We’re publishing an original essay today by Dr. James Alexander, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey and a regular Daily Sceptic contributor. In this typically thoughtful and illuminating essay, Dr. Alexander tries to pinpoint what’s so strange about the war in Ukraine and what sceptics should think about it. Here is an extract:
The war in Ukraine is a strange war, because it is old-fashioned. It is the classic European form of war, whereby one sovereign state clashes with another sovereign state over some disputed territory – as adjusted by the Napoleon-Bismarck-Hitler intensifications whereby a European sovereign state engages totally with its adversaries: now enabled by military technology, on the sudden and sharp side, to engage in blitzkrieg-type assaults at high speed on the central citadel to effect some sort of ‘regime change’, and enabled, on the blunt and brutal side, to wage a complete war grindingly against the entirety of the civilian population.
The reason I say that this war of 2022 is old-fashioned is that since 1945 we in the West have generally fought only colonial or post-colonial wars or pseudo-wars: Korea, Suez, Vietnam, the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. These have involved extremely distant engagements where there is no risk to European or American civilians. (Even the Second World War, was, by and large, of this nature for Americans.) These wars were not always liked, and were not always successes – consider Suez and Vietnam or, latterly, Afghanistan – but they were, as far as the Western states were concerned, colonial. That is, disengaged, and, for us, completely military.
But even such colonial or post-colonial wars are considered by our elites to be passé. The very latest type of war – the one we prefer, we educated elites in the West – is the war against carbon emissions, the war against COVID-19, the Culture War. In each case, humanity (pronouns we/us) – humanity, I say, has some responsibility for the enemy we are fighting, but the enemy is, emphatically, not composed of any mass of humans as such. The enemy (sometimes a foe, sometimes a fate) is a change in our earthly condition, or a virus and sickness, or prejudice and bias. This is the sort of war we moderns like to fight: with wind turbines, masks and seminars on institutional racism. And we like to fight them to the death: which explains all the talk of ‘zero’. We want to dissolve the enemy, destroy it completely, and we console ourselves that since this enemy is not human, we are justified in this sort of war, if not in any other sort of war.
Let us call the three types of war I have described, first, IMPERIAL WAR, second, COLONIAL WAR, and third, METAPHORICAL WAR. Imperial war is direct, an extension of power across land. Colonial war is indirect and distant. It need never involve civilians. It is bracketed: it is war by report. Metaphorical war brings war back home again, since the war is now fought on our behalf by states and sometimes involves those sacrificing its own citizens as a form of collateral damage, for the greater good.
COVID-19 was the instantiation of this in such a clear form that even the most innocent could see it clearly.
Like all Dr. Alexander’s essays, this one is worth reading in full.
Image: Note that this ‘Time Magazine cover’ is a mock-up, not a real one published by the company.
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A long live stream by a US businessman, normally living in but now hiding in Ukraine, offering the views of someone actually present on what is going on. The guy is married to a Ukranian and was caught in a Kiev hotel in the early days of the ‘invasion’. His video of that event went viral leading to a visit from government goons. Fortunately he was not at home at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7NTLZDd4tc
My memory is fading in my old age. Could someone remined me – did we ever find Saddam Husseins’s “WMD capable of being launched at 45 minutes notice”? I suppose bombing the country back into the stone age might have hindered that a little.
Toby, Did you really say “what sceptics SHOULD think”? What mean’st thou?
Disturbing use of words. No word of Yugoslavia. Other destructive wars called pseudo wars or other “colonial” wars, as if life of a non-European person is not worth as much.
It looks like monopoly corporations(who set the price of fuel rather than let the market decide) such as Shell have declared they are no longer accepting Russian commodities.
So, given we live in a free market I’m told, where can I buy Russian fuel for my car and home. Clearly, given the increased supply the price will fall.
And can I trust my government to stay out of the way of the free market?
Listening to London Calling this morning here is my biased observation:
Mr. D. is being consistent in that no news can be trusted
Mr. Y. is being consistent in that some news can be trusted
Is that fair?
