The Real Reason That Most Of The West Isn't Giving Effective Aid To Help Win The War...
They're deathly afraid that Putin's regime will collapse, Russia will be destabilized, and that will lead to chaos and disaster - the evil they know is far more comforting than what could happen...
even if the result is the end of dictatorial rule and a transition to a confederation of democratically-governed republics, like what happened to the Eastern Bloc in 1989. According to this controlling faction, Russians are just serfs and slaves, beyond reason and thought, incapable of self-rule. They must be herded and kept under tight control and Putin is the person to do this - he’s the evil they know and they think that he can be corralled, contained. If Russia actually loses in Ukraine, then all bets are off. Kasparov mentions this western belief system here:
.and I’ve heard it in other places, in other conversations, as well. Here’s a Foreign Policy article on the same line:
“Once again, the West is hesitant about the right way to manage these tensions and could be making the same mistake as in 1991. Several Western leaders have been showing fear of a Ukrainian victory in the ongoing war against Russia—a prospect that many have found hard to get across their lips. The result is a series of equivocating statements that tiptoe around the issue of the endgame of the war. Instead of finding clear words about a Ukrainian victory, leaders are focusing on denying Putin the success he seeks. The furthest German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will go is to declare that Putin “cannot win.” French President Emmanuel Macron, who has missed no opportunity to announce his desire to negotiate with Putin, has even suggested that any end to the Kremlin’s genocidal war must not humiliate the Russian leader.
Beneath the surface of remarkable trans-Atlantic unity opposing Russia’s war against Ukraine, therefore, there is still a yawning gap between the concerns of Russia’s immediate neighbors and those of countries farther west. Washington, Berlin, and Paris are preoccupied with their fears of escalation and the potential of a cornered Putin using nuclear weapons, and they have denied Ukraine the offensive weapons it needs to win the war. For instance, the United States only decided to provide Ukraine with advanced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems starting in June—but secretly installed features that would prevent their use with longer-range rockets and thereby deny the Ukrainians the ability to attack military bases on Russian territory, as was widely reported this week. Germany, despite pressure from Ukraine and some NATO allies, has consistently refused to supply Leopard battle tanks (or even allow other countries to supply them) that would be hugely helpful for Ukraine to liberate occupied territories.” https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/12/08/ukraine-russia-war-escalation-collapse-victory-baltic-poland-putin-imperialism/
And this from Kasparov:
“Yet some of Ukraine’s key partners continue to resist supplying Kyiv with the weapons it needs to deliver the knockout punch. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden in particular seems afraid of the chaos that could accompany a decisive Kremlin defeat. It has declined to send the tanks, long-range missile systems, and drones that would allow Ukrainian forces to take the fight to their attackers, reclaim their territory, and end the war. The end of Putin’s tyrannical rule will indeed radically change Russia (and the rest of the world)—but not in the way the White House thinks. Rather than destabilizing Russia and its neighbors, a Ukrainian victory would eliminate a powerful revanchist force and boost the cause of democracy worldwide.
Pro-democracy Russians who reject the totalitarian Putin regime—a group to which the authors belong—are doing what they can to help Ukraine liberate all occupied territories and restore its territorial integrity in accordance with the internationally recognized borders of 1991. We are also planning for the day after Putin. The Russian Action Committee, a coalition of opposition groups in exile that we co-founded in May 2022, aims to ensure that Ukraine is justly compensated for the damage caused by Putin’s aggression, that all war criminals are held accountable, and that Russia is transformed from a rogue dictatorship into a parliamentary federal republic. The looming end of Putin’s reign need not be feared, in other words; it should be welcomed with open arms.” https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/dont-fear-putins-demise
What General Breedlove is saying here merits attention:
In short, US leadership in Ukraine will ensure an effective Ukrainian defeat - snatching defeat from the jaws of victory - for the expenditure of billions of dollars - the same sort of thing as has been done in Afghanistan and so many other places. We have in the US incompetent and corrupt leadership:
“SADLY, FOR America and the world, neither candidate in this November’s election is fit to be president. Polling shows voters did not want a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but that’s what they’re getting.
A president’s most important national-security responsibility is to identify the risks and opportunities facing America, and to craft ways to thwart the threats and advance the country’s interests. Whether because of incompetence, fading mental capabilities or, worst of all, succumbing to domestic political pressures, Mr Biden and Mr Trump have repeatedly proven unable to perform this mission. For years both have fared poorly at distinguishing friend from foe, a pretty low bar even for neophytes, let alone those seeking another turn in the Oval Office.
Mr Trump’s increasingly strident threats to withdraw America from NATO, for example, came perilously close to reality at the alliance’s summit in 2018. America dodged a bullet then, and Mr Trump’s short attention span kept him from resurrecting the idea before his term ended. Subsequently, however, he has repeatedly insinuated or explicitly advocated withdrawal. Recently, he rejected protecting NATO members whose defence spending did not meet their commitments.
