politics

Biden's deal with Seoul points to a swift shift on alliances

15 Comments
By ROBERT BURNS

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Russia won WW2 .

Russia started WWII on Hitlers side and only managed to hold off the German forces because of years of Atlantic convoys from the US, Canada and the UK sending essential war supplies. Without them Russia would have been defeated by Hitler.

China has avoided war everywhere

Except in Korea and then Tibet oh and lets not forget the war with India in the 1960's and then they tried invading Vietnam and got kicked back out again, so your not even close to being accurate.

Surely it is better to be on the side of the two winners?

Russia only managed to win in their war thanks to the Allies. It was a team effort. But Russia did nothing except steal a few Island from Japan after it had surrendered.

China did defeat and occupy Tibet ( a world military power) and managed to inflict considerable losses on India but losing against Vietnam and a draw in Korea added to their loss in WWII (saved by the allies) hardly makes China a poster child for being a winner.

The best option for freedom is still the West and its allies around the world. China and Russia do not champion freedom in any way shape or form.

5 ( +5 / -0 )

@Reckless

"And Russia showed great restraint with no military bases in Western Europe or Japan."

Western Europe: Post war? Europe and Russia were probably too spent from the fighting and focused on rebuilding instead of establishing bases. As for modern times, Crimea notwithstanding, it's called NATO.

Japan: Russia's refusal to return the Kurils? I'm sure Japan would love to talk about that...

4 ( +4 / -0 )

President Donald Trump had demanded South Korea pay billions more to keep American troops on its soil. In his view, the United States was getting fleeced by what he suggested were freeloaders masquerading as allies. Initially, Trump insisted the South Korean government pay five times as much as it previously had. Seoul balked, diplomacy went nowhere, and relations with a treaty ally began to fray.

That's because to Trump, being a real estate mogul all his life, everything boils down to being business transactions, nothing more. He wasn't able to wrap his mind around the concept that US diplomacy is not a for-profit endeavour - that's a concept a bridge too far from how he lived his 8 decades of life that's too ingrained for so long

Sometimes ya have to sacrifice some money in order to get what ya want in diplomacy

America has never one a war since they nuked two civilian cities.

Russia won WW2 and China has avoided war everywhere. Surely it is better to be on the side of the two winners?

The US won both Iraq Wars (the 1990-91 Gulf War to free Kuwait from Hussein's invasion, and the ill-conceived 2003 Bush war), and almost won the Korean War (if China hadn't rescued North Korea at the last moment) which ended in the stalemate we see up to now

The Soviets couldn't have won WW2 without the help of US Lend-Lease programme, and they lost the Afghanistan War and of course the Cold War

China still has current border conflicts with almost all its neighbors, not to mention invading Tibet in 1950-51. Heck, in the last 6 months, Chinese and Indian soldiers have been killing each other:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020–2021_China–India_skirmishes

And Russia showed great restraint with no military bases in Western Europe

Good that you specified Western Europe because y'know what they did in Eastern Europe - definitely no restraints there (2 words: "Iron Curtain")

3 ( +3 / -0 )

"America has never one a war since they nuked two civilian cities.

Russia won WW2 and China has avoided war everywhere. Surely it is better to be on the side of the two winners?"

China got a bloody nose when they tried to invade Vietnam. But maybe that part is censored in the communist handbook for wumaos.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

America has never one a war since they nuked two civilian cities.

The First Persian Gulf War was an unambiguous victory for the US. Iraq's forces were crushed and Iraq was forced to leave Kuwait. Saddam Hussein was made to march down a long walkway with armed troops and helicopter gunships on either side, surrender his sidearm and sign a surrender document. The Kosovo War was a pretty clear win for NATO and the US.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

The US has too many troops living overseas. They should be there for exercises and deployments, but at much reduced levels. Does it really matter if there are only 20K soldiers instead of 30K?

1 ( +4 / -3 )

Russia only managed to win in their war thanks to the Allies. It was a team effort. But Russia did nothing except steal a few Island from Japan after it had surrendered.

20 million Soviets died fighting the Germans. There were massive armored battles between the German and Soviet Armies. The highest scoring Allied forces fighter aces in WWII were Soviet pilots (Ivan Kozhedub with 66 kills, the top US ace was Richard Bong with 40 kills)(the Germans had aces with 300 or more kills, dozens with kills in the 200s and no non-German ace scoring more than 94 kills). Of the twenty most important battles of WWII, eight involved the Soviet Army either defending against German attack or attacking German forces to drive them back to Berlin, including the final battle for control of Berlin that cost the Soviets over 2000 tanks destroyed by a newly developed German anti-tank missile. In the Second Battle of Kharkov over a quarter million Soviet troops died or were captured.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It's refreshing to see a US president being presidential again.

It's still hard to believe a reality TV host and poor businessman was actually the president for four years. Did that really happen? It just seems like some weird dream.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

20 million Soviets died fighting the Germans.

How many died fighting the Japanese in WWII? How many major battles did Russia have against Japan in WWII?

The US, UK, India, Australia, New Zealand fought in Europe, North Africa and in the Pacific against two of the largest and most modern military forces of the time. Russia was fighting on home soil, with an equipment stream supplied from North America and Europe via UK as well as what it manufactured itself. More Russian soldiers died than any other nation fighting Germany and as many as 3.3 million of that number from starvation after surrendering to German forces.

The point is Russia did not win WWII as it only fought in Europe and only managed to win there with the continued support of the Allies and lend lease which sent 17,499,000 tons of goods and equipment to Soviet Russia.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Back on topic please.

Wars then and now are TOTALLY different! They will not be on the battle field they will be in space and by satellite!! The key is taking out the satellites.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

America has never one a war since they nuked two civilian cities.

Russia won WW2 and China has avoided war everywhere. Surely it is better to be on the side of the two winners?

-6 ( +3 / -9 )

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