“From Moscow’s point of view, Nato is not a mutual defence pact dedicated to European security, but a Cold War relic animated by an anti-Russian agenda.
When former Warsaw Pact members joined the potentially hostile alliance, Mr Putin accused Washington of putting “frontline forces on our borders.” It was not about European security, but “a serious provocation,” he said.
That sounds so mad to Western ears it is often difficult to take seriously. And the refusal of George W Bush and Barack Obama to do so caused immense annoyance in the Kremlin. “
No one wants World War Three, after all. And we may as well come to terms with the reality that Russia is also a great power whose interests cannot be ignored.
“Russia is indeed a great power, and the complacent assumption that it would simply decline into obscurity has certainly muddled some Western thinking about it.
But Mr Putin’s arguments do not wash in Kyiv, Warsaw, and Riga.
In those capitals, Mr Putin’s “security” concerns are cover for his barely concealed determination to destroy Ukraine as a state – which he believes is not a real country – and rebuild, if not the Soviet Union, then certainly the Russian empire and an undisputed sphere of influence in east and central Europe.
To them, one-sided concessions to Mr Putin’s complaints about Nato would not be peace-making – it would mean appeasement and a body blow to the credibility of Nato itself.
Ukraine knows it has no short or even medium-term prospect of joining Nato. Its leaders and its soldiers are well aware that in the event of a Russian invasion, it will be Ukrainians doing the fighting and dying – not Nato troops. ” Telegraph
Comment: NATO and Allied Command Europe (ACE) were built to resist a Soviet invasion of Western Europe by serving as a “trip-wire” that would delay the success of such an operation long enough to make likely, from the Soviet POV, a massive US nuclear retaliation against the Warsaw Pact. This strategy worked well.
When the USSR disintegrated, that purpose ended as well, but the jingoes in the Borg (US foreign policy establishment) refused to accept the end of the necessity for such an alliance and when the search for a new unifying enemy failed, they decided to look to the East. The old enemy in the form of the Russian Federation would have to do.
Having made that adjustment in goals, they began to drive the boundaries of the NATO alliance farther and farther east.
This has been a “grand success,” and it has now brought us to a point at which Wicker, the cretin senator from Mississippi, has threatened Russia on TeeVee with a massive US troop presence in Ukraine and a putative “first use” of nuclear weapons if Russia does not “behave.”
I ask you, pilgrim turcopoles, what would have been the reaction of the US if Canada or Mexico had wanted to join the Warsaw Pact? You know what our reaction to the Soviet missile presence in Cuba was. We damned near went to war against the USSR over it.
Sober up idiots! The real world is not a plaything to be wagered over by Political Science obsessed clowns and right-wing jingoes like Wicker and some of the Foxnews nuts like Bartiromo and Kilmeade. pl
The other thing the warmongering idiot who wrote this doesn’t get is that security is not zero-sum. If you’re insecure, I will be insecure. And that’s precisely the situation we’re in now.
PA
Rolnd Oliphant is the idiot’s name.
I know. He’s been writing crap about Russia for years.
The Borg policy only makes sense if they have absolute certainty that Russia will blink. Imagine a few 6’6″ UFC fighters show up on your doorstep and start making demands. All you have is the trusty shotgun.
When the UFC men threaten you, do you accept “their terms” (i.e., a fight in the front yard) or do just take aim at the men? Do you take the beating–or just take them with you?
Isn’t our policy premised on the Russians just taking the beating?
Sheer lunacy.
https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard/status/1469245253110714369?s=21
The real question is what responsibilities do the American people have? I know it is fashionable to blame all kinds of groups for the current state of affairs and I’m no exception calling out the Party of Davos all the time. However when does the buck end with us voting citizens? After all we keep voting Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum.
Ironic that your comment is on the day of the Democracy summit. There is no way to vote against the MICIMAT (as demonstrated (again) by Tulsi’s fate) – or the interests of Blackrock, Goldman Sachs, etc., leaving mass mobilization – as successful against Obama’s desired war to turn Syria over to ISIS as part of his Nobel peace prize collection of middle east bloodletting. Such mobilization is nearly infeasible in these covid times, and as seen with BLM has zero effect in any case.
Perhaps if we had a Gillette Jaune movement which has forced Macron to back down several times and is why you never hear about it in the US.
