EPTTrump isn't above selling out UA military secrets - if only putin sends the model named "ivanka" for the next golden shower he receives in moscow.
Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 781
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KT_Elwood
Germany1105 Posts
Trump isn't above selling out UA military secrets - if only putin sends the model named "ivanka" for the next golden shower he receives in moscow. | ||
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ETisME
12632 Posts
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2016/02/is-europe-a-weak-global-player/ EU military weakness isn't anything new, it happened in Obama era 2006. The NATO joint action in 2011, had the US side saying the weakness of European army may lead to future US leaders rethinking if it's worth the investment, which is potentially what may happen. I think it's just too late. There's just too much pride and need for moral high ground even if it just needs to execute. And I don't see it has the economic power to actually scramble a decent army. Poland had to fight in court against EU just to stop migrant crisis for couple of years, and it's still facing EU threats this year. It's probably one of the only nations in EU that has been doing the right thing, growing its military strength (ranked amongst top 3 nations within NATO), defending border with decent economy. As for skepticism about US going up against China, yeah it's a lot of theories but I don't see it that way. EU don't always support US policies as well, look at it struggling to balance China and US, Israel and Palestine. The reason no one talks much about it and all the fearmonger, is because EU actions has less significance. The nuclear option (cut off SWIFT access) didn't hurt Russia enough to collapse the economy, it instead made Russia rely on China, and economic resilience in that region.Russia now has a large debt to answer to China, and strengthen their ties more than ever. To the US, China's threat is multitude larger than everything else. It's actually challenging the free world dominate position, and EU wouldn't be freed from it. Look at Eastern Europe turning to Russia and China. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
What is a ‘decent army’ and what do you want to do with it? The EU is struggling to throw a bunch of surplus hardware towards Ukraine, a conflict they’re reticent to directly involve themselves in for obvious reasons. Equally, Russia has been bogged down in Ukraine for 3 years, if we’re talking Russia actually encroaching on NATO/EU territory, how’s that look? That aside there seems to be some fundamental misunderstanding of how (many) Europeans think, what they value and want by and large. Ya gotta militarise and de-regulate to be competitive, ya gotta drop all this ‘green’ nonsense and whatnot. Close the auld borders to refugees while you’re at it. Many folks don’t want these things. It doesn’t mean we’re all peaceniks, or hate economic growth or anything, but there’s a broad appetite that it should be in service to other goals and not the end goal in and of itself. Europe/the EU does have big looming problems, obviously. But I think it’s going to take the form of more and more fragmentation across the bloc as nationalism takes more and more of a hold, and various nations insist on being useful idiots for Russia. If Europe wants to be an effective, somewhat moderating third player alongside the US and China moving forward, it needs to be more, not less cohesive. But I’m not sure that’s really the direction of travel. | ||
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KT_Elwood
Germany1105 Posts
GOOD! The activists started fading into "real world" about a year ago, and the stance of the most likely "chancelor to be" Friedrich Merz (whom I don't like) is: "Yeah, people realized that germany is putting out 2% of the worlds GHG emissions and only represent 1% of the world's population.. but how does it help to bring that down to 1% if we lose all our wealth and set a bad example? Germany needs to invent a better model of harvesting energy, doing transportation etc. . Technology and a way that other countries want and NEED to copy because it's more viable than burning through finite ressources." And I agree 101%. If you don't want to send troops to saudi arabia and norway, to blow up oilrigs, you need to present people an alternative. Otherwise every country you talk out of oil, will have 5 other countries taking the production because it's cheaper now. | ||
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0x64
Finland4601 Posts
On February 21 2025 20:30 ETisME wrote: The EU has failed the alliance and for far too long. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2016/02/is-europe-a-weak-global-player/ EU military weakness isn't anything new, it happened in Obama era 2006. The NATO joint action in 2011, had the US side saying the weakness of European army may lead to future US leaders rethinking if it's worth the investment, which is potentially what may happen. I think it's just too late. There's just too much pride and need for moral high ground even if it just needs to execute. And I don't see it has the economic power to actually scramble a decent army. Poland had to fight in court against EU just to stop migrant crisis for couple of years, and it's still facing EU threats this year. It's probably one of the only nations in EU that has been doing the right thing, growing its military strength (ranked amongst top 3 nations within NATO), defending border with decent economy. As for skepticism about US going up against China, yeah it's a lot of theories but I don't see it that way. EU don't always support US policies as well, look at it struggling to balance China and US, Israel and Palestine. The reason no one talks much about it and all the fearmonger, is because EU actions has less significance. The nuclear option (cut off SWIFT access) didn't hurt Russia enough to collapse the economy, it instead made Russia rely on China, and economic resilience in that region.Russia now has a large debt to answer to China, and strengthen their ties more than ever. To the US, China's threat is multitude larger than everything else. It's actually challenging the free world dominate position, and EU wouldn't be freed from it. Look at Eastern Europe turning to Russia and China. You say in the same sentence that cutting Russia from SWIFT did not hurt enough to collapse. But hurting enough, to make it a Chinese vassal state was probably the biggest calculation mistake of all those sanctions. And this was highly foreseeable. The SWIFT move