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Are the Blue surfboards about to cook up a fake war

grapedrink

grapedrink

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PRCD said:
Sorry to borrow your rhetorical tactic, but I don't see how this matters - how it started really doesn't matter to its progress.
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In the grand scheme of things I agree, but it does show which side made the dumber call. Ukraine isn’t out trying to grab more territory, only Russia is.


You should be able to produce a plot like this on for the Russian side or prove that the Ukrainians are killing roughly 4-5 Russians for every loss of theirs, Russia being 4-5 times more populous.
View attachment 166065
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Um, ok? Yes, Ukraine is in bad shape. Being invaded will do that. Beyond that, I don’t trust either country or any media source to give us solid numbers about how many died on each side.

What we do know is that many fighting and breeding age youth left Russia and Ukraine, and those with the ability to leave are the most likely to be able to raise kids. The brain drain from this war will haunt Russia and Ukraine for generations, possibly forever.
 
Autoprax

Autoprax

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It seems like with the long range precision missiles the Ukraine can put a slow drain on Russia.

As Putin says, the war would be over now if the west didn't butt in.
 
grapedrink

grapedrink

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Autoprax said:
It seems like with the long range precision missiles the Ukraine can put a slow drain on Russia.

As Putin says, the war would be over now if the west didn't butt in.
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Which is a dumb argument. Most wars from the last several centuries had meddlers and support from elsewhere.
 
PRCD

PRCD

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grapedrink said:
In the grand scheme of things I agree, but it does show which side made the dumber call. Ukraine isn’t out trying to grab more territory, only Russia is.
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The Western press portrayed this as Russia trying to re-constitute the USSR but they really just wanted the Ukraine to stay out of NATO and stop having joint exercises with NATO. In the former case, NATO membership means positioning ballistic missiles in Ukraine within range of Moscow.

Anyways, Russia's lack of territorial gains is proof they never were able to overrun the Ukraine and Poland like they did in the early 20th century, and even then they only succeeded when Germany invaded from the other side.

Um, ok? Yes, Ukraine is in bad shape. Being invaded will do that. Beyond that, I don’t trust either country or any media source to give us solid numbers about how many died on each side.
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Me neither. Assuming parity in kill ratio, Ukraine simply has no chance because it's a much smaller country.
What we do know is that many fighting and breeding age youth left Russia and Ukraine, and those with the ability to leave are the most likely to be able to raise kids. The brain drain from this war will haunt Russia and Ukraine for generations, possibly forever.
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I think the Ukraine is getting the much-worse end of this, which is why I was against using them against Russia.
 
grapedrink

grapedrink

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PRCD said:
The Western press portrayed this as Russia trying to re-constitute the USSR
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The territorial ambitions are no secret and many analysts say it is crucial for their survival.

but they really just wanted the Ukraine to stay out of NATO and stop having joint exercises with NATO. In the former case, NATO membership means positioning ballistic missiles in Ukraine within range of Moscow.
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Which isn't Russia's choice to make.

Anyways, Russia's lack of territorial gains is proof they never were able to overrun the Ukraine and Poland like they did in the early 20th century, and even then they only succeeded when Germany invaded from the other side.

Me neither. Assuming parity in kill ratio, Ukraine simply has no chance because it's a much smaller country.
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Agreed. This has to end with negotiation. Zelinsky expecting to get Crimea back is delusional and realistically he will have to let some parts of eastern Ukraine as well.

It's time to turn off the ATM machine as well, and I think even Zelinksy knows that this day has arrived.

I think the Ukraine is getting the much-worse end of this, which is why I was against using them against Russia.
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I agree, especially given that they are the ones being invaded after all in addition to having less people.
 
PRCD

PRCD

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grapedrink said:
The territorial ambitions are no secret and many analysts say it is crucial for their survival.
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Which analysts are saying this - ours? Russia can't exist without invading to the West? That doesn't sound like it's based on anything.
Which isn't Russia's choice to make.
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Russia perceives this to be a verbal commitment we made at the end of the USSR. At any rate, it matters little since they're willing to fight over it and said so before they invaded.
 
hammies

hammies

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Putin has spoken repeatedly for years of his desire to rebuild the USSR. He is a firm believer in Russkiy Mir and Ukraine is not his last stop. IMO if they stopped fighting now Russia gets 50,000 square miles of Ukraine, 5 large nuclear power plants, and a big land bridge to Crimea. A huge win for Putin. I suspect he would consolidate, regroup, and continue to harass Ukraine in the hope that a more friendly government can get elected and it turns into a vassal state like Belarus (unlikely IMO).

