How far should the war in Ukraine be escalated?

I really think we need to focus on Russian decisions and actions, rather than US/Western interests and intentions. Putin initaited this war with no justification and has continued it for no rational purpose.

The response from NATO members and an overwhelming majority of UN countries has been to condemn the agression and support Ukraine’s right to self defense.

How far should it go? As far as Russia takes it, until they’re defeated on the battlefield or forced to the negotiating table.

Escalated?
Ukraine faced a full scale invasion from day one. Russians have been bombarding cities, and murdering, torturing and raping civilians for just as long.
And what sort of “diplomatic solution” do you envision?
Russia’s demands for a peace agreement have not changed since the beginning, despite the ass-kicking they received from the Ukrainians:
Cede territories, demilitarise, and “remain neutral” (which is just code for keeping themselves defenceless until Russia can regroup, rearm, and reinvade 5 years later to fully conquer the country), and install a puppet regime that will later decide to fuse with Russia.
which, funnily enough, mirrors what the Muskrat recommended Ukraine do recently after having a chat with Putin
Besides, Russia would not honour any agreement anyway. Flash back to the beginning of this war, where Russia agreed to create safe corridors with which Ukrainian Civilians could evacuate cities that were being bombarded.
Do you remember what they did? They mined and shelled these corridors while people were escaping.
The only acceptable “diplomatic solution” is that Russia fucks off behind its original borders, and Ukraine joins NATO. That is the only guarantee that Putin will not try it again in the future.

That’s not something that can be decided.

@JLoon “Putin initaited this war with no justification and has continued it for no rational purpose.”

Putin’s reasoning is perfectly rational. Ukraine has immense oil/gas resources that require high tech extraction gear which isn’t cheap or easy. Russia’s economy is nearly entirely based on fossil fuels. If Ukraine can partner with western oil companies, they can extract tons of oil/gas and become a major competitor to Russia as well as become forever extricated from Russian hegemony with access to such wealth.

Putin didn’t want to be the guy in the history books that allowed Ukraine to slip away from Russia forever. Seeing as how he had a massive numerical advantage in military strength (at least on paper), and with time quickly running out, Putin’s decision to invade was perfectly rational—and also pure evil and genocidal. His decision to remain is also rational since he’s going to find himself at the end of a rope or with a bullet in his head once he’s no longer in power.

I think the only long term solution here is with the complete defeat of Russia, such that any fantasies of imperial conquest are forever replaced with nightmares of Ukraine emblazoned in the minds of the populace and military leaders.

@gorillapaws – I know you’re not unintelligent, and that you reject greed and brutality as a basis for international relations.

But you have to know that what you’ve offered here is at best a weak excuse, not a reasonable explanation and certainly not a basis for a just ending to this pointless war.

@JLoon It’s certainly NOT justifiable. I’m just saying it’s rational. As in it’s the kind of decision an amoral robot might make in a similar situation. There’s logic there, it’s just grotesque and inhuman. Apologies for being unclear.

The US and NATO need to continue to arm Ukraine. It is in NATO’s best interest and the world’s.
Putin is threatening the world with WWIII and NATO needs to be very concerned about that.
Putin using nuclear weapons is a 50/50 chance, IMO. NATO needn’t respond in kind if he goes that way.
There is no diplomatic solution to this problem. Killing Putin and his Russian ilk is the only practical solution since he WILL NOT back down.

@gorillapaws – The problem is that Putin himself has never used capture of Ukrainian resources as a “justification” for his invasion.
Analyists with the Rand Corp already looked at this months ago, and pointed out that Ukraine’s total energy reserves amount to less than 3% of what Russia already has: https://www.rand.org/blog/2022/04/russia-does-not-seem-to-be-after-ukraines-gas-reserves.html

The problem with every despotic regime is that personal pathologies eventually become laws and policies. Putin is a sick and corrupt dictator. Guessing at his personal motivations may be a useful exercise for mental health experts, but it can never lead to a diplomatic solution that involves rational bargaining and agreements that can be enforced under international law.

Russia under Putin will only respond to force, and will only accept military realities they can no longer avoid. Ukraine already understands this. It’s up to rest of us to wise up.

Russia, apparently, invaded Ukraine to “cleanse it from its Nazi’s”.
That he could have done, unlawfully so, in two days, because, just like in most countries, that’s a marginal group.
It should not have be escalated as you stated in your question title.
It should never have happened.
The only ‘reasonable’ reason I can see, that Russia is acting upon, is that Ukraine is a so-called “buffer state”; a country in between Russia and NATO states.
Making e all these “buffer states” NATO members is, maybe justifiably, making the Russians wary.

Regarding the Russian threat of imposing a nuclear armageddon; Stoltenberg stated that NATO’s reaction would be to decimate the Russian army.
Which I believe is a feasible reaction (seeing the deplorable state of its army, and the (un)willingness of men to mobilize).

