We’re not saving any money. Trump and GOP are asking for more defense money. If China and Russia start growing their military footprint, you’ll keep seeing the gop ask for war money tool— maybe this is the plan? Bolster the defense industry by burning our alliances?

11/19/2019 5:18:24 PM

Quote :

"stop subsidizing the defense of other countries"

man people really have no understanding of what being secure actually means

11/19/2019 5:57:07 PM

^^stop voting for their budgets. We can eventually defund the military.

^ Please enlighten me. Are China and Russia planning to invade the US mainland?

11/19/2019 6:09:14 PM

All I can say is you should do a lot more reading at the very least.

11/19/2019 6:42:00 PM

Thats baseless because you haven't made any points or for me to read about nor have you recommended any readings. What did you read that informed your world view that spending all of this money in Korea makes us "secure"?

11/19/2019 8:09:34 PM

Not engaging with you - you are incredibly uninformed and it sounds like it is willing. Study history, study geopolitics, read declassified memos, documents, decisions. Read presidential memoirs, read books written about presidential administrations, study material listed on the reading list for the Foreign Service Officer exam. Read sociology, psychology and biology books and papers.

You can't read one book, topic, subject or source. Everything happening is happening in an incredibly complex environment that involves at the very root humans vying for resources, security and doing so with vast levels of uncertainty. The world doesn't operate like an elementary school playground where you tell someone to be nice and they listen. You probably think the vast amount of activities the US engaged in are hypocritical and therefore morally bankrupt without actually having any understanding of what's going on, why they're happening or why in many cases the hypocracy is irrelevant with respect to end goals.

So, yes, read more. It takes years to become versed and educated on shit like this. Expecting someone on a free message board to do it for you is the epitome of laziness, at best, and at worst an indication that you don't take it seriously at all. That or you simply have a belief system that doesn't allow for it.

11/19/2019 9:05:54 PM

Geopolitics isn’t easy and reading historical accounts will ALWAYS be biased towards US policy, which has been littered with grievous mistakes and misgivings.

But let’s start with the fact that it’s utterly ridiculous that Earl still thinks Trump is “bringing troops home” on the day he announced 3,000 more to Saudi Arabia.

https://twitter.com/hunterw/status/1196973087398469639?s=21

Also, this is fucking disgusting. Calling an attack on Steven fucking Miller anti-Semitic is just pathetic.

[Edited on November 19, 2019 at 9:13 PM. Reason : X]

11/19/2019 9:10:10 PM

Just to be clear I didn't mean read books/information solely from the US.

11/19/2019 10:26:31 PM

Its a lot easier to just say someone with a different view is uniformed and "needs to read more" than it is to actually defend the worldview you've been indoctrinated into believing. Imagine asking a religious person why they are religious and their only response was telling me I need to read more scripture and that they cannot fix my relationship with God for me. It would be a dead end.

Regardless of if it was for me or not, you should be willing or able to lay out the main points behind your views on a message board without telling someone they have to educate themselves until they share your world view. That kind of defeats the purpose of a message board and intellectual discussion in general.

Quote :

"You probably think the vast amount of activities the US engaged in are hypocritical and therefore morally bankrupt without actually having any understanding of what's going on, why they're happening or why in many cases the hypocrisy is irrelevant with respect to end goals."

Of course they are morally bankrupt and of course the hypocrisy is by design and aligned with the self-serving self-enriching end goals. American foreign policy is highly competent and effective at meeting its goals and is a contributing factor to the world not being. If theres one thing I have a great understanding of, its capitalism.

Quote :

"Trump is “bringing troops home” on the day he announced 3,000 more to Saudi Arabia."

Fair point but we do need to bring the troops home and consolidating more into fewer countries would make that a bit easier. In isolation, bringing them out of Syria and into Saudi Arabia can at least demonstrate how we can take them out of one place without the world exploding. That can get the snowball going and help more people wonder "what would happen if we took our troops out of even more countries?" You go through such lengths to conflate me with a Trump supporter that you often end up confusing yourself about my positions.

11/19/2019 10:42:21 PM

ya boy trump has troops in syria to secure oil fields

you need to read more

11/20/2019 8:51:39 AM

I’d give him a +1 on NK policy. He is trying to appease, at the same time not lifting sanctions. Kim getting very butthurt at lack of progress. Keep sanctions in place, Donald.

