Summary
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that the alliance must adopt a “wartime mindset” to prepare for long-term confrontation with Russia.
Speaking in Brussels, he urged members to increase defense spending beyond the 2% GDP target, noting that only 23 of 32 members currently meet it.
Rutte emphasized boosting defense production, addressing cyber threats, and countering China’s military buildup and actions toward Taiwan.
His remarks come as Donald Trump threatens to withhold defense support from NATO members failing to meet spending commitments, raising concerns about alliance unity.
2008 is about 17 years after the collapse of the USSR. Within that time, Russia experienced an economic crisis with the push for a “free market” and actually had lower life expectancy than during the USSR. Unless you want to argue that Russia is just inherently a warmongering country, surely something could’ve been done to prevent this later aggression. Similar to trump, putin getting elected is a symptom of a broken system.
Oh sorry, they needed time to build up. Fuck em, and fuck their genocidal, warring regime.
Your assumption is that it’s always been a genocidal, warring regime, and that it’s just been building up the entire time. I disagree with that defeatist attitude. If Germany can be de-nazified and Japan can transform from the ruthlessness displayed during and before world war 2, then surely something similar could be done with Russia. If you think this is impossible, then what solution do you propose?
Both Germany and Japan were defeated in war (that they themselves started) and occupied by foreign forces. Their “denazification” was enforced by occupiers. You are arguing against your own points (not that you have any, except “war is bad and America is to blame for Russia’s actions”).
Oh yeah, Russia hasn’t ever been genocidal, not since its tsarist days huh.
The solution I propose is to arm ourselves so that Russia doesn’t think about attacking anyone ever again. And neither does China and neither does Iran or any other asshole that wants war.