Broken Promises Have Consequences: hundreds of thousands dead, no end in sight

[stuper1]

https://original.antiwar.com/Ted_Snider ... o-promise/

At some point Ukraine/NATO are going to have enough of the dying, and will ask Russia for peace. Russia is going to laugh at them, and ask why should we believe any promises you make in a peace treaty when you've broken so many promises over the last 30 years? The terms are going to be very harsh.

The US doesn't have a great record of keeping promises made in peace treaties. Ask Chief Joseph and Chief Sitting Bull about this. I'm sure lots of other countries have similarly bad records. Just keep the US record in mind though when you hear the inevitable moralizing in our media about how evil Putin can't be trusted. Billions of people the world over think the same thing about the US.

[Vil]

Both US and Russia sucks - does that work ? However, in this war Russia sucks way more

[seajay]

Works both ways. 250,000 Russians killed/wounded per year is many upset families. A small number initially relative to total population and where the first year has been mostly expendables, prisoners. With that cohort spent others are being rounded up and dispatched to the grinder as bullet fodder. Russia/Putin will also be looking for a way out, a difficulty however is that Russia is widely perceived to be untrustworthy, any promises/statements being valueless. Most wars are a lot easier started than ended, excepting rapid conquests - which Putin anticipated but failed to achieve. Difficult to see a way out where both save-face whilst risk of escalation is high. I believe 70% of Russians actually live within continental Europe and a west-east European war confrontation, NATO's 1 million strong armed services etc., escalation is just a single misplaced event away and a attrition rate that would relatively quickly see Russia on the back-foot and potential resorting to nuclear. I suspect America would be OK with having Eastern Europe and Western Russia turned into a larger Chernobyl (uninhabitable) region which is perhaps the more likely outcome - just a matter of America being comfortable with that being contained to just within Europe and accordingly will manage things so as for the war to be seen as a EU common defence agreement factor rather than a NATO factor.

[stuper1]

Both US and Russia sucks - does that work ? However, in this war Russia sucks way more

Russia is only doing what the US would do if the shoe was on the other foot (i.e., if Russia was moving its missiles up to our borders), and yet Russia is the bad guy here? Very interesting analysis.

I would wager, based on past conflicts, that the civilian damage that the US would cause in say Mexico would make Putin blush at his timidity in Ukraine. But sure, if you want to keep believing that Putin is the bad guy in this situation, be my guest. Time will tell which picture fits with reality better.

The media wants us to think that Putin has designs on expanding the Russian empire back to Soviet limits. Zero evidence is ever produced for these assertions, but people like to think in terms of black and white, good versus evil, so they fall for this stuff. Generals are always fighting the last war, and the public is always looking for the next Hitler. Russia has no need for lebensraum the way Hitler did, and Hitler had many adjacent areas where ethnic Germans had been cut off from the motherland. Russia doesn't have much of that, other than in eastern and southern Ukraine, but Russia was willing to let that be as long as Ukraine would agree to stay neutral. We like to jump up and down and say that's not fair to the Ukrainians, but I keep asking would we do any different if Mexico wanted to join a military alliance with our worst enemy? Of course, we wouldn't. So let's stop being hypocrites.

[dualstow]

The media wants us to think that Putin has designs on expanding the Russian empire back to Soviet limits. Zero evidence is ever produced for these assertions,

His own speeches aren’t good enough evidence for you? Because they’ve been referenced here several times over the past few years. I don’t know about “Soviet limits” but expanding the empire? Absolutely.


One cannot say you’re a classic Russian apologist or a Putin apologist because you have reduced Putin to a simple automaton reacting to a single stimulus: the movements of NATO. Never mind the wily ways in which he rose to (seized) power. Let’s put aside what he does to defectors and perceived enemies of the state.

He’s not worried about whether or not he maintains the top seat in the Kremlin, nor whether his generals are happy.
The price of oil goes up and it goes down, but whether the Russian populace loves him or despises him, it’s all about NATO. He’s just an NPC with a single subroutine. Interesting. And unique.

[stuper1]

Please point me to a speech where he’s indicated a desire to expand the Russian empire. I’m not aware of any. I’m sure it’s easy to find Western pundits who claim he’s said such things, but I’m unaware of any speeches where he’s said such.