11/21/2019 1:39:57 AM

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1197507542726909952?s=21

Donald the Dove.

Actually, war crimes are good.

11/21/2019 8:39:30 AM

Secretary of the navy resigned because trump wants to go easy on murderers

11/24/2019 6:25:19 PM

I think he was forced out specifically for going behind the DefSec's back (usurping chain of command).

[Edited on November 24, 2019 at 6:39 PM. Reason : a]

11/24/2019 6:38:47 PM

That’s what Espers team is saying. But if I’m going to believe what’s written in this letter and what trumps team is saying, I’m betting trump is lying.

11/24/2019 6:53:06 PM

Imagine how bad this guy must have been for his team to disable his weapon. They would rather he be unable to help them in situations where they know they will be massively outgunned, than have him do whatever the hell he was doing. That's what Cheeto is defending and pardoning.

11/24/2019 11:45:57 PM

I think that it is important to keep in mind that we are talking about the special forces with the Gallagher case. Those are guys that have absolutely zero moral ambiguity with pulling the trigger and for that reason are the ones typically deployed for extremely high risk situations. I'm just saying that if you see them at your door step, bodies are gonna hit the ground, that's their job. I think that it's perfectly logical to put his text messages and witness testimony into the context of him being more or less a government-trained hitman.

However, there have been many cases of special forces guys in the middle east that have been known to go rouge and to deviate from their rules of engagement, and it should be up to the proper military channels at the pentagon to deal with this situation, not POTUS. It is pretty clear that this dude has a long history of very questionable calls being made while deployed, and somebody is being told to put this dog on a leash.

I am just surprised that this is getting so much media attention. The CIA has been known to police these types of guys and to make them just disappear.

11/25/2019 10:51:28 AM

You watch too many movies.

11/25/2019 11:16:55 AM

am i the only one who thinks that's a pretty bitch ass resignation letter?

11/25/2019 11:38:49 AM

Quote :

"You watch too many movies."

My sister's husband is a Marine and while deployed had to mop up after these guys on several different occasions. The special forces guys would be in and out, make quick work of the situation, and then he would go in later to secure the area and yeah, there would be bodies everywhere on every occasion. They would literally put blind folds on any surviving hostiles, transport them to a different area and drop them off. So, that does happen frequently in war, and I wouldn't be surprised if this guy actually has killed more people than he recalled.

In terms of movie "tropes" that are completely fictitious, the idea of a confirmed kill count for special forces is highly over played. Most of those people loose track of how many people that they have killed, and a confirmed kill is only used in situations of a valuable target.


[Edited on November 25, 2019 at 11:55 AM. Reason : h]

11/25/2019 11:53:05 AM

Quote :

"I think that it is important to keep in mind that we are talking about the special forces with the Gallagher case. Those are guys that have absolutely zero moral ambiguity with pulling the trigger and for that reason are the ones typically deployed for extremely high risk situations. I'm just saying that if you see them at your door step, bodies are gonna hit the ground, that's their job. I think that it's perfectly logical to put his text messages and witness testimony into the context of him being more or less a government-trained hitman. "

Everyone other solider that testified, testified against him, which is unprecedented, including another sniper. I think those guys know well enough the conditions he was facing, and even they said he was murderous scum.

11/25/2019 11:58:05 AM

sure, other seals testified to that, but are their sisters' husbands marines?

11/25/2019 12:15:17 PM

^ Dude, my point was that I was surprised by this getting a lot of media attention and for Trump getting involved. If you read my post, I state that these guys tend to over step their boundaries from time to time, but these cases don't typically get national media attention. And yeah, I do think that people should put killing and murder into a specific context when referring to the special forces. That's their job.

11/25/2019 12:18:38 PM

^ it's getting national media attention because trump pardoned the guy, then ordered the military not to punish him (i don't really understand the details about a pin, but there's some kind of pin involved).

Otherwise he would have served out his jail sentence and gotten the dishonorable discharge he deserves.

11/25/2019 12:27:32 PM

It is not a pin, it is his trident. That signifies that he went through prolly the most rigorous training process in the world and came out a seal.

Taking that away is similar to people going back and trying to take away Cosby's awards and trophies that he's earned, due to "legal difficulties", i.e. being a serial rapist.

And I don't think that a dishonorable discharge was ever on the table. Trump got involved because they reduced his rank which would significantly cut into his retirement pay. Trump doesn't think that this guy should receive any punishment, so after re reinstated his rank, the Navy told Trump to fuck off by then preparing to take his Trident away.

