All Things Russia & Ukraine

[MDlaxfan76]

it's simply up to Ukraine what they're willing to risk and sacrifice for self-determination.
It's not our obligation to arm them so they can commit national suicide by war. Most of our NATO allies had that figured out.

It is not up to Ukraine if they will be granted NATO membership. It is not an entitlement.

I do feel that we have a heck of an obligation to assist them if they ask for help. Which is what we're doing. But I don't think that obligation is the same as if they were a member of NATO. We foolishly held out the hope of future NATO membership, which was not a realistic possibility & likely will not be in the foreseeable future.

Sorry if my answers don't fit your pro-Russia views. We should never appease a tyrant like Putin using a threat of force to achieve his aims. Period.
So, in your view, is any concession, any compromise, appeasement ?
It's not like Ukraine has been offered NATO & EU membership & Putin is acting to block it.
If I were pro-Russian, I'd be cheering Putin on to invade, take control of the entire country & brutally crush any insurrection.

I disagree on all points.

No, we've offered security assurances to Putin. Just not saying that sovereign countries can't self-determine what alliances they may seek to join.

This is not in any rational sense about the security of Russia from foreign invasion.

Yes, this is Putin wanting to restore the empire, but more importantly what's driving this is Putin's fear of democracy taking root, not just in Ukraine, but in Russia itself. If Ukraine is successful, the kleptocracy in Russia is at risk.

[seacoaster]

Interesting view of Munich 2022:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... in/622872/

"But alongside this agreeable unity was a strong, steady, persistent note of dissonance. It came not from the allies but from the Ukrainians who appeared at the conference in large numbers: government ministers, business leaders, members of parliament from different political parties. The CEO of Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state gas company, told me he believes Russians aren’t worried about U.S. sanctions: They think they will “get around them,” just as they have done in the past. On Saturday, the Ukrainian foreign minister pointedly asked a room full of American senators and European foreign ministers what, exactly, would trigger these massive sanctions. Russian forces had begun shelling towns in eastern Ukraine that very morning. Why didn’t that suffice?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, was blunter, angrier, more bitter still. He flew into Munich for a few hours, despite warnings that leaving Ukraine might be dangerous, and the message he carried was not designed to cheer up the room: “The architecture of world security is fragile and needs to be updated,” he said. The rules, norms, laws and principles so highly praised by everyone else were not being upheld. The UN charter guaranteeing every nation’s right to sovereignty had already been violated when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, he said, and yet nothing had happened. Russia, a UN Security Council member, had already annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and yet nothing had happened.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994, Zelensky said, in return for a security guarantee signed by the U.S., the U.K., and Russia. What happened to those guarantees? Ukraine had been told that the doors to NATO membership remained open, but Ukraine was never invited inside. Because the Ukrainians are not members of NATO, they know they cannot count on allied forces to come to their support. And as for those “lessons of history” that Baerbock and other German politicians have referred to in recent days, Zelensky wondered aloud whether they had been learned: “I just want to make sure you and I read the same books.” And then, in defiance of everything that everybody else had said, he used the word “appeasement,” not to describe Munich in 1938, but Munich in 2022.

It is Sunday evening, February 20, 2022. No major invasion has yet unfolded, and no one has announced major sanctions either. Yet Ukraine is already suffering the consequences of renewed Russian aggression. Airlines are pulling their planes out of the country. Foreign investment is on hold. Ukrainian soldiers died this past weekend, murdered by Russian bullets. Zelensky mentioned one of them, Captain Anton Sydorov, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, who sang and played the guitar. He was 34 years old, the father of three daughters. Meanwhile, Russia pays no price. Not for Sydorov; not for the Crimean Tatars, the peninsula’s indigenous inhabitants, who have been “disappeared,” arrested and tortured; not for the destruction of life and property thanks to the war in the East.

Once again, there are no Chamberlains in this story: the Biden administration has used clear language about this crisis, revealing the intelligence it receives in real time. As a result, no one has fallen for Russian propaganda. Blinken really has rallied allies. Harris’s declaration was crystal clear. I cannot imagine that the Trump administration would have done the same, and I am relieved Trump is not in power.

But none of us knows what our actions will look like in retrospect, in the longer light of history, and there are no Churchills in this story, either. Will it have been enough, the few weapons we provided, the sanctions we threatened, to deter an invasion? Were there more sophisticated weapons we could have provided in recent weeks or recent years? Is Zelensky right to hint that a further invasion of Ukraine could be just a prelude, the beginning of a wider conflict that could drag much of Europe into a war? “For eight years,” he told the conference hall, “Ukraine has been rebuffing one of the world’s biggest armies. Which stands along our borders, not the borders of the European Union.” Or not yet.