As to your veiled fallacious argument (is that called an ad hominem, sorry I’ve forgotten 99% of any Latin I inadvertently learned in law school), I mean what am I supposed to think of you: as a NATO apologist? I mean come on, the Cold War’s been over for 30 years. Why do we still have troops stationed in Germany, etc ? It’s ridiculous. We have enough nuclear missiles in submarines to blow up plenty of cities. NATO is just another big-government racket. Anyone who wasn’t a NATO apologist would clearly see that. Once the government has its claws in an expensive boondoggle, it won’t let go, because plenty of people have their careers tied up in it.

[dualstow]

Please point me to a speech where he’s indicated a desire to expand the Russian empire.

It’s been done so many times. You can find it by googling. If you don’t believe me, I’m fine with that.

As to your veiled fallacious argument (is that called an ad hominem, sorry I’ve forgotten 99% of any Latin I inadvertently learned in law school)

I’m sure we’re all very impressed. But no, that it not what ad hominem means. That’s when you attack the person instead of the argument. Literally, it’s something like “at the man.”
Example:

Ok, I'll explain it to you like you're five.

[stuper1]

Ah, ok, thanks for explaining. So calling someone a Putin apologist is not an at-the-man argument?

I believe you that there's thousands of Western media articles claiming that Putin said that he is chomping at the bit to expand the Russian empire. I don't believe that if we read his actual words, you know in the context of an actual speech which usually takes 20 minutes or more, that he indicates any actual desire to take more land for Russia. I'm sure they will find a sentence or two that supposedly indicates some kind of hidden intention. If you think the media always tells the truth with no biases or hidden agendas, I'm fine with that, no problem.

[stuper1]

By the way, this is fun, I'm learning a lot about how this game is played. Much appreciated.

[vnatale]

By the way, this is fun, I'm learning a lot about how this game is played. Much appreciated.

How are you defining the game?

I'm for the most part silent on this topic and the other parallel one because I have nothing to add with any degree of certainty.

[Mountaineer]

By the way, this is fun, I'm learning a lot about how this game is played. Much appreciated.

How are you defining the game?

I'm for the most part silent on this topic and the other parallel one because I have nothing to add with any degree of certainty.

Just make assertions Vinny. You don't need facts to back up assertions (yes, I know that you usually employ facts and not just make groundless assertions). You will hit a home run before you know it and be a legend and fully engaged in the game.

[dualstow]

Ah, ok, thanks for explaining. So calling someone a Putin apologist is not an at-the-man argument?

Hmm. That’s a fair question. I don’t mean it to be. To clarify, I asked if there was anything on your list of events that was not the US or Nato’s fault. That was rhetorical, for sure, but you’re prettty consistent in blaming the U.S. and apologizing for Russia. I don’t see you praising the U.S. for turning former belligerents Germany and Japan into engines of industry, nor calling out Putin’s obvious misdeeds, such as what he does to his own citizenry. Again, I *only* see you explaining that he’s reacting to Nato missile positions.

I’ll ask you straight out: Is there anything else?

If not, that’s why I define you as (a unique kind of) Putin apologist. That’s from your arguments, so I don’t think it’s ad hominem, but I’ll leave that for anyone lurking to decide for themselves. Honestly, I don’t know if anyone’s reading.

[stuper1]

I'll be happy to answer straight out, except very sincerely I'm not clear on what your question is. You said "Is there anything else?" Could you please clarify that for me? Anything else what?

[stuper1]

By the way, this is fun, I'm learning a lot about how this game is played. Much appreciated.

How are you defining the game?

That's probably the funniest post of all right there. Thank you, Vinny, you're always able to lighten up the mood around here.

[dualstow]

Is there anything else in your calculation of Putin & Russia’s stance beyond NATO missiles. Any other variables?

[stuper1]

No, there's more to it than that, which I will mention below. But I will say that the NATO missiles would be enough in my view, for one reason, which is I'm more than convinced of what the US response would be if a foreign power was trying to put missiles in Canada or Mexico pointed at us.

