The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Sounds kinda generic and not prolifically sad really. It's not really a matter involving the US much.

But it does. It puts your closest allies onto a frontline again, just as you were trying to reorient yourself towards the new pacific threat.

What threat are you referring to?

[Madner Kami]

That big bad totally communist I swearzies blob in the middle of east asia.

[clearspira]

Sounds kinda generic and not prolifically sad really. It's not really a matter involving the US much.

But it does. It puts your closest allies onto a frontline again, just as you were trying to reorient yourself towards the new pacific threat.

What threat are you referring to?

Have you heard of China?

[CmdrKing]

Sounds kinda generic and not prolifically sad really. It's not really a matter involving the US much.

Setting aside military reasons (the US military’s standing doctrine is to have the materiel and manpower to fight China and Russia at the same time, so you might argue that fuck it, we don’t need no Europe to help rattle sabers at China), here’s the pragmatic, purely interested in US hegemony reason to support Ukraine.

The US has spent the past 20+ years setting fire to its ability to project soft power. Aside from being a lucrative business market, the entire war on terror and the associated naked resource grabs have left the US with a well-earned reputation as belligerent thugs you can dance around and paint as The Enemy to basically any nation outside Europe, and even some places there. And that’s setting aside the reputation was shit before then, but the last 20 especially have been some not-even-trying shit.

But see, when Ukraine agreed to let Russia take the Soviet nuclear arsenal out of the country in the 90s, the US agreed to step in and send materiel in the eventuality Russia got a big up its ass to reforge their empire. Seeing as nuclear weapons tend to prevent people invading you and they just gave a bunch away.

And a major way to build reputation and trust is to honor your agreements, especially ones you could probably loophole your way out of if you really wanted. And nowadays the US has few opportunity to do that and increasingly fewer ways to build new ones, seeing as China doesn’t have that problem and has been merrily crafting lucrative relationships with most of Africa (who fucking hate western nations) and Latin American (who double hate the US for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain).

So yeah if the US wants to do anything but gunboat diplomacy from now to whenever doing that backfires bad enough to send the US the way of Rome, backing up Ukraine and leveraging that support to rebuild and strengthen relations in Eastern Europe and other regions Russia might want to reassert influence is the best possible move.

[clearspira]

Sounds kinda generic and not prolifically sad really. It's not really a matter involving the US much.

Setting aside military reasons (the US military’s standing doctrine is to have the materiel and manpower to fight China and Russia at the same time, so you might argue that fuck it, we don’t need no Europe to help rattle sabers at China), here’s the pragmatic, purely interested in US hegemony reason to support Ukraine.

The US has spent the past 20+ years setting fire to its ability to project soft power. Aside from being a lucrative business market, the entire war on terror and the associated naked resource grabs have left the US with a well-earned reputation as belligerent thugs you can dance around and paint as The Enemy to basically any nation outside Europe, and even some places there. And that’s setting aside the reputation was shit before then, but the last 20 especially have been some not-even-trying shit.

But see, when Ukraine agreed to let Russia take the Soviet nuclear arsenal out of the country in the 90s, the US agreed to step in and send materiel in the eventuality Russia got a big up its ass to reforge their empire. Seeing as nuclear weapons tend to prevent people invading you and they just gave a bunch away.

And a major way to build reputation and trust is to honor your agreements, especially ones you could probably loophole your way out of if you really wanted. And nowadays the US has few opportunity to do that and increasingly fewer ways to build new ones, seeing as China doesn’t have that problem and has been merrily crafting lucrative relationships with most of Africa (who fucking hate western nations) and Latin American (who double hate the US for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain).

So yeah if the US wants to do anything but gunboat diplomacy from now to whenever doing that backfires bad enough to send the US the way of Rome, backing up Ukraine and leveraging that support to rebuild and strengthen relations in Eastern Europe and other regions Russia might want to reassert influence is the best possible move.

