Orangeburst
Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation
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The thing that has emboldened our adversaries most is our politically divided nation. We're ready to blame Biden, Trump or Obama when Putin is the one causing the trouble.I'm not wading into those waters. I'm simply stating that it's a fact that Biden's bumbling incompetence emboldens our enemies (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, etc).
The thing that has emboldened our adversaries most is our politically divided nation. We're ready to blame Biden, Trump or Obama when Putin is the one causing the trouble.
I haven't been keeping up with it. Why would they want them to do that?
Wonder what happened to Burrhead - he/she was always on top of International developments
Well one it would be a win in the propaganda war if you have Polish (Western/NATO) troops firing on unarmed migrants from the Mid-East and two you have everyone looking at Poland and then perhaps use that as cover to do something in Ukraine?
What vital interest of the U.S. is threatened in the Ukraine, such that we would risk war with a nuclear power in that nuclear power's backyard (indeed, in that nuclear power's historical heartland)?
The Republicans tell us there's no money for domestic needs, and yet there's always plenty of money for wars to fight for "freedom" halfway around the globe.
The Democrats, meanwhile, always have a new "humanitarian" intervention to sell us, as though our previous interventions had accomplished something more than the further immiseration of the countries in which we've intervened.
In all of these conflicts, we squander the lives of our bravest and best, and we further impoverish our once prosperous nation.
The current crisis was precipitated by American meddling in the Ukraine under the ambassadorship of Victoria Nuland during the second Obama administration. The best thing we can do is to lie low and not further escalate the hostilities.
May God grant our leaders wisdom and restraint.
Nice to see you Bur
Not sure if anyone follows the War in Donbas any more but Russia is again building up military presence on the border. They have done this before and it turned out to be nothing but a lot people are calling this new buildup concerning because its outside of the regular Russian training schedule and in the past movements were done during the day and had video evidence and now they are being conducted at night. Not sure if this one will turn out to be real either but apparently the US is concerned. The CIA Director had a talk with Putin recently and Blinken just recently said we are seeing unusal military activity in Russia near the Ukrainian border and said the concern is there that Putin may try and rehash 2014 all over again. Combine this with the Russian directed migrant crisis on the Polish/Belarusian border and the concern that the Baltic's may also be subjected to weaponized migrant hordes this time it feels different. Also too the war in the east has sprung back to life in the past few weeks with heavy artillery being used and Ukrainian forces using their new drones to bomb Russian positions.
I think having fought two very destructive world wars in Europe we have vital interest in keeping the peace in Europe. Not to mention I would rather contain Russia in Ukraine and/or Georgia (for example) than one day allowing them to be brazen enough to roll T-72s into Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius or through the Suwalki Gap where it really would force our hand.
Those two very destructive world wars ended with our Soviet allies in control of the entirety of eastern Europe. Our leaders understood that we couldn't change that fact by direct military force. They wisely pursued a policy of containment abroad and prosperity at home that, allied with the courageous moral resistance of countless brave men and women in eastern Europe, finally toppled the godless Soviet regime.
Today's Russia, however, is not the Soviet Union. She has neither the strength, nor the aspirations, nor the natural hostility to America that her predecessor possessed. Post-Soviet Russia has done us no wrong that we have not in our turn done to her. If we played our cards right, we might even now enlist the Russians as allies in the effort to contain the real communist superpower, China.
President Bush famously said, "We will fight them over there, so that we will not have to face them in the United States of America." You seem to be saying, "We will fight them in the Ukraine, so that we will not have to face them in Latvia." I ask, "Why do we need to fight them at all?"
I don't think Putin would be on board, he has the most to lose. Surely Putin knows that at some point China will look to move on them?I posited to a buddy after the Afghan debacle that if I were Russia, I would make a joint effort with China and Iran. A lighting strike within a week of each other.
1. Iran takes a goodly piece of Kurdistan. this starts day one rush to take and occupy Sulaymania within a week, then the Kurkuk oil fields - split the PUK and the KDP
2. Russia takes a significant portion of Ukraine from sea of azov pretty much up to the Dnieper to expand the area they already defacto control in the Crimea
3. China Blitzkriegs Taiwan
Not really much we could do - certainly not much Biden would do. Soon as US moves at least one extra Carrier strike groups to the gulf, China could make the move. Russia would have a challenge but Iran would have the toughest time I think moving quick enough. Either way, we are mentally unable to put boots on the ground or go to war with a real power right now unless our own homeland was attacked.
So the question is, if you are any of these 3, why wouldnt you do this?