Originally Posted by chihuahua (Post 3376856)

We can't even maintain order in our own country, look at the damn border. We played global cop in Vietnam to prevent the spread of communism, yet today, the communists exist in all of our major institutions, especially education, which is literally the worst outcome if you want to stop the spread of communism. And there are people who clearly support communist style policies to force those who disagree with them to acquiesce to whatever the party narrative at the time may be. Covid is the most obvious example of this. Funny how now that there is proof in data that all the covid dogma was mostly a lie, with the worst part being that we could have started treating people right away with cheap generic drugs given in the right doses, with doctors publishing specific protocols that they had used successfully, all the attention has suddenly been switched back to Russia Russia Russia.

All the manufacturing the built up the middle class after WWII has been shipped to communist countries after we figured out, hey we can use slaves over there and just not say anything about it, so everything will be cheaper to make and we can sell it for more money. Now, all the people who would have had these manufacturing jobs that used to provide a comfortable middle class lifestyle with one person in the household working, are left with restaurant, grocery, housekeeping, etc industry jobs that don't pay enough to even rent an single apartment. To make things even better, the currency has been devalued to basically being worthless, and this inflation we're seeing now is probably just from the 20 years of war in the Middle East. The people who are going to deal with the covid inflation aren't even born yet. Unfortunately the part you make about ending the constant state of war being disruptive to the economy is accurate, and really sad that it's come down to that, and the endless defense spending is what's brought our currency down to the value of used toilet paper.

NATO is as good as dissolved, as it should be. The damn cold war ended over 30 years ago. The Europe needs the Russian gas, he'll just freeze them out in the winter if they want to fight. Vlad wins.

Originally Posted by Margaritaville (Post 3377493)

Nice to see someone else chime in who was actually alive to watch the Cold War play out and set the record straight. Some of the crap I'm reading here really makes me worry for the future.

It's clear that RT, Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, and other Russian propaganda purveyors have made great headway into American minds.

Russia is not our friend. This how we become slaves to Putin. Smarten up, people.

Originally Posted by Stryker172 (Post 3377523)

The 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back.

Originally Posted by Stryker172 (Post 3377523)

The 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back.

Originally Posted by Margaritaville (Post 3377532)

Hey genius, have you watched the news lately? 1950-1989 was all about Russian aggression around the world. Our foreign policy was tuned to combat that. Sorry you weren't born yet and didn't have history books at your school, instead, you were taught about your feelings and given participation trophies.

Now Putin is pledged to reconstitute the USSR and we need to go back to our old policy.

Russia is NOT our friend!

Originally Posted by PNWFlyer (Post 3377327)

I was saying I could not read the article. Meaning you need to pay to see it. Entertainers make you pay to see their content. News sources provide the information for free to the public.

Originally Posted by Andy (Post 3377530)

Barack, is that you?

Originally Posted by Beech Dude (Post 3377510)

C'mon man. Endless defense spending? US defense spending has been below 5% of GDP since 2010, with the peak in 2010 at 4.92%. Yes, we will always need to spend money on defense. And as of late, the little we do get in our budget isn't enough. We are in serious need of new equipment across all branches. The idea of oh F-16s and Humvees are cool and we're the best wore out 30 years ago. Our toys are old, really old. Now, has the defense budget been responsible with the less than 5%? No. I'll agree there. Pointless and wasteful spending are rampant. This is the case in the entire budget. Case in point, less than 5% of GDP isn't the reason for the dollar being devauled; rather there are many more wasteful items in the other 95% that have need of being reeled in/spent on better things. Of course, not to mention the $6T+ dollars we decided to print and just dump into the economy. Endless spending? Yes, I agree with you. Our govt and budget have been off the rails for 25+ years. It's not an us vs. Them or what party, blah blah blah. Its on everyone. The tax and spend machine is continuing to run us to the cliff in a burning dumpster. Too much spending on defense? Nope.

Originally Posted by Andy (Post 3377554)

The best trained and equipped military is useless when there is incompetent leadership. I've lived through my share of good and bad leadership in the military and the poorly executed Afghanistan withdrawal put the world on notice that the US has idiots telling the military what to do. I am very confident that there were more than a few field grade officers in the five sided puzzle palace strongly advising that there was a plan that should be employed for the withdrawal. They were obviously ignored.
The rest of the world has seen this and other military responses over the past year and the Ukraine situation is due to our poor execution.
The odds of US leadership becoming more competent in military and diplomatic actions in the next 3 years is miniscule and for that reason it would be best if the US military disengaged from all foreign engagement until we have competent leadership at the helm.