No. of Recommendations: 2
Yes, but then you say tons of other things (like that we're "sentencing" Ukraine to some misery) tNow this depends on the timeline assumption, doesn't it? Here we'll have to agree to disagree as to now long Putin can keep funding his war.
Even if you're right and Putin has maybe a year, that's still a long time for the Ukrainians to suffer. If I'm right and it's more like 10, then that IS a sentence.
You've only e which is more than the rest of the board combined, isn't it?
The reason we all advocate stay the course is because the West has already implemented nearly all of the good ideas that are both potentially going to work and not going to risk things spiraling out of control. You are dissatisfied with the fact that Ukraine's best chance of defending itself and avoiding Russia's takeover is "stay the course." That's fine, but the reason we advocate it is because we think it's the best option.Sorry, this is lazy. "Other experts have already decided things, so we'll just repeat them here" is a waste of electrons. I'm sure that under the Obama regime when Putin seized the Crimean peninsula a similar cadre of "experts" concluded that "the best thing to do is what we're doing" (which was less than nothing, unless you count having Obama attempt to stare down Putin actually doing something. Most people wouldn't.) How'd that type of thinking work out for the Ukrainians?
The point of "Debate" is to exchange ideas. Not just parrot what somebody else says. What's the point? And here lies the weakness of the Political Asylum thought bubble: there's no chance to actually ever step outside of it and consider alternatives.
This is not a marginal view. The entire Western coalition is advocating the middle path of continuing to supply Ukraine with the materials, but not getting NATO personnel directly involved. Not just the liberal countries - even folks like Meloni who are far more in Trump's corner are on board with "stay the course."Funny. I just read a second ago on this thread that now
everyone wants a cease-fire. That's interesting, because the first guy to suggest one and get the wheels moving in that direction was...Trump.
Another lazy way of thinking is "well, everyone else says...'. Come on, man. World history is replete with lots of Great Ideas that turned out to be really, really stupid. We should always have the freedom - and the intellectual sand - to offer up something other than what the Conventional Wisdom (which is often anything but) says.
I don't know why you keep getting frustrated that people who think that the current plan of action is a good plan of action aren't offering alternatives to the strategy that they both think is correct and working.Maybe because they package their "I don't know what to think, so I'll rely on somebody else to do it for me" with a pile of insults that clog up threads.
But they're not going to do even that. LOL. Really, dude?
https://cepa.org/comprehensive-reports/going-stead...Executive Summary
Trade cooperation between China and Russia has grown in tandem with anti-Russian sanctions and tensions with the West. A common border, economic compatibility, shared geopolitical perspectives and joint opposition to the US have encouraged bilateral relations.
*Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine Russia has been increasingly isolated economically, mainly due to Western sanctions, forcing it to rely heavily on China.
*The two countries have orchestrated unprecedented levels of coordination through trade in energy resources, electronics, chemicals, and transportation components.
*The relationship is unbalanced because Moscow is more dependent on Beijing than Beijing is on Moscow. A “reverse Nixon” strategy by the West — building relations with Russia to wean it off China — is unlikely to succeed because the economic ties are so important to both countries.
*Russia is becoming increasingly interconnected with China through the use of the Chinese Yuan. A significant sharing of national currencies between the two powers is reflective of their economic ties, and the use of services like China’s UnionPay cards has helped embed the Yuan in Russia’s economy.
While Moscow and Beijing have deepened collaboration, Chinese investors have reduced engagement in Russia due to the risk of Western sanctions. Investment patterns show that while Russia and China are valuable to each other, their economic relationship is not fully unified.That last bullet means "China has Russia in a great position right now".
Damn, *I* could have written that.
You posited that China might materially intervene to help Russia once the West's strategy of choking their resources drives them to the point where they can't continue to prosecute the war.
I never said nor implied the Chinese would throw troops in. The Norks have, however.
Does that tell you something about how China and North Korea view the Ukraine war?
