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BonHair posted:Putin controls a (currently) essential piece of European energy production and Xi controls most electronic components and a bunch of other stuff that Scandinavia depends on. Al-Saud may control a bunch of oil production, but we are not dependent on him in quite the same way, not least because we don't have stationary infrastructure (gas/oil pipes) connecting us. Also he doesn't have nukes, but that's less important actually. we're totally dependent on the gulf states, are you kidding me the last time they decided to seriously flex it basically ended social democracy and our extreme dependence on oil prices has not gone anywhere. geostrategically the gulf states are acting with total impunity because they basically set the price of oil and that can very easily lead to enormous, cascading price fluctuations which in our time means calamity. if anything the war in yemen's great for us since it means that the saudis and emiratis have a really expensive hobby blowing up people we categorically do not care about which they need to fund russia's a concrete geopolitical challenge and one which must be taken seriously, but there's no real prospect of russia attacking finnoscandinavia because finnoscandinavia's usually a very quiet geopolitical neighbourhood. this is why people feel the need to insist that putin's terrified of a successful democracy on his border as if ukraine was in any way a successful democracy - it means that russia is not acting out of more-or-less predictable geopolitical interests, but is ideologically driven to crush People Like Us. it's the nation-state version of "they hate us for our freedom". guys like mearsheimer, who called this all ending in blood and tears way back in 2015, have always dismissed the idea of serious russian aggression in the north because they can basically live with that area as a non-nuclear, less-assertive unfriendly-but-not-really-hostile zone. we of course need some teeth to discourage casual acts of aggression like harassing fishing ships, inching border posts around or muscling in on svalbard etc. as well as something to make a real invasion a genuinely costly business, but the russians don't really have much of an interest in blowing up an arrangement which has more or less worked for them since the end of WW2. part of this means keeping tensions as low as reasonably possible, which has actually been traditionally accepted - the rules of what goes and what doesn't in norway have traditionally been quite restrictive despite very loyal NATO membership. recent defence and foreign policy has drifted inexorably more firmly into the US' grip, though, and e.g. the revised base policy is a big change which imo is not likely to make us any more safe since what it's really going to do is potentially piss off the russians if the americans decide to do something naughty there sverre diesen's JSF-based defence concept is also looking increasingly stupid as ukraine goes on. the russians have no great problem blowing up known bases, even ones behind pretty solid air defence systems - they're getting severely stymied by determined infantry and artillery elements. the first thing to happen in any serious act of russian aggression against norway would be our F-35 bases being turned into craters by hypersonic missiles.
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Mar 30, 2022 00:27
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V. Illych L. posted:the last time they decided to seriously flex it basically ended social democracy and our extreme dependence on oil prices has not gone anywhere. I'm down with rattling a little saber if it means the return of car-free Sundays, though.
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Mar 30, 2022 01:41
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Mar 30, 2022 13:44
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V. Illych L. posted:we're totally dependent on the gulf states, are you kidding me This seems to assume that we can consider Russia a wholly rational and predictable actor. I'm not so sure I can be reassured by anyone at this point that "Russia wouldn't attack us because the math doesn't add up". Math didn't add up in Ukraine either, but welp here we are. At this point I would hardly be surprised if they beached a burning Kuznetsov in Longyearbyen tomorrow.
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Mar 30, 2022 18:19
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I'm not saying we're not way too dependent on petrostates (I'm looking at you too Norway, though mostly with envy), but if we wanted, we could probably switch most of our import to states other than Saudi Arabia. And maybe get some alternatives going sooner rather than later. And also ban private car travel in the cities, that's a no brainer. As for Putin, I still believe he is a rational actor, but I/we underestimated his ideological conviction about Russian national identity. I at least believed it was an internal propaganda tool instead of something he would actually risk a real war over. But with that knowledge, he's still only dangerous to "righteous Russian clay" like Ukraine and Georgia. I'm pretty sure Sweden, Denmark and Norway is essentially uninteresting in that regard, since we were never Russian. And Finland was never properly russified either, so I doubt there's much to fear there either. Plus, in terms of gains, Finland's main resource is mosquitoes, so if all the Finns are either hostile or gone, you've gained basically nothing by considering it. Same goes for the rest of Scandinavia, except maybe you'd be able to keep the Danish farming business running. Still very unlikely to be worth it.
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Mar 30, 2022 19:18
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There's an old mantra that keeps coming up in defense policy debates: your defense policy should be based on your potential opponents' capabilities, not their intents (nor the intents of your allies, for that matter). Significant new military capabilities can take decades to build, but military intents and policies can change literally overnight. Putin's Russia has been relatively stable for over a decade, and their interests have been clearly focused on former Soviet republics, but who knows what might happen next year. Same thing goes for the US - they'll do one thing under Biden, but if Trump gets re-elected they're not unlikely to reverse course entirely.
TheFluff fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Mar 30, 2022 |
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Mar 30, 2022 19:33
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The thing is that Russia and USA both have the capability to literally destroy the entire planet. Trying to match that is never gonna work. And in terms of conventional warfare, you're looking at the same thing from a different perspective: you only have to put on enough resistance to make it more convenient to just glass the cities, anything more is wasted effort.
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Mar 30, 2022 19:57
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Nice piece of fish posted:This seems to assume that we can consider Russia a wholly rational and predictable actor. the ukrainian thing has been a major sticking point for decades, and the russians had a low-burn military conflict for eight years before committing to a full-on invasion after their attempt to settle the situation diplomatically failed i didn't think they were going to do a full-on invasion, but that's mainly because i didn't realise how strong the ukrainian forces in the donbass were - they were pretty clearly signalling that they were willing to use extreme violence to achieve their goals in ukraine for a long time before the invasion. and, it should be noted, the whole mess kicked off in 2014 in response to eve exactly what those goals are and how rational they are is difficult to assess - it could be some kind of imperial nostalgia, it could be saber-rattling for domestic consumption, it could be part of a long-term strategy of nuclear deterrence
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Mar 31, 2022 08:44
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Nice piece of fish posted:
I WOULD be surprised that the loving thing made it across to Svalbard without sinking. The main thing that has surprised me about this war is the absolutely horrible state of the Russian army, they even seem to have forgotten how to be the Russian army. Drive right into the goddamn rasputitsa, why not? Zhukov is spinning in his grave. (No, this does not mean that I think the lies about everything and all the war crimes are somehow OK; they're just not at all surprising.)
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Mar 31, 2022 09:45
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Groke posted:I WOULD be surprised that the loving thing made it across to Svalbard without sinking. we do have to control for the frankly extreme levels of propaganda in every news interface thus far when making judgements like this, and i doubt that the timing of the invasion was a military decision. as far as i can tell - and i've been following this conflict obsessively, to the noticable detriment of my mental health - the russians have taken serious losses but also basically reduced the ukrainians to an infantry and artillery force. i haven't seen a credible report of a ukrainian combat aircraft in over a week, and the russians have been being increasingly audacious with theirs while seemingly suffering fewer losses. same story with ukrainian tanks - i saw some in the counterattack northwest of kyiv which didn't accomplish its stated objective of cutting off russian elements in the hostomel-makariv area, but apart from that they've been pretty conspicuously absent. even in the relatively successful mikolayiv counteroffensive there hasn't been a lot of armour. so basically, at great cost, the russians seem to have managed to more or less immobilise the ukrainians outside of the actual donbass where russian attention is now focussed. this has by no means been a walkover, but the military situation isn't great for the ukrainians as far as i can tell. it's just that we only ever hear of russian fuckups and have stories of more or less credible upsets pumped into the press which aren't ever countermanded if they turn out to be wrong. a good example of this is The Great Traffic Jam, which we know was stationary for a couple of days and then clouds got in the way of the satellite coverage and once they dispersed there were a couple of rather desultory news stories saying "big russian column seems to have disappeared" and nobody said any more of it. my read is that the russian army remains a pretty good army with pretty good senior officers and equipment, but entered the war poorly prepared and with poor morale and quickly became severely outnumbered when faced with the ukrainian total defence. even so they've done *a lot* of damage and taken a sizable chunk of territory. another lesson here is that russian leadership doesn't think that it can mobilise more than about 200,000 men without incurring serious political costs, which makes the prospect of a limited war less totally daunting: if one can pose a credible threat against a force of that size, one can make the Kremlin think twice before committing to serious aggression. this could change as russian society becomes more militaristic, especially if they decisively lose (extremely unlikely imo) or win (also not very likely at this point) this war, but it seems valid under current conditions.
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Mar 31, 2022 23:23
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V. Illych L. posted:we do have to control for the frankly extreme levels of propaganda in every news interface thus far when making judgements like this  Might I suggest new reading glasses? Your grasp of the situation, with all respect, lacks opposable thumbs.
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Apr 1, 2022 05:51
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Just so you yourself understand the level of cope you’re operating on, this was you a couple weeks back.V. Illych L. posted:when considering military aid, one must pose the question: is this likely to change the outcome of the conflict? in the present conflict, it's hard to see that it is. if it's not going to change the ultimate course of the conflict, then all you're doing is extending the war, which is absolutely not in ukraine's interest. Stop randomly using this thread as a proxy to not post on the main D&D thread. Nobody loving cares about your internally incoherent “actually Russia is still winning” take, you know where you can post those.
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Apr 1, 2022 06:59
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V. Illych L. posted:we do have to control for the frankly extreme levels of propaganda in every news interface thus far when making judgements like this, Not really arguing the point he’s making, but It’s kinda cool how the C-spam Ukraine thread proves horse shoe theory beautifully.
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Apr 1, 2022 07:28
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Fox Cunning posted:Not really arguing the point he’s making, but It’s kinda cool how the C-spam Ukraine thread proves horse shoe theory beautifully.
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Apr 1, 2022 07:43
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Only if you assume those posters are leftists. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
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Apr 1, 2022 08:18
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fnox posted:Just so you yourself understand the level of cope you’re operating on, this was you a couple weeks back. ah, i will be anticipating russian capitulation any day now then (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 1, 2022 09:43
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V. Illych L. posted:ah, i will be anticipating russian capitulation any day now then Don't intentionally misread posts. You're smart enough to know that there's a hell of a lot of space between "winning" and "capitulating" and you should also know that long rear end posts about the war in Ukraine don't belong in this thread. Randarkman fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Apr 1, 2022 |
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Apr 1, 2022 10:01
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User Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is spouting blatant Kremlin propaganda?? Why, I never 
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Apr 1, 2022 10:21
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Hopefully we won't have to spend additional billions on killing machines since the Russian army is such a joke.
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Apr 1, 2022 10:35
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V. Illych L. posted:ah, i will be anticipating russian capitulation any day now then The Russian plan went beautifully! Those great Russian officers sure showed the world their might when they tried and failed to advance to the capital to staggering losses of material and life, losses greater than what Russia faced after 10 years in Afghanistan. You're a pro-Russia chud and it's pathetic to see. Nenonen posted:User Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is spouting blatant Kremlin propaganda?? Why, I never The annoying part is that he's doing it here where he knows he won't be immediately probed despite this having absolutely no bearing whatsoever on anything related to Scandinavia. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 1, 2022 10:37
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fnox posted:
Nonono don't be stupid. He's been having increasingly weird takes for a leftist these last couple of years but this is just poo poo-flinging. We're all allowed to be sceptical of every bit of information and conclusion coming out of this warzone, and it's not that far fetched that the situation on the ground is vastly different from the one we're perceiving. I may not agree with the post, but at the same time I don't actually know for a fact anything much about it. Let's keep calm and carry on, Russia is a neighbouring country and Ukraine is a historical political event for scandinavia to get a handle on and will inform all of our security policies for decades. It's perfectly relevant to be talking about the war from a Scandinavian perspective in here (and a lot of reasons why you wouldn't want to post in the war threads). Maybe not Clancychat though.
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Apr 1, 2022 10:52
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Nice piece of fish posted:Nonono don't be stupid. He's been having increasingly weird takes for a leftist these last couple of years but this is just poo poo-flinging. What's the Scandinavian perspective here at all? He's not commenting at all on any of the parts that are relevant to Scandinavia. It's just a vague callout, "don't believe their propaganda, this is the propaganda you should be believing in!". I'm not interested in treating the war like a sports event. This is a loving awful tragedy for everyone involved and possibly the closest we've gotten to a shattering of the Long Peace. I don't care who "wins". Russian mothers are getting their sons back in boxes, if at all. Ukrainians, guilty only of the sin of being born in the wrong place, find themselves either displaced far, far from home, or engulfed in a violent storm without rhyme or reason. We can talk about Scandinavia too, we can talk about how such brazen aggression has been the single greatest blow to Finnish and Swedish neutrality, we can talk about the hundreds of thousands of refugees we'll soon get, or the billions that were once allocated for peaceful ventures, now wasted to supply a war machine that has in the span of a month or so, found fuel for its existence to last a generation.
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Apr 1, 2022 11:07
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The rus are just swedes in exile.
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Apr 1, 2022 11:07
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fnox posted:You're a pro-Russia chud and it's pathetic to see. You've been probated three times in the Ukraine thread and you keep accusing people people who try to have a nuanced discussion about the conflict of being pro-orc. I had to cite the numerous times I'd expressed the diametrically opposite view to finally get you to shut the gently caress up. Fox Cunning posted:Not really arguing the point he’s making, but It’s kinda cool how the C-spam Ukraine thread proves horse shoe theory beautifully. Or you could stop clutching your pearls about "Z-SPAM" and actually read what people post, practically nobody there legitimately favours the war or has any illusions about Putin. They're making fun of people like you when they say they want to smooch him on the mouth, if you haven't caught on yet. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 1, 2022 11:23
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Anyone who has ever posted in c-spam post a banme challenge
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Apr 1, 2022 11:34
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Please note that this is not a political stance, it is a Posting Stance
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Apr 1, 2022 11:37
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SplitSoul posted:You've been probated three times in the Ukraine thread and you keep accusing people people who try to have a nuanced discussion about the conflict of being pro-orc. I had to cite the numerous times I'd expressed the diametrically opposite view to finally get you to shut the gently caress up. What loving nuanced debate? Those people presented the diametrically opposite view when they didn't need to have any semblance of respect or the need to hold this illusion that they're just "asking questions" in C-SPAM. Every time. You'd be concerned about literal CIA propaganda being posted here right? Some Voice of America poo poo. You'd call that out. Why get pissy then when it's Russian propaganda? Or do you think there is merit to letting misinfo fester? Very cute that you think that's why I stopped talking about you. I didn't want to continue the derail you started, I could see how it'd carry on for pages. SplitSoul posted:Or you could stop clutching your pearls about "Z-SPAM" and actually read what people post, practically nobody there legitimately favours the war or has any illusions about Putin. They're making fun of people like you when they say they want to smooch him on the mouth, if you haven't caught on yet. I mean who are you trying to loving fool? We can read that thread. You're not being sincere if you don't think the actual pro-Russia posters are all concentrated in C-SPAM. I'm not saying all of the people who post there are supporting Russia in the war and want to see them win, but it's abundantly clear that the ones who do come from there, which is completely unsurprising because the far left has been chewing on Russian propaganda for loving decades. It's obviously not all ironic, that sounds like the poo poo excuse chuds use to justify what's posted on /pol/. You don't think blaming the war on solely NATO is a line that benefits Russia's point of view? You don't think that's something they'd like media to pick on and for people to think? fnox fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Apr 1, 2022 |
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Apr 1, 2022 12:08
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Who do we hate? Debate and discuss. I find it comforting that we mostly hate racists, conspiracy nuts and regressive idiots.
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Apr 1, 2022 12:19
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V. Illych L. posted:i haven't seen a credible report of a ukrainian combat aircraft in over a week Ukrainian forces just struck a fuel depot in Belgorod with attack helicopters. Belgorod isn't even in Ukraine, it's in Russia, about 40km from from the border northeast of Kharkiv. It's not fixed wing aircraft I guess but I'd say it counts. This is confirmed by Russian news agency TASS by the way (who reports Putin is informed), so you can't claim it as Ukrainian propaganda. I don't disagree though that there's a lot of Ukrainian propaganda and there are a lot of people who have a tendency to swallow it whole, but it's also essentially undisputable that the Russian army is catastrophically dysfunctional. I'd argue the main reasons they're not getting kicked out of the country is that they have air superiority that makes the Ukrainians very hesitant to use what remains of their armored forces, a very large equipment advantage and a big head start that the Ukrainians have a hard time catching up from. I don't know how this war will end but unless the Russians choose to escalate (and saints preserve us all if they do) I'd say there's a good chance Ukraine gets out of this with their sovereignty intact, although probably minus some territory. You can argue about whether being free from Russian rule benefits the working class or not and whether it was "worth" a lot of people dying, but I have a hard time seeing a leftist take that can spin an Ukrainian capitulation as a win for anti-imperialism. I fundamentally do not understand your position. TheFluff fucked around with this message at 12:29 on Apr 1, 2022 |
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Apr 1, 2022 12:25
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SplitSoul posted:
Thank you for clarifying, I was walking around super pissed off at the Z-spam tank guys all day which was severely affecting my life and mental health negatively. It gladdens me that they are actually cool smart guys who are not indirectly clowned by rationalizing russias farcical performance in the war.
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Apr 1, 2022 12:28
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Potrzebie posted:Who do we hate? Debate and discuss. Only 5% hate muslims and 1,9% hate immigrants but SD still got 17,5% votes in the last election. I don't know if this is accurate.
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Apr 1, 2022 12:50
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Kamrat posted:Only 5% hate muslims and 1,9% hate immigrants but SD still got 17,5% votes in the last election. Nah it makes sense that only like 1/3 of SD voters would outright admit that they HATE muslims. A lot of them try to sell their support with something like "oh I just think it's good to stir the pot", "I don't hate Muslims, I just think they should not be allowed to be Muslims in schools, or in a workplace, or anywhere else" and so on.
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Apr 1, 2022 13:07
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lilljonas posted:Nah it makes sense that only like 1/3 of SD voters would outright admit that they HATE muslims. A lot of them try to sell their support with something like "oh I just think it's good to stir the pot", "I don't hate Muslims, I just think they should not be allowed to be Muslims in schools, or in a workplace, or anywhere else" and so on. Isn't this an anonymous thing? But perhaps they're lying to themselves as well.
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Apr 1, 2022 13:37
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Kamrat posted:Isn't this an anonymous thing? But perhaps they're lying to themselves as well. People, even the majority of SD supports, still know that it's socially unaccepted to hate people for their religion. That's why they tend to call themselves things like "invandrarkritiska", "muslimkritiska" etc to attempt to phrase it for both themselves and for others as more of a rationally based position.
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Apr 1, 2022 13:52
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Kamrat posted:Isn't this an anonymous thing? But perhaps they're lying to themselves as well. Beeswax posted:Anyone who has ever posted in c-spam post a banme challenge
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Apr 1, 2022 16:14
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As a supporter of Ukraine i think its good to allow the pro-invasion side a thread of their own. In s y war ther is a crazy amount of propaganda m, the close thing to objectivuty is to subject youself to narrative of the other side. Scandinavia belongs in Nato and needs Nato but also to not be blind to the possible strength of our enemies.
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Apr 1, 2022 17:37
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lilljonas posted:People, even the majority of SD supports, still know that it's socially unaccepted to hate people for their religion. That's why they tend to call themselves things like "invandrarkritiska", "muslimkritiska" etc to attempt to phrase it for both themselves and for others as more of a rationally based position. A Buttery Pastry posted:The most convincing lie is the one you believe. The second most convincing lie is the one you live. Letting the mask slip once makes it easier to do so again. This is probably true, this is why it's so frustrating debating SD-supporters. I'd respect them more if they were just honest. I would still hate them but at least I'd respect their honesty.
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Apr 1, 2022 17:57
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Baudolino posted:As a supporter of Ukraine i think its good to allow the pro-invasion side a thread of their own. In s y war ther is a crazy amount of propaganda m, the close thing to objectivuty is to subject youself to narrative of the other side. Scandinavia belongs in Nato and needs Nato but also to not be blind to the possible strength of our enemies. That thread is the most insane echo chamber vacuum these forums have seen though, and least since the first iterations of the star citizen thread. It’s just chuds agreeing with each other on how everyone else are delusional libs who don’t get it and hate muslims and it’s all NATO’s fault and Russia has been holding back this whole time out of mercy for Ukraine etc. Anyway, for scandipol it’s really been a mask off type thing imo. As a radical leftist I’m really surprised at just how brain dead indoctrinated certain elements of my erstwhile fellow leftist have turned out to be. I guess the warning sign should have been when a group of them started talking about RT as a meaningful news outlet a while back.
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Apr 1, 2022 19:39
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Revelation 2-13 posted:a group of them started talking about RT as a meaningful news outlet a while back. RT did have some good leftist content like for example On Contact with Chris Hedges, but on the whole that channel was bad.
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Apr 1, 2022 20:16
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Potrzebie posted:Who do we hate? Debate and discuss. 7.6% Climate change deniers 6.8% Members of the Green party  glad I’m not the only one who realizes MP is useless
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Apr 1, 2022 22:01
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