lol there is no spin that makes what you just typed true. Putins military is now the most depleted it’s been since he’s been in office. Their economy is in shambles. The west is being forced by the fighting to look at alternative energy sources thus ending political dependence on Russia. This is the WEAKEST his hand has ever been. About all he has left now is the threat of nukes.
The U.S. simply finished the job it started a dozen years earlier. At that time, Iraq was the invader (of Kuwait, a U.S. ally). Saddam remained in power, and remained a regional threat to our allies, as well as U.S. pilots who were trying to enforce a no-fly zone over Iraq (Iraq tried to shoot down U.S. aircraft multiple times). Saddam even attempted to bluff the U.S. with the idea that he was developing weapons of mass destruction (the bluff worked a little too well, unfortunately for Saddam). The U.S. did not invent imaginary Nazis to justify invading Iraq, and they did not take any natural resources (like oil), or intentionally attack the infrastructure of the civilian population to make them suffer to force a surrender out of them. The U.S. defeated Iraq militarily within weeks, and then set about trying to rebuild the infrastructure and provide elections. It wouldn't surprise me that "Mr. Nuance" would not appreciate these "subtle" differences in the two cases, of course.
Why is it necessary for you to argue with yourself, Sybil? Was one of your other personalities coming out of the closet? Eh, comrade? Maybe losing this war to Ukraine is causing you to unravel a bit . . .
Eventually when the war is over and Putin is gone countries will start buying Russian Oil and Gas again Europe needs it too bad, China needs it too bad as does India.
True to an extent the problem will be investment. Unless there’s a wholesale shift in the political system it won’t come from the weary. India can’t do it so that leaves China. I don’t think they want to get too close to Russia and they have other priorities. Eventually use of energy sources is going to 1) reduce the rate of growth in FF usage and then it’s use
Russia now targeting water plants. Are electric and water and sewer plants military targets? Are their rules int he Geneva convention re: infrastructure destruction to degrade opposition operational capacity? If the war is goignt be fought this way, it is past time release long range himars and take out similar facilities across parts of Russia within range. Ukraine strikes naval war vessels, Russia cuts of food shipments and goesa fter water and sewer plants. Russia hits Ukrainian hydropower plants in new missile strikes | Reuters KYIV, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Russia fired dozens of missiles at Ukrainian energy facilities including hydroelectric power stations on Monday, causing widespread blackouts, mobile phone outages and reductions in water supplies. Explosions rocked Kyiv and thick black smoke billowed over the capital in a wave of attacks on Monday morning that Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said targeted 10 Ukrainian regions and damaged 18 mostly energy-related facilities. Unconfirmed reports on social media and local media reports suggested hydroelectric power plants had also been attacked in the Kyiv region, in the southern regions of Odesa and Zaporizhzhia, and in the central Cherkasy region. "Another barbaric attack on Ukraine's energy system took place this morning. Electric substations, hydropower and heat generation facilities were hit by rocket fire," Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.
Scary and barbaric indeed, but I thought Russia was running low on missiles as of a couple weeks ago? Whoever served up that intelligence seems to have gotten it wrong. This is troublesome news as Ukraine doesn’t have anywhere near sufficient air defense systems and it’ll be very difficult for Ukraine to reinforce if its infrastructure is destroyed.
The situation in Ukraine is approaching its inevitable conclusion. Putins gambit has, to date, been a monumental failure. His attempt to reassurect Russia as a "first rank" power is failing miserably. Putin realized Russia would not be able to compete Economically with the West once the Soviet Union dissolved. Not one to accept George Bush 1s "New World Order" he was clever: 1st, retrenchment and consolidation of political power. Check, he certainly accomplished that with his defacto dictatorship. 2nd, The gradual reacquisition of states formally under Soviet control: Chechnya, Georgia, and of course the Crimea. This of course in concert with buffing up totalitarian regimes in Syria, Venezuela and Iran / N Korea. Putins greatest accomplishment, bar none, was his think tank, intellectual, social media disinformation campaign, against the West, NATO, and most specifically against the US and Israel. Nothing short of brilliant. Rotting the guts of your enemies from the inside out. Using American political division against itself with American media (Fox News) which, btw is owned by Right Wing Australians, whom damn near brought down the British Gov't. Facebook, ........... and of course the extremist branch of the GOP. Putin led that idiot Trump, and to a lesser extent, Benny N of Israel around on a leash, letting Western wanna be dictators, do the bulk of his dirty work. It's a shocking scenario. Fortunately Trump and Benny, his enablers, lost elections. Putin, so full of his own convictions, thought the West to weak to challenge his gambit in Ukraine. Fortunately for the US, NATO, the Citizens of Ukraine and the World Order at Large, he was wrong. The fallout and conclusion is unclear, but so far, this decision is easily, the most catastrophic of his dictatorship.
