Realism And The Ukraine War

[rangerrebew]

Realism And The Ukraine War
Top Hungarian official: 'Europe is sleepwalking into a conflict it cannot possibly win'
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Rod Dreher
Nov 28, 2022
 
When I was in Warsaw recently, I got into a couple of intense discussions with Poles about the Ukraine war. I really love and respect the Polish people, and cherish how the Polish and Hungarian governments have stood side by side against the dictatorship of wokeness in Brussels. And I grieve over how the Ukraine war has caused a deep division between them. The Poles are extremely aggressive in their defense of Ukraine, and in their support for the war against Russia. They hate the Russians, for entirely understandable historical reasons. The Hungarians are also no fans of the Russians, for similar historical reasons, but have been pushing from the beginning for some kind of peace agreement, before the war destroys Europe economically, or worse. The Poles see this as weakness in the face of Putin's aggression.

I told a Polish friend with whom I was arguing about this that the kind of rhetoric I was hearing from him and his side reminded me of the way I and people like me thought and talked after 9/11. We dismissed anything that was not full-throated support for the Iraq War as weakness, as cowardice, as a foolish refusal to understand the reality of the threat from Islamic terrorism. We would not hear people who cautioned against war, because our fear and loathing of the Enemy was so great. And we allowed ourselves to lead our country, and Iraq, to disaster.

"Yes, but Iraq is not Russia," said my friend, sensibly. "There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Russia invaded Ukraine."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/realism-and-the-ukraine-war/

[rangerrebew]

So why is the US spending so many trillions of dollars on Europe defending them from a war they "cannot possibly win?"  

[Timber Rattler]

But the Ukrainians can win, and are winning!

My question is how anyone can argue that the war can be ended by "some sort of peace agreement" when Russia was the one who invaded Ukraine and still holds roughly 15-20% of its territory, including two major port cities and the enormous nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia. 

There is no good faith there, and does anybody actually believe that "land for peace" would work?  Show me in history where that has ever worked?  The Sudetenland? The West Bank?  And how can Putin ever be trusted to keep his word when he has never done so in the past?