Ah, in mathematics, yes. Sorry, I didn't understand you at first.

In mathematics you start with logical premises, and then get that system something is wrong of false in that system starting from the premises. (Hence if 0=1, then anything goes.) I forget what philosophical school of mathematics that is, but it basically just looks if the system is logical by it's own rules. Of course mathematics itself is under scrutiny here.

(Not my best day I assume)

No.

Logically it's not just any kind of adjective. We assume that true things exist. We cherish for example mathematics because there true statements exist. Math gives them proofs. If 0=1, then basically you can prove anything in mathematics.

Yep, I may confuse you. Sorry. :yikes:

I agree with you, but I lost you at this part. — god must be atheist

Physical existence is quite clear: either something is made of atoms exists or it doesn't. Hence we can say that an animal we define or have named as being a horse exists ("horses exist" is a true statement) whereas an animal named as an unicorn doesn't (hence "Unicorns exist" is false). Here existence refers to physical existence.

Yet when we don't ask about physical objects, but refer to other questions, the "existence" isn't so straightforward: is there a very popular called mythic imaginary creature called an unicorn? Are there pictures, books or songs about unicorns? Of course. It's our questions that define the truth or falsity of the answers.

Apart from the interesting ontological questions, we simply need in everyday life to exist as humans a lot that isn't made up of atoms. An advanced language makes us what we are, just as understanding concepts. It's simply biology that makes us different from other animals.

Even the hard core materialist needs things like language and math. He or she might simply brush away the question with the standard answer that it all happens in the brain.

In a way, the problem is that existence and something being true is synonymous. From that we get confused.

Who cares? The Russian economy is rather small. You think the world economy will tank if we boycott Portugal? — Olivier5

Portugal btw. was the last Western country to hold on to it's African posessions by fighting colonial wars (in the 1970's) thanks to having a fascist regime. The regime was finally overthrown in the Carnation Revolution and finally Portugal ended it's wars in Africa. Before the revolution the colonial wars both in Angola and Mozambique were draining like 40% of the Portuguese governments budget. (The hasty and immediate retreat of the Portuguese from both countries created unfortunately a void that lead to civil wars in both countries)

Hopefully Russia would have a similar coup?

While the vast majority may live happy lives, the hundreds of millions with lives of unbearable suffering are the sacrifice for this. I think there's a fair argument that this should be discouraged. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Is antinatalism the answer?

Perhaps the lure is the provocative nature of this absurd idea. After all, if everyone believed in antinatalism, we as a human race would be wiped out of the Earth. Too bad for all of our domesticated animals.

Putin's Russia went regressive, downhill.
Not really the best; all those nukes and Kinzhal don't help either, and at the fingertips of a creepy autocrat?
Having gone down that trajectory matters — we take it into consideration when making assessments, important people use it when making decisions.
All the bombing killing destroying shamming re-culturating really doesn't help.
I guess some don't want to get dragged along downhill, and some don't want to implicitly or explicitly assent to (reinforce/encourage/support) the regress.
Why would anyone jump onto a degenerative path/trend (toward an unknown future)? — jorndoe

The short answer is that Russia is a police state. There are more political prisoners now in Russia than in the later years of the Soviet Union. A ruinous path can be followed easily.

Putin punched a long time way above his weight limit: made huge gambles and they paid off. Yet those successes made him unable to stop and still keep on gambling. In hindsight it might seem that if Russia would have stopped at just annexing Crimea and not instilling an insurgency in the Donbas, he might have won easily. So why couldn't he stop?

The reason has some similarities to the hypothetical historical scenario if Hitler would have kept his promise to Neville Chamberlain and Chamberlain's declaration of "peace in our time" wouldn't be what it is now, but viewed as one of the greatest achievements of successful diplomacy in history. (Which of course in reality it wasn't, but quite the opposite.)



