> ... encircle China and force them into peaceful deescalation.
While you have used the word "peaceful" I suspect a Chinese planner, if by some strange path they read your comment, would start preparing for wild escalations. Because it looks like the strategy is to wait for a moment of weakness then invade.
That doesn't sound like a path to peace.
This nuclear hostage holding he's doing has generated a lot of ire. It just can't be tolerated and I don't think it will.
As a fellow American, I encourage you to reassess your comment and consider if it may be guilty of American exceptionalism. I'm particularly confused by the grouping of "Greco-Roman ideals" since Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece were quite different in political structure and philosophy. For the former, Rome definitely wasn't a democracy at times [1], [2], [3]. Even during the Republic, I'm not sure it resembled a democracy as we know it today, but I'll leave it to someone more knowledgeable to answer [4].
Under the assumption, however, that "western civilization" is some unified blob of Enlightenment era thought, you must agree that there has been resistance to such ideas in the US [5].
Such arguments by vagueness remind me of Bezos's management style, which purportedly penalizes such communication approaches: "PowerPoint had become a tool for disguising fuzzy thinking" [6].
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Kingdom
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principate
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominate
[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_of_the_Roman_Republic
[5] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_Americ...
[6] - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/what-je...
I am not sure they exist right now. Nobody else is threatening nuclear war, while invading a peaceful neighbouring country, slaughtering civilians.
And while you are busy doing that, your country is killing civilians by the thousands, turning cities into rubble, explicitly and undeniably targeting civilians, to get Ukraine to stop fighting the invasion.
Your glorius leader is Vladimir Putin - and from the looks of it - you have the leader you want and deserve.
Please enjoy the consequences.
In west you are accusing Russian people of being victims of propaganda, brain washed and controlled by Putin. I have access to media that represents either points of view on conflict. Have you?
> Install anyone else that's not insane, say Navalny.
Well, we definitely couldn't install anyone. We'd have to administrate an open election.
> I read they have 50% of their total combat brigades in Ukraine now.
This is a pretty antiquated assessment of military power. Boots on the ground show only that Russia wants to take Ukraine rather than completely destroy it. They can level the entire country with tactical nukes if they want.
> Installing a leader that is open to integrating with the west, along with India, we could encircle China and force them into peaceful deescalation.
I think it's more likely that we'd make China very dangerous and hostile, and we'd also re-open the world to the possibility of foreign regime change.
If we can decapitate Russia, why couldn't someone say, "Hey, this Biden guy stole the election, we should murder him for the good of the American people!"
Biden didn't steal the election, but I think you see where I'm going with it.
Unfortunately, it seems that the "wild west" behavior of the USA in South America, in the wake of the brutal Spanish conquest long ago, made some enemies (that have oil) that are not easy to talk to now.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42527868-oil-power-and-w...
This is Biden too. Literally can unilaterally start a nuclear war.
So what? What does that have to do with anything?
Biden has never threatened nuclear war and has nothing to gain from it. Putin has threatened it repeatedly in the last few weeks.
Biden is more powerful than Putin, Stalin, or Hitler, but he is not as dangerous.
Because my reply was to:
>much more powerful and dangerous than Stalin or Hitler because
Note the "because", the exact same argument stands for Biden, but we wouldn't argue he's more powerful and dangerous than Stalin or Hitler. I was pointing out the weakness in the "because".
(I think there are other people in the loop in the case of the US president though? Personally I've always been most worried about the Royal Navy's submarine captains, who really do have the ability to launch unilaterally in a very direct way)
Biden, however, has not threatened to use them. Nor does he rule over his subordinates on pain of extrajudicial murder, so there's a few checks and balances there. Alas the same cannot be said for Putin.