solarz
Brigadier
Damn at this point I'm inclined towards suspecting sabotage or terrorism.
Wasn't there a movement a while ago that was trying to destroy the electric grid? Maybe they're behind all this?
Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
Damn at this point I'm inclined towards suspecting sabotage or terrorism.
Wasn't there a movement a while ago that was trying to destroy the electric grid? Maybe they're behind all this?
solarz
Brigadier
F--king hell, never learned about any of this growing up. How many other skeletons are there in the Canadian closet??
They said Russian oil exports collapsed by 50% in December. We all know that was full of shit. The quality of Bloomberg goes down when it comes to talking anything remotely geopolitical.
What in the world? Kiev conscripted one of Phoenix TV's reporter in Ukraine:
I liked your positions in this conversation and I would like to position myself.
We have to be careful when evaluating the results, consequences and consequences of a war, especially when using certain metrics. For example, the establishment of military forces, conquest of land and etc... what I see most are analyzes only pulling these metrics and when they pull other metrics they get confused.
The most important thing in any war as a political phenomenon is to understand the political motivation pursued by political actors, in this case, the government of Russia and Ukraine, let's disregard the other actors for an analysis of better central understanding.
This question of territorial occupation has to be seen in a relative way, because the fundamental question is what will be the political objective pursued by each State, be it Moscow or Kiev. To the extent that military operations contribute to the conception of that objective, then Moscow has a political perspective within a different set of objectives than Kiev. In this sense, one of these political objectives that are very different from each other, such as the issue of territorial occupation, will acquire importance at the strategic-operational and tactical level, so we have to base ourselves on the political perspective of the conflict if we are going to consider the most range of actors.
Russia has partially achieved its political objective, the objective of the "Grand Strategy", but it has not achieved the objective directed towards the theater of operations, the great Russian objective is very clear, a redefinition of the international order, within which, the Russian State will acquire a relevant role as a major Eurasian power.
So, analyzing the first aspect, the international order as it exists today is already being contested, clearly contested, there are already some analysts who advocate a new international order resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The fundamental question for Russia is how it will emerge in this new international order and in this case there are big questions, because there is no guarantee that it will emerge with the same vigor as before it started to exercise its role as a contesting power of the world order previous and the international order that still remains the current one and what will be its role in this new international order.
As regards one aspect of Kiev's political objectives is the consolidation of the Ukrainian national state as an independent, autonomous country free from the Russian sphere of influence and this has already been partially achieved. When we analyze the strategic-operational objective of Ukraine, we enter into the analyzes of the terrain, the territorial advances for the maintenance of the integrity of the national territory that presupposes to expel the Russian invader and in this sense, Ukraine has also conquered in a tangible although incomplete way its political objective, the central question is whether the prolongation of the conflict transforms the cost-benefit ratio, whether in terms of human lives, the socioeconomic aspect of the country, territorial loss, among others, into an advantageous situation or not from a broader political perspective of long term.
For this reason, when we analyze an armed conflict, the key issue is to frame it in a broader political perspective.
The vast majority of people are only framing the war in Ukraine from an operational-tactical and strategic perspective and forget the political value of the invasion.
The unipolar world order is being contested and this started on February 24, 2022, thus we will enter a period of hegemonic transition. China comes in from here as it is the big elephant in the room.
I don't know if Putin had any guarantees from China before the invasion, everything leads to believe that yes, his trip to Beijing before is a great indication that this can be really true as well as I could not fail to mention the SCO meeting that he had with Xi Jinping after the invasion.
As someone already said here on this same forum - although I forgot which member said it - Putin is sacrificing his army, but I think the member said for strategic purpose purposes, which would be the territorial conquest of Ukraine, but that's far from being the real motivation, Putin is sacrificing his army and possibly the economy to challenge the US-led world order, this is a political factor above the operational-tactical and strategic issues of the invasion.
Two big questions for this:
1 - Will Russia be able to maintain the war effort?
2 - Are other countries that contest this world order led by the US interested in the fall of Russia?
Last edited:
Here China enters the chessboard.
China - unlike Russia - is a country far beyond being a contesting power, but a disruptive power.
If Russia is able to use its national power and be able to maintain the war effort for a few years without being directly assisted by China, there is no reason for Chinese to help the Russians in this war. Just maintain neutrality and strengthen bilateral abilities, be commercially, militarily, diplomatically and especially politically. Everything can be and is expanded and implemented in multilateral organizations such as BRICS, SCO and other organizations led by China, BRICS has already advanced from an economic organization to an organization of a diplomatic nature, consolidating BRICS for a diplomatic organization, advances to an organization political and finally a military alliance.
The fall of Russia does not matter to China. These are complementary economies and this will be even more enhanced by the dynamics of the global economy that is returning to the East, where it has been in most of human history, here China emerges as a true hegemonic superpower, being the center of this new global economic power just as the US emerged after World War II.
China appears in second overall place in the world's plaid ranking, behind only Russia (coincidence?), Using the chess board as an excellent Chinese chess player, bringing to the reality of the current global situation, China is now in one Waiting play while supporting the center of the chess board.
Who is the center? The one who is contesting the international order.
China cannot let the contesting power be defeated. It is no coincidence that bilateral relations have increased so much in the last year, particularly since the invasion in Ukraine. Some sources claim that trade has increased by 20% in a year, this is a lot, but yet the data is debatable and we have to have an even broader view of this relationship.
Another piece in this chess is called India, for now staying away from the game, but would be directly interested in this dispute and they would also have reasons to support the contesting power.
The Atlantic Alliance (USA + Europe) is not a cohesive and dynamic block and will fall through the maneuver and that is what India, China and Russia are patiently looking, the first two countries are making the waiting movement positioning pieces in the center of the board and waiting for the opponent to blink.
Thus, we have Russia moving first being the contesting power of the current international order, just below we have China and India indirectly supporting the contesting power, both India and China are benefiting because the global economic center moves to the East, while The contestation of the international order is led by another country of the same block, but only one of them will emerge as a disruptive power, the power that is contesting this international order will not emerge in this condition, because it wages a geopolitical, economic and military battle against all This world order, India is a country with no great expression of national power of global reach, the natural candidate is China itself that awaits its movement in the center of the board at the necessary time.
What motivation for China to enter this dispute moving in the center of the board when this is not necessary? None!!! Unless the contesting power is being defeated in a decisive battle, which is not the case and is far from a short term reality, there is no need.
On a minor point, looking at it from an economic perspective, the war is proving to be a disaster for Russia. Russia is under 14,000 sanctions - this is equivalent to 10,000 more sanctions than Iran, public data on the economy was public until the first months of the invasion, now we have no way to analyze the Russian economy anymore because the data is not more published, but reviewing the data of the fall of the sectors of goods and services, production and consumption in the first months after the sanctions, the fall of last year was much larger than the 2.1% that the Russians reported.
This comes at the same time that the Russian economy is being mobilized to support the scope of the Russian military's effort, factories are open 24 hours and working in three shifts from June-July 2022 to be able to deliver the Russian military's order result by direct effect of losses in the war and fill the new units being formed by the mobilization of more troops that will be deployed in Ukraine and those already in Ukraine and the new formations of new units by the incremental numerical increase of Russian military.
Here, the economic situation in Russia is this:
Sanctions
Military mobilization of the Russian economy
Even if the same levels of social spending as the previous year are maintained with the ruble appreciating, Russians will face a drop in living standards anyway. Right here, in this forum, China is defended a lot that it manages to keep spending on defense at low levels to develop the economy and give better living conditions to the Chinese people, this is universally applied, as well as the Americans face the same spending problem high military, even though it has a much bigger economy, still, Americans face the same kind of situation in living conditions that the Russians are going through right now with the great effect caused by sanctions - obviously such realists are very different, but the practical effect is the same for each reality of each nation.
The problem is that this may be a small cost compared to even worse situations for the Russians if they postponed the invasion, but the big issue regarding the invasion of Ukraine is not a strategic one, but a political factor. Russia's role is very clear, to initiate the challenge of the international order and it achieved this as a political objective of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
China could mitigate the Russians' difficulties in the economy, but it will not solve the structural deficiencies, that is up to the Russian State itself and only this entity is capable of solving these problems to emerge to a new condition. The military mobilization of the Russian economy is an indication that they are preparing for this challenge in the long term and not just because of Ukraine.
Louis Riel led a French Canadian (and native) revolution in Western Canada, but almost no one speaks French anymore in Manitoba… what is that called? Cultural genocide?
Mercury poisoning native lands and people?
Sixties scoop of indigenous children
Willy nilly spraying of Agent Orange including on service members
Mongolia has historically played Russia against China. Now that Russia and China are moving closer together, they've had to adapt.
The basic issue is... Mongolia is entirely geographically surrounded by Russia and China. Even if the US wanted to help them - and the US certainly does try, having made Mongolia a strategic partner in 2019 - geographically it is very difficult for the US to send any support in case of a conflict. Mongolia knows this.
The basic issue is... Mongolia is entirely geographically surrounded by Russia and China. Even if the US wanted to help them - and the US certainly does try, having made Mongolia a strategic partner in 2019 - geographically it is very difficult for the US to send any support in case of a conflict. Mongolia knows this.