Putin is weak and on the ropes.
— Punshhh

Nope.

I’m not going to labour the point, but is Putin so strong that he has ended up dug in, in eastern Ukraine. With Ukraine troops picking off his troops. Possibly up to 1,500 per day. Troops being one of Putin’s most scarce resources at the moment.

This is the bit where you tell me why the President during a heated row in the Oval Office in front of the worlds media, starts rambling on about dodgy laptops in hotel rooms, where disgusting things happened and that it was all a Biden scam.

I’m under no illusions about the nature of the U.S. I’d just rather have U.S. hegemony than the alternatives atm.

Yes the pragmatic solution is a ceasefire with the line drawn where the current frontline lies. With a new iron curtain erected. But we are a long way from that on both sides.
Ukraine can continue, with European support, even if the U.S. pulls out now. Also Trump is in a position to put considerable pressure on Putin, especially if he does a deal with Xi. This side of negotiations has not been reported on. I’m sure Xi would want a ceasefire now and this would be an opportunity to show strength on the global stage. Likewise if Trump forced Russia to end the war, the kudos would be enormous, something he would surely seek. But he is a petty two bit grifter, so probably can’t see that.

Trump has great power in this crisis, Putin is weak and on the ropes. Europe is ready to mobilise. The opportunities are enormous, but somehow I think Trump will make a mess of it. The biggest fail of all time.

But the Trump chaos is being steered in a more deliberate direction this time. Both internally and externally the goal seems to be to use Trump to engineer a breakdown of existing structures.

Yes, I agree, I suspect there is Kompromat on Trump which is being leveraged to pull his strings. Indeed there did seem to be a tell (when responding to Zelenskyy) in his ramblings about the way Putin had been attacked with a so called Biden scam. Referring to the Hunter Biden laptop, where he emphasised something disgusting happening in Hunter’s bedroom. I read this as there is something on a laptop disgusting in a bedroom, but Trump was on the tape rather than Hunter.

This inevitably results in a lot of chaos and shouting.

As I predicted.

There never was a deal. Putin had already pulled back from negotiations once the rare earth narrative was adopted. It’s all just Trump chaos.

Ouch, did I poke a bear, or something?

Look, I’m well aware of the points you raise. But I wasn’t addressing them, I was saying what the big story is, the big headline. That the post war settlement is coming to an end and a new settlement will be reached.

The U.S. and Russia have been sparring since the end of WW2. That was part of the Cold War narrative with occasional proxy wars, crises etc. It worked for a long period maybe 70 or 80yrs. That has now come to an end and the geopolitical tectonic plates are moving.

An important thing to remember in that settlement was the caretaker role of the US in Europe. This is why European countries haven’t developed powerful armies. This is why they have become complacent , always relying on Uncle Sam to do the heavy lifting. This suited both part parties. This was not likely to change much until Trump came along and trashed NATO. This combined with Putin’s imperial ambitions have changed the landscape and a new equilibrium will have to be found.

This inevitably results in a lot of chaos and shouting.

It's Schrödinger's war machine.

The story here is that Europe will now re-arm. This will take a decade or more. In the meantime Russia is weak and can be held at bay for that decade.
The fly in the ointment is the possibility that Trump will gift Ukraine to Putin. This will embolden Putin allowing him to replenish his army and threaten Europe before it re-arms and will have a destabilising effect on geopolitics.

In the meantime Russia is capable of throwing a vast amount of artillery at her opponent and is developing her drone capability quickly. A drone arms race is not good and needs to be choked off asap. This situation could become very expensive as Putin is throwing all his remaining money at it. This needs to be avoided and Trump throwing a spanner in the works really doesn’t help.

Memories of the McCarthy trials. Anti commy sentiment runs deep.

Europe's next.

Excuse me.
The U.S. is morally weak right now and Russia is bankrupt (her economy before the war was equivalent to a mid range European country).

