8 ms·

If you are a citizen of another country, at least, vote against politicians that want to strengthen your country's alliance with it, and respond to polls in way

by 4bpp 4y ago

If you are a citizen of another country, at least, vote against politicians that want to strengthen your country's alliance with it, and respond to polls in ways that indicate opposition to causes it cares about. The US is dependent on its network of allies in many respects; most pertinently, much of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns would not have been possible without the support of its European and the Middle Eastern ones, providing overflight permissions, military bases, intelligence and often even hosting "black sites" where people from the target nations could be tortured far from the meddlesome eyes of journalists and NGOs.

blfr 4y ago
What is most countries alternative to allying with the US? China? Russia? With their spotless record on human rights?
- potatototoo99 4y ago
  Being independent? US, China and Russia project this image of great power but they can hardly project it, as evidenced most recently in Ukraine.
  - cpursley 4y ago
    According to whom? The reddit armchair generals? MSM "journalists" with non-technical degrees like humanities? Russia is weeks, perhaps days, away from consolidating the Donbas (area large than the entire UK) and have greatly reduced the NATO-trained and supported Ukrainian military's (second largest in Europe) ability to conduct offensive maneuver warfare in a time span of just a few of weeks. And that's with maybe using 20% of Russias military capacity. All according to western sources. Let's not conflate how we feel about the situation with the reality on the ground. The sooner we're honest about whats going, the sooner we can have peace.
    - trasz 4y ago
      Russia isn't really consolidating anything - they are destroying Donbas, razing entire cities. That's after three months of failures, like when they were forced to flee from Kyiv and then Kharkiv. And no, that's not 20% of their capability, that's all of their military capability (that's why they are using conscripts), except the strategic forces. And that's against a rather underfunded country which, during previous Russian invasion, couldn't defend at all. Ukraine's main problem is that they are not being supplied with enough heavy weapons. The sooner they are, the sooner we can have peace. You might want to take some time off from reading Sputnik, comrade :-)
      - cpursley 4y ago
        It's actually "tovarishch" in Russian, not "comrade". Comrade is Spanish. If you're going to take lazy cheap shots, at least get it right. Also, I'd love to hear which heavy weapon systems the west has that could change the tide. Like what are the exact platforms and logistics of getting them there and the Ukrainian forces trained up on them? Yeah, you don't actually have a clue, do you.
        trasz 4y ago
        Nobody cares what it sounds in Russian; this joke wasn't aimed at Russians. As for heavy weapon systems - literally any of them. Every day Ukrainians are successfully stopping Rashists' attacks, but they don't have the weaponry required to counterattack.
    - reitanqild 4y ago
      > And that's with maybe using 20% of Russias military capacity. Let's not fool ourselves here: if there was a way for Putin to avoid looking like an idiot who struggles to take even parts of Ukraine he would take it. Truth is he failed spectacularily and everyone who has the slightest idea can see for themselves that Russia is struggling mightily despite their initial backstab where they had a few hours to bomb Ukraine and insert troops at will despite their promises the night before. They fail despite having multiple influential politicians who they had bribed in advance, multiple sleeper cells, and, on the paper, a much much stronger army. He has already sent the troops that was supposed to protect the strategically important Murmansk area, proving 1.) The Ukraine invasion is massively important to him 2.) He also proved all the words about being afraid of Nato is just a waste of perfectly fine silence, as he knows perfectly well that Nato is mostly peaceful and has not intention of invading or nuking Russia. After all he removed these troops while Nato, Sweden and Finland was gathering lots of troops right across the border :-D > All according to western