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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2022 18:56:08 GMT
Oh, I wasn't referring to direct aid to the UK. What happens when we cut off the tit to Ukraine, maybe even NATO? Are you guys going to step up? I think UK, German and French and Polish contributions to Ukraine are comparable (in %of GDP terms) to US ones; not identical, but ball park. ... Do you guys really say "ball park" or is that American slang slipping in? |
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Post by limey² on Oct 23, 2022 20:56:44 GMT
I think UK, German and French and Polish contributions to Ukraine are comparable (in %of GDP terms) to US ones; not identical, but ball park. Could br wrong. I know there are firm plans for significantly more hardware/int/training support already. What will trigger that, I don't know. Again, though, US and wider Western support for Ukraine is primarily motivated by cold self interest. It simply isn't a long term benefit to Western nations to let Ukraine fall under the Kremlin's control. A lesson from history about appeasement looks to have been learned. I'm not sure %GDP contributions would be as important as the actual amount of aid. I think the US has pledged about $50-60 billion in aid so far? Latvia has contributed significantly more as a percentage of GDP but that absolute dollar amount is a drop in the bucket compared to $50 something billion. Of course this is motivated by cold self interest, but it isn't the interest of the regular population. It's in the interests of those who profit off never ending war. It means absolutely nothing to us (the regular people in the US) if Russia takes a piece of Ukraine. It absolutely means something to us when we are funding never ending war and potentially risking nuclear conflict. I thonk you've misunderstood. Yes, some businesses certainly have an interest in war; it boosts sales of pointy things, things that go "ker-BLAM!!!" & cool ships, jets and tanks. However, general trade dwarfs the arms industry to a laughable extent. Look at the EU, and its predecessor organisations (back to the ECSC). If weapons manufacturers called the shots, the EU wouldn't exist; Krupp, Rheinmetal, Vickers BAE, Daasault, CNIM etc would have arranged things differently. They didn't. Because food, energy, steel, consumer goods are the big boys. Ukraine is a short to medium golden bonanza for several influential arms outfits. However, a Ukraine forming part of a wider, trustworthy, mutually trading network is vastly more promising to much more economically significant interests. These trustworthy trading partners tend to be gold standard if they're free democracies. Would you rather trade with, say, Denmark or, say, Russia? Or Venezuela? Or Somalia? Ukraine is on a path to be more like Denmark. That's the amoral reason to support them. |
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Post by Lomelis on Oct 23, 2022 21:50:20 GMT
I'm not sure %GDP contributions would be as important as the actual amount of aid. I think the US has pledged about $50-60 billion in aid so far? Latvia has contributed significantly more as a percentage of GDP but that absolute dollar amount is a drop in the bucket compared to $50 something billion. Of course this is motivated by cold self interest, but it isn't the interest of the regular population. It's in the interests of those who profit off never ending war. It means absolutely nothing to us (the regular people in the US) if Russia takes a piece of Ukraine. It absolutely means something to us when we are funding never ending war and potentially risking nuclear conflict. I thonk you've misunderstood. Yes, some businesses certainly have an interest in war; it boosts sales of pointy things, things that go "ker-BLAM!!!" & cool ships, jets and tanks. However, general trade dwarfs the arms industry to a laughable extent. Look at the EU, and its predecessor organisations (back to the ECSC). If weapons manufacturers called the shots, the EU wouldn't exist; Krupp, Rheinmetal, Vickers BAE, Daasault, CNIM etc would have arranged things differently. They didn't. Because food, energy, steel, consumer goods are the big boys. Ukraine is a short to medium golden bonanza for several influential arms outfits. However, a Ukraine forming part of a wider, trustworthy, mutually trading network is vastly more promising to much more economically significant interests. These trustworthy trading partners tend to be gold standard if they're free democracies. Would you rather trade with, say, Denmark or, say, Russia? Or Venezuela? Or Somalia? Ukraine is on a path to be more like Denmark. That's the amoral reason to support them. These arms manufacturers have found it much more profitable to work within large centralized organizations (like the US, NATO, the EU) to promote proxy wars between other large powers or direct conflict within smaller weaker nations. There isn't much wealth to be gained from Latvia vs Estonia, and if Europe or the US broke down into a bunch of smaller warring states then there is a real threat to the people involved that they might be harmed in the conflicts. Obviously I would prefer trade with Denmark but the idea that Ukraine was developing into a Denmark or anything close to a stable westernized society is silly. Ukraine is extremely corrupt, it had a coup, that overthrew a democratically elected leader, within the last decade, has/had serious human rights issues, and has been in a state of civil war ever since that coup. This isn't a war to save democracy from the evil communists bent on world domination like you've been led to believe. It's merely a pissing match between the US and Putin. Which could end if we ( the US ) negotiate a peace with Putin and that peace will likely require Ukrainian neutrality and no NATO presence or weapons within that country. |
