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the causes of this war have been known for decades, which mainly has to do with Russian security concerns which the West continuously ignored. We ignored the advice of George Kennan in the 1990s in bringing NATO right up to Russia’s door. He predicted that would be a tragic mistake that would end in hostilities. We ignored the advice of our own ambassador to Moscow in 2008, Bill Burns, who is now the CIA director, who told us that expanding NATO to Ukraine was a red line for the Russians, not just Putin, but the entire Russian elite. It was absolutely a red line for Gorbachev and Yeltsin, as well as various liberal reformers inside of Russia. We ignored the advice of Kissinger and Mearsheimer, Professor Mearsheimer in 2014 who warned us we were headed for this war unless we agree to make Ukraine a neutral country.
And instead, we ignored all of this advice for many years, and we persisted in this crusade to bring Ukraine into NATO and basically turn it into a giant military base on Russia’s most vulnerable border. And not surprisingly, Russia reacted quite negatively to this, as was predicted many times over the years by all the experts I mentioned, including many others.
I think the administration was pinning its hopes on a successful counteroffensive. Remember the narrative we were told for the whole last year, or at least certainly since the fall of Kharkiv, was that we were going to arm the Ukrainians. We appropriated over $100 billion dollars to them. And the idea was that we would have this successful spring counteroffensive. The Ukrainians, with the help of American armor and weapons, would punch through the Russian lines. They would scatter. They would turn tail and run. They would be disorganized. They were demoralized and ineffective and corrupt, and that within a period of even three to four days, that you’d see significant progress. And within a couple of months, the Ukrainians would be at the Sea of Azov. They would cut off the land bridge to Crimea, and the Russians would have to sue for peace, and that was going to be the end of this whole matter.
Well, obviously that hasn’t worked out. Where things stand today is that the counteroffensive has moved incredibly slowly. Even publications like CNN and the Washington Post, which are incredibly pro-Ukraine, are admitting that the reports from the battle lines are sobering, that the losses have been staggering, that the Ukrainians have made little progress. And there is no serious prospect for them making serious, for retaking territory in a serious way.
So what you’re starting to hear now are words like quagmire. You’re starting to, you know, hear words like this is going to be a multiyear war. They’re already giving up on this year, that now they’re planning for next year
And instead, we ignored all of this advice for many years, and we persisted in this crusade to bring Ukraine into NATO and basically turn it into a giant military base on Russia’s most vulnerable border. And not surprisingly, Russia reacted quite negatively to this, as was predicted many times over the years by all the experts I mentioned, including many others.
I think the administration was pinning its hopes on a successful counteroffensive. Remember the narrative we were told for the whole last year, or at least certainly since the fall of Kharkiv, was that we were going to arm the Ukrainians. We appropriated over $100 billion dollars to them. And the idea was that we would have this successful spring counteroffensive. The Ukrainians, with the help of American armor and weapons, would punch through the Russian lines. They would scatter. They would turn tail and run. They would be disorganized. They were demoralized and ineffective and corrupt, and that within a period of even three to four days, that you’d see significant progress. And within a couple of months, the Ukrainians would be at the Sea of Azov. They would cut off the land bridge to Crimea, and the Russians would have to sue for peace, and that was going to be the end of this whole matter.
Well, obviously that hasn’t worked out. Where things stand today is that the counteroffensive has moved incredibly slowly. Even publications like CNN and the Washington Post, which are incredibly pro-Ukraine, are admitting that the reports from the battle lines are sobering, that the losses have been staggering, that the Ukrainians have made little progress. And there is no serious prospect for them making serious, for retaking territory in a serious way.
So what you’re starting to hear now are words like quagmire. You’re starting to, you know, hear words like this is going to be a multiyear war. They’re already giving up on this year, that now they’re planning for next year