Ukraine will definitely be vastly more tightly connected to the West and Western democracy.

Meanwhile, Russia seems to be doing just fine. Talk of a Ukrainian offensive is being replaced with talk of a Russian offensive.

And, on the bright side, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and primary military advisor to Biden is advocating for a negotiated settlement. God bless him!

to repeat, No matter what the final outcome turns out to be in Ukraine, Russia will have to spend years rebuilding to even get its military back to the sorry state it was in, pre-invasion.

Money spent to beef up Ukraine's military is directly contributing to the degradation of the Russian military. That is a wonderful investment, when you think about it. No matter what the final outcome turns out to be in Ukraine, Russia will have to spend years rebuilding to even get its military back to the sorry state it was in, pre-invasion. They just refuse to learn the battlefield lessons and keep doubling down on classic Russian tactics (which can be summed up as: "send as many thousands of men as you can into the fire as pure cannon fodder in the hopes of eventually wearing the enemy down").

This has exposed not Russian strength, but Russian weakness to the world. As we said, an easy case can be made that that's a great investment for the United States to be making.

What? You made a point? What point was that? Hope you have a very Merry Christmas, Caddy! And, I mean that sincerely, I'm not trying to be facetious, here ... :-)

Have you considered how the war in Ukraine will end?

I have named my other favourite (geo-)political analyst many times around here and have even posted a column or two of his over the years. His name is William Bradley, a fellow Californian now living in the LA area, and you have to be on his email list to get his stuff so, sorry, I have no link. I could forward his pieces to your personal email if you'd like. Do you agree with his assessment, encapsulated in the quote above?

You are confusing real world truths with appeasement and I'm sick and tired of it. I have explained many times over why you are wrong about this.

Not taking NATO off the table did NOT start this war...

Try this on: Taking NATO off the table, as Biden and his NATO allies did, turned a manageable regional security crisis into a multi-faceted set of international crises and turned Ukraine into a basket case that will forever be dependent upon America for its survival and well-being. But, it will never be a member of NATO. That much has not changed. So much for Ukrainian sovereignty, eh?

How about you address my point(s) instead of posting useless dodges like get serious or that’s asinine? In other words, don’t be a Michale — address the point, please.

Cleanup on Aisle MtnCaddy:

Not taking NATO off the table did NOT start this war, the latest hot phase having started eight years ago. NATO membership and Ukrainian Nazis et al were excuses for Russia doing what it’s been doing to it’s neighbors FOR CENTURIES, trying to gain strategic depth via buffer states.

[21]

I am not at all surprised that you are confused. Ahem.

So WTF does that mean? Also, you didn’t name your Geopoliticist nor provide a link. Kindly do both. Sounds like it could be John Mearsheimer but there are other Putin apologists out there

One does not need to be confused to strongly disagree with your assessment.

A triple negative, Caddy?

Here's a quote I've been saving just for you, taken from the latest piece by my other favourite (geo-)political analyst ...

"Alternatives to the latest long war scenario? A number of things occur, but I dislike cleaning up the stupidity of folks who deliberately ignored many years of warnings. Hey, I like the old Colin Powell saying: “You break it, you bought it.” Putin, a supposedly clever spymaster, chose unimaginative war while Biden, airily refusing to even discuss eternal Russian opposition to NATO in Ukraine, chose confrontation and crisis. Both chose unwisely."

Get serious!

I see Biden's making it happen, Trump's still fucking bonkers.

Objectively, that's better than it was.

Howling national nightmares aside hope ya'll are well...

CW..As always, a galloping read, a joy to be read.

LL&P

Darlings.

Ask yourself, wouldn’t Mitch McConnell do the exact same thing if he had the chance?

@caddy,

He not only would but probably already has, just not out in the bright lights of the media.

in a free country there needs to be some balance between realpolitik and high principles. I think that publicly supporting crazy people for office, even if only in the primaries, is at least one bridge too far. At least at that level i agree with cw, the principle of the thing is too toxic. I'm not opposed to running ads that might tangentially have a similar impact, but i would never explicitly TRY to put a known madman on a general election ballot.

And Elizabeth,

Not taking Ukrainian NATO membership off of the table had nothing to do with Putin invading or not, for this war started back in 2014, when Putin invaded first Crimea and then Donbas. Joe was only Veep to Obama the Wuss, so stop bagging on Joe! Putin simply widened the conflict eight years in. Just because Russia wants to control Ukraine doesn’t mean dink and appeasement guarantees more imperialism (see Munich, 1938. Don’t just call that an asinine analogy tell me why I’m wrong.)

It worked, man!! Why the handwringing?

Ask yourself, wouldn’t Mitch McConnell do the exact same thing if he had the chance? Of course he would, just as he’ll dump the filibuster the moment they take control of the Senate.

So bless it and call it good. Consider this to be a Democratic political jujitsu move. Using the enemy’s forceful bull rush and flipping them over your shoulder and thence flat on their backs is, dare I say it, Bidenesque. Remember the Covid-19 summer of 2020, when Trump was destroying himself and Joe pulled a Sun Tsu and stood aside, literally chilling in his nice air conditioned basement?

Great read so far, i just stopped to comment because i realized i was ambiguous in my nomination for boldest political tactic. By "doubling down on Dobbs" (which i wrote that way mainly for the alliteration) i meant DEMOCRATS, not Republicans. Even after the early shock in Kansas, it took guts to stick to that tactic in the face of lukewarm pre-election polling for house and Senate races.

Indeed, cw awarded the very same in the subsequent category, so i felt i should clear up what i had meant.

JL

"By the eighth day my mother was too tired from coughing to get out of bed at all. She'll be alright soon, my father said, avoiding my eyes. This cold will break soon; it's been so long already. He was whittling candles out of wood - little narrow sticks to burn, because we'd used the last drops of oil the night before. There wasn't going to be any miracle of light in our house."
N.N.

The Earth revolved around the sun in a perfect circle, because of course that's how the Gods would do such a thing. One day was 1/360 of a year, 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 360 degrees in a revolution.

All of that is Sumerian and later, Babylonian. They used a base-60 numbering system (hence clocks and Degree-Minute-Second metrics). That doesn't square quite as nicely with 360, so that may have meaning that precedes the Sumerian civilization.

Egypt's number system was base-10 not base-12.

I could bore you with a messload more, but FWIW, in a court, this would qualify as expert testimony.