Thanks for this, on the Ukraine discussion one poster mostly just spammed links, without even summarizing them and when he did do so he'd make his point in the form of a question with an emoji, to avoid making an actual point. Really annoying.

As far as I can recall, that’s the first time you are bringing this argument up with me. And I really appreciated it. No irony. At least it’s something new and definitely worth discussing.
Some more questions: what empirical evidence support your claim that “socialism is a far more efficient and strategically sound approach to arms production”? And what do you mean by “strategically sound”? — neomac

Well I've mentioned quite a lot that the war is good for arms manufacturers, but it maybe the first time I've pointed out that the arms manufacturers don't actually want a total war, as that leads to socialism.

In the literature it's referred to as "war communism" to stress the irony that capitalist elites love immediately building what is essentially a communist central planned economy where everyone the state needs contributes what they can to the war effort completely outside any sort of free market dynamics; conscription being the biggest such socialist agenda.

Of course socialism in this context is used to simply represent top down state programs where most value is contributed on a volunteer or quasi-volunteer basis (both in terms of pay and also possibly not having much a choice in the matter), such as in Soviet economy. Of course, socialism here has nothing to do with workers owning the means of production.

The reason this is more strategically sound is that orders of magnitude more value is generated for the same cost, which should be common sense as a quasi-volunteer (especially conscription) produces enormously more soldiers for the same cost.

Think it through. Plenty of Europeans volunteered to go fight in Ukraine, how many more would volunteer (or quasi-volunteer, as in perhaps be paid something but far below market value) to work in factories producing shells. People would be lining up!! Plenty qualified people to boot.

To put 2000 posts in two months in context, I have just over 2300 posts in 8 years, and I'd say I post pretty regularly.

... and it's an average of 33 posts a day ... so possibly part of some relapse into methamphetamines. And I say that out of concern and not insult.

Philosophy can be a dangerous mind game at times and injuries do occur.

You are just describing how Russia attacks other countries. False flags are just the Russian traditional method. Or the attackers described as being "volunteers" or "local freedom fighters" and in the end, a "peace-keeping operation". — ssu

You just described how you proved my point.

I guess thanks for that.

Lol. Glenn Diesen, of course. The person who is frequently on Russia television. — ssu

Soooo, I'm not following you here, you'll need to spell it out.

By "manages the risk" what is meant is maximizing the net present value, which is basically expected gain but integrating over a longer term to take into account depreciation, discount rates and a bunch of other stuff we corporate executives like to phone up accountants about and be like "crunch the numbers on this! stat!".

1% chance of nuclear armageddon MULTIPLIED by a trillion dollars, equals 990 billion dollars (BILLION dollars man!) of net present value and is simply a win in business terms if both increasing or decreasing the risk of nuclear armageddon results in a lower net present value, and therefore would be violating fiduciary responsibility and lead to lawsuits from shareholders, which quite obviously would mean the end of the fucking world in corporate executive terms. QED in corporate speak.

Why aren't Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems not bribing Trump to push for the war in Ukraine, so they can sell more weapons? — neomac

First, in terms of general principle, the war profiteering contribution from the war in Ukraine, especially in terms of defence contractors, is in creating a far less stable world generally speaking in which it is "common sense" that more arms are needed by all parties. I.e. in stoking a new arms race.

Once adequately stoked, a fire no longer needs further kindling.

Second, even defence contractors don't want a nuclear war and even they would recognize the need for drip feed theory. Which, as the name connotes, is far from the maximalist approach to "whatever it takes" to supply arms to Ukraine.

Indeed, defence contractors don't even want too much war!!

Too much war, even in setting policy too ambitiously in arming Ukraine, would be bad for defence contractors as it would be necessary to transition to a war time economy, at least partially. What a war time economy means is a central planning and low wage, if not volunteer, basis to war production (think women building planes in WWII).

If EU states actually sat down and put themselves to the task of making enough arms as simple as shells for Ukraine they would immediately realize the only way to do it is through government mobilization of the work force (say the recently unemployed industrial work force of Europe due to cutting off Russian gas) and they would need to organize this production themselves. This wouldn't be a good thing from the perspective of the defence contractors. May even open pandoras box of the defence contractor world in that socialism is a far more efficient and strategically sound approach to arms production. We rely on quasi volunteers (i.e. paid well below the market value of mercenaries to do the same thing, made possible through the magic of patriotism) as combat soldiers so it actually stands to reason that a quasi volunteer force to produce arms (or then at least standard munitions like shells) may in fact be equally common sense.

You wouldn't want to open pandoras box would you?

God man, heaven forbid.

In other words, even from the private producers of arms point of view it is merely a truism that more chaos and death is good for business. Aristotle man, moderation is the key. There is a sweet spot of chaos and death that maximizes profits, minimizes socialism and also manages the risk of destroying the defence contractors in a nuclear war along with much of the rest of the economy (this is the "does the stock market still work in your plan" sanity check for corporate executives in this sector of the economy).

Who are they? List 3 of them. — neomac

Hmmm, well Zelensky to start, then maybe throw in a bit of Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems.

But why stop at 3?

There's all sorts of profits to be gained from war, from human trafficking and black market arms dealing to just generously supplying LNG to a gas starved Europe.

So in the same answer you don't believe Russia attacking the EU yet then you believe maybe Russia would attack the EU.

These delirious opinions should be given respect they deserve: Not worth commenting further. — ssu

You are so committed to the propaganda that you are simply unable to conceive that it's even possible for their to be a hot war between Finland and Russia without that war being 100% Russia's fault in aiming to conquer Finland. Reality is more complex than what propaganda would lead you to believe.

A Finnish-Russian war, that I predict may indeed happen, would not be Russia attacking Finland but some messy situation and a series of strange events and false flags / alleged false flags (that could be caused by literally anyone, such as cutting undersea infrastructure).

The goal would be to create a tense military situation with little actual fighting. Russia has no interest in conquering Finland and Finland has no possibility to conquer Russia obviously.

At least to start, of course once fighting starts the nob can be slowly turned up while avoiding any unwanted escalation (such as any non-Finns dying in the proposed conflict).

So it would be this sort of war.

And this isn't really my prediction but only extrapolating a bit on the analysis of Professor Glenn Diesen, who quite confidently asserts Finns are being prepared to fight an inevitable war with Russia.

So the two notions are compatible that Russia does not "attack the EU" with the intention of conquering parts, much less all, or it, and there is nevertheless a war between Russia and Finland.

Just like the war in Ukraine radically increased tensions, including nuclear tensions (if you remember those days of increasing nuclear readiness), simply because Ukraine is a European country and US / NATO was backing Ukraine (at least in terms of social media virtry signalling), now that we've all been desensitized to the war in Ukraine and it is essentially normalized and no longer viewed as a source of nuclear tensions, if you wanted another "tension dose" you'd need to upgrade.

The logical upgrade available is some sort of war between Finland and Russia as Finland is in NATO. Now, to have such a war also not lead to a nuclear war it would need to be calibrated just like the war in Ukraine was calibrated to achieve such effect and things would need to be confusing so as not to result in US and Russia fighting.

For, it is assumed that any sort of fighting whatsoever between Russia and any element of NATO would immediately result in a full blown war, but this is just a thing "people say" and assert as if it's a law of nature when obviously it is not. There is a whole spectrum of both fighting and tensions between Russia and elements of NATO that can be explored without that leading to a full war, much less a war in which Russia seeks to conquer large parts, or even any part, of the EU.

Ouch, did I poke a bear, or something? — Punshhh

You do realize this is a debate forum, and considering you weren't even addressing the points impacted by your citation of my point, certainly you can appreciate that's annoying.

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

You cite my point and respond, if you aren't responding to my point then just say so.

Now if by "aware" you mean "agree" then it's even more confusing, but if you agree on the points about narratives (aka. propaganda) that were being discussed then that's good to know we agree on those points.

Nevertheless, I disagree with this adjacent point of what the "big story is".

First I would argue that the "big story" is Western elites cynically manipulating, aka. bribing, Ukrainian elites (with the complicity of said Ukrainian elites, who definitely want to be bribed), into fighting a war that could not be won, no one ever intended to win, and in which hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians died and it's not even over.

That would definitely be "the big story" in my book of stories related to this affair.

As for Europe rearming. I seriously doubt that is any story in terms of actually fighting the Russians.

I'd say they story there is that actual war in Europe and constantly claiming Russia will take all Eastern Europe, maybe Western Europe too (indeed even the US according to the "fight them over there so we don't need to fight them here" rhetoric), if not stopped in Ukraine, was not enough to really get war profiteering going.

European elites may not like Trump but they see the opportunity to get that war spending finally going by playing the Trump-Europe personality friction like a full string orchestra.

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

If by sparring (of which the whole point of that word is to indicate no one dies) you mean "fighting proxy wars" (in which many people die), then correct.

Maybe geopolitical "skirmishing" was the word you were looking for to denote fighting that is less intense than a full blown war in which the idea is to relate the size and role of a skirmish in an actual war to that of an actual proxy war in relation to a global conflict between superpowers.

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

I simply disagree, the equilibrium is exactly as it was before. No one (who matters; aka. decides what the propaganda is rather than their job being to believe it) actually believes that Russia will actually attack the EU. Ukraine was a particular case in terms of culture, strategic military implications, and resources.

