Every year the US alone has sent materiel to Ukraine that exceeds the annual total military budget of Russia which includes Russia’s strategic nuclear budget. Then add all of European aid. Russia has destroyed all of it while making its military larger and more efficient by expending mostly aging assets. At the same time it put down 3 separate attempts to open new fronts against it, including flushing out the insider threats in Wagner. At the same time it has deployed Wagner into Africa to provide support to other countries. And it absolutely is maintaining sufficient force to defend the homeland against a new threat should one emerge.

Just do the math, honey.

Also, the idea that anyone hates China more than America outside of Europe is a fucking hoot!

Do I need to get you the link to the article about Biden’s request IN MARCH that the military start planning for a coordinated nuclear threat from China, Russia, and Korea? Or can you find it yourself.

Uhhhh. Are you aware of just how happy the people of China are with their government? Harvard conducted a 15-year research project and found 95% of China approved of their government. I would LOVE to live in a place where we all felt like the government was actually doing we wanted to.

And to call it autocratic is just ridiculous. Autocracy is a very specific form of government. Every state you mentioned is a literal Republic.

On civilian populations of a surrendering opponent

This question is sort of valid. Any country assessing threats is going to build contingency plans. That’s literally the job of the military. The idea that Biden needs to make a special request to order the military to literally do its job is a little weird. The fact that it was released to the process is also really fucking weird. The press, who obviously knows that this is what the military does, publishing this as a news story is also really fucking weird.

The USA is going to absolutely do contingency planning for what happens if there’s a coordinated nuclear strike, but the answer is obvious. The USA has 600+ global military bases outside its territory in 80 countries. What it’s going to do is activate its MAD protocols that it’s been developing, reviewing, and revising for the past 70 years.

There is literally no chance of a coordinated military strike on the US because the number of targets is too large for any coalition to reasonably target without triggering MAD.

The real threat to the USA is what’s happening in Africa - being thrown out and sent packing. This is the only way to defeat the USA. Coordinated economic and political activity to enable one more country at a time to actually push the USA out. This will happen first in bases without nuclear capabilities, because, ya know, MAD. But it will set the template for how it could be done to a nuclear base.

Eventually it will happen to a nuclear base. When that happens, THEN the USA can get worried about it’s MAD strategy.

But Biden ordering something like this and then the administration hamfistedly releasing it to the press is just nuclear sabre rattling

Holy shit you’re delusional.

The CIA since the start of the war has assessed that Russia posseses neither the intention nor the capability to take and hold Ukraine. So the fact that you think Russia has shown since day 1 that it’s a land grab is not supported by anything except the propaganda you latched onto and won’t let get of despite all evidence.

Second, it has made very clear that it’s fundamental concern is not Russian-ness but NATO deployments. When a country joins NATO they give over land, rights, and money to a nuclear transnational military with zero accountability to any voting population. NATO uses that land, those rights, and that money to build nuclear first-strike capabilities which amount to shortest-flight launch positions, anti-missile capabilities along retaliation paths, and forward-deployed detection/recon/Intel. These capabilities fundamentally undermine MAD and are inline with US war hawk positions that the USA should demonstrate it can win a nuclear war.

But that’s just the nuclear problem. NATO also builds supply chains, logistics, barracks, armories, air bases, training facilities, command centers, and other capabilities in this territory ceded by the countries that join. That network puts to shame the networks built by the likes of Napoleon’s empire or Hitler’s Third Reich, because those networks needed to be built mid-invasion. NATO gets to build during relative peace time in countries that are under the influence of the economic and political hegemony who deploys soft and hard power to get their way.

But none of this matters if NATO is purely defensive, like their doctrine says. Well that doctrine went out the window almost immediately after the USSR was dismantled when Bill Clinton sent NATO to bomb Yugoslavia. You can try to make the case the world’s first ever war for humanitarian intervention was in fact a defensive humanitarian intervention, but you all need to explain why NATO dropped depleted uranium bombs in densely populated urban areas. They launched a war of aggression in everything but rhetoric.

