VDH
Most Americans understandably favor the Ukrainian resistance against Vladimir Putin’s Russian naked 2022 aggression.
Yet for Ukraine to break the current deadlock—our generation’s Verdun with perhaps 600,000 combined casualties so far— and “win” the war, it apparently must have the military wherewithal to hit targets inside Russia.
Such strategically logical attacks might nevertheless provoke a wounded and unpredictable Russia finally to carry out its boilerplate and ignored existential threats.
From the last 75 years of big-power rivalries, the operational “rules” of proxy wars are well known.
In Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan, Russia supplied America’s enemies—sometimes even sending Russian pilots into combat zones.
Thousands of Americans likely died due to our adversaries’ use of Russian munitions and personnel.
Likewise, Russia lost 15,000 fatalities in its decade-long misadventure in Afghanistan. In part, Moscow’s defeat may have been due to deadly American weapons, including sophisticated Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. more here
The individual Ukrainian people that are raising families, working everyday, I can support. But you can’t support them without supporting what is understood to be the most corrupt nation in Europe. And we (among the bad guys) have been contributing to the corruption and money laundering that has gone on for years. This Gordian Knot is of our own tying.
The only resolution to the Gordian knot problem is to cut it.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Gordian-knot
Problem.
Solved.
VDH:
SOME Americans with attention spans longer than VDH’s understandably condemn the American Intelligence State, it’s Ukrainian proxy warrior, and some NATO “allies” for their decade plus continual provocation of the Russian Bear. Yes, Vlad Putin is very much NOT a nice man, but he’s no worse than many of the other players in this violent tragedy. There’s plenty of “naked aggression” to go around, along with the “naked corruption” and “naked gaslighting” and “naked propagandizing.”
@SNS — If you mean “cut” like with a guillotine, then I’m all for it.
Hansen went through all that only to say in the end that we need to continue supporting Ukraine.
I think clowngress should just capitulate and give Zelensky/Ukraine it’s own USA checkbook.
That way we won’t have to listen to the faux battles over the tons of money and arms we have provided.
Our retirees from the military are going without and being displaced in deference to the foreigner grifting aids of our elite.
Don’t forget that the instigation (in part) for the Russian invasion was our idiot-in-chief declaring in late 2021 that Ukraine was going to join NATO. Which was a surprise to everyone, including Ukraine.
I think it’s time for VDHanson to shut up. America has no legitimate interest here.
Divide up the fake country of Ukraine and give Russia back what is Russian (everything east of The Dnieper), and the rest to Poland — and let them respectively rout out the Nazis who been in bed with U.S. and U.K. corruptocrats for decades.
“Why Putin for a third time dared invade Ukraine is obfuscated by contemporary domestic politics.”
I’m thinking it had something to do with up to 18 Bio Labs on his border AND threatening to allow Ukraine to join NATO which would allow nukes right on his border. WTF?
I’m a big fan of VDH. his history knowledge is unparalleled. his writings on the Peloponnesian War is the best I ever studied.
buuuuuut, to say I’m disappointed w/ this is a big understatement.
Hansen glosses over the Donbass/Crimea situation w/ the old “well, the Uke’s had it for 19 years!!! …. well, Russia had it for centuries, ffs. & these provinces of the Uke’s want to be either autonomous or go back to the Russian fold …. particularly, since they are Russians.
another point, how do you think Russia feels about NATO making Finland a member? they’re right on Russia’s border.
& Hansen never mentions that NATO has encroached on Russia since the disillusion of the Soviet Union & Russia does not encroach on Estonia, Latvia, Kasachstan, Lithuania, etc. … Russia is paranoid … they want buffer states between them & the NATO countries
why is this seemingly so hard to understand for the so-call expert, career diplomats & politicians? … ‘We came, We saw, He died’ …yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck … ‘What difference, at this point, does it make?’ … how dare you question our expertise!
…. very disappointed … especially since Hansen never mentions this all could have been settled early on if that blithering idiot in the White House could’ve just used a little diplomacy & got the warring parties together to work out an agreement.
… but, what am I thinking … he can’t even manage to wipe his own ass.
remember Gerald Ford & how they laughed their collective asses off w/ his fumbling & bumbling …. we got the bumbler-in-chief now, don’t we? … on steroids!
The Ukraine government was put in place by The Party to serve as a One Stop Money Laundering Shop and Corruption Clearinghouse and is an enemy of the American people. The Russians are doing us a favor and I’m sure that doing so is an unintended consequence, but I’ll take it. As for responsibility for the deaths, that is solely the responsibility of the bastards who has that little olive drab cocksucker and his government installed there.
“Most Americans understandably favor the Ukrainian resistance against Vladimir Putin’s Russian naked 2022 aggression.”
If the first sentence is a lie, I am not reading the rest.
I don’t think “most Americans” could find Ukraine on a map much less favor their “resistance” to Russia.
But I’m feeling rather cynical this morning.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
VDH has been wrong on Ukraine since the war started, and he’s dressing up a weak, half pivot in a suit of selected historical facts. Bit at the root, he’s still a committed cold war Russophobe who’ll always be back in the USSR.
The pernicious, post-Soviet Western barrage of anti-Russian news and entertainment has done much damage over the last thirty years, and it is sad to see that such a smart man has succumbed to it uncritically, especially when he is so observant of everything else.
One look at the map of 2010 Presidential election in Ukraine completely destroys the narrative that Russia BRUTALLY invaded Ukraine in an UNPROVOKED fashion.
What you see is that the Donbass oblasts of Donetsk and Lugansk voted overwhemingly for the pro Russian candidate Yanukovich, and I mean by 12 to 1 and 15 to 1 margins. Crimea went 83% fo the Y guy. Zaporozhia was about 75% and Kharkov 70%. Kherson was about 55%, so thats a bit of a problem
But the microsecond Russia crosses the border, all the people in the know just “knew” this was the most BRUTAL THING EV-UH!! Of course, the Russian version is that they were liberating Russians from eight years of brutal oppression and random murder. Gee, Volodia, doesnt that kinda-sorta makes more sense … now that you have all the facts facts
And of course that would tend to turn the table on the slander that Russia is randomly murdering and raping the civilians in these new territorities or that the elections to join the the RF were a fraud. Russians say its the Ukrainians who commit the war crimes. Again, what makes more sense .. especially when you know that the BRUTALLY INVADED story is the only reason Ukraine has been able to get international aid, which allows them to continue getting their own citizens killed by the tens of thousands
Tune in later, when I tell you about the vote patterns of Western Ukraine, especially the oblasts that were once the historical areas of Galicia and Volhynia .. which went about 90% for that Timoshenko wench.
And no, it doesnt mean that the Ukrainian state was seized by a faction that still harbors Nazi ideology! … Oops,wait a minute, that’s exactly what it means
VDH sold out or was bought off or threatened to write this one.
Next he should detail what instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis, mKay?