It feels like the approach of arming Ukraine on a drip by drip basis is just prolonging the war.
It would be best to arm Ukraine to the extent required (missiles, planes etc) to reclaim all their territory vs reactively doing just enough to keep them in the fight.
> It would be best to arm Ukraine to the extent required (missiles, planes etc) to reclaim all their territory vs reactively doing just enough to keep them in the fight.
The trouble is: it's impossible to know ahead of time what's enough. It's doubly difficult because Russia gets to react to what NATO and friends do (e.g. with additional mobilization).
I do agree, though, that it would have been a lot better to have gotten to this place right away.
Honestly, though, the real thing that the Ukraine needs is way more artillery ammunition. And no one in NATO really has a lot of excess that they're willing to part with. Or much capacity to create more.
If NATO could give Ukraine 20 million rounds of 155mm per year, that would substantially improve their prospects. And it wouldn't be the same sort of "escalation"[1] that aircraft or long range missiles might be.
Edit: artillery -> artillery ammunition
---
1. IMO, the escalation theory is overblown. But enough people believe it in the US that it causes problems getting those kinds of equipment to Ukraine.
This simply discusses how production can ramp, and where production will need to expand. It also affirms that "the west" has loads of shared production capacity.
For the counterfactual, imagine if we sent a bunch of HIMARS or MBTs in the first months of the conflict and now they were being paraded around by Russia on victory day.
It makes some sense to provide small arms -> light support -> progressively bigger weapons systems. It is worth remembering that at the beginning of military aid to Ukraine, there was a large chance they might have suddenly capitulated. In that event, anything you send would have immediately fallen into not-Ukrainian hands.
I think Ukraine established its will to fight within the first month and its ability to exist in two or three months or so. We should have shifted our approach around then and started planning long term.
I don't want to make any big claims because real visibility is low but I think your assessment is somewhat mistaken, and not shared by US DoD generally, which were, I believe, fairly pessimistic as recently as 3 months ago.
There are two important factors you are not considering.
The first is that it takes a long time train soldiers on complex weapon systems and the entire logistical supply chain required to support and maintain those weapon systems. Giving someone a weapon system without this makes the weapon system nigh useless to them. Look at how long it takes for American soldiers to become rated on new weapon systems.
The second is that weapon systems are designed to fit a specific war doctrine. Most weapon systems will have greatly degraded effectiveness deployed outside of the context in which they were intended to be used. US builds weapons for the way the US expects to fight. One of the reasons there is a shortage of artillery and related munitions, which is critical in Ukrainian doctrine, is that the US and many other NATO countries don't need much artillery and therefore don't have much of it nor the ability to manufacture vast quantities. And it is not feasible for Ukraine to radically change their war doctrine at this point such that NATO weapons would be more fit for purpose, it requires years of preparation to do this.
Basically, the US but more broadly NATO can't easily supply a war that is being fought the way the Ukrainians are fighting it because their militaries are not equipped to fight a war that way.
That’s much trickier than it seems. Not only modern weapons stacks requires large integrated systems - which Ukraine is far from having - but you have no guarantee those weapons and vehicles won’t be used to attack targets on Russian ground that will escalate the war beyond what Ukraine’s allies might want.
> you have no guarantee those weapons and vehicles won’t be used to attack targets on Russian ground that will escalate the war beyond what Ukraine’s allies might want.
For purpose of discussion, does that include Crimean and Donbass?
I don't consider these areas to be "Russian ground" since I meant to talk of mainland Russia. I believe Donbass has been shelled by Ukraine (and Russian) for many years before the 2022 invasion: https://politics.stackexchange.com/a/74158
Yeah there’s no way anyone could succeed Putin, such as Dmitry Medvedev, who works closely with him and already served as president and prime minister.
Strong men eliminate those who are threats, who can be a threat. Putin is very good at this, competitors which had potental are dead, lessor competitors jailed.
This means that anyone close to Putin, is likely lacking in capability, or perhaps more importantly, the ability to lead and drive loyalty.
Weak leaders fall fast, if they try to pick up the sceptre.
This isn't slashot. People don't need personal trolls here. Is there any reason you're following me around?
