Putin began his war in Ukraine with an attempt to demonstrate Russian mastery of an American-style shock and awe campaign. It was all to be over within days. Kyiv would fall. A new puppet government would be installed. That was not to be. The Russian Army demonstrated it did not begin to have the ability to follow through on Vlad’s vision. So, now, Putin has fallen back on his roots. He has taken a page from Stalin’s playbook. He is counting on genocide to work.
Hmmm. This is a rare moment of disagreement. I'll begin with this. Kotkin, that historian Russian guru and Putin biographer, was recently asked about the comparison between Putin and Stalin. He made clear that they were not comparable in any meaningful way. This is not an apologia for Putin, but this is a reminder to you to not let hyperbole get the best of you. What is true is that Putin and Stalin are still both very popular with the Russian people...And of course, Stalin was a monster for much more than just the Holodomor in Ukraine. I personally think the Gulags were his crowning achievement in terms of absolute cruelty.
I'll go on, cuz I think some may benefit from an explication of my moral reasoning. Christopher Hitchens put it best when describing his surprising support for war against Saddam Hussein and the mission to take him out of power. He described how in the field of moral philosophy and ethics there has been a stratification of different kinds of evils. Saddam Hussein and Stalin engaged in the extra level of evil in terms of murderous torture and abuse that seemed to serve itself, and to terrorize the population. Sending videos of daughters being raped or fathers being executed by pistol shot only to be sent a bill for the bullet. Hitchens describes a scene in Baghdad that happened, a man spilled his coffee on the newspaper page with Saddam on the cover, people back away. The police are called, he's taken away.
Putin's not that. What he does have in common is a typical Russian arrogance about the effectiveness of their military.
I am surprised by another aspect of this commentary. This "special military operation" as it was framed in Russia was a limited force with limited goals that they did not achieve. It intentionally did far less civilian damage and infrastructure damage. But the escalation due to Western direct involvement in this war on every level surprised Russia for sure. They thought that actually going to war would convince the West that Russia was serious about never tolerating a nuclear armed NATO allied Ukraine on its border. It had made that clear for 20 years but we didn't listen. And now they are going to fight an unlimited war in Ukraine to take the entire nation and remove the entire Zelensky govt from power. It will make Ukraine a part of the CIS. Unless we want to start WWIII, there is nothing we can do to stop it.
I do have a strategic question for you, cuz this kind of question doesn't seem to be part of your thinking. Did I miss Russia adding 14 nations to the Warsaw pact after the fall of the USSR? Nope, that was the West, which strangely kept NATO in place after victory was achieved. Why did we expand NATO by 14 nations? No lesser a diplomatic/foreign relations guru than George Kennan made clear in 1998 that our NATO expansion would provoke Russia into war someday. There were many at the time who openly spoke about this - you'd think that never happen to hear the press commentary today. Kennan also predicted those who claimed NATO expansion wouldn't provoke the Russians would change their story when the Russians did finally go to war to "the Russians were always going to do this anyway".
Sure, Putin is a political thug of sorts, but he's also a far better strategic thinker than the clowns we have running western nations. He's at least acting in cognizable Russian national interests. Note that Moscow isn't starving, that costs aren't skyrocketing in Russia, that in fact, Putin's efforts to make Russia self-sufficient in many goods is paying off. Whereas I look at the West's regime's citizen hating energy policies and absurd supply chain/trade decisions and ask myself, at what point will this country be like a Mad Max movie? Even more to the point, where does my moral superiority come from to judge Putin so harshly? Our nation is run by a controlled foreign agent of China for God's sake - guys like Putin look better every day to a sane nationalist. Note that Frau Merkel (that insane commie - she led a Leninist/Marxist school in East Germany, she was a true believer) just admitted the purpose of the Minsk agreements were to delay Russia so Ukraine could get stronger, which correlates with Russian complaints about Ukraine never acting in good faith wrt the Minsk agreements.
Last. Uh, what Putin's doing now is forming a several hundred thousand strong army that is going to destroy all resistance in Ukraine, military and civilian. Just as we did in Iraq, they are destroying infrastructure. War is ugly business. But we provoked it and Ukraine made clear it will not negotiate. It's last offer was contingent on the complete withdrawal of Russian forces as a condition for beginning negotiations.
I'm no Russophile or apologist. But I can't for the life of me figure out why in the eff we are stirring up the pot with Russia in eastern Europe? I don't give a crap who runs Ukraine. They are not our ally for very good reasons. Let Russia take it, it matters not a whit to any American. We wouldn't notice a change in our lives at all. And if you are going to try and tell me that the kleptocrats who run Ukraine are better stewards of Ukraine, I'll just have to politely disagree.
Based on competent sources I've been following, that simply isn't true. The military operations were designed to be the opposite of "shock & awe" to achieve limited objectives. Putin, or his advisors, underestimated the extent of U.S. support & Ukrainian resistance. For more on this, you can consult Col. Douglas Macgregor: https://youtu.be/8I0bfEGtHeY. For more, here is an excellent article by the retired Colonel: https://weltwoche.ch/daily/this-war-has-been-lost-a-long-time-ago/. For another explanation from someone pro-Russia, but not a so-called "disinformation" source, Scott Ritter has the expertise & background to be taken seriously: https://www.energyintel.com/00000182-59e8-d3fc-a193-7feee7ca0000
Unfortunately, the justifications for Putin's decision to invade were reasonable & could have been prevented with diplomatic negotiations the Biden & the Neo-Cons could not tolerate: "No, Putin Did Not Start the War in Ukraine". Towards a U.S. War against Russia? - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization.
