If Nato is a threat to Russia because Nato would attack or do whatever they like, then the nations within Nato could just break protocol anyway at any time and attack. — Christoffer

This documentary seems to say that NATO was a threat to Russia. DW - Germany Media. That video has some other material worth quoting, but later.

4:08
this new Cold War is of course directed against the winners of the previous one against the US and its armed extension
4:16
in Europe NATO [Music]
4:26
since the collapse of the USSR in 1991 the transatlantic alliance has
4:32
encroached on Moscow sphere of influence Poland Romania and the Baltic States
4:37
which were occupied by Soviet forces sought NATO's protection NATO carried

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8OqfMYlqJg

When have you seen footage of American troops pillaging a supermarket to get food? When have you heard about British troops going from door to door asking for food from the people because their army is totally incapable of giving them rations — ssu

Russian soldiers are getting killed as well. Maybe we would like to see footage of that. I do not think pillaging supermarkets is going to lose them the war. Actually it might help with the logistics and offset some of the costs of sanctions.

All the above just how absolute disaster this plan was and how it's not all so evident that one or the other side will prevail. — ssu

As long as we are in a military strategy discussion, why didn't Russia simply do this with cruise missiles to destroy military targets?

Why not simply threaten to invade?

Is arming rebels a good strategy and does it violate the UN Charter?

Why not simply threaten to use Nukes in the first place?

Saving lives...

Ah, Biden is not a complete moron.

As long as we are in a military strategy discussion, why didn't Russia simply do this with cruise missiles to destroy military targets?

Why not simply threaten to invade?

Is arming rebels a good strategy and does it violate the UN Charter?

Why not simply threaten to use Nukes in the first place?

Saving lives... — FreeEmotion

For Putin's internal propaganda of course, coz the Ukrainian population wasn't that neonazi afterall. They should have been liberated from the neo-nazis, right? Now after fighting against Ukrainian civilians, being condemned by the Ukrainian Jewish community, having millions of Ukrainian refugees going west not east, shelling Ukrainian residential areas, destroying hospitals, violating humanitarian cease-fire, and killing Ukrainian children (which is as like as killing Russian children b/c Ukrainians and Russian are "one people" [1]) is harder to back up the narrative of the "neo-nazi problem" any more, isn't it?

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220201003310/http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

I was talking about the line between the Ukrainian and the Russian lines. You do have the "front" stretched quite long now in Ukraine. — ssu

Yes, but if you're trying to encircle the enemy, the priority is the salients and the rest of the front doesn't really matter (especially in this situation where Ukrainians can't really advance to any strategic objective; such as Moscow).

So, commanders would be focused on the salients and send their best officers and troops to do that, and the rest of the front would be less experienced officers and troops with the orders to skirmish and just pull back and regroup their positions come under pressure.

Let's see how it develops then. And let's be honest here: the Western intelligence has been very good. — ssu

Definitely US has a ton of intelligence and satellites and so on, but Russians would take that into account. Since, as we agree, there's a huge fog of war and deception element, it's difficult to evaluate a lot of things.

First example of this is organizing the war in a week. Yes, US knew the invasion would happen as soon as orders started flowing, but Russia knowing the US would know of any detailed invasion plan may have done everything in a week so Ukraine couldn't mobilize in advance.

Or, it could very well be as the Western media reports that it was an act of hubris ... but, even if it was an act of hubris on Putin's part, Russian generals may have made sure their plan B would work anyways.

Second example, just leaving a disorganized convoy on the high-way to Kiev could be incompetence or it could be a tactic to make a significant force look nonthreatening. Now, had the Ukrainians been able to destroy the whole convoy, then obviously it would have been a mistake, but since they didn't it's possible Russian commanders were confident the convoy was at no risk and leaving it like that for days created this "incompetence" narrative by the West that, if your actually

It's very difficult to evaluate things during the war, other than critical strategic objectives that are clearly better not to lose. But everything unimportant strategically you can never tell if forces were.

