Russia poses 'existential' threat to US

[IronFist]

Is Russia really that dangerous? It seems Russia isn't succeeding in dividing the NATO members or making them to leave the alliance. Russia doesn't have enough of power for it. It looks Putin just wants to regain control over the former USSR states to make Russia a regional power. Maybe we should allow them to do that? Because I don't want to die in a nuclear war over some irrelevant Eastern European state no one cares about besides Russia.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No one thinks we're going to go to war over any non-NATO member being invaded by Russia.  There's also zero chance Putin is dumb enough to invade a NATO state, even with its usual proxies. It is possible that Putin's eventual successor might not be able to control the nationalist bear, but that's still quite some time in the future, hopefully far enough that Estonia will be able to quiet the Narva problem.

[ag]

There's also zero chance Putin is dumb enough to invade a NATO state, even with its usual proxies.

You are WAY more optimistic than I am.

[smoltchanov]

There's also zero chance Putin is dumb enough to invade a NATO state, even with its usual proxies.

You are WAY more optimistic than I am.

And than me - too. Especially given sentiments of large parts of Russian people. Putin and his allies successfully resurrected old dreams of "Russian greatness" (essentially "Russia, Russia uber alles" - sounds familiar, doesn't it???) among majority of Russians. That helps to distract an attention of people from dire economic problems too. And policy of "appeasement" toward one rather agrressive leader  was tried by English and France leaders in Central Europe (Czech Republic, Austria and other countries) in 1938-39. Anyone needed to be reminded about it's results??

P.S. It's good to live beyond NATO umbrella and reason "let Putin have it, he will be satisfied with that and never go beyond". It's quite another thing to live under Putin's regime and observe everything happening on dayly basis...

P.S. 2 I already mentioned words i heard many times during conversations in Moscow after successfull Crimea annexion: "next one - Alaska!!!". They were said with all possible seriousness and conviction. In fact, majority of Russian people are more anti-West now, then Putin himself...

[Silent Hunter]

Is Russia really that dangerous?

It has posed an 'existential threat' to the US since 1957, when it launched Sputnik 1 and demonstrated an ability to drop nukes on the US in the process.

[smoltchanov]

Is Russia really that dangerous?

More than that - right now it's on par with ISIL (though - in different ways) - one of 2 biggest threats to Western world

[ag]

Is Russia really that dangerous?

More than that - right now it's on par with ISIL (though - in different ways) - one of 2 biggest threats to Western world

Um, no.

Only in the sense that it is a much bigger threat than ISIL.

[DavidB.]

some irrelevant Eastern European state no one cares about besides Russia.

Let me guess. You're not European, right?

[ingemann]

Is Russia really that dangerous?

More than that - right now it's on par with ISIL (though - in different ways) - one of 2 biggest threats to Western world

Um, no.

Only in the sense that it is a much bigger threat than ISIL.

Almost every state in the world is a bigger existential threat than ISIS. ISIS are bunch of goat-inking slave keeping vermins, who have succeed in filling a power vacuum, but who will be exterminated the first time Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran decides to use five minute on finding a power sharing compromise or the minute USA decides to send in land troops.

[smoltchanov]

Is Russia really that dangerous?

More than that - right now it's on par with ISIL (though - in different ways) - one of 2 biggest threats to Western world

Um, no.

Sorry, but yes...

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Is Russia really that dangerous?

More than that - right now it's on par with ISIL (though - in different ways) - one of 2 biggest threats to Western world

Um, no.

Only in the sense that it is a much bigger threat than ISIL.

Almost every state in the world is a bigger existential threat than ISIS. ISIS are bunch of goat-inking slave keeping vermins, who have succeed in filling a power vacuum, but who will be exterminated the first time Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran decides to use five minute on finding a power sharing compromise or the minute USA decides to send in land troops.

So you're saying that ISIL is going to around for quite a while. As you pointed out ISIL isn't a threat to the US, so we're not going to send in ground troops beyond maybe some special forces in Iraq. The idea that Iran and the Saudis would agree on anything is also laughable. I wouldn't be surprised now if the Syrian Civil War didn't last another decade so as to be at least as long as Lebanon's was.

[ingemann]

Is Russia really that dangerous?

More than that - right now it's on par with ISIL (though - in different ways) - one of 2 biggest threats to Western world

Um, no.

Only in the sense that it is a much bigger threat than ISIL.

Almost every state in the world is a bigger existential threat than ISIS. ISIS are bunch of goat-inking slave keeping vermins, who have succeed in filling a power vacuum, but who will be exterminated the first time Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran decides to use five minute on finding a power sharing compromise or the minute USA decides to send in land troops.

So you're saying that ISIL is going to around for quite a while. As you pointed out ISIL isn't a threat to the US, so we're not going to send in ground troops beyond maybe some special forces in Iraq. The idea that Iran and the Saudis would agree on anything is also laughable. I wouldn't be surprised now if the Syrian Civil War didn't last another decade so as to be at least as long as Lebanon's was.

It's not entirely unlikely that ISIS will still be around ten years from now. But it can also die in other ways; from Iraqi Shia Militia continuing into Syria after they have defeated them in Iraq, the Syrian government breaking the west Syrian rebels and afterward cleaning ISIS up, internal collapse (quite likely in Syria, less likely in Iraq) mixed with tribal uprisings against them. I wouldn't be surprised to see the end of ISIS being swift and brutal. Eastern Syria and western Iraq are not Afghanistan it's much easier to clean up and ISIS have little local backing in Syria.