What Happened in the Ukraine?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
201

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:
So getting back to Russia: why do we have to look tough? Why do political questions end up revolving around appearances and concepts like losing face? These discussions always end up using wild west terminology. It ends up being about how we look at the end of the day vs resolving the issue or maybe, better still, letting them settle their differences by themselves. [/quote]

If our goal is stop violence from occurring do you think we have a better chance of achieving said goal if we look weak or if we look tough?

[/quote]
If we ARE smart.

202

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

Push, that has been my thought while catching up on this thread. We’ve tried isolationism before. [/quote]

So we must do everything in our power to intervene in all situations because we don’t want to be isolationists?

I’m not arguing that we don’t need to take action at times. A huge difference exists between never doing anything militarily and ALWAYS doing something militarily. How do we know that our actions would make a situation better? If we are using history as our guide many times when a country “does something” things get made even worse.

203

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:
So getting back to Russia: why do we have to look tough? Why do political questions end up revolving around appearances and concepts like losing face? These discussions always end up using wild west terminology. It ends up being about how we look at the end of the day vs resolving the issue or maybe, better still, letting them settle their differences by themselves. [/quote]

If our goal is stop violence from occurring do you think we have a better chance of achieving said goal if we look weak or if we look tough?

[/quote]

Are we looking weak by not doing anything about the countless atrocities that take place in Africa every single day? If we waited to invade Iraq until we had proof of WMD’s would that have been looking weak and hurt us?

We have the ability to stop violence from occurring all over the globe if we choose. How is using the reason to know when to do something and when not to do something looking weak? If you don’t beat the fuck out of a smaller man at a bar do you look weak all the sudden if he is not worth your time? If your threats and moves may escalate a situation is looking weak bad?

I honestly do not understand the mindset behind “we look weak.” I think often when someone doesn’t invade it’s not because they look weak but because they look rational.

No country is stupid enough to think we aren’t the biggest military badasses on the planet. That is obvious by our known capabilities. Not “doing something” doesn’t change that fact. We have spent more on military than everyone else for a long time now. We aren’t in danger of looking like we can’t do shit.

204

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

Push, that has been my thought while catching up on this thread. We’ve tried isolationism before. [/quote]

So we must do everything in our power to intervene in all situations because we don’t want to be isolationists?

I’m not arguing that we don’t need to take action at times. A huge difference exists between never doing anything militarily and ALWAYS doing something militarily. How do we know that our actions would make a situation better? If we are using history as our guide many times when a country “does something” things get made even worse. [/quote]

No I didn’t say that. I said it was the “thought” I had while reading the thread and history tells us isolationism does not ultimately keep us out of conflict.

I’m am not saying, in this instance, we need to get involved and I’m not saying there is always a need to get involved militarily.

On the flip side I think it would be pretty foolish to pretend what happens on the other side of the planet has no influence/affect on us. (I’m not saying you are being foolish, I’m speaking in generalities).

205

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:
So getting back to Russia: why do we have to look tough? Why do political questions end up revolving around appearances and concepts like losing face? These discussions always end up using wild west terminology. It ends up being about how we look at the end of the day vs resolving the issue or maybe, better still, letting them settle their differences by themselves. [/quote]

If our goal is stop violence from occurring do you think we have a better chance of achieving said goal if we look weak or if we look tough?

[/quote]
If we ARE smart. [/quote]

Do you trust the U.S. government to be smart?

206

Hopefully it doesn’t turn into another Yugoslavia, as Jewbaca was hinting at. I think diplomacy will prevail because the Ukrainians seem like they don’t want to fight the russians and the russians are there to protect their interests and their people.

Mostly like a show of power saying the former gov is recognized and we still can come here and throw weight around unless you honour the previous gov. Looking like a sticky situation though with all the different nationalities there. Not a simple us vs them.

207

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
No I didn’t say that. I said it was the “thought” I had while reading the thread and history tells us isolationism does not ultimately keep us out of conflict.

I’m am not saying, in this instance, we need to get involved and I’m not saying there is always a need to get involved militarily.

On the flip side I think it would be pretty foolish to pretend what happens on the other side of the planet has no influence/affect on us. (I’m not saying you are being foolish, I’m speaking in generalities). [/quote]

Have we tried isolationism?

