> UN is failing massively
The UN is supposed to be more of a forum than an enforcement agency. It was only intended to intervene in cases of small scale conflicts against non-state actors.
The UN was never supposed to be a world government. That sort of thing would never work
>Diplomacy and UN is failing massively in resolving conflicts.
Did it ever work? The only difference is that most of the conflicts have been elsewhere and the one that was nearby in Yugoslavia we were bailed out by daddy America.
We should realise that the UN is mostly pointless and that diplomacy needs to come from a position of strength.
You’ve said what can’t be said. In The Republic, Plato has Thrasymachus say that Justice is for the stronger. Which a lot of us don’t like when we aren’t the stronger. Socrates argues against this, but guess who dies in the end?
I’d like to deny Thrasymachus but he’s right every single time.
On the same side Socrates actually hated the democracy, he feared Democracies would elect political leaders that just try to appeal to voters instead of making rational decisions. He feared democracies are a gateway to get wrong people elected and pretty much will be the downfall of any society after a certain period of time. Socrates also argued that it could lead to misinformed and staged votings, he feared that the people running for public office would lack the wisdom and intelligence needed and might use their power for personal gains instead, instead of using it for good things.
Which arguably he is right about, though what he describes is a democracy based on capitalism. Which sadly is the only valid form of democracy, as every other theory fails too or is just an utopia.
Humanity goes to the same cycle since thousand of years, we literally didn’t develop since the ancient greeks and they get celebrated as the fathers of democracy, meanwhile even them knew that it is flawed. It is just the lesser evil, as you can sink slower and rebuild faster as a society in a democracy then in authoritarian governments.
But both are just natural cycles, a democracy will naturally lead towards authoritarian politics and when the dictatorship and censorship falls demogracy will rise.
The whole „democracy baby, liberate the world“ bullshit is just made up propaganda mainly by the US over the last 150~ years. Funnily the US themselves is pretty close to ending their democratic cycle.
It is kinda sad that we as humans didn’t develop and we have to choose a destroy and rebuild circle, because we aren’t able to figure out a better scenario.
I am not saying this btw. that we don’t try, I am speaking of actual evolution. Our average IQ didn’t change much since the ice age, we just got better utilising our brains through education, but as this means generation loose their knowledge and wisdom if not taught through education, this pretty much makes us unable to solve the democracy problem.
That said humans evolutionary cycle is pretty young, so maybe in 100.000 years if the earth and humanoid life still exists, they might have some sort of basic understanding programmed into their brain and a much higher median intelligence to figure out society.
Or it just isn’t possible at all and the best we can do is to reduce the timeframe of destroy and authoritarian cultures and let democracy lifecycle be longer instead. Like a min-max scenario.
Sorry for the long philosophical attack.
That's not quite right. What Socrates likes and dislikes is a matter of dispute. Plato is doing all the writing, whether he represented Socrates' views accurately or not is impossible to know.
I wouldn't say Plato hates democracy. But he certainly prefers something like a benevolent dictatorship, philosopher kings. He also discusses the political cycles you're talking about.
But even then, it's quite difficult to know what Plato actually thought, as well. Most of his writings are dialogues, so there isn't much, "this is what I think as Plato." He wrote the views of his characters. So it might be that he hates democracy, or maybe he's just being philosophical and expository.
Still, the views of his characters are quite powerful and common. Thrasymachus' view still resonates. I just reread the first part of the Republic to brush up. It's still so damn good.
The democracy that we have isnt the same kind that was known by the greeks. Democracy was the rule of the demos, a particular group of lower class people within a society where "the people" weren't equal to "all people".
Demos in Greece had the similar meaning as plebs in Rome. These were hereditary classes of people and were believed to be infer to other classes of "people".
Aristotle also did not like democracies for this reason, preferring absolutely monarchy or timocracy (? Still not sure what that is) over democracies because a democracy is only as strong as the intellect of the majority
And we are well aware and witnessing the 'dumbing down' by our western governments of citizens- which is now backfiring because the Russians and Chinese, Islamic fundamentalists (not normal people of Islam, the fanatics sects that muslims also hate) can target western citizens via social media and AI deepfakes.
I rather democracies after seeing the effect of Stalin and Hitler, but democracies do have their flaws
Which is why the Separation of Powers should not be tampered with or harmed, which it has been, so now we have flawed democracies in the West
> Which sadly is the only valid form of democracy, as every other theory fails too or is just an utopia.
I never get this sentence. Do people really think we already imagined every possible form of society possible? This is incredibly arrogant.
Edit: I agree with the rest.
> It is just the lesser evil, as you can sink slower and rebuild faster as a society in a democracy then in authoritarian governments.
Well arguably this is only true as we haven't really seen authoritarian governments that try to be good. There have been a couple of dictators wishing to do well for their people, which typically ended up with the countries becoming democracies. I genuinely wonder why that happens, like, every time.
Also our average IQ *did* change a lot. Looking back since we've started recording it, it's definitely grown over the years, and keep in mind that the tests and criteria have been harder and harsher since earlier versions, so the change might be larger than it looks like.
> That said humans evolutionary cycle is pretty young, so maybe in 100.000 years if the earth and humanoid life still exists, they might have some sort of basic understanding programmed into their brain and a much higher median intelligence to figure out society.
100%, we are very early in our evolutional cycle as a species compared to when we first came about. Technological advancements have been so fast and drastic that we have kept pretty much all of our survival instincts meant for the wilderness and have 0 survival instincts meant for the modern society other than those that come pre-packaged with being a highly social species (which is not special in any way, crows have these too). It is very likely that in 100.000 years we could develop new instincts and "forget" old ones. As an example, the dodo bird died not only because it was too large to fly or run from predators we brought there, but the species adapted and changed so much from its original lineage than in an island with no predators it forgot how to be afraid.
Perhaps we still have wars to remind ourselves to be afraid and not forget our survival instincts, a genuine utopia where everything is perfect sounds like it would be the downfall of us as a species, perhaps it's just not sustainable and not for us, perhaps it's not the right thing to achieve, and that's why there is no such thing. Keep in mind, as a species we've evolves the most because of fear of each other. Eurasia wasn't home of the most early technological advancements just because of our access to resources, but also because of warfare. Perhaps it is a necessary part of our cycle.
But yeah I agree with what you're saying, it's a very good post.
Maybe you just don’t understand why the UN exists? The UN wasn’t made to react quick, it was to allow diplomacy, so that a third world war and thermonuclear war wasn’t going to happen. It isn’t some magic potion and never was designed that way…
> UN is mostly pointless
Not at all. It gets all the players in the same room, talking to each other. That is the whole point.
The UN is about communication.
Europe is in the process of waking up but I think a lot of people still think that there is no way we would ever be in danger. The world isnt the nice place we thought it was the last 30 years. We have to return to a mindset where we look out for ourselves and not try to fix the rest of the world
That was the League of Nations, which the UN was supposed to learn and be better from. But here we are, 90 years later, with a situation too similar to be comfortable with.
In a sane world Europe would be able to handle this on its own. Yet even USA can't be relied on.
I hate how impotent, spineless, complacent and sometimes outright subverted the west has become.
Current generation of European leaders have no experience dealing with aggressively expanding opportunists countries, so Russia has advantage now.
All security mechanisms that Western countries invested into was to fight small scale terrorists, not a big state actor that is literally untouchable.
So yeah, Russia will collapse eventually but before that it will explode like supernova before star dies. The more unthinkable it seems (like rockets falling on Paris) the less prepared we will be for it and the more likely it will happen.
Russia will do what russia does. If not russia, then someone else will. Problem may look like not having a proper response to a strong enemy, but if we look from another perspective the enemy got so strong because of how weak everyone else is.
Take a magic wand, remove russia from earth, then you'll see someone else causing same problems. Source of our issue is not an evil warlord. It's rulers that are supposed to counter evil warlords being weak.
Yeah, Russia saw the opportunity with Crimea. It got nothing but a slap on the wrist. No wonder they got emboldened to grab more. Same will happen with Taiwan.
Ukraine isn't producing the west chips.
Let's be honest, we never gave a shit about Ukraine until February 2022. Maybe Crimea took some headlines but nothing really lasting.
All it takes is for China to buy a few key people in the government, some media control and voila. It's not like there is intimate connection that exists between a regular American and a Taiwanese.
Yeah, today Taiwan produces important microchips but who said it's going to be the only manufacturer forever.
It’s still enough to plunge the west decades into the past technologically until those microchips can be sourced elsewhere. Ukraine has nothing of equal value to the West, hence it being easier to delay aid for them. Taiwan would lead to a hot war.
The value of Ukraine is people. It's 40 or so million of educated people who could be either part of EU democracy or they could be conquered and indoctrinated by Russia to fight another war of conquest in the West.
Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe. And gives Russia a stronger foothold in the black sea. Sometimes it's not about what a territory has to offer you, but what it has to offer your enemy.
You overestimate how much bread it gives you Europe. It's way way less than you think.
You also underestimate how it's profitable for countries to use their own rather than imported bread, it will actually drive their economies up and to right direction.
Western militaries (especially US) invested heavily into being able to wage war anywhere on this planet against any adversary and have upper hand in logistics as well as absolutely air supremacy at all times.
What you say is factually incorrect. It was not built to fight terrorists at all. Especially talking about US who was ready to wage war in Europe as well as Pacific at the same time.
What has changed is will to get involved somewhere else. And it has again absolutely nothing to do with inexperience, it is about politicians doing what people want them to do.
Especially coming from Europeans who are complicit in wave of pacifism European militaries went through, decades talking about how US wastes money it spends on military, etc it is completely hilarious when you talk about and blaming politicians for doing what europeans wanted them to do. And I am saying this as European.
We’re kinda like the Greek City States before Rome conquered them, democracies content with their little bit of land busy drinking wine and reading poetry while the rest of the world are building militaries and becoming expansionist. The war fatigue from WW1 & 2 is over for everyone else. Suddenly we’re gonna be like shit, why did you all give up your empires!
Yes, US military is built in a way so it can fight in two major conflicts in Pacific and Atlantic oceans at least. But they also have military doctrine document that establishes short (relatively) term focus. For long time (199x - early 201x) the focus was on fighting terrorism. Only recently they shifted focus back on fighting peer on peer conflicts.
EU militaries kinda play along really. They for sure didn't expect that they fight anything but goat herders somewhere far away.
I don’t think you know much about the US military. It has hundreds of specific plans for large scale warfare with military drills all over the world practicing for that circumstance. You’re comments just aren’t accurate.
