(Thread IKs:
weg, Toxic Mental)
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Toxic Mental posted:Someone should have told Russia that they could join the EU too if they wanted. Or not, that'd be fine also. Wild. Today, the Russian government might say something like they did when the topic of joining NATO came up in 2009. quote:"We don't consider it necessary to make any concessions in terms of our sovereignty and we are capable of solving all the threats in an independent way. What we are ready for is to create some temporary coalitions, but at the moment we are not happy about many things happening in NATO," Mr Rogozin [Russia's envoy to NATO] said, adding that this was a reason why membership was out of the question at this point. They'd probably say the same thing about the EU. Baronjutter posted:If i was Russia in the 90's I'd simply have pushed hard to become a liberal democracy with close ties to the europe and the west. Country might actually be nice by now. We'll never know how a more-supportive relationship integrating Russia into the west could have worked. Maybe treating Russia less like a defeated foe in the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR, and more like a potential friend in need of assistance, could've avoided Russians turning to the shittiest people in their country for leadership.
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Sep 25, 2023 17:59
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Toxic Mental posted:Someone should have told Russia that they could join the EU too if they wanted. Or not, that'd be fine also. Wild. ukraine in the EU would have more or less completely neutered MUH NOOKZ because of anti-missile shielding that could be deployed on russia's doorstep. they've got a decades long habit of exploding into treats every time someone even considers putting AMM systems closer to their borders. ukraine was, in a lot of ways, an actual red line as far as that goes because AMMs there could plausibly shoot down nuclear ICBMs before they hit the "ballistic" part of their trajectory, which is both a much easier task and also engenders blowback to russia. if the SMO had gone as planned they would have very effectively snipped off the possibility of AMMs outside of kiev or bakhmut and their nuclear deterrent would've remained as threatening as ever. now, of course, you already have patriots outside of kiev at least and it's basically a guarantee that anti-ballistics will be deployed once things settle down a little bit and ukraine actually joins the EU.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:01
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sebmojo posted:Ok fine, but no really. Not the propaganda, more, 'this is why having Ukraine will make Putin/Russia stronger ' the best "rational" response i've seen was that ukraine moving towards the west, and getting richer and less corrupt, would imperil putin's regime as people asked "huh...why can't we do that" but realistically, it was a stupid decision by a single individual who hasn't really grasped the world has changed in the past hundred years where territorial conquest no longer makes you richer and more powerful
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Sep 25, 2023 18:03
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William Bear posted:Maybe treating Russia less like a defeated foe in the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR, and more like a potential friend in need of assistance, could've avoided Russians turning to the shittiest people in their country for leadership. drat it really it the west's fault
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Sep 25, 2023 18:08
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PinheadSlim posted:Hey so did I! Uh no sorry. That guy clearly hates himself. Not like me, who is super stable and happy in my life.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:09
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We are unhappy about things in NATO, such as keeping track of where the money is going.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:10
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rowkey bilbao posted:drat it really it the west's fault Russia is responsible for its own actions, as are its individual leaders. The West not helping Russia while it went through Shock Therapy didn't help, though.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:15
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Don't forget Russia abso-loving-lutely would love to do this again to Poland, Romania, etc if Russia managed to get away with it for Ukraine. And that this war compelled Finland and Sweden to join NATO so so much for that lol.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:22
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Pretty ballsy of them to do that while Kalingrad is surrounded by NATO and EU countries like the white girl on the couch meme
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Sep 25, 2023 18:24
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EorayMel posted:Don't forget Russia abso-loving-lutely would love to do this again to Poland, Romania, etc if Russia managed to get away with it for Ukraine. And now having seen how well Russia is doing in Ukraine, Poland and Finland are practically salivating at the chance.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:24
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https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1706298487271215593
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Sep 25, 2023 18:31
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zone posted:
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Sep 25, 2023 18:32
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William Bear posted:Russia is responsible for its own actions, as are its individual leaders. The West not helping Russia while it went through Shock Therapy didn't help, though. There were 14 Soviet republics, plus Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and maybe others I'm forgetting, all going through the same thing. Russia deliberately turned it into a national trauma that can be evoked to justify anything. Russia was in one of the best positions to succeed out of all of those, but it has decided that its resources need to be spent on war and kleptocrats. More Western support 30 years ago wouldn't have made a huge difference today, I don't think.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:32
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CommieGIR posted:And now having seen how well Russia is doing in Ukraine, Poland and Finland are practically salivating at the chance. Not really
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Sep 25, 2023 18:35
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William Bear posted:Today, the Russian government might say something like they did when the topic of joining NATO came up in 2009. Lmao, I'm sure Russia really actually wanted to change its equipment to NATO standards and integrate its military into the NATO command structure in Brussels. They were absolutely not just fishing for a nominal membership that would have allowed them to veto new members or important decisions.  quote:We'll never know how a more-supportive relationship integrating Russia into the west could have worked. Maybe treating Russia less like a defeated foe in the aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR, and more like a potential friend in need of assistance, could've avoided Russians turning to the shittiest people in their country for leadership. I'm not even sure what you are talking about. Relations started to deteriorate under the Bush administration and Putin was already in power by that point. Before that, relations were pretty warm, especially with Western Europe.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:35
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Icochet posted:Not really  Either way they are far less worried about Russia being a capable threat.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:36
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EorayMel posted:Don't forget Russia abso-loving-lutely would love to do this again to Poland, Romania, etc if Russia managed to get away with it for Ukraine. I sorta get the feeling that Poland wants Russia to try so they have an excuse to go turn Moscow into a parking lot by the time the article V paperwork is done.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:39
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William Bear posted:Russia is responsible for its own actions, as are its individual leaders. The West not helping Russia while it went through Shock Therapy didn't help, though. the problem with this line of thinking is that, unlike hot wars, when russia lost the cold war it was not actually obligated to the USA in any real way. everyone knew that the USA was stronger now, but there was no formal peace process because there was no formal war. this meant that russia always had the option of saying "no" to any "help" the west would've ostensibly provided. russia was not facing imminent famines, blasted out roads, crumbling dikes and dams, destroyed power stations, or anything of that sort. nor were they in a position where they had to accept aid. that isn't to say they didn't have problems, they had tons: a massive loss of citizen support nets, precipitously falling social services, near-total dissolution of basic government guarantees like police security and transit, and an implosion of the rule of law that kept basic health and sanitation standards up. not to mention just basic citizen morale, leading to a terrifying increase of "deaths of despair", which you can see with stuff like vodka consumption as tons of russians drank themselves to death. but nothing that could be solved by a US carrier group stuffed full of food, construction supplies, and engineering equipment - not that they had to accept any of that in the first place, even if they did. this wasn't japan after WW2. there were no public food crises requiring ration cards and there hadn't been a formal surrender agreement signed giving the US clearance to roll into a major port with millions of tons of warships. the main way for the west to "help" would've been to attempt to "help" in the process of statebuilding, which the russian people did not want. nobody else wants that help, either. look at how that exercise turned out for the US in iraq and afghanistan. the shittiest people alive like putin, medvedev, and the rest of the revolving door of dumbasses that led the russian people to where they are today were, unsurprisingly, very well respected in the soviet era and most in position to grab the reins, again basically necessitating the statebuilding exercise to avoid this overall outcome - which, again, none of the russian people would've wanted. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Sep 25, 2023 |
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Sep 25, 2023 18:39
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Russia could have been budget Norway but bigger, but instead they are Russia, lol.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:39
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Yes, attack an American base and cause a few casualties so that America will withdraw from the region you want to dominate because its citizens are weak. Ask Tojo how well that worked out...
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Sep 25, 2023 18:40
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Doccers posted:Yes, attack an American base and cause a few casualties so that America will withdraw from the region you want to dominate because its citizens are weak. Ask Tojo how well that worked out... Nah bruh, it will be totally fine and the Americans wont overreact at all.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:42
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Sep 25, 2023 18:43
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William Bear posted:Russia is responsible for its own actions, as are its individual leaders. The West not helping Russia while it went through Shock Therapy didn't help, though.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:43
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I think this is page 1?  Another weepy auto workers one: 
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Sep 25, 2023 18:46
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same
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Sep 25, 2023 18:48
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Toxic Mental posted:I think this is page 1? Every time I see this idiot's garbage I hope he's popped a major vein in his head.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:50
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I bet Putin never releases the piss tape, what a dumbass
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Sep 25, 2023 18:50
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Oh I posted in the wrong thread again Eh whatever
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Sep 25, 2023 18:54
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Cool https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1706219092896550972#m
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Sep 25, 2023 18:58
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Those guys are actual heroes that save the lives of civilians from being warcrimed by Putin and the Russian military while being in constant danger
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Sep 25, 2023 19:00
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Icept posted:While you are right, I think it's important to remember that pretty much every western military advisor was saying the same thing at the time. Yup. It's kind of startling to think that during the first days and weeks of the war the very existence of a Ukrainian state was in question/doubt, whereas now the talk is all about whether they can retake this or that piece of territory. And yeah, hopefully they can retake as much as possible, but it could have been a lot worse.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:01
