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You're linking Finland's accession to NATO with the closing of Russian airspace. They are not linked. You either don't know what you're talking about, or you're deliberately making a false connection.
EU skies were closed to Russian aircraft in February 2022; Moscow responded a tit for tat. Note that the EU is not NATO. For example, The Russian response includes such countries as Switzerland and Ireland, which are of course not in NATO. This all occurred months before Finland even applied for NATO membership.
Of course, the West knew perfectly well that Russia would respond, however feebly. Not that it matters. Russian access to Western skies and destinations - Helsinki, London, New York, Paris, Athens (it's not like the oligarchs keep their yachts in St. Petersburg!), Toronto, Zurich, etc. - is orders of magnitude more important that Western access to Moscow or Novosibirsk. Also, given that Western countries have modern and functional economies (unlike Russia) the impact on them is negligible (unlike on Russia).
Hostile Russian forces on the border? Pfft. Since Russia has run out of murderers and rapists to parole and send to the front lines, it's begun denuding its border with NATO countries and aspirants (demonstrating that it really doesn't fear NATO militarily at all - what terrifies Russia is social and economic connections with the West).
Russia's pissy tantrum is flaccid and irrelevant.
No, I'm linking Finland's accession to NATO as the cause of current and future hostilities. They abandoned neutrality. A consequence of this will be a difficult relationship with its nuclear armed neighbor. Countries are free to choose their allies. Other countries are free to retaliate in the process. Just look at Cuba. https://tass.com/economy/1413853
If there is one thing that has been shown by this war is that the Western tools for sticking to Russia have been kind of silly and aren't working. Just look at the failure of the oil price cap. https://www.politico.eu/article/russ...n-ukraine-war/
You mentioned the West has functional economies unlike Russia. Those functional economies are experiencing great pain, while Russia has transitioned to a war time economy and withstanding the sanctions. Economy is projected to start growing again. Russian economy is based off things the world can’t live without (grain, energy, minerals, etc.), this will always keep them relevant. Can't say the same for the European economic powerhouses Germany and the U.K.
A course the U.S. is doing better economically. That's because in their European's lack of thinking (except for France), they now must purchase energy products at 2X -3X the previous price. The richer countries must also subsidize the smaller countries because they can’t afford the bill. The U.S. meanwhile enjoys the fruits of energy and weapons sales. I marvel that despite the U.S. abysmal record in these types of conflicts, countries still line up to sacrifice their interest. The U.S. blew up the Nordstream pipeline and everyone knows, yet Germany can do absolutely nothing about it. Which is what perplexes me about Sweden and Finland. Literally chose to become a form of vasal states over neutrality and the benefits that come with that stance.
I agree with you, however Russia’s value isn’t in it’s destinations such as Moscow but precisely because it’s flyover country which gives access to shorter routes between Europe and East Asia, as well as North America and South Asia. Last time when Russian Airspace was shutdown during the Cold War, Anchorage became a major hub similar to Iceland in order for long flights to bypass Russia. Once Russian airspace opened up during the 90s, Anchorage lost its status as a hub and direct flights opened up and saved thousands of miles. Now things are reverting back to the way they were.
Speaking of which, I don’t understand why Russia didn’t open a huge hub in Siberia like Iceland, Singapore or Dubai? I suppose Moscow was a hub in a way, but doesn’t seem to be in the same league as the other international hubs I mentioned?
Good point about Anchorage becoming a hub again. Once again the U.S. stands to benefit from a conflict while countries, particularly their allies suffer. I have to ask, what is the advantage of being a U.S. ally. They are still scaring nations from conflicts that occurred in many cases 80+ years ago. Remember when the Russians attacked you in 1880. The same strategy is now being applied to Vietnam against China. Unfortunately, we attacked Vietnam and they successfully defended themselves, so why would they need our protection.
No, I'm linking Finland's accession to NATO as the cause of current and future hostilities. They abandoned neutrality. A consequence of this will be a difficult relationship with its nuclear armed neighbor. Countries are free to choose their allies. Other countries are free to retaliate in the process. Just look at Cuba. https://tass.com/economy/1413853
If there is one thing that has been shown by this war is that the Western tools for sticking to Russia have been kind of silly and aren't working. Just look at the failure of the oil price cap. https://www.politico.eu/article/russ...n-ukraine-war/
You mentioned the West has functional economies unlike Russia. Those functional economies are experiencing great pain, while Russia has transitioned to a war time economy and withstanding the sanctions. Economy is projected to start growing again. Russian economy is based off things the world can’t live without (grain, energy, minerals, etc.), this will always keep them relevant. Can't say the same for the European economic powerhouses Germany and the U.K.
A course the U.S. is doing better economically. That's because in their European's lack of thinking (except for France), they now must purchase energy products at 2X -3X the previous price. The richer countries must also subsidize the smaller countries because they can’t afford the bill. The U.S. meanwhile enjoys the fruits of energy and weapons sales. I marvel that despite the U.S. abysmal record in these types of conflicts, countries still line up to sacrifice their interest. The U.S. blew up the Nordstream pipeline and everyone knows, yet Germany can do absolutely nothing about it. Which is what perplexes me about Sweden and Finland. Literally chose to become a form of vasal states over neutrality and the benefits that come with that stance.
Finland's accession to NATO is directly because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a non-NATO country, despite Russia having signed agreements to not engage in military hostilities. This has consequences for Russia as it continues to be a pariah state, and the idea that you are perplexed by this makes sense given how poorly thought out some of your arguments have been. Western tools have been fairly effective in preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine thus far and has made it so Russia has had to create a rather large hike in defense spending with an estimated 39% of federal spending to go towards the military and law enforcement.
While Russian fossil fuel export revenue is up from its nadir this past spring, it's still down from its pre-invasion highs and the proportional amount of it being seaborne is up. Seaborne exports generally have a lower profit margin compared to overland delivery and both the lower export revenue and the shift towards more expensive seaborne exports are results of the invasion and Western sanctions.
A wartime economy *is* great pains much more so than what the UK and Germany are experiencing. It doesn't seem like you understand what that means as Russia is now funneling a massive amount of resources into its wartime efforts rather than quality of life improvements for its citizenry. You can't say the same for the UK and Germany because neither of them are in wartime economies. It is incredible that you tried to wave this away as if being in a wartime economy magically made the comparison favorable *towards* Russia. You clearly have not thought this through, and in a thread with some really poorly thought out statements, that ranks up there.
For Germany, one of the primary lessons learned is to not rely on Russian energy products. The cost of that abrupt transition is high for the time being, but large parts of it are now irreversible such that even after the conclusion of Russia's invasion, energy exports from Russia to European nations are unlikely to reach levels pre-invasion for quite some time. To some degree, this is a silver lining in that what will be a costly transition to diversified, renewable energy sources and electrification of a lot of sectors now has a visible national security aspect to it.
For the US, yes, supporting Ukraine against Russia's invasion does also have energy policy and export benefits. It's not necessarily the only reason to arm Ukraine against Russia, but it makes giving support to Ukraine an even more rational argument. The US should be upping its support for Ukraine.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 12-05-2023 at 07:56 AM..
For Germany, one of the primary lessons learned is to not rely on Russian energy products. The cost of that abrupt transition is high for the time being, but large parts of it are now irreversible such that even after the conclusion of Russia's invasion, energy exports from Russia to European nations are unlikely to reach levels pre-invasion for quite some time. To some degree, this is a silver lining in that what will be a costly transition to diversified, renewable energy sources and electrification of a lot of sectors now has a visible national security aspect to it.
For the US, yes, supporting Ukraine against Russia's invasion does also have energy policy and export benefits. It's not necessarily the only reason to arm Ukraine against Russia, but it makes giving support to Ukraine an even more rational argument. The US should be upping its support for Ukraine.
I think this is the main thing from your text. The US carried out a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and is profiting from the destruction of production chains in Europe that were beneficial to both Germany and Russia.
I think this is the main thing from your text. The US carried out a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and is profiting from the destruction of production chains in Europe that were beneficial to both Germany and Russia.
Seems pretty inaccurate except that it has been beneficial for US energy exports and will eventually be good for US arms export since Russian defense industry products have been underwhelming during the course of this war. There's unfortunately somewhat limited other economic incentive for the US though because the medium-term shift in Europe for energy resources seems squarely towards energy conservation, electrification, electrical storage, HVDC interconnects, and renewable energies which aren't currently particularly strong industries for the US.
However, these are very strong industries for China who thus far has stood to gain and has gained the most from this. If you wanted to argue on the principle of the entity that benefits the most from this war is responsible for it, then the correct answer to field would be China is behind all of this because they have by far the most to gain. Is that what you want to do? If your argument is that the entity that gains the most from this is the one who has carried out the coup and set the grounds for the invasion, then China is your, heads and shoulders above all other entities, the culprit. That seems somewhat unlikely to me in terms of having that much forethought and planning, let alone the ability to execute this well.
How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go on this? Certainly there were some rumors that Xi had asked the invasion to be delayed until after the Beijing Winter Olympics which meant a crucial amount of time for intel to be gathered and defenses to be set up. China also has a major gender imbalanced population with a large surplus of males over females especially of reproductive age--a war that's going to be mostly male combatants does mean then that there will be an opposite imbalance in Russia (and Ukraine to boot), and Chinese internet forums do talk about this and providing comfort to Russian widows in some of the more grotesque conversations. This kind of discussion in the open is something the CCP can easily stamp out, but it does not.
This shift away from fossil fuels in Europe as a reaction towards the invasion has meant a strong move towards electrification of many things including automobiles, energy storage, and renewable energy sources which are all industries in which China is by far the largest player. Meanwhile, Russian energy resources for export are desperately being sold to other countries to fund its war and often at a noted discount (and remember, seaborne deliveries also then means the profit margin is further cut since the expense per barrel is higher) and China has filled and then expanded its strategic petroleum reserve by quite a bit.
It's also started having unilateral talks with Central Asian neighbors without Russia being part of the conversation which was unthinkable prior to the invasion and there has been a revival of plans for a railway through Central Asia and not crossing any Russian territory. Meanwhile, in regards to arms sales, the disappointing performance of Russian military equipment has meant that anyone trying to purchase from a non-US-aligned nation is much more likely to turn towards China now than it is to Russia. Russia has had to pull resources from its other borders to engage in this war, and that's great for a very long border that Russia shares with China. Even better that it needed to request military goods from North Korea which has given China quite a lot of headaches. The CCP even recently released a new map that undoes a recent negotiation of the land border between Russia and China and notably now includes what was formally agreed to be Russian lnd and obviously no "correction" was made by the Chinese government. And why would they? How will Russia go against anything that China wants? You're going to see more Chinese products like Chinese brand automobiles in the streets, you'll see Chinese restaurant chains, and even your payment systems and banking are shifting towards Chinese institutions. You'll also see Russia acting as a fount of natural resources to trade with China with little value added in the production chain. So obviously China stood to gain the most from this and it continues to gain the most from this. Is this then evidence that China is the reason this happened? That seems like quite a conjecture.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 12-05-2023 at 03:29 PM..
I think this is the main thing from your text. The US carried out a coup in Ukraine in 2014 and is profiting from the destruction of production chains in Europe that were beneficial to both Germany and Russia.
Coup, schmoo. Whether or not the US carried out a coup in Ukraine is in the eye of the beholder. And btw, Soros =/= "the US".
grega: Russia didn't open a major international hub, IMO, because Russia doesn't really want millions of foreigners passing through its hubs: millions more than already pass through Moscow. After observing the "new Russia" after 1990, I've come to the conclusion, that those in charge don't really want the traffic and the economic development that could bring. Russia tends to prefer closed borders, or highly controlled ones, unfortunately for its citizenry, who stand to benefit from foreign tourism.
This is the sad conclusion I've reached. I'm sure our friend Borshchevik will disagree, but at this point in time, given the current situation, it's a moot discussion anyway.
Seems pretty inaccurate except that it has been beneficial for US energy exports and will eventually be good for US arms export since Russian defense industry products have been underwhelming during the course of this war. There's unfortunately somewhat limited other economic incentive for the US though because the medium-term shift in Europe for energy resources seems squarely towards energy conservation, electrification, electrical storage, HVDC interconnects, and renewable energies which aren't currently particularly strong industries for the US.
However, these are very strong industries for China who thus far has stood to gain and has gained the most from this. If you wanted to argue on the principle of the entity that benefits the most from this war is responsible for it, then the correct answer to field would be China is behind all of this because they have by far the most to gain. Is that what you want to do? If your argument is that the entity that gains the most from this is the one who has carried out the coup and set the grounds for the invasion, then China is your, heads and shoulders above all other entities, the culprit. That seems somewhat unlikely to me in terms of having that much forethought and planning, let alone the ability to execute this well.
How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go on this? Certainly there were some rumors that Xi had asked the invasion to be delayed until after the Beijing Winter Olympics which meant a crucial amount of time for intel to be gathered and defenses to be set up. China also has a major gender imbalanced population with a large surplus of males over females especially of reproductive age--a war that's going to be mostly male combatants does mean then that there will be an opposite imbalance in Russia (and Ukraine to boot), and Chinese internet forums do talk about this and providing comfort to Russian widows in some of the more grotesque conversations. This kind of discussion in the open is something the CCP can easily stamp out, but it does not.
This shift away from fossil fuels in Europe as a reaction towards the invasion has meant a strong move towards electrification of many things including automobiles, energy storage, and renewable energy sources which are all industries in which China is by far the largest player. Meanwhile, Russian energy resources for export are desperately being sold to other countries to fund its war and often at a noted discount (and remember, seaborne deliveries also then means the profit margin is further cut since the expense per barrel is higher) and China has filled and then expanded its strategic petroleum reserve by quite a bit.
It's also started having unilateral talks with Central Asian neighbors without Russia being part of the conversation which was unthinkable prior to the invasion and there has been a revival of plans for a railway through Central Asia and not crossing any Russian territory. Meanwhile, in regards to arms sales, the disappointing performance of Russian military equipment has meant that anyone trying to purchase from a non-US-aligned nation is much more likely to turn towards China now than it is to Russia. Russia has had to pull resources from its other borders to engage in this war, and that's great for a very long border that Russia shares with China. Even better that it needed to request military goods from North Korea which has given China quite a lot of headaches. The CCP even recently released a new map that undoes a recent negotiation of the land border between Russia and China and notably now includes what was formally agreed to be Russian lnd and obviously no "correction" was made by the Chinese government. And why would they? How will Russia go against anything that China wants? You're going to see more Chinese products like Chinese brand automobiles in the streets, you'll see Chinese restaurant chains, and even your payment systems and banking are shifting towards Chinese institutions. You'll also see Russia acting as a fount of natural resources to trade with China with little value added in the production chain. So obviously China stood to gain the most from this and it continues to gain the most from this. Is this then evidence that China is the reason this happened? That seems like quite a conjecture.
I don't dispute that China stands to gain (or is gaining) from the war but disagree to the extent. The world is far away from the renewable energy dominance. While a Russia more dependent on the China is good for China. It comes with the risk of Russia losing and becoming destabilized in the process. This would be very bad for China. Recall China put forth a peace plan, which was rejected. Let’s also not forget there was a peace plan in place at the beginning of the conflict, which the U.K. and U.S. convinced Ukraine not to take.
I wouldn't say Russian arms have underwhelmed. I mean there are plenty images capturing the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and western supplied equipment and arms. If that is underwhelming, then we can consider Western equipment as ineffective. After all Ukraine is relying upon this so called superior Western equipment to drive the Russians out, which hasn't materialized despite every 3 months a new supposedly "game changing" weapon entering the battlefield. Russian missiles are still penetrating their air defenses. At the end of the day Russia arms are cheaper than western arms and don't come with as many restrictions. This is will always make them valuable. While China has an arms industry, they don't seem to prioritize weapons sales to the extent of the U.S. or Russia.
Finland's accession to NATO is directly because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a non-NATO country, despite Russia having signed agreements to not engage in military hostilities. This has consequences for Russia as it continues to be a pariah state, and the idea that you are perplexed by this makes sense given how poorly thought out some of your arguments have been. Western tools have been fairly effective in preventing a Russian victory in Ukraine thus far and has made it so Russia has had to create a rather large hike in defense spending with an estimated 39% of federal spending to go towards the military and law enforcement.
While Russian fossil fuel export revenue is up from its nadir this past spring, it's still down from its pre-invasion highs and the proportional amount of it being seaborne is up. Seaborne exports generally have a lower profit margin compared to overland delivery and both the lower export revenue and the shift towards more expensive seaborne exports are results of the invasion and Western sanctions.
A wartime economy *is* great pains much more so than what the UK and Germany are experiencing. It doesn't seem like you understand what that means as Russia is now funneling a massive amount of resources into its wartime efforts rather than quality of life improvements for its citizenry. You can't say the same for the UK and Germany because neither of them are in wartime economies. It is incredible that you tried to wave this away as if being in a wartime economy magically made the comparison favorable *towards* Russia. You clearly have not thought this through, and in a thread with some really poorly thought out statements, that ranks up there.
For Germany, one of the primary lessons learned is to not rely on Russian energy products. The cost of that abrupt transition is high for the time being, but large parts of it are now irreversible such that even after the conclusion of Russia's invasion, energy exports from Russia to European nations are unlikely to reach levels pre-invasion for quite some time. To some degree, this is a silver lining in that what will be a costly transition to diversified, renewable energy sources and electrification of a lot of sectors now has a visible national security aspect to it.
For the US, yes, supporting Ukraine against Russia's invasion does also have energy policy and export benefits. It's not necessarily the only reason to arm Ukraine against Russia, but it makes giving support to Ukraine an even more rational argument. The US should be upping its support for Ukraine.
If you believe my arguments aren't well thought out, well that's your opinion. I'll continue to the post, and I guess you can continue to roll your eyes, It will be interesting to see how things turn out in 10 – 15 years. At that point Finland can ask, “was foreign relations autonomy worth sacrificing to join NATO.” Russia is not a Pariah state. Just because the U.S. and some of its allies don't like you, doesn't mean the rest of the world holds the same opinion to the contrary really. The fact is both the U.K. and Germany are experiencing economic pains while Russia has not only weathered the sanctions that were supposed to send it back to the "stone ages" but is now recovering. This has been a massive failure by the West, who seem to take pride in the ability to "wreck an economy." In many ways Russia is providing a blueprint to follow, though not every country has the resources to pull this off.
On another note, this war seems to have reached the point of being driven by egos. All wars involve ego to an extent, but when ego starts to trump logic, we get to the situation we are currently experiencing. The West underestimated Russian resolve, and the effectiveness of its military and economic weapons. It’s about time to admit it, but Biden and the leaders of the U.K. seem to be doubling down. Probably because they are ones who prevented the initial peace deal. This is getting sad.
If you believe my arguments aren't well thought out, well that's your opinion. I'll continue to the post, and I guess you can continue to roll your eyes, It will be interesting to see how things turn out in 10 – 15 years. At that point Finland can ask, “was foreign relations autonomy worth sacrificing to join NATO.” Russia is not a Pariah state. Just because the U.S. and some of its allies don't like you, doesn't mean the rest of the world holds the same opinion to the contrary really. The fact is both the U.K. and Germany are experiencing economic pains while Russia has not only weathered the sanctions that were supposed to send it back to the "stone ages" but is now recovering. This has been a massive failure by the West, who seem to take pride in the ability to "wreck an economy." In many ways Russia is providing a blueprint to follow, though not every country has the resources to pull this off.
On another note, this war seems to have reached the point of being driven by egos. All wars involve ego to an extent, but when ego starts to trump logic, we get to the situation we are currently experiencing. The West underestimated Russian resolve, and the effectiveness of its military and economic weapons. It’s about time to admit it, but Biden and the leaders of the U.K. seem to be doubling down. Probably because they are ones who prevented the initial peace deal. This is getting sad.
Finland can exit the EU at any point, if it decides joining wasn't worth it. AFAIK, Sweden is still hoping to get in. That's more surprising to me, than Finland. They don't have a border with Russia, and they've never been keen on the idea of being pushed around by the US or by a group. Although they have participated in naval exercises organized by the US, in the past.
I'm not going to wade into your speculative theories in the 2nd part of the post, except to say that "Russian effectiveness" (which some would say is an oxymoron) has been in the eye of the beholder since the beginning of the war.
I have read some claims by certain American conservatives that Ukrainians are being manipulated by the United States and the European Union into continuing to fight a war they have lost. This implies that President Zelensky is a Western puppet who doesn’t have the interests of the Ukrainian people at heart.
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