Russia Surrounded

vimothy

vimothy

yurp
IdleRich said:
For what it's worth I'm not sure Trump would have responded so robustly to Russia but we don't know that and you should at least acknowledge you're not comparing like with like.
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true, we dont know how trump would respond to the russian invasion of ukraine, but the biden admin has taken the confrontation with china up several levels
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
DannyL said:
With respect dude, this is rubbish. "Not being defeated" is the lowest of bars. They've lost what? 200,000 men, God knows how many injured, the military is utterly weakened and exposed, Putin has had to go cap in hand to Xi, its going to have huge knock on effects on their arms trade etc etc. Just because there's not been total collapse - yet - doesn't mean they aren't losing pretty badly. Which is not the same as saying Ukraine is poised to take all their territory back.
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it all depends on your criteria. many ppl thought that ukraine would roll over and measured against that end russia had not done well. many ppl, it turns out, over estimated the strength of the russian armed forces. even so, its effectively fighting nato and is still in the mix with the ultimate outcome an open question, and in that sense it has done pretty well. the same can also be said for the ukrainian armed forces, but perhaps you dont like that assessment either, since their tanks arent in Moscow yet
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Mr. Tea said:
I don't really see how NATO is "weaker", given that it's just acquired or is about to acquire two new members, and all existing members have pledged to increase their defence spending: https://commonslibrary.parliament.u...by-nato-members-since-russia-invaded-ukraine/

If you're right about Russia, i.e. that it's weaker overall but Putin has a stronger grip on it, I'm not sure that sounds like a good thing either for Russia or the rest of the world. It just makes it sound like he's more likely to do something desperate to continue clinging to power, and there will be fewer people in any position to try and talk him out of it.
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nato is weaker bc its member states are in a war which had lowered their gdp, increased their energy insecurity and reduced their stocks of armaments, to take just a few relevant factors. fighting a war with someone in general is going to weaken you, just by virtue of what war entails, but here we also have to account for the fact that we're at war with someone on whom we rely a great deal for energy, which the most important input for economic activity, magnifying the effect
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
vimothy said:
true, we dont know how trump would respond to the russian invasion of ukraine, but the biden admin has taken the confrontation with china up several levels
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The essence of right-wing criticism of Biden re. China seems to boil down to two things: that Biden is a pathetic beta cuck who is scared of standing up to China, and that Biden is a dangerous maniac risking open confrontation by standing up to China.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
vimothy said:
nato is weaker bc its member states are in a war which had lowered their gdp, increased their energy insecurity and reduced their stocks of armaments, to take just a few relevant factors. fighting a war with someone in general is going to weaken you, just by virtue of what war entails, but here we also have to account for the fact that we're at war with someone on whom we rely a great deal for energy, which the most important input for economic activity, magnifying the effect
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Europe - or certain European countries, more accurately - relies heavily on Russian oil and gas, it's true. But the USA doesn't, and that's the country that's supplying the vast majority of aid to Ukraine.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
vimothy said:
it all depends on your criteria. many ppl thought that ukraine would roll over and measured against that end russia had not done well. many ppl, it turns out, over estimated the strength of the russian armed forces. even so, its effectively fighting nato and is still in the mix with the ultimate outcome an open question, and in that sense it has done pretty well. the same can also be said for the ukrainian armed forces, but perhaps you dont like that assessment either, since their tanks arent in Moscow yet
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Russia isn't fighting NATO, though - it's fighting Ukrainians who have the benefit of (some) NATO equipment. Big difference. If actual NATO forces got involved, the whole thing would be over in five minutes.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Mr. Tea said:
Europe - or certain European countries, more accurately - relies heavily on Russian oil and gas, it's true. But the USA doesn't, and that's the country that's supplying the vast majority of aid to Ukraine.
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true, energy price shock has not had the same effect on the us - thanks to shale its probably positively aligned to such movements - but even the us is down a substantial amount of material. from a logical POV fighting a war makes you weaker, even if you're the united states, bc fighting a war eats up a lot of resources.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Mr. Tea said:
Russia isn't fighting NATO, though - it's fighting Ukrainians who have the benefit of (some) NATO equipment. Big difference. If actual NATO forces got involved, the whole thing would be over in five minutes.
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it's a proxy war with nato. its fighting Ukrainian AF who've been trained by nato, armed by nato, using intelligence supplied by nato, etc. so it's not exactly the same as fighting NATO. but it's also not a million miles away.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
vimothy said:
true, energy price shock has not had the same effect on the us - thanks to shale its probably positively aligned to such movements - but even the us is down a substantial amount of material. from a logical POV fighting a war makes you weaker, even if you're the united states, bc fighting a war eats up a lot of resources.
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Well what proportion of the USA's resources have been exhausted, do you think, compared to Russia's?
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I'm struggling to understand why you think "Well, wars are expensive, and use up resources that a country would otherwise spend on other things" is an argument that applies only to Western countries that are supplying a so far fairly limited amount of military aid, and no personnel, and not to Russia, which has launched a full-scale invasion and has lost both vast numbers of men and vast amounts of hardware.
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
vimothy said:
probably less, but still a substantial amount?
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Right, but there's no point having the world's best-funded military if you're not prepared to use it, is there? America is sending tanks and rocket launchers it already had in stock. They're not coming straight from the factory. Obviously they will have to be paid for in the long run, but this is not WWII and Biden is obviously not going to bankrupt the county on Ukraine's account.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
it's not going to bankrupt the us, bit its military capability is clearly less, bc some of its resources have been eaten up by the war on ukraine
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Mr. Tea said:
Because you've spent several pages saying just that, in support of your argument that the war is going well for Russia, or at least not that badly.
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russia can do badly from the war in the ukraine alongside everyone else, it's not mutually exclusive
 
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