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Charliegrs posted:Where do these tankies hang out? I don't consider myself "extremely online" but I'm pretty drat online and I never run across these tankie types. CSPAM (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 17, 2022 03:02
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Charliegrs posted:Where do these tankies hang out? I don't consider myself "extremely online" but I'm pretty drat online and I never run across these tankie types. Twitter has shitloads of then. Then again it has shitloads of all kinds of morons so
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Dec 17, 2022 03:12
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evil_bunnY posted:What's S-300's mobility like? Everyone I've heard talk about patriot said it'd a complete rear end in a top hat to move about. The S-300 so far seems really only good at taking out apartment blocks and tractors
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Dec 17, 2022 03:46
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FishBulbia posted:The S-300 so far seems really only good at taking out apartment blocks and tractors I guess you're talking about the Russian S300s? Because the Ukrainian S300 have been kicking total rear end. They've taken out tons of planes, cruise missiles, even helicopters.
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Dec 17, 2022 04:08
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FishBulbia posted:The S-300 so far seems really only good at taking out apartment blocks and tractors That is more the Russian army sucking than anything else, the Ukranians are using them fairly effectively.
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Dec 17, 2022 04:14
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sean10mm posted:What confuses me is why extremely online Marxists love carrying water for right-wing racist-nationalist Russia now. A large portion of Russian propaganda targeting the US is stated in terms of idiot quasi-leftism that largely functions for its target audience as a means to attack others and disengage. There's a whole spectrum of siloed propaganda entities, but a notable set of the well-documented ones, like, e.g. Redfish, are all about extremely selectively presented "leftist antiauthoritarianism"- , with a principal goal of disrupting civic engagement and discourse in the target country, and with a remarkable knack for looping back around into reactionary positions and conspiracy theory, frequently through attacking minority group representation in insufficiently pure democratic systems as "identity politics." Ted Rall in the politoons thread is a great way of seeing some of the talking points presented so ineptly that it's almost impossible to fall for it- though even then there were periodic influxes of "wow, he's got a point this time" posts until the reinvasion kicked in and it became especially impossible to not notice his bad faith.
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Dec 17, 2022 04:48
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It's not that complicated. They hate America and want to see its allies defeated. Nothing more complex than that.
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Dec 17, 2022 05:19
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A lot of "anti-imperialists" have grown up in an era when only America was really powerful enough to do imperialism without consequences, so in practice their ideology is just anti-American/NATO-ism. The fact that America is on the unambiguously right side of a conflict is deeply uncomfortable for them, which is why they desperately have to look for reasons to hate Ukraine, while ignoring the fact that every single one of those reasons applies 10x to Russia.
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Dec 17, 2022 05:33
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Charliegrs posted:Russia's transformation from the capital of a Communist empire to the arguably the most right wing country in the world after the fall of the Soviet union is a big part of the reason why the same Republican party that was itching to nuke Moscow during the cold war is now carrying water for Putin. Your average chud looks at Russia today and how they treat the LGBT community, how you basically get a pass for domestic abuse, how the government fights for "traditional values", and how strong the church is there now and it basically looks like chud utopia. Funny thing, a lot of this stuff existed in Soviet times, too; just w/o the US culture war spin --- except for a few years really early, USSR has been a very socially conservative country in many ways, in particular when it comes to role of women (people very much can hate gays and expect women to spend a bunch of time in the kitchen after work in a perfectly secular way!).
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Dec 17, 2022 05:38
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Given how little the west pays attention to Myanmars ongoing civil war, I can understand being a bit irked about this thing happening in their backyard being something everyone should suddenly care about. Even if the west super cared about Myanmar, people in Bangladesh would still give zero fucks about Ukraine. It’s not "Western hypocrisy” that is the issue. It’s that people justifiably care more about stuff that happens near them and to people they know (or to them directly) than to stuff that is far away and doesn’t affect them or anyone they know. The war in Ukraine directly affects nearly all Europeans, and Americans by and large are much more connected to Europe than they are to some state in Southeast Asia that has been a global pariah for 70 years. Individual people cannot and should not be expected to care about all global issues equally. It is normal and okay for Sudanese to care more about Tigray and less and Ukraine than we — who in this thread are overwhelmingly European and NAmerican — do. And based on the hours of the day this thread gets posts in the last 2 months - most of us still posting here are European. Like do Australia and New Zealand give a poo poo at all besides changing their Fb profile pics or whatever? I’ve literally never seen them mentioned in the context of Ukraine aid. And if they don’t care (beyond Thoughts and Prayers) then that’s okay. If PNG explodes then they’re going to care a lot more than Canada does - also okay. Also for the poster looking for extremely online leftists: just look at Noam Chomsky’s Twitter feed and look for the positive post replies.
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Dec 17, 2022 06:19
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FishBulbia posted:It's not that complicated. They hate America and want to see its allies defeated. Nothing more complex than that. A lot of it is based on the bizarre idea that "multipolarity" would A. be achieved by Russian success in Ukraine and B. would somehow result in a peaceful world. We do in fact have examples of "multipolar" situations in history. Spoiler alert, they weren't particularly peaceful, especially if you consider the world outside Europe.
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Dec 17, 2022 11:10
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Panzeh posted:A lot of it is based on the bizarre idea that "multipolarity" would A. be achieved by Russian success in Ukraine and B. would somehow result in a peaceful world. Case in point, Dmitri Trenin (worth reading because he's a Russian Patriot trying to do sensible analysis on the best course for his country - you have to filter his work remembering he's writing to try to influence Kremlin policy makers) wrote on this a few days ago: https://globalaffairs.ru/articles/perelomnaya-tochka/ quote:In a new environment – even compared to the period 2014-2022 – Russia faces a politically mobilized collective West. With the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the degree of cohesion around the United States of English-speaking countries, Europe, Asian allies reached previously unseen values. Not only Great Britain, Poland and the Baltic States, but also Germany, France, Italy, Spain took a sharply anti-Russian position. For the first time in Russian history, Russia in the West does not have not only allies, but even interlocutors capable of playing the role of intermediaries, "translators" and the like. The traditional neutrality of a number of European countries has been completely reset and has come to naught. Not only Finland and Sweden, which decided to join NATO, but also Austria, Ireland and even Switzerland, which is not a member of any associations, actually joined the anti-Russian alliance. On the side of this coalition, numbering about fifty countries around the world, the Vatican also stands... Translation: you wanted a multipolar world? Congratulations, everyone who was previously neutral in Europe flipped to the other pole, and all our CSTO 'allies' have flipped neutral. e: like, it's something to consider that the Global South is not going along with the Western Narrative on the war, but Russia's great strategic objective is not to be friends with the Global South, it is to be the dominant power in Europe. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 11:29
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Saladman posted:Like do Australia and New Zealand give a poo poo at all besides changing their Fb profile pics or whatever? I’ve literally never seen them mentioned in the context of Ukraine aid. Well, Australia has been giving aid to Ukraine if that's what you mean: https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1576662941641764865 In decent amounts too, according to Guardian article New Zealand I don't remember hearing much about but they're doing some training of Ukrainian soldiers in the UK it seems
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Dec 17, 2022 11:39
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Generally speaking the ANZACs are by necessity aligned with America + Western Europe while also being extremely aware that China is one of their most important trading partners.
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Dec 17, 2022 12:29
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sean10mm posted:What confuses me is why extremely online Marxists love carrying water for right-wing racist-nationalist Russia now. They're people who feel like they have to be against popular things for the sake of being contrarian (which are people who post on the Stupidpol and Red Scare Podcast subreddits).
