I know there is nothing to make light of in HW's posts, but dude, suggesting he pull a Rambo and infiltrate Russian-occupied territory in an active warzone, travel hundreds of kilometers undetected with no military training whatsoever, and somehow extricate his wife and her elderly family by himself to another country is a wild suggestion. Like, I don't even know if an 80s action movie would have predicated itself on such a preposterous scenario.
Haha, fair enough, I wasn't thinking a Rambo mission at all. Ukraine is a big country with lots of areas not currently occupied. I was wondering if it was possible to get from A to B without encountering Russian troops. I prefaced it with "dumb suggestion" and it appears I was correct in doing so.
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^ Sorry Matata but what corner was Putin backed into? He thought Ukraine was going to invade Russia or something?
At this point even if Ukraine conceded right now, the net cost of this to Russia is so huge, it will probably take a decade or more for them to recover. The economic destruction from this will linger in Russia for a long time after peace is resolved. Its not like Ukraine is an economic superpower that can offset the harm that Russia's economic implosion will do.
Putin was watching what he considered his chief rival, the US, use it's influence to push for more and more military on Russia's doorstep for decades (a bit like the cuban missile crisis, but with the US as the instigator). Eventually a guy like Putin was going to respond and he's doing it in the worst way possible because he's surrounded himself by sycophants and he's taking on the most capable military intelligence in human history, who are on track to get everything they want from this conflict: public approval, military influence over Ukraine, Russia humiliated and devastated.
The US+NATO instigating Russia into war seems like the simplest and most rational explanation for this conflict.
#### Russia for going through with it, but equally #### the US for decades of agitation knowing full well what they were pushing for. Given the US military's rich history of instigating conflicts and then lying their asses off about it, I can't help but think this was their intended outcome: push Putin into a corner; smash and humiliate him once he finally calls the dogs of war; bring Ukraine under the NATO umbrella. All with full approval from the world community because everyone has goldfish memories when it comes to US military aggression.
Someone's been reading too many Freedom Convoy forums....
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Putin was watching what he considered his chief rival, the US, use it's influence to push for more and more military on Russia's doorstep for decades (a bit like the cuban missile crisis, but with the US as the instigator). Eventually a guy like Putin was going to respond and he's doing it in the worst way possible because he's surrounded himself by sycophants and he's taking on the most capable military intelligence in human history, who are on track to get everything they want from this conflict: public approval, military influence over Ukraine, Russia humiliated and devastated.
He had already taken over Crimea, supported conflicts in Donesk and other areas in Ukraine, started conflicts with Georgia, put down unrest in Belarus and Kazakhstan. He been acting out for years.
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Putin was watching what he considered his chief rival, the US, use it's influence to push for more and more military on Russia's doorstep for decades (a bit like the cuban missile crisis, but with the US as the instigator). Eventually a guy like Putin was going to respond and he's doing it in the worst way possible because he's surrounded himself by sycophants and he's taking on the most capable military intelligence in human history, who are on track to get everything they want from this conflict: public approval, military influence over Ukraine, Russia humiliated and devastated.
I don't get this idea. The US was instigating this for decades? I mean what did Russian think was going to happen? A massive US collation invasion of Russia? That would NEVER happen. If anything, those buffer countries were/are seeking protection from an OBVIOUS threat in the Russians. Russia has proven and continues to prove that they are bullies at the least or imperialistic in the worst way at the most.
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It's certainly arguable, and in fact someone posted a twitter thread with a bunch of people making the case, that the USA's initiative in expanding NATO to include the Baltic states in the late 90's meant that a conflict of this type was inevitable. Of course the counterpoint to that is that the alternative is that if you have to leave a bunch of countries in the same position as Belarus to keep the bear asleep, thereby abandoning those populaces to poverty and authoritarianism, that's an intolerable situation.
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If I am Ukraine (or Latvia/Estonia/Lithuania) and have watched how Russia deals with other former/current Soviet/Russian Republics, I would be a little more inclined to seek security from NATO.
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I feel Putin is using NATO expansion as a convenience to create an imaginary foreign threat and scapegoat, similar to Cuban rhetoric of the trade embargo. The way Putin talks and the propaganda he puts out, he wants Russians to believe some sort of NATO attack on Russia is a real threat when of course it is not. One of my favorite ww2 movies is a brilliant Russian propaganda piece named "White Tiger". It's message is the threat of fascist invasion will always exist and must be prepared for. It's actually free on YouTube:
He had already taken over Crimea, supported conflicts in Donesk and other areas in Ukraine, started conflicts with Georgia, put down unrest in Belarus and Kazakhstan. He been acting out for years.
The US, through NATO had been pushing for more influence in the region for decades prior.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Otto
I don't get this idea. The US was instigating this for decades? I mean what did Russian think was going to happen? A massive US collation invasion of Russia? That would NEVER happen. If anything, those buffer countries were/are seeking protection from an OBVIOUS threat in the Russians. Russia has proven and continues to prove that they are bullies at the least or imperialistic in the worst way at the most.
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Tell that to US military intelligence, they've been very keen to set up shop on Russia's doorstep. To paraphrase Sun Tzu: "Victory in war is not to fight and defeat your enemies, it is to make your position so insurmountable that none dare to challenge you."
