Russia is the most corrupt nation in the world...Not Ukraine. Russia started the war on the false pretense of fear of Nazis. That's the only example needed.
I'm not claiming diplomatic purity, but if Russia invaded Ukraine because of thew threat it posed, then why the smokescreen? I read Gaddy and Hill's "Mr. Putin Operative in the Kremlin", Everything is a smokescreen. I understand their paranoia. If Ukraine was not armed (no offensive weaponry) Russia would already have it. And that's probably true for all of the other former Soviet States.
If the west did nothing then Russia would already have reconstituted the USSR. Those former soviet states have a right of association so long as they don't invade. The Anschluss is an example.
Thanks for another comment. Any comment is better than none. :)
Two quick points:
1). Russia is #1 in corruption ONLY in polls of Western PERCEPTIONS. It doesn't make top 10 in any fact-based measure of corruption. Perhaps you're still thinking of the Soviet Union ... :
Please note that the USA ranks 20th in least corrupt nations with Uraguay and Hong Kong ranking higher.
2). I'll forgoe any further comment pending your actual reply to my earlier points regarding sphere of influence, Monroe Doctrine, NATO expansionism, and so on.
Well, I would say that continued US control of NATO is a good example. EXPANSION of NATO and the Maidan coup openly engineered by Victoria Nuland and the CIA is exactly what has got us into our predicament in Ukraine. Is this really in the US taxpayer best interest ? I certainly don't believe so.
The question should be is Ukraine's defense in the best interest of the western democracies. To that I would say YES. We cannot allow a democracy to fall to the Russian interests. If it does, Russia will probably not stop there.
It suggests that I do not have common sense. Condescending. Now you suggest that I will have a tough time getting answers to questions that you posed. That also seems condescending.
Thanks for sharing the platform thoughts, but I will respectfully disengage at this point.
"This all seems common sense to me. But evidently not to you?" Seems that you have reached an emotional point in this discussion so it would be best not to continue it.
It's an honest question delivered without an exclamation point. I'll wait patiently for actual answers to that and my previous. But I absolutely understand if it's hard to come up with them. Thanks in any event for the engagement.
With the end of the USSR came agreements by several former states that they would not retain Nuclear weapons. Both Russia and the western powers convinced Ukraine not to retain nuclear weapons and in return Ukraine received security assurances from both Russia and several western powers including the US and the UK. A key word in the Budapest Memorandum was that of "defense". Now we have Russia claiming it is defending itself from Ukraine when Russia is the aggressor.
I defend the NATO alliance as I would have defended The Peace of Westphalia where countries finally began to understand sovereignty.
I'm not about to say that the US has always respected those principles, but I do defend the right of sovereign nations to enter into mutual defense treaties even if that defense involves foreign war. I think Russia will test NATO resolve if he succeeds in Ukraine and move on to one of the former Soviet countries and hope for the same kind of inaction that allowed Germany to take Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Thanks as always for your comment, John. Yes, and Russia received assurances that if it would stand down in E. Germany and Central Europe, then NATO would not advance further east. Don't bother with the "that was only a verbal assurance" and other related arguments. I know them well. The single important fact is that Russia and Gorbachev understood it as a committment. Verbal assurances are COMMON in statecraft. I can provide examples if you need them. Since then, by my count, NATO has added 13 new nations, some of which have NO borders on the Atlantic and five of which border Russia: Norway, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. As far back as 1991 or 2, President Putin and Foreign Secretary Lavrov made it publicly and crystal clear that Ukraine would be a red line. All they have asked for is neutrality. Instead we armed one of the most corrupt nations in the world.
I can just say that if I were Russian, it would be a red line for me -- just as Russian missiles on the Mexican border would be one now for the US and missiles in Cuba WERE one for the US in 1962. Would it seem part of the "rules-based order" to you that if Russia's "interest" in its borders is wrong, then the US Monroe Doctrine is also wrong? To say otherwise, it seems to me, is to argue that "right and wrong" come out of the barrel of a gun.
This all seems common sense to me. But evidently not to you?
