This is clearly not an "imperialist war".

The Russians have stated from 2008 onward that they considered Ukraine joining NATO to be an existential threat. They were promptly ignored, and the US only intensified their efforts to incorporate Ukraine.

It takes some special kind of tunnel vision to simply ignore that.

You people have been binging on too much propaganda.

Haven't seen much (by way of conspiracy theories) pointing at this stuff, well, except for Norway perhaps sort of. Not en vogue? — jorndoe

They're "profiteering" of the sanctions, ironically. So there's not much of a mystery.

Norway: export commodities 2022 ↑ 200%, $89.3 billion — jorndoe

Do those exports happen to be natural gas?

If so, there's your conspiracy since they were implicated in the Nord Stream attack and also happen to be one of the world's largest exporters of natural gas.

The US cannot win a war with China and there are too many corporate inconveniences to such a war. — boethius

That might be true. In my view some form of violent conflict in the Pacific is simply inevitable, whether nations want it or not.

Taiwan and Korea are obvious flashpoints, almost guaranteed to boil over if the US is going to make any effort at maintaining its influence, which I'm assuming it will.

Furthermore, if you actually wanted to fight a war with China you'd be super friendly to Russia... — boethius

This was tried by the US, but Russia rejected it, because they feared ending up as de facto US vassals like Europe.

The problem for the US is that nations have caught onto its strategy of keeping Eurasia divided, which it does in order to avoid a peer competitor from rising. (theories by Mackinder, Brzezinski, Wolfowitz, etc.)

Both Russia and China seem to be aware of this, which is why their unlikely alliance has taken form, and why it is unlikely to change while the US remains the world's dominant superpower.

The only power on the Eurasian continent that seems unaware of how the cookie crumbles is Europe.

Why is supplying arms to Ukraine in a drip feed manner without any chance of victory a reasonable policy even assuming the "West good / Russia bad" suppositions? — boethius

My view has been that the outcome of the Ukraine war is not all that relevant to the United States, and that their intent has been to drive a wedge between Europe and Russia, and to remilitarize Europe.

Renewed great power conflict is coming, and I think the United States feared Europe would not pick a side if war would break out between China (likely joined by Russia) and the US in the Pacific.


Firstly, because the Europeans didn't have any militaries to speak of. Secondly, because the Europeans and Russians were mostly getting along. Thirdly, because European loyalty towards the United States has been diminishing since the end of the Cold War.


By pursuing a military alliance with Ukraine, a major Russian reaction was guaranteed. The Russians promised us as much over the course of some fifteen years.


The drip feed strategy is cheap and non-committal.

- Europe is pressured into supporting Ukraine, which essentially puts it at war with Russia.

- By providing arms to Ukraine, Europe further hollows out their already token military forces. That will either force them to revamp their militaries, or to be under permanent military threat from Russia.

- This is further amplified by the fact that Russia is forced to mobilize and expand and develop its military.


The reason I believe this theory is quite plausible, is because:
1. The US knew Russia would react this way to their efforts to incorporate Ukraine into the western security structure.
2. The US never seemed truly committed to defending Ukraine militarily, even though it was clear from the onset that Ukraine would lose without US/NATO military intervention.


In other words, they knowingly provoked a conflict in which they were not committed to victory. In my view that can only mean that victory was never the objective.

Heaven forbid folks get to hear words they don't like on a philosophy forum. :roll:

So the economy is between a rock and a hard place: if the fed does nothing, inflation continues to climb, if they act, it could potentially cause a string of bank failures the government would probably have to deal with. — frank

In my opinion, there are two problems at work.

1. The Fed, or the ECB, or any governmental/politicized institution for that matter, cannot handle the responsibility of this amount of control over the quantity of money.

2. Governments bearing the risk of bank failures turn people apathetic to their banks' behavior.

People should bear the risk if their bank fails. That's the only way to encourage them to act in more financially responsible ways.

The fact that people don't care is why banks get away with irresponsible business practices. People don't care because "the government will deal with it". What they miss is the only way the government can "deal with it" is by printing money, which causes inflation, which is essentially a hidden tax paid for, predominantly, by Joe Average.

No more bail outs and no more money printing.

