A Foreign Policy Discussion

[Lance_Castro]

What is your previous alt?

Lol.

 

[ll74]

Lol.

Why did you create a new user?

 

[Bodington]

NOBODY has a clue on how to deal with the Russia-Ukraine war, beyond giving military aid to Ukraine.

Putin was counting on a quick victory -- he would take Kyiv and install a pro-Russian puppet regime like Belarus has. That failed, and he had no plan B.

So what they have now is a border war -- it will never be more than a border war, because (short of the nuclear option) neither side has the ability to decisively defeat the other, in the sense of destroying its capacity to make war.

So it's just going to go on and on until Putin gets tired of it. It's HIS war of choice, after all -- the Russian people were not clamoring for war with Ukraine -- they have nothing to gain by it. If Russia wins this war, the Russian people will not be any safer, or richer, or freer. Nor will they be any worse off if Russia loses. They don't even care if Ukraine joins NATO. So Putin can end this war at any time -- he will face no domestic opposition -- nobody who wants to keep it going.

The bold referenced opinion, I suggest is not true. The threat of Ukraine joining NATO is actually the nexus for Putin launching the attack on Ukraine. I suggest that part and parcel of any negotiated ceasefire would include Russia's insistence that the West and particularly the United States would agree not to pursue NATO membership for Ukraine.

 

[Politruk]

The bold referenced opinion, I suggest is not true. The threat of Ukraine joining NATO is actually the nexus for Putin launching the attack on Ukraine.

Putin cares about that. The Russian PEOPLE don't. They're not afraid of NATO -- and they do not share Putin's ambition. Which is to make Russia a world power of the first rank once again. Like it was when the Communists ruled. Like it was when the tsars ruled.

Ukraine can't join NATO anyway -- the treaty forbids admitting any country that has an ongoing territorial dispute. Which Ukraine has had, ever since 2014.