Trump has never forgiven Zelenskyy for not giving him dirt on Hunter Biden in 2019. It’s now payback time.
JD Vance hates Ukraine, once telling Steve Bannon on a podcast “To tell the truth, I don’t care what happens to Ukraine.”
Toss in a little Tucker Carlson devotion to Putin along with Don Jr’s malign influence, and there was no way this was going to go positively for Zelenskyy.
I'm not impressed with Trump, but I am actually less impressed with Zelensky. I think he was needlessly confrontational even earlier in the meeting and then he failed to make the critical arguments when poked by Vance. I get that this was live TV and he didn't have aides to assist, but that's actually part of the fuck up. He should not have done that on live TV but waited until they were in private.
He was 1) ambushed by Vance and 2) had some language issues (as good as his English is). I know and understand those issues. I used to have them myself.
I was impressed that he kept it together and stood up to the absolute fiasco. And yes, I think they can win. I just wish so much Ukrainian blood wasn’t spilled to do so.
NB: the imbeciles who say things like "but it's not the Holocaust," ignore the fact that "not the Holocaust" can easily encompass a six-digit death toll.
The simple fact is Ukraine is a weak, poor country on the border of a rich, strong one. And since no one is willing to declare war on Russia over Ukraine, that’s all there is to it. Ukraine and its western enablers were bluffing; Russia called the bluff.
You listed a whole slew of moral and legal arguments. And they may all be 100% correct! It doesn’t matter. Don’t quote laws to men with swords, in the words of old Gnaeus Pompey.
Trump may be wrong or petty on the specific details, but he’s correct on the essential issue: might makes right. Personally, I’m glad our country’s leader sees the world as it is and not how he wishes it might be - and I daresay a bit more cynicism about the world, and its place in it, would have done Ukraine a lot of good too.
And I’d bet dollars to donuts there are not a few Ukrainians these days who wish their leaders had been just a bit more sociopathic instead of leading their country into this awful catastrophe. But I guess they have the consolation of not being “barbarians” lol
We can add "fool" to "sociopath" and "barbarian," if you like. Your "realism" has no room in it for innovation, guile, intelligence operations, or a proper appreciation of military science.
You look at a balance of forces and think from that alone you can derive military outcomes. That's exceptionally foolish. It makes no allowance for morale, fighting spirit, or diplomatic achievements going on in secret.
In WW2, you'd be the one preaching the only "realistic" way to end Imperial Japan would be a massive ground invasion. After all, it's what you know, what you can see. You'd loudly tell everyone to expect hundreds of thousands of casualties.
But reality is always bigger and slipperier than the so-called "realists" think, and the Manhattan Project transformed forever our notion of "realistic".
If you truly think you know all the different irons Ukraine has in the fire and you've correctly evaluated them all and have the foresight to predict complex interactions among them, that's not being realistic. That's being silly.
You are a sociopath, a barbarian, and a fool. You are a deeply silly person undeserving of membership among the free.
cool, well if Ukraine announces they’ve completed secretly a war-winning wunderwaffe, we can revisit this conversation and I’ll humbly apologize
but otherwise this is going to end with Putin getting pretty much what he was asking for at the beginning - autonomy (now separation) for the eastern oblasts and no American security guarantee for Ukraine - and hundreds of thousands of people will have died for nothing
your narcissistic moral posturing from cozy safety is a deeply evil doctrine that wrecks lives wherever it appears and it’s the great shame of our civilization - and the great disaster of our hapless vassals - that we permit and even laud this moronic nonsense
Sorry, but not doing what's right is a pretty appalling view. Fact is Ukraine lasted for three years against an adversary that was expected to conquer it in mere days. Yes, it was done with western weapons, but realistically, they also defend Europe, since no one with two braincells to rub together thinks Putin will stop there.
Declaring war against Russia over Ukraine is simplistic at very best.
Imagine not knowing the difference between a "Russian" and a "Russian troll." And since you have nothing substantive to contribute, feel free to go away.
Ukraine is a brutally corrupt country which for months has been press ganging men by the tens of thousands. There are videos of this practice all over Telegram in particular. Zelensky lied to noted Jewish conservative pundit Ben Shapiro (someone we used to know years ago)'s face about this practice, during a recent interview. The Kiev wartime dictatorship--and make no mistake, Zelensky's term has fully expired and he rules under martial law, Trump was dead on when he called Zelensky a dictator, even if Trump was heavily pressured to dial back said description for the sake of the negotiations. Kiev is a wartime dictatorship which has the power to hand a draft summons, jail or sanction any male critic. The Zelensky regime and its goons have also beaten Orthodox Christian priests who refused to join the new state instituted 'church' largely unrecognized across the Orthodox Christian world, falsely accusing Ukrainian dissident priests of spying for Russia, and used said false allegations to justify the violent Bolshevik-style seizure of churches in the name of anti-Bolshevism.
Many Israeli Jews raised on their grandparents and parents' stories of concentration camp guards recruited by the Nazis from western Ukraine and the vicious anti-Semitism of the Banderites are quietly disgusted at the willful blind eye so many of their distant and not so distant cousins in New York and other parts of the US turn to the cult of Stepan Bandera, Nachtgall battalion leader and Holocaust perpetrator Roman Shushkeyvich and the Waffen SS Galitzien Division that still runs rampant in Ukraine (hell one surviving SS man got a standing ovation in the Canadian Parliament--a true masks off moment!).
Such willful blindness in support of Zelensky and or individuals wearing in your face SS or Wehrmacht insignia because you need them as cannon fodder against Russia dammit does engender cynicism among Millennials and GenZ Jewish and non Jewish alike about anti-Semitic or Nazi imagery, which apparently exists all over the world BUT orgs like the ADL insist is totally and completely marginal in Ukraine. As opposed to the reality that widespread loathing of the state-sponsored Galicia-centric Bandera cult across the southeastern Ukraine was a major reason many in the Donbass who had every opportunity to flee to Kiev controlled territory or Russia chose to stay and of their own free will, fight the post-Maidan government. Russia didn't need to put a gun to the heads of anyone in the Donbass to get them to fight. This is a hard truth most Ukrainians have to deny for psychological reasons, just as they have to deny that Crimea voted overwhelmingly to give their post 'revolution of dignity' junta the finger and joined Russia. Ironically those Ukrainians who are willing to admit to widespread Russian sympathies and hatred of their Bandera ideology in the Donbass are precisely those who advocate for driving all the "vatniks" out into Russia, that is ethnic cleansing.
Last I checked though, Turks are supposed to be our NATO allies. But apparently we don't want them coming into Greece through investment? Anyway, at least I can appreciate you being honest that the real reason you dislike these Golden Visa programs besides envy of the rich is that too many Russians and now post 2022 Chinese were getting into the EU this way. It isn't as if Russians and Chinese had any illusions about many EUrocrats viewing them as racially inferior.
I have often wondered what happened to realpolitik, we simply don’t have the industrial capacity or land forces available for such an endeavor at the moment. I changed my thinking when Graham and others openly stated that it’s a good deal for the US as we don’t have to do any fighting. That is a tremendous insult, and I speak of Ukraine in that. After 30 years of one war after another, the collective west can hardly be seen as innocent either. I also question whether the psychological effects of the post collapse Soviet society are ever taken into account when making decisions.
Irene, I don’t get your same fuzzy feeling that Russia has a decrepit nuclear arsenal, especially since they committed to upgrading it, just left the START Treaty, and have now developed a HYPERsonic missile.
I also don’t understand your treatise on NATO expansion not being an issue with the Russians. It has been an issue since the collapse of the USSR, and your graph seems to be missing context given the video by J. Sachs.
I think Russia even asked to sign a peace treaty leaving Ukraine neutral and out of NATO probably as a negotiated minimum, and the West instead wanted a proxy war to box in Russia using Ukrainians as the spearhead.
The plan failed, and even still the EU would rather pursue war than peace using Ukrainians as cannon fodder. And, when you push a rat into a corner if this continues, don’t discount that a rat will use nuclear weapons in desperation.
I'll quote the following, "The letter identifies five recurring patterns in Sachs’ op-eds on his personal website: denying the agency of Ukraine, the idea that NATO provoked Russia, denying Ukraine’s sovereign integrity, pushing forward the Kremlin’s peace plans, and presenting Ukraine as a divided country."
He also accused the United States of sabotaging Nord Stream 2. He's anything but a credible source when it comes to Russia.
Attacking Sacks doesn’t make his analysis wrong. NATO started as 12 and is now over 30 with a goal to admit Ukraine. Ukraine in NATO was always a red line to Russia.
I’m more likely to accept the take of someone like G. Beebe, John Mearsheimer in the link of the first article, and David Roman. 7 economist and a PhD Candidate from Columbia don’t hold the same weight to me. Though not popular, the pragmatic consensus says NATO expansion started this war, but the propaganda is Putin wants to reconquer all of Eastern Europe.
No saints on either side in this conflict, but it is not going to be solved by Russian defeat in a conventional war. Russia intimated nuclear is on the table, and seeing the pictures you posted, I don’t think they would hesitate.
I don't think I attacked Sachs. He and Mearsheimer and others have been dead wrong on this issue. And historically, if you look at the article I shared, written by two undisputed experts in the field, including by a former Ambassador to Russia, the NATO argument just doesn't hold up. There's no "goal" to admit Ukraine to NATO, and Ukraine's change of heart on NATO only came after it was attacked by Russia. I repeat - Ukraine was neutral before then. Sorry, but what you're saying makes no sense here. The undisputed facts are that 1) Ukraine was neutral until Russia invaded 2) Russia didn't bat an eyelash about the Balts joining NATO and certainly didn't invade those countries and 3) Russia has always had NATO on its border. Note the location of Alaska.
Definitely agreed there are no "saints" here. There are no saints in politics writ large. But only one side was unjustifiably attacked by a much larger, aggressive adversary, regardless of what you may think of Ukraine as a whole or Zelensky.
Russia has been threatening nukes for years and hasn't acted. So nothing has changed there.
Okay, you’re entrenched in your stance that you think this war started 2022 and that Russia wasn’t provoked by 30 years of NATO expansion. Russia thinks the opposite, started a war over it, and has indicated they might use nuclear deterrent if this war gets out of hand.
I read the following analysis and I don’t get the same warm fuzzies that Russia is a paper tiger on nuclear capabilities.
Ukraine has been neutral for decades. Ukraine's Declaration of Sovereignty declared that the country intended to become "a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three nuclear free principles." Ukraine has cooperated with NATO after that, but has remained neutral. After Russia began attacking the country, Ukraine increasingly sought NATO membership.
As for Russia's commitment to upgrading their weapons systems and nuclear arsenal... let's just say, despite their public proclamations, I doubt that's happening. Heck, they weren't even able to execute the state armaments program they created in 2011.
Nation-states have made unrealistic commitments for the benefit of courtiers ever since King Canute ordered the tide not to come in. The central question isn't whether Russia has stated they'll upgrade their arsenal: it's whether they possess the capability to upgrade.
Nuclear warheads depend on a lot of sophisticated chemistry and metallurgy. Constant exposure to neutron flux causes warheads to deteriorate. Tritium boosting depends on extraordinarily pure tritium, because some things in tritium's decay chain are neutron poisons far more effective than the neutron boost given by tritium fusion. The half-life of tritium is about six years, and the last time the Russians did a top to bottom tritium refresh they were still being led by Boris Yeltsin.
At this point in time if Russia wants a modern nuclear force they'd have to do it by cannibalizing their existing one, which (a) they can do and (b) would significantly enhance their nuclear readiness. Given the choice between X nukes with low reliability and a quarter-X with high reliability, the smaller force is by far more devastating.
But we're not seeing Russia's nuclear forces diminish in size.
So we can already say they're badly overdue on tritium replenishment and they're not cannibalizing old and deteriorated weapons to modernize other ones.
Sure, Putin's committed to upgrading the nuclear deterrent.
Trump was also committed to building a wall and making Mexico pay for it.
Looks to me like the Russians have been, and still are committed to their nuclear weapons programs. I mean after all, it’s all they’ve got as a deterrent since they are not going to win conventional wars against the West, or China.
When Eisenhower became Supreme Commander of NATO in 1951 he said NATO should be considered failure if America still had troops in Europe in 10 years. I was one of over 300,000 of them in 1965.
Europeans have been finding excuses to kill one another for centuries and the US has been stupid enough to participate in blood and treasure since WWI. You can visit over 200,00 of their graves in Normandy, Belleau Wood (where my grandfather fought but survived) Ardennes, Brittany, Brookwood, Cambridge, Epinal, Florence, Hombourg, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Margraten, and many others. And now Europe is committing cultural suicide by importing millions of men who are killing them in the name of Allah.
Time for the US to wish them well and stop funding their stupidity since they never learn.
All of this has zero to do with the subject at hand, since Russia is the one threatening Europe and waging war on Ukraine. So... thanks for your service.
The US has zero interest in helping the stupid Europeans fight amongst themselves. They are nothing but leeches living off the USA. They can go fuck themselves. Just like Zelensky told Vance to do in Ukrainian ( a Russian dialect) in the Oval Office.
1 - if you read the article, I mentioned the numerous times Russia has threatened nuclear war and nothing ever came of it. I assess the risk is near zero, especially given Russia's poor record of maintaining their systems.
2 - blood ties have nothing to do with my assessment. I am an American first and foremost. I took a citizenship oath. I took the oath to serve in the US military. I took an oath TO THE CONSTITUTION when I served in the intelligence community. I resent the mere inference, and don't ever lecture me on choosing between my country and the country I left!
3 - Ukraine has been fighting and shedding blood against an aggressive invader for more than 10 years now. It's a sovereign nation. Have a little fucking respect. It's KYIV.
Trump has never forgiven Zelenskyy for not giving him dirt on Hunter Biden in 2019. It’s now payback time.
JD Vance hates Ukraine, once telling Steve Bannon on a podcast “To tell the truth, I don’t care what happens to Ukraine.”
Toss in a little Tucker Carlson devotion to Putin along with Don Jr’s malign influence, and there was no way this was going to go positively for Zelenskyy.
But it sure made for good TV, didn’t it?
I'm not impressed with Trump, but I am actually less impressed with Zelensky. I think he was needlessly confrontational even earlier in the meeting and then he failed to make the critical arguments when poked by Vance. I get that this was live TV and he didn't have aides to assist, but that's actually part of the fuck up. He should not have done that on live TV but waited until they were in private.
Anyway, I still think Ukraine will win assuming Europe puts its money where its mouth is - https://open.substack.com/pub/ombreolivier/p/can-ukraine-win-now?r=7yrqz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
He was 1) ambushed by Vance and 2) had some language issues (as good as his English is). I know and understand those issues. I used to have them myself.
I was impressed that he kept it together and stood up to the absolute fiasco. And yes, I think they can win. I just wish so much Ukrainian blood wasn’t spilled to do so.
Words of truth doesn’t ring hollow like a gloating President who’s so full of himself along with his quislings.
NB: the imbeciles who say things like "but it's not the Holocaust," ignore the fact that "not the Holocaust" can easily encompass a six-digit death toll.
They want more people murdered, and won't be happy until the numbers reach the levels of the Holocaust.
And then they'll quibble with you over the numbers.
The simple fact is Ukraine is a weak, poor country on the border of a rich, strong one. And since no one is willing to declare war on Russia over Ukraine, that’s all there is to it. Ukraine and its western enablers were bluffing; Russia called the bluff.
You listed a whole slew of moral and legal arguments. And they may all be 100% correct! It doesn’t matter. Don’t quote laws to men with swords, in the words of old Gnaeus Pompey.
Trump may be wrong or petty on the specific details, but he’s correct on the essential issue: might makes right. Personally, I’m glad our country’s leader sees the world as it is and not how he wishes it might be - and I daresay a bit more cynicism about the world, and its place in it, would have done Ukraine a lot of good too.
"might makes right."
This is the creed of the sociopath. You, sir, are a barbarian unfit for membership in a polity of the free.
it’s the creed of the realistic
And I’d bet dollars to donuts there are not a few Ukrainians these days who wish their leaders had been just a bit more sociopathic instead of leading their country into this awful catastrophe. But I guess they have the consolation of not being “barbarians” lol
We can add "fool" to "sociopath" and "barbarian," if you like. Your "realism" has no room in it for innovation, guile, intelligence operations, or a proper appreciation of military science.
You look at a balance of forces and think from that alone you can derive military outcomes. That's exceptionally foolish. It makes no allowance for morale, fighting spirit, or diplomatic achievements going on in secret.
In WW2, you'd be the one preaching the only "realistic" way to end Imperial Japan would be a massive ground invasion. After all, it's what you know, what you can see. You'd loudly tell everyone to expect hundreds of thousands of casualties.
