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"Like George W. Bush in 2003, Putin last year initiated an unnecessary war expecting a cheap and decisive victory to follow. Like Bush, he miscalculated, egregiously.
"Viewed through the lens of geopolitics, the chief impact of the Ukraine War has been to expose Russian weakness. The Russian military’s abysmal performance affirms that Europe—should it choose to do so—is fully capable of defending itself from a conventional attack coming from the east. An invading army that can’t make it to Kyiv won’t come anywhere close to seizing Warsaw or Berlin."
Andrew Bacevitch obviously is right. He wrote this arguing against a neo-con article by George Weigel in an article called Learning the Wrong Lessons form Ukraine.
He is also right that the Iraq war is a better parallel with the Ukrainian war than Chamberlain in 1938.
Unfortunately, in my view, he still thinks that the conventional view of 1938 is 'canonical'.
Unfortunately, in my view, he still thinks that the conventional view of 1938 is 'canonical'.
He does not think that Britain and France should have sought to keep out of a war between Germany and Bolshevik Russia.
The Iraq war might have taught him that, but it hasn't.
Stanley Baldwin, the British Prime Minister who retired in 1937, is the person whose strategy we should admire, rather than Chamberlain and Halifax who ended up guaranteeing Poland. Baldwin called France's alliance with Czechoslovakia 'appalling' (talking to Churchill in 1936) because it might lead to war between France and Germany in which Britain would probably have to get involved.
The Iraq war might have taught him that, but it hasn't.
Stanley Baldwin, the British Prime Minister who retired in 1937, is the person whose strategy we should admire, rather than Chamberlain and Halifax who ended up guaranteeing Poland. Baldwin called France's alliance with Czechoslovakia 'appalling' (talking to Churchill in 1936) because it might lead to war between France and Germany in which Britain would probably have to get involved.
Hitler was an opportunist. He did not want to conquer Europe, before Britain and France declared war, though he did so thanks to Chamberlain and Daladier.
Nor of course did Putin.
This truth is so obvious that hardly any clever person sees it.
Not only was going to war a mistake for us (and much more for the French) in 1939 but it is a precedent, it seems, for further wars continuing indefinitely into the future.
Let's hope America does not go to war with Russia this time and drag Europe into it. Ditto with China.
Let's hope a peace in Ukraine is made as soon as possible. Nobody except the Hungarians and Chinese seem to agree with me.
This truth is so obvious that hardly any clever person sees it.
Not only was going to war a mistake for us (and much more for the French) in 1939 but it is a precedent, it seems, for further wars continuing indefinitely into the future.
Let's hope America does not go to war with Russia this time and drag Europe into it. Ditto with China.
Let's hope a peace in Ukraine is made as soon as possible. Nobody except the Hungarians and Chinese seem to agree with me.
The “Joe Biden” presidency is whirling around the drain in plain sight, and with it, likely, the Globalist hopes and dreams of making everybody eat bugs while they take away everything you own. Last week, audiotapes surfaced of the main parties to the Ukraine grift (Biden and Poroshenko) working things out in 2016 over the phone in “JB’s” final days as vice-president. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee has got its mitts on Biden family bank records galore detailing the abstruse money-laundering activities that were run through obscure European banks and innumerable Biden shell companies.
ReplyDeleteIt’s getting hard even for Democrats to ignore the accumulating evidence of the Biden Family’s global grift operation, and “JB’s” obvious advancing mental deterioration, provoking moves that should lead to his ejection from office.
You understand, “Joe Biden’s” reelection campaign is another rank hoax, yet another trip laid on the American public by a desperate, degenerate Democratic Party that doesn’t know what to do next with public opinion souring on it. There’s no way this gibbering near-corpse can run again. He can’t even perform as a puppet anymore. He’s a broken-down engine pulling a train of failure, perfidy, and treason five miles long behind him. The Ukraine war project he presides over looks more and more like an effort to conceal and cover-up his family’s bribery schemes by laying waste to the pitiful chump of a foreign land that went along with the grift — and which, anyway, is winding up as yet another American military humiliation with the Russians finishing off what’s left of Ukraine’s army in the failed “spring offensive.”
James Howard Kunstler
'Nobody except the Hungarians and Chinese seem to agree with me'
ReplyDeleteHere are some other countries that called for a negotiated end to the conflict:
Argentina
Brazil
India
Indonesia
South Africa
Iran
The Arab League issued a statement expressing "great concern" about the situation in Ukraine and called for dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the crisis.
When the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution demanding Russia immediately stop its military operations in Ukraine, out of 54 African member states, Eritrea voted against the resolution, 16 African countries including South Africa abstained, while nine other countries did not vote at all.
South Africa and Iran, peacekeepers so emulated on the world stage. Surely the world will hear their sincere calls for peace.
ReplyDeleteThe point is, governments representing more than half the Earth population are calling for a negotiated end of the NATO-RF conflict. By the way, who the fuck do you think you are to look down on countries like South Africa and Iran?
DeleteI agree with your conclusions.
ReplyDeleteBacevitch seems to have missed at least two things.
First, that Russia now has the most powerful conventional land and air forces in the world, or else the second most powerful, with its main rival being China, and not the US.
Second, that for his own reasons Putin sent a relatively small force into the Ukraine in 2022, probably less than 100,000 men, a fraction the size of the Ukrainian army, but has now mobilized and equipped almost a million men, to make sure of winning the war. So the story is not really about weakness, it is more about the restraint of Putin versus the more warlike approach of Prigozhin, which now seems to have far more appeal in Russia. I shall be astonished if the Ukraine does not collapse and agree to Russian peace terms during this year — unless of course huge NATO forces go into battle alongside the Ukrainians.
Why have the Russians stalled for so long, if their forces are so overwhelmingly powerful? I assume the Ukrainian counteroffensive won't succeed very much but hope that I am wrong. We in England should be trying to get a ceasefire except that would give the Russians to arm their forces. The Ukrainian forces are constantly being armed by America.
DeleteLet’s look at your “if” and “overwhelming” first. All serious analysts agree that Russia is one of the world’s three military great powers, together with China and the US. It is the strongest of the three in conventional land warfare, with far more tanks, armoured vehicles, and artillery than any other power, and far more men trained to use them. In air power and air defences, it is second only to the US.
DeleteTo “overwhelm” an enemy, you need to set out to do that.
There are at least three reasons for the length of the war. First, Putin seems to have miscalculated that when faced with the likelihood of defeat the Ukraine would come to terms with him; that is, on the basis of what he spelt out at the outset, accepting permanent neutrality, giving up the Crimea, and giving independence (or real self-government) to the two Donbas provinces or republics. That would have ended the Donbas War. We know the Ukraine changed its mind about negotiating along those lines, largely thanks to Johnson and Biden.
Second, what we English call masterly inactivity by Putin. If your enemy is fighting a foolish war and losing up to a thousand men a week, and you are losing far fewer, then a long war should suit you fine.
Third, the condition of the deep Ukrainian mud, which since last winter has stopped big off-road movements across the country. There is also some speculation that Putin thinks the problem of years of sky-high energy prices in Western Europe could bring about a realignment which will not suit the US. I wouldn’t give too much weight to that, but if the war lasts into next year we’ll see what the Germans think of the options they face.