Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[carl]

Yes, mostly... except for this:

...which is a complete crock: the reasons behind the oil glut are many and complex, but it was never a deliberate construct targeting the Soviets.

A complete crock? Perhaps, but I think not. That is not the point though. The point was the Soviet Union broke up because it was opposed, as you conceded.

I think you missed the point, though.

First, it needs to be stressed that all the talk about how all is lost if the Ukraine is lost is a load of bollocks. There is no reason to suppose that drawing a line will get suddenly more difficult if things continue to go badly in the Ukraine. Arguably the Ukraine is a poor place to draw a line: there's no functional government, the armed forces are in disarray, and there is a very substantial Russian population, much of which really does want reunion. All of that makes enforcing a drawn line a lot more complicated.

Precisely because drawing a line takes money and will, it's best done when allies (without whom any line-drawing exercise is going to be pretty fluffy in this case) and the domestic audience are really committed to the exercise.

Controlling Putin will of course be a lot easier than controlling the Soviet Union was: this is not Cold War 2.0. Still it will require will on the domestic front and cooperation in Europe. If we don't have those, it's a bad time to start a confrontation.

Saying if Ukraine goes all is lost is a load of bollocks. But that is not what is being said, at least not by me. I have said that it will be a lot easier to actively work to save Ukraine now thereby stopping Russian aggression now than it will be to let it go under and then having to stop Vlad later. It will be harder because if he gets away with this, Vlad's Russia will be materially stronger and much more confident therefore much harder to fight and stop.

'Europe' doesn't matter. Poland matters. Sweden matters. The Czech Republic matters. The Ukraine matters. All of those countries and others have plenty of motivation to resist strongly. All they need from us are money and weapons and a little evidence of backbone. We've supplied none.

I don't see any of this as a function of who's in the White House. I don't think any administration in recent memory would have responded much differently.

Foreign policy is who is in the White House. Reagan is part of my recent memory and I wouldn't think he would stand passively by. My opinion only of course. Bush II initiated the Surge in Iraq in the face of great opposition, that is in my recent memory too.

One obvious takeaway from all this is that Putin is an opportunist. If you give him a break, he'll take it. Among all the talk of deterrence and sanctions, one thing that's being missed is that when you're facing an opportunist, it's best not to give him opportunities. I certainly hope that the other frontline states are watching their borders carefully, monitoring pro-Russian groups, and keeping close tabs on any efforts to kick up a fuss. A few Russian provocateurs arrested and paraded before the media before being kicked unceremoniously back across the border will be a useful thing.

Yes, exactly. In order to stop an aggressive thug like Putin, you actually have to do something.

Putin is not Stalin. He wants an excuse, a lever, a justification, no matter how thin. Denying him those opportunities is as important and a whole lot less expensive than the big chest-thumping displays that so many are demanding. A lot of fuss gets made, for example, about how the withdrawal of US armor in Europe opened the door for the Ukraine move. I don't think that meant squat: whatever assets you have nearby mean nothing if you aren't going to use them, and I expect Putin would have reasoned (correctly, and again not specific to this administration) that the US wasn't going to go to war over the Ukraine, and rolled right ahead.

Two things about this statement. First, unless you want to freeze the world in place as it is at this second, Putin will always find an excuse to aggress. If he can't find one he'll just send in the provocateurs you mentioned above and create one, as he is doing now.

Second, you are right about him having reasoned that the US won't do anything. But you are wrong about that not being peculiar to this administration. After having rolled the chief executive with a word over the ABM system in east Europe and made a fool of him in Syria I think he concluded that fecklessness is a prime characteristic of this chief executive. My opinion only of course.

You could argue that in the case of the Cold War in Eastern Europe, appeasement did work. Space was traded for time, an enforceable line was found, and the opponent was effectively contained. The argument that the struggle was harder than it would have been if initiated earlier is not being logically supported here. How does recognizing that we're in a poor position to draw a line at the Ukraine make the defense of Poland more difficult?

Appeasement does not refer to the Cold War. It refers to Europe pre-WWII.

Yes, the world is a ####ty place. All over the world, real live breathing people with families and friends and hobbies are getting smacked around. Many of them you don't know or care about: I've yet to hear you demand US action to protect, say, the Rohingya, who are getting it from people who make Putin look like Mother Teresa.

This is where you say "so because we can't help everyone, we shouldn't help anyone?" and I reply "no, because we can't help everyone, we have to decide who to help and when based on our own interests, capabilities, and needs".

How lightly you dismiss all those real live people asking our help who live in a country being invaded by the Russians or looking at threat on the horizon.

Rohingya is not a nation being invaded by another, it is sad thing within a nation. Therefore there is not threat to the international order that comes when nations invade others; which goes then goes to your statement about our interests, capabilities and needs, all of which apply to Ukraine and not so much to Burma. Besides, we can always tell the Rohingyans "the world is a ####ty place."

I wasn't going to say that. I was going to say that you help when and it isn't wrong to do so just because you can't always help.

(You gotta go a long way to make a KGB guy look like Mother Teresa. Tens of millions of dead Russians attest to that.)