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Clearly Russia want to shorten as much as possible it's western border, it's extremely long and do not have any natural obstacle, essentially indefensible, so t
by kkfx 5y ago
Clearly Russia want to shorten as much as possible it's western border, it's extremely long and do not have any natural obstacle, essentially indefensible, so the shortest the better. A straight line between the Black sea and the Baltic see is the ideal.
Beside that, however consider the big picture: ALL today's Govs. benefit from this war:
- all face social unrest for the push toward Green New Deal, for the impoverishment off the middle class etc, a war silence such unrest and justify all issue "they are due to the war";
- USA that have largely lost influence in EU, especially after brexit, now do have a deep influence again;
- China, now the sole reliable Russian partner can elicit far more military tech from Russia and far more cheap and abundant natural resources, probably to a point to overpower the USA in few years;
- Putin secure more years to came winning a war.
Who loose? ALL the people, as always.
IMVHO Russia took the entire Ukraine and no one really do anything, perhaps in the next few years also a Baltic "republic". While EU Gov thunder against Russia they agree for more natural resources supplies, stating the contrary to keep energy price sky-high to push the Green New Deal and the world slowly evolve toward a new cold war alike situation. The BIG risk is China: having Russia in it's quiver it can really start a world war likely for some South American country, while India face more and more internal and local unrest favoring a dangerous local conflict. But that part so far is more fantasy than reality.
- QuadmasterXLII 5y agouser: kkfx created: 20 hours ago karma: 4 I know that this kind of callout is banned on hackernews, but these are unusual times.
- mint2 5y agoIt’s not a good look at the moment to Start off with a Russian justification of the war and then present an abnormal take on the popular among non-oil dependents green new deal, a plan that just so happens to be very inconvenient for oligarchs in old fashioned gas economies that want to continue spewing CO2 like it’s 1950 - like Russia
- kkfx 5y agoActually I was a year-long lurker... I start exactly for this kind of conversation not to "justifying Putin" but to state that actual government, Russian gov. evidently included, are acting against their own people, so instead of taking side of one dictatorship or another it's better observing what happen and determine what can happen tomorrow. Knowing their enemies does not means being able "to do something, to fight" but at least avoid being part of their gambling against our own interest. Time ago I intervene with the same line, and got similar level of criticism, when GitHub start to appear what it is today, without at that time GitLab/sr.ht etc stating that the old series of SFnet, Savannah, FreshMet etc being just single entities doing more or less the same thing, just hosting code they are useful and not harmful while converge all toward a central platform that not only aim to be The One but also offer things to tie devs to itself is actually more harmful than good. Again less time ago when GitHub was bought by Microsoft and many cray in tear "I'll go to $someoneElse" and I observe that ditching a proprietary service for another is a nonsense. Essentially my point is pushing who read my comments to reason "about the big picture" instead of drive by emotions and propaganda/sheep effect of that time. Unfortunately while some agree many seems to reject even the idea. Oh, about spewing CO₂ and Green New Deal: I totally agree that pollution (so not only CO₂) is really harmful BUT the actual green new deal is green in the dollar-green sense, in the stereotypical colors of chemical poisons spewed by rusty barrels we see on comics/movies etc NOT in the sense of green grass of the spring. And I still observe the same criticism pattern, even when I add that I'm actually invested in a new home, a p.v. system etc and I'm happy of that...
- MrMan 5y agogreen new deal is a very good thing! looking forward to it
- acdha 5y ago> all face social unrest for the push toward Green New Deal, for the impoverishment off the middle class etc, a war silence such unrest and justify all issue "they are due to the war"; This is a very odd choice of words and it’s certainly not the case that these are unrelated given Russia’s heavy reliance on fossil fuel sales. It’s very easy to imagine an EU-wide campaign to stick it to Putin by electrifying your HVAC and only buying EVs, for example, or a push to electrify the remaining rail lines so the transportation grid can be powered by renewables.