Thoughts on the Russo-Ukranian War?

[lljadw]

If Russians are self sufficient, then why would they rely on China, India and Iran? Despite being ruled by an authoritarian regime, the people of Russia are still demonstrating on the streets against the dictatorship. Why?

Where are the proofs that the Russians are still demonstrating against the dictatorship ?
And if they do it,where are the proofs that a demonstration against the ''dictator '' Putin is also a demonstration against the war ?
There is also a big difference between an authoritarian regime and a dictatorship .
Who said that Russians are self sufficient ?
And they do not rely on China, Iran, India :these countries are trading with Russia but that is not the same as relying on these countries .
The facts are
1 the great majority of the Russians are still supporting Putin and the war .What the future will bring,no one knows
2 the trade with China, Iran and India did not start on February 2022,but years before .
The Statista trade figures from 2021 (those from 2022 are not reliable ) indicate the following
China 140 billion USD (import and Export )
Ukraine 12,3
India 13,5
Belarus 38
US 34 (only 34 !)
For the EU
Poland, France, Italy, Germany, UK and the Netherlands 205 billion ,thus one can assume that the total for the EU was the double of that of China .
While the trade with the EU has decreased in 2022, no one can say how much it has decreased : Russian gas is still exported to the EU,the same for diamonds and no one can say how much is the trade between Russia and China, India and Iran .And no one knows what and how much of it is Russia importing from these countries .
Last point : we also don't know how important is the trade with other countries for the Russian economy .

 

[Tuan]

Russia is highly corrupt, extraordinarily fragile, and indeed a failed state whose leader has just been issued an arrest warrant by ICC. There’s no evidence stating that most Russians support the war. Yes, the Russian economy has not collapsed yet, despite western sanctions, thanks to its gas exports and arms imports to and from China and India, two growing Asian economies but historically and geopolitically rivals. Thus, if the West plays its cards strategically, it can contain Russia, China, and India, whose leaders are essentially authoritarian. The war just began a year ago. And these dictators will soon realize that the Russo-Ukrainian war is pointless when the Russian iron curtain crumbles down again. Economic restructuring, western unity, and interdependency are crucial to winning this war. Time will tell…

 

[Tuan]

India being arrogant

 

[lljadw]

Russia is highly corrupt, extraordinarily fragile, and indeed a failed state whose leader has just been issued an arrest warrant by ICC. There’s no evidence stating that most Russians support the war. Yes, the Russian economy has not collapsed yet, despite western sanctions, thanks to its gas exports and arms imports to and from China and India, two growing Asian economies but historically and geopolitically rivals. Thus, if the West plays its cards strategically, it can contain Russia, China, and India, whose leaders are essentially authoritarian. The war just began a year ago. And these dictators will soon realize that the Russo-Ukrainian war is pointless when the Russian iron curtain crumbles down again. Economic restructuring, western unity, and interdependency are crucial to winning this war. Time will tell…

There are no evidences of mass demonstrations in Russia against the war , thus the conclusion should be that most Russians support /do not oppose the war .
There is also no evidence that the Russians would collapse without the import of weapons from China .
Do you have evidence that the leaders of India are essentially authoritarian ?
There is also no Russian curtain :the Iron curtain belongs to the past .
Why would Europe need economic restructuring for Ukraine winning the war ?
The same for western unity ,which does not exist .
There is no war between the West ( which ceased to exist after the fall of the East ) and Russia, but a war between Ukraine (which does not belong to the West ) and Russia and as long as a Russian victory does not threaten our interests,there is no reason to be involved in this war .
A big part of the European population no longer accepts the orders of DC to give their money to the US military-industrial complex .A lot of people in Europe have the sentiment that DC considers Europe as a colony where it can intervene with impunity .See the order of Obama to the British people not to vote for Brexit .

 

[MontyB]

I think you would be very hard pushed not to describe Modi as authoritarian and India as an electoral autocracy much in the same way as Erdogan in Turkey, in fact Freedom House (USA)and V-Dem (Sweden) have both downgraded India's democracy ratings in recent years.

 

[Tuan]

There are no evidences of mass demonstrations in Russia against the war , thus the conclusion should be that most Russians support /do not oppose the war .

You must be living under a rock. I can wake up someone who is indeed sleeping, but I cannot wake up someone who acts like he is sleeping. Please see the links below:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...0-arrested-at-anti-war-demonstrations-ukraine

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60640204

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-brie...rests-russia-protests-over-troop-mobilization

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-protest-arrests-1.6362938

There is also no evidence that the Russians would collapse without the import of weapons from China.

