Padraig

No worries. I did genuinely try to understand you point. I thought I did the last time (that is why I thanked you for explaining it) but obviously not. But just to be clear, my first response on this thread to this line of discussion was "I think many countries are willing to get away with a lot of terrible things but the West has more money and can thus cause more dangerous mischief in aggregate." My stance is not binary but the internet does prefer binary stances, so I can appreciate why my stance got missed.

Ok. Given the other posts in this thread about the cycle of violence, this is a very ironic post. I think you are saying that an escalated war will "solve" the problem and that the armaments industry will no longer have any weapons to sell because there will be peace in our time. Which is frankly hilarious. But at least I see now where you are coming from, so thanks for explaining. To be clear, the cycle of violence rarely stops. War begets more war. I can't think of any major conflict at the moment where I expect a resolution will lead to a complete de-escalation. The military industrial complex doesn't have to lose any sleep about a loss of earnings. Sure. I was hoping you were been less vague but ok. I was talking about both. Larder (the West) and appetite (Russia but there are plenty other countries). Of course. Nobody can pretend that every country is affected in the same way. And your point about the economic exploitation by Western companies just echoes my point about the West having way more means to negatively affect other countries. Similarly, of course the West is not better than everyone else. But Russia? Admittedly, a very low bar, so I wouldn't get excited.

I think many countries are willing to get away with a lot of terrible things but the West has more money and can thus cause more dangerous mischief in aggregate. But morally, Russia (for example) is far more dangerous. It just lacks the means (relatively speaking).

You are going to have to explain it more. If you wish. How is what is quoted above different from "they are also telling them not to commit too much violence because they don't want to sell too many weapons." The main point to take away from my posts is that influence definitely happens (as I said originally, I agree with a lot of what you say). But you can push it too far, where people become puppetmasters. Puppetmasters are very rare. It is often incompetence, misguided beliefs, lack of power etc. And I wasn't sure were you actually talking about the Pentagon. Good to know you were.

You are reading way too much into my post. I do think what you said is silly, that these unnamed companies are encouraging these unnamed governments to commit violent acts, so that they can sell them weapons but they are also telling them not to commit too much violence because they don't want to sell too many weapons (or something). Its all very vague. But the advantage of been vague is that one can read truth into it (and I can see stuff in what you wrote that I agree with). But also disagreements. I choose not to invent a disagreement with you (because I have to put words in your mouth). If you want to be less vague, sure. I can say more possibly.

That can mean whatever one likes, so i'll choose to believe you agree with me completely.

Well, I do think that's all a bit silly. Wanting conflict to make money but not too much conflict! Nobody has that level of control over things. What you say is all a bit vague though and it depends on what people are thinking of. For sure, the West made plenty money from supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia, despite it using those weapons against the people in Yemen. Things like that can (and should) be criticised but once you start layering in levels of complexity, you do lose me.

Isn't that the problem that people are trying to solve? Setting up such an entity. Less rhetoric, more common sense.

Very interesting. Erdogan won last year in similar conditions but he wasn't running himself this time, which probably did matter. There is a question about whether this is his last term. He is 70 years old and his final term is supposed to end in 2028. But there could still be shenanigans (e.g. apparently if they call for early elections, he is entitled to run since he didn't complete his full term). The repeated failure of his party when he doesn't run may give him pause for reflection. But he did say very recently that this was his last election. Before he lost.

Pellegrini must be favourite for the run off though, as the guy who came third seems much more aligned with him than Korcok.

Yes. Weird to be a little down hearted by a championship success but we started on a high and its been downhill since then. And even that high against France was probably a lot due to their WC hangover. The Scottish game was frustrating to watch. So, lots of questions. It will be curious to see what happens on the tour to South Africa in the summer.

This is a good article on views in Europe about Ukraine. Here is the full article. Long though. Probably more pessimistic than I was hoping for but it does play up the (lack of) leadership angle, which is what I have been thinking about. Here is the conclusion...

In other words, ignoring Germany, there is not a huge drop in support in Europe (to bring us back to how this started). There was always some Putin friendly politicians but if Italy can't afford to give anything to Ukraine, that's primarily an economic factor not a Ukraine factor (and existed at the start of this conflict, its not new). I think the media is rather lazy about this topic. They see what is going on in the US and just applied it everywhere to make the story simple.

I don't agree with most of that also. The biggest party in the Slovak government is friendlier towards Russia (but it wasn't the main reason it was elected, as you say) but the other parties are not. When it was elected, I feared they would back Hungary in its maneuvering against Ukraine but Hungary was left on its own. Meloni in Italy has also been surprisingly positive on Ukraine. There was a headline in the NY Times only a few days ago saying that "Biden Unites With an Unlikely Ally to Champion Ukraine". The unlikely ally being Meloni. In any French election, Russia isn't going to be the driver of votes but even Le Pen has put some distance between herself and Putin. Germany, I give some credence since it has a post world war reluctance to get deeply involved in wars, but i'm not sure I believe the 40% figure. Another I imagine the financing angle is driving more negativity than in other countries. I'll ignore the comments about the US since I explicitly said I was talking about Europe. There is a question about throwing more and more money at Ukraine. I touched on that in my last email. There is definitely some leadership lacking on that side. Although, the EU did get a major 4 year package agreed for Ukraine only in February. Generally, I think Scholz makes people jump to the wrong conclusion because of his dithering. As he is reacting to shadows, when he could be leading on things.

