r/neoliberal • u/RabidGuillotine PROSUR • Oct 14 '24

The Impending Betrayal of Ukraine Opinion article (non-US)

https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/impending-betrayal-ukraine

405 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

159

u/ambassador_softboi Gay Pride Oct 14 '24

I suspect there’s a chance that the real strategy is U.S. policymakers want Ukraine to spend another decade fighting Russia to bleed them out slowly.

As opposed to giving Ukraine what it needs to win right now.

When some U.S. strategists talk about turning Ukraine into Russia’s Afghanistan or Vietnam I suspect they mean that literally. Including a 20 year time frame.

179

u/lietuvis10LTU Why do you hate the global oppressed? Oct 14 '24

I don't think there is any strategy. The policy makers are just too russophilic or are nativist soccons. Or they think "this will all blow over" and want to have an easy "reset" with Russia, just like after 2008.

52

u/PhilosophusFuturum Oct 14 '24

Doesn’t help that we’re in election season. A lot of politicians (and I don’t need to name names) are thinking “I need to pretend we’re not in WWIII until I win re-election” or “I’m not up for re-election so it’s not my problem anymore”.

I don’t think it’s nativity, they have access to intelligence reports that we don’t. It’s apathy. Western politicians (mainly American ones) run on auto-pilot and focus on small scale domestic culture war battles to win re-election than engraving their names in history books. Russia is the opposite, their government revolves around foreign policy.

41

u/ynab-schmynab Oct 15 '24

Saying the US doesn't revolve around foreign policy discards all the US foreign policy of the past 75 years that led to the current world order Russia and China are trying to unseat.

The US has a myopic insular view in recent years but that's a recency bias.

23

u/PhilosophusFuturum Oct 15 '24

Yeah I’m talking about this century. Ever since the Iraq War we’ve had profoundly ineffective presidents and a flaccid political system incapable of any real geopolitical chess moves. Russia got out of its slump, China is back at it, hell even the EU is walking up. We’re sleeping at the wheel.

14

u/WHY_DO_I_SHOUT NATO Oct 15 '24

hell even the EU is walking [sic] up

I'm European myself and not too hopeful about this, unfortunately. Europeans remain way too skeptical of collaboration and discussion tends to revolve around rejecting any unpopular proposals.

11

u/mrscoobertdoobert Oct 15 '24

We want the EU to wake up. I’d rather have two major forces for liberalism than one. They can do more in this conflict and in the greater struggle for freedom.

I also don’t think the picture is exactly as you’ve painted. Look at the last round of Ukraine support as an example of the intelligence reports spurring action. That’s not to say it’s rosy, but if you think the U.S. hasn’t made any geopolitical chess moves over recent memory, you have some reading to do, friend!