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If conflict resolution means giving Ukraine to Russia, then I can agree with you. Vance says he doesn't care about what happens in Ukraine and Trump said he has

If conflict resolution means giving Ukraine to Russia, then I can agree with you. Vance says he doesn't care about what happens in Ukraine and Trump said he has a very good relationship with Putin and could stop the war in the first 24 hours after the election. Tulsi believes there are USA BioLabs in Ukraine and Putin was right for invading his peaceful neighbor. Hegseth believes Ukraine doesn't deserve US support and is unworthy of helping. There is the old guard that understands very well that Russia is the greatest threat the US faces but they no longer have much of a voice. MAGA is in charge and they are fine with America's strategic defeat and the downfall of Western democracy.

talldayo 2y ago
> they are fine with America's strategic defeat This is a silly statement, for all of MAGA and the modern right's pitiful shortcomings. Ukraine is profoundly low on the priority list of strategic American positions. Arguably even Crimea was more strategically important, and the US let that get annexed pretty comfortably when that happened. If Ukraine was seized it would set a terrible precedent for Europe - but the West doesn't have any strategic stakes there outside potential NATO candidates.
- bdangubic 2y ago
  this is very short-sighted… you think US strategically cared about Vietnam?! it doesn’t matter whether ukraine is on the US strategic priority list - it matters what ukraine represents. if US is cool with russia invading european sovereign states - fantastic. surely putin being a fair and cool guy and all will stop there, right?
  - farting 2y ago
    I'm not exactly a scholar on the Vietnam war, but I don't think it was about what Vietnam "represented". Communism had already been spreading with incredible ease, helped by the USSR's investments, and we were afraid of it spreading more, as it's a detriment to capitalism's global profit extraction scheme. There was a very real and very big risk to our bottom line with the whole communism fight. If Ukraine falls, Russia gets a whole bunch of agriculture exports, but other than that what do we lose? Sure it sets a bad precedent for global tensions and all, but the US isn't at risk of losing as much as we (thought) we would with the Vietnam fight.
    - tim333 2y ago
      It wasn't just the bottom line, communism was also killing a lot of people and not very nice on the human rights front. It didn't spread with ease due to helpful investment, it spread at gun point due to their ease at killing people. Possibly coming to Taiwan soon. You can see how the capitalist profit extraction works by looking at the poverty in south Korea compared to the utopia up north.
      - protomolecule 2y ago
        >communism was also killing a lot of people and not very nice on the human rights front So the US decided to up their killings? "The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World is a 2020 political history book by American journalist and author Vincent Bevins. It concerns U.S. government support for and complicity in anti-communist mass killings around the world and their aggregate consequences from the Cold War until the present era. The title is a reference to Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, during which an estimated one million people were killed in an effort to destroy the political left and movements for government reform in the country. The book goes on to describe subsequent replications of the strategy of mass murder, against government reform and economic reform movements in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere. The killings in Indonesia by the American-backed Indonesian forces were so successful in culling the left and economic reform movements that the term "Jakarta" was later used to refer to the genocidal aspects of similar later plans implemented by other authoritarian capitalist regimes with the assistance of the United States."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method
        tim333 2y ago
        It does seem American anti communist folk killed a few people too. Though the scores seem to be about US 2 million, commies 90 million.
        protomolecule 2y ago
        >American anti communist folk killed a few people too There is something deeply wrong with talking like that about 2 million deaths. Anyway, if you lump up all the 'communist' regimes, you should do the same with capitalist regimes too. Bengali famine gives you up to 4 million deaths for a start.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
- ChumpGPT 2y ago
  You're equating the physical (Ukraine, Crimea) with what this war is about. Putins goal wasn't to take Ukraine, his goal was to show the world that Western law and rules mean nothing. That the West is weak and lacks resolve. That NATO is a failure along with the USA/EU belief in Global Law and Independent states. This is about destroying the principles of Democracy. That others should not look to America or the EU for salvation. He is creating a new world order with the help of China, Iran, and North Korea and succeeding. Look at the elections in the USA and EU. Parties that are sympathetic to Russia just like MAGA is sympathetic to Putin and Russia are gaining power. The West is on the cusp of a complete strategic defeat that will define the next century at a minimum.
  - quantified 2y ago
    Sounds like you assume that Putin would have only one goal. He's interested in BOTH the physical assets and the ability to take stuff from other countries.
    - ChumpGPT 2y ago
      The only reason he wants physical assets is to achieve his objective. Russia is one of the richest nations on earth in terms of natural resources, and Ukrainian land can't add much to that. It's only worth is to show the West that they can't stop him and destroy the belief in the USA/EU/NATO/Democracy. Ukraine was a zero threat to him, but the ideals of the West were his destruction.
      - talldayo 2y ago
        > but the ideals of the West were his destruction. If you earnestly believe that, then he succeeded with his "Little green men" back in 2014. I legitimately think you are being hyperbolic about the "death of democracy" et. al. because the Ukraine incident is not unprecedented. The only thing that's new is America rolling over to give a shit - Crimea already proved to the world that the United States is more interested in domestic security than foreign affairs, and Ukraine is just reconfirming what we already know. And look - while I personally want Ukraine to remain independent, you can't close your eyes to the realpolitik at play. America has virtually no reason to stand against Russia over Ukraine, besides to virtue signal the fact that they still consider Russia an adversary (which nobody really doubted anyways). Europe has a motivation to protect Ukraine to project their power and emphasize their defensive stance, but Ukraine also isn't part of NATO so not every nation is required to mobilize. Russia is the only power that can justify sending braindead-tier infantry waves into a meat grinder for the sake of recouping some USSR nostalgia. Nobody else cares enough, it's plain to see in the mobilizations. > It's only worth is to show the West that they can't stop him and destroy the belief in the USA/EU/NATO/Democracy. That's a very Western perspective. I think you're correct that this is what a lot of NATO members feel right now, but also NATO wasn't attacked. Russia has a lot of objectives in this war, and I feel confident that saying "sowing distrust among NATO members" wasn't the primary goal.

