Elizabeth your victim blaming isn’t playing very well in this space because telling Putin to help himself to Ukraine because the West doesn’t care is counterintuitive — and that’s putting it mildly. Besides ducking my would you defend Ontario question you also haven’t offered links to whomever has convinced you to parrot the Russians. Was the guy’s name William Bradley? I googled him and didn’t find any of the William Bradleys that turned up was remotely close to being a geo strategist or even a politics pundit. So how about a couple of links? Answer, please.

My patience with you is wearing thin and your incessant badgering about things already asked and answered has become a complete waste of my time. Just so you know, I am going to try my best to refrain from any more discussion here on the war in Ukraine until Chris writes a headlining piece about it.

your argument that NATO expansion is somehow responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine is both easily refuted AND an element of russian propaganda.

What we have here is a failure to communicate as that is decidedly NOT my argument.

I have no problem with NATO expansion, per se. I do believe, though, that expanding NATO to include Ukraine makes no geopolitical sense and was, is and will always be a bad idea. Would Putin have decided against invading Ukraine outright if Biden was willing to discuss Ukrainian neutrality, as even Zelensky was willing to do at one point? I don't know and Biden's firm stance on this made sure we would never find out.

My argument since before this war began is that the US has recklessly pushed the notion of Ukrainian membership in NATO and has acted inside Ukraine through military exercises and through programs like the Partnership for Peace to keep that notion alive. Part of my argument is that the long relationship between Ukraine and Russia makes Ukraine a unique case amongst other recent additions to the Western military alliance and that the continued push to move Ukraine towards the NATO fold has caused consternation in Russia and not just in the head of Putin. The point I have been trying to make for the last 21 months is that Biden chose badly when he decided to make a stand on the idea that Ukraine's destiny is in NATO and that it was not a subject for negotiation.

Part of my argument has also been that Ukraine is going to be hard pressed to win a war against Russia. We just have to look at a map to see the lack of progress Ukraine has made in pushing Russia back from Eastern Ukraine. NATO member countries have certainly recognized this, as well.

the longer this goes on, the better it looks for ukraine

Well, I see no battlefield evidence of that but, I do hope you are right!

it's not "ignoring" a fact to consider it irrelevant. i've carefully considered the potential impact of NATO expansion on russia-ukraine relations, and concluded that it had negligible impact on putin's determination to subjugate ukraine, if any at all.

as far as what constitutes a "worse position," the only opinion that ought to matter is that of ukranians. the longer this goes on, the better it looks for ukraine. they're fighting for their freedom, and that seems to be worth quite a bit to them.

JL

neither a tactic, nor correct. your argument that NATO expansion is somehow responsible for Russia's invasion of Ukraine is both easily refuted AND an element of russian propaganda.

Yeah, that's a great way to move a discussion forward. ;)

That is an inaccurate characterization of US policy toward NATO, lifted straight from Russian propaganda. If you want a serious discussion, start with serious facts.

you want to blame everyone but Russia for Russia attacking Ukraine

Actually, I want and have done no such thing. I'm not about laying blame. And, of course, it is Russia that invaded Ukraine and so it is Russia who carries full responsibility for this foolish, stupid, futile war.

My main point in this ongoing discussion - my only point, essentially - is that the US has pushed NATO enlargement too far by postulating - non-seriously, I might add - that Ukraine should eventually be in NATO and that its eventual membership is non-negotiable.

I have been hugely disappointed in how Biden has handled the Ukrainian file since becoming president. I think the developing regional security crisis between Ukraine and Russia that existed since 2014 and even before was manageable, especially for a foreign policy wonk like Biden who was always about elevating the diplomatic track over the military options. Which is why I applauded his choice of a statesman like William Burns to head up the CIA.

This started years ago when Russia first annexed Crimea ...

My point is that we must look back much further than the annexation of Crimea to understand the dynamics of the geopolitical game being played here by the US, Russia and Ukraine. All sides have thus far been playing it very badly. And, for that, the Ukrainian people have suffered immeasurably.

In this nuanced discussion we are all trying to have here on the question of the war in Ukraine, let's try not to insult each others intelligence. I would be very interested in understanding how you see this war ending.

Ah, or what. Good God.

Why is it so difficult around here to hold more than one thought in our heads at the same time, particularly when considering complex geopolitical games?

Yes, the vast majority of Ukrainians favour joining NATO. I'm sure that number has gone up increasingly over the years and dramatically most recently. Does that make it a good idea, geopolitically? No, it does not.

The West has been pushing the boundaries of NATO for decades. We are not really discussing the merits for or against the expanding of NATO. But, people who understand how Russia has viewed this ever-eastward expansion also clearly understand that the move to include Ukraine in NATO's overall strategy over the years, if not in its actual membership, was a game-changer for reasons I shouldn't have to enumerate.

Leaving aside what Ukrainians want and understanding what NATO is willing to accept, tell me why you think it is a good idea to even contemplate Ukrainian membership in NATO. Why do you think the same US crew who advocated for the Iraq War in 2003 have been pushing for Ukrainian membership in NATO?