Most presidents would avoid this case like the plague. Nothing good is gonna come from the media and non-military types providing input over a fairly bloody section of the US armed forces. I think that it further exposes Trump for having zero experience as a public official and treating his presidency as if he is the CEO, or King, of the US.

[Edited on November 25, 2019 at 12:51 PM. Reason : k]

11/25/2019 12:33:14 PM

There is literally nothing else to this but cat food brain saw Pete Hegseth bitching about it on Fox News and made the decision.

Trump is literally the simplest man on earth. 99.9% of his decisions in the WH are “saw it recently on FNC.”

11/25/2019 3:56:06 PM

I'm not saying military leadership is perfect, but I'll trust their instincts more than a frequent trump apologist who is family of someone married to a marine

11/25/2019 5:15:19 PM

Quote :

"Trump got involved because they reduced his rank which would significantly cut into his retirement pay."

Nope. Trump got involved because it's one of the areas a president can make a decision without anyone else affecting it. That and he can pander to military voters or at least he thinks he can. This is entirely because he wants military votes.

[Edited on November 25, 2019 at 6:17 PM. Reason : a ]

11/25/2019 6:16:52 PM

Not military votes, they largely dont support this

This is no different than any of the other manufactured culture wars and is intended to appeal to that same base

11/25/2019 7:21:37 PM

At least on twitter, I haven't seen too many people biting on this though... if the typical conservative loves pardoning of the murderer, they're quieter than normal.

This seems like a big opportunity for Dems though, the evidence was so conclusive against Gallagher should be easy to make ads about this.

11/25/2019 7:36:18 PM

Coming from a strong military family, I must say that this

Quote :

"Not military votes, they largely dont support this"

And this

Quote :

"if the typical conservative loves pardoning of the murderer, they're quieter than normal."

are misunderstood, misguided ideas at best. The fact that Eddie served abroad for many years, over many deployments, makes him a hero in the military world. Then add that to the fact that Trump got behind him in a way that most presidents wouldn't, makes Trump a golden god.

11/26/2019 12:34:35 AM

Again, I am not trying to defend Trump. I personally think that he should just let the pentagon handle this and not interfere with Eddie's relatively light punishment on the matter. However, this is an example of precisely what many of the posters on this board don't understand about Trump or his not-so-bad approval ratings: He's a brilliant schemer and knows exactly how and where to pull on the heart strings.

[Edited on November 26, 2019 at 1:17 AM. Reason : a]

11/26/2019 1:16:55 AM

^ that’s not an inevitability. That’s because the Dems don’t often do a good job on messaging. They don’t “sell” their viewpoint enough. From the outside looking in, the leaders don’t seem to have any confidence in their ideals and Dems often seem to retreat before the fighting starts.

As an aside this is why Bernie is so popular. He’s confident in what he believes and fights for it.

11/26/2019 1:23:45 AM

^ I think that the major problem that the dems have is underestimating Trump. This is a perfect example.

I mean the dude sends a pink slip to the secretary of Navy over a matter that he historically should just stay out of, asks a foreign state to investigate his political rival over corruption, AND YET, he still shares a stage with fucking Putin and Erdogan.

He is playing them for fools and they don't even realize it. The only people that he is "tough" on are actual Americans.


[Edited on November 26, 2019 at 1:36 AM. Reason : a]

11/26/2019 1:29:27 AM

Tucker Carlson had an interesting exchange tonight that made me think of Cherokee. He was telling some former Obama advisor that he didn't care about the Russia/Ukraine conflict and would actually root for Russia over Ukraine. The expert went on about how it was important to moldova and other eastern european countries and Tucker responded I DONT CARE

Quote :

"Expert: eastern europe is important to NATO though Tucker: I don't care about NATO either. Expert: "western europeans do care about NATO and its really important to them" Tucker: But I don't live in Western Europe, I live in DC and don't care about the same things that are important to people in Western Europe Expert: Russia is a threat to our democracy and ukraine likes our democracy and wants to adopt our style of it Tucker: That still doesn't mean we should be involved in a border dispute between two random countries Expert: but russia isn't just some random country, they are jealous of our democracy and want to usurp our power Tucker: (hysterical) oooooo big scary russia is coming to get us. Do you really believe that?"

and i was just so refreshed to finally hear someone on MSM say all of that. Even though I disagree with Tucker on almost everything. He's different than most of these hosts. I get a real vibe of authenticity from him. Almost like a right wing jimmy dore.

