Latest Ukraine/Russia Thread

[BlueOak]

12 minutes ago, Ajay0 said:

So essentially this is a european war disturbing the peace of the world just like the earlier two world wars which originated in europe and killed a hundred million people.

Russia was a friend in the past many times, though it is an enemy now, and might become a friend in the future especially due to its vast resources of oil and rare earth minerals. And then it can become an enemy again, and after wards a friend again.

Germany, the villain in the past two world wars is a great friend and 'good guy' now.

Why do europeans keep fighting and killing each other regressing themselves in the process instead of making friends and progress.  Is it something genetic or something. 

Yes. Thank you! THANK YOU!  Its a European problem at its core.

The desire to preserve the independence of countries leads to more countries. Meaning a stronger likelihood of any one of so many countries coming to hostilities or dispute. It's been this way since the feudal system, and built from that fractured nature. This was somewhat solved within the EU, but outside of it still exists. Its not the desire but the result that's a problem. A lot of war happens in Africa, for example, because they are also very fractured. There is an inherent advantage in being a large unified block like China or the EU, now, such a block can be effectively ruled (in eras gone by, they just repeatedly fractured). But when one country tries to do it by force in Europe, it has always been resisted; it can only be done diplomatically in the modern day without a devastating war.

Which is where another big friction point is. The large authoritarian countries to the east just assume that absorbing countries is natural, whereas in Europe, we preserve them (democracies anyway, because democracies align with this view). A long time ago, Europe was repeatedly conquered from the outside (especially the UK), so this was bred into the nations. Might makes right. Europe gained such a technological edge, they were able to conquer anywhere, which explains their overseas behaviour and the resulting fallout of the larger wars. The desire eventually to create peaceful coexistence with other democracies doing the same came about and created the EU.

Edited August 30 by BlueOak

[Ajay0]

12 minutes ago, BlueOak said:

Yes. Thank you! THANK YOU!  Its a European problem at its core.

So why do europeans like the germans, british, french and russians keep fighting again and again and destroying themselves in the process instead of having proper relations with each other. 

I came across a saying yesterday on relationships,

"The roots of a lasting relationship are mindfulness, deep listening and loving speech." - Thich Nhat Hanh

Where do you think the deficiencies lie in creating proper relationships between the europeans - inability to listen and empathise with other's conscerns perhaps !

Edited August 30 by Ajay0

[Elliott]

Russia(Putin) wants to be a superpower like the USSR was. The deficiency is Putin, he's an egomaniac. 

[zazen]

@BlueOak  I’ll make some points tied to our previous discussion and continuing on from what you and Ajay were discussing about sovereignty and Europe.

1. You say you detest authoritarians, yet the default mode of a unipolar world led by the US and its allies is imperial and authoritarian by design: because it seeks to forcefully author the trajectory, destiny, do’s and don’ts of other nations - especially those rising in power such as BRICS.

A unipolar mindset is an imperial one - it resists acknowledging or allowing space for other powers, which by extension means not acknowledging that other powers have spheres and red lines. To the unipolar worldview the entire world is their sphere and dominion - which is inherently imperial and authoritarian.

2. You say the EU protects the sovereignty of independent nations. It actually partially limits the sovereignty of nations within it, in exchange for stability. That’s the reason for it existing - because too many small-medium powers were competing to become the core state of Europe for others to orbit around. Britain, France, Germany and Italy each had their turn at trying to become the major pole of Europe.

After the world wars they all gave up chasing absolute sovereignty and settled on being mostly sovereign, in exchange for a larger peace. It’s better to be 80% sovereign and alive than 100% sovereign and dead. The same logic applies to Ukraine - give up some sovereignty in exchange for peace with a larger more powerful neighbour whose orbit you naturally fall within.

Zoom out a little and you’ll see that the EU subsumed some of its sovereignty to be under the security umbrella of the US. The most foundational pillars of sovereignty are energy, food and security (military) - the last one was outsourced to the US.

3. Sovereignty is multi-dimensional: economic, energy, fiscal, technological, agricultural, and most of all security.

As I said above: European states gave up slices of sovereignty to Brussels (budget rules, migration quotas, fiscal limits) in order to preserve peace inside Europe. That’s a big reason for nationalist uprisings today - countries feel constrained from above.

The hardest dimension of sovereignty is security - which was outsourced to Washington. That’s why the EU doesn’t act independently: its “sphere” if it has one isn’t its own but is Americas which it is under. NATO is essentially a US umbrella artificially placed on a separate continent - Europe, an entire ocean away.

So when Ukraine tries to join NATO, it isn’t joining a “European sphere” - it’s being folded into America’s sphere, thousands of miles away.  Spheres have natural geographic and cultural limits - beyond which point they become imperial empires.

4.  A sphere exists for large powerful states that have an organic gravitational pull to them - geography, culture, history, and trade naturally orient smaller states toward them. Europe is a continent and EU is a political bloc - they don’t have a sphere because theres no core state to orbit around - and spheres have orbits.

For example, Islamic civilization doesn’t have a sphere today because it lacks a core state - Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia compete, so no single state has the uncontested gravity. Saudi Arabia only has it religiously, but not geopolitically. 

Similarly, Western civilization doesn’t organically have a sphere either: Europe is fragmented without a core state, and its so called “sphere” is basically an imperial arrangement with the US. It’s a cultural zone or centre, just like Mecca is a religous centre - but it’s not a geopolitical sphere because it has no large, powerful core state to be the orbit of. Saudi Arabia is neither large nor powerful - oil money isn’t enough to be considered so.

Thats why when people discuss the world changing (from uni to multi polar) and think of the poles and spheres involved, they naturally gravitate to key players such as America, China, India and Russia - with Brazil as a rising pole for South America. The first four are clear anchors with gravitational orbits meanwhile European and Islamic civilizations are more like civilizational / cultural zones without a core state to have a sphere around.

5.  This is why critics call the EU a “political project” rather than an organic development. It’s not emerging from natural economic and cultural gravity - it’s been constructed from above by political elites who decided European nationalism was too dangerous after two world wars. The constant crises (Brexit, sovereign debt, migration, energy) come from trying to force integration that doesn’t flow naturally from the ground up.

So we have this weird situation where Europe is neither independent (still under US hegemony) nor naturally integrated (too many competing national interests). It exists in an artificial middle space that requires constant political management to prevent it from fragmenting back into competing nationalisms.

6. That doesn’t mean Europe can’t be great - it just means it’s structurally difficult for it to be a gravitational centre of power in the same way the others are.

Of those three foundational pillars of sovereignty I listed above - it has agricultural security (ability to feeds its own population) covered. But its energy and security sovereignty were outsourced (energy from the east in Russia, security from the West in America). Now Europes two pillars are dependent on the US (LNG exports) - vassalizing it even further. This is why we see what we see in today’s clown show of how Europe is treated by the US.

I’d prefer a more stronger autonomous Europe that does what’s in its best interest. That’s where we differ - you think its interest is in containing Russia whose actions you view as imperial rather than reactions to (US) imperialism. No doubt BRICS nations are opportunistic, but that’s categorically different to being imperial.

7. Circling back to the start, the crux of the problem is a unipolar mindset and today’s imperial superpower operating as such, despite a multi-polar reality now existing. The US runs the world as its sphere, while Europe parrots the rhetoric out of inertia and Cold War paranoia, and the establishment narrative universalizes that fear onto Russia and China. Every move by them is lumped into the box of imperial behavior, influence and “business relations” are conflated with imperialism and warmongering.

The sickest part is that the US itself will have backchannels with Moscow or Beijing when it suits US interests - while Europe keeps yapping empire rhetoric like an obedient pawn in a larger geopolitical game it has little strength, sovereignty or say in.

Beside the picture of the century where European leaders sat around Trump like kids, here’s something to illustrate that Europe is clearly on the menu and not at the table:

https://euobserver.com/eu-and-the-world/ar7956ddba

Reuters article is paywalled but the above covers it. Russia and US potential talks of a gas deal, which the US will then repackage and sell to the Europeans at a profit because the Europeans want to save face and stick it to the Russians who they have sanctioned. 

A video on that (good channel to check out also):

That’s what I mean by Europe not doing what’s in its own interest - making peace with its geographical neighbour who is the most resource rich on the planet, who they can be industrially competitive from, and use that wealth to invest in their own domestic security as to wean off US dependency and become more sovereign and autonomous. As well as in the meantime diversify their energy and go all in on sustainable renewables / nuclear so they neither have to depend on Russia. All this takes intelligence, nuance, foresight, strategy, tact and cunning - things our European leaders lack.

Edited September 1 by zazen

[zazen]

@BlueOak  just heard this discussion which was uploaded after I commented above. Coincidentally covers the same topic of gaining European sovereignty from the US.

Well worth a listen, from a German politician:

 

[BlueOak]

@zazen

1-3 All true and not disputed, but giving up sovereignty for unity was not without ALOT of effort, and even then, we couldn't fully commit in the UK enough. The nation’s are preserved, and war is averted; it was the best of both worlds.  Its also my rationale for an effective one world government, with local regional control like a court system hierarchy. (In which I'd list the worst off areas of the world, and work on them sequentially to raise the base of the world up)

4, In the Middle East? Iran has a sphere, a clear group of proxy countries or regions it influences and controls. Turkey is getting one in Syria and Central Asia as Russia weakens, so is Israel. Without America's military projection, The EU will have to project its sphere for it to continue to exist, that’s the new dynamic.

5, I'd argue war is a natural organic catalyst for peace, but you are correct; it took a political effort because those nations valued their sovereignty, as discussed.

6, Putin is trying to rebuild the USSR, its what his mind is, its what he grew up in. I've seen maps from the early war indicating an invasion of Moldova. Their state TV talk about the Baltics and Poland. There are literal false flags on Estonia in play. Some units are flying USSR flags.

I mean what I do need to do here Zazen, see him write empire after the country name? On the one hand we have Russia propaganda, on the other a natural pattern that the entire world does, and has done for thousands of years, with literal wars and threats going on right now pushing into Europe.

*For the first Video:
The Nordstream pipeline is taken out and will remain down for the war. LNG export has been taken out, natural gas storage and operation has been badly damaged in Western Russia.

But I’d answer yes, Trump wants the world. I’m not sure what the point here is to this conversation. America bad? Yes, they are authoritarian. That’s why Europe needs a sphere and needs its military to push back against the Russians and defend against America (greenland for example).  But i'll take authoritarian assistance to push back people directly invading any day of the week.

7, I look at what’s happening on the map and speak about it. I don’t much care what the US or the UK, the EU news, or anyone else is telling me the reality is. I watch it and make up my own mind.

At the moment Russia has waged a war against the civilian population of Ukraine for years, i've watched too many atrocities to ever want a single Russian influence in the UK or Europe. It's threatened every country in Europe. Its state TV has claimed it wants to invade. It's pushing its drones into Europe. This is the fear we are reacting to. Its not something America is telling us, its what Russia is DOING AND TELLING US, their spies are frequent, their far right groups active, their threats constant, their wars ongoing, and their immigrant push working to destabilize Europe. - Oh and did I mention this is what always happens with Russia, they invade, its a constant historical pattern.

I watched 15 minutes of the last video it advocates weaking EU interdependency and appeasing an aggressive expanionist Russia. Europe is no longer massively dependent on Russia’s energy. That’s propaganda, only the countries that don't want to adapt are. Russia is interested in expansion; you don’t appease dictators. There was no argument, statistics, or rationale behind the first 15 minutes, just do this and America bad.  - Might as well have been Russian state TV  nonesense, all it needed was a lot more shouting and some USSR music playing in the background.

Edited September 1 by BlueOak

[BlueOak]

The most critical things were:

• France prepares for war in 2026.
• US invasion of Venezuela imminent. 
• China's drone manufacturing for Russia is exposed directly. - The guy who filmed that is going out a window.

It is becoming increasingly clear that China is the main threat to Europe. Not that it was disputed by anyone.

Edited September 2 by BlueOak

[zazen]

On 01/09/2025 at 8:25 AM, BlueOak said:

4, In the Middle East? Iran has a sphere, a clear group of proxy countries or regions it influences and controls. Turkey is getting one in Syria and Central Asia as Russia weakens, so is Israel. Without America's military projection, The EU will have to project its sphere for it to continue to exist, that’s the new dynamic.

The term “sphere of influence” itself is tricky because it’s used for countries projecting any influence anywhere - but in the classical geopolitical sense it’s for large powerful states with enough mass to have those around it be pulled into their gravitational orbit - via scale of geography, culture, trade, population and military might. It structurally involves a core state or orbit.

Iran having proxies, Turkey in Syria or Israel dominating its neighbours militarily make them influential but not gravitational giants with spheres of influence - that has the pre-requisite of an orbit (to have a sphere around) which is big and strong enough to pull others into.

Like I said - they are contending for that position but none have the scale or power to be continental poles like the big four. They will only be regional partial hegemons that need to share space.

Europe’s issue is there’s no clear center of gravity - no one knows who’s boss. People refer to “the EU” but who do they mean: Paris, Berlin, or Warsaw? Brussels claims to speak for all, but each nation still has its own crystallized identity and national interest. Those identities never melted into an EU identity, which is why there’s constant friction between Brussels and the capitals. The EU is a constellation of nations without a sun.

India is just as diverse as Europe, but it crystallized into one nationalism - turning a civilizational pole into a nation-state pole. Europe crystallized into many nationalisms, so it remains a civilisational zone without a pole. It never produced a core state or identity strong enough to pull others into orbit. Overlapping religion, culture, and law fractured into rivalries instead of nesting into a larger single identity.

