There isn't much validity in the first quora post.

The US under Trump was untrustworthy on foreign policy and would not have been effective at making alliances. The Trump administration was also famously weak on Russia, nearing peak absurdity in Helsinki 2018, when Trump stood on stage and refused to defend his own country against Russian aggression.

I suspect the Kremlin's view was that Ukraine was slipping away from their sphere of influence and since they have always resolved such issues with invasions in the past, they opted for one now. Of course, such an analysis is horribly flawed, but that's what you get when your system of government basically boils down to making it illegal for people to point out that you are being stupid.

The strategic suggestions in that Quora post are just bad. First of all, they are dangerous in the sense that they do the usual mistake of assuming everyone involved is a rational actor. That's a common enough error, but these suggestions would also have played directly into Russia's hand.

This is just nonsense as well. People really need to re-learn the use of maps and the importance of maps.

quora is a cesspool of random and inaccurate opinions

Additionally, if one of your goals is weakening NATO, why would you invade a country and risk creating unity and support for that organization (that we see now) plus all the other risks of war during the presidency of a useful idiot who is doing the work for you?

I think Putin believed it would all be over in a few days and the scenario that unfolded wouldn't happen. As horrific as this has been, I do feel a little warm inside that he brought a situation on himself that he was trying to prevent in the first place.

Half right, half wrong my friend. You also have real professionals giving you insights.

Doxxed people ranging from Google CEOs, top programmers etc. to whatever is your interest.

Take a look, list ist starting off with Obama here...

https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/qu...i2luu_y7WgTgwJ

TD, if I take a closer look, the black sea is surrounded by Turkey, Russia, Moldova, and Bulgaria who I would argue are all east friendly or easily controlled countries by the Russians. Then you could argue we try to put an important strategic chess figure in the middle of this chess field, which is probably the stone of nuisance for the Russians. Just trying to understand it here.

This could cause some problems imo, which again I could only compare to a strategic location such as Cuba was for the Russians and they withdrew from that.

There is really no chess piece here. Black Sea borders are well established and have have been followed diligently in modern times by the local nations. Access into and out of the Black Sea is controlled via the Bosporus strait and Turkey, through the "Montreux Convention" since 1936, and not even the most powerful international nations have messed around with that one.

Russia has in absolutely no way, shape or form been at danger of losing access to the Black Sea. In fact these very agreements pretty much ensures that there could never be a naval presence in the Black Sea that threatens it. Perhaps somewhat ironically, it was Russia's recent actions in Ukraine that led Turkey to close the Bosporus to Russian warships.

those people you mentioned haven't written anything in years

it's mostly insufferable "know it alls" who actually don't know that much and therefore post a lot on subjects well out of their wheelhouse that are rife with inaccuracy

one the most viewed writers steven haddock is a total hack, he writes dozens of answers per day and is one of the most viewed writers so inevitably he goes into topics he knows nothing about the majority of the time, he's made such claims as believing all lobsters are of a single species and are conceived in the carribean and then their eggs float amongst the currents to areas where they are famous such as maine, he also says other things which are easily fact checked such as toronto is one of the most visited cities in the world and babe ruth has the all time record for most times caught stealing, things which he could have verified weren't true in 5 seconds of google searching

i used to believe pretty heavily in quora, i was one of the more prolific writers at one point (but nowhere near one of the household names but have several million views under my belt and despite that i hadn't written anything in years they pay me about $5 a month for the views my old content generates) and i gave up because they don't police the guys like steven haddock, in fact another one of the most prolific writers ever is currently in jail for fraud and he used quora to pose as an all powerful investor and scam people, his answers are still up on the site and among the highest views answers on subjects such as investing and wealth management despite that it's all made up just so he could pose as a big deal to earn people's trust to scam people

they even made one guy who wrote about investing in chinese tech companies a top writer despite that he literally doesn't do any of that, it's all made up, i am intimately familiar with the chinese tech/vc space and never heard of the guy, never seen him, even asked about in some group chats if anyone knew of him and nobody ever heard of him - yet he's has a top writer badge for his answers about being a venture capitalist expat in china despite that none of it is true nor are any of his answers remotely accurate