Both are not that smart though. The one believes the world is trying to be controlled be an elite class. And the other disbelieves that though makes a lot of apologies for what might be elite classes.
Nonetheless it’s the best show on the radio. We could do better though.
Many thanks to Fireweasel for his post. Everyone interested should research the Ukrainian nationalist hero Stepan Bandera, mass murderer. Russians (and Poles) have every reason to have intense feelings about this, because of the unspeakable barbarity of the man and his current day followers. The West ignores the torture and killing of men, women and children in modern day Ukraine. The Ukraine conflict has been deliberately provoked by the West and is a cynical proxy war, ultimately.
The cover is interesting.
In 1938 Time’s Man of the Year was…..Adolf Hitler.
Seriously.
The media of today is no smarter than the media of that time.
What a marvellous, thought-provoking and fascinating article. Thank you so much to the author and to Toby for publishing it.
I am pleasantly surprised that the majority of your readers understand what exactly is the genesis of this “invasion.” Particularly liked the comment that “The Daily Sceptic” decides exactly what it wants to be sceptic about. Maybe you could be renamed “The Hourly Sceptic.”
Most of your readers would be lay people with little scientific background , and thats the reason why you have got away with cute albeit anaemic pieces on the pandemic. You never chose to take the virus by its horns or should it be its spikes, but instead relied on anaemic wishy washy articles written why your “experts.”
I fear a spill over of cliches in your pieces of Ukraine, or else why would you publish a piece elaborating an “old fashioned war” as opposed to a new fashioned one without a murmur on who or what sparked this conflict. Maybe you realise the truth could be too corrosive for the fainthearted.
Please tell Mr Alexander that his entire analysis is totally inaccurate; as usual with these narratives, the massive elephant in the room isn’t mentioned: jewish bankers, Jewish bankers wars!!!.
And no, this is not ‘my opinion’ nor ‘what I think’, I’m just repeating what some big mouth jews have stated and revealed.
The jewish bankers and their luciferian cabalist minions are the only people on earth having a ‘great plan” to establish a global dictatorship which they call a “Universal Republic”. In the 19th century they made a plan in how to engineer 3 world wars necessary to unleash a WW3 necessary to present to the world their ‘messiah’; their words, not mine.
So this Ukraine thing is a fabricated “crisis” which will be used to gradually prepare the right conditions to unleash that war.
Haven’t someone stated that the world is at a point of a “global transformation”? That the only thing they need is the right “crisis”???
One last fact, the jewish bankers control governments, either directly or through their invisible weapon: freemasonry.
And don’t call me crazy or nuts just because you aren’t properly informed – I know the truth is stranger than fiction!
It’s always worth remembering that Wall Street financed the Bolshevik revolution and the rise of Hitler.
Ukraine is saved! Slava Ukraina! BloJo’s boys are on the way
Former British Marines have come to Ukraine to help fight Russians [former as in ex-SAS or ex-MI6?]
https://t.me/RusTroyka/388
My name is Jax. I’m from England. Basically we’re here to help stop the invasion of Ukraine. Hopefully, you know, we will win. [All ex-military]
https://t.me/DonbassYasinovatayanaliniiOgnia/24984
Lets hope Jax doesn’t come home in a body bag!
Talk about over thinking something.
All wars are over territory: who rules, who collects the rents/taxes.
All wars are caused by those who lust after power and control who want to rule the territory and collect the rent/taxes.
The war-makers use: violence, or treaties (which eventually lead to violence), or edicts.
The EU war-makers are using treaties to acquire territory and establish their rule. The Covidians, Climageddonist, and Environmentalistas are using edicts – with great ambition to rule the entire Planet and become God selecting the animals two by two and planting out the Garden of Eden.
Those who lust after power and control can never have enough, will never give it up voluntarily. The only remedy against them is violence, their annihilation.
Now history shows that is so; philosophy wants to argue with reality from its position in an intellectual fog.
‘… and what sceptics should think about it.’
No, no, no, no… sceptics should decide what they think for themselves, not as directed by others. That’s what sceptic means.
