Comments by "VisibilityFoggy" (@VisibilityFoggy) on "The Future War: South China Sea & The Baltics" video.

The reasoning is simple. They asked to be part of NATO because they're small countries that are terrified of being sucked back into authoritarianism. Once people get a taste of freedom, they tend to like it. If I were a citizen of one of the Baltic states, I wouldn't want an ex-KGB thug bossing me around.
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@fal2218 - Estonia has one of the world's highest rankings on the Human Development Index and consistently ranks as one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Civil liberties, a free press and healthcare are among the best on Earth. Now, let's compare that to places under the thumb of Putin...
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@YUSKHAN - So your plan is to send hypersonic missiles into a national park? I guess that will neutralize the U.S.'s strategic force of bison and grizzly bears.
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@whitelabrat - I don't understand the thinking that the U.S. cannot afford its military. Though our corporate tax rates are insane, our overall cost of living is relatively low compared to most other developed nations. If anything, there is a good amount of breathing room for an expanded defense budget if required, though Americans would likely not tolerate European-level taxation unless there was a dire situation at hand. One of the issues Europe faces is that its levels of taxation are so high, and the welfare state so massive, that they have little room to increase defense spending in an emergency. Even the most tame austerity measure are met with near-riots when proposed. The U.K. is uniquely well-positioned to increase MoD spending if needed, but (ironically) the Scandinavian countries closest to Russia would need to bankrupt their own citizens to afford their own defense.
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Baseball games and hot dogs. Oh, the horror!
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And while we're at it, Russia should lay off the Krokodile lol.
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Colombia is arguably the world's best at fighting insurgents. Some Colombian soldiers and a few Super Tucanos can get a lot done! I had the chance to stay near the naval base in Cartagena – very cool place!
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That's actually a very interesting take. Something to think about.
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Why would the U.S. want to invade Russia? What could possibly be the strategic value of such a ridiculous action? What does Russia have that we want? The U.S. is "at your doorstep" because your neighbors are scared to death that your authoritarian president will attempt to annex them after they suffered under the Soviet dictatorship for half a century. They do not want to give up free elections, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, a free press or deal with Russia's humanitarian issues with minority communities. After Georgia and Ukraine, how do you expect the Baltic states to react? If anything, we wish we did NOT have to be there spending our tax dollars defending the sovereignty of other countries. You need to hold Putin accountable for his actions. The U.S. doesn't want to be your enemy, nor do we consider the Russian people to be our enemy, but you have a president who is still fighting the Cold War. Wouldn't you rather live in peace?
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@kerier1911 - The media over there is really selling you guys a bill of goods. I tried. Really, though... find 100 Americans and ask if they want to invade Russia or have anything to do with Russia. My guess is 99 of them would say no. I don't live in a dream world. But it seems you've created a boogieman in us because your government wants to distract you as they take away your democratic and human rights. It is textbook domestic policy for authoritarian leaders, repeated across the world. As for Putin, do you really like being subject to the whims of one man dictating how you speak, live, travel, communicate and consume information? The sad part is that you don't seem to realize what you've squandered when the CCCP collapsed. It could have been a bright future of friendliness and cooperation, but instead an ex-KGB thug decided to waste your money trying to build a silly empire and a military to defend against a country that has no desire to go to war with you. And for what it's worth, there are hundreds of millions of Americans who believe in traditional marriage and the fact that there are two genders. They're vocal about it and nothing happens to them. But there are also people who believe differently and nothing happens to them either. I've visited Russia. It has its nice areas and depressing areas like any other country. The people seem pretty nice – especially the older folks who have good perspectives on history. But your economic situation (I know, I know, somehow that's our fault) could be much improved if you embraced democracy, free elections, and joined the rest of the developed world in positive trade agreements and friendly military relationships. As it currently stands, your best friends on Earth are Nicolas Maduro and Bashar Assad. You also want to sell anti-aircraft missiles to the same guy who shot down one of your planes a couple years ago. That's poor company to be keeping.
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@diavulo28 - By your logic of "the troops were already legally there," the U.S. could annex most of the world. What unbridled stupidity.
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What would we do? Mexico is already a failed state. Do you really think the Russians want to become involved in that mess? If they want to go down Mexico way and set up a base in cartel land (in a country that literally has no means of defending its sovereign air space, by the way), by all means go for it.
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@karliskokorevics6902 - Safe from whom? There is no military threat from the south. There is no military threat from the north (though they should maybe stop firing off shots at our border patrol). Do you believe the U.S. wants to invade and occupy a failed, third-world narco-state? What do we gain?
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Funny, I see more Benz's, BMWs and Jaguars on the road in Colombia (America's closest South American ally) than where I live in the US.
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We could also take back the Panama Canal and halt Chinese maritime traffic from transiting from the Atlantic to Pacific. It took all of 10 days for Panama to surrender in 1989. I doubt it would even take that long today.
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Steve Arthur - The undisclosed "black budget" is where this occurs. The new US Defense Undersecretary is also an engineer who is obsessed with hypersonics (the same man who pioneered the SDI program under Reagan) and the US Congress has even passed a law that requires Mach 15 hypersonics to be developed by 2022.
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@Који Курац - Which country was "robbed" for oil? Do you see American companies controlling Iraqi oil output? The U.S. is a net exporter of oil and almost its entire energy usage is produced domestically. With regard to debt, a strategic default on Chinese debt would be much more damaging to China than the U.S.
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Steve Arthur - Americans are stupid? What utopian paradise are you from, if I may ask? Can't wait to pick apart some stats on your smarts once we find out. The funniest part will be when you name a country that has to rely on the U.S. for its own defense. SDI was canceled (well, yes, stupidly) because the USSR collapsed and there was no political will to continue funding it. Had the program continued, it would likely be viable and deployed by now. The euphoria of the end of the Cold War caused a great many programs to be canceled or slowed because it was believed a free Russia could be a potential ally. And during the Yeltsin years, foreign policy analysts interpreted his policies as being focused on transitioning to a market economy and representative democracy. His problem was that his domestic economic policies were a disaster and his popularity sunk by the time of his resignation. His terminal mistake was selecting a former KGB thug as a hand-picked successor who has spent the last two decades on a hell-bent mission to return the country to a fully authoritarian system of government.
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Steve Arthur - So what? You seem ignorant of the fact that hydraulic fracturing extraction is unlike traditional oil extraction. Why are you obsessed with the longevity of a particular well? In just the already-identified deposits in the U.S. (not counting Canada's reserves), it is expected that there are 6 trillion barrels present. Effectively, shale extraction is a hedge that helps keep crude prices low as it only becomes infeasible if traditional crude prices drop to an extremely low level.
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@oats6452 - There was an article in the NY Times about hypersonics and the man currently in charge: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hypersonic-missiles-are-unstoppable-and-theyre-starting-a-new-global-arms-race/ar-AAD6ODh Regarding the "black budget," here's a Wikipedia page on it with the basics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_budget
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An "unsinkable" carrier? Gimme a break. No boat is unsinkable. Our version of the "unsinkable" carrier is the Ford class, for what it's worth. Granted, it would be hard to sink one, and in most scenarios legitimately could not be sunk, but with the right weaponry, expertise on vulnerabilities and a little luck, I don't doubt it could be accomplished to some degree.
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