If we only see a solution that perpetuates suffering, the mind looks blocked, rigid and conditioned.
The persona of authoritarians, like Putin, cannot tolerate differences of view and will take whatever steps necessary to impose that view on others and attack those who disagree. Unresolved tendencies to dominate and control matter more than anything else. Putin comes across as such a persona. Be mindful that the same mindset can govern powerful organisations, no matter how rational they come across.
- Population of Ukraine is 43 million in 2021. Currently population is 39 million due to four million fleeing the homeland.
- Population of Russia is 143 million.
- Russia has the world’s fifth largest army,
- Russia has more than one million active military personnel and two million reserve personnel.
- There are an estimated 320,000 Russian soldiers currently in Ukraine.
- There are 30 member countries in NATO.
- Total Population of NATO is 950 million.
- There are 3.3 million armed personnel in NATO.
Day after day, we read about on the front pages of our newspapers, as well as on our TV and mobile screens, the ongoing death and destruction in Ukraine.
NATO are the good guys. Russia are the bad guys. That is the proclaimed absolute truth of the matter. There is nothing to discuss. Anyone who has doubts about NATO is a Putin sympathiser, a supporter of the Russian army and a supporter of the invasion of Ukraine. Are such views a product of powerful minds to suffocate dissent?
I have seen no public debate on the NATO policy of the past year, and the years leading up to the invasion in the many platforms of the media. The NATO press and the political parties of the member nation states have agreed upon the slow trickle of arms and training to the Ukrainian army knowing full well it will enable the war to drag on and on.
- Can a different approach be taken?
- What would be a radically different approach?
- Can our political representatives, who determine and control primary military initiatives, explore different options at NATO meetings?
Questions arise about this War in Ukraine.
Who is Winning the War?
1. The death and casualty toll increase day by day in Ukraine. Ukrainian cities, towns, villages and its infrastructure gradually get decimated and uninhabitable. We see it on our screens, night after night. Why is NATO and the Ukrainian government claiming NATO and Ukraine can defeat the Russian army? Why is Russia making the claim it can win?
2. Is the Russian army and its Wagner forces slowly grinding its way into Ukraine? (Wagner consists of mercenaries, including professional soldiers hired and former prisoners in Russia).
3. Is Ukraine slowly losing the war?
4. What if the Russian army launched a second front from the north of Ukraine, via Belarus, whose government sides with Russia?
5. What would happen to Ukraine fighting a defensive position in the first front if they had to move divisions to stop a second front heading directly towards Kiev? The Ukrainian capital is only 550 kilometres by road from Belarus. That distance can be covered in a day.
6. Does mathematics decide the winners and losers? Even if Ukraine inflict more deaths and casualties on Russian soldiers, will Russia’s vastly superior numbers eventually triumph?
Is NATO wanting to bring an end to the War?
1. Why doesn’t NATO provide fighter planes, bombers to endsure defeat of the Russian army? Why doesn’t NATO provide all the artillery necessary to defeat the Russian army?
2. Why doesn’t NATO provide thousands of drones to determine the locations, numbers and movements of the Russian army?
3. Does the Ukrainian army need a massive remote weapons system to fight the Russian army?
4. Does the Ukrainian army have the military personnel to learn how to use such NATO weapons and repair them?
5. Why doesn’t NATO provide millions of anti-personal mines around their border to slow down the invasion?
6. UK gave 14 tanks with ammunition to Ukraine? Military analysts say Russia has around 3,300 tanks for potential employment. Other nations have offered modest assistance? Why such dismal support?
7. Despite bravery of Ukrainian soldiers, are their commanders in the field novices in warfare?
8. Is the military and civilian death toll far higher due to lack of experience in battle zones, lack of expertise in strategic military planning, or is it basic incompetence?
9. Why doesn’t NATO provide all the necessary military experts in warfare to support the banishment of the Russian army from Ukraine?
10. Why doesn’t NATO provide all the military logistics to support the war effort, including transport, supply, communications and medical aid for Ukraine to defeat the Russians?
11. IS NATO counting on a long -drawn-out war until the Russian economy collapses and Putin is overthrown – regardless of the deaths, casualties and destruction of Ukraine? How long will that take?
12. Has the Ukrainian government been forced into begging for support with a cap-in-hand mentality?
13. Many Ukrainian soldiers have volunteered with only a few weeks’ training? How can they defeat a massive army with thousands of mercenaries who have fought battles elsewhere?
14. How many men, women and children must endure such terrible suffering for it to stop?
Intention
1. Are NATO and its member states living in denial?
2. Since Putin sends in hundreds of thousands of young Russians who will become casualties of war to expand his power base. Why do Western politicians, military experts imagine he would never order the use of nuclear weapons or a bombing blitzkrieg on Ukraine and even further into Europe if Russia faced defeat?
3. Why does the EU continue to import 25% of gas and oil from Russia?
4. Is NATO/European policy revealing corruption of intent?
5. Will Ukrainian soldiers slowly start losing morale when they see NATO politics and Western governments continue to drip feed support leaving them further vulnerable to heavy losses?
6. How can morale stay high when they do not have the equipment they desperately need?
7. Will they be right to blame the West if the Russian army defeats the Ukrainian army?
The Media, NATO History and International View
- Why is it hard to find critiques of NATO policy towards Ukraine anywhere in our free press?
- Why have journalists, military experts and informed citizens taken sides without question? Why is it difficult to find any repudiation of NATO policy?
- Have we already forgotten NATO and Western governments persuaded the population that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. None were found.
- After 9/11, the USA bombed Afghanistan though not a single Afghan suicide bomber boarded the flights on 9/11. The suicide bombers were from Saudi Arabia set up in remote camps in Afghanistan.
- The USA lost the war on Afghanistan. Taliban were back in power 10 days after the USA fled.
- A Pentagon report on Air Power Summary stated that the US and its allies dropped 337,000 bombs and missiles in the past two decades. US and its allies dropped most of these bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan. Baghdad and Kabul were the most heavily bombed cities.
- What on Earth did the people living in Baghdad have to do with a brutal military regime dominating their lives?
- What on Earth did the people living in Kabul have to do with people from Saudia Arabia and other internationals plotting in a rural camp far away a suicide attack on New York?
- Does the recent history of NATO/US and its allies inspire trust or doubt?
- Why have many countries refused to see NATO as the good guys and Russia as the bad guys?
- Why do influential countries like China, Brazil, India, South Africa and more show little interest in siding with NATO?
- Is it time to exercise our democratic right to stop taking sides?
- Have we, citizens, become obedient to NATO?
- It is time for citizens in NATO countries to ask questions?
- Does NATO/US and its allies need to change as much as Russia?
- Are we heading towards World War 3?
PS. You may wish to leave a brief comment. Feel free to send. You may have similar concerns in one or more areas touched upon above or other areas not mentioned. Do share your concerns with others.
Politicians need to hear our voice. It often starts in whispers.
The voices can grow into a shout for change.
May all beings engage in wise action
May all beings find ways to resolve suffering
May all beings live with wisdom.
Part 2 of 2. See next post. Suffering in the Ukraine. It Can’t Go on Like this. 50 Mutually Supportive Alternatives to War
Big questions CT. I am drawn back to the statement that I often heard in Indonesia. NATO stands for “No Action Talk Only”. NATO is shit scared of Putin’s bluff re Nuclear and China is finding relief because they are not the focus in current world mashings.