Should the US (and NATO) Arm Ukraine?

[OptimusPrime]

Irrelevant. Extremely unlikely that this option is in Putin & co's playbook. Moreover, if Putin & co. decided to do so, it would be waging war on more than just Ukraine. Countries around Ukraine are not going to idly stand by.

That's exactly what they are doing and going to do.

Irrelevant, again. The area under armed conflict is not Crimea. So moot point. You really need to look at a map. Please do so. Educate yourself.

The annexation of Crimea is what started the whole mess.

Some truth here. Some lack of understanding. Some blatantly made up bullshit. Yes, a large number of Ukrainians are refusing their conscription orders. As for lack of understanding--the reason for not wanting to fight isn't due to not wanting to fight and die for people that do not want to be there. Rather it is due to a sense of fatalism. They don't see winning as being tenable, the risk of dying is credible, and nobody seeming to care is disheartening. If Ukraine were properly armed and could repel the rebels properly, the issue with conscription would likely vanish. As for people rather wanting to fight against Kiev than Moscow, you are just making shit up in an attempt to support your stance. That you would even make such a statement proves either you know nothing about Ukrainian society or you are just willing to lie to "prove" a point.

I've talked to native Ukranians about what is going on. Maybe their views are the minority. I don't know or care. But when people openly defy their government's conscription, that doesn't bode well for that government. Again, as in most of my points, these are my general thoughts about the whole debacle over there. The only policy I subscribe to is stay the fuck out of someone else's war.

You are treating Europe as a unified whole. It isn't. Many voices exists on the subject. (I don't believe that you really believe it, but are just throwing it out there as a way (albeit, lame way) to justify your argument. People here are going to call you on it, so why even bother with such a claim. Begin by examining Lithuania's stance on the matter.

By Europe I mean the European Union. Germany, France, etc. They have told Obama repeatedly not to arm Ukraine. No one gives a fuck what Lithuania's stance is on the matter.

And by meddling, what do you mean? Sanctions? Arming Ukraine (and what does that entail). The U.S. is already providing military support, but not arms. As pointed out in the article linked to in the OP: "As a statement from the American embassy in Kiev noted, the United States has already pledged nearly $240 million in military support in 2014-15, with further military training programs due next month. The United States has been backing Ukraine’s forces for months. This talking point already exists. This claim is already firmly entrenched in the Kremlin’s playbook."

Arming Ukraine is what they have publicly opposed, for the reason that war with Russia will just ruin everyone involved. So it would follow that any of our actions which have led to and would escalate this war would also be condemned.

Immediate & direct threat? Perhaps not. But, it is foolish to think that Russia's aggression in the region will not have far reaching and latent consequences. At this point, it is a matter of calculation and deciding if potential consequences constitute a reason to ramp up military support. I am not saying that it is, but I certainly am not willing to state that what Russia is doing in Ukraine will not have any impact on the U.S. or its relations in the region.

If you are going to make an argument for why the U.S. should not get involved, check out your facts first and use them honestly. Making shit up doesn't make them true; moreover, it undermines your credibility to speak on the subject matter.

If you stance is the U.S. should not intervene because you don't feel it is an immediate threat, just stick with that as your point of reasoning. Right or wrong, at least it isn't made up.

That is always my stance on wars abroad that have nothing to do with us.

 

[OptimusPrime]

Among Cold War presidents, from Truman to Bush I, there was an unwritten rule: Do not challenge Moscow in its Central and Eastern Europe sphere of influence.
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their barracks.

We saw the Elbe as Moscow’s red line, and they saw it as ours.

While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.

That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.

For President Obama is being goaded by Congress and the liberal interventionists in his party to send lethal weaponry to Kiev in its civil war with pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk.

America has never had a vital interest in Crimea or the Donbass worth risking a military clash with Russia. And we do not have the military ability to intervene and drive out the Russian army, unless we are prepared for a larger war and the potential devastation of the Ukraine.

What would Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon or Reagan think of an American president willing to risk military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia over two provinces in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow had ruled from the time of Catherine the Great?

What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy and a disaster. And we are in part responsible, having egged on the Maidan coup that overthrew the elected pro-Russian government.