Another war maybe fought in Finland, but that will just be to sacrifice Finns to keep up the pretence of this amazing confrontation (and so sell more arms).

This inevitably results in a lot of chaos and shouting. — Punshhh

... and also people dying. You seem to always leave that part out, such as the "Big story" is arms being purchased ... not all the dead Ukrainians.

The story here is that Europe will now re-arm. This will take a decade or more. In the meantime Russia is weak and can be held at bay for that decade. — Punshhh

... Again ... why only now? (even if true, which it's not in any remotely meaningful "preparing for total war with Russia" sense)

But same question to you as with @ssu ... the rhetoric has not changed, so how are you not implicitly accepting European leaders where lying about that for years, drip feeding weapons to Ukraine to prop it up just enough to not collapse spectacularly (before the US election), and therefore the "story" being "Europe will now re-arm" is because they've been crying wolf and only see an actual wolf now because the US (specifically Trump as you've said) has exposed them to the consequences of their own actions of antagonizing a far more powerful neighbour for cynical reasons?

How can you just casually skip over the fact the EU obviously wasn't rearming in 2022 in response to literally New Hitler invading a European country and EU countries are bound to be next if New Hitler isn't stopped in Ukraine ... but obviously could have with things like the "biggest arms deal in EU history" and the like, or then even a little bit of actual war time economy measures to support Ukraine (such as essentially volunteer based factories to produce enough shells for Ukraine)?

I.e. how can you just casually skip over these obvious lies and deception by European leaders for 3 years, if not many years before, without exposing your position as just repeating whatever "pro-Ukrainians dying" propaganda you heard last.

The fly in the ointment is the possibility that Trump will gift Ukraine to Putin. This will embolden Putin allowing him to replenish his army and threaten Europe before it re-arms and will have a destabilising effect on geopolitics. — Punshhh

WTF are you talking about?

The fly in what ointment? The delicious ointment of provoking and then propping up a war by drip feeding in weapons for war profiteering purposes, only to suddenly realize antagonizing a far more powerful military while being nearly fully dependent on another great power an Ocean away (that has since decades being talking about it's "pivot" to an Ocean even farther away) was terrible state craft?

Now, if your question is why would European leaders go down such a self-destructive path which, at best, renders Europe a poor vassal backwaters to the United States?

Well the answer is that the European leaders that did this are essentially just organized crime kingpins and organized crime have benefited a great deal from this war.

In the meantime Russia is capable of throwing a vast amount of artillery at her opponent and is developing her drone capability quickly. A drone arms race is not good and needs to be choked off asap. — Punshhh

Ah yes, in the meantime Russia can just casually outproduce the largest economic block on the planet.

... but I thought the holy ointment was propping up total war in Ukraine while not even making token efforts to match production rates and only starting to think about that part of "being essentially at war with Russia" now that Trump wants to make peace with Russia as that's in American's interest to do, and will lower energy prices and get US access to all sorts of minerals and so on.

So considering war with Russia your "ointment" ... how exactly do you see choking off a drones arms race? Arms control is a deescalatory process of arms limitations, but the "story here" is Europe will re-arm ... so you're idea is Europe will rearm while asking Russia to kindly exnay on the onesdray, just kind of cool it a little, maybe just a forceful "knock-it-off", or a strongly worded letter will get the job done?

This situation could become very expensive as Putin is throwing all his remaining money at it. This needs to be avoided and Trump throwing a spanner in the works really doesn’t help. — Punshhh

Why would your program of choking off an arms race become expensive?

Also, it's called "oil", which is turned into an obscure economic thing called "revenue", which renders the phrase "Putin is throwing all his remaining money at it" basically nonsense. This sort of complicated businessney thing maybe over your head but I, as a long time corporate executive, could try to explain it to you.

Well, you answered it yourself. — ssu

No, I did not answer the rebuttal myself.

Well, because the Trump team is basically hostile to Ukraine and on the side of Russia. So yes, that indeed is really a change here. — ssu

The points here are twain:

First, they've been saying the exact same thing since 2022 in order to justify pouring arms into Ukraine, so for you're argument to work you must recognize that from 2022 to 2024 "saying stuff" like Putin is literally Hitler and we need to him in Ukraine and so on was pure propaganda that no leader in Europe actually believed.

I.e. that you're argument structure is that it was the boy who cried wolf for 2 years and now, NOW, there's actually a wolf, trust me bro.

That's the first point you need to contend with as the rhetoric has not changed.

Second, even 2024 and 2025 there is still zero evidence of the EU planning, preparing, much less implementing some semblance of a war time economy in order to fight the Russians, not even a little bit to just reach shell parity for Ukraine in Russia.

Is it really that hard to make enough artillery shells?

There's industrial layoffs in Europe all over the place, idle capacity ... why not get people to work making shells.

Which still wouldn't make a lick of sense to only start doing now (if any part of the rhetoric represented the slightest true belief), as even if we recognize that painting Russia as a threat to the EU was bullshit there was still the "rules based order" and democracy and borders, Borders man! (outside the Middle-East of course) that needed defended.

Furthermore, even if it's completely delusional, a large majority of Europeans simply believe the propaganda that Ukraine good, Russia bad, Putin's literally Hitler, if Ukraine falls then literally the rest of Europe will be next, and so on, even more so at the start of the war ... so not only could idle capacity be put into making shells but there would be a large group of recently laid off industrial workers essentially volunteering for the production lines, not to mention millions of just able bodied people's (and even women with zero construction or industrial experience whatsoever could rapidly skill up and not only produce simple things like shells but far more complicated things like fighter aircraft, in WWII ... but with more eduction, more automated tooling, more engineers and so on, this cannot be accomplished today?).

At some point you have to answer these sorts of questions.

And the answer is there was never any intention, whether in Europe or the United States, to have any other outcome in the war in Ukraine other than the one we are currently seeing (of the Ukrainian military lines breaking).

The reason there is no crash program to produce things as simple as artillery shells is because that would help Ukraine quite a lot, and as importantly does not generate obscene profits for military contractors.

The strategy was always to drip feed weapons to Ukraine to at least get to the next election while still being able to at least pretend things are fine.

Ah yes, that beautiful realm of cognitive dissonance where Russia is militarily inept, on it's last legs, and simultaneously an existential threat to Europe.

The Russian economy and military are in shambles. It will take decades to recover! Also, they will be at the gates of Berlin in no time: we must militarize! — Tzeentch

It's Schrödinger's war machine.

There is no cognitive dissonance: the narratives are superimposed simultaneously without that bothering anyone in the slightest.

Poland isn't just "saying stuff". The way the Finnish military has started to train it's reservists isn't just "saying stuff". — ssu

There is not the remotest semblance of a European war time economy in preparation or planning.

Saying stuff, arms deals / profiteering from the situation, and updating military training (which armies do anyways in response to contemporary conflict whether they feel threatened or not) are not the remotest semblance of planning, preparing for, "laying the ground work", and much less in the process of implementing some sort of wartime economy that you definitely would be in the act of doing if you thought you actually might be fighting Russia.

And again, your evidence betrays the reality of the situation.

(Breaking Defense, 2024) German manufacturer Rheinmetall received its largest order in company history today: a deal with Germany for 155mm artillery ammunition, valued at up to €8.5 billion ($9.1 billion) and which will replenish Bundeswehr, Ukrainian and other allies’ stocks.

2024 ... a whole two years into the war, and only to "replenish stocks" and not somehow match, much less exceed, the Russian rate of production to fight a large scale conventional war in Europe with said Russian production.

This arms deal is simply the common sense and nearly inevitable result of sending nearly all the ammunition available to get used up in Ukraine (or then sold onward on the blackmarket) in that those stocks need to be restocked at some point.

As I said, they were very slow to see the threat. — ssu

You betray yourself!!

If they're only "seeing the threat" in 2024, then obviously they were lying to us before when the war was existential for Europe and democracy and the "rules based order" from the get go (the "war starting" referring here to the significant expansion of the war in 2022).

You're basically saying "well they were lying to us before and totally didn't see Russia as some sort of actual threat were just 'saying stuff' in order to exploit Ukraine for cynical ends. But now, Now, NOW! they totally see the threat now and they are totally telling us the truth Now.

I would call this bullshit. Do you think that speaking a specific language means that you identify with, as belonging to, and wanting to be a citizen of, i.e. "conquered by", that mother country where the language derives? For example, do you think that Americans would be "fundamentally cool" with being conquered by England because they speak English? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well I must call bullshit on your calling bullshit.

I clearly specified that "large extent being defined here as enough to render pacification easy"; i.e. being "fundamentally cool with it".

Pacification has been easy (see Afghanistan for a comparison case of pacification being hard).

Now, what most people "truly believe" is a different question to the fact there is clearly enough Russian identity, sympathy or then tolerance to render pacification easy.

Also keep in mind Kiev's campaign to suppress the Russian language ... so, true enough that speaking a language doesn't mean you want to be conquered by the main body of the speakers of that language, but do you really think people like having their mother tongue suppressed and have a strong desire to remain under the rule of people suppressing the language they speak?

Furthermore, it's very evident that many expatriates are expatriates because they disavow the governance of the homeland. But when the disgruntled ex-citizens are perceived as congregating and conspiring against the government of the homeland, by members of that government, they might feel compelled to take action against them. — Metaphysician Undercover

Unclear what you're talking about, but the reality on the ground is that insurgency, sabotage and intelligence rat lines within the conquered territories have had no noticeable effect on the course of the war.

