Realistically, what was Europe's alternative once the Ukraine war broke out? "Oh no, you have us completely by the balls because we depend on your oil and gas so much; guess you can have all of Ukraine... but you surely wouldn't weaponize this same leverage to take the Baltics or Moldova, right? Right?!"



The stuff you write about gas flows is misleading as well. You make it sound as if Russia is rerouting the same gas which was previously going to Europe to China now, but that's not true. The pipelines to Europe are not fueled from the same gas fields as the Power of Siberia pipelines to China. Since the demand in China is huge and Russia sits on enormous, mostly untapped fields in "nearby" Siberia, such an arrangement between Russia and China was always coming in the long run, irrespective from what happens on the European side of Russia. The Ukraine war only sped up this timeline, but geostrategically, the West was never gonna stop China from getting access to Russian gas in the long run.

Russia could have had humming pipelines to the west and the east; now, they're reduced to round about half the revenue. They, alongside Europe itself, are the big losers of the EU/RUS trade breaking down. For the US and Canada, it's actually a wash - higher revenue from LNG, but also weakens the economy of their European allies.






This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 5 2025 02:06pm

I wanted to post about soldiers but briefly - Forget pipelines and oil fields. The West’s actions have triggered a FULL SCALE realignment: Russia, India, have been bullied and now are moving east and soon much of the Global South will follow. This has destroyed the world as we know it. Europe let the U.S. steer — thats how the conflict in Ukraine began, and now that ship has literally entered uncharted waters, a whole new continent.

This post was edited by ferdia on Sep 5 2025 02:44pm

Oh i don't know not pump Ukraine with hundreds of billions of weapons so instead of getting a 4,5,6 year long protracted war that leads to probably 1-2M+ dead, it would have ended in half a year? And again with the neocon fantasies that if we don't stop Russia now Lisbon will be next. The real answer was not to seek and advertise Ukraine getting into NATO for years prior to the war which really is what kick started the mess to begin with.

My point on bold was to point to that China is replacing most of the European volume/revenue not that it's coming from exactly the same fields. You are probably right, it was inevitable that Russia will sell to south and east Asia eventually considering almost 5 in 7 people live there. I do think this war moved that timeline up significantly and it gave China a pretty significant energy source that's cheap and reliable. Didn't have to be that way though. Smart geopolitical doctrine would of been to drive a wedge between Russia and China which would mean a weaker China instead we did all we could for literally the opposite to occur. And now the same stupidity is playing out with India, although to a lesser extent as ultimately i don't think India-China are going to develop the relationship Russia-China has.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 5 2025 03:56pm

Yea, China and India are too big and too close (physically) to form a lasting partnership. Russia and China work well specifically because Russia is the lesser partner and their back is against the wall.

We saw something similar with the Gulf States under Biden. It's hard to split authoritarian states apart when you see authoritarianism as a cockroach to be squashed. The natural response is to band together.

China and USSR were adversaries during the cold war and we played a part in shaping that. The stupidity of the geopolitical policies of the last 20-25 years though is NATO expansion into eastern Europe, a region of the world that's largely irrelevant and i say that as someone that has roots there. Is gaining the Baltics, Romania, Ukraine w.e. move the needle in our favor when the real threat is the 1.4Bn strong China that is the manufacturing center of the world? That in a real hot world would be able to out manufacture us easily. That has all the necessary inputs domestically to keep a massive war machine going aside from energy. In such a case, you go to Russia and rope them into the west, and Putin i believe in the late 90s early 00s actually floated that idea. We said no which IMO was shortsighted. Imagine today a Russia that is in the western camp acting as the north flank containing China. We focused on gaining pawns, while China got the equivalent of a knight/ bishop as a result of our actions.

This post was edited by ofthevoid on Sep 5 2025 06:59pm

I must admit i am not convinced. if you put a tiger in a zoo and feed it live animals, there sometimes comes a point when the tiger wants companionship. will you be my friend Mr Bear? said the Tiger. While an Elephant is also an unlikely companion stranger things have happened due to...circumstances and necessity. I trust my point is made.

This post was edited by ferdia on Sep 6 2025 03:42am

What is this weird fantasy you have that orcs would give up their savage barbaric ways if we bring them into the fold?

Mate, aren’t you from Bangladesh? I’d chill on calling others lesser when the country you’re from has literal rivers of trash and human excrement.

the rivers could be full of worse things like orcs
at least excrement won't try to come out of the river to invade, pillage, rape and murder your people

i'm not saying all russians are evil, brutish, ugly, monsters that only know death, destruction, rape and looting. i'm sure a few of them are good people.
it's just the vast majority of them are orcs judging by putin's approval ratings

This post was edited by duffman316 on Sep 6 2025 08:11am

sir this is the Russia topic not the Israeli topic. If you go around calling an entire people less then human, eventually people will start wondering if you are projecting.
you guys really dont pull your punches.

This post was edited by ferdia on Sep 6 2025 09:20am