richardag said:
Jayhawk said:
That is why the Baltic states should never have been allowed in NATO in the first place. Avoiding foreign entanglements remains sage advice today as it was when George Washington originally gave it as the basis of American foreign policy.
Since we abandoned our identity as a mercantile republic with fixed borders to become a global empire, has our liberty at home been enhanced or depleted by the national security aparatus and military industrial complex that must accompany such a project?
Has the prosperity of ordinary Americans been enhanced by this project or harmed?
You want to risk a war of annhilation over lands that have been ruled by the Tsars or the Soviets since before the founding of our republic? Do we even have a republic? Or are we just a bank and armed military force held in common by the rest of the world?
That all held true until one defining moment. Hiroshima
I'm not sure I follow.
We've heard eloquent statements of principles and abstract ideas about standing up to mere bullies. But the inescapable question you have to answer brass tax is: are you willing to risk a nuclear war over the Ukraine?
The answer of "well Putin is just bluffing, he'd back down" , is no answer at all. Even dumber then risking a full war with Russia would be taking action assuming Russia is just bluffing and will back down.
Putin is many things, but he is not stupid. So, any bluf on our own part will likely be detected. In fact, I suspect he would think we were bluffing even if we were not.. which adds to the danger level. But if we mean to halt Russian progress in Ukraine, we need be all in and fully committed.
Let's think about what we're talking about then. You want to make a strong show of force that preserves Ukrainian independence, this will require willingness to engage in large scale high intensity ground, air, naval, and possibly nuclear combat with the Russian armed force in their backyard. This is not a matter of merely deploying the 82nd and the 173rd and the enemy backs down in fear. We have not fought an adversary as numerous and formidable as the Russian armed forces since the Second World War. Our regular units already there, e.g. the 82nd, would suffer high casualties.
This would likely require some form of conscription or a return of the draft, as the numbers of troops necessary to fight the entire Russian army would exceed what we have available in our all volunteer armed forces, particularly assuming we will have enduring commitments in the Pacific to ensure, hopefully, that China does not use the opportunity of a war between the United States and Russia to undertake any adventures of their own.
Even if the conflict stays purely conventional, you are looking at tens of thousands of U.S. casualties. Then, once we have expelled them from the borders of Ukraine as it stands tonight, do we then go into Crimea as well? Where does it stop? Do we retake the Donbas for the Ukraine and engage in counter-insurgency there in additioin to the high intensity fight with the Russian armed forces? Do you imagine that the Russians will stop fighting once we push them back east of the Ukrainian borders? Do we march on Moscow a la Napoleon in hopes of toppling the Russian regime? What do we do with Belarus?
Do you see how nasty this gets? Are you willing to risk this over the Ukraine?