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Dec 17, 2022 13:04
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Saladman posted:Even if the west super cared about Myanmar, people in Bangladesh would still give zero fucks about Ukraine. It’s not "Western hypocrisy” that is the issue. It’s that people justifiably care more about stuff that happens near them and to people they know (or to them directly) than to stuff that is far away and doesn’t affect them or anyone they know. The war in Ukraine directly affects nearly all Europeans, and Americans by and large are much more connected to Europe than they are to some state in Southeast Asia that has been a global pariah for 70 years. The war in Russia has caused huge upheaval in the world energy and food markets, especially in Africa, much more so than in America and Europe. Just because the war is far away, doesn't mean it doesn't it doesn't effect people.
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Dec 17, 2022 13:57
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sean10mm posted:What confuses me is why extremely online Marxists love carrying water for right-wing racist-nationalist Russia now. Being extremely online means your head's hosed up, that's all
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Dec 17, 2022 14:11
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Ukraine 'preparing' for Russia to invade from north, top commander says Either they've got some intel or this is a way to nudge the west to give them more stuff.
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Dec 17, 2022 14:25
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I'm pretty sure it's a bluff so Russia will totally ignore the attack Ukraine is going to do in the south.
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Dec 17, 2022 14:31
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Scratch Monkey posted:Ukraine 'preparing' for Russia to invade from north, top commander says What's the land equivalent of a turkey shoot?  There is no way they can expect their third rate replacements to achieve what their "elites" failed to do so decisively against a much weaker enemy, even Putin can't be so delusional. And just in time to get bogged in mud if the timing is off and weather turns, again.
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Dec 17, 2022 14:32
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Being extremely online means your head's hosed up, that's all Very solid point, no doubt.
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Dec 17, 2022 14:58
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Panzeh posted:A lot of it is based on the bizarre idea that "multipolarity" would A. be achieved by Russian success in Ukraine and B. would somehow result in a peaceful world. The arguments that I have heard center around the idea that Capitol is too powerful under a unipolar world order centered around America. So the system needs to be destabilized before whatever new system they want can emerge. Pointing out the authoritarian abuses of Russia or China isn't productive, because these countries are already viewed as a cats-paws.
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Dec 17, 2022 15:09
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Comstar posted:I'm pretty sure it's a bluff so Russia will totally ignore the attack Ukraine is going to do in the south. I think you’ve misread that: Ukraine is preparing for RUSSIA to attack from the north, not to do so themselves. That being looking at the article itself the headline is overegging the pudding - what the general specifically said is that Ukraine was preparing for an attack from the north, east, and south - in other words, they’re still evaluating where exactly the blow will fall, but are prepared to meet it wherever it comes from. They do specifically note that they’re considering the possibility of an invasion via Belarus, but in terms of solid statements the whole thing is just a puff piece about how Ukraine is ready for anything as long as the weapons keep coming.
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Dec 17, 2022 15:33
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steinrokkan posted:What's the land equivalent of a turkey shoot? I dunno about this, there's a ton of factors that play a role here. The initial assault was done by troops that were briefed mere hours before going into Ukraine to mainly bypass everything to strike at a few critical targets. The troops had no proper air support, no proper artillery support, no preemptive missile strikes on hard targets, a long long long thin column of logistics, barely any communication, and zero intel. Oh, and a complete overconfidence on part of the architects of the invasion, who truly believed they could decapitate Ukrainian leadership and be hailed as liberators. After a few weeks of complete failure they executed a proper retreat: they basically didn't suffer any significant losses during the retreat itself. Russia has learned though: you see them ceding gained ground when needed, concentrating force where they can while heavily fortifying their positions, using their weakest troops to keep Ukraine busy, defending their logistics as much as they can, and continually pressuring the enemy on the front and rear with deeper strikes. They haven't done any type of push that is remotely comparable to that first disastrous assault in February. A Russian slow and steady approach with actually briefed troops supported by a proper logistical chain is probably capable of pushing to Kiev given time. It'll take a while, but if Russia commits and keeps pushing on multiple well supplied fronts, like southwards from Gomel & Chernobyl into Kiev and from Kursk & Belgrogrod into Kharkiv and Sumy while holding the line in the Donbas and pressuring them like they're doing now... It'll be very difficult for Ukraine to hold them. Luckily it doesn't seem likely that Russia has the material, money, and coordination needed to actually enact such a push, but I think the war will become more bloody and tough the coming months, and Ukraine won't find much more "easy" (imagine the biggest quotation marks ever here) victories like the defense of Kiev, the rout in Kharkiv oblast, and the liberation of Kherson.
