Is that why Trump hopes he can butter up to Russia? To try and swing Russia away from China? I find this hard to believe, considering Russia is pretty much owned by China in many aspects of their economy and society now. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong or told otherwise.
Its the more the problem the world has had with Russia since 1991: You need a leader strong enough to keep Russia's nukes from flowing to the rest of the world, and level-headed enough he won't use them. And once he's there everyone has a vested interest in keeping him there.
So there is only so much fucking with Putin one can pull off.
Granted the sample size is small. Its pretty much been just Putin in charge for the past two and a half decades, and Yeltzin managing the chaos of a collapsing empire before that.
Your take on China's force projection may be true but you're being incredibly optimistic about the CCPs tolerance for killing Taiwanese.
As we've seen with Ukraine, and to a lesser extent the US Civil War, it only takes a few harsh battles to throw any notions of Brotherhood out the window.
Its not about brotherhood. Its difficult to explain but the CCP gets away with treating the population like serfs because the "Center of the world" is at peace and there is no plagues or mass starvation. Society is calm and orderly, thus the CCP must be fated to be in charge and there is no point trying to go against them.
The CCP have catch-22'd themselve a bit because Taiwan must be reunited* with the mainland because they are chinese, but because they are Chinese the government can't just bomb them to atoms or else this upsets the "Society is Calm and Orderly" and now you are exposed. It is unlikely the CCP would be overthrown by such things, but the current ruling class would find themselves immediately at threat of being toppled from the inside and possibly outside as well.
i.e. A general given the order might object and decide now is his time to make a power play.
Now, this isn't to say, especially with full control of the media, internet and internal movement, that this problem couldn't be worked around and a proper fiction crafted to make this completely legitimate, but it raises the costs and reduces the likelyhood ESPECIALLY when you consider their navy is not there yet. Basically, no one has started the ground work that would back that narrative.
or I guess tl;dr:
The only way china gets into Taiwan is a causeway of dead chinese soldiers. They have sufficient materiel to make that feasible but they haven't dropped any pilings yet.
*To the CCP propaganda, Taiwan exists in this weird quantum state where they both are and aren't in a state of rebellion, but as long as they don't declare actual independence that fiction persists and is allowed to persist because having a province in rebellion means you aren't in charge and should be replaced.
Widows of worms / fertiliser for Ukraine thank Putin for the deaths of their husbands. It sounds perverse even as part of a cult of death, but SMO war widows is now an established business model for underclass hustlers who don't go to lectures from a uniformed senator in Moscow University and live in parentally subsidised comfort, so need money and are a bit 'me ne frego' about it. Regardless in response to the thanks, a smirking Putin thanks them. It's all so sordid. All that death from a complete war of choice.
Skabeeva is slowly realizing she may end up just like General Moskalik, because Ukrainians won’t rest until every single Russian war criminal is held to account. Not gonna lie, watching them start to sweat hits different.
Widows of worms / fertiliser for Ukraine thank Putin for the deaths of their husbands. It sounds perverse even as part of a cult of death, but SMO war widows is now an established business model for underclass hustlers who don't go to lectures from a uniformed senator in Moscow University and live in parentally subsidised comfort, so need money and are a bit 'me ne frego' about it. Regardless in response to the thanks, a smirking Putin thanks them. It's all so sordid. All that death from a complete war of choice.
Those widows have a lot to be thankful for. And I do mean that literally.
With their husbands dead, these women inherit everything their husbands own, including all the money their husbands earned while fighting. Then these women can then marry again, perhaps marry another soldier who is getting paid to fight, so when that soldier also dies, all his money goes to his new wife. On the outside, these women are patriots, but on the inside, these women are counting coppers behind closed doors, waiting for their husbands to die so they can take all the money their men earned while fighting.
It's like Ancient Sparta all over again; the men do all the fighting, and the women stay home and manage the landed estates. Said social model led to its decay when the women did everything in their power to stop any form of reform, which led to Sparta's collapse when bigger fish came knocking on the door.........
Putin's regime absolutely desecrated it, I can't look at May 9th paraphernalia without wincing.
From a day to honor sacrifices of our ancestors and contemplate lessons we paid a terrible price for, it turned into absolute debauchery of unhinged chauvinism to justify aggression, further unnecessary deaths and ironically fascism. Seeing how blind people are to this deception makes me want to cry, as this disgusting regime of thieves drapes itself in heroism and tragedy of the past to conceal their crimes.
There was nothing to "desecrate" in the first place. This "holiday" is vile and vicious at its core, and it always has been.
It marks victory of one criminal regime over another, and there's a reason why the nigger Stalin wasn't throwing parades until he died - he wanted to sweep the war under the rug, make people move on, for he was scared of the veterans, who could put two by two together and realize exactly who shared the blame for millions of lives lost in endless meatgrinders.
The red crooks were murdering people of Russia long before Hitler came to power (whom they helped gain said power), they kept doing that after the war.
Russia has been perpetually cucked for over a century and this concept of celebrating bringing victory to their own slavers is just another humiliation ritual that perpetuates the Soviet system and its dirty methods of control. Because the honest answer to a question of why this "holiday" is a thing would be that their ancestors fought not for muh "peaceful skies over our heads", but to protect and cement the illegitimate Soviet state that to this day murders, destroys, genocides, suppresses, twists and enslaves traditions, people, the very point of being. THIS is the true tragedy.
The great irony is, the Nazi war machine had a lot to thank the Soviets for in their early days. If the USSR wasn't allied with them during the opening years of the war before Operation Barbarossa, it's highly unlikely the Germans would've gotten anywhere with a two-front war against them. Hence why they went to the Soviets for an alliance of convenience, agreeing to partition Eastern Europe between themselves in a timely fashion, so that the Nazis can then swing West and decimate the Allied Powers.
Imagine if the Soviets were either neutral or even openly hostile to German expansion; Germany wouldn't be able to declare war on France without Poland attacking from the East. This is why the Germans only declared war on the Soviets after they conquered most of Europe and had Britain on the ropes-because the Soviets helped them squash the East, giving them a free hand to crush France and send the British running back through the channel.
Nazi aggression was enabled by Soviet cooperation. The Soviets and modern Russia shouldn't be hailed as heroes for helping to stop a problem they created in the first place.
Oh, and the Nazi Holocaust was literally inspired by the Soviets using gulags to kill people off. Literally, the concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau were the German versions of Soviet gulags where they tossed in the undesirables and waited for them to expire.
It's so funny to me that modern day Russiaboos villify the Nazis to an extreme extent, to the point where they accuse modern Ukraine of being Nazis, when in reality, it was with Russian support did the Nazis conquer most of Europe. Stalin even wanted to officially join the Axis Powers at one point. So the Ziggers crying like babies over Nazi aggression is ironic, considering that said aggression was helped by their beloved Soviet Union.
Its not about brotherhood. Its difficult to explain but the CCP gets away with treating the population like serfs because the "Center of the world" is at peace and there is no plagues or mass starvation. Society is calm and orderly, thus the CCP must be fated to be in charge and there is no point trying to go against them.
The CCP have catch-22'd themselve a bit because Taiwan must be reunited* with the mainland because they are chinese, but because they are Chinese the government can't just bomb them to atoms or else this upsets the "Society is Calm and Orderly" and now you are exposed. It is unlikely the CCP would be overthrown by such things, but the current ruling class would find themselves immediately at threat of being toppled from the inside and possibly outside as well.
The problem is, the CCP feels like they have to act now, because not only are their working classes getting older, not only are the young becoming smaller in number and less invigorated to fight for the state, but their current army is full of millennials from the One-Child Policy days. Millennials that one army officer described as "little emperors" because their parents spoiled them rotten since they were the only heirs. So when placed into a military situation, these boys of green are completely incapable.
So if the CCP just sits this out and lets things slide, the productive working classes get slowly replaced by rebellious Gen Z Chinese who are "lying flat" and don't give a shit about helping the state, and the same thing goes for their army. And they know it. Hence why they make a lot of hullaballoo about retaking Taiwan-not that they'll actually try it, because they know it'll be a costly slog that they might not be able to afford, but their hope is that they can scare the Taiwanese into surrendering.
