America can't win this war nor admit it can't win. It will likely take the PRC to end this conflict. Xi winning the Nobel Peace Prize next year? What is "holding all the cards" in Mandarin.
tonyedgecombe 6 days ago [-]
I doubt this will end whilst there is a Republican president in office. You have at least two more years of this to go.
anovikov 6 days ago [-]
You guys probably miss how cheap oil tankers are vs oil they transport. Even if each and every tanker was hit as badly as the most badly damaged ones, it will still make a lot of money transporting oil. Unless they can not just damage, but sink a very high proportion (say >3%) of tankers, there's no stopping it. But so far not a single one has been sunk out of thousands that transited, they simply have no way of doing so. The longer it continues the more confident the sailors will be is simply shrugging off these attacks.
Hikikomori 6 days ago [-]
With the other strait closed boats need to go around Africa taking an extra month, this is already causing a shortage as trips take much longer.
Edit: tanker hit a mine today in Hormuz, going great
klipt 7 days ago [-]
Expensive oil means more people buying Chinese EVs and Chinese solar panels. Good for the environment and good for China. Why would China want cheap oil?
mostlysimilar 7 days ago [-]
Their economy relies on exports that just got a LOT more expensive to ship, and the US economy destructing would likely take theirs down with it.
The US only represents about 3% of China's GDP. If the US economy declined 10 or 20%, it'd be basically just noise to them.
prewett 7 days ago [-]
The US is 150% of China's GDP (in nominal numbers) [1]. AI claims that China's "purchasing power parity" GDP is $44t compared to $32t for the US. There is no way that the US, which has been the world's largest economy for decades, is 3% of China's GDP.
Exports to the US is about 20% of China's GDP [2].
Regardless of any of China's contingency plans, US exports are well above noise-levels.
I think he means exports to the US as a percentage of China's GDP is 3%
porkshoe 6 days ago [-]
Exactly. I had incorrectly assumed that people would use context to make the correct inference, but it looks like prewett ran out of tokens, and failed to parse it.
NewJazz 7 days ago [-]
Isn't [2] exports in general, not exports to the US specifically?
carefree-bob 7 days ago [-]
That's not how you would want to measure this, as it doesn't much matter whether a good is directly exported from China to the US, or whether it is routed through a third country like Vietnam, or used as an intermediate input to a different good which is then exported to the US, etc.
What you should take note of, is that China's trade surplus tracks the US trade deficit extremely closely, and this has been the case for the last 20 years.
Said another way, most nations in the world run roughly balanced trade. There is only one nation on earth that can sustain large and prolonged trade deficits. Only one. That is the US. So if you are a nation whose entire economic strategy rests on running large and sustained trade surpluses, then you are going to be exporting your surplus to the US, directly or indirectly, and only to the US.
Now in practice, some of that will be direct sales to the US, some will be indirect sales to the US, but at the end of the day, if you want to run a 1.2 trillion dollar trade surplus, then you have to hope to God that the US is willing to run at least a trillion dollar trade deficit, because no other country is going to do that for you, the entire rest of the world may be willing to accomodate a hundred billion or so, but for everything else, you will depend on the US, directly or indirectly, to absorb your surplus.
mindslight 7 days ago [-]
This is a good analysis, but coming full circle - having a trade surplus is not itself a vulnerability. Rather the actual vulnerability would be needing US dollars, to pay for imports (raw materials and whatever else they don't manufacture themselves). If China doesn't need more US dollars (because perhaps they are already holding plenty of treasuries), then they can simply prop up their internal economy with financial stimulus. And longstanding currency controls make it so they can manage this easily. Print yuan to buy that stream of goods that were previously being exported, and just bury them in a hole in the ground. Or more fruitfully, give that yuan away to their poor rural population to boost their standard of living, improving the country and shoring up support for the Party.
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
I don't think things are so straight forward because everything is connected in ways that are sufficiently complex to defy any sort of straight forward thinking; when you change one thing, 10 other things change and in ways that will invariably end up with completely unexpected outcomes. For the most straight forward example - those things that are exported are not just buried, but end up being used in various processes. And China itself is also heavily dependent on imports, importing upwards of $3 trillion in goods and services. When your exports are no longer available, you may soon find that neither are your imports, and suddenly everything starts breaking.
mindslight 6 days ago [-]
I was merely responding to the implication that a having trade surplus is itself a vulnerability. There of course may be other constraints whereby China is reliant on external trade, but those are separate arguments.
carefree-bob 6 days ago [-]
The reason why you need the dollar is because of the balance of payments identity: changes to the capital account + current account = 0
So to run a current account surplus against the rest of the world of $100, you need to accumulate $100 of financial claims belonging to the rest of the world. There are complexities, for example I switched from "trade surplus" to "current account" because things like interest payments also need to be added in, but with these adjustments, you cannot run prolonged trade surpluses without storing your money in some other nation's jurisdiction.
Now the question is, which nation is willing to accomodate inflows of a trillion dollars a year? That's right, only a single nation is willing to do that. Most nations ban or severely restrict foreign capital inflows. Those that don't ban it, they don't have the necessary financial infrastructure to accomadate the scale of surpluses that China needs to run. This is why I laugh at all these reports of "China is dumping treasuries". China accumulated over a trillion dollars of dollar claims over the last year. That's in addition to what they already had. Why? Because who else would allow those levels of foreign capital inflows into their economy.
So once again, the US is the only nation willing and able to absorb these capital inflows.
Personally, I don't think this is sustainable, it's deindustrializing the US and is highly destabilizing, but since the liberalization of global capital flows launched by the Clinton administration, we have been doing this 30 year experiment in what happens when you let countries print money and use them to buy your bonds. The results have been, in my opinion, highly destabilizing, and it's not going to end well. But many of those who grew up in this period, think this is just how the world works and they can't imagine any other system, one in which capital inflows were highly restricted and as a result, no nation ran large trade surpluses against any other. Or they don't think about this at all and believe that China's hard work and industrial prowess is why they are able to run large trade surpluses, completely ignoring the whole money printing to buy US bonds that is happening in the background. When the US was the world's primary industrial power in the period 1870 - 1920, we ran current account deficits, not surpluses. What China is doing, industrializing while exporting capital -- that is truly unprecedented and possible only due to the combination of fiat non-convertible money combined with the US allowing unrestricted capital inflows. It's a truly bizarre state of affairs.
mindslight 6 days ago [-]
> you need the dollar is because of the balance of payments identity
This is just tautological with the trade surplus. Yes, the two go hand in hand.
My point is that "trade surplus" is always trotted out as if it is some vulnerability of China's - that if we stop giving them dollars and they stop giving us goods, this would create an unsolvable problem for China's economy.
But this is merely fanciful fiction borne from western thinking where we don't have the political will to take sustained direct action to subsidize domestic industry. But China isn't bound by this! Rather it is merely wishful thinking as if we hold power here.
Hence my focusing on whether China actually needs more dollars (ie is reliant on exporting to get those dollars), or whether they could make do with what they've already saved up in treasuries (and other USD investments) while being unable to export as much to the US. My gut says their economy and industry is now large enough that they could weather it just fine. We're still looking at them as if they are the little kid from the 90's (who would have indeed been hurt if we had never started the arrangement), and failing to see that they are all grown up. The pump has been primed.
> the US is the only nation willing and able to absorb these capital inflows... The results have been, in my opinion, highly destabilizing
In my opinion, the destabilizing results were not inevitable. Rather they were the result of deliberate policies that were kept outside of the Overton window by the entrenched interests who were benefiting from them.
Having others say "I'm willing to accept IOUs from you rather than requiring payment in cold hard cash" (aka having the world reserve currency) is an inherently lucrative position! The downsides can only come from how you react to having that ability - a spendthrift might write IOUs without limit and spend all their cash, making the position itself look like a vulnerability. Whereas a frugal person who wants to avoid that fate but isn't very creative might keep a stack of cash that 1:1 corresponds to IOUs they've issued.
The two deliberate policies of which I speak are 1. USD must always inflate (which precludes the frugal option) 2. the legislature/executive government is prevented from spending the newly created money on (most) deliberate constructive activities (like the industrial subsidies I was talking about above).
So most of the wealth we received from having the world reserve currency (represented in-system by newly created money) was simply given away by the Federal Reserve directly to banks (as low-interest loans) to blindly "invest". This resulted in the everything bubble - unproductive assets as a safe haven, intemperate investment in new industries, but failure to maintain the industries we had (since mature industries don't achieve outsized investment returns).
In a different world the legislature would have spent some of that wealth directly subsidizing domestic industry to maintain it, backed up with laws about not being able to move production lines out of the country. But of course this was not in the interest of the corpo class as it would have meant less money going into their own pockets. Hence it remaining on the fringes of the Overton window. (the one place it did actually happen was the defense industry, of course)
Now that the deindustrialization scam has run its course, the corpo class is on to the next thing - economic consolidation to further cement their position. They're channeling echos of what would have been prudent decisions back in the 90's, which makes grassroots voters think they are finally being listened to. But it's nonsensical to talk of closing the barn door after the horse is long gone, right? So in reality they're pushing upside-down bizarro revanchist economics (like framing strong currency itself as a problem!), to destroy the economy that we actually did develop. Then they can mop up and further centralize.
> Last year, the daily cost of hiring an oil supertanker (known as a Very Large Crude Carrier, or VLCC) to sail from the Persian Gulf to China was just $65,000, according to Clarksons, a London-based research firm.
