Ukraine Crisis
The situation in Ukraine is becoming more dire by the minute. NATO is implying Russia is planning to invade Ukraine, whereas Russia denies this. Russia claims it will not allow Ukraine to enter NATO, as this would effectively put a hostile military alliance - NATO - right at the borders of Russia.
There's also political maneuvering going around, with the US never wanting a lack of enemies - soon after the disaster in Afghanistan. And Putin is wanting to shift attention away from pretty bad conditions in Russia do to the COVID pandemic and rising prices.
The situation is quite dire and could escalate into something very, very dangerous.
Here are a few links for those interested:
NATO sends reinforcements to Eastern Europe amid Russia tensions
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/24/nato-sends-reinforcements-to-eastern-europe-amid-russian-anger
Russian naval exercises off Ireland's coast 'not welcome,' says Foreign Minister
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/24/europe/russia-naval-exercise-ireland-intl/index.html
Pentagon reveals number of US troops on higher alert over Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/547231-pentagon-troops-europe-ukraine/
Rising costs of Ukraine gamble could force Russia’s hand
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/rising-costs-of-ukraine-gamble-could-force-russias-hand
Let's hope things don't escalate too much more. Welcome 2022...
There's also political maneuvering going around, with the US never wanting a lack of enemies - soon after the disaster in Afghanistan. And Putin is wanting to shift attention away from pretty bad conditions in Russia do to the COVID pandemic and rising prices.
The situation is quite dire and could escalate into something very, very dangerous.
Here are a few links for those interested:
NATO sends reinforcements to Eastern Europe amid Russia tensions
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/24/nato-sends-reinforcements-to-eastern-europe-amid-russian-anger
Russian naval exercises off Ireland's coast 'not welcome,' says Foreign Minister
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/24/europe/russia-naval-exercise-ireland-intl/index.html
Pentagon reveals number of US troops on higher alert over Ukraine
https://www.rt.com/russia/547231-pentagon-troops-europe-ukraine/
Rising costs of Ukraine gamble could force Russia’s hand
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/24/rising-costs-of-ukraine-gamble-could-force-russias-hand
Let's hope things don't escalate too much more. Welcome 2022...
Comments (18218)
That sums it up.
NATO has dug a nice hole for Ukraine.
:lol: Case in point.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes indeed. What’s funny is that those in the US have been fed a line of bullshit for 3 years with claims that Ukraine was holding Russia back or even “winning.”
Some related events in rough chronological order:
Budapest Memorandum: signed 1994 Dec 5 — violated 2014 Feb
Euromaidan: 2013 Nov 21 — 2014 Feb 22
Revolution of Dignity: 2014 Feb 18 — 2014 Feb 23
Little green men incursion: 2014 Feb
Russo-Ukrainian War: 2014 Feb —
Russian occupation of Crimea: 2014 Feb 27 —
Russian annexation of Crimea: 2014 Mar 18
Donbas War: 2014 Apr 12 — 2022 Feb 24
Ukrainian parliamentary election interference: 2014 Oct
Russia demands NATO roll back from East Europe and stay out of Ukraine: 2021 Dec 17
Special military operation: 2022 Feb 24 —
The Kremlin has been exemplary in giving Ukraine incentive to keep seeking NATO membership, however unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Sure— they invaded their country. That’s pretty good incentive.
Trump pledges weapons for Ukraine, threatens secondary tariffs on Russia
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/live-blog/trump-patriot-missiles-ukraine-russia-immigration-tariffs-live-updates-rcna218469
And despite the fact that Putin has already won the war as every "smart" people in this thread - namely those who love to smell their own intellectual farts - knows.
American Joins Russian Army For Citizenship, Gets A Big Surprise Instead
[sup]— Ed Scarce · Crooks and Liars · Jul 15, 2025[/sup]
American Father and Vlogger Tricked Into Front Line Combat by Russia
[sup]— Nick Pehlman · Kyiv Post · Jul 15, 2025[/sup]
Importing North Korean soldiers, sending non-soldiers to war, ..., maybe they are running low.
Derek Burney: Disillusioned Trump tries to talk tough on Ukraine
[sup]— Derek H Burney · National Post · Jul 23, 2025[/sup]
Muscovites opine:
Mixed reactions in Russia after Trump comments on military aid for Ukraine
[sup]— AP Archive · Jul 19, 2025 · 47s[/sup]
I'll just echo Kallas: too much babble and delaying while Ukraine is bombed daily. I guess they're used to getting sh¦t all over by now.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/23/europe/ukraine-corruption-agencies-protests-intl
How the Largest Importers of Russian Fossil Fuels Have Changed (2022 vs. 2025)
[sup]— Bruno Venditti, Sam Parker · Visual Capitalist · Apr 1, 2025[/sup]
New EU Russia curbs may bolster Indian oil refiners' reliance on traders
[sup]— Nidhi Verma, Mohi Narayan, Trixie Sher Li Yap, Florence Tan, Tony Munroe, Jan Harvey · Reuters · Jul 21, 2025[/sup]
Exclusive: Indian state refiners pause Russian oil purchases, sources say
[sup]— Nidhi Verma, Philippa Fletcher · Reuters · Jul 31, 2025[/sup]
Besides, Europe pretending "business as usual" sends the wrong message.
Trump, escalating war of words with Russia’s Medvedev, mobilizes two nuclear submarines
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/01/trump-escalating-war-of-words-with-russias-medvedev-mobilizes-two-nuclear-submarines-00488493
This war is over. Ukraine can fight on and lose more lives, and Trump can blow smoke about it all, but Russia will keep the territory it stole. Sanctions and threats will do nothing. As we see with India, who will continue to buy Russian oil.
The children of Severomorsk are told that neighbouring Nordic countries support Nazism
[sup]— The Barents Observer · 2025 Apr 15[/sup]
Moscow threatens to DESTROY Europe: nuclear blackmail, calls for war, and strikes on NATO
[sup]— UATV English · 2025 Aug 6 · 9m:18s[/sup]
We want Ukraine, as a state, to cease to exist [...]
[sup]— Bezpalko Bogdan Anatolievich via Visioner · 2025 Aug 7 · 1m:57s[/sup]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/visionergeo/status/1953392267571433697[/tweet]
Seems clear that all this...stuff is for a domestic audience.
There's already been one attempted coup in Russia. How do you know another's not brewing? Russia recently surpassed a million casualties and 200,000+ KIA. That's over 10x what they lost in Afghanistan and they eventually gave up on it. It's not a bad bet for Ukraine to be thinking Russia will lose the appetite for this military adventure as well.
What moral authority do such comments have, coming from those who haven’t been involved, towards those who have skin in the game?
What intellectual depth can there be in remarks that overlook the complexities of international collective dynamics and the long-term strategies of political leaders?
People can find ways of convincing themselves of anything. It’s partly how casinos work. Wishful thinking. And of course there’s usually a modicum of truth — like the fact that someone usually wins the lottery, etc.
But this war is over. Not technically, since they’re still fighting— but for all intents and purposes, it’s over. Barring some miracle, Ukraine will come out with a crappy deal. No one said life is fair.
My only faint hope is that there are influential Ukraine hawks in the GOP who might prevent this scenario. But Trump is well-known for repeating the lines the last person who spoke to him has fed him. So after meeting with Putin, who Trump still seems enamoured with, despite his recent change of mood, that is the risk. He'll be outplayed by Putin, to Ukraine's' disadvantage.
However what I also find worth highlighting is that in Ukraine the political issue arises from the clash between Ukrainian nationalism and Russian imperialism. In Palestine, the conflict is between two nationalisms, the Israeli and the Palestinian. In Asia, the conflict is between Chinese imperialism and Taiwanese nationalism.
Yep. But he’s inadvertently advocating for a solution which may end the war. Of course Ukraine won’t agree— but to expect Russia to give up the territory it’s gained is also ludicrous.
I don’t see any real deal being made here.
He’ll blame Zelensky for not taking the “Great deal.”
He wouldn't be entirely wrong.
Genuinely, what reason is there to continue fighting? What could Ukraine possibly gain that would improve their bargaining positioning?
When a war is objectively lost, it's up to the leaders of the country to bite the bullet and ensure their soldiers aren't sacrificing their lives in vain.
It's very sour for Ukraine to be put in this situation by same the country that promised so much and delivered so little, but that's US foreign policy for you. Ukraine brought in a tiger to keep out the wolves.
Good point. But it’s still a hard pill to swallow for many Ukrainians. And I understand that.
Putin’s warlord ally flying migrants into Europe (via yahoo)
[sup]— Joe Barnes · The Telegraph · Aug 9, 2025[/sup]
Not the only kind of hostility (has come up before in the thread). Nice peaceful people, eh?
If they are unable to set aside emotions, they're setting themselves up to be sidelined, making things even worse.
Not very hopeful as Trump is a very lousy deal maker, and there's still the possibility that Trump pushes Ukraine to a lousy deal and gives everything on a platter to Putin. Not likely, but still a possibility.
Quoting jorndoe
But wouldn't hit the soft spot anymore. Europeans don't take anymore the bullshit tactics as they did earlier.
Pulling support for Ukraine and Israel would be fantastic. Trump so far has done neither.
As stupid and ignorant and as a major loser as he is, ending these wars or support for them is (in his case, accidentally) a good thing.
There has been a war of attrition and there's not even any more even any talk of sending new weapons systems (much of my previous analysis being how the "next thing" sent to Ukraine isn't going to change fundamental dynamic of a war of attrition that Ukraine cannot win in any practical analysis).
However, there has been a true break through over the last couple of days.
This could be the starting of a new phase of manoeuvre warfare.
Quoting Tzeentch
This has been true since essentially the first few months of the war, after the withdrawal of the Northern operation, that fighting to a better bargaining position is exceedingly unlikely and it has become simply more exceedingly unlikely since then.
The answer as to why? is the money.
Not just for elites but in terms of basic economic stability as well as soldiers getting paid.
In my view, people simply got used to the new system and people dying as well as the prospects of their own death.
A terrifying mix of sunk cost fallacy and defiance.
Quoting Michael Getman · Aug 16, 2025
Quoting Ola Ivanova · Aug 17, 2025
Quoting Alexander Rudko · Aug 17, 2025
Not much new I guess...
Trump could trigger a financial crisis in Russia — if he wants to — but has backed off from his threat of ‘very severe consequences’
[sup]— Jason Ma · Fortune · Aug 16, 2025[/sup]
Trump to back ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of peace deal
[sup]— Edward Helmore, Pjotr Sauer · Guardian · Aug 16, 2025[/sup]
There are two types of deal Zelensky might take. One would involve trusting Putin to honor the terms of a deal. Zelensky would be a fool to do that. If Zelensky gave away x amount of territory to end the war, Putin would simply regroup and then invade him again when he's ready. For Zelensky, the status quo is better than that kind of deal.
The other type of deal would involve UN/NATO peacekeepers to enforce the peace, and/or NATO membership. Is something like that even possible?
As if Putin has made ANY sacrifices towards peace...
On the contrary, Trump is making things quite easy for him!
What betrayal? Ukraine was never an ally of the US or NATO.
Quoting jorndoe
From what I understand, micro blogging social media without making a points is now against the forum rules.
It's just weak sauce to cite other people without even making it clear if you agree, if so 100% or then 99% or whatever. The people you micro-blog aren't here to debate.
Quoting RogueAI
If the status quo is Ukraine cannot sustain the war of attrition then Ukraine will continue not only lose people and material but at an increasingly disproportionate rate to Russian losses, as well as continue to lose more territory and face even higher demands from Russia later to compensate the further fighting.
So, the status quo is not better for Zelensky if there is no pathway to victory or even a stalemate; the status quo simply kicks the can down the road making the situation even worse for both Zelensky and the vast majority of Ukrainians.
Quoting Wayfarer
As was predicted since the beginning of the war by parties here and many other places of sober analysis.
This was the inevitable end result ever since Russia weathered the economic sanctions (which was always extremely likely, as sanctions have never in themselves caused states to collapse in addition to Russia preparing for this very war for 8 years, if not longer, and also being backed by China who can easily substitute anything the West provided; perhaps not as efficiently in all areas but having a pump that's 39% efficient rather than 41% efficient isn't going to collapse the entire economy).
What's remarkable is that there is zero introspection all these years later on part of the people that cheerleaded Ukraine continuing to fight, for Zelensky to rebuke negotiations in every possible way (that this made him strong and intelligent), and having no plan other than to repeat that Russians should go home, and when someone points out those aren't responsible actions and just get large numbers of Ukrainians killed for no militarily achievable objective, just retort some version of "But PUTIN!"
Quoting Wayfarer
As has been explained for many pages, international relations is not a game of brownie points.
You either have the leverage or you don't.
Russia has far more leverage not just militarily over Ukraine but also in the international system, and so (as I and many other predicted) once the West, in particular the US, has squeezed all the value out of Ukraine (from the elite perspective of wanting a new cold war to dramatically increase arms spending) it's going to want to throw Ukraine under the bus and cut a deal with Russia. Russia simply has significant leverage that the West, in particular the US, can't simply ignore indefinitely.
Now if the situation that Russia has the leverage to get what it wants (i.e. Russian elites) in this situation at the expense of Ukraine is lamented and equally lamented that US also uses it's leverage to get what it wants at the expense of plenty of people, then definitely I agree the whole nation state system is lamentable.
However, for those that cheerlead US imperial actions as "rational self interest" and "benevolent hegemony" and even explain how using Ukraine to damage the Russians was a smart US imperial move and so on, it is really difficult to stomach all these "dastardly Putin!" and fist shaking in the air type of comments, is simply incredibly hollow.
Quoting ssu
Ukraine is losing, Trump likes winners.
But the end game here has nothing to do with Trump. US was never going to risk nuclear war over Ukraine (they were always clear about that: No WWIII), and so the policy was to simply prop Ukraine up the time that was useful to do (mostly to lock-in a new cold war and the EU buying US natural gas, also buy up all the assets on the Ukrainian side), and once Ukraine starts to lose to cut them loose.
The only legitimate militaristic pro-Ukraine stance would have been sending Western troops into Ukraine to "standup" to the Russians beside their Ukrainian "friends". People who have no problem with the idea that's simply not possible, as the Biden administration explained many times "for reasons", have been cheering on the exact scenario that is playing out.
The Biden administration laid it out many times: no armour, no escalation, no WWIII, no boots on the ground, no missiles, no planes, no strikes in Russia ... i.e. no pissing off the Russians too much, and what would piss them off too much is losing. The policies that did change is always after Ukraine capacity was destroyed to an extent that changing the police, such as sending the missiles, would not place the Russians at greater risk of losing (would annoy them, for sure, but not the extent of losing).
What's the end point of such a police? Ukraine losing a war of attrition "calibrated" to lose (to use the RAND terminology), and once that becomes clear blame everything on Ukrainians: they wanted to fight and we didn't force them, and they just didn't want it bad enough and those clever Russians did, and we've even been paying for everything so they should be grateful, and so on.
Prediction made by me and others years ago.
The only counter-point to the prediction that Ukrainian "friends" won't fare any better than Afghani "friends" was that Ukraine and the US were more culturally similar (aka. white) and so the US wouldn't possibly leave Ukraine hanging like they left the Afghanis (when their brown, let them down, was the attitude that explained why what happened to Afghanistan was not a cause for concern).
Lol.
Putin won't risk nuclear war over Ukraine. His nuclear rambling has already paid well off for him.
And this has to do everything with agent Trumpov and how mesmerized he is with Putin. At least now Trump says something negative of Putin, but he still claps for the dictator.
Quoting boethius
The good pro-Ukrainian stance would have to give them everything they needed right from the start and then also to take seriously the threat that Russia poses and truly start building up European military industry right from the start. To be afraid of Putin's nuclear rattling was the failure. This game has been played in the Cold War already, hence full commitment on your ally fighting the enemy is the correct thing to do.Trump's increase of military spending to 5% has been one of the good things that idiot has done.
Well then why not just give Ukraine a bunch of nukes to end the war 3 years ago?
Why all this "no one wants world war 3 man" from the Biden administration to explain not sending in armour, then some armour nut not tanks, then not sending missiles, then missiles beyond a certain range, and not sending fighter jets, and limiting what can be struck and so on.
What exactly is your argument? That Putin's nuclear ramblings have paid off in terms of deterring the West from the kinds of military support that may end up in a loss? I.e. that what I explain is exactly what you're explaining, but somehow my version of the exact same thing is laughable?
Of are you saying that Putin manage to fool Biden and most if not all of the Biden administration, and even boethius of the philosophy forum, but he hasn't fooled you? You remain unfooled and would have not hesitated to send Ukraine whatever it wants because Putin's bluffing with his nuke talk?
And what ramblings? Putin rarely talks about nuclear weapons.
The deterrent effect here is having the nuclear weapons, not so much speaking about them.
Quoting ssu
Ok, sure, but then why didn't saint Biden end the war by giving Ukraine nuclear weapons or then all the good conventional stuff from day 1?
What's the sense of your argument? The current state of the war in Ukraine was determined during the Biden administration. Ukraine and its "friends" have been openly talking about their man power problem and man power disadvantage for a while now, which is not solved by more weapons even if the US had them in abundance (which they simply do not seem to have).
The weapons production problem, again, is the result of the Biden administration who could have executed a crash program of shells, and drones and other arms production to ensure Ukraine was flush with weapons while it still had a solid and substantial military core of soldiers.
