usernamesaredifficul [he/him]

technically we were just expressing our support for US military action in the civil war and the song John Brown’s body. Which was an official song of the US army at one point.

We were kicked off for our American patriotism if you think about it

they have timed movements in the oil market to be more supportive of Russian economic needs

I thought you were talking about artillery. Those drones are just repurposed consumer drones fitted with explosives they aren’t on the scale needed to make a major difference

This is revisionist. It was clear that Russia’s military objectives in invading the rest of the country last year were to remove Zelensky and put back a friendly government to Moscow. They failed, and now are falling back on what was always the more pragmatic and “reasonable” war goal of holding the pre-February 2022 lines of control + what they still have now. But, now that an all-out state of war exists between Ukraine and Russia, it’s “allowable” in the eyes of the West for Ukraine to try and regain all of its internationally-recognized territory in a way that it wasn’t before

This whole time the Russians have been talking about wanting the east exclusively the early rush to kiev was consistent with the stated aim of forcing Ukraine to surrender early into the war

I will say, that given the general attitude here that we want choices and decisions to be taken that reduce the fighting and scale of death, Ukraine’s approach of incrementally retaking villages instead of throwing everything it’s got in a mad rush to break Russian lines shouldn’t be criticized.

Even the Ukrainians are talking in that article about how hard it is to breach the Russian defences. The Ukrainians have thrown everything they had in a mad rush to break the Russian lines and only succeeded at retaking a dozen villages. It is ridiculous to assume the side with less soldiers, lacking air superiority, and ran by the most corrupt nation in Europe with vast amounts of support being resold by Ukrainian generals has any chance of defeating the larger power. Early in the war Ukraine had an advantage as it’s soldiers had in violation of the Minsk treaty been fighting in Eastern Ukraine for the last 8 years so were more militarily experienced now Russia has been fighting for a while they will have worked out much of the issues of their organisation

but the Ukrainians have developed the ability to do so on their own

no they haven’t they’re using artilery equipment we gave them.

we play the old game for the same reason we started in the first place because the major powers have the ability to demand concessions because of the power of their militaries and economies.

Russia is a player because it has a vast army and nuclear weapons

if Ukraine wants to not do as they are told by Russia they are more than welcome to fight them. America and the other powers involving themselves in that fight risks major war however also it has proved ruinously expensive to the actual populations of those countries.

Internal politics only matter if they are backed up by something

this theory wasn’t blindsided by the end of the cold war. At the end of the cold war Russia was weak from crisis (incidentally largely because the Ukrainian local government so badly fucked up running a power plant and the early stages of a disaster that all the money in the soviet union was required to clean up the mess) anyway when Russia was weak and eating itself they couldn’t enforce the rights they had because of their strength now they are strong again they can

that video is an hour and a half long. You’ve watched it and everything you said so far hasn’t been anything I haven’t heard before or consider worth hearing

your approach seems to be just deciding you want the world to be a certain way and ignoring all evidence to the contrary. You have to live in reality

I’d like to thank me mum

not sure about the romulans

That wisdom is called appeasement and has failed again and again. Empires will empire, if you give them a finger they’ll wait for a bit and then take an arm.

No it’s called a sphere of influence and it’s just playing by the old cold war rules.

If they are unemployed and homeless then let them be independent and deal with problems on their own. The fuck.

countries are not people.

yeah and if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you

no one wants them to hit those places with artillery if the Ukrainians start using American artillery on Russian cities the Americans will have kittens

Russia has nuclear weapons which means there is a line that can’t be crossed with regard to dealings with them

It very much matters what those states think because, as sovereign states, they enjoy freedom of alliance

I don’t want to be allied with them because they bring nothing to an alliance except liability.

Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine not being in NATO prevented war between Russia and America, Britain, and France. And that is the big war that can’t be allowed to happen

this isn’t a new phenomenon we are talking about the great game of empire and there are very good reasons why it was always the conventional wisdom to not mess with Russia over eastern Europe. If they are sovereign states then let them be sovereign states and deal with problems on their own

they have that standing because they have the guns. They still have the guns so they still have the standing

those rules don’t just exist for no reason they are to prevent war between the powers in Europe break those rules and you risk war. It doesn’t matter what the Balkans and Poland think they don’t have nuclear weapons

Isolated geographical position, small countries with small armies and small economies.

worse than that what they bring to an alliance is pretty much no extra money or anything else but also a significantly higher chance of getting into a war

frankly I’m of the opinions that everything east of Germany is a pretty cheeky imposition on Russias traditional standing in Europe. You can’t just break all the old rules for operating in Europe and not expect consequences

maybe the klingons and starfleet worked out rules against doing that to each other.

starfleet because they don’t want an escalation and the klingons for honour reasons

the saudis make a desert and call it peace

prevent Iranian influence from growing and to suppress violent Islamic fundamentalism.

yeah the saudis are really worried about Islamic fundamentalism

Even Saudi Arabia is supporting Russia and they’re an American ally