How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[dan/california]

 

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https://www.nytimes.com/

Interesting graphics lay out how little Russia's winter offensive gained.

[Battlefront.com]

12 minutes ago, billbindc said:

Both sound and it suffers from the same strategic problems Japan had. First, it cannot control the security of its energy supplies and it cannot solve that problem in any conceivable way. Second, it can't really use the assets it might seize (the semiconductor factories) without effectively destroying them.  Perforce, while China would prefer an anaconda strategy it will instead be driven towards a quick strike strategy that is unlikely to succeed. 

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Absolutely.  And even if China does successfully take over Taiwan quickly, with relatively little damage to its infrastructure, and absolutely not one single US or allied military asset or life lost... then what?  Expect everybody to carry on with business as usual?  The other big lesson Xi should take away from this war is that he can't count on business interests and weak politicians to pretend nothing has changed.

What this all means is that if Xi is looking at all of this with good information and rational thinking, there's no way he'd start a war.  There's likely to be a net negative outcome even if China "wins" the war.

As faulty as Putin's logic was for starting the war with Ukraine, one can at least cut him some slack that he had some reason to believe the West would not react in a way that would hurt Russia.  Xi should have absolutely no illusions.  Just in case, we should do more to make sure he doesn't make the wrong decision and if he does that it won't go well for him.

The alternative for Xi is to keep doing what he's doing.  Which is expanding China's influence and using Taiwan as a "foil" for domestic propaganda.  If he's really smart he'll find a way to slow the downward spiral of relations with the West.  It's not good for China, especially if it doesn't opt for war.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

14 minutes ago, dan/california said:

 

Interesting graphics lay out how little Russia's winter offensive gained.

They went out on a limb and made some assumptions about Russia was trying to achieve with their winter offensive, but otherwise a good article.  For those who can't see it, they have a very nice and clean summary image of the frontline:

Steve

[Beleg85]

Russians are reportedly actively resettling in Mariupol. This is from pro-UA telegram channel, but phenomenon is already known to be in swing from ca. several weeks after city fell. They chiefly inhabit new settlements builded on ruins, but often take houses of people who flew the war. One of civilian refugees who escaped directly from Azovstal here and still have contacts in the city, claims 70% of them seem to be young men who get housing (and some modest income) for various forms of military service.

So yeah, probably we have a plan to recreate another historical phenomenon absent from modern Europe for decades if not centuries- military settlers. Already silently present in Donbas post-2014, but now it get accelerated.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Organization and equipment of Russian "Storm Units".

 

[DesertFox]

Why thermal drones make a lot of sense:

 

 

[Seminole]

21 hours ago, Tux said:

Can I just check the logic here, because I don’t think I’m understanding you:  no war has ever started because anyone joined NATO.

Council of Foreign Relations website, January 20, 2022:

Tensions between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have reached the point of crisis. The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening a wider military incursion into Ukraine unless the U.S.-led alliance makes several major security concessions, including a commitment to cease expanding eastward.

Nobody even debated this idea the whole time it was posed until after February 22nd, 2022.   It was conventional wisdom.

Here's a little piece from PBS, Feb 22, 2022:

For the Kremlin, the notion that Ukraine, a pillar of the Soviet Union with strong historic ties to Russia, would join NATO was a red line. “No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia,” Putin warned U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns, who is now director of the CIA, in the weeks leading up to NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit.

I don't understand how people act like this understanding never existed before.

21 hours ago, Tux said:

However Ukraine *in fact* didn’t join NATO and *in fact* was subsequently subjected to a war of aggression. So surely the French/German perception was wholly inaccurate?  What did they prevent by opposing Ukrainian membership of NATO?

You're leaving out some things, but I'm not sure how much the mods tolerate discussion in this vein.

I just reject the revisionist idea, advanced by proponents of incorporating Ukraine in NATO, that no one expected Russia would react as they have to that prospect.

Germany and France sure as hell expected it, and The_Capt acknowledged it by mentioning 'cheap gas' in lieu of the underlying reason for cheap gas: peace.

If Germany and France didn't expect trying to add Ukraine to NATO would provoke this war, what was their actual concern?  Because I haven't seen reference to any other, at any point.

 

[Seminole]

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

You speak English, but what you just said is gibberish.  Care to use practical language and say what it is you have to say instead of beating around the bush?  Remember also that there are many readers here that do not speak English as their first or even second language.  Trying to be cute and clever with your wording isn't helpful.