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Doccers posted:Yes, attack an American base and cause a few casualties so that America will withdraw from the region you want to dominate because its citizens are weak. Ask Tojo how well that worked out... Any attack will just get swept under the rug and everyone will pretend it was a stove explosion or something.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:06
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poor waif posted:There were 14 Soviet republics, plus Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and maybe others I'm forgetting, all going through the same thing. Russia deliberately turned it into a national trauma that can be evoked to justify anything. Russia didn't "decide" to do that at all. Their government, under significant pressure from the U.S., its European allies, and financial institutions like the IMF implemented shock therapy because it was the only way they were going to get the loans they needed to rebuild their economy after the Soviet collapse. All of the post-Soviet states and Warsaw Pact members who implemented shock therapy (ie: all of them except Belarus) experienced economic collapse, sharp increases in income inequality, and a decline in public health. Even the WHO had this to say about the economic program: "IMF economic reform programs are associated with significantly worsened tuberculosis incidence, prevalence, and mortality rates in post-communist Eastern European and former Soviet countries." Oligarchs took advantage of this situation most prominently in Russia because A, there were already more of them there than in the rest of the former USSR, and B, there were more newly privatized formerly-state-owned enterprises for them to gobble up. The suggestion that Russia (however you define that) "decided" on that outcome is ridiculous. The public especially had no say in the matter, as the 1996 election made amply clear to them. None of this justifies Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but it is important context to understand. If the West had actually wanted to help Russia get back on its feet and integrate with the rest of the developed world, it would have offered loans with considerably less onerous conditions. "Helping" Russia was never the goal.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:06
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We make those here. Well, we make most of the turret and mate the whole shebang with the carrier vehicle.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:09
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Majorian posted:Russia didn't "decide" to do that at all. Their government, under significant pressure from the U.S., its European allies, and financial institutions like the IMF implemented shock therapy because it was the only way they were going to get the loans they needed to rebuild their economy after the Soviet collapse. All of the post-Soviet states and Warsaw Pact members who implemented shock therapy (ie: all of them except Belarus) experienced economic collapse, sharp increases in income inequality, and a decline in public health. Even the WHO had this to say about the economic program: "IMF economic reform programs are associated with significantly worsened tuberculosis incidence, prevalence, and mortality rates in post-communist Eastern European and former Soviet countries." Oligarchs took advantage of this situation most prominently in Russia because A, there were already more of them there than in the rest of the former USSR, and B, there were more newly privatized formerly-state-owned enterprises for them to gobble up. The suggestion that Russia (however you define that) "decided" on that outcome is ridiculous. The public especially had no say in the matter, as the 1996 election made amply clear to them. Yes, all those 20 odd states I mentioned went through the same thing, more or less. Shock doctrine is not unique to Russia. That's my whole point. It was a poo poo economic policy, but it was a poo poo economic policy for loads of countries at the same time. Russia was also provided with unlimited natural resources, good trade relations with neighbors, all the nukes and military equipment it could ever need, scientists and engineers at the cutting edge, an enormous industrial sector. All of that was squandered. Blame 1996 elections and the IMF if you want, but Russia has had plenty of opportunities for developing in whatever direction it wants for at least 20 years now. It chose this direction.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:20
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"Exactly! Like the American fleet base in Hawaii! A quick, decisive strike will end American support for the war. Everybody knows they don't have the stomach for conflict." -Yamamoto 1941, also -Gerashchenko 2023
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Sep 25, 2023 19:23
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Why don't we send a loving carrier group into the black sea and see how much war Russia wants to commit to. Their comment should be taken as a declaration of intent and article 4 should be triggered.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:30
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You start to understand why a lot of russians think back fondly on the USSR when you see things like "our city used to have world class research institutes, a chipmaking factory and a tv factory. Now we have none of that because the buildings and land were stolen in the 2000s by assholes with connections, who then shut them down, and we have to fight against the government dumping Moscow's garbage in our quarries, and the local government offices got out heavy construction equipment and ripped up the courtyards outside their buildings to deter protests".
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Sep 25, 2023 19:31
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:Why don't we send a loving carrier group into the black sea and see how much war Russia wants to commit to. Their comment should be taken as a declaration of intent and article 4 should be triggered. Bosphorus is closed to naval vessels due to the war. Also, a carrier group in the Black Sea would be a sitting duck.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:32
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poor waif posted:Yes, all those 20 odd states I mentioned went through the same thing, more or less. Shock doctrine is not unique to Russia. That's my whole point. It was a poo poo economic policy, but it was a poo poo economic policy for loads of countries at the same time. Which opportunities were there, exactly? The loans from the IMF came at the expense of completely destroying the already weak economy. Joining the EU was never on the table; it would have taken decades to jump through the hoops needed to be voted in. The '98 financial crisis foreclosed on any chance of developing a diversified modern economy in Russia without it becoming a corrupt petrostate.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:35
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