[Raion]

It's definitely a phenomenon on that since the 1970s the ability of the United States to handle foreign policy has gone down the tubes.

This is aided by number of factors. We are a mostly monolingual nation and as a culture we are more concerned with ourselves than others and that leads to a degree of ignorance on the world stage.

In another life with my talent with languages and understanding other cultures I would have probably chosen to be a politician. I read a story years ago about how people used to make fun of Emperor Taisho thinking he was stupid but when a French diplomat came to talk with him he addressed the diplomat in near perfect French having learned French German and Russian during his younger years.

As somebody of Southern European heritage, I advocate constantly for adding Spanish to legal status in the United States and requiring all laws and some of the media be translated into Spanish. I wouldn't particularly freak out if French, Chinese and Japanese were added either, but I can't speak a lick of French despite taking 3 years of it.

[lunatic]

The 21st century in general has been a long and terrible lesson in chickens coming home to roost.

don't tell me you are now tired of winning.

What.

Just as a descriptive statement: there is surprising continuity in terms of US foreign relations. There is generally a cycle of isolation vs. expansion with another war thrown in every few years. All political decisions seem to be evaluated based on short term consequences. Unfortunately, many life challenges combine positive short term consequences with negative long term consequences. Your former president, irrespective of his political view points, was one the greatest political salesmen ever. He described the American fantasy very well that it might be possible to always win (short term).

[vishnu]

The likelihood that humankind has very much of a future remaining is very small. Brandon Carter's anthropic principle doomsday argument:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument

[Shiunbird]

Well, at the end of the day, when we don't follow our principles, it comes back to us.

When it comes to International relations, or... anything in life really, keeping your way right instead of focusing on the outcomes tend to give better results. Focusing on short-term gains tends to be short-sighted and damages one's moral authority.

The same thing with Germans and the gas. They used their WWII culpability as an excuse to be soft on Russia, when the real reason was, of course, money. Now here we are.

I'm not sure about Russia not existing in the long term being a good idea. The replacement may be even worse.

[vishnu]

I don't think anyone has an issue with Russia, or, more to the point, the Russian people, the problem is with their so-called leadership. If Beria was still around he'd be filling Putin up with warfarin right about now.

[Irinikus]

I don’t have anything against the American people, but in truth, the US military forces have brought about more deaths of civilians (in conflicts outside their boarders) than any other force since World War II, by a couple of “orders of magnitude”! When accusing world leaders of war crimes (crimes against humanity), what about: Clinton, Bush and Obama???, why aren't they included on this list???

Whenever the US’s financial system is in a state of decline, as it clearly is at the moment, they start a war! “War is the health of the State!”

I don’t agree with this conflict at all, but it was provoked! (By forces outside the Ukraine (and take a guess as to who they are)? The premise for this current conflict was set as far back as 2008!)

And now it seems as though the “West”, lead mainly by the US, is hell-bent on having a military conflict with Russia.

If they're successful in this, it will be World War III, and it will probably go Nuclear (just remember that "Nuclear" doesn't necessarily mean "conventional Nuclear", but could include the likes of Neutron bombs or EMP weapons, which are potentially more effective killers than "conventional Nukes", leaving the masses dead with the infrastructure, and thus re-usable resources intact)!!! (Observe Russia's doctrine regarding the requirements for the use of "Nuclear Force"!) Europe has far more to loose here, as they're right next door!!! (Luckily I'm sitting in the Southern Hemisphere, in a small country of little to no strategic significance, and the Coriolis Force exists!)

Russia is not Afghanistan (remember that they have more than 6000 Nuclear Weapons, all pointing in your direction!!!), and just look at what recently happened there after 20 years of conflict! That exit was absolutely embarrassing!!!

This conflict is not about the Ukraine, it’s a war over the new global financial order! (Regardless of the propaganda they're trying to sell you!!!)

