MeisterEckhart wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2022 at 10:46am:


Without Chamberlain's 'appeasement', there will be no victory for Churchill.

MeisterEckhart wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2022 at 10:55am:


Oh!  Thank you thank you for raising this.  World war 2 had always being one of my area of interest! 

Now, your account of what happened is that… the Chamberlain government agreed to allow Hitler to occupy the Sudetenland in exchange for his pledge not to invade any other country.   And because of that appeasement, instead of having peace, we have the opposite - world war 2.  And therefore, as a lesson, we should not give in to demands of tyrants. 

Of course, Chamberlain of today is Joe Biden, and Hitler is Putin. 

I believe this view is exceptionally naive.

If you read up on memoirs, letters, and cabinet documents from that time, it would be apparent to you that British leaders were fully aware of the ambition and scale of Hitler’s ambition.   However they were also aware of the following:

-  During this time, all the big businesses, royalties, and war weary public were supportive of appeasement.
- Many even sympathise with Hitler - both in terms of his ideology and sympathy towards Germany after years of economic sanction and penalty after world word 1. 
- The British Navy at the time assessed that it does not have the confidence to win a war against Nazi Germany. 

So in a nutshell, Chamberlain had an England which did not want to go to war, and a Royal Navy telling him that it was not ready for war. 

It had no choice but to go down the appeasement pathway for two things.
1. To rearm
2. To buy time for rearmament program. 

And all of this need money and time.   With appeasement, Chamberlain bought England both of these at the sacrifice of his own reputation.  The man is no less a hero than Churchill. 

MeisterEckhart wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2022 at 11:36am:


Thats just it isnt it.  I think the Germans were not stupid either.  They see it that England need time for re armament, and they themselves need more time to arm, at the same time more land.   Its a game of cat and mouse, and who blinks first. 

And dont forget, both England and France at the time were democracies.  So public opinion do matter.  And at the time, public opinions were against war.   You cant wage or fight a war in a democratic country without the public agree to it.

MeisterEckhart wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2022 at 11:52am:


At the time, there were three competing ideologies in the world.  Soviet Communism, Western Democracy, and Nazi Nationalism.   Stalin is no fool either. He knows both Western Democracy and Nazi Nationalism will come into conflict with Russia.  And at the time, people of Western society: like US are deeply conservative and racist, and are more sympathetic to Germany than they are to Russia communism.   The last thing he wants is to have both Western Democracies and Nazi Nationalist at Moscow's door steps.   And hence his protest, and then later on the treaty with Germany.

The Russians have all but lost the initiative in Ukraine hence the desperation of the scorched-earth tactic.

Mariupol has been obliterated, something the Russians will be paying for over decades. However, the Ukrainians cannot allow them to keep the prize of what's left at any price the Russians can afford. Killing as many Russian soldiers as possible (even though Mariupol is not a viable city) is paramount.

The Russians must now be forced to pay the price of keeping the city in oceans of their blood.

thegreatdivide wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2022 at 1:02pm:

World politics is like a poker game, where the play is mostly predetermined (and so long as both sides don't each make a mistake simultaneously).

My guess is that the deal was, that Russia would get to keep whatever it could hold of Ukraine. NATO and Europe would stay out of it directly, but could supply Ukraine with weapons and humanitarian aid.

The nuclear threat is typical Russian chest beating.

I'd say Putin took the deal believing Ukraine would cave in a week.

Whatever the outcome, eastern Ukraine would be ultimately ungovernable from Kiev. There are ethnic Russians who would not be up for Ukrainian rule (as they already are not). Partition seems to be the realpolitik outcome. That may be a bitter pill to swallow for Ukraine, but it would end the future decades of Russian uprisings in the east that they would be required to put down.

And one thing's for certain: Europe would not welcome Ukraine into the EU or NATO if it was fighting an internal eastern war of attrition with Ukrainian-Russians that had no end - just regular reports of atrocities over years.

thegreatdivide wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2022 at 1:37pm:

MAD or not, war is ineradicable.

What MAD has done has required the international poker game to be more strictly stage-managed by all sides than at any other time in history. Mao, for example, would not have gotten away with the murder of tens of millions today as he did when China was isolated and not at the table.

In the age of MAD, the CCP can do no other than to feign 'concern' over Ukraine yet covertly support Russia - hence the wumao, little pinks and state-controlled media getting the order from the CCP to disseminate Russian propaganda.

Of course it's easier to pontificate about anything when you don't have to suffer the consequences of disastrous policies. It's the main reason the CCP will not allow reporting or criticism of disasters attributable to CCP failure. Keep the people in the dark is the sole objective.