Free Republic

Before the wars begin, Russia had 47% our air force, 55% our army, and 43% our navy, they have no real equivalent to our 5th gen fighters, no real equal to our B2, less than 1/2 the military satellites...

But now there are folks here trying very hard to pretend like Russia was on a world conquest.

At least stay consistent!

And if you look at population, the number of men reaching military age, industrial capacity, key high tech required for the military, the number of allies, what these allies can realistically bring to the table considering their own issues, you quickly realize that this idea of a Russian military monster poised to invade other nations after Ukraine (unless we stop them there) is junk.

The Russians are the underdog, not us. We are the ones doing the pushing, not the Russians. But that doesn’t stop us from using Cold War era cliches and threat pictures.

Please decide what it’s going to be!

—Are the Russians this huge threat.

—Or are they in reality weak in conventional terms.

But don’t play it both ways like many here do, pretending Russia is a huge threat, but then not, however it fits into their argument at the moment.

There is no “total war” and “unrestricted warfare” between industrial nations today and this is very unlikely to happen, with only one possible exception, the PRC vs. US.

The destruction is too great. No different than the use of a nuke.

WWII was the last war of it’s kind and that was 80 years ago.

When this war in Ukraine started, Russia had 257,000 active duty in their army (55% our size). That will swell because of the needs they have today (also Syria, Libya, Armenia, along the border in the Balkans). Like us in 2003 they are maxed out. The point being that this big threat does not exist with the Russians (period). The Russians are not even CAPABLE of being the threat we make them out as today. They will hurt us back of course in the coming years albeit not in a huge conventional war.

It is in fact because Russia is weak, a has been conventional world power, that we are going after them. They aren’t invading our sphere of influence, we are invading theirs, in every single respect: former Soviet republics, border states, oil producing nations aligned or even formally allied with them.

Regards the Chinese (PRC), I would argue that scenario is long term possible (they have the industry, GDP, population, etc) and may come to a point where our interests diverge and they see an advantage in using force, but as of today there is no political will for this on either side.

There has to be a political and economic incentive, and that isn’t there regards China even though they are literally everything we pretend the Russians to be. China is a human rights abuser of the worst kind, they are a single party communist regime, they are expansionist, militant, and will not respect the sovereignty of Taiwan.

However!!! China is where much is manufactured, for US based/HQed firms. It’s a major market for US goods and services. They have been courting the US media for years and in some limited ways even have a direct ownership of some media outlets. China holds onto a huge amount of US securities. We know China is a frigging monster today, the only true near peer military force: https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/China-Military-Budget-Graphic.png?x85095 (we respect force).

China has a lot of influence on US politics. Through contributions from their US based subsidiaries for political campaigns and to the parties, hiring lobbying groups (plural) and big names like the Podesta Group, they can shape the political arena. They know how to leverage their expats (a vast population in the US), they are extremely patient and have a coherent long term plan unlike us where we change course every 3 years. If Trump pisses them off, they just do damage control for a while and get their way with the next guy.

There is zero political will in the US regards confronting China. In fact, Trump was pretty much the only one to take on some of the unfair trade, IP violations, etc in earnest. Most of our political leadership does no more than a little lip service as after Tiananmin square or the de facto blockade of Taiwan recently. Our leadership shy’s away from any sort of lasting policy shifts which as you may guess would impact those in the US profiting from manufacturing in China or selling there. Biden literally reassured China that nothing will change as the Taiwan crisis was unfolding.

Point being that the only place where such a conflict could occur, there is no desire to have it, on either side. There are some valid points to the Lexus and the Olive Tree:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lexus_and_the_Olive_Tree. (The economic interests between the US and China prevents conflict).

That said, every war we find ourselves in, for the last 80 years, has been a limited conflict, expeditionary, often with questionable economic or political motives. Post 1991 things have only gotten worse with our willingness to use military force to achieve our political goals. FORCING people’s kids into the military would cause serious political back pressure. Also, forcing these men to serve would cause morale issues.

Today, much of the military hardware, the tactics, everything is far more complex than in the past. In WWII my grandfather cleared rooms by chucking a grenade into them. Doing that today would get you court-martialed!

