NYT- President Biden considering sending thousands of troops to Eastern Europe and Baltics

[Sir Mohamed]

I guess the right action, although it's merely symbolic.

[MATTROSE94]

Biden is about to drag us into the 3rd World War and red avatars talking about technicalities lmao

Putin is a genocidal murderer who needs to go. The Biden Administration needs to immediately launch military strikes against Russia to remove the Putin regime from power.

[DaleCooper]

Biden is about to drag us into the 3rd World War and red avatars talking about technicalities lmao

If Russia attacks a NATO country then WWIII has already started whether American soldiers are standing there when it happens or not.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Biden is about to drag us into the 3rd World War and red avatars talking about technicalities lmao

Putin is a genocidal murderer who needs to go. The Biden Administration needs to immediately launch military strikes against Russia to remove the Putin regime from power.

Just how, exactly, is this course of action in the best interest of the United States of America and its citizens?

[Person Man]

Biden is about to drag us into the 3rd World War and red avatars talking about technicalities lmao

Putin is a genocidal murderer who needs to go. The Biden Administration needs to immediately launch military strikes against Russia to remove the Putin regime from power.

Just how, exactly, is this course of action in the best interest of the United States of America and its citizens?

We don’t need war for war’s sake but we can’t just have these hordes of  bloodthirsty reprobates roaming the Earth destroying everyone in their path. If Putin wins, EVERYONE loses.

[Ferguson97]

I don't know why people are acting like our only two options are "do nothing lol" and nuclear war.

[Horus]

As someone who politically came of age during Iraq, it sure is disturbing to see so many supposedly left of center folks calling for war before every other option has been tried. Maybe the Democrats really are the party of Bush now.

(ftr I support military action if Putin goes after the Baltics, but not if he invades a non NATO country.)

[John Dule]

Are people forgetting that the USSR lent support to North Korea and China lent support to North Vietnam-- at times when both those countries were nuclear powers? It has been demonstrated several times throughout the past 70 years that nuclear nations can be brought into conflict (however indirectly) without resorting to using WMDs.

[ElectionsGuy]

Bill Kristol is very pleased by this. As are the multitude "former" Republicans, CIA and Pentagon officials who endorsed this president.

Is it surprising that the only time that these folks as well as legacy media had anything negative to say about the Biden administration, is when he ended a war?

Is it odd for Democrats that the only commentator on TV who's calling out this escalation and involvement is Tucker Carlson? And he gets called a Putin puppet for doing so by partisan Democrats?

It is not surprising if you've been paying attention to the shifting coalitions over the past few years. Eventually, Dems will become the party of foreign policy hawks, internationalists, and world police advocates. You can already see them saying "we need to protect democracy both here and around the world". At this point though, it's still nuanced, with the R's being more militaristic, and D's being more globalist. The only thing stalling this shift from completing is the idiotic Republican establishment still acting like it's 2004. So effectively, it's a uni party in Washington on this issue right now. Hopefully, Biden comes to his senses and rules out any of the MIC's fantasies in the coming days and weeks.

[jojoju1998]

Bill Kristol is very pleased by this. As are the multitude "former" Republicans, CIA and Pentagon officials who endorsed this president.

Is it surprising that the only time that these folks as well as legacy media had anything negative to say about the Biden administration, is when he ended a war?

Is it odd for Democrats that the only commentator on TV who's calling out this escalation and involvement is Tucker Carlson? And he gets called a Putin puppet for doing so by partisan Democrats?

It is not surprising if you've been paying attention to the shifting coalitions over the past few years. Eventually, Dems will become the party of foreign policy hawks, internationalists, and world police advocates. You can already see them saying "we need to protect democracy both here and around the world". At this point though, it's still nuanced, with the R's being more militaristic, and D's being more globalist. The only thing stalling this shift from completing is the idiotic Republican establishment still acting like it's 2004. So effectively, it's a uni party in Washington on this issue right now. Hopefully, Biden comes to his senses and rules out any of the MIC's fantasies in the coming days and weeks.

Bernie Sanders would do the exact same thing.

Forget about the Domestic rancor for a moment and think about the big picture, internationally.

What good would War do for the US in this situation ? This is not a puny country in the Middle East, as I have said before. This is a major power albeit declining, and this is high level stuff here. There is nothing to gain with going to War with a Global power.

That being said,
The US is not the one pushing for War in this case. It's Putin. And Putin alone. In fact, the US is being relatively passive along with France and Germany.

Countries like Canada, Spain, Sweden, and Finland. Countries that don't usually invovle itself in situations like these. They're the ones sending ships, military supplies, and they're ratcheting up their defenses.

This isn't the Middle East.

[DaleCooper]

Are people forgetting that the USSR lent support to North Korea and China lent support to North Vietnam-- at times when both those countries were nuclear powers? It has been demonstrated several times throughout the past 70 years that nuclear nations can be brought into conflict (however indirectly) without resorting to using WMDs.

PTSD from Bush's wars has completely fried the brains of most Americans, it seems. Anything involving the military doing its job, even if it doesn't involve violence, is seen as "endless war" or whatever other buzzword politicians have been throwing around the get elected. In reality, there is no contradiction between thinking that the Iraq war was an abomination and also thinking that we need a defensive show of force to make sure Putin stops at Ukraine.

[Absolution9]

Neither the US nor Russia would be dumb enough to strike first, so nuclear war is off the table and all of the "concerns" about it are either phony or uninformed.

The US and NATO could easily defeat Russia in a war, so I think that Joe Biden should take that step as soon as Russia invades Ukraine. Basically, we could defeat Russia in a war by utilizing the first strike plan President John F. Kennedy’s defense department  team developed in 1961.

How could the US and NATO easily defeat Russia near its own borders?  

Russia has 350K ground/airborne troops + 200K NG troops + can probably raise 500K -1M reserves among recent service classes with ease.  They can overrun the Baltics in 48 hrs, Ukraine in probably 2 weeks, and already basically control Belarus.  That's before we could do much of anything.

After that it would be effectively a defensive war for them, they can move up their mobile high quality S400'/Pantsir SAM systems into the three mentioned regions.  Their airforce has about 800-1000 fighter jets.  No question US/NATO aircraft and AtA missiles are much better but we would have to fight their air force over ground they control while avoiding massed SAM's at the same time.  That would be a serious equalizer.

Not saying we couldn't eventual take air superiority but it would take a long time and be extremely hard fought.  That's not even mentioning the fact they have tons of tactical ballistic and cruise missiles that can be directed at knocking out runways all over Europe.  Without air superiority over the battle field there is no way we are making much headway and I doubt we would get it quickly in most war scenarios.

[ProudModerate2]

Neither the US nor Russia would be dumb enough to strike first, so nuclear war is off the table and all of the "concerns" about it are either phony or uninformed.

The US and NATO could easily defeat Russia in a war, so I think that Joe Biden should take that step as soon as Russia invades Ukraine. Basically, we could defeat Russia in a war by utilizing the first strike plan President John F. Kennedy’s defense department  team developed in 1961.

How could the US and NATO easily defeat Russia near its own borders?  

Russia has 350K ground/airborne troops + 200K NG troops + can probably raise 500K -1M reserves among recent service classes with ease.  They can overrun the Baltics in 48 hrs, Ukraine in probably 2 weeks, and already basically control Belarus.  That's before we could do much of anything.

After that it would be effectively a defensive war for them, they can move up their mobile high quality S400'/Pantsir SAM systems into the three mentioned regions.  Their airforce has about 800-1000 fighter jets.  No question US/NATO aircraft and AtA missiles are much better but we would have to fight their air force over ground they control while avoiding massed SAM's at the same time.  That would be a serious equalizer.

Not saying we couldn't eventual take air superiority but it would take a long time and be extremely hard fought.  That's not even mentioning the fact they have tons of tactical ballistic and cruise missiles that can be directed at knocking out runways all over Europe.  Without air superiority over the battle field there is no way we are making much headway and I doubt we would get it quickly in most war scenarios.

Finally. Someone who has knowledge of military hardware and overall strategy.
Without the use of tactical low-yield nuclear weapons (to slow them down), Russia would have the initialadvantage on the ground, if they went full-scale westward into Europe.

[Absolution9]

Neither the US nor Russia would be dumb enough to strike first, so nuclear war is off the table and all of the "concerns" about it are either phony or uninformed.

The US and NATO could easily defeat Russia in a war, so I think that Joe Biden should take that step as soon as Russia invades Ukraine. Basically, we could defeat Russia in a war by utilizing the first strike plan President John F. Kennedy’s defense department  team developed in 1961.

