I agree, it’s not always their volt.
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If they had a spark of reason, they would realize they need to be more grounded individuals.
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New vaccine side effect: puns
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Watt the hell are you talking about?
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It is sad to see this resistance to such a current and isolated thought process.
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Result of creepage currents?
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Ohm-my-god these puns are getting bad…
Its frequently the lack of capacity to generate alternative circuts
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It’s time to pull the plug…
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I’m switching over.
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I wish the Ukrainians I meet had your enthusiasm, but sadly they disagree with your analysis. The Russians are winning in Ukraine, and any more we pour into this pointless conflict is a waste of our resources to say nothing of the loss to the Ukrainians in terms of blood and treasure.
Edit - Our victory over England would not have been possible with French support (as you noted). There were more French Soldiers at Yorktown than American (8500 and 5500) and it’s fleet blockaded the Chesapeake. I’m curious as what the current American publics appetite would be to this level of support to the Ukraine and what the Russian response would be? Negative I’m sure, but at least then nobody would worry about their grocery bill.
The war will go on as long as the Ukrainians have the will to fight, and allied nations have the will to fund them. It is in the allies’ self-interests to fund them.
As I wrote in an earlier post, Putin has an alternative short of conquering Ukraine: retain control of a small enclave (Donbas), heavily fortify it, claim that was his goal all along, and declare victory.
From that new “independent country” he will spread terrorism, sabotage, guerrilla raids, and chaos throughout the Ukraine. Millions more of refugees will be displaced, causing misery and resentment throughout Europe. This plan is already largely in place, and is part of Putin’s strategy of destabilizing Europe and the USA.
Putin will make sure this enclave includes much of, but not all of, the Russian-ethnic Ukrainian areas. The Ukrainians will try to stamp out the chaos emanating from this enclave but in doing so will necessarily expel/detain/hang some of the Russian ethnics as collaborators. The Ukrainians will attack the enclave itself, making them the aggressors. All this Putin will proclaim as proof that the Ukrainians were bloodthirsty Nazis all along.
The chaos Putin himself causes he will blame on Ukrainians leaders. His internet based propaganda machine will make sure the far-right elements of western governments start singing the tune. Bogus blogs. Puppet websites. Fake videos. Forum trolls. At first just a few far-right pundits will sing Putin’s praises—they have an affinity for strongmen. Then more and more on the right will join the chorus.
Putin calculates that Europe will tire of the refugees and fuel shortages and will give up on the Ukraine. Once that happens, Putin will turn to Estonia and the other Baltics and say, You can claim freedom but you belong to Russia now. Hungary too. No one will protect you. I will appoint the strongmen who will win your elections. Any leaders who say otherwise will be destroyed by internet smear propaganda, amplified by useful-idiot western pundits. Or by assassination.
Once Putin wins, his thuggery will be applauded by far-right elements as genius. They will celebrate him as the strongman who defeated the villainous Ukraine and brought peace to Europe. One prominent American political leader has already called Putin “brilliant”.
Anyone who backed the Ukrainians’ fight for liberty will be called idiots, or Nazis, or the worst word in the far-right lexicon: weak. With Putin as a model, strongmen will be elected throughout the west. Democracy will be in retreat. Churchill warned about this nearly a century ago.
So the new allies have reasons to back up the Ukrainians. The question is, will the Ukrainians continue to fight?
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I said this at the start. An outcome resembling the Berlin wall disaster.
On one hand you assert Russia doesn’t have enough men, material, and the economic means to conquer Ukraine, on the other is the forecast of the Red Tide washing into Europe. Which is it?Because it can’t be both.
I find it hard to believe that Russia has military designs outside of the Ukraine and realistically past the Dnieper River and the Black Sea coast. The Baltics and Hungary are NATO members and the alliance is sound. If Russia invades then under Article 5 we are bound to respond unless they don’t want us to or leave the alliance under their own volition, a choice they as a sovereign are entitled to make. If politics in these countries shift so be it, realpolitik is not a zero sum game.
The only thing that can halt Russias campaign is NATO intervention, much like the French in our Revolution. If that’s you line so be it, but it’s not mine.
I agree if Putin is rational. I do not think he is. Why in the world would he invade Ukraine? He said there were Nazis? Ukraine would have invited him to invade if they were overrun with Nazis, but then again maybe not as Putin’s hero Stalin and his rule made the Nazis look like amateurs.
Putin has support in unexpected places.
What a turd.
He doesn’t need to send an entire army into Europe. I explained this:
A portion of the Ukrainian-Russian ethnics, bolstered by mercenaries and Russian advisors, will be Putin’s proxy army. This army only needs to be supplied with arms sufficiently to cause large-scale misery. Once the enclave is in place, no more territory needs to be conquered. Putin was already doing this on a smaller scale with the Crimea: cause internal misery in the Ukraine, then blame the chaos on the bloodthirsty Ukrainians and their Jewish-Nazi (?!?!) president .
Then for some reason Putin lost patience this year. Maybe because the change in US administration caused him to believe arms shipments to Ukraine would increase, changing the military equation. Maybe Putin just got bored. Or maybe he realizes he doesn’t have many years left on Earth, and wanted to admire his handiwork before he fries in hell.
At any rate, Putin miscalculated in trying to conquer the whole enchilada, when all he needed to do was conquer a small piece of it and spread misery throughout Europe with a proxy army, with few Russian lives lost. But no biggy. Just default back to the original plan, on a bigger scale.
Once Ukraine capitulates, a tiny part of the tiny Baltics will “secede”, meaning Russian advisors will suborn far-right national elements and fund them in a terror campaign, supported by an internet propaganda campaign in the West. There are plenty of people in the West who shout Liberty and Freedom–until it costs $200 to fill their pickup’s gas tank, and then it’s Fuck that shit.
This Baltic-Far-Right enclave will throw itself under Russian protection. Russia won’t invade, but the secessionists will get a steady supply of arms and advisors from Russia. No reason for a major invasion. Everyone knows exactly what is going on.The infection of misery and chaos will be repeated in the Baltics, but faster acting, because the countries are tiny.
The terrorized Baltics, their leaders smeared by propaganda or just assassinated, will capitulate and “elect” strongmen who will pull the Baltics out of Europe. So much for democracy, and an object lesson for anyone who wants to stand up to the new strongmen of Europe.
Hungary already has a pro-Putin strongman, Urban, in charge, already busy demolishing the framework of democratic norms, so that will be easier.
I agree, except on active military intervention. NATO is intervening, with arms, food, and training. None of the NATO countries have much public support for boots on the ground in the Ukraine. The Ukrainians need to fight for their right to be free. As I said, it all comes down to this, How long will the Ukrainians fight for their liberty? Or, alternatively, were the people in the West who always shout Freedom and Liberty just talking shit all along.
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Why would he invade Ukraine? Pick one, 10% for the big guy, Bio “safety labs” on the border, pressing for Ukraine to join NATO, maybe the killing of Ethnic Russians in Donbas a couple years back. Poke the bear more and find out and see the petrol dollar up in smoke sooner than you can imagine. Anyone ask why a nobody puppet/dancer is elected Prime Minister? Why would a bunch of supposed Nazi’s all with the tattoo’s and markings be fighting for this guy, didn’t Nazi’s not like the Jews or has something miraculously happened? Maybe they just steal the Nazi’s name to look tuff and serious. Maybe they are nothing like a National Socialist. Maybe they are just trailer trash.
It wasn’t good enough to buy the resources from Russia, no had to try and own it, way to ambitious . News flash pal, they are a super power, they are playing on their terms, their pace not ours, their plans, they have the resource and are making friends and keeping agreements with their outcast buddies.
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Thanks for making my point.
By the way, the USA has plenty of tattooed Nazi trailer trash of our own. But that doesn’t make us all Nazis.
This claim is ridiculous, but it goes to show how the Putin propaganda machine works. It patiently grooms its listeners to believe increasingly irrational nonsense. Then, you can convince them to believe anything you like. Bizarre conspiracies like, it’s Ukraine invading Russia, not the other way around, to seize its oil. Or maybe Europe is invading Russia, to seize their oil.
Either way it’s equally nuts, but it works on the lunatic fringe of the populace, and the lunatic fringe are the sounding board for bigger ideas. Putin’s propagandists see what parts of the story are swallowed and what parts are spit out by saner elements. Whatever is swallowed is amplified by the propagandists, who create a new narrative around it.
No matter what, rumors, smear campaigns, distrust in news organizations, all serve to create chaos. And who better to control chaos than strongmen? Which is the whole point of Putin’s campaign.
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I disagree the msm in the Sates has a monopoly. We all know who controls the media right? I would have to agree with Putin when according to the translation, he called them anti-humans. lol