So you have an invader trying their best (which is luckily not much) to grab a neighbor's land, just at your border, and you call that "murky and overblown"? Sorry this is not the Facebook grandmas knitting group giving likes to a carrot horse, we refuse to accept such bs.
The "Russian scare" in Europe is not about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, that's just the premise, it is the narrative that the EU (and Western Europe at large) is next to be invaded and that we should be ready for WWIII against Russia.
Russia hasn't stopped invading their neighbors ever since the fall of the soviet union. To state they will stop doing so while Putin is in power is either naive or on purpose to propel some agenda.
That's both a logical fallacy and a strawman argument, not to mention an ad hominem attack. I did not claim that Russia would stop anything and even if Russia did attack several neighbours it is irrelevant. Reasoning and trying to see through the haze is not "having an agenda".
My claim is that Russia is not going to invade or start a war with the EU/NATO/Western Europe (and that, consequentially the "Russia scare" is mostly fearmongering). I don't think that they ever had a plan to, but in any case their campaign in Ukraine has shown that they don't have the capability.
> I did not claim that Russia would stop anything and even if Russia did attack several neighbours it is irrelevant. (...) My claim is that Russia is not going to invade or start a war with the EU/NATO/Western Europe (and that, consequentially the "Russia scare" is mostly fearmongering). I don't think that they ever had a plan to, but in any case their campaign in Ukraine has shown that they don't have the capability.
The only thing that matters is that they have invaded several neighbors over the last few decades. Failing to accomplish their goals hasn't stopped them. Just look at how divided Georgia is, or how the first Chechen war went.
Also, within the context of "fearmongering" you state, the fear is that they wouldn't stop in Ukraine. Yes, you are trying to say Russia will stop, that they won't invade anyone else. But history shows otherwise. That is why I did state above "The only thing that matters is that they have to invaded several neighbors... ".
> Reasoning and trying to see through the haze is not "having an agenda".
I applaud you trying to see through the fog, but I fear you are overcomplicating things and being naive at the same time. Not necessarily having an agenda.
Look, I'm talking from the point of view that Russia will continue to invade others within Europe unless they're stopped. Which is, from what I gathered until now, your fearmongering scenario. I think my responses will make a lot more sense like that.
Maybe the difficulty in conveying thoughts into text struck again. I don't know. I haven't been trying to be malicious or distort your take, really. As I see it we have just been talking past each-other. Perhaps my fault.
Were you saying all this time they won't stop in Ukraine itself? Agreed, if that's the case.
> Obviously that's not the only thing that matters...
Of course it's not all that matters, I have just exaggerated it in an attempt to convey how much their past actions paint that picture. That they will continue doing the same even if absurd. Again, not that clear.
Sometimes you have just to give up participating in internet arguments when you notice the other keeps trying to gaslight you. Yeah whether I'm a good debater or not, one fact is there's a cyber war now _declared_ against Europe, a real war against the Ukraine, and there's also a history of wars against every one of their neighbors, so the fear is totally justified even when pure logic might say correlation is not causality and other ivory tower nonsense. So thank you for your arguments, but I'm sure they fall on deaf ears - whether willingly so or not I don't really care.
Yeah, I do realize that after so many points being neglected over supposed fallacies. From the various comments I'm pretty sure they believe there'll be an end to these fantasies Putin has. But it's impossible trying to argue when the retort is either denial or listing fallacies out of thin air. Another problem they had was over the "naïveté or agenda" point I've made, which they took as an attack on themselves. And honestly if you take the latter personally it doesn't mean the former wasn't an option. And as you've said, we are at war, you have to assume some have an agenda. Not necessarily them.
Still, I do believe that some commenters are just being naive, others taken for a ride, and then there are bots. But I always assume there is a person on the other end if their account isn't new. Hence trying to reach an understanding.
Either way, leaving such posts unanswered always gives a false sense of a common view on a topic, and its good to just demonstrate not everybody agrees.
