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Should the US (and NATO) Arm Ukraine?

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The Human Q-Tip said:
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.
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Agreed.

The Human Q-Tip said:
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.
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Q-Tip, I think my only problem with your view here is that you are evaluating the situation from an historically inaccurate viewpoint. That viewpoint would be what we knew of those decisions in the 1980s and 1990s. Had we had this conversation 15-20 years ago, I would undoubtedly agree with you.

However, we now know a lot more, and we can look back at the policies of the Truman, Eisenhower (middle of his tenure), the Dulles brothers, Angleton, Acheson, and the joint chiefs (50s->60s) and see a policy of aggression and escalation that was unwarranted.

When Eisenhower warned the American people of the forces at work to create a permanent American military industrial economy, it was too late.
 
gourimoko said:
Q-Tip, I think my only problem with your view here is that you are evaluating the situation from an historically inaccurate viewpoint. That viewpoint would be what we knew of those decisions in the 1980s and 1990s. Had we had this conversation 15-20 years ago, I would undoubtedly agree with you.
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If you read my statement, I am not commenting on the wisdom of the underlying policies. That is a different debate. I am commenting on judging the people involved given the limited information available at the time. And while we can look at it in hindsight and say that the "right" information actually was available to them, I'd again say that such things are much less apparent when you are actually going through them than they may be in hindsight.

In other words, I believe they were truly doing what they thought was best at the time. And I suspect we would disagree on the wisdom of a lot of those politicies, but again, I don't wish to argue them here.
 
The Human Q-Tip said:
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.
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You might be surprised; I'm not an isolationist, or a pacifist. The times that I most object to aggressive intervention is when the benefits are economic without taking into account the 'blowback,' or the substantial human cost that will be a direct result of our actions.

The Human Q-Tip said:
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.
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I agree with you both. And my position on Korea is complex. I'm torn because I love South Korea as a place, and I have personal reasons to have an affinity towards the Korean people. That place wouldn't exist without our intervention.

But, being learned on the subject, I know the consensus thought at the time was that Korea was not worth the human cost.

It's really hard to reconcile the two realities of past and present; logically we should not have waged war there based on what it's become today, as that would be affirming the consequent; thus negating any measurement of how the place is today. But I can see in hindsight it was the better of the two decisions because it ultimately worked out to create a vibrant country.

The Human Q-Tip said:
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.
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Agreed.
 
The Human Q-Tip said:
If you read my statement, I am not commenting on the wisdom of the underlying policies. That is a different debate. I am commenting on judging the people involved given the limited information available at the time. And while we can look at it in hindsight and say that the "right" information actually was available to them, I'd again say that such things are much less apparent when you are actually going through them than they may be in hindsight.
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I think you are giving people credit that don't actually deserve it. I don't know why. Some of these guys, like the Dulles brothers, like Curtis LeMay, were monsters; and don't take my word for it -- take Kenny O'Donnell's or Robert McNamara's.

The Human Q-Tip said:
In other words, I believe they were truly doing what they thought was best at the time.
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Some of them sure.

The Human Q-Tip said:
And I suspect we would disagree on the wisdom of a lot of those politicies, but again, I don't wish to argue them here.
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Indeed.
 
gourimoko said:
I think you are giving people credit that don't actually deserve it. I don't know why. Some of these guys, like the Dulles brothers, like Curtis LeMay, were monsters;...
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Obviously, there are some truly bad/nutty people in every era. I was speaking in the general sense that just because something looks like a stupid decision now does not necessarily mean the people who made it at the time were not thoughtful, and not trying to do the right thing. I don't think JFK or LBJ actually intended to fuck up in Vietnam.

and don't take my word for it -- take Kenny O'Donnell's or Robert McNamara's.
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If it's all the same to you, I'd sooner take yours.
 
The Human Q-Tip said:
Obviously, there are some truly bad/nutty people in every era. I was speaking in the general sense that just because something looks like a stupid decision now does not necessarily mean the people who made it at the time were not thoughtful, and not trying to do the right thing. I don't think JFK or LBJ actually intended to fuck up in Vietnam.

