What's Going to Happen in Ukraine?
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This is the point where you get to make your predictions so you can link to them later when you are proven right.
As I may have mentioned, I don’t like to make predictions about fast-moving events because I don’t like being wrong. But many feel the opposite.
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Terms of surrender will be accepted by Ukraine within a week.
Ukraine partitioned.
USN and RN shell Sevastopol within a month as a retaliation.Replies: @Verymuchalive
https://youtu.be/2u-jKybRc-g
When we invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, or economically ruined Venezuela it was none of Russia’s business
Russia recognizing a couple of East Ukranian states that are overwhelmingly ethnically Russian and providing them with security is none of our business either.
Anthony Blinken, go pound sand.
Nah, Venezuela did that all by themselves.
Russia is going to kill every American weapon store in that country and Putin will laugh his ass off at Biden and Zelensky, who should ask for a refund.
Carry on.
Because apparently they've already shot down at least 1 Russian helicopter. Putin may be laughing but I'll bet that there are going to be some Russian wives and mothers who are going to be crying.Replies: @Old Prude, @AnotherDad, @Paperback Writer
It will be interesting to see how Dems try to explain why Ukrainians aren’t allowed into the US as refugees or asylum.
Considerations like that certainly don’t bother the people who roam the halls of government, academia, journalism, or thinktanks – they are never concerned with the outcomes of the policies they advocate and/or implement.
Let’s ask Victoria Nuland or Max Boot or Lindsey Graham what will happen. They must know, right?
Masha Gessen is clamouring to work as an auxilliary nurse, aid, for the wounded.
Steve take my money on the bet!
Permanent Russian presence in independent statelets, with warning that if what’s left of Ukraine-joins NATO, Russian will permanently occupy that, too. Or the Neocon death-cult pulling Biden’s strings launches Armageddon. Flip a coin.
Peter Zeihan writes about this stuff; both in his regular newsletter and his many books. He reckons that Russia has always wanted to get its hands on Ukraine; and that the next step is the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and eastern Poland, to secure a land bridge to Kaliningrad. Russia’s poor demographics mean it’s now or never for the invasion.
I recommend his Twitter feed as a starting point. https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan
https://twitter.com/PeterZeihan/status/1496935419061014532
Everything dies down within a few days. Lots of fake atrocity propaganda.
Current gov’t of Ukraine resigns and leaves the country.
Semi-puppet gov’t takes over pending “free and fair” elections.
Free and fair elections called a sham by US, globalists and regime in exile.
New gov’t installed after the elections.
Breakaway Republics recognized by China and non-Globo-Homo regimes.
Crisis ends.
China moves on Taiwan (they now know the Globe-Homo regimes, mainly the US, can’t and won’t do jack).
The current arrangement suits China. Just wait 10 years and imagine how weak the USA will be.
Beats the hell out of me…but I’ll play.
1. Russian forces may penetrate into Western Ukraine, but if so Putin will withdraw but establish a new Russian border along a line connecting Kharkov, Kropyvnytskyi, and Odessa.
2. Ukraine’s USA propped up government will collapse.
3. Sanctions will be toothless.
4. Oil will go to $120 a barrel, and natural gas to over $6.00 per MMBtu. China will get somewhat discount pricing from Vlad.
5. Germany will cave sometime in next 6 months on Nordstream 2.
6. Putin will buy another lavish personal residence.
7. Biden will reach new depths of pathetic incompetence.
C'mon Man... that one isn't a prediction. It's guaranteed.
There’s a columnist, featured on UR, whose opinions on the subject seem to be informed and have merit. For my personal amusement, I’ve listened to Trump demagogue on the subject. Otherwise, I haven’t paid attention.
Someone told me that Sleepy was going to (already did?) “address the nation”. I can’t watch him. I looked at the DJIA. It’s holding up. That indicates to me that he’s not actually going to do something, in Ukraine, which will endanger American lives or bust the US economy. Let the European socialist aristocrats deal with this one.
Ukraine is having a good time with comically sloppy Russian military behavior. I’ve not yet seen any surface to air missiles, which would make short work of the asinine low-flying Russian pilots.
Ukrainians seem to be doing pretty well with the simple “spray and pray” technique. Those Russian jets are damned expensive to be losing that way.
And what’s with the crowding of the tanks, creating easy pickin’s?!
So far, this is an astounding three-ring shitshow.
Those jets are EXPENSIVE!!
WHY?!!
https://twitter.com/zoo_bear/status/1496916643556970496
Within 6 months a dozen Nazis go on trial in Moscow and their filthy deeds are revealed to 3/4 of the world. Nobody in US or UK hears about it.
Ukraine gets to vote a new President in, who will not know what to do without the US ambassador telling him what to do. He'll take advice from Russia. Population drops from 35m to 25m (44m in 2014)
Under cover of the distraction, US withdraws the missiles, including the nukes from the Delesevu, Romania, missile centre. In other words does what Putin asked in the first place but presents this as a magnanimous peace package with Russia (which is all Russia asked for in the first place).
Iraq kicks US out of Iraq. Syria kicks US out of Syria and sues for $5bn for theft of oil.
Nike apologises for offending China over Ujghur comments.
The people of Okinawa protest again over the presence of US troops.
Chagos is returned to the Chagossians .
Carry on.Replies: @Jack D, @The Wild Geese Howard, @Iron Curtain
Really, he’s going to destroy all the Stingers? The Ukrainians are not going to get a single shot off?
Because apparently they’ve already shot down at least 1 Russian helicopter. Putin may be laughing but I’ll bet that there are going to be some Russian wives and mothers who are going to be crying.
That's what most wars are. Some "leader"--one one side or another, often both sides--aggrandizing himself by sacrificing a bunch of young men, and bringing heartbreak and sorrow to their fathers and mothers, wives and children.
And this one was ridiculously easy to avoid with a bit of "realism" diplomacy.
Prediction: Bluster and blowing, then acceptance of a fait accompli after an appropriate interval or after the next breathless media hysteria.
One thing that you can take to the bank is whatever Biden and his crew of clowns and degenerates do, it will be harmful to the interests of the people who live in what is left of the USA.
Because apparently they've already shot down at least 1 Russian helicopter. Putin may be laughing but I'll bet that there are going to be some Russian wives and mothers who are going to be crying.Replies: @Old Prude, @AnotherDad, @Paperback Writer
The Russians’ biggest challenge is to keep their drunken army from crashing their own invasion into a tree.
Reading it the ineptitude of the Russian Military seemed outstanding. Eventually the Russians triumphed over a tiny force but it seemed hard to believe the U.S.S.R ever posed a serious offensive threat to Western powers.
I think American National Guard Units would have cleaned up and from people I know who have served in the National Guard a lot of those outfits are pretty fouled up. It's as if Colorado broke into revolt against the US and it took a decade to put them down.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum, @Wilkey, @Wilkey, @Brutusale, @Dacian Julien Soros
Dr. Fauci will decry that none of the Ukrainians taking shelter in the Kyiv Metro are wearing masks.
I'm hoping the Russians will seize and destroy the bio-weapons labs dotted across western Ukraine. The labs that are essentially under NATO management but operate under private sector cover.
If Ukrainians fight like Finns did in the Continuation War, it will be bad news to have a steady stream of body bags coming back to the Russkie nation.
Imagine if the Ukrainians had a Swiss-style militia with every adult having a Sig assault rifle and massive numbers of tandem explosive RPGs for use. They might have made Putin think twice.
Current gov't of Ukraine resigns and leaves the country.
Semi-puppet gov't takes over pending "free and fair" elections.
Free and fair elections called a sham by US, globalists and regime in exile.
New gov't installed after the elections.
Breakaway Republics recognized by China and non-Globo-Homo regimes.
Crisis ends.
China moves on Taiwan (they now know the Globe-Homo regimes, mainly the US, can't and won't do jack).Replies: @houston 1992
China wont move on Taiwan. TSMC is worthless without Japanese chemical supplies called photoresist, Dutch lithography (ASML), US equipment (AMAT et al), Japanese coating equipment (Tokyo Electron TEL).
The current arrangement suits China. Just wait 10 years and imagine how weak the USA will be.
In due time, James, but I have already planned to use the wild Danes to politically decapitate the Swedish Ruling Class.
Some arrangement can be negotiated with the wild Danes on Greenland.
Carry on.Replies: @Jack D, @The Wild Geese Howard, @Iron Curtain
There are already rumors surfacing that the Russians have leveled seven or eight of the US-backed biolabs in Ukraine.
The Markets will reach all time highs. The dow, nasdaq, and sNp all leaped up today. Gas will hit $9 a gallon.
The Markets thoroughly approve of President Putin’s bold liberation of the Ukraine, so SING IT:
Bomb bomb bomb 🎶
Bomb 🎶 bomb DONBASS
Bomb bomb bomb
Bomb bomb 🎶 DONBASS 🎶
God bless President Putin. SLAVA!
The smart money also managed to rob retail put buyers, who seemed pretty incensed on the financial boards I read.
I took Russian in college in 1972, and my TA was an ethnic Ukrainian girl named Tania. She remembered full well what Stalin did to her people in the 1930’s. And I was thinking that there might be some sort of core group of ethnic Ukrainians who remembered how their (great-)grandparents were treated by Stalin, and that this group might say to the Russians “We’re ready to fight to the death to live our own lives in freedom on our own land. And don’t think this conflict will just take place in the Ukraine.”
However, it turns out there is no such group, as far as I can see. And Grandpa Biden snoozes peacefully in the White House (doing just what he and Obama did when Russia took Crimea in 2014), and NATO nations all need Gaz from Gazprom.
I’m not sure what the Russians or Putin so desperately need in the Ukraine. I guess they’ll take what they want.
They need to prevent Ukraine from being incorporated into NATO.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum
I don’t have a prediction about “fast moving events” but I do predict that we will be treated to no more repugnant spectacle this year that of the assembled ranks of self-appointed media and government experts, all of whom are utterly lacking physical courage in the real world, all howling in unison for war with a nuclear power over circumstances they cannot straightforwardly explain in places they have never been and could never point to on an unmarked map.
These people will fight Putler to the last drop of your blood.
If I were Putin as it is impossible to dominate a white nation by force, I would :
– dismantle all Ukrainian government with the excuse of denazification and fight against corruption while quite quickly
– organizing a referendum by Ukrainian regions for sovereignty with the aim of landing one chunk to Poland, one chunk for Germany, one as an international non-Anglo zone and one for me
The people who swallow that jive from the MSM would have to swallow it again from the Russians or else lapse into hilariously self-contradictory ACKSHUALLYs.
Russia also has significant leverage over Kazakhstan (just months ago! it basically invaded the country to put down a populist uprising against the government) . Kazakhstan is home to Kazatomprom, the largest and cheapest miner of uranium in the world. Contra, Steve, Merkel’s decision to dynamite Germany’s nuclear power plants (still the only viable large-scale carbon-neutral power we have) may turn out to have been an even bigger boner than letting in all those ‘Syrian’ rapefugees.
Partition
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg/800px-Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg
Weird how reality is almost the opposite of what your map is "projecting", and therein lies a tale.Replies: @Joseph A., @jimmyriddle
NATO MUST BE ABOLISHED IMMEDIATELY!
https://twitter.com/NATO/status/1366355680681209859?s=20&t=zy8nzwLbxEGW6S4cBKTY0Q
I predict that the action in Ukraine will give China the diversion it wants to attack Taiwan. And expect mischief from North Korea, Iran and Turkey.
I predict a stunning and brave American Pravda column from Ron Unazi, celebrating the Ukrainian Nazi Azov battalion and calling for retaliation against Russia.
Russia takes over Ukraine in exchange for dropping Nord Stream 2
Both Putin and Biden were in on this whole charade from the beginning
Basically Russia gets Ukraine for helping the U.S. keep her global hegemony and reserve dollar status.
My government is replacing my class with people from the third world, so why should I care if their class gets replaced by Russians?
Not a prediction exactly. But I predict that I will be making this point to as many people as I can furtively mutter it to over the next few weeks.
The sun will rise on the East and set on the West.
If anything the Covid farce showed, is that we cannot trust anything we read or see in the Western media (and many times, in iSteve, which is basically a NYT/WAPO commentator without offering much more than a slight critique).
I won’t speculate much, but it seems the most logical outcome is, government toppled and changed for a less Western-puppet government (or new elections called), Russia leaving (except from the easternmost part), things slowly going back to some sort of normalcy. In the long term, Russia will be closer to China but even more antagonized by a clearly irrelevant Europe and a decadent America.
Putin’s latest speech is pretty good. Refreshing in the age of Bidet, Maricón and Castreau:
http://thesaker.is/address-by-the-president-of-the-russian-federation-february-24-2022/
Western states will contort themselves rhetorically to explain why in this particular instance it is actually not a good idea to take in Ukrainian refugees.
Note to self: be sure to take out all cash from bank, garage full of firewood, candles, packs of playing cards, prepper food cans, what am I missing?
Because there’s no way this could bite us in the ass.
Firearms.
Ukrainians seem to be doing pretty well with the simple "spray and pray" technique. Those Russian jets are damned expensive to be losing that way.
And what’s with the crowding of the tanks, creating easy pickin's?!
