RiverDog wrote:You can't compare America's involvement in WW2 to the subsequent proxy wars since then. First off, in WW2, we were attacked directly before entering, suffering over 2,000 American deaths, which represented a clear threat that everyone could understand. Literally overnight, the Pearl Harbor attack galvanized public opinion. Prior to then, there was a very sizable anti war sentiment against our involvement. Without Pearl Harbor, we may not have entered the war, or at least not prosecuted it with the vengeance that we did and stayed the course for nearly 4 years.
Secondly, it was a different day and time. The press was obedient servants of the government and rarely wrote anything negative about our participation. Atrocities on our side were never spoken of. No TV images beamed directly into the living rooms on the home front. And even in that environment, by the time August of 1945 had rolled around, public sentiment had begun to change. Had Japan not surrendered when they did, had we not dropped the two nukes and had to invade their home islands, our country likely would not have continued to support a policy of unconditional surrender.
You can blame a lot of things on the younger generations, but you can't blame our attitude towards these proxy wars on the other side of the ocean on them. We've always had that attitude, going all the way back to the founding of the nation when George Washington advised the country to avoid foreign entanglements.
A retired general, Wesley Clark, wrote a very good article regarding the prosecution of the war in Ukraine that I suggest that you and the others read. Here's a couple of excerpts that highlights my concerns:
But what might appear to be a thus-far brilliantly managed containment of Russian aggression is balanced on a welter of conflicting concerns and seems to lack a specific goal.
The emerging strategy seems aimed at "bleeding out" the Russian aggression, albeit at a very high cost in Ukrainian casualties, even though virtually every analysis shows that Putin is driven by geostrategic aims and is not deterred by huge losses.
The war has thus become fundamentally a war of resources – what Russia can mobilize versus what the West can and will provide. But can Putin be persuaded to give up before Ukraine loses the support of the West?
Most wars are usually ended by negotiations, but negotiations ensue only when one side or the other foresees losing on the battlefield, and the outcome of such negotiations reflects battlefield outcomes. Putin is determined, but he is not irrational. He must be convinced he is losing to be persuaded to come to the negotiating table.
Simply holding the line in Donbas is unlikely to be sufficient, no matter the extent of Russian losses. This argues for a more pointed strategy: One that enables Ukraine to threaten what Putin most values – Crimea – while also holding in Donbas. With Crimea, Russia achieves military dominance of the Black Sea, control over its natural resources, as well as threatening Ukraine's economic lifeline to the West. But Crimea is not Russia’s; it is legally part of Ukraine. It was seized in early 2014 by a Russian military operation. The West has maintained selective sanctions on Russia for nearly nine years to punish Russian aggression there.
In coming months, Ukraine should receive more of the tools it needs to counterattack successfully, closing the land bridge and advancing into Crimea.
Absent this reinforcement of Ukrainian capabilities, the battle in Ukraine is likely to seesaw back and forth inconclusively into the next year, with increasing risks of Western frustration and Russian escalation.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/ ... 322437002/
In other words, Ukraine can't win this simply by fighting a war of attrition. Putin doesn't care how many men and materials he expends in the war and he doesn't have to worry about attitudes and opinions on his home front, at least not to the same degree as the West does. He knows that we do not have the stomach for a years long effort. The Ukrainians need to go on the offensive, start attacking assets that Putin values, put his regime at risk, make him start sweating.
This is what I was talking about in my previous remarks. You guys are ignoring a political reality. You can't just say "We stay the course until the mission is completed" or "You can't set an arbitrary time limit". To do so is the equivalent of sticking your heads in the sand. The time factor is NOT arbitrary. The problem is the 2024 elections, the campaign of which begins in earnest about this time next year. If something isn't done by then to at least show some positive results, Biden is going to lose support and it will pave the way for another 4 years of Trump.
I don't blame the younger generation. I blame your generation to be honest with you. You guys dropped the ball big time as far as maintaining the culture of this nation while getting rid of the trash parts. Your generation brought in the drug culture, the anti-war movement that caused us to fail in Vietnam and started this trend of becoming involved in wars for Democracy but not finishing them, and a variety of other negative cultural paradigms that have afflicted this nation now for decades and continuing. You even dropped the ball at parenting with your turning divorce commonplace and males of that 60s generation and their midlife crisis "I want to date younger girls and not take care of my family" rubbish attitude.
World War 2 taught a lesson that if we try to stay out of world affairs, other nations build up power and eventually it makes it way to our shores. That lesson keeps being forgotten by Americans who want to keep thinking these folks will go away, but the Putin's and Xi's know this and use it to their advantage until they build up enough power to shift world power. Then we have an even more expensive and painful problem to deal with down the line.
I'm well aware of the elections. Good leaders do not bow to the pressure of elections. They hold the course knowing that long-term it will work out better if we halt Putin before he rebuilds Russia into a power capable of expanding into Europe. I imagine we will go to sleep again thinking, "Oh Putin won't go into Europe. Or any future strongman leader wanting to emulate Putin won't do worse, they won't possibly do that because....because...because..." with no reason given. The fact is America is getting pressed from China and Russia to see how far they can push and they'll keep pushing until they beat us.
Not taking a stand now is just allowing them to build up more power and status in the world for other warmonger dictators who want to push back against American dominance to reform the world power structure. If Americans keep overlooking these guys, they're going to suffer an even greater surprise like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
Putin has already retaken many of the old Soviet/Russian Empire territories. Now his plan is to take Ukraine. You think if he retakes these areas that future Russian leaders continue to press us? Or China look across and go, "Time to retake Taiwan. America won't stand against us, they are weak now. All we need to do is wait until the next election cycle, manipulate the election with propaganda, then those idiots will be too divided to stand against our moves."
The game of world power is pretty far from over. America is pretty far from winning it and continuing to give ground. Just like in the past when they have practiced isolationism, Americans are going to find out that evil men like Putin and Xi and Kim John and the Iranian regime are still at work trying to undermine American power and push back against us until they can tear it down. They don't work a few election cycles, they plan for decades and very long-term because their leaders don't change every 4 yeas and they don't allow political idiots like Tucker Carlson or late night talk show hosts to divide their political objectives.
But hey, you keep thinking it's a smart plan to have a limit on time. But me, I know what the world power game is and we should stand hard on Ukraine. If either of these parties have a politically intelligent person left in them, they should work together to ensure we stand hard on Ukraine. Europe should also back us and push Putin back from his world power game before someone after him decides to push it farther and do worse.