Ukraine War

War and Pride

Mark Noonan25 Comments

Got into a little debate about the Ukraine War on X – it ended up with me, apparently, being placed on someone’s list of Stupid People. Meh. Not the first time. Won’t be the last. But the crux of the debate is this:

I suggest that it is time for Ukraine to seek a peace deal with Russia, even at the price of lost territory.

The other side suggests I’m an idiot and that this would be to reward a cruel and evil aggressor.

Now, to be fair, I agree that a peace deal which leaves Russia in possession of the Donbas would be to reward the aggressor – this whether or not Putin is cruel and evil (that’s a debate for some other time). But that wasn’t exactly what got me on the Stupid List. We went on and my opponents are quite certain that such an abomination cannot be tolerated – that Ukraine must continue the fight! On and on. Fight! Fight! FIGHT!

To which I responded: well, yeah, they can fight on but to what purpose? The Ukrainians simply lack the physical power to expel the Russians. At this point, all further bloodshed is pointless because it cannot alter the result. Everyone on both sides is now dying for nothing. Presto: I’m on the Stupid List.

After it was over it occurred to me that what is really lacking in the modern world is any knowledge of history, especially of military history. I mean, seriously: the normal course of war throughout human history has been an aggressor attacking and the defender either prevailing or not against this aggression. I will use the closest example to what we have in the Russia-Ukraine War – the War of the Austrian Succession/Seven Years war.

This two part war started because Prussia in 1740, perceiving a weak Hapsburg government under a newly enthroned female Monarch (Maria Theresa) would be easy pickings…so they occupied the Hapsburg province of Silesia. Turns out, Prussia (under Frederick the very-much-so-called Great) got a lot more than they bargained for. Maria Theresa was made of much sterner stuff than expected. She didn’t just roll over – she fought. First round went on until 1748 when mutual exhaustion compelled peace – but a peace where Maria Theresa ceded Silesia to Prussia. She wasn’t about to lie down for that for long and so as soon as peace was concluded she started reforming her realm, rebuilding her armies and forging new alliances for a second round, which started in 1756 – called The Seven Years War in Europe, in America it is our French and Indian War (which, of course, led very directly to our Revolutionary War twenty years later). Unfortunately for the cause of the Just, Maria Theresa was not able to prevail – after seven years of fighting and pushing Frederick and his Prussia to the verge of destruction, luck went against her and she was forced to once again make peace with Prussia still in possession of Silesia. Why did she quit? Because she found that she simply lacked the physical power to compel Prussian withdrawal. She could have kept fighting. She still had soldiers. She could have kept going on and on and on…but it was done. She couldn’t win. It was time to quit. And so she did.

That is what I’m talking about. As long as you have a hope of prevailing, fight. But as soon as you see the end beyond reasonable doubt, it is time to call it quits.

To be sure, history is also filled with wars that went on long after the decision was reached. Most famously was, of course, Hitler’s war where he was ordering his shattered armies to attack when the Russians were a hundred yards away from his bunker. That war was definitely over the moment the Allies got ashore at Normandy – which is why von Rundstedt, asked what to do about it, said, “make peace, you fools”. World War One – the Germans got their peace with Russia in March of 1918. At that point, no longer burdened by an Eastern Front (and having access to Russia’s vast raw materials) their choice was simple – sue for peace with the western Allies. They had no chance – the British/French/American armies and economies were vastly superior to anything the Germans could bring to the field. It was time to quit. Instead, they attacked. Had they quit in April of 1918 they would have got vastly better terms than they got in November 1918. Also, the Confederacy. The Civil War was effectively over with the surrender of Vicksburg and Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg…but it was absolutely finished when Sherman took Atlanta. At that point, it was time to throw in the towel…no possible outcome later would be better than running up the white flag in July of 1864. The loss of lives and property resulting from these wars going on past their decisive moments is astonishing…and the world is a worse and poorer place today because of stubborn pride keeping up a lost fight.

