Dems now demonize the same policies Obama once championed

[Vosem]

Wanting to cozy up to the Russian regime was bad when Obama was doing it and it's still bad now that Trump is doing it. One of the fringe benefits of it being such an intense topic of discussion right now is that more-or-less all Democrats and FP-oriented Republicans should try to block any future attempts, at least until after the Putin regime has fallen, so that this sort of thing won't happen again. The pressure from home is probably strong enough to force Trump into hawkish activity, like hopefully strengthening of sanctions, as well.

[Vosem]

Wanting to cozy up to the Russian regime was bad when Obama was doing it and it's still bad now that Trump is doing it. One of the fringe benefits of it being such an intense topic of discussion right now is that more-or-less all Democrats and FP-oriented Republicans should try to block any future attempts, at least until after the Putin regime has fallen, so that this sort of thing won't happen again. The pressure from home is probably strong enough to force Trump into hawkish activity, like hopefully strengthening of sanctions, as well.

-What's your beef with RU, again?

Vosem's heritage is Jewish-Russian. His username is an Anglo perversion of "восем".

-I know. But I still don't get the point of his yuge beef with RU. Even Sunrise, another prominent neocon Jew on this forum, has wisened up on this topic.

My beef is basically that I think governmental consolidation in the Western world (especially the EU, but also things like NATO and NAFTA) is fundamentally a good thing, necessary to maintain an important Western position in the world, and should be the premier foreign-policy goal in the West broadly. There's nothing necessarily anti-Russian here; I'm a big admirer of Russian culture, I have relatives who live in Russia, and I'm proud to speak Russian as my native language. If anything, I think someday far in the future there could be a place for Russia within NATO (Russia is probably too large to enter the EU without fundamentally changing the power dynamics in that organization); over the very long-term, America and Russia have the same foreign-policy enemies in Chinese expansionism and extremist Islam, and cooperation will eventually be necessary. I am not necessarily even against territories that clearly want to be part of the Russian state, like Crimea, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, (or even Daugavpils) to be integrated one day, so long as it is done in a peaceful, democratic manner, and the countries that lose territory are somehow fairly compensated. But because the Putin regime has made its biggest foreign policy goal the undermining of inter-European institutions, it has to be opposed at every turn. At least Islamism attacks the West as a unified entity; Russia seeks to disunite it. The former is a much more implacable foe, but it is the latter which is more threatening in the immediate term.

Итак, понятно?

[Vosem]

Wanting to cozy up to the Russian regime was bad when Obama was doing it and it's still bad now that Trump is doing it. One of the fringe benefits of it being such an intense topic of discussion right now is that more-or-less all Democrats and FP-oriented Republicans should try to block any future attempts, at least until after the Putin regime has fallen, so that this sort of thing won't happen again. The pressure from home is probably strong enough to force Trump into hawkish activity, like hopefully strengthening of sanctions, as well.

-What's your beef with RU, again?

Vosem's heritage is Jewish-Russian. His username is an Anglo perversion of "восем".

-I know. But I still don't get the point of his yuge beef with RU. Even Sunrise, another prominent neocon Jew on this forum, has wisened up on this topic.

My beef is basically that I think governmental consolidation in the Western world (especially the EU, but also things like NATO and NAFTA) is fundamentally a good thing, necessary to maintain an important Western position in the world, and should be the premier foreign-policy goal in the West broadly. There's nothing necessarily anti-Russian here; I'm a big admirer of Russian culture, I have relatives who live in Russia, and I'm proud to speak Russian as my native language. If anything, I think someday far in the future there could be a place for Russia within NATO (Russia is probably too large to enter the EU without fundamentally changing the power dynamics in that organization); over the very long-term, America and Russia have the same foreign-policy enemies in Chinese expansionism and extremist Islam, and cooperation will eventually be necessary. I am not necessarily even against territories that clearly want to be part of the Russian state, like Crimea, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, (or even Daugavpils) to be integrated one day, so long as it is done in a peaceful, democratic manner, and the countries that lose territory are somehow fairly compensated. But because the Putin regime has made its biggest foreign policy goal the undermining of inter-European institutions, it has to be opposed at every turn. At least Islamism attacks the West as a unified entity; Russia seeks to disunite it. The former is a much more implacable foe, but it is the latter which is more threatening in the immediate term.

Итак, понятно?

-I find both the logic and the premises weak here.