208

First off, let’s be clear. I didn’t say we need fly in guns blazing…

[quote]H factor wrote:
Are we looking weak by not doing anything about the countless atrocities that take place in Africa every single day? [/quote]
I think generally, yes we look weak when we sit back and allow genocide, for example, to happen.

I don’t know, I don’t have a crystal ball. It very possibly could have.

No, I think beating up on weaker people makes you yourself look weak.

If you stand by and let a bigger person beat up a weaker person, I think you look weak too.

Maybe/maybe not. Posturing, aka looking strong, can stop conflict before it starts.

If Mexico came out today and said, “Russia if you invade the Ukraine we will defend the Ukraine at all cost”. How long do you think Russia would laugh?

Now substitute America for Mexico. Does Russia laugh or do they take a step back and think about the consequences of their actions?

What is the difference?

Being strong is well a strong deterrent, but you have to look the part. It’s hard to bluff if you look weak.

[quote]
No country is stupid enough to think we aren’t the biggest military badasses on the planet. That is obvious by our known capabilities. Not “doing something” doesn’t change that fact. We have spent more on military than everyone else for a long time now. We aren’t in danger of looking like we can’t do shit. [/quote]

On the flip side, every country in the world also knows what shape out economy is in and how we just spent a decade fighting battles our “leaders” never let us win. What state is Iraq in now? Wasn’t Baghdad recently retaken by the Taliban (I think I read that somewhere)?

Further all it takes is China backing Russia and there goes our vast superiority.

209

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
No I didn’t say that. I said it was the “thought” I had while reading the thread and history tells us isolationism does not ultimately keep us out of conflict.

I’m am not saying, in this instance, we need to get involved and I’m not saying there is always a need to get involved militarily.

On the flip side I think it would be pretty foolish to pretend what happens on the other side of the planet has no influence/affect on us. (I’m not saying you are being foolish, I’m speaking in generalities). [/quote]

Have we tried isolationism? [/quote]

Pure 100% isolationism, no.

210

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Pure 100% isolationism, no. [/quote]

I’m not asking about economic isolationism, for what it’s worth. Have we tried anything even close to military isolationism?

211

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Pure 100% isolationism, no. [/quote]

I’m not asking about economic isolationism, for what it’s worth. Have we tried anything even close to military isolationism? [/quote]

I would say, prior to WWI, in general we were isolationists. Not to say there aren’t exceptions you could easily point to.

212

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Pure 100% isolationism, no. [/quote]

I’m not asking about economic isolationism, for what it’s worth. Have we tried anything even close to military isolationism? [/quote]

I would say, prior to WWI, in general we were isolationists. Not to say there aren’t exceptions you could easily point to. [/quote]

Did we have more or less conflict prior to WWI? How many years since WWI have we not been at war(Obviously we haven’t been in constant declared wars, but how many years have we not been involved in what would have been called a war throughout the rest of history?)? Now that we are technologically so far ahead of most of the world, how often would other countries try to invade us if we minded our own business?

213

[quote]smh_23 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
The existence of thermonuclear weapons alone makes the 30’s Germany parallel essentially useless. This on top of the other million things that make the situations incomparable.
[/quote]

Agree[/quote]

Disagree.[/quote]

You know who else often disagreed with people? Hitler.[/quote]

Hahaha. I’ve been waiting for a chance to use the good ol’ 70s show Kelso gif…

214

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
People can take it as they like, but I don’t consider this to be a win/lose us vs. them type of thing. He’s taking care of business in his neck of the woods the way that they do it in that neck of the woods. Cultural relativism if you will.

Future world leaders could learn a lot from Putin as far as when to step in and when to stay out. He showed great restraint and judgement in not turning the Ukrainian uprising into an absolute blood bath by letting it calm down before rolling in and great timing for when he stepped in on that debacle that was Syria.

It seems like these past few months make it really clear (to me) that a lot of American people get all caught up in emotion and want to jump in and save the world when what we really need to do is let the rest of world sort it self out and we try to save our own asses.

