They are just trying to save face. If they quit screwing around with Kiev they can easily hold Mariupol.
Playing defense is much easier than attacking. Ukraine won't have it so easy if they're the ones advancing.
Holding Mariupol indefinitely will not be easy for the Russians because the residents don't want them there. So they have to fight a motivated Ukranian army while supressing resistence from within. How long are they willing to do that? Most Russian troops just want to go home alive.
Quite right. This isn't WWII for the Russians. There is no motivation for the soldiers. But for Ukraine this is their Pearl Harbor moment.
It's kinda funny, too, because the "think real hard" question is perfect for why, mainly, all of those former Soviet republics and satellites have wanted to join NATO since '91 ???
Drum roll, please.......because they're freakin' scared of Russia !!!
But the morans try to turn it around and pretend that NATO expansion isn't mainly Russia's fault, but indeed a legitimate grievance of their dictator.
The argument about NATO really goes back to the 1999 when George Kennan called the expansion of NATO into Central Europe “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” At that time, Russia had suffered through an entire decade of negative GDP growth and was a threat to no one. Kennan saw an opportunity to integrate Russia into the west following the collapse of the Soviet Union and believed that NATO expansion would force Russia into an adversarial relationship with the West. As NATO continued to expand towards Russia's borders with a huge expansion under W Bush in 2004, the issue of NATO expansion took on global significance as the US began positioning missile defense systems in Europe based on the pretext that Iran or N. Korea may have ICBM nuclear capabilities. But missile defense systems in Europe are first strike weapons against Russia in that they can stop a Russian counter attack if the US strikes first. This potentially means that the US can threaten a nuclear strike if Russia does not follow what Washington wants. Russia made it clear in Syria and Crimea (and now Ukraine) that it would not play that game. So it is really not that clear whether Russia really gives a crap about NATO expansion. Russia has no problem using nukes if a single NATO soldier sets foot on Russian soil. So, NATO expansion is of limited relevance in that the Clinton and W Bush administrations had a chance to craft a much better relationship with Russia and chose instead to expand NATO to line the pockets of defense contractors. But today, I think Russia is well beyond considering NATO a threat and carries out whatever military actions it wants regardless of NATO.
I think Russia's current moves have a lot more to do with Putin's domestic politics and his fears of economic stagnation and corruption in Russia causing a rebellion like what happened in Belarus and Kazakhstan. When Russia took Crimea, Putin's popularity shot through the roof even though the Russian economy subsequently crashed due to the oil glut of 2015. NATO is just a pretext at this point. Germany and France were willing to offer NATO concessions in talks before the invasion, but Russia had demands for NATO that were obviously non-starters or poison pills (Russia wanted to be able to tell NATO where it could position forces). So, I think this invasion was going to happen regardless of Ukraine seeking NATO membership (which really wasn't on the agenda).
So, the West could have prevented this but that may just be 20/20 hindsight because the time to build a different relationship with Russia was over two decades ago. Thus, it is more fodder for academics than anything that is relevant to the current war in Ukraine. I think Russia did this on its own because Putin thought that Ukraine would cave quickly like in Crimea and help boost Putin at home.
The progressive left has generally been anti-war, which is appropriate. But I think there has been a failure to see that Putin really is just a bad actor and is a danger to the West because the progressive left is still mad about all the effort the neo-liberal/centrist DNC dems spent chasing Russiagate. Bernie has taken the best position on the war and wants to provide Ukraine with as much support as possible without risking an escalation of the conflict beyond Ukraine's borders. But others in the progressive wing seem to think that starving Ukraine of military support would lead to peace and save lives because Russia will inevitably win the war (and military support for Ukraine may have a blow back issue with empowering the neo-nazi elements of the Ukraine armed forces). But the major premise of that argument is the belief that Russia is a rational actor and has been provoked by NATO expansion. I just don't think that is the case and the progressive left needs to wake up to the possibility that Putin is just a bad actor without rational political motivations.
Conversely, the neo-liberal centrist Dems, particularly think tank denizens and anti-Trumper converted neo-cons, are pretty reckless in their efforts to try to counter Putin's aggression. No fly zones, fighter jets, etc. are all clearly actions that will result in Putin attacking NATO targets and quickly escalating the conflict into a potentially terminal nuclear war. To his credit, Biden has been very solid in guarding against escalation as have other NATO leaders.
NATO is the reason.
Nazis and genocide in the separatist regions was the pretext.
this sounds good. No, I don't trust anything RU says, but it's not....a bad thing anyway. could be true. RU pulling back to Donbas and saying 'we degraded the UKR Nazis so they can't kill Russians anymore. We won!'
