(09-12-2022 12:10 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(09-12-2022 11:56 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(09-12-2022 11:49 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(09-12-2022 10:41 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(09-12-2022 10:37 AM)TIGERCITY Wrote:  Forgetting any lessons from history what we know today is that appeasement doesn't work. Putin has expressly stated what he wants a number of times and that's to put the old Soviet Union back together again. And he's acting on those intentions. He conducted a brutal genocidal war in chechnya. He's attacked and taken Georgia. He took Crimea. He's conducted political murderers all over the globe. And now he attacked Ukraine with the intent of overthrowing the government and either absorbing it into his new Soviet Union or creating an old style client state. Ukrainians have put up a fight. NATO members poland, Latvia, lithuania, and Estonia clearly have Targets on their back if you're going to take Putin's own words seriously. And why wouldn't you at this point? So how should we respond? Well sanctions certainly don't work. We've been imposing those all along the line. If ukrainians want to fight, and they do, then there has to be a point where we stand up to Putin. Do we stand up to him when things spiral out of control and he invades a NATO Nation to test our resolve there? Do we come to the defense of Estonia? Putin is shown he takes huge risk. NATO's position, and it's proving to be the right one, is to weaken Putin in Ukraine. Diminished Russia now without cataclysmic risk to the rest of the world.

Putin is not Hitler. History does NOT repeat itself.

You have to take each set of circumstances as they arise on their own merits.

The situation with Russia today and German from 80 years ago are not alike.

The idea that NATO seeks to undermine Russia and is succeeding is not necessarily a good thing. Imagine a world where the Russian Federation falls apart, and in case you didn't know Russia is a lot like the US being made up of dozens of little republics, and you have dozens of little shithole countries with no future, no money, and nuclear weapons coming out of their ass.

There are worse eventualities than a Ukranian defeat.

History may not repeat itself---but it often rhymes. Like Hitler, Putin seeks to rebuild a past empire he believes was incorrectly divided. He has proven he will take by force what wont be freely given---and he has learned from past appeasement in Georgia and Crimea that there is little price to pay. Like Hitler, he has found that in dealing with the West----the party more willing to aggressively use force in a international dispute will likely get its way. That works right up until you meet a foe equally willing to use force who has sufficient military capabilities to deter your goal. Putin may not be Hitler---but he's certainly following a similar path of seeking to rebuild a former empire by way of force. Hitler's string of success met it's demise when he turned his forces on what is today called Ukraine----and Putin may meet a similar quagmire in his invasion of the same territory.

We fall right off the tracks right there. Putin is following the same foreign policy Russia has for several hundred years.

We, as Americans, have short memories and expect everybody else to as well.

This is a game that has been being played since before we were even a country.

So, like I said, right off the bat we have to throw out the whole train of thought because its predicated on something that isn't true.

Also, an interesting Putin quote, "anybody who doesn't miss the USSR has no heart, anybody that wants it back has no brain."

Thats a pretty odd statement. First off, Putin is NOT following the same Russian foriegn policy its followed for the last 30 years---which strangely parallels the greatest improvement in world wide living standards in centuries. Secondly, the previous Russian foreign policy of empire building (which was NOT just a Russian phenomenon) resulted in war after war---and it is EXACTLY this same colonial power philosophy that culminated in 2 world wars---the last of which was largely started by Hitler (who, I might add---was Russia's ally at the start of that war).

Russia, interestingly, was not a colonial power.

Russia has always sought to buffer the interior of the country from Europe. That is the foreign policy the country has always had. The goal is to put as many people and miles between the Russian heartland and Europe as humanly possible.

As for Hitler and Stalin, they are footnotes in the wider point.

Russians are not European in their mindset. They are deeply and pathologically distrustful of Europe. Stalin said, "Russia saved Europe, and they hated us for it." He wasn't talking about himself though--he was talking about Alexander.

They see every step East of NATO as an existential threat. The truth is, this is nothing new. NATO is just the latest iteration of Tutons, Poles, Hapsburgs, French, Swedes, etc. to come down the pipe in a country with a memory longer than 250 years.