I disagree with Russia being no threat to The US.For most my life l would have agreed with you that The US shouldn't be spending 800 billion on defense or keeping order in the world.While I do disagree with bull shit like The Iraq war I do believe the world needs The US and NATO to keep the world from turning into a full on shit storm.
They have threatened to use nukes against The US multiple times in the last few months.Being the biggest threat to world peace is a threat to The US.Being a threat to NATO nations is a threat to The US.Interfering in US elections is a threat to The US etc
It's like people have the memory of a goldfish: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/trump-says-troop-sacrifice-meaningless.328111/ https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/releasethetranscript.336566/#post-4938501
They only threatened to use nukes (which is an empty threat) because the US is directly supporting the Ukraine. If we weren't there, that threat wouldn't even exist. As for interfering in elections - its only on social media, many countries do that. We do that. They're not rigging voting machines or hacking the White House. How is that a direct threat?
Any country threatening to use nukes against The US is a threat imo.If Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine The US wouldn't be giving weapons to them. Helping put someone like Trump in charge of The US is a threat.A threat to world peace is a threat to The US.Repeatedly invading other nations is a threat to the US,when Hitler did it with no consequences it led The US to a war that killed 500,000 troops.
You're using a WW2 comparison? Come on Tony... didn't you rail me on that earlier? That said, without looking at Wiki... I think Russia lost over 20M people in WW2 if you include civilians. Now as I said earlier, neither you nor I can get inside Putin's head, but I do suspect (as I also said earlier), I have a feeling he hearkens back to this line of thought. I could be wrong though. Oh... and when you said "let China consume all of Russia's natural resources".... that's a laugh out loud. I don't think that could be done in two lifetimes. If Russia has anything, they have lots of everything that people tend to want to find beneath dirt. Or snow. And you are right too btw... Putin did threaten us with nukes. Let me ask you this however, do you not think he'd use them? Again... we don't know. BUT... there is one thing I suspect... whatever back-channels of communications that exist between our two nations... I have a hunch... and it's no more than that.... but I think Putin and his people laid down the gauntlet and told the Biden Administration that if we give Ukraine jets... it's all bets off. I mean why else would we not pony up a few dozen F-16's? It's not the price-tag (obviously), so answer me that one. There's gotta be a good reason.
In the beginning I don't think Putin ever considered using nukes,every day he inches closer and closer to it being in an option imo.I agree with you Putin has drawn a red line that if crossed he says fuck the world and lets see whos the last man standing after nuclear exchanges .Biden has a fine line to thread between weakening Russia so they no longer have the ability to fight wars in the near future and stopping them from invading other countries to pushing Russia to the point of saying fuck it,nuclear WWIII. Its a risk and I hope for all of our sake Biden pulls it off but a stand had to be taken to stop Putins reckless behavior.