Depressing in a Strangelove-ian manner, but we are where a Ukrainian Donbass escalation could easily escalate into a dystopian Post-nation-state world and not a word from the MSM that we are in another Cuba crisis moment (actually two) – but in those days the president was not a cardboard cutout.
“There is no way to vote against the MICIMAT (as demonstrated (again) by Tulsi’s fate) – or the interests of Blackrock, Goldman Sachs,..”
No one is preventing any one of us from voting who we want. Yet, at least. We choose to vote the duopoly and rationalize as voting for the lesser evil. Kinda like votes in totalitarian states where you can vote for one of the “party” representatives.
Theoretically, it is possible for a third party to win (who is not yet bought by big finance); however, the reality is that it never happens, suggests very powerful structural systems that prevent it (and dont forget the electoral college). There is a very good correlation between $$ and electoral success, and the big banks have (and donate) the money.
Will this change? Of course – nothing lasts forever; however, it is hard to see the duopoly losing (and accepting their loss of) power peacefully; and there is no guarantee that the next political system will be democratic.
“Perhaps if we had…”
The Gilets Jaunes movement didn’t got anywhere, it was harshly repressed:
http://lemurjaune.fr/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10299669/Thousands-protesters-march-Vienna-furious-demonstration-against-compulsory-Covid-jabs.html
Will this matter in Austria? I don’t think so. The authoritarians have now got the bit in their mouth and they ain’t letting go anytime soon.
Ms. Jacinda is now going to use Kiwi taxpayer dollars to propagandize them. And they’ll likely re-elect her.
https://twitter.com/electionwiz/status/1469418652562866182?s=21
Yes, very violently (Making China’s response to the Hong Kong protests look extremely gentle!), but that didnt stop them. Covid lockdowns did. And they got Macron to back down on the fuel (climate change) and other things. I expect that once Covid is not a thing any more, they will be back unless France has a non-Macron Govt. Like Zemmour (who is on the right, but would stand up to the EU).
https://unherd.com/thepost/watch-out-macron-the-gilet-jaunes-are-back/
May not have a Gillitte movement, but the US has the ‘Remmington’ movement……never bring a vest to a gun fight….
Cheers Mal
The jingoism in the piece is bad enough; but the ignorance and stupidity of the commenters is frightening.
Jingoism… ATerm used by the British..During The Russo-Turkish war. .1877-1878..Because they wanted England to fight Russia..The Jingo go’s..”We dont want to Fight….Yet…By JINGO..Yes we Do…We,ve got the Ships…We,ve got The Men…We.ve Got The Money Too…” By Jingo..
I didn’t know that. I’d always associated Jingoism with the Boer War. That and the verb “Mafficking”, used for the celebrations after the relief of Mafeking. It was because we got deeefeated so often by the Boers that the reform of the British Army was pushed forward. So even from that episode some good came in one respect.
The opposition to that war was much stronger, and supported by very many more influential figures, than the opposition in England to the neocon ventures of today.
Sir…Your are Correct..and well Qualified ,,To Understand and Keep these Events in Perspective..Historically..and Realistically..In My Opinion…How many times has the Uited States Engaged in Over Throwing Soverign Nations..with the same Excuses..to Appeases The Military/Industrial Complex..Starting with The Native Americans..and The Confiscations of Land..and Wealth..Just For Political Power..?? Done ..To Bring..Freedom..Democracy..?? Our Own The Marxists /Progressives..are Now In Control of the United States Government..and using its Power..To Undermine..The Peace..Safety..Culture and Well Being of the Citizens of The United States..and Its Residents..As I pointed out In Patrick Armstrongs Russian Sit/Rep.. The New Chancellor of Germany..Olaf Scholz..63 yoa…Is a Hard Core..dedicated Marxist..With a Long History of Student Activism..as a marxist..from 1975-1989..Served as Merkled Vice Chancellor…with Germany culture was being Destryed..Much Like The United States…when Merkle got Very Involved in Bringing Foreign Immigtrants into Germany by The Millions..Their Health Care system is a Shambles Now..And..While The United States Postures and Threatens Nato Aggression..The Facts are..All data shows Russian Could Overwhelm all of Nation Forces Combined….And Chancellor SCHOLZ in on Record..as a Marxist…as Saying that NATO..Represents..”Aggressive Imperialism…” What ?? If Germny Now..QUITS NATO.. ????
Germany quitting NATO?
Scholz is a socialdemocrat, and so called eurosocialists turned from Marxism to Liberalism since, pay attention, the Suresnes Congress…quite time ago indeed.
Hence the divide between socialists and communists, until the communist parties were corraled and disbanded by treason of their own cadres.
Then, you have the new german Foreign Minister, who is a “green”, that is a Soros´cub.
First declarations as Foreign Minister , she has menaced Russia and China with “nuclear dissuasion”…
Beware with this woman, this kind of ambitius thirty something/fourty something, who never looked for or worked at a real job, except go rising through the Atlanticists think tanks ladders, and the least have known what it is the misery which brings war, could easily lead us to it.
If you thought Heiko Maas was an stupid tiny unscrupulous warmonger, take into account that, according to the “new western values”, Annalena Baerbock should demostrate she can even go further to keep the gender cuota.
Let’s not forget a crucial fact, the German Greens played an aggressive and interfering role since the beginning of the Nazi coup in Maidan, in 2014, where their Foundation, Heinrich Böll, actively participated in the protests together with the Nazi fascists of Svoboda.
Antifascists they are not, on the other hand no communist or rea left party in Germany supported that coup…
Related to their Atlanticism, ex-pacifists greens, like Joschka Fischer, pushed for first German war misions since the end of the nazi regime ( allegedly, I keep they remained undercover EU institutions and from that dust this mire..) between 1998 and 2005 supporting the bombing of Yugoslavia and the invasion of Afghanistan…
Well, old Spanish journalist ( from the old school of journalism when the profession was worth the name..) Rafael Poch, former berlin correspondent, besides of some other European and world cpaitals like París, Moscú and Beijin, agrees completely with my estimation of the danger which for the world means Annalena Baerbock as German Foreign Minister, plus makes a whole analysis of the situation in Germany which does not add to tranquility, pointing out to a possible project by this “socialdemocrat” government on refussing to host US nuclear weapons…
I post a translation on the part related to Germany, but, if you have the time and interest in reading from a really species in extinction, the whole long interview is worth the time, as he makes a review of the whole state of affairs in the world related to current mayor superpowers….
“You were also a correspondent in Berlin, twice. How do you see post-Merkel Germany?
From bad to worse. The new German tripartite government, of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, has all the numbers to aggravate the situation. It seems that the finance minister will be the president of the Liberals, Christian Lindner, a typical German dogmatic of budgetary discipline. Nobel laureate Joseph Stieglitz has defined it as, “a disaster that neither Germany nor Europe can afford.” The probable foreign minister and leader of the Green Party, Annalena Baerbock, is the main standard-bearer for “humanitarian” war interventionism and aggressiveness towards Russia and China. Lindner and Baerbock are in their forties and belong to a German political generation absolutely liberated from a reflection on the catastrophes that the country sowed in Europe in the 1930s. People without complexes, completely oblivious to what the détente towards the East meant and the antiwarism of the most drinkable part of the previous German political generation. Some Social Democrats have flirted with the idea of stopping allowing the parking of American nuclear weapons on German soil. In this regard, last week the Secretary General of NATO, the irresponsible downright irresponsible Jens Stoltenberg, said that if something like this happens, these weapons “could be transferred to other countries in Europe further to the East”, that is to say even closer to Russia … I tremble just thinking about what characters like Baerbock can contribute to the increased risk of war. “
https://rafaelpoch.com/2021/12/13/cualquier-dia-vamos-a-tener-una-especie-nueva-crisis-del-caribe/
If you get ot read the whole interview, you will notice the man has currently abandoned the profession of journalism, since he considers it not worth any more..
We could solve the border issue by sending Kamala, look at what she did with our Southern Border. Which is, of course, the only one on Earth the necons don’t care about.
THANKS, Fred.
I wonder if the title of that article was written by the author of that article. The title is pompous, inflammatory and just flat wrong. Any NATO-Russian talks to avert war is a good thing for everybody. That title is in line with the words of that idiot senator from Mississippi, certainly not the part of the article quoted above.
Ukraine, or what was to become Ukraine, started moving towards Western Europe at least as far back as the 18th century. Even with the latest declaration of independence from Moscow in 1991, Ukraine sought further integration with Europe while maintaining a position of nonalignment. She joined the NATO Partnership for Peace program in 1994 and sought a roadmap for NATo membership in 2008. Under Yanukovych, those efforts were stopped and Ukraine returned to a more nonaligned position. With the Maidan Revolution and Yanukovych’s flight, that stopped. That change was all on us even if Moscow had their finger on the scale with the 2010 return of Yanukovych. With Russia’s seizure of Crimea, Ukraine’s call for joining NATO accelerated. Public opinion also turned heavily towards NATO and the EU.
Moscow and Washington signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 in which we recognized Ukraine’s independence and right to choose their own path in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons. Well, Ukraine now chooses the path towards the West. Moscow, along with Washington, are both agreement incapable in my opinion.
Ukraine is not Kansas. Millions of Ukrainians are ethnic Russians, millions more, native Russian speakers. There are very strong, historic, economic, cultural, familial and other connections between the two countries. Russia will always play a big part in its life. I’m not sure that we can say Ukraine wants this or that because it is not homogeneous and truly independent. Since the 2014 coup the pro Russian side is forcibly subdued. I still remember the image of the burnt body of a strangled, pregnant woman in Trade Union Building massacre of 2014.
If Ukraine joins NATO things will get very complicated very quickly.
Yes, I remember the abominations to be seen in the trades building in Odessa after the nazi goons got through with it. The image of the heavily pregnant woman strangled on her desk with the phone cord (and probably raped, too, from how she was postured), haunt me to this day, along with the burnt bodies in the stairwell.
The Banderite subhumans have much for which they should answer.
Wicker is a typical chickenhawk. Never served a day in combat yet wants to put us on the brink of war. Tulsi Gabbard knows Wicker is an ass – she stated “anyone who would propose or even consider what he is saying as an option must be insane, a sociopath or a sadist.”
I agree with sociopath and sadist. But instead of insane I suspect he made his war comments with the calculated intent to beef up sales of all the defense industries in Mississippi:
– Ingalls Shipbuilding and Rolls Royce Naval Propulsion Systems in Pascagoula;
– Alliant Tech Systems & Northrop-Grumman & General Atomics in Iuka;
– General Atomics also has a plant in Shannon MS where they designed and built the infamous EMALS catapult for the Gerald Ford Class carriers);
– Lockheed Martin in Meridian;
– Raytheon in Scott County.
– Plus Mississipi has two Air Force Bases and a Naval Air Station.
You are right. Wicker is a cretin. As is Bartiromo and Kilmeade.
Thanks for all that info, Leith. And Wicker, Bartiromo, & Kilmeade’s war-mongering are still mad.
What will “profit” mean after nuclear strikes? Even if we “live,” we’ll be coping with the deaths of most the people we love and will ourselves soon die of nuclear-fallout poisoning.
And THANKS as ever, Colonel Lang.
@TTG – “Ukraine, or what was to become Ukraine, started moving towards Western Europe at least as far back as the 18th century.”
But then so did Russia under Peter.
Yes, but they were two very different processes interacting with different Western Europeans.
TTG,
Exactly.
And, particularly in World War II, ’Galician’ nationalists interacted with ‘national socialist’ Europeans – in particular, Jew-killing Nazis.
As indeed, did very many ‘nationalists’ in the Baltics.
I must ‘check out’ the figures for the percentage of the pre-war Jewish population killed in the Western Ukraine and Lithuania. My recollection is that the ‘Galicians’ managed 90%, the Lithuanians 95%, but as memory can ‘play one tricks’, and you will obviously be better informed than I, perhaps you can correct me.
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08JMCTWSW/?coliid=I3PGIDFIHMT7LG&colid=1XF72P0E69R8M&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
David Habakkuk,
That 95% is about right, higher than any other country and far higher than in Germany. It began with tens of thousands of deportations when the Russians occupied Lithuania as a result of their pact with Hitler. Over seven thousand died in Siberia. The Jews were not deported because they were Jews. They were deported because they were successful capitalists. The Nazis then killed most of the remaining Jews in Lithuania. There were Lithuanian collaborators who assisted both the Russians and the Germans in this slaughter. Some were bureaucrats. Some, mostly police units, actually took part in the murders. The remaining 5% of Jews in Lithuania were mostly those returning from Siberia after the death of Stalin.
TTG – Re the 18th century reaching out to the west. You are right about different processes and different Western Europeans. Peter’s Grand Embassy spent most of their (and his)time in the Netherlands, England and Germany. And although he did visit Vienna he got no consideration there.
The Ukrainians in the 18th century as I understand it were trying to get out from under the Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth. And so gravitated towards the Hapsburgs. Seems to me they were resisting Krakow, not Saint Petersburg or Moscow. But then I’m no historian. Any opinions?
