Thanks for very interesting links!

In the first graph about military personnel, this refers to peacetime and not the present. I've heard that basically Ukraine has a pool of 700 000 somewhat trained people to complement it's armed forces. How many can be given equipment and put into a combat unit is the real question. This is basically a well guarded secret, I guess.

What do you expect to happen?

If Russia's so "bad" ok well that would explain why their our enemy, but why would we expect anything other than bad things from our enemy?

If Russia isn't so bad, Putin not literally equivalent to Hitler, then clearly we've made an enemy for no reason and have brought about the destruction of Ukraine for no purpose while, especially in Europe, harming our own interests in the process.

Now, I've consistently asked that, ok, assuming Russia is so bad, what's the actual plan to "defeat" the baddies? — boethius

How have we made an enemy "for no reason"?

Putin chose to annex territory from Ukraine when Ukraine was suffering from a revolution. Then last year he went all in to annex a lot more with the plan to install a puppet government. To sideline the "Make Russia Great again" and just to think this is only reactionary development to the West is simply ignorant of the facts. If Russia wanted to stop US spreading it's control, it could do so just like it did in Central Asia. Just by waiting and not being openly hostile to the countries (like annexing territories). Imagine how different the World would be without Putin annexing Crimea in 2014. Europe wouldn't be rearming, likely it would have continued to disarm itself and there would be far more friends of Russia than now. The whole idea of an European country invading another would seem as pure fantasy.

And plan to "defeat the baddies"? Why is this such a problem?

How about the treaty of Portsmouth of 1905?

How about the peace of Riga 1921?

How about the treaty of Brest-Litovsk 1918?

I could go on, but in all above Russia / Soviet Union existed afterwards, and was OK accepting peace terms that it originally wasn't ready to submit. And was defeated or fought to a stand still on the battlefield. So what on Earth is the problem??? History shows clearly that when faced with a disaster on the battlefield, Russia will bow down in wars of aggression that it itself has started.

It's a bit different if you are trying to take Moscow as a foreing invader...

By that time Germany had already reduced its dependence on Russian gas from ~50% to ~9% and was on course to eliminate it entirely. And it wasn't getting any gas from Nord Stream anyway, since the Russians had already shut it down indefinitely in an apparent attempt to cause as much pain for Europe as they could before they lost their leverage entirely. — SophistiCat

And thus the decision to do this would be just bizarre.

I use pretty clear language that it's a primary responsibility what we actually have power over. — boethius

First and foremost, we discuss these issues here to understand them. We discuss here a lot of issues to understand them better, to have insights and to get the feel what others think. To know and understand what is happening in international politics is very important. To have feedback on what total strangers think of your ideas is good, because people in this Forum aren't totally clueless.

Responsibility? We are going to have elections, so you could say that to vote in a democracy is a responsibility. If you talk about responsibility, well, I have the responsibility to train myself and my fellow reservists well if there would be a conflict between my country and one neighboring country of ours. Keeping That would have even more effect on my life than this crisis already has.

Voting for Trump meant at least trying to improve things. — frank

Unfortunately that's one of the saddest reasons incompetent populists do get elected. People will fall for the boisterous guy who declares the "He can fix everything" and are for them "against the evil elites" and in the end just make a mess.

And even if the guy doesn't leave behind him a disaster zone like Trump and is a mediocre to OK leader, people can simply put too much hope on an elected leader at a specific time. Just think of Obama. I remember when he was first elected, there was much eager hope that he could do something huge. Starting with the Nobel peace prize given as an option for future merits, I guess. Because his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" are a bit vague for me.

Reasons for voting Trump are like these. Yeah, he was a protest vote. And it doesn't count to vote for Donald Duck. (A fictional cartoon duck might be a great POTUS for some: won't do anything worse)

I remember one of best reason given by some guy to vote Trump: with Trump as president the press will do their job. With Hillary they will be her lap dog.