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Dec 17, 2022 15:47
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Charliegrs posted:Russia's transformation from the capital of a Communist empire to the arguably the most right wing country in the world after the fall of the Soviet union is a big part of the reason why the same Republican party that was itching to nuke Moscow during the cold war is now carrying water for Putin. Your average chud looks at Russia today and how they treat the LGBT community, how you basically get a pass for domestic abuse, how the government fights for "traditional values", and how strong the church is there now and it basically looks like chud utopia. And to a lot of chuds the war in Ukraine is basically a war against "wokeism" since Ukraine had been slowly moving in a more progressive direction. Oh and they have a Jewish president. So it's really no surprise that Russia seems to be getting ever more popular with the more extreme ends (which is basically all of them now) of the Republican party. We are lucky in a way that so many Republicans in Congress are so old and firmly still in the "Russia bad" camp. That's part of the reason why military aid to Ukraine has always sailed through Congress. What's scary is the younger generation of republicans in Congress and how pro Russia they've been. Like MTG, Boebert, and Madison Cawthore etc. I was listening to some journalists who go to Moscow on Fareed Zakaria the other day and they said it was bizarre how unapparent it seemed that Russia is a country at war even with the partial mobilization. It's still a "special military operation," which basically means it's not "really happening," maybe kinda like the U.S. invasion of Iraq and how that was processed at home. And I obviously don't live there, and the Russian government has tried to construct a theoretical justification for the war using a pretty reactionary frame, but the online posters who are really enthusiastic about the war as a crusade for "traditional values" and actually believe in that seem like an anomaly. Does anyone really think the Russian government believes in that? They surely have some true believers but they seem like a pretty cynical group of people. They used to say the war was about denazification but that also doesn't translate to exchanging Azov prisoners for Viktor Medvedchuk. thekeeshman posted:A lot of "anti-imperialists" have grown up in an era when only America was really powerful enough to do imperialism without consequences, so in practice their ideology is just anti-American/NATO-ism. The fact that America is on the unambiguously right side of a conflict is deeply uncomfortable for them, which is why they desperately have to look for reasons to hate Ukraine, while ignoring the fact that every single one of those reasons applies 10x to Russia. OddObserver posted:Funny thing, a lot of this stuff existed in Soviet times, too; just w/o the US culture war spin --- except for a few years really early, USSR has been a very socially conservative country in many ways, in particular when it comes to role of women (people very much can hate gays and expect women to spend a bunch of time in the kitchen after work in a perfectly secular way!). Anyways, her larger point is that the communist society had a way of collapsing the distinction between perpetrators and victims of oppression. A lot of perpetrators themselves were privately critical of the regime, or had helped people dodge the authorities, and various dissidents themselves were secret agents of the internal security bureau or had sold other dissidents out, and then the people who made out the best after it collapsed and got rich were former communist officials; so it just wasn't clear who was responsible for the oppression that had harmed everyone in some dimension or another if everyone was guilty of it in some kinda way. And she argues that the way Albanians processed this was by turning on anything that smelled of socialism and Marxism, because it's easier to attack ideas than people. She became a democratic socialist who is critical of the so-called economic "freedom" of post-communist Europe -- which was bundled together with democratic freedoms of speech and association (which she thinks are good) -- but which circumscribes people's real freedoms in all kinds of ways. Furthermore, as a result of that, the only real "opposition" that arises takes the form of Orban, Putin, etc. because the post-communist heuristic has foreclosed alternatives to the left as a possibility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOhIHC_Nc6Q 
BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 17:41
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Samopsa posted:I dunno about this, there's a ton of factors that play a role here. The initial assault was done by troops that were briefed mere hours before going into Ukraine to mainly bypass everything to strike at a few critical targets. The troops had no proper air support, no proper artillery support, no preemptive missile strikes on hard targets, a long long long thin column of logistics, barely any communication, and zero intel. Oh, and a complete overconfidence on part of the architects of the invasion, who truly believed they could decapitate Ukrainian leadership and be hailed as liberators. After a few weeks of complete failure they executed a proper retreat: they basically didn't suffer any significant losses during the retreat itself. Russia has spent the last couple of months attempting to take one moderately-important city on their most easily-supplied front while advancing nowhere else.
