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I would extend an invitation to join NATO to any Russian government that would agree to remove Vladimir Putin and at least pay lip service to our principles. We can always kick them out again after we figure out how their air defense system works.
I wouldn't know a neocon unless I found one in my shower wearing a swim cap with that lable on it. "Neocon" is one of those pejorative "dog whistles" that sounds bad and was used to criticize W and other statists hiding under the bleachers in the Republican tent. And to argue that the interests of the US were not in natural resources isn't something I care to do. There aren't very many places where representative government was tried that it was successful other than in those with historical, cultural, ethical and religious roots in Western Europe (where the transition from anarchy to monarcy to representative government took centuries). (India is an interesting country in many ways - it was almost 200 years under British rule, and seems to have used the bureaucracy as the framework for its government after its independence.)
Democrat Scoop Jackson was the first I believe that was called that. Bill Kristol was an aid to Scoop if I recall correctly then became Bush II's chief of Neocon...err, staff. Along with Chaney they were advocates of Be democratic or we blow you to L. Bush was too milquetoast to resist the temptation to resume his daddy's war mongering. The never-Trumper RINOs are war mongers and hated DT for his efforts to exert a strong defense posture while resisting the effort to "convert" others to our way of thinking. That's why ISIS got hammered and why they are now coming back.
nationalinterest.org
All you have to do is examine the posts from the diehard Trump defenders on this board and you will find people who would rather cave into Russian aggression than even man the ramparts their father's generation built to prevent Europe from backsliding into World War III. Some even admire Vlad's "strength" like rats being hypnotized by a snake. We are watching the Russian equivalent of Hitler reclaiming the German-speaking territories of the Sudetenland in preparation for the subjugation of Europe. Again. Unfortunately our nation and our alliances have been thoroughly divided from within and are seemingly incapable of a coherent, unified response. Which was Vladimir's long-term goal when supporting Trump during the 2016 election.
I missed the part in history class where the West secured Ukraine from the Soviet Union after World War II. Nobody here likes Putin, he's basically a mafia boss. At this point, comparing what Putin is doing to Hitler's land grab in the Thirties is quite silly.
It would've been silly to suggest that Hitler's extraterritorial ambitions would've led to World War II at the time as well. After all, those were just territories Germany lost at the end of World War I and they deserved them back, right? The West freed Eastern Europe by defeating the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Remember Reagan with "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" while making a speech in Berlin? We were just trying to be polite by not extending NATO jurisdiction all the way to Russia's borders and given the current security situation in Eastern Europe that looks to have been a mistake.
One does not have to "admire" him to recognize his strength and our utter weakness. Trump didn't let Russia buy a Canadian company who gets 20% of its uranium from the US. Obama did. And who got big bucks for a single speech in Moscow. How much Russian money went to the Clinton Foundation? One does not have to "admire" a tyrant but to pretend he is weak is a dangerous strategy. Obama drew a "line in the sand" with Assad...and then refused to cross it. Why? Fear of Russia? He funded anti-Assad people who hate us worse than they hated Assad. And who had the most effective drone targeting? It wasn't Obama. And Obama was famous for saying they had no strategy for dealing with ISIS 'yet'. And ISIS or ISIL whatever, grew enormously under Obama.