It is akin to how the USA has not yet vanquished ISIS, despite it being a bunch of poorly armed amateurs. Perhaps the reason is that a "forever war" keeps your enemy in a known place, rather than regrouping and rebuilding.
well yes but ISIS is very much on the back foot and in survival mode. They aren't exactly in control of population centers or threatening to overrun countries.
In this case if Ukraine & Russia arrive at some kind of a truce, its likely a low level conflict (fought through online misinformation /cyber warfare /border shelling) will continue. But it also won't be this full scale war
I really feel sad about my friends in both Ukraine and Russia. Both countries bleed because of someone's misguided fantasies. And there's no way out. Putin knows he can not give up. Ukrainians will never give up. And even if someone managed to kill Putin now, there is no any guarantee his successor won't want to continue the war. It's sad to watch all this and feel completely hopeless.
>there is no any guarantee his successor won't want to continue the war.
If they continue the war, it will be difficult for them to hold onto power for more than 1 failed offensive.
There will always be a group of people that want the war over, not for peace reasons necessarily, but for economic(and political or personal reasons). A new dictator stands on a shaky ladder. They need to have a successful offensive quickly or they will be replaced.
It's a common misconception to think it's Putin's war and not Russians'. There are many people who fled Russia in European cities like Berlin. How many anti-war protests conducted by Russians were there?
> Being an anti-war activist in Russia is dangerous. Rights groups say there have been more than 16,000 detentions across the country for anti-war actions.
That's 16000 as of last September, by the way. Thousands more since.
Look - I'm sure that there's lots of Russians who are against the war and are just afraid to speak out.
But you can go on Youtube and find people doing interviews in Russia. It's pretty clear to me that the war continues to have substantial popular support among Russians.
Is it a majority? Who knows. But it's not difficult to find people who are strong supporters.
Please read my message again: I'm talking about anti-war protests *outside* Russia, which are safe and should (in normal societies) produce many more attendees.
That's laughable numbers. After the genocidal pictures from Bucha, destroyed Mariupol, 16 russian civilians dead in russia when their fighter fell on top of the buildings you'd think more people should be against.
Sadly, russian society is sick and most of them want to destroy Ukraine. The only way they understand is brute force.
This. We got to high on our own history lessons learned medicine in the west. Thinking that anybody shared that sentiment.
For all those other regions on the planet, the Great game never ended and is in full swing ever after. For them the WorldWars were a colonial power internal affair, and now its "our turn to become the king of the hill of skulls". The history and injustices of 2 worldwars is just a justification to go into battle for them.
Its bleak, but our reality altering screams never penetrated that mindset.
Well, there were at the very beginning, and they were quite harshly repressed. It's not like anti-war protests in the US against the Iraq war, where you can just do it and go back to your life the next day, necessarily. Russian reporters who just say negative things in print get prison sentences.
There are more protests against the war in Ukraine now, than there were in Russia in 1915, and the Russian people eventually overthrew their czar over that.
I think Ukraine will ultimately lose because it's not in the West's strategic interest, while it is in Russias. Russia's history is also pretty dark and they are paranoid of invasion. It makes no difference to our lives who governs Ukraine. It's horrible what has happened to the Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are fighting valiantly.
An invasion of Taiwan on the other hand would have a huge and immediate effect on our lives. We could in an instant be cut off from Semiconductors and would likely respond with a trade embargo with China who makes everything.
> It makes no difference to our lives who governs Ukraine.
The occupation of Ukraine signals Russia's intention to do the same with other countries they occupied in the past (Poland, Romania, the Baltic countries, &c) which are now part of NATO.
If you think Article 5 should be honored, then it does make a difference.
> The occupation of Ukraine signals Russia's intention to do the same with other countries they occupied in the past (Poland, Romania, the Baltic countries, &c) which are now part of NATO.
None of those countries have ever been officially mentioned as the "red line" by Russia, except Ukraine. Article 5 doesn't apply to Ukraine, and it doesn't allow for preventive military measures on non-alliance territories just because "there's a signal" somewhere outside.
