Be more specific.

So if Russia will require demilitarization of Ukraine (a radical reduction of its army), neutral status for Kiev (and a mechanism to control it) and the recognition of some form of territorial changes, to end this war with Ukraine, then Ukraine must make such "uncomfortable but necessary concessions" to end "this senseless waste of human life". Right? — neomac

I get you're really desperate to frame me as being 'pro-Russian', but perhaps you can tone it down a little.

That often requires uncomfortable but necessary concessions from both sides. — Tzeentch

Note the keyword. I even underlined it for you.

Would it be perfectly fine with you for whatever reason to let Russia win according to that definition of Russian victory? — neomac

This is mumbo jumbo to me.

"Denying the Russians victory" sounds like a quote from Dr. Strangelove's General Jack Ripper.

I would worry about ending this senseless waste of human life as soon as possible, and steer towards a stable peace. That often requires uncomfortable but necessary concessions from both sides.

What's even worse is that early on I also put it to the "pro-Ukrainians" that if Ukrainian former lands is so important, why not send NATO boots on the ground to defend it? — boethius

I doubt many will want to swallow this pill, but this is the worst part, isn't it?

NATO has goaded Ukraine into picking a fight with the Russians. Ukrainian leaders probably were fed some ambiguous shit like "The US/NATO will support Ukraine in their fight against Russia!"

Now that push has come to shove, that support seems to be limited to sending arms, and not a single NATO country is willing to put boots on the ground in Ukraine.

To me, that implies incredible cynism on the part of NATO. Not that I want NATO to send troops to Ukraine and spark WWIII, but it dangled that promise of safety infront of the Ukrainians only to hang them out to dry.

You're right, and it's very disingenuous how our position is repeatedly framed as being 'pro-Russian', when in fact what we are asking is why we, (presumably) Western onlookers, should support Ukraine in some hope-fueled offensive strategy when it's clear Ukraine does not have the capability to go on the offensive.

It will only lose more if it doesn't seek a diplomatic solution, and I think the biggest obstacle to that course of action is the United States. More specifically, the egos of the neocons that have been cultivating this conflict since at least the early 2000's like Nuland. The whole Biden administration is extremely hawkish on Ukraine, going back decades, and it's no coincidence this conflict boiled over when Biden took office.

Honestly, I don't recall nor wish to go into most of them. (We studied literature or contemporary doctrine, not textbooks, but I assume that's what you meant)

I'll say that by far the most influential book, 'eye-opening' if you will, I've read on the matter is Unrestricted Warfare (1999), written by two Chinese colonels.

When I looked up that link I noticed there's a version out from 2015 that's called 'Unrestricted Warfare: China's Master Plan to Destroy America', which is hilariously ironic since the book analyses the American way of warfare and extrapolates trends that are believed to carry into the future and transform the nature of warfare.

Then you understand how stupid the whole idea of Ukraine somehow making a breakthrough to Melitopol or even to the Sea of Azov is. Without air superiority that isn't going to happen. — ssu

Of course. That's what I and many others have been saying for months.

Genuinely curious, what did you study in your military studies? — ssu

Military history and military thinkers, the development of contemporary land, naval and air doctrine, irregular warfare, modern conflicts, etc. I also had the opportunity to follow courses on propaganda (euphemistically called 'information warfare') - very eye-opening.

I gather you have no military training and little knowledge of warfare, tactics or military history in general. — ssu

Wrong on all accounts. Unfortunately for you I even hold an academic degree in military studies. But nice try, I guess.

It's a materiel battle, Tzeentch. — ssu

Ah, the next buzzword is introduced, since 'counteroffensive' obviously didn't work out so well.

If what you're trying to do is convince me that people standing on the sideline fueled by media propaganda can produce an endless supply of hopium, don't bother. I am already aware.

Why do you assume Ukrainian operations to be "ill-advised"? If you don't have air superiority and Russia still has a lot of artillery, large scale attacks on the Surovikin line would be foolish. Something like what was witnessed last year cannot happen because of the Surovikin lin. If you haven't noticed, it's basically small scale attacks and advances are small. — ssu

The amount of preparation, manpower and materiel that goes into an offensive means that it must make some form of strategic impact. If it cannot do that, it's a waste. And Ukraine being in the position it is in cannot afford to waste anything.

