Kamil Galeev argues that Navalny died because the Tucker interview was such a bomb; Tucker was super-invested in getting Putin to say MAGA talking points and Putin was super-invested in Russian imperialist talking points and the result was neither audience got what they wanted. I guess he beat a rerun of a mind-reading competition?

What do you think the global order looks like if the two nuclear superpowers align under a common fascist banner?

I think this fundamentally misunderstands the facts on the ground:

1) There is one nuclear superpower and eight nuclear-armed nations. Each one of those eight could get up some birds and kill millions. Three or four of them could get shit across an ocean. And the United States could glass them all within half an hour, any day or night, rain or shine.

2) We've SEEN what a Trump administration looks like - careerists leave, incompetents move in, the bureaucracy hems them in and they fizzle out to nothing.

Yet you're out here going "I dunno what Trump would do, besides maybe bomb Mexico" and 'Putin will probably go for Poland and the Baltics." have you been watching the past couple years?

Back in the heyday of the cold war the Western scenario went like this:

1) Russia gets provocative somewhere

2) America escalates

3) Russia crosses the Rhine

4) America fights back

5) Russia takes heavy losses

6) Russia pushes the button

7) We all die horribly

The Soviet scenario went like this:

1) The US gets provocative somewhere

2) Russia responds

3) The US kicks Russia's ass, gets cocky, and lights up a nuclear first strike

4) We all die horribly but not before Russia gets in some vengeance strikes in via failsafed nuclear and biological weapons

I bring this up because "Russia gets pasted" was a fundamental axiom undisputed by either side. And this was based on (1) America's losing of Vietnam (2) America's inability to protect the barracks in Lebanon (3) America's rather dismal performance in Grenada (4) America's lack of excellence in Libya (5) America's disappointing showing in Panama. Able Archer 83 and all that but the last 20 years of the Cold War were an exercise in furtiveness by both sides. Fast forward to Desert Storm and -

Look. Desert Shield was wall-to-wall coverage of "the Elite Republican Guard." Chemical weapons everywhere. Battle-tested, frontline Soviet arsenals. Fourth largest army in the world. The government and press were softening us up for another Vietnam. Common consensus on the invasion of Iraq was we were gonna be Tet Offensiving our way through the mid '90s and we were there for it because yellow ribbons'n'shit. Girl in my chem class was beside herself because her national guard dad got called off to an FOB in Saudi Arabia and she didn't think she'd ever see him again. "How to avoid the draft" became a hot topic of discussion.

Instead? We were in Baghdad in 48 hours. We actually had to slow down because our logistics couldn't keep up with our front line - like, Abrams tanks are faster across open desert than Power Wagons are across paved highways. And then we left because eww who wants to run a place like that?

Black Hawk Down tells the tale of a bunch of special forces who got pinned down in Somalia and ended up getting routed. It also tells the tale of a dozen American elites who managed to kill between 300 and 700 Somalis while they were waiting for rescue. There are things that the American military sucks at - nation-building, garrison-holding, hearts'n'minds winning - but it absolutely does not suck at ass-kicking.

And we have exported the shit out of that.

See this guy?

He sucks so hard that Cary Elwes starred in a movie about it.

That li'l guy entered our arsenal in 1981. Yet here he is, absolutely bodying a late model front line Russian battle tank.

I cannot properly express - I have tried and I fail - to communicate the astonishing level of fail displayed by the Russian armed forces. It is fucking bogglilng. That tank getting held at bay by a 40-year-old chain gun? I have parts of that thing. Fuckin' T90M? That's the most fearsome thing in the world, man! Holy shit! It's not supposed to be rendered useless on the battlefield by a fucking troop carrier.

(So why hasn't Ukraine won yet)

The powers that be definitely want everyone to think they're duty-bound to free Ukraine from the bonds of tyranny as soon as possible so it can be welcomed into the brotherhood of Western European nations. But then, Western Europe has been doing that shit since the Varangians. If you look at US-Ukraine relations over the past 20 years one way to look at it is "man, the US were a bunch of dicks." Another way to look at it is "man, the US sure didn't think this 'democracy' thing was gonna stick." Fundamentally? Ukrainians have been an outsized influence in Russian history going back to the 1700s and from a think tank point of view, the over/under on a collapse into tyranny is an even bet. Not only that but provoking it in the direction of Starbucks and SWIFT gets the Russians really really itchy because Ukraine is pretty much where their good culture comes from so they're super good at pretending that "Ukraine" has always just been an awkward phase for some excessively cosmopolitan Cossacks who don't know their place.

A history of Enlightenment Europe is a history of "buffer states" (Poland, Belarus, Ukraine. Slovakia) soaking up blood so the barbarians run out of juice before they get to Paris. And Europe, and the US, are definitely taking advantage of that, and both Russia and Europe really want that buffer state on their side. Putin bleeding in Ukraine keeps Putin from bleeding in Austria, Biden bleeding in Ukraine would keep Biden from bleeding in St. Petersberg.

But don't for a minute think Poland would go down like that. Poland's got Leopards, Poland's got Abrams, Poland's got K2s. Poland is getting mutherfucking F-35s. The fuzzy, ambivalent circle we drew around Kyiv is a hard, red line around Krakow. Poland got royally fucked by the allies in WWII and fuckin' hell it's a Western nation that spent an achingly long time under tyranny so for once, the West is not being assholes to Poland.

But Ukraine? The Machiavellian move in Ukraine is to let it fucking bleed. I don't like it but I get it. The USSR fell in no small part because of their invasion of Afghanistan and every couple months, the Russians lose more troops in Ukraine than they did in the entire occupation of Afghanistan.

As far as Mexico? C'mon, man.

You know that stupid horse-racing that the press does? "Hey, a Republican hack said Biden's memory is faulty OBVIOUSLY THIS IS A BIGGER PROBLEM THAN TRUMP"? Fuckin' geopolitics are harder to understand and harder to explain and less easy to drum up outrage over. That's why you're out here goin' "two nuclear powers aligned under a fascist banner" as if it was anything other than lazy fanfic.