U.S. foreign policy not doing right now is not doing vary good.I think we are being fooled I think (1)>>America wants another nice little proxy war. Despite his blatantly obvious autocratic tendencies, Putin has proved a popular, as well as a populist, leader. This means he does not need a war to unify his population behind him and entrench his rule. His frustration is perhaps understandable, given that his austere worldview offers no effective counter to Western soft power – the attractive values and lifestyles that lured westward the states and people previously within the Warsaw Pact and the USSR. However, he does possess military instruments that might be sufficient to halt the eastward advance of Western hard power – (2)>>NATO’s expansion. On Feb. 16, in response to the Russian government passing a resolution calling on Putin to recognize those (3)>>Ukrainian regions as independent. We will go with it. After they looked silly in Syria and Afghanistan maybe they are looking to even the score. If they can fake a fake flag excuse America can look the good guys drag us and NATO into it and give Russia a bloody nose at the same time. (3.1)>>Ever since Putin began stoking tensions over the fate of Ukraine last year, one of Mr Putin’s key objectives has been to make himself the center of global attention....Based on what military experts are saying, Russian troops are dealing with a fierce resistance, are dealing with mishaps, confusion, low morale, and they may have underestimated the Ukrainians.That said, because of Russia’s military might, I would believe they’d eventually prevail in toppling the Ukrainian government and installing a puppet regime. Experts & academics studying this have said even with a Russian puppet government, the Ukrainian people will not accept this. And Russia will have to keep some kind of occupying force in place despite Putin’s claims he won’t — because the Ukrainians would not join the new puppet military. When the war first started I thought it would end up exactly like the Gulf War. Here we are on day 5 and 4,500 Russian soldiers out of action. (4)>>If Russia decides to pull out at this point, I think this will be the killing blow to whatever remains of Russia's status as a World Power. Surely he is not that crazy to think that a defensive organisation such as NATO would attack him. Not even the most deluded person on Earth would think that (5)>>NATO would 'attack' a global superpower with a massive nuclear arsenal. If he is that paranoid then it is sheer amazing. This goes back to communist/autocratic vs democracy/capitalist principles imho. He was raised on this.'Ultimately, Putin’s decision hinges on his risk tolerance and what response he believes the West, largely led by the U.S. and specifically President Biden, can mount. If Putin can present the conflict as a Russian response to some incident at the border or within Ukraine itself, he can potentially freeze the Western response. If timed with a particularly brutal cold snap when Europe and particularly Germany are burning Russian gas to stay warm, it could allow just enough time for “Ukrainian self-determination” to be influenced back in Moscow's direction.If anything, the Kremlin’s rhetoric suggests it is willing to sacrifice the economy at the altar of Putin’s ambition to redraw the security infrastructure that has been in place since the end of the Cold War, massing troops on Ukraine’s border and risking war along the way.There are reasons that calculus might be sound — at least for the moment. Despite years of sanctions and a pandemic, Russia’s economy is better equipped than many to survive a crisis — even if it is a self-manufactured one.
ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR REFERENCE :
Ukrainian Reluctant History.
