[Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

«‹›3686 »

What is the most powerful flying bug? This poll is closed.
🦋	15	3.71%
🦇	115	28.47%
🪰	12	2.97%
🐦	67	16.58%
dragonfly	94	23.27%
🦟	14	3.47%
🐝	87	21.53%
Total:	404 votes

[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

DaysBefore: Jan 24, 2019

Lol even the amount of government control over factories during WWII, which still gave private companies a fair amount of leeway, would be unthinkable in the austerity-based neoliberal economies of modern NATO. That is, if there were any factories left to control

# ? Apr 7, 2024 11:40

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 26, 2024 15:09

DaysBefore: Jan 24, 2019

All the more reason why Ukraine should surrender

# ? Apr 7, 2024 11:40

FrancisFukyomama: Feb 4, 2019

the scopes in the latest battlefield have little network signal icons which look stupid as gently caress and are probably a real thing in the prototype stage

# ? Apr 7, 2024 11:48

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

Delta-Wye posted:

but i was told technological advances inevitably made things cheaper

i want to speak to the manager

It's cheaper from China. Just order them from Alibaba dot com.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 11:48

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

ordering the affordable shells from china, but they get stuck in the red sea

# ? Apr 7, 2024 11:51

Cheatum the Evil Midget: Sep 11, 2000; I COULDN'T BACK UP ANY OF MY ARGUEMENTS, IGNORE ME PLEASE.

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1776833714820989431

# ? Apr 7, 2024 11:51

Sanlav: Feb 10, 2020; We'll Meet Again

Mandoric posted:

Christ, SCAAP isn't even privatized, nor is Watervliet. It's not even "honest" Thatcherite ideological blinders, the poo poo still gets made at (approaching at least? my buddy from high school has four kids, three alimony payments, and the hour's commute from my hometown to the Albany metro and still affords a rotation of drugs I can't even pronounce carefully calculated to keep ahead of the testing regime) decent wages by government employees, but there's an abject unwillingness to scale that to even self-imagined needs.

Watervliet looks like a model town from the 1920's that never modernized. I dunno how productive the Arsenal is but the surrounding towns and cities are among the most depressed area's in the entire state. Gus's and Bob's will always have a place in my heart but if that's all thats left of our manufacturing core god help us.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:01

Corky Romanovsky: Oct 1, 2006; Soiled Meat

Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1776833714820989431

Exploiting the defender's advantage of winning ties...

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:20

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

lol

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

lol acquiring artillery munitions in an open market was inevitably going to have this result, these loving morons.

That's all profit. They could command $300 or less a shell, but they won't, and so will lose.

posting this again

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:29

Z the IVth: Jan 28, 2009; The trouble with your "expendable machines"; Fun Shoe

Truga posted:

lol

posting this again

Russia seems to have found a good solution to this.

"If you comply I reassure you that your CEO won't fall out a window."

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:33

supersnowman: Oct 3, 2012

Mandoric posted:

It's somehow even better, there is a ~big upgrade~ in the works per the last time my family talked with his family.

They're getting a robotic paint booth to make the barrels olive drab without human involvement.

Well obviously it the best ting ever because the margins will be higher if they save the expenses those 8 dudes cost to paint those barrels.

More seriously, since they are to be used in an attrition war, could they just ship the barrels un-painted? What are the chance corrosion would kill the barrel before it need to be refurbished because the lands and grooves are "gone" after heavy usage?

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:33

supersnowman: Oct 3, 2012

Z the IVth posted:

Russia seems to have found a good solution to this.

"If you comply I reassure you that your CEO won't fall out a window."

A lot of the "cost" for the Russians is also monopoly money since they have large stakes in most of it via Rostec. If your country is willing to push the cart in the same direction, you don't get as many idiots trying to have govt entity 1 profit off govt entity 2.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:37

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

The Alchemist posted:

Im not

im somewhat concerned that our government is gonna kick off some death charge against leningrad because they want to impress their new masters

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:42

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

Z the IVth posted:

Russia seems to have found a good solution to this.

"If you comply I reassure you that your CEO won't fall out a window."

Thats the 'states monopoly of violence' reminder someone mentioned up thread. But neoliberal states outsourced this to the private sector so...

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:43

euphronius: Feb 18, 2009

i really wonder how much of Americas nuclear triad even works. there is no way even 5% of the icbms work

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:44

The Alchemist: Dec 12, 2010

Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:

https://twitter.com/djuric_zlatko/status/1776833714820989431

I liked this video so much that i tried to download it, X asked me to make an account, I did, then they Said you need premium to download. I told @ElonMusk to kill himself, then my account got restricted, then i sen message to client support asking "why are you Elon's cucks, why cant you get a real Job?" And thats where we are. Still havent found a way to download this video though

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:49

lumpentroll: Mar 4, 2020

The Alchemist posted:

I liked this video so much that i tried to download it, X asked me to make an account, I did, then they Said you need premium to download. I told @ElonMusk to kill himself, then my account got restricted, then i sen message to client support asking "why are you Elon's cucks, why cant you get a real Job?" And thats where we are. Still havent found a way to download this video though

make another account

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:51

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

Truga posted:

lol

posting this again

Its a perfectly valid argument. Your neolib government is trying to offload the cost of severance pay and employer retraining cost to the privately owned companies. How about you take on the responsibility like a real nation state and nationalize the MIC or give out multi-year contracts.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 12:52

supersnowman: Oct 3, 2012

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Priorities.

Some have even "better" priorities.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad/93851

quote:

Yesterday @Tatarinov_R wrote:

On 4th of April Zelensky had the brilliant idea to spend 6 million hryvnia renaming every street in Chasov Yar that had anything to do with Russia or Russian culture.

I lost that report, but when I found it today, I must say, this could be even hilarious, if it wasn't in the middle of the war. It is such an opened way to provide money to some friends.

Because, you know, when your city is about to be bombarded to oblivion by Russian aviation, the most pressing issue is obviously the names of the streets!

I mean, who cares about preparing for an imminent attack when you can just frivolously throw money at pointless street name changes? It's not like AFU soldiers need better equipment or, I don't know, maybe some actual protection from Russian airstrikes!

But hey, at least they'll have some hope for shiny new street signs to admire as they see bombs raining down on them, right?

Way to go, Ukraine! There is no corruption, they say. Priorities, am I right?

@Slavyangrad | Inna 👋

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:00

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

The Alchemist posted:

I liked this video so much that i tried to download it, X asked me to make an account, I did, then they Said you need premium to download. I told @ElonMusk to kill himself, then my account got restricted, then i sen message to client support asking "why are you Elon's cucks, why cant you get a real Job?" And thats where we are. Still havent found a way to download this video though

I checked, you can use a Chrome extension to download it, like "Twitter video downloader", it's longer than 60s so imgur doesn't allow me to upload it on there.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:02

DaysBefore: Jan 24, 2019

How many of those new street names are for OUN guys lol

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:02

The Alchemist: Dec 12, 2010

stephenthinkpad posted:

I checked, you can use a Chrome extension to download it, like "Twitter video downloader", it's longer than 60s so imgur doesn't allow me to upload it on there.

Thx!

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:12

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Z the IVth posted:

Russia seems to have found a good solution to this.

"If you comply I reassure you that your CEO won't fall out a window."

Western CEO's have found a good solution to this by owning the state and all the media and probably the secret services too. You do want those cushy sinecures once you leave office right?

Putin's response ofcourse has been "what do you mean, leave office?".

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:20

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

Orange Devil posted:

Western CEO's have found a good solution to this by owning the state and all the media and probably the secret services too. You do want those cushy sinecures once you leave office right?

Putin's response ofcourse has been "what do you mean, leave office?".

the advantage of getting genuinely very rich while in office through shady revenue streams is that office-holders aren't too anxious about who's going to maintain their standard of living once they leave

elites' private interests are a very interesting and as far as i can tell rather understudied part of modern politics

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:23

Megamissen: Jul 19, 2022; any post can be a kannapost
if you want it to be

The Alchemist posted:

I liked this video so much that i tried to download it, X asked me to make an account, I did, then they Said you need premium to download. I told @ElonMusk to kill himself, then my account got restricted, then i sen message to client support asking "why are you Elon's cucks, why cant you get a real Job?" And thats where we are. Still havent found a way to download this video though

you can always use OBS or whatever to screen record

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:32

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

V. Illych L. posted:

the advantage of getting genuinely very rich while in office through shady revenue streams is that office-holders aren't too anxious about who's going to maintain their standard of living once they leave

elites' private interests are a very interesting and as far as i can tell rather understudied part of modern politics

I think each model leads to a different kind of fragility.

The western fragility is what we discuss extensively in this and the WW3 threads. Can't get people to join the army, can't get companies to produce useful materiel at reasonable costs, let alone domestically.

The Russian fragility is, what happens once Putin dies or goes senile?

Lukashenko's answer is grooming his son to take over, but that does reintroduce a lot of the fragility of feudalism, ie. succession crises and the kids of the ruler being failchildren. Though the failchildren part certainly wasn't solved in liberalism, as we all know.

The CPCs answer ofcourse is to groom successors through the party system, which should remove failchildren of all stripes from contention and ensure both some level of continuity and competence. The USSR demonstrated that's not without risks, and the party system's grooming process is a bit of black box, but it seems like it might be less fragile than all of the above. And can't argue with the results in China so far. This has massive implications for what is in the West near universally seen as the common sense best way to run a democracy. Maybe not every moron ought to be allowed to run for the top job and only having candidates which have proven themselves repeatedly ought to be on the ballot and this is actually more democratic because it prevents capture by business interests? Absolute heresy to say in the West, which is entirely captured by business interests, obviously.

Anyway, from all this it also follows that if the west would just have had a bit of patience they could've chosen to accept the temporary setback in Ukraine in 2014 (ie. don't launch a coup as it reorients itself a bit more towards Russia) and instead work to groom a Guaido type to be in a strong position to take advantage of the fragility following Putin's eventual death. Why play for all the marbles now when you can play for those same marbles at a much lower stake two decades later? Obviously they didn't agree with my assessment of the stakes, but that's primarily because they loving suck at evaluating bargaining positions, as we've also extensively learned.

Orange Devil has issued a correction as of 13:40 on Apr 7, 2024

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:37

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

The Alchemist posted:

I liked this video so much that i tried to download it, X asked me to make an account, I did, then they Said you need premium to download. I told @ElonMusk to kill himself, then my account got restricted, then i sen message to client support asking "why are you Elon's cucks, why cant you get a real Job?" And thats where we are. Still havent found a way to download this video though

https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1776833433001422849/vid/avc1/1280x720/PoH8xjUOmk8iiFmV.mp4?tag=14
have a direct link to the video

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:40

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

V. Illych L. posted:

the advantage of getting genuinely very rich while in office through shady revenue streams is that office-holders aren't too anxious about who's going to maintain their standard of living once they leave

elites' private interests are a very interesting and as far as i can tell rather understudied part of modern politics

Corruption has been "fixed" by just having them get the cash after they leave office. There is a reason no one wants to study it especially since one of the usual siphons are think tanks/NGOs that give out grants and usually have a similar incestuous relationship with the media as well.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:42

V. Illych L.: Apr 11, 2008; ASK ME ABOUT LUMBER

Orange Devil posted:

I think each model leads to a different kind of fragility.

The western fragility is what we discuss extensively in this and the WW3 threads. Can't get people to join the army, can't get companies to produce useful materiel at reasonable costs, let alone domestically.

The Russian fragility is, what happens once Putin dies or goes senile?

Lukashenko's answer is grooming his son to take over, but that does reintroduce a lot of the fragility of feudalism, ie. succession crises and the kids of the ruler being failchildren. Though the failchildren part certainly wasn't solved in liberalism, as we all know.

The CPCs answer ofcourse is to groom successors through the party system, which should remove failchildren of all stripes from contention and ensure both some level of continuity and competence. The USSR demonstrated that's not without risks, and the party system's grooming process is a bit of black box, but it seems like it might be less fragile than all of the above. And can't argue with the results in China so far. This has massive implications for what is in the West near universally seen as the common sense best way to run a democracy. Maybe not every moron ought to be allowed to run for the top job and only having candidates which have proven themselves repeatedly ought to be on the ballot and this is actually more democratic because it prevents capture by business interests? Absolute heresy to say in the West, which is entirely captured by business interests, obviously.

