Ad 1. There's no paradox. Russia is a paper tiger that barely works. But it has nukes and enough conventional army to fuck up small countries in Eastern Europe.

Ad 1. There's no paradox. Russia is a paper tiger that barely works. But it has nukes and enough conventional army to fuck up small countries in Eastern Europe. Hence they seek NATO membership. The war isn't about USA, the war is about deciding whether Russia can again occupy about 100 000 000 people living there. Chomsky arguing against west involvement is enabling Russia. This isn't rocket science. If Baltic States didn't join NATO they would be gone by now. Poland would be likely fighting a war as we speak. Ad 2. I have a lot of people I respect tell me his linguistic ideas make some sense, but for me it's just wrong (see LLMs). It's not my specialty and it's his specialty so I usually resist the urge to speak about it. He doesn't seem to have any problems speaking about Eastern European politicis tho, without knowing much about it. I'd cry "colonialism" but that's cheap.