I agree with most of what you said but Ukraine wasn't allowed to join NATO or become official allies with any Western nations in order to appease Russia. It's a bit cold to refuse to let them join the club because Russia will get mad and then when Russia invades, just shrug our shoulders and say they're not in the club so we don't have to do anything. We basically left them with no options and now we're just running our mouths about sanctions while Russia shells civilian targets and prepares to take their capital. |
Part of being an ally is being self sufficient if needed and not a ward. Obama in his second term started being more forceful about freeriders in nato but a real concentrated American policy towards freeriding that has teeth has to be executed. Middle American voters will not continue to underwrite european security by shouldering the vast majority of the burden. |
Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Switzerland are not nato members either
Ukraine wants membership to freeride. |
How would they be more of a freerider than other countries? |
Ukraine wants explicit 5 protections but without doing the hard work of improving wuality of governance and self sufficiency first. My point was If states who are much better governed and are more self sufficient are willing to not be under explicit article 5 protection, then Ukraine should give it up. Macron and Scholz pretty much made this point in a roundabout way. |
I’m getting really tired of Putin’s dick-waving. It’s time for a war. Can’t wait for Joe to wipe that smug smile off that little cretin’s face. |
The hitler comparisons are shallow. Putin is not hitler or napoleon. The latter two did not operate in an era of nuclear weapons. Anyone comparing this situation to hitler has lost all credibility from the jump |
Uh, no. Putin's use of propaganda, false claims of genocide, and false flag attacks are very similar to what Hitler did before invading Poland. It's a valid comparison. |
Ok, you all, what about the trope that Putin promotes? The USSR agreed to end the Cold War and NATO agreed not to expand its sphere of influence and countries?
What is that about? Is that what really happened in the 80s? |
Ukraine has been fighting 8 years and rebuilt its army from almost scratch. If you look at 2014 photos, the whole country was donating money, food, socks, weaving camouflage nets, and literally feeding the army. So no, they are not free riding. And 3 revolutions to demand improvement in governance and this war is about revisiting being drawn back into the Russian corruption swamp. |
I want to say that Ukraine is far from innocent here. They have camps where they train kids to shoot, become skinheads and hate Russians, and fight for Ukraine.
That doesn't mean they should be invaded,but they are no angels at all. |
Media always wants conflict, in any form. So they do whatever they can to foment it. At home, abroad, doesn’t matter. |
Source? |
NBC. |
NGL that looks fun. |