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

  1. That's perhaps not the best way of phrasing it, but it is the case that there are structural / legal barriers in place that get in the way of Western investors putting their money into these places (when going through official channels).
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  2. His name is Shirvan, and he's not Indian. He's Azerbaijani. You can hear that with his signoff right at the end.
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  3. Not really much of a concern anyway, as there's no way tibet is going anywhere. That cause is pretty much lost, it's only idle social media activists in the west who still like to bring it up. Even India, who literally host the Dalai Lama, don't bother with it.
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  4. ​ @ugiswrong  How about you learn the history of Iran. Whatever you think of it, it was the us and uk who made it that way. The 79 revolution was a reaction to what they'd done in 53. YOU made that it like that.
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  5. Tbh I feel that quote is unnecessarily dismissive in this case. Argentina had potential, just not the kind of potential that free market ideologues love to suggest based on its early GDP per capita figures. It wasn't a developed country at the turn of the century like they like to pretend, but it was still developing - like most other nations. They didn't develop backwards, but they failed to go forwards too.
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  6. Imagine comparing Americans to the elves of middle earth. They're nothing alike.
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  7.  @Badger_IV.  No. I suspect this mess is just getting started. You see the state Myanmar is in? Syria is likely heading the same way.
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  8.  @chrisk6687  Says who? You sound like a believer in your own god. Pot calling the kettle black much lol?
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  9.  @Kaybossboi  He was referring to a post Shirvan made saying he was having trouble finding a sponsor, hence the upload delay.
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  10. The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  11. That's a Churchill quote, not his own.
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  12.  @imran4006  Sri Lanka invading India would be like Cuba invading the US lol. They know they'd stand no chance, and are so close they'd be dead if they tried. Besides which, they don't even have a major beef with India, so why would they? A few foreign debts are hardly something to risk suiciding your whole nation over.
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  13.  @drmodestoesq  They were already involved in Yemen before. The us provided support for the Saudi operation earlier. Then it went south, so they pulled out. Then later the Saudis pulled out too lol.
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  14. @Stardust "The strong survive and the weak perish..." 'cept Qatar seems to be doing fine, while SA just continues to embarass itself with this and in Yemen. Neither side is gonna die here.
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  15.  @President_Mario  That's just what you tell yourselves. Apart from Europe, most of the world is fine with it. There has never been any pressure on the US to do what it does, nor could there be. You choose to do it.
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  16. They may seek secularism, but that doesn't mean they're okay with the US doing it.
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  17. This is the mapping software mentioned in his equipment list (linked in the video description) - https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-pro/overview
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  18. Man the armchair generals are out in FORCE in this comment section lol!
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  19. They don't have an endgame for it, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  20. Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
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  21. Tribalism is very much alive and well in the west, it just doesn't trace itself back centuries. But we're seeing plenty of new 'tribes' forming all the time, identifying themselves by social or political ideology rather than ethnicity but acting very much like tribes do in all other respects. There's strong intra-tribal identification and support, their social networks tend to be dominated by people of similar beliefs as they have, they even tend to marry within the 'tribe' and express active disinclination to mix with opposing tribes (surveys have found as much, and it's a trend that's only become more pronounced over the years). We just don't call them tribes.
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  22. ITT: A comment by someone who humbly acknowledges his ignorance, followed by two from people who revel in it.
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  23. Interestingly, the biggest beneficiaries from this are the very people the Democrats themselves are nervous about - Sanders and Warren. Trumps' image is hurt, but then so is Biden. So when the mainstream Dem candidate is vulnerable, who to turn to but the non-mainstream ones? They might have just ended up playing themselves out of pulling off another Hillary in 2020 i.e. this time the radicals will have to come to the fore. The fight that plays out then should be fascinating to observe - Trump fighting Sanders / Warren, while Sanders / Warren also fight their own party establishment. Fun times! ;)
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  24. The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  25. That's a Churchill quote, not his own.
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  26. Tbh I feel that quote is unnecessarily dismissive in this case. Argentina had potential, just not the kind of potential that free market ideologues love to suggest based on its early GDP per capita figures. It wasn't a developed country at the turn of the century like they like to pretend, but it was still developing - like most other nations. They didn't develop backwards, but they failed to go forwards too.
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  27.  andersonnick038  They'd have been dumb to do that, and I don't think every other nation is dumb. The US was paid back in the form of global political and economic influence, rather than simple money. Many other nations might have made the same offer (had they the ability to), for the same reasons. Hankering after the money is short-term thinking, there are far more subtle forms of reciprocity.
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  28. Malaysia is specialized towards memory chips, which isn't even an industry unique to it. It'll face tough competition even holding its own in its own industry, let alone expanding to processing chips.
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  29.  @mikey3932  The nice thing about academic sources is that they're peer reviewed and also typically not anecdotal (quite a lot of it is also highly statistical i.e. informed by actual data). Definitely a much more trustworthy source than random people on the internet, even regardless of whether they sound reasonable or not. One persons opinions and/or lived experience is no substitute for a professional birds eye view studies by accredited experts.
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  30. This channel really seems to be going fast down the sellout route off late. Between its choice of sponsors, alarmist or clickbait topics, chasing trends (this video counts as BOTH of those things), biases to cater to its likely largest audience base, repetition of content to milk the most out of what sells, etc. I used to like Caspian Report, but nowadays it seems to be going down just as RealLifeLore already did (though different from RLL, whose approach seems to be to just saturate every topic he can can cover and hope that quantity makes up for quality)
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  31. Most are small. India has around 20,000. Countries can have some pretty big numbers of dams, as long as you disabuse yourself of the image of the stereotypical giant dam (such as the Hoover or Three Gorges).
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  32. China had to deal with way worse than the slight tickle Japan went through. When China calls it the Century of Humiliation they ain't kidding. Only places like India and Southeast Asia (or most of Africa) can compare with that, not what Japan went through.
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  33. He's Azeri himself. It wouldn't be safe for him. And people would question his neutrality on the topic.
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  34.  @IanGerritsen  So you want to join the US...but then turn it into Australia? Are you sure you even know what you want?
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  35. THIS is what I originally subscribed to Caspian Report for - geopolitical analysis of lesser known issues around the world, NOT repeated (and somewhat repetitive) coverage of the most trending and hot button topics in the media. It's been sad seeing this channel move away from that as time went on. Hopefully we see more attention given to stuff like this, as opposed to more bandwagon programming. If people need to hear about those popular topics, they can just turn on the news and get an earful (and then some) from the mainstream media.
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  36.  @therealuncleowen2588  Not really. Among other things, the elves of ME were reclusive. But the US has marched out to war in foreign lands under the leadership of presidents who were from the side that doesn't want trump as well. The US isn't even like Numenor, which also kept to itself for most of its history, only acting during a world war. The metaphor just doesn't work.
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  37.  @stonedsnakestudios  Caspian Report also focuses on "unknown events and small countries", at least if we take what tends to dominate most nightly news as a basis. Meanwhile, ppl hate VP for a variety of reasons - rightwingers hate the channel cos they're pro-immigration and socially progressive (although they don't cover social topics much), left-wingers hate the channel cos they're transparently neoliberal or even libertarian (i.e pro low taxes, and they even defended tax havens), nationalists hate the channel cos they're all for free trade and most centrists (who tend to identify as more serious-minded and academic) hate the channel because its presentation prioritizes entertainment value and quippy commentary over neutral analysis. However, that last bit is also why the channel is popular as well, as most people aren't the types to seek to strongly research or nuance their positions and instead prefer simplified, relatable and preferably fun explainers, which VP provides. Most of those people would probably find CaspianReport's droning style sleep-inducing, and hence why VP has been so much more successful, despite it not being (imo) anywhere near as good.
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  38. They're already an international pariah, defended only by a certain great power. What the international community thinks is irrelevant to them.
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  39.  @thundershirt1  You already went ashore when the Saudis did. Plus, you know, so did the Saudis. And it didn't work.
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  40.  @ugiswrong  Reza Pahlavi taking over from Mohammad Mosaddegh - that's YOUR fault. YOU are responsible for the crap
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  41.  @kameronjones7139  I said 'apart from Europe'. Besides, how has anyone forced the US' hand? Apart from that time Japan did, the US has always been free to stay out of things and no one could make it do otherwise. Of course that would come with a reduction in their global influence, which is why they keep choosing not to.
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  42. Tbh I feel Shirvan is unnecessarily dismissive in this case. Argentina had potential, just not the kind of potential that free market ideologues love to suggest based on its early GDP per capita figures. It wasn't a developed country at the turn of the century like they like to pretend, but it was still developing - like most other nations. They didn't develop backwards, but they failed to go forwards too.
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  43. It better be, if it's expected to be fully open in the early 2020s.
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  44.  @PK-lo6ws  The US is the most fickle ally you could ever ask for (unless you're an Anglophone country, which we aren't). They've supported Pakistan for longer than they've sided with us, just cos it served their own interests. We've had a more reliable ally in Russia than the US. I wouldn't put my faith in anything the Americans claim - work with them as long it benefits you, but always ensure you can afford to be ditched at a moments notice.
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  45.  @MyVanir  Most likely they learned from their own people - specifically, from Kia and Hyundai...
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  46.  @masonfarnsworth6730  I don't see the west gaining any advantage out of this. Meanwhile Afghans have lost hundreds of thousands of people to a needless war. While the Taliban may be terrible, one silver lining is that if the war finally ends then the death toll will finally reduce as well. And yes, before anyone says it, they're repressive. But war kills more people.
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  47.  @appleslover  Norway. They wield significant economic muscle with their sovereign wealth fund, but relatively little political power as a country.
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  48. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  49.  @BigBoss1R  True but on the flipside if anything he's undersold how complicated all this is. There are other groups in Afghanistan besides ISIS-K that he didn't cover, but that just means the situation is even more complex.
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  50. The latter will probably get its own video later, I suspect.
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  51.  @answerman9933  Who is Tony Hawk?
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  52.  @A_annoying_rodent  They got nato to blame, and as for syria everyone is losing it. Or did you think the rebels are liberal freedom fighters lol? They literally used to be with Al-Qaeda.
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  53. Thanks for the update. Was rather disappointed he didn't cover any of the smaller nations. Cheers!
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  54. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling his western viewers what they want to hear.
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  55.  @elessar947  They aren't his quotes. He just never provides credit or attribution. This one comes from Ludwig Erhard.
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  56.  @celdur4635  Africa has literally had its own empires. The Songhai, Ghana and Mali empires in the region covered here.
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  57. Depends on where you are. It's mostly around the capital that this holds, no so much the rest of the country.
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  58.  @talsapps  You must be new to this channel. He's done these book reviews since forever. And they cover a wide range of topics, most of which have nothing to do with Israel. So this vid is nothing special.
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  59. @Cruiser Nah. Something like this isn't covered not because the media is biased, but because it's just not sensational enough for them. This is from a policy report. Those things are important, but also very dry. And being dry / drab / boring automatically means the media, whatever their bias, won't cover you. They'd be too afraid of people changing the channel. Also what the guy above said^.
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  60.  @LaFonteCheVi  Per your logic, the US must be an even bigger disaster, since it's literally been in more wars than any country since WW2 (and still is in multiple currently), while China hasn't been to war in decades. Aggressive huh?...
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  61. sigh It's disappointing to see what's happened to Caspian off late. I used to watch this channel to learn about geopolitics in surprising places, conflicts and contests that don't get much coverage even if they've been simmering for generations. Nowadays though Caspian keeps singing the same tune - of the grand conflict between east and west - over and over again, in video after video, in order to pander to his audience. So much of it is repetition, and all of it has been covered aplenty in the regular media as well as all over Youtube. He isn't teaching people about the world anymore, he's just feeding them with what they want to hear. Tbf every so often there is a video of something else still (like the recent one on Rwanda), but it's soon followed with yet another video on China and Russia or the US and Europe that he's already done to death but keeps milking for more views.
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  62. If you think this is the end, you know nothing of Syria...
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  63.  @kameronjones7139  Did either of them ever touch the US? The closest it ever came to that was that one time the USSR put its forces on Cuba. Which still isn't the US, and it also agreed to back off anyway. Stop confusing your hegemony with your state. They are not the same. You never had to respond to anything happening elsewhere, you chose to get involved.
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  64. ​ @zekimelihmuti5501  More like Russia doesn't want to be surrounded by NATO. Russia responds to NATO getting too close to its borders? Apparently that's bad. The US embargoes and blockades Cuba for years for being friendly with Russia while close to its borders? Somehow good?...
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  65. Guys this isn't an dickwaving contest, so don't turn it into one. Like I said, countries usually have a lot more dams than you might think, even small countries for whom you wouldn't even have heard of any notable dams there. It's just a matter of rethinking one's image of what the typical dam is.
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  66.  @BluffyMoo  Europe can't handle Russia on its own unless it extends into Poland. The Baltic states will be a giant trap, and any attempts to cross via Finland will likely result in a literal firewall to stop it (which would likely tank the Finnish economy too, which heavily relies on lumber). Just the turf they have in Ukraine is the size of the 3 Baltics, so it'll likely be them just sitting and waiting there for a doomed counterpush that will be surrounded on 3 sides.
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  67. @John Grigg Gotta love seeing jingoistic war hawks on the internet lol!
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  68.  @oatmongen4263  What about all their military interventions and coups? Are those also unfair things to blame them for?
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  69. Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
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  70.  @TheReferrer72  India has already told the UK years ago that we don't want their aid. They send it to their own charities operating here for the sake of their domestic politics. It's never been significant for us.
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  71.  @roderickcampbell2105  The comment he was responding to was childish as well, yet I don't see you people taking that to task.
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  72.  @readmeat4vegans829  "Learn from history - so you do not repeat the same mistakes" - the people who launched these wars haven't suffered a thing, and in fact many have benefitted greatly from them either politically or financially (or both), so they have no reason to 'learn from history'. Cos as far as they're concerned, this wasn't a mistake, quite the opposite.
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  73. @J R He won't, because the quotes are all from other people. He just neglects to provide attribution.
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  74. They've experienced that before, and hated it so much that they overthrew it.
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  75. Wrong. There have been govt. programs to address affordability all over the world, including in Korea. None of them worked. It's never been about how tough life is. The poor have the toughest lives of all, and yet they have the most children. While the super rich have the easiest of lives, and yet tend not to have any more children for it. In Japan house prices even DECLINE over time btw. People have literally been polled about how many kids they want to have - the answers are almost always either 0, 1 or 2. The replacement rate is 2.1 fyi, and in the past families could be as large as ten or more. We also have a natural experiment that shows housing isn't the issue - all over the world orthodox communities have higher birth rates than their liberal counterparts of similar socio-economic status. The religion differs, but the one thing in common is that they all adhere to traditional gender roles. And the result is more kids, housing affordability notwithstanding. This is not being caused by house prices, it precedes it.
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  76. Drowning, not drawing. Apparently that's a west African proverb, according to google.
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  77. They aren't his quotes. He just never provides credit or attribution. This one comes from Ludwig Erhard.
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  78.  @leumatiello  Views expressed on Twitter or elsewhere is not the same as ideas expounded on in peer-reviewed journals, particularly in very quantitative disciplines like economics or sociology. Ideology won't easily get you past the scrutiny of your varied academic interlocutors. Not that the scientific community is perfectly rational - no community is - but it's still much more trustworthy than a sample size of just one persons' experiences plus a smattering of random internet comments.
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  79.  @tsubadaikhan6332  It was still better under him than what it is now. They made things a LOT worse. Also remember that they helped him earlier on, as part of their geopolitical games, so even if you want to criticize him, they're STILL responsible for this.
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  80. Did you seriously just make a geopolitics video about resources in order to promote a shifty investment offer? This is low Shirvan..
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  81. Russia has other options. India is also a friendly nation to Russia, and a rival of China. And there's no claims to worry about there. So they can always forge military pacts with both - with China against America, and with India to balance out China. Works for Russia against America and China, works for India against China, and works for China against America again. Meanwhile the only one of those that America can ally with is India, and that'd be against China, not Russia.
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  82.  @wlee9888  Hey, I can list nations too! Here you go, all of them have a rather interesting history with the US - Afghanistan, Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Columbia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iraq, Korea, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, etc. Oh, look who's list is longer!
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  83.  @bradleywang289  You people call anything you don't like bots nowadays. Even tho the guy was clearly just making a joke. The accusation has basically lost all credibility by now.
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  84. This isn't the Chinese naval strategy, apart from the first part. Most of this video is Caspian projecting his rather old fashioned take on what China intends to do. Old fashioned cos he seems to live in a world where nothing changes apart from China's navy getting larger and everyone is still fighting wars the conventional way. That's fine for 2030 maybe, but 2050 lol? It's like everyone is talking about the world shifting in a matter of days following Russia's invasion, but apparently nothing is going to change across several decades wrt China or the West.
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  85.  @MrErdem95  It was planned with self-driving pod cars in mind I suppose. Probably suggested by Kia and Hyundai...
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  86. @Sam Wallace “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." That quote presumably includes the average English voter. Churchill was very much a snob.
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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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  88.  @cpt191021  Other way around actually.
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  89.  @kameronjones7139  I didn't abandon it, it was just silly. A Mexican attack on the US would simply be rebuffed like any other nation does. My point was that the US didn't have to get embroiled elsewhere. As for Europe and Asia, that is my point - neither of them is the US. Whatever happens there doesn't force anything on you UNLESS you see your state and your hegemony as one and the same. This is what Americans don't get - they claim they want to stay at home, but expect to have the same level of global power while doing so. No you won't. You're always able to stay at home, but you will lose your influence on the world from doing it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either stay at home and sacrifice your hegemony, or enforce said hegemony and don't whine.
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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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  91.  @thebestevertherewas  Way to be pedantic. 😒I was talking about on the map. Now don't go claiming you don't 'see' any reserves on a map either, or we can sidetrack completely into 'map is not the territory' endless epistemological nonsense.
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  92. The problem with blockading the Malacca Strait is that it isn't just China that is affected. All the downstream and surrounding nations will be hit, hence none of them will be in favor of it. Just cos India and China are at war doesn't mean any of them will want to get involved. And that makes it a tricky maneuver to pull off. It's not like blockading the Sea of Japan, which only affects Japan.
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  93.  @user-fk8rq5vr9e  Egypt isn't their country, Palestine is. Which Israel is denying them.
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  94. If you think flooding tunnels is 'ingenious', you don't know much history. That tactic is nothing new, and we still build tunnels. We also build tunnels for dealing with floodwaters btw. Put those two facts together. It's not that easy to beat tunnel networks.
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  95.  @AW-zk5qb  Bruh, just ONE of America's wars this century has orders of magnitude more deaths than ALL of Russia's wars in the same period COMBINED. Literally, just look up the death tolls. For instance, the Donbass war had about 13000 deaths, while the Afghan war death toll is about a quarter of a million! And that's not a Russian number btw, but an American one lol.
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  96. This is normal? Whatever state has run Anatolia has been a major power for thousands of years, be it the Ottomans or the Romans before them. It's actually unusual for Turkey to NOT be flexing its geopolitical muscle.
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  97. Who tf is that?
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  98.  @CStone-xn4oy  And suffer the same fate as the USSR? Yeah the Americans would sure love that lol...
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  99.  Sanctus Paulus  Proportional to its size, Australia has killed a lot. Meanwhile, what's the biggest death toll you can level at China after Mao? Tiananmen Square? Estimates range from 3,000 to 10,000 on that. Those are rookie numbers compared to the death tolls western powers have racked up in the same period, thanks to their incessant wars. The west also has more people in prison than China (the US prison population is 2.3 million, compared to China's 1.6 million - and that's from a population a quarter of China's size!), and more deaths that it's responsible for (literally millions!) thanks to having been in so many more wars (China hasn't been to war in decades). The only reason you get to throw around scary words like 'genocide' is cos the west is indiscriminate with its devastation, unlike China's targeting of the Uighurs. So you get off by being equal opportunity killers lol! But there's still A LOT more dead Muslims thanks to the west than China.
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  100. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
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  101.  @BluffyMoo  As for Taiwan, it'll be naval operation that occurs in China's backyard - directly in range of all of its assets, not just its navy but its airforce, missiles and parts of its army too. All of which dwarf everything from all those nations save for the US and South Korea - and South Korea won't be able to do much cos of North Korea.
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  102. "They could have done that 20 years ago" - they did. Africa's first investors weren't Chinese, but western (and I mean even after the colonial period). They turned away from it because it was largely a disaster (look up the IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs for an example of this). But also, stop downplaying African agency - they aren't dumb. As a matter of fact it uses both western and Chinese financing - largely for different purposes, as suits their expertise. While you wring your hands over Chinese infrastructure projects - a space the west itself abandoned - look at where they get their funding for social spending i.e. the west. They use China for infra for two reasons - it's what China does well and they sorely need (bleeding heart liberals would like to believe schools are the only thing a nation needs lol, that is not even remotely true), and China doesn't dictate domestic policy to them for its loans (while the US hems and haws over the odd asset seizure, this is the flip side of that - rather than seize assets the West literally undermines sovereignty of the whole nation by using its financing to dictate policy to them).
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  103.  @ilan_nahshon  It is a Jewish state. They themselves practically admit it cos the whole reason the one-state solution isn't acceptable to them is cos of the fear of the Jews being outnumbered by the Arabs. Them having non-Jewish minorities doesn't change what it is. Even the many Islamic states have non-Muslim minorities. The point is Israel is open dedicated to the Jews always holding the reins of power of the state.
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  104.  @kameronjones7139  You don't have an argument so there is no point in continuing the conversation. Touche.
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  105. 200k troops is not enough to control Ukraine, which suggests that they never intended to make it a part of Russia. They most likely had more limited goals, and will pull out (possibly to new borders) once those goals are achieved. In terms of annexation, the most likely areas are Donbass and the territory to the north of Crimea upto the river (so as to secure Crimean water supply which the Ukrainians were denying them uptil now) and maybe the southern coast of the Black Sea, NOT all of Ukraine. Maybe Ukraine will even be federalized, who knows?
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  106.  @revolution94ful  War doesn't have to mean full nuclear war. A conflict over Taiwan for instance is expected to be a limited naval engagement, while a war with India would likely be a limited border war. Just cos both sides have nukes doesn't mean they'll use them. And that's already happened fyi - the Kargil war with Pakistan was between two nuclear armed states, and yet no nukes were fired in it.
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  107. Btw, your relationship with Pakistan goes much further back than just the Afghan war. Ordinary Americans may not know nor care about that, but here in the region we know it well. For that matter your relationship with Afghanistan also goes much further back - indeed you're half the reason that country imploded all those decades ago in the first place (the other half being the USSR).
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  108.  @minhluong4596  The subject here is geopolitics. If they don't specialize in geopolitics, then they aren't competitors to Caspian Report. Which means you don't know anyone better than Caspian Report on YT.
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  109.  @MaskofPoesy  Bruh, your taste is just that. For him, it's literally the money he needs to eat. It doesn't really harm anyone, so get over it.
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  110. It's not gonna be completed until 2038 lol. While it will function at a reduced capacity even before that, it's not gonna pay for itself anytime soon. Keep in mind insurance costs in Iraq are quite a bit higher too, due to the instability.
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  111. It isn't his line, in fact it never is. He just never provides attribution, even though the quotes are often quite well known.
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  112.  @stefandinu6389 The US being untouched is meaningless lol, as WW2 wasn't even taking place in North America. Russia faced the worst of WW2, and emerged a superpower by the end. Europe meanwhile saw itself collapse from it despite having a globe spanning empire to back it up. The US just sat pretty across the ocean.
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  113.  @danielbowman7226  Yeah, how did India figure in that list? It's fought five full-scale wars since its independence and the US contributed to none of them.
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  114.  @LaFonteCheVi  If so, why don't you let the Chinese worry about that? Instead of saber-rattling all the time. The comment you responded to was itself simply a reversal of another, which both did not mention Xi and which you tellingly seemed to have no problem with.
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  115.  @jamielonsdale3018  Ordinary Scots weren't happy with it, hell plenty of Englishmen were unhappy about it too. It was the Scottish nobility that united the two, the sentiment between the peoples didn't flip one bit.
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  116.  @kameronjones7139  Since when was Korea, Greece or Turkey America? Again you're confusing your hegemony with your state, as the Pentagon is also wont to do.
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  117. Yeah and guess which major foreign hegemony reduced them to this...
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  118.  @Ilyak1986  The nation that's been to war most since WW2 is the US, not Russia or Iran. The nation with the highest death toll in military interventions abroad this century is also the US. The nation that's never been held to account for any of that is...also the US. The UN is ineffective, but the biggest exemplar of its ineffectiveness is actually the US.
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  119.  @Ilyak1986  Lol. The nation with the highest body count is somehow irrelevant to the question of holding nations to account. Your choice of Iran is especially telling, as there's FAR bigger cases of rights violations elsewhere. What makes Iran stand out? Nothing really, apart from it happens to be an enemy of the US. That seems to be your real criteria here. It's also childish to imagine political power has anything to do with moral standing. Hence why the US is powerful despite its record. By your naive criterion Costa Rica or Bhutan would be the most powerful nations on Earth. They aren't, never have been and likely never will be. Power doesn't work that way.
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  120. The US has intervened in Eurasia more often than either of these two have. Hell China's last war ended in 1979, the US' in 2021.
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  121.  @hitenshah821  They mostly aren't his quotes tho. Almost all of them are quotes of other people that he's re-using where appropriate.
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  122. ​ @andreiharkov5110  By that logic, technically the Russians won in Afghanistan too. Their army was dominant and the cities firmly under control. They were even busily building the nation up. But they just couldn't settle the peace in the countryside. Same as America. If we count the Russians leaving as a loss, so is America leaving.
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  123. To be fair to China, the one-child policy wasn't some wacky idea. Back when it was adopted, population panic was in vogue in the West too (in many communities today it still is) complete with support for stringent countermeasures, and China's burgeoning numbers were at the heart of it. It was just that this was one problem the West wasn't responsible for (which is also why it's still such a popular clarion call today) and so the steps to combat were encouraged in places like China as well as India and much of Africa. What economists and demographers have since learned is that such draconian measures typically backfire i.e. do more harm than good - the West was able to comfortably learn that lesson merely theoretically since it never needed the changes to begin with, while places like China are now learning it the hard way. Population alarmism has been an albatross around the worlds' neck ever since Thomas Malthus first put forward the idea, and so far has never actually been borne out.
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  124. It's hardly just oppressive regimes that do that. The democratic equivalent just passes the bill on to future govts.
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  125. Why would they need to? China is still growing, even if a bit slower. And boosting domestic consumption has always been on the Chinese agenda - they don't like being too dependent on exports (especially to America) either. All this does is force them to expedite that shift. Meanwhile, the US isn't doing itself any favors with these tariffs - even the companies are just going to relocate to SE Asia rather than America, and the US leader responsible for pushing this agenda the hardest is likely to run out of time far sooner than Beijing will.
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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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  127.  @tomgjgj  Trump is merely building on (and, admittedly, also building further) the foundations of his predecessors - both Obama and Bush greatly strengthened, and used, the power of the presidency. The establishment doesn't like it only cos he doesn't follow decorum i.e. he isn't discreet in how he throws his weight around. In that sense, he's better (even if he's terrible) - better a naked demagogue than the 'politically astute' bs people like these authors usually prefer. They speak of 'norms', what they really mean is 'tact'.
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  128. Ppl please stop responding to iqbal. He's been posting that same rant under several of Shirvan's vids just to stir the pot. It doesn't even contain any arguments. Don't feed the troll.
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  129.  @Scranny  It doesn't make sense for any nation to have nukes. And Israel already has one of the most powerful conventional militaries in the region, as well as the backing of the reigning global superpower. They don't need nukes as well. Hell, Israeli nukes is the reason why Iran even launched its nuclear program in the first place.
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  130.  @chronikhiles  Methinks you have a very rose-tinted view of early Youtube. The man needs to eat, just ignore the sponsor and enjoy the free video.
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  131. Freed by the Allies, then suffered a civil war (that also featured foreign meddling, like everywhere else during the Cold War), finally started rebuilding, then got excited to join the EU but didn't qualify and so tricked their way in thanks to good old Goldman Sachs 'help', couldn't devalue their currency anymore now that it was the Euro, crashed horribly in 2008, and so now right back to the good old days of international financier domination and austerity.
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  132.  @vanrensburgsgesicht  Yeah, there's even some people who were honest about it. Like the British Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, who freely admitted that he'd have been tried as a war criminal had the allies lost. So here's another (in)famous one-liner in the spirit of that: "The strong do as they can and the weak suffer what they must." - Thucydides
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  133.  @bannedeverywhere  'korean dudes there wanted wifes and girlfriends' - but did the women want husbands and boyfriends? And I don't mean very rich or famous husbands and boyfriends. Can't work if only one side wants a partner.
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  134.  @MajinLiveTV  Peter Zeihan is a sellout who traded in a respectable career in academia (back when he wrote books like Accidental Superpower) for a new career preaching America's infallibility to adoring American fans. He left the more critical environment he began his career in for a much easier to please crowd of non-experts to become a celebrity.
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  135.  @answerman9933  Bigtime US pastor it seems.
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  136. There have been govt. programs to address all those issues all over the world, including in Korea. None of them worked. It's never been about how tough life is. The poor have the toughest lives of all, and yet they have the most children. While the super rich have the easiest of lives, and yet tend not to have any more children for it.
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  137.  @randomyoutubecommentersecu7639  You calling them 'savages' says a lot, and none of it to your credit.
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  138.  @fahimrind9714  Where did you get your 100 million+ deaths figure from lol? The Black Book of Communism? Lmao! Almost all of China's deaths, which are less than 100 million, come from Mao's time over half a century ago. Since then they've had just a few thousand deaths, mostly from Tiananmen Square (3000 - 10000, and that's not a Chinese figure), while having raised well over 800 MILLION people (and that's a WB figure) out of absolute poverty despite starting from penury. They also haven't been to war in decades, and those wars they did into all those years ago (Tibet, India, Vietnam, etc.) have far lower death tolls than most western wars (the Sino-Vietnam War, for instance, lasted a month and killed about 60,000 on both sides, while the American one lasted nearly two decades and killed over 3 million!). The numbers, at least from the last half century, are not on your side. And if you have to resort to attacking a half century old dead man, you've already conceded you yourself have sucked ever since.
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  139.  @dana8503  Err...China has a larger navy than the US already, albeit with less range, and has peppered the area with anti-ship defenses. Even the US' own generals have expressed misgivings about fighting China in their own backyard.
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  140. That would not sit well with Brussels. Not at all...
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  141. "A Confederation of African States would be a good thing" - that's just the African Union by another name.
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  142.  @francisedward8713  Actually neither Ukraine nor Russia started this mess, America did. They just couldn't stay in their lane. And they're going to be involved again when it comes to the eastern Pacific soon. Funny how that doesn't involve Russia or Ukraine or even Europe, but America is still in the middle of it. Wherever the conflict, America is still at the heart of it.
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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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  144.  @infinidominion  It's not that simple actually. For instance I've had comments disappeared that was then able to post just by splitting one large comment into many smaller ones. No change to the text, just separating it into smaller chunks. I think they're using some dumb AI as their mod.
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  145.  @MoralistaDefinitivo  Not really. He's unusual, and so some world leaders weren't sure how to deal with him. But that's a short term advantage. His overall style of nakedly transactional foreign relations is also similarly short-sighted. Almost none of what he gains benefits the US in the long-term, and he's sacrificing a lot of long run good relations to get it (case in point being relations with Europe). Trump isn't smart, just brash. And people like Putin especially can easily deal with that (he's got practice from dealing with Chechnya all these years).
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  146. ​ @nataliamundell6266 India is NOT rich. It has a GDP per capita comparable to sone African nations, which was even lower in the past. India WAS rich once however, literally comprising a quarter of the world economy. Guess who came in and destroyed all that..
