I almost injured myself rolling my eyes that hard. Please don't do that again.

Biden's "gaffe" will be forgotten in a matter of days. You know it and I know it and the status quo will be the status quo.

Do you even know what the government promised SEA


This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on May 24 2022 11:45am

You were talking about China seeing economic shrinkage, not about merely slowing (but still positive) growth rates. And like I've said, smaller growth rates are to be expected in an aging and more advanced society; it's hard to disentangle the effect of their systemic issues from the "natural/non-pathological rate of growth slowdown".


Their systemic issues are indeed massive, I'm with you on that point, but so are ours in the West. And while the CCP needs economic growth to make its people put up with their lack of freedoms, Western governments are at risk of being booted from office in democratic elections once the bulk of the population feels enough economic pain. In case of a global recession - say because of a sudden and full trade embargo between China and the NATO countries - I genuinely don't know which side would collapse quicker: the authoritarian rule of the CCP or the liberal order in Western democracies. In any case, it would be foolish to just assume that China will break first and that our side thus has all the leverage.




Imho, this is only the case because the geopolitical status quo of the past 30-40 years served China's long-term interest since there was a rapid shift of global power from the West toward China.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 24 2022 11:51am

Russia style of negotiations as described by Estonian Prime Minister:
First, demand everything.
Don't ask, just demand something that was never yours.
Second, make ultimates, make threats.
Third, don't let go an inch in your negotiations, because there will always be people in the West who will offer you something.
Then, in the end, you'll have a third or even half of what you didn't have before.

Russia has all of Crimea and Ukraine doesn't have a navy. They can lift the blockade and move their ships out of Harpoon range with ease. In addition, the blockade isn't particularly necessary for Russia to keep the land bridge that they fought for. I don't think Kherson is falling into Ukrainian hands any time soon, do you?

- 200 rotting bodies discovered in Mariupol basement
- Russian attempt to encirle the whole East, seems it failed a bit (unclear)
- Russia to increase age limit for "army service contracts" ==> Norlander don't forget to send us selfies
- Orban being a state emergency bitch
- Allies to send more weapons faster
- Russia is yet blocking ukrainian wheat cargos, along with stealing it

things are not going better at all

Understanding their response and talking about it =/= I support their wars. When we go into their sphere of influence and topple a pro-Russian Ukrainian puppet it's pretty easy to understand their point of view. My worldview is a lot closer to what the Bible teaches versus your neocon bloodlust. Geopolitically yes Russians soldiers dying which will lead to them being weaker is good for the US. From a genuine Christian perspective there's nothing good about that, tens of thousands of people on both sides are dying for nothing. It's pretty clear what values take precedence in your life.




The pacifism I'm talking about specifically applies to Christian behavior and values, I'm not ascribing it to nation levels or the way governments should behave, those are separate. Christians shouldn't support wars and it's wrong to tie in God and Christianity as to try and justify some wars. It was wrong during the Crusades, it was wrong during the Catholic vs Protestant wars, it was wrong when the Catholic church gave it's blessing to the Nazi's and on and on.

In this case we're giving Ukraine the tools to hang themselves because it's geopolitically favorable for us. We could of forced them to the table half a year ago or anytime during the last 5 years to give some autonomy to the Donbas and let go of Crimea if we cared about getting peace. What did we do instead? We sent NATO trainers and trained 25k Ukrainian troops for a future war with Russia. We (NATO officials) publicly said things like they will join NATO. As Arestovych said this war happening was evident and planned for many years ago.

So what do we have now? Well the Russians will most likely take the Donbas anyways. Except now it will be with mounds of corpses on both sides with potential to escalate even further. Is Ukraine better off that it took this route? Is anyone in Europe better off? Is anyone in the world better off? What exactly is the utilitarian pragmatic outcome about all of this?

This post was edited by ofthevoid on May 24 2022 03:00pm

Russia starting to make good progress now they're concentrating on smaller areas. Near total air superiority in the Donbass is taking a toll on the Ukrainians, they aren't getting air defence systems out there quick enough and Severodonetsk is almost cut off from resupply now. The Ukrainians will need to make some tough decisions over which hill to fight on

That would only be true if total defeat was inevitable, which is not the case.


Do you think this would have been enough for the Russians? Would the rest of Ukraine been allowed to join NATO or the EU then, free to elect a pro-Western president, pick its trade partners and energy supplier, hold democratic elections and allow a free press to flourish? In my humble opinion, the answer is a clear 'no'. Russia would not have been satisfied until Ukraine is a Russia-aligned vassal state.


If they had been allowed to capture the Donbass without resistance, why would the Russians have stopped there, why shouldn't they have marched on toward Kharkiv, Dniepro and Kyiv? The purpose of this war, of this fighting, of the dead soldiers, is that Russia will only capture the Donbass before its military capacities are exhausted, instead of taking all of Ukraine. The purpose of this war is that at least the bulk of the Ukrainian people can live in freedom and peace the way they see fit, rather than having to live an unfree existence under the Russian thumb.





Yeah, that's what I'm gathering as well from the reports of the past few days. The Russians seem to "finally" build some sort of momentum. The big question will imho be how long they can keep up the current intensity of their attacks before running out of steam. This is probably the most critical phase of the war right now - the Ukrainians are currently fighting from positions which were heavily fortified for years before the war broke out. If the defenders have to retreat and fall back on their next line of defense, it remains to be seen if this new position will be as durable as the previous one. Severodonetsk cannot be held, that much is obvious. Imho, the decisive battle will take place around Kramatorsk. That's another place in which the Ukrainians have a very heavily fortified position at a crucial strategic location.

What is obvious at this point is that the Ukrainians have taken significant casualties and degradation of their military in this war, just like Russia have. If they didn't, then they'd have likely aunched a counterattack to take back Kherson, as Russian positions stretch past the river so are vulnerable. But there hasn't been movement on that axis for weeks

Ukraine has an advantage over Russia in their ability to replace combat losses with fresh recruits, but it takes months to train them and then gain combat experience. The battlefield will keep shifting, we can expect Russia to take more of the Donbass now, but we don't know whether Ukraine will retreat from Severodonetsk and Lysychansk to avoid envelopment