Russia is the most corrupt nation in the world...Not Ukraine. Russia started the war on the false pretense of fear of Nazis. That's the only example needed.
I'm not claiming diplomatic purity, but if Russia invaded Ukraine because of thew threat it posed, then why the smokescreen? I read Gaddy and Hill's "Mr. Putin Operative in the Kremlin", Everything is a smokescreen. I understand their paranoia. If Ukraine was not armed (no offensive weaponry) Russia would already have it. And that's probably true for all of the other former Soviet States.
If the west did nothing then Russia would already have reconstituted the USSR. Those former soviet states have a right of association so long as they don't invade. The Anschluss is an example.
Thanks for another comment. Any comment is better than none. :)
Two quick points:
1). Russia is #1 in corruption ONLY in polls of Western PERCEPTIONS. It doesn't make top 10 in any fact-based measure of corruption. Perhaps you're still thinking of the Soviet Union ... :
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-corrupt-countries
Please note that the USA ranks 20th in least corrupt nations with Uraguay and Hong Kong ranking higher.
2). I'll forgoe any further comment pending your actual reply to my earlier points regarding sphere of influence, Monroe Doctrine, NATO expansionism, and so on.
Well there is NATO
Well, I would say that continued US control of NATO is a good example. EXPANSION of NATO and the Maidan coup openly engineered by Victoria Nuland and the CIA is exactly what has got us into our predicament in Ukraine. Is this really in the US taxpayer best interest ? I certainly don't believe so.
The question should be is Ukraine's defense in the best interest of the western democracies. To that I would say YES. We cannot allow a democracy to fall to the Russian interests. If it does, Russia will probably not stop there.
It suggests that I do not have common sense. Condescending. Now you suggest that I will have a tough time getting answers to questions that you posed. That also seems condescending.
Thanks for sharing the platform thoughts, but I will respectfully disengage at this point.
"This all seems common sense to me. But evidently not to you?" Seems that you have reached an emotional point in this discussion so it would be best not to continue it.
It's an honest question delivered without an exclamation point. I'll wait patiently for actual answers to that and my previous. But I absolutely understand if it's hard to come up with them. Thanks in any event for the engagement.
With the end of the USSR came agreements by several former states that they would not retain Nuclear weapons. Both Russia and the western powers convinced Ukraine not to retain nuclear weapons and in return Ukraine received security assurances from both Russia and several western powers including the US and the UK. A key word in the Budapest Memorandum was that of "defense". Now we have Russia claiming it is defending itself from Ukraine when Russia is the aggressor.
I defend the NATO alliance as I would have defended The Peace of Westphalia where countries finally began to understand sovereignty.
I'm not about to say that the US has always respected those principles, but I do defend the right of sovereign nations to enter into mutual defense treaties even if that defense involves foreign war. I think Russia will test NATO resolve if he succeeds in Ukraine and move on to one of the former Soviet countries and hope for the same kind of inaction that allowed Germany to take Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Thanks as always for your comment, John. Yes, and Russia received assurances that if it would stand down in E. Germany and Central Europe, then NATO would not advance further east. Don't bother with the "that was only a verbal assurance" and other related arguments. I know them well. The single important fact is that Russia and Gorbachev understood it as a committment. Verbal assurances are COMMON in statecraft. I can provide examples if you need them. Since then, by my count, NATO has added 13 new nations, some of which have NO borders on the Atlantic and five of which border Russia: Norway, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland. As far back as 1991 or 2, President Putin and Foreign Secretary Lavrov made it publicly and crystal clear that Ukraine would be a red line. All they have asked for is neutrality. Instead we armed one of the most corrupt nations in the world.
I can just say that if I were Russian, it would be a red line for me -- just as Russian missiles on the Mexican border would be one now for the US and missiles in Cuba WERE one for the US in 1962. Would it seem part of the "rules-based order" to you that if Russia's "interest" in its borders is wrong, then the US Monroe Doctrine is also wrong? To say otherwise, it seems to me, is to argue that "right and wrong" come out of the barrel of a gun.
This all seems common sense to me. But evidently not to you?