Pakistan is a closer parallel to Europe’s path. Despite sharing a civilizational overlap (Indic identity) it split off by hardening into a Muslim South Asian identity - just as Europe split into Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and later exclusive national identities like German, French, and British.

This is also why no blood was spilt over Brexit and it simply peeled away - because theirs no core orbit or state to peel away from. It didn’t feel existential to identity because under the EU scaffolding their are still distinct national identities - perhaps it’s a threat to the political project of the EU, but not a threat to national identity or security outright which causes people to spill blood for. 

EU is a political scaffolding sitting on top of intact nations, not yet a gravitationally cemented identity binding them together. The national identities it speaks on behalf of are too crystallised to dislodge and melt into a larger continental one. Maybe in a distant future it would become a United States of Europe, and then be able to exist as a sovereign pole, but I think that’s far off.

[zazen]

On 01/09/2025 at 8:25 AM, BlueOak said:

6, Putin is trying to rebuild the USSR, its what his mind is, its what he grew up in. I've seen maps from the early war indicating an invasion of Moldova. Their state TV talk about the Baltics and Poland. There are literal false flags on Estonia in play. Some units are flying USSR flags.

I mean what I do need to do here Zazen, see him write empire after the country name? On the one hand we have Russia propaganda, on the other a natural pattern that the entire world does, and has done for thousands of years, with literal wars and threats going on right now pushing into Europe.

But I’d answer yes, Trump wants the world. I’m not sure what the point here is to this conversation. America bad? Yes, they are authoritarian. That’s why Europe needs a sphere and needs its military to push back against the Russians and defend against America (greenland for example).  But i'll take authoritarian assistance to push back people directly invading any day of the week.

 

Reality anchors all that propaganda - propaganda that’s used to get Russians rallying around the flag to support the war. It shouldn’t be taken at face value similar to Western propaganda - there are structural realities that limit that bluster. State policy and military doctrine are different to what hotheads on TV or some ground units are doing.

Same way we don’t look at Bandera Nazi salutes and Azov insignia then conclude the West is funding a neo-Nazi regime. It can be dangerous if the structural conditions change to where that propoganda can be acted upon at a future point. I just don’t think those conditions will come - say for example a totally weakened West, entirety of Ukraine not only taken but held against a resistant Ukrainian population continuously uprising - from which point a demographically aging power like Russia is supposed to march into NATO countries and face fresh troops and F35s.

It wasn’t just Trump that turned the US bad, it’s the unipolar hegemonic structure that’s bad by default - because it seeks to limit and contain the rise and autonomy of other powers. If you realise this as bad, then surely you can realise that perhaps Russia and China’s actions may be in response to that structural pressure? That not every action is merely imperial but in fact a defensive response to imperialism itself. It may be aggressive and opportunistic, but not necessarily imperial in its motive or intent.

 

[zazen]

On 01/09/2025 at 8:25 AM, BlueOak said:

7, I look at what’s happening on the map and speak about it. I don’t much care what the US or the UK, the EU news, or anyone else is telling me the reality is. I watch it and make up my own mind.

At the moment Russia has waged a war against the civilian population of Ukraine for years, i've watched too many atrocities to ever want a single Russian influence in the UK or Europe. It's threatened every country in Europe. Its state TV has claimed it wants to invade. It's pushing its drones into Europe. This is the fear we are reacting to. Its not something America is telling us, its what Russia is DOING AND TELLING US, their spies are frequent, their far right groups active, their threats constant, their wars ongoing, and their immigrant push working to destabilize Europe.

I look at things structurally. Drones in Lithuania and Poland are reckless, yes, but that’s not an expansionist campaign into Europe. Most of them drift from Ukraine strikes or probe air defenses. Spies, migrant influence, far-right meddling? Sure, asymmetric means are used just as the West use them on powers that are too risky to confront directly. Russia may exploit and poke at those issues - but they exist regardless of Russia. Structural conditions have caused the rise of the right. Western leaders have themselves opened the doors to migration including being lax on border control - Elon alone has done more to fan the flame of the right than Russia.

Russia also told the West where its red lines were - and that NATO expansion would end badly.  They said and acted on that did they not? The West was too imperially minded and arrogant to listen.

You rightly connect many dots - but we differ in how they connect. Those are largely symptoms of a deeper issue: a uni-polar order run by the US that refuses to accept limits, red lines, or peers. You’ve accepted the US as a bad actor but won’t extend that logic to include others reacting to that bad actor. This same actor has evidently been globally violent its entire existence including in the present, openly talks of containing its rivals, and wants to park up right next to them either by land (Russia) or sea (China).

Are these rival countries supposed to simply not act because they may be breaking laws? Laws take a back seat to security and survival imperatives as we’ve discussed before. China pouring sand into the ocean and fortifying islands isn’t being ''imperially expansionist'' - it’s securing trade routes for food and energy lifelines that it’s not self sufficient in - that a hawkish US could exploit. Geography dictates vulnerabilities, and great powers act on them.

 

On 01/09/2025 at 8:25 AM, BlueOak said:

Oh and did I mention this is what always happens with Russia, they invade, its a constant historical pattern.

“Russia always invades” is like me going back in time and saying Europeans have always been fighting. After 1991, Russia lost massive territory and accepted NATO expansion deep into Eastern Europe. The red line wasn’t Poland or the Baltics but Ukraine. That’s not a modern day pattern of always invading but a declining power finally snapping when its survival buffer was crossed. Historical patterns rhyme but aren’t destiny - they are conditional and based on circumstances, meaning that if those circumstances change then repeating history isn’t inevitable.

Patterns rhyme but aren't identical or inevitable, whilst principles of power dynamics and geography remain a constant. One of those principles is that great powers react when cornered or encircled. Another is that great powers will endure hardship and struggle before facing humiliation at the hands of another power.

Neither has geography changed. Ukraine has always been the invasion corridor into Russia, from Napoleon to Hitler. That’s a permanent vulnerability, and so is a permanent principle of Russian strategy. They’re not acting from imperial nostalgia but from geography - and it wouldn’t have come to open war if their red line had been acknowledged and built into a shared security architecture. That was denied any lasting solution because the US and its allies would rather have other powers be sub-ordinate than at the table as equals. 

Speaking of patterns, here’s one now: China’s containment from a Western hegemon. In the past it was Britain trying to balance its trade deficit via opium wars - today it’s the US containing China, first through banning semi-conductors and now through a trade war. Cutting off semi-conductors is a declaration of economic war - as its a critical input being the oxygen of the modern age. It’s as bad as an oil embargo - and yet China didn’t lash out aggressively. Only now when Trump is trying to tariff them and the world have they hit back with a rare earth export ban ie upon further provocation - just like Russia.

