FlemFire

I'm not going to respond, Steve, because you're now engaging in conversation for which you just threatened to ban me for participating. "Far right nutjob" -- your ability to freely throw around insults without a slap on the wrist is neutering your ability to converse, as you can now default to petty name-calling in place of actual conversation. I'm still very much curious how it is you thought the counter-offensive would cut through so easily. "Gulf War-esque" you said, yet it failed at the skirmish lines. This is, dare I say, a massive gulf of difference between projection and reality. I'm genuinely curious what data points gave you the idea.

Humans by definition want to live a good life with a good standard of living. You call me anti-global while making the painstaking argument that certain countries will never be able to sit at the table. This is a pretty strong contradiction, no? I've seen strictly religious individuals come to the West and gradually open up to the liberties and, frankly, excesses of Western life. We've all watched countries rapidly change just this past century alone, almost entirely due to liberal ideals. Japan, for example, went from a brutish, closed-off almost medieval Empire hellbent on massacring China to making sweet cars and Nintendos with more life and vibrancy than you can shake a stick at. Your way of thinking is extremely fatalistic. Nobody has "spots." People are just people.

Not really guesswork if one articulates the exact problems arrayed against the offensive side in this war, and then those issues rear their head when you go on offense. I would certainly hope the analysts are not "catching up", but perhaps instead hitting the book of yore that can tell them everything they need to know before they decide on sending men to a meatgrinder. This applies to both sides, but it's fair to say that the Ukrainians need to be far more careful than the side who is pulling actual prisoners out of cages and using them to catch bullets as a form of recon. It is really not that hard. Russians pre-sited the entire front. You have a battlefield which is Normandy-esque in that it's large expanses of terrain cut up with tree lines (instead of hedges). The Russians sited every single one of those tree lines and if you watch enough Russian-side footage it's becoming very clear their response time and accuracy have improved. One of the "famous" clips I saw was of a Russian tank "solely" taking on a Ukrainian attack. Except it wasn't just that Russian tank -- it was an obvious kill zone with a crossfire of ATGMs and soon enough artillery. Because Russians are on defense, enemy forward units are very unlikely to be carrying heavy AA assets as their primary concern will be the capture of trenches and significant territories. That means Russian aircraft can actually freely operate, which is why we saw a huge amount of Ka-52 and other strike-craft vids coming out during the counter-offensive and just blowing up Ukrainian units left and right, virtually free of charge. If you thought this counter-offensive would "work like the Gulf War" while sharing almost none of its attributes, well, I dunno. Maybe read more. For starters, the Gulf War started with a massive, around-the-clock air campaign completed by the most well-trained and equipped air force on the planet...

So everyone is coming around to the realities other acknowledged more than a year ago, slowly but surely. I'd just caution, as I personally said a year ago, that the longer you fight the war, the more likely it is that it ends with Russia taking more and more. Because you're right that Putin has to sell a win, but what if it gets to a state where they're obviously going to get what they want (like right now), but they can see Ukraine no longer has the fighting capabilities to stop them from taking more? Because one could not submit to the realities of the situation, they end up at the worst position possible. Ukraine's available bargaining chips were very strong after they counter-attacked and the Russian shock attack limped back to the east. It was my thought they should have immediately pursued peace from there, and likely would have ended up in an absolutely awesome state had they done so (massive prestige gain, a sense of solidarity, a sense of independence, even if there's no NATO/EU). But this just wasn't good enough for those who think war is a Marvel movie.

