I don't see a big difference whether he dies on his own or is killed by his cronies, after Russian economics are rolled back into the 1980s. — M777

They still have oil and coal. I guess the tsar/oligarchs system will just reset?

The EU just sanctioned 2/3 of his crude oil. So at best he would be able to sell a small part of it at a huge discount.

I meant if he died, Russia would probably go back to what they had before the war. I don't think anyone will have a grudge, except Ukraine, which will never trust Russia again.

Depends on who takes his place and what their policies would be, how would they deal with the upcoming economic crises, paying reparations, keeping the federation together, etc.

paying reparations — M777

I hadn't thought of that. Jamie Dimon has said the US is headed for an economic "hurricane", so we may all be hurting shortly.

The potential magnitudes are dramatically different. In theory 'normal' countries experience economical crises / bubbles bursting now and than, like the US had in 2008. It wipes out some 20-30% of the GDP, people need to scale down a bit and generally in a few years they are back to normal.
Russia is a completely different case - they don't manufacture anything. They sell oil & gas and buy everything they need. So being unable to sell those completely wipes out all other parts of the economy, as they just have no money to buy stuff. In the 80s there was at least some manufacturing, but now there is none.

but now there is none. — M777

They don't export a lot of manufacturered goods, but they do a fair amount of manufacturing.

Britannica

such as? :) anything that would not contain like 90% of foreign components.

Glance at the Britannica article.

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.

The EU just sanctioned 2/3 of his crude oil. So at best he would be able to sell a small part of it at a huge discount. — M777

You mean this sanction...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/703573

For those poor anglosaxons among us, whose press is generally trash and even worse in war time as Chomsky rightly points out, here is some good news from Russia, courtesy of Courrier International:


Wheat: negotiations on the unblocking of Ukrainian ports are on track
The UN and Turkey will be the intermediaries in technical negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv to “free” Ukrainian cereals and at the same time open access for Russian cargo ships to European ports.

As the threat of a famine that could strike millions of people around the world grows, UN Secretary General António Guterres announced progress in negotiations on unblocking the export of Ukrainian wheat, as well as than on the removal of obstacles to access to Russian food resources and fertilizers on world markets, reports the Russian business daily Kommersant.

“We're making good progress, but we haven't seen any results yet. These are very complex issues and the interdependency of all their elements makes the negotiations particularly difficult”, he explained on June 1, while assuring that he was “fully confident” .

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths and UN Conference on Trade and Development Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan are discussing a comprehensive deal that includes “the secure export of grain by sea and access to Russian products and fertilizers on world markets, particularly in developing countries”. Rebeca Grynspan has already traveled to Moscow on May 30, then directly to Washington the next day.

Seventy ships from 16 countries blocked

Kiev claims that it is "the blockade of Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea and the takeover of the Azov coastline by Russia that prevent Ukraine from exporting 22 million tonnes of grain", recalls the Russian title. Moscow rejects these accusations and points out that the Russian military regularly tries to open “maritime corridors” to let cargo ships out.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 70 ships from 16 countries are currently docked in the ports of Kherson , Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhny. “The risk of fire from Ukrainian forces and the presence of a large quantity of mines in the surrounding waters do not allow the ships to exit safely on the high seas”, affirms the Russian authority.

The project is to create a group of contacts to organize the exit of wheat cargoes from Ukrainian ports. The intermediaries in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine will be the UN and Turkey .

Lavrov will be in Ankara on June 8

“Our Turkish colleagues will take part in the work of demining the ports… And they will try to find agreements so that these operations are not an opportunity for Ukraine to regroup its forces and inflict damage on Russia”, explained Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov following the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan on June 1. The Turkish President then conveyed this agreement between Moscow and Ankara to Volodymyr Zelensky.

In the Turkish capital, it is estimated that the main issues can be settled within two weeks, knowing that, in the meantime, on June 8, Sergei Lavrov will visit Ankara.

“Ukraine does not want to see Russian ships in the port of Odessa, while Russia refuses the arrival in this port of foreign ships likely to bring weapons to Ukraine. We must therefore agree on a resolution which grants guarantees to both parties”, explained Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

However, the situation will not be resolved as long as the sanctions against Russian cargo ships, which are turned away from European ports, are maintained. Indeed, if Russian wheat does not fall under the scope of international sanctions, this is not the case for the logistics and financial chains linked to the delivery of cereals on world markets, Sergei Lavrov recalled.

At issue are 37 million tonnes of production for the current season, and 50 million for the next, informs Kommersant. Turkey, Egypt , Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan are the main importers of Russian wheat.

