We can only hope that Putin will fall one day.
There are a lot of states which are criminal enterprises, US included.
There is really no reason for a country like Danemark to bend to US .
When i buy a TV from you, you don't get the right to spy on my family. (i know samsung, google and other companies would dissagree)
Putin is a strongman that aside from keeping local "oligarchs" happy, has raised incredibly Russian's GDP and economy from when he got in power, and reverted the "sell everything to the highest foreign bidder" course that Yeltsin was praised for.
That's the problem with Putin, not his rule, that annoys the west - which is also why they never have a problem with allies that do the same or worse. Pinochet was celebrated by the west, and accomondated by the UK until his last days, for example. Ditto for rich journalist-killing oil heirs, and so on.
If anything, it's the opposite: the neighboring countries, Scandinavian or not, as used as a proxy pressure to Russia.
I also see a country where the legitimate, voted for, goverment was overthrown by "orange revolution" style riots led by bona-fied neonazis and celebrated/sponsored by foreign powers. It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population.
Or you could see a country fed up with Russia's influence/politics that chose a different direction.
>> It's also a country whose an area has 60% Russian ethnicity population.
Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan?
I would have seen that, if they haven't historically sized with Nazism, and the democratically elected government wasn't toppled by neonazis just now.
>Wtf is this supposed to mean? Should the US send an army of "patriots" and start a civil war in Tatarstan?
Does Tatarstan has some area with a large citizenry of American descent, and has an anti-American government that looks down on them have been established in the country? Was part of Tatarstan historically part of US too, for centuries even?
If so, they'd certainly be justified to do so, yes, especially in that area.
Then again, they they do it anyway, wherever they like, not in places they have actual borders with and a historical population of fellow ethnic Americans to protect, but 10s of thousands of miles away from their borders, where they have no history and no reason to be there, plundering and living hell-holes of civil war and destruction on their way out.
USA and other world powers honour treaties only when it serves them. If you think they would aid an ally in the time of need just look at how they honoured the Vienna treaty and helped Ukraine when it was invaded. Or how the UK abandoned Poland in 1939 (yes, they declared war on Germany and that was it).
Alliance/military treaties are worth as much as the piece of paper they are written on.
Swedish vikings were probably instrumental in founding the Russian state, and Peter the Great took much inspiration from Swedish administrative traditions when creating a new bureaucratic system, etc.
Then lately there's Crimea, Donetsk and probably Georgia. Of course it's nowhere near to what the US and some of its allies have been doing, but it's not nothing.
Still, the narrative that Finland, or even Central European countries should be worried is absurd.
We're not supposed to accuse people of being trolls, but: For someone I'm not supposed to accuse of being a troll, you sure do sound a lot like you just happen to be posting from one of Putin's troll factories.
(j/k)
How? It had never been part of Russia.
You should not wait to start being afraid when things have gone badly already. If the political problems are obvious, a more prudent approach might be more adviced.
I'm not an expert on Russia, but unstable? I can't really see that in the news cycle either. USA on the other hand have had massive riots for months and 25 000 national guard posted in the capital. The divisive politics that has accelerated with the Trump presidency where the different sides now view each others as (almost) enemies of the state, how are they going to pull themselves up from this? Seems very unstable.
look at Turkey, specifically about F35. they got cut off from it by the US on a whim. they spent a lot of money on the F35 probably, instead of investing in their own fighter program and now they got nothing.
Not really "on a whim." The implications/consequences of purchasing and using the S-400 were clear.
It was a clear choice made by Turkey and the decision cost the US much more than Turkey ever invested in the program anyways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/07/17/turkey-officially...