By your logic (which is uni-polar unintentionally or not) both rivals need to be contained - as you commented above, China is the main threat. The real thing to contain are the conditions (set by a uni-polar mindset in a multi-polar reality) that perpetuate zero-sum thinking and make confrontation continuous, and war inevitable.

Back to the principle of great powers avoiding humiliation. There’s a parallel in how the US is dealing with both Russia and China - the US is taking a civilizational kin state of a rival and is weaponizing it against that rival. So not only is it escalating a security threat, it’s insulting both at a cultural / civilizational level.

It’s like turning family on family. Imagine your cousins make semi-conductors that are important to the modern age, but an outsider barred them from sharing it with you? What would have remained a cold logical security concern becomes a hot emotional concern - it amplifies something geo-political into something personal. It radicalizes the perception of the threat for both parties. Any great power will react to this security threat, that is only amplified by its humiliation and insulting nature.

This is where the past repeating itself isn’t inevitable. Today the circumstances and reality are different, and the history of China’s century of humiliation doesn’t look to be repeating. Clearly:

The reporters comments are as insightful as the ones in the comment section lol

In fact quite the opposite: 

The order that insisted on ordering others around is now dead, and they cry at this loss. Someone give the guy some kleenex, probably made in Chyna.

On 01/09/2025 at 8:25 AM, BlueOak said:

I watched 15 minutes of the last video it advocates weaking EU interdependency and appeasing an aggressive expanionist Russia. Europe is no longer massively dependent on Russia’s energy. That’s propaganda, only the countries that don't want to adapt are. Russia is interested in expansion; you don’t appease dictators. There was no argument, statistics, or rationale behind the first 15 minutes, just do this and America bad.  - Might as well have been Russian state TV  nonesense, all it needed was a lot more shouting and some USSR music playing in the background.

If we treated every compromise as “appeasement” the Cold War would have gone nuclear in the 1950s. Security driven wars differ fundamentally from ideological-imperial wars. Security can be negotiated, expansion for the sake of domination can’t. That’s why the Western narrative needs to keep making the lazy Hitler comparison - because it shuts down a proper solution that’s been denied all this time for the purpose of leaving a avenue for subjugation to empire.

Perhaps that interdependence with Russia would help in keeping some leverage over them, the same way European economies became intertwined to avoid constant and global world wars. Now that Russia has just signed Siberia 2 with China - what leverage does EU have over them? What if a even more hard line figure comes in after Putin, such as Medvedev who you love to share as being hawkish and threatening - by comparison Putin who has been quite pro-Western and tolerant up to  now.

Perhaps Europe needs to see the US make a deal with Russia and buy Russian energy packed and re-sold to them from the US with a label slapped on - to really get the hint why its important to actually have some foresight, tactfullness and balls to do whats in their best interest. Europe's competitiveness has just been locked into being meagerly low for the foreseeable future now. It's not looking very good unfortunately.

Edited September 4 by zazen

[zazen]

Kaja Kallas two days ago said:

"I was at the ASEAN summit, and something seemed interesting to me. Russia turned to China and said: "We, Russia and China, fought together in The Second World War, we won the Second World War, we defeated Nazism together.“ And I thought, "Okay, this is something new." If you know a little history, then a lot of questions immediately arise in your head. But you know, today people read and remember history less and less, so, unfortunately, many people believe in such narratives,"

It's this same ideologically corrupted brain rot rooted in liberal universalism and exceptionalism that is un-tethered from reality - that leads to terrible domestic and foreign policy.

Speaking of detached establishment - watch it on display in the first 3 min:

On 3/7/2025 at 6:46 PM, zazen said:

I think whats going on is that there are different definitions of what winning looks like. In the mainstream narrative / establishment view, a win or defeat is total, not partial (little room for nuance). When they say Russia hasn't won it's because their perspective assumes "winning" is purely about territorial expansion (taking all of Ukraine in total) rather than strategic positioning, sustainability, and long-term advantage. To them they need Russia pacificed (Macrons words) and balkanized / fractured (Kaja Kallas words). From Chat GPT:

''The establishment definition of victory: Russia is weakened, contained, and ideally broken apart. This means Ukraine pushing Russia out of all occupied territories, Russia suffering internal collapse, and Putin’s government being overthrown. In short, Russia must lose decisively, ensuring it can never challenge Western primacy again. This vision is ideological, maximalist, and detached from reality.

The realist definition of victory: Acknowledging that Russia cannot be defeated within its own sphere of influence and that continuing the war only leads to more Western losses. The realistic "win" is actually minimizing defeat—cutting losses, preventing further escalation, and stabilizing Europe rather than chasing an impossible goal.''

Russia has already won where it matters most which is in its own sphere and backyard, in the areas that are logistically and strategically vital - mainly the Russian speaking areas. The establishment view of defeating Russia is defeating Russia at its borders or near them, but this is no easy task. The closer a country is to its own industrial base and supply lines, the harder it is to defeat them in a war of attrition. Russia can supply their front lines way longer than the West can - because Russia has the logistics, the cheap energy to run industry, and the raw materials and competitive labor to produce war material. Europe has none of those ingredients which is why they still haven't re-industrialised to match Russian capacity and their shelves / stockpiles are running low. Even US has said this which is why they need out of this war to gather some time to re-base.

How is Europe going to outproduce Russia in arms and send those in a efficient manner to the Ukrainian front line when: They now have some of the highest energy costs, non-competitive labor cost, the needed raw materials and inputs are largely imported and have a complex supply chain, their supply line and logistics runs through multiple countries in Europe,  and they are indebted to their eye balls compared to Russia (20% debt to GDP vs Europe's average 80% - UK, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal are over 100%) assuming they will take out loans to finance this, which is what they’ve said - further squeezing their economies that will energise a domestic backlash and fracture the political will needed to sustain war.

Analysts who say Russia has won are speaking in practical military terms - in this war of attrition, where it matters - in Russia's backyard.

The problem is that the Western establishment refuses to accept this reality because it undermines their larger agenda. Their war isn’t just about Ukraine but about permanently neutralizing Russia. That’s why they escalate, frame it as a fight for all of Europe, and why they indulge in ridiculous Hitler analogies. They need the public to believe that if Russia isn’t stopped in Ukraine, it will roll tanks into Denmark next. They are also using this as a scapegoat to divert attention away from their own failures and to cool down populist rage. But warmongering against Russia and turning a welfare economy into a war economy by cutting social welfare will only anger the public more and shift things even more right. But this is the delusion of the detached establishment.

They won't defeat China for the same reason they can't defeat Russia - China has even more of the advantages that Russia does. It's delusional to think you can go up against a near peer country with not just equivalent but superior industrial capacity to you, in their own sphere of influence and backyard where they have the home advantage, and superior logistics to push their production to the front line and into the theatre of war. 

This is if they even get to land. They'd first have to win in the sea - but China has 200 times the ship building capacity of the US, and the world largest navy.

