Ace, how old are you? If you don’t think Western Europe was terrified of the Warsaw Pact, you missed the entire Cold War. Brilliant, the size and effectiveness of opposing forces have no bearing on the outcome of a war. Brilliant. We are extremely lucky that Castro didn’t invade us. So you noticed the Warsaw Pact no longer exists. Here’s a real brain teaser for you. What was the motivating factor for the establishment of NATO? That’s right, NATO was a DEFENSIVE alliance formed to counter the alliance that soon would be known as the Warsaw Pact. There is no defensive reason for NATO’s existence since Reagan destroyed the Warsaw Pact. But here you neocons come wanting to start the Cold War all over again by aggressively expanding NATO with virulently anti Russian members on the Russian, not Warsaw Pact, border. At least Biden, Inc. appreciates your efforts to keep its cash cow producing. If Russian propped up oligarchs run Ukraine, Biden and your pals we saw trying to impeach Trump get frozen out of all their Ukrainian kickbacks. Yeah, your right, let’s risk WWIII, Hunter loves those Ukrainian whores.
you seem to be under the misapprehension that this is a war like the Iraq war.
No, and this war is not about “NATO’s expansion east” - another boogeyman.
Ethnic Russian people, including their soldiers, see Ukrainians as basically the same people as themselves. Why do you think Putin lied to the soldiers and why do you think the Russian soldiers are “showing restraint”??
Russians have been told for decades that Ukrainians are their brothers. And they know that - there is massive intermarrying between the two and the two know that they are both derived from Kievan Rus.
The only parallel to this situation would be if the USA was led by a dictator who had been in power 20 years and wanted his name in history. AND then decided to attack CANADA (yes, that’s the parallel, not Mexico, but CANADA). Do you think American soldiers would be happy invading, in this hypothetical scenario, CANADA?
Let’s go further and say that this Biden-20 year dictator tells his soldiers to kill any Canadian resistance. Most American soldiers would refuse that.
THAT is why “Russia” is failing in Ukraine. Not because the Russian military can’t do it, but they do not have their heart in it, to attack their brothers.
Ukraine’s military on paper should have folded immediately - this is not even the comparison in Gulf War One, this should have been in days. Putin even believed that and passed the propaganda that the Ukrainians would WELCOME his troops.
Imagine the shock to Russian soldiers when their brother Slavs come up and calmly ask them why they are invading; when old ladies come and tell them in Russian “here are seeds for when you die”.
This is NOT Russian soldiers going into Chechnya or Syria.
Putin will lose - but the tragedy is if he brings Russia down with him.
Putin will lose in every scenario - even if tomorrow they conquer Kyiv and kill Zelensky, they create a martyr and they have a restless nation of 50 million who have a sense of nationhood THANKS TO PUTIN.
Old enough to have lived through every event you referenced.
We were not terrified and the Soviet Union ultimately dissolved faced with the expense of keeping up with us.
Soviet Union was much stronger with the resources and men of the slave started of Eastern Europe.
Exactly why those nations don’t want Russia to return, they were slaves.
Only an idiot would let Russia retake that empire and threaten Western Europe.
Once again, the Soviet Union had an EMPIRE and a huge army and navy. They didn’t dare get into war with the West. They collapsed and didn’t fight us. The general’s coup against Yeltsin failed, we supported Yeltsin and they didn’t attack us.
Putin attacked because Biden stepped out of the way.