Good to see a more balanced perspective on all this.
I'm not particularly a Russian sympathiser (or a Putin supporter) but the level of demonisation of Russia/Putin that we are seeing has to raise some alarm bells, surely!
And he's got a point - Russia is defending her borders, little more than that, against the threatening posture of NATO (whose purpose from the start was purely to provide a military alliance against Russia).
Americans used to call it the Monroe Doctrine. Hard men are more common in the rest of the world than in modern America, where confused pronouns prevail.
I may be making a fool of myself but here is my take on the Russia - Ukraine conflict. We're faced by the covid "crisis" which was manufactured by mad Klaus Schwab and his disciples, many of whom were trained by him as young global leaders. They include Merkel, Macron, Putin, Trudeaux, Freeland, to name just a few. Also, for instance, Bill Gates. Schwab currently has the world in his sweaty palms. One of the aims of the plandemic is to bankrupt every country so that the Great Reset can be implemented. In my view the Russia - Ukraine conflict is planned to drain even more money from the state coffers of leading western countries. There is no reason for what is happening now.
A war will also distract from the increasing amount of information showing that the warp speed vaccines have injured and killed large numbers of people.
As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. More likely vlad just saw an opportunity to improve his competitive position, offered by Joe's weakness, so he took it. Target of opportunity. Indeed, Joe went on TV, mumbled about bad vlad, and announced a few feckless jabs at the richest man in the world.
Xi is taking notes. His turn next. The world is a dangerous place for confused pronoun obsessives.
Not foolish at all. Let's face it, ALL the 3 major powers are gung ho for "Digital ID" (formerly known as vaccine passports). That is the ultimate control grid that they have dreams about. The Putin, Biden & Xi regimes are ALL in favour and hence none can be trusted.
Don't believe what Chris writes as he just writes click-bait titles to gain more followers, to earn more $$$, to fund more propoganda. Very easy to make up motives.
We all need to develop our critical thinking skills and not be led by the emotion of media propaganda( whichever way that swings.) Thank you for a thoughtful and informative read.
MSM coverage of this even has been disgusting, not one journalist has bothered to ask Putin what his prefered pro nouns are, that poor man is probaly crying inside.
I don't really care if the Ukraine is invaded, my own country has been relentlessly invaded for the past thirty years (the UK), so join the club.
I think it’s a stretch to describe a declaration of war followed by invasion of Ukraine as merely defending your borders against NATO because there are missiles in Poland and Romania. A vote to admit Ukraine to NATO would have to be unanimous and it doesn’t seem imminent as there are lots of reservations concerning corruption in Ukraine among other issues. I have zero desire to see Americans fighting in Ukraine, and it seems so unlikely that will happen because we have no article 5 obligation there, but also because 40K US troops in Germany are not a threat to 900K Russian troops. But I don’t think it’s in our interest to hit the snooze button over Russian or Chinese or Iranian aggression against their nation state neighbors. Surely there’s a response that falls between writing this off as inevitable, and nuclear winter? Surely the NATO alliance has more economic might in this situation than military advantage (which they have none of). Also, there of course already was a time when Soviet missiles were 90 miles off the coast of the US, and no, we did not go crush and annex a whole separate neighboring country to solve that dilemma. In fact we didn’t even invade the country with the missiles, unless you count the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Agreed, this shouldn’t distract us from our own abysmal dysfunction closer to home. Also agree that NATO expansion to include countries we don’t have much in common with is a big contributing factor in this mess.
No, I never said invasion was justified, just predictable. Supporting a corrupt Ukrainian regime who openly have suggested they want nukes was madness. As for Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK blockaded Cuba which technically was an act of war which is why he purposefully described it as a quarantine. The issue was resolved by promising to remove missiles from Turkey. And world was saved by this random guy:
I totally agree predictable, but one of the predicting factors here was the Budapest Memorandum, where Ukraine *gave away their nukes* in exchange for a flimsy American promise of protection. This alone practically guaranteed eventual annexation. As to Cuba, while technically an act of war, I think there’s a bit of a difference between a blockade of the country with the missiles pointed at you and an actual missile attack on cities full of civilians, in a country that doesn’t seem anywhere close to actually becoming a NATO member, the supposed “security threat”. Or you think the whole city attack is made up and not really even happening? That would be a feat. I have friends in Kyiv right now and I struggle to believe they are on some globalist media crisis actor payroll but anything is possible. Corrupt regime absolutely, lots of governments are corrupt of course, including ours, but *wanting* to be in NATO and *wishing* they had nukes doesn’t add up to threat level bombs away. I agree with much of your essay, but not fully on board with the assessment this was “easily avoidable” and Putin would have abandoned his own expansionist adventurist goals if we had only guaranteed no NATO ever for Ukraine. I think this downplays a few factors; a shift in the balance of power since the end of the Cold War when Russia was weak and America was the undisputed heavyweight champ, the same inherent Ukrainian vulnerability you yourself described, Putin’s commitment to employ any pretext and risk it all to achieve his oft stated and demonstrated purposes of absorbing Ukraine. Supplying the pretext may be foolhardy, but it remains a pretext. Anyway, I’m rambling a little (lot), Chris thank you for the discussion, the always excellent, thoughtful content, and pointing me to more reading! Cheers
Those were USSR nukes, not Ukrainian. There was no reason for them not have good relations with Russia. Never said Putin's response was proportionate, just that US did not just chill out wrt Cuban missiles.
