Putin making some bold claims about NATO

Apparently, NATO is setting up a lot of missile systems, claiming it's used to counter an Iranian Threat but Putin isn't taking lightly to it. I'm not sure what to make with this but I don't think it's a smart idea to start provoking Russia if that's indeed what's happening.

*looks at topic title*

No.

*looks at video title*

Nah, it's just Putin saying that.

Putin is paranoid, he obviously sees any action by NATO aimed at him personally. Nothing new here.

Putin's playing for the domestic crowd, who gets fed a steady diet of "Russia Stronk! All problems are caused by foreign enemies (and not at all by incredibly massive corruption), Russia is poor victim of evil NATO EUSA, but Russia stronker and bolder than them and will prevail! Please accept this latest round of privations that you need to endure for the strenkf of Russia."

Putin's also playing for the conspiracy nut foreign crowd, as anything that can weapon Russia's rivals is good for the taking. An example of this is how Russia funds most anti-EU far-right wing parties in Europe.

Keep in mind that with the shit he's pulling in Georgia and Ukraine (among other places) he's got no room to talk about provocations.

Putin is great and what he says is absolutely true. You all guys are brainwashed and don't see that America and NATO are obviously evil.
PS: i'm Russian.

Gez said:

Keep in mind that with the shit he's pulling in Georgia and Ukraine (among other places) he's got no room to talk about provocations.

At this point, it could be both Georgias. The number of southern US morons I've heard personally praising Putin lately could fill a high school football stadium.

But Putin is the people hero and NATO is part of the illuminati, it's true!
I read it on Facebook! [/sarcasm]

*looks at thread poster*

No.

Iran is not a threat.

This thread is going to end well...

oh boy here we go

*looks at calendar*

No. It's just Putin shit-stirring.

ChekaAgent said:

Putin is great and what he says is absolutely true. You all guys are brainwashed and don't see that America and NATO are obviously evil.
PS: i'm Russian.

NATO and the American government aren't exactly ethical, but neither is Russia's government. Putin has his own interests in mind and will lie and cheat to protect them, just like most other countries.

Putin really sucks by the way, he's an anti-LGBT bigot and imprisons peaceful political protestors. At least that doesn't happen in America.

XCOPY said:

Iran is not a threat.

Then why do we only have access to some of their facilities? I'm not going to say they're absolutely a threat, but they are potentially one. Just take a look at their violent anti-American rhetoric. If that doesn't at least raise a couple red flags, I don't know what does.

Iran is a lot less of a threat to the west than the west is a threat to Iran.

What are they going to do? Start a war with Israel and get annihilated in response? Attack Europe? Enact Pearl Harbor 2.0? Don't make me laugh.

Sorry, perhaps I made an inappropriate title, I've changed it. I didn't mean to suggest we take Putin's word for it. I'm just curious as to what NATO's doing because Putin seems to be making warnings (threats?) about it inevitably sparking a nuclear conflict. I think that's something to take seriously, whether NATO's doing it purposefully or Putin's using it as an excuse and I have no reason to believe it would be in Putin's best interest to purposefully spark nuclear war. What would he gain from it? The US is at least as equipped as he is and it would send the entire world against him. Seems as though, if this was just bluster from Putin, he'd have to be very stupid and I don't think he's stupid.

dethtoll said:

*looks at thread poster*

No.

I love you too.

Gez said:

Iran is a lot less of a threat to the west than the west is a threat to Iran.

That is true.

Gez said:

What are they going to do? Start a war with Israel and get annihilated in response? Attack Europe? Enact Pearl Harbor 2.0?

I dunno, maybe. It is very unlikely, I'll admit, but they could get a crazy leader that doesn't care about their own stability, and would do something for public appeal.

Chances are they only wanted nukes as a deterrent from potential attackers. I imagine North Korea has similar reasons. Still, I don't think any country should have nukes.

Gez said:

Don't make me laugh.

Laughter is the best medicine! :P

Sodaholic, you're the one that said I was divorced from reality but certainly you can see the danger here, right? Whether NATO's purposefully trying to set off Putin or whether Putin's just trying to come up with an excuse, I think we should take his words seriously since he's the leader of a very nuclear capable nation, not to mention he's allied with the very Iran that could very well be building nuclear weapons for all we're allowed to know about it. The last thing we need is a nuclear confrontation, especially with groups like ISIS around. This isn't some conspiracy theory, Putin said it with his own mouth.

MetroidJunkie said:

This isn't some conspiracy theory, Putin said it with his own mouth.

Are you suggesting comrade Vladimir is incapable of starting or spreading conspiracy theories?

Sodaholic said:

I dunno, maybe. It is very unlikely, I'll admit, but they could get a crazy leader that doesn't care about their own stability, and would do something for public appeal.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a repressive and theocratic regime, but it isn't an autocracy like North Korea. The Iranian political system is carefully designed with a lot of checks and balances, which (let's be honest) are mostly there to ensure that the country remains firmly Islamic, but also prevent it from being vulnerable to the "crazy leader commits the irreparable" syndrome.

Take the President of the Iranian Republic (POTIR): they had a crazy provocateur before, Ahmadinjad, and what did he do? Nothing. Sure had a lot of hot air to unleash, insulting and threatening other countries (Israel especially, of course) but that was empty rhetoric. Then he was replaced by Rouhani, who is a lot more sensible, and who managed to come with an agreement with the "P5+1" to get his country out of its pariah state. What's the takeaway from that? Crazy president couldn't achieve anything crazy; sensible president could achieve sensible things. The system works.

Iran as a country is a lot more stable than its Arab neighbors, which are all autocracies -- either monarchies like Saudi Arabia, or military dictatorships like Egypt.