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Post by limey² on Oct 23, 2022 22:12:38 GMT
I thonk you've misunderstood. Yes, some businesses certainly have an interest in war; it boosts sales of pointy things, things that go "ker-BLAM!!!" & cool ships, jets and tanks. However, general trade dwarfs the arms industry to a laughable extent. Look at the EU, and its predecessor organisations (back to the ECSC). If weapons manufacturers called the shots, the EU wouldn't exist; Krupp, Rheinmetal, Vickers BAE, Daasault, CNIM etc would have arranged things differently. They didn't. Because food, energy, steel, consumer goods are the big boys. Ukraine is a short to medium golden bonanza for several influential arms outfits. However, a Ukraine forming part of a wider, trustworthy, mutually trading network is vastly more promising to much more economically significant interests. These trustworthy trading partners tend to be gold standard if they're free democracies. Would you rather trade with, say, Denmark or, say, Russia? Or Venezuela? Or Somalia? Ukraine is on a path to be more like Denmark. That's the amoral reason to support them. These arms manufacturers have found it much more profitable to work within large centralized organizations (like the US, NATO, the EU) to promote proxy wars between other large powers or direct conflict within smaller weaker nations. There isn't much wealth to be gained from Latvia vs Estonia, and if Europe or the US broke down into a bunch of smaller warring states then there is a real threat to the people involved that they might be harmed in the conflicts. Obviously I would prefer trade with Denmark but the idea that Ukraine was developing into a Denmark or anything close to a stable westernized society is silly. Ukraine is extremely corrupt, it had a coup, that overthrew a democratically elected leader, within the last decade, has/had serious human rights issues, and has been in a state of civil war ever since that coup. This isn't a war to save democracy from the evil communists bent on world domination like you've been led to believe. It's merely a pissing match between the US and Putin. Which could end if we ( the US ) negotiate a peace with Putin and that peace will likely require Ukrainian neutrality and no NATO presence or weapons within that country. You seem unable to grasp that it really isn't for the US to dictate terms to Ukraine. Nor that the overthrow of Yanukovych was really rather legitimate. It was, according to all the Ukranians I know, pretty much the popular will overcoming a corrupt election orchestrated by Russian stooges. Youre right of course that Ukraine is a long, long way from being like Denmark. It would be even further were Putin's gang in charge, or were it unsupported by EU and other Western allies. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2022 23:53:19 GMT
I'm not sure %GDP contributions would be as important as the actual amount of aid. I think the US has pledged about $50-60 billion in aid so far? Latvia has contributed significantly more as a percentage of GDP but that absolute dollar amount is a drop in the bucket compared to $50 something billion. Of course this is motivated by cold self interest, but it isn't the interest of the regular population. It's in the interests of those who profit off never ending war. It means absolutely nothing to us (the regular people in the US) if Russia takes a piece of Ukraine. It absolutely means something to us when we are funding never ending war and potentially risking nuclear conflict. I thonk you've misunderstood. Yes, some businesses certainly have an interest in war; it boosts sales of pointy things, things that go "ker-BLAM!!!" & cool ships, jets and tanks. However, general trade dwarfs the arms industry to a laughable extent. Look at the EU, and its predecessor organisations (back to the ECSC). If weapons manufacturers called the shots, the EU wouldn't exist; Krupp, Rheinmetal, Vickers BAE, Daasault, CNIM etc would have arranged things differently. They didn't. Because food, energy, steel, consumer goods are the big boys. Ukraine is a short to medium golden bonanza for several influential arms outfits. However, a Ukraine forming part of a wider, trustworthy, mutually trading network is vastly more promising to much more economically significant interests. These trustworthy trading partners tend to be gold standard if they're free democracies. Would you rather trade with, say, Denmark or, say, Russia? Or Venezuela? Or Somalia? Ukraine is on a path to be more like Denmark. That's the amoral reason to support them. Man did the neocons hit a gusher tapping into the left in the West.
Yes limey. We get how the whole Army > Colonization > Exploit > Profit loop works, even the newly developed franchisee colonization where we work with the governments (our franchisees) to enrich those in their government *and* our 1% like we've been doing with China for the past 30 odd years.
What you're arguing is the entire basis for why Paul Wolfowitz developed his road map for the Middle East.
And of course it's not *just* about the arms sales that have been a bonanza for Western governments (especially the US, the world's largest arms exporter) ... and for Western politicians ... (There's always money in the banana stand! ... especially when the economy is lagging.) It's also about the oil and natural gas contracts that Exxon and Shell would really rather have than Gazprom. Keeping control over fossil fuels is still good money in the West and it's probably the biggest reason for my amusement at your diehard devotion to those moneyed interests.
This isn't the good war the West has been waiting for to wash its palette of its long history of bad wars, especially in recent decades while worshiping at the altar of everything in your post.
It's just the most recent war.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2022 23:56:13 GMT
Without Ukraine's newly discovered oil and gas deposits that started this whole mess off back in 2014, I'm just not seeing the global market for goulash being enough of a reason for those Western moneyed interests to be overly concerned about trade with Ukraine. |
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Post by limey² on Oct 24, 2022 1:43:55 GMT
I thonk you've misunderstood. Yes, some businesses certainly have an interest in war; it boosts sales of pointy things, things that go "ker-BLAM!!!" & cool ships, jets and tanks. However, general trade dwarfs the arms industry to a laughable extent. Look at the EU, and its predecessor organisations (back to the ECSC). If weapons manufacturers called the shots, the EU wouldn't exist; Krupp, Rheinmetal, Vickers BAE, Daasault, CNIM etc would have arranged things differently. They didn't. Because food, energy, steel, consumer goods are the big boys. Ukraine is a short to medium golden bonanza for several influential arms outfits. However, a Ukraine forming part of a wider, trustworthy, mutually trading network is vastly more promising to much more economically significant interests. These trustworthy trading partners tend to be gold standard if they're free democracies. Would you rather trade with, say, Denmark or, say, Russia? Or Venezuela? Or Somalia? Ukraine is on a path to be more like Denmark. That's the amoral reason to support them. Man did the neocons hit a gusher tapping into the left in the West.
Yes limey. We get how the whole Army > Colonization > Exploit > Profit loop works, even the newly developed franchisee colonization where we work with the governments (our franchisees) to enrich those in their government *and* our 1% like we've been doing with China for the past 30 odd years.
What you're arguing is the entire basis for why Paul Wolfowitz developed his road map for the Middle East.
And of course it's not *just* about the arms sales that have been a bonanza for Western governments (especially the US, the world's largest arms exporter) ... and for Western politicians ... (There's always money in the banana stand! ... especially when the economy is lagging.) It's also about the oil and natural gas contracts that Exxon and Shell would really rather have than Gazprom. Keeping control over fossil fuels is still good money in the West and it's probably the biggest reason for my amusement at your diehard devotion to those moneyed interests.
This isn't the good war the West has been waiting for to wash its palette of its long history of bad wars, especially in recent decades while worshiping at the altar of everything in your post.
It's just the most recent war.
You continue to misunderstand my position. This is, plausibly, because I'm so fucking handsome that you're sort of mesmerised. Even though you've never seen me. It just soaks through the wires; l can't help it. Apparently I smell good too. Your position seems to be, basically, despair and outrage mixed with amusement at the unfoding disaster of 21st Century capitalism/faux-democracy. I am strongly tempted by it. |
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Post by MojoJojo on Oct 24, 2022 2:17:00 GMT
Man did the neocons hit a gusher tapping into the left in the West.
Yes limey. We get how the whole Army > Colonization > Exploit > Profit loop works, even the newly developed franchisee colonization where we work with the governments (our franchisees) to enrich those in their government *and* our 1% like we've been doing with China for the past 30 odd years.
What you're arguing is the entire basis for why Paul Wolfowitz developed his road map for the Middle East.
