Biden vs. Trump debate

[Dill]

(07-02-2024, 12:10 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Yeah, NATO allies whinging because Trump gives them shit about historically failing to live up to their responsibilities isn't exactly the three alarm fire for me it is for you.  Are you actually suggesting something as stupid as Trump dissolving NATO?
Putin doesn't seem to give a shit when a "pro-NATO" POTUS is in office as he consistently invades his neighbors during their tenure.
Good for him.  I don't and don't see any evidence of that.  
No, actual facts are good enough for me.  Facts like the following.  Trump warned and exhorted NATO allies to start funding their military to stand up to Putin.  Trump warned NATO allies that Putin is an aggressor who uses energy as a billy club to extort and manipulate them.  Putin was inactive for the entire four years Trump was POTUS.  Before Trump he literally annexed the entire Crimea while Obama did not a damned thing.  Once Biden was in office he initiated a full scale invasion of Ukraine.  You'll have show me what tangible benefits Putin gained during Trump's administration that made him so uncharacteristically docile.  Actual hard proof, not the "belief" of a former employee with who knows what motivations.
C'mon Dill, you like hard facts, why are you so keen to ignore them in this case?

What a flurry of posts today. 
I almost forget this textbook example of an argument which begins with a conclusion and the adjusts evidence to confirm it.

If we start with the evidence, e.g., why is NATO "whining," we learn that Trump told them, more than once, that the US might pull out of NATO, while demanding they pay their "dues" (which shows he does not understand how the alliance works) or he will be happy to abandon alleged freeloaders to Putin. 

And this from the president who openly admires Putin and publicly took Putin's word over his own Intel services about Russian interference in the US election. That's enough to set our allies discussing contingency plans for security which no longer involve the US., and to turn them more sharply towards China as an economic partner. Even if you believe Trump when he says "no one has been tougher on Putin" his BFF, they do not. Trump, with party backing, could certainly pull the US out of NATO, with even greater damage to our power and credibility than his smashing of the Iran Deal. Even if he doesn't, the threat is disruptive and not "leadership." Today I spoke with a Bulgarian friend who's traveling Europe this summer and she remarked on the fear European governments have of another Trump presidency--except, of course, for Hungary. She says Trump does have support from anti-globalist, pro-Putin political factions in most countries. 

To the community of international foreign policy experts, Putin's invasions of Ukraine are a direct response to events on Russia's own border, and consistent with Putin anxieties about NATO and his announced foreign policy aims.  E.g., 2014 invasion followed the toppling of a pro-Kremlin president in Ukraine. Putin was content to leave the rest of Ukraine alone for the time being, while he continued consolidating power and building his military, as long as it aligned with his policies. And as long as a US-led NATO posed no immediate threat.

The trigger of the 2022 invasion again appears to be the election of an anti-Putin Ukrainian president who initiated a crackdown on Russian propaganda in Ukraine in 2020. Between Dec. 2020 and March 2021, Zelensky publicly stated a policy of de-integration from Russia and a pro-NATO policy aimed at eventual integration with NATO. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_37750.htm. This followed by Putin's infamous 20-page diatribe on how Ukraine had always been part of Russia. 

Assuming Putin's inactivity during Trump's time in office was tied to fear of Trump, or that his invasions during pro NATO presidencies mean he doesn't give a shit about them, exhibits the same quality analysis displayed by people who blame an increase in gas prices on Biden shutting down the Keystone pipeline. It's based on simplistic notions of cause/effect in a vacuum of information, and it's very Amero-centric, unaware of regional dynamics in other parts of the world which play out independently of whom is US president.

Unless you are prepared to argue that Putin wanted a strong and undivided US, unified with a strong NATO ready to help defend border countries like the Ukraine, then it's hard to make the case that Putin received no "tangible benefit" from a president who diminished US power and influence on a number of international fronts, while driving a US domestic political crisis toward authoritarian solution. And of course Putin, unlike you, could see that coming in 2016. That's why his disinformation war took trump's side during that election.