An interesting and probative point, we’re it not for those who [generally] agree with you still insisting, even hoping Russia can win.
HMT5000 is quoted, above using the personal pronoun “we,” in a sentence describing Russian advances in Bakhmut . . . “We are looking better now.”
I’ve been bluntly told by more than one poster in this thread “the war is not going to turn out as you hope.”
So let me turn your irony backwards: Russia can invade and dominate the second largest country in Europe, and yet is not a threat to NATO . . . Both at the same time?
Ukraine is large geographically, but not the second most populace (7th for those keeping score at home). I don’t know that the physical size of the country matters. If Russia’s military is as weak as many here have touted, that would seem to better dictate whether Russia is a threat to NATO, rather than the size of Ukraine. If NATO wanted to keep Russia from attacking Ukraine, it could have accepted Ukraine into NATO when Russia advanced to its border and sat there for weeks with all of us knowing what was about to come. A cynic might say that NATO wanted Russia to invade.
If HMT5000 is a Russian, I will let him admit as much.
I don’t know what you are hoping for. Seems some here would love a protracted entrenched war that kills a lot of people we don’t know. Russia getting bogged down in another Afghanistan seems to be a good outcome for some.
Not being a Russian or a Ukrainian, nor having any known connection to those countries (I do have family still in Sweden, so I would not want a Russian threat to them or anyone else in NATO), I have two questions that appeal most to my sensitivities.
(1) What is the interest of the US and/or threat to the US? And,
(2) What course of action causes the most death?
Other questions that factor into these above:
Did our policies since the fall of the Soviet Union bait Russia into this action rather than send a clear message that would have precluded it?
Will Ukrainians begin to feel like pawns being used by the West if this drags on and no other country gets involved? Clearly, the powers in Afghanistan did not give us credit for supporting them against Russia. In 20 years, will we have a friend in an independent Ukraine?
With the economy in a flux here and people feeling the pinch, are we best serving Americans with our support (and, understand that the billions we are spending is not all cash) of Ukraine? How long before public sentiment slides toward the 19?
I am no isolationist, but do tend to believe we often hurt our interests by engaging as we do. Sometimes it seems what seems logical in the short term turns out to be harmful in the long term.
How is this a distraction from more pressing world events hurting the US’s place on the world scene?
Are European countries as invested as we are? And, I am not talking about the few, such as Poland, but the group.
It is easy not to give a crap about this, because it is a distant war. But, we hear bold statements from our President that suggest there is no way Ukraine loses and from Zelensky that suggest victory is not just a rebuff of Russia and continued independence. What is the ultimate objective?
