When do I apologize for Nazis?

Or is saying that the far right lost in the 2014 elections in Ukraine "an apology"? It isn't.

No one says "China has a bad history" or "Russia has a bad history". They simply say "China fucking sucks" and "Russia fucking sucks". — Streetlight

Compared to the Maoist China of the Great Leap / Culture Revolution or the Russia of Stalin's Soviet Union, both countries have improved a lot! Even in the current configuration.

Killing less of your own people is an improvement.

The US government has a terrible history. Terrible. You acknowledge this. — Xtrix

Yes.

I’m still not seeing where the major disagreement lies. — Xtrix

Ask yourself. How much in the thread are following issues being debated:

- According to (UNHCR) over 6 million Ukrainians have fled Ukraine, 90% of them women and children.

- Over 200 000 Russians have fled Russia after the war started with the largest group to Georgia.

- Over 3 500 civilians have been killed.

- Ukrainian authorities are already investigating more than 11,000 potential Russian war crimes since the invasion began.

And how much is it about:

- Ukraine's Nazis.

- The US made Putin to invade Ukraine because NATO enlargement.

- The war is the fault of the US is because it's actions.

- If the actions of Russia in a thread about the Ukraine war are mentioned, it means that those who write such things somehow are in favour of the actions of the US... and they should write about the bad things the US is doing. So let's talk here about something else.

Of course the latter topics should be discussed. But that they would be everything that we discuss on a thread about the Ukrainian war is ummm...

Literally no one is saying this, and the only people keen to force a choice between waving one flag or the other - as if this were a soccer match - are people who cannot stand to see their "team" being spoken badly of. — Streetlight

Literally every US decision or policy has a hidden agenda and dishonest means. — Streetlight

It's you who are waving the "US is bad" flag. You simply don't perhaps notice it.

And for you it's enough that someone says that Russia's actions are deplorable. What your response is "but US does deplorable things too". And nobody has denied that.

In lieu of that, here is one single discussion among millions of others:

https://mate.substack.com/p/by-using-ukraine-to-fight-russia?s=r

Worth noting, that, contrary to the story-tale that Ukraine 'chose' to deal with the West, the West couped Ukraine exactly at the time at which it choose to stop dealing with the West, as outlined in the article. — Streetlight

From this article (given above), just to make a comment for others.

Aaron Mate goes through what is usually now known about the Maidan revolution and what role the US did without much if anything new to give. He does acknowledge Putin is at fault, but this isn't what the article is about. Somehow he quotes some analysts (Darden and Way) who say that Yanukovich was still the most popular political figure in the country. This is highly dubious claim, because why then wouldn't the Donetsk and Luhansk republics taken their guy (Yanukovich's political base had been in the Donbas) as their leader? A democratically elected President surely would have given them credibility. Or then the reason is that you couldn't call any Ukrainian politician being popular. But that's a small issue. The real bias is in the following.

Aaron Mate sums up in this article the events in this way:

Putin has carried out a major escalation of a conflict that has raged for eight years, at the cost of more than 14,000 lives. It began with a US-backed, far-right-led 2014 coup that ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected government in Kiev. In its place came a regime chosen not by the Ukrainian people, but by Washington.

End of story.

What Aaron Mate fails to mention, even if he does mention that Yanukovich was democratically elected, are both the October 2014 parliamentary elections, where the far right that had such a major role in the rioting during the revolution lost it's seats in the administration, and also the presidential elections that were held in May that year too. Indeed without these elections I would talk about a coup too and Ukraine would be obviously quite undemocratic, as portrayed in the article. To leave the elections following the revolution totally out of the article shows the bias of this piece, which is telling, even if otherwise it tells the story how we know it today. And how we know it today is the focus on the US actions, not on what Russia did. That Ukrainians have shown their anger also in the election booth and demanded change in elections should be noted, but isn't. And of course there have been many administrations and elections since then and that now there is in charge in Ukraine a totally new political party that wasn't even around in 2014 doesn't matter at all. Nope, once you get the nazi card, you have the nazi card and people will use it at anything how ever long they want.

But of course, the reason why these articles that have the anti-US bias don't give any credit to Ukrainians themselves or have nothing to do with Ukraine or the Ukrainians is obvious. Ukrainians are not what they are interested in. It's all just about how bad the US is and nothing else. US is bad and everything evolves around the US and hence the US is at fault in everything. The blatant self-centeredness is quite numbing.

And how could this be put more clearly than here with one of our active members:

Literally every US decision or policy has a hidden agenda and dishonest means. — Streetlight

That's all we need to know, I guess.