The notion that Ukraine is not a country in its own right, but a historical part of Russia, appears to be deeply ingrained in the minds of many in the Russian leadership. Already long before the Ukraine crisis, at an April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Vladimir Putin reportedly claimed that “Ukraine is not even a state! Aside from its cultural proximity, Ukraine’s sentimental and spiritual appeal to many Russians derives from the fact that the Kievan Rus’ – a medieval state that came into existence in the 9th century and was centred around present-day Kiev – is regarded as a joint ancestral homeland that laid the foundations for both modern Russia and Ukraine. But from the time of its foundation to its conquest by the Mongols in the 13th century, the Rus’ was an increasingly fragmented federation of principalities. Its south-western territories, including Kiev, were conquered by Poland and Lithuania in the early 14th century. For roughly four hundred years, these territories, encompassing most of present-day Ukraine, were formally ruled by Poland-Lithuania, which left a deep cultural imprint on them. During these four centuries, the Orthodox East Slavic population of these lands gradually developed an identity distinct from that of the East Slavs remaining in the territories under Mongol and later Muscovite rule. A distinct Ukrainian language had already begun to emerge in the dying days of the Kievan Rus’ (notwithstanding Vladimir Putin’s factually incorrect claim that “the first linguistic differences [between Ukrainians and Russians] appeared only around the 16th century”). Following the incorporation of present-day Ukraine into Poland-Lithuania, the Ukrainian language evolved in relative isolation from the Russian language. At the same time, religious divisions developed within Eastern Orthodoxy. From the mid-15th to the late 17th centuries, the Orthodox Churches in Moscow and in Kiev developed as separate entities, initiating a division that eventually resurfaced in later schisms.Most of what is now Ukraine was formally governed by Polish-Lithuanian nobility prior to the 18th century, but these lands were predominantly inhabited by Orthodox East Slavs who began to form semi-autonomous hosts of peasant warriors – the Cossacks. Most of them felt a cultural affinity for Muscovite Russia but had no particular desire to be a part of the Muscovite state. In the 16th through 18th centuries, the Cossacks in present-day Ukraine began to form their own de facto statelets, the ‘Zaporizhian Sich’ and later the Cossack ‘Hetmanate’. They staged a major uprising against their Polish overlords in 1648. Six years later, the expanding Tsardom of Russia signed a treaty of alliance with the Zaporizhian Cossacks. Notwithstanding this temporary turn towards Moscow, the Cossacks also explored other options: In the Treaty of Hadiach with Poland in 1658, they were on the verge of becoming a fully-fledged constituent member of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Had this treaty been successfully implemented, it would likely have tied the Cossacks’ quasi-state firmly to its western neighbours for the foreseeable future.The treaty failed, however, and the Cossacks remained divided in their loyalties. Internal disagreements about whether to side with Poland or Russia contributed to a series of civil wars among them in the late 1600s. In a foreshadowing of Ukraine’s present-day dilemma, the Cossacks shifted their allegiance more than once with the ultimate aim of gaining autonomy from both sides. In 1667, Poland-Lithuania had to cede to Moscow control of the territories east of and including Kiev. The Cossack statelet in the eastern territories gradually turned into a Russian vassal state, but its relationship with Russia was rife with conflict. Sporadic Cossack uprisings were now directed against the Tsars. In 1708, for instance, the Cossacks’ leader Ivan Mazepa allied himself with Sweden and fought against Russia in the Great Northern War. In 1775, the Zaporizhian Sich was razed to the ground by Russian forces, and the Cossacks’ institutions of self-governance were liquidated. Following the final Partitions of Poland in the 1790s, the Russian Empire absorbed the remainder of modern-day Ukraine (apart from its extreme west, which was annexed by Austria).The territories of Ukraine remained a part of the Russian state for the next 120 years. Russia’s imperial authorities systematically persecuted expressions of Ukrainian culture and made continuous attempts to suppress the Ukrainian language. In spite of this, a distinct Ukrainian national consciousness emerged and consolidated in the course of the 19th century, particularly among the elites and intelligentsia, who made various efforts to further cultivate the Ukrainian language. When the Russian Empire collapsed in the aftermath of the revolutions of 1917, the Ukrainians declared a state of their own. After several years of warfare and quasi-independence, however, Ukraine was once again partitioned between the nascent Soviet Union and newly independent Poland. From the early 1930s onwards, nationalist sentiments were rigorously suppressed in the Soviet parts of Ukraine, but they remained latent and gained further traction through the traumatic experience of the ‘Holodomor’, a disastrous famine brought about by Joseph Stalin’s agricultural policies in 1932-33 that killed between three and five million Ukrainians. Armed revolts against Soviet rule were staged during and after World War II and were centred on the western regions of Ukraine that had been annexed from Poland in 1939-40. It was only with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that Ukraine gained lasting independent statehood of its own – but Ukrainian de facto political entities struggling for their autonomy or independence had existed long before that.