I've already said that Israel should stop trying to recruit more fighters for Hamas. Having 1400 Israelis killed and 250 taken hostage isn't a failure for the total-war faction in Israeli politics: it works wonders for them, changing a lot of people's attitudes toward genocide from "never again" to "the problem is that it happened to the wrong people ". Likewise, having tens of thousands of Palestinians killed, hundreds of thousands made homeless, and millions impoverished and humiliated isn't a failure for Hamas.

We need to find something that is failure for each side, and inflict it on them. Problem is, the only thing I can think of that would fit the bill is peace and prosperity for ordinary Palestinians and Israelis. If we knew how to do that, then the problem of how to do that would already have been solved.

Besides ducking my would you defend Ontario question you also haven’t offered
links to whomever has convinced you to parrot the Russians. Was the guy’s name William Bradley? I googled him and didn’t find any of the William Bradleys that turned up was remotely close to being a geo strategist or even a politics pundit. So how about a couple of links?

But, they were willing to subject Ukraine to death and destruction and other vagaries of war ... for WHAT!?

That’s a great question… you want to blame everyone but Russia for Russia attacking Ukraine while pointing out that that it makes no sense for anyone to provoke such an attack. Why would anyone subject the Ukrainian people to such horrors? It makes no sense, as you point out, for anyone to cause Russia to attack the Ukrainian people. There is nothing to be gained…well, almost no one would gain anything. The only one who could possibly benefit from this would be, obviously…, Russia.

This started years ago when Russia first annexed Crimea and the Crimean Peninsula because “the Crimean people wanted to be part of Russia” again. Yeah, NO! It was done because Russia was tired of paying the large tariffs they had to pay to get their oil and natural gas onto tankers in the Black Sea and shipped to Europe. Russia is landlocked and have relied on Crimea to get their product to their consumers for decades. All oil pipes run from Russian oil fields to Crimea. Russia’s economy would collapse without Crimea. Once Ukraine kicked the Russian puppet out of office that Putin had placed in power, the Ukrainian government raised the tariffs so the Russians weren’t getting to use the port for “free”. Putin was losing money, so Russia took Crimea to avoid paying those tariffs.

Russia was clearly planning to take back Ukraine for a while. They discovered that despite their claim of Crimea being part of Russia, the international community refused to recognize that. The world said Crimea was still part of Ukraine. So to own Crimea, Russia had to take back Ukraine or wage a war in the hopes of getting Crimea as part of a treaty to end the war.

Remember when Trump took all that money from military projects and used it to build his wall on the Southern border? The press loved to cover the stories of much needed military housing that were nixed by Trumps money grab, but they did not give coverage to where most of the money came from — projects on building up the Ukrainian border with Russia to prevent an invasion. If Trump had still been in office, Putin would have marched into Ukraine with little resistance. Trump would not have allowed our military to offer any aid or support to fend off Russia.

Russia attempted to discredit the Ukrainian president and cause the American public to think he was interfering with our elections. It failed thanks to Lt.Col. Vindman’s whistleblowing actions. Putin was not going to pay tariffs and lose money to the Ukrainians no matter how many lives it cost to make that so.

no.

Who the heck really knows for certain.

me.

and anyone else who understands the subtext of statements Putin has made since new years, 1992. for him, any actual ukranian independence was always going to be met with force. NATO expansion is just as much a pretext as "de-nazification."

When did Biden attempt to coerce Ukraine into joining NATO?

Seriously? The West has been expanding NATO for decades and the Ukraine project has been ongoing for a very long time. Of course, clearer heads in NATO are against it, as well they should be for reasons that I have explained already and that are, after all, quite obvious.

This has NOTHING to do with allowing Russia to dictate the terms of NATO membership or altering treaties. Not even in the very least!

Vladimir Putin took the choice away by invading, and all evidence suggests that would have happened regardless of all things NATO

Could this war in Ukraine have been avoided if NATO expansion to include Ukraine wasn't a thing? Who the heck really knows for certain.

What is for certain is that Biden made sure we'd never find out by announcing repeatedly that Ukraine's eventual membership in NATO was non-negotiable. And, the funny thing is that NATO has no real intention of welcoming Ukraine into its fold now, anytime soon or ever. But, they were willing to subject Ukraine to death and destruction and other vagaries of war ... for WHAT!?

Not all in Nebraska. Scattered across empty places. So even for the ones in Nebraska, Omaha would be part of the outside world, that they couldn't go to unless they sign the pledge. There's more than enough land in upstate New York, the Dakotas, and so on, that they wouldn't have to have more than ten people within a mile of each other. Maybe give a bunch of them some prime real estate in the Australian outback.

I say that the state ... has no right to exist, and there is no such thing as a ... people. I still say that both clauses are true when you add "of Israel" to the first and "Palestinian" to the second; they just become completely unhelpful.

I have no problem saying that Hamas is evil. I think Israel should stop trying to recruit more fighters for Hamas, and the world should pressure Iran to eliminate Hamas.

But that doesn't add up to a solution, or anywhere close to a solution. If I were stuck with dictatorial powers and a geas not to resign until I do something about Israel/Palestine, I would probably resettle everyone on empty land in places like Nebraska, give each of them enough money to make up for the cost of shipping goods to the middle of nowhere, not allow any of them to leave unless they sign a pledge renouncing all claim to any land anywhere in the Middle East, and turn the whole place into a no-humans-allowed nature preserve for the next hundred years.