Thoughts on this one
@Rasputin_Vol? How does a tankie deal with such a statement?
Aside from the complete incompetence of the previously and erroneously assumed 2nd best military in the world, the lack of understanding and acknowledgement within the West of the geopolitical realities of the conflict have been surprising.
Putin and his surrogates have been quite verbally forthright about their intentions, ambitions, goals, reasoning, and justification for Ukrainian conflict dating back to 2014. In their eyes, the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century was the fall of the Soviet Union. Take a moment to digest that geopolitical prism paradigm. It isn't for the sake of those former USSR countries or their people. It is that Moscow lost their hold on the resources, land, manufacturing might, farming land, and labor to both enrich themselves as their expense and project greater geological power/leverage with it.
In 2014, Ukraine started to tilt towards the free world. With Ukraine being one of the massive parts of the USSR (large manufacturing might, large amount of farmland, technologically inclined populous, and a warm water port) and not part of NATO yet, this was an unacceptable geopolitical redline within their framework. It is that simple.
One has to tip their cap to the Russian propaganda operation which aims to wither the resolve of the West and undermine unity and resolve of NATO. In the US, via social media trolling, they have played on the divisive tribal dynamic of the current US political landscape by appealing to Conservative overtones by portraying Russia an idealistic conservative state and appealing to Leftist overtones of colonial interventionalism. In Germany, they have for successfully penetrated the government apparatus at all levels to at worst keep Germany neutral and at best push German towards Moscow (depending on the topic - energy strategy, NATO spending, economic strategy, etc.). The counterintelligence of Germany with respect to the SVR is a complete joke and probably responsible for the leak this past week (among a myriad of other intelligence embarrassments). In France, Putin completely swindled and embarrassed Macron pre-invasion. However, in the past view in months, it seems Macron has finally come the dark realization Europe's nightmare has finally come home to roost after decades of bending over backwards pretending they can diplomatically finagle peace in Europe a little longer.
Yet, in Sweden and Finland, the two European countries with the most to lose with a successful Russian takeover of Ukraine without being full members of NATO, quickly gave up their cherished neutrality to become full members. What is Russia's response? To deplete troops from their new NATO borders and send those military resources to Ukraine. Why? There isn't any threat of NATO striking and they know it. Precisely the opposite response one would expect from a NATO expansion justification reasoning being utilized by SVR's propaganda arm.
The real question about the tankies on VN and as a whole in the West is whether they truly believe their own talking points (straight SVR's propaganda) or whether they flat-out prefer a multi-polar world with the Russian and CCP governments dictating the world order. If the latter, drop the BS pretenses of SVR's propaganda and say such. If the former, think long and hard about Finland, Sweden, Ukraine's will to fight despite their multitude of problems and cultural/historical similarities, read Putin's speeches where he outlines his reasonings.
Now, having said that, let's not pretend that America's geopolitical goals with respect to Ukraine dovetail exactly with Ukraine's. Would America have preferred Ukraine's pivot to the West in a peaceful manner? Sure.
However, once the 2022 invasion happened and Ukraine demonstrated the will to fight, along with Russia demonstrating their impunity for the loss of their own soldiers, equipment, planes, ships, and other military resources, America's geopolitical interest shifted to fueling that Russian impunity for their the loss of their military assets. At first glance, one would be forgiven for incorrectly thinking Ukraine also shares that goal. However, they only share that goal with respect to recovering their loss land and at bare minimum cost to their own soldiers and civilian lives. America does not share those conditionals only insofar as they can help perpetuate the loss of Russian assets. In other words, the US will gladly trade Ukrainian land, soldiers, and civilians if there is a high degree of probability of continuing Russian burn of military assets. Strategically, this means sadistically supporting Ukraine enough to maul Russia but not enough to completely overpower them. A corollary to this strategy is to give Putin an opportunity to save face which allows Putin to stay in power (US really does not want a change in power in Russia until he passes) and drastically lowers Putin's need to escalate the conflict (tactical nukes or blowing up the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia). Simply put, the abject Russian geopolitical disaster of the invasion of Ukraine has been the US's biggest geopolitical win of the 21st century, an intelligence triumph, and a military intelligence / military R&D data collection bonanza.
Luckily for Ukraine, the rest of Europe seems to slowly aligning with their geopolitical goals. France, Sweden, Poland, Britain, and others are seeing the errors of their previous ways and taking the lead on defending Europe from Russian aggression via Ukraine. If they successfully pressure Germany to their cause, the US's wishes will become moot.
mwi.westpoint.edu
