Botond173
1d ago
As a parallel I’d bring up other wars.
Look at any narrative about the Six Day War / Third Arab-Israeli War that isn’t written by open anti-Zionists. None of them dispute that Israel started the war, in the narrow sense of the word, with a massive surprise attack. They also mostly see it as self-evident that Israel was merely preventing an impeding war of extermination by her Arab neighbors. In other words, they agree that Israel is either blameless or at least shares only part of the blame for the entire war, even though militarily they attacked first.
Or look at Atlanticist or Atlanticist-adjacent narratives about the South Ossetian War of 2008. It’s accepted as fact that the Georgians attacked first but also had no other acceptable choice.
Botond173
1d ago
It always seemed to me that the Croatian Operation Storm, which terminated the separatist war in Krajina in 1995, was seen by NATO decision makers after 2014 as the ideal course of action to be repeated in the Donbass. Every decision was subordinated to this, and Putin knew it. It’s not a baseless idea, as the Russian state has been afflicted by internal crises before, and the central government normally becomes weak and wavering as a result. It seemed reasonable to assume that there will be no serious Russian reprisal once the Ukrainians are able to recapture the area in a swift operation abetted by the Americans in such a case. The problem, of course, is that this requires high levels of discipline and patience, and the Russians to be so dumb as not to think of preventive measures while they still can.
Botond173
1d ago
It’s funny seeing Richard Spencer being a decade early to the seeming new tradition of Trump orbiters, and only if he had bid his time he would potentially have been capable of releasing his true feelings had they not been mellowed in time.
Just to nitpick: he never actually gave the Roman salute, at least not publicly. The one time he was accused of doing so, he was actually raising his glass of whiskey.
Botond173
1d ago
Why are starting from the assumption that the Soviet intent was to annex the whole of Finland?
Botond173
2d ago
See, if we could get GREECE AND TURKEY into the SAME military alliance we could get Poland and Russia in one.
That's actually a rather good point I never thought about before.
Botond173
3d ago
Plate-spinning + soft harems = promiscuity, as preferred by promiscuous men
Serial monogamy = promiscuity, as preferred by promiscuous women
Society generally considers the former promiscuity but not the latter. It's important in cases such as this to keep this in mind.
Botond173
3d ago
It means that one side has to withdraw all its unhardened electronics from the area before deploying the EMP weapon, obviously.
Botond173
3d ago
Botond173
3d ago
That may be the situation now, but it wasn't in 1991. Also, one cannot 'abandon' something one never had, or never promised to claim and defend in the first place.
Botond173
3d ago
We have, in fact, 4 clear examples from recent history of Russia not attacking her neighbor even when it goes down the obvious years-long path towards NATO expansion, namely Poland and the 3 Baltic states. All in all, yes, both of those narratives are wrong.
Botond173
3d ago
or simply not tried to project power past Berlin
Politically the hardest part about it is that at least Poland and the Baltic states were always going to apply for NATO membership at one point or another. So the US government either has to engage in political 4D chess to prevent that from even happening or reject such requests publicly, which then obviously opens one up to denunciations from the domestic opposition.
if we can put up with having Turkey in NATO
And also Greece, which was a military dictatorship for a period and generally a basket case.
Botond173
3d ago
Why did you link to a 17-min long video from a YT channel of rather dubious inclinations?
Botond173
4d ago
I know I wasn't the one you asked, and I'm also fairly certain that you comprehend what his(?) argument actually is, but I'll chime in.
We have ample evidence at this point to conclude that eastward NATO expansion was going to lead to more wars and less stability as opposed to not expanding NATO eastwards in exchange for a renegotiated peaceful coexistence with the newly reformed Russian state.
Botond173
4d ago
George F. Kennan was rather prophetic about this in his dying years (I bolded the most important parts):
'I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''
''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.
''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.''
Botond173
4d ago
I maintain that the involvement of these particular groups in the US culture war is probably marginal/negligible, because they are marginal themselves.
Botond173
4d ago
It's not like the US "resolved" matters in either Lebanon or Syria in any meaningful sense either.
Botond173
4d ago
But it isn't the few and marginal European communists and revolutionary leftists that picked a side in the US culture war, is it?
Botond173
4d ago
I see. But pellagra did occur in many other countries in those times as well, didn't it?
Botond173
4d ago
It's not really relevant but I'd point out that it was probably well within the capacity of the EU (or the ECC at that time) to negotiate the Yugoslavian War (I mean the one between 1991-5) to be terminated without either armed intervention or American assistance. Although it'd have probably been necessary to invite Russia as a negotiating party.
Syria and Lebanon are outside Europe and thus outside the responsibility of the EU anyway.
Botond173
4d ago
What proposals from Reagan and Thatcher are you referring to, if I may ask?
'Overt fed'?
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