BruceVC

I think the West\US will continue to support Ukraine for several reasons but support in the US will continue as long as internal political support continues. MAGA Republicans are more critical of support but even they just talk about " more scrutiny around spending " and not dropping Ukraine. But as @Gfted1 mentioned this is not Afghanistan, there are no body-bags and no direct " boots on the ground " and that makes a difference. This war has completely changed Russia's role in the world and weakened it immensely on numerous fronts so it makes geopolitical policy sense for the US to continue to support Ukraine for as long as Ukraine wants to continue fighting But end of the day this is not a war the US is directly involved in despite the rhetoric from some so why not continue to support Ukraine? The amount of aid Ukraine is getting is small compared to US budget and certain US industries are making money from increased sales And another consideration is the Russian sanctions\disinvestment will continue long after the war is over as long as Putins nationalism continues And then there is lots of economic grandstanding about " the $ being replaced" ... but what currency will replace it as the worlds reserve currency?The Yuan is only 6% of foreign reserves with currencies like the euro, Yen and Pound being more used as foreign reserves than the Yuan Because most of the calls to replace the $ are from Vatniks and anti-Western ideologues and they mention the Yuan but why would anyone realistically believe you can trust China more than the US to maintain the world's reserve currency? This is the same country that implemented " zero-Covid " and then dropped it suddenly. But in closing Ukraine will decide if it wants to end the war and I dont see Western support ending around military aid

I finished IWD2 after 100 hours, its a great game and scores a 70/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system " I had one of the hardest battles I have ever had in any RPG with Iyachtu Xvim, I only defeated him on the 9-10th time and what made it so difficult is his natural resistances to certain magic, how only bludgeoning\crushing is effective and his AOE spells. So I adopted a strategy start the initial battle with my 2 x tanks and 1-2 summons then run away with any of my party members and let the summons do the fighting to get Xvim to use his AOE spells use more summons to get him to use spells use ranged weapons like sling and +5 bullets Engage him with my full party once the summons are dead And it was still very hard, I lost 1 party member and I had exhausted most of my offensive and healing spells but I had 3 x Lighting Bolts left and I used that to finally kill him 🥂 And then the battle with the twins was fun but strategically easier because I just killed the wizards first and quickly and then focused on the twins Great game and definitely worth playing if you enjoy D&D ruleset and an overall action RPG design 🐲

@majestic good news, he is not part of the radical left but is apparently linked to right-wing extremist ideology He is clearly naughty

I meant to comment on this earlier but I have had work pressures I respect the fact that you have been able to change your initial and more sympathetic views towards Putin and the direction he is taking Russia. Because I do remember the original reasons you had sympathy for Putin and it made sense as he prevented Russia becoming a Communist country again or failed state under Yeltzin and I understand that Its sometimes difficult to change our views on these types of realities but it demonstrates integrity and ideological consistency to be able to do that

They need to throw the book at him and I hope he spends at least 20 years in jail This cavalier attitude towards national security from people responsible for protecting that national security needs to end

Nice and it makes sense, once the war is over some of the $300 billion of frozen Russian foreign reserve can be used to help rebuild Ukraine especially considering how the Ruskies have deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure

What I also found interesting is the $500 billion of Yuan assets Russia bought but they couldnt recognize this into liquidity when needed. I wonder what he was referring to?

I watched the Peter Zeihan video, interesting insights and he makes several points I agree with like how this invasion is about one thing only, an attempt to recreate the old Soviet borders. Not a very positive view of future of Russia, interesting prediction about it breaking up into smaller states and how Putin is responsible for pruning capable leadership

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/8/ukraine-children-returned-from-russia-after-alleged-deportation Russia has started returning some of the Ukrainian stolen children, amazing how quick ICC war crimes charges can change Russian attitudes

And what would your idea be of a reset in 2023?

Sure and I agree Western governments should be consistent with real human rights abuses. But you need to adopt things like quiet diplomacy when it comes to certain criticisms of different world leaders Biden made several public statements about the killing of Khashoggi that included saying " we would assess the Saudi relationship " and " several senior Saudi's would be punished" but he was killed in 2018 when Trump was president so Biden was also playing politics and grandstanding And now people are surprised that MbS doenst care what Biden thinks and wont increase oil supply when asked

@Malcador I dont get the outrage, these facilities are to house asylum seekers. Its better than refugee camps or being sent to Rwanda isnt it?

So that is not accurate about the historical relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US Saudi Arabia doesnt hate the US, the US built most of Saudi Arabia and it was Saudi Arabia who insisted on US military intervention in the first Gulf War. Funding of Islamic extremist groups like AQ was done by individuals within Saudi Arabia and not the Saudi royal family because Bin Laden was already expelled in 1991 by the Saudi's because he criticized the US relationship, here are the timelines around 9/11 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/02/bin.laden.timeline/index.html The first country Trump visited was Saudi Arabia and this respect shown to the Saudis was also the reason why Trump could say " increase oil supply " and they did But Im not suggesting Saudi Arabia is an example of moral compass and human rights. No country in the ME is but you need to balance how you criticize them if you the US if you want to influence oil supply Thats what Biden misunderstood and how he handled things like the killing of Khashoggi

https://silk-news.com/2023/04/05/world/chinas-ambassador-to-the-e-u-tries-to-distance-beijing-from-moscow/ Interesting interview from the Chinese ambassador to the EU, originally from the NY times. To quote Just three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine Presidents Vladimir V. Putin and Xi Jinping signed a joint statement declaring “no limits” to their countries’ friendship. But Mr. Fu said China was not on Russia’s side on the war and that some people “deliberately misinterpret this because there’s the so-called ‘no limit’ friendship or relationship.” He added, “‘No limit’ is nothing but rhetoric.” Mr. Fu said that China had not provided military assistance to Russia, nor recognized its efforts to annex Ukrainian territories, including Crimea and the Donbas.

https://www.reuters.com/world/saudi-crown-prince-says-do-not-care-if-biden-misunderstands-him-atlantic-2022-03-03/ I have raised this before but this is a consequence of the mishandling and public vilification of MbS over incidents like the Khashoggi assassination from the US and particularly the Biden administration. Trump handled the Saudi's much better and he understood the respect they expected Its not the end of the world but it does mean the likes of Saudi Arabia wont increase oil supply if asked by the US like they would do under a Trump presidency and Saudi Arabia also have influence with other OPEC countries I think this type of rift is easy to fix but it will require some effort from the US but it wont happen under Biden who has been given bad advice around dealing with the likes of the Saudi Arabia

https://minfin.gov.ru/ru/press-center/?id_4=38438-o_neftegazovykh_dokhodakh_i_provedenii_operatsii_po_pokupkeprodazhe_inostrannoi_valyuty_na_vnutrennem_valyutnom_rynke Latest Russian ministry financial report, they've earned 39 billion Rubles less of oil and gas revenues in March than was predicted in the budget. And from April 7th until early May they'll be dumping 3,7 billion of foreign currency every day to prevent the deficit from skyrocketing.

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That is one of the most interesting reads I have seen about Putin and the inner workings of his private life Interesting he didnt tell his parents when he left but what insight. And very candid, if he doesnt know something he says " I dont know " He also believes Putin isnt expecially sick but the isolationism and paranoia is real

I was 45 hours into IWD2 and about it go into the Underdark when the game crashed on that loading screen I then spent about 5 hours troubleshooting it by removing mods and reinstalling mods and the game and it just made things worse. None of my save games would load. It was very frustrating and I was about to quit the game but then someone on Codex mentioned that you must loads mods in the same original order because IWD2 is a buggy game. I decided to try one more time to fix the issues and I did the following I uninstalled the game completely from GOG I then deleted any folders or files that were left over that were mostly mod related I reinstalled the game I then used my normal windows download folder to guess which mods I would have installed first And it worked, I could load save games and go into the Underdark 🥂

Its grandstanding, no need to take it seriously. I would think after years of Trump and Trump supporter rhetoric everyone would be use to it now and just ignore it

I cant get enough of this Russian outrage and as the tweet says " Putin is a master strategist who pushed a neutral country into joining NATO "

I have always supported them in several things since 1994. These include the role they played during Codesa and the negotiations to create the new SA they respect the Constitution and the rule of law and order they are committed to ending corruption and transforming the economy they dont support radical left policies like the EFF they believe in partnerships between the private sector and public sector they recognize the importance of a free media they believe in an independent judiciary I can go on and on but I dont support many of there foreign policy decisions and positions they take

As as usual your views are inaccurate about what I believe or has actually occurred in SA I support the ANC in many ways but not recent foreign policy and I have even voted for them. Cyril didn't order the police to use force in Marikana. All he correctly said was a 3 month strike must end but he didnt have authority to order them to use lethal force. And he didnt own the mine But nice trolling

No its a good question. Africa was a proxy war in clash between the West and Communism and it manifested in different ways in different countries. But from the mid 1960s there were only 5-6 countries that still had either white minority rule or were still colonies like the 3 Portuguese countries So in the case of Rhodesia, SA or Namibia the USSR and Red China helped train liberation movements like the ANC military wing, SWAPO and ZANU-PF So they helped with military training and resources in the armed struggle aspect of ending Apartheid But Apartheid of course ended through a political solution and not a military one

Agreed, the ANC is completely inconsistent with our value system when it comes to several foreign policy decisions. And I have raised this several times One example, our uninformed minister of foreign affairs keeps saying " we are neutral and Russia helped us achieve independence from Apartheid and they our friends " but it wasnt Russia who helped end Apartheid. It was the USSR and it was during the Cold War. But Ukraine was also part of the USSR, so why arent we criticizing the invasion because by her understanding of " friends " Ukraine is also our friend But the ANC ideological inconsistency gets criticized all the time in SA