Why, did HE start it? Other than sanctions , what could any sane person expect him to do, start WWIII?
It’s perfect. Whatever he does, it’s wrong. Show restraint, he’s weak. Show strength, he’s a warmonger. It does not matter what the choice is, it will be attacked. I don’t really know why the GOP wants to be in power, they are much better at throwing shit then actually governing. They seem allergic to that. But flinging garbage every day? What could be easier?
I honestly had not considered the possibility that Putin would just blow it off as the distraction it is intended to be. I find it very unlikely that someone planning an unlawful and immoral invasion himself would completely dismiss a live fire event on his very borders. I will acknowledge that my suggestion is very transparent and was meant to be so. I will further postulate that surfacing nuclear missile subs in different oceans ALL bordering Russian lands is not something ANYONE is going to ignore, especially a cold war warrior like Putin! Frankly, I am not sure we could pull it of tactically; I do believe if Tom Clancy was still alive HE would think it was a possible mission.
I will say this- if you are a warlord, or a gangster, or some other nefarious character who is about to go bang your mistress, you might pause and consider staying home if you think someone else is going to come to your house and “bang” your wife while you are out.
I believe that Putin is already tingling with the anticipation of taking over more geography and perhaps of installing puppet leaders in neighboring lands. I would be far more worried that Putin would become over excited and launch a larger scale incursion if teased or tested than I am concerned he would just ignore it. He is now trying to judge just how far he can step onto the thin ice before it becomes very bad for him. When he was sitting in the warm lodge looking over the frozen river through windows – and getting reports about the west losing its resolve and NATO crumbling he was pretty cocky about crossing the entire river, even the swift center with very thin ice. But NATO and the US have banded together in a way Putin NEVER expected and he isn’t sure if he still wants to risk the thin ice.
My question remains – would missiles and live fire make him more, or less likely to proceed recklessly in Ukraine?
I am not going to bite on another one of these. I have a horse I will try to teach to sing before I will try to engage in honest debate with you.
This has been addressed above, and I have no doubt it would have gone just as you suggest if Putin had moved then. But there are a few reasons to wait. One being the stooge was likely to be reelected and it would have made a great deal more sense to pull this when the stooge was a lame duck. In addition moving during the first term would have made reelection far less likely and it was too soon after Crimea. Another consideration is that Trump might have weakened NATO even further if given more rope with which to hang himself. And for a final two reasons; with the sanctions and worldwide pandemic Putin just might not have had the resources to waste on a vanity exercise, and the Russian military might have needed some time to train up to a level where rival branches are needed to cooperate. Does the Russian military still use conscripts? I don’t know, but have heard for decades their military is not nearly as professional as our is.
By uniting the NATO allies more than they have been united in the last five or more years. By vowing to defend any and all NATO land with the full force of the US military. By calling out Putin’s lies and half truths- by challenging Putin’s revisionist histories. By arming Ukraine and building nearly universal scorn for Putin’s efforts there.
I was not thrilled with those waffling statements either-- but every statement Biden has made has been more than Trump has ever stood up to Russia or Putin. It seems to me today’s statements by Biden are more directed, more to the point, and the most he can do without committing to a possibly devastating all out war.
I stand corrected, that was in another thread which has some overlap here.
https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ukraine-and-russia-with-trump-still-at-the-helm/959718
One more thing that occurred to me after I stepped down off my soapbox-
If Sixty Percent, 60%, of the entire Russian military is truly involved with the Ukraine issue - - - that does not leave much left for contingency plans. Putin literally does not have the choice of shrugging it off. He would have to shift SOME focus there just because he has very limited possible response ‘just in case’. My understanding is that cold war warriors do not let their tail end hang out in the breeze no matter what.
I am saying I have better things to do with my time.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. For 4 years, Putin had a guy in the Oval Office who would practically roll out the red carpet for a Russian invasion force.
Yet the thought of NATO on his doortep terrifies him. What’s the difference?
American will vote against a president simply because they think it’s his job to guarantee low gas prices for their their 8-ton luxury pickup truck that never goes off road.
