Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Sen. Tom Cotton Hits the Right Chord on Ukraine
It’s been interesting to hear pundits argue various interpretations and strategies about the situation between Ukraine and Russia. For sure, no serious person thinks the U.S. should go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Bolstering the U.S. and NATO presence near Russia’s border (think Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) is another matter, along with helping Ukraine defend itself. Those efforts are underway, albeit belatedly.
On one end, you have former President George W. Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio adviser Max Boot. He’s now a Washington Post columnist and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Boot thinks we should supply Ukraine’s army and, when it loses to Russia, support a guerrilla war not unlike “Charlie Wilson’s War” in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
Don’t underestimate Ukraine’s willingness to fight Russia. After all, it has a long and not very pleasant history with its bad neighbors, starting with the Holodomor, where Soviet dictator Josef Stalin literally starved almost as many millions of Ukrainians from 1932-33 as German dictator Adolf Hitler exterminated Jews during World War II. And remember that Chernobyl, the worst nuclear disaster in world history thanks to the Soviets, is located in northern Ukraine. Memories are long. Maybe Ukraine could offer Russian troops a chance to encamp there for the winter.
Hey, do you think that stopped Hunter?
Xi spent more and seems to be getting his money’s worth.
Ukraine, or Burisma?
Perhaps what’s going on is the Ukrainian crooks who are in with the Bidens don’t want to be replaced by the crooks who are in with Putin, and Biden plans on spending American blood and treasure to prop up his crooks.
When he was ten years old? You tell me.
Protecting the USA.
I don’t see how anything Cotton proposes protects us. It puts us at risk to protect others, I think.
It keeps Russia edgy which keeps the EU edgy which keeps the US central.
Sorry, I can’t apply that description to anyone who is backed by the Club for Growth and supported TPP. That makes me suspect that his areas of opposition to the tranzi progs make him part of the controlled opposition. With the significant exceptions of immigration and abortion, Cotton tends to vote with the globalists and the Fourth Branch. The Fourth Branch is not motivated by protecting the same USA that elected Tom Cotton.
My best guess is that the prog foreign policy and defense policy are set by the Obama machine. They are strong supporters of the Marine Corpses. And the Army, Navy, and Air Force corpses. They hate the actual warfighters and want to see them dead (along with the “white supremacists” who like and support them, and from whose ranks they are disproportionately drawn—and the race traitors adjacent to the white supremacists who have been seduced by that rhetoric.)
For the progs, wars are a means to several ends:
• the old school (and bipartisan) enrichment of self, friends and family
• busting the defense budget and attriting personnel and materiel (Cloward Piven writ large, with the added fillip that the top Pentagon ranks are heavily woke and hostile to the brand of military in which Sen. Cotton served;) see under “hate them and want them dead and/or ruined.)
• killing off and embittering the remaining warfighters in order to replace them with the Woke and divert military readiness funding to “infrastructure,” the “Green military” and social justice. Failed operations are fantastic for that in the long run, while providing graft from the military-industrial complex in the short run.
Hmm, except the original states are all bordered by the Appalachians, which proved a formidable barrier just for crossing. Once we expanded west of those, there was the Mississippi River; west again, the Rockies, the Sierra Nevadas, etc.
I don’t think you meant we expanded chasing some elusive defense, but your wording makes it sound so.
We very much expanded with defense in mind. That’s what Manifest Destiny is about in part. It was with an idea of keeping European powers out and Mexico down. We purchased land from France. We tried pushing the British out of Canada and failed. The Lewis and Clark Expedition. Wars with Mexico and purchase of land with a desert buffer. France takes over Mexico and we push back. The Civil War and policy to keep France and Britain from meddling with the Russian navy’s help. The purchase of Alaska from Russia pushing Russia out of North America. Taking Hawaii to keep Europeans from having a naval base so close to us.
It is also the classic realist position. I’m not in that camp (I don’t think), but there is a point to be made: does it serve our interests to get involved? I cannot see that it does beyond the restraining of an illiberal Russia. Actually, the realists might consider that a good reason for involvement. Maybe so.
Putin, Xi, et. al. constantly promote imaginary and exaggerated conflicts, partly to increase their standing with the public, and also to distract their citizens from their every day circumstances, something needed particularly when things are not well. Do I believe Putin intends/intended this one to go hot? Yes. The use of arms to expand territory is a notion worthy of our attention and our efforts to prevent. Do we go so far as opposing him militarily?
Also, if we keep him out of Ukraine, what happens next? I suspect he won’t accept it and will continue to focus efforts there. Still, keeping his attention there and his forces out of there is a useful thing. We know what he’s after and we know where. Now we have to consider the man. If he does annex or otherwise subjugate Ukraine, does he repeat this elsewhere? If so, is it better to stop him now? How much of this is fueled by Putin/Russia’s distrust of the West?
If the Baltic nations were any priority, they’d already be gone. Russia’s bizarre landing craft incursion into Danish territorial waters is a mystery, and the Scandinavian countries are showing their concern with more than words. He is also flooding Poland with refugees from the Middle East, an overt attempt at destabilization. Any way and any direction we look, Putin/Russia is a bad actor.
Even so, and even with the lessons of 1938, I’m unsure. I do think the West could restrain him with sanctions, etc., but the current leadership doesn’t have the will to do it. If Putin/Russia continues to act as it currently does, the next situation will likely be more difficult and more dangerous…and more necessary. I pray we don’t get there.
He is kept out of Ukraine, what does he do next?
A couple of things come to mind – Loss of Ukraine, does not mean that he loses Crimea – so he can focus more attention there.
Continue his disruption of Georgia.
Demand a more robust access corridor to Kaliningrad.
Lots of ways he can continue to disrupt things.
It would be better for him if he focused on exploiting the territory he already has as opposed to taking it from others.
Remember, Russia is the largest country in the world.
With natural resources the envy of the world in Siberia, however, as one expert put it:
Don’t misunderstand, I know there are plenty of things that can or will happen “next,” I mentioned a few possibilities. I like your thoughts on it as well. Well, I don’t like as in enjoy them, but you know what I mean.
George Washington and others had a very justified concern that the Americans who were settling across the Appalachians would not have strong loyalty to the United States (which just barely existed then) and could easily ally with some other power, such as Spain, which would constrain and could even be a threat to the United States. In fact, some of the settlers did ally with Spain, and a few high officials even conspired together with Spain. But their loyalties to Spain weren’t very strong, either, and we “conquered” those territories to remove any threat of that happening, and also to keep our own country’s options for expansion open. Motives and actions were mixed.
Not to mention that the portion of Siberia in the Russian Far East borders China and North Korea, and that to the west, there’s a long border with Mongolia . . . and that Mongolia’s southern border is with. . . China.
Yes, indeed, we should project American force to protect Poland’s and Ukraine’s borders, just like we do with our own southern border.
For Russia (and perhaps Ukraine) it’s arguably existential. For the US, not.
By the modern definition…most recently popularized by the local NT crowd…everything is existential here.
To be fair we hear that about progressives and the 2024 elections too.
Security of the US southern border is not existential for the US?
Sure, but the security of Ukraine’s border isn’t.
Absolutely right.