Need to get more people onboard with end to end encryption and obfuscating every possible piece of data online. As other commenters have stated, the corporations that run the internet are not your friends.
There is a large number of people in the US who are authoritarian and can't help but try to get involved in other people's business to the maximum degree. They won't stop at any boundary, they are religious zealots.
>> If you think "religious zealots" are the only authoritarians, boy do I have news for you!
> There are plenty of other ones, but religious ones are the only people who truly obsess over the actions of others.
Sorry, no. I don't know how anyone could come to believe something so incorrect. For instance, the Chinese Communist Party is 1) authoritarian, 2) atheist, and 3) very obsessed over the actions of others (as shown by the massive surveillance and control apparatus it's built).
There is a lot of propaganda out there, but a hard and fast truth is that no country, not Russia nor the US nor China nor India nor anyone actually cares at all about normal citizens.
People can care about other people, but countries do not and cannot. Its why Putin's claims of protecting Russians are BS. (US Claims of protecting Ukrainians too, its in the US/Europe interest to do so, its not to protect Tibetans or Afghans for example, so it does not)
It's an obvious bad faith question. Parent poster has a well-rehearsed little shpiel to unload on "why Russia wants Crimea", it's in their comment history multiple times. They're not curious in the slightest, they're prompting a bogus talking point.
See above, cited and sourced. Do you think the timing in 2014 was coincidental?
Also, if the US government had nothing to do with the Russia/Ukraine tiff, then why did Crimea happen while Biden was VP, then nothing while Trump was President, then back on again after Biden becomes President. Is that also unrelated?
Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 because Yanukovych failed to put down popular opposition to abandoning the EU association agreement scheduled to be signed in late 2013. EU association was Ukraine's goal long before Biden was VP.
Russia and Ukraine were at war Trump's whole presidency. The Kerch Strait incident escalated it.
If that were the case, then he would have invaded while Trump was in office since by this sort of logic, Trump would have let Russia walk right in to Ukraine with no response from the US.
And yet that isn't what happened. Instead, Putin invaded while Biden was VP in 2014 and again while Biden is President now. Very curious that the exact opposite happened. Curious indeed...
> Trump would have let Russia walk right in to Ukraine with no response from the US.
Mr Trump would have done that, absolutely. Not only with no response, but with some blather about "fine people on both sides" and "I spoke to Mr Putin, he said he had to do it, he's a genius to do that".
In other words, with support from the White House in the obfuscatory propaganda; instead of having his militarily moves called out like they were in Feb 2022 - the Biden team was ahead of the game on that.
Why didn't Russia move when Mr Trump was in office? We can't know, but one theory is that he was waiting for NATO to be damaged beyond repair by Trump. Which would have happened if Mr Trump was still in office in 2022.
We know that Mr Trump was much warmer with Mr Putin than Mr Biden or any other recent US president was. Which makes your whole line of suggestion very misleading. So nothing new there. Anyway it's curious that you think this odd talking point is relevant. Curious indeed...
I'm not here for you trotting out that "poking the bear" nonsense again.
So wait, you think Putin could have easily taken Ukraine with no resistance from the US for 4 years under Trump, but instead Putin decided to wait until Trump was gone and Biden was President knowing he would get massive resistance across the board?
So Putin intentionally made things 1000x harder on himself...because reasons? I understand being blinded by Trump hatred, but how do you logically make that sort of conclusion? You have to know that makes zero sense, right?
This not a good response at all, it mostly shouts emotional phrases about "because reasons" and "zero sense" and does not engage with the parent comment.
In short: We can't know all of Mr Putin's reasons. He may have expected a second Trump term, and didn't think we was "waiting until Trump was gone" at all. You don't address the damage to NATO that a second Trump term would have done, and that Mr Putin so clearly wanted Mr Trump to do for him. Come one, engage your NATO obsession one more time?
Mr Putin also clearly didn't expect "massive resistance across the board" or that it would be "1000x harder on himself" to take Kyiv in 2022 so this argument doesn't hold up.
The words that you put in my mouth "you think Putin could have easily taken Ukraine with no resistance from the US" show a confused thinking - are you saying that "resistance from the US" is the only thing that prevents "easily take Ukraine"? I don't believe that, and in 2022, no one should. It's simplistic rubbish that forgets about the agency of the Ukrainian people. Facts on the ground have disproved it.
Finally if you want real answers, ask an expert - Fiona Hill, Molly McKew, Anne Applebaum or the like, not strangers on the internet.
I agree that Mr Putin's actions since February make "zero sense" - his speeches are unhinged and his invasion plan has failed. But an attempt to claim that the cause is in "Trump vs Biden" is ridiculous and self-obsessed. The cause is in Moscow. The answer is in Kyiv.
>are you saying that "resistance from the US" is the only thing that prevents "easily take Ukraine"?
You don't have to take my word for it, Zelensky himself has spent the last 2 months begging for more and more financial and military aid from the US/NATO. We have pumped billions into Ukraine already.
And I'm still trying to understand why you think Putin wouldn't take the opportunity to invade under Trump, while invading twice with Biden in a position of power. Especially considering all of the financial interests of the Biden family in Ukraine. You just see that as a coincidence?
> You don't have to take my word for it, Zelensky himself has spent the last 2 months begging for more and more financial and military aid from the US/NATO
And also fighting for survival, there's that. Financial and military aid from all over, after an invasion, is not the same as "resistance from the US" - the latter implies combat, from the US only. It's dishonest to conflate these.
