On the Nature of Things | Forum

Mr. Perfect wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 5:09 am

noddy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 5:04 am I cant see anyone wanting nuclear war over Ukraine - its all just words.

So are you picking up your rifle and heading over?

kmich wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:58 pm Усі ви, апологети фашистів, можете піти до пекла!

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Mr. Perfect wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 9:47 am This Joe Biden guy is a real moron.

White House preps public for sanctions sticker shock

noddy wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 7:54 am it was game over in the first 10 minutes - cruise missiles took out anything ukraine had to stop them.

best bet now is for them to surrender and move straight to post war repurcussions, hope western europe can find atleast 1/4 of a testicle, if not a full pair.

kmich wrote: ↑Thu Feb 24, 2022 1:58 pm Усі ви, апологети фашистів, можете піти до пекла!

kmich wrote: ↑Thu Feb 17, 2022 11:55 pm Ah, the French. Nurturing dreams of long past glories while being full of baguettes.

Putin is much like the gambler at the table, who, realizing the night is late, decides to throw in all his chips with a weak hand.

No nation moves over 150,000 troops to the north, east and south of a country complete with field hospitals unless action is in the planning. The situation is not like Iraq's fictitious WMD, the build up can be seen by any nation with satellite imaging abilities. The contest now is one of messaging. The Biden administration states repeatedly that Russians are planning or going to invade based upon Russian force deployments which causes Putin to react with repeated denials. If a party to a conversation is reacting to your messaging, you control the messaging. If the Russians deny they are going to invade and then do so, they would look both feckless and mendacious.

But invasion is not what Putin wants. Putin undoubtedly viewed with contempt and as a sign of profound Western weakness Trump's ignorance and faithful bootlicking, the January 6, 2021 attack on the capital, the endless contesting of the 2020 election, and a Republican party who continues to go along with it all due to the opportunity it offers their authoritarian ambitions for a one party state, the wet dream of aspiring tyrants and enemies of a free people throughout history. These, combined with Brexit, the rise of illiberal regimes in Hungary and Poland, German and French ambivalence about NATO ("brain dead" says Macron) along with a dictator's usual coterie of yes men telling him what he wants to hear - that NATO is obsolete and a new order in Europe could be compelled upon a weak and divided alliance. So, he decided to push the issue by putting a gun to Ukraine's head, while insisting he has no intention to pull the trigger and, after all, the West made him do it anyway.

What Putin has failed to understand is that NATO expansion was not a product of Western plot, but due to the nations of the Baltic states and eastern Europe, for understandable, centuries long historical reasons, looking to the west for their security arrangements. What his bullying and aggressive posturing has succeeded in doing is exactly what he did not want - NATO now has a purpose, and Ukraine and even other European nations are more likely than ever to seek a set of European alliances and relations. Putin is up a tree, and he can't get down without either engaging in a costly, unpredictable invasion or a humiliating retreat.