Generational Dynamics World View News

[Guest]

No man in the West loves his country. Or at least, not in the same way men loved their countries during the World Wars. Our leaders are not Statesmen (some aren’t even men), and the societies they lead are not cohesive. Ordinary people have been slowly pushed to the brink of economic ruin since the neoliberal revolution of the 1970s, with more rapid declines following the 2008 financial crisis and the recent pandemic-induced recession and subsequent inflation.

At a time when we hear war drums once more, the plain truth is that the peoples of countries like Britain and America are not going to pull together in a National effort on the Homefront. There will be no community initiatives to reduce fuel use, grow food in home gardens or buy war bonds. Nobody will experience spontaneous feelings of patriotism. The words ‘honour’ and ‘sacrifice’ will not be heard around the domestic hearth and the bar room table.

Most citizens are already frustrated with the status quo. If the warmongers get their way, this frustration will likely boil over into an explosion of anger at the prospect of spending mountains of gold and oceans of blood on the most pointless war since 1939.

Sadly, I foresee a future in which the only fires burning will be those set by White men finally pushed too far by our ruling class.

[Xeraphim1]

Putin doesn't have to take the entire Ukraine to achieve his goals. He can start by officially seizing the areas where insurgents and Russian contractors are already fighting: Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk. They'd likely fall in a couple weeks, given that Ukraine has Soviet-era equipment while Russia itself has modernized.

A good place to stop would be the Dnieper River, controlling the eastern portion of Ukraine. While they could probably take the whole country, the initial fighting would cost them heavily, not taking into account years of insurgency. Plus, west of the Dnieper, there isn't much of a pro-Russian population. In the border provinces, having a Russian minority and a portion of the population that's pro-Russian makes taking Eastern Ukraine simpler.

With Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine taken, Putin will have accomplished his goals, setting up a puppet government in the economically valuable region of Ukraine. Belarus and the Baltic States aren't going to want to try anything, facing the possibility of Russian invasion.

And what would Europe do about it? In theory, heavy sanctions could crush the Russian government, but in practice, they have no willingness to do this. Germany's always refused to do anything and Europe as a whole doesn't wish to get involved, with the possibility of losing natural gas shipments. Most likely, it would be limited sanctions that might sting Russia a bit, but won't amount to much in the end.

As for not gaining anything from a war. . . what did we gain from Iraq and Afghanistan, apart from several thousand killed, tens of thousands wounded, and a few trillion more in debt? It didn't stop us from fighting for twenty years. Russia's death toll would be much higher than that, but they generally consider Ukraine to be part of their territory.

The thing is that it wouldn't be as easy as you seem to think. Yes, Russia's military is a lot better than Ukraine's, but this isn't 2014. Ukraine's military is a lot better in equipment, training and especially in esprit de corps. When Crimea was stolen there was no fighting. If Russia tries to take Donbas and the strip of land along the Sea of Azov there will be fighting. Russia troops will die in ways that can't be hidden and the Russian people will not be amused. Russia went to great lengths to conceal the fact that Russian troops died in Donbas, lying about the circumstances and even using mobile crematoriums so there would be no intact bodies to show how they died. There is no strong desire among the Russian people to go to war with Ukraine and even less to see their sons, husbands and fathers dead for... something. There was not huge support for war in Chechnya and that was an actual part of Russia whereas Ukraine was always different and has been independent for some 30 years now. By the way, most of Russia's military equipment is modernized Soviet stuff, the same as Ukraine. It's biggest advantage is combat aircraft where Ukraine is quite lacking.

While there may be initial success, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq showed, keeping what you take is the hard part. Much of the aid to Ukraine has been in anti-armor rockets and lately anti-aircraft missiles. This means that every tank, every APC and every helicopter will be at risk. Expect to see more of the same aid funneled into Ukraine along with small arms galore. IEDs are easy to make and Russians would experience the same joy that Americans did in Iraq. And while Russians would be dying on a daily basis for the inefficient smokestack industries in Ukraine that would take billions of dollars to make even marginally useful, Russia would suffer crushing economic sanctions. Yes, Germany would prevaricate because they'd rather free ride and not make difficult decisions, but it's part of the EU which would pass sanctions that it couldn't ignore. And while France tends to be France, at the end of the day it is a dependable ally.