How could the US and NATO easily defeat Russia near its own borders?  

Russia has 350K ground/airborne troops + 200K NG troops + can probably raise 500K -1M reserves among recent service classes with ease.  They can overrun the Baltics in 48 hrs, Ukraine in probably 2 weeks, and already basically control Belarus.  That's before we could do much of anything.

After that it would be effectively a defensive war for them, they can move up their mobile high quality S400'/Pantsir SAM systems into the three mentioned regions.  Their airforce has about 800-1000 fighter jets.  No question US/NATO aircraft and AtA missiles are much better but we would have to fight their air force over ground they control while avoiding massed SAM's at the same time.  That would be a serious equalizer.

Not saying we couldn't eventual take air superiority but it would take a long time and be extremely hard fought.  That's not even mentioning the fact they have tons of tactical ballistic and cruise missiles that can be directed at knocking out runways all over Europe.  Without air superiority over the battle field there is no way we are making much headway and I doubt we would get it quickly in most war scenarios.

Finally. Someone who has knowledge of military hardware and overall strategy.
Without the use of tactical low-yield nuclear weapons (to slow them down), Russia would have the initialadvantage on the ground, if they went full-scale westward into Europe.

Right, Russia has a huge initial advantage anywhere east of Poland.  They aren't going to invade Poland (would be a huge military blunder) so it would basically be up to NATO to dislodge them from the Baltics/Belarus/Ukraine.  That would be an incredibly difficult task.

I mean I don't think Germany/France/UK could even put 200K troops combined into the field within 3 - 6 months of the start of a war, and 200K is probably a serious over estimate of what they could do.  Their ground forces are tiny and they have practically no reserves.

Allowing the Baltic countries into NATO was a huge overextension.  Latvia and Estonia are both over 25% ethnic Russian and Lithuania is ~10%, there is absolutely no way to defend them and retaking them would be extremely costly.

[lfromnj]

Are people forgetting that the USSR lent support to North Korea and China lent support to North Vietnam-- at times when both those countries were nuclear powers? It has been demonstrated several times throughout the past 70 years that nuclear nations can be brought into conflict (however indirectly) without resorting to using WMDs.

Neither of those are serious world destroying scenarios.  Neither the USSR in 1950 nor China in 1967 had nuclear capabilities  of destroying the world or even the US. A nuclear war over Korea would have likely resulted in an actual  US Victory even if the USSR responded. Nuclear with China over Vietnam would have been the same but if it involved the USSR that would have been an obvious loss for everyone.

[John Dule]

Are people forgetting that the USSR lent support to North Korea and China lent support to North Vietnam-- at times when both those countries were nuclear powers? It has been demonstrated several times throughout the past 70 years that nuclear nations can be brought into conflict (however indirectly) without resorting to using WMDs.

Neither of those are serious.  Neither the USSR in 1950 nor China in 1967 had nuclear capabilities  of destroying the world or even the US. A nuclear war over Korea would have likely resulted in an actual  US Victory even if the USSR responded.

The fact that the destruction of the planet wasn't a possibility would have made the use of nuclear weapons more likely back then than it is now.

[Cassandra]

Biden is about to drag us into the 3rd World War and red avatars talking about technicalities lmao

Putin is a genocidal murderer who needs to go. The Biden Administration needs to immediately launch military strikes against Russia to remove the Putin regime from power.

Genocide? Maybe I'm just a little out of the loop, but what is this a reference to?

[StateBoiler]

As someone who politically came of age during Iraq, it sure is disturbing to see so many supposedly left of center folks calling for war before every other option has been tried. Maybe the Democrats really are the party of Bush now.

Democrats hate Russia due to Putin making Obama look like a dumbass in Syria and blaming Russia for Hillary losing in 2016.

"You talked about Russia. The 1980s called and want their foreign policy back."

Almost 10 years ago now. Sure aged well. And that was post-Georgian conflict by the way.

[StateBoiler]

I mean I don't think Germany/France/UK could even put 200K troops combined into the field within 3 - 6 months of the start of a war, and 200K is probably a serious over estimate of what they could do.  Their ground forces are tiny and they have practically no reserves.

A Canadian military lifer discussing this conflict elsewhere was railing on NATO military preparedness or lack thereof, and said in the event of conflict the only states in NATO that could field a division are the U.S., UK, France, Turkey, and Poland. When you throw that in perspective of the EU army Macron wants to start up, 3 of those 5 are not EU members (which reminds me of Jon Stewart's joke "your 2nd country is Poland?")