In the meantime, despite everything that was said, everything that was promised, and everything that was discussed, Ukraine will fight alone. At a dinner on Saturday night, a Ukrainian woman whom I first met in 2014—she began her career as an anti-corruption activist—stood up and told the room that not only was she returning to Kyiv, so was her husband, a British citizen. He had recently flown to London on family business, but if there was going to be a war, he wanted to be in Ukraine. The other Ukrainians in the room nodded: They were all scrambling to find flights back too. The rest of us— American, Polish, Danish, British—said nothing. Because we knew that we would not be joining them."

[CU88]

Author Headshot
By David Leonhardt

Good morning. A Russian invasion of Ukraine would be unlike most wars in 80 years.
There have been dozens of wars in the almost 80 years since World War II ended. But if Russia invades Ukraine in the coming days, it will be different from almost all of them. It will be another sign that the world may be entering an alarming new era in which authoritarianism is on the rise.

In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain the two main ways that a war in Ukraine would be distinct. I will also update you on the latest developments, with reporting from my colleagues around the world.

1. Regional dominance
A Russian invasion of Ukraine seems likely to involve one of the world’s largest militaries launching an unprovoked ground invasion of a neighboring country. The apparent goal would be an expansion of regional dominance, either through annexation or the establishment of a puppet government.

Few other conflicts since World War II fit this description. Some of the closest analogies are the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1970s, Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and Hungary in the 1950s — as well as Vladimir Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. The U.S., for its part, invaded Panama in the 1980s and used the C.I.A. to overthrow an elected government in Guatemala in the 1950s. Of course, it also launched several faraway wars, in Iraq, Vietnam and elsewhere.

But the world’s most powerful counties have rarely used force to expand their boundaries or set up client states in their region. Instead, they have generally abided by the treaties and international rules established in the 1940s. The phrase “Pax Americana” describes this stability.

The relative peace has had enormous benefits. Living standards have surged, with people living longer, healthier and more comfortable lives on average than their ancestors. In recent decades, the largest gains have come in lower-income countries. The decline in warfare has played a central role: By the start of this century, the rate at which people were dying in armed conflicts had fallen to the lowest level in recorded history, as Joshua Goldstein, Steven Pinker and other scholars have noted.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine would look like the kind of war that has been largely absent in the past 80 years and that was once common. It would involve a powerful nation setting out to expand its regional dominance by taking over a neighbor. A war like this — a voluntary war of aggression — would be a sign that Putin believed that Pax Americana was over and that the U.S., the European Union and their allies had become too weak to exact painful consequences.

As Anne Applebaum has written in The Atlantic, Putin and his inner circle are part of a new breed of autocrats, along with the rulers of China, Iran and Venezuela: “people who aren’t interested in treaties and documents, people who only respect hard power.”

This is why many people in Taiwan find the situation in Ukraine to be chilling, as my colleagues Steven Lee Myers and Amy Qin have explained. “If the Western powers fail to respond to Russia, they do embolden the Chinese thinking regarding action on Taiwan,” said Lai I-chung, a Taiwanese official with ties to its leaders. If the world is entering an era in which countries again make decisions based, above all, on what their military power allows them to do, it would be a big change.

2. Democratic recession
Political scientists have been warning for several years that democracy is in decline around the world. Larry Diamond of Stanford University has described the trend as a “democratic recession.”

Freedom House, which tracks every country in the world, reports that global political freedom has declined every year since 2006. Last year, Freedom House concluded, “the countries experiencing deterioration outnumbered those with improvements by the largest margin recorded since the negative trend began.”

A Russian takeover of Ukraine would contribute to this democratic recession in a new way: An autocracy would be taking over a democracy by force.

Ukraine is a largely democratic nation of more than 40 million people, with a pro-Western president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who in 2019 won 73 percent of the vote in the election’s final round. That victory and recent polls both indicate that most Ukrainians want to live in a country that resembles the European nations to its west — and the U.S. — more than it resembles Russia.

But Putin and his inner circle believe that liberal democracies are in decline, a view that Xi Jinping and other top Chinese officials share.

