Political Posts

[Xerxes]

44 minutes ago, LC said:

Just wondering what parallels anyone sees between this war and America’s 20? Year war in the Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq).

 

iirc the US military had a lot of trouble early on in Afghanistan, but look how long troops stayed there…

just to add t Spek’ comment

 

In the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and U.S. involvement in Iraq —- in all three conflicts the assailants captured the country (i.e critical infrastructure) within months. In case of Afghanistan and the Soviet it was in matter of weeks IIRC. 
 

Yet in all three they lost the long game. 
 

In case of Ukraine/Russia in 2022, that first phase has not even been completed. 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Xerxes

[changegonnacome]

7 hours ago, Xerxes said:

Sleep walking to Armageddon are we … 

 

Exactly........what does it look like to 'win' against Putin..........I mean the narrative in the press is to win, to beat Putin on his doorstep no less, humiliate him.........is it a good idea to corner a rat who has nuclear bombs? Guess we'll find out...........I mean what would it look like to win the battle in Ukraine, but loose the planet via nuclear conflict.......where are the god damn off ramps here people!!......ones that respect the reality that the country your trying to beat, holds the worlds destruction at its fingertips.......as folks cheer on Ukraine's advancement to Russian borders with NATO weapons in hand I'm not so sure we should be feeling so joyous.

 

An existential threat to a nuclear superpower is the final chapter in the bad version all our life stories.

 

[Dinar]

7 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

Exactly........what does it look like to 'win' against Putin..........I mean the narrative in the press is to win, to beat Putin on his doorstep no less, humiliate him.........is it a good idea to corner a rat who has nuclear bombs? Guess we'll find out...........I mean what would it look like to win the battle in Ukraine, but loose the planet via nuclear conflict.......where are the god damn off ramps here people!!......ones that respect the reality that the country your trying to beat, holds the worlds destruction at its fingertips.......as folks cheer on Ukraine's advancement to Russian borders with NATO weapons in hand I'm not so sure we should be feeling so joyous.

 

An existential threat to a nuclear superpower is the final chapter in the bad version all our life stories.

 

I agree, the top priority for the West should be to find a way for Putin to save face and end this war as soon as possible.

[patience_and_focus]

7 minutes ago, changegonnacome said:

 

 

An existential threat to a nuclear superpower is the final chapter in the bad version all our life stories.

 

Existential, really!? Because Ukraine army wants to erase Russian identity and is marching across border into St Petersburg?

 

If Putin uses nuclear weapons, then surely there will be existential threat to current Russian regime. 

[Viking]

1 hour ago, Xerxes said:

just to add t Spek’ comment

 

In the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and U.S. involvement in Iraq —- in all three conflicts the assailants captured the country (i.e critical infrastructure) within months. In case of Afghanistan and the Soviet it was in matter of weeks IIRC. 
 

Yet in all three they lost the long game. 
 

In case of Ukraine/Russia in 2022, that first phase has not even been completed. 

Ukraine is fighting being invaded by a foreign aggressor, Russia. The West is supporting the local population. The lesson from Afghanistan is the local population, if motivated and well armed, is eventually able to push the aggressor out. And that is what we are seeing play out in Ukraine (just much quicker than anyone thought).

Edited October 8, 2022 by Viking

[Viking]

23 minutes ago, Dinar said:

I agree, the top priority for the West should be to find a way for Putin to save face and end this war as soon as possible.

How do you negotiate with someone who doesn’t want to negotiate? Just imagine if Churchill had decided the best course of action was to negotiate with Hitler (and sue for peace)? Yes, the war would have been over much earlier. And the world would look very different today, especially in Europe. Looking with hindsight, i think Churchill made the right decision. 

[james22]

2 hours ago, LC said:

Just wondering what parallels anyone sees between this war and America’s 20? Year war in the Middle East (Afghanistan, Iraq).

 

Russia has one advantage during the shooting war: losses incurred are to his own rebellious minorities.

 

And three during after that:

 

1. an achievable goal (pacification vs winning over hearts and minds),

2. experienced secret police/tactics (vs American soldiers unprepared to play at tribal politics), and

3. the ability to forcibly relocate the rebellious to Siberia

 

Edited October 8, 2022 by james22

[Dinar]

18 minutes ago, Viking said:

How do you negotiate with someone who doesn’t want to negotiate? Just imagine if Churchill had decided the best course of action was to negotiate with Hitler (and sue for peace)? Yes, the war would have been over much earlier. And the world would look very different today, especially in Europe. Looking with hindsight, i think Churchill made the right decision. 