But reality is always bigger and slipperier than the so-called "realists" think, and the Manhattan Project transformed forever our notion of "realistic".
If you truly think you know all the different irons Ukraine has in the fire and you've correctly evaluated them all and have the foresight to predict complex interactions among them, that's not being realistic. That's being silly.
You are a sociopath, a barbarian, and a fool. You are a deeply silly person undeserving of membership among the free.
cool, well if Ukraine announces they’ve completed secretly a war-winning wunderwaffe, we can revisit this conversation and I’ll humbly apologize
but otherwise this is going to end with Putin getting pretty much what he was asking for at the beginning - autonomy (now separation) for the eastern oblasts and no American security guarantee for Ukraine - and hundreds of thousands of people will have died for nothing
your narcissistic moral posturing from cozy safety is a deeply evil doctrine that wrecks lives wherever it appears and it’s the great shame of our civilization - and the great disaster of our hapless vassals - that we permit and even laud this moronic nonsense
"[I]f Ukraine announces they’ve completed secretly a war-winning wunderwaffe, we can revisit this conversation and I’ll humbly apologize[.]"
No, we won't, and no, you won't, because it is not in your nature to do so.
You are a sociopath, a barbarian, and a fool.
Sorry, but not doing what's right is a pretty appalling view. Fact is Ukraine lasted for three years against an adversary that was expected to conquer it in mere days. Yes, it was done with western weapons, but realistically, they also defend Europe, since no one with two braincells to rub together thinks Putin will stop there.
Declaring war against Russia over Ukraine is simplistic at very best.
Oh, look! The Russian troll is here.
Imagine thinking that being called a Russian is an insult. Particularly coming from the beggars of Europe.
Imagine not knowing the difference between a "Russian" and a "Russian troll." And since you have nothing substantive to contribute, feel free to go away.
Ukraine is a brutally corrupt country which for months has been press ganging men by the tens of thousands. There are videos of this practice all over Telegram in particular. Zelensky lied to noted Jewish conservative pundit Ben Shapiro (someone we used to know years ago)'s face about this practice, during a recent interview. The Kiev wartime dictatorship--and make no mistake, Zelensky's term has fully expired and he rules under martial law, Trump was dead on when he called Zelensky a dictator, even if Trump was heavily pressured to dial back said description for the sake of the negotiations. Kiev is a wartime dictatorship which has the power to hand a draft summons, jail or sanction any male critic. The Zelensky regime and its goons have also beaten Orthodox Christian priests who refused to join the new state instituted 'church' largely unrecognized across the Orthodox Christian world, falsely accusing Ukrainian dissident priests of spying for Russia, and used said false allegations to justify the violent Bolshevik-style seizure of churches in the name of anti-Bolshevism.
Many Israeli Jews raised on their grandparents and parents' stories of concentration camp guards recruited by the Nazis from western Ukraine and the vicious anti-Semitism of the Banderites are quietly disgusted at the willful blind eye so many of their distant and not so distant cousins in New York and other parts of the US turn to the cult of Stepan Bandera, Nachtgall battalion leader and Holocaust perpetrator Roman Shushkeyvich and the Waffen SS Galitzien Division that still runs rampant in Ukraine (hell one surviving SS man got a standing ovation in the Canadian Parliament--a true masks off moment!).
Such willful blindness in support of Zelensky and or individuals wearing in your face SS or Wehrmacht insignia because you need them as cannon fodder against Russia dammit does engender cynicism among Millennials and GenZ Jewish and non Jewish alike about anti-Semitic or Nazi imagery, which apparently exists all over the world BUT orgs like the ADL insist is totally and completely marginal in Ukraine. As opposed to the reality that widespread loathing of the state-sponsored Galicia-centric Bandera cult across the southeastern Ukraine was a major reason many in the Donbass who had every opportunity to flee to Kiev controlled territory or Russia chose to stay and of their own free will, fight the post-Maidan government. Russia didn't need to put a gun to the heads of anyone in the Donbass to get them to fight. This is a hard truth most Ukrainians have to deny for psychological reasons, just as they have to deny that Crimea voted overwhelmingly to give their post 'revolution of dignity' junta the finger and joined Russia. Ironically those Ukrainians who are willing to admit to widespread Russian sympathies and hatred of their Bandera ideology in the Donbass are precisely those who advocate for driving all the "vatniks" out into Russia, that is ethnic cleansing.
Last I checked though, Turks are supposed to be our NATO allies. But apparently we don't want them coming into Greece through investment? Anyway, at least I can appreciate you being honest that the real reason you dislike these Golden Visa programs besides envy of the rich is that too many Russians and now post 2022 Chinese were getting into the EU this way. It isn't as if Russians and Chinese had any illusions about many EUrocrats viewing them as racially inferior.
I have often wondered what happened to realpolitik, we simply don’t have the industrial capacity or land forces available for such an endeavor at the moment. I changed my thinking when Graham and others openly stated that it’s a good deal for the US as we don’t have to do any fighting. That is a tremendous insult, and I speak of Ukraine in that. After 30 years of one war after another, the collective west can hardly be seen as innocent either. I also question whether the psychological effects of the post collapse Soviet society are ever taken into account when making decisions.
Irene, I don’t get your same fuzzy feeling that Russia has a decrepit nuclear arsenal, especially since they committed to upgrading it, just left the START Treaty, and have now developed a HYPERsonic missile.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12672
I also don’t understand your treatise on NATO expansion not being an issue with the Russians. It has been an issue since the collapse of the USSR, and your graph seems to be missing context given the video by J. Sachs.
https://substack.com/@tlionel/note/c-97502140?r=17hbre&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I think Russia even asked to sign a peace treaty leaving Ukraine neutral and out of NATO probably as a negotiated minimum, and the West instead wanted a proxy war to box in Russia using Ukrainians as the spearhead.
https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/nato-admits-casus-belli-was-nato?r=17hbre&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
The plan failed, and even still the EU would rather pursue war than peace using Ukrainians as cannon fodder. And, when you push a rat into a corner if this continues, don’t discount that a rat will use nuclear weapons in desperation.
Also, I will submit, Sachs is not exactly an unbiased source on the topic.
https://www.columbiaspectator.com/news/2023/04/09/economics-professors-condemn-jeffrey-sachs-in-open-letter-on-russia-ukraine-war/
I'll quote the following, "The letter identifies five recurring patterns in Sachs’ op-eds on his personal website: denying the agency of Ukraine, the idea that NATO provoked Russia, denying Ukraine’s sovereign integrity, pushing forward the Kremlin’s peace plans, and presenting Ukraine as a divided country."
He also accused the United States of sabotaging Nord Stream 2. He's anything but a credible source when it comes to Russia.
Cheers!
Attacking Sacks doesn’t make his analysis wrong. NATO started as 12 and is now over 30 with a goal to admit Ukraine. Ukraine in NATO was always a red line to Russia.
I’m more likely to accept the take of someone like G. Beebe, John Mearsheimer in the link of the first article, and David Roman. 7 economist and a PhD Candidate from Columbia don’t hold the same weight to me. Though not popular, the pragmatic consensus says NATO expansion started this war, but the propaganda is Putin wants to reconquer all of Eastern Europe.
https://www.compactmag.com/article/reality-is-winning-the-ukraine-narrative-war/
https://mankind.substack.com/p/quick-take-a-military-history-of?r=rewck&triedRedirect=true
No saints on either side in this conflict, but it is not going to be solved by Russian defeat in a conventional war. Russia intimated nuclear is on the table, and seeing the pictures you posted, I don’t think they would hesitate.
I don't think I attacked Sachs. He and Mearsheimer and others have been dead wrong on this issue. And historically, if you look at the article I shared, written by two undisputed experts in the field, including by a former Ambassador to Russia, the NATO argument just doesn't hold up. There's no "goal" to admit Ukraine to NATO, and Ukraine's change of heart on NATO only came after it was attacked by Russia. I repeat - Ukraine was neutral before then. Sorry, but what you're saying makes no sense here. The undisputed facts are that 1) Ukraine was neutral until Russia invaded 2) Russia didn't bat an eyelash about the Balts joining NATO and certainly didn't invade those countries and 3) Russia has always had NATO on its border. Note the location of Alaska.
Definitely agreed there are no "saints" here. There are no saints in politics writ large. But only one side was unjustifiably attacked by a much larger, aggressive adversary, regardless of what you may think of Ukraine as a whole or Zelensky.
Russia has been threatening nukes for years and hasn't acted. So nothing has changed there.
Okay, you’re entrenched in your stance that you think this war started 2022 and that Russia wasn’t provoked by 30 years of NATO expansion. Russia thinks the opposite, started a war over it, and has indicated they might use nuclear deterrent if this war gets out of hand.
I read the following analysis and I don’t get the same warm fuzzies that Russia is a paper tiger on nuclear capabilities.
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-03/russian-nuclear-weapons-2024/
Hi, Ekim -
Ukraine has been neutral for decades. Ukraine's Declaration of Sovereignty declared that the country intended to become "a permanently neutral state that does not participate in military blocs and adheres to three nuclear free principles." Ukraine has cooperated with NATO after that, but has remained neutral. After Russia began attacking the country, Ukraine increasingly sought NATO membership.
For an explanation about Putin's alleged fear of NATO, I'd urge you to read this: https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/what-putin-fears-most/
As for Russia's commitment to upgrading their weapons systems and nuclear arsenal... let's just say, despite their public proclamations, I doubt that's happening. Heck, they weren't even able to execute the state armaments program they created in 2011.
"especially since they committed to upgrading it"
Nation-states have made unrealistic commitments for the benefit of courtiers ever since King Canute ordered the tide not to come in. The central question isn't whether Russia has stated they'll upgrade their arsenal: it's whether they possess the capability to upgrade.
Nuclear warheads depend on a lot of sophisticated chemistry and metallurgy. Constant exposure to neutron flux causes warheads to deteriorate. Tritium boosting depends on extraordinarily pure tritium, because some things in tritium's decay chain are neutron poisons far more effective than the neutron boost given by tritium fusion. The half-life of tritium is about six years, and the last time the Russians did a top to bottom tritium refresh they were still being led by Boris Yeltsin.
At this point in time if Russia wants a modern nuclear force they'd have to do it by cannibalizing their existing one, which (a) they can do and (b) would significantly enhance their nuclear readiness. Given the choice between X nukes with low reliability and a quarter-X with high reliability, the smaller force is by far more devastating.
But we're not seeing Russia's nuclear forces diminish in size.
So we can already say they're badly overdue on tritium replenishment and they're not cannibalizing old and deteriorated weapons to modernize other ones.
Sure, Putin's committed to upgrading the nuclear deterrent.
Trump was also committed to building a wall and making Mexico pay for it.
Looks to me like the Russians have been, and still are committed to their nuclear weapons programs. I mean after all, it’s all they’ve got as a deterrent since they are not going to win conventional wars against the West, or China.
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-03/russian-nuclear-weapons-2024/
When Eisenhower became Supreme Commander of NATO in 1951 he said NATO should be considered failure if America still had troops in Europe in 10 years. I was one of over 300,000 of them in 1965.
Europeans have been finding excuses to kill one another for centuries and the US has been stupid enough to participate in blood and treasure since WWI. You can visit over 200,00 of their graves in Normandy, Belleau Wood (where my grandfather fought but survived) Ardennes, Brittany, Brookwood, Cambridge, Epinal, Florence, Hombourg, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Margraten, and many others. And now Europe is committing cultural suicide by importing millions of men who are killing them in the name of Allah.
Time for the US to wish them well and stop funding their stupidity since they never learn.
All of this has zero to do with the subject at hand, since Russia is the one threatening Europe and waging war on Ukraine. So... thanks for your service.
The US has zero interest in helping the stupid Europeans fight amongst themselves. They are nothing but leeches living off the USA. They can go fuck themselves. Just like Zelensky told Vance to do in Ukrainian ( a Russian dialect) in the Oval Office.
That's certainly... word salad.
1 - if you read the article, I mentioned the numerous times Russia has threatened nuclear war and nothing ever came of it. I assess the risk is near zero, especially given Russia's poor record of maintaining their systems.
2 - blood ties have nothing to do with my assessment. I am an American first and foremost. I took a citizenship oath. I took the oath to serve in the US military. I took an oath TO THE CONSTITUTION when I served in the intelligence community. I resent the mere inference, and don't ever lecture me on choosing between my country and the country I left!
3 - Ukraine has been fighting and shedding blood against an aggressive invader for more than 10 years now. It's a sovereign nation. Have a little fucking respect. It's KYIV.
Hey, fucktard! Tell me you don’t know anything about money laundering without telling me…
Yep. You’re an idiot. Goodbye.