My god-children are Ukrainian.
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You know what they are, more than even Russian?
Ukrainian.
A cold but excellent strategy from a Great Power Politics framework.
The world of the 21st Century is going to be brutal. The post World War II order is over…and it was an abberration anyway.
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Yeah…so. Does it mean Americans must die or go against out national interest to defend Ukrainians?
I remember being mocked from misunderstanding for our discussion about the death of the Westphalian order.
Pretty wild to argue that our national interests are more aligned with a despotic kleptocracy than western liberal democracies.
Is that what you think we are?
This comes back to my central question.
Does Ukraine get a say in this?
I’m not sure that’s what he is saying.
And I wouldn’t call Ukraine a liberal democracy.
Nothing wrong with being choosy as to who goes under our umbrella and who doesn’t.
Surrounding a nation that has what I would call “justified paranoia” over being surrounded is not something I would call in our best interests.
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No.
But, the people of Ukraine have never had this say.
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In fairness the alternative is so unimaginable that it’s our only real option.
Russia has always considered Ukraine its strategic underbelly and its bread basket.
The Russians would go nuclear over Ukraine to counter a NATO liberation effort. They would pull the patented escalate to deescalate strategy with tactical nuclear weapons.
That leaves us with only two really bad options. Withdraw, which destroys the world wide West’s numerous alliances since they would no longer have faith in the west to hold to our promises. Or two, retaliate with theater nuclear weapons which then gives the Russians justification to escalate to general nuclear war.
It’s an insane strategy dreamed up by madmen in the early 00s. But it’s brilliant because it ties the other side’s hands and forces them to make the call. No one wants a general nuclear war. We would pick option one since we are 95% of NATO’s nuclear assets.
That old question De Gaulle asked… Would the president trade New York for Paris… The Russians have found a way to force us to answer that question. Except with Kiev replacing Paris in the question.
Unfortunately they don’t.
They are caught between two giants. And one of those giants, the Russians, has a much stronger hand to play with than the other giant, NATO.
The Russians will get what they want. The question is how will they deal with the insurgency that will arise after they’ve taken Ukraine.
A Catholic insurgency.
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Yep.
They can feel angry and betrayed all they want at giving up their nukes under false pretense…but small powers never have a say.
And even back then when they gave up their nukes…Russia was never going to countenance a world where Ukraine had nukes AND Ukraine should have known we’d never trade New York for Kyiv.
So if they didn’t know giving up nukes was their only option AND that they would also have no guarantee of security upon doing so…then they didn’t understand the strategic framework.
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And let them deal with it. It’s in our best interests for them to get bogged down doing that.
We should have done the same with Syria…but the EU wanted the shorter pipeline.
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My extended network is largely Ukrainian, and almost to a person, they are resigned to this. It’s not like your average Ukrainian - Cossack, German, Kievan or Pole - ever believed in a Galich or Grand Duchy reborn. It’s always been given that Moscow would take it all back.
Yepp I agree.
We can supply some black market weapons to the Ukrainian rebels clandestinely.
Make the Russians relive Afghanistan all over again.
Half a milienia and counting.
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I hope you guys are all wrong.
I hope so as well. I hope Putin recognizes the headache he’s going to have deal with if he decides to take Ukraine and back down from it.
Afghanistan helped kill the Soviet Union. I hope he realizes that a Ukrainian insurgency would kill the Federation in the long run.
