sburke

Japan went from being a feudal nation in 1860 to crushing the Russian navy in a historical defeat in 1905. 35 years after that they had the most powerful aircraft carrier fleet in the world. What's my point? Don't really have one other than to say China's performance isn't all that unique.

+1 This view of China thinking long term is to me a bit of a stereo type. Having done some amount of business work in China (admittedly limited), my own view is they tend toward the grandiose with decidedly short-term thinking. Maybe that is just a biased view from the amount of corruption I have been exposed to, but I have yet to experience anything that would make me think China has some genetic predisposition to think long term.

Well technically speaking the cold war did have some hot fronts. One could make the argument that Vietnam and Korea were both part of the cold war.

So the next time I hear someone complaining about how ineffective sanctions are because the West won't step up their game (which I actually would like to see them enforce better...) A downed Russian Shahed drone was found with a Ukrainian SIM card, suggesting the technology was used to pilot the explosive drone: think tank (yahoo.com)

In 2023, four criminal indictments were filed against Donald Trump, the president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Two indictments are on state charges (one in New York and one in Georgia) and two indictments (as well as one superseding indictment) are on federal charges.[1] These indictments amount to a total of 91 felony charges.[2] Trials are scheduled to begin in March and May 2024, while the Georgia trial has not yet been scheduled. I am pretty sure you know that, so I assume you were specifically responding to the Georgia state indictment. As to the court not being political, I think that is kind of unavoidable. The role of the Supreme court is to interpret the Constitution. Inevitably that becomes political. For example in a recent ruling on the SEC court And yet the fact that firearms in 1776 were vastly less lethal than they are today seems to be not at all significant.

What were we saying recently about the state of Russian aviation? Boeing-777 with 422 passengers on board crash-lands in Russia (yahoo.com) An Aeroflot Boeing-777 made an emergency landing in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, while flying from Moscow. Source: Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti; Telegram Mash Details: Chassis issues were the reason behind it. The pilots were able to land the aircraft in spite of the difficulties. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) gave the Russian Federation a "red flag" rating for flight safety. There are only four nations with a "red flag" in the world: Bhutan, Congo, Liberia, and Russia. Such an evaluation points to significant declines in Russian aviation safety. Foreign aircraft account for about 70% of the Russian Federation's civilian fleet, which handles 95% of all air traffic. The Russian air fleet has decreased from approximately 900 aircraft in early 2022 to less than 800 aircraft in just one year. The industry will decline with the departure of Western aircraft. Russia has only 150 passenger aircraft of their own production, but there are numerous issues with these. Airlines face a choice: disassemble aircraft into parts or use non-original parts, risking safety. Lack of insurance and problems with spare parts complicate the operation of aircraft. The situation turned out to be so acute that the Russian Federation's Ministry of Transport approved every asset for repairing foreign aircraft, including the use of third-party parts. At least 50 aircraft, or 25% of the total fleet of the biggest airline Aeroflot, are grounded due to a shortage of spare parts.

yeah, there is nothing conventional about this. I don't think we even have another example to go by for a roadmap.

Gawd, where to start. To try and understand the Palestinians perspective (not Hamas but rather the general population) - They have no true friends or allies. The Arab gov'ts would mostly prefer they just go away as it is an embarrassment that they are unable to do anything about (nor really care to I suspect). Their own political leadership has always been too corrupt and unable to effectively offer a path to anything. They have no legal recourse to defend their homes and lands. Even when the Israeli supreme court backs them, the settler community just ignores the rulings. They seize land and homes illegally until eventually they get recognized- rinse and repeat. This is their reality. They feel they have no recourse, no local body they can go to for justice and no international community that will do more than just try and alleviate some of the suffering in the camps. All this creates a problem in that with no alternatives there are those that seek only to strike out - to inflict pain. In one sided conflicts like this it always seems to be the worst that rise into positions of influence. Back in the late 70s I was involved in different campaigns to support the movements in Southern Africa. At the time right and wrong seemed so clearly defined with little gray area. Turned out when ZANU took power in Zimbabwe, they were basically no different than some of the Palestinian leadership, corrupt, power hungry, uncaring for their own populace and only concerned with maintaining their own privilege. ANC is not much better. In Angola I saw first-hand living conditions in Luanda during a company trip. Girls barely in their teens working as prostitutes outside the main hotels while the dos Santos family raked in money from a country rich in natural resources. As to recent events, I suspect Hamas did not expect to find the IDF so exposed. They had no military strategy so I wouldn't spend a lot of effort looking for one. It was/is violence for violence sake. In their view they achieved their goal. The death of so many of their own countrymen isn't part of their equation, just more "martyrs". In their view, what have they lost? Even assuming Israel goes so far as to occupy Gaza, it isn't like they will eliminate Hamas or Islamic Jihad or whatever the flavor of the month group ends up being. Israel has already seen signs of the spread of autonomous groupings in the west bank. Granted these groups are capable of only small, disjointed actions, they are however also harder to track. So the violence continues. Somehow the Palestinians and Israelis need to come to some kind of agreement and a political structure that can actually address the needs of both. That requires both sides to recognize and support the aspirations of the other. I've done enough acid at Dead shows and even I don't see that happening anytime soon.

well considering that not a single tanker would be able to traverse the ocean with Russian oil, I'd lay odds that this wouldn't be much of a problem. Ukraine is fairly limited to the kind of war it can wage, NATO not so much. War with China is a whole other matter and not relevant to this thread.

Trump says a lot of things, however that doesn't usually translate to action. Regarding NATO, assuming he is elected, it seems highly unlikely he would leave NATO. It would be wildly unpopular. A little history from wiki on the suggestions and responses.

Umm your statement was they didn't fight there. I pointed out that in fact they did, so now you move the goal post. Sorry man. Whether they SHOULD have fought there or not is a whole other thread. It seems pointless for me to discuss with you if you can't even stick with what you have said. I have a belly button full of lint that needs attention and seems more productive.

They actually did go and fight and die in those countries. WTF are you even thinking? Dude you are really into an alternate history world now.

Do you know how long it took western nations to invest in Russia after the previous time they cancelled western debt? Use google, it might just be an educational experience for you as you seem to have some real difficulty getting out of your predisposed bias. here is a hint, after the fall of the Soviet Union the Russian federation was forced to pay on old czarist bonds. Investment is defined by risk. Russia is now extremely toxic even if the war ended tomorrow and Russia pulled back to pre 2014 borders.

how quickly we forget. Remember before the Russian invasion how the US intelligence community handled releasing info to box Russia in and make it clear that they really did intend to invade? Not exactly the work of idiots.

Russia's oil deals with India should terrify countries trying to abandon the dollar (yahoo.com) To be able to buy Russian oil, India insisted on settling trades in the rupee earlier this year. That's because using US dollars could expose it to secondary sanctions, and it worries about acquiring rubles at a fair rate on the open market. However, Indian authorities have controls on the rupee and the currency is not fully convertible — which means it can't be easily changed into another currency. This poses a problem for Russia, which found itself stuck with lots of rubles in Indian banks earlier this year. India actually encourages the rupees to be spent in India itself. The problem for Russia is that there's not much it wants to buy from India. The currency issue is not just a problem with India — sources tell Reuters that it's affecting other top buyers in Africa, China, and Turkey too. To get around its rupee conundrum and reduce its currency risks, Russian officials and oil executives have instead been pushing Indian buyers to pay them in Chinese yuan. It's also subject to controls and is not fully convertible, but Russia imports a lot more from China, including cars, machinery and other goods. Yet the Indian government is increasingly uncomfortable with yuan trade, since there are currency conversion charges involved and geopolitical rivalry between Delhi and Beijing.

worse, Russia is trying to buy back its equipment in order to keep its military going and in India the buy back had been held up because India wouldn't accept the currency Russia wanted to use. Is Russia really even doing arms sales anymore to the point of actually delivering? Haven't been following that one for a bit but it seems unlikely.

Please let it go Haiduk. This isn't really pushing forward the subject of the thread and is having the opposite affect than I think you would want.

oh christ, can we stick to the situation in Ukraine. When my great grandparents moved to the US from Ireland they got the same treatment. Hell they feared JFK becoming president cause the Pope was gonna rule America. Fact is immigration is a necessary component for a healthy economy, think different? Go visit Japan.

it is a long weekend here.

Yep as soon as they conquer Kiev, they will be heading further west! Any day now... just a little further!

Moscow is on fire after suspected drone attack - video (yahoo.com) A fire broke out at the Chagino power substation’s transformer building in southeastern Moscow early on Nov. 24, sending thick smoke into the area, the Russian Mash Telegram channel reported. The 200-square-meter fire in the 20-meter-high building is making the flame difficult to extinguish. An explosion at a power substation in the town of Lytkarino near Moscow was reported overnight on Nov. 23.

Doubt it is psyop, there have been indications for quite a while the Russian aviation was in trouble. The one item that hadn't been mentioned before and am unsure of what is implied there is the comment about maintenance. Parts were always mentioned as an issue but this - implies that perhaps the support personnel may also have ben siphoned off by the war effort.

Russian aviation ‘on verge of collapse’ due to sanctions, Ukraine announces after successful hack (yahoo.com)

Would you please stop being rational, it gets in the way of my blinders.

So you are saying these aren't the droids.....