opening a bold/red new thread doesn't make your arguments true

Russia sent 66.6coins drones to Poland, Germany, Denmark.
Europe reacts with trillion coins of F35 fighter jets
USA fills the pockets.

hidden agenda carried out

here is the Western Narrative / View. If I left anything out, feel free to post.

The Western View: Defending Sovereignty and the Principle of Democratic Choice

Core Principle: The war in Ukraine is a direct result of Russia's campaign to deny Ukrainian sovereignty and its people's right to self-determination. The Western position, while acknowledging a complex history of overseas engagement, distinguishes between the destructive interventions of the past and the support of democratic movements in the present. The fundamental breach of international order was and remains Russia's decision to resolve a political dispute through violent conquest.

The Foundation: Sovereignty, Security, and Democratic Support

The modern conflict is rooted in competing visions of international order. The West purports to advocate for a system built on rules and individual rights, while Russia asserts a sphere of influence based on traditional power politics. This clash was intensified by the post-Cold War ideological landscape, where the "End of History" thesis and the "Unipolar Moment" created a widespread belief in Western capitals that liberal democracy represented the final, inevitable form of governance, and that major power conflicts had been consigned to the past under permanent U.S. leadership.

Addressing the "Exploitation of Weakness" Narrative:

A central tenet of the Russian and realist critique is that the West, particularly the U.S., took advantage of Russia's post-Soviet weakness in the 1990s, humiliating the nation and recklessly expanding NATO into a strategic vacuum during this period of American triumphalism. From the Western perspective, this fundamentally mischaracterizes a voluntary process. The expansion of NATO and the EU was driven by the sovereign choice of former Soviet satellites who, freed from Moscow's domination, actively sought their own security guarantees and democratic futures. This was not an imposition on a prostrate Russia, but the fulfillment of the very right to self-determination that the end of the Cold War promised. The West argues it was responding to the aspirations of independent nations seeking to escape a sphere of influence, not orchestrating a containment strategy against a defeated foe. While the confident assumption of a perpetual, peaceful U.S.-led order has been definitively challenged by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the principle that sovereign nations have the right to choose their own alliances remains a cornerstone of the Western defense of Ukraine's path.

1991: Ukraine declares independence from the collapsing Soviet Union, asserting its sovereign right to statehood.
1994: In the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gives up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the UK, and the US—a treaty Russia has blatantly violated.

Democratic Support as Standard Practice:

The United States, through agencies like USAID, has consistently exported and supported democratic development worldwide. This practice, intensified by the post-Cold War consensus, was seen as facilitating the inevitable spread of liberal democracy. It includes substantial work in Georgia, particularly after the 2003 Rose Revolution, where it helped build transparent institutions and civil society. Similar democratic support programs have operated everywhere from Southeast Asia to Africa, always publicly acknowledged as part of diplomatic engagement and foreign policy.

The Ideological Threat: A Successful Ukraine as an Existential Challenge to the Kremlin

Beyond military alliances, the West perceives a deeper, ideological driver of Russian aggression. Many analysts argue that a wealthy, stable, and democratic Ukraine integrated with the West presents an existential political threat to Russia's authoritarian system. The Kremlin's fear is not of a direct military attack from rich nations, but of the powerful demonstration effect of a successful Ukrainian state. The stark contrast in living standards, individual freedoms, and opportunities for its citizens would serve as a permanent, compelling alternative to the Russian model of centralized power, corruption, and stagnation. This, from the Western viewpoint, explains the ferocity of Russia's opposition to Ukraine's European choice: it is a battle of political models, and a flourishing Ukraine would fundamentally undermine the legitimacy of the Putin regime by proving that a fellow post-Soviet nation could thrive without submitting to Moscow's authoritarian playbook.

Addressing the "Coup" Narrative: Democratic Aspiration vs. Foreign Imposition

The 2014 Euromaidan revolution is a pivotal moment where these competing narratives clash. Learning from History: The West acknowledges that its past attempts to promote democracy through force, as in Vietnam, were catastrophic failures. Similarly, Cold War-era involvement in the Congo created lasting instability. These examples represent a different era of foreign policy. The Ukraine Distinction: The critical distinction is that support for Ukrainian civil society through agencies like USAID was open, non-violent, and responsive to local initiative. This mirrored the approach taken in Georgia, focusing on institutional development rather than regime imposition. The goal was to empower citizens within their own political process to rise up and remove the Pro-Russian puppets. Sovereign Agency: The West contends that the Ukrainian people were the primary agents of change. While the leaked Nuland phone call revealed undiplomatic language, it didn't alter the fundamental fact that millions of Ukrainians peacefully protested for their European future through democratic processes.

