Geopolitical Risk

[Azz]

Maybe. But then I could say that you are part of the company you keep - ie rabid war mongerers who would risk an all out war with Russia to prove a point. I'm assuming though that you're not, so extend the same credit and we're fine.

There's already a war with Russia. They invaded Ukraine and Ukraine fought back. My position is that it would take three weeks for Nato to kick the Russians out of Ukraine. Nato would have total control of the sky over the entire battlefield. There would be nothing left of the Russian invaders and very quickly, they only have trenches and artillery.

[LoungeLizard]

There's already a war with Russia. They invaded Ukraine and Ukraine fought back. My position is that it would take three weeks for Nato to kick the Russians out of Ukraine. Nato would have total control of the sky over the entire battlefield. There would be nothing left of the Russian invaders and very quickly, they only have trenches and artillery.

Jeez, there's not much more I can say then. Your position is in fact to have a full on war between NATO and Russia, which would probably end up with nuclear weapons being launched and the end of civilisation as we know it. Glad we've got that straight.

[Azz]

Jeez, there's not much more I can say then. Your position is in fact to have a full on war between NATO and Russia, which would probably end up with nuclear weapons being launched and the end of civilisation as we know it. Glad we've got that straight.

What do you think Nato is for?

Is it a book club, cups of tea and sandwiches. No it isn't.

It's a military alliance that was built to crush Russian invasions.

And the argument about nukes is utterly ridiculous - by that argument Nato can't even defend a Nato member such as Poland against nuke-rattling Putin.

[BlackPeter]

Ok, BP, I'll have to respond to that, since you seem to be labouring under the delusion that one cannot hold two thoughts in one's head at the same time. i.e that one can condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine - which I do and have - whilst also accepting that the West stoked the fires by encouraging and promoting the overthrow of it's democratically elected government. It's pretty clear that if the Government hadn't been overthrown none of this would have happened. Check out some of the interviews with Noam Chomsky who cuts through most of the hyperbole that you seem so addicted to.

I know a great deal about history, particularly European - thanks for asking. You however seem to regurgitate the same old tired YouTube nonsense that we have to teach the other side a "lesson". What lesson would that be? How to engineer a nuclear apocalypse in three easy steps? You do seem to be unable to learn from the "axis of evil" and "mission accomplished" rhetoric that has led to so many futile wars in the last few decades.

I'll have to deal with your misinformation, one by one:

1. The issues surrounding Ukraine of 2014 are light years away from 1939 and rise of Nazi Germany. One invasion of one country for reasons that have more to do with the geopolitical environment, cannot be compared to an attempt to essentially take over the entire world. Was the invasion of Iraq a throwback to Hitler's days? Of course not - there was a unique context that precipitated the action. And of course there's the little matter that we are living in the age of nuclear deterrence which prevents any thoughts of the superpowers attacking one another. Although, worryingly there are some - and you do seem to be one of them - that suggest that maybe we should be looking at that.

2. There has been a long history of antipathy between the East and West of Ukraine. Russian Ukrainians have been discriminated against for a longtime - they are not seen as "proper" Ukrainians. Like it or not, there's an ugly thread of hardline, ultra-nationalism that has a hold in the West of Ukraine. Some of these hardliners are now in parliament. One of the first actions of the new parliament after the coup was attempt not to recognise Russian as an offical language. And there have been a lot of atrocities committed against the people of the east, which I won't go into.

3. No-one knows what the people of Crimea and the East really think about the war and how they would like to live after it is all over. So let's ask them shall we, as part of the settlement? Run a UN referendum on self determination or otherwise. Seems like the democratic thing to do, wouldn't you say?

4. The mongrel mob analogy. Really? Let's try something that makes more sense. Palestine. Atrocities committed on both sides. Disputes on who owns what land and where people can live, under what rule. Sound familiar? Israel, backed by the US, killing more civilians in 6 months than the 2 years of the Ukraine war. Using your fight-to-the-death logic (other peoples death that is, not yours of course) we should just watch, and in the case of the US, continue to supply more weapons to allow it to continue. But most reasonable and compassionate people say, this has to stop. The two sides need to call a ceasefire and Hamas and Israel need to negotiate an end to the current conflict, and more broadly a compromise needs to be brokered over these conflicting historical claims. Same with the Ukraine. Same, ultimately with any war.

4. Your attempts at a personal slur, I will take as a sign that you simply don't like to hear an alternative view. It seems like all the years of wars that turned out to be about something that we weren't told, don't exist. You still believe the binary good and evil nonsense that both sides in any war  propagate to their people. The wars of the last 60 years have ALL been about geo-politics. Nothing to do with morality or human rights. The Ukraine is the same. This is a proxy war between the US and Russia, with the people of Ukraine paying the price with their lives. The war hawks have got what they wanted.     