11/26/2019 2:58:34 AM

That exchange is scary and mind boggling to me. I try to convince myself that there aren’t many people that think like that, but the sad reality is that close to half the population probably agree 100%.

11/26/2019 4:56:15 AM

Quote :

"Please enlighten me. Are China and Russia planning to invade the US mainland?"

Assuredly yes. I don't think they intend to do so, and realistically I don't think they have the ability to do so on a large scale, but of course they've got plans developed for it - just like we have plans for seizing Paris or invading Canada or any number of other things we don't have any intention of doing.

Why support Korea, Japan, and the like? First and foremost, they're the front line, and keeping the front line far away from us is desirable. China can't launch a campaign across the Pacific for two main reasons. One, it doesn't yet have a navy capable of contesting us (or Japan, really) outside of its home waters. That is not necessarily a permanent feature of Pacific geopolitics. They've started expanding that navy, and they've got the resources to do significantly more.

Two, China is hemmed in by Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. Even with the best navy in the world, they'd be hard pressed to sail past those barriers without first invading them. By supporting those countries, we keep the barriers up and China in. Moreover, we deter China from conquering or co-opting those countries, giving them access to further resources to expand their power base. China today poses no conventional military threat to the U.S. mainland. China with the fleets, manpower, and equipment of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan certainly could.

Russia is even less of a concern in terms of direct conventional military threat, and no matter what, it's not liable to be a major Pacific power any time this century. But we prop up NATO in part for the same reasons: Russia by itself is a menace but probably a manageable one. Russia with Europe under its control or even influence is another matter. So, in short, we subsidize countries on both sides of the Eurasian landmass to keep bad problems from becoming truly scary ones. That is security.

Supporting our allies also means making wars less likely. Wars are bad in and of themselves. But just as important, "small" wars (if a Chinese invasion of South Korea could be called "small") have a habit of growing into very big wars. It's hard to imagine us being able to sit out of a global or even mass-scale conflict, for much the same reasons we didn't sit out of the World Wars. Again, this is security.

---

I also take issue with your characterization of likelihood of invasion as the main rubric for threat. Even under the worst case, U.S./Canada vs. the world scenario, direct invasion of the mainland is probably not a likely outcome. It is possible to threaten a country's security or even existence without marching troops into its territory. We didn't invade the Japanese home islands, either, but we destroyed the Empire of Japan and replaced it with a friendly government.

China and Russia probably have it within their power to cause devastating damage to "the U.S. mainland" (as though our concerns should stop at our borders) without firing a shot on Earth. They either presently have it within their power, or could quickly develop the ability, to wreak havoc through cyber attacks and space warfare. They could cause an economic collapse, by which I don't just mean lost profits for investors and speculators, I mean "Nobody can afford food and it doesn't matter because logistics systems collapsed and no food made it to the Teeter anyway." Power grids fried. Water supplies tainted. Who-knows-what going on a nuclear reactors.

And better than invading us, they can try to undermine the country's political institutions to the point where we collapse, or at least become much less capable of defending ourselves. They're already making strides with this, as NATO and our Pacific alliances start to fray at the edges.

11/26/2019 6:53:04 AM

Quote :

"That exchange is scary and mind boggling to me. I try to convince myself that there aren’t many people that think like that, but the sad reality is that close to half the population probably agree 100%."

It’s really, really fringe. Tucker even essentially said later I’m that segment he was using that line as a rhetorical tool (I saw the clip). He doesn’t literally want imperial Russia to conquer Ukraine.

In any case, there are certainly those on the far, far left that believe guys like Assad and Putin are just defending themselves from western imperialism (Jimmy Dore is close to one and also is utterly terrible garbage) but they are so fringe it’s almost not worth paying attention to.

Bernie’s foreign policy would be too neo-con for these guys.

[Edited on November 26, 2019 at 7:56 AM. Reason : Actually, Tucker is still garbage and doesn’t deserve to be signal boosted]

11/26/2019 7:55:58 AM

trump is totally going to sharpie a penis on the conan pic

11/26/2019 12:53:24 PM

Foreign aid is cheaper than war and helps create stability that we benefit from through economic activity.

Doesn't seem like the GOP believes this anymore...