Economies (the flow of resources, goods and services) predates capital - monetary systems. Bartering is another economic system as is simply sharing amongst a small tribal community. — Benj96

I don't think the eco cutlery from your example would have fared any better under a system of barter.

What happens in your example is that a previously useless waste product gained value. And the market simply adapts to this new situation by asking something in return.

If the eco cutlery producer cannot produce something equal or greater in value then it simply means his "innately good idea", while perhaps well-intentioned, wasn't very good.

You're essentially lamenting the fact that people don't care enough about eco cutlery.

As no one wants to be at a financial loss but at the same time value anything healthier and better for their conscience. — Benj96

And that includes the eco cutlery producer, no?

Why don't they continue producing eco cutlery anyway, and simply soak up the loss, if it's such a good idea?

And that corrupts the innately good idea based on the free lunch (waste products being up cycled or used to make meaningful of valuable products). — Benj96

To suggest that the use of waste products equals a free lunch is wrong. It's a free lunch for the eco cutlery producer, paid for by the guac producer, so not a free lunch after all.

The amount of goods produced goes up, and as a result of the guac producer's free giving away of their waste product which the eco cutlery producer turns into value, the guac producer's buying power goes down as a result of their charity.

The only thing any living thing "pays" for lunch is the energy required to capture and digest it. — Benj96

Then it's not actually free, is it?

It turns out the labor cost of living in nature is actually quite high, which is why mankind does just about anything it can to avoid having to pay it.

The "problem of capitalism" even extends into the animal kingdom. :grin:

I see nothing wrong with the way the market functions in the example. It has nothing to do with greed or capitalism. This is how economies have always functioned.

If the eco cutlery producer expected a free lunch, that's their mistake. There is no free lunch.

Downing a drone amidst a full-scale war isn't really a big deal, and it doesn't compare to the actual destruction wrought on Ukraine on a daily basis.

What is interesting is the US reaction to this.

If the US was looking to get more involved in Ukraine, one would have expected this attack to spark a lot of anti-Russian war rhetoric. Perhaps it would even be used directly as an excuse to further support.

Instead we saw a rather timid reaction, which may signal the opposite: that the US isn't looking to give Ukraine the direct support it desperately needs, or that may be looking to bail on Ukraine altogether.

That is something I and a few other posters here have been predicting for a while.

My guess is this was a deliberate attack from the Russians.

They're getting bolder now that the war on the ground seems to be going their way.

By attacking the drone, they are basically looking for the US response, which so far has been rather mild.

That tells them the US aren't looking for an excuse to get further embroiled in Ukraine. It also gives off the signal to the US that Russia doesn't shy away from directly attacking US assets if they are involved in the war in Ukraine.

The timing of this attack, right as the West might face another financial crisis, is possibly also no coincidence.

https://liveuamap.com/

The situation is looking dire.

Russia seems to have shifted to pure attrition warfare. Essentially they surround an area like Bakhmut and then exploit the compromised position of the defenders until the defense becomes too costly to maintain. Their goal is not to swiftly gain ground, but to destroy Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine seems to be reluctant to give up ground, though it would probably be the strategically sensible thing to do.

Avdiivka seems next on the chopping block, with Marinka possibly following after. In the process of taking these areas, also the urban area between Bakhmut and Avdiivka will become vulnerable.

I thought you were talking about this website in particular in the previous comment. — Benkei

No, no. I haven't seen any form of censorship on this forum. Having voiced skeptical views throughout the pandemic I was met with some hostility, but that's the price of going against the grain, I suppose.

The dissenters were framed as "wappies" though; which often worked due to them having idiotic opinions on unrelated issues (like Chemtrails, WEF reset conspiracy and other crap). — Benkei

I genuinely wonder what percentage of skeptics truly held extreme views, on how much of that was simply framing along the lines of the same strategy that mentioned.

Who has been censored here? Seems like a bit of an exagerration. — Benkei

Wake up, man.

Have you seen a single piece of mainstream media coverage that was critical towards the government's covid strategy during the pandemic?

The only place I found those was on independent media outlets. You might say, "Well then it's not censorship", but what you'd be skipping is the fact that actively preventing critical voices from being heard by wider audiences is censorship, especially in today's day and age. I'd go as far as saying that providing critical voices a platform is a fundamental duty of legitimate governments.

