Technically 59% of people with an opinion disapprove of Biden's handling of this, including 64% of all Independents
A quick look at this shows that who we have in approval are the hardcore Democrats who would approve of anything Biden does as long as he does not mysteriously turn into Trump. Moreover, half of this poll was taken prior to the invasion itself. Lord knows how those numbers will change the further Russia advances into Ukraine.
Moreover, while everyone seems to be in favor of sanctions, we are currently struggling to get all of our allies in agreement. Word is that some of the more powerful sanctions are being shelved because Germany and others are not on board (they apparently rely too much on Russia for imports). So even in terms of banding everyone together into one purpose, our Administration seems to be struggling there as well.
73 comments:
Yeah, let's see how the polling goes as time goes on. That one was taken just before Putin invaded.
I will now share with you what I just put on the next thread.
Accurate U.S. Intelligence Gave Biden Big Advantages
February 25, 2022 at 3:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 33 Comments
New York Times:
“The success of American intelligence in reading Mr. Putin and stripping away any element of surprise is one of the most striking developments of the crisis and has had substantial implications as the conflict has exploded into bloodshed.
“It was not enough in the end to deter Mr. Putin from carrying out the broad assault that got underway early on Thursday.
“But the depth and quality of the American intelligence strengthened President Biden’s hand in bringing the trans-Atlantic alliance into a unified front against Moscow. It provided time to prepare waves of sanctions and other steps
to impose a cost on Russia,
dispatch troops to bolster NATO allies
and move Americans out of harm’s way.”
____________
"I don't think Russia cares,"
some of you are saying.
But see the next post.
You don't think Russia cares?
Looks to me like she cares quite a lot.
Looks to me like Putin's really worried.
Russia Warns Finland and Sweden
February 25, 2022 at 3:03 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 116 Comments
The Russian foreign ministry warned that if Finland or Sweden joins NATO, they would face “serious military and political consequences,” the BBC reports.
________
So Socialist Dictator State Russia will now tell all the nations of the world what alliances they may or may not join?
Putin has gone too far.
>February 25, 2022 at 2:37 PM
C.H. Truth quoted the following,..
“The success of American intelligence in reading Mr. Putin and stripping away any element of surprise is one of the most striking developments of the crisis and has had substantial implications as the conflict has exploded into bloodshed."
AND THEN CH SAID:
So like the defensive coordinator who knew exactly what the opposing offense was going to do... that coordinator looks even dumber for not being able to stop it.
It's not an advantage is you don't work it as such.
Perhaps the NYT wuold like to offer how this could have differently had we been surprised? Because surprised or in the know... it seems clear that we had no nerve to actually do anything to prevent it.
AND I REPLIED,
Ch really enjoys rootin for pootin, doesn't he.
George W Bush is now a RINO according to you and Trump.
It is rare for all living former US presidents to comment on anything beyond large natural disasters. President George W. Bush, in particular, has repeatedly tried to avoid reentering the political fray. Their separate but rhetorically united condemnations underline the seriousness of what President Joe Biden called "a dangerous moment for all of Europe and for freedom around the world."
"Putin has committed an assault on the very principles that uphold the global peace," Biden said in a statement from the East Room at the White House.
Bush, who infamously once said he'd gotten a sense of Putin's soul, said the Western world could not "tolerate the authoritarian bullying and danger that Putin poses."
"Russia's attack on Ukraine constitutes the gravest security crisis on the European continent since World War II," he said in a statement. "I join the international community in condemning Vladimir Putin's unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine."
Trump, the only other living former Republican president, has repeatedly praised Putin both in the past and this week. He called the Russian leader's justification for invasion "savvy" and "genius." Trump, like many Republican lawmakers, has also blamed Biden for the invasion, a political calculation that underlines speculation that the 45th president wants his old job back.
"I mean, he's taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions," Trump told donors and Republican lawmakers on Wednesday, The New York Times reported. "I'd say that's pretty smart."
"...it seems clear that we had no nerve to actually do anything to prevent it."
You really are a POS, Ch. Biden enraged Putin with the way his plans, which he thought were hidden, were throughly known to us ahead of time, forcing Putin repeatedly to go on record and lie before all the world about his intentions.
You guys used to criticize Biden because he kept insisting that the Russians WERE going to invade, no matter how many times Putin denied it.
Biden insisted because he had the goods on Putin, the information.
Just keep rooting for the enemy.