[GeneralMacArthur]

As someone who politically came of age during Iraq, it sure is disturbing to see so many supposedly left of center folks calling for war before every other option has been tried. Maybe the Democrats really are the party of Bush now.

Democrats hate Russia due to Putin making Obama look like a dumbass in Syria and blaming Russia for Hillary losing in 2016.

"You talked about Russia. The 1980s called and want their foreign policy back."

Almost 10 years ago now. Sure aged well. And that was post-Georgian conflict by the way.

Democrats hate Russia because it's an oppressive, authoritarian far-right dictatorship that murders political opponents and imprisons minorities and dissidents.

And because it's an aggressive military power that's determined to invade other countries and meddle in the affairs of its neighbors because it has this arrogant notion that they're all its "sphere of influence."

And because it makes aggressive use of espionage and information warfare to destabilize governments, including our own, and promote far-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for the sole purpose of weakening the social fabric of other countries.

These are all really bad things.

[Klobmentum Mutilated Herself]

I don't know how to make this any more clear

Biden and Putin both know nuclear war will lead to the end of life on earth. Neither Biden nor Putin want a ground war because they know it will lead to nuclear war, which neither of them want. That's not the threat. The nuclear weapons manufacturers don't even want war.

The threat is: the only reason we're alive right now is because, on more occasions than we are aware of, some low level grunt in the US or Soviet military looked their senior officer in the eye and disobeyed their orders to press the button. Radars make mistakes; most grunts lack the courage to disobey orders; that is an existential threat. There are hawks and ideologues on both sides who are true believer in war, who think that if one American citizen is still standing while all Russians (and all other Americans, and all other forms of life on earth) have perished in nuclear hell, then that is an American victory. And vice versa. If a Commander I'm Chief gets in office who either believes that ideology or is naive/dumb enough to give those hawks the time of day, that is an existential threat.

The more nukes there are, the higher the threat is. The threat is higher now than ever before.

China used to have a conservative nuclear policy. Why stock up on weapon after weapon when they already possess enough nukes to blow every major American city up? Not anymore. Now they're doing what we and the Russians have always done — stockpiling more and more nukes just to enrich the MIC and look tough. India and Pakistan is a huge concern. The fact that we now have nukes small enough that they could feasibly be used against a smaller regional power like Iran or Venezuela is a huge concern. Everyone said we can't trust Trump with the nukes, but nobody tried taking the nukes away.

Again, these countries don't want war, but they want more nukes so they can create more profits for the military-industrial complex and look tough for political points. The more nukes are circulated, the more the countries posture by doing things like Biden is about to do, the higher the risk that an accident happens and we all die. Or that an idiot comes to power and wants to use nukes, like Trump.

[MATTROSE94]

I don't know how to make this any more clear

Biden and Putin both know nuclear war will lead to the end of life on earth. Neither Biden nor Putin want a ground war because they know it will lead to nuclear war, which neither of them want. That's not the threat. The nuclear weapons manufacturers don't even want war.

The threat is: the only reason we're alive right now is because, on more occasions than we are aware of, some low level grunt in the US or Soviet military looked their senior officer in the eye and disobeyed their orders to press the button. Radars make mistakes; most grunts lack the courage to disobey orders; that is an existential threat. There are hawks and ideologues on both sides who are true believer in war, who think that if one American citizen is still standing while all Russians (and all other Americans, and all other forms of life on earth) have perished in nuclear hell, then that is an American victory. And vice versa. If a Commander I'm Chief gets in office who either believes that ideology or is naive/dumb enough to give those hawks the time of day, that is an existential threat.

The more nukes there are, the higher the threat is. The threat is higher now than ever before.

China used to have a conservative nuclear policy. Why stock up on weapon after weapon when they already possess enough nukes to blow every major American city up? Not anymore. Now they're doing what we and the Russians have always done — stockpiling more and more nukes just to enrich the MIC and look tough. India and Pakistan is a huge concern. The fact that we now have nukes small enough that they could feasibly be used against a smaller regional power like Iran or Venezuela is a huge concern. Everyone said we can't trust Trump with the nukes, but nobody tried taking the nukes away.