Of note is that there are other regions of Ukraine where that would not be the case which Russia has made no attempt to conquer and pacify; when Russia did go through those regions at the start of the war in the Northern operation to surround Kiev, they made no attempt to conquer and pacify territory (which they obviously know how to do as they did so in the South).

Lol. :lol:

Well, that's delusional and simply false. No, up until this week, Europeans have truly believed that the US is an ally. With US and NATO allies, there's such a mismatch, that there hasn't been a reason to spend so much more on the military. There was ample deterrence. Yes, it's not just Trump that has been talking about the "Pivot to Asia", that started with Obama. But taking a bigger role in defense of Europe and the US going along with Russia are quite two things. The military threat of Russia is totally real. This week, the threat of a larger war in Europe just increased. And so will likely the Russian hybrid attacks.

Where do I start... — ssu

"Saying stuff" is not building up arms in any meaningful way, whether to send into Ukraine as the "last line of defence" or then for your own preperation.

What Europe has not done is any sort of crash program of any sort to buildup armaments.

Statistics have been rolled out on the regular that Russia is outproducing all of NATO in basic things like artillery shells, by several factors, and the reaction to EU elites and journalists is just ... hmmm, pity that.

If you actually thought you might be actually invaded by Russia there would be massive efforts of building up arms as well as building up significant fortifications.

Notice your own date of your own citations:

When

From last year: — ssu

... last year ... last year whoever your quoting (which is just talk) wants to:

ramp up our efforts

Well ... why the fuck aren't they already ramped to the fucking max already in 2022 when the war that war to "stop Putin in Ukraine" started?

Or then even before when European leaders were already preparing Ukraine to fight said war? If Russia was such a threat why not prepare also themselves?

There is no actual preparation, much less even the slightest sort of "war time economy" to support Ukraine as some sort of Gondor against the forces of Mordor, because there is no actual belief that Russia poses a threat.

Again, doesn't exclude war with Finland, but Finland doesn't matter.

I do. Do you follow the thread, as you refer to two months ago. A lot happened this week. — ssu

The point was in your seeming to take issue with my description of the "chemical attack script" which obviously came and went along time ago, serving its purpose at the time to further frustrate any attempt at a negotiated settlement.

Militarily Russia isn't winning Ukraine, but Trump is giving Putin the biggest political support ever. — ssu

If you thought / think Russia isn't winning in Ukraine and it's only Trump that is spoiling Ukraine "victory", of whatever sort is defined at the end of the process of Russia not winning, it's difficult to start to address this. I will try to get to it later.

The Ukrainian military is essentially melting away at this point.

As Trump is crushing the Atlanticism, and ending Pax Americana, Putin can be very happy. Alexander Dugin stated that this was the (and should be the goal) of Russia, and thanks to Trump, Putin is achieving his objectives. — ssu

.... or in other words:

The war consolidates Putin's power, is amazing for China, and achieves US objectives of preventing a real "World Leader" competitor, which both China and Russia could never be, but Europe would have already displaced US as a global leader with A. peace with Russia and the enormous benefits of it's mineral riches and B. some fucking balls in positions of influence rather than "leaders" that both make sure they appear, as well as seem to feel in their heart of hears, that they must be USA bitches.

This Ukraine war is a disaster for Europe, easily prevented, and a few speeches doesn't rectify anything. Washington, Moscow and Beijing are all getting what they want. Indeed, China and USA far more than Russia, but at least Russia's getting something.

Europe gains nothing, loses a lot, and it's failure to do anything meaningful to have peace, is because European elites do not care much about European interest, neither Ukrainians nor their own populations; they care about US interests, for reason I honestly don't get (I talked years ago with bureaucrats in Brussels about there being no purpose or benefit to antagonizing Russia for no discernible reason; they honestly didn't get my point of view, would just repeat USA talking points about the issue).

When I pushed for some sort of justification, "like why? why though?" they would just get angry with me.

And the "appeasement" argument doesn't work as there's already NATO ... which, ok, sure let Ukraine in by surprise over a weekend ... and see how that goes, but if, by your own admission, no one's letting Ukraine into NATO, why a pointless war of words and sanctions that simply push Russia towards China rather than stick to the European policy of economic ties with democracies a good way to spread to democracies. There was zero logic nor even any understanding of the political situation with Europe's largest neighbor ... supplying 40% of it's natural gas.

As far as I could tell, Brussels bureaucrats just like sucking American dick. Offensive, maybe, but I find pointless bloodshed and cities leveled to the ground more offensive ... don't like that ... well either do diplomacy or go send troops there to defend against said shelling you say you don't like. Honestly, arguing with a mix-tape of stupid would have been a more interesting conversation.

Argument has basically been: if we appease Russia by doing diplomacy in some credible way, they may invade Ukraine ... but stop there because everyone else is in Nato. However, if we don't appease Russia they will for sure probably invade Ukraine as we're for sure as hell not letting Ukraine in our little Nato club, as that would be provoking Russia too much. Therefore, we are fucking morons.

Credible diplomacy not only may have worked, but also increases the costs significantly for Russia if there were credible offers turned down, credible denunciation of neo-Nazi's in Ukraine, EU stopping Ukraine's language suppression programs etc. common sense things, all increase the likelihood of peace directly but also decrease the cost-benefit of war as it's a harder sell to your own population.

Instead, USA is basically "Hey, Germany, go make sure neo-Nazi's are seen to be of credible importance in Ukraine with the implicit backing of the EU, and also make sure they can do whatever language and cultural suppression of Russian speakers there that said neo-Nazi's dream of: make sure Russia sees you do it Germany, I'm counting on you." — boethius

Agree?

↪Tzeentch When Trump parrots Kremlin's lines, nothing else could better justify Putin's actions.

Pax Americana is dead and we are closer to war, if Europe doesn't get it's act together. Or at least form a willing coalition. Because Putin won't stop and he already has his sights on next targets. — ssu

Perhaps, given everything that was told by mainly @Tzeentch, the late @Isaac and myself, you would consider for a moment that propaganda has lead you astray.

As Neutrality Studies has pointed out repeatedly, if the EU genuinely believed Russia represented a military threat they would be building up like crazy! But they don't.

Why?

Because they don't view Russia as a genuine military threat to the EU.

Russia has only conquered Russian speaking, ethnically Russian, and also Russian identifying (to a large extent), regions in Ukraine (large extent being defined here as enough to render pacification easy).

Russia is simply not conquering, nor shows any signs of intending to conquer, anyone who is not fundamentally cool with being conquered.

Then there's the problem of nuclear weapons, which two EU countries have along with the United States.

In addition to that there's the problem of no feasibly conquerable EU territory having any resources worth conquering.

However, this is not to say there won't be further war, only that my prediction is that it will not be started or desired by Russia but engineered by European countries in order to justify the current trajectory, in particular in terms of totalitarianism.

As the Finnish professor Glenn Diesen recently noted, I believe on the Duran if memory serves me, along with calling the Finnish president a traitor (which he is), the Finnish population has been and is being prepared for war by Finnish media and Finnish politicians, and the mood has changed to war with Russia being inevitable.

Now, this was a policy undertaken during the Biden administration, so it may change, but I doubt it. Mark my words, however, that the war will not be instigated by Russia but rather by Finland.

Finland is a small country that can easily be sacrificed for the greater EU good, which in this case is defined by maintaining a state of total delusion.

↪ssu By the way, all of the sidelining of the Europeans and the Ukrainians seems to tell us a thing or two about who was right about whether or not to assign these actors with much agency. — Tzeentch

They were agents in their own unagency Tzeentch, authors of their own writing themselves out of the script entirely.

Never said such thing. In the end even the most ruthless dictatorship has to have a "domestic support", namely of the security apparatus. Putin has his followers, just as Trump has his followers. But likely not everybody is in Russia happy about Putin's adventures, but who are they to say it, when you can be sent to jail for speaking out. — ssu

Yes, I missed your definition of "domestic political support" to include the "security apparatus", which removes nearly the entire meaning of the expression to reducing essentially to a truism that those in power have by definition some basis for their power, and it would be only relevance in literally the last moments of a regimes nominal titles when it has lost control of the security apparatus during a coup.

However, even with your definition your framework is still wrong as the security apparatus keeping people in power is not by definition domestic but can easily be partly, or even wholly, foreign controlled, in term of finance and intelligence resources and even the people.

I'm not sure this part of the debate is relevant to continue, though feel free to, but just wanted to address a couple of points, especially where I misinterpreted you, before getting back into the current debate.

Generally, I am still intending to make a new thread on these more general themes.

So how much is Russia winning now and which step are we on? — ssu

Do you not follow the news?

Russia using chemical choking agents in Ukraine, US says — Russia using chemical choking agents in Ukraine, US says

Problem that was encountered was that this playbook is no working, to such an extent the neocons have been ousted from power.

Political power, be it democratic or autocratic, is dependent on domestic political support, be that needed support of the voters or the security apparatus. Foreign policy is to serve those goals, just like defense policy or energy police etc. — ssu

Well you seem to have just disproven your own point then since if Russia foreign policy depends on domestic political support, which you claim the Russian state doesn't have, then obviously the foreign policy of waging war in Ukraine would have collapsed by now due to depending on domestic political support which is insufficient to support the policy.

