Hello,

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=making+war+is+bad
War brings anyhow nothing, and nothing good arrives.

What's the message to Russia, Minister #Habeck?“
“Stop the war… and go home!“

Same thing being said by the residents of Eagle Rock Texas.

Only they use the word Please.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01...gle-pass-park/

Whether dictator or not. Gotta stay in power. I dislike election years. Money to Ukraine gets held up here because of election politics.

Gazans are still reeling after resisting policies. World is getting to be a tough place to live in lately with over crowding.

Waiting for water immigration/wars next. Sure helps to born lucky lately. Putin has Karma coming as he gets older. I can only hope though. Be glad you were lucky enough to not be born and raised in N. Korea.

Like I said. Luck. Everybody speaks spanish in my Texas neighborhood. You would be surprised at their intolerance opinions on illegals.

That doesn't surprise me at all. People who have entered a country legally are usually more offended by illegal immigration than the indigenous people are. They say, "We did it the way we were supposed to. We wouldn't have been allowed in otherwise. How come these people can just walz over the border and get housed, etc.?"

I can still remember how indignant my mother always was at the way Muslim immigrants demanded special consideration for their religion. "Our people," she would often say (meaning the Jewish refugees who had fled from Hitler) "never made any demands. We knew the country we'd come to was already inhabited and that we had to fit in with the natives, not expect them to fit in with us. We were just grateful that they took us in at all."

@xeratul: What's the point in saying that here? No one's going to disagree with you. Try going to Moscow and shouting the same thing in Red Square.

I don't understand. What did people expect Putin to do? Just sit there and be Gaddafi'd?

Not only that, but I think it somewhat misses the point. As far as the Russian state is concerned, the war is an existential necessity (not just for Putin and other senior members of the regime, but for Russia itself).

That is sad when invading/taking over another country is a necessity to just get more territory. Russia and China seem bent on expanding their 'empire'.

er?? What kind of threat is Ukraine to them?

Russia views NATO as a direct threat (this is not in itself unreasonable as it was established in response to Russia's predecessor state – the Soviet Union – and has expanded further eastwards since the USSR's collapse). The geography of Ukraine and western Russia (i.e., flat and open plain conducive to the swift movement of armoured and mechanised armies and providing no counter to Western air superiority) is such that having Ukraine as a NATO member – likely hosting NATO forces – is unacceptable as it destroys all the foundations of Russia's military doctrine (not just that from the Cold War but even post-Cold War) and exposes the Russian core (the economic, political and cultural heart of Russia) and the southern plains known as the Volgograd Gap to swift assaults that Russia would struggle to defeat. The Baltic States (and now Finland) are bad enough as NATO members, but Belarus and Ukraine are red lines that, in the eyes of the Russian leadership, cannot be crossed if Russia is to have any sense of self-preservation. It is literally worth fighting a war to prevent.

The background to the war is that a coup ousted from power a president of Ukraine who balanced Ukraine's Western leanings with its cultural and geopolitical reality in the East. The motivation of the revolutionaries was ostensibly to obtain association with the EU, with a long-term view to joining the EU as a full member state. This alone is obviously contrary to Russia's economic and geopolitical interests, but it was the wider discussion of NATO membership (and how EU membership could be a stepping stone to joining NATO) that prompted Russia to engage in its initial military operations to secure Crimea and parts of the Donbas and culminated in Russia's wider invasion of Ukraine.

I don't agree with absolutely everything this chap says, but it's worth watching this video for some insight into the Russian position (the author is pro-West): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1u495VZ4hM.

At the risk of ruffling some feathers and with much hesitation, I am constrained to submit for consideration a suggestion that persons fleeing persecution, drug cartels, climate change, and oppression, however misguided their actions might be, may not be fitting analogy to a force of armored invaders with tanks and rockets intent on destruction, death, and conquest.

Just a stray thought.

Let me offer a few examples of "what is their position." And then tell me, if you can, that "you would do any different, if the shoes were switched."

