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I have been struck by some of the comments on Michael Galak’s excellent piece. Some seem filled with contempt and hatred for Ukraine. Keen to focus on corruption in Ukraine, the very same scribes appear oblivious to a far greater level of corruption in Russia, headed by a gangster regime hell bent on the restoration of the empire.
The Russian imperial impulse both predates and postdates the Marxist-Leninist period, a constant of Russian history. Russian communism, a messianic quasi-religious ideology, simply amplified the Russian imperial mission under the cover of the Soviet Union. Most Quadrant readers will know that the USSR consisted of sixteen supposedly equal soviet socialist republics. However, Russia was the first among equals. Students of Soviet history will know what that meant.
Putin, the former KGB case officer in Dresden, East Germany, received a thorough indoctrination in Marxist-Leninist ideology at a level of devotion far above that of my Lithuanian-born wife who, when studying medicine in Kaunas, had to pass an exam in Marxism-Leninism, a kind of doctrinal coming of age. My wife and her friends saw this as no more than an enforced surface conformity. It is hard to believe that a dedicated KGB officer could be similarly cynical. Without delving into the mind of Putin, we can discern strong threads of continuity in Russian history, both its sense of imperial mission and its internal power structure of power. Variously inspired by Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Joseph Stalin, the common denominator is imperial power expansion. We may surmise that Putin’s real complaint against the early Bolshevik regime was its signature of 1918’s Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which obliged Russia to give up close to half its European territory — Russian Poland, Lithuania and part of Latvia.
We can also surmise that Putin is far less interested in Christianity as such, than in the role of the Russian Orthodox Church, headed by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, a longtime KGB agent, in the Russian imperial project. After all, even Stalin allowed the Orthodox Churches to reopen during the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany. Notwithstanding the nonsense spouted by some soft isolationists in the West, Putin’s closest allies — Iran, North Korea, China and Cuba — are the most vicious anti-Christian regimes on the planet. And yet we are urged by some useful idiots to elevate Putin as some sort of anti-woke defender of traditional religious and family values.
Other soft isolationists, such as Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, propound a moral equivalence argument, basically that Ukraine is as bad as Russia. So why should we be involved, sending Bushmasters and moral support? On the geo-political level, China is carefully calibrating our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As both Geoffrey Blainey and Victor Davis Hanson have pointed out, the decision to launch wars is a matter of calculation of risk and reward. Our relatively robust support for Ukraine may be a deterrent to China. A non-response to Russia, as suggested by the likes of Tucker Carlson, would be a green light for a Chinese attack on democratic Taiwan. The geo-political fallout from a successful attack would be devastating.
I will not waste my time assailing the more moronic labels of Ukraine as neo-Nazi. Ukraine is not a perfect civil society. Then again, the governance of the newly restored independent Baltic states in the early 1990s was far from perfect. However, the election which saw the election of Zelensky was open and competitive. The former and defeated president Petro Poroshenko, still takes an active role in Ukrainian politics and actively supports resistance against Russia. At the very least, we don’t see opponents of Zelensky in jail, poisoned, falling out of windows etc. As for those who continue to rave on about Ukrainian Nazis, take a close look at the Wagner Group. Come on, I dare you.
I will not traverse the same ground already well covered by so many able commentators. Let me commend the article in the latest Quadrant by Daryl McCann. However, I want to deal with some unhelpful commentary by some with whom, on other issues, we might share common ground.
Step forward Tulsi Gabbard. She has become something of a star on the populist right since her defection from the Democrats. Now many of her comments on the woke disease are spot on, but when denouncing warmongers and accusing Biden of leading us into nuclear war, she is talking nonsense.
