Arnaud Bertrand has published (actually, the first tweet is dated 2/28/22) a thread on Twitter that is a compilation of “strategic thinkers” and foreign policy opinion warning against exactly the policies that the US has followed against Russia since the Clinton years. These experts—many of them with long years of diplomatic, intel, and academic experience—span the range of American political views. The exception is that they don’t include Neocons views.
Thank you for summarizing the history of what lead to the current crisis, and how many warned of how it could of been avoided, and the danger we now face. Conclusion, our leaders want the crisis as a distraction from the domestic agenda, the woke green agenda they want to impose here and in Europe. To them, this is progress
Barack Obama also warned against it, saying Ukraine was a peripheral issue to the US but a life or death matter to the Russians. George HW Bush have a speech in 1991 or 1992 urging Ukraine not to break away from Russia. It was derided as a “Chicken Kiev” speech.
Friendly advice to the peoples of sovereign nations, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BECOME A VASSAL OF THE USA, also known as a "CIA THEME PARK" or NATO "member state" . . .
Thank you for this summary. It will be very useful when conversing with people who have little historical or situational knowledge of current events and just accept the agenda driven veneer explanations of the Administrative State via Fake news.
happy weekend to you Mark and many blessings that you find some peace -- and thank you for your dogged work in keeping us informed; it is truly a calling you are answering.
on this point -- I have heard that yes, despite all these points, we are best served to expend $$$ in this proxy war, much better now than down the road when inevitably we would be in a true war costing lives as well. So, the thinking is this is an easy call, use our $ to weaken Russia so the battle later is winnable. I have countered that view by saying, couldn't we either have, before it came to that, (a) outsmarted them by winning a war of intelligence, or (b) brokered a peace/co-existence deal. The reply to that was no, Russia is an existential threat to US and this proxy war is a long-term smart move -- someone said this on TV recently and was villified, but could that be the point no-one is brave to say outloud?
The hubris is amazing, with a large helping of money / greed / corruption that greased the way.
And how we have gone from Hillary’s efforts with the Russian “Reset” button that actually said energize, to a financial war and third party Western supported war, between the West and Russia.
Thank you for summarizing the history of what lead to the current crisis, and how many warned of how it could of been avoided, and the danger we now face. Conclusion, our leaders want the crisis as a distraction from the domestic agenda, the woke green agenda they want to impose here and in Europe. To them, this is progress
Barack Obama also warned against it, saying Ukraine was a peripheral issue to the US but a life or death matter to the Russians. George HW Bush have a speech in 1991 or 1992 urging Ukraine not to break away from Russia. It was derided as a “Chicken Kiev” speech.
Friendly advice to the peoples of sovereign nations, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BECOME A VASSAL OF THE USA, also known as a "CIA THEME PARK" or NATO "member state" . . .
Thank you for this summary. It will be very useful when conversing with people who have little historical or situational knowledge of current events and just accept the agenda driven veneer explanations of the Administrative State via Fake news.
happy weekend to you Mark and many blessings that you find some peace -- and thank you for your dogged work in keeping us informed; it is truly a calling you are answering.
on this point -- I have heard that yes, despite all these points, we are best served to expend $$$ in this proxy war, much better now than down the road when inevitably we would be in a true war costing lives as well. So, the thinking is this is an easy call, use our $ to weaken Russia so the battle later is winnable. I have countered that view by saying, couldn't we either have, before it came to that, (a) outsmarted them by winning a war of intelligence, or (b) brokered a peace/co-existence deal. The reply to that was no, Russia is an existential threat to US and this proxy war is a long-term smart move -- someone said this on TV recently and was villified, but could that be the point no-one is brave to say outloud?
…and yet here we are, at the mercy of fools who fancy themselves our betters and their doddering puppets.
The hubris is amazing, with a large helping of money / greed / corruption that greased the way.
And how we have gone from Hillary’s efforts with the Russian “Reset” button that actually said energize, to a financial war and third party Western supported war, between the West and Russia.
Who could have known?
Yeah, but on the other side is Lindsey Graham, Tony Blinken, Mitch McConnell, and John McCain.