NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote: 

 R_P wrote: 
That all makes a lot of sense. So, it basically means all this massive bloodshed and personal suffering is basically to shore up dying dreams of empire and glory. Great.

 Ivanhoe wrote:
Plenty of history to go around. Anniversary is coming up—are you preparing to celebrate?


Sure: kick your neighbor's door in, shoot up the house, hold a gun to his head and start negotiating about how much of the house he gets to keep. Sounds fair.


Do you have any inkling why this move has motivated Russia's neighbors to join NATO? Why Ukraine was motivated in the first place?


You do realize the article about Zelensky offering to negotiate neutrality is from two weeks ago, right? That's before the invasion. Which makes the idea of neutrality pretty much moot, doesn't it?


Poland has asked, but NATO has made no such promise. Maybe consider this: given Poland's history and what it stands to lose at the hands of Russia, why would it be motivated to do this?

Russia's neighbors live in fear of it because Russia is trying to repeat the brutal history the rest of the world wants to put behind it.


Something I saw from a Ukrainian recently: "If Russia stops fighting there is no more war. If Ukraine stops fighting there is no more Ukraine."

 Ivanhoe wrote: 

ok, so the shit has hit the fan and we have a war on our hands.

 what happens next?

Either Russia takes over Ukraine but will be forced to install a very repressive regime not only in Ukraine (with most likely sustained guerrilla warfare going on) but also domestically as the true scale of the war on his "own people" (presuming the Russians buy into the Ukrainians are us argument, which is highly likely) becomes known.

Maybe with the sanctions in place he can keep spinning the us vs. them narrative for a while to justify this oppression, but I can't see him being able to maintain this too long.

or the Ukrainians manage to push back or contain the Russian advance.  I don't know what happens then. It could be a negotiated ceasefire, it could be an internal putsch removes Putin, or it could be that Putin goes nuclear out of desperation. 

I have no idea.

To say any of these outcomes lies in the hands of the Americans would be to overstate their influence. I wouldn't put it past the Ukrainians to push back the Russian army even without western assistance. They are fighting for their land and Putin has just done them the massive favour of uniting them against a common foe. 

At the very beginning I phrased this whole drama as the dying throes of a political dinosaur. I still think that is the case, regardless of various machinations by the US or the west. The basic historical trend is the demise of Soviet one-party rule. All the other satellite states have done it already. Russia is just taking a bit longer.

 Ivanhoe wrote: 
What on earth are you referring to? The growing tensions between the three blocks? (I referred to this in my synopsis of the video). 

All the guy says is that the military invasion of Ukraine is a bit awkward for China as it so has pursued a doctrine of recognizing territorial integrity to date (and military intervention contravenes that). But he says the current war (and sanctions) will automatically force Russia to get into bed with China (as I have also stated many times here already).

Basically this means that Russia, with an economy smaller than South Korea but sitting on vast natural resources, will be totally beholden to China. Supremely stupid from a geopolitical viewpoint if you ask me. 

So basically, there are no longer three major blocs. There are currently just two and no doubt this will change in the near future due to shifting demographics and relative wealth.

 R_P wrote:
About 30 years too late....The Lisbon Protocol

 NoEnzLefttoSplit wrote:
A bit late for that. And not very real-istic.

 Ivanhoe wrote: 
Hey, here's an idea. The EU, the US and Russia all stay out of it and Ukraine gets to decide by itself.

President Vladimir V. Putin is not crazy, the director of the C.I.A.
testified on Tuesday, but his views have hardened over the years and he
is determined to prevail in Ukraine.

The Russian leader’s increasing isolation and insulation from
conflicting views make him “extremely difficult to deal with,” William
J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, told the House Intelligence Committee.

“Z” Is the Symbol of the New Russian Politics of Aggression *
In the days following the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine, the letter came to stand for devotion to the state, murderous rage, and unchecked power.

The power of tech giants has made them as influential as nations. Here’s how they’re sanctioning Russia

Russia’s Economic War Front, The New Tributary System & The Russian Kowtow

Posted on March 5, 2022 by Yves Smith

Yves here. We’ve pointed out that Russia has yet to deploy some significant economic sanctions against the West, presumably because Russia still hopes to negotiate a peace and have the US and Europe drop the choke chain….although even then, they would need to wait a bit until tempers have cooled and unwind them slowly. We’ve mentioned having Russia seize Western assets and break patents as possible countermeasures.

We need to remind readers that even hard core Tory and Russia hater Ambrose Evans-Pritchard said that Russia would eventually win any sanctions war, it had too large a position in too many essential commodities.

This article is a translation of an article describing the possibilities, by Olga Samofalova, translated and introduced by John Helmer.

——————

In keeping with the times since 1945, the US empire has been more straightforward. It doesn’t require pilgrimages to the White House fence for children of tender age. It does require you keep the US dollar in your pocket, or the local currency whose value is fixed in proportion, and whose state surpluses of taxation and pension funds must be stored in US Treasury notes, as well as the dollar.

In Russia, starting in 1991, Boris Yeltsin innovated on these measures by inviting US advisors to run the Russian economy, which Yeltsin paid for by imposing a 100% tax on ordinary Russians’ salaries. This started the system of oligarchs whom Yeltsin allowed to dispatch and store, tax free, in the US, UK and EU as much state capital and income as they could carry off. How that system has worked for the past thirty years, oligarch by oligarch, has been the subject of analysis here. The effort has not gone without recognition.

At this very moment, the oligarchs are facing a Christian tax, but it’s not the Russian one you might think they have earned. Instead, the 100% tax is being imposed in the form of confiscation statutes by the US, UK and EU. This is not economic warfare so much as the application of the principle that what the oligarchs have been doing to Russians should now be done to them, according to the Mandate of Heaven as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31.

The Mandate of Heaven can also be found on the bottom of the US dollar note. That’s the signature line where the Treasurer of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury promise to pay “all debts public and private”. Like other US treaty signatures, this no longer applies to Russians, common ones, oligarchs, or the state, according to this novelty in the Rules Based Order. Russians must now sell everything in the country of value for US dollars – oil, gas, coal, uranium, aluminium, titanium, wheat, potash, urea, bank loan debts, airplane leases, etc. But those dollars cannot be used by Russians to buy anything else. That value has been confiscated.

The response is still being formulated in Moscow. Russian government officials, members of the State Duma, the Central Bank of Russia, the General Staff, the oligarchs and their lobbyists have yet to agree. The terms of the debate are still largely secret; here was an opening shot against the Central Bank by Sergei Glazyev.

 Red_Dragon wrote:
Not sure I follow your logic, but apparently Vlad doesn't think so.

 rgio wrote:

The EU can defeat Russia on its own, they don't need the US.

So now Russia is taking American hostages...just in case.

Basketball player Brittney Griner reportedly detained in Russia; WNBA, representatives working 'to get her home'

Why Is Putin at War Again? Because He Keeps Winning.

As Russia faces off against Western nations over Ukraine, it has edged closer to China, a relationship that increasingly poses a challenge to American dominance on the world stage.