We should have acted weeks earlier. When it became clear that Russia was
planning some sort of a large scale military assault, we should have
stopped Putin right there by sending large amounts of arms including
Patriot systems to Ukraine. Russia could then not have launched the
military assault it is engaging in now.
Russian protests should have been rebuffed by saying that Ukraine is a
sovereign country and it is therefore allowed to request military
assistance. Also, Russia was at the time denying it was planning to
attack Ukraine, so why would they complain? We should then have engaged
with Russia about NATO membership and the military aid we were giving.
We should have made it clear to Russia that the military aid would come
with a military deployment, this would be limited to the de-facto
borders of Ukraine, so there would be no military action against the
Russian and rebel controlled parts.
This intervention would thus have blocked the Russian military action,
it would have given the initiatives to the West about discussions about
the future of Ukraine, NATO membership for Ukraine etc. We could have
made a deal with Russia about Ukraine not becoming a NATO member (this
wasn't in the cards anytime soon anyway). Ukraine would likely be more
willing to voluntarily agree to not seek NATO membership if a practical
alternative that blocks Russian aggression was already implemented. So,
NATO would not have to change its stance about sovereign countries being
able to seek NATO membership.
But it's now too late, Russia can only be slowed down a bit. Russia has
clearly underestimated the Ukrainian army. But it's also the case that
Russia has engaged Ukraine in a rather cautious way compared to the way
it was going about things in Syria and Chechnya. So, Russia can escalate
a whole lot more. Sanctions will cause economic problems for Russia, but
given that sanctions did little to stop Assad, even Maduro is still in
power despite the abject poverty in that country, I'm not optimistic
about sanctions against Russia being able to make much of a difference.
Basically, the doctrine we need to stick to is act from a position of
strength, hit hard when and where you can hit hard with maximum effect.
Also to avoid engaging from a position of weakness, and fighting for
ever smaller gains with more and more effort. We should now let Putin
fail in Ukraine by his own mistakes and focus our attention to other
potential flashpoints.
Saibal
>> _ > I'm fine with seizing the money of Putin and his oligarch
>> buddies. I'm less sanguine about just impoverishing the Russian
>> people. _
>>
>> When one country decides to make war on it's neighbor misery is the
>> inevitable result, certainly the people of Ukraine are feeling it
>> and I'm certain the people of Russia will too. Call me a monster if
>> you want but at this moment I feel far less sympathy for the
>> invading country than the country being invaded.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Everything List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to
everything-li...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
>
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLS9KotZyVSzct2Dqmqm7WxuksPogwXhK4PeqR4XMAEDsg%40mail.gmail.com
> [1].
>
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1]
>
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLS9KotZyVSzct2Dqmqm7WxuksPogwXhK4PeqR4XMAEDsg%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer