We may claim not to be at war with Russia, but I can assure you, Russia is at war with us.
We are in a proxy war with them. #TimScott said it bluntest: we are using the blood of Ukrainians to degrade the Russian military.
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That is a very odd take. Not that I disagree that it is a proxy war, it is, but the take that that is somehow immoral seems wrong.
Two people had a war, we decided to offer non-human-life support to the under dog. Why is that wrong. Assuming we think Ukranians deserve to be supported then why would providing them with money and weapons be morally worse than letting them die with no support?
Its a war with Russia. To win the war would take the full engagement of the entire USA military in a full our war with Russia. I personally wouldn't mind that engagement but its a order of magnitude difference in commitment.
Since we are obviously not willing to devote the entire USA military to the defense of Ukraine, clearly helping Ukraine extend a war out indefinitely is far superior than letting Ukraine be wiped off a map.
Well, IDK. I'm of the general opinions that long term, prolonging wars kills more people than winning them.
When the two parties involved remain static that would be true in many cases. 10x the deaths for a day is less than 10 years of 1/10ths the deaths. Sure thats fair.
But thats not the case here. We are talking about a relatively small war over a long period of time vs a world war involving the entire world, which based on past world wars is likely to last years.
To put this to actual numbers. WWII resulted in, on average, 10,000 deaths per day over a 7 year period. Resulting in 53 million deaths total.
By contrast in the ukranian-russian war, in its current phase has been going on for exactly 2 year as of 2 days ago. In the course of those two years there has been a total estimated death toll of half a million. That is 684 people per day.
So a large world war results in ~20x more people killed per day then a much smaller, but potentially longer lasting war. Considering a global war tends to not be short, as ~7 years given past incidents that would mean the russion-ukrain war would have to last 140 years in order to cause more casualties than the world war that would result if the USA got directly involved.
@freemo @randahl @trendytoots Fair enough, that’s a good point. I think I was hoping that the conflict would remain contained in the region and not spread all over the place, but I guess that’s a false hope.
Historically speaking, we're in an unusual period of relative peace, and once that peace ends it could be millennia before we see it again.
The first big period of global peace was called the "Pax Romana", where the Roman empire was so powerful nobody really bothered doing much war because the hegemony of the empire destroyed the cost/benefit of doing so.
The second happened almost 2000 years later in the 19th century with the "Pax Britannia", where the UK was so overwhelmingly powerful it wasn't really worth doing war because the empire could step in.
We're arguably in the third big global peace called the "Pax Americana", where the (historically rather bizarre) American empire has been so powerful that for the most part nobody has really wanted to be involved in much war.
The Pax Romana lasted about 150 years, the Pax Britannia lasted almost exactly 100 years, and the Pax Americana is about 80 years old today. If it collapses, who knows when the next period of peace might come about, and who knows what sort of empire could bring it about?
Presently, we're seeing wars in Europe, Africa, imminent war in South America, a real threat of war in Asia, it's a powder keg that could go off and not pushing the cost up could really help dry that powder.
Previous eras like this include the 30 years war in Europe, and that wasn't a noble war like World War 2, it was a meat grinder that caused mass suffering. This isn't a period we want to allow to return.
I personally mind that.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins @randahl @trendytoots I don’t think it’s an odd take at all. The West has drip-fed weapons to Ukraine, never supplying enough materiel for them to decisively push back the Russians. Apparently it suits the West to allow Putin to self-destruct Russia, and they don’t care how many Ukrainian lives that costs.
@KimSJ Kim I do hope you saw my video on exactly this topic: "For as long as it takes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7fsxRI7SHc&t=1s
I think what #TimScott was hinting at, probably accidentally saying the truth, is that we're not giving #Ukraine the type of support they'd need to *win* the war, which would probably be troops on the ground; instead, we're giving them the type of support they need to not lose. That's not the same, and it's why currently there's no end to the war in sight.
In my opinion, using the military of a far smaller, barely-standing nation as human sacrifices before an enemy you're too wimpy to fight yourselves is wrong. The Ukrainians have suffered too much already, we don't need to trap them in a forever war too.