The proposal by the Poles was that they exchange some of their MiG-29s with American F-18s (leaving themselves in the same place in terms of equipment and air power), which would allow America to then send these MiGs to Ukraine - the reason being that Ukrainian pilots are trained on MiGs, but not F16s or F18s.

The U.S. government is throwing a wrench in these plans because it would of course be a big escalation.

Personally, I'm torn on this swap. Doing it now might needlessly escalate things. On the other hand, if we wait until the Russians have full air supremacy and bomb cities into the ground, it would be too late to send jets to Ukraine.

This goes back to what skinned and me were talking about last night: Russia's/Putin's actions of the last weeks are so uncharacteristic and sloppy and badly planned. In the past, Russian propaganda was at least aiming at sore points of the West and got at least some degree of traction. This time around, even their propaganda is flailing around aimlessly and can't come up with any narrative that holds up to even the lightest amount of scrutiny. The only ones who still buy into the Russian narrative about this war are the truly hopeless cases.

...or actual foreign agents.

Russia is going full Belarus, there's not much need of a pretense anymore.

Your mother must of sent you down the stairs quite a few times as a baby, you are just plain retarded.
Go drown in a toilet dumbass

A credible pretense could have undermined Western unity and blunted the sanctions. They were able to pull it off in 2014, when they got away with a blatant violation of a country's sovereignty fairly cheap and only had to pay a very mild economic and diplomatic price for their aggression. This time, it's almost as if they didn't even try to mitigate the consequences.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 9 2022 12:42pm

I dont get it. sure this is a credible reason ?? have IQ's dropped or is it selective hearing? yes yes look how we expand eastwards, no one can stop us, we are not here to take part we are here to take over, errm i mean, we are strengthening our defensive capabilities by dumping a wall of missiles against our enemy, russia. don worry russia, its purely for defence, and the best defence is a good offensive. not including Sweden and Finland etc.

and before you call me a commie whore again or get a mod to suspend me for posting this picture, yes putin is a baddy but from a geopolitical standpoint you need to undestand your opponents red lines in order to prevent what we are literally experiencing today.



This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 9 2022 01:03pm

Most of these countries were not whipped or bribed into joining NATO by the West, they were doing it out of their own volition. Heck, these countries were desperate to join NATO as soon as possible because they absolutely do not want to have to live under Russian rule ever again.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 9 2022 01:14pm

yes completely agree. but my point is to look at it from the enemies standpoint re: "pretext" for war.

This post was edited by ferdia on Mar 9 2022 01:21pm

Look at it from the countries who joined nato's standpoint. They're neighbors with a dictator who's down to invade neighboring countries to try and restore the USSRs borders. Joining NATO ensures a future for your country in the face of potential Russian aggression.

If putin didn't want NATO to expand, he should have put down his toys and integrated Russia into the rest of Europe instead of playing Stalin.