Russia is continuing to wage war in Ukraine so therefore has sufficient domestic political support to continue to do so. Case closed.

As for Mearsheimer's basic foundational point, the current international system, parties, in particular the great powers can't trust each other, which breeds paranoia, and so seek to maximize their power to ensure their survival.

Not that the small powers can trust each other or then the great powers, just that their only option is usually to cut a deal with a great power (or more) to be of some functional utility ("ally" / vassal, buffer, military base substrate, source of raw materials, or what have you) in great power politics.

In this framework, Mearsheimer answer to your rebuttal is that the states people of the great power will both argue and more importantly actually act on the premise that state security dominates all other "domestic political concerns" in that there is no domestic politics at all if the state is destroyed.

The situation is NATO is threatening Russia (literally writing documents hundreds of pages long detailing how to impose costs on Russia to both weaken Russia and coerce Russian foreign policy positions) and therefore it is rational for Russian state decision makers to react to those threats. The political structure is setup in Russia, as in the United States, so that state decision makers can react to threats without bothering much with the opinion of normal people anyways.

Now, also importantly, Mearsheimer is not saying that state decision makers, in this tense and paranoid sauce they find themselves in, make therefore optimal decisions, but rather the exact opposite that miscalculations occur all the time (precisely because things are so tense and paranoid). Likewise importantly, these global in scale hegemonic power struggles are a zero-sum game and therefore miscalculations are exploited by opposing powers.

So does every policy in the US that enjoys the support of both political parties. For example, just where the US spends it's government income has been extremely stable without not much differences between administrations: wealth transfers (welfare and pensions), health care, defense and education (and then the interest on debt). In fact, there isn't anything for politicians to decide as the usually these spending has been announced to be mandatory. What has approval of both parties, doesn't create much debate, as foreign policy does, especially when it's usually the last refuge that US Presidents then try to mingle after their domestic campaign promises have withered away. — ssu

You go from claiming that foreign policy (even in autocratic regimes) depends on domestic political support (so democracy is superfluous anyways as all state policies by definition require domestic political support) to seamlessly transitioning to claiming both major political parties in the US essentially by definition represent accurately the US population ... and not special interests or anything like that.

"What has approval of both parties" ... "doesn't create much debate"

... So you're saying the US health care policy hasn't created much debate?

But foreign policy (... which my understanding is we both agree is nearly 100% consistent throughout all recent US administrations; presumably how we know they have genuine support from the general population) does create debate?

Just look at the Charter of NATO itself: every country has to be ratified by each member state. For example Hungary has said that it doesn't want Ukraine in NATO. And prior the invasion, member states like Germany opposed this. This is why NATO has often irritates American Presidents as the organization won't go the way as they plan. The really ignorant and naive idea is that the US can push anything through NATO. It cannot. It couldn't do that either in CENTO and SEATO, as these are organizations made up of member states.

Yes, the members can say that Ukraine will be in the future a NATO member, just as the European Union can say that the door is open for Turkey to join the EU. — ssu

I don't have the time to fully unpack how absurd this line of reasoning is, but to make short of it: when you make statements like "Hungary has said" that's something that is only true for now, if it's true at all (i.e. if Hungary really could oppose the will of the US even now). So, even if what you said was true right now, obviously it could be the opposite tomorrow with a change in leadership in Hungary, of which the US is pretty experienced in bringing about (why this whole war started in the first place).

The idea that Russia is irrational for basing their foreign policy on the mighty Hungarian position in NATO, is just laughably absurd.

Just ask yourself, what if Russia wouldn't have annexed Crimea, which doesn't bring enormous riches to Russia, but more problematic backward economy. If it hadn't done this, the European countries would have continued to dismantle their defenses, Russia would enjoy large support in Ukraine (and hence have a say) and Ukrainian NATO membership would be one silly thing that some US presidents would have said. Ukraine would seem quite dubious candidate with it's frequent revolutions etc. — ssu

The annexation of Crimea was in response to a literal coup in Ukraine orchestrated by the CIA with Victoria Nulled literally handing out coup-victory cookies in the Maidan square.

The CIA had already built 12 forward operating bases that we find out about later (but certainly Russia would have already had at least some intelligence about).

You're whole argument is basically "don't worry, the most powerful nation on earth can't accomplish it's explicitly stated objectives, can't do shit about a single tiny country in it's main alliance disagreeing, can make a coup happen but couldn't substantially follow through on that coup to do anything; and therefore, due to these mostly paperwork issues, Russia is just totally overreacting to billions of dollars of financing to anti-Russian parties, including literal Nazis; it was all basically 'fun money' and didn't threaten a single Russian fly".

Just look at what happened in Central Asia. After 9/11, American had several military bases all around Central Asia, even with Tajikistan holding both an American and a Russian military base. Now...NOTHING. Russia had just to wait for the neocon dream to implode, which it did. Now Russia has a firm grasp on the area, even with countries needing Russia help to put down their demonstrations... without invading anybody. — ssu

Really? Russia has a firm grasp on the area?

That obviously false statement aside, the difference between events in Ukraine and Iraq and Afghanistan, is that both Iraq and Afghanistan were US client regimes. The US made Saddam Hussein and also the Taliban (to fight Russians).

The US was not actually attacking any Russian interest, and in fact Russia helped with both logistics and intelligence in those wars as both a gesture of good will towards the Americans but also since they don't like Islamic terrorism either (which, to be clear, I have seen zero actual credible proof 9/11 was orchestrated or abetted by anyone actually in Iraq or Afghanistan, and even less so anyone in the Iraqi or Afghani state; and the US investigation into 9/11 is filled with wholes, contradictions and insane claims like the source of finance is irrelevant to the investigation of the crime).

However, for our purposes here, what's important is that the US response to 9/11 did not harm Russian interests, so your whole premise makes zero sense in that the US was somehow acting against Russia in Iraq and Afghanistan to begin with.

Where things started to change is in Libya where Russia approved the no-fly zone as Russian interest were not threatened, but interpreted "no fly zone" as to mean "you cannot fly aircraft in the zone without the UN Security Council permission" and not "everything that could potentially help something to fly, which is literally anyone and any object whatsoever, can therefore be bombed" which is how NATO interpreted "no fly zone". Where Russia had issue is that was just a retarded use of language and bombing a country into a failed state (that now has literal slave markets) doesn't benefit anyone, including Russia, and obviously radically increases the power of international Islamic terrorism by creating an essentially Islamic Mad Max scenario.

But, again, to differentiate with Ukraine, NATO was not directly harming Russian interests, which is why Russia supported the no-fly-zone (which had it been an actual no-fly-zone in the common sense understanding of "what do words mean" then that would have helped some reasonable negotiated political process).

Where Russia actually intervened to directly oppose US intelligence activity, is in Syria, and the reason being Syria does represent Russian interest.

You're argument here is basically because Russia didn't need to intervene to stop the US from essentially cannibalizing it's own vassals to have a "as long as we can war", then it doesn't need intervene when it's own interests are directly attacked.

That's just foolish.

Russia has nuclear deterrence. Without that nuclear deterrence, it's likely that NATO would have created a "no fly zone" over Ukraine and been one actor in the war, just like it was for example in the Libyan Civil War. — ssu

As I've stated many times, without nuclear weapons, we would already be in World War III, and if we were discussing geopolitics at all it would only be because we happened to be in the same trench.

Since there is nuclear weapons, the great powers can't simply launch all-in warfare against each other, and instead we are in a process of America attempting to maximize its coercive power just short of triggering a nuclear war (or then full scale nuclear war; likely they are trying to ease the world into normalizing limited use of nuclear weapons).

Is Russia counter strategy optimal?

Well obviously not optimal as nothing is, but it is a rational response of basically a good defence is a good offence.

The situation for Russia is that it simply doesn't know what the CIA could eventually cook-up in Ukraine (especially with things like AI coming online) so best resolve the tension while things are still somewhat predictable (including decouple from the West technologically speaking).

Of course you can make counter-factuals that what the CIA was doing in Ukraine would have amounted to a nothing burger had left to continue.

You can also for sure add Russian imperial ambition that many Russians, and certainly Russian elites, very much would like Crimea back, as there was not really a good reason for the Soviet Union to "gift it" to Ukraine in the first place.

And isn't then also the European Union is also a "threat to Russia"? As we can see from Ukraine and where the revolution of dignity started and now are seeing in Georgia, where the Georgian dream as backtracked it's election promises. — ssu

Obviously the European Union is also a threat to Russia, it's just superfluous to mention as all the key militaries are also a part of NATO.

I'm really confused what you are aiming here for. First, NATO is a security arrangement for Europe and an obvious issue is actually Article 1, that it keeps member states in not having conflicts themselves. NATO membership has at least for now made Turkey and Greece to avoid a war. Then NATO was wholeheartedly seeking for a mission and thus concentrated on "new threats", but Russia's actions has made it to focus in it's original mission, which in the 1990's and 2000's was a relic of the past for many. — ssu

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with the point you're responding to, but to clarify what NATO says on paper doesn't matter much to counter-parties.

NATO has embarked on plenty of offensive actions in which no NATO country was under attack and in addition to that there's a little something called a false flag that solves the problem of launching an offensive action under a defensive requirement.

You speak as if Russian generals should just print out NATO's charter and go through that when they sit down to evaluate their own force posture ... rather than print out maps of military assets.