Ukraine is not in the driver seat, per the Israeli PM, and frankly per anyone with a set of eyes. Let's just assume the opposite case, that the West didn't want conflict with Russia. Do you think Ukraine is able to "take the wheel" so to speak and run off to war anyway? The West has far more influence than you are letting on, and has been all over Ukraine for nearly 10 years now. If the West told Ukraine we're out, then Ukraine would have never buckled down to fight a war with a much larger enemy next door. GDP numbers are pointless, btw. You and I both know the existence of funny money and bloviated costs when it comes to military expenditure. The metrics mean virtually nothing when it's all a question of what is the gear, and how can it be fielded, and when can it be replaced. Ukraine needs a replacement stream of equipment at best, and that literally does not exist. This really shouldn't even be a debate. The existing state of the battlefield speaks for itself. If your point is neocons do not have imbalanced influence on the world stage we'll just have to disagree. I'm not an interlocutor for those people but they do exist and with plenty of credentials to back up their viewpoints. You should seek them out and bring them here heh. Difference of opinion again, just going in circles. By 2000s they were going down the authoritarian path, yes. The shock therapy basically left them as a criminal state and you're not going to legitimately vote your way to stability when oligarchs are running half of everything. Apologies, I'm not comparing Versailles to the breakup of the Soviet Union. I'm illuminating an example of how decisions made in the past have a tendency to plant seeds for ugly futures. This is obviously not a 1:1 comparison. My firm belief is that Russia was so dramatically weak in the early 90s that the West was firmly in the driver seat on how to approach it. If you believe their actions in regards to their economy and the dubious elections of Yeltsin were "friendly" to Russia's interests, then we'll just have to disagree. I'll just point out one thing: it seems to be quite the contradiction that a defense alliance would push their borders toward Russia, and then at the same time this same Western group would be sincerely trying to help Russia. I believe we only live in the history that we know, but that does not mean it is the way things have to be. In my measurement of the 90s, it was the West who had all the resources and capabilities to try and assist Russia and they chose not to. If you think otherwise, fair enough.

A lot of words to just say Versailles had a huge impact on the lead up to WWII which was indeed the point. I don't know what part is confusing. My calculus is that Ukraine can never win militarily on its own. Therefore, the involvement of the West needs to be of substantial material or direct involvement. Neither of these things are happening. What is happening is something I judge as a half-measure that is only extending the length of war for no actual gain. I asked earlier this year how Ukraine wins militarily and got a lot of answers which have been proven definitively wrong in every regard. If you want to take another crack at it as to how Ukraine succeeds militarily now, I'm all ears. Drafting middle-aged people does not equate to having the average age of your soldiers be middle-aged. The former is not unusual, particularly in a time of war. The latter indicates that your frontlines are completely exhausted and you are nearly out of manpower.

I brought it up? You were the one who brought up their "nature." What are your thoughts on Arabs? The Moors? The Chinese? The Japanese? What do they have in their nature? Amazing that I am called a troll while you have people spouting racist dog whistles like this.

I'm not lecturing. I am responding in kind to those who want to have a discussion. Plenty, like yourself, melt down into childish insults. Everything is too emotionally charged. I even responded in such kindness to a person that I gave him his own post to discuss, which was a Tooze blogpost, about as dry and crispy as datapoints can get. Still didn't take. Still reverted to insults. That's fine. I don't think it's fruitful, but this is the internet.

Just responding to this part because it's the only part that is remotely relevant. Note, the West walked out. You words, truth to power. That's all you need to know. It is the West's guiding hand which thereafter leads to full-out conventional war, therefore it is very much the West's responsibility to handle it appropriately. Is the West handling it appropriately? No, not in my opinion. If it were Western people dying, then so be it. But the one paying the piper is a 3rd party which makes this endeavor especially cruel to me. You characterized my opinions as conspiracy. I gave you George Kennan, the guy who literally designed the containment policy against Russia. Now you recategorize the opinion as being held by "some people." I guess that's an improvement. You're free to disagree, but perhaps do so without flinging insults first. I don't disagree, but unfortunately we do not live in that world. The world we do live in is in a state of war so we know to a certainty where one path leads. People like Kennan believed that Russia should have been brought into the Western fold. Russia was not a expansionist dictatorship when he was making those comments. Oligarchs were ruling the wastelands and Russia was a criminal hellhole with barely a pulse. There's a reason why some people see Putin's ascent as blowback against the West's treatment of a defeated Russia. I'm of the opinion that Russia could have been in the Western fold. How do I know this? Because we flattened two other nations completely and turned them into allies. We killed millions of Vietnamese, yet they became an ally. By now of course this is all pointless, the horse is pretty far out of the barn and the only reconciliation of it would be for China to start a war and Russia to turn their back on them. Putin would become Uncle Putin so fast our heads would spin. Yes, it was set for expansion because of the Treaty. When the war was concluded, what did the people look to so as to asses what not to do? The Treaty. The cogs were well in motion before Chamberlain said a word. We all know this now. So why is it that when Keynes assesses a post-WWI Germany, he sees it as a mistake to be punitive and that inclusivity is the path to peace; but if we apply such metrics to a post-Soviet Russia it's suddenly conspiracy? Keynes going "uh oh" about the Treaty is all well and good, but Kennan going "uh oh" about NATO expansion is flirting with conspiracy. Doesn't track with me. But this is going in circles, both sides are clear I believe. There are multiple discussions going on with various points so you will have to be more specific here. I'll think of a name change. I changed it initially out of lightheartedness. I don't know who kevin at all, amusingly.