We can all see clear signs of Biden’s cognitive decline. Prior to the invasion, Putin not only miscalculated the Russian army’s military prowess and deluded himself that the Ukrainian population would welcome the Russian troops as liberators, he also interpreted Biden as weak and indecisive, for which none can blame him: the craven cut-and-run from Afghanistan, which left much valuable military equipment in the hands of the Taliban and the idiotic pursuit of a nuclear deal with Iran being but two examples of the policy fog in which the current White House operates. In the broader view, as observed from the Kremlin, we see the American and West European obsession with the so-called climate emergency and the pursuit of unreliable renewable energy whilst reducing energy independence and increasing reliance on Russian oil and gas. An increasingly woke West would not offer serious resistance, was Putin’s surmise, and which seemed initially to be an accurate appraisal. Remember, Biden’s first response to the Russian invasion was to offer safe passage out of Ukraine to Zelensky and his family.
Joe Biden’s perceived weakness was the provocation, not his imagined senile belligerence. It is deeply ironic that the Democrats who produced leaders such as Obama and Hillary Clinton, wedged themselves into an anti-Russian position via the Russian-collusion narrative against Donald Trump. We might say that this was one good outcome of the collusion hoax. We forget that it was the Obama Administration which denied effective arms support to Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s seizure Crimea in 2014 and invasion of Eastern Ukraine. We might add that Biden and other Western leaders were dragged by public outrage into a more robust response.
In relation to the supposed nuclear threat from Putin, we see a new variant of that old “better red than dead” argument. If we follow the argument of the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, Putin only has to raise the spectre of a nuclear response for us to run up the white flag. The Minsk Accords, co-signed by Russia, accorded international legal recognition of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and those parts of Ukraine now illegally annexed by Russia. Russia illegally seizes another nation’s territory and threatens nuclear war against defenders of legal sovereignty.
What next? An attack on Estonia and Latvia with their large Russian minorities? What say the soft isolationists? Is the Russian nuclear threat a veto on any effective response to Putin’s aggression? Would this not signify the death of NATO? Tulsi Gabbard, Tucker Carlson and other like-minded isolationists, you are fools.
“If we follow the argument of the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, Putin only has to raise the spectre of a nuclear response for us to run up the white flag.”
I suppose one could also accuse Eisenhower of running up the white flag by failing to intervene (and risk nuclear war) when Soviet troops crushed the 1956 Hungarian revolt. And Lyndon Johnson could be tarred with the same brush for not pumping money and weapons into Czechoslovakia during the 1968 Prague Spring and subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion.
Call me a fool but I’m with Tucker and Tulsi: we should do everything we can to avoid blundering into a planet-wrecking nuclear war over Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. There needs to be a negotiated settlement. Pushing for total Russian defeat and regime change in Moscow will only prolong this horrendous war, result in more deaths and take the world to the brink of nuclear calamity. To quote Patrick Buchanan (another evil “isolationist”):
“America has never had a vital interest in who rules in Kyiv. Through the 19th and almost all of the 20th century, Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire or the USSR, ruled from Moscow. And that condition presented no issue of concern to the USA, 5,000 miles away.
For us, the crucial concern in this Ukraine-Russia war is not who ends up in control of Crimea and the Donbas, but that the U.S. not be sucked into a war with Russia that could escalate into a world war and a nuclear war. That is America’s paramount interest in this crisis.”
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/web/where-u-s-and-ukrainian-war-aims-collide/
“Russia illegally seizes another nation’s territory and threatens nuclear war against defenders of legal sovereignty.”
NATO violated Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity when it bombed the country and amputated Kosovo. But I guess it’s ok when the good guys do it.
“We forget that it was the Obama Administration which denied effective arms support to Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s seizure Crimea in 2014 and invasion of Eastern Ukraine. We might add that Biden and other Western leaders were dragged by public outrage into a more robust response.”
I would argue that Mr Carr has forgotten what happened in Kiev during 2014 and how this lead to conflict in the east. The Americans were hardly passive observers (check out what Victoria Nuland was up to).
This analysis reads like a joint press release from the primary war profiteers – Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. I’m sure they’re grateful.
Despite its huge military budget and powerful military industrial-complex, the United States finds itself in a curious position where it can raise tens of billions to defend Ukraine but it can’t even secure its own southern border.
The West’s woke ruling class, having steadily eroded the sovereignty and borders of Western nations, now demands that we risk a catastrophic nuclear war to defend Ukraine’s borders.