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Dec 17, 2022 17:44
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Samopsa posted:A Russian slow and steady approach with actually briefed troops supported by a proper logistical chain is probably capable of pushing to Kiev given time. It'll take a while, but if Russia commits and keeps pushing on multiple well supplied fronts, like southwards from Gomel & Chernobyl into Kiev and from Kursk & Belgrogrod into Kharkiv and Sumy while holding the line in the Donbas and pressuring them like they're doing now... It'll be very difficult for Ukraine to hold them. Even before the initial russian wave of disastrous losses and collapsed fronts, the assessment of whether or not russia was going to actually invade seemed to assess (largely in agreement among multiple intelligence communities) that they had no ability to take the country at their existing military capacity, and this fooled a number of them into concluding that russia would not because it would be patently irrational. The invasion was then largely concluded to be an irrational engagement. I haven't seen anything since that russia will have reversed the deficiencies in equipment, manpower, or competence necessary to truly make inroads.
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Dec 17, 2022 17:58
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Kavros posted:I haven't seen anything since that russia will have reversed the deficiencies in equipment, manpower, or competence necessary to truly make inroads. Well, at least for manpower, some people were saying that the mobilisation has actually helped quite significantly with that. Recently there were interviews with an Estonian colonel as well as with that artillery captain(?) dude from Ukraine and Zaluzhnyi the Ukrainian commander, all saying the same, that the mobilisation is a real thing, that despite all the problems and negative press Russia has also actually got a lot more soldiers onto the front in some kind of useful way. Of course they're also saying Russia cannot actually win in the long term and the whole thing is a shitshow. But Russian defeat might still take a very long time (Links to interviews, not sure if they were all posted in this thread: https://news.err.ee/1608815692/edf-intelligence-chief-russia-still-has-long-term-offensive-capabilities Zaluzhnyi interview by The Economist "Arty Green" Ukrainian artillery dude interview on YouTube)
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Dec 17, 2022 18:16
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:I was listening to some journalists who go to Moscow on Fareed Zakaria the other day and they said it was bizarre how unapparent it seemed that Russia is a country at war even with the partial mobilization. Those journos are idiots. No poo poo Moscow doesn't appear to be affected, it's the core of the country and they're very openly structuring everything about their conduct around minimizing impact in the largest cities. Moscow's wealthy sections are literally the places they set up their propagandists to present the illusion that Russia's not being affected by sanctions.
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Dec 17, 2022 18:48
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Why does every opinion about Ukraine I read from a realist make it sound as though they just want to abandon Ukraine to be conquered by Russia? https://twitter.com/JustinTLogan/status/1604122214420418567
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Dec 17, 2022 18:55
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Discendo Vox posted:Those journos are idiots. No poo poo Moscow doesn't appear to be affected, it's the core of the country and they're very openly structuring everything about their conduct around minimizing impact in the largest cities. Moscow's wealthy sections are literally the places they set up their propagandists to present the illusion that Russia's not being affected by sanctions.
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Dec 17, 2022 18:55
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BrutalistMcDonalds posted:Oh they're definitely being affected by it. I think he meant in terms of public patriotism. There are a small minority of Russians who are in despair and they've run for the exits (around 500,000) but the vast majority are either too poor to leave and have gotten poorer, or they're too rich to leave and have too much to lose, and the general attitude is denial that there's a war going on.
