Prediction Thread: When Will Ukraine Conquer Russia

[PLATO]

the real and only end result of russias complete failure with ukriane is that china will never try the same with tiawan.

Hard to say that I think given the literally billions that China has spent and continues to spend to get ready for that. Still, I think they know the West is on to them and from what I can tell we are making some pretty strong moves to get ready ourselves. Maybe after Xi is gone (assuming they haven't attacked by the time he eventually is out of power) maybe someone a little less ambitious on that issue will arise. Hard to tell at this point....

[My Wife Hates CIV]

the real and only end result of russias complete failure with ukriane is that china will never try the same with tiawan.

[PLATO]

So since Polytubbies seemed to have missed it, pro-Russian demonstrations have been taking place in Moldova (that bit between Ukraine and Romania). Moldova used to have Black Sea ports, and after being rejected by Romania and Ukraine as 'partners' (Moldava is a basket case), seems to see this as a chance to ingratiate itself by opening some sort of western front, and maybe capturing a port or two.

Of course, Romania would probably be pulled in if a conflict occures.And this would give Putin the excuse he needs..

Transnistria has been "hot" before and is a pro-Russian separatist region. 1500 Russian troops are deployed there as "peacekeepers". Most of Moldova is pro Europe. Unless the Russian troops engage, I think it is unlikely that the separatist have the means to try and seize ports. They would certainly be engaged by the regular Moldovan armed forces if they chose to attack anywhere. Likely this will remain a frozen conflict unless Russia is able to link up with its forces in Transnistria by seizing the Black Sea Coast...an event that is looking more and more unlikely.

[Uncle Sparky]

So since Polytubbies seemed to have missed it, pro-Russian demonstrations have been taking place in Moldova (that bit between Ukraine and Romania). Moldova used to have Black Sea ports, and after being rejected by Romania and Ukraine as 'partners' (Moldava is a basket case), seems to see this as a chance to ingratiate itself by opening some sort of western front, and maybe capturing a port or two.

Of course, Romania would probably be pulled in if a conflict occures.And this would give Putin the excuse he needs..

[Dinner]

No concessions can be given to Putin for his war of aggression and conquest. Also, Putin must be defeated soundly or else he will proceed on to Moldova, Poland, and the Baltic states. THAT conflict will be nuclear. No question about it. The reason is the Russians feel they have to do this for their very survival but they also now know their regular military is no match for NATO so, of course, Putin will go nuclear. It is his only option.

If we want to avoid that then our ONLY option is to make sure the Russian army dies in Ukraine so that Putin cannot move on to the next steps in his plan. Period.

[Geronimo]

Ukraine gave its enormous thermonuclear arsenal and triad of delivery systems to its neighbor Russia, a country which had territorial claims on Ukraine, in exchange for Russia dropping those claims forever. When Ukraine then found itself invaded, occupied and partially annexed by Russia less than 10 years later by the same Russian leader who would invade and occupy and annex Ukrainian territory again less than 10 years after that...I think all talk of peace agreements between Russia and any other country became literally meaningless.

Peace with Russia is wonderful but Putin has destroyed any basis for codifying peace with Russia in any civilized way. The only way forward is to decisively defeat them on their chosen battlefield.

[PLATO]

Well said Jrabbit.

[PLATO]

Interesting that the general feeling here seems to be that some type of concession must be made to Putin to end the war. I think that this is self defeating. Aggression should have NO reward unless it is impossible to prevent. If Ukraine can restore its boarders and hold them against Russian counter attacks, then it is time for them to ascend to NATO membership. A peace treaty is not needed immediately...only an armistice. Once those three things happen, then years can be spent, if need be, on political pressure for a peace treaty. If Putin uses nuclear weapons, it will lead to the ultimate destruction of the Russian Federation.

The West must hold strong...it must give Ukraine what it needs to eject the Russians, and it must be there as a treaty ally once the guns fall silent. Anything less and aggression is rewarded. That would be the path to a larger war in the future.

