I'm sure you are right that NATO did not want this war. But now that Russia started it, NATO has a strategic interest to keep it going to wear down Russia's army and ensure it isn't a threat anymore.
Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion
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Completely disagree. Nobody wanted war but this is the best situation NATO could have hoped for (and by NATO particularly the US).
Russia hasn’t even attacked NATO and yet is getting crippled beyond anything we’ve ever seen before, NATO hasn’t deployed a single soldier to the frontline but is essentially getting a ringside seat to assess Russian military and test a load of its tech in real world scenario. Take away the emotion because we’re normal people and look at it high level - NATO is getting a free hit on the country it was created to defend against.
Ukraine is paying the heaviest of prices but I think it would be naive to not understand how NATO is going to benefit from a severely weakened Russia for decades to come.
That's not how it works. If that was the reasoning of NATO, they'd do all this in 2014 and get rid of Russia after they invaded Crimea. Or at least they'd stop depending on Russia's gas. The bullshit about NATO has to stop. Russia attacked a country without any reason. People in the West want to help them, NATO or not NATO. It's quite simple actually. What is NATO after all? It is Germany, England, USA, Greece, France... There isn't a "NATO country", it is free individual countries that make decisions. All the western countries want to help Ukraine because nothing like this has happened in Europe since Hitler.
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There’s a difference between NATO not wanting it before it started and now that it has, wanting Putin gone. They were clearly amenable to dealing with Putin if he was an honest broker prior to the war. Now that he has proven himself to being an unhinged, totalitarian fascist, no one spare one or two desperados like Macron or Orban, wants a psychotic Hitler cosplayer like Putin around anymore, because they know he can’t be reasoned with. This is the slow motion end of Vladimir Putin’s reign and everyone who knows it aren’t going to do anything to stop it.
Bullshit. The best that any NATO country would have hoped for, is to have peace and prosperity and the Stock Market to go up. That's how politicians get elected in the West. If you think that Biden wanted this you don't know what you are talking about! Biden was forced to do something, but he'd prefer to just forget Afghanistan and have no more wars during his presidency.
In retrospect it was a huge mistake. But Europe always believed that Russia after the Soviets will became a good economic partner and that Europe and Russia can help each other build a better future. Nobody expected a war. That's why after 1990, Germany was spending less and less on their military.
Putin reversed all that now, but 12 months ago nobody in the west believed that he is that crazy.
Kasparov wrote a book in 2015 called "Winter is coming" and he was actually predicting what Putin will do. I started reading this book a couple of years ago, but I did not finish it because I thought he was exaggerating, he was too pessimistic, and nothing will happen. Well, I was wrong, Kasparov was right. But I guess many European politicians also got it completely wrong. We have all been too optimistic.
Someone once said that the reason Russia went so rogue after 91 was that the west wasn't serious enough about investing and encouraging democracy there, perhaps we could say that enough attention wasn't paid, or enough simply wasn't done. Whilst what Germany has done with Nordstream and more could be construed as a massive strategic error, let's not lose sight of the fact that a friendly Russia would be more welcome than an unfriendly Russia, as we are now finding out. That Germany tried to deepen economic relations, in the main for it's own benefit, granted, could however also be viewed as an attempt to make good on the post 91 inertia. That paranoid madvlad has in the meantime lost it completely and ensured his place alongside Hitler in the history books I don't think anyone, least of all Germany, could have foreseen.
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Quite agree. Remember, NATO is a defensive alliance. A friendly, democratic Russia is worth more to the West than a destroyed Russia.
I'm genuinely amazed that people think this war is in the best interests of the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy and every other NATO country...
The guy smiles a lot. He seems almost happy. Like, he's doing what he loves sort of happy. Which is bizarre considering what it is he's doing.
I struggle to get in the mind of guys like him. My best guess is that after spending big parts of their life on the battlefield, their mentality and mindset must be irreversibly altered. Civilian life must feel downright boring for them. Everyone else tries to flee the war and they are happy to wade in it. A form of madness, if you will.
Because the west was completely de-attached from the reality, Poland/Baltic states were constantly labeled as panic stations and valid observations were constantly dismissed as nothing more than war mongering. Putin was always a total evil if only people have bothered to look closer.
Yes. Most western countries and NATO as a whole was probably too timid, too pacifist, too focused on economy. All that is good actually, and that's the world I'd prefer to live in.
However, these good qualities actually encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine because he believed that NATO will do nothing. I hate Reagan, but if the US had someone like Reagan as President and if he said that an invasion of Ukraine will bring direct military response from the US, Putin would not dare do anything and we'd still have peace and thousands of people would still have their lives intact. Unfortunately, sometimes you need hawks to have peace...
Let's not forget the effect that 9/11 had. Counter-terrorism became the lead security concern for at least the 10 years following, and also helped drive the invasion of Iraq, which was a blunder to say the least.
I agree that there can be some deterrence value to hawkishness, the main issue with hawks is often that they are hawks about both important and unimportant matters. I'm thinking about how guys like Rumsfeld and Cheney thought that invading Iraq would "show our power" to other nations, while instead it just reveals foolishness.
Bush was a criminal and the war in Iraq was definitely a blunder. But back then, some people believed that the US will bring Democracy to the Middle East. Sure, that was stupid, and we don't know what the decision makers believed probably they were not that naive, but at least some people had good intentions. And definitely the US never had any plans to annex Iraq, it was always a temporary thing. Still, it gives an excuse to other countries to stage invasions without good reasons, and this is the lasting legacy of Bush jr.
I agree, but just what I meant mostly was that the US' strategic focus was shifted from Europe in the meantime, and many bilateral relationships were handled mainly on the basis of what the other country could provide to counter-terrorism/power projection in the Middle East. Russia at times as well.