I guess that specific Trump-voter was satisfied:

For me he is the demagogue I’ve been waiting for, the kind Murray Rothbard defended. His mere presence has lead the establishment, Washington, the 4th estate, the political dynasties, and their stooges on the world stage to overplay their hand, and I don’t think there is any going back. — NOS4A2

OK, so you don't like the establishment the establishment, Washington, the 4th estate, the political dynasties, and their stooges on the world stage. So Trump irrated them.

That still doesn't make him a good US president, because just irritation isn't good leadership.

So what's the angle there. Trump helped Russia invade unopposed by... giving Ukraine weapons his predecessor wasn't prepared to give...? — Isaac

Apart from Trump personally adoring Putin, the pro-Russian stance of the Trump team was actually very brief and basically when Trump was running for office and had Paul Manafort at the helm.

In the Republican convention in Cleveland 2016 the only thing the Trump team change about the policies was not to give arms to Ukraine. Nothing else.

(Washington Post, July 18th 2016) The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.

Throughout the campaign, Trump has been dismissive of calls for supporting the Ukraine government as it fights an ongoing Russian-led intervention. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, worked as a lobbyist for the Russian-backed former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for more than a decade.

Manafort and all the pro-Russian in Trump team were quickly whisked out, and then when Trump was in office, Trump filled his administration with former generals, so then the honeymoon of the administration with the Russians was over. Of course, Trump himself continued adoring Putin with one of lowest events being the press conference in Helsinki, where Trump said he believed Vlad more than his intelligence services. A bit strange coming from the US president.

Then of course there was the case of not giving the aid decided by Congress to Ukraine, but that was a way for Trump to pressure the Ukrainians to give information about Hunter Biden, which lead to the first impeachment of Trump:

(ABC, Jan 16th, 2020)The Trump administration broke the law by withholding congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine last summer “for a policy reason,” a top government watchdog said Thursday in a scathing report.

The Government Accountability Office’s report came a day after the House of Representatives sent articles of its impeachment of President Donald Trump to the Senate for conduct related to holding back that aid.

Trump refused to release the funds to Ukraine at the same time he was pressuring that country’s new president to announce investigations of former Vice President Joe Biden and of Biden’s son Hunter, who had served on the board of a Ukraine gas company. Joe Biden is the current front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

It should be said that after February 24th 2022 Trump has changed his stance.

No more bail outs and no more money printing. — Tzeentch

This would be the proper antidote. And politically it's totally impossible.

Perhaps the money that people have in banks should be secured. That actually isn't a huge amount. But the outcome would be basically a deflationary collapse, assuming the market mechanism would be let sort things over. Prices would collapse, companies would go over, government would have to fire a lot of employees, huge unemployment, it would basically suck for a year and a half and then things would be far better.

And prices falling isn't actually so bad... to people that don't have debt, but savings.

Yet as long as the ruling classes make their money through having debt, then inflation is and will be the answer.

Good! Fuck 'em. — Mikie

Just who?
The people have something in the bank? Or have debt to a bank?

I don't think that was the Fed, if you're talking about 2008-2009. It was Congress and the Treasury. — frank

Oh it was the Fed.

A 2011 study by the Government Accountability Office found that "on numerous occasions in 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve Board invoked emergency authority under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to authorize new broad-based programs and financial assistance to individual institutions to stabilize financial markets. Loans outstanding for the emergency programs peaked at more than $1 trillion in late 2008."

Broadly stated, the Fed chose to provide a "blank cheque" for the banks, instead of providing liquidity and taking over. It did not shut down or clean up most troubled banks; and did not force out bank management or any bank officials responsible for taking bad risks, despite the fact that most of them had major roles in driving to disaster their institutions and the financial system as a whole. This lavishing of cash and gentle treatment was the opposite of the harsh terms the U.S. had demanded when the financial sectors of emerging market economies encountered crises in the 1990s.

