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[ubique]

2000s might be the era of technology but evil people still exist.

Evil people, huh? If only we had some cool superheroes to take care of those

 

[Starfish_Oxide]

Why can't he just go buy a muscle car like other insecure older men?

Let's get a new Octavian Caesar for Russia or NATO, maybe a power hungry young man might mix things up right?

Didn't work out so bad last time, pax romana and all that. Since pax atomica has apparently failed according to many neogaf posters.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

Replace NATO with "The West" and you have Napoleon and Hitler, who both attacked from the West and both took heavy casualties to repel. Russia has a long memory. Not to say that justifies their behavior but it's not complete bollocks either.

Ukraine gave up it's nuclear weapons only to be invaded by Russia. What message do you think it sends to the Baltic states?

NATO "encroaching" is a result of Russian actions, not the other way around.

 

[MisterFalcon]

Replace NATO with "The West" and you have Napoleon and Hitler, who both attacked from the West and both took heavy casualties to repel. Russia has a long memory. Not to say that justifies their behavior but it's not complete bollocks either.

That's the reason they kept hold of all the eastern european states after WW2 and it's the reason they feel uncomfortable with those states being allied to NATO/ The EU now.

A lot of those satellite states were conquered when Stalin and Hitler were still firm allies.

 

[Charles Brandon]

Ukraine gave up it's nuclear weapons only to be invaded by Russia. What message do you think it sends to the Baltic states?

NATO "encroaching" is a result of Russian actions, not the other way around.

I don't disagree

A lot of those satellite states were conquered when Stalin and Hitler were still firm allies.

Aye, but they were kept as a buffer against another brutal attack from the West. They may have been kept anyway but it's certainly believable that Russians would retain some paranoia after their experiences on the Eastern Front (which was a barbaric conflict on both sides),

 

[zeemumu]

secretly

But...

 

[Spiral Insanity]

Not more or less scary than NATO forces being in the Baltic Sea. At least I don't feel threatened, at all.

I assume he got banned for this?

 

[mnz]

Replace NATO with "The West" and you have Napoleon and Hitler, who both attacked from the West and both took heavy casualties to repel. Russia has a long memory. Not to say that justifies their behavior but it's not complete bollocks either.

That's the reason they kept hold of all the eastern european states after WW2 and it's the reason they feel uncomfortable with those states being allied to NATO/ The EU now.

And it's exactly these states that couldn't wait to join NATO. Maybe they should ask themselves why. Not to invade Russia, I can tell you that much.

The real problem is how Russia wants to maintain superpower status and the way it's doing it. Georgia is still occupied and Ukraine is still in a non-official conflict with them with no end in sight. It's just a mess that makes neighboring countries shudder, because they don't even know what could be coming their way. Especially if they have a Russian population.

 

[MisterFalcon]

Aye, but they were kept as a buffer against another brutal attack from the West. They may have been kept anyway but it's certainly believable that Russians would retain some paranoia after their experiences on the Eastern Front (which was a barbaric conflict on both sides),

And why are the Baltic States, Ukraine and Poland not allowed the same paranoia after their brutal occupation ?

 

[Charles Brandon]

And it's exactly these states that couldn't wait to join NATO. Maybe they should ask themselves why. Not to invade Russia, I can tell you that much.

The real problem is how Russia wants to maintain superpower status and the way it's doing it. Georgia is still occupied and Ukraine is still in a non-official conflict with them with no end in sight. It's just a mess that makes neighboring countries shudder, because they don't even know what could be coming their way. Especially if they have a Russian population.

And why are the Baltic States, Ukraine and Poland not allowed the same paranoia after their brutal occupation ?

I don't disagree with the sentiments expressed in either of these posts. I'm not pro-Russia. I think their behaviour (or Putin's behaviour more accurately) is reprehensible, inexcusable and irresponsible. But at the same time, the theory that Russia is paranoid about western aggression isn't a complete fallacy either, albeit that it has no doubt been stoked by the Kremlin.

 

[TheRealTalker]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...an-warships-refuel-aleppo-bombing-ceuta-syria

Go go Spain, help Russia out

well you gotta help a brother with the same GDP as you

 

[superdeluxe]

We keep on hearing how NATO went eastwards to Russia's borders, honestly it was the former Warsaw pact members that wanted to go westward to escape Russia and get a level of security. Looks like they were right in doing so.

Does anyone think Russia wouldn't have started shenanigans in the Baltic states if they were not in NATO?

 

[MisterFalcon]

I don't disagree with the sentiments expressed in either of these posts. I'm not pro-Russia. I think their behaviour (or Putin's behaviour more accurately) is reprehensible, inexcusable and irresponsible. But at the same time, the theory that Russia is paranoid about western aggression isn't a complete fallacy either, albeit that it has no doubt been stoked by the Kremlin.

There is paranoid and there is insane. 'The West' includes tons of countries that fought and bled to defeat both Hitler and Napoleon.

 

[Nivash]

" For one, Russia is genuinely worried about having the worlds premier military alliance right next door. It's irrational to us, but it's very Russian. "

How is Russia being worried about NATO power buildup at Russian borders "irrational but very Russian" but when two shitty Russian corvettes gets deployed in the Baltic from Syria it's suddenly "really worrisome". Shit makes no sense.