You have shown here how much of a sell-out you are to a brand of right wing fanaticism so narrow in its outlook that you cannot see what should be obvious to any thinking person:
Yours is the kind of cowardice that has refused to stand up to Trump and call his lies what they really are and this has led our nation to a point where our internal enemies may now be even more dangerous than our external enemies.
Thanks. Thanks for being such a poor conservative, such a poor Republican, such a poor American.
Technically Lil Schitty. you are 100% fucking asshole!!!!!!!!! Market today was a big surprise for me.....they seem to be less worried about the invasion than I thought.....you on the other hand are still pushing party before country as is usual fro demented trump lovers who hold the belief he won!!!!!!
Roger want Biden to Follow Trumps Drill Baby Drill.
Honest, decent, truthful Rev.February 25, 2022 at 3:06 PM
"...it seems clear that we had no nerve to actually do anything to prevent it."
You really are a POS, Ch."
Why does the gibberish of the goat fucker get more disjointed by the day???? Could it be he sees his end is near for him and his group of idiots??????? Last week he called the US energy independent, this week he is banging on Putins drum of oil......BWAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
The Chinese government has confirmed that it solidified a deal scrapping import restrictions on wheat from Russia, announcing details of the agreement the same week Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine.
Biden must embrace oil and gas exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago. The American president must do everything he can to make us independent again.
The reason I think all the resident trump slurpers are just a group of spineless, feckless R's who have no fucking leader or agenda other than NO!!!!!
The invasion of Ukraine has presented Republicans with a vexing conundrum. How can they express horror and condemnation — which no doubt are sincerely felt — over Vladimir Putin’s actions while avoiding taking a position on Donald Trump’s praise of the Russian leader, let alone on Trump’s long history of kowtowing to him?
The solutions Republicans have hatched to this problem usefully illuminate the range of acceptable opinion in the party, and the constraints on it, at a moment when many Republicans still see Trump as essential to the party’s future.
The Post has a remarkable new overview of quotes from Republicans about the situation. The story is essentially that Trump’s praise of Putin has left him isolated, now that many Republicans are condemning the invasion, even as Republicans avoid faulting Trump directly for this.
exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago.
BWAAAAAAPAAAAAA!!!!! A fucking lie from the KU goat fucking loser!!!!!! Your stupidity is only out paced by your fealty to trump and the party of assholes!!!!!!
While the US is self-sufficient in coal and natural gas (as a result of the shale revolution), it has never ever been energy independent since the 1970s because of continued crude oil imports.
The invasion of Ukraine has presented Republicans with a vexing conundrum. How can they express horror and condemnation — which no doubt are sincerely felt — over Vladimir Putin’s actions while avoiding taking a position on Donald Trump’s praise of the Russian leader, let alone on Trump’s long history of kowtowing to him?
Jesus Fucking Christ on a stick...
Putin has troops in Kyiv ready to take over the Ukraine capital... and liberal columnists are writing about Trump. How fucked up in the head do you have to be here?
So wonder nobody trusts the media and why someone like Joe Rogan has 10 times the viewers as CNN does.
The only thing we KNOW about Trump and Putin is that Putin DID NOT invade Ukraine while Trump was around. Everything else is pretty much political rhetorical nonsense.
btw... Biden has dropped 5 points in two days with Rasmussen polling.
You really are a POS, Ch. Biden enraged Putin with the way his plans, which he thought were hidden, were throughly known to us ahead of time, forcing Putin repeatedly to go on record and lie before all the world about his intentions.
And Slow Joe went running to the Chi-Coms and the Chi Coms turned right around and told Putin all about it...
Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia's troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.
Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord -- and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.
The previously unreported talks between American and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow's plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/politics/us-china-russia-ukraine.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
Having an issue with ONE mortal geo-political enemy?
Go running to YOUR OTHER mortal geo-political enemy.
Brilliant.
Thanks. Thanks for being such a poor conservative, such a poor Republican, such a poor American.
As I have previously stated today -
Hillary has told us on numerous occasions going back to W's first term that "DISSENT IS PATRIOTIC."
Is this no longer the case pederast?
Does your team just get to arbitrarily declare anyone on the right a TRAITOR nowadays?
And when the fuck did this suddenly change???
Zelensky is now asking NATO (read: The US) to start shooting down russian warplanes.
Let's see if Brandon is just stupid enough to do it.