They know that the U.S. and Europe are now struggling to lift living standards for much of their populations. Putin and Xi also know that many Western countries are polarized, rived by cultural conflicts between metropolitan areas and more rural ones. Major political parties are weak (as in the case of the old center-left parties in Britain, France and elsewhere) or themselves behaving in anti-democratic ways (as with the Republican Party in the U.S.).

These problems have given Putin and his top aides confidence to act aggressively, believing that “the American-led order is in deep crisis,” Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote in The Economist this weekend.

In the view of Putin’s regime, Gabuev explained: “A new multipolar order is taking shape that reflects an unstoppable shift in power to authoritarian regimes that support traditional values. A feisty, resurgent Russia is a pioneering force behind the arrival of this new order, along with a rising China.”

As I’ve tried to emphasize before, the situation in Ukraine remains highly uncertain. Putin may still choose not to invade, given the potential for a protracted war, a large number of Russian casualties and economic turmoil. An invasion would be a spectacular gamble with almost no modern equivalent — which is also why it would be a sign that the world might be changing.








I thought the main reason for US 100% blind eye support of Israel was that it was a Democracy?



https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-israel/

The United States has a “special relationship” with the state of Israel, as characterized by the US State Department:

Israel is a great partner to the United States, and Israel has no greater friend than the United States. Americans and Israelis are united by our shared commitment to democracy, economic prosperity, and regional security. The unbreakable bond between our two countries has never been stronger.

[old salt]

Author Headshot
By David Leonhardt

...Putin believed that Pax Americana was over and that the U.S., the European Union and their allies had become too weak to exact painful consequences.

...Putin and his inner circle are part of a new breed of autocrats, along with the rulers of China, Iran and Venezuela: “people who aren’t interested in treaties and documents, people who only respect hard power.”

This is why many people in Taiwan find the situation in Ukraine to be chilling, ...if the Western powers fail to respond to Russia, they do embolden the Chinese thinking regarding action on Taiwan,

Political scientists have been warning for several years that democracy is in decline around the world.
A Russian takeover of Ukraine would contribute to this democratic recession in a new way: An autocracy would be taking over a democracy by force.

...Putin and his inner circle believe that liberal democracies are in decline, a view that Xi Jinping and other top Chinese officials share.

They know that the U.S. and Europe are now struggling to lift living standards for much of their populations. Putin and Xi also know that many Western countries are polarized, rived by cultural conflicts between metropolitan areas and more rural ones. Major political parties are weak (as in the case of the old center-left parties in Britain, France and elsewhere) or themselves behaving in anti-democratic ways (as with the Republican Party in the U.S.).

These problems have given Putin and his top aides confidence to act aggressively, believing that “the American-led order is in deep crisis,” Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Moscow Center wrote in The Economist this weekend.

In the view of Putin’s regime, Gabuev explained: “A new multipolar order is taking shape that reflects an unstoppable shift in power to authoritarian regimes that support traditional values. A feisty, resurgent Russia is a pioneering force behind the arrival of this new order, along with a rising China.”

An invasion would be a spectacular gamble with almost no modern equivalent — which is also why it would be a sign that the world might be changing.

I thought the main reason for US 100% blind eye support of Israel was that it was a Democracy?

Israel is a great partner to the United States, and Israel has no greater friend than the United States. Americans and Israelis are united by our shared commitment to democracy, economic prosperity, and regional security. The unbreakable bond between our two countries has never been stronger.

Putin is accurate. The era of Pax Americana is over. We can't afford to finance & enforce it on our own forever.

Israel is the model for what nations should do if they want to be our ally & enjoy our protection. Not only are they a liberal democracy, they've armed themselves effectively & fought to maintain their freedom. If Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic nations & former Warsaw Pact nations had followed Israel's example, they would not be under threat from Russia today & would be worthy of a military alliance with the US & NATO membership, ...as NATO members did during the Cold War, in the face of the looming Soviet threat on their doorstep (or over the pole).

[NattyBohChamps04]

Putin is accurate. The era of Pax Americana is over. We can't afford to finance & enforce it on our own forever.

Israel is the model for what nations should do if they want to be our ally & enjoy our protection. Not only are they a liberal democracy, they've armed themselves effectively & fought to maintain their freedom. If Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic nations & former Warsaw Pact nations had followed Israel's example, they would not be under threat from Russia today & would be worthy of a military alliance with the US & NATO membership, ...as NATO members did during the Cold War, in the face of the looming Soviet threat on their doorstep (or over the pole).

