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| ▲ | bulbar 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | A dictatorship with the explicit goal of invading Taiwan, which is not only a close ally, but also of global geostrategic importance. That's not "hype". | | |
| ▲ | roenxi an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | On the other hand, we can't tell if the US has a goal or not in the middle east or if destabilising countries is the geostrategy unto itself. People really need to dial down the hype, engage with the real world where large countries get to have a sphere of influence and start talking realistically about what behaviour is tolerable. I still haven't heard anyone make a case for why we keep hitting the Russians given what acceptable US foreign policy looks like. One of the two is worse and it isn't the policies written in Cyrillic. | | |
| ▲ | pjc50 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > why we keep hitting the Russians 1) "we" (the US) are not hitting the Russians, "we" (Europe including the UK) are providing them with weapons for their self-defence, since it is in our interest to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe happening on the Polish border. I am no longer clear what, if any, assistance the US is providing. It is also very important in this that no NATO or EU forces are engaged directly with Russian forces yet, despite persistent incursions into EU airspace and occasional sabotage operations in Western Europe. The UK is developing special US ITAR-free missiles for this purpose: https://www.thedefensenews.com/UK-Develops-Three-Low-Cost-Lo... 2) "start talking realistically about what behaviour is tolerable": I think we're past the point of pretending that international law applies evenly, and back to Mao's "power comes out of the barrel of a gun". If we go back to a Cold War multipolar world between China, the US, Europe, and Russia, the only one of those which hasn't made public statements threatening European territorial integrity is China. (at this point I would expect India to start asking whether they get to be a world power or not and what they're going to do with that, too) | | |
| ▲ | roenxi 25 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > since it is in our interest to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe happening on the Polish border. If your argument is preventing trouble on the Polish border, why is the strategy dumping billions and billions of dollars in weapons into the most corrupt country in Europe, who happens to be on the Polish border? Keeping a conflict worthy of WWII smouldering in the area for more than 4 years now? The sensible thing to do would have been to encourage a Ukrainian surrender early on and send them some food/whatnot in a care package, then fortify the Polish border.
This strategy actually employed seems like the most direct way to trigger a humanitarian catastrophe on the Polish border. It looks very destabilising. It is also one of the very few paths that could reasonably see Poland or countries in that general region getting nuked. Can we please be honest about our motivations here? We're all more likely to get what we want. Ideally peace and prosperity. | | |
| ▲ | Oranguru 2 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > We're all more likely to get what we want. Ideally peace and prosperity. As sovereign citizens of their own country, Ukrainians have the right to decide under which flag they want to collectively pursue peace and prosperity. I believe they have made that choice clear through democratic means, something Russians have not experienced in a long time. If Russia is allowed to take Ukraine, it will move on to Poland next, and then to claim the remaining former Soviet states. A line must be drawn somewhere. |
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| ▲ | 0dayz 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Right, so genocide is better than diplomacy? | |
| ▲ | cpursley 9 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | What do you mean “we can’t tell”? For those who aren’t aware, the war against Iran (direct, they don’t have nukes yet) and Russia (via Ukraine proxy, Russia has nukes) as well as Venezuela (infiltrate their power structure and bribe off) are actually the same war: they are multi front (financial, energy, technical, kinetic) geopolitical “containment” strategies. The US/UK/EU think tank and others influencing policy have written about it non-stop since forever, it’s not like a grand conspiracy - it’s all out in the public if you lift back the on the surface news narrative. You can literally pull down and read the policy papers, read the transcripts of those (in power and adjacent to power) pushing this “primacy” view of US led hegemony. |
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| ▲ | chabska an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Democracy is when you drop a ballot every two/four years, and the elected officers ignore you while they take millions of donation from wealthy donors. Dictatorship is when the unelected representatives work their ass off to better the lives of the average citizens, because they're afraid of a revolution. (P.S.: Xi Jin Ping is as unelected as the British Prime Minister, but I don't see people calling the UK a dictatorship.) | | |
| ▲ | pjc50 43 minutes ago | parent [-] | | The UK PM change happened indirectly as a result of poor performance in the local elections. It does actually matter that the UK has multiple parties that effectively compete, even if some of them are blatantly sockpuppets for overseas millionaires. |
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| ▲ | otabdeveloper4 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're confusing "ally" and "vassal". Allies are countries that send troops to help you in war. | | |
| ▲ | specproc an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | So many dead lads from both my countries fighting American wars, for zero gain to our peoples. That's vassalship, not an alliance. | |
| ▲ | tremon 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Whereas vassals are countries that you draft to help you in war? | | |
| ▲ | mr_toad 22 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Yes, by definition, a vassal owes allegiance to their lord, which includes military service. But you can’t really take a feudal term and apply it to modern politics. Taiwan doesn’t resemble a vassal in any meaningful way. |
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| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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