We are literally on the precipice of WW III, thanks to installing the dumbest fuck of all time into the oval office.
And the alky and the pederast are scoring this thing off the WaPo op/ed page.
Too easy to catch the stupid Denny.
"
BWAAAAAAPAAAAAA!!!!! A fucking lie from the KU goat fucking loser!!!!!! Your stupidity is only out paced by your fealty to trump and the party of assholes!!!"
Note, Roger said this:
"Biden must embrace oil and gas exploration. America was energy independent just a few years ago. The American president must do everything he can to make us independent again."
Ha!
US will continue to "work with Russia in key areas."
Sanctions?
What sanctions?
Oh, THOSE sanctions.
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/02/25/this-is-embarrassing-jen-psaki-tells-peter-doocy-why-u-s-will-continue-to-work-with-putin-in-key-areas/
Man, the pederast is looking like a fucking fool TO-DAY.
Why do you think Putin was emboldened to do what he did -- invade?
ANSWER: Much of it had to do with the great long standing DISUNITY he saw in present day American politics.
Russia Rejects Talks with Ukraine’s President
February 25, 2022 at 4:46 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 177 Comments
“Russia on Friday rejected talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and made it clear that it was seeking to topple his democratically elected government,” the New York Times reports.
Said Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: “What we’re talking about is preventing Nazis and those who push methods of genocide to rule in this country. Right now, the regime that is located in Kyiv is under two mechanisms of external control: first, the West, led by the United States, and secondly, neo-Nazis.”
first,
the West,
led by the United States,
who want a free and independent, democratically run Ukraine nation
and second,
rightwing fascistic oligarchs who want a dictatorship
ANSWER: Much of it had to do with the great long standing DISUNITY he saw in present day American politics.
CORRECT ANSWER: The American left installed an imbecile in the white house. An imbecile that Putin has studied for decades. An imbecile that Putin knew is corrupt, specifically beholden to - yep - you guessed it...
Ukraine.
An imbecile with a track record of being wrong on foreign policy every day for 40 fucking years.
An imbecile who shit his pants in the presence of the Holy See.
An imbecile so intellectually compromised, so thoroughly flawed, so completely cognitively FUCKED, that Putin sees this as taking candy from a baby.
Pederast say your a traitor to acknowledge any of this because it is your patriotic duty to worship Joey Sprinkles.
Dissent IS NO LONGER Patriotic.
Dissent is TREASON.
Ignorance is strength.
Does your team just get to arbitrarily declare anyone on the right a TRAITOR nowadays?
________
Why not? You've been abritrarily declaring anyone on the left TRAITORS for a long time now.
Those who want a dictatorship, whether of the left or of the right, are TRAITORS.
You are traitors in that you want dictatorial government of, by, and FOR THE WEALTHY.
We are patriots in that we want democratic government of, by, and FOR THE PEOPLE.
"European Natural Gas Prices Skyrocket 60% As Russia Threatens To Cut Supply"
IF only some one, oh say President Trump, would have warned them.
James lives in poverty, like Roger.
Those who want a dictatorship, whether of the left or of the right, are TRAITORS.
I don't think anyone wants "dictatorship".
I might criticize my local NFL team, complain about the QB, and call for the coach to get fired. I might even point out how badly we got beat by a team that seemed to have their shit together.
That doesn't mean I want my team to lose.
It's not treachery to expect or call for better.
It's certainly not treachery to point out the opponent kicked the shit out of my favorite team.
And if some coach or fans want to call me a traitor, well then those thin skinned snowflake sissies can kiss my ass!
Russian president vladimir putin pines for the old Russian empire and takes Ukraine’s independence as a personal affront. But the invasion of Ukraine is not a limited regional dispute between neighbors. Putin is also motivated by a deep opposition to democracy more broadly. That is why he has waged a long-running shadow war to destabilize free societies and discredit democratic institutions in the United States and around the world. Ukraine is one flash point in a larger global struggle between democracy and autocracy—one that stretches from the steppes of Eastern Europe to the waters of the Indo-Pacific to the halls of the U.S. Capitol.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/republicans-ukraine-putin-xi-trump-democracy/622898/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
In the 20th century the United States and our allies defeated us from The Nazis and again Communism.
You don't like crooked Hillary Clinton but she is exactly correct.
Vladimir Putin and China are planning to dominate the earth.
Scott, read it. Because you actually can think.
I know that your have a non globalist philosophy.
This Century is pivotal for mankind.
