How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing. –Neville Chamberlain Sept. 27, 1938
Reportedly, Henry Kissinger suggests Ukraine should trade territory for peace. My reaction:
- Why should we care what Kissinger thinks?
- Our European allies wouldn’t like that idea, which would set a dangerous precedent.
- Would Russia be interested in such a deal?
- How would peace be guaranteed? No deal is good if you don’t know what you get from it.
- How much territory?
- What are the alternatives?
Certainly peace is highly desirable and might well come at a high cost, but I don’t see that Kissinger’s suggestion promotes it.
New NY 23rd 
Kissinger has long been a man with no moral core. He has a long history of foreign policy failures, starting with Vietnam.
Giving Russia land that belongs to the Ukraine would simply be rewarding aggression. can’t happen. Russia must be forced out of all of Ukraine, including Crimea. Then, Russian assets frozen in western banks must be used to rebuild Ukraine. That is the only just ending to this war.
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How can the brave Zelensky allow any of the land the Russians have decimated to be given to them? There can’t be negotiations under these conditions, and Putin would be unreliable at the very least.
Kissinger should have learned not to inject himself into matters where his presence is a detriment.
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Thank you for your comments Joseph and Annie. The war must end; I doubt it will end without compromise. I have concerns about the Administration’s policy of leaving it to Ukraine. Certainly European nations, particularly those bordering Russia, have an interest in the outcome. I favor offering Russia and Ukraine economic incentives and security guarantees, if that would end the fighting.
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Russia invaded a sovereign nation that posed no threat. Russia then followed a scorched earth policy while killing untold numbers of men, women and children. Now some people favor offering Russia economic incentives and security guarantees to end the fighting.
Egad! Some opinions I simply cannot even begin to understand. Is the writer seriously arguing that Russia (Putin) be rewarded for these crimes?
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War is always deadly; charges of atrocities inflame passions. An end to fighting would be in every party’s interest.
I have been reading about the Berlin Conference of 1878. In spite of Russia’s military success against the Ottoman Empire, Russia, exhausted by war, was forced by unified European powers, primarily Britain, Germany, and Austria-Hungary, to agree to a compromise dividing up the Balkans. The Treaty of Berlin certainly had flaws, yet major warfare in the Balkans was averted for thirty years.
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To each his own.
I find a more germane example in Chamberlain’s appeasement of Fascist Nazi Germany.
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Thanks for your comment, Arthur. While there are parallels with 1939, there are also false equivalences. For example, no one, not even Kissinger, suggests giving Ukraine to Russia to buy peace.
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“Reportedly, Henry Kissinger suggests Ukraine should trade territory for peace.”
Others support this idea, which differs from Chamberlain’s only in the size of the appeasement.
“I favor offering Russia and Ukraine economic incentives and security guarantees,”
Others support this idea, which differs from Chamberlain’s only in the type and size of the appeasement offered to Putin.
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“The war must end; I doubt it will end without compromise. I have concerns about the Administration’s policy of leaving it to Ukraine. ”
Let’s be clear. Ukraine is a sovereign nation, with the right to determine its own future under international law. It is no one’s proxy or pawn. Its citizens have earned the right to self-determination with blood and other countries are bound by international law to support whatever decisions they make. If any American Administration were to directly meddle in Ukrainian affairs it would be just as morally corrupt as Russia. (ah, TFG!!!!)
I think that one can infer which direction Ukraine is headed by the type and quantity of arms being provided, and by the countries providing the arms. Should this flow continue, I have not a single doubt that Ukraine will push the invader out.
As an interesting aside, our country has discovered in providing arms to Ukraine that our manufacturing capabilities are not up to the task of providing a sufficient quantity of arms in a timely manner. This has caught the Pentagon’s attention.
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“While there are parallels with 1939…” better believe it!
Austria March 1938 -> Czechoslavakia May 1939 -> Poland October 1939 -> WW II
Chechnya 1999 -> Georgia 2008 -> Crimea 2014 (Thanks Obama!) -> Ukraine 2022 -> ??
Appeasement does not work. As in all bullies (TFG) the only way to stop aggression is to stand and fight.
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