Repeating the mantra of the rest of the herd is the pattern here.
Go take a leek..
Here is an article that really is worth reading: Lucian Leustean, “Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: The First Religious War in the 21st Century“.
Leustean has received Atlanticist and also Church of England money, but his article is an excellent point of entry for those who want to start wrapping their heads around what we can call the church differences and church fight in the Ukraine, which is a major part of the background to ethnic and cultural and linguistic differences in the Ukraine (and therefore the war) and the Moscow-Constantinople schism of 2018. In that schism, the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and then the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church reciprocally excommunicated each other’s outfits.
Excommunication is when it gets SERIOUS.
While Ukraine is a focal point for the schism, its effects have spread not just in the Ukraine but worldwide including in Africa and (who’d have guessed?) the Middle East.
Let’s just say there will be bods in the British Consulate in Jerusalem who are trying to keep abreast of this stuff.
Leustean:
The immediate implication would be that Christianity, as a world religion, will be divided even further by acquiring a new branch, namely Roman… Read more »
Less generalizations about the audience of such an article would be fine. Both post-world war international orders were essentially nothing but attempts to reduce so-called German Europe to a state where it wasn’t capable of being an international player one had to reckon with anymore and keep it this way in perpetuity with the help of a body of international laws invented for this very purpose. The first attempt at this didn’t work out so well, hence, the second was much more brutal/ thorough, resulting in the (mostly Russian-)enforced depopulation of wide stretches of eastern central Europe and the forced removal of Germans from other areas they had lived in for centuries. It is conjectured that this affected 14 – 15 millions people. To ensure that – in the new world order – the Germans would remain faithful servants of their new masters, the rump country was partitioned into two competing states and remained militarily occupied until the early 1990s. Even today, the German state is anything but sovereign but subject to strict limits regarding its armed forces and absolutely verboten to have any kind of independent foreign policy in its own interest.
That’s the face of the peaceful world… Read more »
Comment before reading: Please stop digging Hitler out of his grave for cheap, political point-scoring. The second world-war ended 77 years ago. It’s high time to stop refighting it in headlines (or title pages).
A surprisingly level-headed article in the Guardian explaining how so much is still unknown about the Russian objectives and the current situation in Ukraine. A shame the rest of the media coverage isn’t similarly circumspect:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/06/clear-picture-russian-war-ukraine-clouded-unknowns-lack-reliable-information
For example:
Some of these legacy media basta*ds are starting to get scared. They’ve seen a lot of conspiracy theories come true. It may be getting into their thick woke skulls that they aided and abetted very serious crimes to be perpetrated on humanity.
A US TV show host became visibly shaken when he was told by a podcaster that the media would be gone after and hauled before a Nuremberg II court. As did the weasel Fauci when told he was guilty of serious crimes.
It would be normal for these woke cretins to now start trying to cover their asses.
Then there’s Putin who made an announcement a couple of years ago that he had supersonic missiles capable of delivering tactical, medium and long-range nuclear warheads. He also claimed to have developed submarines that the West can’t track.
The Western media didn’t cover this very much, because they knew Putin made these announcements for the ears of ordinary Western people and not their governments. The Pentagon and MI6 would soon become aware if Russia had these new weapons, so Putin would have known he had no need to inform them.
It turns out that Putin… Read more »
I have always believed that first and foremost Vladimir Putin is a Patriot. The lazy, cowardly bastards running Europe and North America are most definitely not. I am reasonably convinced, at the moment, that Mr Putin is working for Russia first.
Time will tell.
Good analysis FW 👍
That’s indeed wonderfully level-headed: We just assumed Putin sent tanks into Ukraine to conquer the country. But maybe, he just wanted to park them there! We don’t really know!
That’s still the We don’t know …, therefore, it could … shit which dominated Corona news since 2020. Whenever somebody starts talking about what he doesn’t know, listening to him is a waste of time.
“what sceptics should think about it”
Pathetic, Toby.
What has happened to this site? It’s overrun by pro-Putin, anti-Western zealots. They’re making any rational discussion impossible and something is very funny on the uptick counts.
I find their work counter-productive. It also reminds me of what life would be like if they had control. No wonder Ukrainians are fighting so hard.
“something is very funny on the uptick counts”.
I have the same problem when I post on The Guardian below the line but I came to the conclusion that this was because my opinion was a minority one amongst the Guardian audience.
No. It’s populated by people who are trying to look at this objectively and in context. If that’s ‘pro-Putin’ then you are suffering from the same cartoonish binary thinking as most journalists and most of the public. This is a sceptics website; What would you have us do? Vehemently attack and condemn Putin and Russia and everything Russian? Yes? OK, then what?
Well you can start by condemning the invasion of Ukraine. But you don’t….you excuse it.
Woke tactics. Never mind the facts, first kowtow to the emotion.
Have you condemned the aggressive and corrupt US interference in the Ukraine over the past 20 years that brought us to where we are now, yet?
Thought not.
Just deflection…
If you can’t say you disapprove, then you must approve but be too ashamed to say so.
Why should I condemn it when it was the West who instigated the war by breaking the Agreement that NATO would not move eastwards. Putin told the West several years ago it was a red line and we ignored him!
“… anti-Western zealots …”
They have so much to be genuinely anti about that they don’t have time to be anti any particular hemisphere.
I am all the above, but am also sceptical on all the pro Russian narrative here. just because our MSM cannot be believed, does not mean that everything from Russia or RT has to be believed either. once there was an actual invasion (even if UK Column for one may still try to say otherwise like it said before there was no troop build up only swapping of units) that changed my perspective a lot
What proportion (in percentage terms) of MSM content do you disbelieve?
in many ways it is not so much what I disbelieve eg articles blaming everything on the unjabbed, but the censorship and complete failure to cover all the questions and concerns on the safety and effectiveness of what they should call experimantal gene therapies, no mention of the deaths and adverse effects, or the unparallelled size of the protest marches (especially considering unlike others not advertised before by MSM
You are correct in your comments, but…
They are largely the same idiots that have always been here.
Object to absolutely everything the media says, absorb and repeat the opposite propaganda. When there is also a moral vacuum they don’t care what the cause is.
This time they are excusing the invasion of Ukraine and the associated war crimes.
I expect a host of downward facing thumbs, but not much in the way of “I condemn this war”
Any analysis of this site shows an overwhelming majority in favour of Russian aggression (invasion and murder) against Ukraine. They pretend to by analysing reasons, but refuse to condemn the war.
It really is quite disgraceful.
So tell me: are you in favour of imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine? Are you happy to see this war escalate? Are you happy to die in a nuclear holocaust? In the end, it is not moral high mindedness that will save lives but an acceptance of realpolitik. Far better to build bridges with Russia than encourage yet more bloodshed. Yes, some causes may be worth dying for, but I don’t see this as one.
Again distraction from the main issue of people excusing/approving of the Russian invasion. Why can’t you say you condemn the invasion?
If you are not in favour of killing innocent people, then just say it.
Obviously a no-fly zone would be a dangerous development.
I can say I condemn the invasion until the cow comes home and this will have exactly as much of an effect as condemning the weather. It’s nothing but a pointless exercise in public moralizing. Further, I think moral should be taken out of this equation. Putin invaded Ukraine in order to bring all of it back under his/ Russian control. For mostly person reasons, I’d prefer if he was driven out of it again. But the whole thing is just another war, it’s neither the first nor will it be the last.
Likewise, I’m not in favour of killing innocent people is just another soundbite without meaning. Presumably, only sadists would be In favour of killing innocent people but what precisely marks someone as guilty or innocent is an entirely different question. And it’s simply not applicable: People are killed in wars because they’re combatants or because they’re simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, not because they’re morally guilty or innocent of anything. Established rules of war dictate that killing non-combatants/ civilians ought to be avoided. But in practice, this will not always be possible. That’s bad. OTOH, people kill other people all the time, be… Read more »
My understanding of the Ukrainian situation currently is not underwritten by two years of research but my initial interpretation is that the yanks (CIA primarily) have poked the bear once too often. A CIA backed coup in 2008 ejected the elected president and the puppet was installed. Thereafter murders of Russian speaking people in the east (Donbass) and illegal NATO expansion eastwards have prompted Mr Putin’s invasion, despite his numerous attempts at negotiating settlements.
