Will Russia invade Ukraine?

[BridgeTroll]

"Fact: The US is not engaged in a proxy war against Russia."

This is a lie. The US is absolutely engaged in a proxy war. Why else would Lindsey Graham so boldly claim that "the best money we've ever spent" is directly related to the death of Russian soldiers during the war? Washington has made Russia it's de-facto boogie man forever yet can't explain what sort of actual "direct threat" they pose on us. The fact is, they don't. Washington itself is a far greater direct threat to the sovereignty of this nation than Russia will be anytime soon.

There were 14 points and you are attempting to refute one of them. It's a good starting point. 

Russia IS the boogie man to use your term as they are the aggressor... they illegally annexed the Donbas region and Crimea... and a few years later following western inaction...invaded Ukraine. Hitler also annexed bits of other countries and following European inaction was emboldened to attack first Poland then the rest of Europe.

Russian aggression against Ukraine IS a direct threat to America in that the Baltic states and Poland (NATO) are next in line for conquest or reabsorbtion into "Putin's version of historic Russia.

America and Europe actually obligated to protect Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum where Ukraine returned nuclear weapons, ships,tanks and other military items left behind when the USSR fell... https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-putin-invasion.

Not surprisingly both Sweden and Finland quickly applied for NATO membership in the wake of Russian aggression.

[Tacachale]

"Fact: The US is not engaged in a proxy war against Russia."

This is a lie. The US is absolutely engaged in a proxy war. Why else would Lindsey Graham so boldly claim that "the best money we've ever spent" is directly related to the death of Russian soldiers during the war? Washington has made Russia it's de-facto boogie man forever yet can't explain what sort of actual "direct threat" they pose on us. The fact is, they don't. Washington itself is a far greater direct threat to the sovereignty of this nation than Russia will be anytime soon.

There were 14 points and you are attempting to refute one of them. It's a good starting point. 

Russia IS the boogie man to use your term as they are the aggressor... they illegally annexed the Donbas region and Crimea... and a few years later following western inaction...invaded Ukraine. Hitler also annexed bits of other countries and following European inaction was emboldened to attack first Poland then the rest of Europe.

Russian aggression against Ukraine IS a direct threat to America in that the Baltic states and Poland (NATO) are next in line for conquest or reabsorbtion into "Putin's version of historic Russia.

America and Europe actually obligated to protect Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum where Ukraine returned nuclear weapons, ships,tanks and other military items left behind when the USSR fell... https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-putin-invasion.

Not surprisingly both Sweden and Finland quickly applied for NATO membership in the wake of Russian aggression.

My most "rah rah, USA, USA USA" position is that the world is better off with the democratic countries as the prevailing leaders. Not perfect by any means, but far better than if the Russian or Chinese dictatorships, or a "multipolar" order of regional dictatorships, were in control.

Ukraine has the right to seek democratic reforms, closer relations with democratic countries, and its own sovereignty. And it's in our interest to help a country that wants to be our friend fight an illegal military invasion -- not only is it the right thing to do, but we're containing one of the most dangerous regimes in the world for pennies on the dollar/euro/pound.

Agree with BT that it's naïve to think appeasement would ever work. Our lack of response to Putin's invasion of Crimea and his funding separatists only emboldened him to take more. It's also naive to think he'd stop with Ukraine. Other countries, including our NATO allies we're obligated to defend, were next up. For anyone who thinks our spending in Ukraine is too much, it would be exponentially more costly and deadly if we went to war with Russia, which absolutely would be coming if we hadn't contained them in Ukraine.

[WarDamJagFan]

"Fact: The US is not engaged in a proxy war against Russia."

This is a lie. The US is absolutely engaged in a proxy war. Why else would Lindsey Graham so boldly claim that "the best money we've ever spent" is directly related to the death of Russian soldiers during the war? Washington has made Russia it's de-facto boogie man forever yet can't explain what sort of actual "direct threat" they pose on us. The fact is, they don't. Washington itself is a far greater direct threat to the sovereignty of this nation than Russia will be anytime soon.

There were 14 points and you are attempting to refute one of them. It's a good starting point. 

Russia IS the boogie man to use your term as they are the aggressor... they illegally annexed the Donbas region and Crimea... and a few years later following western inaction...invaded Ukraine. Hitler also annexed bits of other countries and following European inaction was emboldened to attack first Poland then the rest of Europe.

