I think the unraveling of US imperialism is a result of China, and subsequently BRICS, outmaneuvering the entire Atlantic Empire. Trump is just overseeing it and giving it a spin. The empire was going to continue its decline regardless who was in office. The speed with which the empire is reconfiguring itself, though, could really only happen under Trump, as Harris would have been too status quo.

Don’t threaten me with a good time.

Then they said, “Oh God. The Germans were supposed to defeat those commies but now the commies are on track to win the entire war themselves!”

So they jumped in, fought less than 20% of the Nazis, got to Berlin long after the Russians liberated it, and then claimed that the US are the anti-fascist heroes after dropping nukes on hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians while in the middle of a negotiation with Japan.

I agree. I think there’s two considerations that could flip Russia.

1. Military exhaustion. If the US can create a viable strategic threat to Russia, Russia may choose junior partner status over war. I think this is unlikely given the USA’s performance in Ukraine, but I know these games are played at the intelligence level and the USA may still be able to show Russian intelligence some form of dangerous strategic threat either in domestic irregulars or to Russia’s interests in Africa and SE Asia.

2. Financial gain for a younger faction of Russian bourgeoisie. Euromaidan showed us that despite decades of anti-West sentiment and Western duplicity, there was still enough support in Ukraine for a Western reproachment. I imagine there is likely a faction in Russia that is similar. If the USA can offer junior imperial status to them, it might convince them to seize power. I think this unlikely due to the failure of Western sanctions but it’s possible that some of the younger and willing bourgeoisie are in fact hurting and that the older bourgeoisie are dominating the partnerships with China. These would be conditions that could cause such a realignment.

Yog, you think this is going to be reproachment to ask Russia if they want to join the club? I hope Russia is hardened against the possibility by previous betrayals, but I have been worried since 2016 that the move has always been getting Russia to turn against China.

My confirmation-biased logic tells me Russia and China are only getting closer and Russia is building more dependencies on China, but my gut has been saying for almost 10 years that the only move the USA has ever had was to get Russia to join them against China. Maybe what I was sensing wasn’t world historical movements but merely the unspoken ambition of the new guard, but I have to imagine that if I am picking up on that ambition, they must have some reason to believe it’s possible to enlist Russia.

Love how you think it’s Russia and China that made empty promises meanwhile the USA unilaterally pulled out of every nuclear treaty, direct NATO to bomb sovereign countries, pinky swore to Saddam that Saddam could take military action in Kuwait and then subsequently invaded him, work with Siemens to install wiretaps in every single ambassador’s phone literally all over the world, has a standing policy to invade the international court of justice if an American is ever on trial, is the largest drug trafficking operation in the world, actively engaged in torture programs by just moving prisoners to other nations and torturing them there, trains death squads and unleashes them on poor and indigenous communities in Latin America, and has dropped more bombs during “peacetime” than China has during its entire modern existence.

But yeah, it’s China and Russia who can’t be trusted.

spend 5% on defense or learn Russian

Smooth-brain take. Russia has neither the means nor the intention to invade, occupy, and Russify Europe. You are projecting English, Spanish, French, Dutch, and Portuguese crimes against humanity onto your ideological opponents.

Appeasement 2.0

It’s ridiculous that people like you think that Russia is the one being appeased. The USA is being appeased and has been since the end of WW2. The appeasement of the USA is appeasement 2.0 - from their atrocities in Vietnam, Laos, and Korea to their atrocities in the Pacific to their atrocities in “Latin America” to their atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, to their outright torture of people all over the world to their oppression of people at home to their having the highest rate of imprisonment in the world to their economic bullying of the poor all over the world to their collective punishment in Cuba, Venezuela, and many other places.

Everyone has been appeasing the USA.

Totally disingenuous understanding of what’s happening in this thread. There is no blind trust for the Russian government.

