Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[The Minsky Moment]

Bretton Woods has collapsed

The dollar gold anchor has collapsed (good riddance) but the World Bank and the IMF are still functioning.

And the dollar based international financial system is as well entrenched as ever, despite strenuous efforts to seek alternatives.

[Legbiter]

BBC News - Ukraine war: Russia claims win in occupied Ukraine 'sham' referendums
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63052207

Much to everyone's surprise the occupied areas "vote" to join russia.

News agencies run by the pro-Kremlin administrations in Donetsk and Luhansk are reporting that up to 99.23% of people voted in favour of joining Russia

That's it guys, pack it up.   Everyone loves Putin and Russia.

[alfred russel]

Also you guys are interpreting it as all or nothing. My perception is just that now that we're well into this Ukraine conflict, we have something that approaches very close to "core reason NATO" exists--the safety and security of Europe. We can quibble that NATO also really exists to project American power, but it is undeniably at least majorly concerned with the defense of Europe. In the face of that threat we have seen several major NATO members largely contribute virtually nothing compared to their capacity. This was after we had Trump threatening to leave NATO for 4 years, and general growing sentiment among many in America that NATO no longer serves a purpose.

I have always pushed against that, because to some degree I believed in the "West" as a concept, and felt it was worth defending. But seeing all the talk the last 10 years about Europe stepping up, and now facing its greatest catastrophe since the Cold War to see some of the largest economies of Europe largely doing jack and shit, has me seriously questioning this arrangement and the thinking that has gone into it.

This does not mean, necessarily, the better approach is complete U.S. disengagement from anything touching Europe. But I do think there is logic to focusing more on bilateral relationships and less on multilateral ones. That could frankly be one area where Trump got things right. I would argue the expectations and coordination game are a lot better between the U.S. and the UK, South Korea and Japan, which are all countries where we primarily have strong bilateral military cooperation versus multilateral. We make very specific commitments back and forth, versus NATO is just kind of a big fat open ended commitment from the United States with very little specific commitment back--remember that NATO members have very little true obligations to America at all.

The nice thing about any bilateral relationship it is much easier to fine tune as strategic needs and interests shift over time.

The only country threatening the safety and stability of europe is russia, and russia is a rump state compared to what NATO was created to oppose. In terms of GDP it is less than half of Germany alone. It is technologically backward. It is corrupt.

NATO as a counterweight to Russia is absurd. US spending is more than 10x Russia by itself. The UK exceeds Russia also by itself. The population of NATO is a multiple of Russia.

Ukraine isn't in NATO; the potential of it joining arguably precipitated this whole mess. If you are a Russian nationalist, it isn't hard to come up with reasons for thinking that NATO has aggressive intentions with its much larger population and spending, expansion to your borders, and internal NATO pressure to increase spending even more.

[Admiral Yi]

What exactly is your point Fredo?  That NATO should be disbanded?  That the US should leave?

[grumbler]

That's a much curvier bridge than I could have imagined.

Curves allow for expansion and contraction of the structure due to temperature changes, probably help resist currents, and may be partially driven by the subsurface support geography.  It's a big and heavy bridge.

[DGuller]

Anyone willing to put odds on whether nuclear weapons will be used?  The chatter seems worrying lately.

[Admiral Yi]

Anyone willing to put odds on whether nuclear weapons will be used?  The chatter seems worrying lately.

I am willing to listen to your proposition.

[DGuller]

Anyone willing to put odds on whether nuclear weapons will be used?  The chatter seems worrying lately.

I am willing to listen to your proposition.

I bet that a full scale nuclear exchange will not happen before the end of September 2023.  My $1,000,000 to your $100,000.

[Habbaku]

 

[Richard Hakluyt]

Reminds me of the old Gregory Peck Hornblower movie :

Two seamen chatting before going into yet another very dangerous action;

Seaman 1 : We will never come out of this alive.

Seaman 2 : Oh, we'll be fine, I bet you £5.

Seaman 1 : Done!

[alfred russel]

What exactly is your point Fredo?  That NATO should be disbanded?  That the US should leave?

I realize grumbler and others have decided i'm trolling/needlessly contrarian, but my perspective has been, as long as i've been on this forum, that our military spending is absurdly high and we are far too prone to decide to embark on military adventures. And that these two things are linked. Connecting all of this is we really don't have any major military threats in the world (aside from nuclear).

Since the history of my posts is preserved and I can't really remember any distinct and strong opinions regarding NATO specifically, I don't want to retroactive say I had the position that we should leave NATO after the conclusion of the cold war. It would obviously be a very bad signal to Russia to leave it at this exact moment. So I'll just say that in hindsight, it would have been better to transform NATO from a defensive alliance to something of a military cooperative and at the least give it a new name. If NATO didn't exist, Ukraine would still want closer ties with the west, but the explosive issue of Ukraine joining NATO, with all the baggage of NATO's association with the cold war, would be off the table.

[Josquius]

Why do "Leave NATO" and "Reduce troop numbers in Europe" have to be linked? Surely you can just do one of these? (most likely the troops).

And being able to base troops in Europe is an advantage America has, not an obligation.

[Grey Fox]

Lyman is about to be liberated.

[Tamas]

So a Polish MEP thanked the USA on Twitter for the explosion of the gaps pipes.

My theory now that it was the Poles. They always hated those pipes because they very rightly saw them as a way to make the Russia-Germany lovefest be not dependent on Poland's safety and existence.

[The Larch]

So a Polish MEP thanked the USA on Twitter for the explosion of the gaps pipes.

Not just a random MEP, but Radoslaw Sikorski, the former foreign minister during Tusk's premiership. I'd say that his word carries plenty of weight.

I really wonder what made him tweet that, though. There's nothing to gain and plenty to lose.