Mr Trump is serious, but supporters and opponents alike discount the extraordinary risk of America leaving NATO. They call his bluster “negotiating tactics” to spur defence-spending increases, or just “Trump being Trump”. This is a grave error. His complaints about NATO or allies like Japan or South Korea shirking their responsibilities are intended not to strengthen America’s alliances but to be grounds for abandoning them. Some believe his most recent comments suggest he is becoming less inclined to withdraw from NATO. Don’t bet on it.
Mr Trump’s views on NATO assisting Ukraine after Russia’s invasion are similarly dangerous. Nonsensically, Mr Trump has said he could solve the conflict in 24 hours. Even worse, just weeks ago Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister and a friend of Mr Trump, said that Mr Trump “will not give a penny into the Ukraine-Russia war and therefore the war will end…[I]f the Americans do not give money the Europeans are unable to finance this war on their own.” Granted, with Mr Trump nothing is ever final until it is, and sometimes not even then, but the pattern is unmistakable.
Mr Biden is comparably flawed. In today’s Middle East conflict, he sees only a war between Israel and Hamas. He is unable or unwilling to grasp that Iran is assaulting Israel on several fronts through terrorist proxies. Despite initially embracing Israel and (literally) its prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, Mr Biden’s crabbed strategic sense now has him cowering under pressure from the Democrats’ anti-Zionist left wing. Rather than responding to Iran’s long-standing “ring of fire” squeeze against Israel, America is reducing political support for Israel, and there are threats from the White House and congressional Democrats to impose conditions on military aid that could reduce or eliminate it. Mr Biden is effectively granting moral equivalence between Hamas’s terrorist atrocities on October 7th and Israel exercising its legitimate right to self-defence.
The atrocities committed by Hamas (not to mention by Houthis, Hizbullah and Iraqi Shia militia) over decades have been unspeakable, as has Hamas’s ability to get away with inflicting suffering on its own people. Mr Biden has been duped, as have many others in the West, which is why they primarily blame Israel for civilian casualties. He fails to see that Hamas is at fault for civilian casualties through callously intermingling Gazan civilians with its own fighters and war infrastructure. Neither Hamas nor anyone else acquires a “terrorist veto” over Israel’s right to self-defence by sacrificing their own innocents.
Mr Biden, confused and beleaguered, echoed Hamas’s demands for a ceasefire, essential for Hamas to buy time to regroup, resupply and continue its war. Iran’s other terrorist proxies are preparing for a long struggle, with the Houthis, for example, now claiming to have acquired hypersonic missiles to continue trying to close the Red Sea and Suez canal passage to international commerce.
Instead of focusing on the real culprits—Iran and the terrorists—Mr Biden now criticises Israel. Releasing “intelligence” that suits his objectives, he implies that Israel’s government could fall if it doesn’t bend to his views, and that Israel’s policies will foster terrorism for a generation. Mr Biden backed Chuck Schumer’s demand for Israeli elections to oust Mr Netanyahu, saying the majority leader of America’s Senate “expressed serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans”.
Both candidates’ views of China offer further evidence of their foreign-policy flaws. Mr Biden spent his first term trying not to offend China, so as not to interfere with his holy grail of bilateral agreement on climate change. No deal emerged, and China wouldn’t have kept to it anyway. Meanwhile, China’s menace continued growing around its long Indo-Pacific periphery. Mr Trump’s holy grail with China was “the biggest trade deal in history”. He may still want that, but for now he blames China for covid-19 and hence for depressing his vote in 2020, thereby making it easier for Mr Biden to “steal” the election. He is instead calling for massive tariffs (his go-to answer on international problems) on Chinese goods, while misguidedly disparaging Taiwan for stealing America’s microchip industry.
Mr Biden and Mr Trump certainly both believe they will benefit politically from their respective approaches. Unfortunately, their understanding of America’s proper place in the world, and of the threats facing it and other Western democracies, is badly flawed, as are their responses. Many American voters despise both candidates, and with good reason. To the delight of America’s enemies, whichever of them wins, a long, grim four years lie ahead.” https://www.boltonpac.com/2024/03/both-biden-and-trump-are-foreign-policy-flops-argues-john-bolton/
The best thing that Ukraine - and other European countries - can do is to become internally self-sufficient as to armament - including developing nuclear weapons capabilities - so that they will not be hamstrung and sabotaged by incoherent and feckless US foreign policy - for which it appears no positive change appears to be on the horizon. Ukraine can and must beat Russia - and not be sabotaged by US interests. The US government has become, in the words of George Washington more than 200 years ago - like fire, a dangerous servant, and a fearsome master.
Update - more analysis - same lines, same points - current policy will result in failure, not status quo ante:
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Somebody just got themselves banned, which is only the second time I've done that in the two and a half years this Substack has been around. Calling me a "dickhead Neo-Nazi" and then stomping off doesn't much impress me - nor do comments citing (((Jooos))) as the source of the world's troubles, or similar mindless chatter. My tolerance for such mental pollution/childishness is pretty much non-existent. I prefer reasoned argument over emotional reactions... I'll be posting a special form for such people to fill out in the future..