Nazi Germany (which was economically mobilized for total war) showed you can only keep the economic house of cards going for so long. And the Russian economy is not the German economy (then or now), nor has mobilized for wartime.
It looks like it's doing okay, and the Russians loudly claim so and point at the Chinese and Indians buying crude and gas, but we'll see how long the veneer of "okay" lasts.
We have been steadily escalating the conflict with Russia. We're training Ukrainian forces, providing the intelligence for them, and supplying them with our best weapons. How can we even pretend it's Ukraine at war and not us at this point? How is there not more debate about backing a country with enough nukes to destroy life on earth into a corner?
The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons; Russia has lost two wars (once as the USSR, once as Russia) similarly without resorting to nuclear weapons. A loss in Ukraine wouldn't even be the most "backed in a corner" a superpower has been since WWII.
> The US has lost three wars without resorting to nuclear weapons;
None of which was happening anywhere close to US borders. In finance they say that past performance is no guarantee of future results, but you're eager to bet everything you have on this war outcome nonetheless.
Russia didn't lose in Chechnya, there were two campaigns and three rival military insurgent groups to combat. Eventually, the most prominent one was dealt with, and Khattab and all of his Saudi and Afghani terrorist field commanders were eliminated.
No it didn't, you're referring to an article on Wikipedia explaining how a battle was lost. I was saying how the war was won. Eventually every single insurgency leader and their field commanders were eliminated and nowadays Chechnya is part of Russia, and Chechen military forces are fighting on the side of Russia. If that's your definition of Russia's losing then I don't envy Ukrainian military command leaders.
The three insurgent groups acted across two campaings (two hot war phases). The first phase was dealing with Dudayev & Maskhadov and their following specifically. The second phase acted on the Kadyrovs group and the Khattab & Basayev group. The former essentially were bought out and negotiated out of the war via rivalry with Maskhadov, financial incetives, and several regional autonomy promises (they have their own militia and army divisions like the 141 Special Motorized Regiment). The latter Khattab group effectively became the most prominent force during the second phase, it had several field commanders from Middle East who organized acts of terror in major Russian cities. [1] The war ended with elimination of all the leaders and field commanders of the two separatist groups.
Are we calling Iraq and Afghanistan losses? Sure would be great if we established a liberal democracy in Afghanistan, but it seems like after Osama was killed, Americans mentally declared victory and we were just burning money and lives.
Iraq had their leader overthrown and a new government established. Its really hard to call that a loss, even if it wasnt a perfect liberal democracy like we want.
In 2003-13 I never would have said this but it sure looks like Iraq came out better.
Neither came out great but both are stable, Iraq is not destabilizing the region and Afghanistan isn't harboring people who want to attack the west and have the capability to.
That said, we never should have invaded Iraq and we probably could have accomplished what we accomplished in Afghanistan and more had we more seriously pursued diplomatic options in 2001.
For Afghanistan, I think the use of special forces and the like to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorists would have been expedient. We got him in Pakistan even after all the trouble to invade and occupy Afghanistan.
Throw in some shock and awe on Taliban forces if we wanted to make more of a point, I suppose.
The mood in 2001 was one where diplomacy was impossible short of unconditionally handing over everyone in Al Qaeda to the US.
>The mood in 2001 was one where diplomacy was impossible short of unconditionally handing over everyone in Al Qaeda to the US.
That wasn't an unreasonable request all things considered. We should have tried much harder to get the Taliban to accept that deal. They needed to look like more legitimate government with a stronger grip on power. We needed Al Qaeda. It should have been an easy deal to make. Marketing it would have been harder.
We've made the same deal a dozen times before. It's not like we didn't have the playbook ready to go. All we had to do was translate the end user guides from Spanish and replace "commies" with "Al Qaeda". Obviously the details would have needed to be hammered out but it's not like the precedent wasn't there.
Read the comments in this thread and others. See how many slack-jawed jackals are slavering over the idea of overthrowing Putin, ‘decolonizing’ Russia, Russia descending into anarchy, etc. These halfwits are merely echoing the myopic fantasies fed to them via the US media apparatus from the highest echelons of state power. Do you really think all these dark fantasies originated a year ago? Or is there maybe something else going on?
