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  • Current Events & Politics Moderators: tryptakid | Foreigner

Russo-Ukrainian War v. World War 3?

Again, please read my post.

I said I 100% understand why Poland, Baltics, Czech, Hungary... wanted to join NATO.

Its true, you did say that. I wasn't actually responding to you originally, but I see how it could look like I was so, no big deal

But I don't see why NATO had to expand to Albania, former Yugoslavia or even western countries like Portugal or Spain, all neutral places.... but the sad fact is being neutral is a risky game with the current mindset of "you are either with me or against me" that seems to rule now in the West. Or in Russia, for that matter.

Okay, you don't see why they did. But, they did. They are are sovereign countries that can make alliances how they wish. Maybe they are just wary of Russia being expansionist ( and no the existence of other expansionist countries does not make this any less true), maybe they just want the general peace of mind or maybe they want to slack off on military spending. Remember that after the wall fell, Nato stopped being a anti-russian coalition. It is certainly that again now, but there was a period where it wasn't.

Whats your point anyway? That this somehow makes the invasion more palatable? Because I would certainly disagree with that perspective.

We are being ruled by lies

Media are telling us Russia is economically broken and under total isolation in the world.

Facts are telling us russian currency is at its best when compared to last years, and few days ago, the presidents of Brazil, China, India, South Africa and others have been attending a meeting hosted by Putin. Being surrounded by the govmts of more than half of human population is not exactly being isolated, right?

Oh my, not this again. I'm not the media. So why don't we talk about the topic at hand, and not devolve into 'the media is all a lie' like every other thread. Okay, thats out of the way.

This next part is really important, because a lot of people don't seem to understand... Currency IS NOT the economy. The rouble, relative to other currencies, on the global market, has risen by a fair bit. This has been accomplished by brutal capital controls that will help in the short term but will scare away all foreign investment in the long term. Why risk buying stock if by the time you're ready to sell, you can't? Or why open a company in Russia if there's a high chance of the government coming in and forcing you to give up your hard currency in exchange for roubles? This is going to hurt down the road.

Now lets look at the Russian economy. In 2021 it was 25% smaller than it was in 2013. That is a huge decline. Now, the Russian central bank forecast expects that the economy will shrink by another 8-10% this year. It also expects 18-23% inflation I think it was. I posted it a couple pages back, go look or get it right from their website. They also say they expect de-industrialization, a lack of medical equipment, and a lack of airplane parts. Then you have young educated Russian fleeing en masse. And by the way, Russia already had a shrinking and aging population before Feb 24th. They had less people in 2021 than they did in 1992. Okay, so the demographic news is extremely bad. And soon you will have an economy that is 35% smaller than it was 10 years ago...

Lets get back to currency for a sec, because it isn't all good news with that either. A high market rate on your currency is usually good for imports, but Russia isn't importing a lot right now because of sanctions. So the benefit of this appreciated rate, is limited. Then you have the downside, its actually bad for exports. For every $1 of product you sell, you get less roubles to pay your staff and the rest of your bills, which will mostly be in roubles. This is why china intentionally devalues its currency, because it exports more than in imports. So does Russia.

So yeah, this is all not a sign of a healthy economy. They have lots of resources so they'll be able to chug along like Iran but it wont be a picture of prosperity. They have a very specialized economy, making it vulnerable.


The " russification" programs during USSR you talk about are a misunderstood subject. Stalin, no matter where he was from, wasn't a russian nationalist, none of the red leaders were. They were communist, and therefore they fighted the national ideas of every republic ( Russia included) as an antirevolutionary activity, nationalism was seen as a bourgoise nest for them. They saw themselves as soviets, not as russians, ukrainians, armenians or whatever

There is a Lenin's work, " About the problem of the nationalities" if you want to see how them soviets thought about the subject.

Lenin's policies were very different from Stalin's. Lenin was okay with multiculturalism, Stalin wasn't. I doubt the Holodomor would have happened under Lenin but who knows, he wasn't all roses either. If you are a country that is being subjugated and assimilated.. whether its to make you Russian, or Communist, or both, I mean, its pretty bad news either way.

And, saying that the existance of millions of Russian speakers in Ukraine has something to do with Stalin is inaccurate, to say the very, very least.

I said it was a big factor, and it is. And not just under Stalin... Ukraine has been under Moscow's thumb many times, under the Russian Empire, under the USSR, and if Putin gets his way, under the Russian Federation too. There has been multiple waves of Russification... Whether its banning Ukrainian in print media or taking it out of schools, or starving people and replacing them with Russians... That is a huge factor. Obviously them being next door, and Russian basically being an offshoot of proto-Ukrainian plays a large part too. I just find it pretty ironic that Putin uses Russian speakers being in Ukraine as justification for going to war, even though they are there partly from previous waves of subjugation.
 
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Imagine if we had spent just one billion of the ukraine ‘aid’ on mental health programs. Globohomo priorities are far more important than the citizens of the country to these people.

Yeah, mental health is important. The problem isn't money in the US though, its divisiveness. Democrats and republicans don't agree on anything, so nothing gets passed. They agree on Ukraine, thank god. But if they didn't, its not like, there'd be a bunch of money for mental health. The money is already there, and its always been there, there's just not the political will to do anything with it. Not with a 50 - 50 senate anyway. Even if republicans had a super majority I don't think they'd pass that. Democrats might, but that super majority is extremely unlikely :(
 
Yeah, mental health is important. The problem isn't money in the US though, its divisiveness. Democrats and republicans don't agree on anything, so nothing gets passed. They agree on Ukraine, thank god. But if they didn't, its not like, there'd be a bunch of money for mental health. The money is already there, and its always been there, there's just not the political will to do anything with it. Not with a 50 - 50 senate anyway. Even if republicans had a super majority I don't think they'd pass that. Democrats might, but that super majority is extremely unlikely :(


all you have to do, is look at cities like Seattle, Portland, and San Fran to see what happens when you have a super majority of Democrats making decisions on mental health
 
all you have to do, is look at cities like Seattle, Portland, and San Fran to see what happens when you have a super majority of Democrats making decisions on mental health
Hmm. I've been trying to find data on this. There's not a whole lot. Civ metrics did a survey and ranked the biggest 100 US cities based on the % of respondents that said mental health is 'Not good,' San Fran got 4th from the lowest. Seattle got 8th from the lowest. And Portland is in the middle. Of course in this instance, the bottom is the desired result. So, they don't strike me as terrible, and Seattle and San Fran did pretty good. I'd be interested to see a deeper study into this though. Where did you get your data?
 
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It isn't that simple anymore. These states are aware that the West is becoming the new USSR and no longer trust the US and EU to be reliable allies. That's why these countries have increasingly been turning East for economic ties - in the East they see viable economic partners who, for the time being, are not yet demanding culturally-significant concessions the way that the West has been, and with increasingly threatening tone.

Are you referring to Eastern European countries? Because these nations ( Estonia, Lithuana, Latvia, Poland) have provided the most support for Ukraine in both words and deeds. Because they know best the genocidal threat being posed by Putin.

NATO membership only helps the Eastern bloc as a deterrent. If it fails to deter then the countries will be ruined by war either way. May as well just placate whichever side is strongest and most likely to invade.
There is absoltely no chance that Russia will pick a fight with any country in NATO, which is safe to say the most powerful military allliance every formed. They know this and this is why the they are always bringing up thier nuclear threat.

But look for them to start more indescriminate long-range bombing of cilivialian targets in Kiev and other cities as Ukraine start to recieve HIMARS from the US - This weapon system is a game changer, and has started to be used to provide precision targeting 50-70 km deep behind enemy line. Russian's have never been faced with this kind of weapons technology.
 
Hmm. I've been trying to find data on this. There's not a whole lot. Civ metrics did a survey and ranked the biggest 100 US cities based on the % of respondents that said mental health is 'Not good,' San Fran got 4th from the lowest. Seattle got 8th from the lowest. And Portland is in the middle. Of course in this instance, the bottom is the desired result. So, they don't strike me as terrible, and Seattle and San Fran did pretty good. I'd be interested to see a deeper study into this though. Where did you get your data?

i use my eyes
 
Just the plenty of money put in this war is enormous.bilpions of dollars-high techs weapons,satelits,heavy armory missiles,food and meds for soldiers,fuel,repair of techs..every single day war are significant money.Global changin' of geopolitics
 
Is that to say, anecdotal data? Cause you know what they say about that. Anyway, I guess we should get back on topic.

I can show you things that would prove my point, but I agree, let's stay on topic, that's a different issue altogether
 
see what happened there where Pickledlemons, Dropperneck and i kinda branched off to a different topic? that's a natural occurrence in CE&P and i don't think that convo should be killed just because it went off-topic.....so i'd like to start cutting those sidetracked debates off into newly created threads

more on this later.....
 
NBC says it’s airing a star-studded, prime-time special to raise money for Ukraine with the aim of “spreading awareness through the power of entertainment.”

The hourlong benefit, “Ukraine: Answering the Call,” will air on Sunday at 7 p.m., the network announced Monday.


The special will include remarks from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as appearances by celebrity chef José Andrés and musicians and actors, including Kristen Bell, Alicia Keys, Brad Paisley, Julianne Moore, Rosie Perez, Jon Batiste, Brandi Carlile, Brian Cox, Vera Farmiga, Jeff Daniels,Lena Headey and Simu Liu, NBC said.

A group of Broadway performers will also come together to sing “What the World Needs Now is Love.”

 
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