don’t worry, there’s virtually no chance you will be joining him at the hague.
what the fuck are you talking about?
The Gist is back after a year off, thanks to some friction between Mike Pesca and Slate. Today’s episode has the former president of Estonia who gives his thoughts about Putin’s mental state and his occasional diatribes about how Ukranians are not a “real people” (and thus ought to welcome the warm embrace of Mother Russia).
Fine, real talk, if there’s any daylight between what you write on Ukraine and what Dmitry Peskov pays Igor from St. Petersburg John McPatriot Smith to write in Breitbart comments, I struggle to see it. Russia is a ~bad country that feels it is owed things because it used to be a big deal, but aside from weapons and gas it doesn’t offer much, least of all to its Europe facing neighbors. Even if Ukraine were seeking NATO membership (which was never really a thing), Russia does not want that not because it is some grave military threat to the motherland, it is because it will lose the ability to dictate affairs in a vassal state in its own ‘sphere of influence’ – at least this was the case in 2014, now they’ve just settled for perpetually destabilizing the country.
FWIW, besides the tough talk I don’t think US does much, and it’s really not even clear that omg imminent invasion is imminent is accurate; the Russians move/concentrate troops on that border all the time, continues to feel like optics for now but we’ll see.
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I mean I agree with all of this? What is our disagreement?
edit: except I think NATO expansion was a real thing until the Georgian war, and maybe until the Crimean invasion.
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the ICC is going to rule MH17 downing falls on russia. it’s a war crime. using chemical weapons on foreign soil. attempted coups and assasinations in the balkans. half of russia will hand him over to the tribunal with joy. posthumously if necessary.
damn, sounds like you GOT HIM. Not sure why I’d end up in the Hauge though…
Is there like a shitposters wing in the prison there? Asking for a friend…
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There will be in the metaverse so we all need to buy the $HAGUE while we can to get good commissary snacks.
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oh shit can I sell senor keed hauge war criminal NFT avatars?
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Putin’s propagandists will go there with him. but you likely won’t. so there’s no real risk for you to repeat putin’s really weird recollection of history. i repeat Keeeed is not in any real risk of ever being held accountable to helping a war criminal keep his throne until he dies.
I likely won’t? So there’s some chance I will? Damn, sounds bad.
Not playing the game, but just like
“Trump asked some interesting questions about the utility of NATO” jesus.
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I agree with Trump’s comments about NATO. It’s an obsolete alliance that doesn’t serve a useful purpose as far as I can see. The Europeans are more than capable of joining together to defend themselves against whatever threat they face. The EU’s GDP is ten times Russia, I think they can contain the Russian threat on their own.
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there are probably many more troll factory employees much higher priority for the ICC than someone at UP, but i could be wrong.
Look that’s fine, I would just never write “The Unabomber asked some interesting questions about the downsides of technological progress” even if I happened to think there are downsides to technological progress, it’s weird.
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lol. a country would literally be safe from territorial aggression if only it were a member of nato like its neighbors, but you and trmp think it’s useless.
if that were true, sounds like putin could have just sat back and allowed ukraine into nato and let the uselessness sink the US. fighting over it would mean putin is trying to do the US a favor? lol
Right, I’m saying I agree with what Trump said about NATO because I agree with what Trump said about NATO.
In the spirit of being somewhat sorry for trolling you in my first reply itt, I’ll just say that it’s hard to judge the counterfactual “how nice would Russia have been to the USA and its neighbors if NATO didn’t expand beyond Poland”. I think history and Russia’s political institutions suggest that she would have resumed her imperial ambitions all the same; if that judgment is correct then NATO did/does have a purpose. If you think Russia may have been otherwise nice, then sure NATO is kinda pointless.
OK but the alternative framing to that is “did NATO expansion make Russia more hostile, feel more threatened, and ultimately more aggressive?” I think the answer to that question is clearly yes. And to what end?