I considered that, either NATO is actually doing it to provoke Putin or Putin's trying to come up with an excuse. Either way, Russia still has nuclear arms so their leader talking about an irreversible pushing towards nuclear war should be taken somewhat seriously. This isn't Kim Jong Un we're talking about here and some of the other things Putin has said recently are unusual to say the least. He actually went out of his way to warn Americans to not give up their gun rights, why would he do that? It's all a very strange situation.

That's just saber-rattling. But hey, if he can exploit the weakness of democracy to get a bunch of morons to elect appeasing politicians who will do everything Putin wants out of nuclear blackmail, then that's bonus point to him!

Anyone with a modicum of historical perspective would be aware that there was a lot more saber-rattling -- including genuine, real, non-imaginary provocations of the western block against the eastern block -- during the Cold War, and yet WW3 did not happen. WW3 is not going to happen just because a balding, aging spy is trying to remain popular in the middle of a recession.

I don't know. Best case scenario, what you said about Iran isn't entirely true because, if NATO is telling the truth about their reasoning behind the East European missile systems and they're not just trying to saber-rattle Russia, then it's clear they acknowledge the threat of a Nuclear Iran so I don't think you can take that for granted.

NATO and the US have remained in a constantly hostile posture toward Russia as a continuance of the Cold War, this has never changed or faltered for the last 26 years, despite the vastly changing political landscape in the country and its neighbors over the years. This isn't deniable, it's just pure fact. The US has been rattling for a "European missile shield" non-stop. Let's be clear that any "missile shield" can be equally used as an offensive front too. Remember back in the 60's when the USSR tried to build a "missile shield" for Cuba? We didn't really like that. It almost caused WW3.

When thinking about this situation, it really doesn't matter if Putin is an autocrat or if he frequently lies, or has bad internal politics. Application of American exceptionalism is the only thing that can possibly allow you to think that any country would be reasonably expected to take having a gigantic missile array positioned a country away from it lying down and without at the very least loudly complaining.

Gez said:

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a repressive and theocratic regime, but it isn't an autocracy like North Korea. The Iranian political system is carefully designed with a lot of checks and balances ... Iran as a country is a lot more stable than its Arab neighbors, which are all autocracies -- either monarchies like Saudi Arabia, or military dictatorships like Egypt.

I shouldn't have been jumping into this conversation without an accurate perspective. I apologize for being irrational.

Then, Quasar, NATO could very well be provoking WW 3 like Putin warned. It would be hypocritical of us to not expect Putin to have a problem with this when we raised the exact same concern about the missile systems in Cuba. Regardless of their reason, lying to and ignoring Putin doesn't seem like a very smart idea, whether you respect him as a leader or not.

MetroidJunkie said:

Then, Quasar, NATO could very well be provoking WW 3 like Putin warned. It would be hypocritical of us to not expect Putin to have a problem with this when we raised the exact same concern about the missile systems in Cuba. Regardless of their reason, lying to and ignoring Putin doesn't seem like a very smart idea, whether you respect him as a leader or not.

The problem is this shit is cyclical. Putin postures and tries to use Russia's military might to project Russian strength for the posturing he's doing to appease his populous, the rest of Europe responds because they have bad memories of a cult of personality leader being belligerent, Putin uses this to "legitimize" his actions. It's a lose/lose. Does Europe/NATO not respond to Russia's aggression? Well what happens if the shit breaks lose and they did nothing? (I mean I guess America could use another opportunity to brag about winning another world war by ourselves with absolutely no help whatsoever. USA! USA! USA! USA!)

Sodaholic said:

Then why do we only have access to some of their facilities? I'm not going to say they're absolutely a threat, but they are potentially one. Just take a look at their violent anti-American rhetoric. If that doesn't at least raise a couple red flags, I don't know what does.

First, why should WE have access to their stuff? They are a nation and have every right to not give two shits about what any country thinks of them. They did not attack anyone as far as I know.

Second, why is it ok to be paranoid at Iran, but it is wrong when Russia does the same? Stupid double standard.

Tarnsman said:

The problem is this shit is cyclical. Putin postures and tries to use Russia's military might to project Russian strength for the posturing he's doing to appease his populous, the rest of Europe responds because they have bad memories of a cult of personality leader being belligerent, Putin uses this to "legitimize" his actions. It's a lose/lose. Does Europe/NATO not respond to Russia's aggression? Well what happens if the shit breaks lose and they did nothing? (I mean I guess America could use another opportunity to brag about winning another world war by ourselves with absolutely no help whatsoever. USA! USA! USA! USA!)

If Europe had the stones for it, they could easily destroy Russia with the threat of economic sanctions. The nation isn't exactly doing great economically speaking, cutting off imports/exports would be very damaging to them. It'd be a better solution than shoving missile systems everywhere under the pretext of looking out for an Iranian threat and making Putin look justified.

XCOPY said:

First, why should WE have access to their stuff? They are a nation and have every right to not give two shits about what any country thinks of them. They did not attack anyone as far as I know.

Second, why is it ok to be paranoid at Iran, but it is wrong when Russia does the same? Stupid double standard.

We honestly had Iran by the balls on this, they were economically suffering and that's why they went to the table. We could have demanded full access in exchange for those sanction lifting but, in my opinion, our administration dropped the ball big time, to the point that John Kerry is even starting to say we got the short end of the stick.

MetroidJunkie said:

If Europe had the stones for it, they could easily destroy Russia with the threat of economic sanctions. The nation isn't exactly doing great economically speaking, cutting off imports/exports would be very damaging to them. It'd be a better solution than shoving missile systems everywhere under the pretext of looking out for an Iranian threat and making Putin look justified.

Crushing Germany under economic sanctions is what gave us WW2.