Today we find ourselves in asymmetric war, with civilians on what is a battle field essentially. Complex weapon systems. Operations where you have small units deciding the outcome. That NCO or company grade officer is the decision maker in operations where they are in small units and often far away from a flag pole. You NEED that professional army that is trained and experienced with many of the troops having 2, 3 or even more combat rotations under their belt. Many of these troops have a functional use of the language, they may have already been in that exact same location and know the lay of the land, local leaders, or how much to trust and use locals that are working with us or whom we are training etc. Just the instability caused by having a lot of conscripts that come a go quickly is a horrible idea in such scenarios.

Most of these militaries that have conscripts end up having a military inside a military, one extremely well equipped and highly trained force for the real world operations that are constantly happening, and a larger territorial force for national defense. This is bad because the smaller force ends up being over used while the bigger force is not up to task, any task really. Most conscripts are usually only rudimentary trained and assigned limited roles so that some utilization is possible in what amounts to a 18 month service. In the most extreme cases it’s 3 years conscription and that is still substantially less than a standard 4 year enlistment. On the other extreme are nations that have conscripts serving less than 12 months. Those are nearly worthless.

For Ukraine or Israel, conscripts make sense. You’re fighting for what you see as your land, for the defense of your own family in Israel’s case. People (most) will have some degree of motivation and society will support the idea of conscripts and their losses. But that is not the situation we are in.

I suspect you have an ulterior motive, and in this case if it’s for what I think may be the reason, it’s actually for a very good cause. If we had a conscripted military, politicians would not be so quick to use them like they are today. As things stand, it always comes back to the argument that these folks are volunteers and knew what they were signing up for, so don’t complain.

The flip side is that conscripts are used as a cheap way out and the Germans do not want to spend on defense. They just don’t. In the era of Ronald Reagan we had an Army approaching 775,000 active duty and that with an all volunteer force. But to do that, you have to fork out some serious dough, and even we have been giving 3.5% pay raises when inflation is in reality over 10% one year. The military’s pay and benefits have been falling behind as is usually the case under Democrats. In Germany’s case, having them commit to spending at least the absolute minimum required by NATO as per agreement is an accomplishment: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/17/germanys-scholz-commits-to-spending-2percent-on-defense-over-next-10-years.html

As to 900,000 reservists. Achieving that with any sort of a well equipped and trained force is something suited for comedy. Not even remotely feasible. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann is simply jumping on a bandwagon, singing today’s top chart song a little louder than those around her and grabbing attention with that.

A conscripted force is great if you need raw numbers like Israel or Ukraine today and and fighting on your ground.

However, you’re constantly losing folks you trained up since on average conscription is around 18 months. In some cases (extreme long time) 3 years which is still less than a standard 4 year enlistment.

Militaries usually assign conscripts limited roles to get around this problem, i.e. they are not really well trained and a one trick pony. That way you can get some use out of them.

Moral suffers because a lot of them do not want to be there.

When you have expeditionary campaigns (not fighting on home ground like Israel and Ukraine) you run into problems because these folks are being “forced” to play along. This becomes especially pronounced if the cause of the war is questionable, which describes most of the military campaigns we engage in today.

A lot of militaries create a military inside a military. Very bad thing. You end up with an even smaller force that is over-used and a bigger usually less well trained and equipped territorial defense force.

For nations like the US, UK, France who have a lot of interests they are willing to fight for but are not true self defense, an all volunteer force is recommended.

Absolutely not.

You need a professional military, i.e. all volunteer.

900,000 reservists can only be achieved with conscription. Not even if the Germans started paying their soldiers well would they get to that level.

Everyone has their agenda.

In her case, at least in Germany, everyone knows the name Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.

PR stunt riding on a current hot topic.

But yes, furthering the madness. No different than covid.

But the people responsible won’t be punished nor even see anything wrong with what they did. I’m sure whoever told them to take it down did so regrettably.

Frankly, the only thing in a VA should be the Star Spangled Banner, State flags, city flag if there is one where the VA is located, the VA and service branch flags, and finally the POW/MIA flag. That’s it.

So we abandon an actual democracy and sovereign state with Israel, a nation fighting for it’s very existence that was attacked without provocation.

But we nearly unquestionably back a war in Ukraine where you have a de facto dictator now, with a horrible human rights record, a nation that has a puppet president, and where a preventable war was caused by putting Russia in an impossible security situation by expanding NATO to their border.

Ukraine is winning!

