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Putin Has the U.S. Right Where He Wants It (NYT Guest Essay)

Putin Has the U.S. Right Where He Wants It https://nyti.ms/3...
Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug
  01/24/22
This is why it's important to smack Putin across the face an...
costumed school
  01/24/22
what kind do "smack" should the U.S. preemptively ...
Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug
  01/24/22
Once Russia invades Ukraine, I would bomb Putin's palace. T...
costumed school
  01/24/22
do you think we should do this now before there's any physic...
Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug
  01/24/22
I think we should threaten to do it, then do it immediately ...
costumed school
  01/24/22
...
Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug
  01/24/22
Fiona Hill is part of the machinery that has been pushing fo...
Hyperactive Library
  01/24/22
>If Russia presses hard enough, Mr. Putin hopes he can st...
Passionate cuckold
  01/24/22
is there any doubt that Putin is in the driver's seat, and w...
Yapping stimulating property
  01/24/22
We might as well cede U.S. territory to him right now.
Passionate cuckold
  01/24/22
to be fair, if Trump were more like Vlad, we would be a grea...
Yapping stimulating property
  01/24/22
"A global response" seems to always mean committin...
Anal amber hell
  01/24/22
And the 10% of troops from other countries is always like Hq...
Passionate cuckold
  01/24/22
u do not want to be in a foxhole with somebody who is gonna ...
Yapping stimulating property
  01/24/22
Fiona Hill? Seriously? She is a Brit who helped Vindman run ...
marvelous insane pit therapy
  01/24/22
Lawmakers are particularly interested in that statement. The...
marvelous insane pit therapy
  01/24/22
So we can safely assume the opposite of every statement in t...
hyperventilating crystalline site
  01/24/22
i guess having positions like this in government inevitably ...
Burgundy meetinghouse tattoo
  01/24/22
she's not wrong about Putin's plans and abilities
Judgmental business firm
  01/24/22
what should the U.S. do?
Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug
  01/24/22
she seems pretty stupid
curious cobalt mexican private investor
  01/24/22
what is your recommendation to the U.S. moving forward? Than...
Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug
  01/24/22
we should have put 50k NATO troops in the Baltics if we were...
curious cobalt mexican private investor
  01/24/22
The Czar is king of kings. All will bend knee or die.
Sadistic aquamarine theatre
  01/24/22
All of these need an intro that describes exactly who these ...
Impertinent Turquoise Jap Police Squad
  01/24/22
same with your posts
curious cobalt mexican private investor
  01/24/22
Everyone here knows who I am though.
Impertinent Turquoise Jap Police Squad
  01/24/22
Fiona Hill is a foreign agent bent on destroying the USA.
marvelous insane pit therapy
  01/24/22
Early Life?
bearded disrespectful hunting ground kitchen
  01/24/22
This sounds great.
exhilarant theater selfie
  01/24/22


Poast new message in this thread



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Date: January 24th, 2022 10:52 AM
Author: Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug

Putin Has the U.S. Right Where He Wants It https://nyti.ms/3IsUGig

By Fiona Hill

Ms. Hill was an intelligence officer on Russia and Eurasian affairs for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and served on the National Security Council under President Donald Trump.

We knew this was coming.

“George, you have to understand that Ukraine is not even a country. Part of its territory is in Eastern Europe and the greater part was given to us.” These were the ominous words of President Vladimir Putin of Russia to President George W. Bush in Bucharest, Romania, at a NATO summit in April 2008.

Mr. Putin was furious: NATO had just announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually join the alliance. This was a compromise formula to allay concerns of our European allies — an explicit promise to join the bloc, but no specific timeline for membership.

At the time, I was the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, part of a team briefing Mr. Bush. We warned him that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action. But ultimately, our warnings weren’t heeded.

