941–950 of 1001 posts
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Sure. Where are you stats coming from. ?
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A148/production/... The World Bank also has similar figures.
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It's interesting that people think that when an enemy country (as most people in the west think of Russia) attacks a neutral country (after endless warnings and the ocupation of a sizable part of its territory several years prior, so it's not like this came out of the blue), that they should intervene as if they were the world police who decides who can attack who. Or some kind of righteous peace force who is above i…
>> Or some kind of righteous peace force who is above it all, that can attack anyone who attacks anyone else, not seeing the irony in their position of attacking others who do something they don't like. It's not about attacking someone who "do something we don't like" it's about Russia clearly breaking international laws, and behaving like an asshole. No irony here. If we can police individual citizens within a count…
That's the problem, exactly. You think your country is just and can intervene in other countries' affairs, just like the police does. But what you see as just and fair, people on the other side of the world see as barbaric (quite literarlly, as that's the original meaning of the word).
That's extremely dangerous thinking. Only the International Court of Justice[1] can deliberate on whether a nation's actions are illegal, and luckily we do have laws that determine what sovereign nations may or may not do. That's an international organization where no one country can decide anything.
Military agression on another country is always illegal: so Russia is indeed commiting an illegal act by invading Ukraine... unless there's consensus in the UN Security Council (of which Russia is a permanent member), however, it would be illegal for another country to intervene. You may think comitting a crime is justified if it's to defend a victim of another crime, but that's not the law we have currently agreed on.
I urge everyone to read this document, "Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: What does International Law Have to Say?" [2], written in 2015!!! The international community somehow failed to stop Russia when it still could. It failed to address the situation, failed to communicate with Russia in an effective manner, it let Russia know that it's ok to break the law (according to Putin's message when he started the invasion, the West broke it first, multiple times, e.g. in Bosnia, Iraq, Syria etc which seems like have served as motivation for Putin to do the same as clearly there's no consequences), it just failed so much it's hard to believe it!
So, here we are and war is a reality.
> You have to decide which do you value more: your freedom or your life.
There's no threat to the freedom of anyone in NATO countries... if you're saying the people of Ukraine should decide that, as they're the only ones now suffering the consequences of our failures, then I'd say that they did all they could to save both, but that was not enough. Maybe they should've known that NATO wouldn't accept them, and refrained from seeking membership, which might have saved them from this aggression? Is that what you think they should've done? That would not really have limited their freedom because NATO was never a realistic prospect anyway, or at least it would not be for a few years for sure (and Russia knows that every passing year could cause that to change)... and their lives would've been fine too! Seeking dialogue with Russia, they might have been able to stop the war in its Eastern borders and have avoided losing Krimea, even!! However, those things happened and now we all have to live with the consequences. Thinking what we should've done is only useful in the sense it may inform what we do next... and that' the important thing to do: to think of what we should do next very carefully if we want to stop escalation... or if we want to go back to the Cold War, which seems almost unavoidable right now.
[1] https://www.icj-cij.org/en
[2] https://www.lawfareblog.com/russias-invasion-ukraine-what-do...
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Not sure why you think North Korea and Pakistan can project and not France and UK which both have nuclear attack submarines. The heart of nuclear detterrence lies in those submarines that can cause second strike MAD.
Unless you think NK is a superpower, you've failed to actually read a one-paragraph post, congratulations. As for projection capabilities of FR-UK, they are small and old and creaky and everybody knows it.
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https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/A148/production/... The World Bank also has similar figures.
Source in the graph says Russian Federal State Statistics Service not the world bank. This is like asking Russian government to grade their own performance.
I think the commenters here relying on a more robust response if Putin invades a NATO country are being overly optimistic. Let's be honest with ourselves and recognize that without the US NATO is no match for Russia. Fragmented, with small and outdated armed forces, the Russian army would quickly roll over any resistance. Can you imagine a Republican president committing US troops to the defence of Lithuania in the c…
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The last time a mad dictator wasn't nipped in the bud, the world lost millions in war.
I am sorry to say that there have been many a mad dictator since.
There's more than one parallel with the Third Reich efforts here.
I'm genuinely curious at what point a bully threatening you with MAD can be stopped if you value the existence of your own civilization? Say Russian conquers all of Ukraine and moves troops to the Polish border and parks some tanks a bit inside. What then? Strongly worded essays? If Russia isn't raining hell on Poland, then NATO is forced to .. apply sanctions, make threats, but take no action since the escalation an…
There isn't much response presently from NATO because Ukraine isn't part of it.
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NATO/US is preparing to handle the refugee flood into countries invading Ukraine. They are not keeping russia from taking ukraine or holding it, by using military force. It looks like the takeover of Ukraine will be done by tomorrow.
You're overestimating the speed of the attack. Even if the Ukrainians put up no resistance (and they have been putting up resistance) - tanks just don't move that fast/ukraine is a big place. See the dotted lines in this map - that's a rough estimate of how far the Russians have made it in a day. Even if they continue at the same pace overnight (unlikely), and the next day, and the next night, there's still a lot of…
This war makes me sick and very sad. It reminds me of the pale blue dot quote by Sagan : "Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.". https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g
I feel like humanity has gotten nowhere in my lifetime. I grew up watching Star Trek and was very optimistic about the future, but that has been dashed.
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Ukraine is not a NATO member, but Poland is. If Russia attacks a member of NATO then all members of NATO are obligated to join in defence militarily . Russia can attack non-NATO countries and intimidate NATO into doing nothing, but to attack a NATO member would automatically bring the whole alliance into the war. The whole point of alliances like NATO is to prevent countries from being picked off by a bully the way U…
> It's worth noting that Taiwan is in a similar situation with respect to China. They are being threatened with invasion, but have no formal military alliances with nuclear powers. Judging from the U.S.'s reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. would do little more than apply sanctions if China invaded Taiwan. Not unless the U.S. has special feelings for Taiwan that it does not have for Ukraine at any rate. Thi…
What if they Putined their way into Taiwan? "We are going to invade, if you stop us it's nuke time". Would the US risk a nuke on their head for Taiwan?