jwb

i only knew one person that was actually named Chad.. it was in the program and the ironic thing is he lived up to the name

He was really attractive and in shape. He was out going and personable. And before you are thinking at least he's probably a dumb meat head and you can maintain some sense of intellectual superiority.. he was pretty smart. 1800 ranking in chess and he was doing something like cyber security for a pretty good living.

jadis

If your comeback post to this thread after a long absence (maybe you posted here recently and I missed it, no matter, bear with me) is anything other than the prelude to a long, detailed story of how you sucked Chad off, then color me disappointed.

jwb

my comeback post lol

You been missing my presence then hoe?

SGR

Have you blessed MB with your official take on the Russia-Ukraine conflict yet?

jwb

I feel bad for Putin

SGR

One thing that's had me wondering...would the Western powers be better off with Putin in power or someone else? Part of me thinks if he remains in power, the sanctions will remain and their military will be handicapped for the rest of his tenure, limiting any ambitions of future adventures like this. If he is ousted, the short-term might be better, but the sanctions will probably lifted sooner too - if the new leader has the appearance of being Western-friendly but then turns out to be a snake with the same nationalist sympathies as Putin, we might end up in the same situation. I'm undecided.

jwb

The real answer is yeahi think i made a post or two in that thread.

jwb

i mean i dunno i think if the fall of the soviet union proved anything, it's that we'll end up being enemies regardless.

At the end of the day though if ukraine went to nato that would potentially bankrupt Russia through the necessary increase in military spending to shore up that border.

SGR

I think it only takes one NATO member to dissent on a prospective new member's admittance into NATO to stop it from happening - France and Germany refusing Ukraine's NATO membership in recent years - still a lot of political corruption going on in Ukraine. Can Zelensky change that? Maybe.

As you say, not only is Ukraine a key geopolitical bulwark against NATO from Russia's perspective (along with CSTO member Belarus), but it's also how much of Russian gas gets to Europe - and Russia is basically a petrostate.

jwb

That would've been less true with nordstream i think but yeah... They have multiple reasons. The naval base in crimea was one of the main reasons they annexed that area in 2014, and technically any kinda territory dispute like that makes it so that Ukraine can't join nato until that is resolved. But in the meantime Ukraine was only going to get stronger, better armed and harder to invade the longer they waited.