lol…
lol…
I think that implementing some variation of Russia's proposed security framework was a fine starting point. https://dgap.org/en/research/publica...es-russia-wantOriginally Posted by Clarke
Lots of what Russia wants (quoted below) would be a very hard bargain—I doubt that NATO would agree to end its cooperation with its former-Soviet members, for one thing. But, guarantees about Ukrainian neutrality are achievable, and so is the restoration of treaties on arms control and nuclear non-proliferation. American nuclear weapons could be removed from Europe and should have been long ago. A potential nuclear first-strike poses an existential threat to Russia, as it would to any other country, and these and similar security concerns would be viewed as legitimate in other cases, especially where the security of allies are concerned.
Many have argued that Russia doesn't deserve national security; and many have argued that Ukrainian sovereignty trumps Russian national security concerns, including existential threats to Russia—those are separate discussions. But I don't think it's possible to argue that Russian security wasn't being threatened at all by NATO/American encroachment.
The Russian leadership is demanding legally binding security guarantees from the US and NATO in two draft treaties. Key demands are, firstly, a commitment to refrain from undertaking any further Eastern enlargements of NATO, particularly with regard to Ukraine or other states within the region such as Georgia. This would entail withdrawing the prospect of membership offered at NATO’s Bucharest summit in 2008. Secondly, the Alliance should guarantee that it will not deploy any weaponry or military forces on the border with Russia. Thirdly, NATO should end its military cooperation with post-Soviet states and scale back its military forces to the 1997 level. This would mean no longer deploying military forces and weaponry in NATO countries that were not members of the Alliance in 1997. Moscow is therefore also demanding that NATO withdraw its multinational battlegroups from Poland and the Baltic states. Fourthly, the US should pull its nuclear weapons out of Europe and, fifthly, cease meddling in Russia’s internal affairs. Here, the Kremlin is referring to support for the so-called Colour Revolutions as part of a US democracy-building agenda.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also made it clear that Moscow takes a critical view of any NATO accession by Finland and Sweden. The Russian leadership is thus extending its reach beyond the traditional post-Soviet sphere of influence and, by seeking to reduce NATO’s role in Europe, is striving for a dominant position in European security policy. Russia is no longer merely demanding a right of veto in all matters pertaining to European security, as called for in former President Dmitry Medvedev’s 2008 proposal for a treaty on a new European security architecture. Instead, the aim is to drastically curtail the US’s role in Europe, to establish security guarantees for Moscow and to consolidate spheres of influence in Europe on a legally binding basis. Initial talks between the US and Russia on 10 January 2022 showed that such guarantees are unrealistic.
I don't actually know what the post-war fall out will look like, and I don't know how it'll end. I was just communicating some existing diplomatic options that may (or may not) end or pause this war sooner—a war that could have been avoided if they'd been applied beforehand.
Yes, Europe is dependent on Russian gas imports, and that gives Russia leverage over Europe. But Russia is also dependent on Europe as a gas importer, and that could give Europe reverse-leverage over Russia if Europe plays its cards right.
Another example: Both Canada and Mexico are entirely dependent on trade with the United States; neither country can afford to seriously challenge American homeland security, and neither country has a foreign policy that's totally free. But their interdependence allows them to pin down American foreign policy as well. The United States is locked into friendly relations because the cost of invading Canada or Mexico, and destroying their industries in the process, would also destroy a substantial chunk of the American economy.
The bombing of Ukrainian power plants has been ongoing for a few weeks. That's a long time. I'm beginning to suspect that it isn't being done as revenge against the Crimean bridge attack, but, rather, that it's an air campaign designed to destroy Ukrainian infrastructure before an eventual offensive (not before December-January (??), by which time the ground will be frozen, not muddy, and Russia's mobilized reserves will have been fully deployed). At some point, it may even transition to a SEAD campaign designed to achieve air supremacy (although achieving air supremacy has been very difficult for Russia so far in this war).
Ukraine is on a roll, but it seems like they still have a long fight ahead of them.
As Ukraine liberates Kherson and regains more territory, we might hear more accounts and see evidence of brutality and abuse suffered by Ukrainians under Russian occupation.
