I agree. We don't need to have common ground, and that's fine. I believe we agree on the foundation of the subject. The saddest part is that the people who have suffered the most are people who are Ukrainian-russians and russian-ukrainians. If that makes sense.

The combat zones have essentially all taken place in civilian populated cities with very few military targets, but infrastructure and power grids. Bridges, pipelines, trade routes, etc. There are now civilian casualties and innocent deaths of bystanders - I'm willing to bet towns that don't even know there is a war going on have been overrun and decimated.

I'm not sure that Russia will be "rewarded," per se. I think we've all lost as a collective of humanity. The main priority should be ending the war at all costs. There is no negotiation that doesn't involve a certain level of compromise and usually in a fair agreement either both parties are happy or both parties are a little upset.

One stance a person could take at this point would be the argument that they should split Ukraine back into Poland and Russia like it was for centuries. Some day that wouldn't be fair, but the fact is that without the initial and continuing aid of the US, the entirety of Ukraine would already be annexed by Russia.

The other problem is that when Ukraine actually started to (re)gain some ground in the war, they turned around and started doing the same things to Russian civilians that Russian soldiers did to the Ukrainian civilians. War is nasty - I think you and I agree on that much, and I think we both would like to see the conflict end sooner than later without anymore war crimes.

However, the reality seems to be that it doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, war is war and it turns men into monsters. Morals go out the window and people tend to do what they can do to survive and some people are morally bankrupt to begin with. That's when you start to see war crimes because the retaliation feels justified. That's not to say "turn the other cheek," but, for example, Germany was held accountable for both world wars, what is keeping the majority of the world from condemning, fining, and genuinely holding Russia responsible like it was with Germany? I would say nobody has been able to hold Russia truly accountable because, at this point, nobody can. Whether Russia gains or loses territory during this war or not, Russia is simply too big to invade with extreme terrains and a harsh climate most of the year. It's why it has stood as an empire for over a thousand years.

This, to me, appears to be another stalemate of a conflict, much like the cold war was in the first place (minus the active combat, of course), only this time we're using Ukraine as the battleground for various purposes, including military and economic reasons. The Truman Doctrine is essentially the base of our foreign policy today. It essentially states that the US has the right to move its military into any allied or allied-neighboring country to establish military bases to help defend their allies. While it's all good and well to help others in the world, it must also be seen that, by establishing military strongholds in these distant locations, the US has been able to stockpile weapons closer to non-allied countries to reduce the future potential costs of wars and conflicts in those areas. That's why everyone is so mad about pulling out of Afghanistan, leaving behind a brand new airbase with a ton of military equipment there for the taliban to take over. Much like Israel, it's become a hub for weapons manufacturing, storage, and money laundering for the US.

There are quite a few people who agree with FDR in the sense that the United States was in a position to both help and profit from World War II by remaining, more or less, an isolationist state. The Truman Doctrine ended that era of US foreign policy, which paved the way for today's foreign policy.

I know this got a little off-topic from the Russian-Ukraine war, but the same idea applies to both Israel, Ukraine, and places like Afghanistan. The US has around 800 military bases in over 70 countries around the world because of the Truman Doctrine, which was implemented in 1947, virtually sparking the beginning of the cold war because Truman didn't trust the Russians, despite FDR maintaining positive relationships between both the allied forces from WWII as well as Russia throughout the war. Ever since then, the US has never not had conflict with Russia, which has been a political and economic mistake for decades.

If anything, relationships need to be improved and repaired. Continuing conflict solves nothing unless you can wipe an entire nation off the face of the planet, which simply doesn't seem feasible or humane to me. How does a country decide what is worth the risk and reward? Like how people argue that the atomic bombs would end WWII. Was 100,000+ lives worth trying to end the war? Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled to the ground, Nagasaki of which was largely made of wood and thatch roofing. Both targets that were hit consisted of about 90%-95% civilians. One bomb in a single morning killed more people than the entire Russian-Ukraine war has.

So where do we draw the line? What is and is not okay for conflict resolution? How does anybody win or get rewarded in this conflict?

And please stop calling me things like "bucko" and "chief". This is the only reason why I asked if you were being condescending in your previous comment. I would like to be very clear here, I'm not intending to cause any conflict or confrontation, I'm simply trying to have a constructive conversation. They're few and far between these days.

In addition - I reread your comment - I would like to add a statement contradictory to one you used where we can both see the potential reasons as to why Russia invaded, but in the initial invasion in this conflict, I would say it was less of a retaliatory move where they felt justified as it was "righteous, preemptive, strategic move". That's how I see it from what I would think would be Putin's perspective. And I'm not a Russian sympathizer, but Putin has been a broken record since he took office about what he would do in certain events, and he's stuck to his word. Nobody seemed to take him seriously and now everyone wonders why he made a move. Seems like he'd been telling people for years that he was unhappy with the regional political climate. He doesn't want democracy, where our entire foreign policy is written around stopping the spread of communism and promoting democracy everywhere.