> It's dangerous to make a man with the nuke codes desperate toward the end of his life.
You always talk about the nukes because it's all you have left.
Western leaders will never bow to the nuclear threat because doing so means Russia/China can get their way in everything if they just use the nuclear threat.
> You always talk about the nukes because it's all you have left.
I talk about nukes because I believe it's the biggest danger the world faces and have for a long time. I grew up in the shadow of the cold war being drilled on how to hide under my desk when the missiles came. Far before Ukraine I was mystified by everyone's ability to forget that threat still exists. It seems possible and even likely to me that nuclear catastrophe will come before and be far greater in magnitude than any AI or climate catastrophes, for me it overshadows every other threat. Apparently I'm not the only one that perceives a threat: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
How long? A decision that must be made in an hour can't have too long a chain of command. There are several historical instances where we or Russia almost launched by mistake.
> How long? A decision that must be made in an hour can't have too long a chain of command. There are several historical instances where we or Russia almost launched by mistake.
The chain is even longer then the higher ups decision to actually launch a nuke though.
Would you press the button to nuke another country knowing that doing so will very likely kill your entire family and you?, or would you ignore the order?.
Everyone downvoting this should be completely ashamed of themselves.
This isn't reddit - we strive for a higher level of discourse here. "Upvotes / downvotes" mean "good contribution to the discussion / not good, ad hominem, rude, etc." And the above comment is an excellent contribution.
I want someone who actually has a good grasp of foreign policy, strategy, wargaming, geopolitics, etc. to answer this. I too want to understand how America arming and training a Ukrainian man to fight Russia is so strategically/diplomatically different from an American man fighting Russia. The degree of indirection seems so minor, how is it so different from direct engagement? Why/how does Russia/U.S. not treat it like direct engagement? I don't understand.
This is standard proxy war stuff, and isn't even close to what's been going on in the middle east. Like, not too long ago Wagner forces actually had a direct shoot out with the US military in Syria. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/worl...
The episode where the Russian jet sprayed fuel on the US drone? Standard cold war tactic that was very common in the 80s. Russians have been ramming and harassing US vehicles for decades. Here's a video of Russians harassing a US convoy of sorts in Syria a few years ago: https://youtube.com/shorts/hSGv02qQfhQ?feature=share
Both sides have been flagrantly arming and training opposing factions in these proxy wars for decades as well. Modern Ukraine looks a lot like a reversed Vietnam, actually, and the US never declared war on Russia for that either.
Neither side wants direct confrontation with the other, so they play games like this. Ukraine is a bit tame compared to the other recent/ongoing proxy wars. The flashpoint is that it's happening in Europe, which makes every move very public and sensationalised, and adds more pressure to the situation in general.
So most of this talk of "violations" and escalation is in some sense naive, because the actual red lines have been carved in the sand outside of the public eye over the past half century. What we understand as a clear escalation is often just par for the course in the minds of the people involved in these conflicts.
> he fearmongers with nukes to advocate for the subjugation of a country
I have concerns about going to war with a nuclear power therefore I'm pro-Russia and wish for the subjugation of Ukraine? Obviously manipulative and ridiculous framing.
Appeasement also has its issues. There is no guarantee that Russia would stop at Ukraine just like Germany didn't stop with Czechoslovakia. If Russia successfully annexed Ukraine, it would grow stronger with all of Ukraine's resources.
>How is there not more debate about backing a country with enough nukes to destroy life on earth into a corner?
That's exactly what Russia was counting on. Should we (by we, I mean the rest of the world) just let them annex whatever land they want, with no consequences or resistance?
> Should we (by we, I mean the rest of the world) just let them annex whatever land they want
There's no "whatever land". The war is going for a particular land with particular significance to Russia, similarly to Panama's significance to the US [1]
Why is it that Russians are the most jingoistic "Americans"? Whenever someone points out what Russia is doing, they immediately praise the US for doing a lesser version of the same thing.
If there's a similar significance does that mean you'll leave Ukraine afterwards?
