Quote (thesnipa @ 13 Jun 2024 22:17)

funny enough the global economy itself is the best defense we have of both nuclear warfare and ww3. no one would even want to emerge the winner, you'd rule to world AND be in a worse place. ironic to be sure.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jun 13 2024 11:06pm)

Reminds me of that quote from Game of Thrones. Lord Varys about Littlefinger: "But he would see this country burn if he could be king of the ashes." Assuming rational actors on all sides, the global economy should stave off nuclear warfare or ww3. But irrational actors do exist; or we misjudge the other sides' true motivations and value systems and thus misunderstand which actions are "rational" from their pov.

That's basically the mistake I made back in January and February of 2022, before this war broke out. As the tensions were mounting and Russian troops were massing at the border, I waved off the warnings about an imminent invasion as fear-mongering. I argued, here in this thread, that Russia was just saber-rattling and wouldn't actually invade because the economic fallout would be gigantic and "Putin cannot possibly be so stupid or mad". And I wasn't alone in that assessment. It of course aged like milk. :ph34r:

Quote (Meanwhile @ 13 Jun 2024 23:19)

This is one of the reason why the west is so slow on helping Ukraine: They prefer to slowly bleed Russia to death (eventually until Putin gets naturally ejected into the toilet bowl) without a major incident.

I think there's even a name for this like - controlled / managed escalation risk or something like that - ...

This has unfortunately a cost regarding ukrainians soldiers lives, but on the counterpart, potentially a better, more stable, output to resolve the problem of Russia and the next step: "Peace"...

Quote (Malopox @ 14 Jun 2024 05:33)

Ghoul.

You don’t really care for human suffering. You want the war to continue to perpetuate your hatred and your racism.

What did the French do to you that you hate yourself so much.

Quote (Hamsterbaby @ 14 Jun 2024 00:43)

Got to ask Prince Andrew instead.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jun 13 2024 03:34pm)

The Eastern European countries weren't encroached and gobbled up by the US/the West, they came voluntarily. It was them who wanted to join NATO, wanted to join the EU. In many cases, we let them wait longer than they themselves would have wanted, e.g. Romania and Bulgaria joining the common market. Ukraine is the tragic fringe case because it, unlike its more western neighbors, was roughly evenly split between pro-West and pro-Russia forces.

Of course it would have made more sense economically for Russia to become a part of a European power block, but their actual industry is far too dilapidated to keep up with the EU. In such a partnership, they would have been relegated to being the provider of commodities, to being the proverbial gas station. And on the political level, Russia would always have wanted to retain a sphere of influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia. And of course the inner repression and authoritarianism. So the tension between Russia being a useful provider of resources and diametrically opposed to our political values would have existed in all scenarios.

In a de facto dictatorship, where the ruling class (Putin and the oligarchs) is insulated from the fallout of the economic misery of the populace, the political priorities (opposed to Europe's) were always gonna trump the economic priorities (aligned with Europe).

Quote (ofthevoid @ 14 Jun 2024 03:35)

There was no reason for the McCain to be giving speeches in Kiev about how it's good to throw out the Russians and instead be pushing for pro-EU politicians. There was no reason to announce NATO expansion plans for Ukraine as early as 2008. There was no reason for the CIA chief to be flying into Kiev soon after the Maidan coup. No reason right? You guys want to keep believing fables that all these are just random unrelated events and it's not as if they were a string of very clear and obvious signals that the US/NATO was trying to pull Ukraine from Russia's sphere.

Quote

Their industry level is irrelevant, just like it's irrelevant in about half a dozen other EU countries yet somehow it keeps up with the EU. Half of the EU south basically is economies that are hugely levered to tourism and don't really make shit, half of central and eastern Europe is dependent on German factories and Germans themselves coming in to set them up. Cheap commodities are the lifeline of competitive manufacturing, and that's something the EU has always lacked internally, so it was an obvious positive.

Quote (Meanwhile @ Jun 14 2024 02:00pm)

Russians told to mobilise to inflict 'maximum harm' on West in response to sanctions

Clown Medvedev@BrainCancer speech: Declaring war to the all "western" countries.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russians-told-mobilise-inflict-maximum-harm-west-response-sanctions-2024-06-13/

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A simple process of assistance and monitoring, the best way to help Ukrainians regarding efficiency. Can ve very important IMHO

An Instructors coalition for Ukraine like the Artillery coalition

France could take the lead in this coalition of Instructors for Ukraine and could announce it next week during D-day, some think. There would first be an evaluation mission, say French diplomats cited by the newspaper Le Monde, before sending several hundred instructors, mainly for maintenance missions of equipment supplied to Ukraine, points out the specialist of armaments Léo Péria-Peigné, researcher at Ifri: “The interest in sending trainers to Ukraine is limited. Already, we will put them on a restricted part of the territory because we cannot approach them too close to the front. We will not be able to make them organize major open-air training operations because we must still avoid taking Russian ammunition. So, it's quite constrained. There will probably be mine clearance, maintenance operations, command training, all elements that can be done indoors. Now, what will be interesting is to see this as a first step, can it lead to something else, once we get a foothold there. »

https://www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/lignes-de-d%C3%A9fense/20240602-l-envoi-de-soldats-fran%C3%A7ais-en-ukraine-se-pr%C3%A9cise