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Russian invasion of Ukraine

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LFHNflightstudent wrote:

The Russian nation has a real sense of unity and greatness which requires a form of central leadership for that to function. Take that ability away by inflicting so much pain the house crumbles and things go south very, very quickly…

The Russian nation has this sense which however is based more on it’s history than the actual leadership. Russia has survived many different kinds of leadership over the centuries but has always kept that Russian identity going. It is doubtful how sanctions and hardships would change this on a nation level. It would most certainly impact the current leadership or rather the oligarchy around it, that is clear. The question would be how much outside “agression” as they would see it as would harden their resolve even more? Sanctions and repressions have not managed to get rid of lots of “unwanted regimes” as much as I can remember.

LFHNflightstudent wrote:

Sure if this were a real gun, which it isn’t. The principle of MAD still applies.

In a conflict involving NATO States it does, but not in the case of an occupation of Ukraine. Even if NATO were involved, things would at least initially involve strictly conventional warfare, as they have in many similar conflicts fought between de facto the US and Russia over the years. MAD applies to direct conflicts between the superpowers, which is not what is at stake here (currently!). This can already be seen by the fact that the US and other NATO states have hurriedly pulled out their personnell and even moved their embassy to Lviv (USA) in order to avoid Russian forces to actually encounter NATO citizens if an invasion was to take place.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Isn’t there an apparent correlation between the the amount of noise made about this by western leaders and how close elections are, and how they are doing in the polls?

Both Macron and Biden face major elections this year and are not doing well domestically. Johnson not doing too well either but elections are way off. Scholz is fine for a couple of years.

I am not saying that there is no threat from Putin, but that the seriousness attached to it by politicians of countries other than the Ukraine is rather convenient.

Last Edited by Cobalt at 16 Feb 08:02
Biggin Hill

Cobalt wrote:

Isn’t there an apparent correlation between the the amount of noise made about this by western leaders and how close elections are, and how they are doing in the polls?

Both Macron and Biden face major elections this year and are not doing well domestically. Johnson not doing too well either but elections are way off. Scholz is fine for a couple of years.

I am not saying that there is no threat from Putin, but that the seriousness attached to it by politicians of countries other than the Ukraine is rather convenient.

I think one of the jokes is “if the US says there is going to be a war, then there is going be a war”.

You never know what to expect from Putin and you can’t trust him (like “we are not in Donbass region” and then Russian court publishes summaries on conviction for fraud of a businessman stealing supplies he was supposed to ship to the DoD in that very same region :) ), but then the US intelligence isn’t (how do I put it politely?) always absolutely correct – yellowcake uranium story which was used as an excuse for an Iraq invasion.
That IS the problem – you cannot trust any of them.

EGTR

Silvaire wrote:

If speed limits were set to with 5 mph of the 85th percentile actual vehicle speed on a given road, as recommended by technologists without a financial stake

That’s a fine way to set a limit on rural roads, or on limited access highways, but it’s very, very poor policy for streets in built-up areas (although best of all, you design streets to have features that naturally make drivers drive slowly and carefully).

Last Edited by alioth at 16 Feb 09:13
Andreas IOM

arj1 wrote:

but then the US intelligence isn’t (how do I put it politely?) always absolutely correct – yellowcake uranium story which was used as an excuse for an Iraq invasion.

Is that right? My recollection is that US intelligence actually had no evidence of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. That was rather a fixed idea in the USA (and UK) political leadership at the time.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Airborne_Again wrote:

arj1 wrote: but then the US intelligence isn’t (how do I put it politely?) always absolutely correct – yellowcake uranium story which was used as an excuse for an Iraq invasion.

Is that right? My recollection is that US intelligence actually had no evidence of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. That was rather a fixed idea in the USA (and UK) political leadership at the time.

I’ve got no idea was it just Cheney on his own or Cheney with (some) evidence from (some) intelligence sources.
Just like now – what do we actually know? Is that info from Biden? Or from the DNI?

EGTR

@Cobalt, where do you get your information that Macron isn’t doing well. We are 2 months from the 1st round and Macron has not even declared he is running yet. Le Penn is struggling to fight off Zemmour and Pécresse is not surging forward. Meanwhile the left as a whole can only muster abouy 11% of the vote and has only recently put one candidate forward to represent them. No one knows how things will go but Macron is still the one to beat if he runs.

France

Cobalt wrote:

Johnson not doing too well either but elections are way off.

well you’re optimistic about his future ;-)

LFHN - Bellegarde - Vouvray France

@gallois,

He certainly is ahead in “who will you vote for” polls and will most likely win, but compared to where he was at the start it is quite thin; also his “approval rating” is only 39%, compared to 64% when he started. Way better than BoJo at 20-ish percent, though…

https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/france/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_the_Emmanuel_Macron_presidency

Biggin Hill

LFHNflightstudent wrote:

well you’re optimistic about his future ;-)

I think the point holds. Johnson is in real trouble, but that’s with his own party and the threat is via the peculiarities of our system whereby he is not elected directly but is in post so long as he “can command the confidence of a majority of the House of Commons”. If he survives partygate then it’s a while until he has to worry about re-election.

Macron may be the front runner in his upcoming election but he’s lost a lot of ground since the start of his presidency and is thus keen to appear every inch the international statesman.

EGLM & EGTN
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