24 ms·

The west isn't perfect, but the biggest problem with our narrative regarding Russia and China is that we're compatible enough with authoritarian dictatorships t

by yarg 3y ago

The west isn't perfect, but the biggest problem with our narrative regarding Russia and China is that we're compatible enough with authoritarian dictatorships to make economic codependency a viable option. It simply is not the case, and we've shown with both China and Russia that authoritarian strongmen will only ever see capitulation and appeasement as weakness and an opportunity to be exploited.

Thrio499 3y ago
[flagged]
- yarg 3y ago
  What is it that has managed to convince you that Russian leadership is suicidal?
  - Thrio499 3y ago
    They were bombing their own nuclear power plant!
    - _kbh_ 3y ago
      It's a Ukrainian power plant that Russia is currently occupying, and bombing it would be par for the course for the actions the Russians take to purposely destroy as much of Ukraine as possible. The power plant is very well shielded it would be practically impossible to breach it from the outside, if anything it is likely that it will be sabotaged / attacked from inside.
      - Thrio499 3y ago
        Zaporozhi was shelled by Russians on August 2022. By Russian constitution it is part of Russia. And Russians could sabotage Zaporozhi Nuclear Power Plant in many ways: * cut power line for cooling reactors and disconnect it from electric grid (already happened) * destroy backup power generators for cooling * bomb nuclear waste store * bomb cooling water reservoir with bunker buster rockets (Russians already did that on Kachovka) * use dirty radioactive shells, to raise local radiation levels. That also counts as nuclear disaster! We see there is no reasoning with Putin, and we absolutely must give Ukraine more weapons, ballistic missiles, and nuclear warheads!
        _kbh_ 3y ago
        > Zaporozhi was shelled by Russians on August 2022. By Russian constitution it is part of Russia. That doesn't make it so, just because Russia says that they annexed territory doesn't make it true. > We see there is no reasoning with Putin, and we absolutely must give Ukraine more weapons, ballistic missiles, and nuclear warheads! We should probably give Ukraine everything they need but theres nothing they could do with nukes now.
        Thrio499 3y ago
        Of course, Zaporozhi (and Donetsk, Crimea..) are part of Ukraine. But Russians are crazy and believe it is theirs. And despite that they bombed it. Nuclear weapons are very good detergent. There are many things Ukraine could do with nuclear warhead to hurt Russia. At least it could punish Russians for genecide they committed! And it is not our place, to question what sovereign country would do with its weapons!
        EGreg 3y ago
        [flagged]
        _kbh_ 3y ago
        > * Russia chose blow up the Kakhovka dam, cutting off water to Crimea, the same Crimea that Ukraine cut water to and Russia restored. I know you're doing your best here but you will have to try harder with this they literally admitted to blowing up the dam and then on TV threatened to blow up more dams in Kyiv. https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1666061532080361472 https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/16660615320803614... >> "We mined everything on Kakhovka HPP. So, they'll f*king blow it up and will wash away Ukrainian Armed Forces on the other side" - a Russian says. The video was published on 10 December, 2022. https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1666003021925347328 https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1666003021925347328 >> Russian soldier Yegor Guzenko, who is fighting in the Kherson region, admitted that Russia blew up the dam in Nova Kakhovka to stop Ukrainian army He also said that the Russian army should also blow up other dams on the Dnieper
EGreg 3y ago
Both sides see the same thing. Do you think Russia thinks that appeasement is good, and that they didn't embolden NATO by allowing its enlargement? Do you think they think of NATO members' bombing of Yugoslavia, destroying Libya, etc. or carving off territories as "one-offs"[1] and any response is completely unprovoked? The Western media and governments have systematically all put the word "unprovoked" in front of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but that word does a lot of work. It basically begs the question. It's not just Putin. Every Russian president hated NATO expansion. Boris Yeltsin angrily withdrew from treaties when NATO expanded, having protested it all the way [2]. And Boris Yeltsin did so much of US bidding that he was effectively a Manchurian Candidate [3] [4] [5] but that still wasn't enough for the USA, they told him to go pound sand with regard to NATO expansion. Medvedev invaded Georgia in 2008, when its president started making moves to get into NATO. Replace Putin, and you'll very likely get a bigger hawk in Russia. The same works in USA ... after Kennedy was assassinated, LBJ went on a bombing spree in south Asia, bombing Laos more than any country has ever been bombed [6], in a secret "special military operation" that killed huge numbers of people 3000 miles away, motivated by the "domino theory" of stopping Communism (similar to "denazification", except it was half a planet away and literally presented no threat to USA). Recall also that Putin and Russia did everything they could within the law to protest and try to prevent the US invasion of Iraq. Putin was the first to call George W Bush after 9/11 and offered support and joint counter-terrorism activities, which they did do. And yet it was George W Bush who pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to be in NATO, in 2008 [7] even though the population of Ukraine did NOT want to be in NATO [8] NATO expansion to China now is just continuing more of the same. You can see it in real-time now. USA already has economic inter-dependency with China. What we the people have to do (in USA and China and Russia) is require our politicians to record all their negotiations on video, and we will then be able to see how our public servants fail us, before it is too late. It will create an incentive to act in good faith, like bodycams for cops. ("Oops, sorry, all our cameras malfunctioned that day" would be extremely suspicious.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent [2] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heard https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_cr... [4] https://archive.org/details/TimeUSMeddlingOnRussia https://archive.org/details/TimeUSMeddlingOnRussia [5] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how-shock-therapy-created-russian-oligarchs-and-paved-the-path-for-putin https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how... [6] https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietnam-war https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietna... [7] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vows-to-press-for-ukraine-georgia-in-nato-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vo... [8] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n...