> Now? It costs $1.6 million per day to hire a VLCC for that route, according to Clarksons.
porkshoe 7 days ago [-]
How would that represent victory?
Iran's leadership was replaced with more extreme leadership and America has spent countless billions.
Nothing is better.
Only a hyperpartisan brain could refer to that as any sort of victory.
rayiner 7 days ago [-]
I was responding to the statement: “America can't win this war nor admit it can't win.”
Getting the oil supply back to prewar levels isn’t winning by itself, and I didn’t say it was. But it does open a path to winning, because holding the oil hostage is the only leverage the Iranian regime has.
porkshoe 6 days ago [-]
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casey2 7 days ago [-]
Iranian citizens couldn't handle their previous leadership, it's likely that after things cool down there will be some sort of rebellion.
Can the hyperpartisan brain not count past 113?
cr1895 7 days ago [-]
>it's likely that after things cool down there will be some sort of rebellion.
Please support this statement.
Cyph0n 7 days ago [-]
Dude thinks this a game.
Imagine that your country - whose rulers you do not agree with - is attacked by two states unprovoked in the middle of negotiations, not once, but twice in a single year.
And how do they initiate this attack? They strike a number of targets, one of which the compound your head of state is living in along with members of his family, including a child (his granddaughter). Mind you, your head of state was not in a bunker, but was an 87 year old man living his life as normal. After executing this amazing operation, these two states then call on your people to rise up and overthrow the government.
What would you do?
hollerith 7 days ago [-]
Also, how do you think the average non-wealthy Iranian, who because of US sanctions has been eating meat about once a month for many years and undergoing other privations thinks about the US government?
rayiner 7 days ago [-]
I strongly oppose the Iran war. But saying that any action against Iran is “unprovoked” is utter bullshit. Iran just gave Hezbollah $200 million while Iranians are in dire straits: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanons-hezbollah.... Iran has been doing this shit for decades. Their commitment to “fucking around” is truly epic.
Saddam, Maduro, Gaddafi, Assad—all those guys were mostly terrorizing their own people and shouldn’t have been taken out. I don’t think Khamenei should’ve been taken out either, but boy did he deserve it more than any of the others.
Cyph0n 6 days ago [-]
Unprovoked here means that this was not a response to an attack by Iran on Israel or the US. It was also done during negotiations, which I hope you realize is a cardinal sin in diplomacy.
As for Khamanei, at the end of the day, he was a head of state. There are international systems in place for punishing people in power across state boundaries, which were setup because otherwise our world devolves into assassination and war.
rayiner 6 days ago [-]
> Unprovoked here means that this was not a response to an attack by Iran on Israel or the US.
Are you defining "attack by Iran" to exclude attacks by proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah that Iran funds to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year?
What's insane to me is that nobody actually has a beef with Iran. Tel Aviv is a thousand miles away from Tehran. The Arab countries don't like Iran, nor does Iran like any of the Arab countries. There's no conflict over land or resources. Iran is doing this shit purely for love of the game.
There's a perfectly plausible counterfactual history where Iran chooses to focus on economic development instead of antagonizing Israel and you end up with two technologically advanced developed countries in the region.
Cyph0n 6 days ago [-]
But funding groups you oppose does not justify extraterritorially eliminating a head of state in response. So to me there was no valid provocation.
A provocation might have been Iran waking up one day and deciding to hammer Israel or US bases with missiles. Even then, targeting a head of state might be going too far. You would think Iran would have done this based on all the demonization targeted towards it, but instead it was the accusers who did just that :)
Iran has a “beef” with Israel because of Palestine. As for groups it cooperates with such as Hezbollah or Ansarallah, that is simply power projection and a way for them to gain influence, which partly is due to them existing in a region where Sunnis outnumber Shias.
And btw, it has been a while since Hamas was funded by Iran. But I think funding Hamas was a popular move and helped bolster Iran’s image both domestically and across the region.
rayiner 6 days ago [-]
> A provocation might have been Iran waking up one day and deciding to hammer Israel or US bases with missiles.
That's what happened! Iran is just adding a layer of indirection by funneling money and missiles to Hamas and Hezbollah, who in turn launch the attacks. They don't even try to hide it. Why should acting through a middle-man insulated them from culpability?
> Even then, targeting a head of state might be going too far.
I actually agree with you on that. But I don't think it's fair to downplay the "fucking around" that Iran did before they "found out."
> Iran has a “beef” with Israel because of Palestine.
Which makes no sense geopolitically. Iran has no dog in that fight. Iran has no sympathy to Palestinians--they host millions of Afghan refugees, but nobody from Palestine. The Arabs hate Iran too. If Israel wasn't there, Iran would be the primary focus of Arab antagonism. Israel and Iran had good relations with each other between 1950 and 1979, and that made logical sense from the perspective of what was most beneficial to the people of both countries.
I view Iran as a real tragedy. Not because of "human rights and democracy blah blah blah." I have no problem with Iranians having a theocracy if that's what they want. What blows my mind is that Iran has the potential to be a highly functional country, but simply chooses to waste it's money and political capital on irrationally antagonizing countries that it could have been allied with instead.
Cyph0n 6 days ago [-]
I have made my points, so I no longer have an interest in engaging further, but I will add two last things:
Iran does have a geopolitical, ideological, religious, and humanitarian interest in Palestine. If you don’t get it, I would recommend you do more reading.
Ukraine is essentially a proxy of the US and EU due to arms, funding, and support. Ukraine is attacking targets in Russia. Suppose Russia woke up one day and decided to fire an ICBM at the US or a major EU capital. Would that be an appropriate response?
porkshoe 6 days ago [-]
America should not be fighting Israel's wars.
It's detrimental to America and the cause of peace on numerous dimensions.
BoggleOhYeah 7 days ago [-]
You base this on?
Georgelemental 7 days ago [-]
That's what Putin believed about the Donbas. But, it turns out, people really really hate being bombed!
pqtyw 6 days ago [-]
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6 days ago [-]
Cyph0n 7 days ago [-]
Run through the objectives at the outset of this “war” (illegal and unprovoked attack on a sovereign state), and then compare that against “price of oil going back to pre-war levels”.
Trust me, by almost any metric you can think of, this was a strategic defeat for the US.
7 days ago [-]
hulitu 5 days ago [-]
> surge to wartime high
so nothing changed. Or does CNBC knows of a peace treaty ? /s
Propaganda.
codedokode 7 days ago [-]
I read today that US President temporarily lifted sanctions on Russia regarding diesel export. I hope it is just a part of a secret plan to persuade everyone that peace and trade is more profitable than war, and not US economy crumbling due to Russian sanctions against West. By the way, diesel in Russia is cheaper than in US, which means at least in diesel production Russian economy is more efficient (it makes more diesel per dollar spent).
porkshoe 7 days ago [-]
> I hope it is just a part of a secret plan to persuade everyone that peace and trade is more profitable than war
It's never 4d chess. it's just a guy desperately trying to get diesel prices to temporarily decline _without_ having to admit that he's a fucking idiot for having dragged America into Israel's war on Iran.
And even then, it's only because of the mid-terms. The GOP does not give a single solitary fuck about the sorts of people who notice and are hurt by gas prices. The GOP despises American workers.
codeddesign 7 days ago [-]
Change GOP to all DC politicians and I am in full agreement with you.
This is not GOP vs DNC. They are fully corrupted on both sides, and stopped representing their constituents a long time ago.
You mean the Democrats are the same as the party that has members and their families openly taking bribes from Russian oligarchs, gambling companies, etc, doling out pardons for political favors, enabling insider trading?
jdlshore 7 days ago [-]
"Both sides" is bullshit. There's only one party that's exhibiting the level of corruption, narcissism, and warmongering that we're seeing today. It's Trump and Republicans that got us into this mess.
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
The US has been in basically never-ending war, and warlike actions, for most of its existence, and especially since the end of WW2. This isn't partisan. The only thing that's particular unique in this scenario is that drones have made the typical pattern of assassinate leadership + bomb the country into oblivion as being rather less than effective. Well that and we have a leader who no longer even pretends it's about democracy, freedom, and protesting students or whatever. But it never was. Look at the destruction and chaos in the places we 'bring democracy to'. It's always been, and will always be, about power.
TitaRusell 6 days ago [-]
That's a dangerous game. If America no longer cares about freedom and democracy countries may very well choose to take their chances with Beijing.
somenameforme 5 days ago [-]
Why do you think the US operates NATO? We spend an unimaginable amount of money maintaining the bases, arms, forces, and other components that make up NATO. And the vast money expense is almost secondary to an even more absurd scenario where we get dragged into a scenario where potentially millions of Americans could die because of e.g. Latvia or Estonia?
There are two big reasons for this. The first is that it's completely as it seems - we want to protect the EU. But this has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, or whatever else. It's because we don't want to see the rise or expansion of another major competitor. Imagine if Germany, China, Russia, or whoever else managed to "unite" Europe, to use a euphemism. They could viably be the greatest power the world has seen in centuries.
The other is more insidious. NATO makes an EU military largely unnecessary. This is, in some ways, a tremendous benefit to the EU since it leaves them with far more wealth to do other things with, like improve their citizens' lives. But it also leaves them completely dependent upon NATO which is largely just a proxy for complete dependence upon the US. So this creates a scenario where the US is simply irreplaceable for the EU, at least not until they have their own military. And there are occasional calls for the creation of an EU military, but they mostly go nowhere, and if they did start going anywhere the US would do everything in its power to destroy them behind the scenes, and that would probably be successful.
