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U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#201

Post by TiredOfLife »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #144
xenospn wrote: post #70

[flagged]

I have trouble following the logic here. Putin has not been able to conquer the whole of Ukraine after 3 years, but somehow, suddenly, he will be able to conquer all of the Baltic states without breaking a sweat? So which is it? Is the Russian army fighting with shovels or are they a ferocious horde that is unstoppable? Those two things cannot be true at the same time. I am getting tired of people parroting this narr…

Ukraine is huge and had a large army. Baltic states are small, have in total about the same amount of military as russia loses in a month.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#202

Post by tim333 »

bradhe wrote: post #112
DidYaWipe wrote: post #88

The USA stands in miserable disgrace.

Amazing to see Russia win the Cold War—one we didn’t even know we were in. Their propaganda network is so strong that it took 3 weeks to go from “Russia is the enemy” to “eh, we have other problems” amongst the folks who…subscribe accordingly. Absolute masterclass in projecting power in the digital age.

[flagged]

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#204

Post by nicbou »

throwaway290 wrote: post #193
thenthenthen wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had a discussion with someone more senior than me and they were convinced that the whole deal was about resources in the first place. If anyone has some references and thoughts about this, please share.

I have thoughts. Maybe biased because I'm Russian. Imagine I maimed a guy on the street because he was walking too slowly. Was "the whole deal" about him walking too slowly? Yes and no. He was walking slow. But also I was a violent psycho. Imagine I killed my wife because she was wearing the wrong skirt and looked at another man. Was the whole deal about my wife behaving how I don't like? Yes and no. She was behaving…

Martyrmade had a really solid episode about Ukraine that explained the Russian motiviations in a more understandable way.

If I remember correctly, a lot of the problems come down to broken promises of stopping NATO expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia made concessions, NATO did not. This is the Russian case as I vaguely remember it.

This is a reminder that geopolitics are wildly complicated and that the waters are too muddied for laypeople to make sense of in real time.

Your analogy holds. The psychopath must be stopped, but it's good to remember that the west provoked it when it had a chance to tame it.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#205

Post by 9dev »

narrator wrote: post #187
jltsiren wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to stop all aid to Ukraine. That makes you an asshole in a world full of assholes. But it's another thing to do that while simultaneously working to restore relations with Russia. There is only one word for that: evil. Back in the late 90s to late 2000s, people in Western Europe generally had pretty negative views of the US. It was the country that refused to fight against climate change, launched an i…

We allied with Stalin in world war III, now that's evil. Putin will be a good ally against China, who is an actual threat to the United States.

An ally that has broken pretty much any agreement he has ever made, invades neighbouring countries and spins alternative facts around to justify it, suppresses and fights just about any values that the USA used to hold, and played a key role in the KGB, a hostile secret service? An ally that is ever more dependent on China economically?

I refuse to believe you can be so dense to actually think that!

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#206

Post by herculity275 »

jisnsm wrote: post #192
DidYaWipe wrote: post #88

The USA stands in miserable disgrace.

I can imagine the very same thing being said if the USA had pulled out of the War on Terror. B-but they have WMD! The NYT said so!

It really sucks that "Saddam has WMDs" broke an entire generation of Americans into knee-jerk contrarianism regarding any global conflict US is involved in. What's the "WMD" equivalent here - what do you think the media is lying to you about? That there's an ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is something all involved parties acknowledge.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#207

Post by 9dev »

narrator wrote: post #186
arunabha wrote: post #19

It would be one thing if there was a clear policy and adherence to it. In that case, you could discuss and reason in good faith. However there is no such indication that this decision is based on a considered policy. Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the article > On Fr…

The difference is Israel's enemies are easy to defeat. Russia, not so much. Europe made the same mistake as in world war II. Believing their own propaganda and convincing themselves that Russia would be easy to defeat. Trump talks to the military and knows what's reality.

So easy that Iran is still going strong, working on their nuclear weapons programme, with an outspoken goal of destroying Israel?

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#208

Post by throwaway290 »

nicbou wrote: post #204
throwaway290 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have thoughts. Maybe biased because I'm Russian. Imagine I maimed a guy on the street because he was walking too slowly. Was "the whole deal" about him walking too slowly? Yes and no. He was walking slow. But also I was a violent psycho. Imagine I killed my wife because she was wearing the wrong skirt and looked at another man. Was the whole deal about my wife behaving how I don't like? Yes and no. She was behaving…

Martyrmade had a really solid episode about Ukraine that explained the Russian motiviations in a more understandable way. If I remember correctly, a lot of the problems come down to broken promises of stopping NATO expansion after the fall of the Soviet Union. Russia made concessions, NATO did not. This is the Russian case as I vaguely remember it. This is a reminder that geopolitics are wildly complicated and that t…

I see your last paragraph but I am still triggered by attempts to explain "Russian" (they are Putin's) motivations, it gives them a pleasant aura of "this caused that so..." that makes my skin crawl. Also it's tempting to think in terms of resources, numbers, strategy game stuff, but as Russian I am aware of enough wild takes and rhetoric by people in Putin's circles to suspect it's mostly about his legacy, ego and desire to be in history.

NATO expansion was not really a threat to Russia beyond Putin's pretense. Putin pulled forces from Finland border after it joined. I hope the wrong lesson won't be learned.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#209

Post by ap-hyperbole »

jesterson wrote: post #134
AlecSchueler wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling it "the endless war" makes this a loaded question. You might get a more productive response without that.

Not sure why you are trying to veer the convo in another direction, but to address it - it's been 3 years, hundreds of thousands died, and absolutely nothing achieved. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Nothing achieved for you but for example my mother and some relatives don't have to live under forced occupation. Her city was under siege for a number of weeks during initial invasion and totally cut off from any basic human needs like water, electricity and food supplies were limited. Not to mention constant rocket attacks and some shelling. There are millions of people like my mother who are greatful for what Ukrainian army has achieved and are still fighting for. The containment of further expansion and the fact that there is very little progress Russian army is making is also an achievement. Russian Soviet stock piles are depleted, their economy is on a downward spiral, untill a few weeks ago they were totally isolated from the rest of the civilised world, that's another achievement.Exposing Russia's bluff of their military might is another achievement. The fact that USA can now "focus on China" is thanks to Ukraine. Everyone in the world was united against the aggressor. What is happening right now is that some of those achievements are being undone and may I ask for who's benefit? So that Trump can make a deal that he promised and restore the economic relations with Russia? It might stop the deaths and fighting now but you are simply taking a "peace debt" from Putin.

Re: U.S. pauses all military aid to Ukraine

#210

Post by aemu »

bradhe wrote: post #112
DidYaWipe wrote: post #88

The USA stands in miserable disgrace.

Amazing to see Russia win the Cold War—one we didn’t even know we were in. Their propaganda network is so strong that it took 3 weeks to go from “Russia is the enemy” to “eh, we have other problems” amongst the folks who…subscribe accordingly. Absolute masterclass in projecting power in the digital age.

Yeah, man. I have emigrated from Russia to EU five years ago and it is heartbreaking to see the developed US and some European countries go through the same bullshit we were going since 2011. Like half the country starts living in wild, completely imaginary world, and you can always tell what is the current agenda of the propaganda machine just by talking to some relatives who fell through that rabbit hole
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