Leith,
It’s more complicated and convoluted than that even in just the 18th century. There were times when the Ukrainians were allied with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against Russia, especially before the 18th century. Until the last partitian of Poland in 1795, Polish-Lithuanian influence in Ukraine remained strong along with Hapsburg influence. The Russification efforts in the region began in earnest in the later 18th century. Ukraine sought to maintain her identity in the face of all these outside influences. And we can’t talk about the Ukrainians without talking about the Cossacks and their near constant warfare with the Ottomans.
I watched the video of Senator Wicker and was amazed at his stupidity. He actually said the US could strike Russia with a first strike nuclear option over Ukraine when we overthrew their democratically government in 2014.
If I was Senator Wicker’s grandson I would tell him to Go to Hell. And don’t ever contact me again. He may want to die for some insane reason but he doesn’t speak for me or the vast majority of Americans left or right I believe on this issue.
Yea let’s blow up the world because we were so devious and malicious overthrowing the democratic government in Ukraine just so we could hurt the last majority White Western Christian country in the world. The tribe hates them. And Senator Wick is a fanatic Christian Zionist. What a silly ass oxymoronic name and belief.
I think what gets ignored are causes, when everyone is focused on the effects.
The history is that the military industrial complex grew out of World War 2, as the solution to the Great Depression. While it gave large numbers of young men something to do, in ways that our biological and sociological make-up recognize, ie, tribes fighting against other tribes and provided a large boost to industrial growth and technological advancement, what seems to be overlooked, is that it solved a financial problem as well. As a form of public investment, that wasn’t obviously socialistic. Consider how big war bonds were. Now consider just how much the financial markets are supported by government borrowing, as well as the Federal Reserve likely becoming Japanized, in the next version of quantitive easing, investing directly in the markets. Our entire economy and society is far more deeply invested in wars, than we can afford to admit.
Considering how much energy and oil is being burned in this collective chest thumping, it’s evident the climate change activists are just another front for government control, when they don’t address this issue.
The fact is that oil will run low, especially as investment in looking for and producing it declines. It is also evident the markets can only run so far on hot air. These serious problems coming home to roost, not any great human awakening, will be what potentially prevents a nuclear war.
Consider how much investment and innovation a post fossil fueled world is going to take. That is where our efforts should be directed.
Logically our interstate highways should have wired lanes, like transit railways, where long haul trucks and most cars could be powered and recharged for the non-wired roads.
Yet anyone going against the grifters in charge will be canceled, or terminated. Look at Assange.
I’m still trying to figure out how to get an Assange/Manning write-in candidacy going, for 2024. That would be a big “Let’s go, Brandon!” to the whole system.
The first “confirmation” item of Budapest Memorandum of 1994 — listed at the top — was the promise by UK, US and Russian governments’ to:
respect the
independence
and sovereignty
and existing borders of Ukraine.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Pres. Obama and the enlightened European UK PM Cameron broke their respect for national sovereignty of Ukraine, for anyone that remembers US/British “Maidan” Operation — in which they trained and deployed terrorists to overthrow the sovereign government of Ukraine, circa 2014. The dynamic duo also broke international law. And then cried foul when Ukraine “lost” Crimea — and then it was pointed out to them by President Putin: how was that any different than the West’s “creation” of nation states [via military destruction of Yugoslavia]?
Budapest 1994 Declaration states in part:
Confirm the following:
1. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE [Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe] Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine
This accord also states that signatories are: “to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind”
Perhaps Burisma has become a household name, but that, just tip of the iceberg.
Cameron stated March 2, 2014:
“Britain views the developments in the Ukraine with growing concern.
“This afternoon, in view of the seriousness of events unfolding there today, and the Russian Parliament’s decision to authorize Russian military intervention, the United Kingdom has called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
“There can be no excuse for outside military intervention in Ukraine—a point I made to President Putin when we spoke yesterday.
“Everyone must think carefully about their actions and work to lower, not escalate tensions. The world is watching.”
There was no excuse for the West to topple the democratically elected government of Ukraine at the time. Fancy Cameron missed that elephant in the room.
Of course, at the time, Their Cover Story was . . . let’s see, in 2020 speak it would be “mostly peaceful protests,” right?