As a country we’re about as fit to jump into another war as Biggie Smalls is to run a marathon. (which is to say that we are a bullet ridden bloated corps with a bunch of fucked up priorities)

[/quote]

Well said.
[/quote]

I agree and it was Skyz’ post that prompted my previous one.

Then again, after I thought about it a bit history reminded me how much you, Skyz and I sound like Joe American Citizen Blow circa 1935. And that bothers me a little. Is there a reason why it shouldn’t?[/quote]

There probably aren’t any reasons why it shouldn’t at least a little…

[/quote]

I wonder how many others will answer my question.[/quote]

Push, that has been my thought while catching up on this thread. We’ve tried isolationism before. [/quote]

But this isn’t isolationism. This isn’t even close. This is a regional problem with a regional hegemon stepping in, well inside their sphere of influence. The inverse of isolationism isn’t “we must step into every damn problem that rears its head in International Relations”.

Isolationism is dead and gone with WW1 and 2, and if it hadn’t died then it would have been killed all over with globalization and nuclear power.

215

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]H factor wrote:
I think some people believe the US should always intervene and ironically some of those people say they are small government. [/quote]
And how many of them are willing to pick up a gun and go? [/quote]

Much easier to complain about Obama and how “weak” he is making us look from a keyboard than a uniform? [/quote]
That moron Ted Nugent suggested we nuke Iraq and Afghanistan, because he is a badass, but it turns out he is a draft dodger. But as long as he “looks” the part (shooting deer is apparently as badass as shooting people…who shoot back) he is looked to as being “strong” while a democrat (even one who went to Vietnam, like Gore) is seen as being weak. How a party full of draft dodgers managed to convince its followers they were the Dirty Dozen or Magnificent Seven is beyond me. [/quote]

Lol. Like the Dems don’t have a shitload of draft dodgers too. Jeez. Your partisanship is showing.

So, Russia. About the Ukraine thing yeah?[/quote]
Ahhhh, but you missed the point in a quest to be clever. It’s not the Dems who are trying to portray an image of being like John Wayne to the NASCAR crowd. [/quote]

They most certainly would if they had the NASCAR voting block.

Well, I agree with your larger point, but there’s a difference between looking tough ala looking to start a fight and ‘looking tough’ as in, to be taken seriously. Also the concept of ‘saving face’ is a human nature question, and as long as we have human nature we will have this concept. In addition it’s almost a culture in many Asian states (and I can think of 2 in particular where it is almost gospel).

216

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]NickViar wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Pure 100% isolationism, no. [/quote]

I’m not asking about economic isolationism, for what it’s worth. Have we tried anything even close to military isolationism? [/quote]

I would say, prior to WWI, in general we were isolationists. Not to say there aren’t exceptions you could easily point to. [/quote]

Did we have more or less conflict prior to WWI? How many years since WWI have we not been at war(Obviously we haven’t been in constant declared wars, but how many years have we not been involved in what would have been called a war throughout the rest of history?)? Now that we are technologically so far ahead of most of the world, how often would other countries try to invade us if we minded our own business?
[/quote]

That’s not exactly a simple question, especially how you worded it. I would say overall we had less conflict before WWI. Maybe not in # of conflicts, but in scale absolutely. Especially considering, in the scope of our discussion, the civil war doesn’t count. Does the Revolution count? I would say no. Does our expansion west and conflict with the Indian tribes count? You could argue either way I think. I would say yes.

The point is, for the most part, if it was outside our smaller sphere of influence we stayed out of it. That is no longer the case.

Would any single nation, today, try and invade us? Probably not. If we had sat back and let Europe and Asia decide WWII, do you think the victor would have given us a go? I bet they would of. Hell the Japanese just attacked to earlier.

217

[quote]H factor wrote:
If we are using history as our guide many times when a country “does something” things get made even worse. [/quote]

This is practically gospel and all you have to do is look at domestic policy (cough…ACA…cough). It is unreasonable to believe the same thing does not apply in military and FP arenas.

218

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
People can take it as they like, but I don’t consider this to be a win/lose us vs. them type of thing. He’s taking care of business in his neck of the woods the way that they do it in that neck of the woods. Cultural relativism if you will.