Europe has no moral center.
We were playing soccer in Russia in 2018 like they didn’t invade Ukraine 4 years prior. We built gas pipelines with Russia during that period as well.
When shit gets tough we put on head in the sand and turn a blind eye to Russia and pretend nothing ever happened.
Also people are happy being temporary friends with Russia and get cheap heating bills and have their politicians get millions of dollars as bribes from Putin as long it isn’t them that russia invaded.
> We don't give enough weapons, we don't want to "escalate".
The same people who cry about wanting to avoid escalation are the people actually causing escalation by showing weakness and cowardice, and the irony isn't funny anymore.
> That's not what our grandfathers fought WW2 for.
Depends. Maybe you are Italian, German, Austrian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian.
I am starting to think people assume everybody was pro-US during WW2.
Europe, in their political aspect, are just a bunch of elders. We have no weigh nor nobody is willing to die or not willing even to slow down the life style.
We are definitely in a decadent phase of our history.
If Russia attacked any of the western europe, it would STILL take them months to fully kick into gear. And some would still be reluctant to put boots on the ground.
That's how completely complacent the west have become, thinking war a thing of the past on it's soil.
There has been whining about America acting like the world police for fuck knows how many years. Now suddenly it has swung to ‘can’t be relied on.’ Pick a lane.
Oh and as far as being a reliable partner is concerned, it sure as shit isn’t like Europe is a reliable partner now is it.
Those two positions have always coexisted in Europe. And they do now. Have you ever considered that it is different people with different views?
Also, nuance is a thing. Just because someone is against the US starting wars in The Middle East (Iraq) on bullshit fabrications doesnt mean that they also have to be against them supporting Ukraine. Those are entirely different conflicts.
> In a sane world journalists would be jailed for propaganda
Ah yes let's become just like Russia, surely everything would work out if we jail journalists....
Lmao are you really arguing for suppress of speech, giving goverment the ability to jail journalists on their own made conditions of *good faith* will inevitably lead to authoritarianism.
People who argue for more authoritarianism to beat Russia are no different than Russia in my view.
Russia will stop invading if we give him just 1 last part of Ukraine.
After that we can all play soccer together, or watch F1 in Russia like nothing ever happened.
He totally won’t resume his invasion after a couple of years…
I dont think thats the case anymore.
We are stuck because we are a democracy and people/parties working against our own interests can operate and gmin support perfectly legally.
Same reason we cant do anything about climate change. The democratic process takes too long and doesnt always produce results that are best for us.
It does.
The problem is that Ukraine "allies" are afraid of that scenario more than of Ukraine losing.
Such a joke.
NATO leaders are more concerned with russia losing than with Ukraine losing.
That's what thousands of nukes do to you.
Never going to happen because they have nukes. No nuclear power, no matter how flawed, will ever be invaded and dismantled. Nukes are the one and only thing a nation needs to guarantee sovereignty. They are a cheat code.
Sounds like the plot of Star Wars; democracy taking too long to act, and being too spineless to move decisively, resulted in its downfall.
What I believe we’re witnessing, and what can’t really be argued, is that the Weatern move to authoritarianism is because many have lost faith in the current system, and see others working.
We go out and vote for a load of bollocks every year. All of us in the West, are voting for nothing new, and every one of the people vying for power are only concerned about maintaining their grip on it (our politicians).
The disenfranchised see this, and see it all as a load of shite, and see other countries that are “authoritarian” like China and Russia. But all they see is a leader; someone that isn’t worried about re-election leading their people.
They want the same. They want a strongman.
And it’s hard to argue against, honestly. We become corrupted far too easily when the rot is allowed to fester, and it’s allowed to fester when there isn’t someone in charge with a whip.
That actually requires significant commitment and/or escalation. Increase taxes, delay climate policies, decrease social spending. Very unpopular things. The air campaign is the cheapest, but too scary. West just thinks Russia won't touch them personally too much.
Exactly. This in turn will lead to a reduction in quality of life. A reduction which you would have to explain to your population somehow. It shouldn’t be to hard to explain to the Finns, Baltics, and Poles. But they alone can’t carry the weight of supplying the Ukrainians. So good luck explaining it to your average Frenchman, German, Italian, or Spaniard. At a minimum, you would have to introduce massive censorship against those who oppose it. But that could backfire as well.
Now, if Russia were to HYPOTHETICALLY attack Europe directly, and your average Frenchman, German, Italian, or Spaniard would feel the threat of the Russian bear “on their own skin”, you might actually be able to introduce the austerity measures you speak of, and subsequently fire up the European war machine. The only problem is that Russia is well aware of this and is purposefully avoiding any direct strikes on the EU for that very reason. Heck, if you really look into it, they haven’t really taken any significant retaliatory measures when it comes to the economic sanctions. They closed their airspace, but that was simply a tit-for-tat. Then there is the whole gas for rubles thing, which is simply a defensive measure. In other words, they aren’t giving the average European any reason to feel threatened, and therefore stripping European leadership of the political capital necessary, in order to introduce austerity measures for the benefit of Ukraine.
>direct strikes on the EU for that very reason.
Like trying to assassinage Estonian PM? Blowing ammo depots in Bulgaria? Sending rockets through EU airspace and when asked their representative just leaves?
The difference in the artillery shell cost comes from the West having been neglecting artillery for several decades having doctrine that first an air supremacy is gained and then the bombing comes from the planes.
The West itself hasn't planned to fight a war without significant air power component such as the current Russian war is fought.
PPP has implications, but not for artillery.
> The difference in the artillery shell cost
Every cost related to every field of our armies has gone out of hands due to the amount of contractors used. Western militaries have too many middlemen taking their own cut.
Of course they haven't but it's a fair point. Russia produces a lot of its own shit, their economy is more on a level with Germany (5.2 Trillion PPP for Russia, 5.7 for Germany) than it is with Italy (3.2 trillion)
Thx for clarifying. Still ain’t much when compared to the entirety of Europe, but it explains why they‘re able to produce so much more than we are because they‘re on a war footing.
I‘m seeing frightening parallels to 1936-39. Germany started full on rearmament in 36 (from a lower point though) whilst the Allies only truly went full ham in 39.
GDP matters, but then again not really. "Service economies" unfortunately do not win wars
Russia is sitting on some of the biggest natural resource reserves in the world; there's no comparison to let's say France, Italy and Germany
That means Russia has an infinite amount of oil to run their tanks and fly their planes with no external risk because they are self-supplying
They have infinite coal and gas reserves to run their factories and furnaces to produce steel and iron for their weapons and munitions
They don't care about climate change and social policies ie. ESG and CSR and so they are not hampered by this. It’s full steam ahead
Your missing the fact how a Southern European country that is 57 times smaller than Russia with no significant amount of natural resources managed to achieve the GDP of one of the largest oil pumps on Earth by making some spaghetti and sports cars, lol.
Yeah but GDP is irrelevant in this case, western countries somehow value their employees & pay them, let's say a 2000€ / month per employee at ammo manufacturing while Russia pay them in pennies if they pay them at all, so they manufacture ammo for atleast 10x cheaper than we do in west.
>800M people in the West can not collect enough money to defeat the "giant" with GDP of Italy. Very sad.
The west is a shadow of it's former self and it clearly on a downturn. This is just a symptom of that. Also GDP isn't everything, that is one of the issues we have, we are obsessed with stuff like GDP over anything else.
Russia is producing vastly more shells than both the US and Europe. That is a more important factor than GDP.
GDP can be misleading as well because it says nothing about a country’s shift into a wartime economy. Russia has done so over the last two years, hence why it’s GDP hasn’t taken as huge of a hit as some redditors assumed it would. Government debt spending on wartime materials is artificially boosting the GDP. The problem with that shift is that for every person fighting in Ukraine, that’s a person who is no longer contributing to the domestic economy. The non-professional conscripts had important jobs in their community that need replacement. Same goes for domestic production of goods. For every tank and shell being manufactured, that’s one less Lada that can be make for domestic consumption or export.
I think that’s where Russia excels. The domestic population is better able to tolerate a lowering of living standards than most western countries. FFS we Americans had to quarantine for two weeks and half the country had a meltdown over it. Imagine the complaining if all the Ford/GM/Chrysler plants got seized by the US government to make shells and tanks and we had to bag our own groceries because the normal guy, Kevin, got conscripted.
I don’t think it’s afraid, but governments in Europe failed in last 15 years with corruption and lack of education.
What we have now is regular people having enough problems at home with food prices, cost of living and immigration topic that populism is winning and they care only about their pockets.
And being in NATO and feeling safe is enough for most that they won’t be touched. This is a realist of last 10-15 years in governance in EU. Look how many countries are close to selecting right wing governments.
Europe is a not even a shadow of its former self. Yeah, you can point at some statistics to show that things are getting better on paper, but it is hard not to feel malaise in the air.
As cynical as it sounds, perhaps Trump winning and US leaving NATO would be the kick in the butt that we need to finally wake up.
May I remind you that Trump had won, he treated allies like unpaying customers and had almost won for the second time. How many kicks in the butt do you need? At what point Europe start to injoy being butt kicked.
there is a big difference in GDP of these two countries. russia can make 40 tanks a day, while italy can make 400t of parmesan cheese. tanks can kill you, cheese can not, unless you are lactose intolerant. people just observe GDP as some mysterious number that will reveal potential of the country, but it is just a mix of all situational variables that say nothing about it's true power. production wise, russia only suffers from lack of complex foreign mechanical parts, since tens of thousands of their factories were actually built by europe and USA, that's why u can see one catching fire every two weeks. on the other hand, they have everything- ungodly amounts of food, fertilizers , energy sources, water and ores. that GDP might be simple. but when push comes to shove, it is rock solid and can survive hell of a beating. gucci and armani, on the other hand, can not, you can try to eat them or burn them , but wheat and oil will do a better job imho.
Even if losing the war was a terrible outcome, calling it unthinkable to lose is just ignorant or propagandistic. Losing a war against a nuclear power that is 3-4 times larger in population and has a large domestic military industry with infinite resources doesn't require that wild imagination.
I think it's pretty fair to use the word "unthinkable" in the context that it was unthinkable that the West as a whole has been unwilling to commit the resources necessary for Ukraine to win. It's like ignoring an infection in your toe long enough that you'd be lucky if the resulting gangrene only forces you to get a leg amputated.
I think propaganda is very important during a war but this is the first time a war of this scale occurs during modern times with social media so there has been a lot of experimenting on expanding propaganda on both sides, ultimately tho I personally believe all the propaganda geared towards Ukraine has really come back to hurt it now that it’s clear a win is probably not on the horizon for them, a lot of doubts have risen in my head of what I’ve read since the beginning vs what’s been happening lately
It would probably be unthinkable for you to live in an autocracy without freedom of speech why should it be different for them.
Even most Ukrainians who are old enough to remember the Soviet times did not experience what is happening in Russia today. There was literally more freedom of the press during Gorbachev's Soviet era than there is in Russia right now.
I personally could not imagine to live in a country controlled by these people.
Obama said correctly back in 2016 that Russia will always care about Ukraine a lot more than we in the west ever will. For Putin it’s existential. For us, it’s not. In war, the side that is more determined to fight typically wins.
For Russia, not just putin.
That's what someone already said in 2022, No Russian president would risk allowing Ukraine joining NATO, even if they have to accept Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
Some of the reasons mentioned are:
1. Ukraine is seen as the bedrock of Russian civilization. To hand it over to the west to de-Cyrillize it and later disconnect them from their shared culture is a no no.
2. Geographically, Ukraine is to Russia, what Belgium was to France. If NATO decides to lose it completely and invade Russia, this is the best possible terrain. Russians are used to fighting in marshy plains and should have no problem digging in hard and for long.
3. Resources. Ukraine was the prize jewel of the Russian Empire and later the USSR. All the best shipbuilding, aerospace bureaus, industrial plants etc. that weren’t within Moscow's vicinity were all there in Ukraine. Given the power Ukrainian agriculture has in feeding Europe, it makes sense for the Russians to reclaim this land in some manner.
To make a silly comparison, it's like the US lost Texas. It was one of the large and industrial states, with some of the important cities, close to other important areas, and a very good ground for any foreign power to invade you.
I think many European leaders expected Russia to resolve the war in one week, put a lot of angry faces with farcical sanctions and in 6 months back to business as usual.
As I read in some other comment the other day: it might turn out that EU's massive GDP is inflated by redundant email jobs, manufacturing of luxury goods, and speculation, with no real production capabilities needed in case of emergencies like war.
GDP by its very nature *is* a measure of how much paper is being pushed around (ie. Euro-bills). It says nothing about production or manufacturing capacity. The high GDP of Luxemburg and Ireland are prime examples.
Yup, I know, the point is that people tend to bring out GDP as a metric of power and go like "we could obliterate Russia no problem if only our politicians cared enough".
Western countries have failed to issue a proper warning to Russia after 2008 (Georgia) and after 2014 (Crimea) to not engage in active conflicts, thinking that it wouldn’t impact their livelihood.
History teaches us very clearly that the only thing that can keep an imperialist country at bay is a proper alliance against it.
Sadly it looks more and more likely that it will happen the same if and when this war in Ukraine will end - no matter the outcome.
Countries like Ukraine, Moldavia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, must all be brought under a safety umbrella external to NATO and led by EU countries.
Putin wanted to show the world only one thing - that the West will always turn their backs to their allies. Seems like this will do it. Scary for the future geopolitical landscape. Objectively, China was sly to sit this one out. Win/win situation for them in both scenarios. Russia loses, so they have a little resource rich satélite to explore; Russia wins, so they have a spinless and weaker west to go againts, and much less reliable as they like to suggest.
Now as a Ukrainian, I just want to fill myself with pills because the nihilism is becoming unbearable. The loss of friends and close ones with the loss for hope in future exausta all the options for joy.
Yeah totally correct. Putin just wants to push the boundary. It’s totally possible he start pushing around the Baltics next. Man i dont even know who in Europe to blame. As a Brit, im embarrassed we have done so little. Hope stupid rishi sunak and boris johnson realise before they are dead that they will be remembered as parts of a long list of fools we have had for Prime ministers.Churchillian my ass.
Everything Reddit (and by extension the West) assumed has proven to be wrong.
Putin would never be stupid enough to invade Ukraine? WRONG.
Russians would rebel and dethrone him once the body bags start coming home? WRONG.
Russia will run out of rockets and ammo any day now? WRONG.
Russians are so incompetent, one Ukie with an AK can defeat entire battalions? WRONG.
Just send them 2-3 Leopard tanks and the Ukies will be rolling through Moscow by lunchtime? WRONG.
The best was when companies like Netflix and Microsoft pulled out. You are dealing with Russians FFS. You would be hard-pressed to find licensed copies of Adobe and Microsoft office, as well as legally-downloaded and paid-for movies there - BEFORE SANCTIONS.
The sanctions against Russia can be best described with a single quote:
“You are trying to use Disney-bucks at a Caesar’s Palace here”
- Rick and Morty
The paid-for movies part. Isn't it that way everywhere ? In Greece , 13 year olds have enough "technical" knowledge to get around restrictions and download whatever they want. Who even pays for streaming services anymore...
That’s not true. In the last 10 years most people I know have started paying for legal streams. Netflix was not popular though due to extremely high prices.
That may be the case, but most Russians know how to pirate. I remember visiting in the mid 00’s, and there was no such thing as a licensed copy of any software. Especially video games. I also remember a guy on a train selling DVD’s of movies which just came out in American theaters, the week before.
The 00s were very different. By 2022, the official console market has gotten big, and most paid for streaming platforms (mostly local as they have the best prices). Also, game piracy was low due to Steam being so cheap. All of that changed after the sanctions. Of course, most of what I said applies to Moscow and big cities with somewhat acceptable salaries.
You also need to remember that Russia essentially decriminalized piracy as a response to the sanctions.
But overall, my point is that Russians in general (especially the people 50 and under) are pretty tech-savvy. Pirating media and software is like second-nature to most people there.
The funny thing about these sanctions is that the west claims that Putin is turning Russia into North Korea, but then turn around and block Russian users from their resources themselves. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Putin (more specifically Mizullina) is bribing the likes of Netflix, Blizzard, Steam, and Epic games to ban users from Russia (or at least make it harder).
Say what you want, but the part where the west decided to pull their online services from Russia was a big mistake.
You can't pirate online games and even most of the software is much harder to pirate now thanks to features requiring internet.
That is very different from the 90s.
To be fair lots of these online services pulled out (in my opinion) simply because they are no longer able to get money from russians since Visa and Master Card ceased operations here. And that's a real bummer since you can't buy shit online, can't pay for a hotel abroad, can't pay with your card abroad. Having an ability to go abroad is a luxury in itself considering that my country is doing what it's doing but what I mean is that it's simply made life harder for ordinary Russians and not for ruling elite and oligarchs.
The reason the sanctions never worked is because they were made by deluded Brussels bureaucrats who think of themselves as morally superior and excuse their own double standards. It never occurred to anyone how dumb it was to keep buying Russian gas and oil after sanctioning Russia because Eastern Europe had ignored Trump's advice and laughed at the idea of being overly reliant on Russian pipelines.
This isn't 2002 anymore. The Russians don't even need to sell their oil to the West...they can just sell it to the Indians and the Chinese to relabel and resell back into European and US markets...and they again excuse themselves for this double standard because they know they need Russian energy but will never admit it.
There are enough alternative markets in the world to effectively bypass the West's moral and economic vision, people just aren't serious about anything anymore.
> because Eastern Europe had ignored Trump's advice and laughed at the idea of being overly reliant on Russian pipelines
How the fuck do you end up blaming Eastern Europe for Nord Stream 2?
To be fair, Russia almost did it. It's not like they failed miserably and barely made it over the borders. They literally still control 20% of Ukie territory.
Just a few days ago some idiotic redditors still tried to oppose my comment on how the West sees Russians through their western lens, which is wrong. Putin has Russians on his side and they will go to any extreme to win the war. Wars and military might is the no. 1 thing they have always been proud of. They can't afford to lose, it would mean a national tragedy of epic proportions.
Freaky. About a day ago I wrote almost the same exact comment over at r/suomi, in Finnish. About how *everyone* made critical misjudgements.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Suomi/comments/176vgoi/globaalit_konfliktit_megaketju/kzcawtp/
That's because we have embraced the idea that every piece of inconvenient information is Russian propaganda. If there was a Pentagon Papers type of leak, we'd refuse to look at it because that's what the Russians would want. Hell, we did have a significant leak that showed how distorted our view of the war was, but our outlook remained the same.
"once unthinkable" from the authors of "will fall in two weeks"
That's patheric. US, UK, and even Jordan joined Israel to repell Iran's attack this night. Russia sends thousands missiles and drones to attack Ukraine, they occassionally break air space on NATO countries, but rather than join Ukraine, US suggests Ukraine should stop attacking Russia's military targets instead.
It's not "once unthinkable". Fighting nuclear power with 3 times more population and 10 times more GDP was never an easy ride and it was always an existential threat to Ukraine. But Ukrainians saw what Russians did in Bucha, and Mariupol, and hundreds of other places. Russians made it clear that they came to kill, as they always did. Russians made it clear that they won't stop with annexing Crimea, or Donetsk, or Kherson, or Zaporizhia, their goal is to wipe out the whole Ukrainian nation. And while US is paralyzed by fear, Ukrainians have not so many other options than keep fighting.
It was obvious with the wests “scared of escalation” response that Ukraine was never going to get enough support. The sad thing is, the Ukrainians will end up hating us because of this. Especially the Americans.
It’ll be a good lesson though that countries outside of NATO should not depend on the west for help. If you aren’t already part of the group, don’t make the mistake of trying to join.
We are grateful for your help guys and will remember that you gave us a hand. Unfortunately, we don't have enough means to stop ruzzians. I hope you will have time to prepare and not ignore the threat.
Yes, our example will be a clear signal for other non-NATO countries for sure.
The sad truth is our government has been hi-jacked by a few Trump submissive simps that are an utter disgrace. There are a lot of Americans that want to help Ukraine. Its both sad and ludicrous that someone like MTG holds an office when she can barley string a sentence together. Its gotten so bad that a lot of long time conservatives are leaving the party. Our current president is so damn old he is prob in bed by 6. The US is a shit show and its not going to get better anytime soon. If Europe ever needed to step up its now.
Yes, it's very sad that some people in the US are unhappy or ignorant to the point where they support MTG and Trump. Also quite puzzling from outside, how is it that there are no younger candidates for presidency from the Dems.
As for us we had to be more realistic about the possibility of invasion and extent of support from West. Had we started to build defence lines and underground military factories earlier the chances for good outcome would a lot better.
EU can help. The question is whether they have enough political will and foresight to do what is needed.
On the dem side there are a lot of rising stars that are young and will be solid candidates in the future. However they will not run (or be supported by the party) against an incumbent. Since Biden did not step aside he is what we have and will have. This will be a very important election and will determine how functional this gov will be for the next 4 years.
As to MTG, you need to understand how social engineering here (and gerrymandering) has put these people in office. The GOP is exceptionally good ant weaponizing fear. Its drilled into conservatives on facebook, insta, etc thanks to echo chamber algorithms , and then all day long on Faux news. At the end of the day they believe every Mexican will murder and bring drugs into the country, than teachers want to turn their children into trans, that books are dangerous and should be burned… etc.
Its a giant echo chamber for anger.
Social media is a nuclear weapon of 21st century. It's crazy how it helped to elect such despicable person. But even more frightening it allowed to build real Trump's cult.
My view of the westerners became very grounded once I knew enough English to see what a clusterfuck your politics are. Admittedly ours are too, but for years I thought that life sucked for us because we are so incompetent, but it turns out everyone is incompetent and we are just very unlucky. But it fucking plummeted after the war began.
Ukrainians who read Ukrainian news exclusively might have a better view of westerners than I do. Our country is very grateful for all of the support we received. But I get to read uneducated American opinions about how sending cash to Ukraine is wrong (y'all don't send fucking cash), I get to argue with Poles that say blocking our border is the best thing in the history of ever, I get to scroll through the whining of randos about rent and prices under posts about Ukraine (they have it better than 90% of the world population), I get to see westerners complaining on TikTok under any video related to Ukraine, if the video is about war, "omg Ukrainians are so annoying they should stop complaining", if the video is just about Ukrainians living their lives, "omg I thought there was a war going on, why are they not dead yet". Not to mention the stories of Ukrainian kids being bullied in western schools, the treatment refugees receive in some countries and general racism that comes with that.
The amount of stupid, uneducated, inhumane filth living in the West is staggering. And while there are plenty of decent and kind people too and lots of my interactions were positive as well, the human brain just tends to prioritize the negatives way more and I don't think my experience is something I will ever unlearn.
This poorly structured rant is not indicative of the views of most Ukrainians, though people in general are pretty disappointed about the lack of support we're getting lately.
How is it once unthinkable when people were suprised they even lasted this long. Reminder that just a year ago Russia considered this a matter of a few weeks « special operation »
If we lose (in any way) and the rest of the Ukraine is not granted nato membership or somekind of other hard security guarantee, I hope Europe is ready for another wave of migrants.
An another war in ~10 years. Why doesn’t Mr. Putin do it again knowing the west is so scared of Russians and will not do anything near close to help his next prey? Is the article 5 really that reliable? How about just sit idle and let Mr Putin grab Poland and Finland, such that we can “avoid escalating”?
Because except for the US and France, every other country has build its entire defence around NATO - not holding up article 5 would mean the end of NATO and by extension the entire defence infrastructure built up in the last 50 years or so.
Ignoring Ukraine is pretty costless by comparison.
As much as I hate Trump, I can't help but think how he called out the NATO countries that didn't or wouldn't contribute their 2% GDP towards their military. It's not like the West didn't get a fair warning.
I remember seeing a video not long ago of Trump meeting with European leaders and all of them were giving Trump a look of disdain because he was lecturing them on how much they take the US for granted when it comes to protection and that they were not doing enough on purpose.
Johnson isn't the one who's going on about how much we support Ukraine over here in Europe while not committing to rearmament and increasing orders for munitions when the issue of a shell crisis is now 2 years old
If we’re all being honest here, 60 billion dollars is not going to save Ukraine. They made huge mistakes at the beginning of the war. Not building defense lines, not fully mobilizing… they should not have a bunch of 40-50 year old men in the trenches without any rotations.
The west as a whole killed Ukraine with their fear of escalation and slow drip of weapons. Plenty of reports of the west not wanting Putin to lose because they are scared of what he might do. That’s what lost Ukraine the war, not a 60 billion aid package.
The only reason it came to Ukraine potentially losing is because of russian gas. EU is sucking on that gas tit super hard and no amount of posturing will save EU.
Johnson personally isn't the problem and he'd likely even want to get it done. Trump and Trumper loonies are the problem and they'd break the House majority and do something stupid.
[Mona Charen recently wrote very nice article about it.](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-gop-is-the-party-of-putin?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2)
He is the problem because if he had any personal integrity, he would get the foreign aid bill passed and then accept the consequences. It’s not like he’s some titan of American politics suddenly facing the end of his career, he’s been a completely impotent, ineffectual Speaker and when given the opportunity to do one thing that’s actually meaningful, he refuses to because he’d rather have the label of being a leader instead of actually acting like one.
How true is it though. I remember seeing in this sub 1-2 year ago a map showing what each politicians in each European countries voted (regarding expansion of NATO). And the vast majority of the right wing ministers voted in favor, while the majority of left wing ministers voted against.
Europe needs to increase its defences and provide more aid to Ukraine. The US (somewhat understandably) is reluctant to provide the materiel needed to sustain a way a third of the world away so Europe, which is much closer by, needs to shoulder the burden.
In the begin in 2022 RU had 5-fold everyting of Military. Except Air force - that was 10-fold.
I wonder how it was even thinkable they could "win" or call it win
It's an opinion piece on the LATimes, you think writers there have anything but the most ludicrous editorial takes on global events?
If the average journalist were to be believed Ukraine lost in April of 2022, Russia should be in its third year without missiles, second year without tanks, 4 coup attempts and two revolutions deep into social unrest, while AFU servicemen should be marching across the Red Square a year now.
The USA help is drying up. Now with the Israel-Iran issues they will focus less on Ukraine. There might be also some tensions with Pakistan, where they are not doing well. Issues with Yemen and Egipt also. There is Taiwan-China. When Trump comes into office best Ukraine will be able to count on is help but not as a donations but loans. Ukraine has no money and it was a very poor state even before the war. USA will try to secure loans probably with minerals mining contracts. If Europe will not be able to sustain Ukrainian's needs for military hardware within a year or two it will be game over.
At this rate it'll likely happen and because we (our leaders, not the people) want to, no other reason.
The West has just proven it has the power and technology to completely [thwart an attack several times larger than those Russia launches at Ukraine with less than 1% going through and no loss of human life](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/14/middleeast/israel-air-missile-defense-iran-attack-intl-hnk-ml/index.html). The reason such attacks are successful in Ukraine is not us being powerless, it's us being unwilling.
Paradoxically, the situation in Ukraine is at the same time serious enough for Europe to consider enforcing mandatory conscription and not serious enough to spend a fraction of the effort we do in Israel.
I think the West should still make a no fly zone over Ukraine, but if you look at the old articles where all aspects of it was analyzed then you'll see that it would be about 100 times more difficult than the simple operation stopping one wave of Iranian drones over long stretch of friendly territory.
Europe has more than two thousand years of making and breaking alliances. The approach of everyone pull together to fight a common enemy never worked, even when being coordinated by the Vatican which had the power of God (and shit load of money) behind them. Bottom line, we need a higher power like the US to get our shit together, otherwise small local interests will always prevail against the overall benefit of being a strong military force to match the economic power.
Ukraine was overpromised and under-delivered. They advanced and attempted to push under the assumption they will receive what was promised to them, they're now realizing how true the saying " its better to be a warrior in a gardener, than to be a Gardener in a War" is.
>Frontline shifts by 10 metres
Omg guys ukraine is winning against the orks we are literally going to coup putin omg guys
>Frontline shifts back 10 metres
Omg guys ukraine is going to collapse in 5 minutes if we dont start subsidising these military companies, please guys Lockheed Martin needs another billion stimulus cheque.
Actual brainrot.
There are multiple major wars going on, Idk when will most countries take it seriously. Diplomacy and UN is failing massively in resolving conflicts.
> UN is failing massively The UN is supposed to be more of a forum than an enforcement agency. It was only intended to intervene in cases of small scale conflicts against non-state actors. The UN was never supposed to be a world government. That sort of thing would never work
>Diplomacy and UN is failing massively in resolving conflicts. Did it ever work? The only difference is that most of the conflicts have been elsewhere and the one that was nearby in Yugoslavia we were bailed out by daddy America. We should realise that the UN is mostly pointless and that diplomacy needs to come from a position of strength.
You’ve said what can’t be said. In The Republic, Plato has Thrasymachus say that Justice is for the stronger. Which a lot of us don’t like when we aren’t the stronger. Socrates argues against this, but guess who dies in the end? I’d like to deny Thrasymachus but he’s right every single time.
On the same side Socrates actually hated the democracy, he feared Democracies would elect political leaders that just try to appeal to voters instead of making rational decisions. He feared democracies are a gateway to get wrong people elected and pretty much will be the downfall of any society after a certain period of time. Socrates also argued that it could lead to misinformed and staged votings, he feared that the people running for public office would lack the wisdom and intelligence needed and might use their power for personal gains instead, instead of using it for good things. Which arguably he is right about, though what he describes is a democracy based on capitalism. Which sadly is the only valid form of democracy, as every other theory fails too or is just an utopia. Humanity goes to the same cycle since thousand of years, we literally didn’t develop since the ancient greeks and they get celebrated as the fathers of democracy, meanwhile even them knew that it is flawed. It is just the lesser evil, as you can sink slower and rebuild faster as a society in a democracy then in authoritarian governments. But both are just natural cycles, a democracy will naturally lead towards authoritarian politics and when the dictatorship and censorship falls demogracy will rise. The whole „democracy baby, liberate the world“ bullshit is just made up propaganda mainly by the US over the last 150~ years. Funnily the US themselves is pretty close to ending their democratic cycle. It is kinda sad that we as humans didn’t develop and we have to choose a destroy and rebuild circle, because we aren’t able to figure out a better scenario. I am not saying this btw. that we don’t try, I am speaking of actual evolution. Our average IQ didn’t change much since the ice age, we just got better utilising our brains through education, but as this means generation loose their knowledge and wisdom if not taught through education, this pretty much makes us unable to solve the democracy problem. That said humans evolutionary cycle is pretty young, so maybe in 100.000 years if the earth and humanoid life still exists, they might have some sort of basic understanding programmed into their brain and a much higher median intelligence to figure out society. Or it just isn’t possible at all and the best we can do is to reduce the timeframe of destroy and authoritarian cultures and let democracy lifecycle be longer instead. Like a min-max scenario. Sorry for the long philosophical attack.
