Ukraine Conflict - In the grim darkness of the near future, there is only war!

[Lexx]

18 hours ago, Malcador said:

Don't think they have, really.

Everywhere in Europe the right wing parties are winning, mostly based on lies and manufactured outrage. Russian troll farms are pretty good at making us fight against each other.

[Sarex]

19 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Everywhere in Europe the right wing parties are winning, mostly based on lies and manufactured outrage. Russian troll farms are pretty good at making us fight against each other.

You are really out of touch if you think that's why people are voting for the right.

[Lexx]

If I ask the people in my area for why they are voting right, it's always the same garbage build on lies and "feelings."

Edited February 2 by Lexx

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Lexx said:

If I ask the people in my area for why they are voting right, it's always the same garbage build on lies and "feelings."

One of the main reasons why the right is seeing such success is because of the migration crisis and how many governments have failed to understand this and deal with this 

The left and Liberals dont seem to understand this despite the years of unhappiness around  not seeing the levels of EU  migration as a problem. Im surprised you not aware of this considering the rise of the AfD that gained much support because of the well-meaning but terrible Merkel era around the Syrian refugee crisis

The failure to address migration has pushed more people  towards the right that typically wouldnt have voted for right-wing parties and this is unfortunate because I definitely believe in the EU and what it represents 

And this is not unique to the EU,  its the same in countries like South Africa and the US where migration and the failures to meaningfully address  it has also become  a massive voting issue 

 

 

[Elerond]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

One of the main reasons why the right is seeing such success is because of the migration crisis and how many governments have failed to understand this and deal with this 

Migration crisis in Finland happened when right wing parties were in government, they failed miserably to handle it. Then left wing government rise to power and rightwing opposition constantly complained about migration crisis and illegal migration even though it was minimal because of covid restrictions, but right wing parties succeeded to win election with their agenda. And now they are looking how to migrate more people in Finland for work force and same time their poorly executed spending cuts have caused domestic demand to drop two digit numbers which has caused massive layoffs and record high unemployment.

So are you sure that right wing parties are getting election victories because how migration crisis has been handled?

[BruceVC]

36 minutes ago, Elerond said:

Migration crisis in Finland happened when right wing parties were in government, they failed miserably to handle it. Then left wing government rise to power and rightwing opposition constantly complained about migration crisis and illegal migration even though it was minimal because of covid restrictions, but right wing parties succeeded to win election with their agenda. And now they are looking how to migrate more people in Finland for work force and same time their poorly executed spending cuts have caused domestic demand to drop two digit numbers which has caused massive layoffs and record high unemployment.

So are you sure that right wing parties are getting election victories because how migration crisis has been handled?

Yes I  think its a huge reason for the rise of right-wing support 

What do you think the reasons are if migration is not one of the main reasons?

[Elerond]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Yes I  think its a huge reason for the rise of right-wing support 

What do you think the reasons are if migration is not one of the main reasons?

Successful marketing where they blame issues to some population that isn't really blame of those issues, but it is easier to sell than trying to tell that in past we have collected too little pension money, which now causes issues because population does not grow but gets older causing increase of both pension and health service expenses

And failure to increase value of goods and services that we export, causing problems when it comes to increasing salaries in such extend that inflation has started to eat people's purchasing power.

Failure to act on research about changing climate in past 50 years, which has lead to need to try find fast ways to fix infrastructure and policies that are designed to different kind of climate

Failure to understand we can't lean single supplier in important products like  fertilizers, gas and oil.

Failure to see that tying large parts of economy to few big companies is as dangerous if not even more dangerous than tying it to public sector, because it both makes difficult to refocus economy if there is global issue and people's livelihood is tied to entity which they don't have any say over.

Failure to see that we need to invest to future not pump billions and billions to sectors that are dying, even if that would cause short term problems. 

Failure to understand that short term gains from privatizing public infrastructure will lead to monopolies that will cause issues

Failure to ensure bureaucracy of people immigrating to work does not prevent creation of jobs and cause people to go else where. System where seeking asylum is easiest way to get residence but with prohibition to work, will lead situation where migrants are see only as burden.

Failure to create rules to prevent tax havens, unchecked imports, equal postal fees, need to have same standards for imported goods than domestically produced goods have, have same refund rules for imported goods than domestic goods, have equal tariffs.

Failure to have coherent clear foreign policies that are same for all

and lots of other issues. 

[Malcador]

7 hours ago, Lexx said:

Everywhere in Europe the right wing parties are winning, mostly based on lies and manufactured outrage. Russian troll farms are pretty good at making us fight against each other.

Ah ok, fair, guess my experience over here coloured my view a lot as all we get is rah rah Ukraine stuff.