According to the daily, the hope of a positive outcome to this initiative is reinforced by the fact that Washington has approved Rebeca Grynspan's move to Russia, then to Washington. “We hope this will give a boost to companies that are currently refraining from delivering Russian grain and fertilizers,” said the United States' United States representative to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

On May 31, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel , also declared that the European Union and the United Nations were working to open other routes for the export of Ukrainian wheat, in particular through the territory of Belarus and of the Baltic countries.

Komersant article
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5381821?from=main

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

I don't think many countries make their goods all the way up from raw materials. Maybe China does?

But I get your point. Manufacturerung isn't their forte, but they do meet a lot of their own needs through their own industries.

I don't think many countries make their goods all the way up from raw materials. Maybe China does?

But I get your point. Manufacturerung isn't their forte, but they do meet a lot of their own needs through their own industries. — Tate

We'll see how that works out in the upcoming month. )

For us as well. The Fed is expected to slam the breaks on the economy. China is still ailing from covid. Russia is... well, Russia. The EU isn't looking great either.

A good and informative comment. :up:

Perhaps letting at least some grain ships through would be a way for Russia to signal that it's open for some diplomatic approaches to end the war. In a way, it could be a start to ease the tensions.

This is where for example the UN could be handy tool.

a way for Russia to signal that it's open for some diplomatic approaches to end the war. — ssu

You mean more of a way than just directly saying it?

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

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.

What's missing is any commitment from the US, without which negotiations will be toothless (seeing as they're directly bankrolling the whole war and it's now openly admitted that it's in a proxy war with Russia)

And now the Ukrainians themselves...

any concession to Russia is not a path to peace, but a war postponed for several years. — Mykhailo Podolyak

...but lovely to watch you twist the US and Ukraine's refusal to negotiate into a narrative where we're all supposed to be patiently waiting for those recalcitrant Ruskies to join the table while the noble and patient West wring their hands in beneficent concern.

Okay, but I'm saying NATO biiiiig caca. — Olivier5

That's why the world needs to make sure NATO doesn't get any bigger. :grin:

… 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

I think that pretty much describes the situation. What is lacking from America’s NWO, which isn’t surprising given that America inherited it from the British Empire, is the concept of justice.

The way I see it, justice a.k.a. righteousness is the most important of cardinal virtues and the very foundation on which classical philosophy was built.

The importance of justice was also recognized by Christian philosophy, even though not always correctly implemented. Unfortunately, the pseudo-philosophies that have become dominant in later times (e.g.,
Imperialism, Transatlanticism, Natoism, Globalism, etc.) have tended to neglect this central concept of Western thought, and I think this has contributed to many of the problems the world is struggling, and likely to continue to struggle with, for the foreseeable future.

Though some like to babble about the “Russian Empire”, the generally accepted fact is that the dominant power in the world today is America, not Russia, and that America is a society in which material profit plays a central role.

This is reflected in the many international organizations that America has established as instruments of its foreign policy, such the UN, NATO, and the EU, all of which were created for the purpose of maintaining not justice, but “international peace and security” conducive to America “doing business” unhindered.

In spite of “peace” being the purported aim of America’s world order, it goes without saying that peace without justice isn’t true peace. Certainly, a world order that allows some states (China, Turkey) to grab other nations’ territory while some nations (Kurds) aren’t even allowed to have a state of their own, isn’t a just order. And, as they say, “no justice, no peace”.

IMO it isn’t enough to acknowledge the hypocrisy of America and its world order, we need to indict and combat its blatant injustice. Focusing exclusively on Russia’s alleged “crimes” amounts to deliberately ignoring the bigger crimes committed by America and its allies or client-states.

From what I see, older generations who still think that Russia is the Soviet Union and Germany the Third Reich, and who seem to be over-represented here, tend to have an outdated mindset that simply ignores some very important changes taking place in the world. If we look at China, India, Latin America, Africa, there is a growing tendency while embracing modern technology and science, to pay more attention to local history and culture and incorporate them into one’s national identity.

India, for example, has taken huge steps toward shaking off the shackles of colonialism, both European and Muslim (Arab and Mughal), and this seems to have contributed to a cultural and religious revival that acts as a counterweight to American hegemony.

If Europeans want to survive into the next decades and centuries, they too will have to liberate themselves from American colonialism and re-join the international community as a continent of free nations.

As I said, the real solution is to have free and independent countries and continents. America wants to “keep Russia out of Europe”. But this is absurd as Russia is, and has always been, in Europe. I’m all for keeping Russia out of Western Europe, but then America should stay out of Europe, too.

