Will Putin soon invade a NATO country? How do you think would NATO react?

[noname223]

Putin plays with fire.

I don't know the source I link. I usually read German news on these issues.

Russian warplanes violate Estonian airspace in ‘unprecedented’ move as WW3 fears escalate

NATO nation Estonia has described the move by Russia as 'brazen'.

www.unilad.com

It seems more and more likely that Putin wants to invade another country probably a Baltic state. He wants to test NATO's response to provocations. Whether NATO would actually not back down if Putin invaded a Baltic state. He approaches more and more that option. He could invade small towns in Baltic states with a large minorities of Russian speaking people and claim he had to save them from the NATO fascists. He wil claim he only does that to give them a right of self-determination.

If Putin is determined to open a second front it could be rational to do that in the coming months or a few years. I would not wait until European countries invested billion of Euros into their military. In the long run Russia's power will decline. Their debt will grow and fossil fuels will becom less important. Intelligence services say it is likely Russia will invade a NATO country in the coming years. If they did it now, it would way earlier than predicted. They say Russia's military has to recover over their loses in Ukraine before invading another country. If I was Putin I would do it while Trump is in office. And maybe make an argeement with China. China invades Taiwan and Russia a Baltic state. The former might happen until 2027 for various reasons.

I think I am a Ukraine hawk. And I was that probably the whole time during this war. Scholz might prevented with his pressure on Xi that Putin used tactical nukes pretty early in the conflict. We will probably never know the truth. I wonder whether US intelligence services could still predict an invasion as precisely as in 2022. I think US intelligence services got way worse under Trump. And they look the other way round when Russia spreads misinformation that helps Trump.

I watch some commentators who might want to be seen as doves in this conflict. But I find them sort of delusional. Maybe there is some truth in the fact that NATO made Russia uncomfortable. If Ukrainians enjoyed the Western lifestlye this could have destabilized Russia simply because Russians would have wanted the same freedoms and Democracy. But in my opinion it is more than obvious who is the aggressor in this conflict especially looking at the last years. It seems insane that people still defend Putin. I watch Glenn Greenwald and he blamed NATO to be the aggressors because they "pretend" that the drones that fly in NATO borders were sent on purpose. Glenn really thinks this was coincidence. How stupid can you be? This happened now countless of times. It gets more and more aggressive. But I cannot take Glenn Greenwald serious anymore on Russia. He interviewed Dugin on how great the Russian Democracy was. LMAO. I am not sure whether Glenn is really that dumb or whether he simply wants to spread propaganda. Some leftwingers are totally blind and naive towards Russia. (Rightwingers too.) How can you deny what is obviously happening. There is this popular German politician Sarah Wagenknecht in the days before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine she promised Putin wants peace. She never changed her position on that even after the invasion. She simply invented new excuses why Putin acts the way he does. And the far-right AfD Is also pro-Russia.

One could only determine when worldwars started retrospectively. Maybe WW3 already started. But if Putin invaded a NATO state, we would be in the next stage with a massive escalation. If a NATO state was invaded, how do you think would NATO react? What would Trump do? I am not sure whether Trump would help us substantially. Would such a war, end in a nuclear war eventually with no chances to prevent it? I mean if NATO backs down to go to war, NATO would break down immediately losing its credibility. I am not sure whether Putin speculates on that. He does not respect Trump for sure.

Maybe the tensions calm down for some time in the coming weeks. But that intellgience services are right in their assessment that it is only a matter of time that Russia invades a NATO country seems likelier than ever before...

 

[sinfonia]

I hope we (the West) finally stop funding the drug addict regime in Ukraine and bring this stupid war to an end.

 

[Lyscx]

Putin plays with fire.

I don't know the source I link. I usually read German news on these issues.

Russian warplanes violate Estonian airspace in ‘unprecedented’ move as WW3 fears escalate

NATO nation Estonia has described the move by Russia as 'brazen'.

www.unilad.com

It seems more and more likely that Putin wants to invade another country probably a Baltic state. He wants to test NATO's response to provocations. Whether NATO would actually not back down if Putin invaded a Baltic state. He approaches more and more that option. He could invade small towns in Baltic states with a large minorities of Russian speaking people and claim he had to save them from the NATO fascists. He wil claim he only does that to give them a right of self-determination.

If Putin is determined to open a second front it could be rational to do that in the coming months or a few years. I would not wait until European countries invested billion of Euros into their military. In the long run Russia's power will decline. Their debt will grow and fossil fuels will becom less important. Intelligence services say it is likely Russia will invade a NATO country in the coming years. If they did it now, it would way earlier than predicted. They say Russia's military has to recover over their loses in Ukraine before invading another country. If I was Putin I would do it while Trump is in office. And maybe make an argeement with China. China invades Taiwan and Russia a Baltic state. The former might happen until 2027 for various reasons.

I think I am a Ukraine hawk. And I was that probably the whole time during this war. Scholz might prevented with his pressure on Xi that Putin used tactical nukes pretty early in the conflict. We will probably never know the truth. I wonder whether US intelligence services could still predict an invasion as precisely as in 2022. I think US intelligence services got way worse under Trump. And they look the other way round when Russia spreads misinformation that helps Trump.

I watch some commentators who might want to be seen as doves in this conflict. But I find them sort of delusional. Maybe there is some truth in the fact that NATO made Russia uncomfortable. If Ukrainians enjoyed the Western lifestlye this could have destabilized Russia simply because Russians would have wanted the same freedoms and Democracy. But in my opinion it is more than obvious who is the aggressor in this conflict especially looking at the last years. It seems insane that people still defend Putin. I watch Glenn Greenwald and he blamed NATO to be the aggressors because they "pretend" that the drones that fly in NATO borders were sent on purpose. Glenn really thinks this was coincidence. How stupid can you be? This happened now countless of times. It gets more and more aggressive. But I cannot take Glenn Greenwald serious anymore on Russia. He interviewed Dugin on how great the Russian Democracy was. LMAO. I am not sure whether Glenn is really that dumb or whether he simply wants to spread propaganda. Some leftwingers are totally blind and naive towards Russia. (Rightwingers too.) How can you deny what is obviously happening. There is this popular German politician Sarah Wagenknecht in the days before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine she promised Putin wants peace. She never changed her position on that even after the invasion. She simply invented new excuses why Putin acts the way he does. And the far-right AfD Is also pro-Russia.

One could only determine when worldwars started retrospectively. Maybe WW3 already started. But if Putin invaded a NATO state, we would be in the next stage with a massive escalation. If a NATO state was invaded, how do you think would NATO react? What would Trump do? I am not sure whether Trump would help us substantially. Would such a war, end in a nuclear war eventually with no chances to prevent it? I mean if NATO backs down to go to war, NATO would break down immediately losing its credibility. I am not sure whether Putin speculates on that. He does not respect Trump for sure.

Maybe the tensions calm down for some time in the coming weeks. But that intellgience services are right in their assessment that it is only a matter of time that Russia invades a NATO country seems likelier than ever before...

