Russian Roulette in Ukraine

[Kamaji]

Russian Roulette in Ukraine

We only remain in NATO and have involved ourselves in the current Ukraine mess because of our quixotic goal of remaining the sole superpower, which is rather ironically making us weaker.

By Christopher Roach
February 25, 2022

Iadmit, I was surprised by Russia’s attack on Ukraine. I thought Vladimir Putin had decided, instead of invading, to recognize the separatist republics and send in “peacekeepers.”  Given the binary choice of invading or losing face, Plan C seemed the most clever, something similar to the limited “hybrid” campaign in Crimea.  Instead, he has launched a massive, multipronged attack on Ukraine with the goal of “demilitarizing” the country.

The best analogy is the Russian attack on Georgia in response to its attack on the separatist province of South Ossetia in 2008.  There, Russia surprised the West with its swift, decisive, and effective action against the pro-Western Georgians.  Russia succeeded in its aims to degrade Georgia’s military and strengthen the separatists.  These actions sent a message to Georgian leaders and its neighbors that a dalliance with the West may come at a high cost if Russia perceives it as a threat.

A war of some kind has been going on for eight years in Ukraine.  While the West is now hyper-focused on the Russian invasion and its costs, the people of Donetsk have been shelled nearly every day by Ukrainian forces since 2014.  And the so-called Revolution of Dignity was the culmination of a months-long violent riot in Kiev.

As Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman described the matter, the war began eight years ago, and Russia is ending it.

Towards a Foreign Policy of Restraint
How should Americans feel about this? How should our country respond? This is a complicated question. Generally, aggressive war and invasions are something the world should not endorse. Similarly, the use of military action to change borders is generally destabilizing to everyone, and thus undesirable. While I am skeptical of the requirement that all military action requires U.N. approval—a principle we have violated in Panama and later through NATO action in Serbia and Kosovo—I am not in favor of creating general conditions in which all nations must go rogue.

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Source:  https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/25/russian-roulette-in-ukraine/