Quote (thundercock @ Aug 10 2022 10:18pm)
What matters is what percent of world GDP is controlled by our allies. The answer? Over 50%. What's the percentage of world GDP who are actively allying with Russia? Less than 20%. The rest are sitting this one out and just trying to survive. Ultimately, no one cares about people who can't figure out how to shit in a toilet.
I think there has to be some consideration of raw resources and manufacturing capacity and supply chains. America has an economy propped up by funny money. China has a lock on virtually every industry from manufacturing to tech. The true backbone of our economy is the energy sector, which has been artificially throttled, but that's also where Russia competes directly with us and China has a competent production. How much of GDP is truly
products and how much is numbers on a sheet of paper? When basically all the unaligned world gets in bed with Russia, China, India and even some NATO members like Turkey start to defect, we're priming the stage for the fall of America as a world power.
Quote (Black XistenZ @ Aug 10 2022 09:10pm)
China and Russia are not the only non-Western major powers in the world, and they have always been united in their opposition, politically and economically, to the West. It is indeed frustrating that countries like India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia or South Africa did not side with us, but them doing what's in their best interest does not mean that they are aligned, let alone "united" with the cause of Russia & China. Dito for minor powers like Indonesia, Egypt or Ethiopia.
India, Brazil and the KSA and South Africa didn't go out and get in bed with China and Russia of their own accord. We forced them into that position. We drew up an "us or them" hard line and they chose "them". We divided the world and pretty much every world power landed in the same basket, aligned against us.
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You keep repeating the talking point that "Ukraine cannot win this war" time and time again, and a lot of your reasoning rests on this key assumption. It is still patently wrong. There is zero reason to believe that it would be fundamentally impossible for Ukraine to win back the provinces to the west of the Dnipro river and otherwise hold the lines at roughly the current state, thus preserving its independence and statehood. Aside from bombing Sieverodonetsk and Lyssichantsk into the ground and then taking their ruins, the Russians haven't been able to gain any major territory over the past 3 months.
Okay what would that look like? Western Ukraine suffers tremendous losses only to 'win' their own separatist state to defect and join NATO. They hold a coup d'etat, they get bombed into oblivion and finally they only hold the same style of annexed half-state that Crimeans and the Donetsk separatists got without suffering so heavily. They lose their independence and become a western vassal state, not even a true NATO or EU member but instead totally dependent. The same is true of the east, who have become a vassal province of Russia.
How does any of this compare to the self-determination afforded the Ukrainian people as a united country prior to the Euromaidan coup? because:
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- A majority of the elected officials in Ukraine wanted the president to ratify the EU association agreement, which the Russia-aligned president refused, sparking the Euromaidan protests. Even today, the vast majority of Ukrainians are fighting for their pro-Western government. So no, a majority of Ukrainians did not "oppose the orientation toward the West" and we don't have to artificially and egoistically "pull Ukraine into the Western geopolitical sphere" - the bulk of Ukrainians outside of the Donbass and Crimea want to fight for their independence, fight for their right to choose an alliance with the West over becoming a Russian satellite.
The people voted for their government and the lawful government and its leadership was opposed to the EU association agreement. Because they had the rational self interest and prescience to know that staying aligned with Russia and keeping their independence was preferable to trying to defect to a west and sparking a conflict with Russia like the one we're seeing right now. They knew Russia had a vested interest in Ukraine and a willingness to act, and the west did not. We said that back during Euromaidan, we said that during the Crimean annexation, Obama showed it, Biden is still showing it.
Ukrainians used to have a country, poor and backwards as it was, under Russia's yoke. Now they have a bombed out warzone, they are refugees, the best outcome they can hope for is to build a west berlin out of the ashes and pray for EU investment in the rebuilding, except that's timed so poorly with the west in a recession. How many people had to die for this 'improvement' of their lot? We were so proud of ourselves when Afghan women were inking their thumbs purple to show they voted, when "freedom fighters" in Syria were fighting Assad's forces, when the Arab Spring mobs took down the 'tyrants'. Does it
ever work out well?