Thanks Farnswort, you have saved me a deal of trouble typing out much the same. Pragmatism doesn’t enter the debate for one could dredge up a wheelbarrow load of stuff the USA has done over the years so it’s the White Hats Vs the Black hats, situation normal. The negotiating table is the answer, not the USA and other countries adding fuel to the flames with men and equipment being sent to The Ukraine. Western propaganda is very effective for the womenfolk in my extended family in Russia are wringing their hands and urging their kids of military age to flee for they listen to the voice of America. As we say “poor fellow my country” here I remember my great grandfather opining when I was a kid here in Australia during the cold war, “poor mother Russia.” I thought that too when I went to live and work there thirty odd years ago for the place was like a poorly run rubbish tip, a magical country run by criminals but Putin be he a saint or a sinner, has transformed the place into a modern one. From my observations, and some sources tell me that the USA has invested 67 million USD in The Ukraine since around 2014, The Ukraine hasn’t changed but Russia has and will negotiate, so too should The Ukraine and hopefully that ex comedian will remove his T-shirt and wear a coat and tie at the negotiating table.
It is largely verboten to point out that Ukraine is also a kleptocracy in many respects and that some of that aid money has likely been siphoned off.
Ted Galen Carpenter examines some of the claims made about Ukraine’s “liberal democracy” here:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/washingtons-whoppers-on-the-war-in-ukraine/
Ukraine is certainly less oppressive than Russia or Belarus but it is hardly a shining example of freedom, democracy and good governance.
Thanks Farnswort, you have saved me a deal of trouble typing out much the same. Pragmatism doesn’t enter the debate for one could dredge up a wheelbarrow load of stuff the USA has done over the years so it’s the White Hats Vs the Black hats, situation normal. The negotiating table is the answer, not the USA and other countries adding fuel to the flames with men and equipment being sent to The Ukraine. Western propaganda is very effective for the womenfolk in my extended family in Russia are wringing their hands and urging their kids of military age to flee for they listen to the voice of America. As we say “poor fellow my country” here I remember my great grandfather opining when I was a kid here in Australia during the cold war, “poor mother Russia.” I thought that too when I went to live and work there thirty odd years ago for the place was like a poorly run rubbish tip, a magical country run by criminals but Putin be he a saint or a sinner, has transformed the place into a modern one. From my observations, and some sources tell me that the USA has invested 67 billion USD in The Ukraine since around 2014, The Ukraine hasn’t changed but Russia has and will negotiate, so too should The Ukraine and hopefully that ex comedian will remove his T-shirt and wear a coat and tie at the negotiating table.
Correction, not 67 million, 67 billion USD!
Well said Christopher. I like Tucker Carlson but on Putin he is 100% wrong. I can’t follow his logic. As to Tulsi Gabbard, she just comes across as hysterical. She is probably too young but maybe she should study a little bit more the history of the cold war. Best to ignore all those Putin lovers. Every dictator in history has its supporters but they rarely can mount a proper argument, usually they are anti-American.
Like Homer J, I also agree with most of what Christopher has written here. The responding comments along the lines of “There needs to be a negotiated settlement” are mindlessly naive, totally ignorant of Putin’s motives and self-imposed dilemma. To mix metaphors, Putin is now a cornered shithouse rat who’s stuck in a hole he’s dug too deep to get out of. He’s suddenly transformed himself into a dead man walking. The only conditions which he’d have accepted (and was clearly seeking) at the beginning of his crazy campaign would have been total annexation of Ukraine; right now, some think he might agree to Russian possession of all the territory its military presently occupies (already a big comedown), but that is diminishing with each day, and ignores the “enemy”: after all the destruction and suffering, which has inflamed Ukrainian nationalism, there can be no going back for them, or giving up even an inch. As Zelenskyi repeatedly states, there’s no negotiation with Putin as head of state.
It’s impossible to explain Putin’s reasons for starting this war, but I suspect the outstanding one, ignored by all the pundits, is his urgent need to divert attention from the obscene extent of his kleptocracy (explained lucidly by Bill Browder). With billions of dollars salted away in secret bank accounts and properties worldwide, Putin decided this war would be a convenient smokescreen, while uniting the Russian population behind him in an orgy of patriotism, and consolidating his place in history.
