Quote (kusotarre1 @ 22 Nov 2022 04:59)
They didn't blow it up right away because, as is always the case, every charge leveled against the enemy by the West is an inverted admission of guilt.
Lol, now we've become so meta that the "accuse the enemy of what you are doing"-principle is applied to itself.
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The Russian economy is doing much better than any major European economy.
Big doubt. Also, there is no denying that Russia's economy is only weathering the sanctions better than initially expected because of the absolutely bonkers oil and gas prices. Once these prices come down from their uncertainty-driven peak, Russia's economy and state finances will hurt a lot more than they do currently.
Also note that I have always stressed since the beginning that the economic war would be characterized by different timescales on both sides: that Russia's economic attacks against the West (namely cutting off energy supplies) would inflict their maximum potency early on, but lose their bite as time goes on; and that the Western sanctions against Russia would take time to unfold their full potential and only reach their peak potency in the medium term.
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Well, Lada production is almost back up to pre-war levels, and the higher end market is doing just fine without BMW and Mercedes, easily supplanted by Chinese and Korean brands.
Ngl, I just spit out my coffee reading this. If you seriously think Chinese cars are a proper replacement for BMWs and Mercedes, you are delusional.
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Looking at this, and rising anti-sanction sentiment starting on the fringes of the political spectrum, a decision had to be made in Washington. Would the next round of sanctions work where the last round had actually *backfired*? Would the protests remain marginal heading into a winter of uncertain intensity?
Safest choice: kablooie.
So why blow up one pipeline network while leaving multiple others (particularly the ground based ones) intact? And why blow up NS so early, before the protests gain steam, which potentially left enough time to repair the pipelines before the public pressure from a freezing and starving populace forces European governments to fold?
Quote (kusotarre1 @ 22 Nov 2022 05:19)
Not sure what you mean here. The US domination of European political thought is a project that's been operating in earnest since the end of WW2. European countries face almost complete subsumption of their 'civil societies' by American NGOs and cultural capital. The CIA and then the NED have dumped billions of dollars into capturing European politics and culture.
I have a bold idea: maybe, just maybe the European people prefer the US over Russia not because of a nefarious, decades-long psyop, but rather because the people in Western Europe were free and prospered after the war. Meanwhile, the people in Eastern Europe were saddled with an uncompetitive and stagnating economy, no freedom of movement or expression, had to be prevented from deserting by an Iron Curtain and saw multiple protest movements violently quelled by Russian tanks.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Nov 21 2022 11:06pm