old salt wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:45 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 9:26 am
seacoaster wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:36 am
old salt wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 1:16 am
Biden's clarification on his press conf "minor incursion" remark --
If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukranian border, that is an invasion = green light to send in the little green men.
I've never seen DW so opinionated about the US. Normally totally objective, host Brent Goff is exasperated with Biden over his comments the past 2 days & his staff's futile cleanup duty. He opened
The Day by saying that Europe's & the world's reaction to Biden being inaugurated a year ago today has gone from a sense of relief to "good grief".
Putin is not just threatening Ukraine. He's accomplishing his goal of dividing NATO, demonstrating it's ineffectiveness & prompting it's unravelling.
And the four years of the Trump administration's -- and Trump's -- gladhanding Putin have been instrumental in getting us here. Isn't this essentially what Fiona Hill has been saying: that a strong, coordinated response from NATO is necessary or it will mean the end of any meaningful North Atlantic treat order? We'll see what comes from the talks with Lavrov today.
Can't help but sense that Salty's in favor of NATO failure and dissolution.
Blame it on the "Euroburghers" and Democrat POTUS...
I'd expect such a petty, vapid, vindictive, stupid response from you. This is personal for me. I'm invested.
I spent the most significant portion of my working career as part of NATO & shared in the pride we felt in winning the Cold War.
I feel NATO still has a place. We can't afford to lose it. We need a strong NATO as an ally, better able to defend Europe on their own, able & willing to join us as we pivot to contain China. That's why the fecklessness of the EUroburgers & Biden's stumbles trouble me.
Trump's gladhanding of Putin was face saving cover for Putin while, Trump strengthened NATO more than any post Cold War President has.
Ukraine is much better able to defend itself now & NATO's E flank is much better defended now than 5 years ago.
You predictably whine about Trump & ignore all the good work that Pompeo, Mattis, Esper, McMaster, O'brien & the Generals did to strengthen Ukraine & NATO.
Nothing would make me happier than to see Putin take an off ramp & back down.
If that happens, Biden, Blinken & NATO deserve great credit. It will mean our diplomacy succeeded & reestablish the US as leader of the western alliance & free world. After Afghanistan, the US & NATO desperately need a "win".
I fear the more likely outcome will be the annexation of the area in E Ukraine already under control of the Russian separatists & the coastal corridor which connects to Crimea, giving Russia control of the entire shoreline of the Sea of Azov. Biden's words appear to greenlight such a move.
First, I think you have every right to snap back at me.
I know you were "invested" in the effort versus the Soviets.
I don't know all the ins and outs of your career post service decades ago, but my sense is you have never been willing to recognize that Putin is a
major adversary and you have been a constant apologist for Trump's "fecklessness" and fawning, while constantly placing 100% of the fault of NATO's lack of cohesion at the feet of the Europeans rather than on Putin himself masterfully playing a strategic game, and the fatigue from 20 years of unilateral decisions by the US in global affairs. Not "leadership", unilateralism and if you don't unquestioningly and docilely follow us, you're the bad guys...
Yes, your constant apologia of Trump, your disdain for US intelligence services, international organizations, the rule of law...yup, that bothers me a heck of a lot more than whether you have an accurate perspective on the current crisis. and it's complete BS that NATO was stronger, and certainly not more cohesive with Trump at the helm, both because of his collaboration with and encouragement of Putin and his disdain for working with the allies making up NATO. Of course it was weaker, less cohesive.
That all said, NATO is not repaired. It's not cohesive, most importantly because Putin has successfully engineered energy dependenc. Want to blame Merkel and the Germans for the decision to eliminate their nuclear capacities? Yup, I agree, big strategic mistake. But also because the US has failed to lead collaboratively and the Europeans can no longer rationally trust the US' commitment to NATO, given that for the first time ever in NATO's history we had a US President clearly not committed and that was embraced by a very large part of the US population...it's the Europeans' problem...
There's a heck of a lot we agree on, and its refreshing to see you want Putin to fail, for Biden and Blinken to succeed, and I also agree with your assessment of the more likely outcome, ugly as that is.
But I think it's complete BS that Putin wouldn't be making these moves about now had Trump been POTUS, given global dynamics and his own internal politics...the difference is that Trump would have been telling the Europeans and our fellow Americans that Putin has every right to Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe. Yup, that's what Trump actually thinks. And that's what he'd be pitching to us right now.