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  147. They don't have an endgame, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  148.  @Jondiceful  China denies loans too, and in fact they've been scaling down their foreign loans for nearly a decade now. They've also renegotiated and/or written off many loans (both the How China Lends report, as well as another report by the Rhodium Group, have looked at hundreds of Chinese loans and found little backing for your narrative). The difference between them and the IMF is less about not caring about creditability, but rather not coming with strings attached - that's WHY these nations like Chinese loans more than IMF ones. Chinese loans are pure business loans - you borrow and repay. IMF loans come with conditions for restructuring your entire economy in line with their vision (look up the Structural Adjustment Programs to learn more on this) - and that 'vision' has often turned out to be terrible economic advice for the local population.
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  149.  @plendafuture7451  Giving credit to the original always matters. By not doing so he's presenting himself as wiser and more poetic than he really is.
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  150.  @damian4926  "Recently India cancelled massive weapons order from Russia and began talks with US, I wonder why" - stop using us to fuel your self-serving narrative. We've fought half a dozen wars with Russian weapons, all but one of them against US weapons, and won. Their weapons have served us well and we have no plans to dump our Russian arsenal anytime soon.
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  151.  @damian4926  "Russia to China is what Tajikistan is to Russia." - lmao! This is hilariously off base. Russia doesn't bend over to China anywhere near as much as Europe or Japan do. Besides which it also doesn't matter. Whatever the relationship they and those under their influence are still self-sufficient in most everything, and constitute the majority of the worlds' productive capacity, a higher balance of trade with the majority of nations and larger militaries. Whoever is junior or senior matters little, what matters is they share a common enemy - you.
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  152. "What amazes me the most is" - what amazes you the most is probably the least amazing facet of Russia. They're hardly unique in that feeling, and it only amazes you cos you're too convinced of your own inherent goodness to believe anyone could see differently. The west bought Russian oil and gas even during the cold war, and Russia has bought plenty of stuff from the west as well (else what's the point of the sanctions when there's nothing to target?). That's trade. You pretending trade is some kind of favor is what's truly 'amazing'. The west buys plenty from China too, and yet look at how they feel about that nation, even without a war. Drop the angelic pretenses and perhaps you won't be so 'amazed' anymore, as many outside the west certainly aren't.
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  153. They don't have an endgame, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  154.  @answerman9933  Idk. I just figured it out by googling what the OP wrote. I've no idea how much pull he has on the ordinary American, but for what it's worth he is big enough that he has his own wikipedia page which details quite an extensive list of his activities, including political campaigning. Was even feted by Time and Newsweek.
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  155.  @mangalores-x_x  Logistics are fucked cos of the strategy they chose, which was for a fast campaign. That said, they have the capacity to fix that.
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  156. Whenever you hear the phrase "rules-based order", you should roll your eyes. The only rules that count are that of the dominant power. Australia isn't even the worst offender in this regard - at least they didn't straight out invade nations for not playing ball (unlike a certain superpower...). The rest of the world isn't gonna be fooled by sanctimonious moralism from storied imperialists.
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  157. Malaysia is specialized towards memory chips, which isn't even an industry unique to it. It'll face tough competition even holding its own in its own industry, let alone expanding to processing chips.
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  158.  @carstarsarstenstesenn  I'd have thought that the War of the Triple Alliance would've soured the whole continent on the idea of becoming an imperial power. Wars cost a lot of lives.
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  159. ​ @TomorrowWeLive  Some do. There's always been comments under his videos pointing out who said his ending line. Tbf I don't think he means to claim them as his own, as some of them are so well known that it'd be silly to even try. Rather I suspect he just feels ending the video with a name would spoil the dramatic flourish that the quote achieves. They do make for great closing lines, as comments like OP's show.
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  160.  @golagiswatchingyou2966  Yeah. By Ibn Taymiyyah.
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  161.  @mohammedzaid9274  Pakistans' ideological strategy was hardly 'cohesive', as the video itself explains at the end.
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  162. "But if a country like India can make democracy work" - as an Indian, I hate it when westerners take our democracy for granted today. Westerners also wrote off India's capability to remain a democracy when we gained independence - and they were NOT WRONG to do so. While some of it was driven by racism, there were also a lot of real GOOD REASONS to doubt Indian democracy would work out. And yet it did. That is a testament to India and Indians - we BEAT THE ODDS, but the odds were definitely stacked against us. Those predictions were not stupid - most places in situations similar to us FAILED to do that. India was one of the exceptions, the dark horse that upset the expected outcome. But now they take it for granted, as if it was always going to work out. It wasn't. It was hardly easy, and is still a struggle to this day (with out current PM also taking us in a more autocratic direction). We were even turned into a full autocracy briefly under Indira Gandhi. Russia not being a democracy, insofar as it can be compared to India, does not make Russia a disappointment, it makes Russia TYPICAL. India as a democracy is not much of a counter imo. Also I really don't like this kind of cultural / moral supremacy that underlies this kind of thinking, where nations are measured as successes or failures based on how similar they are to the west.
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  163.  @somethung8188  Whataboutism is just a label used to avoid accusations of hypocrisy. It doesn't even counter those claims, just sidesteps them. Hell even the Wikipedia page on it has an entire section dedicated to the criticisms of the term. "Russia deserves to have consequences for their actions" - how come the west NEVER faces consequences of its actions? Where's the sanctions on the US? What, it's okay as long as the victims are poor brown people not in Europe? The US gets away with all its shit, and you people have the gall to act all high and moral when punishing everyone else. That's not justice, just hegemony. Keep the sanctions on Russia, but put them on the US and UK as well. Or else stop pretending this has anything to do with morality. Even your refugee policy has been revealed as racist lol.
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  164.  @Kalimdor199Menegroth  Ah yes, nice of you to elucidate how the oh-so-moral western powers would rather invade a country than respect its sovereignty in hosting a foreign military base. Meanwhile Russia and China are expected to simply put up with the US ringing them with bases (over 800 of them!) since, you know, those countries consented to it. I guess consent only matters when it's the answer you want, eh?... If this is how you're going to play it, at least do the world a favor by not pretending you're anything more than a bunch of hegemonic thugs. Both rivals will do what they have to to protect their interests, much the same as you've just admitted you will. So much for the "rules-based order"...
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  165. Nah. They're pretty opposed to that sort of thing, as it reminds them of the shah that the revolution deposed. That's why his son taking power is an issue to begin with, whereas it's taken for granted in places like the KSA or UAE.
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  166.  @accent1666  Bruh plenty of nations have territory disputes with other nations. Ironically America mostly doesn't, and yet it's STILL been the nation that's gone to war the most. It's also one of the only nations in history to frequently get into wars far from its borders. Even China hasn't done that. If anything, that just makes America look worse, as it doesn't even have territorial integrity issues and yet still is fighting wars all the damn time.
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  167.  @nishitd  Sri Lankan debts to China comprise only about 10% of its debt load. They owe as much to Japan, yet I don't see you crying about that. Meanwhile a whopping 47% of their debts are to what are mostly western creditors (not nations, but private bond holders). Its debts to China are also, like debts to govts. in general, mostly long term - most of it isn't even due. And the interest rate is lower than what's really sinking them - short term debts with high interest rates to private creditors.
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  168. ​ @nataliamundell6266 Bub India had numerous famines under the Brits, in which MILLIONS of lives were lost. It hasn't had ANY major famine since independence, despite being desperately poor back then. They didn't just lose market share, they were systematically DRAINED by being turned into a captive market using trade restrictions and tariffs that turned it into a source of raw goods who was then forced to buy from the British what them themselves used to make (like textiles) - buy with the taxes levied on them by the British fyi. YOU don't know history bub. Go read Indian history and how colonial extraction worked. There was a reason why the Brits literally fought wars just to p9sh dr9gs on China. They did NOT just outcompete the world, they broke it.
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  169.  @fjooyou  I think you don't know the difference between fairness in dealings and equality of outcome.
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  170. You think they'd be aiming to conquer? Lol. Your 'throw shit at each other' is still war.
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  171.  @dinodudedanny6324 You're still the only ones who've ever done it. But worst of all is how much Americans warn about other countries being dangerous nuclear actors when they haven't done anything, while pretending they're responsible despite still being the only ones who ever have used it. You want people to stop pointing fingers at you, then stop pointing fingers are everyone else. But that seems to be beyond you.
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  172.  @Minchya  He isn't the first to call Australia that. And in fact that label is applied even more often to the UK.
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  173.  @cerealkiller5599  Pretty sure the Russian invasion would've happened even sooner had Ukraine tried to get nukes (the ones they had earlier don't count - they couldn't use them as they didn't control them). Their invasions happened in the first place cos of Ukraine moving closer to the west post the 2014 revolution and courting NATO. Nukes would've been an even bigger trigger.
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  174. OMG!! Will you people stop all asking about Shirvan? You're going to be the death of this channel if you insist Caspian Report is all about Shirvan, with no replacement possible. What would you do if Shirvan wasn't available anymore? If he needed a break, or fell sick, or had a fatal accident? Unsub? The core of this channel is and should be about its content, with the narrator serving as only a means of delivery. Else it is limiting itself, and vulnerable.
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  175.  @Johnny-bm7ry  They were actually at their peak during the Islamic Golden Age lol
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  176.  @tsubadaikhan6332  They had a govt. You destroyed it. They even had a govt. before that, and you helped the man who ruined that so as to establish his own govt. that you then went on to destroy again.
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  177. Lol. You're either seriously underestimating China's capacity, or seriously overestimating that of the US (and Japan lol!). Plus you're imagining a blockade, which I think you'll find won't go down well with anyone, including US citizens, unless China egregiously gave cause for one. To be clear, a blockade is an act of war - good luck trying to sell that (between the US and China) to any significant number of people.
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  178.  @Ilyak1986  That isn't an alternative, it's openly hegemonic. And incredibly hypocritical, as much as idealists like you prefer to paint them pearly white with a clean record. They're anything but.
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  179.  @jonathan13co  He was also their chief negotiator. Hilariously the us reacted to his death by stressing negotiations. Like wow you really think this is how you're going to negotiate anything lmao?
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  180.  @orcho141  Cool! In that case I'll listen to Angola, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Congo, Dominican Republic, El Savador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Yemen, etc. to know what us subjugation is like.
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  181.  @jamese5936  The comment section will be fine. Cos YT will simply delete or hide half the comments, as is becoming the norm across the whole platform these days.
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  182. Even longer answer: Armchair types on social media don't know shit.
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  183. ​ @stoneymcneal  I wonder if you have the inner strength, not to mention honesty, to realize how morally elitist, judgmental and supercilious you sound. They aren't there to stroke your ego by living up to your values. If anything, the ones to be judged harshly are the people responsible for a needless war that's killed hundreds of thousands of people. I do hope the average American isn't as stuck up and full of themselves as you sound right now. And has the humility to admit defeat instead of just blaming it on other people. They never signed up to fight for this war, you forced it onto them. Hence they aren't responsible for its success, you guys are. Both the Vietnamese and Afghans have fought off multiple world superpowers - I rather think they have more inner strength than your average coddled American. Inner strength is precisely why they won - they just didn't fight for the same things.
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  184. It's not about historic claims, that's just an excuse. But it's also not about democracy (lol, the US supported Taiwan even when it was an autocracy fyi), that's also an excuse. It's about where Taiwan sits. Taiwan is basically China's Cuba, and we all know just how the US reacted to having a hostile power just off of its coast. China will never allow that, even if means just destroying the island. Much like the US has crippled Cuba for over half a century now (again not democracy - the US got along great with its previous dictator).
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  185. You'll never see a war called a 'xyz resource war', at least not unless we enter the post-apocalyptic period. That kind of honesty doesn't sell well. The powers that be will always concoct some sort of moral or nationalistic reason for the war, so as to rile people up for it. A scramble for resources only riles people up after everything has gone to shit and so morality has been cast aside. Until such time, people will always want to feel morally justified in what they do, and their leaders will be happy to oblige.
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  186.  @phillip_iv_planetking6354  They aren't a threat far from their shores, no. But the thing about America is that they see any loss of planetary dominance as a threat, no matter how secure their homeland is. This is after all the country that killed over 2 million Vietnamese over nothing more than ideology, no threat to America itself at all. So China's rise automatically worries them.
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  187. Most of Africa's wars have their roots in the original outside force, not the new ones. They stem from the shit borders the Europeans drew up. This is also true of the Middle East btw. And South Asia. Edit: Also social 'borders' i.e. playing communities off of each other.
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  188.  @Capt.Thunder  Can you ppl please stop responding to iqbal? He's been posting that same rant under several of Shirvan's vids just to stir the pot. It doesn't even contain any arguments. Don't feed the troll.
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  189.  @rodrigopaim82  You don't get to take credit for the future, nor for the efforts of the people of South Korea. What the situation was at the time is the only relevant point to consider. What happened to the country decades later thanks to the efforts of the people of South Korea (NOT the US) isn't pertinent to why the US fought there generations ago. Go look up what hindsight bias is, cos you're stewing in it.
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  190. Russia has other options. India is also a friendly nation to Russia, and a rival of China. And there's no claims to worry about there. So they can always forge military pacts with both - with China against America, and with India to balance out China. Works for Russia against America and China, works for India against China, and works for China against America again. Meanwhile the only one of those that America can ally with is India, and that'd be against China, not Russia.
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  191. The problem with both points 1 and 3 is that Russia isn't worried about Ukraine, it's worried about the US. As far as Russia is concerned NATO is little more than a front for American power projection. Getting along with her neighbours means little, it doesn't even consider NATO members to have an independent foreign policy to begin with. It would have to toe America's line, and neither Russia nor China are willing to give in to American hegemony.
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  192.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  193.  @MrProIsrael  They haven't won anything. All they've done is exceed Russia's civilian figure after 2 years in as little as 2 months. Their figure is now nearly 3 times that of Russia. Their enemy has just hunkered down and let them torpedo their own international standing.
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  194.  @alirazi9198  The US is a fickle ally. They've sided with Pakistan for longer than they have with us, whenever it served their interests. We've defied them before in buying Russians weapons. We defied them in developing our own nuclear arsenal. And we can defy them on Iran. Unfortunately this time around our govt. seems unwilling to do it. It's cowardly and craven. Russia has been a more reliable ally for India than the US has ever been, so screw them. We ought to just work with Iran.
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  195.  @estevan1084  Can the US please just NOT always be there, thanks? Europe isn't looking likely to start another war, but the US is. Even Russia is mainly responding to US bases getting ever closer to it, not the EU. The US has launched more wars than any other nation in the modern age, so it's likely the world will be more peaceful if the US just stepped back. And there a Gallup survey from a couple years ago that backs that up btw - the US was overwhelmingly voted the greatest threat to world peace.
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  196. Not really. It sounds poetic sure, but there's more to politics than economics, and there's more to economics than politics. While they often overlap and influence each other, they aren't the same. Also just fyi - that line isn't from Shirvan, it's a quote from Lenin.
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  197. ​ @nataliamundell6266 India had upto 165 MILLION excess deaths in just 40 years out of the over 200 that the British reigned for (1880 - 1920). That is NOT the industrial revolution at work, that's colonialism.
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  198. How about 'a nation not in the middle east did this to them'? Oh wait, that's not new either...
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  199.  @wanderingwondering3437  I dunno. The US violates international policy all the time (at least on the rare occasions it can't armtwist its way into shaping it) and it seems to get away with it just fine. Cos it's a superpower, ofc. But unless you're claiming someone's gonna militarily force Turkey to toe the line, I'm not sure the difference matters. And neither the US nor Russia nor the EU nor Israel is gonna be that guy. So what's to stop Turkey?
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  200.  @ariondys  Neither China nor the EU would have decided the height. That has to be agreed to by the client, which is Croatia.
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  201. Why are you so desperate for views that you keep returning to the Ukraine well to shore up more subs? It's not your strong point because it's getting so much coverage already. All it's done is make CR seem rather outdated compared to the focused war channels. Your last video on Bolivia was the kind of thing you should be doing more of - stories that are less covered, and preferably not recent events. The Ukraine stuff only makes this channel look bad due to all the competition from all corners of the media.
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  202. ​ ger du  Bruh, I talked about this century and you go all the way back to Holodomor lol. This is being called Putin's war, right? Well Putin didn't do Holodomor. It just makes your argument look weak if you need to go back that far. Two can play that game btw. Holodomor killed about 3 million Ukrainians through famine, right? Well the Bengal famine (which is still more recent) killed about the same number of Indians. And that was done by the British under Churchill. And yet Russia is demonized for it, while the Brits and Churchill get to pretend they're the heroic saviors of the world. Don't make me laugh.
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  203.  @arvindjijiantony4882  Nah. He asked for an Indo-Pak comment war. This comment war is between Indians. Well, at least it's different.
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  204.  @kingace6186  Iran was under sanctions 12 years ago as well. The sanctions have nothing to do with it. America has sanctioned Iran for generations and they were still worth more than 600 billion.
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  205.  @Haxerous  I wonder why I rarely see you people jump to these conclusions when it comes to the nationalities of western media reporters and commentators. There's plenty of channels run by Americans for instance, and yet there's far less cries of them being biased towards their nation. How come? Don't give me that 'land of the free' crap to explain why they aren't biased.
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  206. The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  207. Bruh, you can find literally thousands of articles by traditional media explaining the Israel-Palestine conflict and its history. This idea that traditional media produces nothing good while Youtubers are the only decent source of news is just willful blindness in order to align with an internet meme narrative. Like literally just a Google search will show how wrong it is.
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  208.  @samthesuspect  Lol at this point you're not even responding to anything said, just going on with your 'Rule Britannia' (or the US equivalent 'America, fuck yeah!') spiel. No point engaging with someone who isn't going to respond properly and falls back on weak attempts at character assassination to try undermining his opponent. It's telling when you can't imagine anyone but the Chinese having different views from you you know. Reveals a closed mind.
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  209.  @Duron13  Who's 'everybody' pray? And do you know who has the most interventions since ww2 to its name? It's neither Ru nor Chin (especially not Chin lol, their last one ended in 1979). So you should be asking the same to the us first imo.
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  210. sigh It's disappointing to see what's happened to Caspian off late. I used to watch this channel to learn about geopolitics in surprising places, conflicts and contests that don't get much coverage even if they've been simmering for generations. Nowadays though Caspian keeps singing the same tune - of the grand conflict between east and west - over and over again, in video after video, in order to pander to his audience. So much of it is repetition, and all of it has been covered aplenty in the regular media as well as all over Youtube. He isn't teaching people about the world anymore, he's just feeding them with what they want to hear. Tbf every so often there is a video of something else still (like the recent one on Rwanda), but it's soon followed with yet another video on China and Russia or the US and Europe that he's already done to death but keeps milking for ever more views. I'm not complaining about partisanship or propaganda mind, although others have, but just plain pandering.
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  211. Plan 1 failed cos of the US. Them and their damn never-ending feud with Iran hurts our interests, on this and much else. We don't have an issue with Iran. Ironically, that has worked to China's advantage aka the US' great rival.
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  212. ​ @nighty9338 China literally has been building infrastructure there for decades. And it's infrastructure Africans themselves asked for, not just roads to ports.
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  213.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  If the CCP has wu mao bots, it seems India has its own version by way of bhakt bots...
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  214. The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  215.  @theobserver3753  "China is imprisoning people" - it still has far fewer people imprisoned than the US, despite having around 4 times the population. Yes, that's including the Uighur camps - that's just how bad the justice system in the US is. 1.6 million for a country of 1.4 billion versus 2.3 million for a country of just 330 million.
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  216.  @HB-qu8dm  Will China throw its weight around the world, if it can? Perhaps, but that's an expensive exercise, and China is hardly looking like it can attain the same level of unilateral hegemony that America has enjoyed for the last 30 years (since the fall of the USSR). So it is forced to operate in a multilateral model, including the US but also other strong nations (including rivals like India), which is good. They're not gonna replace one global hegemon (America) with another (China), rather China's rise is just ending an already existing hegemony.
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  217. Gazprom made the pipeline to Europe, and has made plenty of other pipelines too. Including the existing one to China. And there's plenty of steel to be had too.
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  218. ​ @dh6128  India doesn't want to be an American stooge, like Europe has been for decades. They can even come together with China sometimes in that endeavour, such as with the recent launch of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank that directly competes with the US and Japanese dominated Asian Development Bank. Plus fundamentally the South China Sea and Taiwan are well beyond India's interests, which extend only to about the Malacca Strait (the real place where they can apply pressure to China). The last thing India wants is to pick a fight where it can't and doesn't even need to. The US has bases all over the world, but notably not in India - that tells you something. And generally Indian and American relations have been pretty unreliable over the decades (compared to say, the Russians, who've proven to be steadfast and dependable allies) something Indian policymakers will keep in mind when weighing their options. India likes its independence (it was even one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement) and won't give it up so easily.
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  219.  @rodrigopaim82  South Korea was poorer than the North during the time of the Korean war. It was also an autocracy itself. Your heroic picture of the Korean war is nothing but wishful thinking. The US fought that war for the simple reason that it chose to be on their side and its enemy was on their enemies' side. There was nothing idealistic about it.
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  220.  @wlee9888  ​ "I find myself having much better conversations with Germans, Russians, Indians, Saudis, Iranians" - ironically, you're having a conversation with one of them now, and you're not acquitting yourself well for it. And I've seen the proliferation of a lot of things online, including many pertaining to America. The difference being that Americans tend to treat everything they do or think as just 'normal', with everyone else being measured in relation to that. American anti-Chinese sentiment has also proliferated online since 2016 (I'm sure you know the significance of that year...), yet it's not examined. American anti-Muslim sentiment was high before that. America likes to style itself as speaking for the world, which tends to go to its head. You don't. You really REALLY don't - https://youtu.be/CxHMeWfKdHk
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  221. Can you ppl please stop responding to iqbal? He's been posting that same rant under several of Shirvan's vids just to stir the pot. It doesn't even contain any arguments. Don't feed the troll.
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  222. Ah Caspian Report once again returning to the well of the Ukraine war to harvest some views I see. With so much other coverage though, it only makes CR look dated and out of sync by comparison. You really should focus on less headliner content cos this just ain't working out Shirvan.
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  223.  @riser7795  There is no leverage. It's a 'card' sure, but only for fighting for moral browny points in the media. It achieves nothing on the ground. The only one it helps is whoever is using it for their PR.
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  224.  @oppionatedindividual8256  You have no clue how bad the Raj was. Just between 1880 - 1920, out of over 2 centuries that they had colonial control of the subcontinent, it's estimated there were over 100 MILLION excess unalives. The total drain of wealth is estimated over 45 TRILLION bucks. And so on. NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, that's ever happened to any nation in the region compares to how bad the Raj was.
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  225.  @joe_ninety_one5076  China cares far more about being able to counter US attempts to curtail it than north Manchuria, hence the close ties between them and Russia. Russia has additional forces and, more importantly, plentiful resources. Maybe after they remove the US' presence from the area they'll care to be more demanding of Russia, but as long as the two of them (and many others, like Iran) have a common enemy in America, they're gonna see more value in cooperating.
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  226. OMG!! Will you people stop all asking about Shirvan? You're going to be the death of this channel if you insist Caspian Report is all about Shirvan, with no replacement possible. What would you do if Shirvan wasn't available anymore? If he needed a break, or fell sick, or had a fatal accident? Unsub? The core of this channel is and should be about its content, with the narrator serving as only a means of delivery. Else it is limiting itself, and vulnerable.
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  227. Why are you even here then, huh?
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  228. "America was not invading" Lmao! Good joke. :p
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  229. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
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  230. It's reasonably neutral at least. Unlike most other such warnings that come from politically charged sources, the Bulletin has tried to maintain its role as a neutral group of concerned scientists. It is still just an opinion, but it's an opinion from a more trustworthy source than most others out there.
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  231. ​ @snuffleuppagus6979  And if you took all those people and put them in a repressive society, I'm willing to bet over 90% of them would choose to live. Hell, people accept life without freedom even without death as the alternative - just go look up the Sultanate of Brunei as an example. The most totalitarian state you've never heard of, and yet there's almost no discontent - cos it's so rich that the people are taken care of just with the dregs of the immense wealth of its ruler. Anyway, it's not for us to lecture them. Freedom, as they say, isn't free. The people who want freedom or death will make their own choices on it, and so will everyone else. But you can't make that choice if you're already dead - and war makes a lot of people dead.
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  232.  @mewoozy2  9/11 killed about 3000 people. The Afghan has killed several orders of magnitude more than that. There was never anything 'moral' about this war. In any case, I think the idea of 'reforming' a country from the outside and top down is wrong headed the begin with. The US' only big success at doing this has been Japan, and that was because the Japanese themselves were up for it. Invading a country to reshape it in your image is proposition doomed to failure, except maybe in some tiny island states with small populations and short histories.
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  233.  @RedLancerMoto  More like talks like someone with a different view from you. Imagine that, real diversity! I forgot humans weren't allowed to have that.
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  234.  @Freshbott2  Soviet Unions' last war ended in 1989. After that it's been America. Even if you extend that to modern Russia, there's been more interventions by America than Russia has to its name. Here's just a partial list of places the US has intervened in just in the post-WW2 period till today - Angola, Argentina, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Congo, Dominican Republic, El Savador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, Yemen, etc. Have fun looking up all that.
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  235.  Lord Ass  Lol, good luck with that. You'd only be shooting yourself in the foot.
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  236. When you see arguments between "Pandemic by CCP and Xitler" and "I Love You China", you know this comment chain is fucked from both sides. You're both advertising how doused in each sides propaganda you each are. Both of you suck.
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  237. Tbh I think it's sad that the top comments on this video are takedowns of the sponsor rather than a discussion of the actual main subject of the video. Shows how little people care about this. I bet there'll be fewer views and comments overall as well. :( This is the kind of less reported content that I WANT to see more of by Caspian, instead of the umpteenth video on Ukraine or China that already get tons of coverage from the rest of the media. But no, it seems others only want him to follow the media herd. -_-
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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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  239.  @TheTariqibnziyad  I mean, the US has launched multiple wars in just the last few decades. People just don't consider them "major" because only poor brown people die in them...but that's still hundreds of thousands of people.
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  240. They make money from it. So does Djibouti. It's not trolling, just business. Djibouti especially is keen to take in any paying customer.
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  241.  @choochootrain3807  No, this is common nowadays. People are so used to topics like this becoming inflamed that the expectation comments typically end up outnumbering the actual flame wars. You'll find a few long comment threads with said wars, but hundreds of comments anticipating them.
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  242. They did that before and it didn't teach Isr the value of restraint. Why would they restrain themselves now?
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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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  244.  @oe1164  Lol sure bub. In that case you should blame the muricans, since they're the whole reason iran is the way it is in the first place. See who put the shah in power just to secure their interests. Funny how these messes always come back to you huh? Also means that you already DID do that, and it backfired on you spectacularly.
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  245.  @nicolomatias2223  If you want sources, the Cost of War project puts the death toll from the Afghan war at a quarter of a million deaths. And that's just one of the wests' wars this century. And that's from Brown university, which is an American uni.
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  246.  @CaspianReport  The Long Peace refers to the major powers of the world not fighting each other directly after WW2, largely due to how catastrophic that would be. Good for them, but what of everyone else? It doesn't mean the world was peaceful, as there were plenty of civil and proxy wars, including them having their fingers in most of them. In effect all it did was outsource war from their own territories and people onto third country territories and peoples.
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  247.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  Uncle Sam huh? If only I believed that was where your loyalties lay. But I've seen too much of your kinds of comments in recent years (you're not the only Indian here), so I can recognize a bhakt when I see one.
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  248.  @c_n_b  Yes. He's put out community posts on the recent events. Shocking as it may be to hear, videos like this don't get made overnight. This was likely made at least a week or more ago. Try making some content yourself if you think you're better.
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  249. This is hardly political dysfunction, quite the opposite. It's a political apparatus working largely in concert towards a defined goal, it just so happens that that goal is anti-western. That doesn't make it dysfunctional. A better of case of political dysfunction in Russia would be during the Gorbachev or Yeltsin eras, when the country was falling apart internally rather than sanctioned from outside.
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  250. ​ @Minchya  China's navy isn't built around aircraft carriers, nor is it meant to be able to support distant invasions (for instance, China can't invade Peru, despite being far more powerful, while the US can - and did - invade Vietnam). It's designed to counter enemy navies close to home, basically to be an anti-American force based around subs, destroyers and frigates. It isn't meant to have the US' inland power projection (which aircraft carriers are good at) but rather to take out opposing ships from within their massive anti-access area denial system in the china seas. They aren't trying to invade the US homeland, their purpose is to sink its fleet if it dares to come close to them. China also has more ship-building capacity than the US btw. So now only would they have the assistance of their missiles and air force in case of a confrontation, but they can also replenish their forces faster too. Why do you think the US discusses blocking the Malacca Strait instead? Cos they don't want to get close to China. 'Cept if they do that China can just up the ante on Taiwan and Japan in turn.
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  251.  @MesoMan77  Iran ditched India because our attempts to needle through the pinhole the US left us with were going nowhere. So they went with a country that would get stuff done. We could've made something there, had either the US stopped undermining Iran or we'd stopped playing by their rules. Neither happened. :|
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  252. You don't even need a tunnel. Just raise the height of the damn bridge. Still a lot cheaper than a tunnel.
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  253.  @hobog  See above. The PRC also has immigration as an option, just one they've not tapped yet (much like Japan stubbornly resists it). And no, your ideological beliefs doesn't mean no one will go there, especially from their poorer neighbours like Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, etc. Ultimately immigration follows money, not politics. Canadians, for instance, have a higher opinion of their own country than the US, yet more Canadians emigrate to the US. Why? Cos there's more money to be had.
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  254.  @loanswashere.  The US is far more blessed than India, or indeed any other nation, is. More resources, more geographically secure, plentiful farmland, excellent waterways, a well educated starting population, almost no historical baggage (the indigenous Americans were nearly wiped out), etc. etc. I don't remember who, but I recall seeing a Youtuber once describe America as 'playing on Easy Mode'. And, well, it really is. India isn't easy mode.
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  255. Tldr Global did a fairly unbiased video on another aspect of this conflict that isn't covered in this video - demographics, and its impact on the politics in the region. Pretty nice added info to accompany this video imo.
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  256. Colonialism is hardly necessary to explain the problems of Africa. While it left a terrible legacy, few people seem to note that it hasn't even left in the first place - more money gets siphoned out of Africa each year even today. Even Caspian Report itself has covered a book that explains this phenomenon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRMDMNSsTDU Not to mention all the wrongheaded loan-enforced IMF 'Structural Adjustment Programs' (SAPs) in the latter half of the last century, right as the African nations gained their independence.
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  257.  @karanbhatt9320  Tharoor will never even come close to being PM. He's popular with the liberal elite, but he has no mass grassroots appeal. Plus he's frankly not a very good politician, more an administrator and academic. And like it or not, you need to be a good politician to lead a country - unless of course you're gifted the position like our previous PM, but Tharoor ruffles too many establishment feathers to have that happen either.
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  258. @Al There was no risk. Ukraine literally couldn't use those nukes. They didn't control them and couldn't activate them. Russia also got a promise btw - it was promised that NATO wouldn't expand. A promise that was not kept and which they have spent 30 years protesting to no avail.
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  259.  @MrNeuvel  It is next to impossible to predict climate effects on population in the future. That's a projection based on another projection, which in itself is affected by the former projection. You may as well make the numbers up at that point.
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  260. You only think so because of that one cover photo from National Geographic.
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  261.  @cv4809  India was rich by the standards of the 17th and 18th century. That 23% of the global economy figure is not from antiquity. And its economic fall is also well documented, so it's not simply a matter of the British (NOT "the rest of the world", just western Europe and North America) getting richer.
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  262.  @5INC33  Let it be. He's allowed to try promoting his channel here. Similar interests, similar potential audience.
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  263.  @Lord_Juvens  "Last time that happened was 80 years ago" - lol, the only reason that's true is cos of the "EUROPEAN" part of your preceding sentence. We've seen even bigger wars, even just this century. But no, this one is special cos it hit holy Europa! Which is now taking in white European refugees so compassionately right after screaming to stop an influx of brown Arab refugees. Racism piled atop racism lmao. All the world is fair game, 'cept Europe and North America it seems.
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  264. Err...you aren't speaking for "the people of the Arabian peninsula", you're just representing a family dynasty that imposes its will on "the people of the Arabian peninsula" through arms and scripture. You don't even represent any of the local tribes, or even an amalgamation of them. You're literally just one family ruling over a country with support from the clergy it put into power and the army it paid for with natural wealth.
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  265. "both EU and NATO states have been very wary about provoking a nuclear armed Russia" - Russia doesn't believe this, as both have expanded despite its protestations. It stopped believing they were wary all the way back when NATO admitted the Baltic trio (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) into its ranks despite strong protestations by Russia. And without it having invaded them mind, which is why it doesn't sound convincing to claim it has grown NATO by invading Ukraine. As far as Russia is concerned, NATO growing is an inevitability if they don't have a say on it. After the Baltic trio were admitted, they likely stopped believing diplomacy could ever work and hence more forceful options would have to be employed. Ukraine's pivot in 2014 likely looked to them like just the first domino falling in a chain that would inevitably result in it joining NATO, just as the Baltic trio did, if it didn't respond hard.
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  266. ASEAN is nothing like the EU. It's a talking shop that wastes time, nothing more. None of the members really cooperate.
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  267. Whenever you hear the phrase "rules-based order", you should roll your eyes. The only rules that count are that of the dominant power. Australia isn't even the worst offender in this regard - at least they didn't straight out invade nations for not playing ball (unlike a certain superpower...). The rest of the world isn't gonna be fooled by sanctimonious moralism from storied imperialists.
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  268. I mean, Prussia was the original "army with a state" and they seemed to have done pretty well for it. Germany, the establishment of which was a significantly Prussian project, is one of the most developed nations and competitive economies in the world. So much so that they even were capable of taking on that world not once, but twice! (and bouncing back thrice!)
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  269. ​ @megauberduber  There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  270.  @MX-Vette  "99% of the Venezuelan population have already left the country" - LMAO! I love it when people just pull numbers out of their ass. xD If that were true, that'd make the country more empty than the ends of the Sahara.
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  271.  @shawnmilum6233  Has anyone said it's okay here? Pointing out blatant hypocrisy is not saying anything is okay, it's just pointing out blatant hypocrisy. And Russia's death toll so far this century is nowhere close to 900,000 but the US' death toll in the same period is.
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  272. Just wait until the us armtwists nato into setting up a base in japan. THEN look at who you're going to have on your doorstep. The Ru will be only too happy to oblige them. There's plenty of reason to be pessimistic, but not for the reasons you think. All of you keep defining yourselves by the grand moral narratives of ww2, and hence following a thought process that only makes a big war more, not less, likely. You're actively turning away pathways to peace in favor of ever more confrontation and hostility.
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  273. As the video mentioned, the colonial heritage also included quite different forms of administration and treatment, not simply cultural differences. And its falling apart now also because of quite different forms of administration and treatment, for the same reasons too - preservation of power.
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  274.  @ericzhou-y4t  No one's looking to occupy anything lol. Even in Ukr they were fine with it until 2014, when it turned to the west. Even when this mess started there was a peace proposal almost immediately, as well as one months before it. Did you know over 3 million died in the vietnam war? But was the us there cos it wanted land? No, it just wanted a 'friendly govt.' in charge. That's what modern war is about, land is passe. Same thing elsewhere - just get the govt. you like in charge, and you get almost all the benefits without most of the costs. In other words hegemony, not conquest.
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  275. He never said "the Chinese government is about to collapse", tho. China is still growing, even if a bit slower. And boosting domestic consumption has always been on the Chinese agenda - they don't like being too dependent on exports (especially to America) either. All this does is force them to expedite that shift. Meanwhile, the US isn't doing itself any favors with these tariffs - even the companies are just going to relocate to SE Asia rather than America, and the US leader responsible for pushing this agenda the hardest is likely to run out of time far sooner than Beijing will.
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  276.  @rm7097  The flu is already established. It can't be eradicated, so we simple learn to live (and in some cases die) with it via improving our healthcare systems. The Wuhan virus is new and not established, so we react fast and hard to ensure it doesn't become so. If a disease can be eradicated, it's worth putting in the extra effort to do so, else you condemn a lot of future victims to die who might have needed to had you taken action. And that has nothing to do with current death tolls, but rather making use of opportunities before they slip away.
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  277. The war is unpopular, Putin is not. He had about a 70% approval rating in January, and that's down from its peak a few years ago. But that's different from the war, which does seem to be unpopular. If it's unpopular enough to actually matter is another question. By contrast, Biden's approval rating is around 40%.
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  278. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling his western viewers what they want to hear.
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  279. The parts of the world that have had issues with China for decades have usually had even worse experiences with the West. I think you'll find your little crusade is a pretty lonely one, which serves ya'll right for all the decades of self-serving 'realpolitik'.
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  280. "Selling themselves out to China" - most of their debt isn't to China bhai. Even the video explained that. This is important for the same reason it's important to recognize that in the case of Sri Lanka - in both cases their largest creditors are PRIVATE. While ppl focus on state and institutional creditors, be it China or the IMF (another favorite target), those faceless and nameless billionaires get away with crippling nations and don't ever face the consequences for their predatory loans. It's THEM who should have to take debt haircuts, but they never do. Instead govts. and development institutions, entities that spend on common people, who lose out.
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  281.  @rioluna6058  Why is everything about you people about the CCP and your giant geopolitical contest? Malaysia wants no part of that, and isn't going to pick sides if it comes to that. They're quite resolute in their neutrality.
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  282.  @daddy_1453  Actually Japan still has a fairly strong military. They just call it the 'Self-Defense Forces', but an army by any other name is still an army.
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  283. 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.
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  284. ​ @kingofprussia17  It's not a simple task to just 'upgrade' an existing city. Starting from scratch has its advantages, especially that you don't have to bulldoze any of the existing stuff (often necessary, and both causes lots of disruption and builds resentment). The reason many opt for fresh projects is because it often actually IS the easier option. There's also more design options available with a new city that you don't have with existing ones.
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  285. @John Grigg And George Bush and Dick Cheney are liable for HUNDREDS of thousands of dead men, women and children.
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  286. Lol what a confident prediction. Pretty sure Russia ain't gonna collapse anytime soon, but keep indulging those fever dreams. :)
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  287.  @johnr797  Prigozhin is an old friend of Lukashenko. If he were to kick the bucket, he may actually like Prigozhin to replace him lol.
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  288.  @1themaster1  The Afghan war has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and achieved next to nothing for it. The Taliban may be oppressive, but the country's death toll was never that high before the war.
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  289. He provides a lot of the additional stuff (including even longer written reports) only to his patrons, not regular viewers, unfortunately. I can understand why he does that - there's not much else he can offer them as rewards - but it does mean you're out of luck unless you pitch in.
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  290. The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  291.  @ktg5241  I like how you ignore the numbers. How many people is China known to have 'cleansed' i.e. killed again, post-Mao? Now go look up how many people have died in the US' many wars over the same time period. Oh, look - it's just a war, not called some scary thing like 'ethnic cleansing', so it's okay! Go ahead, get some real numbers from a reputable global institution about China's deaths in the last few decades, and show that they exceed the US' war casualty figures (not of just American soldiers btw - unless you want reveal yourself as racist) in the same time frame. And if you have to reach as far back as Mao, literally half a century ago, you've already conceded.
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  292. That is more because Britain has ceased to be an industrial power than anything else. Power generation and cars are the only things that it still CAN pollute as much as before with. It has gutted its manufacturing, and doesn't grow as much either. It does import a lot of things still, but the emissions from that is often not included in its figures but rather that of the producer nations.
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  293. Lol right. The US has thrown its own democratic supposed 'allies' under the bus when it needs to. Look up the Plaza Accords for an example. Or how it abandoned the Kurds for a recent example. It's always about geopolitics. There's a reason Churchill described the Americans the way he did. And that's from a dude they were supporting in a war even...
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  294.  @LukeMosse You think flooding tunnels is a new idea? We've known about that tactic for literally millennia, and we still built tunnels. We also build tunnels for handling floodwaters. Put those two together and take a guess why it's stupid.
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  295.  @BluffyMoo  They can try ye olde siege tactic with the Malacca Strait, but that'd hurt EVERY nation in the region and do nothing to save Taiwan. Not to mention the nations who actually surround the Malacca Strait would be strongly opposed to having the war foisted on them like that as it hurts their economies severely and all of them have China as their majority trade partner. Meanwhile China has other trade routes and literally one of the worlds' largest oil and food producers just to its north as an ally. While Taiwan is an island just off their coast...
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  296.  @esanahka9284  Officially yeah, they can leave. Unofficially they know they'll ruined if they do.
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  297.  @Arya_amsha  That dumb "debt trap" rhetoric is an overblown meme. It's a gross oversimplification of Chinese loans, and even the economic situation of the nations you mentioned i.e. Pakistan and Sri Lanka. There are academic analyses (not from China) that show up how unhinged from reality the debt trap idea is. But anyway, while the BRI isn't exactly going great, even mediocre results would outshine the project this video talks about. The reason being that the BRI is a massive project, so even modest results are huge, while the last Indian project talked about in this video is far more modest right from the outset. So even if it's totally successful, it'll only make a small difference compared to the BRI.
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  298. Another difference between the US and Japan is that their public CAN support all that debt, because they save like crazy. The US is the opposite - its people are as deep in debt as their govt. is, and hence can't prop it up.
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  299.  @minoan438  "avoids china like the plague" - bruh, in the last month he's made 3 videos concerning China. That's 3 out of 7 videos made in that period, or almost half of them. But idiots like you will spout whatever suits your biases at that moment, and the wider internet will lap it up without even spending a couple seconds checking its veracity.
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  300.  @Homer-OJ-Simpson  Bailout loans aren't the only western loans that come with strings attached. Hell even this very project covered in the video has already decided what it's going to do without consulting with the local administrations at all. This is a recurring pattern when it comes to western engagement with the rest of the world (something Gyude Moore mentions in his talk on China in Africa here on YT) - the Chinese send senior functionaries (including the premier himself) to these nations to negotiate deals, or welcome their leaders with similar respect, while the west typically send some junior executive to talk to them or more often to receive them when they come calling. Whether the Chinese are genuine or not in this, they still negotiate with Africans from a more equitable position than the west has ever done, even now. The West has always talked down to the developing world, so obviously it makes working with China a lot more palatable.
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  301. He also left out the entire non-western world...
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  302.  @danielbowman7226  I'll buy that theory when I see evidence of it. India has already fought both China and Pakistan (4 times), and continues to face plenty of 'heat'. At various times the US has even enabled Pakistan. The US doesn't have any strong presence in the subcontinent region, and would be hard pressed to fight a land war with China. It isn't even India's main defense supplier (that'd be Russia), and even actively fought against India's nuclear program when it came out about it. So color me skeptical about the US being relevant to India's security. A country that's had to face existential threats as much as India has can't rely on a country that hasn't contributed to any of them for its strategic planning. By your logic, the US also somehow keeps the peace between S. Africa and Botswana, simply because it's the worlds' "cop on the bloc". Somehow.
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  303. Man the armchair generals are out in FORCE in this comment section lol!
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  304.  @TheReaper569  This is a strange argument you're having, tbh. It seems to me that you and your interlocutors here are debating whether India's or Britain's industry was more efficient. Yet that isn't even the main concern of Tharoor's book, as discussed in the video. Yes, he does mention India's great wealth prior to colonization, but his main goal in writing the book is to counter the narrative of people like Niall Ferguson that the British Empire was good for i.e. benefitted India and her people. None of you seem to be arguing about that. Did the English actually leave India better than they found it? Cos if not, then I think Tharoor's main goal is achieved - that India wasn't helped by British rule, at least not enough to make up for all it lost due to it.
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  305.  @johnssmith4005  Bub Russia has been a major power for centuries. And this is coming from an Indian. Don't use us for your biases.
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  306. Lol! Keep dreaming. ;)
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  307.  @wlee9888  Btw, I've actually seen a fair bit of Chinese defending China even just on this very platform (Youtube). Usually denying or justifying, the latter of which is a common American behavior online as well. They can't 'shut down' the discourse, so they have to engage with it. But you know what else I've seen? The most common response to it is "wumao", "50 cent army", "CCP bot", etc. In other words, it's their opponents whose discourse is even more dismissive. There is little discourse to be had when that's how people, usually albeit not always Americans, respond to whatever you say.
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  308.  @Thesamurai1999  Ironically that's another issue. Some decisions may seem poor in the short term but may be needed for the long term. For example, austerity measures. And democracies don't tend to be good at that. Not that autocracies always do that, but there's nothing systemic preventing it.
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  309. Desalination is both incredibly expensive and, even if costs come down, incredibly energy intensive. Now how are we gonna generate all that energy? Also, how are we gonna deliver it if the power grid itself is failing?
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  310.  @sibeisun5272  Nah. An full scale invasion of Taiwan is a dumb idea, so they'll more likely go for the islands instead. All they need to do is draw the US into the area, then bombard the American navy with their home field advantage. Once the Americans are neutralized, Taiwan doesn't matter. Offer a peace treaty whereby their independence is recognized as long as they agree to never host any foreign military forces and the CCP wins without Taiwan losing any of its economic value to them (which an invasion would do). Taiwan doesn't really matter much, the US does. Taiwan is to China what Cuba is to the US. So if the US can't use it (like the Russians tried to with Cuba), then leaving it alone makes more sense than risking a costly invasion.
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  311. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling his western viewers what they want to hear.
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  312.  @justsefa1843  He doesn't control that. That's being done by YT.
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  313.  @runemasterish  'Imagining self driving cars as part of public transportation' - we did. It was VERY expensive 'public' transport. There's a reason why public transport is MASS transit, rather than being a publicly funded fleet of taxis. Without that MASS aspect, its costs balloon. Mass transit is inherently more efficient, in every aspect from financially to environmentally.
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  314. Cue all the "BUT the US is a republic, not a democracy!!" numpties in the comments lol.
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  315. His quotes are almost always borrowed, without attribution. That first one for instance is taken from Martin Luther King. Second is a rephrasing of an Einstein quote - "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."
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  316. The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  317.  @kimlitelnoni4079  Errr...lolwut? I'm from one of those places, and no the US wasn't helpful. The only good examples you've got are Japan and western Europe. Most of the people from the others would not agree with being included in that list. Also, the examples are all from immediately post WW2, while America has intervened in loads of countries since then, mostly leaving them a mess. Stop trying to proselytize American general helpfulness from the policies of one good president.
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  318. This is the mapping software mentioned in his equipment list (linked in the video description) - https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-pro/overview
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  319. Can you ppl please stop responding to iqbal? He's been posting that same rant under several of Shirvan's vids just to stir the pot. It doesn't even contain any arguments. Don't feed the troll.
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  320.  Chris Johnson  No, it's a throwback reference to the Watergate scandal. 'Cept the name Watergate there made sense - it was the name of the building that was at the heart of the scandal. Ever since however, the media has just been attaching the word 'gate' to every scandal, including non-political ones, regardless of whether it fits at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
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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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  322. @PANDEMIC BY CCP AND XITLER "I love China very much but not the CCP for obvious reasons" - uh huh. You're still biased.
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  323. I didn't see anything in Ladakh. Where's the deposits in Ladakh and how much of the total deposit do they comprise?
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  324.  @thepax2621  'Which is the right of a sovereign nation to decide to do.' - it's also Cuba's right as a sovereign nation to host Ru forces then. Guess who didn't care about that when it suited them. Your idealistic nonsense is just that. Show a map of us bases to any historical political leader and they'll laugh you out of the room claiming it's all innocent. They know what power is about, and it isn't your cheesy idealistic PR. Power is realist, and always has been.
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  325. ​ @PlayerOblivion  "China is an economic superpower, thus not a superpower in the same sense that the United States is." - China has repeatedly said that it doesn't even WANT to be a superpower in the same sense that US (and previously Britain) is. It's an extremely expensive position to maintain, and so Beijing would much rather focus on other things. All China wants is the power to set its own agenda, especially in its local region, not to be able to project military operations all the way to Florida. And so far it's been pretty successful at that. Simply put, China doesn't seek to greatly expand its power across the globe, simply to evict or reduce American influence over its region. If a war were to break out in the South China Sea, China has no desire to be able to land strikes on California, simply to sink enough American warships in the South China Sea. And you don't need a blue water navy to do that.
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  326. To be fair to China, the one-child policy wasn't some wacky idea. Back when it was adopted, population panic was in vogue in the West too (in many communities today it still is) complete with support for stringent countermeasures, and China's burgeoning numbers were at the heart of it. It was just that this was one problem the West wasn't responsible for (which is also why it's still such a popular clarion call today) and so the steps to combat were encouraged in places like China as well as India and much of Africa. What economists and demographers have since learned is that such draconian measures typically backfire i.e. do more harm than good - the West was able to comfortably learn that lesson merely theoretically since it never needed the changes to begin with, while places like China are now learning it the hard way. Population alarmism has been an albatross around the worlds' neck ever since Thomas Malthus first put forward the idea, and so far has never actually been borne out.
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  327.  @vinhbao9738  India didn't adopt a one-child policy (and they did play with the idea - even briefly trying forced sterilization) and their population growth has fallen too. It's now barely above the replacement rate, and still falling. But the boon is that the country now has one of the youngest populations on the planet right as it needs them for development. The reason why demographers and economists (and even environmentalists, for whom population is also a big deal) don't cry out for stringent population controls is because steady population decline is already a largely natural consequence of development. If a country develops smoothly its population tends to fall in line along the same trajectory. Greater wealth and income reduces population growth. Improved healthcare and ironically especially maternal and child mortality reduces population growth. Greater education, especially of girls, reduces population growth. Etc. One child policies aren't needed, just continuous development.
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  328. Over a MILLION people are attending his funeral, so I'm not so sure about this...
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  329.  @user-nc9pc3gr4c  Ah yes, good ol' America that claims to stand against nuclear proliferation while secretly being the most dominant nuclear proliferator on the planet (Israel, anyone?)...
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  330.  @LancesArmorStriking  China has so far displayed little evidence of any interest in some kind of takeover of Afghanistan. Plus they have enough of an experience of Islamic headaches internally to likely be shy about getting involved in another one.
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  331.  @Waludka  So is Gaddafi, but Libya is still a mess. Syria's war involves literally dozens of factions, so this is hardly gonna end well
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  332. OMG!! Will you people stop all asking about Shirvan? You're going to be the death of this channel if you insist Caspian Report is all about Shirvan, with no replacement possible. What would you do if Shirvan wasn't available anymore? If he needed a break, or fell sick, or had a fatal accident? Unsub? The core of this channel is and should be about its content, with the narrator serving as only a means of delivery. Else it is limiting itself, and vulnerable.
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  333.  @MA_KA_PA_TIE  The US is most definitely NOT inconsequential. All told it actually put the most total carbon emissions - a full 25% of it. By contrast China still only account for 12.7% of emissions, and India a measly 3%. The US also has much higher per capita emissions than both China and India.
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  334.  @nicolomatias2223  That's true, however Russia's crimes are already being punished. The wests' crimes never are. Consider that just ONE of America's wars this century has orders of magnitude more deaths than ALL of Russia's wars in the same period. The west gets away with its crimes scot free, and then has the gall to make claims to moral virtue.
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  335. Has Russia invaded Finland recently? Or Sweden? It's respected the status quo wrt both countries for the entire Cold War and beyond. It's NATO that's expanded in recent years. It wasn't supposed to, but it did so anyway. It expanded even WITHOUT any Russian military action btw, as the expansion precedes Crimea or Georgia or Ukraine. And no, countries can't join just cos they might want to - NATO has to let them in. Now they're putting their foot down. The alternative is to do nothing, and watch their position steadily dwindle.
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  336. As even Shirvan notes, that description of Afghanistan in the 60s refers only to an urban elite. The poor in the rural countryside were nothing like that, and they made up the vast majority of the population.
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  337. Won what game lol? The game against Russia, or the game against the west? Cos they're not even pursuing a game against Russia much. Both nations have a common enemy, and it isn't each other. Russia is nowhere near as much of a vassal as, say, Japan is to the US (look up the Plaza Accords, where they literally sabotaged themselves to placate the US). Nor is China interested in doing that to them as its a source of needless tension. They're squarely focused on what both share in common - an enemy in America. They're not using Russia cos Russia is only too happy to go along with their ambitions to end US hegemony. It's their goal too, after all
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  338.  @filipeleal6667  Japan gave in after literally being nuked - not exactly something you want to be celebrating your country for. Indeed the US is the only nation in the world that's actually used nukes against people, and the one of the only ones known to have proliferated them (Israel), yet somehow still projects itself as the patron of nuclear control (most recently with Iran, who's mainly after nuclear because of what the US did with Israel). If you want to celebrate your capacity and willingness to kill lots of people, well...
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  339.  @filipeleal6667  No amount of killing is morally excusable, but that doesn't mean we don't take notice of who's killing more. And one of those nations still projects itself as a moral champion, while the other is vilified for any infraction. As for accountability, it sounds nice in theory, but centuries of democratic tradition still hasn't stopped America from going to war again and again, so I hardly see them as being held 'accountable'. It's just far too easy to rile people up for war, which you're already seeing again now. Nor do any international institutions seem to constrain them. And what keeps China accountable when it comes to war? Mainly just the fear of losing, which still seems to have worked far more effectively than the purely theoretical but practically ineffective mechanism of the US' much-vaunted democratic checks and balances.
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  340.  @KrisWustrow  They're pissed off because there's already been multiple investigations of it already, but their rivals keep asking for more until they finally get the answer they seek. Also, the concept of "face" is hardly unique the Chinese. "Face" is also why the US stayed in Afghanistan for the last decade, wasting trillions on it, because failure would look bad.
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  341.  @KrisWustrow  Of course we don't. Scientists already warned that tracing disease outbreaks takes years and often is inconclusive. You're just unwilling to accept that because you need someone to blame for this one (consider how much more mature people were in accepting the same state of affairs for the SARS outbreak, which wasn't so politically charged - politics is the whole reason this is controversial to begin with, cos it's certainly not unusual in scientific terms). And you know as well as everyone about the international teams that were sent to investigate its origins, so don't play dumb. That you're not willing to accept their findings ("extremely unlikely") is political, and that you hype on about statements saying things aren't entirely settled yet just shows how ignorant you are about epidemiology as a field (spoiler alert: they're often never settled). Besides the trips to China, the virus itself has also been studied - no way the CCP can obstruct that. Those studies too find little evidence of human tampering, with again only small caveats that not everything can be ruled out. But you want to err on the side of the "extremely unlikely", because that's the conclusion you're after. Get used to it - epidemics are almost always murky. That you want to pretend otherwise says nothing about the science, but everything about your own personal biases.
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  342.  @fabik805  Immigration is fickle. You're ultimately dependent on other countries to prop up your population. Which is fine in good times, but disappears quickly in bad times. Europe needs to ensure its security and prosperity or else immigration stops and both of those issues just gets worse. Meanwhile the immigration itself is causing instability from the local population.
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  343.  @soundscape26  Watching Real Life Lore is like watching someone toss ideas at a wall. He basically stuffs his videos with every idea he could find online even remotely connected to his topic. Apparently all of them are right, in his view.
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  344.  @yougoslavia  Europe wouldn't be able to do much if the Russians just take the Baltics and sit there and wait for them to fall into its trap. As long as it didn't try its luck with Poland, it'll have the advantage.
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  345.  ScarletDespair  'Socialists' don't support low taxes, lower regulations or free trade. VP is quite transparently libertarian, who do support all of those things, as well as immigration.
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  346.  @User-jr7vf  They did that before and it didn't teach Isr the value of restraint. Why would they restrain themselves now? It would just encourage Isr to act with even more impunity. If nothing changes in Isr, there's nothing to gain from restraint.
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  347. One could say the same for Cuba. And look how the eagle reacted to that move...
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  348. All of ya'll are forgetting the upcoming NW Passage trade boom. Two countries currently have the biggest claims to that pie - Russia and Canada - and they're gonna be damned before they give that opportunity up. Canada is gonna matter a lot in the coming years.
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  349.  @ankitbhasi7794  Which is also a sign of how determined the US is to prevent this, given Saddams' and Gaddafis' fate. They'll even go to war to protect their hegemony.
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  350.  @matthewchapman3716  You can actually see a natural experiment of this already - birth rates tend to be much higher in highly orthodox religious communities than in liberal ones of a similar socio-economic status. For instance, the Haredi have a higher birth rate than their non-orthodox Isr peers. The main difference is that they live according to conservative social mores, including traditional gender roles. You'll see the same in other countries as well, so it isn't unique to their particular religion. Social norms play a big role in whether people settle down and have families.
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  351.  @theobserver3753  China's per capita emissions are still far below the US, an advanced nation that can afford to lower them but still hasn't.
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  352.  @dr94279  He doesn't touch on politics in his own country cos that could get him in trouble. Thankfully, as regards the rest of the world, Azerbaijan is a fairly nondescript nation that isn't too intertwined in global politics, making it as close to neutral as you could get on the mainland i.e. without being some isolated island in the middle of nowhere (like, say, Iceland).
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  353. Tbf, India isn't in the region, so it's not risking much befriending all those rival powers. In its own region, India has plenty of issues.
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  354.  @jerrymiller9039  If you want to play it that way, European pipelines could also be 'closed'. Not to mention the pipelines you'd be targeting are within Russian and Chinese borders. Good luck with that.
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  355.  @g1u2y345  It's better he doesn't do Azerbaijan, as he'd find it impossible to both be neutral on it and be accepted as neutral on it. He did one video on their conflict with Armenia after the war and left it at that. That's for the best imo.
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  356. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling his western viewers what they want to hear.
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  357.  @WeAreAllOneNature  Britain didn't "give" independence back to anyone lol. They were kicked out, sometimes at great cost. Don't be another imperial apologist now. Britain was hardly doing anyone any favors.
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  358.  @Da_king_of_all_men  Blame the British for that. The existence of Pakistan wasn't our doing. And the border over which we fight isn't our doing either, just as it isn't with China. They set it up to fail, as they have in so many other parts of the world.
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  359.  @SidMajors  I've watched him for years. This channel changed a lot from about the early 2020s. Less impartial, more pandering. He's grown to know his audience, and cater to them. Also more willing to take on ever shadier sponsors.
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  360.  @soluckyme910  ok bot
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  361.  @aldoconciso  Tbf neither was the US, at first. The earlier US presidents understood the value of caution, hence why the eastern european states practically emotionally blackmailed them to let them in. Ofc all the presidents since Bush have thrown caution to the wind and become drunk on the US' dominance, jeopardising that balance. And their people have been only too happy to go along with that as it feeds their own egos.
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  362. AUKUS only matters to two nations - the US and Australia. The US arms its regional vassal with more subs against China, and Australia gets to pretend it matters. The UK is just the guy who was in Australia's place earlier. As for China, Australia is hardly a threat to them so it doesn't matter insofar as Australian actions are concerned. They'll only be looking at the US, since those subs will only come into play if the US calls on its local attack dog to support its efforts in a war.
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  363.  @wassollderscheiss33  That's about as much of a 'proof' as proving anything in mathematics. And yet almost all proven self-consistent math doesn't correspond to reality, which is what distinguishes it from physics. If it hasn't been empirically shown then it isn't real, even if its logic is internally consistent. And indeed there's lots of ideas like that, which aren't falsifiable and hence will never be more than mere conjecture. Even physics has them - case in point, string theory.
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  364.  @koharumi1  Don't forget Ethiopia and Yemen, also at war, but of course that's not in the West so no one cares
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  365.  @MattZeefy  China succeeds in democracies as well fyi - the west doesn't just dictate to countries about democracy and human rights, it also dictates economic policy. And even democracies hate being told how to organize their own economy.
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  366.  @hmmmm6685  India has literally maintained the relationship right through the collapse of the USSR. The partnership has already seen far worse times than this. Btw, we also have dealings with Iran, the previous most heavily sanctioned state. America's issues aren't our issues, and they've consistently refused to work with India as a partner, more like a master (especially now), not to mention worked against us multiple times.
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  367. @Kaushal Batavia Taiwan has capacity for defense, not offense. Same with Japan. The first island chain is the LEAST secured part, not most. All it can do is fight a Chinese invasion, not stop them operating in the area. They already outgun everyone in the area in that respect.
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  368.  @atlas42185  China won't fight over the Malacca Strait to begin with, nor would India blockade it unless it was itself attacked. We certainly won't do it for the Americans, cos if we did the Chinese would likely invade the Siliguri corridor and cut off our NE states entirely. It's an escalation we'd rather do without. As for the Americans blockading the Malacca Strait, not only would the nation's in the area likely not be happy with that if China hasn't attacked them (since it hurts their economy over a war they're not part of), but the Chinese would simply respond by upping the ante with Taiwan and Japan. This idea that can just beat them from thousands of miles away is silly - all you'll do is bring ruin to the whole region. If you want to hurt China and China alone, you're going to have to gather up your balls and fight them up close. WW1 wasn't won from far away. WW2 wasn't won from far away. And neither has most other conflicts. This is no different. You're going to have be ready to spill blood, and not just Chinese blood. Else all you'll do is preserve your own men, while damning even more of those you claim to be there to protect. They've got no reason to hold back if you're going to try starving them from a distance. You might as well just launch the nukes from the start then lol.
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  369. As the video mentioned, the colonial heritage also included quite different forms of administration and treatment, not simply cultural differences. And its falling apart now also because of quite different forms of administration and treatment, for the same reasons too - preservation of power.
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  370.  @Malkether  It's not about the present British apologizing for the crimes of their ancestors, and regarding reparations Tharoor only asked for 1 pound per year as a symbolic gesture (btw, the Indian govt. has repeatedly told the British govt. that they neither need not want their foreign aid). The main point is to set the record straight - it's about convincing the current English that no, their Empire was not a good thing that the colonized should be grateful for. And that's very much grounded in present concerns, because impressions of your nations' past influence your people's current attitudes and behaviours, including votes. The public apology thing is simply to take it out of the dusty halls of academia and make a very public, official statement, so that the lay populace gets the message. If most English already thought poorly of their former Empire, it wouldn't even be necessary, but the fact is that they don't (according to polls). Also, besides that, there's one thing the British can give back, and which they've been asked for repeatedly by all their former colonies - their respective appropriated national icons aka the contents of the British Museum. No questions asked, no demand for payment of tourism benefits obtained from displaying them, nothing - you've enjoyed your time with them, now just please give them back. That's a fault the current generation of Brits continue to perpetuate.
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  371. 'We tried the economic co-existance thing' - did you? You could've had peace in Dec 2021, when it was offered before a war had even started. You turned it down. Had another chance in Mar 2022, when it was offered again. Again you turned it down.
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  372.  @FarsightAE  If you'd listened in Dec 2021, Ukr would've lost almost nothing. It was addressed directly to nato, so the only thing they lose is the possibility of joining it. It wasn't even rejected by them, but by nato. The second one went to them, but still didn't involve losing as much land as is now on the table. So basically the terms have been getting worse the longer this thing lasts. In fact this entire thing could've been prevented if you'd simply listened to them asking for a commitment from nato going back over 30 years now. This isn't new. It even preceded putin.
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  373.  @saintmichael881  No, that's none of your business. This regime literally came to power BECAUSE you engaged in regime change in 53.
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  374. Ukraine is as corrupt, if not more, as Russia. So that doesn't really explain anything...
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  375.  @nhatho1723  Nah. Yes, Minister was peak British-ism. :D
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  376. His point is that the people responsible for those genocides simply aren't around anymore. So who're you attacking? They're all dead, and the institutions/parties responsible are long gone too. About the only thing that mentioning the genocide achieves is to try to shame Turkey into accepting the genocide and apologizing. Which is a worthwhile goal...for the Armenians. As for the rest of you, all you get out of it is to shit on Turkey cos you don't like it, genocide or no. There is value to apologizing for past crimes, I grant, but in that case I put it to you that most of Western Europe has a LOT to accept and apologize for (and also the US and Japan), and so far only Germany has really done so. Yet you don't see the comment sections on vids about any of those countries bombarded by people taking issue with that history (who aren't of the affected population), do you? Indeed, it actually serves even more of a purpose wrt Europe because, unlike the Turks, some of them actually like to pretend that the world should be thankful for what they did (which runs completely contrary to both the death toll and the opinions of the peoples who're supposed to have 'benefited'). So it would also serve a present good - getting those imperial apologists to shut up.
