You could certainly bring the American Revolution into it. That was a 50/50 split, with many of the Tories leaving in 1783 and going to Canada, at least from NY and the New England states
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I would hope the Ukrainians could sort it out but the prospects are dim given their internal divisions and corruption. So this problem will keep coming up again unless the country splits.
Of course Putin will meddle where ever he can if he thinks it will further long term interests. He's ruthless and extremely intelligent and he's playing the long game(chess). He will be able to take the pain because they have the natural resources. The Russian people will feel the pain and will be able to do nothing about it because it's a totalitarian state. You might also be underestimating the economic consequences of Europe's energy supply being cut off even in the short term. Remember Germany has been shutting down it's Nuclear reactors. I don't like the ball being in his court, that's to his advantage and makes us reactive. We should have a more proactive strategy where we would have the advantage. Its bad business sense.
I pray NATO does not go into a shooting war so I hope you are right. Another reason I don't want that war to start is NATO does not have the ability to fight a conventional war if the Russians decide to go further without threatening Nukes. That's one of the reasons Reagan put Pershings into West Germany in the 1980s.
Yes, the real saber rattling is coming from Russia but when you have mobilized your forces to the degree the Russians have, the odds a mistake can happen multiple considerably.. The stupid thing is we're rising to the bait with our saber rattling too. To pick one network, just google. CNN Ukraine Russia and look at the headlines and decide for yourself if we are getting a bit hysterical than is necessary. It also does not help when the Ukrainian government is telling our government to tone it down and we send mixed messages that Psaki has to correct.
Trump's gone. As much as I expected to see more proof, I have not seen enough of substantial Russian investments besides Russians buying 100m of real estate in the US. His efforts actually in Russia all look like business failures. I think Bill Clinton made more money in Russia with speaking fees.
If you want to really look at U.S. officials corruption in the region, there is plenty of smoke and material to work with. Although the Uranium One deal mentioned below was investigated by the DOJ and Sessions declined to appoint a Special Prosecutor. So I withhold judgment unless further evidence emerges. What cannot be debated is that it was irresponsible to sell part of the US's uranium supply to the Russians.
As for the Hunter Biden deals, well that's still being investigated so we'll see what comes from that..
As the Russian atomic energy agency gradually took charge of a company that controls one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States, a stream of cash made its way to the former president’s charitable organization.
www.nytimes.com
