US Politics

Occupying a people who don't want to be occupied is too much work and too expensive - why would Russia try it?

I don't know, but they are trying to do that with Ukraine, ffs.

The Ukrainian people have repeatedly rejected closer alignment with Russia at the ballot box, yet you seem to think this is somehow irrelevant?

It was for their own good. If only people would think of the poor Russians here.

There's a Mr Realpolitik at the door, reckons you kept parking in his spot and now his mates at the council are here to put a road through your house.

Seems like, if it's true that Russia really can't abide the notion of Ukraine in NATO under any circumstances, then a decision to keep poking the bear is perhaps made either on the basis of wrong information, or in the wrong interests with respect to those of everyone in the region, not to mention globally.

I mean, fuck Putin and all that, but Russia is Russia and has all of Russia's interests, which is hardly news to any diplomatic movers and shakers - if Frank's timeline here is legit, this was all totally predictable, and the shock and sympathy vibes which were so loudly broadcast were largely a cynically performative invocation (insofar as their source was informed) of groupthink, which I'm pretty sure I've caught the whiff of along the way.

And if the light catches this mess at just the right angle, and you see Boris fucking Johnson's fingerprints on it? Come on, folks. Our side good, their side bad?

We're all stumbling from the cradle to the grave, bouncing off shit we don't see coming, getting pushed this way and that, and it's incumbent on us to at least try not to step on too many toes along the way. You can't be surprised at the reaction if it's obvious you're not trying, or worse, stomping some toes while you figure nobody's looking.

I would listen to anyone who has experience that I don't that they are willing to share about an area I'm interested in.

Even, maybe especially, if I don't like them or disagree with them. There's no substitute for first hand info. I listen to loads of people. I pay for two podcasts by different people who I know have very different political views to me, but have good data and interesting analysis.

The Russians cannot replace the equipment they are losing in Ukraine, any illusion of a growing economy is propaganda. They are reliant on China, Iran and now North Korea for military supplies, mainly through buying back weaponry and ordinance that they previously sold them because they cannot produce what they need.

They have money, through selling fossil fuels, but they don't have access to enough raw materials, technology or labour to sustain a war effort in the long term. All their actions in Ukraine have involved throwing vast amounts of men and resources at it, because they know they cannot afford for this invasion to drag on indefinitely.

It's easy to have a simplistic view of history if you assume it started at a particular date, and that it started on that date for no reason at all other than xxx is a baddie.

I find this quite difficult to square with most expressed views on here about Israel.

I don't know, but they are trying to do that with Ukraine, ffs.

Again, how can you be so sure, ffs?

The areas that the Russians have annexed have all had referendums on whether to join, and voted in favour. You can dispute the freeness and fairness, and I don't know the answer, but they're all Russian speaking areas with historical ties to Russia so it is credible that they might want to join. Especially given Russia is relatively prosperous and Ukraine is a wreck.

I find it inconceivable that they would use the same approach in western Ukraine, where most people don't speak Russian and the aren't those ties.

It was your previous post: Wsj is pravda, nyt is pravda, etc.

Nope - that's what I said in response.

I've a lot of criticism about how mainstream media (or perhaps we should start calling it fact-based media) covered this election. Specifically, reporting on the economy, the constant sane-washing of Trump coverage, the acquiescing in advance by the LA Times and the Washington Post pulling their Harris endorsements, the fact that Trump's own COS describing him as a 'fascist' that 'praised Hitler' barely made the front pages of the NYT, except as part of larger articles framed as partisan attacks by the opposition...I could go on ad-tedium.

For all that, there's still no comparison between the probity, reliability and balance between any of those three papers and the shite vomited up on X and laundered through the entirety of the right wing ecosphere mentioned above.

The areas that the Russians have annexed have all had referendums on whether to join, and voted in favour. You can dispute the freeness and fairness, and I don't know the answer, but they're all Russian speaking areas with historical ties to Russia so it is credible that they might want to join. Especially given Russia is relatively prosperous and Ukraine is a wreck.

How far back does your understanding of the history of Ukraine go? There is generational antipathy/hatred of Russia due to the famine of the 1930s, even amongst those who speak Russian. Putin is seen as just another Russian trying to eradicate Ukrainian culture and steal their resources, a successor to Stalin et al. Historical ties with Russia may exist, but the majority of Ukrainians do not want to be Russian.

No-one with any critical thinking capabilities seriously believes those 'referendums' are anything other than Russian propaganda.

As I posted above, their economy is growing - faster than most western economies - and the sanctions are clearly not having an impact on it.

Apparently one consequence of the sanctions was that it forced the oligarchs who had taken their wealth abroad to bring it back and invest in Russia - which is exactly what putin had wanted but previously been unable to do.

Everything I read suggests that Russia is throwing everything into the military. So they have immediate GDP growth given its a fire sale to china, etc. and using the funds to maximise tanks and bombs. Its not sustainable as theres zero investment in actual infrastructure.

Both Germany and the UK had higher GDPs in 1944 than they had in 1938 - GDP growth is not sufficient to tell you whether a country is good, sustainable, etc.

Interested in where or whether you're getting the impression that they're investing internally in their people, factories, infrastructure rather than spending the money stuff to blow up.

This is not name calling, is absolutly not ment to be so. The problem I have with what your Views are.

So much of your writting reads like old style Soviet style propaganda to me.

Putin the good honest leader of a happy country who just happens to find themselves at war with a bunch of nasty people. If only the West would stop picking on (which the've done all the time, forever) poor old USSR/Russia then everyone would be happy. Putins just a sweet loving guy who would hurt a fly etc and on and on.