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  377.  @gideonmele1556  "which countries aren’t big business oriented?" - Germany. A far better model for the world than either of the two Anglo-Saxon blowhards.
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  378.  @shawnmilum6233  That's true, however Russia's crimes are already being punished. The wests' crimes never are. Consider that just ONE of America's wars this century has orders of magnitude more deaths than ALL of Russia's wars in the same period. The west gets away with its crimes scot free, and then has the gall to make claims to moral virtue.
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  379.  @shawnmilum6233  "I just find it very hypocritical to say that if America does something it makes it alright for others to do it" - that's an assertion I mostly see made by the people arguing AGAINST the people mentioning the wests' crimes, not the folk bringing them up. It's an interpretation that conveniently allows you to dismiss what they've said. There's a simpler way to interpret it - pointing out hypocrisy is just that, pointing out hypocrisy. For what purpose? Firstly to knock the folks trying to sit atop a moral pedestal off of their perch, and secondly, more tangibly, to hopefully get the west to pay for its crimes one day.
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  380. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling his western viewers what they want to hear.
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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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  382. You don't speak for all Iranians, not even close.
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  383.  @TheTariqibnziyad  Because it didn't really give an opinion one way or the other. It was a rundown of the history of region, focusing on the many attempts to re-create such a super-state in modern times, and mentioned some of the challenges such an exercise faces. It doesn't say whether such a thing happening would be good or bad. Nor does it dismiss it as impossible.
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  384.  @roenin  Turkey has its own internal problems fyi. Hell Swedens' NATO approval has been held up partly because of its support for those internal problems, and Turkey sends its forces frequently into Syria (with permission) to fight those issues.
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  385. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling his western viewers what they want to hear.
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  386.  @flowertowerrr  Lol no. If Indonesia and Malaysia decided they wished to conquer Singapore, and no one intervened, there'd be little Singapore could do to stop them. They're not trying to do so cos it benefits them more as is, but they definitely could.
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  387.  @xway2  Has Russia invaded Finland recently? Or Sweden? It's respected the status quo wrt both countries for the entire Cold War and beyond. It's NATO that's expanded in recent years. It wasn't supposed to, but it did so anyway. It expanded even WITHOUT any Russian military action btw, as the expansion precedes Crimea or Georgia or Ukraine. And no, countries can't join just cos they might want to - NATO has to let them in. Now they're putting their foot down. The alternative is to do nothing, and watch their position steadily dwindle.
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  388.  @maghambor  The problem with NATO is that the US leads it. NATO without the US may not pose a threat to Russia, but NATO with the US puts American forces far closer to Russia than Russian forces are to the US. America's position is far superior to Russia's. Or, put another way, you might have had a point had Canada and Mexico been Russian allies and hosting Russian military forces against the US. But they aren't. When tiny little Cuba did that, America flipped out lol!
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  389.  @Guplk  'Whataboutism' is just a convenient word to sidestep accusations of hypocrisy. Hell I bet you people haven't even looked up the word, just heard it in the media. Even its wiki page is honest enough to acknowledge criticisms of its use.
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  390.  @t.c.4321  Shirvan again didn't give credit. These 'wisdom' bombs are pretty much never his words. In this case, it comes from Oliver Wendell Holmes - 'The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions'.
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  391. ​ @nataliamundell6266 If it was merely about machines outcompeting India, none of those extractive policies would have been needed. But they were. India wasn't outcompeted, for the same reason Italian fashion survives despite Bangladesh (and many others) producing so much more so much cheaper. Indian goods used to be highly sought after, not British. India was made into a captive market and its exports curbed in order to kill that competition. Even the Americans saw this for what it was - one of the conditions for the Marshall Plan after WW2 was for the Europeans to open up their colonies, which allowed the US to swoop in and make bank. It was NOT free market competition in them.
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  392.  @dhanajon5528  Because Taiwan is aligned with the US, and right on their doorstep. Remember Cuba, another island nation that aligned itself with another superpower than the one it neighboured? Yeah, how did the US treat them? In fact China has mostly left Taiwan alone in the last 70 odd years, until the US started saber-rattling again. Not completely, and of course they still claim the island, but compared to how the US treated Cuba (which people seem curiously okay with...), they've got off easy.
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  393. I find it telling how the vast majority of the video focuses on the intertribal and regional politics that shape Qatar, and here in the comments all people are interested in spamming is a reference to ONE LINE that occupied a few seconds of the video but that gets talked about ad infinitum by other videos on Qatar. Shows how little people are interested in actually learning something new, versus just regurgitating popular media narratives ad nauseam.
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  394.  @TheBucketSkill  The 'West' SHOULDN'T rely on the US, it should be the EU. The US half of the West would just muck things up, making conflict MORE likely, not less. And there's a Gallup survey from a couple years ago that backs that up btw - the US was overwhelmingly voted the greatest threat to world peace.
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  395.  @brazenlancer9484  We already know where he's from - Azerbaijan. Which is so isolated and outside of most major geopolitical tussles in the world that it's about as close to a neutral party as you're going to get - outside of their own immediate region of course. And he's hardly suggested much of a pro-Russian position in his videos on that country. And certainly not much care for a place as far away as the Pacific.
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  396.  @Lawrence_L1 It is present, albeit only from one side. Russia and China see it as a defensive conflict against hegemony, while Europe sees it as defensive against Russia and east Asia against China. The ideology exists in the last big player - America, who paints is as some kind of holy crusade by 'democracies against dictatorships', never mind how hypocritical that sounds given their own foreign policy history and practice
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  397. You often hear people lamenting the lack of honest politicians. If only being an honest politician was enough...
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  398. Ah Caspian Report once again returning to the well of the Ukraine war to harvest some views I see. With so much other coverage though, it only makes CR look dated and out of sync by comparison. You really should focus on less headliner content cos this just ain't working out.
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  399. What's unfortunate is how much people were badgering him to make this on the last video. In these situations it's best to be patient and wait if you want calm, objective analysis. But NOOO, everyone just HAD to have his take on it asap.
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  400. You'll hear about it if it's actually signed. So far it hasn't been. Govts. 'draft' stuff all the time, the vast majority never go anywhere.
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  401.  @fjooyou  I suggest you go watch the Justice series of Harvard lectures by Michael Sandel (they're here on YT). The short answer is that fairness is about questions of what is deserved, how it was acquired, by who, etc. Your comment is all about just putting everyone on the same level, which has nothing to do with fairness and can even be done unfairly. Hell even communist societies didn't just reward everyone the same as the guy sweeping the floors. But like I said, go watch that series.
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  402.  @fjooyou  You respond to a comment talking about fairness by going off about equal outcomes. You're the one who doesn't seem to understand the topic at hand. Your wierdo interpretation would be equivalent to telling off someone talking about the importance of fair play in football by preaching the importance of the scores at games' end not being equal. Yeah, that's not what anyone's talking about. A match can be fair even if one side loses 6-0, or unfair even if it ends in a draw. It's not about score. Fairness isn't about everyone being paid the same. The video above is about exploitation, not a rant cos people in France get paid more than Africa. Your contention is just a gross misinterpretation.
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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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  405.  @aquilatempestate9527  And what's the alternative? Him giving some cheap hot take of his views on things? Yes, his analysis is based on what others have written. That's called doing research. He acknowledges that he's not an insider or expert on the things he speaks about, and hence lets us know what the results of his research of the issue was. There's nothing wrong with that. That's why one of the perks supporters get is all the stuff he's looked up.
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  406. ​ @delos2279  "China's economy is mostly based on exports" - China's economy is less than a fifth exports lol, and that has been trending down for years now i.e. they're becoming an ever smaller portion of their economy. If you want to talk about economies based on exports, you should be talking of Germany or Japan, not China. They also trade with the whole world, not just the west. Meanwhile western companies have tried for years to sell in China, some successfully and some not, precisely because of the huge size of their consumer market. Meanwhile the US' aging is about the same as China, which it mainly solves through immigration (including illegal immigration). But you misrepresent the reason China doesn't have much immigration - it's cos they've actively prevented it. Which is a policy choice which can change. And there are plenty of poorer nations whose people would shift to China for better opportunities if it allowed them to, while the locals move up the value chain. Demographics will be a problem for them if they don't change, but it'll hurt nations like Japan and South Korea long before it hurts China which still has millions of available labor to run through and far less generous systems for elderly.
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  407.  @DougNorth-ml9de  What would you have them do? Keep fighting a losing war, like Afghanistan? It was going badly, hence why they left.
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  408.  @economiccrisis9267  Lol! Nice excuse for you losing. I bet you like to claim the us didn't lose in vietnam or afghanistan either. Or in the operation covered in the vid here. Always others who lose, never yourselves.
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  409.  @norsie45  You think that was the worst atrocity of the century? LMAO! Bruh Iraq alone was about a million unalived.
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  410.  @mantheman11  More like taken over by a different warlord.
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  411.  @fapmashina1  Hmm...well, that's good to know. Vid probably should have mentioned that, albeit he also wouldn't want to make it too long.
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  412.  @resistencialiberal9555  The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  413.  @joseph.wolf.  Because the comments I responded to were also all the same thing.
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  414.  @JesusOrDestruction  They absolutely should. He was a marionette put in by the west.
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  415.  @Cecilia-ky3uw  LKY is long gone, but Singapore is still doing well.
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  416. That's...too broad a topic. Better to do a whole series of videos on climate change effects on a selection of major nations.
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  417.  @scottdoesntmatter4409  That's not much different from how the west views itself. Except rather than being the 'center' of the human race, they're the 'peak' of human civilisation. And during its peak China merely expected diplomatic praise as the center of its world, whereas during their peak the west literally colonized the whole world along with all the shit that entailed. Even today China is largely agnostic about what countries do internally so long as they don't harm Chinese interests, whereas the west is explicitly dedicated to a moralistic program of political and social change effected both peacefully and violently.
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  418.  @caioalmeida4139  China didn't trust the west either, but they still worked with it. Ditto Russia exporting to the west. And vice versa. Neither Russia nor China has pretended anything, they've both gone to Africa for business and said as much. The investment they bring is needed. Ironically your example of Japan is much worse. Japan developed after it opened up to trade, but they also literally hired western advisors both in the govt. and private sector to speed their development. Africa hasn't gone anywhere near as far as that with China or Russia. In fact the nation that most resembles that in Africa is France.
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  419. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  420. ​ @jascrandom9855  Both Norway and Singapore were praised for their market economies, precisely to question popular narratives about regulation and state intervention. Singapore was praised for using a 'private' healthcare system (where they tried to sell the idea of a private healthcare system i.e. less state intervention in health), while Norway was praised for being 'responsible' with its finances (aka huge surpluses) by investing their oil money instead of redistributing it (probably due to how often the left likes to point to the 'Scandinavian model' as ideal - they mean the strong welfare state, while VP and others of its ilk stress the fiscal responsibility). Whether you agree with either recommendation, the point remains that it's well in keeping with their ideals. Singapore was a counterpoint to all those pointing to socialized healthcare in other European countries as an answer to America's woes (and they notably haven't covered the French healthcare system, or any other for that matter, despite that most public health experts rank it as the best, not Singapore). And Norway was a counterpoint to all those praising the Scandinavian economic model - they can't deny that Norway is a strong welfare state with relatively low inequality, but they can choose to focus on and stress other aspects of it that suit their narrative better.
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  421.  @hugosetiawan8928  Shut up. Go find some other thread to troll. And this is from an Indian...
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  422. Immigrants don't cause real estate bubbles, rich people (both local and foreign) do. Said bubbles actually drive out immigrants, who can't afford the rent (they're poorer on average than locals), to those less attractive regions.
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  423. sigh It's disappointing to see what's happened to Caspian off late. I used to watch this channel to learn about geopolitics in surprising places, conflicts and contests that don't get much coverage even if they've been simmering for generations. Nowadays though Caspian keeps singing the same tune - of the grand conflict between east and west - over and over again, in video after video, in order to pander to his audience. So much of it is repetition, and all of it has been covered aplenty in the regular media as well as all over Youtube. He isn't teaching people about the world anymore, he's just feeding them with what they want to hear. Tbf every so often there is a video of something else still (like the recent one on Rwanda), but it's soon followed with yet another video on China and Russia or the US and Europe that he's already done to death but keeps milking for ever more views. I'm not complaining about partisanship or propaganda mind, although others have, but just plain pandering.
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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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  425.  @levitschetter5288  "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”. - from the Rhodium report mentioned above.
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  426. To be fair to China, the one-child policy wasn't some wacky idea. Back when it was adopted, population panic was in vogue in the West too (in many communities today it still is) complete with support for stringent countermeasures, and China's burgeoning numbers were at the heart of it. It was just that this was one problem the West wasn't responsible for (which is also why it's still such a popular clarion call today) and so the steps to combat were encouraged in places like China as well as India and much of Africa. What economists and demographers have since learned is that such draconian measures typically backfire i.e. do more harm than good - the West was able to comfortably learn that lesson merely theoretically since it never needed the changes to begin with, while places like China are now learning it the hard way. Population alarmism has been an albatross around the worlds' neck ever since Thomas Malthus first put forward the idea, and so far has never actually been borne out.
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  427. Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
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  428.  @yayafromnortherniran731  "the number of people that were died during china's cultural revolution" - LMAO!! Did you just commit the exact mistake I warned you people not to make? Did you even bother reading? - "in the last half-century - pretty much since Mao died (if you have to reach all the way back to his time to vilify them, you've already conceded)"
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  429.  @kashmirha  There are absolutely bad borders. If you were to draw a border right through the center of a village, or for that matter a big city like New York, that would quite clearly be a bad border that'd cause tons of issues just by virtue of where the line was drawn. And guess what, plenty of post-colonial borders have done exactly that. Then there's the practice of drawing borders without bothering to consult and obtain the buy-in of all the interested parties and especially the people in the region, which is another fault that can absolutely be laid at the feet of the people drawing said border. And so on. Claiming 'there are no bad borders only bad neighbours' is the geopolitical equivalent of a hippie singing kumbaya.
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  430.  @immortaljanus  The 'West' SHOULDN'T rely on the US, it should be the EU. The US half of the West would just muck things up, making conflict MORE likely, not less. And there's a Gallup survey from a couple years ago that backs that up btw - the US was overwhelmingly voted the greatest threat to world peace.
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  431.  @АлександрСливченко-ъ7и  Not happening. You think just cos they're democracies that they like living under US hegemony? There are democracies all across Latin America and Africa that aren't so fond of America. Cos America has never been the champion of democracy, it's been the champion of the west i.e. it's only treated European democracies well, not all of them.
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  432.  @mariharrik5987  Terrorist isn't right word, since they're official and organized. That said, they do have a far higher death toll. Afghanistan alone dwarfs all of Russia's wars this century combined, and Iraq is over double that...
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  433.  @nntflow7058  What's gonna happen pray? If you want to try staging an invasion of a region larger than most countries across the Himalayas, good luck lol!
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  434.  @Macbrother  And food. And practically every other resource known to man. Also both another large military and Arctic access. And what would Russia want for all of this, besides payment? The fall of the west, just like China. While you lot argue over who's gonna be dominant in that relationship, they're more interested in shared interests. And they have one hell of a shared interest, all thanks to you and your antagonism.
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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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  436.  @pekkanumminen81  The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  437. ​ @TheEinharjar  Congo for instance lost HALF its people in as little as 20 years. That's a tenth of ALL Africans at the time.
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  438. The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  439. The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  440. @Ian Get lost, please.
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  441.  @elliottprats1910  He did mention the cartels though. He just didn't make the whole video about them.
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  442.  @lahabitaciondelatrapado4621  Nuclear powered carriers only matter if you're fighting on the other side of the world, not close to your own ports. China's activities are primarily in, as even Caspian puts it, it's own backyard.
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  443.  @Kalimdor199Menegroth  "In reality China does the same thing in most African countries" - lol, China has forgiven or renegotiated almost all of its outstanding debts, with a few outliers that were given the debt-equity swap treatment - which then in typical sensationalist fashion got played up by western media. Meanwhile you brainwashed moralists haven't even heard of the mess caused in Africa before by western loans (look up the IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs for that - there's a reason the Africans prefer Chinese loans to yours, cos the Chinese don't undermine their sovereignty to give them). Here, try hearing it from an actual African for a change you ideologue - https://youtu.be/P5uzxV8ub9k
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  444.  @1massboy  Russia has been a far more reliable ally of India than the US has. And they have their own misgivings about China. So no, it's not at all likely they're going to turn on us.
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  445. To continue the story from where Shirvan left off - Freed by the Allies, then suffered a civil war (that also featured foreign meddling, like everywhere else during the Cold War), finally started rebuilding, then got excited to join the EU but didn't qualify and so tricked their way in thanks to good old Goldman Sachs 'help', couldn't devalue their currency anymore now that it was the Euro, crashed in 2008, and so right back to the days of international financier domination and austerity.
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  446.  @DivusMagus  It kinda is, since NATO has nukes close to Russia's borders. Also, how about Cuba being a Chinese ally AND hosting Chinese military forces and missiles on it? Even if the missiles are non-nuclear. Still think the US wouldn't care?
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  447.  @nightprowler6336  ...at ruining other countries, yes.
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  448.  @plc3653  What makes you think an invasion is an 'easy way' of helping, or even that it'd help at all? I belt you're also one of those neo-colonial developmentalists who think recolonizing much of Africa would 'help' them get out of poverty. Has centuries of history taught you people nothing? War doesn't build, it destroys. Even a child knows that.
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  449. Because you need to get stuff into the interior? Africa isn't just a larger version of Australia, with all its notable cities on the coast. And even Australia does invest into connecting its interior. This isn't simply about getting the goods to and from the nations, it's about getting them INTO the nations. Plus, as the guy above said, you have to connect African nations with each other.
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  450.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  451.  @shawnmilum6233  Or, here's a simpler analogy - I can point out that Winston Churchill was an asshole responsible for millions of Indian deaths, without being a Hitler sympathizer. To call me a Hitler sympathizer on the basis of that is just intellectually disingenuous.
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  452.  @КнязХанибал  Moscow has long had to tackle dissent. To go from there to collapse is a massive leap. Even the Ukrainians aren't predicting that. Iran has been under sanctions for decades. Not only have they not collapsed, but they continue to operate in their region. And if the west angers China enough, or weaponizes finance enough, they may just find their way out of those sanctions without ever having caved. And Russia has far more economic heft than Iran. The sanctions are often spoken of as global, but they're actually from 46 nations - most of whom are just the EU states - that make up less than a quarter of the globes' states and even less of its population.
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  453.  @farzana6676  Lol, according to who? You? That's certainly not the goal behind any of the sanctions when they were announced. For good reason, since if you were to be believed, then it'd amount to siege tactics and be denounced as inhumane. So either you're wrong about what they're meant to achieve, or you're callous enough to inflict suffering on rivals for its own sake (but too cowardly to risk your own soldiers doing it).
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  454.  @КнязХанибал  "it's naive to think there will be no impact" - I didn't say there would be no impact, just that the impact wouldn't be as neat and clean as the west would like.
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  455. The US' 50 states aren't all that different, and the country has actually been getting ever more centralized for a while now. Switzerland is a FAR better example of decentralization, and experimentation than the US has ever been.
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  456. ​ @thepax2621  Oh and btw, Iran is a sovereign nation too, so who're you to tell them what weapons they can have? Then again, given you literally 'upgraded' their leader just cos he didn't let you have their oil before, I guess it's nothing new huh.
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  457. I find it telling how the vast majority of the video focuses on the intertribal and regional politics that shape Qatar, and here in the comments all people are interested in spamming is a reference to ONE LINE that occupied a few seconds of the video but that gets talked about ad infinitum by other videos on Qatar. Shows how little people are interested in actually learning something new, versus just regurgitating popular media narratives ad nauseam.
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  458.  @accountname9506  prolonged fight, just not with Assad.
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  459.  @User9681e  "greatness" lol!
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  460. THIS is what I originally subscribed to Caspian Report for - geopolitical analysis of lesser known issues around the world, NOT repeated coverage of the most trending and hot button topics in the media. It's been sad seeing this channel move away from that as time went on. Hopefully we see more attention given to stuff like this, as opposed to more bandwagon programming. If people need to hear about those popular topics, they can just turn on the news and listen to the mainstream media.
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  461. @Tattle Boad I mean, that kinda depends on who his challenger is. No point deciding on that until you know who the Dems pick.
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  462.  @2phat_2care  That depends on why the deal was made. This whole affair is quite strange.
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  463.  @riddler2127  "If I remember, he's from Turkmenistan" - he's from Azerbaijan, not Turkmenistan.
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  464. First of all, Ukraine did NOT have usable nukes. Moscow had the control mechanism, so Ukrainian nukes were just risky hunks of metal. Secondly, China has had nukes for decades and has actually been a very stable nuclear actor over that time. Thirdly Israel is literally an illegal nuclear actor, so hardly a poster child for good nuclear behaviour. Fourthly, the US abandoned the principle of MAD 2 decades ago, with Bush pulling out of anti ballistic missile agreements and ever since the US has sought to try to make itself untouchable - unsurprisingly her rivals responded by stepping up efforts to ensure she never succeeded. While most of the world learned to accept the possibility that they could be attacked, America as sole superpower found that too affronting and so actually made the world LESS safe in its so far futile quest to achieve absolute invincibility.
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  465. The problem with blockading the Malacca Strait is that it isn't just China that is affected. All the downstream and surrounding nations will be hit, hence none of them will be in favor of it. Just cos India and China are at war doesn't mean any of them will want to get involved. And that makes it a tricky maneuver to pull off. It's not like blockading the Sea of Japan, which only affects Japan.
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  466.  Revelacion Humana  The idea that playing video games leads to more violent or warlike people has never been backed up by any evidence that's passed peer review.
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  467.  @omniyambot9876  Because it's not going to work. Water is not some magical solution to tunnels.
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  468.  @rioluna6058  The world isn't gonna fall for your false dichotomy. No one HAS to choose. As for making trouble, who's had the most military actions since ww2? The us. Chin? Their last ended in 1979. The us last was as recently as 2021.
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  469. This GROSSLY understates what colonialism was. NOTHING that's happening in Africa now, from west or east, compares to the absolute HORROR of what Europe did. Congo for instance lost HALF its people in as little as 20 years. That's a tenth of ALL Africans at the time. From just one colony.
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  470. NATO is literally an anti-Russian alliance. They absolutely have to regard it as a threat. As for Finland and Sweden, it's worth noting that Russia has respected the peace with them, as long as they stayed out of NATO. NATO is their concern, and they won't give up that concern lightly. As even the video ends with, all that's needed for Finland and Sweden is to renew a treaty with Russia. It likely won't even include any new terms, merely a reassurance. Cos Russia is happy with the current situation up north, just not elsewhere.
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  471. Public opinion surveys are done anonymously. This isn't just for Russia, this is standard practice. Even foreign ones affirm their support. Just cos you don't like the results doesn't make them untrue.
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  472.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  473.  @robbie31580  They don't have goals, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  474. The US global dominance is arguably mostly about its naval supremacy. "The days of naval power are gone" indeed. There are nations that can challenge the US army, at least on home territory. Less so its airforce, but least so its navy - and navies have far more reach and power projection capacities. Naval power is easily the arena where they most outstrip other nations, because of how expensive it is. And big navies have plenty of anti-aircraft capabilities.
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  475.  @scroopynooperz9051  In short the Raj was established incrementally, via business and politics, not thru some grand war in which they won over all of India. They never faced all of India, they played it against itself just as its reigning major empire at the time slowly disintegrated. When India actually united against them, they eventually left.
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  476.  @Bolga4K  "why wait until after the Russians have killed millions of innocent Ukrainians?" - funnily enough, even just ONE of America's wars this century has killed many TIMES all of Russia's wars in the same timeframe COMBINED lol. But yeah, keep dreaming about millions of deaths. Even the Ukrainians don't claim that lmao.
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  477.  @AMX8799  "dealt with Pakistan" how? We just saw the worlds' biggest superpower humiliated by a bunch of guerrillas - again! What are you proposing India ought to have done "a long time ago" to Pakistan? And how would that fix anything?
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  478.  @damian4926  "just reading Russia Today articles" - lmao! So triggered. You've already progressed to the ad hominem attacks.
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  479.  @Anymonkeyme  I meant if you discounted London's output, which is mostly money managing. The economy of the remainder of the UK isn't all that special (the other significant element is oil, which is tied up with Scotland and its prickly issues).
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  480.  @wisdomleader85  No one in this saga had good intentions. No one.
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  481.  @eduardo-ue4gb  That's his own channel. He uses a bunch of throwaway accounts to promote his channel under the vids of other geopolitics channels. You'll see him linking that vid under several of the comments here, cos he's advertising.
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  482.  @stephenjenkins7971  Last I checked, 'genocide' involves killing large numbers of people. So what's the death toll of this one? Using scary words does not a genocide make, that's just labeling. Meanwhile, I can give you multiple pretty big estimates of the death toll of some recent wars, but that doesn't get people upset as much cos apparently 'war' is not scary enough sounding. And of course, the 'wrong' country is doing it i.e. the 'good' guy. Is war okay in the modern era? https://www.salon.com/2018/03/19/the-staggering-death-toll-in-iraq_partner/
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  483.  @NorthernContrarian  Feel free to enlighten us then.
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  484.  @shada5509  Sure 'we' are lol. I'm guessing you're of the diaspora. If so, you're not Iraqi anymore sorry. You abandoned your country.
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  485.  @economiccrisis9267  Bub your excuse is just that. Do you have the slightest appreciation for how bad that war was? A quarter of a MILLION people were unalived. You did fight, and still lost. Vietnam was even worse. 3 MILLION people unalived. And you still lost. 'Compassion' wasn't your mistake. They simply outlasted you. You didn't have what it takes to win. Hell if your losses had been higher, you probably would have run away even sooner. War requires grit and determination. They have it. You've demonstrated that you don't. You have the power sure, but don't have the will. And by 'will' I don't mean cruelty.
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  486.  @tomislav5689  USA learns from its mistakes? The country that's been at war for a greater proportion of its history than any other? Lol. Well they learn how to fight better I suppose. But not not to fight. And territory is passe. Even Russia doesn't usually contest territory, it typically does the same thing the US does - put in place "friendly" governments. Why annex territory when you can just have a client govt. manage it for you? About 3 million Vietnamese died in that war, despite the US making no territorial claims on Vietnam. So why did they go to war, if they weren't after territory? Ditto Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. It's better to replace the govt. than to annex land. But Ukraine switched sides from Moscow to the West in 2014, hence Russia tried to weaken it. Even in 2022, the initial invasion force marched on Kiev - if they could've forced a regime change in Ukraine to be more pliable to Moscow, they likely wouldn't have cared to annex territory. This became a territorial mainly cos that didn't succeed. The US also fights for 'influence', not land.
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  487. Malaysia is specialized towards memory chips, which isn't even an industry unique to it. It'll face tough competition even holding its own in its own industry, let alone expanding to processing chips.
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  488.  @robinthehood00  You're assuming America goes in there with noble intentions. They don't make that assumption...
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  489. This kind of idealism is both reckless and naive. Did you know there are actually dozens of breakaway territories the world over (including some in the west) that DON'T get international recognition, let alone support, from almost anyone? There's a reason for that - a longstanding unwritten understanding between nations, due to them knowing that it risks leading to a domino effect all over the world with uprisings that might come to bite them in the ass. The new nations that do get recognized are the exception, not the rule. Taiwan gets a lot of attention because of its strategic importance, hence why the US backs it. But it's hardly alone. Geopolitics isn't based on idealism, and there's nothing idealistic about the Taiwan issue. That's why you'll find a curious fact of it - there's actually higher support for an immediate declaration of Taiwanese independence in the US than there is in Taiwan itself. And that's according to their own polls. Cos the US never has to face the consequences of its actions, but the Taiwanese know they will.
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  490.  @widodoakrom3938  China isn't going to war. They're making deals. The most they stand to lose is some investments.
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  491. "Russia feels threatened by smaller democracies on its border" - it doesn't. It feels threatened by the US. As far as Russia, and for that matter China, is concerned all of NATO as well as America's other allies (like Japan) are little more than client states that serve as tools for US power projection and additional forces. This isn't about Ukraine or any other nation there, it's about the US. And the US has a long history of warfare, relative to its short history of existence. It literally has intervened in more states than any other nation since WW2.
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  492.  @dannielz6  No, I don't think it was just nukes. I mentioned nukes because nuking another nation is hardly something to boast of. They could've continued bombing Japan, and killed as many or even more people - mostly civilians. They could've invaded, and killed even more. Neither is something to be proud of. Indeed, the nukes were used to primarily to save on American lives, which hardly inspires much sympathy. And now that same nation, which proliferated nukes itself, is fighting tooth and nail to prevent another (Iran) from gaining them - whose main reason for wanting them is because of the nation America gave nukes to earlier (Israel). And for all that the US likes to promote itself as the leader of the democratic world, they didn't respond very well to another democracy getting nukes either (India). Yes, the war was over by then, but I hardly think the side that won make out as saints. I'm not disputing who was in power by then, I am disputing if anyone here has any moral credibility.
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  493.  @gamingrex2930  Most of those things DON'T use Taiwan's top notch chips. In fact many of them use the lower end chips whose production is dominated by China, Thailand and Malaysia, not Taiwan. TSMC's chips are mostly for computers and phones.
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  494.  @avinashtyagi2  There has been some success, albeit not for Pakistan, at achieving other goals. For instance India should really be a maritime power. Yet most of our military strength is directed towards the northern land border, and hence our navy isn't as powerful as it otherwise should have been. That does matter for rivals like China, and also the US if they ever decide to pull another 1971 gunboat diplomacy shtick on us. We even have strategic islands in the Indian Ocean that're underdeveloped.
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  495. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  496.  @19trwind82  If you think American wars have anything to do with democracy, you're deluded. Not only has America happily allied with many a dictator, they've even helped install dictators multiple times (Chile, Gautemala, etc.). Democracy has nothing to do with it. Democracy and freedom are just the latest rhetoric used to provide moral justification for war, just as the "white man's burden" to "civilize" the world was the bullshit excuse for colonialism before it.
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  497. The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  498.  @michaelimbesi2314  Mississippi also has less than a TENTH of the UK's population, so...
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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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  500.  @markpukey8  Sri Lanka owes about 10% of its debt to China, most of which is long term debt that isn't even due. It owes more to Japan than China. Although the vast majority of Sri Lanka's debt - 47% of it - is owed to private bondholders, who tend to mostly be western btw, and that debt is short term (as private debt is wont to be - Sri Lanka's debts to other states, including China, has stayed largely static in the last few years, as they tend to be more cautious, it's their private borrowings that have ballooned as that is high interest short term debt and so lenders are available). That port they didn't need was also Sri Lanka's own idea - Hambantota is home turf for the Rajapaksas. It was also leased to a Chinese company, not sold for debt - there was no debt cancellation involved at all. Also it's a lease, which means China doesn't own it and can't use it for any purpose not stated in the agreement, without the owners approval.
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  501.  @Homer-OJ-Simpson  Yeah, so? And the wests' conditions aren't simply related to nice things like minimum wages (your iphone was made using slave labor in the Congo lol), the bigger issue is that they try to proselytize their neoliberal economic policies as well. As for bribes, do you think China is unique in this lol? It's part of the cost of doing business, which even the wests' companies pay. Hell some of them even have terms for it, even on a national level - Françafrique is a topic this channel has covered before, and involves literally controlling huge swathes of the continent via shady dealings and local power brokers. Until recently they even controlled a large part of its money supply, which is way more control than China's debt levels provide. Ultimately it's up to them to decide what's best for them, not the west to tell them so.
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  502. There have been govt. programs to address all those issues all over the world, including in Korea. None of them worked. It's never been about how tough life is. The poor have the toughest lives of all, and yet they have the most children. And this is true even in cities, where no one farms. While the super rich have the easiest life, and yet tend not to have any more children for it.
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  503.  @tabletodestroyer8174  Portugal had virtually nothing significant apart from its navy, while the British did have an army of some relevance (and so did Carthage and Athens).
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  504.  @danielbowman7226  Err...the US props up dictatorships everywhere, as long as they suit its interests. From Latin America to half the Middle-East. Even Iran was less of a democracy under the US backed Shah than the current regime. Mussharaf was a dictator himself, and supported as long as he played ball on Afghanistan. And while the Muslim Brotherhood may be fundamentalists, they still usually come to power democratically. Being democratic doesn't mean you're automatically going to like the US, or that it'll like you. Neither does being authoritarian determine the relationship, just standard geopolitical interest weighing. Russia is still an ally of India, and has actually been a more reliable one than the US over the years. And ironically India had to go in later (as part of a UN task force) to clean up the US' mess in Somalia (this was after the events of 'Black Hawk Down', in case that's where you got your history from). Oh, and China has one base in Africa. Go look up how many the US has.
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  505. Ironically India has had plans for a trade corridor to Europe for literally decades now - even this channel has covered it. The irony is that that trade corridor went through Iran. But the plans never went anywhere BECAUSE of America's sanctions on Iran. Now the Americans are trying to shift India by shifting the corridor so it bypasses Iran.
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  506.  @nathangamble125 This one is fine. But most of his other videos have sponsored by scams like Masterworks or Established Titles, or garbage monetization games like Conflict of Nations (whose sponsorship tbf is sometimes hilarious given the topic of the video in question). In fact I'm surprised that this one isn't sponsored by the latter. You'll find a lot of his vids have comments under them criticizing the sponsor he used.
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  507.  @Alaryk111  Many would say that of their chief rival as well. In either case, it isn't your decision.
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  508.  @KeiKAndLies  No, biased towards the west. 'facts and logic' isn't even a relevant argument lol, the facts are the same. What differs is which side you favor. That's a subjective choice.
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  509.  @Afrologist  Wut?! No, it hasn't. All three of those places have FALLING birthrates. They just haven't reached European or East Asian levels yet because all of them are less developed. But they're all still falling rapidly as they develop, and 2 of those 3 (Africa is the least developed, so it's still high) are already at barely above replacement rates. They're hardly success stories for incentivizing births, they're not even trying to!
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  510.  @manofsan  The Belt & Road Initiative precedes Trump, who achieved next to nothing apart from pissing off his own allies. He certainly didn't constrain China. 'Shifting global supply chains away from China' lol! What world are you living in?
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  511.  @Janoip  That's January, right after the cap was introduced. They still made more money after the war than the year before it. The Russian rouble also collapsed immediately following the imposition of the sanctions, before rebounding and ending up the best performing currency in the world. Stop judging sanctions based on Day 1 effects. There are countries that have been under sanctions for generations, and still haven't buckled. And they were all much smaller economies than Russia.
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  512.  @Rubydupjin  "If Japan switched sides to China that would be best example what happened to the Russia now." - A better example is Cuba switching sides to Russia. Which actually happened, and the US nearly started WW3 over it. It was avoided only cos Russia agreed to back down and remove its forces from Cuba.
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  513.  @seantylerfermin4927  What do you expect as China's "support"? They haven't voted against Russia, said they're ready to mediate, said their relationship remains "rock solid", bought Russian goods, etc. etc. Did you really expect them to send troops lol?! And no, sanctioning China would be a massive mistake, as you'd turn a regional conflict into a global one. As for India, I'm Indian. We haven't turned against Russia either, simply waiting it out and making the right noises. Lastly, Taiwan is a point of contention cos America made it one - China maintained the situation there for 70 years now, so why shift? It changed in 2016-17, but nothing in China changed then (Xi came to power in 2012). What changed was America - Trump came to power and launched an anti-China crusade. Which caught on with the American public, and hence has continued after him.
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  514. Russia wouldn't send him military support, nor would they expect that. It would support them diplomatically, including by ensuring that any US response does not have international legitimacy as it won't be authorized by the UNSC. It would go down as yet another unilateral US intervention into other countries matters. And in Latin America no less, where it's very unpopular.
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  515.  @gideonmele1556  Ironically that last line should be a statement in their favor, yet here we see it being used to denigrate them. While the US is effectively being praised for going to war so much. And then hypocritically Russia is blamed for the same.
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  516.  @DanielMousavi1  You could just as well say the west cares about its strategic goals and hence they don't want to renegotiate with Iran. Or have you forgotten that it wasn't Iran that broke the deal, the US did.
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  517. I'd blame this one more on the French, tbh.
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  518. @Kaushal Batavia Bruh, I said Taiwan is difficult to invade, so of course it's not history. That doesn't mean they can control the seas around them. And America sending its navy there is exactly what the Chinese would want - it'll be their battlefield, with every advantage for them. Not just their navy, but their air force, missiles and maybe even artillery will be within range of the US' ships, all close to home.
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  519. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
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  520.  @ythunderboy8694  Because Russia won't tolerate any American forces anywhere near its borders. I mean, you're free to accept them if you wish, but Russia will simply react accordingly. If you want to increase the likelihood of war, go ahead.
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  521. They don't have an endgame, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  522.  @justsefa1843  Yeah it sucks. One way I've found around it is to break your comment up into several comments. It confuses it, and helps identify what's triggering it. Also helps to split it in the middle of sentences rather than having full paragraphs in each new comment. It does it for a LOT of things btw, not just this topic. Many of them not even controversial or mean. It's not just suppressive, it's also just really dumb.
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  523.  @perspii2808  Not really. The reason it's exploded is because Parliament is involved now. It was comparatively low key before because May was conducting negotiations herself, and without much public or Parliamentary scrutiny. That's biting her in the ass now - part of the reason Parliament hates her deal so much is simply because they wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place, but weren't consulted. It was yet another instance of 'behind-closed-doors' politicking that the rest of the govt. (and public) are just meant to go along with.
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  524. Russia is hardly complaining. It's not like they asked Shirvan to make this vid. If worst comes to worst, they'll just take the river.
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  525.  @markalexander832  lol this is such a stupid idealistic argument. Firstly Ukraine is much poorer than Russia. Secondly the Baltic nations that're already in the western alliance haven't really had any effect on Putins' regime. He was as popular as ever for the last two decades. Surprising as it may be to hear, not everyone on Earth is a closet liberal. One look at El Salvador in recent years should tell you that. You aren't the model for humanity.
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  526.  @randomuser5443  Well that failed. Not that I expect you'll admit it.
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  527.  @ArnoldDarkshner99  The virus isn't shutting down cities, it's killing less people than far more mundane illnesses. The Chinese govt. is shutting down those cities, as it should in order to contain the virus. Cities being shut down isn't a measure of how serious a disease outbreak is, but rather how serious the govts. responding to it are.
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  528.  JuniorX EastNY  Caspian Report is an educational channel, not a consultancy providing deep (often quantitative) analysis and predictions on specific topics. That's the kind of thing you need to actually formulate strategy, be it in govt., business or military. And for that you're still gonna need professionals, and money. Also, where do you think channels like Caspian get their insights from? Someone has to do the legwork (or academic research, as the case may be) to produce those reports, articles and books, which you then hear a highly condensed and short version of on channels like this one.
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  529. They've already signed an agreement with Morocco and Mauritania.
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  530. Hey the Deus Ex games also have a lot of PMCs! They deserve credit too. More realistic as well.
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  531. They won't, most likely. And I'm no big fan of Modi. However, what they will do is force him to operate in a coalition govt. What one thinks of that outcome comes down to how mistrustful one is of centralized, single party power versus the policy difficulties coalition governance creates.
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  532.  banana aya playa  Encouraging child-bearing has been tried in loads of places around the world. With very limited results. At most it gets some people to have the kids they wished to have already but were financially unsure of, but that's it. It doesn't raise your birth rate above replacement levels. Few people actually want more than two kids, and most are happy with one (or none). About the only exception to this are a few highly conservative religious communities, and they're not typically the most economically useful types of people.
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  533.  @michaelpettersson4919  They don't have an endgame, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  534.  @mikevill1004  The same could be said of the people they're sick and tired of you know. They're the newcomers who came over from Europe and were granted the place by a colonizer.
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  535.  @Leonidas-nu3jp  The EU will have to pay it back, if they're serious about European brotherhood. Trump doesn't mind tough love with allies, so it's up to them to raise the money.
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  536.  @enternalinferno  Yes there is a dispersion of wealth - it flows from the eastern richer provinces to the poorer west via a range of social programs and loss-making govt. services. The wealthier provinces are net tax contributors and the poorer ones recipients. This isn't even unique to China - most countries do this. Just cos they're poor doesn't mean the state isn't doing anything.
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  537.  @captainalex157  "supporting allies in Europe and Asia" is exactly what it's already been doing for decades. That IS its 'global policeman role' (or part of it), so your claim that "it already is" abandoning said role is a contradiction in terms. It's always justified all its military inventions with some excuse, "supporting allies" being one of them.
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  538.  @thepax2621  Which people, pray? People also said the opposite - in fact the war was predicted years ago by people like Mearsheimer. Also note that it was both PREceded and FOLLOWed by a peace proposal from them - the first to nato, which they dismissed, and the second to Ukr soon after the breakout of hostilities. Both were about nato, the same thing they've been going on about for over 30 years. Peaceful complaining didn't work. So he tried a more forceful approach. That didn't get them to negotiate either, but that's cos the west refused to budge, not cos anything changed in Ru.
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  539.  @TheTariqibnziyad  Ah yes, sure. Just cos a war doesn't have nukes flying, it's okay to downgrade it, never mind all the people dying...this is why the US keeps getting away with all its wars. Also, let's not forget the implicit bias involved in having global media coverage of single school shootings in the US, while ignoring even scores of deaths happening in some African nation no one gives a shit about. That's how you get warped worldviews and priorities like how so many folks in the West have today.
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  540.  @weasle2904  If Greenlands' experience goes anything like Puerto Rico, then no they wouldn't do too well under the US. People seem to imagine China will mistreat its colonies, but conveniently forget that Europe and even the US already have a history of doing so. And yes, I just called Puerto Rico a colony.
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  541. Non-totalitarian nations also often build new cities. Including new capitals. Australia, for example.
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  542.  @rexmann1984  Bruh, we've won four major wars with Russian equipment. It hardly sucks. Also the Russians aren't even using their advanced equipment much in Ukraine. Hell they haven't even used their air force all that much, just helicopters.
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  543.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  foreigner pretending to be iranian
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  544. The channel VisualPolitik absolutely loves Argentina! Loves to hate on it, to be precise...
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  545. You're forgetting that it was NATO that pushed itself all the way to Russia's borders in the first place, an expansion far larger in scope than Russia's even if they had taken all of Ukraine. NATO expanded first, not Russia.
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  546.  @MrMediator24  So let's see here - China has 1 million people imprisoned in Xinjiang, and 1.6 million overall nationwide - out of a population of 1.4 billion. The US has 2.3 million people in its prison system, out of a population of 330 million. Yeah, real clear whose 'serving the people' better here. Btw, the US also has the highest poverty rate among developed nations, despite being the richest of them, while China has carried out the largest poverty alleviation exercise in history (over 800 million people lifted in just around 30 years), despite starting from penury. Very clearly 'anti-people'...
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  547.  @rioluna6058  And don't bother with that democracy bs either - the us has supported and continues to support autocracies aplenty. It's even helped set some up, like in Gautemala. So don't try pretending they have the moral high ground. The us' history belies that.
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  548. 'Cept Canada actually supplies its own goods. What this vid undersells is just how much Chi has invested into Mexico. So us is still buying Chi goods, just indirectly. This is true of many other much hyped alternatives as well, like Vietnam, with the only significant exception being India. In fact they did it even before tariffs, simply to benefit off of lower labor costs.
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  549.  @hwfcup1344  Russia invaded Ukraine AFTER the Maidan revolution, which was the end of Ukrainian neutrality. Zelensky is the latest incarnation of that shift, but the shift itself predates him.
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  550. What is that supposed to achieve? Every govt. has a processes in place for the loss of any of its senior leadership. It wouldn't stop them one iota. All it would do is make the situation worse. And not just with Iran. Any such move would bring even more global condemnation on Isr. So the only stupid one here is...well, not them suffice to say.
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  551. Tldr Global did a fairly unbiased video on another aspect of this conflict that isn't covered in this video - demographics, and its impact on the politics in the region. Pretty nice added info to accompany this video imo.
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  552. I mean, if you want to check out what's there, feel free. Don't expect anyone to rescue you, tho...
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  553. @anny791 It's neither bad schools nor bad media (at least, not uniquely bad compared to other countries). It's cos this kinda thing is the sort of boring foreign policy agreements than most countries' media won't pay attention to, because most of their viewers don't bother watching it. Why? Simply put, it's not sexy.
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  554. Not really. What this vid undersells is just how much Chi has invested into Mexico. So us is still buying Chi goods, just indirectly. This is true of many other much hyped alternatives as well, like Vietnam, with the only significant exception being India. In fact they did it even before tariffs, simply to benefit off of lower labor costs.
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  555.  @scroopynooperz9051  India did have an effective military when the British first came, and they did lose to it multiple times. Haven't you ever heard of DIVIDE and Conquer? The British began succeeding in India only as the Mughal empire, whose army they didn't dare take on at its height, collapsed. And they didn't do so with a grand battle - they were a trading company that diversified into a mercenary company. Early on they rarely fought for themselves, they allied with or were hired by other Indian kingdoms, and even used bribery on several occasions to win battles. It wasn't even the British crown that established the Raj, it was the East India Company. The crown only took charge in 1857, after they had done most of the work. Few suspected the EIC of establishing an empire cos they were a mere company, not a king. They also did lose battles, but they were so enormously profitable that they were always able to raise more money from investors.
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  556.  @AaronGuest  Oh wait, I forgot. Americans like to think of anything that "undermines" US global hegemony as a credible rationale for war, never mind whether the US homeland itself is in any real danger. Meanwhile other countries aren't allowed to maintain control even of the waters just off their own coasts.
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  557. The irony of the replies to this comment lol. Even right here you're seeing why peace isn't prevailing...
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  558. ​ @paulallen2680  A crown colony, so it didn't even have independence let alone a democracy. Power was concentrated in the hands of the governor, appointed by the UK, who could then appoint bodies to carry out his wishes. It was basically just the executive branch of govt. There was a legislative council, but its role was mainly advisory and it was implemented in such a way that it was essentially an industry lobby group with members representing the various HK business groups. There wasn't a 'one-man-one-vote' democratic election of the govt., and the govt. skewed heavily in favor of the minority white foreign people over the majority indigenous population. Tbf, the last governor did move the country closer to being democratic, but this was suspiciously close (1994) to the time of the handover of power in 1997. HK under the British was very much a colony. There were even riots and revolts over the course of their long rule, usually crushed by force.
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  559.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  560. He doesn't do breaking news. And I for one prefer it that way. Come back in a few weeks or even months.
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  561.  @freedomfighter22222  The attack was rational. The Russians have literally warned about NATO expansion for 30 years, to no avail. It expanded during the 20 years when they hadn't attacked those nations anyway, so they saw it as inevitable. When was Ukraine attacked? Right after the 2014 Maidan revolution, when it turned to the west. They see encirclement as just a matter of time, and protestations have gone nowhere, so might as well act before it's complete. Same thing is happening with China in Taiwan. They haven't invaded it for over half a century, so why now? Cos of the US - Taiwan is to China what Cuba was to the US when the Soviets put forces there. Both nations are going to strike out rather than submit to American hegemony.
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  562. Thing is, just free trade and free movement doesn't sound very impressive. The impact will be very limited, owing to the 4 nations mostly not trading with each other much. There's far better markets for all of them, and much better sources of labour too, so CANZUK ends up looking pretty pathetic as just a free trade agreement. Hardly the shot in the arm Britain needs right now.
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  563.  @rocketsfan05  Don't use words like 'unjust' with him. He doesn't know the difference between 'injustice' and 'inequality'. As far as he's concerned everyone is just complaining cos sweepers don't get paid the same as CEOs.
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  564. Malaysia is specialized towards memory chips, which isn't even an industry unique to it. It isn't gonna replace Taiwan. It'll face tough competition even holding its own in its own industry.
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  565. @Suðringa o Fish is real, and cares about geography, proximity and tariffs. Timber is real, and cares about geography, proximity and tariffs. Agricultural produce is real, and cares about geography, proximity and tariffs. Finance is none of those things, and doesn't care about any of them, save a few capital market restrictions that are already low in all 3 CANZUK countries. And no, London isn't much of a general services hub, it's a financial services hub. Plenty of places have service based economies that aren't simply about helping rich people grow their wealth even more, and that sort of business doesn't stand to gain much from CANZUK anyway. The UK's manufacturing is not what it was, and its defense sector mostly caters to its own needs rather than being an export powerhouse. Plus neither Canada, Australia or NZ has much interest in more defense spending (maybe Oz, but not by much). And internal trade misses the point of the CANZUK idea to begin with. Here, you can even hear it from an economist - https://youtu.be/Ag5XmYWJ3mI
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  566.  @brighamrichins3  You think the Vietnam war was fought ethically? Lol! You still lost.
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  567.  @furiogiunta295  The Russian state doesn't have all that much money lol. They're even cutting back on military spending, which should tell you how cash strapped the state is.
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  568. "No country on that border is poised to be a military threat" - it isn't about the countries on that border, it's about the US. Russia sees NATO as little more than a front for American power projection. A view that is hardly uniquely Russian, as many around the world see it that way. Including most notably China, which has similar concerns as Russia does about American alliances.
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  569.  @RK-cj4oc  At least Russia has a military reason to intervene in Ukraine. NATO was expanding anyway, even without war and despite over 30 years of warnings. It's also a war at one's borders, which is the typical form of war in all of history. The US meanwhile invades countries far away from it (which is rare, most examples are from the US and European colonial powers) despite them presenting no military threat to it whatsoever, just to keep them in thrall of its hegemony. Here's just a partial list of their interventions 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.
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  570. You people all put too much stock in blockades. There's only two types of blockades that can be enacted against China - a safe distant one, and a difficult close one. The safe option is to blockade them in the Malacca Strait - except that'd disrupt trade for so many other nations as well that the region will never agree to it. The more effective close blockade would be in the South China Sea itself - it would affect only China (and, mind you, Taiwan as well), but be well within their reach to destroy. China would be right next to the ships enforcing the blockade, while the US would be thousands of miles away from their home shipyards. Indeed China doesn't even need to invade Taiwan either, simply draw its US protector to the area in order to leverage their home field advantage against it. If they can win that, then there's not even any need to land on Taiwan - just offer them an olive branch and declare victory.
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  571.  @TheRezro  "US CVBG can park on Indian ocean making it pointless" - oh yeah sure, just casually start a war with both India and Iran right in the space between them lmao!
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  572.  @playea123  "that last step from Iran to India by ship is easily blockaded" - a blockade is an act of war. And such a blockade would be against third party countries as well. Do you really want to just casually declare war on both India and Iran right in the space between them? And that too when you're trying to woo India to help counter China? Stop treating the US as infallible
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  573. That requires a LOT of money. The Dutch have a lot of money. The Portuguese don't.
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  574.  @silverhusky7993  The thing is, the Iraq war didn't have sanctions to worry about. They could afford to take their time. Russia wanted this over quick so they could win before Germany had a change of heart. They didn't.
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  575.  @hectorestrada3764  "what Russians tell themselves" - Russia isn't the only one who sees NATO as an instrument of US power projection. Most of the world basically takes that for granted. Only the west keeps insisting that isn't the case, which of course serves their interests to say so.
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  576.  @51d4r  I'm one of those "world people", and had no issue understanding him.
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  577.  @economiccrisis9267  Bruh the houthis are also arabs. Also they had us support. So it wasn't just the saudis that lost there.
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  578. "China is building its own Silicon Valley" India: *sweating profusely*...
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  579.  @Megalomaniakaal  China doesn't need foreign ports to fight the conflict that is expected - it'll be in THEIR backyard, off the coast of Taiwan, under the umbrella of not just their navy but also air forces, missiles and even parts of their army air divisions lol. Even their navy is practically built for taking out enemy navies, rather than supporting land invasions like America's navy is equipped for (hence their focus on cruisers and subs more than aircraft carriers, which are built for power projection). They fight would be exactly where they'd want it. You could try blockading the Malacca Strait ofc, but 1) the countries in the region won't like that, and 2) that wouldn't save Taiwan, in fact China could simply up the ante by fully blockading not just Taiwan but Japan too if you try doing that (especially if Japan gets involved). It'd be better for all parties, save the US, for the war to be decided via a straightforward confrontation - but like I said, that would be in China's backyard.
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  580.  @therealuncleowen2588  There are far better candidates for real world analogues to the ME elves than any flavor of the US. Bhutan, Iceland, Costa Rica, or even New Zealand itself.
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  581. Has Russia invaded Finland recently? Or Sweden? It's respected the status quo wrt both countries for the entire Cold War and beyond. It's NATO that's expanded in recent years. It wasn't supposed to, but it did so anyway. It expanded even WITHOUT any Russian military action btw, as the expansion precedes Crimea or Georgia or Ukraine. And no, countries can't join just cos they might want to - NATO has to let them in. Now they're putting their foot down. The alternative is to do nothing, and watch their position steadily dwindle.
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  582. Thing is, just free trade and free movement doesn't sound very impressive. The impact will be very limited, owing to the 4 nations mostly not trading with each other much. There's far better markets for all of them, and much better sources of labour too, so CANZUK ends up looking pretty pathetic as just a free trade agreement. Hardly the shot in the arm Britain needs right now.
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  583. Can you ppl please stop responding to iqbal? He's been posting that same rant under several of Shirvan's vids just to stir the pot. It doesn't even contain any arguments. Don't feed the troll.
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  584.  @MimOzanTamamogullar  "having no enemies means having no friends" lolwut?! What kind of twisted logic is this? I guess Switzerland has no friends then. Or Costa Rica. Having no enemies is hardly a bad thing.
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  585.  @looinrims  Russia has controlled that reactor for over a year, and done little with it. The most threat it has faced has been from Ukrainian shelling. It's laughable to think Russia needs a captured nuclear reactor to cause a nuclear incident, when they're one of the worlds' foremost nuclear powers themselves. As for Syria, ironically the side that used heavy weapons and aerial bombardment the most in that conflict was the western one. Russia used foot soldiers mostly.
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  586.  @toomanyaccounts  "not effect the US" - lol! Gotta love some good old american exceptionalism! :p
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  587.  @curtisrigs5627  No he wasn't. He was a marionette put in by the west.
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  588. ​ @bnfcj8987  Chinese propaganda tool would not be dismissing China's ability to take on the US Navy. This vid resembles US propaganda more than China.
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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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  590.  Atheos B. Sapien  That was just the most recent example of a foreign policy littered with hypocrisies. In the west they like to believe otherwise because they only look at US foreign policy in the west itself. It's quite a different story elsewhere, even close to the US in Latin America. Russia too is perceived quite differently outside the west, which westerners find shocking but only cos they rarely think of the non-west world. You can find US hypocrisy even literally just off of its coast, in its history with Cuba. And btw, Taiwan is essentially China's Cuba, except that China has actually treated it better than the US has Cuba. Even now, China is Taiwan's largest trade partner.
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  591. That would be both reckless AND patronizing. There's far greater support for immediate Taiwanese independence in the US than there is even in Taiwan itself. Go ahead and check their own polls to confirm that. The US does it because they have everything to gain and nothing to lose. The Taiwanese are more circumspect - unlike the US than can just run away back home from any war that doesn't go their way, the Taiwanese actually live there and have to live with the consequences. The US never faces consequences.
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  592.  @scottdoesntmatter4409  Bruh really? You're recommending I go see Serpentza? What's next, China Uncensored? I might as well send you to CCTV then. I watch Caspian to avoid all those polemical opportunists.
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  593.  @JABN97  'Taiwan had a very rocky coast with about 5 places where landings are possible' - I never mentioned anything about landings or a ground invasion lol. I pointed out it being an island precisely in order to highlight how much easier it is to blockade than China (which isn't an island) will be. I absolutely see it just blockaded to surrender. This will then all come down to the US response - if China can push that off then that'll be the end of it. No fortification they've built will matter and they'll know it.
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  594.  @huaiwei  I'd argue both of you don't know what 'whataboutism' is actually. Mainly cos it's a tactic used to dismiss hypocrisy when it's called out. As for history, feel free to look into who drew the borders that so many of these conflicts are waged along. And also who had close ties with many of the warlords fighting there. You'll see France in most cases, until recently. Its precolonial history doesn't need to be bloodless for its postcolonial history to have been full of bloodshed. In many cases colonialism willfully made ethnic tensions worse. For instance, look at how the Rwandan civil war can be traced back to Europeans using and exacerbating the divide between hutus and tutsis. There's no historical precedent for a bloodletting of that magnitude between them before the Europeans came in and stratified their society to such an extreme degree. So yeah, it's not just borders that Europe messed up.
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  595.  @noamnoam16  YOU created the leadership they revolted against.
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  596. @John Grigg Gotta love seeing jingoistic war hawks on the internet lol!
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  597.  @OptimusWombat  do people like you actually watch the video and have insights to share, or are you just here to criticize strangers for criticizing other strangers for posting stale memes?
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  598.  @OptimusWombat  So you admit the meme is stale. Hah! I win. ;)
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  599. The reverberations are gonna last a long time yeah, albeit I suspect not the way NATO wants. Rather than ensuring peace, we're likely to see more war. The only thing missing is a spark, and that spark will likely be halfway across the world, in Taiwan. Winter, as a once great TV show said, is coming.
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  600.  @Zeen-2000-Vox  Lol the Indian govts. key to moving up the Doing Business ranking has been more similar to China's than you might like. Among other things, it's gutted the Environment Ministry and environmental protections. It's also been downgraded to a 'flawed democracy' / 'electoral autocracy' in the Democracy Index, another example of emulating China.
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  601.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  602.  @matt1sullivan318  Saudi Arabia is just one example of American intervention. There's plenty of others, which did involve the US imposing its will on a country. Here's a partial list of others, from just the last few decades - Grenada, Panama, Gautemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya (via NATO), Sudan, Pakistan, Mali, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Yemen... You may not have heard of all of those, since some of them were traditional groundpounding invasions, while others were special forces operations or airstrikes. Also, they tend to get a lot more coverage when American lives are lost in them, never mind how many of the locals die. And don't forget that besides that list, the US also supports wars of its allies (such as with SA in Yemen) as well as oppressive actions of dictators all over the world against their own people (indeed several names on that list were for nations whose leaders were being either overthrown or defended by the US).
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  603. ​ @electrosyzygy  BRICS doesn't prevent its members from being in other economic blocs to begin with, and in fact many of them already are. But it was telling that you focused most of your comment on BRICS, and the rest on SA, trashing both. And none of the subject of the video. There's a good deal of venom that underpinning that focus. For the former it's cos of geopolitics, for the latter it's cos of even uglier tendencies. In both cases, and especially given your pride in your eurocentrism, they arise from a core of hubris that stretches back over 400 years. You weren't even attacked in this thread, but felt the need to show that arrogance anyway
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  604.  @darthparallax5207  Well you're right about the 5 year old part. Your ideas are based purely on geography, completely ignoring history and politics. Brazil and Argentina don't get along, and are on opposite sides of the economic spectrum right now. Besides, Mercosur already exists. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand have a complicated history, leading to a complicated relationship. Myanmar can't even get along with itself! Vietnam has a long history with China, although that said most of their investment also comes from there so it's not a simple picture either (not to mention that despite all the western rhetoric, they haven't forgotten what the us and france did either). And India would rather stay out of the Myanmar mess as much as possible - it has engaged with them already, cos some of it spills over into their eastern states. But overall no one, not even China, wants to get too entangled there. Everyone just hopes it doesn't affect them. BRICS works precisely cos of how disparate its members are, so there's less internal conflict. With the one exception being India and China ofc. But other than that, the members get along well enough. Funnily enough it's actually Russia, not China, that unites them most, as all have good relations with it.
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  605.  @rejvaik00  And who was it who said that?
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  606. You often hear people lamenting the lack of honest politicians. If only being an honest politician was enough...
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  607.  @drones7838  No. We're not gonna let you bully everyone with your 'with us or against us' ultimatums.
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  608. And the biggest winner will likely be Pax Indica i.e. India lol. And no, the US won't be able to force India into joining its war if its own turf isn't being threatened - the Himalayas are a formidable boundary that India would rather not have to supply through (and neither would China - any war between would be a stalemate). Worst comes to worst, Beijing could even just offer to settle some of their disputed lands in exchange for India staying out of it. Either way India comes out unscathed and as the only ray of light in a shattered global economy. Well India, Indonesia and Brazil more like.
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  609.  @isunlloaoll  "America is a bully, but a democratic bully that is checked and balanced" - cute little theoretical model you've got there, pity it doesn't stand up to reality. The US has had decades to change its ways, and it hasn't. It still repeatedly goes to war all over the world, far more often than any other nation on Earth, democratic or not. So much for those checks and balances. It's far too easy to rile people up for war, as you're seeing again now. And the US simply rejects any international institutions that might try to restrain it. All those 'checks and balances' have come to naught. Preach your cute little theory to the millions of dead.
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  610.  @morphkogan8627  China is easily worse than Canada and New Zealand. It's also worse than the Netherlands, Norway or Switzerland. Or Bhutan. Or Costa Rica. It's worse than a lot of countries. But is it worse than the USA? The comparative death toll in the last few decades says..no.
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  611.  @Kingzombiemyanmar  Plenty of empires have lasted literally centuries before falling, which is a better record than most states.
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  612.  @Banana_Split_Cream_Buns  Or, you know, just be Persia (Iran) and devolve power to local satraps and thrive for centuries.
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  613. 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.
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  614.  @Azz156  "no one will invade a country that has nukes" - this is literally false. There have already been wars between nuclear power - India and Pakistan. And ongoing border clashes between India and China, another nuclear power. "if ukraine kept its nukes russia wouldn't have invaded it." - also literally false. Ukraine never controlled those nukes, the launch controls were in Moscow not Kyiv. The west also wanted Ukraine to give up its nukes fyi, to prevent proliferation. Also in that case, why deny Irans' right to have nukes? They face threats too, from both Israel .. and the US.
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  615. Patreon supporters get to see content earlier. It's one of the most common perks all creators offer.
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  616. We don't control it. Truly the ones who should 'control' it ought to be the nations actually around the Malacca Strait. We have islands close by with military facilities though. But the question of blockading the Malacca Strait SHOULD be something the nations of that region get a veto on. Which India may indeed respect if they don't want to be party to a conflict. The problem is the US won't respect their objections, and they may very well be too scared of pissing off America to even raise objections to it involving them in its war.
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  617. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
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  618.  @Ze_Moose  They have better things to worry about than Isr. Besides Isr is tied to the west. You know their history with the west right?
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  619.  @WhatAboutYou123  The only fact is that the fertility rate is 3.4. The rest is your bias and ego talking. And ignorance.
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  620. He's speaking relatively, not absolutely. Also you can expect more shelling in recent days as they switch from their original plan to a new one that grinds down the enemy. These videos don't get made overnight, and are always a little out of date.
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  621.  @sameerjunaid5192  As if Nehru had much choice. Even Patel was a realist - whatever his preferences for Tibet, it was militarily annexed, and there wasn't anything India could have done to undo that. Not only would we have had to go up against the Chinese army, we'd have been doing it on the other side of the Himalayas aka well beyond supply range.
