Comments by "Persona" (@ArawnOfAnnwn) on "CaspianReport" channel.

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  87.  @fearlessleader343  Those are internal issues, and that too fairly recent ones. Internal policies created them, and internal policies will attempt to deal with them. That in no way means America has dethroned China. Plus even if they fall through, it won't result in American companies coming back en masse. Meanwhile, Trump blockading China is wishful thinking. Blockades are an act of war, and I rather doubt America has the capacity or the will to engage in a protracted conflict with China right in its backyard, at least without some very strong provocation ala Pearl Harbor-style. Hell, they couldn't even handle far weaker nations in the Middle East or SE Asia. The American govt. will be forced to step back by both international AND domestic pressure long before the Chinese rise up in revolt against their own (just look how long Iran or Cuba has put with the same, and they both have far lower capacities) - it's not like the Chinese people are going to view this positively, they dislike the US probably far more than their own govt. If you think either the US establishment or public is going to tolerate such blatant and obvious swinging of the American dick around (pardon the language, but it conveys the impression well), then you've little appreciation for why Trump is so controversial even for his foreign policy - it's not because it's particularly different (it isn't), but because it's blatant and tactless. Meanwhile, plenty of countries have declining birth rates. China has more capacity than most to deal with that for a long long time - far longer than any period over which we can reasonably speculate the outcome, and certainly longer than both the current US administration, and even several of the successors to it. Hell, they even have millions of poor left to enrich who'll then buy more. There's plenty of room for incomes of the middle class to rise further as well, which powers further consumption. China isn't Japan or Germany - far from it (and even those nations are still doing okay, especially Germany). The reason China's domestic consumption is relatively low isn't because of its lowered population growth, but simply because the Chinese (like the Japanese, and unlike the Americans) save obsessively rather than spend more. That's a cultural thing, not demographic, and likely will fade over time as families get more used to being comfortably middle class rather than constantly stressing over their financial insecurities.
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  90. ​ @accent1666  Yes I did forget that, because it mostly isn't a thing. Apart from the odd exception, as well as a bunch of former colonial powers, nations don't tend to fight wars far from their borders. Even today almost all wars not featuring the US are on or close to the nations' borders. The War on Terror is a very American concept, not something typical of wars in general. Nations don't tend to wage wars against vaguely defined concepts, they wage wars against other nations. Calling it the 'war on terror' just means America reserves the right to wage war on anyone as part of it, as well as lends it that pretty moralistic sheen Americans seem to love having so much. And 'nation-building' lol. That's just stabilizing a client state, similar to in Vietnam. Which you've now failed at. You killed Bin Laden in a special operation in a foreign country, which hardly required war. America fights for geopolitical reasons, dressed up in moral excuses, but that doesn't make it okay. "We've been in Iraq to depose Hussein" - lol, you don't even realize how weird you are if you think that's such a normal thing to do. Even the WMD excuse, or lies, are hardly typical. This is NOT how most nations today are - they DON'T get to go into countries just cos they don't like who's in charge. You had no reason to go there, which is why the war was roundly rejected as unjustified. You're taking American policy as the default standard, when in fact it's more of an exception. And 'peacekeeping' lol. There's already a global peacekeeping force, and it doesn't belong to America. China recent war was...in the 50s and 80s lol. You're just proving my point. And those wars themselves showcase the difference between China and the US as well. The Sino-Vietnamese War lasted a month and killed about 60,000 people on both sides. The US Vietnam War lasted nearly two decades and killed over 3 million Vietnamese. Vietnam is also on China's borders, but thousands of miles away from America. It had also not laid a finger on the US, yet you went to war there anyway. Yeah, real nice choice of examples. "because they aren't the world's superpower police" - yet another example of America taking itself for granted. First off, you're not the world police, there is no world govt. that granted you that mandate, you just like to style yourselves that way. Secondly, you also suck as 'police'. Police is meant to be neutral, and to preserve peace. The US has been far from neutral, and has been in more wars than anyone else. US foreign policy is riddled with hypocrisy and inconsistency, all only united by them all serving American interests. You claim to stand for democracy despite having autocratic allies and even having put dictators into power (Chile, for example). You claim to hate Islamic extremism despite having one of the most extremist Islamic nations on Earth as an ally. There's nothing 'police-like' about you, it's just straightforward pandering to US interests. Stop trying to paint yourself as the 'police' in order to pretend it has any legitimacy, cos it doesn't. That China hasn't done this is just as well, because it isn't a role that exists. Calling the US' bad behavior 'policing' only highlights how Americans will find any excuse to justify said bad behavior.
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  126.  @samthesuspect  Battles? Lol. Do you think war is some sort of game people enter just to see who can kill the most people for the sake of it? Wars are launched for strategic (either political or economic or both) goals, and the US has failed to achieve its strategic goals on plenty of occasions. You even alluded to two of them in your comment, and since you mentioned Vietnam earlier, that's another one. Also here's a little tidbit that might enlighten you a bit, given your earlier comment that assumed the region was salivating at the chance to fight China for you. Did you know that only around a tenth of Taiwanese actually support an immediate declaration of independence? Yep, that's according to their own surveys. Is that cos they actually love China? No, it's cos they're being pragmatic. Support for Taiwan being fully recognized as independent is MUCH higher in the west, particularly America, than it is in Taiwan itself. Cos, like with so many of the US' conflicts, it doesn't have to live with the consequences, BUT THEY DO. For Americans it's easy - they can wax eloquently to themselves about being champions of freedom while also putting down their main rival at little risk to themselves. It's all upside. Even the possible disruption in chip supply chains is something they're trying to negate. That isn't the picture for Taiwan, or indeed for any of the nation's in the region, including my own. The US can sit pretty behind its massive blue walls, double sided port access and plentiful natural resources (oh, did you think America is successful just cos of the strength of the American spirit? Lol) and be relatively unaffected by any of the messes it causes elsewhere in the world. The people actually living there aren't so lucky. And they know it. Yet another reason why you staying far away in the Malacca Stait makes you look cowardly - it shows you're not even willing to risk the lives of your soldiers, given you're already risking little else. Oh and btw, the US has never fought a military peer since I think the war of 1812. The whole Cold War it never fought the Soviets directly, and was dragged into both world wars unwillingly. Hell there were people in Japan itself who doubted they could win a prolonged war with the US, hence the lightning strike attack they used to end it quickly. By contrast we have, and on our own. Hell we've even fought a nuclear armed state already. We lost one but won the other four. You fought a bunch of much weaker states and got tossed out by a bunch of guerrillas, ending with the govts. you fought to overthrow taking power, which is widely recognized as a loss. We don't rely on the West, and neither does Vietnam
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  143. ​ @wlee9888  I'm FROM one those damn neighbours, Mr. Yankie. We've even actually fought a war with China. I rather think I've a feeling for China's aggression better than you do. And I didn't say China isn't aggressive, I said the US puts it to shame. Which modern history backs up. The difference is over what, and how it's treated. China has straightforward territorial issues similar to most other nations on Earth, and is condemned for putting even a toe out of line (tbf, most nations are condemned for aggression). The US doesn't even have territorial integrity issues, has the literally safest borders anyone could ask for, yet STILL manages to get into more wars than anyone else, and thousands of miles away from its homeland (one of the only nations in history to do that regularly, and the others are all former colonial powers), over mere geopolitical and/or ideological alignment usually dressed up in moralistic excuses (where I come from, we've heard plenty about the 'white man's burden', so I'm less than impressed by its modernized incarnations), and worst of all actually manages to sell that so that it actually gets away with its wars with not just a lack of punishment or repercussions but even still gets to put itself on a moral pedestal. China doesn't need any more condemning as it already gets plenty, it's the US that's lacking in that regard. A nation going to war is one thing, but there's nothing more infuriating than one that always pretends it's on a holy crusade for the greater good. And that's a big part of American culture, go look up 'American Civil Religion' on Wikipedia, and note the 12th Tenet of it. Fact is China hasn't been to war in decades, America is even now in several and yet look who the narrative is against.
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  238. ​ @captainalex157  Bruh the Vietnam war was also the US 'defending its allies'. 3 million Vietnamese died as a result. There's nothing defensive about the US' 'defences'. They're excuses for defending its hegemony. Who're they going to defend anyway? Taiwan? The US didn't even support Taiwan initially, only after the Korean war - cos then it fit into their larger global war against communism (and it had nothing to do with democracy - Taiwan was a dictatorship itself back then). And who're they going to defend Taiwan from? China has been threatening Taiwan for seventy years, yet today not only is Taiwan prosperous, but China is its largest trade partner by far (contrast that with Cuba, another island that made the mistake of allying with the rival power - and has been invaded, blockaded, embargoed and sanctioned for the last half century by the US for it). The Taiwanese themselves are more circumspect about the whole thing - their own surveys show only about five percent of the people in favour of immediate confrontation, whereas the vast majority of Americans are gung-ho about it (of course they are, the US never has to deal with its messes - it can always retreat as it did in Afghanistan, while its home turf hasn't seen war for over 150 years). So who exactly are they helping, the Taiwanese or their own interests? Ditto Japan. Ditto Korea. Ditto Vietnam. Ditto India. None of them are as keen on fighting China as the US is. Sure they don't like China, but they actually have to deal with the fallout of a war - the US can just helicopter in and out as it pleases. The US' idea of 'helping its allies' always curiously aligns with helping itself. That's what hegemony is all about.
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  243.  @2funny269  Considering that Zelensky was trying to join NATO even before this war, yeah. The 2014 occupation of Crimea followed the Maidan revolt that saw Ukraine switch to the West, and the 2022 war started after Zelensky made noises about them joining NATO. It was even preceded by a message not to Ukraine, but to NATO, which NATO ignored. Russia has seen country after country join NATO, against its wishes, for 3 decades now. Protesting didn't work, so they tried making the point by force. Like it or not, it's seen as an extension of American power, just as the Warsaw Pact was Soviet power. Similarly do you think China wants Taiwan just cos of some historical claim? Lol no, they've left well enough alone for over half a century now. The current tensions began in 2017 - nothing changed in China then (Xi came to power in 2012), it changed in America. Specifically Trump came to power and launched an anti-China crusade, which Biden has continued. Taiwan is part of the US' 'first island chain' aimed at constraining China just as NATO does to Russia. Hence why the Chinese are so determined to make sure they never get it, since it's already allied with the US. Even flattening it would be preferable to them than letting America have it. Ultimately neither of these nations will never let the US gain unassailable power over them. They'll go to war before they let that happen. Just as the US didn't tolerate its rival having forces close to them. The end result of this contest is just ever more war.
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  321. ​ @shawnmilum6233  A few Americans imprisoned? Bruh, THAT'S your "justice" for hundreds of thousands of dead? Why the hell isn't the country under sanctions itself? And no they don't, not compared to the west anyway. I meant that 'orders of magnitude' bit literally. For instance, the Donbass War had about 13,000 deaths. The Afghanistan war had a quarter of a million. That alone exceeds all of Russia's wars this century combined. And Iraq was over double that. And that's not even a Russian number btw - it comes, of all places, from America itself. As for your "two wrongs" argument, that's just a copout. You know as well as I that America isn't going to be sanctioned after this war just as they weren't before it. What makes it worse is that they actually claim the moral pedestal as well, while abusing their position of power. Why would you ever expect the world to abide by the strictures of a hypocrite? The problem isn't so much even that the US gets away with it, but that that people like you get so upset by other people doing it while there's little reaction to the US cos its victims poor brown people far away (here's a quick question - do you even know what the Second Congo War is? It's not a US war fyi, but it really clarifies why the US gets away with its shit - the deadliest war since WW2, barely 2 decades old and still ongoing, and most in the west haven't even heard of it lol!). I'm pretty sure the Afghanistan war death toll I mentioned above was also surprising to you. You've likely only been hearing about how great the US occupation was for women's rights. People in the west think they don't hear biased accounts just cos their media isn't state-controlled lol. That's naive - western media caters to western audiences, cos it's profitable. And everyone in the west loves thinking they're the good guys. Here's another shocker for you - the US was literally voted the greatest threat to world peace by the world just a couple years ago. And the real irony is that it was in a poll run by Gallup, an American company! And it wasn't even close - second place was like a quarter of their score lol. As usual it wasn't widely reported (though you can easily find the results just by searching for greatest threat to world peace online), and instead now you hear endlessly about a Pew poll that says nations hate China - that literally polled just about a dozen western nations and Japan (the Gallup poll was truly global - it had participants from every continent). And yet they so confidently decry other media accounts as propaganda while trusting only sources from their own (which I've used exclusively here, and STILL trashed your vaunted reputation - cos while you may have a 'free media', not all media is created equal i.e. are dominant, indeed even many smaller western media channels are already being demonized for not parroting the mainstream narrative). And this ties in to your issues here cos your horror about this war (conveniently affecting white Europeans aka people like you) is similarly manufactured (look up Chomsky about that). All war is terrible sure, but the fact that the deadliest war since WW2 isn't even heard of says a lot. You want to talk about war crimes? Go protest about KSA still doing it right now with American support in Yemen. More people have died there than in Ukraine, and it's still ongoing. And get the US under sanctions for causing the most deaths of anyone. But you won't. You'll be angry about this war hurting the people like you, with little more than a passing curiosity in the lives of people unlike you ruined by your people. And I've no clue where that Assange bit came from. I didn't say anything about him.
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  381. Alright, allow me to clarify (or retrench, if you choose to view it that way) my position - I'm not saying China doesn't want a seat at the table, or even considerable influence at that table. I'm saying China doesn't seek to be a superpower in the same vein as the US (or previously Britain). Yes, if it needs to be able to combat pirates, it will seek to be able to. Yes, if it needs to be able to defend its trade routes (from incursions short of WW3), it will seek to. But that's not the same as what America can do (and often has done) now, or what Britain could in its heyday. That kind of global military reach is simply unnecessary for China (as anything short of WW3 wouldn't need it), and is extremely expensive to maintain (not to mention pisses a lot of people off, which China certainly doesn't need more of). The only space it needs to be able to oust America from is the South China Sea, and perhaps (maybe) as far afield as the Straits of Malacca. Beyond that range a blockade would hurt so many nations, or be so ineffective if applied selectively, that the US would never try it. Combating pirates, meanwhile, doesn't require a particularly strong navy - yes, it's technically blue water, but let's be clear that it's nothing compared to the US navy. China certainly does not need to have the capacity to occupy nations thousands of miles away, something almost no nation (even first world ones) has or even pursues. In that sense, China (and India, for that matter) doesn't seek to be a superpower i.e. like America today. But that's a level of superpower that's arguable if its even worth pursuing. China will still have plenty of influence over its region (including militarily) and beyond (economically and diplomatically) to be able to stand up to America and make its demands, while having invested far less money into the enterprise.
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  403. ​ precizion  I never said they were a gracious offering lol. I said they were business loans - since when was business known for being gracious? The point is that China doesn't include all sorts of intrusive policy conditions on them that undermine the legislative sovereignty of the nations taking their loans, which is par for the course for loans from the west. That's what those Structural Adjustment Programs were - and why they were hated, and still failed btw. China offers loans with few conditions (incentives for using its companies being one of the common ones, which is also common in business) other than paying it back, and before you go on about them grabbing ports when the payback fails - much like businesses, they typically just renegotiate the amount, and occasionally even forgive it i.e. write it off. I'm sure you have some ready examples to counter that, but you might want to look into the details of them (Sri Lanka still owes China for that port for instance - they raised capital from leasing out their port to China to pay off Western debtors lol, cos the majority of their short-term debt is still owed to the west, not China). Don't believe me? Read the studies of it (and these are non-Chinese btw) - The How China Lends: A Rare Look into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign Governments study – co-published by AidData, the Center for Global Development, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics – found scant evidence of debt traps. Like How China Lends authors, the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm, didn’t find any clear-cut asset seizures in a review of 130 bilateral debt renegotiations involving China between 2000 and 2020. The firm’s previous research found bilateral debt renegotiations with China “usually involve a more balanced outcome between lender and borrower, ranging from extensions of loan terms and repayment deadlines to explicit refinancing, or partial or even total debt forgiveness”
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  404. ​ @arhus12  Wagner isn't the only force active in Africa, both the US and France have their own. Hell France even controlled half their money supply, as this and many other channels have covered before, besides its own history of regime shenanigans there. Wagner has contracts btw - they were literally hired to work there. Funny thing about Russia's neighbours. Finland stayed neutral ever since WW2 and was never attacked. Ukraine dropped that in 2014 and was attacked soon after. And now that Finland joined NATO there's a new base being opened on that side aimed right at it, which they saw no need for before this - pretty clear pattern there. NATO expanded even without Russia going to war. They even sent a message to NATO just before this war, which was dismissed as usual. You've given them plenty of reason to try other methods, and no reason to think diplomacy holds any promise. It isn't just Russia reacting this way, cos it's a pretty rational response. China is doing the same. They too are being encircled. Show the map of US presence around these nations to any past ruler and tell them the nations are enemies and they'll laugh at attempts to paint it as innocent. The US is even open about it, the 'first island chain' and its purpose is no secret, nor the fact that Taiwan is part of it. And so after over half a century of doing little about their claims on Taiwan, China stepped things up from 2017 (violations of their space were barely present before that, now thousands each year). Nothing changed in China then (Xi came to power in 2012), it changed in America. Trump came to power and began an anti-China crusade, which Biden has intensified. China is, ironically, Taiwans' largest trade partner - you think they stand to gain much from a bombed out ruin with a restive population, compared to just trading with it as is? Lol no. But letting America have its own version of Cuba just off their coast trumps any economic value. And that's one of a string of US bases and allies all around China. Their last war was in 1979 fyi, and look where things are headed now. Even the US did it when their enemy put forces on Cuba. And Cuba has been punished for it FAR worse than Taiwan has ever been. Blockaded, embargoed, ineffectually invaded already and finally sanctioned into destitution for over half a century for daring to defy Uncle Sam. Hell the whole world besides Israel has voted against Cuba's treatment for decades now and still it continues. Compared to that Taiwan trades freely with whoever it wants.
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  424.  @alessandronavone6731  Also, you should wonder about what a democratic China would even be like. I think you'll be disappointed. Almost none of the CCP's foreign policies is likely to change. Taiwan, the South China Sea, the BRI, all of it. Why would the Chinese people be interested in toeing the western line after all? How does that serve their interests? It'll be of benefit only to the Chinese themselves. About the only thing that might change is the situation of the Uighurs, and even that's unlikely. They're a rebellious minority in a far flung province, ethnically different from most Chinese. My own country is democratic, and yet that hasn't stopped us from clamping down on Kashmir - with a lot of public support btw. The west acted all betrayed in Myanmar when Aung San Suu Kyi didn't stand up for the Rohingya, and yet what they didn't get is that her supporters - the Burmese people themselves - also hated them. It would've been political suicide for her, caught as she was between the army who wanted her gone anyway and the electorate who mostly disliked the Rohingya anyway and so wouldn't see her championing them as representative of them at all. You were literally asking her to martyr herself for your ideals, not those of her own people - and thereby sacrifice her own other long term goals. The same could very well be true in a hypothetically democratic China. And besides the Uighurs, there's no reason for such a China to change its stance on any other issue. After all, the US is democratic and claims to stand for world peace - yet election after election hasn't stopped it from being the most country most at war since WW2 (go ahead and google for the survey that asked which country is seen as the greatest threat to world peace - the US won by a landslide, and that survey was done by an American polling agency!). Because those wars serve the US' interests, and even in a democracy people aren't going to vote against their nations' interests. So what're you even imagining a successful revolution would even do for you? Cos it likely is nothing good. As for the Chinese, those surveys indicate their satisfied enough for now.
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  435. ​ @donaldhysa4836  Your argument is that there are other options? You're contradicting your own point then. Russia was also an option, the most competitive one. You just cut out an option - that doesn't raise your position, it reduces it. In fact there are even MORE options, that the US is responsible for you not having. Like Iran, for instance. You're literally flocking to the country responsible for shrinking your options, after shrinking them further yourself. Meanwhile other places that don't follow that line - other BUYER options all these places have that you're competing with - have far more options than you do. And guess what? Europe is flocking to other autocracies, which calls into question the whole moral grandstanding about democracies versus dictatorships. Those gulf states are autocratic, for one. But hey they're even flocking to other autocratic states that're pursuing WAR, like Azerbaijan. So much for learning your lesson. Well tbf, Europe isn't stupid - the reason they didn't learn their lesson is cos there's no lesson to learn. You want to pretend this is some great moral stand that Europe is taking out of the purity of their hearts, but really that isn't how geopolitics works. No one gives a shit about these countries being autocratic or even being embroiled in wars of their own - for instance Saudi Arabia, a gulf state US ally, has been carrying out a war in Yemen for nearly a decade now, and no one cared until they killed ONE American reporter. So much for the value of human life. Yeah, you have options. But if you really want to take the moral high ground, then you'll quickly find you have FAR fewer options than you think. Even the US only ended its last war just last year, and is already picking fights all over the world. Norway may very well be your only option, assuming you genuinely want to pretend to be moral, and their oil is the priciest of all. And if you don't care to take the moral high ground, then you might as well just go back to using Russian supplies, which were by far the most competitive anyway. Or, you know, just do what you're doing now - be hypocrites preaching moral grandstanding on one hand, and sacrificing all that to get the best deal from whoever on the other. Can the EU do without Russian gas? Maybe, but not with its conscience intact as it so wants to pretend. As you want to pretend. So just us a favor and drop the moralism. You're not as pure as you think you are. And that's why you traded with Russia to begin with - it wasn't out of any kind of altruism. And thus you shouldn't be 'amazed' at it.
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  499. ​ @alessandronavone6731  Not really. China knows a thing or two about revolutions. Tiananmen Square was so easily crushed, and has such a small body count relative to the population size, because it was just a flash in the pan i.e. it was small. It's also so easily censored in China because it just didn't touch most Chinese, so there's not much effort needed. It wasn't going to overthrow the CCP any more than the Khalistan movement (which was even bigger) was going to topple my own country's government. It only feels significant to westerners cos they keep harping on about it. Go ahead and google surveys of Chinese public opinion - you'll find even American ones consistently find a higher level of public approval of the govt. than in practically any western nation. That isn't because of threats - since the participants in those American surveys aren't exactly going to be ratted out to the CCP - but because of delivery. Increased prosperity is a great way to keep people happy, and they've delivered that for decades now. This isn't just true in China - Brunei, for instance, is an even more autocratic country than China is, and yet the people there also put up with their king (who literally concentrates every power in himself), because the state is so rich that it's able to provide practically every service they could ask for. Westerners don't get that because they're so steeped in their own ideologies and so used to imposing their way of life and mindsets as the human standard for everyone else, so the idea that people could ever think differently from them is anathema to the western worldview. China has had centralized autocratic regimes for most of its history. The CCP is hardly as alien to them as westerners suppose.
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  589.  @fabik805  No the effect is the opposite of exponential, it's diminishing, and you'd better be thankful for that cos if it was exponential your societies would be unrecognisable by now. Immigrant fertility goes down drastically per generation until it basically matches the host population. As for the current situation, you could say the same about Sri Lanka in the last few decades. Just as an example. Point being that when things go bad, they go really bad cos the effect is compounding due to a positive feedback loop. Europe (much more than the US btw) NEEDS to keep things running well because a major economic catastrophe will turn those flows off thereby worsening said catastrophe. It has very little domestic capacity itself. It's reliant on outside support for nearly everything. Even its much vaunted pivot from Russian gas was enabled thanks to outside support, not domestic production. Europe doesn't have much in the way of resources, doesn't produce much in the way of goods compared to its rivals apart from luxury goods and a few industries like pharmaceuticals, and doesn't produce enough people either. It needs to import most of the things it needs to sustain itself, paying for it by way of high payout products like high fashion or upmarket cars or even pharmaceuticals, but none of that is going to sustain it if things majorly go awry. And if Europe doesn't offer a riches for immigrant peoples, they'll stop too. Well, unless you're okay letting in poor Africans or Syrians.
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  659. "With the exception of China (and USA), Russia does not border any nuclear power" - except this is about the USA to begin with. You think Russia is worried about Estonia? No, they're worried about the US, for whom they see NATO as little more than a front for its power projection (and view that is fairly common outside the west btw, not particularly Russian). And people vastly overestimate the protection that nukes afford Russia. Sure they prevent an all-out invasion of the country, but beyond that nations including Russia would find it hard to justify their use - thereby making them useless. The problem is people imagine conflict as this glorious all or nothing affair involving vast armies conquering whole nations. Most conflict is far more subtle than that. The US has intervened in nations all across the world, and only a handful of those involved a full scale military deployment. Hybrid and unofficial war is a thing, Russia itself does it too. And nukes don't protect from that. In addition if ever a full scale war with the US - and let's be clear it's the US that concerns them - were ever to occur, they would be at a significant disadvantage. Lastly regarding Canada, it's seen as the US' little bitch by many already. Hardly an example to hold up to Russia for how things could be. Neither Russia nor China relish the idea of having a relationship with the US akin to that of Canada. "Russia as a state needs to disappear" - yeah, lines like that are really selling the reassurance alright lol...
