Who else has more military bases around the world than US? Imagine if China built a military base in Vancouver what do you think US would do. Like I said earlier I think this is the ploy to try to keep US influence dominance. Why else are they poking Taiwan. They are trying to cause instability in Asia.

Shut the fuck up, Jesus. We're not discussing the US here, and contrary to what you're trying to project, the world doesn't revolve around the US.

This is what happens when you get your world history from YouTube.

Baltic countries: "Can we join NATO? we're really scared of Russia"
Russia: "If you try to join NATO we will invade you"

Fears confirmed!

For the record, it isn't the US poking Taiwan or trying to stir up instability in Asia. It is Pooh Bear that has this delusional grand dream of unifying China, through military means if necessary, and the US is just responding to that.

Couldn't disagree with this more. Read up on the history of NATO, the fall of the USSR, and the rise of Putin and their concurrent timelines.

NATO was formed post WWII as a result of the fuckwit Soviet Communists not relinquishing the territory it 'liberated' from the Nazi's. When the USSR and Warsaw Pact fell in '91 NATO drew down forces in Europe dramatically closing many many bases and sending hundreds of thousands of foreign troops home, Canadians included. I was born on a Cold War Canadian posting in Germany.

A LCol with the KGB in East Germany, Putin went on to head the FSB under Yeltzin and was then appointed PM when he stepped down. Putin has effectively been the head of state of Russia since '99 and in that time he has crushed and murdered political dissenters and rivals, prevented free elections, prevented free press, and prevented an open society and economy. His reign has been rife with corruption and human rights abuses so that he can enrich himself, he doesn't care about the Russian people. His continued build up of arms and bullshit rhetoric is what started bringing NATO forces back up, the organization exists solely to counter his aggression. His illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 is what prompted NATO to start training and supplying the Ukrainian military.

Putin is a senile egomaniac of failing health that's living in the past and he's taking his whole country down with him in the name of that ego. Russia has an ageing population and a negative birthrate, and Putin has already gotten almost 50,000 young Russian men killed in a matter of months. Now he's calling up reserves and more conscripts to throw in to the meat grinder. Many of the Russian training battalions were already sent to the front and destroyed. This has the potential to be another Stalingrad where untrained, barely equipped, and barely supplied men are ordered forward or face prison and/or execution by their own country. Except the Russian role is reversed this time and tens of thousands more young men will be killed for a politicians ego.

Honestly this could end Russia as we know it. The social consequences are one thing but the economic are another. If full blown war is declared Europe will suffer greatly with energy issues but it will survive, Russia however will lose it's primary economic driver and crash entirely. '91 all over again. Fuck Vladimir Putin, this is 100% on him.

Americans are pretty much throwing everything including the kitchen sink to deny China access to advanced chips in order to keep its lead in tech. This is why they're banning Nvidia and AMD flagship AI chips to China. You think they're there to prevent China's dominance in the pineapple cake market? As long as TSMC exists, there's always a reason for them to stick around.

She'll probably need to cross a land border and fly from another country now, since there's a mass exodus and airlines are all booked. He's lucky he's not with her now, because he wouldn't be allowed to leave as of yesterday, and wouldn't be able to buy a flight if there was one available

Good luck to them and every normal person in Russia

NATO is not expansionist, they are defensive. Putin is literally justifying their existence with his actions. He's already taken a part of Ukraine and got away with it, and now he wants the whole thing. It's not like NATO was trying to take over Russia.

Now he's about to annex Ukraine in order to make that claim. Do you believe him?

As much as I don't like Putler

I would believe Putler over anything the USA has to say

it is and it isnt. there's always 2 sides to each conflict and I believe that if NATO didnt expand (not purposely, but ex soviet countries requesting to join and they in turn letting them in) then putin wouldnt have the rhetoric he needs to fuel this bullshit. Although im pretty sure he's just trying to restore the USSR and that starts with regaining Ukraine.

I agree this is 100% on him, hes the nutjob here. But in many respects the west wasnt exactly helping the situation by letting all the ex soviet bloc countries into NATO and moving the boundaries almost to his door step.

