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History is written by the victors, that's true. Russia looks like an aggressor to you but everyone else sees their behavior as restrained compared to US hegemony.
US might win that game, at the cost of destroying all their Western European allies.
Nobody else cares about Putin invading his neighbor.
If anything else, every other country is going to be even more distrustful of the US, as they can just break all rules of international trade and blockade you for minor border disputes.
Not really. Enduring histories have frequently been by the losers with more time to grouse than the winners too busy with leading to focus on their memoirs.
But, if we do take what you say as true, then Russia' strategic defeat will be appropriately recorded by the victors.
*Citation needed on everyone.
There is no credible scenario in which all of the US's Western European allies are destroyed. Or any of them, really.
Germany is a central-European state, and while the disruption to their economic model will truly be difficult for them, it was the predictable consequence of decades of German industrial policy that they were warned about by other partners.
This is, of course, why majorities in the UN condemned the Russian invasion, and the Russian annexation, and why Russia's closest allies have been so generous with their economic and military support, to the extent that CSTO is not at all floundering.
*Citation needed on every other country
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The alternative to expensive heating is maintaining a substantial military that occasionally kills an appreciable portion of your workforce. Europeans of the future will count this as an unmitigated win.
This is incredibly naïve. In what universe does successfully defeating your rivals and preserving the sovereignty of not even allies harm one's credibility? Are you actually able to look at the Russia Ukraine conflict and conclude that nations should strive to be on the Russian side of the equation? If you're an Eastern European country watching this go down you'd trade just about anything to be in the good graces of uncle Sam. I bet you can find that "America, world police" song on juke boxes in Poland.
Expensive heating and expensive power. The kind of stuff you need to run factories that would help you equip an army when you inevitably come to need one.
Successfully defeating your rivals? First they could start by successfully defeating the Taliban.
Guess what, they celebrate the coincidence of getting out of Afghanistan in time to have the resources to tackle Ukraine.
At least the Russians have the balls to resist American commands. I imagine a number of Eastern-Europeans would understand that.
Yes just like the Poles strove to be on the good side of Britain and France, how'd that work out for them at the time?
Maybe they should remember that the Soviet conquest of Poland was possible thanks to the American lend-lease?
Yep and that should be incredibly shameful.
Here's Germany 40 years under America vs 40 years under Soviet Union.
Great job, russia! Fucked up East Germany so badly that not even muslim immigrants want to live there.
How many muslims live in Russia, again?
Plenty of muslims living in Russians but they are not purposefully importing them afaik.
Russia is arguably better at managing multiculturalism than NATO.
That's one way of looking at it. Another way to look at it is that an atheistic or muslim Germany would not be very much German at all.
Fair points, but still not a sales pitch. East Germany is economically so rundown that young Germans still flee it 30 years after unification. Economic ruin is not a superior alternative to cultural ruin, and exchanging one for the other is not worth letting Russia have its way.
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