Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Excellent article. Final paragraph:

"However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world's policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it's time to finish the job."



https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-winnable-war

---

In almost every detail, this is the opposite of the truth my own ideologically constructed worldview. America has been the chief violator of the international order, and it was our own lawless action in Iraq that helped convince Putin we couldn't be trusted.

---

FIFY there in bold.

If Putin was look at our efforts in Iraq as a business model, he'd have already gone home at the request of the Ukrainian parliament like we did when the Iraqi parliament asked us to leave.

---

We "left" eight years after the invasion, after numerous refusals to accept a timeline, and after engaging in armed combat with factions of the parliament we helped create. Ten years later, we were still refusing demands to withdraw once and for all:

Quote:

---

WASHINGTON -- The State Department said in a statement Friday that the U.S. will not hold discussions with Iraq regarding American troop withdrawal from the country.

"At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East," State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/state-department-tells-iraq-it-will-not-discuss-us-troop-withdrawal.html

---

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Excellent article. Final paragraph:

"However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world's policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it's time to finish the job."



https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-winnable-war

---

In almost every detail, this is the opposite of the truth my own ideologically constructed worldview. America has been the chief violator of the international order, and it was our own lawless action in Iraq that helped convince Putin we couldn't be trusted.

---

FIFY there in bold.

If Putin was look at our efforts in Iraq as a business model, he'd have already gone home at the request of the Ukrainian parliament like we did when the Iraqi parliament asked us to leave.

---

We "left" eight years after the invasion, after numerous refusals to accept a timeline, and after engaging in armed combat with factions of the parliament we helped create. Ten years later, we were still refusing demands to withdraw once and for all:

Quote:

---

WASHINGTON -- The State Department said in a statement Friday that the U.S. will not hold discussions with Iraq regarding American troop withdrawal from the country.

"At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East," State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/state-department-tells-iraq-it-will-not-discuss-us-troop-withdrawal.html

---

---

We left after a few years of hunting down face-card guys and then some terrorist groups, but had pacified the country well enough to have had several elections. Yes, the American people were of a "bring the boys home" mood, but there was no anti-war sentiment because, by the time in question, there was no war in Iraq in the classical sense. We were advising Iraqi forces on how to handle terrorist and sectarian violence, and our casualty rates had plummeted. (same cannot be said for Afghanistan, mind you.)

We left because the Iraqi parliament made a virtue posture to their own public sentiment in order to squeeze more money from us. As you said, we could have stayed, but Obama took the moment as justification to leave. But to your main point, there were no UN demands for our departure from Iraq. We entered Iraq with a coalition of 46 other nations, most of whom have pretty clean hands in the foreign policy realm. So you are creating quite a straw man here, using public diplomatic tit-for-tat as evidence of oppression that never was.

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Excellent article. Final paragraph:

"However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world's policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it's time to finish the job."



https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-winnable-war

---

In almost every detail, this is the opposite of the truth my own ideologically constructed worldview. America has been the chief violator of the international order, and it was our own lawless action in Iraq that helped convince Putin we couldn't be trusted.

---

FIFY there in bold.

If Putin was look at our efforts in Iraq as a business model, he'd have already gone home at the request of the Ukrainian parliament like we did when the Iraqi parliament asked us to leave.

---

We "left" eight years after the invasion, after numerous refusals to accept a timeline, and after engaging in armed combat with factions of the parliament we helped create. Ten years later, we were still refusing demands to withdraw once and for all:

Quote:

---

WASHINGTON -- The State Department said in a statement Friday that the U.S. will not hold discussions with Iraq regarding American troop withdrawal from the country.

"At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East," State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/state-department-tells-iraq-it-will-not-discuss-us-troop-withdrawal.html

---

---

We left after a few years of hunting down face-card guys and then some terrorist groups, but had pacified the country well enough to have had several elections. Yes, the American people were of a "bring the boys home" mood, but there was no anti-war sentiment because, by the time in question, there was no war in Iraq in the classical sense. We were advising Iraqi forces on how to handle terrorist and sectarian violence, and our casualty rates had plummeted. (same cannot be said for Afghanistan, mind you.)

We left because the Iraqi parliament made a virtue posture to their own public sentiment in order to squeeze more money from us. As you said, we could have stayed, but Obama took the moment as justification to leave. But to your main point, there were no UN demands for our departure from Iraq. We entered Iraq with a coalition of 46 other nations, most of whom have pretty clean hands in the foreign policy realm. So you are creating quite a straw man here, using public diplomatic tit-for-tat as evidence of oppression that never was.

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

---

There is no way US is giving up Guantanamo Bay. US has a lease with the rightful government at the time of signing. Even the Chinese honored the Hong Kong lease with GB. As long as the US makes the payment, it is a US base.