Ukraine's NEO-NAZI Problem.
Post-Maidan Ukraine is the world’s only nation to have a neo-Nazi formation in its armed forces.A January 28 demonstration, in Kiev, by 600 members of the so-called “National Militia,” a newly-formed ultranationalist group that vows “to use force to establish order,” illustrates this threat. While the group’s Kiev launch was peaceful, National Militia members in balaclavas stormed a city council meeting in the central Ukrainian town of Cherkasy the following day, skirmishing with deputies and forcing them to pass a new budget.Many of the National Militia's members come from the Azov movement, one of the 30-odd privately-funded “volunteer battalions” that, in the early days of the war, helped the regular army to defend Ukrainian territory against Russia's separatist proxies. While Putin's words are merely propaganda, Ukraine does have a troubled relationship with nazism past and present, like many places in the world. Many modern Ukrainian heroes made their names collaborating with the Nazis against the Soviet Union, and this ideology still has roots which are embedded in fighting units that are being funded and equipped by the west Ukraine should be unequivocally supported, but there needs to be an honest assessment of the dangers Ukrainian Neo-Nazism poses, especially for a nation that will be swamped with weaponry once the war has ended.When Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea four years ago first exposed the decrepit condition of Ukraine’s armed forces, right-wing militias such as Azov and Right Sector stepped into the breach, fending off the Russian-backed separatists while Ukraine’s regular military regrouped. Though, as a result, many Ukrainians continue to regard the militias with gratitude and admiration, the more extreme among these groups promote an intolerant and illiberal ideology that will endanger Ukraine in the long term.
NOTES AND COMMENTS:
(1)>>America wants another nice little proxy war. Proxy war stands in contrast not only to a traditional war—when a state shoulders the burden of its own defense (or offense)—but also an alliance, when major and minor powers work together with each making significant contributions according to their means. America’s post-9/11 strategy “to deal with terrorist threats” hardly relied upon “supporting local proxies” – after all, critics often say U..S. forces “invaded” two countries. To be clear, what the first national security strategy issued after 9/11 in 2002 really said was that “[m]ultilateral institutions and the support of coalition partners are valuable, but the United States will not hesitate to act alone to protect its national interests.” For example, the United States is supporting combat operations in Yemen that are part of a broader proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition does not necessarily make the coalition a proxy of the United States. Indeed, the government of Saudi Arabia has its own agenda in Yemen and does not operate under the direction and control of the United States. Regardless of whether the United States maintains control over the parties to the conflict, international law dictates that the United States may still bear responsibility for any wrongful acts by parties to the conflict to which it is providing support.Meanwhile, tensions between the United States and Russia were heating up as a result of the Ukraine Crisis and Syria was the perfect place for tensions to flare up in the form of a proxy war. A proxy war, for readers who don’t happen to know, is when two rival countries fight each other indirectly by providing support to opposite factions in a different war, usually, one happening in a smaller country where the countries fighting the proxy war have colonial interests. (Emphasis added.)(2)>> NATO’s expansion. NATO enlargement has become one of the more controversial policies of the “West” in recent years. Mearsheimer has argued essentially that NATO enlargement was a mistake in that it was bound to antagonize Russia. What are others thoughts on the issue? Also, if Russia is antagonized by NATO enlargement, did it always have designs on these areas after the Cold War and did it envision a new Warsaw Bloc? [SS from the article by Dmitri Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center]"Putin has presided over four waves of NATO enlargement and has had to accept Washington’s withdrawal from treaties governing anti-ballistic missiles, intermediate-range nuclear forces, and unarmed observation aircraft. For him, Ukraine is the last stand. The Russian commander-in-chief is supported by his security and military establishments and, despite the Russian public’s fear of a war, faces no domestic opposition to his foreign policy. Most importantly, he cannot afford to be seen bluffing. Biden was right not to reject Russia’s demands out of hand and to favor engagement instead."Yeah, the