Ukraine right now bears no comparison with the Serbia-Kosovo situation; so many complex and unique factors (both local and international) feed into these specific contingencies. And I don’t think it’s valid to claim that nations must always act in callous, Machiavellian self-interest; was the USA right in entering WWII in Europe? What immediate self-interests were threatened? (Don’t tell me: “it was all about the military-industrial complex wanting to boost profits”.) A degree of altruism and empathy often creeps in, especially when it’s so easy to identify with the perceived victims (moreso if they include relatives, which partly explained Roosevelt’s hesitation: too many US citizens of German descent, finally pushed aside by Pearl Harbour). Then, there are the longer-term consequences of appeasement of aggressors, which of course can never be foreseen, but are always obvious in retrospect.
Today’s appeasers totally miss the point of having N-weapons. If they’re meant to be primarily a deterrent, just how effective have they been in this situation? Putin, Medvedyev and Lavrov don’t hold back with facile threats. The street thug waves around his weapons, so everybody else runs away in fear? The best way of dealing with bullies is to bully them straight back, harder and without hesitation. Start retreating, and you’ll never stop . . .
@pmprociv. Your last paragraph. My exact thinking. How did we ever get to this logic? Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong-un bully the world and we are all meant to fall onto our knees in fear? People seem to forget that we (the West / NATO) have nuclear weapons too. While we (Tucker Carlson kind) seem to ignore that, I doubt Putin is that stupid.
To those who think that Putin is a jolly good chap because he claims to have a take-no-prisoners approach to Islamist terrorism: Putin cosies up to, and purchases war materiel from, a corrupt and brutal regime of theocrats who murder schoolgirls for not wearing a hijab.
Deeds, not words, are what matters.
I don’t recall anybody on these forums making the claim that Putin is a good person. This seems like a strawman argument to me.
pmprociv: “The responding comments along the lines of “There needs to be a negotiated settlement” are mindlessly naive, totally ignorant of Putin’s motives and self-imposed dilemma.”
Oh well, I would prefer to be considered ‘mindlessly naive’ than deranged. Clamouring for interminable, all-or-nothing war against a nuclear power is an insane position. I am yet to hear a good reason why the West must unconditionally support Kiev’s campaign to retake every square metre of historically contested and ethnically mixed territory, no matter what the people living there say they want, no matter the cost – even if it involves nuclear war.
That certain powerful people in Western capitals show no interest in de-escalation, and instead demonstrate a seemingly incessant interest in escalation and Ukrainian territorial maximalism, should worry those of us who value rationality (not to mention planetary self-preservation). As an aside, it is also quite disconcerting to witness neocons and the woke left team up to champion “Woke War III”, see: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/woke-war-3/
Ensuring that the Donbas and Crimea were ruled from Kiev wasn’t a priority for Western leaders until yesterday. When Gorbachev’s USSR was unravelling in 1991, George H. W. Bush urged Ukraine to stay within the union. US policymakers back then evidently didn’t believe that Ukrainian sovereignty was of paramount importance. But now we are told it is only right and just to risk a full-blown nuclear war in order to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity. And anybody who disagrees is a Putin stooge! Or just doesn’t understand how evil Putler is.. or something.
I find it telling how you completely ignored my references to 1956 Hungary and 1968 Czechoslovakia (we could also add 1953 East Germany to that list). Were Eisenhower and Johnson ‘naive’ and cowardly appeasers for choosing not to intervene when Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces stormed Budapest and Prague? Did they not understand that “the best way of dealing with bullies is to bully them straight back, harder and without hesitation”?
And what about Kennedy? He backed away from the brink of World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis by removing missiles from Turkey and promising not to invade Cuba. Why didn’t he take the fight right up to that bully-boy peasant Khrushchev? More appeasement?
I must say I find it a bit odd how Putin is simultaneously a “cornered shithouse rat who’s stuck in a hole he’s dug too deep to get out of” in Ukraine but also on the verge of invading and conquering NATO countries.