The simple fact was that the Third Reich and it's armament program was all bent for war. The deficit spending in pre-war Nazi Germany was simply reckless in the long run. Actually it had it's first cracks in 1938 as Schacht had to finance the Mefo-bills by dubious methods forcing banks to buy them. Such an armament program would simply be ruinous for the economy if it would just be in existence in peacetime. All the rhetoric wasn't made for peaceful coexistence. It all had been so easy until it came for Poland. So why stop there the grand project?

Even if Russia's monetary and financial policy is different, In Putin's case the kleptocratic system around him simply cannot create the economic growth that would hurl Russians to a level of prosperity as in the West. GDP per capita is a higher in the Baltic States than in Russia, which were earlier lower. And seeing that the East European countries that have joined the West are far more well off than those who have not is the reason why Ukrainians demonstrated against their government by waving EU flags.



The bad economy would simply be a reason to change the leadership in any democratic nation. And since Putin cannot give economic prosperity, Putin chose the other objective: to make Russia great again and rebuild the lost Empire. That empire building is done by Russia in a defensive manner: all what Russia is doing is defending itself by enlarging itself. As Catherine the Great said: "I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.”As we have seen from even this thread, some in the West even believe this line from Catherine the Great. That obviously Putin was somehow pushed to invade Ukraine, hence the culprit is the West. That we are critical towards our governments, as people in a democracy should and can be, has lead some to amazing self-flagellation and believe the Russian propaganda.

Hence once on this road, it seems there is no other option for Putin to fight the war to the end or hope the West will get tired of supporting Ukraine. Likely outcome is that this will be ruinous for Russia (as it is for Ukraine). But perhaps Putin might hang in their like Syria's Assad.

Can somebody sum up just why anti-natalism is such a popular topic?

Trump didn't get away with everything he wanted, let's put it this way. He was still a Putin lapdog. — Olivier5

This is one of those very peculiar and strange things in international politics and really interesting to find out what history will say about this.

At first Trump genuinely seemed like some kind of a sycophant to Putin. That obviously poised the question what the Russians had on Trump. But then again, this is Trump, the most bizarre US President there ever has been, who genuinely was a fanboy of leaders with dictatorial aspirations. Yet the ineptitude of Trump meant that this didn't have any kind of effect on the policies the Trump administration actually did. This ineptitude is forgotten: Trump's lack of genuine leadership skills meant that he was unable to create a cabal that would have gone through for example with an autocoup.

So for example, in the Helsinki-meeting between Trump and Putin Trump suggested a joint-venture to tackle cyberattacks (!), a proposal that was dead immediately. Not to forget the humiliation of Trump say he believed Putin more than his own intelligence services.

Yet Michael Flynn, the ex-national security advisor who urged Trump to use the military to seize ballot machines, was as the advisor for Trump only for 24 days. And this is the norm: the openly pro-Russia people in the Trump sphere were kicked off quite quickly.

Hence Trump basically gave only a scare to NATO, just as the Capitol attack and Trump's actions then did for Democrats.

Yet Trump still does matter. Even today in the war:

(Politico, Oct 11th 2022) The person who can end the war in Ukraine is Donald Trump, according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Speaking at a panel event in Berlin, Orbán said that peace talks should not be conducted between Ukraine and Russia, but between the U.S. and Russia, with Trump leading the negotiations on the American side.

Orbán said “the Ukrainians have endless resources because they get all that from the Americans,” arguing that only U.S. military support will allow Ukraine to continue to fight.

Your just a troll, Isaac.

When thinking about the Trump administration, one has to remember that:

a) There was Trump
b) There were the "Trump"-people,
c) There were others, that had nothing to do with Trumpism, but Trump picked them...and they stayed for a while, far longer than the pro-Russians like

(Not all in the Trump administration favoured Russia:)


Hence the influence of Paul Manafort (and others) was very brief.

I'm just trying to show how ludicrous your ideas are. Of course that doesn't go through to you, but others might benefit.

So? Both were soviet systems. You said the system couldn't change. It did. — Isaac

Yes, if the leaders actually democratize, reform the system and not have the country lead by a dictator. The Baltic states did this. Russia didn't. Belarus didn't. And so on.