You are not wrong about Russia (and China) manipulating extreme right groups to foment dissent and divisiveness. But it’s intellectually dishonest to omit that they do same thing with extreme left wing groups. And with good reason. How do you best rile up the worst of one side? Get the other side to make unreasonable demands that stoke fears. Get them to make threats if they don’t get what they want. Half of the eye-rolling crap from both extremes comes from little dudes behind keyboards in Moscow and Beijing. And in case you want to fool yourself that “We’ll, they clearly have more influence over the right than the left,” go take a look at the new National Security Strategy that the Biden Administration just published. It lists “climate change” as the number one national security threat to the U.S., and that’s with Russia actually invading countries, threatening to use nuclear weapons (you want to talk about actual environmental catastrophe?), and China posturing to do the same. No serious nation security professional, including the chief idiot Jake Sullivan himself, actually believes that to be true. That’s a kowtow to the extreme left, under the influence (whether they know it or not) of enemy information operations. Russia and China couldn’t be more delighted to learn that they convinced our government to say out loud “Don’t worry about the Hammerheads you see circling the boat; our biggest threat is the Loch Ness Monster no one has seen but we all know is there.”
I think that the attack on their new flagship made them dig deeper to be able to retaliate. Using jet skis, cameras, and exlposives with remote contrtol capacity must scar ethe bejerberbs out of the russian fleet. Running out of and being out of long-range guided missiles are two different discussions, but you know that. do you support he attack of civilian ifnrastructre water, sewer, power facilities? would you defend the Ukranians for doing the same? And no, bridges are not power plants and water. One is required for transport, the other is required for civilization. I rarely fight even, let alone with one hand crippled, and expecting Ukraine to do so is not reasonable at this point.
While I don't disagree that Russia and China work "both sides" of the intellectual divide, and just recently a left wing attempt at "Ukraine de-escalation" was recently attempted, albeit mainly condemed by the administration, where we disagree uftaipan may be in terms of "level or degree's". You will NEVER be able to convince me that Trump, the GOP and the Conservative media have not played much further into Putin's strategic Goals as compared to the Democrats and Democrats media supporters. TRUMP wanted to tear apart NATO and even threatened withdrawal. Yes, yes, Trump was absolutely correct about demanding more money and commitment from NATO, but as was/is his style he was a bull in a China shop and showed little nuance. I think you are misguided in your last paragraph, the true beasts in the ring are Russia / Putin and of course Li / China not ........ NOT the Democrats. Li has been doing alot of saber rattling but it's Russian tanks and men in Ukraine, not Chinese in Taiwan, although it certainly could be. Nor are your opinions sancrosanct, you do you represent the voice of all people, especially about climate change. I sugest you study Ice-Core data from the Greenland Ice Core Science Project, Volcanism, Tree Ring Data and the years 534 - 541. What you consider a fools errand may be the exact opposite. Certainly a massive nuclear exchange, would, short of a large body Comet strike, be perhaps the most immediate danger human civilization faces, from a short term perspective. But politically speaking I find the Democrats offering much more resistance to Russian totalitarian tyranny than the Republicans, at least main stream speaking. The issue of course is not whom is "more correct" the issue is HOW society and human civilization face some really difficult challanges. It's how these challanges are met that determine the ability and character of a nation, of a society. Of a species. My confidence in the GOP and especially Trumpism, being able to handle foreign policy and existential threats, is low, extremely low. I see self serving Autocracy at it's worst. I do "pine away" from what used to be past core GOP intellectual goals and action. Those core values have been rotting away under the stewardship of some very suspect charlatans of late.
I’m only going to address this point. If I said anything that implied I think the Democrats are the problem, then apologies. Perhaps my metaphor was too vague. I thought I was clear that the Russian and Chinese governments are the enemies, and their informational end state desired is to make the majority center of this country embrace the crazies of both extremes to divide us against ourselves. It is clearly working. Imagine if their military acumen was on par with their informational acumen.