Look im Russian. I can assure you that Usa and Russia are very much allies. Russia needs Usa against China that wants Siberia And Usa needs Russia against China that is becoming too big of a world power. War in ukraine was a setup for ukraine by us and russia from the start. Look at what happened to ukraine. Resources are split and land is given to Russia. There wont be a war between Nato and Russia. Or at very least Usa will not intervene. Buti dont think another big war in Europe will happen

 

[Skallagrim]

1. It isn't "Putin." It's "Russia". If you think that somehow everything that is happening wouldn't happen at all if it was just someone else in charge... well... you're right. We'd all be living in nuclear fallout shelters by now.

2. Russia has no interest in attacking NATO. They'll probably take Odessa, Kharkiv and everything up to the Dnieper river. That's all.

3. Russia is not your enemy.

4.

I watch Glenn Greenwald and he blamed NATO to be the aggressors because they "pretend" that the drones that fly in NATO borders were sent on purpose. Glenn really thinks this was coincidence. How stupid can you be?

He's not stupid there. He's just wrong because he's not a military analyst. The chances that these drones were Russian at all is de-minimis.

First, facts:

These were Gebera drones. (Western source).

Geberas are *short range* drones. (Western Source).

The distance from 10km inside the Russian border, to the Polish border, flying over Ukraine, is about 500km - vastly further than the Gebera's maximum range (and they don't launch drones from that distance).

Let's set aside that, and assume these had some sort of range stat boost (because they had no weapons, no heavy warhead, and were made from plywood and plastic, really).

Now, logic:

How did these particular drones get all the way over Ukraine and into Poland without being tracked or shot down considering that at least 80% of drones are downed and almost all are detected? (Western source)

What does Russia gain from flying some plywood drones without any ordinance into Poland?

Almost every single thing about this situation you hear from Western sources is an outright lie. And they're never corrected.

 

[noname223]

1. It isn't "Putin." It's "Russia". If you think that somehow everything that is happening wouldn't happen at all if it was just someone else in charge... well... you're right. We'd all be living in nuclear fallout shelters by now.

2. Russia has no interest in attacking NATO. They'll probably take Odessa, Kharkiv and everything up to the Dnieper river. That's all.

3. Russia is not your enemy.

4.

He's not stupid there. He's just wrong because he's not a military analyst. The chances that these drones were Russian at all is de-minimis.

First, facts:

These were Gebera drones. (Western source).

Geberas are *short range* drones. (Western Source).

The distance from 10km inside the Russian border, to the Polish border, flying over Ukraine, is about 500km - vastly further than the Gebera's maximum range (and they don't launch drones from that distance).

Let's set aside that, and assume these had some sort of range stat boost (because they had no weapons, no heavy warhead, and were made from plywood and plastic, really).

Now, logic:

How did these particular drones get all the way over Ukraine and into Poland without being tracked or shot down considering that at least 80% of drones are downed and almost all are detected? (Western source)

What does Russia gain from flying some plywood drones without any ordinance into Poland?

Almost every single thing about this situation you hear from Western sources is an outright lie. And they're never corrected.

1. We don't know who the Russian president was if history took a different path. Putin does not want that Russia becomes a liberal democracy that's clear. It is speculative whether different leaders would have been even more aggressive towards the West or whether a second Gorbatschow could have been in office. The West has made mistakes in their strategy who to deal with Russia and Ukraine. It does not legitimize an invasion of a sovereign country though.

2. How are you so certain about that? The people who claim that were also the same people that claimed Russia would never invade Ukraine. Russia's economy only thrives because of massive spending in the military apparatus. Russia's schools indoctrinate their children that sacrificing yourself for your homecountry was something to be proud of. How would Russia's economy becomes less dependent on the military complex if there was a peaceful agreement with Ukraine and the West? It seems as if the Russian economy took a path which is very hard to reverse.

3. Russia's is not my enemy? I think Putin is a war criminal and should rot in prison. What would happen to me if went for a trip to Russia and demonstrate against the war? Calling out Russian war crimes. How would I be treated then? I am in favor of the LGBTQI+ movement. I am in favor of trans rights. What happens to people who have such a political opinion in Russia? What if you call this miliary special operation what it is criminal act against international war, a war against a neighbor country. I think not all Russians are my enemy. The ones who support the war againt the war with open arms? Or the journalists in Russian media that wrote headlines line "The rest of Europe will look like Ukraine soon" after the J.D. Vance speech.

4. I am no military expert. But now you quote Western sources to make your point. But isn't another point of you that Western sources are full of propaganda and can't be trusted?

Here is an article that explains the longer range of these drones.

Photos Show Russian Gerbera Drones Recovered in Poland Had Secret Long-Range Tanks

Photos of Russian Gerbera drones found in Poland show modifications challenging Moscow’s claims, indicating new operational capabilities against NATO.

united24media.com

Photos of Russian Gerbera drones recovered in Poland reveal modifications that contradict Moscow's claims about their limited range. Militarnyi, citing the independent military expert Telegram channel "Polkovnik GSH," reported that the Gerberas found on Polish territory were equipped with additional fuel tanks in the nose section, extending their endurance beyond the standard 700 kilometers.

By contrast, Gerbera drones previously documented in Ukraine have not featured these auxiliary tanks. Images of wreckage collected from multiple downed drones inside Ukraine show only the basic fuselage, without modifications.

Analysts suggest this indicates the existence of a special long-range variant designed specifically for operations against NATO territory.

Independent military experts noted: "The inflow of these drones into Poland clearly shows they were adapted for a greater distance. This is not the same Gerbera seen in Ukraine."

The Russian Ministry of Defense earlier denied responsibility, arguing that the drone type could not physically reach Polish airspace due to its maximum flight range. However, the technical evidence from wreckage in Poland directly undermines that assertion.

Next point: According to this article https://www.clingendael.org/publication/what-russian-drone-incursion-poland-means-nato "NATO fighters swiftly shot down a couple of drones, while a dozen others managed to slip through". I think your 80% guess is speculative. Aren't these drones used in swarms to overwhelm defense systems? It is seems completely plausible that Ukraine could not shoot all of them down. Especially, because Ukraines lacks ammunition to do so and only has limited resources for that.

To you last question. I could say the same: What does the NATO or Ukraine gain to pretend these drones were intentionally sent by Russia? Here comes I think our underlying issue. We have completely diametrical viewpoints about this conflict. And I won't undertake your narrative. And you won't undertake my narrative.

The table in this article sums up the possible Russian intentions better than I could ever do that. https://www.clingendael.org/publication/what-russian-drone-incursion-poland-means-nato
It ranges from probing and intelligence gathering. To decision making manipulation. Testing NATO's ability and willingness to react to the incursion.

Personally, I think Putin's Russia wants that the NATO and the EU crumbles into pieces. And this is testing NATO's committment to activate article 4/5. Moreover, the European population should be in a state of panic to destabilize the Western democracies even more.

 

[sinfonia]

I wonder how many bombs the US would drop on Mexico if there was even the faintest possibility of them enetering into a military alliance with Russia? All hell would break loose.

What if you call this miliary special operation what it is criminal act against international war, a war against a neighbor country.

It would have been a special military operation had the West not ntervened. It turned into a full-scale war becauae the West has been supplying Ukraine with advanced weaponry and moral support for over three years. They wouldn't have lasted 3 weeks otherwise; most military experts seem to agree on that.

