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Questions Without Answers About Ukraine
American Greatness ^ | March 22, 2023 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 03/23/2023 5:30:21 AM PDT by Heartlander

Americans trying to understand the current administration’s obsession with Ukraine will note a number of unanswered questions surrounding the crisis.

Ukrainians, and many Europeans and Americans, are defining an envisioned Ukrainian victory as the complete expulsion of all Russians from its 2013 borders. Or, as a Ukrainian national security chief put it, the war ends with Ukrainian tanks in Red Square.

But mysteries remain about such ambitious agendas.

What would that goal entail?

Giving Ukraine American F-16s to strike bases and depots in Mother Russia? The gifting of 1,000 M1 Abrams tanks? Using American Harpoon missiles to sink the Russian Black Sea Fleet?

A huge arsenal that would guarantee total victory rather than not losing?

Russia’s cruel strategy is to grind down Ukraine and turn its eastern regions into a Verdun-like deathscape.

So is a brave Ukraine really winning the war when it loses about 0.6 soldiers for every Russian it kills?

Russia plans to leverage its extra 100 million people, its 10-times larger economy, and its 30-times larger territory to pulverize Ukraine and tire its Western patrons—whatever the costs to Russia.

Yet why were only a few in past administrations calling for a joint Western effort to expel Putin’s forces from the borderlands and Crimea captured in 2014?

Why are Putin’s 2014 invasions now seen as urgent rectifiable crimes of aggression in 2022, but were not regarded as reparable during the prior eight years?

Is the United States economically capable or politically unified or socially stable enough to wage a huge proxy war on the frontiers of a nuclear Russia?

During the last comparable multibillion-dollar military efforts—the First Gulf War in 1990-1991 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq—the ratio of American debt to GDP was respectively 40 and 50 percent.

Today it hovers at nearly three times that figure at 129 percent, given some $33 trillion in accumulated debt.

Currently, the American...

(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: agenda; another500billion; anothertrillion; bidenslemmings4ww3; demsunitedforgraft; demsunitedforukraine; neocons4biden; notglobalcops; notourwar; pearlclutching; ukrainecorruption
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1 posted on 03/23/2023 5:30:21 AM PDT by Heartlander
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To: Heartlander

The west is committing suicide.

Turns out the “experts” weren’t as smart as they thought they were.


2 posted on 03/23/2023 5:36:33 AM PDT by Mount Athos
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To: Heartlander; Alberta's Child; Alouette; AndyJackson; Aria; BatGuano; beaversmom; bigfootbob; ...
Ping! Out to the Victor Davis Hanson list

Or why so subdued when the United States in 2015-16 refused to sell Ukrainian offensive weapons?

Why does the United States discount the serial and ascending nuclear threats from Russia, but we remain careful not to antagonize China?

These are Ukrainian war-related questions that never seem to be answered—but should be as the carnage rises and the nuclear threshold falls.

FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR

Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall

American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness

His website: Victor Davis Hanson

Please let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list.

As a reminder, Professor Hanson has asked that we do not post the full article of his writings. Thank you for following the link to finish his article.

Content created by the Center for American Greatness, Inc. is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a significant audience.

3 posted on 03/23/2023 5:38:44 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: Heartlander

According to many, we’re supposed to blindly follow Biden and his bunch right into World War 3, so Victor, just SHUT UP and get on board, just like DeSantis did yesterday after he accidentally muttered the truth 2 weeks earlier.


4 posted on 03/23/2023 5:38:48 AM PDT by BobL
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To: Heartlander

5 posted on 03/23/2023 5:48:10 AM PDT by Mount Athos
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To: Heartlander

“Ukrainians, and many Europeans and Americans, are defining an envisioned Ukrainian victory as the complete expulsion of all Russians from its 2013 borders. Or, as a Ukrainian national security chief put it, the war ends with Ukrainian tanks in Red Square.”

Eh? The two are unrelated.

Russia leaving the four regions subjected to falsified referenda for the bogus annexations,
and committing to a properly mediated discussion about the status of Crimea would be enough to end the war.

Ukrainian officials talking about tanks in Red Square are just spitballing what they’d prefer to see.


6 posted on 03/23/2023 5:52:05 AM PDT by MalPearce ("You see, but you do not observe". https://www.thefabulous.co/s/2uHEJdj)
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To: Heartlander

The answer to all of this is that the Rat party is nothing but a communist syndicate. And the so called RINOS are their enablers. The only solution is for Patriots to unite and literally yank these bastards out of their chairs and throw them out. Otherwise, enjoy the suck.


7 posted on 03/23/2023 5:53:19 AM PDT by HighSierra5 (The only way you know a commie is lying is when they open their pieholes.)
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To: Heartlander

bmp


8 posted on 03/23/2023 5:53:47 AM PDT by gattaca (Either you will control your government, or government will control you. Ronald Reagan)
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To: Mount Athos

Can we just skip to the last chapter?

Ukraine 1991-2023 RIP


9 posted on 03/23/2023 5:54:34 AM PDT by delta7
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To: Heartlander

Americans are the most propagandized population on the planet.

- The crisis in Ukraine is the West’s fault.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483306

- The history of the U.S. in Ukraine since WWII

https://mronline.org/2023/01/04/on-the-influence-of-neo-nazism-in-ukraine/

- when East and West Germany reunited (with resultant NATO expansion), the U.S. and other Western leaders made a deal with Gorbachev, that if the USSR did not push back on German reunification, then NATO would not expand eastward into areas such as Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland.

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early

- along comes Bill Clinton, who pushes NATO expansion into Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland and the Bear is further provoked.

https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=79a3ac4b8be61c53cc1d03175a2fb32c&mediatype=video&source=youtube

- Obama stages coup in Ukraine 2014, which removed a duly elected president.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-ukraine-hypocrisy

- Following the coup, the Ukrainian army proceeds to murder thousands of ethnic Russians in the eastern Donbass region, despite the Minsk Agreement and other attempts at peace.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/content/conflict-ukraines-donbas-visual-explainer

https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions

- surprise surprise Biden presses NATO expansion into Ukraine with further provocations by Sweden and Finland joining NATO, which is currently under way.

- Biden destroys the Nordstream 2 pipeline and blames it on Russia. The first time the U.S. has attacked the major infrastructure of an ally (Germany). A further major provocation.

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream

- just imagine if the Chinese CCP conducted similar actions along the Canadian and Mexican borders. Would we accept Chinese military bases with nukes along our borders? This is what Putin was forced to deal with when Biden threatened NATO expansion into Ukraine and other countries.

- Russia, China, and a number of other major nations refuse to participate in the western (U.S. led) globalism movement. Putin is standing in the way. Is the U.S. on the right side of this war? Depends on the color of your sunglasses. Whatever the case, let there be no doubt we (the U.S.) crapped the mess kit on this one.


10 posted on 03/23/2023 5:59:56 AM PDT by Chauncey Gardiner (Vivamus stultus ignarus mori )
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To: Chauncey Gardiner

Great post!


11 posted on 03/23/2023 6:11:38 AM PDT by caver
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To: Heartlander
Yet why were only a few in past administrations calling for a joint Western effort to expel Putin’s forces from the borderlands and Crimea captured in 2014?
Well, here's why a certain Vice President did nothing about it:
Baturina, a billionaire, was previously married to Yuri Luzhkov, who served as mayor of Moscow but was fired for alleged corruption in 2010. The report details how Biden's business received a $3.5 million payment from Baturina in February 2014, which was described to be for "consultancy" work. In 2015, Biden also received several payments of several hundred thousand dollars from Baturina, several of which were listed as part of a "loan agreement."
Hunter Biden Received a $3.5 Million Payment From Ex-Moscow Mayor's Wife, Republican Report Says

12 posted on 03/23/2023 6:57:07 AM PDT by nicollo ("I said no!")
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To: HighSierra5

Thank you. Sage advice. I wish all the voter skeptics, would abandon that failed notion and would get engaged for the 2024 cycle and show the commie bastards we’re through with the nonsense.


13 posted on 03/23/2023 7:01:21 AM PDT by bigfootbob (Arm Up and Live Free!)
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To: Heartlander

Bring back the elected Ukraine government that the Biden/Obama regime’s CIA kicked out in 2014. Remember Yanukovych?


14 posted on 03/23/2023 7:22:30 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: texas booster
Why does the United States discount the serial and ascending nuclear threats from Russia, but we remain careful not to antagonize China?

Thanks for the ping.

15 posted on 03/23/2023 10:58:04 AM PDT by GOPJ (When Morning Joe's sycophants say "My Democracy" it sounds like Gollum saying "my precious")
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To: Mount Athos
"The west is committing suicide.
Turns out the “experts” weren’t as smart as they thought they were.
"
If the "experts" are those at the WEF, and Schwab's boys, then maybe it's all going to plan.
16 posted on 03/23/2023 12:47:25 PM PDT by Hiddigeigei ("Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish," said Dionysus - Euripides)
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To: Hiddigeigei

true


17 posted on 03/23/2023 12:49:25 PM PDT by Mount Athos
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To: Heartlander

The Ukraine is world headquarters for the cabal’s crimes of bioweapons (think aerosolized rabies), child trafficking, money laundering and drug trafficking.


18 posted on 03/23/2023 12:52:54 PM PDT by reasonisfaith (What are the cosmological implications if the Resurrection of Christ is a true event in history?)
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To: Heartlander

Why is the world Ukraine wanted to get in bed with the US is beyond me. In my opinion they would have been better off figuring out how to get along with their neighbor, Russia.


19 posted on 03/23/2023 1:00:38 PM PDT by CodeJockey ("The duty of a true Patriot is to protect his country from its government.” –Thomas Paine)
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To: Chauncey Gardiner

What is the breaking point for Russia, which gets most of its national income from selling its oil, that it can no longer sustain the Ukraine invasion or itself, for that matter?
What if we went full on back into drilling pumping and fracking and put more oil on the world markey, lowering the price? Couls we not defeat Russia in Ukraine that way without risking nuclear war over quibbles on which weapons we send to help?


20 posted on 03/23/2023 2:03:53 PM PDT by desertsolitaire (Nothing Changes if Nothing Changes)
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