And that same guy, Clinton, who oversaw this atrocity of aggression by NATO (the defensive pact) also was negotiating with the new Russian Federation about NATO expansion. Russia stated back in 1992 that NATO in Ukraine was a redline. Clinton agreed. Then, the same year, directed his team to begin getting plans together to bring Ukraine into NATO. The duplicity is a matter of record. “But”, I hear you say, “why should Russia be able to dictate who can and can’t join NATO”. Great question!

You’ll have heard by now that Ukraine is of strategic importance to Russia. Specifically, the land of Ukraine acts as a buffer for Russia’s strategic interests. Why should we believe Russia? We don’t have to. We can just look at history.

The last 2 times Russia was invaded, they lost millions of people. Both of those invasions were by the dominant European power of the day. First it was Emperor Napoleon, who marched across Europe, building supply chains and logistics to manage his army as they invaded Russia in what is known historically as one of the bloodiest campaigns in history. Then it was Hitler and Third Reich fielding the world’s most advanced military and most advanced tactics building their supply chains and logistics across Europe to manage their army as they invaded Russia. Again, millions of Russians died.

Where did these 2 great invasions happen? Across the border with Ukraine. We don’t have to believe Russia. Western Europe has demonstrated that Ukraine is strategically necessary to invade Russia. Controlling a well supplied military at the Ukrainian border with Russia is how Western Europe invades Russia.

So when the US uses NATO to build supply chains and logistics to field the world’s most advanced nuclear military WITH A SEPARATE COMMAND STRUCTURE UNACCOUNTABLE TO ANY NATION’S PEOPLE at the border of Ukraine and Russia, it is pretty fucking clear what is happening. And when that army has a doctrine of “defense only” and then proceeds to drop DU from bombers onto an urban European country during an internal conflict that did not trigger the mutual defense clause, and then proceeds to engage in wars outside it’s doctrine like demolishing Libya or supporting the US occupation of Afghanistan, no amount of liberal whining that NATO is defensive is going to matter.

No military would ever allow the border over which it was invaded twice and lost millions of people over to become the location that its geopolitical rival builds a fully supplied, trained, staffed, and supported nuclear military presence. No country in the world would allow this.

So, at this point, you either need to deal with reality or suck your head back up your ass and live in your delusional world.

Then we could talk about the delusion of Ukraine having the superior military. But not until you give up the delusion of history.

Do you know what escalation means? Russia hasn’t escalated shit since it launched the invasion. Each thing Russia has done since the invasion is part of the invasion. They haven’t attacked other nations, they haven’t embargoed or disrupted trade beyond their own borders, they haven’t introduced new weapons platforms, they haven’t made attempts to decapitate Ukrainian leadership.

Ukraine and the West are escalating. They’ve been escalating literally since the end of the Cold War. Each country on the border of Russia that got NATO nuclear sites was an escalation. Each color revolution was an escalation. Each sanction was an escalation. Each call for a no fly zone was an escalation. Each new weapons platform sent to Ukraine was an escalation. Each use of Western military intelligence to coordinate Ukrainian strikes was an escalation. Each time Ukraine struck civilian infrastructure inside Russia was an escalation.

You are using words you hear people say but you don’t understand them.

Russia has had one demand since the USSR was dismantled - no NATO operations in Ukraine. When the USA escalated and supported the coup in 2014, Russia escalated and took Crimea. When the fascists in Ukraine escalated and sent paramilitary forces to terrorize and mass murder ethnic Russians, Russia escalated with paramilitary of its own in the region. When Ukraine escalated by pursuing NATO operations in its country and NATO made noise like it might, like when Trump escalated and approved the first weapons shipment to Ukraine in US history, Russia escalated by invading the border region. That’s all of Russia’s escalatory moves - 1 every 5 years or so. It’s Ukraine and the West that have escalated since then. Sanctioning Russia was an escalation. Seizing Russian assets in violation of international law was an escalation. Sending lethal aid each year totalling more than the entire Russian military budget was an escalation. Sending Western intelligence, trainers, and even combatants to harm Russia are all escalatory moves.

They’re suggesting that everything is Zelensky’s fault so they can blame him, turn public opinion against him (remember how much everyone thought he was a hero last year), so that when they coup/assassinate him people won’t mind.

Which is a FRACTION of what German aid was. Germany has spending around $10Bn in aid to Ukraine annually and there is only $4Bn worth of Russian assets in Germany. And not all assets have been seized. It’s also only generating, at most $1Bn in interest annually. So they can send the interest to Ukraine, or they can seize 100% of the principal and send that to Ukraine and then it’s over, because the assets will be gone. Either way, it’s tantamount to the end of Germany aid.

Oh those Asiatic hordes! You’re so right. We have to do something about the hordes!

There are only $4Bn worth of Russian assets in Germany. To date, Germany had been sending more than $10Bn per year.

Further, once those Russian assets are gone, they’re gone. Without federal budget allocations, that’s it. That’s the end of Germany aid.

Bloodthirsty, insane, and suicidal

Ooohh, that was the point.

History isn’t subject to popularity. You’ll note that the revelations about the CIA’s assessment are from this year, though the assessment was from the beginning of the SMO. You’ll also note that Russia still has not made any attempt to actually march across Ukraine and take it despite Ukraine’s losses being so steep that the average age of their military went up 20 years.

You could point out WHY my talking points fall apart now, but you won’t because history hasn’t changed much. Nuland was still there at Maidan square and the tape of her planning the next leader of Ukraine still exists. McCain still stood on stage with Right Sector and said it was a proud day for democracy less than 24 hours before Right Sector stormed the capital violently and forced the sitting president and his cabinet to flee the country. Operation Gladio is still on the books. The Banderite leave-behind still killed a lot of Jews. The neonazis in Ukraine are still getting training and arms from the USA.

Not much has changed, honestly.

Believe what you need to believe. I was just communicating.

Yeah, no. Russia is fighting NATO expansion. The head of NATO said so. The people of Russia know what Western economic shock therapy did to them and they have a learned distrust of the West. They do not want yet another European military invading them over the Ukraine border like the last 2 European armies did.

Ukraine, on the other hand, had a movement for alignment with the West that was cultivated, stoked, and supported by the USA to the degree that John McCain and Victoria Nuland were literally on the ground during the Maidan protests. Nuland is on tape discussing the replacement of the elected leader of Ukraine. And then the minority Right Sector faction stormed the capital with guns drawn and forced the sitting government to flee for its life. The replacement government simped for the EU and USA because it meant the USA would allow them to kill the ethnic Russians within their territory and also enrich their political elite. So for 8 years the neonazis, tied to the NATO leave-behind militias of Nazi supporters created under NATO’S Operation Gladio, bombed and murdered ethnic Russians inside Ukraine’s border.

And when the move towards NATO expansion was too close for comfort, Russia acted to prevent that expansion.

This has nothing to do with expanding Russia. The CIA has said so. The NYT has reported so. NaATO has stated so. Within Russia, there is no material possibility, no military strategy, and no political desire to take and hold Ukraine.

Russia is literally fighting for itself. What are you fucking talking about? Is it only fighting for themselves if Slavs align with Western Europe?

LOL, this is how they’re gonna manufacture consent for removing Zelensky?

What are you talking about “struggling to maintain it’s democracy”. Have you read the founding documents and the letters among the nation’s founders? “We must protect the opulent minority. The Senate will be that body”. The Electoral College. The 3/5s compromise was not a moral thing, it was a power thing - it gave slave owners more votes. The USA’s democracy is functioning exactly as it was designed and isn’t straying from that path in the least.

It’s invincible against any adversary that still operates with 20th century technology, except for nations that had F-22’s prior.

That invincibility has a carve out for thunderstorms, though