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There is always this stupid idea that if only we were a bit kinder with those leaders (be it Hitler, Putin or others), if we had made just one or two small concessions, there would have been no war. But this is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of their regime. Whatever you give them, they see as a sign of weakness, a proof that they can push harder. You negociated with me about Syria, so that I can do anything there? I will also take Ukraine. You give me Danzig? I will also take Alsace. It's a game where they can only win: either you give them what they want, and they are stronger and can push for more, or you don't, and they get a casus belli.
EDIT:
By the way, I remember quite precisely what happened, and the jews were not responsible of it. All of America wanted this war. The people who opposed it took a ton of shit. You probably wanted this war yourself. But I guess it is easier to blame the stupid choices you made on the jews.
Can you flesh out your argument for why it was the smart thing to promote Ukraine entering NATO, rather than negotiating Ukraine as a neutral region? Given that this was their red line since the early 2000s, I have no idea how someone could consider it “appeasement”. It seems to me that the worst case scenario has transpired: our continual pressure and influence in Ukraine has destroyed the country, probably forever (given fertility rates), has cost enormous sums of money, has wasted American influence in Ukraine, has pressured Russia into developing better drone technology, has finalized the alienation of Russia from the West, has influenced Arab nations into cozying with Russia, and all we get in return is some dead Russians, and maybe we will increase German weariness to America given we destroyed their pipeline. This was a bad decision, unless we only care about dead Russians. What will we gain in five years from it all?
Because NATO wasn’t why the Ukraine war happened. Prighizin himself said the reasons for the war were a lie.
Joining the EU economically was the proximate cause for the war and Ukraine leaving Russian sphere of influence. Economically and culturally there was never possible to be “neutral”. Zelensky himself made a comedy routine years ago saying basically Ukraine found a new sugar daddy that was rich and it was Europe. Ukranians look over the border and see Poland on pace to be richer than the UK. Russia can’t compete with the west financially.
The choice for Ukraine was never neutrality. It was get rich forming economic and cultural unions with the rest or stay poor in a union with Russia.
The whole “NATO” thing and neutrality always was just propaganda. Peace was never possible. Russia was never going to agree to military neutrality but a rich and prosperous economically allied with the west Ukraine.
We didn’t have to imply that we were interested either. Had we said no Ukraine would have been better off because they wouldn’t have been invaded. The war buck stops with us because we kept this going.
By us I assume you mean the US. First US isn’t even a member of the European Union nor a European economy that would have been Ukraines economic linkages. America literally had zero say on these issues which is why Russia invaded.
Also this removes any agency from Ukraine. They wanted something different because their neighbor Poland got rich and their economic relationships with Russia kept them poor.
They live in a Cripps neighborhood, joining the Bloods was never a viable option.
war so far seems to indicate that Russia overestimated their power
maybe they will finally get that Russian empire is done?
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Gentrification happens. And the cripps launching an attack seems to have been a miscalculation that might end up costing them their entire empire.
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Except for the four countries in the Cripps' immediate neighbourhood that joined the Bloods without any violence? And the many more countries a little further down the road in the Cripps neighbourhood who did so as well?
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Maybe if the God descended from Heavens on Dec 1 2013 before protesters and opposition politicians in Kyiv and said to them: "Go home, victory of your protest will lead to great human suffering and hundreds of thousand deaths", nothing of that would have happened. Ukraine would be just a shittier version of Belarus for perpetuity, all smart people would have left either way, even if there was no war.
But it doesn't work like that. Ukrainians wanted into the EU. EU members supported those aspirations — some more enthusiastically (like Lithuania, or Poland), some less (like France, or Germany). On the other hand Putin and his close circle have more agency than amorphous blobs like pro-Western Ukrainian population, or European bureaucracy. The onus should be on them.
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