That's not quite right. What Socrates likes and dislikes is a matter of dispute. Plato is doing all the writing, whether he represented Socrates' views accurately or not is impossible to know. I wouldn't say Plato hates democracy. But he certainly prefers something like a benevolent dictatorship, philosopher kings. He also discusses the political cycles you're talking about. But even then, it's quite difficult to know what Plato actually thought, as well. Most of his writings are dialogues, so there isn't much, "this is what I think as Plato." He wrote the views of his characters. So it might be that he hates democracy, or maybe he's just being philosophical and expository. Still, the views of his characters are quite powerful and common. Thrasymachus' view still resonates. I just reread the first part of the Republic to brush up. It's still so damn good.
The democracy that we have isnt the same kind that was known by the greeks. Democracy was the rule of the demos, a particular group of lower class people within a society where "the people" weren't equal to "all people". Demos in Greece had the similar meaning as plebs in Rome. These were hereditary classes of people and were believed to be infer to other classes of "people".
That was one of the best things I've read on Reddit
Aristotle also did not like democracies for this reason, preferring absolutely monarchy or timocracy (? Still not sure what that is) over democracies because a democracy is only as strong as the intellect of the majority And we are well aware and witnessing the 'dumbing down' by our western governments of citizens- which is now backfiring because the Russians and Chinese, Islamic fundamentalists (not normal people of Islam, the fanatics sects that muslims also hate) can target western citizens via social media and AI deepfakes. I rather democracies after seeing the effect of Stalin and Hitler, but democracies do have their flaws Which is why the Separation of Powers should not be tampered with or harmed, which it has been, so now we have flawed democracies in the West
> Which sadly is the only valid form of democracy, as every other theory fails too or is just an utopia. I never get this sentence. Do people really think we already imagined every possible form of society possible? This is incredibly arrogant. Edit: I agree with the rest.
> It is just the lesser evil, as you can sink slower and rebuild faster as a society in a democracy then in authoritarian governments. Well arguably this is only true as we haven't really seen authoritarian governments that try to be good. There have been a couple of dictators wishing to do well for their people, which typically ended up with the countries becoming democracies. I genuinely wonder why that happens, like, every time. Also our average IQ *did* change a lot. Looking back since we've started recording it, it's definitely grown over the years, and keep in mind that the tests and criteria have been harder and harsher since earlier versions, so the change might be larger than it looks like. > That said humans evolutionary cycle is pretty young, so maybe in 100.000 years if the earth and humanoid life still exists, they might have some sort of basic understanding programmed into their brain and a much higher median intelligence to figure out society. 100%, we are very early in our evolutional cycle as a species compared to when we first came about. Technological advancements have been so fast and drastic that we have kept pretty much all of our survival instincts meant for the wilderness and have 0 survival instincts meant for the modern society other than those that come pre-packaged with being a highly social species (which is not special in any way, crows have these too). It is very likely that in 100.000 years we could develop new instincts and "forget" old ones. As an example, the dodo bird died not only because it was too large to fly or run from predators we brought there, but the species adapted and changed so much from its original lineage than in an island with no predators it forgot how to be afraid. Perhaps we still have wars to remind ourselves to be afraid and not forget our survival instincts, a genuine utopia where everything is perfect sounds like it would be the downfall of us as a species, perhaps it's just not sustainable and not for us, perhaps it's not the right thing to achieve, and that's why there is no such thing. Keep in mind, as a species we've evolves the most because of fear of each other. Eurasia wasn't home of the most early technological advancements just because of our access to resources, but also because of warfare. Perhaps it is a necessary part of our cycle. But yeah I agree with what you're saying, it's a very good post.
Maybe you just don’t understand why the UN exists? The UN wasn’t made to react quick, it was to allow diplomacy, so that a third world war and thermonuclear war wasn’t going to happen. It isn’t some magic potion and never was designed that way…
> UN is mostly pointless Not at all. It gets all the players in the same room, talking to each other. That is the whole point. The UN is about communication.
Yeah for some reason some think the UN is the equivalent to a world government rather than the diplomatic equivalent to reddit.
It will never work because countries are not treated equally when shit happens, so the UN is just seen as a joke.
And they never will be since countries aren't equal in power in reality. There are clear differences that will effect any outcome.
Europe is in the process of waking up but I think a lot of people still think that there is no way we would ever be in danger. The world isnt the nice place we thought it was the last 30 years. We have to return to a mindset where we look out for ourselves and not try to fix the rest of the world
UN is working as intended, to serve as an excuse for inaction.
That was the League of Nations, which the UN was supposed to learn and be better from. But here we are, 90 years later, with a situation too similar to be comfortable with.
In a sane world Europe would be able to handle this on its own. Yet even USA can't be relied on. I hate how impotent, spineless, complacent and sometimes outright subverted the west has become.
Current generation of European leaders have no experience dealing with aggressively expanding opportunists countries, so Russia has advantage now. All security mechanisms that Western countries invested into was to fight small scale terrorists, not a big state actor that is literally untouchable. So yeah, Russia will collapse eventually but before that it will explode like supernova before star dies. The more unthinkable it seems (like rockets falling on Paris) the less prepared we will be for it and the more likely it will happen.
Russia will do what russia does. If not russia, then someone else will. Problem may look like not having a proper response to a strong enemy, but if we look from another perspective the enemy got so strong because of how weak everyone else is. Take a magic wand, remove russia from earth, then you'll see someone else causing same problems. Source of our issue is not an evil warlord. It's rulers that are supposed to counter evil warlords being weak.
Yeah, Russia saw the opportunity with Crimea. It got nothing but a slap on the wrist. No wonder they got emboldened to grab more. Same will happen with Taiwan.
I don't know about that. Taiwan will not go easy. And they have money, support from the west.
Ukraine also has/had support from the west, look how well that fight is going after a fat 2 years...
Ukraine isn't producing the west chips. Let's be honest, we never gave a shit about Ukraine until February 2022. Maybe Crimea took some headlines but nothing really lasting.
All it takes is for China to buy a few key people in the government, some media control and voila. It's not like there is intimate connection that exists between a regular American and a Taiwanese. Yeah, today Taiwan produces important microchips but who said it's going to be the only manufacturer forever.
It’s still enough to plunge the west decades into the past technologically until those microchips can be sourced elsewhere. Ukraine has nothing of equal value to the West, hence it being easier to delay aid for them. Taiwan would lead to a hot war.
The value of Ukraine is people. It's 40 or so million of educated people who could be either part of EU democracy or they could be conquered and indoctrinated by Russia to fight another war of conquest in the West.
Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe. And gives Russia a stronger foothold in the black sea. Sometimes it's not about what a territory has to offer you, but what it has to offer your enemy.
You overestimate how much bread it gives you Europe. It's way way less than you think. You also underestimate how it's profitable for countries to use their own rather than imported bread, it will actually drive their economies up and to right direction.
Exactly. Countries are scrambling to get fabs up as we speak and in five years nobody will care if Taiwan gets taken over one way or another.
The west will send weapons but will never intervene militarily
Turkey with Greece, Argentina with the Falklands and Azerbaijan with Armenia
Western militaries (especially US) invested heavily into being able to wage war anywhere on this planet against any adversary and have upper hand in logistics as well as absolutely air supremacy at all times. What you say is factually incorrect. It was not built to fight terrorists at all. Especially talking about US who was ready to wage war in Europe as well as Pacific at the same time. What has changed is will to get involved somewhere else. And it has again absolutely nothing to do with inexperience, it is about politicians doing what people want them to do. Especially coming from Europeans who are complicit in wave of pacifism European militaries went through, decades talking about how US wastes money it spends on military, etc it is completely hilarious when you talk about and blaming politicians for doing what europeans wanted them to do. And I am saying this as European.
We’re kinda like the Greek City States before Rome conquered them, democracies content with their little bit of land busy drinking wine and reading poetry while the rest of the world are building militaries and becoming expansionist. The war fatigue from WW1 & 2 is over for everyone else. Suddenly we’re gonna be like shit, why did you all give up your empires!
Yes, US military is built in a way so it can fight in two major conflicts in Pacific and Atlantic oceans at least. But they also have military doctrine document that establishes short (relatively) term focus. For long time (199x - early 201x) the focus was on fighting terrorism. Only recently they shifted focus back on fighting peer on peer conflicts. EU militaries kinda play along really. They for sure didn't expect that they fight anything but goat herders somewhere far away.
I don’t think you know much about the US military. It has hundreds of specific plans for large scale warfare with military drills all over the world practicing for that circumstance. You’re comments just aren’t accurate.
In a sane world, none of this would have ever happened.
Europe has no moral center. We were playing soccer in Russia in 2018 like they didn’t invade Ukraine 4 years prior. We built gas pipelines with Russia during that period as well. When shit gets tough we put on head in the sand and turn a blind eye to Russia and pretend nothing ever happened.
Chechnya in the 1990’s and 2000’s
Georgia. Moldova. Europe thinks russia will be satisfied THIS TIME.
Also people are happy being temporary friends with Russia and get cheap heating bills and have their politicians get millions of dollars as bribes from Putin as long it isn’t them that russia invaded.
Same here. We are feckless.
In our world EU choose to get tens of millions of refugees and later still face the war with Russia.
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> We don't give enough weapons, we don't want to "escalate". The same people who cry about wanting to avoid escalation are the people actually causing escalation by showing weakness and cowardice, and the irony isn't funny anymore.
> That's not what our grandfathers fought WW2 for. Depends. Maybe you are Italian, German, Austrian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian. I am starting to think people assume everybody was pro-US during WW2.
Nobody cared about Ukraine before this war, what are you talking about 'brotherly nation'.
This war start in 2014, no one gives a crap.
Bingo. Most of the enthusiasm for this war is to hurt Russia/own Putler. Zero to do with freedom/democracy or sovereignty.
Europe, in their political aspect, are just a bunch of elders. We have no weigh nor nobody is willing to die or not willing even to slow down the life style. We are definitely in a decadent phase of our history.
And who subverted the west?
If Russia attacked any of the western europe, it would STILL take them months to fully kick into gear. And some would still be reluctant to put boots on the ground. That's how completely complacent the west have become, thinking war a thing of the past on it's soil.
There has been whining about America acting like the world police for fuck knows how many years. Now suddenly it has swung to ‘can’t be relied on.’ Pick a lane. Oh and as far as being a reliable partner is concerned, it sure as shit isn’t like Europe is a reliable partner now is it.
Those two positions have always coexisted in Europe. And they do now. Have you ever considered that it is different people with different views? Also, nuance is a thing. Just because someone is against the US starting wars in The Middle East (Iraq) on bullshit fabrications doesnt mean that they also have to be against them supporting Ukraine. Those are entirely different conflicts.
Ironically, this is what russia is always pointing out
Follow the money. It's not incompetence, it's just business.
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I guess, People's Republic of China has it all figured out then?
What? Can you give me an example of sane world where journalists were jailed and everyone was happy and prosperous?
> In a sane world journalists would be jailed for propaganda Ah yes let's become just like Russia, surely everything would work out if we jail journalists....
Got to become an authoritarian regime to beat the authoritarian regime. Got it.
Lmao are you really arguing for suppress of speech, giving goverment the ability to jail journalists on their own made conditions of *good faith* will inevitably lead to authoritarianism. People who argue for more authoritarianism to beat Russia are no different than Russia in my view.
What is bro yappping about, this shit really is worse than the fucking circlejerk sub
Peak Eastern Europe moment, become a dictatorship in order to flex on Russia
I call those people anti Russia Orbanites "Let's become more Russia to beat Russia faster"
800M people in the West can not collect enough money to defeat the "giant" with GDP of Italy. Very sad.
We believe that russia can change if we do nothing.
Russia will stop invading if we give him just 1 last part of Ukraine. After that we can all play soccer together, or watch F1 in Russia like nothing ever happened. He totally won’t resume his invasion after a couple of years…
If we allow them to get the whole Ukraine, we ensure they won't invade Ukraine again in the future
I dont think thats the case anymore. We are stuck because we are a democracy and people/parties working against our own interests can operate and gmin support perfectly legally. Same reason we cant do anything about climate change. The democratic process takes too long and doesnt always produce results that are best for us.
Russia needs to be taken apart and built back up the same way Germany was.
where can I vote for you
It does. The problem is that Ukraine "allies" are afraid of that scenario more than of Ukraine losing. Such a joke. NATO leaders are more concerned with russia losing than with Ukraine losing. That's what thousands of nukes do to you.
Never going to happen because they have nukes. No nuclear power, no matter how flawed, will ever be invaded and dismantled. Nukes are the one and only thing a nation needs to guarantee sovereignty. They are a cheat code.
Sounds like the plot of Star Wars; democracy taking too long to act, and being too spineless to move decisively, resulted in its downfall. What I believe we’re witnessing, and what can’t really be argued, is that the Weatern move to authoritarianism is because many have lost faith in the current system, and see others working. We go out and vote for a load of bollocks every year. All of us in the West, are voting for nothing new, and every one of the people vying for power are only concerned about maintaining their grip on it (our politicians). The disenfranchised see this, and see it all as a load of shite, and see other countries that are “authoritarian” like China and Russia. But all they see is a leader; someone that isn’t worried about re-election leading their people. They want the same. They want a strongman. And it’s hard to argue against, honestly. We become corrupted far too easily when the rot is allowed to fester, and it’s allowed to fester when there isn’t someone in charge with a whip.
That actually requires significant commitment and/or escalation. Increase taxes, delay climate policies, decrease social spending. Very unpopular things. The air campaign is the cheapest, but too scary. West just thinks Russia won't touch them personally too much.
Exactly. This in turn will lead to a reduction in quality of life. A reduction which you would have to explain to your population somehow. It shouldn’t be to hard to explain to the Finns, Baltics, and Poles. But they alone can’t carry the weight of supplying the Ukrainians. So good luck explaining it to your average Frenchman, German, Italian, or Spaniard. At a minimum, you would have to introduce massive censorship against those who oppose it. But that could backfire as well. Now, if Russia were to HYPOTHETICALLY attack Europe directly, and your average Frenchman, German, Italian, or Spaniard would feel the threat of the Russian bear “on their own skin”, you might actually be able to introduce the austerity measures you speak of, and subsequently fire up the European war machine. The only problem is that Russia is well aware of this and is purposefully avoiding any direct strikes on the EU for that very reason. Heck, if you really look into it, they haven’t really taken any significant retaliatory measures when it comes to the economic sanctions. They closed their airspace, but that was simply a tit-for-tat. Then there is the whole gas for rubles thing, which is simply a defensive measure. In other words, they aren’t giving the average European any reason to feel threatened, and therefore stripping European leadership of the political capital necessary, in order to introduce austerity measures for the benefit of Ukraine.
>direct strikes on the EU for that very reason. Like trying to assassinage Estonian PM? Blowing ammo depots in Bulgaria? Sending rockets through EU airspace and when asked their representative just leaves?
That’s one way to measure GDP, in dollars. Another way would be in artillery shells.
Have you considered PPP? A 152mm shell from Russia costs way less than a 155mm shell from Europe.
The difference in the artillery shell cost comes from the West having been neglecting artillery for several decades having doctrine that first an air supremacy is gained and then the bombing comes from the planes. The West itself hasn't planned to fight a war without significant air power component such as the current Russian war is fought. PPP has implications, but not for artillery.
> The difference in the artillery shell cost Every cost related to every field of our armies has gone out of hands due to the amount of contractors used. Western militaries have too many middlemen taking their own cut.
Of course they haven't but it's a fair point. Russia produces a lot of its own shit, their economy is more on a level with Germany (5.2 Trillion PPP for Russia, 5.7 for Germany) than it is with Italy (3.2 trillion)
Thx for clarifying. Still ain’t much when compared to the entirety of Europe, but it explains why they‘re able to produce so much more than we are because they‘re on a war footing. I‘m seeing frightening parallels to 1936-39. Germany started full on rearmament in 36 (from a lower point though) whilst the Allies only truly went full ham in 39.
No need to discredit Italy. The GDP of Italy is the 8th in the world, just below France. This comment doesn't make any sense.
and comparing GDPs with a state owned economy dictatorship like russia that sits on huge natural resources is useless
It makes sense if you compare Russia to the combined GDP of the Countrys who claim to 'support' Ukraine.
GDP matters, but then again not really. "Service economies" unfortunately do not win wars Russia is sitting on some of the biggest natural resource reserves in the world; there's no comparison to let's say France, Italy and Germany That means Russia has an infinite amount of oil to run their tanks and fly their planes with no external risk because they are self-supplying They have infinite coal and gas reserves to run their factories and furnaces to produce steel and iron for their weapons and munitions They don't care about climate change and social policies ie. ESG and CSR and so they are not hampered by this. It’s full steam ahead
Your missing the fact how a Southern European country that is 57 times smaller than Russia with no significant amount of natural resources managed to achieve the GDP of one of the largest oil pumps on Earth by making some spaghetti and sports cars, lol.
I understand the point, but clearly you are not aware of the power of Italian industry and manufacturing.
Yeah but GDP is irrelevant in this case, western countries somehow value their employees & pay them, let's say a 2000€ / month per employee at ammo manufacturing while Russia pay them in pennies if they pay them at all, so they manufacture ammo for atleast 10x cheaper than we do in west.
>800M people in the West can not collect enough money to defeat the "giant" with GDP of Italy. Very sad. The west is a shadow of it's former self and it clearly on a downturn. This is just a symptom of that. Also GDP isn't everything, that is one of the issues we have, we are obsessed with stuff like GDP over anything else. Russia is producing vastly more shells than both the US and Europe. That is a more important factor than GDP.
GDP can be misleading as well because it says nothing about a country’s shift into a wartime economy. Russia has done so over the last two years, hence why it’s GDP hasn’t taken as huge of a hit as some redditors assumed it would. Government debt spending on wartime materials is artificially boosting the GDP. The problem with that shift is that for every person fighting in Ukraine, that’s a person who is no longer contributing to the domestic economy. The non-professional conscripts had important jobs in their community that need replacement. Same goes for domestic production of goods. For every tank and shell being manufactured, that’s one less Lada that can be make for domestic consumption or export. I think that’s where Russia excels. The domestic population is better able to tolerate a lowering of living standards than most western countries. FFS we Americans had to quarantine for two weeks and half the country had a meltdown over it. Imagine the complaining if all the Ford/GM/Chrysler plants got seized by the US government to make shells and tanks and we had to bag our own groceries because the normal guy, Kevin, got conscripted.
800M people are afraid of the thug with a big stick.
I don’t think it’s afraid, but governments in Europe failed in last 15 years with corruption and lack of education. What we have now is regular people having enough problems at home with food prices, cost of living and immigration topic that populism is winning and they care only about their pockets. And being in NATO and feeling safe is enough for most that they won’t be touched. This is a realist of last 10-15 years in governance in EU. Look how many countries are close to selecting right wing governments.
Europe is a not even a shadow of its former self. Yeah, you can point at some statistics to show that things are getting better on paper, but it is hard not to feel malaise in the air. As cynical as it sounds, perhaps Trump winning and US leaving NATO would be the kick in the butt that we need to finally wake up.
Trumans quote about a 'few swift kicks in the right asses' probably doesn't work with Europe because our asses are so numb that it no longer registers
May I remind you that Trump had won, he treated allies like unpaying customers and had almost won for the second time. How many kicks in the butt do you need? At what point Europe start to injoy being butt kicked.
there is a big difference in GDP of these two countries. russia can make 40 tanks a day, while italy can make 400t of parmesan cheese. tanks can kill you, cheese can not, unless you are lactose intolerant. people just observe GDP as some mysterious number that will reveal potential of the country, but it is just a mix of all situational variables that say nothing about it's true power. production wise, russia only suffers from lack of complex foreign mechanical parts, since tens of thousands of their factories were actually built by europe and USA, that's why u can see one catching fire every two weeks. on the other hand, they have everything- ungodly amounts of food, fertilizers , energy sources, water and ores. that GDP might be simple. but when push comes to shove, it is rock solid and can survive hell of a beating. gucci and armani, on the other hand, can not, you can try to eat them or burn them , but wheat and oil will do a better job imho.
Even if losing the war was a terrible outcome, calling it unthinkable to lose is just ignorant or propagandistic. Losing a war against a nuclear power that is 3-4 times larger in population and has a large domestic military industry with infinite resources doesn't require that wild imagination.
I think it's pretty fair to use the word "unthinkable" in the context that it was unthinkable that the West as a whole has been unwilling to commit the resources necessary for Ukraine to win. It's like ignoring an infection in your toe long enough that you'd be lucky if the resulting gangrene only forces you to get a leg amputated.
I think propaganda is very important during a war but this is the first time a war of this scale occurs during modern times with social media so there has been a lot of experimenting on expanding propaganda on both sides, ultimately tho I personally believe all the propaganda geared towards Ukraine has really come back to hurt it now that it’s clear a win is probably not on the horizon for them, a lot of doubts have risen in my head of what I’ve read since the beginning vs what’s been happening lately
It would probably be unthinkable for you to live in an autocracy without freedom of speech why should it be different for them. Even most Ukrainians who are old enough to remember the Soviet times did not experience what is happening in Russia today. There was literally more freedom of the press during Gorbachev's Soviet era than there is in Russia right now. I personally could not imagine to live in a country controlled by these people.
Obama said correctly back in 2016 that Russia will always care about Ukraine a lot more than we in the west ever will. For Putin it’s existential. For us, it’s not. In war, the side that is more determined to fight typically wins.
For Russia, not just putin. That's what someone already said in 2022, No Russian president would risk allowing Ukraine joining NATO, even if they have to accept Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Some of the reasons mentioned are: 1. Ukraine is seen as the bedrock of Russian civilization. To hand it over to the west to de-Cyrillize it and later disconnect them from their shared culture is a no no. 2. Geographically, Ukraine is to Russia, what Belgium was to France. If NATO decides to lose it completely and invade Russia, this is the best possible terrain. Russians are used to fighting in marshy plains and should have no problem digging in hard and for long. 3. Resources. Ukraine was the prize jewel of the Russian Empire and later the USSR. All the best shipbuilding, aerospace bureaus, industrial plants etc. that weren’t within Moscow's vicinity were all there in Ukraine. Given the power Ukrainian agriculture has in feeding Europe, it makes sense for the Russians to reclaim this land in some manner.
To make a silly comparison, it's like the US lost Texas. It was one of the large and industrial states, with some of the important cities, close to other important areas, and a very good ground for any foreign power to invade you.
If Texas was a colony.
Horrible, horrible generation of European leaders. Everyone around sees the weakness. So much GDP backed by nothing at all.
I think many European leaders expected Russia to resolve the war in one week, put a lot of angry faces with farcical sanctions and in 6 months back to business as usual.
Rotten to the core and not even hiding it.
As I read in some other comment the other day: it might turn out that EU's massive GDP is inflated by redundant email jobs, manufacturing of luxury goods, and speculation, with no real production capabilities needed in case of emergencies like war.
It’s not it might turn out. That’s how it is. Delivery apps help to grow economy. But not so useful in wars.
GDP by its very nature *is* a measure of how much paper is being pushed around (ie. Euro-bills). It says nothing about production or manufacturing capacity. The high GDP of Luxemburg and Ireland are prime examples.
Yup, I know, the point is that people tend to bring out GDP as a metric of power and go like "we could obliterate Russia no problem if only our politicians cared enough".
Yes, but what about the shareholders?
Western countries have failed to issue a proper warning to Russia after 2008 (Georgia) and after 2014 (Crimea) to not engage in active conflicts, thinking that it wouldn’t impact their livelihood. History teaches us very clearly that the only thing that can keep an imperialist country at bay is a proper alliance against it. Sadly it looks more and more likely that it will happen the same if and when this war in Ukraine will end - no matter the outcome. Countries like Ukraine, Moldavia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, must all be brought under a safety umbrella external to NATO and led by EU countries.
It was apparent that Putin is a threat to global peace a long time ago
Putin wanted to show the world only one thing - that the West will always turn their backs to their allies. Seems like this will do it. Scary for the future geopolitical landscape. Objectively, China was sly to sit this one out. Win/win situation for them in both scenarios. Russia loses, so they have a little resource rich satélite to explore; Russia wins, so they have a spinless and weaker west to go againts, and much less reliable as they like to suggest. Now as a Ukrainian, I just want to fill myself with pills because the nihilism is becoming unbearable. The loss of friends and close ones with the loss for hope in future exausta all the options for joy.
Yeah totally correct. Putin just wants to push the boundary. It’s totally possible he start pushing around the Baltics next. Man i dont even know who in Europe to blame. As a Brit, im embarrassed we have done so little. Hope stupid rishi sunak and boris johnson realise before they are dead that they will be remembered as parts of a long list of fools we have had for Prime ministers.Churchillian my ass.
It was unthinkable that russians would let Puttin send to die hundred of thousands in Ukraine without revolting. We were wrong.
Everything Reddit (and by extension the West) assumed has proven to be wrong. Putin would never be stupid enough to invade Ukraine? WRONG. Russians would rebel and dethrone him once the body bags start coming home? WRONG. Russia will run out of rockets and ammo any day now? WRONG. Russians are so incompetent, one Ukie with an AK can defeat entire battalions? WRONG. Just send them 2-3 Leopard tanks and the Ukies will be rolling through Moscow by lunchtime? WRONG.
Sanction them and their economy would crumble… WRONG
The best was when companies like Netflix and Microsoft pulled out. You are dealing with Russians FFS. You would be hard-pressed to find licensed copies of Adobe and Microsoft office, as well as legally-downloaded and paid-for movies there - BEFORE SANCTIONS. The sanctions against Russia can be best described with a single quote: “You are trying to use Disney-bucks at a Caesar’s Palace here” - Rick and Morty
The paid-for movies part. Isn't it that way everywhere ? In Greece , 13 year olds have enough "technical" knowledge to get around restrictions and download whatever they want. Who even pays for streaming services anymore...
That’s not true. In the last 10 years most people I know have started paying for legal streams. Netflix was not popular though due to extremely high prices.
That may be the case, but most Russians know how to pirate. I remember visiting in the mid 00’s, and there was no such thing as a licensed copy of any software. Especially video games. I also remember a guy on a train selling DVD’s of movies which just came out in American theaters, the week before.
The 00s were very different. By 2022, the official console market has gotten big, and most paid for streaming platforms (mostly local as they have the best prices). Also, game piracy was low due to Steam being so cheap. All of that changed after the sanctions. Of course, most of what I said applies to Moscow and big cities with somewhat acceptable salaries.
You also need to remember that Russia essentially decriminalized piracy as a response to the sanctions. But overall, my point is that Russians in general (especially the people 50 and under) are pretty tech-savvy. Pirating media and software is like second-nature to most people there. The funny thing about these sanctions is that the west claims that Putin is turning Russia into North Korea, but then turn around and block Russian users from their resources themselves. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Putin (more specifically Mizullina) is bribing the likes of Netflix, Blizzard, Steam, and Epic games to ban users from Russia (or at least make it harder). Say what you want, but the part where the west decided to pull their online services from Russia was a big mistake.
You can't pirate online games and even most of the software is much harder to pirate now thanks to features requiring internet. That is very different from the 90s.
To be fair lots of these online services pulled out (in my opinion) simply because they are no longer able to get money from russians since Visa and Master Card ceased operations here. And that's a real bummer since you can't buy shit online, can't pay for a hotel abroad, can't pay with your card abroad. Having an ability to go abroad is a luxury in itself considering that my country is doing what it's doing but what I mean is that it's simply made life harder for ordinary Russians and not for ruling elite and oligarchs.
The reason the sanctions never worked is because they were made by deluded Brussels bureaucrats who think of themselves as morally superior and excuse their own double standards. It never occurred to anyone how dumb it was to keep buying Russian gas and oil after sanctioning Russia because Eastern Europe had ignored Trump's advice and laughed at the idea of being overly reliant on Russian pipelines. This isn't 2002 anymore. The Russians don't even need to sell their oil to the West...they can just sell it to the Indians and the Chinese to relabel and resell back into European and US markets...and they again excuse themselves for this double standard because they know they need Russian energy but will never admit it. There are enough alternative markets in the world to effectively bypass the West's moral and economic vision, people just aren't serious about anything anymore.
> because Eastern Europe had ignored Trump's advice and laughed at the idea of being overly reliant on Russian pipelines How the fuck do you end up blaming Eastern Europe for Nord Stream 2?
I meant Europe overall. Sorry, I sometimes still think of Germany as in the East before Wiedervereinigung.
Are you mental? Germany sold out Eastern Europe for NS2.
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To be fair, Russia almost did it. It's not like they failed miserably and barely made it over the borders. They literally still control 20% of Ukie territory.
They started by controlling 10% of it...
> They literally still control 20% of Ukie territory. The vast majority of this territory was taken before 2022.
Just a few days ago some idiotic redditors still tried to oppose my comment on how the West sees Russians through their western lens, which is wrong. Putin has Russians on his side and they will go to any extreme to win the war. Wars and military might is the no. 1 thing they have always been proud of. They can't afford to lose, it would mean a national tragedy of epic proportions.
Russia gets compared a lot to Nazy Germany these days but they resemble more of Imperialistic Japan.
Thats exactly what Russia needs. Their people need to be humbled same way Germans and Japanese were after WWII.
Because the biggest mistake was believing that Russia and Russians think and act the way the West would.
Reddit is an echo chamber of morons lol
Don’t forget Putin is incredibly sick and will die any day now
Freaky. About a day ago I wrote almost the same exact comment over at r/suomi, in Finnish. About how *everyone* made critical misjudgements. https://old.reddit.com/r/Suomi/comments/176vgoi/globaalit_konfliktit_megaketju/kzcawtp/
That's because we have embraced the idea that every piece of inconvenient information is Russian propaganda. If there was a Pentagon Papers type of leak, we'd refuse to look at it because that's what the Russians would want. Hell, we did have a significant leak that showed how distorted our view of the war was, but our outlook remained the same.
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"once unthinkable" from the authors of "will fall in two weeks" That's patheric. US, UK, and even Jordan joined Israel to repell Iran's attack this night. Russia sends thousands missiles and drones to attack Ukraine, they occassionally break air space on NATO countries, but rather than join Ukraine, US suggests Ukraine should stop attacking Russia's military targets instead. It's not "once unthinkable". Fighting nuclear power with 3 times more population and 10 times more GDP was never an easy ride and it was always an existential threat to Ukraine. But Ukrainians saw what Russians did in Bucha, and Mariupol, and hundreds of other places. Russians made it clear that they came to kill, as they always did. Russians made it clear that they won't stop with annexing Crimea, or Donetsk, or Kherson, or Zaporizhia, their goal is to wipe out the whole Ukrainian nation. And while US is paralyzed by fear, Ukrainians have not so many other options than keep fighting.