[-Jrabbit]

Thank you both for your replies. Geronimo, your dogged pursuit of this conversation with Berz is admirable and appreciated. No way would I have the patience for it. FWIW, it's my position that nearly all political discourse these days suffers greatly from overgeneralization (like this "neocon" catch-all), as if there are precious few possible points of view, any and all of which require their opponents to be monolithic for their arguments to hold any water.

[Geronimo]

As charming as all these claims, objections and ripostes are, I'd like both Geronimo and Berzerker to specifically state both the definition and identities of these "neocons" you both speak of with such glib self-assurance.

I'm sorry if I conveyed "glib self-assurance" when bandying the term "neocon" or "neo-cons" or "neoconservative" about. The short answer is that when I use those terms, I want the term to mean whatever it is Berzerker thinks he means when he says it. When I chat here at 'poly I'm driven by a desire to find people who seem willing to demonstrate great verbal stamina in committing to text ideas that I find completely wrong in an open-ended forum debate. I like to think I learn a lot more in those situations and they're more fun. Of course I *do* recognize that when I'm bandying a term about that I should personally agree with the meaning I'm using...in general. However, I've found that refusing to use or avoiding the use a corrupted or weasled out loaded phrase, euphemism, or political epithet works against my goals. I'm trying to step into a strange new habitat occupied by an alien mind to see why they like it there and if I go ripping the curtains down and otherwise re-decorating that spoils the experience.

I found Berz's answer to your question above somewhat helpful in this regard but not as much as you might think because his definition of "pursuing hegemony" probably means he regards every US politician who weighs into foreign policy in almost any capacity other than as an opponent to US foreign exercise of power as being part of the neocon boogeyman crowd and his above list only includes the ones that were currently most salient in his mind. A president who undermined US power with an intervention aimed at some lofty goal would be a neocon right alongside one who seemed Machiavellian to the core of everything their administration did in planning their interventions. If you intervene using US tax dollars...you are a neocon to Berz I suspect. I think he'll disagree in principle but that will prove to be the case in practice.

The long answer is that even though I'm trying to use "neocon" in a way that fits the way I think I see Berz using it I have my own ideas about the term as well and those surely show up at least unintentionally in what I write here.

So, what I think the meaning of "neoconservative" and its derivatives is would be that for some time now "neocon" has existed only as a political epithet. Nobody is really a "neocon" or "neoconservative" now in the sense that either nobody will describe themselves as such or if they do so its only to try to grab a particular kind of attention. It didn't start off that way but even in its origins there was no consensus on any definition that would actually shed any useful light on which policies we would expect to be endorsed by the "neoconservative". During the era between its origins and its transformation into a vague political epithet it came to mean anything from advocating military force to further human rights and democracy to meaning you were dead set against using military force to further human rights and democracy and any number of other doctrines or policies with no clear identifiable common denominator apart from advocating another hawkish intervention and means to accomplish it.

[BeBMan]

I think it's obvious that Modovians (or is it Moldovans?) want to conquer Russia all up to the Chinese border. Because Russia has much more trees than Moldova, esp. in Siberia. Now remember, who's living in trees? That's right, squirrels.

If you control vast stretches of land with trees you control the world's most squirrels - then you just have to wait a couple million years and them dead squirrels turn into oil. Same happened to the dinos. Now the neocons try the same with squirrels.

Plus outside America red squirrels are more common than grey squirrels. Which means you get oil and fight communism in one go, but the MSM is hiding it.

[Berzerker]

As charming as all these claims, objections and ripostes are, I'd like both Geronimo and Berzerker to specifically state both the definition and identities of these "neocons" you both speak of with such glib self-assurance.

Neocons are interventionists pursuing US hegemony. The Bush & Cheney clans, the Clintons, Obama, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Biden, Nuland, Jake Sullivan, Samantha Power, Madeleine Albright, Adam Schiff, the media and the military industrial complex. The people who impeached Trump for interfering in their war in Ukraine. The Cold War was too profitable and peace is bad for business. Welcome to fascism.

[Uncle Sparky]

Also, since Polytubbies seem to have all the insider info - Moldova, is Russia opening a second front?

