pmp10
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Posts posted by pmp10
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12 hours ago, rjshae said:
Historically, Western Europe demonstrated a willingness to abandon smaller nations in order to maintain the peace. (E.g. Austria, Czechoslovakia.) Russia had already demonstrated a willingness to invade its neighbors. *COUGH*Crimea*COUGH* Once they start doing that, where do you draw the line? If they're stopped at the Ukraine then you don't need to spend a ton of money to stop them at Poland. It's not hysterics; it's a powerful lesson from history.
The objectives are pretty clearly understood, it's the US response to Russia that is baffling so far.
Parts of Ukrainian government have already gone conspiratorial on this.
Supposedly it's a US ploy to deliberately spread panic and force giving up on Crimea and Donbas to ease financial pressure. -
9 hours ago, Agiel said:
Face it, Putin is the best advertisement for NATO membership among Russia's near-abroad.
That is only one way of looking at politics of it.
He also reveled EU to be hopelessly divided and US to be prone to hysterics. -
15 hours ago, rjshae said:
That just seems like a sensible precaution. You never know whether Putin might employ some Spetsnaz operation to decapitate the Ukrainian government, for example.
Only if that threat of war is a serious one.
If this is a intimidation tactic that it's a sign of panicking easily in a protracted war of nerves.
Guarantees Putin more leverage in negotiations. -
Another interesting Ukraine tidbit:
US is preparing embassy evacuation plansI always thought Biden's 'imminent invasion' rhetoric and gaffes were calculated to whip Germany and France into united NATO position, but he really seems to believe it.
I can't see how you can justify that view given Russian army dispositions at this moment.
Maybe POTUS distrust military intelligence after Afghanistan. -
33 minutes ago, ShadySands said:
As I understand it, at least according to in-laws in Ukraine, that Ukraine would be more likely to split. It's not something I know much about and my in-laws there are very pro-Ukrainian so I dunno how much of that is realistic and how much is wishful thinking.
I'm sure that after Afghanistan nobody can be certain of political outcomes once things start going south.
I doubt Putin would mind a Kievian rump state provided it's tiny and insignificant.-
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18 hours ago, Lexx said:
The writing clearly suffered from the "more = better" crap that was going on back then. I still blame Planescape: Torment for this. We all thought that more text = better rpg, because of a single miracle case of a game that came out like 20 years ago. Oh boy how wrong we were.
Turns out it's really not the amount of text, but the quality of text that matters. Lots of the stuff in PoE1 could have been cut out and nothing of value would have been lost. Stuff like reading the "souls" or whatever that was didn't help it either..
It's wasn't even the amount of text but that majority of the bloat was lore-dumping.
I know BG2 did it trying to imitate Tolkien but for me it really doesn't work outside of book format. -
7 hours ago, Darkpriest said:
In no way they would ever commit to occupation of full Ukraine. They are even hesitant about anexing a much easier Belarus, and you'd think in real terms that they would invade Ukraine?
There might be no need to occupy much of Ukraine after a successful regime change.
The country is still likely pretty divided and it should perfectly possible to buy-off the elites, or show the common people the error of their ways with serious energy scarcity. -
22 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:
Wait, that actually is unheard of. How many vaccinated people are dying of covid?
Roughly 5% of deaths are among fully vaccinated.
That's why anti-vaxxer love to compare number of deaths while conveniently forgetting to mention vaccination rate among population. -
11 hours ago, Gorth said:
What will the new German chancellor do?
Germany made that call long ago.
They have to temporarily make pretenses as NS2 is being used for energy blackmail before being even opened.But that's just the price of doing business with Russia, I'm sure it's been factored in.
Ukraine's well being has no place it German calculations. -
9 hours ago, Sarex said:
So it seems Russia has started pumping gas through Nord 2 as it's now going from Germany to Poland.
If so, that would only be for technical testing as the thing is still uncertified.
Reverse flow to Poland would have to come from other sources. -
10 hours ago, BruceVC said:
For example why doesnt Russia allow these illegal immigrants into their country? Problem solved
The immigrants are not interested in anything but Germany.
I doubt Lukaszenko expects Poland or Lithuania to do a 180° either.Berlin is another matter as official recognition and lifting of EU sanctions are all up for grabs.
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On 11/1/2021 at 8:58 PM, Darkpriest said:
What's even more ironic is that the two-week summit is happening under the shadow of the UK's own energy crisis. Which means that those who are in a position to try and cut greenhouse gasses are simply in too difficult a situation to try and fix it now. (hence Putin's decision to skip it)
Then maybe it should be looked upon as an opportunity?
They missed the chance to let airlines go under during the pandemic, but now is a great time to allow petrol and gas prices to rise.if not they could at least spare us more lectures and spectacles.
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9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:
"Pandora Papers" leaks show wealth of some prominent leaders.
Not exactly news in most cases though, anyone who didn't know Aliyev was looting Azerbaijan probably didn't because they didn't what Azerbaijan is or who its President is.
But they did caught Babis just days before election.
I wonder if the timing is a coincidence. -
29 minutes ago, Agiel said:
Alternatives presented by the US would have sufficed when there was appropriate investment put into the project. The big kicker is that it was a hell of a lot cheaper for the ISI to pay angry, listless young men with few prospects at home in Pakistan (of which there are plenty) to wreck infrastructure, plant IEDs, and intimidate folks in places where ISAF and ANA forces weren't.
Is there any reliable estimation of how much ISI invested into the Taliban?
I'm really curious what the spending ratio was compared to US funding ANA. -
3 hours ago, BruceVC said:
No this is not the consequence of the USA " betraying " their partners. At the very least Ghani could have presented military resistance in some way ....he had an army and airforce FFS !!!
Some analysts counted on that army to resist for 6 months but no more.
If defeat was inevitable, you can't blame them for not wanting to die in an attempt to meet foreigner hold-out quota. -
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5 hours ago, Gorth said:
Maybe somebody should show the Polish leadership a history book. The US has a proven track record of throwing allies to the wolves the moment the relationship isn't beneficial enough. I'm sure Putin would love a Poland all alone in the world.
That history book would show Poland to be effectively isolated since the 18th century so not much changes there.
But maybe we could stop calling that parasitic relationship an 'alliance'. -
On 7/31/2021 at 11:26 AM, Azdeus said:
Build a wall!
Better yet - a sphere.
When sun sends its photons...
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So details of Nord Stream 2 deal are starting to emerge.
So far it looks like a big loss to Ukraine and substantial win for Germany.
There is the usual lip service of assurances but they are hopelessly vague with no mechanism to force Germany into anything.
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1 hour ago, BruceVC said:
[...] it was absolutely criminal and outrageous what Belarus did to force that plane to land to arrest one journalist who was critical of the current dictatorship
Protasevich is not Khashoggi.
Not that it makes the act any less heavy-handed, but he was nabbed over the news-site he run not some criticism.
I bet hundreds of names are being extracted from him and his hardware at this very moment. -
3 hours ago, Pidesco said:
People are leaving their parents' houses later and later because they can't afford it, they aren't having kids earlier because they can't afford it, and they aren't having more kids because they can't afford it.
Affording is really rarely the issue in the developed countries.
Few in the middle-class are about to starve for having to take care for an extra kid or two.
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14 hours ago, ComradeYellow said:
That was inevitable.
What's really interesting is if Germany will give Biden a face-saver over this. -
On 5/17/2021 at 6:38 AM, Gorth said:
Probably one of those young men who is sort of part mad, part genius[...]
More like a lifelong mental health sufferer.
Some of his posts about attempting time-travel and allowing 'wemen to have multiple organisms' can still be found online.
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9 hours ago, Ben No.4 said:
For an entirely different, but hugely important topic: climate change. The German constitutional court ruled in what can only be described as a landmark decision that the hitherto efforts of the German legislative to combat climate change were insufficient and ordered the parliament to draft newer, more far reaching laws.That's all nice and well but that's just a legalistic argument.
Courts may declare themselves fit to decide on what the right emission targets are.
But they cannot set those targets or means of reaching them.
The All Things Political Topic - Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities
in Way Off-Topic
Posted
The whole of eastern and most of central Europe had a warmer winter than usual.
That's why the gas prices 'only' tripled.