Whilst that is true, America is not strong enough to avoid a Pyrrhic victory. Its always better to have allies to share the blame with when you are staring at a mushroom cloud over your breadbasket.

[ProfessorDetective]

Sounds kinda generic and not prolifically sad really. It's not really a matter involving the US much.

Setting aside military reasons (the US military’s standing doctrine is to have the materiel and manpower to fight China and Russia at the same time, so you might argue that fuck it, we don’t need no Europe to help rattle sabers at China), here’s the pragmatic, purely interested in US hegemony reason to support Ukraine.

The US has spent the past 20+ years setting fire to its ability to project soft power. Aside from being a lucrative business market, the entire war on terror and the associated naked resource grabs have left the US with a well-earned reputation as belligerent thugs you can dance around and paint as The Enemy to basically any nation outside Europe, and even some places there. And that’s setting aside the reputation was shit before then, but the last 20 especially have been some not-even-trying shit.

But see, when Ukraine agreed to let Russia take the Soviet nuclear arsenal out of the country in the 90s, the US agreed to step in and send materiel in the eventuality Russia got a big up its ass to reforge their empire. Seeing as nuclear weapons tend to prevent people invading you and they just gave a bunch away.

And a major way to build reputation and trust is to honor your agreements, especially ones you could probably loophole your way out of if you really wanted. And nowadays the US has few opportunity to do that and increasingly fewer ways to build new ones, seeing as China doesn’t have that problem and has been merrily crafting lucrative relationships with most of Africa (who fucking hate western nations) and Latin American (who double hate the US for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain).

So yeah if the US wants to do anything but gunboat diplomacy from now to whenever doing that backfires bad enough to send the US the way of Rome, backing up Ukraine and leveraging that support to rebuild and strengthen relations in Eastern Europe and other regions Russia might want to reassert influence is the best possible move.

That's all assuming the Alt-Right doesn't get their way and the USA goes full isolationist so they can focus on that Christo-Fascist takeover. When a political organization gives so little of a care about DOMESTIC public opinion...

[tyrteg]

Glad to help bring facts phantom.

Here is another good (and properly cited) explanation on how many young Russian men are waking up to the fact that they're sent to Ukraine to die pointlessly for Putin's greed. Refuseniks numbers are sharply rising and no guilt-tripping "walls of shame" will make them go back: https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/more ... 26884f932b

EDIT: Another sign of Russia slowly tearing apart as each "state" of the Russian Federation realizes that Putin doesn't have enough soldiers left to hold it by force and it's easier being outside of RF than being a part of it:
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/07/25/ ... in-prague/

[clearspira]

Glad to help bring facts phantom.

Here is another good (and properly cited) explanation on how many young Russian men are waking up to the fact that they're sent to Ukraine to die pointlessly for Putin's greed. Refuseniks numbers are sharply rising and no guilt-tripping "walls of shame" will make them go back: https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/more ... 26884f932b

EDIT: Another sign of Russia slowly tearing apart as each "state" of the Russian Federation realizes that Putin doesn't have enough soldiers left to hold it by force and it's easier being outside of RF than being a part of it:
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/07/25/ ... in-prague/

It's amusing really. We have simultaneously too many and not enough humans because kids simply are not being born in large enough numbers to offset how many elderly we have. What this means in practice is that anyone who sends their men into the meat grinder 1945 style is going to run out of men.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think US intervention would escalate the war in the region and you'd have a lot of countries in the middle east willing to help Russia in case US wanted to expand upon the area. From there NATO would probably go full steam, but this isn't really something any leaders want.

Restructuring US global military operations would disassemble current US hegemonic conditions in favor of possibly reigniting the Cold War under new terms.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I could see Trump rattling cages making it uncomfortable for Russia, but the two would probably shake hands more than anything by the end, which is the only way at the moment I can see Putin's Russia getting out of this. After all, they possibly got him into office in the first place, it's not a coincidence that this was started under Biden's watch, giving Putin a 4 year head start until they see Trump getting elected again.