Of Note:
Angry Putin alleged to have placed Russian FSB spy chiefs under house arrest
Probably for providing bad info on Ukrainian resistance. Definitely speaks a bit to what is going on internally in Russia though.
Of Note:
Angry Putin alleged to have placed Russian FSB spy chiefs under house arrest
Probably for providing bad info on Ukrainian resistance. Definitely speaks a bit to what is going on internally in Russia though.
aircooled said:Of Note:
Angry Putin alleged to have placed Russian FSB spy chiefs under house arrest
Probably for providing bad info on Ukrainian resistance. Definitely speaks a bit to what is going on internally in Russia though.
There is no way a Leader of one of the planets most powerful nations would behave like a 3 year-old.
Is there?
In reply to NOHOME :
That's the big unknown, is he "going to take his ball and go home because no one wants to play with him", or is it going to be "If I can't have it then no one can have it, and I'm just going to berkeley it all up for everyone"
Why can't we create a program to promote defection.
As a start, offer English speaking Russian officers that provide evidence that they've destroyed their weapons passage to US citizenship.
It could be modeled after our witness protection program with job training, etc.
Thoughts?
I think there are reasons to optimistic about peace talks. US officials are also saying they are seeing positive signs.
Fingers crossed that this will soon be over for the sake of all those in Ukraine.
RX Reven' said:Why can't we create a program to promote defection.
As a start, offer English speaking Russian officers that provide evidence that they've destroyed their weapons passage to US citizenship.
It could be modeled after our witness protection program with job training, etc.
Thoughts?
It's entirely possible that such a thing already exists. And if so, we wouldn't know about it.
In reply to Flynlow (FS) :
"Good discussion a few posts back about political goals and objectives vs. moral ones. I wish we prioritized the moral goals more often. What Russia is doing is wrong, plain and simple. So let's keep things simple, and stop them. Yes, it will take some sacrifice on the western world's part to do so, but at least we'll be on the right side of history. Maybe society can start to move forward again if we start doing what's right instead of what's politically expedient."
OK, so, do we use that standard every time, going forward? Morally, I can understand the desire to do something- the news and social media is supplying a steady trickle of reports, pictures, and videos of the violence over there, which primes us to support a military action. But news and social media should not drive foreign policy. We've been bogged down for decades in foreign conflicts which resulted in loss of US life, expenditure of taxpayer money, and questionable tangible benefit to the US and/or the world.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
We aren't even using that standard now. Look at the collective shrug to we are giving to the Yemen civil war or the coup in Myanmar.
Flynlow (FS) said:As this drags on, more and more I think, "Let them." Stop tip-toeing around and accommodating dictators, and just do what's right. If Russia needs to declare war on us because we tried to stop them invading a sovereign nation, so be it. It's gonna be a quick conflict, at the end of which they won't have Ukraine, not even Crimea, or a standing army/airforce/navy to speak of.
Good discussion a few posts back about political goals and objectives vs. moral ones. I wish we prioritized the moral goals more often. What Russia is doing is wrong, plain and simple. So let's keep things simple, and stop them. Yes, it will take some sacrifice on the western world's part to do so, but at least we'll be on the right side of history. Maybe society can start to move forward again if we start doing what's right instead of what's politically expedient.
The issue isn't what Russia will or will not have, it's what the US will or will not have. The risks of starting a wider conflict ramp up very quickly with direct action. This, in turn, addresses the moral question: is it moral for the US to put its own citizens at greater risk in an attempt to halt what it sees as immoral actions abroad? Similarly, is it moral for the US to commit its own forces when the same result might be achieved more slowly without doing so? There have been some policy suggestions here that offer considerable potential without increasing the risk to the US, such as offering Russians incentives to defect (I would extend this to the civilian population as well; West Germany had great success doing this, so much so that Khrushchev was compelled to put up the Berlin Wall in 1961). Will it take more time, during which Ukrainians will die? Yes. Does it have a reasonable chance of helping to undermine Putin's Russia? Also yes.
The moral dilemma for leaders in democratic systems is how much risk you are willing to place upon your own citizens - the ones to whom you have a constitutional duty - while others are exposed to greater risk. The political angle has to guide this decision-making: what are US interests, and what needs to happen for them to be realized? If there is no interest - as in Myanmar and to a large extent Yemen, for example - the US can safely ignore the moral questions. No president is going to send US forces to die in Burma, or supply one side with arms, or even worry much about which side wins, because it simply doesn't affect US interests. But when there are political interests, the moral dimension has to be considered, because of the potential cost of securing those interests.
93EXCivic said:In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
We aren't even using that standard now. Look at the collective shrug to we are giving to the Yemen civil war or the coup in Myanmar.
The Saudi Arabia - Yemen conflict has been ongoing for 7 years now, now on its 3rd US president. The US has supplied arms and the like, basically yet another proxy war, but the war itself doesn't get much airplay. The Saudis have been accused of committing war crimes in Yemen, which doesn't look good on the US, considering they've been funding them.
