What a stupid, useless gesture, especially if what I read tis morning is true and one of the loan conditions is they not use it for weapons.
How does this help? Russia’s invasion may be imminent. Can you stop a tank with a brick of $100 bills?
Ukraine needs weapons.
Biden’s misstep at the press conference has been corrected. The administration has made clear that any incursion into Ukraine will be answered with massive economic sanctions. Either Putin is going to invade soon or he’s just testing the resolve of the west. It seems to me he’d have been better off doing it a couple years ago when he controlled the White House.
And we are supplying them. A shipment of “lethal aid” arrived yesterday, and apparently more is on the way. It’s unclear what exactly is included or planned, but I imagine that’s intentional.
Ireland doesn’t care for the Russian presence off their shores; NATO doesn’t care for Russian provocation:
A (jaded and cynical) friend of mine used to say “The problem with marriage is that if one person’s an asshole, and the other isn’t, the asshole always wins.”
I think that’s the problem with the likes of Putin. Everyone knows it’s wrong, and in a perfect world there’s be 200,000 NATO forces in Ukraine right now. But if one actually cares about the consequences, and the dead people, one knows how dangerous that is.
Thus, the asshole will win.
(I hope it’s clear that I’m not happy about that)
Is there any conceivable scenario under which Russia would emerge better off for having invaded Ukraine?
In every hypothetical thus far, either
Russia wins and takes huge political, military, social, diplomatic, economic losses as a result = Pyrrhic victory, or
Russia loses and suffers all those same aforementioned above losses = straight up loss
The other hypothetical is that Russia wins and is now a larger country with a larger population and more resources. In addition, they are still the main energy suppliers to Western Europe, and are also a bigger threat to other Eastern European countries (having demonstrated that they are willing and able to invade other countries), and they also maintain alliances with numerous other countries, large and small, who don’t like Western Superpowers telling them what to do. As a result, everyone grudgingly comes around to accepting the new status quo. Big win for Russia.
If Russia takes Ukraine, it’s far more likely that China goes for Taiwan.
The risk of losing Taiwan, from the international market, is too great to allow.
It’s not really clear how a war unfolds when nuclear powers decide that it’s free for all season and that it was a mistake all along to believe in borders when, “Hey, we got nukes and they don’t.”
The closest thing to an effective response, at that point, is that every country decides which of the three powers they want to become a part of and, after that, it’s mutually assured destruction if anyone attacks the land of one of the other two.
That really doesn’t land us in a happy happy sort of existence - not for anyone involved. Stopping the ball in Ukraine is worth doing, I’d say.
You started off with “far more likely” and ended up with “stopping the ball”. Point being that even if you’re correct that if Russia takes Ukraine it’s far more likely that China goes for Taiwan, it’s far from clear that the West maintaining severe (and self-harming) sanctions would change this likelihood much, or in which direction.
It’s very difficult to sanction a whole bunch of major powers, especially since that entices them to join a new axis of opponents. So if the West maintains severe sanctions against Russia, that might itself make it more likely that China goes for Taiwan, since they may well gamble that the West won’t have the stomach for more sanctions against another major world power.
Sure. Russia does its ‘limited incursion’, and the chaos causes the Ukranian government to fall and be replaced by Putin stooges. The west shrugs and decides it’s not worth a war to unwind what just happened. Putin now controls Ukraine, and the ease with which he pulled it off has him eyeing the rest of the old Soviet Union.
Eventually most of the troops go home or move on to the next conquest, and Putin is a big hero in Russia.
Or, Putin invades Ukraine, the west does nothing, so China goes after Taiwan and the world forgets about Ukraine.
Here’s some news:
In terms of not becoming the trigger for everything to go sideways, threatening sanctions is pretty well the only thing we can do at this point in the equation.
Biden and/or NATO seem to be increasing on that by stationing troops in non-Ukrainian lands near Russia, but I’m not sure that that’s prudent to do. To me it seems like the sort of provocation that Putin might be looking for, to justify an attack to the average Russian. And, if there’s no plan to send them into Ukraine then what’s the point?
New news:
It might be a good time for everyone in the West to update their passwords.
Agreed. The point is that there aren’t a lot of good options.
To show that we Really Mean Business. Countries do this all the time.
If you ask me, it’s not just that it’s a provocation that Putin might be looking for. I think Putin is genuinely threatened by the Ukraine cozying up with the West, and were it not for that, we wouldn’t be in this situation. So in that sense, the more the US helps Ukraine, the more motivated Putin is to undo that. I believe this dynamic is why the Obama administration was reluctant to send lethal weapons to Ukraine (until reversed under Trump) and why Ukraine is not currently a member of NATO.
Rather than re-state a position from last April, I think I still feel exactly this way:
Not Canada, though. We’re sending thoughts and prayers.
Perhaps more likely. I would not say FAR more likely. Taking Taiwan is way, way harder a task.
China has no shortage of manpower to throw on the pyre and thousands of years of history of seeing that as a legitimate strategy.
Interesting map showing estimated positions of Russian forces. After Putin helped dampen the Belarusian protests it looks like he was quick to call in the favour.
Vote China off the island too.
Dangit, I knew you were Canadian but it somehow slipped my mind. Sorry about that.
In regard to what Putin’s potential goals are and how each scenario might play out, the Center For Strategic and International studies has the most thorough treatment I’ve seen. Even though none of their scenarios match up with what I think is the most likely goal (access to Crimea), it does consider the options if Russia is willing to commit more troops to the conflict.