Russian aggression against Ukraine IS a direct threat to America in that the Baltic states and Poland (NATO) are next in line for conquest or reabsorbtion into "Putin's version of historic Russia.

America and Europe actually obligated to protect Ukraine under the Budapest Memorandum where Ukraine returned nuclear weapons, ships,tanks and other military items left behind when the USSR fell... https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082124528/ukraine-russia-putin-invasion.

Not surprisingly both Sweden and Finland quickly applied for NATO membership in the wake of Russian aggression.

14 Points means lots and lots of typing and time. I only have so much my friend   So pick the easiest one to refute and go from there. Standard message board playbook.

Carrying on, the points made by both you and Bill only reinforce the point that we are, in fact, at war with Russia. The belief Russia is in an aggressive expansion mode and must be stopped by force is a de-facto declaration of war. Not really sure what else you would call it when we're the primary supplier of both funds and munitions as well.

And if every country has a right to seek Democratic reforms - which of course they should - but a neighboring adversary takes umbrage and views it as a potential hostile action based on a myriad of factors, then are we supposed to just jump right in with every border dispute around the globe in the name of Democracy? Did we not learn anything from 20 years in Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/Libya etc etc? 

But again, what is the actual direct threat, to the US, by Russia? To use a fairly worn out talking point, what is it about Ukraine and Russia's border that is far more important than our own? There's no other way to slice it but we are sending far more resources to the other side of the planet than we are to our own southern border. How expensive is it going to be for us to continually absorb tens of millions of new illegal aliens every few years? How many hundreds of thousands of lives-per-year do we need to lose to fentanyl poisoning before we take a similarly hard line in the sand? At some point, territorial disputes need to be mostly handled by countries in that territory.

The very real issue we have in this country is we try to make everyone else's problems, our problems. America right now, is an absolute mess. If we can't keep our own home clean, then what on earth are we doing trying to clean up everyone else's?

[BridgeTroll]

I'm fine with one point at a time... as long as we stay on point. I would love to start another thread discussing the southern border situation. I happen to agree that the situation is out of control... but that's another topic.

I would love to hear your thoughts regarding our treaty obligations and promises. Ukraine took a huge leap of faith turning over nuclear weapons to Russia with the defense promises from Europe and USA...

[BridgeTroll]

A bit surprised they are still there... not for long though.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-november-14-2023

The Russian government is likely attempting to force Google to cease operations in Russia. The Moscow Magistrate's Court fined Google 15 million rubles (roughly $165,745) on November 14 for the repeated failure to localize the personal data of Russian citizens in Russia.[26] Russian state censor Roskomnadzor requires foreign internet-based services to localize databases of Russian users as of July 1, 2021, and Russian courts previously fined Google 15 million rubles in June 2022 for failing to adhere to this law.[27] The Russian government has previously fined Russian internet giant Yandex for also failing to adhere to Russian laws regarding disclosing users' personal data to the government, likely forcing Yandex to split its Russian entity from its international entity to adhere to Russian laws and allowing the Russian government to exercise increased control and surveillance over Russians' usage of Yandex.[28] The Russian government previously banned certain Western social media sites and demanded that Google remove "false information" about the Russian war in Ukraine in early 2022.[29] The Russian government likely aims to force Russians to utilize search engines and other internet services of Russian companies that the government can control better than international entities like Google.

[WarDamJagFan]

I'm fine with one point at a time... as long as we stay on point. I would love to start another thread discussing the southern border situation. I happen to agree that the situation is out of control... but that's another topic.

I would love to hear your thoughts regarding our treaty obligations and promises. Ukraine took a huge leap of faith turning over nuclear weapons to Russia with the defense promises from Europe and USA...

Look, if we can't even maintain obligations and promises to ourselves, then safe to say we would have a hard time keeping them internationally. Maui and Palestine, OH are still looking for actual help from Washington. But a $6B rounding error to Ukraine is no big deal.

NATO, for lack of better terms, is a country club for supposedly similarly aligned nations. We're broke and can't afford the absurd dues being levied for our membership. To make matters even more complicated, we now have a fellow NATO member in Turkey declaring Israel's time is up and they are to be wiped off the map. So what happens if Turkey begins waging war against Israel by Proxy like we're doing with Russia? The treaty says we should stick with our fellow Nato ally. Safe to say we would most likely not agree to that. We are in a completely different world now that when NATO first formed. After a certain period, these types of treaties/alignments need to be re-evaluated. In my opinion, we've run our course with it and have become nothing more than the proverbial fat cow with raw nipples. We've been sucked dry and its time to move on.