sources. Someone dubbed Heissentruths, truths whose exact value cannot be known until you open the box. Russians and their friends has a lot of Heissentruths. Western media being a reliable source is one of these. In this case it is absolutely true and very reliable, in another case were they point out the Russian attempts at genocide they are of course absolutely unreliable and only fools would refer to them. Edit: If Nato joins the conflict, Russian authorities only hope is their strategic weapons. And given what we have seen about how well the kleptocracy maintains their conventional weapons I am somewhat less worried about that then what I was in February/March. I have a feeling they too have noted this as I hear less and less mentions of this option from them, so it is either that they have realized the red button won't work or they are preparing a surprise.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > US, China and Russia project this image of great power but they can hardly project it, as evidenced most recently in Ukraine. The US can bomb any country to pieces if it wants, they have shown that in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia can bomb a country to pieces (e.g. Syria) or massively impede any sort of progress (e.g. Libya). I wouldn't underestimate the UK and France either, both are nuclear powers and have sizable navies. Projecting power is not an issue at all for them, their weakness is nation building which is why Bosnia is on the verge of collapse, Afghanistan back into a hellhole and Iraq not too much better. The wild card is China, they haven't done anything more than a couple of border fights with India and silently taken over Hong Kong so it's completely unknown how good their firepower and training actually is. In any case, being "independent" doesn't really work either - if your resources are of interest to a major power, you will get fucked over eventually. Yugoslavia broke apart and most of its former parts allied with the EU/NATO, Cuba is deeply held back by US sanctions (which in my opinion should have gone years ago). Even the Swiss, the world's most prominent neutral nations, had to cave under US and EU pressure to open up their bank books. And now Ukraine, which was agreed to by both the NATO and Russia to stay neutral, was invaded by Russia on a pretext.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Being independent? US, China and Russia project this image of great power but they can hardly project it, as evidenced most recently in Ukraine. Speaking of Ukraine, it sure wishes it wasn't "independent" in the sense you advocate.
- trasz 4y ago
  China certainly isn't spotless, but for starters it 1. Hadn't invaded anyone in at least five decades now, 2. Is not the country with largest incarceration rate. Event the minority rights situation in China is actually improving (https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1535797471581941761 https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1535797471581941761), not declining.
  - fartcannon 4y ago
    They invaded Hong Kong.
    - oa335 4y ago
      Hong Kong was leased by the British for 99 years (lease terms were set after British beat Chinese in opium wars, giving British drug dealers the right to sell opium to Chinese citizens). After 99 years, China was strong enough where British couldn’t reasonably renege on lease or force new terms, so they gave it back to China.
      - fartcannon 4y ago
        I'm talking about the 2019-2020 destruction of their democracy.
  - yorwba 4y ago
    The 1979 invasion of Vietnam was less than five decades ago.
  - pif 4y ago
    China is not a democracy. That prevents any sane people to want to tighten their political relationship.
    - trasz 4y ago
      Americans' claim they live in democracy. Chinese say the same thing. To you China might not be a democracy; to somebody else US - where corporations literally just buy their own congressman - isn't a democracy either.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
aiProgMach 4y ago
I'm fine with what you're saying, but the sad truth is that US rarely has "allies" it's mostly puppets and dogs [1], even for a large and rich entity like the EU it's mostly forced to follow the US strategy willingly or forcefully. -- 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABhZQ_VRbsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABhZQ_VRbsQ

by 4bpp 4y ago

blfr 4y ago

What is most countries alternative to allying with the US? China? Russia? With their spotless record on human rights?

potatototoo99 4y ago
Being independent? US, China and Russia project this image of great power but they can hardly project it, as evidenced most recently in Ukraine.
- cpursley 4y ago
  According to whom? The reddit armchair generals? MSM "journalists" with non-technical degrees like humanities? Russia is weeks, perhaps days, away from consolidating the Donbas (area large than the entire UK) and have greatly reduced the NATO-trained and supported Ukrainian military's (second largest in Europe) ability to conduct offensive maneuver warfare in a time span of just a few of weeks. And that's with maybe using 20% of Russias military capacity. All according to western sources. Let's not conflate how we feel about the situation with the reality on the ground. The sooner we're honest about whats going, the sooner we can have peace.
  - trasz 4y ago
    Russia isn't really consolidating anything - they are destroying Donbas, razing entire cities. That's after three months of failures, like when they were forced to flee from Kyiv and then Kharkiv. And no, that's not 20% of their capability, that's all of their military capability (that's why they are using conscripts), except the strategic forces. And that's against a rather underfunded country which, during previous Russian invasion, couldn't defend at all. Ukraine's main problem is that they are not being supplied with enough heavy weapons. The sooner they are, the sooner we can have peace. You might want to take some time off from reading Sputnik, comrade :-)
    - cpursley 4y ago
      It's actually "tovarishch" in Russian, not "comrade". Comrade is Spanish. If you're going to take lazy cheap shots, at least get it right. Also, I'd love to hear which heavy weapon systems the west has that could change the tide. Like what are the exact platforms and logistics of getting them there and the Ukrainian forces trained up on them? Yeah, you don't actually have a clue, do you.
      - trasz 4y ago
        Nobody cares what it sounds in Russian; this joke wasn't aimed at Russians. As for heavy weapon systems - literally any of them. Every day Ukrainians are successfully stopping Rashists' attacks, but they don't have the weaponry required to counterattack.
  - reitanqild 4y ago
    > And that's with maybe using 20% of Russias military capacity. Let's not fool ourselves here: if there was a way for Putin to avoid looking like an idiot who struggles to take even parts of Ukraine he would take it. Truth is he failed spectacularily and everyone who has the slightest idea can see for themselves that Russia is struggling mightily despite their initial backstab where they had a few hours to bomb Ukraine and insert troops at will despite their promises the night before. They fail despite having multiple influential politicians who they had bribed in advance, multiple sleeper cells, and, on the paper, a much much stronger army. He has already sent the troops that was supposed to protect the strategically important Murmansk area, proving 1.) The Ukraine invasion is massively important to him 2.) He also proved all the words about being afraid of Nato is just a waste of perfectly fine silence, as he knows perfectly well that Nato is mostly peaceful and has not intention of invading or nuking Russia. After all he removed these troops while Nato, Sweden and Finland was gathering lots of troops right across the border :-D > All according to western sources. Someone dubbed Heissentruths, truths whose exact value cannot be known until you open the box. Russians and their friends has a lot of Heissentruths. Western media being a reliable source is one of these. In this case it is absolutely true and very reliable, in another case were they point out the Russian attempts at genocide they are of course absolutely unreliable and only fools would refer to them. Edit: If Nato joins the conflict, Russian authorities only hope is their strategic weapons. And given what we have seen about how well the kleptocracy maintains their conventional weapons I am somewhat less worried about that then what I was in February/March. I have a feeling they too have noted this as I hear less and less mentions of this option from them, so it is either that they have realized the red button won't work or they are preparing a surprise.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > US, China and Russia project this image of great power but they can hardly project it, as evidenced most recently in Ukraine. The US can bomb any country to pieces if it wants, they have shown that in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia can bomb a country to pieces (e.g. Syria) or massively impede any sort of progress (e.g. Libya). I wouldn't underestimate the UK and France either, both are nuclear powers and have sizable navies. Projecting power is not an issue at all for them, their weakness is nation building which is why Bosnia is on the verge of collapse, Afghanistan back into a hellhole and Iraq not too much better. The wild card is China, they haven't done anything more than a couple of border fights with India and silently taken over Hong Kong so it's completely unknown how good their firepower and training actually is. In any case, being "independent" doesn't really work either - if your resources are of interest to a major power, you will get fucked over eventually. Yugoslavia broke apart and most of its former parts allied with the EU/NATO, Cuba is deeply held back by US sanctions (which in my opinion should have gone years ago). Even the Swiss, the world's most prominent neutral nations, had to cave under US and EU pressure to open up their bank books. And now Ukraine, which was agreed to by both the NATO and Russia to stay neutral, was invaded by Russia on a pretext.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Being independent? US, China and Russia project this image of great power but they can hardly project it, as evidenced most recently in Ukraine. Speaking of Ukraine, it sure wishes it wasn't "independent" in the sense you advocate.
trasz 4y ago
China certainly isn't spotless, but for starters it 1. Hadn't invaded anyone in at least five decades now, 2. Is not the country with largest incarceration rate. Event the minority rights situation in China is actually improving (https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1535797471581941761 https://twitter.com/isgoodrum/status/1535797471581941761), not declining.
- fartcannon 4y ago
  They invaded Hong Kong.
  - oa335 4y ago
    Hong Kong was leased by the British for 99 years (lease terms were set after British beat Chinese in opium wars, giving British drug dealers the right to sell opium to Chinese citizens). After 99 years, China was strong enough where British couldn’t reasonably renege on lease or force new terms, so they gave it back to China.
    - fartcannon 4y ago
      I'm talking about the 2019-2020 destruction of their democracy.
- yorwba 4y ago
  The 1979 invasion of Vietnam was less than five decades ago.
- pif 4y ago
  China is not a democracy. That prevents any sane people to want to tighten their political relationship.
  - trasz 4y ago
    Americans' claim they live in democracy. Chinese say the same thing. To you China might not be a democracy; to somebody else US - where corporations literally just buy their own congressman - isn't a democracy either.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

aiProgMach 4y ago

I'm fine with what you're saying, but the sad truth is that US rarely has "allies" it's mostly puppets and dogs [1], even for a large and rich entity like the EU it's mostly forced to follow the US strategy willingly or forcefully. -- 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABhZQ_VRbsQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABhZQ_VRbsQ