How do they know what the Russians expected?
Not a drop of information ever penetrates that vast expanse of concrete you call a consciousnss.
From your mouth to God's ear, but one point of information: The hand-picked Johns Hopkins prof running Afghanistan skedaddled well before we pulled out, taking our money with him.
Because I lived through the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan I think we should keep our troops out of this war. In those wars we were more interesting in fighting for the freedom of the South Vietnamese, the Iraqis, and the Afghans than they were in fighting for what we considered their freedom to be. This is a war for the Ukrainians to win or lose. I also lived through the Six Day War of 1967, and the Yom Kipper War of 1973. We supplied the Israelis with weapons, but they did the fighting, and won on their own.
Afghanistan 1980s.
I was there in Vietnam and covered both Iraq and Afghanistan in reporting and analysis. Putin is one of group of autocrats who only knows "total." Ukraine center isn't his first bite and he's been at war with the United States for nine years since he started trying to bring us to our knees (with much success) by meddling in our politics and being a big part of giving us the coupist Donald Trump and associates. This needs to be a NATO response and it needs to happen while NATO troops--not just U.S.--can, with permission, move into defensive positions in western Ukraine. Bringing Ukraine into NATO membership, for starters, will tell Putin he grossly miscalculated (if, in fact, he has. If the United States/NATO is going to confront him right here.)
how do you rate putin's nuclear threats made against any who "interfere" in his war on the Ukraine?
I agree, this guy has been around, ex KBG. Long term planner. He's been getting ready since 2014 for this. Now that he has started, I only see him stopping if NATO stands firm and fast now. I might go so far as state, a downed civilian aircraft from a NATO member country, or an errant rocket landing in any NATO member's country would be considered an attack on that NATO country.
Who knows? Putin's moving into the irrational. There's no real alternative, though, to going on belief/hope that there are those who would prevent him from pushing the button just as there were/are those in the United States who were in place to prevent Donald Trump from doing so. There's nothing to gain--only to lose--to knuckle under Putin's nuclear threat. I'd fold that into my "you've got a nut with a finger on a button to blow us all away" propaganda beamed at Russians on making Putin look over his shoulder for the internal dagger from one minute to the next.
Which country has the lowest?
If he shoots any, you shoot all your's back....only way to answer.
Gee, I'd hate to damage all those historical artistic and architectural treasures in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Just think how different things could be had Biden transferred all that military hardware left behind in Afghanistan to Ukraine. Stuff already bought and paid for.
R U fucking nuts!!! That would mess up John Kerry's climate change agenda, how would he deal with a nuclear winter!
