Americans are officially afraid to take on bullies who butcher innocents by the thousands because we don't believe in ourselves anymore. Our fellow citizens are SCARED SHITLESS of fighting wars against anyone who could possibly be considered a near-peer military. The Greatest Generation ought to be rolling in their graves right now. Do w…
Americans are officially afraid to take on bullies who butcher innocents by the thousands because we don't believe in ourselves anymore. Our fellow citizens are SCARED SHITLESS of fighting wars against anyone who could possibly be considered a near-peer military. The Greatest Generation ought to be rolling in their graves right now. Do we think people like Putin will just melt away in the years ahead if we don't go in and break his nose open in front of the whole world? What WORLD are these people living in? By dodging this fight now, we're guaranteed to kick the fight down the road to our children. That's what pissing in your pants does. It passes the buck onto somebody else at some other place and time. I am *embarrassed* to consider myself an American right now. This country is full of decadent bed-wetters who couldn't be bothered with making personal sacrifices on behalf of democracy-preservation. No wonder we don't have a draft anymore. Decadence killed duty decades ago and it's showing now even more than in the post-9/11 space when we relied on recycling combat veterans to fight the same war over and over again for 20 years because all the able-bodied men were off getting laid in college and not thinking about things like national duty and societal sacrifice. It's the same now. We haven't changed at all since 9/11. We're still a very decadent nation when it comes to fighting. The fact that our military runs on a contract system you can't un-volunteer from shows you just how hard it is to pull people into the military and retain them there. Nobody in America wants to serve. Nobody in America wants to fight. Putin LOVES that dynamic. It's where his blank check on war-criming comes from: our decadent softness and general war-aversion.
After decades of believing I was a pacifist, I've been finding myself changing my position for a number of years. Maybe because I've been reading/writing a little about WW2 resistance to Hitler. Iraq was a godawful mistake that should never have happened (and I thought as much back then), but getting rid of the Taliban wasn't. During Vietnam, I was a hawk that turned pacifist as the war continued. I'm a woman, so the draft back then was never an issue for me. And I was glad the US got rid of it. But, as you said, times have changed. Americans did grow weak (woke culture is one example and both sides do it!), so weak that a fake man like Trump could take over, and is still in control of his party. Now, I find myself on the side of re-instituting the draft for military or something like Peace Corps service, as other countries do for men AND women. Are there problems in the military? God, yes. But if the politicians insist on starting wars and refusing to have Americans pay for it (in taxes, blood, commitment, sacrifice of any kind - the horror of our gas going up because the oil companies want to gouge us, so do something!) How many of you think our current population would be fighting as the Ukrainians are doing? Remember, a few weeks ago, Kiev and the other cities were no different from OUR cities. MAGAs complain about BLM and riots - but Russia invading the Ukraine - they shrug.
I've gone back and forth myself, having been mostly anti-war after Iraq/Afghanistan, but Ukraine is a very different kind of conflict from those ones in principle, practice, and potential fallout. This time around I see a greater cost in our inaction than in our action, the irony is that our over-reaction to 9/11 is what has drained us of the necessary political capital to support a new war elsewhere. Putin knew this sentiment was there and that he could capitalize on it. He was ultimately right in the end and the proof is in the national distancing from any new conflicts save for us getting attacked again I guess. This precedent will create more enemies and make them bolder in the future once they sense weakness in the air the way a shark sniffs out blood. That's how folks like Trump and Putin wait for "their moment" when the water is nice and warm and the men are nice and weak. When they know in advance that they'll get away with it because they have nukes or because the west is soft or whatever. "When you're a star they let you do it." This is how *predators* in general think, and this is how they apply leverage and alleviate risk when they need to to get what they want.
I don't think US overreacted to 9/11 as much as Bush overreached by pulling out of A'stan before the job was done, to go after Saddam in Iraq because he wanted to (speaking of regime change). That set the costly bloody failures over there. And it wasn't as though we couldn't see it coming, cuz it was easy to see if you looked. Just like it is easy to see now if you are willing to look. Nation of Ostrich? (BTW, we got Trump because, in part, the GOP spent decades dumbing down public education, removing Civics classes, not teaching the basics even, and Dems wanted school to be about social justice instead of STEM apparently. I guess servant classes don't need much edumacation.)
