Billy Ringo

C’mon, you are being pretty selective in your analysis.  From the DW article you just posted (dated 10 Jul 23):
According to OutRush, a research team that conducts surveys among Russian emigrants, 16% of those who left the country after February 24, 2022, have since gone back to the Russian Federation. However, two-thirds said they had only returned temporarily.
So that is one third of 16% have returned to the sweet loving arms of mother Russia…but this is proof that Russians are returning in droves?
So here is my question: if Russia does not care about losing billions in sanctions, losing over 100k dead and likely another 100k crippled, a nations worth of military hardware and just about any diplomatic clout it had prior to this war….what does Russia care about?
I have heard this from some folks since the beginning of this thing and it feeds into the invincible Russia narrative.  Russia apparently does not care about anything so we can never defeat them without entirely annihilating them…that is not only disingenuous, it is frankly dumb.
Russia is a state and as such has the needs of a state.  It requires the core components of statehood primarily a continuous negotiation of a contract with its population.  It cares very much about some things, the Russian people care about some things.  They are not a monolithic blob that must be eradicated from the earth and if somehow we fail to do this we have lost the war.
All war is a multifaceted negotiation between peoples.  This war is not likely to end fast no matter what we do at this point…but that does not mean that Russia cannot collapse, military or politically.  Continuous pressure will build up over time.  You make note of Ukrainian fatigue, but again apparently Russia is inexhaustible - I disagree.  Russia is better at hiding it and suppressing symptoms but that does not mean they can endure suffering better than everyone else.
I am sorry but the Russian pundits (not you personally) have been consistently wrong in this war.  First Russia was supposed to tear through Ukraine in weeks…nope.  Then they were supposed to grind Ukraine down…nope.  Then they were supposed to do a 1942 level of mobilization…nope.  Then they were supposed to dominate the “escalation ladder”.  Then they were supposed to step out of the international sanctions box and prevail…nope.  All Russia has done is manage to hold onto a few hundred kms of blasted earth and not fall apart.  But for some reason this is worth assigning Russia supernatural abilities to rise and conquer?
 

I thought that was the great American philosopher Yogi Berra.

Ok so let's end all this horsesh#t.  The great thing about the US is that they put everything out to the public.  No other nation on earth is as transparent.  So here is what Miller actually said:
https://www.state.gov/briefings/department-press-briefing-january-4-2024/
First as to "no more money"
"QUESTION: Thank you. Let’s discuss Ukraine a little bit. How long will the latest package that you guys have sent already in December will give operations until they run out of funding again?
MR MILLER: I will let Ukraine speak to that because that pertains to – and my colleagues at the Pentagon may have some additional insight to offer on this. But ultimately, that’s a question to Ukraine to speak to because it goes to their rate of expenditure and other really military questions.
But I will say that we do need Congress to act. We are out of funding here. We know that we need to continue to support Ukraine. They need – they rely on this assistance. They rely on it to continue to fight what is a brutal Russian assault that continues, even over the – that continues every day. And so it’s important for Congress to act to continue to fund this democracy that is continuing to defend itself."
That is all about pushing Congress to act.  Inside DC baseball, not a US intent to cut off all funding.
As to current state of the war:
"QUESTION: And would you say that, given the latest developments, that the war is turning in Russia’s favor?
MR MILLER: No, I wouldn’t say that at all. I think people forget oftentimes the actual stakes of this war and what Vladimir Putin’s actual goal was, and what Ukraine has actually achieved and what it continues to achieve. Remember that Putin launched this as a war of total conquest where he wanted to take over Ukraine. He wanted to throw the government out of power. He wanted to subsume Ukraine inside Russia. Not only was Ukraine able to prevent that from happening, which everyone sort of takes for granted now but it was very not – it was very much not a settled question at the start of this war – they have managed to retake around half of the territory that Russia seized in the opening weeks of the war.
And even in the past few weeks, they continue to make battlefield gains. Remember the – over the last summer we were talking about the difficulty when Russia pulled out of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and it looked like Ukraine wasn’t going to be able to continue to export grain. Well, because of advances that Ukraine made to open a Black Sea lane and expel the Russian fleet from certain parts of the Black Sea, they are now able to continue to export grain, which is critical to their economy.
So there are going to be battlefield developments back and forth, where you see each side gaining or losing territory. But when you look at the ultimate stakes of this war, it’s quite clear that Ukraine is going to exit this war independent, strong, with an improved economy, and looking west when what Russia wanted at the outset was not just a Ukraine that was looking east but Ukraine that was actually part of Russia."
Boy this sounds familiar...because some on this thread have been saying it all along.
And as to the statement that has some people running around like the panicky idiot in a bad plane crash movie:
"QUESTION: As long as it takes?
MR MILLER: As long as it takes. That does not mean that we are going to continue to support them at the same level of military funding that we did in 2022 and 2023. We don’t think that should be necessary because the goal is to ultimately transition Ukraine – to use the language that you repeated back – to stand on its own feet and to help Ukraine build its own industrial base and its own military industrial base so it can both finance and build and acquire munitions on its own. But we are not there yet, and that is why it is so critical that Congress pass the supplemental funding bill, because we are not yet at the point where Ukraine can defend itself just based on its own. And it’s why that it continues to be important for Congress to support Ukraine and continues to be important for our European allies and others throughout the world to support Ukraine."
From a State Dept talking head no less.
Oh, ya that totally says that "Ukraine is totally cut off and will have to build its own tanks from here on out."  You know we should totally freak out now and point to every Russian leg twitch as a major victory, while screaming "Ukraine is doomed!!" From the heights of the thread.
So "yes" I am saying the US will backstop a Ukrainian MIC as it plans for a transition away from tactical handouts to long term strategic sustainment...just like they did in South Korea.  But hey you wanna be "soundbite panic guy" on the thread, go right ahead.  
 

Good stuff. 🇩🇪

Which "politically savvy Chinese expats" would it be who think this?
I can't say I have a great insight into the political class of China, but I did live there for several years so I can share my experience talking to younger people, both blue collar and white collar types. The_Capt's implication that China intends for Russia to become its hat the same way that that Canada is America's hat feels like a more accurate take to me.
Russians do get a special level of respect in China that other foreigners do not - in fact it was often the first question out of people's mouths when I showed up in their small town or industrial suburb speaking Chinese: "are you Russian?" The stereotype is perhaps that Russian people are the only white foreigners who can both speak decent Chinese and also might have business to do in low class areas. Russians are trusted. Americans are not.
But every Chinese person I spoke to on the topic was also was critical of Russian politics, and saw the fall of USSR as a cautionary tale. This is one of the reasons why "... with Chinese characteristics" is still a major political buzzword. Middle class Chinese who drink the party kool-aid read Animal Farm or watch Chernobyl and see these as indictments of political structures that failed because they weren't imbued with "Chinese characteristics". Working class Chinese just know that that their great party leaders have special wisdom that former Russian leaders did not, which is why China is number 1, and why Russians today all come to China to work or study and make a better life for themselves.
It's certainly possible that people were just trying to say what they thought I wanted to hear - something that happens a lot in China - but the comments seemed fairly consistent. I think perhaps it is wishful thinking from Russian nationalists and western fascists that the current Chinese leadership secretly idolizes Putin.
Recently on this thread people were talking about what a split Russia could look like, and if there had been any historical precedent. It got me thinking about conversations I had with soft critics of the party and they'd often ask me "but what other alternative do we have?" And I'd say maybe China is too big and diverse to have a centralized government, maybe it it would do better if the geographic region we now call China were in fact managed as several smaller states, each with political structures and leaders who understood the local issues better. Just a tip: never say this to a Chinese person unless you want to get into a long discussion about Warring States period, Warlord Era, and why history has apparently proven that the only way there can ever be peace and prosperity in the region is under centralized leadership. It's the party line, but it's how people think, and it informs their views on Russia too.

I really hope not. I get too stressed with that type of garbage. Definition of stress: “The overwhelming desire to choke the living **** out of some ignorant S.O.B. who really deserves it!”
 

Margaret MacMillan echos a lot of this in 1919.  The treaty was punitive but it is a bit of a myth that it somehow drove Germany into WW2.  It was a large part of Hitlers narrative - along with blaming the Jews for everything.  But in reality she notes that the real impact of the treaty was fairly limited in the grand scheme of things.
All war is certainty.  A collision of certainty.  So in this respect, sure Ukraine made this war happen.  They did so because their certainty- a free sovereign nation - was irreconcilable with the Russian position of Ukraine=client/vassal state.  The West did not somehow force Russia or Ukraine into all this.  In fact a major criticism (from the direction of the same crowd as whatever he is calling himself now) was how badly Obama botched the job by not showing Russia some teeth.  We really did not do much when Russia re-took Crimea or the Donbas regions.  We made quacking noises and slap a few sanctions on individuals but it was tepid as hell.  Now the same crowd are all “Elites pushed them into this”…the entire thing makes zero sense.
As to Russia itself.  We did a lot more than accept it back with open arms.  We bankrolled it coming out of the fall of the Soviet Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis
Hell at one point we were doing military cooperation and funding de-nuclear-ization.  Pretty odd behaviour for western compression.  Would it have been better to get Russia into the western sphere…definitely.  All that energy going east won’t do anyone any favours with respect to competition with China.
But our strategic options spaces collapsed as of this war.  Were we to say “hey no problem, go ahead and illegally invade another nation?”  Drop the Baltics out of NATO so Putin could take them too?  Sweet Jebus, since when did appeasement become a viable strategy with Russia?  Russia pushed everyone into this position.  And to this day no one has been able to point to the Russian crisis point in all this.  At best Ukraine would have had a decade to get into NATO or the EU.  We hadn’t even started the process.  Was Ukraine about to accept western troops en masse?  Western  nukes?  Was Ukraine massing military forces on the Russian border?
No bizarro logic to justify a contrary position is going to change what this whole war really was - a bafflingly poorly thought out land grab that turned into a nightmare quagmire by Russia.  There was no external forcing function.  Why go in freakin Feb? Worst time of year to do it?  It was likely the largest strategic blunder of the 21st century (so far).  If it was forced by the West it was a brilliant strategy but I do not give us that sort of credit.
What is breaking my soul is just how incredibly soft we have become.  Ukraine has one disappointing summer offensive - hell they did not even lose ground.  And now it is the end of days.  Pull the funding and run away!  How can we be the grandchildren of the generation that fought and won WW2?  Worse, there is a clown show of people trying to score points on all this.

Well, no. Russia is expressly threatening NATO and trying to rebuild Soviet Union which threatened all non-communist countries with nuclear war. It is a self-declared enemy of all NATO countries - which probably includes yours (apologies if I assume incorrectly). Ukraine is a country fighting a defensive war against that enemy and Ukraine's win can undermine that enemy, allowing NATO years or decades of peace, without balooning defence budgets.
There are more than enough reasons to support Ukraine even if they go completely tit-for-tat with the russians and shoot a prisoner for every Russian attrocity. And use antipersonnel mines, cluster munitions and thermobarics which apparently are plenty effective. That moral high horse does not need to grow any higher.

Perhaps for some congressional Republicans, but the reality is always more complicated than what can be summed up in a tweet. It's not over yet.

True but...a GOP Senate is going to be pretty friendly to arms for Ukraine. They are currently constrained by (and attempting to politic around) the GOP House. 

This is the central premise but back to what we can actually see.  China was pursuing a longer term expansionist strategy largely aimed at securing bilateral agreements globally for resources and influence through economic/diplomatic means.  Suddenly, they are on the verge of collapse and need to invade Taiwan to fix that..."how"?
Taiwan is an identity/social issue, not a pragmatic economic one.  So how does China offset its looming economic collapse?  How does it offset its looming demographic collapse?  We have leapt to Taiwan and overt aggression.  Now it could be real.  Or the whole damn thing could be SDI all over again.
How do we know China believes that time is against it?  And is it?  I honestly think we cannot discount the recency effect of Russia's action and impact on western calculus.  We did not see an overt invasion of Ukraine coming, at least no where near soon enough.  And now we are suddenly convinced the other great power is doing the same.  
I mean look at these:
https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2023/02/02/cf-chinas-economy-is-rebounding-but-reforms-are-still-needed
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58957#:~:text=growth of productivity.-,Projections of Income for 2023 to 2033,percent from 2026 to 2033.
If I were a Chinese analyst I am not going to lose my mind over this.  Sure China has challenges - we all do.  US is starring flat lines in the face.  Reduction in works forces and a projected GDP growth trajectory under 3%.  China is looking to GDPs shrinking but still sustaining over 3% growth out to 2028.  If you check to Economic Policies chart, you are not going to see - engage in an incredibly costly major conventional conflict over a single small island of 23 million people.
So is China flexing and doing stretches because it needs to?  Or are they doing it for other reasons?  The single biggest threat to China is a blunting or dislocation of its expansion westward.  The massive markets of the west (and east) have not changed since the Silk Road.  Resources, particularly energy security lie in the west, not Taiwan.  So I am not sure how we suddenly got here but the whole thing feels like a distraction to be honest. 
This is what I honestly see in front of us right now.  China remains our first or second largest trading partner.  They do not appear caged or desperate, yet.  I do not see the cliff face in 2027 (and a little bit of sucking and blowing in the US narrative on that one: "Chinese long-term thinking is a myth, yet they can see out to 2050 and 2027 is their last chance"...I mean which is it?).
Interestingly, this:
" Harvard University political scientist Joseph S. Nye, pointing to research by Yale historian Donald Kagan, has argued that Graham Allison misinterprets the Peloponnesian War; Nye argues that the war was not the result of a rising Athens challenging Sparta, but rather the consequence of Athenian stagnation leading Sparta to think that a number of "Athenian policy mistakes" made war "worth the risk".[26] Historian Arthur Waldron likewise argued that Kagan and Harvard classics scholar Ernst Badian had "long ago proved that no such thing exists as the 'Thucydides Trap'" with regards to the Peloponnesian War.[25] Relatedly, political scientists Athanassios Platias and Vasilis Trigkas submitted that the Thucydides Trap is based on "inadvertent escalation" whereas the Peloponnesian war was an outcome of rational calculations.[29]"
Leads one to wonder "who is trapping whom?" in all this.  I honestly doubt this is a discussion point in US power circles.  I mean we get it (wanna talk about "aggression and insecurity"), the US has sounded the horn of Gondor.  But in the vassal states we kinda are looking at this from a different angle.  I mean do we jump in?  How hard?  Do we really need to spill all the beer?  None of us recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state, kinda like Puerto Rico, but with semi-conductors.  So do we really want WW3 over this?

CNN article:

 

How about we look at it on a contractual basis. Each member of NATO agreed to use a specific percentage of their budget (I don’t remember if it was GDP, Defense, or something else), and a number of NATO members reneged on that contractural agreement for decades. Now be it known that I wouldn’t vote for Trump if he was running for Dogcatcher against Putin or Xi, but I supported his effort against supposed allies which failed to carry their fair share of the load, whether they purchased their arms from the U.S. USSR/Russia, India, China, or South Africa, and whether they maintained their fighting forces from their own populations, or with Mercenaries from Sudan. The bottom line is that those NATO members who did not follow through with the obligations to which they had committed, violated the Accord and broke their contract. They deserved to be threatened by Trump.

Zeleban is not a Russian troll. I have been following his posts for over a year and he seems like a really honest guy who just says what he thinks. I do not agree with a few things he said in the last few pages but in the grand scheme of things lets not forget he is actually living in Ukraine right now.
He sees this war in a way us who just follow it on the Internet cannot, so lets give him a break for passionately voicing his opinions even if we do not agree with some of those opinions.