But a greater disaster looms if we get ourselves embroiled in Ukraine’s civil war. We would face, first, the near certainty of defeat for our allies, if not ourselves. Second, we would push Moscow further outside Europe and the West, leaving her with no alternative but to deepen ties to a rising China.

http://buchanan.org/blog/u-s-russia-clash-in-ukraine-15550

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

In the event diplomacy fails at the Minsk peace talks, should the US begin to arm Ukraine against the Russian-backed rebels (and thousands of Russian regulars) with high-tech defensive weapons?*

I'd say yes. Even though Ukraine isn't a member of NATO, there are some extremely nervous members of NATO on their border, and there is a lack of faith in U.S. resolve. Arming Ukraine sends a message of reassurance to those allies because it demonstrates that we are not intimidated by the Russians. And, regardless of whether or not Ukraine is a member of NATO, what Russia is going there is still illegal under international law. We don't need a formal alliance to be in the right.

And of course, it sends the same message to the Russians. If we were to offer nothing more than words, Putin may well think that the U.S. is so afraid of involvement in that region that he might also be able to get away with pressuring/gobbling up part (or all of) Estonia or something. After all, while Ukraine is a large, and attempts to bully it will necessarily take time during which the international community can react, Estonia is barely a speed bump. And if Putin decided to rill in there overnight, and present up with a fait d'accompli, how would we respond?

I don't want him to have any question that we're not afraid to defend our allies, and I think showing strength now makes more direct conflicts down the road much less likely.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

By Europe I mean the European Union. Germany, France, etc. They have told Obama repeatedly not to arm Ukraine.

That's because they're sucking the dick of Russian fossil fuels. They're both willing to sell anyone else down the river as necessary to keep their place at the teat warm.

No one gives a fuck what Lithuania's stance is on the matter.

Then France, Germany, and all the other members of NATO should never have admitted them as a member. But we did. Rightfully so, in my opinion, but that doesn't matter since we did admit them.

That is always my stance on wars abroad that have nothing to do with us.

I'm always reminded of the Korean War when people make statements like this. South Korea is a prosperous, generally happy place of over 50 million human beings. If not for that nasty western imperialism so many bitch about, those people would be living in squalid, subhuman starvation conditions. 50 million of them.

Now, those lives may be meaningless to you, but there are a lot of other people who see a virtue in us helping to prevent a true evil. And acquiring as a true friend another strong nation.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

NATO means absolutely zero to me. They can go fuck themselves. And sure the Soviet Union was a threat, but you notice we never went to war with them.

Perhaps the reason we never went to war was them was because we put together a group of allies (that's the NATO you disparaged), armed those who they did choose to fight, and repeatedly demonstrated that we had the resolve to resist their aggression.

They looked at that, and decided "no thanks".

But in a world with no NATO, no U.S. troops providing a tripwire in western Europe or supporting allies, and no support for those resisting Communist/Soviet aggression?

I think it would be a much different, poorer, and more dangerous world.

 

[OptimusPrime]

I'm always reminded of the Korean War when people make statements like this. South Korea is a prosperous, generally happy place of over 50 million human beings. If not for that nasty western imperialism so many bitch about, those people would be living in squalid, subhuman starvation conditions. 50 million of them.

Now, those lives may be meaningless to you, but there are a lot of other people who see a virtue in us helping to prevent a true evil. And acquiring as a true friend another strong nation.

If not for the Korean War, communism would have collapsed in all of Korea like it has everywhere else in the world and both sides would be free by now. Instead we created a permanent enemy in North Korea that is kept alive by all of the other enemies we have created over the years.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

If not for the Korean War, communism would have collapsed in all of Korea like it has everywhere else in the world...

Again, you're arguing that we should not have done all the same things we did, but you're assuming that communism would have collapsed the same anyway. Had the Communists not been required to spend so much of their money weapons of war, that economic system might have been able to survive a good deal longer. Certainly, the argument that it would have collapsed even faster if resisted less makes absolutely no sense at all.

Instead we created a permanent enemy in North Korea that is kept alive by all of the other enemies we have created over the years.

North Korea was being "kept alive" by the Soviet Union and China before that war, and there is no reason to assume they wouldn't have done the same for a united Korea after the war had the North succeeded in 1950. And even if that was true, there still would have been the horrible human cost of those tens of millions of South Koreans suffering during the decades of waiting until the system collapsed of its own weight.

Also, absent the U.S. security guarantees of the post- WW2 period, Japan would probably be ruled by the Chinese.

 

[Kyrieville]

And not to mention, I fail to see how any of this is a threat to the United States. Stay the fuck out of it.

This. We need to scale back our military and amp it up if needed; when we are directly threatened. We're still dealing with the mess from two other wars. Time to stop the war mongering, it is expensive. We are in crazy debt, in large part because of the two wars we fought in the Middle East.

 

[Sumac13]

The annexation of Crimea is what started the whole mess.

1. It is still off point. The area under armed conflict is not Crimea. Russia's annexing of Crimea is separate from Russia helping to orchestrate the 'rebels' fight in eastern Ukraine for independence from/or autonomy from Ukraine. Annexing of Crimea was for military/security purposes. The Black Fleet is station in Crimea. It is Russia's access point to the Black Sea and that region of the world. Ukraine had threatened to kick Russia out of Crimea, despite the fact that Yanukovych kindly extending Russia's lease there.

With eastern Ukraine under conflict, it prevents Ukraine from joining the EU. The EU will not admit any country that has land under conflict. In reality, the EU isn't going to let Ukraine join anytime soon, certainly not after the hot mess in Greece. Far too much corruption exists and as with an out dated business mindset. Ukraine has a lot to prove before ever being seriously considered as a member state of the EU.

Also, the conflict is an attempt to give RUssia some control of Ukraine. A Russia under Putin vehemently will attempt to prevent Ukraine from escaping its orbit of control. It needs Ukraine if ever to attain its goal of a Eurasian counterpart to the EU.

2. What started this whole mess (no true start point can really be assigned) is the ousting of the Yanukovych regime. Yanukovych wasn't 100% aligned with Russia, but he certainly wasn't aligned with the West either. He tried to play to two off of each other, extorting hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Yet, he really wasn't willing to do anything that was going to piss off Russia. Moreover, the Party of Regions (proxy rule by Russia) held control of the Duma (Ukrainian Congress). It decidedly sided with Russia. With Yanukovych's ouster and soon the crippling of the Party of Regions months later after the elections, Russia control of Ukraine evaporated.

 

[Marcus]

The last thing this country needs is to be involved in wars on multiple fronts. Let's be real... this has very little if anything to do with the welfare of Ukraine and everything with the United States trying to one up Russia - just like the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, etc.

The economic sanctions that have already been imposed on Russia are really hurting them right now. I'd continue with those before I'd start arming combatants on another front.

 

[OptimusPrime]

Again, you're arguing that we should not have done all the same things we did, but you're assuming that communism would have collapsed the same anyway. Had the Communists not been required to spend so much of their money weapons of war, that economic system might have been able to survive a good deal longer. Certainly, the argument that it would have collapsed even faster if resisted less makes absolutely no sense at all.

You are assuming that all of Korea would be like North Korea today. You are assuming that without U.S. meddling all over the world that the Soviets would have marched into lands all over the world, so I don't know how you think they would have been saving money doing that. All we can do is make assumptions because none of that is what happened.

 

[gourimoko]

Again, you're arguing that we should not have done all the same things we did, but you're assuming that communism would have collapsed the same anyway. Had the Communists not been required to spend so much of their money weapons of war, that economic system might have been able to survive a good deal longer. Certainly, the argument that it would have collapsed even faster if resisted less makes absolutely no sense at all.

I get what you're saying, but it's an oversimplification. Economics was not the primary driving force behind the Soviet collapse.

North Korea was being "kept alive" by the Soviet Union and China before that war, and there is no reason to assume they wouldn't have done the same for a united Korea after the war had the North succeeded in 1950.

The first part of this is true, but the last part is not.

The Soviet Union backed a cooling of tensions once Eisenhower made it clear that he fully intended to escalate the war if peace could not be attained and threatened the use of nuclear weapons in the region, what Dulles later referred to as "Nuclear Diplomacy." (and by extension, against China and the Soviet Union).

This forced the hand of Khrushchev; who never wanted armed conflict with the United States, knew that no such encounter could be won (in fact, the Soviets knew they would have been obliterated at this time), and felt the U.S. was aggressively pursuing a policy of escalation and encirclement of the USSR.