0dayz 7 days ago [-]
Everyone as in everyone in Russia considering they started the war?
And I'm curious which sanctions by Russia are crippling "the west"?
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
He's obviously referring to the Western sanctions on Russia which have had a far more detrimental effect on the West, and Europe in particular, than on Russia. And Russia is in a winning position in the war. They're not going to stop without concessions, but the West has bet everything on a victory which means they'd rather see it continue to the last Ukrainian. That's also probably just fine with Ukraine's leader, who has gradually turned into a classical dictator - paranoia, constant reshufflings and all, who will be out of power, and perhaps worse, as soon as it ends.
realusername 7 days ago [-]
> sanctions on Russia which have had a far more detrimental effect on the West, and Europe in particular, than on Russia.
Considering we only see Russian bots talking about lifting sanctions nowadays and everybody else moved on to other subjects in Europe, it must have some effect of some sort, otherwise they wouldn't talk about it.
> And Russia is in a winning position in the war.
At best, even if they took the full country tomorrow, I don't think there's any way to save Russia from medium term collapse.
They would need a Marshall plan of somebody giving them 300 billions for free and I don't see that happening and who would do that.
> but the West has bet everything on a victory which means they'd rather see it continue to the last Ukrainian
You have it backwards, Ukraine and Europe want a victory so that Russia doesn't continue to kill to the last Ukrainian. (And for Europe more importantly, not being the next one in line).
That's what Russia's policy of destroying cities and killing civilians do.
somenameforme 7 days ago [-]
Declare everybody that disagrees with you as a Russian bot and, lo and behold, apparently the only people that disagree with you are Russian bots. I think the German elections have been a rather more impartial poll on the views of people, to say nothing of the approval ratings of European leaders. Macron is at 16% and Merz has hit a truly impressive 10%. They've defined their leadership by their foreign policy, so what other conclusion can one draw?
And Russia is going to collapse after the war if somebody doesn't give them $300 billion, a small fraction of their GDP, and what Western media now claims they're annually spending on the war? How is that supposed to even make any sense? Similarly for a Ukrainian victory. The war in Ukraine has turned into a classic war of attrition with a small nation against a much larger one. The small nation is already having significant manpower issues, while the large one has yet to even turn to general mobilization. Again, how is a victory supposed to come out of this?
realusername 7 days ago [-]
> Declare everybody that disagrees with you as a Russian bot and, lo and behold, apparently the only people that disagree with you are Russian bots
No, I mean actual Russian bots, either paid far rights politicians or online paid accounts. That's the kind of people left talking about sanctions, everybody else moved on to other subjects a long time ago.
It used to be a hot debate in 2022 / 2023, we're way past that now and the public opinion moved on.
> Macron is at 16% and Merz has hit a truly impressive 10%. They've defined their leadership by their foreign policy, so what other conclusion can one draw?
No they haven't, as for France, which I know very well, almost nobody cares about foreign politics on election day.
What's making Macron unpopular is the local debt, ineffective spending, retirement policies, reaction to local events (such as student protests right now), voters don't really care about Russia.
> And Russia is going to collapse after the war if somebody doesn't give them $300 billion, a small fraction of their GDP
GDP isn't government budget. And I was making a low ball estimate yeah, maybe they need 800 billions, I don't know. What I do now is that they dug themselves into a very deep hole and Ukraine is a very poor country (especially now) which is never going to help them make that back.
> The small nation is already having significant manpower issues, while the large one has yet to even turn to general mobilization. Again, how is a victory supposed to come out of this?
I don't know a single war in history which ended because they had literally no men to throw at it.
Russia to me looks to be in a similar position as Germany in 1917, they still had men to throw at the war (and were even making territory gains!) but the country was collapsing due to the weight of the war, forcing them to stop.
rasz 7 days ago [-]
>somebody giving them 300 billions for free
Well, Iran was offered similar amount by certain somebody, so never say never
realusername 7 days ago [-]
I don't think Trump was ever going to pay for real personally
codedokode 6 days ago [-]
It seems that Trump is going to pay for a Russian diesel though. It's not 300 billions but as the proverb goes, Moscow was not built in a day.
0dayz 6 days ago [-]
How is it obvious when he wrote it in the opposite way?
What exports of tank components from Russia are detrimental to the west?
Since that is some of many things sanctioned?
How is Russia in a winning position?
You only give assertions without any actual explanation nor facts and is apparently obsessed with Ukraine's leader.
codedokode 6 days ago [-]
Yes I meant Russian decision to ban export of diesel abroad. Technically it can be considered a part of the counter-sanctions applied to "unfriendly" (official term) Western countries (other measures: taking over assets in Russia, such as factories, belonging to foreign companies etc).
> How is Russia in a winning position?
Because US is asking Russia to lift restrictions and not vice versa. If US is in a winning position why do they even need to ask anything from a "losing" side? Winner sets conditions, not asks.
0dayz 6 days ago [-]
That is not a sanction.
And was Russia a manufacturing powerhouse? Genuinely curious who has more sway there? China or Russia against the west.
I guess then if I win going up before my alarm clock I have won everything in life.
codedokode 5 days ago [-]
Russia exports diesel means Russia is getting money from US and can spend it however it wants. Also, it gets some political influence on Trump by doing a favor and helping Republicans win.
> And was Russia a manufacturing powerhouse?
Of drones and missiles? Yes.
0dayz 5 days ago [-]
So the previous attempts by Trump to let Putin get political influence was just jokes and blusters?
How exactly would diesel help republicans win when diesel is 1 of several critically important issues that is going against the republicans and Trump?
And I asked in past tense not in present, since you were talking in past tense.
Even so I'm sure India will be happy to eat Russian missiles for breakfast and call people on their drones since that is what exports powerhouse is compared to China.
somenameforme 6 days ago [-]
The sanctions against Russian are regularly mocked as Russia sanctioning the West due to their outcomes. This [1] is a graph of Russia's real GDP. This [2] is the same graph for Germany. The cyclical nature of the Russian one is because it's not seasonally adjusted - the Fed stopped providing those data after the war began. You can't even see where the sanctions begin in terms of Russia's economy but you certainly can for Germany, which almost immediately fell into recession.
As for the war, it's turned into a war of attrition. Ukraine is facing an increasingly severe manpower shortage whereas Russia has not even carried out a general mobilization, yet continues to inch forward. That's the reason for Ukraine's various recent efforts to try to change the nature of the conflict, but I think that's mostly just opening a Pandora's Box that should have stayed closed. It certainly hasn't left Ukraine in a stronger position, to say the least.
> but you certainly can for Germany, which almost immediately fell into recession.
The graph doesn't show that at all.
somenameforme 6 days ago [-]
Look at Germany Q3 2022 onward. They entered into the greatest economic crisis they've had since WW2. It's been dubbed the German Economic Crisis [1], and is primarily because of energy prices which, in turn, are because of Russia's brutally effective sanctions against Germany.
I may be missing something, but I don't remember Russia actually implementing any sanctions against Germany, just self inflicted pain; even the weird explanations about Russia being responsible about NS2 bombing to put pressure in Germany ended up being BS.
somenameforme 2 days ago [-]
I was being snarky. It's because of German (and EU more generally) sanctions on Russia.
codedokode 6 days ago [-]
Maybe one should compare the slope of the line in 2010-2020 period vs 2022-2026 for Germany?
6 days ago [-]
0dayz 6 days ago [-]
Again with these assertions and no actual substance.
"regularly mocked" this is news to me? By whom? Russia? Who threatens nuclear war every 5 seconds against any state it deems as a meanie?
Even then, how is mocking = effective? Are vibes how we determine economics?
Secondly: you already acknowledge that one graph is seasonally adjusted and the other isn't.
Which makes very little sense given the little context you give.
But even putting that aside, how do those graphs establish that sanctions hurt the West more than Russia? Russia's GDP went up, therefore sanctions didn't hurt it? What? Which self-respecting economist would ever make such a bizarre simplification of how an economy works?
Since you know an economy can grow and still be worse off than it would've been without sanctions, those aren't mutually exclusive.
And yes Germany has been making some very questionable if not downright stupid decisions policy and economically speaking for about 15 years now one being aligning itself with Russia has of course caused huge economic problems for themselves, just look at Hungary and Serbia for similar examples.
Even so: Germany having a shit time doesn't magically tell you how much of that came from sanctions rather than energy dependence, the war itself or its own economic problems. Where have you actually separated those things instead of just pointing at a graph and going "see, sanctions"?
Plus why are you treating Germany as "the West"? Where's the comparison with Sweden, Poland or the rest of Europe? And I'm not asking whether their GDP went up or down.
I'm asking where you've demonstrated that the damage caused by sanctions was greater for them than for Russia, since that's your claim, isn't it?
And Russia is winning because no general mobilization?
How?
Since: "Hasn't done it" doesn't automatically mean "doesn't need to.", unless you think that not getting medicine for an illness means you don't need it.
Even so how are you ruling out the costs, logistical problems or political consequences of doing it?
Exactly where's the evidence that this means Russia has a load of usable military capacity sitting around rather than capacity that's expensive or difficult to put into the field?
What is "inch forward" here? How much territory, over what period, at what cost, and does it actually put Ukraine in a significantly worse military position?