I didn't realize the idiom was that uncommon.  My apologies.

The business fable of The Chicken and the Pig is about commitment to a project or cause. When producing a dish made of eggs with ham or bacon, the pig provides the ham or bacon which requires his or her sacrifice and the chicken provides the eggs which are not difficult to produce. Thus the pig is really committed to that dish ("has skin in the game") while the chicken is only involved, yet both are needed to produce the dish.

 

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Really?  You don't think that the long history of governments taking shortcuts and its leadership opening their pockets to financial benefits applies here?  Interesting.

So you think Merkel was on the take?  I can see how folks may take that view of Schroeder, given his post-political career, but I hadn't heard it of Merkel, and she was in power back before 2008.

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Appeasement has never worked and this war is exact evidence of it.

When Khrushchev decided not to finish missile bases in Cuba and we removed our missiles from Turkey, did that 'work'?  Even though we were completely within our rights to have weapons on our allies' territory, and they'd be within their rights to do the same, wasn't humanity better off that both sides found a way to de-escalate?  I tend to think so.

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

More gibber jabber.  Drop the pseudo intellectual claptrap phrasing and use English for as a means of communication instead of trying to sound smart.

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

My goodness.  What does ANY of this have to do with the war being fought right here and right now?

It was response to the notion people who don't want America to go abroad in search of more wars are 'isolationists', instead of 'non-interventionist'.  Particularly the phrase, 'Involvement in the broader planet', implying opposition to finding new wars (or old ones, with hundreds more soldiers going back to Somalia) is opposition to all the other ways we can and should interact with the world.

20 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Look, if you're going to dodge answering simple questions, please just dodge.  Typing up a dozen paragraphs of political jargon and quotes from long dead people isn't helpful to anybody but yourself.

I'm sorry I was misunderstood.  I have tried to dodge nothing, and if I was unclear just let me know where.

[Yet]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

As faulty as Putin's logic was for starting the war with Ukraine, one can at least cut him some slack that he had some reason to believe the West would not react in a way that would hurt Russia.  Xi should have absolutely no illusions.  Just in case, we should do more to make sure he doesn't make the wrong decision and if he does that it won't go well for him.

Steve

we discussed 500 pages ago that cutting off from Russias gas and oil is an easy task, which hurts our spoiled western relaxed lives. cutting off from literally our consumerism, medical supplies and raw materials for our technologies is a whole other game. Xi can have a lot of illusions as he can push much further than Putin could, because he has more leverage on us. Just to what extend he can use it is unknown to us. as we dont know how much the Chinese culture can suffer before they revolt. but my guesstimation is that they can suffer more than us.

[Haiduk]

To the questions "Why UKR tanks don't use machine-guns". Here is T-64BM2 of 92nd mech.brigade, using main gun + tureet HMG (remoteldly controlled). As if after shot out tree-plant, UKR troops found there destroyed Kornet ATGM and teared off arm of operator.

 

[danfrodo]

deleted, not worth the vacation

Edited April 6, 2023 by danfrodo

[Haiduk]

Situation in Bakhmut

"Metalurg" stadium [in the center of city] as a mortar position for moth...rs. There is a slaughter on Korsunskoho str [one of main streets, which limits the city from SW and begins from the destroyed monument of MiG-17] - moth...rs can't breakthrough through Ivanivske village, so they want cut off the city from the inside from Kostintynivka. We are hold.  

Edited April 6, 2023 by Haiduk

[Battlefront.com]

51 minutes ago, Seminole said:

Council of Foreign Relations website, January 20, 2022:

Tensions between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have reached the point of crisis. The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening a wider military incursion into Ukraine unless the U.S.-led alliance makes several major security concessions, including a commitment to cease expanding eastward.

Yes, this is true.  The hostage taker was threatening to shoot the hostage if the police didn't go away and mind their own business.

The mistake you continue to make is to take Putin's statements at face value.  You do know that he is a genocidal autocrat who lies and murders people, right?

51 minutes ago, Seminole said:

Nobody even debated this idea the whole time it was posed until after February 22nd, 2022.   It was conventional wisdom.

Yeah, that's not true even in the slightest.  Anybody that has even remotely studied Russian history or Putin's regime specifically knows that this is not true.  Russia is opposed to NATO because NATO is opposed to Russian territorial expansion.  Remove NATO and Russia goes on an invasion spree.

51 minutes ago, Seminole said:

Here's a little piece from PBS, Feb 22, 2022:

For the Kremlin, the notion that Ukraine, a pillar of the Soviet Union with strong historic ties to Russia, would join NATO was a red line. “No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia,” Putin warned U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns, who is now director of the CIA, in the weeks leading up to NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit.

I don't understand how people act like this understanding never existed before.

Because you totally don't understand what you are looking at.  You are taking the argument of a genocidal autocrat at face value and apparently have absolutely zero knowledge of Russian history.

You also continually dodge the fact that *NOBODY* was saying that Ukraine was going to become a NATO member.  Not Ukraine, not anybody within NATO. The only person saying this was Putin and he was saying it for a pretext for carrying out a genocidal war against Ukraine.  It has even been pointed out to you many times now that Ukraine was willing to sign an agreement that it would not become a NATO member, NATO already borders Russia, and that it isn't Russia's call to make because Ukraine is a sovereign country.

51 minutes ago, Seminole said:

You're leaving out some things, but I'm not sure how much the mods tolerate discussion in this vein.

I just reject the revisionist idea, advanced by proponents of incorporating Ukraine in NATO, that no one expected Russia would react as they have to that prospect.

Again, you continue to show your ignorance.  EVERYBODY who knows Putin and knows Russia expected Russia to invade Ukraine as soon as it couldn't keep it directly under its thumb.  Hell, we made a wargame based on this exact scenario and, in fact, got almost all the details of Russia's invasion correct ahead of when Russia in fact invaded.  And what else did Russia do in 2014?  Annexed sovereign Ukrainian territory and militarily invaded the Donbas.  You really think this is a reasonable response to something that wasn't even on the table?  How about genocide... is that something you think is justified because some political wonks in various capitals talked about the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO?

51 minutes ago, Seminole said:

Germany and France sure as hell expected it, and The_Capt acknowledged it by mentioning 'cheap gas' in lieu of the underlying reason for cheap gas: peace.

If Germany and France didn't expect trying to add Ukraine to NATO would provoke this war, what was their actual concern?  Because I haven't seen reference to any other, at any point.

Germany loved the cheap gas and wanted it to continue, so no... it didn't want to confront Russia's aggression because it was hoping it wouldn't have to.  2022 showed that it couldn't do that and still be taken seriously.

Steve

[Haiduk]

7 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

*NOBODY* was saying that Ukraine was going to become a NATO member.  Not Ukraine, not anybody within NATO.

Strategic course on EU and NATO membership was fixed in Constitution since 2018. Zelenskiy initially was forced to balance between NATO supporters and NATO opponents, saying "Nobody waits us in NATO, we don't be like poor relative, we have to do everything in order to NATO countries invite Ukraine themselves". But both camps criticized him for such vague position. 

[akd]

At least 25 dead Russians easily counted (likely more that are buried or hard to distinguish amongst the general mess):

 

[Battlefront.com]

42 minutes ago, Seminole said:

I didn't realize the idiom was that uncommon.  My apologies.

The business fable of The Chicken and the Pig is about commitment to a project or cause. When producing a dish made of eggs with ham or bacon, the pig provides the ham or bacon which requires his or her sacrifice and the chicken provides the eggs which are not difficult to produce. Thus the pig is really committed to that dish ("has skin in the game") while the chicken is only involved, yet both are needed to produce the dish.

 

So you think Merkel was on the take?  I can see how folks may take that view of Schroeder, given his post-political career, but I hadn't heard it of Merkel, and she was in power back before 2008.

Of course she was "on the take" in the sense that standing up to Putin would cause massive economic hardship on Germany which would end her political career.  So given the choice between dealing with Putin's aggression and keeping her job, she decided to keep her job.

Serious question here... do you not understand how politics and politicians function in democratic societies?

42 minutes ago, Seminole said:

When Khrushchev decided not to finish missile bases in Cuba and we removed our missiles from Turkey, did that 'work'?  Even though we were completely within our rights to have weapons on our allies' territory, and they'd be within their rights to do the same, wasn't humanity better off that both sides found a way to de-escalate?  I tend to think so.

Sure.  So how do you de-escalate a genocidal dictator who is openly stating that everything around him belongs to his state and has repeatedly acted upon this belief?

