Russian Invasion of Ukraine

[Larry]

9 hours ago, PokerPacker said:

China's just a distraction for the Republicans.  In reality, once the Russian bribes have dried up, they'll cozy up to China's bribes and find a new foreign bogeyman.  North Korea, perhaps?

India. They're brown. Got a funny religion. And they've cleverly taken over all of our doctors offices (by cleverly exploiting the rules we created to keep doctors wages lower). So they can push that commie "vaccine" voodoo on our children. 
 

And they're on pace to become the most populous nation. 

[tshile]

23 hours ago, LD0506 said:

If that dissipated or disappeared a whole universe of other options become possible

Fear not - if the existing power struggles cease to exist for whatever reason, new ones will take their place. 
 

it’ll be the same game. Some different players, some different reasons, some different areas of focus, but much will remain and the core issue will continue to exist. 
 

 

[LD0506]

3 hours ago, tshile said:

Fear not - if the existing power struggles cease to exist for whatever reason, new ones will take their place. 
 

it’ll be the same game. Some different players, some different reasons, some different areas of focus, but much will remain and the core issue will continue to exist. 
 

 

 

I hear ya

I understand why you say that 

The kids aren't listening 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Power vacuums rarely result in anything good.

[LD0506]

30 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Power vacuums rarely result in anything good.

 

....when ignored or unattended

 

It would be in the world's best interests to mount a Marshall Plan level response 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

1 hour ago, LD0506 said:

 

....when ignored or unattended

 

It would be in the world's best interests to mount a Marshall Plan level response 

Yes it would, but I feel like the world would let us down.

[GhostofSparta]

2 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Power vacuums rarely result in anything good.

The bloody civil war for power between the factions of t.A.T.u  and ***** Riot will make the Red vs White civil war look like a slap fight.

[tshile]

2 hours ago, LD0506 said:

 

....when ignored or unattended

 

It would be in the world's best interests to mount a Marshall Plan level response 

You know. I’m not trying to sound nuts. But we’ve had lots of different big picture ‘issues’ that have come up (financial/housing collapse, the political divergence and trumpiem, covid, etc) and it drums up discussions of big picture results (we got a thread on the potential of a second civil war for example.). 
 

but one thing I’ve thought throughout is that the bigger, less sexy to discuss, result is that we lose influence in the world. 
 

we always focus on the short term fall outs of those things and try to predict the future based on them, but I think the most realistic and most damaging one is loss of real influence. 
 

I think we’re at a point where as long as it’s the right issue and as long as there’s still some reasonable people on change, we can have influence over things. Look at Ukraine. 
 

but I do worry that we’re on a trajectory where we lose that. Econimic power gives influence but political stability and economic power go hand in hand. 
 

i suppose right now we’d be able to have influence over the region but not on the level we could have in the 90’s or early 00’s. 
 

if it happens in 2025 I’m not really sure what that looks like. 

[LD0506]

16 minutes ago, tshile said:

You know. I’m not trying to sound nuts. But we’ve had lots of different big picture ‘issues’ that have come up (financial/housing collapse, the political divergence and trumpiem, covid, etc) and it drums up discussions of big picture results (we got a thread on the potential of a second civil war for example.). 
 

but one thing I’ve thought throughout is that the bigger, less sexy to discuss, result is that we lose influence in the world. 
 

we always focus on the short term fall outs of those things and try to predict the future based on them, but I think the most realistic and most damaging one is loss of real influence. 
 

I think we’re at a point where as long as it’s the right issue and as long as there’s still some reasonable people on change, we can have influence over things. Look at Ukraine. 
 

but I do worry that we’re on a trajectory where we lose that. Econimic power gives influence but political stability and economic power go hand in hand. 
 

i suppose right now we’d be able to have influence over the region but not on the level we could have in the 90’s or early 00’s. 
 

if it happens in 2025 I’m not really sure what that looks like. 

 

Gawd I luv the conversations that drift thru here.............👍

 

You're right of course, there would be a cascade of unexpected consequences, some good, some bad, some indecipherable. Catastrophic change can be catastrophic change for the better.

 

What we might see in that scenario is the US "loses" influence vis-a-vis the unilateral "lemme show ya somethin!" bargin thru the door ugly American way we've conducted ourselves for several decades, but consider this. Under t****, Europe realized that we were not always going to be there to backstop whatever went down, and pulled together and refound some common cause, THEN the US returns, with a different 'tude, and helps weld together an amazing coalition to support Ukraine, which is having a whole host of unexpected consequences already. That influence we lose is wielded by a broader consortium of nations in very different ways. Might not be the worst thing that could happen. A big ole shot of "we're all in this together" might be just what the doctor ordered.