11/26/2019 12:59:03 PM

Here's the only good Tucker Carlson segment. Never aired unfortunately

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18233556/tucker-carlson-rutger-bregman-nowthis-dutch-historian

11/26/2019 1:04:08 PM

Quote :

"Foreign aid is cheaper than war and helps create stability that we benefit from through economic activity. Doesn't seem like the GOP believes this anymore..."

Thats because those things cost taxpayer dollars that would be better suited staying in the hands of billionaires to stimulate the economy

11/26/2019 1:19:56 PM

i posted that tucker carlson exchange in another thread and made a joke that it sounded exactly like horosho and LOL i just saw that he alraedy posted that he agrees with tucker carlson


good times

11/26/2019 2:07:31 PM

Been awhile since we busted out the tww [old] post

A more recent example of someone going at tucker (indirectly) on fox
https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/1199343847370674176?s=19


[Edited on November 26, 2019 at 3:13 PM. Reason : E]

11/26/2019 3:10:44 PM

Quote :

"Why support Korea, Japan, and the like? First and foremost, they're the front line, and keeping the front line far away from us is desirable. China can't launch a campaign across the Pacific for two main reasons. One, it doesn't yet have a navy capable of contesting us (or Japan, really) outside of its home waters. That is not necessarily a permanent feature of Pacific geopolitics. They've started expanding that navy, and they've got the resources to do significantly more."

But Japan and South Korea are very wealthy nations with the ability to defend themselves. In fact, we are crutching them by being there. Our presence is the only thing keeping them from having two of the most powerful militaries in the world and a joint force that could rival what we have over there currently. Extrapolate this across Germany and Europe and our allies could all be very powerful on their own but with us there, why would they?

You act like Japan would just lay down to China.

Quote :

"Russia with Europe under its control or even influence is another matter. So, in short, we subsidize countries on both sides of the Eurasian landmass to keep bad problems from becoming truly scary ones. That is security. "

Europe wouldn't just join NATO to invade the US. In fact, NATO is acting against Russia in Europe's interest. If NATO ended, it wouldn't really end, it would just continue with the nations of Europe massing their wealth to counter any threats to the EU.

The world would be much safer with a balance of power than with one or two countries having all of the power consolidated.

Quote :

" .Supporting our allies also means making wars less likely. Wars are bad in and of themselves. But just as important, "small" wars (if a Chinese invasion of South Korea could be called "small") have a habit of growing into very big wars. It's hard to imagine us being able to sit out of a global or even mass-scale conflict, for much the same reasons we didn't sit out of the World Wars. Again, this is security."

You are overcontextualizing events that took place nearly a century ago and I'm sure all of the other hawks think the moment the US isn't involved in a major conflict, the 4th reich is going to erupt. Its an elementary application of the "history reapeats itself" misnomer. The world is nothing like it was back then.

If you take US involvement out of the picture, small wars have much less likelihood to spread into large wars. Take syria for example.

Without US involvement, Syria, with help from Russia and Iran crush the rebels decisively and quickly. End of story in less than 1 year.

With US involvement, the rebels take extra arms and fight the government into a stalemate while destroying the entire country and creating a humanitarian crisis. Rouge rebel groups spill into Iraq and nearly take over that entire country, drawing in Iran, pissing off Saudi Arabia, who then decides to counter Iranian interests in Yemen and 8 years later the whole thing is still a clusterfuck. Then theres things like blowback where a disgruntled group carries out an attack in the US (911/Bin Laden). The aftermath of such attack causing the US to destabilize an entire region.

This isn't even the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is a proxy war turns into a hot war between two powers. Russia shoots down one of our jets over Syria and things escalate from there... This sort of thing could not happen if we had everything reeled in. Superpowers being involved on two ends of conflicts increases the chance of large conflicts between said superpowers.

China taking Taiwan unchallenged would not create a large war but in today's circumstances, who knows...

Quote :

"They either presently have it within their power, or could quickly develop the ability, to wreak havoc through cyber attacks and space warfare. They could cause an economic collapse, by which I don't just mean lost profits for investors and speculators, I mean "Nobody can afford food and it doesn't matter because logistics systems collapsed and no food made it to the Teeter anyway." Power grids fried. Water supplies tainted. Who-knows-what going on a nuclear reactors. And better than invading us, they can try to undermine the country's political institutions to the point where we collapse, or at least become much less capable of defending ourselves. They're already making strides with this, as NATO and our Pacific alliances start to fray at the edges."