Further, the claim that Putin seeks nothing less than the “total annexation” of Ukraine and thus cannot be negotiated with under any circumstances doesn’t really accord with the evidence. More detail has come to light about a peace deal that was almost agreed to back in April. This Turkish-brokered deal would have involved Russia withdrawing to its pre-February positions in return for Kiev declaring itself neutral and abandoning its NATO aspirations. Both sides reportedly came close to agreement until the deal was torpedoed by the US and UK (or at least this is the claim).
And, lastly, I understand that it may be difficult for some to acknowledge the real parallel between the Ukraine and Serbia-Kosovo conflicts. Whether we like to admit it or not, the West set a precedent in Europe by aiding the ethnic Albanian separatist movement in Kosovo and forcibly carving up Serbia. As the Serbian president recently stated at the UN: “We ask for a clear answer to the question I’ve been asking my interlocutors, leaders of many countries for years – what is the difference between the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, which was grossly violated, and for which you provided international recognition and legitimacy, at least some of you? Nobody has ever provided a rational answer to that question.”
Farnswort, you raise quite a few points that need a response. The people of Russia and Ukraine were getting along just fine for years, freely visiting, working and residing in each others’ territories, intermarrying, speaking mutually interchangeable languages (after all, they hardly differ, deriving from the same origins), so the time for negotiation was ripe for a long time before Putin sparked his rabid attack. The ongoing separatist activity in the Donbas was an irritant, fomented and supported by Putin’s military, and could have been resolved peacefully, were his intentions honorable. And we mustn’t forget his declared reasons: to get rid of Ukrainian Nazis, and protect Russian speakers! Anyone familiar with local reality would instantly see this as pure crap (almost 100% of Ukrainians speak Russian). And how would the endpoint of these goals be assessed, without total subjugation of Ukraine? Furthermore, instead of preventing any ambitions in that direction, it was the best way to ensure a Ukrainian alliance with NATO. Putin has now burnt his bridges, both literally and metaphorically — definitely not a chess player.
One can look back to post-war Europe with regrets, a period of lost opportunities: I didn’t think so at the time (being a kid then, plus of a different ideological bent), but have since changed my views. The West should have intervened in East Germany, in Hungary and Czechoslovakia when the opportunities presented; repeated appeasement only encouraged the USSR to escalate its bullying, while the USA was held back by domestic politics and fear of a nuclear conflagration. Eisenhower and Johnson weren’t the “warmongers” they’re often accused of being. We could speculate interminably about how standing up against such provocation would have changed the world, but maybe the pernicious and corrosive Cold War would have been averted. The West is not seething with a chronic, irrational hatred of Russia, whereas Russia is relentlessly immersed in paranoia directed at the West, perpetuated and fully exploited by its political masters.
Harping back to the perceived past “sins” of the West is completely irrelevant to the situation in which we find the world today, and doesn’t help understand, or resolve, the current conflict — but it does provide Putin’s regime with convenient, specious pretexts and justification for its atrocities. As for the Balkans, the region has been a basket-case for centuries, if not millennia — it triggered WWI, albeit to a world primed for conflict. Tito was sufficiently charismatic, smart and powerful to hold it all together after WWII, but it didn’t take long to revert to ancient form on his demise.
As for the “cornered shithouse rat”, it frantically resorts to any and all tactics, regardless of their barbarity, to save its own skin. Why else would Putin and his henchmen continually threaten nuclear weapons, and lie so blatantly and shamelessly that just about everything that comes out of their mouths is now laughed at, even by the vast majority of UN members? Although it’s well beyond a joke, when they mindlessly kill civilians whom they profess to be protecting, destroy power infrastructure, are about to blow up a hydro dam, and detonate a dirty bomb. These are not the actions of rational benevolent players, but psychopaths fighting for their survival.
One frequent commenter and author assets that Putin is a “committed Christian” who is working to reduce corruption in Russia. A number of commenters have said that he stands up for “traditional values”, or similar.