It simply wasn't in the news. Only later we found out that the whole financial system had been close to collapsing. And just how much was given to banks and corporations.

You see, Wall Street banks are de facto behind of the Fed. They are the ones who wanted a central bank. They understood that no individual or individual banks cannot save the whole system. But it should be absolutely clear that the Fed works for Wall Street.

Hence in the Savings & Loans crisis the banks were rural Hillbillies, and hence that crisis was dealt totally differently, starting from that many bank managers went to prison. Not so in 2008-2009. Which ought to have been an outrage, btw.

Those calculations make sense but whether Russia can really find a work around to the sanctions is the big strategic question. — Paine

Russia is a police state and has firm control of it's citizens. If it's GDP actually goes down 15%, it doesn't matter for Putin. Sanctions and economic problems aren't your biggest problem when you are fighting a large conventional war. Just look at Ukraine: every tenth Ukrainian is out of the country and not producing to the GDP. There is a mere trickle of wheat and grain exports from Ukraine, Russia is bombing it's infrastructure every day. Ukraine's GDP shrank by -30% or so last year.

Is Zelensky going to be fired because of the bad economic situation? No.

And neither will the hidden recession (caused by the tough sanctions) be an existential question for Putin's survival. Russia accounts for 10% of the worldwide oil output. The world cannot go on chugging along with 90% of global oil production, hence Russia will find buyers for it's oil. And if it can sell it for the lower price that it has to sell it, then it's OK.

I think the reason why we believe so much on sanctions is because if we would get similar treatment, the recession it would produce would likely make the present administration be the past administration after the next elections. But Russia cannot elect their leaders, not by democratic elections.

I follow the general idea that time is not on Ukraine's side. — Paine

That's the worrying part.

That cannot go unpunished. — Mikie

I think the Fed is now busy saving the banking system... again. And with that of course, it doesn't have to be worried about the money having the same effect as those covid-dollars put into the pockets of Americans that were forced to stay home. During these times the banks will hold on to that money like Scrooge McDuck.

Also, our state university economics department regarded the University of Chicago economics department as an econ policy mecca. I seem to remember this trivia as more important than the content of the course. — Mark Nyquist

Economists are only people, and when people come together, there's usually the the "in crowd" and those would like to be in the in crowd. I think in the 1980's was the peak for the Chicago School.

Also I've picked up a long the way that institutions such as George Washington University and U of Pennsylvania's Wharton school have close ties with covert US Federal economics policies and personal. — Mark Nyquist

Economics as a profession have deep ties with Central banks. After all, few of the most lucrative positions are held there and Central Banks (not just the Fed) do sponsor economic research. So for example the very long and interesting history of the US opposing a Central Bank is very much put aside to the conspiracy theorists to argue about.

One interesting remark came from retired Lt. General Ben Hodges in an interview. His thought was that assuming Ukraine gets enough support from the West, it can in this year even take Crimea. Not by a methodical push by through the narrow routes to the peninsula, but by making it difficult to supply the troops there. Yet he continued his remark saying that next year this would be far more difficult.

The reason why in 2024 it would be so is that the Russian defense industry has then had enough time to get it's act together and transform to the wartime economy Russians are obviously preparing. Perfect example of this is Iran. Iran had all it's military bought and brought from the West and after the revolution there was no support for these weapon systems and sanctions have basically continued up until to this day. And now Iran is selling Russia unmanned areal vehicles. All the talk about Russia not having chips and all the problems that have been countered in the Russian arms manufacturing lines won't be a problem year after year. When there's a will, there's finally a way.

Countries don't transform the arms manufacturing from peace-time to wartime in an instant. The small expensive batches cannot be turned into cheaper and sustained mass production in an instant. The pledges of the German chancellor to dramatically increase military speding last year is a great example of this: it simply hasn't happened what he promised a year ago. Yet if this large scale conventional war slogs it's way to 2024, then there has been years to adapt to the new normal.

