deplorable own goal, that pretty much sums it up, and tying it back to the Ukraine war, that pretty much sums up western strategy.

The funny thing is there are some sites where Daddy Sugar fans believes they can solo the entire world with their military and beat everyone down.


Seriously it is so easy to contain China previously. But you have to go poke the bear instead of letting the bear cock block the Chinese. The Russians do not like the Chinese in the past, they always have border issue similar to the ones with India.
The World Island is one of the most difficult and tumultuous area to handle. Divide and conquer strategy works like a charm. But nope, Biden, Nuland and Friends decide their balls are big enough solo them because YOLO.

And here we are ....

I previously outlined in this topic that through diplomacy russia and china have resolved almost all of their border issues.

Well, it is resolved now, they have no choice. Look , if given a Choice. Russia will rather lean West than East.

Russia was almost always a European nation. Everything from their culture, customs, cuisine it's more European than Asian. In 2000, Putin floated the idea of joining NATO which was shut down, which to me makes little sense from geopolitical perspective.

If you look around the world today, what we do is we go to power #3, power #4 in whatever region and basically say hey #2 is going to try to domineer your, align with us (power #1) and as a collective we will be much stronger. Look at who our biggest partners are in AIPAC are now. SK and Japan.

So with that in mind, with that type logic, by 2000 from a geopolitical perspective everyone is aware that China ascension is on the horizon, and it's only a matter a time that a country with huge industrial capability and 1+Bn will challenge for hegemony. So in a logical world, you pull Russia into the west military sphere. They are the #3 power in this discussion. Instead our policies pushed the number #3 and #2 closer than they have ever been. One has the industrial backbone, the other has the natural resource backbone. Not only did we push them closer but we've isolated number #3 so much that they will become long term intertwined and dependent on #2.

Wish the big brains at the state department or CIA would share their 'insight' on doing something like this, or how exactly this makes our true challenger weaker and us stronger. Maybe it's something we're all missing.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Aug 21 2023 11:03am

I find it laughable that a lot of people make fun of kissinger. He would have pull out a trick and contain China for at least half a century. Like he did to USSR.

pretty much sums it up.

The scenarios in my head why Russia wasn't let is one of these theories, maybe some combo of them

1. The Euros remain a primary buyer of our military technology. To lose the Russia boogieman (if they are in NATO) would have resulted in hundreds of billions of military contracts losses, potentially leading to military and intelligence cuts of Biblical proportions. Think about it, why would Poland or Denmark order F-16 or F-35s or whatever other stuff if there's no threat from anywhere? Why would we need a bloated CIA?

2. Maybe we were afraid of the potentially shift in NATO's power center of gravity? In 2000s Russia was still relatively weak but possibly the decision makers were afraid that having Russia would basically shift the power from Washington? It's possible IMO. Particularly if Europe would have become even more dependant and intertwined with Russia. Imagine if instead of 30-40% energy dependency it would be like 60-70%, It would have been a monumental feat to drive decision making only in Washington while having everyone else behave as vassals.

3. Theory: That US foreign policy may have already been captured by the Chinese. Idk it's possible but hard to imagine.


4. Edit: Another one could be, we thought they were weak and would eventually Balkanize them like we did with Yugoslavia. Break Russia or at least replace their powers for pro-west leaders who would be coerced into doing what we want anyways, so why give them a seat at the table.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Aug 21 2023 11:28am

"We can say nothing about anything because it's all relative"

Is what youre essentially saying. A barren statement.

No Brics for Valdimir this year. Only on TV (not even sure)