Tusk: Right now, 500 million Europeans are begging 300 million Americans for protection from 140 million Russians who have been unable to overcome 50 million Ukrainians for three years
Well put Mr. Tusk.
Nobody is begging. Politicians are using "defence" as a leverage to enpower and enrich themself
And Germany is taking on 1 trillion Euros in new debt to protect against Russia, which is currently spending less on its military than the EU, while fighting a war.
citation needed.
I've seen the €800b figure but that's the EU as a whole, not Germany on its own
Germany is currently planning a "whatever it takes" spending plan of 500 billion for infrastructure projects and an equally high, but potentially unlimited amount for defense.
https://www.ft.com/content/ee20978f-bbcd-4616-954c-7749dc5334fd
He knew that before Trump's election but didn't make it an issue. He also knows that it implies that Russia will never attack Poland, let alone Poland allied with Europe.
What's the real need for the strengthened military?
What’s the real need for the strengthened military?
same as it ever was
Doesn't Russia want to see Nato entirely gone?
50 mil was in '91. Less than 40 at the beginning of war. No idea how many now. 20?
37 before war.
6 displaced abroad (unhcr)
7 displaced internally.
So around 30 left officially
TIL Russia's war in Ukraine is as bloody as WW2
Not from deaths so much as emigrations and secessions.
Not necessarily. A lot of people (6.9 million according to unrefugees.org) fled the country. That number may be on the low end, as men capable of joining the military fleeing the country may be considered traitors and might therefore flee in secret.
Ukrainian deaths directly caused by the war is counted in the tens of thousands. Casualties are in the hundred thousands, but "casualty" can mean anything from a broken toe to death.
Things are beaker on the Russian side, easily having twice or more the deaths and casualties of the Ukrainians.
The numbers are vague, though. Both sides have good reasons to keep the true numbers a secret, and we won't hear the true Ukrainian numbers until years after the war (and we'll probably never find out true numbers from the Russian side). However, it's not like tens off millions of people are dead.
Intent aside, wouldn't it be easier to shore up current defences? Ukraine is already the NATO crumple zone, it would make more sense to keep them at that line.
Now for blind conjecture. Perhaps trump sold out Ukraine to allow Russia to have the minerals and oil of Ukraine. In exchange, Europe gets the constant threat of WW3. Americans, scared to stay where they're at, but are more terrified by the prospects of open war as it sweeps across countries, stay on American shores.
I don't like referring to people fighting for their culture, society, family and future as a "crumple zone".
welp thats what US and lackeys ultimately made Ukraine to be
I'm not crazy about the concept, either, but I'm also going to call a spade a spade. When Ukraine falls, the front will shift to new borders, introducing war and displacement to new areas. If Russia advances, all of Europe will have been able to help prevent it, but did not. They would have let Ukraine get ground to dust for a few years, only to fall anyway. Sure, they helped a little, with training and supplies, but the death toll is uniquely Ukrainian.
Get used to it cause it's the fuckin truth.
Is Russia going to invade Germany? Do people really think that's what's going to happen?
Imagine saying that with a straight face
If we don’t stop Russia in Ukraine and we don’t stop Russia in the Baltics then we might end up having stop them in Poland and Germany, yes. And if you can’t see that, I believe you would benefit from studying history.
Besides, we aren’t rearming to fight with Russia. We are rearming to ensure we don’t have to fight with Russia.
Imagine thinking that 80 million Germans would invade 540 million Europeans.
Imagine saying that with a straight face.
Spot on!
The Russian playbook for post Cold War dominance was literally publicly published a long time ago, and the final phase is getting close. After getting the US to break away from the rest of the west, everything was being carved up for their allies.
It’s all written in The Third Empire: Russia as it Ought to be. Almost all the steps have been completed and invaded Europe is coming up.
I guess you weren't alive in 1989 when the wall fell?
Moldova has a Russian separatist movement just like Ukraine had.
Weird how repressing people's basic rights leads to separatist movements.
Well, did you think you could have been told that Russia invaded Ukraine? With a straight face?
This is what all the experts have been warning of literally since the 90s.
prominent foreign policy experts (former senators, military officers, diplomats, etc.) sent an open letter to Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion back in 1997:
George Kennan, arguably America's greatest ever foreign policy strategist, the architect of the U.S. cold war strategy warned that NATO expansion was a "tragic mistake" that ought to ultimately provoke a "bad reaction from Russia" back in 1998.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., US Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987-1991, warning in 1997 that NATO expansion was "the most profound strategic blunder, [encouraging] a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat [...] since the Soviet Union collapsed"
Even Gorbachev warned about this. All these experts were marginalized, silenced, and ignored. Yet, now people are trying to rewrite history and pretend that Russia attacked Ukraine out of the blue and completely unprovoked.
They are trying to. And the BS about needing defense is actually the traditional European fantasy of invading Russia, or now openly inviting nuclear annihilation of Europe to spare the US from non nuclear winter consequences.
Europe thinks it can serve the CIA in opposition to Trump, but there natural continuation of CIA sycophancy is more desperation to serve US empire. Increasing the stupidity level to 10, with mass military programs and nuclear threats, makes it easy to go to 11, with mass imports of US weapons when they conclude that they simply weren't stupid or lying enough on Russophobia.
If not for someone to stop him, yes Putin would march all the way back to East Germany. As it is, he's most likely going to get stuck before touching Poland. And touching Poland would be the end of Putin almost immediately.