[Raion]

Irinikus I absolutely agree with you that the United States took it upon itself without asking anybody else in the world to become the World Police. Though I absolutely should remind you that it was being egged on by the British government, the West German Republic, and the French. The United States has spent money and time fighting wars for the last 70 years so that the rest of the world could sit on its laurels without having to spend as much in defense. This is true. Imagine a North Atlantic treaty organization without the United States bolstering everybody. There would have been no money left over for universal healthcare or social justice reforms.

With all that out of the way you've always kind of stated some really fringe and controversial opinions here and I don't have a problem with it. I think that just like everybody else in the world you're trying to make sense of a very conflict driven society that we have been thrust into in our lifetime and I'm not going to sit there and piss in your Cheerios because I have a different life experience.

However I disagree with you regarding Russia and the United States motives. If you go back to the 1930s the Soviet doctrine has always been to assimilate and pacify the Ukrainian people or wipe them out. The holodomor was an engineered famine designed to crush any future Ukrainian rebellion and it killed more than 3 million people and caused a birth deficit of nearly 9 million over the next several decades. It broke the spirit of the Ukrainian people and so that combined with things like Chernobyl and other mistreatment at the hands of the Soviet Union is exactly why they have been so defiant to the Russians. The only people who like Russia there are either ethnic Russians with Russian sympathies and nostalgia for the Soviet Union, or those who have been paid to lick Vladimir Putin's balls for the last 30 years.

I'm sorry to be vulgar but hey since everybody else is pulling out all the stops I figured why not. I got an hour left at work and there's nothing left going on here. I'm not interested in demonizing the Russian people but as a country their culture has long been revolving around expansionism and interventionism and terrorism. This stretches back to the Russian Empire with them funding Korean terrorism in Japan and occupied Korea. These people don't give a flying shit about what is right.

And what frustrates me more than any of this is that Deutschland, one of the few countries that had one leg in the Warsaw pact and one in NATO should know absolutely what it means to be under the belt of Russia and should have more empathy than anybody else for what the ukrainians are going through. But what do they do? They're too busy buying Russian natural gas because their environmental radicals in charge of part of the coalition government have their heads shoved so far up their butts that they don't realize that they are just as likely to be hit. You think Russia's going to stop at ukraine? They absolutely want to assimilate the Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians, Finns and every other country that stands between them and Berlin. I agree with those who said what are they going to send to the Ukraine next, blankets? I've kind of kept my mouth shut because I've said things about German people that have upset people here and I'm going to clarify right now that I'm not here to go on some type of anti-german tirade but that's exactly how I feel looking at it from the outside.

My grandparents and great-grandparents were nearly murdered thanks to a Soviet Union funded revolution in one of the most promising multiethnic Latin American nations. Now that same nation quarantined gay and HIV positive people and experimented on them. Now that same nation got so famished during the 1990s that my cousins were literally forced to save Toronja peels and make them into schnitzel. And the sickest part about it is that there are millions of people in the United States who are ready to lick the balls of those murderers and wear them on t-shirts and graffiti them everywhere.

The world is quite messed up right now and I am so sorry that everybody here has to be part of it. But we're all in this together, and we're either going to get through it together or we're all going to perish together. And frankly if our ancestors fought against one of the most disgusting people that was ready to kill one of the most vulnerable ethnic groups in the world and conquer all of Europe all doing it we better be ready to do it again. The only reason that I'm not going over to fight for Ukraine is that I would be a liability and I realize that. Yeah I know a hell of a lot about firearms and I can pick up language but I don't speak fluent Ukrainian, I've never spent a day in my life in any type of boot camp and I would absolutely be a liability. As would each and every one of us here considering we're all computer nerds.

The takeaway from this is that we don't need to use this thread as a petty bickering part and I'm proud of everyone for not being completely uncivil. Carry on guys and let's try to cheer on the brave Ukrainian people who are continuing to resist in spite of Russian gains in the south and east.

To our Russian users I hope you are staying safe and have not been forced to join the conflict. To any of the Ukrainian or other nearby people stay safe and I hope you and your family are not suffering because of this.