Quoted For Truth

Angus has a couple of short posts re: Ukraine over at his blog.

Perennial commenters can cool their fingers: he has blocked comments, to avoid the inevitable anonymous flame war that will ensue, to a metaphysical certainty.

Rabid knuckleheads (you know who you are) can expect similar treatment here.

We link both posts, because he's batting 1.000 on both of them. A+.

Go. Read. Absorb.

I wish both sides could lose

I think it's a hollow threat

What does Ukraine get out of this:

Shafted.

Fucked over.

Devastated and permanently crippled economically and demographically.

Hung out to dry.

A shred of their former existence.

If Russia decides to call a pause, which is by no means certain, nor even likely.

What does Russia get out of this:

Exposed as a paper tiger.

Hundreds of thousands of dead.

Half their ground combat power destroyed, which will take decades to replace.

A century as a diplomatic pariah.

Proof that crime pays.

The knowledge that they can get away with this the next time they're bulked up.

A third of the former Ukraine.

What does the U.S. get out of this:

Peace with dishonor.

Identified worldwide as a buddy-fucker nation who will throw anyone under the bus if it's expedient, diplomatic assurances be damned.

Watching nuclear proliferation become a growth industry worldwide, especially among the nations who really shouldn't ever get one. But we can't unring that bell. You will see this material again.

There's also little reason for Russia to stop now, and it's unlikely either the US or Ukraine will ever swap any minerals out of the ground for cash until  - if ever - the war knocks off.

Trump has zero leverage over Russia now, and Putin has every reason to laugh at any "deal" we suggest.

This is what happens when checkers players play geopolitical chess.

They're all about now, and not so much about the next five things that today doesn't just make possible, it makes inevitable.

POTUS' new callsign should be Shaft.

And not in a Richard Roundtree/Samuel Jackson way.

Well-played, President Chamberlain.
The last time someone pulled off a diplomatic coup like this,
Czechoslovakia found out they didn't really need the Sudetenland.
And that worked out so  well down the line, for everyone.