Yes, I would imagine Ukraine, Georgia & the Baltic nations would love to be like Israel. Getting ~$3.3B annually to "arm themselves effectively" like how we finance Israel/

We gave Latvia (checks notes) $19M in 2020.

So should we finance them like Israel? Or should we cut Israeli funding if you're concerned with financing?

[MDlaxfan76]

Putin is accurate. The era of Pax Americana is over. We can't afford to finance & enforce it on our own forever.

Israel is the model for what nations should do if they want to be our ally & enjoy our protection. Not only are they a liberal democracy, they've armed themselves effectively & fought to maintain their freedom. If Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic nations & former Warsaw Pact nations had followed Israel's example, they would not be under threat from Russia today & would be worthy of a military alliance with the US & NATO membership, ...as NATO members did during the Cold War, in the face of the looming Soviet threat on their doorstep (or over the pole).

Yes, I would imagine Ukraine, Georgia & the Baltic nations would love to be like Israel. Getting ~$3.3B annually to "arm themselves effectively" like how we finance Israel/

We gave Latvia (checks notes) $19M in 2020.

So should we finance them like Israel? Or should we cut Israeli funding if you're concerned with financing?

That's a sound question...but do we know that Salty doesn't quietly wish the State of Israel would just go away? Just because he raised that rather mind numbing counterpoint, doesn't mean he doesn't actually harbor certain other sentiments.

After all, democracy has no importance, nor prior commitments, and certainly when it comes to Russia we really should just capitulate and allow authoritarian kleptocracies prevail as the new "Pax Reality".

[old salt]

Putin is accurate. The era of Pax Americana is over. We can't afford to finance & enforce it on our own forever.

Israel is the model for what nations should do if they want to be our ally & enjoy our protection. Not only are they a liberal democracy, they've armed themselves effectively & fought to maintain their freedom. If Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic nations & former Warsaw Pact nations had followed Israel's example, they would not be under threat from Russia today & would be worthy of a military alliance with the US & NATO membership, ...as NATO members did during the Cold War, in the face of the looming Soviet threat on their doorstep (or over the pole).

Yes, I would imagine Ukraine, Georgia & the Baltic nations would love to be like Israel. Getting ~$3.3B annually to "arm themselves effectively" like how we finance Israel/

We gave Latvia (checks notes) $19M in 2020.

So should we finance them like Israel? Or should we cut Israeli funding if you're concerned with financing?

We also have US troops, tanks & strike aircraft deployed to Latvia.
$3.3B/yr to help Israel defend themselves is money well spent.
Israel has had to fight for it's survival, alone - other than for the US, since it's founding.
The former Soviet states & Warsaw Pact nations have not. They have invested little in their own defense.
They're still using the legacy Soviet junk they were provided during the Cold War.
They've done little, compared to Israel, to arm & defend themselves.

[old salt]

...but do we know that Salty doesn't quietly wish the State of Israel would just go away? Just because he raised that rather mind numbing counterpoint, doesn't mean he doesn't actually harbor certain other sentiments.

After all, democracy has no importance, nor prior commitments, and certainly when it comes to Russia we really should just capitulate and allow authoritarian kleptocracies prevail as the new "Pax Reality".

OK tough guy. What are you prepared to do stop Putin & to restore Pax Americana to former Russian territory.

...& what does your Israel jibberish mean ? What other sentiments ? That I wish Israel would just go away ?

[MDlaxfan76]

...but do we know that Salty doesn't quietly wish the State of Israel would just go away? Just because he raised that rather mind numbing counterpoint, doesn't mean he doesn't actually harbor certain other sentiments.

After all, democracy has no importance, nor prior commitments, and certainly when it comes to Russia we really should just capitulate and allow authoritarian kleptocracies prevail as the new "Pax Reality".

OK tough guy. What are you prepared to do stop Putin & to restore Pax Americana to former Russian territory.

...& what does your Israel jibberish mean ? What other sentiments ? That I wish Israel would just go away ?

On Israel, I have no idea what you really think...it was kinda right wing gibberish what you actually said, but lots of folks on the right have become big "I support Israel" types in the more recent era, while having for many years prior whined about "the Israel lobby". I dunno whether you were one such.

I've spelled out quite clearly what I think the US should do, repeatedly.

I dunno whether it'll be enough to stop Putin's move right now, and I don't know that we have the fortitude to do what I recommend in a sustained way, especially given the Pro-Putin, pro-authoritarian movement here in the US, but it's what I think would ultimately make Putin choke on his error and be exactly the right sort of deterrent to China attempting to expand by military force.

