O/T:- Betting odds for US Election [The USA Politics Thread]

[slack_pie]

Sorry if this is an oversimplification but if somebody breaks into a mate's house, rapes the women in there and takes the valuable stuff - then your mate fights back even though outnumbered and sends you a message to get round there quick - what do you do? Are you escalating the conflict by going there? Semantically you could argue yes, but really no, of course not.

To carry on with this clumsy analogy, even if your mate does decide to negotiate, what do you do when the robbers not only refuse to give anything back but also demand stuff from other houses on the street they haven't even burgled yet? If you don't let them have everything on the streets they have chosen, are you reallly the ones escalating?

I think wanting peace is a noble aim - you don't like seeing people die in war because you care about human life. That's a good thing.

I think naivety comes into it a little bit if you ignore where we have ended up in the past with American isolationism and European democracies being OK with expansionist dictators taking what they believe belongs to them. The answer is not less war.

I'm not sure the analogy works. Of course going round to your mate's house to help keep invaders at bay isn't escalation, it's defending your property. But if your mate lent you his pickup truck and drove it round to the attackers' house and smashed their windows, that would be escalation.

So in your mind, the answer to war is more war. I understand, but I don't agree. If you have one side that is an aggressor and another side that is defending its territory, that's one thing. But if you have two sides that are actively raising the stakes, where does it end? It has to end somewhere. I can't see Russia backing down - Putin's whole strong-man persona would fall apart both domestically and internationally if he didn't follow through on his threats and retreated in the face of the West. Obviously Russia can't be allowed to win. So it has to be a negotiated end, and that means both sides get less than what they want.

[Jampie]

If you have one side that is an aggressor and another side that is defending its territory, that's one thing.

That's exactly this situation.

[Lullapie]

I'm not sure the analogy works. Of course going round to your mate's house to help keep invaders at bay isn't escalation, it's defending your property. But if your mate lent you his pickup truck and drove it round to the attackers' house and smashed their windows, that would be escalation.

So in your mind, the answer to war is more war. I understand, but I don't agree. If you have one side that is an aggressor and another side that is defending its territory, that's one thing. But if you have two sides that are actively raising the stakes, where does it end? It has to end somewhere. I can't see Russia backing down - Putin's whole strong-man persona would fall apart both domestically and internationally if he didn't follow through on his threats and retreated in the face of the West. Obviously Russia can't be allowed to win. So it has to be a negotiated end, and that means both sides get less than what they want.

It's gone beyond defending the Ukrainian homeland now. It's a case of the Ukraine will never win this war. Giving them more arms will just push Russia into bombing the Ukraine back into the 18th century.

[Jampie]

It's gone beyond defending the Ukrainian homeland now. It's a case of the Ukraine will never win this war. Giving them more arms will just push Russia into bombing the Ukraine back into the 18th century.

Russia will never win the war at the rate they're going either. At their present rate of advance they'll be at Kyiv again in a decade or two. Putin is not immortal, and whoever replaces him might be smart enough to blame the whole idea on Putin and pull out in exchange for sanctions lifting.

Handing Putin the land he's stolen so far is a victory for him (pyrrhic, likely, but still), and will encourage future adventures from him, his eventual Russian replacement, and other dictators. I don't think that's a good option. Add onto that the fact that he has broken numerous international agreements and commitments and so no ceasefire terms he signs can be trusted...

As long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight on, we should be supporting them, and we should be doing a much better job of it than we have to date.

[Lullapie]

Russia will never win the war at the rate they're going either. At their present rate of advance they'll be at Kyiv again in a decade or two. Putin is not immortal, and whoever replaces him might be smart enough to blame the whole idea on Putin and pull out in exchange for sanctions lifting.

Handing Putin the land he's stolen so far is a victory for him (pyrrhic, likely, but still), and will encourage future adventures from him, his eventual Russian replacement, and other dictators. I don't think that's a good option. Add onto that the fact that he has broken numerous international agreements and commitments and so no ceasefire terms he signs can be trusted...

As long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight on, we should be supporting them, and we should be doing a much better job of it than we have to date.

Trump will say to Ukraine, it's better to give to Russia what they've taken and get a ceasefire than have the risk of Ukraine being laid to waste. Their choice is do that, or keep fighting Putin without any US funding or military support.

One of us will be right.