I'd say that the outcome of *any* conflict is unknown from the start, but the same could be said in the direction of *inaction*. Wouldn't we be *assuming* that our stance of inaction wouldn't cause some unknown horrors to happen in the future? I'd say it's just as dangerous to get rather imaginative in one direction and rather unimaginative in the other.
What I *do* know is the nature of bullies and people comfortable with levels of violence that others are not. I have grown up and lived in that environment, and I have seen the costs of setting weak precedents that seem small at first and come to be the first domino in something much larger. "The appetite grows with the eating" as the Russian saying goes. Give a mouse a cookie today, who knows how tall that glass of milk will be tomorrow. This doesn't end with Ukraine or even Europe because this is about what The West is willing to do/not do and what kind of blood that puts in the water for the men who will follow in Putin's shoes. We live in the world we create folks.
I served for 30 years in the military. I don't agree with you at all.
What we're afraid of is an unnecessary thermo-nuclear war...and we should be. What we are doing is bleeding Putin dry while maintaining a coalition of countries against Putin/Russia.
It may very well turn into a nuclear showdown...and that's where I think this heading...but I'm not in favor of hurrying to this conflict.
Kuwait '91ing all of Putin's forces inside of Ukraine does not necessitate a nuclear showdown, and deterrence works both ways. Did we end up in a "nuclear showdown" when we wasted 400 Russian Vagner mercs in Syria? No. You can have conventional conflict between two nuclear-armed powers without any such "nuclear showdowns" ever taking place--see Pakistan & India constantly shooting it out over Kashmir among other areas.
How many other bloodthirsty dictators are going to be clammering to get their hands on nuclear weapons once Putin has showed the world exactly what one can get away with simply for possessing nukes? The risk-aversion for conventional conflict against a nuclear-armed actor is going to do *wonders* for nuclear proliferation in the future, and it will be because we incentivized it today, here, now. When the next guy who is less-rational than Putin gets a new nuclear arms program, it'll be because we showed them how scared we were today, remember that.
You are comparing Syria to what is occurring in Ukraine? Syria was in the Middle East as opposed to Russia's doorstep. In Syria, Putin never made the proclamation he made with Ukraine...that he was going to invade and topple a sovereign country. With Ukraine, we have 100,000+ Russian soldiers involved...not a handful of Mercs. With Syria...it was initially started by the Arab Spring and became an internal civil war that ended up spreading across the region.
In short, I find very little to be analogous about the 2 separate conflicts. Further, to use Syria as an example of why it's OK for nuclear armed countries to be in a conventional weapon conflict is on the edge of being dangerously reckless in your logic.
Yes...it sucks....but it could suck a lot worse and I'm afraid you would be pushing the US to find this out and quickly regret not being more patient.
It wasn't a comparison, just an example of how nuclear-armed adversaries can go kinetic without going nuclear. As the list of countries with nuclear weapons grow, more and more examples of them going kinetic without going nuclear abound. Pakistan-India was the other example I cited, and they go kinetic against each other *constantly* and they live next to each other. Want to address that aspect of the argument?
Why is it that some nuclear-armed nations can go kinetic without going nuclear but somehow US/Russia *must* go nuclear if it ever went kinetic. The history of nuclear-on-nuclear state conflicts speaks otherwise. In fact, it's only ever been nuclear-armed nations using them against unarmed ones according to the history (we're the only ones who've used them).
I'm sorry and not trying to be contrarian for contrarian's sake...
If you give me examples...I take that as comparisons....but whatever you wish to call it...I'll respond:
Pakistan - India...if one of them declared that they intended to invade and takeover the other....and lined up 100,000 soldiers with thousands of tracked vehicles on the border...ready to invade...
Do you not think that that is an ENTIRELY different situation vs. skirmishes about Kashmir or whatever?
If you want apples-to-apples...that's the equivalent scenario.