Sorry, but believing that Putin would not then have invaded Ukraine is to play a gigantic game of nuclear bluff that the world cannot afford, because if your belief had proved unfounded you'd then be in a situation in which the US President would not be able to back down from their threat and would then be sending American troops into direct combat with Russians ... and we all know where that leads.
It's not the way that any responsible U.S President would or should behave,
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Indeed, red lines need to be drawn years in advance and they need to make sense and have support from your own population (in a democratic country), that way the adversary can perceive it as credible. In Europe, for the US, that red line is any NATO nation. Even as NATO brought in countries as far east as the Baltic states that red line has remained credible which is quite an accomplishment. Drawing red lines on the fly is both destabilizing and can potential lead to loss of credibility.
The GF is up in China on a contract build for Novatek/Total for the Artic LNG2 project.They weren't too timid or pacifist, they were (and are) too corrupt. A kleptocracy full of oligarchs who want to wash their dirty money through your bank's and businesses, want to fund your loony political campaigns, want to invite you to parties on their superyachts and in their mansions? Yes please, step right up. We'll take all of them, Russian, Saudi, Bahraini, come one come all.
There was universal agreement between Washington elites that the USA would not fight Russia over Ukraine. That consensus emerged in the 90s well before 9/11, never changed and included even the most die-hard hawks. That was also public knowledge. The issue with drawing these “red lines” and giving security guarantees is, that they come with costs. The reason why US security guarantees to Europe/Nato are credible is, because there are over 40.000 US troops in Germany and Italy. Same goes for Japan and SK, where the USA has stationed over 80.000 troops. Security guarantees are about more than just the number of troops, but they can’t be just words. We saw under Obama what happened when you draw red lines that you can’t and don’t want to back up.
We know that Russia always had major interests in Ukraine and the US could have never deterred Russia with empty gestures. Only a permanent major US presence in the country (at the very least similar to their presence in SK) would have made any security guarantees credible. Not doing that has nothing to do with pacifism. It would have been an insane policy against any self-interest of the USA and nobody would have been able to predict all the potentially negative side-effects.
Yes, it's corruption (in parts) and especially opportunism. It was idiotic from Germany to become so reliant on Russian gas but it was probably the cheapest solution and politicians - especially in democracies with short legislatory periods - will always fancy the short term over the long term, unfortunately.
Agreed about German gas, you can make arguments for and against for that particular line of business. But the general, not just acceptance, but more red carpet rollout for Russian investment in Europe, despite the well documented cost to the west of Russian money subverting our democracies, well that blind eye we've been turning for decades.
And we've particularly turned it in Britain and the US because kleptocracy aligns pretty well with the interests of our political and ruling classes. Until it turns out it's the "bad kind of kleptocracy" and we were never really friends anyway. Putin is basically the Epstein to the west's Prince Andrew.
But it wasn't just the Presidents and the Prime Ministers. It was the average citizens too. Nobody wanted to challenge Russia, or build defences against Russia. The average German citizen did not want his country to spend on the military. And the average German citizen did not worry about Putin. For many people that stance was because they are pacifists, not because they are corrupt.
True, but those same people definitely were not for Nordstream 2 either. One thing is the pacifistic aspect, the other one is the reliance on Russian resources and red carpets for oligarchs etc.
Exactly this. If you think the West didnt see this coming then you are wrong. Loads of people have been warning the West for decades about Russia. Putin already literally already invaded Ukraine in 2008. Everyone in Ukraine is not exactly surprised and they have been preparing for this for years so why are we? Its the same with China. Loads of people warning about China. And the evidence is already there - Genocide of the Uyghurs, Hong Kong, Tibet etc. So you have to ask yourselves why we let them do it and why we let them build stronger an stronger. Answer - because the elite are making a sht load of cash from it.
Oh, come on. If Putin demands Poland and East Germany "or else...", are you going to hand them to him? Of course not. There are always red lines. Nobody wants a nuclear war, not even a crazy dictator like Putin. Putin always calculated what the West will (not) do. He calculated correctly in Georgia and Crimea. He miscalculated now. If he knew that USAF will definitely bomb any Russians invading Ukraine, he would never dare to invade it. He decided to invade Ukraine only after he saw that USA left Afghanistan in such a messy way that it signalled "we don't want any wars, we want peace".
In addition to this keep in mind, that the USA have quite a lot of military bases in Germany and use that very actively for operations especially in the middle east (Ramstein being the most important base).
USA are seen as the aggressive super power and therefore are met with a lot of skepticisim, Russia appeared to be the natural counter weight to the imperialistic US. This image was never fully true for both sides, but the American aggressiveness simply was much more present in the German public.
I dont think there will be anywhere safe
whats the betting...
Polonium
Novichok
Going North Korea style with VX
Or going old school and sticking a pick axe in his head
The average citizen doesn't think it's a problem because the public memory of the 2nd world war and the Iron Curtain had more or less faded, and because the media doesn't make a fuss about it. The media don't make a fuss about it because they're friends with the politicians. Both of those parties don't make a fuss because they're often benefitting directly and/or indirectly from Russian money and influence.
Even the Independent newspaper in England (a long way from the most poodletastic, corrupt journalistic shitheaps in this country) is owned by the son of a Russian oligarch whose dad used to run the FSB. Not only that, they made this Russian owner both a British citizen and a Lord with potential access to privileged and classified information! It should be indefensible but here we are, who's going to make a fuss about it?
Accidental fall from balcony apartment
He invaded Georgia in 08, not Ukraine.
Certainly doesn't help when Twitter reveals his whereabouts like asif a Man's life is some kinda game for sticking up what he believes in, I sure hope Putin is stuck on the Twitter verify he's not a robot page.
Good for him.