Lethaface

PS Maybe we in the West sometimes communicate to ourselves (and or others) that we have more to do with with the plot of 'as the world turns' than we actually do have influence on it.

FWIW, I don't think the root interest of this war was centred on the West. The root interest was centered around the vested interest surrounding Ukraine (which also lead to CMBS), perhaps the perceived weakness of the West was instrumental in Russia going forward with the ordeal; I'll give you that.

Although It's just anecdotal I've been on the MH-17 flight quite a number of times (flying to/from Malaysia) and indirectly know some people who perished on the flight (I also witnessed part of the impressive ceremony through the country). At the times I was on the flight I was more worried about it going over Afghanistan.
Apart from that; the way the Russian regime handled MH-17 was rather infuriating for anyone involved. At the same 'time', our intelligence services have had quite some interactions with their Russian counterparts before and after that incident. So the way Russia behaved was not a surprise.
Also on another note, as a human I'm not convinced those who shot down that airplane did intentionally destroy a civilian airplane full of passengers. But 'we' certainly didn't forget, nor forgive.
 

Good discussion today, thanks all.  PanzerMartin made a relatively valid point and the other folks reminded him of the very aggressive moves RU made outside of the two big historical RU 'counter' moves into 'western' europe.  I don't think y'all need to argue, everyone made interesting points it seemed to me. 
So no news from the front it seems?  RU situation around Bakhmut deteriorating.  I am happy about this but it doesn't get us a lot closer to ending the war the way the land bridge attacks could.  I know the Bakhmut fight is drawing in RU reserves at least.  And of course there's talk of big RU push on Kupyansk front.  Hopefully that just leads to lots of RU losses for nothing, but will force UKR to commit precious artillery to that area.
UKR troops grinding through treeline after treeline, it's like bocage fight.  I keep wanting to get news of more platoon & company level RU breakdowns.  Maybe this week we'll start seeing more cracks. 
Well, I've got the week off & there's some other russians that need a good solid whuppin', circa 1944.  Unfortunately they have plans made by GeorgeMC, not Putin, so it's a tough fight. 
 

No, Netherlands is not on "the far side of the moon".  This repeated dig at Netherlands seems quite uncalled for.  Netherlands support to Ukraine was immediate despite a large part of the population not being able to find Ukraine on a map.  After MH17 Netherlands has no illusions about modern russia.  MH17 was a deliberate act of war directed at Dutch people by russians.  Netherlands was immediately supportive of Ukraine in the current war.
Threats from Moscow were directed very early to Netherlands and the Port of Rotterdam in particular.  The nuclear hawks in Moscow were prominent.  The Dutch Government communicated a clear message that Patriot systems were on full alert and that Netherlands would not be intimidated.  The Dutch resolve has not faltered as far as I can see.  Netherlands is hosting more refugees than UK and is playing its part with provision of military and financial aid, as well as performing a vital logistics function.  Netherlands was one of the first if not the first to promise F16s.
Please let us resist the temptation to imagine fault lines in the Nato alliance.  When it comes to a russian threat to destroy the port of Rotterdam then believe me Netherlands is as much in the front line as Warsaw.

Well that and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam was in 1979...I mean seriously who in the US was going to support Vietnam against China back in 1979?  This entire war was viewed through the Cold War lens (a very different world order) and was basically "commies killing commies...fine."
Ukraine is a European nation bordering on a NATO nations.  I strongly suspect if Russia invaded Uzbekistan we likely would not have raised more than the usual fuss and stern looks.  However Ukraine is in our sphere and as such was a direct affront to the "system" - tell me Putin was not thinking exactly this when the bright idea fairy landed.
If Ukraine had folded up, I strongly suspect we would be supporting one helluva insurgency right now a la Afghanistan 1980s.  Same reasons, longer road.  There is no such thing as a "humane war" or war for "humane reasons', we learned that one the hard way in the 90s during our Savage Wars of Peace days.  Political, strategic or cultural interests always get in the way.

I think we are touching upon several points here, maybe translation is a thing too (English being not our first language, although afaik we both have a rather good understanding of it).
A) Without Russia invading Ukraine in 2022,  there would be no full spectrum hot war between Ukraine and Russia. The destruction of Russia's armed forces in and of itself wasn't and shouldn't have been a goal without that event happening. 
In hindsight of course we can connect more dots and say 'we should have X', but that's only valid for the 'future' we are living today. If Russia hadn't invaded, there would be no war. There would also be no war to be fought on behalf of the West, because there would be no reason for it.
So, this war happened because Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukraine decided to fight back against it (unlike Crimea 2014). Not because of any other reason. The primary goal of the war is to kick Russia out of Ukraine, so Ukraine can follow their own path as they see fit. 
Ukraine isn't trying to kick out Russia from their country because they have romantic feelings about other countries. No, they are trying to do it on their own behalf: they don't want Russia in their country.
B ) Given that Russia has acted the way it did, it is now clear for all to see that the security situation in Europe isn't what we thought it was a decade ago. Russia has shown (repeatedly) it is not to be trusted and will even escalate to large scale full spectrum warfare against major countries, at the cost of many innocent lives, to get what it wants. This is turn has made obvious that Europe's largely neglected security against an 'Eastern' threat is sub par and needs to be addressed, especially given the new/current security outlook. Even if Russia won't be able to go on another adventure for the next 5-10 years whatever, there's no guarantees it won't try something again later down the line so we better prepare ourselves.
C) I personally doubt Russia would have invaded Poland and or the Baltics if they would have successfully annexed Ukraine after a short war. That would mean a war against NATO, which is a whole different ballgame (never mind ballpark 😉 ). They'd probably like those territories inside the greater Russian imperium, especially Putain, they'd probably do it if they knew they'd get away with it. But that's definitely not a certainty. The Polish army already was a sizable force, no pushover. 
If those countries believe NATO wouldn't come to their help, well than why are they even in NATO. 
D) A weakened Russia is helpful to our security. Yes it (most likely) is, especially now that the West has decided to choose the Ukrainian's side Russia has become a defacto enemy like during the less friendly phases of the Cold War. That doesn't mean Ukraine is fighting it on our behalf though. There is a shared 'interest', which is why it is wise for us to support Ukraine achieving victory. Therefor I'm in favor of a 'full send' support, I don't like half measures because in the end they are more costly and time consuming. But there's always geopolitics and various interests involved so things move at the pace they move. 
E) Worrying has never helped anyone. I don't know if people here don't worry, I don't like to worry though. But that doesn't mean we/I think we shouldn't be properly preparing so we can prevent poor performance in the future. Maybe we have more trust in NATO given our history. It probably also helps we're not directly on the border. 

Hence why I think it is a fallacy to state that Ukraine is fighting the war on our behalf. They are fighting for their country, they are fighting a just war of self defense. Their victory is absolutely in our interest (for various reasons) and so we should support them win it. 
Now if Russia had already defacto declared war on NATO and it was a given they would attack NATO after they are done with Ukraine; then one could say Ukraine would be fighting a war on our behalf. But in that case we'd probably be fighting it alongside them. 

I think we are touching upon several points here, maybe translation is a thing too (English being not our first language, although afaik we both have a rather good understanding of it).
A) Without Russia invading Ukraine in 2022,  there would be no full spectrum hot war between Ukraine and Russia. The destruction of Russia's armed forces in and of itself wasn't and shouldn't have been a goal without that event happening. 
In hindsight of course we can connect more dots and say 'we should have X', but that's only valid for the 'future' we are living today. If Russia hadn't invaded, there would be no war. There would also be no war to be fought on behalf of the West, because there would be no reason for it.
So, this war happened because Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukraine decided to fight back against it (unlike Crimea 2014). Not because of any other reason. The primary goal of the war is to kick Russia out of Ukraine, so Ukraine can follow their own path as they see fit. 
Ukraine isn't trying to kick out Russia from their country because they have romantic feelings about other countries. No, they are trying to do it on their own behalf: they don't want Russia in their country.
B ) Given that Russia has acted the way it did, it is now clear for all to see that the security situation in Europe isn't what we thought it was a decade ago. Russia has shown (repeatedly) it is not to be trusted and will even escalate to large scale full spectrum warfare against major countries, at the cost of many innocent lives, to get what it wants. This is turn has made obvious that Europe's largely neglected security against an 'Eastern' threat is sub par and needs to be addressed, especially given the new/current security outlook. Even if Russia won't be able to go on another adventure for the next 5-10 years whatever, there's no guarantees it won't try something again later down the line so we better prepare ourselves.
C) I personally doubt Russia would have invaded Poland and or the Baltics if they would have successfully annexed Ukraine after a short war. That would mean a war against NATO, which is a whole different ballgame (never mind ballpark 😉 ). They'd probably like those territories inside the greater Russian imperium, especially Putain, they'd probably do it if they knew they'd get away with it. But that's definitely not a certainty. The Polish army already was a sizable force, no pushover. 
If those countries believe NATO wouldn't come to their help, well than why are they even in NATO. 
D) A weakened Russia is helpful to our security. Yes it (most likely) is, especially now that the West has decided to choose the Ukrainian's side Russia has become a defacto enemy like during the less friendly phases of the Cold War. That doesn't mean Ukraine is fighting it on our behalf though. There is a shared 'interest', which is why it is wise for us to support Ukraine achieving victory. Therefor I'm in favor of a 'full send' support, I don't like half measures because in the end they are more costly and time consuming. But there's always geopolitics and various interests involved so things move at the pace they move. 
E) Worrying has never helped anyone. I don't know if people here don't worry, I don't like to worry though. But that doesn't mean we/I think we shouldn't be properly preparing so we can prevent poor performance in the future. Maybe we have more trust in NATO given our history. It probably also helps we're not directly on the border. 

Hence why I think it is a fallacy to state that Ukraine is fighting the war on our behalf. They are fighting for their country, they are fighting a just war of self defense. Their victory is absolutely in our interest (for various reasons) and so we should support them win it. 
Now if Russia had already defacto declared war on NATO and it was a given they would attack NATO after they are done with Ukraine; then one could say Ukraine would be fighting a war on our behalf. But in that case we'd probably be fighting it alongside them. 

This would be the part about how this war is about a lot more than Ukraine trying to defend itself.  To be entirely brutal (yet accurate), this was became a major opportunity after about Apr 23.  An opportunity to knock Russia back in line with the international community and a global status quo that has endured for about 30+ years.  Russia was dumb enough and ill-prepared enough so the West scrambled for the chance at a nasty proxy war that 1) would not lead directly to NATO being pulled in/WW3, 2) could be contained to Ukraine and not blow up and out from there, 3) shore up NATO in both membership and funding, 4) result in regime change in Russia that we could do business with but not risk security everywhere, and 5) did not turn Russia into a complete freefall.  Not a great or easy opportunity but there it is.  The other option was to simply let it happen but that was simply letting things slide too far.
This is why we are doubling down on Ukraine - intersection strategic interests.  Not because we like them so much, or really care about their suffering.  There are lists of nations who were (and are) burning right now that we averted eyes and changed the channel.  There are conflicts that we stayed out of that were worse than Ukraine but that happened on the periphery.  Russia in Ukraine is right smack dab in the wheelhouse of challenging how we thought the world works.  We thought that nation states negotiating with war was over.  Intra-state and non-state, sure and nasty business "over there".  To have an international great power go "nope, we like the way of the gun and there is nothing you can do about it" risks the entire scheme.
So, no, we are not sending billions in military support or opening up our entire ISR architecture to Ukraine because it is the right thing to do in defending "the little guy".  Politicians are going to spin it that way because people buy it.  But this is harsh calculus time - we defend the scheme or risk it failing entirely.  Ukraine was the opportunity of a generation to have a war with Russia without really having a war.  Don't believe me, if Azerbaijan invades  Armenia again does anyone think they are going to see this sort of heat and light?  Why?  Because the rules based order can tolerate small side powers scrapping away, but one of the big boys...nope. 

Zelensky is demanding the impossible when asking for a promise about future NATO membership at this moment. It will only give fuel to the Russian propaganda machine. Zelensky knows that, but putting the West under unreasonable pressure, will make them more willing to give him more and heavier weapons. Be unreasonable and ask for the impossible and see what it will get you. Same as Erdogan does actually and it also works for him.
 

For a moment I thought geography was inverted to prove my point false. Thanks. 
All I wanted to say before I was shot on the wall, was that the fears of Russia reaching the Atlantic with the current scale and intentions of this war, have no actual base in reality or history. 
At least, I'm glad I unite this forum 😁
 

 
 
 

To be fair, @panzermartin specifically mentioned Western Europe. None of those countries are in western Europe.
Again, there is enough to discuss that people actually post, so can we all please reduce the number of strawmen a bit? They are multiplying like rabbits of late. 😉

Maybe nobody is at fault and it's 'just' converged interests. If I were a German taxpayer it wouldn't make me happy if Polish (or whatever other country) industry makes good profit off my taxmoney intended for direct support to Ukraine. 
If I were a Polish for profit business I can understand that if I have to choose between little profit vs large profit I would choose large.

That would mean anyone on the planet fighting against an oppressor is fighting a war on our behalf. From a philosophy pov I could see some merit in that idea, but in practical terms it becomes rather vague or result in a sort of perpetuous world war.

I think we are touching upon several points here, maybe translation is a thing too (English being not our first language, although afaik we both have a rather good understanding of it).
A) Without Russia invading Ukraine in 2022,  there would be no full spectrum hot war between Ukraine and Russia. The destruction of Russia's armed forces in and of itself wasn't and shouldn't have been a goal without that event happening. 
In hindsight of course we can connect more dots and say 'we should have X', but that's only valid for the 'future' we are living today. If Russia hadn't invaded, there would be no war. There would also be no war to be fought on behalf of the West, because there would be no reason for it.
So, this war happened because Russia invaded Ukraine and Ukraine decided to fight back against it (unlike Crimea 2014). Not because of any other reason. The primary goal of the war is to kick Russia out of Ukraine, so Ukraine can follow their own path as they see fit. 
Ukraine isn't trying to kick out Russia from their country because they have romantic feelings about other countries. No, they are trying to do it on their own behalf: they don't want Russia in their country.
B ) Given that Russia has acted the way it did, it is now clear for all to see that the security situation in Europe isn't what we thought it was a decade ago. Russia has shown (repeatedly) it is not to be trusted and will even escalate to large scale full spectrum warfare against major countries, at the cost of many innocent lives, to get what it wants. This is turn has made obvious that Europe's largely neglected security against an 'Eastern' threat is sub par and needs to be addressed, especially given the new/current security outlook. Even if Russia won't be able to go on another adventure for the next 5-10 years whatever, there's no guarantees it won't try something again later down the line so we better prepare ourselves.
C) I personally doubt Russia would have invaded Poland and or the Baltics if they would have successfully annexed Ukraine after a short war. That would mean a war against NATO, which is a whole different ballgame (never mind ballpark 😉 ). They'd probably like those territories inside the greater Russian imperium, especially Putain, they'd probably do it if they knew they'd get away with it. But that's definitely not a certainty. The Polish army already was a sizable force, no pushover. 
If those countries believe NATO wouldn't come to their help, well than why are they even in NATO. 
D) A weakened Russia is helpful to our security. Yes it (most likely) is, especially now that the West has decided to choose the Ukrainian's side Russia has become a defacto enemy like during the less friendly phases of the Cold War. That doesn't mean Ukraine is fighting it on our behalf though. There is a shared 'interest', which is why it is wise for us to support Ukraine achieving victory. Therefor I'm in favor of a 'full send' support, I don't like half measures because in the end they are more costly and time consuming. But there's always geopolitics and various interests involved so things move at the pace they move. 
E) Worrying has never helped anyone. I don't know if people here don't worry, I don't like to worry though. But that doesn't mean we/I think we shouldn't be properly preparing so we can prevent poor performance in the future. Maybe we have more trust in NATO given our history. It probably also helps we're not directly on the border. 

Hence why I think it is a fallacy to state that Ukraine is fighting the war on our behalf. They are fighting for their country, they are fighting a just war of self defense. Their victory is absolutely in our interest (for various reasons) and so we should support them win it. 
Now if Russia had already defacto declared war on NATO and it was a given they would attack NATO after they are done with Ukraine; then one could say Ukraine would be fighting a war on our behalf. But in that case we'd probably be fighting it alongside them. 

I agree this has been bothering me for some time now, too.
I get why Eastern Europe is concerned about Russia, given the more or less direct neighboring and years long suffering under the Soviets.
But imagine neither Ukraine not Russia had any other neighbors and Russia would never pose a threat to anyone else. Would Ukraine still fight? Of course! Because it is about their lives, their freedom, their values. The fact that we may also benefit from their fight doesn't change that they fight for their own good first and second and probably third. Saying that doesn't lessen their achievement so I see no reason for the narrative they'd somehow fight for us - besides the obvious: It is a powerful PR campaign that serves it's purpose in getting support from people who otherwise wouldn't care. I'm ok with that, too. But we should see it as exactly that.
The other thing is: why do you actually still feel so threatened? Russias "performance" against Ukraine so far was less than stellar to put it mildly. I don't see how they might even remotely think that they stood a chance against 31 NATO countries even with the reduced capabilities we are facing in our armies, too. I guess you doubt that Western Europe would answer the call. That's sad but understandable, although I'm quite convinced we would.
 

I suspect a but factor might be something I heard from a Polish guy: for western Europe (and America) the second world war ended nearly 80 years ago, and was something from our grandparents generation. For eastern Europe, the second world war was something that ended 30 years ago when they were finally no longer occupied by a hostile power, and was something in the direct experience of the majority of people alive today.
After the war, while western Europe had 50 years of peace, albeit with the threat inherent in the cold war, eastern Europe had 50 years of being forcibly occupied by the Soviet Union, which Russia is obviously the prime mover of and the continuation of in most ways.
This has built some very different world views into the bulk of the populations in either region.

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.
 

It would make defence more complex for the Russians- for example:

ATACMs flies on a ballistic trajectory while Storm Shadow is a cruise missile, so one of each fired at the same target presents two different air defence problems at the same time (fast but telegraphed ATACMs vs slower but stealthier Storm Shadow). Mix in decoys, Storm Shadows changing direction etc and things can get real confusing real fast.

This might prompt the Russians to concentrate more air defence on more important targets, leaving other (still important) targets less well defended.

There's also the EW game- the Russians are inevitably going to get their hands on some kind of salvageable internals from whatever weapons are used, at which point they can dig into the systems and figure out how they can jam or spoof them. They've already apparently gotten hold of a Storm Shadow, so from here on out there's a possibility that Storm Shadow strikes can be degraded by EW effects.

Having more different types of weapons in the mix keeps things fresh (as it were), so there's always something up Ukraine's sleeve that the Russians haven't developed a counter to yet. At the same time, depending on the specifics, even if the Russians have worked out how to jam ATACMs and Storm Shadow, they might not be able to jam both at the same time because EW cna be finicky, or if they can, they might need more rare, expensive EW assets concentrated to do so.

Stuff like that.

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.
 

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.
 

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.
 

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.
 

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.
 

I keep reading about how Ukraine is fighting this war on the West behalf. No, they are fighting this war to stop Russia from invading/annexing their country. They are fighting it for their own behalf (fortunately).
Yes we also have interests in it, but please stop the framing. Ukrainians are doing the dying, they have decided to do it, we didn't need to convince m or pay m to do it.