SCOTUS stops the election interference....cold!

So our current number and location of military installations is justified due to the previously expansionist Soviet Union and this need is demonstrated by the annexation of crimea?

What, do you believe, was it that caused this annexation?

 

I've understood it from commentators who know Russian things, that Putin wants the old communist state back again.
He is said to want to reverse the independence that each former state got when the USSR disintegrated and he'll try to do it one at a time.

When he annexed Crimea, I don't recall anything more than lip service from the 'West', about it being wrong.
I reckon through diplomatic back-channels, he knew there would be no Western resistance and so he ploughed ahead.

Even when he did this invasion, under the guise of it being a 'secret military operation', I don't recall much of substance being done by the 'West', though I expect that's largely because Ukraine isn't in NATO.
It was alluded to by POTUS, that if Putin affected (sic) just one inch of NATO soil, America/the West/NATO/Somebody (I don't recall who), would respond/hit back hard.

I doubt very much that he invaded due to American assets being where they are.

 

These military forces based by The US and its NATO allies along the pheriphery of Russia are Tripwire force - Wikipedia type forces.
Certainly, Russian stratigests and leaders understand this well.
However tripwire forces make great fodder for propaganda against opponents of Russian expansionism for the mouthpicies of the Regime.
Useful idiot - Wikipedia

 

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“Mouthpieces of the regime.” Yep. You got me. I’m right up there with Tucker Carlson. We hold weekly briefings about what our coordinated wording and talking points will be. Our life’s mission is to overthrow democracy and replace it with “literally hitler.”

 

Not lately. I much prefer have my tax dollars spent to send military equipment and munitions to various countries around the world so that they may use them to do my dirty work. It’s a win-win. I get a slight amount of plausible deniability while still “making the world safe for democracy”.

 

Once again, you post sources which support a particular narrative. So one day, for no reason except maniacal expansionism, Putin invaded crimea. Just like one day, for no reason except maniacal expansionism, hitler invaded Poland. So tidy and simple. The other side is a bunch of power-mad crazies, hell bent on destruction and (preferably) genocide. We are the sober, rational good guys complete with the white cowboy hats.

 

Because competing, biased, cherry-picked sources convince who?

I choose do discuss my and others’ own perspectives. If I wanted to be fed a narrative and bypass critical thought, I’d watch cnn or fox, etc..

 

With the exception of private financial ventures, cost-benefit analyses almost always favor the desired course of action of the analyst or the analyst’s benefactors.

 

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Because I’m more familiar with the USA. I’ve read more of our history and even lived some of it. The cause is always sold to us as a just cause and we buy it.

Far too often it turns out the cause was not so just, if it even existed at all. Similarly, as mentioned a while back, I’ve lived through various civilizational or world ending scares that always dominated our societal narrative until they changed or were replaced by the next one.

As to Putin or xi, I think you read too much into my words. I think of them no more favorably than I do our own leaders, with perhaps one exception: they appear to pursue policies that favor their own nation. Otherwise I consider them to be what they are; temporary kings of their respective hills who got there by any means fair or foul.

 

I’ve studied CBA and even done a few. When private money is on the line, the ROI needs to be clear. When public money or other public resources are involved a CBA can justify the indefensible.

 

In the context of what I was quoting, I was suggesting that weighing the good we’ve supposedly done in/for the world (vs our sins) would be akin to a CBA where the items measured, their weighting, and ultimate value would result in whatever the one doing such an analysis wanted the result to be.