Russia is losing. They have been losing since day 1. There is not a single thing that Russia can point to that would suggest any type of success: militarily, politically nor economically. Whether or not countries are doing it now or dragging their feet to help Ukraine, Russia is and will continue to be an international pariah. As Russian civilian war atrocities are discovered – and is determined to be a method of their terrorism rather than accidents and collateral damage which happen in war-- their pariah state will continue to be further economically isolated. Putin has strengthened NATO and world cohesiveness as opposed to weakening alliances. The invasion as a whole has been a catastrophic failure.
It will take time but Ukraine will rise and be stronger than it ever has been. Russia has given NATO the perfect opportunity to land an ally on their door step, if not a full-fledged member. The West will fund Ukraine’s recovery and fund its continued defense.
While we should be cautious of placing mortals (and gods for that matter) on pedestals, Zelensky is going to be a lion in Eastern European and global politics for a long, long time. He is someone that will be revered in history (probably not so much in Russian history.) He has taken on the Bear, his people have suffered the violent strikes of the paw and gnashing of fangs. The Bear’s roars have come up empty at the end of the day, however. Ukraine will be victorious.
I think that NATO and the Biden administration is playing this exactly right. We give Ukraine all of the tools to fight and win and have a country of their own. The Ukrainians are fighting for their identity, they are fighting for the soul of their country. They are fighting for their independence from their neighbor that has abused them for decades. If we did it for them, it would not be theirs.
Hilarious. What you just demonstrated is someone who believes what the media propagandist sold you and you bought it hook line and sinker.
When its common knowledge that Russia is very much in control of various regions in Ukraine and its not even close. Meanwhile Germany, France, and other European countries are now facing a real crisis of going through a winter with no heating Oil.
Yeah Russia is really losing when the Ruble is the highest performing currency to date.
Don’t forget that parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (regions) were under the control of Russia-backed separatists since 2014. Russia now wants to grab all of the Donetsk/Luhansk oblasts, as well as Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.
The Donbas situation is a bit weird, Ukraine lost control of the territory but Russia didn’t quite gain it. “Officially” there were independent Donetsk and Luhansk republics, but no one recognized them, not even Russia until just a few days before the invasion of Ukraine. There is obviously an ongoing battle over what happens next.
All indications are that Putin really and truly believes his historical horseshit that Ukrainians are just Russians with funny accents who would greet Russia as liberators and quickly acquiesce to Russki Mir . Also worth noting that Putin has repeatedly used military adventures as tools to prop up his public standing, and this one comes after a quite a few years of being unable to return to the economic growth of the first decade of the new century. So, in that sense based on your comment about Ruble performance, his approach is working. At least in the short term.
The Ruble performance is all on your God Biden and western sanctions, you’re just too naive to admit it! But hey, way to go again from answering a direct question and do a pivot. That is why no one here takes you serious.
This foreign policy article covered an expert poll on China’s likelihood of invading Taiwan as a result of the events in Ukraine.
The small group of respondents (fewer than 20 percent) who said the probability of a Chinese attack has increased provided several rationales. “The diversion of global attention to Eastern Europe furnishes [China with] an opportunity to make a move [in Taiwan],” one respondent wrote. “The US government looks weak by not having prevented the Ukraine invasion in the first place through diplomatic initiatives,” another wrote. These arguments suggest a Chinese attack on Taiwan is more likely because of U.S. choices or capacity after Russia’s invasion, but such experts are in the minority.
The respondents who said the prospect of a Chinese attack has declined since the conflict began in Ukraine (34 percent) focused on the Russian economy—the most common response to our open-ended question. “Even if they hold Ukraine, it is a pyrrhic victory, with extensive harm to future investment and trade,” one respondent wrote. Other experts focused on the military lessons: “Seeing Russia struggle so much with an invasion of a country it shares extensive land borders with … China must be more hesitant about having to mount an attack across the straits and with military forces far less well prepared for such an undertaking.”
As one respondent summed up the reason the conflict in Ukraine has reduced the prospect of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan: “The combination of moral, economic, and military reaction against Russia has given China a real-world example of what the world’s reaction to an attack on Taiwan might bring.”