And that is what I’m on about regarding Ukraine. The only ghost of a chance Ukraine has is if an American and/or European army comes to redress the balance. That is simply not possible as the European and American populations don’t want to fight. Ukraine had her chance for victory – had she built up a mobile strike force to attack the lumbering and incompetent Russian army of 2022. She had a second chance once that first Russian invasion was checked – before Russia got her act together. But now it is too late…Russia’s power just grows and grows while Ukraine’s fades away. The Russians don’t even have to be in any way clever…they so vastly outnumber the Ukrainians that they can fix the Ukrainian army in place and just grind it down with artillery. If Ukraine throws up the sponge right now then they’ll get far better terms than if they fight pointlessly until total collapse, at which time Russia gets to dictate terms. And this is without considering the loss to Ukraine’s future in the number of brave, fit young men who are dying day by day. It is just time for peace. There’s been a war. Ukraine has lost this war. End it. Pay the price of defeat. Maybe Ukraine can try again later – that would be up to Ukraine. But for this moment, it is over. Pay the price for peace.

But I think we, being a very sinful people these days, just can’t grasp that concept. Our pride is involved – that is, those who have been boosters of Ukraine just can’t contemplate a future where Ukraine isn’t triumphant. Pride combined with a callous disregard for human life is what has brought us here – and it is very sad, especially as it is expressed by people who not only have never seen death in war, but who don’t even really think about it. That is, the young man who is on the front line…he’s got all the same hopes and dreams that any young man may have and then in an instant, all gone. Never to come back. Lost forever. The people pushing for war don’t seem to think about that – can’t even comprehend it. How precious the blood expended is…how irretrievable the loss. I am starting to think they are very much monsters…and no less monsters than Hitler raving about massive counterattacks from the bunker.

We had that quite moving anti-war song of the 1960’s, Where Have All the Flowers Gone? but I think we need an update to it…the flowers have all turned into stone faced freaks who think of human beings as so many blocks of wood. Not themselves, of course. Oh, no: you’ll won’t find the war boosters in the trenches – but for everyone not them, off you go…grind away. Die. Just don’t make me confront my own failure…

There Are No Hitlers to Fight

Mark Noonan34 Comments

A lot of the justification for supporting Ukraine against Russia is based upon the memory of World War Two – specifically, the run-up to it when the Western powers had multiple opportunities to stop Hitler early and at relatively low cost, thus sparing the world the horrors of World War Two and the Holocaust. In today’s world, Putin is Hitler and Ukraine is the Rhineland or Austria…or maybe even Czechoslovakia. The main thing being asserted is that we must stop Putin on the Don or we’ll eventually face Putin on the Vistula, or maybe even on the Rhine.

This is drivel.

Putin isn’t Hitler. That is, Putin – as much a rat-bastard as you want him to be – isn’t propagating an ideology of racial superiority where everyone not of the Master Race must die or become slaves. That was the unique threat of Hitler and it simply does not exist in Putin. And this is true even if he wants to reassemble the entirety of the Russian Empire. Bad? Sure. But not an embodiment of human evil which all decent people must stand against. Unless you want to assert that any rule not consented to is absolutely immoral and must be stopped…in which case, gear up for lots of war all around the world because there are submerged peoples everywhere.

Additionally, Putin’s Russia is not Hitler’s Germany in the military sense. In 1939 the Germans had a well trained army led by officers of the highest caliber who knew how to rapidly move forces towards strategic objectives. World War One showed that even absent a Hitler, Germany with its marvelous General Staff was a standing threat. As we have seen in Ukraine, the Russian military isn’t remotely of that quality. They are building up now for what looks like will be a traditional Russian steamroller – just going to flatten the Ukrainians by sheer weight of numbers. It may work; but whether it does or doesn’t, it still won’t amount to a military force capable of arriving on the Rhine any time soon.

