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Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

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Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#261

Post by danieljacksonno »

pydry wrote: post #245
rmind wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year). Russian military industry also lost access to the Western high tech (unfortunately, a lot of it has been used in their modern equipment, such as missiles, aircraft, etc). It will take at least a decade for them rebuild the armed forces after the war with Ukraine. There is indeed a risk of Kr…

>You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year The conservative estimate was that the ruble would plunge about 30% as a result of the war. It's now bizarrely higher than its been in 5 years. I dont remember anybody foreseeing that. Zero. Not one analyst. Ive only heard retrospective justifications for why it happened which any idiot can c…

Most countries choose to have two out of three things for a currency (having all three is impossible):

1. Control over the value 2. Control over inflation 3. Free trade

Russia has chosen to just go for one of the trifecta, and have lost all trade and has skyrocketing inflation - but manages to keep the ruble trading high for propaganda purposes as it's seen as the "quick way to measure" an economy.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#262

Post by pydry »

rmind wrote: post #251
pydry wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year The conservative estimate was that the ruble would plunge about 30% as a result of the war. It's now bizarrely higher than its been in 5 years. I dont remember anybody foreseeing that. Zero. Not one analyst. Ive only heard retrospective justifications for why it happened which any idiot can c…

Ruble is a weak indicator as the central bank has tools to control the exchange rate. Soviet ruble also had a strong and, for a long time, quite stable exchange rate with the US dollar. However, in Soviet Union you could not legally own foreign currency (nor you could buy Western goods and services). The exchange rate by no means indicated the economic situation in the USSR.

Weak or not it is an indicator and it is indicative of economic muscle - economic muscle we are frequently told Russia is supposed to have lost as a result of this war.

This indicator shot up in the exact opposite direction all western commentators said it would.

Id be interested in economic commentary by anybody who predicted this or even said it was a possibility but Im profoundly disinterested in economic commentary from people who were completely blindsided by it and are now scrambling to offer posthoc rationalizations. These are not thinkers they are sheep.

Im also really skeptical of the position that its an irrelevant economic indicator only when it goes in the opposite direction you expect it to. Everybody was saying the exact opposite when the ruble was plunging.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#263

Post by bnralt »

sofixa wrote: post #197
bnralt wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thing has made me reevaluate the way the Cuban Missile Crisis is portrayed in the U.S. It's usually held up as an example of great presidential leadership, with almost no push back. But if you look at the history it's fascinating. The U.S. launched an invasion to try to overthrow the Cuban government during the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. Then it moved nuclear missiles up to the USSR's border in Turkey (the…

Is that how the Cuban missile crisis is taught in the US? It certainly is different than what I learned in school ( ex-communist country). It was presented with much more nuance, starting with the backstory that the US had missiles in Turkey and Italy, so them blowing off due to missiles in Cuba was highly hypocritical.

It's a pretty common view of what happened (personally, my history classes never reached the Cold War, so I can't say how it's taught). This video[1], which aims to debunk the common interpretation, gives a decent overview at the beginning of how people usually view the event (I'm not a big fan of the channel in general, just using it as an example of how the event often gets viewed).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy4THHeRJX8

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#264

Post by whimsicalism »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #133
rrrazdan wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. If Murmansk's importance causes Finland to be strategic then what about Crimea? Turkey blocks Russia's warm water sea access. Much more important for Turkey to be in NATO than Finland purely on the basis of geography.

What is the point of having a NATO member who illogically rails against new members just because Russia tells them not to?

> What is the point of having a NATO member who illogically rails against new members just because Russia tells them not to?

You, I think, know very little about Turkey's politics to make a claim like that.

PKK & YPG has long been a perceived thorn in Turkey's side and they have largely felt like the rest of NATO has ignored this problem if not actively antagonized them on it.

To them, it's akin to as if the rest of NATO was funding cartels in Mexico.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#265

Post by whimsicalism »

actionfromafar wrote: post #27
bayesian_horse wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Sweden and Finland are NOT "openly supporting" the PKK and YPG. Just copying the Erdogan propaganda is at best lazy. Nor is it correct to label these organizations as entirely "terrorist". The reality is a lot more complicated, but Erdogan would very much like you to simplify "organized Kurds = Terrorists"...

Sweden most especially is not supporting the PKK. The PKK is even designated a terrorist organisation by the EU.

To Turkey, there is no distinction between PKK & YPG, and Sweden is host to a number of YPG politicians.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#266

Post by whimsicalism »

actionfromafar wrote: post #99
adolph wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they aren't then what's the problem? On the other hand, if the PKK is able to fundraise in Sweden and Finland like the IRA used to be able to in the US, then it seems logical for Turkey to use whatever leverage they have to decrease that activity, similar to GB. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/03/22/i...

Turkey sees YPG as a subsidiary to PKK. Others don't necessarily agree.

I'm very sympathetic to the YPG, and I don't think they are a subsidiary... but any objective observer can see that YPG and PKK are very closely related. They have posters of Abdullah Ocalan everywhere, they have many PKK fighters in their ranks, etc. etc.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#267

Post by ossusermivami »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #145
karaterobot wrote: post #127

So does everyone here speak Swedish except me, or are we all chatting about an article we can't read? Here's an English article saying the same, just to maintain the illusion. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/14/europe/sweden-finland-nato-ne...

There are a lot of great quality automatic translators - at least for some languages. https://www.deepl.com/translator works best for me.

it's great but isn't that limited to 5k words? not that i know if it reach the limit of the article since i havent tried,

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#268

Post by pintxo »

edanm wrote: post #257
macintux wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to preve…

I had never read that definition, and it seems way too broad to be what most people mean - according to this definition, killing 20 Christians on purpose is considered a genocide? Indeed, from later in the article: > While mass killing is not necessary for genocide to have been committed, it has been present in almost all recognized genocides.

If you "intent to destroy" Christianity, "in whole or in part" then killing just 2 should be enough to formally be considered genocide.

I guess, citation needed, mass graves simplify arguing in favor of "intend to destroy". Otherwise its often not easy to prove intend.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#269

Post by edanm »

macintux wrote: post #258
edanm wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had never read that definition, and it seems way too broad to be what most people mean - according to this definition, killing 20 Christians on purpose is considered a genocide? Indeed, from later in the article: > While mass killing is not necessary for genocide to have been committed, it has been present in almost all recognized genocides.

Given the large civilian graves, the bombing of shelters, the forced deportation of Ukrainians to Russia, the theft of children…there doesn’t seem to be a reasonable argument that this isn’t genocide.

I wasn't commenting on Ukraine specifically, just on my surprise at the definition of genocide.

Re: Sweden to Apply for NATO Membership

#270

Post by pydry »

danieljacksonno wrote: post #261
pydry wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You forgot couple important aspects: he also ruined the Russian economy (the conservative estimate is -12% GDP drop this year The conservative estimate was that the ruble would plunge about 30% as a result of the war. It's now bizarrely higher than its been in 5 years. I dont remember anybody foreseeing that. Zero. Not one analyst. Ive only heard retrospective justifications for why it happened which any idiot can c…

Most countries choose to have two out of three things for a currency (having all three is impossible): 1. Control over the value 2. Control over inflation 3. Free trade Russia has chosen to just go for one of the trifecta, and have lost all trade and has skyrocketing inflation - but manages to keep the ruble trading high for propaganda purposes as it's seen as the "quick way to measure" an economy.

This contradicts what Ive heard from inside the country which is that inflation spiked sharply to ~40% and then prices came down (now 15% up on prewar levels).

So, inflation is a bit higher than in the west but it is not runaway for us or them...yet.

It appears more as if this is due to the balance of payments. Imports are down due to sanctions while exports of gas/oil by value are up. Hence higher ruble.

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