How’s that “defending your home and not antagonizing anyone”?

Never been a slow burn, just a continuous one. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan…

He did not say what the original headline (post titles) implies. The headline has since then been edited to better reflect Putin’s words: “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”

You’re reacting to a doctored headline making it seem like Putin is threatening Europe with war. Putin’s words, as portrayed inside the article, clearly mean the opposite: “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”

The original headline (current post title) was doctored by The Guardian in a blatant attempt of warmongering, and has been edited since. Putin’s actual words can be found some paragraphs into the article: “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”

The original headline was doctored by The Guardian to promote warmongering in Europe, and has been edited since (not reflected on the post title as of my comment). Putin’s actual words were “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”, you can find it inside the article some paragraphs in.

The original headline was heavily doctored to make Putin’s words look much more aggressive, and has been edited since, which isn’t reflected in the post title as of the time of this article. Putin’s actual words are some paragraphs into the article: “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”

OP reproduced in the post title a doctored headline to make Russia sound aggressive. The headline has been modified since, and isn’t reflected in the post title as of my comment. Putin’s original words were “Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”.

The original headline was doctored to make it seem like Putin was threatening Europe with war, and has been changed since (not reflected in the post title as of this comment). Putin’s actual words are some paragraphs into the article:

“Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”

You are being lied to by OP. Look into the article to see Putin’s actual words:

“Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now.”

The original headline of The Guardian was not a literal citation of Putin, and has been modified accordingly, you should edit the post title to match the headline.

What Putin actually said is explicited inside in the article: "Russia does not intend to fight Europe, but if Europe starts, we are ready right now”

My implication was simply that they are allowed to exist because they happen to align with geopolitical US interests in the region, and otherwise would have likely disappeared.

You didn’t respond to my comments on the Machnovschina

This you?

I implore them to try something it shouldn’t take much to fuck them at this point.

Bro I’m not gonna be in any trenches

Then you’ll be in jail. Disobeying your country’s military or dodging conscription gets you that.

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Would you say the same about the Zapatistas?

Not sure, to be honest, I would have to read more about the Zapatistas. They absolutely are a micronation with no geopolitical power whatsoever, though.

Or the Makhnovshchina. They fought against the Bolsheviks so in your black white thinking, they are evil, right?

I never called Rojava evil, and I don’t think they’re evil, so don’t put those words in my mouth. Regarding Makhnovshchina: if they weren’t capable of enduring a civil war-destroyed red army, how were they supposed to survive Nazi genocide? How is a loose set of preindustrial farmers going to stand a chance against total extermination by an industrial power? And no, Vietnam isn’t an example because Vietnam was well funded and armed by the Soviets. No Soviet weapons, no Vietnam.

I equally condemn them, yes.

My position is: Russian government sucks, it’s a far right wing nationalist antidemocratic regime. Europe is just not really better or in a moral position to believe itself better than Russia. We have our own far right problems that we should locally take care of. If you ask me, a communist, I suggest having radical left wing organizations, strong unionization, and class struggle against the oligarchs and capitalists in Europe, and I would strongly encourage Russian citizens to do the same with their own government.

That said, I think that war is the least desirable outcome, possibly especially because I’m a young conscriptable male by demographics. My stance as a European is antimilitarism, I think Europe is as much an evil empire as Russia if not worse, and I don’t want state expenditure to be directed towards weapons and tanks, I want it to be directed to healthcare, education and pensions.

I believe that Russia assumes an aggressive militaristic stance with its neighboring countries that it considera its sphere of influence, because it doesnt have the soft power tools (propaganda, economics, intelligence, media control, cultural hegemony) that the west does, and it sees the west intruding in its sphere of influence (e.g. color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia). The only way the Russian oligarchy and capitalists have of maintaining its sphere of influence, given the lack of soft powers to do so in comparison with the west, is through military power.

I want to leave Russia alone with its sphere of influence, and have friendly relations with it and China, and not have war.

Cool, then push for the economic isolation and total sanctioning of USA in the EU and for the same with Israel, we are already in progress with Russia in that regard and not at all with USA. In fact, when militarism is discussed, most of the times it implies buying expensive military jets and missiles from the USA

Surely western propaganda frames it as a defensive war. So does Russian propaganda, you know? In Russia, all media talk of the “Special Military Operation” as a defensive push to protect Russian ethnics from genocide in Eastern Ukraine. Do I believe this? Not one bit. Do I believe that Europe’s mliotaries, traditionally used to invade the entirety of Africa and carry out colonial exploitation, or to invade middle eastern nations for their oil, are only good boys trying to defend ourselves from an evil third country? Absolutely fucking not. Europe is also a rabid militaristic dog. Half of Europe is about to elect fascists into government, and the last thing I want to see are fascists with military power in my country and the neighboring ones.

Big imperialist capitalist countries want to have spheres of influence, especially in their immediate proximity, this is basic geopolitics. Intruding reach other’s leads to escalation. It really is that simple.

Also, in case you didn’t think of this: joining a military pact isn’t a human right. It is totally possible and sometimes very rational to say “no” to a country who wants to join it. I’d bet my ass you would have absolutely no problem with the EU rejecting countries from joining such as Morocco, Algeria, Libya or Saudi Arabia. If you don’t see that NATO allowing neighboring countries to Russia to join it is an escalation towards Russia, I don’t know what to tell you. I tried to explain how Mexico joining a military pact with China and/or Russia would be a horrible idea in terms of escalation and risk of war.