961–970 of 1001 posts
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Russia responded to a western coup on one of the 3 East Slavic nations (Russia Ukraine Belarus).
Oh. That's probably because we don't share the same definition of what is a "coup". For me, it's clear that a "coup" is not when the democratic will of the people outs a puppet that was put in place by Moscow. While you have the opposite opinion.
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It is barbarism within the context of elites in Ukraine sitting around taking money of cowards in Europe and the Five Eyes funneling money and weapons in. A war that could not be won. It was wrong to not cease fire in 202. A proxy war is not the same as most situations
Educate yourself. Look up the Minsk agreements, that Putin wants to take control of all of Ukraine. And Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. And parts of Finland. This does not stop with a few towns in Eastern Ukraine, this is existential for many countries of the Free World.
Putin can say what he wants. He is a politician. Russia has no ability to do all of that.
“Free world”. westerners always try to push their capitalist “freedom” onto the world as the one “free” way. When it isn’t freedom. Also another point of western chauvinism to refer to the primary colonizers and exploiters of the world as the “free world”
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This is, unfortunately about one thing only: The Nobel Peace Prize. As Trump sees it, Zelenskyy is blocking Trump's peace prize by not agreeing to his (very bad) terms that are designed with one purpose in mind: Quickly freezing the conflict so that he can declare himself peacemaker and get his prize (because Obama got his 9 months into his term). The Russians have been grooming him since the 80s (along with many oth…
This is quite inconsistent because Trump conditioned the rare earths deal. If he wanted peace that badly, he wouldn’t be imposing that. Also, you don’t win a Peace Nobel by being a system spoiler like he is, creating instability left and right and branding a stick. That’s completely delusional, even for him. He goes around talking about annexing Canada, taking Greenland, and displacing Palestinians -- where’s the pea…
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Oh. That's probably because we don't share the same definition of what is a "coup". For me, it's clear that a "coup" is not when the democratic will of the people outs a puppet that was put in place by Moscow. While you have the opposite opinion.
I don’t expect westerners to accept reality or principles.
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Great, stealing money is soo European.
Without opining on the correctness of referring to this kind of confiscation from one state by another as stealing: it's an obvious mistake to treat taking money out of their bank accounts as a more serious offense than making war on them, literally taking their lives.
It would be one thing if there was a clear policy and adherence to it. In that case, you could discuss and reason in good faith. However there is no such indication that this decision is based on a considered policy. Trump's supporters would say that this is a result of not wanting the US being involved in foreign conflicts. That is a laudable goal, however that is not what is happening here. From the article > On Fr…
It's one thing to stop all aid to Ukraine. That makes you an asshole in a world full of assholes. But it's another thing to do that while simultaneously working to restore relations with Russia. There is only one word for that: evil. Back in the late 90s to late 2000s, people in Western Europe generally had pretty negative views of the US. It was the country that refused to fight against climate change, launched an i…
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>No. Countries with their own free choice asked to be part of NATO. The US did not push this on them. I've seen this stated frequently on HN. Here's a quote from President Clinton in February 1999[1]: That is why I have pushed hard for NATO's enlargement and why we must keep NATO's doors open to new democratic members... NATO would add 12 nations in the decade after those remarks, with the first 3 formally joining 2…
I think you are confusing support for expansion—which was necessary for it to happen—with somehow forcing the hand of other nations to join. Yes the above all shows that America thought it was in its strategic interest, that Clinton supported it. That does not eliminate the fact that much of Eastern Europe wanted to join for exactly the reasons I mentioned. And nobody made them do it. Furthermore, if you read the art…
To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive. I recommend reading some articles at the New Eastern Outlook by Brian Berletic (or watching his YT channel "The New Atlas"), he has some well-sourced deep dives on US soft power.
> By the point when Georgia engaged with Russia in 2008, Russia had already stirred up separatist groups, armed them, supported their violent takeover, and sent Russian advisors to support them in occupying Georgian territory. You can’t start at the middle.
1. The Reuters article reads" Saakashvili had said Georgia was responding to an invasion by Russian forces when it attacked breakaway South Ossetia, but the report found no evidence of this. It said Russia's counter-strike was initially legal.."
This sounds contrary to your point that Russia stirring up separatists to occupy Georgian territory was considered an acceptable casus belli.
2. Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point. I focused on the information around the timeframe of the 2008 invasion specifically because it was what you directly called out in your post. Re-reading it, I suppose you were thinking of all Russian grey-zone warfare in Eastern Europe but that context isn't clear.
3. Is your position that subsidizing armed rebel factions is not moral / not justified? Is it wrong for the US to support the MEK organization which actively works towards violent overthrow in Iran? At one point the Pentagon and CIA were funding two different separatist groups in Syria that were also fighting each other. This is what is missed by my most Americans and Europeans: to the rest of the world, complaining about Russia looks like blatant hypocrisy when the US has spent the post-Cold War period doing the exact same shit. Which would be fine, realpolitik and all that....if we didn't constantly posture as if we hold the moral high ground.
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I think you are confusing support for expansion—which was necessary for it to happen—with somehow forcing the hand of other nations to join. Yes the above all shows that America thought it was in its strategic interest, that Clinton supported it. That does not eliminate the fact that much of Eastern Europe wanted to join for exactly the reasons I mentioned. And nobody made them do it. Furthermore, if you read the art…
>Yes the above all shows that America thought it was in its strategic interest, that Clinton supported it. That does not eliminate the fact that much of Eastern Europe wanted to join for exactly the reasons I mentioned. And nobody made them do it. To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coerci…
To prove that we'd probably need a FOIA request or a large CIA/USAID/NED document leak. Saying "nobody forced them" while the US operated probably the most effective coercive soft power institutions the world has ever seen, by subsidizing NGOs and "pro-democracy movements", strikes me as incredibly naive.
This builds upon past experience: Hitler and Stalin were able to divide and conquer Europe in large part due to the Wilsonian belief in international law and neutrality by other countries. In the end, neutrality meant Hitler and Stalin could invade other European countries one by one at their convenience without triggering a wider backlash. That was a catastrophic failure of pre-WWII diplomacy, and we have no intention of repeating the mistake.
I don't need an American NGO to convince me that simply hoping we're not the next item on the menu is not a sound national security policy.
Do you have references for WHEN the Russians initiated support for anti-Georgian separatism? If it was after the major NATO expansions of 1999 and 2004 it's kinda a moot point.
There is a wider history behind it, like the April 9 tragedy from 1989, when Soviet soldiers killed 21 Georgians who demonstrated in favor of Georgian independence from the USSR. Most of the killed were women, their faces were smashed in with sapper shovels so badly that they became unrecognizable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_9_tragedy It was one of the pivotal moments of USSR's collapse. Georgia was much further away from the spotlight of international press than, say, Poland, and that allowed the Russians to adopt a much more violent approach there to prevent Georgia from seceding from the USSR. If this is all news to you, then you need to pick up a book on USSR's history to gain a frame of reference. And not some sterile study of diplomatic telegrams, but history as people experienced it.
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Nope. Majority of Europeans and Americans do not want to go and fight for Ukraine. Especially when there's a thread of nuclear war.
We don't need to fight. We only need to hand over to Ukraine the weapons they have been asking for since 2022. A few Taurus with the gloves off and Ukraine instantly gets far closer to prevent Russia from continuing their whole war effort.
https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukraine-situation-report-s...
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> no country has done it in the southern hemisphere, for instance South Africa
Well, they dismantled them all. So it’s back to 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma...