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> War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked [..] "in war, truth is the first casualty. It is typically accompanied b
by logifail 3y ago
> War happens when one party thinks that the other party is weak enough to be attacked [..]
"in war, truth is the first casualty. It is typically accompanied by a fog of official lies. And no such fog has ever been as thick as in the Ukraine war. While many hundreds of thousands of people have fought and died in Ukraine, the propaganda machines in Brussels, Kyiv, London, Moscow and Washington have worked overtime to ensure that we take passionate sides, believe what we want to believe, and condemn anyone who questions the narrative we have internalised. The consequences for all have been dire. For Ukraine, they have been catastrophic [..]
the war was born in and has been continued due to miscalculations by all sides. The United States calculated that Russian threats to go to war over Ukrainian neutrality were bluffs that might be deterred by outlining and denigrating Russian plans. Russia assumed that the United States would prefer negotiations to war and would wish to avoid the redivision of Europe into hostile blocs. Ukrainians counted on the West protecting their country. When Russia’s performance in the first months of the war proved lacklustre, the West concluded that Ukraine could defeat it. None of these calculations has proved correct"[0]
https://unherd.com/2024/01/the-propaganda-that-damned-ukraine/ https://unherd.com/2024/01/the-propaganda-that-damned-ukrain...
- loceng 3y agoRe: "due to miscalculations by all sides" Miscalculations is giving an out that isn't warranted. At least one party involved wanted the "war" to continue.
- actionfromafar 3y agoHindsight is 20-20 but war is chaotic. The support for Ukraine has been half-assed at best. Strategically it was insane to let Russia build fortifications for six months uncontested.
- 2devnull 3y ago“The United States calculated that Russian threats to go to war over Ukrainian neutrality were bluff” I want to push back in that. The war in eukraine is (was?) arguably the desired end result of many years of effort by a number of Ukraine/russia hawks like Nuland. I don’t think she was surprised at all by Russia’s actions. It was on everyone’s bingo card. It had been predicted (described?) by prominent experts like John mearshiemer. It was very much a known risk, and a likely risk as anyone can go and assess from historical records. So no, the United States (whomever you mean by that) certainly did not calculate that Putin would be unprovokeable. Russia’s red line was clear, we chose to cross it knowing the result ahead of time.