I guess we'll soon see exactly how right or wrong Trumps predictions were in 2018 that Germany was 'captive' to Russia back when the Germans were all laughing at him for those comments.
Ukraine should have given a non-NATO guarantee in January 2022. As we can see now, NATO is not required for defending Ukraine because it gets massive military help regardless.
Instead, Zelensky had his 15 minutes of fame in the Munich "peace" conference, talking about getting nuclear weapons.
I don't think Merkel foresaw that kind of stupid escalation. But the U.S. is secure as always.
First, no, no nation should be forced to surrender it's sovereignty in such a manner.
Second, if they were in NATO, it would have been a deterrent and they wouldn't have been invaded in the first place.
Third, how the hell is it still possible that there are people who believe anything coming out of Russia? They have lied so much it's not even funny, why would you take their lies at face value? Why do you think they wouldn't have invaded anyways? What would have stopped them?
The lack of contingency planning is down to a mix of corruption, incompetence, and yes some naivete.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells...
Just for the record, here is another quote from the man, including his own correction: "My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others saying they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin, he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it wouldn't be. [...] I have great confidence in my intelligence people but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today".
This has been talked about, promised on, strategised all across Europe. It's a matter of national policy in countries such as France and Poland, and was always a major talking point in nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar, wind projects.
Trump was just a broken clock.
No, you're completely wrong.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-eu-summit/obama-tells...
From where you getting your news?
Man, I SO much wish for him to be a competent good moral leader, since is slowly inching towards next presidency. As European I don't care if he is republican or democrat at all. Just from that position of extreme power don't make the world a worse place long term for everybody apart form Americans. We all share this tiny planet, what goes around comes around eventually.
But there are very few proofs of that, even completely ignoring his twitter brainfarts (which is relatively easy since I dont do twitter, but it leaked into all other news). No reason to expect he will be anyhow different from last time, only more senile/petty. And he was very petty and childish last time. If I had an acquaintance like him around me, I would detest and avoid him simply due to him being a proper a-hole.
But its entirely possible that he was good at realpolitik (ie repeatedly praising MBS and Putin since they held a lot of power, yet criticizing chinese as clear competition to US). Its just not very visible outside qanon and similar nutcase ultra right movements which filter media very selectively.
And the stuff he praises isn't just fluff, Trump tends to praise the most illiberal and autocratic parts of Putin's behavior.