Of course, I don't think we have any actual disagreements, we both agree that we'll see what will happen. Russians could very well break under the sanctions pressure, or oligarchs "take out Putin", or things unravel militarily. My fundamental point is that all these criticisms and risks facing Russia also apply to Ukraine. Russia hasn't achieved air superiority ... but neither has Ukraine for instance.

However, opposing the different scenarios I think is useful for us to understand things, but especially for people who maybe reading a long and less familiar with Russians.

And on that point, people accuse me of supporting Russia .... yet I've been trained to kill Russians, and I would if it came to that. However, I much, much, much, much, much prefer the countries leaders to avoid a war with Russia in the first place, and I also don't want to fight Russians if there is no longer a military objective to achieve. I don't view Russians as literally the Mongol hoards of the 12th century who will rape and then murder every last person if they choose to resist; in that scenario, ok, fight to the death regardless of the odds of winning.

But, certainly, Ukrainian commanders may have some sort of plan to achieve a great victory. The Russians themselves organized a massive counter offensive against the Nazi's in secret despite literally no one outside that planning believing it was possible for the Russians to do.

So, I am for sure not saying war is predictable, just that we don't know what Putin, the Kremlin Russian commanders are seeing, view as important and unimportant, acceptable losses or not. Certainly, just rolling into Kiev would have been preferred, but since that didn't happen the calculus for (totally agreed, naked imperialism) is what justifies the losses: more losses, more land must be shown for it.

The initiative is still with the Russians. But if the continue inflicting similar damage to Russia as they have done now, that's really good for them — ssu

Certainly Russia has major losses that they'd prefer not to have (fighter aircraft, tanks, obviously men too), no dispute on that.

However, we don't know the losses of Ukraine. Ukraine must keep gaining relative power in order to reach a stalemate. I don't think it's remotely possible for Ukraine to take back all the land Russia has taken, but a stalemate would be a better negotiating position than continued Russian advances.

Normally, the risk of this kind of costly war with a smaller but fiercely defending country, for an Empire, is not that the small country is any strategic threat (Ukraine isn't going to take Moscow in any scenario so far discussed), but rather that the other Empires see opportunity and invade and now you're also fighting the Persians all of a sudden who can inflict strategic defeats.

But, as we all now know extremely clearly, if the other Empire on the block, US / NATO, "seize the day" ... we all get to die in a nuclear holocaust. Hence, the only real risk to Russia strategically is internal disorder and international relations, hence the sanctions.

When have you seen footage of American troops pillaging a supermarket to get food? When have you heard about British troops going from door to door asking for food from the people because their army is totally incapable of giving them rations? — ssu

This is an expected consequence of making a 1300 Km front. Experienced officers and unit leaders are a limited supply, so if hundreds of kilometres of front are in the hands of inexperienced lot's of confusion and mistakes and losses are going to happen.

Compare this to the Russians in Syria where holding fronts was left to Syrians with Russian air support, but what the Russian ground forces would actually go and take were very specific locations; so there's only really one fight commanded by the best people Russia has. A good commander can work with what he has in terms of number of troops and experience level, but bad decisions at a command level can lead to disorderly retreat pretty quickly.

For sure, down side of having a 1300 km front is lot's of it is going to be under inexperienced commanders who make bad decisions and suffer losses and their troops retreat in a disorderly fashion ... but if there's no strategic importance in play, the Ukrainians have no where to followup those disorderly retreats to, then the high command is just going to send yelling down the chain of command to not be stupid, while they focus on what's important in the war, such as main pincers to encircle Ukrainian troops in the East.

And the main pincers just advance pretty steadily and stably so far. If there was a process where the tip of the pincers kept getting cutoff and captured / destroyed or then large resources poured into rescue them, then that's clearly strategic setbacks; you'd never actually want your salients to be cut through in pretty much any strategic situation; whereas back and forth skirmishing can be for tactical reasons (lay down suppressive fire as a defensive line in being built).

