Isn’t that our current goal? (Our meaning NATO/Ukraine.)
Sounds like we’re getting the closer to our mission accomplished moment.
Sounds like we’re getting the closer to our mission accomplished moment.
No. It's to get Russia out of Ukraine. Cleaning up a failed nuclear state is in nobody's interest.
I sincerely believe McFaul isn’t able to think of the next step. He is thinking deontologically just as Putin (and I dare say the Russian people too) are thinking about survival.
It would be good to think of the long term consequences of any foreseeable outcome. Hopefully it all goes well: Putin falls and is replaced by an internationalist. Frankly the Afghanistan debacle has caused me to doubt the wisedom and capacity for longer term thinking of the American political-military leadership. Hubris damns us all.
Seems in the play book, overthrow of unfriendly regime by any means.
It's easy to get confused given their strong propaganda, but if you want to be dispassionate about the subject, this isn't a recent development, it goes back 300 years before NATO.
As a european, I'm glad that NATO is backing Ukraine, otherwise it might've been going the way of Georgia or Chechnia just to mention a couple in recent times.
Russia is a major producer of cobalt, nickel, copper, molybdenum, bauxite and uranium [1].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mining_industry_of_Russia
Interesting that I would consider one of the major articles is Russia's educated emigrants, but that's another matter.
US and NATO diplomats were crystal clear that after the USSR's fall, the former Soviet states should not be invited into NATO. And later that they should not be invited into the EU. Even with USSR gone, they were in Russia's sphere of influence, and making those overtures would be provocative.
The US pushing for a military alliance with Ukraine is what initially set Putin on trying to take control of Ukraine. That is a mighty long border to share with a US ally. Everything went downhill from there.
So a very, very cynical read of this situation would be that the US and NATO goaded this war specifically so that Putin would play his hand, and the entire world would watch as Russia crumbled. That their entire military was a front for crumbling soviet era technology and resources. The problem with building a society where the powerful steal everything not nailed down is that they also do that to the military. US and NATO intelligence likely knew this.
And given how brazenly the US and NATO have supported Ukraine through this, I would also hazard a guess that they know that most if not all of Russia's nukes won't actually fly.
EDIT since multiple responses have asked about a source[1] on the nato comment:
> The present crisis has its roots in a long-brewing contest over Ukraine’s geopolitical alignment. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine became independent but for decades joined neither with Russia nor with the West. The United States, for its part, expanded its NATO alliance but initially sidestepped Ukraine. It recognized that Russia, sharing deep ties and a 1,426-mile land border with Ukraine, might oppose such a move by force. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” William J. Burns, then U.S. ambassador to Russia and current CIA director, cabled from Moscow in 2008. “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
> Later that year, however, President George W. Bush pressured NATO to pledge that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.” Although momentum toward membership stalled for multiple reasons, Ukraine pursued an association agreement with the European Union that moved more quickly. When, in 2014, Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity replaced a Russian-oriented government with a pro-Western one, Russia swiftly annexed Crimea, home to its Black Sea naval base, and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/23/ukraine-ta...
What is provocative about joining NATO ? It is a purely defensive alliance. They are absolutely no threat to Russia. The only reason to be against anyone joining NATO is if you were planning to invade them. And guess what happened ?
Surprisingly there exist countries whose neighbors do not run into defensive alliances excluding their neighbors at the first opportunity, why is that?
Mexico’s real life stance relative to Russia isn’t relevant for the example to hold.
Also, how were the missiles on Cuba defensive ?
You see, that's what you "both sides do it" people keep missing. Both sides aren't equal. One side tramples their own neightbors, so their neighbors hate them. The other side tramples other people's neighbors so that their enemies are really far away. Russia is a losing nation playing losing strategies, and you Russia lovers are losers too.
I gave a hypothetical example to illustrate how America would be provoked by a defensive alliance on its border.
Nothing more or less than this and the “you X people” rhetoric doesn’t apply.
It's like if I said "well but if we could time-travel, then X". But we can't! That hypothetical has no connection to reality. And neither does yours.
Ah, yes. The "she was asking for it" defense.
Your honor, she totally wanted it. There was nothing I could do. I had no agency, effectively.
Do you have a source for this? All I could find was the Warsaw and Budapest pacts. I'm not trying to nitpick. I share the same view but when I explain this to people they alway say these are soviet lies.
Can you provide the source for this, please?
> The US pushing for a military alliance with Ukraine is what initially set Putin on trying to take control of Ukraine.
Why do you think so? Can't there be another reason for invasion?
Sure[1]. If you google you will find the direct quote in this paragraph in many places.
> The present crisis has its roots in a long-brewing contest over Ukraine’s geopolitical alignment. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine became independent but for decades joined neither with Russia nor with the West. The United States, for its part, expanded its NATO alliance but initially sidestepped Ukraine. It recognized that Russia, sharing deep ties and a 1,426-mile land border with Ukraine, might oppose such a move by force. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” William J. Burns, then U.S. ambassador to Russia and current CIA director, cabled from Moscow in 2008. “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/23/ukraine-ta...
And I'd take William J Burns words with some grain of salt. It's likely "anyone" who he had to find were from some selected circle of rather like-minded persons.
Your link doesn't say anything close to that.