I thought you were using the Cuba example as a comparative. As in hey America doesn’t like nukes pointed at them either. By this comparison, if Russia doesn’t like missiles in their neighborhood perhaps they should take it up with those countries? Or if NATO is the big threat, take it up with the actual NATO countries on their border? Nah, just bomb Ukraine because you want Ukraine and then when nothing happens to deter you, move on to next objective. What will Germany do? Throw a windmill at him?
The nukes were in Ukraine. Giving them up made them vulnerable regardless of how they came to be there or which crumbling entity originally owned them. I’m not saying modern day Ukraine deserves to have them back but when you have nukes you have power to deter your neighbors from deciding you don’t exist.
I can guarantee if Russia funded colour revolutions in Mexico US would rain down hellfire. There was absolutely no reason for Ukraine not to seek peaceful relations with Russia except that their regime had been captured by the West. Ukraine is different to Estonia etc and he was obviously going to draw the line somewhere.
I live on an Aleutian island where Russian-Unangan heritage is still strong and we also happen to have a population of young Ukrainian men and women working in our seafood sector. Mine is a fishing family. Our fishing fleet has already had tense, hostile interaction with Russian warships, war plane, and nuclear submarine on our fishing grounds in the last couple years. Aggression from Putin doesn’t feel super distant to me. Mexico hypotheticals and Cuba circa 1962 do feel somewhat distant. I’m kinda bummed when people are like, “let’s not worry too much over Putin’s plans to reign in that pesky Ukraine way over yonder”. Ultimately though, as a Christian, I pray for peace but I also don’t put my hope in the things of this world.
I’m sure you’re right about Mexico and I’m not trying to set up camp as an American foreign policy cheerleader, that’s for sure. I think it’s an odd take that Putin is simply drawing the line because Ukraine won’t agree to peacefully stop being their own nation. Do you think once they behave he will be content, having deprived the US of the Biden family favorite money laundering depot and foiling that shady NATO once and for all?
Good to see a more balanced perspective on all this.
I'm not particularly a Russian sympathiser (or a Putin supporter) but the level of demonisation of Russia/Putin that we are seeing has to raise some alarm bells, surely!
And he's got a point - Russia is defending her borders, little more than that, against the threatening posture of NATO (whose purpose from the start was purely to provide a military alliance against Russia).
Americans used to call it the Monroe Doctrine. Hard men are more common in the rest of the world than in modern America, where confused pronouns prevail.
They have to keep the west in perpetual fear
I may be making a fool of myself but here is my take on the Russia - Ukraine conflict. We're faced by the covid "crisis" which was manufactured by mad Klaus Schwab and his disciples, many of whom were trained by him as young global leaders. They include Merkel, Macron, Putin, Trudeaux, Freeland, to name just a few. Also, for instance, Bill Gates. Schwab currently has the world in his sweaty palms. One of the aims of the plandemic is to bankrupt every country so that the Great Reset can be implemented. In my view the Russia - Ukraine conflict is planned to drain even more money from the state coffers of leading western countries. There is no reason for what is happening now.
A war will also distract from the increasing amount of information showing that the warp speed vaccines have injured and killed large numbers of people.
As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. More likely vlad just saw an opportunity to improve his competitive position, offered by Joe's weakness, so he took it. Target of opportunity. Indeed, Joe went on TV, mumbled about bad vlad, and announced a few feckless jabs at the richest man in the world.
Xi is taking notes. His turn next. The world is a dangerous place for confused pronoun obsessives.
Add to that the war is another method of control through fear
Not foolish at all. Let's face it, ALL the 3 major powers are gung ho for "Digital ID" (formerly known as vaccine passports). That is the ultimate control grid that they have dreams about. The Putin, Biden & Xi regimes are ALL in favour and hence none can be trusted.
Control freaks gonna control freak.
Right on dude!
Thanks for an unbiased view.
Don't believe what Chris writes as he just writes click-bait titles to gain more followers, to earn more $$$, to fund more propoganda. Very easy to make up motives.
We all need to develop our critical thinking skills and not be led by the emotion of media propaganda( whichever way that swings.) Thank you for a thoughtful and informative read.
MSM coverage of this even has been disgusting, not one journalist has bothered to ask Putin what his prefered pro nouns are, that poor man is probaly crying inside.
I don't really care if the Ukraine is invaded, my own country has been relentlessly invaded for the past thirty years (the UK), so join the club.
