mtutiger

And please be concrete.... no platitudes about "projecting strength", actual concrete actions that would have effectively stopped Putin and avoided this war.

They haven't "broken" with Russia, but I am honestly surprised at how tepid their engagement with Russia is right now, tbh. I would have expected them to be a more closer partner.

Vladimir Putin was always going to to do this. This was aspirational for him. By all accounts, one thing we can take him at his word on is that he sees the fall of the USSR as a cataclysmic event and that, at 71 years old and reports that maybe he's not in the best of health, he sees restoring Russia to it's previous glory as part of his lasting legacy. Not everything that happens in the world or every decision a world leader makes revolves around domestic American politics.

Bombing yachts would be dumb, but lets not forget that Russia has hit actual vessels in the Black Sea since this has began (sailing with the flags of allies like Japan and Turkey)... and yet that apparently hasn't been considered "escalatory" nor has it resulted in WWIII

The televised meetings with his advisors ahead of the invasion were pretty telling. It looked a lot like a loyalty test. Of course, I'm sure there are people in the Kremlin who are truly fully on board, probably the majority. But it's also an environment where speaking your mind could get you killed... so there may be dissension that is repressed as well.

OTOH, I can see someone in Putin's position intimidating his advisors into being sycophantic and telling him what he wants to hear. Lest they get the Skripal treatment. It's also a long running theme in dictatorships and sometimes a reason for their demise... they hear what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.

First SOTU that I have watched in a long time, mostly because of current events... and came away thinking it was one of Biden's better speeches as President. The backdrop of Ukraine helped in that it allowed more a of a unified front than these speeches usually give off.

Got some inside info

👀

Yet another reminder of how much different the world looks one week on.

At a minimum, assuming they do ultimately take the country, they will have to conduct a long term and costly occupation to support whatever puppet government they install... because the moment they leave, that government is at risk of falling. I really don't get why this was such a hard thing to grasp ahead of this invasion. What percentage speak Russian, or even whether they have voted for Pro-Russian candidates in the past, isn't necessarily synonymous with the percentage who would support their country being invaded by Russia. Or be supportive of a Russian puppet leadership. Putin clearly got high off his own supply in this regard. But a lot of outside observers did as well.

This is a good reality check. Still a lot on the line going forward

Another 'wow' moment

"Nice city ya got there... be a shame if this space station landed on it"

lol