World War III has officially begun, Ukraine’s ex-top general says
World War III has officially begun, Ukraine’s ex-top general says
"Because in 2024, Ukraine is no longer facing Russia. Soldiers from North Korea are standing in front of Ukraine. Let's be honest. Already in Ukraine, the Iranian 'Shahedis' are killing civilians absolutely openly, without any shame," said Zaluzhny, adding that North Korean and Chinese weapons are flying into Ukraine. Zaluzhny urged Ukraine's allies to draw the right conclusions. "It is still possible to stop it here, on the territory of Ukraine. But for some reason our partners do not want to understand this. It is obvious that Ukraine already has too many enemies. Ukraine will survive with technology, but it is not clear whether it can win this battle alone," he said.
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He's making fun of you by saying the whole world should have given up to Germany in WW2, like you suggest Ukraine give up to the brutal rapisit invaders.
He is making fun of a conflict where people he couldn’t care less for are dying. Yeah real funny!
No, just making fun of you.
To constitute a joke, there must be a clear punchline. What he said, however, lacked coherence, and I sought clarification, which he ultimately failed to provide.
It's coherent to everyone else.
It is clear that ending World War II earlier would have saved millions of lives.
Doing something analogous to what you're saying should happen could have prolonged the Second World War by years. Doing the opposite of what you're suggesting but much sooner could have shortened the Second World War by years. Germany could only afford to get anything done because it was able to loot the countries it invaded during the appeasement era, and only able to manufacture military equipment at the scale necessary to invade France etc. because it was permitted to scale up manufacturing during the appeasement era. It's nearly universally accepted that the appeasement era cost far more lives than would have been lost had France and Britain intervened during the initial invasion of Czechoslovakia as it could have been enough to entirely prevent the later invasions of Poland and France.
There are two factors at play here. I am baffled when I hear that seeking peace by the Allies is considered a negative, while bombing Axis cities is viewed as a positive. If we are to discuss the specific circumstances required for peace, it is undoubtedly a far more complex conversation. During World War II, we were faced with the threat of the Aryan race attempting to dominate Europe and the Japanese Empire's sweeping control over vast portions of East Asia, including most of China's eastern coastal areas, Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, and parts of Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and many Pacific islands. Under those conditions, peaceful resolution was never a feasible option, particularly when considering the cost to their citizens. Peace may not have been achievable during that time, but in the present day, the lack of communication and de-escalation strategies from the current American administration has, in my view, contributed to the avoidance of peace rather than its pursuit.
What you don't seem to understand is Putin doesn't negotiate in good faith anyway, it has been proven over and over the Russian Government will lie, cheat, steal, whatever to get what they want. Appeasing dictators does not work and only strengthens them for their inevitable march on to attempt to gain more power/land/money.
The United States does not always negotiate in good faith either, and in this case, we are not holding the moral high ground. Dictatorships are ultimately the responsibility of the people within those nations to address and resolve, not external powers.
The current administration should have prioritized diplomatic efforts for peace rather than immediately resorting to military support escalating the conflict.
If you find that funny I seriously question your sense of humour
Does it appear that I find the loss of life in war humorous? Have you carefully considered my comments on this issue? Your response seems to reflect a bad faith interpretation of my position. It seems that your focus is more on justifying the conflict than on the individuals who are directly affected by it in Ukraine. For many, the reality is that we would struggle to endure even two weeks without basic necessities like running water. How long do you think it would take for your perspective on this war to change? Would it take a certain number of casualties, or perhaps another 1,000 days of conflict?
I obviously wasn't making a joke. I was comparing the situation from 1940 with today. Would you also have said the Allies should just make peace at any cost or did they do the right thing to prevent even more suffering?
Get a grip on reality, you can't give dictators and aggressors an inch. It would be just an invitation for them.
Had the Allies pursued peace earlier, countless lives could have been spared, and many cities would not have needed to be rebuilt. Additionally, Japan would not have experienced the devastation of atomic bombings. If you believe that prolonging a conflict is preferable to achieving peace, I believe a sobering reflection on the consequences of war is necessary.
Yeah, you're just stupid. Goodbye
That is how I feel in response to our conversation. Goodbye.
Yes, letting the regime that was throwing all the "undesirables" into an industrial death factories, in the land they already had, to take even more land, to control all of those "undesirables" would have been better. Sure, the loss of life would have been less, if you feel like the nazis did about the people being slaughtered in the holocaust.
Just allowing Japan to take China, and everything around them, sure would have stopped them from massacring all the people they were killing there too.
Appeasing dictators is fundamentally different from pursuing de-escalation and cooperation. In the 1940s, after the war had begun, there was no realistic path for the Allies to achieve diplomatic success with Germany or Japan. The nature of their aggressive expansionism and ideology made meaningful negotiation impossible, leaving military conflict as the only viable response.
Are you really trying to draw a comparison to today's situation? The context is entirely different—we are more informed and connected than ever before. Avoiding paths to peace and solely pursuing escalation under the premise that "Putin is bad" is a fundamentally flawed approach. First, we do not choose Russia's leadership. Second, if Putin is the leader the Russian people have chosen, who are we to dictate otherwise?
Lets say in a perfect world in 1940's US and Japan had open diplomacy, it’s possible a deal could have been reached to prevent such atrocities. The beauty of diplomacy lies in its ability to minimize human loss while fostering cooperation and peace.
There is a very fine line between cooperation and appeasement, especially in the eyes of someone who has the mindset of a dictator. It could be argued that most dictators do not understand the difference. It is a lot like working with a narcissist. Any concession, is simply seen as proof they can go take more.
Yes, it was impossible to deter the axis forces from expansion. They had been discussing the desire to control their respective spheres of influence for years, they made diplomacy a no go. Even questions about walking back some of the Treatise of Versailles fell on deaf ears. Most experts also agree that even had they scrapped it, the fascists would have turned to another grievance, to justify their ideology, as a core aspect of fascism is a grievance, towards an outsider, they can claim victim hood to. Ultimately, they promised way too much, and without the war machine, and the looting of their neighbors, they couldn't stop the populace from, fairly rapidly, turning against them, because all the money being spent to bolster their huge employment boom, would just reignite the inflation, something that would be a death blow to any regime replacing the Wiemar. Are these the same things as today? No, but there are echoes of the fascist rise of last century, today. Also, I was commenting directly to your statements about working with the Nazis, to a comment about conceding France.
The idea this is because "Putin is bad" misses the point that "Putin is invading other countries, and annexing their land". This war didn't start because Putin was at home, doing awful things to his own country, and being a terrible dictator there. It started because he decided to start annexing other country's land, and forcing himself on people who didn't elect him. He did a little here, a little there, saw no real response from the west, and decided that the annexation of those countries was a concession the west was willing to make, to avoid war with them. He full tilt invaded Ukraine, found out otherwise. The west was willing to make concessions on the basis of going "Ok sure, Crimea has a large Russian population, and a separatist movement, it isn't worth a war with Russia over that piece of land". The west was not fine with conceding all of a large country that borders the Schengen. Why didn't Putin just take his diplomatically achieved concession, where he got the ethnically Russian part of Ukraine, and with it, open access to the Black Sea? Why did he not consider that annexing part of Ukraine would, of course, heat up public desire to join treaties like the EU, and NATO? He could have just been fine with the ethnically Russian part, Black Sea access, and Ukraine still not in NATO, because of that annexation, but he didn't. He wanted all of Ukraine from the start.
The people wanting to just not fight Putin seem to be under the assumption that expansionism, and reclamation, of their previous empire, isn't the goal here. They seem to ignore the fact that Ukraine joining NATO wasn't really popular, and their entry to the EU had a luke warm reception, until Russia gave them reasons to want to do these things. Putin has been discussing reclaiming the lost countries of the USSR since before he was the president. He dipped his toes into it a couple times, and saw that the west was fine to concede territory to him, in order to avoid war. So, more than a year before the escalation of western intelligence operations started in Ukraine, and around 5/6 years before Putin escalated in Ukraine, Putin had started really ramping up anti-Ukraine propaganda everywhere. Their puppet leader had failed after Ukrainians revolted, expelled his puppet, and elected a Jewish man in a landslide. The west was now training Ukraine to protect themselves, and offering some access to their intelligence. Putin had hit a wall with the west just allowing them to continue annexing places. At least ones that bordered the Schengen economic zone.
Seeing this the propaganda machine shifted to leaning on racist sentiment against Slavs/Ukraine and infantilized them, saying over a million people revolting, to his puppet, was just them being too stupid to realize they were controlled by the CIA. Also, after electing a Jewish man in a landslide, Putin decided to go with the story that Ukrainians are nazis, so their invasion was justified. This is the fault of Putin's desire to expand, he is at fault here. He can stop any time. He chooses not to. He has been getting foreign weapons this whole time, just like Ukraine, but now he is getting foreign boots on the ground. He is escalating again. This is why the Ukrainians were given permission to use longer ranged arms on Russian territory. When does it become Russia's responsibility to stop escalating? Do you really think you have the right to tell other countries to concede their sovereignty? They elected a leader who fights back, if they wanted a leader who fights back, who are we to dictate otherwise?