> And I'm still trying to understand why you think Putin wouldn't take the opportunity to invade under Trump,
All the guidance that you're going to get is above, and I can not help you further.
Clearly, because there is no logical response. If Putin truly thought he could easily take Ukraine under Trump, he would have. Which means your assumption is wrong.
Meanwhile, we're back to wondering why the Biden families massive financial interests in Ukraine somehow aren't relevant...
Do you think the invasion and annexation of Crimea, had anything to do with the coup (ahem...pro-US/NATO revolution) that had just occurred in Ukraine[1]?
Keep in mind Putin rolled his tanks into Crimea the day after the new pro-US/NATO regime in Ukraine had thrown out the democratically elected (albeit pro-Russia) government, and rewritten the Ukrainian Constitution[2] to then make it possible to drop neutrality[3] so that they could begin the process of joining NATO. A rule to join NATO is that a nation must be in control of its borders and not in active conflict, so by annexing Crimea, Russia ensured the moves to join NATO would be halted with that action.
Or is that timing coincidental? Remember, you don't have to agree with a reason to at least understand what the reason is.
I honestly don't get this whole nuke placement argument.
Both Russia and the US have nukes that reach around the entire planet, and vehicles to keep nukes moving and hidden so that second strike capability is always present. Russia can hide its nukes in Siberia if its worried about a first strike to remove MAD. The nukes would work just as well. Its also been bragging about its super cavitating torpedo... although I get the Russian position a bit more if its all been a bluff like what appears to be the case in Ukraine.
Hypersonic missiles aren't going to be a huge game changer here (how much of those heavy elements can you cram into them), interception technologies just aren't there yet, and by the time they really come into full swing the US won't be Russia's real problem (demographics are destiny... this applies to everyone)
In addition, I doubt Finland would allow nukes placed on its territory. NATO is a fully voluntary organization. There is no command structure that supersedes national authority.
Also fyi, no one outside of Russia believes that Russia was wasn't trying to level Kiev. They are happily continuing to level Mariupol, so its not like they had humanitarian thoughts in mind. You don't send a massive column of armor for a quick strike smart bomb operation. It boggles my mind that even Russians can believe that.
There's some weird vibes from Russians online with regards to the West and the US in particular.
Anytime you tell Russians that the US basically just wants out of Europe and to focus on China (Remember the pivot to Asia? This doesn't even paint the US in a good light, just a self interested one), they insist that Russia is the US's greatest enemy and that China is basically just a minor member of the team Russia built to destroy the west.
Standard ** measuring between the US and Russia for one.
If Russia ever drops the corruption and becomes a strong democracy, then it could conceivably go into NATO. It would require the US to be much much more passive and a team player (as an American I view this as a good thing, provided it is by other democracies w/ good human rights)
It would also require Russia to have some reason for doing so, mainly if it couldn't defend against China, or some developed Central Asian or Islamist superpower near it. Its also likely that Russia would ally with these forces instead of NATO, or just play them off each other like India is doing with the US/Russia now.
On the NATO side, it would require additional defense commitments by NATO towards Russia (and in the Pacific, the US). I doubt there would be appetite for it in the EU (and maybe not in the US), unless something went really really bad.
Well, Finland was basically Sweden's shield, and Finland was yielding to Kremlin, so there was very little risk of conflict.
Now Russia has more or less proclaimed it's "back to the empire" agenda which implies subjugation of all of the former states of the russian empire.
Which includes Finland.
The weird thing is, even though Russians lie constantly, when they declare foreign policy targets, they are surprisingly honest and consistent about that.
This implies
1) Finland needs to join NATO asap.
2) After that sweden would be the only weak target left. Gotland is an obvious, concrete military goal that would be feasible target for a RU invasion from Kaliningrad.
Sweden is not a "weak" target just because it's not part of NATO.
Invading, defending, and holding Gotland is not an easy task, especially as the Ukraine invasion has exposed the glaring deficiencies of the Russian armed forces. And Sweden's defense, attenuated as it might be from decades of budget cuts, is focused on defending Gotland.
I'm pretty sure Finland and Sweden are basically inseparable in terms of foreign policy... where one goes the other will go, and they'll discuss with each other in depth prior to any decision.
They may still forgo NATO, its absolutely their choice, and every NATO member respects that, being the primary difference between NATO and Russia. They can leave at any time too.
What disturbs me is that there is a lot of appeasement rhetoric floating around in the comment sections.
If people want to let Russia get away with wrecking Ukraine because Russia has nukes, then we may as well drop the bombs now - once you legitimize that strategy you are going to have massive nuclear proliferation, and even if appeasement worked (it simply doesn't), every other aggressor is going to view nukes as an easy win.
Like how invaded Finland, stole a bunch of land, and then interfered with Finland's internal politics so much they came up with the term "Finlandization" for it?
Not a great example dude. Everyone eventually hits the "Poland" moment, where you can't keep appeasing a dictator.
It takes a special kind of dumb to criticize the mistakes of others ferociously then make the exact same mistakes yourself, with the only difference being even greater incompetence.
All of the Russian criticism was plainly self serving anyway. You can clearly tell by this war that they had no qualms with anything the US did in Iraq, excluding maybe their own geopolitical interests in the area.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people think NATO == US Empire and Interests. Its simply not true, and this is a pretty great example of how much disinformation and FUD certain "interests" have created around NATO.
Hawaii isn't even covered under NATO, even if someone attacked the US:
There is a large number of people in the US who are authoritarian and can't help but try to get involved in other people's business to the maximum degree. They won't stop at any boundary, they are religious zealots.