For my part, I wasn't all that interested in fact-checking Hersh's story, because I didn't take it seriously in the first place. — SophistiCat

In the examples what @neomac gave about the Bellingcat critique on Sy Hersh, I noticed the following.

Until July 26th, both Welt and Hersh have been quiet about the obvious contradictions between their claims and the OPCW FFM report. This changed when Charles Davis, editor at ATTN.com, emailed Hersh and asked him to comment on the fact the OPCW FFM report contradicted his claims published in Welt. Hersh offered no defence of his work, stating that he had “learned just to write what I know, and move on”, and recommended that Davis contact two individuals: Ted Postol, and former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter.

Small world, isn't it.

Well, I think Sy Hersh, after reporting about My Lai and Abu Grhaib, is simply a journalist whose career won't get bulldozed over if he makes contrary articles that the US government hates. Hence basically Sy is the guy to go when you have a really explosive news to publish. Yet knowing how leaky the US system is, if the issue is true, then it's going to be difficult to hide the operation for decades from historians, at least.

I assume that it will become at least something like the USS Liberty Incident if it really was a CIA operation. And if it was as Hersh says it was, it's really a panicky bad choice for Biden to make: Germany wasn't going to go for Nordstream gas anyway as there was no energy Armageddon or even one blackout in Germany this winter.

You should understand that this thread is the general thread about the war.

So I'll rephrase my point that you understand. We others can talk about what decision the nation states are doing, you can repeat your narrative of the military-industrial complex and the proletariat. If you don't care about actors like European coiuntries or Russia's objectives in this war, let others talk about them.

China, among them, will have difficulty maintaining prosperity in the years ahead as the prime producing age-group shrinks. - North America isn't, at this point, heading for a demographic crisis like China largely because of immigration and higher birth rates among immigrant groups — BC

One of the catastrophic decisions that China made was the one-child policy.

It has been well shown that if the prosperity of the people rises, then people will have less children. It's not that they are anymore on a farm where they grow food to eat themselves, where it's wise to have children around to take care of you when you are old.

Unfortunately especially in the 1970's the vocal popular "scientists" warned about a future disaster because of the rampant population growth, and totalitarian systems like China and suprisingly Singapore went to limit births.

Canada is, or should we say should be, one of the countries that will have good economic prospects going further. Not only does it attract also talented people to emigrate there, it also has a lot of natural resources. It's a country that Europeans genuinely can think and will think of emigrating to. People can of course fuck up even the best future prospects. But doing something like a Brexit won't be enough. You have to start killing each other, have car bombs explode weekly on your streets weekly and lynch emigrants and presto: nobody will want to emigrate to Canada. But we will all ask what the hell happened to you?

Divide et impera!

My friend convinced me Canada intends to kill off its homeless and poverty-stricken citizens to make room for its current and impending foreign residents and working-class native citizens. — Bug Biro

Uhhh... :roll: Peraps you shouldn't go all in with the conspiracy theory.

Has anyone spotted the same circumstances in the city they live in? Is this strictly Canadian policy? — Bug Biro

Authorities intervening in the housing market usually backfires. This happens when they give subsidies and assistance which is intended to be beneficial, but have no regard (or understanding) how markets work. The welfare programs can at worst, if not run well, become rackets for some investors and officials to make money. Smart programs can work well.

The classic way is to subsidies housing for the poor people let's say giving a monthly assistance of X amount. This has the consequence that no flat will be lower rented than price X. Why rent anything lower than X, because it's free money?

Another is to fix limits to what rents can be. This can simply kill the rental business and investors opt to sell their flats rather than rent them out. My country (Finland) pretty much killed the rental market in the 1970's and caused a decades lasting huge structural inbalance between demand and supply. In the 1980's and 1990's if you decided to rent a flat, you had dozens of people lining up for the apartment. Only after they freed the market did supply and demand meet with even institutional investors and companies emerging to the market. Now in this Millennium there has been a steady supply of rental apartments on the market.