I gave you examples of nuclear-armed nations going kinetic without going nuclear, then you countered by stating that it's apples-to-oranges with Ukraine vis-a-vis Russia. I agree. Not the same at all. Ukraine doesn't have nukes. Maybe don't compare nuclear vs nuclear nation conflicts to nuclear vs non-nuclear nation conflict I guess? Like, what's Ukraine going to escalate to? We were talking about US v Russia *within* the context of the Ukraine fight remember? That's nuclear power vs nuclear power. Ukraine vs Russia is not.
If Russia shoots a tactical nuke into Ukraine...do you think we should respond with a nuke? Just one? Do we hit the battlefield or something in Russia?
It can become nuke vs nuke very quickly despite Ukraine not having any nukes.
This is why Russia wouldn’t respond by firing a nuke into Ukraine. What have we said about deterrence working both ways? What have we said about nuclear armed actors going kinetic without going nuclear? There’s a lot more historical precedent for my predictions than yours. I’ve already cited those examples, but go off on fear rants I guess. We can do that all day until every dictator in the world has nukes and then we’ll still be wetting ourselves when it’s their turn to slaughter people. But keep thinking we should be more afraid of them than them of us. The world is going to work out great with that precedent in motion.
Yes, because the alternative is living in a world with MORE nuclear-armed butchers who saw what Putin got away with, and then we’re in this same situation even more often 15-25 years down the road when my kids are of military service age. You want to live in that world and explain to your kid how this trend could have been stopped 20 years ago if we had only done something to deter that kind of behavior as he’s signing the paperwork at the USMC recruiting office?
Is Iran *more* likely or *less* likely to seek nukes now that we've shown them how timid we are with nuclear-armed nations after we just went in and wasted the head of the Iranian IRGC while he was visiting Iraq?
Because we're actively telling them that we don't touch nuclear-armed Putin for X while simultaneously telling them that we'll kill whoever in their government we want to because they don't have nukes. That's the message we're sending them *right now*.
Currently...it might be a "pro" but if we continue to ratchet up sanctions and if they lead to Putin's downfall because his country revolts...then they might be a "con".
I'm all for defeating Putin, but I think it's wise to not fast-track it to a pure NATO/West military response for many sound reasons having to do with gaining more unity, allowing Putin to further prove how much a pariah he is to the world and seeing how effective the non-kinetics can be...when his oligarchs are included in the pain.
Not perfect I know...but the risk is real if we get ahead of ourselves on this and an "accident" happens triggering a really bad situation...that makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like a minor incident.
1) I assure you that I've been closer to death than you have, and there are things other than radiation that can linger on the battlefield long after even conventional conflicts end (ask me about digging up American-made DPICMs and anti-tank mines in Iraq). Just think about how many Ukrainian kids will be stepping on cluster munitions and landmines for decades to come the longer the Ukrainian conflict goes on.
2) We firebombed over 50% of some 60+ Japanese cities--intentionally targeting civilians and selecting incendiary munitions over traditional ones because Japanese homes were made of wood--and created "firestorms" on the ground that engulfed hundreds of thousands in single nights (100k+ dead in Tokyo in a singular bombing for example). By the time we wasted the folks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki we were sparing lives, not taking more than what would have already been lost by other more costly means for both sides. The way we saw it, we were done trading American lives for Japanese ones. It was time for them to throw in the towel, and that's the message Hirohito took away after we sent him that message wasn't it? So weird how speaking violently to violent actors tends to deliver a message. Just took us a good long time and a lot of people dead to finally get there. Wonder how long it will take this time.
