Posted on 06/21/2024 8:21:27 PM PDT by hardspunned
Trump says that the war in Ukraine started because of NATO expansion.
(Excerpt) Read more at x.com ...
“By your slavish support of Russia”
Link please.
And once again, the truth is that Russia didn't invade Ukraine because Russian leadership was afraid of NATO. Russia only felt free to invade Ukraine because that leadership wasn't afraid of NATO.
Any reasonably well-informed, honest person knows that to be true, or at least can reason it out.
I can’t accurately analyze Putin, lack of information.
However, he studied law and economics. He was a KGB agent and rose to the rank of LTC (attending various service schools). He has a real PhD, not some honorable or Cracker Jack box degree. Besides Russian, he’s a fluent German and functional English speaker. Having served as long as he has as President of Russia, and seeing how he communicates (flow of ideas, structure...) and reacts in crisis such and now with Ukraine (measured response, sequencing events, coordination of message with actions...), I am going to make the assumption that there is an analytical and pragmatic mind at work.
IMHO, that is a man grounded in the physical reality around him and able to work with that (few people are truly like that). Most people live in a part-time fantasy world they create and here in America we feed (people politically or economically benefit from this) these imaginary worlds in which people exist (LGBTQIA, racism, feminism...). When you live in a fantasy, eventually, reality (human nature, the forces of nature, simple math, or forces of economics) catch up with you, example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBWmkwaTQ0k). Putin strikes me as someone that is entirely in the physical world.
All that said, Putin is well aware of what Russia is able to do militarily, economically, politically. They may be in landmass very big, but up until this war in Ukraine, they were #5 in conventional military size and spending roughly the same we were as a percent GDP on defense, despite being a much smaller economy. They have some political influence in the world, they have an economy with some size, but they are small compared to us, very small compared to the West. The idea you float isn’t realistic.
You’re not realistically taking a military (these were facts before the war started) with 1:10 the US budget, 55% the size of the US Army/Marine Corps (land forces), 47% the size of the USAF, 43% the size of the USN, with 1/3 the size of our IC, 44% our population, 40% the number of males reaching military age annually, 1/5 our industry, 1/10 our GDP, 1/5 our PPP, less high tech, less allies, weaker allies, allies that are mired with external and internal threats that are unable to do much for you (example Chechnya), and going on a conquest to rebuild some empire.
What you propose would be like the President of the Netherlands dreaming of rebuilding their empire. There was a time where they too had a vast empire: https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/7nscm4/the_dutch_empire_1795/#lightbox They can’t physically do it, and fantasizing about it, won’t make it happen. Russia can’t go on some world conquest or rebuild the Soviet empire, they cannot physically do it.
The real world: Russia is basically using a T72 tank rebranded as T90. They have no equivalent to a B2, F22, F35... They have 1/3 the intel/recon satellites we have, and they are technically not as capable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_USA_satellites They have nothing equivalent to a US super carrier... This war in Ukraine is requiring Russia to partially mobilize its population and economy (conscription, ~7% GDP spending) for war in order to achieve their national objective of stopping Ukraine from joining NATO. We’re trying to argue this both ways. On the one hand we want to argue how Ukraine is winning over Russia but on the other hand how Russia is this huge threat. IMHO, Russia is winning, but only at a huge cost and with a concerted national effort in doing so. Pretending like Russia is this massive threat that will plow Westward, retake the Balkan states once they take Ukraine (which they won’t - they have limited objectives in Ukraine), is not even remotely feasible.
It is precisely because Russia is weak in conventional terms, that we are the ones going after them. Not them going after us, us going after them. We are pushing on the Russians hard, may it be in Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, Libya, all nations aligned or allied with them. These are facts, not dreams, not speculation, not assumptions... These are all Russian aligned or formal allies we have invaded, attacked, or sponsored a coups in. In the last 2 years, Russia has scored a few small victories downplayed by our media (they are pushing back): Chad, Niger, Sudan. But make no illusions, we are the shark smelling blood and have been going after them for years:
Iraq 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq
Libya 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya
Syria 2014: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intervention_in_the_Syrian_civil_war
Venezuela 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020)
All of them are coincidentally major oil producers.
These are facts, not some theory where we’re trying to guess what Putin is thinking, what his dreams are.
It is a physical fact, a reality that can be proven that NATO has expanded Eastward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug2468hDl6E It’s not Russia expanding Westward, it’s us expanding Eastward.
If we want to live in reality and not some fantasy world:
—It’s us that is doing the expanding, not Russia.
—It’s us that is the big boy on the playground, not Russia.
—We’re the ones calling the shots (i.e. making the decision to bring Ukraine into NATO), they are the ones reacting to us.
If we had not made the move to bring Ukraine into NATO, we today would not be having this conversation, because this war would have never been.
You are making a lot of good points, but there is one assumption ,since we are assuming things here that
1. Putin has lost his mind
2. Like hitler after all this time being in power he beleived his own infallibility
Not the first dictator to do this
I would never vote for a Leftist or a crook. And voting for Biden is elder abuse.
Putin is a President in what is an oligarchy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_oligarchs
There are probably a few more names that need added, but in either case, it’s a short list of people that essentially have the reigns of power.
“We” are the exact same thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brV-GSOYQsQ NBC so of course they attack Republicans. They won’t mention Biden who made his 37 year Congressional political career being backed by a few folks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvJ1ZuJDNbQ Also a general lefty, amateurish and highly biased, but his bigger point is true and he makes an argument.
We are a “kinda democracy,” where in reality there are a lot of games played with the system and a few folks, most not even known by name to the public, decide the nations political fate.
A study on this topic: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
In most cases where the the interest / will of the people is in opposition to the oligarchs, the oligarchs win. In other words, the majority of Americans if you were to interview them right now, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, would state that trade with China, the loss of manufacturing job to that place, their human rights record, or that they are a single party communist regime needs addressed. YET the US policy maker will vote for most favored trade status even in the same year that tanks roll over pro-democracy students on Tienanmen square, literally. The US policy maker will take no action even after a naval blockade of Taiwan, and we will support China’s admission to the WTO years ago regardless of their environmental, human rights record or even the security threat they pose to us. Why do you think? Just ask Apple, Amazon, Dell, Cisco, HP why that is so.
***Most elections go for the candidate who is supported by the oligarchs and bureaucracy. What we call the “establishment” is really an interplay between a government bureaucracy and these oligarchs.
The oligarchs and the corporations they lead are the ones that have the money to spend on big campaigns, on the political parties, lobbying, funneling money to the politician and making them and their family rich, supporting organizations like BLM that “magically” pop up one year before an election and then vaporize afterward, spend millions on legal litigation if a decision is made they disagree with, help out in elections, run massive advertising campaigns...
In many cases, they outright own or at least heavily influence the media: MSNBC (Bill Gates), Washington Post (Jeff Bezos)...
Do you think it is mere coincidence that serious political consideration to having Big Tech broken up, since they are monopolies (Meta, Google), suddenly just disappeared after the last elections? https://nypost.com/2021/10/14/zuckerberg-election-spending-was-orchestrated-to-influence-2020-vote/ Do you think it is possible that who was elected in 2020 and the director of the FTC he appoints might have something to do with this?
Do you think that it was out of concern for climate change why a pipeline that is cleaner than a dripping train that is diesel powered moving oil by rail got canceled? https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-joe-biden-keystone-pipeline-canada-environment-and-nature-141eabd7cca6449dfbd2dab8165812f2
Do you think it is for the public’s best interest that policies in place that control pharma costs got cancelled literally within days of Biden taking office so that they can return to gouging customers in some cases with 2,602% and more (((profit))) margins? Pharma makes such high profit margins and rakes in so much money that they actually go to great lengths to hide this from the public, since it could outrage folks to find out that the tax payer is paying $1,650 a month (~$50 a day) for a daily pill (PrEP) which is no more than a few cents to manufacture.
Big pharma, tech, the Unions, those benefiting from trade with China, everyone that paid to make sure Biden got elected, got their pay-off.
Why do you think this happens? https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/biden-cements-labor-agreement-requirements-for-federal-projects and https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/biden-administration-union-strikes-nlrb-win.html All big federal construction projects MUST go to union firms. And it has become far easier to organize/unionize.
