Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[HisGrace]

I thank Vladimir Putin for reminding everyone of the original purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the value it still holds.     

This is one of those classic international relations dilemmas where it's unclear what Putin's intentions are so it's hard to read the situation. If he just wants to formally annex Crimea and keep Ukraine from joining NATO as you noted it could ultimately end up making NATO stronger in the region and put Russia in a worse geopolitical situation even with Ukraine out of NATO. But some people think his goal is to discredit the entire NATO alliance, in which case he's going to keep stepping over the line until he forces a confrontation, hoping that NATO and especially the US will back down, proving the agreement to be a bluff. Hopefully that's not the case, because it could put everyone in a very dangerous situation.

[HisGrace]

Imagine if there was a Mexican-American war and the Americans celebrated the capture of Ciudad Juarez after eight years of fighting and huge losses.

Americans really don't have good track record in recent times in actually fighting the wars on the ground.

America isn't well prepared for a peer-to-peer fight right now.

false (or, at worst, we are far more prepared to fight a peer-to-peer fight than any of our peers)


edit-I'd be curious to know which wars America didn't "fight well on the ground",

hm. afghanistan?

The defeat there was political, not "on the ground".

That also wasn't a "peer to peer" war, and some of the problems there might have been caused by the US still being in a Cold War mindset and preparing to fight conventional wars against Russia or China and not being prepared for insurgencies and nation building.