Of course, this begs the question, why are we interested in purchasing oil from a country accused of committing war crimes, to avoid purchasing oil from a country accused of committing war crimes?
In reply to volvoclearinghouse, 93EXCivic :
That is definitely the tough question. Whose morals? Where is the line? Not every situation is as cut and dried as this, for sure. Civil wars and coups all taking place within a single nation's borders is a sea of greys (are the citizens agitating internally for change after all other options have failed? is another nation conducting a shadow war of influence and supply?). A former superpower invading their neighbor in broad daylight is a bit less nuanced.
I don't want this to get too political, or spread beyond the Ukraine discussion. I am against the US selling Saudi Aradia military hardware, and will leave it at that.
Also, the $ for defection seems to be in place already (though not from the US):
https://www.newsweek.com/ukrainian-arms-company-offers-1m-capture-working-russian-aircraft-1686080
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/world-news/ukraine-war-mep-asks-eu-23271054
I hope it is wildly successful.
Let's be sure we keep this on the topic of world actions happening now, and not stray into the politics of historical U.S. foreign military actions post WW2.
On the subject of Putin...
I think he wants to be able to *say* he won. I don't think he actually needs to achieve his original objective for that. He just needs *something* that he can claim was "actually the goal all along". He didn't actually want all of Ukraine. He just wanted to force NATO into making a promise of something-or-other! He outwitted everyone because he's playing 3d Chess over here!
Beer Baron said:Let's be sure we keep this on the topic of world actions happening now, and not stray into the politics of historical U.S. foreign military actions post WW2.
On the subject of Putin...
I think he wants to be able to *say* he won. I don't think he actually needs to achieve his original objective for that. He just needs *something* that he can claim was "actually the goal all along". He didn't actually want all of Ukraine. He just wanted to force NATO into making a promise of something-or-other! He outwitted everyone because he's playing 3d Chess over here!
I worry about that for the peace talks. If the west allows him to keep ANY territory (ie Luhansk and Donetsk), I think his takeaway will be, "I go to war, and I get what I want".
I hope "our" (Ukraine and EU, mostly) opening position is "Get your stupid, failed invasion ass out of Ukraine, including Luhansk, Donetsk, AND Crimea, and in return we will not hunt you down like a common street thug. If you want to negotiate further, our future offers will be less generous than this one."
Also, it's a good thing I'm not a diplomat. The planet would have obliterated itself decades ago :P
Beer Baron said:Let's be sure we keep this on the topic of world actions happening now, and not stray into the politics of historical U.S. foreign military actions post WW2.
It's all of a piece. And the Saudi-Yemeni war is ongoing at this moment.
Beer Baron said:I think he wants to be able to *say* he won. I don't think he actually needs to achieve his original objective for that. He just needs *something* that he can claim was "actually the goal all along". He didn't actually want all of Ukraine. He just wanted to force NATO into making a promise of something-or-other! He outwitted everyone because he's playing 3d Chess over here!
Without a diplomatic off-ramp, Putin will continue on the same trajectory because it's the only one available. As I noted earlier, all the talk of war crimes trials and such are deeply unhelpful to ending the conflict. If he has choices, he can decide how much of a price he's willing to pay to stay on the road he wants to take, or if he's willing to take the less attractive but cheaper detour. The West's job - assuming the primary objective is to halt the fighting - is to make the detour look as appealing as possible, and his preferred route as expensive as possible. If, on the other hand, the West decides to bleed Putin white, well, then close off the detours and just keep upping the costs (and be prepared to pay costs as well).
volvoclearinghouse said:93EXCivic said:In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
We aren't even using that standard now. Look at the collective shrug to we are giving to the Yemen civil war or the coup in Myanmar.
The Saudi Arabia - Yemen conflict has been ongoing for 7 years now, now on its 3rd US president. The US has supplied arms and the like, basically yet another proxy war, but the war itself doesn't get much airplay. The Saudis have been accused of committing war crimes in Yemen, which doesn't look good on the US, considering they've been funding them.
Of course, this begs the question, why are we interested in purchasing oil from a country accused of committing war crimes, to avoid purchasing oil from a country accused of committing war crimes?
Most Saudi oil is actually going to Europe, so why are we supporting a country accused of committing war crimes in order to keep them selling oil to European Countries to avoid allowing European countries to buy oil from another country accused to committing war crimes? We could just go home and get all our oil from Canada and West Texas, promote the use of EVs to make up the difference, and let the Western European Countries support Saudi Arabia and NATO and fight Putin and remember that all of this crap is going on in an entirely different continent and not in our backyard.
Wow. This does get complicated.
Flynlow (FS) said:Beer Baron said:Let's be sure we keep this on the topic of world actions happening now, and not stray into the politics of historical U.S. foreign military actions post WW2.
