Thanks for clarifying. Given how South Korea turned out versus North Korea I think there is a pretty good argument for fighting the Korean War. On the other hand Vietnam has been developing and even is at peace with us so maybe that wasn’t worth fighting. The truth is we won’t know maybe for years after if a war is worth it. Maybe never.
I think this is a dangerous underestimate. Yes their troop morale and training doesn’t appear as good as ours but they are making progress. They are moving faster in the south than we did when we did when we invaded Iraq. Remember it still took us about 3 weeks to take Baghdad and we had overwhelming superiority. Even with their failings this is still a modern large military. Fighting in their own backyard. Conflict with Russia will be like nothing weve ever seen.
I can’t watch the video now but I’ve heard that many PRC netizens are cheering on the Russians and fully behind the war.
5 million people were killed in the Korean War. Half civilians. Was it worth 5 million lives to have a prosperous South Korea?
Versus the continued poverty and massive famine that is literally stunting the growth of many North Koreans I would say yes. There’s no way of knowing for sure but it wouldn’t surprise me if millions have died in NK since the war. Also to note about a million of those deaths were PRC soldiers. I would apply the same question then to the PRC whether it was worth it to fight in Korea.
Impossible to say without the time afterwards to see if human kind as a species advanced due to a major war. With WW2 70 million people died, but that war shaped ALOT with how the world now works with each other. It was a pivotal Tower of Babel type of moment in history. So the big question here is about US getting involved in Ukraine right??… what a tough call because what it means in terms of turning the chapter to a true world war. The truth is there’s no right answer right now, and no telling how evil Putin and his potential Allies truly are. If they are as evil as Hitler and co. then we just have to trust that if Biden decides it’s time to go to war that he’s seen something in Putin that gives him the gut feeling that this is someone who is going to destroy the world and there’s no choice but to act. It might sound cheesy but to me it’s gotta be a choice where we look honestly at the situation and come to grips with the fact that either this is pure evil that we have a moral duty to do something about or it’s just another corrupt tyrant we can deal with in a normal status quo way. It’s just that American thing where we have to step in and kick some It’s all about Putin imo… is he Hitler or is he just another corrupt douche. I’m leaning more and more towards the former the more I see and hear. But in the long run there’s really no right or wrong answer at this point whether it’ll be the right or wrong decision to essentially go to war with Russia. I’ll be honest with you… right now it’s starting to feel like the right moral decision even if it’s logically I’ll advised.
The big loss in life in NK was because it can't produce food for itself (lack of farmable land) so they had issues with famine. I am sure the PRC sees it as worth it. I am sure most Americans and the US gov't sees it as worth it. I would suspect many of the 5 million who died and their families do not.
Instead of talking about Hitler which we all identify as the worst of evil in mankind, let's talk about some other guys we can compare Putin to (and I am not saying Putin isn't a Hitler at all by the way). Let's talk about Mao - he certainly had no problems practicing mass killing. Does that put him in the Hitler category? Maybe it wasn't genocide but killing upwards of a 100 million people seems pretty bad. Or the Japanese, which did practice genocide and brutally killed, tortured and raped what, 30 million Chinese? They don't call it the rape of nanking for nothing. What category does that put Hirohito in? What about Chiang Kai-Shek? That was a US ally right? Well he murdered millions of communists and villagers just because he thought - hmmm maybe they are communists too. But he's a hero in the west - is he a hero? What if I told you that he practiced genocide in Taiwan - brutally killing ethnic Taiwanese to make room for the Nationalists? Where does Putin fit in witch these guys? Is he worse that Chiang Kai-Shek but better than Hitler, or is Chiang Kai-Shek worst than Hitler? But he was our friend, because he allied with us against the Japanese and the Germans right? So he's the good guy? I'm not trying to say Putin isn't that bad. He's a horrible evil man. My point is that we create this narrative that we, as Americans, believe in stopping horrible evil men - and that's simply not true. Maybe sometimes - but really when it's in our interest. And when it's in our interest to support them, we do, just like Saudi Arabia, which launches airstrikes in Yemen INTENTIONALLY striking civilian areas and has been called the worst humanitarian crisis. Is Putin worse? Just as bad? Better? Why aren't we stopping out friends the Saudis from doing this. They don't have nukes. They use our planes and bombs to conduct this genocide in fact. So now, tell me why again we should get involved in Ukraine, but not in Yemen?
