Putin read Trump’s book is why...
Zeeps here deny/ cannot understand this.
A crock of S.
We overreacted when they “put a few missiles in Cuba.”
And we have to be sensitive to their thousand year old whatever.
They are a dangerous evil enemy country and they were dangerous when they were a communist dictatorship and put nuclear missiles on our doorstep.
Just wondering did they have a thousand year history of putting nuke missiles on the other side of the world?
Sorry, this is claptrap. I followed the links. One of them leads to this propaganda screed:
https://www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peace/weaken-post-cold-war-russia
LA Progressive: Dick and Sharon edit and publish the Hollywood Progressive and the LA Progressive. They also founded and host The Left Coast Forum — an annual convening of progressive activists, scholars, organizers, documentarians, media organizations, and others who work to understand and restructure systems of oppression.
I also have low faith in this apologist author: George D. O’Neill, Jr., is a member of the board of directors of the American Ideas Institute, which publishes The American Conservative, and an artist who lives in rural Florida.
No sale.
> Americans who do not know or acknowledge Russia’s history are unable to understand Russian thinking… <
That’s a very important point.
Many decades ago I took a political science course taught by a VERY anti-communist professor. Such professors probably don’t even exist today.
Anyway, this professor encouraged us to look at all sides of every issue, not just the side we grew up with. For example, he asked us to consider what Stalin would have thought when NATO was formed - remembering that NATO was formed before the Warsaw Pact was.
In my opinion, all this might help explain - but does not excuse - what Putin did. Putin rolled tanks across a sovereign border and started a terrible, bloody war.
There are no good guys in this conflict.
“Americans understandably view Russian-American relations through the framework of American media”
That’s a BIG PROBLEM on this site and when given the facts regarding Russia or the situation in Ukraine they either deny it (’we never overthrew the elected Ukrainian government, Victoria Nuland was just out there with them because the weather was nice’), or laugh it off (’those Nazis, they’re just hyped up football fans’), and of course attack the messenger.
Anyway, I don’t post for them, as they already know the truth, but have other agendas here. I post for others, and anyone can find the information if they look (or ask me)...after all that’s how I found out.
I am so tired of hearing how Russia is so old and cultured with a vast history of greatness and suffering.
Here is some diplomacy: How about they stay in their borders and mind their own business?
I guess part of their history is killing off millions of their own sons every generation or so.
I am tired of them being paranoid that everyone wants their stuff. No one wants their stuff. Just go away.
They keep fighting because they like it. If they didn’t like it, they would stop.
The Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin might not be practicing Communists any longer, but they are all still Russian, and their mindset going back to Ivan the Terrible remains the same, somewhere between highly suspicious of outsiders to completely paranoid. This is not like trying to herd common domestic cats, it is more like keeping control of a cage full of full-grown cougars.
At the bottom of this is a 200 year long project keeping Germany from accessing Russian resources. The biggest failure was Molotov Ribbentrop. The latest manifestation is bombing of Nordstream II.
Russia arrived at this war at their final red line. We lurched forward with one push, one shove, one insult, and one sanction after another, and now they are at their actual existential red line and will not fall back anymore.
This means that they are impervious to charm, bluster, cussing, art of the deal, more empty promises, etc.
They truly literally mean, no NATO or NATO-light for Ukraine, no nazis on their border, no western ownership of Crimea and Donbass, and no ethnic cleansing.
DC and London simply cannot accept that someone actually means what they have said. Simple as that.
I think the promise was to not put NATO troops/bases in E. Germany and that agreement was upheld.
Those former Soviet satellites sought to join NATO, not the other way around and what logical, rational person with any knowledge of their history with Russia would blame them? They are acting with common sense combined with a strong survival instinct.
For some reason, they want to stay free from Russia and Russian control and seem to think NATO is a better place to be than being a friend of Putin.
I can’t argue with that. Putin’s Russia seems to be hellbent on becoming the Soviet Union again and re-assimilating every former Soviet satellite country back into the fold, as Ukraine is finding out now.
The other countries all know they are next and that NATO is the place to be.
Putin and the Russians are the reason and the problem, not NATO.
Military Summary Channel
https://youtu.be/dZJC-TdSFi4
Ukies decided to give major amounts of land to achieve Victory.
Russia has always been a malignant force and a nightmare to deal with. They do not deserve excuses and soft treatment disguised as “understanding.” They need to be dealt with from a position of strength without any illusions that they are a normal country or normal people.
Author starts immediately lying "U.S. political elites promised"
There is ONLY ONE treaty in regards to NATO expansion. It is called the "Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany". "No foreign armed forces, nuclear weapons, or the carriers for nuclear weapons would be stationed or deployed in six states (the area of Berlin and the former East Germany), making them a permanent Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone".
There is NO OTHER TREATY that bans eastward expansion of NATO.
Statements said in negotiations, which are NOT part of a treaty are just that, negotiations.
Russians are just different. Since the days of the Tsars right up until today, Russian leaders care little for any cost in human lives as long as it’s not their lives. Just think for a minute about how tens of millions they killed in the 20th century. Unless there is a personal cost to Putin, nothing will change.