So Putin and Russia who hold the stronger hand and gaining in strength every day must make concessions for negotiations to begin? Fantasy world stuff. More than "very unlikely." So in the interim, the war goes on with more senseless death and destruction. And the US taxpayer must bear the burden of the costs borrowing more and more money to fund an endless, unwinnable proxy war. When does America First kick-in? What's the end game?
Selling weapons to Europeans at war is an old and long US tradition. We sold weapons in WWI--the Lusitania where filled with them. Selling weapons is what we do. But selling to Ukraine is only part of it, not the raison d'etre. We do have to have an arms industry.
Is that what this about? Selling weapons? Maintaining an arms industry despite an almost trillion dollar defense budget. And we are giving the weapons to Ukraine, not selling them.
DOD is using Ukraine as a cash cow to supplement its budget. It is a tactic that I have seen firsthand over 36 years in the federal government, which is not unique to DOD. Biden has proposed only a 1% increase in DOD's budget, which doesn't keep up with inflation. Hence the need for these supplementals. Most of the $60 billion for Ukraine goes to replenishing our war stocks.
So what? In the past 20 years ago, we have abandoned Venezuela and Nicaragua to communist tyrants. Brazil might be next. But whatever they declare themselves to be, whether communist, socialists, whatever, is just a fig leaf to rule the people as dictators. We should be opposed to such regimes, whether in our own so-called backyard or anywhere on the planet.
We have "abandoned" them because our decades long interventionist foreign policy has proven to be a disaster and a tremendous waste of blood and treasure contributing to our decline. We can't afford these endless wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan, which weaken our national security. It reminds me of the alleged Kissinger statement, "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
Again, so what? So does Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland--also Georgia. The countries not *yet* invaded by Russia have every right to be afraid when Russia proves its aggression by asserting itself militarily against any of them, as happened in Georgia and Ukraine.
Russia isn't the Soviet Union. It is an aging nation of 143 million people. Russia doesn't have the conventional military power to invade, conquer, and occupy Europe, which has a population of 500 million and a combined GDP about the same as the US. And invading a NATO country triggers Article 5 leading to a direct confrontation with the US. Not going to happen.
Far more concerning is the sending of troops from Europe into Ukraine to bolster a dispirited and losing Ukrainian military that lacks numbers and the willingness of the population to enlist. The demographics of Ukraine are bracing. With 14 million leaving the country as refugees and young people trying to evade the draft with the age now reduced to 25, where are the additional troops going to come from? Europe—but Not NATO—Should Send Troops to Ukraine To Halt Russia’s Advance, Kyiv Needs More Boots on the Ground
"A taboo has been broken in Europe. Only a few months ago, it would have been inconceivable for European leaders to propose sending European troops to Ukraine. But on February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said the deployment of European forces to Ukraine could not be “ruled out.” Since then, other European officials have joined the chorus; the Finnish defense minister and Polish foreign minister have both suggested that their countries’ forces could end up in Ukraine. These comments, combined with existing support for such measures in the Baltic states, show that there is a growing bloc of countries open to direct European intervention in the war."
Ukraine Population Pyramid 2023
Median age
total: 45.3 years (2023 est.)
male: 41.3 years
female: 50 years
15th oldest country in the world
The largest male cohort was born in 1974 (turning 40). Births were declining towards end of Soviet Union, but then fell precipitously during chaos of 1990s during Yeltsin regime in Russia. Current male population born in 2000 is less than 100,000.
Perhaps the most lasting consequence of the Russia-Georgia War can be seen in what happened six years later, in Ukraine. With Putin back as president (and Medvedev as prime minister), Kremlin-backed forces seized control of the Crimean peninsula and parts of the Donbass region in 2014. Russia had undertaken a “much more serious military reform program,” in the wake of the Georgia war, Galeotti explains, “which led to the far more competent forces that we saw in the annexation of Crimea.”
Moreover, by not coming to Georgia’s defense in the lopsided 2008 conflict, the international community had proved to the Russians that it was “essentially lacking in the will to back up its fine words,” Galeotti says. “In hindsight, one wonders, would Crimea and the Donbass wars have happened if the West had been more robust in its response to Georgia?”
They didn't. There is no equivalency between such a hypothetical and what happened in Ukraine in 2012. Russia started meddling in Ukraine long before this in 2004 when they poisoned the President of Ukraine because he wouldn't bend to them. It seems Yeltsin didn't have a problem with Soviet Republics being free. The idea to wrangle them up was Putin's.
Disagree. There is an equivalency. It has to do with sphere of influence and NATO expansion. We have meddled for over a 100 years in Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine was part of our foreign policy.
"Ukraine never had a tradition of genuine statehood. (My note:neither did Finland, Czechia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia, or North Macedonia, Estonia, and Latvia. Nevertheless, they are states now.)"
So what? Ukraine is a sovereign nation universally recognized including by Russia, which had an embassy in Kyvv. The Minsk Accords promoted by Germany and France were signed by Russia and Ukraine. The March 2022 negotiations in Istanbul were between Russia and Ukraine.
That's still not a reason to abandon Eastern Europeans. We have far little resources to help against Chinese oppression. There was and is no Asian NATO for Tibet, Hong Kong or Taiwan to join. Their repression is similar to the Turkic, Siberian and Tatar people inside Russia.
There are limits to what we can and cannot do. We have not "abandoned" Eastern Europe. Europe must take on the burden of defending itself. We are not living in post WWII Europe in the 1940s. NATO is an anachronism as is the UN. They need to be reformed to reflect current reality.