Will Putin Submit to US-Imposed ‘Weakening’

[ltlee1]

"Said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on his return from a Sunday meeting in Kyiv with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy:

The United States wants “to see Russia weakened to the point where it can’t do things like invade Ukraine.”

“Russia,” said Austin, has “already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of its troops … and we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

Thus, the new, or newly revealed, goal of U.S. policy in Ukraine is not just the defeat and retreat of the invading Russian army but the crippling of Russia as a world power.

The sanctions imposed on Russia and the advanced weapons we are shipping into Ukraine are not only to enable the country to preserve its independence and territorial integrity but also to inflict irreversible damage on Mother Russia.

Putin’s Russia is not to recover soon or ever from the beating we intend to administer, using Ukrainians to deliver the beating, over an extended period of time.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has seen through to the true objectives of some NATO allies:

“There are countries within NATO that want the Ukraine war to continue. They see the continuation of the war as weakening Russia. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine.”

But to increase steadily and substantially the losses to Russia’s economy, as well as its military, the war must go on longer.

And a long war translates into ever-greater losses to the Ukrainians who are alone in paying the price in blood of defeating Russia.

Is Austin committed to fighting this war to the last Ukrainian?

How many dead Russian soldiers—currently, the estimate of Russian losses is 15,000 of its invasion force—will it take to satisfy Austin and the Americans?"

https://thebrunswicknews.com/opinion/editorial_columns/will-putin-submit-to-us-imposed-weakening/article_9a7307bb-4f4c-5967-b6f5-f7ca623735ad.html

[stoney]

The West says there were estimated loss of 15,000 dead Russian. If they have had estimated on account of 15,000 dead Russians, how many Ukrainians would have died as well.

What if the dead rate rises to 50,000 dead Russians, how many Ukrainians would have to lose their lives from them, as well?

[ltlee1]

What US led NATO wants and what Putin wants are diametrically opposite.
How about the read of the world?

The following is from Marco Fernandes, a Counterpunch writer's "Why Latin America Needs a New World Order"

"The world wants to see an end to the conflict in Ukraine. The NATO countries, however, want to prolong the conflict by increasing arms shipments to Ukraine and by declaring that they want to “weaken Russia.” The United States had already allocated $13.6 billion to arm Ukraine. Biden has just requested $33 billion more. By comparison, it would require $45 billion per year to end world hunger by 2030.

Even if negotiations take place and the war ends, an actual peaceful solution will not likely be possible. Nothing leads us to believe that geopolitical tensions will decrease, since behind the conflict around Ukraine is an attempt by the West to halt the development of China, to break its links with Russia, and to end China’s strategic partnerships with the Global South.
...

No Cold War

Latin America does not want a new cold war. The region has already suffered from decades of military rule and austerity politics justified based on the so-called “communist threat.” Tens of thousands of people lost their lives and many tens of thousands more were imprisoned, tortured, and exiled only because they wanted to create sovereign countries and decent societies. This violence was a product of the U.S.-imposed cold war on Latin America.

Latin America wants peace. Peace can only be built on regional unity, a process that began 20 years ago after a cycle of popular uprisings, driven by the tsunami of neoliberal austerity, led to the election of progressive governments: Venezuela (1999), Brazil (2002), Argentina (2003), Uruguay (2005), Bolivia (2005), Ecuador (2007), and Paraguay (2008). These countries, joined by Cuba and Nicaragua, created a set of regional organizations: the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America–Peoples’ Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) in 2004, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in 2008, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in 2011. These platforms were intended to increase regional trade and political integration. Their gains were met with increased aggression from Washington, which sought to undermine the process by attempting to overthrow the governments in many of the member countries and by dividing the regional blocs to suit Washington’s interests."

https://countercurrents.org/2022/05/why-latin-america-needs-a-new-world-order/

[ltlee1]

On Sunday, May 1, 2022 at 4:50:22 PM UTC-4, ltlee1 wrote:

"... the declared U.S. objective not just to end the aggression in Ukraine
but more generally to “weaken” Russia.
... The United States is in effect declaring a new Cold War with Russia.
... One has to wonder how much thought in official circles has gone into
where a new Cold War would be headed and how it would end. Some may
be content to wage such a conflict indefinitely, just as there seemed to be
such people in the original Cold War. This was one distinction that can
be drawn between Ronald Reagan, who envisioned an end to the first
Cold War and tried to bring that end closer, and some in his administration
who appeared content to be Cold Warriors forever.