Just to balance this out a second, the dictation here is that it was the West's call. How you arrive at the conclusion can come any number of ways. As I said, a general distrust of Russia is sufficient (and unsurprising). But the point is that it was the West (Americans) who stepped in and put a stop to it. That's an important distinction because without the West's support this war would already be over, and with the West's support the war could theoretically be won, or it could be theoretically dragged out into a brutal quagmire, and then lost. It's more and more their responsibility from that point on. And this is why I bring up that it is all well and fine, on its surface, but in actuality the West does not have a historical record worth blindly trusting. When I see the West not going on a war footing, I start to ponder. When I see the West trickling in support, I start to ponder. I suppose I disagree here because I'm not sure what expenditure of life is 'worth it.' People will eventually find out the casualties of this war and they will not be good. The economic situation is already quite clear. Pre-war, in its alignment with the West, how did Ukraine fare compared to Belarus, who is aligned with Russia? Is the tradeoff so grand as to be worth the expenditure? Is the expenditure worthwhile when you don't know if it will even conclude with your stated goals (a Ukraine with Russia off its back)? It is this latter point that sticks out to me. I believe trying at the start is well and good. Nobody will shame an effort and there is far more dignity in resistance than rolling over. However, reality has to set in eventually. For a time I thought the economic damage and isolation to Russia was worth the cost of Ukraine's valiant effort, even if it failed, but I'm slowly realizing that maybe even this analysis is wrong, and that the West has inadvertently advertised its own weaknesses to the rest of the world -- meaning this conflict entails far more than Ukraine's future, but instead the future of the balance of power as a whole. When such a thing is tilting and swaying, the world, literally always, becomes vastly more chaotic and violent. Most people here have presumably lived the bulk of their lives in the unipolar status and so it is difficult to conceive of anything else.

"In their nature." Are there any other ethnic groups for which you would like to use such phrasing? Please point out where I said Russia was a victim in this. Be very explicit with the highlighting. Also, if you wouldn't mind, please tell me your thoughts on Kennan's observations above. If China had a defensive alliance and they invited Mexico into it, would you still consider this defensive? Just curious. I don't think NATO wants to invade a country filled to the brim with nukes and with a ruling class of ex-Cold War whackos, no. States bordering this country definitely should try and enter NATO, yes. If there is a cost to that, you have to analyze those costs very carefully. If Mexico were offered a seat at some fanciful Chinese defense alliance, their statesmen would also have to start doing calculations on whether or not that is a good idea. Nations around Mexico would be running similar analyses, judging whether or not they want a Chinese defense alliance on their doorstep. I don't see any controversy there, do you?

You didn't mention Kennan or Burns in any part of this, btw. I'm only bringing the realist perspective to the table. Returning to Russia is acting inappropriately is fine, I get that, but it wasn't exactly the point there. I offered to discuss the matter on your terms, offering one of your own posts as a starting point. And the response to this is to call it (yourself?) rubbish, and that I am a tankie and a "naked capitalist" (I don't know this one). Sure. Can you find me a single historian discussing the start of WWII who does not refer to the Versailles Treaty? No, right? Now, why is that? The invasion of Europe by Germany is, as an action, clearly black and white. German tanks go over the border, mayhem ensues. But things don't just happen out of thin air. Nobody would suggest it is right of 1939 Germany to go buckwild on account of the Versailles Treaty, yet one cannot quite place the whys and hows of Europe going from one world war to another without bringing up said treaty. If your sense of the world is simply that "things happen" and there is nothing but a vacuum around events, then we simply perceive things very, very differently.