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

---

trey3216 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

---

To loosely quote Don Draper…."I don't think/feel about them (Cuba) at all."

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

---

There is no way US is giving up Guantanamo Bay. US has a lease with the rightful government at the time of signing. Even the Chinese honored the Hong Kong lease with GB. As long as the US makes the payment, it is a US base.

---

Let's ask another question.

Have you ever met a USA occupation, intervention, war, or international conflict that you did not like?

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

KaiBear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

Agree that the base is important.

However it is an obvious irritant to the Cuban people .
After all how would we like to see a foreign military base anywhere along the Texas coast ?

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

From whom? The mighty Haitian navy?

We have no peer competitors in the entire new world.

Some of you guess are so sacred you would invade any country anywhere on the mere whiff that it might one day be a "threat"

I bet you sleep with a gun under your bed and have six locks on your door

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

BRITISH INTEL SUMMARY: It is assessed that UKR offensive operations have, in some places, penetrated the first line(s) of Russian defenses. RU performance has been mixed: some RU units performing credibly, while others have retreated in disorder. pic.twitter.com/bu6hjVVomU

— Chuck Pfarrer | Indications & Warnings | (@ChuckPfarrer) June 10, 2023

KaiBear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico say 'hello' .

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico say 'hello' .

---

Not disregarding other locations. Just as valuable

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Excellent article. Final paragraph:

"However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world's policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it's time to finish the job."



https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-winnable-war

---

In almost every detail, this is the opposite of the truth my own ideologically constructed worldview. America has been the chief violator of the international order, and it was our own lawless action in Iraq that helped convince Putin we couldn't be trusted.

---

FIFY there in bold.

If Putin was look at our efforts in Iraq as a business model, he'd have already gone home at the request of the Ukrainian parliament like we did when the Iraqi parliament asked us to leave.

---

We "left" eight years after the invasion, after numerous refusals to accept a timeline, and after engaging in armed combat with factions of the parliament we helped create. Ten years later, we were still refusing demands to withdraw once and for all:

Quote:

---

WASHINGTON -- The State Department said in a statement Friday that the U.S. will not hold discussions with Iraq regarding American troop withdrawal from the country.

"At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership -- not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East," State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/10/state-department-tells-iraq-it-will-not-discuss-us-troop-withdrawal.html

---

---

We left after a few years of hunting down face-card guys and then some terrorist groups, but had pacified the country well enough to have had several elections. Yes, the American people were of a "bring the boys home" mood, but there was no anti-war sentiment because, by the time in question, there was no war in Iraq in the classical sense. We were advising Iraqi forces on how to handle terrorist and sectarian violence, and our casualty rates had plummeted. (same cannot be said for Afghanistan, mind you.)

We left because the Iraqi parliament made a virtue posture to their own public sentiment in order to squeeze more money from us. As you said, we could have stayed, but Obama took the moment as justification to leave. But to your main point, there were no UN demands for our departure from Iraq. We entered Iraq with a coalition of 46 other nations, most of whom have pretty clean hands in the foreign policy realm. So you are creating quite a straw man here, using public diplomatic tit-for-tat as evidence of oppression that never was.

---

We also left with Iran having de-facto control of large parts of Iraq's political system (a previous serious enemy of theirs)

So I guess after thousands of dead Americans, trillions of dollars spent, close to 1,000,000 dead Iraqis...that leaving the country as a semi-vassal of Iran is I guess some kind of strange victory?

https://theintercept.com/2023/03/17/iraq-war-iran-cables/
[A trove of secret intelligence cables obtained by The Intercept reveals Tehran's political gains in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.]

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/584356-how-worrisome-is-iranian-control-of-iraq-for-the-us/
[A case in point is that Iranian-controlled militias are attacking American bases in Iraq with impunity. It is evident that the Biden administration will not use military force to stop Iran's nuclear program. Iran's goal is to have a nuclear umbrella to make it invulnerable to attack, and to create a permanent Iranian proxy next door in Iraq ]

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

From whom? The mighty Haitian navy?

We have no peer competitors in the entire new world.

Some of you guess are so sacred you would invade any country anywhere on the mere whiff that it might one day be a "threat"

I bet you sleep with a gun under your bed and have six locks on your door

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britainwhich had remained neutralon a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoysnarrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have no hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America.

---

Ok, in the last 100 years.

Cuba is still communist, we didn't invade in 1961. We supported those that wanted to overthrow. Providing air cover was the issue. I think there were 4 planes to provide support when asked. I didn't see any Marine Expeditionary Forces on the Bay of Pigs... No occupying US troops were in Cuba since the Spanish American War. I don't consider this an invasion.

---

uh?

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

[Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Spanish: Base Naval de la Baha de Guantnamo), officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay or NSGB, (also called GTMO, pronounced Gitmo) is a United States military base located on 45 square miles of land and water on the shore of Guantnamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba.]