Of course, Cameron was not alone, Labour Party demanded action.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukraine-crisis-labour-urges-david-cameron-to-take-tougher-action-against-calculating-kremlin-9179101.html
https://larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2014/eirv41n08-20140221/34-35_4108.pdf
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-prime-ministers-statement-on-the-ukraine
-30-
It was a Memorandum, not a Treaty and no-one, not even the Ukraine ratified it. I won’t go into why the Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons, apart from US pressure, and an inability to use them, but let’s understand that a Memorandum is NOT a Treaty!
And, as I recall, we were very glad and relieved that Russia agreed to all that residual stuff — take the nukes, move all the troops and weapons out of Eastern Europe, take on all the USSR’s debts, agree to give citizenship to any leftovers. All of this cost Russia a lot. It was only later that this was re-imagined as Russian imperialism.
And for that matter..Why wasn’t Hillarys Coup of Libya..Reimagined as American Imperialism.???.and Lets not forget Egypt..And Other Political/Cash Coups..
What treaty did Ukraine sign with the US to make us defend them, and when did the US Senate ratify such a treaty?
Peter Williams – there seems to have been an understanding:-
https://mltoday.com/new-document-us-promised-not-to-expand-nato-eastward/
“The documents show that Gorbachev agreed to German unification in NATO as the result of this cascade of assurances, and on the basis of his own analysis that the future of the Soviet Union depended on its integration into Europe, for which Germany would be the decisive actor.”
Gorbachev seems to have been living in a dream world, but there were plenty others to add to the “cascade of assurances”.
“As late as March 1991, according to the diary of the British ambassador to Moscow, British Prime Minister John Major personally assured Gorbachev, “We are not talking about the strengthening of NATO.” Subsequently, when Soviet defense minister Marshal Dmitri Yazov asked Major about East European leaders’ interest in NATO membership, the British leader responded, “Nothing of the sort will happen.” (See Document 28)”
The summary of the article linked to reads:-
“The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. “
So, as you say, not a treaty. Merely promises.
Moving on to today, Putin would surely be ill-advised to rely on more promises, if he gets them, when he seeks assurance that NATO will not take in the Ukraine. And he won’t get a formal treaty stating that. It would not be ratified.
Original link quoted from here:-
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
Socialist Europe is well overdue for a cleansing. They all know they want it just like WWI. Do it and get it over with. Fight proxy wars for a couple years then raise the tempo and scale it up. Socialists can then simmer down again for a while after they realize socialists sucks.
Just for fun:
Russia joins NATO.
Problems solved.
And NATO disappears, undermined from within.
From then on, we don’t laugh anymore.
It’s nothing to laugh about. Putin expressed a desire to join NATO as he was first inaugurated. The Orange Revolution in 2004 totally soured him on that idea and the West in general.
I wonder if the tergiversations in U.S. foreign policy; Russia vs. the Ukraine, and also China vs. Taiwan: first Administration officials and congressmen predicting immediate calamity, and advocating a military responses; then Mr. Biden contacting the respective Chief-of-Government directly and making nice, proposing some kind of modus vivendi; then Deep-State officials and congressmen undercutting Mr. Biden with a hard line afterward; might reflect the temporary influence on Mrs. Biden, a la Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. Perhaps she, worried about their family name if devastating war breaks out, even their existence, counsels prudence when she can; while the neocon Deep State and congressmen they retain override her later; recklessly indifferent to the consequences, as long as their defense appropriations increase. History may tell 20 years from now, if there is any history then.
the CORE problem the collective west faces with both russia AND china is spiritual.
both russia and china do not subscribe to the liberal humanism (project) with unhindered individual freedom to do pretty much anything even when it degrades and corrodes the over arching western body politic and civilization.
neither russia or china will permit their own unique civilizations to be assimilated into the western liberal experiment now visibly failing everywhere its dominant.
of course you can add into the mix staggering resources untapped within the russian federation, the highest collective IQ of any of the races centered within china and a staggering manufacturing and research facility in hyper drive both of which is engendering unhindered greed and fear within the west as well.
after 500 years the western elites can see the writing on the wall. their moment in that long 5 centuries of unlimited power has run out of road, out of resources and when unchecked selfish individualism is added to the stew the end of the road is actually a cliff with rocks below.
the west has but 2 options at this point, either subsume both civilizations into the liberal western experiment or conquer them. if the west dose not achieve either it has less than 20 years if that left before it either destroys itself or becomes a secondary backwater to the power and influence of rising eurasia.
if you look around at the quality and perspicacity of western elites a smart bettor knows where to place their wager what 2040 will look like.