Russia and Ukraine

[Belacqua]

Consistent talk of escalation which could end up with Americans and Russians shooting at each other.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/...coalition/

Today, the Biden White House appears to be considering the use of a multinational force aimed at Russia. The NATO alliance is unable to reach a unanimous decision to intervene militarily in support of Ukraine in its war with Russia. But as signaled recently by David Petraeus, the president and his generals are evaluating their own “coalition of the willing.” The coalition would allegedly consist of primarily, but not exclusively, Polish and Romanian forces, with the U.S. Army at its core, for employment in Ukraine.

The article points out that at least so far, what the US mission would be in Ukraine is not well defined.

First, what is the aim of the coalition? Is the aim to expel Russian forces from Ukrainian territory? Is the aim to reinforce Ukrainian defense lines and achieve a ceasefire for negotiations? Or is the coalition merely a device to drag the rest of the NATO alliance into a war with Russia that very few Europeans will support?

The article lists several other issues about such a coalition that are as yet unclear.

Meanwhile, the US is still having trouble putting together a multi-national force to invade Haiti again.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/31/hai...d-nations/

Canada and Mexico are said to be the most likely candidates to join, but these countries are aware, of course, of how badly things like this have gone in the past. And there are serious questions about how helpful such a coalition would prove.

The Mexican army has been trained, financed, and equipped by the United States under the so-called Mérida Initiative, aimed at ending that country’s ongoing drug wars—which would fit the definition of “deep, necessary experience required for such an effort,” at least from the State Department’s point of view.

But as Michael Paarlberg has argued, the Mérida Initiative is a prime example “of dysfunctional U.S security cooperation arrangements with foreign governments” that foster corruption and violence instead of lessening them. In Mexico’s case, that is likely because it ignores the core U.S. involvement in narcotrafficking: providing a market for drugs headed north and a seemingly unlimited source for the weaponry heading south.

In Haiti—which has its own obvious problems with narcotrafficking—the U.S.-supported rot runs even deeper, to the democratic vacuum that a century of U.S. invasions, occupations, and interference has left in its wake. Sending an armed force to do battle with one Haitian gang and its sponsors may briefly win the de facto government (or Chérizier’s other rivals) access to the fuel port, but it will do nothing to make Haiti a safer or more stable place for its people to live in the medium or long term.

The article has a good short summary of US involvement in Haiti since 1915.

I suppose how much people support a direct US invasion of Ukraine would depend on what they think about their chances of winning are. Some information sources are still reporting that the Russians are losing badly, that they are nearly out of weapons, and that the 80,000 troops they've just deployed, out of the 300,000 called up, are so poorly trained as to be useless.

Naturally, other sources say that Ukraine is losing hundreds of soldiers every day, that most of them weren't that well-trained to begin with, that Russia is making slow but steady progress from the East.

If the US is seriously considering direct intervention it does seem to indicate a lack of confidence that the Ukrainians can do it on their own.

Zelensky is quoted as saying that a nuclear war would not be that bad. But I think any move which brings us closer to direct US/Russia war, and makes it harder for the macho men to back down, is insane.