This view had and has zero credibility with me. It's literally propaganda. Designed to influnce views in favour of Putins Russia and the old Soviet Union as was.

Happily nothing of import is happening in the US to speak of these days.

Ukraine war thread is thataway folks>>>

No-one with any critical thinking capabilities

Whoah now we don't need that here

Really? How?

The British lost 6 ships. In the opinion of senior officers and historians, if we'd lost one or two more we'd have had to give up and return to the UK. We'd have lost at least two more without help from other nations. Maybe six more? Who knows.

The ships didn't have the best anti-air weapons. (This was remedied after the war.) They were extremely vulnerable to the very accurate bombs and Exocets of the suicidally brave Argentinian pilots. Two ships were sunk by Exocets before the Argentinians ran out. The French were meant to deliver four more but they dragged their feet. As for the bombs, at first they didn't detonate. Several ships were hit multiple times but were hardly damaged. The pilots were unaware of this but the BBC told the world and a solution was improvised. After that a couple of bombs were enough for a sinking.

The main protection for the ships were 26 Sea Harriers. But the British had no AEW/AWACS and their radar didn't pick up the Argentinian planes until they were in sight. The Harriers were based on two carriers which had to stay well away from the Falklands for fear of the Exocets. Which meant that the Harriers often had only half an hour's worth of fuel to loiter. To protect the ships throughout the daylight hours they would have been spread so thin that they couldn't have shot down many aircraft. But they got 23. After that the threat dwindled. Their secret was that RAF personnel were allowed into Chile to spy on the Argentinian air base. Whenever planes took off they would call the task force on some of the very first sat phones (lent by the Americans) and the Harriers could time their arrival perfectly.

Everything I read

Any examples?

I don't know what the trend of Russian infrastructure investment is, but I thought it was an interesting challenge, so I just googled it and I got a different answer, eg this from reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-plots-sweeping-infrastructure-boost-pre-election-economic-push-2024-02-29/

There is generational antipathy/hatred of Russia due to the famine of the 1930s, even amongst those who speak Russian. Putin is seen as just another Russian trying to eradicate Ukrainian culture and steal their resources, a successor to Stalin et al. Historical ties with Russia may exist, but the majority of Ukrainians do not want to be Russian

This is true. I said that I don't know how open or rigged the referendums are, but two points:

• people's views change with circumstances. Eg Northern Ireland, with the relative success of the Irish economy and brexit support for reunification had increased amongst parts of the population that were traditionally unionist. Given that Ukraine is fucked, was extremely corrupt before the war, and Russia will be throwing a lot of money into rebuilding these areas, I can believe views might change. Also a bit of ethnic cleansing might play a part.
  
• it is expensive and pretty thankless to occupy a population that doesn't want it. Russia hasn't got a massive army and has learned enough lessons from the past not to think it's in its interest to try to subdue a hostile population.
  
  

By all means set out reasons why you believe the referendums are not open.

This is not name calling, is absolutly not ment to be so. The problem I have with what your Views are.

So much of your writting reads like old style Soviet style propaganda to me.

Putin the good honest leader of a happy country who just happens to find themselves at war with a bunch of nasty people. If only the West would stop picking on (which the've done all the time, forever) poor old USSR/Russia then everyone would be happy. Putins just a sweet loving guy who would hurt a fly etc and on and on.

This view had and has zero credibility with me. It's literally propaganda. Designed to influnce views in favour of Putins Russia and the old Soviet Union as was.

lol
Please give me an example of the Soviet propaganda that you are referring to so I can see the similarities.
Also show me where I said that I had a high opinion of Putin

For all that, there's still no comparison between the probity, reliability and balance between any of those three papers and the shite vomited up on X and laundered through the entirety of the right wing ecosphere mentioned above.

You are drawing a false comparison though. Just because there is shite on social media doesn't mean that the legacy media is any good. They are both shite.

The truth is out there, but we have to search for it, ask critical questions, get multiple sources, etc. With things like Twitter we have the tools to do it now that we never did. But most people will not do that, they'll just look for some celeb to tell them what to think, which is why - as you say - we have a problem. But legacy media is still riddled with psyops and all sorts of biases and events like the riots in Amsterdam illustrate just how bad it is.

Really appreciate you're taking your time to answer all posts here, but you can't be serious when taking a Putin-quote, pre-election to boot, as any kind of proof that the Russian economy is doing well.

Given that Ukraine is fucked, was extremely corrupt before the war, and Russia will be throwing a lot of money into rebuilding these areas

This is bullshit of the highest order.

The gdp chart way above did that.
That was about infrastructure spending, and it was Reuters doing the quoting, not me.

I could spend more time looking into it but it is not me that has the question. If you have a hypothesis, why not do a bit of research and come back with the evidence...? I'm certainly open to persuasion by evidence.

Tell Reuters that, they wrote it.
and if you know better, please quote your sources.

OK I'm not talking about Ukraine any more.

What is interesting, very disappointing and not very surprising is that Trump looks like he is appointing a bunch of neocons to his cabinet. Latest report is Marco Rubio as secretary of state.

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-incoming-trump-administration

Lol alright mate. 👍

I'm not talking about Ukraine any more.

At last. You've got one hell of a nerve telling Ukrainians what to do. If they want to resist being conquered by torturing, raping, child kidnappers, it's their choice. They're doing the fighting and the dying. The ones who don't want to fight have mostly left the country. Try to be supportive without turning into Moscow Marjorie.