Why the reluctance? I do not think there is much love lost in regards to Russia.
Appeasement of someone like Putin is always a mistake.
So far every time the West calls his bluff he cowardly pretends nothing happened, be it HIMARS, Storm Shadow and HARM missile shipments, tank shipments, AWACS support, you name it.
He only attacked Ukraine because he hoped to win in a week, and this wouldn't have happened if the West armed Ukraine earlier. The desire not to escalate with Putin cost Europe a war.
However, this is all playing chicken. Whenever they were facing actual opposition, they backed down.
Also, are you aware of this?: https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-09/news/us-completes-in...
As for INF, US withdrawal was a response to Russia testing infringing missiles first.
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/05/691521600/russia-pulls-out-of...
Sensational out of context drive by sound bytes from the likes of Guardian, Fox News, Twitter and video gammer subreddits are not sources - they’re click bait.
Months and months of this nonsense now.
Do you really think Solovyov and Simonyan are broadcasting it without official approval?
Show me any actual authoritative source not from social or drive-by media pointing out where the official Russian position is some kind of first strike.
NATO in a certain way is based on that as well. If it fails a single test regarding article 5 after someone challenges it, it becomes instantly worthless.
The danger as I see it currently is that the West is tired of war and it’s an opportunity for Putin to challenge NATO. Attack a small village in a Baltic state. Are Americans and Germans and the British going to risk their lives for a small village in a Baltic country? I hope they would, but I realistically don’t see it. And that one non-response would make NATO worth less than the paper the agreement was printed on.
But somehow much of the world pretends not to notice and only does whatever is convenient at the moment (buy Russian oil/gas, do business in Russia, stay "neutral", etc). I find it incredibly depressing, I thought that surely in the 2020s our civilization would have progressed further.
Russia will play the slowly boiled frog game to their advantage — GPS jamming is just the beginning. We will likely soon see further small incursions, each one ever so slightly larger than the previous one. And we'll hear Mr Scholz say something about doing something, but we won't see him actually do anything. Mr Macron will use grand words and do nothing as well. Austria will "declare neutrality" (easy to do when you have other countries as buffers from the aggressor).
As someone currently living in the EU close to Ukraine, I find all this very sad.
I always wonder why people expect of others what they refuse to do themselves. Luckily though, this does not depress me, but rather amuses me to no end, especially when people try to justify their naughtiness with "facts".
> As someone currently living in the EU close to Ukraine, I find all this very sad.
Indeed, what a shame it is.
As the song goes:
>> You can't always get what you want
>> But if you do not try ever, well, you might find
>> You get what you deserve.
Something like that anyways, I'm just going by memory.
> I haven't the slightest idea what point you're trying to make
This human was criticizing other humans for "pretending", but they themselves are pretending (well, technically something more like engaging in ~hallucination, Naive Realism based cognition, Meme Magic, etc). They desire and recommend that others (the members of their various outgroups I suspect, purely coincidentally) think better, but if one was to ask them to do the same, they would assert that that is a false accusation / invalid request (because their thinking "is" without substantial flaw, ~"thinking perfectly is stupid, why are you suggesting it lol", not realizing that no such suggestion was made).
~All humans behave this way (I dare you to respond, so a demonstration can be made that proves my point (though it would be fairly pointless outside of having fun, at least at this point in time)), due to the conditioning we receive from birth, and every single day of our lives, all without our realization.
I was kinda making a joke, but it is a joke in at least two ways.
The US has made more than its fair share of policy missteps. But to try and argue that the actions of the US somehow “forced” Russia to invade its neighbor and former satellite state to rid it of “nazis” (Putin’s quote not mine) is absurd.
Hmm. I think there is not much point in discussing
That doesn't mean people don't care about the people though. Human suffering is always bad.