Why give Putin what he wants?
Europeans descend from people who couldn't stop two World wars from starting in the conventional era of warfare. In the nuclear era, so far so good, but we Americans descend from people who fought, stopped and won two World wars which started in Europe.
The way the Europeans and the Biden Administration were managing Ukraine, like a proxy war, wasn't like the proxy wars during the Cold War.
Poland borders Ukraine. Poland's on the border between the East and the West. The war's raging in Ukraine. This is like letting a child play with matches near a powder keg. We're going to go ahead and take away the child's matches.
If you appease Putin, aren't you fostering nuclear war in the future?
The Russians don't want nuclear war. They're not insane. They're gangsters, but not nihilists. And unfortunately they want some Ukraine, and they're willing to put boots on the ground to get it, and they've been at it now for three years straight, with no end in sight. The West will take on a lot of debt, and enrich defense contractors, and troops and civilians on both sides will take heavy losses, and for what? If Russia is determined, they have the option of continuing the campaign in Ukraine for as long as it takes. It's up to them, and all the while Ukraine is ground down to a pulp.
This is if we can't persuade Russia, and so far in three years—we can't.
It's not like there's any way out of this, if Russia wants Ukraine and is willing to fight for it—what are you going to do? there's nothing you can do.
What's President Trump's solution?
Cut a deal. President Trump's giving Zelensky Hell because he thinks Zelensky should have cut a deal as soon as it started, he thinks Zelensky's a borderline homicidal fool for not cutting a deal right away, there's no calculation, back-of-the-envelope or otherwise, that had Ukraine being able to repel the Russians if the Russians were prepared to really fight, and as soon as Ukraine tried to knock Russia back out, and Russia just restocked and kept at it, by then the writing was on the wall, but Zelensky didn't read it, he averted his eyes, and everybody let him, and this idealism in the West clouded Zelensky's own judgment, he started 'believing his own press,' a fatal error for any sports team, and literally fatal in a hot war situation. Ukraine's NOT going to be able to win, that's obv. That was obv from day one.
Trump's just saying that. He doesn't mean anything personal by it, he's just cleaning up a mess that he did not make. It's not going to lead to nuclear war in the future. The less conventional war in Ukraine rn, the further we are from some sort of accidental nuclear event.
Long term we need to be allies, friends, with the East. As I've advocated elsewhere
on TOL, I want a single Constitution eventually to rule us all (the American Constitution), but for now we have to work toward friendship.