Russia has taken 144,000,000 casualties. Fact checked.

Haven’t you been keeping up with that Ghost of Kiev, or how those Ukrainian’s told the Russians off on snake island? All fact checked western non-propaganda.

We’re about to give Ukraine our new BFG2000 and with that they will be unstoppable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFG_(weapon)

Since we’re a democracy and God is in our side, we can’t lose.

Russia has never won a war, their troops are all crosseyed, drunk, and stealing toilets. Fact checked.

If you disagree with anything I say, you’re a Putin puppet, listening to Russian propaganda, and possibly a communist, Soviet sympathizer with a sexual Putin fetish. A newest psychological study shows this is true: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/04/putin-aspergers-syndrome-study-pentagon/22855927/ True, and guaranteed no propaganda!

Now you know why we can’t lose!

And BTW, Biden didn’t start this war with NATO East expansion. This war just happened in a vacuum, spontaneously because Russians like war and Putin is a “madman.” Biden said so, “No joke” https://giphy.com/explore/not-a-joke-biden

We pulled the NATO BS out of our ass in Georgia 2008. Maybe that should have been a warning.

Russia does not want our military, our missiles, missile defense, troops, tanks, bombers, nukes... on their border. We wouldn’t and have not accepted that either, example Cuba.

Russia could have hit targets in the West, they have nukes, they have big conventional munitions like FAB 250, 500, 1000, 1500 (a lot of them) and the ability to deploy them, they have the ability right now to step up their offense...

This is a limited war for Russia, where as Ukraine is losing, it is the West which is escalating things in the hope of turning things around.

Ukraine is Russia’s neighbor and that won’t change. Ukraine is a former major trade partner and many of the people have relatives on either side. Russia does not share your view of bleeding Ukraine out to the last Ukrainian: https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionIreland/videos/senator-lindsey-graham-who-has-been-up-to-his-tits-in-ukraine-since-2016httpsrig/1218472818909921/

That said,

—It’s us that has used nuclear weapons on people, twice, not the Russians.

—It’s us that is invoking their use in a non-deterrent manner today. But of course if we do it, it’s OK.

—It’s us that did most the space tests.

—It’s us that did most the surface tests.

—It’s it’s us that is responsible for most of the radiation that was floating out there for a long time and a little bit to this day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo What was released in the atmosphere was pretty bad, and we could have used a lead tamper. Those retarded, backward, irrational Russians did this in some of their big tests, the most famous of these being Tsar: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/tsar-bomba/

—Just like the Russians, we have a list of nuclear weapons associated accidents and even missing warheads:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/us-military-missing-six-nuclear-weapons-180032

—It’s us that withdrew from the Ballistic Missile Treaty.

But I get it, the evil retarded Russians that only fly propeller driven planes, where as soon as you land color disappears, the radio only plays Vangelis’s Conquest of Paradise, where everyone is drunk on Vodka and has a pet bear: https://www.facebook.com/vdpasasapetrovic/videos/-ill-must-go-right-now-to-feed-my-bear-drink-votka-and-play-balalaykaso-cute-fro/299969128903646/

I get it, we are rational, predictable, rock steady in our policies, sticking to every promise ever made and following our own rules, and everything is for “democracy, human rights, sovereignty,” save the world from “WMD (ironic, seeing how we used them, have more deployed than anyone else, the second biggest stockpile, tested more in the atmosphere... and then we want to lecture others and play some moral Godly judge on who else may have them),” and last but not least “terrorism.”

You live in a cliche, a feel-good and over simplified world and the good-guy / bad-guy model you have is outdated. This isn’t the Cold War where you have a large and Powerful Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union poised to invade the West. Today, we’re just struggling over lordship of economically valuable possessions, trying to tear these out from under Russia, and we are no better than the Russians. Economically motivated, offensive, using the same methods/MO, and 100% OK with dictators and human rights violations as long as we get control.

Before we lecture Russia about anything, maybe we should fix Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and do something about all that trade with China (PRC). If you really want to know how nasty we are, you do not need to look far: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45812399 And we simply look the other way as a US resident, a journalist working for the US media is dismembered (piece by piece) in a fellow NATO country at the order of a price we support and make sure stays in power. For enough money, a single party communist regime which had a one child policy, makes dissidents disappear, has forced abortions, questionable organ harvesting policies, oppresses religion, invaded Tibet and threatens Taiwan gets most favored trade status and our support for their WTO membership even in the same year tanks drive over pro-democracy students on Tienanmen square: https://assets.editorial.aetnd.com/uploads/2018/06/who-was-the-tank-man-of-tiananmen-squares-featured-photo.jpg We are OK with communist China, which executes more people (~8,000 per year) than any other nation on earth, has internment camps with nearly 1 million people in them! Because we care about “human rights, and democracy” so much./sarc When it suits our interests, we arm Islamist types, and that is post 9-11 in Syria.

Today, it’s about a modern form of colonialism, i.e. control of economically valuable areas. Things began to slide that way after 1991 and got much worse post 9-11. You’re not seeing us worry about the plight of people in Madagascar, and when Rwanda had their genocide we sat back and watched as possibly as many as 750,000 people were killed in part by machete. It is not without coincidence that every place we are struggling with the Russians there is an economic interest at stake. You don’t see us trying to push our way into Armenia and fix those problems. You just happen to obfuscate these conflicts with stories about democracy, human rights, sovereignty, WMD or terrorism in order to feel better about yourself, to pretend you’re some “knight in shining silver armor.”

Read your post #144.

In that post you focus on Russia being a nuclear power and the threat this poses.

You were the one to specifically mention nukes in a prior post and opened the conversation up to that topic, I was replying.

With our native American history, use of the nuke, slavery, land grabs from Mexico... I do not think it's a good idea to pretend as if we have some moral high ground over the Russians and start listing the death toll or injustices committed historically. Besides, just like we are not the US of 1876, so are the Germans not the same as in 1939, or the Russians in 1967. These are junk arguments were we zoom in and out or cherry pick some incident in history to prove what we want to believe.

You stated: “The proper lesson to draw is: Do not attack us. You don't know what crazy weapons we have in skunk works.”

If the end justifies the means, then what do you think about OBL? Did his end (rid the land of Mecca of Infidel influence and occupation) justify his means? Or does that not apply to anyone else?

Back to nukes, do you know who just recently was debating using them, for real, not even for nuclear deterrence?

https://www.popsci.com/nuclear-bunker-buster/

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2002-12/news/congress-approves-nuclear-bunker-buster-research

Of course it's all different if it's us. It always is. If we use a nuke, well of course it's justified, if we torture, there must be a good reason, if we mass censor, kidnap, use mercenaries, lie, sponsor coups, break treaties, attack other nations or invade them for economic gain, withdraw from treaties, cheat, coerce other nations, occupy other nations against their will... It's always acceptable because we have a “good reason.”

Whatever reason anyone else has isn't as good as our reason, because we have a monopoly on truth and justice, so only we can do these things. Russia's Nazi argument is fake but our democracy babble is real.

But it doesn't matter what you think- sorry to say it like that. At this point, anyone with half a brain understands we set some things in motion we will regret. We are the bigger and stronger kid, BUT we will also get hurt in this fight. This war in the Ukraine and the things we set in motions were unnecessary, can't really be reversed, and will have long lasting implications for us both in security and economics.

—BRICS is expanding by leaps and bounds in both members and scope.

https://www.statista.com/chart/30672/brics-expansion-map/ Even some of our allies are beginning to side with them, i.e. Egypt.

https://www.cadtm.org/Are-the-BRICS-and-their-New-Development-Bank-offering-alternatives-to-the-World (They are creating their own version of a world-bank which has been around since 2015 but now it's getting real support and growing in momentum)

—A Russian-Chinese military alliance is emerging. If you think the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact had firepower...

https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/china-russia-alignment-cooperation-ukraine-war-military-supplies-putin-xi-jinpin/

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/unpacking-the-china-russia-alliance/

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-04-21/china-russia-iran-axis-is-bad-news-for-trump-and-gop-isolationists

—There is a slow but noticeable trend of folks divesting from the USD as the worlds reserve currency. Roughly 27% of your moneys purchasing power, of your wealth, is connected with the USD being the worlds reserve currency.

https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/global-research/currencies/de-dollarization

https://www.thebanker.com/China-courts-Saudi-Arabia-as-part-of-its-de-dollarisation-strategy-1702895025 (and this is our ally and who we have built our entire Middle East strategy around!)

—The proxy wars (as in the Cold War) are starting back up and we have taken casualties already. It's just not at a level nor is there a political interest to highlight this.

Niger: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/russian-troops-enter-base-housing-us-military-niger-us-official-says-2024-05-02/ (This is funny)

Niger: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/19/1252380146/us-troops-leave-niger

Chad: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/politics/us-withdraws-troops-chad/index.html

Ivory Coast: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna40741614

Sudan: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3371442/us-forces-evacuate-americans-from-khartoum-embassy/

—Ukraine is a failure. We have NOT achieved our stated political goal which was NATO membership for Ukraine and we failed to achieve our military goal (keep control of the Eastern parts of Ukraine everyone knew Russia would go for in this campaign).

Not only did we FAIL at meeting our stated political and military objectives, but we will also leave Ukraine a total basket case when this ends. Not Russia, Ukraine.

Imploded currency: https://g.co/kgs/HBp9kos

Debt: https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/ukraine/national-government-debt BTW, most of that debt is to us - that's the modern way you create a slave state.

Infrastructure: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68976135 They now are already sucking on the rest of Europe: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-plans-record-power-imports-after-infrastructure-damage-2024-05-13/ The damage to infrastructure spans power, water, roads, rail, telecom, education, medical facilities...

Demographic disaster: Ukraine's demographics are a record setting tale. The combination of one of the lowest global birthrates 1.4 (https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1155943055/ukraine-low-birth-rate-russia-war), combined with the deaths and cripples from this war (a generational cost), and finally a massive brain-drain in the form of refugees fleeing the country
(https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/thumb/9/9e/Map_TP_March_2024V2.jpg/600px-Map_TP_March_2024V2.jpg) many never to return, have left Ukraine in an impossible situation. Ukraine was a nation of ~41,000,000 (2021) where today (2024) only ~21,000,000 are actually in Ukraine.

GDP: https://www.intellinews.com/ukraine-puts-in-first-gdp-growth-since-the-war-began-293912/ We just don't talk about it as we dream of winning with our wonder weapons, bogus casualty reports, imaginary hero's winning in the air (Ghost of Kiev) and ground (Snake Island), but Ukraine's GDP shrunk by ~37% since wars begin. Let me put that in context for you, when we had our Great Depression, the GDP went down by roughly 30%: https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Depression Ukraine, the obvious winner in this war, can't pay their retirees, federal employees, nor keep essential public services running without constant Western aid.

But I shouldn't be concerned. We're a democracy, and with God always being on our side, and people seeing how inspirational/hopeful we are, wanting to follow us even if that means pointing a gun in their face, we have nothing to worry about. (sarc)

Things are NOT going as envisioned.

Maybe the real lesson we should learn is that it's better to bully little guys, retards in the Middle East, Central America, that can't really fight a combined and joint war, don't have a mechanized force, large military, air and sea power, a huge IC, and no real means to fight back. Maybe the lesson we should learn is to respect Russia the same way we respect China (PRC) today. Russia is not as big and powerful as we are today, in any aspect except landmass, but they are still powerful enough to push back.

That is probably a lesson already learned by this administration even though that's something they would never admit and all the rest of us will get to pay for long after those responsible for this war (Biden/Blinken/Nuland/Sullivan...) have moved on. Long after Biden is dead, this legacy will continue to haunt us.

Iraq: oil producer, Russian aligned, invaded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War

Syria: oil producer, Russian formal ally, invaded: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intervention_in_the_Syrian_civil_war

Libya: oil producer, Russian aligned, attacked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya

Venezuela: oil producer, Russian aligned, several coups attempts, the last one in 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020)

Sorry that my answer is short to you. I’m not trying to be an @ss, but I don’t want to waste my time.

I got it, you were born with a genetic link to be an American, there is an American gene so it’s biological, not an identity. It also makes you superior and always right.

I’m sure it’s just all coincidental that all the struggles are in countries that have a significant economic value to us, that once were Russian allies or aligned, where we are invading their space.

I got it, “democracy, human rights, sovereignty, terrorism, WMD.”

Knight in shining silver armor.

Yes,

You stated: “Nothing moves without oil.”

And there are only two nations in the world that control all of this, the US and Russia.

All other nations are operating on the ground that in the background is controlled either by the US or Russia. Example: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Jordan belong to the US; Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Libya belong to Russia.