[BridgeTroll]

Dues?  3.7 billion for administrative costs spread among all members and a commitment to spend 2% of GDP On defense spending. Countries are literally begging to join NATO as it is the most successful defense treaty organization in history... the dues are almost nothing.   I  don't quite understand your apparent fervent support of Israel while dismissing Ukraine?  Please clarify as we have spent WAY more on Israel defense than Ukraine and Israel is actually a occupier of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Ukraine has invaded or occupied no country.

[WarDamJagFan]

Dues?  3.7 billion for administrative costs spread among all members and a commitment to spend 2% of GDP On defense spending. Countries are literally begging to join NATO as it is the most successful defense treaty organization in history... the dues are almost nothing.   I  don't quite understand your apparent fervent support of Israel while dismissing Ukraine?  Please clarify as we have spent WAY more on Israel defense than Ukraine and Israel is actually a occupier of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Ukraine has invaded or occupied no country.

Where did I provide any evidence of "fervent support of Israel"?

[BridgeTroll]

Dues?  3.7 billion for administrative costs spread among all members and a commitment to spend 2% of GDP On defense spending. Countries are literally begging to join NATO as it is the most successful defense treaty organization in history... the dues are almost nothing.   I  don't quite understand your apparent fervent support of Israel while dismissing Ukraine?  Please clarify as we have spent WAY more on Israel defense than Ukraine and Israel is actually a occupier of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Ukraine has invaded or occupied no country.

Where did I provide any evidence of "fervent support of Israel"?

My apologies... perhaps I read too much into your previous post.... my dismay that the current version of the republican party apparently is willing to continue support for Israel yet is unable to support Ukraine. I had many reasons for leaving the republican party but that added to the list of reasons why I am now a registered independent.

Is there an alliance they/ or you DO support?

[WarDamJagFan]

Dues?  3.7 billion for administrative costs spread among all members and a commitment to spend 2% of GDP On defense spending. Countries are literally begging to join NATO as it is the most successful defense treaty organization in history... the dues are almost nothing.   I  don't quite understand your apparent fervent support of Israel while dismissing Ukraine?  Please clarify as we have spent WAY more on Israel defense than Ukraine and Israel is actually a occupier of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Ukraine has invaded or occupied no country.

Where did I provide any evidence of "fervent support of Israel"?

My apologies... perhaps I read too much into your previous post.... my dismay that the current version of the republican party apparently is willing to continue support for Israel yet is unable to support Ukraine. I had many reasons for leaving the republican party but that added to the list of reasons why I am now a registered independent.

Is there an alliance they/ or you DO support?

The Republican party is dead to me. Say what you want about Vivek, but he wasn't wrong when he went scorched earth on "the party of losers". They stand for nothing. Campaign as conservatives who will finally get spending under control, get to DC, then vote for whatever keeps the swamp machine churning.

The only alliance I support at this point is whatever tiny portion of political willpower is left that puts American citizens' interests first. There couldn't be a greater microcosm of the current state of BS we're faced with than what just happened in NYC today. Mayor Adams, with a straight face, told NY citizens that they are having to gut essential services like first responders in order to continue sheltering "migrants". Is there no greater slap in the face to taxpayers than using their hard earned money to keep feeding and housing illegal immigrants? Yet, that's what Washington does to us every single day as they continue to allow our southern border to be invaded by the tens of millions. And that's just one of pick-a-number of problems we have. So while there may be other parts of the world begging for our money to help solve their problems, we have far too many of our own problems and absolutely no money to be inserting ourselves into every single conflict on the planet.  Ukraine, Israel, etc.  We need a timeout for ourselves in the worst way possible.

[Tacachale]

Dues?  3.7 billion for administrative costs spread among all members and a commitment to spend 2% of GDP On defense spending. Countries are literally begging to join NATO as it is the most successful defense treaty organization in history... the dues are almost nothing.   I  don't quite understand your apparent fervent support of Israel while dismissing Ukraine?  Please clarify as we have spent WAY more on Israel defense than Ukraine and Israel is actually a occupier of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. Ukraine has invaded or occupied no country.

Where did I provide any evidence of "fervent support of Israel"?

My apologies... perhaps I read too much into your previous post.... my dismay that the current version of the republican party apparently is willing to continue support for Israel yet is unable to support Ukraine. I had many reasons for leaving the republican party but that added to the list of reasons why I am now a registered independent.