 

In many ways the future looks terrifying if you let go of the wheel to cover your eyes. I'm seeing a generation that might well choose to hold on and decide their own future.

 

History is mean, but history has a sense of humor as well. Our own lifetimes have seen so many things happen that were just....well unlikely... history is rife with stuff popping outta the woodwork that no one saw coming. We've all been left to find our own way thru life, nations banging into each other or clutching each other in the dark with no sense of where we'd end up or how to get there. Now, instantaneous cheap communication laterally, around the world, without the govt or the church or a corporation looking over your shoulder is changing things in really unlikely ways. I don't expect it slow down or fade away and as it rolls along we're seeing more people becoming aware, aware of it all, the problems, the problems makers, the profiteers and the wardens, all of it. They're also coalescing into groups that have answers, or pieces of answers, that can be applied.

 

Keep your hands inside the car, make sure the bar is locked, it's going to be a crazy ride. Everything's impossible until it happens.

[tshile]

I agree with your post and the last section I liked a lot. 
 

I will only add (since it’s not really a rebuttal):

our finances reflect our economic power and influence. Dollar as the global stable currency exists for a reason and gives us an advantage. 
take that away and problems we should have, but hadn’t, start to be problems we do have. 
 

I agree - hands in the car etc. Just think it’s interesting to think about. 

[LD0506]

3 minutes ago, tshile said:

I agree with your post and the last section I liked a lot. 
 

I will only add (since it’s not really a rebuttal):

our finances reflect our economic power and influence. Dollar as the global stable currency exists for a reason and gives us an advantage. 
take that away and problems we should have, but hadn’t, start to be problems we do have. 
 

I agree - hands in the car etc. Just think it’s interesting to think about. 

 

If- a HUGE if- history gets high AF and let's Russia become a partner nation (to the world, not specifically to us) $800billion defense budgets become a thing of the past. That alone helps us. Take half of that and invest in infrastructure and you're building value in the dollar and America. Eliminate all the cloak and dagger bull**** from and with Russia and a lot of problems get more manageable. Better circumstances breed better unexpected effects

 

[Larry]

Our defense budget isn't going anywhere unless China makes major changes. 

[China]

Former Wagner commander flees to Norway and seeks asylum

 

A former commander in Russia’s Wagner private military company has fled to Norway and is seeking asylum after crossing that country’s arctic border, according to Norwegian police and a Russian activist.

 

Andrei Medvedev, in an interview with a Russian activist who helps people seek asylum abroad, said that he feared for his life after refusing to renew his service with Wagner.

 

Medvedev said that after completing his contract, and refusing to serve another, he was afraid of being executed in the same manner of Yevgeny Nuzhin – a defector from Wagner who was killed on camera with a sledgehammer.

 

“We were just thrown to fight like cannon fodder,” he told Vladimir Osechkin, head of Gulagu.net, a human rights advocacy group, in a conversation published on YouTube.

 

A spokesperson for Norway’s Police Security Service confirmed to CNN Monday that Medvedev was in Norway and seeking asylum.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LD0506]

9 hours ago, Larry said:

Our defense budget isn't going anywhere unless China makes major changes. 

 

True

 

China has always been willing to support Russia as a stalking horse for the West, but what happens when that horse ambles off?

If nothing else China is very pragmatic. We have a lot of differences with them but it is nothing like the last century w/ Russia.

China is evolving at a ferocious pace, they have stuffed centuries of change into decades, made some great strides, show some great strains, but in the end China has actual skin in the game internationally (something Russia never really did).

Half our defense budget will still be more than enough to counter China, but I wonder, how would China react to us halving that?

Russia becoming a free country, led and assisted along primarily by those ex-Warsaw Pact countries that have already set off down that road, could change the course of human history. Would China just watch that happen and do nothing? Wave goodbye? Reassess itself? China will change China, our military won't.

 

I'd love to find out.

[Larry]

1 hour ago, LD0506 said:

Half our defense budget will still be more than enough to counter China, but I wonder, how would China react to us halving that?

Right now, all of our defense budget isn't fully deterring China. 

[Larry]

1 hour ago, LD0506 said:

Russia becoming a free country, led and assisted along primarily by those ex-Warsaw Pact countries that have already set off down that road, could change the course of human history. Would China just watch that happen and do nothing? Wave goodbye? Reassess itself? China will change China, our military won't.

Now, in a fantasy world where Russia becomes a civilized Democracy?  That would make China take a look at that really long land border. 
 

But that's a long shot, way down the road. 
 

I could much more see the Russian economy collapse, and China comes in and offers to buy natural resources from the remains. At well below market price, but hey, they're still under sanctions from everybody else. I could see Russian becoming a secondary state to China. 
 

And all of this assumes that Russia doesn't succeed in ordering the GOP to cut off assisting Ukraine. Right now, I'm thinking Russia might still win their war, with Republican aid. 

Edited January 17 by Larry

[LD0506]

Occam's Razor doesn't work with history

 

I'm not being argumentative, I understand your points, but I'm of the opinion that nobody knows what's gonna happen, nobody can know what's gonna happen, and an awful lot of the parameters have shifted or been ****canned

 

 

[CousinsCowgirl84]

4 hours ago, Larry said:

Right now, all of our defense budget isn't fully deterring China. 

We need more ships.

[China]

Europe’s warm winter is robbing Putin of a trump card

 

Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine, one question has troubled European governments more than almost any other: What happens if Moscow turns off the gas?

 

The threat of cutting Russian gas supplies for European countries, many of whom have relied on it for years to heat their homes and power their factories, was a trump card that Putin could play if the war he started last February dragged into a long winter.

 

Citizens from countries who were not directly at war with Russia might wonder, as the cold started to bite, why their comfort and livelihoods were being sacrificed on behalf of Ukraine. National leaders, feeling domestic pressure, might agitate for sanctions to be softened or for peace to be brokered on terms favorable to Moscow, it was thought.

 

“There’s a traditional view in Russia that one of its best assets in warfare is general winter,” explains Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at think tank Chatham House.

 

“In this case, Russia sought to exploit winter to augment the power of another tool in its box: the energy weapon. Russia was counting on a winter freeze to bring Europe to its senses and convince publics across the continent that support for Ukraine was not worth the pain in their wallets,” Giles adds.

 

But that long chill has yet to pass. Western and Central Europe have enjoyed a milder winter than expected, which, along with a coordinated drive to reduce gas consumption, has taken one of Putin’s largest bargaining chips out of his hands.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

3 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

We need more ships.

 

Expert’s warning to US Navy on China: Bigger fleet almost always wins

[Xameil]

4 minutes ago, China said:

 

Expert’s warning to US Navy on China: Bigger fleet almost always wins

Didnt we prove to Japan, thats not really the case? I thought I learned Japan had the bigger, stronger Navy at the time. We had the better tacticians

Edited January 17 by Xameil

[PokerPacker]

4 minutes ago, Xameil said:

Didnt we prove to Japan, thats not really the case? I thought I learned Japan had the bigger, stronger Navy at the time. We had the better tacticians

We had logistics.  And nukes.  I don't think we're alone in those two categories anymore.

[China]

11 minutes ago, Xameil said:

Didnt we prove to Japan, thats not really the case? I thought I learned Japan had the bigger, stronger Navy at the time. We had the better tacticians

 

Maybe at the beginning of the war, but by the end of the war the US had the largest navy in the world. Link

[Xameil]

8 minutes ago, PokerPacker said:

We had logistics.  And nukes.  I don't think we're alone in those two categories anymore.

Im talking about the naval battles, like Midway. Nukes wasnt known at the time. It was our tactics that won

2 minutes ago, China said:

 

Maybe at the beginning of the war, but by the end of the war the US had the largest navy in the world. Link

Thank you. Im talking mainly the battle of Midway. I think that was what turned it around. Or maybe my brain needs a refresher.

[The Sisko]

50 minutes ago, Xameil said:

Didnt we prove to Japan, thats not really the case? I thought I learned Japan had the bigger, stronger Navy at the time. We had the better tacticians

The Chinese have learned from the conflicts we've had. They watched as we casually set everything up in our favor to decimate S. Hussein's forces and as a result, they've put a lot of their defense spending towards missiles. I read something the other day that said we're actually behind the curve and if there were a conflict, they probably have enough anti-ship missiles to eventually overwhelm our ability to intercept them. There are a ton of other considerations so I'm not saying they could beat us, just that they are a serious threat. I doubt they're a paper tiger like Russia turned out to be.