Yes, it has a very long, ugly history, curiously supporting the more radical elements of Islam, which often coincide (not always) with Western economic and military interests.

Nevertheless, that's a topic deserving of its own thread. — Manuel

Indeed.

I think it's obvious that either the Saudi's are either supporting the Sunni extremists (Al Qaeda) or at least not opposing them. In the Middle East you have strange bedfellows.

Iran is blown way out of proportion due to Israeli interests. — Manuel

Likely in this case because of Sunni fears. Saudi Arabia has a history of entangling itself into the affairs of Yemen. Earlier the threat was Egypt and Nasserism threatening Saudi Arabia's "interests" in Yemen. Now Egypt has been replaced by Iran, but otherwise it's quite like the North Yemen Civil War in the 1960's.

On the royalist side, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel supplied military aid, and Britain gave covert support, while the republicans were supported by Egypt (then formally known as the United Arab Republic) and were supplied warplanes from the Soviet Union. Both foreign irregular and conventional forces were involved. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser supported the republicans with as many as 70,000 Egyptian troops and weapons. Despite several military actions and peace conferences, the war sank into a stalemate by the mid-1960s.

Hey, everyone has to die at some point, somehow, so who cares if a few billions die of hunger, floods, etc., right. — baker

At least the people who do the dying stuff.

3. Even if “the desire for Russia to annex Crimea was there all along”, it doesn’t mean that this desire was not legitimate, given that Crimea had been Russian since 1783! — Apollodorus

Here we have the real apologist in action.

Giving this legitimacy to the actions of Russia, after it had recognized the independence of Ukraine on 2nd of December 1991 and afterwards when it had specifically recognized the borders of Ukraine in the Budapest memorandum shows deliberately you being a Putin troll. It seems you mentally block out what it means to recognize the independence of another state.

So according to our troll, Crimea is a different matter. Because it had been Russian since 1783!

And you're desperately clinging on to your strawman arguments. I've said that Russia sees NATO and NATO enlargement as a threat. We have seen Russia's response now when Sweden and Finland have made the application. Where I simply disagree is that without NATO, Russia would be this peaceful country that would have left it's neighbors like Ukraine alone, with their large Russian speaking minorities. That simply wouldn't have happened and didn't happen under the former KGB-men now in charge of Russia. And you have been quite active in making their case.

If someone like Boris Nemtsov and his supporters would have been the leaders of Russia, that peaceful coexistence could have happened, even if the Chechens surely would have been smashed (as being inside the borders of Russia proper). But that's a lot of historical what if -thinking.

Feel free to comment on other post-modern fantasies that you know of. — Bitter Crank

What else do we do?

I think you are correct about hydrocarbons. "Oil" is such an useful resource, so it likely we cannot go without it. What we can only do is try to do away with burning it as a fuel. And of course, an equilibrium is found always. Be that with the market mechanism, at least partly successful central planning or an mix of the two, or then with calamity, crisis and famine. If a population of a species gets far too big for the resources to sustain it, nature has an apt way of handling these issues. Has happened quite many times.

Yet unlike other species, we can anticipate what we do to our environment. So likely we'll handle this episode somehow. Not with flying colors, but still.

In a way since we live nearly in a post-religious society where many aren't so-called religious, we have a place to fill in our needs. The ecological doom has taken the role of the 'end times' being near and us having the necessity to repent our sins and our sinful way of life.

The fact is that with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991, NATO should have disbanded. But, instead, it decided to expand, shifting its defense line eastward and seeking to draw Ukraine and other former Soviet republics into its orbit.

Indeed, when Ukraine became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, it had no reason to feel threatened by Russia.

On the contrary, on 8 December 1991, Ukraine joined Russia and Belarus to establish the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to replace the Soviet Union. — Apollodorus

Except this is all bullshit.

Especially when the siloviks, Putin at the forefront, and not the "Westernizers" took power in Russia. You would had to have some other people in power to fulfill your fairy-tale dream of Russia becoming an ally of the West, Apollodorus. And why? Just ask yourself:

How about Crimea? The desire for Russia to annex Crimea was there all along. The aspirations to join Russia started immediately when Ukraine got it's independence. How many times have we heard here (or in the public) that Nikita Khrushchev had no right to give Crimea to Ukraine and that this meant nothing as all were in the Soviet Union?

