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cinci zoo sniper posted:https://www.politico.eu/article/china-xi-jinping-vladimir-putin-negotiate-ukraine/ Given that China and Russia are so close that they literally have a land border, I've been skeptical of the reports over the past month that Putin and Xi are buddies and that China looooves what's going on. What's the benefit to China of Russia attacking Ukraine? Economic disruption, a more unified and possibly stronger NATO, bad PR and probably a more paranoid Taiwan, and another neighbor with nukes on its border veering toward domestic instability. China's rise to superpower status has been predicated on economic success and the notion of it being a "peaceful" ascendance. They get nothing from this except new headaches. Hell, it's unclear what the actual benefits to Russia are of attacking Ukraine (unless you believe their propaganda about Ukraine being right on the cusp of joining NATO and NATO actively trying to destroy present-day Russia). Russia's incurring massive costs to fight this war and facing economic reprisals for doing so. Depending on how the war goes, it could incur significant loss of military forces and generate significant domestic turmoil as well. All to create another puppet state it will have to prop up.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:55
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GABA ghoul posted:Yeah, from a strategic security perspective this war is a disaster for Russia(even if it had been a great success). But then again, this has never really a been about Russia's security so he probably doesn't care much.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:56
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TheCardhouse posted:My (a nobody who knows nothing) assumption at the moment is that they are going to see this and think that they can take Taiwan without US interference because, duh the US is letting Russia take Ukraine and openly saying we're not going to stop them with force. I also think that this might legitimately change the thinking of the US and this might be the last straw and the US could decide it will never let a (West aligned) democratic nation get conquered again. China could easily assume the US will back down like it did here (or I guess not step up might be a better description for Ukraine than back down) and that miscalculation seems it could easily lead to war, as it has throughout history. I suspect the thing that China will be looking closely at whether the West rapidly goes back to business as usual with Russia, or whether this moment marks a real step change in the willingness of Western governments to accept economic costs to punish malign activity. China and Russia do all sorts of malign interference all the time in other countries and get away with it because it's fallen beneath the threshold of Western goverments wanting to make a big deal about it, there will be a fair number of people in the Chinese state pretty annoyed if Russia just lowered the tolerance threshold globally.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:56
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surf rock posted:Given that China and Russia are so close that they literally have a land border, I've been skeptical of the reports over the past month that Putin and Xi are buddies and that China looooves what's going on. This part is easy to answer - it's not a benefit to Russia so much as it is Putin's will to return to the Good Old Days when Russia was a no-poo poo superpower.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:57
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mobby_6kl posted:I don't know if I missed it while I was sleeping, but Russia is getting owned pretty badly here Russia got put on blast by a country of 100,000 people. You don't see Tonga having the balls to say this!
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Feb 25, 2022 15:58
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CommieGIR posted:And the populace doesn't really get a say in this. NATO is not some democratic institution. This isn't a game of Civ IV. You're not programmatically bound to carry out the treaty you signed on turn 40. You absolutely need the consent of your populace in order to stage a war effort, and if they are solidly united against their own extinction, then you're not going to war.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:58
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Dwesa posted:I wonder whether there is a possibility that Chechens or someone of a similar disposition sees current situation as an opportunity for themselves while Russian army is busy elsewhere. Chechnya lives on ~2-3 billions of dollars of yearly subsidies from the federal government. Kadyrov is not leaving Russia as long as he's getting paid Now when Putin inevitably dies what happens is another question and news coming out of his supporters behaving like ISIS doesn't bode well for the future
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Feb 25, 2022 15:58
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Phlegmish posted:It is looking somewhat like Russia is biting off more than it can chew, although it's still early days. Difficult to say how Ukrainian resistance will continue to evolve They’re concentrating their forces in Kyiv so it depends on what happens when Kyiv is captured. I don’t think it will end the war but I don’t know what it will look like afterwards.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:58
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https://twitter.com/KofmanMichael/status/1497222922431254531?t=zCkbyf2S7OiSl1Jwi16kvg&s=19 Decent analysis of this first ~48 hours of this war. Seems everyone is drawing basically the same conclusions.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:59
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ZombieLenin posted:The funny thing to me is that, if you look at nuclear doctrines amongst the nuclear powers, while it is true that Russia has a more liberal 'use case' scenario than most of NATO, it is France who has the most 'liberal' use policy of any nuclear state. This is NATO's never had a no first use policy. The assumption during the Cold War was always that the Soviets could overwhelm NATO conventional forces and it would be NATO going nuclear.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:59
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Baronash posted:This isn't a game of Civ IV. You're not programmatically bound to carry out the treaty you signed on turn 40. You absolutely need the consent of your populace in order to stage a war effort, and if they are solidly united against their own extinction, then you're not going to war. Exactly, it’s more like Civ 1 or Civ Revolution where democracies can’t declare war and randomly declare peace
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Feb 25, 2022 16:00
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Baronash posted:This isn't a game of Civ IV. You're not programmatically bound to carry out the treaty you signed on turn 40. You absolutely need the consent of your populace in order to stage a war effort, and if they are solidly united against their own extinction, then you're not going to war. NATO actions don't get held to a popular vote so how would the populace interfere? Triskelli posted:Exactly, it’s more like Civ 1 or Civ Revolution where democracies can’t declare war and randomly declare peace Again, NATO is not a public institution. Its agreements between states and their governments. If Trump was in power? Yeah, NATO would likely fall apart. But given we're likely to uphold our agreements at least in regards to NATO, I don't see this being a thing. And as Deteriorata said: Its all speculation anyways based on gut instinct, but my gut instinct is that, especially given current events, there's gonna be a drive to make NATO relevant again.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:00
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Baronash posted:This isn't a game of Civ IV. You're not programmatically bound to carry out the treaty you signed on turn 40. You absolutely need the consent of your populace in order to stage a war effort, and if they are solidly united against their own extinction, then you're not going to war. By that logic then nuclear war is simply impossible because it is not in anybody's rational self interest, which I am not sure is true given how close it was to happening throughout history. Also, like, wars in general happen despite often not being rationally in the interest of most of the people involved in them.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:01
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https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497222339733467136 loving oval office (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 25, 2022 16:01
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Alchenar posted:I suspect the thing that China will be looking closely at whether the West rapidly goes back to business as usual with Russia, or whether this moment marks a real step change in the willingness of Western governments to accept economic costs to punish malign activity. I also suspect that this is a wakeup call for China as far as getting a better understanding of how costly and difficult it would be for them to take Taiwan in as much as Taiwan is also well armed with Western weapon systems; furthermore, in the case of Taiwan, China understands that there is a very real possibility that the United States would live up to its defense guarantees and treaty commitments to Taiwan and be willing to actively defend Taiwan militarily.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:01
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https://twitter.com/JackDetsch/status/1497220862805745664 Even if those numbers are halved it is costly for Russia for less than 48 hours.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:03
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Somaen posted:https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497222339733467136 How does this help him? How does this possibly gain Russia any PR?
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Feb 25, 2022 16:03
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Somaen posted:https://twitter.com/bazabazon/status/1497172726779371523 Reminds me of that scene from Dune where the Harkonnen envoy is buying three battalions of Sardaukar for the invasion.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:03
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Are Antonov aircraft compatible with aerial refueling from US tankers? Also a helicopter from the Ukr emergency services just popped up moving into Poland.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:03
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Somaen posted:Chechnya lives on ~2-3 billions of dollars of yearly subsidies from the federal government. Kadyrov is not leaving Russia as long as he's getting paid
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Feb 25, 2022 16:03
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Somaen posted:https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497222339733467136 JEsus I want to punch him in his stupid face so loving much
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Feb 25, 2022 16:04
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ZombieLenin posted:I also suspect that this is a wakeup call for China as far as getting a better understanding of how costly and difficult it would be for them to take Taiwan in as much as Taiwan is also well armed with Western weapon systems; furthermore, in the case of Taiwan, China understands that there is a very real possibility that the United States would live up to its defense guarantees and treaty commitments to Taiwan and be willing to actively defend Taiwan militarily. Don't forget Taiwan is also an island. It is significantly more difficult to operate a logistics train across a body of water than it is across land.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:05
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CommieGIR posted:How does this help him? How does this possibly gain Russia any PR? The outside chance of a military coup throwing Ukrainian government into chaos.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:05
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CommieGIR posted:NATO actions don't get held to a popular vote so how would the populace interfere? Because a democratically-elected leader flagrantly violating the will of the overwhelming majority of their own population (and, in this case, capital) on an existential issue is not going to remain a leader for long.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:06
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ZombieLenin posted:I also suspect that this is a wakeup call for China as far as getting a better understanding of how costly and difficult it would be for them to take Taiwan in as much as Taiwan is also well armed with Western weapon systems; furthermore, in the case of Taiwan, China understands that there is a very real possibility that the United States would live up to its defense guarantees and treaty commitments to Taiwan and be willing to actively defend Taiwan militarily. There is an almost 0% chance we would love up to those guarantees.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:06
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Baronash posted:Because a democratically-elected leader flagrantly violating the will of the overwhelming majority of their own population (and, in this case, capital) on an existential issue is not going to remain a leader for long. Yeah I don't see that happening. I'm gonna drop this conversation.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:07
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Morrow posted:The outside chance of a military coup throwing Ukrainian government into chaos. There is no outside chance. Never going to happen.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:07
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Somaen posted:https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497222339733467136 lol him pulling the "shoot your officers, you have nothing to lose but your chains" poo poo is rich coming from him and his loving army.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:08
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Bel Shazar posted:There is an almost 0% chance we would love up to those guarantees. This is what Hitler thought about Poland. Edit: sorry not trying to compare anyone to Hitler. Just that this is a miscalculation people have made forever.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:08
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Day 2 threatening the enemy capital is impressive, I wonder if this is what the Russians are thinking at a strategic level, in that democracies are slow to wake up, if you rush the capitol can you just outrun sanctions.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:08
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ZombieLenin posted:I also suspect that this is a wakeup call for China as far as getting a better understanding of how costly and difficult it would be for them to take Taiwan in as much as Taiwan is also well armed with Western weapon systems; furthermore, in the case of Taiwan, China understands that there is a very real possibility that the United States would live up to its defense guarantees and treaty commitments to Taiwan and be willing to actively defend Taiwan militarily. I think actually they're worried about the inverse - Taiwan looking at Ukraine right now and thinking 'oh, if the balloon went up then we could actually make a fight of it'. China's policy is to make it look like they could invade easily at any time while exerting economic/social pressure for peaceful unification (although it looks like that's gone badly wrong in recent years). Stick and carrot. If the stick doesn't look like a stick anymore then the diplomatic dynamic they have with Taiwan just got more complicated.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:08
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https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497225449755263009?s=20&t=fSYuhaK9ezR-7xbnPCUNKQ These terms are obviously not palatable to Ukraine, but it suggests what their initial concessions would be if Ukraine surrendered early.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:09
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Morrow posted:The outside chance of a military coup throwing Ukrainian government into chaos. I don't see anyone in Ukraine watching that video and wanting to shoot him less.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:09
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As a person from a Taiwanese family, I would love to believe that the US would come to Taiwan's rescue, but I cannot see how that would actually happen. The only thing Taiwan has going for it (besides having done a good job of building up a wealthy economy) is that it's an island and island's are hard for even the most militarily capable nations to retake. I do feel that if the PRC hadn't gone so "gloves off" with Hong Kong, the KMT would be in power right now and there'd be a lot of very preliminary talk about how to negotiate reunification.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:09
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https://twitter.com/kemal_115/status/1497113060959571968?s=20&t=0x7V8Lf4rYYRZp-HQQwvKQ https://twitter.com/kemal_115/status/1497133874207416321?s=20&t=0x7V8Lf4rYYRZp-HQQwvKQ
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Feb 25, 2022 16:10
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CommieGIR posted:How does this help him? How does this possibly gain Russia any PR? 1) there may be some ukrainians who fall for it 2) attempt to counter the ukrainian "remember the alamo" style fight to the death mythology that is building quickly and effectively (snake island, etc.) 3) internal consumption within Russia "the ukrainians are weak and about to surrender"
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Feb 25, 2022 16:10
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Somaen posted:https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497222339733467136 Yeah the Ukranian military don't think highly of you Gnome This is a stupid as gently caress attempt at propaganda I thought Russia was supposed to be good at this particular method of war?
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Feb 25, 2022 16:12
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EvilHawk posted:https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1497225449755263009?s=20&t=fSYuhaK9ezR-7xbnPCUNKQ Weapons? What weapons? There are humanitarian supplies.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:12
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Mad props to the ukrainian civvies having the APC up on bricks and nicking the petrol.
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Feb 25, 2022 16:12
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Zelensky's government are woke liberal russophobic neo-nazis and he's reaching out to the good smart boomers of the Soviet upbringing who can talk man-to-man with macho bunker grandpa It gives me hope that he's falling into the insane fascist trap of underestimating your enemies like Stalin did with Finland and Hitler with the USSR
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Feb 25, 2022 16:13
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