Comment by kergonath
2 years ago
You say it like it’s their choice. Moldova never asked for Transnistria. It’s fairly SOP for Russia to take bites from its neighbours, let’s stop blaming the victims. Whatever Russia ends up doing, they are preparing for themselves a second Chechnya at the very least.
Of course it is not just their choice. Russia has indicated their willingness to accept current holdings (for now, you are right there are no guarantees).
Ukraine could and should get better than just that, but this notion of taking back Crimea is a pipe dream and I don’t support continued funding until that goal is realized.
If you want to be extremely cynical and seek to strictly extend and project the USA's power as harshly and effectively as possible, the war in Ukraine was God's gift to the USA. They get to basically take out Russia (China's key geopolitical ally) without losing a single American life, for a tiny fraction of the amount they're used to spending on wars.
And yet it's American nationalists themselves who want it all to stop, to throw all of its European allies under the bus and burn the alliance with the rest of the Western world to the ground. An amazing and almost impressive act of self harm.
It's not so much "America first" with you lot, it's "America alone".
> If you want to be extremely cynical and seek to strictly extend and project the USA's power as harshly and effectively as possible, the war in Ukraine was God's gift to the USA. They get to basically take out Russia (China's key geopolitical ally) without losing a single American life, for a tiny fraction of the amount they're used to spending on wars.
In a sane timeline, support for Ukraine should be unanimous amongst US politicians. Whether they would be neocons (following the calculation you outlined), liberals out to support oppressed people, cold-hearted capitalists out to make a buck both during wartime and in reconstruction, anyone supporting the military who will get an influx of new toys as their old ones are shipped out to Ukraine at basically no cost for the taxpayer, testosterone-addicted macho patriots who get to see American technology crush the remains of a former peer adversary.
It really should be a no brainer. And yet…
You are assuming I am some Trump American-first Republican. I think you are severely misjudging the politics of Ukraine support in the US, which has collapsed in the last few months.
Perhaps I am opposed to harsh projections of American power in an increasingly multipolar world? The global playing field is leveling, I think that is precisely the wrong time to be making even bitterer enemies.
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That rhetoric, outside of being sociopathic, is also almost certainly just not true.
I'm sure you've also been watching this war play out. When Russia first invaded their army was disorganized, relatively ineffective, and on extremely unstable footing. And when NATO entered the picture there was genuine fear about Western weaponry. Now Russia's military is much more effective, the visage of dominance of Western weaponry has been completely destroyed (along with large amounts of said weaponry itself), Russia's military production has reached highly competent levels, and they're altogether in a much better place. Even the no American lives part is false. Not only have numerous mercenaries and contractors been killed, but I think it's extremely safe to assume that there have been casualties among the inevitable individuals who are not officially there.
Also, one mistake you make is in claiming that withdrawing will have negative consequences (which I agree with), and then jumping from there to 'well, then we shouldn't withdraw!' Unfortunately in real life the choice is often not between a good choice and a bad choice, but between a bad choice and an awful choice. This is even more true when acting under poor leadership, or leadership with insufficient foresight. And I don't see how continuing this war is anything but negative for basically everybody, except perhaps Boeing and other arms dealers.
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