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Putin & Russia

SpurMeUp said:
They must be stopped, even it means you kill many more innocent people? Study what occurred in Syria (or Lybia for that matter). It is truly awful and Hilary Clinton really does have blood on her hands. Of course their intentions may have been noble. Just as they were in funding revolution in Ukraine. But what came of it? What were the outcomes?
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this is quite different though, this is not civil war. This is invasion of one country by another.
 
Still the pressure on party animal Boris and senile Biden has evaporated. I guess Putin is hopeful of a similar reaction in Russia.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Also, I have my views on the strategic futility of Brexit as a Canadian, and have had spats with @Danishfurniturelover in the past on the topic.

But today, I have to admit - looking at the 'wets' in Europe who, even as they watch a nation be devoured by its neighbor,are reluctant to even do the bare minimum of disconnecting Russia from SWIFT...

...Brexit allowed the UK to make its own decisions free from Brussels, the pusillanimous Germans, and the quavering Italians. And unless the EU agrees on SWIFT sanctions at a bare minimum, it's hard to see how they are anything but useless and cowardly - stand up for your ideals, goddamnit.
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You could (successfully IMO) argue that Brexit has helped Putin see this opportunity. A weakened Europe already fighting within itself. Plus a compromised England - how much dirty Russian cash washes through our shores? Asking for a friend.
 
SpurMeUp said:
"They must be stopped", even it means you kill many more innocent people? Study what occurred in Syria (or Libia for that matter). It is truly awful and Hilary Clinton really does have blood on her hands. Of course their intentions may have been noble. Just as they were in funding revolution in Ukraine. But what came of it? What were the outcomes?
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Yep. They must be stopped. Because right now, you're only counting the additional lives lost if we back Ukraine and prolong the war. What you are not counting is all the lives that will be lost in murderous invasions by dictators like Putin all over the world if we do nothing - the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives that will be lost in Taiwan when Xi invades, the innocent lives that will be lost in South Korea when the North bombards Seoul, the innocent lives that will be lost when Russia conducts more invasions throughout its Near Abroad, from Finland down to Central Asia.

By the way, in the last example, the further lives lost would be Russians as well as others - emboldening Putin to invade elsewhere has costs in terms of Russian lives expended in lands far away from home, more Russian soldiers dying far from their families and children.

Standing up to imperialism always has a cost. But if we want to leave that world behind, we have to prevent people like this from thinking that it's easy to bomb men, women and children at will with no consequences. Again, you can argue about the United States all you want - I won't disagree when it comes to plenty of times the Americans have bent the world to their will with incredible violence. It's rare that there is ever an unalloyed good in geopolitics.

But this time, there is. This time, it is to stop the imperialist in the Kremlin from succeeding in his plan to bomb, maim and kill anyone who disagrees with the idea that Russia cannot decide the future for them, anyone who wants to be free to live their lives how they please.

Either we do this now, or territorial expansion, state-on-state conflict and murder become everyday instances in global politics again, and every tinpot dictator from Xi downwards will be itching to do their own irrendentism-inspired war crimes.
 
SpurMeUp said:
If you knew the history of Afghanistan you would. Taken by the Soviets, the US did more or less what you outline for Afganistan. Gave them rockets that could take down Russian helicopter warships which could dominate with impunity. They trained up the local militia. Funded them. Gave them arms. A decade or so later the US were fighting the same people they trained and funded. They were called the Taliban.

Afghanistan would have been far better off staying Soviet tbh. Free education for girls as well as boys, and some stability. Now the country is a shell. It has been decimated by decades of funding insurgents and counter-insurgents. People don't know how to farm, they know how to load a Kalashnikov. It will take many more decades for Afghanistan to recover. Prior to the Russian empire invading, Afghanistan was one of the more progressive Islamic nations with mixed universities and a liberal stable nation.

When empires try to put their ore in, nothing positive comes of it.
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Indeed, there is a lot about that late 70s era in the region which many still don't know about. Time to bang my Stephen Kinzer drum again. He has consistently written the best books on these subjects IMO.

I think what lies at the centre are the always-broken promises to such allies. For some inexplicable reason, the west always believes it 'won't happen' an d that they can just bail on their commitment to infrastructure and society for the long-term for allies. I think we will forever fudge up there because we simply refuse to learn about -or accept- the culture, as well as show any deep respect.
 
thfcsteff said:
You could (successfully IMO) argue that Brexit has helped Putin see this opportunity. A weakened Europe already fighting within itself. Plus a compromised England - how much dirty Russian cash washes through our shores? Asking for a friend.
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I didn't read this article from 2004 until today, but what is fascinating, is Russia didn't really invent trying to influence voting patterns in other nations. It just copied the US' lead and modernised it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa

I wasn't aware of this program before, just the billions spent on "Ukrainian democracy" by the US.
 
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SpurMeUp said:
Okay. So you'd initiate a full-on war? As an external actor with no real ties to the country.
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to be honest. America should have moved a battalion in to Ukraine before the invasion and said it would remain until Russia moved its troops back.

Now it’s too late for that.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Yep. They must be stopped. Because right now, you're only counting the additional lives lost if we back Ukraine and prolong the war. What you are not counting is all the lives that will be lost in murderous invasions by dictators like Putin all over the world if we do nothing - the hundreds of thousands of innocent lives that will be lost in Taiwan when Xi invades, the innocent lives that will be lost in South Korea when the North bombards Seoul, the innocent lives that will be lost when Russia conducts more invasions throughout its Near Abroad, from Finland down to Central Asia.

By the way, in the last example, the further lives lost would be Russians as well as others - emboldening Putin to invade elsewhere has costs in terms of Russian lives expended in lands far away from home, more Russian soldiers dying far from their families and children.

Standing up to imperialism always has a cost. But if we want to leave that world behind, we have to prevent people like this from thinking that it's easy to bomb men, women and children at will with no consequences. Again, you can argue about the United States all you want - I won't disagree when it comes to plenty of times the Americans have bent the world to their will with incredible violence. It's rare that there is ever an unalloyed good in geopolitics.

But this time, there is. This time, it is to stop the imperialist in the Kremlin from succeeding in his plan to bomb, maim and kill anyone who disagrees with the idea that Russia cannot decide the future for them, anyone who wants to be free to live their lives how they please.

Either we do this now, or territorial expansion, state-on-state conflict and murder become everyday instances in global politics again, and every tinpot dictator from Xi downwards will be itching to do their own irrendentism-inspired war crimes.
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Your whole premise relies on Russia killing lots of people. Like the US, they will try to make their military intervention swift and impressive. It doesn't always work out that way. But the biggest threat to Ukrainians who can't flee is external forces fuelling a war. What right do you have to do that?

How do you countenance the deaths and destruction in Afghanistan? The 30,000 children killed in Syria, the forlorn state of Libya with no stability. People like you cause huge amounts of destruction trying to do good.
 
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SpurMeUp said:
You're whole premise relies on Russia killing lots of people. Like the US, they will try to make their military intervention swift and impressive. It doesn't always work out that way. But the biggest threat to Ukrainians who can't flee is fuelling a war. What right do you have to do that?

How do you countenance the deaths and destruction in Afghanistan? The 30,000 children killed in Syria, the forlorn state of Libya with no stability. People like you cause huge amounts of destruction trying to do good.
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a lot of the dead in Syria are caused by Russia - the fact that the west stood by and let Russian planes bomb Syrian hospitals is another reason why Putin feels emboldened
 
thfcsteff said:
You could (successfully IMO) argue that Brexit has helped Putin see this opportunity. A weakened Europe already fighting within itself. Plus a compromised England - how much dirty Russian cash washes through our shores? Asking for a friend.
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That would be a hard argument to make Steff. The U.K. has been an unwavering champion of Nato and US power whilst the Europeans are more ambivalent and frankly, complacent.
 
DTA said:
a lot of the dead in Syria are caused by Russia - the fact that the west stood by and let Russian planes bomb Syrian hospitals is another reason why Putin feels emboldened
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This is too simplistic. Don't want to get into the detail of Syria. But the short version is, Assad was quite progressive. Was seen as a stable leader who you could work with - in an area of the world where there was little stability. The Baathist party of Assad's father are authoritarian dictators and quite eveil. But never the less the nation was stable and not the worst. Most in UK intelligence circles thought we should actually back Assad when things broke. Russia did.

But the point of raising Syria is to illustrate what occurs when large nations (empires) decide to fund fighting groups on the ground. The UK funded some Islamic Extremist groups. As did Isreal and others. Can see some of the list here Were any of them 'doing the right thing'? When 30,000 kids were killed etc. I don't think so. Who are we to put our ore in and further destabilise a nation?
 
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