At some point he will then find a pretext to go "protect" access to Kaliningrad, thus picking a fight in the Baltics, but only if Thruster gets elected and the US leaves NATO.

www.thecollector.com

Vladimir Putin’s Russia: Trying to Rebuild the Soviet Era?

For Vladimir Putin, the Soviet Union’s fall was “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.” Russian foreign policy has sought to re-impose control over former Soviet countries.
www.thecollector.com www.thecollector.com
 
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grapedrink

grapedrink

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PRCD said:
Which analysts are saying this - ours? Russia can't exist without invading to the West? That doesn't sound like it's based on anything.
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Peter Zeihan specifically. He didn’t say “The West” as in Western Europe but he did say that they would need to take a big chunk of Ukraine. I don’t necessarily agree but that is what he said. I have also heard from different sources that Putin wants to expand to the former extent of the USSR for defensive purposes.
 
Ifallalot

Ifallalot

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We went from full-spectrum freakout over Ukraine, to total crickets over Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, back to full-tilt emotional imbalance over Gaza. Reminds me of how we went from being confined to our homes like plague carriers, to public health officials cheering on mass demonstrations and riots, to being ordered back into our homes lest all grandmas die. The colonization of our brains (not to mention the takeover of all politics) by media is total. They call the tune, and the rest of us just dance to it.

 
PRCD

PRCD

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grapedrink said:
Peter Zeihan specifically. He didn’t say “The West” as in Western Europe but he did say that they would need to take a big chunk of Ukraine. I don’t necessarily agree but that is what he said. I have also heard from different sources that Putin wants to expand to the former extent of the USSR for defensive purposes.
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Peter Zeihan is an interesting character. Do you ever notice that these experts you've never heard of before show up every time there's as narrative shift? For instance, during COVID, the airways were stuffed with experts like Peter Hotez who were later found to be regime mouthpieces and liars. Analogously, It's interesting that Zeihan showed-up in algorithmic feeds roughly about the time COVID ended and Ukraine began as Current Thing cheerleading the stuff Washington was saying with some minor quibbles. During the globalization era, it was Thomas L. Friedman. During the Aughts in the heyday of the GWoT, it was guys like Thomas PM Barnett and David Kilcullen. Always, they're pitching ideas that are oddly in-line with what TPTB end up doing. It's almost like they're pitch men.

Ifallalot said:
We went from full-spectrum freakout over Ukraine, to total crickets over Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, back to full-tilt emotional imbalance over Gaza. Reminds me of how we went from being confined to our homes like plague carriers, to public health officials cheering on mass demonstrations and riots, to being ordered back into our homes lest all grandmas die. The colonization of our brains (not to mention the takeover of all politics) by media is total. They call the tune, and the rest of us just dance to it.

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Hamas ended Ukraine ended COVID.
 
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grapedrink

grapedrink

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PRCD said:
Peter Zeihan is an interesting character. Do you ever notice that these experts you've never heard of before show up every time there's as narrative shift?
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Yeah I could see that being the case. Some of that is the “Rogan effect”, and usually these guys go on a bunch of different podcasts around the same time, especially when they write a new book.

Hotez is a kook. Anybody who lectures about public health while eating fast food more than once a week needs to STFU
 
PRCD

PRCD

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grapedrink said:
Yeah I could see that being the case. Some of that is the “Rogan effect”, and usually these guys go on a bunch of different podcasts around the same time, especially when they write a new book.

Hotez is a kook. Anybody who lectures about public health while eating fast food more than once a week needs to STFU
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The government has ties to all of those big podcasters and other media outlets. It's not like Joe Rogan is just researching interesting people to have on his show - various government agencies and NGOs (government once-removed) push ideas to Rogan just as they do the big networks. This has become much more common since the Smith Mundt Modernization Act.
 
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