decibal cooper

'Large chunks' does not mean that they have control of the whole oblast. I did assume that Russia had all four, but honestly I look for info on the web for current maps and the state of things and cannot find anything, would be very interested to learn more, though. "All of the rhetoric painting Putin as the next Hitler on his way to conquer Europe" What threats? What evidence is there that Putin wants to invade these places if he cannot make quick work of 20% of Ukraine (which is probably what Russia will end up occupying once all is said and done, same as with Georgia when they tried getting NATO on the border before in 2008)? That is illogical. If nuclear war happens in our lifetime or after, do you really believe that is will be Russia who fires first? I am asking in all honesty. I did not forget the victim blaming from the interview, an interview that was 2 hours long (although 30 mins was mostly Putin's nationalistic version of history). Point is he said lots of things, like he was open to diplomatic negotiations with American re Ukrainian war. Obviously the terms would not be in Ukraine's favor, but it would stop the killing, and the longer it takes to get to peace the worse it will be for all parties involved except for anyone who benefits financially from this war. He routinely criticizes imperialism, and he was probably the first American academic (and maybe the only) to publicly criticize the Gaza war in writing and through appearances on news broadcasts - he has been on PBS for instance. Call it what you will (imperialism or sphere of influence), would you rather have Russia and China be the dominant force in the east and then rest of world or the United States. That is what is at stake, and the way that America chooses to make war with Russia instead of cooperating and driving a wedge between Russia and China, is foolish and also incompetent. It creates and sustains military conflict and leeches off the material profits of these unnecessary wars. Europe has enough power collectively to challenge American policy. They are essentially America's bitch at this point, and ironically the war in Ukraine accelerated this trend especially concerning the cost of energy oil and natural gas. That pipeline blowing up nordstream made a difference in other words. I do appreciate your response. That last paragraph is powerful. Mearsheimer looks at the world from the vantage point of conflict between the two highest players in the game, American and China in this case. His perspective sees little or no agency in smaller states, Ukraine in this case. You can look at the war from the perspective of Ukrainian liberation/resistance, or you can look at it as America fighting a cold war style proxy war with Russia, and the Ukrainians are just caught in the crosshairs. It's of course possible and easy too to just try and view both perspectives. However, ultimately, however you view the conflict, I think it is not advisable to avoid looking at what the possible outcomes of this war are, especially in terms of escalation. Related to escalation, America's sec of state just announced today that Ukraine will be a NATO member. This was the exact thing that former president George W. Bush did with Georgia before Russia invaded. Putin's language has changed concerning these matters too from soundbites I've heard. This was back in 2008. We were shoving NATO down their neck and planned to take it right onto the border. A red line for Putin.

I can check out the whole vid, apologies for being dismissive initially, but that guy's foundation at the beginning was prefaced upon the idea that American security is threatened by Russia and that we need to behave like we are at war with them, which I honestly believe makes the outcome for Ukraine worse. To be honest with you, I am convinced most by the American political scientist John Mearsheimer, who has been doing long form discussions and interviews of the Russia Ukraine conflict since hostilities began with Russia annexing Crimea in 2014, who puts more of the blame on America and its NATO allies than on Russia, although he by no means excuses the invasion or any butchery or massacres that followed. Barrack Obama's refusal to engage with or support full scale military conflict with Russia back then, when he was president, because, in his words, Ukraine will always be a core security concern for Russia, in a way that it never will be for America, was wise, and I would prefer that kind of leadership today. There was actual strategic thinking happening there. For that Istanbul situation, I do not think it wise to just say it was a wash and do some kind of he-said-she-said-doesn't-matter-anyway-cavalier--oh-your-wrong-because-whatever-you-read-about-it-is-ideologically-tainted- attitude toward serious diplomatic talks that could actually have ended the war. It was a very comprehensive, and there were five rounds of talks. Two of the people who were there at the highest level, Naftali Bennet from Israel as mediator, and David Arakhamia, who was Zelensky's top guy for diplomacy at the time, said that the central sticking point was NATO. Arakhamia said specifically that the rest of the stuff, the denazification and fact that those eastern oblasts had Russian speakers/culture/history etc., that all of this stuff was just 'seasoning' to use his term, and that keeping Ukraine out of NATO was the key thing the Russians wanted. There is a video interview with him saying this, and that Boris Johnson from Britain visited the talks and shut it down, advising Ukraine to continue with their offensive plans and promising that the west had their back. Pretty sure I posted that video somewhere in this thread. His remarks have been confirmed by a lot of people, which also was noted in this thread. After saying this, he recanted in an interview with the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainian Truth. Granted, you are right, its not good to rest laurels on something like this, especially given how complex the talks were and that we will most likely never learn of the full context and how both sides possibly may have been trying to outwit and/or deceive the other. All of this proceeds, though, from the fact that there is absolutely no strategic thinking happening in Washington, no diplomacy either. I watch the department of state press briefings. This is supposed to be our government's diplomatic office, but they do no diplomacy. They are more or less just a PR branch for the military at this point, helping to mismanage wars and spread death and arm sales any place they set their gaze (although it is a huge bureaucracy and there probably are a lot of ppl and sub-departments there doing good work in the world, but not at the highest level and not with the most consequential issues such as active wars). It seems deeply unnatural and somehow wrong that no diplomacy at all, no talks between Biden and Putin are taking place, to the point that people do not even consider that diplomacy might be an option (and is in fact the only way that this war ends). Most Americans have been brainwashed to thinking that there is actually a military solution to this issue, same as with virtually every war America gets caught up in. Even Politico is running articles about how Ukraine is in very bad shape militarily. Also apologies for lashing out at you @may be rude I need to make a better effort at not sharing my political views publicly. Each time I do confirms my belief that to talk politics with strangers, and even with friends at times, is always a blunder, and I wind up getting overcome by my own rage that these unnecessary wars are still going strong with no end in sight and all of the people needlessly dying. Even so, I do not like to be accused of 'furthering Putin's narrative' when sharing my views.

You don't have shit to say about the 2022 negotiations in Istanbul and how this whole thing could have been avoided. As far as some grand military strategy for winning this war being discussed 'behind closed doors' and how its not appropriate to have a realistic military plan presented to the Americans who are funding it with tax dollars, and the Ukrainians who are being killed, that's bullshit, and you are just sticking your head in the sand. They have no strategy. They are probably praying that the Ukraine military does not completely collapse before the American presidential election. It's also not a question of left versus right. The politicians literally do not give two fucks about what is happening there, so long as it does not threaten their own domestic political power. All of it proceeds from domestic political considerations and winning elections, same as with US support for Israel. No one at all in this thread is discussing the realities of the battlefield, what is happening there, and how depleted the Ukrainian armed forces are. There is no question that they fought bravely at the beginning, but they are now losing bad and the money tap is currently dry. You make it seem like they haven't already lost four oblasts that they have very little hope of retaking, not to mention that they are continuously lowering the age of conscription for their military and that what's left of the population, the people who have not migrated to other countries, and the fact that they postponed presidential elections. As Russia has the upper hand, they will most likely take more oblasts and kill more Ukrainians the longer the war continues. All for what? Also, I tried watching that video about the guy talking about arms and whatnot. You can tell in the first five minutes that he is full of shit, saying that we need to think of this situation like America is at war with Russia. Absurd. That does not help in any way, and its a relic of the cold war. Russia does not even come close to posing the kind of threat to the United States that China does, and by the way, this conflict in Ukraine has brought Russia and China closer together in opposing the US. Our leaders are incompetent and it almost seems like they are deliberately squandering America's power and influence on the world stage. All of our politicians that are making these decisions are old as fuck and they are still making THE MOST FATEFUL decisions based on a Cold War mentality, as if Russia was still some communist world leader powerhouse. Pathetic. By fateful decisions I mean ones that will result in the death of other people, whether Russian or Ukrainian in this case. And they got the American people to all cheer the war at the very beginning like it was some grand battle to protect democracy. Insane. There's no arguing against the fact that this war will eventually come to an end, and negotiated talks and a ceasefire will be the result. All of the rhetoric painting Putin as the next Hitler on his way to conquer Europe does not in any way help what the outcome of this war will be for Ukraine and the people that live there.

Feel like this has been clear for a while now. Absolutely none of the politicians in America, let alone the executive branch, has said anything about strategy or what a military victory would look like (not to mention the fact that Ukraine is losing bad ever since the failed counter-offensive last year). We have already sunk like 100 billion dollars into this conflict and also a lot of military training to Ukraine's military, training that all of the most powerful NATO countries has contributed toward. Washington's 'plan' is just to continue throwing money at the situation and to extend the war for as long as possible, to fight to the last dead Ukrainian. If they attempted to approach the diplomatic table, Russia has the upper hand now militarily (and this is not likely to change any time soon), so the western powers would have to negotiate from a position of weakness, conceded to Putin's terms, and be seen as 'cutting and running' to use an old phrase, and also they would be seen to have blood on their hands because of all the Ukrainians that have died for nothing (not to mention the land lost and the damage to infrastructure). America's initial strategic plan to weaken Russia by supporting a war on its borders and hitting them with sanctions has not only failed, it has arguably reshaped Russia's economy and strengthened certain sectors, like the domestic production of artillery. Like John Mearsheimer says, it is a war of attrition now, and whoever has the most bodies and the most bullets will outlast the other side.

"estimated yield of 475 kilotons of TNT" - kind of bummed out that America is modernizing everything, feel like that money could be better spent elsewhere. One of these new sentinel ICBMs costs a little over 1 billion usd. No doubt China and Russia are probably doing the same, will build more nukes in the coming years. Last I heard too a lot of the treaties between these countries regarding testing, non-proliferation, etc. have fallen by the wayside. This video from about a year ago.

Paradise tanager (I like the cool tropical plumage, very nice color palette on this birb)

Yeah it's an excellent track. Both Higher Self and Killin' Spree have a kind of spagetti-western soundtrack vibe that I like, also really like the tension and release of the guitar and drums on this one:

Good interview with that guy Josh Paul, who was in charge of US arms transfer requests from foreign governments (and ensuring that they would not be used indiscriminately against civilians) who resigned from the US Dept of State after raising concerns in the immediate aftermath of October 7th attack that just turning on the faucet for sending Israel the heavy weapons on a weekly basis would maybe not help things in the mideast (but his concerns were never addressed by his superiors, the secretary of state and president):

Oh Danny Boy

Polanski's Bitter Moon? If so, I love that movie, favorite erotic thriller and downright hilarious.

I often put this on during a rainy day, Bill Evans' Interplay. Jim Hall on the guitar *chef's kiss emoji*