until it no longer is … and becomes a war between russia and moldavia …
would that change something for you?
what I am seeing right now is:
lets flood Ukr. with top notch western weaponry / consultants / intel / … to make the playing field more level … and fight the Ukraine out the war for europe
I’m not even sure what you’re trying to say with the last sentence there. But no, under no circumstances do I think the US or NATO should be engaging Russian troops. It’s a recipe for escalating the conflict into nuclear war.
Yes I do, but only under certain circumstances that are unlikely to happen and on the provision that any response should be kept limited and targeted specifically to end one of three things;
Absent these conditions, I agree intervention is not required and worse than that counter productive. The Russians are currently shitting the bed as it is. So long as Russian soil is not threatened directly I think it is possible to send a message about lines that are not to be crossed. Intervention is this way would be likely to further worsen morale issues in the Russian ranks and would leave a lot of commanders wondering just what the heck its all for.
Yes. Aid, but no direct military action.
In other news, the much vaulted Russian army is having more issues:
https://news.yahoo.com/russian-troops-surrendering-sabotaging-vehicles-130211053.html
I 100% support NATO intervening. We slow-rolled Ukraine’s entry into NATO and here’s where we are. I have high doubts that Russian missiles continue to function considering the apparent state of the rest of their military. Missiles are expensive. And in any case, so long as NATO does not invade Russian land I do not see them using nuclear weapons anyway. NATO should immediately hold an emergency meeting, admit Ukraine, and anybody else that wants in, and go. NATO would quite obviously kick the everloving shirt out of Russian forces in Ukraine. It would be no contest. Heck, just the use of NATO airpower alone would be devastating. That convoy … gone. Any other convoys… gone. Russian airpower is “strangely” missing from the fight, except I do not think it is strange. I don’t think they have airpower anymore. Too expensive. Russia is quite obviously broke and their military is in shambles. And you think the Russian conscripts have poor morale now? If NATO steps in and the bombs start dropping they would be fleeing for the nearest friendly border and any officer that got in their way would be “fragged”.
I think NATO enforcing a no fly zone would not trigger a nuclear response. That would definitely be counter to Russia’s interests and even if Putin was insane enough to order it his generals would not not carry out the order because it’ll be their families that die too.
It might make more sense though for any action be carried by a “coalition of the willing” which might include a few token troops from key non-NATO members. I would definitely support this, and if Russia continues to pummel Ukrainian cities and ratchet up their aggression I think the public will support the idea too.
I think the primary problem with US, EU, or NATO intervention is that we made it abundantly clear prior to the invasion that we would not do that.
To me, one of the fundamental requirements for multi-national diplomacy is that countries do what they say they will do. We said “Putin is going to invade Ukraine. In response we will provide logistical support and turn Russia into an isolated pariah state”. That is exactly what we are doing, and what we should continue to do.
Now, if the US or NATO had said prior to invasion that if Russia enters beyond a certain red line that they would enforce a no-fly zone (for example) then that would be fine. But Putin hasn’t done anything beyond what US intelligence expected him to do. So to respond beyond what was already threatened in response to those steps seems an unnecessary escalation.
Do you mean like Russia saying they would not invade Ukraine? 
We can give them fair notice. “Hey Russia, you know how you changed your mind on invading Ukraine? We’ve changed our mind on defending them. You have 24 hours to ceasefire. You have 48 hours to start withdrawal. If you’ve stopped shooting and are clearly withdrawing, then your troops may leave safely. After 48 hours we start moving in.”
With this sort of stance, the United States would have to sit out any conflict that involves a nuclear-armed aggressor. This would actually encourage nuclear proliferation down the road.
Well that would have been a different approach. But we (and by “we” I mean the US/EU/NATO) didn’t give any ultimatums that involved direct military action. All of the ultimatums were around severe and immediate sanctions.
I’m not sure how I would have felt if that type of ultimatum was the posture of the western world, but the sense I get is that there was next to zero appetite for that. Many countries (Germany in particular) seemed very reluctant to even enforce the sanctions the US was pushing for. And many countries were hopeful that Putin would back down - the US was pretty much alone (IIRC) in saying that Putin was lying and would absolutely be invading and trying to take the whole country and replace the government.
It was only be clearly saying “This is what Russia is going to do. Do not believe their lies” that we were able to get the type of sanctions regime in place so quickly and so universally when Russia was shown to have been lying about their intentions.
Ukraine may still fall, but Putin has paid far higher a price for his invasion than he probably expected. And the total costs are not even being felt yet.
Yes, but I’m saying we could now give an ultimatum that involves military action. There’s nothing in the rule book that says we cannot do that. Would NATO do it? No. Should they? In my view, yes.
I keep thinking about FDR’s promises to keep us out of WWII. He sent aid to Great Britain, akin to what we’re doing for Ukraine. Even if we had not be attacked, I think we would have ended up with boots on the ground if Germany marched into London.