Let me repeat: Russia is highly corrupt, extraordinarily fragile, and indeed a failed state. Thus it cannot sustain a protracted war against the entire west. Even the world's only remaining superpower, the USA needs its allies to lean on.

Do you have evidence that the leaders of India are essentially authoritarian ?

Yes, India under Modi is authoritarian in nature.

There is also no Russian curtain: the Iron curtain belongs to the past .

I know the old cliché that one man's meat is another man's poison. However, I was referring to the rerun of the old "iron curtain" cliché. During the Cold War, the division between western Europe and the Soviet bloc countries was called the “iron curtain.” The iron curtain was never a physical barrier but served as a metaphor to describe the limit of Soviet influence. The phrase “iron curtain” may have existed as early as the 19th century. But British prime minister Winston Churchill was the first to use it in its modern sense. Hence I used it just like Neo Great Game, Neo Cold War, and now Neo Iron Curtain.

Why would Europe need economic restructuring for Ukraine winning the war ?

Dont take my word for it. Read Biden's speech at Warsaw: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...as-brutal-and-unprovoked-invasion-of-ukraine/

The same for western unity ,which does not exist .
There is no war between the West ( which ceased to exist after the fall of the East ) and Russia, but a war between Ukraine (which does not belong to the West ) and Russia and as long as a Russian victory does not threaten our interests,there is no reason to be involved in this war .

If Russia loses this war, Ukraine wins. If Ukraine loses this war, the entire Europe loses. That's why we need western unity. Moreover, Putin is trying to build an anti-western bloc with China, Iran, India, Africa, and South America. We cannot afford a world order defined by Russia, China, Iran, and India.

A big part of the European population no longer accepts the orders of DC to give their money to the US military-industrial complex .A lot of people in Europe have the sentiment that DC considers Europe as a colony where it can intervene with impunity .See the order of Obama to the British people not to vote for Brexit.

Can Europe exist without protection via Article 5 of NATO? As long as there is NATO, European nations have no choice but to accept the orders of DC.

 

[lljadw]

I think you would be very hard pushed not to describe Modi as authoritarian and India as an electoral autocracy much in the same way as Erdogan in Turkey, in fact Freedom House (USA)and V-Dem (Sweden) have both downgraded India's democracy ratings in recent years.

And why should Freedom House and V-Dem have the right to decide who is authoritarian and who is not authoritarian ?
Modi is not Erdogan or Putin or Xi .
Other points :if Modi is authoritarian,that is not our business ,as there is no proof that an authoritarian Modi would be a bigger danger for us than a non authoritarian Nehru or Indira Ghandi .
We should accept the existence of regimes that have another political ideology .

 

[MontyB]

And why should Freedom House and V-Dem have the right to decide who is authoritarian and who is not authoritarian ?
Modi is not Erdogan or Putin or Xi .
Other points :if Modi is authoritarian,that is not our business ,as there is no proof that an authoritarian Modi would be a bigger danger for us than a non authoritarian Nehru or Indira Ghandi .
We should accept the existence of regimes that have another political ideology .

Why do I take my car to a mechanic or my taxes to an accountant because they are specialists in what they do, Freedom House and V-Dem are specialist in what they do and as such I place more weight on their views than I do an unqualified observer.

 

[lljadw]

Why do I take my car to a mechanic or my taxes to an accountant because they are specialists in what they do, Freedom House and V-Dem are specialist in what they do and as such I place more weight on their views than I do an unqualified observer.

Freedom House is American and V-Dem is Swedish , thus why should the have the right to judge Indian politicians ?This right is reserved to the Indians .
Freedom House was founded in 1941 to combat fascism , which was not its business . Among its founders were well-known liberals,enemies of Israel ,racists and cultural Marxists as La Guardia, Eleanor Roosevelt W.Willkie and Dorothy Thomson .
Later Bush' secretaries of defense and homeland security served in the board of administration and posed as defenders of liberty .
90 % of its revenues come from the government . In 2004 it operated clandestinely in Ukraine to help Yuschenko to become president . The CIA was not available .
The National Review said in 2018 that Freedom House had become another anti-conservative -and overwhelmingly government-depended -NGO .

 

[lljadw]

You must be living under a rock. I can wake up someone who is indeed sleeping, but I cannot wake up someone who acts like he is sleeping. Please see the links below:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...0-arrested-at-anti-war-demonstrations-ukraine

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60640204

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-brie...rests-russia-protests-over-troop-mobilization

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/russia-protest-arrests-1.6362938



Let me repeat: Russia is highly corrupt, extraordinarily fragile, and indeed a failed state. Thus it cannot sustain a protracted war against the entire west. Even the world's only remaining superpower, the USA needs its allies to lean on.