So whats the point in spending money pointing guns at them if thats not their best shot of taking us down? Why not spend our defense money on building better infrastructure with more resilience because even if they do nothing, a solar flare, terror attack, or accident in space could still cause the same damage you mention. We could have backup systems, redundancies and space defense built in for the opportunity cost of military aid/projection

[Edited on November 27, 2019 at 1:28 AM. Reason : stop pretending the rest of the world are not adults capable of defending themselves]

11/27/2019 1:25:49 AM

The War on Christmas Thanksgiving

11/27/2019 10:08:59 AM

So the brain-dead, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, asshole doesn't know what "centennial" means?

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/11/trump-why-wasnt-suffrage-centennial-observed-years-ago.html

Video:

https://twitter.com/Dreamweasel/status/1199335030981644288


[Edited on November 27, 2019 at 10:11 AM. Reason : Surely it is impossible to be that incredibly stupid? Ten year olds know what it means....]

11/27/2019 10:09:47 AM

actual photo of horosho speaking about how we should encourage ukraine to cede crimea and donbass to russia because russia's goals are actually very limited

11/27/2019 10:53:00 AM

Quote :

"Our presence is the only thing keeping them from having two of the most powerful militaries in the world and a joint force that could rival what we have over there currently."

You manage to cram a lot of ignorance into one statement.

1) Relatively speaking, we have very little over there, and the militaries of Japan and Korea already significantly outstrip our forces in the region. Particularly in Korea, our troops are a "tripwire force," a mechanism to guarantee that we would come to Korea's aid with our full forces in the event that it was invaded.
2) Japan already has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, but with the best will in the world it doesn't have the manpower to rival China.
3) We maintain alliances with Japan and Germany to keep them from having to be fully militarized, because fully militarized Japan and Germany have worked out badly for us, historically speaking.

Quote :

"The world would be much safer with a balance of power than with one or two countries having all of the power consolidated."

The "balance of power" approach to international politics dominated for centuries and gave us major war after major war, culminating in WWI and by extension WWII.

Quote :

"Its an elementary application of the "history reapeats itself" misnomer. The world is nothing like it was back then."

I prefer to base my understanding of the world on established evidence rather than absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Quote :

"Without US involvement, Syria, with help from Russia and Iran crush the rebels decisively and quickly."

So by your own admission, your vision for the world involves our adversaries gobbling up all their smaller neighbors. Sounds exactly what you're accusing us of saying, that "the moment the US isn't involved, the 4th reich is going to erupt."

The United States withdrawing from world affairs will not suddenly cause Russia, China, and other competitors to do the same. They will fill that vacuum, they will become more powerful, and when they are powerful enough, they will come after us.

Quote :

"Why not spend our defense money on building better infrastructure with more resilience"

It's not all-or-nothing, is it? On the one hand we have your buffoonish "defund the military and abandon all the allies" plan, which leaves us vulnerable to everything, including traditional warfare. And on the other extreme we could throw everything we've got into building tanks, bombs, and rifles to meet Russia on the plains of Poland.

More should be done to build our resilience in the face of cyber or space warfare and incidents. Agreed. And there's room to rebalance some other military spending obligations, including overseas presence. But there's a wide gulf between "maybe we don't need quite so many bases" and "sayonora, Japan, you're on your fucking own."

Quote :

"stop pretending the rest of the world are not adults capable of defending themselves"

What the fuck are you even talking about here? Adults?

Some countries are bigger and more powerful than others are ever going to be. China is massively more powerful in terms of manpower and resources than most of its neighbors. Ditto Russia. None of the nations of continental Europe can defend against Russia alone, or even working together. We know, because they've tried, and failed, repeatedly. Together, with us, they stand a reasonably good chance, and so Putin is forced to nibble at the periphery.



[Edited on November 27, 2019 at 12:14 PM. Reason : ]

11/27/2019 12:07:08 PM

Quote :

" ctual photo of horosho speaking about how we should encourage ukraine to cede crimea and donbass to russia because russia's goals are actually very limited"

That’s unfair. Earl doesn’t believe in appeasement necessarily. He’s made it abundantly clear that he does not believe that Ukraine is a legitimate country. He believes because some regions identify more with Russia that it’s ok for Putin to ignore international borders and seize the land. He’s said this explicitly.

11/27/2019 12:39:41 PM