Putin is not just a garden-variety nationalist; he is a paranoid, chronically underestimated, implacable enemy of democracy. And while Russia poses an immediate threat to peace in Europe and to the integrity of our elections at home, it is Xi’s China that represents the greatest long-term challenge to the future of democracy. The United States faces a serious and sustained competition with China that may shape the rest of the 21st century as profoundly as our Cold War with the Soviet Union defined the latter part of the 20th century. The world is very different than it was during the Cold War, and China is bigger, richer, and more integrated into the global economy than the Soviet Union ever was. But the competition with China is a similarly multidimensional struggle that is economic, cultural, technological, diplomatic, military, and ideological all at the same time. That means the U.S. will have to invest and compete across all these dimensions—while bolstering democracy at home and abroad.
Remember when President Biden started an new NATO allies with Australia and New Zealand.
He knew what was going on back then.
Deterring Russia and competing with China are different challenges, and each requires its own strategy, but strengthening American democracy is crucial to both missions. Putin and Xi understand that the promise of democracy—freedom, rule of law, human rights, self-determination—remains powerful enough to capture the imaginations of people everywhere and poses a threat to their regimes’ global ambitions as well as their grip on power at home. That’s why they are determined to discredit or co-opt the idea of democracy, including by promoting divisions and dysfunction in democratic societies like the United States, and by bragging about the ability of their autocracies to deliver better results. America and our allies should be working just as hard to prove them wrong. We need a strong democracy in the United States to win the global argument with autocracy. A strong democracy is also a precondition to mobilizing the resources necessary to deter aggression and compete economically and militarily. By contrast, a weak and fractured democracy at home will only embolden our adversaries and invite further aggression.
Even though I disagreed with George W Bush and Dick Cheney. Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois are braving the ire of their party.
Real Republicans are patriotic Americans.
Right now.. too many others are not.
But these bright spots are the exceptions that prove the rule. A solid majority of Republicans in both houses of Congress rejected the infrastructure legislation, and the party remains in lockstep opposition to important economic measures that would help America compete with China, including on clean energy and education. Those Republican leaders promising tough sanctions on Putin’s economy and inner circle seem helpless to tamp down the pro-Russian sentiment in their party ignited by Trump, fanned on a daily basis by Tucker Carlson on Fox News, and now embraced by a growing number of GOP members and candidates—as well as the continuing right-wing love affair with Hungary’s would-be autocrat, Viktor Orbán.
Gee Roger...
You mean like when the Democrats "filibustered" the Cruz bill that would have forced Biden to reimpose the Russian sanction on the pipeline that Biden lifted when he became President?
You do realize that in terms of action, Republicans and Trump have been much harder on Putin and Russia than Democrats and Biden.
That is just a fact. You cannot change it today because of Tucker Carlson or something.
Roger...
Respond to my Twitter questions?
Sometimes it seems as if Liz Cheney is the only prominent Republican able to connect the dots between these domestic challenges and our international standing. “Attacks against our democratic process and the rule of law empower our adversaries and feed communist propaganda that American democracy is a failure,” she noted in a speech last year.
This is not a new insight. During the Cold War, prominent anti-communists supported the civil-rights movement because, as Harry Truman’s secretary of state Dean Acheson put it, discrimination and segregation threatened “the effective maintenance of our moral leadership of the free and democratic nations of the world.” The Justice Department’s amicus brief in Brown v. Board of Education argued that “racial discrimination furnishes grist for the Communist propaganda mills.” And Chief Justice Earl Warren said, “Our American system, like all others, is on trial both at home and abroad … The extent to which we maintain the spirit of our Constitution, with its Bill of Rights, will in the long run do more to make it both secure and the object of adulation than the number of hydrogen bombs we stockpile.”
Republican leaders who care about democracy and are serious about competing with China and deterring Russia must stand up to Trump, stop promoting the Big Lie about the 2020 election, and embrace efforts to provide accountability for January 6. They should start taking domestic white-nationalist terrorism as seriously as they do international violent extremism, abandon their war on voting rights, and pass crucial reforms they have so far opposed, such as the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. State and local Republican officeholders responsible for administering elections, from secretaries of state to members of county canvassing boards, will have to steel themselves against the mounting pressure they are already facing from Trump and his allies. Republican donors who don’t want to live in a banana republic should put their mouth where their money is and declare that they’ll only contribute to candidates who support democracy.