[-Jrabbit]

As charming as all these claims, objections and ripostes are, I'd like both Geronimo and Berzerker to specifically state both the definition and identities of these "neocons" you both speak of with such glib self-assurance.

[Berzerker]

You, however, claim here and elsewhere that the neocons really just want the united states to militarily control states with valuable resources. Is that what you believe? (I understand you don't like being told what you believe.) if that is what you believe, how do you know this?

We've been doing it for over 2 centuries. Manifest Destiny? After arming ISIS to destroy Syria we put an army down on Syrian oil and wheat production. Much of our foreign policy is devoted to securing foreign oil, true? The Gulf Wars, Saudi Arabia and the petrol dollar. We can extract as much of the world's resources before tapping ours, or tap ours too and lower the cost of energy. But then we run out faster.

How would this be different from neo-mercantilism?

I dont know

Isn't neo-mercantilism more of the PRC and even Russia playbook than the US or any Western country?

I dont know... I dont see Russian and Chinese bases surrounding us. I dont live in Russia or China and have no say over their govts.

Do you realize that the US consistently gives more opportunity for direct foreign control over valuable resources in the United states than China or even Russia gives to foreigners in China or Russia? How strange if the dominant influence over US foreign policy consists of neo-cons trying to maximize US control over resources.

Neocons focus on foreign policy, they cant run the world without help. Cold War policy was to ship jobs to countries we needed around Russia and China. Just look at a map of military bases around the world. We're upset because China is exerting control of the sea we've surrounded.

On the other hand, If you don't believe neo-mercantilism is driving neo-cons to pursue control of resources why do you constantly assert that their military adventures are resource motivated? Where do you see them asserting this or where do you see the pattern of policies that would actually serve this motivation? It seems to me that if there is one thing absent from neoconservative policies it would be any plans that would shore up long term US control of resources.

What is the motive of neocons?

So long as the US is not demonstrably working to increase US state control over valuable US resources let alone maintaining US control of foreign resources, then it is ridiculous to claim its foreign policy is especially focused on gaining US control over foreign resources. Either the neo cons don't actually control foreign policy or they don't place high priority on gaining US control of natural resources or both are not true but there's no way we can claim that neocons are successfully pushing US foreign policy to focus on US control of resources.

What other nation has as much control and influence over the world? Neocons did that and they recently blew up a German pipeline to 'control' oil from Russia.

For my part I think the neo-conservatives are just a heterogenous label for all war hawks who are convinced that use of force should always be considered for every problem and who are great are selling these plans to politicians and sometimes even the public and are horrible at getting them sustained or constructively followed up on. If that is the case they will certainly push military intervention in almost any way but they won't necessarily further US control over resources at all.

Its happening before your eyes in Ukraine. The neocons will swoop in to 'privatize' the country when the war ends.

You seem to say the neocons successfully devised and sold a plan to successive US presidents from opposing parties which unilaterally overthrew and sustained control of the Ukrainian government in order to maintain a proxy war between Russia and Ukraine that the Russians and Ukrainians could not resist or interfere with that plan.

Neocons run both parties, Trump was in the way and had to go. Mattis resigned when he tried to leave Syria and he got impeached for interfering with weapons going to Ukraine. The Russians and Ukrainians agreed to peace deals, the US and Azov rejected them.

Wouldn't it make more sense to suppose that the conflict was due to issues between the Russians and Ukrainians and that neocons have simply been selling plans to try to "manage" US influence on the conflict in the same manner that all other countries try to manage affairs to their advantage?

They picked Ukraine's next leader weeks before a bloody coup created a vacancy and then pretended it was all legitimate before arming thugs to kill protesters and they did it in our name. These people are psychopaths, they were arming Islamic terrorists to destroy Syria at the same time.

Why the hell intentionally fund a loose cannon like ISIS?

Because they were good. I've seen a timelapse video of the expansion of ISIS and Timber Sycamore. When we poured weapons in ISIS took half of Syria. The "moderate rebels" was a lie Obama and the neocons told when they got caught.

"AQ is on our side in Syria" - Jake Sullivan to Hillary Clinton Feb 2012