I've heard this many a time in pubs
"Old me back lads, in case I do some real damage" Yeah okay.

One more point

The bad thing for them is that their policy and attitudes were being criticised ten years ago. They claim that the Russian invasion was 'unprovoked', when we have Putin himself warning about this situation years ago and even Oliver Stone made a film about it.

They wanted to take Ukraine away from Russian influence, so they decided to do it.....Even though it was slavic and a border country. There was a hell of a lot of corrupt money flowing through Ukraine and as we know the Biden family itself was involved there.

Regardless, the US weren't satisfied with Ukraine being neutral, but in the end, it's been proven that this would have been the sensible strategy for Ukraine.....Instead now it's a destroyed country that will be relying upon western taxpayers for decades.

The use case is the same as at the beginning. If we want to beat Russia....which in my view is fifty fifty with a significant chance of us all dying.....Then you have to go to war with Russia properly.

None of the western countries were ever prepared to go to an war economy and life and death over this.....Which meant that the whole policy was a disaster to begin with. There was never a gain to any of it.

Low quality elites.

Edited by Stirlingsays (26 Dec 2023 8.29am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

If Russia was objecting to America siting nuclear weapons on an isolated island within an area clearly within its sphere of influence, then the analogy would have some relevance. It doesn’t.

This is NATO, not America, responding to a request of a sovereign nation which is also the buffer state between Russia and other NATO countries. A state which wishes to join NATO and the EU and not to align with Russia. This is then completely different.

Ukraine won’t and was never going to be allowed to join NATO. It would for ever be a buffer state, although more tending, through its own choice, to be more economically aligned with the west. That’s clear to everyone and Putin uses the idea that the west is trying to creep to his border as an excuse to justify his actions to his people. It’s sad to see these excuses being swallowed and regurgitated by some here.

And once again we see the ridiculous idea that only fighting age men and women should offer opinions on this. If that were true this thread would be redundant.

No one wants to go to war with Russia. Nor do they seek any direct influence over the way it organises itself. All that is required is for its aggression to cease and for it to stay within its own borders and respect those of others. Those are the geopolitical issues. It’s a simple aim. Achieving it with a country you cannot trust at all is the difficult part.

To suggest there was never any gain is nonsense. Not having an untouched Russian military on our borders again, is a significant gain.

You don’t have to poke the bear for it to be dangerous. It only requires it to be in your vicinity for that.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Nato literally has nuclear capable delivery systems aimed at Russia sitting in Poland.

This guy either doesn't know what he's talking about or is just ignorant....considering the point was made to him earlier in the thread I suspect he's just doing his usual tactic of repeating nonsense regardless.

Rather obviously the push to take Ukraine away from being neutral was an incredibly bad choice as Russia views this as an existenial threat. Just as America rightly viewed Cuba, right next to it, siding with Russia a threat.....and did just about everything it could to change that.

The hypocrisy here is so thick that even neutrinos couldn't breach it.

Like saying that Nato isn't America when it makes up most of its funding and military. As we have seen here when it comes to Nato when America says jump, Europe asks how high.....just as long as they don't have to pay the budget price for having proper militaries......Do people really fancy losing their pensions so that we can have a war time 300, 000 size army and military?

And let's not forget that because of the degenerate gay nudist beach fans the kind of people who would populate that army aren't nationalists willing to die for King and Country anymore.....The reality is that you would have to conscript to fight a war like that.....I don't detect the desire for people to send their grandchildren out to fight for a pointless war just because the State department and neo cons don't like Putin.

But as usual we get the nonsense positions from a guy who seemingly supports every bad decision out there.....If the decision cost him personally I think we could be pretty sure he wouldn't be as keen.

Edited by Stirlingsays (26 Dec 2023 11.14am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

How can the West negotiate with Russia with a 'strong' hand, when energy prices are only just starting to level, and our economies are verging on recession ? Militarily, NATO was shown to have no cohesion and reliant on the USA leadership and money. No-one had the stomach for a fight.
Just ineffective posturing that turned sour.

I disengage, I turn the page.

Thats the only thing you’ve ever written that I agree with.

Edited by Helmet46 (26 Dec 2023 8.24pm)