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Memo to Zelenskyy: Study Korea
Dear Volodymyr,
Does any of this sound familiar? The bad guys, North Korea, invaded the good guys, South Korea. To stop the bad guys from winning, the Americans intervened. Unfortunately, just as the Americans were about to eliminate the retreating North Korean army, the adjoining super bad guys, China, intervened and pushed the Americans back. The Americans had all the military advantages except one — China had an unlimited number of soldiers. The result: a bloody stalemate.
North Korea wanted to fight to the death. South Korea wanted to fight to the death. China was willing to fight forever as long as China itself was unthreatened. America, however, wanted the killing to stop.
So, America told the South Koreans it had to agree to a ceasefire or America would leave. America told the Chinese that they had to agree to a ceasefire or else things would escalate and put China itself at risk. (The North Koreans had no choice but to do whatever China said to do.)
There was no permanent and lasting peace agreement. The bad guys were not punished. Justice was not done. Not only was a country divided, families were divided. South Koreans were made to watch as their Northern relatives were subjected to horrific oppression.
But, the killing stopped. America stayed behind to hold the line. America also assisted in the reconstruction of a devastated South.
Seventy years later, still no peace agreement. The North continues to threaten and oppress. America continues to hold the line. South Korea has become fabulously wealthy and successful, while the North has become one of the poorest places on Earth.
To quote The Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want, but you just might get what you need.
Best wishes,
G-Pub
Published in Foreign Policy
Lol. Trump shafts US defense companies and their workers.
Well, then I guess NATO deserves to be invaded and conquered by Russia.
(I swear the world is turning upside down!)
It must be very tough for you, watching it on TV.
The 2013 competitive offers by the EU and Russia for influence in Ukraine are ignored by the Western press narrative. The Russians offered a better counter offer, with fewer requirements.
The western response was not a still better offer but support of the maidan coup (or revolution, if you prefer).
I don’t think anyone can claim that hundreds of billions of war support can be cheaper than an improved offer of economic support.
I semi-agree. We sent troops to Vietnam and lost 58,000 of them, which was much the same in Korea. That would make the Vietnam and Korean wars very similar to each other. We’re not sending anybody to Ukraine and never had any plans to. America doesn’t have a trace of anything at risk here except pride and losing some money that would be going to our welfare recipients.
Not to be contrary, but I’ve never heard of a war where one side had an “exit strategy” (unless you want to count surrender). I’ve never given this idea much credence.
You forgot about the freedom and continued existence of the Ukrainian people. That far outweighs any benefits to arms manufacturers.
I don’t know how old you are and if you lived through that time period, but this is hugely mistaken. The U.S. and Western Europe fought a “Cold War” for 45 years against the Soviet Union where we did everything we could to undermine their domination over eastern Europe, short of engaging them militarily. There was something called the “Berlin Air Lift” where the Russians had closed-off West Berlin from the outside world and the West defied them by flying-in supplies to the hapless residents, with a quarter-of-a-million flights. The Russians eventually relented and allowed West Berlin contact with the outside world.
So? Does that mean we have to acquiesce to their paranoid delusions?
I would be celebrating, too! (though I am cynical that Russia will allow that to happen)
Feel free to tell me “I told you so” if that happens.
Wasn’t that the American revolution?
Ukrainians didn’t like the Russian counteroffer. Why do you think it was better?
Why not provide the support we promised them with the Budapest Memorandum, even if it wasn’t an official treaty ratified by the Senate? Why do you know better than the Ukrainian people what’s good for them?
If economic support doesn’t keep the Russian invader from invading, it’s not the support they need. Just providing dollars in welfare is not the way to make people strong. Look at the results of the Great Society. (Maybe that’s not what you meant, though.)
I don’t consider the maidan coup a choice made by the Ukrainians. as evidence, notice that the current civil war broke out immediately afterwards.
the other point I was making was that the maidan coup converted economic competition into civil war, then eventually a shooting war.
I think we were guaranteed to win an economic competition in the long run.
If not Ukrainians, then whose choice was it? And what civil war are you talking about that is currently going on?
Is this a serious question? It was our choice, the United States, to split Ukraine in half. Even the Winston Smiths at wikipedia admit the civil war existed 2014-2022.
I have heard this unconvincing idea a millions times over, and I think it is nonsensical. If the United States can split a country in half so easily or cause a rebellion, then why don’t we just go and do it in Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, etc…. It would solve all the world’s problems.
Neither Iran, North Korea, nor China are devastated remnants of a fallen civilization. Russia was but has recovered. Ukraine is still falling and has lost too many people to have much hope.