Within four months, in August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. Ukraine got Russia’s message loud and clear. It backpedaled on NATO membership for the next several years. But in 2014, Ukraine wanted to sign an association agreement with the European Union, thinking this might be a safer route to the West. Moscow struck again, accusing Ukraine of seeking a back door to NATO, annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and starting an ongoing proxy war in Ukraine’s southeastern Donbas region. The West’s muted reactions to both the 2008 and 2014 invasions emboldened Mr. Putin.

This time, Mr. Putin’s aim is bigger than closing NATO’s “open door” to Ukraine and taking more territory — he wants to evict the United States from Europe. As he might put it: “Goodbye America. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

As I have seen over two decades of observing Mr. Putin, and analyzing his moves, his actions are purposeful and his choice of this moment to throw down the gauntlet in Ukraine and Europe is very intentional. He has a personal obsession with history and anniversaries. December 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when Russia lost its dominant position in Europe. Mr. Putin wants to give the United States a taste of the same bitter medicine Russia had to swallow in the 1990s. He believes that the United States is currently in the same predicament as Russia was after the Soviet collapse: grievously weakened at home and in retreat abroad. He also thinks NATO is nothing more than an extension of the United States. Russian officials and commentators routinely deny any agency or independent strategic thought to other NATO members. So, when it comes to the alliance, all Moscow’s moves are directed against Washington.

In the 1990s, the United States and NATO forced Russia to withdraw the remnants of the Soviet military from their bases in Eastern Europe, Germany and the Baltic States. Mr. Putin wants the United States to suffer in a similar way. From Russia’s perspective, America’s domestic travails after four years of President Donald Trump’s disastrous presidency, as well as the rifts he created with U.S. allies and then America’s precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, signal weakness. If Russia presses hard enough, Mr. Putin hopes he can strike a new security deal with NATO and Europe to avoid an open-ended conflict, and then it will be America’s turn to leave, taking its troops and missiles with it.

Ukraine is both Russia’s target and a source of leverage against the United States. Over the last several months Mr. Putin has bogged the Biden administration down in endless tactical games that put the United States on the defensive. Russia moves forces to Ukraine’s borders, launches war games and ramps up the visceral commentary. In recent official documents, it demanded ironclad guarantees that Ukraine (and other former republics of the U.S.S.R.) will never become members of NATO, that NATO pull back from positions taken after 1997, and also that America withdraw its own forces and weapons, including its nuclear missiles. Russian representatives assert that Moscow doesn’t “need peace at any cost” in Europe. Some Russian politicians even suggest the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against NATO targets to make sure that we know they are serious, and that we should meet Moscow’s demands.

For weeks, American officials have huddled to make sense of the official documents with Russia’s demands and the contradictory commentary, pondered how to deter Mr. Putin in Ukraine and scrambled to talk on his timeline.

All the while, Mr. Putin and his proxies have ratcheted up their statements. Kremlin officials have not just challenged the legitimacy of America’s position in Europe, they have raised questions about America’s bases in Japan and its role in the Asia-Pacific region. They have also intimated that they may ship hypersonic missiles to America’s back door in Cuba and Venezuela to revive what the Russians call the Caribbean Crisis of the 1960s.

Mr. Putin is a master of coercive inducement. He manufactures a crisis in such a way that he can win no matter what anyone else does. Threats and promises are essentially one and the same. Mr. Putin can invade Ukraine yet again, or he can leave things where they are and just consolidate the territory Russia effectively controls in Crimea and Donbas. He can stir up trouble in Japan and send hypersonic missiles to Cuba and Venezuela, or not, if things go his way in Europe.

Mr. Putin plays a longer, strategic game and knows how to prevail in the tactical scrum. He has the United States right where he wants it. His posturing and threats have set the agenda in European security debates, and have drawn our full attention. Unlike President Biden, Mr. Putin doesn’t have to worry about midterm elections or pushback from his own party or the opposition. Mr. Putin has no concerns about bad press or poor poll ratings. He isn’t part of a political party and he has crushed the Russian opposition. The Kremlin has largely silenced the local, independent press. Mr. Putin is up for re-election in 2024, but his only viable opponent, Aleksei Navalny, is locked in a penal colony outside of Moscow.

