Slightly less so than Russia, and all countries that were under soviet commie rule, are/were corrupt chit holes, some have gone in a better direction over time and doing quite well like Poland. My partner has another biz that is in Ukraine, and has made regular visits there for a decade or so, says Ukrainian's focused and wanting to do legit biz, western style, etc. Good to great work ethics and so forth. His crew also does some work for our side of the biz, top quality work every time. He wants me to join him some day when all this crap is over.Originally Posted by chuckman
Of course, the media psy ops thing to paint Ukraine as the good guys - ignoring the fact they are a corrupt post commie nation of criminals - to garner support is a given, same play book since humans started throwing spears at each other, nothing new to see here. We all know it's never so black and white, as in never. Even the Japanese were cornered into attacking the US by sanctions, etc, but so what? They were terrorizing the entire region and like the Russians, monsters that needed to be contained. That's how the game is played, our system vs their system, and ours is generally better (no apologies made for that, no tolerance for false equivalents, etc) and understandably, they will push back.
It does not change the facts common denominator is a sovereign nation was invaded who was interested in aligning with EU and US, they made their (crude) play to not end up with another nation that's looking to align with the west, we made our play to further contain and isolate the Russians, and we are winning that so far. The Russians, via Putin, are backed into a corner and they know it. Increased chance of all out war? Of course. Worth it? Well, we will only know that in hindsight in the months and years to come.
We are still following cold war doctrine, and I posit the cold war never really ended, and here we are.
We could decide playing world police is no longer in our best interests and end the world wide fight to spread our agenda vs theirs, but make no mistake they will not, nor will China. Globalization has come back to bite us in the a$$, in terms of it really preventing Russia or China from playing nice and not making all efforts to dethrone us as the dominant power, it failed.
What they did was grab the best of both worlds: use it to fund their own aspirations while draining us from the inside out. They have been winning in that aspect of this "war."
If that's acceptable to some here, etc, then they miss the big picture / forest for the trees thing.
Personally, I look at such events from the mile up/historical/geo political POV, and Ukraine is one small puzzle piece/chess move in that. Large scale perspective for those in the back:
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