In Europe, Pence says US will hold Russia accountable

AllenVonStein said:
nice news @deadoptimist , same as Obama

Zelev said:
Pence-senpai? More like Trash-kun.

Zeally said:
This is sad

The gay hater and believer in gay conversion therapy, Mike Pence, being more presidential than Trump. Always cleaning up the shit that comes out of his mouth.

Zelev said:
Pence-senpai? More like Trash-kun.

Altairius said:
How is Russia a threat to Europe? Europe is a danger to itself.

Comic_Sans said:
I'd say The Baltic states' reasons for fearing a Russian invasion aren't completely baseless

Then again, seeing how all of the Baltic states seem to be near the brink of bankruptcy I don't think Putin will feel very prone to invade the region for now (or at least I hope so)

deadoptimist said:
But many countries were parts of other empires during the years of the human history that were less governed by international law. Following this logic everyone has to hold grudge for years and become even more hateful in time. Should Russia do everyting to pay back to the Mongol, the French, the German, to Poles? Should former colonies still be scared and toxic towards former empires?

They're in the EU and in NATO, asking their neighbor to be destroyed or heavily pressed to make them feel even more secure is a bit too much. They also could take away many reasons for criticism and tension if they recognized people who live in their country, were born there and pay taxes as proper citizens, stopped the parades of the SS vets and discriminatory propaganda.
Inviting NATO personnell into the city that is divided by the border with Russia, for example, doesn't cry deescalation and security.

Comic_Sans said:
Where did I say anything about Russia having to pay back, getting destroyed by NATO or that I agree with the discrimination of Russian Baltics? Nowhere, because that's a complete straw man and nothing else. I said that the Baltic states' fear of Russia makes sense if you look at history.

Please take off that victim complex cardigan of yours.

deadoptimist said:
But it doesn't anymore? They're in the biggest and the most powerful military block and in the EU. They got NATO forces stationed on their territory.

The USSR and its ideology of communism for the whole world doesn't exist anymore. Russia can't possibly attack them as it doesn't have neither resources nor need. It doesn't make sense, and they don't follow their own words by provoking tensions themselves.

This is victim complex by the way, not listing outragious things that really happen which I did. Discrimination against ethnic Russians happens, no complexes needed. But, yeah, it doesn't fall in the line of thought "Russia is evil", so you would choose to discard the problems.

deadoptimist said:
That was during the populist pre-election time. One has to have the intellect of a bread loaf to take everything Trump said then at face value. What matters is how his administration will act, and that remains to be seen, and, lo and behold, let's look at the OP.

You said so yourself, Crimea is different, also I've mentioned it twice already - Baltics are in NATO, have NATO forces stationed at their territory,

they are parts of the EU, they don't seem to have a coup, the USSR fell dozens of years ago and Baltics and Russia are tied together in a different way compared to Russia and Ukraine. And you point to history which have been hard for most countries. How acting (and I stress this, acting) as if Russia is going to invade them tomorow discregarding all these reasons is justified?

Ok, they may think whatever, the problem is that they act based on this paranoia and anti-Russian hysteria. The hysteria that thay have been growing themselves for a long time, just look at the non-citizens and their press.

Russia is indeed bullied and many of the cited reasons (not all, haven't said that) are Cold War era bullshit or hypocricy. And somehow victim complexes are fine and encouraged in the former Soviet states. I don't say that you specifically ask for the destruction of Russia, but many do, the press often does. The bullying side is fine with this, I understand, it always is, but saying that it's just is too much.

You also write as if Russia lives on some sort of devillish logic of total conquer. "Turn its gaze", "try something funny" - yanno, Putin is not a flaming eye on a tower, it's just a slowly rotting human country here, which is afraid for its border too.

Comic_Sans said:
How in the whole world did the Cold war force Russia to invade the Baltics, deport huge parts of its native population to Siberia and then occupy it for another 50 years without even bothering to apologize afterwards?

I'd say the Baltics have especially good reasons to feel hostile towards Russia.

Comic_Sans said:
Election campaigns are supposed to be a foreshadowing of what's to come.

Comic_Sans said:
And I have already said twice that it is currently unclear whether the NATO forces will continue to be stationed there or not, for reasons that I have already stated above.

Comic_Sans said:
I am speaking from my own experience when I say this.

Then again, this is probably a hard concept for you to grasp, seeing how you, according to your profile, are from Russia yourself (I am not saying this to insult you).

deadoptimist said:
There're no good reasons to be hostile towards a whole nation, especially years past the situation. Wary - maybe, careful - probably, but hostile and hateful, including people that have nothing to do with the past events - hardly justifiable. And if you discriminate, provoke and express hate towards others it's your responsibility too, no matter what historical memory holds.

Germany invaded stuff twice, France invaded countries, Western empires held colonies until very late, Turky occupies Cyprus currently, The US invades left and right, the Horde consumed a lot of countries, yet history isn't normally seen as a valid reason for bigotry, hate and discrimination in present. Unless all of these are applied to Russia, of course.

Seeing and picturing capitalist weakened Russia as the USSR on march is not true to reality, acting towards it as if is the Stalin's USSR is not ok, nor does it make stuff better.
And it's not like the hate towards Russia is based solely on facts or logical in nature by now.

Yeah, they're supposed to, but it's very obviously that it's not the case with extreme populists and hardly the case with Trump. And in the US the president isn't to decide everything by himself anyway. Plus there's the cultural inertia still at work somehow.

By the way - did Trump say anywhere that he will dissolve NATO? I genuinely don't know. But he doesn't in the interview you've linked, he only says that he wants the others to pay too. (Obama expressed similar ideas, this I remember.)

Aren't you from Sweden? I believe Sweden was an expanding empire at some point. I don't think that Sweden has been invaded much too, though I may be mistaken.
I wouldn't call Sweden a small country.

On my part I can concede that you would hardly be familiar with how much shit is thrown at Russians daily by foreign and local "critics" and what levels of insanity has it reached. Not an experience many nations or ethnicities have, I suppose.

Comic_Sans said:
Like I said, I don't think Russian baltics deserve to be treated like shit since I don't believe in collective/heritable guilt, but it's easy to see why Estonians/Latvians/Lithuanians generally don't like Russia.

Comic_Sans said:
Russia, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have changed much since its Soviet days, in many ways it's still a corrupt authoritarian shithole.

Comic_Sans said:
It's true that Sweden hasn't really been invaded or participated in any wars ever since Russia "stole" Finland from us in 1809. However, there's always been a feeling of fear that someone might try to invade us which is why we've always made sure to try to remain as neutral as possible (at least on the surface). If anything, the Swedish mass media's current obsession with Russia tells plenty.

deadoptimist said:
As I've also said the issue is not "not liking", it's the form their hate takes and them being provocative and unreasonable because of it. Russia is not responsible for them creating hereditary non-citizens, it's their fault.
And, erm, bickering in favour of human rights doesn't seem to be an act of unfriendliness. Shouldn't all of us want people to have equal rights?

About the apology - Russia was not defeated in a hot war, the fall of the USSR is celebrated in the West as a clean victory, but it's a muddy event. For a cold war a weak humiliation of the fallen. Now you might think that not fighting in a hot war to get rid of the USSR would be seen as a good thing and people won't push for the same treatment as if they did and won, but they do.
Getting Russia to bow again after the 90-s would take for it to be broken economically or in a military way or may happen naturally later if Russia can overcome its identity crisis without pressure making it stubborn out of pride. There're also certain differences in understanding of the USSR, even if we agree that it was bad.

Maybe the Baltics want revenge using their new allies. But you'd think that after 26 years of freedom and joining whatever union they aimed for they could find a better cause and a better vision. And as I've said multiple times, most countries had to rebuilt after bad events.

But well, that's my point - I don't really understand how the demonization of Russia helps anyone. But then it's easy and, as you say, nobody cares if it's not the first world.

Not appreciated, not exactly true - we don't have labor camps in Siberia anymore, nor do we have a special ideology. Also Russia has tried to integrate into the west in the 90-s, it failed terribly. Putin was pro-western until around thebombings of Kosovo, then expressed his change in stance in his Munich speech.
But I am aware that actual knowledge about Russia is lost among propaganda.

C'mon, Sweden was very aggressive at the time of Charles XII, Russia struggled a lot. Considering that our somewhat victorious battle was at Poltava, it's amazing how far Swedish forces would venture then.

deadoptimist said:
Wrote an answer, but decided to edit it out, since it's useless and it's late and I don't want to continue shitpost about politics tomorrow. A nice day to you, when you come back as well.

Pirating_Ninja said:
While I agree that NATO nations should start pulling more of the weight, at the same time the US pretty much drags NATO into shit they start (and ironically leaves them to deal w/ the mess, i.e. refugee crisis), so I don't think the US has a leg to stand on here. (I would actually find it interesting to see an analysis of how much US' decisions cost NATO members who disagreed w/ the US in certain instances, like Iraq)

Thrashinuva said:
And how many of those countries stood up for us in 2001?

The 9/11 attack was considered an attack on NATO itself, and yet only a few countries bothered to get involved. The knew the problem was bigger than one country, and they chose to hide away from it. It bit them in the end, but perhaps it wouldn't have if they had stood up and done something when the time had came.

Pirating_Ninja said:
I'm sorry, and what did Iraq have to do with 9/11?

Thrashinuva said:
Iraq isn't part of NATO.

Pirating_Ninja said:
Well neither is India, but we didn't invade India after 9/11.

Thrashinuva said:
We didn't invade a lot of places after 9/11.

deadoptimist said:

Not sure, why you mention me..

AllenVonStein said:

Comic_Sans said:
I don't get the jokeI'd say The Baltic states' reasons for fearing a Russian invasion aren't completely baseless

Then again, seeing how all of the Baltic states seem to be near the brink of bankruptcy I don't think Putin will feel very prone to invade the region for now (or at least I hope so)

Altairius said:


Cucking out =/= being more presidential

Pence might be a mole, honestly. He might have been forced on Trump, along with some of his other picks. It would explain a lot.

How is Russia a threat to Europe? Europe is a danger to itself.

AnnoKano said:
If there is an invasion, I don't think it will be because Putin wants a cut of that sweet, sweet timber cash and a couple of Estonian software engineers. Controlling the Baltic states would provide a land route to the Kaliningrad exclave, giving him year-round access to a warm water port in the western hemisphere. Depending on your definition this would make Russia a 'super power' once again, and at the very least would make them stronger militarily.

AnnoKano said:
Controlling the Baltic states would provide a land route to the Kaliningrad exclave, giving him year-round access to a warm water port in the western hemisphere. Depending on your definition this would make Russia a 'super power' once again, and at the very least would make them stronger militarily.

Thrashinuva said:
And how many of those countries stood up for us in 2001?

The 9/11 attack was considered an attack on NATO itself, and yet only a few countries bothered to get involved. The knew the problem was bigger than one country, and they chose to hide away from it. It bit them in the end, but perhaps it wouldn't have if they had stood up and done something when the time had came.

deadoptimist said:

I would love to live in the Russia that is able to beat NATO, doesn't have a shit economy, lacks only the route to Kaliningrad to become a superpower.

Pirating_Ninja said:
For good reason. I'm still lost as to why NATO not joining the Iraqi invasion = them not showing support for 9/11.

AnnoKano said:


The extent that one can call 9/11 an attack on NATO itself is dubious. For one thing, a terror attack isn't quite the same as a declaration of war. Some NATO members did not contribute to the Iraq war, but most of them did.

AnnoKano said:
The concern is that NATO is going to collapse, so that problem is solved for you.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but my understanding is that the Russian economy is weakened by sanctions, internal corruption, and a shrinking number of trading partners. Sanctions are likely to be lifted by Trump, and if the EU collapses then you will have ample trading opportunities with the detritus. Not much you can do about the corruption unfortunately, I think it takes decades to escape that vicious cycle.

But you know, I'm a mere observer here.