So Mr. Putin can act as he chooses, when he chooses. Barring ill health, the United States will have to contend with him for years to come. Right now, all signs indicate that Mr. Putin will lock the U.S. into an endless tactical game, take more chunks out of Ukraine and exploit all the frictions and fractures in NATO and the European Union. Getting out of the current crisis requires acting, not reacting. The United States needs to shape the diplomatic response and engage Russia on the West’s terms, not just Moscow’s.

To be sure, Russia does have some legitimate security concerns, and European security arrangements could certainly do with fresh thinking and refurbishment after 30 years. There is plenty for Washington and Moscow to discuss on the conventional and nuclear forces as well as in the cyber domain and on other fronts. But a further Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraine’s dismemberment and neutralization cannot be an issue for U.S.-Russian negotiation nor a line item in European security. Ultimately, the United States needs to show Mr. Putin that he will face global resistance and Mr. Putin’s aggression will put Russia’s political and economic relationships at risk far beyond Europe.

Contrary to Mr. Putin’s premise in 2008 that Ukraine is “not a real country,” Ukraine has been a full-fledged member of the United Nations since 1991. Another Russian assault would challenge the entire U.N. system and imperil the arrangements that have guaranteed member states’ sovereignty since World War II — akin to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990, but on an even bigger scale. The United States and its allies, and Ukraine itself, should take this issue to the United Nations and put it before the General Assembly as well as the Security Council. Even if Russia blocks a resolution, the future of Ukraine merits a global response. The United States should also raise concerns in other regional institutions. Why is Russia trying to take its disputes in Europe to Asia and the Western Hemisphere? What does Ukraine have to do with Japan, or Cuba and Venezuela?

Mr. Biden has promised that Russia “will pay a heavy price” if any Russian troops cross Ukraine’s borders. If Mr. Putin invades Ukraine with no punitive action from the West and the rest of the international community, beyond financial sanctions, then he will have set a precedent for future action by other countries. Mr. Putin has already factored additional U.S. financial sanctions into his calculations. But he assumes that some NATO allies will be reluctant to follow suit on these sanctions and other countries will look the other way. U.N. censure, widespread and vocal international opposition, and countries outside Europe taking action to pull back on their relations with Russia might give him pause. Forging a united front with its European allies and rallying broader support should be America’s longer game. Otherwise this saga could indeed mark the beginning of the end of America’s military presence in Europe.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837548)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 10:55 AM
Author: costumed school

This is why it's important to smack Putin across the face and be done with it, but POTUS is a pussy, so we keep doing nothing serious.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837561)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:01 AM
Author: Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug

what kind do "smack" should the U.S. preemptively do?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837606)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:14 AM
Author: costumed school

Once Russia invades Ukraine, I would bomb Putin's palace. Tell him he has 1 hr to withdraw troops or we'll blow up another $1B of his assets for every hour of the conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin%27s_Palace

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837667)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:37 AM
Author: Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug

do you think we should do this now before there's any physical invasion of Ukraine?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837873)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 12:07 PM
Author: costumed school

I think we should threaten to do it, then do it immediately after he invades. He's a gangster, he only understands violence and force. We keep trying diplomacy and failing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838164)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 1:16 PM
Author: Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838754)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:00 AM
Author: Hyperactive Library

Fiona Hill is part of the machinery that has been pushing for this and lost their mind when Trump derailed their plans

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837603)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:11 AM
Author: Passionate cuckold

>If Russia presses hard enough, Mr. Putin hopes he can strike a new security deal with NATO and Europe to avoid an open-ended conflict, and then it will be America’s turn to leave, taking its troops and missiles with it.

And why exactly would it be bad from the US perspective to withdraw its troops?

>Right now, all signs indicate that Mr. Putin will lock the U.S. into an endless tactical game, take more chunks out of Ukraine and exploit all the frictions and fractures in NATO and the European Union.

Putin cannot 'lock the U.S. into an endless tactical game' if the U.S. declines to engage.