My point is that a lot of the support for Putin from conservative-minded people in democratic countries derives from a perception that he is somehow “anti-woke” and stands up for “traditional values”. Mixed in with exasperation, it’s a seductive line of thinking. It’s nonsense. Treating words as deeds is a defining idiocy of the left, and conservatives shouldn’t succumb to it.
Farnswort, the above was intended as a reply to your ‘straw man’ comment higher up.
Putin presides over a kleptocracy that has murdered its opponents, looted the national wealth and waged a destructive, horrendous war in a neighbouring Slavic country. Putin may claim to defend Orthodox Christianity but he has acted in a most unChristian manner.
So yes, Russia’s post-Soviet rulers are certainly reprehensible people. But will they, in the long run, have done more to destroy their nation than our rulers in the West have done to destroy ours? For all their wickedness – and they are most definitely wicked – Russia’s ruling elites haven’t waged war against their own nation through the demonisation of its founders and majority demographic, the trashing of its heritage and history, and the importation of millions of people from vastly different cultures and creeds. I suppose history will tell whether Russian or Western elites inflicted more permanent damage upon their respective nations.
In truth, I don’t really see much difference between a Russian peasant lad being forced to fight on the frontlines in the Donbas and a Kansas farm boy being blown up in Kandahar for the sake of a gender studies program. Both are victims of callous elites and their vanity projects.
There’s not much pont in getting into an argument- but thank you for explaining your position.
To further illustrate mine, I just saw the RT clip from a day or two ago in which the commentator said, in response to suggestions that the Russian army was engaging in rape, that Ukrainian grandmothers would happily give up their burial savings to be raped by a Russian soldier. He went on to say that Ukraine didn’t exist, and anyone who said otherwise should be shot or drowned. On state TV.
Is this your idea of Russian elites not trashing their heritage and history? Or not betraying their own people?
I used to watch RT videos on Youtube but until they were censored. I once believed this would only happen in totalitarian states like Russia. Makes ya think.
Excellent timely article.
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What really worries me is that some arguably cogent points – stated by BOTH sides of this debate here – have chilling implications for Australia.
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For a wealthy, resource rich, juicy target, with a fairly obvious powerful potential predator in the wings, Australia has a deplorably weak defence capability.
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Why is this a problem when we have the most powerful military in the world THOUGHT likely to come to our aid? Read through the comments and the article above and think about the implications for Australia.
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The arguments which support the fact that the US and other NATO partners have been reluctant to get more involved in Ukraine are a warning for us. This particularly applies to the use of the nuclear card which arguably has been an important factor in dissuading the US and NATO from being directly involved on the ground or in the air.
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But even without the nuclear card the US and NATO were reluctant to get involved in say even a no fly zone over Ukraine because it could have involved the US and others in direct conflict with Russia and possibly have widened the war to the international level.
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You might say but we’re so different to Ukraine. We’ve been great allies of the US, fighting alongside it in wars. And we have ANZUS and now belatedly AUKUS. That’s true. And they’re all important.
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However as important as our links are, does the evidence indicate we’re assured of US help – because we’d be highly unlikely to survive without it.
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A close reading of the agreements reveals that neither ANZUS nor AUKUS represent clear commitments to come to our aid if we are attacked.
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With ANZUS the key commitment is to “consult” if a member is attacked. While AUKUS is primarily an agreement for Australia to get nuclear powered ( not armed) submarines and to improve the interoperability of our defence in the pacific with the UK and the US.
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Reading the above points from both sides of the argument here on the history of the hesitancy of the US involvement against Russia – and the arguments for that hesitancy – you have to wonder how it would be possible for a US government to come directly to our aid if doing so opened its capital cities up to potential nuclear attack?
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Even if a legally binding commitment to come to our aid existed in ANZUS that would be a very difficult, maybe an impossible argument for the US government to carry with the American people living in those cities.
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Seeing how effective the nuclear card has been in keeping the US and NATO out of direct involvement in Ukraine should be a salutary warning for us. Russia could well have set a precedent there for other future potential nuclear armed and powerful aggressors. You can be sure the situation in Ukraine is being closely watched by them.