But coming back to Canada: do notice that the economic growth of your country depends very much on the increasing population. And that continuing in the future. Now refugees might be singled out, but the huge portion of people coming to Canada emigrant workers. Now if that influx stops, your economy really hits the rocks or sees anemic growth.

I don't have to discuss the role Russian politics played in initiating this war in order to understand the role Russian politics played in initiating this war. — Isaac

If you aren't willing to discuss the role of Russian politics, Ukrainian politics or other European countries, then just step aside then when others do.

Your views can be put into a nutshell with the following remark you made:

Yes. I'm ignoring (largely) the role of the Nordic countries, the Eastern European nations and the Ukrainians. Not because they don't have a role, but because it's not radically different to the US's. Big industry lobbyists push political agendas which serve their interests. they do so in the US, Europe, Sweden and Ukraine. Influence over media agendas manipulates a proletariat, the support of which is then used to justify the original objective. There's little point in discussing which flag they operate under, especially considering most are multi-national companies.

The notion of independent nation states with their own culture and unique objectives belongs to a colonial era of World Wars and imperialism. But it's hellish convenient when the arms industry needs another war.

So if you think it's an error, argue the case. Why do you still believe in nation states? — Isaac

We've heard your point.

So steer clear if others want to discuss the actions of nation state governments in this crisis. You yourself can delve in your tankist world of big industry lobbyists, multinational companies and proletariats. Others can debate about a world that actually does look quite similar to what it looked like in the 19th and the 20th Century with imperialism and wars between nation states.

I think we can describe things objectively without describing them on the pattern of natural science. — Jamal

I agree. Objectivity isn't limited to the scientific method used in natural sciences.

With an engineer, who designs a machine for some intended purpose and the machine works flawlessly doing that, it's a bit hard to argue that she's totally wrong, she has had the wrong ideas when designing the machine and in overall her thinking in engineering doesn't work. She can just point to the machine and say it works.

But with economics! We can argue all the above. We cannot even decide what is happening. It's not only the complexity, it's the vagueness of the concepts we use to describe the economy. What actually is gross domestic product and what is it's validity? What actually is inflation or stagflation? We can only find some definitions, but the reasons behind or the validity of the terms can be argued about.

Of course, this is not some iron clad law, if I felt a calling to become a political activist of some sort in Uganda or China or Russia or Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan wherever, I could go do that, but if your carry the thought experiment out it would require a long learning curve to be of any effect. — boethius

Right, this argument is basically that the only thing important to us is to influence our own governments and since we aren't nationals of foreign countries, it's needless to talk about them, think about them at all and hence we can totally disregard them.

The problem with this thinking is that it leads simplistic navel gazing where absolutely everything evolves around in the end the US and everyone else is either a pawn or a victim of the Superpower. And people thinking like this don't understand just how condescending they are toward others and how it leads to faulty conclusions.

First of all, to have a good understanding of international relations, politics and the overall international situation is by itself a valuable thing. It's worth wile discussing by itself. Not to discuss Russia and it's actions, because we don't have a way to influence the country, is a quite absurd idea.

And if for you this thing, the war in Ukraine, is something comparable to being a political activist or caring about Uganda, the war in Ukraine is quite real for me as it has had effects on my life with the Finnish military training on an intensity never seen even during the Cold War. And I've never seen the Russian border here so empty of any traffic.

(Of course, they weren't thinking about Ukraine when they were writing this - they were thinking about Taiwan.) — SophistiCat

And with Taiwan, the question is about the Chinese civil war. Interestingly, only 13 countries (which are usually tiny states) have full diplomatic relations with the Republic of China.

To my mind, this was a really great OP on this forum.

Thank you, @Jamal

In the 19th Century they had a far more apt name for economics. They called it "Political Economy". And that's what it is, no matter in how much in mathematics you disguise it, it is political and part of politics. It's basically a straight lie to try to make economics to be something like a (natural) science and somehow apolitical. It simply isn't that. The dominant questions have been the same since Antiquity. The story of the Grachi brothers tells that the question about redistribution of wealth isn't something we started thinking about thanks to Marx and the 19th Century socialists.

For me, the simple reason why there can be "enchantment of magic" is that these questions are moral, not something objective, which using the scientific method can give us the right answer. If it's subjective, why not have some magic in it?

Ah! Wishful thinking. Or should I say that you have an optimist view of the US justice system? Well, belief in the system keeps it up, as they say.

This might happen if the Republican populace simply grows tired of the Donald. And that can happen. Otherwise, imagine the life of the judge afterwards who puts Donald Trump into jail.

Perhaps Donald can have a ghostwriter then writing his "My Battles" book while in prison!

My fairly incautious guess, at this point, is that DeSantis beats Trump in the primary, the latter forms his own independent party sabotaging the Republican vote in the general and Biden cruises into another four terms. — Maw

Trump not getting the candidacy of the GOP and then going third party and making sure that the Dems win would be a very likely, logical way how things would unfold. I agree that this is a genuine possibility.

Let's see in 2024 if you are a fortuneteller, @Maw.

(Page 2 of this thread is allways easy to find, even when it's running in over hundred pages).

It is therefore the actions of primarily Western governments about which we protest. That's how politics works. — Isaac

So everyone that opposes Western governments is put on a pedestal and hailed, because they oppose Western governments and their actions are "understood". Right.

Then your outrage is meaningless, because you don't have universal values that you judge people and nations by, but everything is just politics driven by an agenda.

By the looks of it, every week the invaders wreak havoc, forgive-and-forget becomes harder for the defenders, and the invaders have been at it for a year now. — jorndoe

Above everything, it's Ukraine's leaderships choice to come to an agreement of a cease-fire or terms for peace. Naturally Russia portrays Ukraine as a lackey of the US and would want to negotiate with the West.

Putin might hope in his wildest dreams he can get something similar "peace-deal" like the Taliban got from the Trump administration: agreement that the Ukrainians aren't part of. That would be devastating for the Western alliance. I guess there would those extremely eager to portray then the Ukrainian government as being "the warmongers" in this scenario and the .

* * *

I have to say that I feel a bit disappointed at my government as they have gotten (I forget how many times it has already happened) promises from both Turkey's Erdogan and Hungary that the will put forward in their parliaments the membership of Finland. So Erdogan has basically now separated the membership bids of Sweden and Finland. I think there was no need for this. That some members opted to haggle about membership process of the two countries was NATO's problem, not actually a problem for Sweden and Finland. The simple fact is that for NATO both Sweden and Finland give to the collective defense, not be just on the receiving end. The more that the two countries waited would have been more ackward to NATO, not the countries that already have been given security assurances for the time of the membership ratification process.

Let's not pretend we're now having an actual conversation. — Isaac

I have known for a long while that you don't want an actual conversation. I think others have noticed it too with you.

You know full well that many experts far more qualified to judge than you or I — Isaac

Again an example of your curious worship of experts. Haven't you gone to the university or why do you have such an inferiority complex? This is international politics we are talking about.

why you believe your experts. Why you choose the ones you choose. — Isaac

Again this expert-worship. Look, why is it so hard to understand that you can agree or disagree about the opinions and conclusions that people make? Scott Ritter as an weapons inspector gave a thorough analysis of the Iraqi weapons inspection process and I believed and agreed with his conclusion that there was no Iraqi WMD program anymore when Iraq was attacked. And that was before the Iraqi invasion, which later was shown to be the truth. He doesn't have similar insight into the war in Ukraine and his opinions are his opinions. It's you who is making this absurd classification of experts and not simply look at what they are saying. It's you who disregards certain information just from the source...not even bothering to say just what is wrong in what they are stating. Besides, it's totally normal to agree partly with a commentator and disagree with other opinions or conclusions he or she makes.

demanding a full Russian retreat is a non-starter. — Isaac

And then comes the perfect example of the Putin apologist of the forum.