>Getting out of the current crisis requires acting, not reacting.

Very Bush-ian comment.

>Another Russian assault would challenge the entire U.N. system and imperil the arrangements that have guaranteed member states’ sovereignty since World War II — akin to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990, but on an even bigger scale. The United States and its allies, and Ukraine itself, should take this issue to the United Nations and put it before the General Assembly as well as the Security Council. Even if Russia blocks a resolution, the future of Ukraine merits a global response.

A global response sounds good. There are 29 other countries in NATO besides the U.S. They can send their troops and we'll read the reports.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837647)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:12 AM
Author: Yapping stimulating property

is there any doubt that Putin is in the driver's seat, and will soon dictate terms??

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837656)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:14 AM
Author: Passionate cuckold

We might as well cede U.S. territory to him right now.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837665)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:48 AM
Author: Yapping stimulating property

to be fair, if Trump were more like Vlad, we would be a great country again

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837963)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:45 AM
Author: Anal amber hell

"A global response" seems to always mean committing a force comprised of 90%+ US troops and equipment.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837944)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:50 AM
Author: Passionate cuckold

And the 10% of troops from other countries is always like Hq comms or something.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837986)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:52 AM
Author: Yapping stimulating property

u do not want to be in a foxhole with somebody who is gonna run or surrender, let them man the mess tent

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837996)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:13 AM
Author: marvelous insane pit therapy

Fiona Hill? Seriously? She is a Brit who helped Vindman run his special ops in the State Department. And I think there is a second scandal about her. It might be Russia Collusion Gate.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837657)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:18 AM
Author: marvelous insane pit therapy

Lawmakers are particularly interested in that statement. The Danchenko indictment states that Hill introduced Danchenko both to Steele and to an unnamed public relations executive, since identified as Charles Dolan Jr., a Hillary Clinton ally. Republican members of the House Permanent Select Committee are questioning whether Hill could have had “no knowledge whatsoever” of how the dossier was developed when she had a central role in connecting those key players. RealClearInvestigations was unable to reach Hill through her former attorney.



(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837696)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 10:29 PM
Author: hyperventilating crystalline site

So we can safely assume the opposite of every statement in that piece is true.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43842133)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:21 AM
Author: Burgundy meetinghouse tattoo

i guess having positions like this in government inevitably means you hire morons like this to fill them.

a sane "intelligence officer on Russia and Eurasian affairs" would just keep sending up notes saying "ukraine, who gives a fuck?" which obviously can't happen

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837708)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:42 AM
Author: Judgmental business firm

she's not wrong about Putin's plans and abilities

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837919)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:43 AM
Author: Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug

what should the U.S. do?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837927)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:49 AM
Author: curious cobalt mexican private investor

she seems pretty stupid

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837977)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:51 AM
Author: Abusive stubborn messiness antidepressant drug

what is your recommendation to the U.S. moving forward? Thanks.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43837992)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:55 AM
Author: curious cobalt mexican private investor

we should have put 50k NATO troops in the Baltics if we were serious about Ukraine, but we are not serious about Ukraine and I’m not even sure we are serious about NATO

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838022)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 11:53 AM
Author: Sadistic aquamarine theatre

The Czar is king of kings. All will bend knee or die.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838009)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 12:08 PM
Author: Impertinent Turquoise Jap Police Squad

All of these need an intro that describes exactly who these people are so you can understand what they're pushing for.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838172)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 12:59 PM
Author: curious cobalt mexican private investor

same with your posts

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838605)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 1:02 PM
Author: Impertinent Turquoise Jap Police Squad

Everyone here knows who I am though.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838630)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 1:07 PM
Author: marvelous insane pit therapy

Fiona Hill is a foreign agent bent on destroying the USA.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838675)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 1:16 PM
Author: bearded disrespectful hunting ground kitchen

Early Life?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43838751)



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Date: January 24th, 2022 10:22 PM
Author: exhilarant theater selfie

This sounds great.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5015391&forum_id=2#43842095)