Sarah Paine

It's full of Russians.

We want them to stay home, right?

There's no one there who wants Russia.

So the Russians like to gaslight everybody else, like, you're the problem.

It's been very effective.

Lots of Americans will talk about NATO expansion and say, oh, this is why Putin went into Ukraine.

You did NATO expansion.

He's gaslighting everybody.

russians are the problem and also it is their totally dysfunctional domestic system that offers everybody else nothing but problems instead of focusing on that and fixing it so they can be a productive member of the rest of the world they're not doing that they're just invading other people so back to the real problem what are the prospects of a bromance with these two

Barring World War III, which would be the great powers go at it.

If the great powers go at it, you might well superglue these two.

And then if that happens...

whatever side is losing might well use a nuclear weapon.

And then we're gonna have toxic plumes everywhere.

So we had better get our diplomacy right, because there are really serious consequences for getting it wrong in this particular era.

We're at the beginning of a second Cold War,

with a leadership that has not been chastened by surviving World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II, which are the grown-ups who did a very effective job dealing with the early First Cold War.

We haven't got those people anymore.

So if you look at primary adversaries, primary theaters, you don't want them to align for your enemies, because if they do, they'll coordinate.

Currently, Vlad the Bad has a Ukraine fixation.