131–140 of 165 posts
Meanwhile in the EU, specifically in The Netherlands, we had a referendum about the Ukraine EU assoc treaty in 2016. 60% of the voters voted against. Guess what happened? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Dutch_Ukraine%E2%80%93Eur...
One positive side effect: this result, in the context of an ongoing land war in Europe will finally help to rattle us Europeans out of our traditional resistance to defense and military investment. (I'm both British and German.) Stronger Europe -> stronger NATO -> more options for the Alliance, and for the US to prevent conflict in and out of Europe, since Europeans will shoulder more of the local deterrence burden.…
Resistance to defence and military investment should be intrinsic, it should always met with resistance. We don't need war for R&D.. We don't need war period.
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While I'm all in awe for Ukraine resistance, I wouldn't dismiss so quickly the Russian army. The loss of morale and teeth, is mostly social media stuff. I do hope it's true, but I wouldn't bet on it. They did encounter much stiffer resistance than they expected, but there are still hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of troops around Kyiv. Now that the West is sending arms to Ukraine, there is an increasing proba…
While I am mildly skeptical as well... There sure are a lot of videos of tanks blown up and of wreckages and of immobile vehicles. And recently Putin removed the head of the armed forces. I doubt things are going as planned for the Russians.
The bombings and shelling looks really, really bad.. Kharkov will be nothing but rubble.
it's getting really serious right now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM3SOQQ-7ng
Time to move to Africa
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Vladimir Putin: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/us/politics/putin-ukraine... > Mr. Putin’s arguments occupied a third of his speech to the Russian people on Monday, when he made a series of bizarre charges that “Ukraine intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not just bragging.” And if you don't trust NYT, just listen to his speech...
Anything Putin says is worthless
Belarus regime being what it is, I'd not think that the referendum actually reflects people's opinion, and the result was not predetermined. OTOH I suspect that after the events of 2014 and 2022, Ukraine will remain the last country in history to willingly give up nuclear weapons. Many more countries will think about developing an deploying their own nukes, or at least staying one step away from actually producing th…
That's one of the lessons, isn't it? First the West reneged on the Nuclear deal with Iran, now Russia invaded Ukraine. All the while North Korea is just simply left alone.
I understand why the current situation would encourage Iran to pursue nuclear weaponry, but the agreement as far as I know did not include any defensive pact, so Iran didn't agree to forsake development of nuclear weaponry under the promise of protection from the west (which is now proving to be ineffective), it promised to forsake nuclear weaponry in order to be allowed to pursue peaceful nuclear technology. So what related lesson is to be learned from the West reneging on the deal?
Or are you saying that since the deal would have made Iran into a [nuclear threshold state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_latency), this is the West reneging on the deal to allow Iran the technology to defend itself, and the lesson is that they should never have relied on the West for that in the first place?
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It was always blitz. They expected capitulation by Sunday, with some ongoing attrition medium term. This is both from US Intel and now confirmation via a deleted, but luckily web archived, article/commentary on one of their major state-media sites, praising the (now impossible) “success” and their resurgence, while also flaunting the west.
Could you please post a link to the pulled article?
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Could be yes, didn't think about it. But didn't they create a Shiit uprising in the south during the first one? An uprising they allowed Sadam to shoot down with whatever limited forces he was left with?
That would have been outside the boundaries of the UN mandate and Bush Sr. wouldn't violate it.
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That's one of the lessons, isn't it? First the West reneged on the Nuclear deal with Iran, now Russia invaded Ukraine. All the while North Korea is just simply left alone.
Could you explain what you mean when you mention that "First the West reneged on the Nuclear deal with Iran"? I understand why the current situation would encourage Iran to pursue nuclear weaponry, but the agreement as far as I know did not include any defensive pact, so Iran didn't agree to forsake development of nuclear weaponry under the promise of protection from the west (which is now proving to be ineffective),…
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That's a very bold claim. I'd be interested to learn about the technology you use to send messages from the parallel universe where that is true to our reality.