If it's all the same to you, I'd sooner take yours.
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:chuckle:
 
The Human Q-Tip said:
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.
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Funny you would bring that up, though it has nothing to do with the war in Korea where no one attacked or could even threaten us. The Germans were sinking U.S. ships that weren't even carrying weapons or supplies, so we were pretty much fighting them from the get go anyway.

But if you really want to talk about blowback from U.S. intervention, if the United States doesn't get involved in World War I, where we had no business being involved, there is no Nazi Germany or World War II.
 
OptimusPrime said:
Funny you would bring that up, though it has nothing to do with the war in Korea where no one attacked or could even threaten us. The Germans were sinking U.S. ships that weren't even carrying weapons or supplies, so we were pretty much fighting them from the get go anyway.

But if you really want to talk about blowback from U.S. intervention, if the United States doesn't get involved in World War I, where we had no business being involved, there is no Nazi Germany or World War II.
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Good points..









@The Human Q-Tip
 
OptimusPrime said:
The Germans were sinking U.S. ships that weren't even carrying weapons or supplies, so we were pretty much fighting them from the get go anyway.
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We were shipping the Brits all sorts of stuff in violation of the Neutrality Acts. Can't really blame the Krauts on that particular issue because there wasn't really a way for them to know which ships were carrying weapons, and which weren't.

But I'm curious. Do you think we should/should not have embargoed the Japanese, which is what led to their attack? Should we, or should we not, have assisted in arming and supplying the Brits and/or Soviets before we entered the war?

In other words, do you think we should have done what was necessary to stay out of that war, or not?

But if you really want to talk about blowback from U.S. intervention, if the United States doesn't get involved in World War I, where we had no business being involved, there is no Nazi Germany or World War II.
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True. And I think there certainly are argument for and against a variety of interventions. I'm just trying to figure out if you're against all overseas military actions, or not. I'm just trying to figure out how absolutists your position is.
 
The Human Q-Tip said:
We were shipping the Brits all sorts of stuff in violation of the Neutrality Acts. Can't really blame the Krauts on that particular issue because there wasn't really a way for them to know which ships were carrying weapons, and which weren't.

But I'm curious. Do you think we should/should not have embargoed the Japanese, which is what led to their attack? Should we, or should we not, have assisted in arming and supplying the Brits and/or Soviets before we entered the war?

In other words, do you think we should have done what was necessary to stay out of that war, or not?
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It's hard to say without being in the situation. I wouldn't have started arming the Allies off the bat. Humanitarian aid wouldn't be out of the question, but even those ships would have been sunk, in which case a military response can be justified. Of course if it were up to me we wouldn't have been in the mess in the first place with WWI.

As far as embargoes, I am always against them. If private companies want to sell oil to Japan, the government has no authority to stop them. If private companies today wanted to sell arms to Ukraine, they should be allowed. It is when the government takes ill gotten money and sends arms to these places that I am opposed, but if you wanted to sell your guns to Ukraine the government shouldn't stop you.

The Human Q-Tip said:
True. And I think there certainly are argument for and against a variety of interventions. I'm just trying to figure out if you're against all overseas military actions, or not. I'm just trying to figure out how absolutists your position is.
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Practically speaking, I am against all overseas actions where the United States is the aggressor and not defending United States citizens. I am against disproportionate responses. Today it is hard to know when this is the case because of the history of this government sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong around the world.

If a U.S. embassy is attacked, that would be reason to send in special forces to try to rescue your people and provide air cover and what not. That doesn't give reason to bomb the fuck out of an entire region and then install a government we see fit.
 
OptimusPrime said:
Funny you would bring that up, though it has nothing to do with the war in Korea where no one attacked or could even threaten us. The Germans were sinking U.S. ships that weren't even carrying weapons or supplies, so we were pretty much fighting them from the get go anyway.