It's counter productive to get into debates with people who call one side of the conflict as "orcs", it just shows that you've got skin in the game to object to everything that doesn't align with "Ukraine's right and is winning" narrative. But just to show your bias once again here's a few points:
> What history does Russia have in Romania (it still occupies Transnistria)?
It has the same common history with Carpathian Ruthenia land that Ukraine isn't willing to return to Hungary and Romania.
> Whenever someone points out what Russia is doing, they immediately praise the US for doing a lesser version of the same thing.
That's to show you that double-standards exist and that nobody seems to care as long as it serves their agenda.
Because Russia has stated when they started this phase of the war that they want NATO to return to its borders before the fall of communism. This means reoccupying all the eastern European countries that are part of NATO.
Assuming you believe in honoring the alliance, it's a lot easier to provide Ukraine with ammunition than to let it fall and have to send American troops to fight in Poland/Romania/etc.
We've had longstanding, well defined, and agreed upon hard lines that we drew for invading NATO allies bordering Russia. We did not have a treaty with or a policy for Ukraine before the invasion. Biden refused to draw a hard line when he had a chance before the invasion, he was explicitly asked. We knew this was coming and could have drawn a line, but didn't.
How do you escalate from a full blown invasion which flattens cities with artillery and targets civilians with impunity? I suggest that the only alternative to this "escalation" is to lie down and die and take the consequences.
This won't be the first or last of proxy wars. The notable thing is that it is being fought in Europe, right on the boundary between NATO and Russia, so the stakes (and the risks) are way higher
There is a long and storied history of the US and Russia / the Soviet Union providing, uh, "advisors" and equipment to enemies of their enemies.
Soviet pilots fought in Korea and Vietnam (to a much lesser degree). There are stories of Soviet special forces, infantry instructors, etc. participating in Vietnam as well. Vietnam received tons of anti-air missiles and systems, not to speak of the fighter jets, tanks, guns, and more.
The US trained and armed fighters in Afghanistan. It wouldn't surprise me to learn US special forces popped in from time to time.
Those are more well known--especially the Korean War and Afghan war shenanigans--but there are many others that are more obscure.
The US, UK, etc. funded and trained a number of independence and / or revolutionary movements in the Eastern Bloc and China. The Baltic states, for example, had some level of guerilla war for a bit until the Soviets cracked down.
The Soviets, of course, funded all sorts of, shall we say, interesting characters in the West.
More recently, Iranian forces fought against American forces in Iraq. Syria has seen the US and Russia square off in a few incidents.
The question in my mind is: what level of support is too much support? How do we reason about that?
What level of support deters additional territorial conquest? Does territorial conquest in and of itself increase the risk of Armageddon?
This is the sort of thing I'd expect to see in some Cold War era RAND Corporation white paper.
I worry we have lost some of our Cold War worries in the public consciousness. Being the top dog for so long has made us feel invincible.
But I also think we've forgotten that the Cold War was cold, not frozen, and there are valuable game theoretic discussions to be had or revisited
If you're pro-war, you should head down to your nearest Army recruiting station and sign up for duty. Otherwise, you're not really pro-war. You're anti-war for yourself, but you want other people to kill people on your behalf. In other words, you're a coward.
As an American, American soldiers are not fighting. The Ukrainians are not asking them to either. We are paying taxes, and those taxes are being used to send weapons to Ukraine. I'm pro-Ukraine as long as they collectively want to fight themselves - whether that means we send them advanced weapon systems or provide training and support for an insurgency.
Then replace "you" in my statement with "your son" and "someone else's son," and the same applies.
It's not just rhetoric. The underlying truth is that there have been wars in history that were worth fighting, and for which people did head to their nearest Army office and sign up to fight. And if a war doesn't reach that standard, then it begs the question why it's worth fighting at all.
> Because it's evil Russia attacked poor innocent Ukraine in 2014
The poor innocent Ukrainian government did pass a bill to prohibit official use of minority languages on the eastern part of the country (dominated by Russian-speaking population) on a Sunday morning of February 23, 2014. It happened a day after their president had to flee the country. It was clearly a period of political crisis and no one was supposed to work and enact any legislation on that weekend day in the first place. No one was supposed to pass a bill of that significance without extended debates and a referendum specifically. But the coup leaders decided to move forward with it nonetheless. Russian troops legally stationed in Crimea took over the peninsula 4 days after that punitive act of the Ukraine government against its own russian-speaking population of the eastern part of the country. The reinforcement from Russia were only sent 6 days after the event, as the Kiyv regime decided to escalate.
