The American foreign policy establishment abandoned trumps deterrence policy which stopped putin invading in 2018.
Rather than help Ukraine quickly win the war they prefer to slow bleed Russia to help their aims in Syria, Iran, Taiwan etc.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/01/china-suddenly-...
By fall 2023 they knew the score. But they couldn’t get out then and they still can’t.
That’s really what it boils down to for people like you: the production values. No contest, the US is unbeatable in that department. Anything but to be seen as a sucker.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%82%D1%8...
And yes, your foreign shilling is that obvious.
At this stage it is impossible to say whether Syria and possibly Greenland are part of a bargain to end the Ukraine war (You get the four provinces, we get Syria and take Greenland from the EU, probably by political influence via NGOs and a sort of color revolution that leads to the "independence" of Greenland).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution
But thanks for updating us on the latest forbidden term. I wonder how many words we will have left next year.
In the paranoid claims and propaganda of dictators they claim they were something else
If you want to indulge in pointless conspiracies (some of which are heavily pushed by foreign dictators) go ahead
Regarding Ukraine, Biden was the one who made the decision not to get the US directly involved in the war. Sullivan even had to play devil's advocate in Biden's decision, because he and the CIA chief thought it was a horrible idea to announce to the world that we were committing to zero troops on the ground. One of Biden's biggest beliefs is that "great powers don't bluff," though, so it was important for Biden to clearly communicate the limits of US engagement in the conflict.
He wanted the Ukrainians to know (according to the reporting in the book) that the US would supply and support them, but the cavalry would not be charging over the hill to save the day. If some horrible event happened in Ukraine, he knew that his generals, the media, and the public would look to him and say "well, don't you think now is the time we should get American boots on the ground? Why aren't you acting?"
The Biden administration slow rolled delivering tanks/jets/ATACMS for years. For ATACMS in Russia they delayed over two years. The options were never just doing nothing or put boots on the ground.
His cognitive dissonance was on display on live television multiple times where he struggles to speak or even walk. Unless all that was a deliberate act for media, I see no reason to believe Mr. Bob was being truthful
Woodward writes about a time when Biden had taken a friend on a private tour through the residences of the White House, and when they came upon a picture of his son Beau Biden, the President seemed to become "transfixed" on it (my words, I'm paraphrasing from memory) and couldn't stop talking about his son for what seemed like an uncomfortable amount of time.
He also wrote about another time during Biden's reelection campaign where Biden went to a private fundraising event in Silicon Valley and seemed so "out of it" (again, my words, paraphrasing from memory) that one of the SV bigwigs there called Biden's chief of staff with grave concerns about the President's health and ability to run for reelection.
The book is well worth the read, whether you're a Trump supporter, Biden supporter or just interested in politics and foreign policy in general.
Also We are talking about Biden who introduced Zelensky as __President Putin__ in an event organized for Zelensky. I refuse to believe Mr. Biden was able to commandeer or come with any of the plans Mr. Bob described.
That's also covered in the book. Again, if you’re interested in this topic, I’d really recommend giving it a read or borrowing it from the library. You might find some new perspectives on Biden’s presidency — just like I did for some aspects of Trump’s while reading War and his more recent books. Or maybe you'll come away from it totally vindicated in your views. Either way, it's an insightful read with enough nuance in there for both outcomes.
Should they have given them more arms, and faster? Maybe, but we have the benefit of hindsight. The Biden admin was constantly worried about Russia's threats of nuclear weapons, which the intelligence agencies were reporting as credible.
This is all detailed in Woodward's book.
https://kyivindependent.com/trump-suggested-he-would-have-bo...
He also talked about this conversation with Putin in the Joe Rogan interview.
If Trump had weakened NATO it would have made an invasion more likely, not less.
Trumpy tantrums did nothing.
Further the Biden Afghan withdrawal convinced Putin that Biden wouldn't react.
Trumpy tantrums did nothing, I repeat. Neither is he going to do anything useful once he gets back into the office. Putin will play him off like a sucker he is.
It's makes even less sense than parent comment
His plan had clearly been to repeat that exercise to boost his ratings by the next election (in 2024). 2018 was too early for that.
We now can see that the preparation for the war started in 2020-2021. For example, Putin made sure that Russia had a big enough monetary Reserve Fund. And unlike many other countries, Russia did not do state-sponsored economic stimulation during the lockdowns.
Biden + COVID changed the landscape enough that Putin and the FSB advisors who did the planning were convinced they could (and arguably, had to, since his Trump ace-in-the-hole was not certain) make a move. Thus a 2022 invasion.