Russia and Ukraine: Atrocity in Modern Geopolitical Satire?

Today I read about the issue of 'cluster munitions' in use or being supplied for use in the conflict of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.

The discussion included a very monotone and candid willingness from both sides to use weaponry to obliterate the opposition.

What rhetoric then contributes is intimidation in my novice opine... This sometimes can be inferred as 'saber rattling', or an empty threat except that here are expended artillery casings and shells used by one side or the other:

And among them cluster munitions.

Obviously, this is a serious situation. In America there is a saying 'Discretion is the better part of valor.'

If we don't call for 'cooler heads to prevail' now, the momentum of the rhetoric will escalate; according to some, all the way to nuclear war.

"World War 3" sounds like a boring old cliche that fails to characterize the magnitude of this conflict. If we fail to understand what this signifies (which is what I believe is the crux of this conflict), the media will only serve to amplify the aggression and foster the momentum.

What's left to say is from a different article. Ukraine has initially rejected it, but NATO has suggested a resolution that because it would involve territorial concessions to Russia seems unrealistic to Ukrainian leadership.

With those concessions, appeasement would ease conflict, and peace could begin. It would make Ukraine a NATO member nation, which would make any conflict in the future grounds for NATO protection.

I see the problem. This solution does not right the wrong, but it would end the conflict and immediately begin to restore safety. I believe that is what's needed, and rather than aim to curtail conflict with further conflict, the implementation of barriers to future conflict does more to restore safety and enable a sovereignty that will not be violated a second time.

 

Our experience with another expansionist aggressor, Hitler, makes some leery of appeasement in any form. Give him the Sudetenland and he'll leave the Czechs in peace, they said. He didn't, and the result was W,War II!

 

Seems someone keep sabre rattling about nuclear warheads, too. Putin will never quit at this now. What is left to win at this point? He'll have bombed out cities with most of the infrastructure wiped out, an entire population that will hate Russia for generations, a great number of working men killed off, and sooner or later, he will take out a nuclear power plant and poison one of biggest grain producing areas ever.

 

What man made weapons have never been used? Only the H bomb that I can think of. It seems that whatever is available will eventually be used.

 

Prevailing winds blow toward Moscow....

 

The thing that makes cluster munitions particularly bad is that they are not precision weapons, and therefor there's a greater chance that an innocent bystander might be hit by them.

They also have a relatively high dud rate, so that a civillian might be killed by one even years after a war has ended.

It's not fair though to consider Russia's use of cluster munitions and Ukraine's use to be morally equivalent. Here are the reasons:

1 Russia made an illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is only fighting in its self-defense.

2 Ukraine is using cluster munitions as a last resort, because they've run out of other ammo, not as a first resort.

3 If Ukraine didn't use cluster munitions, they would risk being overrun by the Russian army. The history of Russia committing massive human rights violations in this war, including mass rape, torture, and murder of civilians suggest that the human rights consequences of Ukraine being overrun would be much worse than the use of cluster munitions in its self-defense.

4 Ukraine has agreed to only use cluster munitions in areas that are not populated by civilians, and to keep a record of their use to aid clean up operations. This should greatly reduce the risk of civilian casualties.

5 The cluster munitions that were sent to Ukraine have a much lower dud rate than the ones Russia is using

6 One of the things that the cluster munitions will be used for is clearing mine fields. Because mines are even more deadly to civilians than cluster munitions, their use in this way would actually reduce the risk to civilians.

The problem is that if Putin can invade his neighbor and kill, torture, rape, loot, and kidnap all he wants, level whole cities, bomb hospitals, schools, and blood transfusion centers, not to mention destroying food supplies and deliberately putting millions of people at risk for starvation, and all he has to do to get away with it is to rattle his nuclear saber, then the consequences would likely be massive nuclear arms proliferation. If you can just throw down the nuclear trump card and do whatever you'd like, then every country in the world that is afraid of being invaded, or who might have an appetite for military conquest (i.e, everyone) will try to get a nuclear bomb, and nuclear war will become inevitable.

Fat chance. Giving Putin Crimea and the Donbas was supposed to appease him. In fact, it only whetted his appetite.

For people like Putin, concessions and appeasement are seen as signs of weakness. Any foothold that he might be granted would only be used to launch another invasion.

Should the Ukrainians just give in then, and let Putin be their Czar? Well, Ukrainians still remember the genocide they suffered under Stalin when Russia ruled over them, so they'd understandably like to take their chances fighting for their freedom.

Your heart is in the right place @soulcompromise, I just don't think that this war is going to be resolved by making concessions to Putin.

 

No. No, it wouldn't. This is a very precarious situation, and will remain so as long as putin is in charge of russia. He and his lackeys must go first, his regime must collapse, and only then we can hope to see some sort of stable and more lasting peace.

Understand this: putin has hanged himself to the dream of restoring the soviet union. His master plan has been ruined and he's angry and bitter about this. There will be no end to his petty revanchism, if he's allowed to have even just a little bit of his way, because if putin is rewarded with free land for his act of aggression, to him it means he got away with it scott free, and can simply do it again someplace else and piece by piece steal land from others. Any peace now, that leaves putin still in charge, means russia would simply use the time to re-arm themselves for round two. This needs to end like it did after Afghanistan, or they'll never get it: it's over. The CCCP is not coming back.

Already they're making up bullshit propaganda stories about the Baltic countries and their neighboring Finland, NATO's latest and newest member. And in belarus, the Wagner mercenaries look like they could be getting ready to threaten the Suwałki Gap. If russia's army is not worn down in Ukraine, their next act could be something truly desperate and badly thought out, simply as an act of petty russian revenge. It's a horrible situation for the Ukrainians, but ultimately we should leave it up to them to decide, if they want to make that sacrifice, and respect what they wish.

 

If they tried anything in the Suwałki Gap they'd get their asses handed to them, and they know it. Russia is in no position to take on NATO.

 

It's not like they aren't deluded, or something...