@JLoon I don’t think the analysis you’re referencing is including the shale fields or the offshore deposits near Crimea. This video was informative.

” Russia under Putin will only respond to force, and will only accept military realities they can no longer avoid.”

I completely agree. At this point I think the only way out is for Putin to be forced from power or assassinated based on how far he’s been willing to go.

By sending missiles into Lviv, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odessa, etc and hitting civilian targets, Putin demonstrated his utter desperation. He basically green-lighted Ukraine’s targeting of Russian assets deep inside his borders. There will be so many inside attacks from skilled and well equipped fighters, his own people will take him out. Rumblings are that locals are already calling him Pukin Putin.

If I had to put money on it that’s where I’d be placing my bet.

You don’t want to know what I’d propose.

From the start it has been Putin who has been doing all the escalating. His aims have been pretty clear as he has announced them in speeches that the West unfortunately paid little attention to. He is a thug and a bully and a blatant liar and so diplomatic solutions are difficult. We have to keep on doing what we are doing and hope Ukraine survives.

Putin is the reason thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been murdered, raped and tortured.

If Putin throws a nuke anywhere in Ukraine, I would think there would 5 dozen cruise missiles sent into the military bases and depots in Russia. (Maybe Putin secret palace too) !

All would conventional not nukes !

IMO we need to do everything possible to defuse this ASAP. The situation is getting more dangerous as Putin grows more desperate.

@Blackwater_Park “IMO we need to do everything possible to defuse this ASAP.”

How does that work? Putin has proven completely untrustworthy in any deals he’s agreed to. He’s proven willing to violate international law and commit war crimes. IMO this slow grind and decay of Russian combat capabilities is kind of perfect for eroding his base of support.

Ceding sovereign Ukrainian territory to Russia to stop today’s fight will only inspire him to regroup, the sanctions to fall off and he’ll restart the whole fucking thing again in another 5 years, having learned lessons from this war.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had nuclear weapons. They surrendered those weapons to the United States, with the assurance that we would defend them in the event of war.
Currently, the US is helping Ukraine with food, arms, sanctions against Russia, and money, but we are asking that that they not take the war into Russia.
I don’t see how we stop Putin if Russia doesn’t worry about repercussions. The war must be taken into Russia.

Saw this story today about a number of progressive congressmen asking for Biden to seek a diplomatic end to the war, rather than further escalation: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/24/politics/congress-democrats-reaction-ukraine-strategy/index.html

Support for continued US war aid to Ukraine is as low as 29% among Republicans.

@Demosthenes That letter was withdrawn shortly after being issued.

^ Yep. “The Squad” and Democrats are shit.

@hat Yeah, I wasn’t surprised that fizzled out the way it did, though it happened a little more quickly than even I was anticipating. Anyone who presents an alternative within the Democratic party is very quickly shut down. I sympathize with those who do not want this to become another “forever war” or who react against everyone who questions the military support we’re giving to Ukraine being accused of being “Putin sympathizers”.

That said, and perhaps this is only marginally related, but you’re an outspoken leftist, so I wonder if you could give your opinion: what is the preoccupation with leftists and the “Nazis in Ukraine”? I just saw a complaint about this from a leftist Twitter account and I’ve heard it from other leftist friends. “We’re arming literal Nazis!” I mean, do they think Putin is correct about fighting Nazis in Ukraine? Do they think there aren’t Nazis in Russia? Or does it have nothing to do with Russia and Putin and they just think Ukraine is not worth supporting because there are Nazis there?

My take is that, yeah, there are Nazi groups in Ukraine. You will see Nazis in many Slavic countries supporting nationalist causes, and Ukrainian nationalists (including the Nazi ones) are going to be on the side of fighting Russia for obvious reasons. I don’t think it has much to do with supporting or not supporting Ukraine though. I don’t think the country is at risk of being ruled by Nazis.

^ Quick take, with disclaimer that I’m no expert (obviously) on any of this:

Years before corporate media decided to start manufacturing consent for this war (proxy war with Russia via Ukraine), some of us were aware of what was going on in Ukraine with Nazis. Not that there were Nazis in Ukraine – rather that Nazis in the Ukraine military. Much of this news was connected to the Maiden revolution in 2014. Of course there are Nazis in Russia as well. But I think the “we’re funding Nazis” thing has something to do with the fact that our tax dollars are funding Nazis.

But that isn’t really where my interest lies. Rather, I live in a country that has had its hand in overthrowing democratically-elected governments and invading countries outright. I’m hypersensitive to our imperial ambition, and have plenty of experience in seeing how corporate media beats the drums of war to get the public on board. This was no exception.

