@Lionsmane8 All countries are run by narcissistic psychopaths. You don't get to that position without being one.
@Lionsmane8 This next year, about one third of Russia's government spending will be on defense, largely due to Ukraine, around $109 billion out of total spending of around $386 billion. That's why it is not a global military threat. It doesn't have the resources to be in the same league as the West in that area and it never has. China spends around $300 billion on defense and it's economy is not in good shape; it's facing massive debt, for which it has little to show other than white elephant cities. It too is in no position to impose global hegemony even if it wanted to. It's debt situation is far, far worse than that of the U.S.
A corollary to this is that those claiming Russia is some great threat to Europe if the U.S. doesn't write a blank check to Ukraine are full of it, and the high ups saying such things know very well that they are not true. They benefit from the graft. It has nothing to do with some supposed nobility of Russia's leaders, it's simply economic reality.
Read More@Lionsmane8 It's military hasn't exactly performed impressively in Ukraine and its capabilities were overestimated. You might wish it were different but it's not.
@SwarmShawarma Russia doesn't have anywhere near the economic resources to be much of a military threat to Europe. A pest, yes, but the situation isn't comparable with Hitler in 1938.
@MentORPHEUS That's an interesting point. I've always thought of it in terms of how clever people use it to control others, but never thought of its impact on other psychological and behavior issues.
@polishknight Russia's army was exposed as a paper tiger for sure, but I just don't see the benefit of Ukraine being a State Department-controlled client state, which it will still be after whatever resolution is reached. Seems like a lot of young men died because of the maneuverings of very evil people.
@destraht I agree that it is difficult to determine how this failing pile of shit is going to fall. To some extent it is a consequence of elderly people, baby boomers and up, essentially trashing the place on their way out and grabbing all they can. I wonder what will happen when they die off. Weaponization of SWIFT is a good example. An idiotic thing to do with no potentially good long term consequences, but the people who did it didn't care. Those people need to be gone.
The two state idea has been repeatedly rejected and won't happen. It's more a public talking point than a realistic solution.
This gets most loudly said by Israel and the U.S. On Oct 6 and before, it wasn't much of a public talking point at all, anywhere. Maybe the long term solutions currently grouped under "Two state solutions" won't be what eventually emerges. I think though that the matter of Palestinian self-determination, on a land they can call their own same as Israel can with theirs, is something the world can continue the pattern of ignoring and dismissing.
@MentORPHEUS The two state idea has been repeatedly rejected and won't happen. It's more a public talking point than a realistic solution. I'm not taking anyone's side but rather trying to determine what is likely to happen and not get caught up in unrealistic assumptions. Behind the scenes (so I've read anyway), a number of Muslim countries, most of the important ones, are perfectly fine with Israel taking out Hamas (they just don't want to take in the Palestinians), and that's the most likely outcome here in my view. Blinken's leaked "don't have the credit" remark was likely intended for domestic consumption by certain factions on the left. As to @Problematic_Browser's remark, morality isn't a factor in any of this. What it comes down to is whether there can be an Israel or not, and despite what Muslim countries' leaders say publicly, privately they say something very different, and no one thinks Israel is going anywhere. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to establish it in the first place, as I've often thought, but that's irrelevant now.
If the major players had ever wanted a two state solution, one would have been imposed long ago.
Read MoreI'm just saying that the Palestinians don't want a two state solution.
Do you speak for them? They have been confined in an apartheid state and stripped of all the trappings of self-determination. Badly as Oct 7 was for Israel, was ANYONE seriously discussing the two-state solution and Palestinian self-determination on Oct. 6 or before? I see it as a case study in "Make peaceful resolution impossible, make armed revolution inevitable."
Don't be too dismissive of Africans, either. They recently gave their French colonizers the heave-ho, and now comes China with the belts-roads project and Russia with big trading aspirations. Will their models work out better? Time will tell, but the collapsing colonialist models were a shit deal for them that none of us would accept to live under ourselves.
"Israel being gone" is a false dichotomy and a major pillar of Israeli propaganda and mythology. Going back 100 years, Israel came into existence by excluding others from land they lived on, and has continued with this ever since. Even the language around it has been rigged by Israel. Israelis are hostages, Palestinians are prisoners. Israelis are settlers, Palestinians are invaders and militants. Israel is always framed as the victim and reactive, Palestinians as the aggressors and instigators. Events are framed beginning at the moment Israel looks like the victim, and discussion of what they did before or the other side's motivations gets shut down. It's almost like those classic "Antisemites" were right- The Jew will always tell you what happened to him but never WHY. Apply the Red Pill canon here: Don't listen to what they say, watch what they DO.
Mind you, most of my life, I was conditioned to take Israel's side every time. This doesn't hold up well in the internet age when everything can be checked for oneself instead of having only curated MSM reports to go by. The mythos surrounding Israel is one more thing that got Red Pilled out of me.
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