Well what is the rule of 'fair game'? What do the rules of war say about commandos dressing up as civilians to carry out attacks deep inside another country?
The line between terrorism and warfare is blurred to the point of being undefined here, but I don't think the 'rules' ever mattered. In realpolitik its about what can be done and what will be done.
Can Russia afford to just shrug off these kinds of losses and carry on a conventional war in the face of an event that I think is only paralleled by 9/11, Pearl Harbor and the October 7th attacks? This was a widespread coordinated bombing by infiltrators disguised as commercial shipping, using smuggled drones. And it appears to have knocked out perhaps 10%+ of the entire Russian airforce in one swoop, maybe billions in damages. There comes a point where Russia has to escalate in response, and I'm not sure if this is that point.
Russia might decide its fair game to drop a tactical nuclear weapon on western Ukraine. If it was ever going to happen, its probably now.
We’re long past fair. Fair at this point would be giving Houthis and every enemy of the west zircons and other high tech and pretending they have nothing to do with it when Houthis start taking down carriers. The west thinks it’s infallible and there won’t ever come a time when the billl gets paid.
The problem in all of this for the west is they continue to go balls deep in Eastern Europe, a strategically irrelevant region while China is lapping us in energy creation, ship manufacturing, robotics, and on and on, so many things that are absolutely critical for the future.
I keep harping on it because on a strategic level I just don’t comprehend how there’s so many missing the shifting power from west. to east. They can build a nuclear reactor in a fraction of the time for 1/10 the cost. They can churn out hardware at an exponential faster rate than we can. They are accelerating and we are fixated with Russia?
This post was edited by ofthevoid on Jun 1 2025 02:07pm