Is there an alliance they/ or you DO support?

The Republican party is dead to me. Say what you want about Vivek, but he wasn't wrong when he went scorched earth on "the party of losers". They stand for nothing. Campaign as conservatives who will finally get spending under control, get to DC, then vote for whatever keeps the swamp machine churning.

The only alliance I support at this point is whatever tiny portion of political willpower is left that puts American citizens' interests first. There couldn't be a greater microcosm of the current state of BS we're faced with than what just happened in NYC today. Mayor Adams, with a straight face, told NY citizens that they are having to gut essential services like first responders in order to continue sheltering "migrants". Is there no greater slap in the face to taxpayers than using their hard earned money to keep feeding and housing illegal immigrants? Yet, that's what Washington does to us every single day as they continue to allow our southern border to be invaded by the tens of millions. And that's just one of pick-a-number of problems we have. So while there may be other parts of the world begging for our money to help solve their problems, we have far too many of our own problems and absolutely no money to be inserting ourselves into every single conflict on the planet.  Ukraine, Israel, etc.  We need a timeout for ourselves in the worst way possible.

We can always find problems at home to solve. You mention the border, but there are many others. Why do we still not have universal healthcare when most Americans want it? Why did we add $2 trillion to our debt to give a tax break to millionaires? Fortunately we're a big country that's capable of doing multiple things at once.

In the case of Ukraine,  it's not something that will work out for us if we withdraw. It's straight foolish to think Russia would stop with part or all of Ukraine if they got it. The Putin regime has consistently talked about taking over places like Moldova and the Baltic countries, and now talks about Poland being a "historical enemy." The costs of NATO membership and the costs of helping Ukraine defend itself are nothing compared to the cost of all those countries falling under the control of an expansionist dictator. Not to mention what China would do if we stopped supporting our Asian allies.

The border crisis is a perfect example of why isolationism won't serve us. A large portion of the migrants right now are asylum seekers escaping violence and climate crisis in their home countries. As long as those problems remain, there will be people seeking asylum in safer places. During the Balkan War back in the 90s, many asylum seekers and refugees came to the US from Eastern Europe. Imagine how many there would be if Russia invaded not only Ukraine but every bordering country. For now, we're avoiding that level of violence by containing Russia in Ukraine. In domestic policy, we're investing in infrastructure, the economy is improving and the national violent crime rate continues to decline. There are plenty more problems to solve, but abandoning Ukraine or Eastern Europe to Russia isn't going to make that easier.

[BridgeTroll]

While I might understand your frustration... isolationism has always failed as a foreign policy... not just here but around the world throughout history. It is doomed to fail before it even begins because we are now incredibly interconnected in the 21st century.  We cannot isolate ourselves from problems in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Their problems are unavoidably our problems. Walking away or ignoring them only exaberates the problems and let's the world's bad actors enslave more of humanity.

[Tacachale]

While I might understand your frustration... isolationism has always failed as a foreign policy... not just here but around the world throughout history. It is doomed to fail before it even begins because we are now incredibly interconnected in the 21st century.  We cannot isolate ourselves from problems in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Their problems are unavoidably our problems. Walking away or ignoring them only exaberates the problems and let's the world's bad actors enslave more of humanity.

My thoughts in a lot fewer words! Thanks, BT.

[WarDamJagFan]

While I might understand your frustration... isolationism has always failed as a foreign policy... not just here but around the world throughout history. It is doomed to fail before it even begins because we are now incredibly interconnected in the 21st century.  We cannot isolate ourselves from problems in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. Their problems are unavoidably our problems. Walking away or ignoring them only exaberates the problems and let's the world's bad actors enslave more of humanity.

LOL. Isolationism has failed? Compared to what? Our intervention-first foreign policy approach the last 60+ years has been a total failure all the way from Vietnam to present day. While I agree we can't go full-stop isolationist given global interconnectivity simply from an economic perspective, drastic changes must be made to put an almost infinitely larger focus on the homeland than we currently have. But to think we have to go to war every damn time there's a dust-up in another part of the planet is asinine - which is our current foreign policy directive.

[JPalmer]

WarDamJagsFan, (Oh the irony)

No need to argue with the Troll about foreign policy or DoD matters.  He is a fully indoctrinated veteran of the war machine and military industrial complex.  You are just wasting your time.