Obviously nowhere do generals base their recommendations on what opposing forces have written about their own intentions publicly ... well it happened once (maybe) and it was called the Trojan Horse and, notably, only needed to happen exactly once (and even then it maybe didn't actually happen) for the entire world to learn the lesson of not blindly trusting the word of opposing parties that may wish you harm.

It's just amazing that you expect people which the US literally categorizes as enemies (usually with a bunch of euphemisms like "rival" and the like, though also sometimes just outright say that Russia is an enemy that needs to be defeated), should take the US and NATO at it's word (with the odd exception of when the US and NATO are directly threatening them, in which case they should be assumed to be bluffing or impotent to cary out those direct threats), when not a single chance you'd just take Russia, or Iran, or Hezbollah, or anyone you had issue with at their word about their own intentions.

Not sure you're aware of this, but Sadam Husseine and the Taliban both gave their word they weren't helping islamic terrorists strike the US, on 9/11 or otherwise (and turns out they were actually right about that), and yet I'm pretty sure you don't view the US actions as irrational due to the word of Sadam Husseine and the Taliban.

That simply is a lie.

Just against my country, Russia made threats far before this, basically starting from the 1990's, first by Russian generals and Russian politicians. First hybrid attacks of sending migrants of the border into Finland and Norway happened in 2015-2016. The real breach already happened during the Kosovo war. There Russian forces faced British NATO forces and the rhetoric from Yeltsin was already very aggressive. That was before Putin. And of course there's the famous Putin at Munich in 2007 well before the Russo-Georgian war. — ssu

Well feel free to produce this evidence.

Mearsheimer makes the challenge essentially every time he speaks on the subject for people to present any evidence that Russia was threatening Ukraine, Georgia, much less NATO, and expressed any intention whatsoever to expand into Ukraine, Georgia, or then Finland in your example, prior to 2008 which is the start of the escalation in Mearsheimer's view.

Notably, your example of "hybrid action" against Finland is in 2015 which is after the Ukraine coup, annexation of Crimea, Donbas civil war, and escalation goes hot.

Just seems to my your entire position is hopelessly confused.

You argue that Russia had zero reason to invade Ukraine as the US (and also NATO) declaring it's intention that Ukraine would join NATO doesn't matter ... but also that it is in fact Russia that was threatening Ukraine (and also Finland) all along and therefore Ukraine joining NATO (which you also argue can't actually happen because of Hungary) was a reasonable response to Russian aggressive language.

It's simply a series of mutually incompatible positions.

If it was right for Ukraine to join NATO to be protected from Russia ... then it's absolutely fucking retarded to try to do that if you know it can't happen because Hungary disapproves ... which isn't fixed by then trying to argue NATO doesn't matter and everything the US does fails so Russia should just not react to anything and assume US will anyways fail ... it's just a hodgepodge of nonsense at this point.

What is real however is the immense harm that has come to Ukraine in this bid to join NATO ... which apparently could never have happened anyways ... how is that possibly fair to Ukraine ... but also Finland can join NATO and so Russia is severely damaged by that and so waging war in Ukraine was a big mistake because ... Finland ... makes zero sense.

The criticism is the one-sidedness of Mearsheimer's theory. He doesn't, and he has admitted himself, look at the situation from the Russian domestic political viewpoint. This is the theoretical flaw here. — ssu

This is not a theoretical flaw, it is a prediction of the theory that domestic politics has little effect on great power politics and there's both theoretical and empirical justification for it, for example that US foreign policy remains extremely consistent throughout wildly different administrations.

Domestic politics is absolutely essentially in every country: it drives foreign policy in every country. — ssu

This is a wildly inaccurate statement.

Then there is the idea that this, starting a huge conventional invasion, was a rational decision by Putin to thwart NATO enlargement. Yet the action lead to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, the NATO countries increase their spending and NATO getting back to the role that it had during the Cold War. It doesn't make any sense. — ssu

It makes perfect sense if enlargement into Sweden and Finland is viewed as less dangerous than enlargement into Ukraine.

Finland joining NATO is not some sort of "gotcha" but you'd need to actually demonstrate why Finland in NATO is far more threatening to Russian interests than Ukraine in NATO.

Especially when just having large scale exercises would have made Ukrainian NATO membership as impossible as EU membership of Turkiye. — ssu

What's this statement based on?

(But as NATO follows it's charter, it could never say this out loud.) — ssu

This is such a strange line of argument to assert that what people explicitly say, such as "Ukraine will join NATO" should be ignored in favour of what "they actually mean" if you listen to internet analysts or "what is actually possible" if you read the fine print as interpreted by internet analysts.

Hence the war cannot be explained only by NATO enlargement, which is now done by those willing to go with Putin's line. And that "only" changes a lot in the actual picture. Yet it make sense if Putin wanted Ukraine irrelevant of NATO. — ssu

NATO enlargement is I think best viewed as the "ultimate cause" of the war, a possibility so bad from Russian elite perspective that Russian elites are essentially united in their willingness to fight a way to prevent it happening, and there is a bunch of proximate causes, such as there already being a war in the Donbas regularly killing ethnic Russians that ethnic Russians in Russia want and expect something to be done about it. But the Donbas war itself is explained as an attempt to keep Ukraine from joining NATO, so if the argument that Ukraine would never join NATO because there's already border dispute designed to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO ... then the argument is basically it was irrational for Russia to expand the war that was rational for Russia to start in the first place, which is pretty tenuous view of rationality, but to address the substance the problem with keeping a war going to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO is that it's not sustainable (just as Ukraine has encountered the attrition problems of fighting a much larger power even in the context of substantial support from outside powers, so too the Donbas militias had the exact same problem, and the solution is the same of the larger supporting power directly intervening).

Added to these two main causes, there's then a long list of other co-factors and triggers. There's for example a long list of escalations of tensions by the US generally speaking from simply more anti-Russian propaganda to withdrawing from the INF and ABM treaties, "clashing" or whatever you want to call it in Syria, and the main trigger for the war I would argue is the obstruction of licensing the Nord Stream II pipeline, which is when things came to a breaking point in terms of any further dialoguee.

Yet it doesn't reflect accurately EVERYTHING. Yes, Putin says that he is in a war with NATO. So basically he is saying that Russia is also in war with your country, Benkei, and with my country. And I've been the first one here to remind even before the annexation of Crimea, the in the official military doctrine of Russia the first threat was NATO enlargement, when international terrorism (read Al Qaeda) was threat number 14 or so. Yet if you just repeat the Mearsheimer line, the logical system would be not to enlarge NATO or even get rid of NATO. But that wouldn't stop Russia! In fact that would simply make them be even more aggressive. If you think that's just a hypothetical, that also Russia could be totally passive and nice neighbor, that isn't the case when people like Putin run the country. You simply have to listen to what they really say, not just look at the US and the West and think that everything that other people do is just a response to your own actions. It isn't that way. That's the whole point here. — ssu

But isn't the whole argument that the war is irrational for Russia premised on Russia being weak and the war therefore too damaging? How does that square with symultaniously presenting Russia as this unstoppable force that would roll over all of Eastern Europe, and maybe even Western Europe, if not for NATO and also stopping this unstoppable Russian army with the unmovable might of NATO in Ukraine?

Even more problematic for a philosophy forum, in defending the idea that NATO in Ukraine is not a threat to Russia your methodology is that nothing anyone explicitly says matter, but then when it comes to Russia threatening Europe you beseech us to take every little word as seriously as possible and also "know what they mean" even if they didn't say anything.

For, you will not actually find any of this threatening language before NATO escalated with Russia in pushing into Ukraine ... for apparently zero reason if it is true they would never "actually do it" ... so you're whole argument basically boils down to "Russia is irrational for not realizing NATO is in fact the irrational party pretending to do things they will never actually do".

It's also the company my money laundering investigation ultimately led to, and so their not having working website I thought was totally normal (most companies involved in money laundering have defunct websites), but that was before I realized Deluxe.com represents a billion dollar market cap company listed on the Nasdaq, a fortune 1000 company and in the S&P 600.

... So I'm like ... what.

It's deluxe.com

Considering their website doesn't even work since the last 2 months, I'm pretty confident the Ponzi scheme is now imploding.

@Benkei you taking me up on my wager?

Ok I was a day off, DLX already - 5% in pre-trading.

The meltdown begins!

The Ponzi scheme can no longer support their share price and it's going to zero and then trading will stop after that, I guess the SEC and NASDAQ "let the market decide".

Putting all my florbose on the table this time, no holding back, all in.

Well I'm out 3 florbose, but the day is young.

Considering Deluxe Corporation doesn't even have a functioning website since 2 months, I'm pretty sure I'm right on this one. But we'll see.

Well as for me, I'm pretty risk averse, so I'm only putting 3 florbose down that DLX doesn't trade when the New York Stock exchange opens in 15 minutes.

Like I know @Benkei wants to bet against me, so what's he wagering? 5 florbose ... 6!!

Nearly a month has gone from the last commentary on this thread. — ssu

Events have resolved all the key issues of disagreement.

It seems quite bleak for Ukraine at this time. — ssu

It was bleak since rejecting negotiations and committing to a long war.

It's very unlikely that Trump will truly pressure Russia, because that would totally go against everything he has communicated. — ssu

Trump hasn't even said he's going to pressure Russia. Unless I've missed something, Tump has mostly just said he'll end the war.

