I agree with you since most of what you have written, so have I, albeit in small chunks on twitter. Putin certainly did not foresee the resistance Ukraine would put up, but even an imbecile could see that Putin was avoiding civilian collateral damage. Otherwise the number of casualties would have been at least in the thousands. Nor did he expect such a flood of armaments so quickly from NATO. Apparently NATO had foreseen this. and planed accordingly. Putin's next onslaught will be more callous. However, all was not in vain, military education-wise for Putin. He too must have learned invaluable lessons from this military venture. He may become a more deadly foe.
The indignant outrage I’ve seen from some Americans when asked to reconsider what to them sounds like a very noble goal of “being able to decide for themselves to join NATO” is one of the only “consequences” of being spared having to see war up close, to where we’re always insisting the “right” thing be done/avenged and then later console ourselves a little too easily with “I had the best of intentions.”
This is actually why I intentionally tried to avoid getting swept up in the heroic and brave accounts of Ukrainian fighters because I sincerely thought “freeing the Iraqi people is something we should do even if the WMDs not being found” (thinking I would at worst just be advocating for soldiers fighting for something that was of no benefit to us). Yeah, “I was 19 and everyone supporter it” but if it WERE up to me (in some imaginary scenario) I would have still agreed because I had such sincere feelings to not want to “give up” after WMD was *ahem* “bad intel” and what I ended up advocating for was a well-intentioned “gift” of something 10,000 times more destructive for a “freedom” that I never even confirmed they wanted in the first place(never again!!).
I agree with you since most of what you have written, so have I, albeit in small chunks on twitter. Putin certainly did not foresee the resistance Ukraine would put up, but even an imbecile could see that Putin was avoiding civilian collateral damage. Otherwise the number of casualties would have been at least in the thousands. Nor did he expect such a flood of armaments so quickly from NATO. Apparently NATO had foreseen this. and planed accordingly. Putin's next onslaught will be more callous. However, all was not in vain, military education-wise for Putin. He too must have learned invaluable lessons from this military venture. He may become a more deadly foe.
The only mistake the US made in the run-up to Russia's invasion was NOT being being willing to directly go to war with Russia in defense of Ukraine.
The indignant outrage I’ve seen from some Americans when asked to reconsider what to them sounds like a very noble goal of “being able to decide for themselves to join NATO” is one of the only “consequences” of being spared having to see war up close, to where we’re always insisting the “right” thing be done/avenged and then later console ourselves a little too easily with “I had the best of intentions.”
This is actually why I intentionally tried to avoid getting swept up in the heroic and brave accounts of Ukrainian fighters because I sincerely thought “freeing the Iraqi people is something we should do even if the WMDs not being found” (thinking I would at worst just be advocating for soldiers fighting for something that was of no benefit to us). Yeah, “I was 19 and everyone supporter it” but if it WERE up to me (in some imaginary scenario) I would have still agreed because I had such sincere feelings to not want to “give up” after WMD was *ahem* “bad intel” and what I ended up advocating for was a well-intentioned “gift” of something 10,000 times more destructive for a “freedom” that I never even confirmed they wanted in the first place(never again!!).