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  622.  Sjwaria Law  Perfect example of what I was talking about. "If you have millions of people dying from a disease" - except that, well, we don't. Not from 2019 nCov. Not from the previous SARS or swine flu outbreaks either. We do actually have huge numbers of people dying each year though. From tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, even the common cold. Or heart disease. Cancer. Also hunger. Or traffic accidents. So why aren't you panicking about all of that stuff? We're reacting the way we are to these new outbreaks not because they promise armageddon, but because new diseases offer us a brief window of opportunity to snuff them out or else they establish themselves and become endemic. They haven't killed anywhere near as many people as far more mundane causes of death that barely raise an eyebrow though. This is what I mean by maintaining a sense of perspective and rational decision making. You'll find there's many more millions of people dying if public craze over the latest media sensation results in efforts to contain TB losing out. I don't need to see a nation collapse (whatever that means here) to appreciate the danger of panic. Just because something isn't explosive or sensational doesn't mean it isn't harmful.
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  623.  @AL-lh2ht  India has been mostly united before the British, under multiple empires. From the Mauryans to the Guptas to the Mughals, it's happened several times. Indeed the British came in just as one of those pan-Indian empires was in decline, after centuries ruling over the region.
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  624.  @Distress.  In that case you also get to take the blame for both the harm caused at the time AND the future that arose from it due to your terrible past. Which means the west owes the rest of the world trillions in reparations for colonialism.
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  625.  @Distress.  Lmao! Go tell your 'beneficiaries' that. Or even most academics. Typical western egoist.
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  626.  @memecliparchives2254  You obviously don't know the difference between conquest and colonialism. If they were the same thing, we'd be using the same word. We do, in fact, talk about colonies even before the modern period, like for instance Carthage's colonies in the ancient world. We don't call every empire colonialist because they weren't. Colonialism isn't even about how the new regime came to power, but about how it operates. Simply put, typical empires build their territories up, while colonial ones simply drain wealth out of them. There is a very clear pattern of development that typifies a colonial system, with most infrastructure located and designed to facilitate said draining.
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  627. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
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  628.  @Ikabcda  You could say the same for the west - anything put out by Russia, or for that matter China too, is immediately dismissed as propaganda and/or lies. While their own reports are taken as gospel truth. Don't like hearing it in turn?...
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  629. @@gordonfreeman1359 Militarily. In terms of influence France has already lost to China, who's happy to let Russia handle the security side of that so they don't have to.
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  630. And in the end all of you are gonna be angry when they finally turn the big boom option to reassert their power. They're not gonna be interested in any negotiations on that program now.
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  631.  @User-jr7vf  Same reason nato left libya. It's a mess that no one wants to get entangled in. As soon as nato saw that, they turned around and left it to its own devices. Same reason china doesn't get involved in Myanmar as well. These things are traps, so you just don't let yourself fall into said trap.
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  632.  @Afrologist  Countries all around the world have already tried incentivising childbirth. It has barely made a dent in the birth rates.
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  633.  @Ayem427  I know what liberal IR thinks leverage is, and then what realist IR knows it is. There's a reason why one of those schools of IR is literally called 'real' lol.
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  634.  @paybacksuper3670  Actually no, his analysis hasn't been accurate at all. His predictions about this war were way off.
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  635.  @trogdor8942  I don't like discussing what the moral decision is, as I think moralizing as a whole is a destructive and corrosive endeavor. I'd rather have a ceasefire called and the matter decided politically i.e. through negotiation, whatever the result. But really I don't claim to have the answer to this war, I just know that moral argument isn't helping. So that's my real answer, which is just the first but imo absolutely necessary step - to 'de-moralize' the issue. And this applies to pretty much any issue.
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  636. Doesn't matter what you think of the process, the point is NATO has expanded. Cuba also welcomed Soviet forces onto its territory, but America didn't care about that either when it reacted harshly to it.
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  637. ​ @TheEinharjar NOTHING that's happened to Africa since independences compares to the absolute HORROR of what Europe did to it.
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  638.  @Lapantouflemagic0  You guys controlled the regions for long enough to have known. You didn't cos you didn't care, they were just extraction centers. That's not 'carelessness', that's criminal negligence.
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  639. ​ @bnfcj8987  A Chinese propaganda tool would not be dismissing China's ability to take on the US Navy. This vid resembles US propaganda more than China.
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  640.  @ice_sea5527  You ironically mentioned jail. Did you know the US has more people in prison than China does? Yes, that's despite the million or so in the Xinjiang internment camps, and despite that it has only a quarter of China's population. The US has about 2.3 million incarcerated, out of a population of 330 million. China has 1.6 million incarcerated, out of over 1.4 billion people. This isn't because China is merciful - it's neighbour India has almost as many people but only a third of the prison numbers - but because the 'land of the free' has ironically the largest number of unfree people in the world, by a huge margin. Yet it doesn't get called out for it.
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  641. That figure likely doesn't include all its ecosystem services, since it does those for free. It probably only includes the maritime industries that've been established which actually are monetized, such as oil, shipping and fishing. The oceans' value is a lot higher than just those industries.
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  642.  @amit6468  Who asked them to do everything before Oct 7? You know Oct 7 was called operation Al-Aqsa Flood for a reason.
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  643.  @thomaskalbfus2005  The US allying with Russia? Lolwut?! Why would either of them do that? Both nations hate each other, while the Russians are far more positive about China and the US far more negative. Also, the US and Russia is hardly a more equal partnership. And considering neither China nor Russia has as much power projection capabilities, an alliance between them is far from as unipolar as one between the US and Russia. Methinks you're reading far too much into your enthno-centric worldview, not to mention ethnicity based policy is a rather controversial idea in the US anyway (and has never been the basis of foreign policy for either country, losing out to the cold advantages of political pragmatism).
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  644.  @xway2  No country can join NATO of their own accord. NATO has to accept them. And NATO was expected to halt its eastward expansion. It didn't.
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  645.  @boulderbash19700209  The CCP doesn't have to win the war either. All they need to do is blockade Taiwan to draw the US into the area, then bombard the American navy with their home field advantage. Once the Americans are neutralized, Taiwan doesn't matter. Offer a peace treaty whereby their independence is recognized as long as they agree to never host any foreign military forces and the CCP wins without Taiwan losing any of its economic value to them (which an invasion would do). Taiwan doesn't really matter much, the US does. Taiwan is to China what Cuba is to the US. So if the US can't use it (like the Russians tried to with Cuba), then leaving it alone makes more sense than risking a costly invasion.
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  646. Bruh, you can find literally thousands of articles by traditional media explaining the Israel-Palestine conflict and its history. This idea that traditional media produces nothing good while Youtubers are the only decent source of news is just willful blindness in order to align with an internet meme narrative. Like literally just a Google search will show how wrong it is.
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  647.  @kienngo4601  Ru spends 8, not 12.
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  648.  @plc3653  "Look at Iran again, just kaboom their top leaders and then they bend to your will, and the people rejoice" - OMG! I'm done with this. There's no point trying to argue with someone whose understanding of the world is fit only for a Marvel movie. I sure am glad that I doubt you're in charge of foreign policy, for any nation. Cos your childish comic book superheroes take on how to solve problems would likely lead to ruin. Spoiler alert: The real world is neither simple nor easy. I'd have thought viewers of Caspain Report would understand that, but apparently the "kaboom!" (a sound effect only seen in comics, which again doesn't match what the real world version is like) crowd comes by here too. Please go back to debating whether Thanos was right. The rest of us have a complex and uncertain world to navigate. P.S.: Hating Maduro isn't the same thing as liking the idea of a US invasion. But I don't expect such nuances are easy for you to process, so whatever.
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  649.  @dr.embersfield1551  Russia has an alcohol problem instead. They don't necessarily drink more on average fwiw - the US has more people who drink (72% versus 58%) - but those who do drink drink a LOT (61% are heavy drinkers in Russia versus only 36% in the US), and hence die a lot more (77 deaths per 100k versus 28 per 100k in the US). So they're not great either. Numbers are from Our World In Data.
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  650. You could say the same for fundamentalists in the west too. And I don't mean Muslims...
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  651.  @andreg4575  In fact you're free to do that. Offer Ukr membership, but have north america leave it in exchange. See how well that goes down, even with Ukr themselves.
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  652.  @AW-zk5qb  Bruh, Pax America has hardly been peaceful, only peaceful for the west. America still has the most wars to its name. Even now, even a single of America's wars this century have orders of magnitude more deaths than ALL of Russia's wars this century. While China hasn't been to war in decades. The world literally voted America as the greatest threat to world peace just a few years ago, an in an American poll lol! It wasn't even close - second place was literally about a quarter of their score.
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  653.  @shiveshsingh3169  Trump isn't in power anymore, and Iran is still under sanctions. Also, the sanctions predate Trump as well - by a long way. Besides, what's the point investing billions into a project that's perennially at risk from the wild swings of American politics? We've never had an issue with Iran, while the US has been an extremely unreliable ally, so there's little reason for us to toe their line, if our govt. just had the spine to.
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  654.  @princepy2318  India's population growth rate is already at just around replacement rate - and still falling. Unlike China, which is gonna be facing a demographic catastrophe in the coming decades due to rapid aging. Population isn't India's problem - it's already sorting itself out, but gradually so. Sub-saharan Africa has fewer people, yet I'd say population is a bigger issue for them as it's still quite high and they aren't developing as fast as India.
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  655.  @aw8851  So? Population isn't about space. It's literally possible to fit the entire human population into land space the size of a small state if we all lived as densely populated as, say, Greater Tokyo or Manila. And even India has plenty of empty space, punctuated by some densely populated cities, but with plenty of land between them. That land may be used for farming, but if humankind could be convinced to live more efficiently (as the Japanese do, for instance), consider that you would literally have well over 95% of the planet's landmass available for all other uses. Population is an economics issue, it never was nor will be a space issue.
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  656. Thing is, just free trade and free movement doesn't sound very impressive. The impact will be very limited, owing to the 4 nations mostly not trading with each other much. There's far better markets for all of them, and much better sources of labour too, so CANZUK ends up looking pretty pathetic as just a free trade agreement. Hardly the shot in the arm Britain needs right now.
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  657. The US is kinda a counter-example to this. The nation is rich with resources of all kinds, both relevant to modern economies (such as oil) and old ones (plentiful fertile farmland). Russia also has a lots of resources, and while it ain't wealthy it is powerful.
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  658. You say that when they make a deal with China, but what about when they do it with America (like SA has for decades)? The US has killed more Muslims than China, not at home but through its endless wars in the ME.
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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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  660.  @someonespotatohmm9513  Bruh, Russia DID put forward terms for NATO. Years ago and also just before this war. They have consistently been dismissed. Also the relevant strike time difference isn't between Europe and Russia, it's between the US and Russia. And the US' missiles are way closer to Russia than their missiles are to the US. Precisely because of the Cuban crisis you mentioned, where the US got its way, and yet is closer than ever to Russia today, and creeping ever more. There was no 'reasonable' option - NATO hasn't been in any hurry to seriously negotiate with Russia for the last thirty years.
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  661. The problem with NATO is that the US leads it. NATO without the US may not pose a threat to Russia, but NATO with the US puts American forces far closer to Russia than Russian forces are to the US. Your argument only holds water in terms of the reciprocal positions of Russia with Europe, not Russia with America. America's position is far superior to Russia's, which is unbalanced.
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  662. Or, put another way, you might have had a point had Canada and Mexico been Russian allies and hosting Russian military forces against the US. But they aren't. When tiny little Cuba did that, America flipped out lol! The US is far too secure compared to Russia.
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  663.  @MrShpoulsen  No, this is common nowadays. People are so used to topics like this becoming inflamed that the expectation comments typically end up outnumbering the actual flame wars. You'll find a few long comment threads with said wars, but hundreds of comments anticipating them.
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  664. Also write a book about seapower that skips the entire non-western world...
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  665.  @accent1666  US prosperity was at its highest in the 3 decades following WW2 i.e. 1950s to 1980s, not the 80s and 90s.
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  666.  Ahmed Humud  The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  667.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  Maybe Amrika should stop suppressing Iyeran first.
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  668.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  Yes. The spelling change was deliberate, cos YT was being censorious again. And no, most of the world isn't doing that. It's mainly the west and its allies. They just have undue levels of influence over the global economy, particularly in finance, that they leverage. Cuba for instance has won the world's support almost entirely every year for over 2 decades at the UN. They're still isolated, purely because of ONE country. Iran too has most nations willing to trade with it, but for you know who's diktats. They at least still do trade in other currencies - those diktats hurt smaller nations like Cuba more than larger ones as they have less to offer to convince nations to refuse to play ball.
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  669.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  Oh also did you know Amrika has no issue with dictators? Again Cuba is a great example. They keep going on about Castro, but never mention Batista - its former dictator who got along great with. Or consider Gautemala, where they installed one. Or Iraq, where they helped the very man they'd oust years later. Or Iran, where they backed the Shah. Or Saudi Arabia, whose leaders they still back to this day. Or Vietnam, who they hypocritically court now despite their storied history with it, just to counter China. And that despite its govt. being the side they fought against. And so on..
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  670.  @Martin-ri4fg  How is NATO vital to the US? The US isn't in any danger. You're confusing its hegemony with the state.
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  671.  @MovieRiotHD  Have you checked the recent history of virtually the entire west? China's operations in Africa are really tame, which is why the Africans are accepting of them in the first place. And I'm not even talking about ancient history - the west mistreats its territories (for instance, see Puerto Rico for the US) and/or interfered heavily in subservient govts. (the Africans know a lot about this - google 'Structural Adjustment Programs') even to this day. Meanwhile, all the Chinese do is cold hard business - they don't have many conditions, which is what the Africans like about them.
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  672.  @SamPashmi  Lol the monarchy? That puppet who handed out our oil? Lol!!
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  673.  @fearlessleader343  "Why shouldn’t the US control the Philippines strategically...", "America won the Philippines fair a square. The Spanish gave it up..." - found the neocon lol! Everything is alright if the Americans do it, amirite?! ;)
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  674. The US just saw one of its war criminals die of old age without ever facing accountability. One general Colin Powell.
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  675. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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  676.  @Thedimensionalwarrior  The Churchill part isn't far wrong actually. He didn't kill as many millions as Hitler, but he still has the death of millions to answer for nevertheless - just Bengal alone comes to about 3 million
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  677. You think this is good? 'Precarious' might be a more realistic description of it. It's only good for as long as you can keep it up. If you watch this channels' previous Afghanistan video, you'll see they tried something similar, and it really bit them in the ass.
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  678.  @alainpannetier2543  This isn't about Russia. I meant he keeps recycling the same topic over and over cos of how fired up people are over it so as to farm views.
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  679. Where he is, I doubt it. He's probably happy if the regime there just leaves him alone.
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  680.  @BoxStudioExecutive  Who's in charge of Afghanistan again? Oh right. War, as the saying goes, is politics by other means. You failed in Afghanistan. Doesn't matter who was on top in the initial battle. You lost the war.
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  681.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  682.  @BadRussian77  It's hardly irrational. It's what you do when you can clearly see that inaction is merely a slow death. NATO will keep creeping closer anyway if Russia does nothing. Better to take a stand and try to set the new rules than to just let yourself be surrounded eventually. Shirvan recognizes that too - he pretty much says as much in the video. And really, this isn't even about NATO, but really America. Russia can threaten Europe so that keeps them in check. But apart from the nuclear option, they don't have any way to counter America. And America goes to war aplenty. That's what concerns them. When Russia put forces close to America, in Cuba, the Americans flipped out and have harshly punished poor Cuba ever since. If Russia had forces in Mexico and Canada, it might feel differently. But it doesn't. So it has to keep the Americans far away.
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  683. Tharoor himself only asked for 1 pound per year. It's meant to be a symbolic gesture, not actually making up for anything. Just setting the record straight, and conveying that in no uncertain terms to the British public that so likes glorifying their empire.
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  684.  @filipetome6738  China already produces microchips. They're currently already at 7nm, while TSMC is at 3. This puts them within spitting distance of South Korea and Japan, and just a few years behind Taiwan (which is also right next to them btw). It's also well ahead of the US in terms of microchip production, with America banking on TSMC to get them back in the game.
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  685. I find it telling how the vast majority of the video focuses on the intertribal and regional politics that shape Qatar, and here in the comments all people are interested in spamming is a reference to ONE LINE that occupied a few seconds of the video but that gets talked about ad infinitum by other videos on Qatar. Shows how little people are interested in actually learning something new, versus just regurgitating popular media narratives ad nauseam.
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  686.  @user-nc9pc3gr4c  Lmao! Gotta love them Pax Americana fanboys. The country that's literally THE nation that's been at war abroad almost continuously for most of the last century wants to believe it has benefitted the world. I suppose next you'll tell me the British Empire was a great civilizing force as well. Funny how the people from the colonies don't see it that way. Respect is earned - you don't earn respect by killing millions.
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  687. ​ @garethhahahah2037  Neither Iran nor North Korea make Kalibr missiles. And it's funny you bring that up for your argument considering that Ukraine is already fighting off of handouts, unlike Russia. And it's even more funny that you bring up fighting off China, considering that China and Russia have a common enemy in the US. They certainly have no interest in fighting for a long lost piece of tundra while America surrounds them with bases too, as they know who the real winner of that war would be. They're way more likely to fight together if the WW3 comes than to fight each other, and have carried out drills to that effect. You wish China is going to turn on Russia.
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  688. ​ @jak00bspyr72  "it won't stand a chance against the best armor modern industry can provide" - bruh a Polish-Russian war was simulated not long ago, even the video mentions it. Poland lost, badly. Not that I have much faith in these simulations, but they're at least better than some random guesswork in an internet comment. And btw, Russia doesn't rely on the supposedly poorly designed (in your opinion) Su-57 to cover its air - they literally have a popular series of anti-air defence systems to do it. As for NATO tanks not doing much, you can come up with excuses till the cows come home, but the fact is that the tanks were sold in the media by both western and Ukrainian pundits as vital to their offensive - and then when the offensive came they did diddly squat. That very rhetoric is now being trotted out for the great F-16s that're supposed to be the next great weapon to turn the war. We'll have to wait till next year to see if any of that bravado comes to pass.
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  689.  @deanfirnatine7814  It's funny how your numbers change lol! You say 94, other guy says 60. You can't even agree on your own stories lmao. 😅Also trying to call me 'Ivan' only shows how limited your worldview is, that you think I could only be Russian. Here's a hint - most of the worlds' nations aren't sanctioning Russia. There's actually a LOT of the worlds' nations I could be from.
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  690.  @ericjohnson7234  The Soviets were doing it, before America entered the picture and armed the rebels. By contrast the Americans lost without any great power intervention.
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  691.  @stoneymcneal  Pointing out that they share the US in common is arrogant, huh? That was really a fact. The 'inner strength' of the Afghans and Vietnamese is nothing more than your opinion. And what of your original comment, disparaging both the Afghans and Vietnamese? Sounds more like you're trying to save face after revealing your true colors i.e. the disdain you hold for others. And it's not working.
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  692. Well, umm...maybe Iceland?
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  693. The US has done just that for most of modern history, including taking action to correct their 'mistakes'. See why the regime in charge of Iran, one of their chief rivals, came to be for instance.
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  694. 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.
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  695.  @Repz98  Those prices are due to Argentina's very high import tariffs.
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  696.  @user-mm1nt1it5v  The youth understand nothing, they just break the rules. That isn't knowing exceptions, that's rejecting the rules to begin with. Sometimes that's called for, as the rules were either bad or are no longer applicable or viable. Often it's not.
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  697.  @me0101001000  Technically Dutch Disease isn't about economic diversification, although the lack of that does tend to come alongside it. It's about exchange rates, which are WHY their economies don't diversify - primary good exports impact their currency exchange rates and make all their other goods uncompetitive. Hence why even if they want to, it becomes very hard for them to develop other industries. Plenty of resource rich countries are trying to diversify - KSA for example - but failing.
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  698.  @AaronGuest  "took action to undermine the U.S." - LOL. Tell that to Vietnamese, Iraq, Libya, almost all of Central America and the Middle East. You're pretty much admitting how warmongering you guys are. And in case you haven't noticed, Taiwan is hostile to China and friendly with the US. And the US has never let the UN get in its way if it really wants to invade anyone, as seen in the case of Iraq. And you evidently don't know much history even close to your home either, since not only did you guys economically cripple Cuba (which is a lot more than China has so far done to Taiwan), you did actually foster an invasion of it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion Give up bro. Never mind making a case against China, you're not even able to defend the US properly.
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  699.  @AaronGuest  No. But the world isn't getting another country as superpower, because China lacks both the resources and the reach to take over as the sole superpower. Instead you'll have a multipolar world order, featuring the US, China, Russia, India, the EU and a few other regional powers (eg: Turkey). And yes, I do think the world would be better that way, as at least then the US wouldn't be able to go abusing its military power all over the world then.
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  700.  @scratchy996  I wonder if you'll ever have something tangible to contribute. Ukraine was literally poorer than Russia btw, not that facts seem to matter to you.
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  701.  @arsenalofdemocracy9985  The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. Russia did neither of those things, and in fact helped us get through them.
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  702. Comparing Mississippi to the UK leaves out the fact that the UK has over TEN TIMES the population..
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  703.  @SchamilBedinov  If this channel is biased in any direction, it's towards the west. Cos most of his viewership is western.
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  704.  @fjooyou  The comment you replied to talks about fairness, literally uses the word 'fair'. So does the comment that started this full comment chain. And I explained the difference twice now, stop trying to pretend all I did was mention a video. You went off on a rant against a strawman and now you're just trying to weasel out of admitting you can't tell the difference between concepts even children get. You're just running off on an anticommunist screed where it doesn't belong to the extent that I'm sure you don't even get what the original video that all our comments are under was about either (if you even watched it, which you don't give much sign of).
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  705.  Les Boyd  Vietnam can defend against China. It can't attack. And it won't allow itself to be used as an American base of operations either. There's...uhh, quite a bit of history there regarding that...
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  706.  @inigobantok1579  Bruh, the US has propped up more autocratic govts., and toppled more democratic ones, than China has. And continues to support autocracies all over the world to this day, basically depending on whether they serve American interests. China IS an autocracy, but it hasn't spread as much autocracy the world over as the US has. Just go do some reading on the modern history of the Middle East and South America for a change.
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  707. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling western viewers what they want to hear.
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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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  709.  @thewestisthebest6608  The US has invaded plenty of other countries, in even larger wars. And Russia has warned that this would happen for over 30 years. When he says 'standing up for yourself', he isn't saying standing up to Ukraine, but the US, just as the US in Vietnam wasn't 'standing up' to North Vietnam, but Russia. China is doing the same. After half a century of not pursuing Taiwan, the US changed things in 2017 and now Taiwan has been put in the same position that Cuba was in over half a century ago, when America blockaded, embargoed, failed at invading and finally sanctioned for half a century
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  710.  @playea123  "India knows that quite well and won’t go through with such a thing without US approval." - Bub we've literally detonated nuclear weapons without US approval, and eaten US sanctions for it (but not Russian sanctions fyi). The US has literally tried to intimidate us with its navy during the Bangladesh Liberation War, and it didn't stop us continuing on achieving the largest surrender in post-WW2 history. And all of this when we were still much poorer and weaker too. Compared to that history, we hardly seek US approval for who we trade with. You think the US is happy we bought Russian oil? We did it anyway.
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  711.  @jurgenforster8314  "I have a love that can be described as insanity for democracy" - Just because American democracy is broken doesn't mean the only alternative is one-party authoritarianism. There are other forms of democracy. Most democracies are actually multi-party, for instance - the US is the outlier there. First-past-the-post elections can be switched out for Instant-Runoff Voting, or Mixed-Member Proportional Representation, or Single Transferable Vote, or any number of others. America's other big democratic plagues - gerrymandering, campaign financing, arguably also their use of a presidential rather than parliamentary system of democracy (a system they're virtually the only country to make work, despite others trying and failing), no independent election commission, a politicized civil service selection system, etc. etc. all have solutions, many of which are actually used in various other countries. Even on development, India has also experienced rapid growth (albeit the development has not been on par with China) despite being a fractious democracy (and despite also following the same 'first-past-the-post' system as America, albeit many of the other features of their democracy are different). If you like democracy so much, note that America is hardly your only option for a model. In fact, it's actually one of the worst choices for one.
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  712. A book about seapower that skips the entire non-western world...
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  713. ​ @ministryoftruth8499  So you descend into calling people 'butthurt' when this thread started with you being butthurt about a seasoned naval historian not including your preferred European naval power? Are you new to the internet? Cos this is the most stereotypical example of idiocy in argumentation online. Followed up by the second most stereotypical example - asserting "this is simply a fact", with nothing to back up said fact than you stating that it is. More pertinent to this argument is that this 'fact' of yours completely ignores the argument actually being made, which has to do with older timelines rather than your vaunted recent Eurocentrism (based on just the last few centuries, the focus on which shows that you aren't listening). Why would I even bother trying to make it your problem, when you've demonstrated that you evidently don't care for proper engagement? Keep being butthurt about him excluding Portugal - much like with me, 'Don't try to make it his problem, you won't succeed'.
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  714.  @fatalshore5068  It comes from the Greek historian Thucydides, specifically his History of the Peloponnesian War. It's part of what's known as the Melian Dialogue.
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  715.  @someguy3766  "Russia is the only European country that never decolonised" - Russia ain't got nothing on France in that department. Even other Europeans, Frances' supposed allies, point that out.
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  716.  @crazysilly2914  That's an entirely subjective judgement, really just an opinion. I'm going off of a much more objective measure - death tolls. And so far the war has killed WAY more people.
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  717. You often hear people lamenting the lack of honest politicians. If only being an honest politician was enough...
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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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  719.  @la3424  Lol sure. Got nothing to come back with so just trying the old 'walk away with head held high' schtick. Go ahead then.
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  720.  @thor.halsli  No they didn't. Anyone who thinks they did hasn't been keeping track of stuff happening this century lol. Iraq alone was about a million unalived.
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  721. What this vid undersells is just how much Chi has invested into Mexico. So us is still buying Chi goods, just indirectly. This is true of many other much hyped alternatives as well, like Vietnam, with the only significant exception being India. In fact they did it even before tariffs, simply to benefit off of lower labor costs.
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  722.  @muhdafif2855  Maybe. Mostly what I hear of is just chip assembly, not chip R&D. There's a long way to go for Malaysia to rival Taiwan as the video says.
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  723. Indonesia will never be a battleground, because Indonesia is wisely staying out of all this mess. And it's large enough to not be simply trampled by the rampaging warmongers (particularly Australia, in Indonesia's case).
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  724.  @altrag You didn't mention the most volatile nuclear nation of them all, surrounding by enemies and not even willing to admit to having nukes - Israel.
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  725. If you want to know the future of Venezuela, just look to the past of Argentina. Chavez and Maduro's socialist profligacy has ruined them now, and this will next be followed by a lurch the other way right into the hands of oligarchic capitalist families who'll ruin them tomorrow. And then people like our white bread friend above will deny they were ever capitalist. As long as the debate remains about one silly extreme or another, the cycle will continue.
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  726.  @My_Take  Nice to see you finally promoting your channel honestly in your own name. Kudos! :)
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  727. The Peace Prize in particular has always been a joke. One of the most common jokes about it is that to win it you simply need to start a war in order to end it, which references the fact that people like Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Henry Kissinger have won it. Meanwhile, people like Gandhi never won it.
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  728. ​ @mahimjr1971  Economic sanctions have been pointed out many times before as an utterly ineffective tool that have achieved nothing. The only claimed success story of them is apartheid South Africa, which already had a strong local movement going and so the 'success' of sanctions there have been widely disputed. Apart from that they're one long string of failures at both deterrence and regime change. All they do do is make the local population hate you while making the home population feel like you're actually doing something while actually doing next to nothing. In other words, their biggest 'success' is marketing.
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  729.  @dana8503  Lol keep telling yourself that. Even the US' own generals don't have the kind of hubris you're displaying in their own forces. Those nuclear carriers are all giant targets for a navy that's purpose built to counter enemy navies. Not with "boats" lol, but subs, missiles, destroyers, frigates and even aircraft from the homeland.
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  730.  @Minchya  The further away you try to impose a blockade from, the less effective it will be. In fact blockades from such a distance have pretty much never been done, let alone done successfully. The further away it is, the more of global trade passes through it and the greater the disruption for everyone onwards. If you go further away than the Malacca Strait, you're gonna disrupt trade flows to India for example, whose assistance the US is trying to court. And Indonesia will never be happy with Australia aiming guns in its vicinity. Plus like I said, they can just up the ante.
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  731.  @AL-lh2ht  Lol their navy is literally purpose built to counter yours. Rather than massive floating airbases mainly used for inland power projection, they focus on subs, destroyers, mines and missiles. Those are all anti-ship craft, in addition to which they'll have the full complement of their air force as well, not just the planes they can fit on a handful of carriers and a long range bombers. There's a reason even American generals have expressed misgivings.
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  732. He'll be bombarded and downvoted by angry Indians if he does. And I say that as an Indian, albeit not one of those who'd likely be upset by it. In any case, it's a very recent development, with even the immediate fallout uncertain right now. Shirvan doesn't do breaking news (thankfully), so it might he might choose to wait and see for a bit for how things play out (time also means there'll be more analyses of the event that he can refer to for his video).
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  733.  @NuncEstBibendumX  Patreon supporters get to see vids earlier. It's one of the more common perks given out by content creators to their patrons.
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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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  735.  @deanfirnatine7814  Not for your economy, especially if you're Poland...
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  736.  @QWERTY-gp8fd  No they don't. They mass kill citizens of other countries instead, which apparently is somehow okay cos it's done as part of war (never mind that the war itself is never necessary). In large numbers btw. You'd have to go back to Mao's time to find Chinese numbers as large as the number of death from American wars. Which is well over half a century ago. You're right that it's nor comparable. America is worse, which explains global poll results like this - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
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  737.  @filipeleal6667  Btw, Colin Powell is still a free man. So is George Bush. So are the multiple leaders behind the Vietnam War, and every other US military action globally besides. Indeed, good luck finding anyone who's been punished for the US' many wars. So much for "only one of them is allowed to be politically expedient in going about punishing the criminals and continue to exist as normal." The country itself has also never been punished for any of its crimes. Hell, it doesn't even accept the jurisdiction of international institutions for that.
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  738.  @filipeleal6667  "And what crimes are you accusing Bush and Powell of committing, exactly?" - the death of anywhere from several hundred thousand to well over a million Iraqis. https://www.salon.com/2018/03/19/the-staggering-death-toll-in-iraq_partner/ And Powell was around during the Vietnam war too, which killed over 2 million Vietnamese. Not to mention scores of smaller military operations carried out by the US all over the world since, especially in the Middle East and South America.
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  739.  @wanderingwondering3437  Most likely they'll get bogged down somewhere and the situation will be stuck like that (the Kurds aren't easy marks). A resolution of some sort might arise if and when the geopolitical climate shifts, be it in months or years. Sadder part is that both the Kurds and Turks are used to such a thing. Well, at least it isn't as depressing as the old Roman-Persian contest aka 7 centuries of conflict that ultimately went nowhere.
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  740.  @adamdesouza6153  It's an unimpressive economic agreement. None of the members even trade with each other much, and that's not likely to change much just cos of some lowered tariffs. Some of them are also nervous about free movement.
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  741. SCRI is just an Australian attempt at weaning itself off of its sugar daddy. Won't make much difference to anyone but them. And as far as the quad goes, Australia is junior partner at best. As far as the rest of the world goes, Australia may as well not exist, replaced with just a big hole filled with earthy goodies. Or in other words, Australia really doesn't matter all that much.
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  742.  @curtisrigs5627  Liking your own comments is cringe lmao! 🤣 And don't try to pretend otherwise. It's been 1 minute since you posted it, and this vid is a week old. No one else could have come by so fast
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  743.  @GowthamNatarajanAI  "Every country only looks after itself" - did I say otherwise?
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  744. By that logic we should drop EVERYTHING we're currently doing and pour ALL of humanity's resources towards developing a benevolent AI for the sake the trillions of potential future humans who could have their lives improved even by just 1% by having said AI developed even just a day earlier than it otherwise would have. Also, if you're a believer in the afterlife, by that logic we should all embrace our deities and then together unalive the entire human race in order to 'live' forever in ultimate bliss.
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  745.  @frank031  Rome and other empires annexed territory. Did America ever claim it was trying to annex Afghanistan? No. So stop treating it as if it had. War is launched to accomplish lasting geopolitical goals, not just kill lots of people, which is why they spent 20 years trying to settle things in Afghanistan the way they wanted it to be. And they failed to do that. They couldn't settle anything, and the very enemies they ousted are now back in power again. This is similar to the British and Russian expeditions into Afghanistan, both of whom also overpowered their opposition initially, and yet both of which are widely considered failures. America doesn't get an exception here.
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  746.  @willywonka4340  Zeihan is basically an aspiring celebrity pundit who makes a living preaching American awesomeness to people who want to hear that. His 'deductions' haven't been 'spot-on', he just keeps putting out updates cos his videos are all low effort phone camera uploads that he can generate in a couple minutes.
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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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  748.  FATHOLLYWOODB123  If they weren't involved, the landings would've been nipped in the bud cos you'd have had over 3 million more soldiers to deal with. The east had long been a bigger battle
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  749. The British Empire touched more people than the Soviet one (Central Asia isn't a huge population center). As such, its' fuckups are a lot more damaging. Some even involve rising global powers (India, for example).
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  750.  @caioalmeida4139  That has very little to do with what I said, as my point is that there's nothing personal about this. If you insist on only working with 'friends' you like, you're gonna have a very limited pool of people to work with. Chinese or Slavic racism has little impact on Africans as there's barely any Africans over there. All that matters is that you read the fine print and, as long as it's a good deal, take it. If not, don't take it or, better yet, negotiate for a better one. That applies to normal life as much as countries. You can't go through life only working with your homies, unless you live in a village.
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  751.  @huaiwei  That's a strawman and you know it. I never claimed that.
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  752.  @jascrandom9855  Wut? Where have they ever done this? The only times I've ever seen the channel congratulate states for their regulatory policies is when said regulations were liberalized / reduced. I've literally never seen the channel praise an increase in regulations or state intervention.
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  753.  @skeletonwguitar4383  Not many of those are bigger than the Ethiopian war, western audiences just care about the people involved in them more than they do Africa in general. In fact the biggest war humanity itself has had since WW2 is African, and most people have never even heard of it. It's the Second Congo War, with over 5 million deaths. It's not even some ancient conflict - it occurred just over two decades ago. And yet most people don't even know it happened.
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  754.  @guytahan  Found the right-winger...
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  755.  @bucium7  Lol they did the opposite. Starting a war to bring peace? Well then I guess then that's what Ru is doing now too. So why're you opposing them huh?
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  756.  @ofthecaribbean  They will. But it'll take over a decade to make enough of them to match the collection of economic ties that came as part and parcel of being in the EU. Also, the UK has far less to bargain with than does the EU as a whole. They say it was about the UK regaining 'its rightful place in the world' - the problem is that that's probably right, but you might be surprised where that place actually is.
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  757.  @ofthecaribbean  The UK's glorious past has no bearing on its present potential, and the sooner Brits realize that the clearer they'll see their predicament.
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  758.  @matt1sullivan318  The Chinese have one foreign military base, opened recently, while the US has over 800. It was also placed at the will of the host govt., and said nation already hosts a multitude of other foreign military bases, including of the US. Didn't stop people in the West from scaremongering over it...
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  759.  @commandersafeguard10  All three are highly resource extraction based economies, especially Saudi Arabia. Turkey would be a better example of a Muslim nation not built on resource wealth, but of course it was founded very pointedly as a secular state.
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  760.  Rjej Rjej  Turkey. It has a bit, but so does India. Its economy isn't based on oil or gas. Even Indonesia is decently diversified.
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  761.  @krunkle5136  There have been govt. programs all over the world to make families more appealing/easy. They've all failed. Even the super rich don't tend to have proportionately large families, while the largest households come from those who have things hardest i.e. the poor.
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  762.  @nightlightabcd  Let's not forget that bullying is hardly just a Communist/Russian thing, but pretty popular in the US as well. Just ask pretty much the entirety of South and Central America.
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  763.  @Alpha-Cheeno  Well yeah, that's why I added Brazil and Indonesia there at the end. Other nations too I guess, but those three are the biggest economies that're likely not gonna be involved in the war.
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  764. The US abandoned that principle 2 decades ago, with Bush pulling out of anti ballistic missile agreements and ever since the US has sought to try to make itself untouchable - unsurprisingly her rivals responded by stepping up efforts to ensure she never succeeded. While most of the world learned to accept the possibility that they could be attacked, America as sole superpower found that too affronting and so actually made the world LESS safe in its futile quest to achieve absolute invincibility.
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  765. It's not about developing it, it's about avoiding losing market share. It matters less that Venezuela has it than that their competitor doesn't. Also Guyana's oil is cheaper to process than Venezuela's oil. The latter has 'heavy' and 'sour' oil, which basically means it requires much more extensive processing to be usable for anything beyond asphalt. Guyana's oil is cheaper to work with. Prior to this move, it was actually going to be Exxon that was expected to profit the most from their reserves.
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  766. Just wait until the us armtwists nato into setting up a base in japan. THEN look at who you're going to have on your doorstep. The Ru will be only too happy to oblige them. There's plenty of reason to be pessimistic, but not for the reasons you think. All of you keep defining yourselves by the grand moral narratives of ww2, and hence following a thought process that only makes a big war more, not less, likely. You're actively turning away pathways to peace in favor of ever more confrontation and hostility.
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  767.  @golagiswatchingyou2966  The Nazis killed a lot of people. Guess who's killed more people in this contest. Hint: It ain't the Chinese, at least not after Mao who's literally over half a century ago. It's funny seeing people considering the nation that's literally killed more people across the world, deposed more regimes while propping up dictators elsewhere, and even ironically has more people locked up, as the "good guy". The Nazis also went to war more, guess who's launched more wars in the last few decades, by a long shot? Hint: It again ain't the Chinese. "Era of stability and peace" - LMAO! Only a cushioned westerner would think that, since all the millions of dead were poor brown people they don't even think of.
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  768.  @Lando-kx6so  France and Germany are ahead, not on par. And the US, China, Russia, India and Japan are also ahead. Some for the military muscle, others their economic might, and some both. The UK is welcome to duking it out with South Korea for 8th place in the global pecking order tho.
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  769. Iran is just responding to the game of chess the US was already playing against them. They don't want a ME alliance against them, which is what the US was striving to create.
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  770. You think flooding tunnels is a new idea lol? We've known about that tactic for literally millennia, and we still built tunnels. Did you know we also build tunnels for handling floodwaters? Put those two together and you'll know why flooding doesn't work.
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  771. Pretty much people all over the world see Canada as basically the US' little bitch already. And Russia is mostly concerned about the US, not Ukraine or the rest of NATO. They see NATO as little more than a front for US power projection. So to emulate the US Canada relationship, they would have to bow down to the US. They're never gonna accept that position. Neither will China btw, who is facing similar pressure as the US endeavours to surround it too.
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  772. The video never claimed the Yuan would replace the dollar, it's only you people who assumed that. Nations all over the world want independence from US financial control, why would they replace it with the Yuan? It's de-dollarisation, not Yuan-isation.
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  773. The problem with blockading the Malacca Strait is that it isn't just China that is affected. All the downstream and surrounding nations will be hit, hence none of them will be in favor of it. Just cos India and China are at war doesn't mean any of them will want to get involved. And that makes it a tricky maneuver to pull off. It's not like blockading the Sea of Japan, which only affects Japan.
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  774.  @iandavidvillaloboswong5180  'we simply don't have any enemies' - as long as you abide by the Monroe Doctrine...
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  775.  @iandavidvillaloboswong5180  It isn't him, it's YT. They have an automod that's just getting worse by the day.
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  776.  @ScuffTuff  'about foreign powers interfering in the Americas' - after their independence, the one who's mostly 'interfered' who was unwelcome in SA is the US. Any other influence has come with the support of the local government. The doctrine pretty much curtails how much against US interests the nations of SA are allowed to go i.e. it dictates their foreign policy. Cuba found that out to its cost. As have others at various points over the years. The just learned to play within the US' rules, substituting policy for rhetoric. It's also ironic that the US even talks of having a 'backyard', when it hypocritically attacks such ideas from other powers.
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  777.  @Oleca-ej7qo  Data contradicts you. The fertility rate of Iraq is 3.4.
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  778.  @JruKfg  so, you guys are still planning to continue being economically illiterate?
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  779. ​ @Muzakman37  Yes I know he had caveats but my comment wasn't so much about his claims in the video so much as the fact that he chose to make the vid in the first place. It has nothing to do with the Kremlin or the war, I reflected on the channel itself. He's been pumping out video after video on the same thing for months now, as if nothing else is going on in the world. That's plain pandering. If he has nothing much to report on the war, he invents possible doomsday scenarios next in order to keep coming up with Russia-centric content. Hell there's even other wars to cover, say in Yemen or Ethiopia, not to mention other geopolitics content. But no, it's just Russia over and over. Or perhaps next he'll speculate on a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, yet another instance of using this event to boost his sub count. Some of us used to like this channel for covering stuff that wasn't widely covered by the media, yet now he's literally shifted all his content to stuff that's being done to death by the media, tellingly it's especially the western media, already. There's other stuff going on in the world, which are all well worth knowing about.
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  780. The real question is how many more countries the US would have invaded by then...
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  781.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  Uncle Sam huh? If only I believed that was where your loyalties lay. But I've seen too much of your kinds of comments in recent years (you're not the only Indian here), so I can recognize a bhakt when I see one.
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  782.  Sjwaria Law  Panic doesn't have to take the form of riots and rebellion. As the video says, the most common effect of panic is just to warp priorities. It destroys people's, and hence eventually govts, sense of perspective and proportion, which leads to bad decisions and misallocated resources. Just cos the media doesn't cover the effects of this (because the damage it does takes the form of worsening more mundane things that sensationalist media don't typically care to cover) doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And the difference can literally be life and death - distracting attention from more 'normal' healthcare concerns, for instance, can literally mean more people die than would have had people been more calm and rational about things.
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  783.  Sjwaria Law  Well, when your 'point' isn't about the actual situation being discussed in the video, I think that might be the appropriate response. If you want to go off on a tangent to points unknown, feel free.
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  784. Meanwhile it's too late for Colin Powell, who died just recently.
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  785.  @TheJoshtheboss  No, this channel isn't biased against so much as biased for. For the west in this case. And the reason likely has little to do with his identity but rather the identity of the majority of his viewership i.e. he's pandering to viewers.
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  786.  @boxingboxer  Which borders? Modern Ethiopia's borders aren't the same as those of the historic civilization. Modern Ethiopia is way larger than it used to be, and as such has way more competing large ethnic groups. It used to be a third of its current size.
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  787. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  788. What harsher responses are you imagining? They're already under sanctions, so they've nothing to lose now. The only escalation possible would be all out military intervention, which has been ruled out. You can't really intimidate them anymore at this stage.
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  789. The best option for India is just going through Iran, as it had originally planned. And in doing that, it isn't China that's screwed us over, but the US. America and its never-ending feud with Iran is hurting our interests, even beyond just this project. We don't have any issue with Iran, but because of the US we have to sacrifice them.
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  790. ​ @iminyourwalls8309  Australia is a poor example, as its reach isn't global. In fact there's only been two global military powers in the modern day - the USA and USSR - and the European colonial empires before that. Yes, even China doesn't cut it, as it's military isn't built for expeditionary i.e. far from your borders warfare, and that still hasn't changed much. Almost all nations both present and past have armies designed to engage in the kind of conflict which is typical - wars on their borders. Cos building a military that's able to conduct long distance operations without a link to the homeland is extremely expensive. How expensive? Consider that the US isn't just the highest military spender (by far) in the world, it's also the second highest spender PER CAPITA (which adjusts for economy size) in the world (Israel is the first, narrowly). That's hardly typical, for instance China falls to 58th place per capita. It costs A LOT to have global operations. Hence almost no one does it, and hence whatever their morality they simply can't conduct major invasions far from home. America really is pretty unique, part of only a small club of nations that do this.
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  791.  @afterfall8133  The last thing India wants is a 2-front war. Germany...lol! Australia presents no military threat to anyone. Japan is no mood for war, certainly not on another's behalf - the most they would do is allow themselves to be a staging ground for the US. Indonesia has no interest whatsoever in getting involved in all this - they have enough domestic concerns to deal with. Ditto Malaysia. The Philippines is actually somewhat friendly with China nowadays, and certainly doesn't desire a war with it. That leaves just Vietnam, the only nation besides the US that might be willing to actually go to war. But for Taiwan? Ehh...
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  792.  @ashwinnair9862  They're about as 'fortified' as the US' border with Mexico - through which thousands pass each year. The soldiers on the border are there to stop small groups of armed militants, not a horde of refugees. They aren't allowed to fire on unarmed civilians, so if a real refugee crisis did occur the border forces would not fire on them, just like US border guards don't.
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  793.  @wendten2  "you don't have to give attribution to long dead people" - I disagree. Not giving attribution allows others to just pass off their wit or wisdom as their own. This misleads people about the intellect they think they're listening to. Every video of his has people praising him for his one-liners as if he came up with them. Some of those people won't know he didn't, and mistakenly think he's cleverer than he is.
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  794. No, the Chinese foreign minister recently said their friendship with Russia remains "rock solid". They were never going to participate, and frankly it would have been embarrassing for Russia to rely on that. China's role is simply to pretend neutrality while quietly blunting the effect of the sanctions. They even have their own alternative to SWIFT, as does Russia, which the two can share.
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  795.  @ice_sea5527  Those surveys were done by foreign, even American, polling agencies. You think they're snitching on their participants to the CCP? Is it so hard for you to believe that people approve of a govt. that has made them richer? China isn't even the only example of this. For instance, Brunei is even more authoritarian than China, yet there's almost no push from its people to overthrow the regime. Why? Cos Brunei is so rich that the regime indulges its people into submission.
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  796. ​ @Leptospirosi  Less than 10% of Sri Lanka's debt is owed to China, they owe more to Japan and yet I see no conspiracies about that. Most of their debt isn't to either tho, it's to private bond markets - which are mostly western. The port meanwhile didn't involve their debt at all - it was leased, with no debt being cancelled over the transaction. And the Sri Lankan govt. itself put forth the deal. There's a good article on the Diplomat that busts all this myriad myth-making around that port. Or if you prefer video, Polymatter has a vid on the overall debt trap meme (and yes, it's literally been called a meme by researchers who've looked into it). If you want detailed analysis, the Rhodium Group has a report on their global lending history, or there's also the How China lends paper.
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  797. Whenever you hear the phrase "rules-based order", you should roll your eyes. The only rules that count are that of the dominant power. Australia isn't even the worst offender in this regard - at least they didn't straight out invade nations for not playing ball (unlike a certain superpower...). The rest of the world isn't gonna be fooled by sanctimonious moralism from storied imperialists.
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  798.  @mimas165  Russia is currently trying to stop NATO from expanding, after having their requests for the same dismissed for over 30 years. That has nothing to do with Venezuela. As an oil producer, Russian oil is very much profitable.
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  799.  @kateryna7872  Bruh, you're exuding as much armchair overconfidence here as every commentator on this topic, both pro and anti-Russian. How you think you know the inner workings of Russia is beyond me. Are you some Kremlin insider under a fake account or something? Cos if not, then your claims have as much validity as the people you're arguing with.
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  800.  @sinephase  Lmao it's amazing how naively blinded by empty rhetoric people are willing to be. The US has literally toppled govts. around the world and you think they wouldn't do stuff like this. They literally have a record, whereas for China it's mostly just you going off your distaste for their political system (or racism, as the case may be).
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  801.  @kianono3209  The CCP doesn't have to invade. All they need to do is blockade Taiwan to draw the US into the area, then bombard the American navy with their home field advantage. Once the Americans are neutralized, Taiwan doesn't matter. Offer a peace treaty whereby their independence is recognized as long as they agree to never host any foreign military forces and the CCP wins without Taiwan losing any of its economic value to them (which an invasion would do). Taiwan doesn't really matter much, the US does. Taiwan is to China what Cuba is to the US. So if the US can't use it (like the Russians tried to with Cuba), then leaving it alone makes more sense than risking a costly invasion.
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  802. Has Russia invaded Finland recently? Or Sweden? It's respected the status quo wrt both countries for the entire Cold War and beyond. It's NATO that's expanded in recent years. It wasn't supposed to, but it did so anyway. It expanded even WITHOUT any Russian military action btw, as the expansion precedes Crimea or Georgia or Ukraine. And no, countries can't join just cos they might want to - NATO has to let them in. Now they're putting their foot down. The alternative is to do nothing, and watch their position steadily dwindle.
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  803.  @dain6250  You're right, NATO =/= USA. Rather NATO is just one extension of the USA, which also has operations beyond that. But that hardly matters lol, cos they still represent an arm of American global hegemony. Specifically the part of it that matters to Russia. The other parts matter to Latin America, the ME and the Asia Pacific, but NATO handles Europe.
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  804.  @dain6250  It's not a surprise that they wanted to join NATO, what was expected by Russia was that NATO would decline. It was meant to not expand further east. It didn't live up to that expectation. Also this isn't really about them and you know it. You're deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room - America. NATO isn't a concern because of them, it's a concern because of the US. NATO puts American forces far closer to Russia than Russian forces are to the US. How do you think the US would react if Russia somehow had military forces planted in Canada and Mexico (with their permission ofc)? When tiny little Cuba did that, the US flipped out. Russia is simply done with letting the US get any closer to its borders. To stay silent is to quietly let their position get worse.
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  805.  @dain6250  Lol, when America isn't happy with how NATO operates, it just goes to war on its own terms, and often drags NATO into it. Even if said war faces widespread international condemnation, they still do it AND get away with it. Whatever claims NATO might make about how restrained it might be mean nothing as long as America leads it, and America remains the most trigger-happy nation in modern history (yes, even more than Russia).
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  806.  @rafaelw8115  Neither Russia nor China has pretended anything, they've both gone to Africa for business and said as much. The investment they bring is needed. See Gyude Moore, an actual African policymaker, on why they prefer China. Also look up the IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs and how those went. Africa went with China precisely cos China doesn't do that.
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  807.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  Lol you're definitely not an Iranian. Or an expat one at best. And the US, the country with the most wars to its name since WW2, bringing peace? Lmao!
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  808.  @enternalinferno  Yes there is a dispersion of wealth - it flows from the eastern richer provinces to the poorer west via a range of social programs and loss-making govt. services. The wealthier provinces are net tax contributors and the poorer ones recipients. This isn't even unique to China - most countries do this. Just cos they're poor doesn't mean the state isn't doing anything.
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  809. ​ @SirCheezersIII  Err...they went in with 200k troops, which isn't their whole army by a long shot. They've lost about a tenth of that according to estimates. That isn't to say they're doing fine - it's predicted their economy will contract by about 10% this year - but that's nothing compared to Ukraine whose economy is expected to contract by over 50% and whose military is itself saying they're running out of ammunition. Even Turkey to the south is facing an economic crisis, without a war, yet no one's saying predicting their collapse yet. As for brain drain, it's an issue pretty much everywhere outside of the first world, including my own country. We're used to dealing with it, as Russia would be too. I'd worry more about the world as a whole, as it's being pushed ever closer to WW3. Not simply by Russia - the west has managed to antagonize nations across the world. China has just told Lloyd Austin they won't brook interference in Taiwan. You're pushing Iran (see the recent IAEA resolution) right at a time when you should be mending ties with them to secure alternate fuel supplies. At this rate we're all gonna be in for a hard time in the coming years, not just Russia.
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  810. @Kaushal Batavia No that is not what defense means. 'Containment' is not defense btw, however much the Americans like to pretend that. And even our own EA minister pooh-poohed the idea of 'Asian NATO'. That assumes everyone is going to follow the Americans into a war, even if they haven't been attacked themselves. If you think that's going to happen, you're being very unrealistic and naive. National interest come first, not American interests. And fighting a war is not in any of our interests unless it involves us already. Western powers come and go, but we and the Chinese will still be here. The last thing we need is a more unstable region, cos unlike the Americans we have to live with it, while they can always run off back home afterwards.
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  811. @Kaushal Batavia India specifically did NOT choose an alliance. We literally founded the Non Aligned Movement. And even today we're not letting the Americans push us to abandon Russia just cos of their conflict, nor to dictate to us who we're allowed to trade with despite the threat of sanctions from them (look up CAATSA about that). Our interests don't all align with the US, hence why we ensure we don't need to rely on them. Even a nation far more in alignment with the Americans - Japan - has still also suffered for it (no, not the nuclear bombs - look up the Plaza Accords and what they did to the Japanese economy for more on that).
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  812.  @ParallelComparison  That tier list is a nicely structured set of opinions. Always nice when people think putting their opinions in a table or some other organized format somehow makes it more than just an opinion. But no, it doesn't. I'd back Russia, China or India in a war between them and UK, France or Israel anyday, either 1v1 or in teams (leaving aside the hilarity of us fighting alongside the Chinese). I'd rate Turkey considerably higher than Canada lol, as I would Iran too. But hey, these are just opinions, but I don't pretend otherwise.
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  813. They aren't. The author has deliberately chosen his examples to fit that thesis. He skips Portugal, for instance. As well as the entire non-western world (for example, the Majapahits of Indonesia).
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  814. 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.
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  815. It's easier, not more difficult. They can simply blockade it, something Russia can't do with Ukraine cos it has the west on the other side. That won't let them conquer it ofc, but their primary goal would be to ensure the US can't use it as another staging post.
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  816. @Zaigham Randhawa Being Muslim doesn't mean all people's are the same, whatever the concept of the worldwide ummah might suggest. Hell, the various competing tribes in Afghanistan itself each have their customs and tribal loyalties, even if they're all Muslim. Global religion erases local differences in name only.
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  817. Whatever else you may think of him, Lenin was no fool. Far from it.
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  818. Just wait until the us armtwists nato into setting up a base in japan. THEN look at who you're going to have on your doorstep. The Ru will be only too happy to oblige them. There's plenty of reason to be pessimistic, but not for the reasons you think. All of you keep defining yourselves by the grand moral narratives of ww2, and hence following a thought process that only makes a big war more, not less, likely. You're actively turning away pathways to peace in favor of ever more confrontation and hostility.
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  819. Oh, I guarantee you'll soon be completely sick and tired of hearing about the Prisoner's Dilemma. They'll keep bringing that idea up so often you'll eventually end up hearing it in your dreams...
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  820. NATO expansion precedes any Russian annexations. It's been happening regardless. They're simply done with putting up with it.
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  821. Interestingly, the biggest beneficiaries from this are the very people the Democrats themselves are nervous about - Sanders and Warren. Trumps' image is hurt, but then so is Biden. So when the mainstream Dem candidate is vulnerable, who to turn to but the non-mainstream ones? They might have just ended up playing themselves out of pulling off another Hillary in 2020 i.e. this time the radicals will have to come to the fore. The fight that plays out then should be fascinating to observe - Trump fighting Sanders / Warren, while Sanders / Warren also fight their own party establishment. Fun times! ;)
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  822. @Thomas Singer I actually rather hoped Trumps' election would spur Americans to recognize how shitty their democratic system is. Unfortunately, while Trump has been a spectacular showpiece for its vulnerabilities, his opponents have been massive disappointments in that they've proven to be as much beholden to his cult of personality as his supporters are (just in the opposite direction). In other words, all they care about is replacing him, not fundamentally changing the way their democracy functions. It's as if they think all will be well so long as the orange man on top is gone. -_-
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  823. ​ @boulderbash19700209  Not really. The nuclear button is far overblown. No one's gonna launch any nukes just cos some soldiers died far away from home - hell, the US and Russia fought wars all over the world for decades and never launched any nukes against each other. Nukes only become a possibility when a nation is actually being invaded, making it a matter of bare survival. The US has lost soldiers abroad from all its myriad past and ongoing wars and yet no one expected that to lead to nuclear armageddon. Cos no one wants to be the first to start a nuclear war. Also, numbers are largely meaningless - the nations that have nukes, including China, stopped making more simply because they don't need more. Just a handful of them is enough to guarantee tens of millions of deaths, which is enough of a deterrent. Also, while Russia most likely won't send its army to fight for China, they very likely will extend a nuclear shield over it aka any American nukes on China will risk not just a Chinese but also Russian response. Russia might not want to get its hands dirty, but it absolutely will gleefully look forward to the US losing a lot of its military might in a war with China. So serving as China's nuclear guarantor works for them - it ensures the war stays conventional and drawn out. They need the American military depleted, as they've already got enough against its nuclear arsenal. So keeping the war conventional serves them just fine.
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  824.  @justsefa1843  You can. Gaza, see. It doesn't just target one word, it's trying to understand what's being said and run it by whatever algorithms it uses to determine if it's okay or not. And it does all across the site, on all sorts of topics, and frequently makes mistakes. You'll sometimes find even completely uncontroversial stuff is removed. It's a lot more random and dumb than you're imagining. Changing a few things here and there confuses it, for now at least. I guess they'll eventually hand over the responsibility to an AI, if they haven't already, if they're ever good enough for the task.
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  825. Whenever you hear the phrase "rules-based order", you should roll your eyes. The only rules that count are that of the dominant power. Australia isn't even the worst offender in this regard - at least they didn't straight out invade nations for not playing ball (unlike a certain superpower...). The rest of the world isn't gonna be fooled by sanctimonious moralism from storied imperialists.
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  826. Russia cannot and will not give up its 'paranoia' as long as NATO is led by the US. The whole reason why Russia is so paranoid about NATO has little to do with the countries of eastern Europe, it has to do with America. And that isn't an idle fear btw. If NATO was a purely European force, with no American involvement or participation, Russia might be a lot more comfortable with it.
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  827.  @christianbeske2417  In the words of Margin Call, "There's 3 ways to make a living: Be first, be smarter or cheat." You lost out on being first, but there's still the other two options available to you...
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  828. Encouraging child-bearing has been tried in loads of places around the world. With very limited results. At most it gets some people to have the kids they wished to have already but were financially unsure of, but that's it. It doesn't raise your birth rate above replacement levels. Few people actually want more than two kids, and most are happy with one (or none). About the only exception to this are a few highly conservative religious communities, and they're not typically the most economically useful types of people.
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  829.  banana aya playa  How many kids do you want to have? Remember that you need a growth rate of at least 2.1 to be sustainable. And since plenty of other people don't want to have kids, that means you and others like you are gonna have to raise some pretty BIG broods to make up for that. You up for that? And how many others like yourself do you think there are in the population, for how many kids per household? The evidence just isn't on your side on this one.
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  830. It did both. It was already short, and now it's even more acute.
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  831.  @plc3653  Lol, if only change was as easy as assassinating a leader. You've got to be pretty naive to believe you can achieve what you want with a single bullet or precision strike. Countries have had that ability for ages, but it isn't employed because it mostly isn't effective. Unless the situation is ideal, if you want a certain change, you're going to have to steer everything towards it, and even then you might fail. Else all an assassination, or even a series of such killings, would do is create even more chaos and uncertaintly, and may even end up hurting your own goals / interests. Nations occupy other nations they've conquered to ensure things play out the way they want them to. And yes, that includes even ensuring some possibly noble humanitarian goal is actually achieved - it doesn't happen automatically.
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  832.  @plc3653  "So you're saying you're gonna wait until it gets absolutely the hell before taking any actions?" - no, I'm saying your 'solution' will have to be a lot more bloody and destructive than you seem to think it'll be, and that it's not much of a solution at all i.e. there's a very good chance it'll just make things worse. Also, why're you acting like the people of Venezuela have 'consented to your military intervention'? Has anyone asked them if they want one? Is there some poll of the populace there that you're working off of that I'm not aware of (and no, polling Venezuelan immigrants isn't the same thing). Stop acting like they're going to like the results - we've already heard that rhetoric before, such as with Libya. And if they haven't consented, then they haven't accepted any risks either. You're just forcing it onto them.
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  833. ​ @davidblair9877  It doesn't justify it, you're just strawmanning it to suit your own biases. The argument is about pointing out hypocrisy. The fact of the matter is when Russia or anyone else outside of the west steps out of line, they get piled on with punishment for it. Even for sovereign internal matters, like Cuba or Iran has been (so it's not just about war). When the west, and especially the US, does stuff - including full scale invasions - it suffers nothing in response. No sanctions, no American president wanted by the ICC, nothing. The west talks big about a 'rules based international order', but the rest of the world just rolls their eyes at those words cos it's usually their rules for everyone else. It's basically a similar argument as when people pointed out Europe's hypocrisy in so 'compassionately' accepting Ukrainian refugees - when just a few years before they'd reacted angrily at the influx of non-European Syrian refugees, including paying Turkey billions just to keep them out.
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  834.  @ernstwiltmann6  It wasn't just Merkel, the German population itself was spooked. The govt. acted in accordance with that.
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  835. He already has two whole videos dedicated to explaining the CFA Franc.
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  836. Ukraine's military is irrelevant. Ukraine's population is not. What Russia doesn't want is what the US just finished being humiliated by - an insurgency. And the Taliban were a small share of the Afghan population. Ukraine would be most of the occupied population.
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  837.  @eurosensazion  I didn't say any affected Armenians weren't around anymore, but rather that the Turks responsible as well as even the Turkish institutions responsible weren't around anymore.
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  838.  @altrag  Putin assuming that Ukraine wanted to be part of Russia makes little sense considering that he literally invaded Crimea after seeing them REJECT Russia. It doesn't fit as an explanation for Russia's actions at all.
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  839. ​ @altrag  I spoke of Ukraine as a whole, and you bring up the Crimean vote? I never denied the Crimean vote in the first place, but the 2014 revolution literally kicked out a pro-Russian govt. It was a rejection of Russia, except in certain breakaway parts. But Russia hasn't invaded only those parts of the country that called for it, it's invaded all of Ukraine, which had rejected them. It'd be silly to imagine they thought the rest of the country wanted it after the 2014 revolt.
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  840. inb4 everyone is asking him to talk about Russia and Ukraine lol! The great thing about Shirvan is that he also covers stuff that doesn't get as much attention. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  841. Tbh I think it's sad that the top comments on this video are takedowns of the sponsor rather than a discussion of the actual main subject of the video. Shows how little people care about this. I bet there'll be fewer views and comments overall as well. :( This is the kind of less reported content that I WANT to see more of by Caspian, instead of the umpteenth video on Ukraine or China that already get tons of coverage from the rest of the media. But no, it seems others only want him to follow the media herd. -_-
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  842.  @joshklaver47  "Where do you think those people go in search of a better life" - By that argument what you should be doing is reducing the carbon footprint of western lifestyles to begin with, which would have the additional benefit of reducing the impact of the people already in the west too. But of course that would involve you lot having to make sacrifices yourselves. And of course we can't have that happen, can we? 😏
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  843.  @andreg4575  In fact make an entire pan european alliance if you want, even with the uk. It still isn't the same. Nothing about this is about europe, cos europe matters little to anyone. This is about the us. Always has been, always will be.
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  844.  @premprasun1516  Likely not a mistake, but not propaganda either. This is a geopolitics channel. This video just wouldn't have been spicy enough if he hadn't brought up security issues. Conflict is what his viewers are here for, and he knows it.
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  845. Russia has other options. India is also a friendly nation to Russia, and a rival of China. And there's no claims to worry about there. So they can always forge military pacts with both - with China against America, and with India to balance out China. Works for Russia against America and China, works for India against China, and works for China against America again. Meanwhile the only one of those that America can ally with is India, and that'd be against China, not Russia.
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  846.  @taterkaze9428  Both countries have very friendly relations, both among their people (over 70% of Russians think positively of the Chinese) and their respective leaders (who've met dozens of times). And both have issues with the US.
