Russia’s machine-building industry provides most of the country’s needs, including steam boilers and turbines, electric generators, grain combines, automobiles, and electric locomotives, and it fills much of its demand for shipbuilding, electric-power-generating and transmitting equipment, consumer durables, machine tools, instruments, and automation components. Russia’s factories also produce armaments, including tanks, jet fighters, and rockets, which are sold to many countries and contribute significantly to Russia’s export income. Older automobile factories are located in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod; the largest plants are those at Tolyatti (near Samara) and at Naberezhnye Chelny (in Tatarstan; a heavy truck factory). Smaller producers of road vehicles are in Miass, Ulyanovsk, and Izhevsk.
Even if they are building something, it heavily relies on foreign components. Like the Kamaz trucks having a US build engines and German transmissions. Or their Sukhoi Super-Jet having French engines and US avionics, etc. They can get some parts from the grey market, but the final product still won't be exportable. — M777
a way for Russia to signal that it's open for some diplomatic approaches to end the war. — ssu
We will be ready to return as soon as Ukraine shows a constructive position and provides at least a reaction to the proposals submitted to it — deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko
any concession to Russia is not a path to peace, but a war postponed for several years. — Mykhailo Podolyak
Okay, but I'm saying NATO biiiiig caca. — Olivier5
… the preference for a narcissistic one-way relationship where one party gets to define all the terms of engagement, and the other party is supposed to comply. The other party has no say. — baker
As hundreds of thousands of migrants arrive at the southern border each month, the Biden administration is looking to Spain to take in more Central Americans – New York Post
they do a fair amount of manufacturing. — Tate
Russian manufacturing activity expanded in May after three months of contraction and price pressures eased notably. The S&P Global Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 50.8 from 48.2 in the previous month, climbing above the 50.0 mark that separates expansion from contraction for the first time since January.
What's been present practically the entire invasion has been the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine. But of course that doesn't matter for the Russian apologists.Why, the Russian have only made reasonable proposals to the Ukrainian Nazis. And their assault in Donbas is still on the way...It's laughable the way you try and present this as if we're all waiting with baited breath for Russia to come to the negotiating table when it's been present there for practically the entire invasion. — Isaac
That Biden has said he's not looking for regime change in Russia or that the US is demanding that Ukraine wouldn't use the given weapons systems against Russian proper (meaning Russian territory) is something you think is meaningless. And of course Russia would like to talk just to the US. After all, the country of Ukraine is artificial.What's missing is any commitment from the US, without which negotiations will be toothless — Isaac
(See here)"We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia," Biden wrote. "As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow."
"So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces," Biden continued.
"We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia," he said.
Yes. Remember ping pong diplomacy? — Olivier5
WASHINGTON, March 3 (Reuters) - The Pentagon has established a new hotline with Russia's ministry of defense to prevent "miscalculation, military incidents and escalation" in the region as Russia's invasion of Ukraine advances, a U.S. official told Reuters on Thursday.
The United States says it has no troops in Ukraine but it and NATO allies in Europe are worried about potential spillover, including accidents, as Russia's stages the largest assault on a European state since World War Two.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is pursuing a high-stakes deal with Russia, Turkey and other nations to open up Ukrainian food exports to world markets and stave off a potential global food shortage, according to diplomats familiar with the effort.
* * *
Mr. Guterres alluded to the negotiations on Wednesday in Vienna, saying, “We need to find a way to have the food production of Ukraine and the food and fertilizer production of Russia brought back to the global markets despite the war.” Mr. Guterres visited Moscow, Kyiv and the Turkish capital of Ankara in April to discuss the war and the food-security issues, among other topics.
The U.N.-led talks to open up Black Sea grain exports complement more-immediate efforts by European countries to move smaller amounts of Ukrainian food products to market through the Continent’s roads, railways and waterways, including the Danube River.
Most of the intelligent posters here have linked sources, provided arguments and offered definitions. It doesn't seem to have been sufficient. — Isaac
OK, so take me through the process with "Russia is a security threat to Western countries". We should have a list of premises which logically entail that conclusion. So what is that list? — Isaac
You don't need to know what those opinions are for my claim "you find all alternative opinions, from scores of military and foreign policy experts...all of them...indefensible and irrational" to apply, you only need know they exist. If a single expert disagrees with you then (according to your principle) it must be because he is irrational, because you are better than him as rational analysis. This follows from...
1. If there are two claims that I find both defensible after rational examination, I would find more rational to suspend my judgement. — neomac
and
2. You have not suspended judgement hereon the proposition in question (nor have you done so on many other related propositions in this thread) — Isaac
Of course it's about people. You assess argument A to be irrational, I assess it to be rational. No further assessment of A is going to resolve that difference, we've (for the sake of argument) extracted all the propositions and evidences within argument A one-by-one and I still find it rational, you still find it irrational. There's simply nowhere left to go other than decide if your judgement or mine is the better. — Isaac
All of these are interpretations. Necessary ones to support a theory. Russia might well have made 'a small number' of hybrid attacks. The threats may have been 'badly reported'. They may not have 'assumed' anything about their role, but rather justifiability concluded it. They may not have used refugees as a show of force, but rather for some other purpose. They may have violated air space quite 'infrequently'.
All of these are possible interpretations, they're not ruled out by the empirical facts (there's no empirical fact, for example, about how often is 'very often'). As such the facts underdetermine the theory. One could perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude they are insufficient to warrant an assumption that Russia represents a security threat to Europe. And indeed, many have. — Isaac
Any country with an army has a non-zero chance of raising a security issue with a European country. No country is 100% going to invade. So whatever the evidence, we need to make a decision about what level of probability is going to constitute, for us, a 'security threat'. That decision cannot be made on the basis of any empirical data. It's a purely political decision driven entirely by one's ideological commitments. — Isaac
the ratio of increasing the military, economic, and human costs of the Russian aggression for the Russians is in deterring them (an other powers challenging the current World Order) from pursing aggressively their imperialistic ambitions, and this makes perfect sense in strategic terms given certain plausible assumptions (including the available evidence like Putin's political declarations against the West + all his nuclear, energy, alimentary threats, his wars on the Russian border, his attempts to build an international front competing against Western hegemony, Russian military and pro-active presence in the Middle East and in Africa, Russian cyber-war against Western institutions, Putin's ruthless determination in pursuing this war at all costs after the annexation of Crimea which great strategic value from a military point of view, his huge concentration of political power, all hyper-nationalist and extremist people in his national TV and entourage with their revanchist rhetoric, etc.), of course. — neomac
The points I made for example are sufficient to rationally justify my perception of the Russian threat against the West, in other words mine is not paranoia or Russophobia: is this perception of mine fallaciously grounded on somebody’s repeating to me that Russia is a threat or the result of peers psychological pressure (through ostracism or insults)? No it’s based on those evidences I listed and more. Are those evidences false? no. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences? No, they support each other. Is there any inconsistency between those evidences and historical patterns of aggressive behavior by authoritarian regimes or in particular by Russia? No, the aggression of Ukraine by Russia has disturbing echoes of Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland (https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/russias-attack-ukraine-through-lens-history), and the annexation/Russification of Crimea is a leitmotif of Russian politics since the end of 18th century being key to Russian commercial and military projection in the Mediterranean area (including Middle East and North Africa, and surrounding Europe). Add to that the historical deep scars Ukraine, Finland, Poland and all other ex-Soviet Union countries in east Europe had with Russian empire and/or Soviet Union.
So, since thinking strategically requires one to spot potential threats, possibly way before they become too big because then it will be too late, what other evidence would one ordinary risk-averse Western citizen valuing their country’s democracy and economy more than Russian’s exactly need to perceive Russian aggressive expansionism and geopolitical interference as a threat to the West ? — neomac
Why, the Russian have only made reasonable proposals — ssu
some diplomatic approaches to end the war. — ssu
That Biden has said he's not looking for regime change in Russia — ssu
Biden says "For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power" and you're willing to ignore that at the drop of a hat to replace it with the 'official line', but Putin mentions something about Ukrainians and Russians being 'one people' some time back and that's enough for you to impute a clear intention to take over the whole country. Your sycophancy over the US is pretty appalling. — Isaac
Again, not sufficient for what, to whom, why? — neomac
If we are in a forum debating things we can link sources, provide arguments , offer definitions. — neomac
whenever I found your arguments fallacious as straw man, misquotations, contradictions, question begging claims, lack of evidence, blatant lies, etc.) or questionable on factual or explanatory bases, I argued for it. — neomac
I didn't offer an argument in the form of a logic deduction — neomac
I try to identify the logic structure of the argument, — neomac
I’m mainly interested in reasoning over pertinent arguments on their own merits, more than in resulting opinion polls and intelligence contests — neomac
things can be perceived, represented, or valued differently, yet that doesn’t prevent us from explicating and navigating these differences in more or less rational ways, and define accordingly margins of convergence where cooperation is possible and beneficial. — neomac
you started talking about possibilities (“possible interpretations”, “could perfectly rationally”), yet you concluded your argument with a fact (“And indeed, many have” concluded that perfectly rationally look at those facts and conclude etc.) giving the impression that the possibilities you were talking about were actually the case — neomac
that the same facts (e.g. the ones mentioned by ssu) have been looked at and assessed with perfect rationality to conclude something incompatible with ssu's conclusions hasn’t been shown yet. — neomac
Not sure about that either. First, I have no idea how one would or could calculate such a probability — neomac
If ssu couldn't brown nose US power, he wouldn't know how to breathe. — Streetlight
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