The Soviets thus pressured the North Koreans to the table, as Dulles had anticipated, and forced their hands at the negotiations. This policy of anti-communism though caused us to turn our backs on Ho Chi Minh, who had been promised by Eisenhower earlier to get support for an independent Vietnam.

And even if that was true, there still would have been the horrible human cost of those tens of millions of South Koreans suffering during the decades of waiting until the system collapsed of its own weight.

But there was a terrible human cost. The millions of people who died during the Korean and Vietnam wars, let alone the many numerous CIA-led or initiated proxy wars throughout the world. Millions of people died as a direct result of our anti-communist efforts.

Look, I know many Koreans. I've been to Korea. It's an interesting place, and one that wouldn't exist if the United States had not fought the communists to a standstill. I totally understand that.

But, I guess the question is, do the ends justify the means? Because South Korea is such a vibrant nation today (it has it's problems though, especially with quality of life and the lack of a real middle class), does in itself justify the Korean War?

I don't think that it does, and I don't think that it can. And therein lies the problem with our confrontational approach to the communists.

Also, absent the U.S. security guarantees of the post- WW2 period, Japan would probably be ruled by the Chinese.

I seriously doubt it.

 

[gourimoko]

@King Stannis ,

With regards to the original question; I don't see what good can come from arming the Ukrainians.

And with regard to the question of the Soviet threat, historically, we now know (due to declassified information, and certain Secretaries of Defense just admitting to it), that we were far far ahead of the Soviets, both technologically, and with respect to production.

We had an order of magnitude more warheads than them going into 1960, and a global strategic advantage granting us a 'First Strike Capability.' There was, at the time, some reason to believe we could "win" a nuclear war, if the idea of "winning" is to neutralize the enemy while remaining in an advantageous position.

Now, obviously I'm not advocating this insane approach. But what I am saying is that the Soviets going to the Vietnam War, were not as much of a threat as some politicians (most famously John Kennedy) made them out to be for political and economic purposes.

It was not until the 1970s and through the 1980s when the Soviets presented an insurmountable thermonuclear threat; one that we could not possibly hope to achieve a "victory" against. At best case, we'd be looking at 800 million casualties worldwide, and at worst, total annihilation.

This was a much different situation than the time following WWII, 1946-1965.

So the answer to the question, were the Soviets a threat, depends on the period of time we're talking about? In the 1950s, the answer is no, not really. But as time progressed, Soviet capability reached a point that any measurable 'victory' could no longer be achieved..

But I think the more important question is, was communism ever a real threat? Was our anti-communist doctrine of interventionism, nation building, and hegemony the correct one? I don't think there is a clear-cut answer to that.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

But there was a terrible human cost. The millions of people who died during the Korean and Vietnam wars, let alone the many numerous CIA-led or initiated proxy wars throughout the world. Millions of people died as a direct result of our anti-communist efforts.

I was not defending every single action the U.S. took during the Cold War era. It would be impossible to debate all of them anyway. I probably support a lot more of them than you would, but I really have no desire to debate that here.

What I was debating is OptimusPrime's absolutist stance against all overseas military actions of any kind, so I picked one conflict that I still believe is morally defensible and was the right thing to do. If you agree with him that we ought not to have intervened in Korea, fine.

Though I could have gone for even lower-hanging fruit, and pointed out the human cost if we hadn't supplied the British and Soviets with aid against the Nazis, and if we had continued to trade with a militaristic Japan in the Pacific. In other words, a World War 2 where the U.S. is never involved, even in aiding the allies with equipment.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

But I think the more important question is, was communism ever a real threat? Was our anti-communist doctrine of interventionism, nation building, and hegemony the correct one? I don't think there is a clear-cut answer to that.

I'd agree with that -- we cannot really know how something with so many moving parts would have worked out if we'd taken substantially different actions.

I'd simply say that for the people/leaders alive during that time, who did not have the benefit of after the fact revelations about the internal operations of the Soviet Union, and who were confronted with making those kind of geopolitical decisions with potentially catastrophic results if they were wrong, I do not judge them too harshly for when they got it wrong.

Those were incredibly difficult decisions to make.