How do you know?  Seriously, you compare Hitler and Putin?  How many people Putin killed?  Tens of thousands?  Hitler - 100 million.  Do I like President Putin?  Hell no, and I had the same opinion nearly 25 years ago when he gained power, I thought that no normal/honourable person joins KGB voluntarily.  But to compare him to Hitler?  Again, I do not know what Putin truly wants and I do not know whether the Putin or the West tried to negotiate.   But to claim that Putin refuses to negotiate is absurd, have you talked to him and did he tell you that himself?

[Xerxes]

32 minutes ago, Viking said:

Ukraine is fighting being invaded by a foreign aggressor, Russia. The West is supporting the local population. The lesson from Afghanistan is the local population, if motivated and well armed, is eventually able to push the aggressor out. And that is what we are seeing play out in Ukraine (just much quicker than anyone thought).

Agreed. 

I would just caution that story has not ended. However I do hope that the lesson remains the same 12 months out. 
 

happy thanksgiving 

 

[Viking]

14 minutes ago, Dinar said:

How do you know?  Seriously, you compare Hitler and Putin?  How many people Putin killed?  Tens of thousands?  Hitler - 100 million.  Do I like President Putin?  Hell no, and I had the same opinion nearly 25 years ago when he gained power, I thought that no normal/honourable person joins KGB voluntarily.  But to compare him to Hitler?  Again, I do not know what Putin truly wants and I do not know whether the Putin or the West tried to negotiate.   But to claim that Putin refuses to negotiate is absurd, have you talked to him and did he tell you that himself?

The main point with my post was not try and compare and contrast Putin and Hitler as people, leaders and their impact on Europe and the world. Hard to do that in a few lines of text. Also, you are correct, i have no idea what Putin might want to do. 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Viking

[Xerxes]

11 minutes ago, Dinar said:

How do you know?  Seriously, you compare Hitler and Putin?  How many people Putin killed?  Tens of thousands?  Hitler - 100 million.  Do I like President Putin?  Hell no, and I had the same opinion nearly 25 years ago when he gained power, I thought that no normal/honourable person joins KGB voluntarily.  But to compare him to Hitler?  Again, I do not know what Putin truly wants and I do not know whether the Putin or the West tried to negotiate.   But to claim that Putin refuses to negotiate is absurd, have you talked to him and did he tell you that himself?

Viking

I agree with Dinar that we cannot compare Hitler with Putin. 
 

if you do so you are decreasing the damage that Hitler has done to the world at the expense of trying to score a point. 
 

they are not even in the same zip code

[StevieV]

2 hours ago, Dinar said:

I agree, the top priority for the West should be to find a way for Putin to save face and end this war as soon as possible.

 

I'm not sure what there is to disagree with in this statement.  War is bad and we should all want it to end.

 

1 hour ago, Viking said:

How do you negotiate with someone who doesn’t want to negotiate? Just imagine if Churchill had decided the best course of action was to negotiate with Hitler (and sue for peace)? Yes, the war would have been over much earlier. And the world would look very different today, especially in Europe. Looking with hindsight, i think Churchill made the right decision. 

 

I'm not sure you've thought this through Viking. I think the WWII/Hitler comparisons to this conflict are poor for a ton of reasons.  Regardless, uh, that opposition was a world war, and you can't be advocating world war, but this time with nukes.

Edited October 9, 2022 by StevieV

[scorpioncapital]

1 hour ago, Viking said:

Ukraine is fighting being invaded by a foreign aggressor, Russia. The West is supporting the local population. The lesson from Afghanistan is the local population, if motivated and well armed, is eventually able to push the aggressor out. And that is what we are seeing play out in Ukraine (just much quicker than anyone thought).

 

Didn't work for the aggressor US which invaded Iraq illegaly. UN called it a violation of international law too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

Don't think US has the moral high ground to tell Russia is 'wrong' or anything.

 

[Xerxes]

3 hours ago, scorpioncapital said:

 

Didn't work for the aggressor US which invaded Iraq illegaly. UN called it a violation of international law too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

Don't think US has the moral high ground to tell Russia is 'wrong' or anything.

 

I would not conflate what private citizens & posters here might think with what U.S. as a government might think.

 

private citizens I imagine are more interested in triumph of good vs evil. So one needs to forgive them when they are more focused on certain events than others that does not fit that fairy tale black and white narrative.  