Not sure in which alternative world you live in, but there are clearly parallels to Donald's (who by the way is as well a great fan of Putin). Interesting to see your personal slurs against me, based on figments of your imagination while you are complaining on the other hand about facts I stated based on reading your posts.

But anyway - lets put the kindergarten stuff beside, shall we?

So - how do we start? Obviously - we only can judge your historic knowledge based on what you post.
If you know the facts, but don't tell us, well - this would be worse, wouldn't it? You keep telling us Putin's fairy tales (to pick a nice word) and expect people to take you seriously. Well, if it moves like a duck and it quakes like a duck, it probably is ...

Your slurs against the Maidan Revolution are Putinesk. Yanukovych curbed democracy in Ukraine, he jailed his opponents (e.g. Julia Tymoshenko) and reduced press freedom while allowing cronyism and corruption to increase under his rule. He is basically made from the same wood as any of the other strongman who currently pollute our political landscape (and most of them got at some stage elected), whether they run e.g. Belarus, Turkey or Russia. I hear as well that his friends in Russia gave him asylum. LOL. What else can the people of Ukraine do if they want to get rid of a corrupt suppressor?

Your outrage about Israel's atrocities in Gaza is understandable, but I don't get your point. I never ever condoned Israel's brutal onslaught against Palestinian civilians, and I agree that their behaviour and war crimes put them on the same moral level like Russia or any other terror regime. However - this is neither related to Putin's war crimes, nor does it justify them in any way. 

O.K. - I do apologize for the Mongrel Mob analogy. I do understand that many of these gentlemen are much nicer and friendlier people than whoever populates Putin's death swadrones, however if you keep the story and just pick a neutral name - what's wrong with the analogy as such?

You suggest Ukraine to accept an (anyway worthless) agreement on Putin's terms, accepting the loss of something like a quarter to a third of their territory (and most of their valuable natural resources), the torturing and killing of hundreds of thousands of their civilians, the abduction of their children and the rape of their women. You expect as well that they just tolerate that a significant number of their citizens is handed over to Russia to live in future under a terror regime moving every day closer to North Korea.

This is what you suggest. Maybe its "Realpolitik" (and clearly easy to suggest, given it does not impact on you - is this what armchair warriers do?), but I find that repulsive.

Look, I realize that in our current geo political situation we have a lot of strongmen and bullies wielding nuclear weapons. Putin is one of them. Xi is one of them. The dear leader of North Korea and the Ayatollahs are not far away form wielding their own. Nethanyahu is another one of these strongman, who needs a long war in Gaza to secure his political survival and who can threaten a nuclear attack.

Its a dangerous world we live in.

However - on thing I learned is that you don't stop a bully by giving in to their demands (as you suggest). They just come back with another larger demand like any other blackmailer, if they see their strategy of bullying does work.

Putin is a bully. Xi is a bully. The dear leader of North Korea is a bully. The ayatollahs are bullies. Nathanyahu is a bully - and yes, there are many more.

The only language bullies understand is strength - and lets face it, while they are all despicable crooks, none of them is suicidal. So, I don't see how my suggestion to unite and stand up to them is anymore risky than yours to appease them and give them more and more of our freedoms.

The difference between us seems to be that you suggest to give in to the bullies and fearfully wait for their next demand. I suggest to stand up against them.

I guess the question is just how you want our children and grandchildren (do you have some?) to live. Do you want them to live in freedom and prosperity and a rule based civilisation which allows them to thrive - or do you want them to live under the law of the jungle and in constant fear of the neighbouring bully who asks every year for a larger tribute?

I know what I want, and I suppose we disagree on this point.

[LoungeLizard]

Not sure in which alternative world you live in, but there are clearly parallels to Donald's (who by the way is as well a great fan of Putin). Interesting to see your personal slurs against me, based on figments of your imagination while you are complaining on the other hand about facts I stated based on reading your posts.

But anyway - lets put the kindergarten stuff beside, shall we?

So - how do we start? Obviously - we only can judge your historic knowledge based on what you post.
If you know the facts, but don't tell us, well - this would be worse, wouldn't it? You keep telling us Putin's fairy tales (to pick a nice word) and expect people to take you seriously. Well, if it moves like a duck and it quakes like a duck, it probably is ...

Your slurs against the Maidan Revolution are Putinesk. Yanukovych curbed democracy in Ukraine, he jailed his opponents (e.g. Julia Tymoshenko) and reduced press freedom while allowing cronyism and corruption to increase under his rule. He is basically made from the same wood as any of the other strongman who currently pollute our political landscape (and most of them got at some stage elected), whether they run e.g. Belarus, Turkey or Russia. I hear as well that his friends in Russia gave him asylum. LOL. What else can the people of Ukraine do if they want to get rid of a corrupt suppressor?