On the subject of Putin...
I think he wants to be able to *say* he won. I don't think he actually needs to achieve his original objective for that. He just needs *something* that he can claim was "actually the goal all along". He didn't actually want all of Ukraine. He just wanted to force NATO into making a promise of something-or-other! He outwitted everyone because he's playing 3d Chess over here!
I worry about that for the peace talks. If the west allows him to keep ANY territory (ie Luhansk and Donetsk), I think his takeaway will be, "I go to war, and I get what I want".
I hope "our" (Ukraine and EU, mostly) opening position is "Get your stupid, failed invasion ass out of Ukraine, including Luhansk, Donetsk, AND Crimea, and in return we will not hunt you down like a common street thug. If you want to negotiate further, our future offers will be less generous than this one."
Also, it's a good thing I'm not a diplomat. The planet would have obliterated itself decades ago :P
This would be me as a "diplomat". "GTFO of my country or I'll bring holy hell down on your head, your family's head and the head of anyone you ever had contact with. Once you do that, then we can start 'negotiating', capeesh?"
In reply to Beer Baron :
I thought the same thing, NATO, Ukraine, or both dragged their feet after 2014, they should have been members. I don't think this would have changed much other then Russia would have been flogged instead of innocent Ukrainians. Other then some Russian and maybe Iran or China, nobody is buying the Russian invasion excuse.
RX Reven' said:Why can't we create a program to promote defection.
As a start, offer English speaking Russian officers that provide evidence that they've destroyed their weapons passage to US citizenship.
It could be modeled after our witness protection program with job training, etc.
Thoughts?
Sounds like a good way to get spies
In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :
And why wouldn’t we sell our oil to Europe to avoid over reliance on trade with the US?
Supporting NATO and Europe is probably based in isolationism, as it keeps all the fighting in foreign lands and off US territory. Funding NATO - the US wants to be the shot caller which leads to a bastardization of an old Scottish proverb “He who wants to call the tune better be paying the piper.”
Rons said:Supporting NATO and Europe is probably based in isolationism, as it keeps all the fighting in foreign lands and off US territory. Funding NATO - the US wants to be the shot caller which leads to a bastardization of an old Scottish proverb “He who wants to call the tune better be paying the piper.”
To some extent this is true, but the long-term commitment of the US came about largely because of the failure to reach an agreement on how the Europeans would contribute to their own defense. With the outbreak of war in Korea, the US wanted twelve West German divisions formed; the French refused, and proposed the Pleven Plan, which was basically a unified European military with soldiers from all nations party to the agreement serving in integrated units without national identification. Both Germany and the US opposed this. The compromise was German rearmament and a more-or-less permanent US presence in Europe. Once the US was committed, the European leadership figured out that they really didn't have to spend all that much money on their militaries, since the US nuclear umbrella protected them against the Soviet threat (which was assumed to include a nuclear component at or near the outset after the mid-1950s or so), especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The current situation is so remarkable in that it's the first time since the early post-war period that European nations are having to think seriously about their own defense.
02Pilot said:Rons said:Supporting NATO and Europe is probably based in isolationism, as it keeps all the fighting in foreign lands and off US territory. Funding NATO - the US wants to be the shot caller which leads to a bastardization of an old Scottish proverb “He who wants to call the tune better be paying the piper.”
To some extent this is true, but the long-term commitment of the US came about largely because of the failure to reach an agreement on how the Europeans would contribute to their own defense. With the outbreak of war in Korea, the US wanted twelve West German divisions formed; the French refused, and proposed the Pleven Plan, which was basically a unified European military with soldiers from all nations party to the agreement serving in integrated units without national identification. Both Germany and the US opposed this. The compromise was German rearmament and a more-or-less permanent US presence in Europe. Once the US was committed, the European leadership figured out that they really didn't have to spend all that much money on their militaries, since the US nuclear umbrella protected them against the Soviet threat (which was assumed to include a nuclear component at or near the outset after the mid-1950s or so), especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The current situation is so remarkable in that it's the first time since the early post-war period that European nations are having to think seriously about their own defense.
And I think the American taxpayers are getting sick and tired of borrowing money from China to protect Western Europe.
Mr_Asa said:RX Reven' said:Why can't we create a program to promote defection.
As a start, offer English speaking Russian officers that provide evidence that they've destroyed their weapons passage to US citizenship.
It could be modeled after our witness protection program with job training, etc.
Thoughts?
Sounds like a good way to get spies
Man, I don't see many ways of this ending without Ukraine getting screwed over something fierce. Like they're going to trust Russia to not try it again in the future? There's no way they're going to get the Crimea, etc. back. They simply won't be able to afford a defense adequate to prevent Vlad from doing it again later... We haven't talked much of what a solution/cease fire/peace agreement would look like...
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