[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Itse

This is just nonsense. It's obviously the sentiment Putin wants to raise, but just logically this makes absolutely no sense. There is possibly no time in Russian history that it has been less under threat of invasion than it is right now, and certainly no time since WW1.

The western political alliance is all but destroyed. US is alienated from Europe and UK is barely in speaking terms with the rest of Europe, and undergoing a rather massive internal economic crisis due to Brexit. Europe is undergoing an economical crisis and internal divisions in many countries are high. EU's popularity is fairly weak and main point of debate is things like climate change.

United Nations, traditionally a center of American and European political influence on global politics, is so irrelevant people are starting to forget they exist.

Much of the west has shrunk the size of their armies after the Cold War and more importantly refocused them towards ability to operate as parts of international "peacekeeping" operations rather than traditional national conflicts.

The US civilian will to wage war is probably lower than at any point in US history, and that country is so deeply politically divided that large chunks of their political decision making apparatus is effectively paralyzed, while people have been starting to seriously consider the odds of a civil war breaking out.

NATO is a mess after Trump and Brexit, and has recently lost an extremely geopolitically important ally in Turkey. Just in it's general political influence over the Middle East is also probably close to a historic low in the post-world war era. Heck, US political influence is probably at an all time low just in general. Trump era destroyed much of US diplomatic core and embassy system through a combination of ideological cleansing, conflict seeking, rampant nepotism and sheer ignorance.

Germany and Netherlands are extremely dependent on Russian energy imports, which makes them unable to even throw really strong words towards Russia, again making the threat of NATO mostly a non-issue.

There is just absolutely no threat whatsoever towards Russia at the moment or in the near future.

Which is why they are about to conquer a part or all of Ukraine.

The western powers have been given all the time in the world to respond, and most of the response is Biden holding a few press conferences. There's nothing even resembling a unified response, not even in any one country internally, let alone collectively. Putin put forces on the borders probably expecting an extremely weak response, and he's been right so far. He can let his forces take all the time in the world to prepare for what he wants to do, because there is no force building up on the other side. Heck, this assault is basically paid by the western countries with the money flowing towards Russia through the gas pipelines.

The west for the most part can't even agree on the topic of weapons trade with Ukraine. Putin has only been doubling down since this crisis began, with his latest declaration pretty clearly saying that no one west of Russia is safe.

The situation in is a reminder that extremely old school politics of power never went anywhere.

Russia is doing what it's doing because it can. That's all there is to it, there is no need to look for motivation beyond that. It's what major military powers have done throughout history, and will continue to do until the end of time. The rest is just rhetorics.

They see a chance to pick off all or part of Ukraine with the best tool they have for the job, which is their combination of military strength and energy exports. They see a chance to increase their sphere of influence, so they're doing it.

Putin has already clearly said that Finland, Belarus, the Baltics and everyone other small nation west of them should expect more Russian pressure in the future. All of us need to consider what we're going to do when Russia picks it's next target. I hope the EU and US get their #### together before that, but it doesn't look like it's going to happen soon enough to save Ukraine.

Power politics are also not going to go away just because Putin will eventually retire, die (or be killed, which is statistically a very common end to dictators). Great powers are going to do what great powers do, tomorrow and a hundred years from now. The world has been turning away from democracy and diplomacy in the 21st century, and this is just what naturally follows.

I wish we would turn back from this trend. I have a bit of hope that maybe Russia showing it's expansionist and militaristic intentions will snap the western countries out of their infighting. (But if I had money to bet with, I would bet against that.)

(Luckily for me, while Finland is clearly on Putins list of countries to try to bring under his control, we're probably very close to the bottom of that list.)

I hear you. Russia acts unpredictably and recklessly and some could argue Putin has lost his marbles. The response from the west doesn't appear to be firm enough to stop it. Since I want peace asap, I myself would like some overwhelming power to put Putin back into his place or better yet out of his place. For people in neighboring countries it may well look as if Russia does as it please and West is too weak to contain it.

Still this is not the case. Out of 14 former USSR republics (Russia itself being 15th), Putin has only attacked Georgia and Ukraine. He could have easily annex Kyrgyzstan and the west would do nothing for them, but he never did. He only went after two countries where coups toppled his allies and replaced them with some western-oriented guys. Georgia (Rose revolution) and Ukraine (Maidan nezalezhnosti). Why? Because he needs to respond. He needs to retailate to western-backed protesters toppling his allies. He fears the same destiny at home and went very hard after inner opposition when it did look as if USA is trying to set up a kind of rose revolution in Russia. Annexation of Crimea happened immediately after the Ukrainian coup. He didn't annex Crimea just for the hell of it. He felt he had to respond. He needed to show the West, that he's strong and decisive.

The lands he has claimed so far are almost worthless, Crimea naval base notwithstanding. Abhazia is a poor rural place. South Osetia is just an area in the mountains. Donbass is so devastated, it would require billions to be restored. Once it does, it will become just another area in Russia, like Orel, Kursk or Voronezh. We have no shortage of land. Even Crimea, that used to be prime summer holidays place, dare I say USSR's Florida, is not any popular without Iron Curtain. Russians much prefer Turkey and Egypt. Even Sochi is much better than Crimea.

None of Putin's land acquisitions worth it. They are actually net drain on economy, even if there was no sanctions. Those lands were never the goal.

The world never paid attention, but Russians DID freak out at every NATO expansion. The illegal bombings of Kosovo enraged Russians and there were public protests. The point of preventing NATO from expanding to the East was always the topic. It just never made headlines like now.

Russia was attacked by westerners several times. Hitler, Napoleon, Swedes, Germans in WW1, Poland came at us. Beside Mongols and to some extent Turks, the only threat we have ever faced, was from the west.

Much like Cuban missile crises happened because USA had put some missiles around USSR and we felt we had to do something, the same is happening now. Putin feels cornered and desperate yet determined to do something. He's not having fun toying with his troops around. This by no means justifies what he does though.