He was ready to negotiate because the command economy model failed and collapsed.


Russia has not defeated Ukraine militarily, or shown that it is capable of doing so; The Ukrainians have proved they can retake territory and don't accept the loss of the annexed regions. Negotiations are even less realistic now than they were before Russia's hapless invasion.
The irony is people claiming Russia's interests were not considered pre-invasion and then arguing for negotiations now, without considering Ukraine's interests.



Germany and other EU countries have underinvested in defense for decades, relying on the US to provide a military deterrent. The US is increasingly isolationist/eastwardly focused. Scholz should wake up and get his house in order now, before it is an even larger issue.
Saying you wish for Germany to push for a peace settlement is like saying you wish to throw Ukraine/Eastern allies under the bus, so that Germany doesn't have to stand up and be counted.
Germany is the most populous country in Europe with the strongest economy. They should be taking a leadership role in making the cost of Russian aggression to high to even occur.

Nobody is interested in more war. But if Scholz or Germans expect a return to the pre-war status-quo they are very much mistaken. Appeasing aggression does not work. Where did we learn that before?

Russia =/= Brazil, lol. Russia is a different beast and they still remember that you lot invaded them and killed how many of them exactly? How many Russian civilians / Russian jews were massacred?

And here you are, insisting that NATO can do what it wants, Russia should just cope, etc etc. Well what if they don't.

Seems like you're incapable if thinking this through, lol

The coming collapse of the Soviet Union was evident to insiders by 1985. By 1987, they knew that it was inevitable. That is why Gorbachev was willing to pursue bold reforms in the first place. The economic weakness is also a major reason why the foreign policy became less imperialist. Yes, he could have ordered his tanks to subjugate the protest movements in the Eastern bloc one last time in 1989, but that would not have prevented the economic collapse which was imminent by then. Eastern Germany, for example, was only a few months away from defaulting on its debt when the Berlin Wall fell. The catastrophic economic situation was one of the major factors fueling the protests in Poland, Eastern Germany and so on.

Simply put, the Soviets couldn't afford to keep their empire together anymore. Trying anyhow by having Russian soldiers gun down protesters in 1989 would not have changed the ultimate outcome of this development, only delayed it by a year or two. It was futile, and Gorbachev was wise enough to realize that.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 19 2023 06:58am

A hardliner in his place could've said no way and literally smashed the protesters in Eastern Germany. EZ

The combination Gorbachev + negotiations + Western willingness to negotiate is what made things happen.

And you still don't understand what's happening in Ukraine. You still think the 125K strong Russian invasion that took place on Feb 24 last year and failed proves Russia lost the war and Ukraine won.

Ukraine fully mobilized as soon as it happened, received a shit-ton of military aid and only managed to regain some of the lost territories. Now Russia is mobilizing and ramping up and they will launch another offensive when they're ready.




The point is that negotiations took place and this decided the outcome, not war (or actual collapse which came later). That was the whole point I made and you're admitting it now.

This post was edited by Djunior on Jan 19 2023 07:18am

i am only in favor, if i can buy a small tank or so when the war is over

jokes aside though, i wonder how much more we are planning to throw in there

i dont remember when the people were asked, if they really want to dump dozens of billions, send an entire arsenal of modern arms and absorb EVEN MORE migrants

sure, putin taking ukraine would perhaps be the biggest mass exodus, but where is the limit here?

not that i care anymore, but its just incredible how politicians and the npcs are totally ready to burn this place down for a third party country

last time germans and ukranian nationalists were friends wasnt so great

Wrong. This is neither what I said, nor what happened. In reality, like I outlined in great detail, the timeline is that there first was economic collapse, which caused the political system to implode, and only then were there negotiations about the post-Cold War order and the peaceful retreat of Russia from Eastern Europe.


There simply were no negotiations between the West and Gorbachev about his soliders standing down when the revolutions of 1989 happened in the USSR's satellites - Gorbachev gave this order voluntarily, because his country was no longer able to afford a hostile occupation of suppressed nations in the long run, and because these nations were teetering on bankruptcy anyway. The USSR no longer had the means to keep its empire together, and the empire was run-down and no longer worth keeping anyway.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jan 19 2023 07:51am

US don't want to send last gen Abrams ATM, not sure if they have something else, we are all expecting the answer today or tomorrow with the (defense) ministers meeting.
The time to train soldiers with these weapons is a serious challenge. Would have to remind the ww2 german pilots failure because of this.

And Russians have an even worse problem of global experience transfert. At this point we could argue that meat has no need to learn but well...
So bombings are a key for them, and air-defense for Ukraine.

This post was edited by Meanwhile on Jan 19 2023 08:03am

Realistically, Russia is the only country that threatens to invade European countries with its military, with boots on the ground. China or India are not gonna send their military around half the globe to physically conquer Europe, everyone else is far too weak. So the major purpose of European battle tanks is defending against Russian agression anyway, if they're not used against Russia, they're gonna rust away in some garage until they're decommissioned. Might as well put the gear that's already been paid for to good use.

Regarding the refugee situation: the Ukrainians fleeing the war are proper war refugees and they're coming from our immediate European neighborhood. My issue is not with the million Ukrainians who came last year, my issue is with the millions of fortune seekers from far away countries who came during the previous years, have no reason or justification for being here whatsoever and are taking away the housing and resources that we would have been needed for genuine war refugees.

It's a simple fact that the Russians could've smashed the protests, they didn't. A hardliner probably would've done that, "Gorby" did not.

cant find fault with this logic



International travel has exploded rapidly over the last 100 years, either tourism or seeking a new life. The EU Block, America, etc. have their own rules or laws relating to this. people do not need a justification to travel to a country, unless that host country starts putting conditions on their stay. Some countries handle it better then others. But it is a fine line between valid argument and racism. Ultimately it is the responsibility of governing bodies (political parties) to ensure that a successful and credible integration strategy is employed, where the door is open.

As we have seen in many countries, media and public opinion can be very immature / nationalistic in blaming people not born in the country for their woes. Even where generations have lived in the host country, issues will persist.

This post was edited by ferdia on Jan 19 2023 08:30am