It was obviously a huge failure. Calling it 'small attacks and advances' is nonsense. To go on the offensive, you must first break through the enemy's defenses. This must be done as quickly and decisively as possible. The longer an offensive is stuck on the enemy's defenses, the more it suffers, and that seems to be what happened. (It's the point of defense-in-depth)

Moreover, it gives the enemy time to adapt their defensive lines to account for any possible breakthrough, which would nullify any advances made.

People were suggesting this offensive would go all the way to Melitopol. Now it's clear they won't be able to take Tokmak - the first village of some significance on the way there. Hardly anything new, of course. People have warned that this would be the predictable outcome long before the offensive even started. It's just tragic.

The pressing question is, why did the West push Ukraine into this disaster? You suggested it was due to media pressure - I kind of doubt that, but if western media is dictating the Ukrainian war effort then things are even more dire than I thought.

With a bit of luck, we're not talking an "end state", more like regress or progress, authoritarianism or democracy, etc. Ukraine and the UN have repeatedly said "No" to Putin's regressive Russia, to the bulging-by-land-grab of Putin's authoritarian Russia, etc. Can't have missed it. — jorndoe

Right, so there's no plan. Just vacuous rhetoric with no sense of the human cost, which this offensive was a shining example of. This we already knew.

(As an aside, Putin admits to Ukraine conducting a COUNTERoffensive, i.e. a response to the invasion by the Kremlin. Different from prior rhetoric, aside from the excuse.) — jorndoe

He'd be wrong. It was an offensive. Not a counteroffensive, since there was no Russian offensive to counter; that had already ceased months prior.

It's just a buzzword now. It sounds flashy, and flashy sounding language might goad people into supporting senseless waste of human lives.

Who is the "us" in this statement? — Paine

I'm talking from the West's perspective.

Define what 'Ukraine winning' looks like, and then explain how wasting thousands of lives on ill-advised offensives brings us closer to that end state.

And the Ukrainian counter-offensive? Going as anything would go without an air arm / air superiority. The whole "offensive" is more of Western media expectations (as last year Ukraine could gain a lot of ground). Now Ukrainians are facing deep entrenched lines from the Black Sea up to the northern border between Ukraine and Russia. And Russia still enjoys an advantage in artillery, even if the amount of munitions they use has gone down dramatically. That means that Ukrainians would be crazy if they made a head on assault on the defensive line with concentrated large forces. Hence it's a war of attrition. — ssu

So can we conclude Ukraine taking back Crimea is a pipedream?

I'm just wondering if this failed offensive is what will break the western media bubble, or if people in the West will keep puffing copium until there's not a single Ukrainian man left to fulfill their fantasies.

The whole Biden administration belongs to the US Ukraine portfolio, so it's kind of obvious what's wrong on, really.

Whatever happened to that offensive, though?

Without the lockdowns, you would have gone outside in the morning to see what the people in 1918 saw: dead people laying in their yards. — frank

That would be pretty grim.

Nowadays people are at least dying out of sight, part of the pool of 'unexplained' excess deaths.

Yet here you are. :chin:

When governments can no longer be seen as honest brokers of information it puts a bomb underneath the narratives concerning a wide variety of social and political issues. That's why people are getting so cramped about it.

Everything ultimately comes back to this stupid, simplistic, perception-warping belief. — Mikie

There's nothing so simplistic as believing reality begets only one interpretation.

If there was any chance aliens had visited Earth, don't you think the other nations would be a little more interested in this?

Why do you think literally no one outside the US cares about this at all?

Transient myocardial injury in itself (eg. an elevated level of substance) is harmless and therefore not an adverse effect. — Benkei

Nonsense. You yourself equated the damage to heavy exercise. There are plenty of people from whom heavy exercise would be potentially dangerous, so you're just contradicting yourself at this point.

Fuck of man and get real. — Benkei

You're welcome to leave the conversation whenever you like, angry little man. :lol:

Myocarditis is included. — Benkei

Yes, it is listed as being very rare, whereas myocardial injury is apparently very common. To list one and omit to other I find misleading. Period.

Transient myocardial injury isn't an adverse effect. Otherwise the consequences of exercising would be too. — Benkei

You equated it to heavy exercise. Heavy exercise can definitely be a health risk to certain people.

But ultimately it is not up to the pharmaceutical company or relevant institutions to determine for the patients what risks they deem acceptable. It's up to the patient. And the patient can only make an informed decision if they are aware of the adverse effects a certain medication has.

This has always included things which are mostly harmless. Headaches, nausea, dizziness, etc.

Again, it's not up to the makers of the product to decide whether those things are important enough to list.

A lot of angry raving, but your suggestion that adverse effects don't have to be included on medical labels simply because they may not be dangerous or damaging remains phoney, and you know it.

Only one of these is actually dangerous, the latter is a measure of myocardial damage but obviously if it's transient, there's no actual damage. — Benkei

Whether something is dangerous or damaging has never been the sole criterium for why things ought to be listed on the label as potential adverse effects.

Your suggestion seems to be that myocardial injury is nothing to be worried about. It's so insignificant in fact that even running a great risk of it is not something that people ought to be informed of.

I don't find that very compelling. Furthermore, I suspect this was intentionally kept from the public, because 'bad for business'.

The people who carried out the research apparently thought it was worth specifically investigating.

I think this bit, coming from the site you probably plucked that link from, is a fair representation of what people thought of the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis:

Een zeer zeldzame bijwerking op het vaccin is een ontsteking van de hartspier (myocarditis) of ontsteking van het hartzakje (pericarditis). Deze bijwerking komt bij minder dan 1 op de 10.000 mensen voor en is daarom zeer zeldzaam. Klachten zijn kortademigheid, pijn op de borst en hartkloppingen die soms onregelmatig zijn. De klachten gaan meestal vanzelf over of zijn met medicijnen goed te behandelen. Ervaar je deze klachten? Neem dan contact op met jouw (behandelend) arts of zorgverlener. — CBG

Does the discrepancy between 1:10,000 and 1:35 not seem alarming to you?

I think it's downright disingenuous to suggest that this risk was always known (or publicly known), and freely spread in the public. Politicians and medical professionals that asked questions about the risks were met with oneliners along the lines of 'safe and effective'.

The fact that these risks weren't fully acknowledged is reinforced by the fact that reports of myocarditis caused medical research centers to initiate research into this phenomenon - so clearly this wasn't common knowledge in the way you're suggesting it was.

You seem to be extremely agitated at the idea that a medical professoinal asks critical questions when such a discrepancy is brought to light. Why is that?

Why report on something that wasn't a risk? — Benkei

You really need me to answer that?

When you read a medical label and it says "may cause headaches", did the company put that there because they thought headaches were a major health risk, or because people ought to be informed of all the adverse effects they may suffer as a result of the medication.

Oh, that must be why the clinical trials of Novavax already showed "an increased risk of myocarditis". — Benkei

I'm not sure who you think you're fooling if you are seriously arguing this was all common knowledge when people were being vaccinated en masse. Yourself, perhaps?

I hope he dies sooner rather than later. — Benkei

I think you got out of bed without taking your medication.

I get that this makes you angry, because you seem to have bought into it yourself.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

The study concludes a significant amount of people are developing adverse effects within 30 days of their injection and somehow these effects weren't known beforehand?

The implication is you've either been lied to, or they've basically done no testing at all.

Campbell is an idiot. — Benkei

Classy opening, by the way. Yea, I'm sure Campbell is the idiot here. :roll:

Let climate deniers be climate deniers. — Mikie

Who exactly is 'denying climate'?

Let's just assume there's competing narratives. How do you tell which one to subscribe to? — Benkei

You figure out which interest groups are pushing which narratives, and decide which one you trust more mistrust the least.

I'd much rather a government, which I help elect, take 20% of my paycheck than have rampant monopolies price-gouge the consumer with poverty wages, or literally sell my life to make ends meet. And at least that 20% funds the livelihoods of millions of government employees and the unemployed, and provides me with essential services that would otherwise be monopolized, rather than feeding the incessant greed of a few thousand robber barons. — finarfin

This juxtaposition makes little sense to me, because I don't think governments prevent monopolies from forming, rather monopolies seem to form way more easily as a result of government regulations.

Somalia isn't merely "worse than us", it's total chaos. Why? Specifically because of a lack of government. — LuckyR

It's total chaos because after the first set of 'great' powers finally left it alone, the next set of 'great' powers got involved and tore the country apart again.

So comments like this...

Hey if you don't like government, check out Somalia. — LuckyR

... make you seem rather ignorant.

Hey if you don't like government, check out Somalia. Let us know what you think about it. — LuckyR

You know who made it that way, bubba?

Yet perhaps for an individualist liberal, it's hard to fathom people functioning as a community, but it does happen. — ssu

You've got this backwards.

The reason classic liberals argue for a smaller state is because they assume people can take care of themselves, without the need for state coercion. It's the statist who believes people must be coerced into 'functioning properly'.

What Afghans? The Taliban you mean? Check this Aug 27, 2023 comment. (Hmm Might be better to move any further comments on this to the/some other thread.) — jorndoe

You know who put the Taliban in charge? I'm sure you do.

Afghanistan wasn't such a terrible place before that. Reminds me a bit of Iran, actually. Iran too used to be a relatively modern nation. Didn't the US get involved there as well? And look at it now.

In all honesty, I tend to be more concerned about an "authoritarian empire" than a "democratic empire"... — jorndoe

Of the two, the US is certainly the more worrying one to me. I think the Russians can't hold a candle to the amount of misery and destruction the US has wreaked upon the world - all of which it neatly tucked away in the creases of history, of course.

Ironically enough, some air has been breathed into NATO with the moves against Ukraine. — jorndoe

Whether that's a good thing remains to be seen. Any long-term solutions between Europe and Russia will have to involve some modus vivendi with regards to Ukraine and elsewhere. If military deterrence becomes the only tool for peace it's not a matter of 'if' but a matter of 'when' a new war will break out. And I'm somewhat confident neither the Europeans (of which I am one) nor the Russians want that.

It's Macron's rubbery spine that opened the door to this disaster in the first place. Merkel dared to push back against the Americans, knowing what would happen if they allowed the US to play Risk in the European backyard.

Ironically, the post-Cold War plans for NATO and Ukraine were made not long after Vidal made that statement.

Well, it's been a while since the US grabbed land. — jorndoe

The US is essentially an island nation. Grabbing land is not the way it expands its empire. If you want a better understanding of what US imperialism looks like and the deep impact it has on nations, take a look at the example of Japan.

(I'm wondering if they should have stayed in Afghanistan, what do you think?) — jorndoe

Obviously not, both for the Afgani's sake and the Americans themselves. Though if one wished to expediate the US empire's collapse, one should certainly have advocated for the Americans staying there.

The mess that's unfolding there right now is a direct result of the US having destabilized the country, and more western destabilizing won't fix it, it'll just make it worse.

Oddly enough, the Ukrainians have strongly gone with the US "empire" and the EU, rejecting the Kremlinian "non-empire". — jorndoe

Even if Russia can't be considered an empire in the same way the US is, obviously there's plenty wrong with Russian rule for people wanting to resist it.

It's a bit odd though, how Ukraine was wooed with promises of security. Now that same NATO is refusing to get its hands dirty as Ukraine is being wrecked as a direct result of NATO's advances. What sort of diplomacy is that? "We'll guarantee your security if there's anything left of you after you get done fighting that bear over there."

But whatever empire Ukraine wishes to join is up to them.

We've heard it all before, Russia is going to collapse any day now.

Meanwhile, the 21st century's real and only empire, the American empire, is showing actual signs of falling apart.

Doubtful.

How many Russian and Ukrainian troops do you think there are in Ukraine at the moment? — jorndoe

I have no idea, truth be told. If any trustworthy sources exist for these numbers I have yet to see them.

However, Russia's GDP and population size imply it has the capability to field a vastly bigger army, and I find information on those figures trustworthy enough to produce a rough estimate of the balance of power. Even the most charitable interpretation paints a bleak picture for Ukraine.

The fact that Russia outnumbers the Ukrainians by a comfortable margin is a matter of common sense to me.

There's that vastly again, though about firepower this time: — jorndoe

That the Russians enjoy a large artillery advantage is accepted fact at this point, and a matter of common sense as well based on the indicators I named earlier. Mearsheimer often cites the 5-10:1 artillery advantage.


The Ukrainian media themselves talks about these matters here:

The Russian military indeed enjoys very strong numerical superiority.

Russia's numerical superiority, and its endless munitions stock, the result of decades of Soviet production, have had a devastating effect on the course of the war.

The disproportion between the number of Russian and Ukrainian pieces deployed to a particular front line area can go as far as 10 to 1.

I don't take sources very seriously in this war - the amount of information warfare going on makes it all untrustworthy, but again, these are just matters of common sense. It should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.