was always weird anyway, because it is a technical sanction. It like Adobe blocking you from using Photoshop... Sure you need to learn a new software but that new software gets incentives to be improved and implement what the original was doing well. The pride and moral high ground you are talking about is not exactly true. All military budget have been raised significantly since the war began. EU has easily the economic power needed. But thanks to geographic distance with Russia, nukes are always the first threat. EU being able to easily crush Russia is not as positive and necessary as you make it seems. Catch 22. You have to build an army strong and expensive, but if you do, you can't use it without nuking. If you don't, Russia keeps being an asshole to anyone who will not provoke the launch of a nuke. Currently, NATO bases keep Baltics safe to a level that if they were even remotely open, Putin would have never even started with Ukraine. So basically, if Russia get time to rebuild, I am freaking building as many nuke silo in the Baltic as they wish to have, and give them the keys of the car. Remember everyone the KSS rule. Keep Summer Safe. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18184 Posts
On February 22 2025 17:29 KT_Elwood wrote: Climate change has completely vanished from german pre-election talking points. GOOD! The activists started fading into "real world" about a year ago, and the stance of the most likely "chancelor to be" Friedrich Merz (whom I don't like) is: "Yeah, people realized that germany is putting out 2% of the worlds GHG emissions and only represent 1% of the world's population.. but how does it help to bring that down to 1% if we lose all our wealth and set a bad example? Germany needs to invent a better model of harvesting energy, doing transportation etc. . Technology and a way that other countries want and NEED to copy because it's more viable than burning through finite ressources." And I agree 101%. If you don't want to send troops to saudi arabia and norway, to blow up oilrigs, you need to present people an alternative. Otherwise every country you talk out of oil, will have 5 other countries taking the production because it's cheaper now. The economy started tanking over Russian gas, which was a miscalculation by Mertz's predecessor that Germany (and Europe in general) should've started correcting in 2014 when it was clear the economic integration strategy just wasn't working on Putin. Energy prices are still relatively high and unless Germany suddenly find their own easily exploitable gas fields, that problem is going to remain for the foreseeable future, whether they build new power solutions that are green, or whether they build a bunch of coal powered monstrosities: that solution won't be online for a while. Nuclear would've been a good option if they hadn't spent the past 20+ years shuttering all nuclear power programs: starting that back up is going to take a long time (but should also be part of the long-term solution). Blaming climate change policies for the energy crisis is demagoguery. The green transition has nothing to do with the energy crisis, and unless Mertz's plan is to lift sanctions and start guzzling Russian gas again, the green transition is going to have to be part of the solution. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
There are many potential wins there, it feels some folks are so blinded by associative hate of those stinking liberal Commies that some will just reject anything green almost out of hand. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On February 22 2025 18:14 0x64 wrote: You say in the same sentence that cutting Russia from SWIFT did not hurt enough to collapse. But hurting enough, to make it a Chinese vassal state was probably the biggest calculation mistake of all those sanctions. And this was highly foreseeable. The SWIFT move was always weird anyway, because it is a technical sanction. It like Adobe blocking you from using Photoshop... Sure you need to learn a new software but that new software gets incentives to be improved and implement what the original was doing well. The pride and moral high ground you are talking about is not exactly true. All military budget have been raised significantly since the war began. EU has easily the economic power needed. But thanks to geographic distance with Russia, nukes are always the first threat. EU being able to easily crush Russia is not as positive and necessary as you make it seems. [b]Catch 22. You have to build an army strong and expensive, but if you do, you can't use it without nuking. If you don't, Russia keeps being an asshole to anyone who will not provoke the launch of a nuke.[\b] Currently, NATO bases keep Baltics safe to a level that if they were even remotely open, Putin would have never even started with Ukraine. So basically, if Russia get time to rebuild, I am freaking building as many nuke silo in the Baltic as they wish to have, and give them the keys of the car. Remember everyone the KSS rule. Keep Summer Safe. Aye, basically. At least in this theatre. Further abroad, what are the advantages of big military increases? If you have/want to acquire footholds and influence in foreign locales. Or defend allies abroad versus threats from non-nuclear powers. Finally there’s that band between genuine custodian/guardian style peacekeeping operations, or more contentious but ostensibly peace-oriented foreign interventions. Most European nations don’t have big overseas holdings and interests, and those that do that grip is loosening anyway with the passage of time. Conditions now are thus that if you missed out on good old-fashioned colonialism back in the day, you’re not gonna be able to do it now. If the nuclear question basically renders the threat near your borders moot as it comes to conventional military force, unless you want to rule an Empire with an iron fist, or do your own Iraq, you get diminishing returns on that military spend. There’s also the external power dynamic, but internally within Europe. It doesn’t matter how much say, Denmark spends on its military, it can’t just go off and do its own thing if that thing displeases say, France or the UK. Denmark is still going to need others to have its back if Trump’s US follows through with this Greenland shite. Not to say everything is perfect, but more broadly collective European security makes a lot of sense both pragmatically as well as ideologically. If that broad ideological buy-in into this kind of approach dissipates, which I fear it might, then we’re in real trouble. | ||
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Sent.
Poland9267 Posts
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Biff The Understudy
France7950 Posts
On February 22 2025 17:29 KT_Elwood wrote: Climate  change  Has completely vanished from german pre-election talking points.GOOD! The activists started fading into "real world" about a year ago, and the stance of the most likely "chancelor to be" Friedrich meRz (whom I don't like) is:"  Yeah, people realized that germany is putting out 2% of the worlds GHG emissions and only represent 1% of the world's population.. but How does it heLp to bring that down to 1% if we lose all our wealth and set a Bad example? Germany needs to invent a better model of harvesting energy, doing transportation etc. . Technology and a Way that other countries WanT and NEED to copy because it's more viable than BurNing through finite ressources."And I agree 101%. If you don't WanT to send troops to saudi arabia and norway, to blow up oilrigs, you need to present people an alternative. Otherwise every country you talk out of oil, will have 5 other countries taking the production because it's cheaper now.Yeah let’s not mention an existential crisis we have totally ignored for the last forty years. Let’s not change our lifestyle, let’s not rethink our model. Let’s keep pumping CO2 and keep asphyxiating our world, acidifying our oceans and make large portions of the earth, that just happened to be the most populated ones, uninhabitable in a couple of decades. And since we are being really that stupid, let’s in the same breath complain about migrants, because there won’t be any migrants when hundreds of millions don’t have a place to live once their countries are reduced to deserts. I think we are too dumb to make it as a species. That’s my conclusion from the last ten years and the last six months in particular. We are not gonna make it, and frankly, that’s fine. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17601 Posts
On February 22 2025 18:53 Acrofales wrote: The economy started tanking over Russian gas, which was a miscalculation by Mertz's predecessor that Germany (and Europe in general) should've started correcting in 2014 when it was clear the economic integration strategy just wasn't working on Putin. Energy prices are still relatively high and unless Germany suddenly find their own easily exploitable gas fields, that problem is going to remain for the foreseeable future, whether they build new power solutions that are green, or whether they build a bunch of coal powered monstrosities: that solution won't be online for a while. Nuclear would've been a good option if they hadn't spent the past 20+ years shuttering all nuclear power programs: starting that back up is going to take a long time (but should also be part of the long-term solution). Blaming climate change policies for the energy crisis is demagoguery. The green transition has nothing to do with the energy crisis, and unless Mertz's plan is to lift sanctions and start guzzling Russian gas again, the green transition is going to have to be part of the solution. I think we can thank Trump for fucking up USA's relations with its allies because now thanks to the new tariffs and such Canada is planning on selling its LNG to Europe instead of US (and Canada is responsible for over 90% of US LNG imports). This way they hurt USA and Europe gets a new source of potentially reasonably priced gas. | ||
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Hat Trick of Today
165 Posts
On February 23 2025 13:10 Manit0u wrote: I think we can thank Trump for fucking up USA's relations with its allies because now thanks to the new tariffs and such Canada is planning on selling its LNG to Europe instead of US (and Canada is responsible for over 90% of US LNG imports). This way they hurt USA and Europe gets a new source of potentially reasonably priced gas. There’s zero reason to trust the United States because everyone can see how malicious a large chunk of the country is. They can also see how ineffectual the resistance from the other chunk of the country is. There is no return from this. You can’t even trust the US can even hold up their end of the bargain when it comes to military exports anymore, which was a primary reason why most countries were more than willing to buy US surplus hardware or pay out of the ass for whatever toy the MIC just created. You paid for hardware, you would eventually get hardware. But currently there is a guy threatening Ukraine to hand over their minerals or else lose access to Starlink. There’s a good reason why US MIC stocks aren’t doing too hot while European MIC stocks are getting the juice right now (thanks Rheinmetall for juicing my stock portfolio). You might as well build domestically at this point, countries like Germany can put those turfed industrial workers to use. Say what you want about China, they’re pretty clear about their transactional demands. | ||
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Excludos
Norway8231 Posts
On February 23 2025 05:08 Biff The Understudy wrote: Yeah let’s not mention an existential crisis we have totally ignored for the last forty years. Let’s not change our lifestyle, let’s not rethink our model. Let’s keep pumping CO2 and keep asphyxiating our world, acidifying our oceans and make large portions of the earth, that just happened to be the most populated ones, uninhabitable in a couple of decades. And since we are being really that stupid, let’s in the same breath complain about migrants, because there won’t be any migrants when hundreds of millions don’t have a place to live once their countries are reduced to deserts. I think we are too dumb to make it as a species. That’s my conclusion from the last ten years and the last six months in particular. We are not gonna make it, and frankly, that’s fine. Might as well forget about it. We humans are completely and wholly incapable og being "slightly uncomfortable" to fix future problems. Just look at every current politician losing their elections because prices have gone up a little bit. Americans were willing to elect a leader who's sole purpose is to destroy their society for the gain of the already rich, all because of prices of eggs. It has to get much much worse before it can get better. And then pray it's not too late | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17601 Posts
On February 24 2025 04:47 Excludos wrote: Might as well forget about it. We humans are completely and wholly incapable og being "slightly uncomfortable" to fix future problems. Just look at every current politician losing their elections because prices have gone up a little bit. Americans were willing to elect a leader who's sole purpose is to destroy their society for the gain of the already rich, all because of prices of eggs. It has to get much much worse before it can get better. And then pray it's not too late I do hope that the US can get a grip on themselves and maybe impeach Trump (again) before everything will go down the drain. I'm not a fan of the US global hegemony but I'm also aware that currently there are no other alternatives and if the US will go down it'll basically destabilize the entire world. I'm not really keen on seeing BRICS actually work and get on top of things. That would be a disaster. Thankfully China isn't doing so hot either right now but it's not really a topic for this thread. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12379 Posts
On February 24 2025 04:47 Excludos wrote: Might as well forget about it. We humans are completely and wholly incapable og being "slightly uncomfortable" to fix future problems. Just look at every current politician losing their elections because prices have gone up a little bit. Americans were willing to elect a leader who's sole purpose is to destroy their society for the gain of the already rich, all because of prices of eggs. It has to get much much worse before it can get better. And then pray it's not too late That's one way to look at it, the other is that the elite and their politicians were willing to risk destabilizing their entire society just so they wouldn't have to improve in any way the conditions for people who are impacted by the price of eggs. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On February 24 2025 06:12 Nebuchad wrote: That's one way to look at it, the other is that the elite and their politicians were willing to risk destabilizing their entire society just so they wouldn't have to improve in any way the conditions for people who are impacted by the price of eggs. I think at some point the elite have to stop taking all the blame for our collective woes. Like, they don’t even really need to try anymore. Second there’s some slight bump in the road of almost any kind and big chunks of society gravitate to throwing others, or the resolution of tricky problems, under the bus. I don’t think people are giant assholes by and large either, I just wonder if there’s too many degrees of abstraction in this modern world. I also can’t blame folks for a degree of skepticism. They’d be more willing to suck up some privation if they had confidence that it would be for some future good. Whereas if the social contract has been ripped in half, set on fire and then the ashes pissed on, why would this time, or next time be any different? | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12379 Posts
On February 24 2025 06:44 WombaT wrote: I think at some point the elite have to stop taking all the blame for our collective woes. Like, they don’t even really need to try anymore. Second there’s some slight bump in the road of almost any kind and big chunks of society gravitate to throwing others, or the resolution of tricky problems, under the bus. I don’t think people are giant assholes by and large either, I just wonder if there’s too many degrees of abstraction in this modern world. I also can’t blame folks for a degree of skepticism. They’d be more willing to suck up some privation if they had confidence that it would be for some future good. Whereas if the social contract has been ripped in half, set on fire and then the ashes pissed on, why would this time, or next time be any different? They currently aren't taking any of the blame so I think we're not at risk of them taking all of it  On an individual level obviously voting to make things worse is a bad decision and they're going to deserve blame for it. It's not very interesting though, we're just seeing that when people don't like the current state of things in a two party system, at the next opportunity given the guy from the other side gets elected, that just tends to happen. I don't think there's a lot of value to drawing big conclusions from something that has always happened happening again. I do agree that the situation is fucked up though, and I think I'm offering a better framing for getting mad at it. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26225 Posts
