japhy wrote: ↑Fri Sep 23, 2022 9:18 am
Barack Obama
Let's double down on the Russophile rhetoric and post a link straight from this big scary Russian state-sponsored website:
congress.gov
One word, "Crimea".
This is a good primer on Putin and his imperialistic ambitions. Seriously, read it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26769481
I read it. Yea, Putin seems like another power hungry nut job. I can't decide if the article title may be misleading tho, cuz is he really trying to rebuild Soviet Russia, or just the Russian empire?
Now answer me three questions, at what point after Putin came to power was there a threat of Ukraine invading Russia?
Ukraine was and is not likely to be a threat to invading Russia any time soon. But the whole Crimea, Luhansk Donetsk people's republics, and eastern Ukraine generally all seem to be issues. Why did Luhansk and Donetsk wanna be independent republics? Don't they know Ukraine good Russia bad, so why not just stick to being part of Ukraine? Exactly what have they been up to, anyway?
And while Ukraine might not be a threat if asked in the narrow context of "invade Russia," Ukraine still may be some threat, and is only more of a threat when armed to the tooth with all those fancy new weapons provided by you and me. Again, how can Merica freak the fuck out when Russia tries to put weapons in Cuba, but expect Russia to just have to deal with it when we put weapons in so many of their neighboring countries?
At what point since the USSR dissolved has there been a threat of the US or NATO invading Russia?
Again, when asked in the narrow context of "invading Russia," I don't exactly know.
But, according to your own pro-Putin Russian rhetoric site BBC: "Three former Warsaw Pact allies had joined Nato, bringing the Western alliance up to Russia's borders." That whole issue of NATO continuing to expand further and further east, even though there's some controversy over whether NATO said they wouldn't as a condition of dissolving the Soviet Union, (even though I know we're not even allowed to ask now about what was actually agreed to then), and even though NATO all along was an anti-Soviet alliance that very well may have been rendered obsolete after the Soviet union was dissolved. But they kept inching closer and closer anyway!
How many smaller Soviet satellites has Russia invaded since Putin took power?
I dunno. The article you provided doesn't really touch on it, and I'm not really sure off the top of my head either. How many is it? Is it as many as there were that since became pals with NATO? And subsequently got armed by NATO? Or, in the case of Ukraine, got shitloads of weapons from NATO even thought they aren't even part of NATO?
There has never been a physical threat of invasion to Russia during Putin's regime.
again, this seems like saying "there has never been a physical threat of invasion to Merica during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The economic threats have all been self inflicted wounds.
not to go full guttermeter, but is it fair to expect all the "free market" nations to suddenly refuse to do business? Russia dissolved the big scary Soviet Union and since embraced sweet sweet Capitalism, right? What more did the western world want?
Russia has always been a threat to invade neighboring satellites that Putin has viewed as historical Russian territory.
Yea, exactly. These countries have been fighting with one another and redrawing borders for centuries now. So why is it so imperative now for Merica to be pouring weapons in the region too?
Putin has had a policy of spreading disinformation and disruption oof democratic countries and their processes for years.
yeah, it's so gross, when other countries do it, at least.
(for real has it even occurred to you that so much of your perception here is inevitably influenced by a whole lifetime of Cold War propaganda?)
So as I stated before, there was no provocation that caused Russia to believe their sovereign country was threatened with violence. There has only been a threat to Putin's ego due to the lack of control of sovereign neighbors.
sorry, but this may be little more than an argument in semantics. Or, if it's not just semantics, then it just may be pretty oversimplified.
Stopping a bully from bullying you is not provoking the bully. If you believe that bullshit, then the only recourse to not provoke a bully, is to let them rape and pillage and control you?
if you only respond to one question I've post here for you, please let it be this one:
if Putin called you personally today and said, "I'll knock it off with this whole Ukrainian invasion bullshit, if you can get your country to knock it off with the whole pouring weapons into Ukraine thing," would you make that deal?