Even if it’s Shell, BP, Agrip, Fina, or Total etc. they are operating in an area where the true person in control is the US or Russia.

The division of control is about 2/3rds of the world is under our control, and 1/3rd under Russian control.

However, we have been trying very hard to gain a foothold in those areas that are in the Russian sphere of influence, in particular Syria, Libya, Venezuela, and Iraq (once was more aligned with Russia than us).

Russia is a “has-been” power. There is no Soviet Union nor Warsaw pact, albeit out of necessity Russia is aligning itself with the PRC/China today.

Russia is weak in conventional terms and we are going after them all while we pretend this is about “WMD, democracy, human rights, terrorism, sovereignty” and as if we are the ones defending even though we attacked and invaded Syria (WMD and human rights), invaded Iraq (WMD and terrorism), attacked Libya (human rights), attempted a coups in Venezuela (democracy and human rights) which failed and where we got caught red handed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gideon_(2020)

I wonder, since we care so much about human rights and democracy, when will we sever ties or pressure Saudi Arabia or Jordan to reform? When will we cut economic ties to the PRC which is probably one of the worst when it comes to democracy and human rights? “Democracy, human rights, WMD, sovereignty, terrorism” are idiot slogans for the masses to justify military interventions that are most often for economic and political gain and where there is zero self-defense/national security argument for us.

Sure-

Using Wikipedia in lieu of a Congressional document with the DoD as the original source regarding DoD operations, because Wikipedia leaves out (omits) more and gives a better “feel good” answer, probably isn’t the most intelligent or honest thing to do.

That said, even “humanitarian operations” can be armed conflicts where bullets fly back and fourth. Humanitarian operation: https://www.britannica.com/event/Somalia-intervention

Minor events need excluded... By who’s definition minor? Yours, or the guy on the receiving end of what is supposed to be intimidation / treats, or just a the “few” people that were killed, or us arming a third party to do the killing for us? Games with definitions show a deliberate attempt at being insincere in this debate. How about using a common definition, i.e. same definition throughout as that Congressional document does?

I get that you and others want to defend our nation, you self identify as American and as a more nationalist minded person, derive part of your self identity from that, especially for most who ever served in the military. However, you need to “attempt” to stay objective.

We have become quick to use force to further our policies, whatever they may be. It works for us.
There was and still mostly is no competition. We’re the only worlds super-power albeit China (PRC) is crawling up our back today.

We act with impunity since we are so big militarily, with our IC, economy, industry, in political influence, with allies we can round up around any cause (politically and economically tied to us) as well as being insulated by an Atlantic, Pacific and allies (both in Europe and Asia) that act as a buffer between us and threats. This has caused us to become quick to use force and also use force where it is very questionable. It’s quick, easy, often cheap (in comparison), can show “decisive action” by some political figure that can grandstand, and there are almost no repercussions for us.

So you get this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD4kFxyHALo He’s recommending invading, and then backed off to recommend attacking a neighbor, NAFTA member, which poses zero true national security threat. Of course he used the words “WMD, terrorists, national security” in his statements...

Pacifism nor total isolationism are realistic. War is a reality. But using military force for mere economic and/or political gain, in some cases where we are disposing of a democracy and installing a dictator (Chile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat), or securing a dictator/kingdom (Saudi Arabia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian_National_Guard We basically built the Saudi National Guard which is a Praetorian Guard for the royal family/king) at the expense to democracy, freedom, human rights is hardly being a knight in shining silver armor. We throw these terms “democracy, human rights, sovereignty even terrorism and WMD” around liberally, but they have become vapid slogans for what are usually politically and economically motivated military campaigns.

Never were we perfect angels (example Chile provided above), but we were generally on the right side of things and most of our military interventions in the Cold War were justifiable claiming self defense. Not the case today. Post Cold War (1991) we began sliding in a very bad direction and that became even worse post 9-11 in many respects, especially in how we operate: massive use of mercenary armies, torture, kidnapping, assignations, significantly side stepping the US Constitution, and today with mass censorship and government sponsored propaganda as well as an intel service partially aimed inward. This is a very bad trend not only in our foreign policy and in how we use our military, but also domestic where today you have an IC that does resemble the Stasi/KGB: mass surveillance, use of FISA powers against political opponents, eliminating the leadership of opposition groups that would be a problem (J6). Today people like you want to pretend we’re so different than the Russians, when in reality you have “political prisoners” rotting away after they were brought before a kangaroo court.

To a Libyan, Iraqi or Syrian, we are no liberators. We do not bring democracy, human rights, and we sure as hell do not respect their sovereignty. We’re just another flag trying to plant itself on their soil so we can pump oil and gas.

Propaganda is government sponsored Information Operations in order to influence perceptions and thereby behavior.

In the corporate world you would call it advertising.

As a private citizen a personal view or opinion if it's not listing mere facts.

The US censoring ~40 Russian media outlets, most Russian government sites, self censoring in social media, etc. does not need to worry about Russian propaganda.

You're not getting much Russian propaganda. You have to literally search for it and get around censors. But you are getting a good dose from our own government.

Did you call the following “propaganda?” when these stories were hot?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61285833 (imaginary Ghost of Kiev)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/europe/ukraine-russia-snake-island-attack-intl-hnk-ml/index.html (The “F-off” story from Snake Island)
https://www.newsweek.com/2023/05/05/read-leaked-secret-intelligence-documents-ukraine-vladimir-putin-1794656.html#slideshow/ (imaginary casualties while our own government knows the truth but won't tell folks)
https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/ (a little praise for neo-Nazi’s isn't so bad as long as it's for the right cause)

Colloquially, people tend to use the term “propaganda” liberally for any argument or even mere statement of fact which may be derogatory regards ones own beliefs, feelings, opinions.

Anything we don't like we label with the pejorative “propaganda.”

We rejected the Russians even as they were trying to near, even align, themselves with the West in all aspects: politically, militarily, economically.

Specifically, there were some European nations which opened up to the Russians.

However, eventually it became apparent that the US in particular was more interested in expanding into the Russian sphere of influence, expanding the size and scope of its military alliance, in complete disregard of Russian interests.

We broke promises (NATO East expansion), withdrew from treaties (Ballistic Missile Treaty), violated treaties and conventions made by others (Minsk, Montreux), and were trying to get our fingers into literally every oil and gas producing nation aligned or even formally allied with Russia (Libya, Iraq, Syria, Venezuela), trying to expand our military alliance to their border and build bases there.

Russian disarmament (post Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union) simply became a weakness we can exploit. That is a reality Russia woke up to with Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia in 2004. They weren’t going to let that happen again as evidenced by the Republic of Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014 or now Ukraine 2022.

Since we care so much about democracy, human rights and sovereignty, maybe we should build a military base on Taiwan! I wonder why we won’t do that. We won’t do that because the PRC is powerful, we respect power, and we saw Russia as weak. It’s “us” that is the big shark.

Try thinking and making arguments, and use less emotional words that really are no argument. Are we a kleptocracy? Are you telling me that most of our Congress who become rich in some cases even worth billions are doing so on their “public servant” salaries? Are you telling me the Biden’s are clean? Are you telling me most governors of states are clean? Stop it with the dumb word-feelings associations. That’s for dummies.

Is Russia corrupt? Sure. So are we. One of my former governors: https://www.cnn.com/2011/09/15/opinion/krumholz-beckel-perry-pharmaceutical/index.html

The US is an oligarchy, no different than Russia: www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdfhttps://www.cnn.com/2011/09/15/opinion/krumholz-beckel-perry-pharmaceutical/index.html

A few rich and very powerful people basically influence the elections, laws, government regulations, and their enforcement disproportionately. These people and the corporations/banks/NGO’s they steer, simply change the laws if they do not like them, literally: https://www.wionews.com/opinions-blogs/how-disney-routinely-exerted-influence-on-the-us-copyright-law-to-keep-its-greatest-asset-mickey-mouse-549141 This is true if you’re talking about pharma, agra, big tech today... On MOST issues where the public interest and opinion stands in conflict with the interests of our oligarchs, the interests of the oligarchs are served.

But here are some facts regards the nuclear issue you address: Russia never used a nuke on someone. Russia conducted less atmospheric tests. Russia conducted less space tests. And MOST the radiation floating out there today from these tests is from us since the Russians even went as far as using lead tamping to reduce the radiation yield by >90%, while we just lit them off one after the other in the Pacific. Because we’re so rational.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests