I am just debating in a debate section.
Do you think Zelenskyy will be able to continue the war, after Trump denies him the money needed?
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Peace will triumph in Europe. No more War Hawks.
- Thread starter Estro Felino
- Start date
Do you think Zelenskyy will be able to continue the war, after Trump denies him the money needed?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
You're not doing a very good job.
"Debate" is not done by making wild unsupported claims and quickly changing the topic when being asked to support the claims. Nor by drawing ridiculous conclusions like "i doubt it will end soon" supposedly meaning "it will go on forever".
Doubtful. Without western aid, it likely is just a matter of time before Ukraine will be overrun by the invading Russian aggressor.
Note however also how Ukraine being overrun and occupied by Russian forces by no means necessarily means that hostilities / fighting will end.
With or without western aid, I don't expect the Ukrainians to just roll over and die.
It's also extremely doubtful that Russia would be able to keep occupation in Ukraine going for a long time. That's quite expensive.
So they will at some point have to install a puppet regime and pull out their army.
The real question is how the Ukrainian people will react to that. I don't expect them to just accept Ukraine to turn into a Belarus 2.0
There's a solution.
We bargain.
Putin accepts that Ukraine joins the EU (and not the NATO), and in exchange Ukraine definitively renounces Crimea and the four regions bordering Russia.
Quid pro quo for the sake of peace.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
That's not bargaining. That's surrendering.
And more importantly, that's not our decision to make.
As we have surrendered to the Allies in 1943. No double standards.
Ukrainian Nazis persecuted Russians of Donbas.
We were on the Nazis' side too.
Grasp all, lose all.
"Glaringly obvious," huh? The bottom line is, what you're arguing is what "would have happened if..." I'm not against speculation or looking at different points of view, but I would suggest that there could have been other possibilities. Your opinion that it's "insane to suggest otherwise" is duly noted, but I don't really see any basis for that either.
But since we're speculating here, there might have been a few possibilities and outcomes which would be different from your view that Ukraine would have been "overrun and obliterated." One possibility is that it would have ended far quicker, with fewer casualties and physical destruction that we see now. I don't think they would have "obliterated" Ukraine. The land would still there. The people would still be there. Their infrastructure, industries, farms, cities, etc. would all still be there - especially if the actual fighting was at a minimum.
But I take your meaning is that their national identity and independence might be "obliterated," since they would end up under Moscow's thumb again - an undesirable position which the Ukrainians have had centuries of experience with. But it's a different world now; things aren't like they used to be. Russia has changed quite a bit, and I believe that if our own governments had approached them better, giving greater respect and consideration to their position, a lot of this could have been avoided in the first place.
My speculation is that if we had backed off, they would have backed off.
Territorial controversies are instrumentalized by the "jackals of politics".
I still recall the Kosovo War... it was just Serbia denying Kosovo independence. Unjustly.
But back then...nobody said that Serbia wanted to conquer the entire world...so all this narrative that Russia wants world domination, when it only deals with a banal territorial controversy is ridiculous.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Yes.
It doesn't exactly take a military expert to figure it out.
Outnumbered and seriously outgunned.
Ukraine would have burned through its reserves of ammunition and air defense a loooong time ago and then they'ld be sitting ducks.
No matter how bad the Russian army turned out to be.... Facing an army with virtually no bullets, air defense or any other type of ammunition... you don't have to be an army general to figure out what would happen.
Yeah, if nobody would have resisted the Nazi invasions and instead just rolled over and let them conquer the world, there would have been less casualties also. And the world would have been conquered by the Nazi's and we'ld all be speaking German now in a fascist society.
For all intents and purposes, western democracy would have been obliterated.
Sure, it would be there. But it wouldn't be under Ukrainian control. It would have been stolen by Russians.
Sounds like you are "blaming" Ukrainians for the destruction and casualties of war because they dared to resist foreign invasion. How evil of them, right?
Obviously.
Has it? Has it, really?
Do you think the political opposition in Russia feels the same way? How about media outlets that aren't under the thumb of the Kremlin?
Ever been to Belarus lately? I guess not. Why would you want to go there, indeed.
If anything, Russia's behavior in Ukraine (and other countries) has shown us that Russia in fact hasn't changed much at all.
Backed off, of what, exactly?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
No. It was Serbia engaging in genocide and ethnic cleansing of Kosovarians.
Learn your history.
"banal". Go to Ukraine and tell them it is "banal". See what they'll tell you.
How dehumanizing of you to say such a thing.
Last week I had a conversation with our cleaning lady who's a refugee from eastern Ukraine. Her tears weren't "banal".
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Silly propaganda bsAs we have surrendered to the Allies in 1943. No double standards.