Ultimately, it’s voters—all of us, really—who must be democracy’s last line of defense. This isn’t just about the next presidential election. Democracy will be on the ballot this year as well, in state, local, and congressional races across the country. If Americans fail to rise to this challenge, and our democracy continues to come apart at the seams, the consequences will be felt far beyond our own borders. We must come together to strengthen our institutions, protect our elections from foreign interference, and defend civil rights for all. That will send a powerful message that will resonate not just in Washington but in Moscow and Beijing.
Our country is facing the biggest challenge in our history.
U.K. Bans Russian Private Jets
February 25, 2022 at 5:59 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 38 Comments
British transport minister Grant Shapps said in a tweet on Friday that no Russian private jet can fly in UK airspace or touch down, effective immediately, Reuters reports.
How the West Misread Vladimir Putin
February 25, 2022 at 6:03 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 75 Comments
Wall Street Journal:
“Fifteen years ago, the former KBG agent railed against U.S. domination of global affairs
and assailed the post-Cold War security order as a threat to his country.
In the years that followed, he grabbed portions of Georgia,
annexed Crimea
and sent troops in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
“Mr. Putin sent repeated signals that he intended to widen Russia’s sphere of influence
and cast the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s eastward expansion as an existential threat to Moscow’s security.
He made plain he viewed Ukraine as part of Russia.
“Yet until recently few Western leaders imagined Mr. Putin would go through with a full-scale invasion,
having miscalculated his determination to use force
—on a scale that recalls the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968—
to restore Russian control over the nations on its periphery.”
IOW, IF YOU ARE NEAR RUSSIA, YOU MUST BELONG TO RUSSIA.
Zelensky Says Russia Will Storm Kyiv Tonight
February 25, 2022 at 6:09 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 423 Comments
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Friday night is when Russia “will launch an assault” on Kyiv, adding that “this night we have to stand ground. The fate of Ukraine is being decided now,”
Axios reports.
Said Zelensky:
“The enemy will use all of their power on all fronts to break our defense.”
Ukrainians Resist Russia Onslaught
February 25, 2022 at 8:03 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment
“Ukrainian forces desperately fought back against a Russian military onslaught Friday, firing U.S.-made missiles at aircraft and tanks as the Kremlin’s rockets, artillery and missiles rained down on population centers from Kharkiv to Mariupol to the capital of Kyiv,”
the Washington Post reports.
“As Moscow’s vastly superior air, naval and ground forces dug deeper into the country,
Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared bent on regime change,
calling on Ukraine’s armed forces to ‘take power’ from Ukraine’s democratically elected leaders,
whom he called ‘drug addicts and neo-Nazis.’”
New York Times:
“As Russian troops entered Kyiv on Friday,
Ukraine’s military began arming civilians to help defend the capital.
“Scores of residents stood in line to pick up assault rifles
at a distribution center in central Kyiv after President Volodymyr Zelensky called for volunteers to take up arms.”
"Drug addicts."
"Neo Nazis."
Sounds exactly like Trump calling immigrants names.
"Rapists."
"Murderers."
"Criminals."
"Drug dealers."
Look what you have unleashed,
Trump slurpers.
Russia Warns Finland and Sweden
February 25, 2022 at 3:03 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 553 Comments
The Russian foreign ministry warned that if Finland or Sweden joins NATO, they would face “serious military and political consequences,” the BBC reports.
__________
And what will come next?
"All of you get back into the Soviet Union
or Russia will nuke you"?
Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Estonia
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
LatviaLithuania
Moldova
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
Uzbekistan
In 2004 these young democracies joined NATO -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization:
Three former Soviet republics -- the Baltic states of
Estonia,
Latvia and
Lithuania
-- and three members of the former Warsaw Pact:
Bulgaria,
Romania and
Slovakia.
The seventh,
Slovenia,
was part of the former Yugoslavia.
In 1999, NATO welcomed
the Czech Republic,
Hungary and
Poland.
Our country is facing the biggest challenge in our history.
Really? Bigger than our Civil War, WWI, WWII, 911?
Yes, because it has distorted minded people like you in it.
He knows what to do. You have been brainwashed.
Russia Attacks
Ukraine
LIVEUpdates: Troops Enter Kyiv
Maps
What’s Next
The Roots of the Attack
Timeline
NEWS ANALYSIS
Biden Targets Russia With Strategy of Containment, Updated for a New Era
President Biden’s plan to counter Russia faces obstacles in an interconnected world. Russia also has a new, if not very enthusiastic, partner in standing up to the West: China.
