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Threabanned posters:
brickstser69
slay55
mulbot
Tbf the Swiss have tried implement a policy of neutrality since the 16th century. There was absolutely no NATO then. They earned international recognition the hard way.
The main point was that the path they have taken is made easier by their geography and situation. How much harder would their way have been if they were instead on invasion routes? And could they have sustained it? Belgium tried to be neutral and was invaded multiple times.
Sweden had a policy of neutrality from the early 19th century… through WW1, WW2, Cold War wrt NATO and USSR… they dropped it now because of the threat Russia represents.
This looks Dresden level. Fúcking hell.
Worth bearing in mind that Vuhledar is/was a town of about the same size as Tullamore, Killarney or Enniskillen. The Russians have spent two and a half years and sacrificed who-knows-how-many thousands of troops and millions of dollars' worth of equipment trying to capture it.
The germans in ww2 would have loved to take Switzerland as it seperated them from one of their main allies in Italy. They drew up invasion plans but the Swiss strategy of retreating into the mountains and defending the high passes and letting the lowlands be taken would have made invasion terribly costly. Blitzkrieg would not have worked. I think the germans estimated that they would have needed over a million men to take Switzerland and would have sustained heavy losses in the process. Was cheaper and easier to keep them neutral. The Swiss military defence strategy was (is) built around their mountains and Belgium being a relatively flat country did not have this option.
That strategy is still alive today (to retreat into the mountains) with all conscripts having to regularly practive 400m markmenship. One of their main three airfields is high in the mountains even today. How effective this airbase and their strategy would be against todays weapons is unknown though.
When Putin’s attacks eventually do cause a meltdown of one of the remaining reactors in Ukraine, which seems now to be only a matter of time, that neutrality would be crapped upon as high mountains would be last place one would want to be in Europe from point of view of fallout
Is Ireland a small state? We better get into nato asap
So he did meet with Trump after all now
What are you on about?
He met him today.
And now,The Weather!
You understand that that poster made the post yesterday when it was being widely reported in the news that Trump would not meet Zelensky.
When Trumps lapdog, Mike Johnson, was demanding Zelensky fire some of his immediate staff. When Trump himself had just come off the podium publicly bitching and moaning about Zelensky fleecing the American public for billions of dollars.
It was a completely reasonable thing to assume that didn't come to pass in the end.
You truly are absolutely desperate for any modicum of a win against people who don't love the man who would feed Ukraine to Russia in a heartbeat. Aren't you?
Edit: In any case Trump spent most of the press conference moaning about the impeachment that Zelensky didn't throw him under the bus for. And rattling on about how he has Putins respect and they can get a deal. Not exactly a good showing for your boy here.
Newer wars are always "sexier" news than old wars. Ukraine only gets top billing now when something very dramatic happens, daily death and carnage is not novel enough
maybe US public is bored and hungry for another new sexier war somewhere like say, Taiwan or Korea…
Another example this morning of putin's forces acting as terrorists that probably will fail to reach the news in many places as it has become so routine for them to be acting like this:
https://united24media.com/latest-news/russian-double-tap-attack-on-sumy-hospital-kills-at-least-7-2652
At the same time the Ukrainian armed forces are eliminating more terrorists and their equipment and making Europe a safer place:
No vehicles and fuel tanks destroyed. That's a first. Have the Russians run out of them?
Low level internal unrest is definitely taking place.
This war is really doing huge long term damage to Russia’s demographics.
They had demographic issues even before the Ukraine war !
Another atrocious war crime, but yes, next to assassination in Lebanon not getting much attention
This is good news. What we need next is more Russian economy issues. I saw that they had to increase their interest rates from 18 to 19% there a fortnight ago. This should cause more unrest.
In fairness to RTÉ, they had a story about that Russian attack on their website today.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ukraine/2024/0928/1472486-ukraine-russia-latest/
I suppose the (headline) news is about changes; anyone paying attention knows the Russian military will shamelessly bomb a target like a hospital, and then bomb it again to hamper work of & kill civil defence, firemen, paramedics etc. that come to the site afterwards.
What is going on in the ME is older, very familiar (vs Russia/Ukraine) conflicts flaring up and there's a lot people in Ireland quite invested in it for a long time, even if what's happening in Ukraine may be more important, and will have a greater impact on them.
Shock, Trump does the opposite of what he said he'd do.
Just another day in the russian army.
They really don't care for anything or anyone do they.
At least you can speak out against the US president in the USA. You can go out on the street in the USA and publicly criticize the US president without fear of the government forces arresting you for it. ( At the moment anyway) You can run against the US president politically if you have the money and the popularity without fear of dying in a frozen gulag or being thrown out of a plane or high rise window. That is absolutely not the case in Russia. Russia is truly a mafia . Russia kills journalists , opposition politicians , critics, ex - pat critics on foreign soil, their own surrendering soldiers, innocent people in hospital beds. Massive difference.
meh you there is a lot of political abuse in the west these days the west seems to be trying to give china a run for its money, . the main problem I see for us Europeans is that because Europe is weak we are just treated as US vassals. A more independent Europe would have played the last 30 years differently.
I was thinking of a clear case of this and one that popped into my mind was Syria which demonstrates the 2 mafia problem quite well. Forgetting all the surface level bs arguments for general consumption it was really an energy turf war over who got to supply gas to Europe, American interests or Russian interests ie where the pipelines run from and through
he forgot about one ‘SMALL ‘ matter. What are those in charge of the nukes - from a western perspective - on the high seas and dotted all over the the globe from the same perspective DOING. Are they all asleep in their beds or what? Maybe this is the case and Russia will nuke them all in sequence while following the relevant time zones!!!!!!!!!!!???….
Yes Europe was independent in the 19th and 20th centuries that went well didn’t it? Should we go back to that ??
Ukraine continues its work in reducing putin's terrorists ability to attack their country with reports of another ammunition depot on fire:
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/drones-attacked-an-ammunition-depot-in-the-volgograd-region/
and of some other terrorist state areas targeted as well:
https://united24media.com/latest-news/explosions-and-fires-reported-across-multiple-russian-regions-2661
This was absolutely not what the last decade of unrest in Syria has been about.
I do not understand the obsession of some people to reduce everything to resource wars. It often involves utterly convoluted to the point of conspiracy thinking.
follow the money will get you there quicker
Why don't you share out your basis for your theory about Syria? Because you sound like a CTer with the 'do your own research' mantra. C'mon, should be easy for you to write a summary and back it up with data.