Now while the US government has no business taking the moral high ground (given its exotic history and foreign adventures), it has every bit of business in securing its geopolitical interest and its allies. One does not get to be a superpower by not securing its interest or doing a “random walk”.
 

The danger though is that the US Government has so deeply aligned itself with the Ukrainian cause that it may be hard to do a “pivot” if it gets too far. And that is if we even know what is too far. 
 

It has been said that the US Central Bank is going to hike interest rate until something “breaks”. In the arena of geopolitics, can the U.S. Government keep pushing Ukraine until something “breaks”. With the former the Central Bank can do a u-turn and start buying bonds ala Bank of England. Can the U.S. Government perform a geopolitical u-turn. 
 

It is sad and unfair to the Ukrainian to even be talking about this. As the Ukrainian have every right to keep on fighting. But there is a bigger picture. 
 

For instance I recall in 1985-86 (whenever that was) the U.S. Government was only too happy to supply Iraq with satellite imagery of Iranian troop movements to help Saddam with his chemical attacks. I suppose enabling the use of WMD by Saddam served a greater purpose !

 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-prove-america-helped-saddam-as-he-gassed-iran/

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by Xerxes

[Viking]

3 hours ago, StevieV said:

 

I'm not sure what there is to disagree with in this statement.  War is bad and we should all want it to end.

 

 

I'm not sure you've thought this through Viking. I think the WWII/Hitler comparisons to this conflict are poor for a ton of reasons.  Regardless, uh, that opposition was a world war, and you can't be advocating world war, but this time with nukes.

i agree 100% with your statement: “War is bad and we should all want it to end.”

 

I agree, my mention of Hitler in a previous post was not well done. To be more clear, what i tried to get across is some people are not interested in negotiating. That is my read of Putin. And to try and get a deal at all cost with someone like that will likely not end well. Yes, just my opinion as Putin has not divulged to me his thoughts on the matter  My analogy to what was tried, and not tried, during WW2 was a bad example.

[changegonnacome]

5 hours ago, scorpioncapital said:

UN called it a violation of international law too

 

International law.....when I see it written down it makes me laugh every-time....in the international system there is no law, the UN is nothing but a talking shop.......and the US has shown time and again a complete disregard for what one might call international law, cause in fact it just doesn't exist in any meaningful way......as Mearshimar says the international system is anarchic.........put simply in the international system when you call 911....nobody answers......the Ukraine situation is unique in that the US had become entrenched in first a kind of proxy 'mini-cold war' in Ukraine against Russia in 2010's (2014 Coup/regime change, Biden/Burizma, US presidents telling Ukraine president who to investigate) which meant when the tanks rolled in 2022 it did answer Ukraine's 911 call and rallied the West to help Ukraine fight Russia.......in other instances in places like Syria where the US had shown little strategic interest in 'containing' Russia the 911 calls went unanswered in the main including chemicals attacks etc.

[Gregmal]

Every time we have a Democrat in office this shit occurs. They can’t help but grandstand and parade around in glee, provoking Russia, Saudi Arabia, and China while bizarrely having a soft spot for the lemmings of the Middle East. Claiming it’s the good vs evil war when in reality they are endangering all of us and making things more expensive.

[UK]

More about posible implications: https://www.ft.com/content/e950f58c-0d8f-4121-b4f2-ece71d2cb267

 

Two years after the US hit Huawei with harsh sanctions, the Chinese technology group’s revenue has dropped, it has lost its leadership position in network equipment and smartphones, and its founder has told staff that the company’s survival is at stake. Now, China’s entire chip industry is bracing for similar pain as Washington applies the tools tested on Huawei much more broadly. Under new export controls announced on Friday, semiconductors made with US technology for use in AI, high performance computing and supercomputers can only be sold to China with an export licence — which will be very difficult to obtain. Moreover, Washington is barring US citizens or entities from working with Chinese chip producers except with specific approval. The package also strictly limits the export to China of chip manufacturing tools and technology China could use to develop its own equipment. “To put it mildly, [Chinese companies] are basically going back to the Stone Age,” said Szeho Ng, Managing Director at China Renaissance. Paul Triolo, a China and technology expert at the Albright Stonebridge consultancy, said: “There will be many losers as the tsunami of change unleashed by the new rules washes over the semiconductor and associated industries.” The new controls on semiconductor equipment are also a potent weapon, set to hit mainstream manufacturers and leading-edge chip producers. According to analysts at the Bank of America, the equipment restrictions will affect logic chips designed in the past four to five years, and Dram chips designed after 2017. “It’s their sweet spot right now — they’re a laggard in technology and are relying on older tools and technology,” said Wayne Lam, an analyst at CCS Insight. Chinese chip companies are even more concerned about Washington’s attempts to bar US citizens from supporting them. “That is a bigger bombshell than stopping us from buying equipment,” said a human resources executive at a state-backed semiconductor plant.

 

Since many of Intel’s high-end processors go into Chinese supercomputers, BofA expects that the restrictions could hit up to 10 per cent of Intel’s sales. But some analysts believe that the measures will favour foreign chipmakers. As the US’s main motive was to slow down China’s development in the most advanced semiconductor technology, leading foreign chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) or Intel would benefit, said Akira Minamikawa, a semiconductor analyst at research firm Omdia. He said flash memory makers that compete directly with YMTC, such as Japan’s Kioxia, might “get some benefit” from the new US measures, but the gains would probably be small. Kim Young-woo, head of research at SK Securities, said the fact that Washington had not imposed a blanket ban on equipment supplies for foreign chipmakers operating in China would come as a relief for Korean semiconductor companies, but the need for export licences could still be a hassle. The biggest question is how China responds. “We’re in a negative cycle where the US continues to push for restrictions, which pushes the Chinese to strive for technological independence, which in turn pushes the US towards harsher restrictions,” said an industry insider in Beijing. But Beijing’s levers are limited. “This will propel the Chinese to look for alternatives but with the acknowledgment that alternatives to US technology are decades away,” the person said. This dire situation could lead to more intellectual property theft. As some equipment now under export controls is already used in China, Beijing could ignore intellectual property rights and reverse-engineer the machinery to strengthen local equipment makers, said Lam at CCS. He added: “We may be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

 

Edited October 9, 2022 by UK

[Xerxes]

Be serious Greg, This is not a republican vs Democrat debate. Getting entangled in foreign adventures has been a way of escape for both from the gridlock in their domestic arena. 

[Xerxes]

[Spekulatius]

The semi equipment companies like LRCX, AMAT, KLAC and others should see a huge hit from this.

Revenue % From China per 2022 10-K

LRCX: 31.4%

AMAT:33%

KLAC: 29%

TER: 17%

 

Even worse, the percentage of revenues from China has been rising for years. I don’t know how much of thee revenues is directly at risk, but I think it’s substantial. I am guess we will see double digit drops in these stocks.

 

[UK]

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/10/06/ukraines-military-success-is-reshaping-russia-as-well-as-the-war

 

But a businessman describes a growing sense of his vulnerability by quoting from “The Jungle Book”, a classic British children’s novel that is apparently a favourite of Mr Putin: “When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called the Dead Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long.” Even if that proves wishful thinking, no one would have said it a few months ago.

[mcliu]

This Hitler analogy is absurd.

 

Putin's wars:

Chechnya 1990s to prevent Chechen independence

Georgia 2000s to prevent Georgia from joining NATO

Ukraine 2020 to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO

 

The fact is the US has invaded many more countries over this period and killed far more civilians.

[Spekulatius]

If you truly believe that Putin would unleash a nuclear holocaust when his special operation turns out to be a total failure, then Putin would be in the same zip code than Hitler.

 

Can’t have it both ways - believe that Putin isn’t that bad and then believe that he unleashes nuclear holocaust, when he doesn’t get what he wants.

 

Just remember, he isn’t really cornered. He can take his army (or what’s left of it ) and move it back to Russian borders. He does have a choice. Nobody has attacked Russia territory.

[SharperDingaan]

Most would expect that the Russia/Ukraine special operation is going to end up a draw. Ukraine part of NATO, all annexed Ukrainian lands back in Ukrainian control, a new iron curtain on the border, and an agreement on both sides to withdraw short-term nukes from the frontier. No incursions into Russia, and  no prosecution for war crimes. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63189627

 

The flip side is that on cessation of hostilities, large parts of Ukraine will very much resemble large parts of Germany after the bombing of WWII. Should reinvestment and rebuilding with state-of-the-art infrastructure, do much the same as it did for Germany; Ukraine becomes a future dominant regional economic power in the east. Level of corruption not much different to what it was in Germany at the time.

 

The mystery is the path to peace, and the path to regime change in Russia itself.

Lots of volatility, but the end point would seem to be pretty much baked in.

 

SD

Edited October 9, 2022 by SharperDingaan