Drowsy Emperor

Whatever opinion one has on Putin, he has a demonstrable track record of success and is rewarded with one of the highest, genuine, levels of public support by a populace. Domestic propaganda would only take him so far, if what he was preaching is the stark opposite of the reality the average voter lives in. Sure, a clever politician can fudge it for a while, but Lincoln's saying in this case applies perfectly - and Putin has been in power for way too long to 'keep fooling everyone all the time'. I don't think these last few years of persistent conflict, particularly since the Trump election, actually revolve around the Russia-West relationship (which is ultimately, worst case scenario, a MAD situation and therefore pointless to even contemplate) nearly as much as they are a reflection of internal Western issues. It's particularly obvious in the U.S. where the domestic power struggle is totally wrapped up in 'Russia' talk, while actually being a contest for the political orthodoxy (who are the 'true' Americans). Russia as such is not even an active factor, just a way to slander political opponents and demonstrate 'strength' or lack thereof. In the EU, there are other problems. Internal cohesion is at an all time low (well, one of the all time lows) and there's literally nothing to rally around. Old talks of 'one Europe' aren't winning any voters - in fact the opposite narrative is gaining ground slowly but consistently, and there's a real need to give a reason for the project to be taken to whatever the 'next level' is (there were some ideas launched recently), in spite of a lack of popular support for such a thing. Russia was supposed to be the raison d'etre of joint European defence, foreign policy - but it's not materializing, despite best efforts by the media to play up the threat on a daily basis. So, Russia is going to be the media punching bag for the foreseeable future, because these problems aren't going away any time soon - while not doing much, except trying to influence some of its remaining allies and intervene in a limited way, and that only if it absolutely has to. It's not Russia that's credibly threatening the supremacy of the West, it's the West itself. And some natural developments regarding the relative position of U.S. and E.U. economies, vis-a-vis a quickly developing 'rest' of the world.

Yes, I saw that. Thinking and explaining is anathema to major media outlets.

They're moving troops away so that there are no 'accidents', like with the Turkish attack on their plane. If the base is hit, they will still retaliate. It makes no sense to leave your men and assets there like sitting ducks. The chances of the base getting hit by a single, or even a few projectiles are fairly low given that the S400 stationed nearby Should the Russians want to confront the bombing raid, the ships will be of little use anyway - it's the air defence that will do it, or not at all.

It's not about intentionally starting a world war, it's a posturing and a **** measuring contest. The risk is that someone does something accidental or stupid along the way, while they're busy following the 'protocol' of international relations.

Russians poison a traitor 14 years after his last activities, in an atmosphere of high tension with the West, with their supremely deadly military grade, traceable, nerve agent, and he and his daughter roll a natural 20 and shrug it off. In essence, the Russians engineer the expulsion of their informant network from the UK and other countries for a man so relevant they didn't bother to kill him in 14 years. Legit?

Or there was no nerve gas to begin with? It's about as easy for the UK's security services to blow the story out of proportion and subsequently plant whatever they need to justify it - as it is for the Russian ones, particularly in this political climate. Not to mention the string of assumptions that follows even if there was: 1. That it was the russians (the kind of life Skripal led makes enemies left and right) 2. That even if it was russians, it had to be the Kremlin (Putin is not the only game in town in Russia, even if he is the biggest one) The alternative is that the NHS successfully treated the poisoning by one of the most potent weapons in the world, 5-8 times stronger than VX, which they're barely acquainted with (he should have died before they figured out what it was), have no ready made antidote for, and well beyond the onset of the poison (30s - 2minutes).

What they have confirmed is that the samples they have, are nerve gas samples. I'm not sure people understand how potent nerve gas is, it's not made for 'light poisoning' but for mass murder - chances of survival fall well below statistical significance. The fact that no one died, ****s on the entire premise of the story.

I thought the Russians but the current confrontation seems to be different. If the reports of Russians using mercs are true, they could play it smart and just shake their fists at those strikes. Trump gets to show how hard he is, Russia gets to have a wage bill decrease. I am thinking that cooler heads will prevail here. I thought the Russians but the current confrontation seems to be different. It was not entirely clear on whose volition the Wagner mercs were acting and how they envisioned to carry out the attack without giving the U.S. an excuse to retaliate. That situation seems to have been a side issue, perhaps for local reasons and not specifically a matter of the Russia vs U.S. angle.

I guess the million dollar question is if the impending attack will be so brazen as to openly, well 'accidentally', hit Russian assets. The Russians have shown that they will, up to a point, not interfere with an attack on Assad or Iranian proxies, but it seems like circles in London and Washington really want to make an 'example' out of the Russians. Should Russian assets be hit, then the Kremlin will have to respond, and God only knows where we go from there. In my view, targets of possible retaliation are more likely to be British than the U.S., because that is the less confrontational response.

It makes sense, how could we possibly survive without a war? - Theresa May, famous last words

'How to survive Russian military grade chemical weapons', coming soon, to a bookstore near you.

Syria didn't have a spontaneous revolution (insofar as there is such a thing). It was fairly clear that the opposition was supported and encouraged from abroad, from day 1. That led to a chain of events that made what was supposed to be a quick regime change operation, infinitely more complex. ISIS, fragmentation of the opposition, Russian intervention, Iran's assistance to Assad, de-facto occupation of parts of the country by the US and its proxies, Turkey and its proxies, Israeli military support for the south-west rebels etc. Most can neither be pushed out and destroyed (except ISIS) nor 'win' on their own. So this is why we are where we are. Proving, for those that care for such things, that attempting to overthrow 'tyranny' via revolution that clearly doesn't have popular support, (the kind that some anti-colonial movements had in their heyday) is the surest way to inflict untold long term misery on a population as everything grinds down into a pointless forever war.

Things are getting nasty in Syria, just when it looked like it was winding down.

It just sounds like they're setting up a 'legal' justification to ban RT, Sputnik and the like. Make no mistake of course, if Russian news outlets are banned the more controversial American ones won't be far behind.

Those clauses are so vaguely defined, you could justify just about anything with them.

That is another way of screwing people over - obligatory (expensive, sometimes prohibitively so) gun safes. They wanted to introduce it here as well and put out some absurd size regulations (which most people would have trouble meeting, because European apartments are not American houses), but, thankfully, gave up and nothing came of it. Re: RPG's. Amusingly enough, quite a few people had them here (and probably still do), usually returnees from the Bosnian and Kosovo wars. They very rarely featured in the news (I recall one or two attempts at assassination between criminals), and seem to have ended up mostly stashed away somewhere, likely even forgotten. The 'M80 Zolja', which seems to be the most common one, is disposable and single use, so on the whole and in the long term, it's not much of a threat.

I don't know about that, as in Finland you (a civilian) can buy anything from small caliber pistols and rifles to rpgs, large caliber cannons and howitzers if you have reasonable reason to own such weapon (like filming war movie, weapon collecting voluntary reserve schooling in case of big guns). There are 1.6 million legal owned fire arms in Finland (about 30% of adult population owns a firearm). Between 2003-2011, 17% (185) of all homicides (1091), were committed with firearm (41% of the cases knife or some other edged weapon was used, in 23% of cases no weapon of any sort was used), from which half are legally bought and owned. Big sunk of illegally owned firearms were originally legally bought but have changed hands without doing proper paper work, but also lot of firearms used in homicides have been either stolen or borrowed from their legal owners. In robberies using of firearm is less frequent phenomenon than in homicides, as firearm is used only in 6.3% of robberies. Meaning that it is difficult to say if gun regulations prevent law binding citizens from owning a firearm and how much said regulations effect on crime rates. You can buy anything on paper but how they usually screw you over is by forcing you to demonstrate 'participation in a hobby' (since claiming self-defense use is grounds for immediate refusal of license, barring extreme cases) - being a member of a shooting club, regularly visiting etc. I don't know how stringent it is in practice in Finland, but this is how you're taxed, both directly and indirectly, just for owning a gun. IIRC, I read that the resulting costs in Germany are quite significant. 'Forced' membership also does double duty as 'silent' surveillance, since most of the places are tight with the police, or indeed full of police officers doing target practice for fun. A second way they screw you over is the discretionary right to refuse a permit. In Serbia the standard practice is to send a policeman to your neighbourhood to ask about your character - if you're violent, troublesome etc. In principle this is not a bad thing, but if someone badmouths you, the officer doing the inquiry will more than likely recommend against your permit. I'm not a champion of the fantasy that guns necessarily make people safer. In fact, much of the time, in the 10 seconds of your life that you never hope you need it, it's probably out of reach and unavailable. But I am fully with the Americans that it should be a basic right, and suspicious of the need for authority to tightly control and tax it, particularly hunting rifles and handguns. This seems to be a product of total paranoia, since no citizen group, no matter how ambitious, has even the slightest chance of standing up to a modern instruments of force of a state (police, army) with them. 'Bad dudes' will have them anyway. Therefore, what's the justification for making it obnoxious for citizens to have weapons? Also wikipedia says 12% of Finns own a firearm, not 30%. Serbia is third in the world by number of firearms per capita, behind U.S. and Yemen. Fact is, nobody knows how many guns are around in the country, including military grade hardware. Homicide rate is about the same as Finland, so the volume of weapons on its own does not demonstrate a proportional increase in rates of violent crime.

See, back in 'Nam... No, I got nothing on that.

Yes, the prevailing opinion in Serbia is that the gun you legally own is 'rented' from the state, because of how easy it can be confiscated. A drunk guy swings at you in a bar, the cops pull in both of you, they see you're an owner in the system and take your gun away on grounds that you were a part of a public disturbance (guilt or no guilt) or the because there's 'potential for retaliation'. There's no mechanism for getting it back other than asking for it and hoping they say yes, but they're not obliged to return it or even reply to your inquiry at all. Since each new license involves the same procedure, if you reapply for a new permit on a different gun, they will see your case-file and you're more likely to sprout wings than to have it approved.

You mean, muslamic ray guns?

British paranoia in this regard is legendary. Parts of London are rife with crime but if a policeman sees you have a Swiss Army Knife in the glove compartment that is larger than 3 inches or with a locking mechanism (I think it's 3), you're likely to be immediately pulled in and charged for having a weapon. Note that all the loonies had no problem rampaging in the streets with a machete or sword (there was one with a sword the other day), because, you know, if you want to commit a crime, regulations are the last thing that's on your mind. Generally, Europe has taken a rather absurd position on weapons of any sort, in which regular citizens are denied possession, destimulated by paperwork and unjustifiable taxes - which had no effect on crime at all, but rather made sure that a large number of people have no means to defend themselves, or could not enjoy a hobby they like. I knew a few dubious characters in my time, that could be described as small time crooks at best - and they could procure more or less any weapon in short order, should they need it, regulations or no regulations.

Dat obligatory brown filter on scenes of poverty.

The ole ****ty brown and gunmetal gray color palette. The true war is on color and vibrancy.

I chuckle at the Assad regime being somehow uniquely 'repressive' in a region with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, Iraq, and a little further away, Iran. The Assad 'regime' also was at the helm of the only country in the Middle East, aside from Lebanon, where there was still a sizable Christian minority that lived in relative safety in a muslim majority country.

Getting ready to dive back into Tyranny. Been reading RPG core rulebooks. These, except for SW, are the top science fiction selection of RPG.net: Mindjammer, Starblazer Adventures, Burning Empires, Fading Suns, Traveller, Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, and Jovian Chronicles. Fishing for the right system, married to a good setting. For one reason or another, came full circle - meaning, back to the Fading Suns. Short version for the decisions: Mindjammer - Good system, too transhuman and abstract a setting for the kind of audience I could gather for the games. I was impressed but not captivated. Starblazer Adventures - same (good) system, decent pulpy space opera setting. However, the game is a massive, exceptionally well done toolkit, and I am looking for something with a more focused vision. Traveller - Interesting rules that are well made, but too complex for both me and my friends. Same 'toolkit' approach. Burning Empires - Unplayable. Requires extremely dedicated players and tremendous preparation/study time. I thought Burning Wheel was borderline unplayable but Empires is worse by an entire order of magnitude. Great art. Good premise (however, the entirety of the BE setting fits into the Humans-Symbiots conflict that is just one part of the Fading Suns and can be played out there much easier) Jovian Chronicles - Good, anime-mecha setting, but the system is overwhelmingly tailored for combat and essentially miniatures wargaming, (huge vehicle rules) rather than role-play. Star Wars: Edge of the Empire - I didn't give this game as thorough an overview, the demand to buy custom dice and a general approach to Star Wars as a compromise (because I have people who could be enthused, rather than something I want to play) drove me away. Fading Suns brings together: familiarity of fantasy (for players), novelties of sci-fi but not 'hard' sci-fi (for me), plausibility for just about anything in terms of scenarios (formerly disintegrated empire connected by jump gates no one fully understands allows for any random planet I can think of + multiple canon antagonists allow for just about any conflict), and exceptional supplements.