NYT:
Not long after Mr. Biden arrived in Poland, the Russian military signaled that it might be reducing its war aims. After a month of a grinding war in which Russian forces have been met by unexpectedly fierce Ukrainian resistance and have failed to capture major cities across the country, Maj. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi said Russia would now be focused on defeating Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting a war since 2014. He said the “first stage of the operation” had been “mainly accomplished,” with Ukraine’s combat power “significantly reduced.” But it is far from clear that the larger conflict might wind down: He added that Russia “does not exclude” that its forces will storm major Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv, the capital, though he said that taking them over was not a primary objective.
No counter-argument, of course, just a cute comment. Impressive.
How many well-spoken people on a thread need to call you a complete id*** before you START to wonder about it?
You didn't make an argument you just called everyone who disagreed with you stupid...
The only "well-spoken" person here is Ernest and he disagrees with you so you call him a "putin lover"...
On the global stage might makes right. Any power when given the choice between doing the "right thing" and acting in their own self interest ALWAYS acts in it's own self interest. ALWAYS.
It isn't fair that little countries get bossed around but that's the way the real world works.
Just because countries SHOULD get to decide their own destiny doesn't mean they get to.
Taiwan wants NO PART of being part of China. The ONLY reason China hasn't forced Taiwan to do what it wants yet is because they are afraid of what the US will do if they do.
Might ALWAYS makes right in global disputes. Name 1 instance where this wasn't true.
Oh, the simplicity and pseudo-intellectuality of stating absolutes in anything involving human beings. There are no "ALWAYS." Countries are led by people, and people make decisions. With any luck, a planet with intelligent life moves down the road, over time, to not having countries and leaders who take whatever they can, because they can. Most of human history has had a crap load of that. But no, certainly not nothing but it. And one would hope that we have moved down the road a bit.
But one of many, many examples: 1991. Suddenly ONE, clear-cut superpower. What fraction of national leaders across the history of earth would have taken that opportunity to expand their country essentially zero square miles? That's what the U.S. and Bush senior did. Funny, yelling "ALWAYS" over and over again doesn't change that. Countries, leaders, making decisions. Often selfish and greedy and destructive. Sometimes not.
And did we throw our weight around? Of course. Before, during, and after the Cold War. But, almost always, that's fundamentally different than what Putin is doing.
Rid yourself of your false sophistication. You'll be better for it.
Adult I'm telling you - you need go hang with the hippy lefties in Berkeley - your world view matches theirs pretty close. You both think the US is responsible for every bad thing that happens in the world. Patchouli, tie-dye...you and them would be total buds in Peoples' Park.
People's park is not long for this world – he better move fast before the neolibs turn it into student housing
Are they finally going to get rid of that trash heap? I thought it was designated as a place of "cultural and historical significance"?
You didn't make an argument you just called everyone who disagreed with you stupid...
The only "well-spoken" person here is Ernest and he disagrees with you so you call him a "putin lover"...
On the global stage might makes right. Any power when given the choice between doing the "right thing" and acting in their own self interest ALWAYS acts in it's own self interest. ALWAYS.
It isn't fair that little countries get bossed around but that's the way the real world works.
Just because countries SHOULD get to decide their own destiny doesn't mean they get to.
Taiwan wants NO PART of being part of China. The ONLY reason China hasn't forced Taiwan to do what it wants yet is because they are afraid of what the US will do if they do.
Might ALWAYS makes right in global disputes. Name 1 instance where this wasn't true.
Oh, the simplicity and pseudo-intellectuality of stating absolutes in anything involving human beings. There are no "ALWAYS." Countries are led by people, and people make decisions. With any luck, a planet with intelligent life moves down the road, over time, to not having countries and leaders who take whatever they can, because they can. Most of human history has had a crap load of that. But no, certainly not nothing but it. And one would hope that we have moved down the road a bit.
But one of many, many examples: 1991. Suddenly ONE, clear-cut superpower. What fraction of national leaders across the history of earth would have taken that opportunity to expand their country essentially zero square miles? That's what the U.S. and Bush senior did. Funny, yelling "ALWAYS" over and over again doesn't change that. Countries, leaders, making decisions. Often selfish and greedy and destructive. Sometimes not.
And did we throw our weight around? Of course. Before, during, and after the Cold War. But, almost always, that's fundamentally different than what Putin is doing.
Rid yourself of your false sophistication. You'll be better for it.
If there were no "ALWAYS" you'd be able to name a time a larger power bent to the will of a weaker neighbor against its own self interest.
