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Europe under extreme duress
- Thread starter Randy Daytona
- Start date
Is that for real?
Road Runner is just out of frame.
People yawn off daily comments like this, but this is extremely insulting. Also, never knew I deployed to Fort Al Assad. 😗
x.com
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Edit: The Ivermectin ad is <chef's kiss>
The guy is not our friend. I don't know how that is so hard for some people to see. He's also nobody's friend other than his own, so at least he is fair I guess.
Is that for real?
Apparently it is for reals, and does match pictures of the ass end of an Iranian missile.
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Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
(moving to this thread to keep the other one on topic of PRC)...
My post wasn't an endorsement of Trump's positions on foreign policy, simply explaining that they're not new nor completely out of left field.
Flipping this around, what would it look like if we granted Ukraine its desire to join NATO and Putin still invades? Would the American public support spilling American blood to defend Ukraine as two nuclear powers head for war? And what if it's not Ukraine, but a country like Latvia or Turkey... you think there's anywhere near overwhelming popular support for the U.S. to honor our NATO treaty with these countries and fight what would be an extremely bloody and costly war for countries that contribute very little to America's prosperity?
If the answer is no (and I think it is), then you understand why a political party might also want to withdraw from this kind of agreement writ large that ties America's hands into conflict instead of having a broader range of options like it does wrt Ukraine and Israel.
When most people are thinking about NATO, they are thinking about western Europe alliances (the "North Atlantic" part). Poll Americans on whether they support fighting Russia in direct action over countries like Maldova, Turkey, Latvia, etc. without using the word "NATO" and I guarantee support for what NATO actually requires us to do would plummet. And the general sentiment across the globe (particularly in Asia) is that America's support can be fickle because the democratic tides toward its support for a conflict can turn at any moment.
The success of NATO primarily relies on deterrence and the fact that Putin is unwilling to call our bluff on any of its border-states.
I don't personally think we should withdraw from NATO, but it's not the outlandish position people make it out to be, nor is it isolationist.
I would generally agree that Putin has shown himself to be an aggressor in the 2010s, and his statement that the fall of the Soviet Union is the most tragic event of the 20th century pretty much solidifies his intent. Therefore, a strategy of appeasement is unlikely to be successful. However, due to the mud-slinging nature of today's politics, we don't know what kind of peace agreement Trump wants to negotiate, simply that he wants to make one and Harris does not.
This isn't about who is my personal favorite pseudo-democratic leader of post-soviet states, but the realpolitik of what is best for the long-term security and prosperity of the U.S.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
(Also migrated from thread on PRC)
Ukraine: Mixed Record on Rights, Cautious Hope for Reform
Ukraine’s government under newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky took several positive steps in 2019, although Ukraine’s human rights record remained mixed, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2020.
Ukraine Through Russia’s Eyes
The Kremlin’s pre-invasion research suggested Ukraine was fertile ground for subversion, but the shock of war may transform Ukrainians’ willingness to resist in unpredictable ways.
rusi.org
His discrimination against certain ethnicities in the Donbass reason was a big motivator for Russia to invade. Unfortunately, Russia didn't effectively assess popular opinion in the region of preferring Putin over Zelenskyy, nor their actual will to fight.
Sure, compared to Putin he looks like a saint. But he is a successful politician in a post-soviet country with strong ethnic tensions. That inherently will require doing things that we would consider unethical or immoral.
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I think it is the very definition of isolationist. And extremely stupid to even entertain.
Have you met America?
Much like our long history with anti-intellectualism, America loves to entertain the notion of isolationism- never mind the effect that would have on our standard of living, security, and the value of the dollar.
No way can Ukraine join NATO. First, a condition of NATO accession is that the country doesn’t have any ongoing territorial disputes. Second, Ukraine doesn’t belong in NATO. It would be a strategic blunder to promote the idea. Ukraine can join the EU, but NATO cannot be Ukraine’s security guarantor, or we’d immediately be dragged into an Article 5 with Russia. And the US cannot leave NATO because the alliance is useful to continue deterring Russia, and the alliance would crumble without the US.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
It's a far leap to get from "let's not enter into tangled military alliances with countries who have very little relevant combat power and common national interests with the US" to isolationism.
Hell, some NATO members are active Russian counter-intelligence threats to the US, and they don't try very hard to keep it a secret.
I don't think that we should withdraw from NATO, but there are quite a few countries that don't belong in it, and we have limited to no ability to exclude them at this point.
Furthermore, it's not an unreasonable argument to say that admitting these nations into NATO in the first place posed an unacceptable risk to the United States... since the United States can only control whether itself is a member or not, then the United States should leave to absolve itself of this risk. I don't agree with it, but it's not as ridiculous as many people knee jerk it to be.
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Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
It was postulated as a thought experiment.
The bolded part illustrates my point when asking the question - there is almost zero domestic appetite to actually send the NATO brigade to lose young men and women fighting Russia over Eastern European territory. Problem is, some of them are now already NATO members. Countries west of Poland's eastern border / Ukraine's western border is about where broad US popular support for direct US military action against Russian aggression would end.
So the only feasible solutions are to accept the risk of potentially having to decide between an extremely unpopular military course of action against the world's second largest nuclear power and showing the world we don't honor our treaties, or withdrawing from the agreement altogether.
Your third part also contradicts the second - If NATO membership is an effective deterrent of aggression, then Ukraine membership should not trigger an invasion.... conversely, Ukraine seems to be doing ok holding their own without Article V support.
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Can’t deter a war/conflict that’s already ongoing - hence why NATO says a prospective member must not have unresolved territorial disputes.
You’re right - the Baltics, Poland, and now Finland pose a risk of a Russia conflict with all NATO members including the US. This is probably why Pres Trump during his administration kept prodding the other NATO members to increase their defense spending to the 2% GDP target, to make them a more capable deterrent force and not rely so heavily on US forces.
vxc961
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I would say Russia poses the risk, and the baltics, Poland, and Finland being in NATO mitigates that risk.
I think it’s a big mistake to parrot the Kremlin’s talking points that NATO expansion triggered Russia’s aggression; NATO has always been a defensive alliance, and it doesn’t serve our interests to entertain any other interpretations.
As long as I’m on my soap box, (I think I’m paraphrasing Grant), we should spend a lot more time making Putin worry about we’re going to do rather than nash our teeth at what Russia might do.
I think it’s a big mistake to parrot the Kremlin’s talking points that NATO expansion triggered Russia’s aggression; NATO has always been a defensive alliance, and it doesn’t serve our interests to entertain any other interpretations.
As long as I’m on my soap box, (I think I’m paraphrasing Grant), we should spend a lot more time making Putin worry about we’re going to do rather than nash our teeth at what Russia might do.