Fair enough. I disagree that NATO should do that. I think you have to give ultimatums based on expected actions. We completely expected Russia to do what they have done, and we told them what our response would be. Now if we were to say that using certain types of weapons would lead to military intervention that would be fine. But I would be very hesitant to give Putin any sort of “Russia vs. the West” lifeline to rally his people back to his side.
It’s very complicated, and I could absolutely be wrong. But I tend to trust the policy-makers and career soldiers that have come to the conclusion that Russia will be severely hurt by this course of action, perhaps to the point of fundamental change.
And if we can get Russia somehow out of the hands of autocrats and kleptocrats it is essential that we do a better job of integrating them into the world economy rather than maintaining this adversrial posture while also encroaching closer and closer with military alliances that are expressly anti-Russian.
No. I think it would be a bad idea for NATO to get involved directly in Ukraine. The EU and US involvement wrt pushing for sanctions is the way we should continue to go, ramping up the pressure and, frankly, starting to think about secondary sanctions for states still willing to do business with Moscow. We should still give military aid and medical aid to Ukraine, assist with refugees and continue to up the pressure on Moscow and Putin, and Putin’s allies, and assist the Europeans in a long-term strategy to move away from using Russia’s resources.
I’m good with all of that, and even extending and expanding it to increase the pressure. But direct military intervention? No. That would be for a direct attack on one of our defense alliance members or a country like Taiwan (if we are talking just the US and not NATO).
I don’t think anyone assumes a war against NATO will stay conventional. That’s sort of the point.
The problem is that wars have a tendency to escalate.
Lets say start with enforcement of a no-fly zone above Ukraine. That means shooting down Russian fighters, winning a PR victory at home claiming “capitalist Yankee aggression” or whatever terms they use these days.
Russia still has large ground forces, so do we then begin air strikes?
Do we limit those strikes to Ukraine or do we target staging areas in Russia?
Does NATO then position troops and tanks on the Ukraine border to create a sort of DMZ with Russia?
At what point does Russia get frustrated and attack troop concentrations or a particularly stubborn city with a low-yield tactical nuke?
And what is our response to that?
Yes, it wouldn’t be fair to Putin to let him get all dressed up for the war party and then call it off last minute. We also made assurances to Ukraine, and I’d rather keep my word to a friend than an enemy - not that any promises were made to Putin.
I don’t think people understand how ugly this is gonna get (unless Putin gets taken out). The more Ukraine holds out, the more brutal Putin will be. The more Putin loses, the more Ukraine loses. It would probably better for Ukraine at this point to let Putin swallow the porcupine and then have Ukraine throw their quills. They can save their buildings and infrastructure and go straight to the insurrection. Not sure I believe this but I’m certainly spitballing it.
Certainly by early 1941 FDR had made that pretty clear, I think. Here is a speech from May 27, 1941 that seems to pretty clearly state that military resources would be used to assist Britain in repelling a Nazi invasion.
I think I have read that Hitler had become convinced at this point that the US would intervene militarily as well. That’s part of why he welcomed Pearl Harbor - he thought maybe the US would focus on Japan instead.
My emotions say that we need to do whatever it takes to stop this horrible slaughter that is happening on our TV’s every hour of the day. I’m crying almost constantly and praying to a god I don’t believe in to spare a child in Ukraine and take me instead. I can’t hardly stand how impotent and helpless I feel.
So nobody should listen to me, but I just don’t understand how we can watch this happen and not help in ways that will actually save lives. Wearing yellow and blue and liking desperate tweets from Ukrainian people is starting to feel gross.
If Putin is not stopped, he can hold the entire world captive with threats. It makes no sense to me that we would fight if he was doing this to a country right next door. So are we talking about a difference in feet or miles?
Does the entire world have to do whatever Putin says or else?
Fucking hell, we should help them not get slaughtered. Let them in NATO so we can’t hide behind that as an excuse.
So I know I’m too emotional and like I said, don’t listen to me. But that’s how I feel about it.
The fly in the ointment is that the Ukraine is NOT a member of NATO. Were it so, Russia’s invasion would be a direct act of war against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and, in that case, the time would have finally arrived to have it out once and for all.
My humanitarian side hates what I’m about to write, but realpolitik would argue against direct NATO intervention.
There is no upside for NATO intervening directly. The only people that helps are the (non-NATO) Ukrainians. NATO is in the best position it’s been in since the last time Russia shot itself in the foot with the invasion of Afghanistan. A years long insurgency in a neighboring state that not only depletes Russian military might but also reveals all of its strengths and weaknesses is actually more advantageous to NATO than any kind of victorious military intervention. NATO’s primary mission is not a humanitarian one; it is to diminish the threat from Russia. And the best way to do that now is to let Russia continue to shove their forces into the meat grinder that Ukraine will likely become when this war enters an insurrection phase. It’s going to suck to be a Ukrainian for the next decade, but more important to NATO, it’s going to really suck to be a Russian, too.