China repeatedly puts on an act, that their army is just that big and strong and they can stomp out the Taiwanese like Mario stomping on a Goomba-even though the opposite is likely the truth, and their army of little emperors and aging Gen-X soldiers would be of little use in an actual war. Dollars to doughnuts, it's the Chinese pilots and drone operators who will be the biggest threat.
It's like what Sun Tzu said: "Appear weak when you are strong, appear strong when you are weak." China spends a lot of time trying to flex their muscles and appear strong-mostly to hide their social demographic and military weaknesses. Just like Russia.
It's like what Sun Tzu said: "Appear weak when you are strong, appear strong when you are weak." China spends a lot of time trying to flex their muscles and appear strong-mostly to hide their social demographic and military weaknesses. Just like Russia.
I agree, China is almost always in a perpetual state of A: Flexing and B: Being behind. China is master class at soft power and has a way with the internet much like Russia. Though nations that oppose China shouldn't underestimate them, people often get lost in the glamor of something shiny and new without knowing much about them. I always go back to the PLAN because it's arguably the most important branch. Every time China unveils a "new" frigate people froth at the mouth about how the U.S had the LCS failures or delays the constellation class again but the newest ship is hardly different from the last two classes of frigate. Everyone talks about total tonnage without realizing so much of that tonnage is rotting support ships. Everyone talks talks about their carriers when they sit in port more than they put out to sea. Everyone talks about their ballistic missile subs not knowing they hardly deploy because they're nervous about them being followed by American and Japanese submarines in the shallowest parts of the Yellow sea and can't crash dive without bottoming out. For every LCS or Constellation failure there's a Mogami or FREMM that's 10x more impressive than it's predecessor. Their power comes from the illusion of their power and though no one should discard them, the reality of their ability to wage war is less impressive than they state.
All of this is to say a slog like Ukraine would push China to admit it's shortcomings (they can't) and make their disconnected countrymen sign up for a war they thought wasn't ever going to happen. They want Taiwan to just roll over from pressure but if they don't and China has to move before their demographics screw them, it'll either be a resounding CCP victory for the revolution or another century of humiliation with nothing in-between. The only thing that can maybe salvage this is the Chinese hate boner for Japan and the U.S. making the average Chinese millennial so full of hatred they punch themselves when embarrassed. Even then, war sucks and I'm sure a lot of little pinks would rather be home than dying on a Taiwanese beachhead.
I agree, China is almost always in a perpetual state of A: Flexing and B: Being behind. China is master class at soft power and has a way with the internet much like Russia. Though nations that oppose China shouldn't underestimate them, people often get lost in the glamor of something shiny and new without knowing much about them. I always go back to the PLAN because it's arguably the most important branch. Every time China unveils a "new" frigate people froth at the mouth about how the U.S had the LCS failures or delays the constellation class again but the newest ship is hardly different from the last two classes of frigate. Everyone talks about total tonnage without realizing so much of that tonnage is rotting support ships. Everyone talks talks about their carriers when they sit in port more than they put out to sea. Everyone talks about their ballistic missile subs not knowing they hardly deploy because they're nervous about them being followed by American and Japanese submarines in the shallowest parts of the Yellow sea and can't crash dive without bottoming out. For every LCS or Constellation failure there's a Mogami or FREMM that's 10x more impressive than it's predecessor. Their power comes from the illusion of their power and though no one should discard them, the reality of their ability to wage war is less impressive than they state.
The only difference between China and Russia is that we've yet to see how far the CCP bought into their own propaganda. The Russians are in this mess in the first place because they bought into their own propaganda of Russian might and vastly underestimated the Ukrainians, which led to them getting a bloody nose in 2022. And even with Trump helping to destabilize NATO and the West from within, Russia can't score a major victory; at best they might walk off with a third of Ukraine, but that wasn't what they tried to gain back in 2022. Hundreds of thousands of Russians died just so they can keep the status quo, they'll have a hard time justifying that once everything's said and done. Capturing Kyiv at this point is a pipe dream.
I wouldn't be surprised if another military insurrection occurs in Russia because of this. Especially since Russia is slowly running out of Russians; they can't afford a full-scale war with NATO, even if America leaves NATO, the remaining NATO countries still have enough money to buy weapons from the USA or other sources.