The problem is that America is increasingly treating Europe as its colonial possession. It is exporting to Europe not only American pseudo-culture mainly consisting of guns, drugs, and psycho music genres, but Biden now plans to ship Latin American immigrants to Europe exactly like England used to ship Africans to its colonies!

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

On the whole, America seems to be monopolizing the very definition of culture, democracy, politics, international relations, and by the looks of it, even philosophy. In a world that is increasingly fake – from fake news to fake Instagram pictures - fake Europeans fail to see any problem with American hegemony and so do their American counterparts and role models. And this is why no meaningful dialogue or discussion is possible ….

they do a fair amount of manufacturing. — Tate

Of course they do:

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.

Russian manufacturing activity returns to growth in May - PMI | Reuters

It's a good idea to check the facts before trusting the "experts" here. :smile:

Incidentally, chances are Russia will continue to find buyers for some of its energy exports and if it is forced to start manufacturing products for its own domestic needs, it can easily become largely self-sufficient (which is actually a good thing for its economy) and outlive the sanctions by many years.

The decisive factor in the conflict isn't the sanctions but how the military situation develops.

Yes, China is also trying to make its economy sanction-proof.

Not only China. India and other large economies are watching what's happening to Russia. They're learning from Russia's experience and making sure they don't find themselves in the same position of vulnerability to the West in the future.

So, America's position may not end up being quite as strong as officially presumed, in the long-term.

But the biggest loser will be Europe, Germany in particular, which is Europe's largest economy. I for one don’t see how Europeans can benefit from becoming dependent on oil and gas from places that may be more expensive, less stable, and are run by nasty regimes, like Saudi Arabia.

Zelensky looks :rage:

Putin looks :worry:

:snicker:

Perhaps letting at least some grain ships through would be a way for Russia to signal that it's open for some diplomatic approaches to end the war. In a way, it could be a start to ease the tensions. — ssu

Yes. Remember ping pong diplomacy?

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

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...

What's missing is any commitment from the US, without which negotiations will be toothless — 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.

"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.

(See here)

You just have toothless arguments, Isaac.

Yes. Remember ping pong diplomacy? — Olivier5

Well, there are already channels between the US and Russia. What should be remembered that Mao's China had had an open war with the US in Korea, even if the Chinese forces were depicted to be "volunteers". I guess there weren't many relations with China before ping pong diplomacy.

And anyway, the US and Russia have done something about unintended accidents or escalations months ago:

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.

Guterres has already tried to get something done with the blockade already last month. It could be a way forward. And I think it would be good that the UN would gain some role in the conflict.

(WSJ, last may)

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.

The fact is that moving Ukrainian food products to the global market through roads and railways won't work. Or works too little.

Most of the intelligent posters here have linked sources, provided arguments and offered definitions. It doesn't seem to have been sufficient. — Isaac

Again, not sufficient for what, to whom, why? As far as I’m concerned, in this thread, I mainly argued with you, Apollodorus and Streetlight as opponents. And whenever I found your arguments fallacious (straw man, misquotations, contradictions, question begging claims, lack of evidence, blatant lies, etc.) or questionable on factual or explanatory bases, I argued for it. And since I’m mainly interested in reasoning over pertinent arguments on their own merits, more than in resulting opinion polls and intelligence contests, I don’t take arguments ad personam, ad populum, ab auctoritate, as well as sarcasm and insults, as ways to rationally assess arguments on their own merits.

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

Well, I didn't offer an argument in the form of a logic deduction (even though one could put it in that form too I guess), I limited myself to list some evidences that support my claim about Russian foreign politics [1] and assessed its reliability [2].

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

No it doesn’t follow.
First, my principle concerns claims and not intellectual skill assessments.
Second, from a strictly logical point of view, if I didn’t suspend my judgement, then I didn’t find two claims equally defensible after rational examination, but the implication doesn’t establish that, in case of divergence between my claims and others’, my claims are the more rational or rationally defensible. Indeed if my opponent’s claims fall within his sphere of competence more than mine, his claims will likely prove to be more rational than mine.
Third, the principle applies to claims that I could actually examine on their own merits, so the mere existence of some expert’s claims divergent from mine is not enough to apply that principle.
Moreover, if your argument is referring to my comments about Mearsheimer’s or Kissinger’s claims on the NATO’s expansion, then it’s also equivocal: sure, I can charitably assume that Mearsheimer and Kissinger are more reliable than I am in their domain of expertise (yet not necessarily more than other experts in the same or related area of expertise who oppose their views https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhgWLmd7mCo). However, when it’s matter of evaluating and questioning the moral assumptions or implications of their claims, as I did, I don’t have any reason to take them to be more moral expert than I am.

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 I’m saying is that I’m here because interested in arguments more than in opinion polls or intelligence contests. Of course this doesn’t prevent me from getting an idea of how popular some opinions are or how rational other participants to this forum or thread are, nor it prevents me from understanding certain reactions from a more politically engaged point of view, but that’s not what I’m after. That’s all.
Yet, I guess you are after something else, namely the same philosophical point you made in your comment to ssu. Since I find the latter more articulated, here below is my feedback about it.

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

This part sounds as a sophism for a couple of reasons. First, 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. Second, 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, but - as far as I’ve read and can recall - 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.

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

Not sure about that either. First, I have no idea how one would or could calculate such a probability (an aggregated security threat index per nation), so far I couldn’t even find one single geopolitical expert providing such estimates, not even the ones who were against NATO expansion. So however interesting it might be to investigate this subject further, at first glance it doesn’t strike me as a very promising ground for your argument. Second, since you are talking about “we” and “political decisions” I guess you are referring to democratic political decisions, yet I find quite problematic in terms of effectiveness and efficiency to assess truths via democratic political decisions (unless we are trivially talking about institutional truths like who the national president is). Indeed that’s also why we have experts about security and national defense who do not only collect pertinent empirical data but also assess national security concerns based on those empirical data and independently from any democratic political decision.


[1]

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

[2]

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

So you first imply that Russia are late to the negotiating table, then that no position they might come with is reasonable anyway. If control of anti-Russian far right groups, territorial claims over Donbas are off the table, then what exactly did you expect Russia to bring when you said...

some diplomatic approaches to end the war. — ssu

..? 'Diplomatically' agree to keep things exactly as they were, retreat from their military positions and walk away?

That Biden has said he's not looking for regime change in Russia — ssu

Putin has said he's not looking for regime change in Ukraine. You didn't believe that. Your bias is astounding. 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.

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

Yep. If @ssu couldn't brown nose US power, he wouldn't know how to breathe.

Again, not sufficient for what, to whom, why? — neomac

I'm not going to hand-hold you through the argument. If you can't remember where we are, that's your loss. I asked about methods for determining ideas which were wrong, your appealed to 'aggregate methods', I asked what they might be and you said...

If we are in a forum debating things we can link sources, provide arguments , offer definitions. — neomac

Now you're saying that is not, in fact sufficient to determine wrong arguments at all, but further ...

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

Except that all of the above are completely subjective, so you've still given nothing other than your judgement as a measure. Arguments are wrong because you think they are. Hence it is not true that...

I didn't offer an argument in the form of a logic deduction — neomac

I asked you how you assess claims to be false and you said...

I try to identify the logic structure of the argument, — neomac

Now you're saying you don't. Which is it?

I’m mainly interested in reasoning over pertinent arguments on their own merits, more than in resulting opinion polls and intelligence contests — neomac

It's entirely an 'intelligence contest'. You're relying entirely on the fact the your personal judgement of what is "straw man", what is a "misquotation" what are "contradictions" which are "question begging" which have a "lack of evidence" which are "blatant lies" which claims are "questionable"...all of these are subjective judgements which the people making the claim would obviously disagree with you on. So you are doing nothing more than saying that your judgement over these is better than theirs. An 'intelligence contest'

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

Great. So let's have those methods then. You keep vaguely pointing to the existence of these supposedly 'rational' methods (which I've somehow missed in my academic career thus far - which ought to be of concern to the British education system), yet you're clandestine about the details. Are they secret?

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

It is a fact that many have reached different conclusions. I can't see what your problem is with that. Are you saying that all parties agree on this?

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

...oh you are! Yes, well done. Everyone in the world agrees with ssu on this one, you've nailed it. I'm surprised I didn't read about that one in the newspapers - "Global agreement! First time since 1+1=2"

Not sure about that either. First, I have no idea how one would or could calculate such a probability — neomac

There's no need to calculate it. It's sufficient that it exists. In order for a country to be called 'a security threat' is is simply definitional that their probability of causing harm has to be above some threshold, since it is a fact that no country has a zero probability of causing harm to another and no country has a 100% probability of causing harm to another. As such, it absolutely must be a judgement. Unless you're saying there's some actual number above which it is definitional that a country is a 'security threat'.

If ssu couldn't brown nose US power, he wouldn't know how to breathe. — Streetlight

The level of servility in those latest remarks of his surprised me even at this stage...

Since when did "Biden says..." become part of any argument about what is actually the case?