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  708. ​ @Permuh  Ironically, I'm Tamil too, albeit just to their north. What people on the street say is a function of popular narratives, not reality. The reality is that not only does Sri Lanka NOT owe most of its external debt to China, a lot of its debt to China isn't even up for repayment yet. The port lease agreement was a way for a country that's long had issues managing its finances (Sri Lanka has been to the IMF 16 times so far, second in the region only to Pakistan) to pay off more pressing debts. Here, hear it for yourself - "All these loans were obtained from China EXIM Bank, most at commercial rates. However, each loan had a grace period of around five years and a payback period of 15-plus years. For this very reason, the loan repayments for Hambantota do not amount to a large portion of Sri Lanka’s external debt servicing payments; some loan repayments have not even started yet. Debt repayments for the loans obtained for Hambantota port amount to only around 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s total annual foreign debt payments, and even less among total debt repayments." "By the end of 2017, only little over 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was owed to China and most of that was in the form of concessionary loans. Instead, the largest portion of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was international sovereign bonds, which amounted to 39 percent of the total foreign debt as of 2017. These are commercial borrowings obtained from international capital markets since 2007, and such bonds have resulted in soaring external debt servicing due to the nature of the debt. Unlike in concessionary loans obtained to carry out a specific development project, these commercial borrowings do not have a long payback period or the option of payment in small installments." https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/is-sri-lanka-really-a-victim-of-chinas-debt-trap/ "Steep payments on international sovereign bonds, which comprised nearly 40% of the country’s external debt, put Sirisena’s Government in dire fiscal straits almost immediately. When Sirisena took office, Sri Lanka owed more to Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank than to China. Of the $ 4.5 billion in debt service Sri Lanka would pay in 2017, only 5% was because of Hambantota. The Central Bank governors under both Rajapaksa and Sirisena do not agree on much, but they both told us that Hambantota, and Chinese finance in general, was not the source of the country’s financial distress." http://southasiajournal.net/sri-lanka-the-chinese-debt-trap-is-a-myth/ Sri Lanka is turning to China in the first place is because it's messed up its debt obligations elsewhere. But they're still a minority creditor, that's been turned into a political boogieman both local and global.
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  718. ​ @la3424  I know our border disputes, and they have nothing to do with the US' issues with China. In terms of fighting, they might result in a limited border war at some point. So be it. That does not cripple either of us. And I never claimed to speak for Indians as a whole, but I can speak with more authority than non-Indians only hearing of us due to our potential to be part of their conflict with China can. And you'll find most Indians don't relish the idea of being the wests' tool, not least of which is due to our own bad treatment by them (never mind colonialism, even after that - for instance the US has both sanctioned us before and even tried to militarily threaten us before, besides allying with our rival Pakistan whenever it was convenient for them). Here's a little tidbit about India you may not have heard of - you've undoubtedly heard the controversy caused by us not ditching Russia when the West went full bore against it last year. But the way western media presents it, you'd think it's just cos we buy our weapons from them. Not even close. There's a long history to that, but here's a small bit of context that should enlighten you - even our opposition parties supported the position. And it's not cos we don't have an opposition, we have more political diversity than most democratic govts. and they clash with the govt. at every chance they get (most recently they even used a controversy around one of our major private businesses to try attacking the govt.). But they didn't oppose this, quite the contrary. Cos it simply doesn't have much purchase here. That's how determined India is to not let the West tell it what to do. We have similarly resisted attempts by them to get involved in our border disputes as well, under various different govts. for over half a century. We will deal with China on our own terms and for our own interests, not for your issues.
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  734. ​ @pauloakwood9208  "NATO was on the point of being disbanded only a short while ago" - this has never been close to true. Political rhetoric is just that. NATO still expanded even without a Russian war, and it being dormant and its members lax is nothing compared to actually formally disbanding it. There was never a real attempt to do that. The whole 'waking up' of NATO just shows how hollow those claims are. You can't 'wake up' what is dead. NATO had 30 years to disband, but grew instead. "In a matter of weeks, Putin created his own worst nightmare" - also not true. NATO expansion predates this war, and in fact it was one of those expansions in particular that put Russia's back up - the admission of the Baltic states. Russia protested that strongly, and it fell on deaf ears. There was no war on them at the time either. It was likely then that they realized diplomacy was fruitless, and NATO expansion inevitable unless it used more than strong words. Russia even sent an offer to NATO before its invasion last year, which was also ignored. They see no recourse but to use force or else it's just a matter of time before NATO expands all around it. Hence why Ukraine switching sides in 2014 Maidan revolution was so important to them - to Russia that was an echo of the Baltic states, as yet another state would join NATO eventually. And Zelensky made no big secret of his aspirations to do just that. Finland and Sweden entering NATO doesn't change that calculus, because Russia had no reason to think it wouldn't happen when push comes to shove anyway. NATO hasn't just expanded during war, it kept expanding steadily even when there wasn't a war. As long as Russia has no diplomatic way to stop that, they see it as an inevitability. Both Finland and Sweden kept close ties with NATO already anyway. In fact to Russia Finland should've served as a model - the so-called 'Finlandization' - for other east Europeans states. It stayed neutral, even during the height of the Cold War, and in turn hasn't been attacked by Russia since WW2. But instead they chose to not be neutral, and Ukraine is an immediate example of how that worked out. Finland joining NATO doesn't make it secure, it puts it at the borders of a much larger conflict. "Russia is isolated from most of the world" - this is a gross overstatement that the west loves telling itself because it likes to think that it is the world. Fact is the vast majority of the world is still open to Russia, the only countries sanctioning it are the western alliance who represent less than a quarter of the worlds' nations (mostly all the members of the EU) and even less of its people. The majority of the world isn't interested in isolating Russia, any more than they wish to isolate Iran. The only reason it seems that way is cos of the dollar hegemony that impedes trade. While most countries want the war to end, they don't have any hardline policy on how that is done like the west does. Nor to punish Russia cos, in their eyes, it's not much different from the shit the US often does. Russia has resources, and the war is none of their business, they'd just like to trade. "other pariah states like Iran" - did you know India, a Hindu majority nation, has long had a plan for a major trade corridor running through Iran, a Muslim majority one? Iran isn't a pariah state just cos you say so. It still has countries wanting to trade with it. It's a 'pariah' only cos of US sanctions, which also impeded that trade corridor. The US has a problem with Iran, and her other Sunni neighbours, not the whole world. Stop taking the US view of the world for granted. "No outside power could have done more damage to Russia than Putin has" - ironic, considering Putins' popularity comes from saving Russia from the chaos the west put it through in the 1990s. But no, the damage is from western sanctions - Putin didn't put those sanctions in place, you did. Russians aren't gonna blame Putin for any of this any more than Cubans blamed Castro. They're gonna blame you. The history of sanctions is one long string of failures at causing the kind of popular revolt and political change they're ostensibly for. The only thing they've ever done is cause the people under them to hate you more. They haven't stopped anyone from pursuing their goals either, as seen in places like Iran or DPRK. Russia lost faith in diplomacy with the west likely when the Baltic trio joined NATO. And now it has even less faith in it. And it has plenty of fellows who share that view. Including increasingly YOUR worst nightmare - China. Who hasn't even gone to war yet, but still has sanctions placed on it. This is not how you make a safer world. This is how you emulate the world before WW1.
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  747. ​ @willywonka4340  "the only surviving Navy that can Patrol the Seas and to keep peace for all Nations willing to join the US" "the United States dictate the current world order" - there's another word for this - hegemony. It usually comes with negative connotations. And you're surprised there are people who don't like that? Hegemony has never been popular lol, except with the hegemon itself and their coterie. "United States ... has the best geography" - this part I agree with. I just find it curious how Americans take pride in it. It's like being born rich, and puffing your chest up for it. I've come to realize it's cos they always just ADD reasons for America's greatness to their long 'America F*ck Yeah' list, rather than substitute them. Zeihan tells them they're blessed, but it doesn't ever cause them to doubt that America's success is cos of all the jingoistic reasons they told themselves before. So America doesn't just have great geography, it also is just an awesome country with awesome people always doing awesome things so they totally deserve to take pride in how awesome they are, don't you know? Right.. "no longer Patrol the world oceans, everyone else will suffer as a result" - this is an excuse used to justify said hegemony that's trotted out a lot with no real backing. Protect the sea lanes from what lol? Pirates? We don't live in the age of sail anymore. Even mid-tier nations these days have navies that far outstrip anything modern day pirates can rustle up. You don't need the US to drive off Somali pirates, and in fact it was done by a multinational task force cos any functional nation can do it. Modern navies aren't even built with piracy in mind - you don't need subs or aircraft carriers to fight pirates - they're built to fight other navies. The US navy too. You think they're spending so much on it to do some sort of charitable service for the world? Lol no, the US navy exists to impose the US' will on other nations, not to 'secure the seas'. As for us, we'll be fine. We have more than enough of a navy for security, and in fact were part of that multinational task force.
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  866. ​ @LiamN4321  "The idea that the US is a uniquely evil power that exclusively influences countries around the world is very very stupid." - That's just your imagination of our reasoning, no one has said that. For my part, I said they wouldn't do it because it's an excessively expensive endeavor (and by this I mean not just monetary expense - for instance, it affects your international relations as well) that's simply not worth it beyond a point. Also partly because the kind of power the US currently enjoys came out of a unique historical moment and circumstances (two world wars that effectively cleared the table and also allowed it to bargain for some fairly uniquely favorable international arrangements), which means other emerging powers are unlikely to have so golden an opportunity to replicate it (unlike similar level catastrophes rearrange the world once more). Your examples of Japan and Germany are themselves evidence of this - each has proven it can take on the world if it wants to, and both have long since recovered from WW2, so why don't they? It isn't just the US 'keeping them in check' - their people don't even really aspire for those glory days again (even shorn of the brutality and genocide). Why? At least partly because they'd rather enjoy higher standards of living instead. There's little to gain from conquest these days and, as Iraq and Afghanistan have recently shown, plenty to lose down the hole of a protracted conflict. The US has until recently shown itself willing to shoulder that expense (in return for unprecedented influence, so they weren't just 'taken for a ride', but it's unlikely China will benefit so much due to the US alternative), and so these countries have simply allowed themselves to benefit from that. China doesn't trust the US and so will expand its military power as much as it feels it needs to, however, it won't expand it much further because (and even more so because it's poorer than the US) there are better, more enriching things and policy strategies it can leverage instead. Look at Germany - it dominates the EU without threatening any members with war. Japan is currently spearheading the largest free trade agreement on the planet (after America's abdication) without any military stick to force nations to comply. Why wouldn't China seek to replicate their success? They have influence aplenty, and China would have proportionately more. Even security interests these days tend to be better served by a domestic focus - America's War on Terror has been largely ineffective (or worse) at eliminating people with the worst in mind for the US, but its domestic anti-terror infrastructure has proven up to the task instead. And China is even more capable of domestic security operations (while projecting power over its nearby region), unfettered by a vibrant domestic media or civil society. It'd be far cheaper and more efficient for them to maintain security with a local priority than a globe-spanning military. Basically, China won't be as the US not because China is nicer, but because it's the smarter play. They can see what it takes to be a USA (and they don't even have any reliable allies, as the US had in Europe post-WW2), and in most cases (without any uniquely favorable global circumstances) that role fails a national cost-benefit analysis.
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  874.  @brianfury5516  I love it when members of 1-2 century old states form analyses from - and pass judgment on - empires that, in some cases, lasted several centuries (or even millenia in the case of Rome), rather conveniently in their favor. Besides, institutions? What are those? There is no widely accepted and non-vague definition of 'institution', and most that exist tend make it overlap considerably with culture - an explanation the authors already reject. Meanwhile in their book they seem to be simply using 'institutions' as a thin veil for some form of liberal democracy and capitalism, which is really no different from the triumphalism of books like 'The End of History'. Apparently such institutions will endure, as opposed to their opposites, which flies in the face of history, but is accepted only because of a quirk of memory - even a month experienced yourself feels a lot longer than entire past centuries never actually felt by you. Also, that just pushes the question back - how do these miraculous institutions get developed in the first place? Does 'Why Nations Fail' now require a companion book, 'Where Good Institutions Come From'? And then there's China. As with so many western intellectuals, they too confidently predict China's downfall. Pretty much every nation or empire has fallen at some point, yet it's curious who people from opposing ideological choose to fixate on as the one most likely to fall (hint: it's rarely themselves). China hasn't fallen yet, despite decades of predictions that it will. At some point though, it's bound to. And when it does, all these writers will get to raise their hands and claim, "we told you so!". Except you didn't. You made a vague prediction of a vague outcome. Almost none ever publish a timeline or date for China's fall - forget years, they can't even seem to nail it down to a decade - and yet you want to call that a prediction?! If this was physics, it'd be like estimating the speed of light as somewhere between the speed of our fastest rocket engine and the initial expansion rate of cosmic inflation. What kind of prediction is that? Literally anyone can be right about anything, as long as they're vague enough about it. Considering that you're drawing parallels between societies with lifespans measured in entire multi-historical periods and those measured in a handful of generations, but in favor of the much younger ones, I suppose it's fitting that you seem to have issues with appreciating the true value of time.
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  939.  @TheReaper569  "highly unlikely as today structure of systems are highly stable" - are they? The potential for Black Swan civilization-threatening events is actually much greater today than before. For instance, we have much improved medical capabilities. However, the spread potential of a good plague is much, much higher thanks to how global and interconnected our world is. The Spanish Flu, for instance, was a thoroughly modern plague - it killed more people in less than 2 years than far older plagues have killed in centuries (and more than both world wars). And there's even more travel today. Meanwhile, the knock-on effects of such a plague would impact every other aspect of our societies - economies would crash as workers died or stayed at home, supply routes would suffer as total quarantines are imposed, even the internet would be flood with misinformation and also conspiracies leading to ethnic tensions and social unrest. Etc. The thing is, we haven't made ourselves more stable - we've made ourselves more efficient. But that's come at a cost - lowered barriers that facilitate contagion (of all kinds, for example financial contagion in the 2008 crisis) and less diversity (again of all kinds, from food to language to lifestyle to economic and political systems). Both of those impede efficiency, but they also impede the spread of collapse. We are now as a species more efficient than ever before, and aiming to improve further, but that also leaves us more vulnerable than ever before. For instance, monoculture crops leave us very vulnerable to total crop failure - but we're creating monocultures in everything, cos they're simply more efficient. To borrow Tom Friedmans' terminology, we're flattening the bumpy terrain - flattening the earth - to increase traffic flow, but that also means there's nothing much to stop or slow the flood - it'll flow MORE easily through the channels we're creating. Consider the results of a much lower level of interconnection in 1914, turning one bullet into the spark for a world war - and that wars own drawdown helped spread the deadliest plague in history. Or consider that just one nuclear warhead exploded in the high atmosphere can knock out communications and power for an entire nation - an advanced nation is dependent on that infrastructure for virtually everything, even down to the distribution of basic food supplies. We're not stabler, we're more precarious.
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  942. ​ @josha136  I think we've seen enough of rich nations giving themselves "moral duties". From a hypocritical 'white man's burden' to an ironically somewhat more honest 'Manifest Destiny' to a once again hypocritical 'freedom and democracy' to whatever excuse comes next - the rhetoric changes, but the overarching sense of moral superiority and condescension doesn't. And neither does the tide of death. There's enough damage to the world already from nations who convinced themselves that their killing is "saving" it. The best thing ya'll can do by now is just to leave well enough alone and let the rest of the world sort itself out from the mess it's been left with. You're not helping. Hell, I find it ironic that the people who're so committed to "helping" the world can only get themselves excited for it when it involves war. For instance, almost all rich countries, save 3 (Sweden, the UAE and Norway), give out less than 1% of their national income as aid (which their people still grumble about anyway). Aid isn't very effective anyway, but the point is that your "moral duty" only matters to you when you get to kill a lot of people to do it. The simple explanation for this is that it isn't about morality, it's about hegemony. Afghanistan doesn't just have to have a non-Taliban govt., that govt. will likely also be more amenable to the west. Curious, that. You really think "moral duty" is what's keeping you there? Don't be naive. Morality is an excuse - a useful way to drum up public support, just as all the many previous versions of this so-called "moral duty" have been. And the end result is that a lot of poor brown people die. So I think it's better for the world as a whole if you guys just shirk your "moral duty" - you don't have to do it, you're excused. Just leave the rest of the planet the hell alone. Btw, this isn't just my take on it. Google 'American civil religion' for more on it. And pay attention especially to the 12th Tenet. Also look up Americentrism as well as the many critiques of American exceptionalism. You can say stuff about western European attitudes too, but they're no longer the superpowers they once were, so it doesn't hurt as much ('cept in the case of France in west Africa).
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  986. ​ @Pardevejs  It always fascinates me when people try to undermine their opponents in an argument, while taking their own side for granted in with bold claims based on nothing. You made an excuse for Europe's failure, tried to make your enemy look like they're at the end of their rope (a claim that's failed ever since 2022's bombastic sanctions programs failed to achieve all they trumpeted, and have continued to do so - Russia didn't live up to expectations at the onset of the war, the wests' bombast has failed ever since), and most tellingly did not even bother to prove Europe was so overwhelmingly more powerful as you say it is. Meanwhile my point was much more modest - I acknowledged they'd have trouble if they pushed towards Poland, but you'd be in a bad position if they stuck to the Baltics. I'm not here tooting Russia's horn, but you are tooting that of the west, based on nothing. Literally Ukraine itself wasn't impressed - they've complained about Europe all through the war and looked to the US for salvation. It isn't just shells that Europe has failed to show itself up with, it's everything. Almost all of the weapons that they've celebrated or are asking for are American, from artillery to tanks to now planes. The only notable exception, early in the war, was drones from Turkey. The US has put out more than Europe and its stuff has acquitted itself better than Europe, albeit not enough to actually win. Europe passed packages to send weapons to Ukraine all through 2024, yet they were still starved of everything. It's only after the US finally passed its own package that they're expecting to pull through, at least enough to hold out. No, this war hasn't just undermined Russian prestige prior to the war (albeit their resilience is surprising everyone), more than anything it's made Europe look weak. You thought you'd be fine without Uncle Sam, but without even being at war you've ended up looking very vulnerable indeed. And over 2 years in Russia is holding up, while Europe is still disappointing. If China were to fully support them, god help you.
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  1017. ​@Al No they couldn't. This isn't Hollywood. You don't just get to kidnap a nuke scientist like Dark Knight and then the nuke is yours. And the US makes promises it doesn't keep (and this is hardly the only example of that - hell it just recently hung the Kurds out to dry), so don't be surprised if Russia does the same. NATO expansion is heavily driven by the US. France and Germany are actually the ones who've mostly preached restraint and caution. But ultimately NATO is US-led, so if the US wants it to expand (and there's applicants), it eventually does. If the US had kept that promise, it would never be where it is now. Russia would likely have insisted on a formal treaty for the same if it had been in a position to do so at the time, but it wasn't. But they made it plenty clear they didn't want it getting any closer, and the US made is plenty clear that they understood that. And then made it clear they didn't care. In any case, why oppose Iran getting nukes then? They've got plenty of reason to want them. Not to ward off Russia, but the US. Ditto with Libya. Iraq. Etc. etc. If you want Ukraine to have em', these guys should too. Meanwhile Israel gets off scot free with having them, just like it gets off scot free with its abuses of Palestine. Also my own country, which btw was also sanctioned for developing them - not by Russia, but by the US. Despite both our enemies having them. You don't get to pick only your friends to have nukes and preach non-proliferation only for your enemies. If Ukraine gets to have nukes, everyone gets nukes. Period.
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  1021. ​ @burningphoenix6679  If you think invading Russia would be easy, then you're more overconfident than they could've ever been. The greatest military powers in history have invaded Russia time and again, and been destroyed for it. Hell the US got kicked out by a bunch of guerillas who weren't even being supplied by the world powers - not once but twice! Anyway befriending Europe does nothing about the presence of the US. It's worth noting that the US is a common factor - you want to blame Russia here, so who're you going to blame in East Asia? The Chinese? What about the ME? Iran? And so on. You keep blaming everyone else, when there's one country whose influence unites them all - America. Funny how that commonality doesn't strike you. Also funny how the US engaging in the largest wars this century (with a bigger death toll even individually than all of Russia's wars in the same timeframe COMBINED) and suffering no sanctions for it doesn't bother you. And how the US literally sanctioning the bloody head of the ICC herself for daring to initiate an investigation into its own war crimes doesn't bother you. Or how it literally has a law authorizing an invasion of the Hague should an American be tried there doesn't bother you. Or another law mandating sanctions on independent nations simply based on who they choose to trade with doesn't bother you. And so on. Yeah, friendship sure is magic in your world. Cos apparently it makes hypocrisy and hegemony magically disappear. Russia, and for that matter China, has to be a superpower because they have a superpower as a rival. One who's shown aplenty that it will take action, military or otherwise, to keep them down. And bases all around them to ensure it can do so. But of course it is the nature of the status quo to be taken for granted, no matter how ridiculously lopsided it is.
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  1023. ​ @joshuabenton3785  Ironically the Russian economy grew the most under Putin. There's a reason why he has high approval ratings even by foreign surveys. In contrast, the leader Russians hate most was feted by the west - Yeltsin. Anyway, China has made itself into a powerful economy just as you advise and guess what - the US is picking a fight with them too, and similarly has forces arrayed against them. And this for a nation that hasn't been to war in nearly half a century, versus a nation that exited its latest war just last year. Stop talking down to Russia or anyone else while the US gets a pass - a nation that upsets US hegemony will find some reason or the other put forth for why it needs to be curtailed. Now you have the nation who's long had good relations with autocrats all over the world even including supporting some of their wars (Indonesia in East Timor before, KSA in Yemen, etc.) and even installed some of its own (Gautemala, Chile, etc.) trying to sell this whole thing as a great battle between 'democracy versus dictatorships' lol. Even as the west forges deals with a bunch of dictators right as they say that in order to secure alternate oil supplies. There's always an excuse, and it usually caters to the western egos of seeing themselves as the heroes as well. You've been doing it ever since the days of the 'white man's burden', just changing the words every century to suit the times but always putting yourselves at the top. So no, Russia never had a chance to be a strong nation without force - if not in Ukraine, then elsewhere. The US would never let it. They would only be let be if they bowed down to US hegemony like Europe and Japan did. And neither Russia nor China is in any mind to do that. WW3 is more likely.
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  1044. ​ @Azz156  "the line of control between India and Pakistan hasn’t changed in decades because of the nukes" - lol you know nothing. The Line of Control hasn't changed because wars have been fought to maintain it, including after both nations had nukes. Nukes did not stabilize anything. "North Korea is being left alone since it has nukes" - North Korea didn't have nukes for most of its history of existence, and still was 'left alone'. Cos when the US tried pushing there, China kicked them out. And Ukraine is welcome to try building nukes if it's so confident it can do it. See how well that goes down, considering the west itself wanted them to give them up. But the fact of the matter is the nukes stationed in Ukraine afforded them no protection as they couldn't use them. Lastly your vaunted belief in the value of nuclear weapons is not something you get to grant only to your friends. In that case Iran deserves nukes, and you are no one to deny them that right. Libya deserved nukes too. And btw, you know who DOES know how to build nukes, and has all the needed components? Russia. You know who Russia is allying with now, thank to you? Iran. You need them on board if you hope to a chance to prevent nuclear proliferation. You want Ukraine to have nukes? Fine, they can grant many of your enemies nukes too. Then we'll see how keen you are on them. China is the same. You need these nations cooperation or they can break the precious system of nuclear control you hope to keep up. Push their buttons, they'll push yours.
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  1075. ​ @NLTops  Here's the thing about the US. It's been the richest country in the world for over a century. Yet it has the highest poverty rate in the developed world. Now THAT'S embarrassing. And this despite the fact that the continent is blessed with resources of every kind, started out with a relatively educated immigrant population, is one of the safest places in the world from invasion thanks to two MASSIVE oceans plus just two weak neighbours (America's military spending is absurd - India, China and Russia have far more need for big armies than the US), and has had about 250 years to build up (well over 150 years since their home turf has had to deal with any kind of war. And this is their state despite all their advantages. Here's another per capita stat for you, which shows how ridiculous the US is - America has the second highest per capita military spending on Earth (second only to Israel), despite having so much poverty relative to their peers. They don't just spend a lot because their economy is big, they really do spend a lot. Guess where China, the second highest military spender in absolute terms, is? 58th! It's literally behind Azerbaijan lol. Even Russia is 25th place. America literally prioritizes killing people over the welfare of its own. India only got it's independence a little over half a century ago (after being plundered for over two centuries), isn't as resource rich as the US, has already had to fight 5 major defensive wars and is generally in a far less secure region, and started out with a largely poor and uneducated workforce. And yet it's still managed to emerge as the worlds' 5th biggest economy, and also 4th strongest military (and also nuclear) power, attained self-sufficiency and steadily reduced poverty and risen education and health. India's record might compare unfavorably against China. But it compares pretty well against the US when you realize just how much of a head start it has had and how incredibly fortunate the US is. Israel calls itself the Promised Land, but few nations compare to how gifted America has been.