Nobody here on this forum has the idea that a US withdrawal from Iraq, or the Saudis withdrawing from Yemen, or Israel withdrawing from the occupied territories is a "non-starter". Nobody is defending them with the reason given by the countries. Nobody is "understanding" the reasons for these military operations as you are with Russia. It's simply hypocrisy to demand what is morally right on some occasion, but then to turn to "realpolitik" when it comes to other nations. If you are critical about the US when it does something bad, you ought to be critical when some other country does something bad.

U
Well, the real issue here (from anti-war.com article):

As we mark the 20th anniversary of the devastating Iraq invasion, let us join with Global South leaders and the majority of our neighbors around the world, not only in calling for immediate peace negotiations to end the brutal Ukraine war, but also in building a genuine rules-based international order, where the same rules – and the same consequences and punishments for breaking those rules – apply to all nations, including our own.

...is just what those peace terms are. Russia simply should exit from Ukraine, including Crimea, and respect the territorial integrity of the country what it has accepted starting when the country became independent.

Having any problem with that?

Oh. we're back to just posting stuff we agree with, with only trite vapid commentary (if any). — Isaac

I agree with this. — Isaac

Your modus operandi.

The future is the only thing real, along with the fleeing moment that we call present. The past, well, it's existence is defined differently.

We are just such prisoners of our own subjectivity that we have problems to think about this, because somewhere quite close to the present we will not be anymore around to be subjects pondering this question, but decaying human remains. If our relatives (or someone) doesn't choose to cremate us, that is. And that's the problem: we can only guess what happens to our remains, because obviously that is out of our hands.

Yet the future is quite real. Our own limitations don't make it unreal. That we don't know the future, that we can change ourselves what happens in the future creates us many deep philosophical questions, but that doesn't undermine the existence of future present moments.

Garry Kasparov hitting the point when it comes to Russia:



Especially what he says starting 12:50 should be listened to.

Also, an interesting historical take on why Crimea is important to Russia, also culturally:



Of course, what is still a possibility is that Putin can win the war ...or at least hold onto the landbridge to Crimea and declare victory over the West (as in Russian propaganda it's fighting the West).

I've not presented a single argument here that isn't backed up by academics with relevant qualification in their fields. — Isaac

Oh that's your argument for how you judge comments: from thei relevant academic qualifications.

Well, that what I call putting people on a pedestal and then worshipping all they say.

I would look at the facts and the opinions they have from the issues themselves.

Glenn Grant made a thorough and good critical article about the weaknesses about the Ukrainian armed forces (see Glen Grant. 2023 – a time and chance for military change in Ukraine)

Several other military advisors and also remarks from volunteers that I've raid have similar findings. There's much variance in the abilities of the officer core. Ukraine suffers from it's Soviet past. Also what has been noted that maneuver warfare, which needs high level of cooperation and initiative, is difficult for Ukraine. If Russia has lost a lot men, so has Ukraine too. Usually Russia has learnt from it's mistakes, even if it takes a lot of time.

You (and the others I've mentioned), seem to weigh evidence which is provided (or confirmed) by official sources as being of a higher grade than evidence which is not. — Isaac

Again nonsense. You have to check the sources and verification and not judge / dismiss them just by looking at what the source is. US has it's agenda, but the US and Western intelligence sources were correct about Putin attacking Ukraine. Some cherished "alternative" sources were saying that Putin wasn't going to attack.

Official sources are directly involved in the war and have a proven track record of lying. — Isaac

Hence you have to be critical about them. But that doesn't mean, like you seem to exist, that they cannot say anything true. The US lied about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, they exaggerated the losses that for example the Serbs suffered during the Kosovo war. Hence you have to have critical reading skills.