by yarg 3y ago

Thrio499 3y ago

[flagged]

yarg 3y ago
What is it that has managed to convince you that Russian leadership is suicidal?
- Thrio499 3y ago
  They were bombing their own nuclear power plant!
  - _kbh_ 3y ago
    It's a Ukrainian power plant that Russia is currently occupying, and bombing it would be par for the course for the actions the Russians take to purposely destroy as much of Ukraine as possible. The power plant is very well shielded it would be practically impossible to breach it from the outside, if anything it is likely that it will be sabotaged / attacked from inside.
    - Thrio499 3y ago
      Zaporozhi was shelled by Russians on August 2022. By Russian constitution it is part of Russia. And Russians could sabotage Zaporozhi Nuclear Power Plant in many ways: * cut power line for cooling reactors and disconnect it from electric grid (already happened) * destroy backup power generators for cooling * bomb nuclear waste store * bomb cooling water reservoir with bunker buster rockets (Russians already did that on Kachovka) * use dirty radioactive shells, to raise local radiation levels. That also counts as nuclear disaster! We see there is no reasoning with Putin, and we absolutely must give Ukraine more weapons, ballistic missiles, and nuclear warheads!
      - _kbh_ 3y ago
        > Zaporozhi was shelled by Russians on August 2022. By Russian constitution it is part of Russia. That doesn't make it so, just because Russia says that they annexed territory doesn't make it true. > We see there is no reasoning with Putin, and we absolutely must give Ukraine more weapons, ballistic missiles, and nuclear warheads! We should probably give Ukraine everything they need but theres nothing they could do with nukes now.
        Thrio499 3y ago
        Of course, Zaporozhi (and Donetsk, Crimea..) are part of Ukraine. But Russians are crazy and believe it is theirs. And despite that they bombed it. Nuclear weapons are very good detergent. There are many things Ukraine could do with nuclear warhead to hurt Russia. At least it could punish Russians for genecide they committed! And it is not our place, to question what sovereign country would do with its weapons!
      - EGreg 3y ago
        [flagged]
        _kbh_ 3y ago
        > * Russia chose blow up the Kakhovka dam, cutting off water to Crimea, the same Crimea that Ukraine cut water to and Russia restored. I know you're doing your best here but you will have to try harder with this they literally admitted to blowing up the dam and then on TV threatened to blow up more dams in Kyiv. https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1666061532080361472 https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/16660615320803614... >> "We mined everything on Kakhovka HPP. So, they'll f*king blow it up and will wash away Ukrainian Armed Forces on the other side" - a Russian says. The video was published on 10 December, 2022. https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1666003021925347328 https://twitter.com/den_kazansky/status/1666003021925347328 >> Russian soldier Yegor Guzenko, who is fighting in the Kherson region, admitted that Russia blew up the dam in Nova Kakhovka to stop Ukrainian army He also said that the Russian army should also blow up other dams on the Dnieper

EGreg 3y ago

Both sides see the same thing. Do you think Russia thinks that appeasement is good, and that they didn't embolden NATO by allowing its enlargement? Do you think they think of NATO members' bombing of Yugoslavia, destroying Libya, etc. or carving off territories as "one-offs"[1] and any response is completely unprovoked? The Western media and governments have systematically all put the word "unprovoked" in front of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but that word does a lot of work. It basically begs the question. It's not just Putin. Every Russian president hated NATO expansion. Boris Yeltsin angrily withdrew from treaties when NATO expanded, having protested it all the way [2]. And Boris Yeltsin did so much of US bidding that he was effectively a Manchurian Candidate [3] [4] [5] but that still wasn't enough for the USA, they told him to go pound sand with regard to NATO expansion. Medvedev invaded Georgia in 2008, when its president started making moves to get into NATO. Replace Putin, and you'll very likely get a bigger hawk in Russia. The same works in USA ... after Kennedy was assassinated, LBJ went on a bombing spree in south Asia, bombing Laos more than any country has ever been bombed [6], in a secret "special military operation" that killed huge numbers of people 3000 miles away, motivated by the "domino theory" of stopping Communism (similar to "denazification", except it was half a planet away and literally presented no threat to USA). Recall also that Putin and Russia did everything they could within the law to protest and try to prevent the US invasion of Iraq. Putin was the first to call George W Bush after 9/11 and offered support and joint counter-terrorism activities, which they did do. And yet it was George W Bush who pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to be in NATO, in 2008 [7] even though the population of Ukraine did NOT want to be in NATO [8] NATO expansion to China now is just continuing more of the same. You can see it in real-time now. USA already has economic inter-dependency with China. What we the people have to do (in USA and China and Russia) is require our politicians to record all their negotiations on video, and we will then be able to see how our public servants fail us, before it is too late. It will create an incentive to act in good faith, like bodycams for cops. ("Oops, sorry, all our cameras malfunctioned that day" would be extremely suspicious.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_independence_precedent [2] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heard https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_cr... [4] https://archive.org/details/TimeUSMeddlingOnRussia https://archive.org/details/TimeUSMeddlingOnRussia [5] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how-shock-therapy-created-russian-oligarchs-and-paved-the-path-for-putin https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/03/22/1087654279/how... [6] https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietnam-war https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietna... [7] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vows-to-press-for-ukraine-georgia-in-nato-idUSL0141706220080401 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-ukraine-bush/bush-vo... [8] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-no-to-nato/ https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2010/03/29/ukraine-says-n...