Adam Something is maybe not as far left as to satisfy purists, but he is reasonably far left to seem to be a decent person and not be an extremist. I find most of his videos informative, and I think his last one – a length-ish take on Ukraine’s conflict with Russia, is very good.
Adam Something is a Hungarian Youtuber currently residing in CZ (these are public pieces of information that he himself has disclosed on his YouTube channel). That might explain why he, whilst being a leftist, is very critical of both current Russia and the former USSR empire. He does not have the personal experience with the failed socialist experiment of the last century that I have, but the cultural memory is still fresh. Thus he shares my deep dislike of tankies.
The cold war was not a conflict between good guys and bad guys, just between two different types of bad guys. And that has not changed, at least as far as the current proxy conflict between USA and Russia goes. For some baffling reason, there appears to be a sizable amount of people who think that because the USA was the bad guy in every conflict for the last 75 years that it makes their opponents into good guys.
I agree with you that Putin is by no means a good guy in any of this. But I’m concerned that there seems to be a kind of growing fatalism among Biden and the NATO allies about Ukraine. We seem to be getting a message from the MSM that “it would be a terrible thing if Putin invades and takes over Ukraine, but well, he’s got tanks and nukes, so if he’s really super determined, we won’t be able to stop him. We’ll go ahead and send weapons to Ukraine but *shrug* it’s not like the Ukrainians will be able to stop the Red Army, and the country just isn’t worth ratcheting up tensions to nuclear levels over. Maybe they can do some guerilla warfare or something after they’re living under Russian rule. It’s super bad, but also, not really our problem.”
There are two big problems with this. First, Biden’s popularity is low enough as it is. If he gets stuck with pictures of Putin’s tanks rolling into Kiev during our midterm elections, there will be a route of his party, and that will be terrible for everybody.
And also, you can’t convince me that all diplomatic routes have been tried. Just because Putin is a horrible human being doesn’t mean he isn’t worth negotiating with. If, as has been reported, the main Russian demand is just a guarantee that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO — is that really too much to ask as an alternative to an invasion we already know he has the means and will to carry off? When he says that a NATO Ukraine would feel like a dagger pointed at Russia, I actually believe him — remembering how the Cuban Missile Crisis began when we tried to sneak missiles into Turkey.
@brucegee1962, Russia already reneged on several agreements with the EU, USA, and Ukraine. What makes you think that guaranteeing that Ukraine never joins NATO would stop their demands instead of simply finding, or manufacturing, another reason to escalate them?
I live in a country that was sacrificed on the altar of appeasing Germany via the Munich Agreement. If appeasement did not work with Hitler, why should it work with Putin?
” Thus he shares my deep dislike of tankies.”
Tankies = ???
@StevoR, see here -click-
@Charly(#2):
And what are the agreements that Russia reneged? And more important why?
Ah yes the famously infamous Chamberlain giving Hitler what Hitler wanted. Actually he didn’t seeing that both the French and British at that point had concluded they couldn’t win against the Nazis at that point in time (proven later in the opening weeks of WW2), while the Nazis were desperately trying to create a casus beli so that they would not have to fight a two front war (The fact that the Nazis ignored an offer from Czechoslovakia that would have netted a significant part of Sudetenland weeks before the Munich agreement underscores it wasn’t the land that the Nazis wanted). So buying time was the right action, especially if you consider the first agreement was largely backed by the population in Sudetenland. The followup agreements that dismembered Czechoslovakia not so much. Also appreciate the irony that Poland was putting just as much pressure on Czechoslovakia for a quick territory grab.
As to why it isn’t the same with what is going on now with the Ukraine. Simply the Ukraine, complete or just the east that used to be Russia, is not worth taking over (it was already the economic basket case of Europe before the US greenlit the coup since the EU patsy was winning the election). If the Russians would have wanted the Ukraine it would have happened in 2014 when the Russians picked the only part they’d wanted, Crimea. Better (for us in the US/Europe) not taking east Ukraine at that time cost Putin a significant amount of support (and not just poll numbers) by the parts of the ruling class that vehemently disagreed with not gobbling up at the very least the east Ukraine. Similarly analysts are stating that what the Russians have on the Ukraine border is not enough to even take over east Ukraine. Heck even Kyiv is desperately trying do dial down the rhetoric coming out of Washington (and getting smacked down by the US for to not toeing the line). Worse is that the US is going for absolutes, leaving nothing for negotiations. Seeing that Russia claims this is a red line a significant amount of concessions could have been gotten.
@Who Cares, I do not care one iota that the USA is approaching the situation badly, that is not the point of this article and the video. I have no interest in defending any shit that the USA is doing. The world would definitively be better without both the USA and Russia interfering with other countries internal affairs.
I am not entering a lengthy discussion about whether the decision that has led to my country being torn apart and which did not delay the war and reduce its victims significantly anyway was right or wrong, firstly I am not a professional historian, secondly, I would probably tell you t effoff very quickly. Any further attempts at trying to justify the validity of the Munich Agreement will lead to a ban, it is not an issue on which I am willing to engage in satisfying anyone’s need to be Right On The Internet.
As for agreements that Russia reneged upon, watch the video. Which you clearly have not done. One example you yourself have admitted to though -- the annexation of Crimea, which was in clear violation of previous agreements. That is why Russians initially denied actually having any troops there, despite it being bloody obvious to anyone with a single brain cell.
@Charly:
I do owe you an apology for completely ignoring everything else by only looking at this from the high level power play politics.
You should care about what the USA is doing since only by looking at what the USA has been doing in the Ukraine from the point they authorized that coup can you get explanations for what Russia has been doing there.
The reason I did ask for what crimes was not because I didn’t watch but for the why question. Because the video omits anything that makes the Russians (or their pawns) look less bad by pretending their actions happen in a vacuum.
Russia never denied having troops in Crimea, they denied having more then the the lease allowed (IIRC something like 25k personnel across all branches of their armed forces which was around 1/8 of the part of the army that Kiyv could rely on), they didn’t need to seeing how fast a trip across water from Russia proper to Crimea is and their total control of that corridor.
Then the annexation of Crimea, Russia merely copied from the best. That is the US and EEC when they forced referendums for independence of areas of other nations, funny how when we do it it is OK to do so but when an entity designated Enemy does it it is time for sanctions (and threats of WW3 by some deranged US senators/congress critters). Though two wrongs don’t make a right so nope it is not OK for either side, but it has given Russia the fig leave it needs to justify those actions. Even if Russia didn’t have veto power on the security council the US would never bring up this case for that very reason and imposed sanctions instead, high level politics tend to fairly revolting (as you noted).
@ 4. Charly : Ah. Got it now. Thanks.
brucegee1962
Maybe proxy wars plus appeasement is the best option when the bully has nuclear weapons and might be satisfied. I hate myself for typing this, but, you know, nuclear holocaust.