continued existence of NATO in the face of the falling of the cold war and the USSR is an obvious way for the west to keep making pressure and showing force to mainly Russia.However, I think that in the recent years the rise of China and the recent militarization and imperialist desire from Russia have justified NATO as an "opposition" of sorts.Obviously both Putin and Xi see them as agresivo s towards their interest, however, due to their recent actions I think NATO has seen it's purposed revamped as the world sees that military alliances still matter.No, Russia would like former Soviet eastern Europe to be in is backyard, similar to how Latin America is America's backyard, and America has a high degree of influence there, and doesn't like it when other unfriendly powers step in Latin America.Russia is behaving similarly, it's Eastern European neighbours joining NATO, EU and pro western movements like Euromaidan, this makes Russia uncomfortable, causing it to engage in anti western aggression. (3)>>Ukrainian regions as independent.Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union until the latter’s collapse in 1991, when Ukraine became a sovereign country. In 2014, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. Reportedly, there are currently as many as 190,000 Russian troops along the Ukrainian border. What use is Ukrainian territory? Russian population is shrinking. What use is Ukrainian population, after they hate Russia as fiercely as Russians would hate an invader like this?Ukraine was an integral part of Russia and was unable to secede as Russia was on the rise. Following WW1 however, Russia had collapsed into civil conflict. Ukrainian nationalists could meet and declared independence from Russia. The Germans had also advanced into Ukraine as part of their offensives, helping a nascent Ukrainian People's Republic to form. Ukrainians in the Austro-Hungarian empire also declared independence, creating a unified state(although Ukraine could not capture Galicia, including Lviv, from Poland). The Republic was eventually conquered by the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War(Though the Government-in-exile endured until the end of the USSR). However, Nestor Makhno's anarchist/agrarian Green Army would rise up and capture large parts of Ukraine before the Bolsheviks could once again restore order. The Ukrainian SSR was first declared in 1919, and confirmed in the declaration of the USSR in 1922. However, it would acquire more land from Poland, Romania and Czechoslovakia after WW2. So no, Ukrainian National identity or a Ukrainian state both had roots before the Ukrainian SSR. (3.1)>>Ever since Putin began stoking tensions over the fate of Ukraine last year. Moscow is seeking a decisive victory with the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and the surrender of its army. “What we’re talking about is preventing Nazis and those who push methods of genocide to rule in this country,” said foreign minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday. “Right now, the regime that is located in Kyiv is under two mechanisms of external control: first, the West, led by the United States, and secondly, neo-Nazis.”Talks would only begin when the Ukrainian army laid down its arms. These are maximalist targets that are unlikely to be achieved by 190,000 Russian troops who are under orders to overrun and pacify a country nearly three times the size of Britain and with a population of 44 million.(4)>>If Russia decides to pull out at this point. The conflict is about the future of Ukraine. But Ukraine is also a larger stage for Russia to try to reassert its influence in Europe and the world, and for Putin to cement his legacy. These are no small things for Putin, and he may decide that the only way to achieve them is to launch another incursion into Ukraine — an act that, at its most aggressive, could lead to tens of thousands of civilian deaths, a European refugee crisis, and a response from Western allies that includes tough sanctions affecting the global economy.(5)>>NATO would 'attack' a global superpower .The first factor is the lingering euphoria of the post–Cold War period. For many Western observers, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the implosion of Russian power demonstrated the permanent superiority of the United States. The perception that Russia’s decline was so deep and irreversible that it would no longer be able to resist Western initiatives made it difficult to accept Moscow’s pushback against Western policies. This was a particular problem when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pursued several rounds of enlargement in the 1990s and early 2000s under U.S. leadership. U.S. leaders ignored Russia’s objections and underestimated the lengths to which Russian counterparts were prepared to go to secure the homeland against perceived threats.
