The New York Times in The morning email (and on its website) asks an important question: Good morning. We look at why the West didn’t try harder to prevent the invasion of Ukraine.
The article asks and looks back to see if there was any way to have stopped the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what the West could have done.
First the article really, really, realy soft-peddles the fact that Russia has strategic nuclear weapons, which is one helluva factor in any active boots-on-the-ground response, unlike the 1991 Gulf War they compare as an example of a grand alliance responding to aggression. Pace the Times, this is one heckuva difference a a rather important one.
The article addresses the meek response by Western Europe, due to it's lack of military spending and military capabilities. Remember when Trump was cajoling them to spend more on defense as part of NATO and the NYT and others were aghast and agog that he dared do so and accused him of weakening the alliance? Good times.
The article now expects Western Europe to start taking more of a role in its own defense. Hmm, someone was pushing for that just a few years ago and was derided for it by the Times.
The article also completely ignores Western Europe's deliberate decision to make themselves reliant on Russian gas rather than producing their own gas and power.
It then goes on to accuse America of being isolationist and not wanting to commit ground troops. Rather facile that, and again ignores the whole potential for a nuclear exchange as a result, not to mention the deliberate weakening of the US military and its current laser-focus on diversity, inclusion, and equity over war-fighting.
One rather important event is conspicuously missing and completely unmentioned for why there was a lack of deterrence to a Russian invasion:
Namely, Biden's public statement that a minor incursion might just be accepted:“I think what you’re going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades, and it depends on what it does,” Biden said. “It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and then we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, et cetera, but if they actually do what they are capable of doing with the force they’ve massed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia.”
The White House later clarified his remarks, saying any movement of Russian forces into Ukraine would be considered an invasion.
Biden's statement provided the opposite of a strong deterrent effect and instead green-lit a "minor incursion", emboldening Putin to go for a lightning strike decapitation of Ukraine's leadership which thankfully failed.
Biden's "minor incursion" remark will go down with April Gillespie's "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts" and that "the Kuwait issue is not associated with America" as exactly how you do not prevent an invasion and rather embolden and invader via diplomatic statements.
3 comments:
What does the expression "Pace the Ties" mean? I mean, I sort of get it as a general expression of frustration, but is there some more specific meaning?
As for what we could have done to prevent the invasion, well, perhaps we could have not spent the last ten years poking the bear. Near as I can tell, some very self-centered people have been focusing on how much money they can extract from Ukraine in the form of commissions on natural gas pipeline tariffs, never mind what is best for any of the countries involved.
Chuck Pergiel: Should be Pace the Times, meaning contrary to the opinion of the NY Times. Not helpful that my push of the m key wasn't hard enough to further confuse things, and I didn't catch that.
Yep, we could have been a lot more clear about Ukraine with a consistent policy in terms of helping them in their own defense, not to mention Obama's and Biden's shows of weakness that emboldened our enemies abroad.
We could have had a credible Western Europe able to handle its own defense, and not dependent on Russian gas to set some limits, but only Trump pushed for that, and he was laughed at for doing so by the elites who know better.
Also,not having a "Russia, Russia, Russia" policy from those who just a few short years before were giving Russia a reset button and promising to have more flexibility towards Russia could have helped with credibility.
And exactly as you say, Not using Ukraine (under its prior regime) for enrichment purposes for scions of powerful Democrats would likely have helped as well.
It's likely a declared Finlandization rather than NATOization policy for Ukraine as it joined the EU would have been more acceptable.
Also, perhaps none of it would, Eastern European history is complicated and filled with enmities not soon forgotten by any of the inhabitants there.
Hey Aaron;
The people pushing for war and Military intervention for the Ukraine, won't be their kids fighting and dying...It will be the "Flyover Country's" kids fighting and dying. I am perfectly fine with sending the Ukraine arms and munitions. We are in no condition to get into a near peer conflict, our military is tired after 20 years of war, our equipment needs to get modernized, it has missed at least 1 cycle of updates and modernization due to war and the equipment that is there needs to get brought back up to a minimum standard of maintenance rather than the money being diverted for "OPTEMPO" and other crap.
Post a Comment