The bottom line is that there are no more Hitlers to fight. Almost certainly, there never will be another Hitler to fight. The more you stand back in time and look at it the more astonished you grow over the whole thing – how entirely out of phase it was with humanity. That a decidedly second-rate intellect like Hitler’s could galvanize a people to follow where he lead even though it was pretty obviously suicidal astonishes…and you then mourn that this wicked beast of a man inherited an industrial base and General Staff capable of at least giving his insane ideas a shot. But, he won’t be repeated. He can’t be repeated; the particular circumstances which gave rise to him don’t exist and can’t ever exist again. We don’t have to worry, that is, about having that one, last chance to stop a Hitler – because there is no Hitler to stop.

And without a Hitler, things become a bit more reasonable. Keep in mind that World War Two in Europe went on two years after the Germans were decisively defeated and where further resistance was just going to lead to lots of useless deaths and the utter physical destruction of Germany. Anyone other than Hitler would have called it quits after Kursk, or at the latest when the Allies established themselves in Normandy. He kept it going because he was insane – certain that if he just willed victory, it would still come even though the material factors demonstrated conclusively that it could not come. Putin isn’t like that – he’ll fight as long as he thinks he can get advantage out of it and as soon as costs exceed benefits, he’ll call it quits and make peace…even if just a temporary peace while he plans the next round. The Chinese, too, are not insane: they may well attack us or our allies and they’ll fight hard…and if they can decisively defeat us, they will; but whether in victory of defeat, they will be reasonable…quitting if the gamble fails and not dreaming of exterminating us and colonizing the United States if victorious – Hitler, keep in mind, had named Goebbles Gauleiter of the USA…his job to exterminate all Jews, blacks, Slavs and other undesirables and turn the remaining population into Germans. We simply do not face that, no matter how badly the Chinese defeat us in a theoretical future war.

Whether or not we decide to help Ukraine is then not an existential question, but a prudential judgement. The fate of the world does not hang in the balance. The enemy does not propose to alter the world to fit his views…he just wants to grab some things and then profit from the theft. It is, then, just the normal run for a war. And if you are not directly attacked, then the decision to intervene must be based upon the cold, hard realities of what your nation needs. And in this I’ve yet to see a rational argument for why the USA must be concerned about who governs Ukraine. I cannot see any threat to the territorial integrity of the USA. I can’t see that our Republican form of government will topple with a Russian army in Kiev. I see no concern about our naval supremacy if Russia obtains a naval base in Odessa. There is no worry that Russian goods produced in Ukraine will crowd American products out of the global market. The only defensible war is a war of defense – what American thing is defended in Ukraine? If you can provide that, then I might see my way to supporting American intervention…but the war has gone on for a year and I still can’t see anything for an American to be concerned with.

This is not to say that nobody else should be concerned. Poland and Romania should be deeply concerned. As should the Baltic States and to a lesser – but still great – degree Germany, France and Britain. The combined populations and industrial capacity of these most concerned nations are vastly more than Russia’s: if I were German or French or Polish, I would be working very diligently to build the military force and forge the iron-clad alliances necessary to ensure that my side can issue Russia an ultimatum and make it stick. But I am not German, French of Polish. I am American; and I’ve no concern in this matter.

It is time for we, the people of the United States, to stop looking for foreign dragons to slay. We won’t find any. After Hitler’s death and the dissolution of the USSR, there is no ideology outside the USA proposing to destroy us. That we have our own, internal enemies seeking our destruction is another issue, but is actually another reason to come home: we have enough on our plate inside the USA to take up our time…we don’t need foreign problems in addition.

And the world really doesn’t want us to fix things. Sure, they want us to pay for the Ukraine war. If it goes south, they’ll be delighted to watch American teenagers being blown to pieces to retrieve the situation. But they don’t want to obey us; they don’t want to change. They want to keep their fetid, little hatreds and bigotries…their ridiculous customs and slavish devotion to local mountebanks. Everyone likes it when someone pays for dinner – nobody likes it when that guy comes home and tries to organize your life for you. We have no business outside the United States. It is not our concern. We are our concern. And as we have nuclear weapons, carrier battle groups and 400 million privately owned firearms, nobody is ever going to try to invade us. Stop looking for the ghost of Hitler – come home and let the world be.

Grumpy Open Thread

Mark Noonan80 Comments

Feeling grumpy. Lots of things got on my last nerve today.

McConnell says the Omnibus is great because it addresses what Republicans care most about.

Look, you know I’ve defended Mitch…but this is just an insult. He clearly no longer cares what we think.

That Omnibus has $3,600,000.00 in it for the Michell Obama Memorial Trail. This is the entire Ruling Class insulting us. Look. I don’t know Michelle from Adam. For all I know she’s the sweetest person who ever lived. But has she done that is worthy of a memorial? Has every last Medal of Honor recipient already had their memorial constructed? Are we simply out of real heroes to honor?

There’s also the $47 billion going to Ukraine – which is, apparently, not enough because Zelensky is heading to town to pan for more money. It is a bottomless pit – and I’ve seen no substantial Ukranian advance into Russian-held territory. What the heck are we paying for? And nobody knows where the money is really going. There’s no audit or oversight – we’re just supposed to take it at their word that none of it is being stolen.

Meanwhile, the J6 Committee referred Trump for criminal charges. I figure its 50/50 they’ll indict him – thought it will be an interesting legal issue when the House rescinds that referral next month. But the Democrat base has been shouting for a perp walk for two years and the Democrats may feel they owe them one. Another Committee also voted to release Trump’s tax returns…so, feel safe, guys! They’ll never do that to you!

A picture was posted by the NY Post showing a clearly happy Kellyanne Conway out to a swanky dinner with Andrew Cuomo. Think about that. This is the thing that started me being grumpy today. Supposedly, Conway was one of the good ones. We all defended her because she was one of us. Now, you might think, “hey, her personal life is hers and maybe she just sets politics aside on it”. Yeah, no. Andrew Cuomo is a woman-abusing, lying, corrupt thug who engineered sending Covid patients into nursing homes so that the death toll would spike and be blamed on Trump. I could set aside differences of opinion…I can’t set aside gross immorality. That Conway feels that Cuomo is a proper person to jump into the sack with means she approves. She probably is impressed with Cuomo’s “kill granny” program and how well it worked. And now we know where at least some of the leaks came from. We also, now, can see why her daughter went ballistic…she could see from the inside the corrupt game mommy was playing. And we also tip our hat to George Conway – his hatred of Trump was misplaced, but he probably figured that if Trump was aligned with Kellyanne, he must share her amorality.

Nothing better illustrates the Uniparty than someone we thought one of our champions turns out to be someone who couldn’t wait to join the Ruling Class. A lot of people blame Trump’s personnel picks and, sure, he must bear his share of the blame here…but, my goodness, was there anyone who wasn’t stabbing him in the back from Day One? He had people around him. He was politically inexperienced. He assumed that there was some basic amount of honesty and patriotism in all those who expressed a desire to work with him. How could he possibly have foreseen the depth upon depth of depravity?

Grumpy enough yet? No? Ok, then lets go on.

You might recall the Wi Spa incident where a woman and a couple minor girls where confronted by the swinging…stuff of a transwoman and the Official Word immediately became that We Must Stand Against Anti-Trans Hate and that anyone offended at a swinging…thing in the girls’ room was a bigot. Yeah, well now that its no longer a burning issue…the guy is a convicted sex criminal who became “trans” so that he could whip it out in the girls’ room because that is how this perv gets his jollies. Which, by the way, was exactly what we all said would happen as soon as you allowed biological males into female spaces. It is a red carpet for every flasher in the world to wear a dress and just get rocking.

Not only was Twitter censoring the news, the FBI was paying Twitter to censor the news. This violates a host of federal laws. But, the law doesn’t matter. Nothing will be done. Even if we get a Trifecta in 2024, nothing will be done.

Enough Grump? Ok.