Almost 20 years after the invasion of Iraq and we're right back where we were then, but worse because now fucking NATO has decided they'd rather get into a nuclear pissing match with Putin than take one fucking L. Meanwhile stateside it's suddenly back in vogue to attack LGB and especially T rights, liberals and chuds have put aside their differences to play in the war drum circle together, the anti-anti-imperialist "left" is taking its victory laps online, the pandemic that still is killing and will continue to kill thousands every day is suddenly yesterday's news, and all we have to show for two decades of protests and agitation and organizing is a handful of better contracts for chuddy trade unions and a couple unionized Starbucks.
TL;DR: All hail the cockroaches who will inherit the fallout-choked Earth, I've no doubt they'll do a better job running the place than we did.
I still don't see how this is an L?
Russia tells NATO not to expand, NATO tells them to fuck off, and in response the Russians invade basically the only non-NATO country still on their borders. All this does is prove to NATO that a) it needs to expand to check Russian aggression (which was only hypothetical until the invasion), and b) Russia won't invade a NATO country because they know they'll lose (or the world will end in nuclear hellfire, probably both).
Dude, go and reread the post you originally replied to. Nobody is saying that nato has taken an L with this situation. They have refused to take even a minimal loss by conceding to Russia the right to a buffer zone. It is now abundantly clear they knew that this would lead to war but refused to negotiate a compromise and instead engineered a situation where violence became inevitable.
Beyond the immediate loss of life going on right now, this is an extremely dangerous foreign policy stance. "Putin bad therefore whatever he asks for we cannot give it to him" is a path to mutual annihilation. When you make negotiations impossible, what is there left but war? If the West insists that it will give nothing away then the only way to get what you want is by force.
Mind you, none of this is in any way a defense of Putin and his politics. But we live in late capitalism and the (re)emerging world powers are seeing the US empire in decline. They're demanding a seat at the table, and if the US does not manage to find a way to step down gracefully from the throne, we may all burn.
The post I replied to said that NATO/The West decided to get in a "nuclear pissing match" rather than take an L. Since it's obvious to everyone that nothing nuclear will happen (and indeed there will be no direct combat between NATO and Russian forces), that would imply that the only other option is for NATO to take the L, but there's no L to take, everything's working out in their favour.
The L would be them conceding the right to a buffer zone as nohaybanda said, and not playing a game of will-they-won't-they with Ukraine getting NATO membership.
Are you having reading difficulties? Yes, they have not taken an L, this is working out in their favor at the low low cost of innocent lives lost and an escalation of geopolitics in a direction where negotiation is unwanted and impossible. For as long as superpowers have nuclear arsenals the danger is present and near imminent. The refusal to talk, to compromise, to let the fuck go every now and then make it, on a long enough timeline, inevitable. That's the pissing match.
There's no "pissing match" here, no tit-for-tat, no NATO retaliation of any kind. NATO will just continue to do what it has done since it's founding and Russia will continue to decline in power and relevance like it has since the height of the Soviet Union. Nukes will mean that Russia will always have some relevancy, but just look at Pakistan to see what the floor of relevance is for a nuclear power (and Pakistan has a larger population that's actually growing and and economy with the potential to grow as well).
Aight. I'm done :wall-talk:
You're putting a lot of faith in a declining empire and a cornered but expansionist, right-wing revanchist national power to not have death drives.
Well, I think that Russia will take a place as a secondary power aligned with China in the New World Order™, it's not like Russia is going to collapse from within or be invaded by it's neighbors, just a slow decline as their population wanes, their military ages, and oil and gas are less and less profitable. Spain and Portugal fell from great heights too without much trouble.