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-7749dc5334fdSo ok, that’s not one trillion.
Over 10 years
Paywall so can’t see whats written in that ft article. Deutsche Welle says 400bn for defense plus 500bn for infrastructure investment
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.
didnt europe send troops? and the us?
No.
isn’t nato formed by us and european troops/money/weapons? im pretty sure they were deployed there in numbers.
There is tons of EU countries troops in Ukraine, but officially they are all “volunteers” and “mercenaries” but there’s also some more or less official NATO soldiers serving as military advisors, trainers etc. There’s also events like the Polish general Marczak suddenly dying in sketchy circumstances coincidentally on the same day when Russia heavily bombed one of the mercenary bases.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html
“For more than a decade, the United States has nurtured a secret intelligence partnership with Ukraine that is now critical for both countries in countering Russia.”
Sorry, are you talking about Poland? Then yes, Poland is part of NATO and there is US presence there, I’m not sure about other countries having a presence there. I thought you meant Ukraine, which is not part of the NATO.
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.
Seriously, what in the lack-of-empathy did I just read? Empathy isn’t that hard. Imagine you lived there. Your loved ones. How would you feel about it then?
Edit for grammar.
Empathy might be hard. It just depends on the Person, mental state, perspective, etc.
If empathy would be easy, then why did Trump win?
Because propaganda hits harder. They have empathy for the poor kids that are being forced to be transgender and gay by their parents. They have empathy for the people losing their jobs and being raped by immigrants.
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.
The other week the leader of the AFD said she would hand east Germany back to Russia
Isn’t that the side of Germany that voted for them???
Correct.
Imagine thinking that 80 million Germans would invade 540 million Europeans.
Imagine saying that with a straight face in 1939.
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.
Can you share that? Having a hard time finding it
Uhhh, it’s kinda scary, but I can’t find the book anymore, only articles about it. Here’s one article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/putin-kremlin-foreign-policy-strategy/629388/
I believe the book you might be referring to is called Foundations of Geopolitics by Aleksandr Dugin.
They have the right novel, it’s just difficult to find a copy outside of Russia.
It’s likely because it was never translated into English.
I have a copy that I bought maybe 9 years ago from Amazon. It’s no longer for sale anywhere that I could find.
Scan and upload?
Unlikely. Baltic states though? Poland? Finland?
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania would likely be first as they are surrounded by water, Russia, and Belarus.
Like I said; the Baltic states.
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.
We could also say that war over there actually started in 2014. But as you also stated, a lot of people were surprised since there is not a neo-liberal side against a communist side anymore since there is no communism anymore in Russia (Do you agree with this? Apart from the single-party political structure which can be called with various names, the economy is maybe watched by the gov but still liberal).
The fact that Russia is no longer communist and NATO has continued to expand and surround Russia is a clear demonstration that this has never been an ideological conflict. And that illustrates that Russia does indeed have legitimate security concerns, because it’s clear that the goal of NATO expansion is to contain Russia.
the goal of NATO expansion is to contain Russia.
Not so much contain as to colonise, Russia has been contained all that time but they still expanded more.
Yeah that was supposed to be the big prize, and then they could plunder Russia and surround China from the west. Didn’t really work out though, and now all the western fash are seething.
Containing Russia is probably some thing due to the fact that Russia does not allow a political choice since decades
As opposed to Europe where elections get cancelled when the wrong candidate wins? 🤣
What are referring to?
All the ex Warsaw begged for a membership, it wasn’t the USA teasing them.
And in fact US denied Ukraine a NATO membership, and funnily it’s been invaded.
It’s been invaded precisely because the US refused to publicly state that Ukraine would not joined NATO and wanted to maintain ambiguity on the matter while arming Ukraine. Nice of you to try and twist that around though. Gold star for mental gymnastics.
Nope, US clearly said no to NATO for them already in 2009, much before the Russian invasions.
Dude, this stuff you’re telling is at least three yo. It’s been largely debunked.
All the ex Warsaw hate Russia even if they’ve slavic roots in common like Poland or Ukraine, just take a look on what that people state and do. This should tell you much about how much this people want to avoid Moscow’s influence.
No, the US never took NATO off the table. At least try to lie about something that’s not demonstrably false.
Nato is a defensive org, so it’s absolutely not important for Russia if Ukraine joining that, unless Russia wants to conquer Ulraine, which is the only reason why they do not want thta to happen.
Putin wanted to invade Ukraine, and they did it. They don’t want to have democracy close to their border, caise you know…people don’t like to live in a dictatoriship.
Removed by mod
I wonder what the mental gymnastics will be if/when Russia invades non-NATO countries like Moldova and Georgia.
Come back to me when any of your deranged fantasies actually come true and then we’ll talk.
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.
Nobody wants to invade Russia, what the fuck?
Tusk/Poland do have another option for building up an army. At start of Ukraine war, there was Polish media endgame where Poland took a big chunk of western Ukraine. Russia may not care, except that Polish-Russian peace works just as well as a Ukraine-Russia peace for denazification.
Any crackhead in Europe who doesn’t know they helped whitewash the US/Ukraine provocation. is a culpable idiot who want’s war on Russia no matter how badly it has turned out so far.
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.
Would it be the end of him even now, when he’s backed by the US? That changes the dynamic and puts all of Europe in a tough spot. Europe against Russia is a piece of cake. Europe agaist Russia + US… not so much.
It doesn’t really change the power dynamic at all. Poland would end Putin, even if it meant their annihilation, and they have the capability to do it on their own. Also, as much as Trump is on Putins side, it’s still actually illegal for US troops to invade European countries. And nothing but a law annulling US treaties from congress can change that. US treaties are US law is a basic foundation of military education. The sycophants at the top can’t change that, meaning they will have dissension in the ranks when they try to send illegal orders.
Trump is caught in the problem that his approval drops faster as he breaks the law faster. And if it drops too fast, congress will fight back to keep their own jobs. Starting a war with NATO, Canada, or Mexico would be the end of him. As much as his cult follows him, they’re still a minority of the country, and his hold on the media is simply driving the populace to uncontrolled media.