Or how about the case of Moldova? There you have the perfect example of the strategy that Russia has implemented all along and in many places: Russian backed proxies starting an insurrection with Russia openly encouraging the Transnistrians to to obtain their independence, then having Russian soldiers (stationed in the republic) becoming "peacekeepers", but de facto backing the proxies and turning the situation into a frozen conflict. Happened in Georgia and was exceptionally successful towards Ukraine in 2014, but not afterwards.

And the list could be continued. It is simply ludicrous to argue that without a NATO, Russia wouldn't have attempted to regain dominance over their "near abroad", the former Soviet Republics. It would have. And it simply would have been more easy for Russia to do. Of course there wouldn't be this pretence of it being a response to NATO aggression, but there would be always many justifications.

The simple facts are:

With or without NATO there would be all those minorities of Russians living in former Soviet Republics (just like Serbs living in other states of Yugoslavia).

With or without NATO Russia wouldn't have change it's views about itself as a Great Power and a peer to the US.

Hence those imperialist ambitions towards the near abroad would be there with or without NATO. The fall of the Soviet Union was thus is so bizarre, because the coup attempt put Russia directly opposed to the Soviet Union. But that was a passing moment, the great tragedy for leaders like Putin: now you can see that Russia thinks it embodies everything of the Soviet Union, and rarely people think that the other former Republics would have an equal share to the heritage or the spoils of the Union.

So without a NATO, hence likely the Baltics couldn't have wiggled their way out of the Russian "sphere of influence" and wouldn't never have joined the EU and wouldn't be the success story they are.

And we would be thanking our Finlandization now and thinking how stupid West Europeans had been about Russia when they disbanded NATO. And likely we would have an alternative defence organization that Russia would see as an imminent threat to itself.

And also this!! Nothing shows more clearly the stages of smart money/institutional investors/the public (as shown here earlier by ) than Super Bowl ads.



Larry David is a nice pick. Or the 14 million $ color changing Qr-code by coinbase. Just like Pets.com superbowl commercial, it tells something. For those making it a narrative on the foolishness and greed of people, the Super-Bowl commercials are always remembered and will be put into the narrative...at least for the time when it looks like there isn't a tomorrow (and the perfect time for these kind of stories). And those links actually have been made when it was happening, by no other than Wired magazine:

Cryptocurrency’s biggest boosters would do well to remember tech’s most infamous sock puppet. The year was 2000; it was what would later be known as the “Dot-Com Super Bowl,” an NFL face-off during which tech companies bought up some 20 percent of the advertising real estate during the Big Game. A few years later, many of the companies that bought those ads were defunct or swallowed up by other firms—including Pets.com, which had run a commercial featuring a singing puppet made from a sock.

This warning comes not because crypto companies are looking to turn stockings into mascots (at least, not that we know of), but because they are currently pumping millions of dollars into buying up ad space during Super Bowl LVI. Crypto.com, which has been flooding the market with its Matt Damon-starring commercials lately, has a big spot running; cryptocurrency exchange FTX plans to give away bitcoin during its Super Bowl spot. Coinbase is also reportedly running an ad. The companies are playing coy about who will appear in them. Regardless, the message seems to be that crypto is hot and everyone should get on board. But as multiple articles have pointed out in the past week, the Crypto Bowl has echoes of those ill-fated tech-company ads of the past.

It’s basically an embarrassing compendium of your belief in hoaxes and fake news. — NOS4A2

?

Oh, I think at least for some of the Forum members, that would be the "Ukraine crisis" thread. Not this one.

And I'll try to really end here... :shade:

Disclaimer: Not financial advice. Never base financial decisions on what some internet rando says + most cryptocurrencies will go to zero. — Baden

Oh darn! You remembered, we were all just thinking about bringing on a class suite against you. :joke:

To quote myself:

When philosophers (or should we be more precise people who are interested in philosophy) are talking about investments, that is a sign for me. Basically this thread is active when the prices are high. A time to buy is when this thread hasn't been active for 6 months. — ssu

OK!!!

Now nobody has commented on this thread for over 7 months. That's half a year ago. And then when the last time it was actively debated, cryptocurrencies were on the all time high (again showing the clear marker of this thread as the peak of bitcoin price was reached in November last year).

So this would be the time to buy cryptocurrencies I guess.

Anyone enthusiastic about bitcoin? Now at the lows of last summer.

From a year ago. So obviously people here aren't stupid (hence I'm not saying that):

My take is if the fed scares investors and there's a stock market correction, btc will break support and crash. If not, it'll likely grind up again. Long term it's a good investment as long as it keeps doing what it always has, but I'd rather wait for a bit more certainly. — Baden

(doublepost)

Why is this thread still continued?

