rickair7777

FIFY.

Putin can only get away with so much. Lot's of his own folk's would like to end him, pull out of UA then turn to the west and say "sorry, none of that was our idea, can please have our yachts back now?"

Excargodog

And how many Putin critics have been having heart attacks, air plane crashes, getting jailed, and been falling out of buildings lately?

https://www.euronews.com/2022/09/22/...rchs-and-putin

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/96546024.cms

https://www.dw.com/en/the-long-list-...lin/a-66624689

https://www.rferl.org/a/lukoil-chair.../32014240.html

Clearly, he has an impressive cadre of assassins and henchmen that seem willing to do pretty much anything he asks of them. Betting that someone is going to be willing and able to stop him from escalating if he chooses to do so seems to me a risky bet.

Hubcapped

The reality is that no matter what, we cant just feed him eastern bloc states every 5 years. Just have to deal with the risk now or risk extortion for the foreseeable future.

Excargodog

Relax. At one time Russia dominated the whole USSR and Warsaw pact. The world survived. Conceding to the Russians a few Russian speaking and cultural areas is not the end of the world, and certainly not the United States’s job to prevent. It’s the sort of thing Europe has been doing throughout recorded history. There is no realistic chance that will stop now. The Europeans themselves (Switzerland POSSIBLY excepted) have never cared enough to stop it from happening (and even the Swiss only after their aggressive army got beaten).

Take a European history course. And yeah, it sucks for those being displaced. Just ask the evacuees from Nagorno-Karabakh, but not bad enough for us to go to war with Azerbaijan.

https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/90655

rickair7777

That's what has kept him hanging on so far, in the early days of the invasion there was actually some serious unrest among the elites, quelled as you say by many suspicious deaths.

But RU is not DPRK, there are limits as to how hard and how long he can suppress the oligarchs and state bureaucrats and force them to be complicit against their own best interests. Unlike DPRK, he actually has a significant economy which relies on leaders and a functional government. As well as international trade.

rickair7777

That was then. This is now. Let people learn to live and thrive (or not, their choice) within currently established borders.

Hubcapped

post ww2 Europe has been relatively stable. I would counter that this is the last gasp of the autocratic volatile europe you describe. At the very moment europe is all hands on deck (except a few autocratic holdouts) against the last major dictatorship and 400k+ dead GIs winning peace there 70 years ago is an investment i dont want to throw away. That coupled with 10% of our annual DoD budget, and surplus equipment that we need to upgrade anyhow seems like a no brainer.

pre ww2 europe has objectively and statistically not been the same as post ww2 europe. Time to move on to the new objective reality. We are a global community. When superpowers flex, we are all subject to the consequences

Before you counter that Europe is “feckless”, please provide the metric that would meet your requirements. What percentage of gdp would, in your mind, be a sufficient amount of military assistance? Please be specific

btw, ive started interacting with you in a civil tone. When you say “take a history lesson” that is not civil. If you cannot comport yourself like a civil adult, lets just not get into it.

Excargodog

Russia flexed because Europe is feckless. NATO (less USA) didn’t carry its weight even before the collapse of the USSR and let their militaries go to cr@p for the next thirty years after that. They even admit to that. Germany, the ‘big dog’ among EU economies went from having about 270 working Leopard tanks to having about 70 - two thirds of which were non mission capable due to parts and maintenance - over the ensuing 30 years. And went down to two (2) days supply of ammunition. That’s not even debatable, the Bundeswehr Chief admitted to it:

https://www.economist.com/europe/202...smal-than-ever
https://www.dw.com/en/puma-tanks-unu...ion/a-63955452

If the US is to be effective as a superpower we need to stop wasting money on Europe whose collective GDP exceeds ours. If the defense of Europe isn’t important to them it sure isn’t important to me.

And your figure is bogus. The US lost 291,000 service members in WWII but that includes the War in the Pacific. Roughly 108,000 US servicemen died in that theater so yeah, US WWII combat deaths in Europe (and North Africa) were less than one-half of what you are claiming.

Excargodog

Hubcapped

The point, as you well know, is that we have spent 400k+ lives on stabilizing the globe. So ya….i guess you are being pedantic now?

To think that a war between russia and the EU would not end up involving the US is difficult to understand. Can you expand on this? I can think of trade, travel, geopolitical influence (national security), allies against china, and nuclear security off the top of my head. Do you feel none of these are important enough to ensure stability in europe?

Do you truly believe that i meant 407k killed in europe? Obviously not, please dont be petty, have a conversation without your emotions