Posted on 06/28/2022 12:26:55 PM PDT by BeauBo
Kowtowing Putin Stooges worst affected.
Because wars are bad things, and having an alliance that is too powerful to attack deters wars.
Not really. I mean, you wouldn't have an empire in the first place unless you sent your troops to foreign lands, right? Arguing that the Roman empire fell it didn't keep its armies in Latium kind of misses the point.
I would argue that most empires fell because the values that gave them the strength to build the empire withered away when life got too easy with imperial wealth.
The people got soft, so the empire fell. That's the far more common story. That's at least if we're talking about the classic definition of an empire - one that lasts more than just a decade or two.
OMG... NOW I’m worried. This is the worst possible result for Putin. Not only is he going to have to find a way to call what happened in Ukraine a victory, but he’s going to have to rationalize the advance of NATO right up to the Russian border. Isn’t this just... slightly... destabilizing?
“And surprisingly, we aren’t there because Germany was acting poorly.”
I KNOW!! How things have changed, eh? It’s a new world...
We shall see what Putin demands are...
“The people got soft, so the empire fell.”
Not an expert, but I THINK this is an old myth started by Edward Gibbon in his classic work on the Roman Empire. Gibbon was not a modern historiographer and didn’t understand how much his ideas were influenced by the politics of England in the 1780s.
If you have read the History of the Peloponnesian War you know the Athenian Empire didn’t fall because the Athenians got soft. They understood what courage was and they had it in spades.
Then too, describing American hegemony as empire is going way too far, I think. Did we take Iraq’s land and convert the inhabitants to Christianity? Not even close. Are we making the Europeans pay tribute? Not even slightly - quite the reverse, actually. We’re overinvesting in our military, and allowing them to underinvest, because “we” (someone, god knows who) have decided that the political advantages outweigh the financial disadvantages. Whether they do or not is a different question.
Ah, it’s all too complicated for me...
But at our expense? Let them defense themselves for a change.
Americans benefit from high paying military industrial complex jobs.
Okie-dokie, good luck with all that, count me out. I have served in a stupid neo-con war, have voted for the neo-cons because “stop socialism”. Done with all that. They’ve been stirring up Ukraine since 2014, it’s obvious. They wanted this. Dead young men is the neo-con wet dream. Tired of these games. Let Europe handle Europe.
What does Turkey get? Recognition of Northern Cyprus?
The main point is overextending resources of empire.
The mighty Mughal empire whose capital was in Delhi. OKAY, Their armies did not go to foreign land. But India is a big country. The empire sent their armies to the south to conquer all of India. That was the beginning of end. The hit and run strategy used by Maratha warlord Shivaji in the south was able to defeat the bigger Mughal armies away from the capital.
Can’t wait to see what we’re giving Turkey in return
4% Americans working in defense industry versus vast lower middle class (retail, hotels, restaurants) getting the shaft.
Spell out the benefits to majority of Americans in the lower 90% earning bracket from spending Trillions of BORROWED money in (Iraq+Afghanistan+Vietnam and other sundry places). Would that money have been better spent in building American infrastructure, subsidizing STEM education, and strengthen social security & Medicare?
High paying military industrial jobs are there for people to get, versus no military industrial jobs for people to get
At least for this who can pass a security check like no felony convictions.
*At least for those who can...
“Can’t wait to see what we’re giving Turkey in return”
Yup—the Turks are known as great bargainers—and they are smart enough to keep the ugly part of the deal secret.
It’s known as “poking the bear”...
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