Originally Posted by
Excargodog
An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.
Walter Lippmann
Yeah, an alliance with a member that actively tries to undermine it or start wars all on its own it loses credibility. Hopefully those tricky Slovaks won't start any Forever wars and then cry to NATO to bail them out.
Anywho. How about the notable development today in Hungary? Not sure if the Slovaks will still try to desperately pee in the punchbowl, but I'm hopeful that today's election will result in $90 Billion of clogged EU funds finally being unloosed. Buys quite a bit of runway for Ukraine. Seeing the crowds in Budapest chanting "Russians Go Home!" is really very satisfying. Putin has got to be looking over his shoulder more than normal from here on out.
And, so far it appears that Russia's Spring "Offensive" is shaping up to be an epic failure (like a horrific version of Groundhog Day). It is up for debate whether the Russians or Ukrainians have taken more territory so far. No debate that the Russians are taking fearsome casualties for almost nothing while the Ukrainians are working hard to blow up Russia's windfall from the Iran war. For now at least, Russia is clearly losing.