Yes, India under Modi is authoritarian in nature.



I know the old cliché that one man's meat is another man's poison. However, I was referring to the rerun of the old "iron curtain" cliché. During the Cold War, the division between western Europe and the Soviet bloc countries was called the “iron curtain.” The iron curtain was never a physical barrier but served as a metaphor to describe the limit of Soviet influence. The phrase “iron curtain” may have existed as early as the 19th century. But British prime minister Winston Churchill was the first to use it in its modern sense. Hence I used it just like Neo Great Game, Neo Cold War, and now Neo Iron Curtain.




Dont take my word for it. Read Biden's speech at Warsaw: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...as-brutal-and-unprovoked-invasion-of-ukraine/



If Russia loses this war, Ukraine wins. If Ukraine loses this war, the entire Europe loses. That's why we need western unity. Moreover, Putin is trying to build an anti-western bloc with China, Iran, India, Africa, and South America. We cannot afford a world order defined by Russia, China, Iran, and India.



Can Europe exist without protection via Article 5 of NATO? As long as there is NATO, European nations have no choice but to accept the orders of DC.

1 Your links are biased and are good for under the bus .
2 1300 people arrested on a population of 1300 is totally meaningless .
You contradict yourself : if Russia is corrupt,fragile and a failed state, it is no danger for the West,thus no need to buy useless weapons from the military-industrial complex.
3 Europe is not in danger and does not need the help of the US and NATO should have been disbanded .
In 1949 when NATO was created, there were 2 US divisions in Europe,and..the Soviets, who were much stronger than present Russia,did nothing .
Russia has failed to defeat Ukraine ,thus why should it be able to conquer the whole of Europe ?And if it could, why should it do it ?
4 Not Churchill,but Goebbels used as first the words ''Iron Curtain ''.
5 There is no reason to read what Joe said in Warsaw,besides the content of the speech did not come from Joe but from his ghost-writers .
6 The first words of his speech are nonsense : a brutal and non provoked invasion .
Maybe Joe thinks that there are non brutal invasions and invasions that are provoked ?
Besides :a brutal and non provoked invasion is not worse than a non brutal and provoked invasion .
The nature of an invasion is not something that can be used to attack or defend the invasion .
7 Ukraine does not belong to the West and thus its fate is not our concern .
8 Putin does not try to form a anti-western block and if he does do it,he will fail .
India and China are not allies of Russia, they only sell weapons to Russia/buy weapons from Russia for economic reasons .Their loss, your gain .
Russia was selling weapons to Iraq,this does not make Russia an ally of Iraq.
US was selling weapons to Iraq and Iran . A very good policy .US was not an ally of Iraq and Iran .
9 The left wingers who rule Argentine and Brazil are crypto communists, while Putin is not a communist .There are more communists/Marxists in the US and Western Europe than in Russia .

 

[lljadw]

Every regime that has the support of the majority of the people is a ''democracy '',besides the word ''democracy ''is meaningless .
But a tyranny can be a democracy ( which is the rule of the people ) as long as the majority supports the tiran .
Every country has its own concept,its own definition of democracy and it is not on a US or Swedish NGO to decide the conditions needed to be a democracy .

 

[I3BrigPvSk]

What Freedom House and similar entities are measuring are democracy and human rights. These human rights are freedom of texts, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, independent media, independent and fair judicial systems, governmental accountability, and fair elections.

The word democracy is often used to describe human rights. Democracy includes different political systems. Presidential systems, semi-presidential systems, majority systems, parliamentary systems, direct democracy (Switzerland)

 

[lljadw]

What Freedom House and similar entities are measuring are democracy and human rights. These human rights are freedom of texts, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, independent media, independent and fair judicial systems, governmental accountability, and fair elections.

The word democracy is often used to describe human rights. Democracy includes different political systems. Presidential systems, semi-presidential systems, majority systems, parliamentary systems, direct democracy (Switzerland)

There are no such thing as human rights, as all humans differ from each other .
It is possible to have a democracy without human rights.
Even in the US freedom of expression does not apply to all people : military have no freedom of expression .
Till 1921 women had no human rights in the US :they could not vote in federal elections, in France this was til 1944 , in Switzerland till the 1960s , blacks had no rights in the US .
But only biased people would say that US,France, Switzerland were not democracies .
Human rights and democracy are two different things : a democracy is a country where the majority of the population is ruling, or where the majority of the population is giving away ( most of )its rights to the government and supports the government even if the government oppresses the minority .

 

[lljadw]

What Freedom House and similar entities are measuring are democracy and human rights. These human rights are freedom of texts, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, independent media, independent and fair judicial systems, governmental accountability, and fair elections.

The word democracy is often used to describe human rights. Democracy includes different political systems. Presidential systems, semi-presidential systems, majority systems, parliamentary systems, direct democracy (Switzerland)

There are no such thing as human rights, as all humans differ from each other .
It is possible to have a democracy without human rights.
Even in the US freedom of expression does not apply to all people : military have no freedom of expression .
Till 1921 women had no human rights in the US :they could not vote in federal elections, in France this was til 1944 , in Switzerland till the 1960s , blacks had no rights in the US .
But only biased people would say that US,France, Switzerland were not democracies .
Human rights and democracy are two different things : a democracy is a country where the majority of the population is ruling, or where the majority of the population is giving away ( most of )its rights to the government and supports the government even if the government oppresses the minority .
In Finland and the US only native born citizens can become presidents, naturalized citizens are excluded .In these two countries there are two groups of citizens, each with fifferent rights, but still no one is saying that they are not democracies .

 

[I3BrigPvSk]

There are fundamental human rights. Countries with human rights allow people to express their opinions and to criticize their own governments without any risk of being punished for it. The military and the law enforcement personnel aren't allowed to express their opinions while wearing uniforms when they are supposed to be neutral.

The majority of the armed forces do not allow foreigners to join their armed forces and people with a criminal record cannot be police officers. The US president and vice president must be born as US citizen to reduce the risk of foreign influence, the same in Finland. The US has something called anchor children. A child born on US soil became a US citizen even if the parents aren't US citizens.

People in democracies can assemble and protest against their own government, that is also a fundamental human right.

 

[MontyB]

Well we are getting closer to the T-34.

T-55s on the move

 

[lljadw]

There are fundamental human rights. Countries with human rights allow people to express their opinions and to criticize their own governments without any risk of being punished for it. The military and the law enforcement personnel aren't allowed to express their opinions while wearing uniforms when they are supposed to be neutral.

The majority of the armed forces do not allow foreigners to join their armed forces and people with a criminal record cannot be police officers. The US president and vice president must be born as US citizen to reduce the risk of foreign influence, the same in Finland. The US has something called anchor children. A child born on US soil became a US citizen even if the parents aren't US citizens.

People in democracies can assemble and protest against their own government, that is also a fundamental human right.

You are talking about western notions who are rejected by the majority of the world .The majority of the world (China, Indonesia, Africa,Russia...) prefer their own traditions and in 1939 the majority of the European states also rejected these liberal Anglo Saxon concepts .
The world has always lived without ''human rights '' and the existence (since a few centuries ) of these notions in the Anglo-Saxon world ,is only a short intermezzo.Very soon the whole world ( including the US and Britain ) will return to the ancient traditional norms .
The Declaration of Independence,Locke, Montesquieu,etc will be soon forgotten .

 

[lljadw]

Well we are getting closer to the T-34.

T-55s on the move

Last year, Slovakia offered Ukraine 28 T-55s .
The T-55 was produced til 1981 and the production of the A1M1 started in 1979 .
There is not much difference .

 

[MontyB]

Last year, Slovakia offered Ukraine 28 T-55s .
The T-55 was produced til 1981 and the production of the A1M1 started in 1979 .
There is not much difference .

All true but Slovakia and Ukraine are not the world's "second army" with the greatest most infallible weaponry the world has ever seen.

If this goes on much longer Russia will want the British to return the cannons from Balaclava.

 

[lljadw]

All true but Slovakia and Ukraine are not the world's "second army" with the greatest most infallible weaponry the world has ever seen.

If this goes on much longer Russia will want the British to return the cannons from Balaclava.

Russia also has not and had never the world's second army .Is ''the world's second army '' (with US the world's first army ,of course ) not an invention of US media ?
Russia is much,much weaker than was the USSR ,and the USSR failed in Afghanistan ,
Besides, the world's second army is something totally meaningless as both (the world;s first and the world's second armies ) have failed in Afghanistan against opponents that did not dispose of the modern weapons of US and USSR .
What would be the criteria to use to classify the armies in the world ?
The French army failed in Indochina and Algeria :does that mean that these armies are superior to the French one ?
The Wehrmacht was categorized in 1941 ( and is still categorized as such by the WM fans ) as world's first army and failed in the Summer of 1941 to eliminate the USSR .Does that mean that the Red Army was better ,stronger than the WM ?
If Russia is transferring T55 tanks from the Far East to be used in Ukraine, does that indicate a big Russian weakness ?
One should not forget that in the Ukrainian war,on both sides, tanks have only a secondary role .