Hi Foxy,

I agree the path of peace has rearly, if ever, been followed in the past. Unfortunatly in the beginning the path to war is much easier to go down, than the path to peace. I hear and agree with what you say about Russia, but I'm they have their side of the argument as well, as do all sides in wars. I hope in this case diplomacy prevails and peace is the outcome.

Foxy being a little philosophical here.

I'm 68, I can still remember the school yard fights. Boys with bloody noses, black eyes and torn shirts. I can recall those things clearly, but for the life of me I can't recall what started the fights or what the fights were about. The Americans fought a long war in Vietnam, by the end of it no one really knew what it was all about. Looking back it's so easy to see how that war, and all wars, could have easily been avoided if those of goodwill had prevailed, and not the hawks of war.

Talk about illusions of grandeur! As if it's going to make any difference what a couple of people here think about the goings on between two superpowers having a pissing contest over a country that means sweet FA to Australia. Let NATO earn its keep - which it doesn’t, as Donald Trump rightly pointed out. Australia has no skin in the European game, having been rejected by that lefty woke continent years ago.

It's important to remember the lesson of liberal reforms of Alexander II and his appeasement of the Russian peasants. If we appease the Russian's in the Ukraine... OTOH there are many enemies.

More important to us is that yesterday's Essential Poll shows a Coalition recovery with the two parties now neck and neck. Anger towards Morrison has cooled. That’s a little hard to believe; maybe it's rather Albo's wittering that shows he has learnt nothing from the last election. Maybe it's just down to the fact that the average Australian's thinking is all over the place like a mad woman's poop. Whatever. They certainly don't care about Ukraine.

Dear Paul,

Ok let's take a lot at the current situation.

Russian forces are massed along Ukrainian borders
threatening to invade and wanting NATO forces out.
NATO forces are there protecting the areas from
ínvasion.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine would be a disaster
for the Ukraine, for Russia, and potentially for
the rules-based international system that the world
has sought to construct since 1945.

Avoiding war is critical, and all sides should engage
diplomatically, to head off conflict.
However, a Russian military invasion of Ukraine is not
a foregone conclusion. While such an action would be a
step with other risky provocations taken by Russian
President Vladimir Putin, it would be an incredibly
bold, rash and potentially ruinous one.

But should Putin decide to launch another
invasion of Ukraine,
the United States must lead a robust response.
A Russian decision to resort to force must be seen in
time as a strategic defeat - a self-defeating step that
would prove ruinous economically and geopolitically
for the Kremlin.

The stakes could not be higher. The Kremlin's dismemberment
of democratic Ukraine would be an unspeakable tragedy for
the Ukrainian people and would represent a huge setback
for democracy world-wide.

More broadly, a Russian invasion of Ukraine would pose a
significant threat to the post 1945 world order.

In the past half century, the world has seen a dramatic
decline in inter-state conflict. A Russian invasion of
Ukraine will thus have global implications. Moreover,
if an invasion were seen as successful and of relatively
low cost to Russia it could normalize inter-state
conflict prompting a return to the "might makes right"
geopolitics of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

China might feel emboldened to do the same to Taiwan
and it could entice other states to deploy force
against less powerful neighbours or rivals.

I have taken all these arguments from the
"Americanprogress.org" link I cited earlier. The article
explained how the United States should respond if
Russia invades Ukraine. I thought their argumentss
were valid and made sense.

I can see Russia's point.

NATO is a totally toothless tiger, unless the US do all the work, but they are good at talking. While they would lose any shooting war, they have been winning the talking war. They have progressively enveloped all the old Russian satellite states, leaderless since the collapse of the USSR. Like the US during the Cuban crisis, Russia must feel hedged in by recently "NATOed" states.

Time now for NATO to back off, & stop the encirclement of the old enemy. The west could be very soon wishing for Russia as an ally against Chinese aggression.

It really is ridiculous for toothless Europe to rattle sabers at Russia, when most European countries would be made unlivable if Russia simply turned the gas tap off.