Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "Russia Vs. Ukraine Or Civil War In The West?" video.

  1. I'm a big JP fan, but this doesn't hold up. You're saying: A. Putin is acquisitive and ambitious and wants to reestablish the Russian empire coterminous with the Soviet. B. Putin says (and may well believe) that a leftist/atheist/morally libertine subversion has consumed the west and threatens Russia. C. Russia has economic incentives to control Ukraine. D. Putin considers Ukraine part of Russia's proper sphere of influence. E. Putin is determined, locally popular, and controls a substantial nuclear arsenal. The obvious response is "What aspect of this situation, as you have characterized it , differs from the Cold War? To remind you: A. The USSR was acquisitive and ambitious and sought to extent Soviet hegemony by military and political means. B. The USSR said that capitalism enslaved the West and threatens Russia C. Russia had economic incentives to control the world. D. The USSR considered western Europe part of their proper sphere of influence. E. The USSR was determined, had domestic political control, and controlled a (relatively speaking) more powerful conventional and nuclear arsenal than Putin does. The historical comparison with Hitler is well taken. Both the strategic situation and the justification for the acquisition of Putin's acquisition of Crimea, for example, exactly parallel those of Hitler's acquisition of Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent invasion of the remainder of those respective countries. But the parallel with the Cold War is even more acute. If we had responded to the Soviet threat as you advocate we respond to the much lesser threat of Putin, we would now be slaves. Of course, we cannot forecast the future with any certainty, but history tells us that, all other things being equal (and such equality must be the default assumption given that we don't know the future) the best time to thwart a serial aggressor is the earliest possible time. This isn't the first time Putin has invaded a neighbor (Georgia, Crimea), and we have no reason to believe that capitulation will make it the last. Further: A. Reestablishing the hegemony exerted by the Soviet Union would involve the conquest of Latvia, Lithuania, and the former Warsaw Pact countries, including Poland. B. What does your clinical expertise and experience tell you about the PRACTICALITY of flattering the delusions of the deluded? C. The economic incentives you mention do not constitute what would be considered in a court of law to be mitigating factors, but what such a court would call MOTIVE. D. A formative principle of modern civilization is that one's sphere of influence ends where one's neighbor's nose begins. Russian populism may regard Ukraine as a part of the greater Russian culture, but this Russian view is a product of a century of self serving propaganda by Russian governments. For Ukrainians, Russian hegemony has been oppressive and bloody. Putin's stated desire of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine is, for historical reasons, incompatible with a DEMOCRATIC government in Ukraine, and changing THAT state of affairs would involve at minimum a few decades of establishing themselves as a good neighbor. Doubling down on the historical oppression will not "win the hearts and minds" of Ukrainians. E. You impress upon us the gravity of the dangers that face us. Yet you're nearly as old as I am! Is this a new concept to you? Freedom has always lived under the threat of violence and under that of nuclear violence from geriatric autocrats since the 1950s. Assertions in the 90s of the "end of history" were predictably premature (as well as self serving on the part of the advocates. I never bought the notion for a minute). Every neighbor we feed to an aggressor strengthens the aggressor materially and in terms of morale, and undermines the MORAL case for us to maintain our continued freedom. We either favor democratic self-determination or we don't.
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