I don't think either side is 100% to blame when it comes to the road to war. When it comes to war itself, Russia is to blame because, obviously, they started one. How you get from A to B is a different topic entirely. Black-and-white reductionism produces elementary analyses. You can't really be a serious observer of international relations and see things in this manner. Or you can, obviously. But these men did not: George Kennan in regards to NATO expansion: "I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. The Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else." Bill Burns, current head of the CIA: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite." ^ What about these men strikes you as pro-Russian? Is it more a matter of international intrigue that if you poke around a foreign nation's borders it might react in some manner? I don't think this is pro-Russian at all; I think it's just pro-reality. Every power that can behave in this manner, does.

A Neocon mucked around in an area that then went to war? No need to clutch pearls: this is modus operandi. Your argument is they don't want to be too victorious, am I reading this correctly? I've said Putin is a dictator who murders his opponents in broad daylight. I described Russia as an expansionist imperial power. How long do you think these sympathies would last me inside Russia? What is more likely, that the Russians would have me in a jail cell in a flash, or that you mistake a difference of opinion as a matter of black and white reductionism? You say it's addressed head on, yet once again there is no mention of the Israeli PM. Please talk about the Israeli PM's words. I mean, what part of my comments disagree with this? As for annexation, I just want to point out that August is a whopping six months after February. "Almost as soon as" is quite the stretch there, wouldn't you agree? I think it appears more likely that Putin went "uh oh" and scrambled to justify his ambitions. I do consider, and have said before, that the annexation itself may have been a hidden ambition anyway. That Putin's stated goal was to develop a rump state, but that he was after those territories on the side is entirely feasible. Again, I am not overly concerned with the exact timing of what-if-when-why, as the parameters remain the same (Russian invasion).

Average age of Ukrainian soldier is over 40, posted in this topic. The Russians have a 7:1 drone advantage, posted in this topic. The Russians have a 20:1 artillery advantage (by tube), posted in this topic. The Russian economy is increasing its GDP with a stabilized war expenditure, posted in this topic (by you). How is this trolling, exactly? I'm dealing with the same information as everyone else.

If you don't know anything about it, why not inform yourself? Again, I don't understand this. There is nothing to clarify -- either a state is aggressive or it is not. Capability has nothing to do with it. And the totality of Western aggression does not in fact end at Afghanistan and Iraq, no. Extending the timeline to the Cold War does the West even worse favors in this regard as they acted maniacally to counterbalance Communism. You are free to 1) Read the Neoconservative literature which is readily available online, written by themselves. 2) Observe Neocons in power. If you think this is not "bad", then that is your opinion. If you don't know who Victoria Nuland is you shouldn't even be commenting on this at all, to be very frank. There are individuals in the U.S. who stand to gain regardless of the outcome here. This is called outcome-independence. You typically need to be wary of such individuals inviting themselves into your own interests, because they can cut and run at a moment's notice. If the U.S. was genuinely interested in defeating Russia, it has the capabilities to do so. It is not using these means so therefore I have to conclude that there ulterior motives at play. The incestual nature of military command and corporate military production greatly muddies these waters. Need I point out examples of American military leaders proposing specific weapon-use concepts, and then retiring and going to work for the contractor who just coincidentally happens to make said specific weapons? Would such an individual, who has $$$ to make, be more concerned with the livelihoods of foreigners he doesn't know than he is with his own bank account? Human nature says no. "Well so what" is not much of a discussion, nor are the long list of unnecessary insults you trotted out across your entire post. He literally states the West stepped in and said no. The words could not be more clear. The goals of the Russians are to functionally disable Ukraine, yes. Distrusting this is not the discussion, though. I agree that distrusting it is a perfectly viable reason to decline the offer. However, as I said earlier, the consequences are that the war then goes onward and you might end up at a worse bargaining position later. I've stated the nature of Putin protecting his prestige earlier this year. I think this is something actually most everyone understands. I seem to be the only one extending it to a logical conclusion, though, which is that the more costly the war becomes, the more the Russians are likely going to steal to justify said losses. The question is not of posting new information -- which nobody is doing -- but of analyzing what we have before us and coming to different conclusions. How is this not understood? Is posting fresh drone strikes considered 'new information'? I don't find it pertinent, personally, unless said drone strike is taking out some high-value target then by all means. My understanding is the nihilistic liberals are hardcore on the Ukrainian side, but I'm not tuned into the college-aged population as of late. How is it that every single response on this topic plainly ignores that there is a corresponding story? I do not disagree that Schroeder might be acting in bad faith. I do not believe that it is an automatic discount of what he might have to say. Were he saying it alone, then you might be correct. But he is not alone in saying it so therefore one has to adjust their approach to what is being said. So you said-I said. My assumption is Putin wanted demilitarized zones and the possible annexation of eastern Ukraine. My assumption is that we don't know what his goals are now and, as stated above, he might steal more of Ukraine to justify a war he did not plan to go on for so long. I don't think there need be much contention here -- neither of us know his true intentions and can only guess. We just guess differently. No need to tailor questions in an insulting manner. There's no debate about Russian expansionism and imperialism. However, the areas Russia has absorbed are ethnically Russian. There is zero partisan effort in Crime and Donbas. Would you say this is correct? Does that make it 'right' for Russia to do what it did? No, of course. But if we're discussing Russia's future intentions, there is a considerable leap from it going after what it believes it can take for "free" (using this word loosely), and going after, say, a very hostile Ukraine central that would spend its every living breath sniping, bombing, and basically ruining Russian occupation. Would you agree that these are widely different end goals in concern to the mechanisms required to maintain them?