Their only hope is economic, but even there they most likely will fail. Trump has announced tariffs to address the $300 billion trade deficit between US and China. For China to lose $300 billion worth of trade due to these tariffs is the equivalent of them losing the GDP of their 10th largest city in GDP - which is Wuhan ironically lol. It's a bruise on the arm, but not crippling at all.

 

Like Trump said to Zelensky “You don’t have the cards”

From yesterday: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/pentagon-national-defense-strategy-china-homeland-western-hemisphere-00546310

''Pentagon officials are proposing the department prioritize protecting the homeland and Western Hemisphere, a striking reversal from the military’s years long mandate to focus on the threat from China.''

''The three documents will be intertwined in many ways. Each will emphasize telling allies to take more responsibility for their own security, the people said, while the U.S. consolidates efforts closer to home.''

More like consolidate imperialism close to home whilst it still can (in Latin America and within their borders via the imperial boomerang effect). 

Perhaps the China parade sharpened minds a little in Washington. The strategic value of Taiwan is in semi-conductors which they will hopefully domesticate within years - beyond which there is no reason to go war over - that they have a major dis-advantage in fighting far from home against not only a peer rival but perhaps a superior rival. The gap will only widen in the coming years between their capabilities.

I told ya'll so. 

[Daniel Balan]

 

4 hours ago, zazen said:

Kaja Kallas two days ago said:

"I was at the ASEAN summit, and something seemed interesting to me. Russia turned to China and said: "We, Russia and China, fought together in The Second World War, we won the Second World War, we defeated Nazism together.“ 

This is childish levels of historical revisionism done by the Chinese, and that EU official was spot on calling their bullshit. 

China helped with shit in the defeat of nazism. Nazism was defeated by 50% the Soviets and 50% by the US and the West combined. China had 0 contributions on the defeat of Nazi Germany. China had great  contributions when the US, the Chinese and the Soviets defeated Japan. On the side of the WW2 where Japan was the enemy China had great contributions and it paid with a lot of lifes. But don't come now rewriting history. Nazi Germnay's defeat had nothing to do with China.

Saying that China helped with the defeat of the nazis is as stupid as saying that France helped with the defeat of Japan.

Edited September 7 by Daniel Balan

[Daniel Balan]

On 04/09/2025 at 1:57 PM, zazen said:

I look at things structurally. Drones in Lithuania and Poland are reckless, yes, but that’s not an expansionist campaign into Europe. Most of them drift from Ukraine strikes or probe air defenses. Spies, migrant influence, far-right meddling? Sure, asymmetric means are used just as the West use them on powers that are too risky to confront directly. Russia may exploit and poke at those issues - but they exist regardless of Russia. Structural conditions have caused the rise of the right. Western leaders have themselves opened the doors to migration including being lax on border control - Elon alone has done more to fan the flame of the right than Russia.

Russia also told the West where its red lines were - and that NATO expansion would end badly.  They said and acted on that did they not? The West was too imperially minded and arrogant to listen.

You rightly connect many dots - but we differ in how they connect. Those are largely symptoms of a deeper issue: a uni-polar order run by the US that refuses to accept limits, red lines, or peers. You’ve accepted the US as a bad actor but won’t extend that logic to include others reacting to that bad actor. This same actor has evidently been globally violent its entire existence including in the present, openly talks of containing its rivals, and wants to park up right next to them either by land (Russia) or sea (China).

Are these rival countries supposed to simply not act because they may be breaking laws? Laws take a back seat to security and survival imperatives as we’ve discussed before. China pouring sand into the ocean and fortifying islands isn’t being ''imperially expansionist'' - it’s securing trade routes for food and energy lifelines that it’s not self sufficient in - that a hawkish US could exploit. Geography dictates vulnerabilities, and great powers act on them.

 

“Russia always invades” is like me going back in time and saying Europeans have always been fighting. After 1991, Russia lost massive territory and accepted NATO expansion deep into Eastern Europe. The red line wasn’t Poland or the Baltics but Ukraine. That’s not a modern day pattern of always invading but a declining power finally snapping when its survival buffer was crossed. Historical patterns rhyme but aren’t destiny - they are conditional and based on circumstances, meaning that if those circumstances change then repeating history isn’t inevitable.

Patterns rhyme but aren't identical or inevitable, whilst principles of power dynamics and geography remain a constant. One of those principles is that great powers react when cornered or encircled. Another is that great powers will endure hardship and struggle before facing humiliation at the hands of another power.

Neither has geography changed. Ukraine has always been the invasion corridor into Russia, from Napoleon to Hitler. That’s a permanent vulnerability, and so is a permanent principle of Russian strategy. They’re not acting from imperial nostalgia but from geography - and it wouldn’t have come to open war if their red line had been acknowledged and built into a shared security architecture. That was denied any lasting solution because the US and its allies would rather have other powers be sub-ordinate than at the table as equals. 

Speaking of patterns, here’s one now: China’s containment from a Western hegemon. In the past it was Britain trying to balance its trade deficit via opium wars - today it’s the US containing China, first through banning semi-conductors and now through a trade war. Cutting off semi-conductors is a declaration of economic war - as its a critical input being the oxygen of the modern age. It’s as bad as an oil embargo - and yet China didn’t lash out aggressively. Only now when Trump is trying to tariff them and the world have they hit back with a rare earth export ban ie upon further provocation - just like Russia.

By your logic (which is uni-polar unintentionally or not) both rivals need to be contained - as you commented above, China is the main threat. The real thing to contain are the conditions (set by a uni-polar mindset in a multi-polar reality) that perpetuate zero-sum thinking and make confrontation continuous, and war inevitable.

Back to the principle of great powers avoiding humiliation. There’s a parallel in how the US is dealing with both Russia and China - the US is taking a civilizational kin state of a rival and is weaponizing it against that rival. So not only is it escalating a security threat, it’s insulting both at a cultural / civilizational level.

It’s like turning family on family. Imagine your cousins make semi-conductors that are important to the modern age, but an outsider barred them from sharing it with you? What would have remained a cold logical security concern becomes a hot emotional concern - it amplifies something geo-political into something personal. It radicalizes the perception of the threat for both parties. Any great power will react to this security threat, that is only amplified by its humiliation and insulting nature.

This is where the past repeating itself isn’t inevitable. Today the circumstances and reality are different, and the history of China’s century of humiliation doesn’t look to be repeating. Clearly:

The reporters comments are as insightful as the ones in the comment section lol

In fact quite the opposite: 

The order that insisted on ordering others around is now dead, and they cry at this loss. Someone give the guy some kleenex, probably made in Chyna.

If we treated every compromise as “appeasement” the Cold War would have gone nuclear in the 1950s. Security driven wars differ fundamentally from ideological-imperial wars. Security can be negotiated, expansion for the sake of domination can’t. That’s why the Western narrative needs to keep making the lazy Hitler comparison - because it shuts down a proper solution that’s been denied all this time for the purpose of leaving a avenue for subjugation to empire.

