Ukraine
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@stockcar86 said in European Politics:
Holy shit, this means that all Nato members will obligated to defend Ukraine from Russia.
Putin must be mad right about now
Exciting times ahead.
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I've been abysmal at keeping up with "current events" recently, because... I'm sick of reading the same old shit over and over again. (read: Covid: is it real? Are mandates evil? Is the vaccine a thing? Fucking... blah.)
But... have recently relocated to a place which gets a real newspaper. Made of trees and shit.
And read a story about Russia-v-Ukraine. Not the Winter Olympics, but.. a fuck-load of troops building up.
Apparently, everybody else might have known about this, I don't know.
Next day (or... nek minnut?) - another story about a US carrier being deployed, or handed over to NATO "to see how that goes".
Then a Russian fleet being deployed "for manouvres".
Then UK and Ukranian forces photographed practicing doing military shit.
Then some fella who's apparently a Ukranian "separatist" asking Russia for 30,000 troops to help out his righteous cause.And yeah, I was like you @booboo ... What... The... Fuck.
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Yep
Russia getting bored again
piston wristed gibbons
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It is fucked up for sure
Happy to be told this writer is a loose unit but I found this an interesting read on the situation.
https://paulmasonnews.medium.com/panic-slaughter-and-lies-aa73f2ac4f82
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@booboo I've read a couple of food articles on it. From what I've read it comes down to two major issues:
- Russia is not impressed with the expansion of NATO towards its borders. A gross misjudgment of Clinton.
- Putin's sabre rattling on the Ukraine border keeps a domestic audience looking outward.
While you can never rule out an escalation, Russia stands to lose more than it could gain (think energy exports) and Putin has a history of being a clever fuck.
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personally i like this take on the situation lol
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@bayimports said in Ukraine:
personally i like this take on the situation lol
Thats the way, find the good in every situation
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I've been to Ukraine many times and have lots of friends living there. Nice people, but a complicated and disputed history and lots and lots of guns, for a long time it was absolute economic basket case but the current President and his team are doing a better job on that front. If Putin wants to take action against the country now is the time before Zelenskyy can show his governing model works. I'm laughing at certain journalists claiming to be experts on the country but who know little of its complicated history or politics.
Put simply, the bottom line is this. If Putin bombs Kiev and launches a full invasion it is going to create an absolute shitstorm. I hope he pulls back from that madness and calmer heads and diplomacy can prevail.
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this just keeps getting closer.. Im also curious as to any world reaction, subsequent action.
I wouldn't be surprised if Putin goes through with it and is successful. The what happens next is the big question, does anyone actually do anything except talk? China finally annex Taiwan?
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@bayimports and I want to know if Russia invades and some legit serious sanctions are put in place... what impact on the poor bastards in the occupied parts of Ukraine? Does that just make them double fucked?
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@paekakboyz said in Ukraine:
@bayimports and I want to know if Russia invades and some legit serious sanctions are put in place... what impact on the poor bastards in the occupied parts of Ukraine? Does that just make them double fucked?
I do feel for anyone in the Ukraine right now. I suspect and its a guess, a lot of outrage and some sanctions, but I would be surpised to see anything that would impact Russia to majorly. Tensions across the world are incredibly high and I dont think anyone has the balls to take Putin on.
I also see NZ asked all NZ citizens to leave? I wonder where they will go? not NZ they wont let them in, although the Taliban is quite sympathetic of late.
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This invasion has been "imminent" for months. Around the same time some particular heads of state have needed to draw attention away from domestic issues not quite going their way.
Of course, if Putin went all in, that would leave Taiwan to fend for itself. The USA couldn't intervene in both regions.
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@antipodean wouldn't that be seen as too brazen and pull in other nations? edit: sorry, thinking that both Russia and China kick things off
I think the USA could intervene in both regions, but not for long. If your point was about picking their battles, I'd totally agree that not engaging one or the other is all about being able to win dominate in the battle they get into.
But they seem pretty well positioned if this is current.
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@paekakboyz I think coordinated regional pressure would be a clever idea, sowing unease and distrust in a key element of the USA's strategic approach, namely alliances.
The USA used to have a two and a half wars doctrine (i.e. the ability to participate in two full blown wars and another regional conflict) which became one and a half doctrine, which became a four region and two conflict model and currently the NDS calls for the ability to deal with two transgressors and three regions.
Either way, history has shown since the end of WW2 that the USA has literally no ability to conduct such a strategy in practice. Look at how long it took to mobilise a force in the Gulf War, how constrained it was dealing with just Iraq and Afghanistan. The capital expenditure invested in fighting the last war (a common problem) shown by its reliance on carrier group diplomacy. Against a modern credible threat like China, that's akin to investing in battleships for WW2 - they were obsolete. Modern anti-ship missiles make them billion dollar disasters.
FWIW (and I could be reading this wrong from very far away) I don't think Europe cares as much as the USA does.