Donald Trump has again attacked Nato for not supporting the US in the Iran war, following a private meeting with its Secretary General Mark Rutte at the White House.
In a post shared to Truth Social after the meeting, the US President said: “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN.”
Meanwhile, Rutte has described his meeting to CNN with Trump as “very frank” and “very open”, despite clear disagreements.
Russia already has total militarization of the economy. Its why Russia has an economy.
I feel sometimes you people fail to understand what it’s like living in a sanctioned nation.
Russia isn’t even close to total militarization. Not yet. Their economy is becoming highly militarized, and you’re right that that’s how they’ve been surviving the sanctions, but their focus is still on keeping the more affluent Russians in the cities supplied with fast food, electronics and gas. They’re trying to make life seem normal despite the strain of the war. Being able to dispense with those niceties would open up a lot more room for applying their industrial capacity.
Hard disagree. ‘Normal’ as you describe hasn’t existed for even wealthy Russians in the country since the first round of sanctions in 2014.
It’s been a decade since they’ve been reliant on external sources for trivialities, and their economy since the union fell has been nearly exclusively oil, gas, and military hardware anyway.
It’s why sanctions have largely not worked; they were given no time to actually become lazy westerners despite the west’s best’s efforts; so the average day to day is no different now than it was 30 years ago. For some people it’s no different now than it was in the 1980s, except their rent is higher since there’s no state protections.