Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "Why Russia wants to restore the Soviet borders" video.

@briansimmons8643 But it's NOT unprovoked hostility. The USSR tried to conquer Europe every which way. You name it, they tried it. It was Bolshevik DOGMA for seventy-years. At all times, the USSR had a VAST tank fleet. Tanks are used in attack and counter-attack -- defense, not so much. They're lousy at it. France and Britain had dinky atomic arsenals. The USSR had a monster. Which it has left to Russia. Notably Ukraine got rid of its atomics. So, even though it's been thirty-years since the Cold War, Moscow is STILL obsessed with 'going West.' Whereas, every thinking analyst sees Siberia at risk to Red China. She holds a territorial grudge -- to this day.
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@uncleadi Moscow's true worry ought to be Beijing. And I think it is. However, Putin is echoing Stalin. He thinks that he can aim the Red Chinese at the West -- and stay out of the blast range. It didn't work out that way for Stalin. And the same dynamic must hold true for Putin. Any tyrant (Xi) willing to joust with the West will look upon Russia as a morsel... an after diner mint. Yet, just like Stalin, Putin figures that enabling the CCP just can't produce blow-back. As did Stalin, Putin figures that Russia will be standing -- and strongly -- after the dust clears when Red China takes on the rest of the planet in one go. For Xi, there can be no hope of slicing off one democracy after another. That's the lesson that Britain, Canada, Australia and America picked up from Adolf. BTW, the whole hyper-sonic gambit only makes sense if used by Moscow and Beijing against each other. They provide no new military capability against the USA. ICBMs are already hyper-sonic. Those weapons that we all read about have drastically reduced ranges or payloads -- usually both. This is the direct consequence of tooling around inside the Earth's atmosphere.
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I don't follow 'Putin's Argument' in our Atomic Age. Moscow already has a killer defense: HISTORY and ATOMICS. She faces NO near-peer military competitor in Europe at all. NATO is a purely defensive alliance. Its internal debates leak like a sieve. For quite some time, Moscow actually had its own reps (generals) sitting in on NATO confabs. Moscow's REAL problem is its erstwhile ally: Red China. It is the expansionist power -- not NATO. NATO is a status quo entity. Its thesis is that military conquest (aggression) can't win for any party. Red China is the nation that has territorial claims against Russia -- namely Siberia. Beijing used to run the joint. Both Moscow and Beijing have seen -- still see -- themselves as the center of the world... their worlds. BTW, Putin can't 'aim' Beijing towards the West. Xi is so grandiose that he wants the entire planet. That's why he apes Adolf and Stalin.
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@uncleadi You nit. That's exactly what making war on the West must entail. They are -- right now -- able to buy pretty much everything -- and it's not stopping their aggression -- which rhetorically even includes Russia. Red China does not have any strategic partners. They simply don't need Russia for anything critical. All of that stuff is coming from the West. When Trump moved to cut the CCP off from cutting edge High Tech the CCP flipped out. Russia simply does not have cutting edge -- anything. It's a me-too economy... at best. It's a commodity exporter in the same league as Saudi Arabia. It's only leading edge stuff -- rocket engines -- are NOT what Beijing wants. They are not critical to Red China. She gets into space riding her own boosters. Yes, they're inferior. But that's not any kind of problem for the CCP. On orbit is on orbit.
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