I wonder what Russia’s next move will be and how it’s mobilization effort is going.
It's the rainy season, the ground is muddy, and I wouldn't expect too many major offensives for at least the month of the November. Ukraine needs to prepare for a possible Russian air campaign, and they're getting supplied with air-defence systems to do that. Patchworked systems, imported from different countries, could be hard to integrate (especially with Ukraine's older Soviet SAM systems), but the Pentagon spokesman doesn't seem to think that it's a problem (link). Is he right? You decide.
Geographic distance.
For anyone who's interested, members of the British left recently held a debate on the situation in Ukraine, which is an issue that has torn the left apart. It is one of the best debates about Ukraine that I've seen on the Internet.
The Ukraine war has solidified my opinion that elaborate geopolitical narratives are mostly nonsense that create self defeating scenarios for the governments which take these narratives seriously.
ἀταραξία
NATO weapon stockpiles appear to be dwindling at a considerable rate.
* https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ukr...ssia-1.6578148
* https://www.france24.com/en/live-new...ins-stockpiles
* https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/16...-low-industry/
Some analysts have also sounded the alarm about the depletion of surface-to-air missiles, and some have suggested giving jet fighters to Ukraine, which it would realistically need if it wanted to defend against Russian fixed-wing aviation.
I think Russia will probably fail in their invasion, because they don't have petrodollars. Petrodollars are basically what I called kleptodollars before, but people think petrodollars are about using oil. No, petrodollars are just about destroying resources so the US can have money without having to produce anything. Russia on the other hand actually wants the resources and people of Ukraine. Petrodollars are probably a sign the world is basically post-imperial. Postcolonialists, you've had your way, and you don't like it, because now we legitimately have "postcolonization" rather than pure freedom. Ukraine will probably have independence and also end up being like Slavic Iraq anyway sadly. Iraq is also "independent." I expect a Pyrrhic victory.
Well, the United States did freeze 300 billion dollars of Russian assets; a major move that probably hasn't gone unnoticed in most of the world.
Muhammad bin Salman is probably observing the ongoing women's protests in Iran, and he is no doubt conscious of the possibility that similar protests may happen in Saudi Arabia. Now that finance has been weaponized against a major power like Russia, can he be sure that it would stop there? What happens when president Ocasio-Cortez freezes Saudi assets in solidarity with feminist protests in Saudi Arabia?
Good (and long) analysis of the air war over Ukraine: https://static.rusi.org/SR-Russian-A...-web-final.pdf
Also:
The Russian air force dominates the areas under direct Russian occupation, outclassing and outranging the Ukrainian air force, which is incapable of striking inside Russian-held territories. Inside Ukrainian airspace, Russian planes are highly vulnerable to Ukrainian SAM systems (Russian planes fly at a low altitude as a result, but that then leaves them vulnerable to handheld weapons). But Ukraine is running out of ammunition for its SAM systems, and it faces a very real risk of losing air superiority to Russia unless it is resupplied.
Jet fighters offer one alternative to ground-based anti-air defences, but giving jet fighters to Ukraine has broader implications....
If there's a war on Saudi Arabia, there will be a war of most of the Western world against Israel. And ironically Iran would probably enter on the West's side (or, at least the Iranian people. The Ayatollahs will probably just be made irrelevant, since they would never enter on Saudi's side, but they won't be able to control the people of their own country at all.) In fact, it's looking like a war of most of the world against the state of Israel brewing up for real just like I expected... Except Israel won't really be able to be blamed for defending themselves, not that that makes them automatically the "good guys." It's more that the actions that put them in that position will be blameworthy than their final actions will be blameworthy. They've more or less stopped being a Jewish apartheid state, but it seems like they stopped too late, and allying with Saudi is still blameworthy.