When Trump admitted he didn't win the election, this thread should have ended. Perhaps revitalized only if the GOP truly chooses Trump as their candidate for the next presidential elections.

Now talking about Chris Rock being hit is just life support.

I'll end here.

I believe that it is in the West’s best interest for America, Europe, and Russia to be allies, not enemies. Unfortunately, this is impossible when America has made it its life mission to “keep the Germans down and Russia out”. — Apollodorus

That you don't see anything wrong in the actions that Putin has done, like starting a war with Ukraine, and see the fault in the US simply shows how Pro-Putin you are.

Your technical point about Russian use of artillery seems almost entirely unrelated. I can see perhaps that their choice to use artillery shows a pretty callous disregard for civilian casualties in military offensives, but America's use of pecuniary loan terms attached to cuts in social spending shows a pretty callous disregard for civilian lives also, just via a different method. — Isaac

Military tactics on the use of artillery equivalent to cuts in social spending?

Right...

We have a growing conflict between sophisticated, cosmopolitan people and those who are not, those who favor their religious beliefs and those who favor science. — Athena

I think this is a general way populism works. The populist favors "the ordinary people" and creates a dividing line between the people and the elite...or people they call as the elite. Now this elite can be the political, the financial, but also the educational elite. Hence if a leftist or conservative / nationalistic political movement can be very popular in academic circles, a populist movement isn't as it likely will depict the "academic world" as part of the problem.

That NSDAP gathered it's first support in beer halls in Munich shows the populist approach of this movement.

And in any way, populist movement intend to annoy "the elite" with their crude message as they do want to divide the people to us and them, not to gain overall popularity in all sections of the population.

I do see Marx and Prussian as complimentary. The military takes care of their own. There was a shift from the military being rather limited, and certainly, the officers were an exclusive group of people above the peasants, to a greater equality created by technology and wars that involve everyone as a military-industrial complex. Economic decisions are vital to the military-industrial complex. — Athena

Do note that this changed already during the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon and Revolutionary France gained such powerful military because implementing an universal draft and making military service compulsory. And also creating the "wartime economy", start of the military industrial complex. The other militaries of the time had been smaller professional armies. The defeat to Napoleon was the initial start for Prussia to reform it's military, starting with mimicking Revolutionary France with the levée en masse, the universal military conscription, and carrying out several reforms like creating the Auftragstaktik, which then became the "Prussian Model".

German had workers' compensation, and a national pension plan, and a national health plan, and a healthier population than Britain had when war began. That gave Germany a very important military advantage. — Athena

And it should be noted that for example the national pension plan was made by Bismarck, one of the most conservative figures in German history. The thinking was more to counter the demands (and the threat) from the socialists than to embrace government welfare thinking in my view.

What you've failed to show is any kind of general trend, nor any link between direct military casualties, specifically, and an increased disregard for civilian lives above those destroyed by any other method (such as starvation or pecuniary loan terms). — Isaac

What I've said is that in the Russian (and earlier Soviet) way of warfare there is an extensive use of artillery.

Of course the most successful large Soviet military operation is actually something we don't call a war, and that is the occupation of Czechoslovakia. The overwhelming use of force and simply pushing quickly the tank columns into the streets of Prague worked: the Czech army didn't try even to defend. This method was again tried in the First Chechen war...with devastating consequences. The armoured columns driving into Grozny were destroyed as the Chechens were willing to fight.

Hence when the first rapid takeover didn't work, Russia went to slow methodical firepower fight and simply clearing the city block by block, basically going back to the warfighting tactics from Stalingrad and Berlin. And this worked. So basically it's no wonder that Russians approach cities and urban areas and just use artillery extensively.

Here, on this thread, we have ample evidence of people enthusiastic about following the money to Russian actors, but vehemently opposed to any suggestion that a similar process could lay an equal amount of suspicion on American arms dealers, European financial institutions, and Western industries in general who stand to gain billions from a prolonged war which results in a ruined Russia. — Isaac

It would be interesting if you could tell us just who where oppose the idea that " American arms dealers, European financial institutions, and Western industries in general who stand to gain billions from a prolonged war which results in a ruined Russia." Someone might add that it's especially Ukraine that is baring the brunt of the war as the war is fought in Ukraine, not in Russia, and naturally Western financial institutions are anticipating to gain profits from rebuilding Ukraine, not Russia. Perhaps for you this is that "vehement opposition".