But if you really want to talk about blowback from U.S. intervention, if the United States doesn't get involved in World War I, where we had no business being involved, there is no Nazi Germany or World War II.
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1. On your first point, it is a pity no one stood up to Hitler earlier on in his land grabbing career; it would have prevented the War. It has been revealed that had the French or British taken a tough stance against German aggression during the Rhineland Crisis, the Anschluss or over the Czech Crisis, he would have flinched, with the added bonus in the case of Czechoslovakia of being overthrown by a coup.

But they didn't because, hey, those territories used to be German, were heavily populated by Germans and who wants to die fighting for people who want to be German anyway. And how does the Sudetenland threaten Bristol or Liverpool anyway? Unfortunately, Western weakness only emboldened the man into thinking all of Europe was his back yard.

2. On the second, if we hadn't intervened in WWI, and we had plenty of cause, the Germans would have won. Then you would have had an aggressive, militarist German Empire with the largest and most powerful navy and army in the world with global reach thanks to the annexation of many British and French colonial possessions. Conflict between the US and Germany would have been likely.

The only mistake we made was allowing the French to hijack the peace-talks and create a post-war situation that all but assured another conflict. A peace based on the Fourteen Points would have provided for a far more stable Germany, perhaps with a restored monarchy, that would have made the rise of Nazism unlikely.
 
OptimusPrime said:
As far as embargoes, I am always against them. If private companies want to sell oil to Japan, the government has no authority to stop them. If private companies today wanted to sell arms to Ukraine, they should be allowed.
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Just to let you know, we only declared war on Germany as a consequence of them declaring it on us. If we had not opposed Japanese expansion in the Far East with an embargo, that would have meant no Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, no Germany declaration of war on the U.S. as a result of Pearl Harbor, and no U.S. entry into WW2.

As to WW2, Britain and the Soviet Union couldn't pay for the stuff we sent to them. We "loaned" them the money, but the reality is that U.S. taxpayers essentially gave them that equipment. And if we hadn't given that stuff to them, they would have very likely lost.
 
The Human Q-Tip said:
Just to let you know, we only declared war on Germany as a consequence of them declaring it on us. If we had not opposed Japanese expansion in the Far East with an embargo, that would have meant no Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, no Germany declaration of war on the U.S. as a result of Pearl Harbor, and no U.S. entry into WW2.

As to WW2, Britain and the Soviet Union couldn't pay for the stuff we sent to them. We "loaned" them the money, but the reality is that U.S. taxpayers essentially gave them that equipment. And if we hadn't given that stuff to them, they would have very likely lost.
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They would have been massacred.

Not helping the Brits and Soviets would've meant the end of the war. It's not a reasonable option, even if one only considers their own nations self-preservation.
 
King Stannis said:
2. On the second, if we hadn't intervened in WWI, and we had plenty of cause, the Germans would have won. Then you would have had an aggressive, militarist German Empire with the largest and most powerful navy and army in the world with global reach thanks to the annexation of many British and French colonial possessions. Conflict between the US and Germany would have been likely.
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I agree with everything else you said, but this seems a stretch to me. Germany had previously defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War, and that didn't result in an aggressive, worldwide German Empire. And even if France had fallen again as a result of Ludendorff's attacks in the spring of 1918, I don't think that leads to the fall of Britain as well. The Brits still had a much stronger fleet than the Germans, and Germany had never shown any inclination to try to conquer Britain as well. Would have been very unpopular in Germany, for one, 'cause they were tired of fighting by 1918 as well.

The most likely result to me would be a German victory with Versailles-like conditions imposed on the defeated French, including the surrender of overseas colonies. Bad, but nothing approaching Hitler bad.

The only mistake we made was allowing the French to hijack the peace-talks and create a post-war situation that all but assured another conflict. A peace based on the Fourteen Points would have provided for a far more stable Germany, perhaps with a restored monarchy, that would have made the rise of Nazism unlikely.
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Agreed.
 
gourimoko said:
They would have been massacred.
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Well, I think Britain would have sued for peace in the absence of U.S. help. Had the Brits done that, and given some territories to Germany, there wouldn't have been an invasion.

But the USSR definitely would have fallen, and hard. And the rest of Europe would have been under the Nazi yoke for a long time.
 
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