Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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Mr Jack said:
Obama sent troops to Libya (twice), Uganda, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. It's up to you to what extent these count these as "starting a conflict", and there's also the US military involvement in the Persian Gulf initiated by Trump to consider.

I don't think I even knew about the action in Uganda until I looked that up.
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Didn't know about Uganda myself - that's my point though - Obama didn't start any of these conflicts - Iraq and Afghanistan were in full flow started by Bush and Libya, Syria and Yemen weren't started by the USA either (no idea about Uganda!)
 
chrismscotland said:
Didn't know about Uganda myself - that's my point though - Obama didn't start any of these conflicts - Iraq and Afghanistan were in full flow started by Bush and Libya, Syria and Yemen weren't started by the USA either (no idea about Uganda!)
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But if you don't count these then @Scania's claim that not starting a conflict is unusual for a US President is also untrue. The majority of US military actions have involved supporting one of the parties in an existing conflict.
 
Mr Jack said:
But if you don't count these then @Scania's claim that not starting a conflict is unusual for a US President is also untrue. The majority of US military actions have involved supporting one of the parties in an existing conflict.
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100% - I can barely think of anything outside of Gulf War "2", Afghanistan & probably Grenada that's physically been initiated by the USA (and by extension the UK) - most conflicts have been interventions in wars that already started like Bosnia, Kosovo, Syria, Libya.
That said the Special Operations Division of the CIA probably have a lot to answer for in certain South American nations where they seemed to get away with doing what they wanted for large parts of the latter part of the Cold War
 
DrToffnar said:
Ahh apologies, it does seem to be a new development.

I meant that Ukraine seems completely unwilling to settle for anything less today then it did a month ago with regards negotiations. I don't think any nudging from the West is going to make a difference there.
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Not willing to settle and will ask for billions in reparations that they are owed to rebuild infrastructure and the cities.
 
DrToffnar said:
I meant that Ukraine seems completely unwilling to settle for anything less today then it did a month ago with regards negotiations. I don't think any nudging from the West is going to make a difference there.
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Ah yeah I'm not too sure myself, I can certainly see them being very miffed and also the popularity of Zelensky means it could be a hard sell for any Western politicians to push them to accept the loss of territory but I also think it could be rather tricky for them to say take back Crimea at this point or indeed parts of Donbas, it's one thing to defend against an invader but trying to push Russia out of some of the occupied areas close to the border or places like Crimea could be very hard.

I guess if there is a total collapse of morale or even more ridiculous losses or if Putin dies/is replaced etc.. it could be plausible.

It could also turn into a kinda stalemate situation with a ceasefire agreed to but the territories still disputed, but some countries might want to dangle things like EU membership as an incentive to resolve it etc..

I guess we'll have to see, obviously, I do hope that they are able to get back all of their territory or reach a deal where there is a proper referendum in Crimea and the two separatist areas (of the original residents not recently moved there Russian citizens etc..).
 
Scania said:
Care to elaborate as to why?

As I say, Trump imo was not a great President but, he didn’t start any conflicts - unusually for a U.S. President - and certainly seemed to have his adversaries scratching their heads as to handle him, most seemingly erring on a cautious approach.
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Well when it comes to not 'starting conflicts', as you put it, then to that list of recent Presidents that didn't start conflicts you would have to add:
  • Barack Obama
  • Bill Clinton
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Jimmy Carter
  • Gerald Ford
  • Richard Nixon
  • John F Kennedy
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower
Non have officially brought the U.S. into a new war since 1945.

As to whether Putin would have still invaded if Trump had a 2nd term; I see it two ways.
There is a chance that Putin would not have invaded purely because Trump would have so weakened NATO, also probably tried to withdraw U.S. membership that NATO would no longer appear such a threat to Putin and that he wouldn't have felt the need to invade. That, added to Trump's love affair with Putin and attempts to get Russia back into the G7 etc. might have calmed Putin's probable paranoia with the anti-Russian sentiment from the West.

