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Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)


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Things are getting serious now.  The Biden admin has sent Russia a stern letter.  That will put them in their place.  If the Taliban wouldn't listen to them on Afghanistan I highly doubt that Putin will care what Biden has to say.  Do you ever wonder why we are so concerned about Ukraine anyway?  They are not our ally and they are not part of NATO.  So what difference does it make to the US other than Biden and his boy have a financial interests in the country?

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43 minutes ago, Archie said:

Things are getting serious now.  The Biden admin has sent Russia a stern letter.  That will put them in their place.  If the Taliban wouldn't listen to them on Afghanistan I highly doubt that Putin will care what Biden has to say.  Do you ever wonder why we are so concerned about Ukraine anyway?  They are not our ally and they are not part of NATO.  So what difference does it make to the US other than Biden and his boy have a financial interests in the country?

Putin Troll

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5 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

 

This is the interesting part, to me.  Biden talks about a coordinated approach to sanctions, among the allies of Ukraine.  But I don't think that he has the juice to deliver it.  What sort of painful sacrifice is he asking American citizens to make, in order to support sanctions against Russia?  Not a single one that I can think of.  But he thinks that the EU will just suddenly stop buying Russian gas and suffer hardships themselves?  He's not anywhere close to having that kind of influence, not after all the years of tariffs and trade nonsense and threats to leave NATO since 2016...and now especially not in France.  And I think that that is exactly the calculation that Putin has made.  "I can walk into Ukraine, again, and there's not a thing that the Americans can do about it, again.  Half of them don't even want to." The Chinese will be interested observers.

I think that the EU has come to the realization that there will never be US military intervention against Russia, and that going forward they will develop their own strategy for dealing with Russia, independent of the US.  Macron said exactly that.

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21 hours ago, Jim Cowan said:

This is the interesting part, to me.  Biden talks about a coordinated approach to sanctions, among the allies of Ukraine.  But I don't think that he has the juice to deliver it.  What sort of painful sacrifice is he asking American citizens to make, in order to support sanctions against Russia?  Not a single one that I can think of.  But he thinks that the EU will just suddenly stop buying Russian gas and suffer hardships themselves?  He's not anywhere close to having that kind of influence, not after all the years of tariffs and trade nonsense and threats to leave NATO since 2016...and now especially not in France.  And I think that that is exactly the calculation that Putin has made.  "I can walk into Ukraine, again, and there's not a thing that the Americans can do about it, again.  Half of them don't even want to." The Chinese will be interested observers.

I think that the EU has come to the realization that there will never be US military intervention against Russia, and that going forward they will develop their own strategy for dealing with Russia, independent of the US.  Macron said exactly that.

My read of this scoop is that the administration is trying to figure out a way to help ameliorate the EU need for Russian gas.

I get what you are saying on sacrifice, but the thing is that while we are the alpha dog, we are also on a different continent. The threat of a Russian invasion is existential to Europe (particularly Eastern and Central Europe) but, just as was the case during both World Wars, it's a lot more abstract to us. After all, it took until 1917 for us to enter WWI and Pearl Harbor (undertaken by Japan) for us to enter WWII.

Personally, I think we need to go to the mattresses for Ukraine. But I dont know that a lot of Americans feel as I do.

Edited by mtutiger
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On 1/21/2022 at 1:18 PM, Archie said:

Things are getting serious now.  The Biden admin has sent Russia a stern letter.  That will put them in their place.  If the Taliban wouldn't listen to them on Afghanistan I highly doubt that Putin will care what Biden has to say.  Do you ever wonder why we are so concerned about Ukraine anyway?  They are not our ally and they are not part of NATO.  So what difference does it make to the US other than Biden and his boy have a financial interests in the country?

The bigger question might be why is Putin so concerned about Ukraine?  And wht happens after that?  Answer those questions and the answer to your question might become clearer.  

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the united states is not going to war over ukraine.  the united states SHOULD not go to war over ukraine.

ukraine is not a nato member and we owe it nothing.  when we go off on our little dalliances to "defend democracy" we get ourselves in trouble.  (and ukraine isnt much of a democracy anyway...freedom house gives them a lower ranking than (gasp) hungary with evil orban...even though freedom house is bullshit)

we have a set of solid alliances that we need to respect and defend.  israel, nato, japan, south korea, australia, canada!.  other than that, we can pick and choose our battles in the new cold war.  ukraine is not in our interests and should not be a red line in any sand.

russia will not invade a country that is a member of nato.  the us can use the ukraine as an excuse to bolster up some defenses in poland and the baltics to make them feel better, but it should not be fighting russia in the ukraine.

i assume this is biden playing bad cop to europe's good cop to try to strike some deal that will leave russia holding the cards on ukraine without formally invading it.

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26 minutes ago, buddha said:

the united states is not going to war over ukraine.  the united states SHOULD not go to war over ukraine.

Just because there was one good war to defeat Nazism doesn't change the historical truth that 99% of all wars make things worse than they ever would  have been otherwise.

Empires are hard to control in the modern world and very expensive to maintain. Putin may do more to weaken his position in Russia by invading Ukraine than by making a deal for Ukrainian neutrality and he probably knows that despite his USSR nostalgia. The question is whether the West can avoid overplaying its hand as it did after the Soviet fall, which - while not to minimize Putin's paranoia -  is at least in part what has gotten us here. With the death of ideological communism as world wide jihad, it would be the height of folly to get in to a WAR to protect the membership prerogatives of a supposed anti-communist PEACE keeping alliance.

Edited by gehringer_2
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1 hour ago, romad1 said:

This is your wake-up call for Taiwan

the us will not to war over taiwan.  china will do to taiwan what they did to hong kong.  we'll fuss about it and lebron will tell everyone its ok, and at the end of the day china will take over figuratively if not formally.

the big thing the us needs to do is uncouple its computer chip reliance from taiwan.  start moving those plants to some other country with no environmental laws!

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3 minutes ago, buddha said:

the us will not to war over taiwan.  china will do to taiwan what they did to hong kong.  we'll fuss about it and lebron will tell everyone its ok, and at the end of the day china will take over figuratively if not formally.

the big thing the us needs to do is uncouple its computer chip reliance from taiwan.  start moving those plants to some other country with no environmental laws!

Either we have collective security relationships or we don’t.  Taiwan is within that umbrella 

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Just now, romad1 said:

Either we have collective security relationships or we don’t.  Taiwan is within that umbrella 

it will be a gradual takeover, like hong kong.  no military invasion.

china doesnt want a direct military confrontation any more than we do.  the biggest risk is a miscalculation or china accidentally hitting the seventh fleet.

and btw, if we went to war with china over taiwan, we would probably lose.  

but it will backfire on china.  next step: rearming japan and moving our supply chains to vietnam.

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