Finally, the largest group of experts (over 46 percent) reported that the events in Ukraine will have no effect on China’s calculus. These experts highlighted the fact that either the situation in Taiwan remains the same now as before the Ukraine invasion or that China and Taiwan are fundamentally different from Russia and Ukraine. “China is not as belligerent as many think. China knows that economic power is more effective than military power,” one of these respondents argued. “[T]he situations are just not all that comparable in that the deterrent commitment is much higher in Taiwan than it was in Ukraine and … [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin is more aggressive/power-hungry & risk-acceptant than Xi,” another wrote.
I have wondered many times if Putin has/had and arrangement with Xi where the successful invasion of Ukraine would soften the way for an imminent move on Taiwan and the resulting tension provide further opportunity for Putin to move on Estonia and Lithuania.
There is going to be no imminent move on Taiwan because of the extreme difficulty of conducting an amphibious invasion across 180 km. We will have years of warning as China prepares for such an operation.
Conducting such an operation directly against an entrenched enemy is the most difficult feat there is in the military sphere, which is why there have not been very many attempts in history. Most such operations in the annals of warfare actually depended on landing at an unopposed site to establish a base and accumulate forces.
The U.S. and UK succeeded at Normandy because they had practice, nearly two years of drills, complete control of the air and sea, a flotilla of specialized battle tested equipment, and the ability to achieve numerical superiority with Germany fighting the Soviet Union, and subterfuge that caused a German misallocation of forces.
China would be attempting it with the U.S. Navy in the picture against a foe that will have detailed real time data on the movement of forces, and would be landing where the entire nation would be mobilized to repel them.
China hasn’t even begun to prepare for this.
I think the Russian invasion does increase the likelihood of China attempting at some point, since it establishes a precedent for it, and China will figure that it can learn from Putin’s mistakes. But not soon.
But the rest of the world should start considering how to support the democracy of Taiwan now. Abandon the “one China” diplomatic posture for example and make it clear that there are two states and the reunification can only come through mutual agreement.
If China seems to be embarking on a course to prepare for such an operation expect to see Taiwan developing specialized defense to defeat it. Defense is by far the easier task.
Anybody who speculates or writes these types of articles trying to predict if China is going to invade Taiwan really doesn’t understand the Chinese nor their mindset. They really don’t need to invade Taiwan, and wont.
Putting aside whether Putin and Xi sat in a room and exchanged actual words laying out the scenario that you propose, each man has amply demonstrated that under their leadership, their countries share a goal of muscling their way into positions of preeminence in the world, and not a preeminence shared with the United States and Europe (China: “advance global multipolarity and the democratization of international relations”; Russia: “move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order”; me: “Oh shut the fuck up, what do you take us for, morons or something”), because autocracies like Russia’s and China’s cannot peacefully coexist with societies that are open, free, democratic, etc. So the goal is an exclusive preeminence, and the point of preeminence from the standpoint of a Putin or Xi is not to light a candle in the darkness for all to share, as it might be for a benevolent hegemon, but to do exactly as they please while their “subjects” praise them for it.
So I guess what I’m saying is that Xi and Putin probably understand each other so well that it did not have to be said: you do me a solid on this (mis)adventure of mine in Ukraine, and I’ll have your back later.
The relationship between Russia and China, whatever its and whoever leads them, has a repulsive force also.
Russia and China share a 2,600 mile border. There were shots fired over it in the 20th Century. But in this Century the two nations have at least agreed on where the border is. But the tension remains of a mineral rich and people poor Siberia bordering a mineral poor and people rich China.
That reality means that Russia can never become too weak and too dependent upon China. The relationship, whatever it is, can never include honest trust.
China’s threat against Taiwan will not be executed by military means, but by economic ones. The world has accepted the One China legal narrative. China has merely to exercise it and bring Taiwan to heel if it desires to do so.
I believe that if Taiwan fires the first shot in a hot war with China, it will have lost all leverage with the world community.
Under the rubric of One China, China could place a lightly armed cutter carrying CIQ ( China inspection and Quarantine) inspectors inside Taiwanese territorial waters and do random inspections of incoming shipping. The ships either have to trigger an international incident by ignoring commands to accept inspection or Taiwan has to initiate an armed boarding which the cutters crew will fight and lose.
The world turned against Russia for choosing to go to war with Ukraine. Imagining a Chinese attack on Taiwan as a mirror of Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a mistake.
Still peddling that Russian Collusion hoax nonsense?
You need some new material and not surprised coming from a someone who has an inferiority complex from being a short loud mouth Puerto Rican your insecurities are projected on to the right because you can’t take responsibility for both being a failure and being someone that women reject! Might explain why you still going to that dry well!
