Imagine Defeat. We’re sleepwalking off a cliff when it comes to Ukraine.
https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/imagine-defeat/
by Sampo
Imagine Defeat. We’re sleepwalking off a cliff when it comes to Ukraine.
https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/imagine-defeat/
by Sampo
22 comments
Democrat here, I’m not sleepwalking, I’m weeping.
I’m sure the European liders know this stuff much better than us. Why don’t they take action?
Christ, this is an eye-opening piece – so many things I can find agreeing on and also completely new things I never thought about, like Poland getting nuclear weapons.
This hits especially close to my line of thought:
>A friend describes a bleak scene: a village in western Ukraine where inhabitants are women, the elderly, and young men back from war without limbs. Get used to the profile. Young amputees will feature in a future Ukrainian parliament. A decent number will be bitter from sacrifice without victory. The Ukrainian vision all along has been that all invading Russian forces must leave Ukraine.
>**Absent this outcome, an angry political Right will get traction, blaming the West for temporizing and appeasement. We gave Ukraine just enough weapons, they’ll maintain, to prolong the war and settle for a draw.** Growing ranks of radicals and neo-Nazis will go underground to fight Russian occupying forces in the east. Crimea will remain in Russian hands. **The Black Sea will become a Russian lake.**
And this part literally projects a very possible future given the current state of politics in the EU:
>Irredentism is back. Budapest talks about Greater Hungary. This includes Hungarians who comprise the third-largest minority in Ukraine. Far-right Romanians will gain momentum and want back territories that currently belong to Ukraine and Moldova. Hungary also has claims in Romania. **War will threaten the Balkans and talk of Greater Serbia will make headlines again. Russia’s war on Ukraine set precedent. Nations** ***can*** **change borders by force.**
I mean I won’t go that far with Romania, but still I can agree with the last sentence. The EU needs to wake the fuck up, we got no time.
Why can’t europe solve this european security issue? Europe is absolutely more than capable.
The day after Ukraine capitulates, Putin will send letters with territorial demands to all of Russia neighbours.
We will have another war in 10 years.
I feel really bitter and pessimistic about our future, honestly. I can agree with the article, Ukrainians will feel betrayed by the West (and already do, especially by the US), and it will have dire consequences for *the whole world* if russia wins.
The issue is, that this was an obvious outcome from the start, yet instead of 2 viable decisions our political elite took a 3rd worse one.
Possibility 1 was: Ignore Ukraine and do nothing, while pumping up our own defense industry and do massive deterring moves like pushing nukes to the NATO / EU boarders like in the peak of the cold war, signaling, that not a step further.
Possibility 2: Support Ukraine with everything, even if that means risking a direct conflict with Russia. Winning at basically all costs.
And yet, they took this one:
Possibility 3: Support Ukraine, but not that much. It costs us a lot of money, while the sanctions also cost a lot, weakening our economy. Show that our Industry and military is in a weak spot, because we cant even sustain this “small scale” war, let alone a world war. Ukraine is going to lose the war, while we depleted our reserves and burned a lot of money. Instead of showing strength one way or another while protecting our economy and interests, we only showed impotence. Tragic.
Maybe if all Europeans increase the retirement age a couple years, they could generate money for Ukraine
Ukrainians are right to feel betrayed.
The west has shown the world, they are not reliable allies.
I’m a citizen of the EU and feel betrayed by a lot of speeches and promises, I believed ‘never, again’ at least not in Europe, but genocide is happening right now and the EU, and the rest of the West, is mostly standing by and watching it happen.
There are a lot of tools that are not given to Ukraine, telling them to wait on the West when they were taking back territories led to huge pieces of land to be mined, with civilian victims to follow for decades.
Still no long range missiles in meaningful quantities, only the UK and France have delivered latest tech missiles, let alone tanks and artillery in any USEFUL NUMBERS. Still ZERO F16’s in Ukraine after OVER two years of full scale genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Western leaders betrayed everyone who believed they would stop Russia from taking over a European country by force, while committing genocide.
Russia has been waging war with the West since Putin got to power, election interferences, Brexit, rise of the alt-right, bot farms to stoke tensions everywhere, shooting down MH17, interfering with GPS signals of civilian aircraft, helping dictators in Europe to remain in power, assassinating people on European soil,…
Russia has publicly stated the West is their enemy, they even threaten nuclear war, they are fighting us and our leaders are being paid of by them, they fill their pockets and lead us to WWIII.
Appeasement led to WWII, appeasement led to the full scale invasion in 2022, after the ridiculously stupid reactions in 2014.
The USA cutting of military aid for over half a year are the worst offender, the West was to reliant on the USA and they have been shown to be corrupted by dictators and a wannabe dictator, unreliable and they will not remain in a position of power without allies.
They should lose allies and cooperation after their betrayal.
The USA blocking other countries from delivering equipment, that they already paid for, is another betrayal, the USA is proven to the worst kind of ally, with a potential future president saying he would not intervene and even encourage Putin to invade NATO countries!
No country or state will give up nuclear ambitions, Ukraine believed in the USA and the UK and the whole world can see where that leads, for over a decade now (invasion started in 2014).
Welcome to the future, where the threat of nuclear weapons raining supreme (that is the current situation, as Russia has gotten away with so much shit for over two decades) will lead us to only one outcome, **nuclear bombs will drop** and the consequences will be disastrous!
WHY IS RUSSIA ALOWED TO DO ALL THIS SHIT, THE RESPONSE IS INFURIATING!
I dread that without an active conflict, the already spotty sanctions will be lifted.