That was a headshot. When gas prices reach to a point where fracking and deep sea drilling is profitable again, you won't need government intervention by billion dollar paychecks to convince them to dig. It'll take time, and during that time, oil lobbies and the Hannities that suck its teet can cry and moan about government incompetence/overregulation all they want about it, but it's happened before and it'll happen again because those fields didn't suddenly disappear. This is like Americans getting suckered with the expectation that cities have to pay the bill for sub-billion dollar sports stadiums. How in the world did us free market lovin souls demand Uncle Sam to pay oil oligarchs for the chance to dig in fields that they would have already done if oil was $20/bbl more? These same companies that do nothing but send fat dividend checks every quarter? Does that make any ****ing sense or are we all warm and fuzzy wrapping ourselves with the American flag and calling it energy independence? Sounds like energy codependence to me
The past teaches us but it's not perfect - we can't predict the future from it. I see why you mentioned the civil war. The Vietnam war was a mistake because we were always going to lose. Afghanistan war was not a mistake until it transitioned into nation-building. If Vietnam had become a democratic country, it would be much more successful today. But that was a pipedream. We had no chance there. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong was willing to die to gain their country back. We couldn't win that battle. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has already shown they would be willing to wait decades to win back. We couldn't win that battle. We simply do not have the political will - Americans' safety was NOT at risk, the wars and continuing nation-building were optional. Losing them was okay - we get to move on. It's not the case for the Viet Cong or the Taliban. They had nowhere else to go and would never give up. In Ukraine, I see similar things. Ukrainians do not have an option. They can't move on. They are willing to die. Putin is a different animal though - he might be willing to flatten everything and build back from the ashes. Even that would not be enough, IMO, for him to win. The Ukrainian will continue to struggle forever until Putin and Russia is out. Open economic is a concept I am fully on board with, but we see that it has limits. Russia has been enjoying good international relationships and international trade for decades. Yet, it's not enough. Putin has a vision of restoring the old empire and enjoying international access was not enough for him. I think we are in a new style of war. The private sector is involved like never before. Governments won't have all the control of choice - to participate or not. The US gov already only can control their gov and not Europe. Europe will make its own choices. But what's fascinating and new this time is the private sector has also basically entered the war - isolation and financial warfare. Govs no longer have full control of wars. We are, I think, riding a wave that we don't get to control anymore. It's possible that the world public is going to isolate Russia to death anyway and we can't do anything about it even if we think that's dangerous (cornering Putin, Russian). And if that plays out, perhaps future Putin-like think twice before angering the whole world.
If you are saying all life is equal - you are right, but not all countries are equal to our national interest. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the beast. DD
Great we're finally dropping the facade that this is about the Ukrainian people and admitting the truth it's about us. And for me, it's our national interest, and my interest in particular, not to see people get nuked.
Russia's air defense systems are one of the best in the world if not best. Those S500 SAMs are nothing to laugh at. It would not be as easy at it sounds. But overall NATO as an alliance has numbers and more advanced units, I am surprised Russia doesn't use their next gen tech on Ukraine.
Ignore Nuke for a second. How does a no-fly zone stop the killing of civilians or civilian infrastructure in Ukraine?
He just admitted it's not about stopping the killing of women and children in Ukraine (because heck, good ole American made bombs kill the women and children in Yemen without any moral issue), but it's really about our national interests. So the real question is - ignore nukes for a second, how does a no-fly zone serve our national interests?
https://www.the-sun.com/news/4827762/russia-ukraine-ceasefire-vladimir-putin/ Emergency crews work at the scene where several houses have been damaged by an explosion, following an air strike in Bila Tserkva, Kyiv
Stopping an authoritarian government from taking over an independent democracy in Europe for the first time in 80 years seems like it fits the bill - if you believe defending democracy and democratic values are in America's interests. Unless you naively believe that Ukraine is the end of Russia's ambitions and think appeasing him until you have to fight a bigger war with less advantageous circumstances is the way to go.
