He can feel however he wants, invading sovereign countries is wrong.
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Putin is scared of journalists and leaders from within his own country that speak out about the horrible job he has done and then has them jailed or killed. Of course he is going to be scared of a creeping alliance of countries with different values from him.
I also question how much Putin runs his state media, vs how much the state media has run him. We have seen the echo chambers of the right wing here in the US and how they merged into the brain of our own President. Russian oligarchs don’t need to directly have the ear of Putin, all they need is a channel for misinformation like Rupert Murdoch to control a message that can align a power hungry mind with their own interests. The lines are getting blurred.
At the beginning of the article the Baltic nations are referred to as indefensible. Let’s assume they are attacked by Russia. What would a non nuclear response by NATO be?
Uhhhh why
Those people are totally going to be motivated…
. . . to defect. ITA.
The Russian military makes heavy use of conscripts.
I would say that somehow, it works for them…but the motivation of their existing conscripts is one of the reasons cited for why the invasion hasn’t gone quite the way Putin hoped.
I would argue Putin is shaping a lot of this. I still think they have plants in all message board environments where politics are discussed and that they may be significantly driving the conversation coming out of conservative forums. The folks that frequent those places are all parroting Russian talking points over the last 2 weeks further solidifying my opinion on this. The University of Kentucky fans message board I frequent has a political forum and they are talking about very obscure things from the last 20 years that Ukraine has done to deserve this invasion. How else would these people know these obscure details about 2 countries they have no stake in?
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It’s hard to take this logic entirely seriously either, because Russia isn’t particularly strong, and this war will cost them. Maybe the next big war will cost them less, or maybe there won’t be a next big war because this one cost too much.
There won’t be a next big war because Putin will never concede a defeat and for good reason
Another odd facet to me is the rules of this war feel even more arbitrary than the rules of most wars.
Russia can not attack civilians, but it can starve civilians and shell cities…We can send food, but not through a siege…
We can send guns and anti-tanks, but can we send tanks? We can send stingers, but what about jets and helicopters and drones? And if we send drones does it matter who is remote piloting them?
This is why it was important that the US and the USSR still sort of talked during the Cold War. It’s sort of an extreme stakes negotiation.
If the Baltic nations were attacked by Russia I think they’d be met by Abrams tanks.
Well now I’m suspicious of everyone here.
We lost secondlife already 
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Ever heard about the Berlin Airlift?
Pretty sure a couple suspected folks have been sussed out here.
Right now the 3 countries together have about 100 tanks of various designs and an active duty military of about 40000. Do you they would be able to hold off the Russians until there is some kind of amphibious landing of thousands of American troops and tanks?.
If Hitler had nukes…
Pretty sure NATO allies will soon be sending many more tanks and troops to the Baltic front.
My nephew was stationed in Latvia until a few months ago and he complained about how boring it was….I hope it continues to be boring.
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Fells like you haven’t been listening to what they’ve been saying for the last 7 years…