> 141 countries vote to condemn Russia at UN
> Between the lines: Serbia, which has close historical ties with Russia, surprised many observers by voting in favor of the resolution.
[1] https://balkaninsight.com/2021/02/16/in-serbia-states-ties-t...
[2] https://www.occrp.org/en/openlux/serbian-presidents-best-man...
Trade with Russia is not that significant for Serbia, 5-8%. And we mostly import oil and gas. As long as EU keeps buying that from Russia there are no issues there. We export food to Russia, and we can probably have a barter trade if banking system is completely cut off.
All of this is pretty much insignificant and mostly about diplomatic "are you with or against us". Serbia is too small to make any kind of real difference either way.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/26/poll-trump-r...
Poll the public on general relativity or quantum physics and they’ll likely get it wrong. The same is probably true for complex geopolitical questions.
I thought that would be clear without the need for any explanation. Maybe the fact that explanation is needed gives an indication of the sorry state of the democratic process.
It’s an insanely silly way of assessing “what would Putin have done in an alternate timeline”.
Everything written is in such contradiction to reality outside my window, I can't help but wonder what are you smoking?
On foreign policy - specifically, with regard to the tone of the US's involvement in NATO - I believe Trump was much better than Biden. On other issues, Trump was often... "suboptimal".
The biggest issue I have with Trump is what the person you're replying to said: "He was a dumpster fire." It's difficult to lead a country when the very tone of your rhetoric angers half of it. He anger the Democrats enough that many voters would have elected _anyone_ to replace him.
On the other hand, Trump's bombastic personality and over-the-top rhetoric is probably the only way a Republican could have been elected in 2016. I'm not sure it was a solvable problem.
Perhaps the invasion was planned for a second term, and COVID threw a giant wrench in the works.
N=1, 2008. Russia invades/attacks Georgia[1]. US President: George W. Bush; US Vice President: Dick Cheney.
N=2, 2014. Russia annexes Crimea[2]. US President: Barack Obama; US Vice President: Joe Biden.
N=3, 2017-2021. No invasion of Ukraine. US President: Donald Trump; US Vice President: Mike Pence.
N=4, 2022. Russia invades Ukraine[3]. US President: Joe Biden; US Vice President: Kamala Harris.
Since Russia/Putin has attacked its western neighbors during three of the last four US president's terms, it appears Trump constrained Putin's expansionism, regardless of whether we liked Trump's manner of diplomacy or not. And Biden was in office during the annexation of Crimea, so he can be the "control group" for pre- and post-Trump policies toward Russia.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Ru...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai...
-edited for readability.
False; Russian forces were continuously involved in Ukraine (even outside of Crimea) in the Donbas war, with no significant, even transitorily successful, ceasefire until late 2020.
> Since Russia/Putin has attacked its western neighbors during three of the last four US president's terms, it appears Trump constrained Putin's expansionism,
Since in fact that happened in four of the four last presidential terms, that doesn't work even if you ignore that the logic here is simply very weak correlation even if the premises were correct.