As to the comparison to the US, the big difference is that the US viewed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (at least at the time) as being in defense of the country against foreign attacks and the US was rich enough to be able to pay for the equipment to mitigate the dangers while having lots of international support. Russia would have none of these.

Again, it's entirely possible that Russia would do something stupid because stupidity in war and foreign affairs is a distressingly common, but as the potential costs become higher and the potential benefits become lower, I think the risk of war is decreasing. In some ways Putin is acting more and more like Kim Jong Un who acts up to get attention and to try to extort something from the rest of the world when most would prefer to ignore him. It takes away from the real worry, China. A good quote I saw awhile ago is that China is seeking dominance while Russia is seeking relevance. Perhaps some of the recent offers such as allowing inspections of anti-missile sites in Poland and Romania would be enough of a fid leaf to allow Putin to claim victory and stand down. And as time goes by, the relative strength of Russia vs. Ukraine is going to shrink. Ukraine's military is modernizing and excepting 2020 it's GDP growth has been higher while its corruption is less than Russia.

[Xeraphim1]

And what would Europe do about it? In theory, heavy sanctions could crush the Russian government, but in practice, they have no willingness to do this. Germany's always refused to do anything and Europe as a whole doesn't wish to get involved, with the possibility of losing natural gas shipments. Most likely, it would be limited sanctions that might sting Russia a bit, but won't amount to much in the end.

In many ways, the damage to Russia has probably already done. The biggest thorn for the Russian elites (if carried out), would be being banned from the UK. They send their children to elite British boarding schools and live in London. Moscow sucks, it's provincial. The oligarchs spend most of their time in the west. They hate living in Russia. They want to spend their time in Monaco or Nice, not the Crimea. They crave acceptance into British clubs and want to hobnob with the nobility, buy English country houses,the English football clubs, and generally be their normal vulgar selves and feeling accepted by the British nobility (which they never are, but are lied to to get their money).

The Russian elite are a weird bunch, mostly from Soviet apparatchik families that lack any sense of style or common decency. If the British and Americans start banning them and their children from the West, it will hurt bad. What's the point of being rich if you can only show off in front of half baked Russian peasants?

This. Putin doesn't survive without the support of 1. the security services and 2. the oligarchs. He can lose some of the oligarchs (which has happened in the past) but if he loses a majority of them he's done and there is no exit plan for Putin. He isn't going to get to live out retirement in a French villa.

[Cool Breeze]

No man in the West loves his country. Or at least, not in the same way men loved their countries during the World Wars. Our leaders are not Statesmen (some aren’t even men), and the societies they lead are not cohesive. Ordinary people have been slowly pushed to the brink of economic ruin since the neoliberal revolution of the 1970s, with more rapid declines following the 2008 financial crisis and the recent pandemic-induced recession and subsequent inflation.

At a time when we hear war drums once more, the plain truth is that the peoples of countries like Britain and America are not going to pull together in a National effort on the Homefront. There will be no community initiatives to reduce fuel use, grow food in home gardens or buy war bonds. Nobody will experience spontaneous feelings of patriotism. The words ‘honour’ and ‘sacrifice’ will not be heard around the domestic hearth and the bar room table.

Most citizens are already frustrated with the status quo. If the warmongers get their way, this frustration will likely boil over into an explosion of anger at the prospect of spending mountains of gold and oceans of blood on the most pointless war since 1939.

Sadly, I foresee a future in which the only fires burning will be those set by White men finally pushed too far by our ruling class.

A more likely take than the kumbaya unity posts I've seen around here. More historically accurate too (why? nation states have been the recent norm of the recent past, not historical past).

[Hapa]

I understand why so many people on the dissident right are cheering for China — because China becoming the world super power would delegitimization and potentially even destroy globohomo western liberalism as a viable worldview — but as someone that is half Chinese, let me tell you, you won’t enjoy it for very long when China actually is the super power.

