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The War in Ukraine Is a Proxy War
I find it amazing I have even to make this argument, but here we are.
When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, the Reagan administration made the call to arm the defenders. The stated goal was to bleed our enemy. It was a way to hurt the USSR by proxy. Indeed, on Wikipedia, it is listed as one of the proxy wars of the Cold War.
In more modern times, our forces in Iraq have faced forces supported by Iran. That was a proxy war by Iran with us.
I am being sold on helping Ukraine, in part, as it is doing damage to our enemy, Russia. We are arming and using Ukraine to hurt the nation that is our enemy. The President of America has publicly called for Putin to be deposed, for crying out loud.
Just what do you people think a Proxy War is, anyway? By what criteria is arming another nation to fight our enemy with the stated intention that a reason to do it is to hurt our enemy, not a Proxy War?
I am sorry y’all don’t like the label, but being for arming someone else to fight on our behalf is the very definition of a Proxy War.
Oh, I know, we are also there to save a great and noble people from the evil that is Putin. However, the moment anyone says, “Wait, I am not sure I want to spend treasure fighting every invasion,” we are told, “But this is hurting Russia!” So, sorry, the idea we are doing this to be the good guys is immediately supported by the benefits of a Proxy War. If you want to claim you don’t support a Proxy War, you then don’t get to list as a good “this hurts our enemy, Russia” as a reason for us to be there.
Well, you can, but it is flat-out dishonest.
Published in General
The great fallacy of human history is “This time it’s different”.
His “pretext” was a heck of a lot more solid, to be quite understated about it, than our “WMD” in 2003. Ukraine had just undergone a US-backed coup that led to the installation of a decidedly Russia-unfriendly government, with immediate obvious strategic implications for Russia’s warm water naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea, as well as immediate humanitarian implications for Russian-speakers in the eastern and southeastern parts of Ukraine.
Don’t forget “this time it’s exactly the same as last time.”
Perhaps that analogy has run its course, and is about to be replaced with a collection of new and improved, much more up-to-date and pop-culture inspired ones, if this tweet from (believe it or not) NATO’s official page yesterday is any indication:
“Ukraine is hosting one of the great epics of this century
❝We are Harry Potter and William Wallace, the Na’vi and Han Solo. We’re escaping from Shawshank and blowing up the Death Star. We are fighting with the Harkonnens and challenging Thanos.❞ “
https://twitter.com/NATO/status/1628687961477750790
You cannot produce one shred of evidence that the United States hired the Ukrainian military to fight a war with Russia for us. We did not appoint them or hire them to gear up and invade Russia.
Our purpose there is to keep Russia from annihilating the Ukrainian people. Of course there are carpet baggers and arms dealers and all kinds of lowlifes making money from this war. God will deal with them on His own.
But our purpose is clear. It is to save the Ukrainian people from the Russians.
And hurt the Russians. Our leaders have said so.
You don’t know what you are taking about. Proxy wars are not hiring people to fight.
Of course, we have sure given them a lot of money.
I saw that yesterday. Reminded me of how the “Resistance” kids called themselves “Dumbledore’s Army.”
Let’s blame America first again. Yes you are right the west and US are responsible for all the evils of the world. Russia deserves its empire and China should have its East Asia coprosperity sphere. Also we were wrong to go in and remove a brutal dictator in Iraq who had consistently violated the terms of the Armistice he signed in 1991. How much do you want to blame the west for the problems of the world? Also how many people have to lose their freedom and cultural to the most brutal dictators in the world? Should we self flagellate for Iran in 79? Were we mistaken to get involved in Afghanistan in the 80s? How far back in US history do you want to go and blame us for the evils of the world?
This is why I have grave misgivings about our involvement in this war. We have completely forgotten that war is hell and to be avoided if it can be. Our leadership are the worst sort of people with the worst sort of analysis and are going to get us into something that is going to be altogether ugly. All out of virtue signaling nonsense. It isn’t necessarily that WWII analogies are wrong. It is that we fail to reckon with the full impact of WWII. If either side had enough of that generation still alive and in leadership (in their prime) we would not be sleepwalking into oblivion.
The West is responsible for nothing but it has the power and influence to build democracy and push back the enemy everywhere. Cant have it both ways. The west rose China up because of its greed. Iraq and Afghanistan were both unmitigated disasters and military defeats that trillions were sunk into and lives needlessly. If China invades Taiwan, which it likely will, blame yourself and your free market crap that led to their rise. Conservatives were nowhere when Bush gave them favored nation status and everything else. But the west isn’t responsible. Give me a break.
Only to the extent to which we, sadly, have been. Just as I’m willing to blame Russia, China, and Iran for the problems that they have caused.
Do you think that makes me an unpatriotic American? Or perhaps even a traitorous Putin-lover of the ilk that Mitt Romney accused Tulsi Gabbard of being last year?
