Originally Posted by
obgraham
Putin thinks he is the protector of ethnic Russians everywhere. So Crimea, yes. And he would probably make a move on the Baltics if the opportunity arose. Beyond that, he has no interest.
And how is this different from Israel belieiving it is the protector of Jews everywhere ? Pakistan / Saudi believing they are the protector of Muslims everywhere ? No doubt some people will claim Hitler claimed he was the protector of Germans everywhere but does that mean people would equate Hitler with Israel ?
Russia clearly does not want a threat to the "Motherland" on its doorstep. 3 invasions and 40 million dead in just over 100 years does indeed colour their viewpoint here. Sadly in the West we ignore this viewpoint.
The Cold War ended 30 years ago, some wish it to restart because the MIC see profit opportunity.
A plane flight with a US Mil attachee a couple of years ago was interesting. He highlighted when Crimea vote was happening, the total competent Military, viewed by Pentagon in Ukriane was max 20,000, this was able to fight and put up a competent coordinated defence / attack. He said ignore the official figures, he opinioned that Russia had better figures and if Russia had needed they could have gone in from Transnistra / Crimea and Russia and got to Kiev in a week but there were No movements of anything, not even training deployments and they were looking.
I would like to see US Mil withdrawn home, on a day like today, D-DAY it would be good, US has had a lot of the blood of its young men spilt on European soil. I hope not to see anymore happen in any European military conflict, I hope not to see a European military conflict.
There are some in US establishment would will happily spill anybodys blood to enrich themselves and control whatever they can.