Yes, this is going to affect Biden’s presidency.
That’s one factor. Here’s another:
Another Democratic own-goal example is the Affordable Care Act, which cut the number of Americans without health coverage in half. In most web discussions I have seen, Democrats generally ignore this very good news, focusing solely on the half empty part of the glass.
I’m not saying bad poll numbers are all about messaging, but if even Biden’s supporters don’t see big positive accomplishments, why should swing voters? Our guy is marginally acceptable, but yours is evil, probably won’t fly.
As for the OP idea, I don’t think foreign policy will decide the elections. If anything, the agony of the Ukrainian people, obviously not his fault, will make Biden look just a bit more like a President.
Yeah, Putin is smart enough to know that this would amount to little more than chest-thumping, which isn’t going to faze him much, if at all.
There’s also the fact, that after 20 years of the Afghanistan debacle, few Americans anywhere on the political spectrum right now are itching to get involved in another war. Sure, Ted Cruz and the usual suspects will use any excuse to call Biden weak. But, they’re not going to be pushing hard to put boots on the ground, either.
On top of that, a disturbingly large portion of the American electorate at the moment thinks Putin is the bee’s knees, and don’t really care about him bullying his neighbor. Hell, many of them like that he’s flexing his muscles, acting like a manly man and trying to “make Russia great again.”
What makes this weirder is that most of the Trumpers I know who are pro-Russia are also vehemently anti-China and anti-Xi Jinping - even though China is just a rich Asian version of Russia and Xi is just a Chinese Putin.
As far as I can tell, the only difference is that Putin helped Trump win elections but China did nothing for Trump.
The difference is that Fox News and other bullshit media are pro-Russia and anti-China. If they decided to change that tune, then the Trumpers you know will always have been at war with Eastasia Russia.
What’s confusing about that? Putin is white. Xi isn’t. None of this is hard if you acknowledge the elephant in the room.
See also: A $1.3 TRILLION infrastructure package (more than what DJT promised and never got through in 4 years), left untrumpeted and forgotten like a nothingburger because Manchinema would not vote for a $2-3 trillion Fix Everything And The Kitchen Sink bill.
I think this Ukraine mess is a lifeline to Biden and the Democrats. Now that Donald has once again verbally fellated Putin and the Reich wing media is behind Russia, they’re going to look like the dung pieces they are once images of real combat and real suffering start coming in from Ukraine. This is going to be a bloodbath, and Republicans seem hell bent on frolicking in it.
If this were about race, then these Trumpers wouldn’t be calling for US forces to intervene on behalf of Taiwan or South Korea, who are also non-white but allies.
And Ukraine is made up of white people.
I think foreign policy gets more credit for torpedoing (or saving) a presidency than it deserves. People like to credit the hostage crisis with Carter’s defeat but it really came down to the economy and other domestic issues. GHW Bush was riding high on the first decisive US military victory since WWII and still lost his re-election bid less than two years later. I think you have to go back more than 50 years to LBJ to find a presidency that was actually brought down by foreign policy or military missteps.
The common thread is that they’ll tolerate white dictators, because that’s what they really hope to achieve in the US. Nonwhites are fine as long as they submit and do as they’re told. Nonwhite dictators are intolerable to them. That’s why they like Taiwan and SK - obedient nonwhites who will push back on the bigger nonwhite boogeyman.
As I said, the bigger picture is that Putin is a white dictator whose interests are seen as aligned with those who want a white dictatorship in the US. They don’t care if Putin smashes a country of white people to consolidate his force, because (in their view) this serves the end goal of a dictatorial white supremacy.
Putin isn’t Hitler. This isn’t 1940, exactly. But Trumpers are definitely looking for their their own Hitler, and Putin will serve as a decent surrogate for them.
I think it’s because the Russians and Russian aligned agents that are helping fuel and fund the right wing conservative moment are aligned with their government, while the Chinese agents that are helping fund and fuel the movement are anti-government dissidents.
So it makes perfect sense, it’s all about the grift.