Sorry, but this is really the typical Russian clusterfuck, just like the first Chechen war was. All that authoritarianism and corruption leads to stupidities like this. There simply is no hiding of it. Or to put it another way around, the Ukrainian/NATO propaganda isn't so omnipotent to theatrically portray these difficulties. This was a far too large military operation to perform for the Russian army, that it could succeed with flying colors as it did with the annexation of Crimea. — ssu

Oh, definitely I agree; I'm not denying that we see losses and mistakes and logistical issues that the Russians commanders don't want. No professional commander "wants" a vehicle to just get a flat tire and be abandoned, outside some 5D chess moves. No professional commander wants to see troops looting.

However, these situations can be viewed as an acceptable downside for the overall strategy of encircling the large part of Ukrainian forces in the East.

Every plan has pros and cons, and to evaluate things we'd need to know the calculus used to track progress as well as the political and military objectives, which we frankly don't know in any detail.

Yeah, despite it all, the Russian army can lay punches and isn't down for the count. But that this has been a really military "bordello", as we Finns put it, is the truth. No way to hide that — ssu

True, but Russia is also de facto fighting the CIA and NATO's best hand-held missile platforms.

There's this idea that Ukraine is a small country "taking it to the Russians" all by itself. Russia is fighting a proxy war with NATO (potentially at Ukraine's expense and total disregard for Ukrainian lives and even sovereignty) and winning a proxy war with all of NATO is a massive geo-political victory for Russia, almost regardless of losses.

Russia has also, at this stage we can clearly say, called NATO's bluff of "going all the way" with no-fly zone, sanctions escalations much less boots on the ground and tactical nuclear weapons.

Only about a third of Russia's banks (not sure on what metric, but point is not all) are actually cut off from SWIFT ... and I'm pretty sure I can feel Russian gas keeping me warm and supplied with reliable electricity as I type this. Certainly no one's going to escalate to the brink of nuclear war any time soon after this fiasco.

When potential client states come to Russia to discuss a deal, regardless of what we think of them, they want to know if Russia can deliver on it's promise to protect them from NATO. If Russia wins in Ukraine in a military sense, it's a big advertisement for what Russia is selling.

Keep in mind that right now we only see Ukrainian and US "information" about the war, but as soon as it ends Russia will start publishing video of it's victories with it's systems ... which certainly exist or it wouldn't be advancing.

Maybe this was the plan to make a martyr of out Ukraine. If getting people killed is OK with you, then I guess the sky is the limit. — FreeEmotion

I have been advocating here a diplomatic resolution, in particular for the EU to use it's leverage to find a diplomatic resolution rather than just "punish" Russia for invading Ukraine in a way that, so far, hasn't stopped the fighting and may actually encourage more bloodshed.

A lot of the sanctions could be viewed as a good thing by Putin for all we know. We've hurt oligarchs ... but, just as we saw in China, at some point Oligarchs are a liability once power is consolidated in the center. West could be doing Putin a favour in that regard. Likewise, maybe the Kremlin wants a complete break with the West to create an alternative economic system with China (as they've both been laying the ground work for, starting with alternatives to SWIFT that appeared for the first time in 2014).

However, EU does have considerable influence, certainly easily enough soft power to have prevented the war in the first place, but it decided Ukrainians dying was not a diplomatic priority.

If we want to talk about delusional miscalculations, we should start with Boris Johnson's statement that the days of tanks rolling around in Europe are over. This was clearly the attitude of European political elites, that a conventional war by Russia in Ukraine was not possible because "those days are over" and the EU could just call Putin's bluff without even attempting any diplomacy, then, when the war starts, just drive policy by what plays well on TikTok until the brink of nuclear war and then suddenly slink away from the fight in a literal deluge of bureaucratic hedge-speak bullshit.

I have no issue accepting and praising the ordinary Ukrainian's courage in fighting for their country.

But if the EU are as courageous and concerned as they say? Where are their troops fighting along side the Ukrainians?

Furthermore, from "we have a right to fight" it does not logically follow "I have a right to send you to die for no reason".

Yesterday's headline in The Guardian, BBC, CNN, pretty much every big Western media organization I checked in on, was basically "Ukraine is winning and going to win" in one form or another and / or Russians will use chemical warfare, despite already deploying thermobaric weapons that achieve the same purpose, US uses as well and the absolutely zero reason to risk poisoning your own troops, denying to yourself land you want to capture etc.