***It is up for debate who’s “democracy” is more phony, Russia or the US, but neither is entirely real.
These are sorta democracies, where the game is as Trump put it, “rigged.”
If you want to know who is going to win a US national election, figure out who that candidate is that:
1) Has support by the oligarchs.
2) Is better networked into the bureaucracy.
That is the one that usually wins may he be a Republican or Democrat and that is also why this term “uniparty” is very accurate/on point. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Republican or Democrat on many issues: trade with China for example.
Take a look at what is happening in our own country, right before your eyes! You have a candidate that is hamstrung from campaigning, can’t travel much during trial and a gag order limiting what he can say. J6 took out most of his foot soldiers that operate in the gray area, Oath Takers, Proud Boys, one more. But Biden still has his soldiers: BLM didn’t see all their leadership taken out by the DOJ, nor ANTIFA etc. See what’s happening here? What do you think the MSM is going to do for Biden during the debate? Do you really think they will let hims sink or set the stage to at least do OK by controlling what questions are asked and the format so that Biden doesn’t have to do a lot of talking off the cuff?
Before all is done, Biden (the candidate backed by the oligarchs and bureaucracy) is going to get re-elected and you’re going to be told how you need to get behind this because you need to respect the democratic process and office of the Presidency.
We can debate if Russia is a little bit more of a sham democracy, but the idea that we are so different, is naive.
So you have the run up to the elections and it’s obvious how the candidate with the oligarchs and bureaucracy behind them benefits (MSM/Big tech, Lawfare...). But what about in the elections themselves?
If we wanted a true democracy, fair elections, that actually represent the will of the people, you’d have some sort of verification that only those allowed to vote are voting, you’d have in person voting (no mail in ballots - opens the door for voter harvesting), no Gerrymandering (done since 1812), no digital voting machines, no networked voting systems...
Those making the rules and creating the processes for elections are allowing the fraud to creep in by design. They knew exactly what they were doing when they changed the rules for the 2020 elections to allow for massive use of mail in ballots: https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2021-03/HowWeVotedIn2020-March2021.pdf (look at page 6) They’re not stupid. Billions are at stake, people that are pretty smart and have big ego’s and their political futures are at stake. Every move is analyzed, legally reviewed, and those people making these decisions in all reality know EXACTLY what they are doing and how this will generally impact an election. This is intentional and our elections are sorta/kinda real.
When you raise your hand, and shake a finger at those bogus Russian elections (which our MSM is full of), realize, we’re not that different. In fact, all Western nations (US, Germany, France, UK... all oligarchy’s with highly manipulated elections) are pretty much the same in that regard.
What you have posted is accurate, largely, but that is not the point.
I repeatedly see post here that talk about putin as a president, free and fairly elected….., and that simply is not true
Our elections have become a sham, but “elections “ in Russia are and have been complete sham for decades.
If there was no difference then xiden would not have been halted from giving aid to Ukraine for months.
If Putin wants something it will happen, his Duma has zero power
The only restraint on putins power is his understanding of history(as twisted as it is) and the number of times Russian dictators have been eventually deposed. Which is why “internal security” size and budget rival defense spending.
2024 is going to be interesting, IMO the deep state failed in 2016 because they underestimated the amount of cheating they needed to win. In 2020 they jumped the shark with the level of fraud, but prevailed because of the depth and width of the swamp, but regardless they were exposed
Exclusive: Trump handed plan to halt US military aid to Kyiv unless it talks peace with Moscow
We will see, unlike much of what has been said and reported I will wait and see.
Trump warned Europe about being dependent on Russia for hydrocarbons, gave arms and trading to Ukraine, and told European nations they needed to spend more on defense.
So as I said we will see, have to get past the fraud before any of this matters
Easy. Sweden and Finland are both over 1500 km from Moscow.
Now tell me how far the Ukranian border is from Moscow...500 miles.
...So? They’re all on the Russian border. They touch Russia, and isn’t Russia’s big boogeyman that NATO is touching their borders?
That analogy is so wrong on so many levels:
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