You do not discuss my main point, which is that it is by unifying that the Western world broadly, and western Europe in this case, can remain a strong influence on world affairs. Instead you quibble with a bunch of side points, which I'll happily respond to, but you leave my main point untouched.

First, the premises. I'm not a fan of the E.U.; I think it has gone too far in the direction of tyranny. I supported Brexit, despite not knowing all the issues behind it, due to the nature of the people opposing it. I find NATO to be little more than an Islamic terrorist organization. It might be useful for defending the civilized (yet, still loser) countries of the Baltics, but it is clearly overextended, and ought to be pulled back from Greece, Turkey, Albania, and Bulgaria, at the very least. But, to prevent it from re-expanding yet again, or serving as an Islamist terrorist entity, as power begets power, I prefer it to be entirely abolished.

OK. This is actually a conversation I'd love to have, since I think it touches what are very fundamental beliefs for both of us. Let me answer you in a point-by-point basis:
1. I agree that the European Union has gone too far in a regulatory direction and needs internal reform. This needs to be done internally, through the consent of the member states, and states pouting and leaving is counter-productive in all but the most extreme cases (had Greece left in 2015, when the whole EU was opposed to their democratic decision, that would've been understandable; for Britain it is not).
2. I obviously staunchly opposed Brexit, which will have the effect of making the United Kingdom, a country I deeply admire and whose political culture I greatly respect, more marginal and unimportant in the world. I found the people who were supporting it to be a mixture of clowns (like Farage), politicians disingenuously trying to further their own careers (like BoJo), or those who have let their ideologies blind them to the realities of the world (like Corbyn). I am heartened by the intense generational gap on the subject, with members of all political parties under the age of 40 or so continuing to support EU membership, and I'm fairly confident that within 10-20 years the decision in Britain will be reversed.
3. I find the idea that NATO is an Islamist terrorist organization to be utterly ludicrous and detached from reality; indeed, NATO as an organization has probably done more to fight Islamism, through the War in Afghanistan and the bombing campaign against ISIS, than any other group in the world. I think that NATO is (in another of its key functions) very important in defending the Baltic states, though I emphasize that it is the present Russian regime that has made defense of the Baltic states necessary at all, and in an ideal world Russia would not pose a threat to them (and they would not pose a threat to or withhold citizenship from their own Russian citizens). Turkey indeed should be kicked out of NATO, but this is because under the present regime Turkey's foreign policy objectives have drifted quite far from NATO's indeed. I see no reason to remove Greece or Bulgaria. Albania is meaningless but I think its inclusion at least creates some goodwill for NATO.
4. I would like to see it expand, at least to countries like Georgia and Armenia (the latter of which would only be possible after Turkey is expelled of course), and in an ideal world to the Ukraine as well. Power for NATO ought to be begot.

Secondly, the logic. I don't agree at all with your assessment of the Putin government. There is no real way Russia can undermine European institutions; the main reason they are weak is that they have undermined themselves. Secondly, I doubt Putin cares about whether the European institutions shoot themselves in the foot or not. Russia did not seriously resist NATO expansion in 2004, however, it strongly resisted it in Ukraine, for good reason -like the Cold War possibility of the Warsaw pact extending to Cuba, the current possibility of NATO extending to Ukraine is a very serious threat. I, like over 70% of Russians, approve of Putin's leadership; I doubt Russia after Putin can do much better than it has under him.

1. Russia can and does undermine European institutions by providing funding for parties like the Front National in France and Alternative fuer Deutschland in Germany which are opposed to the existence of those European institutions. I don't dispute that they weakened themselves in a stupid move by opening borders in 2014 (in violation of the Schengen Agreement, at that), but that doesn't mean that a large amount of the present strength of anti-system parties can't be traced to Russian funding. This is much more clear-cut in western Europe than it is in the United States, incidentally.
2. Indeed, it is a threat. As long as the Russian government continues funding anti-system parties in Europe, they should be threatened.
3. How many Russians do or don't approve of Putin's leadership isn't strictly relevant here. The European Union and the United States (ie, the West broadly) should continue to oppose his regime, ideally with stronger sanctions and providing military aid to states like Georgia and Ukraine, until such time as aid for anti-system parties in Europe ceases. This is a prerequisite; once it ends, then we can negotiate with Russia about borders and whatnot. Because both sides have nuclear arsenals, war isn't a realistic option in this case, but going as far as we can without risking war should be.