Most people don’t know that Lenin was sent to Russia from his Swiss exile by the Germans in a sealed diplomatic train with the express intent to induce the October revolution and end the hostilities on that front. It was done to the Russians by cynical Germans who still ended up losing WWI.
Churchill deliberately courted the Russians and prevented attacks on them early on in WWII to make it easier for them to switch sides, a very successful tactic which won WWII at the cost of Russian lives.
I’m one of those people who see China as a bigger threat to western hegemony and instead of using Ukraine to give Russia a bloody nose we should have again fermented divisions between Russia and China. It would have been possible to admit Russia into NATO, I know it sounds ridiculous but Switzerland was formed out of a having the bully canton join the alliance of smaller cantons that was expressly formed to defend against it. It can be done and there was historical precedent. Not anymore, China and Russia are now so joined at the hip they might as well be considered a single entity. I think the west overestimated its strength, and even now with the posturing for WWIII with fancy and expensive weapons it appears that the West doesn’t understand that warfare has forever changed. I did hope the Houthi conflict would have woken people up to that reality but somehow we’re holding on to this notion that a WWIII is winnable.
I should note that I lament the cost of these conflicts to human lives on both sides and wish smarter populations governed by astute politicians would have found ways to successfully avoid war, perhaps at the cost of a multipolar world which we’re likely to get anyway. I much prefer the Chinese way of fighting with ‘high tech overproduction’ and wish we could ‘fight back’ with our own overproduction. We would all be far wealthier for it, especially since the alternative is massively destructive.
China no longer sees Russia as a partner, but a vassal state. They rejected Putin's proposal for the Siberian pipeline and are slowing down deliveries of various components needed to manufacture weapons. Chinese banks are limiting their dealing with Russian banks and companies to avoid sanctions. Like it or hate it, US Dollar is the world's reserve currency and getting cut off from the global banking network is not worth all the gold that Putin can offer. China doesn't want Russia to attack other countries, because like a wise drug dealer, it does not want to loose its customers. Russia is killing them and that messes with China's business. To be honest if China could capture Putin and give him to the West in a box with a red ribbon it would. They saw how weak he is and have no respect for him.
On top of that, China has its own problems--demographic and economic. Russia cannot help China solve them so China is happy to see Russia bleed and slowly descend into the inevitable chaos once the Russian economy collapses. Xi will be happy to carve out a part of Russia for himself once an opportunity presents itself. Although how much more of a really backwards population and barren land he needs is a open question.
You make it sound like Germany weaponised an oblivious Lenin by letting him loose on Russia. In reality, Lenin observed the February revolution from afar and realized it was a critical time to rejoin the struggle, and petitioned the German government to leave; the Germans agreed because it was strategically advantageous for them to allow dissidents to travel into Russia. The so-called "sealed" train was a cover story [1].
Churchill was too late "Its (Munichs appeasement) reverse side was an unwillingness to cooperate with the USSR against Nazi Germany"
They prefered Hitler to Stalin.
"Winston Churchill, then a backbench Tory MP, insisted that without an alliance with the USSR, France and Britain could not help their allies or would-be allies in Eastern Europe"
Instead of using Ukraine to give Russia a bloody nose we should have again fermented divisions between Russia and China.
Your reading of what's driving Western support for Ukraine is completely wrong here. They're not simply doing it to "give Russia a bloody nose" for its own sake. They certainly don't mind if that's what Russia gets out of it. But that's not the key objective in itself.
On the flip side: "fermenting divisions between Russia and China" is just fantasy, as at the moment U.S. is really quite inept in regard to such influence. It has no clue how to do that effectively (and any efforts it did take in that direction would most likely be moot and/or backfire).
I should note that I lament the cost of these conflicts to human lives on both sides and wish smarter populations governed by astute politicians would have found ways to successfully avoid war, perhaps at the cost of a multipolar world which we’re likely to get anyway.
Okay, multipolar world, whatever.
But what it really comes down to is this: the only way to have "avoided war" (after 2014) would have been to simply give Russia what it wanted -- recognized sovereignty over significant chunks of territory (most likely at least as much as it's sitting on now), combined with permanent limits on Ukraine's own sovereignty (in terms of its ability to enter treaties).
