re: #54 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Tucker: Imagine if Mexico fell under the direct military control of China. We would see that as a threat. There would be no reason for that. That’s how Russia views NATO control of Ukraine and why wouldn’t they?

NATO = “direct military control” by a foreign power?

On the other hand, bucking NATO right up to Russia’s borders strikes me as unnecessary

NATO was a response to the Eastern Bloc, which was under direct military control of the USSR.

Just about everything wrong in this part of the world I blame on a massive mismanagement of the end of the cold war. It’s one of the things that put Bill Clinton in the “not as great as everyone thinks he is” category.

In order to keep Russia from pulling this horse shit which anyone should have seen coming from a light year away, Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, and Belarus should have been put in a mutual defense alliance independent from NATO and Russia. The Crimea should have just been given to Russia straight away in return for something because the only time it was Ukrainian land is while it was in the USSR when the Soviet government transferred it from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in the 50s.

A big sit down with all the nuclear powers on the number of Nukes the world would put up with should have happened as well. You can’t uninvent a weapon, but removing the ability for a maniacs temper tantrum to end all human civilization, while still retaining deterrence should have been a goal. Reducing warheads from 45k-ish on each side down to 5k-ish wasn’t enough. Just went from turning the Earth into a cinder 100 times over to 10 times over.