If they did it bit by bit then all nato can be a target. There is a strategy about this as far as yes minster goes about nuclear bomb detention. You just very hard to press the button if the other side just bomb say another country not in nato. And even if … Coalition never easy work especially you do not give them pressure.

Thanks in a dark sense Russia basically sealed the Ukrainian identity and possibly the nato. With Ukrainian blood and theirs.

How can a chess playing nation think so badly. Just bomb others to surrender … Mongolian blood?

> How can a chess playing nation think so badly. Just bomb others to surrender … Mongolian blood?

Yeah, pretty much. The Russian army in Ukraine apparently consists disproportionately of recruits from Dagestan, Tatarstan, Tuva, etc, etc. Ethnic Russians are under-represented.

> There is a strategy about this as far as yes minster goes about nuclear bomb detention

This is the clip about Salami Tactics and the Nuclear Deterrent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o861Ka9TtT4

Salami tactics! Such a good scene.

If there is a nuclear war because of this mess in the near future, then we will all see how did this work out for everyone on this planet. If you pressure a weakened nuclear power into a corner, what will they have left? Western countries operate under a false assumption that oligarchs/rich call the shots in Russia while it's the power/security forces who do, keeping oligarchs on a short leash. From that point of view, it's not only conceivable Finland would be attacked before joining NATO, but that this would escalate to an all-out-war with nukes.

Nobody is pressuring Russia, that's Russian propaganda. They want to paint themselves as attacked and surrounded, but it's them attacking sovereign neighbors and trying to expand beyond their borders. Who would have any interest in invading Russia? China attacking from the east would probably make more sense than NATO attacking from the west, but I've never heard anyone suggesting that as a realistic event.

It's not about how we perceive a threat to them, but how they perceive it. It makes no sense to destroy one's economy for Ukraine, yet here we are, so their calculation considered it more important.

When Russia's perception is out of whack with the actual facts of the world, it seems smarter to adapt Russia's perception to the actual facts.

Russia chose to try the other way. Sooner or later it will end up with them having to adjust their perception anyway.

But that is not Putin’s actual perception. It’s something he’s said to establish a pre-textual justification for an imperial war of aggression

Yeah, his actual perception is the same old defense in depth --> need of buffer zones one Russia has had since the Grand Duchy of Muscovy emerged from its vassalage to the Mongols. Problem with that is, that also clashes with current reality, since it demands a return to the status quo of the Cold War, with Russian satellite states up to about Berlin(1).

Sooo... Which do you think needs adjusting; current geopolitical / geographical reality, or the Russian perception of national security? Are you saying he's right that the status quo ante, up to Feb 23 was an "existential threat" to Russia by NATO? Or even a variant with Ukraine in NATO -- would that have made NATO suddenly much more likely to attack Russia than without it?

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(1): But preferably: Paris. Or, better yet, Lisbon.

I think what Putin fears the most was that euromaidan could spread to Moscow. A slavic orthodox country on his doorstep making moves to become a Western style liberal democracy was a threat to the idea of Russia as the centerpiece of the Russian language/culture/religion empire, all headed by a tsar with absolute power.

NATO? For all the propaganda about evil NATO about to attack Russia, the troops that Russia normally has stationed against NATO and Finnish borders are now all in Ukraine getting their asses kicked. The NATO and Finland borders are empty. Ergo, in reality Putin is not (correctly so) afraid of any NATO attack.

“It doesn’t make sense…” yes if you are looking through a liberal western lens. You’re not looking from a Putin or Russia point of view. His reasoning for invading Ukraine are much deeper and different than the things that we consider important.

I though Ezra Klein’s interview with Masha Gressen and some of his other interviews were quite good at helping inform: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id...