Today, The Guardian headline is:

Russia-Ukraine war latest news: attacks intensify around Kyiv as Russian forces close in on the capital — The Guartian

So, from a military perspective, "closing in" on the capital is a pretty big strategic objective, and it's difficult to see how the Russian military is incompetent for so doing.

Commanders in a war will have an "eye on the prize" attitude with regards to failures elsewhere in the war "theater".

I'm certainly not saying it was all planned in advance, but Russian commanders certainly had a "well, we'll just do it the hard way" if the hypothesis of easy victory turned out to be true, and if they didn't they certainly changed to such a plan.

But based on recent Russian military history, it seems to me Russian generals know things can go easy or they can go hard; defenders can collapse or they can fiercely resist; and if the story is true that a top Russian general "warmed" Putin that Ukrainians may put up a significant fight ... then that implies that top general elaborated a plan B.

And just an example of the EU's bloodlust.

Mariupole is now under intense siege, and running out of food and supplies.

It's a fucking port city, EU could easily negotiate evacuating civilians by boat. And, the "non-boat" way would mean traversing 1000 km of disrupted logistics and potential battle zone.

Fact of the matter is EU and NATO want civilians to die in Mariupole for social-media gainz and views, to justify their own policies to make the economic harms in the EU "worth it" because Russia bombed civilians the EU basically wants there to be bombed.

Of course, if the EU tried negotiating evacuation by boat ... in a coastal port city, and Russia refused, maintained the blockade, ok, then you can say it's Russia that actually wants those civilians dead.

But you can't have it both ways: you can't say nothing, do nothing, apply zero diplomatic pressure to evacuate civilians from a port city in the common sense and safest way ... and then blame Russia for civilian casualties ... to whom small arms were distributed and insurgency (aka. "civilian" ambush) urban combat declared as the Ukrainian official strategy.

Despite the gag imposed by Vladimir Putin, even Russians are starting to rebel. Yesterday during a talk show on the state TV channel Russia 1, the guests refused to support the Kremlin's propaganda on the war in Ukraine and openly criticized the Russian invasion. And to no avail were the hosts' attempts to call the Russian president's "special operation" to "demilitarize" and "de-Nazify," one of the guests lost his temper.

"Do we have to enter another Afghanistan, but even worse?" blurted out academic Semyon Bagdasarov as Putin's "propagandist in chief," Vladimir Soloviev, tried to interrupt him.

Before him, it was Karen Shakhnazarov, a filmmaker and columnist, who said that the conflict in Ukraine risked isolating Russia. "I have a hard time imagining taking cities like Kiev. I can't imagine what it would be like." And again, "If this film starts to turn into an absolute humanitarian disaster, even our close allies like China and India will be forced to distance themselves from us."

Strong words, especially considering that Russians who criticize the war risk being jailed for 15 years, while independent media in the country face threats of closure or hefty fines if they refer to the military campaign as an "invasion." And it is no coincidence that in recent days the host of "Hello", Ivan Urgant after taking a stand against the war, has disappeared from television. Urgant, known in Italy for his irony on our country, was on air on Pervyj Kanal with "Evening Urgant". The program had disappeared from Pervyj Kanal's schedule soon after the host's post on Instagram, leaving room for alternative programming made up of celebratory concerts, war films and patriotic commemorations.

https://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/esteri/30788383/semyon-bagdasarov-professore-attacca-vladimir-putin-tv-quindici-anni-carcere.html

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Dude. guy. bro.

Do you have any memory at all of "academic" and media opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Coordinated protests involving millions of people.

"No blood for oil" that neo-cons today giddily gloat over the fact that "of course it was about oil!" ... like they cleverly duped us this whole time?

Didn't change policy of a single dollar of arms purchases, and the pullout of Afghanistan was that it no longer served a strategic (aka. war profiteering) purpose as the War on terror would be ... surprise, surprise, replaced by the new, far more lucrative, cold war literally months later.