The Iranian people mostly seem really chill, and likely to legitimately overthrow their own government. Their habit of driving drunk is disconcerting, but not exactly the actions of some kind of theocrats, and most people in most countries, East or West, seem dumb to me anyway, so that's not an Iran-specific problem. Most liberals and many leftists seem like the most Persophile people out there to me, so I expect the Iranian government to just totally lose control of the Iranian people, but also never, ever ally with Saudi since even if Shias don't care about the Sunni-Shia split and I don't think the Ayatollahs are even really feeding it (for all their other flaws,) they do care about being killed by the Sunnis such as the house of Saud who do (not all Sunnis care, but most of the major Sunni centers of power in the Middle East do care. Sunnis in places like Malaysia or, yes, Iran seem to not care.)
I heard that Adam is selling weapon scopes to Ukraine and that’s why he’s no longer here.
I hope he's OK.
Same tbh
By making Rus a big threat again, Europe now have to rely on their big bro US again (military, economy), and they can’t make good business with Rus anymore.
US genius. Biggest winner of WW2!
I still don't buy the idea that Putin was attempting some fascist "blood and soil" conquest of Ukraine. The annexation of physical territory is such a dramatic action that, for fairly obvious reason that anyone could have predicted, would cause, and is currently causing, a volatile stand-off with the West that includes the levying of damaging sanctions.
While it's reasonable to suggest that Putin wants to cement his legacy by restoring something like the Russian Empire, restoring the Russian Empire at the cost of weakening it isn't a logical way to do that. Putin isn't stupid, isn't an idle romantic, is capable of performing a cost-benefit analysis, and would have considered that. Russia itself isn't a 'fascist empire'; it's just a regular empire.
Some have suggested that Putin's mental health may be compromised, and I guess that's possible. It's an intriguing suggestion, but there is no way to know that for sure (at least for now).
My guess is that Putin hoped to achieve a quick, bloodless victory with the aim of forcing the Ukrainian government to implement some variation of the Minsk agreement. While an invasion of a sovereign country is still illegal under international law, a bloodless invasion, one with a narrow aim of enforcing a limited diplomatic resolution, wouldn't necessarily be perceived as immoral if it brought peace to Donbass while preserving Ukrainian statehood. And it would be easy to sell that as a fait accompli to the Western governments and electorates that would like to preserve their trade ties with Russia.
His annexation of Ukraine's four southern oblasts is probably a fallback plan, now that the initial operation has failed.
If you're a "woke" liberal, every empire is a fascist empire. Of course, that's not reality.
For real? (sorry, sometimes I have a hard time telling if something written is a joke)
I worry about Sol, too.
Oh, to find you in dreams - mixing prior, analog, and never-beens... facts slip and turn and change with little lucidity. except the strong, permeating reality of emotion.
Woke liberals do should shoulder responsibility for being so melodramatic. But I also partly blame H!tler. What he did was so dramatic that it still sticks in people's heads.
Last edited by xerx; 01-02-2023 at 08:31 PM. Reason: fixed error
I blame Hollywood. Most empires aren't fascist, but people are just watching Avengers and Indiana Jones fight the Nazis all the time so that's what sticks in their heads.
Even more than that, I blame people for being lazy. Hollywood movies aren't even that interesting. Why would you base your entire worldview on them? Yet here we are.
Massive disagreement on the size of Russia's remaining ammunition:
https://www.economist.com/the-econom...-of-ammunition
I pray for the worst outcome for Russia. I loved the idea of closing their borders and letting them kill each other in the civil war after they lose the war. That would be a hell of a fun. Go to hell evil empire.
The Economist recently posted an interview with general Zaluzhny, Ukraine's leading general (a very competent one). He doesn't sugar coat the fact that Russia's mobilization constitutes a serious levelling-up of Russian capabilities. Media and social media have drawn rather optimistic conclusions about Russia's eventual battlefield defeat: Both make sweeping generalization about Russian weakness, and both have usually presented minor Russian setbacks as being totally representative of Russia's entire military presence in Ukraine (and sometimes, even more broadly, of Russia's entire essence as a country or civilization). But as the Russians have thoroughly found out about the Ukrainians, it's never a good idea to underestimate anyone (and I really do mean anyone — even someone who seems too stupid to breathe unassisted).
Zaluzhny also gave a figure for the quantity of arms and supplies that will be needed to drive Russia out of the occupied territories. He needs at least 300 tanks, 600-700 infantry fighting vehicle, and 500 Howitzers.
Checking around, that's comparable in size to the entire French army (one of the best armies in NATO), which has 222 active LeClerc tanks (with 184 more in storage) and 119 howitzers. (1, 2) I'm not qualified to say how easy it would be (logistically, financially, etc.) to arm Ukraine up to that level (although I strongly suspect that it won't be easy), and I'm certainly not qualified to either doubt or confirm Zaluzhny's estimate, but it seems to me that NATO wouldn't be making a small commitment in choosing to attempt a decisive Ukrainian victory.
https://www.economist.com/zaluzhny-transcript
Last edited by xerx; 01-03-2023 at 02:37 AM. Reason: clarification
@Leo any reason in particular you feel this way about all Russians? Could most of them be scared, tunnel-visioned people most of the time, not unlike us?
@Coeruleum Blue any take on evil empires?
Probably all evil empires are fascist, but I don't think all empires are evil. If anyone is evil, it's probably the people promoting literal Nazi Satanism. You know, the US. The US media says the Russians are just scaremongering but the overwhelming evidence is that the US hierarchy is run by Nazi Satanists. I wasn't even looking for anything to do with Russia, I was looking more into the popularity of Satanism among government and military people I knew, albeit usually in the "Satanic Temple" form, and Satanism appears to be really prevalent within the US government as well as the Ukrainian one, in addition to connects with, say, al-Qaeda. Most of the sources reporting on it are left-wing and left-leaning sources such as Vice and Bellingcat rather than Jack Chick and the usual people associated with the Satanic Panic, albeit the people reporting on it are generally more concerned with the "Nazi" aspect than the "Satanist" one.
On the other hand, even Tucker Carlson is irritated with the amount of PR for actual Satanism within the US military. I find the left's tendency to focus on the "Nazi" aspect also misguided, since these Satanic groups have self-reported that if they lived in a National Socialist world they would be Marxist-Leninists instead and they prefer Charles Manson to Hı̇tler ideology-wise but Hı̇tler is a better recruiting tool due to the shock value. Khorne cares not from whence the blood flows, only that it does, after all. All the evil empires out there know who they are due to, you know, their literal worship of evil. "Are we the baddies, Hans?"
FBI Bankrolled Publisher of Occult Neo-Nazi Books, Feds Claim (vice.com)
The “Hardcore” Russian Neo-Nazi Group That Calls Ukraine Home - bellingcat
Tucker Carlson: Military Forces Soldiers To Study '7 Tenets Of Satanism' PowerPoint In Defense Of COVID-19 Vaccines - National File
These are mostly left-wing sources with only occasional confirmation from the right. Who's the evil empire? Probably not Russia.
@Coeruleum Blue thanks
I think I hinted at it a couple of months ago but I say it again: the 'war' is over now. Much of the information we get is akin to pantomime as the precursory negotiations get things settled. Russia is going to abandon Crimea in more or less 6 months. The *noise* about Russia's strength or this and than from Ukr. is just to underscore unity and keep the war afloat. Choose key figures in the know to read instead of more apprehensive reporting done on purpose. In the Israeli invasion of Gaza like a decade ago everyone was reading apocalyptic media reports of impending ground invasion but you could guess the truth by skimming through blogs from moms in English: their kids had been called back from their border weeks before even when the media kept hammering about unavoidable ground invasion. Refer to a couple of neat sources (like the ones that predicted that Russia would abandon Kherson (capital city) months in advance while people said they were crazy and you will see half a year into the future.
Sicuramente cercherai il significato di questo.
It's not over. The West is withdrawing, but that's not because the war is over, that's because Western soldiers are getting disillusioned with their countries' foreign policy and policy in general.
Don’t Drag the Military into Politics - War on the Rocks
People on the left hate the so-called woke (intersectional neo-Marxist) agendas within a hair's breadth as much as people on the right do. Almost no one supports the current agenda. The current agenda is, according to all evidence, being set by actual Satanists who are just interested in trying to act as predatory as possible out of the fear otherwise they would be the ones being preyed upon, and even if we assume the worst about most people, well, evil doesn't exactly get along with itself. This state of things cannot hold.
I'm sorry, I cannot understand: 'withdrawing' from where and what exactly. Referring always to territorial control then its all moving in Ukrainian's favor and more in the future: Russia's adventure into the occupied land is going to spark a wave of 'derussification' with overreaching consequences, e.g.: Transnistria. The Russian government can always go home and declare it destroyed the Ukrainian army but the 'destroyed' army will finish this more integrated with NATO than ever before and better equipped than before, and having access to Russian's assets they can force indemnification. It's going well for the Kievan elites in the same sense independence from Spain well well for the South American elites. That's all what it was about plus America's place. It means Muscovite plans of Russia + EU integration as they prepared them are truncated, Russia leaves the territories in months.
Sicuramente cercherai il significato di questo.
The issue is NATO members themselves largely don't want anything to do with this because their own governments can't control them into following the agenda. There might be some stagnation for a while but the conflict will come back up with less help from NATO.
America: No, Russia! We're not Nazis and we don't support Nazis in Ukraine, which don't exist! What do you think this is, Indiana Jones? You are a paranoid sillypants!
Also America: We hate the Jews and we're going to fill our government with Nazis like we have for many decades as well as support Ukrainian Nazis after we supported Nazis at home during WWII.
Well well look at what the winds of change have brought...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...e-joining-nato
This reinforces my theory that the war is 'over' and has been for some months now. Kissinger being in the group that's in the know has started to change his tune accordingly.“The idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful,” Kissinger, 99, told the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday. Kissinger, long an opponent of Ukraine’s membership of the organization, has softened his stance on the issue in recent months.
Sicuramente cercherai il significato di questo.
This is strangely reminiscent of what happened in Operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza (2012): the media kept announcing a possible Egyptian intervention to mediate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. In reality: they announced it much later, when arrangements and time limits had already been decided, more likely even before the short-lived military campaign started. Why? To boost Morsi. They played an deal settled probably months in advance as his last-moment achievement. The powers that be would not have handed him an opportunity and then risk him missing it and lose face in the process. America 'warms' up to the idea of helping Ukr. here means Crimea is probably a done deal. Russia has already surrendered it. We tend to think what we see is what it actually is but it's about public 'entertainment' and muscle-flexing. Similar to Netanyahu's visit to Moscow some years back to ask for Putin's assistance in the Middle East. The meeting decided nothing, initiated nothing; he had already got what he wanted from Putin but the image Moscow needed was Bibi going up a set of stairs to beg an important player in the region as the president of Russia waiting for him at the top.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/18/u...-military.html
Sicuramente cercherai il significato di questo.
So... Basically, politics.
Moskovia incarcerated us for 50 years, I pray they get more than they have to.
Most of them scared of what exactly? No, they are fascists, hateful, resentful poor idiots. Shitting in a bucket is okay in Moskovia. Eating sosiski is default. Oh, the russians come with lots of vodka. Yea, very cool. No, not really. They think that people in the West are as poor as they are and when they learn that that is not true, they get fucking mad. They would trash the shit out of your city and kill all the residents. Devil's empire has to go down, down, down. I mean, it will be the second North Korea. I do not really like the idea, but it will overall be better for my country.
Russia will not be divided into many small states. it will simply become a large, uninfluential poor ghost state.
And without Ukraine and Belarus, it's not Russia, it's Moskovia.
Kissinger was always a premier ticket taker. However, he was/is a ticket taker with a bit of a brain. Remember what I've said about the PTB and that they are not monolithic. There are factions and they have opinions and goals that may conflict. All this means is that Kissinger's faction got outplayed somehow and now he's being forced to tow the new party line or experience an "accident" if ya know what I mean.
I do think his former position was correct however. The Ukraine is going to become Russian territory sadly. The only quesiton is how much more money, men, and resources are the Neocon faction of the PTB willing to sacrifice before they finally capitulate to reality.
My fear is they'd rather nuke the planet into the stone age given their irrational hatred of Russia and it's people but hey I'd be more than happy to be wrong about that and all power struggles are far from definitive until they become so.
Neocons are winning right now yes. Doesn't mean they'll be winning 12 months from now. The Banksters have a keen interest in not rendering the Earth uninhabitable. Ya can't loan to/enslave the dead after all..
I am an American and not a European so the whole concept of real, true, "ethnic" hatred/animus is essentially alien to me. I mean, there's the whole "race" thing but even then that's just more of a basic bitch us vs. them dichotomy and when ya really dig down you'll find that often doesn't matter to your average American (e.g. plenty of Blacks fought for the South during the Civil War and the Southerners weren't exactly disdainful of their kind nor their aid). The closest we have is the disdain the coastal regions have for "flyover country" that "bitterly clings to their religion and guns" but that doesn't have the weight of centuries of warfare (and the attendant war crimes), linguistic differences, etc. Yet even then we (the flyover country people) would be more than happy to just let bygones be bygones, allow the coastal regions to become their own country as we become our own and we'd just figure it all out after that. I mean, we do essentially hold Florida and Texas so our new nation wouldn't be landlocked so we'd have access to international/global markets so that little hickup would be handilly avoided.
What I'm getting from you is absolute, blind, near genocidal hatred. Now I get it if you, for instance, got pinned down by Ruskies and you watched them rape and then murder your family right in front of your eyes and then let you live just because hey that's one hell of a laugh ain't it? Hell, didn't even have to happen to you directly. Ancestors and Vendetta's are a thing and that is pretty much how war goes (e.g. I "get" why the Poles will always consider killing Russians or Germans thoroughly dead their idea of a good time despite logical arguments for why they really ought to consider not killing them at a given point in time).
It's also not bloody likely your revenge fantasy will come to pass. Russia has "the button" as I've mentioned before and if they start to lose in a big way it gets pressed and we are ALL fucked if that happens.
There's also the sad fact of the world that this is now an outright war of attrition for all intents and purposes (so long as it remains conventional and NBC's don't come into play) and to determine who wins that (sans NBC's getting used) is you compare the population and industrial base of both sides. The bigger one wins and, sorry to say, Russia has Ukraine beat on both fronts by a wide and rather significant margin. Well, unless ALL of Western Europe commits to sending actual regular troops en masse in addition to money and weapon systems. Mercs don't exactly count as there aren't enough of them (nor enough money available if there were somehow) to actually make it matter.
Doesn't mean the Ukrainians can't and won't pull off a legendary defense on the par of Thermopile, but if the war is fought "Down To the Last Ukrainian" the Ukrainians will run out of Ukrainians far before the Russians run out of Russians. I don't like this, I wish it wasn't so, but I'm a man of facts and those are facts...
To quote Ho Chi Min: "You will kill ten of us and we will kill one of you but in the end it will be you who will grow tired of it"
Only in this case the Ukrainians will do that to the Russians and then they'll suddenly find out that there's no more Ukrainians to kill. Ten Ruskies for every one Ukranian (very optimistic scenario for the Ukies I'll add) and they'll run out men way before the Ruskies do. Again, grim, harsh facts.
Yes, but it still surprises me how extremely early in the case of Crimea given that we're 9 months prior its supposed liberation.
I'm not sure I see this happening in the near future. The opposite, rather: cultural derussification of certain areas to the dismay of old russian imperialists. The elites in Russia also have a say and it's them that handed over Crimea. They wouldn't want to unleash a nuclear war that would cause self-liquidation, economically and physically.
Europeans are into this because they don't like the possible scenario with Russia as a decisive player. Remember Russia stopped gas supply to Europe, imagine nordstream 2 running and Russia decides to invade Poland. Why would they leave a door open to crippling economic encroachment? There's an interesting piece of work going around by a couple of Polish authors that collects the Russians' policies and moves in their foreign policy the last 10 years. It leaves the European elites with their neck exposed to the Russian elites. Letting that happen is acting irrationally.
Last edited by Rusal; 01-20-2023 at 04:48 AM.
Sicuramente cercherai il significato di questo.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote