Please use this thread to continue discussing the war in Ukraine.
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Original thread:
whatever you say about Putin he operates on a rational level, putin "knows" he needs to transition power ~10 years (as he isnt young). I think there is an over comical view that Russia is a one mad-leader operation, they do have structures and inner circles, so one would only hope that it centres around a moderate
There should be less crime because there are less young people, same logic would apply to Tallaght, if every house doest have 7 or 8 teenagers no doubt the streets are safer than back in the 80s
I'm afraid not. Fewer young people you say? The age differences between 1990-2022:
Barely a 3% drop, yet the crime stats have dropped far more significantly in the same period.
what has changed is that today the US is teaching people to hate white people, so you dont want to reward that behaviour and basic safety would say avoid or they are "rewarding" criminals with decriminalizing certain crimes or not seen to be enforcing/taking seriously, so again sends a message
TBH I've no idea where you're going with that, but again it smells more like moral panic on t'interwbs or over the latest nonsense from Hollyweird than the statistical realities. And the realities are overall the US is a safer place than it was 30, 40, 50 years ago(though mass shootings have certainly gone up). I know it doesn't line up with the above moral panic on Twitter, but it is.
Those “inner circles” have long been destroyed as the last thing Putin needs is one or more people who can remove/replace him
He really has created a nearly vertical power structure where anyone who gets remotely close to top endsup in great danger, just look at what happened to Prigozhin and now Shoigu
As for Putin and rationality, he clearly lost that trait during covid and we ended up with this 💩-show of a war for Russia
there was definitely a peak way back 60? 70? with young adults , it makes sense without even checking that demographics have changed and we know younger people are going to be involved more with the visible crime people
Again I dont reward bad behaviour, if the US media if full of White people this and white people that, logic would suggest it turns into random violence, not my problem, it up to them to be more reasonable.
That's pretty much precisely what the Kremlin wants you to think, almost down to the letter, including the Trump angle. Support for the war in the US has actually gone up over time, but the Kremlin doesn't want that narrative out. And of course the nuke threats they never shut up about(because it's all they have). The longer this war goes on the harder it will be for Russia to prosecute it. It's already caused the death of countless Russian men and they had a coup that never was, never you mind, memory hole! and top command posts like musical chairs(the latest including Putin putting his cousin in). BRICS has been a damp squib. Note how they barely mention it anymore? China's dragging her heels as far as actual help for Russia and seems to be more about what they can leverage out of them. QV the previously Russian controlled stretch of the North Korean river being handed over to China by Russia. Putin has had to go cap in hand to a failed state shítehole like NK to beg for shells.
As for mushroom clouds… If Russia detonates a tactical nuke in Ukraine, all bets are off. The Chinese and India among others would drop them like a lead balloon for obvious and not so obvious reasons. Its tactical value would be limited, if not pointless. Very early on the US stated that if that happened Russia's conventional forces would be hammered and hinted they know where Putin is at any given time. They're tapping his phone, reading his emails. Hell, in the Cold War the US had bugs in the politburo's cars. Pushing that button would be the last act of his life. Dropping a nuke on a NATO city? Russian cities are glass soon after. Putin's not a madman, nor an idiot.
Putin, like all such figures has effectively winnowed out any who might replace him while he's alive. Any potential successor or replacement is dangerous. That's one way how he's held onto power. He works on trust not capability.
There is nothing rational about this war, it's all hubristic so the threat of him pushing the button is real.
I honestly didn't believe he'd launch a full ground invasion of Ukraine because it would mean the end of Russia as even a regional power. If Putin popped it tomorrow Russia will still be a greatly depleted basket case in the aftermath.
Nope again I'm afraid. The peak was a 9% difference to today. The biggest drop in crimes was between 1990-2010 when the demographics remained near constant. No offence but you're wrong and barking up the wrong tree because it fits into a current moral panic online(mostly).
And yet again the stats for random violence have dropped, so the US is more "reasonable", save for on social media. Never mind that along racial lines random violence is far more an issue within the Black community on other Blacks not Whites.
"That's pretty much precisely what the Kremlin wants you to think" is trying to be manipulative as well, this war was avoidable, its only bad politics that got here. I dont think the US is blameless, they dont exactly have a perfect score sheet since WW2, they have blundered their way through a long list of questionable conflicts and it would be surprising if they are suddenly on the side of Angels
It could also be down to the fact that a lot of petty criminals have become business people, selling drugs and living it up. They discovered it is more profitable to sell stuff for big money than breaking into people's houses.
Agree completely on 1, 2 and 3.
A Trump win will be very bad news for Ukraine.
Putin is not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
The Russian economy will not collapse, they can keep funding this war for a lot longer.
All predictions to the contrary have so far proved to be wishful thinking.
But yes, point 4: there is always the element of the unknown
you cant walk around with stats, Ive been around long enough to know that wealthier areas are safer than generic urban areas. There is a reason I walk more around "grafton st" than "Henry st" or that private schools are better/safer or that living in D4 makes more sense than some "SH" part of Dublin.