The Pretext: Putin's Long-Held Denial of Ukrainian Sovereignty

The West views Russia's actions as driven by an imperial ideology, not legitimate security concerns.
2008: At the NATO Bucharest Summit, Putin reportedly told U.S. President George W. Bush that Ukraine was "not even a real state."
2014: Following the annexation of Crimea, he declared the modern Ukrainian border a historical mistake.
July 2021: These sentiments culminated in his formal essay claiming Ukrainians and Russians are "one people," revealing his goal as the negation of Ukrainian political and cultural identity.

The Invasion: The Ultimate Rejection of Self-Determination

Russia's full-scale invasion was the logical conclusion of its ideology. Bad Faith Diplomacy: Leaders like France's Macron received personal assurances from Putin against invasion, making the subsequent attack a stark demonstration of bad faith. War of Conquest: The invasion, under the false pretext of "de-Nazification," was a completely unprovoked act of aggression aimed at extinguishing Ukraine's sovereign, democratic government. The initial assault on Kyiv failed, but subsequent campaigns have been marked by the brutal siege of Mariupol, the liberation of which revealed mass civilian casualties in Bucha and Irpin, providing further evidence of the war's criminal nature.

The Response: A Strategic Pincer Movement - Military Aid and Economic Pressure

The Western response is a two-pronged strategy designed to uphold international law and strategically degrade Russian power. Aid as Self-Defense: Military and economic support is provided under Article 51 of the UN Charter, upholding Ukraine’s inherent right to defend its territory. This aid has systematically escalated from anti-tank weapons (Javelins) to advanced artillery (HIMARS), air defense (Patriots), main battle tanks (Leopards), and F-16 fighter jets, with Taurus and Tomahawk missiles now being openly discussed alongside a Nato presence in the skies above Ukraine - Air Power, directly responding to battlefield demands and Russian escalation.

The Sanctions Strategy:

A War of Economic Attrition: The unprecedented sanctions regime is a central pillar of Western strategy, designed to cripple Russia's capacity to wage war over the long term. The objective is not to cause immediate collapse, but to wage a deliberate war of economic attrition. By cutting off access to critical technology, freezing sovereign assets, and constraining energy revenues, the West aims to systematically degrade Russia's military-industrial complex and erode the economic foundation of Putin's regime. The strategic calculation is that over time, the cumulative pressure—a shrinking economy, a technologically starved military, and a frustrated populace—will become unsustainable, ultimately leading to internal political consequences that could result in Putin's removal from power. Europe and the US believes that these strategies are working.

Conclusion:

The Western view holds that this war is a defense of the principle that nations, not empires, should chart their own course. It acknowledges a troubled history but argues that supporting a popular, sovereign democratic movement is fundamentally different from the imperialism of the past or the aggression of the present. The path to a just and durable peace requires Russia to end its illegal invasion and fully accept Ukraine’s sovereign right to exist as a democratic state within its internationally recognized borders.

This post was edited by ferdia on Oct 5 2025 06:47am

This is about geo-politics and nothing else. Saying shit like we good they bad means nothing in geo-politics and won't get you anywhere.

Deal with it

This is about arguments, actually. Just because a position is pro-Ukrainian it doesn't automatically make the arguments true. What do you think?

so why every state tries to give a reason for what they are doing? Even if it is the most obvious lie, like Russia redefining history back to thousand years...

Spare a thought for Norlander today, who's using an electric scooter to get to work because there's no gas at the pump.

thanks for all these breaks between my posts, i hate double posting.

The Unified Strategy: The Domestic Roots of U.S. Confrontation with China and Russia

The United States has embarked on a definitive and generational strategic pivot, applying a coherent framework of isolation, containment, and de-globalization against both China and Russia. This marks the end of the post-Cold War era of engagement and economic integration, replacing it with a foreign policy doctrine where economic security is synonymous with national security. While the tactics are tailored to the specific threat, the overarching strategy is consistent and deliberate. Critically, this external posture is not formed in a vacuum; it is a direct projection of a transformed domestic political culture. As my analysis argues, the legacy of political strategists like Mitch McConnell was to systematically dismantle bipartisan cooperation, reframing the Democratic Party not as a domestic rival but as an enemy to be defeated. This winner-take-all ethos, which now defines Republican strategy at home, has become the template for America's engagement with the world, turning strategic competitors into existential foes.