talldayo 2y ago

> they are fine with America's strategic defeat This is a silly statement, for all of MAGA and the modern right's pitiful shortcomings. Ukraine is profoundly low on the priority list of strategic American positions. Arguably even Crimea was more strategically important, and the US let that get annexed pretty comfortably when that happened. If Ukraine was seized it would set a terrible precedent for Europe - but the West doesn't have any strategic stakes there outside potential NATO candidates.

bdangubic 2y ago
this is very short-sighted… you think US strategically cared about Vietnam?! it doesn’t matter whether ukraine is on the US strategic priority list - it matters what ukraine represents. if US is cool with russia invading european sovereign states - fantastic. surely putin being a fair and cool guy and all will stop there, right?
- farting 2y ago
  I'm not exactly a scholar on the Vietnam war, but I don't think it was about what Vietnam "represented". Communism had already been spreading with incredible ease, helped by the USSR's investments, and we were afraid of it spreading more, as it's a detriment to capitalism's global profit extraction scheme. There was a very real and very big risk to our bottom line with the whole communism fight. If Ukraine falls, Russia gets a whole bunch of agriculture exports, but other than that what do we lose? Sure it sets a bad precedent for global tensions and all, but the US isn't at risk of losing as much as we (thought) we would with the Vietnam fight.
  - tim333 2y ago
    It wasn't just the bottom line, communism was also killing a lot of people and not very nice on the human rights front. It didn't spread with ease due to helpful investment, it spread at gun point due to their ease at killing people. Possibly coming to Taiwan soon. You can see how the capitalist profit extraction works by looking at the poverty in south Korea compared to the utopia up north.
    - protomolecule 2y ago
      >communism was also killing a lot of people and not very nice on the human rights front So the US decided to up their killings? "The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World is a 2020 political history book by American journalist and author Vincent Bevins. It concerns U.S. government support for and complicity in anti-communist mass killings around the world and their aggregate consequences from the Cold War until the present era. The title is a reference to Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, during which an estimated one million people were killed in an effort to destroy the political left and movements for government reform in the country. The book goes on to describe subsequent replications of the strategy of mass murder, against government reform and economic reform movements in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere. The killings in Indonesia by the American-backed Indonesian forces were so successful in culling the left and economic reform movements that the term "Jakarta" was later used to refer to the genocidal aspects of similar later plans implemented by other authoritarian capitalist regimes with the assistance of the United States."[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jakarta_Method
      - tim333 2y ago
        It does seem American anti communist folk killed a few people too. Though the scores seem to be about US 2 million, commies 90 million.
        protomolecule 2y ago
        >American anti communist folk killed a few people too There is something deeply wrong with talking like that about 2 million deaths. Anyway, if you lump up all the 'communist' regimes, you should do the same with capitalist regimes too. Bengali famine gives you up to 4 million deaths for a start.[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
ChumpGPT 2y ago
You're equating the physical (Ukraine, Crimea) with what this war is about. Putins goal wasn't to take Ukraine, his goal was to show the world that Western law and rules mean nothing. That the West is weak and lacks resolve. That NATO is a failure along with the USA/EU belief in Global Law and Independent states. This is about destroying the principles of Democracy. That others should not look to America or the EU for salvation. He is creating a new world order with the help of China, Iran, and North Korea and succeeding. Look at the elections in the USA and EU. Parties that are sympathetic to Russia just like MAGA is sympathetic to Putin and Russia are gaining power. The West is on the cusp of a complete strategic defeat that will define the next century at a minimum.
- quantified 2y ago
  Sounds like you assume that Putin would have only one goal. He's interested in BOTH the physical assets and the ability to take stuff from other countries.
  - ChumpGPT 2y ago
    The only reason he wants physical assets is to achieve his objective. Russia is one of the richest nations on earth in terms of natural resources, and Ukrainian land can't add much to that. It's only worth is to show the West that they can't stop him and destroy the belief in the USA/EU/NATO/Democracy. Ukraine was a zero threat to him, but the ideals of the West were his destruction.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      > but the ideals of the West were his destruction. If you earnestly believe that, then he succeeded with his "Little green men" back in 2014. I legitimately think you are being hyperbolic about the "death of democracy" et. al. because the Ukraine incident is not unprecedented. The only thing that's new is America rolling over to give a shit - Crimea already proved to the world that the United States is more interested in domestic security than foreign affairs, and Ukraine is just reconfirming what we already know. And look - while I personally want Ukraine to remain independent, you can't close your eyes to the realpolitik at play. America has virtually no reason to stand against Russia over Ukraine, besides to virtue signal the fact that they still consider Russia an adversary (which nobody really doubted anyways). Europe has a motivation to protect Ukraine to project their power and emphasize their defensive stance, but Ukraine also isn't part of NATO so not every nation is required to mobilize. Russia is the only power that can justify sending braindead-tier infantry waves into a meat grinder for the sake of recouping some USSR nostalgia. Nobody else cares enough, it's plain to see in the mobilizations. > It's only worth is to show the West that they can't stop him and destroy the belief in the USA/EU/NATO/Democracy. That's a very Western perspective. I think you're correct that this is what a lot of NATO members feel right now, but also NATO wasn't attacked. Russia has a lot of objectives in this war, and I feel confident that saying "sowing distrust among NATO members" wasn't the primary goal.