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
Russia doesn't give the smallest damn about the games right and left play in "collective west" beyond how that can be exploited for own benefit.
Putin slams ‘golden billion’ idea as neocolonial and racist
According to Putin, the impression is that the West simply cannot offer the world a model of the future
tass.com
Yes, the billion stands for us, the "collective west". Note that it's a billion, not 1%, not billionaires, not leftist elites, billion sounds pretty inclusive, there's room in it to cover all the citizens, left, right, progressive, conservative, and even those who just want to grill.
But hey, that was a message to Russia's third world client states, not for the useful idiots in the West, so it's not meshing well with what their propaganda says to the latter normally.
Russia would be playing silly games against the West just on that principle, no matter if leftists, rightists, nationalists, libertarians or neoliberals are in charge of it, though it would adapt their intensity to the seriousness of the other side's challengers.
Even a broken clock can be right twice a day, and so the neoliberal establishment for once is not rolling over and surrendering our national interests to a foreign challenger. The only problem with it is that it should be responding twice as hard to it as it does, and it should treat all the other aggressors against the West as harshly as that.
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LordsFire
Internet Wizard
I know it's weird to see the neolibs having beef with someone who is actually irrational, stupid, and evil, but...
Well, Russia has amply demonstrated over the last sixteen months that the people running it are irrational, stupid, and evil.
The calls for freezing the conflict come from people who knee-jerk respond like that to basically every conflict. The strange thing here isn't that people are calling for this, but that some leftists aren't calling for this kind of nonsense.
Its important to understand that neocons and neoliberals dont negotiate from a position of strength. If they have the upper hand they only accept unconditional surrender. The calls for freezing the conflict are a sign they know that they know thier position is weakening.
I'm just hoping that Russia is driven out before they change their minds.
I wish it was true.
Its important to understand that neocons and neoliberals dont negotiate from a position of strength. If they have the upper hand they only accept unconditional surrender. The calls for freezing the conflict are a sign they know that they know thier position is weakening.
Sadly,they could easily crush kgbstan - but instead they keep them alive.
Remember,they proposed Moscov Europe if they agree to alliance,and even 19.2.2022 Biden promised no sanctions if putin take only part of Ukraine.
Happily for us,idiot go for everytching and get beaten.But still want play head of superpower.
And USA help him with that,refusing to send any real help like more tanks and planes.
Becouse they still belive that USA must made deal with Moscov over Europe corpse.
Sometching which Democrats must have in genes,i think.
But,as long as comrade putin rule,we should be safe.Well,unless USA manage to made putch in Poland and help germans retake power here.
Then we are fucked.
I'm pretty left, but I've *never* had that kind of knee jerk response to conflict and I'm not changing my mind anytime soon.
Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
I take Machiavelli’s stance on conflict: there is no avoiding war. It can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
Sure, there's a decent-sized minority of leftists who don't react in such a way, but when we look at the history of the political left...
Vietnam, Israeli/Palestinian conflicts, every time America has tried to keep communists from over-running South and Central America...
There's quite a history of pathological behavior.
I disagree that world war is inevitable -- the inherent conflicts between humans naturally occur on a local and regional scale, and it's international politics that magnifies them beyond the natural stage.
Think about it -- the United States was naturally involved in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and various wars within our territorial sphere (1812, Spanish-American War, etc). We weren't naturally involved in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam; those were far-away conflicts that we were pulled into by politics.
Note that I'm not saying we were necessarily *wrong* to step into conflicts outside our natural sphere in order to advance our own interests, only that there was nothing *inevitable* about our involvement.
I think the implication is that sometime, someone, somehow will inevitably start another war, and with time the probability of that approaches 1.
Of course there is also a reason why world wars weren't a thing at all before the means to truly wage them existed, and those means are only getting better with time. Earth may be as big as ever, but for practical purposes, in terms of feasible range of military campaigns, trade routes and national interests, it has gotten smaller and may still get yet smaller, while "national spheres" of countries get bigger, sometimes in wild and odd ways. For example 500 years ago Europe's powers would know little about what happens in China, nevermind care much about it, and now it's one of major topics in European politics and also even more so in the curiously more physically distant USA.
To times past, various conflicts could be considered world wars in the eyes of the populace.
The crusades could be seen in the eyes of Europe.
The Mongols conquering so much, world war.
They are bound to happen, a world war is around the corner, as everything is interconnected there is no choice.
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
Surely you're not implying that this reaction is limited to, or originated with, neoliberalism or neoliberals?
I agree with this much, but I think that US involvement in at least some of the wars you mentioned was also "natural" given the state of international politics at the time. For world war to be avoided, the international political situation must take a form such that it is avoidable.
To keep the US out of WWII, one thing that would have had to be different is for Japan to be either willing to avoid pissing off the US enough for the latter to cut off Japan's access to critical US resources (oil), or willing to accept those consequences without going to war over it. Or I suppose a difference could have been the US not caring about one of the biggest massacres of all time happening on its doorstep (relative to the US territory the Philippines) but I doubt it.
Sure, you could argue that a war that consumes every civilization a given person is aware of is a "world war" to that person, but that's honestly a silly standard to go by. Find a sufficiently ignorant person and an inter-city scuffle is a world war.
It's true that, if not for Japan, WWI and WWII would only be "world wars" insofar as colonies around the world were dragged into their imperial masters' fights; but Japan was involved, so I don't think the lack of relatively major combat below the equator disqualifies them.
I am just positive a world war will happen and is inevitable
strunkenwhite
Well-known member
I disagree that it's inevitable, but hypothetical far-future geopolitics doesn't seem related enough to the current conflict to be worth discussing here. At least, I'm hoping you think it's inevitable because you're thinking of a long timeframe.
Calling it "spite" implies that they themselves gain nothing from it. But the poster you were responding to had just explained what they would gain from it - the long-term weakening of an enemy. Because the Great Game is not decided by one battle or another... it has been going on for centuries.
Some people in the media are talking about it. Obviously those are not the people that you take orders from.
But it would not be the first time an ally of the USA got thrown under the bus when continuing to support them became too costly.
Or to one's own advantage, depending. Jumping into a war for which you are not ready is generally considered a bad idea.
And you know.. sometimes the cause for the conflict can be resolved without anyone getting shooty.
Zach, I think lots of people have a mental block about it because they still have the brainbug that WW3 = The End.
AnimalNoodles
Well-known member
Irrational, stupid and vindictive? How about supplying Ukraine with fucking depleted uranium? In a conflict where tank on tank combat is rare.
It almost as if the Rainbow Empire recognises Ukraine will never regain its lost territories so they will simply poison them with heavy metals.
I fully think it is going to happen in our lifetimes and is inevitable.
Because they think MAD because nukes.
World war 3 can invovle combat in a non nuclear state between nuclear states.
And that is what they don't understand
Imagine being a right winger and repeating watermelon memes about "ANYTHING NUCLEAR BAD FOREVER" to simp for "based Russia".
You think the many thousands of tons of ex-soviet munitions being used there are made out of what, EU environmental standards fulfilling materials only?
Well if tank on tank combat is rare then they won't be fired, so what do you care. What do you care anyway, instead of being cheeky maybe tell us how eco-friendly Russian tank shells are.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Issue with depleted uranium is a) heavy metal toxicity and b) it is pyrophoric. Combine these two, and long-term environmental and health hazards can be significant.
But then I don't think any Western tanks need DU to handle Russian tanks. Leopard 2 with tungsten penetrators would be more than capable of doing so.
AnimalNoodles
Well-known member
Its not the radiation, ITS THE HEAVY METAL POISONING. Care to look up what that does? Dont. It will haunt you. And unlike a flooded river the effects will last centuries. But thats okay as long as we get to kill some Russians huh? The Rainbow Empire accepts no limits on its escalation.