It's irrational because it's literally only a buildup if you stare at the map, it's not a buildup in actual military force. Before Crimea basically ignited Cold War 2, NATO spent their time tearing down Europe, not building it up. All western European nations drastically cut their military budgets and military size. Eastern European nations that had recently joined sacrificed a ton of manpower and equipment by going from a Soviet style military to a NATO style interventionary force. The US withdrew all standing forces from Germany and never placed any east of the old wall to begin with, until just recently. They kept doing this even as Russia kept ramping up their military and tripled their defense budget because we figured hey, the Cold War is over, Russia isn't going to try something.

Georgia happened, NATO kept cutting and pivoting. Then Crimea happened. And Russia started aggressive drills, sometimes involving mock nuclear attacks on their neighbors, even unaligned powers like Sweden. And Russia started engaging in massive espionage and sabotage-preparation that some experts have labeled "war preparations". And they probably were the ones launching cyber attacks on Estonia in 2007. And they started aggressively violating territorial airspace and water. And they moved nuclear weapons into Kaliningrad. And they held massive nuclear war excersises, the last one involving up to 40 million civilians. And yes, I'm perfectly aware that you could write a similar list from the Russian perspective including the bombing of Serbia, the invasion of Iraq, cyber attacks on Iran, the Arab Spring and then the Ukrainian Revolution. But nothing can refute the fact that NATO kept dearming while Russia kept aggressively rearming.

And it's only now that some NATO countries - like Germany, which currently controls a military force barely worthy of the title - stopped cutting their military budgets and NATO desperately started to try to reformulate battle plans they had basically forgotten how to implement in the last 25 years.

Come to think of it, maybe us western Europeans are the irrational ones. We're staring war right in the face but refuse to recognise it. If we don't do so soon we're all fucked.

I don't disagree with the sentiments expressed in either of these posts. I'm not pro-Russia. I think their behaviour (or Putin's behaviour more accurately) is reprehensible, inexcusable and irresponsible. But at the same time, the theory that Russia is paranoid about western aggression isn't a complete fallacy either, albeit that it has no doubt been stoked by the Kremlin.

I fully agree with this. We had that thread recently that tallied the dead in WW2 according to nationality in a well-presented video and I remember people being shocked when they saw the Soviet numbers. Well, that's why they're paranoid. They're the only great power that has fought a literal existential war in living memory - they basically have the national version of PTSD. I called them irrational before and I stand by that, because they are - NATO had no plans whatsoever of ever invading Russia but they simply couldn't believe that due to this paranoia of theirs. At the same time, they're currently making completely rational decisions based on that irrational world view, and we do the same from the opposite side.

That's why I feel this is almost more dangerous than the Cold War was a lot of the time. At least back then either side understood the other and there were some informal rules to it, now we're like aliens. The irony? They didn't change. We did. For the better, granted (at least as far as wars in Europe are concerned), but not in a way they could comprehend or trust, apparently.

 

[TheRealTalker]

it is going to be interesting how much bluffing and romping up Putin will do and how that will effect Russia's overall military tactics as a whole


apparently you can't go to far as seen in this small piece from Moscow times

https://themoscowtimes.com/news/putin-condemns-russian-planes-buzzing-us-ships-55905

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Replace NATO with "The West" and you have Napoleon and Hitler, who both attacked from the West and both took heavy casualties to repel. Russia has a long memory. Not to say that justifies their behavior but it's not complete bollocks either.

Of course it doesn't justify their behavior. For Russia to satisfy it's desire for security, all of the small surrounding states must become subordinate to its political designs. Since Russia no longer has the power to fully politically dominate Eastern Europe, it therefore feels frustrated and insecure. It is not clear to anybody why Russia, one of the most powerful nations on Earth, with its vast material wealth (currently economically depressed of course), vast population and powerful armies, should for some reason feel that it is in a less secure position so many other states which are not part of any particular international alliance, do not have nuclear weapons and have small military forces.

It's especially perplexing to try and phrase Russian behavior in a sympathetic way when by all metrics Russia is now in a more or less ironclad position compared to the late 80's or early 90's. European armies have all slashed budgets and reduced personnel counts, (literally none of them could sustain anything resembling a large military campaign in Russia), nuclear disarmament has proceeded at a brisk pace since the late Cold War, the ideological struggle that characterized the cold war is over, the Russian state is now (theoretically at least) a democratic one. Trade takes place on a large scale between Russia and the west.

Russian media is perpetually portraying the West as surrounding Russia, attempting to choke it, humiliate it, and perhaps one day destroy it. But the media is not an independent body. A better question to ask is - why does the Russian government want people to buy into this narrative? Why would the Russian government be feeling insecure, despite knowing that nobody nearby has the conventional forces required to attack them, and even if they did they couldn't do it without triggering the apocalypse? Why would token NATO tripwire forces in neighboring countries meaningfully affect their foreign policy objectives?

And they held massive nuclear war excersises, the last one involving up to 40 million civilians.

This point I think was misreporting. There were large drills, but not involving 1/3 of the whole country.