42 minutes ago, Seminole said:

It was response to the notion people who don't want America to go abroad in search of more wars are 'isolationists', instead of 'non-interventionist'. 

And you again expose the weakness of your fundamental understanding of the war that is going on.  The only party that "searched" for this war was Putin.  The rest of the world would have been quite happy to NOT have this war happen, especially Ukraine.

Let me put it to you another way... people who don't want America to stand with its Allies against an expansionist dictatorship are both "isolationists" and "non-interventionists".

42 minutes ago, Seminole said:

Particularly the phrase, 'Involvement in the broader planet', implying opposition to finding new wars (or old ones, with hundreds more soldiers going back to Somalia) is opposition to all the other ways we can and should interact with the world.

I'm sorry I was misunderstood.  I have tried to dodge nothing, and if I was unclear just let me know where.

OK, so let's see you not dodge these questions:

1.  Do you believe that Russia is fundamentally a dictatorship founded on hundreds of years of imperialist expansionist tendencies?

2.  Do you believe that Russia has the fundamental right to dictate conditions for its neighbors to include military occupation and genocide?

3.  Do you feel a nation is justified to wage a genocidal war on a neighbor because the neighbor sought to protect itself from such a genocidal war?

4.  Do you believe the world is a better place with genocidal dictators operating without fear of consequences from the larger global community?

5.  What are your "de-escalation" suggestions for this war as it is right now?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

35 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Strategic course on EU and NATO membership was fixed in Constitution since 2018. Zelenskiy initially was forced to balance between NATO supporters and NATO opponents, saying "Nobody waits us in NATO, we don't be like poor relative, we have to do everything in order to NATO countries invite Ukraine themselves". But both camps criticized him for such vague position. 

This is true, but the context of my answer was 2014 and not 2022.  I know you know all of this, so this is for others...

Russia claimed that Yanukovych was overthrown as a pretext for incorporating Ukraine into both the EU and NATO.  While there were active efforts to discuss Ukraine's entry into the EU, there were none about it entering NATO.  In fact, polling in Ukraine showed the majority of people were not in favor of joining NATO.

 

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• Since 2014, the orientation towards accession to NATO as the best way of guaranteeing the security of Ukraine has prevailed. Compared to 2012, the share of those who consider this way better than other security options grew more than threefold: in  2012, accession to NATO as a source of security was chosen by 13%, in Maу 2014 –  33%, December 2014 – 44%,  November 2015 – 46%, June 2017 – 47%. As of June 2017, 47% of Ukrainians consider membership in NATO the best guarantee of national security.
• https://dif.org.ua/en/article/public-opinion-of-the-population-of-ukraine-on-nato

Yes, even after Russia invaded and stole territory, still less than 50% of Ukrainians actively wanted to join NATO.

Here are some polls conducted in NATO countries at the time, clearly showing that there was no real chance of Ukraine joining NATO because too many member states had a decidedly negative opinion towards it.  Since it only takes one to veto membership, there was never a real chance of it happening:

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2015/06/10/1-nato-public-opinion-wary-of-russia-leary-of-action-on-ukraine/

 

What was real is that Russia conducted an unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine in 2014, annexed territory, and permanently occupied others, while at the same time keeping a war going against the Ukrainian people until it concluded that a full scale invasion was the only way to "settle the Ukrainian question".

That's the pre 2022 background for Putin's crocodile tears about NATO enlargement.  It was never grounded in fact and was never the reason for this war now.  A fact that Putin himself has stated in public many times.  In fact, the whole "Novorossiya" he promoted in 2014/2015 establishes grievances several hundred years before NATO existed.  It should be pretty obvious that this war never was and never will be about NATO.  It's about continuing the history of Russian imperialism and exploitation.

Steve

[Haiduk]

FT:  US opposes offering Ukraine a road map to Nato membership

https://www.ft.com/content/c37ed22d-e0e4-4b03-972e-c56af8a36d2e

US, Germany and Hungary. 

Some our experts already say that for Ukraine is more easy to win the war than to win a peace [means afterwar conditions, which will maintain guarantees of our security in future and ]. 

[Haiduk]

1 minute ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is true, but the context of my answer was 2014 and not 2022.  I know you know all of this, so this is for others...

Ah, maybe I passed the start of flame )))

Though, we tried in 2006 and 2008, but France and Germany stood firmly in "NATO open doors" for us and Georgia. 