And this didn't extend only to opinions. When research was done that showed results at odds with the narrative - voided, or simply swept under the rug by barrages of sweet nothings like "99% of doctors agree..."

My impression is that people who do not consider that censorship, in fact just thought it was fine for critical voices to be silenced.

Things have quieted down significantly with regard to Covid-19 which I would think would finally give room for more balanced discussions but instead it's like a pendulum swinging the other way. It's not very pretty to be honest. — Benkei

The difference between then and now is that no one is being censored.

If people don't want to speak in favor of the old narrative that's their prerogative.

I guess the part that isn't very pretty is how little the old narrative is supported now that the propaganda machines have ceased churning, at least on the topic of Covid.

So one wonders why you consistently only air one side of the debate. — Benkei

Only one side of the story is repeated over and over, and those seeing something wrong with this highlight the other side in an attempt to restore some semblance of balance back to the discussion, and are then asked "why they so consistently air only one side of the debate?"

Oddly reminiscent of the Ukraine situation.

There might be changes, but they wouldn't have anything to do with Trump or whatever blithering idiot they put in charge of the White House.

Well, the good doctor is quite careful in his wordings, but this just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't it?

Also, why is it so quiet in this thread? :chin:

Powerful actors will act powerfully, that's in the definition. So if they are not resisted powerfully, then the effect is consent to whatever it is they are doing. They will not wait for us to make up our minds whether we consent. They will not temper their force in line with our uncertainty. Least of all in war. — Isaac

:100:

Your and Tzeentch’s frustration to present your reasons in a persuasive way to your opponents leads you both to caricature your opponents’ views. This attitude is intellectually dishonest and repulsive to me. — neomac

You are projecting so hard I could point you at a wall to show off a PowerPoint presentation.


I don't need absolute certainty to be sure of something. Absolute certainty doesn't exist, and the pretention that such is necessary to take a strong stance towards something, that is intellectually dishonest, especially when that standard is applied one-sidedly to the narrative you happen to disagree with.


Moreover, outside of philosophical debate this type of approach to worldly affairs is, in one word, weak. We're dealing with actors that will take every opportunity to bullshit you, and here we are waiting for that distant moment when we arrive at crystalline certainty (a pipe dream) to call out said bullshit.

That's crippling insecurity masquerading as intellectual rigor.

As I said before, it's a sign of the times. Propaganda has so thoroughly gaslit and intellectually neutered citizens that now they need an "official" story to be sure of anything. Whatever happened to independent and critical thought?

I can't quite remember...@Tzeentch, do you have any recollection of 'veiled threats' coming from anyone? — Isaac

I do seem to recall something...

(December, 2021)



And...

(January, 2022)




But why would they ever do that? What could be the possible motive?!

Oh, I recall something about that too...

(2014)




It seems we have a public admission of intent and motive, and an independent investigative source providing a detailed account of events.

I just can't for the life of me figure out how this fits into the picture that Russia probably did it, and that the US certainly didn't do it. :chin:

Why on earth would we be contemplating theories which are merely "not impossible"? — Isaac

On a more serious note, we're seeing the effectiveness of plausible deniability at work.

If you give people who desperately do not want to face the obvious something to latch onto, they will. No matter how improbable it is.

As they say: man is not a rational, but a rationalizing animal.

Yet not impossible for someone without the training. — ssu

You don't know anything about diving, do you?

The telegraph seems to confirm a single (joint agency) source. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/03/07/nord-stream-pipelines-blown-pro-ukrainian-group-us-intelligence/ — Isaac

The incident had been variously blamed on Moscow, Kyiv, and, in one more outlandish theory, the CIA - ...

:rofl: I just can't.

Have we already forgotten about this?



Use your brains, people.

We now have an intelligence "leak" (officially sanctioned it seems) blaming private individuals. How likely is that really? Getting explosives? Planning? Skills? And no government involved? — Benkei

Private individuals delivering the equivalent of over a metric ton of TNT on underwater pipelines the location of which isn't publicly available and would require elaborate underwater surveys to accurately locate? In multiple locations? Detonated remotely? Without being detected in a body of water that is monitored 24/7 by multiple nations poised to hear a mouse fart?

