No. of Recommendations: 6
But Putin didn't start with Crimea. Georgia invasion in 2008 was when he started. Very little world response.True. That was during BushII (I had to look up the date). I don't recall that he did much, but neither did the world. It was almost like seizing the Rhineland, though in that case there were no shots fired. That wasn't true in Georgia.
Though, Bush did contemplate using our military, we just ended up sending humanitarian aid. Based on this article, the world seemed to know what was going on with pro-Russian separatists. Though it wasn't until 2021 that a court officially said that Russia had been controlling the separatists, and some warrants were issued in 2022. Hungary has it most correct when they likened Russia's actions to the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian revolt. The world says today that those are occupied territories, but does nothing else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_WarUnlike in the 1930s, this is being spread out. First Georgia. Now Ukraine.
Not to Godwin this thread, but Hitler used lame excuses to move into the Rhineland, the Ruhr, and Austria. Then Sudetenland. Then the big move into Czechoslovakia, that alarmed people enough that they sent Chamberlain (who believed Hitler's BS, and agreed to annexation of the Sudetenland. [Most of this is from memory...I may have the order of things mixed a bit, but it's close.]
The world responded very weakly, so Hitler kept going, with the lame excuses. Even in 1939, he had an excuse for going into Poland. Though -finally- nobody was buying it. As I recall, he claimed he was stopping the persecution of ethnic Germans.
History rhymes.
Fortunately for us, Ukraine has seriously mangled Putin's ability to do something like this for a long time. If I ignore the Ukrainian side/suffering, and look at it from a purely US-centric viewpoint, this has been
great for the US. Putin removed himself as a serious threat to us, his ability to meddle in the affairs of other regions is severely damaged, NATO is bigger and stronger than before...it's a win-win-win for the USA. You MAGA people want to "Make America Great Again"? Continue to support Ukraine. One of our longest opponents is degraded, and will keep being degraded. Russia won't be a serious threat to anything for probably a generation. There really is no up-side for the USA in selling-out Ukraine, or not continuing to supply them.
Another bit of history rhyming...the USSR was supporting the NVA. No downside for them, and they kept us mired in that conflict for 10000 days (hence "the 10000 Day War"). Our military was degraded for over a decade afterwards, as well as the affect on public opinion about the military and overseas adventurism.