You can't. We have NOT all moved down the road a bit.
Google "liberal hegemony". US foreign policy since the Soviet Union collapsed has been centered around it. Liberal Democracies do not fight each other. IF we can make every country in the world a liberal democracy war would be over. "Nation building" was all about liberal hegemony. We failed and with China ascendant now the dream of liberal hegemony is dead.
Oh, the simplicity and pseudo-intellectuality of stating absolutes in anything involving human beings. There are no "ALWAYS." Countries are led by people, and people make decisions. With any luck, a planet with intelligent life moves down the road, over time, to not having countries and leaders who take whatever they can, because they can. Most of human history has had a crap load of that. But no, certainly not nothing but it. And one would hope that we have moved down the road a bit.
But one of many, many examples: 1991. Suddenly ONE, clear-cut superpower. What fraction of national leaders across the history of earth would have taken that opportunity to expand their country essentially zero square miles? That's what the U.S. and Bush senior did. Funny, yelling "ALWAYS" over and over again doesn't change that. Countries, leaders, making decisions. Often selfish and greedy and destructive. Sometimes not.
And did we throw our weight around? Of course. Before, during, and after the Cold War. But, almost always, that's fundamentally different than what Putin is doing.
Rid yourself of your false sophistication. You'll be better for it.
If there were no "ALWAYS" you'd be able to name a time a larger power bent to the will of a weaker neighbor against its own self interest.
You can't. We have NOT all moved down the road a bit.
Google "liberal hegemony". US foreign policy since the Soviet Union collapsed has been centered around it. Liberal Democracies do not fight each other. IF we can make every country in the world a liberal democracy war would be over. "Nation building" was all about liberal hegemony. We failed and with China ascendant now the dream of liberal hegemony is dead.
You don't understand anything...
it appears Adult is unaware of the dissolution of the British empire or any of many other ways weaker countries have gained against stronger powers. It's interesting I guess that he doesn't know very much, but it makes for a worse thread.
If there were no "ALWAYS" you'd be able to name a time a larger power bent to the will of a weaker neighbor against its own self interest.
You can't. We have NOT all moved down the road a bit.
Google "liberal hegemony". US foreign policy since the Soviet Union collapsed has been centered around it. Liberal Democracies do not fight each other. IF we can make every country in the world a liberal democracy war would be over. "Nation building" was all about liberal hegemony. We failed and with China ascendant now the dream of liberal hegemony is dead.
You don't understand anything...
it appears Adult is unaware of the dissolution of the British empire or any of many other ways weaker countries have gained against stronger powers. It's interesting I guess that he doesn't know very much, but it makes for a worse thread.
I wonder why the British empire didn't become so benevolent until the 20th century...
If only we could figure out WHY the empire fell apart...
If only they wrote books and articles about it...
Remember when the British Empire surrendered the American colonies to the Founding Fathers out of the kindness of their heart?
Remember when France gave Indo-China back to the Vietnamese without firing a shot?
it appears Adult is unaware of the dissolution of the British empire or any of many other ways weaker countries have gained against stronger powers. It's interesting I guess that he doesn't know very much, but it makes for a worse thread.
I wonder why the British empire didn't become so benevolent until the 20th century...
If only we could figure out WHY the empire fell apart...
If only they wrote books and articles about it...
Remember when the British Empire surrendered the American colonies to the Founding Fathers out of the kindness of their heart?
Remember when France gave Indo-China back to the Vietnamese without firing a shot?
wouldja stop making points with questions please? How about a plain old statement of what you mean. Would that be so hard? Too difficult?
Anyway, i've given you multiple examples of smaller weaker nations imposing their will on stronger ones. even before the nuclear era.
I'm not sure we're giving enough emphasis to the fact that the RU army has said that they are retreating to Donbas. Could be a lie to mislead everyone....but this is major news.
I'm not sure we're giving enough emphasis to the fact that the RU army has said that they are retreating to Donbas. Could be a lie to mislead everyone....but this is major news.
I'm not sure we're giving enough emphasis to the fact that the RU army has said that they are retreating to Donbas. Could be a lie to mislead everyone....but this is major news.
You didn't give any examples you confused empires falling apart with countries waking up one day and deciding to be nice.
Gandhi got famous for a reason and it wasn't because the British were so friendly in India.
forget it - I'm under no impression you would ever admit you were wrong in any way, shape or fashion.
If I'm proven wrong I admit it. You haven't provided any argument or evidence... You stated: "Adult is unaware of the dissolution of the British empire"
While having no idea why the British Empire dissolved... lol.