Widows of worms / fertiliser for Ukraine thank Putin for the deaths of their husbands. It sounds perverse even as part of a cult of death, but SMO war widows is now an established business model for underclass hustlers who don't go to lectures from a uniformed senator in Moscow University and live in parentally subsidised comfort, so need money and are a bit 'me ne frego' about it. Regardless in response to the thanks, a smirking Putin thanks them. It's all so sordid. All that death from a complete war of choice.
History will not look kindly on these "heroes", their best hope is becoming an embarrassing footnote no one wants to acknowledge.
One of my local schools I pass daily took it upon themselves to hang portraits of such "heroes" on the front wall near the entrance (either former pupils or the one case I'm aware of - son of one of the women working there, afaik the whole thing was her initiative after her spawn became fertilizer). It was depressing at first, but as their number kept growing, it became a necessary reminder for me that consequences eventually catch up with these bastards too. They're spent, but I'm here to see tomorrow without them.
Joel Davis from the National Socialist Network (NSN) had a change of heart and decided to stop being an anti-Semite, and has began campaigning for the Liberal party with signature Israel First Policies.
While I don't like Maggie or many of her politics (besides defending the Falklands), this speech is incredibly relevant today.
While I have never been optimistic, I am afraid that America only cares about the Artic domination game. Which is why, I believe, they are trying to kiss up to Russia (and the Chinks).
Had seen talk of Trump's people randomly springing a couple extra agreements onto the Ukrainian side that they demanded be signed too. One possibly involving an economic group of some sort that would be privately run that hadn't been formed yet.
The Investment Fund established under the agreement on natural resources will operate as follows:
U.S. Contribution: The United States will contribute to the Fund with both direct financial resources and potentially additional assistance, such as air defense systems for Ukraine.
Ukraine's Contribution: Ukraine will contribute 50% of the revenue generated from new royalties on new licenses for resource extraction. Ukraine may also make additional contributions if deemed necessary, establishing a long-term partnership for the coming decades.
Investment Focus: The Fund will invest in projects related to the extraction of minerals, oil, and gas, as well as infrastructure and processing projects associated with these industries. Ukraine and the U.S. will jointly determine the specific projects to be funded.
Profit Allocation: For the first ten years, any profits or funds generated by the Investment Fund will not be distributed but instead reinvested into Ukraine for new projects or reconstruction. Specific terms for these reinvestments will be negotiated in the future.
The bit about the US providing air defense systems strikes me as odd because that doesn't directly help with reconstruction.
On the whole I'm getting the vibe that it's more providing a framework for further agreements in the future rather than anything specific and actionable right now, but I could be wrong. It doesn't seem like it will have any direct effect on the war aside from maybe spooking the Putinsuckers who thought Trump was in their pocket a bit. On the whole it's probably a good thing but the unnecessary death is not over yet, unfortunately.
The reconstruction idea was probably set aside a while ago as the US focused just on how it'd be paid back. There is at least more concern from Europe on that as they'd likely want to ensure Ukrainians would want to eventually go back to their home country when means having things rebuilt and safe.
At this point, it's probably best to at least get the US to return to some status quo of continuing some form of lend lease which the agreement would hopefully facilitate.
Nothing. Trump can dole out ultimatums to Putin, but Putin will break them without giving a shit, and if Trump responds by arming Ukraine, the Ziggers in his voting base will revolt. And given how his base is currently on fire, he can't afford to lose them.
Lend-lease never started for Ukraine precisely on the fact it or at least part of it had to be repaid. Everything Biden sent through the other aid programs were free of charge for Ukraine.
The bit about the US providing air defense systems strikes me as odd because that doesn't directly help with reconstruction.
On the whole I'm getting the vibe that it's more providing a framework for further agreements in the future rather than anything specific and actionable right now, but I could be wrong. It doesn't seem like it will have any direct effect on the war aside from maybe spooking the Putinsuckers who thought Trump was in their pocket a bit. On the whole it's probably a good thing but the unnecessary death is not over yet, unfortunately.
It'll be a measure for Ukraine on "pay for' more Patriot and NASAMS systems plus additional SAM reloads, more Bradleys, more 155mm shells and probably some more howitzers.
And maybe a few other systems.
That said, the days of multi billion dollar aid packages from the USA are over, until at least 2029.