 

[Pluto]

 

[Skallagrim]

Putin does not want that Russia becomes a liberal democracy that's clear.

The western mantra of "Liberal Democracy" is the same colonialist belief that every empire has indulged in throughout antiquity.

Rome were taming the Barbarian hordes.

The Christian empire was never doing the work of God.

The British were bringing civilization to the savages.

And now, the West (led by USA, with Europe as vassals) is exporting a corporate, consumer capitalist empire wearing an American hat, and they were never fighting to spread "freedom and democracy" around the world.

It's all a lie, and the lie was always first fed to their own citizens first to justify the atrocities committed by the empire they lived under.

We're fed this propaganda - that everyone else in the world envies us, that we're the best, that our culture and society is superior. In Russia, it's so dreadful that people there would actively rebel if they could only know how wonderful our way of life is by comparison (apparently, nobody there has internet). And China, of course, is a communist hellhole where only a measly 96% of the population own their own home. Socialist states all fail miserably, because they're socialist (not because of massive sanctions, obviously), whereas those countries that see the light and go liberal do well with only modest bailout, and then another one.

Ever hear about any of this in the mainstream media?

And in the name of "Liberal Democracy" our countries have bombed, attacked, sanctioned, launched coups, spied on, and assassinated with wild abandon. US led actions have killed somewhere between 5 and 11 million civilians since the year 2000, all in the name of "spreading peace and democracy".

Even now, with our resources, our money, and our consent, a literal genocide is taking place in the Gaza strip. The *main targets* of this are children - because by wiping out children, they're obliterating the future of that people. Bullets, bombs, manufactured in the "Liberal Democracy" are being used to destroy the most innocent of lives because Israel itself is a "Liberal Democracy" that can project our "values" into the region - at the end of yet more violence.

How can this be so? Surely... surely our media would say? Surely they can't lie so brazenly?

Remember when Russia jammed Ursula von der Leyen's airplane's GPS? Remember the BBC, the Guardian, Reuters, Politico and CNN all reporting on this attack on a world leader?

Then remember how it was all just completely and utterly made up?

Was there ever a retraction? Was there ever an admission of a mistake, even? No. There was an argument.

This is hegemony. Just like throughout history, many countries would not bend the knee to the hegemony. Smaller countries found themselves the recipient of sanctions (more than 60% of the planet now), others suddenly found themselves having revolutions, or their leaders were assassinated. More were bombed in an effort to "bring peace." But Russia? China? They're too big. The sanctions ineffective. Their militaries too powerful. Their citizenry, contrary to what you're told, too stable.

So they get surrounded - any excuse. Bases all around their borders, missiles on their doorstep pointed right at them, anything that could be construed as "threatening" hammed up. They fly 2 MiG 31s *over the sea* near Estonia? That's an act of provocation! But we give Ukraine Shadow Storm and ATACMS long range cruise missiles (that have killed upwards of 200 civlians so far)... well... Russia just gotta suck that up, because we're a Liberal Democracy.

Thing is; this system is dying.

Here is are the attendees of the recent SCO summit.

Spoiler: SCO

For better or for worse, each one of those are leaders who represent the interests of the country they lead. You could argue that they're evil, because they're not "Liberal Democracies". But when you compare it to the "Liberal Democracy" summit, and who was invited to that, well...

Spoiler: The West

...they're not looking after your interests. And the system is starting to break. Populists are rising like Tommy Robinson, the Right in Europe, Trump in the USA, but these people have no answers. It's not immigration or trans people or Russia that are making our lives difficult.

This is all a huge lie.

But we can not say what the problem is - "Liberal Democracy", a byword for "free-for all Darwinian style capitalism" is a disaster, but to admit it now, after putting all our eggs in this basket, would be to face up to a quite difficult truth, a truth that would have to see us turn our societies upside down in an effort to correct the mistakes we've made. All those wealthy people at that summit? There is no way they'd let that happen - in fact that's what "campaign contributions" all about.

So we're going to fight it out... have war after war after war until we're spent, until everything is gone, and until the same thing happens to us that happened to every empire that came before us. It's happening right now, and it's not gonna be pretty.

 

[noname223]

The western mantra of "Liberal Democracy" is the same colonialist belief that every empire has indulged in throughout antiquity.

Rome were taming the Barbarian hordes.

The Christian empire was never doing the work of God.

The British were bringing civilization to the savages.

And now, the West (led by USA, with Europe as vassals) is exporting a corporate, consumer capitalist empire wearing an American hat, and they were never fighting to spread "freedom and democracy" around the world.

It's all a lie, and the lie was always first fed to their own citizens first to justify the atrocities committed by the empire they lived under.

We're fed this propaganda - that everyone else in the world envies us, that we're the best, that our culture and society is superior. In Russia, it's so dreadful that people there would actively rebel if they could only know how wonderful our way of life is by comparison (apparently, nobody there has internet). And China, of course, is a communist hellhole where only a measly 96% of the population own their own home. Socialist states all fail miserably, because they're socialist (not because of massive sanctions, obviously), whereas those countries that see the light and go liberal do well with only modest bailout, and then another one.

Ever hear about any of this in the mainstream media?

And in the name of "Liberal Democracy" our countries have bombed, attacked, sanctioned, launched coups, spied on, and assassinated with wild abandon. US led actions have killed somewhere between 5 and 11 million civilians since the year 2000, all in the name of "spreading peace and democracy".

Even now, with our resources, our money, and our consent, a literal genocide is taking place in the Gaza strip. The *main targets* of this are children - because by wiping out children, they're obliterating the future of that people. Bullets, bombs, manufactured in the "Liberal Democracy" are being used to destroy the most innocent of lives because Israel itself is a "Liberal Democracy" that can project our "values" into the region - at the end of yet more violence.

How can this be so? Surely... surely our media would say? Surely they can't lie so brazenly?

Remember when Russia jammed Ursula von der Leyen's airplane's GPS? Remember the BBC, the Guardian, Reuters, Politico and CNN all reporting on this attack on a world leader?

Then remember how it was all just completely and utterly made up?

Was there ever a retraction? Was there ever an admission of a mistake, even? No. There was an argument.

This is hegemony. Just like throughout history, many countries would not bend the knee to the hegemony. Smaller countries found themselves the recipient of sanctions (more than 60% of the planet now), others suddenly found themselves having revolutions, or their leaders were assassinated. More were bombed in an effort to "bring peace." But Russia? China? They're too big. The sanctions ineffective. Their militaries too powerful. Their citizenry, contrary to what you're told, too stable.

So they get surrounded - any excuse. Bases all around their borders, missiles on their doorstep pointed right at them, anything that could be construed as "threatening" hammed up. They fly 2 MiG 31s *over the sea* near Estonia? That's an act of provocation! But we give Ukraine Shadow Storm and ATACMS long range cruise missiles (that have killed upwards of 200 civlians so far)... well... Russia just gotta suck that up, because we're a Liberal Democracy.

Thing is; this system is dying.

Here is are the attendees of the recent SCO summit.