There is a 100% chance, that ruSSia will attack another country if they won’t be severely punished for their imperialism. Allowing Ukraine to fail is allowing RuSSia to kill, rape and pillage more and more.
I think people should consider what an eventual “defeat” would actually constitute.
We knew that Ukraine stood no chance against Russia at all times. There was never a scenario in which they pushed Russia al the way back to their border and secured long-lasting peace at the same time. The current Russian regime is hell-bent on acquiring Crimea and the bordering oblasts in the east at all costs.
What people should really be asking themselves is what would the most optimal outcome for all parties. It should look something like this:
* We arm Ukraine to the teeth, much more than we’ve currently done, and they put all their efforts, munitions and men into building a defense line while omitting offensives completely from the equation
* An arms treaty is signed, stating that current held territories (Donetsk/Donbass/Crimea) will be Russias on the condition that they move no further into Ukraine
* Now that there’s peace, the EU and the US will do their best to aid Ukraine in rebuilding and rearming to the extent that Russia would think twice about annexing further into Ukrainian territory. Meanwhile, we will speed up the process for admitting UA into the EU AND NATO, ensuring Russia will not get a second chance
Ukraine will stop losing precious citizens, no more lives are lost, the country and the economy of UA can rebuild again with the help of the West and Russia can rot in their own zone.
^This is the best scenario imaginable, if anyone thinks otherwise I’d be really interested in hearing them out
The Munich agreement all over. We see it coming, we know its coming, we know what it means and still we do nothing. Every inch Putin takes is backed by his nukes and we never it get back. We need to contain him inside Russia before it is too late.
As a US citizen, I just can’t understand how Europe would let this happen.
Don’t you remember the last time this happened?
Those of you who don’t give a $hit but about themselves, xenophobes, and muh Article 5 types, consider this: in about a year’s time or less you may well have **millions** of refugees at your doorstep. You thought the first wave was bad? Peanuts. Won’t let them in? The checkpoints will simply be overrun. You don’t suppose they will simply wait to be sent to reeducation camps or worse, do you.
There were 1M Chechens in the 1990s, and once they realized that they will lose to Kremlin cancers, they got desperate and some bitter episodes happened – to put it very anodyne.
There are almost 34M Ukrainians, and if they get desperate there will be rivers of blood flowing in Russia a la Nord-Ost and Budyonnovsk. GUR ain’t fucking around. We are leaving Ukrainians to get destroyed by Putin and that’s fuckin’ awful.
To be honest to me Victory in Ukraine doesn’t mean only get back the occupied territories, it means mainly now giving Ukraine the capability of protecting itself and stop the Russia invasion. The inability of Russia to be able to advance and occupy little by little more territories its already a victory to me for Ukraine because as long as Ukraine exists we will treat Russia as a fascist and Nazi country because that’s what Ukraine 🇺🇦 would reminds us. Russia need to retire their army and stop the invasion to be able to be considered a normal state again (even if it will take years). The only reason why Germany wasn’t anymore considered a Nazi country it’s because it lost, if that wouldn’t have happened and we would have a situation similar to todays event everyone would have treated germany still as a Nazi country. Russia has put itself in a doomed position, either they will withdraw their troops and stop the invasion and save their face in the long run (best decision imho but the current regime will change) or continue the current stalemate forever until things deteriorated more quickly (remember that sanctions have huge impact on the long run even if they’re starting taking effect recently) or they escalate more the invasion and will risk to trigger WWIII. The choice is their, we will respond in accordance as we already did in WWII. Italy 🇮🇹
**Czechoslovakia‘s Capitulation in 1938**
That same evening, the Beneš government announced its capitulation in a communiqué that must have embarrassed many Western Europeans.
“We relied on the help that our friends could have given us. But when the question arose that we could be forced by force, it became apparent that the European crisis was taking on too serious a character. Since they were unable to come to our aid, they advised us to buy freedom and peace by sacrifice”
Hitler had won with the help of Allied proxies.
I don’t get it. Russian gdp is less than 2 trillion. Their economy collapsed. EU economy is near 20 trillion. USA is not *that* much bigger. EU can absolutely fund the war without USA. Pointing fingers at USA is so very vile, in my opinion, because it’s just an excuse to not take the blame for not supporting your neighbor and ally in need. Building up factories takes time, I get it, so why not meanwhile buy US tech and donate it to Ukraine? I only hear excuses and attempts to weezle out of responsibility.
now I want to send help to ukraine but…Why is the the USAs responsibility? when will europe defend itself instead of constantly relying on US aid and not paying their share in NATO?
I sincerely hope that after Ukraine, Putin will try to grab Alaska. This is what all those Republicans should get.
That’s it. Keep on drinking from the Fountain of Truth according to Putin and his cronies. Ukraine is a Nazi, antisemitic state, but the population voted a Jew to become their head of state… hard to reconcile Russia’s bullshit accusations with the reality of how people voted. Russia is ‘defending Christian values against encroaching Islam’, claiming that the West is becoming Islamised through immigration, taking pride in its multi-ethnic empire, fighting against NATO forces, struggling to liberate Ukrainians from their Fascist regime, by killing them in their thousands, protecting Russia speakers in Ukraine, but bombing the hell out of Russian- speaking towns and cities and pillaging and raping any villages its forces occupy, Russia wants peace, but has persistently threatened the world with nuclear war. The lies go on and on and you all lap it up because you don’t care what the truth is. Putin is great! Russians in rural areas live without basic services and facilities and getting pissed out of their heads on vodka is just about all they have to do and then they can beat their wives, because that’s ok, domestic violence is no longer a crime in manly, macho Russia.