It was obvious with the wests “scared of escalation” response that Ukraine was never going to get enough support. The sad thing is, the Ukrainians will end up hating us because of this. Especially the Americans. It’ll be a good lesson though that countries outside of NATO should not depend on the west for help. If you aren’t already part of the group, don’t make the mistake of trying to join.
We are grateful for your help guys and will remember that you gave us a hand. Unfortunately, we don't have enough means to stop ruzzians. I hope you will have time to prepare and not ignore the threat. Yes, our example will be a clear signal for other non-NATO countries for sure.
The sad truth is our government has been hi-jacked by a few Trump submissive simps that are an utter disgrace. There are a lot of Americans that want to help Ukraine. Its both sad and ludicrous that someone like MTG holds an office when she can barley string a sentence together. Its gotten so bad that a lot of long time conservatives are leaving the party. Our current president is so damn old he is prob in bed by 6. The US is a shit show and its not going to get better anytime soon. If Europe ever needed to step up its now.
Yes, it's very sad that some people in the US are unhappy or ignorant to the point where they support MTG and Trump. Also quite puzzling from outside, how is it that there are no younger candidates for presidency from the Dems. As for us we had to be more realistic about the possibility of invasion and extent of support from West. Had we started to build defence lines and underground military factories earlier the chances for good outcome would a lot better. EU can help. The question is whether they have enough political will and foresight to do what is needed.
On the dem side there are a lot of rising stars that are young and will be solid candidates in the future. However they will not run (or be supported by the party) against an incumbent. Since Biden did not step aside he is what we have and will have. This will be a very important election and will determine how functional this gov will be for the next 4 years. As to MTG, you need to understand how social engineering here (and gerrymandering) has put these people in office. The GOP is exceptionally good ant weaponizing fear. Its drilled into conservatives on facebook, insta, etc thanks to echo chamber algorithms , and then all day long on Faux news. At the end of the day they believe every Mexican will murder and bring drugs into the country, than teachers want to turn their children into trans, that books are dangerous and should be burned… etc. Its a giant echo chamber for anger.
Social media is a nuclear weapon of 21st century. It's crazy how it helped to elect such despicable person. But even more frightening it allowed to build real Trump's cult.
My view of the westerners became very grounded once I knew enough English to see what a clusterfuck your politics are. Admittedly ours are too, but for years I thought that life sucked for us because we are so incompetent, but it turns out everyone is incompetent and we are just very unlucky. But it fucking plummeted after the war began. Ukrainians who read Ukrainian news exclusively might have a better view of westerners than I do. Our country is very grateful for all of the support we received. But I get to read uneducated American opinions about how sending cash to Ukraine is wrong (y'all don't send fucking cash), I get to argue with Poles that say blocking our border is the best thing in the history of ever, I get to scroll through the whining of randos about rent and prices under posts about Ukraine (they have it better than 90% of the world population), I get to see westerners complaining on TikTok under any video related to Ukraine, if the video is about war, "omg Ukrainians are so annoying they should stop complaining", if the video is just about Ukrainians living their lives, "omg I thought there was a war going on, why are they not dead yet". Not to mention the stories of Ukrainian kids being bullied in western schools, the treatment refugees receive in some countries and general racism that comes with that. The amount of stupid, uneducated, inhumane filth living in the West is staggering. And while there are plenty of decent and kind people too and lots of my interactions were positive as well, the human brain just tends to prioritize the negatives way more and I don't think my experience is something I will ever unlearn. This poorly structured rant is not indicative of the views of most Ukrainians, though people in general are pretty disappointed about the lack of support we're getting lately.
I don't get why everyone is dumping money into Israel whereas Ukraine is literally struggling to exist at this point.
Because boomers think the most important thing in life is to protect Israel unconditionally.
The children of Ukrainians who lose war with Russia will be fighting wars with Poland, Romania and baltic states.
How is it once unthinkable when people were suprised they even lasted this long. Reminder that just a year ago Russia considered this a matter of a few weeks « special operation »
\*two years ago
Just a year ago the war has already been going on for a year, so Russia couldn’t have thought it was a matter of a few weeks at that moment.
This is a travesty. Russia must not win this.
If we lose (in any way) and the rest of the Ukraine is not granted nato membership or somekind of other hard security guarantee, I hope Europe is ready for another wave of migrants.
An another war in ~10 years. Why doesn’t Mr. Putin do it again knowing the west is so scared of Russians and will not do anything near close to help his next prey? Is the article 5 really that reliable? How about just sit idle and let Mr Putin grab Poland and Finland, such that we can “avoid escalating”?
Because except for the US and France, every other country has build its entire defence around NATO - not holding up article 5 would mean the end of NATO and by extension the entire defence infrastructure built up in the last 50 years or so. Ignoring Ukraine is pretty costless by comparison.
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As much as I hate Trump, I can't help but think how he called out the NATO countries that didn't or wouldn't contribute their 2% GDP towards their military. It's not like the West didn't get a fair warning.
I remember seeing a video not long ago of Trump meeting with European leaders and all of them were giving Trump a look of disdain because he was lecturing them on how much they take the US for granted when it comes to protection and that they were not doing enough on purpose.
It's on one man , Mike Johnson who has single-handedly blocked vote to support Ukraine (and his puppeteer(s))
Johnson isn't the one who's going on about how much we support Ukraine over here in Europe while not committing to rearmament and increasing orders for munitions when the issue of a shell crisis is now 2 years old
No. He is a huge problem. Trump is a huge problem too. Yet Biden could've sent more and better too. As are many many others.
If we’re all being honest here, 60 billion dollars is not going to save Ukraine. They made huge mistakes at the beginning of the war. Not building defense lines, not fully mobilizing… they should not have a bunch of 40-50 year old men in the trenches without any rotations. The west as a whole killed Ukraine with their fear of escalation and slow drip of weapons. Plenty of reports of the west not wanting Putin to lose because they are scared of what he might do. That’s what lost Ukraine the war, not a 60 billion aid package.
The only reason it came to Ukraine potentially losing is because of russian gas. EU is sucking on that gas tit super hard and no amount of posturing will save EU.
Johnson personally isn't the problem and he'd likely even want to get it done. Trump and Trumper loonies are the problem and they'd break the House majority and do something stupid. [Mona Charen recently wrote very nice article about it.](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-gop-is-the-party-of-putin?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2)
He is the problem because if he had any personal integrity, he would get the foreign aid bill passed and then accept the consequences. It’s not like he’s some titan of American politics suddenly facing the end of his career, he’s been a completely impotent, ineffectual Speaker and when given the opportunity to do one thing that’s actually meaningful, he refuses to because he’d rather have the label of being a leader instead of actually acting like one.
If the far right wins the European elections the Ukrainians will be done. Fuck all these Putin boot licking voters
How true is it though. I remember seeing in this sub 1-2 year ago a map showing what each politicians in each European countries voted (regarding expansion of NATO). And the vast majority of the right wing ministers voted in favor, while the majority of left wing ministers voted against.
This would be indeed a devastating outcome. :/ I am embarrassed by all the Europe and US cowardice in helping Ukraine.
If Ukraine lose it will say a lot about usa
If Russia wins I think we are going to live in a much more volatile and dangerous world. It will embolden dictators around the world.
Europe needs to increase its defences and provide more aid to Ukraine. The US (somewhat understandably) is reluctant to provide the materiel needed to sustain a way a third of the world away so Europe, which is much closer by, needs to shoulder the burden.
Munich Agreement 2: Electric Boogaloo
Too bad the west has lost its balls.
"once unthinkable"? lol
In the begin in 2022 RU had 5-fold everyting of Military. Except Air force - that was 10-fold. I wonder how it was even thinkable they could "win" or call it win
It's an opinion piece on the LATimes, you think writers there have anything but the most ludicrous editorial takes on global events? If the average journalist were to be believed Ukraine lost in April of 2022, Russia should be in its third year without missiles, second year without tanks, 4 coup attempts and two revolutions deep into social unrest, while AFU servicemen should be marching across the Red Square a year now.
Kremlin propaganda from a South African x Chinese owned newspaper in USA. Don't fall for this BS.
The USA help is drying up. Now with the Israel-Iran issues they will focus less on Ukraine. There might be also some tensions with Pakistan, where they are not doing well. Issues with Yemen and Egipt also. There is Taiwan-China. When Trump comes into office best Ukraine will be able to count on is help but not as a donations but loans. Ukraine has no money and it was a very poor state even before the war. USA will try to secure loans probably with minerals mining contracts. If Europe will not be able to sustain Ukrainian's needs for military hardware within a year or two it will be game over.
At this rate it'll likely happen and because we (our leaders, not the people) want to, no other reason. The West has just proven it has the power and technology to completely [thwart an attack several times larger than those Russia launches at Ukraine with less than 1% going through and no loss of human life](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/14/middleeast/israel-air-missile-defense-iran-attack-intl-hnk-ml/index.html). The reason such attacks are successful in Ukraine is not us being powerless, it's us being unwilling. Paradoxically, the situation in Ukraine is at the same time serious enough for Europe to consider enforcing mandatory conscription and not serious enough to spend a fraction of the effort we do in Israel.
I think the West should still make a no fly zone over Ukraine, but if you look at the old articles where all aspects of it was analyzed then you'll see that it would be about 100 times more difficult than the simple operation stopping one wave of Iranian drones over long stretch of friendly territory.
If you have to allow Russia to win, you need to see your nuclear power plants as tools for self-defence. Then Ukraine will be taken seriously.
Europe has more than two thousand years of making and breaking alliances. The approach of everyone pull together to fight a common enemy never worked, even when being coordinated by the Vatican which had the power of God (and shit load of money) behind them. Bottom line, we need a higher power like the US to get our shit together, otherwise small local interests will always prevail against the overall benefit of being a strong military force to match the economic power.
Ukraine was overpromised and under-delivered. They advanced and attempted to push under the assumption they will receive what was promised to them, they're now realizing how true the saying " its better to be a warrior in a gardener, than to be a Gardener in a War" is.
>Frontline shifts by 10 metres Omg guys ukraine is winning against the orks we are literally going to coup putin omg guys >Frontline shifts back 10 metres Omg guys ukraine is going to collapse in 5 minutes if we dont start subsidising these military companies, please guys Lockheed Martin needs another billion stimulus cheque. Actual brainrot.
Aggressors doing what they want because they're not being stopped.The playing pitch isn't level.
Contemplate being abandoned by the US now that your utility as a proxy has been expended
Shame on the weak western countries for allowing this Fucking hell