Silvaire wrote:
As stated and fairly obviously, US military power and willingness to use it to defend against wrongdoing is the main factor that’s stopping him from expanding his Soviet style rampage in Eastern Europe. That and the apparent incapability of the Russian military.
Well, I guess I should make myself more clear then. Clearly the US has been the primary enemy throughout the cold war, but there was never a real plan to invade and conquer, rather to get the US to stay away if they go elsewhere. Germany however is the epitome of the enemy of the Rodina not only but particularly since WW2. As the friendly guy at RT said the other day his dream is to see “Soviet(sic) boots thundering over German soil” is what he wants.
Silvaire wrote:
That is just silly, not the basis for a rational discussion
Is it really? Clearly they are quite different in terms of ruthlessness to launch wars (where Trump was very reluctant) but in terms of personality there are obvious parallels.
Both of them hate any press they don’t control. Putin shuts them down, Trump calls them fake news and what not. Would he shut them up if he had the power?
Putin has tampered Russian elections for decades. Trump has openly fought the 2020 election and is trying very hard to manipulate future elections.
Both of them see their political opponents as “enemies”. True, Putin has the power to eliminate or imprison them. This kind of thing was not available to Trump.
Both have a massive personality cult. Both are a sucker for people who admire them (even though Putin knows it’s a game and plays it to perfection at times and Trump was mostly on the receiving end)
And so on.
Anyone openly challenging election results even after being proven wrong by courts and the said results having been accepted by most of his own staff and even family clearly has a massive disregard of democracy.
And any democracy in which political opponents look at each other as enemies and openly use this term to qualify opposition politicians, is in grave danger. The US is not the only one in that regard, not by far. But it is scary that in recent years, Americans of both parties have lost the capability of bipartisanship and accepting the other party as “loyal opposition”. According to some (Republican) friends of mine in the US, the division and mutual hate has not been as bad since the ACW. That is a great pity and dangerous. Also obviously it is a really neat thing for America’s enemies. Any superpower primarily busy with infighting is much less of a hassle elsewhere.
Peter wrote:
Well, that is the Putin apologists’ standard line i.e. Putin was provoked.
There is no apology behind it. In the interview Merkel gave recently she said the very same thing. Everyone in these circles knew that the moment Ukraine had real chances to get into NATO or that Putin would convince himself that it had, he would wage war. He himself said so repeatedly. The only problem was that most Europeans and the US did not think he’d dare to do it, which by now he has proven differently.
Peter wrote:
Mine is that Putin will not go nuclear because it will instantly change absolutely everything, and events will no longer be under his control or even much influence.
Well, as we have seen people have been quite naive in their assessment what Putin actually will do. His will to live also strongly depends on how sick if at all he really is. Quite possibly all he is interested in is his legacy. And in that case, being the one to use nukes onto someone who pissed him off would leave a lasting one.
Peter wrote:
Anyone who thought nationalism died out in 1945, look at the vaccine business, 2020/2021, and that was sanctioned at the highest level by the very institution that was set up in the 1950s to prevent wars. You can always find a reason to hit somebody.
You are very right. And it has grown worse in the last several years.
Peter wrote:
Ukraine was/is a sovereign country, with UN-recognised borders. Russia invaded it. That’s wrong, and they need to get back out. Completely. It’s really quite simple.
Absolutely.
Peter wrote:
Trump is history; he won’t get back in.
If he gains the nomination, he will win the election.
There is no apology behind it. In the interview Merkel gave recently she said the very same thing
QED 
She is ex DDR, he is ex DDR KGB. No wonder they got on well. Look up her wiki entry. He also speaks perfect German. And he had the full resources of the KGB to get the background; he would have known what she had for dinner the night before. She was easy prey, and that’s without the fact that an energy deal with Russia was perfectly aligned with economic objectives, and remains thus today, “solidarity” photo opportunities notwithstanding
According to her former colleagues, she openly propagated Marxism as the secretary for “Agitation and Propaganda”.42 However, Merkel has denied this claim and stated that she was secretary for culture, which involved activities like obtaining theatre tickets and organising talks by visiting Soviet authors.43 She stated: "I can only rely on my memory, if something turns out to be different, I can live with that
To get anywhere in the comm bloc you had to be “fully subscribed” My parents never were so it took years to get a B&W TV. I still remember the special trip to the shop, with the special authorisation… And the DDR was a whole lot better organised than CZ. In the DDR, an office of 5 would have had 1 traitor. In CZ, an office of 10 would have had 1 traitor so if you wanted to watch the Eurovision song contest you had to be 2x more careful in the DDR.
As the friendly guy at RT said the other day his dream is to see “Soviet(sic) boots thundering over German soil” is what he wants.
All Russian State media spouts BS 24/7. They are even ahead of the Kremlin, nuking the UK with their brand new ICBM
Wasn’t madam Merkel fluent in Russian? And according to many she knew well how to deal with Putin and was certainly no puppet to him.
She had a vision of bringing Russia into the democratic world through enriching it through trade which to a large part meant oil and gas.
It was the same vision as Regan, Thatcher and Gorbachev had, although the presidents of the USA and prime ministers of the UK who followed on from them all held back from fully embracing Russia. Madam Merkel was able to go much further in building relationships with Russia, because of her background.
And it worked until Putin developed a Napolean complex whilst also losing all sense of logic.
Perhaps he began to hear whispers in the wings.
Who knows why someone who seemed to have ultimate power and riches, and in no danger of being usurped, running a country, where the lifestyle for a large proportion of its citizens had improved out of all proportion, should suddenly decide to risk it all.
But we also can not know what would have happened if Regan, Thatcher and Gorbachev had not done what they did or if Merkel had not taken the actions she did.