You have to understand one thing to unlock the perspective you need. It underpins both the reason MLs resist the official narrative of the empire and also why MLs accept certain narratives from other global actors. And that thing is an understanding of, and engagement with, history. It is our understanding of history that allows us to do readily understand when the empire is lying. It is also our understanding of history that allows us to readily understand when other states are saying something worth listening to. And it is our engagement with history that allows us to continue evaluating new statements from any sources.

In the case of Russia invading Ukraine, history is critical in understanding what’s going on. And the relevant history extends all the way back to Napoleon. Napoleon invaded Russia once. He fielded the French national military forces, along with some international forces, and marched literally all the way across Europe to invade Russia to enact discipline for Russia continuing to trade with England despite Napoleon declaring a unilateral universal blockade. It was on of the bloodiest campaigns in history and millions of Russians died.

Napoleon invaded Russia via the border that is Ukraine.

Another invasion killed millions of Russians, too. That was the Third Reich. They fielded their national military and they took marched across Europe to invade Russia. They also had international forces. They killed so many Russians.

The Third Reich invaded Russia via Ukraine.

The Ukraine border with Russia has been demonstrated to be impossible to secure without sacrificing millions of Russians lives. The solution, therefore, for Ukraine to be devoid of military threats against Russia - enough military to defend itself against European meddling, not so much that it could threaten millions of Russians lives.

We know this history. So when NATO does it’s first ever joint exercise with Ukraine in 2013, it raises a lot of eyebrows. NATO is a transnational nuclear military. It expands not by violence but by economic and political dominance. It is a standing army all over Europe but not controlled by European democracy. It has been demonstrated that NATO is controlled by the USA - again, a matter of history.

When Euromaidan happened in 2014, that was concerning to us because it was a movement that was aligned with European interests and explicitly a NATO-aligned movement. It got more worrying when we realized the US had top state actors on the ground including John McCain and Victoria Nuland. Russia choosing to annex Crimea was a clear message that Russia saw this particular movement as a threat, which we understand in the historical context of previous invasions.

After Euromaidan the NATO exercises got more numerous and more dangerous including flying B-52 nuclear-capable bombers in the region and simulating an invasion of Kaliningrad. Remember that military exercises and simulations are indistinguishable from real events until the last second when forces do not violate international law. That means the simulated invasion of Kaliningrad included the creation of supply chains and the mobilization of units and then moving them in formation to their target and turning away only when they reach the border.

This is a real and present danger to Russian security. If NATO establishes full capabilities in Ukraine, the only way for Russia to survive would be to lose millions of lives during an invasion over the border.

All of this comes from our understanding of history and our engagement with it to evaluate event and statements. So when Putin says NATO activity on Russia’s border is why he acted, we acknowledge the congruence with the historical reality. But when he says Ukraine should never have been granted independence, we understand the errors in reasoning while also acknowledging the strategic military perspective it comes from.

When Russia says they are de-nazifying Ukraine, we understand the historical context of why that statement can be made. But we are also materialists and we understand to what degree the statement is incongruous with reality and history.

This understanding and engagement with history is what liberals lack and it’s why those aligned with the empire can’t properly criticize the propaganda and it’s also why they are unequipprd to evaluate statements from other states, like Russia. It’s why counter-cultural liberals just blanket deny what empire says and then get confused why MLs are willing to support narratives that match Russian or Chinese talking points.

Unless you engage with history and dig in, your resistance to empire will always be shallow and your understanding of what the rest of the world is doing will be purely vibes based.

Nuclear war helps nobody. Hegseth doesn’t have an option here, nor does anyone in the West. They tried to push their nuclear capabilities to the last border and Russia stopped them. When the only further option is escalating towards nuclear war, then you really don’t have options. Hegseth, the media talking head that he is, has been tasked with communicating the reality on the ground, not making any real decisions here

Russia does not have the ability to invade Europe and everyone knows it except liberals in America

Do you understand what NATO is? It’s a transnational nuclear military without accountability to any populace, that was originally helmed by hand-picked Nazis to create an anti-Russian nuclear first-strike capability. Russia’s direct statement about invading Ukraine explicitly said that NATO activity on their border has become too threatening to ignore. The very first NATO exercise in Ukraine happened months before the Euromaidan coup and immediately after the coup NATO began war exercises including flying B-52s in the region and simulating an invasion of Kaliningrad.