I travel the world and operate out of Belgium. This is very, very common when interacting with people on the topic of America. It is anecdotal. What is not anecdotal is the massive lines of people waiting to get into America, proving quite verifiably that there is meat on those bones. The hostility toward American foreign policy is harder to measure, but it has moments of clarity I need not expound upon.

You can see what he 'clearly stated' right here. By the way, these peace talks were in early March and through to the end of the month. Bucha came to light in early April. Peace talks renewed in April, but even more fruitlessly. Around this time, the sanctions were coming in hard. President Biden was stating things like Russia was on track to have its economy cut in half. I don't want to be too cynical here, but I don't think murdered civilians are so important to the West as to end something they want or don't want. They thought that the Russian economy was on its way to crumbling and so told Ukraine to stand pat. If they honestly believed this, I actually endorse the strategy. It is the correct strategy to deploy. It failing to work doesn't change that it was the correct move, it just unfortunately did not work. When something does not work, then you need to reassess. I do not see any desire to reassess and I find that very troubling.

I included the former Israeli PM for this reason. Schroeder's connections with Putin are obvious. This does not automatically mean he is incorrect and the arrival of corresponding stories highlights this. You did not talk at all about the Israeli PM, so you left the discussion at a half-step. Nonsense? How is it nonsense when you then agree, but add in the qualifier that they are only the most "capable." The capability of the invading nations does not have anything to do with the aggressiveness of invasions by said nations. You just disagreed to disagree here, and didn't even really disagree. Bizarre comment. Neocons are not to be trusted, period. That is my bottom line on those people. Victoria Nuland is married to Kagan, a major neocon architect, who has outlined American expansionism/imperialism for the 21st century. Why is it that when these people go places, war and misery follows in their footsteps? Is that just a coincidence? Judging by what they state and print, the answer is clear. If the U.S. is not willing to invest the actual resources required to win a war with Russia, then yes, it should not have involved itself at all. Dogwalking another people into conflict and then playing gotcha with it is insane to me. The U.S. has the material capabilities to lay down some serious material into Ukraine and it has not done it. The West in general has the economic capability to go on a war footing and has not done it. Everything is nominal, and nominal contributions when the other side is very dead-set in their intentions is flagrantly stupid. I do not forgive half-measures when hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Don't see much disagreement here. I mean, moving into separatist regions... like they're doing in Ukraine right now? And pray tell, what major partisan efforts are currently ongoing in those Russian-held regions? After Afghanistan and Chechnya, I don't think Russians have much interest or desire to 'occupy' places they are not wanted. They want to bully and flex, fighting isn't really their forte but anyone who understands Russia knew this already, though a thousand videos of military disasters is pretty sufficient evidence just as well. Almost a year ago, I stated that offenses in this war were almost suicidal and one should avoid engaging Russia in static warfare due to their massive artillery advantage. I was correct. I stated that the Russian economy was not buckling beneath the sanctions. I was correct. I stated that non-West spheres of the world were not responding to West's compulsion to sanction Russia. That was correct. Actually, so correct that we now see Western imports into Russian border-nations, suggesting not even some in the West care anymore, and we see other nations welcoming Putin on their stages. I stated that this notion of Russia running out of materials for anything is a pipedream as they have significant infrastructure to support war efforts. That was correct. I stated that the economic contributions of the West involve stockpiles which necessarily dwindle, and if you do not have a replacement in line for when that happens, bad things are going to come to a head. That is coming to a head right now. My models are fine, thank you.

