How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[zorq]

Elensky ran on promise to end war in Donbas, meaning he would negotiate it. He obviously broke that promise.
In Ukraine, under normal circumstances, he would have been maidaned out. But circumstances are not normal, ukrainian nazis still in power in Ukraine.

Putin said that the "special military operation" would be over in three days. Maybe you should go march in the streets, eh?

What a stupid read on politics you have.

There is a big difference between a failed campaign promise and a broken campaign promise. A failed campaign promise will rarely break a politician, especially when he can show the work he put in to trying to fulfill it (like Zelenskyy did with his promise to resolve the Donbas situation).
But flip-flopping on such a big deal like Yanukovych did is a different story. That wasn't a failure, it was a broken promise on spectacular display.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But GDP isn't the only relevant measure. In Russia's case, it also includes all the military production

In South Korea case it is also included, same with Finland and the rest of the world.
Also I remember number of years ago, GB and some other countries started including prostitution and other black market activities.
Russia has larger black market than you, but it's not included, and it's not even illegal stuff, it's perfectly legal but people just don't register their businesses. Brits did it because they ran out of growth they could show, so they came up with that.

But a far bigger percent of your budget is military compared to South Korea.

 

[Copernicus]

But it really isn't "theory". Russia is currently a fascist dictatorship. By definition, the leader of a fascist dictatorship doesn't need to get reelected. Elections can be done for show, but everyone knows that Russia no longer has free or fair elections. Anyone who could possibly pose a threat to Putin has been murdered or jailed. He runs the country as he sees fit. It's too bad, but hardly unpredictable, that he he didn't turn out to be the "benevolent tsar" that barbos and other Putin-loving sycophants imagined him to be.

Having the facade of western style elections is just part of the propaganda. Stalin said it isn't who votes but who counts the votes. Could not have been more right.

I actually looked up the original Russian, which was published in the memoirs of Stalin's secretary during a Bolshevik party meeting. Stalin was referring to an internal vote within the party, not general elections. Here is the original quote in English as cited by Oxford English Quotations:

I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.

said in 1923; Boris Bazhanov The Memoirs of Stalin's Former Secretary (1992);

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There seem to be footage and photos of some type of artillery shells or casings found near the blast site.

Night vision goggles don't blow up like that, not even Russian ones. I think it's quite possible that this factory was making ammunition and the the "optics" were just for... optics.

Note the original claim includes missiles for optics. Perhaps they were being installed on the missiles?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

 

[TomC]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

Also, more to the point perhaps, USA doesn't have to support Ukraine alone.
There's a bunch of NATO countries, with sophisticated weapons. They're much nearer. They have more motivation to stop the invaders.

At least they would if the USA pulled back and let Putin do whatever he wants, until European NATO wants us back. At the moment, it appears that European NATO countries want the USA to take the brunt.

We kinda earned it, being such iffy partners who were also rather bossy big shots. If I were a European, I wouldn't put up with our crap either.

In the meantime, I vote to make every U.S. resource available to the Ukrainians until they've utterly and completely humiliated Putin and his oligarchy and military. Not because I dislike Russia or Russians, but because I want to see peace and sometimes that requires force.

Like now.
Not in a year.
Not in a month.

NOW
Tom

 

[barbos]

Putin said that the "special military operation" would be over in three days

quote please

 

[barbos]

There is a big difference between a failed campaign promise and a broken campaign promise

Yes. But in this case it's "broken"'

 

[barbos]

But a far bigger percent of your budget is military compared to South Korea.

So?

 

[barbos]

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

You can't. you are out of ammo. Russia took care of your aggression.

 

[barbos]

There's a bunch of NATO countries, with sophisticated weapons.

name one

 

[barbos]

I vote to make every U.S. resource available to the Ukrainians until they've utterly and completely humiliated Putin and his oligarchy and military.

So far you achieved opposite. NATO is being humiliated.

 

[barbos]

But flip-flopping on such a big deal like Yanukovych did is a different story.

Yanukovych did not flip-flop, EU did.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

China is expansionist, just more rational about it.

 

[SLD]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

China would be a naval war. Subs in fact. We’d sink their navy in about five minutes and then sue for peace.

 

[SLD]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

China is expansionist, just more rational about it.

China is not expansionist. They’ve never been an imperial power. They want Taiwan is all. That’s part of China.

 

[SLD]

I vote to make every U.S. resource available to the Ukrainians until they've utterly and completely humiliated Putin and his oligarchy and military.

So far you achieved opposite. NATO is being humiliated.

So tell us, Barbos, why haven’t you completely conquered them and occupied their country? If we’re being so humiliated you should have won this war by now.

Also why were there something like two dozen attacks on recruiting offices throughout Russia in the past week alone. Real popular war you got there. Good luck when they come for you.

 

[Harry Bosch]

EXACTLY!!! What the fuck else do we even need an air and armored force for? If Russia is defeated, we don’t need to spend but a fraction of the defense budget. The point of our military is to turn Russia into a parking lot. Let Ukraine do it! Give them everything we have in our arsenal. It should be 100’s of billions.

China.

Take care of Russian aggression and I don't think China will be dumb enough to invade Taiwan.

China is expansionist, just more rational about it.

China is not expansionist. They’ve never been an imperial power. They want Taiwan is all. That’s part of China.

To be precise, Taiwan isn’t part of China.

 

[Worldtraveller]

It is!!

...in the same way that the US is part of Great Britain.

 

[TomC]

It is!!

...in the same way that the US is part of Great Britain.

Really, this.
Regardless of history, modern Taiwanese people don't seem interested in rejoining the mainland. That's what I care about, what the current residents want. If they voted to rejoin I'd be fine with that too.

It's up to the Taiwanese, not me or Xi or anyone else. Trying to force that upon anybody, from Taiwan to Ukraine, by force is starting a war.

Tom