First of all, you plainly see that what was once billed as a "'defensive' alliance" is systematically advancing to(!) your borders. And, it is then building military bases there, which specifically include missile bases. (Pretend that you have "many 'borders,' not just two.")

Okay: "an international military alliance which now includes both Canada and Mexico is now constructing missile bases thirty-five miles from the Texas border, and across the river from Detroit. These nuclear-capable bases can now strike any American city within seven minutes." This now makes "the Cuban Missile Crisis" seem like very small change.

But, let's continue. For many years you "negotiated diplomatic agreements in good faith." Only to finally be told that the people you were negotiating with were merely stalling for time while they amassed a 600,000+ man army adjacent to you. They were never "in good faith." So, let's add 300,000 fully-armed soldiers apiece, to both of the aforementioned places. Along with the very best military equipment that this "international military alliance" knows how to produce.

With me so far?

Now you stumble-upon a certain map in which you now see that "economic sanctions" are supposed to destroy the USA's government while enemy troops run roughshod over parts of it. (Say, they want to "quickly conquer California.") The consequence of which is now supposed to be "the United States, carved up into forty-odd little countries, and by-the-way we've picked a flag for each of them.

Any problems?

I could go on. I haven't even gotten to the "Victory Day" national celebration. Nor, the reason for it . . . "Ghost Armies." Never Forget.™

Diplomacy has failed. Now what do you do?

The problem is that Putin will never stop.

That depends a lot on who Putin thinks he is. If he is channelling Peter the Great, he will want Latvia, Estonia and Finland too, but probably not much more. If he thinks of himself as the new Stalin, he will want all the slavic-speaking nations and half of Germany as well.

Whilst I think that Putin would ideally want the Baltic states to trim Russia's borders and better secure Russia's position in the eastern Baltic, I don't think he's a fool and I don't think he has any intention of testing NATO's Article Five casus foederis. And whilst I certainly don't think he'll be pleased that Finland has joined NATO, I don't think there was any intention to invade Finland either.

I think there is a broad misunderstanding in the West that Russia itself views the war in Ukraine as one of territorial expansion, whereas I think Russia views it as a war for national survival. For example, whilst I can't claim any special insight into the mind of Putin, I don't think there was much intention to incorporate Ukraine directly and wholly into the Russian Federation. Beyond the annexation of Crimea and certain territories in the east, I suspect Ukraine would have continued to be governed separately by a puppet regime that better danced to Russia's tune on the likes of foreign policy (and the protection and promotion – rather than a threat to – the Russian culture and heritage within Ukraine). This is not to say the situation would be any more acceptable to the majority of Ukrainians, but it is to say that I don't think the Kremlin's motivations are well understood.

Russia has characterized Ukraine as "once part of its Motherland." An early capitol of "Rusa" was located there, before it was moved to Moscow. They have publicly described the situation as "a civil war." They are not confronting what they simply consider to be "an enemy that must be wiped out." (They already know perfectly well how to do that, and they are quite capable of it.)

Now: If you saw an obviously-offensive alliance called NATO deliberately trying to expand to your very borders, and to amass a vast "proxy army" in an adjacent state, and purposely dealing in a duplicitous way with you, then finally you would take the gloves off and take military action. Anybody (who could do so ...) would.

There is very obviously also a "Don't Tread On Me™" lesson that is now being taught here. Russia is not weak, and it did recover from the breakup of the USSR, and it is not going anywhere. It has not forgotten what "Real War" is, and it will never forget what "a Real Nazi" is. (No matter what "armchair warriors" like Victoria Nuland might dream about.) It has a real economy that is not dependent upon imports and not dependent on "the West." And, it is in the position to invite other like-minded countries – who can very plainly see what has been happening – to work with them.

People are listening. The 'world order' is changing. But this is a very difficult task, if you actually intend to do something more than just "blog" about it.

– – –

"May you live in interesting times." Let us fervently hope that this is not a 'curse.' Because, we(!) are right now living in, and living through, "the times" that generations of 'future historians' will be writing and speculating about. We are now reading what is, to us, "a half-written but very interesting book," and we are staring at a blank page.

Alexander the Great, likely.... but...