That’s one of the reasons why we’re here again.
I hope so.
But, from Putin’s point of view, he’ll rebuild supply chains with China, India, and other countries. He will have less of those dangerous Western ideas of free speech, opposition parties, new ideas, etc.
At the same time, the West is stuck spending a trillion dollars rebuilding Ukraine so the Western countries can convince the Ukrainian refugees to go home.
Not his ideal outcome, but not too bad, either.
Hey man plenty of people didn’t want to be part of the Union which is why they seceded in the first place. And they fought viciously to try to stay independent. The victors write history so the APUSH curriculum tends to view the whole Lincoln reuniting the country thing as a good thing. Had the Confederacy won the textbooks would have celebrated how their founding fathers Davis and Lee fought for their freedom and slavery and they’d have a holiday to commemorate it and all that jazz.
Whoever wins this war gets to write history. And I’m saying if Putin wins he can write it so that he takes the place of Russian Abraham Lincoln. He can pick whatever reason as to why it was justified.
I wonder if the US claim that Putin has cancer is valid and from his view this is him trying to play Imperialist for the history books. I don’t think he’s as focused on costing the west resources as much as painting the map his country’s color.
While you’re right in that Putin can “write” what he wants, but in this day and age, I doubt that anyone outside of Russia is going to remember him in that sort of light.
Some key differences in Russia’s case:
- Honest Abe didn’t fire first.
- No one had officially recognized the Confederacy as a separate, sovereign nation.
- In fact, past Russian gov’t acknowledged their satellite states as “independent”. (IIRC, this was a political move to show “external” support for a Communist gov’t.)
- While Abe’s principle goal was the preservation of the Union, he is remembered and celebrated for ending slavery.
However, I think you could have an argument for this parallel with the situation between China and Taiwan.
Interesting perspective by Macron:
He’s right. The more you humiliate Russia the more extreme the next leader is gonna be. Someone even worse then Putin would be no bueno.
I don’t see how the next leader would be better. Russia doesn’t have the institutions or a good pipeline for producing non-autocratic leadership.
Yeah, how “manifest destiny” and the Indian Wars are taught is a whole ‘nother topic probably deserving of its own thread. This one is purportedly about Ukraine.
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I agree we are digressing a bit but not totally. I would be interested more in hearing what folks think of Macron’s suggestion to be all nice with Putin after the war ends. I don’t remember those suggestions being made about Hitler when WWII was raging!
Just one last comment on why I think we digressed with the American history discussion. Putin will justify destroying the Ukrainian people because he will say “they are not really a people and/or are inferior to Russians or they are just bad people. Ukraine will thus be a better country if run by the superior Russians.” Those rationales are eerily similar to the reasons for justifying some other genocides (including the Canadian/Americans conquering the “inferior” native people: Canada/US would be a stronger, more prosperous country if European Americans prevailed over the savages.) That is why we digressed.
Agree. I’m not sure Putin is quite as bad as Hitler, although I don’t know to what extent we knew how bad Hitler was either. We knew he was bad of course… we had first-hand accounts of Jews being stripped of their rights and in some cases disappearing. But the Allied forces didn’t know the full extent of the atrocities by any means.
Hopefully we will not be discovering concentration camps and extermination camps in the aftermath of this war, but the treatment of Ukrainian civilians by Russian soldiers is unforgivable.
Putin seems to have created his own Manifest Destiny policy. I’d say that every former SSR is on the plate.
also, regarding Revolutionary atrocities, the Ken Burns “Ben Franklin” documentary noted some Loyalist atrocities led by William Franklin.
True. Although I doubt he’s dumb enough to go after the ones in NATO. At least, I hope he’s not.
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Putin is a huge fan of Stalin so that says a lot about him!
The current indiscriminate Russian bombardment of Ukraine is just horrific. I think that is why I am going off on slight tangents in this discussion. What can you say about the actual fighting other than it is brutal.
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I’m not sure what actions would “humiliate” Russia.
The Ukrainians stopped them in the suburbs of Kiev, leading Putin to decide that taking the city would be too expensive and there fore withdrew. Was that “humiliation”?
If so, I don’t think the Ukrainians should just give up the city to make the Russians feel better about themselves.
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Split out posts on a topic that seems to be of interest and diverges from the current topic.
Posts that appeared to be “overlapping” between this topic and the new one (What ***should*** be taught in history classes?) were left here.
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Putin not even pretending now about his invasion being an anti-Nazi movement or being worried about Nato:
Seems even more likely now with a new offensive beginning after conclusion of the last. Maybe that’s why the last post is nearly a month ago. What does this mean in the context of enduring high energy prices for (the Biden admin’s words, not mine:) “as long as it takes” to maintain the “future of the liberal world order?” What’s going to happen in Europe this winter? In Africa? What happens to all the weapons we sent? Will terrorists get a hold of some?
I wonder if or when Ukraine’s supporters will start to demand it trade land for peace.
Or it could become like Afghanistan was for the Soviets where the fighting just continues with large losses on both sides and the West supplying enough military assistance to keep the fighting going. Sadly, the parts of the Ukraine that Russia takes will largely have been bombed into rubble with a lot of deaths.