Spoiler: SCO

For better or for worse, each one of those are leaders who represent the interests of the country they lead. You could argue that they're evil, because they're not "Liberal Democracies". But when you compare it to the "Liberal Democracy" summit, and who was invited to that, well...

Spoiler: The West

...they're not looking after your interests. And the system is starting to break. Populists are rising like Tommy Robinson, the Right in Europe, Trump in the USA, but these people have no answers. It's not immigration or trans people or Russia that are making our lives difficult.

This is all a huge lie.

But we can not say what the problem is - "Liberal Democracy", a byword for "free-for all Darwinian style capitalism" is a disaster, but to admit it now, after putting all our eggs in this basket, would be to face up to a quite difficult truth, a truth that would have to see us turn our societies upside down in an effort to correct the mistakes we've made. All those wealthy people at that summit? There is no way they'd let that happen - in fact that's what "campaign contributions" all about.

So we're going to fight it out... have war after war after war until we're spent, until everything is gone, and until the same thing happens to us that happened to every empire that came before us. It's happening right now, and it's not gonna be pretty.

I think in general this would be a good reply if we debated the clash of the Western civilzation and the rest of the world. I agree that in the past and in the present Western countries have had imperialistic ambitions. It is true our countries fund a genocide in Palestine which is a hypocrisy and shows that Western values are sometimes used in a transactional way.

But you sort of shift the goalpost with this reply because you don't address whart my actual reply was. This is more of a whataboutism "look the West is evil too, even way worse than that and this is used as excuse for Russia's imperialism. And it is sort of simplistic and too much of a black-white thinking. Especially, the point of the SCO summit made me wonder. The SCO leaders represent the interest of the countries they lead? In contrast to our corrupt, selfish politicians in the West? So it was in the interest of the Russian people to invade Ukraine? And now young Russian men have to die because of it. It was in the interest of the Russian people that prisoners get freed in order to fight in a unnecessary war and when they don't die they get a "get out of jail" freecard and can terrorize the society again? It was in the interest of the Russian people that now many Russian soldierts have PTSD, are traumatized, lose parts of their body and domestic violence, alcoholism is skyrocketing because of this? It is in the interest of the Russian people that Russia gets more and dependent on China as their play ball? That inflation is pretty high because of the war far higher than in the West and civil liberties are cracked down on? That freedom of speech is even way more restricted than before. I think one could go on with this list pretty long. This war started by Putin's Russia is certainly not in the interest of the Russian people.

For me it rather seems like you make this a conflict about ideologies. I think it is true that liberal democracy has flaws. It always had. And we have systemic issues in the West also because of our demographics that are hard to solve.

But we can not say what the problem is - "Liberal Democracy", a byword for "free-for all Darwinian style capitalism" is a disaster, but to admit it now, after putting all our eggs in this basket, would be to face up to a quite difficult truth, a truth that would have to see us turn our societies upside down in an effort to correct the mistakes we've made. All those wealthy people at that summit? There is no way they'd let that happen - in fact that's what "campaign contributions" all about.

You can do that. You can say that liberal Democracy is the problem. You actually just did that and I am fine with it. Everyone has a right to express his or her views even if its controversial. However, if I expressed my opinion about the war, that Putin is a megalomaniac dictator and a war criminal who invaded a souvereign country, leading to war crimes of Ukrainian civilians, I would get jailtime hard in Russia. I could not express my opinion without having to fear for my safety. I would actually have to spend a long time in prison in Russia if I protested to end this war now and we all know how Russian prisons look like.

We're fed this propaganda - that everyone else in the world envies us, that we're the best, that our culture and society is superior.

And you think in Russia they wouldn't do that? I think in the US there is more patriotism compared to Germany. In Germany it is rather popular to say how much we hate the German culture. Our former Minister for Economic Affairs said: "Vaterlandsliebe fand ich stets zum kotzen. Ich wusste mit Deutschland noch nie etwas anzufangen und weiß es bis heute nicht." (It is a quote of a book he has written) Translated: "I always thought patriotism - in other words love of one's country - was disgusting. I never knew what to do with Germany, and to this day I still don't." Would you prefer such an attitude toward one's culture?

Moreover, I think you are cherrypicking to paint the worst possible image of Liberal Democracies while you paint Russia as this threatened country that was only provoked and acted in a defensive way.

This is hegemony. Just like throughout history, many countries would not bend the knee to the hegemony. Smaller countries found themselves the recipient of sanctions (more than 60% of the planet now), others suddenly found themselves having revolutions, or their leaders were assassinated. More were bombed in an effort to "bring peace." But Russia? China? They're too big. The sanctions ineffective. Their militaries too powerful. Their citizenry, contrary to what you're told, too stable.

You can rightfully point out that the US is involved in very unethical violations of international law. I would agree with you to a certain extent. But at the same you act like China or Russia would not carry out violations of international law. And I don't really see the point that this is an inherent flaw of liberal democracy. The Scandinavian countries are less often involved in violations of international laws. For me it rather seems the case that if a country has power in global affairs, they use it for their own benefit and often they abuse their power. But it is not a consequence of the fact that these country have liberal democracies. You think we would be more peaceful if a regime like in Russia or China was implemented in our nations? Do you really want to insinuate that?

 

[Still here]

Let's wait and see...

 

[DarkRange55]

Visualized: Europe’s Biggest Armies in 2025

Russia leads, but NATO and Ukraine combined have more troops.

www.visualcapitalist.com

 

[noname223]

Visualized: Europe’s Biggest Armies in 2025

Russia leads, but NATO and Ukraine combined have more troops.

www.visualcapitalist.com

NATO troops struggle with interoperability. They use different equippments, tanks, technologies, have different standards etc. Russia's army is more experienced now. Gets drones from Iran and soldiers from North Korea. Moreover, there is the possibility that China intensifies its military cooperation with Russia. I think this is why Ukraine is an important ally (inter alia). They have much experience with the drone war, 21th century war operations and their soldiers are by far the most experienced in Europe. Russia has way more tactical nuclear weapons than the European countries. And I am not really convinced whether Trump would risk a nuclear armageddon in case Russia used tactical nuclear weapons in its war against Europe. In case the US retreats from Europe we have a clear disadvantage in intelligence service activities and we would lose the access to Starlink. Trump seems to flip-flop on the position whether or not to support Europe in this fight.

 

[DarkRange55]

NATO troops struggle with interoperability. They use different equippments, tanks, technologies, have different standards etc. Russia's army is more experienced now. Gets drones from Iran and soldiers from North Korea. Moreover, there is the possibility that China intensifies its military cooperation with Russia. I think this is why Ukraine is an important ally (inter alia). They have much experience with the drone war, 21th century war operations and their soldiers are by far the most experienced in Europe. Russia has way more tactical nuclear weapons than the European countries. And I am not really convinced whether Trump would risk a nuclear armageddon in case Russia used tactical nuclear weapons in its war against Europe. In case the US retreats from Europe we have a clear disadvantage in intelligence service activities and we would lose the access to Starlink. Trump seems to flip-flop on the position whether or not to support Europe in this fight.

Are you looking at their odds of winning a hypothetical conflict or the chances of that happening?

 

[noname223]

Are you looking at their odds of winning a hypothetical conflict or the chances of that happening?

I mean we have to evaluate different possible scenarios. Despite the fact that some of them seem unlikely. For example, the usage of tactical nuclear weapons. I have doubts whether Putin would actually Do that. But He could easily use them strategically to blackmail European politicians. (He already does. But it could become more aggressive.) We live in postheroic societies the people are scared as shit about another war in Europe. We have doves in our countries or naive pacifists who would rather capitulate immediately than to lose one solider. Our politicians have to make calculations which measures the population would consider acceptable. Currently, it looks like Russia friendly people have learned literally nothing from the War in Ukraine. The increase in Military spending Is pretty unpopular.

To answer your question. We have to consider different scenarios and I think it can be difficult to give exact probabilities which is a little bit ironic because I was little bit of a loudmouth in my Initial post. I would look at both.

 

[Skallagrim]

Visualized: Europe’s Biggest Armies in 2025

Russia leads, but NATO and Ukraine combined have more troops.

www.visualcapitalist.com

That's true.

If you throw China into the mix, it's no longer true. In fact, if you throw China in the East contains magnitudes more soldiers than the West. And that scenario is likely - because of Western aggression and belligerence the Chinese know they'd be next. So why wait for that when they can stop this whole thing in its tracks now?

 

[DarkRange55]

Interesting fact, Kaliningrad has 90% of the world's amber reserves.
The Baltic Sea is basically now a NATO lake. Kaliningrad is completely surrounded. I think at the end of this, Kaliningrad needs to become an independent state or potentially merge with Lithuania or Poland given there history. We'll see.


I don't think Russia is a good friend but it's also the biggest adversary. I think sometimes the US props these other countries. I can understand wanting to be the hedge honcho on the block. They all have expansionist ambitions. We're just better at political manipulation and regime change over seas than everyone else.



This is for our German friend: I know I'll get shit for this either for being called fake or for being called a government "spook." I couldn't care less - I don't claim to have some secret insider information or to be Snowden or whatever. But as I've said before, my background is also in physics and mathematics. It has lead to different jobs. This all a matter of public record. I've worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects, helped design an NRO spy program (lens company I've mentioned before on here), etc.
I also have/had friends and family in that realm of work.


…

The reality of this war is far from black and white.

If NATO had disbanded in 1992 right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia would still be invading Ukraine. There were always going to do this, NATO had nothing to do with it. In fact Russia would have taken the Baltic's first. They would have gone into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - that enclave Kaliningrad doesn't touch Russia, they weren't gonna let that stand for eternity, they were always gonna connect their borders.

Russia didn't invade Ukraine sooner because basically they were in control of the government politically. The president of Ukraine was a puppet Russian actor that did whatever Russia wanted so Russia had their buffer state. It was only in 2014 when a real democratic election happened in Ukraine that Russia realized soft power wasn't enough to control Ukraine anymore. So this military conflict was inevitable.



This was a while ago at this point but Tucker Carlson interviewed a retired four star US Army general, McGregor, he was saying that according to his estimates and the circles that he moves, he was saying that Ukrainians lost close to 500,000 people. Which is way bigger than the NATO estimate. He said according to their estimates, the Russians have maybe lost close to 50,000. But if you look at Wikipedia it's totally different numbers. But who knows? I'm not going to say what that general said is statistically correct because I don't really have evidence to support either side of the argument. But I will say, if you just look at whatever numbers the West has come out with, Russia would have been done a long time ago. There is no way you could sustain a fight that long with those kinds of casualties. It's basically 1 times 5. Like one Ukrainian dies and 5 Russians die. The entire Russian military would be gone by this year or something. So maybe there is some truth in it but I don't really have the knowledge to support either side of the argument. Putin conducted I think two waves of mass mobilization inside the country, that kind of made people think that there might be a lot more casualties than he was expecting so thats why. Originally I think Russia only had 390,000 active combat troops to start with and thats the part I don't really appreciate, the narrative that NATO and Americans are pushing 390,000 troops to take over Poland, Ukraine and whatever comes afterwords. Are you serious? Thats the number you're working with and then you want to sell this narrative? That doesn't make any sense.
But Russia does generally excel at attrition.

The thing about casualty numbers, even a novice enthusiast of military history could tell that you read anything about any war or battle that the casualties are unknown sometimes unknowable, debated very widely between the two. Sometimes the best option was to take the one extreme on one side and the one on the other and kind of like split the difference. But thats hard to do here because I'm not really hearing vary many counterclaims I mean I'm not going out of my way to digest Russian media. I mean nobodies going to know the casualty count. Even the Russians don't know how many of their soldiers are dead yet. There's always gonna be a period of time it takes to actually figure out whats going on. A lot of people are gonna go missing. The Ukrainians are gonna have an even harder time since they're presumably less well organized since they've got these ad hoc fighting regiments assembled. I mean people are gonna get scattered, they might be presumed dead when they're not, they're put in as missing but they're found later.


The history of Chinese-Russian relations is complicated but again you can't really trust anything that anybody is saying. I really don't trust anything the Chinese government says. On top of everything else they in my opinion are responsible for all this covid bullshit. They blitzed the world with a lot of propaganda, a lot of crazy shit, really fucked things up good. I hold the Chinese government responsible for that. At least for initiating it, it was sustained and propagated by the other governments. They're very aggressive diplomatically but I don't blame them on a certain level they're ideologically driven.
The Chinese government is creepy.

The position that the US government and its allies have taken appears to be one of their desire for regime change in Russia. Putin will not go without taking everyone with him (despite Russia's extensive history). And even if the people of Russia are dissatisfied with Putin they are not going to allow themselves to become our bitches. They've seen what happens when we go try to help countries with their democracy.
Why hasn't someone in North Korea taken out Kim Jong-Un or Putin? Because everyone in North Korea and Russia is financially dependent on them. So Putin has spent 20 years forcing everyone he needs around him to be 100% dependent on him.
Authoritarian leaders who rely on a single security or intelligence service tend to be much more vulnerable to coups than those who deliberately build overlapping, mutually monitoring agencies. Saddam Hussein and Stalin are textbook cases of the latter approach: both created multiple secret police, intelligence and guard units that spied on one another and on the army, making it very hard for any one faction to organize a takeover. By contrast, leaders such as the Shah of Iran, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, or Afghanistan's Zahir Shah leaned heavily on one main security organ or a narrow set of forces. When unrest grew or conspirators moved against them, those single pillars either defected or collapsed, and without a rival force to counterbalance or intervene, their regimes fell quickly. This contrast illustrates why "coup-proofing" through overlapping coercive institutions has become a hallmark of long-lived autocracies.


Ukraine could supply Europe with oil and natural gas then no need for Russian energy. Thats could be a reason for Russia invading Ukraine to stop their own domestic energy sector from developing. I think when this war is over NATO may have to give security guarantees to Ukraine otherwise foreign investment wont build the infrastructure to tap Ukraine's oil and gas reserves. If Russia is gonna threaten to invade 5-10 years from now foreign investment wont go in there and invest to extract the energy and safely develop exports. So Europe may have to guarantee Ukraine's security whether they're in NATO or not.


In the Cold War, the US, Soviet Union, and China all had war plans. Years ago, the Poles leaked the Soviet War Plan, called Seven Days to the River Rhine. Based on what we know of the Chinese and American doctrines, the broad strokes of those nations plans were probably similar. The Soviet war plan involved nuking a vast stretch of urban territory in Central Europe, and striking enemy conventional forces with nukes, before penetrating through North Germany to reach the River Rhine. Initially, France and Britain would not be nuked in hopes they could be persuaded to declare neutrality. The US ran a study on Soviet military positioning and its implications on WW3, and concluded that the Soviets would likely follow up with an invasion of Iran, then the rest of the Middle East to cut off the Sino-American oil supply.


Russia and China had 5 wars last century, its a marriage of connivence.
The century of humiliation for China. China has successfully retaken all of the territory that the former colonial powers took from China. Think Portugal, Great Britain, France, Germany. The only colonial power that took land from China that it still hasn't gotten back yet is Russia. Russia took Chinese territory militarily and China hasn't gotten it back yet. But the century is young.

…
It's very interesting. Looking at the history of Russo-Indian relations, and Sino-Indian relations…


Chinese and Russian relations are complex especially looking at the cold war

They are forcing an alliance together that is unnatural. I don't believe that the Chinese and the Russians are natural allies. But they're being forced into the same corner.

I think China would totally be an opportunist if the central government in Russia was collapsing. If economically, militarily there was some kind of disruption and the cohesive states of the Russian Federation just collapsed, China would move on that. They want greater control and influence over central Asia as well as maybe Mongolia and outer Manchuria. Their interests only lie in that they want to be basically allies on the UN council but also a counterweight to the United States and NATO forces. But Russia is just embarrassing itself.


Your thinking:
First massive cyber attacks on government and civilian infrastructure. Any seizure of Baltic territory by Russia. Putin starts feeling the heat from protests and starts a war of liberation in the Baltic's, and fires off a tactical nuke when NATO arrives.
Due to Russia and the US pulling out of the INF treaty, nuclear warheads are placed in Norway and Japan by the Americans, Russia responds by planting missiles in Ecuador and Cuba and China places missiles in the South China Sea and in Brazil.


I think the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle was also very interesting, wanting to irradiate the ground in front of you to delay, the advance of Soviet armor divisions

Davy Crockett (nuclear device) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Those are just some ramblings, nothing very coherent

 

[Skallagrim]

So it was in the interest of the Russian people to invade Ukraine?

They believe it was. Try to understand, they had NATO encroaching on their border; NATO is not a peaceful organization, but an extremely violent one. Remember; Putin didn't get up one morning and have a lunatic urge to start a big fight. This entire war was both predictable and predicted.

Spoiler: Before the fight

For me it rather seems like you make this a conflict about ideologies.

I said what the conflict was really about. It's not about ideology, but hegemony. Don't take my word for it, take the word of the guy who started it. You can hear him explain it in his own words right here....

Spoiler: Western Hegemony

Putin is a megalomaniac dictator and a war criminal who invaded a souvereign country, leading to war crimes of Ukrainian civilians, I would get jailtime hard in Russia.

This is what we're told in the West. This is not actually true, at all. Putin isn't a megalomaniac, he isn't insane and, if you give yourself a quick "Who's Who" of the Russian body politic right now, he's actually something of a moderate compared to many of them (certainly compared to Valery Gerasimov, Nikolai Patrushev, and especially Alexander Bortnikov).

But let's assume it is true - so what? That doesn't make him, the country, or anything else the "enemy of the west"; that's Domino theory, which has led to many of the US' misadventures over the years.

Moreover, I think you are cherrypicking to paint the worst possible image of Liberal Democracies while you paint Russia as this threatened country that was only provoked and acted in a defensive way.

Russia HAS acted defensively. NATO was encroaching on Russia's border, Russia wasn't encroaching on NATO's border.

And let's not forget the context of what actually took place. The USA overthrew the leadership, then allowed the Right Sector to run rampant. Thousands of ethnic Russians were killed in Donetsk and in Eastern Ukraine.

Spoiler: CNN

Before Western media was given a script on this mess the early reports laid pretty bare the ugly nature of what was taking place.

You can rightfully point out that the US is involved in very unethical violations of international law. I would agree with you to a certain extent. But at the same you act like China or Russia would not carry out violations of international law.

One minute. One single solitary minute of your time. If you look at absolutely nothing else I present to you, look at this. Please. I'm really pleading with you to watch this with an open mind. It's only a minute long.

It's an interview between Jens Stoltenberg (Norwegian politician, who was the Secretary Gen of NATO at the time) and a Norwegian journalist.

Spoiler: One minute

The narrative we're given, that these are threats to us, isn't just wrong, it isn't just a lie, but it's literally insane. But you rarely find this said on media in the West; and never in the English speaking West.

Also:

Russia breaks international law regularly. But it has not, unlike a certain US proxy, committed a genocide were at least a third of the victims are children. The Egregiousness of what the West does establishes that not a single war that we've embarked on has been for reasons of morality or justice.

China doesn't violate international law, at least not on a scale that's brought any attention. Xi Xingping has apparently pushed for a peaceful international framework and the Chinese are sticking to it for the moment.

And I don't really see the point that this is an inherent flaw of liberal democracy. The Scandinavian countries are less often involved in violations of international laws. For me it rather seems the case that if a country has power in global affairs, they use it for their own benefit and often they abuse their power. But it is not a consequence of the fact that these country have liberal democracies. You think we would be more peaceful if a regime like in Russia or China was implemented in our nations? Do you really want to insinuate that?

You misunderstand. We're not in a "Liberal Democracy". The UK just had an election, voted for change, got the same thing. In the USA, twice a decade you get to put an X next to one right wing party and another right wing party that pretends to be slightly left wing. This does not freedom make. In the USA healthcare isn't free, education isn't free, transport isn't free, housing isn't free, energy isn't free. What you're free to do is make yourself filthy stinking rich, exploit the system, and live a life of luxury if you're kinda lucky.

Poor? Unemployed? Unskilled? Uneducated? Well... that's your fault. Our system is perfect. Anyone who works hard can make it, can become a millionaire and join the elite. And these elites must never be taxed, must never be asked to contribute to the society and infrastructure that allows them to live like this; they've earned their billions by working a billion times harder than the average man who digs holes in the road all day to fit power cables. We don't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.

So if you can't afford that new heart valve at $100,000 a pop? That's on you. Been fired and can't find a new job? You're lazy. You're working but your wages don't cover your needs? Get two jobs!

But China? In China, as I said, 96% of people own their own home. Government officials who find their hands in the cookie jar pay a terrible price. No, they're not perfect. In many ways, it's much worse there. But in many ways, it's much better. Very often, after our brave troops have gone into violently "liberate" a country, we're shocked when the people aren't grateful. Well... maybe they don't want our system?

Okay, but that's a critique of "Liberal Democracy", what does it have to do with Russia and Ukraine fighting?

Go all the way back to the top of this post: "For me it rather seems like you make this a conflict about ideologies." - the ideology of "liberal democracy" is a cover for hegemony. It is to the modern West what Christianity was to the old West, and it drives our international aggression as much as Christianity drove the Crusades. This comes in two forms, offense and defense.

Defense; We have consumer capitalism for the middle class, Darwinist capitalism for the lower class, and corporate command and control for those at the top is the system, and the system absolutely depends on the people at the bottom not realizing the harm being done to them by those at the top. Convincing people that every different system is pernicious and a threat is an important component of that, though there are others.

Offence; The system also depends on "economic growth" - in other words, populations constantly working ever harder, ever longer, using up more energy, mining ever more resources from the earth, buying more stuff, consuming more, all to feed the system so that the elite can take a huge chunk off the top of it. It's creaking dangerously. The system is impossible to sustain indefinitely, but adding new territories and new colonies to the system delays the problem from kicking in.

But, again, don't take my word for it. The people behind it are quite open about it.

You know how they've managed to fudge the global warming issue to such an extent that almost everyone on the right no longer believe it? Well they've done exactly the same thing to geopolitical situation in the world at large to Western populations as well. That's all this is.

I've provided a ton of sources for all my arguments, all of them from the West. If you looked further afield (Asia, Africa, or Russia itself) you'd find the general view of the West is becoming exceedingly hostile. Again, we're not shown this. But it's going to catch up with us all very soon if we don't wrap our heads around the notion that the days of trying to foist "free market" capitalism on everyone are gone.

This was a while ago at this point but Tucker Carlson interviewed a retired four star US Army general, McGregor, he was saying that according to his estimates and the circles that he moves, he was saying that Ukrainians lost close to 500,000 people. Which is way bigger than the NATO estimate. He said according to their estimates, the Russians have maybe lost close to 50,000. But if you look at Wikipedia it's totally different numbers. But who knows? I'm not going to say what that general said is statistically correct because I don't really have evidence to support either side of the argument. But I will say, if you just look at whatever numbers the West has come out with, Russia would have been done a long time ago. There is no way you could sustain a fight that long with those kinds of casualties. It's basically 1 times 5. Like one Ukrainian dies and 5 Russians die. The entire Russian military would be gone by this year or something. So maybe there is some truth in it but I don't really have the knowledge to support either side of the argument. Putin conducted I think two waves of mass mobilization inside the country, that kind of made people think that there might be a lot more casualties than he was expecting so thats why. Originally I think Russia only had 390,000 active combat troops to start with and thats the part I don't really appreciate, the narrative that NATO and Americans are pushing 390,000 troops to take over Poland, Ukraine and whatever comes afterwords. Are you serious? Thats the number you're working with and then you want to sell this narrative? That doesn't make any sense.
But Russia does generally excel at attrition.

The thing about casualty numbers, even a novice enthusiast of military history could tell that you read anything about any war or battle that the casualties are unknown sometimes unknowable, debated very widely between the two. Sometimes the best option was to take the one extreme on one side and the one on the other and kind of like split the difference. But thats hard to do here because I'm not really hearing vary many counterclaims I mean I'm not going out of my way to digest Russian media. I mean nobodies going to know the casualty count. Even the Russians don't know how many of their soldiers are dead yet. There's always gonna be a period of time it takes to actually figure out whats going on. A lot of people are gonna go missing. The Ukrainians are gonna have an even harder time since they're presumably less well organized since they've got these ad hoc fighting regiments assembled. I mean people are gonna get scattered, they might be presumed dead when they're not, they're put in as missing but they're found later.

If you want to find out which side is suffering more casualties in a war where nobody will tell you the truth about anything then you look at the numbers of the bodies repatriated by either side. These exchanges are observed by the Red Cross, so they're not really possible to fudge, and in any event, there is no point as one side would inform the the media if the numbders were wrong - it's their own dead after all.

At a recent exchange, the Ukrainians gave the Russians 78 of their dead. The Russians gave Ukraine 6057 of their dead.

(Source: BBC)

 

[noname223]

Interesting fact, Kaliningrad has 90% of the world's amber reserves.
The Baltic Sea is basically now a NATO lake. Kaliningrad is completely surrounded. I think at the end of this, Kaliningrad needs to become an independent state or potentially merge with Lithuania or Poland given there history. We'll see.


I don't think Russia is a good friend but it's also the biggest adversary. I think sometimes the US props these other countries. I can understand wanting to be the hedge honcho on the block. They all have expansionist ambitions. We're just better at political manipulation and regime change over seas than everyone else.



This is for our German friend: I know I'll get shit for this either for being called fake or for being called a government "spook." I couldn't care less - I don't claim to have some secret insider information or to be Snowden or whatever. But as I've said before, my background is also in physics and mathematics. It has lead to different jobs. This all a matter of public record. I've worked as a systems engineer on classified defense projects, helped design an NRO spy program (lens company I've mentioned before on here), etc.
I also have/had friends and family in that realm of work.


…

The reality of this war is far from black and white.

If NATO had disbanded in 1992 right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia would still be invading Ukraine. There were always going to do this, NATO had nothing to do with it. In fact Russia would have taken the Baltic's first. They would have gone into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - that enclave Kaliningrad doesn't touch Russia, they weren't gonna let that stand for eternity, they were always gonna connect their borders.

Russia didn't invade Ukraine sooner because basically they were in control of the government politically. The president of Ukraine was a puppet Russian actor that did whatever Russia wanted so Russia had their buffer state. It was only in 2014 when a real democratic election happened in Ukraine that Russia realized soft power wasn't enough to control Ukraine anymore. So this military conflict was inevitable.



This was a while ago at this point but Tucker Carlson interviewed a retired four star US Army general, McGregor, he was saying that according to his estimates and the circles that he moves, he was saying that Ukrainians lost close to 500,000 people. Which is way bigger than the NATO estimate. He said according to their estimates, the Russians have maybe lost close to 50,000. But if you look at Wikipedia it's totally different numbers. But who knows? I'm not going to say what that general said is statistically correct because I don't really have evidence to support either side of the argument. But I will say, if you just look at whatever numbers the West has come out with, Russia would have been done a long time ago. There is no way you could sustain a fight that long with those kinds of casualties. It's basically 1 times 5. Like one Ukrainian dies and 5 Russians die. The entire Russian military would be gone by this year or something. So maybe there is some truth in it but I don't really have the knowledge to support either side of the argument. Putin conducted I think two waves of mass mobilization inside the country, that kind of made people think that there might be a lot more casualties than he was expecting so thats why. Originally I think Russia only had 390,000 active combat troops to start with and thats the part I don't really appreciate, the narrative that NATO and Americans are pushing 390,000 troops to take over Poland, Ukraine and whatever comes afterwords. Are you serious? Thats the number you're working with and then you want to sell this narrative? That doesn't make any sense.
But Russia does generally excel at attrition.

The thing about casualty numbers, even a novice enthusiast of military history could tell that you read anything about any war or battle that the casualties are unknown sometimes unknowable, debated very widely between the two. Sometimes the best option was to take the one extreme on one side and the one on the other and kind of like split the difference. But thats hard to do here because I'm not really hearing vary many counterclaims I mean I'm not going out of my way to digest Russian media. I mean nobodies going to know the casualty count. Even the Russians don't know how many of their soldiers are dead yet. There's always gonna be a period of time it takes to actually figure out whats going on. A lot of people are gonna go missing. The Ukrainians are gonna have an even harder time since they're presumably less well organized since they've got these ad hoc fighting regiments assembled. I mean people are gonna get scattered, they might be presumed dead when they're not, they're put in as missing but they're found later.


The history of Chinese-Russian relations is complicated but again you can't really trust anything that anybody is saying. I really don't trust anything the Chinese government says. On top of everything else they in my opinion are responsible for all this covid bullshit. They blitzed the world with a lot of propaganda, a lot of crazy shit, really fucked things up good. I hold the Chinese government responsible for that. At least for initiating it, it was sustained and propagated by the other governments. They're very aggressive diplomatically but I don't blame them on a certain level they're ideologically driven.
The Chinese government is creepy.

The position that the US government and its allies have taken appears to be one of their desire for regime change in Russia. Putin will not go without taking everyone with him (despite Russia's extensive history). And even if the people of Russia are dissatisfied with Putin they are not going to allow themselves to become our bitches. They've seen what happens when we go try to help countries with their democracy.
Why hasn't someone in North Korea taken out Kim Jong-Un or Putin? Because everyone in North Korea and Russia is financially dependent on them. So Putin has spent 20 years forcing everyone he needs around him to be 100% dependent on him.
Authoritarian leaders who rely on a single security or intelligence service tend to be much more vulnerable to coups than those who deliberately build overlapping, mutually monitoring agencies. Saddam Hussein and Stalin are textbook cases of the latter approach: both created multiple secret police, intelligence and guard units that spied on one another and on the army, making it very hard for any one faction to organize a takeover. By contrast, leaders such as the Shah of Iran, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, or Afghanistan's Zahir Shah leaned heavily on one main security organ or a narrow set of forces. When unrest grew or conspirators moved against them, those single pillars either defected or collapsed, and without a rival force to counterbalance or intervene, their regimes fell quickly. This contrast illustrates why "coup-proofing" through overlapping coercive institutions has become a hallmark of long-lived autocracies.


Ukraine could supply Europe with oil and natural gas then no need for Russian energy. Thats could be a reason for Russia invading Ukraine to stop their own domestic energy sector from developing. I think when this war is over NATO may have to give security guarantees to Ukraine otherwise foreign investment wont build the infrastructure to tap Ukraine's oil and gas reserves. If Russia is gonna threaten to invade 5-10 years from now foreign investment wont go in there and invest to extract the energy and safely develop exports. So Europe may have to guarantee Ukraine's security whether they're in NATO or not.


In the Cold War, the US, Soviet Union, and China all had war plans. Years ago, the Poles leaked the Soviet War Plan, called Seven Days to the River Rhine. Based on what we know of the Chinese and American doctrines, the broad strokes of those nations plans were probably similar. The Soviet war plan involved nuking a vast stretch of urban territory in Central Europe, and striking enemy conventional forces with nukes, before penetrating through North Germany to reach the River Rhine. Initially, France and Britain would not be nuked in hopes they could be persuaded to declare neutrality. The US ran a study on Soviet military positioning and its implications on WW3, and concluded that the Soviets would likely follow up with an invasion of Iran, then the rest of the Middle East to cut off the Sino-American oil supply.


Russia and China had 5 wars last century, its a marriage of connivence.
The century of humiliation for China. China has successfully retaken all of the territory that the former colonial powers took from China. Think Portugal, Great Britain, France, Germany. The only colonial power that took land from China that it still hasn't gotten back yet is Russia. Russia took Chinese territory militarily and China hasn't gotten it back yet. But the century is young.

…
It's very interesting. Looking at the history of Russo-Indian relations, and Sino-Indian relations…


Chinese and Russian relations are complex especially looking at the cold war

They are forcing an alliance together that is unnatural. I don't believe that the Chinese and the Russians are natural allies. But they're being forced into the same corner.

I think China would totally be an opportunist if the central government in Russia was collapsing. If economically, militarily there was some kind of disruption and the cohesive states of the Russian Federation just collapsed, China would move on that. They want greater control and influence over central Asia as well as maybe Mongolia and outer Manchuria. Their interests only lie in that they want to be basically allies on the UN council but also a counterweight to the United States and NATO forces. But Russia is just embarrassing itself.


Your thinking:
First massive cyber attacks on government and civilian infrastructure. Any seizure of Baltic territory by Russia. Putin starts feeling the heat from protests and starts a war of liberation in the Baltic's, and fires off a tactical nuke when NATO arrives.
Due to Russia and the US pulling out of the INF treaty, nuclear warheads are placed in Norway and Japan by the Americans, Russia responds by planting missiles in Ecuador and Cuba and China places missiles in the South China Sea and in Brazil.


I think the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle was also very interesting, wanting to irradiate the ground in front of you to delay, the advance of Soviet armor divisions

Davy Crockett (nuclear device) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Those are just some ramblings, nothing very coherent

I cannot factcheck all of these claims and I apologize if I sounded rude in the past.

I have distrust in Tucker Carlson's takes on the Ukraine war. His takes get amplified in Russian state TV, he interviewed Dugin on Russia's Democracy and he has a track record of repeating Russian propaganda and misinformation on his platform. The ratio 50.000 deaths of Russian soldiers, and 500.000 dead Ukrainian soldiers seem pretty made up. I don't expect critical journalism from Carlson on this topic considering his insane interview with Putin. Carlson seems more like a gem for Russia's propaganda.

Here is a fake screenshot of Zelensky on his show. https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/...t-about-zelenskiy-capture-is-fake-2024-04-11/

In general Tucker has a track record of lying on purpose, for example on Jan 6th. https://www.factcheck.org/2023/03/e...ontext-of-tucker-carlsons-jan-6-presentation/ And the guests he invites on his show are often very fringe figures and should not be seen as actual experts. These "experts" are often responsible for the current US decline on the global order.

The role of Tucker Carlson in Russian state media's propaganda strategy

Tucker Carlson doesn't work for or with Russian state media. Yet his clips are constantly pushed in Russia. ISD's Elise Thomas writes an op-ed for the Moscow Times on the dynamics between the two and why Carlson is "much better" at promoting divisive, polarising views.

www.isdglobal.org

Aren't you contradicting yourself when you say...

If NATO had disbanded in 1992 right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia would still be invading Ukraine. There were always going to do this, NATO had nothing to do with it

And then later you say...

If Russia is gonna threaten to invade 5-10 years from now foreign investment wont go in there and invest to extract the energy and safely develop exports. So Europe may have to guarantee Ukraine's security whether they're in NATO or not.

Why would NATO's security guarantees matter if Russia invaded Ukraine anyway? If the invasion of Ukraine happened independent of NATO's action. Following your logic the war might could have been prevented if Ukraine had these guarantees earlier. Or maybe Russia would have attacked them before such guarantees were granted?

I can't verify or falsify other takes of you because I don't have enough information. But I have the feeling some claims are impossible to verify without access to secret dossiers on these topics.