As long as Japan, China, Germany et al form a long orderly queue to buy American debt (and that's not changing any time soon) and the greenback is the world's reserve currency the US is the last country in the world that will go broke. It has never defaulted on Federal debt and the Treasury Secretary and President will eat a boiled shoe on live television before that happens.
There's a good reason why T-Bills are the safest debt instrument one can buy.
Your non-economic point is not something anyone suggested. We're highly unlikely to see NATO boots on Ukrainian soil in an invasion scenario, we all know that Ukr is not in a mutual defence pact. An unholy proxy war bankrolled by top-table NATO countries is not something that can be ruled out, and there has likely been scenario planning for just that in smokey rooms that you and I don't get to enter.
Look, European forces are sub-par but they're still not terrible. Poland has also increased it's military spending, and has realised most of their weaknesses after their last war games, so between Poland's new alertness, and Europe's own military forces, that's enough to stop Russia from doing anything to them. Regardless of whether the US gets involved or not, invading European territory is just not worth the consequences.
Russia will aim to take the Ukraine because nobody is going to stand up for them. Beyond that though, I seriously doubt Russia will go further west.
Winning a war against Europe by Russia is probably possible... but what comes after? Occupation of European territories by Russia would bring about a world of pain, both economically, the risks involved by resistance groups, and the social resistance that's likely to occur. Russia wouldn't be able to implement the total warfare and harsh occupation methods they've applied elsewhere... it would be suicide.
Increasingly worrying signs that Russia is prepared for a full scale invasion in the next few weeks. Going to get very ropey in Europe if that happens
Tell that to the several hundred russian troops who got a anilated in Syria after they decided to mount a full scale attack against an American and Kurdish held oil facility
The Yanks will do the square root of f*ck all regardless.
If Russia invaded Ukraine, the Yanks wouldn't do anything. They backed down in Syria and would back down in Ukraine.
USA doesn't get involved in confrontations where the homeland is under threat. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. Yemen, Pakistan and Libya may not have the capability to attack mainland USA, but Russia does.
Russioeuropean alliance to kick out the US ,and who's going to stop Putin grabbing everything east of Berlin if the Americans would be kicked out .
If Putin complies and the leaders meet, Biden should make clear that the return of Russian forces to the border would trigger new, hard-hitting sanctions immediately, rather than waiting to see whether they cross into Ukrainian territory. These measures would include expelling Russia from the SWIFT banking system, ending the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, sanctioning Russia’s primary and (more importantly for Russia’s financial sector) secondary debt markets, and most significantly, sanctioning Putin himself and those immediately around him.
from this article :https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/02/russia-ukraine-putin-policy-523606
There's quite a lot that could be done.
There won’t be a war, for starters the US is broke and printing dollars like there’s no tomorrow (40% more $US in circulation than 12 months ago)
Can you see Spanish, Portuguese, Danish troops (or any other NATO member) being sent to Ukraine to die? Of course not.
I don’t think they will invade but that economic threat isn’t that great anymore. Russia has outlets to sell outside the west. China continues to grow.
anyway what would actually bring peace is a European Russian alliance kicking out the US.
The USSR gave up that land. The Russians invaded Crimea because it’s a Russian enclave.
any conflict here and Europe will freeze this winter. I’ve just got another increase in my electricity bill. It’s up about 30% now.
Vlad will probably give Belarus some Ukrainian land if they help conquer Ukraine. Unfortunately for Belarus, the only land on their border is the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
Saying that, it's in everyone's best interest that Chernobyl is secured, Lukashenko will be demanding some payments from the EU to maintain it.
Lukashenko has already copped onto what Turkey were doing by weaponizing migrants. He wants the same deal Turkey got to hold them back.
Ultimately I think Vlad wants 3 things. The warm weather ports. The reunite most of the Soviet Union for this legacy. And to have his gas pipelines flowing into Europe without any hassle.
The Gas pipelines is what he has over Europe. He'll turn them on and off at this own will. He knows we are killing ourselves over Green Issues and that we will need him to supply our gas.
Widely believed by who? Every few months people are claiming WW3 is going to break out and it never does. I don't blame Ukrainians for mass manufacturing propaganda, but people need to be a little smarter than swallowing it wholesale. Russia has no benefit or gain from further invading Ukraine. It gained Crimea and its Black Sea naval base, and its gained a frozen conflict that it can warm up at any time to prevent Ukraine joining the EU or NATO. It's strategic objectives are already achieved, at significant costs. A total conquest of Ukraine isn't in its strategic interests (hostile population), gains it nothing it does not already have, and the risks/costs to the Russia would be far too high.
If anything, Putin's seizure of Crimea could be seen as a desperate and flawed response to the prospect of NATO forces advancing to within a few hundred kilometers of Moscow on the Ukrainian border. The miscalculation on the part of EU/NATO was that Russia wouldn't react to that prospect.