Vladimir Putin has effectively been insulted by the USA and their current European lackeys, including Bozo, and has had enough. His overriding commitment is to his country and the Russian people. Allowing NATO (nominally a defensive organisation) to expand such that nuclear weapons could be sited on Russia’s borders would hardly mark Mr Putin as a patriotic statesman.
If my admittedly basic understanding is correct I fully understand why Mr Putin has acted as he has.
How would we react if Krankie invited Mr Putin to set up a naval base at say Faslane?
I don’t think my view is wildly out of kilter with fellow Sceptics and I hope this explanation helps.
‘Prof. John Mearsheimer and ex-C.I.A. Russia specialist Ray McGovern discuss the Ukraine conflict and U.S. policy towards Moscow, presented by the Committee for the Republic in Washington.’
https://youtu.be/OeeqooNWO48
Yes it was refreshing to hear an American viewpoint which was not only knowledgeable about the history and geography but rational too.
Some observations about Ukraine:
Russia was entirely provoked into invading Ukraine and threatening anyone in Russia who refers to the war with up to 15 years imprisonment. Also, Putin’s critics and opponents assassinated themselves to make him look bad.
Furthermore, Peter Hitchens has never been a Trotskyist and still isn’t one now, his visceral hatred of America, regardless of who is President is ample proof of this.. Hitchens’ denial of the Holodomor is simultaneously imaginary and verified fact because the Holodomor never took place.
Also, Peter Hitchens has also actually read Ayn Rand, his ‘critique’ of Atlas Shrugged in no way indicates he’s never read a book he couldn’t colour in and his summation of the story in no way indicates a Marxist hatchet job or that he’s a poor man’s Whittaker Chambers.
His condemnation of the free market for the collapse of the British Steel industry in no way ignored the government’s driving energy prices up.
Finally, his comments on the political leadership of Margaret Thatcher were in no way contradictory rubbish.
Oh, forgot to mention: any criticism of Putin for any reason is unquestioning support for the Chinese Communist Party because there are only two choices: a former Communist who has repackaged himself into a supporter of German socialism or an actual Communist party.
If it does come to a direct confrontation between Russia and the west, it’s good to know that out troops will have been properly trained and skilled in diversity and equality. Knowing that if things get too emotional they will know how to seek out a safe space and get full emotional counselling.
The Biden Administration’s vendetta against Russia for Climate Change and to accomplish the Great Reset, will fail. They have bitten off more than they can chew.
latest from Armstrong economics
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/russia/russia-disconnecting-the-internet-to-prevent-us-cyber-attacks/
Putin chaperoned legislation, known as the “sovereign internet” law, back in late 2019 with the intent to disconnect the internet to protect the country because of what they saw as the “aggressive nature” of the United States’ national cyber security strategy.
Putin took steps in 2019 to protect Russia from American cyberattacks. He conducted tests in June and July to disconnect Russia from the global internet.
Will they use the new briefing room now for nightly bulletins by 2 generals and a PM?
Is DS seeking to fool people that this article appeared in Time magazine?
No.
Outrage as Russian gymnast brings the wrong kind of virtue signalling political gesturing into sport!
Russian gymnast displays pro-war ‘Z’ symbol while standing next to Ukrainian rival on podium
Ivan Kuliak faces disciplinary action after displaying letter which Russian forces in Ukraine have used on military vehicles
“The International Gymnastics Federation said it will open disciplinary proceedings against Russian artistic gymnast Ivan Kuliak for his “shocking behaviour” in displaying a symbol of support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during an event.
The 20-year-old finished third in the parallel bars final at the Apparatus World Cup in Doha over the weekend and displayed the letter “Z” on the front of his outfit as he stood on the podium next to Ukrainian rival Illia Kovtun, who won the gold.
Russian forces have used the letter Z as an identifying symbol on their vehicles in Ukraine following Moscow’s invasion of its neighbour. Some supporters of the invasion have also been displaying the symbol.”
[Paywall]
If he identifies as a woman they’ll immediately drop all disciplinary proceedings. Surely Z is somewhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum? Doesn’t the + sign stand for the rest of the alphabet? Gender Z.
And he finished third, I think. If he competes as a woman he’ll probably finish first all the time.
That six-foot strapping male swimmer in the US that calls himself a woman always wins his races. His fastest female competitors always comes in about 15 minutes after him.
I believe he does a great rendition of ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’, translated into Russian.
You can’t bring politics into sport, now kneel for BLM!
I have been going on the London marches for a year and lots of the Parliament Sq./Downing st.demos realizing that I would only agree with lots there on opposition to covid vaccines etc, climate change/net zero etc.; writing to MPs etc contributing cash eg. to DS . I think that most opposing are small c conservative and patriotic, otherwise going by the contributors here I have been on the wrong side. yes there is a lot wrong with the Ukrainian Govt.US NatO etc. but the fundamental fact is that Russia has launched an enormous unprovoked ( yes unprovoked I take these stories of shelling in the Donbas with a pinch of salt they would never have been just one way) invasion, and the letter writers here are really appeasers. everything else now pales into insignificance and whatever the future resolution Russia must now be stopped and not rewarded for its aggression.
I respect everyone’s point of view and their right to voice it but I must admit I am surprised at all those who are, by virtue of their presence here, aware of how much we have been lied to constantly by the mainstream media about COVID over the last two years but who at the same time are willing to accept that that same media’s reporting of the war and the reasons for it are 100% truthful and not influenced by any agenda.
If the mainstream media can lie to you about:
If they can lie to you about all of these things, and they have, they can lie to you about anything.
It’s not just the actual lies, but the ommissions which are important. If you believe much of the media the Ukraine situation has come out of virtually nothing due to Russian imperialism, whereas in reality it’s been brewing since at least 2014 and NATO, as puppets of the US, have stirred things up to the point where a confrontation was virtually inevitable. The media is largely silent about this.
Yes, the lies of omission are in some ways worse than the lies of commission.
As with COVID.
yes but even if so I do not accept that the only alternative for Russia was to launch a full scale invasion of the whole of Ukraine. there has been shooting going both ways probably for years in the Donbas.Sevatopol is a strategic interest of Russia but by going for a full scale invasion has probably resulted in its effective loss with Turkey blocking any access out of the Black Sea. (without wanting to go into a whole lot of history, but which I think is interesting though it does not change anything now, 330 years ago the whole of the north shore of the Baltic was Ottoman Turk. Crimea is now mostly Russian but only because Stalin cleared out the Crimea Tartars)
sorry meant to type Black Sea not Baltic. maybe a resolution to consider for a futire Congress of Belin is for Ukraine to de jure as well give up Crimea in exchange for Russia giving up Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg to Poland/Lithuania with Ukraine compensated with some border adjustments.
“ by going for a full scale invasion”
We have no idea what Putin’s objectives are, or indeed what the situation on the ground is at present. Everything in our media is either guesswork or propaganda. As even the Guardian admitted in a column low down its home page at the weekend.
If Russia were to launch a ‘full scale invasion’ they’d be a lot more damage.
we do not have a TV so I have had to get news for years from other sources. I agree that the MSM has lied to us completely over Covid etc.and maybe RT (as mentioned I do not watch it either) has been better at covering the marches etc. that does not mean that RT is any more trusty now on Ukraine.
RT is also partisan, I have no doubt and I wouldn’t trust it even if I was allowed to watch it.
I basically don’t trust any mainstream media and try to find “independent” sources elsewhere on the internet. These could be subject to their own bias of course. So in the end I am suspending judgement until the dust settles a bit.
And from Putin’s point of view, “NATO must now be stopped and not rewarded for its aggression” is equally valid.
If you can’t acknowledge any merits in the opposition’s position, then a war of complete conquest is the only option on the table.
Try your second sentence on yourself.
there may well be a lot of faults with NATO but it has not actually invaded Russia. the actual invasion of Ukraine is a complete game changer and may result (though I hope not) in my having to revaluate where I really stand on something more important than vaccines
“the actual invasion of Ukraine is a complete game changer”
So illegal wars of choice in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria didn’t change the game for you, presumably because you liked the rationalisations given for breaking the laws in those cases, but this time you don’t like the rationalisation for breaking the laws (even after the aforementioned unpunished breaches created a clear precedent situation), so it’s a “game changer”?
OK.
I have never said I was in favour of these, and do not think it helpful to go into all the pros and cons; save to say I believe still probably that the original reason to go into Yugoslavia was to protect the Bosnian moslems from being killed by both the Serbs and Croats.
All these were limited in the sense that the great powers wanted to keep them local.I will accept any criticism here that now I am being selfish and self centred in being concerned at what I consider an unnecessary escalation but which might lead to a nuclear war
“I have never said I was in favour of these, and do not think it helpful to go into all the pros and cons;”
I didn’t suggest you had been in favour of them, I merely pointed out what was self-evident from your comment, that you didn’t see them as “game changing” even though they were very bit as illegal, and in some cases much bloodier (so far at any rate) than the attack on the Ukraine.
“All these were limited in the sense that the great powers wanted to keep them local.“
What makes you think the Russians don’t want to keep this one local? Russians nuclear weapons are a deterrent to stop NATO interference enlarging the war, obviously. This is geopolitics 101. Were it not for the Russian nuclear deterrent, NATO bombs and missiles would be falling on Russia already and we would be at war. We have been deterred.
Apparently 2 people think NATO has invaded Russia. Their thumbs say so.
My wife visited our younger daughter at the weekend and she was talking about the time she stayed with a Russian family in Volgograd. She was amazed at the Eternal Flame memorial and the ‘Motherland Calls’ statue in that city. The memory of that time burns deep in the Russian psyche in a way that it is hard for us to understand. At the same time in Ukraine the memory of the Holodomor starvation/famine deaths also burns deep. The west does not seem to understand these enormous and shocking histories and the way they are pertinent to what is happening in the present time. The West has blundered around in this area with complete insensitivity and lack of understanding, whether you would call that provocation? I will reserve judgement but it has not helped. In my view the West has displayed ignorance, arrogance and a dismal failure of statesmanship and diplomacy in this matter
You are either a shill or you know absolutely sod all about geopolitics to come out with garbage like that. There’s more than enough information out there to obtain informed opinion.. use it..
Take your ‘pinch of salt’ and ‘appeasers’ jibes elsewhere..
Yes the sceptics are a shameful bunch, as the learn from each other and the collective morals collapse further. east to do under the cover of social media disguise.
I think they should stand by their views proudly. Perhaps have a pro-war march through a major city and let people see who they are. That should test their resolve.
it would not be a pro war march but anti the Russian aggression, which have taken place already. maybe the decline in numbers at the 26 February march (I was still there) was because of people going instead to support Ukraine in Trafalgar Sq. and Downing St.
I don’t see many on this site that are anti-Russian-aggression, or supportive of Ukraine.
They are proud Putin excusers.
sorry I misread your comment and thought that you were thinking I should go on a pro war march. I realise now that you agree with me on the blinkered approach of those because they are sceptic (as I am) on covid, climate change etc. are unable to differentiate and realise that the Western intelligence warnings were in fact correct
Looks like 70% of sceptics want to reward Russia’s actions, judging by their thumbs.
hopefully it is only those writing here. as I said at the start those I have met on the marches are very down to earth, small c conservative etc. and like they appreciated the covid vaccine propaganda for what it was, equally will realise pro Russian propaganda for what it is.
Its not clever at all – in fact its very immature – this is the kind of child-like reaction that makes people look completely ignorant.
Look – I oppose the invasion of Ukraine and I deplore the deaths of innocent people in that country as much as the next person … but to compare Putin to Hitler is quite simply a joke and a poor one at that – he may be many things but Hitler he ain’t – and until people put their grown-up trousers on and start to realise that Putin didn’t just wake one morning and decided he wanted to invade a country for no other reason than he fancied being Hitler for a day then the quicker we can find a solution to this mess that has been bubbling away for many years now.
If this is the best the western msm can do then it needs to do some very serious growing up and fast.
You are quite rare in opposing the invasion. Most here excuse it and some support it.
Why can’t we talk about the causes of the conflict which yes, I’m afraid, are complex and involve many parties. Do you want it to be like a cartoon, we just say ‘Russia bad’; is that the discourse you’re after? If you’re so morally upset by objectivity, why on earth are you wasting your (and our) time?
You could make a statement that you condemn the war. But people don’t seem willing to do that. Why is that their stance?
The West has become infantilized and it has been deliberately done by our own governments. Its all about ‘feelings’.
2008 WIKILEAKS CABLE – INCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF THAT UKRAINE-NATO ALIGNMENT WAS A LONG PLANNED NATO PROVOCATION AGAINST RUSSIA
“NYET MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES”
“5. (C) Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch
a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about
the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does
Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine
Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears
unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would
seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us
that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions
in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the
ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In
that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to
intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face. “
1st February 2008
From US Ambassador William J. Burns to:
US Joint Chiefs of Staff
NATO
Secretary of Defense
Secretary of State
etc..
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
The current Director of the CIA setting out in 2008 the consequences of the policy of pushing US influence into the Ukraine and Georgia, which ended in war in the Ukraine.
And let’s remember alongside that, the actual policy actions on the ground that triggered the crisis which immediately preceded this war:
“In the fall of last year, 2021, it began to ramp up, and of course early this year…it became a full blown crisis. And the question that we want to ask ourselves is: what happened here? Why all of a sudden did this crisis go from the back burner to the front burner? And the answer is that the US and its allies were effectively turning Ukraine into a de facto member of NATO”
Prof John Mearsheimer
https://youtu.be/Nbj1AR_aAcE?t=785
The cable doesn’t say anything about NATO plans. All it mentions is Ukraine/Georgia aspirations. How can it be proof that it was a long-planned provocation?
Characteristic from you – you used to make similarly disingenuous criticisms of arguments that questioned the “vaccine” Official Truth, and other aspects of the covid hysteria.
Your query looks on the surface, to the naive reader, to be reasonable. “Why yes, that’s right, the quote only mentions aspirations”. Gosh!
But in reality of course the entire thrust of the memo is about the likely actual consequences of the policy of pushing NATO eastwards. And indeed those consequences came to pass.
As usual, it’s a deniable position on your part. Did you know that full well and make an intentionally deceptive comment? Or were you just harmlessly naive?
One of many significant differences between us is that you tend to make more assumptions than I do. All I see is an e-mail about Russia’s problems with NATO including Ukraine and Georgia. You assume that therefore there was a plan to push ahead with including these two countries in order to provoke Russia (In fact neither country has become a member).
No, the difference is that you take manipulative elite propaganda assumptions and treat them as facts, while holding dissenting arguments to a far higher, positively argumentative, standard.
“All I see is an e-mail about Russia’s problems with NATO including Ukraine and Georgia. You assume that therefore there was a plan to push ahead with including these two countries in order to provoke Russia (In fact neither country has become a member).“
In this case it’s because I’ve been following these matters for decades now quite closely and I’m well aware of how e policy has been pushed. You might honestly be ignorant of that as you claim, I don’t know. Claiming there was no policy of pushing NATO membership for the Ukraine is rather spectacularly ignorant though!
But in this case merely reading the memo honestly would have made it clear that it’s the issue of NATO membership that was going to cause problems as long as it was promoted as a possibility, as indeed it did. The “aspiration” you latched onto is merely part of the problems described.