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The outlook seems far better for Ukraine than first thought and that would be a warning for other potential aggressors. However the consequences of the Russian invasion have still been catastrophic for Ukraine. And while things are a lot better than first thought the final outcome is still in doubt for Ukraine. It isn’t assured of victory even with the all the defence aid given so far by NATO and the US and future likely aid.
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A sizeable part of the catastrophic impact for Ukraine has come from remotely fired attacks outside Ukraine’s borders with conventional weapons. And there’s been virtually no retaliatory attacks on Russian territory to those attacks by Ukraine nor from anyone else. Ukraine doesn’t generally have the capability and others don’t want to risk widening the war.
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We have the potential also to be subject to the same sorts of softening up tactics without a good capability to retaliate or threaten retaliation or defend ourselves against them.
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While we are very close culturally, politically and militarily to the US we are also a fairly small country very remote from the US. While we assume the US would come to our defence think about the situation if the positions were reversed.
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That is if Australia were a powerful country where America is and America were a small country remote from us. Would Australia come to the aid of that America if our cities were being threatened with potential nuclear attack?
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Hopefully the US would come to our aid but to guarantee our existence as a free democratic country in this part of the world we arguably need a nuclear deterrent to counter the nuclear card and an ability to thwart conventional remote attacks until aid can arrive to help us. The fact there are no advanced plans to do either should be a concern to us all.
Some argue as if all world powers are nice, honest, logical and respectable. They are not. It is well to remember that Ukraine once possessed nuclear weapons.
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The text of the Budapest 1994 agreement when Ukraine agreed to give up it’s nuclear weapons to Russia is informative.. The Russian Federation agreed to
“to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” Ukraine was concerned at that time not to be subjected to the same kind of Russian interference as had other former Soviet bloc countries. It is obscene now that Russia is threatening to use it’s nuclear weapons as a wall to hide behind whilst it kills innocent Ukrainians.
@Farnswort
“I am yet to hear a good reason why the West must unconditionally support Kiev’s campaign to retake every square metre of historically contested and ethnically mixed territory,”
-Ukraine’s borders were guaranteed by the Russians, and in exchange for those guarantees Ukraine handed back Russian nuclear weapons it had retained when the Soviet empire collapsed.
If it had kept that arsenal it is extremely doubtful we would be where we are now, is it not?
I don’t for one minute think Zelensky or Ukraine are paragons of virtue, far from it. And I agree that the expansion of NATO has been problematic for Russia. But we definitely should be doing what we are doing – arming this country and sending the strongest possible single to Putin to desist.
And if Putin is foolish enough to threaten/invade a NATO country, then we must not hesitate for a moment.
Never forget that if President Donald Trump had still been in the White House, the conflict in Ukraine would, most probably, never have happened. Even now, Donald Trump has offered to broker peace with Putin and Zelensky but, of course, the impostors in the White House would never allow that.
Calling one of the best commentators, Tucker Carlson, a ‘fool’ is ignorant, spiteful and smacks of jealousy. Tucker’s exacting analysis is obvious, why should the Democrats send more than fifty billion dollars to buy weapons for Ukraine and to fill the pockets of the oligarchs when the criminal, lying, traitorous Biden administration opened the floodgates at the southern border of the USA two years ago, and has welcomed, with open arms, over 4.4 million illegal invaders many of whom are at war with law abiding American citizens. All these invaders are illegal and many of them are brutal rapists of women and children, horrendous murderers who leave children to die in the desert, importers of deadly fentanyl, the ingredients coming from Communist China, which is the biggest killer of American youth today, known barbaric terrorists, numerous escaped prisoners from other countries, all of whom are being bussed or flown to States all across America. Why should Americans have to pay for a war far away in Europe when there is an undeclared deadly war at home.
And never forget that the aim of this invasion which is orchestrated by the Democrats, is to destroy Democracy and set up a one-party state controlled by the Communist/ Marxist/ Democrats.
In what other national media outlet would such a robust discussion of this issue be allowed to take place? Whatever your point of view, and your opinion on the ongoing saga in the Ukraine, you are free to give it expression in these pages.
Congratulations Quadrant!
Right on that Mr.Williams.