If you think this would have been (or still would be) an astute course of action -- you might as well come out an say so.
I think peace could have been bought at the cost of neutrality, so sovereignty yes. I’m sure Ukraine would have been far better off with that, and there are many hundred of thousands of men who definitely would be.
It is hard to discuss this with people because it appears to me that most people are divorced from reality of the war. The framing of it has been warped and anyone who strays from the NAFO line is somehow an apologist. I hate this war and I hate the wars that it seems we’re on the precipice of starting with China and Iran and world will be much worse off when that happens.
I think peace could have been bought at the cost of neutrality, so sovereignty yes.
It's possible of course, but it's also speculative, and the window for that option is long since closed -- once Putin grabbed the Crimea and then the LNR/DNR, the "neutrality" bid fell from the table.
In any case he's been quite consistent about maintaining whatever regions he's currently occupying (and likely then some, according to the most recent formulations).
So if we're to buy peace now by just giving him what he wants -- that (or some approximation thereof) is what he'll be demanding. In any case it seems extremely unlikely he'd accept a neutrality-only bid by this point.
* once Putin grabbed the Crimea and then the LNR/DNR, the "neutrality" bid fell from the table
For a while it looked like Ukraine was turning the tide and they were told then not to negotiate for peace because they didn't have to - wait for an even better negotiating position. So they're told don't negotiate when you're loosing and don't negotiate when you're winning which approximate boils down to don't negotiate. Many things are possible when the alternative is losing a hugely destructive war. I.e. these things were and still remain on the table. Sure, Ukraine's not getting their land back unless they win the war but how likely is that to happen anyway.
Knowing Ukraine before the war there was already a huge Ukraine vs Russia ethnic divide that was being made worse by the Ukrainian government passing anti-Russian laws. I see Putins objectives as bringing ethnic Russians back into the fold and establishing a buffer zone. I think if a real Russia-NATO conflict broke out Russia out of necessity would turn to nukes pretty quickly - so I see this Russia-Ukraine war as less of a war of a conquest and more of a way to avoid nuking their Russian Ukrainian cousins if a full scale Russia-NATO war was to break out. They would have less qualms nuking West Ukraine as there are fewer cousins in the west so that would be free to be part of NATO.
There is the premise that Russia would not honor such an agreement of neutrality and I don't agree with that premise for a raft of reasons. If the premise that an embolden Putin will go on a concurring rampage I would have to disagree with that as well for another raft of reasons.
I don't have time to go into the whole history of it now - but I think an outcome where Ukraine splits in two where West Ukraine is a neutralized entity or absorbed into their surrounding NATO countries would have been and is still possible. Yes that would mean NATO on Russia's boarder but there is already a huge NATO boarder on Russia - that wasn't the problem.
I was looking to move to Ukraine in 2020 because I think it's a lovely country and Lviv is a lovely city. Very cheap where I could exist cheaply and spend my time reading books. It's a very corrupt country which does keep prices down but makes business difficult - but since my source of money is foreign I could effectively hide my wealth and avoid attracting attention. I decided against it because I did expect this war to break out as people were not taking Russia's warnings seriously. They had a lot of 'fixer-upper' housing that looked like they were already bombed, the housing was cheap but the problem is if you turn up with a bunch of money to fix the housing you're going catch the attention of the corrupt mobsters. I think Lviv would be an even nicer city if governed by Poland as it has been before in the not so distant past.
The impression I have is that right now, this war is seen as existential for both Russia, Ukraine, and several EU states.
For Ukraine, they need to win by such a severe margin that Russia doesn't even think to lick its wounds, rebuild its strength, and try again.
For Russia… well, it's really about Putin. And he dares not show any sign of weakness, which would include ceding the "loss" of the territory which he has officially claimed to recognise as part of Russia.
The EU has several ex-Soviet and ex-Warsaw-pact states which openly regard a Russian victory to be an existential threat (as in "we're next"); this would remain the case regardless of what happens with NATO. But NATO does also exist, and even if the USA leaves the UK has a significant arms industry that would come in addition to that of also-EU members like France.
