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On March 04 2025 20:01 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2025 19:52 ETisME wrote: There is no peace deal that last forever, or else we would have solved war.
I think Europe post-WW2 kinda got it out of their system (at least when it comes to fighting within Europe itself). Turns out in the modern world everyone benefits more if there is no war. Who would've thought? So far that is. We are in the era of degloblisation because protectionism/localism and state led market (but hyper capitalism) seems to have worked extremely well in both China and India. as long as we are in a world with limited resources, benefits don't flow equally and that includes critical supplies.
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On March 04 2025 20:39 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2025 10:08 Falling wrote: Well sure, but Russia has a track record of not honouring agreements, so it follows that Zelensky's number one question is... okay, so what happens if Russia doesn't honour the deal?
Even if Trump is right- that Putin will never attack because of Trump's personal guarantee. Who cares, Russia seems to take a five year pause to build up and take the next swing... by then Trump's out of office and Putin's ready to go again. And even if Trump is going for a third term, unless Trump plans to live forever, Trump's say so as the single guarantee that Putin won't do nothing means nothing. You also cannot force other country to give security guarantee, especially up against a nuclear arm bearing nation. Similarly, I have no problem with Ukraine not taking it and hope for better. When people are talking about security guarantees they are not talking about Russia. Russia giving guarantees is meaningless because Russia's word is meaningless as they have repeatedly demonstrated.
What Ukraine needs is to be part of Western mutual defence agreements as a security guarantee. Which is also why "Ukraine can't do that" is part of every Russian acceptable deal.
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On March 04 2025 20:01 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2025 19:52 ETisME wrote: There is no peace deal that last forever, or else we would have solved war.
I think Europe post-WW2 kinda got it out of their system (at least when it comes to fighting within Europe itself). Turns out in the modern world everyone benefits more if there is no war. Who would've thought? And all it took was to be split into US and Soviet spheres of control with no independence to wage war among themselves. After all, this war could only have happened due to collapse of Soviet power.
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Northern Ireland25392 Posts
On March 04 2025 22:19 pmp10 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2025 20:01 Manit0u wrote:On March 04 2025 19:52 ETisME wrote: There is no peace deal that last forever, or else we would have solved war.
I think Europe post-WW2 kinda got it out of their system (at least when it comes to fighting within Europe itself). Turns out in the modern world everyone benefits more if there is no war. Who would've thought? And all it took was to be split into US and Soviet spheres of control with no independence to wage war among themselves. After all, this war could only have happened due to collapse of Soviet power. There’s also really no appetite for it.
I think it goes pretty understated quite how much of a policy and cultural triumph that actually was/is.
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6head, ackshually: Ukraine attacks Poland, art.5 gets triggered, then, to prevent further hostile ukrainian actions, NATO enters Ukraine.
GG
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On March 04 2025 20:48 ETisME wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2025 20:01 Manit0u wrote:On March 04 2025 19:52 ETisME wrote: There is no peace deal that last forever, or else we would have solved war.
I think Europe post-WW2 kinda got it out of their system (at least when it comes to fighting within Europe itself). Turns out in the modern world everyone benefits more if there is no war. Who would've thought? So far that is. We are in the era of degloblisation because protectionism/localism and state led market (but hyper capitalism) seems to have worked extremely well in both China and India. as long as we are in a world with limited resources, benefits don't flow equally and that includes critical supplies.
I wouldn't really look at China and India for examples. They have pretty much unlimited manpower (those two countries are like 50% of total human population). Both are also vastly different from Europe. China is basically ruled by the single party with heavy censorship and super centralized power. India still has the caste system and a lot of "wild west" stuff because they simply can't fully control so many people (at least not without becoming the second China and centralizing all of the power).
In Europe it's been a consensus for quite a while that everyone benefits more from just trade deals and free flow of people, without having to fight for everything. The biggest challenge for EU is to keep this free flow of people and seamless trade while at the same time preserving local culture (and it's trying to do so by legislation and stuff like not allowing anyone else to produce local specialties but I'm not sure it's the right way to go about it). It's hard to explain in simple terms or without writing bazillion words.
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Zelenskyy raised as much money and resources from Europe and Canada as possible; now, it is nice to see Zelenskyy do the sensible thing and attempt negotiating a peace deal with the help of Trump.
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-trump-zelenskyy-military-aid-2ce8b167f0ba948b2b606381192de71d
“I appreciate that he sent this letter, just got it a little while ago,” Trump said. “Simultaneously, we’ve had serious discussion with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace"
I wonder when Trump will restart aid to Ukraine. That old Seinfeld episode with the Risk board, Newman and Kramer is so prophetic it is scary.
On March 05 2025 10:55 Manit0u wrote: In Europe it's been a consensus for quite a while that everyone benefits more from just trade deals and free flow of people, without having to fight for everything. Most Canadians voted against the 1988 Free Trade Deal and it ended up getting implemented any way. in 1993 the biggest political party against the free trade deal just 5 years earlier built upon the deal and expanded it. Canada's standard of living rose by 24% in 13 years. Me and my friends would screw around at work all day knowing we could get another job in a few days.
Funny how democracy works.
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Well France just announced they will basically extend nuclear protection over other European countries. This has always been a red line in helping other countries but it is time for all country in Europe to feel safe.
Seems like right when a peace deal is signed. A European coalition will move to Ukraine.
Europe will be happy to cut the rope to the usa because in the long run, it's the only way to reindustrialize.
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Will be interesting to see how the coalition of the willing in Europe pans out. It is basically similar to a UN peace keeping mission, just having to be run outside since two veto nations in Russia and USA are against it currently. Looks like France, UK takes leadership with a few other eastern Europe countries contributing.
If we are doing more European defenses in the future Spain/Italy/Germany should be forced to chip in financing if they aren't doing boots on the ground.
The hardest detail is as always how you get Russia to stop the war in some type of treaty that allows that without massive escalation. If that becomes too hard, the question is if you should respect Russia at all on the topic. The problem is how popular it is at home to send soldiers into an active war zone. There are a few European countries that has enough against Russia to be willing to do it but I doubt you end up with a large coalition.
---- For every day that goes where the US applies more and more pressure against Ukraine they get less and less to say on the peace treaty. I think if the direction is kept for a month they are no longer invited to any peace talks. While before Trump they were the most likely to lead it from the anti Russian side.
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On March 06 2025 05:52 Yurie wrote: Will be interesting to see how the coalition of the willing in Europe pans out. It is basically similar to a UN peace keeping mission, just having to be run outside since two veto nations in Russia and USA are against it currently. Looks like France, UK takes leadership with a few other eastern Europe countries contributing.
If we are doing more European defenses in the future Spain/Italy/Germany should be forced to chip in financing if they aren't doing boots on the ground.
The hardest detail is as always how you get Russia to stop the war in some type of treaty that allows that without massive escalation. If that becomes too hard, the question is if you should respect Russia at all on the topic. The problem is how popular it is at home to send soldiers into an active war zone. There are a few European countries that has enough against Russia to be willing to do it but I doubt you end up with a large coalition.
---- For every day that goes where the US applies more and more pressure against Ukraine they get less and less to say on the peace treaty. I think if the direction is kept for a month they are no longer invited to any peace talks. While before Trump they were the most likely to lead it from the anti Russian side. The EU isn't moving in without a peace deal and there will be no acceptable peace deal because Russia has 0 reason to offer acceptable terms now that the US is their bitch.
Whether or not Ukraine is at the table is not relevant in this scenario.
The only way to get Russia to stop this war in an acceptable manner is to help Ukraine win the war.
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Probably the easiest way would be to give Ukraine the means to really cripple Russia economically. Destroy their oil production and refining, sink their commercial ships in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.
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On March 06 2025 06:17 maybenexttime wrote: Probably the easiest way would be to give Ukraine the means to really cripple Russia economically. Destroy their oil production and refining, sink their commercial ships in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.
Easiest way would have been to continue sanctions, because Russia can't continue their wartime economy for much longer. Yet, here we are. Tariffs to Canada, Mexico, China and Europe, whilst removing sanctions from Russia.
#JustKrasnovThings
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On March 06 2025 06:17 maybenexttime wrote: Probably the easiest way would be to give Ukraine the means to really cripple Russia economically. Destroy their oil production and refining, sink their commercial ships in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. That is what Ukraine is doing already.
They have hit 16+ refineries from the new year until mid February. That number will be higher by now.
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On March 06 2025 06:37 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2025 06:17 maybenexttime wrote: Probably the easiest way would be to give Ukraine the means to really cripple Russia economically. Destroy their oil production and refining, sink their commercial ships in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. That is what Ukraine is doing already. They have hit 16+ refineries from the new year until mid February. That number will be higher by now. I'm well aware of that. But they have been focusing on refineries and not Russia's oil production because of the US election. They also haven't targeted Russian commercial shipping, as far as I know. The bulk of Russia's energy exports now go through the Baltic Sea, if I'm not mistaken. They don't have pipelines to India or China (for the most part).