The U.S. has immense soft power in regards to the internals of the nation itself. People love America. They see it on T.V. and in the movies and want to go there. It's, legitimately, very much the light on the hill for many, and a land of milk and honey from which opportunities abound. Compared to most places on Earth, it is basically Heaven. I mean that seriously. Even compared to places like Europe, USA blows everyone out of the water. There is another aspect, though, and that is American foreign policy. Everything I just said? When it comes to political action, imagine the exact opposite assessment. The U.S. is lucky that only one faction of hardcore Islamists carry any umbrage with the U.S., because if all of America's 'victims' carried the torch like they do it'd be nothing but terror and mayhem. I mentioned this in the Ukraine thread, but it's worth mentioning here: in a question of how this world works, many are awaiting the West's decline. After centuries of colonization and/or economic manipulation, they're done with it. The only reason people still play ball with the West is because it is the financial core of the world. As those dynamics change, these nations will depart the Western sphere. Like I've said, the lack of engagement with sanctions on Russia is one of the clearest indicators that the West's soft power has radically declined. You see what's happen in Gaza (rightly) as another strike against the West's virtues. What you probably don't see is this one strike among many. To you it's shocking to see the West eschew all these laws and morals. To others, it's just another day in the world. This one just happened to hit your news feed, that's all.

Every side drafted 40+ year olds. This was not an average age, however. You couldn't go to any given unit and interview soldiers and only be coming across 35-45 year old men, as I have unfortunately seen a few times while reading news stories from the front. Naftali Bennett and former-German Chancellor Schroeder have stated peace was on the table and that the Americans were the ones who 'ended' those talks. A lot of rumors have been flying around about the nature of these talks and why they suddenly concluded like this, but those are two very legitimate sources. If you paid the smallest amount of attention to the West's actions the past 20 years you'd think they were the most aggressively militaristic party on the planet. Wait a second -- they were. In fact, one of them is bombing civvies right this second! But you'd also think there were WMDs in Iraq, that al-Qaeda had a huge network of supervillain caves in Afghanistan, and a long litany of other lies used to justify mayhem on spread. Leaders lie, and they lie most predominantly to their own people. I won't pretend to know Putin's goals at this point and, like in the West, I'd take anything he says to his own people with a grain of salt. I just gave you the above information, though, to demonstrate they were absolutely not his goals early on. Actions by Americans, particularly those with ties to things like PNAC and general neocon-funfair, also clearly demonstrate an intention in Washington to drive Ukraine headfirst into a meatgrinder. So these news articles do not surprise me at all. You people will believe things like Russia is running out of troops, running out of ammo, fighting with shovels, etc., but it never occurs whether or not the intentions of American neocons met its expected conclusion by design or if it all just went in their favor by some coincidence. I don't think it was a coincidence at all. Nor do I think it's a coincidence that bad faith actors like Rumsfeld go from "bulletproof" evidence of WMD in Iraq to "I never said we knew where they were" one year later. I expect to see such reverses in statements about this war just as well, and I also expect people to compartmentalize these statements like they did with that era of politicians, leaving them scot free of any consequences at all. The above comments made by the Israeli and German statesmen do not align with your fantasies here. The 150,000 men beelining straight to the capital a la Georgia 2008 also don't really agree with any sort of occupation plan either, just by common sense. The only portion I agree with is that they intended to flip Ukraine's government and install a pro-Russian in there. Those soldiers were then likely going to be used to de-arm Ukraine and defang it. The operation was a pretty clear shock attack and Putin no doubt had (very bad) intelligence that told him it'd get wrapped up in a month at most. Like I said, there's no real getting around this. It's too foundational. I also don't know if it's strictly even that important to the conversation -- by either metric, Russia invaded. I don't think "neutralizing" Ukraine or "conquering" Ukraine have huge differences when at the end of the day it's one nation invading another and seeking to basically operate it from the inside.