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  1079. ​ @pete-m86  Yeah, the west cares so much about the Afghan people they launched a war that's killed more Afghans than the Taliban ever did. China aims for global military dominance by not having gone to war in decades, while America has been at war all over the world for most of its history - more than any other nation since WW2, right to the present day. China also aims for economic dominance by way of trading through an American-designed global system (starting with Bretton Woods and going to shape every aspect of the world economy via a whole slew of treaties and organizations). Makes perfect sense lmao! It's hilarious how blind Americans are to what any alien observer would easily be able to make out as a hegemony. And, as with any hegemonic power, they treat any challenger to said "rules-based order" (which rarely applies to America itself, which gives itself carte blanche to even wage wars without intl approval) as a grave threat to the world as a whole. Hence why 3 million Vietnamese had to die despite representing no threat to America itself, for example. Cos it's not about the American homeland, but the American world order. Anything that threatens to undermine that is seen as an existential threat to America itself lol. Btw, while you're 'saving' Taiwan, how about getting your foot of Cuba first? You've treated them far worse than China has treated Taiwan, and the rest of the world including even your allies ('cept your dog Israel) has said as much at the UN for the last several decades now. But go on, keep telling yourself it's for the Cuban people lol, never mind that ya'll loved the previous dictator before Castro, Batista. Really, I'm Indian. You want to go to war with China? Be our guest (don't drag us into it for your sake tho - we aren't your puppets). But do the entire world a favor and drop the moralistic 'champions of the free world and defenders of human rights' nonsense that you keep telling yourself. It's nauseating. You guys are the biggest hypocrites of the modern age, just as the British with the previous (prior to yours) version of 'white man's burden' were before you. Your whole damn foreign policy history has been one long series of betrayals of your own vaunted principles, including freedom and democracy, in nation after nation that you've intervened in. Because the moralistic rhetoric was just that - rhetoric to provide you a moral justification to pursue your own interests. Do us all a favour and be honest about it. Attack China if you want, but don't pretend you're doing it for anyone but yourselves.
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  1092.  @covenant_mog05  Bub the US isn't 'liked' in much of the world. You only pretend it is cos for westerners the west is all that counts and the rest of the world practically doesn't exist. Even the recent Pew poll on China that gets so much attention had the gall to say the world was against them based on surveys in barely over a dozen western nations plus Japan. And there's plenty of reason for that - a long history of wars, interventions, regime changes and regime support depending on what suits them best. US hegemony is based on loads of hard power, just less so in Europe. By contrast China hasn't been to war in nearly half a century, and for all the hubbub about its sanctions on Oz, the US remains the most sanction-happy nation on Earth by a mile. Hell their sanctions aren't even all popular in the west - the ones on Cuba for instance have been condemned almost universally, even by US allies (save Israel), at the UN for decades (which they ignore). They aren't even consistent about it, as they claim to stand for democracy yet have allied with and even propped up autocracies before (Chile, Gautemala, etc.) and even supported their wars (Indonesia in East Timor, Pakistan in Bangladesh, KSA in Yemen, etc.). The US isn't top dog cos it's 'likeable', any more than Rome was top dog cos it was 'likeable'. Both maintained power through strength first and foremost, and had a network of alliances underpinned by said strength, which in the latter case unraveled as soon as that strength faded.
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  1094.  @Leptospirosi  ​Bub you can see Sri Lanka's debt even from their own govt. - China's is less than Japan at about 10%, and is dwarfed by their private bondholders who own 47% (which has also increased significantly in recent years, while debt to govts., including China, has remained mostly static). You can also look up the port lease agreement, which was hardly a land seizure as the port still belongs to Sri Lanka - hell it was their idea to begin with. The port is leased, not bought. There's numerous articles from more serious portals like The Diplomat busting the various myths around it. Meanwhile you can look up even western reports like How China Lends or another by the Rhodium Group (neither of which are Chinese) that analyzed hundreds of China's loans and found they typically DO renegotiate. You know who often don't? Private lenders, who currently own about HALF of Sri Lanka's debts. There've been plenty of studies of the debt trap meme - and yes, it's literally been called a meme by one of the researchers - that've debunked it. Hell even here on YT Polymatter did a video on it. Or look up Gyude Moore to hear from an actual African policymaker. Just cos you can name a couple bad cases doesn't mean shit - that's classic cherry-picking. Do you have any idea how many projects all these institutions finance? Literally thousands. The same can be done with the IMF, who has its own chequered history (worse in fact, as they stand accused of ruining whole nations rather than just claiming a couple of national assets - look up the Structural Adjustment Programs on that). "which does not reflect how other Powers behave" - lol! France of all 'powers', who literally controlled the money supply of a quarter of Africa, and stand accused of interfering in the politics of west Africa to this day? USA, which has intervened in the most countries worldwide. Even their 'allies' aren't spared, as in the case of the Plaza Accords which heavily impacted Japan. Funnily enough, even the crisis in Sri Lanka now is somewhat attributable to them - with the Fed raising interest rates and the dollar going high, Sri Lanka finds it even harder to pay for stuff internationally since that needs dollars. UK, which has the worlds' most widespread tax evasion network and is the most favored destination for people fleeing prosecution for their frauds. USSR, which is currently at war thanks to its fear of USA and NATO, and whose resulting commodity price rise has also hurt Sri Lanka (although they're making up for that now by selling them oil at discounted rates). "crown jewel" - lol. Even your own narrative doesn't make sense. Supposedly the port was a bad investment, hence why it failed. How is that a crown jewel then? Sri Lanka has a crown jewel port btw - Colombo. They leased Hambantota out to China precisely because it wasn't working out for them. The countries you mention all continue to do business with China btw, cos they have a different take on the issue than foreign observers like you (that Gyude Moore talk touches on this). Here, from Sri Lanka itself - "Steep payments on international sovereign bonds, which comprised nearly 40% of the country’s external debt [it's 47% now, this is what has actually risen a LOT in recent years, as they've found it ever harder to get money from institutional banks and other govts., including China], put Sirisena’s Government in dire fiscal straits almost immediately. When Sirisena took office, Sri Lanka owed more to Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank than to China. Of the $ 4.5 billion in debt service Sri Lanka would pay in 2017, only 5% was because of Hambantota. The Central Bank governors under both Rajapaksa and Sirisena do not agree on much, but they both told us that Hambantota, and Chinese finance in general, was not the source of the country’s financial distress." "All these loans were obtained from China EXIM Bank, most at commercial rates. However, each loan had a grace period of around five years and a payback period of 15-plus years. For this very reason, the loan repayments for Hambantota do not amount to a large portion of Sri Lanka’s external debt servicing payments; some loan repayments have not even started yet. Debt repayments for the loans obtained for Hambantota port amount to only around 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s total annual foreign debt payments, and even less among total debt repayments." "By the end of 2017, only little over 10 percent [it's still 10% btw...] of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was owed to China and most of that was in the form of concessionary loans. Instead, the largest portion of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was international sovereign bonds, which amounted to 39 percent [now 47%] of the total foreign debt as of 2017. These are commercial borrowings obtained from international capital markets since 2007, and such bonds have resulted in soaring external debt servicing due to the nature of the debt. Unlike in concessionary loans obtained to carry out a specific development project, these commercial borrowings do not have a long payback period or the option of payment in small installments." - The Diplomat & South Asia Journal, both of which are targeted at a more serious readership rather than going with popular gossip and memes like you apparently do. The reports I mentioned are also for researchers and financiers, and even Gyude Moore's talk was for the Paulson Institute rather than media clickbait. And of course there's the Sri Lankan govts. own data, as well as that of pretty much every other global financial institution that says the same thing - they don't owe that much to China. About the only popular source, if that's all you can handle, is Polymatter's video on the topic, which summarizes it. Meanwhile you should probably look up the sordid history of the IMF's own Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), which have caused far more damage than 'seizing' the odd port or two could ever do, by dictating (terrible) policy to entire sovereign nations.
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  1095. ​ @joe_ninety_one5076  "The problem is that America supports Taiwan" - it does that and more. America has bases all around the Pacific, and still making more. It doesn't hide its goal to 'contain' China, which is neither innocent nor limited to Taiwan. And it's already started a trade war with China, including sanctions, without any need for a Chinese war with Taiwan. "Apart from that small detail, China and America are not really enemies" - lol yeah no. Not even close. "America is the reason that China exists" - lmao this is hilarious! You people love taking credit for so much stuff, and then complain when the world responds by doing the exact counter to that - blaming you for everything. No, you're not 'the reason that China exists', any more than you are the reason that India exists just cos both nations trade. You know who Taiwans' largest trade partner is? China. Doesn't make them 'not really enemies'. "Xi seems to want to wind up America, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore for no particular reason." - when you start imagining your enemies are doing what they do 'for no particular reason' you've long since given up on an unbiased analysis. The current tensions began in 2017 (go look up the data on Chinese incursion into Taiwanese airspace prior to then). Nothing changed in China then - Xi came to power half a decade prior. What changed wasn't China, it was the US. Trump came to power and launched an anti-China crusade ('for no particular reason' ofc), which has since become official US foreign policy even with his successor as it was quite popular with Americans across the political spectrum. Even the drills track with American actions - the largest military drills came after Pelosi visited the island for instance, against Chinese warnings. You want an example of a leadership actually doing something 'for no particular reason'? Try US sanctions on Cuba, for over half a century now. They've achieved nothing but cause suffering, and literally the whole world besides Israel has condemned them at the UN every year for decades. Yet they continue. Why? 'No particular reason'? Nah, I'm not dumb enough to think like that. It's not for the reason you would gravitate to i.e. to spread democracy. The US has had no shortage of dictators as allies, and has even helped install several (Guatemala, for example). Including in Cuba, where Castro's predecessor was the US-friendly dictator Batista. There is a reason alright - cos it's popular in Florida, a key swing state in US politics. So what Trump did with China was hardly new, US politicians have done it for ages. No, your enemies have their reasons for doing what they're doing. They're not even difficult to decipher reasons. You're just too blindly biased to see, or to accept, them. They don't want you in their neighbourhood. Apparently that's hard to understand. Funny, considering the US nearly started WW3 when Russia did the same to them in Cuba. Russia agreed to back down, averting war, but it seems that's beyond you.
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  1104. ​ @SirCheezersIII  "And while both sides will lose in terms of economic depression, Ukraine at least has the benefit of goodwill from the rest of the world to help rebuild. As long as Putin and his cronies are in power, Russia has lost that." - Ukraine's economy is contracting by over 50% from this war, compared to Russia's 10%. And goodwill won't rebuild that. Goodwill gets them aid and weapons, not investment. Investors look at risk, and as any economist will tell you, they don't give a shit about which side is moral. Ukraine is now one of the most risky nations in the world to invest into, and it was already a poor investment destination even before the war (check out Economics Explained video on it for instance). Russian emigration is nothing compared to that of Ukraine, whose people were leaving the country in droves even prior to the war due to widespread poverty and corruption. The country is also showing tendencies towards autocracy now, as often happens during times of crisis, so even the goodwill may dry up if they don't reverse that (which the Russian threat will make it easy to justify not doing). They're also losing access to a lot of strategic resources they could've used, if Russia retains the east and south, indeed said resources are even said to be one of the reasons Moscow went to war in order to prevent the west from getting. Meanwhile you're overestimating the ill will towards Russia. Almost all the nations sanctioning them are western, plus Japan. That's 46 in all, less than a quarter of the worlds' nations and even less of its people. Besides China and India, Africa is also ambivalent about this war and frankly more upset by western selective empathy than anything else. While in Latin America ... well, consider that in Brazil both rival candidates for election are voicing support for Russia, simply to spite the US. It goes to show that the rest of the world is hardly as united on this as you'd like to pretend. In fact a lot of them are more upset that the west is expecting them to all jump to be concerned about something that doesn't involve them to begin with, an attitude that is very high-handed and arrogant. There's hardly an absence of sympathy for Russia - while most would sympathize with Ukraine, one of the most popular narratives lays the blame ON the west for the war, based partly on the circumstances around the 2014 flip in Ukraine as well as Russia approaching the west with the same requests for NATO to stay away that it's been making for 30 years before the war, which the west just dismissed out of hand. Russia doesn't lack for support around the world, precisely cos the west doesn't lack for victims.
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  1105. ​ @SirCheezersIII  "the majority of Taiwan wants to maintain the status quo" - everyone wants to maintain the status quo, cept America. Cos they're far from all the fallout and prior to this war found it a great way to drum up popular fervor against their latest big bad, not to mention it makes for a convenient way to hamstring China in an expensive conflict. And a lot of those Chinese planes flying overhead were a response to an American senator or other figure visiting the island. To think the expansion of the PLA Navy is to challenge Taiwan is just silly - they're already leagues ahead of Taiwan. That Navy exists to counter the other big navy, that of the US. And spare me the faux concern over the lives of Asians. That rings hollow coming from the side that killed over 3 million of them in a stupid ideological conflict with its rival, as opposed to the 50k Chinese and Vietnamese in their war (before you bring that up). It's amazing you people actually think this nonsense still works, despite your terrible history. Literal genocides have been committed with your support (Pakistan in Bangladesh, Indonesia in East Timor, etc. etc.) while other brutal repressions have been carried out with even more direct involvement (Chile, Gautemala, etc. etc.). No one's fooled by the PR rhetoric. The great game is cold and we know that. Your interest in SE Asia is to counter China, not for some great humanitarian project. There was barely any outrage at the hundreds of thousands (poor brown) dead even just from your recent wars in the ME, but make Russia the perpetrator and suddenly a few thousand (lily white European) dead is an unconscionable figure. Don't bother. As you said, Taiwan wants to maintain the status quo - so do that. This isn't how you do it. Btw, it's funny you mention "compensation" - who exactly is compensating here? The wests' victims were never compensated, be it China or any of the others. Whatever the situation we return to or progress from, it hasn't come from any compensation by you guys, but thanks to our work in achieving it. All we ask is that you don't f*ck it up again.
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  1136. ​ @altrag  "Understanding your opponent is always key to victory" - and to defeat. Misread your opponent and you're likely to mess up worse than if you'd just followed them without wondering about their psyche. "I have no idea what "more limited options" you're talking about" - because you haven't been reading my comments. I put out two responses to you earlier, but you seem to have seen only the one on psychology. My original comment here mentioned them. Expecting to control a nation as large as Ukraine with just 200k troops seems silly. They attacked from the south where the river is a goal, the east where Donbass is a goal, and the north where Kyiv is a goal. "You're free to end your thought process at "bad man bad just for the sake of being bad" - that's a blatant mischaracterization and you know it. I've said nothing about Putin's character, in fact you're the one who's been talking about his psyche all this time. My analysis was entirely based on a strategic view of the war rather than some pop psychological reading of Putin. The river is important for water, the Black Sea for its oil and gas deposits and shipping and the capital in order to dethrone the current govt. (they don't have to stay on to defend a replacement - Ukraine serves as a weakened buffer state regardless, as long as it doesn't have a stable west-oriented govt.). None of that is based on believing Putin is 'bad just for the sake of being bad', it's simply what's most feasible and serves Russia's interests, morality notwithstanding.
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  1142. ​@Ladey Babey And what kind of person are you then? The kind to bury your head in the sand and keep repeating comforting ideas to yourself? Your thesis literally doesn't explain things. If authoritarianism is the problem, then why are authoritarian govts. courted as allies? If China being communist is the problem, then why was that not such an issue until recently? And why is it not an issue in other nations? Plus ironically China is more capitalist now than it's ever been, and only getting more so. It recently even opened up its financial sector, with billions flowing in as a result. And it's increasingly promoting free trade agreements these days, even as the US is retreated from them. So your supposed hope that China would turn capitalist is already happening, yet tensions are continuing to rise. Unless you meant to equate 'capitalism' with 'democracy', in which case you're an idiot, since those are two different fields. Even if you did, the majority of things that tensions are rising over are things the Chinese people aren't going to be against anyway (the Uighur issue is pretty much the only thing democracy would change, yet the biggest tensions are over Taiwan and the South China Sea - things the Chinese public has no reason to oppose). Ideology is indeed powerful propaganda - you're being blinded by it right now. You're being led to believe this is some grand moral campaign by the western Allies against Evil Communist China. Lol! It's effective stuff - for PR. And you're falling for it hook, line and sinker. Meanwhile your own elites are protecting their turf while using gullible guppies like you as cover.
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  1172. ​ @IcefightFX  Lol, you're talking out of your hat. Iran got its sanctions cos of its nuclear program, not cos it's not a "free" country. This is literally the reason the US itself gives. Stop imagining they're fighting some sort of moral battle for you. They have plenty of non-"free" nations they don't sanction, and even ally with/back up, as well as a long history of backing non-"free" govts. that happen to be friendly to them, even helping set some of them up (go read some Latin American history to learn of some, for example Gautemala or Chile). Did you know when the US extended its security guarantee to Taiwan? When it was still a dictatorship. It even fought to defend SK when they were still a dictatorship. They worked with Pakistan when it was a dictatorship conveniently next to Afghanistan, while sanctioning the much "freer" India despite us being a democracy. You can label Iran however you want, but don't watch Caspian Report and then pretend geopolitics is shaped by your morals. Iran is under sanctions cos the US and Israel don't get along with it, and don't want them getting nukes. Meanwhile there's been an almost unanimous vote at the UN (opposed only by the US and Israel) for nigh on two DECADES i.e. it loses EVERY YEAR, condemning its sanctions on Cuba. Yet they continue. You know why? Not even cos Washington cares much about it. It's cos it sells well in Florida, which just happens to be a key swing state. Yeah, it's cos of "free" democratic strategy, not any grand moral principles, despite how they like to dress it up as being so (an excuse even most of the "free" world doesn't agree with, including their allies). Indeed the reason they themselves gave at the outset for them was due to Castro's expropriation of American assets there, not cos he made Cuba un-"free" like they claim now. They couldn't give that excuse back then cos they themselves had a great relationship with his predecessor Batista, who was also a dictator, just THEIR dictator. Now they rely on the short memories and historical ignorance of recent generations to pretend it was a principled position Sanctions aren't moral decisions. Geopolitics isn't a moral exercise. Don't try pretending as if it is, you'll just look like either a hypocrite or an idiot.
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  1213. ​ @LiamN4321  Oh, and "The US will strike down a emerging rival just like Britain did to Germany. That’s how geopolitics works, get used to it." - that's a very childish model of how geopolitics works, a zero-sum game where you have to brutally beat down every competitor. The US has struggled to beat even far weaker adversaries - they'll probably fail miserably with China. Not because China will beat them, but simply cos it'll exhaust them - they're fighting on China's border, after all. Short of WW3, total war isn't an option. And short of that, assuming Americans even have the stomach for that without any direct attack on their territory, they'll just get bogged down - something they're thoroughly sick of by now. War with China is no small endeavor and once again your own example illustrates that - Britain didn't want to fight Germany, and China has so far presented far less of a threat to the US than Germany ever did to Britain. Also, Britain had strong allies, the US doesn't (tbf, neither does China) - the rest of the world mostly doesn't want this trade war, and certainly won't care for an American hot war with China itself. Unless there's some giant provocation, an aggressive American action will mostly invite scorn from the international community, who'll probably sit it out if they can and hope it just comes to an end soon. The end result will simply be a tattered American reputation, and global economic distress. This isn't a schoolyard - geopolitics is far more nuanced and subtle than that.
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  1254. ​ @NUCLEARxREDACTED  Btw, there's another warmongering dictator state waging a big war right now - KSA in Yemen - and I don't see the west too upset about it. They certainly aren't doing anything about it. In fact for a while the US even supported them. Much like it did Indonesia in East Timor, Pakistan in Bangladesh, etc. Or the dictators they themselves helped put in place, in places like Chile and Gautemala. So much for warmongering dictators being a problem. They're a problem only when it affects the west, not simply by existing. Cos, and I know this'll come as a shock to you, all that idealistic rhetoric is just that. Foreign policy isn't based on idealism. Not Russia's, and not the Wests' either. That you fall for that PR hype only reflects on your own intellectual vulnerabilities. There are multiple major wars going on in the world right now. Hell the US' own wars in the ME have orders of magnitude higher death tolls even individually than all of Russia's wars in the same time period combined. Literally hundreds of thousands dead. Yet look at whose warmongering triggers you more. That reveals your bias. Now go ahead and bring out that dumb 'whataboutism' deflection that you people have been so well trained to use to whenever your hypocrisy is pointed out. It's the only counter you seem capable of coming up with. And you lack the critical thinking skills to ever realize how wrong it is (hell even the Wikipedia page on it has a section pointing out its shortcomings). So go on.
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  1260.  @FLKRM  Oh right I forgot. Westerners find reasons to justify all the warmongering by simply calling their targets evil and imagining that makes it okay to invade sovereign nations whenever they want. This is especially ironic, since the west has crippled Iraqs' victim Iran as well simply for daring to dream of a nuclear deterrent (something they happily allow Israel to get away with). That's fine by you, since all that matters to you is that you get to justify your invasion of Iraq by whatever excuse you can find, even if you're an enemy of their victim too. All to make the west look good. Alright then, here's an entire list of countries for you. Have fun fishing out excuses for US interventions in all of them as well. Pretty sure some of them are even more innocent that Ukraine - Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Savador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, etc. Have fun looking up all those interventions. You don't need to be brainwashed either - you can look them up even on Wikipedia. Face it, you've got your own history against you (and that's even without bringing up colonialism). And the world knows it. There was a Gallup (which it ironically a US polling agency) global survey a few years ago that asked people around the world who they thought was the greatest threat to world peace. It wasn't Russia. Or China. The winner by a landslide was the US. It wasn't even close lol! Second place was like a quarter of their score. That's how far detached you are from the worlds' opinions.
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  1261. I love it when members of 1-2 century old states form analyses from - and pass judgment on - empires that, in some cases, lasted several centuries (or even millenia in the case of Rome), rather conveniently in their favor. Besides, institutions? What are those? There is no widely accepted and non-vague definition of 'institution', and most that exist tend make it overlap considerably with culture - an explanation the authors already reject. Meanwhile in their book they seem to be simply using 'institutions' as a thin veil for some form of liberal democracy and capitalism, which is really no different from the triumphalism of books like 'The End of History'. Apparently such institutions will endure, as opposed to their opposites, which flies in the face of history, but is accepted only because of a quirk of memory - even a month experienced yourself feels a lot longer than entire past centuries never actually felt by you. Also, that just pushes the question back - how do these miraculous institutions get developed in the first place? Does 'Why Nations Fail' now require a companion book, 'Where Good Institutions Come From'? And then there's China. As with so many western intellectuals, they too confidently predict China's downfall. Pretty much every nation or empire has fallen at some point, yet it's curious who people from opposing ideological choose to fixate on as the one most likely to fall (hint: it's rarely themselves). China hasn't fallen yet, despite decades of predictions that it will. At some point though, it's bound to. And when it does, all these writers will get to raise their hands and claim, "we told you so!". Except you didn't. You made a vague prediction of a vague outcome. Almost none ever publish a timeline or date for China's fall - forget years, they can't even seem to nail it down to a decade - and yet you want to call that a prediction?! If this was physics, it'd be like estimating the speed of light as somewhere between the speed of our fastest rocket engine and the initial expansion rate of cosmic inflation. What kind of prediction is that? Literally anyone can be right about anything, as long as they're vague enough about it. Considering that you're drawing parallels between societies with lifespans measured in entire multi-historical periods and those measured in a handful of generations, but in favor of the much younger ones, I suppose it's fitting that you seem to have issues with appreciating the true value of time.
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  1262. ​ @GuyShōtō  They're not concerned. Spare me the holier-than-thou rhetoric, cos it's MY people who're dying there bub. The OP made reference to a damn comedy for crying out loud. The reason they're doing it is cos of the moral ego boost they get from it. That and how nice it feels to point fingers at others. Despite that a good chunk of those people whose lives are being 'wasted' are my own nationality, I don't give two shits about western concern trolling on our behalf, which does nothing but enrich their own vaunted opinion of themselves as the ethical arbiters of the world. Do you know who all those buildings serve? Besides the Qatari natives, it's mostly rich western businesses. Do you know whose attentions they're courting and investment they're receiving to finance all this building? Not us. Hell even the fossil fuel money they're using to pay for all of it mostly comes from the west, so don't pretend you're so pure and bloodless, Mr. Ethical. We're not blind to what's going on there, but we're not as obsessed with it as you people are not because we're less concerned, but simply cos we don't have as big of an ego to stroke. Btw, the device you wrote this on was built partly off of slavery. Most likely by a western brand name, but it didn't bother you as much cos, you guessed it, it doesn't get as much media attention. And if it does, it's usually to attack the poor locals rather than the westerners who designed the system. Qatars' actual crime isn't the slavery, it's just coming late to the party, after the west drank its fill a century ago and moved on to 'finer things'. And they aren't alone. We'll mind our own thanks, you mind yourself.
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  1273. ​ @garethhahahah2037  First off, relative to the size of its own forces Russia has got barely anything from any other nation. In contrast Ukraine is largely supplied by its backers. You're fighting almost entirely Russian equipment, not Iranian or Belarussian or anyone else's. Secondly Ukraine's military ranking is largely irrelevant since it's being backed the rest of the west. Thirdly "unable to take land"? Yeah let's ignore that they took a fifth of the country - a territory larger than most other European nations - just cos they didn't take Kiev. Fourthly last I checked Moscow is still very much standing. And fifth there's a reason why Ukraine wants F-16s - cos they aren't able to contest Russia in the skies. "The reason why I see China attacking Russia is multiple" - and the reason they won't is one. America. China gets plenty from simply trading with Russia. It isn't Russia that's threatening and trying to strangle them, it's America. You think they're going to stymie an ally against the nation that's actively trying to suppress them? How dumb do you think they are? Russia isn't getting support from Iran cos Iran is a historical ally, it's cos they both hate America. Ditto North Korea. Ditto China. You're only strengthening their bonds and forging an ever larger alliance of nations who all have one goal in common - the downfall of the American hegemony. And if you want to get NATO involved in the Pacific against China, I think you'll find it's far more likely they reach an agreement to station thousands of troops in Russia with permission of Russia - right on its border with Europe - than to attack Russia. The more you push them, the closer they get. And you're patently lacking in imagination when it comes to realizing just how messy these nations can make things for you. They have far more options than just going to war, if they choose to use them. For instance, since Iran was mentioned, it could be a nuclear nation tomorrow if they chose not to cooperate with the west. And everyone knows where those nukes would be pointed (it wouldn't be Russia or China). What're you going to do then? Sanction them? You're already doing that. So what? Invade? Yeah, that'll go great. Suddenly you'll find yourself in exactly the situation Russia is in now - locked in a war with an enemy being extensively backed by enemy powers. Afghanistan didn't have that and they still kicked the Americans out. A war with Iran is exactly what they'd want lol. And that's just one example. You're playing a very dangerous game here, and arrogance will only lead to the precious world order you claim to be trying to maintain to come crashing down around you. They can make things very difficult for you, if they choose.
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  1278. ​ @jonb914  "If you want to make that argument illegal then stick to CCP-curated internet where it IS illegal." - lol, talk about strawmen. Your Nazi comparison is the tired old hat here, not the silly redirection you've tried now - I've seen people use that metaphor to describe everyone from China to China's opponent i.e. the US, so it's pretty meaningless by now. And btw, wrt the US, I've seen Americans using it on each other! That's how cliched and useless the Nazi card is. There's a reason it has a Wikipedia page of its own. You'll have more luck making an argument without resorting to a metaphor that by now just makes a lot of people roll their eyes. And if you're not interested in debating any of the other stuff, then you're not interested in debate at all. Ironically, that'd make YOU more suited to the CCP online umbrella. As regards threats though, sure China is the bigger (indeed only) threat to Taiwan. To the world though? Well, why don't we hear what the world thinks about that? Here you go - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/ Btw, in case you didn't know, Hong Kong wasn't a democracy before it rejoined China either. The Brits only started moving it in that direction when it was finalized that they wouldn't be allowed to extend their stay there (about 10 years before the transfer). Cos as usual, if the Brits couldn't have something, they'd make sure to mess it up for the locals (check out the lines in the Middle East for another example of that). But suffice to say Hong Kong was never a full democracy. And you can verify that on Wikipedia if you'd like. Hardly a Chinese-controlled site. "using your culture/history/ethnicity aka nationalism as a casus belli to attack your neighbors" - as against using terrorism or imagined WMDs or just plain ideology (Vietnam) as a casus belli? I'm not sure which is worse, but I do know the latter excuses have been used to launch actual wars by one party here a lot more than former has been used by the other. See, you have to imagine a possible future war, I can simply point to a long trail of already existing dead bodies - all over the world...
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  1287.  @00x0xx  My point is that it takes for granted the most bog standard progression of conflict, even into the far future. And this isn't China's geopolitical agenda, just CR's imagination of it. The parts extending into the Indian Ocean are especially suspect, but even his take on the Chinese navy is iffy. The entire video focuses on carriers, and yet the Chinese themselves aren't emphasizing carriers all that much. They've put far more focus onto cruisers and subs and other anti-naval vessels, more than carriers. Nor are they unique in this, as carriers are primarily a distant power projection tool with limited utility close to home, while representing a big expensive target for the states they're fighting. The US is carrier-centric because it isn't primarily concerned about its home waters but about war far away, and cos they can afford it. The Chinese and many other nations aren't as enamored by them. This entire video imagines China as basically an alternative America, intending to operate the same way they do, but there's little evidence for that. They themselves have dismissed the idea, not simply by claiming they're nicer but also by pointing out how massively expensive it. The US has over 800 bases abroad. China has less than half a dozen, and only one of much size. The US doesn't just have the highest military spending in total, they have the highest spending PER CAPITA as well (which accounts for economic size). China's spending is behind Azerbaijan lol. Even Russia, as militarist as it is, isn't even in the top 20 spenders per capita. That's cos of how enormously expensive the US' approach to hegemony is, something China has given no indication they wish to replicate. But CR is projecting into the far future based on the idea that they're trying to do exactly that, which flies in the face of the realities of China as it is. Not to mention it imagines conflict won't change in 30 years. Carriers themselves became the mainstay of navies in WW2, and quite quickly at that. I wouldn't want to predict what wars might be like in 2050, except to say it won't be exactly the same.
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  1290. I love it when members of 1-2 century old states form analyses from - and pass judgment on - empires that, in some cases, lasted several centuries (or even millenia in the case of Rome), rather conveniently in their favor. Besides, institutions? What are those? There is no widely accepted and non-vague definition of 'institution', and most that exist tend make it overlap considerably with culture - an explanation the authors already reject. Meanwhile in their book they seem to be simply using 'institutions' as a thin veil for some form of liberal democracy and capitalism, which is really no different from the triumphalism of books like 'The End of History'. Apparently such institutions will endure, as opposed to their opposites, which flies in the face of history, but is accepted only because of a quirk of memory - even a month experienced yourself feels a lot longer than entire past centuries never actually felt by you. Also, that just pushes the question back - how do these miraculous institutions get developed in the first place? Does 'Why Nations Fail' now require a companion book, 'Where Good Institutions Come From'? And then there's China. As with so many western intellectuals, they too confidently predict China's downfall. Pretty much every nation or empire has fallen at some point, yet it's curious who people from opposing ideological choose to fixate on as the one most likely to fall (hint: it's rarely themselves). China hasn't fallen yet, despite decades of predictions that it will. At some point though, it's bound to. And when it does, all these writers will get to raise their hands and claim, "we told you so!". Except you didn't. You made a vague prediction of a vague outcome. Almost none ever publish a timeline or date for China's fall - forget years, they can't even seem to nail it down to a decade - and yet you want to call that a prediction?! If this was physics, it'd be like estimating the speed of light as somewhere between the speed of our fastest rocket engine and the initial expansion rate of cosmic inflation. What kind of prediction is that? Literally anyone can be right about anything, as long as they're vague enough about it. Considering that you're drawing parallels between societies with lifespans measured in entire multi-historical periods and those measured in a handful of generations, but in favor of the much younger ones, I suppose it's fitting that you seem to have issues with appreciating the true value of time.
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  1294. Why does Germany currently have a poor military? Is it cos the Germans can't fight? Ofc not - they literally took on the world TWICE and nearly succeeded. It's cos of "funding constraints, red tape, and partisanship" i.e. those things ARE part of being good at stuff. And there's more reasons why the Chinese win out over western contracts than just cost. For one thing, Chinese projects are just commercial - they don't come with various pre-conditions and policy dictats, the wests' projects typically do. Surprising as it may seem, just as nations' may not like asset seizures (what the West keeps attacking China over, using a few cases), they also don't like being told what to do (look up the IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs for an example of that sordid history). The most China might ask for is a vote of support at the UN, which is nothing compared to re-shaping your entire economic policy to suit creditors. And this is evident even in the current proposal by Biden - two of the focus areas (health and gender equity) aren't even areas that challenge Chinese investment, which is mostly in physical infrastructure. In fact the BRI doesn't even really have a 'mandate' - they allow recipient nations to come up with the projects they'd like to see (how sound an idea some of those projects are is besides the point). But the West targets needs its people can empathize with, in order to sell the idea back home, rather than what the local population is actually after. Sure girls schools are important, but contrary to bleeding heart liberal beliefs, you can't build a nation solely with girls schools. Plus most girls schools in Africa that're internationally financed are already built using western money - from AID, rather than 'investments'. Turning that into a loan is actually a step DOWN for the attractiveness of your offer.
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  1313. ​ @robertsaget9697  LESS. Since WW2 the US has fought in more wars than any other nation (including Russia). Even China, which has disputes with nearly all its neighbours, has barely gone to war. And here's the real kicker - America goes to war far away, and is incredibly safe at home. Do you realize how weird that is?! Firstly almost all wars all across the world and all through history have been local i.e. nations fight close to home, mostly their neighbour. Almost all exceptions are just America and the former colonial powers (for a non-western example see the Chola war against Srivijaya, which was an aberration from the norm in India). Even Russia's wars tend to be on her borders. War just doesn't make much sense far away most of the time. Especially when you're not trying to annex territory, which is often the case with modern wars (makes more sense to just install a friendly govt.). Secondly America is safe behind two giant oceans with only two weak neighbours on either pole, and is blessed with plenty of resources at home. A nation like that would be expected to be like Canada. Instead it outspends the next 10 nations combined on its military, and has hundreds of bases abroad. This makes little sense given its context, yet it does it anyway. China is the second big spender (which makes more sense given it's threatened by the biggest spender), BUT still has barely any distant military bases and hasn't fought a war abroad since 1979 - and even that war was with its neighbour (who the US had fought a war with just prior). Thirdly you're making the classic mistake of a false dichotomy. Even China and Russia speak of a multipolar world order, not replacing one hegemon with another as they don't expect to be able to do that. Neither does anyone else expect them to be able to. So there is no choosing America or China or Russia or whoever else. The world does not have to be beholden to one power. You think of every nation as the same as America, just bad for not being democratic. What you don't appreciate is how deeply weird America is. The nation should not be how it is, yet it is. Most nations aren't like the US. China being powerful is generally bad for Vietnam, but not Brazil. Russia being strong is bad for Ukraine, but not South Africa. Only the US somehow finds excuses to impose itself across the world.
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  1339.  @stephenjenkins7971  Works for CGTN my ass. You can see his bio easily - https://kellogg.nd.edu/w-gyude-moore ; https://www.cgdev.org/expert/w-gyude-moore As someone who actually worked in govt., he's more well placed to give an overview - which he does, if you bothered to watch it, with both positives and negatives. He literally researches it, continent-wide. Unlike your anecdotes and interviews. But it was also shared as a good lesson in bias, since the questions at the end were telling (even other commenters noted it). "Americans are quite divided on foreign policy" - I like to call this the democracy excuse aka Americans can change their policies. Except, they don't. For generations now, US foreign policy has been aggressive. More military operations than not just China, but any other nation. Sure there may be talk, but it doesn't amount to much. And if you think the media coverage is biased against you, you're only revealing your own anger at the other team. American media is split by political alignment (Democrats versus Republicans), not America versus anti-America. It's just that Americans like to think the other team is anti-America, cos of how much they hate each other. Hardly. American hegemony is taken for granted, and both parties have their fair share of warmongering. America has had the chance to change its policies, and hasn't. You aren't tarnished by one bad act, you're tarnished by many, several ongoing. As for the rest of the world, well... - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/ Lol. xD 'Everyone you've talked to' (likely mostly disgruntled diaspora in the US) versus an actual global poll. Once more, the numbers show you up. You're talking to an Indian btw. I have more reason to dislike China than you do. We were even actually invaded by them before, unlike you spoiled rich kids just guarding your hegemony. But that's not gonna make me blind to the numbers. China compares poorly to Sweden (the actual leader in foreign aid) or New Zealand or Costa Rica or Botswana, or even us ('cept in poverty reduction). But compared to the US? Yeah, not even close. And since you mention the Russians, they've also been much more reliable allies for us, unlike the other big democracy (you), who's been as opportunistic and hypocritical as ever. America is useful for us right now, but your history is well known even here.
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  1340.  @stephenjenkins7971  Wtf?! My first comment wasn't even posted by YT, only the second part. Let's try this again. The 'point' you're defending ignores that you have multiple wars that've killed millions of people, yet you go on about a 'genocide' that you don't have comparable numbers to counter even one of them with, even using your own numbers. And so all you can do is accuse others of bias, which of course you presumably lack, thereby allowing yourself to continue to inflict misery on more millions while feeling good about it. You literally harp on about scary words cos all the dead from war mean nothing. I didn't bring up the Native American population bub, you did. You tried pretending it was comparable, I merely pointed out it wasn't. So you first palmed off all the blame onto the Europeans, then proceeded showcase your own inability to read by, expectedly, bringing up Mao. Lol! I knew you would need to resort to him, which is why I'd already mentioned it. That's how far back you need to go to find comparable numbers for a non-American nation. You want it to be post-WW2 to excuse your historical crimes, and conveniently ignore than my own comment said 'the last half century' cos that'd deprive you of your biggest piece of ammo. See, here's the thing - you people need to harp on about a dead man from half a century ago to make yourselves feel good, I don't. I didn't bring up the Native Americans cos I didn't need to. Unlike Europe, and unlike China, America has continued with its aggressive behavior right up to the present. After all, no one ever punishes it for them, so it never needed to change. Hence why I brought up the Iraq war, one of many atrocities America has inflicted, but the most recent. That continues to this day. And there's plenty of others, both big and small. From full scale invasions to isolated drone strikes, assassinations (you would've heard of a famous one a little over a year go) and special operations. Ironically, Americans portray themselves as the 'champions of freedom and democracy', and yet the country has helped topple democracies the world over, and even has supported more autocratic allies than China likely has so far. Some 'champion'. "It's not like I'm bringing up the CCP invasion of North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Tibet." - I brought up the Sino-Vietnamese war, because it shows the massive disparity between the death tolls you guys have versus them. The others aren't any different - all old, and killed far fewer people than America's wars. And your excuse about China's 'ability' is just that. The wars you mention are all old (it's been a long time since China went to war, while you're still at it), but most tellingly - they also all happened when China was still an extremely poor nation. So much for 'ability'. There's plenty of poor nations that're at war (Ethiopia, for a current example), so that's hardly an impediment. No, they haven't gone to war because they haven't chosen to. This comes across as strange to an American, even though it's more of a norm. The US is by far an outlier in being so trigger-happy (you guys are an outlier in a lot of things, from your politics to healthcare to religion to, in this case, foreign policy). Most countries, not just China, don't conduct military operations as frivolously as the US does. Take India, for example - they've been invaded five times since their independence, including once by China, yet they haven't gone on the offensive themselves. And, even more tellingly, most countries have wars on their borders i.e. in which there's some level of existential risk to themselves. Including China. America is the only modern nation (previously it was the Europeans) that faces virtually zero threat to its homeland (you're literally protected by the worlds' two largest oceans, and two very weak neighbours), yet still finds reason to wage wars thousands of miles away. And for all its celebration of its democracy, its people have patently failed to reign in its aggression across multiple generations now. War is too easy to get people riled up for, it seems. China isn't being saintly by not going to war in distant lands on a lark, it's being typical. You guys are the mad shooters, which is an apt metaphor since you also have a significant mad shooter problem at home. They say charity begins at home - in your case, killing does. "A fair criticism of the US is its large prison population. That really doesn't change the fact that China is committing genocide though" - lol, once more the label defense. You don't see a problem just because it doesn't have a scary word attached to it. The only reason the American prison population isn't labeled a genocide is cos it isn't a targeted campaign - though it is highly biased, upon which much ink has been spilled. I'm not simply going to raise the race card here, since that's not the point. The point is that you're falling back on a label as a cheap defense for causing more misery. You have more people in jail - that doesn't bother you simply because it doesn't have the Big Bad Word applied to it. You don't care about the actual people or numbers, merely the PR. America invented PR, so this is perhaps apt. You even use it domestically - white mass shooters in the US are rarely called 'terrorism', but if a colored person does it it often is. That's the power of labels, which you're falling back on here. But it doesn't change the facts, which is that America's crimes even make a 'genocide' look smaller. Foreign 'aid'...ah yes. 'Aid' that disproportionately goes towards allies, including hilariously Israel, another developed country. Only 56% of your aid is development and humanitarian aid fyi, while a whopping 44% of it is military and political 'aid'. You've also given out plenty of loans btw, which I'd mentioned above (those SAPs from the IMF), except they too were tied up in political conditions and led to ruin. Most of China's loans so far have been far more usable, hence why countries go for them. But how about that aid huh? Why not just use the 'free' money? Your 'source' for it was hilariously from a campaign to preserve it, which of course has a vested interest in playing up its impact. And they did - by literally co-opting global achievements and laying it all at the foot of America! And you talk about biased media? Lol, that isn't even biased media - that's just you being biased. There is an actual source for US foreign aid contributions, which they cite as well btw, but which you apparently failed to check up on. Here it is - https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/08/foreign-aid-these-countries-are-the-most-generous/ You'll look at that first chart and congratulate yourself, cos that's how bias plays out. But the second chart reveals the true story - the US is actually an underperformer here too. The most generous nation is Sweden, and the US doesn't even show up in that chart. You guys don't give that much of what you have, you just have a bigger economy. You're essentially the equivalent of that multi-billionaire who gives the odd million out and turns it into a media event. And this is from the richest nation on Earth. China for its part gives out about $4.4 billion in development assistance (the gross US figure is $34 billion, albeit half of it isn't 'aid'), tho ironically your excuse about China being too poor for war would actually provide them an out here instead, since they're still actively developing their own country. The US underperforms on aid relative to its GDP, but it doesn't have that that excuse - it still has high poverty for a developed nation, but that's mostly due to unwillingness rather than inability - they've had the most money in the world for a century now, China is the opposite. Anyway, I'm not going to claim China is some humanitarian champion, rather simply that the US hasn't actually done as well as you think with aid. Certainly nowhere near enough to offset the damage they've done with their ceaseless wars - something China hasn't done for a long time. As as aside, hilariously enough, Americans seem to think they spend an average of 28% of the budget on aid, when the true answer is way less than 1%. The US actually ranks near the bottom on aid relative to its GDP compared to other developed countries. Next time try getting your ideas from somewhere not as obviously agenda-driven as a petition.
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  1341. ​ @thewestisthebest6608  Precision bombing my ass lol! Bub either of those wars even individually still has a higher death toll than Russia in Ukraine, let alone together. We're talking literally hundreds of thousands dead, some even put Iraq at over a million. Even a fortnight into Iraq there were reports of over 15k dead while well over a year later the Ukraine civilian toll is less than 10k. Also Iraq was based on a lie and was never about terrorists, and your stupid terrorists in Afghanistan weren't even in there at all, they were in the dictatorship next door that you worked with as convenient. Your 'freedom' excuse rings hollow given the number of autocracies you've allied with (KSA, for example) or even helped install (Gautemala, for example), not that it's any of your business what form of govt. a country has anyway. Not being a democracy doesn't give you permission to invade as you please. Btw, did you know which country suffered the biggest GDP drop last year besides Ukraine? You don't hear about them much on the news anymore. It was Libya, another country you messed up. Btw, here's a funny bit of history for you. Both the Taliban and Saddam Hussein owed a debt to America. In the case of the Taliban, they came to power after the US armed the Mujahideen to counter the USSR leaving the Afghan non-Islamic govt. unable to resist. Meanwhile Saddam actually got help from the US that sent him lists of suspected communists that he happily purged from his govt. As the previous Iraqi govt. was closer to the USSR, the US was happy with Saddam until he decided to invade Kuwait i.e. the First Gulf War. And why did he decide to invade Kuwait? Cos of the horrible borders the Brits left
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  1351. ​ @ministryoftruth8499  No one outside North Africa would take note of Carthage whatsoever if hadn't been tied up with Rome. I've yet to hear of anyone speak or write anything wrt Carthage that doesn't center on its saga with Rome, so I don't consider Carthage a homage to the existence of the rest of the world at all. The same could be said of Persia, albeit not quite as badly. And to say seapower historically is only a preserve of the West is to only reveal one's ignorance, especially if your timeline extends farther back than the colonial age - which evidently Lamberts' does since Carthage is millenia before that. How would one understand the Majapahit empire of Indonesia without including it as one his seapower states, for instance? And they're far more recent than Carthage. He'd have an excuse if he restricted himself to only more recent times, but he doesn't and so talking about globalism et. al. doesn't excuse the exclusion of some ancient maritime powers, while others (that happen to play into the western narrative) are included. Besides, wrt globalism, how do you think, for example, some of the worlds' biggest religions got around? Hinduism arose in India, but was soon widespread in SE Asia. Ditto Buddhism. How do you think they got there? It wasn't so much across overland routes, I can tell you that. And that's just one prominent example of how 'globalist' Asian maritime networks were. The same can be said for certain African coastal states, whose wealth was tied to the sea.
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  1373. ​ @Musicdudeyoutub  Here's a hard FACT for you - the second highest military spending per capita in the world is the US (second only to Israel). China is 58th! It's behind Azerbaijan lol. Russia is 25th btw. China also has less than half a dozen foreign military bases, completely in line with most major nations, while the US has over 800 of them. Yeah, they're really prioritizing aggression there lmao. China has threatened Taiwan for 70 years, yet is their largest trade partner, while the US has actually invaded Cuba already, and embargoed it for half a century (and don't give me that democracy excuse - they loved its previous dictator, Batista). China was one of the dominant centers of the world economy for millennia, as was India. And yet neither nation pushed out much. It wasn't China that established a colonial empire, the Europeans did. And it's only the Europeans and the Americans who've waged wars far from their home territories. So let me get this straight - the answer to China being potentially a future aggressor is to be constantly antagonistic and aggressive with them, such as over Taiwan, the island whose own people are more circumspect (go ahead and check the polls - less than 10% of them favour unilaterally declaring independence) than Americans thousands of miles away who NEVER have to bear the consequences of their military messes? Resulting in them reacting aggressively cos of all the constant prodding. Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is of course the whole point. The west used to predict that China would turn democratic as it got more prosperous and educated, which didn't happen. Now there's this, because the Chinese aren't behaving the way you think 'normal' humans should behave. See, this isn't even about China. The west, and Americans especially, REALLY likes imagining they're the 'model organism' of humanity - and so project their ideas onto everyone else. Freedom arises because it's a natural instinct for everyone to prize it above anything else (look up Brunei, a nation FAR more authoritarian than China, and yet with hardly any democratic protests to speak of, because its enormous wealth takes care of its people anyway). Now China wants to dominate the world because that's just what authoritarian states do, yo! And if it doesn't do it on its own, we'll push it to do so thereby proving ourselves and our worldviews right. Cos nothing is more important than knowing we're right. The west has almost no appreciation for the influences and differences of culture, apart from their own. They normalize everything, and standardize it around themselves (save for some humility in academia, which is already vilified by large swathes of the ordinary population). And Americans are especially attached to seeing themselves and their way of life as the 'light of the world' (look up 'American Civil Religion', and note the 12th Tenet), while both America and Europe keep remixing the 'white man's burden' every century to place themselves as saviours. While you're wringing your hands over a potential future aggressor, who's only threats have been to territories on their borders, I'd rather focus on the gorilla already dancing on the world stage, who's done far more than just threats to regions even thousands of miles from their home territory. The nation that's already taken strong action against its uppity island neighbour (Cuba), while crowing about the threats to another island whose biggest trading partner is the very nation they're being threatened by - who just so happen to be conveniently located right next to the US' latest rival for global supremacy. Cos of your overwhelming hubris and absolute conviction as the pinnacle of humanity, the US' own crimes are explained away, while China putting a toe out of line is a grave affront to the world order. How convenient. The kind of dualistic 'either we're the sole world superpower or they are' thinking that underpins so much American thought flies in the face of the evidence. It's the thought of an empire that can't stomach the idea of no longer being in charge, and so envisions the apocalypse as the outcome of its loss of supremacy. Hell, despite having the second most powerful army on Earth today, China STILL has very limited capacity for expeditionary warfare. Their navy is geared towards brown and green water operations i.e. close to their coasts, not the blue water global reach the US has invested into. All signs are that what we're actually going to see is a loss of American hegemony in favour of a more regionalized, multi-polar world order, but of course to Americans that thought might as well be doomsday so they simply put it in terms they prefer to see it as - the Holy American Empire versus the Evil Chinese Empire, with sole global hegemony being the only state of affairs possible. Get over yourselves. Fact is you invade more, with less justification, so I'd rather focus on the threat of America, in Trumps' words, first.
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  1380. Russia was being steadily surrounded by NATO lol. They spent a quarter of a century protesting NATO expansion without an armed response, to no avail. The 2014 invasion happened AFTER Ukraine flipped to the West, and the 2022 invasion happened after Zelensky started making noises about joining NATO. They've seen this happen before, including the uselessness of their diplomatic protests, they're not gonna let it happen again. If NATO is to reach Russia's borders, it's gonna mean war. The 2022 war was also preceded by a list of demands - not of Ukraine, but of NATO. NATO ignored it. And btw, China is the same. You think they want Taiwan just cos of some silly historical claims? Lol no. They haven't pressed that claim for over half a century now. The current tension began in 2017 - nothing changed in China then (Xi came to power in 2012), it changed in the US. Trump came to power and launched an anti-China crusade, which Biden has continued. They want Taiwan cos it's part of America's first island chain against them, cos it's allied with the West. And if they can't have it, they'll likely just destroy it, cos anything is better than letting the US have forces just off their coast. The US didn't exactly look kindly upon Russian forces in Cuba after all, and that crisis only abated cos the Russians agreed to back off. NATO is pushing forth. Russia wasn't 'successful' before 2014, it was being steadily encircled and strangled. It was a choice between a slow death or striking out. They chose the latter, and don't be surprised if China does too. Neither nation will ever let the US be their master.
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  1398. ​ @f1y7rap  First off, China can't even reach Iceland or Costa Rica, nor would it care to. And Bhutan is protected by India, not your vaunted US. So only New Zealand is even relevant to your point, mainly cos it's part of the Five Eyes network (oh look, SIGINT!). Secondly, the analogy is to that of the elves of ME. Who were not all self-sufficient, so that point is meaningless. The ones who were, like Elrond and Galadriel, were only able to be so via magic. Without their rings, the elves very much had to trade, as was the case with Thranduil and his realm. So this bit just betrays ignorance of LotR. Thirdly, your ego is showing. Between calling others children and then confidently predicting the future even half a century out, you seem to be rather prideful. Which isn't meant as a complaint, but rather to point out that pride clouds your vision. Russia and China have existed for centuries (or millennia in the case of China), and seen plenty of tumult in all that time. While the past may not be a perfect predictor of the future, I'm gonna bet more on their resilience, in one form or another, than the new kid on the block who thinks he's hot stuff. Few empires, let alone nations, have ever been fully self-sufficient, yet they've lasted centuries. They got by before modern globalization, and they'll probably survive after it as well. This is an especially ironic claim to make wrt Russia, as it's literally the most resource rich nation on Earth, and also a major food producer. And trades extensively with China, who has dominated world trade for a long time. The fate of the smaller nations I mentioned will likely be tied to their larger neighbours - Iceland with Scandinavia, New Zealand with Australia, Bhutan with India, etc.
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  1403. ​ @The-Real-Ando  Lol, we have a better military track record than the US bub. We've been to war several times, and unlike the US we face enemies of comparable or even greater strength, rather than much weaker nations like Afghanistan, and won. The US hasn't faced a strong opponent since WW2, and they've still lost more than we have lol. And that's with all those 'allies' / vassals too "You can’t expect support when you support nobody" - 'cept we have got support before, just not from you. Once more ignorant of history I see, in fact one of them was actually AGAINST the US. "you started the holier than thou attitude" - no, you did. You've been moralizing this issue from the start, in line with Biden (one nice thing about Trump was that at least he wasn't a moralist), despite a long history of US realpolitik. Literally your first comment was a moral sermon, which stands in stark contrast to the realist geopolitics that Caspian Report itself uses. My position is simply in line with that, which offended you and so you went on to try attacking me over 'allies', completely missing the whole point of realism. You're on the wrong channel bub. If you want to preach global liberal solidarity or some such nonsense, this isn't the place for it. And btw, your leader being Ardern actually makes it worse, cos she's even more of a moralist than Biden is. "as we have seen with Russia numerical superiority" - ironically this is just showing more ignorance, as Russia didn't have numerical superiority. Until the recent draft they went in with less than 200k personnel. The Ukrainian armed forces are much larger than that, they were just hoping for a quick capitulation due to shock and awe. Russia's full army is certainly comparable in size, but their mistake was underestimating Ukraine's resolve and so going for a quick deployment that they could pass off as just military training so it'd be a surprise attack. That didn't work and they got bogged down, but my point is they weren't fighting with numerical superiority before, or even now. Meanwhile we've already fought in several wars and acquitted ourselves pretty well so far, so your 'numerical superiority' point is moot. Did you know we pulled off the largest surrender of enemy forces in the world since WW2? That was during the liberation of Bangladesh, which the supposedly freedom-loving US opposed btw, cos they liked the military dictatorship next to us more, while the autocratic USSR drove them off from interfering with it. Quite a contrast to the rhetoric for Taiwan. "If China invades India" - we've fought the Chinese before, unlike you. We don't rely on a big daddy to protect us, also unlike you. Hell, we developed nukes as well to match the Chinese, and guess what? The US was hostile to it, but Russia supported us. You want to talk about countries in need of protection from attack? Why're you against Iran getting nukes then? You turn a blind eye for Israel having them. But Iran needs protection too - but in their case, it's FROM the US, which has already intervened there before and has been hostile ever since, preferring the absolutist monarchy next door. "India made its choices and now you have to live with them" - pretty well actually. We're the only major economy growing right now, while you lot are facing a recession lol. Go read some history crusader. Outside of your western sphere of concern. The world isn't as black and white as you like to think.
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  1404. ​ @The-Real-Ando  Did you just spend the first half of your thesis just trying to diss me? Talk about a waste of words. I did find it amusing how you found 'bub' to be a "sweeping" statement tho lol. "Did you dismantle my comment point by point"? Did you? Hell, did you even read it? Apparently not. For instance, "The Russian military is larger than the Ukrainian military" is a hilarious rebuttal considering I said as much myself. They didn't send their whole military bub, it's a fact that they went in with around 200k troops, a fact even western media reports will let you know. That is less than the Ukrainian military has, which directly contradicts your claim of them having numerical superiority. They didn't. I didn't say anything about their performance, you just lack enough 'attention to detail' to notice that was a pointed rebuttal. "As for the liberation of Bangladesh, firstly that was not the Indian army now was it?" - it was, as you'd know if you bothered to look it up. It literally involved a quarter of a million of our troops, which was more than the locals and is more than Russia invaded Ukraine with. And that's just one war, we've had half a dozen. In which, using those apparently substandard Russian weapons, we've lost one and won all the others. Which is a way better record than the US. "If China invades India" - China already has done that bub, which just goes to show how poorly informed you are. And US or not, we fight for our turf, unlike the little men sitting under the protection of the assistant of the reigning superpower, let alone the US itself. "you’re very patronising, repeatedly factually incorrect, with poor attention to detail" - speaking of yourself here lol? Your record above certainly seems to indicate as much. "I feel no such compunction for India that places the ownership of nuclear weapons above feeding its own people" - bub, we're self-sufficient on food, and have been for a while. You're speaking from one of the most privileged nations on Earth that relies on a hegemon's assistant to protect you from non-existent threats, while we've grown up with two massive nuclear armed enemies right next door to us. You know nothing but fortune, and have no idea of what it's like to develop in such a situation. Hell, you lot wouldn't even have been able to win in your World War without us, since 2.5 million Indian troops fought for your side. And no, that isn't part of my list, just an extra to show you how much you owe us. In any case, as convenient as moralists like you are for your politicians, the US isn't the reigning hegemon by being chained to idealists, as its opportunistic foreign policy shows. You can keep enjoying the privilege of being kept safe and sound enough to cling to notions of geopolitical nicety. So you don't need luck, you were born to it. Btw, I think I really ought to call you Greg. Know why? Cos of Pope Gregory VIII, the dude who called for the Third Crusade.
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  1405. ​ @The-Real-Ando  It doesn't speak to anything, maybe apart from to your own sensitivity or proclivity for distraction. You waste a lot of words on trying to claim the high ground, on etiquette in our argument and on morality for your crusade. And I did indeed say crusade, but you're being far too unimaginative (perhaps on purpose) in your reading of that. It wasn't about the actual religious crusades of the past, but about the attitudes that underlie that - the idea of a moral conflict, and moral war. You're not fighting for Christianity sure, but you're still arguing for a moral war. I've said how misplaced that is on this channel, but it's also just very destructive. Moralizing conflict corrodes dialogue and constrains compromise. It charges people with righteous fervor, be the cause religious or otherwise. And there have been plenty of moral conflicts that weren't religious fyi, simply by virtue of how they were framed. WW2 being the marquee example. A more cold, pragmatic approach avoids all this, but moralists can't stand that attitude. The US, albeit not just them, happily makes use of both - guided by realpolitik, but branding its actions as being for moral causes in order to drum up support, which is why its foreign policy history is so full of hypocrisy. But the sadder is the people who fall for it. The Taiwanese, to their credit, are much more circumspect. They don't have the luxury of distant westerners who can always run away if things go bad. They know their necks are on the line, and their own polls attest to that - showing less enthusiasm for an immediate declaration of independence and ye olde grand conflict than their American protectors have. Cos the west faces little consequence, they do. "my estimation is that China kicked your ass" - indeed, that was the one loss I spoke off. They did win in 1962, we pushed them back in 1967. But either way, both they and we know they can't really pull off a full scale invasion, plus the US isn't the only one who can blockade the Malacca Strait. So let us worry about China. I said we've won most of our wars, you just cherrypicked the one we lost that I already admitted. Our record is still better than the US, let alone NZ lol. We don't rely on them like you folks do. "to draw the conclusion that India is china’s military equal is complete nonsense" - I'd agree, if I'd actually said that. Tsk tsk, still failing at that 'attention to detail' I see. I never once claimed that, and in fact as the fourth strongest military China is a rank above us. But you don't need to be on par in order to repel an invader. We're a LOT closer to China's strength than Ukraine was to Russia or Vietnam was to America. We couldn't attack China's home territory, but we're not even interested in doing so, only the US is given to those delusions of grandeur. Indeed the losses both Russia and the US have suffered to far weaker foes should give you pause in taking on China, it does nothing but bolster us as defenders. "since the crusades didn’t get as far as India I’m not sure why you want to bring that up" - read paragraph two above. "you’re anti-west again that’s your problem" - nah, just anti towards those who love taking the moral high ground. Especially about something as destructive as war. "Your hatred is yours" - lmao! This is sheer irony. You're talking to an Indian who's kinda (tho not really) arguing China's side here, and you think I'm driven by hate? Lol. I'm far more cool-headed about this whole thing than you Greg. I'm simply keeping things pragmatic, not being led on by moralism. "Call me Bub to my face and see how far you get…" - talk about contradicting yourself - now you sound mad, right after suggesting I am. But sure thing Greg, but I'm not paying for your tickets to get here. You're the richer country, and you're the one who made the dare, so you pay for it. "I pity your for it" - and I pity those who can be manipulated so easily. Do you know how many crusades there were? It's amazing how far people will go when you give them a cause. The pope sat pretty in Rome btw.
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  1424.  @laststand6420  China isn't going to fight a war in South America so I'm not sure why that even came up. It gains influence simply through economic ties, and if your answer to that is that you can always just force them to switch sides, that's just gonna create even more resentment than is already there. That isn't going to drive the Chinese out, any more than you managed to 'win' in Afghanistan or Iraq. China's successes have been in places burned by bad experience with the West - this just adds to that. As for holding the first island chain, who says they need to hold anything? All they'll be after is to inflict the most damage to your navy such that it's clear it can't adequately defend either Taiwan or the Philippines. Then the issue is that they can inflict massive damage on both, no need to actually hold them. At that point it makes more sense for them to sue for peace as they're stuck with the Chinese, not you (as in, China is literally their neighbor, not you). China can make their lives hell for as long as it wants at little cost afterwards, but at least in the case of Philippines the demand they'd make is minimal - most likely just to close American bases there and that's mostly it. As for Taiwan, that's trickier. However it's worth noting that less than 10% of Taiwans' population supports an immediate declaration of independence (according to their OWN surveys) - support for that is actually far higher in the West (where it carries little consequence) than in Taiwan itself. This isn't cos they love China, as about half hope for independence eventually, but because they're cautious and pragmatic. They don't see the position they've been in (unofficial independence) as particularly bad and don't want to upset that. If the Chinese offer them a deal that involves minimal sacrifice to themselves, they may very well take it if they see the alternative as a ruinous war. What that deal would be is up in the air, but it'd definitely have them cut military cooperation with the US. It's worth noting that China has claimed Taiwan for over half a century, yet has done little to achieve it - in fact even now they are Taiwan's largest trade partner. The current tensions began in 2017 - nothing changed in China then (Xi came to power in 2012), it changed in the US (Trump came to power on the back of a crusade against them, which Biden has continued cos it's one of Trumps' agendas both sides votebases loved). Even the latest escalation followed Pelosi's visit there. I mention this cos it clarifies what they're really concerned about - they view the US in Taiwan the same as the US saw the Russians in Cuba (and Cuba got off far worse btw). If they can impress upon the Taiwanese to kick the US out, then they could just meaninglessly label the island a protectorate or something similar and declare the job done. Saves them from a costly land invasion, and preserves its economic value. No point fighting to own a bombed out ruin with a restive population. It isn't semiconductors they want - they already get that via trade - it's the location that matters, just as Cuba is to America. All they need is a decisive military victory in the area, the rest is up to how flexible their diplomacy would be.
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  1434. I love it when members of 1-2 century old states form analyses from - and pass judgment on - empires that, in some cases, lasted several centuries (or even millenia in the case of Rome), rather conveniently in their favor. Besides, institutions? What are those? There is no widely accepted and non-vague definition of 'institution', and most that exist tend make it overlap considerably with culture - an explanation the authors already reject. Meanwhile in their book they seem to be simply using 'institutions' as a thin veil for some form of liberal democracy and capitalism, which is really no different from the triumphalism of books like 'The End of History'. Apparently such institutions will endure, as opposed to their opposites, which flies in the face of history, but is accepted only because of a quirk of memory - even a month experienced yourself feels a lot longer than entire past centuries never actually felt by you. Also, that just pushes the question back - how do these miraculous institutions get developed in the first place? Does 'Why Nations Fail' now require a companion book, 'Where Good Institutions Come From'? And then there's China. As with so many western intellectuals, they too confidently predict China's downfall. Pretty much every nation or empire has fallen at some point, yet it's curious who people from opposing ideological choose to fixate on as the one most likely to fall (hint: it's rarely themselves). China hasn't fallen yet, despite decades of predictions that it will. At some point though, it's bound to. And when it does, all these writers will get to raise their hands and claim, "we told you so!". Except you didn't. You made a vague prediction of a vague outcome. Almost none ever publish a timeline or date for China's fall - forget years, they can't even seem to nail it down to a decade - and yet you want to call that a prediction?! If this was physics, it'd be like estimating the speed of light as somewhere between the speed of our fastest rocket engine and the initial expansion rate of cosmic inflation. What kind of prediction is that? Literally anyone can be right about anything, as long as they're vague enough about it. Considering that you're drawing parallels between societies with lifespans measured in entire multi-historical periods and those measured in a handful of generations, but in favor of the much younger ones, I suppose it's fitting that you seem to have issues with appreciating the true value of time.
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  1513. ​ @CStone-xn4oy  In that case, eastern Europe is Russia's sphere of influence, and Taiwan is China's sphere of influence. Ironically, the west said it is against sphere of influence politics, at least in words if not in deed. And it isn't about nukes. Neither the Chinese nor the Russians are afraid they're going to be nuked, cos they can just nuke back. The US strategy is called containment for a reason. You also called it a cage. It's about slowly surrounding and strangling them, rendering them impotent. Nukes are only ever an option if WW3 breaks out and total war reigns. If a full invasion of either happens. But there's plenty of things nations can do below that level. And if they're strangled, you can do those things with impunity because they can't do anything back in return to deter you. It cements your power over them, with no shots even being fired. Taiwan has gotten off much better than Cuba btw. Cuba already had an invasion, if an unofficial one. And has been strangled for decades now. Taiwan hasn't yet, is free to trade and in fact trades most with China. So the US has hardly shown restraint. Also, Cuba was sorted out peacefully because the USSR agreed to back off. The US has done no such thing so far - on the contrary the rise in tensions over Taiwan directly correlates with an increase in American assertiveness. They started in 2017, 5 years AFTER Xi came to power but right after Trump came to power on the back of an anti-China crusade that he immediately put to action. The largest military drills were carried out right after Nancy Pelosi visited against Chinese protestations. And so on. For over half a century now the situation has been stable, with no Chinese invasion. The instability tracks changes in US policy, not of China, and will die down if, like the USSR, the US backs off from its current path.
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  1543. ​ @stephenjenkins7971  Lmao we've never relied on the west precisely because we know how capricious it is. That's why we have nukes (and ate western sanctions for it) and one of the strongest armies in the world. Meanwhile the supposed champion of democracy took our enemies' side whenever it suited them, including when it was massacring Bengalis (no strangers to western atrocities, given that 3 million of them were starved for your stupid war) who were fighting for their own freedom. So spare us your spiel. The US' wars in the 2000s even individually have death tolls higher than all of Russia's wars in the same time period combined. Power is all you care about, which is why you're antagonistic to a rising power in the east despite it not having gone to war for nearly half a century (while you just exited one of your wars last year) and why your military alliance persisted despite the ostensible reason for its existence collapsing 30 years ago. Power is why the US has over 800 foreign bases while raising alarms about other nations opening ONE. It's why they have not just the highest military spending in the world, but also the highest PER CAPITA (which adjusts for economy size). Power is why the US has happily allied itself with autocrats aplenty when convenient, including supporting their far worse wars (Indonesia in East Timor, KSA in Yemen today, etc.) and stood against democracy when inconvenient (communists, islamists, whatever other excuse) and even installed some of their own (Gautemala, Chile, etc.) who've gone on to commit atrocities as well. Power is why the US literally sanctioned the head of the goddamn ICC for daring to open an inquiry into their crimes in Afghanistan, and has a law to literally invade the Hague in case an American ever gets put on trial there. And another law to sanction countries for simply having the temerity of choosing who they want to trade with, if those nations happen to be US rivals. Power is why America has been at war for most of its history, and with millions of corpses as a testament to it. Spare me your spiel about atrocities. We don't have anything like your track record, which is why we see through all the bullshit rhetoric. We may be partnering with you on China, but that's simply due to mutual concerns. Don't mistake that for reliance, we'd never make the mistake of relying on a partner with so fickle a history. Even now, as it lets Ukraine burn while exploiting the situation without getting its hands dirty and engaging in moral grandstanding to boot.
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  1544. ​ @crispybacon261  That expands their economy, not their influence. Not much anyway. Would Nordstream 2 have enabled Russia to get the US out of Europe, or even Germany? No, then it's not much of a rise. Similarly has China's trade with the west enabled it to have its claims on Taiwan and the South China Sea recognized? Also no, and in fact the west is becoming ever more antagonistic on those despite the massive trade ties. Did the US manage to pull off regime change in Iraq? Yep, and they didn't do it through trade, or even sanctions. Soft power is just a feel-good phrase people keep tossing out as a magical 'solution' that does nothing. There's a reason geopolitics is still quite cutthroat, cos soft power has some pretty hard limits. Norway has all the soft power you could ever want, and yet there's little it can show for it apart from cute stories of supporting ethical business or some shit. Meanwhile the US has loads of hard power and literally shapes world politics, and it ain't through Hollywood. They invest more than the next ten nations combined into their hard power - there's good reason for that. Cos soft power is soft. I can guarantee you that had Russia's war machine proven more effective than it has, and the US not stepped up to challenge it as much as it has, they wouldn't be acting anywhere near as belligerent. Some would, but others would be seeking conciliation. Cos ultimately all that soft power they keep harping on about is underpinned by a big American stick. And now, in contrasting to your point, they're even looking to develop a big stick of their own as well. So much for soft power.
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  1545. ​ @crispybacon261  There's a difference between soft power and simply having a strong economy. Russia did invest in her economy - she was growing well right up until 2014, after which she switched to trying to make herself as sanction resistant as possible. Maybe the war was premature, maybe it wasn't. But the point is that war IS how you effect major change, not soft power. For what Russia wants, a war is necessary at some point. Ditto China. And don't kid yourself into thinking the world will side with China when the time comes - economics isn't everything and hasn't ever been. Countries not involved may still trade with it, but they aren't gonna fight with it. NATO doesn't exist just cos America is a major trading partner for Europe. But that's true of Russia too - these supposedly global sanctions are actually from just 45 nations, almost all of which are western. The only non-western nations participating are the wests' allies S. Korea and Japan, as well as Singapore. That leaves about 150 odd nations that're mostly keeping out of it, as they don't see this war as much different from the wests' own wars. The reason they're seemingly unprecedented is only cos of how lopsided the global economic structure is, with the dollar/euro having been placed at the center of international trade. The same will likely be true of China's war. All these same nations will be sanctioning China in case of war as well, and others will likely again not participate. China's largest trade partner is the US, and yet the US is also the most antagonistic to China. Anyway, I'm not arguing that an economy isn't needed for war, but that soft power doesn't enable you to make big change - you need hard power to do that. And Putin's approval ratings may have peaked a few years ago, but they were still higher than, say, Bidens' have ever been. That's a very unlikely reason for the war. There are far likelier candidates - a desire for regime change in Ukraine, Ukraine's oil and gas reserves, securing water supply for Crimea that Ukraine blocked, etc.
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  1575. ​ @UnendingAbyss  "the west did not proceed to subjugate and suppress its foes" - lmao, do you even know the wests' history? Never mind colonialism (the largest scale subjugation in human history), but even western history post-WW2? Here's a partial list of the countries the US has intervened in just since WW2 - Angola, Argentina, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Congo, Dominican Republic, El Savador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, Yemen, etc. Have fun looking up all those interventions lol! "Russia won very few allies in the 500 years it has had to build and amend" - also not true. Almost all of places that hate Russia are its neighbours in Europe, it actually has plenty of countries with good ties to it outside of Europe. Hence why, for instance, both South Africa and Brazil said they won't arrest Putin. Or why India stood by it despite western pressure. There's actually a history to all of that (Russia assisted the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, as well as defended India from sanctions after its nuclear tests as well as even from America itself in 1971). This is no accident - look at what South Americans think of the US. By and large, due to over a century of political and even military interference, they don't think highly of it either. Similarly China is strongly disliked by her neighbours, but has a much better reputation farther afield in Africa and South America. You should stop reading so much into the fact that America has a long reach due to being the reigning global hegemon. It isolates nations using its dominance of the financial system but that doesn't mean the world is with it. Nearly the entire world, except for Israel, has condemned the US sanctions on Cuba every year for decades now, for instance, yet they continue cos the US ignores that. Let that sink in - literally everyone except Israel voted against an American policy, and yet Cuba is still isolated. Cos that's what it means to be a hegemon. It doesn't reflect global opinion, just US power.
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  1576. ​ @UnendingAbyss  "why not post a list of countries that other world powers like Russia were involved in?" - you can do that, in fact I've had people try to respond with that. But their list didn't match the US one. They had to try padding it out by repeating names, since Russia has intervened in some states more than once (like Ukraine, for example). But ultimately it was mostly populated by names from one part of the world - eastern Europe, with a few names from central Asia. The American list is far more global and, in fact, the continent that stands out most for NOT showing in it is Europe (and Australia, which is one country). You find names from Latin America, Africa and Asia, with Europe conspicuously absent. In other words, the US pampers Europe while intervening everywhere else, while Russia bullies eastern Europe while often using carrots everywhere else. Which makes sense, as it's hard to wage war far away (the US is very weird in this regard, as I've expanded on elsewhere). And don't even get me started on China lol - their last war ended in 1979 fyi, the US' latest war ended in 2021. "The only allies Russia has are bedfellows they've made with autocracies that also hate the west." - India, the biggest democracy in the world, says hi. Also Brazil. South Africa. Etc. There's a history behind that in each case. In the case of India for instance, among other things Russia literally defended them against both an American intervention in 1971, and US sanctions in the 1990s. And India is right now courting and being courted by the west in order to counter China, but has refused to turn on Russia despite the wests' desires. So much for that simplistic retort. Really, that's a childish worldview you've got there. If you think the world is some kid's fable between the side of the good democracies all united against the bad autocracies (also all united), you're naive and ignorant. Hell the US has had autocratic allies as well as has even put in place despots to suit its interests (Gautemala, for example). While Russia has backed democracies against other authoritarian states too (like India). Reality isn't a childrens' fable, it's complex. "you really think the rest of the world is too stupid to see past these whataboutisms?" - evidently, as that's a term I mostly only hear from westerners, whereas pointing out the US' crimes is a common point for people outside the west. The people who bring it up haven't even bothered looking up the proper meaning and criticisms of the term. Go ahead and look it up on Wikipedia if you like, you'll find an entire section of the article dedicated to those who's criticised the way the accusation is misused. Suffice to say it isn't whataboutism to point out hypocrisy. It's just pointing out hypocrisy. Given your childish mindset though, I'm guessing you just learned the word from the media and ran with it. Well sorry to break it to you, but what I'm pointing out IS very common in the 'rest of the world' i.e. the world outside the west. A world I'm part of. Russia isn't seen as an angel, but the US is hardly seen as an angel either. And those who go on about how great the western-led world order is just elicit an eyeroll from folk. "One thing that is so pointedly obvious about tankies like yourself" - lol! You really complain about one form of logical fallacy, and then turn around and use another? That's ad hominem bro. Fail. It's also an unsubstantiated ad hominem to boot. You know nothing about me, so calling me a tankie just cos I don't join in your crusade only shows how narrow your own mind is. I've said nothing about capitalism, but sure go on with your screed if you'd like. All you'd be doing is showing how little you know about the sheer plethora of different viewpoints that exist in the world. And also confirming your childishly oversimplified division of the world into just two camps. "If you want to be a worm, crawl, if you want to be a bird, fly, but don't cry" - perfect way to end your screed! Cos it sounds like something a teenaged punk would say. 🤣
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  1600. ​ @andriusdi  Finally you're being very narrow in your view of the world. Border issues aren't the exception to geopolitics, they're the norm. For all of history, MOST conflicts have been on borders (not to mention a lot of the worlds' current border issues, including several with China, are cos of the damn Europeans). This holds true even today. You know what is unusual? Expeditionary warfare i.e. war far away from one's homeland. America is one of the few nations in all of history to frequently do that, and most of the rest were the former colonial powers btw. And it has almost no reason to go to war either - its borders are clear and secured, it has no ethnic diaspora or historical territory to claim, and it's blessed with plentiful resources to boot (and it's only neighbors are weak). Hell the only nations that should be less likely to go to war are islands like New Zealand. Neither China nor Russia nor India are in anywhere near as lucky a position as the US. Look at Canada - that's what America should be like. But it isn't. Instead it's been to more wars in the modern period than any other nation. That's embarrassing when you consider how fortunate they are. The US isn't Israel, whose aggression is more understandable. Hell they went to war in Vietnam over what? A global chess game with the USSR, not any threat from Vietnam to them nor any claims to territory. That's what I mean when I'm pointing out the US' warmongering - they do it despite having little reason to, just to establish and preserve their global hegemony. That is a far less sympathetic reason than disputes over borders, and far more unusual too.
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  1603.  @andriusdi  Ironically the US sided with Taiwan when it was still very much an autocracy, which it stayed for years afterwards. It never had anything to do with democracy, whatever the PR rhetoric they spew nowadays, just geopolitical power games. And 'aligned'? Aligned for what? Even you admit it needs China to attack, so what is your damn point? Like I said, they're defending themselves, not playing dutiful poodles like the UK does. They have themselves to worry about, a concept alien to spoiled westerners who don't remember what real danger feels like. Consider Taiwan - did you know less than 10% of their people favor immediate independence, according to their own surveys? That's a far cry from the support of Americans for the issue. Why? It's not cos they love China, it's cos they're know the value of being circumspect and cautious. They're not scared, just patient. It's the US that's rash and hasty, because they never have any skin in the game in any of their conflicts cos they always fight far away, with the option of running back home if things go bad. They don't have to play it safe, so they don't. Even the current spike in the tensions over Taiwan began in 2017 - nothing had changed in China then (Xi came to power in 2012), it changed in the US. Trump came to power and launched an anti-China crusade, which Biden has continued cos it caught on with the public. The nation's in the region can't afford to be so brash. That's a privilege only the US enjoys, and exploits.
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  1657. ​ @chobai9996  Ad hominems huh? And an especially ironic choice of one, considering you've already admitted that you yourself are Chinese. You're not doing your case any favors by falling back on personal attacks. You also admit that China's per capita is much lower. You think dismissing that defence serves your cause? Lol no. It doesn't just punish China to dismiss it, it punishes all poor nations, and effectively all poor people, while giving the rich ones that created this mess an out. There's a reason it's recognized as a valid measure even at the highest of international levels. You think you're being anti-CCP, what you're actually being is anti-poor - letting rich Americans go despite them producing more pollution in favor of attacking poor Chinese (as well as poor elsewhere) just cos there's fewer rich people. At least be honest enough to admit that, rather than deluding yourself into thinking this is just about the CCP. Then there's the fact that you utterly ignored my mention of cumulative emissions i.e. that America has STILL added more CO2 to the atmosphere in total than China even upto today. Which means more of the rise in temperature is STILL attributable to America (let alone the west as a whole) than China. They've got far more of a mess to clean up. Once again, you think focusing only on who the top emitter at present is works against China, your pet bugbear, but it actually works against all developing nations. You're like the guy who sees someone smashed to within an inch of death by a rich dude in an SUV, but only gets upset by the poor mugger who comes along later and knocks him out to take his wallet to feed his family. As for renewables, you're free to dismiss them as much as you like based on your own opinion. The statistics on the industry are pretty clear and available for all to see. If anything, your grossly inhumane stance only reveals your own biases. I doubt you actually hate poor people, or think blame should lie only with the ones to come last on the scene of a crime. No, I think your hatred for one country has blinded you to the ramifications of the position you're advocating. Whether you'll have the maturity to realize that and change your tune remains to be seen.
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  1679. I love it when members of 1-2 century old states form analyses from - and pass judgment on - empires that, in some cases, lasted several centuries (or even millenia in the case of Rome), rather conveniently in their favor. Besides, institutions? What are those? There is no widely accepted and non-vague definition of 'institution', and most that exist tend make it overlap considerably with culture - an explanation the authors already reject. Meanwhile in their book they seem to be simply using 'institutions' as a thin veil for some form of liberal democracy and capitalism, which is really no different from the triumphalism of books like 'The End of History'. Apparently such institutions will endure, as opposed to their opposites, which flies in the face of history, but is accepted only because of a quirk of memory - even a month experienced yourself feels a lot longer than entire past centuries never actually felt by you. Also, that just pushes the question back - how do these miraculous institutions get developed in the first place? Does 'Why Nations Fail' now require a companion book, 'Where Good Institutions Come From'? And then there's China. As with so many western intellectuals, they too confidently predict China's downfall. Pretty much every nation or empire has fallen at some point, yet it's curious who people from opposing ideological choose to fixate on as the one most likely to fall (hint: it's rarely themselves). China hasn't fallen yet, despite decades of predictions that it will. At some point though, it's bound to. And when it does, all these writers will get to raise their hands and claim, "we told you so!". Except you didn't. You made a vague prediction of a vague outcome. Almost none ever publish a timeline or date for China's fall - forget years, they can't even seem to nail it down to a decade - and yet you want to call that a prediction?! If this was physics, it'd be like estimating the speed of light as somewhere between the speed of our fastest rocket engine and the initial expansion rate of cosmic inflation. What kind of prediction is that? Literally anyone can be right about anything, as long as they're vague enough about it. Considering that you're drawing parallels between societies with lifespans measured in entire multi-historical periods and those measured in a handful of generations, but in favor of the much younger ones, I suppose it's fitting that you seem to have issues with appreciating the true value of time.
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  1700. ​ @SirCheezersIII  They voted to condemn the invasion, not in favor of the west. Ukraine has a lot of sympathy, but that doesn't mean everyone's on your side. Most nations want the war over, but that doesn't mean supporting western triumph over Russia. Hell even China has preached peace and dialogue, do you think they're aligned with the west? Countries that need Russian goods, or find it to be a good deal now, will continue buying from them. And they'd mostly prefer to see the sanctions gone as well, especially after the war (regardless of the territorial outcome), so trade can resume without issue. That UN resolution does nothing and they knew it. This is not their war and they would much rather just put it behind them than be made to pick a side in yet another western mess (both world wars began in the west, and the cold war was similarly a western conflict). As for that line being drawn, who's drawing it? You? Technically it's already drawn, but that means little cos the UN has paltry enforcement power. So instead the west is drawing it whenever convenient, which of course means the next country the US invades under whatever pretext will somehow not cross that line. Imagine that, the US being sanctioned just like Russia is. That'd be the day. But no, if you want a line drawn then the UN needs teeth. The west certainly doesn't get the privilege of being the people to draw it. It already has enough privileges as it is. Until then there is no line. Btw, have you heard of the Second Congo War? It's the deadliest conflict since WW2, often called Africa's world war, and wasn't that long ago (and kinda is still ongoing). And yet you've likely heard little about it. Ditto the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia or Yemen (which the US was even part of). Armenia and Azerbaijan even traded land, violently, just last year. So much for lines. The only line is between friend and foe - everyone else may as well not even exist. Well they do for me, and I'm not interested in treating your war as any more special.
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  1707. ​ @karsten11553  sigh You people are so narrow. And then you wonder why Poland and Hungary turn out like they do, why India likes Modi, why El Salvador literally elected and vehemently support a full fledged dictator with more control of his country than even Putin has over Russia. I blame it on the legacy of the wests' old 'white man's burden' ideology, where they were held up as the model standard for all of humanity. That mindset still runs deep in your psyches. You can't imagine any other perspective, even when the facts don't agree with you. Putin has around twice the approval ratings of Biden, and that's per Statista (which is German, so don't bother claiming bias). His lowest approval ratings were around 60%, and they've touched 90% multiple times. He's very secure with the Russian public. And ironically the reason for this is because of the wests' oh-so-great 'transformation' of Russia in the 1990s. That decade was an absolute disaster for Russia, and Russians HATE Yeltsin (who was feted in the west) for it. It was FAR worse than the old Soviet times, which is why there's a good deal of communist nostalgia in Russia even today. Because of the 'benefits' the west bestowed upon Russia. Putins' popularity is based on him finally bringing an end to the chaos of that period and some semblance of stability. I suggest you pay a visit to El Salvador - it's much safer these days with all the gangs locked up. The man who did that literally took the country from a democracy to a dictatorship - with the people's support. It would do you some good to widen your perspective, to realize that people aren't as simple as you like to believe. They don't live according to west-centric idealisms, but rather make complex choices about their lives, and their politics. Does that mean people like dictators? No, cos that's yet another oversimplification. It means exactly what I said - people are complex than you give them credit for. And YOU aren't the model organism for all of humanity. The world is far more diverse than you think. Alternately Wendover Productions made a really nice video about their story on YT.
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  1708. ​ @sjkyk2995  The EU is not some magic bullet lol, it's more like Harvard - it takes in high achievers and sometimes spits the same out, and people pretend that makes it a great educational institution. I'd be more impressed by a school that took in delinquents and turned them into even just middle management. You need to qualify to enter the EU, you're not just let in just cos you want in (just look at Turkey to see that). The EU isn't gonna fix Ukraine, assuming it even lets them in, it would have to fix itself to be afforded the 'privilege' entering the hallowed halls of the EU, just like Harvard. Ukraine would have to be successful on its own before it entered the EU. Secondly, Gorbachev was well before the time any of this was relevant. The Baltic states joined the EU in 2004, by which time Gorbachev had been out of power for decades and Putin was already premier of Russia. Their entry has nothing to do with the fall of the Soviet Union, which happened literally over a decade prior to that lmao! You third point is nothing but wishful speculation, which is what this whole argument has always been despite it failing time and time and time again. Russians can already see richer people in Germany, they don't need to anything in Ukraine to imagine a different future. And I mean it when I say this silly liberal nigh-religious universalism has failed again and again, cos that's all this argument is - a story liberals tells themselves about how everyone is a closet liberal at heart and wants to be just like them, in order to feed their egos. That's why they think they can just invade Afghanistan and introduce them to the wonders of the western lifestyle and will be embraced for it (and that's the most charitable way of seeing the wests' wars btw, as missionary endeavours akin to the old 'white man's burden'). That's why they see protests in Syria and immediately think of it as some grand uprising of their liberal brothers who just want to be like them. That's why the west was so sure China would liberalize as it got richer, and then got so angry that China 'betrayed' that expectation. That's the kind of thinking that underpins the whole 'we'll bring them freedom and democracy' that the US uses to justify its wars so often that it's become a meme. It's nothing but the same old elitist 'we are the model for the world' self-perception that the white mans' burden was also an example of. And time and time again it has failed, as people reject becoming like you to be themselves. No, you are not the model. No, not everyone thinks like you or wants to be like you. The world is a diverse place. Truly diverse, not the skin-deep kind of superficial 'diversity' western liberals like to yap on about. You fundamentally don't understand the world cos your ego and pride blinds you to it.
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  1709. ​ @RickDeckard6531  I think you need to work on your temporal perception bruh. You've got things backwards. I was responding to a speculative but popular story liberals like to tell themselves about why Russia went in to Ukraine, mostly to feed their own egos. The fact of the matter is Ukraine is poor, so that explanation doesn't work. There was nothing to tempt Russians into revolution, so it doesn't explain their invasion. Further examples of other countries actually makes your claims WEAKER, not stronger, cos Russians can see Poland and Lithuania already - and still haven't revolted. It goes against your whole argument that Russia seeing a prosperous western nation is going to lead them to overthrow Putin - they've already seen lots of prosperous western nations, and Putin has been as secure as ever, with high approval ratings. You think you had some clever rejoinder, but you're literally making my argument for me - this never had anything to do with Russians being influenced by Ukrainian prosperity, both now (when it is actually poorer) or in the future (if it gets rich at all). They've seen it all already and not revolted. More broadly, as I told the other guy, this argument is just you folks being blinded by your egos and your pride. It has failed across the world, and every time it does you people get so angry about it, be it in China or Afghanistan or El Salvador, because they didn't follow your expectations for them. But they don't have any obligation to be like you arrogantly think everyone on Earth is i.e. like you, and looking up to you. You speculate on Russia doing the same using the same flawed reasoning that everyone sees you as the model for humanity. It doesn't work, it just feeds your huge ego. The world is a diverse place - truly diverse, not the skin-deep superficial diversity western liberals like to yap on about. The west is not the world, nor a model for it.
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  1723. ​ @davidblair9877  Lol your hubris is showing, so much so that it blinds you to your own self-contradiction. If you don't need those states, then you can't claim the Nordics joining matters either. You're also blinded by the strategic move, which goes both ways btw. As if that's the only way to fight, especially silly considering you've never used it ('cept on an enemy who couldn't do it back - the only nation in history to ever do so, twice!) despite all the fights you've got into. As for self-owns, not really. Might as well strike out before you're surrounded. Nato was expanding anyway, and refused to limit itself. Waiting until it was all around them would've been far dumber. They did make a peace offer after all, before the fighting and before either of the Nordics joined. You rejected it, so may as well do it then since diplomacy was off the table. And it's funny you dismissing Cuba as irrelevant considering you continue to punish that poor island to this day, even against literally universal global resolutions against it literally every year for decades. So much for the past being a different country, evidently it still matters to you. Them bowing still matters to you, so that chin can't move in there next I suppose. It's also hypocritical in the extreme to argue long range missiles make partner countries obsolete when you continue to maintain (and seek out more) the largest global network of bases by far. If they're so obsolete, why keep holding them? Why keep seeking more out, especially in the pacific now? No, it's cos they aren't obsolete. Even your own govt. knows that. Only YOU don't, due to your own hubris. Lastly you haven't answered anything, just dismissed a few things offhand and ignored the rest. I gave you a long list of crimes, both past and ongoing. Literally the most interventions since ww2. You have plenty to answer for, so get answering.
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  1754.  @naveenpalanisamy9730  Btw, this is true even of peaceful examples. For instance, did you know that the US is involved in the Mekong river discussions? That's all the way in SE Asia, far beyond how far even Russia can exert influence. ALL of the other participants are nations through which the river actually flows, except America. So what is it doing there? Playing it's role as hegemon of course. It's just normal in the West that they're involved even though they're thousands of kilometres away. Just as it's normal to them that the US has intervened in dozens of countries all across the globe since WW2 I take it from your name that you're Indian? Well if America had had its way, India would have backed out of the 1971 aka Bangladesh war, and that nation wouldn't even exist today, cos they supported Pakistan then. They even had ships in the Bay of Bengal to intimidate India, but Indira Gandhi just defied them (and with diplomatic support from Russia). Similarly East Timor wouldn't exist today if they had their way, as America tacitly supported Indonesia's genocidal war to suppress them. And besides its own wars in the ME that've killed hundreds of thousands (look it up - that's WAY more than any of Russia's recent conflicts, combined!), they're also supporting KSA and UAE in their war in Yemen. And you think Russia controls "all nations"? Lol, Russia doesn't have that kind of reach. From Saddam to Gaddafi to Putin, Russia is not dumb enough to imagine its safe. The only counter they have is literal armageddon, which understandably they'd rather not use. They don't have forces on America's doorstep and when they did the US threw a fit (notice how once again the US expecting Cuba to bow down to it's demands is taken for granted?). So the best they can do is ensure at least that the US also doesn't have forces on their border.
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  1772.  @pekkoh75  "NATO was already on its way out by 2008" - So NATO had 14 YEARS to go away, and didn't? NATO has only expanded ever since the fall of the USSR, even before Russia's wars. It has never been seriously 'on its way out'. That's just a post-facto rationalization made up to pretend Russian aggression is why NATO exists and expands. It isn't. France seeking a bit more influence over NATO is meaningless, I said Russia wants the Americans gone, and America has never said it'll leave NATO. Indeed they've been behind its expansion, as France and Germany were more cautious about doing that but America never was. Indeed the US is even trying to rope it's allies into its operations in the east as well, another provocation that's just going to lead to yet more war. Btw there's nothing 'isolationist' about switching focus from Russia to China. There is only one way NATO will end, and always has been - WW3. It has shown no indication of disbanding itself or even just dumping America any other way. That's not how hegemony works. And the way things are headed, it's going to get WW3 (and then whine about never wanting that). Russia in Europe, Iran in the ME, China in the far East - curiously all these countries (and some others too) have one thing in common: the US has made enemies of them all. Funnily enough, most of them haven't been to war in decades as well - the US still made enemies of them. So that excuse doesn't work. The US has actually been to war more than they have, and even today its wars in the ME (which ended just last year) even individually killed more people than all of Russia's wars in the same period combined. And NATO was party to one of those wars, and likely will be party to the one in the far East as well when that happens. NATO isn't going anywhere, nor is America, of its own volition. Russia knows this, which is why they have no reason to hold back. All the US offers them, and its other enemies, are sticks and threats of more sticks. So they might as well fight back even if everyone dies.
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  1777. ​ @pekkoh75  You don't get it. Firstly, you think that becoming one of you is a 'chance', which hints at the fundamental arrogance of your perspective (which tbh was evident even in your ostentatious claim that NATO isn't just the most powerful today, but across all of history). This is what I meant when I spoke of the US only fully accepting nations if they've been remade from the ground up in their own image, like Japan. That isn't a 'chance', it's essentially the same perspective applied to nations as was applied to native Americans in their infamous 'civilizing' boarding schools. They couldn't do it for some of their other enemies, and hence the hostility remains. So far up north you might be surprised how this war is perceived down south. Did you know in Brazil both main candidates - one right-wing and the other left - are blaming NATO? That Africa is hardly impressed by the wests' rhetoric (btw, have you heard of the African world war aka the biggest war since WW2? It's not old, and in many ways still ongoing - but barely registered in the west cos, you know, westerners aren't dying, much like Yemen today). That even India, ostensibly courting America in other arenas, isn't going along with its narrative. There's reasons, very tangible historical reasons, for all of that. They aren't doing it cos they're huge lovers of Russia, they're doing it cos of the nation you're siding with. Russia is sanctioned by 46 nations, most being from the EU - that's less than quarter of the worlds' nations (despite them being called 'global') and much less of its people. If you think even this report takes Russia's side, you don't want to hear what they think. There is actually sympathy for Ukraine, but there's little sympathy for the loudest voice in this conflict. And that voice isn't Russia. Secondly, I even told you the war is unlikely to be with Russia. The US has far more enemies than that, which is in itself telling. Russia may join in of course. And, unless things get really out of hand, those bunkers will sit unused. You're not going to die. That'd be easy. You're going to watch as every world system built up by the US after WW2 to ensure its centrality is torn down around it and we all suffer the greatest economic collapse in history, all cos America can't keep its hegemonic hands to itself. There probably won't even be any fighting in Finland. But you'll get to enjoy the aftermath of depression all the same. Ultimately you're catering to the whims of a nation that thinks it has no limits and sees no equal. And indeed you seem to think that as well. The problem isn't that you want to defend yourselves. The issue is the west has forgotten that discretion, as the saying goes, is the better part of valor. And cos it never truly abandoned that colonial mentality of its 'manifest destiny'.
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  1791.    So many words, so many insults, and yet you couldn't even get the issue down right. You're contrasting a dictatorship to a democracy, as if I was arguing for the former, while I'm talking about civil war. Neither political system makes a lick of difference if you're dead, the civil wars tend to do that a lot. Plus it wouldn't even be a war of their choosing or on their terms, but precipitated by a foreign invasion. The deaths mean little to you because they're just numbers on the way to an end goal, whose realization isn't even certain and certainly isn't clear by when, if ever, it'd be achieved (there are civil wars that have lasted decades, and there are fledgling democracies that have failed and regressed anyway - especially when they didn't arise naturally from within). I also mentioned Brunei simply to show you that other people might prioritize differently from you, a choice you want to take away from them in your zeal to accelerate head first to your ideal utopia. Speaking of which, are you an accelerationist? It'd sure explain a lot if you were. If the people of Venezuela decide they'd rather die fighting than live as "boot lickers", good for them. But I sure as hell don't want people like you deciding that for them. That's the nice thing about democracies, right? The people get to chart their own future, rather than being led by supposedly wiser entrenched elites. So how about you take a leaf out of your own ideal systems' book and let it be born by way of that principle too. Should make them value it more too, as well as head off potential backlash that'd argue it was artificially imposed. Btw, it was interesting reading your thoughts as regards if I was American. Interesting because, given your thoughts on the ideal system of human govt., a 'boot licker' should disgust you equally whatever their nationality, yet for you my nationality mattered to how much I might make you ill. That's a nationalist reaction. Telling, that. I always find it curious how most aggressive foreign policy hawks seem to arise from such an inward looking philosophy.
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  1835.  @vibesanm  "if we reproduce and occupy all the space" - lol, you wanna calculate how many people that'd require? You might be surprised. Next you went on a screed about resource utilization, which that comment said nothing about. That resource usage has nothing to do with the space people take up, but rather their consumption patterns and environmental regulation. Finally, "There is literally n reason for increasing our population" - sure, so? Did I argue we should increase it? My point to you earlier was simply that people aren't obsolete yet, so don't try pushing that Venus Project (look it up - basically your 'robots and automation will handle everything' idea) bs too early. And on the issue of overpopulation my stance is simply that it's overblown panic by people in developed first world countries who know it's the one thing they can't be blamed for (despite most of that resource drain has still been caused by them, simply due to the massive consumption level differences). Why is it overblown? Cos, as the other guy also said, it already sorts itself out with development. It's also a harmful cause - because the people who keep harping on about it typically shy away from talking about what to do about it, cos they know that wouldn't go down well. Why not? Cos all standard humane things that affect population growth are already done, even often without being labelled as population control (girls education, better healthcare, contraceptive access, income increases, etc.), which leaves only the more inhumane options. Everything from forced sterilization (which India already did before) to birth limits (which China has followed, but recently had to relax) to outright culling. More importantly, it distracts the very people who cause the most harm (rich first worlders) from changing their own consumption patterns to help save the planet. As I said earlier, India's population is already sorting itself out - that isn't what would worry me about the planets' future. Our collective (including the newly minted Indian middle class, but also the comfortable westerners judging them simply for being so many) inability to change lifestyles is. But going back to the original point - physical space isn't the problem. Go ahead and do that calculation to see for yourself.
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  1840. ​ @vibesanm  "let's make a conscious effort to at least inform and discourage people in poor countries having too many kids" - that's called family planning, and it's already done. I forgot just how dense you've been all though this comment chain. What made you return to it, 6 months later, anyway? Allow me to put this in simple words - even if not done racially discriminatory, at best you're calling for forced sterilization, at worst outright culling of people. Oh, you didn't actually say that? Well then, what the hell are you campaigning for?! Everything you want that reduces population growth is already done! You want to go heckle these people to have fewer kids? Go right ahead. As if their own govts. haven't already encouraged that. I'm done taking your stupid cagey and empty ideologue-ing here seriously. If you're worried about population, then I expect you to make a case for mass sterilization and/or killing families or their excess children for exceeding your desired quota. Good luck trying to convince people of that. Else you're just wasting people's time promoting an empty and vacuous platitude (like saying "happiness is good" or some other useless shit) that does nothing but advertise your social perspective. So if you've got a good argument for violating the human rights of millions in order to control population, make it. Or else keep proseletyzing into the wind in this comment section if you want, but I won't bother responding. To repeat, I expect you to justify killing millions of people. If you can't do that, don't bother.
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  1870. ​ @samthesuspect  A war between the US and China is expected to be over Taiwan. Positing them going to war over nothing is just silly. And pretending your allies in the region will be honorably left out of the conflict is also silly. So you'd have an island to defend. That war is also not expected to occur, if it ever does, for some years yet. The Chinese certainly aren't rushing it. Meanwhile the Russians are already building pipelines to China, with likely more to come. China is also not an island, as stated before, not like Taiwan or Japan. In case of blockade, cost effectiveness becomes no longer a factor. You're also assuming the nations actually IN the Malacca Strait region, whose waters those are and whose trade flows through it, would have no objection to being dragged into your conflict. A blockade is a hostile act - without their permission, it'd be hostile to them too. Lastly, you'd still look like a coward. Don't underestimate the importance of that. Impressions matter when staking your status as a superpower. If you don't hammer home the point, then nations won't bow if they don't think you'd have the guts to invade them to stop them. Case in point would be Iran developing nuclear weapons. The only way to end that, especially if they get outside help (say, from Russia), would be an invasion. Which they're not going to fear if you've already shown yourself scared of rivals, especially if they can count on Russia and China to back them up if only to just give you a bloody nose. Remember that the US has already been beaten by far weaker enemies before, so they've got a reputation to keep up or they lose influence. It's dangerous to bring together all your enemies.
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  1871.  @samthesuspect  "India doesn't need a reason" lol! You're talking to an Indian bub. We need a very good reason to fight for your war. Cos it isn't ours. Our issues with China are very different, and aren't solved by any change in the South China Sea. And unlike you, we neighbor them, so we know that we're stuck with them however that conflict goes. So no, we aren't going to jump at the chance to support you - we already have a very bad history when it comes to being used by western powers in their wars. Most likely we'd just use opportunity to negotiate our own issues out, cos fighting for you gets us nothing. And btw, the US has ALSO supported Pakistan, as well as as threatened us with its navy and sanctioned us to boot, so we hardly trust them. You think we've stood by Russia just cos we buy weapons from them? Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, whatever are all IN the region aka that means you ARE fighting in their backyard - which was my whole point. You're practically conceding that point now. So much for the Malacca Strait. Have fun fighting in enemy lands, that worked out so well for you before, right? And you seem to be operating on the idea that a blockade is not an act of war. It is. Else why complain if China blockades Taiwan or Japan? It isn't magically hostile only when your enemies do it but okay when your side does. If those nations give permission to blockade China in their waters, they are automatically making themselves part of the war, and picking a side. And they'd know that. Stop imagining the whole world is as keen to go to war and suffer for your rivalry. They aren't. Just cos they have issues with China doesn't mean they love you. Hell you even named Vietnam, a country you murdered over 3 million people in not long ago (and didn't get remolded onto your side after like Japan did). And one that borders China, and knows it still will border China afterwards. They're using you right now to balance against China, they don't relish the idea of dying for your sake. We all haven't been dragged into western so-called 'world wars' before and look upon that time with fondness and pride. If it isn't our war, it isn't our war. It's just your war.
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  1909. ​ @wlee9888  That's a lot of words for someone who claims they haven't even seen most of what I wrote. What're you even responding to then? I checked my comment above btw, it's perfectly visible in its entirety. "China finds itself in all sorts of conflicts with everyone" - you're acting like territorial disputes, which most nations have (but the US notably doesn't have to worry about, which explains why they tend to discount them), are actual wars. China still hasn't been to war in decades. The US has been in literally dozens, right up to the present day. Here's a partial list for you to go look up - Afghanistan, Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iraq, Korea, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, etc. Even what wars China has fought have been smaller in comparison - go ahead and look up the death tolls of the Tibet war, India war and Vietnam wars, COMBINE them, and they still pale in comparison to just the US Vietnam war death toll. You need to bring up Mao's (a half century old dead man) failed domestic agricultural policies to match the numbers of people the US has deliberately killed via its warmongering. And the US hasn't stopped either, so this is hardly ancient history. "Iran" - lol, you seriously used the country that America has been the most aggressive towards in order to denigrate China? "proxy conflicts via militia groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq" - oh look! 3 nations. Here's some for America, some involving militia and some just outright invaded full force - Afghanistan, Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iraq, Korea, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, etc. Here's a funny thing about Iran btw - for all the hoopla about its nuclear program, do you know which country first supported the proliferation of nukes? America, by defending Israel despite the latter developing them. A third of the reason Iran wants nukes in the first place is Israel. The other third is Saudi Arabia, an American ally. And the last third is America itself. America is also the only nation who's ever used nukes on people btw - TWICE. "BRI/infrastructure investment - ...most glaring issues revolve around the takeover/forced lease of strategic ports/bases (a la Sri Lanka) and massive benefit to Chinese corporations at the expense of African taxpayers" - lmao! You know nothing about this and it shows. YT hates links cos of spam, so unfortunately you're going to have to google it yourself. You speak of modern day colonialism, yet advocate for interfering in nations' internal policies as a good thing? Lol! I'm guessing you've never heard of things like the STRUCTUAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMS since they make you look bad. Google it. Africans? Oh, the poor Africans! Google 'GYUDE MOORE “CHINA IN AFRICA: AN AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE”' for an actual Africans take on why they choose China, ironically speaking at a US university too. They aren't the unfortunate idiots you seem to want to imagine them as. You're thinking of debt traps based on a few wildly misrepresented anecdotes, and absolutely no proper statistical analysis because that doesn't feed the meme (which was invented by Brahma Chellaney, whose made a career out of warning about China). Here's some hard facts for you - "Steep payments on international sovereign bonds, which comprised nearly 40% of the country’s external debt, put Sirisena’s Government in dire fiscal straits almost immediately. When Sirisena took office, Sri Lanka owed more to Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank than to China. Of the $ 4.5 billion in debt service Sri Lanka would pay in 2017, only 5% was because of Hambantota. The Central Bank governors under both Rajapaksa and Sirisena do not agree on much, but they both told us that Hambantota, and Chinese finance in general, was not the source of the country’s financial distress." - from the South Asia Journal report on it (Sri Lanka: The Chinese 'Debt Trap' is a myth) "All these loans were obtained from China EXIM Bank, most at commercial rates. However, each loan had a grace period of around five years and a payback period of 15-plus years. For this very reason, the loan repayments for Hambantota do not amount to a large portion of Sri Lanka’s external debt servicing payments; some loan repayments have not even started yet. Debt repayments for the loans obtained for Hambantota port amount to only around 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s total annual foreign debt payments, and even less among total debt repayments...By the end of 2017, only little over 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was owed to China and most of that was in the form of concessionary loans. Instead, the largest portion of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt was international sovereign bonds, which amounted to 39 percent of the total foreign debt as of 2017. These are commercial borrowings obtained from international capital markets since 2007, and such bonds have resulted in soaring external debt servicing due to the nature of the debt. Unlike in concessionary loans obtained to carry out a specific development project, these commercial borrowings do not have a long payback period or the option of payment in small installments." - from the Diplomat article on it ("Is Sri Lanka Really a Victim of China's 'Debt Trap'?") And for some proper overall statistical analysis - "The How China Lends: A Rare Look into 100 Debt Contracts with Foreign Governments study – co-published by AidData, the Center for Global Development, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and the Peterson Institute for International Economics – found scant evidence of debt traps." "the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm, didn’t find any clear-cut asset seizures in a review of 130 bilateral debt renegotiations involving China between 2000 and 2020. The firm’s previous research found bilateral debt renegotiations with China “usually involve a more balanced outcome between lender and borrower, ranging from extensions of loan terms and repayment deadlines to explicit refinancing, or partial or even total debt forgiveness”..."Few examine how projects are designed, financed, or awarded before making an allegation. This is why projects involving China in any way are often mentioned as part of debt trap speculation. The debt trap theory – one scholar called it a “meme” – has become a catch-all."
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  1910. ​ @wlee9888  Korea, Japan, Vietnam and India - This is getting tiresome, so I'll try making this shorter. Having prickly relations with your neighbours is nothing unusual, and only a spoiled American would think so. And especially in the case of Japan your bias is showing, as not only the Chinese but also the Koreans hate Japan - and both for very good reason. Go read some history. Only a spoiled American would be taking Japans' side. The Koreans are trying to maintain balance, as are the Taiwanese, something spoiled Americans know nothing about because they never have to actually face the consequences of their messes. As for India, we've got our issues with them, but we've had plenty of experience of US duplicity to not rely on you guys. We maintain the worlds' 4th most powerful military for exactly that reason. And we've had much better relations with Russia than you - at least they've been more reliable. But our issues are border disputes, same as scores of other nations around the world. That's still nothing compared to the country with no border issues who still finds reasons to invade nations thousands of miles away from its homeland. The US has its own adversaries after all, they're just not right next door because it only has two next door neighbours, both weak. But some are close, such as in Latin America. Try putting yourself actually IN the Asian context instead of constantly thinking like a spoiled America does. Oh, and Vietnam has plenty of reason to hate both China AND America, but they're used to this from their history, and so seek to make the most out of the geopolitical situation via pragmatic realpolitik, as you're seeing now. Speaking of which... "applying realpolitik" - a word ironically invented by an American. But tbh, I liked him more. At least Kissinger was being honest when he said that, because newsflash you've always practiced realpolitik. So does China ofc. So do we. It's normal. But you know what's really infuriating? Not the outsized aggression, nor the realpolitik, but the moralizing. The Europeans did it first with the 'white man's burden', and it's been remixed and rebranded every century. Today it's 'freedom and democracy', which is completely belied by that very nations' own storied hypocritical foreign policy history. Bring back that frankness about realpolitik I say. Admit it. But no, there's always gotta be a moral excuse to sell to the populace, and the rest of the world. The US would be a lot easier to stomach if it didn't constantly put itself on a moral pedestal. It even does this kind of moral one-upmanship internally, with wokesters turning it into goddamn competition. Cos seeing themselves as the 'light of the world' is of deep spiritual importance to Americans (google 'American Civil Religion', and note the 12th Tenet). So they have to turn everything into a moral issue, even while acting on cold hard geopolitical logic in service to national interests. Well here's my request - DROP THE ACT. China practices realpolitik sure, but at least it's naked about it. Its disputes are openly about territory and control. That makes it a straightforward adversary. Better than the nation that constantly claims to be standing for good, leaving mountains of corpses in its wake.
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  1915. ​ @wlee9888  "Why would I lie about that?" - I didn't say you were lying, I said the problem was on your end. "You seem to make enemies out of people that ask you honest questions" - and who was that here, pray? I hope you don't mean Sam, cos he's hardly an exemplar for anything but having a big head. Anyway here, although it's kinda outdated by now since I've already said even more below it - "I'm FROM one those damn neighbours, Mr. Yankie. We've even actually fought a war with China. I rather think I've a feeling for China's aggression better than you do. And I didn't say China isn't aggressive, I said the US puts it to shame. Which modern history backs up. The difference is over what, and how it's treated. China has straightforward territorial issues similar to most other nations on Earth, and is condemned for putting even a toe out of line (tbf, most nations are condemned for aggression). The US doesn't even have territorial integrity issues, has the literally safest borders anyone could ask for, yet STILL manages to get into more wars than anyone else, and thousands of miles away from its homeland (one of the only nations in history to do that regularly, and the others are all former colonial powers), over mere geopolitical and/or ideological alignment usually dressed up in moralistic excuses (where I come from, we've heard plenty about the 'white man's burden', so I'm less than impressed by its modernized incarnations), and worst of all actually manages to sell that so that it actually gets away with its wars with not just a lack of punishment or repercussions but even still gets to put itself on a moral pedestal. China doesn't need any more condemning as it already gets plenty, it's the US that's lacking in that regard. A nation going to war is one thing, but there's nothing more infuriating than one that always pretends it's on a holy crusade for the greater good. And that's a big part of American culture, go look up 'American Civil Religion' on Wikipedia, and note the 12th Tenet of it. Fact is China hasn't been to war in decades, America is even now in several and yet look who the narrative is against."
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  1916. ​ @wlee9888  "Territorial wars are absolutely considered conflicts." - Sure they are, when did I suggest otherwise? I simply said they were typical, especially on borders. The US is atypical, for getting into wars despite not even having any territorial claims. "how do the deaths in Vietnam compare to the numerous Chinese invasions of..." - across ALL of history? That's grossly unfair, as the US wasn't even a player. Across modern history? Very well actually. For example, the Sino-Vietnamese War lasted about a month and killed about 60,000 people in total on both sides. The US-Vietnam War lasted nearly two decades, and killed 3 million Vietnamese. Oh and Japan has done to China far worse than China has done to Japan. Just cos Japan is an American ally now don't imagine that makes them angels. There's a reason even the Koreans hate them. "Would you mind discussing my points on geopolitical and economic conflicts with the EU and US?" - there's nothing to discuss. The US has been far more combative with China than China been to the US. Keep in mind that China, like Russia as well btw, is also ringed by US forces, with Taiwan being the latest possible one and hence explaining their anger over America stepping up their rhetoric over it. Just as Russia has to put up with NATO, China has to consider Japan, S. Korea and possibly next Taiwan. Why would they be okay with that? Why're you taking US hegemony for granted? The US saw Russia putting missiles on Cuba and flipped out over it, punishing that nation for decades afterwards for daring to defy them. By contrast, Taiwan has got off lightly, still trading extensively with China. As for the EU, they're more realistic, working with China as appropriate, but still caught between the US-China rivalry as they're also mostly members of NATO. As for economics, it just comes across as hypocritical. But that's a long story. Read 'Kicking Away The Ladder' by Ha-Joon Chang (he's Korean, not Chinese, and works at Oxford University) to see how hypocritical American complaints about how China has developed itself sound. And keep in mind that this is a nation that's raised nearly 3 times America's entire population out of absolute poverty using development, so the US crowing about imbalances also sounds callous and self-centered. By contrast America, the nation that's been the richest country in the world for over a century, has the dubious honor of having the highest poverty rate in the developed world (or second highest, it jostles with Israel). "this is exactly the kind of disgusting behavior that I do not abide by."- and as I've stated, if you're disgusted by that, you'd prioritize your attention onto the nation that's been a far bigger perpetrator of it, instead of going along with what just so happens to suit that nation itself. I'm sure the US will be thankful for your support of anti-Chinese actions, and will "take into consideration" your feelings about its own hypocritical behavior. In other words, this is just empty idealism. All you're achieving is serving the interests of the bigger criminal, and then turning round to express your disapproval of his actions too. Yeah, I'm sure that means a lot lol. Why should he care? All that matters is that you helped him get rid of his rival. More realistically, you contain a hegemon with other powerful rivals, like China (and not just China, but India, Russia, EU, etc.) The US isn't gonna become a good little boy just cos you don't like his behavior. "4) Would you mind discussing the relationship..." - Already done above. And I don't intend to discuss anything historically, as its grossly unfair contest. I've already spoken about modern history. "debt trap" as a meme..it clearly describes a large number of Chinese policies and agreements with developing countries." - no, it doesn't, and this only suggest you didn't look up the things I told you to. I literally quoted to you analyses that said as much. Memes don't have to be true to be memes, since when was that ever a requirement? China's loans are actually something very understandable for a westerner - they're commercial loans. They don't come with as extensive and intrusive strings attached, and that's what makes them popular. They're less like western institutional i.e. govt. loans, and more like business loans. And that's supposed to be a bad thing?! Why, cos you feel they ought to dictate internal policies to recipient countries? That's what the Structural Adjustment Programs did, and they didn't exactly pan out well. More fundamentally, it's just not your place. Also, as I pointed out, a lot of the most popular examples are ironically more hamstrung by their western loan obligation than by the Chinese ones, such as in SL. "then why did the Chinese not just hand the port/base back to Sri Lanka?" - why would they lol? The Sri Lankans leased it out to them in exchange for a wad of cash to pay off their western creditors. Do you think the Chinese are running a charity? SL isn't taking China to court because it was a perfectly legal business transaction. "I work with Africans" - and Moore is an African minister, specifically from Liberia, as well as a scholar. And more importantly has plenty of actual info about the whole continent that he expounds in his talk. If you want, I can find plenty of videos on YT of interviews with ordinary Africans also being positive about China, or at least nowhere near as negative as your average American, but I chose a scholar so as to keep this above just impressions. But they are there, plenty of them, and I'd be happy to link some if YT cooperated. "You quote Rhodium Group and academics. Have you worked with Africans?" - now you're just being anti-intellectual. I've no interest in indulging someone who throws out accusations of me being emotional and then falls back on anecdotal and subjectivist rhetoric like this over the conclusions of actual studies. Btw, since you said those Africans spoke French, try looking up the CFA Franc. Since you're so concerned about China apparently 'colonizing' Africa, try learning a little about the grip their former - and very much still current - colonial hegemon maintains over them. For once, I'm not referring to the US, but to France. China's influence is as nothing compared to them.
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  1918. ​ @wlee9888  Now who's getting emotional? Sounds like I hit a nerve, and I think I can guess why. You seem to be of the idealistic sort. Which has only ever served as a convenient cover for others cleverer and less humanistic that your ilk. Here's a little info about me btw - I come from a country that's first off actually IN the region, not XYZ-American. One that's had 5 major wars since its creation (and not as the invader), including with China, and in most of its long overall history has almost never been the aggressor. So don't talk to me about your vaunted western examples, cos our history puts their to shame as far as being a peaceful neighbour is concerned. We don't invade, we are invaded, including by the very exemplars you're holding up. That's what your idealistic attitude achieves. I have more reason to hate the Chinese than you do, as I'm not sitting pretty in the US. But you know what? I seek peace too. And I know enough to not imagine wishful thinking and moral outrage will achieve it. If the bullies are to be contained, then there needs to be someone to contain them. And not the Chief Bully America btw, as that's just pure hegemony. No, the more nations are capable of challenging them, the less domination there is. In other words, a multi-polar world order. And as those military spending statistics show, China is in no position to take over as the sole hegemon, just to counter the US one. "When did I put the US on a moral pedestal?" - you didn't, but America does. Every war it launches, or at least the open ones, is given some sort of moral cause. Hell, even their retreats are - notice the uptick in discussion of improvements to women's rights in Afghanistan under them, while few point out that hundreds of thousands of people also died in that war. I didn't say they literally claim 'white man's burden', I said they remix and rebrand it. 'White man's burden' is no longer popular, so new versions are invented as times change. 'Freedom and democracy' is the current clarion call, despite being belied by their own history. But the common thread is that the west is going in as saviors to help the poor backward locals. "There is not a single American or European who thinks we are more righteous than you" - sure they do. You'll literally see it aplenty of this very topic i.e. China. Just cos you've disavowed US foreign policy doesn't mean every other American has. Hell, I've talked to people on this very platform who don't even only justify US actions, they even deny the result. For example, I STILL come across people insisting not only that Afghanistan was not a loss, but even Vietnam wasn't. And of course plenty who're both boastful of US capability against China i.e. China stands no chance, and righteous about it. "Trump (who I hate)" - ironically Trump was more honest, which I know must be triggering to hear. He was a selfish ass, but by putting his selfish ass behavior on public display he managed to make all US diplomacy straightforwardly transactional. By displaying the realpolitik in words, he once again took it out of the manicured hands of the people more used to navigating the chambers of power than him. Makes it easier to deal with frankly. Did it hurt US alliances? Yeah, but I'm not one to care about that. What matters is that there was less image management. Anyway, ironically US distaste for China was most fostered by Trump - and has persisted even after his exit. So ironically you're living with the legacy of the man you hate - not just in terms of US local politics, but US foreign policy as well. Biden has continued where Trump left off. "All Americans right now are saying "we never should have gone into Afghanistan and tried to nation build"" - and this right here is an example of that savior mindset. Do you see it? It's that last word - 'nation build'. You think you went there to nation build? Maybe you don't, but even you say that lots of Americans do. You know what I call it? Setting up a friendly / client regime. You think the US is gonna spend over 2 trillion dollars to nation build? Lol. You could do more good just saving that money and withdrawing support from Saudi Arabia or something. At least there'd be fewer dead bodies, in both Afghanistan and Yemen. Hell, you didn't even need it to kill Osama, cos he was killed in a special operation in a foreign country. You don't need a war to do that. No, it was initially spent in order to set the new Afghan govt. into power, and then from sometime after the turn of the last decade it was mostly in order to preserve American prestige i.e. to avoid looking like a failure in front of the whole world by leaving with egg on your face, which has now happened. Eventually you realized it couldn't be done, and so tried to negotiate at least a face-saving exit, which didn't pan out either. And so now the women's rights narrative has been trotted out. There's both American moralism, and American pride, neatly packaged into this whole debacle. And lots of dead Afghans. And already the pundits speak of the US pulling out not simply to leave the Afghan mess, but to refocus onto the Asia-Pacific i.e. onto China. And already Biden's trying to put together a coalition of the willing to push back China in the name of 'freedom and democracy'. It would seem the US hasn't changed all that much. They've already got a new target, and already got a new moral slogan to rally around. And your idealism will help serve the cause, for as long as it's convenient for them. And when it isn't, well, you don't matter all that much anyway, so you'll just be ignored.
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  1970. ​ @RangerB66  " the U.S. has no interest in Russia for territory-nor territory anywhere else really" - territory is passe, and has been for a long time. Far better to just put a 'friendly govt' in power. You get all the benefits without having to manage the damn place. The US does this aplenty, and even Russia knows the value of it. Hence why they had little issue with Ukraine back when it had a 'friendly govt.', attacking it only after the Maidan revolution shifted it to the west. If the Maidan revolution had never happened, this was likely wouldn't be happening either. "Russia, just like any other nuclear power, could and would be expected to use them to save the nation. The nation is not under threat." - this is similar to the US' pretense that its 'containment' of China is somehow an innocent act. It isn't, anymore than imprisonment is an innocent act. Neither China nor Russia will ever accept being at the US' mercy, save total annihilation. Being surrounded by American bases means the US can do what it wants, and they can't do anything to counter it. They have to accept American hegemony and let it set the terms - they're never going to accept that, and that's hardly a unique or terrible position. You say "Whilst the U.S. may appear hegemonist" - this is literally hegemonic! "utterly ignores the fact that the Baltic states are 30 min from St Petersburg and closer than Ukraine is to Moscow" - lmao! You're literally making their case for them. Russia strongly objected to the Baltic states joining NATO, and in fact the roots of this war can be traced to that decision because their protests were ignored. It was likely at that point that Russia realized diplomacy was fruitless in stopping NATO expansion, and so force was required. If NATO had listened to Russia back then, the question of Ukraine in NATO wouldn't exist. "the last election he held in 2012 there were significant demonstrations" - bruh Putin has around TWICE the approval of Biden, and that's according to Statista (which is German so don't bother claiming bias). And that in an authoritarian state to boot. There has never been a credible challenge to his regime. He doesn't need silly gambles to stay in power. "The second reason was because a thriving Slavic democratic nation on his borders would be a model Russians" - this is nothing but self-serving idealistic bs that caters to your desire to imagine everyone feels like you do. Ironically it's countered by one of your own arguments - the Baltic states. They've had that 'model' for years, and Putin has been secure. Additionally Ukraine is poorer than Russia, so it isn't a model for anything. And lastly, and also ironically, one of the biggest reasons WHY Putin has high approval ratings is because he rescued Russia from the chaos of the 1990s, which is when Russia was itself 'transformed' into a 'thriving nation' by the west - except it was actually a disaster. Russians credit Putin for ending that period, when the country was in freefall, and hate his predecessor Yeltsin (who was feted in the west) because of that period. You suck at imagining alternative perspectives imo. Both your reasons are designed to cast the war in a way as to cater to your own biases.
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  2001. ​ @buttert5091  Indeed. It won't be easy. However, most of those countries are currently most interested in China staying out of their business than actively sabotaging China itself. And India in particular stands out here, as it has its own interests and disputes with China but, unlike Japan, is also fiercely against the idea of being used as a base for American power projection. I highly doubt they're going to do anything to actively hurt China unless China forces their hand (they've got this to worry about if they do - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siliguri_Corridor). Generally speaking India isn't going to interfere much in the South China Sea as long as China doesn't interfere too heavily in their North-East states. Which means they don't really align all too cleanly with the American agenda. That leaves the nations of SE Asia, which generally tend to play a sensitive balancing act, Japan, which will support the US upto a point but which China can probably handle, S. Korea, which is mainly concerned with its northern neighbour, and Taiwan, which is more reliant on the US than bolsters it. Tbh, really, this is just the normal pressures most nations have to (and have always had to) deal with. It's Britain (as island power) and the US (probably the most geographically gifted country on Earth, with no strong continental rivals) that're the outliers here. The Chinese face contestation much like most countries do, and they're well used to it (as is India, for that matter).
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  2052. ​ @NUCLEARxREDACTED  Oh I don't complain about whataboutism, I pointed out that you people have no better counter than to pull out a label and calling it a day. What you call whataboutism, the rest of us see as pointing out blatant hypocrisy. It isn't a problem for me, it's a problem for you. And Russia isn't holding the world hostage bub, it's holding Ukraine hostage. If any nation has held the whole world hostage, it's been the US (and before them the UK, France and Spain). Russia doesn't have over 800 bases all over the world and the largest naval fleet patrolling the oceans. Russia's wars have mostly been on its borders, which are the places they really hold hostage, while the US' wars have mostly not even had second order connections to its territory. Russia doesn't have laws in place to sanction 'independent countries' simply for who they choose to trade with, the US does (CAATSA). Russia may not recognize the ICC, but it doesn't have a law in place to literally invade the Hague in case their people are tried there. Nor have they sanctioned the head of the ICC, but the US did when they dared to suggest an investigation into their crimes in the ME. These are global efforts, Russia's shit is mostly confined to its border territories. Even now, the sanctions against Russia are having a bigger effect on the wider world than the war itself, which further illustrates just how hegemonic American presence is. Oh and btw, the US DID invade Cuba for defying them. And no, they had great relations with its previous dictator, so don't even try that. And they've sanctioned it for over half a century now, against almost universal global condemnation every year, which stands in stark contrast to Taiwan (whose largest trade partner is China fyi). And they have had military operations to stamp out their rival ideology all over Latin America, and beyond. They killed over 3 million people in Vietnam alone simply for daring to go with the other side, no border disputes needed. Even the Iraq war was justified via a fake claim of WMDs merely existing, ruled illegal by the head of the UN itself regardless of whether that was true. You're naïve if you think the US is so angelic that they'd never put their foot down. They have a long history of doing so.
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  2054. ​ @NUCLEARxREDACTED  Lol, I'm comparing about 3.5k deaths (UN estimate) to nearly a million deaths (Cost of War report on Iraq and Afghanistan). And 'supporting revolutionaries' lmao! Did you miss the part where literal dictators were put in place by them, who then went on to carry out brutal internal campaigns of repression. These weren't freedom fighters lol. And if you think the USSR was the only one holding countries hostage, you're beyond naive as well as historically ignorant. For instance, when Pakistan was genociding Bengalis fighting for their independence, it was the US that defended their campaign, and the USSR that prevented them from succeeding. And that's one example. The US is also the only country on Earth to have EVER used nukes on people btw - TWICE! And your ideology nonsense is just more naive bs. The US has happily worked with some of the most unfree nations on Earth, including setting some of them up, cos it worked for the interests. So did the USSR work with democracies as well btw. They obey the same imperative the USSR did, that every country does - national interest. And the US' current strategy against China is literally called 'containment' - so much for the seas being open game lmao! They're only open as long as you aren't powerful. And your false dichotomy tactics don't work on me. I don't have to choose between one hegemony or another. I can and will opt for a multipolar world order instead where they contest and constrain each other. Playing the US, Russia, China, India, etc. off of each other so none of them have supremacy is far preferable than the domination of one. And do you even KNOW who you're comparing here? Not only does the US have nearly a 1000 foreign bases and spends more than the next ten countries combined on its military, it spends the highest on its forces PER CAPITA (which accounts for differences in economy size), despite having no security concerns to speak of. Do you know where Russia is? 26th, behind even Estonia lol. And China? 59th, behind Azerbaijan. And you think THEY'RE militaristic?! They're nothing compared to the US. Let me put it this way - neither Russia nor China even CAN invade Argentina, even if they wanted to. But the US can invade Vietnam, and has, brutally. And US sanctions are placed on countries even without war - they literally have a law obligating it even - and aren't placed on other countries that aren't at war. So no, sanctions aren't nothing, they're just yet another instrument of power, and the US has hardly given up war as a tool either. And your whataboutism line is, as I said earlier, an invalid deflection. You know nothing about that term and how to use it. You're just a naive fool who falls for ideological bs and has no idea how to deal with its hypocrisies being pointed out, so defaults to labeling tactics as your only way to deal with your ignorance being called out. I can short-circuit your reasoning easily - you support sanctions on Russia right? Alright, keep them. But the US and UK should ALSO be under sanctions, every bit as harsh if not harsher (given their higher death toll), and have been under them for the last decade at least. But no, you idiots are largely quiet to your own crimes, apart from maybe posting some shit on social media, while becoming vehement about those of your enemies (even, in the case of China, enemies who haven't even gone to war yet). You don't have a leg to stand on, just empty ideological bs, cos even the data is against you. Like I said, the US' wars this century have orders of magnitude higher death tolls even individually than ALL of Russia's wars in the same period combined. Even this war could have been prevented - you were given a list by Russia before it, whose contents were largely the same thing they've been requesting for the last 30 years and were even promised by the West back then, and you chose to ignore it. So much for caring about Ukraine - all you had to do was give up some of your hegemony, but no it was worth more to you than the lives of the Ukrainians you claim to care so much about. Meanwhile whenever China opens a new base, there's a flurry of worry in the west, completely blind to the double standards. When Russia put forces in Cuba, there was a diplomatic crisis that was only resolved by THEM agreeing to pull back - something the west has not reciprocated now. You made your bed, now lie in it. This war is only the beginning. There will be more to come I expect, cos idealistic idiots like you (who're a dime a dozen in western media and politics cos it sells well with viewers and voters) have no appreciation for realism and no capacity for compromise. And when the world is aflame, you can keep going on about what's right - fat lot of good it'll do for the dead lmao!
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  2092. ​ @benghazi4216  Ironic name you've got there. We're far more neutral wrt this war than the west is, since it doesn't involve us. If you choose to treat them as unbiased, that says more about you than anything else. Plus we're hardly in a bubble. The wests' reporting on the war is widely available here. CNN, BBC, DW, etc. etc. are all available here, and far more seen than RT. Just cos we have a different perspective on it doesn't mean we're misled. We see all the same information you do, we simply don't choose to interpret it into conveniently self-serving narratives as you do. And we're hardly alone in that - from Africa to Latin America to Asia, there's an entire world of perspectives out there on world events that you people simply ignore or pretend aligns with yours (except for your enemies ofc). You'd like to think Russia is going to implode, but unlike the spoiled west we've really seen nations under sanctions before. Some have even experienced it themselves. And they didn't implode, not even close. It's you who chooses to be ignorant of history in idle dreams of vainglory and bloodless victory. You're doing no different than the Russians did earlier - moving the goalposts. The sanctions were announced with lots of fanfare and bold claims, yet now that those bold claims haven't come to pass you're shifting rhetoric just as Russia did when they failed to take Kiev. No one's fooled. Lastly, you utterly ignore unintended consequences, pretending against all reason that the results of these actions are going to be neat and tidy and predictable. That is the biggest fantasy of them all.
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  2133. The nations around China are arming themselves to protect their own territory, not to fight on behalf of the US. They don't want war, and won't be dragged into it unless it comes to them. They aren't America's poodles (unlike the UK). Those allies depend on America for protection, not the other way around. They are well within Chinese firing range already, so they aren't going to pick a fight unnecessarily. They'll fight if China attacks them, but the last thing they want is to paint a giant target on their back by allowing themselves to be dragged into an American operation for which it's them, not the Americans, who'll pay the price. The only allies America can really depend on are the UK and Australia - the former cos it dutifully follows the US' policies, and the latter cos it's far enough away to not have to worry about reprisals. The rest of the NATO members would rather not go to war. Going by western accounts, pretty much no one has "true" allies save the US. Apparently the Chinese don't. But then they keep saying Russia doesn't either, save for Belarus. So who does? India? Lol as an Indian even I'm not that naïve. China indeed has no "true" allies, but you folks overestimate what America has way too much. The US' 'truest' allies are in western Europe, no more. The rest are allies in terms of their own security and interests. Russia can easily back China up, not because it's a "true" ally, but cos they share a common enemy - the US. That's really no different from the US' supposedly "true" allies in the region. Cos all this "true" ally nonsense is just that.
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  2159.  @davidblair9877  Bub you want a real example of vassalage? Japan literally wrote a new constitution for itself that constrained its powers and even killed it's own economy at the US' behest (Plaza Accords). Cuba was denied the right to host Soviet forces at the cost of WW3 despite not even being a US vassal - the Soviets had the prudence to back off, which the west is refusing to do here. Those are far bigger examples of vassalage and threat respectively. China tried establishing a mere commercial port in Greenland, and the US not only forced Denmark to block it, but then tried to buy the whole island. Now they're forcing Dutch companies not to trade with China even without any war involved. The US has a far wider empire than Russia has ever had. The only one that compares is the British one. Geopolitics isn't some children's fable, you weigh your options based on where you stand. Play risky games, you risk being burned. Russia used diplomacy for 20 years and no one listened. Did you know less than 10% of Taiwan's population supports immediate declaration of independence, according to their own polls? Cos unlike idealistic westerners who risk nothing and want to treat it as part of their moral crusade, they're pragmatists. Finland, who you lot love celebrating joining NATO now, stayed neutral throughout the Cold War, and was never attacked. Ukraine ditched neutrality in 2014 and was attacked almost immediately. Who's suffered more now, the Finns or the Ukrainians? Also Russia didn't address its requests to the states themselves, but to the NATO alliance. You can't join NATO unless NATO accepts you. It takes two to tango. And NATO said they wouldn't expand more. It doesn't matter if those countries asked to join, if the US had exercised the same restraint Russia did in Cuba, when the US flipped, they wouldn't be able to. This is the real world, not some Arthurian legend.
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  2179. ​ @VoidOfDarkness9  Lmao! You seriously recommended a China Uncensored video as your source?! Well, that tells me plenty about you. However, I did watch it and...I recall asking you for a number bub. You did give me one - "millions of Falun gong peoples or Christians or Muslims" - but even your China Uncensored video never made any such claim. You did. You pulled that number out of you ass, didn't you? You wanna know why that matters? Cos I can find a "substantial number of deaths" much more readily for western wars. And those deaths aren't even helping anyone - they're literally just killed for being caught in a war. It's telling that you're so outraged by possible - and possibly much smaller - crimes by China (or those of a half century old dead man, before you bring him up), while taking well documented deaths of millions to western warmongering for granted (and don't bother telling me you don't approve of that either - you're not here attacking America for its crimes, so you're at least silently accepting of them). I've never pretended China was a saint - I come from one of the countries they've actually had a war with lol, unlike spoiled western hegemons lamenting their loss of primacy - just that the numbers show that China scores way better than the west (or more specifically America) in the last several decades i.e. since it developed. That isn't surprising - MOST countries do better than America. Cos most countries aren't so warmongering as they are. Hell, most countries, including China, have wars on their borders - the US is one of the only ones in history that manages to get into wars thousands of kilometres from its territory. It's THAT exceptional. Now go on, claim 'whataboutism' as a last ditch defense of your own biases and hypocrisy. It's the go-to word used to avoid facing up to your own bloody legacy. You still have a number to back up - "millions", remember? I suggest you get busy finding that proof, preferably from a more neutral source than China Uncensored lol.
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  2192. 1. The nations around China are arming themselves to protect their own territory, not to fight on behalf of the US. They don't want war, and won't be dragged into it unless it comes to them. They aren't America's poodles (unlike the UK). 2. Those allies depend on America for protection, not the other way around. They are well within Chinese firing range already, so they aren't going to pick a fight unnecessarily. They'll fight if China attacks them, but the last thing they want is to paint a giant target on their back by allowing themselves to be dragged into an American operation for which it's them, not the Americans, who'll pay the price. The only allies America can really depend on are the UK and Australia - the former cos it dutifully follows the US' policies, and the latter cos it's far enough away to not have to worry about reprisals. The rest of the NATO members would rather not go to war. 3. Going by western accounts, pretty much no one has "true" allies save the US. Apparently the Chinese don't. But then they keep saying Russia doesn't either, save for Belarus. So who does? India? Lol as an Indian even I'm not that naïve. China indeed has no "true" allies, but you folks overestimate what America has way too much. The US' truest allies are in western Europe, no more. The rest are allies in terms of their own security and interests. Russia can easily back China up, not because it's a "true" ally, but cos they share a common enemy - the US. That's really no different from the US' supposedly "true" allies in the region. Cos all this "true" ally nonsense is just that - nonsense. You're on a geopolitics channel. Grow up. 4. And the rest of the world isn't dependent on China, the worlds' second largest economy? What kind of fairy tale world are you living in? Europe hasn't even been able to get itself turn off Russian gas before scrambling to secure alternate supplies, yet here you seem to believe you can just starve China at a whim to subdue it. Not to mention a lot of the world would rather not get involved, as we're seeing wrt the Russian invasion as well - the supposedly 'global' sanctions come from less than a quarter of the worlds' states (mostly just the EU member states) and even less of its population. Westerners love to think everything revolves around them lol. 5. The Chinese will indeed 'screw themselves' with war, but they'll screw you too. Pretending that you're infalliable while they're vulnerable is the height of hubris. As for that land war, what land war? China isn't even intending to invade Russia or NK lol. They have enough headaches on their border territories to not want to add even more of them.
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  2193.  @MA_KA_PA_TIE  Lol both of them are already building more nuclear plants than all the west combined. China is also world leader in the solar industry. You just have no clue the sheer amount of infrastructure development both are doing - they aren't ignoring nuclear or even renewables, they're building everything. As for emissions, your pathetic dismissal of per capita measures aside (which only reveals how little you care for fairness), China is still responsible for only 12.7% of global carbon. India just 3%. While the US and Europe are the ones that created this mess by putting out a whopping 25% and 22% of global emissions respectively. And now not only do you want to palm off responsibility to poorer states that didn't start this mess, you have the nerve to blame the ones that literally make your shit for you. Here's an easy idea for you, my spoiled rotten friend - you know who emits the most from food? The US. Why? It's not cos their agriculture is worse, it's cos they're obsessed with beef, by far the worst food in terms of the environment. It'd cost you nothing to stop that. And yet even changing their diet is too much for America. You lot lecture people while gorging yourselves on a lifestyle that is many times worse than the rest of the world. Most of America's reductions aren't a result of any kind of sacrifice, it's just improved efficiencies. The US loves telling other places they're living wrong, but won't change a thing about how it lives. And that attitude extends beyond just climate issues btw.
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  2195. ​ @robertsaget9697  Lol you people are hilarious! 🤣Apparently you somehow believe it's okay to go to war so long as you don't annex territory. Lmao! In that case Russia offered not to attack Ukraine before the war. They made a peace offer - not to Ukraine, but to YOU i.e. NATO. Same thing they've been asking for over 30 years now. As usual NATO dismissed it, thus war. You had the opportunity for peace with no land lost, you chose your hegemony over it. In fact Russia didn't even try to annex land from Ukraine before 2014, until the revolution that they blame on you. They were fine with Ukraine until it switched sides to you. Cos land is passe. You don't need to annex land, and nor do they. It's much more of a hassle. Better to just put in place a 'friendly govt' instead and boom, you've got the benefits of annexation without the headaches of actually having to manage that territory. Russia understood that too, which is why Ukraine was only attacked after it became an unfriendly govt. As for China, it just makes you look terrible. China's last war was in 1979, yours was in 2021. It was also with Vietnam, and had about 60k casualties between both sides. Prior to that YOU were at war with Vietnam, leaving over 3 million dead in your wake. And just as with Russia, you have the option for peace with China too in regards to the Taiwan issue. For well over half a century they've left that claim alone. The current tensions date to 2017. Nothing changed in China then (Xi came to power in 2012), it changed in the US - Trump came to power and launched an anti-China crusade that has since become standard US foreign policy even after he left office. Again you have the option to back off to maintain peace, and again you choose to prize your hegemonic presence over that path. Ironic considering how the US responded to its own version of Taiwan - Cuba. For the 'crime' of being friendly with the enemy, it was blockaded, embargoed, abortively invaded and finally sanctioned for over half a century now against near universal global condemnation. By contrast, Taiwan is not only free to trade with anyone, but their largest trade partner is, ironically, China. No bub, you go war for the flimsiest of reasons. Border conflicts aren't a rarity in history, they're the norm. Almost all wars ever have been with neighbours. Almost all the exceptions - wars with far away nations, including ones where territory isn't being claimed - are from you and the former colonial powers. That isn't a good thing. Your wars make far less sense than those of either Russia or China, and yet you still find reasons to do them. A nation like the US, with all its resources and geographic security, would be expected to be like Canada. Instead, it's the US. What a joke!
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  2197. ​ @robertsaget9697  You made it about territory, I merely pointed out how territory is a weak excuse. Besides one has lost territory since 1945, while the other has remained largely static, so that was a dumb argument to begin with. As for hegemony, all you're doing is showing how blinkered and narrow your vision is. Even their own rhetoric is all about a multipolar world order, so ironically they have more of an imagination than the land of the free that's only able to think in absolute 'us or them' terms. Unsurprising, given your own president used the 'with us or against us' fallacy when launching your last two wars. Meanwhile, while you obsess over how their internal politics works, you've still had the more aggressive external foreign policy than them - both invading and sanctioning far more countries than either of them. It's telling that you think being a democracy magically gives you a free pass to do as you wish. Not to mention that the rest of the world doesn't even get a say in the US' democracy, but still has to deal with the shit its govt. decides to pursue. If you want to pretend to be the world policeman, a role no one gave you but you took over anyway, you still lack legitimacy as almost none of your 'subjects' gets to decide on your laws. You just trample over theirs. In that sense you aren't a democracy, not for the world anyway. You're a democracy internally but unaccountable to the rest of the world. Neither China nor Russia has that problem as they aren't claiming to be world police. They're not trying to replace you, they're just trying to DISplace you from their backyard. The world hasn't had a global policeman for most of history and doesn't need one, and given the horrible record of US policing even at home, you're not qualified to be it. This isn't their world, but it isn't your world either. They don't claim it is, but you certainly like to pretend it is.
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  2236. ​ @stephenjenkins7971  I don't need to say anti-Chinese bub. You're still harping on labels, and failing to provide a death toll. Your Alternet angle is a nice strawman, albeit a dumb one. The article was merely republished from there, the figure isn't theirs. The figure is based on extrapolating from the Lancet report on the casualties of the war, which only runs upto 2006 and was already over double your figure. Rather convenient for you that the Americans and Brits don't want anyone counting their killings anymore. Ironic that you mention the Native Americans btw - since it literally isn't like that. Why not? The Native Americans mostly died. The Uighurs are still very much alive. But even if we were to take your 300,000 figure (and there's plenty that put it at over half a million - and that's from over a decade ago), that's still 300,000 more dead people compared to how many in China? Oh right, China isn't killing people in large numbers (inb4 you scream organ harvesting, and still fail to provide the requisite numbers for it). But no, people dying in war makes it okay. And that's one war, I haven't brought up the US' other invasions and military misadventures all across the Middle East (including of course Afghanistan), South America and, ironically, South East Asia (imagine going from killing 2 million Vietnamese to courting them as an ally). And what was the rationale for any of this? At least China can claim that Xinjiang is a restive and rebellious province (not that that justifies what they're doing of course), but the US can claim what? America hasn't faced a credible threat to its homeland since the Cuban missile crisis. Speaking of Cuba, the contrast between what America gets away with against them (sanctions, blockades, even an invasion) versus what China is hit on for Taiwan (70 years of mostly threats and provocations) is telling. There's a reason one superpower has a shattered island next to it, while the other has a thriving one. In any case, the death counts, whoever does the counting, are still heavily stacked against America. You need to go back to Mao and Stalin's time to find higher numbers of dead from a non-US nation. As an illustration, the American escapade in Vietnam killed over 2 million Vietnamese people in 2 decades, while the following Chinese one killed 60,000 on both sides in a month. Those are the kinds of disparities at play here. Those articles you've linked merely say that China has committed human rights violations, they DON'T say that China has hurt more people than America. I'm not here to argue that China is a nice place, simply that America is the bigger criminal - and gets away with it a lot more. Those same organisations have also criticized the US before - they're not in the business of presenting the US as the good guys, their reports are just specific to each country rather than a ranking. So we've got dead bodies. What about other things? Torture? I don't need to tell you about the US' own infamous history on that, as it's widely reported. How about imprisonment? Ironically, despite all the outrage over China's internment camps for those million Uighurs - AND despite that China has 4 times the US population - China still has less people in prison than the US. A million Uighurs, and a total of about 1.6 million prisoners for China. The US figure? 2.3 million. The former for a country of 1.4 billion people, the latter for a nation of 330 million. But of course the US does it cos of 'crime', which just like war, makes it alright (never mind that other countries, including China, also deal with crime - and have lower numbers). https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html Those human rights organisations aren't on your side bub - they simply don't like China either. Nor do I. But the numbers show that in the last half century the US has spread more death and suffering the world over. Meanwhile in that same time (actually less) China has raised over 2.5 times the entire US population out of poverty, starting from a state of destitution. While the US, the richest country in the world, jostles with Israel for the honor of having the highest poverty in the developed world. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china And on and on the western bias goes. The nation that's now pushing itself as the global policeman against nuclear proliferation is also one of the only ones to proliferate them itself (Israel), and also THE only one to ever use them on people (Japan). Or how about when the west undermines nations with their loans, it gets a pass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_adjustment#Criticisms But when China provides loans that don't undercut national sovereignty, it gets hammered on (don't even bother bringing up that one port, you'll only embarrass yourself if you try). Cos of course most of the commentators are western. Here it from an actual African for a change, and note how hard his western audience try to still paint things as bad - https://youtu.be/P5uzxV8ub9k There's plenty of examples of how self-serving your narratives are. After all, they've been used to justify whole wars, and in this case even treat mass death as acceptable just cos it happened in a war. The worst thing is that it isn't even your govt. that's lying to you the most - you lie and minimize to yourselves. Cos it makes you feel good, it feeds your egos as the worlds' 'good guys'. It isn't forced state propaganda - it's just what sells best. You people love painting yourselves as heroes.
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  2244. ​ @playea123  You're trotting out that tired old cliche excuse for hegemony that it keeps shipping lanes safe. Weak. Safe from what? Pirates? Lol. Even a minor nation state is easily able to contend with modern pirates. And have fun making the argument that the US, the nation that's been to war more than any other in the modern era, is keeping the seas safe from other nations. You claim China needs the US to keep its trade flowing - funny how they just want the US navy to get out then. Indeed the only one I ever hear claim the world wants the US to safeguard their trade is westerners i.e. the very people for whom this works as a convenient excuse to justify their position. Then there's your funny claims about the US being able to handle everything just fine on its own, which flies in the face of what the US govt. itself has been doing trying to court as many nations as it can in its endeavour. So that just makes you sound even more jingoistic than Washington itself. This trade corridor is safe simply because in order to shut it down the US would have to pick a fight with a whole bunch of states together, none of whom are even China. It'd do more harm to the US trying such a stunt. I do love how you people love acting like all the worlds' oceans are just a big American lake for it to "cause havoc via its super carriers" in tho. It's hilarious how you think the US can just do whatever it wants whereever it wants and everyone will just take it lying down. Every region you try 'causing havoc' with said 'super' carriers will end up riling a dozen nations up against it, and ruining the US' global image even if it can tackle the navies of those nations. Rather 'safeguarding' global trade as you claim, the US would be its main disruptor. This isn't your world to toy with as you wish.
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  2285.  TacticalMoonstone  There is no atonement bruh. You literally wiped out the problem. As the Chinese will likely be able to claim in a few years. Hell Biden is in Japan right now, and visited the Hiroshima memorial. And, like every president before him, refused to apologize for literally the only use of nuclear weapons on a population. There is only one western country that has ever atoned for its past crimes - Germany. And there's plenty in the West that still take pride in their glorious past. Hell they can't even bring themselves to return the artifacts they stole around the world, let alone admit fault or pay reparations. Atonement my ass. As for current crimes, do you even know why China has those centers? Some irrational hate of Islam? Nope. They have other Muslim populations in other parts of the country where no such programs exist. Those centers exist cos that province is restive and there were a string of terrorist attacks Does that justify the crackdown? No. BUT who are you to lecture them? Cos you know what you did NOW (so not in the distant past) when some Muslim terrorists attacked the West? Launched a war that killed a quarter of a million Muslims. Followed by another war that killed nearly a million more Muslims. That dwarfs any death toll you could point at from China's camps. Their response was literally less severe than the wests' was. Wash the blood off your own hands first before posturing to others. And this blood is on the hands of living people, not dead and gone ancestors. You're always quick to point out the barbarism of others, while being willfully blind or minimizing your own. Be it with China or Russia or anyone outside the West (for an example of the second, the much hyped civilian toll from their current war over a year later is still HALF the numbers reported barely over a week into the Iraq War - but of course who gives a shit about poor brown Iraqis, huh?). No, I can condemn China and the West both, but I'm not one to let your media frenzy and narrativizing rob me of my capacity for proportionality and a fair assessment of guilt. And per the info we have China's treatment of Muslims has been far milder than that of the west. So you're no one to claim the moral high ground. Over them or anyone else.
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  2287.  @theodoremccarthy4438  Disrupting global oil supplies is exactly what the Iranians want - that's partly why they attacked Saudi Arabia - it pushes more people into their hands (even if the US isn't hurt much - at least directly - now), while virtually no one wants to be dragged into the latest American war. China and Russia are friendlier with Iran than the US, and at least one of them doesn't care for SA either. And they certainly aren't going to allow the US to dictate terms to them, America couldn't even do that with Iran and it's much weaker. And if you think paramilitary and terrorist operations can be dispatched with little more than an air campaign (Desert Storm involved thousands of boots on the ground, btw), well, lol! All the Iranians need to do is to show the futility of American escalation, not win. Trump profits from appearing strong - show him up as not only reckless but incompetent and both he and America are embarrassed, that'd be enough while they finish up their nukes. And the US has 'wanted to disengage from the middle east' for a long time, but still hasn't - just do it already! Almost no one wants you there, and it's only American pride and unwillingness to relinquish control that keeps them around. If they really wanted to leave, they could. Your own doublethink comment - "US wants to disengage from the middle east" + "the US will just come back and do it again" = wut?! - shows why they just can't seem to leave well enough alone. If you're okay with leaving the region even worse off than it is at present so you can 'leave', then why not just leave right now? China and Russia aren't gonna do your work for you, stop dreaming. Either learn to accept the situation and leave, or stay embroiled while constantly claiming "we don't want to be here, but..." till the end of time.
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