What Now, Ukraine?

Sarah Palin predicted in 2008 that Putin would invade Ukraine if Obama was elected | The Independent | The Independent  "Long-derided as a soccer mom with a limited grasp of international geopolitical affairs, it turns out the world may have misunderestimated(sic) Sarah Palin.

"Speaking as the Republican vice-presidential nominee in the 2008 US presidential campaign, Palin warned that if Barack Obama was elected.". . .

By Victor Davis Hanson

We are on new ground, in which a nonnuclear Western ally—understandably but dangerously—may now seek to destroy a nuclear Russia’s assets on Russian soil or in neutral or even Russian seas.

"It was supposed to be a clear-cut, unambiguous invasion. Vladimir Putin’s much larger, richer, and more bellicose Russia staged a shock-and-awe attack on a much smaller, poorer Ukraine. He intended to decapitate the government in Kyiv. Then he would annex the eastern half of the country, and quickly consolidate his easy wins in preparation to ratchet up pressure to force western Ukraine into the Russian Federation.

"The rest is history. The Russian military proved ill-equipped and ill-supplied. It was poorly led, with a high percentage of low-morale, conscript troops. Russia had no viable strategic plan to capture, much less hold, the Ukrainian capital. Ukraine was Russia’s version of our Kabul—but tens of thousands of deaths added to the equation.

"Russian strategists naïvely believed NATO would become paralyzed in mutual recriminations and fear and follow the usual German prompt of appeasement. In fact, NATO united precisely because of the dire worries over further Russian aggression, as the alliance pressured Germany to back off from its self-interested Russian romance.

"Sanctions seldom have a good record of quickly stopping a war, and they have not so far in this instance, either.".of for1e, its war crimes against civilians, and pathetic propaganda turned off most of the Western world and it, in turn, boycotted, sanctioned, and embargoed Moscow. These porous and slow-moving efforts nonetheless will eventually make it even more difficult for Russia to muster the economic and military wherewithal to sustain a stalled invasion.". . .