Ukraine

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by PaulS

I think Spence is prob. still waiting for you to tell use about the failures and misjudgements.

I'd also like to hear what Pres. Obama should have done differently re Ukraine. And also pls. contrast that with what Pres. Bush did about the Russian invasion of Georgia so we can see the difference.

Thanks

Not much difference (some probably not worth mentioning), certainly not in the outcome. And, since there is so little meaningful difference, the outcome was, predictably, the same. Putin understood that there would be little difference and he got the similar outcome that he knew he would get. Except what he learned enabled him to achieve that outcome much easier. The Georgian invasion actually involved war and physical losses. But, knowing that Obama wouldn't act differently than Bush, it was no difficult task to take Crimea.

One would hope that wise administrations would learn from the lessons of history. Putin did. The EU, Ukraine, the U.S., apparently, didn't.

What could Obama (the U.S.), the EU, and the Ukraine have done differently. A great deal. But that would have required a correct view of the situation, and the will to use overwhelming force against Putin's force. But that is SOOOO not 21st century. (Bush used the exact words that Kerry used--"such action is unacceptable in the 21st. century." The West used diplomacy in the Georgian thing. They choose to do the same in the Ukraine situation. Oh yeah, that was tried before WWI and WWII. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is . . .

War is hell. Either go in to the max, or don't go in at all. If you don't stand up to aggression, aggression will win. Maybe it's different now. Maybe the New World Order will seduce Russia, and China, and the Middle East, and All of Africa, and . . . to join in the economic love-fest. That is possible. Maybe not just yet. A few ethnic and religious squabbles to settle first. Like Spence says, we need a unified long term strategy. DAMN but its hard to get everybody to give up their little personality and melt into the great kumbaya.

In the meantime, Bush was an idiot and Obama is brilliant . . . and there is so little difference in much of what they do/did . . .

Bush-did-it-too, but Obama will do it better.

I hope so . . . or not. There is, in my opinion, a flaw in their fundamentals, if they have them. But the 21st century somehow is this living entity that has progressed out of war and divisive differences. It is the century in which we will all be "united," in which differences will be abolished, in which we will all be peacefully free to do those things, the rather few things, that will be left to do.