[Zoraptor]

Dunno really, countries have always loved to blame their problem on the outside and it's the same with the 'rise of the right wing'. Far easier to believe it's being done to us by Bad Actors than to accept that we haven't really progressed very far from Thog hitting Thag with a club for wearing sacred forbidden cow leather instead of sacred accepted sheep leather and using our spring instead of theirs.

As always, the actual data on influence operations suggests that they are disproportionately- and considerably so- pro west and pro status quo politics. Indeed, one might almost believe that there being so much talk of pro Russian influence operations comes directly from pro west ones.

Current example: the number of 'independent' media and other outlets complaining about Trump freezing the money that was keeping them running. You know if they were accepting money from Russia they'd be compromised and bereft of integrity and independence, but have USAID or some CIA slush fund pay them: independence totally maintained. Or the 'Russian' pro far right campaign in Romania that turned out to be paid for by, well, Romanians attempting to manipulate who'd make the runoffs.

[Sarex]

10 hours ago, Lexx said:

If I ask the people in my area for why they are voting right, it's always the same garbage build on lies and "feelings."

Or maybe they don't want to talk about their actual reason because they don't want to get in to it with you.

Here in Serbia for the longest time the "right" was a silent majority. When you talked with the fiery left about voting they always were confused about not know anyone who voted for the right. Well yeah, because people don't care about you enough to get in to a discussion, especially when they see you are looking for a fight.

The real reasons people are voting for a different option are obvious enough, the migrants and the economy. There isn't a year that goes by that you don't hear about someone driving a vehicle through a crowd of people or something similar. The economy is down in the dumps without any outlook for improvement. Euribor is sky high, the sanctions on Russia are hurting the EU more then they are the Russians. People want to be secure and well fed, that's always been the main voting motivator.

Edited February 2 by Sarex

[Malcador]

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/2/7496431/

As you can imagine now people are running with a narrative that there's 100+ B missing. 

 

[Gfted1]

Moscow bomb kills pro-Russia paramilitary leader | Russia | The Guardian

[Malcador]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-11/treasury-secretary-bessent-to-visit-kyiv-as-trump-seeks-minerals

Looks like Ukrainian minerals for US support is a good play

[Zoraptor]

Someone in Ukraine must have looked at an overview of why Trump wants to annex Greenland and made sure to mention rare earths repeatedly.

The best thing about that play is that it was a Biden era agreement that Ukraine shelved for months so as to pad Trump's ego. Not sure it's worked given some of his other recent comments like "they may be Russian some day"

(Trump's 500bn dollars worth of rare earth reserves would supply US imports for, uh, 2500 (two thousand five hundred) years at the current rate of just under 200mn p/a. Which actually dropped from 2022 numbers. But I also can't find a single independent source of Ukraine having any proven r/e reserves, at all. And of course the 'funny' thing about it is that their proven reserves of other minerals are disproportionately- and pretty massively so- in the Donbass, which realistically they aren't getting back)

[Malcador]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5141716-trump-ukraine-war-negotiations/

Not the best diplomacy at work here.

[Lexx]

I think they have to make peace. Their people are being killed, and I think they have to make peace. I said that was not a good war to go into, and I think they have to make peace. That’s what I think.

Trump is such a master wordsmith. Makes it sound as if Ukraine started it.

[BruceVC]

15 minutes ago, Lexx said:

 

 

Trump is such a master wordsmith. Makes it sound as if Ukraine started it.

Yes he is notorious for these types of selective speeches around his understanding of geopolitical events 

But I do think its in the best interest of everyone for this war to end but particularly Ukraine themselves and concessions have to made but only Ukraine can decide that and I will support Ukraine ether way 

Hegseth said a lot yesterday and Im sure several things he said we can agree on like Ukraine not joining NATO and accepting it wont gain back regions Russia has illegally annexed and the EU taking more responsibility for the future security of Ukraine 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy0pz3er37jo

But he also  confirmed that US focus will be China as there " real " geopolitical adversary. And this is something that Trump raised during the campaign so its not a surprise 

 

https://www.aol.com/hegseth-warns-europeans-realities-china-161245465.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACn3vDgTVKBK663q_1TsuPd9dexUFoa2eTWDOPdEhVANLH-vsoXXpaDUUE-d4PQM8kXQkAlseJStsxk3NlGkeoFfyvcdyClwgqBstCvqNvyLlnCSXbswPWhkW3S-z9FSRpZ3JkkABEiWgOJTjvi_eLhZaGYqrpDG3IW_jMtDcEGm

 

" We are focusing on security of our own borders. We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific," Hegseth told a meeting of a Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Belgium on Wednesday.

"The U.S. is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific. Recognizing the reality of scarcity and making the resourcing trade-offs to ensure deterrence does not fail. Deterrence cannot fail."

[Gorth]

Just waiting for Trump to suggest they can solve the problem with bleach…

He obviously doesn’t have a clue (Im Westen nichts Neues), but people keep making the mistake of giving him free rent in their brains. It’s what he wanted. He’s first and foremost a reality tv showman and a narcissist. Any attention is good attention.