Fucking zero.

Whether they're coming from Moscow, Beijing or Washington, propaganda narratives all have the same goal: further cementing their foothold in the minds of those who already agree, and sowing doubt in the minds of those who don't.

Among the citizenry of developed nations we see symptoms of this: a complete and utter lack of confidence in their own ability to tell right from wrong and fact from fiction.

This is in essence gaslighting on a societal level, exactly how it was used by the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.

Damage control from Washington. I'm guessing they couldn't get a lid on Hersh's story, and they figured having a shitty narrative is better than having no narrative. Plausible deniability and all that.

I don't think I've ever seen such a shockingly blatant attempt at bullshitting the public in my lifetime.

The media utterly voids Hersh, and when "anonymous officials" report on "undisclosed information" about "anonymous groups" about which "much is still unclear" they're all reporting in tandem.

Please.

The only thing more concerning than this is the fact that there are people who will actually believe it.

Wouldn't have ended (supposed) Putinian NATO-phobia. Their arguments against NATO expansion would apply to the remaining Ukraine just the same. — jorndoe

No, it wouldn't have ended the mutual distrust, but it would have ended the war with Ukraine mostly intact, and it would have at least created a basis upon which nations could have gone into dialogue once again.

Most importantly, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of lives would not have been lost.

The Ukrainians wouldn't have it, ... — jorndoe

It's the Americans who blocked the peace talks in late March 2022, when, according to Sachs' account, an agreement was already on the table.

... all the while Putin being hailed/encouraged as a victorious leader at home. — jorndoe

In the era of modern propaganda literally anything can be spun into a victory, so the idea that we can somehow "teach Putin a lesson" is naive.

This is what is called "personalizing" a war - making a conflict that concerns millions about our feelings towards individual people.

But perhaps more importantly, Ukraine is getting utterly ruined, and it, not Russia, will suffer the most from the West playing hardball.

Such flirting with complicity might have consequences, ... — jorndoe

If you consider peace talks and compromise to be equal to criminal complicity, I don't know what to tell you.

Ideal solutions don't exist, so the only choice is compromise. The alternative is never-ending war.

Just curious, are you an American?

I don't take Scott Ritter very seriously. — Tzeentch

Yudin, then? Others? (Just those assigning specific blame...?) — jorndoe

I agree with Mearsheimer's view that the West, most notably the United States, bears primary responsibility for this conflict, though it goes without saying the Russians bear a great deal of responsibility as well.

Oh boy, they must be getting desperate in Washington. Been a while since I had a laugh like this.

Yet he doesn't think... — neomac

I don't care about what Scott Ritter thinks. He goes around proclaiming Putin to be a great man and Russia being "on the right side of history", etc. I don't trust such a person's judgement. If you do, good for you.

Hersh's sources from the US intelligence services seemed to believe the drive on Kiev could have been a diversion. Hersh states that explicitly. Looking at the facts as we know them, I came to the same conclusion, and I do have the relevant academic background to develop my own general picture based on rudimentary data like troop numbers, movements, etc. That's good enough for me. If you're not convinced, that's fine too.

Then which other expert is explicitly supporting the "diversion hypothesis" as you do? — neomac

I never said any expert explicitly supports it. What I said was that Hersh's recent interviews lend credibility to the idea, since he states his sources from within US intelligence believed it.

He also gave the figure of 60,000 Ukrainian defenders, which supports the hypothesis.

If you're going to turn this into a repeat of our previous argument, I suggest you stop here.

Scott Ritter, a "diversion theory" supporter (I suspect it's him your first expert source)... — neomac

Couldn't be further from the truth. I don't take Scott Ritter very seriously.

Do you?

But the question I have for you, is, are you supporting Putin's war? — Wayfarer

Of course not.

Because it seems to me, that you're basically repeating Russian propoganda. — Wayfarer

That is because everything that contradicts the western narrative is automatically labeled as Russian propaganda.

All of what I said is supported by hard facts and expert opinions (which I will happily share if you're interested).


I'm laying out the painful reality of the situation, because cheerleading and sugar coating aren't going to change it, and the price of ignorance is paid every day by the young men dying on the frontline, and civilians suffering under the war.

Seems a stretch that the current situation was Putin's plan all along. (?) — jorndoe

I think Putin had hoped the West would back down after the initial invasion, and a negotiated deal could be struck. (Peace talks in late March/early April 2022 imply as much).

They may have expected the United States to back down, since the US cannot afford to bind itself in Eastern Europe with China being the real threat to its global influence.

When the US blocked peace talks, I think the annexation of Donbas and Zaporizhzhia was the plan B, and by and the large the Russians have been successful at turning the war in their favor. Ukraine is on western life support, and it's a matter of time before the continued pressure of war takes its toll.


Ultimately western support will only delay the inevitable. The type of aid Ukraine is receiving is not the type that can turn a losing war into a win (or even a stalemate for that matter). Handfuls of high-tech equipment don't win wars. They are barely worth setting up the elaborate logistical chains to get them operational in the first place.

The only reason these things aren't yet part of the western common sense is because of a relentless propaganda campaign.

For example, the defense on Kiev has been framed as a heroic Ukrainian defense and a huge failure of the Russian armed forces. However, the order of battle on the Ukrainian side was never disclosed which means it's hard to tell what exactly happened.
Recently, Seymour Hersh gave an interview in which he named the figure of 60,000 Ukrainian defenders at the battle of Kiev. Assuming that's true, and I suspect that it is (and probably the reason why the order of battle remains undisclosed), this means the defense of Kiev was a successful Russian attempt at diverting forces away from the east. The Russians attacked Kiev with ~21,000 troops. This is a small amount for a city as large as Kiev, but against a defending force of 60,000 there's simply no way this force was meant to capture the capital. One would have expected the Russians to aim for a local numerical advantage of at least 3:1, especially for the type of urban fighting the capture would have involved. This would have required roughly 180,000 troops - basically the entire Russian invading force.

In other words, the western media spin was pure bullshit to influence the public perception of Ukraine's chances in this war.


Let me end by saying, I find no pleasure in these hard facts. But ultimately it's in everybody's best interest, and especially the Ukrainians', that we don't harbor illusions. Young men are needlessly dying every day for a country that's clinging to futile dreams of victory.

When peace talks were started in late March, that should have been the end of the war.

So you agree that a European security cooperation that does not involve primarily the United States and the United Kingdom would be beneficial to Europe, and it's just the practical aspects that you are worried about?

I think an important aspect of NATO's behavior in regards to the war in Ukraine is being left unaddressed.

Who have been some of the biggest hawks from the NATO side?

The United States (the most influential NATO member by a mile-and-a-half) and the United Kingdom, both having been involved in the blocking of a peace deal that was on the table in April of 2022.

What do these states have in common?

They're both island nations, and they don't share the same security concerns that the countries on the European mainland do.

Odd, how we Europeans are letting countries who will not bear the full burden of war in Europe stoke the fires.


Therefore following statement:

Europe would be better off replacing NATO with a military coalition that involves only the countries connected to the European mainland.

The combined GDP of the European nations dwarfs that of Russia (the only geopolitical competitor in the region), so there's really no reason Europe should lean on the United States for their security.


Obviously the practical implementation of this is a whole other story. The European Union is a non-democratic abomination that needs to be replaced with something that is actually functional before this could ever happen, but lets leave that aside for now.

Don't you think it's a little odd to simply start stealing from rich Russians, when the story is that this is "Putin's war" that no one in autocratic dictatorship Russia actually supports? :chin:

You're beating about the bush.

If you're in favor of using coercion in order to make people change their behavior that's fine. But don't sugar coat it by making appeals to 'responsibility'. As I said, responsibility can only be taken up voluntarily. "Imposing responsibility" is just a euphemism for coercion.

That suggest that you believe the Southern slave owners were being responsible in the way they conducted their businesses. — praxis

It doesn't suggest that at all.

What if a business dumped toxic chemicals into a nearby river in order to avoid the cost of proper disposal and the pollution had a negative effect on the environment and the health of nearby residents, would that be responsible or irresponsible? — praxis

That would be irresponsible.

Responsibility can't be imposed by force. That's just coercion.

What kind of a ridiculous question is that? You want a normal conversation or what?

No.