Again, these countries don't want war, but they want more nukes so they can create more profits for the military-industrial complex and look tough for political points. The more nukes are circulated, the more the countries posture by doing things like Biden is about to do, the higher the risk that an accident happens and we all die. Or that an idiot comes to power and wants to use nukes, like Trump.

The US could decapitate the Russian military and government in a first strike provided that the attack plan is sound and that everything goes according to plan.

[Ferguson97]

I don't know how to make this any more clear

Biden and Putin both know nuclear war will lead to the end of life on earth. Neither Biden nor Putin want a ground war because they know it will lead to nuclear war, which neither of them want.

Even if the event of a ground war (which will not happen), it would not escalate into a nuclear war. Both Putin and Biden are rational actors and understand the concept of mutually-assured destruction.

[StateBoiler]

As someone who politically came of age during Iraq, it sure is disturbing to see so many supposedly left of center folks calling for war before every other option has been tried. Maybe the Democrats really are the party of Bush now.

Democrats hate Russia due to Putin making Obama look like a dumbass in Syria and blaming Russia for Hillary losing in 2016.

"You talked about Russia. The 1980s called and want their foreign policy back."

Almost 10 years ago now. Sure aged well. And that was post-Georgian conflict by the way.

Democrats hate Russia because it's an oppressive, authoritarian far-right dictatorship that murders political opponents and imprisons minorities and dissidents.

And because it's an aggressive military power that's determined to invade other countries and meddle in the affairs of its neighbors because it has this arrogant notion that they're all its "sphere of influence."

And because it makes aggressive use of espionage and information warfare to destabilize governments, including our own, and promote far-right ideologies and conspiracy theories for the sole purpose of weakening the social fabric of other countries.

These are all really bad things.

Unlike most people on here I'm older and remember recent history. That was not true as of 10 years ago. As of 20 years ago, anti-Russian sentiment was considered warmonger hawk relic of the Cold War. Hillary Clinton in 2009 when she began her time as Secretary of State went to Russia with a "Restart" button, considering the tensions between the 2 countries at the time as the fault of the Bush administration. There was a lot of blame cast on the Bush admin by the left/Democrats for the Russian occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for seemingly emboldening Saakashvili and it's still believed by plenty that Saakashvili instigated the conflict/took action first. (I specifically remember a political cartoon of Saakashvili with a stick poking a Russian bear in a cage with Bush holding his hand. Next frame is Saaskashvili is now in the cage being torn to bits by the Russian bear and Bush is walking away whistling.)

This forum goes back to 2007. We can go back and see what people were saying at the time.

[SteveRogers]

I don't know how to make this any more clear

Biden and Putin both know nuclear war will lead to the end of life on earth. Neither Biden nor Putin want a ground war because they know it will lead to nuclear war, which neither of them want. That's not the threat. The nuclear weapons manufacturers don't even want war.

The threat is: the only reason we're alive right now is because, on more occasions than we are aware of, some low level grunt in the US or Soviet military looked their senior officer in the eye and disobeyed their orders to press the button. Radars make mistakes; most grunts lack the courage to disobey orders; that is an existential threat. There are hawks and ideologues on both sides who are true believer in war, who think that if one American citizen is still standing while all Russians (and all other Americans, and all other forms of life on earth) have perished in nuclear hell, then that is an American victory. And vice versa. If a Commander I'm Chief gets in office who either believes that ideology or is naive/dumb enough to give those hawks the time of day, that is an existential threat.

The more nukes there are, the higher the threat is. The threat is higher now than ever before.

China used to have a conservative nuclear policy. Why stock up on weapon after weapon when they already possess enough nukes to blow every major American city up? Not anymore. Now they're doing what we and the Russians have always done — stockpiling more and more nukes just to enrich the MIC and look tough. India and Pakistan is a huge concern. The fact that we now have nukes small enough that they could feasibly be used against a smaller regional power like Iran or Venezuela is a huge concern. Everyone said we can't trust Trump with the nukes, but nobody tried taking the nukes away.

Again, these countries don't want war, but they want more nukes so they can create more profits for the military-industrial complex and look tough for political points. The more nukes are circulated, the more the countries posture by doing things like Biden is about to do, the higher the risk that an accident happens and we all die. Or that an idiot comes to power and wants to use nukes, like Trump.

The US could decapitate the Russian military and government in a first strike provided that the attack plan is sound and that everything goes according to plan.

Nope, that’s a pretty bad plan. They have continuity of government plans in place just like we do.