you don't see any value in an ever-expanding captive market for US arms that can finally check the imperial aggressions of the soviet union huh
What are this boards thoughts on chances Russia attacks on 2/16? I can't see the US/Nato giving Putin what he wants.
I would put it at around 85 - 90% give or take a bit. I think its going to happen and soon. I wonder if they start tomorrow sometime (as it gets dark on the 15th).
Wednesday sounds right. Tomorrow is the day Putin asks for the moon including Zelenskys immediate resignation and the installation of a Russian puppet government as a last ditch “diplomacy effort”, Ukraine cannot accept, the horses ride back to their sides of the field and Wednesday Russia invades. With respect to policy on publicizing the entire process last 2-3 weeks, we are shouting from the rooftop so a) people can get out of dodge and b) when you tell the world what Putin is planning on doing and on what day etc, Putin loses control of all optics. There is no surprise, no moment of power, no cunning. Just a bully. Or worse, if he misses it by a few days, incompetent or weak.
5%. NATO is a paper tiger too busy prepping for the upcoming rug pull on Western equity markets. NATOs economic war machine and sanction regime (dollar hegemony) is under threat when hydrocarbons start getting traded in rubles or yuan instead of the dollar.This media event is the NatSec reaction to that.
I’d think Putin would either attack on the 15th or 17th just to make it look more like we don’t know what we are talking about.
5% chance Russia invades? Or just on the 16th? what are you saying about equity markets and hydrocarbons and rubles?
I don't know about specifically 2/16 (or really any time -- could be in 15 minutes, could be in 15 months), but I'd say it's a pretty real possibility. I hold out hope for a last minute agreement that can stop a war -- Ukraine agrees to stop asking to join NATO, concedes Donbas to Russia, Russia pulls it's army off of the Ukrainian border -- but I honestly don't know what Russia is even asking for**. Regime change in Ukraine or territorial concessions that include everything east of the Dnieper (or all of Ukraine's Black Sea ports) or something is likely a nonstarter. Still, Russian statements today seemed to at least suggest they're open to an agreement. For the love of God, I hope the US / NATO don't do shit other than provide intelligence, satellite imagery, and humanitarian support because I'd prefer there's not a shooting war with a nuclear armed Russia. **Much of this reminds me of the US leadup to the Iraq war. Demands that Iraq couldn't hope to meet. "Turn over all of your nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons (that you don't actually have)"
2/16 wasn't exactly, but more about just in general war on or around Wednesday. Don't want it either, but can't imagine we stand by and watch rockets firing into a sovereign nations capital and do nothing. Lots of dead space to fill now that we aren't at war in the middle east
The real source of the United States power and why we will never NOT have one or two puppet/colonies in the Persian Gulf is that oil and gas is traded in USD. That creates a demand for the USD that we all benefit from. The US turns this power into violence through sanctions by not letting certain states/individuals have access to the "USD Network" or SWIFT. There's a ton of weird rabbit holes you can go down with SWIFT but the gist is it that you need to use SWIFT to play in the global economy which runs on hydrocarbons/USD. Oil is the dollar and the dollar is oil. Recently, China and Russia have agreed to trade hydrocarbons in their local currencies. https://www.reuters.com/world/putin...could-sell-more-russian-gas-china-2022-02-04/ theres a recent article. As you probably, know the Fed has printed a fuckin assload of dollars through C-19 related fiscal and monetary stimulus measures (scamdemic) while keeping real interest rates negative to prop up domestic equity and real estate markets. They're turning off that free money pump here real soon due to political pressure and have agreed to raise rates aggressively over the next few months to combat inflation. With equity and real estate markets drunk as fuck on negative rates and cheap money, what goes up has to come down. The Fed today is STILL pumping free cash/liquidity into markets even with inflation over 7.5%. The fed allowing 7.5% inflation while continuing to pump excess liquidity into markets threatens the legitimacy of the institution when their job is to keep inflation in check and people poor enough they have to work. Labor force participation still isn't back to where it was pre-pandemic; people feeling rich on paper are going to get a boot in the ass so they go back to their gig jobs. My take, is the demons that pull the levers of power are sweating at the idea that the largest consumer of hydrocarbons in the world might be buying natural gas in another currency so they're doing what they can to restore legitimacy to the USD with the Fed while trying to make Russia look aggressive so they can use their sanction regime to hammer the Russians for trying to sell Russian natural gas in Rubles.
NATO really isn't in much of a position to fight a major war with Russia and won't, unless Putin has gone completely mad and isn't stopping at the Ukrainian border. Again, anything can happen with planes and missiles in crowded airspace though and there's scenarios where this spirals out of control. More likely this means Ukraine becomes part of Russia and there's a dangerous new cold war that starts up with trillions of $$$ of new defense systems and dangerous weapons that make the world more dangerous (in an era of accelerating climate change and diminishing resources).
They're trying to make Russia look aggressive? Seems like Russia is handling that on their own aren't they?
If Russia invades Ukraine, they're aggressive, full stop. No need to make Russia look aggressive, if the blow the hell out of their neighbor with ballistic missiles and heavy armor divisions, that makes them aggressive by definition. I'm not going to argue with the notion that there's a larger global power game centered around fossil fuels, I tend to agree. I just don't look at this like "Russia good, US bad" or vice versa, when the reality is Putin is one of the richest men in the world and Shell Oil and BP don't give a fuck who they're buying petroleum from, as long as the world is still dependent on it. They're all shitbirds.
Proof the propaganda machine is working. NATO is pushing for Ukraine to join. What ties does Ukraine have with the North Atlantic imperial powers? Its another market NATO can do enact their imperial project, basically in Russia. NATO has expanded membership since the collapse of the Soviet Union to include nearly every former SSR. On the other hand, Ukraine has cultural and ethnic ties to Russia that go back millennia. Ukraine translates to “at the edge of Russia” or some shit. The Crimean annexation was actually popular with many Crimeans bc they see themselves as Russian. who benefits from a hypothetical war? Not Ukrainians or Russians. Western military and finance does tho
Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are the only former SSRs that joined. Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia (now split), et al were all Warsaw Pact nations, but not SSRs.
I just want to clarify that you're saying Russia is not the aggressor as they invade and pummel a weaker sovereign nation who is begging for diplomacy?
I struggle with saying its ok for Russia to "take back" Ukraine because where is the limit? Im not pro war or NATO but on the surface you let a bully get its way its going to take more and more till someone stops them.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181 Article by Vladimir Putin ”On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians“
There are also a ton of Ukrainians who don't want to be subjugated to Russian rule just because that's how it was for centuries.
There’s nothing to discuss. Our opinions don’t matter. The West will try to prop up Ukrainian nationalists, Russians will support ethnic Russians to protect them from Nationalists. The dialectic around the governance and division of the Ukraine will continue long after we’re dead just as it did before we were born.
FYI Western Ukraine is a diff ethnic group than eastern Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine is more akin to Russia while western def is not.
And ethnic Russians in western Ukraine that want to be part of Russia again. They have money they could be used to develop neglected infrastructure. That played heavily in the most recent Crimean
why stop there. If Ireland ever votes to unify, England should immediately invade and take over the entire country.
Yeah. Return our military bases in Korea and Japan over to the locals as well. I know. Ukraine is a complicated place.
As long as the 17% of Ukraine constituting ethnic Russians wants it, I really don’t see any issues with annexation by force
If Russia and China get "their land" back, the Acadians would like our land back in Nova Scotia please
Is it possible that the Ukrainians may not want to go back to the group that literally starved millions of their countrymen?
How low does their stock gotta go before you’re unemployed and have to go fight the Russians in the Ukraine?