Lowslung

Meh. Doesn't really matter much as the Russians are not currently in a position to invade anyone else. One of the many benefits of continuing to provide robust support to Ukraine.

Hubcapped

shhhhhhh…….youll make the bot very sad

Excargodog

In the sense that Dera has a first amendment right to display his ignorance and engage in childish name calling, it certainly doesn't matter very much. But in the real world, knowledge of history and how vulnerabilities have been previously exploited is worthwhile in war planning. But even so, no plan ever survived contact with the enemy. Too many random factors.

As for "robust support," Ukraine has long complained openly that they have NEVER been provided with ROBUST support, that it was always too little, too late, and with too many restrictions.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/03/world...war/index.html

Perhaps if not for three decades of fecklessness our NATO allies would have been better prepared.

Lowslung

So, on one hand you argue that we are sending too much support, yet on the other you argue not enough. Which is it? Should we send more or less equipment and support to Ukraine? Your position is muddled.

You continually press your view that the NATO alliance puts the US in the precarious position of potentially being forced to join a war we do not want. Yet the current situation has a non-NATO country busying the Russian armed forces to the point where meddling with NATO members like Lithuania and Estonia is no longer a viable option for them. Prior to the invasion, Putin was sending unambiguous signals that he intended to encroach into the Baltics in similar ways to what had been successful for him in Georgia and Ukraine up to that point. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Ukrainian resistance has prevented a potential Baltic crisis that would turn your NATO "boots on the ground" hyperbole into something very much more real.

Still, many who subscribe to your line of thinking continue to argue that Ukraine should "make a deal" to end the war. What they really mean is Ukraine should cede its territory and maybe its sovereignty all together to Russia and allow Putin to rebuild his capabilities to the point of finishing the job there before shifting his focus to the Baltics, Poland, Czech, etc., while we stand by and say it's not our fight. I prefer the line of action where we don't appease self aggrandizing dictators. Fortunately, most Americans seem to agree. At least for the moment.

Hubcapped

Russia raised the interest rate to 21% lolz. Apparently thats not news worthy to our local desperate ru troll…..shocking

Excargodog

Not at all. My position is that three plus decades of fecklessness from our NATO 'partners' created the situation where NATO no longer had the ability to deter such problems. Heck, even before the breakup of the USSR the genocide in the former Yugoslavia demonstrated to the Europeans that they had cut back their forces too much to even deal with the Serbian Army until the US lead the actions that somewhat stabilized the situation there. That already bad situation was worsened by the acceptance into NATO of small European nations that were no real addition in combat strength while nonetheless now becoming an additional weak country we would feel compelled to defend. The Russians reacting badly to that was not merely predictable, it was in fact predicted. It was plain back in 1990 that the Russians were paranoid about a NATO eastward expansion. Every additional expansion in that direction was kicking the hornets nest which might have still worked had not the major nonUS NATO economies not unilaterally disarmed through "peace dividends." Most of Europe has been spending more on keeping Greta Thunberg from castigating them than they have on their militaries.

You are very much putting the cart before the horse here. Russia attacked Georgia in 2008. By that time Czechia (1999), Poland (1999), Hungary (1999), Romania (2004), Slovakia (2004), and Slovenia (2004) had been added to NATO with each new addition eastward poking the bear again. As I said, Russian paranoid reaction if eastern expansion occurred was predicted way back when the Russians bought off on the reunification of Germany leading to the German chancellor promising it would not happen and that in fact they wouldn't put NATO bases in that part of Germany that had been East Germany if reunification was permitted.


Hell, Ukraine should have made a deal early on, when it would have been a far better deal. now they've got a country in ruins, massive infrastructure damage, ~100,000 dead and many more permanently disabled, 20% of their country gone that they will never get back and much of the rest littered with mines and unexploded ordnance. There population - already in a demographic doom cycle from 35 years of low birth rate - has lost another 7 million people to emigration, many of whom they will never get back. And they are right to feel betrayed. A lot of people including our own neocons (think John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Dick Cheney, etc) egged them on, knowing full well that EuroNATO was a paper tiger militarily.

And IT'S NOT OUR FIGHT, although we should be ashamed we allowed our political leadership to be so ready to fight the Russians to the last Ukrainian. And you are deluded if you think the problem is Putin. He's getting older every day , but will ultimately be replaced by someone not a damn but better than he is.The problem is Russian paranoia and the fact that all of Europe is a mass of displaced cultures and everyone has a gripe because everyone has done somebody else wrong sometime. And playing this the way we have has been inimitable to our own US self interests, since we now have forced the bad guys (Iran, Russia, China, and NK) closer together where they are going to be sharing technologies and capabilities and are seeing the global south and even some NATO countries (Slovakia and Hungary for sure) draw closer to Russia and the other bad guys.

But it still comes down to the same two options if you really expect Ukraine to be restored to its internationally recignized borders:

1. NATO (and by that overwhelmingly American) boots on the ground.

or

2. Start popping nukes.

What's your preference?

Excargodog

Why should it be? I've got no money in Russian bonds - nor even know anyone that does. Do you?

MaxQ

Because it speaks to the condition of the Russian economy, its state of inflation and value of the ruble.
But you knew that.

Excargodog

Then what does this say about the state of the Ukrainian economy that they must offer a yield of 30% to borrow Monet for a year?

https://www.worldgovernmentbonds.com/bond-historical-data/ukraine/1-year/

That's half again what Russian bonds are yielding.

https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/52-week-bill-yield

Or that two months ago they had to restructure $23 Billion in debt they couldn't affird to repay?

https://www.weil.com/articles/weil-advises-bondholders-on-23-billion-restructuring-of-ukraines-sovereign-debt

Perhaps you could explain to us the relevance of that?

MaxQ

Your last paragraph speaks volumes. Well stated.

I am done disputing the claim of some that Russia invaded because of NATO expansion. (There are other, more important, reasons) I will try a new tact.
Why did NATO expand, and what might of been had they not?

Why did some of the countries, such as Poland, want so much to be members of NATO?

What would be some possible different realities today had these countrys not joined NATO?
(I will posit one....Poland would be a nuclear power. A significant change to the "balance of power" in the world. Self preservation on the part of the Poles regarding maintaining their newly recovered sovereignty, but with the awareness of adding one more variable to the potential for catastrophe)

If their efforts to join NATO were dismissed, would any of the newly 'free of Russia' countries have had the sense of being truly welcomed as fellow Europeans? Would it have been just another patronizing situation of "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."?

How would the politics of Europe be if Germany actually HAD built their military to a level comenserate with their economic strength? Think everyone would feel warm and fuzzy about that?
How about they asked the USA to remove it's presence? THEY will relieve the USA of the burden of being the keystone to NATO's arch of security?
Maybe THEY should have nukes too....with of course control of them. Can't imagine anyone would have been unsettled by that. No doubt would have made for uber unity and absolutely no differences to the relations of the EU nations to eachother. (not)

Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

The only thing we know is 'actuality'. We can discuss what 'ought to have been done' may have caused untill the cows come home. But the facts are that, in Europe, what was done worked pretty well (up until the invasion). If this breech of international stability can be stopped....ideally broken badly....there might be a few more generations, again, of military peace in Europe.
Every single administration since Truman understood the vaue of what NATO provided and how critical it is to the well being of both the USA and Mankind. Except for one.