So far, this is an astounding three-ring shitshow.
Those jets are EXPENSIVE!!
WHY?!!
https://youtu.be/VXHGCmkoik0
https://youtu.be/oxeTtfmsVGs
https://youtu.be/HYVLP8kzgVU
https://youtu.be/Any-PDULIos
https://youtu.be/qGvnUmmFwGA
https://youtu.be/32H_g1XAQzgReplies: @Boo, @Jack D, @MEH 0910, @michael droy, @kaganovitch
You’re running on pure copium, my dear ukranian dumbshit
Ukrainians seem to be doing pretty well with the simple "spray and pray" technique. Those Russian jets are damned expensive to be losing that way.
And what’s with the crowding of the tanks, creating easy pickin's?!
So far, this is an astounding three-ring shitshow.
Those jets are EXPENSIVE!!
WHY?!!
https://youtu.be/VXHGCmkoik0
https://youtu.be/oxeTtfmsVGs
https://youtu.be/HYVLP8kzgVU
https://youtu.be/Any-PDULIos
https://youtu.be/qGvnUmmFwGA
https://youtu.be/32H_g1XAQzgReplies: @Boo, @Jack D, @MEH 0910, @michael droy, @kaganovitch
Those shoot downs are fake propaganda footage produced by Hollywood special effects. Advanced Russian jets are immune to AA fire. Not a single Russian soldier has died in this war. If the Western lyingpress shows you weeping Russian widows, they are hired actors, probably transexual men in drag. Do not believe anything you do not see on RT.
They need it not in NATO. Mission accomplished.
Russia will annex those separatist statelets and withdraw from the rest of the Ukraine once the Ukraine clearly agrees to Finlandization. That can either happen with Zelensky or without him.
Russia was never going to accept a Ukraine that felt itself free to join NATO or whatever. Too bad the Ukrainians didn’t have the wit to realize that while we were perfectly happy to talk the talk, they were going to have to walk the walk.
I’m not sure what the Russians or Putin so desperately need in the Ukraine.
They need to prevent Ukraine from being incorporated into NATO.
As if he puts up impossible demands just to cook up a casus belli. Which in the end looks like he was indeed doing .
If he had said instead something about suffering of Russian people in every splinter Soviet "republic" he would have a much better point.
Agreed! This is the first time in my life I am excited about refugees coming into North America. I’ve been with several fine Ukrainian women in my day…
This is hilarious, thanks for posting! It can’t be real, can it? I think that the small blue dot north-center is Kyiv.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=UA&q=%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%B9%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%BE,%D0%A1%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8
“Ukraine Is George Floyd”
https://twitter.com/hashtag/UkraineisGeorgeFloyd?src=hashtag_click
“Russia Is Derek Chauvin”
https://twitter.com/hashtag/RussiaisDerekChauvin?src=hashtag_click
I chose to take a break from shit-posting, and BAM!, action. My sympathy lies with Russia, and I did believe that nothing was going to happen. I don’t mind being wrong on details, but I continue to see Team Biden and NATO as the evil empire, with Ukraine as (now well armed)stooges. Even with losses, Russia seems to have the upper hand. I would have preferred to see no war. The brrraap! AA seems to suggest that more than manpads got shipped to Ukraine. As promised it’s war by proxy, no tranny Western soldiers chipped a single glued-on nail I would guess. I chose which side I would support years ago, one lives with your choices. It’s all sad and glorious.
If things go well for Russia militarily, as they seem to be, then Putin will not threaten Nato. But if Russia gets into a sticky situation, then he will try to disengage by threatening Latvia. Given a miscalculation and actual hostilities in Latvia, it may lead to a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the far more advanced weapons of NATO forces, and Russia using one of their very many mongo battlefield/ tactical nukes, or threatening to do so. I expect in this kind of escalatory scenario, China will step in and play peacemaker and everyone will back off. Ukraine is finished as an independent country.
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/us-not-ready-peer-peer-fight-europe
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/russia-has-been-building-its-conventional-forces-all-along
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfL33MrIEj8
Bomb 🎶 bomb DONBASS
Bomb bomb bomb
Bomb bomb 🎶 DONBASS 🎶God bless President Putin. SLAVA!Replies: @The Wild Geese Howard
I believe this occurred due to a combination of the PPT, corporate buybacks, and smart money fleeing Europe looking for a safe haven.
The smart money also managed to rob retail put buyers, who seemed pretty incensed on the financial boards I read.
Ukrainians seem to be doing pretty well with the simple "spray and pray" technique. Those Russian jets are damned expensive to be losing that way.
And what’s with the crowding of the tanks, creating easy pickin's?!
So far, this is an astounding three-ring shitshow.
Those jets are EXPENSIVE!!
WHY?!!
https://youtu.be/VXHGCmkoik0
https://youtu.be/oxeTtfmsVGs
https://youtu.be/HYVLP8kzgVU
https://youtu.be/Any-PDULIos
https://youtu.be/qGvnUmmFwGA
https://youtu.be/32H_g1XAQzgReplies: @Boo, @Jack D, @MEH 0910, @michael droy, @kaganovitch
https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Arma%203%22&src=trend_click&vertical=trends
I am confused: Are you the real Jack D, or a negative image: Ivory Obelisk? Weren’t you just chastising Unz commenters for cheering the Ruskies. I am sure some Russians have died: If only by stupidity and carelessness. Happens in every army in every war.
I predict I will fall asleep on the couch again tonight.
The NatGas must flow.
Former Soviet military officer Andrei Martyanov is covering events at his blog:
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
Early reports are that the Russians are rolling with little resistance.
Pretty sure the Russian electronic warfare specialists are able to own the Ukro gear, which is very similar to what the Georgians surrendered in 2008, the bits they’ve been picking up in Syria since 2015, and I’m sure they’ve been able to purchase some of the pristine gear that was left behind in Afghanistan in 2021.
Oil, dammit, oil… It is already predicted that gas(we call it petrol) would jump by one Rand a litre next month in South Africa. I learned to drive in the 1990’s and there was no need to plan your journeys because fuel was cheap. The horror.
If one just replaced “Russian” with “Israeli”, we’d all assume you were saying this unironically.
Imagine if the Ukrainians had a Swiss-style militia with every adult having a Sig assault rifle and massive numbers of tandem explosive RPGs for use. They might have made Putin think twice.
https://cdni.rbth.com/rbthmedia/images/web/in-rbth/images/2015-06/big/26/TASS_630012_468.jpgReplies: @Mr. Anon, @PhysicistDave
And if Ukraine had Swiss-style neutrality, rather than trying to join NATO, Putin might have had no motive to invade.
Huffing and puffing. A lot of “what good IS NATO?” gas-bagging. Russia will keep eastern Ukraine. Dust will settle. Everyone will turn to important, crucial issues like which girl on “Bachelor” is knocked up and how Emmitt Till’s photo magically can sharpen razor blades.
I make enough mistakes trying to describe the past and present, let alone the future.
But here I go again. A year from now, no one will care.
Russia will seize the regions it wants, the ones with large Russian populations, and will install a pro-Russian leader for the rest of Ukraine.
Biden and his black minion Lloyd Austin can’t do anything about it. They are not real leaders. Austin was installed by the demand of defense companies to make them a buck, nothing more. Austin, in fact, fired a lot of the capable people when he took office. See the link:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/politics/lloyd-austin-pentagon-advisory-boards/index.html
The only combat role Lloyd Austin has ever had was Assistant Division Commander for Maneuver in Iraq, which is a piddling role like being an assistant to the offensive coach, if even that. Otherwise, he’s been a paper pusher his entire career. Biden’s a draft dodger. They’re both bozos. They tried to install their guys in Kazakhstan and failed. They couldn’t even handle a withdrawal in Afghanistan right.
Important points about Biden and Austin defense company connections:
1) Massive amounts of military equipment was lost in Afghanistan, deliberately, so it will have to be replaced.
2) Biden-Austin spent 753 billion for the Department of Defense in 2021. Biden-Austin want to increase this.
3) Biden’s Ukraine war hysteria had three goals. Selling a lot of arms and make defense companies rich, cover up his illegal dealings he and Hunter had in Ukraine (which may have been Biden’s primary concern all along and why he was so hysterical about the Russians taking Ukraine–he knew they’d expose him), and show he was actually a macho guy by whipping Russia and flexing his muscles for NATO.
But Biden’s already lost the conflict. The Russians will likely get their hands on the paperwork showing Biden’s Ukraine corruption pretty soon, if they don’t already have it. The first is still possible by funding an insurgency in captured Ukraine which will churn a lot of arms through the pipeline.
I am convinced that Biden and Austin have been bribed with a billion dollars each by defense companies to go gung-ho on making those companies money. All of the above steps are aimed at doing that.
Austin used to work for Raytheon, and we know from Hunter Biden’s dealings that his father is extremely corrupt. I have no doubt the main reason Austin fired all those people was so no important person would catch him taking bribes and blow the whistle on him. Austin wanted to make sure no one would subject him to oversight and figure out what he and Biden were up to.
Joe is almost 80. He knows he isn’t going to live long enough to be prosecuted for corruption, so he’s stuffing his pockets as fast as he can.
I think your whole Latvia scenario is very unlikely regardless of the situation at large. But even if such a scenario were to materialize-what makes you think that Russia would suffer a catastrophic defeat at the hand of NATO/US conventional forces?
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/us-not-ready-peer-peer-fight-europe
https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/russia-has-been-building-its-conventional-forces-all-along
- dismantle all Ukrainian government with the excuse of denazification and fight against corruption while quite quickly
- organizing a referendum by Ukrainian regions for sovereignty with the aim of landing one chunk to Poland, one chunk for Germany, one as an international non-Anglo zone and one for meReplies: @Almost Missouri, @Donald A Thomson
For Western consumption, that could be translated as “creating a safe space and ending systemic racism”.
The people who swallow that jive from the MSM would have to swallow it again from the Russians or else lapse into hilariously self-contradictory ACKSHUALLYs.
My money is on Russia.
Not sure what’s going to happen in Ukraine, but on this thread there will be at least 35 totally objective Jack D posts.
Also one Corvirus “Mr. Sailer, have you NOTICED blah blah” post.
Agree: Johann Ricke
Didn’t read the thread. Sorry if you already have this:
http://thesaker.is/a-few-disjointed-thoughts-about-the-current-military-situation/
By the end of Ukraine debacle the Unz Review will be completely exposed and compromised as Putin’s propaganda site and Sailer will evacuate to some mom-and-apple-pie-and-no-Ruskies-in-the-closet racialist site.
I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but it seems clear to me that Putin is lashing out after 5 years of relentless abuse from the US & UK. Words have consequences, folks. Oh but Dems are all like “we never wanted war, where did you get THAT idea?”
My hunch is the reason Putin didn’t pull this with Trump in office is that Trump respected Putin, and asked him nicely to lay off Ukraine. Dems frame this as Trump being in Putin’s pocket, and of course they would. I see it as Trump using his office and using diplomacy to save lives. Democrat insults get people killed.
Trump was actually a major problem. Obama (and i hate Obama) set up the coup but didn't arm Azov. Arming Azov was a Trump thing. That meant their constant shelling of Donbas became more and more of an issue.
Also very guilty is France/Germany for completely failing to put pressure on Ukraine to fulfill its Minsk 1&2 agreements.
What people forget is that both Minsk 1 & 2 came about because the Kiev military advanced too far into Donbas where they were trapped by the Separatists. Putin had to intervene - not as often claimed to save the separatist with troops (there is no evidence of Russian troops in Ukraine before today).
Putin intervened to save the Kiev troops who would have been slaughtered wholesale without the rushed Minsk agreements.
Nevertheless the idiots still welched on Minsk (and Russia got sanctioned for not fulfilling its Minsk commitments - there are no Russian commitments in Minsk).
It depends how the war goes. Right now Russia seems to be having a harder time than they’d have thought but it’s only been a day. Eventually they will destroy the core modern Ukrainian military in the East and be left with a huge insurgency to fight even in those areas with majority ethnic or Russian speaking populations, many are either Ukrainian speaking or Russophone ethnic Ukrainians. Casualties will be pretty heavy.
Assuming the Russians can hold on they could go all the way. Russia can’t leave with concessions or replacement of Ukrainian government. Ukraine can’t back down, the US never had any intention of negotiating and just wanted total supplication. So Russia will just continue and occupy the Russian areas and possibly do a clean sweep of Ukrainian formal army into the Western areas before falling back as occupation in those areas would be untenable and they won’t be able to get concessions in exchange for retreat. Russia won’t be able to trade in their gains for Ukrainian neutrality or allyship (That ship sailed when they invaded, they’d need to occupy to force an ally government), they’ll just take the Eastern half.
The Eastern half (And I do mean half, right up to the river and that will be the new border) and Russian speaking areas get taken by Russia at greater cost than they anticipated. They basically get incorporated into Russia. This also comes at great human cost as many millions are ethnically displaced and cleansed in addition to those who die in the war. Many of these will make spurious asylum claims or inexplicably not leave their new European homes even when the war is over. They will further the ethnic displacement of natives in Western Europe and further ‘nation of immigrants’ narratives. Conservatives will think this is okay because they’re white and work for cheap.
Once the shock wears off the situation becomes more stable as a near fully ethnically Ukrainian state is more stable anyway, the pain will never go away with those ethnically cleansed.
But it remains to be seen how much things can go back to normal afterward or if this is the prelude to a Russian/Chinese parallel order with Russia now completely banished from the Western system.
But John Mearsheimer thought Russia will just try to ‘break’ Ukraine rather than occupy any part of it long term. But that seems hard now they’ve invaded and the ethnic Russians can’t be left behind after what has been done. No-one seems willing or able to walk back from the situation now. The neocons are happy now they have a pretext to try to neutralise Russia and continue pushing it so the US has no reason to budge on anything. Ukraine has been invaded and so can’t either. Russia is now knee deep steppland and can’t retreat since it’s taken all the downside with the West now banishing it from everything and Putin can’t leave the ethnic Russians behind now that hostilities have been intensified from their invasion. They may as well just take the territory.
If you want a good twitter feed to follow on the war I suggest this one.
Tweets by RALee85
In any event, one sure fire prediction is that before, during and after this conflict Russia (and China) will continue to enjoy good relations with Israel. Something, of course, they have in common with the United States.
Wall Street Journal: The government is so fucked up, it’s fucking up its ability to fuck things up.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-threatens-to-erode-impact-of-1-trillion-infrastructure-law
Nothing that wasn’t going to happen eventually, I suppose, after Syria, Crimea, etc. I hoped this was all a mutual propaganda war. I was wrong. Mea culpa.
Question is: will our elites succeed in getting public anger at rising energy prices redirected at Putin rather than policies stemming from their Gaia cult? I’m normally an Occam’s razor kind of dude, but I’m starting to wonder if they truly think this might work.
The US populace is so innumerate, so woefully uninformed about energy issues, and so inundated with ecopropaganda from the watermelon death cult that they could fall for it.
Nothing much will happen. The Russians will deploy “Peace Keepers” to Donbass to discourage the Ukrainian forces from doing something stupid and they are likely to get the message.
Note that there is no indication that the US – and therefore the totally dependent Ukrainian leadership – really seriously wants Donbass given back to Ukraine. It actually was Russia that for years demanded the implementation of the Minsk accords, which stipulated a reintegration of the Donbass back into Ukraine (with some autonomy rights), with the Ukrainians and their Western backers stalling. I remember some Neocon gloatingly writing at the time that with most of the Russian population in the breakaway areas, pro-Russian political forces would be severely weakened. So, while Russia may have gotten the Crimea and Donbass the US had now firm control over the great majority of the country – a good bargain.
The thing I find strange and distressing about this situation is that I have no idea which source of news I can trust to give a reasonably objective account of what’s going on.
I can’t trust the NY Times, God knows, or any of the mainstream press. Fox News is also likely to be biased and selective.
Forget about prediction–I’d like to know what’s already happened. So who can I go for basic, unselected, and comprehensive facts?
Seriously, is this a massive Russian invasion or something else? How many troops have entered, and where?
Investigative journalist Charles Johnson, whose biggest scoop was uncovering the Rolling Stone UVa gang rape hoax and got his Joe Rogan appearance erased by spotify (you can still see it on archive .org) published an hilarious story about Eric Weinstein, who he accuses of being a Mossad agent.
https://charlesjohnson.substack.com/p/fraud-or-spy-who-does-eric-weinstein?r=16kjt&utm_source=url
Follow all that around and it probably will keep you occupied for an hour any way.
There are reports that hundreds or maybe thousands
of Americans living in Ukraine are currently trying to escape to Poland.
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/the-crisis-in-ukraine-is-not-about-ukraine-its-about-germany/#comment-5193417
Recap:
US rout from Afghanistan marked the terminal failure of the Bush attempt to incorporate Asia into the US world trade system (“globalism”). The US immediately activated AUKUS, even at the cost of seriously worsening relations with France (which recalled its ambassador to the US for the first time in history.
The US tried to save face in the Ukraine affair, and has again failed. This makes the US retreat from Asia (the entire continent) impossible to ignore by NATO countries.
Accordingly, NATO as an effective alliance is now over, and the NATO countries in Europe (esp. Germany) will drift into an alliance with the Russian Federation, forming a counterbalance to the Chinese sphere of influence.
The associated reorganization of the US world trade system will have severe results on the entire world (https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/record-high-global-food-prices-could-be-imminent-edible-oil-soars, quote from Goldman Sachs: “we are out of everything, I don’t care if its oil, gas, coal, copper, aluminum, you name it we’re out of it.”), most severely in sub-Saharan Africa.
As a result, political contests in the US will intensify considerably, the US political economy will most likely see inability to subsidize key constituencies (e.g. urban areas, aerospace, possibly Social Security) and the US Dollar may lose its international reserve currency status. The US Navy will go through hard times, but will be maintained as essential to the now obligatory US Oceanic strategy.
And that’s it. Those of you who wanted the US to reorganize, you’re going to get your wish, except that nobody can control exactly how the US will reorganize. Paraphrase from Genghis Kahn when he declared war on Persia (which he then destroyed): “We have declared war, and nobody under God’s blue heaven knows who will win”.
You can be fairly sure of the above, however. Remember, “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.” Damon Runyon (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/04/race-swift/), and place your bets accordingly.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-ukraine-fits-global-jigsaw
Remember LiveLeak? Something about your user name makes me ask.
Maria, dumping Zukerman, in Philip Roth’s “The Counterlife”: “Why the obsession with irresolvable conflict?…Dissension and contentiousness put a spring in your heel.”
The above will be the operative mindset; the joy of being oppositional. Added Dem bonuses: Distraction from domestic woes, increased military spending, and possibly even Korematsu-style emergency powers. A 10% chance of escalation into nuclear insanity. Too bad. I have played chess against hundreds of Russians, and their predilection is for what chess players call “quiet moves.” I extrapolate this to the Russian leaders. They were forced to bring their quiet moves to an end.
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/sean-penn-ukraine-documentary-russia-invasion-1235189570/
Ukrainians seem to be doing pretty well with the simple "spray and pray" technique. Those Russian jets are damned expensive to be losing that way.
And what’s with the crowding of the tanks, creating easy pickin's?!
So far, this is an astounding three-ring shitshow.
Those jets are EXPENSIVE!!
WHY?!!
https://youtu.be/VXHGCmkoik0
https://youtu.be/oxeTtfmsVGs
https://youtu.be/HYVLP8kzgVU
https://youtu.be/Any-PDULIos
https://youtu.be/qGvnUmmFwGA
https://youtu.be/32H_g1XAQzgReplies: @Boo, @Jack D, @MEH 0910, @michael droy, @kaganovitch
Russia leaves within 15 days. Ukraine is defanged of the nazi Azov regiment and all those UK/US weapons are destroyed.
Within 6 months a dozen Nazis go on trial in Moscow and their filthy deeds are revealed to 3/4 of the world. Nobody in US or UK hears about it.
Ukraine gets to vote a new President in, who will not know what to do without the US ambassador telling him what to do. He’ll take advice from Russia. Population drops from 35m to 25m (44m in 2014)
Under cover of the distraction, US withdraws the missiles, including the nukes from the Delesevu, Romania, missile centre. In other words does what Putin asked in the first place but presents this as a magnanimous peace package with Russia (which is all Russia asked for in the first place).
Iraq kicks US out of Iraq. Syria kicks US out of Syria and sues for $5bn for theft of oil.
Nike apologises for offending China over Ujghur comments.
The people of Okinawa protest again over the presence of US troops.
Chagos is returned to the Chagossians .
Zelensky ends up in Israel in a year.
Ukraine partitioned.
USN and RN shell Sevastopol within a month as a retaliation.
Oh wow. Now Latvia is going to defeat Russia. You live in Riga?
Putin is, wisely, playing his cards close to his chest. He could, for example, take all of the Ukraine and then release the bits that he never wanted in the first place. Or he could just take the bits. Or he could perform an Iraq-style “police action,” except not incompetently.*
*(Technically America never did anything incompetently in Iraq, the domestic point was embezzlement and embezzlement was achieved. The other point was Saudi Arabia vs. Iran.)
However this all depends on how America responds. If she doesn’t do anything it signals you’re allowed to just bite off bits of her Empire now, which is certainly not what she wants. Definitely going to happen more than once if it happens once.
On the other hand, Biden &c are all massive liars. That they say there’s going to be a Massachusetts military response is evidence against the proposition. If they were intending to respond they would have had much more low-key things to say about it. It’s clear they want to just drop the issue.
Of course Biden has no real power. He is not making the decisions. However, in this case his attitude comes from the top. They’re of one mind on this issue. Well, one heart, anyway. Biden’s not got much in the way of mind left.
However, something (such as embarrassment) may force them to respond. Not enough information is available to sufficiently list all the things that might force them to respond. In these cases you kind of have to back-form what happened (or do a whole ton of research it’s clear nobody has done) after you see what the actual decision was.
(Basically you see how you could have known, so you can realize that not finding out was indeed the correct answer because you own neither the country nor the empire, nor their militaries, so this is all epistemic-toy theories in practical terms. Yes you could find out no it’s not even remotely worth the price.)
Even they do respond, it may be a distinctly symbolic gesture, like the time Trump fired a bunch of dud tomahawks at an empty Syrian airfield. “Oh noes we couldn’t save the Ukraine, we’re so sorrrrrry.”
Usually how this works is there’s a bunch of public posturing, but the point is merely to set the stage for a private phone call through back channels. Absent a tap on that line you’re going to be in the dark until after the fact. At some point Putin gets a phone call from Biden’s boss, and they hash out a compromise where they both save public face but also the Ukraine stops hosting terrorist incursion into Putin’s territory. It’s a lot easier not to panic and hit the Big Red Button if you know in advance what Putin is doing and then he does it. And vice-versa.
There’s some chess involved. The negotiation is about finding a plan where both sides would find it difficult and/or costly to betray the other. As a stupid example, let’s say there’s a big ol’ vault of gold in Ukraine’s capital. If Putin proposes sending his disciplinary military incursion within a day’s strike of the vault, then his opponent vetoes that plan. If both are real countries, then a treachery-resistant plan exists which satisfies both parties.
Alternatively Biden’s boss is too scared of being outed and never makes the call, and Putin just has to guess. He obviously can’t allow the Ukraine to join NATO and openly put American bases there, especially since they’re already killing his little mans. For the same reason America can’t have bits of her Empire bitten off, Putin can’t let his borders get violated like that. If he allows it, it’s a slow guaranteed death. Better the risk of surviving a nuclear counter-strike than guaranteed destruction, no matter how slow.
What is the minimum necessary trespass to counter this aggression? Time to fuck around and find out, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
—
Bonus round: it is sufficiently probable that none of America’s nukes still work. They could all be duds by now for so many reasons that it’s guaranteed that one reason applies. If any of them still work it’s only by luck, the question is how much luck is required. It is likewise probable that some but not all of Putin’s nukes don’t work. Very much a midget fight on that front. The question is not whether they will embarrass themselves, but how badly.
One reason America may not do anything overt is that nobody wants to find out if America’s troops can beat up Putin’s. Putin’s actually want to win; America’s want to be the girliest girl who ever held a gun (delicately, by the very tip of her fingers). However, the public perception is that America’s army is the finest in the world, so ironically it’s like beating up a woman: if America wins nobody gives her credit, and if she loses it’s socially catastrophic.
If you look at the conflicts that America has actually won in the past 30 years, it is rather a short list. Worse, America has shown time and again that it rarely retains what it learns when it goes to war and is forced to learn the same lessons time and again at great cost in blood and treasure.
There is little doubt that the Americans fought bravely in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan also seems to have confirmed what many people around the world may hitherto have only suspected: if you want to prevail over the Americans, all you have to do is outwait them, not outfight them.
Regardless of how clever Putin is or is not, he strikes me as being a very patient man who is willing to wait to get what he wants. The Americans have many things going for them, but taking the long view in world affairs does not strike me as one of them.
I do not doubt that this war is a godsend for
the man who has taken the title role of "Weekend at Bernie's" and made it his ownMr. Biden, but I also cannot help but think that, unless he is very careful indeed, America stands a strong chance of being given another bloody nose.https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1496934615142989824Replies: @Wokechoke, @Mike Tre
What on Earth…
Moreover, the optics are that there’s probably an order or two or even three more losses on the ukrops side. It doesn’t make sense to gloat so much…
My hunch is the reason Putin didn't pull this with Trump in office is that Trump respected Putin, and asked him nicely to lay off Ukraine. Dems frame this as Trump being in Putin's pocket, and of course they would. I see it as Trump using his office and using diplomacy to save lives. Democrat insults get people killed.Replies: @michael droy
Yes abuse from UK/US is a lot of it.
Trump was actually a major problem. Obama (and i hate Obama) set up the coup but didn’t arm Azov. Arming Azov was a Trump thing. That meant their constant shelling of Donbas became more and more of an issue.
Also very guilty is France/Germany for completely failing to put pressure on Ukraine to fulfill its Minsk 1&2 agreements.