Well, it kinda is...in the same way the UN was "expansionist". But rightly or wrongly, from Putin's point of view an organization that was created to contain the Soviet Union is something he must fight against.

https://geoawesomeness.com/wp-conten...act-122815.png

Yeah but NATO is something countries voluntarily join, they aren't invading these countries being like HEY FUCKO JOIN NATO OR YOUR FUCKED.
There's no correlation between what skinny means by expansionist in the context of Putin and the context of NATO.

This is true, but there’s a passive aggressive element to it… no question Putin needs to fuck off but if your perspective is Russian one might understand how they feel that the rest of Europe / the world is “ganging up on them” especially with all their controlled media.

One person that should know thats not the case however, is the person in charge of the "special operation" since they are the one deciding on the media narrative, not being influenced by it.

This chart tells you what you need to know about the former Soviet Union, and it's not saying that "NATO is expansionist" when these countries voluntarily join them. Especially now that Putin has proven them to be right in making that choice.

If they hadn't joined, this exact thing we're seeing today would have happened 20 years ago. In fact it did happen with Crimea

Kind of victim blaming though. These small nations, some recently free of communist rule in the 90's, are in no place to defend themselves against an aggressor the size of Russia. Putin creates the problems with policy, threats, and intimidation (military incursions in to ADIZ and maritime borders for example) so they ask for outside help. NATO says sure, Putin blames the West and says Europe is ganging up on Russia :blueguy: Then he goes and demonstrates exactly why NATO needed to exist when he annexes Crimea and fuels insurgency in Eastern Ukraine thus repeating Stalin type tactics from the 40's and 50's. Don't forget Stalin heavily supported the Chinese and North Koreans in their attempt to retake the Korean Peninsula.

Russia had the opportunity to be a wealthy modern nation with its oil industry and opening up its economy post Iron Curtain. Putin was at the helm and he's ruined that opportunity for all Russian people so he could enrich himself and feed his own ego. He never let go of the Cold War.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what's being implied here? That we should have told Poland, Latvia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania etc. "Sorry guys, Russia will be too upset if you join us, you're on your own".

One could argue that "warsaw pact" was imposed on countries against their will by the USSR, while their decision to join NATO was wholly democratic in nature. Katyn Massacre anyone?

He'd just make up something else instead. He knows as well as we do that it's complete bs.

I guess that’s what I’m saying. Although I’m conflicted in saying that. Sounds easy in our western ivory tower. But letting these nations in to join the mutual defence treaty against their old boss is going to destabilize the region sooner or later. When has mutual defence alliances do anything but cause global issues (ie WW1)

News comes on showing the top stories

Trump and his lies and NY charges against him blah blah blah....

Putin and his crazy...

Seriously why can't they both just die. I never ever wish that on anyone but... good lord I'd make an exception in these 2 cases... life would be so much better never having to hear about them again.

They literally make the world a worse place, specifically (and very intentionally) the US. They can both kick rocks as far as I'm concerned

When you hold ALT and press F4 on your keyboard, the world becomes a better place

That's suggesting that ignoring a problem means it no longer exists

You don't need to remind me the slow chokehold that the US is applying on China. I am quite familiar with them, all the way through from how Blinken started the "rule-based order" to the Trump days when the 45th started slapping tarrifs on China.

But lemme ask you this -- why would supporting Taiwan be equivalent to stirring up instability in Asia? If Pooh Bear has no ambition to do a hostile takeover of Taiwan, none of the US military support (for TW) nor the semiconductor bans would have taken place.

The US is providing a lot of technological and military support for Ukraine against Russia too. Would you also call that a US example of how it is trying to exercise / expand its influence or dominance in Europe?

The circumstances between Ukraine and Taiwan share quite a bit of similarities, and what the World is doing with China right now is -- they are applying their painfully learned lessons in Ukraine in the hopes that the same violent, bloody, and tragic stories that are happening in Ukraine wouldn't happen again to Taiwan in the future. It isn't a show for the US to demonstrate its reach, influence, or dominance.

You can add Pooh bear and yray North Korean style to that list of idiots
Who need to go as well.

I don’t know why he sees it as his mission to reunify China. Fuck that shit. There are much much more important matters of state to deal with than bringing tawian to heel. Like How about lowering corruption, improving the faltering economy, environmental concerns and improving the public image of Chinese people globally.

Just as our people is stepping back onto the global Stage and we finally aren’t a poor back water nation , fuck bear here is trying to make us look like a petty bunch of warmongers