I was thinking that as well. Ukraine doesn't bring a whole lot to the table from a military perspective and just doing cold calculations. I personally feel like we should be arming them to the teeth and should have been for a while. I'm glad they've been able to hold out so far, but it's still very early
They haven’t been “holding out” from Russia. Working Ukranians have been fed up with the EU’s mingling in their governmental affairs and favorable towards Russia. Of course that will no longer be the case now, but realize the West has been stoking this war for many years even if Putin officially started it.
They absolutely have. That's why they declared independence in 1991.
> Working Ukranians have been fed up with the EU’s mingling in their governmental affairs and favorable towards Russia.
This is simply 100% nonsense. "Working Ukranians" have been employed en masse by Western European companies, with more joining every year. There is a small minority in a relatively small region of Ukraine that was favorable towards Russia, but even those have now decided that Russia is not their friend. Note that these are what you would call 'Ethnic Russians' and even for many of them this has gone way too far. People want peace and stability, not war.
> Of course that will no longer be the case now.
At least you realize that.
> Realize the West stoked this war even if Putin started it.
On the contrary, Putin would have had this war, because his country is failing and he wants to look successful and strong, rather than preside over the bankruptcy of his country. Ironically, that's exactly where it is headed now, the number of friends remaining is pretty close to zero, we'll count Lukashenko for 0.5 because he relies on Putin to stay alive.
What the West did was too little, arming Ukraine further and stationing troops there earlier would have precluded this war.
Sure, just like in Afghanistan there is a relatively tiny subset of educated urban elites employed by Western businesses and nonprofits. And, just like with Afghanistan, the American media coverage of that group would have you believe nobody else lives there, but of course that is simply ridiculous.
I agree that stationing troops there earlier would have almost certainly prevented the war, but that would have required NATO to see beyond its own arrogance for once, and if that were possible then the situation wouldn’t have come that far to begin with.
That said, preventing wars by flooding the globe with American military bases is a definition of insanity that hasn’t exactly worked out so far. I think you may want to reconsider the logical conclusion of your proposal.
> Sure, just like in Afghanistan there is certainly a relatively tiny subset of educated elites employed by Western businesses and nonprofits.
I think you are underestimating Ukraine severely. It is roughly at the level of Romania or Bulgaria.
> But, just like with Afghanistan, the American media coverage of that group would have you believe nobody else lives there, which is ridiculous.
I don't need American media coverage for countries that are much closer than America to learn about them. It's closer than the typical holiday destination from here.
> I agree that stationing troops there earlier would have likely prevented the war, but that would require NATO to see beyond its own arrogance for once, and if that were possible then the situation wouldn’t have come this far to begin with.
The prevailing idea at the time was not to provoke Putin, which retrospectively was the mistake that made this possible.
> That said, preventing wars by flooding the globe with American military bases is a definition of insanity that hasn’t exactly worked out so far. I think you may want to reconsider the logical conclusion of your proposal.
Those bases are in large part there because the countries themselves want those bases there.
