Bearstronaut

This really speaks to a political leader who simply does not understand how the modern world works. Of the US wants roughly the same economic footing it had pre-WW2, back when its population was about 125M, then decoupling globalization makes perfect sense.  How many jobs in the US will have to go back to manufacturing and resources?  Entire generations of Americans will have to go back to the coal mines and steel mills.  Costs for everything will go through the roof, unless of course Vance’s plan is all JP Morgan and plans to pay future US workers next to nothing to do all the work that has been outsourced.  And then there is the uncomfortable realities of the money markets and foreign investment.
The US does not get to be large, powerful and rich without the global order that it built, fought for and now needs to keep fighting for.  It baffles me that the average voter in the US does not really understand this let alone a senator.

These fools want the power and respect of being a global superpower and absolutely none of the responsibility. I'm convinced that if Russia rolled into the Suwalki Gap tomorrow that half of the House GOP would refuse to fund the military.

These fools want the power and respect of being a global superpower and absolutely none of the responsibility. I'm convinced that if Russia rolled into the Suwalki Gap tomorrow that half of the House GOP would refuse to fund the military.

These fools want the power and respect of being a global superpower and absolutely none of the responsibility. I'm convinced that if Russia rolled into the Suwalki Gap tomorrow that half of the House GOP would refuse to fund the military.

It is potentially worse than that.  This sort of dysfunction does nothing but feed anti-democracy sentiment.  Democracies die due to abandonment, history demonstrates this quite well.  If the system is seen as "unworkable" democracies often choose suicide.  This is the threat to the US and global stability.  Trump and Greene are symptoms of something far deeper and dangerous....apathy that leads to despair.

The crazies are loud and get the most play on social media. MTG is a vile, stupid woman but what is worse is that the members of her party that actually understand the Russian threat are afraid of her and her supporters.

These fools want the power and respect of being a global superpower and absolutely none of the responsibility. I'm convinced that if Russia rolled into the Suwalki Gap tomorrow that half of the House GOP would refuse to fund the military.

Given the ISR environment, not sure having a bunch of wire in front of a position is such a good idea.  

The west in general and the USA in particular operate at a disadvantage in the IO realm. Russia and China strictly control public messaging and will swiftly arrest and/or disappear the type of information warfare conduits they use in our society. David Sacks going on Twitter and doomcasting about Ukraine's chances in the war may be odious, but he has a First Amendment right to do so. 

So, I've been thinking and reading, and want to advance a thesis for folks to hammer apart. It's a combination of @The_Capt's language of option spaces with battlefield physics. Maybe this is well known, but it's new to me. Here it goes.
The goal of a weapon system is to deliver kinetic energy (in the physics sense) to a particular place at a particular time. Let's gloss over how you pick that place and time (which is in its own revolution right now). You could think of each weapon system as having an energy-time curve that represents how much energy the killing bits have at a given moment. A couple of exampled:
1. A (ancient, thrown; not modern AT) javelin. The tip has very low energy until thrown. Steep curve (maybe < 1s) to get to maximum energy when just released, gradual decrease in energy as it follows a ballistic trajectory (maybe 5s), then it delivers its energy to the target.
2. A naval artillery shell. The case fragments have low energy while in magazine. Very alarmingly steep curve (< 1s) to get to very large maximum energy when exiting barrel. Gradually losing energy during long ballistic flight (30s+). Loses huge gobs of energy penetrating deck armor (< 1s). Shell explodes imparting large kinetic energy to fragments and gasses delivering energy to target.
3. An air launched cruise missile. The warhead has low energy on runway. Jet engines being to gradually impart both kinetic and gravitational potential energy (minutes to hours). The turbojet motor lights imparting a steady stream of kinetic energy as the missile travels (minutes to hours). The warhead explodes imparting large kinetic energy to fragments and gasses delivering energy to the target.
4. A grenade dropping drone. The drone takes off using the minimal energy necessary. It cruises to the target area using the minimal energy necessary for level flight. Grenade falls, explodes imparting kinetic energy to fragments and gasses delivering energy to the target.
Here's my thesis: the flatter the energy-time curve (i.e. the slower its area integral grows), the larger the option space for the weapon, and consequently the harder it is to defend against the weapon. Additionally, the flatter the energy-time curve, the smaller the signature of the weapon system, and the less it attracts counter fires.
I think we're seeing this dynamic in all theaters and modes of warfare in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are putting on a master class in developing weapon systems that retain maximal option space for as long as possible. It's just precision that is changing the battlefield dynamic, it's weapons that retain their option spaces much longer than even a decade ago.

I take offence to the term "research".  I have reviewed your thread and clearly you had a conclusion and then set about picking information to support it.  This is not "research" it is "spinning" - I have failed staff college students for doing what you are proposing as "research", applying half the facts, largely out of context.
For example: "Russia already controls large swathes of Ukraine with valuable minerals..."  and linking this back to Chinese motivation to keep Russia in this war.  This is one enormous theory hanging on very little substance.  We have been through the "Ukrainian goldmine" theory before and it was categorically debunked.
Let's take Metals:
https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/UKR/Year/LTST/TradeFlow/Export/Partner/by-country/Product/72-83_Metals
So before this war Ukraine was already selling Russia about $1B a year in metals and about 345M to China.  A quick scan says it looks like Ukraine was doing about $10B in metal globally.  
Meanwhile China is importing $144B a year in metals globally. Mostly from Indonesia, Congo and Japan:
https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/metals/reporter/chn?redirect=true  
China does not need Ukrainian metal, they already have global access an order of magnitude beyond the entirety of Ukraine production.
The we get into detail like Titanium.  Yes, Ukraine has got healthy Titanium reserves:
https://inventure.com.ua/en/analytics/articles/titanium-in-ukraine:-military-and-economic-context#:~:text=What are the reserves of,%2C rutile – 2.5 million tons.
About 8.4 million tons.  Wow, sounds like a big number and no doubt Russia and China want to get their greedy hands on it.  Whoops:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/titanium-reserves-country-10-biggest-155049656.html#:~:text=China is the largest producer,largest vanadium-titanium magnetite deposit.
China is the global leader in titanium production. Why on earth do they want more Titanium from Ukraine on the market?
Lithium? Yes. Ukraine has about 500k tons which are largely untapped. Wow that is a big number:
https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/news-insights/lithium-the-link-between-the-ukraine-war-and-the-clean-energy-transition/
Well unless one considers global Lithium reserves - Ukraine has about half as much as Canada:
https://natural-resources.canada.ca/our-natural-resources/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-and-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/lithium-facts/24009
You will note that China is sitting on 2M tonnes.
And then there is the thorny issue of where that lithium is located in Ukraine:

https://www.renewablematter.eu/articles/article/ukraine-all-lithium-reserves-and-mineral-resources-in-war-zones
This is where these wingnut theories really break down.  Russia was already occupying a couple of these deposits in Donetsk.  Lets be generous and say they took enough to grab 4 new deposits.  Woo-hoo.  Now a few thorny questions:  what shape is the infrastructure in these areas look like right now?  How much is it going to cost Russia to get these sites up and running?  How much actual money are they going to make from this sweet lithium?  When can they expect to see any money?  And finally, the big one, how much does all that compare to the costs of sustaining this war?  Last count the war in Ukraine was costing Russia between .5-1 B$ per day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_impact_of_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#:~:text=In November 2022 it was,%24500 million to %241 billion.)
So your theory here is that China is going to spend effort, money and diplomatic points to secure access to lithium, which they do not need and is costing Russia likely far more than it is worth at this point?  In fact the same could be said for just about all Ukrainian metals.
Comparing modern day China to Nazi-Germany is just plain dumb.  Maybe pre-WW1 Germany - ignoring socialist ideologies and about four thousand years of history and culture.  The idea that China somehow masterminded this whole thing (with zero proof, I might add) is laughable.  China is stuck on the other side of this mess and is trying to deal with it on their end. They are going to pursue and promote their interests, just like we are.
Russia and Putin are throwing up all over themselves in some weird attempt to rebuild an Imperial Russia...and are failing brutally.  Sure, Russia could "hold on" until we see some sort of Armistice.  They will have gained a grand total of an additional 6-7% of Ukraine from what they controlled on 21 Feb 22.  It only cost them around 500k men, most of their modern military equipment and diplomatic/geographic isolation that may last several decades....brilliant. 

Russia is pushing propaganda and disinformation on every possible channel. Indeed I think the ritual suicide charges they keep doing on the actual battlefield have more to do with propaganda than any meaningful military goal.
 
 

It's a form of greeting the spring for them. Russian soldiers leave their holes they lived all winter and simply cannot resists sending several own mechanized battalions into flames during these futile attacks. Some unconcious form of celebrating life rising everywhere around them probably. We have Eggs and Easter bunnies, they have crispy  tanks. I didn't read him lately, but I am sure Dugin has entire theory already of suicide attacks as expression of uniquely Russian unharnessed elaine vital.
Check mate, cold-hearted Anglo-Saxons. You will never get it.

"Denazification" is and always has been a total lie insofar as the idea that it is a legitimate justification for invasion.
On the other hand, it's no secret that there are right-wing extremists in Ukraine.

That's a more polite word then I would use. 
 
Kim Jong Un is elected over and over again. Surely the Democratic People's Republic of Korea isn't a dictatorship. I mean, it's right there in the name. Kim Jong Un and his father and grandfather are simply the inheritors of the Baektu bloodline and therefore are/were chosen by the minjok of North Korea in proper, totally above board elections.

This is the key point to take away from the rather tedious past couple days on this thread.
The challenging part is that propagandists can come up with reams and reams of verbose, officious-sounding nonsense much faster than anyone can challenge it. This was already the case before large language models made it trivial to create pages of vaguely reasonable-sounding claptrap at the push of a button. Now it is worse. And when those propagandists are also working for authoritarian states that exercise near-totalitarian controls over the media landscape within their borders, they are also able to capture plenty of real-life stories that support the views they want to shape, while suppressing the spread of content that does not.
Out here in the actually-free world, the propaganda coming from these authoritarian government mouthpieces seems laughably ineffective. How could anyone believe something that is such unabashed, unadulterated, full-blown propaganda? They're not even pretending it's otherwise! And yet, people believe it. "Free thinkers" with chips on their shoulders about their own government get bamboozled into believing that they are the ones living in an authoritarian state, actually. And then the "news" coming out of other authoritarian states can surely be no more fake than their own news, and, by the way, what is news other than propaganda, at the core? There are no facts, only interpretations, you see. This is why I don't mind you doubting. What is truth, anyway? Does anybody love anybody anyway?
It is depressing how many people fall into this hole.
This is not only why it is important to counter the Kremlin's lies, but also to consistently push back against the same kind of democracy-eroding rhetoric coming from media and political figures in parts of the world where there still is freedom of expression and freedom of association and so on. The people pushing it tend to either be useful idiots, or privileged enough (through age, wealth or power) to be insulated from the consequences. In both cases, not the best folks to be looking toward to inform your view of the world.

That's a more polite word then I would use. 
 
Kim Jong Un is elected over and over again. Surely the Democratic People's Republic of Korea isn't a dictatorship. I mean, it's right there in the name. Kim Jong Un and his father and grandfather are simply the inheritors of the Baektu bloodline and therefore are/were chosen by the minjok of North Korea in proper, totally above board elections.

Oh for God's sake, are we still engaging with this guy? 
Cmon,  that last post ("rigged elections in the US") pretty much seals the political troll label. 

Wait a minute.  So the Minks agreements:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_agreements
These were drafted after Russia had taken Crimea and Donbas.  The first one failed after Russia broke it.  This casts serious doubt as to Minsk 2 and whether it was conducted in good faith by either side.  So your theory is that Minsk Treaties were designed to allow Ukraine to go in and “finish the job”?  With western support?  This would be after Russia basically used conventional troops to back the rebel forces.  Minsk 2 was largely viewed as held together by bailing twine and frankly most are surprised it lasted as long at it did.
Even if this somewhat dubious theory held water, how does this justify a full scale invasion of Ukraine along 5-6 operational axis, including the capital by Russia?  They did it to protect LNR/DPR?  That does not make sense.  If Russia wanted to intervene to stabilize a potential Ukrainian ethnic cleansing there are a lot of way to do this that do not involve a full scale invasion.  Also, what proof is there that Ukraine was preparing to go into the Donbas?  Reports from the opening days of the war show how unprepared Ukraine really was.  This was not a state reading for a large scale military operation.
So, we have an opinion here that really does not add up based on what we think we know.  Do you have other facts or analysis we are missing?

That's a more polite word then I would use. 
 
Kim Jong Un is elected over and over again. Surely the Democratic People's Republic of Korea isn't a dictatorship. I mean, it's right there in the name. Kim Jong Un and his father and grandfather are simply the inheritors of the Baektu bloodline and therefore are/were chosen by the minjok of North Korea in proper, totally above board elections.

That's a more polite word then I would use. 
 
Kim Jong Un is elected over and over again. Surely the Democratic People's Republic of Korea isn't a dictatorship. I mean, it's right there in the name. Kim Jong Un and his father and grandfather are simply the inheritors of the Baektu bloodline and therefore are/were chosen by the minjok of North Korea in proper, totally above board elections.

See kids, this is the problem with rejecting the "reality based community". You just become a red pilled font of balderdash.

Any evidence that sfhand and MTG are NOT the same person?

So was John Kettler.

So if you have been following this thread, for even a little while. You would have noted that we get ones like you in from time to time.  Bold, empty self-inflated opinions with no actual study or work behind them.  We have little patience for them.  They are laughably easy to spot and play versions of the same song.  I am attacking you because you do not belong here.  You are a bacteria for clear and objective thinking.  You, and those like you, come here with agendas and intent to spin, lie and project uncertainty with eyes on a predetermined position of some sort.  You do not come here to discuss, learn or add to the discussion.  As such you are worthy of attack, or at least your position definitely needs to be confronted.
It really won’t matter soon.  Because like the rest, you will be on your way out shortly.  And we won’t remember you because you blur with the rest.