[old salt]

On Israel, I have no idea what you really think...it was kinda right wing gibberish what you actually said, but lots of folks on the right have become big "I support Israel" types in the more recent era, while having for many years prior whined about "the Israel lobby". I dunno whether you were one such.

FTR -- just so there is no doubt. I've admired Israel since I saw the movie Exodus as a teen. I followed the 1968 war closely & was relieved when Nixon sent USAF F-4 Phantoms to replace the IAF's combat losses. I've never questioned the need & importance of US military aid to Israel. I admire the Israeli military & citizenry more than any of our other allies. None have matched Israel's commitment to defend themselves & our shared interests. Rather than whining about the Israel lobby, I'm more likely to be defamed as a Zionist.

[MDlaxfan76]

On Israel, I have no idea what you really think...it was kinda right wing gibberish what you actually said, but lots of folks on the right have become big "I support Israel" types in the more recent era, while having for many years prior whined about "the Israel lobby". I dunno whether you were one such.

FTR -- just so there is no doubt. I've admired Israel since I saw the movie Exodus as a teen. I followed the 1968 war closely & was relieved when Nixon sent F-4 fighters to rearm the IAF's combat losses. I've never questioned the need & importance of US military aid to Israel. I admire the Israeli military & citizenry more than any of our allies. Rather than whining about the Israel lobby, I'm more likely to be defamed as a Zionist.

Me too. (I read all of Leon Uris and Chaim Potok and some others.)

Thanks for making that clear.

And certainly the Israelis have a heck of story. But let's not remotely kid ourselves that the US support, massive support, wasn't critical to their success...and it's not as if they were a "democracy" in the mold of the US along the way, nor now.

They are their own animal, but very much only made possible by decades of massive financial and military support.

Ukraine has not been such a beneficiary, but evidently wants to become a western democracy, not an authoritarian kleptocracy. Should they have that chance?

And unfortunately, Israel has not yet succeeded in becoming a truly representational democracy, albeit it's a very special circumstance. Most of that, IMO, is due to the unwillingness of neighbors to adapt, but some of that is squarely on the right wing of Israel too. The settlements have been very, very wrong to do.

None of this is simple.

[old salt]

Ukraine has not been such a beneficiary, but evidently wants to become a western democracy, not an authoritarian kleptocracy. Should they have that chance?

Ukraine has had their chance for 30 years. We fomented 2 revolutions & regime changes for them & they reverted to corrupt kleptocracies, no better than Russia. They could have armed themselves adequately with the billions that grifters like Manafort & Hunter Biden siphoned out of the country.

In 1991, they had energy, ag, industry, & the best Black Sea access, without the burden of supporting the entire Russian population.
They were the most valuable chunk of former Soviet real estate, with the greatest potential. They squandered it.
Now were supposed to believe that a standup comedian is their George Washington.
Poroshenko was our last hand picked replacement oligarch leader - he awaits trial for treason.

Our effort to create a fake nation of Ukraine has failed.
We wasted millions of Soro$$$ fomenting regime change there.
We need to try to save our E NATO allies.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Ukraine has not been such a beneficiary, but evidently wants to become a western democracy, not an authoritarian kleptocracy. Should they have that chance?

Ukraine has had their chance for 30 years. We fomented 2 revolutions & regime changes for them & they reverted to corrupt kleptocracies, no better than Russia. They could have armed themselves adequately with the billions that grifters like Manafort & Hunter Biden siphoned out of the country.

In 1991, they had energy, ag, industry, & the best Black Sea access, without the burden of supporting the entire Russian population.
They were the most valuable chunk of former Soviet real estate, with the greatest potential. They squandered it.
Now were supposed to believe that a standup comedian is their George Washington.
Poroshenko was our last hand picked replacement oligarch leader - he awaits his trial for treason.

Our effort to effort to create a fake nation of Ukraine has failed.
We wasted millions of Soro$$$ fomenting regime change there.

Would be more believable if he were a reality TV star. Could have made Ukraine Great Again. Maybe purple hats instead of red.

[CU88]

We all know that regieme change without constant financial, intelligence, military support is doomed to failure.

To blame the current state of Ukraine on them, considering the pittence of US support to the country in stark contrast to the CONSTANT support that we provide Israel is a joke.

