"The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back."

Punitive against Iraq how?

I was wondering how guntard forge was going to explain Russia's eventual win. Ukraine handed out 18000+ machi8ne guns to it's populace. According to the NRA and every right winger that means War is over because no military could ever beat an armed populace. Ukraine is the safest it has ever been right now according to every single second amendment argument ever.

Seriously, let us ship them some ARs and Putin's whole plan will fall to shit because Tanks, planes, explosives, training, satellites, c9ommunications, supplies, and everything else means absolutely nothing when you have a fucking machine gun.

Do not get me wrong, hand out the guns to the Ukranian citizens. Let us not pretend an armed populace is going to fight off a full assault of a powerful military.

Of course.

Here is where Putin's strategy and goals somewhat elude me. The Ukranians seem to be fighting the occupation. If they keep this up like Afganistan (Which is not a conclusion) Putin is going to have a hell of a time securing the Ukranian border from arms getting in. It seems like it would be somewhat easy to arm a resistance in Ukraine. Then what is going to happen to the Russia Ukraine border? Are they going to keep that secure because if you allow transport back and forth you will get the resistance in Russia.

It dioes seem possible the resistance will die and most people will go on with their lives under the russian regime. How long does the Russian armed forces last tamping down their people from protestinhg and violence in 2 big land masses. Then they have to stack the Ukranian border because they are right next to NATO and US military bases.

What does Ukraine have that will help Russia so much? I am honestly asking because this seems like a huge overextension of the military for a country who keeps their people down with that force. Yes, the world is going to let it go, but the Russian and Ukranian people have a weakened military police force.

Supposedly, the few countries that were objecting to cutting Russia off from SWIFT have dropped their opposition.

Last I heard it was down to Hungary (dictator) and Cypress (home of massive money laundering). But that was 12 hours ago.

Ukrainian media has been tweeting that both of those countries have decided they've had enough, but hasn't linked to any government announcements from them.

All of this WWIII talk considering the fact that no NATO troops or planes are in Ukraine or operating against Russian forces is ridiculous.

It's Putin's bluff. Putin isn't a mad man. He wants to survive this.

We've been far, far closer to war with Russia in the atomic age before, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, where individual privates in Cuba had the ability to launch nuclear weapons, and Korea.

Korea is particularly relevant, b/c it was UN forces including most of NATO fighting directly against Chinese soldiers and the Soviet Air Force. The US and Soviets were shooting each other down over MIG alley.

We aren't going to declare a no fly zone over Ukraine. We aren't sending in combat troops. We will arm the hell out of the Ukrainians, send them fuel, medical supplies, hell full field hospitals. 28 Nations have publicly announced they are sending military support.

In the meanwhile, sanctions are going to smack the shit out of Russia's relatively small economy.

And Putin's friends are rethinking their relationship. Kazkshstan's President said they would not send military troops, and wouldn't even recognize the breakaway regions. China is neutral, but Chinese banks need the West, and have begun to cut off finances for purchases of Russian commodities. Zelensky just tweeted that Erdogan of all people had agreed to cut off access through the Bosphorus for Russian warships. Guess we'll see on that one. And is offering to be a mediator for an immediate cease fire, which Turkey has stated as its official position.

Any number of variables in a war, but so far Putin's misjudged the diplomatic situation, his troops aren't sweeping to an easy victory, there has been significant unrest at home, and there's already been rumbles from the oligarchs who met with him publicly and complained about their financial loses.

And to underscore 'Putin isn't insane', the former KGB colonel certainly understands western nuclear capacity.

One Ohio class SSBN carries 24 Trident II ballistic missiles. Each Trident II can carry 8 W88 nuclear warheads, which can be independently targeted. Target radius is ~5 meters. Each warhead is 25 times more powerful than the bomb that hit Hiroshima.

One Ohio Sub launches 24 missiles, 192 cities are gone. The US has 14 of these subs.

The UK has 4 Vanguard class subs of nearly equal destructive capability. The French have 4 Triomphant SSBNs.

And that's just the naval portion of the nuclear triad.

His talk of nuclear war is bluster. Honestly, if he tried, he'd probably be ignored and shot. Russians love their children too.

But the Russians also retain considerable nuclear capability, larger in total numbers if not sophistication, and no sane Western politican or general is going to support an invasion of Russia.

So all of this talk of 'NATO is a threat to invade Russia' is complete garbage, put out to fool the rubes.

NATO being in the Ukraine would limit Russia's ability to conquer Ukraine. So they've attempted to pre-empt that.

No idea. I think I got busy with classes around that time, and all of a sudden we went from 9/11 to "let's invade Iraq."

Putin's goal remains, I think, much as it always has.

Not just your rebuild the nation, but to be the hero who rebuilt the nation. He wants that legacy, to be a historical giant.

Since he went into politics everything has been towards that goal. At 69 years (IIRC) he's now on a limited time frame and a westernised Ukraine would be disastrous for him. He would go in one fell swoop from being someone whose name could be uttered in the same breath as Lenin to the chump who stood impotent as the US rolled up and planted a flag on the Russian border.

It may become another Afghanistan, it may be a political and economic disaster, but my read is he's hoping that will be on someone else's watch. They will be the failed president who face ignominy, he the icon whose shoes they could not fill.

I dearly hope you're right here.

Steve needs to move to Russia.

This is basic propaganda. Twitter does not ban anyonbe speaking against glorious leader Putin. That is what Glorious leader's orange boyfriend started The Truth for. It is the perfect time to switch over so that the russian bots have a safe place to spread their lies to the american traitors at CPAC.

That reasoning doesn't work at all. Putin was inaugurated as President of Russia on May 7, 2000. The year before, Poland was admitted to NATO. In 2004 NATO added Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. NATO has been at his doorstep for his entire tenure.

This isn't about NATO, it's a shameless power grab designed to give him the legacy he wanted and boost his falling domestic numbers. Thinking it is about NATO is falling for Russian propaganda.

Is that not what I said?

I literally said he wants to create a legacy and your reply was "no, he wants to create a legacy".

NATO can simply be substituted as "the west", "the US", any version of "our enemies". The key thing is he wants to go down in history as being the man who rebuilt Russia.

In 2000 and 2004 he was nowhere near as militarily or economically powerful or as cemented in his position as he is now.

Ukraine, 2022, as a non NATO member he can be seen to act on, Poland was beyond his grasp in 2000 and realistically still is. I was there when they later joined the EU.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, 2004 were simply not worth the fight, especially once they had already joined. They are small nations (although not without wealth) and his means were comparatively limited.

Ukraine is a much larger nation which was until not too long ago a major nuclear power and potential threat. Reclaiming it for a resurgent USSR is a high profile propaganda coup, even if he knows it won't last.

It just has to last longer than his tenure.

I'm also not sure than any of those countries have regions with ethnically Russian majorities for him to use as an excuse. (Nor any regions as strategically useful as the Crimean Peninsula.)

Honestly, I do feel somewhat bad for most of the Russian soldiers. They are conscripted, ~90% of the Russian military is.

The hardline lifers are very, very good at their jobs and ruthless. But most of these guys are 18-27 in for a year or two and wondering what the fuck just happened.

And honestly, I think that's one of the reasons the invasion isn't as successful as it should be considering the massive disparity in armament. They don't hate Ukraine, they aren't there because they want to be.

Do I think they should be shot dead if they continue the attack? Yeah, unfortunately. They are enemy soldiers trying to overthrow a democracy. Let alone in a region that's suffered for a genocide ordered by Moscow in the last century.

But they a more than a little victims too.