re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

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This was said in February. We were supposed to lose interest by now according to those who proclaimed this back then.

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No one said we in the West would lose interest in a month or two. It might take another 6 months or a year, but rest assured, we will lose interest, because that is what we do.

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I believe you vastly overestimate the West's attention span. Give this thing a few more months and we will start to lose interest just like we did in Yemen and Syria.

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And I think you completely fail to understand European politics.

Russia attacked a European nation. It won't just be forgotten after a few months.

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Why? The Turkish army is still occupying half of Cyprus since they invaded it in 1974 (48 years ago).

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Ukraine's location makes an outcome like that extremely unlikely.

Russia read too many of its own press clippings and thought it was better militarily than it actually was.

Russia committed around 60%-75% of its entire active military to the invasion...and got its teeth kicked in.

They wanted, but they couldn't.

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Our Defense Department won't. We will be sending Ukraine aide for as long as they need it, no matter what the public and news deem interesting.

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Our defense department will do what it is told to do by the politicians. If the politicians lose interest, so too will the DOD.

Hell, it took us 20 years, but we eventually lost interest in Afghanistan the country that spawned 9/11 and we handed the country right back to the very same people we had been fighting for two decades.

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Hell, it took us 20 years, but we eventually lost interest in Afghanistan

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I suppose we also lost interest in Japan and Germany after those wars.


You claim we lose interest because we have short attention spans, yet use a time period of 20 years to back up your point?

We didn't lose interest in Afghanistan in the sense you are trying to say we will in Ukraine, so that's way past a Strawman you are using. It's probably a Wicker Man.

And we turned it over to the Afghans because that's what we do. If we weren't going to turn it back over to them, we would have annexed the country. Which we really haven't done since the Spanish-American War.

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Also, the Ukrainian military was a mess in 2014,

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Which is why they spent the past 8 years getting trained by NATO militaries.

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Russia had been busy since the Georgian war of 2008 getting their military back in shape.

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What shape was that? Able to squeeze back into a track-suit?


Russia's military is absolutely disgraceful.

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Our defense department will do what it is told to do by the politicians.

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That is exactly the way the founders intended it to be. Civilian control of the military is enshrined in the Constitution. They did not want generals having political ambitions. Eisenhower resigned his commission when he ran for President, even though he was already retired, just to make that point perfectly clear.

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I have a question for you:

Do you ever get tired of being wrong about this whole situation?

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Well, when I am wrong, I will consider your question seriously, but until then, it is pure speculation.

Tell you what Sport, if in 12 months Russia is still in the Ukraine and it is still the lead story, I will admit to being wrong on this one.

I am student of history, and history teaches us that most wars are not like WW2, where the winners demand unconditional surrender of their enemies and occupy the losers.

That is actually an outlier in historical terms. Most wars are fought until one side throws in the towel and cuts a deal. Let's just look at own history.

War of 1812, DC was burned to ground, but eventually we cut a deal with the British and made peace.

Mexican-American War, we invaded Mexico, took their capital, but didn't occupy the entire country, but we did force them give us a huge chunk of their Country in exchange for peace (Putin is probably hoping for a similar outcome).

Civil War this one is hard to compare since it arguably was a civil war and not a Nation versus Nation struggle.

Spanish-American War - very similar to the Mexican-American War, we achieved our military goals in Cuba and the Phillipines, Spain threw in the towel, and we took the parts of the Spanish Empire that we wanted (Puerto Rico, Guam, the Phillippines, and Cuba indirectly save for Guantanamo Bay)

WWI - The war was fought to a virtual stalemate for years, Germany eventually threw in the towel and made a deal, but it was not an unconditional surrender

WWII - See above

Korean War - we fought it out for 3 years, but it was a stalemate and we agreed to a permanent ceasefire but nothing else (i.e. a frozen conflict).

Vietnam War - we fought for almost a decade, we eventually lost interest, we threw in the towel, and 2 years later the North Vietnamese army rolled into Saigon.

Grenada/Panama - Not sure if these are really in the same category as the above

Gulf War 1 - We achieved out military goals and made a deal with Saddam

Gulf War 2 - We invaded on a lie of WMD and overran the entire Country. We imposed a government of our choosing on the population, civil war ensued, and we destabilized the entire region. We really "won" it, but in hindsight, it was a mistake IMO.

Afghanistan - As mentioned above, it took us 20 years, but we eventually lost interest in Afghanistan, the country that spawned 9/11, and we handed the country right back to the very same people we had been fighting for two decades.