Wait so Russia is struggling to even take Kyiv and you’re implying that they are an equal foe to the highest spend armed forces in the world? Allied with the countries that constitute 75%+ of global wealth?
Putin’s propaganda is WILDLY effective.
I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand the nuance of war.
Russia did exactly that in Grozny. They seem to be trying to do the same thing here in the same way :(
At what point in history was Chechnya an internationally recognized free state a la Ukraine?
Sure there was a period of time when Chechnya was a semi-recognized failing state [0], but to say that it was in anyway comparable to Ukraine is disingenuous at best.
[0] news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/135716.stm
Since when does “an unwilling people” require “an internationally recognized free state”, or are those goalposts jet propelled?
When they briefly broke away from Russia, they were dominated by warlords. Not exactly a clear indication that there was a popularly supported free government (unlike Ukrainian which has formal elections with broad turnout).
Maybe apply a critical thinking lens?
The other issues are that Russians view Ukraine as their ancestral homeland[1], every major invasion of Russia has gone through it, and they view Ukraine in NATO as an existential threat.
On the other hand if Russia wins the only real consequence for the USA and EU is basically the status quo.
There is no way Russia backs down here and anyone with even a modicum of historical education knows it.
This is over-simplifying it: Crimea has a big divide between the 60% ethnic Russian population and everyone else (e.g. the Tatars know they’re much better off in Ukraine as an ethnic and religious minority), and while the other occupied territories definitely have some supporters of rejoining Russia it’s not clear that this approaches even a plurality — and especially after the invasion, a lot of people will have reconsidered their positions as they see an illegal war featuring indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
The number of IED used against the US says Iraq wasn't willingly occupied.
Propaganda: Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. - from Wikipedia
Question: How can you determine when an individual is under the influence of propaganda?
Answer: When they stop looking for the truths that either or both sides of a conflict use as the foundation of their propaganda.
>Putin’s propaganda is WILDLY effective.
I'd argue so is the United States, much more so than Putin's. If you compare the evils committed by the US to Putin's, Putin cannot hold a candle to the US. The difference is that Putin bears that burden across multiple decades, while the US changes figure heads every 4-8 years, and with that washes away the stains of the country into the haze of time.
With all that being said, I am not pro-Putin nor pro-US regarding this conflict, and I agree with the article that the best course is for the United States to admit defeat, (and additionally, not in the article) stop expanding eastward (through NATO), and to keep their promise to Russia (which was to stop expanding NATO).
Edit: I'd like to add, the seed of Putin's "fascist/nazi" claim is that in 2014, Ukraine's new government eliminated minority rights (i.e. the Russian minority, which represents less than half of the population). And, the US started funding the neo-Nazi faction (Azov battalion) of the Ukrainian army. A quick duckduckgo search will pull up articles for both of these claims.
>There’s rarely a single person you can hold accountable for embodying our bad ideas and behaviors.
Which is much more dangerous than being able to place responsibly on a non-amorphous, single person. The US has an extensively long history of interfering in the matters of other countries. You can overthrow and point fingers at one figure head, but you can't overthrow a system, systemic, and systematically unaccountable foreign policy that changes face every 4-8 years.
I wasn't aware that the US was a party to this conflict where Russia invaded a neighbor without cause. Weird thing to hear from an enlightened centrist.
If it goes nuclear both sides will defeat each other. Neither is known to have any viable defense against nuclear missiles. It seems really odd to have to make that point. It seems even more odd that putin is threatening it.
In conventional warfare, the US 1000% has the resources to make an invasion of an unwilling nation impossible.
In nuclear warfare you and I are both dead so this debate is pointless.