Here's a response, btw: I am only asking questions which relate to details that can be observed. Also, can we cool it with the red scare crap? Not to repeat myself, but I have repeatedly made clear that Putin is a totalitarian dictator who literally kills his enemies in broad daylight. And if you'd like to know, I personally know someone who died in this conflict, so you should perhaps keep this "pro-Putin" type stuff firmly in your own throat. My concern is and always has been with limiting the loss of life. My judgments come from the same intentions I'd apply to any conflict. So these nasty assertions? Retreads. I was there in 2003, saying the stated reasons for war against Iraq did not make a lick of sense and were, very clearly to anyone who had studied the region, untrue. I never got any apologies from the waves of people who were hoodwinked back then, either, so I'm probably barking up the wrong tree now anyway. I don't follow McGregor. I did listen to about two YouTube clips of him with the Italian guy with the slick back hair (I repeat myself). I did not get the feeling he knew what he was talking about. Most people don't know what they're talking about when it comes to warfare. Too much fascination with maneuver, too much clinging to technology. Surface level analyses don't really grab me, but that's about all you'll get from media heads. I don't watch T.V. Most of my information comes from books. I prefer texts that predate conflicts so I can situate myself into the thinking before all the emotionality muddies the waters. I've also read all the major books on realism and idealism from the past 100 years. I've read all of Kissingers books (that toad). Most of George Kennan's work. etc. etc. I consider myself well-read and not easily fooled by someone like some dime-a-dozen YouTube grifter. I stated a long time ago (I'm not being negative here, just refreshing) that my perception of this conflict was an economic one. That is to say, the way Ukraine wins is for Russia's economy to fall apart. That is the lens through which I see this conflict. My metrics of victory then follow more closely what is going on within Russia than what is going on in some trench in eastern Ukraine. When the sanctions did not send Russia reeling, I knew Ukraine was in major trouble and that the West as a whole had made a significant misstep. The isolation of Russia from Europe being countered by a swelling of economic throughputs going directly to Asia has alarmed far, far more people than your 'betters' are putting on. You just won't see that on the news cause it's distressing to the ruling class and, like most international matters of economics, it's boring. Every war I have seen that "ended in the middle" was a war lost by one side who, thereafter, operated a procedure of protecting their prestige. Democracies and dictatorships are weirdly similar in this behavior, by the way. Yes, Russia invaded with a shock force intended to Georgia-fy the Ukrainians. And we now know that peace was indeed in talks until the West intervened and headed it off. At this juncture, again as I've said before, we actually don't know Russia's war goals anymore. Of the land the Ukrainians kicked them out of, I am not of the belief the Russians had any intention of actually occupying. I don't think the Russian military wing is particular competent, but they are not 150,000 men occupying the entirety of Ukraine incompetent, either. This is a matter of disagreement on ground foundations, so it's hard to get past so I'll move on: Russia has had 1 mobilization which does not indicate to me an armed force "in tatters." When it comes to materials: pre-war, we know that Russia had a significant portion of labor already dedicated to arms production and their method of sales receipts on the global stage was to target quality missiles and "quantity" everything else. At this stage, the %-of labor dedicated to the task is going to be higher. I'm well aware that the West's GDP and industrial capacity outweighs Russia by a considerable sum. What people don't seem to grasp is that little of that GDP is on a war footing. A smaller GDP on a war footing is going to produce more material than 10x the GDP that is... not on a war footing. Again, I've pondered a couple of times now that if the West was really dedicated to winning this war, the economic slack to do so is still unused and yet there is no urgency in changing that. I find this contradiction astounding, yet nobody seems to care. This is why I refer to these cash agreements as monopoly money. Ukraine does not need funny money and a vomiting of parts. They need what Russia is doing: an established replacement stream. Because, look, things run out. You can only exhaust a stockpile so much when you do not have it being actively replaced. How it is that such a reality flies over peoples heads is beyond me. Either you are in a war to win it or you are not. I would think we could all agree that half-measures in any given conflict only permit the extending of a conflict's worst elements. My qualm with the counter-offensive is that it was a turkey shoot that need not have happened at all. I've said elsewhere, way back in January in fact, that Ukraine should play maneuver defense because 1) Russians lose cohesion almost instantly when on the move; and 2) without air supremacy the defending side will have advantages of extreme magnitudes a la 1915. I was "proven" correct. I put "proven" in quotes because any basic military theory dating back a 100 years could have told you this would've been the outcome. Why or how the Ukrainians were led into that slaughter anyway is beyond me. I have never celebrated any aspect of this war. My concerns are actually heavily with Ukraine, but they are two-faceted. Yours is one-faceted: Russia. Mine is Russia and the West. I do not see just cause to trust the West's intentions at all. Again, I do not really care for placing these words in my mouth. The war is a WWI-esque tragedy to me and, just like WWI actually, I'm beginning to suspect the conflict is setting up bigger implications that will lead to something far, far worse. My perception of American politics is that it is simply 1-party firmly captured by moneyed interests. So if you think blaming one side or the other is a fruitful venture, by all means be my guest. It's just a discussion very beyond me.