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On March 06 2025 06:47 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2025 06:37 Gorsameth wrote:On March 06 2025 06:17 maybenexttime wrote: Probably the easiest way would be to give Ukraine the means to really cripple Russia economically. Destroy their oil production and refining, sink their commercial ships in the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea. That is what Ukraine is doing already. They have hit 16+ refineries from the new year until mid February. That number will be higher by now. I'm well aware of that. But they have been focusing on refineries and not Russia's oil production because of the US election. They also haven't targeted Russian commercial shipping, as far as I know. The bulk of Russia's energy exports now go through the Baltic Sea, if I'm not mistaken. They don't have pipelines to India or China (for the most part).
How centralized is oil production? (Honest question, i don't know) Because that influences how easy it would be to blow up. If it is dozens of things spread over miles of territory, then it is hard to blow up remotely. If it is a few big things, that makes it easier.
I assume refineries are generally very centralized and thus easily blow-uppable. Are oil drills in the same category?
Targetting commercial shipping in a way that is not an actual blockard with naval supremacy is also problematic afaik, because it is usually seen as piracy. It definitively didn't play out well for Germany in WW1 or WW2. I assume that this is still a good way to make a lot of people dislike you, which is not something Ukraine can currently afford.
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Ukraine has been consistently hitting targets 1000+ km inside Russia with their long range weapons. I don't think concentration is that important. Scaling up the number of weapons and good intelligence are what matters, I'd say. If the targets are spread out, it's also difficult to cover them all with anti-air. Russia is spread so thin that they moved their anti-air assets from St Petersburg to Ukraine.
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Northern Ireland25392 Posts
Speaking of intelligence, I see the US is now demanding the UK (and I assume other European countries) to stop sharing some US intelligence with Ukraine that was previously A-OK to exchange
Just something I ran across via a scan of newspaper headlines, I’m unsure how significant or otherwise this is.
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While Trump is certainly fucking Ukraine over I don't think it is fair to say he is not interested in a peace deal yet. Never attribute to malice what can be explained with incompetence and all that.
Refusing security guarantees, boots on the ground, and limiting military aid, that's all things that actually cost the US something. Trump is not interested in that.
Halting military intelligence doesn't cost the US as much but it's one way to put pressure on Ukraine.
Now the next steps are really important: - removing sanctions on Russia. Sanctions cost America very little and currently the ongoing damage to the Russian economy is the primary motivator for Russia to end the war. They don't care that much about losing men in their 50-60s, if they have the cash they can do that for ages. With sanctions Europe can probably negotiate some kind of peace because Ukraine can fight on for a good while with limited european aid.
Stopping sanctions doesn't negatively impact the US but doing so would torch any relation to Europe at this point.
- halting arms deals to Ukraine (through Europe). If Trump does it's basically confirmed he's a Russian asset since it actively harms the US. - stopping LNG sales. Basically a declaration of war on Europe, it would wreck our economy.
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On March 06 2025 05:52 Yurie wrote: Will be interesting to see how the coalition of the willing in Europe pans out. It is basically similar to a UN peace keeping mission, just having to be run outside since two veto nations in Russia and USA are against it currently. Looks like France, UK takes leadership with a few other eastern Europe countries contributing.
If we are doing more European defenses in the future Spain/Italy/Germany should be forced to chip in financing if they aren't doing boots on the ground.
The hardest detail is as always how you get Russia to stop the war in some type of treaty that allows that without massive escalation. If that becomes too hard, the question is if you should respect Russia at all on the topic. The problem is how popular it is at home to send soldiers into an active war zone. There are a few European countries that has enough against Russia to be willing to do it but I doubt you end up with a large coalition.
---- For every day that goes where the US applies more and more pressure against Ukraine they get less and less to say on the peace treaty. I think if the direction is kept for a month they are no longer invited to any peace talks. While before Trump they were the most likely to lead it from the anti Russian side.
I'm not very optimistic. I'm worried that at best it's going to be something like 15-25k soldiers spread around the whole country with no clear directives on what to do in case Russians decide to be aggressive again. I'm thinking about situations like bombing cities right next European bases or the repeat of the little green men bullshit. I'm convinced the European soldiers would be told to just sit on their asses and do nothing if something like that happened.
I'm not even sure if my countrymen would support sending soldiers to Ukraine after the war, especially if it's not going to be a NATO mission. Some foreigners have this weird idea that Poles can't wait for an opportunity to fight Russians. This is not true.
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Trump would love a peace deal. He wants a Nobel peace prize (same reason he wants to 'solve' Gaza), and only because Obama got one.
But he will happily give Russia everything they could ever ask for and then blame Ukraine for not rolling over. He isn't interested in actual peace.
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