A production program which, had it been executed at the start of the way, would have probably actually resulted in an actual stalemate with the Russians, but instead Ukraine has weathers under a shell disadvantage of 7-10 to 1 (in addition to being disadvantaged in every other weapons system, such as glide bombs, drones, armour and so on).
Western talking heads prattle on about Russia's arms production advantage, all while boasting of the West's economic might dwarfing Russia in GDP (when it's important to make the point that Russia is a backwrter and not a "player"), but don't put two and two together and come to the obvious conclusion that it's a Western policy choice to not produce enough arms for Ukraine to significantly hamper the Russians.
Quoting ssu
Thank you, we're in agreement.
The problem with the Western policy is that it is designed intentionally to not pose a serious threat to the Russians. It is duplicitous manipulation essentially optimized to harm Ukraine as much as possible to achieve other ends.
That is my issue with the Western policy since the start of the war, since the declaration that armour won't be sent to Ukraine, then sending a bit, then a bit more, and then keeping up the drip feed of weapons just enough for Ukraine to get decimated in it's war fighting capacity and demographics.
The reason the West was never serious (long before Trump) about supporting Ukraine is because had they done so, applied the military leverage at their disposal, that would have forced a resolution, as everyone would see Russia is being pushed to nuclear weapons use and then too many people act out of self preservation for such madness to continue.
But the goal was never to resolve this war in a way to help Ukraine under any plausible definition of the word help.
Quoting ssu
It is not a failure in reasoning to be afraid of nuclear weapons.
Quoting ssu
A game played to terrifyingly close to full strategic nuclear exchange (with far more nuclear weapons than exist now).
And again, post-Soviet Ukraine is not and has never been an ally of the US or NATO or any country in NATO.
The error in reasoning that has occurred is expecting a non-ally to do ally type of things.
For if not an ally what is Ukraine? A useful tool by definition.
Quoting ssu
It really depends on how the money is spent and also the broader impact on the economy.
None of the pro-NATO people here are concerned about how much money is spent by the West year on year and that somehow critical weapons systems run out and can't be replaced at even a small fraction of what the Russians can produce?
I am. There are two ongoing investigations (that I know of): one by the ministry of health and another by a corporation involved. I finished compiling all the private information I have about it yesterday.
Quoting RogueAI
I (and many others; I'm by no means alone in saying so) predict 3 years ago that Ukraine will go the way of our Afghani "friends" and be propped up the time they are useful and then cut loose as soon as they aren't.
There's never any counter argument presented to this prediction, just endless moralizing about how bad Putin is and how great Zelensky is.
The prediction comes true as even the pro-Zelenkiytes here seem to agree, and yet there is zero self reflection on what this cheerleading for Zelensky has accomplished these 3 years.
And even now, to point out facts (such as the pattern the US has of abandoning their "friends" once no longer of use, or that Russia is a lot bigger than Ukraine in size and population, and the policy is clearly to drip feed weapons to Ukraine precisely so there is nothing "serious" that threatens the Russians and so on) is somehow even now pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine.
I'm the only one here that advocated for sending troops into Ukraine, as that would very likely force a peace settlement and if done in a sensible way with sensible diplomatic options on the table would be less likely, not more likely, to escalate to nuclear weapons use. The end result would have been super likely a new security architecture to ensure peace going forward (what Russia wanted and so even entertaining the idea was "Putinistic") and far, far less Ukrainian dead and damage to Ukraine as a nation.
Of course I also explained that's not an option even being considered by Western politicians and talking heads, because helping Ukraine isn't the goal! They straight forwardly inform us the goal is to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. That's not what "friends" do, much less allies.
This whole 1 million Ukrainian dead saga is a lesson in actions speak louder than words. Doesn't matter what the West says, if they aren't going to send their own troops to a fight then it's because the issue doesn't matter that much to them; and both politicians and the vast majority of regular people in the West would all say without hesitation since the war began that of course none of their own soldiers should be sent to Ukraine. The conclusion therefore should be that clearly this issue of Ukrainian sovereignty simply doesn't matter much to the West and they shouldn't be relied on to "do whatever it takes" and deliver on other empty promises.
Quoting boethius
You don't think the prospect of a general European war against the country with the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet might be a consideration?
It don't go so well.
Melania Trump Letter to Putin Handed Over in Alaska (— Newsweek · Aug 16, 2025)
Trump
• cut tracking of kidnapped Ukrainian children
• blocked aid approved by Congress
• disbanded sanctions enforcement
• opposed oil price cap at G7
• paused intelligence sharing to Ukraine
• voted against a UN resolution condemning the aggression
• provided Putin a boost in Alaska, red carpet too
• re-confirmed his odd affinity for Putin
Something's off, but what? Personality quirk or something?
Artwork by Alesha Stupin
As Nietzsche said, a man's worth can be determined by how much truth they can tolerate. This forum appears to be capable of tolerating very little.
But it is to think that nuclear deterrence doesn't work is wrong.
Nuclear powers keep their nuclear deterrence as the last defence and WILL NOT escalate recklessly with another nuclear power. Just look at Pakistan and India. These nuclear armed powers have now had two military conflicts under their belt when both sides have been armed with nuclear weapons.
In fact, the posturing between NATO and Russia here is a case example: The US / NATO got through the message that if Russia would use tactical nukes in the conflict with Ukraine, NATO air power would attack Russian units and targets in Ukrainian territory. Notice what here was absent: any attack on Russian strategic bases like in the Kola Peninsula etc. Such attack would be actually a huge escalation. The declared limited conventional response was credible enough, even if using nuclear weapons would severely undermine Russia's war (as China wouldn't like this escalation).
I myself have assumed that if Russia really would want to send a message with nuclear weapons, likely they would simply make an underground nuclear test at Novaja Zemlya. This would be observed, would create a panic and a media frenzy, but wouldn't lead to a military response from NATO.
Quoting Wayfarer
Quite funny when Trump didn't find at first the Finnish President who was sitting in front of him. Trump starts to show his age.
But yes, the Ukrainian president as Ukraine has the backing of Europe. Will that be enough, we'll see.
Add Trump's Crimea Declaration of 2018, and whatever.
So, rules out the window, and orange-flavored appeasement?
Doesn't look promising.
Anyway, there's this tedious list of oddities on Trump and Putin's relationship.
Trump wrote "STOP" to Putin, and "CRAZY" about Putin, on his platform, and then...? Back to the old buddy-appeasement.
Bizarrely, after one of Medvedev's ramblings, Trump sent two submaries.
Mentioned list of oddities, Fiona Hill, various Kremlin (and a higher number of other Russian) comments/reactions, volte-faces like the above — taken together — is evidence to suggest that Trump has a hole in his understanding, or something.
The Trump circus has seen some incompetence.
RFK Jr might be the clearest example.
Witkoff is another (via upolitics, via thedailybeast, Niall Ferguson via instagram or facebook; via cnn or tass).
...
A territory swap, an exchange, perhaps accompanied by something else?
"The moment of truth, sir, and sir." :)
The Kremlin circle might, maybe; well, surely they would consider it, neighbors right in the middle of Europe (yummm), though still at some distance from Transnistria and the coveted Odesa.
Trump might eye a few Mar-a-Hungakia business opportunities (Putin can remove obstacles :up:).
Hungary and Slovakia would be leaving the EU and NATO, presumably.
The rest of Europe might object; well, to Russian forces moving in at least.
Now back to the real world, apologies for the distraction.
Some of these predictions are (still) accurate enough, others are somewhat off:
Vladimir Putin Could Be Laying a Trap (via yahoo)
[sup]— Jonathan Lemire · The Atlantic · Aug 12, 2025[/sup]
That's what you call your wish list now?
Quoting Tzeentch
Shouldn't you too? Trump is Biden 2.0 , the Blob, and other imbecile buzz words of yours and your brain doubles.
Quoting Tzeentch
You mean the dude who died crazy?
That's what you see?
Not supporting the Ukrainians trying (despite getting sh¦t all over again and again), wrestling free from their old northern shadow, standing up against invasion + land-grabbery, sovereignty of Ukraine, calling out Kremlin aggression + bullsh¦ttery, defending democratization, resisting Russification (? Russophobia) + Russian regress/oppression/colonization, whatever ...?
Hm.
The hawks want war, and even though the people generally don't, they are so hysterical they'd rather see no end to the war than to see Trump succeed at peace - it's not the widows, orphan and the piles of dead that keep them awake at night; it's the mere chance of Trump getting a prize.
The story people tell themselves about Ukraine deserving a better deal is just a coping mechanism to wash their hands, because a better deal is not coming and things will only get worse. Doubly so if the US ends up using failed peace talks as an excuse to walk out on the conflict altogether - Ukraine is really screwed then, and will probably not survive as a country.
So this clown and others kept repeating in this forum since the beginning of the conflict that the Europeans are slavish vassals of the US, that the US foreign policy is the BLOB everywhere (from Ukraine to Israel, from Biden to Trump), that Zelensky is a corrupt clown put there by the BLOB to screw Ukraine AND still the US can't get what they want from their slavish vassals and corrupt clowns?!!!
They found a way to connect whatever fact to such evil intentions, those of the Great Satan. And yap about it. As simple as that. Pardon, as imbecile as that.
Meanwhile: "Dramatic Rise in Republican Support for Ukraine"
https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/dramatic-rise-republican-support-ukraine
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/world/europe/trump-belarus-leader-call-putin.html
https://x.com/BelarusMFA/status/1956374401642865068
"Lukashenko says not going to run for reelection"
https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/113157/
What's the orange president cooking in Belarus?
Feb 27, 2014 · Little green men (Russo-Ukrainian War) (— various via Wikipedia)
Feb 26, 2019 · From 'Not Us' To 'Why Hide It?': How Russia Denied Its Crimea Invasion, Then Admitted It (— Carl Schreck · Chizhov, Putin, Shoigu · RFE/RL)
Feb 20, 2022 · Moscow Has No Plans for Aggression, Has Never Attacked Anyone In Its History, Kremlin Spokesman Says (— Ilya Tsukanov · Peskov · Sputnik)
Feb 24, 2022 · Russian invasion of Ukraine (— various via Wikipedia)
Plausible deniability or unactionability for a while, until exposed or otherwise unfeasible, just long enough.
I guess there's no accountability for such lying, apart from distrust perhaps.
(The domestic audience is a bit more puzzling.)
In this case, all on Putin's watch.
Perhaps consider the critical thinking perspective, which you are clearly capable of on other subjects.
The first critical question is "why is it ok when the US does it".
The US uses its military power to coerce and if that doesn't work invade to implement their "national interests" all the time. As we speak the US has committed (either sent or sending) troops to violate both Mexican and Venezualan sovereignty, and recently threatened to take the Panama canal and all of Greenland, within the context of waging overt and covert wars all over the world.
Now, if you deplore US imperialism as much as Russian, then ok, great, we're on the same page.
If you take the next step of having a lucid view of things, the proximate cause of the war in Ukraine is US imperialism threatening Russian imperialism, soliciting a predictable response. If you want to argue the ultimate cause is Russian imperialism that was always going to try to take what it wants in Ukraine, then I'm not entirely convinced (the pre-2014 status quo could have perhaps continued for a long time; as Russia also benefited from the status quo in having a large Russian speaking voting block in Ukraine which served the purpose of maintaining the status quo) but I have zero problem accepting such a premise for the sake of argument.
For, when we look at this obvious clear reality we have two imperial powers and a smaller country in between that became the object of inter-imperial struggle.
In de-contextualized absolute terms the US is more powerful than Russia (population, economics, technology, satellites, military alliances and bases around the world, etc. with perhaps a few areas where Russia leads, like not having 37 trillion dollars of national debt), so on this basis it was argued that Ukraine can switch Imperial sides and this is a safe and wise move.
That is the fundamental premise of the whole war and events leading up to the war.
However, when context is taken into account, Ukraine is right on Russia's border and so Russia is the dominant Imperial power. As Obama (who had access to the raw in intel) informed us, whatever the US does in Ukraine can be overmatched 4 times by the Russians.
The idea that "Ukrainian sovereignty" is a a justification for fighting to a loss is simply pure propaganda.
In my military training (NATO military training) one of the bedrock moral principles we were instructed to follow, due to being common sense and the supreme law of the land by treaty (this is Canada where treaties like the Geneva conventions matter), is that the use of military force must be in service of an achievable military outcome; that it was not honourable to fight to the death for no purpose, and doing so not only caused more immediate damage (primarily to civilians who we're supposed to be fighting to protect) but also harmed the long term prospects for peace by causing further unnecessary animosity; for, not only does more harm cause more bad blood but it is easier to understand and forgive military action taken to achieve a rational military purpose than violence for the sake of violence.
While NATO encourages Ukraine to fight to the death, actual NATO training (obviously omitted from what was provided to Ukrainians) includes an entire multi-millenial war fighting philosophy in which the goal is to limit damage to civilians, international relations, and fight towards a lasting peace rather than inflicting vindictive harm on one's enemies.
It is the bedrock ethos of the professional Western soldier.
History demonstrates again and again that when the use of lethal force is used in a plausibly rational and justified manner, seeking to minimize harm to achieve reasonable military objectives, that healing the wounds of war is far easier.
War is by definition the breakdown of diplomatic dialogue in which differences can no longer be resolved by talking and therefore the facts on the ground will be determined by force.
How that force is used has an immense impact on the prospects of rebuilding a diplomatic process to avoid further warfare in the future. The reality is that rarely are two sides equally matched and fight to a standstill and then re-establish the status quo anti after a purposeless war that changed nothing and caused only harm. The reality is generally one side is stronger or then more committed and achieves military objectives while the other side loses, of course at great cost to both sides.
This is the actual issue. Ukraine cannot achieve further rational military objectives, and could not remotely plausibly achieve any further militarily achievable objectives since 2023.
And this is not just me saying this; General Milley expressed this basic war fighting philosophy regularly; for example:
Quoting Top US general argues Ukraine may be in a position of strength to negotiate Russian withdrawal
Quoting Top US general argues Ukraine may be in a position of strength to negotiate Russian withdrawal
Instead of following in any remote sense this war fighting ethic carefully crafted over literally thousands of years so that the disaster that is war -- generally caused by delirious political leadership decisions on one or both sides -- serves a lasting peace to the extent that can be reasonably achieved in the brutal chaos of war and inter-state competition for raw power.
That is the issue, and if we take any similar situation where the US violates the sovereignty of smaller states for the political ambitions of its leadership, no one would be recommending that Mexico or Panama or Denmark fight the US to the death for no achievable military objective.
As a smaller state faced with imperial aggression, there's only 2 reasonable moves:
1. Negotiation and appeasement, and if that fails then complete capitulation.
2. Negotiation and appeasement, and if that fails then limited war fighting to return to negotiation and appeasement (demonstrate there is a cost to the use of force and it won't be "so easy"), and then if that fails complete capitulation.
Now, the rebuke to common sense strategy from a small-state point of view is that appeasement of Hitler didn't work and WWII happened anyways.
But that's not the same. That is an issue in which other great powers (and far greater powers at the time the appeasement strategy began; by definition starting with appeasing Hitler in remilitarizing in violation to Treaty of Versailles) that can credibly enforce their will on Germany and are deciding between appeasement and war.
To make an accurate analogy, we must recast appeasement in the scenario of the Sudetenland crisis as the situation being no one is about to go to war with Germany over Sudetenland but will send arms to Czechoslovakia so that they can fight the Nazi's alone.
Literally zero historians have taken the position in this debate that of course Czechoslovakian sovereignty is a categorical imperative for Czechoslovakian to fight for the death over and for the allies to send thoughts and prayers and arms (in a drip feed manner that wouldn't really threaten the the German's ability to take and hold the Sudetenland).
Had the allies made it clear they aren't about to fight the Germans over Sudetenland but they encourage the Czechoslovakians to do so, THAT IS CALLED APPEASEMENT! just with the extra setp of a lot of Czechoslovakians dying.
And that is the NATO policy vis-a-vis Russia since 2022: appeasement, just with the extra step of a lot of Ukrainians dying.
Would any historian make the case in such a scenario where the Allies make clear they won't fight the germans but smaller states should, with some arms (but shhh, even then not too many) ... would not be appeasement to Hitler as long as they talked tough?
Because that is the Western hypothesis: that others should fight the Russians for our moral beliefs, and that is not appeasement because we talk really, really, really tough ... except when it turns out indefinite conflict with the Russians isn't politically practical because the Ukrainians will lose and also Russia has stuff we want, then it's predictably time to cut loose the Ukrainians and recast ourselves as peace makers the whole time.
This is the issue: we appease the Russians, handle the war with kitten gloves to make sure we don't piss off the Russians too much (so avoid nuclear escalation but also to avoid too much bad blood that we can't access Russian resources when the time comes for that to be profitable and not putting at risk LNG exports to Europe, or get whatever else from Russia that has become expedient), and while we do that we vicariously live Churchillian non-appeasement through Ukrainians in a war they can't win and is horrendously damaging to them.
But would that be the feeling if we just propped up the Czechoslovakian's to be killed in large numbers and Hitler still get what he wanted? Would Western historians be like "fuck yeah, we really showed him" in a scenario that plays out like that without the US, France and UK ever declaring war on Germany?
Because that's what we're doing today but packaging it as brave.
In case the subtexts of the above argument is not clear, the point is not to recognize we need to finally stop appeasing Putin and start WWIII, but rather the point is the reality is simply that the propaganda framing that Putin is Hitler and that sending arms to Ukraine is Churchillian valour (the propaganda version of Churchill that ignores his own Hitlarian racist genocidal mania) is stupid and a vast majority of people in the West know that it's stupid and just something that we say but don't actually believe; for, if we did actually believe Putin was morally equivalent to Hitler and Russian's to Nazis, then the case for direct war would be incredibly strong and it would be clear to everyone that anything short of direct warfare would be appeasement.