> So what? Passing some bills justify full scale military invasion?
It wasn't full scale at first, and there was leeway for a diplomatic resolution of the political crisis, which Kiyv regime decided to ignore and to escalate instead.
> Maybe we need to invade Russia, since they pass freedom stripping bills every week.
> prohibit official use of minority languages on the eastern part of the country
No, they did the same for all languages. Romanians have lived in Northern Bucovina for centuries, yet you don't see us invading Ukraine. But what you're saying is fair because they should only have prohibited Russian since they are the people who genocided Ukrainians so they have no right to occupy Ukraine.
are you negating "prohibited official use of minority languages" with "they did the same for all languages" as a means to show that the bill was even-headed?
> But what you're saying is fair because they should only have prohibited Russian since they are the people who genocided Ukrainians so they have no right to occupy Ukraine.
Right, the Russian language had to be prohibited because Russia would react to Ukraine's prohibiting the use of the Russian language for russian-speaking Ukrainians, presumably as a punitive measure for their alignment with Russia due to their geographical & cultural proximity and generational ties. And that's because Romanians living in Northern Bucovina couldn't care less about it..... My take is that you deserve a Nobel prize for being the most consistent person on Earth. Thanks for showing your stance clearly in the open.
I think that President Obama’s attempt to destabilize Russia will be seen by history as disastrous as George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. Like the Iraq war, the de facto declaration of “war by other means” against Russia will accelerate the very dynamic that it intends to halt: the steady weakening of U.S. imperialism’s grip on the world. It will increase the resolve of a host of nations to disengage themselves from American madness and to strengthen collaboration and cooperation among many countries, and not just Russia and China.
The result will be the exact opposite of Washington’s intention. The attempt to isolate and destabilize Russia, the other nuclear superpower, may appear to some to be an act of brashness, a flexing of American muscle, an act of imperial overconfidence and recklessness. People thought the same thing when Bush went into Iraq. They were shocked and more than a little bit awed. [1] In fact, sometimes I think that Americans are more shocked and awed by the American military than anybody else. But the Iraq invasion, and the brazen offensive against Russia, as well as the so-called “Pivot Against China” and the octopus-like U.S. military entrenchment in Africa — these are really symptoms of weakness and desperation.
U.S. imperialism is losing its grip on the world and responds to its weakening condition with massive campaigns of destabilization. Destabilization characterizes U.S. foreign policy today more than any other word. The purpose is to reverse the general dynamic of global affairs today in which U.S. influence and power shrinks in relative terms as the rest of the world develops. U.S. and European hegemony — and that is the ability to dictate the terms of economic and political life on the planet — has daily diminished in myriad objective ways, ways that we can measure by the numbers. China’s soon-to-be status as the world’s biggest economy is just one aspect of that decline.
The process is inexorable and it’s gaining momentum. The trajectory of imperial decline has been firmly set ever since the Western capitalists decided to move the production of things — that, is the industrial base — to the South and the rest of the planet. Inevitably power and influence follow and imperial hegemony diminishes. This is of course unacceptable to the rulers of the United States who now find themselves in objective opposition to all manifestations of collaboration and mutual development under terms that are not dictated by Washington. They are in objective opposition to all manifestations of independence by countries in the world. This applies not just to China, not just to China and Russia, but to the rest of the BRICS and to other developing nations. And it even applies to America’s closest allies.
That is because hegemons don’t really have allies. All they have are subordinates, and so the U.S. is quite prepared to do serious harm to European economic interests by pressuring them to break long established economic ties to Russia. They will ultimately do the same thing in the pacific region with China and cause great destabilization there. They do so not because of strength but because of growing relative weakness. Their desperation compels them to risk war because their only clear superiority is in weapons.
