Putin, is that you??
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Nothing like a clear and present danger to concentrate the mind. How many decades had Sweden been neutral, before it, and Finland, decided their best chance of being left alone by Russia was to join NATO?
And, as the European powers ramp up defense, they will be more inclined to buy from European companies, because the US has now proven itself to be an unreliable partner.
Steve
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Nothing like getting rid of all your friends, from Canada and Mexico to Great Britain and France, to make you economically stronger!
In the US, we can produce everything ourselves! 
Pete
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We probably could. But it would cost more and be of inferior quality.
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If the “leaders” build a siege mentality, implicit in their constantly painting the US, and white USians, as victims, the mob can be induced to put up with a lot of discomfort.
Steve
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Did JD get his poor widdle feelings hurt? He’ll be okay after we give him his binky.
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I don’t see how you could possibly have come to that conclusion. This was nothing but an ambush by our administration, a manufactured excuse to cater to Russia and cut off Ukraine. This is typical Trump, demanding that HE be thanked and praised, rather than the USA.
Note, Z has constantly thanked THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA for their help. All Trump has done was obstruct them. Did so the first term, doing it again. And he handed a “peace plan” to Z that offered zero guarantees, gave Ukraine nothing in return, and some people do not seem capable of understanding why turning it down was the only reasonable thing for Ukraine to do.
The worst of this is we are proving ourselves to be an unreliable partner on the global stage. Isolationism never serves a country well.
Buckle up. This is going to end poorly for us.
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Shout out to Wendy who placed her perceptive and well-written post (that was removed here) over at Shrew: Post #515 by WendyBG on the Macroeconomic Trends and Risks board
Thanks again, Wendy!
Pete
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The loans are being paid by the proceeds of sanctions on Russia. Ukraine isn’t paying the loans.
That is some deep cow manure. NATO is a defensive organization. It has no charter to act offensively. NATO had NOT expanded to Ukraine (or anywhere else) but now NATO is much larger due to these hostilities. Ukraine will likely end up in NATO in a future admin and Russia will be to blame.
It is frankly silly to think that Russia invaded and murdered thousands of Ukrainians over the potential of NATO growing larger. If that was a real threat, then attacking a NATO country would have been the first step, not attacking a non-NATO country.
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Then fire the SMiC. Zelenskyy publicly demonstrated he had a backbone and did as he did previously: HE DID THE RIGHT THING–and all of the world saw it themselves. The SMiC public proved he had already surrendered to Poot-Poot. Guess who saw–AND UNDERSTOOD–that fact? Everyone with a brain. The SMiC doesn’t have any cards to play. They were all taken away from him a long time ago. I will leave it up to you to imagine with what he is playing…
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Your inability to lean history and understand doesn’t make other arguments wrong. There is a reason I have specifically mentioned the dates. If you can look at the NATO membership then and now, and the agreements with Russia about NATO expansion, etc…
That clearly shows how little you understand. If they attacked NATO then NATO nations has to attack back as one block. If they attack Ukraine, it is a surgical, limited war.
US for a long time dismissed other regimes as “idiots” but the fact is other anti-US forces be it Russia, or Iran or China have acted very strategically. Unlike US where the policy stands on its head with parties switching, those nations foreign policies hardly change.
Geopolitics is a decades plus long game.
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You have yet to demonstrate you are correct. I am familiar with the addition of Albania, Croatia, etc. None of that is evidence that Russia needed to murder civilians in Ukraine to stop the expansion of NATO - or even that NATO expansion somehow threatened Russia.
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Ya, how is that working for Russia? Sweden and Finland have now joined NATO as a direct result of Russia attacking Ukraine.
If the attack on Ukraine was to stop the expansion of NATO, it has had the exact opposite effect. I fully expect more nations to join NATO in the coming years.
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Could you explain why they didn’t attack Finland then? Also why did they break the treaty of 1994? Do you think there might be more to it? Russia starts attacking neighbors, which they did. Started breaking treaties which they did. Their neighbors get nervous and join NATO.
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The real question one has to ask is, while US forced Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons, but walked back from providing security guarantee? That bad deal is coming back to haunt Ukraine. That history lesson is firmly in their mind when they are negotiating with Trump, that we cannot give up our mineral rights without an explicit written agreement.
To your original question, Cold war was over, USSR split, and Russia formed. Russia’s decline in world stage resulted in Putin coming to power. US continued its dominance, expanded NATO, and their actions elsewhere pushed Russia to a place where they need to draw some lines. Also, Ukraine minerals, and grain, and a large ethnic Russian population, Putin’s own need to show strength all resulted in this.
US never moved on from the cold war. Even with its non-European allies, it constantly created problems for them. Most of the time US actions have unintended or perhaps that was the aim consequences that comes to bit back.
For Ex: In Bangladesh, US (Biden Administration) used the pretext of elections were not democratic, because opposition boycotted it, to topple a steady government, and plunged the nation into chaos. Turned bangladesh against India. until then Bangladesh and India were very close allies, strong economic ties and Bangladesh prospered from that. Now, Trump famously declared Bangladesh is Modi’s problem and essentially washed his hands from the care-taker government. Until then the caretaker Bangladesh government was fighting India like they were sworn enemies and even reached out to Pakistan. History: Bangladesh split from Pakistan and were sworn enemies. After Trump’s announcement, now Bangladesh says “We have no alternative but to have good ties with India”.
US broke Bangladesh and dumbed it. It is the latest example. If you go back a decade, US played significant role in fanning Arab Spring, Egypt Spring, etc… In Egypt it realized it doesn’t like democratic choice and went back to Army. Libya is broken… While as a US senator you can talk high, but real people were killed, their lives destroyed. Countries economy were destroyed. The destruction US leaves behind is unfathomable.
In many ways, Trump’s disengagement is a welcome development for the world.
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Has that changed over the years?
DB2
It is funny suddenly we are worried about corruption. All those people who visited mar-a-lago before the inauguration and suddenly paying 10’s of million for the inauguration and settling flimsy lawsuits for 10’s of millions… Absolutely no corruption in that…
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