But even that far more realistic view is still based in the proparanda framing that the West would care even if Putin was Hitler and actually was committing a genocide in Ukraine, for we have in parallel a genocide in Palestine and the support for the genocide far outweighs opposition from our political class, and the idea of putting a stop to it through the use of force is not even a possibility of consideration.
Which itself is still a propaganda framing that fighting WWII was about stopping Hitler and his genocide, and somehow that Western ethos has changed, rather than allied participation in WWII being about pursuing Western imperial interests that include plenty of genocide both before and after WWII and still today!
Point is, if you want to go all the way to the bottom of the West's propaganda "Inception" basement (which makes sense if you've seen the movie Inception), then those are some of the levels along the way.
For our purposes here, the reality is that the Western policy is:
1. Bribing the Ukrainian elites (a regime ruling one of the most corrupt political systems in the world and the largest black market arms dealer even before the war started) with flooding in cash and arms.
2. Suppressing any democratic sentiment (which kept on voting for peace with Russia and against further escalation of tensions) through the use of literal Nazi paramilitary organizations goose stepping hand in hand with Ukrainian intelligence.
3. Using steps 1 and 2 to ensure Ukraine fighting beyond any plausible rational military plan in order to:
a. Lock-in Europe into US liquified natural gas imports for mad profits.
b. Lock-in Europe into massive purchases of US arms.
c. Lock-in Europe into humiliated vassal status for the foreseeable future.
d. Uncouple Europe from Russia economically generally speaking, but setting up US-Russian economic collaboration down the line.
e. Defeat the Euro as a competitor to the USD.
f. Clarify the zones of influence in the emerging multi-polar world, with the remaining great powers being Russia and China, with the EU "off the table" and little chance of a general peace in which the great powers become less relevant and are forced to deal with domestic issues.
g. Most importantly of all, defeat European welfare state policies and practice as a model of economic development globally by simply fucking up Europe generally speaking.
Why would European leaders go along with this? Because they are literally in a satanic cult controlled by the financial powers that are in a position to assert said financial power to propel whoever they select to the bureaucratic positions of relevance (and satanic extortionary leverage being the best leverage but more importantly the satanic belief system encouraging sacrificing the interests of regular people and your whole country for whatever madness is popular in satanic circles these days); and if not a satanist literally murdering children on video, then at least someone totally incompetent and clueless and 100% a coward if ever they did get a clue.
And the subtext of your subtext is that being the American-European lead West the greatest evil in history we Westerners (?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) should help Russia end American-European-lead West by spinning pro-Russian propaganda, right? And that's rational, right?
Reality and facts is not "pro-Russian propaganda". If the fact is that Russia can defeat Ukraine because Russia is bigger than Ukraine, and the fact is the West leaving Ukraine to fight the Russians alone is called appeasement, and the fact is the West has committed a disturbingly large amount of genocides and is committing genocide right now as we speak (arguably more than one), those are just the facts.
In terms of absolute amount of suffering caused, definitely the West is the most evil in History, due to scale.
And definitely we Westerners should feel bad about that suffering.
We should feel bad about the suffering of the Palestinians suffering a brutal genocide with on camera rapes of prisoners, burning and blown apart children, rapes of children we know about, starvation; really the most horrifying and humiliating conditions possibly in history, due to the essentially live-broadcast nature of the documentation of the horror.
Likewise, we should definitely feel bad about having bribed the Ukrainian elite into doing our dirty work to ensure the US can sell LNG to Europe at the cost of over a million dead Ukrainians (some estimates are approaching 2 million dead).
We manipulate and prop up the Ukrainians to take an absolutely brutal beating, dangle prospects of real help sometimes (like all that "no-fly-zone" talk, if you remember that) and the hypothesis is supposed to be we should feel good about that because we morally excoriated the Russians for following the exact same policies of Imperial domination we follow (just a lot more nobly due to pretty close adherence to the laws of war and not doing things like a genocide and starving civilian populations and lacking things like raping prisoners, and even recording the rapes, bragging about the rapes and defending the rapists)?
I do not take propaganda as the opposite of reality and facts. As I said many times propaganda can also be grounded on facts and reality. What makes political propaganda propaganda is the fact that people are pushing the audience to take political decisions based on a certain narrative about (actual or putative) reality and facts. And what I find questionable about certain propaganda is not necessarily about facts and reality per se, but about how propaganda selects and connects them to get to certain ideologically-motivated conclusions.
Once one is content with a narrative over facts for whatever reason then one can push it to the wider audience for political purposes by repeating and spreading their “gospel”, which is what you do and expressly intend to do. So yes you are a propagandist.
And also pro-Russian because OBJECTIVELY your narrative discrediting the West favours more Russia than the West, so much so that your narrative is parroting on many points Russian accusations and justifications against the West.
So, you are literally a pro-Russian propagandist. And my claim should not be taken as denigratory per se.
Quoting boethius
Let’s review your facts:
- The possibility of a military defeat. Its plausibility depends on many factors including the military capacity of Ukraine and Russia. One has to see the cost/benefit calculations as the war evolves and how other actors are moving wrt the conflict are other factors. Besides a military defeat or occupation do not fix political issues per se, especially in the long term.
- What people call “appeasement”. I think that your rendering doesn’t really capture what people mean by “appeasement” in the context of the Ukraine-Russia conflict which is more something like “the policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to Russia in hopes of avoiding further escalation or conflict, often viewed as placating Russian aggression at the expense of Ukrainian”. In some sense the Ukrainians want to fight alone in the current conflict, they do not need boots on the ground from other countries. They need a military, economic and humanitarian support at the expense of Russia. And this request is rationally compelling as long as Russia is perceived as a threat to European countries and the US.
- Dramatic events like genocides. To my understanding, there is a legal usage of the term “genocide”, there is a historical usage of the word “genocide”, and there is a political usage of the word “genocide” which can overlap to some extent but do not coincide. So we can still debate in what sense you talk about “genocide” and about its explanatory power.
Now, once we converge on a certain understanding of basic factual assumptions , we can then debate of what follows from them.?
But propaganda can get in the way and use manipulative rhetorical tricks instead of offering clearer, more consistent analysis of facts and realities. I find that particularly nasty when careful analysis would be not only welcome but also kind of expected, as in a philosophical forum. Unfortunately, one can find early signs of such rhetorical manipulation even within your quotes.
Quoting boethius
I don’t know how you made this calculation. But if I were to assess something, I would evaluate bad and good, costs and risks. Not just bad as you seem to do.
Talking about “causing” is ambiguous because it can be used both to explain without attributing responsibilities and then also to attribute responsibilities. So it is possible that the West in some explanatory sense has “caused” certain things, still it could be debatable if the West was responsible for it just because it “caused” them.
Quoting boethius
OK your claim here is prescriptive not factual. Again I find it debatable, because the chance of following prescriptive claims depend on behavioural dispositions in human beings like the following: feeling bad about certain choices does not necessarily mean regretting those choices.
I’ll give you a dumb example: if I SHOULD save kid A and B from drowning and kid A is my son while kid B is your son, and I can’t save both. I will save mine and sacrifice yours. Would I feel bad about it? Sure. Would I regret my choice? Most certainly not.
In the same vain: if I SHOULD save kid A and one zillion of Palestinian kids from drowning and kid A is my son while one zillion of Palestinian kids are not, and I can’t save both. I will save mine and sacrifice one zillion of Palestinian kids. Would I feel bad about it? Sure. Would I regret my choice? Most certainly not.
What’s more is that even if you and many others feel differently about it, still there could be people whose feelings are of the kind I just described. And here is the political conundrum: politicians’ policies should be based on what people SHOULD feel or on what people ACTUALLY feel? Politicians are more credible and supported if they approve policies based on what people SHOULD do or on what people ACTUALLY do?
Quoting boethius
This argument is good for moral appeal, not for clear analysis.
History is replete of brutal ethnic conflicts (which were perpetrated not only by the West) and probably that’s because human beings do not only feel the need for peace, but also because they need social identities. Unfortunately social identities come with all sorts of social discrimination between groups. This is a potential source of conflict that can spiral into a vicious circle and very easily so, since any defensive move against actual or potential hostilities by other groups can be perceived as aggressive by those groups. This vicious circle can escalate the conflict to brutal and disturbing consequences.
So if one wants to minimize their frequency and intensity everywhere one would need OVERWHELMING DISPROPORTIONATE POWERFUL means to ENFORCE peace and preserve/fuel such powerful means as long as possible and against competitors everywhere. What historical form could this situation take?
For example, once an international order of very powerful countries (NOT only the US) are committed to support and enforce human rights everywhere (starting from their own countries) then I can find it plausible that genocides will become less likely than otherwise.
“Genocidal” conflicts happen both in Palestine and in Ukraine. However the difference is that Russia is not fighting its war for the acknowledgement of its sovereign state by the Ukrainians. Russia aims to have its own sphere of influence beyond its borders, be influential on a global scale, be treated as a peer by the US (BTW if the US is an empire and Russia wants to be treated as a peer by the US than Russia wants to be treated as an empire too, right?). Israelis and Palestinians do.
Quoting boethius
See, you started with some facts you likely believe to be “unquestionable” and then you conclude with facts which you can’t possibly believe they are “unquestionable” since they have been questioned. The idea that the Ukrainian have been propped up and bribed by the West has been repeatedly disputed (by me too). If one takes into consideration the historical evidence of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, one can find it rather plausible that Ukrainians had reasons to fight the Russians INDEPENDENTLY from any propping and bribing. This historical trend is not even unique to Ukraine, and it can be seen in many other neighboring countries of Russia. Ukrainians and many other Eastern European countries find Russia more oppressive than the US and act accordingly. And the war simply may have confirmed this perception. On the other side, the imperialist ambitions of Russia have also solid historical evidences (even prior the existence of the US) and are still cheerfully supported by Russian elites and intellectuals. So the propping and bribing by the West may not have enough explanatory power you seem to attribute to them. But you are less interested in analyzing facts and more interesting in judging and pinning responsibilities by carefully selecting certain convenient facts and overlook the rest.
From a geopolitical point of view, since Russia and Ukraine are not the only countries in the world, we should see how other countries position themselves wrt this conflict given their national interest. More powerful countries will likely approach the conflict in instrumental ways that are convenient to preserve or increase their power status for their security and prosperity, possibly at the expense of other rival powers. Now, since Russia can and did prop-up and bribe Ukrainians to make Russia happier the US is compelled to do the same to neutralise the asymmetric advantage Russia would otherwise have. Bribing and propping-up are tools politicians may need to rely on to beat rivals, still that’s not enough to explain certain historical trends or, even, to pin responsibilities.
See, so far my counter arguments are non-moral. They are grounded on what I believe “unquestionable” historical and anthropological facts, and neutral/pragmatic geopolitical reasoning. Even pro-Russian like you should be able to understand these arguments. And they should feel free to question them on their grounds which they typically avoid to do, because these arguments interfere with their rote counter-propaganda against the Great Satan. Their “analysis” is at best to find creative ways to link facts to the evil intentions of the Great Satan whatever they are. And then they call it critical thinking.
So my philosophical question to you is: should moral reasoning over the conflict between Ukraine and Russia take into account the anthropological and historical facts, and geopolitical reasoning I was referring to or not? If not, what is your argument? If yes, how?
Quoting Donald J. Trump · Aug 25, 2025
It's unclear what that will mean for ...
Russian attack on western Ukraine hits an American factory during the US-led push for peace (— AP · Aug 21, 2025)
What do you think will come of it (if anything)?
What should come of it (if anything)?
He's legitimate. (Can the same be said for Putin?)
Quoting CSPAN · Aug 26, 2025
According to one commentator, the Kremlin's push is like a Trojan horse.
• would buy them time
• would give them an easy excuse to withdraw from negotiations at any time
• besides, they could always claim that such an election was illegitimate
Seems safe enough to say that the Kremlin does not[sup]†[/sup] particularly have peace in mind.
Rather, colonization[sup]‡[/sup] at the expense of Russians and Ukrainians (and North Koreans).
[sup]† (some chronological evidence) 2014, 2014, 2019, 2019, 2022, 2022, 2023, 2023, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025, 2025[/sup]
[sub]‡ (some chronological evidence) 2020, 2022, 2022, 2023, 2023, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2024, 2025, 2025[/sub]
Defense increase seems to be happening, however scary.
Will war in Ukraine mark a new era for European defence research? (— Nature · Aug 17, 2022)
Europe needs to spend more on defence, not just pretend to (— The Economist · Mar 20, 2025)
French Automaker to Mass Produce MBDA’s ‘One Way Effector’ Missile (— DefenseMirror · Jun 15, 2025)
Europe builds for war as arms factories expand at triple speed (— Financial Times · Aug 12, 2025)
Russia might find itself well outgunned in Ukraine (+ deterrence works), but I'd suggest not forgetting more sanctions.
Pleasantries:
Chinese President Xi Jinping sends independence day greetings to Ukraine (— SCMP · Aug 25, 2025)
Sounds plausible, but let's not forget that amongst the Russian declared objectives for the war, there was/is the denazification of Ukraine, namely, the removal of "the “drug addicts and neo-Nazis” who purportedly govern Ukraine. So acknowledging Zelensky as legitimate counter-part for a peace deal would be likely seen as a concession.
SECURITY COUNCIL LIVE: Push for peace in Ukraine could rapidly fade if large-scale Russian attacks continue
[sup]— UN · Aug 29, 2025[/sup]
Quoting Yulia Svyrydenko
Quoting Dmitry Polyanski
Quoting Ondina Blokar Drobi?
:chin:
Well, yes, something doesn't add up, though at least it consistently doesn't add up; in this UN forum, I guess all that can be done is calling it out.
House Trump was silent in this round, as far as I know [sup](2025Feb21, 2025Apr15, 2025Jun17)[/sup]; busy at home [sup](2025Aug12, 2025Aug29)[/sup].
... 2024 Jun 6 · 2024 Jun 30
Fico insists on continuing to help finance the Kremlin's bombing of Ukraine.
... 2024 Dec 23 · 2025 Aug 16 · 2025 Sep 2
:chin: What am I missing?
EDIT (had some trouble finding the reference below)
Slovakia and Hungary call on the Commission to uphold energy security guarantees (— Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs · 2025 Aug 27)
Referring to a 2025 Jan 27 statement by the European Commission, that the integrity of the energy infrastructure supplying EU members is a matter of security for the entire EU, Blanár calls Ukraine's attack on Russian oil pipelines unacceptable.
Some Slovak press apparently wasn't impressed by recent events where Fico met with Putin:
Robert Fico was surrounded by dictators from all over the world in China. They celebrated the end of World War II (— Aktuality · 2025 Sep 2)
The date given was Sep 10, 2025.
Colonization.
[sup]— Donald J. Trump · Sep 13, 2025[/sup]
Orbán and Fico, presumably? Erdo?an? When might we expect something from those folks anyway? (Also Exxon, eggs?)
No (again).
The track record kind of renders such promises null and void. Something else might help.
Omissions also tell something: Putin / the Kremlin, India, perhaps Europe or the EU, ...
The post reads a bit like an(other) vacuous promise, be it due to dependencies/conditions or deflection. Something unspoken is going on. Maybe I'm reading it wrong.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/21/africa-the-new-frontline-between-the-west-and-russia_6719110_4.html
Not cool. I guess they feel free to keep on going.
Looking back, both have also claimed to be peaceful, pro-peace.
NATO, EU declared war on Russia through Ukraine, directly participate in it — Lavrov :down:
[sup]— TASS · Sep 25, 2025[/sup]
Europe has never been so close to the start of World War III: Zakharova stated that Ukraine plans to strike NATO countries with Russian drones :down:
[sup]— Ukrainian National News · Sep 26, 2025[/sup]
I'm not sure how accurate the following note is. (Anyone?) Supposing it's accurate enough, it becomes a worry that the Kremlin circle won't negotiate anything without some sort of victory to show at home to carry them through. (Including a worry for Russians.) I guess this concern is not particularly new.
As an aside, propaganda channels have started talking about Odesa, which is in relative vicinity of Transnistria.
https://theins.press/en/politics/285889
The Putinistas continue their raving and rambling to whip up Russians:
Putin’s propaganda flips reality on flights over NATO nations, as Russian public tires of war
[sup]— Eva Hartog · POLITICO · Oct 1, 2025[/sup]
Paraphrasing, they're under dire threat from Finland, Poland, and whomever else, NATO, "the West", ...
They don't talk much about the threat posed by the daily bombings of Ukraine (nor of whatever other hostilities (incursion, election interference, ai/chatbot pollution + dis/mal/misinformation campaigns, sabotage, migrant abuse)).
Has anything changed to the Kremlin?
I think China has just leased half of Siberia for 50 years for tuppence ha'penny. I doubt if there will be anyone to claim it back when the lease is up. I think Russia is close to collapse.
How might that fare?
How exactly does the choice become between:
A. unwinnable war
and
B. A favourable treaty
?
Seems to me that an unwinnable war intrinsically creates the super high likelihood of unfavourable treaty terms.
Am I missing something?
But that aside, to continue my military analysis since the start of the conflict, the war of attrition has reached an inflection point as was essentially inevitable (what a war of attrition means).
To remind everyone, Ukraine doesn't just have a smaller population but they are disadvantaged in essentially every category of warfare: strategic depth, artillery, armour, air power, air defence, drones, missiles, defensive fortifications, and intelligence.
The only 2 categories Ukraine ever matched the Russians was perhaps drones and intelligence at the start of the war, as these can be supplied from outside and the US has immense experience and capacity in both drones and intelligence.
I would argue falling behind (as in having Ukraine fall behind) in drone warfare was mostly a policy choice by the US, and for intelligence (we really don't know precisely) but my intuition is that Russia and the US being equally matched as intelligence competitors in Ukraine at the start is a reasonable foundation for analysis; each with different strengths: the US having an advantage in satellites and signal intelligence and the Russians having an advantage in human intelligence, Ukraine being right next to them, filled with Russian speakers and ethnic Russians and a primary intelligence target since WWII.
The nature of human intelligence is that it expands with respect to decreases in morale of the opposing side, whereas satellites and signal intelligence remain largely fixed and each technology generation can be adapted to (entire new technology is then required to regain an advantage again), whereas humans are intrinsically adaptable and so human intelligence operations adapt themselves as they go. I.e. you can optimize a strategy to deal with technology (starting with the fact humans are adaptable and so will learn by trial and error what works and what gets everyone killed) and the only way around that is new technology, whereas human intelligence assets will adapt themselves and take advantage themselves of new opportunities in real time.
For technology based intelligence there's also the problem that the US will at some point not want to inform the Russians of their capabilities by demonstrating their use, especially new capabilities (if new capabilities were ever deployed in Ukraine to begin with). So, not only does the technological edge wear off but even if the US did have new technologies to regain an edge in certain domains ... they may not provide those capabilities to the Ukrainians. So there's both the issue of capability to begin with and the issue of what is actually deployed to Ukraine.
Assuming you're talking about Trumps plan, it would be better than more war in my opinion.
Odds of it being accepted as it is by Russia is basically zero, but likely Trump has a "start high and settle lower" mentality.
Parts of the plan are downright bizarre such as Trump personally chairing some sort of enforcement council. However, again that could be a placeholder the time to negotiate something else.
The reason the Europeans (at least the vocal politicians and especially Brussels) are so against it is because the moment the war is officially lost, their actions are revealed to make zero sense in terms of national security of their respective countries.
The US can point to positive outcomes of the war such as locking Europe into LNG and the prospects of economic collaboration with Russia. The Europeans will not be able to point to anything, and Trump's peace proposal (in broad terms) is essentially just the near agreement of 2022 that was scuttled by the Europeans, at least public facing, personally involved, and taking credit for the scuttling such Boris Johnson (to what extent it was at the behest is a different matter, but that Europe took the credit publicly gives more leeway to the US knowing that Europe can't back down as easily having been the public face of rejecting negotiations for some years).
The end of the war could also lead to the breakup of the EU, since as soon as the war ends some Eastern European-EU countries may start to gravitate back into Russia's economic influence. If people forget why exactly we hate the Russians so much they may come to see what Russia is offering in terms of economic dynamism is more attractive than what Europe is offering. This would be a long process, starting with constant political agitation to get rid of sanctions that will be harder and harder to justify keeping in place, but the end of the war could be the start of it.
Why it's so vital for EU policy interest for we Finns to start fighting the Russians as soon as possible, carry the torch into the long dark night of government policy retardation (ultimately for the interests of organized crime).
I tend to agree.
He may be crazy enough to cut off all funding. But even then I can’t see Ukraine agreeing to this plan as it’s written.
But peace is not what Washington has been after since this conflict started in 2008.
It seeks to decouple from Europe, while abolishing Ukraine's status as stabilizing neutral buffer, putting the Russians and the Europeans at daggers drawn.
The Europeans and the Russians fight each other to a bloody pulp, while the US takes care of business in the Pacific, this time with China as the big bad instead of Japan. WW2 with colors reversed - the same situation which landed world hegemony in Uncle Sam's lap.
Cutting off funding and arms and intelligence would not be crazy.
Ukraine cannot win the war, that is clear. The more it goes on the more Russia will want for its trouble.
That's the dynamic that's created when a peace is not agreed swiftly: both sides have a psychological need to "show something" for the additional bloodshed, but the losing side generally never achieves that, requiring more fighting to try to make up for the losses. Who does make battlefield gains and increases their military leverage is the winning side, who then demand more, making it even harder for the losing side to capitulate.
So a tragic process of chasing ever increasing demands: as things get worse, what could have been negotiated even 6 months ago would be totally acceptable but there's now additional demands that are too hard to swallow ... though again in 6 months again they would be acceptable but there is now still more demands to compensate the additional 6 months of fighting.
The losing side never has more leverage, always less (what it means to be losing), and therefore continued fighting always makes things worse and not better. The exception being the intervention of other forces, a la Rohan coming to save Gondor at the last moment, but that is clearly not going to happen for Ukraine.
Losing a war means you have less, not more, say in the peace settlement.
As for Ukraine accepting, it of course depends on what you mean by "Ukraine". If by Ukraine we're talking about Zelensky ... he seems pretty clear to Ukrainians that they may have no other choice but to accept a deal. The straight up Nazi factions and other organized crime groups are presumably less likely to ever accept such a deal, but even they maybe compelled by the disposition of forces on the ground, preferring to rule over the rest of Ukraine rather than lose more territory.
The strategy of the Russians has been to fight in what is essentially one large cauldron in the South-East of Ukraine, maximizing the distance personnel and supplies need to travel and maximizing the distance with NATO radars and other signal processing. As a corollary, minimizing the distance with their own country and logistics.
The farther Ukrainians need to go to reach the front the more likely their movements can be spotted and analyzed as well as interdicted with standoff munitions. The more fuel, vehicles, and time it takes also, effectively reducing the effective quantity of everything.
However, simply because the war has stayed in the South-East Ukraine for so long does not mean it will invariably stay that way, that is just lazy thinking.
Once Ukraine is attritted enough and cannot arrest Russian advances, then Russia can go basically anywhere: keep pushing up from the south but also re-invade from the North or anywhere along the border.
The basic geographic strategic problem Ukraine has, that compounds greatly their capacity problems, is that there are no choke points. Fighting has been mostly in the South-East because that's where Russia has chosen to fight, not due to any geographic necessity.
Manning what is effectively a 3000 km contact line (counting Belarus) simply takes a lot of soldiers. There's no way around that. You need soldiers manning some interval of the contact-line and borders, as at least a "trip wire" warning system, and then you need a lot of soldiers in reserve to then go and stop offences.
Once Ukraine's army is simply below this large amount of soldiers required, then in order to defend against one offensive Ukraine needs to start deprive other parts of the front of essential man power ... so the Russians can just attack there.
It becomes a simple numbers game that Ukraine can't defend everywhere in addition to this process causes efficiency to rapidly degrade, resulting in the consequence is Russia can make large gains in territory at little cost to itself.
Naturally, the problem of no geographical choke point is a problem Ukraine has now, but there is one big exception that is the Dnieper, so Russia may take all of Ukraine East of the Dnieper.
Military planners likely view that as a long term solution to security needs.
Politically, there's not really much international consequence for taking all of Eastern Ukraine (as the West already did max sanctions), but there would remain the political issue of managing all of Eastern Ukraine and how much that would cost (with a lot of unkowns such as the likelihood of an insurgency and how damaging and how long it would last).
While I agree this was definitely the plan when all this started, I think it's less clear now to what extent the US has the capacity and will to continue this plan.
This focus on Venezuela could be indication of even the neocons abandoning the above global ambitions.
Venezuela is a small fish, and US involvement there is probably just an expression of the Monroe Doctrine, which is a cornerstone of US geopolitics. (No great powers or great power influence in the western hemisphere)
Yes, they certainly have the capacity to start these wars, but it's unclear if they have the capacity to end them successfully.
Quoting Tzeentch
Agreed, but the sudden escalation could be indication of deescalating elsewhere, consolidate imperial assets in the Western hemisphere.
Europe is already consolidated as vassal states with no independent foreign policy, locked into decades of LNG, social media, AI, and defence purchases ... having European vassals fight Russia could be killing a golden goose that's currently nice and safe in its cage, and wants to be in its cage, delivering golden eggs on a regular basis. There may not be a need to upset that relationship. Golden goose may not even be able to survive outside of her enclosure: it's really scary, even if goose squawks and fusses sometimes like she wants to be free.
Point being the alternative to WWIII is consolidate imperial power over Europe and the Americas, let Russia and China have their corner of the cake. Continue to contest the Middle-East and Africa but in a friendly rivalry sort of way that happens to kill millions of people, but we don't have to talk about that.
If there's no way to start and then win WWIII, appreciating what you have starts to look pretty attractive.
I think the US is operating under the assumption that Europe is already at risk of leaving the US orbit, because US power is waning and Europe is in potential a great power that is being artificially kept weak by US influence. (The famous NATO slogan that ends with "... and keep the Germans down" should have been understood to mean "... all of Europe...")
The European Trans-Atlanticist elite are under heavy pressure from so-called "populists" in a political battle that is essentially between Trans-Atlanticist US puppets and European nationalists. These are the first signs that the aforementioned process is already underway.
This is something that I have been stressing for a while now: Europe is a potential rival to the US, and as Europe shakes the US yoke, the US will start to treat it as such.
What better way to hamstring Europe going forward than to leave it with war on the continent as a parting gift?
That will only increase European dependence on American weapons and goods.
Quoting boethius
It's a reasonable alternative theory, but I don't see the US giving up their hegemonic empire without a fight.
I think the US has no real reason to let China develop peacefully in a process by which it will almost certainly surpass the US in power. The US is still powerful now, and it has many allies in the Pacific which can easily cut off Chinese access to sea trade (which is the staple of US policy vis-á-vis China).
When that happens, the Chinese economy will all but collapse, leaving it with only a handful of overland trade corridors which would have to run thousands of kilometers, often through unstable regions, to get to foreign markets.
Trade between China and Europe will become almost an impossibility, especially if the Europeans and the Russians are at war.
You can see how vulnerable the Chinese actually are in a hypothetical scenario where its trade cannot flow overland freely. This is of equal importance to why the US wants to see Europe and Russia at war.
If, on the other hand, the Europeans and the Russians kept relations good enough to facilitate trade, Chinese goods could find alternative land routes via Russia.
The Russians through their conservative approach to the war in Ukraine are signaling that they understand this and are trying not to burn all bridges vis-á-vis European-Russian relations, basically meaning to normalize after the conflict in Ukraine simmers down.
The question is, however, whether the Europeans cannot be successfully goaded into some extreme actions that force Russia to act (for example, Kaliningrad), especially when we consider the European Trans-Atlantic elite holds all the levers of power and is basically carrying out American foreign policy no questions asked.
Once the powder barrel is successfully lit and the gears of war start churning, it will be too late for second thoughts and there will be no going back. Like the famous "boiling frog" that doesn't realize it's being cooked before it's already too late. That's what the US is going to be banking on.
For the record, I hope I am wrong.
Agreed that it was the case.
Quoting Tzeentch
Agreed that this is the case.
Quoting Tzeentch
I believe this defeat of Europe as a rival has been now accomplished, for the foreseeable future.
Russian resources were a foundational part of European power and that can't be simply brought back online. The gas will flow to China as well as power Russia's own industry. Likewise with the other long list of resources Russia has.
They blew up the pipelines precisely to make the point that things will never go back to the way they were, with the response from European leaders being "and that's a good thing" and then bowing even lower and kissing the ring even sloppier than ever before.
There's no going back from that. That was the choke point: accept the destruction of your own infrastructure as a chastisement for even daring to have once upon a time thought of independent foreign policy thoughts, or then stand of for yourselves and have a foreign policy. For, if you accept the destruction of your own infrastructure by a foreign power you have no foreign policy (total subjugation being defined in this context as not-a-foreign-policy).
There's no need for a war with Russia.
Quoting Tzeentch
The problem with this is that you can't easily rinse and repeat Ukraine with other European countries as they are all in NATO. So the US would need to exit NATO, which is still part of it's force protection and prestige.
A war with Russia could go nuclear, so that needs to be taken into consideration.
But probably most importantly a proper Russian-European non-nuclear war would still likely be a marginal affair. Neither side has the forces to conquer large parts of the other's territory. Russians can't just march to Berlin, Germans can't just march to Moscow.
So actually starting such a war, with the US walking away, would simply create exactly what you claim the fear is of Europe leaving the US sphere of influence. New leaders would come in representing this fact and simply make peace with Russia and do exactly all the things this plan is supposed to avoid.
The status quo and it's natural progression, however, of a new cold war, of the eternal Russian bogeyman, of constant tensions and sabre rattling while Europe remains starved of resources, floundering economically, domestic and inter-European infighting, nationalism on the small scale, all that would accomplish the goals you layout for the Unites States.
Brexit having been the first step in this process (whether orchestrated or simply a surprise geopolitical gift for the US), and the Ukraine war locking the process in.
For whom the war with Russia is important is the current European technocrats that went all in backing the war and justify the economic sacrifices, geopolitical sacrifices, Ukrainian sacrifices, infrastructure sacrifices by the hand of the US, by reference to a higher calling and set of ideals it's worth sacrificing so much for, that borders shouldn't ever change by force (Europe has always stood for that, it's a long tradition) ... ideals that were ironically also sacrificed during the same period in Gaza and Sudan.
So a lot of sacrifices and if you have nothing to show for your toil the only way to delay the day of reconning is to say you haven't finished toiling yet, being asked a progress report completely disrupts the flow state, you "got this", and so to come back later. We've all been there and now the EU elites are also there.
Quoting Tzeentch
Slow boil yes. But abrupt: fight the Russians alone, we out of NATO, but also keep buying our weapons, may not get the desires response.
The current situation of European moral indignation and outrage and sabre rattling without any EU citizen needing to pay a direct cost of war so the virtue signalling can just keep going and intensifying like lighting off fireworks in a disco, without also these weapons systems ever being tested, is what maximized European purchase of US arms.
An actual war requires high volume commodity production of the basics, such as artillery shells. Why the West didn't provide that for Ukraine is because it's low profit, so just winding down stockpiles without a plan for continued protection is the high-profit, sophisticated Wall Street move.
What creates the need for high-end, high-sophistication, high-profit weapons systems (whether they work or not) is the continuous prospect of a war that never happens (and if that war never arrives then who's to say what weapons actually work).
In terms of arms profiteering we're in a sweet spot right now, no need to go making waves with all this "put bold words in action" immature talk.
Quoting Tzeentch
We agree on the motivations, the question is capacity (and a lucid understanding and response to that capacity).
If China has simply got too powerful and US war planners and elites understand that, then they may in response retrench where they can and strive for a modus vivendi with China, which largely already exists with China.
Quoting Tzeentch
The problem is geographical. China is immense and politically consolidated to all its natural borders.
The exception being its border with Russia.
Hence the strategy in the cold war was to maintain tensions between China and the Soviet Union.
However, if there's no way to run that strategy again, mainly because China has way less to fear from Russia than the former Soviet Union (China's way stronger now and Russia isn't the Soviet Union), and Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and seems clear they are both content to just do business, then the odd-man-out becomes Europe.
If Russia-China collaboration cannot be prevented, then the next best thing is to cutoff Europe from Russia and prevent pan-Eurasion economic integration.
Quoting Tzeentch
Some giant conflagration is possible to achieve these ends. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there's a lot of practical difficulties and the results are not guaranteed. It's a high risk gamble to have Europe fight the Russians and not help, they may just go make peace with the Russians. There's also a geography problem of exactly where this war would be fought.
War in the pacific I would argue is even less predictable.
So it's a high risk gamble with high risk consequences to US business and domestic effects also.
Quoting Tzeentch
Agreed that these are the considerations.
Quoting Tzeentch
This is an example of the geographical problems mentioned. Around Kaliningrad you can have of course some skirmish, even major skirmish, but the geography is not setup for extended indefinite warfare as with Ukraine. In addition to the complicating factor of nuclear weapons.
You could have a second Ukraine in Finland, but there's not really anywhere to go from Finland, you just reach the sea so it's not some existential risk to Europe. You could have a new contact line killing a lot of Finns to maintain that doesn't really move. Russia would have their defensive system and Finns would have one facing the Russians and there's not really any need for either side to go on major offensives.
EU leaders need this to happen in order to say they are still working on it, as mentioned above, and maybe the US (as a "faction majority" of US elites and war planners) also prefers it, but it's not a giant all out European and US war. In my model a new Finno-Russian war is optional. It's an enhancement but doesn't fundamentally change the dynamic as Russia can't really invade Western Europe through Finland, so would just be the slow attrition of Finns until they capitulate (which is the reason against having this war, is that eventually Finns would be worn down and capitulate, so you either need to accept that outcome from the start).
To be clear, I find this enhanced version of my model the most likely, as lot's of parties inside Russia also would want continued warfare after the defeat of Ukraine so starting with Finland would be continuation, not a departure, for the status quo. And if there's one thing we know about the status quo is that it likes to be maintained in its current level of comfort.
However, this scenario is very far from WWIII.
Quoting Tzeentch
Definitely already happened with Ukraine, but that therefore does not mean all potential wars must be started.
There are forces working against the start of new wars.
Quoting Tzeentch
Agreed.
To clarify one thing, in the above discussion we are investigating capacity, plans and intentions.
Your model of a large global conflagration to the point of severely constraining world trade, if not a nuclear war, can be started at anytime by accident.
So you can price into your model both dumb luck and incompetence as initiating factors.
My model could only happen with level heads managing the process, which is far from being priced into anything.
To avoid this discussion from getting overly lengthy, I'll only respond to certain points where I think our views differ in interesting ways.
1. While Europe looks weak now, it is, in potential, a lot stronger than Russia. In fact, on paper Europe is to Russia what Russia is to Ukraine. When the Europeans get into a direct conflict with Russia, they will be motivated to mobilize all that of potential in ways and with a speed that defies normal peace-time expectations. It may even be able to score initial successes against the Russians, as Napoleon and Hitler did too.
Therefore, I think Europe may be successfully goaded into going to war with Russia on its own (or only with soft promises of US support), especially if some gigantic (potentially false-flag) incident takes place that swings European opinion.
2. China may look very well-established and geographically safe, but the entire question is how China will fare with its sea lanes cut off. The US may not need to land a single soldier on the Chinese mainland to starve the Chinese economy and create an asymmetrical situation not unlike the one which eventually sunk the Soviet Union.
The big question is whether the Chinese economy can stay afloat on only land-based trade and if it is able to strike back at the US in significant ways (apart from nuclear). I am very skeptical of that.
While China as a sovereign country is safe, China as an international rival to the US is not, and that is the dimension which matters in this fight over global dominance.
3. If the US is going to make a renewed bid at global domination, we can only expect them to be willing to take extraordinary risks. Barring a nuclear exchange (which benefits no one, and should thus be avoidable), the US sits high and dry on its island where the chances of fallout are minimal.
At worst, the US will lose and be demoted to secondary power status, isolated on its island in the western hemisphere. This is basically the situation we are already heading towards if several great powers (China, Europe and Russia) are allowed to consolidate in Eurasia.
I wouldn't underestimate whether the cost-benefit analysis from a US point of view can spur it towards extreme risk-taking.
Yes, we definitely agree on the fundamentals and the objectives of world domination.
The only issue is what can practically be achieved and what will be attempted (rational or irrational).
Quoting Tzeentch
Limited war, perhaps ("enhanced cold war" with a limited Finno-Russian war added on top I think is likely, which is of course the pattern of the original cold war with "enhancements" in Korea, Vietnam and so on); however, some sort of total war involving all of Europe seems to me very unlikely due to the lack of unity and the lack of a sensible war plan (such a war would go nuclear, compared to a bunch of Finns dying the forest "standing up" to the Russians wouldn't be much of a bother).
Quoting Tzeentch
It is of course an interesting question, but the US also does a lot of trade as well as fabrication in China and the region (which is integrated with China's manufacturing base).
So it would also have immense domestic effects as well as immense consequence to multi-national corporations.
It's unclear to me what the end game would be, as China wouldn't just "go away" in such a scenario, but whether faring better or worse would be fighting back both diplomatically and militarily. So it's unclear to me how long the US could maintain such a force posture of blockading China indefinitely, and once some agreement needs to be reached (like we see is becoming necessary with Russia) then I don't see a reason to assume the whole ordeal would be more costly to China than to the US
Quoting Tzeentch
US may simply not have the capacity for such a move, is my main concern. Would be difficult to sustain and could easily damage the US just as much of pretty much everything, from domestic opposition and chaos to diplomatic standing in the world.
Quoting Tzeentch
But to really do what you're proposing, even if nuclear weapons are avoided somehow, would still require a lot of American soldiers and sailors and aviators fighting and dying.
Too much and that creates intense domestic opposition.
Just like the first cold war, you could have indirect engagements, even quite intense such as Vietnam and analogously Ukraine (in terms of fighting intensity), but still relatively small context on a global scale between the major players.
Trying to war game out some really intense direct conflict between the great powers is really difficult to even plot out a pathway to victory, must less be confident it can be achieved. That's my main issue with such a massive move as you are proposing.
I agree that the plan I am laying out for a potential US strategy to renew its hegemony would be an ambitious and risky one. Therefore, I think there's a reasonable chance for the US to take a more conservative approach in line with your limited war view.
Would you agree then that, considering hegemony is at stake, there is also a reasonable chance the US might steer towards a large escalation?
Since we seem to disagree about China's relative strength and vulnerability, and its capacity to strike back, giving us different ideas of the cost-benefit situation, I think this is the more interesting place towards which to steer our discussion.
I'd really like to know your rough ideas for a Chinese strategy in a war as described, in light of some of the thoughts I describe below:
Quoting boethius
I think you underestimate what a sea blockade (and accompanying disruption of land-based alternatives) would do to China.
China's economy would implode, and its international trade network and ties with its overseas partners would be severed. It would essentially cease to be a great power overnight, leaving it with only its land-based military power to do what - invade a neighbor?
Meanwhile, its ability to incur costs on the US and allies would be very limited. It has the capability to create some freedom of movement close to its shores due to its missile arsenal, but that won't get its trade ships out of (mostly US-aligned) Asia.
A sea blockade would not be overly costly for the US, since it's the natural application of its oversized navy, not to mention the fact that it has various allies that would share in the costs.
South-Korea would probably be the place where China would seek to strike back, but even a total victory on the Korean peninsula would not solve China's fundamental issues.
Keep in mind, I will readily concede that much of this is speculative.
However, I am basing it on concrete actions by the US, and their parallels to geopolitical theory and the historical precedent of strategic planning during WW2.
Note also that I am not necessarily saying the US will be successful.
In addition, this particular thread is focused on Ukraine so I haven't wanted to go too far off topic. I had intended to make a new thread focused on geopolitics on the global level, where the overall US strategy would be more suited to discussion.
Unfortunately I have not yet had the time, though Ukraine seems winding down now so perhaps suitable to now expand to it's roll / function in the global geopolitical struggle.
Quoting Tzeentch
Likewise, I do not find your proposal of a large scale and high intensity war implausible in the least. We've had world wars before in similar tense situations.
My criticism has been more in the form of a challenge precisely to get into details of how such a confrontation would play out and what the aims would be.
For, although things have stayed the same, in terms of great power rivalry, things have also changed in terms of nuclear weapons, global supply chains and also trains.
Quoting Tzeentch
I'm not sure we disagree on capabilities.
The difference in comparing to WWI and WWII is that in those conflicts the situation was such that the losing side could be entirely conquered or forcing a capitulation.
The US has no means of actually conquering china and forcing a capitulation would require nuclear weapons. So the situation is similar to that of the cold war where the tensions were quite high and possibility of direct confrontation always present, but neither side was willing to risk nuclear war.
So this is the dynamic that I think is the best reference frame, in that proxy wars can be fought all over the place but pushing too directly and too forcefully may solicit nuclear escalation and so there's is extreme reticence.
For example, that is a central hypothesis to my analysis of the Ukraine conflict, that US / NATO could have supplied far more damaging systems and equipment far earlier that could have had a far greater chance of actually pushing the Russians back to their borders, but wargaming that out super duper probably results in the use of nuclear weapons. For, US / NATO could have provided all the cruise missiles, longer range air defences to strike aircraft, even F-35 and F-22's and diesel submarines and so on, if they "really, really, wanted", and most importantly a massive scale up of drone production and supply using that larger economic power even only of the US, Ukraine to win.
So my basic contention is that it would be a similar "not too much" stable point for US-Chinese relations.
Quoting Tzeentch
Implode is a strong term.
Obviously China would still be there with enormous production capacity and problem solving capacity, so China would then work on getting around the blockade.
There's also a lot of political complexity to a blockade due to massive problems for global supply chains.
Other neighbouring countries can be traded with by train but also China can send ships into neighbouring territorial waters and the US would need to then commit acts of war on those countries also.
I also don't have enough time at the moment to go to details, but these are the kinds of concerns I have with the prospect of a US blockade with China.
Assuming it does not go nuclear but China sort of "take it" they could anyways inflict costs on the US due to the lethality of missiles, China can keep US ships fairly far from the Chinese coast, certainly outside Chinese territorial waters, and then continuously run the blockade with a civilian ship and an escort. Chinese would be then within it's right both morally (for most people in the world) and also in international law to run the blockade with escort and then return fire. These ships could be unmanned.
So even if China cannot entirely break the blockade and defeat the US navy it can in this iterative process inflict costs with continuous improvement to the strategy.
So it becomes a case of how long can US maintain the blockade, to what extent it could contain blowback in the rest of the world for a clearly illegal blockade. Other countries may send their merchant ships to China, daring the US to sink them.
All of these factors would make things very messy and very quickly so my main issue is not so much that such a blockade could not be started but what is the endgame?
Navy ships are expensive and if the US is blockading China and China is regularly running the blockade and manages to sink ships, even a really nice ship ... the response can't just be nuclear (otherwise the correct strategy is just to nuke China to begin with), and once the US starts losing ships it's very difficult to engage in a war of attrition at sea (you sort of need either overwhelming control or then to leave, as we saw recently in the Red Sea even moderate costs inflicted by the Houthis caused the "Coalition of the whatever" to leave).
Now, without nuclear weapons then it would certainly be within the realm of possibility, if not super likely at this point, for the US et. al. to galvanize their populations into total war and go on a world conquest campaign and truly physically contain China. I'm not entirely confident what would actually happen in such a hypothetical but certainly conceivable.
However, with nuclear weapons, push too much on a nuclear armed state and at some point their going to resort to nuclear weapons use.
This is mostly tying back to subjects of "limited war vs. full-scale war" which I think enough has been said about.
I instead wish to focus my reply on the more concrete aspects of a US-China conflict, as per the other portion of your post:
Quoting boethius
Quoting boethius
The Chinese may be able to produce food, power and manufacture enough goods to maintain a non-critical standard of living, but modern economies cannot run on their own, not to mention the fact that China has a huge overseas trade network which would be severed overnight, together with all its foreign and domestic dependencies.
What I'm missing in your post is the fact that China's land access to foreign markets is very limited under the conditions we have discussed.
Trade with Russia is in all likelihood safe through Kazakhstan, Mongolia and (if all else fails) a corridor near Vladivostok.
Then it could probably maintain trade with some South-East Asian countries, though this region will likely be in chaos if this scenario were to come to pass.
But this is small fry - a fraction of what China has access to now, and a fraction of what China needs to stay a geopolitical contender.
Overland trade to India must pass through Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Trade to the Middle-East and Africa must pass through several unstable Central Asian countries and then pass through Iran, which will likely be at war with the US and Israel.
Trade to Europe must pass through Russia.
Quoting boethius
These are not wartime considerations, in my opinion. What power does Vietnam have that it's going to enforce its territorial waters against a US coalition?
The US is already bombing neutral shipping for carrying Russian oil, and I believe the most recent attacks took place in Turkish waters.
Quoting boethius
Apologies for being blunt, but I think your idea of what a naval war in the Pacific would look like is not very realistic, and I understand now why you believe China is less vulnerable than it actually is.
To illustrate my point, I'm going to describe to you the path a Chinese merchant (or naval) vessel would have to take, in order to do anything.
1. A ship must leave port, which under a blockade will be mined and surveilled by submarines.
2. If a ship manages to leave port, it will then be subjected to submarine interdiction and long-range US fires from naval bases all over the area.
3. If the Chinese use their missile arsenal to keep US fleets at bay, and a large naval escort to counter submarine threats and intercept missiles, they can try to make a dash for the open ocean.
(Note that chokepoints like the Strait of Malacca, other Indonesian straits or the Sea of Japan will be essentially insurpassable due to mines, submarines and naval sea and air assets, in addition to land-based installations.)
4. To get to the open ocean, the Chinese fleet must then pass through TWO island chains which will provide similar obstacles as the previously mentioned sea straits. The fleet will also have to leave the Chinese missile umbrella as it travels further from the Chinese mainland.
5. In the unlikely event that the Chinese fleet survives the gauntlet, it has now reached the open Pacific, where it will be no match for the US navy.
6. But where would they even go from there? Would they cross the Pacific to do trade in South America? Would they sail around Cape Horn towards Europe and Africa? Would they sail around Australia? Hopefully you start to see the problem.
And this strategy is not overly costly for the US at all. All of the capabilities and assets have been in the region for decades, neatly stashed away in US bases waiting for a job. The US also has several allies in the region, and they are strategically very well situated.
I don't see a concrete plan for how the Chinese can counteract these massive threats.
It can use its missile arsenal to impose costs on the US when it sails close to Chinese shores, but there is no onus on the US to do so.
At best, the Chinese can try to achieve something on the Korean Peninsula or Taiwan, but at that point we're probably already talking several years of full-scale war, the primary cost of which would not be borne by the United States.
Meanwhile, this base-line scenario already seems to me catastrophic for China as a great power, and in my view would already suffice to achieve US strategic goals of re-establishing global primacy by knocking down China.
The nuclear dimension is of course more difficult to predict, but ultimately nuclear war is something neither the Chinese nor the Americans benefit from.
I also think China is unlikely to resort to nuclear weapons if the Americans do not threaten mainland China with an invasion, which, as discussed, they really don't need to do.
However, I'd like to address what I think is the heart of the matter.
Quoting Tzeentch
I'm taking your premise as given that the US simply wins in the pacific. Of course there's plenty of details that could be debated, given China's immense industrial capability and perhaps their own secret weapons and all that.
However, assuming the US wins the initial engagement, what I'm talking about is the time span of like 10 years.
Even without nuclear weapons, China is obviously going to develop a counter strategy and seek every way to break the blockade.
So my central question to the proposal is can the US just keep this up for a decade or even more? What exactly is the end game?
There would be immense industrial and political blowback to implementing a blockade. Substituting China completely in all industrial processes is a tall task. The blockade would be clearly viewed as illegal and illegitimate for the entire world so other countries may protest, sending their own merchant ships to China while also potentially refusing to trade with the US. There could be continuous industrial and political crisis after crisis to maintain such a policy.
So what's the long term strategy. Do you consider the US et. al. more industrially self sufficient than Russia + China and co. ?
The costs mentioned in my previous post of running the blockade and optimizing a strategy to inflict costs on the US (causing casualties) is over this 10 year period of consideration. Is your premise that the US would have no casualties in such an intense conflict with China over the long term? Or then the casualties are acceptable and supported domestically?
So these are the kinds of end game issues I have a hard time seeing how they can be dealt with by the US over the long term.
Quoting boethius
For me, these things are not part of the consideration. Sure, there will be rumblings, but who is going to stick their neck out when the world is headed for World War 3?
As we speak the Europeans are tanking their economy for a lost cause in Ukraine. Where is the industrial and political blowback?
Countries will prefer to remain neutral, or join the winning side, which is almost certainly going to be the US if a blockade is achieved.
Quoting boethius
Quoting boethius
Quoting boethius
An isolated Russia and China would definitely be weaker than the US and allies with full access to global markets. And it would get progressively worse for the former if such a situation is allowed to persist.
Further, the cost of an effective blockade is not high for the US. A single submarine can lock down a sea strait, and it would be unfeasible for the Chinese to attempt anti-submarine operations away from their own shores.
As I mentioned before, cutting Russia and China off from the rest of the world is already a victory condition, since it will almost certainly scrap their status as great powers.
China's only hope is to come up with effective strategies to strike back, assuming those exist. I have yet to hear anything concrete and convincing in this regard.
This time tanking their international credibility through their blatantly illegal actions vis-á-vis Russia's assets.
The point of the coming seizure is of course not economic, because this money will evaporate in the financial black hole that is Ukraine, and cause the EU legal trouble as far as the eye can see.
The point is to make long-term normalization between the EU and Russia impossible, that is to say, the point is to bring war with Russia closer.
I predict that within five to ten years, Europe will be in a direct conflict with Russia, and the Americans by that time will have decoupled, and the current European "leadership" will have jumped ship and ran.
So it’s ok for Russia and the US for that matter, to carry out illegal actions, but not Europe?
I think Putin may have a bit of the blame for that. And no it is not likely to result in a war with Russia in the long term, but rather an iron curtain.
Your anti-European bias is showing again.
I would be more open to it if it didn't so obviously undermine European interests.
Quoting Punshhh
Sure, I agree. So why should European "leaders" insist on making things worse at every opportunity?
Putin did something we did not like, so lets rush straight for WW3?
Quoting Punshhh
With the US decoupling from Europe, it is almost a guarantee that it will result in a war, because the US benefits from chaos on the continent as it did during WW2 - that's how it attained hegemony and that's how it seeks to re-establish it today.
The 2+2 a lot of people fail to make is that the US fears Europe becoming a great power, and will do everything it can to prevent that from happening. As US influence in Europe wanes and we are already in the process of decoupling, its instruments to wing-clip Europe become fewer and fewer, until eventually the only option is to embroil Europe in a war, the rotten seeds for which it has diligently started sowing from 2008 onwards.
Quoting Punshhh
I am a European, but cute try.
There’s not going to be WW3, Russia is digging a whole to bury itself, it won’t be long now. Putin waved the nuclear Armageddon card on day one of the war, it’s wearing a bit thin. The only alternative is for him to March on Europe, he wouldn’t get past Poland, they have a few scores to settle going back a long way. Remember NATO is a defensive alliance, they are not going to march on Moscow. They will consolidate in Ukraine and a new iron curtain will go up close to the current front line and between Poland and Belarus. Job done and Europe will consolidate and re-arm in the process. Russia will be weakened, which was long overdue, they were getting too strong and compromising Europe. The U.S. will come to it’s senses once Trump is voted out.
That’s all very well, but who is the opposition in that war?
The U.S. has enough to worry about with China, they could do with another superpower as a friend to act as a counter balance.
I knew that before I posted.
:lol:
I don't know a single statement that could more blatantly reveal one's complete geopolitical ignorance.
It’s all relative. Name a nation acting more strategically in it’s own interests?
I'm not sure about that. The damage has been already done.
You don't have to be Denmark to state the obvious (as their intelligence service did). The US is an untrustworthy ally and even if the democrats came to power and would try to take US Foreign Diplomacy to what it was since WW2 until Turmp, there is allways the possibility of MAGA-people or similar coming to power and being hostile towards Europe.
Trump is simply a surrender monkey as we already saw in Afghanistan, who will do what his enemies want for a hefty bribe. Likely he will get Ukraine to fold, unfortunately. I'm sure that Putin will be extremely happy to pay some hundreds of millions or a billion for the end of Atlanticism.
If a cease-fire agreement is reached (if the US finally forces the victim to surrender), that cease-fire is likely to be similar to all those Minsk agreements (which people have already forgotten about).
Yes, that is a possibility and the U.S. is now untrustworthy. But with Democrats in office they would not likely pull out of NATO and by the time of the following term (6years from now) the war will be over, Russia will be contained, Europe will have re-armed.
Yet the real tragedy is that in my view Atlanticism, the security arrangement between North America and Europe, has truly worked well and given us peace in Western Europe. There was no reason for this tie to be uncut as Trump is now doing.
This has been the real difference between the US and any other Great Power in history: the US did take into account European needs, was from the start positive about European integration, which then made Western Europe to align with the US voluntarily. Actions like the Marshall Plan and the Berlin airlift did have a huge impact. The inability to understand that this has been extremely beneficial to the US as Western European countries accepted the leadership role of the US. Now that leadership role is rapidly dismantled by the catastrophic actions of Trump.
Just compare this to the Warsaw Pact, which was basically there to keep the Soviet satellites in order and under control of the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact did perform this well (in 1956 and in 1968) and continued until Gorbachev era... when the system totally collapsed. No former Warsaw Pact member wanted to continue a security treaty with Russia. They ALL sought safety from NATO, just as non-aligned countries like mine and Sweden finally did after Putin's large scale attack into Ukraine.
Now basically the US has changed it's approach and treats Europe as a problem, is overtly hostile towards European integration and acts more like it acts towards it's backyard, Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet European countries aren't similar to Latin America: they aren't poor countries, two of them are nuclear powers. But they will get the message.
Real enemies of the US like China and Russia simply cannot believe their luck, I guess.
* * *
About the Trump - peace process, Garry Kasparov puts it aptly:
They Droned Back
[sup]— Digital Digging · Dec 10, 2025[/sup]
It's been suggested that European intelligence is lacking.
Some follow-ups and such...
German investigators have found a link between mass flights of unidentified drones and ships connected to Russia
[sup]— NEXTA · Dec 10, 2025[/sup]
Suspicious drones from Russian ships: young reporters’ trail leads to Rosatom
[sup]— Eunews · Dec 12, 2025[/sup]
How seven students unmasked Russia’s ‘drone motherships’
[sup]— IO+ · Dec 12, 2025[/sup]
With a Kremlin shill in the White House, and Europe generally paralyzed (i.e. mostly just babbling about, say, 2030), I'm not really expecting much.
Hire Ukraine as a European defense force against Putin's Russia, give them what they need; at least they'd act (they've converted Russoboats to submarines before). ;)
I think that has already happened. (The what they need part is still the problem)
Notice the arrangement in this photo: Zelensky and Merz together on one side negiotiating with the Americans on the other side. Sometimes a picture tells more than a thousand words.
Ukraine is already the active defense of Europe against Russian hostility and imperialism. As it has been commented Alexander Stubb, the Finnish President saying, "We cannot leave Zelensky alone with the Americans in the negotiating table". Well, Merz didn't leave Zelensky alone with the Trump people, as the picture shows.
What is positive is that the EU has now evaded the pitfall that Trump can get his hands on the Russian frozen assets cookie jar and pro-Russian government in the EU can make things worse.
As you say, Germany has got the message. I was hearing reports that German troops are helping dig trenches and tank traps in Poland.
As to Europe, Lavrov pats Trump on the back for some anti-Europe moves. Kyiv is decidedly not a Nazi rule, but Lavrov still repeats that. In this round, he more or less extends the accusation to the better part of Europe, incidentally those that support Ukraine.
Baffling if anyone can take this crap seriously. Who's the target?
Also read "The war and the Russian imperial consciousness" (Mar 21, 2023).
Kind of discouraging, assuming it (still) holds up.
People who don’t have access to unfettered news outlets. Oh and president Trump.
Thus there's a huge amount of people that want to believe in that the US is responsible for this war. Or that Ukraine is an artificial country and ought to be part of Russia...
Something like the truth / actual reality isn't a problem for them.
https://www.ft.com/content/e5691048-696b-44cd-8a0a-50b917e3d62a
Chats: Wie Putin seinen Krieg der Desinformation auf Wiens Straßen führt
Chats: How Putin is waging his war of disinformation on Vienna's streets
[sup]— Max Miller · Profil · Dec 12, 2025[/sup]
Similar stuff has been reported before in other countries.
Some subsequent reports:
Austria Exposes Russian FSB Network Posing as “Ukrainian Nazis” to Sway Public Opinion Against Ukraine
[sup]— Roman Kohanets · UNITED24 · Dec 14, 2025[/sup]
In Austria, an FSB network disguised as "Ukrainian Nazis" was exposed
[sup]— SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre · Dec 14, 2025[/sup]
Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation Network Posing as ‘Ukrainian Nazis’ Exposed in Austria
[sup]— Roman Pryhodko · Militarnyi · Dec 14, 2025[/sup]
There are a number of other reports on related topics.
The FSB cosplays as evil people and works to sow unrest wherever.
The Kremlin circle is a tad preoccupied with Nazism.
The problem is the US does not have enough carrots and sticks to keep the entire world inline and Isolate China.
So you really need to war-game out your scenario to some sort of end point. For example, maybe the US could do a full blockade for a year and then come to a peace agreement with China and get some concessions, in a similar way of the tariffs negotiations. That would obviously be doable from a practical point of view, but it would obviously not really accomplish much in terms of containing China, just a negotiation tactic essentially.
Truly blockading China for years and decades would be really a huge undertaking.
However, we're only differing in projected intensity of the same structural dynamic.
Just like having a limited war in Finland (limited for Europe and Russia but obviously catastrophic for Finland) is a sort of Cold War with "enhancements", the US has already embarked on enhancements on the seas with intercepting Venezuelan and Iranian ships.
Definitely it's possible this is a practice run for a full embargo of China, but my feeling remains that would be simply too difficult and pressuring on the margins with piracy on the high seas is more cost effective: by doing a bit of something you can deploy the leverage of doing the full amount (as you demonstrate you aren't bluffing that you can and will do it) with minimal cost due only doing some demonstrations but then can demand concessions relative the full value of the threat.
US global dominance was established as a result of WW2, and my sense is that the battle to end it will be fought with the same stakes in what in essence will be WW3.
Under such conditions a full, indefinite blockade of China would be child's play. The endgame/end state/victory conditions that would lead to America's success I have already laid out (isolation of China and implosion of its economy) so I won't repeat them again unless you have very specific questions.
You lean more towards the idea that the battle over ending US dominance will remain limited. A perfectly defensible idea also.
As long as we're taking fundamentally different starting points (limited war vs. full-scale war), we will be talking past each other, though.
I disagree.
There was never a full scale war with the Soviet Union, so we have that already as an example of an alternative geopolitical structure to WWI and WWII.
Whereas in the world wars, each side could defeat the other (especially at the start before the US entry into the war), the dynamics of the cold war was driven by an inability of either side to win, and therefore alternative competition modes had to be sought: propaganda, proxi wars, fomenting dissent, arms races, economic blocks and so on.
What complicates the situation even further is the economic integration with China, producing about a third of global industrial goods, in addition to the rest of East-Asia that maybe also effectively blockaded in the event of a state of war. between the US and China.
Now, if your hypothesis is that a full scale blockade, and thus state of war, between the US and China may occur essentially by accident or miscalculation and then things would get messy from there and the eventual resolution would not be clear and who would ultimately benefit, we agree.
Where I am in a position of criticism is if your hypothesis is that such an act pursues some rational plan with likely net-benefit outcomes for the United States.
You can't just hand wave away the long term strategy China would pursue in inflicting costs on the US for maintaining the blockade as well as alternative trade routes, in addition to the industrial disentanglement problems. Russia prepared intensively for 8 years to cut industrial ties with the rest of Europe and it had the backing of China to accomplish that.
So, is your hypothesis that the US could just flip a switch and not only stop trading with China but potentially the whole of East-Asia? Or then that the US is now pursuing creating full redundancy and that will be ready in X amount of time and then the blockade will occur.
Now, if you don't want to war-game our your own hypothesis, obviously nothing is forcing you, but I can't see good answers to these questions so if you want to fully develop your theory you would need to propose them.
Do you references to this?
Quoting boethius
One sunk US aircraft carrier, or an other major surface combatant sunk, would be enough to give the US a "Pearl Harbour"-moment, and then any economic ties to China are totally irrelevant.
Oh, you don't have the low price gadgets from China? You don't have the latest chips from Taiwan? You have a recession and supply difficulties as international trade shuts down? Big deal. Increased arms manufacturing takes care of the recession. That ordinary people have to tighten their bealts? People have seen and done that, when it's wartime.
Russia gives a great example of this. If a state commits to war, economic hardships don't matter. They start only to matter when there literally isn't enough food around and people starve. The fallacy here is that Americans can get bored about war in Vietnam or in Afghanistan. Yet that's not the same as if they feel that they are attacked by a true rival like China.
Between 2014 and 2022 Russia accumulated more gold (increased reserves over 4 fold), created alternative payment systems, started replacing Western software with open source / domestic in critical systems, even passed the "Sovereign Internet Law" in 2019 (to ensure Russias internet could be disconnected from the global internet), and to cite that example as it's literally a law designed to prepare for war:
Quoting Sovereign Internet Law, wikipedia
To cite one more material necessities example:
Quoting Agriculture in Russia, Wikipedia
So there's clearly a intensive effort to prepare for a larger war and break with the West.
Quoting ssu
Doubtful that China would just go randomly sink a carrier.
If the US imposes a blockade that is a clear act of war and if then China retaliates that would be unlikely to be a "Pearl Harbour" moment but opinion would be mixed, even if a carrier got sunk.
Quoting ssu
It's a pretty big deal if there are components that cannot be easily substituted for critical infrastructure and various critical machines.
There's a lot of components and materials out there that are produced in incredibly complicated processes that are not easy to replicate, in addition to a lot of components that are super cheap due to immense accumulated capital expenditures in China over decades that cannot so easily be conjured up from nothing.
Quoting ssu
Russia is the example of preparing for 8 years for what would otherwise be economic and industrial pandemonium.
And Russia started that preparation from a relatively easy position of being lower in the value chain of producing commodities and industrial products (including nuclear reactors), and being supported by China that can produce most things. It is actually the higher in the value chain the harder such a break would be. For example, if you're economy was mostly lawyers and tax evasion then you may make immense profits from being that high up in the value chain, but it would be the hardest position to then substitute industrial commodity inputs, as most lawyers and their various flavours of secretaries don't weld all that great. Same for brands (one step lower on the value chain) it's easier for Russia or China to rebrand a commodity they produce than for the brand to start suddenly making the commodity domestically.
The problem is if China declares a blockade against Taiwan, which it sees as an the renegade province, and then US tries to run it. This is totally realistic, just look at the Mission statement of the US Navy:
The US has a dubious history of giving the wrong signals for countries (just like Saddam's Iraq before it's invasion of Iraq) and hopefully China won't fall for this, even if Trump would send the wrong signals to it (look do whatever you want with Taiwan). And anyway, any kind of blockade has the possibility of things getting out of control and warships being sunk.
This is something that now could happen in Venezuela, where after sinking "narcoterrorist" speed boats the next vessels the US Navy could be sinking are the ships of the Venezuelan Navy now escorting the oil tankers. Then we'll see if the Trump is again the TACO he has been.
Well I agree. I am doubting the hypothesis of full US blockade on China, proactively to maintain hegemony.
Quoting ssu
This is a different question than the US instigating a blockade, which is @Tzeentch's view will happen (whether under Trump or the next president).
If China instigates by attacking Taiwan, that is an entirely different military and diplomatic situation.
Presumably China's plan would be to rapidly take the Island and then disengage with the US Navy and wait until some diplomatic resolution (obviously where they keep Taiwan).
Of course, could spiral into a full scale war in the Pacific,
Quoting ssu
Agreed, blockading China would unlikely to be at zero cost.
Reichstag, 1939: We attempted peaceful proposals, all rejected
Kremlin, 2025: No more wars if you respect us
1. Denial of responsibility. The offender insists that they were victims of circumstance, forced into a situation beyond their control.
Reichstag: We have no choice but to meet force with force
Kremlin: We were forced to use our armed forces
2. Denial of injury. The offender insists that their actions did not cause any harm or damage. "We're not really hurting anyone."
Reichstag: Liberating Germans from Polish oppression
Kremlin: We're liberating, not occupying
3. Denial of the victim. The offender insists that the victim deserved it. "They had it coming."
Reichstag: Germans in Poland are persecuted with bloody terror
Kremlin: The Kyiv regime unleashed war on Russian-speakers
4. Condemnation of the condemners. The offender maintains that those who condemn the offence do so out of spite, or are unfairly shifting the blame off themselves. "We're judged by hypocrites."
Reichstag: Versailles was signed with a pistol at our head
Kremlin: You deceived us with NATO expansion
5. Appeal to higher loyalties. The offender claims the offence is justified by a higher law or higher loyalty such as friendship.
Reichstag: Providence chose Germany to defend civilization
Kremlin: Dying in Ukraine washes away all sins
Playbook'ish. Maybe coincidental. These are the usual dubious justifications.
Being a strong leader.
Last week Putin said the European leaders were weak, “piglets”. While laughing at them.
In a setting where he is portrayed as absolute leader. A strong man who will not show weakness.
Then we have his annual address to the nation, where he is depicted as a benevolent leader attending to each citizen’s needs. Any Russian citizen can send in a request, or question and it will be addressed.
It isn't.
Check how many similarities you find with this speech from an US president in 2003. Do you find:
- The offender insists that they were victims of circumstance, forced into a situation beyond their control.
- The offender insists that their actions did not cause any harm or damage. "We're not really hurting anyone.
- The offender insists that the victim deserved it. "They had it coming."
- The offender maintains that those who condemn the offence do so out of spite, or are unfairly shifting the blame off themselves. "We're judged by hypocrites."
-The offender claims the offence is justified by a higher law or higher loyalty such as friendship.
I think there's a lot in common, even if some things are different.
It's noteworthy what the above and the declarations of the Reichstag and Russia don't have is the following from George H.W. Bush speech from 1990:
This was the time that the US would use the international rule based order it itself had built after WW2. I think this was the real apogee of US power and afterwards it's been really downhill from that.
Keep in mind this is not just my personal hypothesis. Military academic circles have been openly discussing maritime blockades on China for over a decade, and the Chinese on their part have been actively seeking pre-emptive solutions to this strategy for almost as long.
Quoting boethius
I've been asking you for ideas from the Chinese side, because I simply don't see a feasible strategy that wouldn't amount to total disaster for China and at best marginal losses for the US.
Without feasible strategies there's nothing to wargame.
Quoting boethius
I doubt they'd have to stop trading with all of East-Asia, since the US controls most countries there either directly or indirectly, and the sea lanes.
But the short answer is: yes, they can. The damages would be marginal compared to what's at stake (global domination), and compared to the damage it would do to China.
There exists no strategy that is without cost. Yes, a war with China would obviously hurt the US economically, but it would hurt virtually the entire world and the more apt question to ask is who suffers most and who suffers least.
Compare it with the US dollar's reserve currency status and the giant US debt.
We all know that bubble is going to burst at some point, but the US doesn't have to care because the entire world owns dollars and it will hurt everyone when it does. Same for US inflation - everybody suffers under US moneyprinting, because everyone owns dollars.
Thus, while damaging on paper, in relative terms it hardly harms the US.
Global domination is not about absolute power, but about relative power. So make no mistake, the US would happily accept heavy damage to itself if it meant getting a leg up on its geopolitical competitors.
Might have come up before.
1. war is bad
2. therefore Ukraine must capitulate to the Kremlin
Acts like this start to be the new normal. :sad:
Russia ‘intercepts Europe’s key satellites’ placing NATO satellite at risk
[sup]— Satnews · Feb 4, 2026[/sup]
Space Threat Fact Sheet
[sup]— US Space Force · Dec 2025[/sup]
No:
1) Ukraine is losing and losing badly.
2) Ukraine will continue to lose lives and land the longer this goes on.
3) Better to negotiate a settlement than continue.
I don’t like and Russia did. But it’s not like they weren’t telegraphing what they are going to do for years if the US kept up their strategy to dominate Eastern Europe.
If it would be losing badly, I guess Kharkov ought to have fallen and the battles should be fought on the streets of Kyiv and Odessa.
Quoting Mikie
This is the crazy talk kept up by the Trumpsters. Putin isn't negotiating. He feels he can win it all.
When it's the Ukrainians who are doing the fighting, it's up to them to decide when to surrender. The US has already twice in it's history just left the side that it helped totally on it's own. We Europeans shouldn't do that to Ukraine.
If one believes Russia wanted to conquer Ukraine— which it never did. That’s a stupid myth perpetuated by the West, of course.
It’s true that Russia has several demands — consistently stated for years. Why stupidly back down from them when you’re already winning?
Quoting ssu
Which they will do eventually, especially without the gargantuan resources being thrown into this — which has gotten nothing except to prolong this war.
Quoting Mikie
Hm?
Quoting Mikie
For the time being, they want Ukraine to become more like Belarus. [sup]ap, euronews[/sup] The Ukrainians said "No". End of story. (you don't have to repeat all the Kremlin tales in the thread)
So, you don't think satellites are in the crosshairs? (Maybe not cables and whatever else, either?)
Says the guy literally repeating strictly Western talking points.
I think the history is quite clear. Hardly “Kremlin tales.” But believe what you will.
Quoting jorndoe
No, I don’t think so.
Quoting jorndoe
That’s not the post I was responding to, clearly.
Wrong. It isn't.
Putin attempted to take Kyiv and failed. The claim that Ukraine was to be "denazified" shows totally and very clearly the sinister objectives of Putin. If the Western part of Ukraine would have been a satellite state or annexed is quite irrelevant: the Ukrainians would have lost their freedom. Besides, if there's nothing to stop them, why not take everything then? The talk of Novorossiya was already there very public when Crimea was annexed. Imperialism never died in Russia.
A map from 2014:
Nope Mikie, this is the lie fed by the Kremlin extremely well to especially Americans. It is swallowed so well because it puts the US at center stage (everything happened because of the US actions). For people who think wars are fought as forever wars just to keep up the military expenditure, it surely might be confusing that Ukrainians do defend their country and are willing to die for it.
You say “wrong, there isn’t,” then provide 0 evidence.
The Russians didn’t want to conquer Ukraine. That is a myth, and a stupid one, which you seem to swallow whole. This has been gone over many times. It would not only be strategically stupid, and against the stated goals, but also militarily impossible.
But you go with your direct window into Putin’s soul.
You should make the case just why "Russians didn't want to conquer Ukraine", because you don't give any evidence of this, just state that it's a myth. And this is the unfortunate state of the discourse even in a philosophy forum. It's basically ludicrous argument when Russia has already declared that it has annexed parts of Ukraine and demands parts that it doesn't even control. But the actual words and actions of the Russian seem not to matter here.
On the case that Putin wanted a 10 day special military operation to take control of Ukraine:
- The easy success of the military seizure of Crimea and that Ukraine didn't fight at all back then.
- Actual speeches of Putin and all the speech of Ukraine being an "artificial" country.
- That there were Pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politicians then ready to be set up as leaders of the "denazified" Ukraine.
- The attempt on taking Hostomel airport, the follow in troops that were diverted because the airport weren't secured. Along with the other troop movements, it was obvious the Capital was the objective.
- Actual plans and ordered that were taken from killed or surrendered Russian troops and how to treat the Ukrainian.
- The Russification of the people in the occupied Ukrainian lands.
And when it didn't go to plan, then:
- The large firing of those FSB officers responsible for the Ukraine operation prior to the conventional attack. They were the people that were telling Putin that Ukraine would fold easily.
Just like in 2014. Back then the commander of the Ukrainian navy happily took a position of being a Russian admiral, which tells a lot of the situation. If it was so easy then, why would it now be difficult? Above all, the US just had betrayed another of it's allies like in Vietnam, so why not?
Nobody has to know Putin's soul. What he has said and what he has done is far enough. And the above were just examples why this should be totally obvious. It should be you who would be a consistent argument of just why everything is a myth. The annexations, the Russification of the Ukrainians, everything should be an obvious proof of what the intent is, starting from the fact the Putin see's the collapse of the Soviet Union as the biggest catastrophe of the 20th Century, something obviously he tries to get back.
What I'm only aware is the lurid story especially told by Mersheimer and Sachs that doesn't focus at all in the relationship that Russia has with Ukraine, but see everything just as an outcome of US policy and NATO enlargement. This is basically where the extreme navel-gazing that Americans do ends up in, where everything, absolutely everything, evolves around them without any other actors having objectives and agendas of their own. It's worrisome, because it creates a very delusional, fictional understanding of the world.
Does that include cables and whatever else?
Do you deny the sad state of Belarus...?
The Russians have been clear about what they’ve wanted. You disregard that— fine. It’s usually best to ignore official state bullshit. Look at the US in Iraq, etc. But it goes beyond that— the US wanted to control the oil in Iraq, and made up a bunch of nonsense trying to capitalize on the 9/11 wave of public deference. They wanted that oil for years.
Russia has likewise been telegraphing this move in Ukraine for years. I don’t like what they did either— you shouldn't invade another country. But if you take a second to try to put yourself in their shoes, given the geopolitical reality of the world, it makes sense. Putin isn’t a moron.
It doesn’t make sense to conquer Ukraine. First, they don’t have the military power to do so. Second, western Ukraine is different from eastern Ukraine, so annexing those regions would be an even costlier endeavor than what they’ve annexed so far — and that’s been a struggle itself and taken several years now. It would also be a waste when you get exactly the same result by doing what they’ve already done. NATO expansion is now off the table.
The myth of an evil Putin bent on conquering Eastern Europe and reestablishing the USSR is justification to absolve the US of their hand in this, and to continue the enormous amount of cash being thrown at this proxy war. The winners? Mostly the arms industry.
That’s exactly what matters. Notice that they’ve never said they wanted to conquer Ukraine and, unsurprisingly, never tried to.
The only one ignoring that is you. Instead, you cite “true motives and intentions.” But even that fails, because it makes no sense from their point of view. Unless one presupposes the Russians are both evil AND stupid, the idea of conquering Ukraine is absurd.
Putin lies about his actions, the Ukrainians know this. They see him for what he is.
The special military operation started with an assault on Kiev, the plan being to overthrow the governmental control quickly, control Kiev. Then install a puppet government and convince the Ukrainians and the world that it was necessary because the Ukraine state had been taken over by Nazi’s. The de-Nazification narrative, which then became the little green man narrative.
The plan went wrong and what we have now is the result of repeated failures by Russia to take control of Ukriane. Resulting in trench warfare, or a meat grinder which they throw young healthy Russian men in their hundreds of thousands. Who are dying in their thousands with only metres of ground being won at any one time.
Now Putin is retreating into his bunker as his country slowly sinks economically. He can’t agree a ceasefire of any kind of truce without losing face and endangering his dictatorship. He is terrified and will sacrifice his country to save his skin.
This works in the West’s favour as Russia had become too strong on oil and gas revenues. Which Europe had become dependent on. Even with a lunatic in the Whitehouse and Europe lacking resources to support Ukraine, Russia can’t make any significant ground. Currently Russia is bleeding out and Europe is rearming. Ukraine may be badly damaged after the war ends, but they will have their freedom and will be helped to rebuild by Europe. Russia will go back into the deep freeze.
Quoting Punshhh
This is just a narrative, and it isn't actually supported by the facts as we know them, nor by military logic. Those facts have been repeated ad nauseam in this thread.
Not even the most lopsided interpretation of those facts and numbers will produce anything that comes close to supporting your view.
So why was a military Column marching on Kiev at the beginning of the invasion?
And if the plan was to bed down in bunkers in the Dombass, why did a column march on Kiev?
The Russian casualties are large, even if the numbers are disputed.
To put pressure on the Kiev government, and to create multiple threats that create ambiguity over the precise objectives of the operation.
The troop deployments, force posture, behavior and casualty figures around Kiev can in no way be interpreted to imply that a capture of Kiev was a principal goal of the operation.
The Russian troop count was much too low in relation to the defenders, their force posture and behavior completely stand-offish, and casaulty figures that are a fraction of those we see during other phases of the war, during which actual intense fighting took place. In short, there isn't an iota of evidence that implies an all-out offensive to overrun the capital. None. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.
I recommend you use the search function to look up previous conversations that were had on this topic. It goes in depth, with sources and all.
This is a good example of media storytelling. It makes sense, it has kernels of truth to it, and it’s comforting — especially if one presupposes Putin is an evil (and foolish) man. But of course it isn’t accurate.
I would have probably believed all that myself 30 years ago, but listening to dissident voices on the subject has been enlightening. I suggest doing so carefully, if you haven’t already. It doesn’t have to be Sachs or Mearsheimer — although they’re very helpful. Compare the facts that they point out to what you’re hearing from other sources. It’ll be interesting. Especially about military and economic numbers.
has already gone over some of this— and it’s true that this has been gone over so many times it’s tiresome to retread.
No, you disregard it. They annexed Crimea, they have annexed regions that in their entirety they don't even control. You disregard that - not fine. Putin has made quite clear his intentions, it started to be obvious four years ago before the attack happened. I then in my first post well before the attack happened stated that Putin had made very sinister remarks by questioning the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Quoting Mikie
What move? What Putin and the Kremlin said before the attack was that Ukraine was an artificial state and it should naturally be part of Russia. That's what they have stated, which you either are ignorant about or willingly put aside. Because what Putin himself says and writes obviously seems not to matter to you. Well, what the leader of a state publicly declares does matter for me.
Quoting Mikie
@Mikie, read actually what Putin has said to be the reasons that Ukraine should be part of Russia prior to the attack. And for crying out loud, they attempting to conquer Ukraine. They thought they would have the power, because they thought that Ukraine wouldn't fight back as hard as it has. You simply cannot deny this reality.
It's not a matter of making sense. For you and me it doesn't make sense, but for Putin it makes perfect sense. And this isn't something debatable anymore as Russia has already fought the war for several years and already has annexed parts of Ukraine. So this talking about "it doesn't make sense" is totally irrelevant.
Quoting Mikie
First of all, NATO enlarged because and only because of the Russian conventional attack on Ukraine February 2022. Would this Russian attack not have happened, Finland and Sweden would have never joined NATO.
Secondly, Ukraine's NATO membership was de facto off the table far earlier, just like EU membership of Turkey is way off. But NATO obviously wouldn't say it aloud.
Just the show of force on the Ukrainian border - the actual troop building for the conventional invasion - was enough to make Germany to promise that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO. Already Hungary and some other countries oppose Ukrainian membership, so it was off the table still before. NATO is an organization with rules for membership. Hence it's irrelevant if some President Bush makes promises to Ukraine, because president Bush or any president cannot decide that. And that's why Trump hates so much NATO (and many other US presidents have been disappointed in the organization).
To assume that Russia did this attack because it wanted to prevent NATO expansion is simply incorrect as it didn't have to attack Ukraine to stop this. And the real threat of NATO? Now there over 1000 kilometers of new NATO border that Russia has, hence the actual threat from NATO hasn't been the driving issue for the attack on Ukraine.
Quoting Mikie
Again, you seem not to understand at all how Russia works and what is it's agenda.
Ukraine it might attempt to conquer, but for Eastern Europe, the Baltics and Northern Europe, it want's it's sphere of influence enlarged. That's why it's primary strategic objectives are 1) the dissolution of the Trans-Atlantic alliance and 2) the dissulotion of the European Union. Without a strong NATO and EU, every European country is in great disadvantage towards Russia. But being part of NATO and EU, tiny states like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, basically having populations equvailent of Maine to Nebraska, can stand up against Russia.
So hopefully you can understand that Russians really mean it, when they say that Trump's policies are aligning with theirs when Trump is hostile towards the EU.
Quoting Mikie
Sorry, but your living in your own delusional bubble. Perhaps start by looking what annexation means.
Here is Putin formally taking parts of Ukraine to Russia. Cause and effect should be clear.
If Putin’s aim was to secure the Dombass, well he does seem to have managed that, but at what cost? And what of his grand ambitions, which he spoke about at length before the invasion?
Oh, does it? Or just the parts you want to hear and interpret as imperialism?
Do these words count, or should they be ignored?
Since you care so much about what they actually say, this should matter. The fact is that Putin has never claimed he wanted to conquer Ukraine, and thus there has never been a plan to do so, and thus you’ve never seen it done. He’s also made statements that establishing the old order is stupid, although an understandable sentiment.
Look at what has been said and, more importantly, been done (as well as the military reality on the ground) — and your narrative is made up of nothing more than fluff.
Annexing parts of Ukraine and conquering Ukraine are different things. The latter makes no sense and hasn’t been attempted. Which is why you can give no evidence for it, verbally or militarily.
And how much do you know of the history of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republic's?
How they were created by the Russian Intelligence Services in the way to instill instability after the Crimean invasion?
It's an old trick, that the Soviet Union used even on us Finns too in 1939. They created "the rightful government" of Finland called Finnish Democratic Republic and Stalin stated that would negotiate on with this government. And when the Red Army would have conquered Finland, likely this Democratic Republic would have woved to join the Soviet Union, just like Donetsk and Lugansk joined Russia. In modern times Georgia (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) and Moldavia (Transnistria) have gotten the same treatment.
When one country wants to annex even parts of another that it has earlier recognize the independence of, it should be obvious who the attacker and the perpetrator is.
Quoting Mikie
This is absolute nonsense. And Putin's idea that Ukraine should be part of Russia is in his famous text that you can find following this link: Article by Vladimir Putin ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“
Seems you have no understanding what you are saying or what it means actually when your country is invaded by another country that is willing to annex your land. The Russian stop if they cannot advance anymore. If the rule is either a puppet regime backed by Russian troops or part of Russia is totally trivial, because the end outcome is the same.
Only the demented Trump says totally what is on his mind when he says he wants Greenland. Putin follows the procedures that Russian Intelligence Services have used for over 100 years.
Nato expanded greatly from 1992 onward. The fact They wanted to include Ukraine 20 years ago is a large part of this conflict.
So we have (1) Putin’s statements and the statements of officials before and after the invasion, and (2) military action. Neither support conquering Ukraine. You, however, point to (3) motives and intentions, about how “obvious” it all is. But you have no clue what you’re talking about. Think for a second. What happened in Afghanistan? Do you think Putin is unaware of this? Look at the US in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. Look at the cultural distribution in Ukraine from West to East. Look at the language. Look at the number of troops used in February of 2022— do you think that was enough to conquer Ukraine? Etc.
The goal was never to conquer Ukraine. That’s ridiculous propaganda. The goal, unless a deal is reached, is to destroy most of Ukraine. Make it a complete mess. That’s so far been achieved— albeit with a great price paid. But it’s clear — after years of people like you telling everyone Ukraine was winning or about to win — that Russia has achieved its goals and that Ukraine has continuously lost territory. Given that reality, Russia will not accept anything less than what they’ve demanded for years. Much like Crimea, those eastern territories are now gone.
If the US didn’t continually attempt to turn Ukraine into a western “bulwark,” this wouldn’t have happened. That’s just the fact of the case. If China were running military drills in Mexico, and the US reacted, I’d likewise put most of the blame on China.
Those words were spoken at the start of the invasion, the aim being to pacify any response. Along with threats of nuclear Armageddon to any nato forces who were going to help the Ukrainian army defend their territory. Just a few days previously the Russians emphatically denied they were not going to invade. What they say changes from day to day. And when interlocutors say, but you said something different previously. They laugh and say, ahh but it’s not an invasion, it’s a special military operation. And when the Nazi’s don’t seem to be there to fight back, the whole reason for the invasion. They say it’s little green men and laugh again. As I say, the Ukrainians have got the measure of Putin’s regime.
So you can’t answer that question, got it.
I’ll ask again: do those words count or not? I’m guessing the answer is no, they don’t count. Only the words that fit your narrative counts.
Quoting ssu
Where does he say he wants to conquer Ukraine? Where? In fact, in conclusion he states:
More words that don’t count, right?
So far, 0 statements on conquering Ukraine from Putin (whose words you take seriously) and 0 evidence from military actions. Keep trying.
So we ignore their words and the military reality, and go with our favorite narrative based on preconceived notions. No thanks.
I agree with not taking what Putin says too seriously. I was responding to someone who claims they do—yet what they’re really doing is cherrypicking.
What I care about is looking at what makes sense to the Russians in terms of power. Bush said lots of stuff about invading Iraq— and some of it was true, but we easily ignored that. The main reason was oil. Putin has said lots of things about Ukraine (but never that he wanted to conquer it, btw) and some of the things he said were true, but we can ignore a lot of it too. What they don’t want is the US on their doorstep. And they, unlike Venezuela or some other country that can be easily bullied and overthrown on a whim by the US, actually have leverage to prevent this from happening. That’s what this is about. Not some stupid story about the evil imperialist who wants to conquer Europe.
In fact if you want to weaken Russia, you should be encouraging the conquering of Ukraine and Eastern Europe. It would be the stupidest thing that could do.
If Putin attacked, it simply means that he was confident to achieve his goals. That should be obvious even to you. If Ukraine hadn't been able to recover the territory from the Kremlin-backed insurgents in the Donbas, so to Putin likely Ukraine looked like a push over. The US had retreated from Afghanistan in a humiliating way, so no worry of them responding angrily. And Putin had bragged on a phone to a German leader that he would have his tanks in hours in Kyiv. Evidently he had bad intel, which can be seen from the fact that he fired many of the FSB personnel responsible of Ukraine after the attack had gone awry.
Besides, look at the number of the "little green men" used in seizing Crimea? How many troops did Russia loose then? None. And you are simply likely bothering to read to the end what I say: if the objective was to put up a puppet regime that would control rump state, that is simply trivial.
Quoting Mikie
Yes. Putin wants far more than it's troops have capture. Ukrainians are still willing to defend their country. What is wrong with that?
And please just answer this simple question: If Putin wants territory of Ukraine, why are you repeatedly insisting about Putin not wanting Ukraine? It's like if someone is assaulting someone and beating the crap out the person, you claim that the assaulter isn't going to kill the person and never wants to kill the person, becuase why would the assaulter want that.
Quoting Mikie
This shows your utter lack of the actual events in Ukraine and the Russian-Ukrainian relations. Period.
You really think that taking Crimea was about "the US attempting to turn Ukraine into a western bulwark"?
Quoting Mikie
@Mikie, you quote Putin's speech when he attacked Ukraine. So he didn't say directly there in that that Russia will conquer Ukraine, that's your argument for Russia not wanting to have Ukraine if Ukraine defenses would have collapsed.
Seriously? Is that your logic?
That's the poorest counterargument that I've heard of. I mean seriously, not all politicians are so perfectly transparent as Trump is who really utters totally, without any filter, just what is in his mind.
I think that this debate is totally not worth wile. But you go to believe the MAGA cult on this one...
Quoting ssu
I’m not sure why this is difficult, but conquering Ukraine and attacking Kiev is not the same thing. Kiev was attacked, yes. You take this as evidence that Putin wanted to conquer all of Ukraine, despite all evidence to the contrary.
I told you what I believe the goals were— to create chaos in Ukraine and make a mess of things. So attacking Kiev makes sense— even if it wasn’t a success.
Quoting ssu
Because Ukraine isn’t a monolith. The areas Putin wants are culturally and politically different from the others — and conquering Ukraine world entail ALL of them being under Russian control. That isn’t the case now, and wasn’t the case then. It’s simply a myth. One that you’re gradually backing away from even in this conversation. Now you disregard Putin’s words and go from talking about conquering Ukraine to “wanting” some Ukrainian territory.
Quoting ssu
You’re the one who said you took his words seriously, not me:
Quoting ssu
So clearly that was nonsense. What you meant was: I take what Putin says seriously if it corresponds to what I want to believe. That’s not interesting to me.
So the plan was to take only part of Ukraine? What were the Russians planning on doing when the non-annexed part of Ukraine violently objected to all that and America and Europe saw a golden opportunity to fund a Ukranian resistance movement?
Since this is exactly what’s happened, I don’t think we need to guess. The Ukrainians have resisted, with considerable (and crucial) support from the US and Europe, and yet Russia has taken parts of Ukraine. That’s how things currently stand.
And as said several times, I believe the goal here was to pretty much sow chaos and wreck Ukraine.
Yeah, that's how things shook out, but the Russians would have to be absolute morons to have planned things this way. They did not plan on suffering a million+ casualties for a chunk of Ukraine. That's just stupid.
Who said anything about them planning on losing a million soldiers?
Ok, here you have to really prove your point, because "creating chaos in Ukraine" doesn't sound at all as something any intelligent entity would make. That simply is nonsensical.
There has to be an defined outcome beneficial to Russia. No sane military commander would accept an objective: "Oh, let's just go there and create chaos and mess things up." I mean WTF?
The simple question is "and then what?" could be ask. So the objective could be to A) install a Pro-Russian friendly regime in place of the Zelensky administration and, what has already happened, that B) annex the territories you want from Ukraine. As I've stated over and over, both end Ukrainian independence and both option A) or B) are worthy things to defend from happening for the Ukrainians.
That Pro-Russian leader could have been Victor Medvedchuk, who is a close friend of Vladimir Putin. How close can be seen from the fact that after the Ukrainian SBU arrested him, he was handed over to Russia in a prisoner-of-war exchange.
(In an alternative history, he might have been the replacement to Zelenskyi)
(But not so, and now this guy lives in Russia)
Quoting Mikie
Mikie, Ukraine was part of Russia. What on earth are you blabbering about?
Quoting Mikie
Your just living in your own estranged echo-chamber. Putin has annexed parts of Ukraine. He wants more territory that isn't in his control. And he has broken peace agreements earlier, remember the Minsk agreements?
But for you those all events that have taken place are "myths".
Quoting Mikie
So you make sense of that. I think that Putin's actual warplan was something else. Because obviously this isn't the outcome that Putin had in mind.
There is: prevent the US from making Ukraine a western bulwark. No NATO explanation into Ukraine, no weapons and drills and military presence on their borders. The rest, in terms of wrecking Ukraine, is pretty obvious: the damage inflicted on Ukraine has been enormous, from their infrastructure and economic stability to general morale.
Quoting ssu
Comments like these are cringey, considering it’s you who looks foolish in this conversation, repeating tired and long-refuted propaganda and making ridiculous contradictory statements.
Try reading what was written before making childish remarks. The intention was never to conquer Ukraine— it wasn’t then, it isn’t now. The simple geography of Ukraine shows that — because Putin isn’t a moron. That you’re pretending I don’t understand Russian/Ukrainian history because you’ve misread a paragraph is embarrassing.
Quoting ssu
So you’re avoiding it again. I’ll just repeat:
1. You said you take what Putin says seriously, and that you don’t have to see into his soul.
2. I quote Putin.
3. You then say what Putin said was not worth taking seriously.
I can quote the whole exchange again if you’d like. But again I ask: do you take what he says seriously or not?
Quoting RogueAI
I really don’t understand what you’re asking here. Putin was pretty clear about his objectives. I don’t recall claiming anything about them planning for exactly what’s happened. How is that possible? If they could foresee the resistance in Kiev, I’m sure they would have shifted their strategy there, for example. No one has claimed they had a crystal ball.
It’s definitely obvious — in Western propaganda anyway.
Ramzy Mardini said it best:
Yeah, the idea of a puppet regime or regime change is also nonsense. Covered long ago. You’re just reducing yourself to repeating what you’ve heard from the usual propaganda, so I’ll just copy and paste from 4 years ago:
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/course-correcting-toward-diplomacy-ukraine-crisis-204171
NATO is a different matter; polls only went over 50% (less than 60%) in 2014, and over 80% in 2022; the reasons for these increases should be clear.
Ukraine had a relatively modest army until 2022/2023 (seemingly demilitarizing in 2013), and a relatively modest military budget until 2022; all that changed with the 2022 invasion.
Well, the Kremlin has other plans — other plans for Ukraine, regardless of their wishes.
As of 2022, NATO did not have nuclear weapons on Russia's doorstep (or Ukraine's); the converse cannot be said, and, in 2023, Putin's Russia deployed nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Quoting Mikie
Quoting Feb 6, 2026
Exactly.
What you say was the most obvious objective. But some have this need to prove this is a "myth", that the real cause of Russia's attack was only a defensive move because of NATO enlargement. And once you've taken that stance that everything was because of the American military-industrial complex and the foreign policy blob, then this "critical" stance leaves you determined that Ukraine shouldn't be assisted and Trump should push Ukraine to surr... make peace with Russia.
Well, let's see how long there is a NATO, thanks to Trump.
Quoting ssu
It's not obvious at all for anyone with more than a surface-level understanding of the political reality in Ukraine.
You can't just "decapitate" a country that has been preparing for war for a decade with western backing. And you don't just "install a puppet" for the same reason.
A puppet regime would probably last about a day, and all you would have achieved is to give the foreign backers total control over the country.
Apart from their usual bombing and such, the Kremlin
You don't need access to classified information to exemplify their rhetoric (propaganda) and their hostile acts (unless you're in Russia perhaps).
House Trump exceeds them in sheer amount of (in-your-face) lying/misrepresentation, though.
Here's a snippet of examples of the first two and the last • above (†) in chronological order, that coherently go together:
A short summary is that the Kremlin circle more or less says that the better part of Europe supports/is Nazist, and they've engineered some supposed evidence.
Anyone in Europe can tell how ridiculous it is; they're talking post-truth alternate world; plus, Kyiv is decidedly not a Nazi rule; the Russian government is worse than those they accuse.
There's a lot of such evidence, from or corroborated by several independent sources, spanning a decade (well, more).
Exactly— you assume he’s insane. Which is so ridiculous it’s unbelievable it’s seriously argued.
When did he become insane exactly? When he invaded Ukraine? Or Crimea? Before then, what? Because nobody was saying he was insane back then.
Much like the use of “terrorist”, these have become codes for essentially anything we don’t like. Meanwhile, Mohammed bin Salman is considered sane, and gets invited to the White House. They’re just fine until they go against US interests. Then they’re evil maniacs bent on destroying the world.
I can’t imagine you really know anything about this topic either, but given your constantly bad guesswork I now question whether I’m right. Thanks anyway though— I definitely care about your approval.
I don’t assume he’s insane, I’m considering it, because his actions appear to be the actions of someone with questionable sanity. I mean to say repeatedly for over a decade that NATO (a defensive alliance) is encroaching upon Russia. Leaving him no alternative but to invade a province of Ukraine, precipitating Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Alienating the Ukrainian people for generations to come which will push them into the arms of Europe and leave them with no alternative but to join NATO. To galvanise Europe into re-arming, following the post war settlement and ending the lucrative oil and gas deals with European countries.
Either he is insane, or he has another agenda. Like an agenda to cling onto power in Russia by claiming Russia is under attack, requiring the imposition of martial law and mass conscription. This requires an actual war to sustain, so he invades a Ukrainian province. The Russian people become powerless to oppose him, because the young men of Russia are being forcibly sent to the front lines to be killed in a war of attrition. A strategy rather like Assad’s regime in Syria, to literally destroy your own country to maintain power.
Either way, the sensible thing for Ukraine to do is fight and defeat the Russian invasion and ask Europe for assistance. While building alliances with Europe with the aim of becoming a EU member and joining the NATO alliance. Any alternative would be to throw the Ukrainian people to the wolves. Weaken Europe and encourage Putin to push his agenda further afield.
Yes, like keeping Ukraine a buffer state and not allowing missiles on Russia’s border. Would it be insane if Trump invaded Mexico if China were conducting military drills, supplying weapons, and discussing a military alliance?
So everything has, or is failing, apart from one thing. Putin is cementing his dictator status in Russia on a par with Stalin and he will crush, or destroy his own people and country to maintain his position.
Not really.
Quoting Punshhh
:up:
Quoting Punshhh
He’s very little like Stalin, actually.
It would require trust and integrity from both sides of the buffer state. The trust might have been there at the point of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum. Once this agreement had been broken by either side, the inevitable outcome would be a new iron curtain. Which is where we are heading.
How is occupying part of Ukraine going to prevent Ukraine joining NATO?
I mean in the level of control. We don’t know if new gulags have been built yet. Putin will want to maintain the impression of normality as long as possible. So it will be done slowly and quietly.
You want me to explain it to you? Why not Google it?
https://www.cfr.org/articles/neutrality-alternative-ukraines-membership-nato
During war and with territorial disputes, it’s very unlikely NATO accepts members. Even if it’s agreed that everything Russia has occupied becomes part of Russia, it’s still extremely unlikely that the western parts become NATO members. NATO membership is dead for Ukraine— there’s no way around it.
The article agrees with my assessment (which I made at the beginning of the thread) that there will be a new iron curtain;
As I say, a member in all but name, which is pretty much what has pertained since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Even if the U.S. pulls out of support for Ukraine, Europe will step into the breach and finish the job.
Too late for that.
Not that there ever were nuclear missiles on their border (or Ukraine's).
Do you think Putin will declare a "special Finland military operation" if the Finns install systems to shoot down nuclear missiles?
Defense of Ukraine need not be NATO, though Budapest turned out useless.
I'm sure the Ukrainians would accept some other sufficient defense agreement.
But that might well (also) get in the way of the Kremlin's plans, even if it meant peace and no NATO.
What are the chances that Putin would hand back the occupied territories?
No, and no.
Quoting Punshhh
Well, what can I say? You’re just not paying attention. The difference is real, and it matters.
Yes, there is a difference, but for whom does it matter? The only person I can think of who would be very concerned about it is Putin. Meanwhile, European and Ukrainian leaders have been meeting frequently. There is increased military integration and support between the militaries of European countries and Ukraine forces. Alliances which have been developed since 2014*. This is all going on quietly behind the scenes, without the inevitable reaction from Putin that there would be if formal NATO status for Ukraine was being negotiated.
*following the invasion of Crimea.
- Putin wanted to conquer the whole of Ukraine
- Putin declared he wanted to conquer the whole of Ukraine [1]
- Putin had the means to conquer the whole of Ukraine
- Putin had a plan to conquer the whole of Ukraine
And still believe that Putin wanted and STILL wants to have Ukraine under Russian hegemony for alleged security reasons (instead of having it under Western or American hegemony) and the vulnerabilities shown by the American administrations (the occupation of Crimea, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the growing competition with China), the appeasement of Russia's demands by Europeans, not to mention the anti-American and anti-EU narrative in the West (and which Russians contributed to nurture) have encouraged were enough to achieve such goal by brute force.
Those claims often attributed to people in this thread are as often strawman arguments. The fact that Western media and press may have pushed a certain narrative based on those claims, doesn't commit me or any other participants in this thread to support such a narrative. So cut the crap, self-entitled nobodies.
[1]
Nethanyahu never declared to want to conquer the whole of Palestine, did he? So what?
It matters to the Ukrainians, certainly—and to Russia. And to anyone who wants to understand the conflict.
Easy to play games with other people’s lives.
Is it a narrative? Leaving aside who you like, it’s fairly obvious he achieved his goals. Also, NATO membership will not be offered in 10 years or 20 years. It’s not happening.
The narrative being fed to the Russian population. They don’t receive what we in the West would call news. It’s a propaganda narrative.
To become stuck in a forever war, into which the young men of Russia are fed like a meat grinder? Doesn’t sound like much of a goal to me. Unless it’s more about crushing any possibility of decent at home and ruling by tyranny. Interestingly it emerged yesterday that Navalney was poisoned by a deadly frog poison only found in the Amazon, weird.
Is that code for, the U.S. will veto any offer for Ukraine to join NATO. I noticed that Marco Rubio, didn’t even mention Ukraine in his keynote speech at the Munich Conference two days ago. When questioned about it he mumbled something about a deal was on the table. Looks like the U.S. is a Russian patsy.
It doesn’t matter, because as I said Europe will provide security for Ukraine once the war is over. By working with the Ukrainian forces. It doesn’t matter at this point whether it is about NATO membership, or not.
And what do you believe we in the West are being fed?
PS: Well, I guess the answer is already contained in the quote. You believe we receive 'news' - cute.
What do you make of the hundreds of times 'the news' brought you information that was far-fetched at the time, and obviously untrue in hindsight?
So according to you, the Russians are losing badly and have achieved nothing, and any day now the Europeans are going to pick up the slack and help Ukraine push them back.
Wishful thinking. And also the outgrowth of a steady diet of superficial “news” (propaganda). Yes, it’s frustrating when the bad guys win sometimes. But the reality is what it is.
I’m saying the Russians are bogged down, they’re not losing as such, there is a stalemate.
Now let’s compare the two sides in the stalemate. One side is fighting to preserve their existence as a free country, so they are not going to stop. They can’t put down their arms and go home, because the front line is their home. If they did retreat what would the Russians do, stay where they are now? Or go all the way to Kiev and hoist the Russian flag in the main square?
Then there’s the Russian side, They are conducting a special military operation in another country to defeat some [I]Nazi’s[/I] and it’s so special that it’s worth sacrificing a million young Russian men to do it. Meanwhile the Rubble has lost most of its value. Many people have fled Russia, there are wide ranging sanctions imposed by wealthy nations around the world. The lucrative gas and oil pipelines to Europe are turned off. Nordstream two built at great expense had just been completed, but was never turned on. The Russians are running a shadow fleet of over a thousand old and failing ships to to ship their oil to third world countries around the world who want cheap oil at any cost. (The U.S. and Europe are organising to halt this trade at the moment).
So much winning. Unless, as I say, the war is a distraction, while tyrannical control of the population and the crushing of the possibility of dissent, is the actual goal.
Remember during Covid, Putin became paranoid about catching Covid and whenever he was seen in public, he would be seen sitting at the other end of a very long table. I’ve heard Russian correspondents saying that he watches footage of the demise of President Gaddafi and is terrified that he will meet the same end. You have to consider the state of mind, of such a person in all of this.
Wishful thinking. No basis in reality. The Ukrainians should press on, even under the threat of losing Odesa and Kharkiv? Seems exceedingly silly.
The Ukrainian military will eventually collapse in the long run, especially without US support. They stand to lose even more territory. They should have accepted a deal in 2022 — they didn’t. They’ve now lost four oblasts. So now they should press on, according to you? All because we can’t let the bad guys win? Yet the bad guys are already winning and stand to win more. Sometimes there’s no great options, and one has to choose the least bad. Knowing when you’re beaten is sometimes the smartest thing.
Easy to treat this like it’s a game of Risk when you’re far away and posses a Nickelodeon understanding of war.
Interesting phraseology, Ukraine isn’t pressing on, they are defending their home.
That deal would have left Ukraine effectively a Russian vassal and Russia would have pulled out anyway. By the way, Ukraine has accepted every deal on the table, on the condition of minimal security guarantees and fine details to be worked out. But on every occasion it was Russia who scuppered the talks, or walked away.
Haven’t you seen a pattern yet. No deal that Russia signs up to is worth the paper it’s written on. The Ukrainians know this, maybe it’s time you listened to what they have to say now. As I said, they have the measure of Putin.
Yes, and losing more and more of it as time goes on. That’s not winning.
Quoting Punshhh
Complete nonsense.
Quoting Punshhh
No.
So what? Are Palestinians winning? How many Palestinians have died? how many Palestinian children ? How many land has been grabbed by Israel or under its control? For how many years? Are Palestinians losers?
Stop the clowning dude
:rofl:
Sorry — you’re too stupid to engage with.
Lol - As if you had arguments. You’re just a troll. Which is why you’re ignored. Rightfully.
:scream: :rofl: