They have mobile cremations. Scary shit that we may never know the extent of. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Maybe it's too expensive to send the bodies back? One thing Putin said that I sort of believe is that this was an exercise to give his military some real combat experience. Or at least that's what he seemed to be suggesting.

Icarus
365
Russia moderating it's demands and looking for a way out more explicitly: — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's the way out. Did Russian forces really lose 5-10 thousand troops or was that bullshit?

Should he have just focused on Kiev instead of surrounding the whole country?

But how can Putin get out of this? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Depends on what happens when he takes out Zelensky. A resistance will need a leader.

Maybe Putin thought Zelensky would flee the country and Ukraine would surrender sooner than this.

Maybe so. I'm clueless right now as to what will happen next.

Could Ukraine be his Afghanistan? :grimace:
— frank

No, those are orthodox and blonde! :eyes: — javi2541997

I don't think that is relevant, is it?

I'm sure Putin's got to be thinking about how the USSR's demise was related to its protracted war in Afghanistan.

Could Ukraine be his Afghanistan? :grimace:

Bombs thrown in Russia and the US will spill to China. It will likely set off a chain reaction, in either case, the radiation and change in temperature would kill off almost everyone. — Manuel

I disagree. China could sit it out. I guess if Russia and the US totally unloaded on one another, a nuclear winter might happen.

I don't think it would kill everybody, though.

Being passive is one thing, racing towards WWIII is beyond words. — Manuel

Who's siding with Russia in this scenario? China? China has nothing to gain from bombing its investment and prime market. On the other hand, it doesn't really need Russia for much. Should nuclear conflict transpire, I don't think it will be a world war exactly. It will mainly be the US and Russia being bombed.

We are lacking in leaders worldwide. These folks are insane. — Manuel

We're just not used to it. Our ancestors had to deal with this shit all the time.

If the Pax Americana goes down (which it appears to be doing) this will be happening more often. So being passive isn't the way to peace that you think it is.

The problem that I see, is that these sanctions are going to fuck up MANY countries that have nothing to do with the war and are leaving less room for Russia to negotiate without them having to rely on nukes. That’s my worry. — Manuel

Or cyber attacks. That would be a little less final, but still very destructive.

One way things could escalate is cyber attacks on infrastructure.

I think that actually would tilt the world into a depression. Plus we'd get to see whose country deals best with a shortage of basic needs.

Me? What does that mean? — Xtrix

:grin:

the main thesis in this thread is about obstacles to joining together with others. Do you have experiences relevant to this? — Xtrix

Yea. You.

We know there were no WMD in Iraq because the US government told us. They could easily have lied if they felt like it.

So to apply Walzer's concept of "dirty hands" we would need Putin to recognize the immorality of invading, but say that he had to do it for the well-being of his society.

I think that is the official Russian narrative, right?


The idea is that he was faced with a real ethical dilemma where there's no way to avoid doing something immoral.

I'm assuming the hard sanctions are meant to get Russia to a negotiating table, but if that doesn't happen, will those sanctions potentially cause a global depression?

From the NY Times

"The sanctions “are severe enough to dismantle Russia’s economy and financial system, something we have never seen in history,” Carl B. Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote this week.

Another article warning about passing on false information and trying to be an expert when you're not. :grimace:

another cartoon! What a surprise. — Benkei

I'm just telling you: you don't need to be ragging on other people's posts. Yours are mostly StreetlightX-want-to-be trash.

have neither the time nor inclination to take your apparent fragile ego into consideration when clarifying the kindergarten level of your thinking. — Benkei

Your posts are fairly childish and uninformed, Benkei.

Either write better posts or stick to reddit. Bye. — Benkei

Your posts are mostly garbage as well, Benkei.

If we are to actually find out what nation should "lead the world" with "exporting political and cultural forms", the only thing we can practically use to figure that out would be to look at the indexes of life quality and other similar lists.

Then figure out which nation gets generally the highest between all statistics and use that to "fix" other nations — Christoffer

Imagine that we look at all the plants in the world and decide which one is the best. Maybe we decide it's corn after looking at Iowa.

So we decide everybody should grow as much corn as possible. Iowa will continue to thrive because Iowa is the perfect mother to the corn plant.

But Gotland will do poorly. Gotland is a terrible mother for corn. It's a good mother for radishes.

So we should let each mother grow what she grows best. We find that out by observing.

What well over 100 dollar oil price does is that it stops the economy like a handbrake. — ssu

Stagflation here we come. Thanks a lot, whoever's fault this is.

frank

Some? Are you talking about culture or politics? If people think a Chinese superpower rule is good for the world, they must be totally unaware of how things are in China. Culture is one thing, that's the day-to-day interaction of regular people. But the politics of China is not ready for global export, it's broken to its core. — Christoffer

I could talk for a while about why Americans assume their political structure should be exported to raise up all the suffering people of the world, IOW, why the American system is kind of like a religion, but that might be too far afield of the thread's topic.

I don't know if China also thinks their system (which is still evolving) should be exported.

I think he wants Russia to be an equal among core nations. He needs to do something about his economy and his legitimacy though.

The same sentiment is creeping all over the (non-western) world. People are tired of Europe and the US being top dogs. They want geopolitical change as a form of revenge against western arrogance, but also just for the sake of change. Many Africans for instance are curious to see what a world dominated by China will look like. They are not naïve about it, or day-dreaming. They are just tired of us. — Olivier5

It's coming. It will be better in some ways and worse in others. There are some aspects of Chinese culture that just rub me the wrong way, sort of like I gather American ways irritate the fuck out of non-Americans.

The proposal you've suggested is for Ukraine to surrender and hand over the keys to Russia. Surrender avoids war for sure. — Hanover

They won't have a choice if the West reaches an agreement with Putin. One wild card is that I think this is personal for Biden. I think he wants to take a chunk out of Putin.

So blaming the West is key to his survival. — Olivier5

He has Chinese popular opinion on his side. They see it as an act of defiance against American influence, and they identify with Russia. As America declines, this is a symbol of forcing America to face reality.

It's a very emotional issue for some Chinese young people because they see America as trying to thwart their rise to power.

This is why I'm fearing that he might take the world down with him. — Christoffer

He already signalled his demands at the negotiating table: he wants Ukraine to be recognized as neutral. He wants it demilitarized, and he's probably going to choose its next leader, who'll be a puppet.

He'll basically put a squash on Ukraine's economy by diminishing its ties with Europe.

The west will then back off the sanctions and go back to normal with no further overtures to Ukraine and less trust for Russia than it had.

If you want a performing monkey, you should try e-bay. — StreetlightX

I use Walmart.com these days. Best way to get my cheap Chinese goods.

Did I? Because those who can follow a basic train of implication might note that none of this lets Putin off the hook. No judgement about those who can't, just saying. — StreetlightX

Oh good. So join me in condemning Putin for doing the same thing the US has been doing to South and Central America for years.

:up:

Yeah so paranoid that they signposted and labeled exactly what to not do at every point, joined in by a chorus of Western notaries who similarly warned against very specific actions. Strange definition of paranoid. — StreetlightX

I think you just let the US off the hook for every atrocious thing it's ever done.

"You guys shouldn't have threatened us. You should have backed down before we squashed you flat!". - - Uncle Sam.

Question: One of the Dutch posters on the forum was saying NATO should have "abandoned" Ukraine earlier to avoid war. Surely he wouldn't say that about Italy, for instance. Is that a kind of prejudice regarding countries near Russia?

I watch CGTN and RT as well, critically. Newspapers - which ones do you read, and maybe we need a separate thread on that. — FreeEmotion

Do you watch PBS? At some point Frontline will have a show where they explain more deeply what Biden was thinking through all of this.

I don't have a TV. I read the NY Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian. I listen to NPR.

Otherwise, I form ideas about what's going on by trying to fit the facts into a scenario that makes sense to me. Sometimes it takes a while because the facts just aren't available.

:up:

If Russia did invade would you come to the US? Or what?

The United States has not threatened Sweden or Finland, but I think they may be the rare exceptions. — FreeEmotion

We just didn't know those were real countries. We'll be right over.

Don't watch any of those. It will rot your brain. Just read newspapers.