He's far more likely to try and consolidate what he holds of Ukraine, push for "peace" and sell that to his followers as a win, and they'd buy it too. He gambled on his invasion simply because he was left alone the last few times he pulled similar and thought it would be Crimea/Georgia/Chechnya Part II. I personally suspect it would have been, or close enough, if he had "only" invaded Donbas and left Kiev alone. That was his fatal error. Going nuclear would be clearly a more than fatal error no matter how anyone looked at it. There would be no coming back from it.
Putin has carefully constructed a power vertical where all power and authority in Russia flows to one man - him.
I would completely disagree with your assessment above. Especially the bit about him operating on 'a rational level'. Whenever he speaks about Ukraine, he comes across as unhinged.
Well you can "walk around with stats" as it happens, your unconnected detour into the wealthy/non wealthy angle notwithstanding. And they show that the US is overall more safe for its citizens than it was 30, 40, 50 years ago. New York's Manhattan of the 80's was less safe than it is now, their projects are also safer now, even with the economic divide. These are facts not opinion.
Not just in the US either. This trend towards safer is seen as a general shift throughout the Western world.
People suspect some of these "travel" videos may be propaganda, look at his feed for example. They all have one thing in common: they only ever visit the nicest parts of Russia (believe it or not there are decent parts of Russia), they are rarely hassled by police (foreigners are often hassled by police in real travel videos), they are never the types who visit the many shiatty places without roads and toilets. Whether it's clickbaity stuff or Kremlin orchestrated, it's not very realistic.
Funny, I read that as "windowed out". Which is probably as accurate.
It's a well worn playbook at this stage. Seize land\declare 'peace'\freeze the conflict\move onto the next conquest.
All in the service of creating some replica of the USSR\Tsarist Empire to restore the former glory of Russia, that has been unjustly stripped from the nation by NATO\the EU\Lenin\Fascists\gays\trans people\take your pick of the bogeyman du jour. It's demented but seems to float his boat.
Tbh I'm not even certain there is a traditional defence pact on paper between them.
This to me could be Psy Ops. The nuclear rhetoric is not working so they have moved on to another bluff to make Western flesh creep.
Putin's normal modus operandi is escalate to de-escalate and he knows we know that. That then lends itself to the idea that Western powers may see this 'defence pact' as the first step to WW3.
But that's a rational appraisal of what he should have done, but he's not acting rationally.
The previous event you mention do build a pattern though, Chechnya was considered a post soviet Russian federation conflict that no one knew where to begin to intercede. Then after 9/11 Putin was invited to Crawford range where Bush Jr presented him as an asset in the US war on a noun.
The bombing of Georgia raised eyebrows, but in the US war on a noun he was still an asset in the "with us or against us" axiom.
The pattern seems bigger and bolder, broader and more brutal because up until his outright invasion no one could fight back. Russia might have reached the limit of his conventional military capabilities, but that doesn't mean Putin has reached his limits with nuclear.
Bit of a predictable response from the South Koreans:
"South Korea hit out at the pact, which it called "absurd", and said it would reconsider sending weapons to Ukraine.
The presidential office said Russia's military assistance to the North would have a negative impact on relations between Seoul and Moscow.
Any actions helping North Korea increase its military capability are a violation of UN resolutions, it said.
It added it would further strengthen South Korea's security cooperation with the US and Japan. "
The US are not responsible for Russia invading Ukraine. That's more the Russian line of what started the war. Russia engaged in expansionism and thought they could get away with it cause they've gotten away with a lot since the early 2000s including Crimea, political assassinations in the UK with chemical and respective weapons. So at worst, the West can be blamed for not taking a harder line against Russia over the last two decades.
Putin needs to project domestically that Russia is not "isolated". Also he badly needs equipment/arms from sanction dodging places like N Korea.
Will be very interested to see how President Putin gets on in Vietnam. Real tug of war country for American and China imo.
https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2024/0620/1455658-putin-vietnam/
Definitely a warm welcome for him that's for sure.
https://news.sky.com/video/putin-in-vietnam-russian-president-embraces-vietnamese-counterpart-as-he-begins-state-visit-13155910
The ones who did like Bald and Bankrupt got thrown in prison to experience Russian prison hospitality and prostate check (after which he stopped gushing positively about the place and got out as quickly as his legs could carry him) before being permanently banned from the country
Noone cares. Your mask has slipped completely now. Fair play you kept it up for a while.
But it's over. You're no different than the driveby ,Kremlin apologetic , low post count/Russian bots at this stage.
Good riddance.
Standard division creator, absolutely should be ignored.
The US did cosy up with Putin after 9/11. Bush buffered up Putin at Crawford ranch in lieu of the Iraq invasion.
In effect that did make Putin feel Russia had regained Soviet era geopolitical respect.
I'm sure Putin came feeling that he had tacit encouragement to invade anywhere in the same way the US/UK invaded Iraq without a UN mandate.
Putin could say the Iraq invasion made the post USSR international order meaningless.
So while the US may not have directly poked the bear it can't be seen as innocent in previous encouragement.
San francisco is now one of the biggest shi7 holes I have been, was there for a j1 20 years ago. What a difference in that time.
Same with a lot of cities near it.
Oakland is going to make Detroit look nice in a few years.
Different discussion for different thread for sure but parts of the US look like the 3rd world under Biden's term in the Whitehouse. Not his fault directly of course it's been going on for years and took a turn for the worse under Obama without a doubt but very scary to see how far they have fallen in a short space of time.
