Unipolary didn't have strict rules either.
Neither is convenient for me because there will be a very inconvenient war. It's just that people only count when there is an election, and then they only count as a manipulatable resource. Otherwise nobody in power cares about what people want.
You are right about your expectations about future wars. It's time to come up with something to make a better future.
Sure. Unfortunately that's not what counts. Also history is more complicated and doesn't start in 2014.
Wang was said to have given Kallas – the former Estonian prime minister who only late last year took up her role as the bloc’s de facto foreign affairs chief – several “history lessons and lectures”.
Ukraine seems to be more of a unipolar project than a multipolar project. The important part is the last part of the last sentence.
David C. Hendrickson, in his article in Foreign Affairs on November 1, 1997, saw the core of the book as the ambitious strategy of NATO to move eastward to Ukraine's Russian border and vigorously support the newly independent republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, which is an integral part of what Hendrickson said could be called a "tough love" strategy for the Russians. Hendrickson considers "this great project" to be problematic for two reasons: the "excessive expansion of Western institutions" could well introduce centrifugal forces into it; moreover, Brzezinski's "test of what legitimate Russian interests are" seems to be so strict that even a democratic Russia would probably "fail".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
Of course there can also be wars in the multipolar world. But there are enough started by the US that peace seems to be secondary.
The US wants to stay the hegemon but China is advancing technology faster than the US. The conflict is about the multipolar world. Unfortunately the US, and the EU, haven't explained why they don't want to be part of a multipolar world.
They don't have those plans. That's insinuated to distract from what the minister actually said and implied.
I have poined this out in the other post: https://feddit.org/post/15221478
This article is slightly misleading if compared with the SCMP article which has big implications on understanding the global power dynamics. Draw your own conclusions.
SCMP:
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the European Union’s top diplomat on Wednesday that Beijing does not want to see a Russian loss in Ukraine because it fears the United States would then shift its whole focus to Beijing, according to several people familiar with the exchange.
vs
As the war in Ukraine drags on, Wang’s reported comments suggest that Russia’s war in Ukraine may serve China’s strategic needs as focus is deviated away from Beijing’s mounting preparation to launch its own possible invasion into Taiwan.
It's subtle, but the attack on Taiwan is an interpretation. The minister means something else.
If the economic development continues, Taiwan will want to join China. Thus the focus of the US is interpreted differently by China, more like the focus Iraq or Afghanistan received.
SCMP:
During a marathon four-hour debate on a wide range of geopolitical and commercial grievances, Wang was said to have given Kallas – the former Estonian prime minister who only late last year took up her role as the bloc’s de facto foreign affairs chief – several “history lessons and lectures”.
Some EU officials felt he was giving her a lesson in realpolitik, part of which focused on Beijing’s belief that Washington will soon turn its full attention eastward, two officials said. One interpretation of Wang’s statement in Brussels is that while China did not ask for the war, its prolongation may suit Beijing’s strategic needs, so long as the US remains engaged in Ukraine.
vs
that they believed Wang was providing Kallas with a lesson in realpolitik during the four-hour encounter.
No mentioning of the “history lessons and lectures”, which is a friendlier way of saying that he has referenced past behavior that suggest that the EU is in the wrong.
There seems to be ignorance about what is going to happen even right at the top of the EU. The Chinese minister is calling bullshit. Yet Kallas must have already known better.
You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into
everyone except Russia gains from it. China, North Korea, and Iran get to have Russia owe them a lot
Russia loses second most, with not much to win. 30% more wheat production is not a reason for war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wheat_production
Of course, Ukraine loses most. Indepted, lost territory and huge amount of death.
China owes Russia a lot because China is the ultimate objective. Russia could fold, have new elections and join Nato.
North Korea wins big, mostly for Russia stopping participation in sanctions. An advantage for Russia.
'Europe', or rather Germany loses third most because all profits from industrial products and benefits from cheap energy moves to China. Russia wasn't threatening, an economic union suggested by Putin was possible.
US wins the most, by far. The US feels threatened by the Eurasian Union even though the EU is deeply linked with the US. Many major advisers argued against Nato expansion and they still did it. What's their offer to Germany so that Germany accepted the Nato and EU expansion to Ukraine?
We can’t look at the past with the understanding we have now and think they knew this would happen though. They made it clear they expected an easy victory.
They told their soldiers about the easy victory.
Do you think they didn't know about the Ukraine fortifications built since 2014? Have you seen their faces when they announced the 'operation'? They had to take Grozny. Why should Kyiv fall in 3 days?
Have you looked at the book? This conflict is in the making for a long time. Putin tried to win over Germany with cheap gas to become part of the West and avoid the conflict but Merkel betrayed him and just took the gas without changing the original goals.
In what way were they forced to invade Crimea, and then the rest of Ukraine?
States are always doing things to make themselves more powerful.
That's what you were taught in school what the US does.
This book explains how Ukraine is used.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
If you’re going to make the “buffer zone” argument, see how that’s decreased since the invasion, not increased, so if that was the goal, is was incredibly stupid.
Catch 22. But Finland and Sweden were essentially part of Nato by being part of the EU so Russia loses not much and would be much more threatened by Nato in Ukraine.
Probably the best option for Russia (not Putin though) would be closer economic ties to Europe.
That's what Russia did.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
"In particular, he writes that no Eurasian challenger should emerge that can dominate Eurasia and thus also challenge U.S. global pre-eminence."
The Ukraine war creates the hate between the EU and Russia that prevents that emergence. Russia would win so much more if it were part of the EU.
Cui bono?
That's the elephant in the room.
For those who don't know, Trump is threatening tariffs on Spain for not complying.
To me it means that the threat of leaving Nato is a ruse to facilitate armament for a big war against China. Fewer people would support that.
Such an agreement was never made," NATO says in a fact page on its website, one of multiple pages that addresses the Russian allegations. "NATO’s door has been open to new members since it was founded in 1949 — and that has never changed."
In the Tucker interview Putin references the meeting where he asked for membership. The minutes of that meeting could have been published to proof him wrong. In other words Russia was kept out and as an opponent by the choice of Nato.
Besides the wording is that there was no agreement and not that there were no promises. That suggests that Russia's point of view is not entirely wrong.
As I think it was a professor of mine said, international politics is about power, not good. States are always doing things to make themselves more powerful.
In that light, aren't Nato's actions forcing Russia's hands?
They can. They don’t though. I advocate that they do. I’d love to see the EU with its own defensive force
Article 42
And
The command was designed in light of growing hostilities between European countries and Russia since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in response to logistic and bureaucratic hurdles limiting military logistics in case of a crisis.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Support_and_Enabling_Command
BAE Systems is a major supplier.
How would the military industrial complex not kill Trump if this were true?
I know. I was not prepared for a .world community to demand and not oppose that way of thinking.
Ironic. Venice was commissioned by people like Bezos
Fine with me.
People can come together and build big things without elites, kings or bosses sitting down and telling everyone what to do. Just because societies that greatly limit the power of the elites no longer exist, having been crushed, doesn’t mean they don’t work.
Could. Hating Bezos instead of coming together and start building is the mental trap I try to point out in my other comments that is not accepted. Right now people need commissioning if they keep thinking the way they think, and they don't want to hear it.
There are pockets that work, like Wikipedia or Burning Man. But they grew slowly and are not blueprints to get other projects done.
How is it exploitative? If you get market rates for your work or pay market rates for the stuff you buy, you don't lose in transactions.
Those who maximize value extraction optimize resource allocation and bring prices down for everybody.
And yet, what other options exist right now?
But starting another regular company would end up with yet another billionaire, if successful. To avoid billionaires, businesses have to be structured and financed differently anyway.
To me, the sad part is that I am not simping, but nobody recognizes that. Like a bull in a bullfight, people attack billionaires without seeing the dagger.
Especially Amazon, people could have recognized the idea and created a cooperative competitor. Bezos is a billionaire because they haven't.
There are four options for the billionaire situation. Do nothing, organize a new party, civil war or starting competing businesses.
Hating Bezos without understanding his skills looks like the first option to me. In a world of flooding zones, that makes me wary.
By your logic, people visit Venice for the fisher village huts.
If you don't see what the elite does, how can you live in an equal society? Then nobody does those things and the society crumbles or those who do become the next elite.
Run corporations by ourselves? Gladly! When do the CEOs step down?
How come it's either civil war or nothing for most lefties? Why are people willing to fight a civil war and believe in success but not willing to start a business? The probability for survival is much bigger.