Point is, no reason to believe toothless academic criticism and peaceful protests have any better chance of stopping a war by Russia than a war by the USA and buddies.

The world's greatest intellectual, by a pretty big margin, Noam Chomsky, has been criticizing American wars ... for a while now, pretty thoroughly, accurately, potent reasoning and exhaustive facts ... haven't seen the US end it's war policies.

Point is, no reason to believe toothless academic criticism and peaceful protests have any better chance of stopping a war by Russia than a war by the USA and buddies. — boethius

Says who? Your cristal ball?

There's a gag on Russian media, and it was breached on prime time yesterday night by a few courageous guests in a propaganda show. I can understand why it pisses you off.

I think it is time to re-consider this 'imperialist' categorization of Putin. — FreeEmotion

Why, when looking at the actions of annexing territories and then noticing what Putin has said for example of Ukraine and it's historical connection to Russia and the artificiality of the Ukraine as a sovereign country, it is really classical imperialism. Not just neo-imperialism. When you have Russians hoping to create Novorossiya, it is imperialism at the most obvious. Russian irredentism is totally clear.

Actually it might help with the logistics and offset some of the costs of sanctions. — FreeEmotion

That soldiers have to look for food tells the grim truth that the logistics to support the army simply isn't working. Or that they run out of gas, yet haven't made a huge strides into enemy territory tells it also. The units might be put on the field, but they cannot be supported properly in the field. It simply shows poor planning and the limited resources.

It's the usual thing that happens when usually some authoritarian leadership decides to invade a country or territory. Iraq had difficulties when invading Kuwait. The Argentinian army that invaded the Falklands had many not knowing where they are and going hungry also as supporting 13 000 troops on islands far away from Argentina proved to be a difficult task for Argentina. (Btw that was a war where civilians weren't abused and both sides abode well to the laws of war.)

As long as we are in a military strategy discussion, why didn't Russia simply do this with cruise missiles to destroy military targets? — FreeEmotion

Why not simply threaten to invade? — FreeEmotion

Russia and Ukraine had been already at war since 2014. They had already annexed Crimea. So a bit late for threats.

Why not simply threaten to use Nukes in the first place? — FreeEmotion

Just casually? Even that would a bit too much for the Russians.

But Putin does have in his options the crazy tactic of "escalate to de-escalate". Russian military exercises have many times ended with the use of the nuclear weapon to "de-escalate" the situation and halt the fighting.

Says who? Your cristal ball? — Olivier5

I literally conclude this list of indisputable facts with:

Point is, no reason to believe toothless academic criticism and peaceful protests have any better chance of stopping a war by Russia than a war by the USA and buddies. — boethius

No reason to assume. It would literally be the first time peaceful protests and academic criticism have stopped a war ... in history.

Maybe it will happen, but it seems a bad strategy to rely on something that has never happened before suddenly happening for the first time, without some causal mechanism under one's control that has some theoretical and practical basis to assume will actually work this time.

But sure, maybe the Kremlin will burn and sink in a sea of discontent tomorrow.

Maybe it will happen, but it seems a bad strategy to rely on something that has never happened before suddenly happening for the first time, without some causal mechanism under one's control that has some theoretical and practical basis to assume will actually work this time. — boethius

You misunderstood the intent. There is no expectation of a direct cause to effect mechanism to anywhere here, and certainly no hope from my side or theirs that Putin will simply listen to them and stop his killing spree. They are just speaking truth to power. That's all, it's not much I agree, but it's not nothing either. It matters. Everything matters.

You misunderstood the intent. There is no expectation of a direct cause to effect mechanism to anywhere here, and certainly no hope from my side or theirs that Putin will simply listen to them and stop his killing spree. They are just speaking truth to power. That's all, it's not much I agree, but it's not nothing either. It matters. Everything matters. — Olivier5

Then we agree.

Then we agree. — boethius

You see? Miracles happen.

Yes, but if you're trying to encircle the enemy, the priority is the salients and the rest of the front doesn't — boethius

:roll: Ok, then use the word salients. There are a lot of salients for the Russians.

And for example encircling a huge city isn't so easy. Here the example of Grozny is telling. For Russians, it took then months. And it was a smaller city with fewer defenders. Without any outside help flowing in.

By October 1999, then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the complete takeover of the Chechen capital of Grozny. From December 1999 to February 2000, the Russian military laid siege to Grozny. Putin vowed that the military would not stop bombing Grozny until Russian troops quote 'fulfilled their task to the end.' They finished in February 2000, when the BBC's Andrew Harding stepped foot into Grozny, a place the U.N. declared the most destroyed city on Earth.

It's a fucking port city, EU could easily negotiate evacuating civilians by boat. And, the "non-boat" way would mean traversing 1000 km of disrupted logistics and potential battle zone. — boethius

No, it can't.

There basically is an unannounced blockade done by the Russians. Note that an Estonian (EU member) ship has already been sunk in the Black Sea.

A cargo ship has sunk in the Black Sea off the Ukrainian port of Odessa after an explosion, the vessel’s manager has said.

The Estonian-owned cargo ship Helt sunk on Thursday as Russian forces continued their invasion of Ukraine, which has seen increasing military activity in the Black Sea.

Besides, the EU isn't neutral in this conflict. It's arming one side in large quantities. And Russians have already declared about those "humanitarian corridors" leading to Russia.

Something to think about:

The ports along the Black Sea (southwest) and Sea of Azov (southeast) account for about 85 percent of Ukraine’s grain exports. Ukraine supplies 13 percent of the world’s corn and a similar share of its wheat—meaning that disruptions to trade along Ukraine’s coast could reverberate in food markets around the world. Ukraine’s seaports also account for about 80 percent of its ferrous metallurgical exports.

The major port cities that Russian forces have yet to occupy are Mariupol on the Sea of Azov and Odessa on the Black Sea. The former is under blockade, and the latter may come under attack any day. And the de facto blockade of Ukrainian ports by the Russian Navy began even before the recent land and air operations.

The assault on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports should be understood as economic warfare by the Russians. Not only will the interruption of normal trade deprive Ukraine of the resources it needs to sustain a war effort, but it will also impose costs on almost every country in the world, either directly or indirectly, for not helping Russia swallow its neighbor.

Prepare for higher food prices all around the World. 15 million tons is a lot.

:roll: Ok, then use the word salients. There are a lot of salients for the Russians. — ssu

I mean the main salients, local commanders will also try to encircle their local opponents as well, but what seems clear to me is there are 3 strategically important salients the Russians focus their resources on: East and West of Kiev, and South-West. Everything else, as far as I can tell, moves forward if there is little resistance (the whole purpose of a 1300km front is to stretch the enemies forces) and simply stops and defends, or even pulls back, if there is significant enemy resistance.

However, the 3 strategically important pincers seem to me just to move forward relentlessly.

That the convoy just sat on the road for over a week is pretty good indication significant resources were committed to defend that salient.

And for example encircling a huge city isn't so easy. Here the example of Grozny is telling. For Russians, it took then months. And it was a smaller city with fewer defenders. Without any outside help flowing in. — ssu

There is still no indication that the Russians plan to take any cities with significant urban combat. Most Ukrainians aren't fanatics and will want to surrender once they run out of food (most Ukrainians are not fanatical jihadists actually willing to fight to the death). And towns surrendering one-by-one after encirclement is what we see. Mariupole, home of Azov brigade, is an exception but easily explained as both the home of actual fanatical fighters actually willing to fight to the death, as well as collective punishment for supporting / tolerating a neo-nazi "brigade".

No, it can't.

There basically is an unannounced blockade done by the Russians. Note that an Estonian (EU member) ship has already been sunk in the Black Sea. — ssu

I explained that's why diplomacy is required, to convince the Russians to allow ships through the blockade to collect civilians. I talked about EU doing diplomacy, not just randomly sending ships unannounced to discover there's a blockade.

Now, if EU put this sort of diplomatic pressure, publicly criticizing Russia for refusing the EU or some neutral country to evacuate the civilians, then, certainly, you can blame the Russian blockade.

But you cannot, in any serious negotiation, not try and then claim the counter-party wouldn't allow it.

"Wouldn't allow it" clearly requires asking in the first place.

Besides, the EU isn't neutral in this conflict. It's arming one side in large quantities. And Russians have already declared about those "humanitarian corridors" leading to Russia.

Something to think about: — ssu

Even enemies negotiate to evacuate civilians ... indeed that's what the ceasefires between Russian and Ukraine exactly are; that the EU therefore can't negotiate evacuating civilians, makes no sense.

EU wants civilians to die to justify it's counter-productive and warmongering policies.

You can call it arms-profit-cynicism or you can call it murder, but you can't call it some credible effort to evacuate civilians from Mariupole.

EU leaders haven't all-of-a-sudden gotten anarcho-peacenik pay masters: there masters are exactly the same as before ... and surprisingly the only thing they agree on is the policy to increase arms sales, indeed more political effort has been on the long term "rearming" than on the war in Ukraine .... they literally can't even wait a month to start spending on the new cold war.

The world's greatest intellectual, by a pretty big margin, Noam Chomsky, has been criticizing American wars ... for a while now, pretty thoroughly, accurately, potent reasoning and exhaustive facts ... haven't seen the US end it's war policies. — boethius

"Greatest intellectual", that's a stretch. "A while now"? Like what, sixty years? That's a pretty good legacy. Imagine if he was born in Russia, criticizing the policies of his him country like that. He probably wouldn't have lasted for sixty days. It's a real nice life being a great proponent of freedom of speech, when you live in a country which allows it.

"Greatest intellectual", that's a stretch. — Metaphysician Undercover

Who else is there?

But it would be good to make a separate thread about it. I'd be happy to learn there is someone as relevant, as productive, as insightful, and as accurate.

Sure there's plenty clever people around, but if they don't work on issues that matter: they're the worst kind of stupid.

Now, if EU put this sort of diplomatic pressure, publicly criticizing Russia for refusing the EU or some neutral country to evacuate the civilians, then, certainly, you can blame the Russian blockade. — boethius

Diplomatic pressure?

After all the sanctions what the EU has imposed? After sending weapons to Ukraine? Then apply diplomatic pressure? Of what? What kind of pressure are we talking about here now? EU delegates manhandling Lavrov down to the ground and sitting on him... that kind of pressure?

The world's greatest intellectual, by a pretty big margin, Noam Chomsky — boethius

:roll: ..... :smirk: ..... :snicker:

@boethius, this is a philosophy forum. Notice what you say...

There is still no indication that the Russians plan to take any cities with significant urban combat. Most Ukrainians aren't fanatics and will want to surrender once they run out of food (most Ukrainians are not fanatical jihadists actually willing to fight to the death). — boethius

I hear there's a bit of an influx of foreigners, going to fight Russia, in Ukraine. That's a different situation altogether.

Sure there's plenty clever people around, but if they don't work on issues that matter: they're the worst kind of stupid. — boethius

This statement is the worst kind of stupid. The issues which matter to me are not the same as the issues which matter to you. So what are you saying, if you do not agree with the importance of an issue which someone takes up, that person is stupid?

Only Trump? I can point out truths and lies that all Presidents have told. If you can't tell the truth from the lies it is a problem, Trumps or Obama's lies are their problem not for people who can tell the difference or will not. — FreeEmotion

What's an example of an Obama lie? I really wasn't paying attention at the time.

I hear there's a bit of an influx of foreigners, going to fight Russia, in Ukraine. That's a different situation altogether. — Metaphysician Undercover

They will of course take strategically important cities, like Kherson.

Obviously, taking Kiev is also important, would be symbolic "victory" to take the capital and capture the leadership.

They maybe setting up to do so ... or they maybe pretending to setup to do so but plan only to siege Kiev and then encircle Ukrainian forces in the East (which can be done both East or West of the Dnieper river, or then both).

It's also not unusual that a strategically good position has several possible next moves, all of equal probability.

Russia has limited resources, certainly, but so too Ukraine.

Maybe Russian forces are about to collapse ... or then maybe Ukraine.

This statement is the worst kind of stupid. The issues which matter to me are not the same as the issues which matter to you. So what are you saying, if you do not agree with the importance of an issue which someone takes up, that person is stupid? — Metaphysician Undercover

The context is the world's greatest intellectual, so it makes no sense to argue the world's greatest intellectual is working on something totally irrelevant.

You can't be the world's greatest footballer ... but choose not to play football, play golf instead or stay in some local pickup league.

Of course, what is relevant and a worthy task for the world's greatest intellectual would be part of the debate.

However, the difference with lessor intellectuals, and just non-intellectuals at all, would be that it's not reasonable to say the world's greatest intellectual is doing something irrelevant or counter-productive to just make ends meat.

It would follow from being the world's greatest intellectual: both a pretty clear idea of what's important (confusion about this would be negative points I think we would agree) and also succeeding in a strategy to at least work on what's important according to the first part.

By greatest I mean both intellectual skill and knowledge as such but also the greatest contributions to world society as a whole. Of course, up for debate what contributes or not to world society as a whole.

Diplomatic pressure?

After all the sanctions what the EU has imposed? After sending weapons to Ukraine? Then apply diplomatic pressure? Of what? What kind of pressure are we talking about here now? — ssu

It's like you don't understand how negotiation works. Here's a primer for you

https://www.pon.harvard.edu/daily/negotiation-skills-daily/what-is-negotiation/

Spoiler: it doesn't say "just keep threatening each other until one of you gives in"

US's atrocious history of deception and subterfuge

This pretty much sums up the useful idiot position. US - bad. Therefore, any anti-US propaganda should be given extra credence, any US ally should be viewed with extra suspicion, and any US adversary - with extra deference.

So when Russian MOD claims that American biolabs in Ukraine have been developing bioweapons capable of selectively targeting Slavic ethnic groups, and that they have been studying bats, tics and birds as possible vectors of transmission of lethal diseases across the border, such claims ought to be taken very seriously indeed, and at the highest level.

So when Russian MOD claims that American biolabs in Ukraine have been developing bioweapons capable of selectively targeting Slavic ethnic groups, — SophistiCat

It's Nuland claiming Ukraine has bio research labs that shouldn't fall into Russian hands and that they (i.e. CIA) is working hard to prevent that happening.

Without Nuland saying it, then it would just be internet rumor and conjecture.

But it's extremely hard to interpret Nuland's statement other than Ukraine has bio-weapons.

The argument has been put forward it was defensive bio-weapons research ... but those are still bio-weapons.

And the argument has been put forward that "lab" doesn't mean anything ... but then why would a top US official just "scat" meaningless scat cat derribidoos da da's in a senatorial hearing in the context of potential nuclear escalation?

when Russian MOD claims that American biolabs in Ukraine have been developing bioweapons capable of selectively targeting Slavic ethnic groups, and that they have been studying bats, tics and birds as possible vectors of transmission of lethal diseases across the border, such claims ought to be taken very seriously indeed, and at the highest level. — SophistiCat

I mean it literally says the exact opposite of this in the post you quoted...

That Putin has some crackpot idea about what they're for and how they work is completely immaterial. — Isaac

...but please, don't let what I've actually written get in the way of your little RPG you've got going on. Tell you what, you ping me over the scripts for what my character ought to say next and I'll do my best to stick to the plot

And the argument has been put forward that "lab" doesn't mean anything ... but then why would a top US official just "scat" meaningless scat cat derribidoos da da's in a senatorial hearing in the context of potential nuclear escalation? — boethius

Yep. What's not on the recording apparently, is later when questioned about whether Ukraine has sufficient supplies of fuel to hold out she goes into a long monologue about the influence of Ukrainian cinema, before one of the other witnesses gives a lecture on wild flowers of the Donbass region, it was quite enlightening - I'm all for this new trend for what can sometimes be overly serious senate hearings about active wars to be interspersed with snippets of unrelated tourist information.