We hit Iran at the beck and call of Israel and have ships in that part of the world for their direct benefit. Which I fully support.

Ukraine is a DEMOCRACY and if we want that form of goverment to existing around the world then we should support them.

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL33222.html

Summary
This report provides an overview of U.S. foreign assistance to Israel. It includes a review of past aid programs, data on annual assistance, and analysis of current issues. For general information on Israel, see Israel: Background and U.S. Relations in Brief, by Jim Zanotti.

Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $142.3 billion (current, or noninflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding. Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance, although from 1971 to 2007 Israel also received significant economic assistance.

In 2016, the U.S. and Israeli governments signed a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on military aid, covering FY2019 to FY2028. Under the terms of the MOU, the United States pledges to provide $38 billion in military aid ($33 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants plus $5 billion in missile defense appropriations) to Israel. This MOU replaced a previous $30 billion 10-year agreement, which ran through FY2018.

Israel is the first international operator of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Department of Defense's fifth-generation stealth aircraft, considered to be the most technologically advanced fighter jet ever made. To date, Israel has purchased 50 F-35s in three separate contracts.

P.L. 116-6, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019, provides the following for Israel:

$3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF), of which $815.3 million is for off-shore procurement;
$5 million in Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) for refugee resettlement
$2 million in a homeland security grant;
Reauthorization of U.S. loan guarantees to Israel through September 30, 2023; and
Reauthorization of War Reserve Stock Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) through Sept 30, 2020.
P.L. 115-245, the Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019, provides the following for Israel:

$500 million in missile defense, of which $70 million is for Iron Dome, $187 million for David's Sling, $80 million for Arrow 3, and $163 million for Arrow 2.
For FY2020, the Trump Administration requested $3.3 billion in FMF for Israel and $500 million in missile defense aid to mark the second year of the MOU. The Administration also requested $5 million in MRA humanitarian funding for migrants to Israel.



IF we are ever going to say that we support Israel because they are a DEMOCRACY, then we need to say the same and show the support to other DEMOCRACIES around the world.

What would happen to Israel if the US sent them a similar aid package that we send to the Ukraine per capita?

The big picture: When it comes to military support in particular, the U.S. committed to more than $600 million just last year — and more than $2.7 billion since 2014. With the current threat from Russia, Ukraine — and Congress — are now pushing for more.

https://www.axios.com/ukraine-us-foreig ... 31fe8.html

If we want to show Russia a strong DEMOCRACY, what better place than his front door?

Ukraine get $600,000,000 in us military aid.
Israel gets $142,300,000,000 in US military aid.

Ukraine has a population of 44,000,000
Israel has a population of 9,000,000

Seems to be pretty obvious that the money would have a much better out coming if we spent more in the Ukraine, when compared to Israel.

[MDlaxfan76]

If we had to make such a choice, but we don't.

[old salt]

Seems to be pretty obvious that the money would have a much better out coming if we spent more in the Ukraine, when compared to Israel.

Not if Ukraine does not have a govt that you can trust to use the military aid & is willing to fight for their independence, as the Israeli's are.
The Ukrainians just stood aside when the Russians rolled into Crimea & then took a chunk out of the Donbass in 2014.

It's more than just bean counting. There needs to be a will to fight in those receiving the military aid.
Do the Ukrainians now have the will to fight for their national identity & democracy, or is it too little, too late ?
We may soon find out. Beau Geste !

[old salt]

For background, if this does result in further negotiations, in addition to a moratorium on NATO expansion further eastward,
this may hint at some of the demilitarization steps which Putin may be angling for :

https://www.wsj.com/articles/putins-end ... _lead_pos2

The Russian leader is trying to stop further enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, whose expansion he sees as encroaching on Russia’s security and part of the West’s deception and broken promises. He wants NATO to scale back its military reach to the 1990s, before it expanded east of Germany. The demands would reverse many of the extraordinary changes in Europe that took place in that decade.

In sum, Mr. Putin seeks to undo many of the security consequences of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, an event the Russian leader has called the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.

The Russian leader is now seeking to create a buffer zone around his country, as it had in Soviet times, and muscle Moscow’s way back to the superpower table alongside the U.S.

Mr. Putin’s approach is aimed squarely at the U.S., over the heads of the other NATO countries, and it reflects several of his beliefs: that the world’s affairs should be settled by the great powers, which include Russia; NATO is a U.S. instrument in the way the Warsaw Pact was a Soviet one, and its other members lack agency; and Moscow should control its own backyard, as it did in the Soviet era.

“Russia wants to have coercive power. This is what this is about,” said Fiona Hill, senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council during the Trump administration. Nothing is asked of Ukraine, which Mr. Putin has depicted as not even a country.

In a lengthy essay published in July, Mr. Putin seeks to justify Russia’s claim to Ukraine, writing that Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are one people, all descended from Ancient Rus, the largest state in Europe in the ninth century. Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, he wrote, is the mother of Russian cities.

“For Putin, it’s not just 30 years of historical wrong but centuries of injury inflicted on Russia, the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire,” Ms. Hill said.

Looking back, many current and former Western officials say it is clear that the U.S. and its allies handled relations with Moscow poorly in the 1990s, and that the triumphalism over winning the Cold War was excessive.

Some also say that Europe’s security arrangements need rebuilding, in part because many of the Soviet-era arms agreements aimed at reducing tensions have been abrogated after mutual accusations of cheating.

While these officials say that Moscow must be part of those discussions, they won’t be willing accomplices to Mr. Putin’s efforts to turn back the clock.

“Although I think that Western diplomacy was arrogant and incompetent in the 1990s, and we’re paying the price now, that is not a reason for Putin to put himself in a posture that makes other people think he’s about to launch a war,” said Rodric Braithwaite, who was British ambassador to Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed.

He said Mr. Putin’s views aren’t unique. “What Putin says about the humiliation of the Soviet collapse, the enlargement of NATO, and the intimate historical link between Russian and Ukrainian history is not his own idea,” Mr. Braithwaite said. “Millions of Russians think and feel just like he does.”

Yet in 1994, Russia joined with the U.S. and U.K. in committing “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine” and “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against it, a security guarantee that helped persuade Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons.

Moscow’s current demands call for the U.S. to agree to block further NATO expansion—a step that would keep Ukraine, as well as Finland and Sweden, out of the alliance if they wanted to join. The U.S. has replied to the demands but hasn’t disclosed its contents.

Russia also wants U.S. and other nonnational NATO forces to pull out of countries that joined NATO after 1997—which includes all those once in the Soviet orbit. It also seeks the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe. Moscow wants the commitments in a treaty, presumably knowing no U.S. president would likely sign it, and the Senate would refuse to ratify it. America’s newest NATO allies would reject it, as well.

Mr. Putin’s narrative of how the West deceived Moscow in the 1990s begins with deliberations over the reunification of Germany. It extends to the negotiations ahead of the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997, which laid out the basis for cooperation between the alliance and Russia.

The Russians say that in discussion over German reunification in 1990, the U.S. and other Western politicians and officials assured Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward. They also say NATO promised in 1997 that it wouldn’t station troops farther than the alliance’s eastern border at the time.

Ms. Sarotte has used both official and personal records to examine the Russian claim. She found that U.S. and European politicians did suggest in 1990 that NATO wouldn’t expand east. In 1997, the alliance declared it had no intention of moving troops closer to the Soviet border. Moscow never received these assurances in legal form.

In a recently published book, “Not One Inch,” Ms. Sarotte describes how former Secretary of State James Baker in 1990 laid out a hypothetical bargain with Mr. Gorbachev, who had hundreds of thousands of troops in East Germany: What if you let your part of Germany go, and we agree that NATO will “not shift one inch eastward from its present position?”

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl also told Mr. Gorbachev in Moscow that NATO wouldn’t extend east. Yet those and similar statements by others were never made formal, largely because President George H.W. Bush wanted NATO to cover East Germany. The 1990 agreement that reunified Germany explicitly extended NATO to the territory of East Germany.

[old salt]

The significance of Russian troops remaining in Belarus :

https://neweasterneurope.eu/2021/12/08/ ... t-ukraine/

[old salt]

Andrea Mitchell, just back from Munich, reports that Kyiv can be taken in 2 days, that Zelensky is surrounded by Quislings & will decamp to Lviv.

If Zelensky abandons Kyiv, he'd be wise to then seek terms to save his army & his population.

Russian dissidents & others on Putin's enemies list, in refuge in Ukraine, who have not yet departed, need to get out asap.

[MDlaxfan76]

Putin just announced they will begin moving their troops into eastern Ukraine shortly. They will meet resistance.

That's an invasion of Ukraine no matter how the Russian disinformation machine spins it.

We need to use all sanctions, no further holding back as a "deterrent".