What people forget is that both Minsk 1 & 2 came about because the Kiev military advanced too far into Donbas where they were trapped by the Separatists. Putin had to intervene – not as often claimed to save the separatist with troops (there is no evidence of Russian troops in Ukraine before today).
Putin intervened to save the Kiev troops who would have been slaughtered wholesale without the rushed Minsk agreements.
Nevertheless the idiots still welched on Minsk (and Russia got sanctioned for not fulfilling its Minsk commitments – there are no Russian commitments in Minsk).
I think there’s more than a chance this will work.
The US populace is so innumerate, so woefully uninformed about energy issues, and so inundated with ecopropaganda from the watermelon death cult that they could fall for it.
I forgot it’s not painfully obvious to everyone: since America runs on responsibility laundering, even if Putin tells Biden’s boss the plan for Ukraine, the boss can’t tell anyone else without revealing he’s the boss. Not in any kind of reasonable timescale – he has to get it filtered through the gossip network by so-called accident.
This may make the back-channel phone call pointless in this case. I don’t know if Putin knows or has remembered that America functions without authority on short time scales.
You can announce your plan like at least eight months in advance and then talk about it and have time for stuff to hash out properly, but of course military reality rewards swift and decisive action. You don’t give your opponent time to do two rounds of war games against your plan, you just do it. Nike that shit.
Of course Biden’s boss could heroically sacrifice his career to zero out the probability of nuclear war, but come on, it’s America. There are no heroes here. Plus are nukes really that dangerous? At most half of them will even go off, and it’s not like nuclear winter wasn’t pure propaganda. Okay DC will probably have a bad time but aside from that it will have a death toll lower than ncov, most likely. (And yes that’s really saying something. If they were serious about the virus they would have closed the ports to infectious traffic. They didn’t.)
Biden’s boss is, say, 70% likely to know better than to live in DC, so…
Biden and his black minion Lloyd Austin can't do anything about it. They are not real leaders. Austin was installed by the demand of defense companies to make them a buck, nothing more. Austin, in fact, fired a lot of the capable people when he took office. See the link:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/politics/lloyd-austin-pentagon-advisory-boards/index.html
The only combat role Lloyd Austin has ever had was Assistant Division Commander for Maneuver in Iraq, which is a piddling role like being an assistant to the offensive coach, if even that. Otherwise, he's been a paper pusher his entire career. Biden's a draft dodger. They're both bozos. They tried to install their guys in Kazakhstan and failed. They couldn't even handle a withdrawal in Afghanistan right.
Important points about Biden and Austin defense company connections:
1) Massive amounts of military equipment was lost in Afghanistan, deliberately, so it will have to be replaced.
2) Biden-Austin spent 753 billion for the Department of Defense in 2021. Biden-Austin want to increase this.
3) Biden's Ukraine war hysteria had three goals. Selling a lot of arms and make defense companies rich, cover up his illegal dealings he and Hunter had in Ukraine (which may have been Biden's primary concern all along and why he was so hysterical about the Russians taking Ukraine--he knew they'd expose him), and show he was actually a macho guy by whipping Russia and flexing his muscles for NATO.
But Biden's already lost the conflict. The Russians will likely get their hands on the paperwork showing Biden's Ukraine corruption pretty soon, if they don't already have it. The first is still possible by funding an insurgency in captured Ukraine which will churn a lot of arms through the pipeline.
I am convinced that Biden and Austin have been bribed with a billion dollars each by defense companies to go gung-ho on making those companies money. All of the above steps are aimed at doing that.
Austin used to work for Raytheon, and we know from Hunter Biden's dealings that his father is extremely corrupt. I have no doubt the main reason Austin fired all those people was so no important person would catch him taking bribes and blow the whistle on him. Austin wanted to make sure no one would subject him to oversight and figure out what he and Biden were up to.
Joe is almost 80. He knows he isn't going to live long enough to be prosecuted for corruption, so he's stuffing his pockets as fast as he can.Replies: @Wokechoke
I’m expecting some vaults to be opened. Archives and files that will be very damaging.
I found out what is actually happening in Ukraine:
https://gab.com/M2Madness/posts/107855523997242623
I recommend his Twitter feed as a starting point. https://twitter.com/PeterZeihanReplies: @ic1000, @Emil Nikola Richard
Peter Zeihan’s estimate of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces as of 2pm EST.
It is real. Here is the google trends link:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=UA&q=%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%B9%20%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%BE,%D0%A1%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B8
Ten years from now, the Ukraine will be independent from Russia within roughly its current borders but will not be a member of the EU. The EU will still exist but will still not be a country called Europe with its capital at Brussels and not have a number which Kissinger can call. Why?
The EU integrationists who light-heartedly offered Ukraine a glidepath to membership anticipated a long, slow process of development grants, trade deals with strings, access to security databases, free movement of people and a common currency which would result in a Ukraine de facto or de jure with its borders merged in the EU’s Common External Frontier before anyone noticed. Any resistance to the inevitable could easily be neutralised by the occasional colour revolution like those of 2004 and 2014. This is not now going to happen.
The most integrationist government of any EU state, the new government of Germany, has so far been the most lukewarm about so much as the threat of military assistance to Ukraine. It is composed of Social Democrats and Greens who never wanted to reunite Germany in the first place, let alone win the Cold War. One of its first acts was to threaten Poland about its proposed building of nuclear power to meet EU emissions targets. Poland, on the other hand, sympathises with the Ukraine for understandable reasons, and rather likes the idea of NATO reminding President Putin that the world order is really sustained by the balance of nuclear terror.
Poland: NATO. Si vis pacem para bellum. Germany: EU. Si non vis bellum para pacem. These two conceptions of what is at stake in Ukraine cannot be consistently carried through.
Will Ukrainian women join combat in large numbers or will this be more proof there are no feminists in an emergency?
I recommend his Twitter feed as a starting point. https://twitter.com/PeterZeihanReplies: @ic1000, @Emil Nikola Richard
Peter Zeihan is a consultant / marketer / political analyst paid by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. If you want facts or data go elsewhere.
The media has been egging this on for weeks. As China succinctly put, both Russia and Ukraine were provoked.
Putin will take out all the military targets, then retreats. He has no intention of occupying Ukraine. He just doesn’t want covert US military bases right at his doorstep, from whence they can launch strikes that easily reach Russia. Once those bases are taken out, he will retreat and negotiate a peace treaty, take a sanction hit for a specified time. As of now the rise in oil price easily offsets whatever cost he incurs for this excursion.
But the deep state (which is 90% about foreign policy – how best to protect Israel’s interest) is also happy because they are using Ukraine and Taiwan to fight proxy wars to weaken Russia and China. It’s a win-win.
There’s an interesting book about the Russian-Chechen War- “Fangs of the Lone Wolf: Chechen Tactics in the Russian-Chechen War 1994-2009”
Reading it the ineptitude of the Russian Military seemed outstanding. Eventually the Russians triumphed over a tiny force but it seemed hard to believe the U.S.S.R ever posed a serious offensive threat to Western powers.
I think American National Guard Units would have cleaned up and from people I know who have served in the National Guard a lot of those outfits are pretty fouled up. It’s as if Colorado broke into revolt against the US and it took a decade to put them down.
Was it one or two, I forgot.
Chechens are no doughboys, they are sort of primitive Dorsai . Anyone will be given hard time by them.
But in conventional warfare it has been an embarrassment since at least World War I. The Germans made such a mockery of them in the Great War that they overthrew the czar, and adopted an even more dumbfuck political arrangement than the one they had. In WW2 they managed to beat back Hitler - after first foolishly becoming his ally - but only with much Western assistance and while losing 20 million men in the process. They made fools of themselves in Afghanistan (though so did we) and Chechnya, as well. Of course, they were fools for even trying to conquer Afghanistan and hold on to Chechnya - but those failures were political, not military.Replies: @J.Ross, @David Davenport, @Dacian Julien Soros
https://www.dailywire.com/news/british-commandos-dominated-american-soldiers-in-combat-training-exercise-forced-them-to-surrender-report
As the Crapification of America continues apace, I don't see conventional forces involved nearly as much the modern warfare. It'll be special forces and drones all the way.
There is no news that isn’t propaganda. This is war. Real humans getting snuffed. If you do not want to pollute your mind with garbage tune into a different channel for at least a couple weeks.
Investigative journalist Charles Johnson, whose biggest scoop was uncovering the Rolling Stone UVa gang rape hoax and got his Joe Rogan appearance erased by spotify (you can still see it on archive .org) published an hilarious story about Eric Weinstein, who he accuses of being a Mossad agent.
https://charlesjohnson.substack.com/p/fraud-or-spy-who-does-eric-weinstein?r=16kjt&utm_source=url
Follow all that around and it probably will keep you occupied for an hour any way.
Because apparently they've already shot down at least 1 Russian helicopter. Putin may be laughing but I'll bet that there are going to be some Russian wives and mothers who are going to be crying.Replies: @Old Prude, @AnotherDad, @Paperback Writer
There always are.
That’s what most wars are. Some “leader”–one one side or another, often both sides–aggrandizing himself by sacrificing a bunch of young men, and bringing heartbreak and sorrow to their fathers and mothers, wives and children.
And this one was ridiculously easy to avoid with a bit of “realism” diplomacy.
At this point, I would just like my government to lie to me competently.
I stand in awe of Putin. He is one of Russia’s greatest czars.
So, when are you going to reveal the name of Biden’s boss?
If I, some random yahoo, knew the name, don't you think his rivals, the experts in the field, would know his name years beforehand? If they know who to stage a coup against, then it's already over. By the time I learn the name (tanks aside), it's way too late and the torch has already passed.
Even then I would be playing with fire. Cornered men do desperate things, and nobody is completely safe from assassination. Best to just let him retire peacefully.
That and spite. Never underestimate spite.
Trump couldn't even put a wall up. Biden's job is to do even less than that, but take the blame. POTUS is not a position of authority.
Russia recognizing a couple of East Ukranian states that are overwhelmingly ethnically Russian and providing them with security is none of our business either.
Anthony Blinken, go pound sand.Replies: @kaganovitch
When we invaded Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, or economically ruined Venezuela it was none of Russia’s business
Nah, Venezuela did that all by themselves.
Absolutely nothing–nothing— of any significance.
For both Russia and Ukraine and the West–and China and India the East–“winning” will consist of maintaining relatively coherent one-peoplish nations and finding a way to reach eugenic fertility to maintain them.
The West, under minoritarian ideology, with civilizationally incompatible foreigners streaming in–and now with mandatory
blackBlack worship!–is utterly failing this. But Russia and the East are failing the eugenic fertility issue right now as well.There is a population-genetic argument that people who have genes predisposing them to want to have kids will tend to spread those genes and in a few generations we will therefore end up with a pro-natalist population.
This did not happen before the Pill became widespread because, back then, people who did not much want kids but did want sex still ended up with kids.
The flip side of this is that people too stupid to reliably use the Pill will also tend to pass their genes on.
Creating a eugenic fertility differential is the name of the game. The future belongs to whoever pulls it off.
(To the anti-eugenics nitwits out there (ie 99.999% of people, for now): taking into account all the various factors that influence it, there is no possibility of a "neutral" policy setting with respect to fertility. Every set of policies directly or indirectly incentivizes either eugenic or dysgenic breeding patterns; in this sense, we are "playing God" no matter what we do, so we may as well opt for something better over something worse.)
“And now you know the rest of the story.”
“Dr. Fauci”
I’m hoping the Russians will seize and destroy the bio-weapons labs dotted across western Ukraine. The labs that are essentially under NATO management but operate under private sector cover.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/
Early reports are that the Russians are rolling with little resistance.
Pretty sure the Russian electronic warfare specialists are able to own the Ukro gear, which is very similar to what the Georgians surrendered in 2008, the bits they've been picking up in Syria since 2015, and I'm sure they've been able to purchase some of the pristine gear that was left behind in Afghanistan in 2021.Replies: @Anonymous
Perplexingly, the Russians have so far not employed their advanced electronic warfare (EW). Speculation is they don’t want to disrupt civilian life (internet, tv, phones). Equally perplexing is the Russian military has only used a fraction of its forces. You have lots of Chechen SSO chomping at the bit being made to cool their heels outside of Rostov-on-Don set to go to Mariupol area. Again, speculation is they are mapping points of resistance to go in, isolate, and liquidate Ukrainian assets. The Russian military also did not target Ukrainian military personnel but just infrastructure. They left Ukrainian unmolested (did not hit barracks, etc.). For some reason (wink) they’ve been content to engage in light firefights and skirmishes.
My prediction: we will see major EW and the real Blitzkrieg. In two weeks you will find video of Chechen SSO slicing off the heads of Azov Battalion in abandoned buildings in Mariupol.
Ukrainians seem to be doing pretty well with the simple "spray and pray" technique. Those Russian jets are damned expensive to be losing that way.
And what’s with the crowding of the tanks, creating easy pickin's?!
So far, this is an astounding three-ring shitshow.
Those jets are EXPENSIVE!!
WHY?!!
https://youtu.be/VXHGCmkoik0
https://youtu.be/oxeTtfmsVGs
https://youtu.be/HYVLP8kzgVU
https://youtu.be/Any-PDULIos
https://youtu.be/qGvnUmmFwGA
https://youtu.be/32H_g1XAQzgReplies: @Boo, @Jack D, @MEH 0910, @michael droy, @kaganovitch
That’s a picture of a crashed four engine aircraft. No Russian fighter has 4 engines. Nor does it look anything like any Russian fighter profile.
He said this six years ago.
As to the future, no clue. I think Europe is destabilized. All of it, not just Ukraine.
It appears the Russians will secure power stations, water supplies, transportation networks (airports, highways, railroads) I believe they will avoid urban warfare as much as possible. In the beginning they will keep the power on but without capitulation from Ukrainian leaders they will start black outs. They will encourage Ukrainian refugees as they will become the west’s problem.
It would be interesting to observe refugee border crossing and count draft age men.
I think they’ve improved tremendously since then.
Because apparently they've already shot down at least 1 Russian helicopter. Putin may be laughing but I'll bet that there are going to be some Russian wives and mothers who are going to be crying.Replies: @Old Prude, @AnotherDad, @Paperback Writer
Here at 9:04 you say:
and later at 09:43
Are there two Jack D’s? Are you someone’s sock puppet?
Note to self: be sure to take out all cash from bank, garage full of firewood, candles, packs of playing cards, prepper food cans, what am I missing?
Firearms.
- dismantle all Ukrainian government with the excuse of denazification and fight against corruption while quite quickly
- organizing a referendum by Ukrainian regions for sovereignty with the aim of landing one chunk to Poland, one chunk for Germany, one as an international non-Anglo zone and one for meReplies: @Almost Missouri, @Donald A Thomson
A substantial number of Ukrainians are Ukrainian nationalists. Even Western Ukrainians may be so disgusted with Zelensky that they’d accept a temporary Russian domination but that’s not a gamble it would be wise to take. Allowing a Ukrainian Ukraine for a third of Ukraine would leave two thirds of Ukraine with a tolerant majority that would accept democracy. That would leave Hungary to complain about Ukrainian nationalists’ treatment of the Hungarian minority in Western Ukraine but crushing Ukrainian nationalists would be worse. In a small country where they would be a large majority, even they would accept democracy and that country could accept migrants who couldn’t accept minority status in the rest of the country. Most Russians and Ukrainians get along fine but allowance should be made for those who don’t. Feelings of national identity are emotional; they don’t make sense and they don’t have to. [email protected]
Reading it the ineptitude of the Russian Military seemed outstanding. Eventually the Russians triumphed over a tiny force but it seemed hard to believe the U.S.S.R ever posed a serious offensive threat to Western powers.
I think American National Guard Units would have cleaned up and from people I know who have served in the National Guard a lot of those outfits are pretty fouled up. It's as if Colorado broke into revolt against the US and it took a decade to put them down.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum, @Wilkey, @Wilkey, @Brutusale, @Dacian Julien Soros
How many chechens it takes to make for a full police lockdown of say , entire city of Boston?
Was it one or two, I forgot.
Chechens are no doughboys, they are sort of primitive Dorsai . Anyone will be given hard time by them.
Race against gender, or just sheer numbers?
Your irony detector is obviously broken beyond repair. If you want it working again, for a small commission, I can recommend a respected professional who can work miracles with implants.
Biden’s boss is a politburo of the clueless. Ron Klain, Jill Biden – oops, DR. Jill Biden – Jen Psaki, Antony Blinken, whoever else wanders by the fake Oval Office. And behind them all, the Lightbringer.
I forget to include the tag .
If that map has any non-bogus data behind it (which I doubt), it is only because the Ukrainians in the East are not bothering with the internet when it comes to scratching their itches:
Weird how reality is almost the opposite of what your map is “projecting”, and therein lies a tale.
https://twitter.com/NATO/status/1366355680681209859?s=20&t=zy8nzwLbxEGW6S4cBKTY0QReplies: @Moses
Nato has outlived its usefulness. Far more liability than asset to American security.
I never understood how admitting pipsqueak countries like Baltics or Poland improves American security. Sure, admission makes the Baltics more “secure”. But how does extending security guarantees to Russia’s neighbors make Americans or American territory more secure?
It doesn’t. Just increases risk.
I’m honestly puzzled by it. Anyone have ideas how this happened? Seems like pointless megalomania on the part of American leaders.
If you click on the YouTube link that shows the crashed 4 engine jet as a still, it takes you to a video of what appears to be a Russian helicopter.
As we say in Yiddish ‘ah bittere gelechter’ =It’s a matter for bitter laughter.
7. Biden will reach new depths of pathetic incompetence.
C’mon Man… that one isn’t a prediction. It’s guaranteed.
What tag? What are you talking about? You said one thing at 9:04 and the opposite at 9:43.
Ukrainians will adapt self driving car technology to deliver suicide bombs without the suicide.
I don’t think I will enjoy the widespread use of this idea.
The survivors of the current Ukrainian “deep state” will ask the Biden family for a refund of all the money they paid them…
Reading it the ineptitude of the Russian Military seemed outstanding. Eventually the Russians triumphed over a tiny force but it seemed hard to believe the U.S.S.R ever posed a serious offensive threat to Western powers.
I think American National Guard Units would have cleaned up and from people I know who have served in the National Guard a lot of those outfits are pretty fouled up. It's as if Colorado broke into revolt against the US and it took a decade to put them down.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum, @Wilkey, @Wilkey, @Brutusale, @Dacian Julien Soros
Russia is intimidating because of its size, its weather, its complete lack of morals and – since the late 40s – its nukes. It’s also screwed up enough that it might eventually produce a leader crazy enough to use them. And Putin might be just the one.
But in conventional warfare it has been an embarrassment since at least World War I. The Germans made such a mockery of them in the Great War that they overthrew the czar, and adopted an even more dumbfuck political arrangement than the one they had. In WW2 they managed to beat back Hitler – after first foolishly becoming his ally – but only with much Western assistance and while losing 20 million men in the process. They made fools of themselves in Afghanistan (though so did we) and Chechnya, as well. Of course, they were fools for even trying to conquer Afghanistan and hold on to Chechnya – but those failures were political, not military.
Yes, the Red Army did defeat your beloved Herrenvolk, no matter how you try to spin or deny that fact.
https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1496934615142989824Replies: @Wokechoke, @Mike Tre
In about three days he’ll find the concentration camps.
Electricity goes out in White House.
Reading it the ineptitude of the Russian Military seemed outstanding. Eventually the Russians triumphed over a tiny force but it seemed hard to believe the U.S.S.R ever posed a serious offensive threat to Western powers.
I think American National Guard Units would have cleaned up and from people I know who have served in the National Guard a lot of those outfits are pretty fouled up. It's as if Colorado broke into revolt against the US and it took a decade to put them down.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum, @Wilkey, @Wilkey, @Brutusale, @Dacian Julien Soros
Well, we all saw how feisty those Colorado kids could be in “Red Dawn.” Colorado kids in the 80s, at least, before they all started smoking pot.
But in conventional warfare it has been an embarrassment since at least World War I. The Germans made such a mockery of them in the Great War that they overthrew the czar, and adopted an even more dumbfuck political arrangement than the one they had. In WW2 they managed to beat back Hitler - after first foolishly becoming his ally - but only with much Western assistance and while losing 20 million men in the process. They made fools of themselves in Afghanistan (though so did we) and Chechnya, as well. Of course, they were fools for even trying to conquer Afghanistan and hold on to Chechnya - but those failures were political, not military.Replies: @J.Ross, @David Davenport, @Dacian Julien Soros
Russia left Afghanistan in good order. The withdrawal is actually praised in Western books and documentaries. Withdrawing properly is a big deal, it’s pretty much the selling point of Rommel. Russia has serious military accomplishments, like defeating the Japanese in Siberia before WWII or knowing to not meet Napoleon. The idea that they’re stupid is pretty much the top shelf iteration of famous last words.
Look, he was being sarcastic, he has this straw man thing he does where he is clearly sarcastically misrepresenting his opponent’s position. He did not magically turn into a Putinist.
Imagine if the Ukrainians had a Swiss-style militia with every adult having a Sig assault rifle and massive numbers of tandem explosive RPGs for use. They might have made Putin think twice.
https://cdni.rbth.com/rbthmedia/images/web/in-rbth/images/2015-06/big/26/TASS_630012_468.jpgReplies: @Mr. Anon, @PhysicistDave
Joe Stalin wrote:
Ukrainians in 2022 are not Finns in the 1940s.
All I can say is that I’m glad I sold my few Gazprom shares yesterday and bought OXY warrants.
I think he means the sarcasm tag for the second post, which I take is a parody of Russophile Unz commenters.
Yes, and furthermore they don’t benefit from a geography favorable for defense the way the Finns did in 1940.
Thanks I love it.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg/800px-Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg
Weird how reality is almost the opposite of what your map is "projecting", and therein lies a tale.Replies: @Joseph A., @jimmyriddle
Or they chose to live where they could get better medical care. ???
I’m not making any predictions, but I have some questions.
-Are we supposed to get excited about saving a regime installed by Vicky Nuland and a war that Applebaum and the neocons and my blackhearted little war profiteer cousin have been salivating over for the last dozen years at least?
-Am I supposed to now agree with Adam Schiff and Blinken and Max Boot and Lindsay Graham and every other traitorous war poodle in DC that I hate?
-Are we to believe that our foreign policy establishment that does not stop being wrong about everything and getting us into costly, deadly conflicts that go on for ever to their enormous personal enrichment are now right about this and on the moral high ground?
-Do I now believe these people who are actively supporting the erasure of our own border have some kind of sophisticated knowledge about why this Ukraine conflict is of a vital national interest and should be supported with fervor by all good Americans?
-The president and his crime family have personally made millions from shady deals in this country that the vast majority of Americans do not give a solitary shit about, but we should care that Putin and his thugs take over and cut off the spigot?
I have more questions along the same line.
Everything you say has merit, but it was as true eight years ago. So the timing of Russia actions is strange.
I’m never right when I predict, but I will make a couple of observations.
First, Biden’s effort to saturate Ukraine with cutting-edge weapons came maybe two weeks before the commencement of hostilities — too little time to train personnel or to deploy those weapons effectively. Probably the Russians moved quickly precisely because they didn’t want to face effective defenses. Result: Ukraine can’t win in a military conflict.
Second, since most of Ukraine’s Russia-sympathetic voters are in the newly independent republics or living as refugees in Russia, the population of Ukraine consists of people who absolutely hate Russian interference with their country. Ukraine will be as hard to occupy as Iraq was hard to occupy for US forces. Putin won’t try to occupy, he will try to intimidate. The Ukrainians will deeply resent this.
The situation is much like the Turkish rescue of ethnically cleansed Turks in Cyprus in 1974 — Turkey secured a state for their compatriots, but international recognition still hasn’t happened, and the weaker party in the conflict still retains its bitterness over its losses. Ukrainian bitterness will continue for many generations.
They need to prevent Ukraine from being incorporated into NATO.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum
This whole Nato thing is most strange and gives Mr. Putin bad optics. (Who cares about this old Nato except Eestonians Lathuenians and Poles? )
As if he puts up impossible demands just to cook up a casus belli. Which in the end looks like he was indeed doing .
If he had said instead something about suffering of Russian people in every splinter Soviet “republic” he would have a much better point.
-Are we supposed to get excited about saving a regime installed by Vicky Nuland and a war that Applebaum and the neocons and my blackhearted little war profiteer cousin have been salivating over for the last dozen years at least?
-Am I supposed to now agree with Adam Schiff and Blinken and Max Boot and Lindsay Graham and every other traitorous war poodle in DC that I hate?
-Are we to believe that our foreign policy establishment that does not stop being wrong about everything and getting us into costly, deadly conflicts that go on for ever to their enormous personal enrichment are now right about this and on the moral high ground?
-Do I now believe these people who are actively supporting the erasure of our own border have some kind of sophisticated knowledge about why this Ukraine conflict is of a vital national interest and should be supported with fervor by all good Americans?
-The president and his crime family have personally made millions from shady deals in this country that the vast majority of Americans do not give a solitary shit about, but we should care that Putin and his thugs take over and cut off the spigot?
I have more questions along the same line.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum
Sure, but then why for Mr. Putin not attacking the Nudelman Revolutionary State back in 2014? 2015? When there was a hot war and active casus belli.
Everything you say has merit, but it was as true eight years ago. So the timing of Russia actions is strange.
Sorry, replied to the wrong comment.
There will be continuing guerilla warfare for many years. The present government will move to Lviv in the far West of Ukraine. The inevitable Russian puppet state in Kiev will be an international pariah and so, to a lesser extent, will be Russia itself and its client state Belarus.
For me, this war is the polar opposite of the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s
Then, I prayed for a long stalemate — the bloodier the better. Hated both sides. My ideal outcome would have been the last Iraqi and last Iranian soldiers killing each other in hand-to-hand combat.
This war, I admire both sides. Each has undergone unimaginable suffering in the past, and has legitimate grievances. Hope the bloodshed is minimized.
No one is saying escalation, so I’m going to defend escalation. (And I hope to be very wrong.) There are several possible scenarios where very stupid that requires an extreme response from the Russian government:
1. USG (or allies) gets caught supplying the Ukrainian armed forces and militia with arms, supplies, or other military assistance. It’s a stupid idea at this point and will only inflame tensions.
2. USG (or allies) initiates a cyber attack against Russian military or civilian assets. There isn’t an international legal framework that defines the implications of a cyber attack. The Russians could take it as a declaration of war.
3. A small NATO country, probably in the Baltics, sanctions Putin himself in a futile, but stupid gesture. Putin has declared sanctions against himself as an act of war.
4. USG tries and fails to initiate a color revolution against Putin in Russia. It does succeed in destabilizing the country for a few days, weeks, or months.
5. Some former Warsaw Pact state, like Poland, announces that it is developing nuclear weapons. Present progressive tense, not past perfect tense.
6. NATO expands, taking in, say Finland.
7. Biden has a senior moment. He confuses Putin for Corn Pop and directly threatens him.
Why depends on the actor.
Former Warsaw Pact states must be worried about their old enemy showing initiative, strength, and cunning. Their elites have every desire to avoid Russian domination since they’ve hooked themselves into the American system. They might act out of fear or spite. USG gets dragged in because of Article 5: an attack on one NATO member means an attack on all.
USG has just been humiliated, again. Ukraine was their piggy bank, and many embarrassing documents might turn up in the near future. USG was unable to use soft power to prevent the invasion, and it does not dare to use direct hard power lest WWIII break out. Instead, it will use covert methods to punish Russia.
Furthermore, USG is extremely fragmented. Biden is an empty shell. He cannot control the various factions. These factions do not have an overriding principle to guide them, like getting rid of Trump. All it takes is for one faction (POTUS, DOD, State, CIA/NSA, or various NGOs) to make a mistake that triggers a wider outbreak of violence.
Hope that I’m wrong.
1, 2, 4, and 6 are all already US government policy. (7 also, but not intentionally.) The only reason 3 and 5 are not on US policy is that they are outside of direct US control, but some CIA idiot is probably working on them as we speak.
Here's hoping they show the same level of competence at these programs as they show in everything else.Replies: @Anonymous
Sarc Tag
Do you think people in Eastern Europe are as decadent as us and Western Europe because they listen to our music?
I think few people are like that.
I also think that being under Putin's thumb is nowhere near as bad as being under Stalin's thumb: the Finns had a compelling reason to resist.
It is my understanding that Germany, and many other western European countries, are HEAVILY dependent on Russian oil. If this is indeed true, then Western Europe will blink far much sooner than Russia will in terms of sanctions.
Ukraine will fight bravely then a diverse coalition of nato will kick butt
Ukrainians are not Finns.
Good analogy to Cyprus.
Then, I prayed for a long stalemate — the bloodier the better. Hated both sides. My ideal outcome would have been the last Iraqi and last Iranian soldiers killing each other in hand-to-hand combat.
This war, I admire both sides. Each has undergone unimaginable suffering in the past, and has legitimate grievances. Hope the bloodshed is minimized.Replies: @Hunsdon, @Anon
Hear him! Hear him!
Hibernian asked me:
I read a narrative recently of the Finns’ resistance to the Russians in the 1940s: extraordinary people who knew how to use the unusual local geography to their advantage.
I think few people are like that.
I also think that being under Putin’s thumb is nowhere near as bad as being under Stalin’s thumb: the Finns had a compelling reason to resist.
For both Russia and Ukraine and the West--and China and India the East--"winning" will consist of maintaining relatively coherent one-peoplish nations and finding a way to reach eugenic fertility to maintain them.
The West, under minoritarian ideology, with civilizationally incompatible foreigners streaming in--and now with mandatory
blackBlack worship!--is utterly failing this. But Russia and the East are failing the eugenic fertility issue right now as well.Replies: @PhysicistDave, @silviosilverAnotherDad wrote:
The interesting question is whether a collapse in fertility is intrinsic to affluent, consumerist, post-industrial societies or whether this is just a cultural phase which we can get over.
There is a population-genetic argument that people who have genes predisposing them to want to have kids will tend to spread those genes and in a few generations we will therefore end up with a pro-natalist population.
This did not happen before the Pill became widespread because, back then, people who did not much want kids but did want sex still ended up with kids.
The flip side of this is that people too stupid to reliably use the Pill will also tend to pass their genes on.
Right after I have the tanks in Harvard Yard. After all, I have to find out what it is first.
If I, some random yahoo, knew the name, don’t you think his rivals, the experts in the field, would know his name years beforehand? If they know who to stage a coup against, then it’s already over. By the time I learn the name (tanks aside), it’s way too late and the torch has already passed.
Even then I would be playing with fire. Cornered men do desperate things, and nobody is completely safe from assassination. Best to just let him retire peacefully.
That and spite. Never underestimate spite.
Trump couldn’t even put a wall up. Biden’s job is to do even less than that, but take the blame. POTUS is not a position of authority.
Then, I prayed for a long stalemate — the bloodier the better. Hated both sides. My ideal outcome would have been the last Iraqi and last Iranian soldiers killing each other in hand-to-hand combat.
This war, I admire both sides. Each has undergone unimaginable suffering in the past, and has legitimate grievances. Hope the bloodshed is minimized.Replies: @Hunsdon, @Anon
Agreed. May it end soon. Appalling that whites of Christian background are killing each other.
The Russians will burn the rainbow flags in the captured US Embassy, which triggers the USG to declare WW3.
1. Ukraine will lose its independence but regain its “the”.
2. Ukrainian government archives will reveal clear proof of Biden and Clinton self-dealing, which will be ignored by the MSM.
3. Rump Ukraine will attempt to reconstitute the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, with the Klitchko brothers as co-grand dukes ruling from Lviv/Lwow/Livynaunas.
Not wishing to pontificate too much:
Basically, considering the main long term trends of geopolitics in the 21st century, this current Ukraine situation is really just a trivial side show, as the Bard said “Full of Sound and Fury but signifying Nothing”.
There are two and only two significant geopolitical trends in the 21st century that are worth considering.
1/. Black/brown majority population status for western Europe and north America by the latter part of the century.
2/. Full spectrum Chinese economic, financial, industrial and scientific hegemony and dominance over this planet.
Compared to all that, Ukraine is just background noise, random background fluctuation, the death throes of an old order.
Recap:
US rout from Afghanistan marked the terminal failure of the Bush attempt to incorporate Asia into the US world trade system ("globalism"). The US immediately activated AUKUS, even at the cost of seriously worsening relations with France (which recalled its ambassador to the US for the first time in history.
The US tried to save face in the Ukraine affair, and has again failed. This makes the US retreat from Asia (the entire continent) impossible to ignore by NATO countries.
Accordingly, NATO as an effective alliance is now over, and the NATO countries in Europe (esp. Germany) will drift into an alliance with the Russian Federation, forming a counterbalance to the Chinese sphere of influence.
The associated reorganization of the US world trade system will have severe results on the entire world (https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/record-high-global-food-prices-could-be-imminent-edible-oil-soars, quote from Goldman Sachs: "we are out of everything, I don't care if its oil, gas, coal, copper, aluminum, you name it we're out of it."), most severely in sub-Saharan Africa.
As a result, political contests in the US will intensify considerably, the US political economy will most likely see inability to subsidize key constituencies (e.g. urban areas, aerospace, possibly Social Security) and the US Dollar may lose its international reserve currency status. The US Navy will go through hard times, but will be maintained as essential to the now obligatory US Oceanic strategy.
And that's it. Those of you who wanted the US to reorganize, you're going to get your wish, except that nobody can control exactly how the US will reorganize. Paraphrase from Genghis Kahn when he declared war on Persia (which he then destroyed): "We have declared war, and nobody under God's blue heaven knows who will win".
You can be fairly sure of the above, however. Remember, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." Damon Runyon (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/06/04/race-swift/), and place your bets accordingly.Replies: @Anonymous
Here’s an analysis similar to mine, except (of course) more detailed financially. Durden points out that European central banks have more debt than assets, and so are poorly suited to withstanding a stressful situation such as the present situation. He also believes the present Russian Federation / People’s Republic of China alliance to be more stable than I believe that alliance to be. And, as always, Durden has faith in gold as a monetary metal. Doesn’t mean he’s wrong this time, perhaps the Russian Federation’s gold accumulation will pay off, perhaps making the Ruble preferred to the Euro, just that he has had that faith at least since 2008, so it’s not really a reaction to recent events.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/how-ukraine-fits-global-jigsaw
Was there *EVER* in the whole long long catalogue of world history a more incompetent, downright stupid, useless, clueless, counteractive, trash leader than Mikhail Gorbachev?
I get the feed for DW, the German TV network. Their guy was interviewing random people on the street in Moscow, a couple of whom said pretty much the same thing.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg/800px-Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg
Weird how reality is almost the opposite of what your map is "projecting", and therein lies a tale.Replies: @Joseph A., @jimmyriddle
That’s a map of where heroin injectors live.
Yeah, and also the ones having bareback anal sex. Thrill-seekers tend to seek each other out.
Ukraine partitioned.
USN and RN shell Sevastopol within a month as a retaliation.Replies: @Verymuchalive
The Black Sea is a Russian lake, if you pardon the mixed metaphor. Shortly after leaving the Bosporus, any NATO ships would be destroyed by Russian aircraft. So no shelling of Sevastopol.
Stalin was not a Slav. He was an atheist Georgian. Ukrainians generally do not harbor hostility against slavic Russians for the Holodomor.
No one said nuthin’ about the Russians being ‘stupid’. Just drunk…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10506123/PETER-HITCHENS-Nato-Gender-Advisor-know-wokery-won.html
2. USG (or allies) initiates a cyber attack against Russian military or civilian assets. There isn’t an international legal framework that defines the implications of a cyber attack. The Russians could take it as a declaration of war.
3. A small NATO country, probably in the Baltics, sanctions Putin himself in a futile, but stupid gesture. Putin has declared sanctions against himself as an act of war.
4. USG tries and fails to initiate a color revolution against Putin in Russia. It does succeed in destabilizing the country for a few days, weeks, or months.
5. Some former Warsaw Pact state, like Poland, announces that it is developing nuclear weapons. Present progressive tense, not past perfect tense.
6. NATO expands, taking in, say Finland.
7. Biden has a senior moment. He confuses Putin for Corn Pop and directly threatens him. Why depends on the actor. Former Warsaw Pact states must be worried about their old enemy showing initiative, strength, and cunning. Their elites have every desire to avoid Russian domination since they’ve hooked themselves into the American system. They might act out of fear or spite. USG gets dragged in because of Article 5: an attack on one NATO member means an attack on all. USG has just been humiliated, again. Ukraine was their piggy bank, and many embarrassing documents might turn up in the near future. USG was unable to use soft power to prevent the invasion, and it does not dare to use direct hard power lest WWIII break out. Instead, it will use covert methods to punish Russia. Furthermore, USG is extremely fragmented. Biden is an empty shell. He cannot control the various factions. These factions do not have an overriding principle to guide them, like getting rid of Trump. All it takes is for one faction (POTUS, DOD, State, CIA/NSA, or various NGOs) to make a mistake that triggers a wider outbreak of violence. Hope that I’m wrong.Replies: @Almost Missouri
I too hope you’re wrong, but …
1, 2, 4, and 6 are all already US government policy. (7 also, but not intentionally.) The only reason 3 and 5 are not on US policy is that they are outside of direct US control, but some CIA idiot is probably working on them as we speak.
Here’s hoping they show the same level of competence at these programs as they show in everything else.
https://www.ft.com/content/5e7282fc-4ea0-482d-a81a-8abb52228472
The EU specializes in the futile and stupid. Remember the old saying that to get the IQ of a committee, take the lowest IQ of any member on the committee and divide it by the number of people on the committee?
Few have noted in this forum that the EU, insofar as it follows current unrealistic US policy "in a futile, but stupid gesture", is discrediting the EU faction that supports following US policy of any sort. This will be important in the EU's eventual turn from the Atlantic to the East and the Russian Federation.
I don't expect the Russia / China alliance to be fruitful because:
a) CULTURAL: The two are different cultures. Russia's was formed in part as a reaction to "human farming" Mongol rule. The Mongols treated subject peoples rather like they treated their herds, and their subjects much as they treated their herd animals. The Russians didn't like that. Imperial China has thought of non-Han Chinese as "barbarian" threats rather than as peers. Whites in China are referred to by the population that speaks Mandarin as "ghosts", perhaps because of White's pale skin, but hardly the nickname you'd give another human.
b) FINANCIAL: China has mal-invested seriously over the past decade or so, and has suspended payments to foreigners while continuing them to Chinese citizens. While this was an obvious move to ensure Chinese domestic stability, it has seriously reduced new loans to China by non-Chinese citizens. China has built cities for which it has no use, passenger train lines that are used by so few that they can't (in some cases) pay for the electrical power to run them **, hydraulic engineering to move water from South to a North that can't afford to pay for the water when it arrives, and that have ensured hostility with India, and its "Belt and Road" program has devolved into a search for anybody who will agree to borrow money. China also pumped massive industrial waste into its ground water, poisoning ground water as the Mao years poisoned agricultural land.
