NATO? If Russia Conquered Europe, It Would
an Improvement

I am ambivalent about Putin. He's awful, but how can he be any worse than Macron, Merkel, and Boris?

I highly doubt Putin wants anything to do with Ukraine. All the fuss is just a handy stick to beat up FJB idiocy for some fun. 100K troops on the boarder are chess pieces on a board. Gotta put theme somewhere.

I was about 12 or 13 years old when my dad and I were filling up tractors with diesel before heading out to the fields to put in a long day of plowing. We listened to the news on the radio while getting equipment serviced and ready. He told me one morning, "One of these days Russia will be democratic, and the United States will be communist." Here it is 50 years later. My parents saw this coming even then. They both passed away in the last three years but could see it coming even then. As much as I miss them both, I am glad they have moved on to a better place and don't have to go through the final destruction of a great country. President Trump was the moment of sanity for the nation that a lot of dying people have right before they pass away.

Framing. Even among conservatives and patriots, we are often still captive to popular media framing in our thinking. The Author bring us a Trumpian taste of fresh air -- destroying conventional framing.

A thoroughly uninformed view, #2. I would suggest you read what Putin has written. And I have spent a good bit of time in Ukraine over about an 9 year period, and still have multiple friends that I keep in touch with who live there. Putin sees Ukraine as Russian property, not dramatically different than a 'runaway slave' was seen in the 1840s in the south. Putin, at minimum, intends to keep Ukraine weak and failing and prevent it from developing strong polticial and social ties to the West, and to keep it from succeeding economically so he can control it. He has control of the natural gas supplies which are so necessary for heating in the cities and he throttles that whenever he needs to extract something from the Ukrainian leaders. His financial interests have deep claws into all the money that flows in Ukraine on the high levels, and often has prevented development of Ukraine's resources by bribing corrupt officials to block permits that would let Ukrainian oil and gas be drilled, decreasing Russian control. I spent an hour discussing this in Kiev with a Canadian oil driller who had spent four months trying to get past the Russian road blocks to get permits to do oil and gas drilling exploration. He said that preliminary seismic testing had indicated substantial oil and gas would almost certainly be found. Putin intends to reassemble the Soviet Union into a "Greater Russia" and will let nothing stop him from that, his literal life's work. All that said.....Putin is not anywhere near as much of a cultural destroyer as the leaders of the European nations. He isn't a nice person, but he appears to have a deep love for Russian Christian cultural heritage, and wants to preserve it (under his control) rather than destroy it with leftist, multiculturalism cultural suicide. This dichotomy is real. EU folks talk "freedom" but destroy their countries, literally. And Putin, a thug with no morals, it seems, is still more about supporting the original European Russian culture that is their history from pre-communist times.

FTA: "So explain to me not only why NATO is still necessary but also, very slowly, so I can understand it..." "Real Conservatives" cannot give up the boogeyman Russia as a mortal enemy, godless, ruthless, and ever plotting its neo-communist ways to world dominance. They need to have that #1 mighty military, whatever the price, and we need to use that strength to punish certain people or countries, supporting others, many of whom have been through this cycling of history for millennia. We have forgotten the advice given by Washington in his Farewell Address. We have entangled ourselves in alliances with "old Europe" and far beyond. The American web has been spun virtually everywhere, ostensibly to contain the Chinese and those damn Russians. It's what Americans now do - involve themselves in the affairs of others with zero national interest at stake. At the first sign of trouble Real Conservatives want to nuke, invade, bomb, or otherwise involve themselves in retribution. (One can only ask how well that worked out in Iraq and Afghanistan post-9/11. Those two decades of bloody and otherwise expensive futility were a bi-partisan "nation build". ) Or, let's set up forward bases in Poland, Ukraine and Taiwan. Before America became the Policeman of the World, our Presidents "Leader of the Free World", our foreign policy was one of mercantilism. We were like China in the sense we wanted to do business and profit from our productivity. We fought two wars in Europe to what end? We occupied Europe more than 50 years and still have a presence there while the Euros freeload on our protection. None of them can project significant power 25 miles beyond their borders. They don't seem to share the same fears we have over the Russians invading or China grabbing Taiwan. This article is exactly right. NATO is a millweight around our necks. It is time to withdraw to our Western Atlantic flank, with our military strategy grossly adjusted away from interventionism and stalemated conflicts in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Several times Putin has warned US politicians, including Obama that their big spending, stimulus, "Chosen Corporate/Govt Partnership" start up funds etc were the very WRONG path, that Russia/USSR had been down it before and it led to their ruination...THEY are harmed when the USA does it now because so much of Russia's GDB is based in American trade, American success, and through American investments. PS: Dems practice run for the 2020 election was played out in their meddling with the Ukraine elections. Same players "chose" the same candidates, altered the rules, changed voting norms, botched the count soooo badly that an international tribunal had to get involved...where a behind closed doors, no information released, agreement was handed out that switched actual vote tallies by nearly 50% from the "Election night winner" to the announced "Loser". Jon Kerry was the leader of that tribunal...Obama/Biden were the supporters/recruiters of that "Winner", both Biden's and Kerry's children were financially affiliated with that Winner in "private Business" deals.

Putin over dem.

The approaches to Moscow are flat and indefensible. This is why Russia has always, even in pre-Soviet times, wanted plenty of buffer territories. Today is no exception.