The US kept troops in Europe after World War II to deter the Soviets from seeking to conquer Western Europe. NATO was set up for the same purpose. Mission accomplished. After the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago, the Western European states, most of them, decided they could take almost all of their military spending and use it to supplement their welfare states. In the unlikely event that a big war occurred, the dumb old Americans could be relied upon to bail them out again.
The Ukraine debacle has illustrated how the Western Europeans wish to continue their holiday from history paid for courtesy of the US taxpayer. Putin’s Russia poses no threat to Western Europe if the Western Europeans were serious about building up their military strength. They are not. They will bluster and hector the US to deter Russia and drive it from Ukraine, but they will do nothing that imposes any risks or sacrifices to themselves. One sided alliances never last, and few alliances are more one sided than that of NATO.
Putin richly deserves to be driven from Ukraine, but the US is simply unwilling to do so with its treasure and blood, when it would be doing it essentially alone besides the Ukrainians.
And then, of course, there is Ireland, where England decided to divide the long occupied country and absconded with 6 counties euphemistically now called “Northern Ireland.”
Rewriting history always gets my goat, especially where the history is, or should be, well known. A second goat is gotten when the misuse of history is used over some current political debate like Ukraine.
Dissimilar situations
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Yugoslavia dissolved into a series of successor states. No other country took a slice of Yugoslavia. Bosnia was sliced up into successor territories, but none of the other Yugoslav states have annexed any portion of them. If I’m not mistaken, Kosovo remains a notional part of Serbia, though the Serb government has no authority in Kosovo.
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South VietNam was an improvisation that lasted just 21 years and was crucially dependent on foreign patronage for much of that time.
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Turkey’s seizure of part of Cyprus was an act of piracy, but it was over in a matter of days. Britain or the United States would have had to send an expeditionary force to eject them, which in turn might have led to Turkey’s withdrawal from NATO.
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VietNam did occupy Cambodia for a time and has a patron-client relationship with the regime in Laos. Vietnamese troops were removed from Cambodia after 11 years and have not returned. Turkey remains in Cyprus, but it hasn’t seized any other territory in the last 50 years. The boundaries of Turkey differ little from what they were a century ago.
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Russia attempted a decapitation strike against the Ukrainian government and had a column of troops headed to the capital. Their aim was the occupation of the territory and the liquidation of the Ukrainian state as a 1st step to reconstituting the Soviet Union. You’ll recall their foreign minister demanding that every country which joined NATO after 1997 leave it. They then learned the hard way that their military is rather ineffective and they’ve made sure that no country proximate to Russia will grant it any trust for a generation or two or three.
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Since 1945, you’d have to scrounge to find examples of country A seeking to occupy and liquidate country B. Iraq seized Kuwait; you can see how that worked out for them. The Arab states certainly had that ambition vis a vis Israel. Egypt and Jordan abandoned it 50 years ago and Syria, Iraq, and Iran are the only countries which have in the intervening years had any practical interest in such an object. The behavior of Russia vis a vis the Ukraine and China vis a vis Taiwan is deviant.
where England decided to divide the long occupied country and absconded with 6 counties euphemistically now called “Northern Ireland.”
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You only had a united Ireland because English and Scottish forces finally suppressed your refractory local grandees. You want a national state, you have to build it and you lot could not manage it.
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The population of Ulster in sum had no interest in being a part of any united Ireland and your government in Dublin would have been stuck with the task of attempting to mount a counter-insurgency contra an unreconciled population amounting to a quarter of the whole and possessed of perhaps half the island’s human capital. Fat chance de Valera would have succeeded at anything but midwiving the expulsion of Catholics from greater Belfast,
I am not fan of ex-KGB gangster thug Putin, but equally, pro-abort, pro-sodomy Zeleneskyy is about as corrupt as they come. The sad thing is this: Russian soldier boys and Ukrainian women and children are caught in the middle of these two miscreants who should be lock up together in a cage to fight out their differences between themselves.
South VietNam was an improvisation that lasted just 21 years and was crucially dependent on foreign patronage for much of that time.
It would still be here, and successful, but for the military conquest by the North and the decision of the Democrat Congress to slash their aid. Korea shows us how the two states likely would have developed.
Yugoslavia dissolved into a series of successor states.
But for the intervention of the US, the Serbian successor state would have been much larger.
Turkey’s seizure of part of Cyprus was an act of piracy,
Military conquest is the term Art, and only the Turkish military keeps the Turkish Cypriot state in existence.
Since 1945, you’d have to scrounge to find examples of country A seeking to occupy and liquidate country B.
Tibet isn’t a hard example to find Art. Argentina would now be ruling the Malvinas but for the Brits whipping them in the Falklands War. Algeria of course separated itself from France, by which it was legally a part, due to military victory and deGaulle recognizing that the French had no stomach for the war.The Iraq attempted swallowing of Kuwait would be common throughout much of the world but for the power of the US, something we will see more of if the tide of isolationist sentiment in this country continues to rise.
I’m wondering if I heard on last nights news correctly that the president of Turkey is siding with the president of Venezuela? If true what is that all about?
Lots of behind the scenes talk about Maduro leaving for exile in Turkey. Trump just closed today the airspace over Venezuela. Something is up.
“preserving the entire post 1945 international order”
Yes!.. the return and preservation of: 2 genders, the family, healthy sexuality, children, schools that teach, safe streets, controlled immigration…..
For what it’s worth, Poland has stuck out its neck to assist Ukraine in every way short of military action, and at the same time safeguard it’s border with the Russian puppet state of Belarus (whose government is despised by most Belarusians.
I have been disgusted with Victor Orban’s glad handling of Russia, given the USSR’s occupation of Hungary.
Poland has spent on defense in excess of the percentage of GDP requested by Trump.
Western Europe nauseates me. Not just because of Ukraine, but letting in Muslims and Africans who have wrecked Western Europe, and whining about tariffs and Trump in general.
“Trump just closed today the airspace over Venezuela. Something is up.”
I hear a lot of leave time has been cancelled too.
Maybe Caracas should exile Maduro to Turkey before one of our missile submarines in the South Atlantic sends them back to the stone age.
Art Deco, depends on the dates you have in mind. Ulster was predominantly Irish Catholic until the Scot and British Plantations of mostly Presbyterian and Anglican Protestants. The history of Ireland is the history of English oppression going back to, I believe, 1200
AD. Henry II, Cromwell, and Elizabeth come to mind. I think the time you’re referencing is the time of the Easter Rebellion and the subsequent Irish Civil War. Completely different situation.
Art Deco, depends on the dates you have in mind. Ulster was predominantly Irish Catholic until the Scot and British Plantations of mostly Presbyterian and Anglican Protestants.
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Northern Europe in general was predominantly Catholic prior to the 16th century. Ergo, what? You’re going to expel a population which has been present for 300 years because they won’t co-operate with your schemes? And you’re going to do so when they have most of the industrial capacity? Sounds like a plan.
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The history of Ireland is the history of English oppression going back to, I believe, 1200AD. Henry II, Cromwell, and Elizabeth come to mind. I think the time you’re referencing is the time of the Easter Rebellion and the subsequent Irish Civil War. Completely different situation.
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If you read your initial drive by, you’ll see that the time period in question was brought up by you.
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The history of Ireland is the history of Ireland. It is not merely the history of abuses by political figures in England or by landlords in Ireland.