 

As for the actual subject I suspect the Ukrainian rhetoric of borders back to pre 2014 status as well as Russian ambitions of recreating the USSR are both unrealistic. The former would require Ukrainian troops to hold a victory parade on the red square and the latter train departed the station when Gorbachev led the process of disintegration 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

Just waiting for Trump to suggest they can solve the problem with bleach…

He obviously doesn’t have a clue (Im Westen nichts Neues), but people keep making the mistake of giving him free rent in their brains. It’s what he wanted. He’s first and foremost a reality tv showman and a narcissist. Any attention is good attention.

 

As for the actual subject I suspect the Ukrainian rhetoric of borders back to pre 2014 status as well as Russian ambitions of recreating the USSR are both unrealistic. The former would require Ukrainian troops to hold a victory parade on the red square and the latter train departed the station when Gorbachev led the process of disintegration 

I agree he doesn't have a deep knowledge of the reality of most geopolitical events but then he seems to achieve results through his grandstanding and hyperbole 

Im not saying everything he says he commits to he  delivers on especially around US voting issues, for example he won the election on 2 main issues. The border\illegal migration and US inflation and we dont know yet how successful either of these objectives will be because its too early to gauge 

But he does have more measured  success on geopolitical events like the current ceasefire in Gaza and the tariffs threat and how several countries have already  agreed to his demands and expectations

It remains to be seen if the Gaza ceasefire maintains and we dont know enough real details around  the Ukraine peace deal to understand if it is realistic and sustainable?

 

[Malcador]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

But he does have more measured  success on geopolitical events like the current ceasefire in Gaza and the tariffs threat and how several countries have already  agreed to his demands and expectations

The ceasefire that is hanging by a thread, and threatening friendly nations for things they already had in motion?

[BruceVC]

24 minutes ago, Malcador said:

The ceasefire that is hanging by a thread, and threatening friendly nations for things they already had in motion?

Yes and its up to Hamas to release the hostages or the war will continue like we discussed in the other thread

And the tariff threat being effective was more about South American countries that initially didnt want to accept there own citizens back

But the Canadian tariff threat was a silly example of Trumps theater and grandstanding 

 

[Malcador]

27 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Yes and its up to Hamas to release the hostages or the war will continue like we discussed in the other thread

And the tariff threat being effective was more about South American countries that initially didnt want to accept there own citizens back

But the Canadian tariff threat was a silly example of Trumps theater and grandstanding 

 

Well, I guess it can be a quantum of success.  Not exactly raising hopes of any kind of reasonable deal, Trump's in it for his glory after all, that doesn't mesh with Ukraine, Europe, well or even the US' strategic goals. 

 

 

[Zoraptor]

16 hours ago, Gorth said:

He obviously doesn’t have a clue (Im Westen nichts Neues), but people keep making the mistake of giving him free rent in their brains. It’s what he wanted. He’s first and foremost a reality tv showman and a narcissist. Any attention is good attention.

There does come a point where the balance shifts and you have to accept that some of the outrageous things he says are what he actually wants and intends to get- or at least, that you have to take the threats/ statements seriously. And at that point it isn't him living rent free in your head any more, it's real concern that he might actually try invading Greenland/ Canada/ Panama or ethnically cleansing Gaza- or 'sell out' Ukraine.

But none of the Ukraine stuff should be a surprise, Trump's position was signposted extensively and there's a pretty direct precedent in what happened in Afghanistan where negotiations almost exclusively took place between the US and Taleban without Afghan government involvement. That Europe in particular seems to have made zero preparations is an indictment on their historically incompetent leadership (well, short term history, not like von der Leyen is literally Hitler) coupled to wishful thinking on pretty much every single aspect of everything.

If you want to target China, as Trump obviously does, you need to have Russia if not on side then at least not as an enemy, and that's basic geographical fact.

[ShadySands]

Could Russia realistically refuse any Chinese requests if/when Trump goes all in on China?

Edited Friday at 03:14 AM by ShadySands

[Zoraptor]

In a word yes, though it'd depend of course on the request and specific situation.

(Fundamentally, shifting the focus to US v China and parking US v Russia alters the balance of leverage for Russia <--> China as well, which certainly favours China markedly at the moment. Russia, now, would have difficulty refusing any half way reasonable Chinese request or agreement offer and, if it hurt the west, likely wouldn't particularly want to anyway.

It'd still be highly unlikely Russia would go out of its way to help any anti Chinese western efforts, given recent history and with a realistic 'normalisation' to the US. If the US asked them to, say, close their borders to Chinese goods they wouldn't under any reasonable scenario. But you could certainly expect them to extract a price from China much as China has from Russia, and could get them to up the price by offering sanctions relief or release of currency reserves. Neither of those could be offered under a more Bidenesque approach)