And of course it's not *just* about the arms sales that have been a bonanza for Western governments (especially the US, the world's largest arms exporter) ... and for Western politicians ... (There's always money in the banana stand! ... especially when the economy is lagging.) It's also about the oil and natural gas contracts that Exxon and Shell would really rather have than Gazprom. Keeping control over fossil fuels is still good money in the West and it's probably the biggest reason for my amusement at your diehard devotion to those moneyed interests. This isn't the good war the West has been waiting for to wash its palette of its long history of bad wars, especially in recent decades while worshiping at the altar of everything in your post.
It's just the most recent war.
You continue to misunderstand my position. This is, plausibly, because I'm so fucking handsome that you're sort of mesmerised. Even though you've never seen me. It just soaks through the wires; l can't help it. Apparently I smell good too. Your position seems to be, basically, despair and outrage mixed with amusement at the unfoding disaster of 21st Century capitalism/faux-democracy. I am strongly tempted by it. ***swoon*** |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2022 11:13:25 GMT
Man did the neocons hit a gusher tapping into the left in the West.
Yes limey. We get how the whole Army > Colonization > Exploit > Profit loop works, even the newly developed franchisee colonization where we work with the governments (our franchisees) to enrich those in their government *and* our 1% like we've been doing with China for the past 30 odd years.
What you're arguing is the entire basis for why Paul Wolfowitz developed his road map for the Middle East.
And of course it's not *just* about the arms sales that have been a bonanza for Western governments (especially the US, the world's largest arms exporter) ... and for Western politicians ... (There's always money in the banana stand! ... especially when the economy is lagging.) It's also about the oil and natural gas contracts that Exxon and Shell would really rather have than Gazprom. Keeping control over fossil fuels is still good money in the West and it's probably the biggest reason for my amusement at your diehard devotion to those moneyed interests.
This isn't the good war the West has been waiting for to wash its palette of its long history of bad wars, especially in recent decades while worshiping at the altar of everything in your post.
It's just the most recent war.
You continue to misunderstand my position. This is, plausibly, because I'm so fucking handsome that you're sort of mesmerised. Even though you've never seen me. It just soaks through the wires; l can't help it. Apparently I smell good too. Your position seems to be, basically, despair and outrage mixed with amusement at the unfoding disaster of 21st Century capitalism/faux-democracy. I am strongly tempted by it.
I'm not misunderstanding your position limey. You are all in on the propaganda of the neo cons. You just missed where the neo cons retooled their approach by constructing mindworms genetically engineered to exploit the leftist worldview.
You might have missed the entire Bush the Younger/Tony Blair era where they were retooling and A/Bing new approaches for their designs where they went through approaches about national security ... weapons of mass destruction ... the Hitleresque expansionism of Saddam and calling the naysayers "appeasers" ... the Democracy Crusades....
But I didn't. I'm here to help bud. For you. Cuz you're so blessedly handsome if I'm being honest.
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Post by limey² on Oct 24, 2022 13:32:03 GMT
You continue to misunderstand my position. This is, plausibly, because I'm so fucking handsome that you're sort of mesmerised. Even though you've never seen me. It just soaks through the wires; l can't help it. Apparently I smell good too. Your position seems to be, basically, despair and outrage mixed with amusement at the unfoding disaster of 21st Century capitalism/faux-democracy. I am strongly tempted by it.
I'm not misunderstanding your position limey. You are all in on the propaganda of the neo cons. You just missed where the neo cons retooled their approach by constructing mindworms genetically engineered to exploit the leftist worldview.
You might have missed the entire Bush the Younger/Tony Blair era where they were retooling and A/Bing new approaches for their designs where they went through approaches about national security ... weapons of mass destruction ... the Hitleresque expansionism of Saddam and calling the naysayers "appeasers" ... the Democracy Crusades....
But I didn't. I'm here to help bud. For you. Cuz you're so blessedly handsome if I'm being honest.
I didn't miss Bush/Blair's WMD double act Q. I marched against the invasion of Iraq. Then I took part in it. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2022 14:14:31 GMT
I'm not misunderstanding your position limey. You are all in on the propaganda of the neo cons. You just missed where the neo cons retooled their approach by constructing mindworms genetically engineered to exploit the leftist worldview. You might have missed the entire Bush the Younger/Tony Blair era where they were retooling and A/Bing new approaches for their designs where they went through approaches about national security ... weapons of mass destruction ... the Hitleresque expansionism of Saddam and calling the naysayers "appeasers" ... the Democracy Crusades....