Your outrage about Israel's atrocities in Gaza is understandable, but I don't get your point. I never ever condoned Israel's brutal onslaught against Palestinian civilians, and I agree that their behaviour and war crimes put them on the same moral level like Russia or any other terror regime. However - this is neither related to Putin's war crimes, nor does it justify them in any way. 

O.K. - I do apologize for the Mongrel Mob analogy. I do understand that many of these gentlemen are much nicer and friendlier people than whoever populates Putin's death swadrones, however if you keep the story and just pick a neutral name - what's wrong with the analogy as such?

You suggest Ukraine to accept an (anyway worthless) agreement on Putin's terms, accepting the loss of something like a quarter to a third of their territory (and most of their valuable natural resources), the torturing and killing of hundreds of thousands of their civilians, the abduction of their children and the rape of their women. You expect as well that they just tolerate that a significant number of their citizens is handed over to Russia to live in future under a terror regime moving every day closer to North Korea.

This is what you suggest. Maybe its "Realpolitik" (and clearly easy to suggest, given it does not impact on you - is this what armchair warriers do?), but I find that repulsive.

Look, I realize that in our current geo political situation we have a lot of strongmen and bullies wielding nuclear weapons. Putin is one of them. Xi is one of them. The dear leader of North Korea and the Ayatollahs are not far away form wielding their own. Nethanyahu is another one of these strongman, who needs a long war in Gaza to secure his political survival and who can threaten a nuclear attack.

Its a dangerous world we live in.

However - on thing I learned is that you don't stop a bully by giving in to their demands (as you suggest). They just come back with another larger demand like any other blackmailer, if they see their strategy of bullying does work.

Putin is a bully. Xi is a bully. The dear leader of North Korea is a bully. The ayatollahs are bullies. Nathanyahu is a bully - and yes, there are many more.

The only language bullies understand is strength - and lets face it, while they are all despicable crooks, none of them is suicidal. So, I don't see how my suggestion to unite and stand up to them is anymore risky than yours to appease them and give them more and more of our freedoms.

The difference between us seems to be that you suggest to give in to the bullies and fearfully wait for their next demand. I suggest to stand up against them.

I guess the question is just how you want our children and grandchildren (do you have some?) to live. Do you want them to live in freedom and prosperity and a rule based civilisation which allows them to thrive - or do you want them to live under the law of the jungle and in constant fear of the neighbouring bully who asks every year for a larger tribute?

I know what I want, and I suppose we disagree on this point.

No point in pursuing it further. I had hoped for a more contextual debate, but I can see that there are those who just see things in black and white terms, with no room for the grey areas, even when history has shown that things are never as simple as they appear. Hopefully in year or three, the momentum will shift, as it always does, towards finding a peaceful, negotiated settlement. Same thing happened in the Iraq war - the Stop the War coalition were castigated as being sympathetic towards tyrants, undermining the war effort, conspiracy theorists etc. Turns out that they right all along. Twenty years of war and hundreds of thousands of lives lost and a country in ruins. But hey, we stood up to a bully and that's what it was all about. Wasn't it? 

[Azz]

I had hoped for a more contextual debate, but I can see that there are those who just see things in black and white terms, with no room for the grey areas.

It's very much black and white for the people of Ukraine.

[Waltzing]

well is it? the discussion here indicates that the uke's have really had the opportunuity but sadly the stuff they needed came to late....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvzukrtGSxg

This thing more likely a frozen conflict and a re match later on... If Putin lives he wont stop no matter what the liberal left thinks..

 The English industrial base "Rishi Sunak " are now on the pathway to a war footing?

  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/04/23/war-footing-as-sunak-ramps-up-defence-spending/

DISC: Ex Arts history student ... liberal left....  hopeless dreamers it turned out... 

[Azz]

This thing more likely a frozen conflict and a re match later on...

It is a frozen conflict. Up to a point: it will unfreeze eventually because Russia wins, and that will be due to current Nato/Biden Administration guidance of, "Here you go, Ukraine, have some artillery shells, and 23 Bradleys, look after them. And go dig some trenches."

The Russians cannot be expelled from Ukraine with these "aid packages" they're being given. Russia just digs-in when Ukraine gets more ammo. Then Ukraine runs out of ammo. It's deliberate policy by the US to make sure that Ukraine does not win. It's a form of big-power cruelty actually, the giving of aid that only does enough to stop total collapse for a few more months.

To remove dug-in invaders originating from a country much bigger across every metric that can be considered, control of the skies is needed - and that means ground attack by many squadrons of jets to kick off the removal, then sorties on demand whenever a Russian pops his head up (control of the air also means destruction of enemy anti-air assets, usually that's done first; as for shoulder-fire SAMs, liberal use of cluster can attend to that).

