All you need to know: Bad Man Putin. All else flows from that, including the pressing need for another booster.
Ignoring the "and we do" part; Does allowing Russia to take over the largest European state through military force serve the self intests of western small l liberal democracy?
Russia taking over an American vassal state certainly doesn’t further the interests of American hegemony.
Now we get to the nitty gritty of the argument which isn't about morals. It's about self interest. That said what self interest does the US have in Ukraine? In the mean time Europe continues to dig the hole deeper. Germany backs China’s Cosco shipping on Hamburg port bid despite national security warnings A leaked economic ministry memo, published by the German tabloid Bild, said banning the transaction would “prevent an alternative transport network from developing in Europe based on Chinese ideas and objectives”. Cosco has been rapidly building up its European port assets in recent years. It owns stakes in Rotterdam and Antwerp, the two largest ports in Europe, owns Piraeus Port in Athens, as well as a controlling stake in a terminal in Belgium’s Zeebrugge port.
The self-interest have been laid out time and time again in this thread. You just chose not to believe them and pretend that we don't live in a global world. Instead you just spend your time highlighting every and any negative fall out from fighting against authoritarianism and proclaiming each to be a reason to lay down to it. You're simply letting prefection be the enemy of good.
Our self interest is in NATO not Ukraine that is the deciding factor. To that end we have put troops on the borders of NATO nations nothing else need be done.
Ukraine has the second largest army in Europe, comrade. Russia has (or had) the largest! Do not let your political officer hear you talk like this, or he will report you to the commissar!
And all would have been well with the world. Or at least not worsened. But we know that “freedom and democracy” was just cover for deposing the Madman of the Hour and weakening his people. So Ukraine became an American gun platform to accomplishing the task.
Here you couldn't be more wrong. Doing nothing is western democracy waving the white flag to authoritarian rule. All the bloodshed of the 20th century for naught because gas is $4/gal and amazon takes 3 days to deliver. We all want to give you the benefit of the doubt here - that you just don't understand the moral and self-interested obligation we have to this conflict. But with every oscillating post you write, that benefit gets harder to give.
Neville. Comrade. Traitor. Putin troll. Russian agent. Bot. Paid in rubles. Russophile. Ivan. Choose one to economize debate.
Our long-term interests are served by Russia being defeated in this war. Our economy is so successful in part because we can trade freely with almost any country on earth. In exchange, we have taken it upon ourselves to be the world's policeman, with bases all over the world, because we can do this and no other single country can. If Russia starts invading other countries and stealing their natural resources, they will invest the profits in building an even stronger military (to invade more countries), which means we will have to spend even more to defend ourselves and our allies. We are going to deal with them one way or another. This is the most affordable and easiest (most pain-free) way to deal with Russia. This is our last chance to win a proxy war with Russia. No other country adjacent to Russia has the military manpower and fighting ability that Ukraine does. If Ukraine falls, the other countries either need to join NATO or prepare surrender documents. I can't make it any clearer than this. Defeat Russia here and now, or revive the Cold War and spend trillions on the Military Industrial Complex for the next 30-40 years, dragging the country down into an inflationary death-spiral. Those are your choices.
Buy a map. I'm pretty sure they don't allow comrades to decide which countries belong on which continents. Although, I have to admit your leader Putin-Hitler likes to get creative with his maps from time to time.
The aim of my post was to explain why people thing that Russia is weak. Was there anything else in the post that you’d like to carp about ? Did I leave out an apostrophe ?
If we brought home our 28,000 troops, in South Korea ... I’ll bet North Korea would invade the next day and South Korea would be powerless to fight back. *shudders*
Twenty conscripts from the country that can't shoot straight were run over by one of their own, with two dead and 11 hospitalized. How do you not see 20 people? (Comrade's answer: "the Russian camouflage is so good, they became invisible!") Contract serviceman runs over group of conscripts in Russia's Arkhangelsk Oblast, causing casualties
And again you're back to my point of end it once and for all. If you've got the gonads to do it go for it and stop playing with the lives of Ukrainians and European industrialization. In the mean time we are destroying the economy, world trade and globalization. You cannot get NATO much less Europe to agree and stop the madness at this point.