I'm not so much into these NFL-Referees signs-What is he saying ?

Markus

Not uncommon but on the day Boris is going to have a telephone conversation with Putin :hmmm:

It's either "offsides" or "false start".

Don't worry, just put a mask on? or was it two masks?


Confrontation therapy? Sounds like Fight club?


Just for you Skybird:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hiISZBRFYA

Exactly. Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

You could also say ...
"If Hitler had used his forces differently instead of launching the Battle of the Bulge things would have been different!"

But guess what? He did go ahead and DID underestimate a World of hurt!

This discusses - in the second half of the text - the meaning of it all. The 2000 troops released imo are just symbol politics.
https://www.dw.com/en/us-to-send-mor...and/a-60634570



And:
https://www-faz-net.translate.goog/a...pp#pageIndex_4

Hehe, aggression sticks, eh? I once had a supervisor who seriously wanted patients to get rid of their aggressions, if they felt them, by giving them a heavy medicine ball, you know: one of these bigger-than-basetballs leather balls that weigh several pounds, and a single A4 page of paper. They should roll the paper to form a small "stick", and then use that stick to whip the ball around the room.

Of course, the ball did not move one bit.

The result fo this idiotic exercise was two-fold. First, patients did not feel being taken serious anymore, and second: instead of reducing aggression, it raised frustration with one of the two consequences: either even more aggression, or a deep fall into a depressed mood or depression.

Soetimes I really wondered what psychologists, some of them, are thinking. :hmmm:


The electroshock part in the video reminds of UN security council meetings, doesn't it? The purpose seems to be comparable.

Denmark and other NATO members received a letter from Russia

https://www.mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy...96679/?lang=en

Markus

^ i can only say that i understand Russia with its security concerns regarding the eastward expansion of NATO, but i also understand that every nation/state should be able to freely choose which treaty it wants to join.

76 years after WW2 and 32 years after the end of the Soviet union i find it rather dumb and arrogant how the two main superpowers still dictate everything regarding politics and borders in Europe. Looks the latter is still under occupation.

For now there seems to be no other way, but this policy and attitude has to change soon.
What about a neutral and nuclear-armed Europe.

Happened again today, that's two days running.

A military (wannabe) power that has only the nuclear club to strike back with in case of even smaller military provocations and incursions, is noncredible. Also, nuclear weapons that are under a 2-dozen-nations command, are somethign that never will wortk becasue even inc as eof war there will never be unity about using them. Thus, any deterrence from them is uncredible again. You thus would need to have every nation having its own nuclear aresenal. Mind you, France last year refuted - strongly - a German philosophizing about turning French nukes under multi-national command.

A one-nation-EU that the EU pushes for and wants to be, I strongly refute, as is known by now. It would multiply the scaling of internal problems, corruption and misadminsitration by factors. The reach of - all - politicians must be cut and limited, not widened and increased.

It comes down to this: Why not having NATO states meeting their obligations in contributions to NATO, and to have them realising more conventional military self defence capabilities? Money gets wasted everywhere these days, it gets thrown out of the windows to bribe once own voter clients, and for illusory megalomanica policies of various kinds. But for defence and security and independency - there always is not enough...? Especially the Germans have to ask themselves what theiur freedom, wealth and - already corrupted energy - independence is worth to them. Instead the Germans seem to not even understand why they should even want to be capable to defend themselves. Thats why I think especially the Germans are a hopeless case.

There is no easy shortcut. Europeans must regain enormous additional conventional military strength, else they can say Sayonara to global relevance and being taken serious on the world stage. It will not happen, And that is why neither Russia nor China nor the Us take Europe serious anymore. They have no reason to do so. Dogs cannot balk and bite at the same time. And the EU balks louder than all others. And with an "ally" like Germany, European nations do not need an enemy anymore, I slowly start to think in light of recent weeks. British transports with military aid for the Ukraine even had to fly around German airspace. Maybe we should ask Moscow for memberhsip in the Russian union. Russia meets German mentality much more than the Anglosaxon culure and values anyway.

Russia has condemned a US decision to send extra troops to Europe to support its allies amid continuing fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow said it was a "destructive" step which heightened tension and reduced the scope for a political solution.

The Pentagon said 2,000 US troops would be sent from North Carolina to Poland and Germany, and a further 1,000 already in Germany would go to Romania.

Russia has some 100,000 troops near Ukraine. It denies planning to invade.

The tensions come eight years after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula and backed a bloody rebellion in the eastern Donbas region.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60238869

re Skybird this is why i wrote 'for now'. But apart from that this is a very US-friendly interpretation of what is going on.

Not that i trust Putin so much, but he made some points on treaties and promises that clearly have been broken.. and let Gorbatchev appear in a bad light – because he trusted the West.

"Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6) "

Declassified documents show security assurances against NATO expansion to Soviet leaders from Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and WoernerSlavic Studies Panel Addresses “Who Promised What to Whom on NATO Expansion?”

It is all here in the US National Security Archive:

https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-b...-leaders-early

I think I am not suspicious of ignoring Russian interests, really. But its not as if the Russians are only honest and truth-telling. They too are masters of opportunistic forgetfulness.
https://www-faz-net.translate.goog/a...pp#pageIndex_4




Edit.
Mist. When i posted this first yesterday, it all was free text. It now is behind a paywall. Too bad. It put Russian claims and positions into relation with treaty obligations and understandings that they also have signed back then - and now simply ignore.

Russia is not just an innocent victim as Putin paints it.

The Myth of a No-NATO-Enlargement Pledge to Russia. No treaties and most likely a display of ineptitude by Soviet politicians. There was no treaty either and times, geo politics attitudes do change. Also it’s not up to Russia what a nation decides to join NATO, NATO isn’t a country but does happen to be the most powerful political and military alliance in the world. What nation especially former Soviet bloc countries wouldn’t want to get an invitation to join that club?

https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/...rg/cv/1990.pdf