However, the net end result, if we survive these flirtations with all-out war, can only be further isolation of the United States and the further weakening of imperialism. I think there is on what passes for the left in the United States a tendency to describe U.S. aggressions like the Iraq war, like the current offensive against Russia, as mistakes and miscalculations: “They didn’t mean to do that.”
In reality the U.S. goes to the brink and beyond the brink of war because it perceives itself as having no other choice. Its soft power is fading. It has few other means beyond the military to strategically influence events. It recruits or buys allies where it can get them, be it jihadists or Nazis. As imperialism’s sway in the world shrinks, so do its options.
U.S. policymakers surveyed the world in 2002 and in 2003 and they concluded that the dynamic in Asia was going against them. They knew that most of the world would be horrified with a war against Iraq, but they rolled the dice anyway and invaded. The net result was the opposite of what they intended. The U.S. was humiliated and the U.S. was humiliated so badly that the rulers of the United States chose to put a dramatically different face on U.S. power — a Black face, Barack Obama.
Iraq was supposed to be a forward U.S. base in Asia to disrupt China’s growing ties in the region. Instead the Iraq war exposed U.S. imperialism’s weaknesses. In the days before that invasion, we wrote in Black Commentator that the U.S. had reached too far and succeeded only in accelerating the process of its own decline. Today Barack Obama is rolling the dice just like George Bush did. To sever Russia’s ties to Europe, Washington has surveyed the global scene and concluded that it has no other choice. The result will be a strengthening of ties between Russia and China, a great anxiety and rethinking among Europeans about their ties to the United States which is about to harm their economy, and an acceleration of imperialism’s death spiral.
Power to the people!
——
As usual HN disabling my ability to reply to people. Re the amusing soft power post:
Nothing says "consolidated American soft power" like Iran and Saudi Arabia cutting peace deals, the rise of K-Pop, and America desperately trying to ban TikTok.
That's a lot of words saying nothing. Russia invaded a sovereign country, that is the fault of Russia alone. Ukraine is defending itself, which is their right according to international law. And helping another country defend itself is similarily allowed under the UN charta.
There isn't a reference in this text about how Obama was destabilizing Russia. I though there was an attempt to reset and improve relations. Was it when Ukraine got rid of Yanukovich? Why not accept that this was a popular uprising against a corrupt politician? I recommend watching videos of his palace when people got in there. Notice that, unlike Russia, or Belarus, Ukraine held elections and peacefully changed leadership multiple times since then.
A weakness of this critique is that it focuses on US only without looking at Russia. It's a state with bad anti-democratic tendencies [poisoning and jailing political opposition, killing journalists, suppressing individual freedoms, no independent judiciary...] that is trying to spread its system to more territory by force. I'm surprised that an article with the word Liberation in one of its topics doesn't acknowledge that spreading Russia's system to more territory is bad for liberty.
> This is is a transcript of his contribution to the “Ukraine Teach-In” organized by the International Action Center in 2014, in the aftermath of the U.S.-organized “Euromaidan.”
The article opens up with false claim, why should I read further?
US strategy is open to debate and that's fine. (Healthy actually)
The fact is US citizens, resident aliens, and allies benefit from US government hegemony. The alternative is going to be unpalatable to most of those folks mentioned afore.
> American soft power has consolidated post-Ukraine
Disagree. For example USD's status as the world reserve currency is slowly starting to come into question after we used our financial system as a weapon against Russia. Other countries are starting to trade with Russia in their currency. Arab countries are starting to trade oil in non-USD. Countries like China are looking to take advantage and establish their currency as USD's replacement.
> USD's status as the world reserve currency is slowly starting to come into question
The U.S. dollar has always had people looking for a replacement. (There is a solid economic argument for America de-internationalising the dollar for domestic purposes.) It was weaker in the wake of 2008 than it is today.
> Other countries are starting to trade with Russia in their currency. Arab countries are starting to trade oil in non-USD
The petrodollar hypothesis is a debunked explanation for American hegemony, even dollar hegemony. I traded oil in pounds sterling and euros years ago--much of the world settles own way.
