The problem with this zero sum thinking is there is another player outside of the countries if the world; nature itself. Think natural disasters, climate change, diseases. No one can negotiate with it or form alliances. It does not care about our survival. The only choice we have is to come together to make sure we don't get screwed over.
Sprinkle a little cryptocurrency backed money laundering here... some tax cuts there... Make sure your closest friends are well taken care of...
Then hole up in armed compounds with plenty of fresh water and air conditioning ... and say "f you" to everyone else.
Now you understand the rationale of America's new ruling class.
If they did that, you'd be outside being happy or something happy-adjacent.
> if things go bad their 20 security detail won’t protect them later.
That's... very optimistic, to say the least. Historically it's not been the case.
I don’t know if they’ve considered all the logistics but they do rather seem to be at the point where society’s ability to either ignore or impede them is to be done away with.
Which means are these?
if things go bad, what is the dork zuckerberg going to pay his burly security force in?
facebook stock? dollars?
not exactly useful
Same as every other autocrat: food, housing, not getting shot yourself.
> not exactly useful
And yet it usually works.
(Edit fixed a typo in a word. Sorry I am on mobile)
This is, in fact, how the end of the western Roman empire looked. No bang, just a long series of whimpers as the elite retreated to armed estates with private armies, taxes stopped being collected, overall trade declined, cities declined, and the agrarian peasantry became bound to lords and estates out of need of protection, etc. etc.
When civic institutions and the taxes that support them are openly attacked and predated upon, weakened and then combined with environmental, disease, or security crisis, one needn't think hard to picture the kind of eventual world that results.
The US no longer wanting to fund someone else's war is about as far from 'forcing' as you can get. Plus it doesn't even sound like we're withdrawing all funding, instead we're attaching a few conditions in hopes to end the killing.
That’s what the outcry is about. As of today, the US is no longer the leader of the free world.
The economic impact for the US in the long run will be significant. Trust is hard to build but easy to destroy.
Realpolitik is, first and foremost, about (arguably ruthless) pragmatism. What's going on — the US antagonising all its allies and forging new alliances with unreliable partners —— is not pragmatic in the least.
Without US, EU cannot fulfill Ukrainian needs with their current arsenal.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312602/ukrainian-refuge...
On top of it all, it’s extorting Ukraine into giving up it’s minerals while giving no assurances in return.
And finally, most important for long term, it’s a complete policy reversal to its NATO allies, which will have a long term impact on US transatlantic relations for decades to come. Before, US was the only country to invoke Article 5. Now its recognising a weak moments for its allies and is exploiting that opportunity.
Why did suddenly "end the killing" become a talking point for the people supporting this/Trump? "End the Killing of *american soldiers*(outside US)" seems like an consistent message but when this group didn't give 2 shits about Iraqi, Afgani, Vietnam, Libya, Syria, and even essentially justify warcrimes and killings, how can the movement stay morally consistent to "Oh we are doing this to save Ukrainean life" as a slogan?
"We don't want to spend our money on other nationals, but we are ok in having colonies or natural resource exploitation at your expense" is the only sensible interpretation of current presidents behavior.
A stance that seems pretty aligned with every war since 9/11, just more explicit and any pretense such as "spreading democracy" or "WMD", and less willing to commit (american lives) for profit. Wasn't support for Trump against deepstate and all this "benefiting deepstate at the expense of the common people" wars? Why can't the movement just own up to it all.
There also was no forced conscription in those. The military members knew what they were getting into and made a choice to sign up anyway. That's no longer the case in Ukraine, the border is closed, citizens cannot leave, they are being rounded up and forced into a few weeks of bootcamp then to the front-lines to die. That's the antithesis of freedom.
The US was sending old equipment. To replace it they were and spending money on R&D and manufacturing of current and next-gen equipment for the US military, not Ukraine. The US got to observe and study the use of it's older equipment in an actual land war against a geopolitical adversary. The war has demonstrated US equipment superiority over Russian equipment.
The US did not send any troops, only old equipment and some money.
Regarding "hopes to end the killing". The killing can end today if Putin withdraws. He is the aggressor who attacked without any justification or provocation. If somebody invades your neighbour's apartment and starts looting and hurting them, do you just say "give up, it's easier"?
Some might but those are not people we respect.
It'd be one thing all Ukrainian soldiers were choosing to fight, but now a significant fraction are forcible conscripts. The border is closed, Ukrainian citizens are being rounded up and forced onto the battlefield.
You are enabling this, even advocating for it. Sending old equipment actually seems worse in this case. We're enabling a regime that is enslaving its citizens while sending them shitty outdated equipment.
If someone invades a neighbor's apartment, and starts looting and hurting them sure you can choose to help the neighbor but if there's a backdoor and the neighbor locks it as you attempt to escape and says you must stay here and help me kill the intruder or be killed, that's now entrapment and murder.
The conflict can be stopped right now with loss of territory so long as Ukraine is given trustworthy guarantees that Russia won't invade again as soon as they've licked their wounds a bit. That is the ask, and the only one who can provide that is realistically the United States, or Europe with guaranteed support from the United States.
You appear to forget history, but plenty of citizens were able to leave through the back door while able-bodied citizens were required to do the only reasonable thing a democracy can do and defend its sovereignty.
First with what they had, then with conservatively provided weapons as other countries tried to figure out if Putin would actually use nukes, and finally with more effective munitions when it was apparent he would not.
No neighbor is locked in, and the US embarrasses itself as it simps for Russia in the UN and parades the president of an invaded democracy around in a jester hat.
Welcome to a war, those rights are not free.
By the way, if you’d like to see a real life example of this neighborly coercion you’re so concerned about, Russia is the most guilty party with its blocking units. As a matter of fact, given the tremendous amount of dead on the Russian side, you should be appealing to Putin to stop this, not Ukraine.
The human cost for this sad excuse of a "peace treaty" will completely decimate Ukraine and simply delay the next attack.
The history of war is full of unhappy truces and compromise. WW2 type victories are extremely rare and take massive sacrifice.
And keep in mind, we're not doing the sacrificing. It is Ukraine who is doing the fighting and should be calling the shots here, with our material support since we don't want to send troops (until now).
From what I've read I think the only plan put forward is to have Europeans run the DMZ? The US having troops there would probably be a no-go since that's the primary power-conflict (even above NATO). I don't think there's any other option as historically there's always a third party regulating it. Maybe a subset of UN where possibly even China could have troops there.
Not sure what guarantees would exist for breaking the ceasefire though, besides the usual full sanctions/weapons/maybe troops. Who knows what happens now though :/
See the "spring offensive".
The reality is more or less a stalemate at this point. While the Trump administration treatment of Zelensky is a disgrace the reality is that some sort of ceasefire around the current borders is going to be the outcome that ends this war. We can work on forcing Russia to withdraw via economic and other pressure after the hot war is over. Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
This idea of one more year and Russia will break is just a dream with no connection to reality. Putin is going to send a million man to fight with sticks before Russia breaks. And they will.
> We can work on forcing Russia to withdraw via economic and other pressure after the hot war is over. Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
You think Trump plans to maintain sanctions? You sweet summer child.
My statement had nothing to do with Trump maintaining sanctions or not. If he doesn't some future administration will. US relations with the Soviets also fluctuated during the cold war.
This simply isn’t true.
> China is pretty much supplying all the goods that went away due to western sanctions
This is not correct. Some countries are being used to bypass sanctions, including China, but this isn’t happening with government support and the extra costs of evading sanctions are putting inflationary pressure on goods in Russia.
> buying all the exports that the west is trying to sanction.
Barring oil and gas, there’s nothing Russia has that China wants. And even then, they don’t have the infrastructure to buy the volumes to replace European purchases, thus the black hole in the Russian budget.
If Xi wanted Russia to stop the war, Russia would stop the war. The war is useful for China because it splinters the west, they get leverage over Russia, and it normalizes the kind of actions that it wants to take in Taiwan.
If China objected to North Korea sending troops to Russia then North Korea would not be sending troops to Russia. Pretty much all of North Korea's trade is with China. For sure North Korea has some degree of independence but sending soldiers to die for Russia is not worth it if it upsets China. This is clearly a nod, nod, wink, wink situation here.
"Most of Russia's exports to China originate from the mining and petrochemicals sectors.[64] More than half of Russia's exports to China come from mineral fuels, oil, and petroleum products (60.7%), followed by wood and wood products (9.4%), non-ferrous metals (9%), fish and seafood (3.5%), and chemical products (3.3%). China is also gradually becoming a major consumer of Russian agricultural products.[24]: 64
The main categories of imports to Russia from China are machinery and equipment (35.9%), clothing (13.7%), chemical products (9.1%), fur and fur products (5.6%), footwear (5.3%), and furniture (3%). Chinese electronics are steadily expanding their presence in Russian.[24]: 64"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Russia_relations...
Financial and economic weaknesses are also working against Putin and his team from _within_ Russia.
> Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
It was not entirely broken, since we have the living proof of it today in the Kremlin - same operating mode.
> Putin is going to send a million man
Why is he resorting to North Korean soldiers then? (which even then aren't infinite). Obviously, he has a problem at recruiting/training his own. Which puts him at odds with his own population.
So whose soldiers will it be next? China? not likely willing to deal with that. Iran? same. African countries? Not their war, they tell it themselves.
The issue is that Putin has cornered himself and his country, willingly, knowingly, into a no-way-out road. He had other options of both perspective and action.
You're applying western thinking here. The same sort of western thinking that thought Putin wouldn't invade Ukraine because what's in it for him or imagine some red lines or whatever. Russians aren't western. They don't think like us. The west always does this.
There isn't such a thing of at odds with his own population in Russia. Again you're applying western thinking to Russians. Check out some Russian jokes.
Not sure if this is what you meant by logistics.
If you're thinking about supplying and maintaining their physical presence in Ukraine it doesn't look like that's a problem either.
"As of 2024, Russia produces about 3 million artillery shells a year, nearly three times the quantity from the US and Europe." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry_of_Russia
They're also still exporting weapons though significantly less than they used to export.
Maybe they can't sustain 10 years of war with the west continuing or increasing their level of support, assuming Ukraine can, but they are nowhere near being forced to stop [the] war.
Alledged population. Or are we also to believe their election results?
The failure of the initial 3-days invasion was a demonstration that the « great Russian army », even with the support of Wagner and Tchetchenia, was unable to plan, execute and sustain a flash attack.
Yes, they may improve in the meantime. But that takes years of discipline and continuous training. So while that’s an option for them, that’s also a weakness that can be decisive.
The problem with a ceasefire is that Russia has an endless history of accepting negotiations only to use them to get a tactical advantage. It is standard practice for them. So of course Ukraine is very wary unless that can be prevented.
No, it won't. With sufficient outside political pressure on Ukraine, it might happen, but (like many ceasefires) it would only be a brief pause, not an end to the war.
> We can work on forcing Russia to withdraw via economic and other pressure after the hot war is over.
Sanctions almost never work without someone actually fighting on the ground. If they are not tipping the balance of an active internal or external conflict, they can be endured basically indefinitely.
(Not that Trump seems inclined to either try to force Putin to withdraw or to maintain sanctions, in any case.)
> Just like we broke up the Soviet Union.
We didn't break up the Soviet Union, the republics of the Soviet Union broke it up, largely because of a crisis of legitimacy resulting from a hardline coup against a mildly reformist leadership. The main immediate US contribution, though, was bogging the USSR down in the long war it fought in Afghanistan by aiding the forces opposing the USSR there, the outgrowth of which was both the disatisfaction that provoked the reform efforts and the strong negative reaction to the subsequent hardline coup, not sanctions imposed without an ongoing armed conflict.
Some discourses are just propaganda. Specially at war time.
This it the end of an 80 year era. The US will never have as much influence and prosperity again.
> it doesn't even sound like we're withdrawing all funding, instead we're attaching a few conditions in hopes to end the killing.
There is currently no funding for Ukraine from the US. Trump has dangled offers of assistance “with conditions” but nothing concrete. Even this minerals deal didn’t actually include any security assistance or funding for weapons.
You really believe that the current administration is acting out of “hopes to end the killing”?
What do you think Greenland is about? About spreading christianity?
The current administration is failing and the top % is profiting off it; eating itself up. It’s a pattern that’s well known.
Internationally, the US is rapidly losing allies all across the board. And internally, facing its facing increasingly extreme inequality in terms of wealth distribution.
The current administration doesn’t even have interesting cards that it can play.
The tariffs are intended to be asymmetrical, attacking Central Canadian manufacturing with a 25% import tariff while only applying a 10% tariff to Albertan oil exports (if that even) and simultaneously making noises about reviving Keystone XL.
It's the same crap with the Russia stuff. Oil oil oil.
The Canadian conservatives are not going to play ball with Trump either. Poilievre is going to win because the current government is terrible. If anything Trump's actions are strengthening the liberals because it forces them to actually do something which they always try to avoid. To some degree this mirrors the poor governance by the democrats in the US that lost them their elections but at least Poilievre is not a moron.
The whole let's tariff Canada is just plain stupidity. There is no logic. There is no way that Canada is going to yield to the US in any way.
The "it's all about oil" crowd is as stuck in the 1990s as the "we're still in the cold war crowd." This is probably much more about rare earth minerals.
Russia is no longer the big bad guy it used to be. Before the war, they had a crumbling economy the size of Italy's.
And you can see a premature declaration of victory along similar lines from the Russian state media, which was then taken down when Ukraine did not in fact fold in three days: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60562240. You can see the archive.org capture of the original article linked there if you wish to see the primary source.
Yes, their GDP is weak (nevertheless, Russia persists). No, it doesn't make any sense if you look at it through a normal Western lens, which is why there was widespread disbelief that Russia was to imminently invade Ukraine. But, as the saying goes, "Russia can't be understood by the mind alone"
It's ridiculous and false to say that in general Canada has a protectionist policy. There are some areas (like maybe milk and maple) where Canada is protecting its local producers but in general Canada is pro free trade. Most of the the trade skirmishes between the countries were around things like soft woods where IMO it was the Americans who were violating the trade agreements.