When US Presidents (Obama, Trump) have promised to draw down something, that isn't the best negotiation stance to have with an enemy that can simply wait out and continue. — ssu

Well, that's assuming the US even cares about the results of these kinds of negotiations. Once the decision is made to get out of a war, what's there to negotiate from a US perspective? The rights of the people they're abandoning?

Hence I started a thread Why Americans lose wars as there are parallels to Afghanistan and the Vietnam war. — ssu

I'll add my thoughts when I have the time, but I think we agree on the basics.

Of course, I may be wrong. And hopefully I would be wrong, actually... — ssu

Doubtful you are wrong. Losing wars is where the money is.

I have to correct you here.

My point was not that the US is trying to crash the global economy, but that it is trying to disrupt land-based trade connections between its main rivals in order to maintain control of global trade. — Tzeentch

Maybe there is some subtlety I missed in your position, but the core of the disagreement seemed to me that you were arguing this Israeli escalation in the Middle-East served US grand strategy interests up to and including a war with Iran.

The central thesis of my rebuttal to this position is that a war with Iran would crash the global economy and I don't see that as serving US grand strategy interests.

If the position is escalation but not to the point of crashing the global economy, my rebuttal to that position is that I just don't see what more chaos the US could possibly need in the Middle-East.

Obviously there was no land trade highway about to be built through Gaza nor Lebanon, so sure trade could pass through Iran and so collapsing Iran could make "sense" in such a strategy but:

A. Genocide isn't needed to provoke a war with Iran and is anyways a liability (my main concern is arguing the genocide serves no plausible US imperial interest), and

B. A war with Iran would crash the global economy (presumably) and I don't see what the US does next ... just keep the rest of the world economy continuously crashed?? Doesn't seem possible to me over any extended period of time, but indeed would just hyper-accelerate building exactly those land corridors of which this strategy is designed to prevent.

Of course I am not disagreeing with the generalities that you present that chaos in these land corridors generally serves the whole Island-navy-vs-land geopolitical strategic approach, just not to the point of actually crashing the global economy that would have plenty of adverse effects and accelerate further opposing coalitions (which we are already seeing by simply disrupting the global economy and threatening the crash Russia as a vital supplier of resources to plenty of countries; they naturally look to secure their survival in building an alternative trading system to that of the US; which, sure, the US could embargo the whole world - I'm not denying their supremacy on the high seas - but where does that actually lead is my issue).

Which mirrors our disagreement also on escalation with China in which your position is the US could embargo China, whereas my position is the same that I see no successful pathway after crashing the global economy.

However, to be clear, I am open to such questions being answered. I'm not claiming such a strategy is impossible for US imperial custodians to be embarked on, only that I don't see what it could be; therefore, given that, I feel the data is best explained by the alternative hypothesis that these escalations serve various coalitions of US elite personal interest merely cloaked in broad strategic terms such as Israel by definition serving US interests somehow, but quite directly at the expense of US grand strategic interest.

It's not a matter of him being bought off to outright start a war which I agree he wouldn't do if the option was explicitly presented to him. However there are plenty of escalatory actions that the guy may not know is escalatory. I'm talking about him accidentally putting Iran in a position where they put Trump in a position to start a war. Perhaps he could be told that assassinating a top Iranian general in the middle of Tehran like Israel did when they killed Nasrallah would be a good idea, with assurances from Netanyahu that this definitely wouldn't get the Iranians to retaliate in a major way. He could very well be paid off to do something like that, as he was when he moved the embassy to Jerusalem. — Mr Bee

Yes, this is definitely a good explanation for all the escalation that happened during his presidency.

However, "when shit hits the fan" as it were and you need daily approval of the president for all sorts of military actions and responses, then the inability to predict Trump is a problem.

He can snub his base all he wants and they will still suck up to him. He was supposed to "drain the swamp" but his major piece of legislation was a tax cut to the rich. He was supposed to get Mexico to pay for the wall but shut down the government because congress wouldn't fund it. He was supposed to bring back jobs to the Midwest, which ironically enough happened under Biden. None of that matters. — Mr Bee

Sure, but none of that is on the scale of crashing the global economy in a mad scheme to attack Iran without an endgame.

However, as I say, if there's deescalation that is mainly due to practical factors in the scenario I propose, including what Israel now understands as practical limits.

The issue of buying Trump is related in my these only to escalating the genocide, simply to avoid paying for something you can get for free anyways under Biden. I'm not disputing you can pay Trump in one way or another to do a great many things, including continuing the Genocide but it's just economics 101 to buy from the cheaper source for the same thing (... or indeed get paid for getting it, as is currently happening under Biden; which I think is best explained by Biden's proclivity to be "grandpa awkward" around children in public translating to even more damaging video material existing in private).

Obviously Trump has no problem wither further violence against the Palestinians, but if he's asked for something he's going to want something in return.

If it was only Trump that would be an obstacle to further escalation I agree with your view that he can anyways be easily manipulated into escalation. Deescalation would be due to simply not having the means to escalate further to a desirable scenario (because Iran can fight back).

The fundamental driver of this corruption being that US elite interests diverge from any plausible objective imperial interests as soon as imperial extension reaches a peak (a rising tide no longer lifts all boats) and is greatly accelerated by the removal of an ideological threat to the whole system, such as communism.

Even if you loved the empire, as soon as there's enough US elites that rather maximize their own wealth by withdrawing US political capital (mostly by mismanaging imperial finances), then there is anyways created an elite collective action problem that if you don't defend your position in the troff then someone else will take your place anyways.

I.e. would you either spend your capital on trying to defend some plausible set of US imperial interests ... or spend your capital on getting even more capital and just move to your giant yacht in Singapore with a few backup bunkers sprinkled over the globe on various cool islands, even undersea bases like Sponge Bob Square Pants!, if it all goes tits up?

The rational choice according to US elite's own ideology is to maximize their own individual gains in this situation and not sacrifice a single dollar like a dirty communist for the good of the whole, even if the whole is the glorious empire that they'll cry single tears over saluting the flag in this case and even if the end result of transferring all the means of production to communist China in pursuing individual gains is that communism becomes the dominant force on the planet. "They're not really communists" they tell themselves, if you haven't noticed that refrain.

It is a mathematical certainty that at some point you maximize your gains by withdrawing whatever capital you can from any system you're involved in, rather than pursue the marginal gains of growing that system as a whole. I.e. at some point you maximize your gains as a US elite not by further growth of the Empire but by pursuing decreases in taxes while running up the national debt to transfer to yourself through various corrupt schemes and simply cut deals with other elites to make it happen, all of whom have an interest in doing the exact same thing.

When all is said and done you simply look at rational choice theory and pat yourself on the cock.

He's probably not knowingly gonna do something that will be akin to starting a war, but I can't definitively rule out him being duped into it. He was convinced to assassinate Soleimani after all. — Mr Bee

I don't disagree but Trump viewed assassinating Soleimani as anyways a good thing that he's super proud of and believes, possibly correctly, people are proud of him for it too, especially his base. Where I'm unsure how easy it is to buy Trump is to do something that would make him unpopular like starting a giant war that can't be won and would also cause a major economic catastrophe sending oil sky high (he's also super proud of keeping oil prices low).

Where Trump is far more interesting than Biden is that his megalomania competes with his propensity for corruption, making him unpredictable.

So, I think we are in agreement that we can't predict either way, and so Israel can't predict either way, whereas Biden and Harris are 100% predictable. However, even Harris would want something, so it's anyways cheaper to get your genocide in before the deadline.

Which is only one explanation of recent events, that we are on a deescalation track and that explains Israel's weak attack on Iran doing nothing what they promised to do and also Israel escalating in Gaza to take advantage of peak tension to distract from the genocide but also not need to spend any further political capital once there's a new president.

Of course, the alternative scenario that Israel is just waiting for the next president, whether Trump or Harris or both, to escalate, is possible but seems to me less likely as I find the better fit to the data is that the Pentagon is simply unable to wage war on Iran in any sensible way and not that Biden would be unwilling to.

I mean he has been paid off by people like Sheldon Adelson and now his wife. He was the one who ripped up the Iran deal, moved the embassy to Jerusalem, and did the Abraham Accords which bypassed the Palestinian issue. Like you said, Trump isn't knowledgeable about the middle east so he could be casually led into agreeing to things that most other presidents won't including Biden. — Mr Bee

Definitely Trump participates in these sorts of transactions but all this stuff his base also wanted. His MO is more seeing what his base wants and then maximizing his gains in following through on that.

Trump does have a strange sort of integral loyalty to his base, which is why his base is loyal to him. He is aware that his base is against more wars and he did deliver on that policy during his presidency.

He's going to wheel and deal behind the scenes to maximize his gains, do "good business with the boys" essentially, but I do feel he puts the limit on anything that would visibly upset his base, such as starting a giant war they don't want and would increase the price of oil which they also don't want.

So, totally agree with you that he was easily manipulated during his presidency to setup both further escalation in Ukraine and further escalation in the Middle-east, but also notable the "main events" didn't actually then happen during his presidency. He teed up Biden to hit it out of the park though, genocide and giant war wise.

As a result I don't see him giving a damn about the Palestinians or their plight. His administration would probably pass the responsibility to someone like his son in law Kushner who's made his intentions to build beachfront property on Gaza well known. — Mr Bee

Totally agree here. As mentioned the only reason for Israel to speed things up before the election is to simply avoid needing to negotiate with the next president. Hence, clear Northern Gaza, start settling it under the next president who won't push back on that, whether Trump or Harris, but neither need to "pay more" in one form of political capital or another for further big favours; "go back to normal" as it were. The normal money sent to Israel is controlled by congress anyways so pay days aren't going to stop; the presidency is only needed to control for military operations.

Biden is still gonna be president for a few more months so yeah the possibility of Israel starting a war with Iran isn't completely out of the question. In fact Netanyahu may be more likely to do it during the lame duck period just so he can tie the next administration's hands. If Netanyahu feels emboldened by a Trump victory to start a war with Iran that would probably be when he'd do it. Would also provide cover for his buddy Trump to pretend like he's some kind of dove too. — Mr Bee

Definitely possible. We'll need to wait and see. Trump would definitely encourage that and be like "sleepy Joe has finally woken up!"

The alternative scenario I present is conditioned on deescalation being motivated by simply a lack of means and not motivation; there's a few indications (weak response to Iran, lack of any sensible war plan to defeat Iran, lacklustre performance invading Lebanon, domestic tensions rising in Israel) to support the premise, but it could easily all be a ruse.

As I've been discussing with @Tzeentch, one possibility is the US wants to more-or-less start collapsing the global economy by massive chaos in the various Eurasian "crossroads". @Tzeentch views events in line with this general geopolitical strategy.

My own view is that events are better explained by pursuing such a strategy nominally but the essential character driving US policy being corruption; that US imperial factions are withdrawing capital from the empire (different forms of war profiteering in the case of Ukraine - military, selling gas to Europe, privatizing Ukraine and buying up the farmland, human, drug and arms trafficking - and in the case of Israel all those war profiteering motivations but also, dare I say, "propheteering" in the form of pursuing a delusional apocalyptic Zionist vision); other US elite factions "go along with it" due to inter-elite negotiations, but only up to a limit of threatening their core interests (such as actually collapsing the global economy, in the case of tech elites, or then getting into wars that can't be won, in a bad way and not a good way, such as top Pentagon generals and CIA bureaucrats, who also have say in these negotiations). I.e. geopolitical debate in the US is currently a proxy for discussing and sorting out each elite faction's share of the Imperial pie, resulting in conversation that presents itself as being about "US strategic interests" but is really about which elites are going to get what and which pipers are going to get paid along the way.

Zionists are simply one of many US elite factions in this context getting their pound of flesh.

He did suggest that Israel should attack the nuclear facilities in Iran in response to the Oct 1 attack. Of course that may be him playing politics because he thinks a war with Iran would help him but I just want to throw that out there. — Mr Bee

My basic point is that he's free to criticize Biden for not being "tough enough" as red meat to his base without having any actual intention to attack Iran. If elected he's then free to claim there was a perfect time to attack Iran but the weak Biden missed it.

Apart from that I agree that Trump's general aversion to wars will probably discourage Israel from starting a war with Iran since they won't have the ironclad guarantee that Biden would provide that the US would be involved. Of course that same assessment would also mean that entities like China and Russia would be more emboldened to invade places like Taiwan. — Mr Bee

Agreed.

Unfortunately I don't see him encouraging Netanyahu to deescalate in Gaza or Lebanon especially if the US doesn't have to get involved. Trump is also paid off by folks like Adelson too mind you so probably he'll be transactional in matters like the West Bank. — Mr Bee

Definitely possible. I'm definitely not arguing the genocide would stop under Trump, just that I find it unlikely he'll attack Iran. However, Trump being erratic and also loving good press, he may see forcing Israel to let aid in Gaza as an easy win.

Where "deals" may occur is that Israel maybe forced to deescalate anyways if it has no further possibilities of escalating and then Trump takes credit for that. I didn't make that so clear in my post above, but I didn't mean to imply that Trump would actually be the direct cause of deescalation in this scenario, just that if it happens he'll take credit for it. He would nevertheless be the indirect cause of deescalation due to being unwilling to escalate. Permanent war with Hezbollah with the US Israel may simply be forced to accept is unsustainable.

It's unclear to me what hard influence the Israeli lobby has over Trump so maybe he can be just paid off as you say, but perhaps not.

However, my main thesis here is that Israel / US simply has no practical pathway to defeat Iran without nuclear weapons and Israel is forced to deescalate not by Biden but by the Pentagon making clear they simply just go casually defeat Iran, then the deescalation would happen due to not having an option to escalate further. Which if that happens Trump will simply claim it was because of him.

The reason to escalate as far as possible now while Biden is present, try to "finish the final solution job", would be, even if Trump can simply be bought, to simply avoid needing to do that. Escalating as far as possible now and then deescalating (whether it is Trump or Harris that wins) is simply cheaper than needing to cut a deal with the next president, whether Trump or Harris.

So now Israel hit Iran by going after it's air defense. But not the nuclear sites and, of course, not yet the oil installations, which would bounce oil prices higher. — ssu

I think the better explanation is that Israel / US simply have no practical way to defeat Iran.

They've been in a delusional driven genocide with constant escalation to try to distract from the Genocide internationally (new enemies to continue to be the victim) and also maintain credibility domestically of being the superior race that can go around killing all their enemies.

Targeted assassinations is massively popular in Israel and also provokes responses that allows Israel to claim to be the victim.

I honestly think the "win" strategy was nuclear weapons but they were simply unable to maintain the delusion level required to followthrough. The spell of invincibility broke between due to Iran's missile attack demonstrating Israeli air defence doesn't work so well (so Iran can cause significant damage conventionally) and also the pentagon simply having no plan to actually defeat Iran (Israel overconfidence likely includes overconfidence in US capacity as well).

Seems like Bibi listened to the US administration and now waits just how the US elections are going to go.

If Trump get's into office, will then the nuclear sites be targeted? — ssu

My bet is that it is in fact the reverse, that Biden is the one 100% captured by the Zionists and they are pushing a max the genocide and attacking everyone else because Biden is president, but there simply a practical limit of how far you can actually go.

When Trump talks about Iran he never mentions a need to attack them but just goes on about how he sanctioned them and they were broke and he kept the price of oil down and they would never dare due anything because he's Trump etc. A major component of Trump's rise to power initially was his calling out the wars in the middle-east as failures as he knew they were unpopular.

Biden's Zionist support is quite clearly due to lobby capture and is super bad for him and Kamala, as an obvious genocide isn't popular with democrats, and Trump has no need to criticize Biden from the left, he can just vaguely claim that Hamas would never have tried anything when he was in power and he's going to solve everything.

Trump's base is pro-Israel so he knows it wouldn't be popular to go anti-Israel but if he was intent on attacking Iran we'd probably know that. Mostly when he talks about the issue it demonstrates he just doesn't know much about any of the Middle-East conflicts and isn't too interested in them: he just claims no one would try anything when he's president and that he bankrupted Iran with the sanctions and keeping the oil price down.

Trump's MO on national security is to escalate rhetoric to appear tough and then be the reasonable person that brings peace with his brilliant negotiation tactics. He was bragging on Joe Rogan that he would bring Bolton, who he called a nut job (accurately) to international diplomatic meetings to scare people and that he used Bolton that way. Now, whether this sort of negotiation tactics are effective or not is one question but what's clear is that despite all Trump's many failings he simply not a warmonger and does stay true to his "businessman persona" or focusing on deals and economics (what he's most excited about is tariffs).

Not that Trump is any friend of the Palestinians, literally using it as an insult, so the genocide may continue, but I find it unlikely that Trump is itching to get into office to escalate unwindable wars in the Middle East. He absolutely loves the Saudis for instance and the Saudis don't want a regional war so he's have plenty of reasons to deescalate and cut deals and claim diplomatic brilliance and that he's saved the lives of all the people over there.

Wheres Biden simply gets slapped down when he tries to "talk back" to Netanyahu, Trump may simply do that and force Netanyahu to deescalate (which the US could easily do).

Most of all, I would guess is what preoccupies Trump's the most is on all his legal battles and nearly being assassinated and so on and he's going to deal with all that, as we've discussed before.

Naturally all the above is guess work as he's highly erratic while also gaining in experience. He no longer has such singular focuses as he did before and also now knows better how the system operates and can be manipulated.

Wheres when he got elected the first time he was easy to predict that he'd just keep being Trump and running is mouth constantly and fighting with the media and constantly tweeting whatever crosses and being extremely naive how the political system actually worked, he has learned a lot since so what he actually plans to do is anyone's guess, but I don't find it likely his focus will be to attack Iran is my main point here.

There's really only one way to get into philosophy in a serious way and that is a university library and following your interest through as many philosophy books as possible as well as related subjects.

Depending on where you live this maybe a more or less difficult task, may require negotiating with the librarians and other administrators if you're not associated with the university in anyway, may require being persistent, in which case local public libraries, used book stores etc. may have a few books.

But there's really no substitution for a university library and once you get to the philosophy section in such a library you'll understand what I mean.

There's no substituting reading the source material. Other material about this source material is complimentary, but not a substitute.

History of philosophy without any gaps is a pretty great and pretty comprehensive free introduction however.

In calling the deliberate murder and rape of civilians "legitimate resistance" you only expose your own moral bankruptcy. — BitconnectCarlos

The only rape in all these events that's actually proven is the Israelis raping prisoners on camera.

How do you explain that?

Ah yes ...

"Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty" - J. Goebbels. — BitconnectCarlos

How dare they react. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, how dare they react to legitimate resistance to occupation by committing genocide.

Who would believe that bullshit, right? Well, as it turns out a lot of people continue to believe that bullshit. Propaganda is a powerful thing. — Tzeentch

Agreed. No qualms from me on that one.

And if we're honest, how is Gaza any different from the de facto and actual genocides the US has perpetrated and supported, like those in Vietnam, East-Timor and the Middle-East, with casualty figures running into the millions? — Tzeentch

Definitely, why I stressed genocide is not something American imperial custodians are against per se, just that this particular genocide doesn't serve US imperial interests.

Main difference is that this genocide is being broadcast live and there's also no plausible deniability, muddy the waters, kind of usual bullshit people easily swallow as you mention above. Israeli officials literally just get up on podiums and declare their intention to starve the Palestinians, that rape is ok, that they're animals, that children are just future terrorists and must be killed etc.

Normally you have clear evidence of mass murder on the one hand and a long winded plausible deniability bullshit narrative on the other and most people are then like "huh, who's to say what happened".

It's crazy, but they continue to get away with it. I can't blame the Americans for thinking they'll get away with it again. — Tzeentch

But they didn't!

The famous child burning photograph turned public opinion against the war, massive protests, huge cultural change.

It was so shocking to American elites that they did not in fact get away with it, they wanted to "win the war", that they completely reorganized the military, and in particular the draft, in order to be sure not to be bothered by public opinion in subsequent wars they will want to wage.

Of course, US remained a superpower and the threat of the Soviet Union was still current and so on and there were plenty of "rational" parties involved in US politics at the time.

For example, in 1975 you not only have the end of the Vietnam war but also the Churchill committee that investigated the CIA (for the first and only time). That no one was held accountable represents the fact corruption wins out over democracy basically in a process that continues to this day getting more and more corrupt all the time, but the fact the investigation happened at all represents things were on a knifes edge. It could have easily gone another way.

It's crazy, but they continue to get away with it. I can't blame the Americans for thinking they'll get away with it again.

I'm open to the possibility that they won't - times are changing - but that will require US assets from putting their money where their mouth is. No sign of that so far. Just "Oooh"ing and "Aaah"ing. — Tzeentch

Well there's two forms of getting away with it.

There's the "getting away with it" in terms of not being held accountable for law breaking and incompetence, starting a war on fabricated intelligence and lying to congress and the public and so on, and then "getting away with it" in terms of wasting the Imperial capital stocks of one form or another doesn't exactly collapse the empire and there is plenty left still to loot.

Soviet elites "got away with it" in both sense for quite some time and continued to "get away with it" in the various former Soviet republics.

Of course, if the US Imperial tributes suffers enough then there could be elite re-alignment to fix things, such as we saw with the re-ascendency of Russia under Putin, of which the key element was Putin putting in place a system of elite discipline (that is the key to play the geopolitical game coherently which Putin definitely understood from day 1; of course, who knows what will happen once he's gone if he's the linchpin in this strategic alignment).

Iran and Afghanistan are part of the same geographical region, so in my opinion this is not so strange.

Afghanistan has been wrecked, while Iran is now threatening to jump the gun on US intervention.

So the switch makes sense, and again I see continuity. — Tzeentch

Did Afghanistan really need to be wrecked? Was the Taliban building some cutting edged economic centre and I just missed it?

But my point was if you really want a war with Iran how do you geographically go about doing that without Afghanistan or Iraq?

So you really need to war game this out in detail. Obviously there's no actual plan to invade Iran, the best that can be done is a lot of chaos which would shut down oil exports from the region and (maybe collapse is too strong a word but) basically "not goodify" the global economy, seriously pissing off everyone in particular China. Is the expectation that China just accepts loss of oil imports from the Middle-East (and a lot of other people too)? Is Europe super happy about this?

There's the critical need of the oil, the super bad press of Israel committing a genocide, so how does the US maintain a forever war in the Middle-East between Iran and Israel without a coalition forming big enough to intervene?

Don't get me wrong, I do get the basic geopolitical idea of crashing the rest of the global economy and then sitting pretty in North America ... but how do you actually go about doing that?

Life ... finds a way.

As otherwise, the disruption must be only acute the time to accomplish some terminal objectives, such as invading and occupying Iran, which you'd definitely want to be in Afghanistan and Iraq to actually go about actually doing (which there is zero indication that the US can do, even when it was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even less indication that the US is actually preparing to do such a thing).

Yep. It's all bullshit.

I'm as surprised as you are that people keep falling for this shit, but alas here we are.

By bombing Nord Stream the US has rolled out a plan that has been in place since at least 2014, of transferring European energy dependency from Russia to the US.

And the US has succeeded. Germany and the rest of Europe took it like a bitch. The US reaps the benefits. — Tzeentch

US elites reap benefits from harming Europe and forcing Europe to buy US gas.

The US empire benefited from a strong Europe. The whole reason the US can abuse European allies to begin with is that they are such diehard allies. They were far more useful to US imperialism with vibrant economies that can help balance against China.

The reasons to "take out" Europe are only sensical due to previous US imperial mismanagement, such as removing the Euro as competition for the dollar ... which only makes sense to do if you've already greatly mismanaged the dollar ... and doesn't actually solve the fundamental issues so only delays the day of financial reckoning.

Cannibalizing allies is again a sign of imperial decline.

Maybe this is true, but I will believe it only when the US empire is definitively put in the trashbin of history. Until that happens, history shows they're way too dangerous to underestimate. — Tzeentch

Yes, we shall definitely see.

However, just like Russia has gone through many phases of Imperial expansion and decline, and the corruption and discipline of each phase, and China for even longer, so too can America go through it's first imperial decline and reemerge later.

The great powers rarely just "go away" completely since the globalized international system started to form.

What's different now is nuclear weapons and environmental limits.

Either, or both, will kill billions of people in our lifetime. Which is unfortunate.

We actually agree that the plane is definitely going down, however I think a better representation of our arguments is "Plan vs. No plan", and to that end I've tried to repeatedly point out that there is clear continuity in US policy over the course of decades, both with regards to Ukraine and Iran.

A continuity that is in line with geopolitical theories like for example Heartland theory by Mackinder and Geographical Pivot theory by Brzezinski. — Tzeentch

In this case, we are pretty close in overall position.

However, my view is simply "there is a plan" is too strong wording. I think more accurate terminology is there is a framework for discussing plans that derives from dry geopolitical analysis of the kind you mention.

My position is that what plans actually get implemented, what decisions and policies the US government actually makes, are heavily affected by corruption as to make the moves incoherent on closer inspection. This incoherence is due to the primary motivation of various moves being extracting value from the Empire rather than trying to maintain it.

These other priorities of elite decision makes will be mediated through discussions nominally just about "geopolitics as usual" and "serious analysis" but without genuine engagement with any long term coherent thought process concerning what the interests of the US empire actually are.

For example, we go from abandoning Afghanistan and "fighting for democracy" there to a discourse of fighting for democracy in Ukraine as the most important thing to ever happen and Putin is literally Hitler and a genocidal maniac ... to supporting an actual genocide in Gaza!?

... and then escalate to regional war with Iran ... which the whole point of abandoning Afghanistan was that Iran was no longer such a big priority and the region generally, time to pivot to East-Asa.

All in the span of 3 years.

Add into that blowing up critical infrastructure of key allies, going from decades of the war on terror to now conducting state terrorism openly is ok and actually super clever if you kill some enemies in their living rooms with their families, running low of ammunition after decades of outspending essentially the rest of the world on the military for decades (where'd the money go??) and so on.

Yes, there is a planning framework that decisions and policies are hung on, but the incoherence is best explained by corruption: Afghanistan was about transferring wealth to military contractors and only nominally about something about Iran, and Ukraine about deflecting from the Afghanistan disaster while continuing to transfer a large amount of wealth to military contractors (and get blackjack in there and burry Biden family corruption in Ukraine by literally destroying the country), and then Zionists are further taking advantage of a weak Imperial centre to conduct a genocide which they've always wanted to do and perhaps feel now or never in reading the same tea leaves we are reading.

I.e. the characteristic feature of an empire in decline is elites transferring Imperial wealth to themselves, poor decision making and other misuses of the empire for elite personal aspirations (toxic elite "infighting" of one form or another).

... And neither do Americans. — Tzeentch

Sure, everyone has a plan.

The main point I'm trying to make is we're in a phase where the top elites, what I refer to as the Imperial primary beneficiaries, have personal plans that are more important to them than the interests of the empire.

Which is exactly what your reference strikes at the heart of, that individuals can have plans widely at odds with whatever official plans exist.

When an empire is on the ascendency there is strategic alignment between a dominant majority of Imperial elites, due to both external threats and the prospect of imperial booty of one form or another.

A near universal feature of imperial decline is strategic misalignment between Imperial elites and the interests of the empire, which leads to corruption and elite conflict.

The continuity of policy can represent the continuity of strategic thinking, as you say, but it can also represent the continuity of elite interests who only dress the policies up as serving some strategic purpose.

Corruption usually goes to some length to dress itself up as legitimate.