[Jabroni]

Who is cheering for China? I don't see that at all.

[guest]

Who is cheering for China? I don't see that at all.

Off the top of my head: Paul Craig Roberts. Big tech seems to support them too~otherwise why would Amazon, Apple, and Facebook be censoring , blocking websites, and turning in dissidents to the Chinese Commies ? I think they are playing both sides of the fence; hedging their bets. Too bad it won't do them any good. They will be executed with the rest of us.

Most of the alt right supports Putin. Big mistake in my opinion. Putin probably won't shoot Cool Breeze, Thomasglee and the other alt right guys here. He will work them to death in a uranium mine. Not out of spite or anything, but just to see the looks on their faces when they are dragged away.

[Jabroni]

Who is cheering for China? I don't see that at all.

Off the top of my head: Paul Craig Roberts. Big tech seems to support them too~otherwise why would Amazon, Apple, and Facebook be censoring , blocking websites, and turning in dissidents to the Chinese Commies ? I think they are playing both sides of the fence; hedging their bets. Too bad it won't do them any good. They will be executed with the rest of us.

Most of the alt right supports Putin. Big mistake in my opinion. Putin probably won't shoot Cool Breeze, Thomasglee and the other alt right guys here. He will work them to death in a uranium mine. Not out of spite or anything, but just to see the looks on their faces when they are dragged away.

Where does this Xi and Putin dictator stuff come from? You guys are wacky. Xi is a communist and the CCP can't be trusted, but I just don't see the others making any problems in the world; they have defensive and strategic border power, that's it. Who cares what Europe does or doesn't do? They didn't pay anything for decades and now the US is supposed to care? Weird.

[DaKardii]

Who is cheering for China? I don't see that at all.

Off the top of my head: Paul Craig Roberts.

Roberts is probably THE strongest pro-China voice on the far right. But then again he cheers for pretty much anything anti-American, so this should surprise nobody. The central reason why he does this is because he believes the US government has lost all legitimacy and thus needs to be "humbled" by countries such as China and Russia. Other people on the far right who take this position include Nick Fuentes, Philip Giraldi, Lew Rockwell, and Ron Unz.

Then there are white nationalists/neo-Nazis like Andrew Anglin, Charles Bausman, Brad Griffin, and Richard Spencer, who cheer for China because they see it as being the biggest potential foil to neoconservatism/neoliberalism. They also see China as being the biggest potential foil to "international Jewry." They agree with the rest of the right (and a growing number of people on the left) that China is behaving more and more like Nazi Germany, except they think that's a GOOD thing.

[Guest]

We are exactly a century on from the catastrophic denouement of the Greek 'megali idea': the conquest of western Anatolia. In the period 1919-21 the UK under the Turkophobe Lloyd George backed those Greek nationalists under Venizelos who felt that Greece needed to recover its west Asiatic 'homelands' lost to the Turks in the 14th and 15th centuries, together with Constantinople. After initial successes the Turks staged a fightback, and the entire Greek population - which had subsisted in Anatolia time of out mind - was forcibly 'exchanged' with the Turkish population in Greece, or else massacred. This disaster, and Britain's active involvement in it, have never been forgotten in Greece. Last year, the retired diplomat, Michael Llewellyn Smith, published the first volume of his biography of Venizelos; it provides background to his classic study of the disaster, 'Ionian Vision' (1973). I should add that the Greek disaster led to the fall of Lloyd George's coalition, with the Chanak incident, which was also a landmark in the independence of the dominions, who refused to back the British government. Lloyd George never held office again.
The UK's encouragement of Ukraine may be defensible on ethical terms, but by encouraging Kiev, it is arguably repeating the mistakes that it made with Greece after 1918. The UK lacks any meaningful strategic reach in eastern Europe, as does the US.
Moreover, although the Sino-Russian combination is not without its weaknesses (Russia's anxieties about a loss of influence to China in central Asia - a fact of vast geopolitical consequence), the Sino-Russian alliance in 2001 (following the rapprochement of 1989), in which Russia acknowledges its status as the junior partner, is very likely unbeatable.