I'm not sure about all of that. I've seen surveys that say that other Europeans are much less confident that Ukraine can win the war. But I haven't seen anything in Europe that says that there has been a significant increase in people thinking European countries should reduce their involvement. I could easily have missed some surveys in other countries though. For example, I doubt many Europeans know anything about the Kerch bridge. If they are asked about it, the way they are asked about is would be very leading. People are probably worried about whether Europe has a plan around Ukraine and would be unsure of spending money on something when a plan doesn't exist. But that isn't the same thing as not supporting Ukraine.

And you are right! Shows that I should always read the preceding posts before I post!

I do think Godfather is a work of genius at least!

I finally got around to watching movies from the early 2000s. That means Lord of the Rings. Hate to say it, didn't hold up. I really loved them when I watched them originally but this time all the flaws really jumped out. The never ending Gollum scenes I had forgotten how late the Shelob stuff was. The elves, Gimli, Denethor. The same things people have been complaining about for the last 20 years. The first movie is by far the best. Not that they are bad movies. I just had built them up far more in my mind. I did also see Almost Famous. This seemed more magical, conversely. Or maybe when you are older, you simply dig nostalgia more. And Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Truly imaginative but brutally honest. Great movie.

True. But it can also last till the guy dies of old age. Speculating about it seems kind of pointless given it is unknowable until something happens. If it ever does.

While Ireland did well in the first half but the second half was not easy to watch until the end. Scrum improved a lot but lineout was very shaky. And then we started giving away a lot of silly penalties. Ended up with a bonus point but certainly opened the door a little to Wales first.

It sounds like you know something, the rest of us don't? When most people think of communism, they think of the USSR and its vassal states. Hardly something to aspire to. But sure, if you think of something more positive (Marxism or socialism?), good for you. But it is certainly going to mislead people. I'm not sure why you'd want to purposely mislead people. I'd say that every country (including the US) has some level of socialism and capitalism. All people are arguing about is where to balance things. The problem with Big Pharma is that something like oxycontin should be one big conspiracy theory but its actually depressingly true. Vaccines read much better. In the end, while regulations are normally the whipping boy from capitalists, they are more essential than ever.

Yes. He and the new Vice President are not the most reassuring choices but hopefully it will be ok.

I don't think Khan's problem is that he fell out with the West though. I don't think he particularly was "in" with the West in the first place. At least once his political career became fruitful. He had more internal problems. Yes. Interesting election. One of the economic success stories in recent years, while embracing democracy, which seems to be rare these days. The other interesting election recently was in El Salvador. The implications there seem more ominous, beyond just El Salvador too.

Sure. All I’m saying is that if there is a will, there is a way. Although I thought we were referring to EU spending on military.

Just to go back a couple of days but I wouldn't say that is the full picture. The EU has a rational side and an idealistic side. After the Cold War ended, it saw an opportunity to finally bring peace and harmony right across Europe with the accession of the 10 Central/Eastern European countries in 2004, and Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia followed a few years later. Those countries were certainly much poorer than the EU average before they joined. This was the EU in idealistic mode. Although, there were economic advantages in having them join also. The tide did change after accession though. The EU isn't designed to have so many countries. The only way to solve that issue is to give more power to the EU itself but that would be to the detriment of individual countries, which most countries are wary of. The rise of Orban in Hungary also crystalised the fact that being a member of the EU wouldn't in itself mean fully democratic. Which made countries wary of allowing more countries to join. But yes, the EU countries are also reluctant to throw money at other countries given internal needs. But the tide has changed on that again with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Now the "peace and harmony" angle is back. I would expect more countries to join but the process will be more difficult than previously, as the EU will manage the criteria more strictly. Except for Ukraine possibly but they have further to go, so that doesn't change much. I doubt we'll ever see anything close to allowing 10 countries join, just because of the challenges involved with new members. Although, that said, I do wonder when the EU faces up to its institutional challenges. Even there, I don't fully agree. Up to 2014, Ukraine was trying to balance itself across two stools. Pro-EU and Pro-Russia but that eventually became exclusionary. You had to choose. The Ukrainian government choose Russia, there were mass protests and off we went... EU accession was not on the table at that stage. It was just closer ties with the EU. If there had been a referendum on the issue who would have won? I imagine most people would have wanted both but if they had to choose one? Given the way things had gone in Ukraine, there seemed to be a trend back to the EU in 2014 (after a swing back to Russia a few years before), so I suspect the EU but I couldn't say for sure. I don't believe that. If enough countries wanted to pump money into the military via the EU, it would happen. The EU is relatively slow but it is flexible. It is all about compromise. EU countries want to control their own military. Or are happy with NATO. I would be less pessimistic about Europe than others, accepting that it is generally slow. So it will hope things around it move slowly too. If not, then I would worry.