Kel Varnsen he might actually get shot for real this time lol
2024 US Election
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Raises some interesting points. It feels like the world order has changed before our very eyes, some people are struggling to accept it.
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JazzG I mean nails the point trump has no idea what he's doing in the negotiation as well and a total clown that the Russians are laughing at. He thinks about everything as a business and it's totally played for fool by the Russians giving them everything they want.
Also UK needs to lean into Europe as you said the world had changed plucky little Britain is weak on our own we are going to need to be part of a European response to the new world order.
The missing piece of the "multipolar" assumption is whether there's any real trajectory for deglobalisation. I think that remains to be seen and the question is being tested now.
The utility of military power will mostly be at flashpoints in the imperial peripheries like Palestine or Ukraine (not at all discounting the people who live in these "peripheries", but it's their geography that allows empires to view them as expendable) while China and the US remain interdependent.
The self-preservation trick for imperial satellites like Australia is not to think like an imperial periphery. It's when your country ends up as little more than a subsidised missile and submarine base that you're in real trouble.
JazzG didn't finish the clip but this guy starts by saying we're "leaving" the rules-based order and that's because of strong men like Xi Jinping Putin and Trump, and Europeans didn't share this mindset.
He mentions the Yalta conference but did Europe have this mindset in the thirty years after when it beat down liberation movements in Africa and Asia and millions died in liberation wars? Or did that rules based mindset raise its head when they joined American wars and invaded Iraq twice Afghanistan Libya and Syria?
This whole vague bollocks of "rules-based order" is the most transparent attempt to deflect and distract from an actual order that exists called international law. Not like they're without issues of their own but the United Nations and international courts and conventions have clear concise rules to govern everyone like the absence of which this MI6 prick claims to lament, just funnily enough Europe and especially the US (under Dem or Rep presidents) simply don't observe or adhere to any of it when it's not convenient. Just astonishing to me that people actually still fall for it in 2025.
Even one of the most annoying men in the world has lost patience with the most annoying man in the world.
Russians are laughing after completely depleting their military equipment, almost a million men dead, and a front that is barely moving? Worst win of all time.
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jones I think it's more a reflection on the geo political situation saying you need military power to be respected in the current climate. There are plenty of criticisms of Western hypocrisy but the US wouldn't have gone making these kinds of moves over the last 30 years where they blatantly sell out clear allies to countries that are committed to their defeat ideologically so things have definitely changed in the past 5 or so years. The idea that a country like Russia would launch a direct war (recognising the crimea event) would not have been imaginable and that there's looking to be no team long term consequences either.
We have swung back into a similar landscape of the 20th century time frame he's referencing. You mention the United nations but it's always been weak as body now almost all big countries don't even bother to pay it lip service. You can see another equivalent in the league of nations the delusion was believing we had actually effectively replaced the former with an effective version, we never did.
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Kel Varnsen the Russian state will, Putin doesn't care about his people, they have all the weaknesses you claim today but also sanctions and no long term out. Trump and the US should be in a very good position to push a negotiation that costs the Russians. Instead giving them more then they would have dreamed forcing Ukraine to give territory, no security guarantees, proposing removal of NATO troops from all Eastern NATO countries with no reparations for destroying an independent country. Giving that as you say Russia is on its needs that's a massive win for them. They launched an aggressive war of they come out with normalised relations, US openly abandoning Europe, gaining territory. It's been clear Putin's gamble these last 18 months was I hope trump gets in I think we can get a positive outcome and he was absolutely right.
Gurgen nah what I'm referring to is there are no 'friends' in geopolitics, everyone looks out for themselves. Germany for example is supposed to be even more grateful than other European countries for the Union yet they've had zero scruples to abuse the Euro and Maastricht rules to run an internal devaluation policy for two decades and export mass unemployment to its neighbours.
awooga83 sorry but I don't buy it, the US has been doing the exact same shit since forever it's just gone unreported (or at least with less coverage) because they bothered to put more varnish on their policies, what's new is that Trump is just showing the bare face of power. There's countless examples but not sure it gets more obvious than when the US signed The Hague Act into law 20+ years ago allowing them to invade the Netherlands if ever an American soldier was put on trial there ffs.
Russia invading Ukraine is novel because for once it's not a country that's part of the West that's committed the crime of aggression. Everybody outside the West knew that the global order is only orderly for them as long as the US decide it is.
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"For once"? Non-western countries invade other countries all the time. The very same Russia took 20% off one of its tiny neighbours only this century.
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Gurgen yes, for once. If you talk about the Georgian war regardless of how one feels about the South Ossetian conflict it was Saakashvili's troops who crossed the border first, hence the term "crime of aggression"
Compare the number of dead in these conflicts with the victims of Western wars, it's not exactly comparable is it.
I see what @jones is saying. There are acceptable invasions and unacceptable invasions. In South Africa, we are now dealing with the threat of sanctions and lies pfficially tabled by US congressmen about our government's relationships with Hamas and the Chinese Communist Party simply because South Africa dared to take an opposing view on Israel's misdeeds in Palestine. It's been very damaging economically to South Africa. But I am still happy the SA government stood on business here.
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jones I mean Russia has been involved in plenty of conflicts of such nature Afghanistan, Syria and numerous African conflicts all which were linked to Russia. It's not like Russia just started to do this either it's been that way since the post WW2 order as an the big powers have been. The difference for me is there were unwritten limits to what the big countries would do in some theatres which no longer appear to be in play which to me is a change in the reality of things.
awooga83 Afghanistan is the only war that fits the description and that wasn't Russia, it was the Soviet Union - the conversation was regarding post Cold War. Syria the Russians were actually there with a mandate under international law and "numerous African conflicts" I'm not sure if you appreciate the reason why Russia or Russian mercenaries were ever called in there.
I've no relation to Russia, they as any other country with the means to do so will abuse it and commit horrendous atrocities - we were friends with a Chechen family back in the day and I vividly remember the images coming from there in my childhood. That doesn't mean that what Russia under Putin have done is even remotely comparable to the pain and strife the US have rained on the planet in the last four decades.
JazzG -- because Trump wants credit and material benefit for ending it. If it ends because Russia's offensive collapses, then Trump won't benefit as Ukraine will regain power (and "rights") over its land, resources, and future. He also can't double down on support after decrying it for so long in his campaign.
jones distract from an actual order that exists called international law.
Yeah we both know none of the super powers in this world will give two shits about International law when it suits them.
MistaT He also can't double down on support after decrying it for so long in his campaign.
It wouldn't be the first time he did a U turn on anything, guy has free PR on social media and they'll just twist anything he does to say "Art of the deal"...
awooga83 Also UK needs to lean into Europe as you said the world had changed plucky little Britain is weak on our own we are going to need to be part of a European response to the new world order.
Plucky little Britain needs to ally itself with strong countries not a bunch of countries who are a bigger joke than us when it comes to military spending. Europe so far does not look like it is about to get its act in order anytime soon.
Now it's Steve Bannon who takes his turn to do a Roman salute on stage at the CPAC conference, to cheers from the gathered crowd of fascists.
jones I mean I will disagree on that what the Russians did in Syria is pretty horrific they prolonged a civil war resulting in many thousands of deaths and were involved in directly killing civilians. Okay Assad called them in but I'm not sure that makes it any better personally then any Western actions and the Assad government would have collapsed without their help. Similarly in Africa they were plundering resources and certainly not acting in the wider people's interests but it seems we'll disagree on this aspect.
I'm not saying the west aren't hypocrites they absolutely are just that Russia are not any different really any international law is meaningless if the world and the big powers don't enforce it and none of them have been. Russia started to murder dissidents in the UK under Putin which is a pretty big deviation from the previous post cold war period. I think that is a marked change and I don't know there are example of the US murdering dissidents like that? How was international law able to be implemented in that case as well?
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awooga83 I don't know there are example of the US murdering dissidents like that?
Well, the US just tortures them in Cuba until they die or kills them in drone strikes and calls them terrorists.
I agree that the Russians have absolutely no ethical leg to stand on, because no matter how evil the US and the so-called West may be, it doesn't justify evils perpetrated by others. Whataboutery is deferred vengeance, which is no kind of justice.
Kel Varnsen That is not even the worst part of it. Europe/EU has bought oil, gas, coal, fertilizer etc from Russia for €2-4 hundred billions since just 2022. The russian war effort is completely dependent on his funding (and western currency). All because of an insanely naive energy policy...
It is ridiculous. They are still exporting to Russia as well, they are doing it via other countries like Georgia, Armenia & Kyrgyzstan. It has been a completely half arsed and they have knowingly left these loopholes open, wars are good business at the end of the day! But now they want to give out lectures, give me a break. If they had gone cold turkey on Russia this war might have ended differently.
US trans people who've had their gender legally changed for a decade or more are finding they're being issued replacement passports with their gender assigned at birth marked. Land of the free.
awooga83 we will disagree on what Russia does in Africa because to be honest it doesn't seem you know very well what they're doing there. Their presence there is because the people of the Sahel were sick of French corporations exploiting their resources for decades and leaving them with none of the riches and a ruined environment.
jones I wouldn't profess to know everything about the situation or dispute French exploitation. But from what I read about Russia's activities there, I don't think they have acted in a positive way and have been involved in indiscriminate killing, looting and or also exploiting natural resources. My argument is not the west is better but Russia also aren't doing good in these foreign interventions.
The west is better. That's why people come to the west, and flee Russia.
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flobaba Full transcript here.
It's pretty much the "foreign policy realist" worldview in fact he also mentions Mearsheimer by name.
One interesting point made is that the US has in recent decades developed a habit of deciding how other powers will respond to changing events based on game theory rather than dialogue or prior declarations.
the stupdity of the EU is that Trump is presenting them with the political out to break out of the US hegemony but instead they insist on being the cheese eating surrender monkeys.
Burnwinter I don't really know who this guy is but skimming through the post cold war observations are not unreasonable that the US just presumed everything is going to be great and didn't take time to help Russia navigate that difficult moment. But I don't really believe this idea of just saying Ukraine won't join NATO changes Putin's views who published his own paper explaining why Ukraine was not a legitimate country and was created by the Soviet union and had no right to be autonomous.
awooga83 Yep this standpoint has become a particular lens on the conflict. It is a relatively conservative, right wing, "hard-nosed" view that sets aside right and wrong in its analysis of great power motives.
There are high stakes for Russia in the demand that Ukraine be protected by NATO's Article 5. The war has made these stakes even clearer. As we've seen and every Russian can see, Ukraine is struggling to sustain its campaign exactly because NATO military forces can't and won't directly join its lines.
The question "did NATO expansion cause the war?" belongs to 2022 now, what's relevant is understanding Ukraine will be forced into long term neutrality.
The war has been disastrous for Ukraine and humiliated Europe. It should have been avoided if there were any way to avoid it. It's killed hundreds of thousands, consolidated Putin's control of Russia, and it has achieved the United States' and not Europe's objectives by alienating Russia from the EU.