To what degree did Trump's bromance with Putin lead up to the current Ukraine situation?

@elbanditoroso Zero.

None. Trump was a useful idiot, but the Trump-Putin narrative was primarily a tactic by neoliberals to view Hillary’s loss as a product of Russian interference instead of a wholesale rejection of neoliberal ideology by the American electorate.

If anything it delayed it. He was the green light for Putin’s underlings to troll the US populace into more and more political upheaval and they have been doing a good job. The more f’d up we are the easier it is for Putin to pull these stunts. Now we have a geriatric, weak “leader” coming in on the heels of a baffoon in the middle of a pandemic and political turmoil. It’s a chess move putting the USA in check that has been in planning for some time. It would not have been strategic for Putin to invade during Trump’s administration just like it’s bad to approach a cornered animal. It will act aggressive and be dangerous and unpredictable. With Biden I believe it’s all very predictable. Putin can get back to playing chess.

Some, but not as much as Obama and George H.W. Bush.
Obama did very little when Putin took over Crimea.
Bush 41 made a deal with Ukraine, where they surrendered their nukes on a promise that the US would protect them.
Putin is testing Biden. Putin understands the US is war weary. Putin is looking Ukraine in the eye, and saying “They made promises to you, and I am standing on your throat!”

The US is definitely weaker after the Trump administration and Putin is flexing his bare chested muscles. I had read years ago that Putin had groomed any one of a number of polarizing figures to run so as to sew chaos in the US.

Where is NATO?

His cosying up to Putin has definitely emboldened the despot. And Putin, too.
A lot of republicans are actually supporting Russia in her move against Ukraine:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/25/tucker-carlson-russia-ukraine-democrats
Talk about divide and conquer.

GOP leaders are backing Putin’s overtaking Ukraine, “Moscow Mitch” is loving it ! ! !

I certainly would not say an extreme fringe minority is “a lot of republicans.” Probably about as many leftists do.

Edit: “sow” chaos

Zero.

Incredible, @ragingloli. I thought for a minute you were making one of your jokes. Now I’m picturing that scene in “Independence Day” where the crowd on the roof of a skyscraper is holding a welcome party for the aliens, and the vessel’s hatches open and the lights stream out, and then…zap.

Unfortunately it’s not just the idiots who would get zapped this time.

@Jeruba
To be fair to those alien welcomers, at that point, the aliens had not yet shown signs of hostility.

I don’t think very much. Maybe it contributed to US political instability, and maybe US political instability contributed a little to the timing of the buildup.

But I think Trump’s contribution to this mess is the fact that he continued the general US policy towards NATO expansion, as well as antagonizing Russia through actions like pulling out of the INF. Trump also demonstrated (further) that the US cannot always be trusted to keep its commitments by pulling out of the Iran deal.

Trump also undermined some of the US-European alliance structure; I’m not sure whether that made an invasion more or less likely.

I don’t want to turn this into a political thing. I am convinced that Putin is not all there. And I don’t think that either Trump or Biden have a lot to do with it. Putin would flex his muscles and rattle his sabers no matter who the POTUS is. He is testing American resolve, and American hypocrisy. I mean, I saw a bleep on my news feed yesterday that the Russian Navy is going to perform some e “live fire” exercises in the Atlantic Ocean off of the coast of Ireland. The Irish Government had made it clear to the Russian Embassy that these are not welcome. But they don’t have the power to stop it, and they are not a member of NATO. I think this is a test of American policy of “Freedom of navigation”, something we have been pushing ourselves in the South China Sea. If our Navy can operate there, why can’t Russia operate in the eastern Atlantic? Kind of the same way we would not allow Russian missiles in Cuba in ‘61, even though we had missiles in Turkey, just south of the Soviet border. A “Do as we say, not as we do” policy won’t work in today’s world. The live fire thing has pushed this to another level though. It will be interesting to see what happens.

It was a miserable sight to see Trump sidling up to dictators such as Putin and Kim Jong-un. It satisfied Trump’s ego but made the United States look cheap. I’m just glad that Trump is not in the White House and his advice on dealing with Putin is no longer required.