And where the big bucks will be made is in the rearmament of the NATO countries, starting with Germany. The fact is that already produced weapons are given to Ukraine, and then these weapons have to be replaced in the countries that have given them. With newer weapons likely.

If you want to use figures to make the claim that Russia cares less about civilian deaths than America, then you need to compare the actual number of civilian deaths each country has knowingly caused, in total, by it's various actions. Anything less is just lying with statistics. — Isaac

So let me repeat, again:

Civilian casualties during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (9+ years): 562 000 - 2 000 000 killed

Civilian casualties during the American invasion of Afghanistan (19+ years): 176 000 - 212 000 killed

I think this is quite clear. Same country. Are you genuinely implying that you don't see any difference in the civilian death toll?

This naturally doesn't meant that the latter estimate would be low, it's very high. And we know that the war was a failure, from the start. And there's a lot to criticize the American war in Afghanistan, perhaps starting from the military intervention itself. Yet perhaps you would had to have a larger than life US President who would have had the ability to contain the whole 9/11 attack as a police operation, not make it a military operation and have the FBI seek and find the cabal of Al Qaeda members, just like the US had done with the earlier terrorists that had tried to blow up the WTC years earlier.

I think he would have been even more popular if Ukraine had submitted. — unenlightened

That was the thing Putin was gambling on. And the spectacular success in 2014 likely contributed to these ideas being treated as totally serious. It worked then, why wouldn't it work now?

Besides, this reasoning is quite universal. If the liberation of Kuwait wouldn't have been such an easy thing to do, there likely wouldn't have been an occupation of Iraq by Bush Jr later. Victories promote later hubris, defeats criticism and reconsidering.

Ah, so we should reduce your figures for the deaths in Afghanistan? Or do we only reduce figures by population size when it suits you? — Isaac

You're really clueless, you know that?

OK. If the population is only two million and not forty million (like in Afghanistan), then 40 000 killed means that more of the population has been killed in the war.

Start your discussion with this agreement in mind, that the war is necessary, and the lessor evil. both sides would prefer to have their own way peacefully, but... — unenlightened

...one has to be popular to become a President and gain power, even in Russia. And for Putin, starting a war has been the way to get that popularity up. It worked earlier so well.


(Notice that the Second Chechen War started in 1999 and raised Putin's popularity from being unknown. And I will add that there have been also other reasons for the popularity, like getting the economy growing in the first decade of the Millennium.)

How far back do you want to go? Just far enough to prove your point, and no further? — Isaac

With figures from the World Wars you get high numbers of course.

My point is that Russia's way of fighting a war increases both civilian and military casualties. Similar losses that Russian units have suffered, the Western generals and leadership would flinch and pull back. Russians units can be decimated and it doesn't cause a huge political uproar. I think it's been carried from the Soviet thinking and never has the Russian/Soviet war machine care about individuals like the US Army with slogans like "safety first". Of course this has also an impact on the soldiers themselves as they can see that they aren't backed up or taken care of.

Chechnya - some 40,000 civilians killed (some proportion of which will be Russian forces) according to the research of Chechnya expert John Dunlop — Isaac

Again this seem to be false.

Even the Russian Federal State Statistics Service put only the first Chechen war to be 30 000 to 40 000 civilians dead. The Federation of American Scientists write of the first war:

Estimates vary of the total number of casualties caused by the war. Russian Interior Minister Kulikov claimed that fewer than 20,000 civilians were killed while then-Secretary of the National Security Council Aleksandr Lebed asserted that 80,000 to 100,000 had been killed and 240,000 had been injured. Chechen spokesmen claim that the true numbers are even higher.

Yet there's the second Chechen war, instigated by Putin himself. There the estimates of civilian casualties vary from 25 000 to 200 000. After the war Chechen officials (which are Pro-Kremlin, naturally) put the death to of the two wars at 160 000 (see here).

So hence it's interesting to actually look at what John Dunlop has actually said. From which it is obvious that Isaac, as usual, is totally clueless of there being two wars in Chechnya. But from the first Chechen war is said:

Most scholars and human rights organizations generally estimate the number of civilian casualties to be 40,000[iii]; this figure is attributed to the research and scholarship of Chechnya expert John Dunlop, who estimates that the total number of civilian casualties is at least 35,000.[iv] This range is also consistent with post-war publications by the Russian statistics office estimating 30,000 to 40,000[v] civilians killed. The Moscow-based human rights organization, Memorial, which actively documented human rights abuses throughout the war, estimates the number of civilian casualties to be a slightly higher at 50,000.[vi]

And obviously John Dunlop is talking about the first Chechen war, because the article was written in the year 2000, when the Second Chechen war was still underway (Dunlop, John B. 2000. “How many soldiers and civilians died during the Russo-Chechen war of 1994 – 1996?” Central Asian Survey 19:3-4, 328 – 338.)

