Though they are not given much of a voice in the mainstream media, many people oppose US/NATO sending more arms to Ukraine and oppose direct Western military intervention, because they see that such actions would only prolong an inevitably lost fight "to the last Ukrainian" and/or they do not think it's worth risking World War III in order to refuse Ukraine neutrality, Russia's absorption of Crimea, and the independence of the Donbass republics (LDPR).
Good for all of them.
Among many of those, from left anti-imperialists to paleo-conservative realists, the discourse hinges on forgoing war for diplomacy. Let's not send more weapons; let's instead encourage negotiations! Negotiate, don't escalate.
"Every war ends in negotiations," they will say, and "we"--the US government and NATO--have to encourage Ukraine to compromise.
This attitude is well summed up in Aaron Mate''s citation of former diplomat Charles Freeman regarding US/NATO's "disregard for diplomacy": "Everything we are doing, rather than accelerate an end to the fighting and some compromise, seems to be aimed at prolonging the fighting." This is echoed in Noam Chomsky's insistence that "the prime focus" should be on "moving towards a possible negotiated settlement that will save Ukrainians from further disaster."
Here's the thing, however, that is very important to be clear about in this situation: There is no possibility of "negotiations" or "compromise" in the optimistic sense implied--i.e., talks leading to a deal in which, in some mutually satisfactory way, each side gets and gives up something important to it.
There is no possibility of such "negotiations" or "compromise" because that already happened.
Negotiations and compromise were made when the United States promised not to move NATO one inch to the east in exchange for absorbing East Germany. Negotiations were made, successfully, with the Minsk agreement, which--at Putin's insistence, against the independence urgings of Donbass and its Russian supporters--would have granted the Donbass regions limited autonomy within the framework of a unified Ukrainian state. That was the compromise. And again, with Minsk 2, negotiated after Kiev broke the agreement, attacked Donbass, and almost had its army wiped out, but for Putin holding LDPR back. And again, with the "Normandy Format," after Kiev spent seven years continuing to attack Donbass and repeatedly and explicitly stating its refusal to abide by the former negotiated compromises.
Russia initiated its offensive because all the possibilities for a negotiated peace with Kiev (and its U.S. handler) under any conditions other than Russia is now demanding have been used up. Everyone must understand that, and how dangerous it makes this moment. Compromise agreements were successfully made--at least three times!--and then continually destroyed by U.S. and national fascist intransigence and aggression, with attacks on Donbass over eight years that took 14,000 lives. And no one in the U.S.'s "international community" cared a whit.
Russia undertook this action because, as The Saker wrote and I commented on in 2017, Russia has concluded that "the Americans were 'Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð ' Ð ' Ð Ð ' Ð Ð Ð '".' What that word means is literally 'not-agreement-capable' or "unable to make and then abide by an agreement." Their experience with the not-one-inch-east, ABM, INF, Minsk 1, 2, and Normandy negotiations and compromises has confirmed this repeatedly.
Russia is doing what it's doing because it is convinced--and the evidence makes it hard to refute--that protecting itself from vulnerability to a first-strike attack by the military alliance that's been encircling it for 30 years, and protecting the people of Donbass from these guys, can only be achieved by force:
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