I never said the West was blameless. What I resent is people who wish to blame the west and then let worse actors off the hook. Putin is thug. Xi is worse. Afghanistan was necessary, staying probably wasn’t but the initial response was. Iraq is more complicated. Why would I blame the West for China invading Taiwan and not you know China who is doing the actual invading? Generally speaking we have used trade to try to lessen the likelihood of war. It had a relatively good track record actually, so giving China favored nation status seemed like a good idea in the 1990s. It turns out to not have been one, but as I have said elsewhere you can’t unscramble eggs. What is your solution withdraw back to our own borders and wait for them here?
The worst actors will never be touched. They have 12000 nukes. The west gave China a 17 trillion dollar economy and western manufacturing innovations to run a war machine. If you hand a madman a gun you’re to blame too. Meanwhile we have cartels that have killed scores of Americans than putin or Xi have ever killed or will ever kill and you don’t have near the same Gung ho attitude to dealing with them or our border. You have no end goal for Ukraine or plan to get there except your wishful thinking which will never materialize in reality. The entire foreign policy of the US since the end of the cold war has been an unserious joke. And when someone says with a straight face that China and Russia will be coming across our border but the tens of thousands of dead Americans every year due to what is coming across our border takes a major back to seat to ukraines borders, then I’m sorry, I just can’t take you seriously.
That is fair, but concede that Russia has culpability in Ukraine and let’s move on to a more productive discussion about whether or not our involvement is prudent I am not sure it is but I’ll never be convinced that this is all America’s fault. As you may have taken from my [over]reaction, I am annoyed by that particular trope.
I never said that, nor would I. I am simply tired of the blame America for some dictator doing something in the world, that in my view his was likely to do anyway, way of assessing foreign policy. I don’t think there is a moral equivalence between the West and Russia, China, and Iran. You’ll have and incredibly hard time convincing me there is, but you might have a relatively easy time convincing me that what we are doing in this war is unwise.
Insulting me does not advance your argument or make you right.
Now you have changed the argument. I think I have been clear in numerous posts in this thread that I am not solidly sold on US intervention in the Russia Ukrainian war. I just don’t believe it is correct to say it is the US is to blame although I will admit we may be culpable is some ways for it. I do agree that China is a serious threat. The most serious threat we face and that we need to do something about it. I just say I have enough historical perspective to know why we tried what we did and why we may have hoped it would work.
I think Mexico is a borderline failed state and I would fully support US military activity on the southern border. I would even be in favor of some pretty aggressive action against the cartels. Including US troops in northern Mexico if necessary to suppress them, so since you are asking actually I do have a pretty Gung ho attitude about dealing with the southern border.
I am not an isolationist. I think that the world order since world war 2 has benefited the US immensely and I am unwilling to cede it to countries that manifestly don’t have the interests of the US, or anyone but their own at heart. That having been said. I am not sold on ever intervention under the sun. I am not even convinced that Ukraine is a prudent use of US power and I agree the US hasn’t had a solid foreign policy since Reagan and that is an issue.
This is the Merriam-Webster definition of the word proxy:
The meaning of this term is pretty narrow. It shows up in stories about duels or times when royalty hired people to fight in their place in wars.
It’s unrealistic to think that the United States is seeing an opportunity to engage in war with Russia vicariously through the Ukrainians. No one is crazy enough to want nuclear war, and that’s what everyone would be looking at if we were to to do that.
No one wanted this except Putin. I can’t help wondering if he assumed, after we withdrew from Afghanistan the way we did, if the United States would do nothing to stop him. But that is just a guess because neither I nor anyone else knows what he was thinking.
I do not think he wants nuclear war. If he did, he would have pulled that trigger by now.
I don’t know what we should do now. But I know, as I talk to my friends and neighbors and family members, that for the American people, this is about saving the Ukrainian people. Americans think Putin’s invasion was unjust, and it bothers people terribly.
That is not to say that idiots in Washington are not doing the right thing or that they are not trying to take advantage of this painful situation.
But this is not some type of proxy war where the Ukrainians are fighting some war we have with Russia for us.
Yes
Saying you have no idea what you’re talking about is not an insult.
Stating facts is not an insult.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Why don’t you flag me if you think I’m insulting you?
Please.
You go cherry pick definitions to figure out what’s going on so that you can be right. By your logic Korean and Vietnam were not proxy wars when clearly they were.
Part of people trying to sell our involvement in this war has been
specifically to say we are hurting Russia through this activity. We are letting you Crane’s kill themselves to hurt the person we see as our enemy. You might want to play lawyer and try to have a definition of the version of proxy but giving money and weapons to somebody so that they can kill my enemy is using them as a proxy.
I’m sorry if the moral ambiguity of that is something that you can’t handle.
Or maybe I am not. Tells me all I need to know about u.