As far as the USA not having rusted outdated weapons, I point you to the $1T project to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal that started with the sentinel system and immediately hit an 80% cost increase (https://www.wral.com/story/cost-of-modernizing-us-air-force-s-nuclear-missile-arsenal-increases-by-over-80/21516120/) and a timeline problem that puts the upgrade well beyond the service life of the current Minuteman system, which itself ran into failed test flights recently.

Not to mention the number of jets the US can’t keep in the air.

Not to mention the fact that Russia has destroyed effectively 3 full Ukrainian militaries, first the stuff Ukraine had, then the first wave of American and European armor, and then the second wave of American and European armor, all while increasing its active duty count and increasing its military production capabilities.

The reason Russia is threatening nuclear escalation is because the US and NATO are the standing nuclear threat and they continue to use the logic of escalation instead of deescalation and every analyst can see this. You could see it too if you stop reading the propaganda rags and actually build yourself an understanding.

LOL. The USA has been expanding nuclear first strike capabilities across Europe through NATO since the dissolution of the USSR. The USA designed NATO to counter the Russian military exactly, it staffed it with former Nazi officers who fought the Soviet military, and it expanded ever Eastward. And you think it was RUSSIA goading the USA into nuclear war? Are you fucking daft?

There was literally never any chance that Ukraine was going to cause the fall of the RF. That’s absolute cope. The USA, through NATO, was attempting to boil the frog (Russia) and Russia appeased the US for 20 years before reacting to Euromaidan by annexing Crimea. The US decided to call Russia’s bluff and continue developing NATO’s position in Ukraine for the subsequent 8 years and Russia warned and warned and finally attacked to disrupt the process. Russia successfully disrupted the process. The USA’s goal was to deploy it nuclear capabilities and requisite logistics to Russia’s most vulnerable border. Ukraine had no goals of harming Russia, only pleasing Western masters so they could be let into the imperialist club and their oligarchs could benefit economically and politically.

The greatest risks to Russia after they launched the SMO were 1) allocating too many forces to the front, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from the West in other locations, 2) exposing too much of their capabilities and capacities to Western intelligence, and 3) being unable to handle the activation of potential long-term sleeper cells cultivated by the West.

There was never a risk that Ukraine itself would collapse the RF.

According to that source, the USA has sent the most military aid with Europe sending primarily financial aid, which the Ukrainian government needed to pay its bills. It would be interesting to see how much of that European aid actually went directly to the US MIC

Trump wants to be king of a powerful and rich country. That will not happen unless he behaves strategically. The strategy we are seeing glimpses of looks very much like German Fascism with Information Age American Characteristics

The cost of living will always be lower in China compared to the West due to their organizing of society. Therefore, it will always cost less to use Chinese labor than to use Western labor (except prison slaves and migrant workers) because the US cannot reduce the cost of living effectively due to their underinvestment in infrastructure and their commitment to allowing profit to build sprawl that cannot be operated efficiently.

It was nukes that turned the hermit kingdom into a serious threat

Then we would expect North Korea to have very rudimentary military technology and the US to have godlike military technology. Instead what we see is news article lauding North Korean technology while the US is still running obsolete carriers, is behind on hypersonics, burning a trillion on a next Gen fighter that no one can fly, and has a nuclear program in massive disrepair

If Ukraine is even offered statehood in the US, Russia will obliterate Kiev

China only does things that lead to long-term stability and shipping fentanyl to the US is not one of those things. History shows us that the most likely culprits for drug running on the US is the CIA, who are entirely responsible for the crack epidemic, or the pharmaceutical industry, who are entirely responsible for the opioid epidemic.