[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]


p.s.

Not to mention that if you don't consider USA funded rebels at the pay of pigs to be an "invasion" then you really can't call it an invasion when Russia funded Donbas rebels back in 2014

Iran funding militia groups in Iraq and Houthi rebels in Yemen would also not fall under the label of invasion either I guess.

Important I suppose to get these terms defined

---

I didn't. I called the 300,000 Russian troops pouring over the Ukrainian border an invasion.

4 vs 300,000 See the difference?

As for Guantanamo, we have a lease...

---

How do you feel about this?

[Since taking power, the Cuban communist government has consistently protested against the U.S. presence on Cuban soil, arguing that the base "was imposed on Cuba by force" and is "illegal under international law." ]

It's a minor issue for me but it certainly indicative of the fact that we are not afraid to use military force, fund rebels, occupy a party of, or even our right invade a state if we feel it is in our geo-political security interest.

---

To loosely quote Don Draper…."I don't think/feel about them (Cuba) at all."

---

Cool….then let's leave.

We have long out grown the need for a early 20th century coal refueling station in the Caribbean

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

Excellent article. Final paragraph:

"However improbably, what began as a challenge to the American-sponsored global system is causing a revival of it, something a Ukrainian victory would drive home with a vengeance. In Ukraine, the United States is not unilaterally imposing its will on other countries but leading a broad coalition to restore international order. It is not committing war crimes but preventing them. It is not acting as the world's policeman or as a global bully but as the arsenal of democracy. And it has been doing all this effectively and efficiently, without firing a gun or losing a single soldier. The effort to date has been a model of how to blend hard and soft power in a single strategy. Now it's time to finish the job."



https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-winnable-war

---

In almost every detail, this is the opposite of the truth my own ideologically constructed worldview. America has been the chief violator of the international order, and it was our own lawless action in Iraq that helped convince Putin we couldn't be trusted.

---

FIFY there in bold.

If Putin was look at our efforts in Iraq as a business model, he'd have already gone home at the request of the Ukrainian parliament like we did when the Iraqi parliament asked us to leave.

---

We fought in Iraq for almost 9 years.

And when we finally came home it was because the American people demanded it. Iraqi views were basically immaterial

Obama won a landslide election victory in 2008 on the promise of ending the Iraq war and bringing the troops home. And Trump literally blew away his GOP competitors by promising to get us out any more middle eastern quagmire wars (and on securing the border)

But if you are trying to make the argument that the current American political system is at least more representative than the Russian political system....well you will get no argument from me.

---

We are not in Ukraine? Why are you comparing occupying a Nation to provide support? We have no combat troops in Ukraine, I have not even seen advisors.

---

I did not even bring up Iraq....whiterock did.

I simply pointed out that it was the will of the American people and voters that forced D.C. to give up its obsession with long term occupation of Iraq.

And God bless the American people that they did or else we would still be losing young men and women there.

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

KaiBear said:

---

When the lease expires we should leave Cuba.

Not before .

---

Southern tip of Cuba is about as strategic as it gets in the Gulf. Protects our rear.

---

From whom? The mighty Haitian navy?

We have no peer competitors in the entire new world.

Some of you guess are so sacred you would invade any country anywhere on the mere whiff that it might one day be a "threat"

I bet you sleep with a gun under your bed and have six locks on your door

---

whiterock said:

---

Redbrickbear said:

---

FLBear5630 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

whiterock said:

---

S said:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

I am a power geopolitical type but disagree with the Kissinger/Mearsheimer argument on Nato's post-CW expansion into former WP nations. Yes, Russia is a great power, but no great power is entitled to a "sphere." They have to earn it one way or the other. Lithuania used to be a great power. Poland used to be a great power. Sweden, Austria/Hungary, etc.... Times change.

Russia fails over and over to keep up with the west. There is a reason for that. We should not coddle their incompetence and paleo-thinking by continually treating them as an equal. They want to be great, they need something more than nuclear weapons. An older NSA operative I served with in one capacity or another for most of my time abroad was a Russian specialist. He made a quote back during the Cold War that keeps getting proven true over and over again: "Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons."

Russia's like the guy who's muscle-bound from the waist up but never does a leg day.

---

I don't understand this kind of thinking, for several reasons. It implies that what Russia is doing would be fine if they just destroyed Ukraine more efficiently, which means all the moral and legal arguments against the invasion are irrelevant. It treats spheres of influence as a status symbol rather than a means to stability. But it's stability that is in our interest; opposing Russia just to put them in their place is petty and pointless. Russia bore the heaviest burden against Germany in WWII and was a party to the division of Europe following the war. This greatly weighs in favor of their inclusion in the club, if that's how you want to think of it. More important, it has implications for Russian security that can't be ignored following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Finally, Russia is one of the few European regimes or cultures that are now resisting wokeness and neo-Marxism.

