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“Putin might assume Biden is weak and the military push back in the Ukraine would be insignificant. Both of which are true.”

In addition to American resistance being neutered by Biden taking office, European resistance has been mostly neutered by Olaf Scholz taking over in Germany.

Socialist Scholz was Vice President of the radical Marxist student movement of the International Union of Socialist Youth. He supported the Freudenberger Kreis, the Marxist wing of the Juso (the Youth Group of the Socialist Party) university groups. He published articles promoting “overcoming the capitalist economy” and criticizing the “aggressive-imperialist NATO”. Back then, he made trips to communist East Germany, where he was received by the highest communist leaders of the country. He is very likely a KGB asset from back then.

As soon as Scholz won the election, war preparations against the Ukraine intensified.

Now is Putin’s best chance to grab for the golden ring of reuniting the old empire, and recapturing the gas pipelines, with which to throttle the Europeans at will.

In Spring the fields will thaw and grow muddy, and tanks might be confined to roads, where they would be much more vulnerable to the shoulder fired missiles that the Ukraine is now getting. Next Winter, Republicans are likely to recapture the Congress. Politically, this is their best opportunity to get away with a conquest, like they got away with seizing Crimea under Obama.

As much as I would like to see a Russia free Ukraine. I just don’t think it’s possible. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the scattering of the “sub-socialist republics” into independent nations and “stans” you knew someone was going to come along and cobble it back together. When the USSR fell apart it undid the work of several centuries of Czars forget soviet premiers - the CZARS!

Since Putin took power, I’ve viewed him as a new Czar. A Czar without the pomp and circumstance but a Czar, nonetheless. And no that doesn’t make him our buddy or even automatically our enemy. He just needs to be watched, countered when necessary, and cooperated with when circumstances call for it.

I think he wants to try and restore the 1914 borders. I don’t think he has a chance with Poland & Finland, the Baltic nations maybe. They need to grab Poland, Finland & Sweden and make firm alliances.

Anyway, it’s out of or sphere of influence as sad as that may be. NATO is completely obselete. With Germany self-destructing economically and soon to be dependent on Russia for energy, NATO has no rear area. (I hope this is wrong, but I read that Germany only has as many working tanks now as one WWII German armored division.) NATO is dead killed by changing world circumstances and the foolishness of its members including us. We should not tie ourselves to a corpse.

The other European nations are just a little less crazy economically then Germany. We in short have little to no leverage on the Ukraine issue. If this was actually done, it was foolish of us to encourage NATO members to talk about or actually put any SOFs or any forces into Ukraine. They do that on their own we should make it clear the mutual defense clause does not apply should Russia retaliate.