People in the US are notoriously disinterested in foreign policy and brutality done on our behalf or with our tax dollars. So, when people are suddenly passionate about a country they didn’t know existed up until now, I know where this is headed. How passionate are people in the US about the atrocities going on in Yemen or Palestine or anywhere where an official enemy isn’t the ones doing it? Hell, we walked into Iraq with little dissent from the people crying for Ukraine right now. We supplied weapons and air support to drop on school buses in Yemen and there wasn’t a peep from those people on Twitter with the Ukraine flag symbol.

Anyway, for a long time we have been concerned that the US and NATO has been forcing a conflict by forcing Russia’s hand. The US would have invaded Ukraine a long time ago if it had been geographically swapped with Russia. There’s no way the US would allow that kind of threat. But from what I can tell, there were chances to avoid this via diplomacy, but the US and Ukraine blocked it at every move.

So now we’re dumping endless billions of dollars on a proxy war with Russia that legitimately could turn into WW3. This would include nukes, and it would likely be the end of everything we know. Where are the antiwar voices? Where the shit is the fucking so-called squad? The only people making any critiques of the US actions are right-wing maniacs, leaving the left and antiwar voices even more isolated.

I don’t want my tax dollars going to fund an effort to bring about the apocalypse. And it would be nice if we had any “leaders” who would bring some sanity to the conversation.

@hat and @Demosthenes – So glad you boys have found each other. Now we can all look forward to more shared fantasies like :
• Corporate “manufactured consent” for war in Ukraine (years before Russian invasion)
• NATO “forcing Russia’s hand”.
• False equivalence with Yemen, Palestine, Syria, or any other area code on your latest iPhone.
• Nazis, NAZIS!! Yes…no… there could be…Mommy!!!
• Sole US responsiblity for “escalating” the conflict, or negotiating peace.

Want to know why “the left” has absolutely no fucking credibility on Ukraine, or much else lately? Read your own palm.

^ Don’t worry. @Demosthenes is ok and not infected. Feel free to just use me to dump your stuff on.

Also, @JLoon – I think you can sleep well knowing that I’m likely the only person on Fluther concerned about WW3 and funding this effort to bring us there. Both parties support it, so you’re going to be ok. We’ll keep funding it. Better?

@hat Don’t give yourself airs. I think there are others of us worrying about getting into WW3 on Fluther. If you have the solution, please tell us.

I don’t entirely agree with @hat; for one, I think the “NATO made Russia do it” argument ignores the motive of Ukraine’s natural resources, which Putin desires control over. I am similarly critical of imperialism, which is why I oppose Russia’s imperialism in Ukraine. The West isn’t uniquely capable of imperialism. It’s wrong when the “East” does it too.

But I also think the possibility of nuclear war is a real one and we can’t ignore it and we can’t label everyone who questions what we’re doing in Ukraine a “Putin supporter” any more than we could label anyone who criticized the invasion of Iraq an “America hater/terrorist lover”. I was young when Iraq happened, but I remember how you absolutely couldn’t question it.

@hat I find US imperialism as repugnant and vile as you do. I’m opposed to all imperialism. This war in Ukraine is Russian imperialism. It’s about Russia wanting Ukraine’s oil and natural gas reserves and preventing a potential economic rival in the European energy sector. Everything else is a smokescreen.

Having a nuclear power attempt to start invading European countries is not acceptable. As in, we cannot allow this to happen. Full Stop.

Remember, if the US forces Ukraine to accept peace and Russia gets away with conquering territory by force and brutality, then there is an excellent chance that China will make a play for Taiwan. That’s much more likely going to end in Armageddon than this conflict does.

In other words the path that does the best job of avoiding Armageddon is to continue to aid Ukraine in destroying Russia’s military. This will lead to Putin’s permanent removal from office, and a major signal to China not to fuck with Taiwan.

@Demosthenes, @hat, and @all – Right/left
Republican/Democrat
Liberal/conservative.

I’m none of those things, and refuse to play that game by those rules. Which means whatever I think and say on this – or any other political question – will upset & offend someone.

Or everyone.

I think the question here is reasonable and fair to ask. But as usual, it’s some of the answers that will drive you crazy.

@hat We don’t agree on much at all, but I am very concerned about WW3 breaking out.
Nazis in Ukraine, corporate manufactured consent for this? Not so much. It’s no secret arms manufacturers are making money on supplying Ukraine but Russia needs to be stopped. You may hate on the USA and we have done some things that are sketchy like Iraq but… The USA like other democratically elected governments tend not to start things like this. Russia has much more blood on it’s hands than the USA. They are very bad actors and Russia in general is likely one of if not the most corrupt nation on earth. China & Russia in particular are forming an uneasy alliance that we simply cannot allow. If we do, we are moving in to some dark times. All that said, we need to find an exit for this conflict in Ukraine even if we have to cede some land to Putin.

@Blackwater_Park it is not USA property it is Ukrainian !

They don’t want to give Putin their land !

. . .and Putin will just do it again with some other country.

@hat has left the building once again.

@janbb He’ll be back. And he’ll have a backlog of my provocative questions to answer. ;)