Heh, thought some might enjoy a bit of humor. And yes, that is why I did not bother responding to much of anything. I do not understand why one would list out a screed then ignore any response. This is not the nailing of a manifesto to a wooden door. This is supposedly a conversation. I believe I have asked a number of very reasonable questions. For example, is Russia and China being pushed into alignment a good thing for the world? Or how do 40+ year old Ukrainians find the means to win the war at this stage? Ping-ponging an, "Aha, but you see, Ukraine has already won!" while the war is ongoing is, to me at least, not a sufficient answer. Because the war is ongoing, you see.

The $64,000 question. Definitely up there with how did Hamas, watched like a hawk from multiple intel agencies with both high-tech sigint and installed humint, manage to execute a long planned and trained operation with attack vectors being... broad daylight open skies and entry points of see-through chainlink fences? The Israelis are pretty explicit about their long-term intentions and they do not suffer from things like consequences or culpability. You add all these things together and you will have quick demystification of the situation at hand. The saddest element of all of this is that the Palestinians, at no point in time, have had any allies in the region. Obviously the Israelis are just eradicating them piece by piece. Anyone with eyes and a decent enough attention span should be able to see this. Genocide must be done in slow-motion lest people get upset -- we live in the daily news hour, after all. Frog boiling is harder to perceive when it is multi-generational. And the Arabs? No interest in the Palestinians either. Even dating back to King Abdullah I, the primary concern of the Palestinians was the value of the land on which they sat. Truly, there is no more isolated a group of people. Btw, international law is not real. Things like the U.N. are not real. You had best realign your perspective on these things under actual realities. These things are written on pieces of paper and they are handled amicably until they are not. There is nothing tangible which holds countries to task, it is a reciprocal system, therefore it breaks very, very easily (that is, when one side stops reciprocating; e.g., literally the first domino). I mean, no offense, but imagine detailing matters of international law when matters of spirituality and religion have vastly more pressures on these conflicts. You're detailing a conflict in which one side will carpet bomb civilians because they can, and the other party will quite literally commit suicide by exploding themselves in car bombs or with vests. The language used to try and stitch together some semblance of international structure does not have the vocabulary, either by semantics and certainly not by idioms or norms or mores, to encompass a battlefield that has such people fighting on it.

I mean, I can cite George Kennan. Is the guy who wrote the Cold War policy of containment too red hat for you? Would you like me to throw in other names? How about the current head of the CIA? To state it is conspiracy when there is historical record of people warning about this West-Ukraine-Russian relationship is insulting to yourself. It demonstrates a total lack of knowledge about a war you are cheerleading. I would personally feel compelled to FULLY understand every nook and cranny of a conflict if I was to, on the sidelines, usher and support the carnage that unfolds from it. I'm going to take this as a point of frustration as in your very next comment: How can they lose a war that is already won? Shame to put me on ignore. I won't respond in kind or else I might miss out on the most insightful reasoning around.