Critics of Western support for Ukraine tend to view this aid through a one-dimensional lens. They see only costs and risks while ignoring a number of obvious advantages.
The most important of these advantages are being won on the battlefield. In short, Ukraine is steadily destroying Russia’s military potential. This dramatically reduces the threat posed to NATO’s eastern flank. In time, it should allow the Western world to focus its attention on China.
Defeat in Ukraine would relegate Russia from the ranks of the world’s military superpowers and leave Moscow facing years of rebuilding before it could once again menace the wider region. Crucially, by supporting Ukraine, the West is able to dramatically reduce Russia’s military potential without committing any of its own troops or sustaining casualties.
Backing Ukraine today makes a lot more strategic sense than allowing Putin to advance and facing a significantly strengthened Russian military at a later date. As former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates wrote recently in The Washington Post, “The way to avoid confrontation with Russia in the future is to help Ukraine push back the invader now. This is the lesson of history that should guide us, and it lends urgency to the actions that must be taken, before it is too late.”
If this lesson is ignored and Ukraine is defeated, Russia will almost certainly go further and attack NATO member countries such as the Baltic nations, Finland, or Poland. At that point, it will no longer be possible to avoid significant NATO casualties.
We have among us people who were told greed is all life is about. These people generally are total failures who believe that. There is a denseness in their thinking. Right now the purse strings are at risk.
I think the moderates will be emboldened. They have to be.
Yep, this is THE advantage to the free world. And, after a certain point, probably another few months, even if Russia goes all out and manages to take over the bombed out hulk of Ukraine, they haven’t gained much anyway, because in order for it to be worth anything i the future, it’ll need massive amount of money for reconstruction. Not to mention that the most productive and valuable people will have left by then.
It’s nearly a no-win situation for Russia either way. Best thing that can happen right now is for Putin to attain room temperature.
Putin and Russia have been maimed by Putin’s craziness and cruelty.
Nothing new to Russia.
What was it Katherine the Great said, paraphrasing she can not defend her borders she can only expand them? Well what was she defending? Russia? No! She was defending her life from the rest of Russia. People like Putin are the ruin of many nations and many time periods. The Russian bodies are piling up because of how evil Putin is.
Yep. Normally I don’t support the death penalty, but I do have a few exceptions where I do support it. Once a country begins to free itself from evil, it behooves it to utterly destroy (“kill”) all those who perpetrated the evil lest they somehow regain power someday. That isn’t to say that someday new evil people won’t arise, but at least the old evil can’t come back once they are dead.
That’s why Nazis, KGB, Stasi, MSS, etc need to be hunted down and slaughtered mercilessly whenever possible.
MGB (1946–1953)
Dissolved 3 December 1991; 31 years ago
Superseding agencies
Inter-Republican Security Service (MSB) (1991)
Central Intelligence Service (TsSR) (1991)
Committee for the Protection of the State Border (KOGG) (1991)