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.

No. Europeans just bored of illegal non-europeans migration, impunity of migrants, their roistering, crawling islamazation and leftist speeches "we need more migrants for culture enrichment". They bored to feed all these agressive, laizy robs from own taxes, which as gratitude then conduct knife attacks in schools like in Dublin recently, trade dugs on the streets and turned out many places in Eurpoean capitals in scrap-heap.
When I see dozen- and hundred thousands Muslim migrant marches in Germany, England and France, supporting Palestina (really supporting Hamas attack), carring flags of Khalifat, Al-Caeda etc, when I see speeches of migrants in Germany "We need Sharia right here", when I see landing of hunderds Africans in Spain and Italy, when I read how German leftist human rights organizations sponsored contrabandists, who transfer migrants through Mediterranian Sea, I also would be vote for anybody, who stop this s...t or to protect own country from this new hidden Arab invasion. 
So, this is maybe not good for us now, but this is good for long perspective to keep Europe as Europe, where we can celebrate Christmass as Christian holyday and eat a pork, whithout imposed shame that doing this "we offend Muslim's feelings, so we shouldn't do this". Else Europens will no more a masters on own land and will turn out soon themeselves in reservations.
By the way after "right-wing" spectre G.Meloni became a prime-minister of Italy, many in Ukraine expected that Italy will more turn into Russian side, but all happened viсe versa.

Yes I'm long behind on the thread 🤣
However I wanted to react to this. Your perspective in imo the glass half empty variant, explaining a selection of geopolitical level examples from a citizens perspective.
There are more perspectives imo. Not only on explaining the why behind things like Taurus, whether one agrees with the reasoning or not. There are also glass half full perspectives on the geopolitical front.
Just one example I want to lay down: look at WW2 at end of 1940 / 41. Half of Europe was effectively overran and defeated on the battlefield. Things looked very gloom, there was plenty of issues between allied parties. 
Not all is well in Ukraine obviously, there is plenty of issues both in Ukraine as among those supporting Ukraine. One can focus on these issues, but it is only fair to put it into perspective that there actually is wide support for Ukraine. Also, Ukraine was able to defeat most of Russia's large offensives. Both weren't to be taken for granted before Feb '22. Of course that doesn't mean things couldn't have been better or can't be improved; it is imperative to remain vigilant and critical.
But at the same time, it is also imperative to value achieved accomplishments and realize those weren't a certainty; almost nobody predicted the current status quo as favourable for Ukraine as it is now.
Or maybe I just prefer half full glasses 😉

Christopher Robin then says "Silly old bear!  they've got fossil fuels.  Who cares about anything else?"  And lots of blustery days for the 100 acre wood gang to enjoy up there.

And so after much debate, Pooh, Piglet, Owl and Eeyore ventured off to Mongolia, then north to Siberia to see what they could see.
Hours later Piglet came racing back with the others in pursuit.
Pooh:"Piglet what's wrong?!"
Piglet:"are you out of your F'n mind?  Are you blind?  That place has more wildfires than the rest of the globe combined!  They have f'n exploding methane holes and now they have these creepy viruses from 50,000 years ago! Who the hell wants that place?!"
https://abcnews.go.com/International/siberian-wildfires-now-bigger-fires-world-combined/story?id=79422602
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201130-climate-change-the-mystery-of-siberias-explosive-craters
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/world/permafrost-virus-risk-climate-scn/index.html

Weird. That's when I find technocrats to be their most honest. 

3,000 thanks to everyone for all the great discussion, debate and invaluable experience and knowledge shared over the past 18 months.  God bless the Ukrainians.

3,000 thanks to everyone for all the great discussion, debate and invaluable experience and knowledge shared over the past 18 months.  God bless the Ukrainians.

3,000 thanks to everyone for all the great discussion, debate and invaluable experience and knowledge shared over the past 18 months.  God bless the Ukrainians.

3,000 thanks to everyone for all the great discussion, debate and invaluable experience and knowledge shared over the past 18 months.  God bless the Ukrainians.