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Dec 17, 2022 19:15
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Willo567 posted:Why does every opinion about Ukraine I read from a realist make it sound as though they just want to abandon Ukraine to be conquered by Russia? Because you keep seeking out random idiots on twitter and getting worked up by their hot takes!
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Dec 17, 2022 19:32
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Willo567 posted:Why does every opinion about Ukraine I read from a realist make it sound as though they just want to abandon Ukraine to be conquered by Russia? Because the "realists" are just as ideological as everyone else, possibly moreso since they love to claim they aren't ideological. The war has made them look like clowns based on their prior predictions so now they're just reflexively opposed to Ukraine for not having the decency to roll over and die. Treat them the same as anyone who claims they aren't ideological and just use "common sense" to figure things out.
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Dec 17, 2022 19:49
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thekeeshman posted:A lot of "anti-imperialists" have grown up in an era when only America was really powerful enough to do imperialism without consequences, so in practice their ideology is just anti-American/NATO-ism. The fact that America is on the unambiguously right side of a conflict is deeply uncomfortable for them, which is why they desperately have to look for reasons to hate Ukraine, while ignoring the fact that every single one of those reasons applies 10x to Russia. Willo567 posted:Why does every opinion about Ukraine I read from a realist make it sound as though they just want to abandon Ukraine to be conquered by Russia? Everyone in the Posting Generation grew up during the Unipolar Moment, and there's a deep discomfort all around at its ending
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Dec 17, 2022 19:51
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Willo567 posted:Why does every opinion about Ukraine I read from a realist make it sound as though they just want to abandon Ukraine to be conquered by Russia? You are drinking too much Social Media, it's bad for the soul.... a timely pause to chill out is recommended. 
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Dec 17, 2022 19:54
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Just Another Lurker posted:Seconding that it's a must watch.  
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Dec 17, 2022 20:00
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OddObserver posted:Funny thing, a lot of this stuff existed in Soviet times, too; just w/o the US culture war spin --- except for a few years really early, USSR has been a very socially conservative country in many ways, in particular when it comes to role of women (people very much can hate gays and expect women to spend a bunch of time in the kitchen after work in a perfectly secular way!). Homophobia was also far less prevalent before the Great Purge. Turns out that putting tens of millions of people behind the bars and/or barbed wire for a generation and then returning them to society without proper adaptation is an excellent way to normalize criminal norms. (See also: phenya (thieves' cant) becoming a part of mainstream Russian language roughly around the same time)
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Dec 17, 2022 20:27
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Willo567 posted:Why does every opinion about Ukraine I read from a realist make it sound as though they just want to abandon Ukraine to be conquered by Russia? Just FYI, the twitter dude you are quoting is a Cato institute researcher. They are borderline isolationist in their FP thinking. They heavily argue against intervention and adventurism and it is through this lens they view the Russo-Ukrainian war. I'll assume this was a good-faith question. Most IR analysts of the realist school also do not view this war in isolation, especially US-based analysts who view this conflict as just one of many issues that need to be managed in order for the United States to maintain its hegemonic grip in the world that is growing evermore multipolar. Within this framework, Ukrainian territorial integrity is of minimal consequence to the United States. Unlike the bipolar world of the post-war era, proxy wars against *the* rival center of power are no longer zero-sum games. Since the emergence of China as a player with Great Power ambitions, any decrease in stability or power projection of the Russian state to protect its traditional spheres of influence necessarily results in the ability of Beijing to incorporate these regions into its own. This expansion is no longer theoretical with China emerging as Central Asia's security guarantor in the most recent SCO meeting held in Samarkand which saw Putin politically isolated and playing second fiddle with many CTSO countries that nominally rely on Russia as the guarantor and arbiter of security issues in the region. Since almost all analysts see China as the new primary competitor to the United States, many view this current conflict as somewhat of a sideshow where the US and its treaty allies should not be wasting their strength. See the recent discussion on how the militaries and the hawks in many NATO countries are fretting that