result of a whole boatload of bad decisions.
In this analogy, the man is Russia. The woman us Ukraine.
I have no idea what point you were trying to make, but your analogy makes much more sense with the woman being the Donbas region and the violent man being Ukraine.
Thanks for the ping. Interesting discussion!
Actually, it is too late.
The Western democracies have saturated the media with talk of "war crimes", etc., and have staked out a moral position that makes peace with Russia as currently governed impossible. They have conditioned their electorates to think of Russia is a pariah state with which trade and other relations are unworthy, let alone peace.
So we have passed the tipping point to World War III. It may not happen for a decade, but the slide towards war has definitely begun.
RE: but your analogy makes much more sense with the woman being the Donbas region and the violent man being Ukraine
Nope I won’t concede that yet. It can be argued that the Russians were agitating the separatists in the Donbas region to the detriment of the rest of the population.
SOLUTION: Let the Donbas region have one final referendum to decide their fate whether they want to be Russian, Ukrainian or Independent. If Quebec can do it peacefully, Donbas can do it
Russia and Ukraine should respect the result.
My analogy still works for Crimea against Ukraine and for the rest of Ukraine against Russia.
Just because you were once part of a country means little if the vast majority of your population don’t want to be a part of your country NOW.
Even before Napoleon, it was the Germans again, and the Swedes, and the Vikings, and the Mongols from the east.
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.
Yugoslavia had a multi-year multi-dimensional civil war, but it also got sorted out.
Ukraine is just 2 sides: Ukrainian speaking Catholic West Ukraine, and Russian speaking Orthodox East Ukraine.
Make it 2 countries like Czecho-Slovakia, instead of constantly having 2 countries in one, constantly at each others throats.
You Forgot Poland!
Yep good overview..
On on the same page with you.... this is a stupid war. And if we had hounest people in our Government that would not of happen
You left out Lithuania !
It was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth roughly 1569–1795.
Good point.
Thank you for added explanation, but I still don’t see how your analogy makes your point at all. Regarding your suggestion for a referendum, elections have been irrelevant in Ukraine since the Maidan Revolution. I doubt that anyone would trust the result.
Thanks for this thread.
Here’s a direct link to Lara Logan’s excellent interview, where she explains all that is going on, w/Ukraine, directly, yet, simplified … needs to be shared, with all …
https://rumble.com/vxsige-journalist-lara-logan-ukraine-we-are-being-lied-to-on-an-epic-scale.html
Seconding some other posters here, I would also suggest a follow-up article on the more recent history in the region since 1991 would also be helpful. Specifically, the economic condition of Russia in the early 1990's, NATO assurances that it would not move eastward, Yeltsin's objections to NATO military expansion, the 2004 Orange Revolution, Putin's speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, the 2014 Maidan Revolution, the annexation of Crimea, and the Donbas war for independence. Each of these contributed to the situation today and I don't think we can truly comprehend what is happening there without understanding them.
My point is citing history or maps showing how Ukraine was historically part of Russia gives no moral strength to Russia when Ukrainians DO NOT WANT to be part of Russia TODAY.
The same arguments can be made against Ukraine with Crimea. Why insist on holding on to Crimea when this region don’t want to be Ukrainians?
As for Donbas, the argument that elections has been made irrelevant in the past should not stop another refendum, this time, monitored by the rest of the world to make sure it’s fair and reflects the will of the majority. And all parties should adhere to the results.
Otherwise, what is the alternative?
So the French burn Moscow in 1812
And the British burn Washington DC in 1814 during our war of 1812
So we and Russians have something in common
Never trust Western European countries
It's essentially all Orthodox:
About 67.3% of the population declared adherence to one or another strand of Orthodox Christianity (28.7% of the Kyiv Patriarchate, 23.4% state simply ‘Orthodox’ with no declaration as to which Patriarchate they belong to, 12.8% of the Moscow Patriarchate, 0.3% Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and 1.9% other types of Orthodoxy.
About 10.2% are Catholic of sorts - 9.4% Ukrainian Byzantine Rite Catholics and 0.8% Latin Rite Catholics
I don't think geography plays much in to this!
Sure. The original habitants came from the Marquesas.
According to archaeology they were quite peaceful.
The second wave to Hawaii came from Raiatea, very warlike invading people who conquered the first. Archaeology finds lots of signs of battles and torture from this point.
This differs quite considerably from your conception of a Hawaiian people who were peaceful bambi’s and were just always there as one people. It’s the same wherever you look, history is never so clean and clear.
In Crimea, there were many peoples before the Russians or the Turks. The Greeks were there many many centuries before the Tatars. Catherine the great moved a whole bunch of the Greeks to Mariupol and elsewhere. Stalin moved some tatar out after WWII, though a lot have since moved back.
The problem of history and “making things right” is picking your baseline year, and which migrations and movements to accept and not accept. You can choose a year depending on which argument you want to make. Is a population migration something that should be confirmed or undone?
“Making things right” can often mean killing and forcibly moving a whole lot of people, and is only “right” from a certain angle of view. It is wrong from many others.
If you gave Hawaii “back” to the Hawaiians, what does that mean? There are effectively no pure Hawaiians left. The ones who are mixed, usually with only a few percent Hawaiian and are a small percent of the population. Maybe they could give it “back” to those who genetically test closest to the original Marquesas inhabitants? What about the people there for generations, you really going to make two classes of people?
Crimea is quite different from other historic examples, in that it has been Russian since 1783. The people who are there overwhelmingly identify as Russian and want to be part of Russia. More so than any territory of Ukraine including Donbas and Luhansk. So if you are going to arbitrarily pick some people to hand it to you will doing so against the inhabitants will. When Crimea was taken back by Russia, there was almost no killing or conflict involved. Lots of the Ukrainian navy simply defected to the Russian and handed over the vessels.
Even the few years when it was technically part of Ukraine, it had special constitutional autonomy granting it special rights including Russian language preservation.
You can look at the 1893 census. About a third Russian, third tatar, 20% ukrainian, the rest a grab bag of others. Now it’s more Russian and less tatar. What’s it mean? I don’t know.
These questions are pretty unclear and there are a huge number of examples all over the world. What about Kosovo. That’s where the USA and Europe ripped Serbia’s territory it had for long centuries. NATO did massive bombing to make it happen. That set the precedent for all borders to be changed and undone.
With Kosovo now you can make an argument for everything all over the place. All sorts of parts of Europe have territories that would like to be independent. The worst atrocities in history are often from people trying to “correct” things. I’m not saying that means these border changes are always wrong. A lot of borders don’t respect which grouping of people is where.
A bump to 100.
Don’t know how many “Removed by admin” there will be, but...
Both the Crimea and Afghanistan are where empires go to die.
5.56mm
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