I don't think it's about reabsorbing Ukraine ,I beginning to think Putin wants everything on the coastline of the black sea , Ukraine has something like 13 ports on the black sea and another few in the azoz sea mauripol which russian forces tried multiple times to take by force only to be beaten back by heavy Ukrainian resistance ,they also still maintain troops in Moldova under the guise of peacekeeping which Putin has refused to remove despite multiple calls to from the Moldovan government .
Taking everything from the azoz to the Moldovan border could give the russia complete control of the black sea
For all his ills, I don't think Putin is eager to bring about the collapse of his regime. Russia would be taken apart economically by the west if they invade, in addition to whatever military pain is inflicted. To what end for the Russians?
It would be an appalling war, and probably the bloodiest land war in Europe since WW2, worse than the Balkans one would fear.
While the Ukrainian army are outmatched, they are still no joke, and there are enough post-Soviet black market weapons in the country to arm Ukrainian nationalist militias out the wazoo (who will prove to be a determined bunch I predict). Town to town, street to street warfare. It doesn't bear thinking about the consequences of such a conflict in the EU's backyard.
I don't see how Putin could really think he could pull something like a two-front war of such a scale without destabilizing the homeland. Memories of young men secretly coming back in boxes by the thousand from Afghanistan are still fresh in the mind of the Russian consciousness. That war was really one of the factors that bled the Soviet Union white before its collapse. The old dog is a wiley one however, who knows how brassy his balls are.
It's now widely believed Russia is gearing up to mount a full invasion of Ukraine ,they already have stationed 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders , with another 50,000 enroute to the region , Belarus has also stated that they wont just sit back if things escalate to conflict ,if things play out we could see troops from Russia Push right into Ukraine while Belarus opens another front from their border forcing Ukraine to fight on two fronts while being massively outnumbered and outgunned
Tiny nations like Ireland are paranoid by virtue of an inferiority complex that causes them to act out in a manner of “superiority”. This mostly bluff plays out mostly in the continental town hall.
Behomoth nations like Russia, China, USA are paranoid by virtue of a complex that causes them to act out in a manner of “competitiveness and paranoia” . Dangerous bluff on the world stage.
Plus ça change.
Oh, I completely agree. However, with Taiwan, the CCP have made such a big deal about it over 6 decades, that I doubt they'd let it go. Chinese culture would never allow such a thing. Its always going to be someone elses fault.
China, Russia, and whatever other country out there that claims land, and seeks to expand are opportunists. If the opportunity is there, they'll go for it. Taiwan is pretty much locked down now, due to China isolating themselves, and pissing off all their neighbors. Russia will likely grab a variety of nearby nation states, because nobody is really that interested. Ukraine is something different, but even then, I genuinely doubt anyone will step in to protect them. If it came to Poland/Finland, or other Baltic states, I suspect Russia wouldn't try anything because of the solid links between those countries and Europe. They missed their chance there.
The Qing ceded Taiwan to the Japanese after the 1st Sino-Japanese War. They can crow about it and "unequal treaties", but those were the cruel rules of war in the 19th century. You lose a war, you lose the territory and they signed it over - the Japanese made a place out of Taiwan despite the depredations of colonial rule (still treated much better than Korea).
With all the fuss over Hong Kong and Taiwan and the "unequal treaties", you don't hear the CCP kick up a stink about outer Manchuria beyond the Amur (Now the Russian Far East) - they know better than to reopen any wounds with Russia. Though, if they thought Russia was a pushover, they'd no doubt be at it and hard.
Should be easy to post links in that case...
Taiwan was part of "China" until the end of WW2, when the Allies denied them a variety of territories that the Japanese had occupied. The CCP has a claim to the island... however.... most nations have claims on territories held by others. It doesn't mean that they should have them. Taiwan has developed itself into an independent nation. Had the CCP taken Taiwan in the 40s/50s then there wouldn't be much of an issue... but they didn't. And considering the nature of Taiwans governance at that time, I doubt anyone here would have been too bothered had the CCP taken Taiwan. Too many nations have a stake in Taiwan remaining independent.
However, the world has simply moved on, where these kind of claims no longer have any real validity.... unless you can get away with it. As Russia is likely to get away with reclaiming many of the territories lost with the fall of the Soviet Union.
The notion that 'Taiwan was always part of China' is a Communist Party wheeze that simply isn't factual. It was only part of Chinese sovereignty from the Qing dynasty onwards - which in Chinese historical terms, is just a gust of wind. And during that dynasty (which was Manchu-led and not Han in any case) It was a backwater treated with ambivalence and was not Sinicised to any great extent. Even before the end of the Second World War, when speaking of the possible post-war settlement, Mao frequently spoke of Taiwan in the same breath as Korea (for important context, Korea had more or less always been a tributary state to Chinese empires, but not within the empire).
It was only when the KMT decamped to Taiwan at the end of the civil war that the CCP cottoned on to how important it was strategically, and the 'integral part of China since time immemorial' yarn really got going. It's really one of those things that get repeated so often by CCP organs that foreigners who know no better just start to repeat it.
