lets see, i am retired enlisted US Army Engineer (12B and 51B) and then i went into heavy construction. i am an Independant, i used to be a Republican but after the Party announced that they would go to John McCain side, i gave up and went Independant. i am a right leaning Constitutional Republic adherent. i voted for Pres Trump twice. i am NOT a member of the NRA, but i am member of GOA.
i don't care who gets into power, either Demoncrap or Republican, they will still support and arm Ukraine.
the fallacy of fighting NATO is quite laughable. WE (being US and NATO) are not involved. the Russian propagandists are just plain wrong. i'd give the US about a week of ground war to push the Russkie Army out of Ukraine and another week to take Moscow. hell, i'll even take the US out of the equation and let the NATO Europeans do it.
we are not giving Ukraine the latest technology, we are giving them stuff that we made in 1990s and by the battle reports, the stuff stopped the Russkies and their "big technical edge". i don't remember any Armata or SU-57 out there. T90, 80, 72, 64 and 55 tho, well they blow up quite nicely. turret toss should be Russkie game. hell, they could win gold medals in the Olympics. don't believe me? photo and videographic can tell you.
oh and that big cloud of black smoke somewhere in Ukraine was an oil storage, not military weapons storage. white smoke means weapons storage, while black smoke means oil storage. look it up if you don't believe me.
You called Russia “authoritarian”. Explain why you consider Russia so, in detail and then explain why you do not consider the current government of the United States to be “authoritarian”.
why? just a guess........ https://theconversation.com/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition-179063#:~:text=Putin%E2%80%99s%20Russia%20also%20fits%20the%20bill.%20The%20political,wins%2C%20and%20oppositionists%20are%20routinely%20harassed%20or%20killed.
a little from this article can help you understand
‘Dismantled’ democratic institutions Putin’s Russia also fits the bill. The political system is unquestionably authoritarian – some might say totalitarian.
Putin has completely dismantled all of Russia’s nascent democratic institutions. Elections are neither free nor fair. Putin’s party, United Russia, always wins, and oppositionists are routinely harassed or killed.
The media have been curbed; freedom of speech and assembly no longer exists; and draconian punishments are meted out for the slightest of criticisms of the regime.
A hypernationalist, imperialist and supremacist ideology that glorifies all things Russian and legitimates expansion as Russia’s right and duty has been both imposed on and willingly accepted by the population.
War is worshipped and justified by the state’s mendacious propaganda machine. As the brutal invasion of Ukraine shows, war is also practiced, especially if it is directed against a people whose very existence Putin regards as a threat to himself and to Russia.
Finally, secret police and military elites, together with a corrupt bureaucracy, form the core of the political system headed by the infallible Putin, who is the undisputed charismatic leader glorified as the embodiment of Russia. One of Putin’s minions once noted that “if there is no Putin, there is no Russia!” There’s a striking similarity with French King Louis XIV’s assertion, “L’état, c’est moi” – “The state is me” – and Hitler’s “One people, one empire, one Führer.”
Fascist states are unstable. Personality cults disintegrate with time, as leaders grow old. Today’s Putin, with his bloated face, is no match for the vigorous Putin of 20 years ago.
Fascist regimes are overcentralized, and the information that reaches the supreme leader is often sugarcoated. Putin’s disastrous decision to invade Ukraine may have been partly due to his lacking accurate information about the condition of the Ukrainian and Russian armies.
Finally, fascist states are prone to wars, because members of the secret police and generals, whose raison d'etre is violence, are overrepresented in the ruling elite. In addition, the ideology glorifies war and violence, and a militarist fervor helps to legitimate the supreme leader and reinforce his charisma.
Fascist states usually prosper at first; then, intoxicated by victory, they make mistakes and start losing. Putin won decisively in his wars in Chechnya and in Georgia, and he appears to be headed for defeat in Ukraine.
I believe Putin’s fascist Russia faces a serious risk of breakdown in the not-too-distant future. All that’s missing is a spark that will rile the people and elites and move them to take action. That could be an increase in fuel prices, the development that led to a citizen revolt in Kazakhstan earlier this year; a blatantly falsified election, such as the one that led to riots in autocratic Belarus in 2020; or thousands of body bags returning to Russia from the war in Ukraine.
"Russia sucks." ---- Me, US Army (retired) 12B & 51B
Russian Admiral said, after the Moskva sank, "we have the world's worst navy but we aren't as bad as our army".