Right, so there's absolutely no justification behind neomac's claim about "generations" of abuse in future. Russian are perfectly capable and likely to change regime-type and approach to war. Other ex-soviet regimes have done so. There's therefore no reason whatsoever to assume that Donbas in Russian hands would yield "generations" of abuse. — Isaac

That regime change has to first happen. And that isn't easy. Otherwise, it doesn't look good. Do you know how long the insurgency lasted after WW2 in the Baltic States. And how long did the abuse afterwards of the Baltic people?

In a similar fashion there's no reason whatsoever to assume the North Koreans couldn't have a democracy and functioning society, just like the South Koreans as they all are Koreans. But for that to happen the regime in the north has to change. And so is in Russia. You simply cannot just treat Russia as totally similar to your own country. Putin Russia will not go down easily, but it surely is trying hard to go off a cliff.

Exactly. You're claiming with Azov that it can (and did) change it's attitudes within the space of a few years, yet you're claiming with the Russian army that the attitudes are systemic and unlikely to change. That's just hypocrisy. — Isaac

Hypocrisy?

A small battalion of volunteers that then were rearranged to a bigger unit with other units, which then was overrun and surrendered to Russians? And then this poster children of the media (thanks to Russia's nazi arguments) you compare to a whole armed forces organization?

That's simply ludicrous.

You have to understand that basically Russia is an imperialist nation trying to cling on to it's old colonies and conquered countries. Some countries, like Switzerland, can make it quite well as having ethnic minorities, but Russia is basically a country that has conquered these lands and people. And is desperately trying to do that now.

For this reason there has to be a huge regime change in Russia. What basically could do that is a disastrous war. That can lead in the best option for Russia to change. But then a lot should change.

You do realise both Ukraine and Chechnya were part of that same system, right? — Isaac

Yes, and both are targets of Russian imperialism. With the case of Chechnya it was trying to free itself from the Russian federation. Yet Chechnya was colonized only in the 19th Century to Russia.

So is it impossible to change, or isn't it? Ought we be suspicious of ex-soviet systems or oughtn't we? — Isaac

As surely as peaceful the Germans are today, Russia and Russia can surely be a democracy that doesn't have imperial ambitions. But Putin's dictatorship has those, which you cannot deny or just brush aside as you try to do.

The Baltic States are also ex-Soviet, and have managed pretty well to create democracies. They aren't ruled by dictators.

It's all just convenient narrative building. — Isaac

No it's not. Your are just making hapless attempts to portray others as racists in a quite futile way.

So what about Azov?

Oh no, Azov only used to be brutal neo-nazis, they've all changed now. New narrative, new rules. — Isaac

Again nonsense. There was a fear just where would Ukraine be going when you had the Right-sector winning in elections prior to the Revolution 2014 and the far right's participation in the Maidan revolution raised concerns (which obviously Russia used for propaganda purposes). Yet the extreme-right suffered a defeat in the elections in 2014 (which the Russian propagandists forget) and afterwards there have been other administrations.

So when Russian army has done atrocities, then accuse of those being racists who point these out?

Talking about "Russian endemic cruelty" is wrong as if it was some genetic issue for Russians, however there is no overcoming the fact that Russia hasn't had a democracy as we have in the West and it's a police state, not a justice state. There are plenty of Russians that have moved to the West to show that Russians are quite the same to us. Yet what is typical for the West is that atrocities like My Lai or Abu Ghraib do create an outrage, whereas in Russia those Russians pointing these things out, they are killed and organizations banned, as was with the Memorial -organization (which for some unknown reason @Isaac quoted).



The fact is that the Russian armed forces is a direct descendant of the Soviet Army and hardly has had much actual reform. And Putin's dictatorship has shown it really doesn't care about issues like the laws of war. The only thing that actually will decrease this is the nature of the war being a conventional one with front lines as the whole country isn't the battlefield for the ground forces.

(From the Chechen War)


The fact is that many Russians are totally similar to us and would want Russia to be a democracy and a justice state, however once you have this kind of system, that system and it's violence prevails. People are one thing, the system and how the government operates is another. Hence it was quite easy to anticipate that similar actions that happened Chechnya or Syria would also happen in Ukraine.