Unfortunately, the military-industrial complex that Pres. Eisenhower warned us about in his 1961 Farewell Address has been whittling away at our moral capital over the past several decades, and at an accelerating pace since the fall of the Soviet Union. Hence my occasional reiteration (not in this thread, but in several previous ones) of the following:
There are no White Hats among the major players involved in the war in Ukraine. The war is the unfortunate and deplorable culmination of cynical, hard-nosed geopolitical jostling between the US and Russia that has been going on for a few decades in that country, with each side maneuvering to install their team of kleptocrats in charge of the country’s resources. The US finally won the “cold” part of that contest decisively, with the coup of 2014. Putin’s immediate reaction (in Crimea, Donbas) was the beginning of the “hot” part of this geopolitical jostling, which has now escalated to a “white hot” proxy war.
Ugh.
Normally, I don’t care how people use words. Unless someone is paying me to watch for nonstandard usage, I don’t even notice it. But when the protest on January 6, 2020, got out of hand in Washington, D.C., I saw reporters and others use the term insurr . . . tion (no, I won’t spell it out–I don’t want to feed the Google bots) turn into the eventual arrest of 1,003 people completely unfairly. I knew as soon as I saw it how it would affect interpretations of the event. Wow, was I right. Labels and language matter a lot.
The use of the word proxy has tremendous potential for harm. It will erode Americans’ self-confidence in their country. It makes us feel disgusting about ourselves, as if we were no better than China or Russia. That is not who we are, but I can see eventually hearing that about ourselves often enough and long enough that we could become it. Part of the power of suggestion and fulfilling the prophecy networks. Our military will see itself as just mercenaries, not idealistic young people trying to protect us.
We have big problems ahead of us because Putin has upset the nuclear applecart. I have no idea how this is going to end. But it won’t end well for the world if Americans think we are bad people who exploit and harm others for our own profit. If we think that’s who we are, it will affect what we do.
I’ll say no more. I stated my case. Do what you want. At least I tried. That’s all I can do.
This is a proxy war, and our leaders agree. You don’t get to make up your own facts.
Korea was a proxy war. Do you deny that?
That’s not normally how it’s done, but what do you think paying the government for operating costs including salaries, and even paying their pensions is? That sounds exactly like employment.
All of this could be true and there still wouldn’t be a moral equivalence between the West and Russia, China, and Iran. I think the west is in pretty dire straits right now. I believe its elites are venal, incompetent, and corrupt. I think it has lost its conception of itself and that it is a husk of what it use to be and yet. It is nowhere near as brutal as any member of the new axis that is forming. Russia is probably the least bad of the three, and that is saying something, but it is to an extent pointless arguing about this anymore. I am not going to convince you and you aren’t going to convince me. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this point.
Let’s take the 2014 uprising that everyone wants to blame on the US. I will stipulate the US was definitely involved. I will also add I consider the US’s involvement unwise and ill advised. I will add that Ukraine is probably as corrupt after the coup as it was before, yet the standard of living in Western Ukraine increased and the standard of living in the Donbas declined. Was it all roses, not at all. Putin isn’t wrong when he points out that there are Nazi elements in Ukraine. I don’t know enough about the political state to judge whether or not Putin’s claims of persecutions of Russians are accurate or not. I do know that the Russian’s weren’t greeted as liberators in 2022 and that there has been extensive push back against the Russians even in majority Russian speaking areas. The people of Ukraine don’t want what Putin’s selling. That matters in adjudicating the moral claims of each side. It doesn’t matter one bit in determining if US involvement now or in the past was wise.
Cherry picking definitions? Like your definition of Ukraine can’t win……
And in that case (as in this) Russia was the instigator……and in both Russia expected a quick victory & was surprised by the West’s response.
addendum- and in both the US was able to secure its allie and rearm to deter the real threat in another theatre. Which we can with a decent modicum of fortitude.
Nor have I argued that there is. I think that our moral capital is not what it used to be. It has been greatly diminished, to a point where our White Hat is now as muddied as Mike Rowe at the end of one of his “Dirty Jobs” episodes. And for that, I blame our whole upper echelon in our diplomatic, military, and intelligence apparatus, spanning multiple administrations going back to at least 1992.
I haven’t read all the comments, but why does anyone here believe we’re involved with Ukraine for the reasons the Biden administration says we are? Because our government is just so gosh darn caring and humane? Because globalists care so deeply about things like national sovereignty?? LOL. Anyone look at our southern border recently?
I find it entirely plausible that Ukraine is extorting support from the Biden government on the threat that the family’s corruption there will be exposed.
Also, Ukraine is a divided nation already with most residents of the Donbas being Russian-speaking ethnic Russians.
I think it’s morally repugnant for the US to encourage the continuation of the conflict rather than getting behind a negotiated settlement. It’s costing us nothing other than funny money. The sacrifices are being made by the Ukrainians and the Russians.
1)Those Donbas regions voted to be part of Ukraine. Ukraine is no more divided than is Russia. 72-80% of Russia is ethnically Russian(depending on the source)- 78% of Ukraine is ethnically Ukrainian.
2) Shouldn’t the Ukrainians get to decide when the sacrifices are too great, since they are the ones making them.