Noddaz said:Sanctions, right.
Russia can get anything it wants from China, including money.
Just what will sanctions do?
Push Russia closer to China.
Noddaz said:Sanctions, right.
Russia can get anything it wants from China, including money.
Just what will sanctions do?
Push Russia closer to China.
In reply to Beer Baron :
"He probaby gets to die as the Glorious Leader."
Possibly sooner than he might prefer.
Noddaz said:Sanctions, right.
Russia can get anything it wants from China, including money.
Just what will sanctions do?
I mean so far sanctions have been pretty targeted to avoid hurting the western economy as well. There are plenty are plenty of other things that can be done that will majorly damage Russia but we will take a hit in the meantime.
I mean other then that and sending weapons to Ukraine there isn't a much we can do without actually jumping into WWIII but this time with nukes.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
I think a big part of it is due to the higher prices of oil, Russia has a surplus of $630 billion from what I read. This probably led to Putin to think that now was the time to act as there is money in the bank to try to weather the sanctions
volvoclearinghouse said:In reply to Beer Baron :
"He probaby gets to die as the Glorious Leader."
Possibly sooner than he might prefer.
Who is his second and what do we know about that guy?
FatMongo said:Javelin said:WWIII has begun. Hug your kids.
Lol.
No need for hysterics.
This isnt even close to WWIII. If for no reason then the militaries of Western Europe are so atrophied that they are unable to engage in sustained military operations against a capable adversary.
The US is certainly not going to go kinetic against the Russians over Ukraine - or really anyone in NATO, treaties be damned, because the American people arent going to support a war in Europe.
Now if China eventually takes Taiwan - which at some point they will - it will signal the fall of the United States as the lone Super Power of the globe and illustrate the ascent of the PRC as a peer to the US as far as global power projection.
Y'all also said Putin wouldn't invade he Ukraine. We see how well that worked.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:volvoclearinghouse said:In reply to Beer Baron :
"He probaby gets to die as the Glorious Leader."
Possibly sooner than he might prefer.
Who is his second and what do we know about that guy?
Is it still Medev or whatever his name was?
They swapped positions before when there were limits on how long you could reign at a time
hybridmomentspass said:AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:volvoclearinghouse said:In reply to Beer Baron :
"He probaby gets to die as the Glorious Leader."
Possibly sooner than he might prefer.
Who is his second and what do we know about that guy?
Is it still Medev or whatever his name was?
They swapped positions before when there were limits on how long you could reign at a time
So, two bodies with the same brain?
I seriously wonder if this would be worth a special forces decapitation operation. I wonder what that would do. A thought experiment at least.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:volvoclearinghouse said:In reply to Beer Baron :
"He probaby gets to die as the Glorious Leader."
Possibly sooner than he might prefer.
Who is his second and what do we know about that guy?
Possibly irrelevant, if Putin departs the mortal coil there will be a power vacuum, and we know how nature abhors a vacuum.
Take a breath.
This is not the start of something that's going to turn the world into a giant glass-lined self-lighting parking lot. It's a war between a major power and a minor one - the world has had many of those in just the last hundred years or so, and most of them stayed very much contained. There's no reason that I can see right now to expect this to be different. Putin doesn't gain a thing by dragging NATO into this, especially with so much of his military deployed in Ukraine (on the flipside, George Patton would have looked at this as an opportunity to knock the damned Russkies out once and for all, just like he advocated in 1945), and NATO is a defensive alliance; there's no provision for offensive operations.
The extent of Russian operations remains an open question. They are striking targets all over the country, but to what end is as yet unknown. I suspect the first wave has been targeting command infrastructure, air defense, and key military installations. Air mobile operations are actively attempting to gain control of key airfields. This could be a prelude to occupying the whole country, or it could be a means of disrupting response to the move into eastern and littoral regions.
Ukrainian forces have downed several Russian helicopters (which interestingly seem to have had their national markings removed), and I expect that the stocks of Javelins recently arrived will be put to use against Russian armor as it moves forward. It will not be bloodless for the Russians, though I suspect the more immediate concern in Russia will be the crashing economy and sudden shortages (one report I read indicated that most Muscovites were discussing whether it was more important to stock up on food or US dollars; it also said that most of them blamed NATO escalation for the conflict).
Western reaction is bound to be a sweeping wave of sanctions intended to cut Russia off from the international economy. This can probably be done fairly quickly. Watch to see how the Russians move to shore up their economy, especially the consumer side - this will be important for minimizing popular discontent as the conflict continues. One of the more interesting questions is how China behaves in light of those sanctions - if it busts the sanctions regime, it may open itself up to penalties of its own, though that would need to be managed very carefully to avoid making things worse.
93EXCivic said:In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
I think a big part of it is due to the higher prices of oil, Russia has a surplus of $630 billion from what I read. This probably led to Putin to think that now was the time to act as there is money in the bank to try to weather the sanctions
It's almost like he planned it that way...let's see...threaten to invade Ukraine, oil prices spike, bank big money from selling oil, use money to actually invade Ukraine. Thanks, western world!
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
It is from several years of higher oil prices (at least compared to the early 2010s).
In reply to 02Pilot :
Thank you for the well-reasones insights. Always a worthwhile read.
If the translation of this vid is accurate, the Ukranian's are weaponizing anybody that's willing and able to fight:
https://twitter.com/Quicktake/status/1496844402660155395?cxt=HHwWhoC5ibeD7sUpAAAA
In reply to 02Pilot :
I mean I want to agree with you but we also didn't think he had much to gain by invading Ukraine and thought he wouldn't. So I am not ruling anything out.
Latvia asked for article 4, which I believe is totally warranted.
In reply to 93EXCivic :
They sure weren't from 2015 through about 2020.
Russia itself needs to be decapitated. They've been this way for 100 years, he is just the latest leader. Kick them out of the UN. Take that sliver above Poland and then St Petersburg, see how they like that. They started a war, let them feel it. The Russian people need to feel it this time, maybe they'll wake up.
Like I said before, sanctions do nothing
I was too hasty, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have all asked for article 4 to be triggered. It should be.
Things seem to be moving quickly with Russian troops openly talking to reporters and claiming they've taken an airport outside Kyiv
https://twitter.com/ASLuhn/status/1496850284668076032
Ruble fell 50%. I believe.
poot poot better be hoping for a quick victory. Otherwise he's in for a rough ride at home with very unhappy populace.
r/Russia just went private.
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :
Russian stocks crash and ruble plunges to record low I am guessing those in the know, knew to pull everything out and reinvest at a cheaper price.
During the meeting, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia triggered urgent consultations under Article 4 of NATO’s founding Washington Treaty.
“NATO is the strongest alliance in history, and make no mistake we will defend every ally against any attack on every inch of NATO territory,” he said at the organization’s Brussels headquarters. “An attack on one ally will trigger a response from the whole alliance.”
It won't happen.
Ok, well it will be confined to the two areas that they already controlled.
OK, well, yeah, they're hitting targets all over the country and taking control of airfields.
OK, but it's not THAT bad.
When are we going to just man up and admit we have no idea what is going to happen with these people?
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