Comments by "Heads Full Of Eyeballs" (@HeadsFullOfEyeballs) on "How soon can a NATO-Russia war happen?" video.

  1. What's your best example of NATO threatening Russia prior to the war in Ukraine? Please note that I mean an actual threat of military action. Not simply doing stuff that Russia finds inconvenient to its imperialist project, like allowing Russia's neighbours to join NATO. Keep in mind that Russian state media are currently threatening to nuke NATO capital cities on a weekly basis. Just to set a standard for threatening the other side in this discussion.
    5
  2. "No matter how you look at it, NATO's eastward enlargement poses a threat to the Russians." Nope, sorry. Russia's neighbours joining NATO only poses a threat to Russia if Russia is planning to start a war with them. You are confusing Russia's imperialist interests (maintaining a "sphere of influence" of weak neighbours they can push around) with Russia's actual material security. Also note that your best example of NATO "threatening Russia" involves no actual threats of any kind being made, whereas Russian state media are currently threatening to nuke NATO capital cities on a weekly basis. "Deploying nuclear weapons in Ukraine, as Zelensky proposed, would have meant that Moscow could be reached within 5 minutes. Turning the situation around, how would the US react if Russia were to deploy nuclear weapons within 5 minutes flying time of Washington?" Has anybody in NATO shown the slightest inclination to take Zelensky up on this idea? Not as far as I'm aware. Certainly nobody even considered the idea before Russia invaded. So again your "threat" is a 100% hypothetical future issue (NATO could choose to do something to threaten Russia), and again it's only a threat if Russia intends to start a war with a NATO country, because otherwise why would NATO nuke them?
    4
  3. There isn't a single NATO soldier fighting in Ukraine.
    2
  4. Germany has given more aid to Ukraine than the rest of the EU combined. France has spent like one seventeenth as much as Germany. And this isn't factoring in that Germany has exposed itself to huge economic damage by going cold turkey on Russian gas and by sanctioning an important long-term trading partner, triggering a recession. It's time the others did some stepping up.
    2
  5. Europe has to prioritise defense (as in, actually physically defending its own territory) a lot more than the US because of its geography. The nearest country that might realistically want to attack the US at some point is on the other side of a vast ocean, whereas the EU has a long land border with its nearest realistic enemy (Russia/Belarus). So Europe is never going to be as "strong" as the US in terms of the ability to inflict damage on their enemies unless they spend a lot more than the US.
    2
  6. So is Trump simply lying when he says that he wants to cut aid to Ukraine and not support European NATO members in a war against Russia?
    1
  7. Elon Musk isn't an engineer, he just owns companies that employ engineers. His own technical qualifications wouldn't get him hired to program the entertainment system in a Tesla.
    1
  8.  @Andygb78  Oh, that's even easier. The only potential threat to Europe was Russia, and relations with Russia were quite good for decades after the end of the Cold War. NATO was practically entirely useless to Europeans during that time, while the US continued to benefit significantly from it, being able to use European territory as staging grounds for its various invasions, getting European peacekeeping troops to clean up its messes, and so on. So naturally Europeans reduced their spending.
    1
  9.  @joramneumark8557  "No matter how you look at it, NATO's eastward enlargement poses a threat to the Russians." Nope, sorry. Russia's neighbours joining NATO only poses a threat to Russia if Russia is planning to start a war with them. You are confusing Russia's imperialist interests (maintaining a "sphere of influence" of weak neighbours they can push around) with Russia's actual material security. Also note that your best example of NATO "threatening Russia" involves no actual threats of any kind being made, whereas Russian state media are currently threatening to nuke NATO capital cities. "Deploying nuclear weapons in Ukraine, as Zelensky proposed, would have meant that Moscow could be reached within 5 minutes. Turning the situation around, how would the US react if Russia were to deploy nuclear weapons within 5 minutes flying time of Washington?" Has anybody in NATO shown the slightest inclination to take Zelensky up on this idea? Not as far as I'm aware. Certainly nobody even considered the idea before Russia invaded. So again your "threat" is a 100% hypothetical future issue (NATO might choose to do something to threaten Russia), and again it's only a threat if Russia intends to start a war with a NATO country, because otherwise why would NATO nuke them?
    1