You can't argue that the US might just happen to be right sometimes (despite a track record of lying) without at the same time conceding that Putin might just happen to be right despite a similar track record of lying. — Isaac

Putin can and has been totally right on certain issues.

That's were gathering sources, reading and understanding history and how the states operate come handy. That's why knowing how they operate and reading history of past events is very valuable. The propaganda of countries tries to mold current events, but seldom they have incentives to mold past events, especially of past administrations of politicians that aren't anymore players. Hence

Sy Hersh was just a good recent example. — Isaac

Especially when I have not opposed his remarks of the West being responsible of the pipeline sabotage. It's a possibility. But seems that you make your mind what people think without much reading what they actually say. Hence it's really a good example here.

The question was obviously about the relative credibility of the hypothesis, but since answering that would cast shade on the US you have to deflect to some pedantic drivel about whether it's physically impossible for someone to place explosive on a pipe underwater if they're not a government. — Isaac

As I've already said, even earlier than the last response to Tzeentcn, I think the probability of the attack being a private entity is unlikely.

Who's suggesting it's impossible? — Isaac

The question was, would you really need a state actor to do this sabotage or not. If only a state actor can do it, I guess then that means that no private entity could not do it. (Like shoot down a satellite, as I gave as an example). Diving to that depth and planting explosive is possible

What have your governments done recently to deserve such unreserved faith? I just can't fathom it. — Isaac

Stop right there, you are just carried away to you own condescending imaginations of other people in this forum.

If there's something to be critical about, I will be. I've said enough times that there's a lot to be critical about the West, including my own country. Just to give one example are actions taken in Afghanistan. Unfortunately with the war in Ukraine happening, this important discussion of the whole War-against-Terror hasn't been discussed and especially the US is quite mute about the disaster of Afghanistan.

It's more you that have this tribal attitude that you cannot say anything that could be remotely be positive to what you are basically critical about (NATO, US and UK, the West in general).

I don't have that limitation. I've said many times that Russia played for example extremely well it's cards in Central Asia: it simply waited for the US to botch things up. You had US bases all over Central Asia, you had US training nearly all the military of the -stans. And now, nothing. Prior to the Ukraine war, all the Central Asian states were having close relations with Russia, basically fearing what the re-emerged Afghani Emirate will do or have an effect on them.

And it's you who seem not to understand that as countries have agendas, they can easily also go with the truth when it fits their purpose. Russia Today had very good coverage of Occupy Wall Street when it happened. Good journalism helped their agenda back then. Yet the naive way to put some on a pedestal (Mearsheimer?) and totally dismiss others isn't the way to go.
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You don't know anything about diving, do you? — Tzeentch

I've tried scuba diving. Naturally not as deep.

But this is a discussion about hypotheticals, so? The original question that Benkei raised was if it's possible for a non-state entity to do the operation, meaning it's impossible to plant explosives at that depth by anybody else than nations.

Our modern ideas about life and death are largely artificial, based on technology, not biology. — Vera Mont

Modern medicine has indeed changed our attitudes, the most perhaps in that infants are very likely to stay alive and not die at childbirth or at early age. Our attitudes toward early deaths of infants has changed.

Meant by whom? — Vera Mont

The usual lifespan would be so that parents die before their children or their grandchildren. Besides, people don't think an 90-year old dying as a huge tragedy. They usually do in the case of a 9-year old, especially it's hard for the parents.

What is too young to die, and what is the age after which most would accept that they probably lived a full life? — TiredThinker

Too young to die is an age younger than the person making this remark, who likely remembers that he or she was quite vibrant and full of life in that age.

I've notice that usually people talk about people that have died before 50 or in their 50's as having "died young". After 60 dying starts to become quite normal and it becomes more ordinary and normal as the age increases. Nobody assumes an 100-year old to live decades more.

Also when parents have to bury their children, I would say then the normal rhythm of life has broken and you could say the children have died too young. Children are meant to bury their parents, not vice versa.