re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

The Russians Lost Nearly An Entire Battalion Trying To Cross A River In Eastern Ukraine

The better part of a Russian army battalion—50 or so vehicles and up to a thousand troops—in recent days tried to cross a pontoon bridge spanning the Siverskyi Donets River, running west to east between the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

Finland is joining NATO. Sweden right behind them. Putin has a self inflicted gunshot wound that will be impossible to ignore for ordinary Russians who actually like the Scandi countries.

It was also made easier as Japan was a modern homogenous country whose citizens typically obeyed the government.

Germany was similar.

quote:

---

Finland is joining NATO

---

I loved the Finnish Foreign minister's response to Russian threats against his country joining NATO as he stared right into the cameras: " You caused this. Look at the mirror".Finland takes its defense very seriously & seem better prepared than some current NATO members.


Obviously I'm not a military guy , but can someone break down some of the strategic military advantages this move has for NATO/ US. A foothold in the Artic , valuable partner who are experts at Artic warfare & NATO can learn from them, etc.....?

quote:

---

Look what we did in Japan after WW2.

---

Lot of difference in the Japanese/German people/society/culture/history and the Iraqi/Afghan people/societies/culture/history.

quote:

---

Are you saying we should not have disposed Noriega?

---

23 dead American kids families still ask why their sons had to die.
But I guess you did not lose any family member in that conflict so no skin off your back.

quote:

---

Look what we did in Japan after WW2.

We have a history of being successful at Nation Building.

---

The results are mixed when you look at the full history since WW2, but I think the analysis people use to evaluate those results is also flawed.

Most of our history of “nation building” revolves around combating the rise of communism and installation of Soviet puppet states during the period following WW2 and into the Cold War.

Some of those attempts were successful and some were not. But people seem to characterize the failures, in hindsight, as the US vs. [insert local dictatorship]. I don’t think that’s really accurate. It was the US vs. the Soviet Union. And the US had very real interest in avoiding Soviet puppet states in places like Grenada and Hispaniola.

The more recent history in the Middle East and Afghanistan is a much different animal and every scenario is different. The Taliban killed thousands of American civilians on US soil. We had to bring the hammer of God down on them. Iraq is certainly the most egregious example of regime change as a military objective.

I don’t know, I just think it’s a much more complex and nuanced issue than just saying “we need to stop nation building.”

I don’t want to derail but I always wonder why Iraq is linked in with Afghanistan in terms of a war we “lost.”

I’ll be the first to say it to wasn’t worth it, but we accomplished all our objectives including the whole nation building thing.

quote:

---

he fact that we aided groups aligned with OBL and then left a power vacuum as the Soviets were leaving has got to be part of institutional bias towards 21st century nation building

---

There were sympathetic elements in Afghanistan who were mujahideen but not Taliban jihadists, like Ahmad Shah Massoud who was as close to a unifying, western friendly figure as the country would produce in the last 500 years. Unfortunately we apparently kind of disregarded working with him in favor of far more radical elements because we thought they were better equipped to fight the soviets(who knows what the frick we were thinking). He fought against Al Qaeda and the Taliban until OBL had him assassinated right before 9/11. In short we missed a big chance to try and fill that vacuum.