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Here we go. Dunno if I should be worried yet, but Russia seems to want further escalation, after Obama's confirmation in Tallinn this week that NATO article 5 still holds. And with UK proposing serious sanctions against Russia... A new cold war in the making? Or a hot one?

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Here we go. Dunno if I should be worried yet, but Russia seems to want further escalation, after Obama's confirmation in Tallinn this week that NATO article 5 still holds. And with UK proposing serious sanctions against Russia... A new cold war in the making? Or a hot one?

 

https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher/status/508001611776798722

 

Max Fisher can get a lot of things wrong, but he has a point here.

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There isn't enough shale oil in the world to actually get Putin to invade Estonia. While it's small enough for his 'fait accompli' style of invasions and land grab to work, it's not distant enough to the west. It's also not a country made up mostly of Russians and people who speak russian. It's primarily Estonian, primarily liberal, and is way, way too close to Europe. Georgia and Crimea had none of that. Estonia is also a vital part of the EU 'cyber-security' network. 
Putin gets more out of antagonizing the EU and NATO without prompting actual conflict with them. He gets to show everyone not traditionally in the "west" how weak and ineffective the old powers are, or at least how cautious they are. He gets to build Russia as an alternative to the NATO/EU/US block.
(Although, an actual hot war between Russia and the west would probably not work out so well for Russia. They may have a lot of soldiers and such, but they also have a pretty crippling equipment situation, and a majority of russian people under the age of 30 have at least one congenital disorder or disease. This also ignores their rapidly dropping birth rate and the fact that a really significant amount of EU and NATO military build-up has been set-aside in the interests of not antagonizing russia. How quick do you suppose an Iron Dome style system will be put in place then? How much would the US love to get rid of some elderly M1A1's? An actual invasion of a NATO ally would be the end of Russia as anything but a pariah state.)

Putin's real smart, and there's nothing smart about invading Estonia. He gets shale oil, more coastal area in the Baltic, and a population that loathes him and has been under a conscription model of army since it was there. It'd be an incredibly tough bit of land to swallow nowadays, even if no one else steps in.

As a personal note, I'm a Polish-Ukrainian American whose family fled Ukraine in the 20's because of a Russian genocide (holodomor) that eliminated all of my remaining family there, and the town we came from was renamed from Kassel to 
Komarivka and resettled with Russians. I desperatelydesperately want this war, in all honesty. I've read the letters. My elder extended family begging for food, for money to buy food, for anything. At some point the letters stopped. They don't have a recorded date of death, or a headstone to find. As far as the Soviet union was concerned, they just never existed. The last few months have been very hard for me. American rhetoric over it has been hard for me. Seeing people afraid and inclined to give russia what they want has been hard for me, even though I can understand it. I just boil with rage when I think on it. It's like if Turkey was reinvading Armenia (IMPOSSIBLE, RIGHT?) using Ottoman-era phrasing and we just all ignored it, since it's 'not our place to intervene.' Come on, what the fuck world? Thank you for your indulgence reading this. I'm just a little box of fury.

Edit: I am so fucking bad about putting stupid ranty things up as a new page topper. Is there a way I can see if that's going to happen? Sorry everyone. Again.)

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I saw a tweet today pointing to a Russian language news story, claiming that a Russian paper is stating Finland wants to become part of Russia :/

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I saw a tweet today pointing to a Russian language news story, claiming that a Russian paper is stating Finland wants to become part of Russia :/

Yeah no, we love the idea.

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Lots of great geopolitical and personal context on Russia and Estonia

Just to say thanks for pouring out your thoughts. Really appreciated it.

 

a majority of russian people under the age of 30 have at least one congenital disorder or disease.

Could you expand on this one a little bit?

 

Edit: I am so fucking bad about putting stupid ranty things up as a new page topper. Is there a way I can see if that's going to happen? Sorry everyone. Again.)

It's 20 posts per page, 01 - 20, 21-40 and so on into the thousands. Don't feel bad though, yours was a good scene-setting rant.

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Why is everyone so bothered when their posts happen to be at the start of a new page?

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Most of my posts are completely vapid and often incredibly stupid to boot, so when they're accidentally the top of a new page, I feel inclined to apologize to the world in my own way.

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But why is that any worse than posting a completely vapid and incredibly stupid post in the middle of a page?

 

edit for SBM: oops, we simul-posted (also idgi)

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Because not everybody opens threads by using the last unread post button, so when they open the latest page they are guaranteed to see it every time until a new page!

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Ah, I thought it might be something to do with how people open new threads. Why open by page rather than last unread, though? For a recap?

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I don't know. I used to not do it because I didn't know that button existed. Maybe other people do it for the same reason or other reasons I'm unaware of or whatever.

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If it's a reply to the previous post, then it's harder to follow on a new page if the post wasn't quoted.

 

Then just edit in a quote!

 

I don't know. I used to not do it because I didn't know that button existed. Maybe other people do it for the same reason or other reasons I'm unaware of or whatever.

 

HEY EVERYONE, IF YOU CLICK ON THE BLUE STAR [edit: OR CIRCLE] TO THE LEFT OF THE TOPIC, IT TAKES YOU TO THE FIRST UNREAD POST! Just in case.

 

EDIT:

 

Are there a list of jobs that exempt you from conscription? I need one of those.

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I do edit in a quote when that happens but also copy-pasting a quote is sort of a hassle because it works weirdly in the normal post editor. And if I go to advanced then what am I even looking at!!?

 

Also it's only a star if you've posted in the thread! I think.

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I just edited in a quote from the previous page to my post above, it was eeeasy! (Perhaps it's more difficult on mobile?)

 

Have edited my post too.

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