Anyway, back on topic: Russia, big country, up to no good (probably)
Irrational anti-Russian sentiment has a very long track record. All the way back in the 16th century, the new Russian state was being demonised by European commentators as alien, dangerous and bent on world conquest. Fast forward 5 centuries and the irrational hostility from "the west" towards Russia is still the same. It's no wonder that one of the Russian tsars said that Russia only had two allies - its army and its navy.
The US has engaged in a propaganda campaign against Russia since 1945, for 76 years now. Prior to that Russia was the great ally who defeated the Germans. The Americans have now bought into their own propaganda, invincible and superior to Russia in every way. The fact that Russia and China are now allies which together are militarily superior to the US has not not yet entered into the consciousness of the American public. America actually pushed Russia into China's arms, one of the worlds greatest strategic blunders. You will see the US making friendly overtures to Russia as they try to undo the damage they have wrought on the Russo-American relationship. How Ukraine is handled will be a good indicator as to whether nuclear war is imminent or delayed. Taiwan was always Chinese except for periods where Japan occupied it. Mao defeated Chiang Kai Shek who retreated with his army from war on the Chinese mainland to the Chinese island of Taiwan in 1949. The Americans do not have a leg to stand on when they say Taiwan is not Chinese. It is highly unlikely that America will risk a nuclear war should China decide to retake Taiwan.
You're not countering what I said.... just reinforcing it. All nations, especially the major nations, are a combination of both the great and the bad. This is particularly true when you consider the difficulties that particular nations faced in settling, and dominating their respective territories. You seem to want to ignore all the particulars in history that contributed to how a nation develops, and just skip to the modern status.
Who said they were equivalent?
The life expectancy for Russian men is shockingly low: 68.2. That ranks them 118th in the world. In most western European countries it's hitting 80 and in the US it's 76.3 (41st). Once again, USA bad, Russia terrible - not equivalent.
@klaz "Take the US for example, look at their numbers of homeless, their numbers addicted to various drugs, their illiteracy problems, the issues with parts of the US being essentially like 3rd world nations in terms of infrastructure, institutionalized racial discrimination, etc... Both great and not so great at the same time"
The same applies to larger parts of russsia , they tend to mirror themselves for most part ,they have a huge drug and alcohol addiction issue in Russia just as they have in America and vice versa when I comes to homelessness they both have in some case huge wealth gaps ,the same for military might
That's the usual deflection.. but let's run with it. The US has been very active in world affairs since WW2. They went "all in" in their fight against communism, and stood against the Soviet Union, and later, Russia throughout that time. They've worked to isolate Russia, while playing the popular card as a peacemaker, but the military/diplomatic strategy of isolating Russia has continued. Of course, they're partly, responsible.
It is natural that comparisons would be drawn between the US and Russia, for all manner of reasons. It's just when the negatives associated with the US come out, that we hear this deflection, that it's all America's fault. Which I doubt anyone is suggesting, but the belief that they're not somewhat responsible, considering their contributions to world diplomacy, and active participation in a wide number of conflicts, is naive.
Which leads to a contradiction Russia is simultaneously great and not great often in same sentences, which I believe is subconscious admission that it’s the deepest shithole among a collection of shitholes
I doubt you've traveled much around the world if you think that. There's far worse places that Russia. It's a great nation, in terms of history, just as Britain/England is a great nation due to their history. However, in a modern sense, they've both fallen well behind their historical accomplishments. The Russian Empire was an incredibly power force in world affairs for centuries. That's why they were great.
As for the great and no great being contained within the same sentence, you'll find that with most nations. They all have their downsides, and positives. Some more so, than others.. but this comes back to my point about double standards. Take the US for example, look at their numbers of homeless, their numbers addicted to various drugs, their illiteracy problems, the issues with parts of the US being essentially like 3rd world nations in terms of infrastructure, institutionalized racial discrimination, etc... Both great and not so great at the same time.
It's all Americas fault lol
For centuries Ukraine was known as "Little Russia" , Russia itself started in Kiev, Ukraine and migrated to Moscow. Russia has a strong military and a very strong world wide nuclear capability. It is well known that NATO has ringed the Russian border with hostile military installations. Both Putin and Lavrov have raised objections to US funded efforts to destabilise and make Ukraine anti Russian. Recently they have made it clear to the US that any further incursions into Ukraine will be met with overwhelming force. The US seem willing to start WW3 in Eastern Europe and Germany, Austria do not seem to recognise that WW3 in Eastern Europe is a very safe option for the USA. Italy and France seem to be aware of facts on the ground and communicate with Russia on a regular basis. I would not be surprised if Russia invades Ukraine in response to further US provocation. I have been in Russia and had dealings with them in Canada, They remind me of the Irish, mentally and physically tough caused by being under threat for centuries. Imagine the Irish with strong nuclear capability, would you play games with them?
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