It’s the “I know you are, but what am I?” defense. A real elementary school classic.

I think he’s going to go down in history as one of the most successful civilian wartime leaders, ever. I truly cannot even begin to imagine how much he has had to learn on the job, and it has certainly taken years off his lifespan. Pictures of him now vs pictures of him pre-war could almost be a father and his son. But his sheer effectiveness at rallying his people and the world has been nothing short of legendary.

“I need ammo, not a ride” is fully equivalent to “We will fight on the beaches”. So far I consider him in that same tier as the titans of history. This, I think, is what historical figures look like when you’re living alongside them, certainly mired in propaganda and debate, but with a certain shine that is hard to deny.

Just call it the Russo-Ukrainian War. It’s the formal English language name we seem to have settled on, and is unbiased and objective, just listing the two main participants.

Don’t forget what eventually becomes necessary to retain domestic control.

They’re not liberals, they don’t stomach the idea that the populace could choose something else if they prove themselves unable to deliver on their promises. Liberals get around this by embracing change, giving people the option to change the status quo if they wish. Even to the point of discarding liberalism itself.

Authoritarians don’t believe in that option though.

Not quite as shitty as it looks, for him. Not sure if anybody told Trump yet, but the richest Ukrainian mineral resource deposits are all in the east, under the territory occupied by the Russians.

… how many quail eggs are needed to make a decent sized omelet anyway? A dozen?

Pretty much summed it up.

Of course. But the principle remains that if your allies do not want to participate in your military action, they are not required to.

It’s the people in charge of that country that make the decision of how they want to respond to your Article Five invocation, based on their own values and priorities. That freedom of choice is fundamental to NATO.

such action as it deems necessary

That’s a key phrase.

Pariah, possibly, but I don’t think a party like the AfD would particularly care about pariah status. I’ll also remind you that Article 5 has been triggered once, by George W Bush after 9/11. He then wanted to invade Iraq, and did not receive the full support of NATO members.

It’s just not that simple, unfortunately.

This is actually not true.

Article Five states that an attack on one becomes an attack on all. This wording is very specific, and they wrote it with this wording intentionally, to get people to be willing to agree to join.

It does not require counterattacks or declarations of war, merely that you consider an attack on a member an attack on you.

How do people respond to different sorts of attacks? How can they theoretically respond if they so choose? These are the kinds of games being played in Putin’s head.

Anything that throws more sand into the gears of western allies is to the benefit of a rival. Make people more afraid, make anything more expensive, more inconvenient, etc etc, until we throw our own countries into chaos.

I think it’s often personal, as opposed to objective. A lot of people simply like it and do not want to lose access to something they like.

Yeah, this song is gonna be stuck in my head for the rest of the day now. I did it to myself though.

Rah rah Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine…

Ukraine’s fall without US support is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. That would assume Russian offensives are sustainable, which they are not. They’re involved in a surge of their warfighting potential, which is steadily depleting their arsenals and straining their economy.

It remains to be seen how long they can keep it up.

Prob just a territory, really. Can’t be ruining our perfectly even 100 Senators.

That’s a really great analogy. lol “This is going to be really mentally scarring for you, and the stains will never come out of your clothes, you know…”

Certainly. But anti-elitist sentiment is broader than just this country, as is anti-capitalist sentiment. There’s a broad coalition of people that would celebrate something like this for a variety of reasons. I try to avoid taking people online purely at face value, since its so easy and commonplace to simply spin one’s opinions slightly into something that seems similar to solidarity with one specific position, but in reality is operating from a subtly different motive in an enemy-of-my-enemy sort of way.

That said, I do agree that a lot of it is from Americans. But it would be in the interest of a variety of different chaos-interested positions to amplify that in any way possible. To a communist, its class warfare. To a geopolitical rival, it’s a blow against stability. To the far right, it’s a blow against the liberal order. To social media companies its an enticing engagement. Etc etc etc.

edit for a typo and an extra example

It’s useful to remember that Americans are a minority on the English-speaking internet. There’s only 330 million of us, while the world has an estimated 1.5 billion English speakers. Probably much more if we include people that just know some of the language.

English is the global trade language, it’s frequently taken in school as a second language all over the world. If you learn some English, the amount of activities available to you dramatically increases.

We’ll see. While Trump’s campaign rhetoric was decidedly anti-Ukrainian, the person he put in charge as envoy is a much more level-headed fellow.