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Snowy89

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About Snowy89

  • Birthday 04/04/1989

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  1. Which is why you feel comfortable voting greens probably? There is no downside anyway.
  2. I think everbody can understand this emotional reaction in the moment. I just hope 6 months allows for enough time to also apply rational thought and that people will not make an emotional choice in the moment that very likely sooner than later they will bitterly regret.
  3. When you hear Justin Bronk explaining the worst case scenario for Ukraine, I can no longer even remotely understand the current hesitancy on EU leaders. What do these European leaders exactly expect the impact to be of a new refugee wave of very possibly more than 10 million additional Ukrainians running to EU countries if the Ukrainian army crumbles due to lack of ammunition like the Afghan army. Have they even remotely thought through the political and economical consequences just on Europe, never mind the world economy? What do they expect the consequences of a Russia in full control of all Ukraine's borders all along EU nation states, with an experienced victorious army with backed by a military industry in full production. Like the guest says, what kind of deterrence do European leaders think they will have against Russia when they have just shown they cannot even bear when it is only money to stop the Russian army. Do they honestly expect Putin to believe them when they say they will now spend both money AND blood to defend Europe's borders. I'm honestly starting to think I may need to start preparing some emigration plans before this shitshow hits.
  4. They just opened comments on the article. Many comments that there were no reports on Russian channels regarding a defeat/capture of troops on a scale anything like the one described in the article, so I guess things may turn out not to be as bad. Still, the analysis of too little too late, and as you say a complete lack of imagination on European policy makers parts is still valid. 2 years in and only know are we finally starting to see hard long-term commitments, showing Putin with more than just words that Europe actually is in this for the long haul.
  5. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/us/politics/ukraine-prisoners-avdiivka-russia.html. Lovely. Up to a 1000 men potentially captured. This is what this Bidens and EU's incrementalism gets you, only providing support enough for Ukraine not to loose outright. This means you only need one black swan defeat like this for the larger war to completely reverse, since there is no slack available to Ukraine to catch unexpected setbacks. I am so tired of the hubris on western policy makers that think they can manage this tightrope.
  6. But Russia is spending 40 to 50% of its budget on the war. Can you ever see Germany spending 20% of their budget on their military to match that, short of once war has broken out? People keep talking about GDP this GDP that, and in the meantime after 2 years Ukraine still is at an 1 to 5 disadvantage in artillery ammunition, with parity not even in sight 1 year from now. All the money in the world cannot instantly produce weapons. It needs time, and Europe has been wasting 2 years of it so far.
  7. France could have all of that... If they are willing to put their money where their mouth is and explicitly extend both conventional and nuclear protection to all of Eastern Europe. Right now France is talking the talk of wanting a European sovereign defense policy without actually defending the sovereignty of all of Europe. I am convinced if France (+Germany and maybe Italy) were to show real commitment to go all the way to defend the Baltic states + Poland and we were to combine this were to coincide with a Trump presidency stating Eastern Europe was on it's own it would totally convince the Eastern Europeans to hop aboard. Unfortunately I just do not see what kind of geopolitical shock would be able to cause this political shift. If the invasion of of Ukraine did not catalyze this, nothing short of an invasion of an EU member will, at which point it would already be too late. I recently came across an interesting analysis of this situation. They perceived this situation would have two possible scenarios. One, Poland and Baltic states may choose to actively enter the war against Russia while Ukraine was still standing and able to help. Better to fight Russia with Ukraine still in the fight, than to try to built up their defenses for a couple of years while Ukraine falls and Russia rearms, only to have to face Russia on their own. They would surely loose this fight. Alternatively they might take the route you described, in which case I do not see how this would ultimately result in any successful defense at all. Frankly I think this scenario would cause an incredibly fast proliferation of nuclear weapons both in Poland and possibly Finland and maybe other Nordic states. Once US withdraws their nuclear protection and if the Poles cannot be convinced by France/UK that they will be protected by their nuclear weapons, there is nothing even the US can do to deter them from getting nuclear weapons. If you're not going to help us, why care at all about your opinion? They will take any sanctions if that preserves their independence. By the way, you would see the exact same behaviour play out on South Korea and Japan. As a sidenote, I think we will see similar behaviour on the Ukrainian side if the US does not keep up its support. So far Ukraine has been relatively restrained in its attacks on Russian oil and gas export facilities/ships. If the military support were to really dry up, the US and Europe will have no leverage over Ukrainians at all to prevent them from attempting to stage mass attacks on oil facilities and Russian oil shipping worldwide. The only reason Russia is still able to finance this war is the more than 50% of the national budget this trade brings to the Russian state. As Cicero said, the sinews of war are infinite money. Imagine the impact on the world economy if suddenly every week Russian ships started sinking and/or their oil export facilities. US and European politicians would be wise to use their imagination and think ahead on the impact this would have on their economies. Alternatively, destroying Russia's oil export capacity might actually not be such a bad idea regardless. Right now Russia still has alternative methods to sell its oil. If Ukraine were to disable all export methods EXCEPT for the still existing oil pipelines to Europe, Russia would have to choose between either selling no oil whatsoever, or using their last remaining method of oil exports to Europe at a price of Europe's choosing. This would add a pressure method on Russia unparalleled by any sanctions put on Russia so far.
  8. My issue with this is when you follow this line of thinking to the end: If we are so afraid of Putin leaving, we should right now start working on eternal life to keep him alive, because god forbid he dies naturally. Somehow people seem to think if Putin were to die naturally power transition will be all nice and peaceful. I just do not understand this double think.
  9. In other words, nothing this guy says can be trusted. Never mind he's just some private citizen retweeting random crap he gets through his telegram channels.
  10. How do you unintentionally behead a baby? Other than that I trust Israeli sources only marginally more than Hamas, I will wait for the pictures.
  11. Well this is touches their beloved sovereignty. If they now start interfering with other countries "internal" problems they have no standing to complain when outsiders "interfere" in their countries in turn.
  12. Another example of succesful Russian framing (and lying). Listen to the man Bennett himself. There was no agreement whatsoever. "The English subtitles are flawed, however. In the exchange, Bennett and the interviewer do not use the word "blocked" but rather "stopped," referring to ongoing peace talks." So there was no agreement, and stopping talks when Russia was not offering anything close to leaving Ukrainian lands in my book is nothing to be criticized for.
  13. For once there won't be a lack of maintained available equipment unlike with leopard 2s. Most of the F16 nations are actively phasing them out for F35's, so it should be trivial to find decent numbers of well maintained airplanes for Ukraine.
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