And how is starting a war not opening Pandora's Box? Or you think it was smart by Nazi Germany to start WW1 and WW2?
somenameforme 5 days ago [-]
On the economic stuff you can see the entire EU's data here. [1] The EU's total growth since the sanctions is around 2%. Russia's data not being seasonally adjusted just means that you need to compare quarter versus the same quarter prior, but it'll give an accurate growth estimate. And so Russia's total growth since the sanctions began is around 10%. So who got hurt more? It could only be Russia if one believes that, without the sanctions, they would have dramatically outpaced the EU, since they're significantly outpacing EU economies with the sanctions. That seems beyond improbable, in which case the only conclusion seems to be that the EU is mostly just punching itself in the face, to spite Russia.
On the war stuff, the war has become a classical war of attrition. Both sides are fighting to the see who runs out of people first. Ukraine is fighting with something near to their max potential fighting force. They've locked all "fighting age" men in their country, are literally dragging people off the streets, and their are still facing major manpower issues. By contrast Russia is fighting with a small fraction of their overall potential having not even turned to a general mobilization. So Ukraine is losing when fighting with all of their might against Russia fighting with a fraction of theirs. This is the reason for the nonstop propaganda about Russia just about to declare a general mobilization, every single year. Without such happening, it makes it clear that this is an very one-sided war to anybody who's aware of the basic facts.
The point Pandora's Box is one of unforeseen consequences and regret. I was speaking of the decision to start intentionally targeting genuine civilian infrastructure, but as for the war as a whole it's the same story. If you take Russia back to 2022 and tell them what the situation would be today, more than 4 years later, they would 100% do it all again. If you do the same for Ukraine or the US, they certainly wouldn't have.
> If you take Russia back to 2022 and tell them what the situation would be today, more than 4 years later, they would 100% do it all again. If you do the same for Ukraine or the US, they certainly wouldn't have.
I highly doubt it. In February 2022, the worst case scenario - complete and swift takeover of Ukraine by Russia - was still on the table. Yet they still decided to fight. If we told them that 4.5 years later, not only would majority of Ukraine be still free, but Russia would not manage to take and hold a single large Ukrainian city, and refineries in Russia would be regularly blown up Ukrainian drones, they would 100% do it all over again.
somenameforme 4 days ago [-]
The complete and swift takeover of Ukraine was being stated by the West, not Russia. [1] The stuff about Kyiv falling in 3 days came from the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - General Mark Milley. I suspect we'll learn in the future that it was intended to bait Russia into a conflict that the US expected to comfortably win, because the claim made no sense at all. Ukraine had a massive army of nearly 400k before the conflict, numerous cities which had been turned heavily fortified into ostensibly impenetrable fortresses, and a sizable chunk of 'ultra nationalists' who were itching to fight.
On top of it being plainly absurd, if you thought it was true this is not something you ever leak if you thought it were true, precisely because it might indeed provoke an invasion! Indeed, given the media's close relationship with the US intelligence community, this probably would never have been published, and the leaker would have found himself in prison. The whole narrative reeks!
Russia did not expect to end up in a war against the entire West. And there's not a chance in hell they would have realistically expected to be able to win in a war against the entire West, almost single-handedly. This war has shifted the geopolitical balance permanently (and is almost certainly what inspired Iran to fight back), and has given Russia the clout they so desperately wanted since the collapse of the USSR.
The whole invasion scenario as it happened makes zero sense unless Russia planned to take over the capital city. Why send airborne troops to the Hostomel airport, or large armored columns towards Kyiv, if you don't plan to take over the city?
Then there is state-owned news media publishing stuff like this:
> "The period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end," the article reads. "Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev? That the Russians will forever be a divided people?"
Russia only stopped outside Kyiv because they had to (the resistance was much greater than anticipated), not because they wanted to.
somenameforme 4 days ago [-]
Ah, but you're missing perhaps the most probable scenario from the Russia side. Their primary goal for Ukraine was not particularly extreme - they wanted Ukraine to agree to remain a neutral country outside of NATO. That's asking basically nothing relative to the cost of a real war, and so I do think they expected those negotiations to succeed, because it's like being given the choice of setting your [uninsured] house on fire or agreeing to never buy fire insurance. Yeah both suck, but one is clearly much worse.
And this is even more likely given that negotiations for the end of the war started on February 28th, 4 days after the war began! Furthermore, the large convoy was completely inappropriate for actual military purposes and Russia didn't even have the logistics in place to keep it running. It makes no sense from a military perspective, but is 100% logical from an intimidation one.
I do think the airborne troops were a genuine decapitation strike attempt, as is tried in most of every war. It rarely works, but there was a chance it would (and in such a scenario you'd want a draft of the 'victory speech' written, much as we wrote a public obituary for the Apollo astronauts before they embarked for the Moon). But even if it failed, it also plays into the intimidation.
And those negotiations would have indeed almost certainly succeeded if the West didn't jump in and encourage Ukraine to "just fight". And I think the West did this expecting to rapidly inflict a 'strategic defeat' on Russia. Nobody got their quick victory, and instead we ended up with a real war that I don't think anybody thought would happen.
mopsi 3 days ago [-]
> And those negotiations would have indeed almost certainly succeeded if the West didn't jump in and encourage Ukraine to "just fight".
> Ah, but you're missing perhaps the most probable scenario from the Russia side. Their primary goal for Ukraine was not particularly extreme - they wanted Ukraine to agree to remain a neutral country outside of NATO.
> And those negotiations would have indeed almost certainly succeeded if the West didn't jump in and encourage Ukraine to "just fight".
Nope, Russians wanted far more than just neutrality. The March–April 2022 peace negotiations in Istanbul ultimately failed because Russians refused to let go of their most controversial demands: severe reductions and restrictions of Ukrainian military.
Key Military Reduction Demands:
• Personnel Limits: Russia demanded that the Ukrainian standing peacetime army be capped at 50,000 to 85,000 troops (compared to the much larger forces Ukraine maintained or later negotiated in subsequent frameworks).
• Weapon and Equipment Caps: Strict quantitative and qualitative ceilings were demanded on Ukrainian military hardware, including deep restrictions on armored combat vehicles and tanks, artillery and rocket systems, combat aircraft and anti-air assets
• Missile Range Bans: Moscow demanded a complete prohibition on Ukraine acquiring or possessing long-range missile systems.
• Foreign Aid and Alliances Ban: Ukraine was required to renounce NATO aspirations, ban foreign military bases or troops, and prohibit joint military exercises or Western military aid.
• Veto Power: Russia insisted on a security guarantee structure that would grant Moscow (along with other permanent UN Security Council members) a veto over any international intervention if Ukraine were attacked again.
This is basically capitulation, and absolutely unacceptable for any sovereign state. No serious national leader would agree to this, and Russia refused to compromise. Ukrainians had no choice but to fight. The demands would result in a nation that is so defenseless that they would inevitably end up as a Russian vassal state in the near future.
somenameforme 3 days ago [-]
Your source is the Atlantic Council, a neocon warmongering think tank backed by the US military industrial complex. In your link they cite themselves and Radio Free Europe, which is a US propaganda outlet formed during the Cold War, initially funded by the CIA. Just look up what the negotiators involved said. This is from Davyd Arakhamia, who headed the negotiations:
"[Russia] really hoped almost to the last moment that they would force us to sign such an agreement so that we would take neutrality. It was the most important thing for them. They were prepared to end the war if we agreed to, – as Finland once did, – neutrality, and committed that we would not join NATO. In fact, this was the key point. Everything else was simply rhetoric and political 'seasoning' about denazification, the Russian-speaking population and blah-blah-blah." [1] The article continues, "When asked why Ukraine did not agree to this point, Arakhamia replied that there was no confidence in the Russians, because they were ready to promise anything."
That's exactly how they would act if they didn't really care about much of anything except the NATO aspect. There was even the posturing between the two parties on who was making more of a compromise in the agreements [2], which reflects not only how successful they were, but was a clear sign of it being on the verge of being signed. Basically everything was being set up to have a 'I'm going to sue you for $20 billion dollars, but I'll settle it out of court right now for $50.' I imagine Russia simply did not imagine it could possibly fail, because it makes no sense for it to fail. Then the West enters the stage.
No, the notion of Ukraine falling in three days did not come from Milley. It was a common sentiment in Russia at the time and nowadays it's considered a massive intelligence failure that is openly spoken about.
Vladimir Chirkin, the commander of Russian ground forces 2012-2013:
"Everyone, if you recall, started saying in February 2022 that the war would be over in three days. We'll beat them all now," said Chirkin in an interview on November 27 with Russian radio outlet RBC. "But unfortunately, it didn't work out that way. I would give our entire Russian intelligence community a failing grade," he added.
In the RBC interview, Chirkin said that Moscow had "traditionally" miscalculated the balance of power, underestimating its enemy and overestimating the performance of its own forces. Chirkin said that Russian leadership had been misled into thinking that 70% of Ukraine's population supported a pro-Russian government. "It turned out to be exactly the opposite. 30% for us and 70% against," he said. "During the first few weeks, we were taught a seriously cruel lesson."
0dayz 5 days ago [-]
...Why are you sending me a stat that is GDP per person for Europe while talking about total GDP growth for Russia?
Are you taking the piss?
Secondly so why didn't you just give us the same data done in the same way? Why was that something you didn't address when you posted it?
Even granting your 10% versus 2%, you still haven't established who lost more because of sanctions,
considering that you've now acknowledged that the answer depends on what growth would have been without them, which is exactly the point.
But instead of estimating that, you've gone "that seems beyond improbable," therefore "the only conclusion".
Since when does your intuition eliminate every other explanation?
Since in reality if we are going to look into how an economy moves with our without sanctions, you need an estimate of what would have happened without sanctions, accounting for the war and the government spending alongside it.
Instead you've just decided what sounds plausible to you.
Since if there is one VERY common theme in war is that the Government ALWAYS become a top spender and enabler of said economy that is a war economy.
And that is the case with Russia's government which has massively increased spending, with war-related production driving much of the expansion, the Bank of Finland's October assessment explicitly describes rapidly expanding war-related sectors alongside weak growth in the broader economy[0].
So no a peaceful Russia would not enjoy 10% growth because GDP is not adjusted for what type of economy you are running.
Give me the oxford definition of War of attrition, I know you can at least do that much beyond copy-pasting manpower, because: a very kind little hint: attrition is not defined as manpower only.
Even so, why are you being so evasive about what Russia is doing? It's a very simple question, why is it hard for you to go into detail about what Russia does when it comes to: recruitment, handling of dissidents, what capacity Russia has in it's military, their budget and so on.
You've posted, and posted about Ukraine here and Ukraine there, yet always so tight lipped about Russia, why is that?
With that said:
Your jump from "Ukraine has serious manpower problems" to "Ukraine is using essentially its entire potential while Russia is barely trying" those aren't the same claim.
And even just scrutinizing your "ALL FIGHTING MEN" is wrong; Ukraine still allows those bellow 1-822 to travel outside the country and only those above or at 25 has to serve from what I can find, so why lie?
And Russia not announcing a general mobilization doesn't establish that it's using only a small fraction of its usable military capacity.
Looking at RUSI's September analysis it describes an ongoing recruitment system involving substantial financial incentives, regional recruitment pressure and reported coercion[1].
In particular it notes that the 2022 partial-mobilization decree was never formally rescinded, Russia is sustaining recruitment while managing its financial and political costs.
Even so why is Russia so interested in seeing their own men dying in this war that they are fighting with so many hands tied behinds it's back, while also bombing daily Ukrainian civilians and even establishing "human safari" against Ukrainians?
Either Russia is using it's "mighty" army or it isn't, you keep on tapdancing around it, if you're going to argue for "basic" "facts" can you stop arguing for "lazy vibes" as you are doing?
Given that, what fraction of Russia's usable capacity are you claiming is deployed, and how did you calculate it? How many additional troops can it train, equip, supply and command, over what period? How many are replacing losses rather than expanding the force?
And if this is what you call "basic facts" then I'm sorry to tell that you're using the definition where basic is used as a negative insult and not as the definition where it's used for foundation.
Either way you really need to re-read the story of Pandora's box if that is the take away, considering you cannot phantom that starting a war that was expected to go over fast has dragged out for 4 years now soon to be 5 is the definition of Pandora's box.
And what Russia? Do you view Russian people so low that they don't even exist as a ethnicity here? Or is the government of Russia the only thing that matters? Since that is what you're insinuating here.
And let's use your logic to the fullest: by your logic then what Israel is doing against Gaza is also fine? because they would "100% do it again".
In percents, GDP growth per capita is going to be approximately the same as GDP growth over small time frames. The data I provided are because those are the data sets that are available. If you feel they're misleading, feel free to offer better data. I think you'll find all reliable sources say the exact same thing. The reason Ukraine doesn't conscript 18-22 is twofold. The first is because they make up a small percent of the population [1] - the pyramid there obscures the age bracket we're after, but it's in the ballpark of 2-3% of the Ukrainian population.
The second is because Ukraine is praying for a hope of having a Ukraine after the war. Ukraine had major demographic issues before the war, and is in a terminal situation now. You need to have fathers for the next generation if you want a next generation. A country without enough people will not be a country for long, regardless of land. Let alone when you're going to have social obligations towards countless individuals, perhaps in the millions, who will be crippled or suffering from the various mental and social disorders that war experience causes in people.
The rest of your post is somewhat incoherent, so it's not clear to me what you're trying to say. According to Syrskyi, Russia could deploy up to 20 million men in a general mobilization, including 5 million already with military experience or training. [2] However you want to estimate the forces Russia has deployed, it's a very small fraction of their potential in a general mobilization. And I never said what Russia has done is fine. Opposing the war does not mean cheerleading endlessly for a Ukrainian victory, especially as such is likely impossible. Russia should not have invaded, yet will benefit from the war. Such is life.
I already addressed this, per-capita and total GDP growth can be approximately the same when population growth is small, but it doesn't change the fact that addressing you using two different series of GDP doesn't make it any less valid critic.
Plus I never claimed that using comparable figures would automatically reverse the result.
Since I already went along with your 10% vs 2% argument, especially since you keep replying as if my whole objection is merely those two figures being wrong.
That is because claiming that: "Reliable sources show Russia grew faster" is not the same claim as "reliable sources show sanctions hurt Europe more".
Because the first concern tells us what has happened, the second is about how much of what happened was caused by sanctions, compared with what would otherwise have happened.
You just haven't shown even a millimeter of what the second concern demands to be taken serious.
Good that you do seem to agree then that your original point about fighting-age men were false, in fact I double thank you for ensuring that this is now set in stone as a good solid fact.
Then there's the question about why you seem almost allergic to discussing Russia's recruitment and partial mobilization when we contrast this with your "basic facts" statements about Ukraine.
Why aren't you doing a deep dive into how many young folks are being sent to the frontlines on the Russia side, you've avoided every curious question I've asked of you about the same assertion you make about Ukraine to give me the same conclusion using the same analytical framework towards Russia, nothing more and nothing less.
So I'm not going to repeat myself there, beyond: How much additional force can Russia actually train, equip, supply and command, over what period and at what cost? How much recruitment is replacing losses rather than expanding the force and of course what of the partial mobilization?
I’m more than happy to explain any points you find incoherent, but challenging your reasoning isn’t the same as claiming you think what Russia has and is doing is fine.
Afterall you're the one who wrote "Russia would 100% do it again", even granting that you mean only the government, that is still an unhinged statement, as it disregards any actual concerns or issues the people have at stake.
And using that form of reasoning or logic and applying it another genocide going on such as the one in Gaza is merely showing your reasoning/logic's conclusion, not claiming your support for Russia.
somenameforme 4 days ago [-]
The issue I already hit on with the GDP stuff is that for the sanctions to possibly have been effective, you have to assume that without them sanctions Russia would have grown dramatically faster than the EU, like completely absurdly faster since their growth rate is already 500% faster than the EU. Maybe you want to try to make the argument, but I think it's a complete fiction.
I'm not sure exactly what questions you're asking me about Russian enlistment that I haven't answered. Ukrainian military sources put Russia's mobilization potential at 20 million. That seems like a very conservative estimate, but it doesn't really matter. Even if we roll with that, and whatever other constraints you may want to construct, it's dramatically larger than the current forces they're using, and that's point.
And calling Ukraine a genocide is ridiculous. The Ukraine War has had the lowest civilian casualty rate of any modern war, by a wide margin. [1] And that's based on the plainly fabricated casualty rates for Ukraine. After their real casualty levels are 'revealed' the civilian casualty rate will be significantly lower.
I think it's more Trump being mates with Putin and Russia winning and giving Trump friends oil concessions is more profitable for him than justice. Not the best way to do things really.
Rendered at 20:47:28 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Edit: tanker hit a mine today in Hormuz, going great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OETnuwwsv9U
Exports to the US is about 20% of China's GDP [2].
Regardless of any of China's contingency plans, US exports are well above noise-levels.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/268173/countries-with-th...
[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS?location...
What you should take note of, is that China's trade surplus tracks the US trade deficit extremely closely, and this has been the case for the last 20 years.
Said another way, most nations in the world run roughly balanced trade. There is only one nation on earth that can sustain large and prolonged trade deficits. Only one. That is the US. So if you are a nation whose entire economic strategy rests on running large and sustained trade surpluses, then you are going to be exporting your surplus to the US, directly or indirectly, and only to the US.
Now in practice, some of that will be direct sales to the US, some will be indirect sales to the US, but at the end of the day, if you want to run a 1.2 trillion dollar trade surplus, then you have to hope to God that the US is willing to run at least a trillion dollar trade deficit, because no other country is going to do that for you, the entire rest of the world may be willing to accomodate a hundred billion or so, but for everything else, you will depend on the US, directly or indirectly, to absorb your surplus.
So to run a current account surplus against the rest of the world of $100, you need to accumulate $100 of financial claims belonging to the rest of the world. There are complexities, for example I switched from "trade surplus" to "current account" because things like interest payments also need to be added in, but with these adjustments, you cannot run prolonged trade surpluses without storing your money in some other nation's jurisdiction.
Now the question is, which nation is willing to accomodate inflows of a trillion dollars a year? That's right, only a single nation is willing to do that. Most nations ban or severely restrict foreign capital inflows. Those that don't ban it, they don't have the necessary financial infrastructure to accomadate the scale of surpluses that China needs to run. This is why I laugh at all these reports of "China is dumping treasuries". China accumulated over a trillion dollars of dollar claims over the last year. That's in addition to what they already had. Why? Because who else would allow those levels of foreign capital inflows into their economy.
So once again, the US is the only nation willing and able to absorb these capital inflows.
Personally, I don't think this is sustainable, it's deindustrializing the US and is highly destabilizing, but since the liberalization of global capital flows launched by the Clinton administration, we have been doing this 30 year experiment in what happens when you let countries print money and use them to buy your bonds. The results have been, in my opinion, highly destabilizing, and it's not going to end well. But many of those who grew up in this period, think this is just how the world works and they can't imagine any other system, one in which capital inflows were highly restricted and as a result, no nation ran large trade surpluses against any other. Or they don't think about this at all and believe that China's hard work and industrial prowess is why they are able to run large trade surpluses, completely ignoring the whole money printing to buy US bonds that is happening in the background. When the US was the world's primary industrial power in the period 1870 - 1920, we ran current account deficits, not surpluses. What China is doing, industrializing while exporting capital -- that is truly unprecedented and possible only due to the combination of fiat non-convertible money combined with the US allowing unrestricted capital inflows. It's a truly bizarre state of affairs.
This is just tautological with the trade surplus. Yes, the two go hand in hand.
My point is that "trade surplus" is always trotted out as if it is some vulnerability of China's - that if we stop giving them dollars and they stop giving us goods, this would create an unsolvable problem for China's economy.
But this is merely fanciful fiction borne from western thinking where we don't have the political will to take sustained direct action to subsidize domestic industry. But China isn't bound by this! Rather it is merely wishful thinking as if we hold power here.
Hence my focusing on whether China actually needs more dollars (ie is reliant on exporting to get those dollars), or whether they could make do with what they've already saved up in treasuries (and other USD investments) while being unable to export as much to the US. My gut says their economy and industry is now large enough that they could weather it just fine. We're still looking at them as if they are the little kid from the 90's (who would have indeed been hurt if we had never started the arrangement), and failing to see that they are all grown up. The pump has been primed.
> the US is the only nation willing and able to absorb these capital inflows... The results have been, in my opinion, highly destabilizing
In my opinion, the destabilizing results were not inevitable. Rather they were the result of deliberate policies that were kept outside of the Overton window by the entrenched interests who were benefiting from them.
Having others say "I'm willing to accept IOUs from you rather than requiring payment in cold hard cash" (aka having the world reserve currency) is an inherently lucrative position! The downsides can only come from how you react to having that ability - a spendthrift might write IOUs without limit and spend all their cash, making the position itself look like a vulnerability. Whereas a frugal person who wants to avoid that fate but isn't very creative might keep a stack of cash that 1:1 corresponds to IOUs they've issued.
The two deliberate policies of which I speak are 1. USD must always inflate (which precludes the frugal option) 2. the legislature/executive government is prevented from spending the newly created money on (most) deliberate constructive activities (like the industrial subsidies I was talking about above).
So most of the wealth we received from having the world reserve currency (represented in-system by newly created money) was simply given away by the Federal Reserve directly to banks (as low-interest loans) to blindly "invest". This resulted in the everything bubble - unproductive assets as a safe haven, intemperate investment in new industries, but failure to maintain the industries we had (since mature industries don't achieve outsized investment returns).
In a different world the legislature would have spent some of that wealth directly subsidizing domestic industry to maintain it, backed up with laws about not being able to move production lines out of the country. But of course this was not in the interest of the corpo class as it would have meant less money going into their own pockets. Hence it remaining on the fringes of the Overton window. (the one place it did actually happen was the defense industry, of course)
Now that the deindustrialization scam has run its course, the corpo class is on to the next thing - economic consolidation to further cement their position. They're channeling echos of what would have been prudent decisions back in the 90's, which makes grassroots voters think they are finally being listened to. But it's nonsensical to talk of closing the barn door after the horse is long gone, right? So in reality they're pushing upside-down bizarro revanchist economics (like framing strong currency itself as a problem!), to destroy the economy that we actually did develop. Then they can mop up and further centralize.
> Last year, the daily cost of hiring an oil supertanker (known as a Very Large Crude Carrier, or VLCC) to sail from the Persian Gulf to China was just $65,000, according to Clarksons, a London-based research firm.
> Now? It costs $1.6 million per day to hire a VLCC for that route, according to Clarksons.
Iran's leadership was replaced with more extreme leadership and America has spent countless billions.
Nothing is better.
Only a hyperpartisan brain could refer to that as any sort of victory.
Getting the oil supply back to prewar levels isn’t winning by itself, and I didn’t say it was. But it does open a path to winning, because holding the oil hostage is the only leverage the Iranian regime has.
Can the hyperpartisan brain not count past 113?
Please support this statement.
Imagine that your country - whose rulers you do not agree with - is attacked by two states unprovoked in the middle of negotiations, not once, but twice in a single year.
And how do they initiate this attack? They strike a number of targets, one of which the compound your head of state is living in along with members of his family, including a child (his granddaughter). Mind you, your head of state was not in a bunker, but was an 87 year old man living his life as normal. After executing this amazing operation, these two states then call on your people to rise up and overthrow the government.
What would you do?
Saddam, Maduro, Gaddafi, Assad—all those guys were mostly terrorizing their own people and shouldn’t have been taken out. I don’t think Khamenei should’ve been taken out either, but boy did he deserve it more than any of the others.
As for Khamanei, at the end of the day, he was a head of state. There are international systems in place for punishing people in power across state boundaries, which were setup because otherwise our world devolves into assassination and war.
Are you defining "attack by Iran" to exclude attacks by proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah that Iran funds to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year?
What's insane to me is that nobody actually has a beef with Iran. Tel Aviv is a thousand miles away from Tehran. The Arab countries don't like Iran, nor does Iran like any of the Arab countries. There's no conflict over land or resources. Iran is doing this shit purely for love of the game.
There's a perfectly plausible counterfactual history where Iran chooses to focus on economic development instead of antagonizing Israel and you end up with two technologically advanced developed countries in the region.
A provocation might have been Iran waking up one day and deciding to hammer Israel or US bases with missiles. Even then, targeting a head of state might be going too far. You would think Iran would have done this based on all the demonization targeted towards it, but instead it was the accusers who did just that :)
Iran has a “beef” with Israel because of Palestine. As for groups it cooperates with such as Hezbollah or Ansarallah, that is simply power projection and a way for them to gain influence, which partly is due to them existing in a region where Sunnis outnumber Shias.
And btw, it has been a while since Hamas was funded by Iran. But I think funding Hamas was a popular move and helped bolster Iran’s image both domestically and across the region.
That's what happened! Iran is just adding a layer of indirection by funneling money and missiles to Hamas and Hezbollah, who in turn launch the attacks. They don't even try to hide it. Why should acting through a middle-man insulated them from culpability?
> Even then, targeting a head of state might be going too far.
I actually agree with you on that. But I don't think it's fair to downplay the "fucking around" that Iran did before they "found out."
> Iran has a “beef” with Israel because of Palestine.
Which makes no sense geopolitically. Iran has no dog in that fight. Iran has no sympathy to Palestinians--they host millions of Afghan refugees, but nobody from Palestine. The Arabs hate Iran too. If Israel wasn't there, Iran would be the primary focus of Arab antagonism. Israel and Iran had good relations with each other between 1950 and 1979, and that made logical sense from the perspective of what was most beneficial to the people of both countries.
I view Iran as a real tragedy. Not because of "human rights and democracy blah blah blah." I have no problem with Iranians having a theocracy if that's what they want. What blows my mind is that Iran has the potential to be a highly functional country, but simply chooses to waste it's money and political capital on irrationally antagonizing countries that it could have been allied with instead.
Iran does have a geopolitical, ideological, religious, and humanitarian interest in Palestine. If you don’t get it, I would recommend you do more reading.
Ukraine is essentially a proxy of the US and EU due to arms, funding, and support. Ukraine is attacking targets in Russia. Suppose Russia woke up one day and decided to fire an ICBM at the US or a major EU capital. Would that be an appropriate response?
It's detrimental to America and the cause of peace on numerous dimensions.
Trust me, by almost any metric you can think of, this was a strategic defeat for the US.
so nothing changed. Or does CNBC knows of a peace treaty ? /s
Propaganda.
It's never 4d chess. it's just a guy desperately trying to get diesel prices to temporarily decline _without_ having to admit that he's a fucking idiot for having dragged America into Israel's war on Iran.
And even then, it's only because of the mid-terms. The GOP does not give a single solitary fuck about the sorts of people who notice and are hurt by gas prices. The GOP despises American workers.
This is not GOP vs DNC. They are fully corrupted on both sides, and stopped representing their constituents a long time ago.
There are two big reasons for this. The first is that it's completely as it seems - we want to protect the EU. But this has nothing to do with freedom, democracy, or whatever else. It's because we don't want to see the rise or expansion of another major competitor. Imagine if Germany, China, Russia, or whoever else managed to "unite" Europe, to use a euphemism. They could viably be the greatest power the world has seen in centuries.
The other is more insidious. NATO makes an EU military largely unnecessary. This is, in some ways, a tremendous benefit to the EU since it leaves them with far more wealth to do other things with, like improve their citizens' lives. But it also leaves them completely dependent upon NATO which is largely just a proxy for complete dependence upon the US. So this creates a scenario where the US is simply irreplaceable for the EU, at least not until they have their own military. And there are occasional calls for the creation of an EU military, but they mostly go nowhere, and if they did start going anywhere the US would do everything in its power to destroy them behind the scenes, and that would probably be successful.
And I'm curious which sanctions by Russia are crippling "the west"?
Considering we only see Russian bots talking about lifting sanctions nowadays and everybody else moved on to other subjects in Europe, it must have some effect of some sort, otherwise they wouldn't talk about it.
> And Russia is in a winning position in the war.
At best, even if they took the full country tomorrow, I don't think there's any way to save Russia from medium term collapse.
They would need a Marshall plan of somebody giving them 300 billions for free and I don't see that happening and who would do that.
> but the West has bet everything on a victory which means they'd rather see it continue to the last Ukrainian
You have it backwards, Ukraine and Europe want a victory so that Russia doesn't continue to kill to the last Ukrainian. (And for Europe more importantly, not being the next one in line).
That's what Russia's policy of destroying cities and killing civilians do.
And Russia is going to collapse after the war if somebody doesn't give them $300 billion, a small fraction of their GDP, and what Western media now claims they're annually spending on the war? How is that supposed to even make any sense? Similarly for a Ukrainian victory. The war in Ukraine has turned into a classic war of attrition with a small nation against a much larger one. The small nation is already having significant manpower issues, while the large one has yet to even turn to general mobilization. Again, how is a victory supposed to come out of this?
No, I mean actual Russian bots, either paid far rights politicians or online paid accounts. That's the kind of people left talking about sanctions, everybody else moved on to other subjects a long time ago.
It used to be a hot debate in 2022 / 2023, we're way past that now and the public opinion moved on.
> Macron is at 16% and Merz has hit a truly impressive 10%. They've defined their leadership by their foreign policy, so what other conclusion can one draw?
No they haven't, as for France, which I know very well, almost nobody cares about foreign politics on election day.
What's making Macron unpopular is the local debt, ineffective spending, retirement policies, reaction to local events (such as student protests right now), voters don't really care about Russia.
> And Russia is going to collapse after the war if somebody doesn't give them $300 billion, a small fraction of their GDP
GDP isn't government budget. And I was making a low ball estimate yeah, maybe they need 800 billions, I don't know. What I do now is that they dug themselves into a very deep hole and Ukraine is a very poor country (especially now) which is never going to help them make that back.
> The small nation is already having significant manpower issues, while the large one has yet to even turn to general mobilization. Again, how is a victory supposed to come out of this?
I don't know a single war in history which ended because they had literally no men to throw at it.
Russia to me looks to be in a similar position as Germany in 1917, they still had men to throw at the war (and were even making territory gains!) but the country was collapsing due to the weight of the war, forcing them to stop.
Well, Iran was offered similar amount by certain somebody, so never say never
What exports of tank components from Russia are detrimental to the west?
Since that is some of many things sanctioned?
How is Russia in a winning position?
You only give assertions without any actual explanation nor facts and is apparently obsessed with Ukraine's leader.
> How is Russia in a winning position?
Because US is asking Russia to lift restrictions and not vice versa. If US is in a winning position why do they even need to ask anything from a "losing" side? Winner sets conditions, not asks.
And was Russia a manufacturing powerhouse? Genuinely curious who has more sway there? China or Russia against the west.
Right only that it was Russia that asked for sanctions to be lifted: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-says-russia-im...
And how exactly is that winning either way?
Russia exports diesel = winning everything?
I guess then if I win going up before my alarm clock I have won everything in life.
> And was Russia a manufacturing powerhouse?
Of drones and missiles? Yes.
How exactly would diesel help republicans win when diesel is 1 of several critically important issues that is going against the republicans and Trump?
And I asked in past tense not in present, since you were talking in past tense.
Even so I'm sure India will be happy to eat Russian missiles for breakfast and call people on their drones since that is what exports powerhouse is compared to China.
As for the war, it's turned into a war of attrition. Ukraine is facing an increasingly severe manpower shortage whereas Russia has not even carried out a general mobilization, yet continues to inch forward. That's the reason for Ukraine's various recent efforts to try to change the nature of the conflict, but I think that's mostly just opening a Pandora's Box that should have stayed closed. It certainly hasn't left Ukraine in a stronger position, to say the least.
[1] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGDPRNSAXDCRUQ
[2] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLVMNACSCAB1GQDE
The graph doesn't show that at all.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_economic_crisis_(2022%E...
"regularly mocked" this is news to me? By whom? Russia? Who threatens nuclear war every 5 seconds against any state it deems as a meanie?
Even then, how is mocking = effective? Are vibes how we determine economics?
Secondly: you already acknowledge that one graph is seasonally adjusted and the other isn't.
Which makes very little sense given the little context you give.
But even putting that aside, how do those graphs establish that sanctions hurt the West more than Russia? Russia's GDP went up, therefore sanctions didn't hurt it? What? Which self-respecting economist would ever make such a bizarre simplification of how an economy works? Since you know an economy can grow and still be worse off than it would've been without sanctions, those aren't mutually exclusive.
And yes Germany has been making some very questionable if not downright stupid decisions policy and economically speaking for about 15 years now one being aligning itself with Russia has of course caused huge economic problems for themselves, just look at Hungary and Serbia for similar examples.
Even so: Germany having a shit time doesn't magically tell you how much of that came from sanctions rather than energy dependence, the war itself or its own economic problems. Where have you actually separated those things instead of just pointing at a graph and going "see, sanctions"?
Plus why are you treating Germany as "the West"? Where's the comparison with Sweden, Poland or the rest of Europe? And I'm not asking whether their GDP went up or down.
I'm asking where you've demonstrated that the damage caused by sanctions was greater for them than for Russia, since that's your claim, isn't it?
And Russia is winning because no general mobilization? How? Since: "Hasn't done it" doesn't automatically mean "doesn't need to.", unless you think that not getting medicine for an illness means you don't need it.
Even so how are you ruling out the costs, logistical problems or political consequences of doing it?
Exactly where's the evidence that this means Russia has a load of usable military capacity sitting around rather than capacity that's expensive or difficult to put into the field?
What is "inch forward" here? How much territory, over what period, at what cost, and does it actually put Ukraine in a significantly worse military position?
And how is starting a war not opening Pandora's Box? Or you think it was smart by Nazi Germany to start WW1 and WW2?
On the war stuff, the war has become a classical war of attrition. Both sides are fighting to the see who runs out of people first. Ukraine is fighting with something near to their max potential fighting force. They've locked all "fighting age" men in their country, are literally dragging people off the streets, and their are still facing major manpower issues. By contrast Russia is fighting with a small fraction of their overall potential having not even turned to a general mobilization. So Ukraine is losing when fighting with all of their might against Russia fighting with a fraction of theirs. This is the reason for the nonstop propaganda about Russia just about to declare a general mobilization, every single year. Without such happening, it makes it clear that this is an very one-sided war to anybody who's aware of the basic facts.
The point Pandora's Box is one of unforeseen consequences and regret. I was speaking of the decision to start intentionally targeting genuine civilian infrastructure, but as for the war as a whole it's the same story. If you take Russia back to 2022 and tell them what the situation would be today, more than 4 years later, they would 100% do it all again. If you do the same for Ukraine or the US, they certainly wouldn't have.
[1] - https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sdg_08_10/def...
I highly doubt it. In February 2022, the worst case scenario - complete and swift takeover of Ukraine by Russia - was still on the table. Yet they still decided to fight. If we told them that 4.5 years later, not only would majority of Ukraine be still free, but Russia would not manage to take and hold a single large Ukrainian city, and refineries in Russia would be regularly blown up Ukrainian drones, they would 100% do it all over again.
On top of it being plainly absurd, if you thought it was true this is not something you ever leak if you thought it were true, precisely because it might indeed provoke an invasion! Indeed, given the media's close relationship with the US intelligence community, this probably would never have been published, and the leaker would have found himself in prison. The whole narrative reeks!
Russia did not expect to end up in a war against the entire West. And there's not a chance in hell they would have realistically expected to be able to win in a war against the entire West, almost single-handedly. This war has shifted the geopolitical balance permanently (and is almost certainly what inspired Iran to fight back), and has given Russia the clout they so desperately wanted since the collapse of the USSR.
[1] - https://www.newsweek.com/even-russian-propaganda-was-hesitan...
Then there is state-owned news media publishing stuff like this:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-state-news-accidentally-p...
> "The period of the split of the Russian people is coming to an end," the article reads. "Did someone in the old European capitals, in Paris and Berlin, seriously believe that Moscow would give up Kiev? That the Russians will forever be a divided people?"
Russia only stopped outside Kyiv because they had to (the resistance was much greater than anticipated), not because they wanted to.
And this is even more likely given that negotiations for the end of the war started on February 28th, 4 days after the war began! Furthermore, the large convoy was completely inappropriate for actual military purposes and Russia didn't even have the logistics in place to keep it running. It makes no sense from a military perspective, but is 100% logical from an intimidation one.
I do think the airborne troops were a genuine decapitation strike attempt, as is tried in most of every war. It rarely works, but there was a chance it would (and in such a scenario you'd want a draft of the 'victory speech' written, much as we wrote a public obituary for the Apollo astronauts before they embarked for the Moon). But even if it failed, it also plays into the intimidation.
And those negotiations would have indeed almost certainly succeeded if the West didn't jump in and encourage Ukraine to "just fight". And I think the West did this expecting to rapidly inflict a 'strategic defeat' on Russia. Nobody got their quick victory, and instead we ended up with a real war that I don't think anybody thought would happen.
> And those negotiations would have indeed almost certainly succeeded if the West didn't jump in and encourage Ukraine to "just fight".
Nope, Russians wanted far more than just neutrality. The March–April 2022 peace negotiations in Istanbul ultimately failed because Russians refused to let go of their most controversial demands: severe reductions and restrictions of Ukrainian military.
Key Military Reduction Demands:
• Personnel Limits: Russia demanded that the Ukrainian standing peacetime army be capped at 50,000 to 85,000 troops (compared to the much larger forces Ukraine maintained or later negotiated in subsequent frameworks).
• Weapon and Equipment Caps: Strict quantitative and qualitative ceilings were demanded on Ukrainian military hardware, including deep restrictions on armored combat vehicles and tanks, artillery and rocket systems, combat aircraft and anti-air assets
• Missile Range Bans: Moscow demanded a complete prohibition on Ukraine acquiring or possessing long-range missile systems.
• Foreign Aid and Alliances Ban: Ukraine was required to renounce NATO aspirations, ban foreign military bases or troops, and prohibit joint military exercises or Western military aid.
• Veto Power: Russia insisted on a security guarantee structure that would grant Moscow (along with other permanent UN Security Council members) a veto over any international intervention if Ukraine were attacked again.
Source: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-20...
This is basically capitulation, and absolutely unacceptable for any sovereign state. No serious national leader would agree to this, and Russia refused to compromise. Ukrainians had no choice but to fight. The demands would result in a nation that is so defenseless that they would inevitably end up as a Russian vassal state in the near future.
"[Russia] really hoped almost to the last moment that they would force us to sign such an agreement so that we would take neutrality. It was the most important thing for them. They were prepared to end the war if we agreed to, – as Finland once did, – neutrality, and committed that we would not join NATO. In fact, this was the key point. Everything else was simply rhetoric and political 'seasoning' about denazification, the Russian-speaking population and blah-blah-blah." [1] The article continues, "When asked why Ukraine did not agree to this point, Arakhamia replied that there was no confidence in the Russians, because they were ready to promise anything."
That's exactly how they would act if they didn't really care about much of anything except the NATO aspect. There was even the posturing between the two parties on who was making more of a compromise in the agreements [2], which reflects not only how successful they were, but was a clear sign of it being on the verge of being signed. Basically everything was being set up to have a 'I'm going to sue you for $20 billion dollars, but I'll settle it out of court right now for $50.' I imagine Russia simply did not imagine it could possibly fail, because it makes no sense for it to fail. Then the West enters the stage.
[1] - https://www.yahoo.com/news/head-ukraines-leading-party-claim...
[2] - https://web.archive.org/web/20220404023417/https://www.teleg... (archive since The Telegraph currently seems down?)
Vladimir Chirkin, the commander of Russian ground forces 2012-2013:
Are you taking the piss?
Secondly so why didn't you just give us the same data done in the same way? Why was that something you didn't address when you posted it?
Even granting your 10% versus 2%, you still haven't established who lost more because of sanctions, considering that you've now acknowledged that the answer depends on what growth would have been without them, which is exactly the point.
But instead of estimating that, you've gone "that seems beyond improbable," therefore "the only conclusion".
Since when does your intuition eliminate every other explanation?
Since in reality if we are going to look into how an economy moves with our without sanctions, you need an estimate of what would have happened without sanctions, accounting for the war and the government spending alongside it.
Instead you've just decided what sounds plausible to you.
Since if there is one VERY common theme in war is that the Government ALWAYS become a top spender and enabler of said economy that is a war economy.
And that is the case with Russia's government which has massively increased spending, with war-related production driving much of the expansion, the Bank of Finland's October assessment explicitly describes rapidly expanding war-related sectors alongside weak growth in the broader economy[0].
So no a peaceful Russia would not enjoy 10% growth because GDP is not adjusted for what type of economy you are running.
Give me the oxford definition of War of attrition, I know you can at least do that much beyond copy-pasting manpower, because: a very kind little hint: attrition is not defined as manpower only.
Even so, why are you being so evasive about what Russia is doing? It's a very simple question, why is it hard for you to go into detail about what Russia does when it comes to: recruitment, handling of dissidents, what capacity Russia has in it's military, their budget and so on.
You've posted, and posted about Ukraine here and Ukraine there, yet always so tight lipped about Russia, why is that?
With that said:
Your jump from "Ukraine has serious manpower problems" to "Ukraine is using essentially its entire potential while Russia is barely trying" those aren't the same claim.
And even just scrutinizing your "ALL FIGHTING MEN" is wrong; Ukraine still allows those bellow 1-822 to travel outside the country and only those above or at 25 has to serve from what I can find, so why lie?
And Russia not announcing a general mobilization doesn't establish that it's using only a small fraction of its usable military capacity.
Looking at RUSI's September analysis it describes an ongoing recruitment system involving substantial financial incentives, regional recruitment pressure and reported coercion[1].
In particular it notes that the 2022 partial-mobilization decree was never formally rescinded, Russia is sustaining recruitment while managing its financial and political costs.
Even so why is Russia so interested in seeing their own men dying in this war that they are fighting with so many hands tied behinds it's back, while also bombing daily Ukrainian civilians and even establishing "human safari" against Ukrainians?
Either Russia is using it's "mighty" army or it isn't, you keep on tapdancing around it, if you're going to argue for "basic" "facts" can you stop arguing for "lazy vibes" as you are doing?
Given that, what fraction of Russia's usable capacity are you claiming is deployed, and how did you calculate it? How many additional troops can it train, equip, supply and command, over what period? How many are replacing losses rather than expanding the force?
And if this is what you call "basic facts" then I'm sorry to tell that you're using the definition where basic is used as a negative insult and not as the definition where it's used for foundation.
Either way you really need to re-read the story of Pandora's box if that is the take away, considering you cannot phantom that starting a war that was expected to go over fast has dragged out for 4 years now soon to be 5 is the definition of Pandora's box.
And what Russia? Do you view Russian people so low that they don't even exist as a ethnicity here? Or is the government of Russia the only thing that matters? Since that is what you're insinuating here.
And let's use your logic to the fullest: by your logic then what Israel is doing against Gaza is also fine? because they would "100% do it again".
[0]https://www.bofit.fi/en/forecasting/latest-forecast-for-russ...
[1]https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme...
The second is because Ukraine is praying for a hope of having a Ukraine after the war. Ukraine had major demographic issues before the war, and is in a terminal situation now. You need to have fathers for the next generation if you want a next generation. A country without enough people will not be a country for long, regardless of land. Let alone when you're going to have social obligations towards countless individuals, perhaps in the millions, who will be crippled or suffering from the various mental and social disorders that war experience causes in people.
The rest of your post is somewhat incoherent, so it's not clear to me what you're trying to say. According to Syrskyi, Russia could deploy up to 20 million men in a general mobilization, including 5 million already with military experience or training. [2] However you want to estimate the forces Russia has deployed, it's a very small fraction of their potential in a general mobilization. And I never said what Russia has done is fine. Opposing the war does not mean cheerleading endlessly for a Ukrainian victory, especially as such is likely impossible. Russia should not have invaded, yet will benefit from the war. Such is life.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Armed_Forces
Plus I never claimed that using comparable figures would automatically reverse the result.
Since I already went along with your 10% vs 2% argument, especially since you keep replying as if my whole objection is merely those two figures being wrong.
That is because claiming that: "Reliable sources show Russia grew faster" is not the same claim as "reliable sources show sanctions hurt Europe more".
Because the first concern tells us what has happened, the second is about how much of what happened was caused by sanctions, compared with what would otherwise have happened.
You just haven't shown even a millimeter of what the second concern demands to be taken serious.
Good that you do seem to agree then that your original point about fighting-age men were false, in fact I double thank you for ensuring that this is now set in stone as a good solid fact.
Then there's the question about why you seem almost allergic to discussing Russia's recruitment and partial mobilization when we contrast this with your "basic facts" statements about Ukraine.
Why aren't you doing a deep dive into how many young folks are being sent to the frontlines on the Russia side, you've avoided every curious question I've asked of you about the same assertion you make about Ukraine to give me the same conclusion using the same analytical framework towards Russia, nothing more and nothing less.
So I'm not going to repeat myself there, beyond: How much additional force can Russia actually train, equip, supply and command, over what period and at what cost? How much recruitment is replacing losses rather than expanding the force and of course what of the partial mobilization?
I’m more than happy to explain any points you find incoherent, but challenging your reasoning isn’t the same as claiming you think what Russia has and is doing is fine.
Afterall you're the one who wrote "Russia would 100% do it again", even granting that you mean only the government, that is still an unhinged statement, as it disregards any actual concerns or issues the people have at stake.
And using that form of reasoning or logic and applying it another genocide going on such as the one in Gaza is merely showing your reasoning/logic's conclusion, not claiming your support for Russia.
I'm not sure exactly what questions you're asking me about Russian enlistment that I haven't answered. Ukrainian military sources put Russia's mobilization potential at 20 million. That seems like a very conservative estimate, but it doesn't really matter. Even if we roll with that, and whatever other constraints you may want to construct, it's dramatically larger than the current forces they're using, and that's point.
And calling Ukraine a genocide is ridiculous. The Ukraine War has had the lowest civilian casualty rate of any modern war, by a wide margin. [1] And that's based on the plainly fabricated casualty rates for Ukraine. After their real casualty levels are 'revealed' the civilian casualty rate will be significantly lower.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio