Political Posts

[Castanza]

1 hour ago, formthirteen said:

 

Russia is the only country with unchecked territorial expansion: Donbas, Crimea, largest country on Earth, fucking LOL.

 

However, the US is the only country with unchecked cultural expansion.

 

Europe has plenty of useful and weak politicians (Macron, Scholtz, Merkel, Schröder, etc) who support the "triumph of evil".

 

 

It's all pretty simple (until it isn't).

 

Here's what one Russian thinks:

Do we love freedom enough?

Where has Russia expanded in the last 30 years? It’s been the exact opposite. I mean Ukraine was a part of Russia not long ago. A lot of you guys act like Ukraine has been a sovereign nation for a 100 years. 
 

If California or Texas decided to succeed from the US would you support that? Because I bet my life’s worth that US troops would be taking over whichever state chose to leave in 24hrs. Who would you support there? 
 

People are Hell bent on turning a land dispute civil war into WWIII by constantly comparing it to WWII. Putin is a shit bag as I’ve said. Clearly his troops or Wagner had committed war crimes against Ukrainian civilians. But let me remind you the US is responsible for over 1m innocent deaths in the Middle East. Roughly 2m+ from Vietnam.

 

Putin currently is not even close to being in the same league as Stalin or Lenin….at this time it’s a bad comparison. 

 

Also what evidence is there to say Putin wants to push beyond Ukraine? Could he? Yeah maybe, but then he is in actual NATO territory and that would be the end of it. 
 

I think you’re jumping the gun when people say he’s trying to take over Europe or rebuild the empire. I think it’s simpler than that. The evidence suggest he is either:

 

1. Going to leave Ukraine in ruins so that NATO cannot effectively utilize the country as a threat to Russia

 

2 Take over Ukraine so that they have a much better geographically defensible position. 
 

Solzhenitsyn and Dostoyevsky both have a lot of good things to say. Like the quote but are we really there yet? What does the evidence actually show? Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like a lot of people aren’t being honest with what caused this or influenced this conflict and what the desired outcome is. 
 

Still nobody has answered. What is the outcome of this? If Ukraine expels Russia or if Russia takes Ukraine? Russia is a failing empire which can barely sustain itself. But they’ve also never stopped a conflict until they’ve had near a million deaths. So if that holds true then there is a long way to go. 
 

Is it worth it to keep up the bloodshed? Or is it better to push for negotiations? 

[cubsfan]

14 minutes ago, Castanza said:

Where has Russia expanded in the last 30 years? It’s been the exact opposite. I mean Ukraine was a part of Russia not long ago. A lot of you guys act like Ukraine has been a sovereign nation for a 100 years. 
 

If California or Texas decided to succeed from the US would you support that? Because I bet my life’s worth that US troops would be taking over whichever state chose to leave in 24hrs. Who would you support there? 
 

People are Hell bent on turning a land dispute civil war into WWIII by constantly comparing it to WWII. Putin is a shit bag as I’ve said. Clearly his troops or Wagner had committed war crimes against Ukrainian civilians. But let me remind you the US is responsible for over 1m innocent deaths in the Middle East. Roughly 2m+ from Vietnam.

 

Putin currently is not even close to being in the same league as Stalin or Lenin….at this time it’s a bad comparison. 

 

Also what evidence is there to say Putin wants to push beyond Ukraine? Could he? Yeah maybe, but then he is in actual NATO territory and that would be the end of it. 
 

I think you’re jumping the gun when people say he’s trying to take over Europe or rebuild the empire. I think it’s simpler than that. The evidence suggest he is either:

 

1. Going to leave Ukraine in ruins so that NATO cannot effectively utilize the country as a threat to Russia

 

2 Take over Ukraine so that they have a much better geographically defensible position. 
 

Solzhenitsyn and Dostoyevsky both have a lot of good things to say. Like the quote but are we really there yet? What does the evidence actually show? Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like a lot of people aren’t being honest with what caused this or influenced this conflict and what the desired outcome is. 
 

Still nobody has answered. What is the outcome of this? If Ukraine expels Russia or if Russia takes Ukraine? Russia is a failing empire which can barely sustain itself. But they’ve also never stopped a conflict until they’ve had near a million deaths. So if that holds true then there is a long way to go. 
 

Is it worth it to keep up the bloodshed? Or is it better to push for negotiations? 

My take: Eastern Ukraine stays a smoking pile of rubble and Russia retains Crimea.

A DMZ is established in Ukraine.

 

The damage is done, Putin’s expansion is stopped for good, since the Europeans wake up for good for the benefit of the rest of Europe.

 

it’s a real tragedy that didn’t have to happen, but that’s how I see it.

I hope I’m wrong 

[Spekulatius]

@Castanza long list of conflicts prove one thing : no NATO country was ever attacked

(exception was the 1974 internal conflict about Cyprus between Greece and Turkey- both NSTO members at that time ). 
 

The problem was not that Ukraine wanted to join NATO, the problem was that NATO did not let join Ukraine. Had Ukraine been able to join NATO, this conflict had never happened.

 

I am also convinced that if Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia had not been able to join NATO, they would be either puppet regimes or just be part or Russia by now ( similar to Belarus ). These countries know a thing or two about oppression and we’re happy to join NATP as quickly as they could. It is already telling that even counties like Sweden who were neutral for decades including WW1 and WW2 feel compelled to join NATO. That tells you all you need to know.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Spekulatius

[Spekulatius]

Interesting that the Russian lines north and south of Bakhmut seem to crumble. The plan was to encircle Ukraine forces, I think.

I do not think that Ukraine really attacks in size at Bakhmut. That location has little strategic value. 

 

[Sweet]

18 hours ago, shhughes1116 said:

The leadership of NATO is shifting.  The NATO of past years was led by the United States and Germany and France.  The pain of WW2 was recent for leaders and citizens of these countries.

Germany was not even an original signatory of NATO.

 

The three pillars of NATO was France, USA and the UK.  That’s not to undermine the others, it’s just that those were the main powers at the time.

 

A precursor to NATO was France and the UK signing a mutual defence Treaty from that spawned NATO in some respects.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Sweet

[Sweet]

22 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

@Castanza,

 

What the heck is it with you today?

Think you should ask that of yourself.

 

You are being rude.

[Dinar]

55 minutes ago, Sweet said:

Think you should ask that of yourself.

 

You are being rude.

John is very emotional when it comes to the Russia/Ukraine war, and like many people immediately gets angry when he hears something that he disagrees with.   I know quite a few family friends with whom I avoid discussing the war since I don't want to get into a fist fights.  People cannot separation passion/what they wish would happen, from reality.

[Xerxes]

Nuclear deterrence held the Reds at bay in Europe. Not NATO. However people are free to think whatever they like. 
 

Re-run the post 1945 scenario without NATO, while keeping everything else constant, you will see that there was very limited wars post-1945 in Europe in the atomic age. Because at some point there would have a red line where US/UK/France strategic interests would have been breached (with or without NATO), and they would have responded. 
 

Case in point:  Ukraine. Is it part of NATO. No. Is West doing everything it can to help it, even though not bounded by Article 5 Yeah. No need to respond with technicalities of proxy/indirect vs. direct help.  
 

That said I think the world is in a better place with NATO than without. At least for the optics.

NATO is not the only military alliance in the world. There is nothing magical about Article 5, other than being a call option, to formalize a military response. Treaties are what they are. A piece of paper to formalize your resolve. If your resolve is there you don’t need that piece of paper. But you can have it there as well. 
 

For all of you fine folks taking the other side, ask yourself this =>. How many wars would Europe have had since 1945 if NATO was there but neither side had nuclear weapons. Run that scenario. Now I dare you to tell me, that is NATO and not nuclear deterrence that has been the cause of peace (I.e void of full scale wars)

 

 

————-
How many wars Pakistan/India had fought since the nuclear testing in the late 90s. Zero. Did the multi-decade Pakistan/China treaty of alliance “deeper than ocean” prevented wars between India and Pakistan prior to Pakistan’ atomic tests in the late 90s. The answer is no. 

[Xerxes]

I never seen this dude so animated and excited. He is cool. 
 

 

[Spekulatius]

@Xerxes The situation in Bakhmut reminds me of Stalingrad.

 

The second part about the Russian ship allegedly carrying  weapons from South Africa is also interesting.

 

Michael Clarke is well informed and worth listening to. He is der better informed than most mainstream commentators.

[Sweet]

2 hours ago, Dinar said:

John is very emotional when it comes to the Russia/Ukraine war, and like many people immediately gets angry when he hears something that he disagrees with.   I know quite a few family friends with whom I avoid discussing the war since I don't want to get into a fist fights.  People cannot separation passion/what they wish would happen, from reality.

I’m European (British) and feel strongly that we should help Ukraine.  I’m very grateful for the US and all the help they provide to Europe - in return they very often get looked down on by snooty Europeans.

 

I don’t agree that the US has given too much and should stop giving money, I think it’s more correct to say we Europeans have given too little.  With respect to money I think Trump is right, the Europeans need to do more, however at the CNN town hall he refused to say he supported Ukraine and wanted them to win - a strange omission.

 

 

[Xerxes]

@Spekulatius

 

what got me animated this week is the report about Patriot intercepting an hypersonic flying Dagger. 
 

couple of days later today, more information came about. That the Dagger was being aimed at the battery location. 
 

The could/May explain it. When missiles are going head to head, there is a higher chance of interception. Otherwise how can a Patriot catch an hypersonic missile. 
 

looking forward to Aviation Week report on this. 

[cubsfan]

5 minutes ago, Sweet said:

I’m European (British) and feel strongly that we should help Ukraine.  I’m very grateful for the US and all the help they provide to Europe - in return they very often get looked down on by snooty Europeans.

 

I don’t agree that the US has given too much and should stop giving money, I think it’s more correct to say we Europeans have given too little.  With respect to money I think Trump is right, the Europeans need to do more, however at the CNN town hall he refused to say he supported Ukraine and wanted them to win - a strange omission.

 

 

Well I think that’s exactly right. Europe suffered terribly during WWII - the US suffered not at all in terms of catastrophic civilian deaths. So there has been plenty of sacrifice on both sides. The British fought the entire war in both the European and Pacific theaters paying a massive price.

 

Europe and the US need each other if we’re to counter Russian and Chinese aggression. Let’s hope there is a renewed understanding for both.

[aws]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-used-u-k-missiles-to-strike-russian-controlled-territory-russia-claims-1cf7c936?mod=mhp

 

Biggest loss of aircraft for Russia since the start of the war. Twitter is abuzz with talks of trigger happy Russian air defense, scared by the start of a Ukraine offensive, shooting down their own aircraft well behind the front lines. However it is happening I'm all for it. 

[Spekulatius]

Pretty good summary how Putin thinks about the end game:

The West is portrait as satanists in Russian TV.

The war according to Russian propaganda will last a long time ( a change from the special operations mantra early on)

Russians is not fighting Ukraine, they are fighting NATO.

Putin is afraid for his own life.

The opinions on whether Putin nuclear weapons are mixed.

Ukraine is not a country, it belongs to Russia.

 

[John Hjorth]

Vladimir Putin will eventually meet his fate and it won't be pretty, but I feel quite sure it will be violent. He hasn't even been able to take an European non-NATO member country by brute force, what should be next?

[Spekulatius]

Moldova leaving the russian lead commonwealth club :

https://tass.com/world/1617469

 

Interesting, they denied leaving just in November last year.

[james22]

We know that Putin is stacking his inner circle with sycophants for quite some time. ...

 

The two personalities that matter the most, the first one is the Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, who is arguably the most incompetent person in the Russian government right now.

 

And he’s obviously in charge of the broader battle plan and the entire defense industry. And we now know that Shoigu has probably stolen personally one-third of the Russian budget that was appropriated for defense equipment manufacturer over the last several years, and probably one-third of a second third was stolen by his underlings. So whenever you see the Russians just not having enough equipment to do anything meaningful, it’s probably his fault.

 

And he’s the one in charge of the battle plan, and he’s the one who indicated there were going to be a lot more weapons shipments.

 

The second defense official, who arguably rivals Shoigu with his military incompetence, is the guy who runs the Wagner Group, Dmitry Rogozin. This guy was literally a caterer until a few years ago and then got a little bit of money from the Russian government in order to build up this parallel military group that we know as Wagner that would go around the world hiring itself as mercenaries and committing war crimes when the local governments didn’t want to.

 

That doesn’t mean he can’t run a paramilitary organization, but it means he has no experience either managing or leading or participating in a military operation himself.

 

https://zeihan.com/ukraine-war-qa-series-what-happened-to-the-500k-russian-soldiers/

 

LOL

[Xerxes]

Modern day Sergei Shoigu is as incompetent as Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel and Marshal Voroshilov

 

meaning that they are not there for their expertise but for their loyalty. 

[ValueArb]

2 hours ago, Xerxes said:

Modern day Sergei Shoigu is as incompetent as Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel and Marshal Voroshilov

 

meaning that they are not there for their expertise but for their loyalty. 

 

Interesting missile attacks last night, it appears they targeted the Patriot battery again with six "hypersonic" missiles and that all six were shot down without anyone getting hurt (though there were some ground explosions and Russia is claiming they took out the battery). 

 

Update: CNN is reporting US intelligence saying the Patriot battery took some damage.

Edited May 16, 2023 by ValueArb

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, ValueArb said:

 

Interesting missile attacks last night, it appears they targeted the Patriot battery again with six "hypersonic" missiles and that all six were shot down without anyone getting hurt (though there were some ground explosions and Russia is claiming they took out the battery). 

 

Update: CNN is reporting US intelligence saying the Patriot battery took some damage.

The other news is that Ukrainian pilots are going to be trained in the UK and France. This makes no sense unless Ukraine also get's western jets.

[Xerxes]

2 hours ago, ValueArb said:

 

Interesting missile attacks last night, it appears they targeted the Patriot battery again with six "hypersonic" missiles and that all six were shot down without anyone getting hurt (though there were some ground explosions and Russia is claiming they took out the battery). 

 

Update: CNN is reporting US intelligence saying the Patriot battery took some damage.

If this is correct, I think there is no way the Patriots could have scored a hit against the flying Daggers, without direct U.S. involvement tactically, strategizing how to goad the daggers and doing a check-mate, and tag-and-bag. 
 

This war has generated a wealth of data, unfortunately a lot of it, and the level of U.S. direct involvement will be classified for years on. We just would not know.  

[Parsad]

Chinese comedian fined $2M by culture police for innocuous joke about China's military.  Cheers!

 

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/05/17/exp-china-comedian-fine-comedy-asia-jiang-lok-051712pseg3-cnni-world.cnn

[Luke]

 

1: Why cant Ukraine join Nato?

 

,,What would happen if mexico would join a chinese run international military alliance where heavy weapons are send to mexico with interoperability of chinese and mexican military systems, what would happen to mexico? They would be blown away´´

 

2: Do you see an equivalance between nato and russia and china?

 

,,No, Nato is a much more agressive military alliance, nato has invaded Yugoslavia, libya, Ukraine, backed up the invasion in afghanistan, everybody outside of the west can see it but in the west you are not allowed to think it,,

,,Global south collapsing in ridicule, india, indonesia, south africa,,

 

 

 

 

[Luke]

I also want to stress again that in china, contrary to what some may hear on the media, the competition in many sectors is incredibly brutal. China and the US have state capitalistic systems with one important more and more shifting difference: China is PRO market and the US and most of europe PRO Business. In a recent interview of the economist of the book i linked, she talked about how much competition by business there is just for simple daily use products and also how hard the economic existence for many people working in factories is. Common Prosperity should be understood as a pro market move because thats where consumers will win. No common prosperity and huge monopolies with concentrated rich owners, business with high pricing power, is the other side of the coin, pro business policies and an unregulated market. 

 

Taking the severe cuts into freedom of speech etc out of the picture, the CCPs goal is not to harm and milk out their citizens (as it is more the case in russia) but that china will become a flourishing modern developed socialist country: 

 

"prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful" as said. 

 

What role will shareholders and business play here? Shareholders wont be treated as they are in the US. Regulation will be tougher and more unpredictable, possible tax and redistributions could happen. But that wont mean a return to a completely planned economy and starving for many. The chinese dont care which economist said what, they dont care what exact form of capitalism is the best according to the west, the system has to produce the above said results. 

They will never achieve that without markets, without investments, without shareholder returns. 

 

As long as one buys very strong and well managed businesses there will be returns made, possibly great returns. 

 

China is also trying desperatly to get around western patent rights IMO because they see it as ANTI Market. The more competition, the more innovation and the better their developments and GDP growth will become. It will also mean a much higher competitive environment than in the current western market.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Luca