Territorial concessions wouldn't be needed if we didn't fuel coups in others backyards. We could of simply just left the status quo of Russia maintaining some limited influence in their SSR satellites, we didn't have to continue to press.

thank goodness that's something russia never ever does...

i doubt there's a terrorist org on planet earth that doesnt have russian weaponry.

im personally anti interventionist to the extreme, but my god do i hate the rule for thee but not for me when it comes to the US Russian relationship. they're in bed with Iran, North Korea, and the Chinese to actively undermine the US and our allies, but if we rile up protesters in Ukraine without even arming them we're crossing a red line so dire they have no choice but to go to war.

I don't buy that narrative at all. I do believe Ukraine was a fairly divided country in terms of east and west, or pro European and pro Russian.
Yanukovych however abandoned the closer ties with the EU under Russian pressure. Russia incited separatism. Even sending FSB operatives to assist in shutting down protests which involved murdering protestors.

The soviet union collapsed in 91. Are you honestly saying that previous hegemony of 30 years prior still entitles Russia to a sphere of influence in Ukraine?

Are we really doing empires and spheres of influence again?

Sling in Transnistria, Georgia, Chechnya, Serbia, Syria, countless African hellscapes and we're nearly at the sum total.

Strange that nations that have all been targeted by our geopolitical arrows would band together.

There is no rule for thee in this case. These alliances are reactionary in nature, responding to our initial actions. Iran doesn't hate us for no reason, they hate us because we tried to install a puppet to rule over them and have been actively opposing them for decades.

We could have had Russia in our geopolitical camp when the USSR fell apart, instead we told them to take a walk and continued to expand NATO and got to the point where we wanted nations like Ukraine & Georgia in there.

crocodile tears from Russia. and illogical to the point it's silly anyone buys it.

Why would a country that wants to be our ally militarily see a military alliance spreading towards them as a red line? if they truly wanted to be our ally that wouldn't pose a threat at all. the truth is they wanted free reign at influencing the former USSR satellite states so they and only they could pilfer them. they could have fully joined the fold of the west and been a true ally, and all it would have cost them is the free rein over their closest geological neighbors, many of which are backwater nations anyways.

they chose another path, rather than actual ally they put forward former KGB agents to keep up the cold war, keep influence over vodka soaked low GDP nations, and sell of weapons to terrorists and dictators. its what they want, and it's what the bourgeoisie of Russian oligarchs have always wanted. to truly join the west they'd have lost a large part of their fortunes to true democracy.

it's the same of all regime changes without violent revolution, they just change hats and keep doing the same business. the USSR collapse was just a corporate restructuring, russia hasn't changed, doesnt want to change, and never will change unless heads roll. which is very unlikely. the narrative that russia ever had a chance to become an ally is silly, the idea that Clinton's nato expansion was proactive exclusively, rather than partially a reaction to what the former-USSR was becoming, is silly. Clinton is a lackey warhack, but geopolitically he wasnt wrong about what russia was and what NATO was for.

This makes no sense at all. It's like asking why would I be threatened by a guy with with a gun drawn getting closer and closer to me, after decades of us having a global tug of war. Of course you would be threatened, just like they were threatened when more and more western ballistic missiles and nuclear capable launchers kept inching closer and closer to their borders.

Our willingness for them to join has never been fleshed out, where are you getting nonsense that they could have freely joined? Freely joined what? Where they invited to NATO as a member? Where they invited to the EU? What signals can you point to that they were ever welcomed?

The thing is, if these lines don't already have depth, does Ukraine actually have the logistics, weapons, personnel and competency to reset their positions in the face of a Russian breakout?
Both sides did a lot of digging in during the frozen periods of the conflict, but all the same reasons why Russia is making gains now are reasons why they wouldn't be able to regroup.
The biggest cities would still certainly take long sieges, but if Russia seizes all the lands up to the major cities they've already broken Ukraine and taken much of the remaining Donbas.

Rich talking about syria

Idlib fan boys will do great in france. Islamism and west Europeans are a perfect match. Add iraq, libya, yemen, etc to that list

But don´t add Palestine, i mean israel keko.

This post was edited by ownyaah on Feb 27 2024 03:12pm

the west would have loved Russia as an actual ally, but since the fall of the USSR russia has never once shown it's capable or even interested in modernizing and changing it's ways.

it's like you have a family member who's on heroin, and if they get clean they can rejoin the family. but they never stop using or stealing stuff from their family, then cry no one offered them a job or a place to live.

from the time the GHWB whitehouse made non-binding promises to the Russians behind closed doors to the time Clinton started his expansion it was abundantly clear what Russia was and what it would become. and that wasn't a functioning society even reminiscent of a western society.

notice in the face of defeat how places like Germany, South Korea, Japan, and many other nations have been welcomed into the western fold when they make it clear they're interested in changing. they quit the drugs. it cant all be chalked up to post-war occupation, there's a real effort in those places. one that's entirely devoid in russia.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Feb 27 2024 03:29pm