The other notion is that with NATO so weakened Putin would have felt even more emboldened and with even less chance of negative fall out or push back from NATO leaders and gone onto to finish the job he started back in 2014, with him at least annexing the whole Eastern part of Ukraine with it's majority ethnic Russian and Russian speaking population.

Thankfully as Trump, the wannabe autocrat himself, (you're no fan of democracy if you try to steal an election) didn't get a 2nd term we will never know.
 
MartinPrince said:
There is a chance that Putin would not have invaded purely because Trump would have so weakened NATO, also probably tried to withdraw U.S. membership that they would NATO no longer appeared such a threat to Putin and that he wouldn't have felt the need to invade. That added to Trump's love affair with Putin and attempts to get Russia back into the G7 etc. might have calmed Putin's probable paranoia with the anti-Russian sentiment from the West.
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This is just buying straight into Russian propaganda, within Russia they're selling the narrative that this is about fighting genocide and denazification, outside of Russia they're selling the narrative that this is about feeling threatened by NATO and people are still suckers for it.

It's straight-up imperialist expansion, Putin knows full well NATO isn't trying to invade Russia, he's worried about spheres of influence and Russia maintaining an image as a great power, this is a legacy thing for him not something born out of fear of a defensive alliance.

Pre-2014 there were hardly any NATO troops in the Balkans for example, all his invasion did then is cause NATO to actually deploy battle groups there, all this further invasion has done is cause even more NATO troops to be deployed eastwards.

And what kicked off things in 2014, the overthrow of a pro-Russian leader and a new government that was pro-liberal democracy and keen on integrating with the rest of Europe.

Zelensky has said indicated multiple times that he's prepared to take NATO off the table in return for security guarantees, if this were about feeling threatened by NATO then Russia could have stopped this weeks ago, in fact, they could have perhaps sat down to meet with him and had something like that fleshed out already. The fact they were occupying territory Ukrainian territory blocked NATO membership anyway.
 
MartinPrince said:
Well when it comes to not 'starting conflicts', as you put it, then to that list of recent Presidents that didn't start conflicts you would have to add:
  • Barack Obama
  • Bill Clinton
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Jimmy Carter
  • Gerald Ford
  • Richard Nixon
  • John F Kennedy
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower
Non have officially brought the U.S. into a new war since 1945.

As to whether Putin would have still invaded if Trump had a 2nd term; I see it two ways.
There is a chance that Putin would not have invaded purely because Trump would have so weakened NATO, also probably tried to withdraw U.S. membership that NATO would no longer appear such a threat to Putin and that he wouldn't have felt the need to invade. That, added to Trump's love affair with Putin and attempts to get Russia back into the G7 etc. might have calmed Putin's probable paranoia with the anti-Russian sentiment from the West.

The other notion is that with NATO so weakened Putin would have felt even more emboldened and with even less chance of negative fall out or push back from NATO leaders and gone onto to finish the job he started back in 2014, with him at least annexing the whole Eastern part of Ukraine with it's majority ethnic Russian and Russian speaking population.

Thankfully as Trump, the wannabe autocrat himself, (you're no fan of democracy if you try to steal an election) didn't get a 2nd term we will never know.
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Wait, you actually belive Putin's claim that he is doing this because of NATO?

Have you considered that Putin may be a power-hungry dictator trying to expand Russia back to where it was before the USSR collapsed? (And "NATO is going to invade Russia, so I have to invade my neighbors." Is just an excuse)
 
Scania said:
Care to elaborate as to why?

As I say, Trump imo was not a great President but, he didn’t start any conflicts - unusually for a U.S. President - and certainly seemed to have his adversaries scratching their heads as to handle him, most seemingly erring on a cautious approach.
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Well correlation does not equal causation for a start.

Furthermore, i would argue that he was such a clown, countries didn't need to use force to further their geopolitical aims. They could just use his naivety to get what they want. Look at N Korea for example!

