cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/noncredibledefense/p/1490862/the-correct-response
this is a reference to the Battle of Conoco Fields.
It's worth noting that in the 1990's while the rest of easter EUR, particularly PO, RO, and CZ tweaked their economies and societies in whatever way was necessary at the time in order to get their asses into NATO and the EU, Ukraine spent 30 years dawdling, unsure if they wanted to face east or west. Shame on them for that. They created their own monster by being irresolute, unlike the Poles and Romanians who also HATE Russia, know history, in some respects share a common history with all of eastern EUR, and see very clearly. A fair amount of UKR's indecision was due to Russian meddling in politics there, but by the time UKR woke the fuck up about Russia's nature and intentions it was almost too late. That timeline takes us to the year 2022, approximately. UKR is still corrupt as fuck, nobody knows who can be trusted and they are putting tremendous effort into reforming their legal system, politics and military structures to conform with EU/NATO norms. If they had been this decided (instead of divided) back in 2014, they'd have been in the EU AND NATO by now. They are paying the price for their dawdling and indecision, fuelled mainly by post-soviet corruption mentality which they are rueing and repenting of almost too late..
I say this as someone who actually supports Ukraine. But I am not blind to their faults, either.
Bruh Ukraine is no more corrupt than Romania/Hungary/Bulgaria. Even during the war civil society was able to defend anticorruption institutions.
The decision not to take Ukraine into EU/NATO is purely based on politics - specifically being afraid of russia.
Well they had the downside of the russian army being at their borders and a massive russian speaking minority ...
Don't take this the wrong way but as someone who has lived and worked in many of the countries you mentioned - you're full of s**t and your hyper-simplified version of history is as cute as it is cartoonish.
They do have mineral reserves and if the US threw their weight into supporting Ukraine, their businesses would be very willing to work with the US. Even from a self benefiting, pragmatic perspective, the US should be supporting them.
That's why I'm so confused about the lukewarm support. From a purely capitalist lens, Ukraine could have been exploited to hell and back once Russia was BTFOd. But now they're looking at a decades long demining operation which is gonna hurt the ~~exploitation effort~~ ~~bottom line~~ ~~billionaires pockets~~ uhhhhh something.
We were pretty much onboard with helping Ukraine, and were providing intelligence and selling them arms.
But Trump is totally a Russian asset, or was at the time. (Russia spent a lot of resources and manpower on Trump's 2016 campaign.) Nowadays, Trump might be catching on that Putin has absolutely no respect for him.
Well our capitalists are really really bad at capitalism, and are much more proficient at cronieism.....cronism?........cronyism? Oh ok it's the last one
So....
Is the US supposed to be the world police or not?
I mean you could replace the Stars and Stripes here with French Tricolour or Union Jack and I still think it works. The point is more that the lukewarm response to the Crimean invasion emboldened Russia into attacking mainland Ukraine.
Maybe it's a filter of my English-speaking internet circles, but I've never seen memes like this about France or the UK. So you could replace the flags... The point is that it doesn't seem to happen.
Did Ukraine ask for help?
yes
Then it's simple. The US should help Ukraine. They're being invaded and are asking for help. For the "pragmatists", any nation what helps Ukraine with have an easier time doing business with them afterwards.
The US has.
Ukraine has explicitly NOT asked for direct military assistance. They have not asked for troops or US airstrikes.
They have asked for weapons, logistics, intelligence, and ammunition. All of which have been provided by the US and European NATO nations.
Ukrainians repeatedly asked to close the sky, which is de-facto a sort of direct help. Also talks about NATO troops being stationed on the West part. Still no balls.
Second paragraph - only after 2022. Ukraine was denied even buying Western equipment in 2014. Obama is an asshole.
Depends on the day and personal beliefs of the person advocating for it. So, Schroedinger’s World Police. As a USian, I would prefer the EU took over the world police job. It's not worth the effort.
That is a very short-sighted view. The US' role as world police allowed it to station troops all over the world, projecting power and influence in every corner of the world. Every deal any country in the world made, always at least considered a US deal. The US was able to influence politics without actually having to flex the military muscle. They could always still do that if diplomacy didn't work. The projection of scientific and cultural power was also part of that influence.
Budapest memorandum entitles Ukraine to assistance in this case.
No it does not. Not even a little bit.
The Budapest memorandum A) isn’t even a binding treaty. And B) only guarantees assurances from the US, UK, and Russia that they won’t invade Ukraine.
There are absolutely ZERO provisions for the US giving military defense to Ukraine in the event they are invaded.
The US and UK have upheld that. Neither have ever invaded Ukraine.
The trick is to have a US-controlled strategic interest there. See Syria, Russians attack a US-defended oilfield, Russia denies they are Russian regulars, US turn 200 of them into moist ash with artillery and JDAMs
this happened once in syria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham
Crazy! I didn't hear about that when it happened.
"Hey we're being attacked, this you?"
"Nope, not us."
"Cool, cause we're about to fuck shit up."
"Wait... no! Not like that!”
I remember hearing about it when it happened and found it hilarious. Wagner mercs realizing that papa Putin doesn't care if they die (there was some audio clip circulating). Wagner mercenaries have been known to be pretty nasty (not unique to them of course, Americans have Blackwater and its successors).
I remember that time. Putin said that the Russian Army had not invaded Ukraine, not that there weren't Russian troops there. There were plenty of Russian military members who took a leave of absence to help restore democracy in Ukraine after the Euromaidan riots threatened the elected government into resigning. That was the official Russian position.
Maybe the correct respond is something like the missile need to take their annual paid leave and eastern ukraine sounds like a good place to be.
And deny a symmetrical warfare environment to develop the next generation of drones? Never!
Raytheon's index price wasn't even $70 in 2014!
Interestingly no country gave this correct responde. Or even took a passing interest.
I'm pretty sure my country's then-leader was very interested but was fobbed off with a deal for cheap Russian gas, subsequently growing our industry almost fully dependent on that discounted energy. Great deal, Angela. Well done.
I'd say go for it, even with Putin's threat of nukes.
With how much Russia's oligarchy plundered their own war-chest over the years, to the point where they had to rely on Iran for weapons, I actually question if any of Russia's nukes actually work.
Uh, maybe I'm unfamiliar with the engineering behind nukes. Do they expire? Or are you joking that they've just stripped the parts?
Honestly mostly just the latter. Was joking that they would've maintained them so badly that none of the nukes would make it out of their silos, even if they were still capable of detonation.
While I was aware the warheads require maintainance, @impairedimperator@lemmy.zip definitely said it better than I could.
They do expire. Problem is that there's a lot of them. Fire 100 nukes, and even if 99% fail, that's at least one mushroom cloud in the most fertile land on earth. And the ones that did expire become essentially dirty bombs.
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