Future world leaders could learn a lot from Putin as far as when to step in and when to stay out. He showed great restraint and judgement in not turning the Ukrainian uprising into an absolute blood bath by letting it calm down before rolling in and great timing for when he stepped in on that debacle that was Syria.

It seems like these past few months make it really clear (to me) that a lot of American people get all caught up in emotion and want to jump in and save the world when what we really need to do is let the rest of world sort it self out and we try to save our own asses.

As a country we’re about as fit to jump into another war as Biggie Smalls is to run a marathon. (which is to say that we are a bullet ridden bloated corps with a bunch of fucked up priorities)

[/quote]

Well said.
[/quote]

I agree and it was Skyz’ post that prompted my previous one.

Then again, after I thought about it a bit history reminded me how much you, Skyz and I sound like Joe American Citizen Blow circa 1935. And that bothers me a little. Is there a reason why it shouldn’t?[/quote]

There probably aren’t any reasons why it shouldn’t at least a little…

[/quote]

I wonder how many others will answer my question.[/quote]

Push, that has been my thought while catching up on this thread. We’ve tried isolationism before. [/quote]

But this isn’t isolationism. This isn’t even close. This is a regional problem with a regional hegemon stepping in, well inside their sphere of influence. The inverse of isolationism isn’t “we must step into every damn problem that rears its head in International Relations”.

Isolationism is dead and gone with WW1 and 2, and if it hadn’t died then it would have been killed all over with globalization and nuclear power.[/quote]

Solid post Aragorn.

219

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]SkyzykS wrote:
People can take it as they like, but I don’t consider this to be a win/lose us vs. them type of thing. He’s taking care of business in his neck of the woods the way that they do it in that neck of the woods. Cultural relativism if you will.

Future world leaders could learn a lot from Putin as far as when to step in and when to stay out. He showed great restraint and judgement in not turning the Ukrainian uprising into an absolute blood bath by letting it calm down before rolling in and great timing for when he stepped in on that debacle that was Syria.

It seems like these past few months make it really clear (to me) that a lot of American people get all caught up in emotion and want to jump in and save the world when what we really need to do is let the rest of world sort it self out and we try to save our own asses.

As a country we’re about as fit to jump into another war as Biggie Smalls is to run a marathon. (which is to say that we are a bullet ridden bloated corps with a bunch of fucked up priorities)

[/quote]

Well said.
[/quote]

I agree and it was Skyz’ post that prompted my previous one.

Then again, after I thought about it a bit history reminded me how much you, Skyz and I sound like Joe American Citizen Blow circa 1935. And that bothers me a little. Is there a reason why it shouldn’t?[/quote]

There probably aren’t any reasons why it shouldn’t at least a little…

[/quote]

I wonder how many others will answer my question.[/quote]

Push, that has been my thought while catching up on this thread. We’ve tried isolationism before. [/quote]

But this isn’t isolationism. This isn’t even close. This is a regional problem with a regional hegemon stepping in, well inside their sphere of influence. The inverse of isolationism isn’t “we must step into every damn problem that rears its head in International Relations”.

Isolationism is dead and gone with WW1 and 2, and if it hadn’t died then it would have been killed all over with globalization and nuclear power.[/quote]

I agree, like I said, it was just a thought. The basic thought being, will this be the first domino to fall leading to WWIII.

I’m not trying to turn this into a comparison debate, but when Germany began invading neighboring countries wasn’t that just a “regional hegemon stepping in, well inside their sphere of influence.”?

220

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

I don’t know, I don’t have a crystal ball. It very possibly could have.

On the flip side, every country in the world also knows what shape out economy is in and how we just spent a decade fighting battles our “leaders” never let us win. What state is Iraq in now? Wasn’t Baghdad recently retaken by the Taliban (I think I read that somewhere)?

Further all it takes is China backing Russia and there goes our vast superiority.
[/quote]

So we didn’t wait on Iraq and it very well could have hurt us (would be hard to argue how, but ok) and yet our actions of rushing into a situation where we weren’t needed and weren’t prepared have been lots of dead Iraqi civilians, lots of dead American soldiers, and lots of dollars spent.

And the end result? Maybe not much different.

Seems like a pretty good modern argument for restraint.

I believe looking “weak” in that regard is far superior to what we actually did.