Image
President Biden and Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in Geneva last year. Mr. Biden vowed this week to make Mr. Putin a “pariah on the international stage.”
President Biden and Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in Geneva last year. Mr. Biden vowed this week to make Mr. Putin a “pariah on the international stage.”Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
David E. Sanger
By David E. Sanger
Feb. 25, 2022
Updated 5:57 p.m. ET
Sign up for the Russia-Ukraine War Briefing. Every evening, we'll send you a summary of the day's biggest news. Get it sent to your inbox.
WASHINGTON — More than 75 years ago, faced with a Soviet Union that clearly wanted to take over states beyond its borders, the United States adopted a Cold War approach that came to be known as “containment,” a simplistic-sounding term that evolved into a complex Cold War strategy.
On Thursday, having awakened to a violent, unprovoked attack on Ukraine, exactly the kind of nightmare imagined eight decades before, President Biden made clear he was moving toward Containment 2.0. Though it sounds a lot like its predecessor, it will have to be revised for a modern era that is in many ways more complex.
The nation that just moved “to wipe an entire country off the world map,” in the words of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, also remains a key supplier of natural gas to keep Germans and many other Europeans warm. That explains why Mr. Biden has been constrained from cutting off the valuable export. And the Russia of today has a panoply of cyberweapons that it can use to strike at the United States or its allies without risking nuclear Armageddon — an option to retaliate against American sanctions that was never available to President Vladimir V. Putin’s predecessors.
Those are only two examples of why containment will not be easy. But Mr. Biden has been clear that is where he is headed.
For three decades, American presidents described a series of Soviet and Russian leaders as “businesslike” or even “partners.” They celebrated “glasnost” and ushered Moscow into the World Trade Organization and the Group of 7 industrial nations. Washington even entertained the idea in the 1990s — very briefly — that one day Russia could join NATO. No one has talked that way in years. But Mr. Biden, who came to office last year talking about establishing a “stable, predictable” relationship with Moscow, spoke of a completely ruptured relationship on Thursday.
“Now the entire world sees clearly what Putin and his Kremlin allies are really all about,” Mr. Biden said in a speech from the White House. “This was never about genuine security concerns on their part. It was always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire by any means necessary, by bullying Russia’s neighbors through coercion and corruption.”
He vowed to make Russia pay “dearly, economically and strategically,” and to make Mr. Putin a “pariah on the international stage.” Those words might have even been familiar to George F. Kennan, the American foreign service officer who became famous as the grand strategist who invented containment, though he later warned, at age 94, that expanding NATO to Russia’s borders was a bad idea, bound to become “the beginning of a new Cold War.”
The “containment” Mr. Kennan described in his famous “Long Telegram,” an 8,000-word dispatch from the American embassy in Moscow, was primarily aimed at putting geographical limits on Soviet ambitions. But even though the Long Telegram was long, it spent the most time explaining the psychology of Stalin’s regime, which Mr. Kennan described as paranoid, viewing the outside world to be “evil, hostile and menacing.”
The similarities to Mr. Putin’s speech on Monday night, in which he accused Ukraine of triggering genocides and seeking nuclear weapons — both false claims — and the United States of seeking to use Ukrainian territory to strike at Moscow, are striking. So was his description of America’s “empire of lies.”
But as Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said on Thursday, “It’s much more complicated to make containment work today.”
The Soviet Union largely presented a military and ideological challenge, he noted. Yet modern-day Russia is a provider of needed fuel and minerals, “and that gives them leverage over us, even as we have leverage over them.” The force of that leverage was made clear from Mr. Biden’s answer to a question on Thursday about why Russia had not been thrown out of SWIFT, the global communication system for financial transactions.
Barring Russia from that system would be a devastating move, cutting off its government from oil and gas revenue. That accounts for about 40 percent of its incoming cash and would be the one sanction almost certain to hurt Mr. Putin like no other.
But Mr. Biden noted in his speech that “in our sanctions package, we specifically designed to allow energy payments to continue.” When asked about barring Russia from SWIFT, he added, delicately, “Right now, that’s not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take.” In fact, the debate over SWIFT has been a source of tense behind-the-scenes exchanges, chiefly with Germany. The German objection is clear: If the country cannot pay for its gas, Russia will not deliver it.
