Britain is a nuclear power though. Trying to proxy war with Britain might result in them responding with nukes.
Funny you should say that. A lot of us have been making exactly the same argument to pro-USA people about America's proxy war against Russia.
And fwiw, it is only a figleaf of a proxy by this point. If America provides a missile system to a Ukranian, provides live co-ordinates to the Ukranian for where to point it over the radio derived from US satellites over the warzone, tells the Ukranian which button to press and when the role of the Ukranian is, what exactly? To drive the truck with the missile system on it into roughly the right area. To any objective person, nearly all the important parts are materials and actions by the USA against Russia.
Russia was fueling & supplying a civil war.
Again, funny to hear such an argument when many have been saying the same to the USA for years in a variety of countries. Funny even more so when the Ukranian civil war kicked off with a US-backed coup. I can see Agenda Poster has been getting it in the neck from several here but Agenda Poster last time I debated with him made an argument of self-interest. It's actually much easier to poke holes in the arguments of those seeking
moral justifications for their side. Well, certainly when that side is the USA. Remove the plank from your own eye and all that.
Now if you'd typed that ALL IN CAPS I might have thought Death had joined the discussion.
Agree, btw. (So long as you're not talking about the musical!)
Yeah I'm sure Putin was well aware of what Ukraine's promises were worth-nothing. Good thing Merkel confirmed it recently.
I think Russia acted in such a way as to guard against it being a lie. And in any case, it collapsed rapidly so it made no practical difference. But I think they hoped it was made in good intent. After all, it might be in the US neocons interests for them to collapse but for European people it's a bad thing. Putin has more than once made a critical mistake in thinking that European leaders will put European people's interests first. Which on the whole they haven't. Germany is in a bad way already and this becomes a WWIII scenario then Germany is the battleground. Putin's timing of the invasion to me suggests strongly that he was relying on the obvious harm that would be done to European industry and economy if they took a hard stance against it. I think he hoped that would be enough to dissuade strong sanctions. Maybe over time he might have proved right if the pipeline hadn't been destroyed severely damaging negotiating positions. But in any case, European leaders have proven very willing so far to cut off their nose to spite their face.
Plus you have things like his conversation with Macron where he repeatedly wanted the leaders of Donetsky and Luhansk to be the representatives and must have thought Macron had lost his mind when he insisted on negotiating with Russia only. That to me suggests naivety about European's sincerity with the Minks agreements.
Frankly, Merkel publicly saying such a thing is extremely damaging to future negotiations and European reputation. To the point that we have only three explanations that I can see. (i) She doesn't care and is just trying to please a particular audience by presenting herself as some shrewd war strategist. (ii) She is actively trying to make peace negotiations harder for her successor to prevent reconciliation. I could actually see this one given that there is a sizeable political faction in the country who would be in favour of that. The last thing Merkel would want would be the AfD to swoop in and declared they''d brokered peace agreements. Can you imagine?
This conflict is going to wrap up sooner, rather than later; it only becomes a protracted slog if another country provides fresh meat soldiers for the meatgrinder.
Frankly I don't at all share your optimism. For a start, Poland seems willing to provide soldiers. And the US could well think they'll follow the same strategy as in Syria where they began with funding terrorists rebels and then with salami tactics seemed to invisibly end up with US boots on the ground literally escorting barrels of Syria's oil out of the country. I mean, see my opening comments - the US already has boots on the ground. We're currently just in the situation of Russia pretending not to notice.
War is a genie that is very hard to put back in the bottle. Especially when those who stand to gain don't also stand to lose. It takes generations for feuds to die. Every person killed in this war so far, is a reason for somebody close to them to hate the opposing side. Parents for the previous generation, brothers and sisters for the current, sons and nephews and daughters for the next. Grandsons and grandaughters for the next. From one person killed on the battlefield. Has the war on family in America been so successful that they have forgotten how much blood ties mean in the rest of the world? The only question is where they direct their grief and anger. And as we can see from the Ukranian approach to educating children, the powers that be have gotten very good at directing anger to their own ends.
But how is that an excuse for escalation? I mean, giving up some territory is a small price to pay, and clearly there won't be any further encroachment or Special Services blackops fuckery.
None of this is excuse for escalating a proxy conflict with three other nuclear states. Putin is just reckless and wants nuclear war.
I'll give you a reason for giving up the territory. Perhaps the reason that matters most: The people who live there want it that way. They've participated in Ukraine democratically for a long time, and when they no longer found themselves represented in that democracy (a coup overthrowing the elected leader they supported, a current president who campaigned on a platform of peace and ending the war with them suddenly doing a complete about face, opposition parties banned), they said we want no part of this, we want to govern ourselves. There's a reason for 'territory being given up'. A country is an abstraction. Especially one created in recent memory by a dictator drawing lines on a map. It's about as solid a claim as Argentina's to the Falkland Islands because Phillip of Spain one day drew a big circle on a bad map half-way around the world. The people there want their independence. To me that's one of the best reasons for it. And no, the Western Ukranians don't have some ancestral claim to it that predates it.
Why debate low IQ mongrels
Same reason I do - so that others aren't sucked into it. Ignorant people are the weapons of Evil people. If you don't point out the obvious lies to them, a good portion will believe it.