[Tux]

 

Ok, deep breaths.  I said:

Quote

no war has ever started because anyone joined NATO.

You quoted that and then responded with:

1 hour ago, Seminole said:

Council of Foreign Relations website, January 20, 2022:

Tensions between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have reached the point of crisis. The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening a wider military incursion into Ukraine unless the U.S.-led alliance makes several major security concessions, including a commitment to cease expanding eastward.

Nobody even debated this idea the whole time it was posed until after February 22nd, 2022.   It was conventional wisdom.

...a statement about the fact that Vladimir Putin threatened war unless NATO promised not to let anyone else from Eastern Europe join the alliance.  I know you understand the difference between what someone threatens to do and what has actually ever happened so I will assume the quote was a mistake and you didn't actually intend to counter my point.

In which case:

1. What "idea"?  Putin threatened to start a war unless NATO refused to accept additional members from Eastern Europe.  Gotcha.  Are you expecting that people might have debated whether or not he said that?  What people certainly did debate is whether or not he was being disingenuous by implying that he wouldn't (further) invade Ukraine if NATO conceded and guaranteed no further alliance members east of... some point.  We now know for a fact that he was, indeed, being thoroughly disingenuous.
2. I think the phrase "conventional wisdom" is doing a lot of legwork, here.  We have multiple examples of Eastern European countries actually joining NATO without it causing a war.  We have zero examples of any country causing a war by joining NATO.  How can it possibly therefore have been "conventional wisdom" that war would be an inevitable consequence if NATO "expanded" any further?

 

Quote

Here's a little piece from PBS, Feb 22, 2022:

For the Kremlin, the notion that Ukraine, a pillar of the Soviet Union with strong historic ties to Russia, would join NATO was a red line. “No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia,” Putin warned U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs William J. Burns, who is now director of the CIA, in the weeks leading up to NATO’s 2008 Bucharest Summit.

I don't understand how people act like this understanding never existed before.

Again this doesn't address my point but, again giving you the benefit of the doubt, do you mean the "understanding" that Russia would consider Ukraine joining NATO a "hostile act"?  Well, again, that is what they were quoted as saying.  Is that where your thought process stops?  Or is your point perhaps that whether what Russia said was true or false; right or wrong; justifiable or an actual criminal threat; the correct course of action should have been to take them at their word and avoid 'seeking out war' by denying further additions to NATO?

What if Ukraine threatened to invade Russia unless we let them in to NATO?  Apparently absent our ability to assess and act upon the truth, morality or legality of what they said we would have been in quite the pickle, wouldn't we?  Blimey, you're right: perhaps we should just stick to smiling benevolently at the world from our ivory towers while everyone else works things out for us.

Oh, no! But... what if someone threatens to invade us unless Ukraine lets Russia join NATO?!  Ukraine isn't even supposed to get a vote on NATO accessions!  How do we avoid war now?!  Oh, if only there was something else we could do upon hearing such a threat that could help us avoid such hopelessly ludicrous situations!

 

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You're leaving out some things, but I'm not sure how much the mods tolerate discussion in this vein.

I just reject the revisionist idea, advanced by proponents of incorporating Ukraine in NATO, that no one expected Russia would react as they have to that prospect.

*Sigh*.  Ok, it's past time for me to read with my daughter before bed and I need to come up with a voice for Smaug tonight so that'll take some warming up.  Quickly, then: what did I leave out?  There's no need to hide behind uncertainty about how permissible discussions in "this vein" (seriously, please try to be more specific with your responses) might be.  I will take the rap for you if it comes to that.

I don't recall anyone saying that "no one expected" Russias reaction.  What people are saying (and please try to stick to that) is:

1. It was wrong to expect Russia to start a war if Ukraine joined NATO, since such threats had been demonstrated to be empty multiple times in the past.
2. Regardless of that whether someone expected Russia to start a war if Ukraine joined NATO or not is totally irrelevant because Ukraine did not join NATO!

Quote

Germany and France sure as hell expected it, and The_Capt acknowledged it by mentioning 'cheap gas' in lieu of the underlying reason for cheap gas: peace.

If Germany and France didn't expect trying to add Ukraine to NATO would provoke this war, what was their actual concern?  Because I haven't seen reference to any other, at any point.

I don't care what their actual concern was.  I mean, I'm pretty certain it wasn't just the distant prospect that Russia's public position (contradictory of actual historical fact though it may have been) might be a truthful one because I believe their decisions were probably made independently by at least one three-dimensional human being.  But in a conversation about actual reality (which I am desperately trying to keep this to) it is not relevant.  If they thought that opposing Ukraine's joining NATO would prevent war, they were wrong.  If they thought that supporting a Ukrainian application for NATO membership would cause a war, history suggests they were wrong but we will never know.

Ukraine did not join NATO.

Russia invaded Ukraine.  Again.

 

I am happy to try and continue this conversation if I am missing your point (and if Steve is feeling ultra tolerant) because I do think it kind of impinges on the Russian mindset behind their current actions but please, if you do respond to me, be specific (fewer 'ideas', 'understandings' and 'veins') and please steer clear of dragging in arguments made using premises or inferences which have already been demonstrated to be false.  It would help me out a great deal.

 

Right, without making any snarky comments about how I've had my fill of fantasy for one evening, it's time for the Hobbit.

[Haiduk]

K-2 battalion of 54th mech.brigade destroys Russian MT-12 gun near Zolotarivka (Lysychansk direction). Russian crew abandoned the gun and fled after first distant impact

 

[Haiduk]

Russian Volunteer Corps today again conducted a raid to Briansk oblast to the village Sopychi-Sluchovsk in 1,5 km from the border with Chernihiv oblast of Ukriane. The video was issued after Russian officials made a statement, that Russian troops repelled enemy diversion group probe in Briansk oblast.

PS. this area around Russian Starodub town are historical Ukrainan lands, joined by decision of Soviet government to Russia Federation in 20th years of 20th century like and Taganrog city on Azov Sea. So, we have a right to make reconquista 

 

Edited April 6, 2023 by Haiduk

[Seminole]

21 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

I have found this sort of half backed theorizing in all corners of policy arguments.  It is, as I love to frame it, the Underpants Gnome way of thinking:

Step 1 - stop international military activities

Step 2 -

Step 3 - world peace

The reason why Step 2 is left blank is because the person doesn't have any idea what should be there, yet wants to arrive at Step 3 anyway.

Step 1 - stop foreign military interventions.

Step 2 - no longer caught up in eternal responses to the unanticipated response to the earlier intervention (e.g. don't move military into Saudi Arabia to defend their dictator from the neighboring dictator, thus don't antagonize an entirely separate group of jihadists bent on ending that apostate intervention, the response to which begets another intervention, this time to 'fix' Afghanistan, and on and on until we have troops in Syria to partition that country while we pile more troops back into Somalia to 'fix' it too, and on and on...) the U.S. gets to know some peace.

Step 3 - there is no 'world peace', never has been.  But that isn't the same as us choosing to become a party to various and sundry conflicts around the globe.  As one of those old, dead guys noted: "[America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between inveterate power, and emerging right."

[Battlefront.com]

31 minutes ago, Haiduk said:

Ah, maybe I passed the start of flame )))

Though, we tried in 2006 and 2008, but France and Germany stood firmly in "NATO open doors" for us and Georgia. 

Yup.  More evidence that the "NATO enlargement" excuse put out by the Russians has absolutely no truth to it.

It's a good thing that NATO refused to offer NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia.  That helped avoid Russia waging war on Ukraine and Georgia because of enlargement. (sarcasm is sometimes just too easy).

Steve

[Tux]

18 minutes ago, Seminole said:

Step 1 - stop foreign military interventions.

Step 2 - no longer caught up in eternal responses to the unanticipated response to the earlier intervention (e.g. don't move military into Saudi Arabia to defend their dictator from the neighboring dictator, thus don't antagonize an entirely separate group of jihadists bent on ending that apostate intervention, the response to which begets another intervention, this time to 'fix' Afghanistan, and on and on until we have troops in Syria to partition that country while we pile more troops back into Somalia to 'fix' it too, and on and on...) the U.S. gets to know some peace.

Step 3 - there is no 'world peace', never has been.  But that isn't the same as us choosing to become a party to various and sundry conflicts around the globe.  As one of those old, dead guys noted: "[America] has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between inveterate power, and emerging right."

It sounds like your main complaint is with how complicated the wider world is.  I can empathise.  We’d all love there to be more easy answers.  Unfortunately (and with due apologies to clergymen and Jordan Peterson) old dead guy quotes aren’t a valid substitute for rational thought and analysis of the world as it seems to be.

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”