On February 24 2025 07:05 Nebuchad wrote: They currently aren't taking any of the blame so I think we're not at risk of them taking all of it On an individual level obviously voting to make things worse is a bad decision and they're going to deserve blame for it. It's not very interesting though, we're just seeing that when people don't like the current state of things in a two party system, at the next opportunity given the guy from the other side gets elected, that just tends to happen. I don't think there's a lot of value to drawing big conclusions from something that has always happened happening again. I do agree that the situation is fucked up though, and I think I'm offering a better framing for getting mad at it. Taking the blame, and actually having consequences attached to that are two very different things. My framing is that one is dealing with extremely large, extremely complicated systems and some ascribe too much value to specific parts of those complex systems. I’d argue for example that Brexit, and both, or at least definitely 2016 were outcomes the elite as it were very much didn’t desire, but happened nonetheless. It’s a barrier that can be punched through. Or more widely we’ve tended to see some rejection of previous orthodoxy, but the right thru far right have generally been the beneficiaries in recent times across quite a few different places. Be they de facto 2 party systems, or multi-party ones that operate with proportional representation or whatever. Anyway my central contention isn’t to fire blame all over the shop, merely that Joe and Jane public bear plenty of responsibility as well as Joe and Jane CEO big party donor. Things have been actively moving in a direction that’s broadly for the worst for a fair chunk of time now, even in places where there are realistic alternatives. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12379 Posts
On February 24 2025 08:55 WombaT wrote: Taking the blame, and actually having consequences attached to that are two very different things. My framing is that one is dealing with extremely large, extremely complicated systems and some ascribe too much value to specific parts of those complex systems. I’d argue for example that Brexit, and both, or at least definitely 2016 were outcomes the elite as it were very much didn’t desire, but happened nonetheless. It’s a barrier that can be punched through. Or more widely we’ve tended to see some rejection of previous orthodoxy, but the right thru far right have generally been the beneficiaries in recent times across quite a few different places. Be they de facto 2 party systems, or multi-party ones that operate with proportional representation or whatever. Anyway my central contention isn’t to fire blame all over the shop, merely that Joe and Jane public bear plenty of responsibility as well as Joe and Jane CEO big party donor. Things have been actively moving in a direction that’s broadly for the worst for a fair chunk of time now, even in places where there are realistic alternatives. I perceive the complexity of the systems as largely manufactured. I do not believe that the important thing that changed between, say, 1960 and today is that humans changed. Systems changed, they became worse, and that reflects on what humans believe. Humans in a society will naturally perceive the options that are directly available to them as acceptable and practical, and the options that require a lot of work to achieve as idealistic and offputting. I firmly believe that if you had a two-party system of socialists and social democrats, the humans of 2024 would be having political discussions between socialism and social democrats. Of course I can't prove that but it seems to fit the evolution of society better. | ||
KwarK
United States43458 Posts
On February 24 2025 08:55 WombaT wrote: Taking the blame, and actually having consequences attached to that are two very different things. My framing is that one is dealing with extremely large, extremely complicated systems and some ascribe too much value to specific parts of those complex systems. I’d argue for example that Brexit, and both, or at least definitely 2016 were outcomes the elite as it were very much didn’t desire, but happened nonetheless. It’s a barrier that can be punched through. Or more widely we’ve tended to see some rejection of previous orthodoxy, but the right thru far right have generally been the beneficiaries in recent times across quite a few different places. Be they de facto 2 party systems, or multi-party ones that operate with proportional representation or whatever. Anyway my central contention isn’t to fire blame all over the shop, merely that Joe and Jane public bear plenty of responsibility as well as Joe and Jane CEO big party donor. Things have been actively moving in a direction that’s broadly for the worst for a fair chunk of time now, even in places where there are realistic alternatives. Brexit was very much desired by the elite, just not the British elite. | ||
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