Live Updates: Russia Attacks Ukraine
Updated
Feb. 25, 2022, 8:52 p.m. ET17 minutes ago
17 minutes ago
An independent analysis says Ukraine has slowed Russia’s advance but is unlikely to hold it off entirely.
Armed with assault rifles, civilian volunteers prepare to defend Kyiv.
‘This night will be tough,’ Zelensky says, predicting an escalating Russian offensive.
Image
The Moscow International Business Center. Barring Russia from SWIFT, the global communication system for financial transactions, would be devastating for the country.
The Moscow International Business Center. Barring Russia from SWIFT, the global communication system for financial transactions, would be devastating for the country.Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
But the second reason containment may not work is that Russia has a new, if not very enthusiastic, partner in standing up to the West: China.
When Mr. Kennan described containment theory, China was in civil war. Later in the Cold War, when Russian leaders met their Chinese counterparts, Russia was the dominant player of the two countries. No longer. Last weekend, when China’s foreign minister told participants at the Munich Security Conference that Ukraine’s borders needed to be respected, people sat up in their seats.
It sounded, for a moment, as if China was reining Russia in. But that was Saturday. On Thursday, as Russian forces shelled Ukraine, the Chinese government said that it had approved several deals announced during Mr. Putin’s trip to Beijing for the Winter Olympics this month, including one to buy vast amounts of Russian wheat. The word “sanctions” never appeared in the Chinese announcement about the deals this week.
When Mr. Biden was asked on Thursday whether he was urging China to help isolate Russia, he hesitated and then said, “I’m not prepared to comment on that at the moment.”
Containment has another challenge that Mr. Kennan could not have envisioned: the rise of cyberconflict as a short-of-war mechanism for superpowers to attack each other from afar, without resorting to nuclear weapons.
Understand Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
Ca
What is at the root of this invasion? Russia considers Ukraine within its natural sphere of influence, and it has grown unnerved at Ukraine’s closeness with the West and the prospect that the country might join NATO or the European Union. While Ukraine is part of neither, it receives financial and military aid from the United States and Europe.
Are these tensions just starting now? Antagonism between the two nations has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian military crossed into Ukrainian territory, after an uprising in Ukraine replaced their Russia-friendly president with a pro-Western government. Then, Russia annexed Crimea and inspired a separatist movement in the east. A cease-fire was negotiated in 2015, but fighting has continued.
How did this invasion unfold? After amassing a military presence near the Ukrainian border for months, on Feb. 21, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia signed decrees recognizing two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine. On Feb. 23, he declared the start of a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Several attacks on cities around the country have since unfolded.
What has Mr. Putin said about the attacks? Mr. Putin said he was acting after receiving a plea for assistance from the leaders of the Russian-backed separatist territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, citing the false accusation that Ukrainian forces had been carrying out ethnic cleansing there and arguing that the very idea of Ukrainian statehood was a fiction.
How has Ukraine responded? On Feb. 23, Ukraine declared a 30-day state of emergency as cyberattacks knocked out government institutions. Following the beginning of the attacks, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, declared martial law. The foreign minister called the attacks “a full-scale invasion” and called on the world to “stop Putin.”
How has the rest of the world reacted? The United States, the European Union and others have condemned Russia’s aggression and begun issuing economic sanctions against Russia. Germany announced on Feb. 23 that it would halt certification of a gas pipeline linking it with Russia. China refused to call the attack an “invasion,” but did call for dialogue.
How could this affect the economy? Russia controls vast global resources — natural gas, oil, wheat, palladium and nickel in particular — so the conflict could have far-reaching consequences, prompting spikes in energy and food prices and spooking investors. Global banks are also bracing for the effects of sanctions.
Microsoft reported in October that 58 percent of the state-sponsored cyberattacks it had tracked around the world in the past year had emanated from Russia. And that does not count the criminal ransomware gangs that work from Russian territory.
Biden administration officials make no secret of their concern that Russia views its arsenal of disruptive cyberweapons as a way to strike back at American sanctions. Now that Mr. Biden has announced sanctions against some of Russia’s biggest banks, a well-planned cyberattack might be the most efficient way for Russia to try to retaliate against American financial institutions. But as Russia learned last year, the target set of vulnerable American infrastructure is much larger.
Mr. Biden’s one meeting last year with Mr. Putin, in Geneva, was prompted by the Colonial Pipeline hack, which shut down nearly half of the flow of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel on the East Coast — and triggered gas lines at a time of plentiful supply. It was an event that shook the White House and taught the Kremlin some lessons about the vulnerability of American critical infrastructure.
