boethius

Also of note, the timing is likely relative US elections. Also noteworthy is Ukraine claiming that Russia is not withdrawing troops and it could be a ...

The nuclear ransom is exactly what's preventing NATO planes and troops in Ukraine. If this was pre-nuclear era, we'd already be in WWIII general globa...

Ah, so you'd agree that since we know there's majority Russian speaking minorities in the occupied territories, we can safely conclude they do indeed ...

More bold statements without any evidence or argumentation and complete ignorance of the implications. Unfortunately, when conclusions are both unsoun...

What are you talking about? We've gone over all of these issues multiple times. Hundreds of pages have been dedicated to the issue of nuclear war, whi...

Thanks for the concise write up of the speech as well as Q&A. To add some philosophical context, here is an interesting interview with Michael Millerm...

I'm just more optimistic than you it seems.

Insane hyperbole is a not good analytical tool. We can acknowledge that NATO threatens "Russia" in various ways, some big and some small, without beli...

You do realise Elon cribbed his proposal from me. (September 24th - Boethius) Only thing I got wrong (compared to Elon's proposal) was that it was Elo...

Sure, US neo-cons went on for more than a decade about their "nuclear option" of shutting Russia out of the SWIFT system along with significant sancti...

NATO in Ukraine presents 2 entirely real security problems to Russia. First, is forward operating bases and missile bases in Ukraine, which we've seen...

This was literally the point you were responding to with: A point (Russian incompetence) that Ukrainian partisans have been asserting since the start ...

Not only is your premise here false, you don't even bother to understand the argument. The point is that "doing something about it" (risking your own ...

For example, nukes in Cuba was really believed by the US administration to be a problem morally required to deal with. So, what did they do? They put ...

Russian military incompetence is completely incompatible with the notion that Russian imperialism is something we should worry about. Ukraine will win...

The international diplomatic "dove" position is not based on an underestimation of the horrors of war. The attitude is more that of Hector in the movi...

This analysis by the former Finnish PM is just so amazingly shallow and dumb. For example, he says he was right about Finland joining NATO and his "mi...

This is not "proof" of Imperial ambitions, as @"Mikie" describes above. What you point to can also be explained by: NATO (an anti-Russian alliance) ge...

It is not "at best a propaganda battle" for various reasons. First (as has already been discussed several times), whether something is used for propag...

Relevance to the current geopolitical situation we're discussing. I was reacting to your statement that: Which was in response to my statement: I then...

I agree that the war crimes debate doesn't have all that much relevance. Even to the extent war crimes accusations are the justification for escalatio...

There's plenty of these allegations as well. But the bullets in lard was self-posted, and a clear war crime that no one denies. For example, using a c...

This is one of the things Westerners are for the most part oblivious to, but genuinely seem to be incapable of understanding it even when it's explain...

The claim was I honestly don't understand how saying "This was not the issue under contention" is construed as an agreement. Obviously I don't agree t...

To put 's question another way. What is the price you are willing to pay, in Ukrainian lives, for Ukrainian "liberation" of the 5 annexed territories?...

So to send a "message" to country A requires attacking country B? with nuclear weapons? Why not just blowup a non-nuclear armed country. Same message,...

With nuclear weapons or without nuclear weapons? You do realise Russia has significant military infrastructure that's hardened against even nuclear at...

That's definitely a true idiom, I can see it as bright as light of the sun: right in front of my eyes. But let's not digress, you were explaining how ...

Positive according to who? Ukrainian intelligence. Ukraine literally banned the second largest political party. That's a far worse direction than Russ...

Again, you say you agree with Kofman ... who does not come to the conclusion the Russian army is incompetent, but indeed competent enough even make pr...

Where does he state that?

Silence? ... or doing the actual work of transcribing and citing Kofman to support my claim. Feel free to rebut Kofman's central evaluation of the cur...

Did you listen to the interview? At no point does Kofman describe the Russian military as incompetent and so bound to lose on the battlefield. He brin...

This was not the issue under contention. @"apokrisis"'s hypothesis is that no analysis and no expert is credible, other than the Russian military is i...

Are you implying fossil fuel lobbies are just wise ol' heretics suffering the gravest of political persecutions for their views? I fail to follow wher...

That you honestly believe ex-US officers, in this case not even a ex-general!, working for "think tanks" is for sure not feeding you bullshit and repr...

I really enjoy your analysis. Bringing up the repetitive nature of these little sagas: always a new Hitler, always some sort of existential threat (if...

I think you follow the logic pretty well. To make a long story short, "peace" is the basis of US power: you play by America's rules and you can go abo...

The whole point of the land bridge to Crimea was that there's not a single point of failure in logistics to Crimea that the actual bridge represented....

Again with switching the burden of proof. The claim, mentioned many times here on this forum and for months in Western media, is that Finland and Swed...

It's amazing how people can fail to grasp this basic fact.

I never said it was conclusive. I literally state in my argument that "never say never" there's just no actual evidence now that Finland and Sweden in...

So by "everyone" you actually mean "not-everyone". The point was that successfully invading, occupying, pacifying 20%, and defending of Ukraine is not...

Ah yes, forgot to mention plausibly independent source, so not Ukrainian or Western Intelligence. Starts by noting: Or, But independent analysis often...

Also, notice that Ukraine advances are measured in square kilometres but Russian advances simply in kilometres, which obviously is a massive numerical...

As I've responded above to @"apokrisis", Western media simply relaying anything "Ukrainian intelligence" says is not a basis of evaluating Russian mil...

You are saying that, insofar as you've been supporting Ukraine's choices to fight while having zero diplomatic position. More importantly, Zelensky is...

Sure, your meth dealer doesn't "want you to die" but that's not exactly the same as caring about you.

It's honestly bizarre your insistence on Russian military incompetence. What I find most interesting about the incompetence narrative is that's it's n...

This is why I say it's a "call me in 300 years" thing. How history will ultimately view this war is anyone's guess. All I know for certain about how h...