So Poland is on its own. As are the Baltics, and Central Asia.

Everyone who’s between Moscow and its pipe dream of “if we have natural borders we are safe.”

Are we going to relocate the formerly free people to the U.S./Europe - truthfully, we could use the population, or leave them there for the animals?

NATO is meaningless.

Our traitors built Russia/the Soviets into a threat, presumably to make money/maybe because they are mentally defective enough to be Communist, but they did not make them evil.

Russian culture has always been rooted in oppression and conquest.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
As a hypothetical:

When would y'all back war with Russia?

When Russian paratroopers are landing in the South Center Mall.

There is no use arguing with these "Ukraine at all cost's" folks as they would just as soon see the US looking like Ukranie or worse for that blue and yellow flag.
Like we should destroy our country for it.

Either get a grip. Or go there yourself.

And no I am answering your silly little question.


Just dumb.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
So Poland is on its own. As are the Baltics, and Central Asia.

Everyone who’s between Moscow and its pipe dream of “if we have natural borders we are safe.”

Are we going to relocate the formerly free people to the U.S./Europe - truthfully, we could use the population, or leave them there for the animals?

NATO is meaningless.

Our traitors built Russia/the Soviets into a threat, presumably to make money/maybe because they are mentally defective enough to be Communist, but they did not make them evil.

Russian culture has always been rooted in oppression and conquest.

You are right that NATO is meaningless. They pretended to invoke Art 5 and help us in Afghanistan, except anyone who ever worked with them knows they limited ROE to give themselves nearly zero risk and basically helped us not at all. Have you worked with NATO? I was in NATO and also deployed with them to AFG. They don't care about us, I struggle to understand why high schoolers from Kansas should go die protecting NATO from Russia if Western Europe isn't there when we needed them.

As for Central Asia, why is defending them in my interest? Ever worked with them? I was working with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan up until recently; when AFG fell the Afghans took about 50 aircraft that we paid for to those countries while escaping the Taliban invasion (like cowards). Do you think those central Asian countries returned our property or helped us at all? Yea, no.

Please explain why you want our people to die protecting folks who do not care about us.

Additionally, even if you provided a convincing argument for why my kids should die protecting Poland from Russia (and you're assuming Russia would attack Poland), you'd also need to explain why this issue should be prioritized above our own country which is falling apart. We can't do all things, there's an opportunity cost to every task and people here domestically whose lives should be improved before we worry about borders in the Baltics.

Can't wait for Trump to purge this weird strain of globalism from our institutions; we need to fire so many people from the federal government. Shocking how many Americans don't care about Americans while simultaneously seizing the moral high ground in these discussions. You can't bully me into guilt for caring about our own citizens more than those in Kazakhstan.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
So Poland is on its own. As are the Baltics, and Central Asia.

Poland has been preparing for Russia to try to take them back since the wall fell. I'm not worried about Poland, but even if Putin did make that move, guess whose problem that is to figure out? Yep, Poland. And ostensibly, NATO, but let's be real honest here and just say that NATO is fucking worthless.

Arabiancowboy spelled it out perfectly, but I'll just quote myself from the bottom of page 54 anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
This is still not our fucking problem. You guys can miss me with this "we should feel bad for and protect good people" stuff because we simply don't have our affairs enough in order here to go be everyone's hero and fix everyone else's problems. If that sounds callous, it's because it is.

I am so tired of us sending money, and weapons, and troops to every country that hates or at best, marginally dislikes us as a people and a nation. Every time there's a conflict somewhere, we've got to get involved. Why? Because our corrupt politicians make boatloads of money off it, and because the truth is so unpalatable, they have to appeal to our sense of nobility and high morals to sell that involvement. Eighty years of that bullshit (and it could be argued more) being promulgated at every level of press, radio, and television, and now we have generations of Americans who feel like it's our moral imperative to pick a side in every armed conflict and weigh in. I'm so sick of it.

We have serious, major problems here at home that we are not only not dealing with, but don't have a plan to deal with, or even talk about. That's not getting into all the things we really should have in order before we overextend ourselves playing empire games, but talking about major vulnerabilities. You guys are having wet dreams about Wolverines, but outright warfare between our nation and a Russian-Chinese coalition is far more likely to just be an exploitation of our crumbling shit here first. A couple terrorists walking across the border with nukes or bio weapons to hit a major city or two, and attacks on our power grid would debilitate this country in ways I don't want to see. Forget about the flood of millions people trying to escape the urban centers on the roads I drove on between Arizona and Vermont in the last few weeks - not happening.

So what would it take to back war with Russia? I can't even get there mentally because my priority is fixing actual problems we have here. I can't adequately explain how little I care about Ukraine, or Kazakhstan, or the Baltics, or whoever else you want to throw at me and tell me how important it is that we protect from the bad guy of the week. I don't care. No more money, no more guns. No more artillery and ammo and explosives. Shut it all off, let them figure it out. I'm willing to extend my military foreign policy excursions to the western hemisphere (where China and Russia are expanding into and everyone wants to ignore that), but outside of that? Oh well.

I'll worry about Ukraine and Nato when they come help drive out the illegals here in the US. Until then, anyone that wants us to waste billions on any country that isn't the United States of America can kindly fuck off.

Hmmm, which would I rather have had: an $8bn wall on the southern border, or $200bn pissed away in the Ukraine? Decisions, decisions....

I'll take option "C", a $30bn wall on the southern border. You know, 3 sequential walls. They might get past one...

I think our military is foolish to squander the defense budget on childish toys like helicopters, aircraft carriers and tanks. They learn nothing from our enemies.

For a fraction of the money they could simply send front men into hostile countries and buy up their television and radio stations, newspapers, entertainment companies and other information sources.

We could run their stock market, tell them which politicians to support, run their elections, omit any criticism of US policy, Tell them the US is their greatest ally and promote a host of bad ideas to unravel their social fabric.

We would have the power of social engineering. With that influence we could tell the men to be women, the women to be men and the children to choose their gender.

Within a short time the majority would stop having children.

We could tell them their ancestors were mean and hateful and shame them into accepting millions of immigrants from the jungles of Africa and India and if any of them complain we could label them extremists and racists and trigger their guilt. Then we could offer them redemption from their guilt by suggesting they intermarry with the immigrants.

Eventually the people of that country would lose their national and ethnic pride and identity and they would be willing to negotiate with us rather than resist in the name of their ancestors.

quote:

Originally posted by whanson_wi:
I'll take option "C", a $30bn wall on the southern border. You know, 3 sequential walls. They might get past one...

You are the daily double winner

I was visiting family in Philadelphia last month and took a day to go into the city to see some of the historic sites. Could not get in to Independence Hall so I walked around Mall area and was shocked at how shabby and rundown it looked.

All I could think about was how many billions our government has pissed away in Ukraine while the centerpiece of our country's founding is being neglected.