Also what you have said isn't even true, as there was the whole Iran attack/tensions thing.
 
dowie said:
This is just buying straight into Russian propaganda, within Russia they're selling the narrative that this is about fighting genocide and denazification, outside of Russia they're selling the narrative that this is about feeling threatened by NATO and people are still suckers for it.

It's straight-up imperialist expansion, Putin knows full well NATO isn't trying to invade Russia, he's worried about spheres of influence and Russia maintaining an image as a great power, this is a legacy thing for him not something born out of fear of a defensive alliance.

Pre-2014 there were hardly any NATO troops in the Balkans for example, all his invasion did then is cause NATO to actually deploy battle groups there, all this further invasion has done is cause even more NATO troops to be deployed eastwards.

And what kicked off things in 2014, the overthrow of a pro-Russian leader and a new government that was pro-liberal democracy and keen on integrating with the rest of Europe.

Zelensky has said indicated multiple times that he's prepared to take NATO off the table in return for security guarantees, if this were about feeling threatened by NATO then Russia could have stopped this weeks ago, in fact, they could have perhaps sat down to meet with him and had something like that fleshed out already. The fact they were occupying territory Ukrainian territory blocked NATO membership anyway.
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From my nearly 20 years of closely associating with Russians and Slavs in general I would definitely agree there is a high probability of this being the driving force.

You can also see Russia's willingness to get involved in Syria through the same prism.
 
Twinz said:
Wait, you actually belive Putin's claim that he is doing this because of NATO?

Have you considered that Putin may be a power-hungry dictator trying to expand Russia back to where it was before the USSR collapsed? (And "NATO is going to invade Russia, so I have to invade my neighbors." Is just an excuse)
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No, but it definitely has been a bee in his bonnet for most of his leadership, even though ex head of NATO, George Robertson said that Putin asked about joining way back at the turn of the century.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

This is also worth a listen:
Does Putin’s view of history explain why he invaded Ukraine?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1z3f

If Putin was really serious about joining NATO back then then his attitudes changed not long after if you see the speeches and comments he made about NATO leading up to and around the time the brief war with Georgia back in 2008.

Incidentally, George Robertson in that Inquiry episode does say in hindsight it was a mistake to be offering Georgia and Ukraine membership back around that time.
 
MartinPrince said:
No, but it definitely has been a bee in his bonnet for most of his leadership, even though ex head of NATO, George Robertson said that Putin asked about joining way back at the turn of the century.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

This is also worth a listen:
Does Putin’s view of history explain why he invaded Ukraine?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1z3f

If Putin was really serious about joining NATO back then then his attitudes changed not long after if you see the speeches and comments he made about NATO leading up to and around the time the brief war with Georgia back in 2008.

Incidentally, George Robertson in that Inquiry episode does say in hindsight it was a mistake to be offering Georgia and Ukraine membership back around that time.
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If Putin joined Nato and then decided to invade Ukraine, how would it change anything?

Maybe Nato Russia could have blocked ukraine from joining Nato themselves.
 
MartinPrince said:
No, but it definitely has been a bee in his bonnet for most of his leadership, even though ex head of NATO, George Robertson said that Putin asked about joining way back at the turn of the century.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

This is also worth a listen:
Does Putin’s view of history explain why he invaded Ukraine?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1z3f

If Putin was really serious about joining NATO back then then his attitudes changed not long after if you see the speeches and comments he made about NATO leading up to and around the time the brief war with Georgia back in 2008.

Incidentally, George Robertson in that Inquiry episode does say in hindsight it was a mistake to be offering Georgia and Ukraine membership back around that time.
Click to expand...

Putin is simply terminally jealous and upset that liberal western democracy has won the political and cultural influence battle and that loads of the ex Soviet countries are now siding with western Europe and the US.

Russia lost the cultural battle so are having to use force to gain influence and power.

All this talk about being scared of NATO and thei expansion is total rubbish. He knows NATO would never attack or invade Russia unless provoked/he started it.
 
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