If successful will Putin stop after Ukraine?

Not NATO. There was no NATO then. That was the League of Nations, although it suffered from the same handicaps and faced the same problems (as the present conflict illustrates) But Putin is now effectively hemmed in by NATO nations. The remaining former Soviet Republics which haven’t hooked up with NATO and the EU have (I believe) missed the boat if Putin survives the present conflict with his country intact. On the other hand, if Russia falls apart due to the present conflict, it will almost surely be the most terrifying threat to our existence we have yet experienced. Putin sat still for absorption of the throwaway Republics into the Nirvana that is prosperous Europe. But the 2 that count he believes bound to Russia at the hip as they have been since time immemorial. As I keep harping, they are in his mind essential to Russia’s survival as a nation of consequence. And though the rest of you may be convinced I’m on his side, I’m simply stating that he has a point. And he is risking everything to make that point.

And the point is invade other countries !

He also rides horses without a shirt . . . must be a great leader ! J. K

@Tropical Willie. He is a shrewd and capable man and his very existence depends much more on his ability to judge and evaluate his opposition than any leader we have had in taking his measure. Think what you will, but the man is neither slow witted nor a fool.

He is crazy and may cause a nuclear war !

Not a fool but crazy !

Not slow witted but crazy !

He is tanking his country to reconnect the USSR.

@Tropical Willie you remind me of our leadership, as well as our current day shamelessly inept media. The things I read from you and others here truly frighten me. For example, you take encouragement from reports of rookie recruits dissertion and abandonment of weapons. Here’s a question for you. Why would Putin commit his throwaway poorly trained troops FIRST in the war?

No. He has said so.

Your opinions are only interesting ! @HP

Putin is an ASSHOLE !

So glad you love him ! do you live in Russia ??

He’s an asshole, but don’t dismiss him as crazy. That’s too easy and it’s lazy thinking. Again, why is the first wave conscripts? Did you see that APC that gorilla pulled up? Raw recruits with obsolete equipment?

@HP You keep harping on (your words) about what is in Putin’s mind but how do you know what is in his mind?

I agree that thinking Putin will stop at the Ukraine or that dismissing him as crazy is foolish.

We should be very concerned overall. Specifically Poland and other neighboring countries.

I’m even more concerned if Russia completely destabilizes and the regime falls as a result of a failed incursion into Ukraine and a devastated economy from the sanctions. A lot of bad actors could fill the power vacuum there. Loose nukes is a bad situation.

Here’s a good interview with Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who worked for presidents Bush Jr., Obama and Trump.

She does not doubt Putin’s willingness to expand the war.

Politico – Feb 28, 2022 – ‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes
Putin is trying to take down the entire world order, the veteran Russia watcher said in an interview.

I’m not sure that he would, though as I’ve said before, invading a NATO nation like Poland or the Baltics, is essentially starting WWIII, and I don’t think even Putin wants that. Putin would lose a war with NATO.

Why would he? If not stopped, he will go as far west as East Germany to recreate his sphere of influence.

@flutherother Of course I can’t read Putin’s mind. But I look at what he’s done, along with what he’s doing, and ask “how does this make sense?” Why do YOU think Putin jumped on Ukraine? Is your answer because he’s a crazy asshole?

I don’t think Putin is crazy. I think he is a ruthless dictator surrounded by yes men who have told him what he wanted to hear about Russian military capabilities, and the desire for independence of the Ukrainian people. He misjudged the situation badly and being a dictator, he is not going to admit it. I think he would rather destroy Ukraine than do that and I hope I am wrong.

I don’t think Putin has ambitions beyond Ukraine. Ukraine is the object lesson for the West as well as Georgia, the other Former Republic which matters. Putin understands that Russia is a nation in decline and slipping fast. He’s not going to Poland. There will be no attempt at anything as silly as a Russian blitzkrieg. It’s simply the matter of a wheezing former champ understanding that if ever hopes to bring Ukraine to heel, it has to be before NATO is obligated to defend it. It’s a risky move, but the odds against its success must accumulate every minute that it would have been postponed or delayed. In the end, if he doesn’t pull it off, history will probably conclude that he waited too long.

Pour money in to Germany and turn them loose on that clown. The only reason they weren’t defeated by Germany in WWII was due to US and UK support and supplies. If Hitler hadn’t been a genocidal nut job we should have sided with them to take out Russia when we had the chance. Perhaps Guderian was correct about “The Anglo Saxon idiots”.

That’s not quite the ONLY reason. More Russians died in that war than Germans and allied troops combined. The German army regarded transfer from the Eastern front to contest the allies as equivalent to a vacation.

Fuck Russia. Tired of those ass clowns. Listening to “Panzerlied” right now.

https://youtu.be/yRf2O5tOdG8

No! Putin will strike and take over that easy.

I wonder what it is about the wehrmacht that boys everywhere find so attractive? I spent my youth revelling in those MG 42s and black tank crew uniforms, completely able to divorce that tiger tank from the evil for which it was employed.

NATO didn’t exist in 1939.

There are few parallels here. Germany was building for war as early 1935, but because he was the darling of capitalists and ruling classes in the West, all warning signs were ignored and he was given what he wanted until it was absolutely too late. Three was more worry about Russia and expanding Bolshevism, so ruling elites were happy to use Germany as a bulwark against that perceived threat.

Putin, on the other hand, has been an official enemy since at least 2008 when they invaded Georgia, which again had everything to do with NATO encroaching on Russia’s border.

Official enemies get a very different media treatment to official allies. Allied dictators are “reformists”. When they invade a country, it’s to liberate some people, or because of legitimate security concerns, or because some offical enemy is in power and poses a threat that needs to be removed.

Official enemies are always dictators and tyrants, even if democratically elected. They are always aggressors, always posing threats to the West (even if they’ve small military budgets and don’t invade anyone), and there’s always calls to go to war with them in the name of freedom and democracy.

No one really knows the mind of Putin, and even though this invasion surprised a lot of people (it was regarded as a stupid move to make, as he’ll now likely be bogged down in a lengthy and costly insurgency) he’s so far committed a fraction of the crimes that a typical US President does within a couple of terms, and it’s absolutely nothing compared to what Saudi Arabia, our dear ally we’re supplying and providing logistics for in the middle east, is doing to Yemen, which gets practically no coverage in the media.

I would suggest to believe absolutely nothing you see or hear during a war. You don’t know the sources of any images and videos you see. You don’t who fired what or who shot what. It’s pure distilled propaganda.

If one thing should be obvious, it is that there’s a concerted push to escalate the war and to normalise the idea of a broader and more devasating conflict. I’ve already listened to journalists blithely talk about surviving nuclear attacks, and how we should have a ‘No Fly Zone’ over Ukraine, which basically entails direct military confrontation with Russia. I’m listening to fucking madness and even read some of it above.

@HP Germany is a different place now. Time to rid the world of Putin. And even back then not all Germans were anti semitic hate mongers. Paul Von Letto Vorbeck, of WWI East Africa campaign fame, and the only German General not to taste defeat in the Great War, was approached by Hitler and the Nazis to accept a command. He told Hitler to go fuck himself. True story.

@Nomore_Tantrums I’m hoping the actual policy decisions aren’t led by the sort of rhetoric you’ve displayed on here, or the sort of deranged, gleeful, frothing at the mouth war-mongering nonsense I’ve seen put out by journalists, who seem to think nothing of risking nuclear anihilation and the total destruction of human civilisation just to uphold some purported “liberal values”.

So far there’s been resistance to escalate the war, so my guess is the actual strategists and advisors are not the dumbfuck gung-ho liberal journalists who think there’s going to be some heroic comic book ending to going to war with Russia.

This isn’t a battle between good and evil (our side are not good guys, and there are no good guys). Putin is not Hitler. He is not led by racist paranoia and hasn’t written a book about eliminating Jews and reducing Slavs to a small slave labour force.

This is old school balance of power politics. It’s the Monroe Doctrine, but from a Russian perspective, and it wouldn’t matter who was leading Russia—almost any plausible Russian leader would be resisting NATO expansion and its neighbouring states being pulled into Western hegemony.

And rid Putin of the world? Have you the first inkling of what that entails and what it risks? Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. It has one of the largest armies in the world. It means the destabilisation of the world’s economy, countless civilian deaths, untold misery, and if at some point Russia looked desperate—a civilisation ending nuclear war.

If you’re that outraged by the invasion, you’re free to fly over, pick up one of the guns being handed out to civilians, and join the fight against Russia. I’ll look forward to reading about your heroic defence of the free world and liberal values.

I would suggest to believe absolutely nothing you see or hear during a war. You don’t know the sources of any images and videos you see. You don’t who fired what or who shot what. It’s pure distilled propaganda.

The idea that news outlets around the world are conspiring to show false images of destroyed Russian columns is ridiculous. There are real reporters from many nations and NOT from state media on the ground.

Lumping DW and BBC with RT is ignorance.
Five soldiers will shoot at a tank and report five kills. A credible reporter will say, “military sources claim five tanks were destroyed”. An in-house cheerleader will report, “five tanks were destroyed.”

@Call_Me_Jay That’s a great straw man you’ve set alight there.

@Kropotkin “I would suggest to believe absolutely nothing you see or hear during a war. You don’t know the sources of any images and videos you see. You don’t who fired what or who shot what. It’s pure distilled propaganda”

Gosh, you just don’t know what to believe. It’s like all the “news” saying the world is a globe, when some say it’s flat. Clearly both sides have an ulterior motive for pushing their stories. Yep, that sure is the REAL smart position.

@Call_Me_Jay Wow. And another one. You must be having a great argument with whatever it is you’re imagining in your head.

I’m pretty sure you can trust what is reported on this stream
I do have a massive distrust of pretty much any media outlet. That said some may just put a little sparkle on the truth while others are just plain lies. You just can’t put Reuters and RT in the same basket.

With the decline in both print and broadcast journalism world wide, skepticism is understanable.