the Ukrainians are firing off all the ammunition they might need if they went to a shooting war with China. Even Mearsheimer, who takes an incredibly passive stance on Russia even in realist circles, is an absolute hawk against the Chinese and thinks Taiwan should be defended without question by the US. So when viewed within a wider geopolitical spectrum, Russia is not a primary threat, especially now that it is exhausting itself in Ukraine and US foreign policy should account for that fact. Generalizations tend to make fools of everyone and it is no different when talking about "realists" when everyone that falls within this loose category has differing views of how to proceed. What is common beyond the multipolar issue is that whatever they advocate, Ukraine is just a small part of the puzzle and it is the future of Russia that is more relevant. To them, what is scary isn't the prospect of Ukraine once again falling into the Russian orbit. What is scary is the possibility of Putin dragging Russia so far into the deep end that the Russian state itself collapses as an entity or suffers a sustained period of internal infighting which would see China gobble up tracts of the Siberian far east giving it access to the Arctic circle at worst or see Russia (with its wealth of energy and mineral resources) being driven into Beijing's arms as a junior partner in a new "Pax Sinica". The most ardent of these believers include people like Mearsheimer who everyone loves to hate in this thread who believe that the West should be doing its best to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing instead of pushing the two together at every opportunity. Others, take a more middling stance where it is acknowledged that Moscow will always look to Beijing and vice versa so long as the US remains the 'first among equals' in the Great Power game but that there are reasons why you don't want Russia to go busto in Ukraine to the point where the state is in danger of collapse. The first is the potential of a messy exit by Putin and the semi-collapse of the Russian Federation along with the subsequent difficulty in accounting for the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. The second is the possibility of maintaining Russia as a 2nd tier power allowing the theoretical possibility of a Russia that is not wholly beholden to Chinese interests and is willing to play both sides to avoid complete domination by a foreign agenda and thus keep the Chinese in check to a certain degree. Advocates of this camp look not only for the potential of a more graceful exit for Putin (negotiated peace) but also to potential successors to Putin should he be liquidated, where assurance is given that the territorial integrity of Russia, sans Ukrainian territory, will be respected and even defended in the face of belligerence from China should they just find a way to end this stupid war. This assurance requires no belief of goodwill on behalf of the Russians as it is the natural position for the US to take in its continued quest to contain China and maintain dominance in the Pacific. A distant third that is sometimes cited is the possibility of full nuclear escalation between NATO and Russia should the conflict continue and Western involvement in it remains constant - though no one seriously believes this and is more of a fig leaf. Of course, none of this cares about what happens to Ukraine or the Ukrainians. If you are in the morally purist camp, this view is often cited as 'stupid' or 'evil' or what have you but to the realists, it's just the cold truth. Ukraine is a chip and should be played to the best advantage. If there is a low-cost method of keeping them in the fight then great. If not, however, losing it to the Russians, while not necessarily desirable, is not a deal breaker as the next set of countries are NATO treatied and thus entrenched to form a solid barrier to potential Russian expansion. Exhausting the collective West economically and militarily makes little sense when the real competitor is China. Just to reiterate though, the tweet you linked is not written by a dude from the classical realist camp. He is from the libertarian camp where the US should just stick to the US and avoid foreign entanglements as much as possible. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 18, 2022 04:46
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| # ? May 21, 2024 03:19 |
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Electric Wrigglies posted:The majority of the world's nations (by population) do not care or want to be involved in the Ukraine conflict (judging by abstentions and votes against action in the UN). How about a happy message from Xi or Modi - they have an agreement to use sticks and stones only on border skirmishes to avoid huge casualties - how good is that? Or Abiy Ahmed (who was leading a side in fighting that I think has killed significantly more people than Russo Ukr war (500k+ by some estimates since 2020)? How about a leader that is not involved in a war talk about peace? Maybe Marcos coming into power in the Philippines is a good candidate to talk about acquiescing to China and the US to avoid conflict. Not just football, how about movies play a quick message from former SA President Zuma on peace and trialing cures for AIDS? Speaking of vile scum…
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Dec 18, 2022 05:05
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