Hence the civilian casualties of the Second Chechen war should be added up:

According to a count by the Russian human rights group Memorial in 2007, up to 25,000 civilians have died or disappeared since 1999. According to Amnesty International in 2007, the second war killed up to 25,000 civilians since 1999, with up to another 5,000 people missing.

And of course one should remember that compared to Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria, the population of Chechens is tiny. So small, that even if we don't believe what the Chechens say is hundreds of thousands, it's still a quite genocidal killing as there are ONLY two million Chechens. Which just show what a killing spree Russia went in Chechnya, and now you have Chechen fighters fighting in Ukraine on both sides.

Really?! Well, it looks to me like NOBODY in those countries cares about civilian casualties. And neither does the West, otherwise it wouldn't have instigated civil wars there. — Apollodorus

Civilian casualties during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (9+ years): 562 000 - 2 000 000 killed

Civilian casualties during the American invasion of Afghanistan (19+ years): 176 000 - 212 000 killed

There's a difference.

2. 150,000 got killed in America's jihad on Iraq. Russia hasn't killed anything in Ukraine that even remotely approaches that. — Apollodorus

Not yet, at least.

But the numbers from Afghanistan, Syria and the two Chechen wars simply show that Russia doesn't care so much about civilian casualties. Actually the comparison between the casualty figures of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the US in Afghanistan tell something. Russia uses extensively firepower and the morale is low as it doesn't take care of it's troops, so it hasn't been so surprising that the pictures from Ukraine have a resemblance to the pictures we saw from Chechnya decades ago.

(then)


(now)

So? The future of Western Europe is decided by what's best for the morale of the Ukrainian army? Why? — Isaac

Zelensky has already made the proposal of going back to the pre 24th February limits, which means that Russia gets Crimea and the part of Donbas they already had.

Hence it's the Ukrainians who already have made concessions here. Have they have to give more to an imperialist aggressor here or what?

This war was started by Russia and Russia can also stop this war of aggression. Ukraine cannot stop it, or then perhaps accept terms that Putin wants. Hence it's a bit odd just to focus on Ukraine.

This incoherent double standard again. Is Russia losing really badly or not? Make up you mind. — Isaac

1) Russia has had losses. It has had to limit it's objectives.
2) Yet it is making some progress, even if little.
3) It is extremely unlikely that it can now military overtake the whole country.
4) What will happen in peace talks or with a peace agreement is still very much open.

You're still talking about methods when the comment was about objectives. Russia clearly has no greater an objective of "control and influence" than America. — Isaac

Wrong. Methods do matter. In fact, it's all about those methods.

The US hasn't approached every other country in the world as it has gone with socialist Cuba. It hasn't tried to poison or kill the Canadian prime minister. It hasn't sponsored a group of Canadian militants and pushed them over the border to start a guerilla campaign to overthrough the Canadian government. It hasn't put stiff sanctions towards Canadia. It hasn't thought about invading Canada. All that it has done towards Castro's Cuba. US-Cuban relations don't depict all of the relations the US has with other countries.

Hence if your way of gaining that "control and influence" is by creating a mutual defense organization where you assist the countries if they are attacked, where countries can choose if they participate and with what kind of force to your endeavors, where other members than you have a say. Many country may like that deal and join voluntarily your organization. And naturally you will have amoung your citizens a debate just why are carrying so much weight for these other countries.

Concede the independence of Dombas and Crimea, and the independence from NATO. Then deal with their independent governance via diplomatic means. It's not complicated. — Isaac

Wrong again. Crimea isn't independent. Russia sees Crimea as part of itself. Get the facts straight, Isaac!

And how do you do it now? Just admit that hey, you are open to give everything this away right now, immediately. That works wonders for morale for the Ukrainians now defending the Russian attack, I guess.

And if as the response Russia says, nah... we would like Odessa too. At least to get the Novorossiya. And then what? Wait for the next time that Russia invades after it has restocked in equipment and trained new batch of soldiers. Come to finish you let's say in 2030?

The bizarre, near maniacal, certainty you have about Russia's 'objectives', is not shared by...well, anyone rational. The rest of us take a more circumspect approach to what it is that they might concede to in negotiations. — Isaac

I think Putin has made those objectives quite clear. Not only the Donbas, but the demilitarization of Ukraine and of course the denazification. Or you disagree?