Americans are officially afraid to take on bullies who butcher innocents by the thousands because we don't believe in ourselves anymore. Our fellow citizens are SCARED SHITLESS of fighting wars against anyone who could possibly be considered a near-peer military. The Greatest Generation ought to be rolling in their graves right now. Do we think people like Putin will just melt away in the years ahead if we don't go in and break his nose open in front of the whole world? What WORLD are these people living in? By dodging this fight now, we're guaranteed to kick the fight down the road to our children. That's what pissing in your pants does. It passes the buck onto somebody else at some other place and time. I am *embarrassed* to consider myself an American right now. This country is full of decadent bed-wetters who couldn't be bothered with making personal sacrifices on behalf of democracy-preservation. No wonder we don't have a draft anymore. Decadence killed duty decades ago and it's showing now even more than in the post-9/11 space when we relied on recycling combat veterans to fight the same war over and over again for 20 years because all the able-bodied men were off getting laid in college and not thinking about things like national duty and societal sacrifice. It's the same now. We haven't changed at all since 9/11. We're still a very decadent nation when it comes to fighting. The fact that our military runs on a contract system you can't un-volunteer from shows you just how hard it is to pull people into the military and retain them there. Nobody in America wants to serve. Nobody in America wants to fight. Putin LOVES that dynamic. It's where his blank check on war-criming comes from: our decadent softness and general war-aversion.
After decades of believing I was a pacifist, I've been finding myself changing my position for a number of years. Maybe because I've been reading/writing a little about WW2 resistance to Hitler. Iraq was a godawful mistake that should never have happened (and I thought as much back then), but getting rid of the Taliban wasn't. During Vietnam, I was a hawk that turned pacifist as the war continued. I'm a woman, so the draft back then was never an issue for me. And I was glad the US got rid of it. But, as you said, times have changed. Americans did grow weak (woke culture is one example and both sides do it!), so weak that a fake man like Trump could take over, and is still in control of his party. Now, I find myself on the side of re-instituting the draft for military or something like Peace Corps service, as other countries do for men AND women. Are there problems in the military? God, yes. But if the politicians insist on starting wars and refusing to have Americans pay for it (in taxes, blood, commitment, sacrifice of any kind - the horror of our gas going up because the oil companies want to gouge us, so do something!) How many of you think our current population would be fighting as the Ukrainians are doing? Remember, a few weeks ago, Kiev and the other cities were no different from OUR cities. MAGAs complain about BLM and riots - but Russia invading the Ukraine - they shrug.
I've gone back and forth myself, having been mostly anti-war after Iraq/Afghanistan, but Ukraine is a very different kind of conflict from those ones in principle, practice, and potential fallout. This time around I see a greater cost in our inaction than in our action, the irony is that our over-reaction to 9/11 is what has drained us of the necessary political capital to support a new war elsewhere. Putin knew this sentiment was there and that he could capitalize on it. He was ultimately right in the end and the proof is in the national distancing from any new conflicts save for us getting attacked again I guess. This precedent will create more enemies and make them bolder in the future once they sense weakness in the air the way a shark sniffs out blood. That's how folks like Trump and Putin wait for "their moment" when the water is nice and warm and the men are nice and weak. When they know in advance that they'll get away with it because they have nukes or because the west is soft or whatever. "When you're a star they let you do it." This is how *predators* in general think, and this is how they apply leverage and alleviate risk when they need to to get what they want.
I don't think US overreacted to 9/11 as much as Bush overreached by pulling out of A'stan before the job was done, to go after Saddam in Iraq because he wanted to (speaking of regime change). That set the costly bloody failures over there. And it wasn't as though we couldn't see it coming, cuz it was easy to see if you looked. Just like it is easy to see now if you are willing to look. Nation of Ostrich? (BTW, we got Trump because, in part, the GOP spent decades dumbing down public education, removing Civics classes, not teaching the basics even, and Dems wanted school to be about social justice instead of STEM apparently. I guess servant classes don't need much edumacation.)
Travis I don't disagree with anything you wrote on this post, but I will mention that the outcome of this current conflict is unknown.
What if we find out that a coalition of countries and economies can cause more damage to Russia than beating them militarily in Ukraine?
I feel like you are espousing that we've already lost because we're playing the long game. Are you so sure of the outcome of a short-game strategy?
I'd say that the outcome of *any* conflict is unknown from the start, but the same could be said in the direction of *inaction*. Wouldn't we be *assuming* that our stance of inaction wouldn't cause some unknown horrors to happen in the future? I'd say it's just as dangerous to get rather imaginative in one direction and rather unimaginative in the other.