Hmmm. This is a rare moment of disagreement. I'll begin with this. Kotkin, that historian Russian guru and Putin biographer, was recently asked about the comparison between Putin and Stalin. He made clear that they were not comparable in any meaningful way. This is not an apologia for Putin, but this is a reminder to you to not let hyperbole get the best of you. What is true is that Putin and Stalin are still both very popular with the Russian people...And of course, Stalin was a monster for much more than just the Holodomor in Ukraine. I personally think the Gulags were his crowning achievement in terms of absolute cruelty.
I'll go on, cuz I think some may benefit from an explication of my moral reasoning. Christopher Hitchens put it best when describing his surprising support for war against Saddam Hussein and the mission to take him out of power. He described how in the field of moral philosophy and ethics there has been a stratification of different kinds of evils. Saddam Hussein and Stalin engaged in the extra level of evil in terms of murderous torture and abuse that seemed to serve itself, and to terrorize the population. Sending videos of daughters being raped or fathers being executed by pistol shot only to be sent a bill for the bullet. Hitchens describes a scene in Baghdad that happened, a man spilled his coffee on the newspaper page with Saddam on the cover, people back away. The police are called, he's taken away.
Putin's not that. What he does have in common is a typical Russian arrogance about the effectiveness of their military.
I am surprised by another aspect of this commentary. This "special military operation" as it was framed in Russia was a limited force with limited goals that they did not achieve. It intentionally did far less civilian damage and infrastructure damage. But the escalation due to Western direct involvement in this war on every level surprised Russia for sure. They thought that actually going to war would convince the West that Russia was serious about never tolerating a nuclear armed NATO allied Ukraine on its border. It had made that clear for 20 years but we didn't listen. And now they are going to fight an unlimited war in Ukraine to take the entire nation and remove the entire Zelensky govt from power. It will make Ukraine a part of the CIS. Unless we want to start WWIII, there is nothing we can do to stop it.
I do have a strategic question for you, cuz this kind of question doesn't seem to be part of your thinking. Did I miss Russia adding 14 nations to the Warsaw pact after the fall of the USSR? Nope, that was the West, which strangely kept NATO in place after victory was achieved. Why did we expand NATO by 14 nations? No lesser a diplomatic/foreign relations guru than George Kennan made clear in 1998 that our NATO expansion would provoke Russia into war someday. There were many at the time who openly spoke about this - you'd think that never happen to hear the press commentary today. Kennan also predicted those who claimed NATO expansion wouldn't provoke the Russians would change their story when the Russians did finally go to war to "the Russians were always going to do this anyway".
Sure, Putin is a political thug of sorts, but he's also a far better strategic thinker than the clowns we have running western nations. He's at least acting in cognizable Russian national interests. Note that Moscow isn't starving, that costs aren't skyrocketing in Russia, that in fact, Putin's efforts to make Russia self-sufficient in many goods is paying off. Whereas I look at the West's regime's citizen hating energy policies and absurd supply chain/trade decisions and ask myself, at what point will this country be like a Mad Max movie? Even more to the point, where does my moral superiority come from to judge Putin so harshly? Our nation is run by a controlled foreign agent of China for God's sake - guys like Putin look better every day to a sane nationalist. Note that Frau Merkel (that insane commie - she led a Leninist/Marxist school in East Germany, she was a true believer) just admitted the purpose of the Minsk agreements were to delay Russia so Ukraine could get stronger, which correlates with Russian complaints about Ukraine never acting in good faith wrt the Minsk agreements.
Last. Uh, what Putin's doing now is forming a several hundred thousand strong army that is going to destroy all resistance in Ukraine, military and civilian. Just as we did in Iraq, they are destroying infrastructure. War is ugly business. But we provoked it and Ukraine made clear it will not negotiate. It's last offer was contingent on the complete withdrawal of Russian forces as a condition for beginning negotiations.
I'm no Russophile or apologist. But I can't for the life of me figure out why in the eff we are stirring up the pot with Russia in eastern Europe? I don't give a crap who runs Ukraine. They are not our ally for very good reasons. Let Russia take it, it matters not a whit to any American. We wouldn't notice a change in our lives at all. And if you are going to try and tell me that the kleptocrats who run Ukraine are better stewards of Ukraine, I'll just have to politely disagree.
Based on competent sources I've been following, that simply isn't true. The military operations were designed to be the opposite of "shock & awe" to achieve limited objectives. Putin, or his advisors, underestimated the extent of U.S. support & Ukrainian resistance. For more on this, you can consult Col. Douglas Macgregor: https://youtu.be/8I0bfEGtHeY. For more, here is an excellent article by the retired Colonel: https://weltwoche.ch/daily/this-war-has-been-lost-a-long-time-ago/. For another explanation from someone pro-Russia, but not a so-called "disinformation" source, Scott Ritter has the expertise & background to be taken seriously: https://www.energyintel.com/00000182-59e8-d3fc-a193-7feee7ca0000
Unfortunately, the justifications for Putin's decision to invade were reasonable & could have been prevented with diplomatic negotiations the Biden & the Neo-Cons could not tolerate: "No, Putin Did Not Start the War in Ukraine". Towards a U.S. War against Russia? - Global ResearchGlobal Research - Centre for Research on Globalization.
Also Putins resent health dilemmas have added to
his insanity and reasoning for pure conquest.
Driving Russia history deeper into the abyss!