1. Ukraine does the minimum required to ensure a future they can tolerate.
2. Ukraine inflicts the maximum damage on their antagonists.

Ukraine will do whatever they choose, we can support (and encourage) either depending, obviously, on what we think best.

Supporting (1) would be to maximise diplomatic efforts, maximise non-military solutions, stop fighting at the smallest opportunity from where diplomacy might be ale to take over. — Isaac

But this doesn't make sense. Russia is attacking in Ukraine, in the Donbas, right now.

What on Earth is for Ukraine to "stop fighting at the smallest opportunity" when the other side is attacking you? At least you should have some stalemate where Russian's can see they aren't making progress with continuing the attack.

The only way for Ukraine to get a peace agreement with Russia is when Russia cannot gain it's objectives through military force and it is worse for Russia to continue the war than to have a peace agreement. And likely Ukraine has to at least accept that it has lost Crimea, which will be a huge letdown for the Ukrainian people who likely won't know the real situation on the battlefield.

Making this about all about Ukraine is simply logically wrong. Both sides have to make the conclusion that a ceasefire is better than continuing the war. Hence you have to look at this from both sides, not just Ukraine.

Your singling out of Russian foreign policy as being "all about control and influence" was simply wrong. It's no more so than most other powerful countries. The difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact has nothing to do with it. — Isaac

From the political history of my country, I can really see that this isn't the case. Russia is a genuinely different actor than let's say the UK, France, the US or even China.

The difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact has everything to do with it. It shows in the most clearest way the differences.

My argument is the change in bureautic technology is essential to programs such as Social Security, but it also has social, economic, and political ramifications. — Athena

This is so true. For a modern public sector to operate you do need that modern bureaucracy. When this bureaucracy is professional and doesn't fall into the pitfalls of corruption, favoritism or nepotism etc. things work well. This also has an impact on the populace: they trust and depend on the government in a totally different manner. Literally one's social safety net isn't anymore family (as it has been for thousands of years), but your public sector employee.

This would not be as true as it is, if we had maintained education for good citizenship and independent thinking and if we continued to transmit the culture we had. — Athena

I think this is very much American thinking, where individual freedom is promoted. And as it's a huge country without real enemies lurking at the border (Canada and Mexicon don't impose a threat), American thinking has differed a bit from Europe. The collective isn't so important and seems to be something leftist. In a small country as mine where people understand that the existence of the people hasn't been and isn't self evident. Hence the collective thinking of "us" and it's link to the country and government is far closer than in the US. The government isn't a threat, it's something that people actually also voluntarily work for free. There's voluntary defense training, voluntary fire brigades, voluntary rescue and so on, which is controlled and lead by the government/public sector. It's far different from ordinary charity work in this case.

Education is vital to democracy and that is not education for technology. — Athena

A very good point. Participation of educated, informed people is absolutely essential for any democracy or democratic process. Otherwise that "common sense" that people do have simply won't show itself in elections. At worst, politics can become so absurd and violent that "ordinary" people don't want to have anything to do with it.

In a way in our societies, the at least adequately functioning bureaucracy can carry any kind of elected leadership, however bad it is, to the finish line. Social security checks are sent, the health sector functions, the armed forces and the police operate, however clueless or bizarre people are elected to political leadership positions. The bureaucracy will implement the whims of the leadership as it has understood that it's not the role of the bureaucracy to challenge elected leaders. Authoritarianism can creep in easily to a democracy, as the bureaucracy will just mildly oppose it. Only if the laws are openly broken is there opposition to this from the government itself, otherwise the government bureaucracy will go where the leaders want them to go.

In fact this was crucial even to Hitler. When he came into power, the German military was small, limited in various ways by the peace agreement, yet a selected and an extremely professional volunteer force that had thought for a long time what had gone wrong in the Great War and what should be corrected. Hitler started the rearming and enlargement of the military and the generals obediently followed him. Straight until the end. Yet without that post-WWI German military, Hitler would have utterly failed in creating his Wehrmacht as the Nazis themselves didn't have the ability to create anything more than thugs that could harass political opponents and Jewish vendors. Hence the German military in WW2 gave a stellar operational performance (thanks to that Prussian military model and culture), but abysmally failed in it's strategic objectives. The simply fact is that conquering the World is an insane objective. Even trying to conquer the Soviet Union in 100 days is ludicrous. And it should be noted that other branches of the German bureaucracy, like the judicial sector, did follow Hitler obediently until the end. Hence Germany including it's bureaucracy had some soul searching to do after the war (at least in West Germany).