What I *do* know is the nature of bullies and people comfortable with levels of violence that others are not. I have grown up and lived in that environment, and I have seen the costs of setting weak precedents that seem small at first and come to be the first domino in something much larger. "The appetite grows with the eating" as the Russian saying goes. Give a mouse a cookie today, who knows how tall that glass of milk will be tomorrow. This doesn't end with Ukraine or even Europe because this is about what The West is willing to do/not do and what kind of blood that puts in the water for the men who will follow in Putin's shoes. We live in the world we create folks.
Don't you think that's why Biden is working so hard to firm the line in the sand at NATO borders? Ukraine is kind of a sacrifice?
I served for 30 years in the military. I don't agree with you at all.
What we're afraid of is an unnecessary thermo-nuclear war...and we should be. What we are doing is bleeding Putin dry while maintaining a coalition of countries against Putin/Russia.
It may very well turn into a nuclear showdown...and that's where I think this heading...but I'm not in favor of hurrying to this conflict.
Kuwait '91ing all of Putin's forces inside of Ukraine does not necessitate a nuclear showdown, and deterrence works both ways. Did we end up in a "nuclear showdown" when we wasted 400 Russian Vagner mercs in Syria? No. You can have conventional conflict between two nuclear-armed powers without any such "nuclear showdowns" ever taking place--see Pakistan & India constantly shooting it out over Kashmir among other areas.
How many other bloodthirsty dictators are going to be clammering to get their hands on nuclear weapons once Putin has showed the world exactly what one can get away with simply for possessing nukes? The risk-aversion for conventional conflict against a nuclear-armed actor is going to do *wonders* for nuclear proliferation in the future, and it will be because we incentivized it today, here, now. When the next guy who is less-rational than Putin gets a new nuclear arms program, it'll be because we showed them how scared we were today, remember that.
That's a really good point. Scary.
You are comparing Syria to what is occurring in Ukraine? Syria was in the Middle East as opposed to Russia's doorstep. In Syria, Putin never made the proclamation he made with Ukraine...that he was going to invade and topple a sovereign country. With Ukraine, we have 100,000+ Russian soldiers involved...not a handful of Mercs. With Syria...it was initially started by the Arab Spring and became an internal civil war that ended up spreading across the region.
In short, I find very little to be analogous about the 2 separate conflicts. Further, to use Syria as an example of why it's OK for nuclear armed countries to be in a conventional weapon conflict is on the edge of being dangerously reckless in your logic.
Yes...it sucks....but it could suck a lot worse and I'm afraid you would be pushing the US to find this out and quickly regret not being more patient.
It wasn't a comparison, just an example of how nuclear-armed adversaries can go kinetic without going nuclear. As the list of countries with nuclear weapons grow, more and more examples of them going kinetic without going nuclear abound. Pakistan-India was the other example I cited, and they go kinetic against each other *constantly* and they live next to each other. Want to address that aspect of the argument?
Why is it that some nuclear-armed nations can go kinetic without going nuclear but somehow US/Russia *must* go nuclear if it ever went kinetic. The history of nuclear-on-nuclear state conflicts speaks otherwise. In fact, it's only ever been nuclear-armed nations using them against unarmed ones according to the history (we're the only ones who've used them).
I'm sorry and not trying to be contrarian for contrarian's sake...
If you give me examples...I take that as comparisons....but whatever you wish to call it...I'll respond:
Pakistan - India...if one of them declared that they intended to invade and takeover the other....and lined up 100,000 soldiers with thousands of tracked vehicles on the border...ready to invade...
Do you not think that that is an ENTIRELY different situation vs. skirmishes about Kashmir or whatever?
If you want apples-to-apples...that's the equivalent scenario.
I gave you examples of nuclear-armed nations going kinetic without going nuclear, then you countered by stating that it's apples-to-oranges with Ukraine vis-a-vis Russia. I agree. Not the same at all. Ukraine doesn't have nukes. Maybe don't compare nuclear vs nuclear nation conflicts to nuclear vs non-nuclear nation conflict I guess? Like, what's Ukraine going to escalate to? We were talking about US v Russia *within* the context of the Ukraine fight remember? That's nuclear power vs nuclear power. Ukraine vs Russia is not.
If Russia shoots a tactical nuke into Ukraine...do you think we should respond with a nuke? Just one? Do we hit the battlefield or something in Russia?
It can become nuke vs nuke very quickly despite Ukraine not having any nukes.
This is why Russia wouldn’t respond by firing a nuke into Ukraine. What have we said about deterrence working both ways? What have we said about nuclear armed actors going kinetic without going nuclear? There’s a lot more historical precedent for my predictions than yours. I’ve already cited those examples, but go off on fear rants I guess. We can do that all day until every dictator in the world has nukes and then we’ll still be wetting ourselves when it’s their turn to slaughter people. But keep thinking we should be more afraid of them than them of us. The world is going to work out great with that precedent in motion.
I hope you’re right.
Remember when Challenger went down due to losing fire resistant tiles on the the bottom of the shuttle?
The investigation of the incident revealed that engineers felt bolstered by the fact that nothing had happened despite losing tiles each flight.
The lesson learned was that just because something works a few times doesn’t mean the risk isn’t real.
NASA lost a shuttle and all those aboard because of this. Are you willing to risk a nuclear war based on this theory of yours?
Yes, because the alternative is living in a world with MORE nuclear-armed butchers who saw what Putin got away with, and then we’re in this same situation even more often 15-25 years down the road when my kids are of military service age. You want to live in that world and explain to your kid how this trend could have been stopped 20 years ago if we had only done something to deter that kind of behavior as he’s signing the paperwork at the USMC recruiting office?
That's why Kim has his nukes.
Yes it is, but stating that fact, doesn't resolve it. We are actively attempting to prevent Iran from getting nukes.
The point remains...possessing Nukes is a factor in our thinking when considering militarily engagements against these countries.
Why wouldn't it be? It seems foolish to not have this as a consideration and as a moderating factor in our responses to them.
Is Iran *more* likely or *less* likely to seek nukes now that we've shown them how timid we are with nuclear-armed nations after we just went in and wasted the head of the Iranian IRGC while he was visiting Iraq?
Because we're actively telling them that we don't touch nuclear-armed Putin for X while simultaneously telling them that we'll kill whoever in their government we want to because they don't have nukes. That's the message we're sending them *right now*.
Currently...it might be a "pro" but if we continue to ratchet up sanctions and if they lead to Putin's downfall because his country revolts...then they might be a "con".
I'm all for defeating Putin, but I think it's wise to not fast-track it to a pure NATO/West military response for many sound reasons having to do with gaining more unity, allowing Putin to further prove how much a pariah he is to the world and seeing how effective the non-kinetics can be...when his oligarchs are included in the pain.
Not perfect I know...but the risk is real if we get ahead of ourselves on this and an "accident" happens triggering a really bad situation...that makes Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like a minor incident.
The main topic of conversation this morning is if it is okay for one multi-millionaire to slap another multi-millionaire in public. That's decadence.
1) I assure you that I've been closer to death than you have, and there are things other than radiation that can linger on the battlefield long after even conventional conflicts end (ask me about digging up American-made DPICMs and anti-tank mines in Iraq). Just think about how many Ukrainian kids will be stepping on cluster munitions and landmines for decades to come the longer the Ukrainian conflict goes on.
2) We firebombed over 50% of some 60+ Japanese cities--intentionally targeting civilians and selecting incendiary munitions over traditional ones because Japanese homes were made of wood--and created "firestorms" on the ground that engulfed hundreds of thousands in single nights (100k+ dead in Tokyo in a singular bombing for example). By the time we wasted the folks at Hiroshima and Nagasaki we were sparing lives, not taking more than what would have already been lost by other more costly means for both sides. The way we saw it, we were done trading American lives for Japanese ones. It was time for them to throw in the towel, and that's the message Hirohito took away after we sent him that message wasn't it? So weird how speaking violently to violent actors tends to deliver a message. Just took us a good long time and a lot of people dead to finally get there. Wonder how long it will take this time.