Other than the missiles, the story is that the Russian-speaking and Russian-leaning eastern and southern areas of Ukraine have been mistreated by Kiev for many years, including actual artillery shelling for years and hundreds of ethnic Russians being burned to death in a theater in Odessa. Now, I don't know how much of that is true, but a lot of people say that it's true, and they aren't all just Putin apologists from what I can gather. But what do I know? I'm just a guy sitting behind a computer.

There was also the business about the US basically sponsoring a coup in 2014 to put in an anti-Russian leader to replace the previous pro-Russian leader. The US insists that their hands are clean in this matter. Yet nobody seems to deny that Nuland was handing out cookies in the Kiev main square at the time, not to mention being on the phone talking about setting up phone calls to various Ukrainians to tell them who the next leader should be. It's all circumstantial evidence of course, but anyway the new anti-Russian leader got in and then the mistreatment of ethnic Russians heated up and the talk about bringing Ukraine into NATO. So, in my scenario of China threatening to put missiles into Canada, what if we add that in the years leading up to it we find out that China was intimately involved with engineering a change in the Canadian government to install a more pro-China government. Can you imagine the US reaction to that?

There might be a few other things that I'm not remembering right now, but I think those are the main points.

I get accused of being 100% certain that the situation is more complex than the media portrays. Maybe some of you guys should get accused of accepting at face value every weird accusation that's leveled at Putin as if he is a deranged maniac. His approval rating in Russia is quite high, because he saved them from literal starvation in the 1990s and being raped by the oligarchs. Much of the Russian criticism he's receiving now is not because he attacked Ukraine, but because a lot of people wish he had attacked Ukraine more strongly and made quicker work of the business even though that would have meant many more casualties on both sides. Some of the stories that Western media print about him are just ludicrous on their face. But you can google that, I don't need to show it to you.

[dualstow]

I get accused of being 100% certain that the situation is more complex than the media portrays.

I don’t think you have that right. You should go back and reread that.

I might not be able to respond further until tomorrow night, but I’ll be back. In the meantime, see the other thread, which is turning out to be the same as this one.

[stuper1]

The USA has been a wonderful influence on the world in terms of things it has done domestically, modeling representative government and capitalistic free markets as examples to other countries, and developing fantastic technologies in agriculture, industry, medicine that have helped to raise living standards and life expectancies throughout the world.

The US's foreign policy has been a disaster, starting with the Mexican-American War, forcing Japan to open up to trade (this is one few people ever talk about, it was only about 85 years before Pearl Harbor, but very possibly directly linked), Spanish-American War, World War I (huge disaster, people can argue over the details, but if the US just stays out of WW1, it's hard to believe that everything else lines up exactly the same leading to Hitler coming to power), Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, now Ukraine. I left out WW2, because we did do something good in stopping Hitler, although in fact Russia did a whole lot more, but to me WW2 has the huge asterisk of that Hitler very possibly wouldn't have been in power anyway if we just would have stayed the heck out of WW1. I left out Korea too because I don't know much about that one. And why are all these displaced immigrants from the south showing up in Europe in the last 20 years; whatever could have happened back home that caused them to risk their lives in leaving?

Oh, wait, I forgot all the meddling in Latin America. You say that Russia is hated by all its neighbors. Trust me, the US has a huge amount of ill will stored up from the Rio Grande to the southern tip of South America, because of all the foreign policy debacles we've been involved in, including supporting dictators left and right who horribly torture dissidents, and all that kind of stuff. Sure, the Latin Americans are willing to come to the US for economic opportunities they don't have back home (and I've read of people migrating to Russia from border countries for the same reason), but that doesn't mean the Latin Americans don't have huge amounts of resentment against the US for all the problems caused by our meddling in their internal politics over the decades.