i've reported this through official channels, people i know personally who worked there, even mentioned it all personally to the founder and ceo, they don't care, they are hemorrhaging money, laid off the majority of their staff and any content that generates views is considered good content as far as they are concerned

treat quora like wikipedia, a good starting point, but everything there needs to be fact checked and you can't take any of it for granted because it's mostly written by a bunch of praise thirsty bozos or people just trying to get clicks as part of their profit sharing program

real and genuine experts, like those you mentioned, just don't have any motivation to get the feedback praise of upvotes, so the people who write answers there are semi-informed people who feel like they aren't getting enough credit in life or people trying to grind it out as a sidehustle

and as for doxxed people, that's never been the case, i've never written there under my real name and a few years ago they dropped that policy because they weren't enforcing it anyway

quora is entertainment only, i can only imagine how terrible the answers would be on such a trending subject with mainstream appeal as ukraine would be

FYP

Very minor nitpick which is that Russian warships that have black sea ports as a home base were allowed back in I believe.

+1
And being a dictator , he probably got surrounded by many « yes men » bringing bad advices .

Might be important to remember Trump's (the turd's) role in all of this. He admires Putin and he wanted the USA out NATO. Putin would have walked all over him.
________________________________
Former national security adviser John Bolton said on Friday that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin was “waiting” for a possible United States withdrawal from NATO, claiming former President Trump would have likely made such a move had he been reelected.

Bolton, during a Washington Post Live event, was asked about his memoir, in which he claimed that Trump wanted to leave the military alliance in 2018. The newspaper’s Opinions Editor-at-Large Michael Duffy asked him how close Trump was to withdrawing the United States from NATO.

“Yeah, I had my heart in my throat at that NATO meeting. I didn’t know what the president would do. He called me up to his seat seconds before he gave his speech. And I said, ‘Look, go right up to the line, but don’t go over it,’ ” Bolton replied.

“I sat back down, I had no idea what he’d do. I thought he’d put his foot over it, but at least he didn’t withdraw then,” he continued. “In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO, and I think Putin was waiting for that.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/adminis...wal-from-nato/

They did win. All military conflict is a win.

you cant tell the difference between Vietnam and Mexico? to be even more specific, in relation to USA?

They failed in their declared war aims and had to retire and cede the contested territory to the enemy. That is called losing.

Shut up, Victor.

I think the declared aims were to have a proxy war with Russia and make a lot of money for defense contractors.

Definitely. I just had a hard time finding reliable numbers but this seems in the ballpark unless they're completely ignoring contractors:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...herson-battle/

It's all a conspiracy because nothing is ever as simple as a despotic thug yearning for the glory days of empire and engaging in aggression toward his neighbours because of it. It's definitely a conspiracy probably involving the highest levels of the deep state and shadow government. Somewhere, somehow, , somebody is conspiring as I post this to make a ton of moolah for evil defence contractors. Probably ties in with project bluebeam and all those other insane in the membrane conspiracy theories you endorse and the more arcane the better.
I guess Putin is really a victim in all of this...

for real tho, can you read a map?

nah bro, didnt you hear? Azov battalion are no longer reactionary right wing genocidal terrorists. they are partizans for freedom!

show the libs some articles from 2015 about these dudes and they will eventually get mad and say buh buh buh but they are OUR Nazis, so they are good!

Russia is a terrorist state, so arming whomever on the planet to kill them is a good thing.

If ISIS and al queda wanted to fight russia I would support giving them weaponry.

this is called lying.

show any post where I have tried to justify Putins and Russias war?

Russia is a right wing dictatorial kleptocracy full of "Nazis" of some sort. aaaannndd.....wait for it....so is Ukraine.

I will be sure to put a disclaimer at the end of every post in this thread from now that I fault Russia and hope they are pushed out of Ukraine. not so sure if they USA hopes that tho.

but best yet, would be no war at all. that pov pisses off libs like yourself and the warmonger 57red.

this is when a liberal takes his mask off.

well, heres the thing, you def got your wish about arming those groups. USA does it all the ****ing time.

Declared aims was to put a stop to communist expansion.



In the end it was worth it. No more communism was spread around the world after that.