Anyway, from all this it also follows that if the west would just have had a bit of patience they could've chosen to accept the temporary setback in Ukraine in 2014 (ie. don't launch a coup as it reorients itself a bit more towards Russia) and instead work to groom a Guaido type to be in a strong position to take advantage of the fragility following Putin's eventual death. Why play for all the marbles now when you can play for those same marbles at a much lower stake two decades later? Obviously they didn't agree with my assessment of the stakes, but that's primarily because they loving suck at evaluating bargaining positions, as we've also extensively learned.

i think that The West's mode of action is largely automated at this point - that's the big advantage of the system as-is, it's very difficult to act counter to the structure of power in any effective or lasting way. or: the way western institutions pounced on ukraine in 2014 was to a large extent automatic and autonomous, performed by people whose jobs and world-view had placed them in a position where that was the natural thing to do and not to intervene would've been almost unthinkable. obama didn't need to call his council and build an international coalition, he just had to let the think-tanks, NGOs and the state bureaucracies perform normally. people like victoria nuland are systematically generated by the western process of elite formation; they simply show up as a supply response to a structural demand.

this is an extremely inflexible way of operating, of course, and changing course can be enormously difficult and costly, but it means that you've effectively derisked a large part of a complicated and very fraught policy area (meaning that it's relatively easy to make good investments), and decreased response time dramatically.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 13:57

speng31b: May 8, 2010

The Alchemist posted:

"why are you Elon's cucks, why cant you get a real Job?"

eh, it's a living

# ? Apr 7, 2024 14:32

mlmp08: Jul 11, 2004; Prepare for my priapic projectile's exalted penetration; Nap Ghost

Ardennes posted:

Exactly which resources are being used at this point that they would get back considering it is almost refitted?

Funding, manning (current and future). You�re falling into sunk cost fallacy. They should�ve let it go years ago and focused on their more successful platforms.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 14:38

Officer Sandvich: Feb 14, 2010

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/05/trump-ukraine-secret-plan/

Inside Donald Trump’s secret plan to end the Ukraine-Russia war

quote:

Former president Donald Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. Some foreign policy experts said Trump’s idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force.

Trump’s proposal consists of pushing Ukraine to cede Crimea and the Donbas border region to Russia, according to people who discussed it with Trump or his advisers and spoke on the condition of anonymity because those conversations were confidential. That approach, which has not been previously reported, would dramatically reverse President Biden’s policy, which has emphasized curtailing Russian aggression and providing military aid to Ukraine.

As he seeks a return to power, the presumptive Republican nominee has frequently boasted that he could negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours if elected, even before taking office. But he has repeatedly declined to specify publicly how he would quickly settle a war that has raged for more than two years and killed tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.

[....]

Privately, Trump has said that he thinks both Russia and Ukraine “want to save face, they want a way out,” and that people in parts of Ukraine would be okay with being part of Russia, according to a person who has discussed the matter directly with Trump.

Accepting Russian control over parts of Ukraine would expand the reach of Putin’s dictatorship after what has been the biggest land war in Europe since World War II. Some of Trump’s supporters have been trying to persuade him against such an outcome.

“I’ve been spending 100 percent of my time talking to Trump about Ukraine,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a onetime Trump critic turned ally. “He has to pay a price. He can’t win at the end of this,” Graham added, speaking of Putin.

[....]

The Trump campaign declined to directly address questions for this article. “Any speculation about President Trump’s plan is coming from unnamed and uninformed sources who have no idea what is going on or what will happen,” campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “President Trump is the only one talking about stopping the killing.”

[....]

“Former president Trump’s inexplicable and admiring relationship with Putin, along with his unprecedented hostility to NATO, cannot give Europe or Ukraine any confidence in his dealings with Russia,” said Tom Donilon, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. “Trump’s comments encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants with our European allies are among the most unsettling and dangerous statements made by a major party candidate for president. His position represents a clear and present danger to U.S. and European security.”

Graham said he has warned against giving Russia desired land and wants Trump to embrace a pathway forward to Ukraine to join NATO.

“The way you end this war to me is you make sure Ukraine gets into NATO and the E.U.,” he said. “He doesn’t say much about that. I don’t know if he’s thought too much about it.”

In his public promises to end the war, Trump has pointedly withheld the specifics on how he would negotiate with Putin and Zelensky. “I will say certain things to each one of them that I wouldn’t say to the rest of the world, and that’s why I can’t tell you much more than that,” Trump said in a March interview with former aide Sebastian Gorka.

His public silence on his negotiating tack has left room for others to fill in the blanks. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has antagonized European allies with his autocratic and pro-Russian tendencies, met with Trump last month and afterward claimed Trump told him he will force the war to end because “he will not give a penny” to help Ukraine. Orban’s statement was false, but the former president didn’t want to publicly contradict him after entertaining him all night at his Mar-a-Lago Club and admiring his toughness and anti-immigration positions, according to a person close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.

[....]

Word of Trump’s plan for Ukraine circulated in Washington last November at a meeting at the Heritage Foundation between right-of-center foreign policy figures and a visiting delegation from the European Council on Foreign Relations. Former Trump White House aide Michael Anton described the expected contours of Trump’s peace plan as Ukraine ceding territory in Crimea and Donbas, limiting NATO expansion and enticing Putin to loosen his growing reliance on China, according to multiple people present for the meeting, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private discussion.

[....]

James Carafano, a Heritage Foundation fellow who convened the meeting, declined to comment on the private discussion but criticized the idea of splitting Russia from China. “That is stupid idea 101,” he said. “Anything you could give Russia that they would really value would compromise all your other interests. The way to deal with the Russia-China relationship is to make Russia a weaker partner.”

[....]

“Trump people feel as if one of the great sins of the Ukrainian war and the Russia policy, generally speaking, is to push Russia toward China and to make it all the more dependent on China,” he said. Trump’s “fundamental approach with all things is to get men in a room together to discuss,” without necessarily having detailed plans in advance, Shapiro said.

Russia experts doubted Trump’s peace efforts could succeed. Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was Trump’s top Russia adviser and has since emerged as a prominent critic, said it reminded her of 2017 — when unvetted foreigners and business executives approached Trump with various peace plans, and he thought he could sit down with Russia and Ukraine and mediate on the strength of his personal charisma.

Trump’s team “is thinking about this very much in silos, that this is just a Ukraine-Russia thing,” Hill said. “They think of it as a territorial dispute, rather than one about the whole future of European security and the world order by extension.”

[....]

“No amount of leverage the United States has is likely to compel Ukrainian leadership to engage in policies that would constitute domestic political suicide,” said Michael Kofman, an analyst of the Russia-Ukraine war at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan research center. “And no amount of leverage the United States has can compel Ukraine to cede territory or engage in these types of concessions. This is a situation where if you’re willing to give a hand, the other side will very quickly want the rest of the arm.”

# ? Apr 7, 2024 14:41

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

mlmp08 posted:

Funding, manning (current and future). You�re falling into sunk cost fallacy. They should�ve let it go years ago and focused on their more successful platforms.

i think it's too important for them to have a carrier of somekind. It needed replacing but they were trying the European military spending method of not funding anything and hoping everything works out. Now it's probably too late? Still think they should just ask China for one. Maybe they have a spare.

# ? Apr 7, 2024 14:46

PawParole: Nov 16, 2019

https://twitter.com/leonidragozin/status/1776939948920144159

# ? Apr 7, 2024 14:50

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

Regarde Aduck posted:

i think it's too important for them to have a carrier of somekind. It needed replacing but they were trying the European military spending method of not funding anything and hoping everything works out. Now it's probably too late? Still think they should just ask China for one. Maybe they have a spare.

to do what though?

# ? Apr 7, 2024 14:54

Soapy_Bumslap: Jun 19, 2013; We're gonna need a bigger chode; Grimey Drawer

Oh no they're thinking in silos!

I have never heard anyone genuinely use the phrase "silo mentality" that wasn't a loving psycho

# ? Apr 7, 2024 14:59

speng31b: May 8, 2010

Soapy_Bumslap posted:

Oh no they're thinking in silos!

I have never heard anyone genuinely use the phrase "silo mentality" that wasn't a loving psycho

I have never heard anyone genuinely use the phrase "silo mentality" that wasn't loving a silo

# ? Apr 7, 2024 15:00

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019; Can't post for 12 hours!

Donald the Dove is gonna end the wars

# ? Apr 7, 2024 15:05

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

genericnick posted:

to do what though?

There is a use for airpower even if it is to create a AD bubble around the rest of your fleet (and also keep enemy frigates/destroyers away from your subs).

As far as the Kuznetsov being a "waste," the Chinese are running two of more or less the same class. If anything, the Russians probably should refit it even if they are building new carriers as a interim solution and to keep training up. Also, the Russian Navy doesn't have a manpower issue, and there are aircraft for it.

Also, with the T-14, it forces the enemy (the West) to try to compensate for it even if it isn't straying far from port.

Ardennes has issued a correction as of 15:10 on Apr 7, 2024

# ? Apr 7, 2024 15:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 26, 2024 15:09

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

mawarannahr posted:

Donald the Dove is gonna end the wars

that's right

# ? Apr 7, 2024 15:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

«‹›3686 »