The question is, had he and his cabinet taken the offer, would there have been war at all?
That would been utterly wrong, morally and in every other way, and he didn’t do it.
Of course there would be no war if the victim caves in!
WW2 could have been avoided so easily 
NATO has badly miscalculated what Putin is capable of.
Hardly.
Peter wrote:
Hardly.
Nobody other than the US believed he would invade. That is what I call miscalculation.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Nobody other than the US believed he would invade. That is what I call miscalculation
We don’t know for sure. They might have had other intel but didn’t want to say this openly for fear of provoking panic or even stoking the flames of the conflict.
But one thing is for certain: Europeans have forgotten how to do “power politics” and especially how military forces can play a key role in foreign relations. Some (UK, France) were perhaps less naive than others (Germany) due to a long history of post colonial interventions and lack of war guilt for WWII, but no country in Europe took Putin as serious as they should have by 2014 at the latest.
Nobody other than the US believed he would invade.
Anybody who experienced wars in ex-Yugoslavia saw this war was coming. It was just matter of days… it was literally question of Wednesday or Friday.
I think the true issue is the expansionist dreams of the EU.
Russia used to trade heavily with nations such as Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They saw them as pretty much captive markets for their goods and sources for materials. All of a sudden, these nations are now more reliant on EU trade and don’t really concern themselves with Russia.
Let#s imagine the reverse had happened. Germany had re-unified but instead of being part of the west, became part of the East. Then Netherlands was invited to join. And Denmark. Then Sweden.
How long would the EU have tolerated their captive markets being taken from them? This is why I wondered whether the EU would wake up to the upset caused by their attempted takeover of Ukrainian markets back in 2014.
Nobody other than the US believed he would invade. That is what I call miscalculation.
That’s just nonsense. Stoltenberg mentioned this as well. They had lots of talks with the Russians before the invasion. They knew Russia would attack. Russia new they would attack (obviously). They told the Russians they knew, and tried to get them on better thoughts, but the Russians denied it. That continued up until a day or two before the invasion when the talks stopped. That’s the main reason they went fully open with the intelligence.
Lots of people in the west interpreted that as US propaganda. US because it was from US sources. Probably the only one that had any trustworthy intelligence besides the UK perhaps.
I remember the media here. It was always reported as something like “If the US can be trusted [if this is not pure propaganda], then …”
I think the true issue is the expansionist dreams of the EU.
I think so too. At least it is s big part of it, and could very well be the main part.
Russia used to trade heavily with nations such as Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They saw them as pretty much captive markets for their goods and sources for materials.
Sure, but like most things the USSR did, this was done at gunpoint. CZ (my country originally) was not able to buy from the West because a) it wasn’t allowed and b) it didn’t have the hard currency – which can be obtained only by exporting which, ahem, wasn’t allowed because the USSR set itself up as the principal customer 
All of a sudden, these nations are now more reliant on EU trade and don’t really concern themselves with Russia.
Mostly that’s because most stuff from the Soviet bloc is crap.
Lots of people in the west interpreted that as US propaganda. US because it was from US sources. Probably the only one that had any trustworthy intelligence besides the UK perhaps.
That narrative conveniently fitted the need for cheap Russian gas and the traditional champagne socialist anti-US position There is very little rationale for specifically distrusting US supplied intelligence. The US was clearly releasing highly classified material to get the warning across, but it still largely failed to work.
I think the true issue is the expansionist dreams of the EU.
I am not sure, but obviously the EU wants to expand in general terms. In this case they will get Ukraine, but that’s a done deal because Ukraine needs the money for reconstruction. I would be surprised if the EU specifically wanted Ukraine because that will be a cash sink for a long time, blowing a hole in the EU budget. And there are no rich countries left to absorb. Still, the EU does need some % of poor countries, to prevent the € getting too strong and thus impacting the export performance of the major exporter(s), but again that’s a done deal because most of S. Europe is a consumer of the EU budget. Ukraine will just be another money pit – for a while I imagine that Brussels will be very keen to confiscate and liquidate the oligarch assets, because anything thus obtained will go straight to the bottom line, as an accountant would say…
This is apparently real, and is one of a number of them
https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1605131147691937794
Peter wrote:
This is apparently real, and is one of a number of them
Not sure if that’s a real ad, but it is plausible. Pretty sad and pathetic. But wars were always in history a great time to really “scrape the barrel” and poverty can be a big motivation to sign up to fight in countries like Russia.
LeSving wrote:
Lots of people in the west interpreted that as US propaganda. US because it was from US sources.
That is what I said: Only the US was openly saying for several weeks that Russia would attack. All the others, Europeans at the forefront, denied it.
Steve6443 wrote:
I think the true issue is the expansionist dreams of the EU.
If at all the trigger was the election of Selenski and his openly pro NATO stance. According to NATO rules no country actively involved in a war can join up. Selenski knew darn well that Ukraine had zero chance of NATO Membership yet he behaved as if he had it in the pocket. The question is even if he thought if Russia were to attack that NATO would let him in?