Just heard from Sir Bill Browder that he was talking to EU leaders at the summit the other day, about releasing the frozen Russian Funds to support Ukraine.
Apparently it is being seriously considered which would add another €300billion to the war chest.

I don’t know who was responsible for delaying this move. Trump claims it was Belgium, but who would believe a word he says?

Yes 1983 was the point of real danger.

Baerbock let it slip the other day that the EU is prepairing €700billion aid package for Ukraine. Apparently it was being kept quiet until after the German election. Looks like Europe is going to step up to the plate after all.
It was always going to happen, with or without US help. The day Putin threatened Europe with nuclear attack the day of the invasion, European history changed. Now they will re-arm and take care of their own security.

The Manchurian Candidate has finally been activated. Well played, Mr Putin!

This gives Putin legitimacy in his claim that this is Europe’s war, by encouraging and giving military support to Ukraine. Alongside EU expansionism.

Maybe Trump, in his own moronic way, stumbles to putting an end to the war that the US both instigated and prolonged. I doubt it, but who knows?

Although I am dead against the war and was shocked when Putin invaded. I realise that it was a fatal strategic error for Putin. His army is now depleted in arms and feet on the ground. His economy in tatters and all the lucrative energy deals with Europe ended. He is far less a potential threat to Europe and the West than he was before the war.

There is a longer background of US involvement here, I know.

Remember when Biden cancelled the border wall then two years later his own party begged him to restart it again? I bet life was a breeze not having to pay attention back then.

Remember when Trump put kids in cages.

It seems that all agencies will now have a Doge minder.

https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lhx4akbffs2z

That would mean 30-40% of Republicans plus a mass of independent voters don't care about rule of law. I think it's actually higher than that.

Maybe they think it’s corrupt, therefore can’t be trusted.
There’s also this thing where they know that what Trump does is wrong and there will be some economic pain etc. But it’s necessary to make American great again, or to break out of the malaise.

I love watching the USAID debacle unfold. It proves a few things.

The whole intersectional and progressive grip on culture throughout the world is largely astroturfed, payed for by American tax-payer dollars. It is forced; there is nothing organic about it.

Americans have been thanklessly funding foreign NGOs, media, Universities, and subsidizing the aid of other wealthy countries, like Australia.

Hidden beneath the facade of humanitarian benevolence is routine imperialism. “Experts” who lament a lack of access to such a piggy bank are now fearful China will step in to fill the void.

What you describe was the post war settlement. It worked ok for a few decades, until it ran out of steam as a result of the rise of China.
Now the US is committing Hari kari as a response and geopolitics is again in flux.
Fortunately Russia was broken before Trump’s second term, or things would be far worse now.
For me now the question is, will the new world order have two, or three competing superpowers? And will the US be one of them?

I’m a bit late to the thread. Just to put you at ease, mathematical infinities are not the same thing as philosophical infinities. They are precisely defined and used as means to perform mathematical equations. Which is pretty much what sime has said.

I live near the US airbase in Norfolk U.K. on the night when the drones were flying above us here there was a lot of military aircraft activity. While in the media there were just a handful of reports of unknown drone activity around airbases, then it went quiet.
This suggests two things;
It’s being played down, a security blackout.
The drones weren’t being shot down even though with the number of aircraft up there I would expect even one or two to be shot down. Again media blackout.

I would go with SSU’s suggestion, manoeuvres testing of military hardware. Or it’s the Ruski’s and it’s being kept quiet.

Considering the increasing use of drones in the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, it has dawned on me that this is the future of warfare. There I was thinking there would be armies of robots fighting wars, when in fact it will be swarms of drones.

I am optimistic about the present and future generations of people. 81% of Spaniards consider climate change, desertification, and CO2 serious issues, and we want to change the situation to better and live in a less polluted country. But I wonder whether we approached this issue too late or not.

As the climate in Europe becomes more unstable and intense, it is going to become increasingly more difficult to grow enough food to feed the population. Adaptation will be vital in fighting food insecurity. In the longer term it is much more serious, when AMOC collapses we will be in for a rollercoaster of unknown climatic changes.

I'm so envious! I listen to Max Richter at least once a week. Also Nils Frahm.

Yes, Nils Frahm too, of course.

I love his soundtrack for The Leftovers.

Yes, likewise.

I saw Max Richter in concert last night. He played the album, Blue notebooks, which he wrote 20yrs ago in protest against the Iraq war.
Sublime experience.

Which pill did they take, the blue pill, or the red pill?

Trump’s enemies have set the blueprint. The crying wolf and the hoaxes are one thing, but Trump’s enemies have also used the state to go after him. Now we have a discredited media, a two-tiered justice system, a political intelligence community, and a swath of activists ready to head the call. The lunatics are already here.

And Trump has stated that all these people will be sent to jail.
Basically, he is now waging war with the American state and if he were to win, he will be taking his revenge.

Who should be in jail, the whole US state, or Trump?

You didn’t answer the question. There is a reason why I asked it.

And if Biden were to halt arms shipments to Israel today. What would happen?
Or what do they fear would happen?

Evil is something that goes on in a person’s head, which is acted out. If someone failed to broker a peace deal a few decades ago, which was partly responsible for the situation as we see it in Israel. How can that be an evil person, when it had disastrous results, further down the line?

Both sides are scared of upsetting the Jewish lobby, or want them onside.
Isreal is a running sore, which previous administrations have tried and fail to cauterise. This isn’t so much evil as the result of repeated political failure.

Yes, the French bureaucracy, painfully slow. Whereas on the other side of the spectrum there are corporate giants like DuPont and Boeing over the pond.

I see now that I was misreading your OP. I was thinking about freedom, rather than morality. Morality is about social behaviour within a species. Whereas freedom is about autonomy within the restraints of the environment of a species/entity.

Presumably you are talking about freedoms within moral frameworks. So this is a discussion about morality, not freedom?

Yes, I see where you’re coming from now. However if you take a look at France, one of the most socialist Western countries. There are maverick’s studying and developing their own unique ideas everywhere. One only needs to look at their culinary diversity. Chefs strive to come up with new novel recipes, breaking the mould, pushing boundaries to win their Michelin star. Also in the arts, artists are given a stipend by the government allowing them to experiment and diversify to their hearts content. I travel around France a lot (I’m going there on Saturday, can’t wait), there are institutions, societies, venues, creative people everywhere. Often supported in their endeavours by the state.

If Thatcherism is socialist, then yes. But that’s not my reading.

Yes southern European countries are in a bind right now, I don’t think left, or right governments make much difference to be fair.

Socialist countries have capitalism and investment capital too. Or are you thinking of Communism?
Anyway I’m just saying they can do it too, just in a different way.

By relative, I mean not universal, but something happening in entities. Each species of entity is different, so the result of the inquiry will be different.
Also without knowing the goal, or purpose of humanity as an example of an entity, the consequentialism can’t be established. (I accept that in an isolated case, or circumstance, one could establish something that could be described as freedom)

Do we know the “role”, or “goal”, or “purpose” of humanity in the wider universe?

Freedom is relative and an attribute of an entity with agency. So there is no solution to the problem, but rather a series of compromised solutions dependent on the nature of the entity/s concerned.

But another thing people forget is that the vaccine was revolutionary. The massive pile of cash coming in to fund it from governments and rich guys was amazing. I really wonder what a socialist world would have done. I'd like to think the freedom to go with a crazy solution would exist there, but I don't know.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was funded by the U.K. government and charitable organisations. This would have been the same under a socialist government.
It’s true that research into RNA vaccines has been funded by investment capital around the world for decades. But that is just how the pharmaceutical systems we have, have developed. In a socialist world, there might have been more money invested in more cost effective ways rather than as a means to generate vast profits for shareholders etc.

Thankyou, you can always rely on Philip Glass to take you out of yourself.

Something to lighten your day.
https://youtu.be/YK_KTXb_Jrg?feature=shared

Guilty as charged.