As a final indicator, Xi is now going for a third term as effective Chief of State (which ends the informal Chinese two term limit that initially brought China prosperity) and is vigorously attacking his political rivals (https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/xis-third-term-is-not-yet-a-done-deal/). The third term and attacks are as obvious a sign of instability as was former Pres. Trump's election and the subsequent installation of current Pres. Biden for the US.
c) POLITICAL: In short, China's economic model failed in about 2008, the mainland Chinese government has spent its accumulated capital on a "capital boom" that will not generate a future stream of benefits/payments sufficient to repay even the operating expenses of the engineering works purchased, much less enough to re-pay loans to non-Chinese.
And finally, some of the engineering works and industrial development is manifestly unsafe -- the hydraulic system (dams, reservoirs, and canals) being the most obvious case, but I'd imagine that some of the industrial plants are roughly comparable hazard.
The mainland Chinese government is converting itself to a totalitarian state in an effort to ensure its domestic political power retention. It may succeed in retaining power, but will not be able to project power beyond its borders for at least several decades. In short, the problems of running a centrally controlled economy, problems that have defeated the US, USSR, and EU (all controlling territory that has historically supported industrial societies) have defeated the mainland Chinese government. Apparently the problems of getting fresh and correct data to the central control group, and the difficulty of solving NP problems (https://easierwithpractice.com/what-are-some-examples-of-np-problems/), and the "philosopher king" problem that philosophers who become kings and retain their kingship always end up acting like thugs when their power is threatened, perhaps because it takes a thug to beat a thug.
So China is effectively out of the power game now. It is a zombie and nobody realizes it. An attack on Taiwan impose a chip shortage that would cause a world wide financial panic that would destabilize the People's Republic of China. Granted, a similar situation didn't deter Europe from WW I, but look how that turned out. One final spasm, a mindless second spasm, then a retreat into what looks in retrospect like catatonia. China is not an attractive ally right now. I'm reminded of the remark of a German staff officer reporting the the German General Staff on Austria, during the early phases of WW I: "Gentlemen, we are allied with a corpse."
** More on Chinese rail malinvestment.
China has also drastically under-invested in railways capable of carrying the freight needed by future industries that would have supported the people that the high speed trains would have carried if freight railways had been built. Now that the capital is largely gone, the freight carrying railways can't be built, so the industries can't be developed, so the people the high speed rail would have carried stay where they are. Central planners are always suckers for overinvestment in high profile prestige projects (See: Schivelbsch, Three New Deals), and consider the Space Shuttle and Buran projects.
I laughed, but then realized it might not be a joke.
I agree with Steve, predictions are difficult – lots of variables and too much chance at play. But predictions are interesting.
So that said, here’s my prediction. The Ukrainians thought they were moving towards affluence and security in their bid to join NATO and the EU. There will be a great deal of shock and hurt that the West does nothing of consequence to support them, and that as a result they are getting the opposite of what they (quite understandably) hoped for. So general morale collapses, although there is a significant resistance movement among the Ukrainian far-right, especially in western Ukraine.
Zelensky (who feels especially betrayed by his one-time friends in the West) and his government will capitulate with an agreement of neutrality (within a week or so of invasion). In reality, the government will become puppets, but this will only become fully apparent over time. During that time, if the whole country has not been occupied, a competing government is set up in Lviv, and the resistance movement engages in reprisals.
The West does not come out in full support of the resistance government, because the old Ukrainian government still technically exists, and because the resistance government is tarred by the neo-Nazi associations. The local population is divided and Russia and/or the puppet government eventually reasserts control or partitions the country.
A new Cold War develops, and Putin must focus for a while on placating his oligarchs who are upset about their kids not getting into British Boarding Schools and other such issues. Discontent grows among the general population. He begins increasingly dependent on China. All these factors add up creating a potentially significant danger of global conflict.
I give my prediction above at most 10% odds of actually occurring. But I will predict with 100% confidence that lots of innocent people will die, including many children who have absolutely zero moral culpability for the conflict.
For both Russia and Ukraine and the West--and China and India the East--"winning" will consist of maintaining relatively coherent one-peoplish nations and finding a way to reach eugenic fertility to maintain them.
The West, under minoritarian ideology, with civilizationally incompatible foreigners streaming in--and now with mandatory
blackBlack worship!--is utterly failing this. But Russia and the East are failing the eugenic fertility issue right now as well.Replies: @PhysicistDave, @silviosilverCould’ve just hit “Agree,” but this one deserves a 100% agree.
Creating a eugenic fertility differential is the name of the game. The future belongs to whoever pulls it off.
(To the anti-eugenics nitwits out there (ie 99.999% of people, for now): taking into account all the various factors that influence it, there is no possibility of a “neutral” policy setting with respect to fertility. Every set of policies directly or indirectly incentivizes either eugenic or dysgenic breeding patterns; in this sense, we are “playing God” no matter what we do, so we may as well opt for something better over something worse.)
Let's ask Victoria Nuland or Max Boot or Lindsey Graham what will happen. They must know, right?Replies: @Studley
Max Boot has volunteered for service in Ukraine and is deploying to the front.
Masha Gessen is clamouring to work as an auxilliary nurse, aid, for the wounded.
Steve take my money on the bet!
1, 2, 4, and 6 are all already US government policy. (7 also, but not intentionally.) The only reason 3 and 5 are not on US policy is that they are outside of direct US control, but some CIA idiot is probably working on them as we speak.
Here's hoping they show the same level of competence at these programs as they show in everything else.Replies: @Anonymous
Nonsense. A small country wouldn’t dare. Still, you and aNewBanner called it. The EU would and is daring:
https://www.ft.com/content/5e7282fc-4ea0-482d-a81a-8abb52228472
The EU specializes in the futile and stupid. Remember the old saying that to get the IQ of a committee, take the lowest IQ of any member on the committee and divide it by the number of people on the committee?
Few have noted in this forum that the EU, insofar as it follows current unrealistic US policy “in a futile, but stupid gesture”, is discrediting the EU faction that supports following US policy of any sort. This will be important in the EU’s eventual turn from the Atlantic to the East and the Russian Federation.
I don’t expect the Russia / China alliance to be fruitful because:
a) CULTURAL: The two are different cultures. Russia’s was formed in part as a reaction to “human farming” Mongol rule. The Mongols treated subject peoples rather like they treated their herds, and their subjects much as they treated their herd animals. The Russians didn’t like that. Imperial China has thought of non-Han Chinese as “barbarian” threats rather than as peers. Whites in China are referred to by the population that speaks Mandarin as “ghosts”, perhaps because of White’s pale skin, but hardly the nickname you’d give another human.
b) FINANCIAL: China has mal-invested seriously over the past decade or so, and has suspended payments to foreigners while continuing them to Chinese citizens. While this was an obvious move to ensure Chinese domestic stability, it has seriously reduced new loans to China by non-Chinese citizens. China has built cities for which it has no use, passenger train lines that are used by so few that they can’t (in some cases) pay for the electrical power to run them **, hydraulic engineering to move water from South to a North that can’t afford to pay for the water when it arrives, and that have ensured hostility with India, and its “Belt and Road” program has devolved into a search for anybody who will agree to borrow money. China also pumped massive industrial waste into its ground water, poisoning ground water as the Mao years poisoned agricultural land.
As a final indicator, Xi is now going for a third term as effective Chief of State (which ends the informal Chinese two term limit that initially brought China prosperity) and is vigorously attacking his political rivals (https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/xis-third-term-is-not-yet-a-done-deal/). The third term and attacks are as obvious a sign of instability as was former Pres. Trump’s election and the subsequent installation of current Pres. Biden for the US.
c) POLITICAL: In short, China’s economic model failed in about 2008, the mainland Chinese government has spent its accumulated capital on a “capital boom” that will not generate a future stream of benefits/payments sufficient to repay even the operating expenses of the engineering works purchased, much less enough to re-pay loans to non-Chinese.
And finally, some of the engineering works and industrial development is manifestly unsafe — the hydraulic system (dams, reservoirs, and canals) being the most obvious case, but I’d imagine that some of the industrial plants are roughly comparable hazard.
The mainland Chinese government is converting itself to a totalitarian state in an effort to ensure its domestic political power retention. It may succeed in retaining power, but will not be able to project power beyond its borders for at least several decades. In short, the problems of running a centrally controlled economy, problems that have defeated the US, USSR, and EU (all controlling territory that has historically supported industrial societies) have defeated the mainland Chinese government. Apparently the problems of getting fresh and correct data to the central control group, and the difficulty of solving NP problems (https://easierwithpractice.com/what-are-some-examples-of-np-problems/), and the “philosopher king” problem that philosophers who become kings and retain their kingship always end up acting like thugs when their power is threatened, perhaps because it takes a thug to beat a thug.
So China is effectively out of the power game now. It is a zombie and nobody realizes it. An attack on Taiwan impose a chip shortage that would cause a world wide financial panic that would destabilize the People’s Republic of China. Granted, a similar situation didn’t deter Europe from WW I, but look how that turned out. One final spasm, a mindless second spasm, then a retreat into what looks in retrospect like catatonia. China is not an attractive ally right now. I’m reminded of the remark of a German staff officer reporting the the German General Staff on Austria, during the early phases of WW I: “Gentlemen, we are allied with a corpse.”
** More on Chinese rail malinvestment.
China has also drastically under-invested in railways capable of carrying the freight needed by future industries that would have supported the people that the high speed trains would have carried if freight railways had been built. Now that the capital is largely gone, the freight carrying railways can’t be built, so the industries can’t be developed, so the people the high speed rail would have carried stay where they are. Central planners are always suckers for overinvestment in high profile prestige projects (See: Schivelbsch, Three New Deals), and consider the Space Shuttle and Buran projects.
“That’s a map of where heroin injectors live.”
Yeah, and also the ones having bareback anal sex. Thrill-seekers tend to seek each other out.
He looks super gay in that mekh. He probably is. A regular Hermann fucking Goering.
“Or they chose to live where they could get better medical care. ???”
You mean the people into the kind of behaviors that lead to HIV choose to go to the part of Ukraine where the run-down factories are, spewing out all that mercury, lead, and smoke? All because they’re concerned about their health?
After conquering the Ukraine, the marauding Russian hordes will cross the land bridge to Alaska, then sweep down through Canada in a convoy of trucks, then down I-95, and occupy Washington DC.
The capital police will be overwhelmed, and the House and Senate members arrested and interned in concentration camps in Siberia.
President Biden will be placed on White House arrest, and then will mysteriously disappear, only to turn up later in an underground bunker at the Arlington National Cemetery.
Putin will then sail up the Potomac by the dawn’s early light, and superintend a general election in the US and the quisling Hunter Biden regime will be installed in office with a majority of 99.8% with Hillary Clinton appointed as Secretary of Woke Enforcement, and Ivana Trump as vice president.
The US will then resign from NATO.
A statue of Vladimir Putin will be erected outside the Supreme Court.
Joe Rogan will be publicly vaccinated.
Why does NATO still exist and expand to the detriment of America’s working class? Inertia and the bureaucratic imperative to grow. There is a lot of slop in that trough called NATO and a lot of two, three and four star hogs with their snouts in the trough.
Though not de jure, de facto at least eastern Ukraine is a part of Russia. I will be happy if Tsar Poot and the Yuke government agree to a partitioning of Ukraine and that all parties involved resolve to make the rest of Ukraine neutral a la Switzerland so that it becomes a buffer state. I wouldn’t bet on it though, because the problem is that in point of fact he may want the whole shebang. If so, he will have overshot the runway. His army isn’t that big and there is the danger of becoming embroiled in a much longer protracted war which they probably could never win. It’ll be Afghanistan II and we know how THAT turned out. I don’t think Poot is stupid but…when wars break out there is danger of anything happening.
Could be. Maybe they haven’t felt the need or they don’t want to disclose their current capabilities yet.
I would imagine it’s possible to attack the military electronics using vectors that wouldn’t necessarily impact civilian life.
Hard to say, I don’t have a good sense of this. I’ve seen some analysis that argues Russia has committed substantial forces.
I’m not there to see it, but there have been consistent reports that the Russians have been requesting the Ukrainians to lay down their arms and go home with widespread compliance from the Ukies.
I think the Russians will kettle any pockets of resistance and mostly erase those grid squares with thermobaric artillery and rockets like the TOS-1A system.
The Chechen SSO clips that have surfaced make it clear they are ready to go get the Azov gang as part of Putin’s de-Nazification effort.
Ukrainian border guards don’t allow draft age men to leave the country.
Reading it the ineptitude of the Russian Military seemed outstanding. Eventually the Russians triumphed over a tiny force but it seemed hard to believe the U.S.S.R ever posed a serious offensive threat to Western powers.
I think American National Guard Units would have cleaned up and from people I know who have served in the National Guard a lot of those outfits are pretty fouled up. It's as if Colorado broke into revolt against the US and it took a decade to put them down.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum, @Wilkey, @Wilkey, @Brutusale, @Dacian Julien Soros
Really?
https://www.dailywire.com/news/british-commandos-dominated-american-soldiers-in-combat-training-exercise-forced-them-to-surrender-report
As the Crapification of America continues apace, I don’t see conventional forces involved nearly as much the modern warfare. It’ll be special forces and drones all the way.
Russia wins, removes or destroys all the weapons and leaves all except the two eastern areas,but may stay for the election so U.S. doesnt screw it up. Putin does an Arnold. “If you clowns arm up again, I”ll Be Back”.
*(Technically America never did anything incompetently in Iraq, the domestic point was embezzlement and embezzlement was achieved. The other point was Saudi Arabia vs. Iran.)
However this all depends on how America responds. If she doesn't do anything it signals you're allowed to just bite off bits of her Empire now, which is certainly not what she wants. Definitely going to happen more than once if it happens once.
On the other hand, Biden &c are all massive liars. That they say there's going to be a Massachusetts military response is evidence against the proposition. If they were intending to respond they would have had much more low-key things to say about it. It's clear they want to just drop the issue.
Of course Biden has no real power. He is not making the decisions. However, in this case his attitude comes from the top. They're of one mind on this issue. Well, one heart, anyway. Biden's not got much in the way of mind left.
However, something (such as embarrassment) may force them to respond. Not enough information is available to sufficiently list all the things that might force them to respond. In these cases you kind of have to back-form what happened (or do a whole ton of research it's clear nobody has done) after you see what the actual decision was.
(Basically you see how you could have known, so you can realize that not finding out was indeed the correct answer because you own neither the country nor the empire, nor their militaries, so this is all epistemic-toy theories in practical terms. Yes you could find out no it's not even remotely worth the price.)
Even they do respond, it may be a distinctly symbolic gesture, like the time Trump fired a bunch of dud tomahawks at an empty Syrian airfield. "Oh noes we couldn't save the Ukraine, we're so sorrrrrry."
Usually how this works is there's a bunch of public posturing, but the point is merely to set the stage for a private phone call through back channels. Absent a tap on that line you're going to be in the dark until after the fact. At some point Putin gets a phone call from Biden's boss, and they hash out a compromise where they both save public face but also the Ukraine stops hosting terrorist incursion into Putin's territory. It's a lot easier not to panic and hit the Big Red Button if you know in advance what Putin is doing and then he does it. And vice-versa.
There's some chess involved. The negotiation is about finding a plan where both sides would find it difficult and/or costly to betray the other. As a stupid example, let's say there's a big ol' vault of gold in Ukraine's capital. If Putin proposes sending his disciplinary military incursion within a day's strike of the vault, then his opponent vetoes that plan. If both are real countries, then a treachery-resistant plan exists which satisfies both parties.
Alternatively Biden's boss is too scared of being outed and never makes the call, and Putin just has to guess. He obviously can't allow the Ukraine to join NATO and openly put American bases there, especially since they're already killing his little mans. For the same reason America can't have bits of her Empire bitten off, Putin can't let his borders get violated like that. If he allows it, it's a slow guaranteed death. Better the risk of surviving a nuclear counter-strike than guaranteed destruction, no matter how slow.
What is the minimum necessary trespass to counter this aggression? Time to fuck around and find out, I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
--
Bonus round: it is sufficiently probable that none of America's nukes still work. They could all be duds by now for so many reasons that it's guaranteed that one reason applies. If any of them still work it's only by luck, the question is how much luck is required. It is likewise probable that some but not all of Putin's nukes don't work. Very much a midget fight on that front. The question is not whether they will embarrass themselves, but how badly.
One reason America may not do anything overt is that nobody wants to find out if America's troops can beat up Putin's. Putin's actually want to win; America's want to be the girliest girl who ever held a gun (delicately, by the very tip of her fingers). However, the public perception is that America's army is the finest in the world, so ironically it's like beating up a woman: if America wins nobody gives her credit, and if she loses it's socially catastrophic.Replies: @Captain B.
When you say “public perception,” which particular public do you have in mind? Russian? American? European?
If you look at the conflicts that America has actually won in the past 30 years, it is rather a short list. Worse, America has shown time and again that it rarely retains what it learns when it goes to war and is forced to learn the same lessons time and again at great cost in blood and treasure.
There is little doubt that the Americans fought bravely in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan also seems to have confirmed what many people around the world may hitherto have only suspected: if you want to prevail over the Americans, all you have to do is outwait them, not outfight them.
Regardless of how clever Putin is or is not, he strikes me as being a very patient man who is willing to wait to get what he wants. The Americans have many things going for them, but taking the long view in world affairs does not strike me as one of them.
I do not doubt that this war is a godsend for
the man who has taken the title role of “Weekend at Bernie’s” and made it his ownMr. Biden, but I also cannot help but think that, unless he is very careful indeed, America stands a strong chance of being given another bloody nose.I still own a Wayne Gretzky brand jacket.
TOS 1A Thermobaric rockets no doubt. Got to kill the Fauci germs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q91yFP9E9Yg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlT3bKQ9hLo
Carry on.Replies: @Jack D, @The Wild Geese Howard, @Iron Curtain
Ukrainians will sell off most of those weapons in black market.
Look up at who were the leaders of communist party in Ukraine in the 30ies, the ones who defined policies and led their execution. It’s not that hard. Then stop posting nonsense.
If Ukraine we’re split into 4-5 cantons, each free to establish unique cultural policy, civil war wouldn’t have started in 2014. But Galicians are famous for not knowing when to stop.
But in conventional warfare it has been an embarrassment since at least World War I. The Germans made such a mockery of them in the Great War that they overthrew the czar, and adopted an even more dumbfuck political arrangement than the one they had. In WW2 they managed to beat back Hitler - after first foolishly becoming his ally - but only with much Western assistance and while losing 20 million men in the process. They made fools of themselves in Afghanistan (though so did we) and Chechnya, as well. Of course, they were fools for even trying to conquer Afghanistan and hold on to Chechnya - but those failures were political, not military.Replies: @J.Ross, @David Davenport, @Dacian Julien Soros
In WW2 they managed to beat back Hitler – after first foolishly becoming his ally – but only with much Western assistance and while losing 20 million men in the process.
Yes, the Red Army did defeat your beloved Herrenvolk, no matter how you try to spin or deny that fact.
Assuming the Russians can hold on they could go all the way. Russia can't leave with concessions or replacement of Ukrainian government. Ukraine can't back down, the US never had any intention of negotiating and just wanted total supplication. So Russia will just continue and occupy the Russian areas and possibly do a clean sweep of Ukrainian formal army into the Western areas before falling back as occupation in those areas would be untenable and they won't be able to get concessions in exchange for retreat. Russia won't be able to trade in their gains for Ukrainian neutrality or allyship (That ship sailed when they invaded, they'd need to occupy to force an ally government), they'll just take the Eastern half.
The Eastern half (And I do mean half, right up to the river and that will be the new border) and Russian speaking areas get taken by Russia at greater cost than they anticipated. They basically get incorporated into Russia. This also comes at great human cost as many millions are ethnically displaced and cleansed in addition to those who die in the war. Many of these will make spurious asylum claims or inexplicably not leave their new European homes even when the war is over. They will further the ethnic displacement of natives in Western Europe and further 'nation of immigrants' narratives. Conservatives will think this is okay because they're white and work for cheap.
Once the shock wears off the situation becomes more stable as a near fully ethnically Ukrainian state is more stable anyway, the pain will never go away with those ethnically cleansed.
But it remains to be seen how much things can go back to normal afterward or if this is the prelude to a Russian/Chinese parallel order with Russia now completely banished from the Western system.
But John Mearsheimer thought Russia will just try to 'break' Ukraine rather than occupy any part of it long term. But that seems hard now they've invaded and the ethnic Russians can't be left behind after what has been done. No-one seems willing or able to walk back from the situation now. The neocons are happy now they have a pretext to try to neutralise Russia and continue pushing it so the US has no reason to budge on anything. Ukraine has been invaded and so can't either. Russia is now knee deep steppland and can't retreat since it's taken all the downside with the West now banishing it from everything and Putin can't leave the ethnic Russians behind now that hostilities have been intensified from their invasion. They may as well just take the territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
If you want a good twitter feed to follow on the war I suggest this one.
https://twitter.com/RALee85Replies: @Richard B
But the Western system is being destroyed by its own leaders and on purpose. They hate it and want it destroyed.
Yes. He says this at 23:50 to 24:15. Which is pretty much what the Western system is doing to the West.
In any event, one sure fire prediction is that before, during and after this conflict Russia (and China) will continue to enjoy good relations with Israel. Something, of course, they have in common with the United States.
ah illegal immigration in to USA will continue?…
https://anncoulter.com/2022/02/23/stop-talking-about-ukraine-republicans/
Italy surrenders. Switzerland stays neutral (and banker to bad guys). Russia annexes Alaska with complete agreement of Biden. Then Washington, Oregon, Northern California… (‘de-Nazification’)…
Reading it the ineptitude of the Russian Military seemed outstanding. Eventually the Russians triumphed over a tiny force but it seemed hard to believe the U.S.S.R ever posed a serious offensive threat to Western powers.
I think American National Guard Units would have cleaned up and from people I know who have served in the National Guard a lot of those outfits are pretty fouled up. It's as if Colorado broke into revolt against the US and it took a decade to put them down.Replies: @Thelma Ringbaum, @Wilkey, @Wilkey, @Brutusale, @Dacian Julien Soros
I wonder why did all that looting occur in the US in 2020. Was the National Guard busy with something else?
Were the looters extremely determined, or well trained? Were their weapons too advanced?
To quote one of your mainline ideologues: have you no shame?
But in conventional warfare it has been an embarrassment since at least World War I. The Germans made such a mockery of them in the Great War that they overthrew the czar, and adopted an even more dumbfuck political arrangement than the one they had. In WW2 they managed to beat back Hitler - after first foolishly becoming his ally - but only with much Western assistance and while losing 20 million men in the process. They made fools of themselves in Afghanistan (though so did we) and Chechnya, as well. Of course, they were fools for even trying to conquer Afghanistan and hold on to Chechnya - but those failures were political, not military.Replies: @J.Ross, @David Davenport, @Dacian Julien Soros
On a scale from zero to “US in Afghanistan”, just how bad would you rate the defeat of the Russians in Chechnya?
Hey, don’t forget in Red Dawn they were fighting Russians
My man!
CIA Interference in the world and the CIA’s wars before Ukraine, George Soros, and the Socialist Democrats.
We know what Bill and Hilary Clinton, George Soros, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Barrack Obama have been doing in Ukraine 1980- 2020.
They have been trying to start World War 3, making money, and increasing their power with the help of the CIA.
Research the CIA’s interference in Africa, Asia, South America, and the nations that were the U.S.S.R.
If you research George Soros and his Organizations for Socialism, you will see he is where the CIA is and he is doing the same thing, destabilizing nations through Marches, Demonstrations, Riots, and Terrorism.
Just as the Democrats did after Hilary Clinton lost her election in 2016 through today with the help of Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and other Terrorist Organizations which were ignored by our FBI, and our Justice Department..
The First Indochina War began in French Indochina on December 19, 1946 when the people of the nations of Indochina finally decided they did not like being slaves of the French.
The United States moved in to help the French in 1946, although the nations that were Indochina became free, the United States stayed until 1975, interfering in everything as we do in South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
You probably remember the Vietnam War, which was part of that Foreign interference in Indochina.
Why were the French in Indochina?
The French East India Company, a trade organization formed to expand trade and propagate Catholicism, gained a foothold in Indochina in 1668.
Thereafter a pattern was established which continued for centuries. When French soldiers, traders, or priests were attacked and/or killed in Indochina, the French would revenge the loss of their nationals, and use the resistance to their authority as an excuse to extend their power.
Vietnamese were forced to surrender control over their land and to provide the French with special privileges.
The French also took part in wars between rival Vietnamese factions. As a reward from the winning faction, the French would be given control over more land and the right to sell French goods and spread the French religion.
In the process, the French replaced local leaders with their nationals — by 1925, a bureaucracy of some 5,000 Frenchmen ruled over a country totaling 30,000,000. In time, France had extended its control to encompass Laos, North and South Vietnam, and Cambodia, which they called French Indochina.
The French made the native peoples of all the nations into slaves.
To raise money, Doumer, who the French put in charge of Vietnam, encouraged the use of opium, which had hitherto been confined to a small part of the Chinese population. Once more Vietnamese were addicted, Doumer leveled a tax on opium which eventually raised 1/3rd of the revenue needed to govern Indochina.
Heavy taxes were also placed on the wine and salt trade. The Vietnamese who could or would not pay their taxes, lost their houses and land, and often became day laborers.
Before the arrival of the French, the emperors did not allow rice to be sold outside the country. The French, however, believed they could enrich themselves by exporting rice. They encouraged expanded production of rice on lands that had been confiscated for non-payment of taxes. The French took over the land of these unfortunate farmers and then hired them to plant and harvest the rice.
The Slaves of the French had other work.
Vietnam also became well known for its rubber plantations. The famous Michelin tire company, for example, bought up thousands of acres of land in Vietnam. Many of the Vietnamese who had lost their land for failing to pay taxes were hired to work on these plantations.
These poor peasants were forced to work for the French and often suffered from malaria, dysentery, and malnutrition. From the French perspective, these landless workers were fortunate to find employment.
The French also opened coal mines in Vietnam, and used unemployed and landless peasants to work in them.