There just seems to be this narrative going around among some people that there is a line Putin could cross in Ukraine that would involve Biden sending in the Marines and the rest of the world coming with them. Like, if this war killed enough civilians, the rest of the world would say "look, that's quite enough of that" and deploy their own militaries to put an end to it. And that is something that people need to disabuse themselves of. Even if the Russian military literally started setting innocent civilians on fire with gasoline each hour in the town square of every major city to try to get the Ukrainians to surrender, or started firing nerve gas into apartment buildings, or a hundred other horrific things they could theoretically do, there still likely wouldn't be a military answer from the West. That's a reality everyone needs to come to terms with if they haven't already.
If Russia were to nuke Kyiv, would that provoke a military response from Nato? What's the difference if they create the same results with conventional weapons?
I think it's time to start creating our own red lines and let Putin be the one to think very carefully if he wants to cross them.
I think that you have to look at the fact that Russia is never going to trust other countries not to invade them again.
So we can sit here and say NATO is never going to invade or subvert countries around Russia to do harm for them, but Russia likely won't believe it. They do take their national security fairly serious and apply it institutionally and apply the worst case scenario, that NATO is building launching points, putting missiles close to their border and all of that stuff.
In the words of a long dead Russian General from the Cold War. Defense is moral, offense is not. However and who knows if Putin is at all rational, he would view the invasion of Ukraine as a moral decision to secure his borders from an aggressive NATO push.
I'm not saying its right, or rational at all.
But when we talk about historical manners. For example Israel and the holocast and how it effects their mind set. The same needs to be said for Russia and their mind set. The Napoleanic and German Invasions were devastating.
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It's certainly arguable, and in fact someone posted a twitter thread with a bunch of people making the case, that the USA's initiative in expanding NATO to include the Baltic states in the late 90's meant that a conflict of this type was inevitable. Of course the counterpoint to that is that the alternative is that if you have to leave a bunch of countries in the same position as Belarus to keep the bear asleep, thereby abandoning those populaces to poverty and authoritarianism, that's an intolerable situation.
It definitely seems like what they’re saying is that the only way to avoid this was to just accept Ukraine being a Russian puppet state against their will if that’s what keeps Russia happy.
Russia wants to invade because they’re threatened by Ukraine joining NATO. Ukraine wants to join NATO because they’re threatened by Russian invasion. Seems like a pretty crappy situation for Ukraine. Would Russia also feel just as threatened if NATO was off the table, but joining the EU was possible? What about just the EEC? Democracy and some trade deals?
Putin was watching what he considered his chief rival, the US, use it's influence to push for more and more military on Russia's doorstep for decades (a bit like the cuban missile crisis, but with the US as the instigator). Eventually a guy like Putin was going to respond and he's doing it in the worst way possible because he's surrounded himself by sycophants and he's taking on the most capable military intelligence in human history, who are on track to get everything they want from this conflict: public approval, military influence over Ukraine, Russia humiliated and devastated.
I love the way idiots bring up the Cuban Missile Crisis without ever thinking about or mentioning that the US allowed Cuba, a wholly and avowedly USSR client state that supported enthusiastically and attempted to further Soviet expansion in South and Central America including sending troops into Nicaragua, Venezuela, Granada and Chile, at any time in the last 60 years the US could have easily invaded Cuba and overthrown Castro but they didnt.
If the US can live with a pain the the arse Marxist Russian client state 60 miles from Miami for my whole lifetime its not unreasonable to expect Russia to do the same
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The only existential threats to Russia are that Ukraine has embraced Western values and the large natural gas deposits discovered in the Black Sea that would challenge Russia's ability to extort Germany by threatening to turn off the taps at least once per year.
All this stuff about NATO actually posing a military threat is Russian propaganda. NATO was not going to start a nuclear war with Russia.
It would be a lot less violent if Russia could just address the reasons why almost every post-Soviet country wants to join NATO, especially a country like Ukraine with such a long shared history and cultural similarity with Russia. Until they address why they can't win the hearts and minds of their neighbours, yet NATO can, the existential threat will always exist.
The notion of a NATO existential threat is no different that the McCarthyism in America during the 1960s and 1970s, as if Vietnam becoming communist was an existential threat to America, when in reality it was inconsequential. The existential threat to America was the ideology that led to war.
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The US+NATO instigating Russia into war seems like the simplest and most rational explanation for this conflict.
#### Russia for going through with it, but equally #### the US for decades of agitation knowing full well what they were pushing for. Given the US military's rich history of instigating conflicts and then lying their asses off about it, I can't help but think this was their intended outcome: push Putin into a corner; smash and humiliate him once he finally calls the dogs of war; bring Ukraine under the NATO umbrella. All with full approval from the world community because everyone has goldfish memories when it comes to US military aggression.
There were some rather persuasive videos earlier in this thread that suggested the basis for the war was oil and gas discoveries in the Ukraine that threatened Russian exports to Europe. Additionally, the Ukrainian government stopping water flow to Crimea hampering the ability to extract oil and gas. At some point, money is always a precursor for war.
I'm no expert but that seems like the most plausible explanation to date.
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There were some rather persuasive videos earlier in this thread that suggested the basis for the war was oil and gas discoveries in the Ukraine that threatened Russian exports to Europe. Additionally, the Ukrainian government stopping water flow to Crimea hampering the ability to extract oil and gas. At some point, money is always a precursor for war.
I'm no expert but that seems like the most plausible explanation to date.
It's all about money. All decisions that all countries are making right now is about money. Russia attacks Ukraine over money. Countries with less monetary ties to Russia are squawking louder. Again, the US had not stopped Russian oil and only just banned Russia from its airspace last night. Pressure is on.
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