The latest example is Ukraine. The insane hubris of the idea to go in and meddle in the internal politics of Ukraine directly on the border of Russia is ridiculous. This is no way to do diplomacy. True diplomats from decades ago are rolling over in their graves at the way the US does diplomacy these days, which basically just boils down to us telling other countries how things are going to be, like it or lump it. I mean it literally doesn't matter if we actually meddled in Ukraine or not. It's a situation of just the appearance of meddling is enough for the Russia people to demand action. You don't even need Putin to be in charge. It could be a milquetoast bureaucrat in charge, and if the Russian people think that somebody is meddling with things in the neighboring country which could lead to US missiles being pointed at Russia, then a few politicians and generals could easily convince this milquetoast bureaucrat that he needs to act. It's just really basic; again think of what the US people would demand if they thought another country was meddling in Canada's politics with the aim of installing missiles there (and again it doesn't even have to be true; just the perception would be enough). One superpower shouldn't be messing around in the internal politics of key countries on the borders of other superpowers. It's just asking for trouble, because of all the misperceptions and miscalculations that can ensue. And when I say trouble I mean exactly what we are in right now, which means hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian people killed or shattered. That's why we have this thing called the Monroe Doctrine. It means don't come messing around our neighborhood or else trouble will start. But guess what? It works both ways. We shouldn't go messing around right next to other superpowers, especially when they make it clear that they won't stand for it in key areas. I remember hearing a saying that some military people would say in the old times about "oh, life is cheap over in such and such a country". Unfortunately, at some point it started applying to the USA -- apparently to us life is cheap in places like Ukraine. We're willing to gamble with hundreds of thousands of lives just to supposedly prove a point that we can push our military alliances as far as we want.

Is this where I'm supposed to put a disclaimer that I'm only 99% certain of the above views or something like that? Will that make anybody more comfortable? I don't want anyone to feel unsafe. I mean it's not really important that people are dying by the hundreds of thousands due to US dollars, but rather that we all feel safe here in this forum. I'm willing to go down to 98% certainty if that will help you to not be discomfited, just to show what a great guy I am, but that's my final offer. I mean, what a load of hogwash. If you don't agree with my opinions, just say so, I can take it, just as I assume you can take it if I don't agree with yours. Bring your evidence on why you think I'm wrong, and I'll bring my evidence on my side. We're all big boys and girls here, I'm sure.

[vnatale]

When I was 19 years old and took a course in college (in 1970) .... the main concept I got out of that course was that U.S. foreign policy from just about Day One was whatever was good for the American dollar. Goes along with another saying I have, "Money makes the world go round."

[Mountaineer]

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.
Dennis Roch

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.
Voltaire

[vnatale]

If it takes a lot of words to say what you have in mind, give it more thought.
Dennis Roch

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything.
Voltaire

All true.

Did you (anyone else) read The Elements of Style? I made a vow to read it once a year since it's so short and each time I've read it my writing improves. Unfortunately, in all the decades that have passed since my first reading I think I've only read it a few more times.

One of its admonitions is that the most powerful writing is what communicates the most in the least amount of words.

That has always stuck with me so that when I have to write something "important" that I go over and over and over again before "releasing" it I continue to get a thrill if I can cut out words with no reduction in the message(s).

[seajay]

I mean come on, the Cold War’s been over for 30 years. Why do we still have troops stationed in Germany, etc ? It’s ridiculous. We have enough nuclear missiles in submarines to blow up plenty of cities. NATO is just another big-government racket. Anyone who wasn’t a NATO apologist would clearly see that.

Finland and Sweden now also in (joining) NATO and the increase/upgrading of nukes facing into Russia - was driven by Putin. When one country invades another, deploying convicts in the first waves that all to obviously rape, pillage, murder innocent civilians, fire cluster bombs/rockets into cities to level them etc., then the need for a collective counter is elevated.

Russia boasts about nuclear capabilities, threats of actual deployment of hypersonics/Satan2 etc., and the West in response just quietly up-scales its nukes along the Russia border, capable of obliterating western Russia in less than 180 seconds - as a demonstrable reply rather than engaging into a verbal mine's-bigger-than-yours exchange. A necessity when a country permits someone to be in control who has no respect for the lives of his own citizens, let alone others.

Russia has a history of having starved 13 million Ukranians to death, and in more recent decades has sought to conquer by moving Russians into eastern Ukraine and indoctrinating schools/culture into Russia ways. Neighbourly relations with Russia were improving, Putin decided to end that, his choice to turn Russia into a pariah state.

[vnatale]

Case seems to be made that while the United States has certainly not always been angelic in its behaviors .... that Russia has been more on the devilish side of things. Both towards its own people and others.