Ignoring your sarcasm, I don’t expect Putin would turn tail and run if NATO confronted him with a no-fly zone or some other direct military counter-measure. I would expect him to watch the number of Russian casualties rise drastically for a short time and then seek a cease-fire leading to peace negotiations. Watch in the coming days for the slaughter in Ukraine to become so horrific that Biden will be forced by public opinion to send his military into combat.
@Charles_Marxer You summed it up quite well. Biden Administration communicated quite effectively to Putin what he “would not” do, giving Putin a well defined decision surface on which to work. Sadly, this decision surface included and includes still complete invasion and domination of Ukraine. This is not a position of strength nor honoring the US ability to influence effectively for the good of the world. And here we are, here the Ukrainians are, here the Russians are, and here the Chinese are…
The previous Administration, with all of it’s faults communicated quite effectively with Putin by killing 200 Russian mercenaries in Syria. Blow away 200 Wagner Group Mercenaries and you get high ranking Russian attention since they all had friends, compatriots, sons, brothers lost in that raid.
The previous Administration wasn’t big on rhetoric, verbal chastisement, or Woke big meanie political posturing with Russia. As Ray points out, Putin could care less about all that bullshit.
It’s tough. Just as you want those you choose to converse with to “pick a lens and stick with it, at least for a bit” or respectfully communicate when “redefining the conversation surface”, we each need to do that ourselves as well don’t you think? Is it analysis of? Prediction of and over what time frame?
I think there are lots of worthy concerns in this thread that you kicked up even if they aren’t exactly the concerns you hoped to manifest, even if they don’t meet you or Corey’s desired levels of articulation or style. Perhaps set aside the criticism and look for the wisdom, the passion, the joy, the compassion contained in the discussions.
Thomas Sowell described this very well in a Hoover Institute interview:
The most the United States can do is implement a no fly zone. Anything more would require either months of preparation and buildup or throwing US troops into a meat grinder.
But even a no-fly zone isn’t going to work without spotters on the ground who can speak English and know how to communicate to US pilots. Without that, mistakes will definitely happen and then we’ll have the United States blowing up civilian targets and that will be plastered on the 5 o’clock news - just like in every war but moreso because the US is less prepared for this than any other war and also it is a friendly country that we would be bombing, not a hostile one.
One funny thing is - if you think US Special Forces and SEALS are not already in Ukraine and doing missions - lol. I’d bet money we do have troops on the ground in Ukraine already, just like we’ve had them in almost every conflict since the 1960’s. The Ukranian troops were obviously not trained by Russians, lmao. They have the look and feel of a NATO trained Army. Just the way they walk is noticeably similar in ways that other national armies are not.
But that’s the thing - you just have this beef with Biden and so most of what you say has to be taken with a grain of salt, and also you don’t know how the military operates. I’d also bet Ukranian Officers are being trained in US military bases right now and learning how to call in American fire missions. That’s an absolutely critical task that needs to be done by someone - the United States can’t just go in blind with it’s air force when it has have no way of identifying if a SAM site is Russian or Ukranian. Even for air support for fire missions - Ukranian troops need to speak English and mostly they don’t.
That’s just for air support. For ground troops you need months of training even when you speak the same language or you end up killing your allies.
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The US had been training the Ukrainians on the roughly $400M per year in gear they were receiving under HarumpitiTrumpity. I think it pure speculation that we have any troops in Ukraine. Way to much political risk for Joetato to have Putin trot out an American military captive.
lol, ok - In the world of online nonsense completely detached from reality, yes - speculation.
When you know what kinds of actions these men have been involved in in the past, not speculation at all.
And completely typical - you give Trump credit for doing exactly what Obama and Hillary started doing, and Biden continues to do lol. 400 million is kind of low in the light of the total amount in aid to Ukraine:
Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $5.4 billion in total assistance to Ukraine, including security and non-security assistance. In addition, the United States provided three sovereign loan guarantees totaling $3 billion. The United States is the largest humanitarian donor to Ukraine.
- $350 million of additional security assistance announced on February 26 to address the armored, airborne, and other threats Ukraine is currently facing.
- $721 million in State Department-funded Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and $1.35 billion under DoD’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
- $20 million in IMET assistance between 2014 and 2021 to support military education.
- $610 million worth of arms and equipment transferred from DoD stocks to Ukraine under Presidential Drawdown Authority.
- $86 million in Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs assistance to Ukraine, including over $17 million to the State Border Guard Service’s Maritime Border Guard Detachment, and more than $48 million in Conventional Weapons Destruction (CWD) assistance.
- Over $168 million in assistance to law enforcement reform and border security.
Biden spent more than Trump it seems:
Since the start of 2022, we have committed $54 million in humanitarian assistance and an additional $350 million in security assistance.
I mean, if you are going to spout numbers about Trumps accomplishment, maybe check all the numbers before you say something silly.
Nice work @raybennett. I’m impressed you didn’t regurgitate the dying media’s Hunter Burisma Propaganda cover up stories regarding aid.
Too bad we watched Crimea split under Obama. What are the eastern pro-Russian provinces that Biden greenlighted Putin to take in “minor incursion”?
Guess that didn’t go quite as planned for Sleepy Joe now did it…
@FermentedAgave
Just admit you posted deceiving numbers and move on.
Don’t try to pretend you or Trump would have done anything differently in 2014 or that any President was somehow in control over Eastrn Europe lol.
You talk intentions, innuendo and coulda/woulda/shoulda. Why is it that Putin waited until Hunter’s father was President to roll over Ukraine? Remember Hunter wasn’t cashing checks only from corrupt Ukrainians. He was buying hookers and dope with Rubles as well.
Why didn’t it happen during 45s term?
@FermentedAgave
Again - just admit you posted numbers that misrepresented the facts.
You presented facts and I presented more accurate facts.
I DO NOT talk coulda woulda shoulda. Show me where or frankly stfu. You are going from misrepresenting factsc to now misrepresenting the person who challenged your misrepresentation and just making shit up about me - and that is where I tell you to go fuck yourself.
If you can’t figure that out that’s your problem not mine.
I think most Americans have a hard time reconciling that Zelinsky is the main show, and whatever petty rivalries Trump vs Biden supporters are in is just the side show.
With the apparent desire of Americans to withdraw from the world stage with “America First” (and fuck everyone else), the only two men the world is looking at in 2022 is Putin and Zelinsky. The United States is not the primary motivator for either Putin nor Zelinky’s actions - the United states is mostly on the sidelines and has always been so in the eyes of average Ukranians, and now Europeans and the rest of the world.
Some Americans now want to get "into the action’ late - much of it I see is because they are feeling the need to take some act to show they are still relevant. For some Americans this is under the guise of good intentions. They do not intend to take personal action, but instead want another (such as Biden or Trump) to take action on their behalf. But the population of the USA missed the boat on being relevant in this conflict. Now, if an Americans want to be relevant their only path is to actually take actions on a personal level themselves.
If you want to contribute, go to Eastern Europe yourselves and help in some capacity. Or donate money and let others do the work. But the US Government has missed the boat on both Trump and Biden’s watch - because the population of the US didn’t care prior to one month ago.
I already did my 10 years in Eastern Europe, and 6 of those were helping NATO become a stronger alliance and helping secure its boundaries where they currently are. I might go back, but probably not.
I know it’s a slow game. It takes decades to get the population of a country to want to be in NATO, and you can’t have a country in NATO unless at least 60% - 75% of the population supports that. The immediate crisis has settled into more or less established battle lines, and won’t be won from far away Washington DC. by firing a bunch of missiles blindly. So any talk of the USA getting involved militarily to win the game quickly is nonsense at this point. NATO, yes. The USA, not really. The USA can take a back seat and effectively help NATO, but it just isn’t in a position to run the show. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, or even the Baltics as a second front if the war expands to NATO - those are the countries that have to coordinate staging areas, air fields, refugee centers, POW camps, logistics, and a million other things that enable wars to be won. Even Romania has a more important role to play than the USA in any actual military conflict in Ukraine.
Amateurs talk planes, tanks and missiles. Professionals talk logistics.
Whether Ukraine wins or looses and then at a later date enters NATO is completely out of any American President’s hands. Zelinsky is the global man of the hour.
Zelisnky for World President!
I agree many in the US want to find someone, something or some event to “analyze and react to”. Essentially to follow other’s actions.
When you come from a fundamental viewpoint that “America is bad, America makes things worse” perspective, this does make some sense. This is the viewpoint that has been propagated by Progressives in order to foist themselves into more influential, more powerful positions.
But do know that your analysis is fundamentally flawed when you look at the majority of Americans. The majority of Americans thinks we’ve “got it really good” relative to the rest of the world and can share this with others. You can snipe with “Christian missionaries” or “Imperialistic Capitalists” or even racially charged “Racists”. These are playing out to be tired cliches’ used on by Leftist “activists” to gain power at home.
Let’s keep the question on the table, why Putin didn’t screw over the planet during Bad Orange Man’s term, but waited until Hunter’s daddy is in office?
As we are seeing both with immigration and with foreign nations’ public requests of the US, the world doesn’t plead for Romania to intervene. They don’t plead for Yugoslavia to provide support. They want to either move to or engage with the US. The US is still the leading economy, leading technology, and leading military power on the planet.
I do see where you’re taking a multi-systematic view with “Amateurs talk planes, tanks and missiles. Professionals talk logistics.” It’s even more multi-systematic than this - but also planes, tanks, missiles also matter. Claiming that Romania or Slovakia or Poland or Hungary or the US has little or greater role is a false comparison. You’re shifting into the short game/long game vacillation that kills discussions. OF COURSE it matters if Putin destroys and occupies all of Ukraine, so clearly the rifles, pullets, missiles, planes really matter at the moment. And likewise longer term matters as well. Embracing Ukraine and also figuring out how to possibly embrace Russia.
Really would be nice to see the Integral gurus figure out how to bite off getting Russia, Pakistan, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Indonesia, Somalia, and some of the other countries that would seem to be obvious developmental opportunities onto the “conveyor belt”. Develop 500M Red altitude humans into Orange and how much easier would it be to meditate ourselves into a Teal glowing?
According to the pinko socialist collectivist John Bolton, Putin didn’t invade during Trump’s administration because Trump was “doing a lot of his work for him”, particularly when it comes to destabilizing NATO in order to make the sort of international response we are seeing today less likely to occur.
“I think one of the reasons that Putin did not move during Trump’s term in office was he saw the president’s hostility of NATO. It was widely reported in American media,” Bolton said during an interview with SiriusXM’s Julie Mason. “And to Putin’s mind, it’s a binary proposition: a weaker NATO is a stronger Russia.”
Every stage has different solutions for this.
For Red, it’s “invade and take their territory”. But of course this becomes pathological due to MRM, and makes things worse.
For Amber, it’s “convert them all into Christians”. But of course this becomes pathological due to MAM, and ends up making things worse.
For Orange, it’s the neoliberal idea of “defeat evil in the marketplace, not the battlefield (assuming they have resources we can exploit)”. But of course this becomes pathological due to MOM, and extractive economic forces and inequities end up making things worse.
For Green, it’s “accept all peoples and cultures, exactly as they are.” But of course this becomes pathological due to MGM, and the blind ineffectiveness of cultural relativism ends up making things worse.
For Teal, it’s “let’s fix the MAM, the MOM, and the MGM, so that healthy solutions can emerge at those levels, and make these stages more healthy across the world.” So we criticize pathological amber, pathological orange, and pathological green in our own society — because as you say, we are the society that the international community turns to at times like these, so we want to do our best to attend to our own systemic shadows and fix our own social operating system, because otherwise our interventions end up making things worse.
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Ok - let’s lok at that.
You haven’t the foggiest idea and neither do I.
Do you have ESP?
Do you have intelligence reports?
Do you know the status of Russia’s military readiness from the years 2014-2022?
The most confident people are also usually the most ignorant and misinformed.
You just taking your 99% uninformed opinion and trying to make some kind of political analysis about it is just as invalid as if I took my 98% uninformed opinion and made a counter analysis.
Corey at least makes a point with the opinion of a man who was 90% informed (John Bolton). I can also add in other people who were 90% informed (all Republicans), and whose line fits more John Bolton’s than yours.
Only when they are pointed at the correct target. If they are pointed at the wrong target they are useless.
How do you propose US missiles figure out which tanks are Ukranian and which are Russian? Worse, how do you propose Bomber pilots figure out which SAM sites are Russian and which are Ukranian?
Really - all you guys talking aircraft and missiles haven’t the foggiest idea what you are talking about. Do you even know the information needed before a pilot presses the fire button? Do you have any idea why it’s a problem that Ukranians can’t speak English and communicate with the pilots? (some can, but most in the frontline soldier demographic can’t). Do you know how many hours of training it takes to get a frontline soldier competent enough to call in a fire mission in English?
Are you unaware that the US Military has eyes on the ground whenever it launches missiles against a target?
Again, you are talking from a 99% uninformed position.
Here’s a sample:
and another. How does this information get from Ivo the Ukranian forward observer to the American pilot? Please tell me.
You do see that this game is played on all sides of the partisan split, right? Conservative media comes from a fundamental viewpoint that “the American Left (~50% of the population) is bad, the American Left makes things worse”. This is the viewpoint you yourself constantly repeat in these discussions, and the viewpoint that has been propagated by conservatives in order to foist themselves into more influential, more powerful positions.
In an truly integral world, we could imagine these different political typologies – and the different stages of development that animate them (primarily amber/orange on the right, and orange/green on the left) — being enacted as a more-or-less harmonious “division of labor”. The problem, of course, is that we live in a corporate-controlled top-down 24-hour media sphere, as well as an aperspectival bottom-up social media sphere, both of which profit (materially for the former, socially for the latter) by further driving division between us.
Also the fact that all first-tier stages possess their own absolutism that cause them to see all other stages as enemy. Green sees amber as an existential enemy, amber sees green as an existential enemy, all while pathological orange perpetuates and capitalizes on the culture war.
Life in the disinformation age. Ain’t it swell?
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By the way, the United states does have almost 9,000 troops in Poland currently.
So why invade now with a “bring the world together” Leader of the Free World like our DNC majority?
If we take the Meta or Trans or 2nd Tier view is Russia destroying Ukraine actually “for the greater good” and accelerating the Integral conveyor belt?