re: West continues to inflame Russia situation

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jp4lsu

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Ronald Reagan just told me to tell you to frick right off.

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We buy oil from Russia Einstein and so did everyone else. If you take what they supply out of the world supply it makes everyone else’s price go up.

Supply and demand.

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You aren't taking what they supply out of the world supply, Einstein. You're just not buying what they supply, in favor of buying it from somewhere else, or better yet, producing it yourself. But democrats have systematically bottlenecked US production of oil, and halted altogether things like the Keystone Pipeline. Not to mention halting drilling in the gulf and elsewhere.

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Lets further isolate Russia and Putin and inflame the situation. Isolating Russia since the 90's is why are here. 

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It's alarming how we continually allow Russia to lose agency in all this. It's always the West at fault, but never Russia for annexing Crimea, or even invading Ukraine. It's always the West pushed them. And the reason why countries want to align with the West is that they don't trust the Russians, and don't want to be in their sphere of influence. You guys are repeating the same retarded talking points over and over. My god.

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It's always the West at fault, but never Russia for annexing Crimea, or even invading Ukraine. It's always the West pushed them. And the reason why countries want to align with the West is that they don't trust the Russians, and don't want to be in their sphere of influence.

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Did we undertake these actions expecting Putin to do nothing about it?

If I antagonize a dog, do I get to blame it for biting me?

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Did we undertake these actions expecting Putin to do nothing about it?

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I've asked this before. Has the US or NATO forced any of these countries to do anything against their will? Seems like a lot of people can't grasp the fact that a relatively small insignificant country might want to pursue the protections of being in NATO, especially when they are on Russia's doorstep. It's like you completely ignore the fact that Russia is at present killing people in that country.

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Did we undertake these actions expecting Putin to do nothing about it?

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Firstly, this started well before Putin. Secondly, the West did not know what type of government would appear post-USSR, and thus, according to defensive realist logic, moved to ensure a seemingly vanquished enemy could not threaten them again. This included taking in states that wanted to join the West specifically because of the threat they felt Russia still posed. Thirdly, Russia had cooperation agreements with NATO and even some joint exercises until Russia's invasion of Crimea. While Russia doesn't want to be encircled, the threat of invasion is not serious. This isn't the 1800s, and I don't believe Putin takes this seriously either, given numerous recent statements.

Finally, the logic here misunderstands the reality of the situation. Russia isn't the antagonized dog in this scenario. It has engaged in a pattern of extra-terroritorial activities, from assassinations to poisonings to heavy involvement in other illegal activites. The choice to keep Russia from integrating with the EU is as much the fault of the dominant political factions in Russia as it is anything the West has done. In hindsight, the Baltic States who were most concerned about Russia, which is why they sought NATO membership in the first place, proved prescient, and the people screaming about 2014 and NATO don't seem to hold Russia to any standard at all, insisting time after time that we've been isolating the Russians, which doesn't reflect the facts on the ground. The dominant political factions in Russia chose this route.

The one issue that I do agree with the Russians is that they thought that Bush's withdrawal from a key missile treaty in 2002 was an overt threat, which caused Putin to attempt to rebuild the domestic Russian defense industry. Otherwise, there's a lot of blame on NATO and remarkably little on Russia. Don't you think that's odd?

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Otherwise, there's a lot of blame on NATO and remarkably little on Russia. Don't you think that's odd?

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I appreciate the thoughtful and informed response. We (NATO) our responsible for our own actions. It doesn’t make sense for me to be angry at Russia for acting like Russia could be expected to act in the circumstances and absolve my own country for its role. I want us to have a strong defense. I don’t want us messing around in Eastern Europe unnecessarily.
If our actions there have somewhat predictably led to a situation where Russia’s interests are threatened in its own neighborhood, and even though Russia is 100% to blame for its own actions, doesn’t it make sense for me to be critical of our actions?

I could be like Kamala and say “dictators and invasions BAD, freedom GOOD”, but she’s doing a good job at that without me.

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SlowFlowPro

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stunning out in the open, self declared stupidity and absent any cogent thought... at all.

stunning really

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Take what? What’s Russia doing to Finland?

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I meant the Saber-rattling and the threats of consequences from Russia if the Finns joined NATO.

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What’s Russia doing to Finland?

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Send an army into Finland like they’ve done in every century since forever? Again be made a vassal state of a new Russian empire? Or a sympathetic neutral party to a new Soviet Union?

If the folks in Moscow have nostalgia for either the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire, the folks in Finland need to guard their freedoms.