The core of this strategy is containment, an approach that mirrors domestic political tactics. With Russia, this is executed through direct military and economic means. The provision of advanced weaponry like ATACMS missiles to strike targets deep inside Russian territory exemplifies a policy of maximum pressure, reflecting a domestic mindset where negotiation is anathema. Concurrently, the U.S. has pursued coercive diplomacy with allies like India, imposing secondary tariffs to dissuade them from trading with Russia, a tactic of disciplining allies that echoes the hardline taken against dissent within the Republican party. With China, containment is articulated through initiatives like AUKUS and the "Quad", building exclusive alliances that mirror the partisan "in-groups" of domestic politics, where you are either with us or against us.

This containment is underwritten by a concerted policy of economic and technological de-globalization. For Russia, unprecedented sanctions have successfully constrained its access to advanced semiconductor technology. Furthermore, the G7 oil price cap has forced Russia to build a costly "shadow fleet," deliberately engineered to cripple its economic base. The parallel strategy towards China involves measures like blocking the sale of advanced Nvidia and AMD AI chips and the CHIPS and Science Act, which actively restructures global tech supply chains away from Beijing. These are not merely policies of competition; they are tools of economic warfare, reflecting a domestic political environment where the goal is not to win through superior performance but to disable the opponent's capacity to function.

The driving force behind this uncompromising posture is the internal political dynamic that now dictates foreign policy. The Republican party's treatment of the Democratic party as an "enemy" has now been exported around the world. The same tactics—obstruction, the rejection of compromise, the use of coercive pressure, and the framing of disputes as existential struggles—are now clearly visible in America's statecraft. The confrontational attitude once reserved for domestic opponents is now directed at Beijing and Moscow. This approach has become politically sustainable precisely because it resonates with an electorate conditioned by years of domestic political warfare, where any gesture of diplomacy can be weaponized as weakness.
Conclusion: The Unipolar Imperative and a Doctrine of Force

Ultimately, the synthesis of domestic partisan conflict and foreign strategy reveals a clear and consistent set of U.S. goals. The objective is not merely to compete within a multipolar system, but to actively reassert American dominance and return to a unipolar world. This imperative is driven by a foreign policy logic that operates in three distinct, escalating stages, a playbook honed domestically and applied globally.

First and foremost is the relentless pursuit of state interest, defined almost exclusively in terms of American primacy. This is evidenced by the CHIPS Act, a massive industrial policy designed to onshore a critical industry not for mere economic security, but to maintain a stranglehold on the foundational technology of the 21st century, ensuring others remain dependent.

When this pursuit of interest meets resistance, the U.S. moves to the second stage: to dictate terms through coercive diplomacy. This is not diplomacy as negotiation, but as an ultimatum. The choice presented to India—cease trade with Russia or face punitive tariffs—is a clear example. So too are the demands for allies to fully exclude Chinese technology from their infrastructure, a modern-day version of "with us or against us."

When this coercive diplomacy fails, the strategy culminates in the third and final stage: the application of overwhelming force. This is not limited to kinetic military action, though the proxy war in Ukraine, fueled by billions in advanced weaponry, serves as a prime example. It also encompasses economic force: the overwhelming power of sanctions designed to cripple national economies and the export controls wielded like a weapon to technologically strangle rivals. The goal is to demonstrate that resistance to American will is futile.

This three-stage logic—state interest, dictated diplomacy, overwhelming force—is the operational code of a nation that can no longer distinguish between a domestic political opponent and a global strategic competitor. The "us vs. them" paradigm, perfected on the American political stage, has become the organizing principle for a foreign policy aimed at bending the world to its will, proving that the most potent export of the United States is now its own internal division, repackaged as a doctrine for global confrontation.

Oh, we have a personal there

I would make it worse. A tandem bicycle with Malopox or with Ferdia, to immediately target the maximum number of unpleasant personalities.

This post was edited by Norlander on Oct 5 2025 07:59am

You moved to china? Electric Scooters are all the rage there AFAIK.



Uhh… didn’t the Nord Stream pipelines get blown up? The US basically forced Europe to stop buying Russian gas. Russia is sitting on an oversupply right now. So unless Norlander’s in Europe, not sure how that “no gas” thing works.



I went to a school called the Tandem!

This post was edited by ferdia on Oct 5 2025 08:03am