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Well I think the benefit of containing the CCP empire is big enough to require NATO to still find a way forward with Russia. That’ll require a compromise around

Well I think the benefit of containing the CCP empire is big enough to require NATO to still find a way forward with Russia. That’ll require a compromise around Ukraine though.

jacquesm 1y ago
That would require Russia to move in a direction that it does not seem to be willing to move in. You can't have your officials with high regularity declare that you are going to annihilate all of the West just because you don't get to beat up your neighbor. You can't indiscriminately bomb, kill and abduct civilians and expect compromise. That's just not how this works. The EU, and Germany by way of Merkel in particular for the longest time believed in 'wandel durch handel'. It turns out that this was a massive mistake and in spite of the still lingering abberations (Orban, Fico) that seem to think that sucking up to the Russian mob is going to pay off for them in the long term the sentiment has changed quite dramatically from where it was five years ago. I don't think there is any high level EU politician that still believes that we are going to go back to 'the good old days', and that is in spite of the current course of the USA, which is best described as 'confused'. Just check out what Russia did in the last 24 hours to give you an idea of how far from any kind of compromise we are. I think escalation is more likely than de-escalation and that's not something I consider lightly. But Putin has dug himself into a very deep hole and he does not seem to have a way out other than to keep on digging, he's ignored each and every off-ramp offered so far thinking that they were offered out of weakness rather than out of an aversion to war. If Europe is ever forced to go - reluctantly - to war against Russia it will be because it saw no other way out. Until then we will keep arming Ukraine and we will continue to build up our defenses. Russia's main plan: to decapitate Ukrainian leadership and to use Ukrainians to continue its operation in the South has failed so utterly it is incredible, and yet, here we are. Whether Russia will still exist in one form or another in a decade is now something you can legitimately wonder about. All they had to do was absolutely nothing, and they'd be in a far stronger position today. Just live and let live. But that idea seems to be very hard for Russian leadership to entertain: that you can create together rather than that you can only expand at someone else's expense.
nradov 1y ago
China can be managed with a sustained policy of containment, just like we dealt with the old USSR. Call it Cold War 2.0.

Well I think the benefit of containing the CCP empire is big enough to require NATO to still find a way forward with Russia. That’ll require a compromise around Ukraine though.

jacquesm 1y ago

That would require Russia to move in a direction that it does not seem to be willing to move in. You can't have your officials with high regularity declare that you are going to annihilate all of the West just because you don't get to beat up your neighbor. You can't indiscriminately bomb, kill and abduct civilians and expect compromise. That's just not how this works. The EU, and Germany by way of Merkel in particular for the longest time believed in 'wandel durch handel'. It turns out that this was a massive mistake and in spite of the still lingering abberations (Orban, Fico) that seem to think that sucking up to the Russian mob is going to pay off for them in the long term the sentiment has changed quite dramatically from where it was five years ago. I don't think there is any high level EU politician that still believes that we are going to go back to 'the good old days', and that is in spite of the current course of the USA, which is best described as 'confused'. Just check out what Russia did in the last 24 hours to give you an idea of how far from any kind of compromise we are. I think escalation is more likely than de-escalation and that's not something I consider lightly. But Putin has dug himself into a very deep hole and he does not seem to have a way out other than to keep on digging, he's ignored each and every off-ramp offered so far thinking that they were offered out of weakness rather than out of an aversion to war. If Europe is ever forced to go - reluctantly - to war against Russia it will be because it saw no other way out. Until then we will keep arming Ukraine and we will continue to build up our defenses. Russia's main plan: to decapitate Ukrainian leadership and to use Ukrainians to continue its operation in the South has failed so utterly it is incredible, and yet, here we are. Whether Russia will still exist in one form or another in a decade is now something you can legitimately wonder about. All they had to do was absolutely nothing, and they'd be in a far stronger position today. Just live and let live. But that idea seems to be very hard for Russian leadership to entertain: that you can create together rather than that you can only expand at someone else's expense.

nradov 1y ago

China can be managed with a sustained policy of containment, just like we dealt with the old USSR. Call it Cold War 2.0.