I don't think China cares beyond the degree to which it might take focus away from whatever it is they want to do. They seem to be quite content to rapidly ramp up their industrial capacity and general economic output, be the world's factory and hypermarket.
The west collectively is, I think, worried about escalation precisely because of the nuclear option. Our leaders want Russia to leave Ukraine in peace and recognise its sovereignty, while also itself remaining stable as it does so… which I don't think is possible, but I'd like it to be (and what do I know anyway, I'm software engineering, not international geopolitics).
Personally I suspect that the Russia nuclear arsenal is in a bad state: the main armed forces at the start of the invasion were terrible because they weren't expecting to not need to have to do more than show up, and similar logic applies to nukes.
But!
1) One small nuke is enough for a high-altitude EMP to cause severe issues.
2) I wouldn't want to risk an entire country on a dice roll.
And they were told then not to negotiate for peace because they didn't have to
This is a rather condescending attitude which assumes the Ukrainians have no agency over their situation, and are just doing what their Western puppet masters tell them to do.
I was looking to move to Ukraine in 2020 because I think it's a lovely country and Lviv is a lovely city. Very cheap where I could exist cheaply and spend my time reading books. BTW it'd be an even nicer city if it were governed by Poland.
Please don't, as you plainly don't respect the country or the people living there.
If you'd prefer to live under Polish administration, try Wrocław.
It’s not condescending it’s reality, and they’re now dealing with the consequences of that reality. What is that leftist refrain, ‘freedom of speech not freedom from consequences’. They’re exercising their sovereignty which is their right, I think better choices could have been made but that’s just my opinion.
In life we must deal with reality, the strong do what they can and the weak endure what they must. Most of us don’t get to live life from a constant position of strength and must be able to negotiate from a position of weakness which involves picking the least bad choices. The West has enjoyed an extended period of being able to negotiate from a position of strength and unfortunately the West isn’t strong enough to keep things that way. Weakness is dangerous, I wish the West was stronger, but I must deal with reality.
Sounds more like you're (uncritically) accepting the narratives put out by various sources in regard to events of the time.
I think better choices could have been made
That's very different from what you said initially.
You didn't say that the Ukrainians "decided" not to negotiate for a cease fire (meaning, to accept Putin's demands for recognized sovereignty over the occupied regions).
What you said (twice, for emphasis) was that they "were told not to".
As if they are simply incapable of making such decisions for themselves, and just do what their Western handlers tell them to do.
The west does have a huge amount of say over Ukraine policy, the extent at which they can continue the war is completely down to western support. Without western support they would have had to either negotiate or surrender by now. Being told not to negotiate comes with the promise of support if they chose not to negotiate and Ukraine has chosen to take the West up on that promise. I’m not saying it wasn’t Ukraines choice to make. But there is no reality where Ukraine wins this war on their own without western support so this idea that they alone can chose their fate is ridiculous especially when that determination is currently being made on the battle field.
Churchill deliberately courted the Russians and prevented attacks on them early on in WWII to make it easier for them to switch sides, a very successful tactic which won WWII at the cost of Russian lives.
I’m one of those people who see China as a bigger threat to western hegemony and instead of using Ukraine to give Russia a bloody nose we should have again fermented divisions between Russia and China. It would have been possible to admit Russia into NATO, I know it sounds ridiculous but Switzerland was formed out of a having the bully canton join the alliance of smaller cantons that was expressly formed to defend against it. It can be done and there was historical precedent. Not anymore, China and Russia are now so joined at the hip they might as well be considered a single entity. I think the west overestimated its strength, and even now with the posturing for WWIII with fancy and expensive weapons it appears that the West doesn’t understand that warfare has forever changed. I did hope the Houthi conflict would have woken people up to that reality but somehow we’re holding on to this notion that a WWIII is winnable.
I should note that I lament the cost of these conflicts to human lives on both sides and wish smarter populations governed by astute politicians would have found ways to successfully avoid war, perhaps at the cost of a multipolar world which we’re likely to get anyway. I much prefer the Chinese way of fighting with ‘high tech overproduction’ and wish we could ‘fight back’ with our own overproduction. We would all be far wealthier for it, especially since the alternative is massively destructive.