---

Doesn't mean that at all. It's a corollary of the old adage: "...power cannot be given; it must be taken..." Affording Russia a sphere of influence it cannot support is what makes no sense....it is exactly what you go on to say - "...a status symbol..." which is not a means to stability at all. UKRAINE is already Russia's equal in many respects. Why not Ukraine as the stable influence in Eurasia? Russia is a third world country with nuclear weapons which does not deserve the degree of deference we have afforded to it. It cannot even handle the Donbas, fer crissakes. Time for Russia to come to terms with its situation and start making hard decisions on internal reforms. History of the last 500 years shows over and over that Russia has been poked in the nose and realized it is "behind the times." Time for them to grow up, or suffer the consequences of their backwardness.

---

This is circular reasoning. We intervene because they can't support their sphere of influence, but they could support it just fine if we didn't intervene.

---

We did not start our aid package until AFTER the Ukes stopped the initial Russian invasion. In other words, we were prepared to let Russia have it if they could take it. They couldn't. So here we are.

Nations in the shatterzone will calculate on when/if/how much to step outside traditional influence to see outside aid. And that outside aid will always calculate odds….assess risk…can the traditional power actually hold onto the area?
Russia can't.
They're going to lose.
This is good.
Makes no sense at all to help them consolidate anything when they are trying to disrupt us all over the world. A weak despotic power make be a useful if strange bedfellows in war against a common enemy, but it is no good partner in peace.

---

So it's not that they can't support their sphere of influence, it's that it "makes no sense" to let them. What are they doing to disrupt us all over the world?

---

a very long list of things you well know, to include supporting Iran, NK, allying with China, etc.... That's what the weak have to do - disrupt the existing order.

It indeed makes no sense to prop up an ostensibly great power which really isn't just to....what? To what end? By your logic, we should be helping Russia roll over Ukraine, just so...what? Satisfy romantic Russian visions of the way things should be? I mean, how can you look at what Russia did in Ukraine and make the case they are able to "control their sphere of influence?"

It is your thinking with makes no sense. A better case can be made for helping Ukraine become the dominant power in Eurasia.

---

Then if I understand you, Russia is only entitled to a sphere of influence if they can support it and if they don't act outside of it, even by maintaining informal "alliances" like the one with China.

How does that principle apply to us? If we choose to act in a distant region where Russia has an interest, like Syria for example, do we forfeit our right to security against threats near our own borders?

---

When was the last time we invaded Mexico or Canada?? 1850's? Even Cuba, we could have invaded several different times but didn't. You think Russia shows that restraint? Using your logic in Ukraine, it is all right for us to invade Mexico and create a buffer so we feel more comfortable.

The times we have gone into other Nations militarily Russia, China too for that matter, didn't think twice supporting our opponents. (See N Korea, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and others)

---

We invaded Mexico multiple times...including occupying their largest port at Veracruz in 1914

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

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/culture/the-tampico-affair-how-mexico-saw-the-us-1914-invasion/

Not to mention that one of the main reasons there is a Dominion of Canada today is the formerly independent provinces in upper and lower canada were terrified watching what the USA did to the Mexico in the 1840s and to its own Southern break away states in the 1860s. "The original Fathers of Confederation are those delegates who attended the conferences held at Charlottetown and Quebec in 1864 or in London, United Kingdom, in 1866, leading to Confederation". Not surprising that Canada joined together right as the war to the South of them was going on. For over 100 years the largest military concentration of British imperial troops outside of India (the jewel of the Empire) was in Canada...to guard against the military power of the United States.

[The calm didn't last long. In 1861, during the Civil War, the U.S. Navy arrested two Confederate diplomats traveling to Britain which had remained neutral on a British ship, the Trent. Both sides bristled, the governor general of Canada ordered troops to the border and the British accused the U.S. secretary of state of masterminding the whole affair as an excuse to invade Canadian territory. (Canadians had watched that "annexation" of Texas pretty closely.) Eventually, Lincoln decided that one war was enough for the moment and released the Confederate envoys-narrowly averting a military clash.]

And of course we not only were involve in Cuban internal politics since its independence from Spain (a war of independence we fought for them) but we staged in Bay of Pig invasion to help over throw the communist government of Cuba in 1961

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

We have not hesitated in project power in our local sphere of influence in North and South America when it was felt there was a need.

---

Speechless that you could make an equivalency here.
Did we ever invade Mexico to stay?
Did we annex Veracruz?

Are you not aware of the circumstances that tipped us into participation in WWI?
Ever heard of the Zimmerman telegram?
Doesn't that little tidbit put Veracruz into a different light?

---