The insinuation that Canada is somehow taking advantage of the US in trade is just nonsense. The trade imbalance is a reflection of the slower growing Canadian economy (because obviously we are taking advantage of the Americans) and the energy/resources we sell to the US (too cheaply).
The US produces plenty of conventional crude, but imports cheap heavy crude from Canada because it's cheap and the refineries are set up for it. They could eventually transition refining, but ... why? In the end it would just hurt the consumer and provide no strategic advantage.
Like many things, oil and gas pipelines zigzag across the border. Continental integration has been the order of the day for 3/4 of a century at this point.
Yes Canada protects its agricultural sector just like the US does its. We protect dairy especially, but the US massively subsidizes cash crop agri in the US. And in any case, Canada imports more agri from the US than it exports, so, again, it seems very bizarre to try to present some kind of case that Canada is some sort of protectionist parasite.
Are these the talking points the GOP is putting out to try to cover Trump's verbal farts? Because they make no sense. Oh, and governors of GOP states that trade with Canada have also made this very clear, and are not happy with Trump around this issue during this term or the last term when he played these games.
* The agricultural products that are well-known, including milk, lumber, and the famous Canadian maple syrup cartel
* Similar protections on minerals and other natural resources (including oil), and bans of foreign ownership of natural resource extraction companies
* Canadian TV and radio stations must play a certain fraction of Canadian content
* Significant restrictions on movement of goods between provinces of Canada, and inter-provincial tariffs that add up to quite a lot
* Canada's limits on foreign ownership of companies in the telecommunications and digital equipment sector, as well as companies involved in defense
* A ban on foreign ownership of residential property
* Canada's data localization laws and digital goods tax
I am fine with Canada having a lot of trade protections, but it does.
Most trade between the US and Canada is free. There is a free trade agreement.
Yes. Canada doesn't want to lose its artists so it supports local musicians. I mean everyone still listens to local TV and Radio stations here. We don't have the Internet in our logging camps.
There is no ban on foreign ownership of residential property. You must be confusing us with Australia. [EDIT: Sorry but as you noted I am at least partly wrong here. Since 2022 [actually 2023] there are limitations on foreigners buying residential housing in Canada. It has a lot of loopholes but it still exists. You can still own residential property if you acquired it before even if you are a foreigner. This isn't really a trade question anyways].
There's some inter-provincial friction. Not sure what that has to do with anything. Gives the US an advantage.
You pay sales tax on stuff you buy online. That's true in the US as well. I know Amazon really wanted to get around that but hey.
The US supports US companies with various subsidies. It also has lower tax rates. Not fair.
US-Canada trade is a relatively free, win-win. It's not a zero sum game. Now the US administration wants to turn this into a lose-lose zero sum game over some imaginary drug and immigration issues with the border.
And all of them have corresponding restrictions within the US. You think Lockheed Martin isn't protected? That any Canadian company would be allowed to dominate aerospace or defense or telecoms (not that they could)
And what is this nonsense about "ban on foreign ownership of residential property"? Sounds like a good idea, but it does not exist
Where are you from? Because if you're from Canada, you sound woefully uneducated about your own nation.
(Interprovincial trade limitations are mostly on alcohol and are a remnant from prohibition era laws. And yes, they suck. The other area where the provinces have barriers is around professional certifications.)
I am not a Canadian, but I hope that if you are, you learn more about your own nation's trade policy than a foreigner.
Once again, I am not convinced that these protections are bad for Canada, but they absolutely are a huge subsidy for local business, and a very common tool for Canadian government.
I can tell you that buying residential property in the US as a foreigner isn't a cakewalk either, my dude.
Ask yourself -- Why are you playing into this rhetoric about Canada? You seem like one of the people who 6 months ago would barely even acknowledge we exist, yet now you're an expert...
One thing, I’d like to understand is do regular Americans think that the country, following an isolationist policy will out compete the rest of the world?
Like my comment, it's technically true and completely not worth discussing, because it will never happen.
There is a legitimate debate as to what cost is worth paying, if any (as well as what cost comes from not doing anything - ask the Baltics), but to present the situation as fait accompli?
2. Learn how we are funding the war. It is helping us instead of costing a bunch of money.
It _was_ also their war, because it's Europe that's attacked through Ukraine, and... Europe (and Ukraine, actually) used to be allies.
Well, here we are: the USA is _not_ anymore an ally to Europe, and is objectively becoming, as a state, an adversary, so here is the most likely survival plan available to Europe now:
1/ find new partners (Canada/Australia of course; as for the big one, will be India and/or China);
2/ increase its own defence and technologies to be more independent from US ones (will hurt, for sure);
3/ close its market to USA (will hurt heavily on both sides);
4/ not even talking about the cultural reframing that will happen.
It's not a matter of "if the USA doesn't fix its course within 4 years", it's happening now.
And no one wins at this. Certainly not the USA. Trump will be gone and forgotten in a few years. USA will take, at the very best, 40/50 years to fix the damaged trust towards Europe, but also towards any future partner: how do you expect to sincerely partner with a country that behaves so erratically every 4 years, and now even ambushes guest state representatives in front of the media?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/23/back-to-the-fut...
e.g. I watched American Psycho last night, in which there's some 'is that the Trumps', 'why would Ivanka Trump be here'.
E.g. that's the case for Home Alone 2, where he demanded the cameo for the use of The Plaza Hotel:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/us-celebrity-news/real-reason-d...
> idolizes above all others. Bateman talks about him constantly, citing incredibly specific details of his life of luxury, and is often distracted by the thought of seeing Trump or his wife Ivana out in New York City.
2. He's taking advantage of anchoring bias: he makes a completely outrageous first offer which then makes any subsequent offer seems more reasonable, even if it was higher than you would otherwise accept. He does this all of the time, and it's a standard negotiating tactic in general, but it sometimes works well for Trump because of how people see him (see point 1).
It's also not at all obvious that the US has been more secure in its role as world police. Arguably, it led directly to 9/11 and decades of pointless death in the Middle East.
All of the arguments that the status quo was more secure and better economically are weak, at best, given the complexities of the counterfactuals.
If people conflate their current economic misfortune with a US foreign policy of encouraging global cooperation and participation, then they haven’t thought much about cause and effect.
Someone who cared to address the newfound lack of upward mobility in our society would insist on domestic policies that ensured economic surplus was explicitly invested toward the public good.
While globalization certainly has advantages that have been espoused at length, little thought has been given to their clear downsides, like decimating domestic production and the vulnerabilities inherent to distributed supply chains.
As for the "transition to a knowledge economy", this too entails similar problems. The previous trajectory was simply untenable.
If you want to see truly prosperous societies then you have to maximize peaceful international cooperation through shared democratic values. That takes educated citizenry with post-material values who will be invested in the stability and longevity of such an international system.
And they need to cooperate against authoritarian bad actors like Putin, who seek to divide and conquer.
Oh please.
But whether he's serious or not about a claim really comes down to whether someone likes it or not. Regardless, I'd argue that's a really poor way to lead.
He's also very sensitive to public opinion of him, and he knows public opinion is against military conflict. People are sick of it.
So war is the complete antithesis of everything he's ever demonstrably cared about. That's a pretty solid piece of evidence that lets you distinguish what seems reasonable, but that gets conveniently ignored by people that let their feelings about him influence their judgment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43219380
I don't like it, but I can't deny that he's made it work more often than expected. Possibly with some negative downstream effects we haven't seen yet. Time will tell.
He's threatened Panama, Denmark, and Kanada (his supposed allies) with military action.
He's stated that he would let Putin "do whatever he wants".
He's now abandoning Ukraine and doing Putins bidding (Putin who is one of the biggest warmongers and dictators in modern times).
He plans to "level Gaza" (which means genocide) so he can build luxury hotels.
Even if you take him for his words, which you shouldn't, he's a warmonger not a peace lover.
This is exactly the kind of unhinged take on Trump that drives me crazy, and I'm not even a fan. On the one hand you say he's a liar and you can't believe anything he says, but when it's convenient for you, suddenly everything he says is completely literal.
The fact of the matter is that Trump has never initiated any serious military action, and he has a deliberate and predictable tactic of making outrageous offers and threats to put people off balance to make them compliant and accept worse offers than they otherwise would have (anchoring bias). This is a standard negotiating tactic, Trump just does it bombastically like no one else.
> He's stated that he would let Putin "do whatever he wants".
The US is not the world police. Other people being warmongers doesn't make Trump a warmonger because he "lets them".
> He plans to "level Gaza" (which means genocide) so he can build luxury hotels.
No, he didn't suggest killing anyone, he explicitly said they would be relocated. That's closer to ethnic cleansing, but decidedly not genocide.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160312080447/http://europe.new...
Doonesbury and Bloom County, popular comic strips running in most newspapers, had arcs involving him, too:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160306081734/http://doonesbury...
Historically, China is probably the single least ocean-focused country of any country to have a coast.
No, that has absolutely nothing to do with "maritime power".
But WW2 ended colonialism and 90s globalization spread industrialization worldwide, leaving us all in the slow roll of reverting to the mean now. At the end of which, the ancient civilizations of China and India, with nearly 3 billion people between them, will return to global dominance.
People broadly like americans and american culture. But most of the world hates american imperialism.
I don't think so. Admire its riches, and unwaveringly aggressive pursuit of commercial success perhaps, but like its culture, beyond the Hollywood blockbusters? That's not so common.
And from your own link to that survey where the US was #1 threat to world peace, the US was still one of the top places where the respondents wanted to live.
That's what we're headed towards. The 'dark enlightenment' fascists think they can accelerate a switch of global banking moving towards cryptocurrency. Good fucking luck trading a bitcoin when normal finance is blowing up, grocery stores are going to struggle with stocking their shelves.
Also, if crypto would be to become any money, then it would not produce any yield in average. So it would not be interesting to hold, the whole scenario makes no sense.
All of the dark outcomes you describe are possible while a certain class has profitted already so much they don't care and will happily retreat into their bunker.
I’m also not sure how you think the Trump administration’s actions are addressing this. He pardoned Jan 6th rioters. He’s defunding federal infrastructure.
This is just so blatantly disconnected from what’s happening.
In addition, most US contributions are done in the form of donating surplus/outdated military equipment that was manufactured by the US defence industry decades ago, at a fictional list price.
And yet, way too many Americans seem to think that each billion-dollar contribution the US has done to Ukraine consisted of someone taking that money out of the US treasury now and giving it to Zelensky as a sack of cash or something.
No, the money left the US treasury many years ago, and went to US defence industry. The aid bills also typically contain an agreement for future spending on US defence industry to replace the donated equipment. In each case, the tax money went to US companies in the MIC, and it is quite something to see how so many people on the right wing now thinks this is a bad thing.
A good example of an effective peace treaty was the Camp David accords that put an end to the Yom Kippur war of 1973. That used interest based bargaining instead of distributive bargaining.
The outcome that Russia is interested in this conflict is:
- annexing territory (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, etc)
- help Ukraine facilitate the international recognition of that annexation
- Ukraine should not join NATO (this makes another invasion viable in the future)
In this deal, Ukraine gets:
- a ceasefire
- some peacekeeping help
These terms are pretty mediocre for Ukraine. This administration seems to be inclined to think that's the best Ukraine can get and they should take the offer to prevent further losses.
Oblasts like Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, etc. have a high percentage of ethnic Russians living there. That would remain a barrier for Ukraine to achieve peace even if Russians retreat to pre-2014 borders. Nobody knows exactly what percentage of Russians live there because the last census was long time ago.
Russia is only interested in a ceasefire as a pause before occupying most of Ukraine.
Not a single time Russia has even hinted to accepting presence of any sort of third party force in Ukraine for peacekeeping.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ukrainian_presidential_el...
Idk if he came up all on his own with the idea of becoming president by first playing one on TV, but I've got to admit it's absolutely brilliant.
The logic seems to be that if he's played good guys on TV, it means he already knows what common decency looks like to regular people, unlike the hardline nomenklatura gangsters who live by their own sort of thieves' honor.
Fascinating approach, and one common to East European worldviews: "these people are evil because they don't know how to be good". It's a supremely compassionate view, even if it's proven more than a little counterproductive over and over.
Have you heard about "Eurasianism"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasianism https://www.jstor.org/stable/4400555
Alexander Dugin? https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/aleksandr-dugin-vladimir-...
And please, don't forget China and the ideology if Tianxia (天下) and the revisionism on the 100 year humiliation (百年国耻).
Once you start talking about hierarchies among nations and ethnicities, you are starting to establish connections with other concepts that relate to one type of people being exceptional and entitled to rule over others: nationalism and racism.
Imperialism, nationalism and racism are deeply interconnected: if all peoples had similar value or merit there should be no need to change borders because what's outside your borders is similar to what's inside your borders.
The way imperialists talk by highlighting how exceptional your nation and people are or can be, and contrasting against other nations and peoples. And how expanding and ruling others would further improve things.
I think it’s a safe assumption their deal sucks.
[edit] I don’t care about downvotes but if anyone downvoted because they think I made this up… watch the video.
Trump got impeached for asking Zelensky to fabricate evidence against Biden by threatening to withhold US support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Tr...
> The inquiry reported that Trump withheld military aid[a] and an invitation to the White House from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in order to influence Ukraine to announce an investigation into Trump's political opponent Joe Biden, and to promote a discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine– not Russia– was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election.
And one of the objectives of this whole situation was to frame the discussion as a humiliation ritual or character destruction to show what happens when you are not aligned to deter others from doing the same in the future. Shaming individuals who are not aligned is a recurring theme in rallies. e.g.: "Do you see this? Do you want to be seen treated like this? don't campaign for our opposition".
You ignore the fact that in Begin and Sadat, Carter had parties on both sides very willing to sign a permanent peace deal. With Sadat even sending multiple proposals to the US & Israel prior to the 1973 war [0]. While Sadat & Begin are no saints, the incumbent and entrenched wartime leader in Golda Meir had to be thrown to the cribs for peace to come to fruition, something that the Trump Admin now seems to demand of Zelensky.
What stops Putin coming back in 5 years - as he did in 2022 after the 2014 invaison?
This is a common take, but a pretty dishonest one (by the article author of course). It ignores the Egyptian conditions (accepting a withdrawal _in advance_, but negotiating peace afterward), the Israeli reply (offer to unilaterally withdraw from the Canal - set to December 1973 following Israeli elections), and the Egyptian need to fight to 'restore their honour' (as Sadat's wife stated).
Zelensky is no saint (the press ignores his flaws), but actually all parties to the conflict are rather close. The one remaining issue is guarantees to Ukraine (a very reasonable demand), and if Putin finally bends on that an accord will come very quickly.
Ukraine wouldn't even get much of that: this was Zelensky's point, the deal lacked any safety guarantees from the US.
It’s not that Ukraine doesn’t want peace, but on fair terms, not by giving Russia everything they want. Not by ignoring the sacrifices.
Please read up more on the history of the region and what led up to this war.
A good source is : https://inss.ndu.edu/Publications/View-Publications/Article/...
Ukraine is special because it’s so close to Europe, and many countries on the border feel they could be next (the Baltics, Poland)
The inequality in the world is staggering, and Trumps administration will only make it worse. We need people to come together and help eachother out, and the autocrats and warmongers make this very difficult.
If my country started a war with my neighbour, the Europeans, USA would have urged us to stop it and make a peace deal. Would blame us for starting a war on silly issues, our culture etc. The west should do the same make peace not war.
When in 2014 Crimea was annexed, this was a clear breach of trust on the side of the Russians, and the deals and cooperation agreements that were made.
Nobody in Europe wants the war, but we all fear that Russia won’t stop at Ukraine. Their policy is very clear.
Now you can argue that Russia seems NATO as a threat, but they could have been part of it.
If you can please read the Russia analysis above, it’s very well researched and shows where Russia coming from, and also possibly how we can move forward.
The by far most egregious offense having been the utter disrespect shown to the CFE treaty.
Also not a single leader on Ukraine's side (until Trump) but even tried negotiating with Putin beyond Zelensky's 10-point "peace plan". The only exception being Zelensky himself during the Istanbul negotiations. They asked Russia to retreat from Kyiv to "enable" those negotiations and after Russia did so, for yet unknown reason Ukraine withdrew and refused to engage in any further negotiations.
At least the riot shields were put to good use, right?
You could also see that in a positive light : Europeans might get a better armies / defence in 10 years compared to if the USA continued its past behavior without Trump
* After decades of reckless spending and lax economic management the US is going broke in a number of ways. In particular dealing with the national debt before and after Covid are very different beasts
* Coupled with similar problems in other countries and gradual global demographic decline, the global future looks like a zero sum game
* In its relations with other states, America has tended to leave a lot of money on the table since the Cold War era, in order to curry political favor, which it can no longer afford to do
* Republicans speak and campaign more openly about this than Democrats even though they both agree on the fundamental ideas I just outlined
* This is why Republicans are currently ascendant with the electorate and Democrats are seeing some of their worst numbers ever in favorability polls
* It is eminently reasonable to not prefer zero sum geopolitical games because they tend to cause poverty and war, but we've boxed ourselves into this future through decades of poor decisions
I'm not sure America actually has left a lot of money on the table. I see America having benefitted a lot from the post cold war world order (as indeed have most of its allies), and my take is that the kind of extraction of value that Trump has been attempting is at very best only beneficial in the short term.
But again, I appreciate when people with different viewpoints can discuss them civilly, so I gave you an upvote.
They’re the constituency that supports Trump.
Numbers like GDP or total wealth will be highly misleading — and it’s unsurprising that the opinion of the petite bourgeoisie (who primarily make up HN) differ from those groups.
When the party advocating wealth redistribution also calls them “deplorables” and flagrantly provides worse services (eg, NC disaster vs CA disaster) that seems like a reasonable belief.
There's no dispute that America has become incredibly more rich and powerful over the past 40 years. The fact that that money is increasingly funneled to fewer and fewer people (as a percent of the population) is something that can be changed locally, without changing our foreign policy stance.
It's not a surprise that the "devastation" of the middle class coincides with the continued reduction of tax rates on the entities collecting all that money. The America that MAGA seems to think was great was one of higher taxes and more social programs.
The manner in which those people accrued wealth is deeply related to the issue, by subverting the working and middle classes domestically.
I understand that many of the petite bourgeoisie believe that destruction of those classes via internationalism is a means to usher in communist policy — but that’s opposed wholesale by the American working and middle classes.
You're still describing economic policies though, not diplomatic ones, and while they're not entirely disconnected, trying to fix international economic issues by burning down alliances is likely to result in a lot of negative second order effects while not even addressing the main economic concerns.
If we're ascribing bad faith motivations to particular viewpoints here though, I'll point out that conflating concerns about trade policies with the idea that America should entirely abandon any interest in the rest of the world is enormously helpful to countries that would like to pursue far more aggressive imperial ambitions currently being blocked by American power. Having rightfully angry people in America's rust belt become convinced that the only way to revitalize the industries that used to power their cities is to let Russia reform the Soviet Union has got to feel like the political victory of the century to Moscow.
So "leaving money on the table" is admittedly very vague, using it here I'm principally referring to two things:
1) For many decades we've had a trade posture and foreign policy regime which emphasized moving production offshore. This generated a lot of corporate profits and some consumer benefits but was absolutely decimating for working class incomes and job prospects. We "left money on the table" here in the sense that money which would have been generated in the US and paid wages in the US tended to end up mostly in the hands of wealthy people in poor countries (and to some degree in the hands of their middle classes).
2) The other way we left money on the table was by opening up our markets to countries which didn't reciprocate in kind -- we reduced our tariffs on them, and they didn't reduce their tariffs on us. This again encouraged the flow of production, jobs, capital etc. out of the US and again hit the most vulnerable economic classes hardest.
The net result of this is that we have a lot of money in the US in a record few number of hands -- when you add corporate consolidation & monopolization to the mix you have a pretty complete picture of why a lot of people in this country are struggling.
So did we benefit from these policies, yeah, we did in certain ways that accrued particularly toward the top of our economic pyramid, but it seems that the bottom of it has had just about enough of this and is getting loud about it at the ballot box.
Trump & Co are by no measure the sharpest tools in the shed. In Trumps own words they have been up against some really inept people, who have all lost credibility.
Therefore the counter-reaction, which is building, will come, and it won't look like what Trump & Co are used to dealing with in the past. I think that's what interesting about where the story goes next. Whose is going to lead? What are they going to stand for? How are they going to organize? Its an opportunity for the best in America to shine.
That is pretty much the definition of it.
And for example free trade is a flavour of it.
The reality is China is now the top trading partner for most of the world. China is producing 50% of the world's steel. China has 200x the shipbuilding capacity of the United States, etc etc. Cooperation with China is positive sum for nearly the whole world, but China as the preeminent geopolitical power is incompatible with the unipolar moment where America led the world and decided the rules of the road, and could force dissenters to comply at gunpoint. China is far more relatively powerful than the USSR ever was, much less China+Russia+Iran+North Korea combined.
This is what we're seeing play out in microcosm in Ukraine, where Russia is to a large degree being backstopped by Chinese industrial and economic and diplomatic power. Hard choices are required, and there can be a lot of productive debate on the specifics of those choices. But much of "the west" seems stuck in the 1990s, where America can simply will the world it wants into existence by believing in it enough.
If America and the EU had started dumping 10% of GDP into the military 5 or 15 years ago things would likely look very different now, but we didn't and no one wants to do that now either because it would be incredibly painful for millions of people who in a democracy could vote out the leaders who enacted that policy. Hard choices are required, but we're getting mainly empty rhetoric and wishcasting, by those who wish things were otherwise. I also wish things were otherwise - but that and $5 will get me a cup of Starbucks coffee.
"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences." - Winston Churchill
Or at least, has a golden opportunity window to do so within the next 2/3 years, while Trump/Musk & co are dismantling the country capacity to function.
The U.S. is actually trying a play from the same playbook by abstaining from deploying troops.
When was the last time you saw China getting torn apart in the media for failing to prop up a failed state? They're doing "greenfield" diplomacy without historical baggage.
is this a typo? US already has the highest military budget in the world, the last thing it needs is to put more money into it.
Free trade only reflect cooperation if done transparently, chosen by the people, and which does not bypass industry regulation that people voted on. If that is not possible then the trade agreement need to reflect the different national views on things like minimum wage, environmental issues, safety standard, animal well fare, justice system, trade marks, and so on.
(It also so happens that Thailand places very low tariffs on Chinese goods - and their government has been currying political favor with Beijing for a long time - they are happy to enjoy unrestricted access to US markets and seem quite confident that the status quo will endure so if we are trying to buy political influence with them, we seemingly have been so toothless that it isn't even working!)
The US has deals like this all over the planet where it gives other countries unrestricted access to its markets, in return for what is not clear. A lot of these deals contributed to the movement of US manufacturing to places like Thailand, which hit the US working class in the wallet very directly. Sure there are also good deals that we should preserve as-is but it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me that some of these be subjected to scrutiny and revision.
Many Americans feel cheated, whereby they give better terms to other parties and don’t even get respect in return. So they now support a movement to mirror that behavior.
This is an example of the iterated prisoner’s dilemma: one side defected on a partnership for their benefit, trust collapsed, and now the originally cooperative partner is acting selfishly as well. Reciprocation is a fundamental part of relationships.
The US isn’t the entity that needs to hear “cooperating is better than a zero sum mindset”.
I think they feel cheated because they are told to feel cheated.
> - foreign owned farmland and corporations;
That's hilarious. Many languages have a specific term for US private equity investors that rush in, buy up entire countries' corporations, then try to squeeze out every cent of profit.
Especially after the fall of the Berlin wall and the iron curtain this became a massive issue. See also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuschreckendebatte
Every American - even the demographics that typically support Trump - has benefited from this.
Sure — the US bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie benefitted. But they’re not the ones supporting Trump or feeling cheated.
One of the groups most benefiting from the US dominance in the past decades were the farmers. Which is one of the larger lobby blocks and voting groups supporting trump.
And the logic doesn't compute either. Average people around the world got exploited by western, but primarily US, billionaires.
So the average people, the proletariat, should unite and revolt against those billionaires.
Instead the US proletariat voted to give billionaires even more power, in the hope that "their" billionaires would exploit foreigners more than themselves?
A forest, for example, has no economic value but lumber does.
Free trade may optimize how goods and services are dispersed but it can't escape the zero sum game that is foundational to economics.
> The only thing we can put economic value on are goods and services that use finite resources
A software patent does not consume physical resources (aside from the initial human labor) yet holds tremendous economic value. An app can be easily duplicated, making it a virtually infinite resource, while the patent remains attached to its novel functionalities.
Isn't that just a temporary reprieve of optimization in a broader zero sum game though?
All of those feel to me like ways to take advantage of inefficiencies in the system rather than escaping the game all together.
But it is not only about that. Trade is also for comparative advantage. If you ever played settlers boardgame with more than two players you'll soon realize that whoever trades the most wins. And it does not really matter who you trade with, it is just reaping the benefits of trade instead of being stuck with 10 wood that is of low value to you but of high value to someone else.
(Sorry if I lost the thread here. Most here were trying to argue that trade and globalization are a way to escape a zero-sum game).
Trade is an interesting one because it can be mutually beneficial, though it rarely includes everyone. Two countries can trade and both be better off, but other countries excluded may now be worse off. Trade also can't be mutually beneficial with regards to relative gain. Both sides can gain in trade or cooperation but one will always have gained more than the other. That doesn't make my point by the way, but an interesting related dimension to the whole topic.
The first tried to explain that it does not necessarily have to be a zero-sum game.
The second paragraph tried to explain that, even if you do see it as a zero sum game, trade between two parties, or trade in general, can give you benefits over ones who are not part of the trade.
Obviously I am trying to describe this in simple terms without writing a book. But i do think the board game analogy holds even though it is very simple.
A forest (like, anything) has economic value, as soon as you get people to adopt/believe in it.
A forest may even have a greater economic value than the lumber it could produce, if it would, for instance, help/ensure the prosperity of something else that has economic value (leisure, wildlife, heat protection, soil water retention, etc.).
You have several options, account for it as lumber (but... well), or as a carbon sequestration well (so you could get carbon credits, IAS 38), or as an ecosystem providing services (several frameworks under work here), or as a contingent liability or asset (IAS 37, can be in the balance sheet if the probability of event/impact is high/certain).
Even if you forget to account for it, your insurance likely will remind you about it.
The carbon credits are given economic value, its just not a physical resource like lumber so its harder to distinguish that the credit holds the value rather than the forest.
I'd expect the lumber or carbon credits, for example, to be the actual asset accounted for rather than the forest itself.
Most of the reckless spending is by Republicans via unfunded tax which grows the deficit
Then when they’re in opposition they suddenly become deficit hawks
Republicans don’t mind the debt pile growing providing it’s the rich getting the money, they object when it’s ordinary people’s lives who are being made better
The idea that there have been decades of reckless spending and the US is going broke I think is not at all a nuanced take.
Anecdotes about the inflation of prices of eggs (which is 0.05% of US economy) don't change the overall facts that are material.
I will grant you that debt servicing needs immediate attention. Blowing up 100 years of foreign policy has nothing to do with that, however.
The number of NATO members spending 2% or more on defense went from 3 to 23 in the past 10 years. Their spending almost doubled in the past 10 years, while the US only grew 15% (actually shrunk in PPP terms). [1]
The US has been successfully pressuring NATO allies to pick up the bill, without having to call Ukraine a dictator and cede Ukraine to Russia without US security guarantees, and promote politics of appeasement that will lead to China taking Taiwan which is the only material place that produces the future's most important geopolitical asset: chips.
The US looking to reduce debt also isn't compatible with raising tariffs on everyone including allies, reducing taxes and warding off cheap immigrant labour, it's the opposite. Trump seems to have 25% good ideas, 75% bad ideas, and 90% poor execution that causes a lot of collateral damage. Penny wise pound foolish comes to mind a lot when I look at his policy choices.
[0] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat... [1] https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2024/6/pd...
Which is the reason that maybe Trump is not working for Putin? By scaring Europe into re-militarizing, that is bad for Russia.
Not just 2%, but what if this spurs Germany into "hey, lets ramp this Military up and take on Russia again". That isn't good for Russia.
And this Trump attack on Ukraine, will unite the Ukraine people.
The things Trump does backfires? Or is that the plan. He's getting a militarized Europe and a United Ukraine. If he wants the opposite, then this is really bad way of going about it.
EDIT: Just trying to find a silver lining. Maybe a wakeup call by a global all powerful tyrant will move the world toward some unity?
Any anti-Russian benefit that has is dwarfed by the pro-Russian benefit of having a wedge driven between the US and Europe, which is what is happening. Even a Europe that invests more heavily is defense is far less scary to Russia than the threat of US military power, especially in the short to medium term. The US has military capability that will be difficult for anyone to recreate, even advanced economies like those of Germany, simply because of scale and long experience.
The best outcome for the US/European alliance would be a more militarily capable Europe still strongly allied with the US. Maybe that was the 4D chess goal, but if so Trump appears to have way overshot it.
And much of this meeting with Zelensky had nothing to do with the budget (or at least the bits I've seen). It's just Trump being upset Zelensky isn't bending over backwards to praise Trump and being obsessed with shown to look "better" than other presidents (which is why he goes off on a tangent about Biden and Obama, disconnected from what Zelensky actually said).
That's life in Brazilian big cities.
Brazil has been very violent for a long time because the government enforces a zero-sum game against the population. The poor half of the population is overwhelmingly colored people and the richer white half would rather burn it all down than share it better. Brazil is one of the most unequal societies on the planet.
If we go that direction globally, security will erode everywhere.
Trust me, we don't want that. You don't want every metropolis to become like a big Brazilian city.
Go find some Brazilian media website and read the news. It's pretty grim. It's what society is like with persistent high inequality, a forced zero-sum game to preserve status quo and the resulting general insecurity.
I don't know the complete picture but it sounds like you expect the rich half to "share" and therefore subsidize more of the poor half so that they can prosper and multiply and become a majority ? I don't see the incentives of the rich side to do that..
I've heard first hand from a business leader working decades with Brazil that they actively keep the poor people uneducated to better use them, although having those better skilled would increase the overall productivity.
- who has the ability to effect such changes?
- who has the right to effect such changes?
(EDIT: markup)
I'm saying all these things because I am from a poor community. I know how things work in such communities, and it's nothing like well off people (like most of you reading these lines are) think it is. Nobody is "keeping them down" but themselves.
Ahh yes, find out from their rich people run media with their rich people run government to get jobs run by rich people run businesses who aren't actually givng out jobs to the poor due to how their system works.
Yes, it's clearly the poor people's fault for being too stupid to want more money. Jim Crow would be shaking your hand right now.
>I'm saying all these things because I am from a poor community.
I come from a poor community too. If my grandparents didn't get "handouts" as you call them from food drives and food stamps, there's a good chance their 3 kids wouldn't have been healthy. Which of course means I wouldn't be born. My parents and aunt/uncle would barely have a chance to rise up amidts the need to buy food and pay rent to stay alive, and I'd likely be deleted with no opportunity because people like you insist on pulling yourselves up by their bootstraps instead of helping a community out so that the rising tides raises all ships.
Stop listening to rich people propoganda gaslighing you. They benefit from keeping people poor.
Cultural changes are hard to be enacted if there isn't political power for doing so, Brazil also produced some very well educated people who have attempted to change the status quo of basic education lacking civics/political thought, most notably Paulo Freire.
Still there is a concerted effort to keep the poor uneducated, voting is mandatory in Brazil and if you are a corrupt politician (as most are there) you really do not want the people to be able to figure out your schemes. You keep them out of civics, they are just cheap labour who cannot understand complexities of government, civics, and so on.
I believe you do not know Brazilian society at all, and are simply throwing some empty platitudes based on your misguided ideology. It's not about fucking handouts, those are simply necessary for a large percentage of Brazilians to survive due to the lack of opportunities and basic education which most of the population lives under.
> Nobody is "keeping them down" but themselves
You really are a true believer, personal responsibility can never overtake a system of oppression.
I think what just happened here is a good example of how far to the right (and towards blatant Aristocracy) we’ve come. The political spectrum is completely blown out to one side, to the point where mentioning paying taxes is considered off brand and bad, instead of patriotic.
First of all, poors, worldwide, are the vast majority by any measure you pick.
So poors, becoming majority, is a no point. Moot.
Now, to another point. Poor prospering.
Have you ever considered that poor prospering can actually be a good thing? More consumption, more taxes being collected across, more wealth spread and circulating on the economy. More opportunities for the poor, and the rich, who will have a broader audience to become more rich?
And now to the subsides. Think this improvement on wealth circulation as a business, a good business outcome, shall we? As so many business, owned by riches, which make riches more rich, are already heavily subsided by governments across the globe for so many reasons (internal/external).
It's not such a big leap for yes, to advocate to some sort of subside to improve poor's situation.
Your comment sounds very classist. A true symptom of the very problem we're and will be dealing with.
Brazilian police do overwhelming policing against poor communities and the resulting brutalization only compounds the problem.
The solution? Round up obvious gang members, who conveniently like to mark it all over their body, throw them in prison, throw away the key. If they get violent in the process then don't even bother with the whole prison thing. Were the people just terrified about this horrible abuse of power? No, their Supreme Court made an exception to allow him to run for another term and he won with 80%+ of the vote, his party gaining a super majority, and El Salvador is rapidly going from one of the most dangerous places on Earth to a very safe one.
"First they came for the gang members... and then life was pretty great and everybody lived happily ever after." BTW similar sorts of crackdowns have also happened in numerous places including Thailand and the Philippines (in both cases over drugs), with similarly resoundingly positive results. Enforcement works.
[1] - https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-homicides-gangs-bukel...
It's great if you're a tourist with limited Spanish ability and are tired of Costa Rica. Very shitty if you have any family members that get thrown in jail forever with out due process based on how the government felt they looked.
They are also often done in very visible places, including the face and hands. Here [1] for instance are various individuals with MS-13 (which was a group initially started by Salvadoran migrants in LA) tattoos. You're not going to make a mistake there, and the gang itself would have also also taken care of imposters.
The groups expressing concern about the gang members tend to be Western human rights organizations in different countries. The president of El Salvador has offered to allow the countries of these groups to take in as many of the prisoners as they would like, if they'd like to more personally look after and ensure their rights. His offers have not been accepted.
Interesting take. Another such "superior" culture (or rather, superior military-industrial economy built on sustaining/managing conflict) exports mass policing technology to Brazil. https://idanlandau-com.translate.goog/2016/02/04/technologie... (in Hebrew: https://idanlandau.com/2016/02/04/technologies-of-oppression...)
...which is OP's point, that it needn't be zero sum, at least not from regional/global superpowers.
Intentional homicide rate per 100,000 in Brazil: 20. In Norway: 0.725, Netherlands: 0.691. United States: 5.763
Not even the US, which those of us in Europe often consider crime-ridden, is nearly as dangerous as Brazil.
Hmm, but the Netherlands, though. OK maybe scrub that theory.
I am living now in Portugal (has its own defects, won't hide it) after 10 years in Ecuador. Here, people park their cars in the street and expect them to be there next day. That would be crazy talk in Ecuador.
I lived in Buenos Aires for a year and it made me realize how good I had it. The contrast is so massive that it might as well be two different planets.
Just a day or so ago, Trump was asked about AUKUS, the closest military alliance that the US is a part of. He didn't know what it was.
For some months now, the Australian Liberal party has been going on and on about building nuclear power plants.
It's not about the electricity generation -- when pressed they'll admit that it might be as little as 4% of the supply -- but secretly it's about giving us the option of building nukes to defend ourselves in case our relationship with the US falls apart.
We can't be the only country thinking like this. South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and many others have the industrial base and most have nuclear power plants already, nuclear engineers, etc...
I just checked: Singapore has started talking about building nuclear power plants also.
Sigh...
It keeps coal / gas power around for a nuclear future that is decades away at best (and never more likely). It’s a sop to the oil and mining companies. https://youtube.com/watch?v=JBqVVBUdW84
I thought I was just imagining things, but I looked it up and it turns out that the Liberal party has been flirting with arming Australia with nukes since the 1990s or maybe the late 80s.
The Tomahawk and basically every similar cruise missile can easily be outfitted with any warhead. SLBMs aren't the only delivery platform.
One way to read Iran's ballistic missile attack on empty Israeli desert is as a demonstration that Israel's defence is unable to stop anything even approaching 100% of ballistic missiles. With nuclear weapons, the cost of even 1 leaker is unacceptable. You notice Netanyahu's public feud with Iran appears to be winding down.
> these countries that are not allowed to have nukes
Who says they are not allowed?
The assurances have now been shown to be worthless.
Can you expand on what that means, in laymen terms?
In reality, by making certain trades or investments new situations and opportunities can be created, making everyone better off.
There is no comprehension that an agreement might actually benefit both sides
This is presumably why you hear such things as "Canada is screwing us for 200 billion dollars a year" because we buy things from them
Edit: you can see it in this thread, too. As though helping poor people could have no benefit to the rich
I've seen it with people complaining about paying taxes for public transit, even though they only drive a car. Bonus points if they complain about traffic in the same rant without ever putting 2-and-2 together
Which means if you make a deal with someone and they benefit from it - you lost. In other words - you should only do deals that hurt others.
It's a truly vile view of world, but what's more important is - it's false and counterproductive. There's no place for international cooperation in zero-sum universe. There's just exploitation through military or non-military means.
In a zero-sum game world USA does not join WW1 nor WW2. Instead it waits for Europe to collapse and invade to establish "American Europe". Anything else is suboptimal.
NATO makes no sense in zero-sum game world. NATO clearly benefits smaller countries which means it hurts USA. NATO should be therefore dissolved and let's shake them small countries for protection money.
The funny thing is - in such a world USA loses and China wins.
WW2 is not the best example. The USA got attacked (Pearl Harbor). The USA didn't enter WW2 until the USA got attacked.
That would have led to Soviet Europe. This is a very naive take, the involvement of the US on WWII was absolutely a rational calculation based on a zero-sum game (defeating the Nazi and establishing spheres of influence). The game becomes positive sum on the basis of long term economic development.
An extremely regressive tax system and overly complicated bureaucracy, designed to extract bribes, all but guarantee that only the well connected can invest and thrive, and makes sure that there is very little social mobility. Free education is available at all levels, but public basic schools are atrocious and public colleges have competitive admission, meaning that those with access to private education growing up get a subsidized degree from the government.
Building codes are rarely enforced so slum dwellers need not be paid more than enough to eat.
It is all very well thought out. Brazil is not underdeveloped. Brazil is a slave society with extra steps.
Comparing Brazil with Mexico with Madrid with Tokyo and coming to the conclusion that "is all the same" seems farfetched.
Policies that see "the poor" as the problem instead "poverty" create violent dystopian cities. Good policy works and make big cities great places to live. Reducing inequality, giving good safety nets to citizens, treating drug addiction as a disease, etc. make a difference. Not 100% of big cities are the same.
Not big cities across the world.
Off-topic: I really need to add more context to my replies without considering the parent comment, it's not the first time that caused confusion.
https://g1.globo.com/sp/sao-paulo/noticia/2023/07/20/anuario...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_homicide_rat...
Fully agree. I've seen this to be the case
The lines on the map in the Ukraine war do not change in Ukraine's favor unless one or both of the following happen: 1) The United States gets directly involved, and/or 2) strategic weapons are used. The Europeans are not going to be willing to sacrifice their vast social programs for a massive defense build up. I think everyone realizes this, and I think the recent election results in multiple countries there make this point.
You are complaining, I think, about the style here. An argument in the Oval Office. Well, the United States is the main reason that Russia, after its disastrous and frankly juvenile attempt at an invasion, hasn't been able to gain additional territory after the war went into the defensive. Let me repeat that: The United States is the reason this war is still on-going. And as a result of this fact, The United States is the one that gets to dictate terms.
U.S. ignored that suggestion.
And when almost 9 years later Putin pitched the same idea again - he was left ignored, again.
EU and U.S. reap what they sawed.
So they would seek some gain then, right?
What could an oligarch possibly gain from starting a war with an allied neighboring country?
And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?
Surely it has (and had) as much oligarchy (if not more) as Russia has. (I hope you won't argue it doesn't? Since even something as ridiculous as the fact of having lobbying being absolutely legal - just can't coexist with the lack of oligarchs quite by nature/definition).
They are. Commercially first. Through technology second (the dependance of the world upon US software and hardware technology is the perfect kill switch - and the scale and pace at which we are going to need to get out of it is immense now that it is intimately tied to our professional and personal lives... but we have no choice).
And they might go further if those firsts are not enough.
We in Europe would never have invested so massively to rely on USSR or post-2008 Russia software/hardware tech, for obvious reasons
But we did on USA tech, for obvious reasons too (common history and values, democracies, multiple war allies, cooperation, and... US used to be the beacon of progress and freedom), that have all been brutally thrown out.
So why would we now?
So why did this current attack start? It's been 3 years and there's a dozen theories as to why exactly, there is no "strong reason" anywhere to be seen.
"What could an oligarch possibly gain from starting a war with an allied neighboring country?"
Again, why is Russia in Ukraine then? They went from being brethren to portraying Ukrainians as fascist scum that need to be exterminated. Why is that?
"And why doesn't U.S. attack other NATO members now?"
Because it has more to gain by not doing so.
Again - I really can't see how you can confidently say that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this current situation wouldn't have happened.
The strong reason for this attack was Russia's security concerns got ignored and stepped on by a military alliance (NATO).
The military alliance that claims Russia to be their most probable enemy and thus a military alliance AGAINST Russia.
The military alliance first broke some spoken agreement with Russian of non-expansion of said military alliance. Then did that again and again to the point where NATO wanted to advance in its expansion so much far as to the neighboring country to Russia.
This is simply not acceptable for Russia, so it had to prevent that expansion, which it did. It could only be done by force, if the other side refused to drop possibilities of joining NATO. They didn't drop them - they got invaded for demilitarization. They resist - they die. The ones who don't resist (civilians) - aren't targeted at all (however, in a war there are always casualties among civilians).
> They went from being brethren to portraying Ukrainians as fascist scum that need to be exterminated. Why is that?
Because that's what Ukrainian officials policy was towards Russian natives living on their land and daring to speak their native Russian language.
> I really can't see how you can confidently say that if only Russia was let into NATO 30 years ago this current situation wouldn't have happened.
How is that not clear? If Russia would be part of NATO - it would have 0 security concerns of NATO expanding up to its borders. If there would be no security concerns - it wouldn't start the special operation, there simply would be no reason to, as Ukraine would probably in that case be a part of NATO as well (as well as Belarus and probably Kazakhstan and some other ex-USSR *stans)! Just that simple.
Russia tried to pretend that its satellite states and NATO were similar arrangements (with the latter thus being under US control), because that would make it seem like they were on even ground.
To the extent it ends up being true, it will be due to Russia's influence (conveniently allied with others' authoritarian tendencies).
NATO is a defensive pact. Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants their port, arable land, and because he wants to go down in history as "reuniting" the Russian empire. Also, Russia has wanted to exterminate the Ukrainian cultural identity, which they've tried to do since before the Soviet Union:
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/russias-i...
Putin's whining about NATO is pure bullshit propaganda. Just like his claims of Nazis in Ukraine. It's all fiction, where he writes Russia as the victim.
NATO's whining about being peace-loving strictly defensive union is pure bullshit propaganda.
Ukraine wanted to exterminate its citizens, who happened to be ethnically Russian and who dared to demand rights to continue speaking in their native, non-ukrainian, language. Ukraine wanted to do this using nazi battalions (just you google pictures of Azov battalion combatants being covered in Nazi swastikas), but, oops, alas, they are getting actively denazified now.
A defensive pact provides weapons to a country defending itself. What is so hard to understand? Not to mention that actual NATO countries are afraid that Putin won't stop on Ukraine, he would absolutely attack Poland next - there were many russian comments to this effect over the years. So again, it is a defensive pact acting.....in defense.
>>Ukraine wanted to exterminate its citizens, who happened to be ethnically Russian and who dared to demand rights to continue speaking in their native, non-ukrainian, language.
Dude you need to lay off Russian propaganda for a minute. But you know what really happens? Russia forcibly issuing native Ukrainians with Russian passports to say "look these are russian citizens now, we need to defend them!" and kidnapping Ukrainian children to forcibly integrate them into Russian society. Not to mention all of the murder and rape, but that's standard fare for the Russian army.
>>Just you google pictures of Azov battalion combatants being covered in Nazi swastikas)
Yes, Azov batallions were a huge problem in Ukraine.....and they got completely eliminated and people put behind bars before the original 2014 invasion. It was a bullshit reason then and it's a bullshit reason now.
Whom was Ukraine defending by killing people in its own Donbass and Lugansk regions? Surely not the people living there, as the bullets and rockets were flying towards them from Ukrainian soldiers.
> Not to mention that actual NATO countries are afraid that Putin won't stop on Ukraine
It looks like it's better if they in fact fear that. Less wars that way. If only they stayed neutral, not anti-Russia. But no, they all wanted to provoke the bear for some reason.
Well, hear it roar now.
> Dude you need to lay off Russian propaganda for a minute. But you know what really happens? Russia forcibly issuing native Ukrainians with Russian passports to say "look these are russian citizens now, we need to defend them!" and kidnapping Ukrainian children to forcibly integrate them into Russian society. Not to mention all of the murder and rape, but that's standard fare for the Russian army.
Dude, you need to lay off Ukrainian propaganda for a minute. But you know what really happens? Russia gives money, homes and jobs to the people that voluntarily agree to relocate to it. No one is forces to. And there are lots of reports from those people being thankful to Russia and condemning Kyiv and Zelensky, because what in fact happened is that it was Kyiv that either targeted those civilians or used them as a shield (lots of videos of Ukrainian combatants taking positions right next to houses full of civilians).
How can anyone forcibly issue a passport to someone? Just try to think from time to time. Children get evacuated to safe zones. Of course the safes zones are in Russia now, but no one is held prisoner/captive - they are free to move wherever they like whenever they like. You just painted a humanitarian mission as terrorists kidnapping children. That's just disgusting.
> Yes, Azov batallions were a huge problem in Ukraine.....and they got completely eliminated and people put behind bars before the original 2014 invasion.
Lol what? Who eliminated them? Could you give a few links to the news where Ukrainian officials imprisoned any Azov combatants for their nazism and nazist swastika tattoos?
As far as I know - they were mostly killed in battles between 2014 and now by separatists and Russians. Ukraine never reprimanded any of their nazi battalions for wearing swastikas. They never prohibited their 'trezubets' (trident) SS nazi symbol of that battalion and nazi 'black sun' symbol (that is just quite common among nazis, not especially Ukrainian ones).
How can anyone forcibly issue a passport to someone?
Maybe the bear should stay within its borders. No one provoked Russia to do anything.
>>How can anyone forcibly issue a passport to someone? Just try to think from time to time.
You deny them any services until they apply for a Russian passport as again, we know happened.
>>Russia gives money, homes and jobs to the people that voluntarily agree to relocate to it. No one is forces to. And there are lots of reports from those people being thankful to Russia and condemning Kyiv and Zelensk
You're free to gaslight yourself into believing this along with the rest of complete lunacy in your post.
>>Children get evacuated to safe zones.
If you think this is what happens you're drinking the Russian cool aid swallowing the straw along with it.
You were told not to come close, but you didn't listen.
> You deny them any services until they apply for a Russian passport as again, we know happened.
Honestly, that's news to me. That sounds believable, but do you have any good links supporting that claim? To some credible sources, with first-hand interviews, not just Ukrainian news that are known to post bullshit propaganda and hoax like 'bucha'.
It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Because they're providing weapons for Ukraine to DEFEND ITSELF. This is the fundamental problem with Russian propagandist: you think that defending oneself from Russian attacks is somehow aggression toward Russia. Do you attack your neighbor for building a fence?
Ukraine wanted to exterminate its citizens, who happened to be ethnically Russian and who dared to demand rights to continue speaking in their native, non-ukrainian, language.
This is complete nonsense, and pure Russian propaganda. Ukraine's biggest mistake was allowing so many ethnic Russians to settle in Crimea in the first place.
Leading up to the 2014 invasion, Russia transmitted false "news" propaganda, in Russian, talking about how Nazis were marching in Kiev. It was a complete fabrication, but the gullible, ethnic Russians ate it up. That's why the 2014 invasion was bloodless. Lying propaganda.
but, oops, alas, they are getting actively denazified now.
Are they planning to get around to that after they finish raping and murdering civilians[1]? After they steal and relocate Ukrainian children, as part of their plan to exterminate the Ukrainian cultural identity[2]? After they finish destroying Ukrainian cultural sites, another strategy for wiping out Ukrainian identity[3]? When is this "denazification" going to start, Russian propagandist?
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre
[2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/05/25/fresh-details-russias-fo...
[3] https://www.government.nl/latest/weblogs/the-work-of-the-min...
Russia loves using this logic, which is completely bonkers. Just try to think from time to time?
Now what's important is when some region has mere fractures of a percent vs when its something like 25%. If your country has 25% Russians and you oppress them - I think Russia has obligation to defend them.
That's exactly what it is and I have no idea what sort of insane, convoluted logic you use to come up with any other idea.
but then it turns out that its arms can be used OUTSIDE of that block
Ohhhh, I see. You believe that defending from an invading force means that you can't attack anything beyond the border? So Russia could just build an ammunition factory right across the border and Ukraine is somehow morally bound not to attack it? Completely insane.
First NATO expanded, and then Russia started defending itself on the territory of Ukraine.
I think you are either trolling or just have bugs in your logic.
Anyways, as fun as it was - I think it's time to stop arguing, it's as useless, as always. Everyone applies double standards (I probably do so too, unfortunately), no one's going to change their position.
Russia can't and shouldn't have any say in what pact or alliance a sovereign country on their border wants to join. They have no right to. And well done preventing NATO expansion - where now thanks to their actions NATO did expand right to their border. Really 4-dimensional chess play guys.
>>The ones who don't resist (civilians) - aren't targeted at all
Yes I'm sure all these bombs falling on Ukrainian hospitals are just targeting errors.
And Bucha was what? An accident?
If it were a simple individual somehow escalating to nation state level, I could understand them being initially forced to use deception, but not so for an entity that is already a nation state. Especially not so for a nuclear nation state!
Right before the outbreak of the full scale war (ignoring ~2014), Western intelligence services observed troops, tanks, military materiel amassing on the Russian / Ukranian border. In an attempt to dissuade Russia from invading the UK intelligence services decided to predict Russia's invasion publicly.
Russia repeatedly claimed "Nyet, nyet, no invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
If a nuclear power were acting on existential security concerns, the last thing it would do is hide the connection to security concerns and pretend just doing sonme push-ups on border.
To me this invalidates this whole theory of yours and imcritic
If it were a simple individual somehow escalating to nation state level, I could understand them being initially forced to use deception, but not so for an entity that is already a nation state. Especially not so for a nuclear nation state!
Right before the outbreak of the full scale war (ignoring ~2014), Western intelligence services observed troops, tanks, military materiel amassing on the Russian / Ukranian border. In an attempt to dissuade Russia from invading the UK intelligence services decided to predict Russia's invasion publicly.
Russia repeatedly claimed "Nyet, nyet, no invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
If a nuclear power were acting on existential security concerns, the last thing it would do is hide the connection to security concerns and pretend just doing some push-ups on border.
To me this invalidates this whole theory of yours and imcritic
It does now for the very clear reasons:
1. NATO, while being openly hostile towards Russia (you may read the current NATO's doctrine where Russia is named as the #1 probable enemy of NATO), attempted to expand to Ukraine, which is just not acceptable (to Russia) at all.
2. Russian nationals (and Russian speaking Ukrainian nationals) got oppressed in Ukraine, but that happened mostly as a result of the division of country into two parts where one was pro-Russian and the other was pro-West (EU, NATO).
I don't think the 2nd reason would even occur, since if Russia was in NATO - it would rather even seek Ukraine then joining it too. There would be no 'maidans' (coups) in Ukraine, there would be no division of the country and thus the oppression of Russian nationals (and Russian speaking Ukrainian nationals) just wouldn't have taken place then.
I think the conflicts concerning Russia then would rather shift towards Middle East (like Turkey having some beef with Russia over who supports whom in Iran, Palestine, Israel and so on) and maybe towards China/India.
That literally didn't happen. Ukraine and Georgia sought NATI membership, and in the 2008 NATO summit were (largely at Russia’s urging) rebuffed from being given Membership Action Plans; Russia immediately invaded Georgia, and Ukraine abandoned pursuit of NATO membership.
Then, in 2014, the Ukrainian people threw out the pro-Russian leadership that had come to power in the interim. Russia invaded large swathes of the country and, after that, Ukraine’s government again started seeking NATO membership.
There were no approaches by either side being made before the invasion. Pro-Russian propagandists like to pretend the 2022 escalation was the initial Russian invasion, ignoring most of the time the war has been being fought, so that they can blame the war starting on Ukraine’s response to the invasion by which Russia actually started the war.
1. Russia didn't invade Georgia. There are 2 separatist regions in Georgia that Georgia decided to get back (or something) using tanks. Georgia sent tanks and their army to shoot/suppress separatist civilians! Russia merely stopped that bloodshed and didn't proceed further into the Georgia (though after that incident it not just could do so, but quite many would say had a right to do so).
2. if Russia didn't annex (peacefully, btw, without a single shot and with a referendum) the Crimea - Ukraine then wouldn't have territorial disputes that would block them from joining NATO... just silently and in surprise to Russia.
The possible war then would start immediately between Russia and the whole NATO block.
Would you like your (I suppose you live either in U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia or in Europe) cities receiving some nukes instead of a special operation in Ukraine?
There was ZERO chance of Ukraine joining NATO. Do you really think that Hungary, Germany, Slovakia..... would vote for Ukraine membership while there are still disputes in the Donbas and about Crimea?
@2) Sure, and Hitler also only saved the Sudetendeutschen.....
Putin himself said 2002 that he would have no problems with Ukraine joining NATO: “I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision [on Ukraine joining NATO] is to be made by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”
Considering that Trump now, all but disbanded NATO there should be no more reason for further Russian attacks, no?
But really, just read and watch Russian media, listen to their politicians. The aggressive imperial aim is very open, transparent and also accepted by the people.
It really is tiring listening to the Russian apologetics coming from other posters in this thread.
"Russia felt threatened"
No. Nobody wants to invade Russia.
The deal since the end of the cold war has been this: Russia can do whatever the hell it likes inside its own borders. Its oligarchs with Putin at the front can rob and pillage the country to their hearts content. Putin can use his loyal FSB to suppress the opposition, rig elections, and dominate the domestic media and brainwash his population to believe whatever he want them to believe. The rest of the world will do no more about this than hand out tiny wrist slaps, while holding their noses and trading with Russia. They kept their seat in the UN security council. They were invited into G7. They were treated as an equal to larger, richer, liberal, democracies.
The only reason there is war in Ukraine is because this incredibly generous deal was not enough for Putin and his ilk, they wanted more. More influence, more power, more vassals. They want to restore the mythical glory of the Russian empire, or the Soviet empire, or both. They want all the territories that Russia has ever held dominion over. Getting control over Ukraine would have given that dream a big territory, population, and economical boost.
Are you Russian top military executive or a president of Russia?
No? Then don't speak what Russia did or did not feel.
> No. Nobody wants to invade Russia.
Then don't name Russia as the most probable enemy in your militaristic charts in your military alliance that keeps on expanding beyond reasonable limits.
And don't expand your military alliance that close to Russia's borders.
> The deal since the end of the cold war has been this: Russia can do whatever the hell it likes inside its own borders.
The other side of the deal was NATO not getting any expansions packs. But oh, shoot, it just slipped and happened to expand to... how many countries since Soviet Union got dissolved? ah?
Destroying Soviet Union was not enough for the West and so it wants a piece of Russia now? If you think so - then come and die in Ukraine, you are welcome there.
But since there can be multiple such countries at the same time and since no one has stopped developing arms/tech even further - I wouldn't call it a paradox when one nuclear country feels threatened by another group of both nuclear and non-nuclear countries coming closer and closer to its borders.
“I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day the decision [on Ukraine joining NATO] is to be made by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.”
Why should nations be beholden to verbal agreements that were never ratified by their elected officials, between parties that didn't exist any more in the case of the Warshaw pact and whose legal successor nation official stated they had no problem with it.
Thats silly.
Should NATO have never had any talks with Russia about a possible NATO membership because of that verbal agreement with the leader of the Warshaw Pact Gorbachev?
It is not a secret at all that U.S. carried those out and then it became quite clear that U.S. installs marionette regimes here and there and one of the places was... Ukraine.
Right after all those Russo-American relations going up, up and up merely some years ago.
Russia didn't like being stabbed in the back at all.
U.S. was strong for a long time. It did whatever it liked.
Now Russia restored some of its strength to the point it can show others that sometimes you have to listen to when a bear warns you (quite calmly and nicely first).
That way the other party knows that this agreement has some backing and staying power.
Not some dude spouting some ideas to counterparts during very very turbulent times.
Many people (even Americans) claim U.S. is not a democracy. Every country has corruption to some degree. The only backing and staying power there is - is the force a country has and its willingness to use it to defend something.
There's a reason Sweden and Finland joined NATO recently.
Do you understand that this does not happen without the following: massive American mobilization, 2/75 or the whole of the Ranger Battalions jumping, all US Armor units deploying to Eastern Europe, all of 4th, 5th, 6th, and honestly 7th fleet re-deploying to the Med for support operations. A massive amount of U.S. casualties.
Is this doable? No doubt. I am out of the Army, but a lot of my boys are still in, and they would love to do a peer fight instead of whatever it was we did in Afghanistan.
But I will be the adult here and point out that this is stupid.
All that is needed is sanctions and enough resources for Ukraine to defend itself. And the military intelligence as a force multiplier.
Thats exactly what we have been providing. And it was working. Russian inflation is a 20%+. They are running out of soviet era equipment. They are running out of easily conscriptable men. All of this is documented using open sources.
All that was needed was time. Time for Russia to implode.
But democracy is a fickle thing, and Putin was counting on this. America will have to live with this period of infamy for a long time. And the world will suffer the consequences.
Whatever makes you think Russia won't drop a nuke?
Either way - I’m pretty sure they want Ukraine and then there’s mutually assured destruction.
But even Russians indicate that their mid range ballistic missiles don't need nuclear wareheads to cause untold destruction - it was Putin who said that even without nukes their new missiles can level a city. He seems pretty confident in that, despite western intelligence indicating that the missiles are most likely a bluff as they are barely operational.
How would dropping a nuke on Ukraine start a nuclear war? Nobody is going to drop a nuke back on them.
They do that because the alternative is a shootout at everone and many people in the bar will die. No single person/country is going to take those odds in an era where there are thousands of nuclear warheads now.
That's not what military experts are saying. If the nuclear fallout reached NATO countries NATO policy would require a "proportional" response, which again, military experts suggest would be a small scale nuclear strike on a Russian facility of proportional impact. The big question then is what would happen next - either both sides cool down and see where this is going, or Russia starts attacking targets within NATO at which point we're at full WW3 level. The "nobody is going to drop a nuke back" is either extremely optimistic or extremely naive.
> will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary
https://www.nato.int/cps/ie/natohq/topics_110496.htm
If Poland triggers Article 5, just because fallout came to its borders, other members are free to send them iodine tablets and lead tents, rather than starting WW3.
It's not a start nuclear Armageddon article.
>>It's not a start nuclear Armageddon article.
I didn't say it was - but Russia "dropping a nuke" brings us closer to the possibility of nuclear war, not futher away from it. And according to people who are actually working with/for NATO, military generals in eastern european countries, it is not completely unlikely that NATO would decide that a strike into Russia(nuclear or not) wouldn't be off the cards if Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine brought fallout into NATO countries - and if such a strike was conducted, we don't know how that ends.
While Poland can trigger Article 5, and current US admin will most likely tell them to shove it, maybe deploy some forces there. US weakening ties with EU is going to make nuclear war less likely.
Even if the next US president was very gung ho about it, the fact that Trump got elected again means the US isn't a stable partner. You don't want to enter a ten years war where every 4 years your ally might just decide to leave you hanging.
No. But my point is you are oversimplifying it. Article 5 isn't a go to war button.
If Poland was to consider it an attack, that's not important. The question is would other members consider it an attack. To that the answer would more likely to be no.
I don't know of an adjacent country going to war because wind blew the fallout/chems its way.
> other non-EU countries are already producing Nukes as preparation. I'm unsure about that.
It could be US divestment leads to lower chance of WW3 in 5-20 years, but greater chance of WW3 in 20+ years.
You remind me of a semi-famous study that the American army did at one point. They wanted to estimate the risk of accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon, and concluded that the risk is zero because it never happened so far.
Given it didn't happen so far, I'd say they were right on the money.
While mishandling and accidents did happen, the number of failsafes guarantees you have to purposefully activate it. Most nuclear weapons nowadays just don't have a way to reach criticality outside of nano-second controlled timing array.
You could attack those facilities with conventional weapons too. What would be the point of using nukes to achieve the same purpose? All it would do is to make it more likely they'd escalate back.
Doing so, you break the statu quo on mutual dissuasion, and not one nuclear power wants that.
If one country drops a nuclear bomb (especially after a long escalation as we are in), other nuclear powers will _have to_ reinstate the previous dissuasion statu quo, as well as assert their status of equal nuclear powers.
And there's a single path to that: radically disarm the offender country, as soon as possible. There's indeed a risk of global nuclear war, but the most probable risk is the annihilation of the offender country + a few other casualities.
The scale of time in this matter is not in days, it's in a few hours at most: it's already been scripted in procedures for years, rehearsed, and it's already been shared among nuclear powers. If we're still able to discuss it, it's because of this doctrine of mutual dissuasion precisely.
Ukraine is already asking what they gave up their nukes for.
If I was Polish, I'd want a nuclear deterrent.
If I was Canadian or Danish or Panamanian, given what Trump has said, I'd also be seeing if nukes could be developed.
Why? Because that will be the only, short moment, where each other will have the single opportunity to:
1/ affirm they are able and disciplined to use it (credibility),
2/ disarm the offender (own security)
3/ reinstate the balance of mutual dissuasion (global security)
Playing it diplomatic would be a hint of either submission, fear, or incapacity to act against the offender - which none of the nuclear power would want to give.
And however strong, a country can defend against one strategic attack, not against a multisided one.
[1] doesn't matter what the target is: as soon as it's another country, you're toast.
The first that breaks the statu quo is not a reliable power anymore in this equilibrium and must then be disarmed.
Multilateral escalation ensues as a logic step. There’s no WWIII because this happens and is « settled » in a matter of a few hours.
Don’t want it to happen? Don’t ever use a nuclear weapon. Simple as that.
> if you don’t react definitely, that means that you may have the weapons but not the discipline to use it, so no credibility
You can react "definitely" with conventional weapons. I don't get it. If for some reason you really think they won't get the message that your threat is credible, you could even run a nuclear test somewhere. I see no reason why you have to perform a nuclear attack here.
> conventional destruction is not a deterrent in this case
Sure it is. Destroying/disabling your enemy's nuclear facilities would jeopardize their security, no matter how it's done -- which is absolutely a deterrent. If anything, doing so with conventional weapons should make your enemy worry more, not less.
> and you will only refrain from using your nukes if your are confident that the response will be more nukes towards you - in which case, your initial military objective is void, because the consequence of your action is that you don’t exist anymore
I don't understand this logic at all.
You reason like a person here, not as a state.
It’s not a matter of life and death for a few single individuals in a triangle. It is of millions of individuals at once, and whole countries.
You do not want to leave the option of a potential other nuclear attack, the scale of the damage is nothing comparable. You do not want the statu quo to be broken, to have been broken. The fact is was shows that the state in front of you (which triggered the initial nuke) effectively lost its sound mind. There is a single solution to that, however brutal it is. And that’s the perspective of this single solution that is at the core of the deterrence: if you shoot, you have the absolute guarantee that you’ll be dead in return. So you don’t shoot.
If there is no such guarantee of retaliation, you have no incentive not to use it.
OK, I think this is why we disagree -- because this isn't the scenario I was positing. I was thinking of a case where a "small" (tactical) nuke would get dropped during battle on military forces, to get them to stop fighting. Not a strategic nuke in a population center actually trying to kill millions of people. Those will provoke very different responses in my mind, and I don't think the strategic case is likely. The tactical case is what I'm not so sure Russia will shy away from.
I believe they will shy away.
It’s been made very clear to them by the OTAN (https://www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/topics_192648.htm?selecte... ) that it was the red line before a « fundamentally change the nature of the conflict ». That’s the diplomatic way to say: you want to nuke? Just try it, something might happen to you, fast.
China also discouraged Russia to use it, even small ones.
The OTAN capacity may seem reduced without the USA, but escalation is very much more likely since Europeans realize/accept that Russia only speaks/understands « strong language ». They got the memo several times from the US that appeasement seems not to be a working response at this time.
"Fundamental change in the nature of the conflict" sounds to me more like "you will now be fighting NATO", not "NATO will immediately retaliate with its own nuclear weapons." And even if they did mean what you're saying, I don't see NATO or any member following through with this.
To be clear, I don't think anyone's use of nuclear weapons is likely. I'm just saying that if Russia ends up in a situation where its only avenue for "winning" ends up being the use of nuclear weapons, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually uses one.
I don’t think nuclear is likely either. Because of the deterrence.
But again, if Russia thinks its only way of winning is firing a nuke, I do believe they will not have the time to be disappointed about their miscalculation.
Because the retaliation is a no-brainer (and again, the scenarios have been discussed and examined for decades, and the procedures are all ready to run).
It will not be about only Russia/Ukraine or Russia/NATO afterwise but about the whole world doctrine on nuclear arsenals and their use.
If that's the fundamental issue, everyone needs nukes, every small country.
You don't want that. Living in a small Scandinavian country, I.do think we should at least discuss it now. We can't win any war, but we could ensure nobody else can.
It is clear that Europe would have more difficulty going it alone, since it does not dispose of the intelligence assets that the US has. Spy satellites, SIGINT planes, logistics, etc. Having to go it alone would clearly also impact the morale and thus the political will. But if Putin would decide to invade for example Poland, there is no doubt how he would fare.
But from an industrial and economics point of view there is no comparing. Contrary to what mr Trump has been saying, Europe has paid for more than half of the expenses so far. The overall defense budget of Europe was 217B$ in 2019 and has been steadily increasing to 258B$ in 2021 [1]. For 2024 it is at 326B$ [2]
Compare that with Russia that had a 184B$ budget this year [3]. And that is whilst being on a war footing.
Also. Let's not forget that the US, together with the EU (and Russia) offered security guarantees to Ukraine, in return for them giving their nukes to Russia (since that was making everyone anxious). Our support for them is not some sort of "gift" out of the goodness of our hearts. It is a solemn promise that we made, in return for our peace of mind. Surely the US is not the sort of country that does not honor it's commitments, but backs down when the going gets tough?
[1] : https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/EUU/eur...
[2] : https://eda.europa.eu/news-and-events/news/2024/12/04/eu-def...
[3] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_highest...
I understand what you’re saying but appeals about “solemn promise[s]” comes across as emotional blackmail and, for Americans at least, doesn’t have the same rhetorical weight anymore.
Russia has NO defensive capacity left on either other borders, neither internally.
Putin, as well as Trump play it like they have a strong hand because they know they don’t really have it and they are scared others would notice it.
Ukraine can certainly give up their now rump states of Donetsk/Lugansk plus Crimea if they were getting something like that in exchange. But until there is even a remote possibility for such security all they have is their terms of getting all their land back. If Ukraine now agreed to "peace" where they give up the land to stop the war then they would have to deal even further in order to gain enough security to prevent the next war from ever happening.
Then why has Ukraine not lowered the conscription age?
2. So what? 30-45 is where their population peaks; massive dip right in the 18-30 range: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#/media...
2. The “so what” is that it’s pretty hard to argue that the war is an existential event if you are not drafting the portion of the population best able to make war (young men).
2. 25 is drafting young men; given where their shortages are there just isn't a benefit to reducing this to 18.
Usually you only go up the age-brackets when you are more and more desperate, for, you know, obvious reasons. Ukraine is doing it in reverse.
This is also why we've seen multiple headlines about Russia running out of stuff: they did run out of some things, then shifted to other stuff and ran out of that, then shifted to other stuff… — Ukraine has a shortage of both guns and young people right now.
What did the Russians claim?
"Nyet invasion, just some push-ups next to border!"
How stable will the world be when Russia wins, Putin is able to rebuild, and then they want somewhere else?
You tell me, which fight is more winnable? This one or the next one?
So far in 3 years of war the US has, for something like <10% of their military budget, destroyed a huge chunk of Russian military capabilities, without having to set a single US boot on the ground or losing a single US citizen. On purely selfish terms, that's an undeniably great investment.
But it's not only that. The US has an immense amount of soft power that it squanders if it completely mistreats, and even blackmails, its own allies — which it is doing right now — to appease hostile powers like Russia.
So with that being said:
It's ridiculous to jump to "we're gonna have to deploy x y and z batallions" when the US administration is not even doing the BARE MINIMUM, many tiers below that: they are publicly praising Putin and berating Zelensky. So it's pointless to talk as if this was about direct military intervention when in fact even soft diplomacy is going to the way of appeasement.
Then China will step in and WW3 will begin.
A no fly-zone alone would greatly diminish Russian capabilites, of which the West could easily do given the dire state of the Russian Air Force and their AAD. After that it's just a point it's a just mopping up any artillery duels and then letting the Ukranians advance in.
The US are not doing anything new. It's just that Trump's style is very "in your face" and that the public have been fed so much BS about "good", "moral", "democracy", etc in international relations that they actually believe it.
It's just as irrelevant as saying that state of individual cells is something you should ignore when establishing diagnostics of a herd.
There's a difference between low pondering and null influence within equations. And if the complexity of the phenomenon exceeds what we can forecast relevantly with equations, then pretending that we know which factor will have significant role all along the development of the situation and which are meaningless is not acting with much sagacity.
The US, like other countries, have sacrificed tens of thousands of people or more, even entire countries, in pursuit of interests amd broader objectives, for instance.
What is irrelevant is indeed moral.
In what way? Because it is providing assistance to Ukraine to defend itself against an aggressor?
But also because if JD Vance wasn't such insufferable prick without an ounce of tact there's a good chance the agreement yesterday would have been signed. That is not Ukrainian fault, it's 100% the fault of current American administration.
As for aid, the arrogance in assuming the aid was mandatory and failing to give what you want the way you want is wrong and evil, does not endear people to aid you. And besides, any delays in aid had a much lesser effect than the EU countries buying russian gas at exorbitant prices. The sanctions imposed were immediately sabotaged by buying russian gas.
Hard disagree. The way he treated Zelenskyy who was their guest is unacceptable and completely tactless. He acted as if he was scolding Zelenskyy. The entire comment from Trump "look he dressed up!" was juvenile, showing zero respect. But then he called him a dictator not long ago so I don't know what I expected.
>>The sanctions imposed were immediately sabotaged by buying russian gas.
Because it wasn't possible for EU to stop buying it on a dime, not without letting its citizens freeze and go without electricity. You can argue that well, they should have gone cold if they care about it so much - I'd argue that the EU countries have stopped buying Russian gas and resources as soon as they possibly could.
>As for aid, the arrogance in assuming the aid was mandatory
That's not what I said - I said if the aid was provided when it was requested the war would have ended already.
It's worse than that.
Zelenskyy famously stopped wearing civilian suits, and is always wearing military-style clothes in public appearances to symbolise how he's defending his nation in a time of war. It's a reminder to other leaders that it's not just another trade deal, that this is a real shooting war and people are dying.
Trump hates this, and thinks it's disrespectful that Zelenskyy doesn't wear a suit when he comes to the US on official visits.
Trump generally can't stomach a real fight, and Zelenskyy can... visibly.
Hence the reaction from Trump. Zelenskyy made him feel shame through his mere dress, his shirt, so he had to do something or say something to feel in control again, to feel powerful.
>Trump hates this, and thinks it's disrespectful that Zelenskyy doesn't wear a suit when he comes to the US on official visits.
That's why they invited dress uniforms...the ones with the jackets and ties.
“You have to follow the dress code, I don’t care about your sacred oath” — said by someone who doesn’t believe in oaths.
No, there's definitely no "dress code" in those circles.
A dress code is specifically something you impose to lower-ranking ones. That's why Trump did not like it, and why this journalist seemed upset: they couldn't bear that Zelenski was not submitting to their, very closed-minded WASP dress code for underlings.
When you're the head of state, or in power circles, there's something else, that's called a _dress standing_, which is different and opens a much wider area of possibilities.
And by that standard, boy, did Zelensky outfit outranked everyone else's in the office!
This is insane. He's been constantly begging and thanking the US for support for years. At no point has he even come close to "assuming the aid was mandatory".
To claim that Zelenski lacked tact while Vance did not is similarly nuts. Anyone who watched the video would understand that.
- J. D. Vance
- J. D. VanceFormer 11A, btw.
You say that like it's a relevant qualification.
I would also like to mention that quoting past military service in a discussion on geopolitics is boot as fuck. So is referring to your trade by it's ID number and not just it's name.
So, y'know, okay boot.
And no, the infantry aren't stupid. Thinking that qualifying as an Infantry Officer means your qualified to run the entire war is stupid.
I think you might be very surprised about that, countries on the eastern end of the EU look ready to make that trade without hesitation, as they were invaded by Russia in the past themselves and can understand the risks. Poland is already at 5% GDP spending on defence, and by all indications that number will only grow. That's war-like levels of spending.
I don't think so, there already are populist opposition parties in most of these countries that want 1. their country to be more pro-RU 2. to keep the welfare state for their populist supporters going
That's the rub, isn't it. The bluster about willingness to face Moscow in a war is all because of Article V and the assumption that the Americans will come and participate in a nuclear exchange.
If you are really sincere, I invite you to ponder this video essay by Sarcasmitron. It explains why this familiar talking point has some basis in truth, but doesn't hold up on closer scrutiny.
What I also don't understand is that I'm being downvoted just for asking a sincere question. What am I doing wrong?
True or not, earnest or not in inquiry, people will reflexively judge it all the same.
The truth of the matter from Ukraine's perspective is that this never would have happened if Ukraine was a NATO member.
NATO hasn't moved aggressively on Russia.
The motivations for Russia and it's neighbours for their opinions on joining NATO are the same. Russia doesn't invade NATO members. That's why Russia's neighbours want to join and why Russia doesn't want them to.
I don't really care to understand the mindset of a dictator. They want power, resources,or reputation out of it. There's not a lot of justified reasons to lead an assault that will cost millions of your citizen's lives.
I don't mean with that that I fully agree with their standpoint, but that we shouldn't fuck too much with them, because they might fuck with us.
And then the rest of your "question" is straight up factually false.
The US did not push or expand NATO onto anyone, but Eastern Europe did everything they could to pull NATO towards them to gain additional security against the very same Russia that had just reluctantly agreed to the dismantlement of their dictatorships and removal of their armies from Eastern Europe.
Are you not aware that the Russian-run communist dictatorships were not voluntary, but forced upon Eastern Europe? That's the key to understanding everything.
In war, the objective is to get the other party to stop fighting. Either by destroying his means, or by destroying his will. If you can get enough people to believe that a war cannot be won, or that it is not just, then they will stop. And you have won. See Psychological warfare [1]
This is why Putin is menacing with nuclear weapons, even if he knows that he cannot use them. This is why Putin is making statements about Ukraine being a fascist nazi state, that he just had to invade for the good of the planet. This is why reliable / true statistics about macro-economics and battlefield victims have become state secrets.
Every time someone naively, but sincerely, enters in the reasoning of Putin, the public debate is shifted a little bit to his advantage. This is what is referred to as a Useful Idiot [2]. And due to Brandolini's Law, otherwise known as the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle [3] it takes time for people to be educated.
So people get frustrated with having to explain every time. So they just downvoted you. I guess.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare
My reply was just based on your question, the point being that your question originated in Russian propaganda. That it was based on dishonest reasoning by Putin. And that asking the question was helping Putin. Read a history book: anyone can give reasonable sounding justifications for invading a country. At the very least leaders need support for their wars, so nobody lets loose the dogs of war, saying "yeah I just want their stuff". In geopolitics, the truth is not always in the middle.
But if you're now asking me my personal opinion, should we "continue the war", then, yes I think we should continue to enable Ukraine to defend itself. So if Ukraine wants to send more soldiers to the front, to defend their nation, then yes we should support them. Note: that does not automatically mean sending American or European soldiers, but that was never on the table.
We should continue to support them because we engaged ourselves to support Ukraine in the 90's, when we forced them to hand over their nukes to Russia.
We should continue the war because as both recent and less recent history has borne out, allowing Russia to perform a landgrab will give the wrong ideas to other countries, ultimately resulting in geopolitical instability everywhere.
We should continue to allow Ukraine to defend itself because demonstrably, it is effective.
I have kids, and do not want WW3. But if after losing hundreds of thousands of men, during a three year war, Putin has not started a nuclear war; do you really think he will start one now? If anything, supporting Ukraine will prevent future conflict.
All of this is obvious for anyone who has performed even a cursory study of history. Which probably explains why you were downvoted.
In fact I have read the history books (have you?). Yes it happened. Many things were said in fact during the negotiation. That generally happens during negotiations whilst people are trying to find a solution.
During scores of negotiations, over a period of months if not years, at one instance the phrase was uttered. Then it was retracted. It was never restated. It was not in the final agreement.
Does it mean that anything the Russians said at some point in time during the negotiations, even if it was retracted afterwards, should apply?
If you were negotiating a contract, do you think that sort of reasoning would fly? If so I have a bridge to sell you.
This is why it is propaganda. Because it is self-serving and disingenuous.
Are you sure that your original question was a sincere question?
>So we should go on and risk WW3?
Well this is part of why your top comment was unpopular. Ukraine is not going to start WW3. Our inaction only accellerates the possibility since this was already winding down.
As others said, you are repeating Russian talking points. Blaming the one attacked for causing a mass scale war instead of the agressors or the spposed "allies" deciding to betray them and help the enemy.
How can America not do anything and withdraw support at the same time?
> Ukraine is not going to start WW3.
Yes Ukraine is not going to start it, but if the countries on Ukraine's side don't show any respect to Russia it might.
Also, note that there is also a risk of not standing up to agression. The price of doing nothing is not zero.
All I said was that one should take care not to be instrumentalised by unwittingly propagating false propagandist narratives. I think we can agree on that?
Not only was this subsequently retracted, but it was never repeated, and it was not in any of the treaty texts. Russia had essentially lost the cold war, was so near to collapse that it needed billions of dollars from it's previous enemies, and so never asked for any sort of confirmation because they knew they wouldn't get it.
It's a bit like, calling the AT&T hotline 20 times, and when during one conversation the agent tells you by mistake that you can have free internet for life (without written confirmation), upon which you then loudly complain that AT&T is in breach of contract.
As the book and the video also remind people, it's not the US that extended NATO. It's the various countries that spent 40 years behind the iron curtain, that were so eager to join NATO that they essentially forced their way into NATO, against the wishes of the US. And given the various Russian invasions the last 10-15 years, history has more than validated them.
The west tried for years and years to accommodate Russia, and only gave weapons to Ukraine in 2016 because ... in 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine? Let's not forget that in the 90's, Ukraine was the third biggest nuclear power, and gave away it's nuclear weapons to Russia at the behest of the rest of the world (who were afraid of nuclear escalation), but only in return from security guarantees, from Europe, the US and even Russia. This deal was very much not at the initiative of Ukraine.
Supporting Ukraine is not a moral issue. It's a contractual issue. We wanted to reduce nuclear proliferation 35 years ago, and -at the time- were willing to pay the price. It's time to make good on that promise.
The controversy regarding the legitimacy of eastward NATO expansion relates to the aftermath of the Revolutions of 1989, when the fall of Soviet-allied communist states to opposition parties brought European spheres of influence into question.
Russian authorities claim that agreement on non-expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe took place orally and the alliance violated it with its expansion while the leaders of the alliance claim that no such promise was made and that such a decision could only be made in writing.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who participated in the 1990 negotiations, subsequently spoke out about the existence of a "guarantee of non-expansion of NATO to the east" inconsistently, confirming its existence in some interviews and refuting in others.
~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_regarding_the_legi...
OTOH, I understand there was an actual drawn up agreement regarding Ukraine giving up post Soviet nuclear weapons, Russia agreeing to Ukranian autonomy and the US agreeing to provide secuirty for Ukraine.
But yeah it would certainly help if they would make the agreement more official.
It's not an agreement if its a thirty year old unconfirmed one sided report of an off record discussion.
Has anybody on the NATO side from the time reported this being talked about? Were any drafts of an actual agreement ever drawn up and leaked?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9x5E0ETyv8
And recently two Trump administration officials also brought this up:
NATO is a defensive alliance.
And it's not that hard to see why a military alliance created to counter Russian power would be the subject of Russian nightmares.
Or we should develop secret nuke capabilities and launch a first strike.
Russia lies extensively.
We can't moderate our behavior based on their irrationel fears.
Putin has been stuck in the cold war since forever. His expansionist ideals have been visible since forever.
I think the cold war never ended. And it's not just the Russians that are active in it.
Any concession to Russia means we are saying that it's ok for nuclear-armed states to invade their neighbours at will, and to expand their territory at will, because "oh no, ww3!".
That is unacceptable. That is unjust. There is exactly one guilty party in this conflict, and it is not Ukraine. We do not appease dictators who invade their neighbours.
We should rather go into conversation with Russia instead of ignoring their perspective and continue with things causing conflicts with them.
Ok, so who started the war?
But what's your point?
Actions speak louder than words. You can justify with all the quotes you want, the point is that reality is before our eyes. I don't sympathize with dictators waging wars for 13 years over much smaller countries.
And Russia is also a superpower, and we don't want to be in conflict with them. So yeah it's not that everything they say we should abide to, but we should also not think that we can do everything without upsetting them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bucharest_summit
Note that Georgia joining was also on the table. Several months after this summit Russia trounced Georgia in a few days and since then there has been no serious movement towards joining NATO.
Russia likely expected the same outcome in Ukraine but as we know now that didn't materialize.
There's also Putin's 2007 speech in Munich about them being really pissed with how they are treated, does that count? Other than that there's the second Chechen war and maybe the time the Russians rushed some peace keepers into Kosoy.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/did-nato-promise-not-to-e...
The basic facts is that the US did give serveral verbal promises that NATO wouldn't expand, and that the later written treaties did not make such promises.
It is however not clear at all from the evidence that the US ever said that they were retracting the early verbal promises.
Further the Brookings piece you linked is trying to make hay out of the fact that the verbal promises were explicitly "only" about expansion into Eastern Germany, which is really just childish: If someone says you can't borrow their shovel, that's not to be understood as them allowing you to borrow anything else they own without asking.
The point is that while it's true that the US never signed anything that prohibited NATO expansion to the east, they were aware they did at one point promise just that.
Then later, as the US changed its minds during spring of 1990, the strategy seems to have been to just pretend not to remember those earlier promises and by narrowly focusing on German unification hope that the issue of the wider European order didn't come up again.
One thing that is really remarkable with all these accounts of how there wasn't any pledges is that the talks were only about German unification in the most narrow sense, and nothing else happened. So the Ion Curtain fell but the US was apparently entirely uninterested in talking to the Soviets about what the new overall structure would be?!
In this context, its a bit rich for the pro-Trump "great peace negotiator" group to imply that the US needed to keep verbal promises made 35 years ago. It was, after all, just what some dude said one time.
From the last presidents he's the one that started the least wars. I don't understand why people are saying that he's pairing with Russia when he wants to end a war that's been going on for 3 years.
Pure myth, refuted by no less than three different generations of Soviet and Russian officials, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43149963
Majority of who, exactly? Where is the boundary of the dēmos from whence the word "democracy" comes?
Is it even constant for all things, or should powers of self derermination shift as group sizes change: what power should the people of California and New York have to tell the people of Texas that there are decisions they cannot make? What power should the USA have to tell Russia or Ukraine what to do?
Because the US is a minority of the world. So is the EU. So is China, despite being larger than both combined.
Half the world lives within 3300 km of Mong Khet, Myanmar; should they determine all world rules down to planning permission, or just global matters such as mandatory climate change reaponses and enforcing global treaties?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle
Not really shocked such a take is contradictory in and of itself.
Under such conditions, Adam giving the bully his lunch money, Bob his homework, and Charlie his lunch may be the Nash equilbrium—that is, until Dave (who knows kung fu) moves to the neighborhood.
This will play out over and over in liberal democracies so long as they abide a large wealth gap. It's anyone's guess whether we'll figure that out before there are no democratic states left.
Oil, lumber, plastics, steel, human labor, electricity, etc are all still finite resources.
It seems like we've been playing in a much larger zero sum game, and that allowed us to gain temporarily profit from that much larger game. We can't escape it though, only finite resources have economic value.
Oil - nuclear power - renewable energy Lumber - is renewable Plastics - use less (packaging) and more renewables - but yea this is limited and we need all oil for this. Also recycling. Steel - recycling Human labour - animal power - engines - for thought - computers then AI? Electricity - renewables - fission.
There is a lot of leeway if we don't waste the resources and ingenuity and discoveries have made it a non zero-sum game.
The key here for me is that treating economics like a zero sum game now makes it significantly more likely we end up at a place where it really is zero sum because zero sum thinking is nearly always short-sighted by definition, and getting to the next level requires more strategic thinking.
I've never quite wrapped my head around what that looks like. What resources could we possibly use that aren't finite?
Maybe we don't hit max utilization for a while, that happens after large innovation jumps, but there's always a cap in natural resources somewhere.
On that kind of timescale, it's far less likely we run out of energy before we can move to a new alternative (perhaps an alternative planet). You're right that no resource is infinite, so maybe the better way to phrase it is resources where we won't run out of them before we are unlikely to need them again.
In what you describe I can't help but see us stuck on a treadmill, endlessly chasing the next innovation to replace the current tech before we run out of resources. We won't be arguing about oil the next time around, bit maybe lithium?
I can't help but wonder what the point is. We could just use less and accept enough rather than constantly wanting the next big thing. I could have 10% of what I have today and still live a more comfortable life than almost all of human history.
People working together are more productive than each person trying to subsist alone. The same goes for countries. The world economy is incredibly complex, and no country can produce everything by itself.
There's only so many resources to go around, and at least with how we treat economics the only things of value are scarce.
Innovations and cooperation can give periods of optimization so it feel like the zero sum is no longer zero sum. At the end of the day it is though, and there's probably a decent case to be made that what we're seeing happen today is due in part to us having optimized as far as we can for this round.
Division of labor does not go away. If anything, specialization and division of labor increase as the world economy becomes more and more complex and developed.
The zero sum game doesn't stop, we just found a way to unlock new uses or new resources such that we temporarily just compete to claim those new resources.
Think of it with land. If all the land we know of is already "owned" we must compete. If we discover new land everyone can scramble to "own" that land so it is temporarily not really zero sum. Ultimately land is finite though, and we get back to a zero sum game after a brief interlude.
When property owners improve their land, neighbors also gain value - creating a positive-sum scenario even within your 'finite resource' example. This continuous cycle of improvement and value creation isn't just a 'temporary interlude' before returning to zero-sum; it's the persistent engine of economic growth in the west.
Since Adam Smith articulated these principles of mutually beneficial exchange in 'The Wealth of Nations,' we haven't seen a return to zero-sum economics. Instead, global wealth has grown exponentially, despite population growth and resource competition. The evidence contradicts the idea that we inevitably return to zero-sum competition after brief periods of growth.
I see you thinking, wait a minute, shouldn't we be looking at wealth per capita? Yes we should. That has gone up dramatically as well. Around 1776 when Adam Smith wrote his book, global GDP per Capita was $1012 (estimated, adjusted for PPP, 2011 dollars ), in 2022 Global GDP per capita was $15 212 (computed) [1]
[1] World in data only covers 1820 to 2022 here -mostly because earlier statistics weren't detailed enough- but it'll have to do. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-p...
ps. Not really related to this answer, but the time-lapse map is just really fascinating https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-p...
There is a finite pool of property and of buyers though. Its reasonable to assume they if one piece of property gains in value others lose value because they are now less desirable. I'm not arguing the math is absolutely 1:1 in price increase/decrease.
Its very easy to zoom in on one portion of a zero sum game and view it as non-zero. If costs are externalized outside the scale you're considering then it can in fact seem magical, but at the end of the day everything is connected.
If your neighbor's house goes up in price, yours is likely to go up too, all else being equal.
-
Economic interactions can create new (emergent) value, not just reshuffle existing value.
Adam Smith's recognition of this fact is what gave us the current western economies, where even poor people are relatively wealthy, compared to back in his day.
Adam Smith illustrated this 'emergent value' with his pin factory example: One person working alone might make 20 pins per day. But when ten people specialize and collaborate, they could produce 48,000 pins daily - not by using more resources, but through smarter organization. This 240x productivity gain created entirely new value without taking from anyone else.
* Wealth Of Nations, Adam Smith, 1776 (original) , pin factory example happens to be Book 1 Chapter 1; a digitized version of a 1902 reprint can be found at : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/Book_I/...
> If your neighbor's house goes up in price, yours is likely to go up too, all else being equal.
Sure, if you're zoomed into a neighborhood scale. That wasn't my argument though, scale matters.
If your neighborhood sees an increase in value one across town could pretty easily see theirs go down. If your city goes up because it became more desirable for any number of reasons, other cities must be less desirable and seeing values go down.
We don't have unlimited demand for real estate. Buying real estate mostly in debt buffers the zero sum game somewhat, we have a finite pool of buyers but they aren't directly limited by a finite pool of money.
Edit because I forgot Adam Smith. He wrote of a fictional past and a fictional vision for the future. His examples are fine in theory but they weren't rooted in fact.
But... you have me curious now.
Does this mean you reject capitalism as a system?
And Karl Marx actually I think made similar observations, just came to his own slightly different conclusions. So I'm guessing you're not exactly going to be someone who identifies as socialist either.
Can you tell me if you come from some sort of interesting social/economic/political background? I'm fascinated!
I do actually support capitalism, though my opinion is that I only really support it in theory and that the few decades I've been alive have had too much market intervention to really be considered capitalism.
I generally would trust a free market to optimize well enough, much like I would trust "the mob" in a democracy to decide its own fate well enough.
I fall very must on the side of individual liberty. That means people should be able to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't impede other's rights to do the same. It also means, though, trusting that the outcome of such a system is going to be roughly optimized and should nearly always be better than a centrally planned solution.
In the context of housing prices, neighborhoods or cities rising and falling, etc I see that as a good thing and as a sign that markets are reflecting general sentiment among consumers. We learn from why we think one market is now more favorable and respond by shifting other markets to better match that demand.
Where Adam Smith really loses me is in monetary policy. Arguments of a world before money looking like someone with bread and in need of chicken wandering around to find someone with chicken and needing bread is just ridiculous. Societies without money, or with a very loose concept of money, were likely to be much smaller groups of people (think the Dunbar number) that worked to take care of each other. You may have had someone that made bread for the community and you just went and got some when you needed it. Everything didn't revolve around IOU transactions among unfamiliar parties because you were familiar. Money is way Kore useful as a medium when you don't really know or don't really trust the other party.
That said, do you think it's more likely that every single interaction between humans would be an exact -1/+1 value exchange, or do you think it'd be a bit more messy like -0.45/+1.213 . If the latter, couldn't -1.1/-4.5 or +2.43/+3.14159 also be possible exchanges?
[1] both capitalism and socialism (despite their many differences) share the premise that economic organization can create more value than would exist without it. They differ primarily on how that value should be distributed and who should control the means of production, not on whether value creation itself is possible.
We can absolutely find ways to optimize resources we already have and find new uses for resources, but we can't make resources out of thin air.
Sun and wind also require massive energy storage solutions to replace the ease of storing energy in the form of oil. Again that energy storage requires finite materials to make, maintain, and replace as they degrade.
Don't be. I'm neither American nor European, and from my vantage point this is far less America's (US) fault than it is Western Europe's. US has been asking Europe to increase defense spending for years now, and at the beginning of the war it was below 2% (Germany was spending 1.25% in 2018). Trump said this very publicly in during his first term, and he was ignored and mostly ridiculed. Same thing with the Gazprom deal.
Europe's defence should not be entirely on the American tax payer.
True. However.
The US has wanted to play a major role in Europe for 80 years because it meant they controlled the narrative. This, co-incidentally was favourable to European countries because they could spend their money elsewhere.
Over the past few years the US has decided that it would prefer to play in the Pacific rather than Europe and so has been edging away.
It's true that Western Europe has been slow to respond, but it's also important to acknowledge that Trump just changed the pace of this redirection and so it's not entirely on one or the other side.
And yes, fighting indirectly with Russia is also helping the US two-fold. Or, was until Trump decided to wake up as a sleeper agent .
You fell for this propaganda. That equipment is "old" doesn't mean it isn't actively being used. The US military uses and maintains old equipment where it still makes sense, and where there is no viable replacement.
People who do know history would tell you that you don't get peace by dismantling industrial and military capacity. To blame this on "because the US wanted it that way" is just naive. The US might have wanted it that way, but so what? It happened because it was easier to sell domestically compared to allocating hundreds of billions on say, 5th gen fighters.
Or maybe your ivory tower understanding simply ignores the realities of the working class people who voted for Trump to do away with these policies.
I'm shocked by the level of pro-Russia content coming from you and other posters. I hope it's just brigading. I'm devastated if any meaningful amount of Americans feel this way. It's a fall from grace I didn't think I'd see in such real time.
Trump disagrees with you:
> So we raised [the defense spending of NATO members by] $130 billion almost immediately. We had a meeting with all of the [NATO] countries. I said, “You got to pay.” We got $130 billion more — more.
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re...
During the conference Trump was asked when did he talk to Putin last time and said "a couple of days ago". No official communication was made about that. I am not referring to the initial call mentioned a few weeks ago.
A TASS reporter got into the Oval Office, and was kicked out when this was flagged by other members of the press. The normal accredited journalists can't easily get into the Oval Office, there is a much more rigorous process for that.
Somebody from the current US Administration, wanted this prearranged ambush, to be broadcast live to Russian audiences.
Fixed it for you, but you’re a few years late.
The big question I've been asking myself for a while now is, why isn't that plainly obvious to everyone in the US? Why isn't it plainly obvious to Trump himself and to his fans?
I think the reason is American Exceptionalism, and the cultural power it has in the US.
If you start from the premise that you play in a completely different league than everyone else, there isn't much to gain from building cooperative structures.
Interestingly, I remember even Peter Thiel saying in a podcast I listened to many years ago that he thought American Exceptionalism was the biggest cultural weakness in the US.
Extracting resources has always been the central tenant of industrial society, and there was always somewhere new to pillage. With literally nowhere on earth left to expand this global juggernaut, it's not clear that our zero sum utopia can continue.
I'm not defending Trump's actions by any means; spitting in the face of your friends is the last thing you want to do when times are lean. But at least this administration sees the writing on the wall: business as usual is dead and we're entering an era of zero sum contraction. Their response is insane but at least they acknowledge the problem (unlike traditional liberals and conservatives who think we can keep tweaking the current system forever)
That economic activity is growth. It was still happening. Just the middle class didn't participate like it used to like in the 50s. Because the marginal tax rate back then kept as much wealth from pooling at the top.
Economic inequality is the problem, not lack of growth.
The Russian army is IMHO not anywhere near collapse, it's suffering many casualties in a useless war (for Russia), but ultimately they have x4 people and industrial advantage (!). Trump is being very crass, but any US admin would seek to close this up since simply put Ukr is losing - yet Putin cannot take Kyiv either. What's left is everyone wasting a lot of blood for a some land in Donbass.
The pressure is applied too much on Ukraine though - Putin needs to made to climb down a bit, which is difficult given his advances but maybe doable (I think a threat of unilateral EU forces deployment could do it).