Remember, before the fall of the Berlin wall, the USSR was estimated to be much more powerful militarily than anything the Nato forces could muster quickly. And much of the time Mrs Merkel was German chancellor Ukraine was like Belarus now and closely aligned with the Russian federation. What might have been if Madam Merkel had done another term as German Chancellor. Would Putin have invaded?
Just food for thought.
gallois wrote:
Wasn’t madam Merkel fluent in Russian? And according to many she knew well how to deal with Putin and was certainly no puppet to him.
She may not have been his puppet, but they certainly shared a goal, namely the destabilization of Europe. Pretty much everything Merkel did weakened Europe. From ‘saving’ the Euro, which threw a whole generation of southern Europeans into poverty, via the encouragement of mass migration to the switching off of Germany’s nuclear plants, thus making it even more dependent on Russia. The list goes on and on. This has been evident for years and it’s somewhat beyond my comprehension that some people still think she did anything positive. History will judge her harshly.
@172driver. We obviously have totally opposite opinions on Madam Merkel.
As for throwing a whole lot of sourhern europeans into poverty, you seem to ignore the fact that it was that the too high state costs and the lack of tax revenue that basically bankrupted that southern european country.long before tje ECB or Germany got involved.
You also seem to ignore the fact that the economy of those countries are recovering well and quickly with less pain than previously predicted by many pundits.
But as you say history will tell.
I’m still chuckling at the idea that former President Trump was friends with Putin… or any other national leader for that matter.
Merkel? Maybe. The royal families of Europe have always been intertwined 
I think the final verdict on the “European project” will take a few more decades. It’s only been going for 60-70 years. It started with CDG’s stated desire to lock Germany into a union so it could never start another war; curious since Germany wasn’t going to have nukes in the foreseeable future while France was prob100 going to get them ASAP. Then it morphed into a north → south wealth transfer project, which created a boom in the previously “poor” countries which was predictably (since productivity, culture, etc never really changed) followed by a bust. The “engines” of the union remained protected from the bust because the economies in question were fairly small; especially Greece which was hung out to dry at a minimal cost. For these engines, the EU has been a successful project, especially the Euro which has remained a relatively weak currency thanks to the Eurozone being loaded-up with lots of “poor” countries, and that in turn ensured good export performance for the exporters.
Things are changing… a big turn-around here:
The leaders of France, Germany and Italy met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv Thursday and expressed support for granting Ukraine candidate status for accession to the European Union.
French President Emmanuel Macron denies Ukraine will be asked to concede anything. Macron made the comment during a joint press conference in Kyiv on June 16. Last month, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Macron asked him to make concessions concerning Ukraine’s sovereignty in an attempt to end the war. Macron has previously stated that Russia should not be “humiliated” and given “a way out.”
Macron: France to send 6 more Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron made the announcement during his June 16 visit to Kyiv. France has earlier sent six 155 mm Caesar howitzers to Ukraine which are already in use on the front line. These are probably the best kit Ukraine has currently.
UK and Norway are sending 20 x M109 each, which is a lot. This is very good. The Ceasar is a lot slicker but 40 will be a lot more useful than a dozen or so.
This guy (an airline pilot out of a job) runs a good daily review of the situation
https://www.youtube.com/c/RoadHomeMotorcycleVlogs
Peter wrote:
She is ex DDR, he is ex DDR KGB. No wonder they got on well. Look up her wiki entry. He also speaks perfect German.
They did until 2014. Then the relationship changed massively. When she was on a state visit to Sochi, he famously greeted her with a big dog on the leach, knowing she hates dogs. She said that from this moment on, what was a cooperative relation changed into confrontational. So she was well aware of what was going on, but her strategy was that she (and others in Europe btw) wanted to integrate Russia into the European economy such that RUSSIA would be dependent on Europe. Which it is. The trouble only is that Putin does not seem to care and that Europe has not had the guts to fully pull the plug on him.
gallois wrote:
Wasn’t madam Merkel fluent in Russian? And according to many she knew well how to deal with Putin and was certainly no puppet to him.
She is. He is totally fluent in German. As Merkel quoted, Putin speaks far better German than she speaks Russian. She also said that when they had “official” discussions it would be done via interpreters as usual, unofficial talks were held in German. But all this stopped pretty much in 2014 after the annexation of Crimea.
And no, Merkel is nobody’s puppet. While she is remarkably Left for a conservative politician, no question, she certainly did not favour Marxism during her time in German politics. Shutting down nuclear power was a direct consequence of Fukushima and German politics getting their undies undone because of it.
I far from agree to everything she did and it is likely that she will be judged harshly by history. However, she was never a “traitor” or “puppet” people now take her for. And apart, the new government does not exactly do any better. Merkel could be tough as nails if crossed and she definitly would have stood up to Putin in a different way than Scholz does now. Quite some folks claim this would not have happened under her and I tend to agree.
The plan was to prevent more war in Europe by integrating former enemies economically in what became the EU. It worked.
The plan was to prevent war with Russia by increasing trade between (western) Europe and Russia. It didn’t work.
The best laid plans of mice and men…
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
The plan was to prevent more war in Europe by integrating former enemies economically in what became the EU. It worked.
However, in parallel, and actually even before, was the nuclear deterrent, whose “peace keeping” effect cannot be evaluated in isolation from any “economic union” effects.
Stalin was reported as saying, shortly after WW2, paraphrasing, give us 10 years and we will rebuild and then we will have another go. With the US, UK and France having nukes, and NATO Article 5 (whatever you think of how really binding it is), he could not have had “another go”. And neither can Putin today – except to go into some country perceived as weak.