Hence Isaac's pathetic racism card is one of these attempts to draw the focus away from this war and what Putin is doing in Ukraine and to get to what he is really enthusiastic about: to blame the West.

The logic seems clear enough, yes? Putin values the warships being intact (untouchable) more than he values those people getting food. To me, that doesn't seem approachable as such, though he should be (regularly). What's next? Hold food hostage for Kyiv (London, Tampa Bay)? — jorndoe

One of the way how navies fight is to create a blockade against the enemy country. And naturally that is against all shipping to and from the country. Russian navy can perform this from out of the reach of Ukrainian missiles and drones. Yet the Sevastapol naval base is in reach of Ukrainian weapons.

What has any of that got to do with the discussion about the realism of ethnic groups? — Isaac

Mr Strawman inventing his own topics of the discussion, it seems.

I don't understand how any of that is a response to the point I was making. — Isaac

So you don't understand what you quote in your own messages?

https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/articles/nobel-peace-prize-for-2022 — Isaac

Putin started his career extremely likely with a false flag operation killing ordinary Russians, perpetrated what could be said to be a genocidal war in Chechnya, has been against any grass roots organizations like the Memorial. And then has started this mindless war that surely will kill a lot of people more.

And for Russia to lose the unfortunate fact is that Russian soldiers are going to die. But it's not Russian civilians. Ukraine isn't making retaliatory strikes against civilian targets in Russia as Russia is doing in Ukraine.

Just as I seven months ago said on this thread here:

The fact that calling the war a war is forbidden tells this totally clear. There are more political prisoners in Russia than there were in the Soviet Union in the 1970's according to some observers. The exact number is obviously unknown.

Just a year ago:

The number of political prisoners in Russia today is nearly five times higher than it was five years ago, according to the latest report from the Memorial Human Rights Center. Activists began maintaining a list of Russian political prisoners in the late 2000s, and for a long time it was made up of a few dozen names. But this tally has increased sharply since 2015. Today, the country has 420 political prisoners and is poised to catch up to the numbers seen during the twilight years of the USSR.

And now, btw, the Memorial Human Rights Center, the oldest human rights group in Russia, which now is being foreclosed. It's primary function was to record the crimes against humanity during Stalin and the Soviet Union.

Those Russians got what was coming for them in the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin. Great that the World hasn't forgotten.

Finland and Poland could potentially end up hosting nuclear weapons.
Seems sort of unlikely that it will happen (to me at least); Finland would then become a Russian neighbor (border-sharing) with nuclear arms, of which there aren't a whole lot contrary to what Putin suggested. — jorndoe

I haven't seen this article, but I guess it's more of the journalists (Lauri Nurmi) imagination than anything else: if nobody hasn't talked about them and hence no official entity has forbid them, guess that means that Finland could "potentially" have them. Finland isn't even considering having permanent NATO bases. Just where they are isn't so important... as long as they are on the continent.

In my view this is a way to start working on the unity of the Finnish people for NATO: make the case into a hot potatoe and divide the people. Enjoying an 80% support is too much for some. Let's remember just what these nukes are about: the very old free fall tactical nukes that usually go with F-16. Not only would Finnish aircraft have to be upgraded for this mission (as you cannot just put B61 nuke on to a rack of any aircraft).

Ironically, Dugin's star went into decline in 2014, during Maidan revolution in Ukraine. He was fired from his position as head of a department in Moscow State University and banned from TV after he called for killing of Ukrainians. — SophistiCat

Is he banned from Russian television?

I'm not so sure how much Dugin's star has faded as his speeches is quite well taken now as there is a war between Russia and Ukraine. And let's not forget that his daughter (presumable killed by the Ukrainian intelligence services trying to kill him) is now a martyr for the Russian side in this war. Obviously not the smartest moves that Ukrainians have done as Dugin is a civilian. But I guess an easier target than lawful targets as military commanders.

It is true that Russia is not undergoing the culture wars in which ultranationalists of other nations participate. Putin has been adept at telling them what they want to hear. But getting the thumbs up from the Russian Orthodox Church that his is a just war is important. Things would be different if they even declined to comment. But they continue to bring balloons and pom-poms to the funeral. — Paine

Just how Orthodox Russia is quite questionable as the atheism of the Soviet Union did have an effect. I am for conservative values, but when those conservative actors align with a dictatorship, I am against it. In fact nothing can be detrimental in the long run as the Russian church openly supporting a dictator, that now seems to have made quite horrific blunders.

On more reason to go back to the nuclear threat. Putin has nothing else left to threat the West with. — neomac

Which then begs the question: how credible is the West in it's promise to attack conventionally Russia? Is that believable enough to Russia and Putin?

Winter is indeed coming. But perhaps it's not going to be as bad as they say (and Putin desperately hopes):

It seems clear, however, as Michael Millerman notes, that Putin's speech is fully embracing this Dugan world vision. — boethius

Alexandr Dugin is really a "Putin whisperer" in the way he has promoted this semi-fictional historical view of Russia and it's role in the World. That Putin's speeches are many times long historical presentations just reek of Dugin's attitude. It might be confusing for a Westerner to follow some Putin's speech that start's from talking about the Rus and the Middle Ages, then goes on to the Russian Revolution and the Great Patriotic War. We in the West might skip that as just "nonsensical jargon", but it truly reveals the imperialist heart of Russia that both Putin and Dugin admire. This is an ideology of an Empire and thus genuine imperialism. Talk about a man on a mission. The references to culture wars, to Russia being very Christian and so on are just to try to lure the far right in the West.

Come to Russia...

A 'Western thing' more than in authoritarian regimes like Russian, Chinese, Iranian which are antagonizing the West. — neomac

But for some people here the only issue is to criticize the West and about the situation in Russia, China or Iran, they don't simply care.

Anyway, I'm wondering how many (varying) avenues for diplomacy are possible. — jorndoe

If "diplomacy" means a cease fire on the lines now, that would be most beneficial to Russia's war aims. Putin could justifiably say his war has been victorious and once he has refurbished his war material in a few years, he could start the war again and finish the nazis once and for all.

If "diplomacy" means Russia withdrawing from the territories that it has occupied, that isn't going to happen as they are now part of Holy Mother Russia.

Either one side has to be defeated on the battlefield or the war isn't going nowhere (for a long time) and then "diplomacy" can take hold.

That's irrelevant. All that is relevant here is whether this principle is true:

1. Either ensure that the sensible world is such that it will not visit horrendous evils on any innocents that you plan on making live in it, or do not make innocent persons live in it. (P or Q)

Which it is. Or at least, proponents of the problem of evil must accept it is. — Bartricks

Hilariously illogical.

These kind of brainf thought constructs tell something about when actually the "me-myself-and-I" attitude is mixed with over protected lives we live now. The idea of our world now being so cruel... as if it wasn't more cruel before.

The key difference is that the number of nukes and people behind them is much higher by the collapse of Russia than anyone else. It's by a large magnitude different. And a collapse of modern Russia would be different from the Soviet collapse seen as Russia would be fractured into more states than before and each state would set its own agendas rather than deal with a larger main state as was the case after the Soviet collapse. — Christoffer

Actually, the Soviet collapse was far more dangerous as:

a) there were A LOT MORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS then than now in Russian arsenal

b) several countries, from Ukraine to Kazakhstan got nukes. Their capability, not Russia's, was the serious question during that time.

c) Unlike in the situation of Soviet Union, the Russia autonomies wouldn't become immediately independent. The last thing Moscow would do would be leaving it's nukes unattended in a secessionist part of the country.

d) as there is already a history of this, people can anticipate these issues far more better.

And lastly, Russia actually is in far better shape than the Soviet Union was when it collapsed. There aren't any bread lines in Moscow. Then there were, even in Moscow and Leningrad. I've seen them myself and how horrified Muscovites were when even bread was in shortage. (I visited the place when in the last year before it dissolved.)

The thing to remember is that if a state fails and collapses, most of the people with technical knowledge of nuclear weapons would also be subjects for terrorists to recruit into their organizations. If successful, they won't need state support. — Christoffer

Yeah, not actually.

We already saw this didn't happen in the case of the Soviet Union collapsing. Or with the sad case of the Iraqi scientists building Saddam's bomb.

Those people will be on the kill list of many intelligence services.

And that's why knowledge of nuclear technology, which is now basically ancient tech, hasn't proliferated: if anyone is so stupid to try to sell services to terrorists, that's a guarantee you will get on the CIA/Mossad hit list. And actually, those people (with the tech knowledge) know this.

And this is why inflation will be made to run as long as possible. It's one way to decrease the debt burden.

The last act of this long running play will be a financial crisis. And then politicians will always successfully blame anything and everything else but the real culprits of this tragedy.

The hard part is that nobody knows when this act happens. Will it happen next year or in 2030.

Blnd faith is what makes the world go round — Merkwurdichliebe

Belief in King Dollar is strong. Doesn't erode in a week.

For example, if China gets offended, it can threaten to disallow/discontinue access by the offending Western nation's privately-owned big businesses to China’s huge consumer base, the world's singularly largest. — FrankGSterleJr

And if the West gets offended by Chinese actions, it can do the same to China which it did for Russia. And China is even more dependent of exports to the West and on resources that are imported across the sea lanes. Still.

With the war in Ukraine, have seen already that when it come to international politics, trade relations are of secondary importance in a deep crisis.

role of China's exports compared to India and the US:

The annexations also make an armistice line an unlikely option because Ukraine would view that as a de facto relinquishing of territory. Russia's destruction of civilian infrastructure deepens the motivation to keep the structure of sanctions after any kind of cease fire. — Paine

If you don't have an armstice, you can have a frozen conflict then. Basically that both sides lick their wounds and refurbish their materiel for an possible offensive, which then doesn't happen. Even if in this scenario people don't die and missiles don't fly (or fly very rarely), it will be extremely costly for both sides.

Here becomes the nuke option, even if unlikely, an option. The sinister option "Escalate to De-escalate".

Let's say that the Russians retreat from Kherson and make the Dniepr basically the front line and destroy all bridges. This means a river crossing has to be made, which pose a singular point of entry. There are just so many amphibious vehicles and the supply has to go over a bridge or ferry, so such entry points are needed. Now these points of entry could be destroyed and made extremely difficult to pass by using tactical nuclear weapons.

Of course this is unlikely and the obvious escalation would be to simply make an underground nuclear test. As those tests have been done nearly all the time during the Cold War, NATO wouldn't have to respond.

Or even on a lower level, have annual excersizes, were you launch some missiles capable of carrying nukes (as seems to be intended now).

Which agreement or disagreement from the past can serve as a template for progress in the situation? That is not a rhetorical question. On the other hand, nothing discussed here has yet to approach it. — Paine

Many wars show how this war could end...badly for Russia.

A failure to make peace:

- The Korea war. Only an armstice exists. DMZ drawn where the fighting brought it to be.

- The Minsk memorandums, the present war prior to February 24th 2022.

Minsk I:

Ukraine and the Russian-backed separatists agreed a 12-point ceasefire deal in the Belarusian capital in September 2014.

Minsk II:

This agreement consisted of a package of measures, including a ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line, release of prisoners of war, constitutional reform in Ukraine granting self-government to certain areas of Donbas and restoring control of the state border to the Ukrainian government. While fighting subsided following the agreement's signing, it never ended completely, and the agreement's provisions were never fully implemented.[7] The Normandy Format parties agreed that the Minsk II remains the basis for any future resolution to the conflict.

And now of course, these are totally meaningless as the puppet-states have been, as anticipated, annexed into Russia just like Crimea.


A peace after a humiliating loss for Russia:

- The Crimean war with the peace treaty signed in Paris.

Peace negotiations at the Congress of Paris resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 30 March 1856. In compliance with Article III, Russia restored to the Ottoman Empire the city and the citadel of Kars and "all other parts of the Ottoman territory of which the Russian troop were in possession". Russia returned the Southern Bessarabia to Moldavia. By Article IV, Britain, France, Sardinia and Ottoman Empire restored to Russia "the towns and ports of Sevastopol, Balaklava, Kamish, Eupatoria, Kerch, Jenikale, Kinburn as well as all other territories occupied by the allied troops". In conformity with Articles XI and XIII, the Tsar and the Sultan agreed not to establish any naval or military arsenal on the Black Sea coast. The Black Sea clauses weakened Russia, which no longer posed a naval threat to the Ottomans. The Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were nominally returned to the Ottoman Empire, and the Austrian Empire was forced to abandon its annexation and to end its occupation of them, but they in practice became independent. The Treaty of Paris admitted the Ottoman Empire to the Concert of Europe, and the great powers pledged to respect its independence and territorial integrity.

A peace after a humiliating loss for Russia number 2:

- The Russo-Japanese war and the Portsmouth peace treaty.

An immediate ceasefire, recognition of Japan's claims to Korea, and the evacuation of Russian forces from Manchuria. Russia also ceded its leases in southern Manchuria (containing Port Arthur and Talien) to Japan and turned over the South Manchuria Railway and its mining concessions to Japan. Russia was allowed to retain the Chinese Eastern Railway in northern Manchuria.

Plus Japan got the southern part of the Sakhalin Island, but Russia didn't have to pay reparations for Japan.

Side-effects of the war ...

2 intensifying border wars show Putin is losing sway in his neighborhood while Russia struggles in Ukraine (businessinsider; Oct 24, 2022) ... via yahoo, msn — jorndoe

This just shows what this war can be seen as a war that didn't happen then, but has happened now due to the breakup of the Soviet Empire. This is on the one hand extremely puzzling as this happens decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union. But as Putin has seen the breakup as this freak accident and has had these ambitions to make Russia great again, it was unavoidable I guess. But as Russia needs to pull out it's forces to be sent to the war in Ukraine, it's grasp is collapsing in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

So basically what Putin is doing is truly destroying not only his army in Ukraine, but also destroying Russia's regional power status it has enjoyed in the former Soviet republics (that have not joined NATO). Now the hollowness of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) can be seen as two member states are having border skirmishes with each other and one member, Armenia, is facing hostilities with Azerbaijan and Russia is not doing anything (or cannot do anything) about it. When members of a defensive alliance have hostilities between each other, then the organization is only a shell without any meaning.

(And this actually is forgotten about NATO: one of it's objectives is to keep it's members out of war between each other. In the case of Greece and Turkey, it has been rather successful.)

If Putin is actually going down the nuclear path, then Moscow will get all eyes-on, attention. I don't imagine they think that'd be a good move for Russia, or anyone at all. Anyone know specs of the Russian dirty / tactical nuclear bombs? (radius, time until area is safe, materials, yield, emp, delivery systems) — jorndoe

This is alarming. It really is like preparing the narrative groundwork for using nukes.

After all, you could argue that making the Ukrainian territories Russian "made it possible" officially to use conscripts in Ukraine. Yet this also makes it possible to use nukes as the doctrine goes.

The Tory political tradition via Eton and Oxford is a hangover from the British imperialism of the 19th century. Hopefully it is now broken. — Punshhh

With Rishi it isn't, at least when it comes to Oxford. But the private preparatory school, Stroud, likely is nearly as exclusive as Eton.



Plus when you have appease the markets, what better to have than an analyst from Goldman Sachs as the new Prime Minister? :grin:

At least Sunak did understand that the economic policies of Truss were risky in this situation.

That is a good observation.

It just took me by complete surprise that someone who argues passionately against the actions of Trump would place a copy of a book written by an author who proposes a moral/ethical code of conduct that would exonerate Trump if he were judged by it. — creativesoul

:roll:

I assume that Trump can evoke hatred or disappointment even among libertarians and people on the right.

Trump was simply a very lousy President, yet a brilliant populist for one segment of the population.