Bondarev's public statement is a clear sign that all isn't well in Russia. As actually is quite clear to see.

Russia's response to Finland and Sweden joining NATO clearly shows that actually NATO enlargement was more of an excuse than the real reason for invading Ukraine.

First there's Putin's response at the CSTO meeting tells it all:

As for the expansion [of NATO], including through new members of the alliance — Finland, Sweden — Russia wants to inform you that it has no problems with these states,” Putin said on Monday, speaking at a gathering in Moscow of leaders from the member countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Russia-backed military alliance. “Therefore, in this sense, expansion on account of these countries does not pose a direct threat to Russia.”

"The expansion of military infrastructure on this territory will undoubtedly cause us to respond,” Putin told the leaders of the five former Soviet republics, adding that NATO’s “endless expansionary policy” also “required additional attention on our part.

In a telephone conversation with the Finnish President, Putin acknowledged what had happened and just remarked that it was a mistake from Finland to join NATO. But no threats were made. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that "Finland's and Sweden's accession into Nato will most likely make not much difference".

Sweden has already stated that it doesn't want foreign bases or nuclear weapons on it's soil, and neither Finland has any appetite for them also. And actually NATO has no desire to do this (see here) The real deal is the membership part. As both countries do have satisfactory defence forces, there is no need for new bases.

And as now the US, the UK, Italy and even Poland has given security guarantees for the two countries during the time when the application forms are in (and the haggling continues with Turkey), the two EU countries can be quite calm. The only response to Finland has been the gas exports from Russia have stopped (because the Finnish side won't go into paying with rubles). But this has been anticipated for months. What also was lacking was the information (war) effort made towards Finland as done in 2014. Even the Russian ambassador stayed in Helsinki and no formal complaint was given to Finland. And when Russia doesn't have a war to be fought, it will likely improve it's armed forces facing Finland. But that will take time... and is totally acceptable: Russians can do whatever they want in their own territory.

The contrast is striking when compared to the Russian behavior towards Ukraine. The response to Finland and Sweden is (at least for now) is in my view totally normal. Which makes such a striking difference to the "denazification" and "disarmament" of Ukraine. If hypothetical NATO membership was a reason for all out war, but actual membership by other countries doesn't mean much, it simply doesn't add up.

All this just makes it more clear that Russia was more interested in subjugating and annexing more land from Ukraine than in "countering the NATO threat". This should be obvious to everyone at least now.

Words possess no such force, have zero connection to another’s actions, and thus speaking cannot be justified as criminal act. — NOS4A2

So uh, an officer ordering the killing of civilians or prisoners of war isn't a war crime?

One should remember that behind every eccentricity of our time there are those actual and obvious crimes that have happened and should be obvious to everybody, the events to what referred to. Perhaps those kinds of accusations (like hate speech) are just hurled at people at the present toxic debate environment, but that doesn't change the actual real crimes of incitement.

You do realise I've just been randomly cutting and pasting sections from the relevant Wikipedia articles? — Isaac

I have. The numbers [15] tell it instantly. Although the topic doesn't make it random.

I've just assumed that you don't have anything else to say.

And likely you have no attention what I reply. But perhaps someone else does read them.

Because thinking that NATO and Warsaw Pact were the same and had similar objectives in nonsense.

Yeah but The Russia–NATO Council was established in 2002 for handling security issues and joint projects. — Isaac

Yes, the 1990's and basically early 2000's were the time that something really radical could have been done in Russia-US relations. As I've said earlier in this thread, people thought this could be a real possibility. A German military attache to Finland said to me with a straight face that Russia could possibly join NATO. That was then.

But perhaps think about this way. Assume that both US and Putin's Russia would have found each other and faced the War on Terror together as allies. The real question would be then, would Russia have become more like a Western democracy or would the US become like Russia. Putin had his corrupt ties already from St Petersburg and came like a "Mr Fixit" for Yeltsin and Yeltsin didn't face any charges for his corruption. He started the ruthless and violent war against the Chechens with similar results as we see from Ukraine now. For the neocons like Rumsfeld and Cheney, Russia could be the perfect ally: capable of operating in other continents, wouldn't flinch about casualties, and would have no problems of fighting dirty. Russia isn't an ordinary European state. But Russia chose China and basically chose with Putin to be a great Power on it's own with the objective to regain what it had lost.