Ukrainian Nazis persecuted Russians of Donbas.
We were on the Nazis' side too.
Grasp all, lose all.
Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
That ignores land claims far beyond Ukraine and places hes captured.
And was it hasty planning? Ukraine did put up a much bigger fight than anyone expected. And it's not some centuries of pressure building up, it was Putin staring the **** pot in Ukraine.
If you say so...
Possibly. Ukraine has a population of 37 million people. They have industries and technology. They could have prepared better. They may have been outnumbered, but they were far from helpless or some underdeveloped nation.
I recall thinking before this started that, if Russia did invade Ukraine, they could end up with a right bloody nose, just like what happened when they went up against Finland. They ultimately prevailed, but Finland has a much smaller population than Ukraine.
Another example: The Russians also seriously outnumbered and outgunned the Japanese in 1904-05, but they didn't win that one.
I've said it before: When Russia is the attacker, they have rarely come out on top.
Just for the record, you're not a military expert, are you? Neither am I, but I've studied enough history to see plenty of instances of the underdog prevailing over a larger and more powerful enemy. So, I don't believe you can assume anything here.
In any case, even with Western aid, they're still not winning, and they can't win a war of attrition either. So, they may still end up being overrun.
Under those circumstances, then they would probably lose, yes. Even with bullets, all they've done is achieve a stalemate and a war of attrition which they're destined to lose. You said it yourself: They're outnumbered. They're going to run out of people before the Russians do.
And some Ukrainians aren't willing to go fight either. I've seen videos where they have press gangs going around Ukraine, forcibly conscripting men and dragging them off the streets, sometimes kicking and screaming. I would interpret this as an indication that they're desperate for manpower.
Yeah, if nobody would have resisted the Nazi invasions and instead just rolled over and let them conquer the world, there would have been less casualties also. And the world would have been conquered by the Nazi's and we'ld all be speaking German now in a fascist society.
For all intents and purposes, western democracy would have been obliterated.
First off, the Russians are not Germans, and they're not Nazis. (As your side keeps playing the "whataboutism" and the "false equivalency" cards, I find it ironic that you have no compunction to making constant comparisons to the Nazis.)
As for your speculation about WW2, this point might be an interesting topic for another thread. My short answer to that point would be that Germany was never that powerful, and they were doomed from the very beginning. The only reason they gained early victories and so much territory early on was because of Allied bungling. Not because they didn't resist, but they just weren't very bright.
One thing to keep in mind is that, it doesn't take just brawn to win a fight; it also takes brains.
No, it's not evil of them, nor am I even "blaming" them. Whatever they do is whatever they do; I have nothing to say about it (and they wouldn't listen to me anyway, so there we are). I'm just addressing your speculation and suggesting alternative scenarios of what might have happened if the West chose not to send military aid to Ukraine.
If anything, I guess I might be "blaming" the West, but even then, it's not really about "blame." Regardless of who started it or who's to blame, the facts are as they stand. But since you've opened the door to speculative analyses and interpretations of the established facts, then I was just offering a different viewpoint.
Some nations do capitulate if they see they can't win the fight. I don't suppose there's any set answer to that kind of question, but they might be able to negotiate some kind of deal, at least so that Ukraine doesn't become entirely "obliterated."
Have you ever been to Belarus lately? I know that Russia has changed, but you seem to be making these blanket judgements of them as if they're some kind of monolithic society. I'm not denying the kind of government they have presently, but since we're in a speculative mood in this thread, I think that, too, could have been avoided if the West had dealt with them differently. I think the Western leadership wanted to isolate Russia in the hopes that they would return to being a belligerent power. Our leaders provoked the situation that led to Putin's dictatorship.
And it all goes back to brains. Our leaders misread Russia, as we've done with so many other nations, both in the past and present. Don't you think that it's a wiser policy to study and learn about our adversaries or potential adversaries in order to understand them better? Maybe if we had leaders who were smart enough to deal with them on a more practical and honorable level back in the 1990s, we might have seen better results today. As far as I'm concerned, the Russians did the honorable thing when they disbanded the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. It was an act of trust and faith that they did that, something they didn't have to do and they weren't forced to do. They did it of their own free will, and in good faith that the West would respond in kind.
It was unwise and improper for the West to return such a gracious and honorable act with dishonor. Our leaders behaved dishonorably, and now we have any angry, hostile, and inconsolable Russia on our hands - armed with more than 5000 nuclear warheads (and probably building more as we speak). So, they did change, since they're a lot more angry with us now than they were during the Cold War.
The expansion of NATO, for one thing. NATO should have been disbanded at the same time the Warsaw Pact was disbanded. An honorable nation would have done that, just as they did. NATO's continued existence can rightly be seen as provocative.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Every expansion of NATO came about by the request of the countries that joined.
Nobody was ever forced or invited out of the blue.
Every single country that joined NATO did so because it wanted to and requested it.
And they wanted it, because they realized how their sovereignty was threatened by the warmongering, imperialist monster that used to rule over them.
Why? If anything, Russia's behavior since 1991 shows us exactly why it shouldn't have. And luckily it didn't.
That makes no sense at all. Russia has never been threatened by NATO. The threats have always been very one directional, from Russia to the west.
I don't recall any NATO official ever having threatened to nuke or attack Russia. I can't even count the amount of times Russia threatened its neighbors, NATO, the west, ...
Russia has given NATO zero reasons to disband and every reason to remain as strong as ever.
But after the fall of the Berlin Wall and disbanding of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR, there was no more "warmongering, imperialist monster" ruling over them - or anyone else for that matter. In fact, they were hardly in a position to rule over anyone at that point, imperialistically or otherwise. Internally, the country was in a state of chaos for well over a decade and could hardly do much of anything.
So, to keep NATO intact and even expand it can be rightly seen as provocative and unnecessary. It didn't matter if those countries requested it; we never had to let them in nor did we have to keep NATO at all.
And considering how many far-flung military actions our own government engaged in since 1990, I don't think we have much room to talk about "warmongering, imperialist monsters" anyway. The fact that our government became even more aggressive and warlike after the end of the Cold War did not go unnoticed by Russia or other countries in the world.
From what I've been able to gather, the US bombing of Belgrade was a major turning point in their perceptions of America (even though most Americans probably don't even remember it). We also "accidentally" hit the Chinese embassy during that bombing, and it just so happens that that was the HQ for Chinese intel in the Middle East. What a lucky shot.
Not "since 1991." Perhaps you might have a point if you change that to "since 2014," but before that, they were relatively clean compared to the US warmongering since 1991. Check it out for yourself:
Timeline of United States military operations - Wikipedia
List of wars involving Russia - Wikipedia
In any case, all of Russia's military actions since that time involved territories which were part of the former USSR (or even still part of the Russian Federation). The former Warsaw Pact states which were never part of the USSR have not been affected nor touched by any of these events. Meanwhile, the US military was gallivanting all over the world, sticking its nose into every honey pot it could find.
What is evident about all of this is that, back in 1991, Russia tried to change and turn over a new leaf, acting in good faith that we would do the same. They were patient enough to wait more than two decades for us to change, but when it was clear that we would continue to be a warmongering, aggressive, imperialist state, then that's when they decided to change up. China also changed up during the same time frame.
Back in the 90s, there were high hopes that both Russia and China would be productive members of the "New World Order," and it might have worked out that way, except *we* were the ones who chose to act aggressively on a global scale. The Chinese and Russians never even came close to matching us in that regard, even at the height of the Cold War.
Ironically, the Russians even helped us in our attack and invasion of Afghanistan, as they had no love for Middle Eastern radicals and terrorists, as they had their own problems in that regard. They could have even been viewed as a potential ally against Al Qaeda and ISIS, since they were fighting them anyway. We could have had them on our side in our war on terrorism, if we wanted to.
Look, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were formed after WW2 because both countries were threatening each other. We considered Russia to be an enemy since 1917, long before they ever had the wherewithal to build themselves up into any genuine threat to the U.S. And even then, we still held the upper hand and were in the stronger position throughout the Cold War.
The Russians didn't really "threaten" us as much as challenge us, as well as pushed back against the US policy of containment which they saw as "encirclement" and an attempt to isolate Russia from the rest of the world. The "threats" were more conditional, along the lines of "if you do X, then we will do Y." In that sense, we threatened each other all the time, just as we still do today. We had entire nuclear arsenals pointed at each other, just as we still do today. That seems pretty threatening to me.
That's why any kind of saber-rattling and warlike rhetoric between the US and Russia is the greatest threat of all. There's no need for it.
European women...
Maria Zakharova, Spokesperson of the Ministry of FA of the Russian Federation
Maria Zakharova, Spokesperson of the Ministry of FA of the Russian Federation
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
I don't think that Ukraine will become isolated.
Your posts make it look as if you are a strong supporter of the Communist-Putin ideology...yes?
Flankerl
Well-Known Member
Look at all that salt about Russia being unable to enslave the Baltics, Poland, Czechia. Slovakia and Romania again.
All because they joined NATO.
What a bummer.
You're not adding anything to the discussion.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
He's actually hitting the nail on the head.
Whatever makes you happy.