Perhaps that interdependence with Russia would help in keeping some leverage over them, the same way European economies became intertwined to avoid constant and global world wars. Now that Russia has just signed Siberia 2 with China - what leverage does EU have over them? What if a even more hard line figure comes in after Putin, such as Medvedev who you love to share as being hawkish and threatening - by comparison Putin who has been quite pro-Western and tolerant up to  now.

Perhaps Europe needs to see the US make a deal with Russia and buy Russian energy packed and re-sold to them from the US with a label slapped on - to really get the hint why its important to actually have some foresight, tactfullness and balls to do whats in their best interest. Europe's competitiveness has just been locked into being meagerly low for the foreseeable future now. It's not looking very good unfortunately.

Bro the ammount of self deception and authoritarian loving bias from you is off the rails entirely. No offense but your brain is totally fried from the ammounts of authoritarian propaganda you consume. Your AI's are totally poisoned and self biased and their sole purpose is to reinforce your skewed Dughinesque worldview. I've always thought that you are Dughin on this forum, your every post is like it was written by Dughin himself. In every post you shit on the west, while you praise the authoritarian world led by China and Russia. I got bad news from you, but those regimes don't give a flying fuck about the individual. To those regimes the individual is just a slave that has as an only purpose to work like a mad dog to produce goods that the government can then boast with. China has achieved great success economically because of it's people that are very hard working and intelligent, not because of a piece of shit dictatorial system that you seem to praise non stop. Those hard working people would greatly benefit from western style freedoms and human rights that they rightfully deserve. Instead you praise some piece of shit dictators that see their people only as labour force. 

Another critique I have for you is that you are just a robot, when was your last time that you wrote a post on this forum using your mind alone? All your posts are 90% or more written with AI. Mind developing some independent thinking? Or we are reading the posts that your AI's have generated? 

Leave the AI chat bots to the side because they are poisoning your brain, the algorithm that your favorite AI's are using is the same algorithm that Facebook or TikTok are using. That AI is just feeding you information that reinforces your worldview, the same echo chamber effect that TikTok and Facebook are using to feed you the same content that you are attracted to over and over again. Using solely AI to make sense of the world is the same as dropping the soap in jail, the AI will fuck your mind if you drop the soap in it's bathroom . Use AI as a substitute for a search engine, not as a source of truth.

Try to diversify your information sources because right now you seem like a Russian/Chinese propaganda vehicle on this forum. 

 

Edited September 7 by Daniel Balan

[zazen]

On 9/7/2025 at 3:14 PM, Daniel Balan said:

 

This is childish levels of historical revisionism done by the Chinese, and that EU official was spot on calling their bullshit. 

China helped with shit in the defeat of nazism. Nazism was defeated by 50% the Soviets and 50% by the US and the West combined. China had 0 contributions on the defeat of Nazi Germany. China had great  contributions when the US, the Chinese and the Soviets defeated Japan. On the side of the WW2 where Japan was the enemy China had great contributions and it paid with a lot of lifes. But don't come now rewriting history. Nazi Germnay's defeat had nothing to do with China.

Saying that China helped with the defeat of the nazis is as stupid as saying that France helped with the defeat of Japan.

Technically true, not totally true - that's why it was called a world war not a European war: because it was a collective effort of the allies (China included) to defeat fascism. Germany, Italy and Japan formally signed the Tripartite Pact in 1940 becoming Axis Powers against the Allied bloc of China, USSR and the West. It was a shared front but in different geographical theaters. By tying down Japan, China prevented massive Allied resources being diverted away from Europe - aiding in the defeat of Hitler. It was a collective victory against the facist axis.

The issue isn't what Kallas said in that isolated moment but that the West try to monopolize the narrative of victory and underplay Russia or China's efforts.  In Kallas's own words they are viewed as threats to be contained / balkanized and de-legitimized - part of that de-legitimizing is underplaying their efforts in that global struggle which was called a World War for that very reason.

For example in 2019 the EU had a parliament resolution claiming that Nazi Germany and the USSR were co-instigators in starting WW2 - because of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 that emboldened Hitler. But Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement in 1938 just a year earlier where Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia. That also “paved the way” for war, but it’s remembered as appeasement, not co-instigation. This is trying to brand the USSR as co-instigator when the same actions occurred by the Western allies themselves - which is obviously not showing any respect for the millions of lives the USSR lost in that fight, and who made it a decisive victory.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/european-identity-and-paradox-anti-communism/

[zazen]

On 9/7/2025 at 4:01 PM, Daniel Balan said:

Bro the ammount of self deception and authoritarian loving bias from you is off the rails entirely. No offense but your brain is totally fried from the ammounts of authoritarian propaganda you consume. Your AI's are totally poisoned and self biased and their sole purpose is to reinforce your skewed Dughinesque worldview. I've always thought that you are Dughin on this forum, your every post is like it was written by Dughin himself. In every post you shit on the west, while you praise the authoritarian world led by China and Russia. I got bad news from you, but those regimes don't give a flying fuck about the individual. To those regimes the individual is just a slave that has as an only purpose to work like a mad dog to produce goods that the government can then boast with. China has achieved great success economically because of it's people that are very hard working and intelligent, not because of a piece of shit dictatorial system that you seem to praise non stop. Those hard working people would greatly benefit from western style freedoms and human rights that they rightfully deserve. Instead you praise some piece of shit dictators that see their people only as labour force. 

Your conflating critique with hate - does you critiquing me mean you hate me now? I critique Western leadership and their failures, including the hegemonic Western imperial structure led by the US that seeks to maintain its position. That doesn’t mean I hate the West or that I now love Eastern tyrants. There’s literally two threads on the forum questioning Democracy and about being fed up with America - does that mean those posters now “hate” the West or democracy? Many people in the West are disillusioned with Western leadership and imperialism around the world - I'm not the only one, and that doesn't make us Western haters.

You see me discussing geopolitics (state to state relations) and automatically conclude and conflate that as me arguing for authoritarianism or praising authoritarian leaders themselves. I actually think Russia is very corrupt and poorly managed internally, I also think China has done a 100x bettter job than them at developing their own nation - that doesn't mean China doesn't have its flaws. I also think Kim from North Korea is a tyrannical clown running a dystopia.

Geopolitics and state to state behavior is separate to the internal politics of those states - great power competition exists regardless of the political system of states - and I discuss those dynamics including the larger dynamic of the world order which is where a uni-polar order is resisting a multi-polar one that is already pretty much a reality. All the countries in the world being liberal democracies wouldn't erase the geopolitics of power dynamics, including those powers having red lines and security concerns that need managing - the very thing that has been mismanaged regarding Russia / Ukraine.

What is your position (as you haven't laid one out):

1. That a uni-polar world order led by the West should be maintained - including the containment of multiple poles and powers within that order rising and wanting not to be sub-ordinate to that order?

2. Or is it that because other countries are flawed and demand obedience from their citizens (authoritarians), that they should be intervened in and contained?  Like the interventionist wars of the past decades that ''spread democracy''? Hard times creates hard liners - perhaps a better method is to simply trade and allow them to get wealthier to loosen their authoritarian tendencies.

3. If you view Russia and China as authoritarian because they demand obedience from their own people, then wouldn't you also view the West as authoritarian when it demands obedience from other countries in its own uni-polar order?  Perhaps the West itself enforces authoritarianism globally by refusing multi-polarity.  The so called “authoritarian” states are the ones calling for multipolarity - which is closer to actual democracy on a world scale.

The issue is liberals moralize and universalize their system as the only valid one - its unfathomable that other cultures may have a different approach or political system. Most humans have the same universal values and aspirations to a good life - liberals universalize their application of those values and aspirations.  Everybody wants to be liberated (free) and seeks democracy - which is to have their will (to the good life) manifest. The difference is in how that happens and what the best system is for achieving that.

Good governance depends on quality decisions made over a long enough time period. Western democracy basically outsources those decisions to the masses, assuming they have the discernment to choose the right candidate. A centralized system done well basically filters for that quality and doesn't buy the notion that quality and wisdom are as scalable. Neither system is superior - what makes any system work is ultimately the people themselves, because those quality decisions require a quality mind and people to make.

The West dickrides their version of democracy as the only plausible version and reflexively opposes any system that's different - even if it may be better suited to that particular culture / civilization, and produce better outcomes. They measure democracy (will of the people) in ritual and procedure, rather than outcome.  If a so called “authoritarian'' centralized system actually delivers stability, rising living standards, and a sense of security, while “liberal democracies” deliver endless crises, inequality, and political paralysis, then who is actually closer to realizing democracy (the will of the people to a good life)?

Whilst all people share the same values, some people may approach those values differently and rank them differently. Not everyone has the same conception of freedom as the West - the world doesn't revolve around the West who make up 15% of the global population. Perhaps some cultures find liberation of the individual through the community (harmony, stability), perhaps centralized governance is better suited in fulfilling the will of the people. It's possible that centralized authority doesn't always automatically mean tyranny.

Liberals obsess over internal political systems because it moralizes the West’s dominance as good and righteous - that because other countries aren't liberal democracies they should be intervened in, contained or de-legitimized. This is where bloc politics comes from - and empire uses it as a pretext for its own cause. It that kind of ''with us or against us'' thinking that creates bloc and raises tensions.

On 9/7/2025 at 4:01 PM, Daniel Balan said:

Another critique I have for you is that you are just a robot, when was your last time that you wrote a post on this forum using your mind alone? All your posts are 90% or more written with AI. Mind developing some independent thinking? Or we are reading the posts that your AI's have generated? 

Leave the AI chat bots to the side because they are poisoning your brain, the algorithm that your favorite AI's are using is the same algorithm that Facebook or TikTok are using. That AI is just feeding you information that reinforces your worldview, the same echo chamber effect that TikTok and Facebook are using to feed you the same content that you are attracted to over and over again. Using solely AI to make sense of the world is the same as dropping the soap in jail, the AI will fuck your mind if you drop the soap in it's bathroom . Use AI as a substitute for a search engine, not as a source of truth.

No where in your long ass rant have you provided any substance or arguments - just that I must be Dugin, a Russian/Chinese bot, and use AI lol. I'd rather you actually use AI to rebuttal me so we can have a interesting conversation. Blueoak doesn't ad hominen and actually argues his points and pokes holes in mine very well in comparison.

 

[Daniel Balan]

8 minutes ago, zazen said:

Technically true, not totally true - that's why it was called a world war not a European war: because it was a collective effort of the allies (China included) to defeat fascism. Germany, Italy and Japan formally signed the Tripartite Pact in 1940 becoming Axis Powers against the Allied bloc of China, USSR and the West. It was a shared front but in different geographical theaters. By tying down Japan, China prevented massive Allied resources being diverted away from Europe - aiding in the defeat of Hitler. It was a collective victory against the facist axis.

The issue isn't what Kallas said in that isolated moment but that the West try to monopolize the narrative of victory and underplay Russia or China's efforts.  In Kallas's own words they are viewed as threats to be contained / balkanized and de-legitimized - part of that de-legitimizing is underplaying their efforts in that global struggle which was called a World War for that very reason.

For example in 2019 the EU had a parliament resolution claiming that Nazi Germany and the USSR were co-instigators in starting WW2 - because of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 that emboldened Hitler. But Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement in 1938 just a year earlier where Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia. That also “paved the way” for war, but it’s remembered as appeasement, not co-instigation. This is trying to brand the USSR as co-instigator when the same actions occurred by the Western allies themselves - which is obviously not showing any respect for the millions of lives the USSR lost in that fight, and who made it a decisive victory.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/european-identity-and-paradox-anti-communism/

Bro this is some insane levels of bullshit. Comparing the Munchen agreement with the Molotov-Ribentrop pact is some of the most insane levels of bullshit and self deception I've ever withnessed. Britain and France wanted to avoid war and gave Hitler permission to annex the suddetten land of Czechia in exchange for him not invading any other territories. That was it! The Muchen agreement didn't contain sectet protocols that devided Europe upon spheres of influence and the redrawing all the borders of Eastern Europe. The soviets were the main contributors to the outbreak of WW2. Hitler wouldn't have dared to invade Poland if he knew that the USSR would have allied with the west. He would have been defeated then and there on a 2 war front. That was the main reason Hitler wanted to have a non aggression pact with Stalin to make sure that he doesn't have to fight both the soviets and the west once he attacks Poland. The soviets captured half of eastern Europe when they allied with Hitler. They even offered themselves to join the axis in late 1940, but Hitler denied them because he was already set on invading them. Bro please, be less Russia and China biased. Please. Your understanding of history is as if you were taught history in Russia. 

[Daniel Balan]

4 minutes ago, zazen said:

Your conflating critique with hate - does you critiquing me mean you hate me now? I critique Western leadership and their failures, including the hegemonic Western imperial structure led by the US that seeks to maintain its position. That doesn’t mean I hate the West or that I now love Eastern tyrants. There’s literally two threads on the forum questioning Democracy and about being fed up with America - does that mean those posters now “hate” the West or democracy? Many people in the West are disillusioned with Western leadership and imperialism around the world - I'm not the only one, and that doesn't make us Western haters.

You see me discussing geopolitics (state to state relations) and automatically conclude and conflate that as me arguing for authoritarianism or praising authoritarian leaders themselves. I actually think Russia is very corrupt and poorly managed internally, I also think China has done a 100x bettter job than them at developing their own nation - that doesn't mean China doesn't have its flaws. I also think Kim from North Korea is a tyrannical clown running a dystopia.

Geopolitics and state to state behavior is separate to the internal politics of those states - great power competition exists regardless of the political system of states - and I discuss those dynamics including the larger dynamic of the world order which is where a uni-polar order is resisting a multi-polar one that is already pretty much a reality. All the countries in the world being liberal democracies wouldn't erase the geopolitics of power dynamics, including those powers having red lines and security concerns that need managing - the very thing that has been mismanaged regarding Russia / Ukraine.

What is your position (as you haven't laid one out):

1. That a uni-polar world order led by the West should be maintained - including the containment of multiple poles and powers within that order rising and wanting not to be sub-ordinate to that order?

2. Or is it that because other countries are flawed and demand obedience from their citizens (authoritarians), that they should be intervened in and contained?  Like the interventionist wars of the past decades that ''spread democracy''? Hard times creates hard liners - perhaps a better method is to simply trade and allow them to get wealthier to loosen their authoritarian tendencies.

3. If you view Russia and China as authoritarian because they demand obedience from their own people, then wouldn't you also view the West as authoritarian when it demands obedience from other countries in its own uni-polar order?  Perhaps the West itself enforces authoritarianism globally by refusing multi-polarity.  The so called “authoritarian” states are the ones calling for multipolarity - which is closer to actual democracy on a world scale.

The issue is liberals moralize and universalize their system as the only valid one - its unfathomable that other cultures may have a different approach or political system. Most humans have the same universal values and aspirations to a good life - liberals universalize their application of those values and aspirations.  Everybody wants to be liberated (free) and seeks democracy - which is to have their will (to the good life) manifest. The difference is in how that happens and what the best system is for achieving that.

Good governance depends on quality decisions made over a long enough time period. Western democracy basically outsources those decisions to the masses, assuming they have the discernment to choose the right candidate. A centralized system done well basically filters for that quality and doesn't buy the notion that quality and wisdom are as scalable. Neither system is superior - what makes any system work is ultimately the people themselves, because those quality decisions require a quality mind and people to make.

The West dickrides their version of democracy as the only plausible version and reflexively opposes any system that's different - even if it may be better suited to that particular culture / civilization, and produce better outcomes. They measure democracy (will of the people) in ritual and procedure, rather than outcome.  If a so called “authoritarian'' centralized system actually delivers stability, rising living standards, and a sense of security, while “liberal democracies” deliver endless crises, inequality, and political paralysis, then who is actually closer to realizing democracy (the will of the people to a good life)?

Whilst all people share the same values, some people may approach those values differently and rank them differently. Not everyone has the same conception of freedom as the West - the world doesn't revolve around the West who make up 15% of the global population. Perhaps some cultures find liberation of the individual through the community (harmony, stability), perhaps centralized governance is better suited in fulfilling the will of the people. It's possible that centralized authority doesn't always automatically mean tyranny.

Liberals obsess over internal political systems because it moralizes the West’s dominance as good and righteous - that because other countries aren't liberal democracies they should be intervened in, contained or de-legitimized. This is where bloc politics comes from - and empire uses it as a pretext for its own cause. It that kind of ''with us or against us'' thinking that creates bloc and raises tensions.

No where in your long ass rant have you provided any substance or arguments - just that I must be Dugin, a Russian/Chinese bot, and use AI lol. I'd rather you actually use AI to rebuttal me so we can have a interesting conversation. Blueoak doesn't ad hominen and actually argues his points and pokes holes in mine very well in comparison.

 

Bro yesterday I put my critique of you in claude ai and I asked it to give a rebuttal to it, and your response today is almost the same as the rebbutal that Claude made. 

This is hilarious. 

I am not intending to do rebuttals to your posts, I'm not the west's guard dog. I don't advocate for the push of western ideals on China. My sole position is that I don't want bullshit authoritarian governance models pushed onto the west. Which is what you subtly advocate. 

[Daniel Balan]

@zazen The west needs and deserves criticism for a lot of things, but China, Russia and the entire authoritarian world deserves the same if not even more criticism. Until you start criticising the authoritarian world, until you start and criticise the governance of China and Russia the same way you criticise the governance of the west, you are just a propaganda vehicle to me. 

[Daniel Balan]

@zazen Just to make things clear, I don't hate on you, I have no interest in debating and rebuttal. It is good that this forum has different opinions and perspectives, which is a healthy thing for both me and you and everybody on the forum. I just made a constructive critique because I am really irked when people use AI for sense making. AI should be used for descovery of information not sense making, because if you use AI for sense making it is just another echo chamber. AI validates and reinforces all your pre-existing beliefs. AI can be good for sense making if you ask it to play devil's advocate and challenge you on pre existing beliefs. But you need to ask it everytime to do this otherwise it has the same echo chamber effect as the social media algorithms. Sorry if my tone seemed harsh or confrontational. I didn't mean that. I just wanted to give you constructive feedback. I want people to make sense of the world using their very own brain, I hate when people delegate sense making to a machine or to Chinese/Russian revisionist history altering propaganda. 

[Ajay0]

On 8/30/2025 at 0:01 PM, BlueOak said:

 Europe and the US did consider India's security because they considered it more of an ally. Anything goes against India in a war state. I've seen 'oh poor innocent india' spoken or written many times; they are making their choice strategically.

India has a nuclear triad of ICBMS, aircraft and nuclear submarines which can launch nuclear weapons into any corner of the earth. How would such a country be insecure !

In terms of conventional strength as well, it is the fourth strongest military power in the world as per current rankings with the world's second largest army, fourth largest air force and fifth strongest navy.

India has the world's second largest army of 2.1 million personnel and the paramilitary forces, which forms the second line of defence itself number around 2.5 million. 

The Indian territorial army which is the third line of defence and around 400000 strong, is itself ten times larger than the Canadian or Australian or most european regular armies.

The NCC military training program at the college level trains around two million students each year with basic training in military skills. The NCC forms the fourth line of defence and creates a reservoir of a large pool of youth with basic military skills who can be deployed as military personnel.

The Indian population is the largest in the world and is also highly youthful with the average age being in the twenties.

This means that any number of young million-strong armies can be created for defensive purposes as well as  offensive purposes, and is enough to invade any nation on earth or change  the course of international wars on the basis of conventional strength.

So Europe and US considering India's security is ridiculous. 

The defeat of US-NATO by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2021 after twenty years of fighting, heavy casualties and trillions of western taxpayer money down the drain, itself reflects their limitations in conventional warfare , echoing similar defeats in Korea and Vietnam.

With an ageing population, low fertility rates, and a large pool of handicapped and mentally traumatised ex-military personnel ( due to excessive warmongering ) demanding expensive medical care means that they are in no position to wage long wars anymore.

This is compounded by the heavy external debt of the US which has crossed 37 trillion dollars recently, and which is the largest in the world, and can be a potential white elephant for it in the future.