Also, this limited definition of soft power ignores American military supremacy, both on its own and with its alliances, which are strengthening, as well as American economic heft, which in even the most pessimistic estimates is a commanding strength through at least the 2050s, a timeline even the stupidest heads of state can see. It's this soft power that keeps the Russian hard power frontline a few miles off its border and the Chinese' a few miles off its shore.
(People also tend to overstate the real economic effects of the dollar losing reserve status, equating it with Britain post-Suez.)
As a concerned observer of US foreign policy, I must say that I have serious reservations about the direction it has taken in recent years. Despite the many resources and capabilities that the United States possesses, it seems that our government has been unable to use them in a way that promotes peace and stability around the world.
One of the biggest criticisms I have of US foreign policy is the tendency towards unilateralism and military intervention. It seems that the default response to any international crisis or conflict is to send in troops or launch airstrikes, regardless of the consequences. This approach has been costly in terms of both lives and resources, and has often ended up exacerbating the very problems it was meant to solve.
Another issue I have with US foreign policy is the lack of attention given to diplomacy and multilateralism. Instead of working with other nations to find collaborative solutions to global problems, the US often seems more interested in asserting its dominance and pursuing its own interests. This has led to a breakdown of trust and cooperation with our allies, and has made it more difficult to address shared challenges like climate change, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation.
Furthermore, the US has a troubling track record of supporting oppressive regimes and engaging in human rights abuses in the name of advancing its geopolitical goals. This has led to the alienation of many people around the world who see the US as hypocritical and morally bankrupt.
Overall, I believe that US foreign policy needs to fundamentally shift its focus towards diplomacy, cooperation, and respect for human rights. We need to recognize that we are part of a global community and that our actions have consequences beyond our borders. By working with others and promoting peaceful, inclusive solutions, we can help to build a more just and stable world for all.
Note that I used "Okay chatGPT, generate me a long generic criticism about US foreign policy in the first person." instead, since it won't generate anything if you say "rant"
> Most people are too cowardly to challenge the premises of the conflict ("Poor innocent Ukraine got attacked by evil Russia!")
I'm not a coward so I will challenge you. It wasn't Russia, it was Putin and a group of people around him who decided to attack Ukraine to extend their influence. Ukraine is a victim in this conflict. There is nothing that they did they would justify invading, murdering and raping innocent people.
It was never just about the Abrams it was mostly about unleashing Leopard tanks from other NATO countries (in addition to Challenger 2). Although the number of Leopard tanks sent by Germany so far is pretty small (18/88 promised) combined with 8 from Canada and 10 from Spain. There's about 2000 floating around Europe total. Still it was a big step forward.
The Abrams is powerful but it's expensive and logistically difficult to operate with jet fuel and trailing supply vehicles designed for a modern American army.
I'm most interested in the hundreds of Bradley's and other IFVs showing up.
All NATO gas turbines, including the M1's engine, are rated to run on a variety of hydrocarbons including diesel and petrol / gasoline. There is a performance penalty but not significantly.
Everyone always says this exact thing that M1 can run on desiel but no one actually expects them to when they get them and being the first wide scale deployment test in real world operations seems awfully risky
31 tanks will not make a difference in a war where Russia lost more than 3000 tanks in a year. US has thousands of unused Abrams in storage. Time for the Biden administration to step up for real.
The unique geography of the Isthmus of Perekop into Crimea actually makes it so that 31 tanks really could turn the war. At it's narrowest, it's ~4 miles wide (~120 yards per side of each tank), flat as a pancake, no cover or so much as a molehill. It's really the only way into Crimea for Ukraine too (it gets a bit complicated). Two and a half football field lengths between each tank is a bit crowded, if anything.
Yeah, yeah, defenses, and I agree. The last time the Nazis and Soviets fought over it, ~250k casualties resulted (I think).
It's a hell of a choke-point.
But 31 Abrams is just about enough to do it, right order of magnitude in the least.
Some weird comments and up/down voting going on in this thread, hijacked perhaps or Western "socialists" doing their contradictory SIMPing for imperial Russia?
It would be best to arm Ukraine to the extent required (missiles, planes etc) to reclaim all their territory vs reactively doing just enough to keep them in the fight.