Floridaman
Well-known member
How is us spending ourselves into insolvency a defeat for Russia, if you recall forcing the soviets to do that was how we beat them,
Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)
- Thread starter ParadiseLost
- Start date
Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
It works until it doesn't.
The problem of course being Russia doesn't have that amount of time.
bintananth
behind a desk
The US can afford to spend ridiculous amounts of money on bullshit that may or may not work.
Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
That's why I heard Reagan beat Russia by outspending them they couldn't compete and the rest was history.
Floridaman
Well-known member
Not really, espescially when the global dollar system is already facing rising trouble. By kicking Russia out of swift they have now been using chinas new rival system, that means in addition to chinas manufacturing their system now has the massive resources that Russia has. In addition by actually kicking them from swift we are showing the fragility of the system. Hence why opec has refused to even take Joe Biden’s call.
Chernobyl is offline for power generation; however there is still fuel in the cooling pools that we do not want heating up.
Floridaman
Well-known member
Yes, and back then we had 400 billion in debt. Accrued over 179 years, in the 40 years since we now have 30 trillion in debt and 100 trilllion in unfunded liabilities, you see the difference in our positions?
Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
Yup. Many of his successors kept spending and printing like they have an unlimited credit card arrogantly thinking the strength of the American dollar will keep Uncle Sam going.
posh-goofiness
Well-known member
They do have an unlimited credit card. For now. The problem isn't that we can't keep inflating the debt- we can. It's whether we can inflate, control the damage, and then continue on inflating. The petrodollar is primarily kept in place by force. If we can keep that force in place, we can keep perpetuating the system. Additionally, the various central banks around the world that participate in the system have the tools to keep manipulating markets (debts, stocks, bonds, commodities) to perpetually inflate balanced against the cost to the consumer. It's a delicate balancing act that is destabilizing as we speak. The failure of the economic system is going to come because we lose the dominance of the petrodollar, not that we keep inflating the currency. Again. For now.
Arch Dornan
Oh, lovely. They've sent me a mo-ron.
That's right. One day when the hens come to roost when the can can't get kicked any more down the road shit gets real.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
Oh, so you are going to plant new crops, dig for extra phosphates, increase fertilizer production capacity, and drill for more oil?
Any idea when you will be ready to fix the shortfalls at to what cost to customer?
Floridaman
Well-known member
What sort of food? Are they staple food items? Are they staple food items that Russia can't grow domestically or obtain through one of their close economic partners? That's not the same as being Egypt and being able to import enough material for something like bread.
In other news, it seems like someone didn't think this article through:
A man in peace, but the moment the rockets start flying, a transman is suddenly a woman.
If I recall and it has been a few years since I looked at russian agriculture but if I recall they are self sufficient on things like wheat, but they import more tropical produce, like some fruits and almost all of their sugar.
Agent23
Ни шагу назад!
>Russian truck.
> Has a mini Ukrainian flag inside the cabin, attached to the window or dashboard.
This is entering 1945 Goebbels levels of stupid, pretty soon Zelenski and the Ukrainian twitter bots/trolls will be spouting about Vergeltungswaffe, like stealth mach 7 TB-3 drones controlled by the cloned brains of the Ghost of Kiev demolishing the Kremlin, any day now.
Val the Moofia Boss
Well-known member
What search engines are left that haven't been converged yet? I know of Brave. What else?
Airedale260
Well-known member
If Russia actually loses I'd expect someone behind the scenes would forcibly "retire" Putin. The new leader could then use Putin as a scapegoat, pull back, and negotiate for lifting of (at least some) sanctions, since they were implemented in response to the actual invasion.
If Putin persists and actually drops a nuke on Kyiv, then it's a clear sign he's given up and has no actual plan for the aftermath. Doing so only further increases Ukrainian resistance, and would only further accelerate Western aid to Ukraine. It wouldn't matter what, say, Joe Biden or Emmanuel Macron think: the *public* is going to be screaming for blood and it'll result in increased calls for modernization and funding of conventional military forces, nuclear forces, and missile defense. All of which Russia can't afford and certainly can't hope to match.
On the North Korea front...keep in mind that Russia being isolated to that degree is something that won't sit well with Russia's elites or its public. North Korea's 'juche' philosophy and centrality of the Kim family (built up over nearly 75 years) isn't something Russia has (and as it is, North Korea basically relies on China to remain afloat -a cost China absorbs to forestall the possibility of regime collapse and the ROK moving in and winding up with a major U.S. ally on the Yalu River).
Yes, Russia is not without assets...but its natural resources won't help if they're embargoed, nor will their intelligence agencies be able to do more than try and maintain internal security while going "Yep, the West still hates us and the Chinese are really annoyed" -Russian intelligence has historically been good at collecting information, but absolute shit at analyzing or using it effectively.
Space program? Again, yes, they *have* one, but without the money to operate it...won't really help.
Agriculture? Yeah, this is one that definitely hurts but at the same time, it's becoming increasingly clear that people are willing to put up with a lot of discomfort if it means making Russia pay. Same with potash, fertilizer products, and the like... Russia isn't the *only* source, so while costs will go up...in the long term it's more likely that shifts are made to alternate sources (same with energy and everything else).
People don't just roll over once economic hits start happening in situations like this; instead, they end up gritting their teeth and bearing it ("pay any price, bear any burden") because political concerns always wind up trumping economic ones.
And as far as China and Taiwan go: It wouldn't be just the U.S. they'd have to fight: at an absolute minimum, you'd have Japan, Australia, and South Korea all entering the fray. Taiwan is a major linchpin in hemming in the PLAN, and if Beijing seized it, then it threatens Japan directly and also places U.S. territory at a much greater risk.
Moreover, the relationship between the U.S. and Taiwan is very different from the relationship between the West and Ukraine: it's a de facto ally and if push really came to shove, China would have to risk India, Vietnam, and a bunch of other countries also throwing down with them...and at the same time get cut off from the Middle East and its oil supply. Oh, they threaten to nuke us for this? Congratulations, you've probably just managed to convince the Japanese to develop their own arsenal, in addition to the fact that we have our own and would respond *poorly* over a threat to stay out of it over an ally*.
*-Yes, I'm aware it's a "not actually set in stone" thing but Taiwan and the U.S. have a longstanding friendly relationship. And again, it isn't *just* the U.S. that would get dragged into this. Chinese thinking generally doesn't look favorably on Pyrrhic victories: their thinking is shape the battlefield in such a way as to guarantee absolute victory in a war...and this wouldn't get them that.
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
So, hypothetically, we're saying that Ukraine doesn't just exhaust Russian forces; it overpowers them, throwing them back to the border and perhaps beyond. In that sort of situation, Ukraine would be in a position to demand Russia recognize the 2014 borders as legitimate and recognize complete Ukrainian political self-determination.
In that sort of situation it would be reasonable for the west to permanently lift most of the sanctions as the carrot to the stick, provided Russian guarantees of energy supply. And why not? If it abides by those guarantees, it has no power over Europe. If Russia takes it out on Georgia, well, Europe will frown mightily but it's not in their neighborhood anymore. As long as Belarus continues to be run by pro-Russia regimes, anyway...
Although there really wouldn't be any way to spin the above as a win for the Russian regime, its people would most likely be better off. It would hardly be a disaster on the scale of what followed the USSR spinning apart. In terms of domestic politics, is there any possible situation where Putin gets thrown under the bus to save the regime, or is he actually the bus?
Floridaman
Well-known member
Ehh the failing infrastructure is in the north east and left coast, the south is actually growing because our economy is based around real resources.... coincidentally the same thing happened during the last great depression which didn't really affect the south.