A new Cold War with Russia would be very much contrary to U.S. interests
and to international security generally.
...
An optimistic view of current problems is that today’s Russia, sometimes
demeaned as a gas station with nukes, also has serious internal weaknesses,
some of which parallel the weaknesses of the USSR. But the original Cold War
had a distinct end that cannot and will not be duplicated with a new Cold War.
...
Another difference from the earlier Cold War that bodes unfavorably for Western
prospects for “winning” a new one concerns the power that at least until this year
had been mentioned more often as the arch-foe in a new Cold War: China. During
most of the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, China was the communist poor relation whose
own relationship with the USSR got bad enough to spawn a border war between
the two. Now China is an economic—and increasingly, military—superpower that
is providing strategic depth to Putin’s Russia.
Kennan identified another critical ingredient for the United States and the West
to prevail in his Cold War, which was how well the United States handled its own
internal affairs.
...
Kennan was writing in an era of extraordinarily effective bipartisan cooperation in
U.S. foreign policy, which had underlain victory in World War II and creation of the
United Nations and was continuing into the first years of the original Cold War.
...
The contrast with today could hardly be greater. Partisanship in the United States
has overridden major aspects of foreign policy as much as it has overridden so
much else. American democracy itself is on the brink of failure.
...
A new Cold War with Russia does not bode as well as the previous one. It will not
end victoriously with a “unipolar moment.” It might not end at all."

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/how-can-new-cold-war-russia-end-202443

[stoney]

The Ukraine war will not end if US-led West continues its supply of weapons to Ukraine. However, Ukraine should know that there is a limit to US-led help on certain weapons. To end the war means Russia must attain some images of their stand, too.

[ltlee1]

The US had passed the bill promising $40 billion aid.
Zelensky signaled he could talk with Putin on ceasefire.

"Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said President Vladimir Putin was the only Russian
official he was willing to meet with to discuss how to end the war. “The president of the Russian
Federation decides it all,” he said in a video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Zelenskiy said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2022/may/23/russia-ukraine-war-up-to-100-ukrainians-dying-every-day-in-east-zelenskiy-says-war-to-dominate-davos-meeting-live

[borie]

On Monday, May 23, 2022 at 11:20:51 PM UTC+8, ltlee1 wrote:

Cold war will not work in Russia and seriously cold war will hurt US and NATO, instead. It will be nuclear war with US and NATO, if and when Russia find themselves being ganged up and pushed around by EU and US. Make no mistake, if US is keen to test the mettle of Russia, they should try to engage Russia instead.

[ltlee1]

More and more people are having second thought. Preventing Ukraine from losing itself
may be a difficult to attain goal, let alone weakening Russia.

"Far from asking for terms, Mr. Putin may be preparing for a war of attrition—and a long war
holds many perils for the West. Russia’s new tactic of threatening the world food supply by
blockading Ukrainian ports reminds us that Mr. Putin still has some cards up his sleeve and
many Europeans appear to fear a Russian gas embargo more than Russia fears a European
boycott.

Ukraine cannot fight a long war without enormous help from the West, economic as well as
military. What will happen to its currency as Ukraine spends everything it has on a war of
survival? How many $40 billion aid packages is Congress prepared to pass? How much
economic aid is the EU ready to provide at a time when many EU economies are struggling
with inflation and high fuel prices? If the war causes food shortages and even famines
around the world and political instability spreads into such countries as Egypt, will the West
be able to coordinate a global response even as it continues to aid Ukraine?"

https://groups.google.com/g/soc.culture.china/c/qGtm7WQ0v0A

[stoney]

The global response will be those 5 eyes of allies who are willing to work with them. The rest of allies will be on pretension in sleeping mode.

[ltlee1]

Whether agreeing or disagreeing with Russia's reason for the military operation, almost all
nations, including the US and NATO nations see the situation as one with limited scale and
scope.

[stoney]

Russia is tired of the time that had taken too long to complete its tasks. So they rather stop and end their tasks if they complete the takeover of the southeastern side of Ukraine. They will rest and come back with the tables and tool for themselves.