But I didn't. I'm here to help bud. For you. Cuz you're so blessedly handsome if I'm being honest.
I didn't miss Bush/Blair's WMD double act Q. I marched against the invasion of Iraq. Then I took part in it. Then that makes it even sadder how they fooled you by walking the rationalizations towards finding one that worked even for you. Or perhaps that's what you're referring to with references to marching against the invasion of Iraq before being compelled to take part in it.
Like I said. They hit a real gusher working on and crafting their messaging to tap into the leftist worldview in the West.
What a strange world it is that has right wingers like MTG and Boebert agitating for an end to hostilities and writing opinion pieces excoriating neocons for warmongering and the left wingers like AOC being heckled at town halls for trying to start WW3.
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demos
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Post by demos on Oct 24, 2022 15:48:31 GMT
Since there's some ongoing discussion about arms transfers, a relevant article on that issue: Source
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2022 15:52:51 GMT
Since there's some ongoing discussion about arms transfers, a relevant article on that issue: Source
From your quote:
Weapons shortages across Europe could force hard choices for Ukraine's allies as they balance their support for Ukraine against the risk that Russia could target them next.
ROFL!
Keep the dream alive bois! Keep the dream alive!
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demos
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Post by demos on Oct 24, 2022 17:58:04 GMT
From your quote:
Weapons shortages across Europe could force hard choices for Ukraine's allies as they balance their support for Ukraine against the risk that Russia could target them next.
ROFL!
Keep the dream alive bois! Keep the dream alive!
Obviously a lot of opinions about that (and mine is that it isn't likely), but this is an opinion held by the leaders of those states, and it could have an impact on how much assistance - in terms of arms - they're ultimately willing to provide.
And I'll say this also: just like people should've taken Russia's pronouncements about NATO seriously (even if you don't think NATO was a threat to Russia), people should take this seriously too (even if we don't think Russia is going to invade the Baltic states), because these beliefs - regardless of what we think about them - impact policy.
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Post by MojoJojo on Oct 24, 2022 18:03:08 GMT
I don't think Russia will be attacking anyone else anytime soon.
Looks like we and our NATO partners will be giving the defense contractors shit-tons of money over the next few years as we rearm.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2022 18:19:08 GMT
I don't think Russia will be attacking anyone else anytime soon. Did you honestly believe it was a possibility they would? Did a synapse just form??? |
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demos
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Post by demos on Oct 24, 2022 19:49:27 GMT
Cross posted this in the other thread, but sharing it here as well: Source
You can read the full letter here. Pretty much agree with everything expressed in it.
Other diplomatic news: Source
Source
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2022 21:36:07 GMT
Cross posted this in the other thread, but sharing it here as well: Source
You can read the full letter here. Pretty much agree with everything expressed in it.
Other diplomatic news: Source
Source
Nothing to argue with in that letter. It's an appropriate and reasoned "middle of the road" approach to using *all* of the USA's power instead of just our defense industry to influence the outcome of these events to push for an end of this conflict. For the world's fucking sake for fuck's sake. That's not a comment about nuclear war it's about starvation and recessions potentially tipping into a global depression and the world breaking and heaving as every nation makes their own determinations about self interest that don't give the USA nearly as much weight as they would have once ... before our Middle East adventurism irrevocably proved we aren't an unstoppable force.
Thankfully the GOP will be in control of the House soon and they will be able to force this through. Don't expect me to be surprised or in any way chagrined if they don't. While MTG is more powerful and influential than AOC is ... there's still a long fight ahead of us to take our country back from the party apparatuses that control it.
It's kind of funny for Macron to say a resolution "can't be the consecration of the law of the strongest" isn't it lol. The only way that can be is through "the consecration of the law of the strongest." Put up or shut up Macron.
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demos
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Post by demos on Oct 26, 2022 18:38:16 GMT
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petep
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Post by petep on Oct 26, 2022 18:49:16 GMT
what is troubling is when a countrys existence - in russiaa case - 25% of it depends on energy..
as the world transitions to other reliable suppliers and other forms of energy russia will have to figure out a way to supports its people...
this is when leadership does desperate things to survive - like taking resources from other countries by force...
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