I think it’s a stretch to describe a declaration of war followed by invasion of Ukraine as merely defending your borders against NATO because there are missiles in Poland and Romania. A vote to admit Ukraine to NATO would have to be unanimous and it doesn’t seem imminent as there are lots of reservations concerning corruption in Ukraine among other issues. I have zero desire to see Americans fighting in Ukraine, and it seems so unlikely that will happen because we have no article 5 obligation there, but also because 40K US troops in Germany are not a threat to 900K Russian troops. But I don’t think it’s in our interest to hit the snooze button over Russian or Chinese or Iranian aggression against their nation state neighbors. Surely there’s a response that falls between writing this off as inevitable, and nuclear winter? Surely the NATO alliance has more economic might in this situation than military advantage (which they have none of). Also, there of course already was a time when Soviet missiles were 90 miles off the coast of the US, and no, we did not go crush and annex a whole separate neighboring country to solve that dilemma. In fact we didn’t even invade the country with the missiles, unless you count the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Agreed, this shouldn’t distract us from our own abysmal dysfunction closer to home. Also agree that NATO expansion to include countries we don’t have much in common with is a big contributing factor in this mess.
No, I never said invasion was justified, just predictable. Supporting a corrupt Ukrainian regime who openly have suggested they want nukes was madness. As for Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK blockaded Cuba which technically was an act of war which is why he purposefully described it as a quarantine. The issue was resolved by promising to remove missiles from Turkey. And world was saved by this random guy:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov
I totally agree predictable, but one of the predicting factors here was the Budapest Memorandum, where Ukraine *gave away their nukes* in exchange for a flimsy American promise of protection. This alone practically guaranteed eventual annexation. As to Cuba, while technically an act of war, I think there’s a bit of a difference between a blockade of the country with the missiles pointed at you and an actual missile attack on cities full of civilians, in a country that doesn’t seem anywhere close to actually becoming a NATO member, the supposed “security threat”. Or you think the whole city attack is made up and not really even happening? That would be a feat. I have friends in Kyiv right now and I struggle to believe they are on some globalist media crisis actor payroll but anything is possible. Corrupt regime absolutely, lots of governments are corrupt of course, including ours, but *wanting* to be in NATO and *wishing* they had nukes doesn’t add up to threat level bombs away. I agree with much of your essay, but not fully on board with the assessment this was “easily avoidable” and Putin would have abandoned his own expansionist adventurist goals if we had only guaranteed no NATO ever for Ukraine. I think this downplays a few factors; a shift in the balance of power since the end of the Cold War when Russia was weak and America was the undisputed heavyweight champ, the same inherent Ukrainian vulnerability you yourself described, Putin’s commitment to employ any pretext and risk it all to achieve his oft stated and demonstrated purposes of absorbing Ukraine. Supplying the pretext may be foolhardy, but it remains a pretext. Anyway, I’m rambling a little (lot), Chris thank you for the discussion, the always excellent, thoughtful content, and pointing me to more reading! Cheers
Those were USSR nukes, not Ukrainian. There was no reason for them not have good relations with Russia. Never said Putin's response was proportionate, just that US did not just chill out wrt Cuban missiles.
I thought you were using the Cuba example as a comparative. As in hey America doesn’t like nukes pointed at them either. By this comparison, if Russia doesn’t like missiles in their neighborhood perhaps they should take it up with those countries? Or if NATO is the big threat, take it up with the actual NATO countries on their border? Nah, just bomb Ukraine because you want Ukraine and then when nothing happens to deter you, move on to next objective. What will Germany do? Throw a windmill at him?
The nukes were in Ukraine. Giving them up made them vulnerable regardless of how they came to be there or which crumbling entity originally owned them. I’m not saying modern day Ukraine deserves to have them back but when you have nukes you have power to deter your neighbors from deciding you don’t exist.
I can guarantee if Russia funded colour revolutions in Mexico US would rain down hellfire. There was absolutely no reason for Ukraine not to seek peaceful relations with Russia except that their regime had been captured by the West. Ukraine is different to Estonia etc and he was obviously going to draw the line somewhere.
I live on an Aleutian island where Russian-Unangan heritage is still strong and we also happen to have a population of young Ukrainian men and women working in our seafood sector. Mine is a fishing family. Our fishing fleet has already had tense, hostile interaction with Russian warships, war plane, and nuclear submarine on our fishing grounds in the last couple years. Aggression from Putin doesn’t feel super distant to me. Mexico hypotheticals and Cuba circa 1962 do feel somewhat distant. I’m kinda bummed when people are like, “let’s not worry too much over Putin’s plans to reign in that pesky Ukraine way over yonder”. Ultimately though, as a Christian, I pray for peace but I also don’t put my hope in the things of this world.
I’m sure you’re right about Mexico and I’m not trying to set up camp as an American foreign policy cheerleader, that’s for sure. I think it’s an odd take that Putin is simply drawing the line because Ukraine won’t agree to peacefully stop being their own nation. Do you think once they behave he will be content, having deprived the US of the Biden family favorite money laundering depot and foiling that shady NATO once and for all?
And the 11-15 BSL3/4 facilities (aka bio-weapons labs) in the Ukraine?
https://twitter.com/RealGeorgeWebb1
Some in an area controlled by the warlord Kolomovsky.
NATO has been amassing troops at the Ukraine border for a month.
They have not helped the situation.
Has everyone forgotten about Syria, Arab Spring and Ukraine 2014?