And proper armor is required, in volume, not a few here and there, drip fed. They can't get very far currently anyway because Ukraine doesn't have an air force; armor needs air support. 

There's a possibility it's even worse: it could be that these huge US aid packages are not to aid Ukraine in any way, but are instead designed to aid US arms manufacturers.

[Azz]

If Putin lives he wont stop no matter what the liberal left thinks..

The Baltics will be next. He'll walk into those. What will Nato do? Sure, they're Nato members, but so what? Nato has shown total cowardice.

And Putin must find it so funny: naive pundits in the West thinking he's gonna drop a nuke any moment. He can't believe his luck on this I reckon, there's no way he's going to nuke anyone, but just doing things like casually carrying around the "nuke-codes briefcase" causes fearful apoplexy lol (in reality the only thing in there is a chicken sandwich and a thermos of borscht).

[Waltzing]

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/24/politics/us-secretly-sent-long-range-missiles-to-ukraine/index.html

It appears the US has move its position on heavy stuff.. Clears the way for Germany to step up also.

It appears europe is starting to step up the pace.

[kiwi2007]

It's far from being a frozen conflict - the Spring and Summer offensive seems to have kicked off already - and the Ukrainians are loosing significant amounts of land (and men and equipment)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/23/russian-forces-make-significant-gains-in-eastern-ukraine

and mainly due to the 'new' wonderweapon.

https://cepa.org/article/glide-bombs-the-russian-wonder-weapon/

hard to imagine a lump of metal weighing 1500 kg gliding unpowered for 40 miles! Even harder to imagine is it exploding anywhere near you.

Maybe these guys did imagine it:
Mykola Melnyk, a company commander in the 47th wrote on social media: "The drastic advancement of the Russians became possible because certain units just f---ed off positions.
"Hope they get trained and retrained into stormtroopers."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/04/24/as-russian-troops-broke-through-ukrainian-lines-panicky-ukrainian-commanders-had-no-choice-but-to-deploy-one-of-their-least-prepared-brigades/?sh=525e9eb54e64

[BlackPeter]

No point in pursuing it further. I had hoped for a more contextual debate, but I can see that there are those who just see things in black and white terms, with no room for the grey areas, even when history has shown that things are never as simple as they appear. Hopefully in year or three, the momentum will shift, as it always does, towards finding a peaceful, negotiated settlement. Same thing happened in the Iraq war - the Stop the War coalition were castigated as being sympathetic towards tyrants, undermining the war effort, conspiracy theorists etc. Turns out that they right all along. Twenty years of war and hundreds of thousands of lives lost and a country in ruins. But hey, we stood up to a bully and that's what it was all about. Wasn't it? 

You historic horizon appears to be very short and very selective.

Just wondering  - go back one human life and think about what stupid and arrogant stories you would have told your temporaries at the time Stalin (and Hitler) invaded Poland. Not that bad, wasn't it - and for sure, in a handful of years they reach a peaceful agreement and everybody will be nice and fluffy. Lala Land stuff produced by armchair pacifists who don't have to pay for the nonsense they produce.

But - yes, you are probably right - at some stage there will be some understanding about the Ukrainian - Russian border (wherever it will be). What nobody of us can predict at this stage is, whether this will be an agreement like we have currently between Israel and Palestine, whether it will be an agreement like between North and South Korea - or whether it will be an agreement like the one Hitler and Stalin signed to "share" Poland.

History is brutal - and the current monsters like Putin are stand well up to the worst scum we know from history.

What we do know is - as long as Putin is running Russia, no matter what the agreement might say, it will not be worth the paper it is written on. Putin has a long history of breaking agreements if it suits him. Why bother to negotiate?

What we do know as well is - any agreement will be more favourable to the side which inflicts a higher cost of war on the other. So - if the free world does the appeasement game with Russia, the agreement will be bad for Ukraine. However, if the war is expensive for Russia and whoever runs it after Putin's departure finds it difficult to explain every year to an increasing number of Russian widows and mothers why their husbands and sons had to die in his special military operation, than it might be more favourable for Ukraine.

Lets hope Putin goes soon and Ukraine and Russia find a faster way to solve their problems than e.g. Palestinians and Jews. The latter groups are already working on their conflict for the last 2 millennia (or if you read the bible, make that 4. Orthodox people (call them populists) are always trouble makers) ... and we all know, what the current status is, don't we?

[Waltzing]

 
The northern baltics think this is just the start...

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-us-secretly-provides-ukraine-with-100-atacms-denmark-announces-additional-military-aid-for-kyiv/

[Waltzing]

Top Guns : Inside the RAF...

Channel 3...

[Mr Cashflow]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCxYYn9QLSQ&t=92s