[Zhang Fei]

Ukraine ping

flt-bird: [Why this obsession on the part of the West with Ukraine?]

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There is no obsession with Ukraine. Russia is the largest country on earth by a factor of 2. It is 4x the size of European NATO. Any attempt to expand its already monstrous land mass rightly draws serious concern. When Russia moved to annex Georgia in 2008, Dubya sent humanitarian aid in the teeth of Russian combat operations, signaling that further moves could trigger a war with the US.

Russia is today 3x the Ottoman empire at its peak. Turkey is much diminished from its glory days. Even so, if it attempted to overrun its neighbors, the US and its allies would supply the targets of Turkish ambitions.

Russia has been a threat to Europe for literally centuries. And for centuries, Great Powers stood in the way. Thanks to WW2 and the dismantling of the European empires, the US is the only remaining Great Power in Europe. We don’t need Russia adding 40m people to its population. We’re interested for the same reason we got involved when Germany invaded Russia’s massacre-happy regime, not because we like the people being invaded but because we fear what the acquisition of the additional material and human resources will do for the conqueror’s ability to move beyond that conquest. Land grabs are like M&M’s - you can’t have just one.

[FLT-bird]

Stopped at “when Russia moved to annex Georgia”.

No they didn’t. The conflict was over South Ossetia. Georgia attacked it first.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks ZF!