Mr. Biden emerged from the meeting offering some professional respect for Mr. Putin as an adversary. For his part, Mr. Putin said, “There has been no hostility.” At one point, Mr. Biden asked the Russian leader how he would feel if Russia’s gas pipelines were attacked from afar — a comment that some interpreted as a threat to the Russian leader.
For a few months, ransomware gangs were in retreat, and not long ago the Russian police, based on information from the United States, arrested a group of what they described as criminal hackers. But now there is fear that the ransomware gangs could be unleashed, as could hacking groups like Sandworm, which has been linked to the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence unit. Sandworm is believed to be responsible for hacks of the Ukrainian power grid and multiple targets in the United States.
For more than a month, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Jen Easterly, has been issuing a series of what she calls “Shields Up” tweets and making public appearances to encourage more resiliency in the nation’s privately-controlled computer networks.
Together with the British, the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency, Ms. Easterly’s agency recently revealed the technical details for a new strain of malware it has seen. It turns out that it was derived from one of the most destructive attacks ever conducted, which was aimed at Ukraine in 2017.
For America’s largest banks and utilities, this was old news: They have studied Russian attacks on Ukraine and other nations for years. But for institutions that have invested far less in fending off attacks, resiliency takes time to build up, so no one thinks that last-minute warnings to lock down vulnerable systems, while helpful, are enough.
Putin's strategy is to reimpose fascist regime's in Europe and Africa and along with China they will dominate the earth for at least a century or more.
Democratic governments are vulnerable because of their freedoms, and our founding fathers recognized it but they thought correctly that freedom matters.
Russia also has a new, if not very enthusiastic, partner in standing up to the West: China.
If we actually do the same thing as Richard Nixon, and keep Thailand safe?
We have a chance...
This is the most important situation since 1932....
"he Real Halfbaked Soars Pundit February 25, 2022 at 7:06 PM
Our country is facing the biggest challenge in our history."
Nope
"Our country is facing the biggest challenge in our history."
Vs Alky.
"This is the most important situation since 1932...."
Nope and Nope
The only way to believe Trump would have been strong enough to deter Putin from invading Ukraine is to bat an eye to reality. For those of us with open eyes, we can plainly see the ridiculous nature of such assertions.
The only way to believe Trump would have been strong enough to deter Putin from invading Ukraine is to bat an eye to reality. For those of us with open eyes, we can plainly see the ridiculous nature of such assertions.
WW 2
My fiance
My fiancee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xwXq0OZrMQ
I just watched this, the President and Vice president and the REMARKABLE nominee to be the next Supreme Court Justice.
Integrity and respect for the law above politics was so evident it was palpable. What a nominee! What a person!
"Less than a week before President Joe Biden is supposed to give his State of the Union address to Congress, the number of voters satisfied with the state of the union is lower than it has been in nearly a decade, according to a recent poll.
A Fox News poll revealed that 68 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with how the United States is going, while only 31 percent are satisfied, which is the lowest number who have felt that way in almost a decade.
Trump Campaign Directed Fake Electors In Georgia
February 25, 2022 at 9:15 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 67 Comments
“The chairman of the Republican Party in Georgia on Friday told the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot that the Trump campaign had directed the party in 2020 to put forward an alternate slate of electors after then-President Donald Trump lost the state’s vote,” CNN reports.
SOUNDS LIKE THE SORT OF THING NIXON MIGHT HAVE ATTEMPTED -- EXCEPT THAT EVEN HE PROBABLY HAD MORE SENSE THAN THAT.
Fuck off pederast
Trump Campaign Directed Fake Electors In Georgia
I think it's called an "alternate" set of electors, not a "fake" set of electors. I find amusing how so many liberals "fall" for semantics when it comes to Trump.
It's almost as if they "want" to be fooled?
Judging from what little I could see of her behind her mask, the 17 year old daughter of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL.
Blogger Honest, decent, truthful Rev. said...
Judging from what little I could see of her behind her mask, the 17 year old daughter of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL.
Once again... The Reverend being sexually aroused by an underage girl?
Yes, like he was perving in the pre teen Obama girls.
World oil prices have retreated a bit .
As the free flow of Russian Oil continues to make cash for Putin.
Biden failure on the World Stage.
The People of Ukraine are expendable for appeasement of Putin.
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