But Ukraine was not a devastated remnant of a fallen civilization either. If they were, how could they have resisted the third strongest military on Earth for three years? Where do you get these ideas? Even if you grant that Ukraine has lost 100,000 soldiers and civilians in this war, that is only two-tenths of one-percent of their population. The Jews lost half of their population world-wide during World War II, and they didn’t even have a country. Look at where they are today. For that matter, Russia lost about 20 million people during world war II and it didn’t stop them either.
That was only an article about Russian Separatists in Ukraine, not a civil war. Spain, and a host of other countries have separatists, but they are not considered to be in a civil war. If Ukraine has been in a civil war since 2014, how come no news organizations have mentioned this? And if it stopped in 2022, then it wouldn’t be considered a current civil war, would it?
A tiny sampling for your edification:
“Why Chechens Are Fighting Chechens in Ukraine’s Civil War”
https://time.com/3893066/chechens-ukraine-war/
“Navigating Ukraine’s Civil War”
https://news.usni.org/2014/07/28/opinion-navigating-ukraines-civil-war
“Why Ukraine’s Civil War—and Confrontation With Russia—May Escalate”
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/why-ukraines-civil-war-and-confrontation-russia-may-escalate/
“How Putin Ignited a Civil War in Ukraine”
https://www.newsweek.com/how-putin-ignited-civil-war-ukraine-349954
“Brazilian neo-Nazis recruited to fight Ukrainian civil war”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/brazilian-neo-nazis-recruited-to-fight-ukrainian-civil-war/
“Since 2014, Ukraine has been embroiled in a civil war after two regions in the east of the country declared autonomy. Thousands of foreign fighters from all over the world have flocked to the area, collectively known as Donbass.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-04/ukraine-foreign-fighters-meger/11054728
The above list took only about 10 minutes to compile. Just imagine how much more you could find in just, say, one hour. IF you so choose, that is.
The Catalans (like myself) and Basques have movements interested in greater autonomy from the central government in Madrid. Californians (like myself) have interests in redrawing our state border from time to time. This is very different from a civil war where the central government indiscriminately shells civilians in Donetsk City for eight years. Also very different from half of the army defecting from the central government, with their equipment and arsenals, to man the armed forces of the separatist movement.
Wikipedia considers the civil war 2014 to 2022 to be one phase of the Russian – Ukraine war, followed by the invasion phase when the Russians went from arming one side to actually committing troops. According to wikipedia it is all part of one war. Interpret the phases as you like. Most western commentary is still claiming that the Russians woke up one morning in 2022 and invaded in a flurry of (unprovoked) blood lust.
I’m impressed that you got under my skin so much with the Catalan comment. Well done, you.
I guess I stand corrected. Ukraine is indeed in a civil war.
Some things are revealing themselves to me in a new light. It looks like Russia is also involved in a civil war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechen%E2%80%93Russian_conflict
By calling it a coup, you’re adopting the Putin story. It comes from that source and nowhere else.
Putin took over Crimea about a month later, followed by an invasion of Donbas.
There was no civil war. Putin tried to portray the invasion of Donbas as a fight between “separatists” and Ukraine, until he finally gave up the pretense that his forces hadn’t been part of the violence since the beginning. Again, you’re adopting the Putin spin on events.
It should make you very suspicious that you only know how to tell the story the Putin way and not the way Ukrainians or impartial observers would tell it.
Converted? You mean the “separatists” had been in economic competition with Ukraine, until their contest became a shooting war? That of course makes no sense, and should alert you to the fact that portraying events as a “civil war” makes no sense either.
“We?” We were in an economic competition? Remember, Ukraine wanted to move towards EU membership.
Maybe you better check with the Ukrainians to see what hope they have and not get your story from Putin in unfiltered form. I’m still working on the possibility of a tourist visit to Ukraine this year (which has meant less time on Ricochet) and I would be far from the only tourist. Tourism is down since the war started, but Ukraine wants to build it up to be better than ever. In the meantime, tourists are welcome. I’ve been checking out other people’s tourist stories from the past year in order to make sure it would really be feasible and that I’d have all my ducks in a row before doing it. Ukraine is far from being the “devastated remnants of a fallen civilization”, which I presume is a story Putin is trying to get people to believe. I’d like to do a bike ride from Warsaw to Kyiv, and then take the regular train service from Kyiv back to Warsaw. I can use booking.com and/or AirBnB to find places to stay. There are grocery stores, cafes, and ATMs along the way. In other words, as long as I stay away from the fighting, it’s fairly normal. I do have to purchase some extra war risk insurance. Some people have got by without it–it seems that the border crossing guards don’t always all care whether or not you have it–but I’m not an immortal 20-year-old. Also, it seems that everybody else who tries to end a bicycle ride to Kyiv ends up taking a train into Kyiv instead of riding all the way. Something goes wrong and they run out of time to finish the trip on their bicycle. But that sort of thing happens anywhere.
Was in a civil war. In Feb ’22, that turned into a full-fledged proxy war.