[akwoo]

 Winstonm, on 2014-March-06, 08:06, said:

Yeah, but it's so much fun to continue to fight the cold war.

Maybe, but the 'do something' crowd are the successors of the folks who thought Keenan's Containment strategy was too wimpy and advocated nuking every city in China over their entry into the Korean War.

[Scarabin]

I just cannot believe the EU will bail-out the Ukraine financially, and I don't expect the US will do so either. Perhaps they'll go so far as keeping the Ukraine on tether, hoping for more?

[kenberg]

 Scarabin, on 2014-March-27, 00:35, said:

I just cannot believe the EU will bail-out the Ukraine financially, and I don't expect the US will do so either. Perhaps they'll go so far as keeping the Ukraine on tether, hoping for more?

I am pleased to see another person who still says "the Ukraine" instead of just "Ukraine".

I acknowledge that this observation is not of prime importance in deciding what to do.

[kenberg]

 akwoo, on 2014-March-06, 11:17, said:

Maybe, but the 'do something' crowd are the successors of the folks who thought Keenan's Containment strategy was too wimpy and advocated nuking every city in China over their entry into the Korean War.

Every crisis is different but I would like to draw this out a bit. There were various decisions about the Korean War. I'll state it as I recall it. Obviously I am no historian, but how a war is thought of often influences future decisions. And I believe that my outline is basically correct.

Perhaps there were these who wanted to nuke the Chinese, there are always such, but the way I recall it the dispute was more complex. Briefly: North Korea invaded South Korea, western nations sent troops to repel this invasion. The western troops were close to being completely defeated and then there was the Inchon landing. Thise turned the tide, and the North Koreans (and at that time it still was mostly the North Koreans) were driven back to the original border, the 38th parallel. Now what? We decided to cross it and go into North Korea. This was much more difficult but intially was going fairly well, but then the Chinese came into the war to assist the North. And what now? The Yalu River was the border with China and Truman decided that we would not cross it. The effect was to give Chinese fighter jets the opportunity to fly in, engage, and fly out. As they crossed the Yalu, American jets in pursuit had to give up the chase.

This, as I recall it, was the crux of the matter. MacArthur went public with his disagreement with the policy, Truman fired him. The war dragged on, eventually to an armistice that restored, or approximately restored, the original boundaries.

Are there lessons to be learned? Probably.

1. At the time, it was said that "This is the first war in history that was fought in terms of pleasing the enemy". This is rhetoric, highly over-simplifying the matter. But it is factual to say that the war, which started about eight and a half years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was a very different response. Unlike WWII, it was a limited war with a limited objective. WWII really did go with bombing anything and everything until it was over. Korea did not. And the wars since then have largely been of this limited objective sort. Mostly they haven't worked out very well.

2. MacArthur was brilliant, or so I understand. But he definitely could be wrong. My understanding is that after the North Koreans were pushed back to the 38th and we were trying to decide about going over it (it was by no means automatic), MacArthur assured Truman that the Chinese would not come into the war and if they did, it would be no great problem to repel them. Oops.

3. Truman's concern was to keep the war contained. I don't know what would have happened if we had crossed into China, but I am inclined to think it is best that we didn't find out. Lack of ability to predict the future is a fact of life, and we forget this at our peril.

4. People fight harder, a lot harder, when it is their own land that is at stake. This explains why our response was more total after Pearl Harbor than after the North crossed the 38th, and it partially explains why our crossing above the 38th met with stiffer resistance.



Does any of this help with today? Maybe. I see in the morning paper that Obama is hectoring the EU to do more while making it clear that we will not be engaging in military action. Say what? I am not infavor of war, hot or cold, but if Russia is prepared to use military force and we are not, and we announce that we are not, this is not going to go well. I am not so much advocating force as saying that sooner or later we have to put up or shut up. It always comes to that, really. There has been entirely too much talk about new world order and democracy is springing up everywhere and totalitarianism is just so19th century and so on and on. GWB looked into Putin's soul and decided we could work with him. If there ever was any doubt about GWB's lack of preparation for the presidency, that should have settled it.

I don't know what to do about Ukraine, we pay presidents to know that. I wish I had more confidence in our current one.

[Cyberyeti]

 kenberg, on 2014-March-27, 06:36, said:

I am pleased to see another person who still says "the Ukraine" instead of just "Ukraine".

I acknowledge that this observation is not of prime importance in deciding what to do.

Apparently Ukrainians hate this, it is a Soviet affectation to make their land less than a country.

[mike777]

Surprisingly it seems many Ukrainians in Crimea prefer to live under the fascist Putin. It appears not one Russian soldier ankle was twisted in the coup.

[kenberg]

 Cyberyeti, on 2014-March-27, 09:44, said:

Apparently Ukrainians hate this, it is a Soviet affectation to make their land less than a country.

I will be happy to make the effort to get it right. I saw somewhere that it (the word ukraine) indicates a border or something like that, and I can well imagine a country not wishing to be defined as the border of some other country.

[helene_t]

 mike777, on 2014-March-27, 10:24, said:

Surprisingly it seems many Ukrainians in Crimea prefer to live under the fascist Putin. It appears not one Russian soldier ankle was twisted in the coup.

How do you know? Maybe most Ukrainians boycotted the referendum.

[mike777]

 helene_t, on 2014-March-27, 10:28, said:

How do you know? Maybe most Ukrainians boycotted the referendum.

How do I know? Per news reports but if you have other information to share, please.
For example just today in my local paper was a reporter in the Crimea saying how young adults are crowding the bars celebrating and praising the takeover.
If the majority in Crimea are truly resisting, fighting, protesting in whatever way they are able, this news is not getting out. I have seen the Tarter population protest.

As I said it appears not even an ankle was turned.

[ArtK78]

 kenberg, on 2014-March-27, 06:36, said:

I am pleased to see another person who still says "the Ukraine" instead of just "Ukraine".

I acknowledge that this observation is not of prime importance in deciding what to do.

For what it is worth, here is a portion of the Wikipedia article on "Ukraine:"

There are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to an older and most widespread hypothesis, it means "borderland",^[21] while newer linguistic studies point to a different meaning: "homeland" or "region, country".^[22] "The Ukraine" was once the usual form in English^[23] but since the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, the English-speaking world has largely stopped using the definite article.^[24][25]