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  847. ​ @dirtypure2023  A lot of traditional media also run their own YT channels now, including with comment sections. And a lot of traditional media websites also had comments available under their articles. What's more, Youtubers are literally closer to TV personalities than most of the people who pen traditional media articles. As for TV talk shows, that's not where you should be looking for an analysis of a complex situation anyway. Most of the big channels also put out many longer form programs, usually categorized as documentaries, that serve that purpose, while the talk shows are only just there so as to showcase the perspectives and views of the various players in the story. And Youtube vids like this are literally themselves summarized accounts for those without the time or inclination to dive deep into the details of the topic. Lastly, "The reason youtubers and alternative media have a much better reputation and often much better viewership is because the bias is up front without deception" - excuse me, but what makes you so confident of this? Youtubers need to make money too, and indeed function off of very similar mechanisms as traditional media (ad revenue and/or 'subscribers' aka Patreon). Or it just the existence of the comment section on YT? In which case, read what I opened this reply with again.
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  848.  Accelerationist  India has far greater diversity than the former Yugoslavia, but guess which one stayed together and grew. Most countries are quite diverse, and you learn to make do with that. Wishing diversity away doesn't make it go away - that happens through far uglier methods that also happen to retard socio-economic progress a lot. Whether you like diversity or not, in most places (save a few countries, like Japan or Iceland) you have to learn to adapt to it. The alternative is far worse. And plenty of countries have learned, btw. The ones who complain are typically from places that are now having to face up to that challenge. I'm guessing you're from one of them.
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  849. The real question is how many more countries the US would have invaded by then...
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  850.  @codercrisYT  Ah yes, everyone who agrees with me is a free thinker and everyone who disagrees is a sheep. What an independent mind!
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  851.  @codercrisYT  We are living in the information era. So suck it up and deal with competing perspectives. You don't get to gatekeep what is and isn't propaganda.
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  852.  @134343  No. Carbon emissions are not the only form of environmental damage that matters. Messing up hydrological ecosystems can also be pretty bad. That's why the environmental movement isn't a huge fan of dams and hydropower either, despite that they're also a renewable and non-carbon emitting source of power.
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  853.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  854.  @TumpsBudGuy  Well the higher end estimates of the Battle of Grozny are about 11,000 killed both civilian and military on both sides combined. Contrast that with about a quarter of a million deaths for Afghanistan, and over double that for Iraq.
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  855. ​ @abubakrmuhammad4164  If you want to speculate about the world 50+ years from now, feel free to write sci-fi. :) No offense, but a lot of stuff can happen in 50 years, not just the expected decline of the Russian population. 1) All the models we make of time periods like that implicitly assume everything carries on like they are now. Which Russia especially knows all too well, as no one would've predicted the complete collapse of the Soviet Union even 10 years before it happened, let alone 50. 2) You're also looking at things from a very limited perspective - there are more countries in the world than just China, Russia and America. 50 years ago China wasn't even a major world power. 50 years hence who knows what state India will be in, or Japan or even Kazakhastan for that matter. This isn't merely a tripartite matter even just today, let alone 50 years from now. 3) Or maybe we'll invent teleportation (the internet was barely a thing 50 years ago too), and then all bets are off since suddenly world trade is majorly disrupted and geographic location becomes a lot less important. And so on...
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  856.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  Btw did you know Amrika is one of only two nations that taxes people globally? The other is Eritrea, whose reach is negligible. Every other nation doesn't do that, cos they don't have the control to. But Amrika is a rule unto itself, with the financial leverage to do it, which it uses. There are no sanctions that everyone has collectively decided, rather just ones that they abide by shaped by others. It's no different from why most nations don't accept Taiwan as an independent state. China is one of the few countries that can similarly exercise power. Amrika has just been doing it longer, so everyone is used to it and some, like you, think it's the world lol.
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  857.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  And I don't care if you're not Amrikan. You chose to get on a moral pedestal, I'm simply knocking you off of it. None of the things I mentioned are your fault anyway, even if you were Amrikan. You've just clearly fallen for the moralist narrative of the *est, hence I'm debunking it.
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  858.  @deathrabbit8710  Thanks! And best wishes to you too. 😊
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  859.  @thepax2621  'Left alone' lmao! I guess the whole world voting against you at the UN for decades now was all about nothing. Every year they vote on...nothing lol.
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  860.  @User9681e  Their air defences have already been penetrated multiple times.
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  861. He didn't start the war, he joined it. Cos the war was already affecting him. Had been for years.
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  862. Most of his viewership is western. Who do you think he's going to favor?
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  863.  @Martin-ri4fg  You know what else leads to inflation? Sparring with China. Guess what both T and B share in common on foreign policy...
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  864.  @aliazarmehralparslan6067  Johnny's strengths don't come from the state dept lol. He benefits from all his training and ties back at Vox. He's basically Vox-lite.
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  865. ​ @shanerooney7288  Well, I think we're splitting hairs at this point, as we agree closely enough. As I said in my clarification, I agree that technically what it seeks is a blue water navy, but it's not one that promises particularly strong power projection (against the likes of the US, not small fry pirates) much beyond the Straits. The difference of opinion here is just a matter of degree, over something as uncertain as the future course of the world (or even just one country), so I'm content to leave it at that. Cheers! :)
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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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  867.  azumishimizu1880  The US has failed most of its foreign excursions lol. Most recently in Afghanistan, just next to them and much weaker. History is against you, not for you. And you won't just be fighting them, cos Ru and Chi will gladly add fuel to the fire by supplying them. When that happened in Vietnam, you lost. And will again.
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  868.  @l.h.tnguyen4916  Not even close lol. You'd get stuck there, and ru and chi would gleefully jump in to supply them.
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  869.  @l.h.tnguyen4916  You'll be in another Vietnam. They'll be rubbing their hands in glee at seeing you make that mistake.
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  870. Iirc Context Matters did a video awhile ago on why the US wouldn't fare well if it tried to wage a war against North Korea.
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  871.  @MuslimLAD  I only see your comment asking if we see you. One way around the YT bot I've found is to split your comment up into several comments. It confuses the algorithm, and helps to isolate what's triggering it. Also try doing so in the middle of sentences rather than with complete paragraphs in each split comment.
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  872.  @SamPashmi  No, Mosaddegh was gonna sell our oil. The shah you so simp for let the Brits who put him in power keep exploiting it.
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  873.  @ericdaoust391  And note that they don't get along with each other...
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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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  875.  @karmo1629  Russia doesn't just use tanks, it plays it quietly as well mostly. It's using tanks now only cos the west managed to win over it in Ukraine, just as France turned to offensive operations in Africa when it was defied. Russia got along fine with Ukraine for nearly 25 years i.e. until the 2014 revolution, just as France does in Africa. And there's plenty of violent movements there too, against both it and the elites it supports, which is why it was mostly French soldiers fighting there all these years.
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  876.  @augustus331  Is any of that recycling profitable? Cos it ain't gonna happen if it isn't profitable. Plenty of plastic recycling is possible too, but doesn't happen cos it doesn't make money.
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  877.  @numega7323  Free speech means you aren't restrained from speaking, or censored after, not that people aren't allowed to criticize you for it. In this case, he just spams lazy quotes all over the place to try luring people to his channel. I'd rather he just openly and directly ask people to check him out than spam random quotes to try drawing them in.
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  878.  @dejavucmail8176  India has a very rocky relationship history with the US. They've had much more stable ties to Russia than America. And India not being as powerful as China is a plus in this case - after all, the Russians are nervous about China since China is too strong. India may be seen as more manageable, as well as more distant and with less potential for disputes (besides also the aforementioned long history of friendly ties). Lastly, this is referring to military alliances. No one's saying Russia needs to reduce its trade with China in favor of India. Point is - if America attacks either Russia or China, the other helps. If China attacks Russia, India helps. And if China attacks India, Russia and America helps.
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  879.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  If the CCP has wu mao bots, it seems India has its own version by way of bhakt bots...
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  880.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  Uncle Sam huh? If only I believed that was where your loyalties lay. But I've seen too much of your kinds of comments in recent years (you're not the only Indian here), so I can recognize a bhakt when I see one.
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  881.  @somerandomguy4919  'America gave freedom to Iraq' - ROFLMAO!! xD
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  882. This makes sense because all of those weapons are what you'd need to fight America. None of the forces Ukraine is fighting would be of much use in a war with the US, but these armaments would. Essentially the Russians prepared to fight a long distance war with the US, and hence didn't invest into their low-tech capabilities against Ukraine.
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  883. Tbh I think it's sad that the top comments on this video are takedowns of the sponsor rather than a discussion of the actual main subject of the video. Shows how little people care about this. I bet there'll be fewer views and comments overall as well. :( This is the kind of less reported content that I WANT to see more of by Caspian, instead of the umpteenth video on Ukraine or China that already get tons of coverage from the rest of the media. But no, it seems others only want him to follow the media herd. -_-
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  884.  @Luke-kq8gh  The same would apply to Russia, so why did you guys have a problem with them putting missiles in Cuba, huh?
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  885. ​ @thoughttransmitter5555 If China had already used nukes, there wouldn't be a Taiwan to strike the dam. They would have to do it before China did anything.
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  886.  @cpscott15  What you call 'nation building' the rest of the world calls an occupation and putting in place and defending a friendly regime. And the US failed at that. Your euphemisms are just as bad as Russia's are.
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  887.  @avinavkrishna  Youtube needs to start actually showing downvotes first, and then we can talk about them adding any new types of votes. Cos right now the downvote button is practically window dressing. About the only thing you can say about it is that Youtube at least has one, unlike a certain other monopolistic social network...*cough* Facebook *cough*.
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  888.  @jokuvaan5175  The attack was quite logical. The Russians have literally warned about NATO expansion for 30 years, to no avail. It expanded during the 20 years when they hadn't attacked those nations anyway, so they saw it as inevitable. When was Ukraine attacked? Right after the 2014 Maidan revolution, when it turned to the west. They see encirclement as just a matter of time, and protestations have gone nowhere, so might as well act before it's complete. Same thing is happening with China in Taiwan. They haven't invaded it for over half a century, so why now? Cos of the US - Taiwan is to China what Cuba was to the US when the Soviets put forces there. Both nations are going to strike out rather than submit to American hegemony.
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  889.  @salamov963  Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Better not to tempt fate. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  890. The real question is how many more countries the US would have invaded by then...
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  891.  @colin7532  He doesn't work for the CIA, he works for Modi. Here in India we're plenty familiar with his ilk. They're basically India's equivalent to the US' MAGA Trump cult.
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  892. ​ @user-nc9pc3gr4c  Sure bruh. Imma just listen to some rando online spouting bs and calling it a "historic economic fact" rather than actual historians and economists. I'm sure looting $45 trillion from just one of their colonies did wonders for the locals - https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india/ Here's a whole bunch of other "historic economic facts" from an actual (non-white) economic historian - https://youtu.be/dJ30kk5Eit0 And he has papers and books you can look up too, and there's plenty of others. On your side you have mainly Ferguson and few others. Even among western academics your claims are dismissed.
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  893.  @garethhahahah2037  People have been predicting Russia running out of missiles for a year now. Have fun testing that prediction by visiting Ukraine and hearing how often the air raid sirens go off.
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  894.  @jak00bspyr72  Ukraine has had to set aside its western supplied tanks in its counteroffensive precisely because they were being taken out too rapidly by Russian antitank weapons. Hence why their offensive has been slowed down so much, due to having to abandon the aggressive armored thrust in favour of a more creeping infantry push. You'd better hope that active protection system is better than what you gave the Ukrainians...
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  895.  @rodolfo5022  'anti-imperialist speech and sentiment' - I'm sorry, is the land of 'free speech' criminalizing speech now?
    3
  896.  @OrionTails  Sanctions and embargoes are.
    3
  897.  @LuKiSCraft  You can 'thank' YT for that.
    3
  898.  @stafer3  'actual superpowers' don't lose to a bunch of guerillas - repeatedly. 🙃
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  899. To be covered along with the Middle East. The Sahara is kinda a big deal...
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  900.  @swazzercool9060  It probably isn't his channel. Although it's just as bad.
    3
  901. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  902. They're not surprised at all. They expected it, hence why they're distracting India with northern land tensions. And judging by those reduced naval budgets, they're so far being fairly successful at it.
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  903.  @fischlmakesmondstadtgreata7113  Lmao! Why are you allowing him to troll you so easily?
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  904.  @ItzCoopzFtw  How about what the US has done to...let's see now - Afghanistan, Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Savador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, etc. etc. You up for isolating America too? Also France and the UK btw, who have their own shit they're guilty of.
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  905. They also share the US in common. They're both American embarrassments.
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  906. To be covered along with the Middle East. The Sahara is kinda a big deal...
    3
  907.  @SusCalvin  The most significant force hellbent on keeping the Kurds down is Turkey. And they operate in Syria, with the permission of the Syrian govt. And they're not gonna be distracted by any of this, as the Kurds are their number one priority.
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  908. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
    3
  909. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
    3
  910.  @vulpo  Tbh, that quote never struck me as much of a statement of belief in democracy. Sounds more like he's saying "I'm starving and there's only shit available, so might as well eat mud." Basically more of a grudging resignation than a ringing endorsement. Tho I guess it fits his persona
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  911.  @OnePlayer480  Ummm...even in this vid you can see that they're still growing faster than Mexico, only outpaced by India. 5.2 versus 3.2 percent.
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  912.  @MrAlexkyra  And yet the US DOES interfere with Latin American countries, and has a long and sordid history of doing so. Also, just cos those countries want to join NATO doesn't mean they can. It takes two to tango - NATO has to accept them. And NATO wasn't supposed to do that. The EU is one thing, but NATO represents America. And Russia will never allow America close to its borders. Cos they're not close to America's borders, creating a severe imbalance. When Russia did come close to America's borders in Cuba, the US flipped out. And has harshly punished poor Cuba ever since. If Russia had bases in Canada and Mexico, you might have more of an argument. It doesn't. And btw, the US shows no respect for sovereignty either - plenty of American interventions to testify to that fact.
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  913.  @lucasharvey8990  These zingers are almost never his words. They're quotes from other people who he doesn't credit.
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  914.  @adhirbose9910  We didn't do extensive land reforms everywhere. And you can see the result in the divergence of our states. Himachal Pradesh did for instance, and prospered for it. Uttar Pradesh didn't do it as well, and drags down the whole country's overall GDP because of it.
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  915.  @sheikhshit  No, it's cos Argentina has high import tariffs on almost everything.
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  916.  @thetapheonix  The US, Australia, NZ and Canada are precisely examples of what sets colonialism apart from conquest. Cos the locals in those places were effectively replaced by the newcomers, who built their states up to serve themselves. In contrast colonialism DRAINS wealth for the benefit of a distant homeland, which is what happened in all the places where the domestic population could not be replaced. That's why post-colonial nations began developing as well after independence - their economy was reoriented to serve themselves rather than a distant colonial master. Those nations did that earlier cos the newcomers became their population early on, with the locals decimated.
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  917. The Russian army has plenty of combat experience, yet look how that's worked out. And btw, US forces were pretty green at the start of WW2 and yet they still managed to prevail. War isn't so easy to predict.
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  918.  @AaronGuest  Let's see here - China saber rattles against Taiwan, and that's a big issue. The US actually blockades, economically cripples, and even invades its own 'Taiwan' aka Cuba, and that gets a pass. China threatens to invade one island and everyone loses their minds. The US actually invades multiple countries many times Taiwans' size and no one bats an eye.
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  919.  @jf3457  'Any animal would stop having babies when things go bad.' - lmao, you know nothing of demographics I see. It's pretty much the exact opposite. The most pop growth tends to be in the poorest places.
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  920.  @scratchy996  Russia was about the steady creep of NATO, not democracy. The war was literally preceded by a Russian communique to NATO. Russia has been asking for NATO to stop expanding for the last 30 years, and it did anyway. The democracy argument is stupid. Consider that democratic Armenia, being currently bullied by Azerbaijan, is supported by Russia, while autocratic Azerbaijan itself is tied to the west. Ditto between monarchist Saudi Arabia backed by the west in contrast to partially democratic Iran, or the military dictatorship of Pakistan versus the full democracy of India before. Stop falling for rhetoric. These conflicts are about power, not values. Values are just a convenient way to rile people up for them.
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  921. Also Hong Kong was not a democracy before China took it over either. There's just so many holes with this argument that it's laughable that it's gained traction at all. It relies solely on the wests' 'branding' and a concomitant ignorance of most of the worlds' history outside that of Europe and North America (including Latin American history, which is part of the west too fyi).
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  922. Portuagal? How about noting that this is a book about seapower that skips the entire non-western world...
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  923. Singapore's military does nothing apart from help it respond to natural disasters.
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  924.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  925. Err...it's hardly an African or Middle Eastern tradition. You have presidential palaces all over the place, including in the West. In fact, many nations just use the presidential palaces that were left to them by their former colonizers (Raisina Hill in New Delhi, for example, which was built by the British).
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  926.  @DocPrakhar  We have large mining companies that can get into Lithium. Vedanta or Adani for instance, and that's just among private players.
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  927.  @MrSkoresh  71% of Russians have a favorable opinion of China. Meanwhile only 26% of Russians have a favorable opinion of America. If you want to split hairs over the people versus their politicians, feel free. But don't expect that distinction is going to make much difference when it comes to geopolitical decision-making. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/05/people-around-the-globe-are-divided-in-their-opinions-of-china/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/04/6-charts-on-how-russians-and-americans-see-each-other/
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  928.  @fjooyou  Everyone here but you is talking about fairness - among other reasons, cos they're literally using the word fairness. You're the one whose reply is unrelated and out of context cos of your paranoia about people possibly not being capitalist enough for you. You've also begged questions and then flat refused to avail of the resources recommended, and engaged in strawmanning. Both classic troll signs. And, unsurprisingly, have sneered at intellectualism as if it were a bad thing, another red flag.
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  929.  @avinavkrishna  Pretty much. In the west they find it hard to believe cos they think they represent good and their enemies evil, so of course all their allies would see things the same as them (wouldn't all good people automatically hate evil?). But in truth Koreans hate the Japanese far more than China. With plenty of bad history to back up that stance. When it comes to China, attitudes range from circumspect caution to outright ambivalence.
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  930.  @josephruiz7233  Yeah right. I'm sure the west would love to think of it that way, since it conveniently caters to their agenda. Why not spend some of that prodigious imaginative capability asking not why S. Korea hates Japan so much (which has plenty of historical backing), but why America hates China so much (which has none - China has never invaded the US, unlike Japan and S. Korea)? You guys are ridiculously good at blinding yourselves to any point of view but your own. As for S. Korea, it has one of the largest armies in the world - a war would be destructive, but there's not a chance in hell that the North has the capability to conquer it. Meanwhile, Korea has better things to than be a pawn to an American agenda. Cos unlike the US, S. Korea actually has to deal with any mess in the region - it's not sitting pretty an ocean away, directing events to its benefit.
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  931.  @HumanScourgeYT  "we are salivating over here to bomb (xyz country) back to the Stone Age" - wait, I've heard this line before. Oh boy, trust Americans to celebrate all their warmongering as somehow being a good thing...
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  932.  @HumanScourgeYT  "but at least we stand for liberty" - your long foreign policy history doesn't suggest as much. I'm sure it feels great being free at home, pity the rest of the world is only free insofar as they align with American interests. But sure, keep believing in the ideological fairy tale version of Pax Americana.
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  933.  @zin.nesis1  The US has literally intervened in more nations than anyone else since WW2. And it doesn't need to annex territory, cos territory is passe. Installing a 'friendly govt.' is much preferable as you get all the benefits without having to manage the damn place. Even Russia was fine with its neighbours, including Ukraine, as long as they were 'friendly govts'. Here's a partial list of some of the places 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.
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  934.  @aurele2  Video says Ukr, and there was indeed a warrant issued by Germany for a dude from there recently, who Poland conveniently let slip through its fingers back into Ukr.
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  935.  @dannyboy-vtc5741  It is still far fewer countries and all far less hostile (yes, even Azerbaijan) than the western sea route.
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  936. There have been govt. programs to address all those issues all over the world, including in Korea. None of them worked. It's never been about how tough life is. The poor have the toughest lives of all, and yet they have the most children. While the super rich have the easiest of lives, and yet tend not to have any more children for it.
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  937.  LagiNaLangAko23  As for the book itself, consider that, as has been pointed out in this thread, he hasn't included Portugal, nor the Majapahits or Zanzibar or other applicable cases of his definition. Ask yourself why. My own suspicion is because they don't fit the narrative he's trying to advance - that seapower states are necessarily open societies with a wide devolution of power. Many of the other examples you could bring up would be regular monarchies, not liberalized societies dominated by guilds and trading companies (and, by extension, probably intended to mean that they'd eventually end up republican and/or democratic to some extent). He seems to have deliberately chosen his seapower states in order to fit that narrative.
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  938.  @farzana6676  Thanks for admitting that NATO is basically just a front for the United States military.
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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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  940. Why are you asking him to risk his life for your YT pleasure? He's Azeri himself, fyi. Hell, even if he did, people would question his neutrality on the issue.
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  941.  @CassandraNZ  I think we're talking at cross purposes here. I'd never compared the Taliban and Al Qaeda or ISIS to begin with. I said the death toll of Afghanistan from the war was much higher than Afghanistan under the Taliban. My point is just that the war is killing more people and so needs to end, even if that means the Taliban gets to take over again.
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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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  943.  @리주민  Democracy hasn't stopped the US from engaging in wars all over the world, including ones it's had to concede. Nor the British before them. It's just far too easy to get people riled up for war, no matter how questionable. Note that the US hasn't had to wage a defensive war for well over a century, yet people still get worried about American 'security'. As for China, why would the Chinese people be opposed to China having dominance over waters just off their own coast? Pretty much nothing about China's foreign policy seems like something the Chinese people would be against, even if they had a vote. Domestic policy may be another matter, but why would a country's citizens be against that country being stronger and less vulnerable?
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  944.  @natebox4550  You're right, you don't. You don't need to, cos they were almost wiped out already anyway. The remainder are kept on reservations mind, but either way the ethnic natives of America have long since ceased to be a force of any significance.
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  945.  @revenger211  By your logic, the US shouldn't have bases abroad either. That okay with you?
    3
  946.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  947.  @jerichostevens2711 "What they did in China alone provides sufficient 'moral' ground" - it provides no moral ground to you. That is for China to decide. You don't get to use China's suffering as an excuse to conveniently serve your own goals. You didn't do it for China, just as you didn't invade Afghanistan to save women or Iraq to spread freedom. Those are all excuses to justify your move.
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  948.  @lensman5762  Hardly unique. People said the same about Occupy Wall Street a decade ago, and it fizzled out into nothing.
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  949.  @MarkJanssen3  China has no interest in invading America lol. They know well enough it'd be futile, just as America invading China would also be futile. They'd attack the American navy trying to break a blockade of Taiwan in THEIR backyard. Their navy likely wouldn't go any further than possibly the American bases in Japan. They're not trying to conquer America, they simply want to nullify America's 'island chain' containment strategy.
    2
  950.  @abraham2172  And they managed those colonies through a well known strategy - divide and conquer. Borders were a part of that, as were numerous other divisions they used to keep local opposition weak.
    2
  951. ​ @The-Real-Ando  "Russia is a fair weather friend at best that care only for what they can get from you but show no real concern for your citizens or your country’s welfare" - lol nice try personalizing that, but all it reveals is how ignorant you are of history. It's the US that has let down its allies much more (most recently with the Kurds) and even literally crippled them when it suited them (look up what the Plaza Accords did to Japan for instance). You want examples of being a 'fairweather friend'? Try the US courting Vietnam, a nation that it killed 3 million in just a few decades ago. They're even courting us now, to use against China, despite having sanctioned us before and even using their military to intimidate us before (which, ironically, was repelled by the Russians). You only know the US and Russia from their behavior in Europe, cos to westerners the only places that matter to them is the west, but their behavior elsewhere is quite the contrast. We don't rely on either Russia or the US to defend us lol - we have the 4th strongest army on Earth precisely cos we know what superpowers are like, you included. So spare us the holier-than-thou speech, crusader. The US supported Taiwan even when it was an autocracy, so there's nothing democratic about this either. Taiwan isn't an ally, it's a tool. One of many. Even the leader of your closest 'ally' - the UK - described America as unreliable, and that was when the US was supporting them in a world war.
    2
  952. As a counterpoint, I recommend you review the book 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang.
    2
  953.  @ELWIN225  "When you watch tech and cyber security related videos on YT and the sponsor is a VPN provider, isn’t it the same?" - it's not appropriate there either. But also they're simply trying to sell their product, here he's promoting investing into the company itself. That's a lot more ripe for fraud, which is why stocks are typically not seen being advertised like this.
    2
  954. Thing is, just free trade and free movement doesn't sound very impressive. The impact will be very limited, owing to the 4 nations mostly not trading with each other much. There's far better markets for all of them, and much better sources of labour too, so CANZUK ends up looking pretty pathetic as just a free trade agreement. Hardly the shot in the arm Britain needs right now.
    2
  955.  @noodlyappendage6729  Yeah, by about 3% maybe. CANZUK is a joke if trade and movement is all it's gonna be about. The potential there is tiny cos they all already have far better trade partners than each other.
    2
  956.  @noodlyappendage6729  I don't have an issue with the idea one way or another. Rather I think it's largely irrelevant and grossly overhyped. You can feel free to imagine it's going to change the world, the rest of the world is just going to look on with pity. As for the military, lol. They could make a unified army for all I care, it'll still be grossly inadequate to its security needs. And only 1 (or possibly 2) out of the 4 members have any interest in investing significantly more into their militaries (not that they have all that much potential capacity to begin with). CANZUK may happen, but it hardly matters.
    2
  957.  @MORE_BEANS_PLZ  It's always a treat to see Americans pretend their defeats weren't defeats lol. Your hubris is the reason you keep getting into these quagmires in the first place, cos you're always so cocksure of yourselves. 🤣
    2
  958.  @filipeleal6667  "wether the Western Civilization is the greatest bringer of progress upon the world in History" - lol! Besides the US, at this rate you're gonna start singing the praises of the British Empire next, never mind what those pesky colonized yokels think. Well, I'm glad we got this out of you. Now everyone coming by this comment chain knows what you're really pushing for. Not simply constraining China seemingly for the sake of the region, but far less sympathetically just to cement the continued dominance of American (which is apparently the same thing as 'western civilization') hegemony. Hell, that might even win some support with your fellow Americans, but there's a lot more people online than just Americans, and many of them won't be quite as charitably inclined towards yet another supremacist.
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  959.  @matpk  The Nazis killed a lot of people. Guess who's killed more people in this contest. Hint: It ain't the Chinese, at least not after Mao who's literally over half a century ago. It's funny seeing people considering the nation that's literally killed more people across the world, deposed more regimes while propping up dictators elsewhere, and even ironically has more people locked up, as the "good guy". The Nazis also went to war repeatedly, guess who's launched more wars in the last few decades, by a long shot? Hint: It again ain't the Chinese.
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  960.  @Tsuchimursu  The country that's been most allowed "to do militarised conflict, as in wage war, on sovereign territories" is the US. Russia is currently under sanctions. Where's the sanctions on America for the Iraq War? Or any of their dozens of others? And their wars have been much bigger too - far higher death tolls than Crimea or Georgia. Russia may get away with a lot, but nowhere near as much as the US does.
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  961.  @Lightman0359  I meant building it taller to begin with, not in the middle of construction. Of course that's a much bigger ask now, as you say.
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  962.  @liamdavis2387  Thing is, just free trade and free movement doesn't sound very impressive. The impact will be very limited, owing to the 4 nations mostly not trading with each other much. There's far better markets for all of them, and much better sources of labour too, so CANZUK ends up looking pretty pathetic as just a free trade agreement. Hardly the shot in the arm Britain needs right now.
    2
  963.  @FaizanKhan-iq3yd  "why Palestinians attacked Israel" - the immediate reason is cos of Israeli attacks in Jenin and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Hamas' operation is literally called the 'Al-Aqsa Flood' to make that clear. However the broader reason, which is what this video is about, is cos Palestine was being sidetracked while normalising ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. They won't let the Americans just bypass their issues like that.
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  964. Most of this video is Caspian projecting his rather old fashioned take on what China intends to do. Old fashioned cos he seems to live in a world where nothing changes apart from China's navy getting larger and everyone is still fighting wars the conventional way. That's fine for 2030 maybe, but 2050 lol? It's like everyone is talking about the world shifting in a matter of days following Russia's invasion, but apparently nothing is going to change across several decades wrt China or the West.
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  965. @Rocka7038 Then why did they fire a missile at the capital city, at the presidential palace no less?
    2
  966. You're naïve if you think Russia could ever do that. They have decades of resentment built up. Look at China and Japan - they haven't been at war in generations, and still hate each other. And besides, friendly relations with its neighbors would do nothing about the 800-pound American gorilla in the neighborhood. You'd be delusional if you thought that would ever get them to expel the US. Friendly relations is simply not an option - there's no way it could ever get Russia what it wants i.e. to make the US leave.
    2
  967.  @richardtaylor6341  "They are wrong" - yes of course, you know better than people who literally make their money from being right about which way the economy is going to move.
    2
  968. Iran was literally fighting to out a leader who was installed by the (opposite of east).
    2
  969.  @Alon_Jak  The difference is that Iran fought to out a leader who was installed by the (opposite of east).
    2
  970.  @theallseeingeye9388  That 'secular' shah was also st**ge of the (opposite of east), who put him in power.
    2
  971.  @Fahad-xe2zv  Russia is on friendly terms with China, and doesn't have any major outstanding issues worth going to war over. India mainly faces a threat in its northeast, cos of the Siliguri Corridor, but the rest of the country is secure - both sides know they can't invade each others' heartland. If there's going to be a war in the region, it'll be with the US, not any of the Asian nations, who mostly just want to avoid conflict as far as they can.
    2
  972. The real question is how many more countries the US would have invaded by then...
    2
  973.  @rbanerjee605  Sure, they shouldn't. But they will. They've got a long history of doing it, and are still boasting about their capabilities despite their high profile losses. As long as America feels it can get away with war, and it serves their interests, they'll continue waging war.
    2
  974.  @frank031  "The Americans could've stayed there indefinitely" - that isn't winning, that's just refusing to admit you've lost aka dumping money and lives into preserving your own ego.
    2
  975. @John Grigg Gotta love seeing jingoistic war hawks on the internet lol!
    2
  976.  @ashishnaik568  I suppose you're saying that so authoritatively as an Indian? Well then allow me to refute that accusation, using my legitimacy as another Indian. And particularly south Indian, the region that was the subject of that question. Unless, of course, you'd care to back up that assertion with an actual argument.
    2
  977. It's not about developing it, it's about avoiding losing market share. It matters less that Venezuela has it than that their competitor doesn't. Also Guyana's oil is cheaper to process than Venezuela's oil. The latter has 'heavy' and 'sour' oil, which basically means it requires much more extensive processing to be usable for anything beyond asphalt. Guyana's oil is cheaper to work with. Prior to this move, it was actually going to be Exxon that was expected to profit the most from their reserves.
    2
  978. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
    2
  979.  Unseen Wealth  Is it? This map, based on a Gallup poll so hardly Chinese propaganda, disagree with you - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
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  980.  peter michalski  It never fails to amaze me how confident people are making claims online without any data to back it up. :) Between the time of that poll and now, China still hasn't gone to war, while the US has continued with its foreign military operations in multiple countries, and carried out some high profile assassinations too. I'm sorry, but whose aggression are people supposed to be waking up to now?...
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  981.  @GowthamNatarajanAI  He worked for Stratfor for a while. But the thing about being an academic is that you have to be more circumspect and neutral. You'd never be able to get away with what he puts out nowadays in an academic paper - but his fans love it! For instance, a recent video used the phrase 'bag of dicks' - and the comment section was full of praise for it. Try publishing that in a serious journal. Zeihan started out as serious geopolitical analyst, but has since switched to trying to establish himself as a celebrity pundit cos it's much lower effort and easier to sell. All you need to do is please the mob, not the peer review process, and typically pays far better than being a serious academic does.
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  982. ​ @miliba  No, there would. Just as there was a need to 'contain Japan' (achieved economically, via the Plaza Accords). Taiwan was supported by the US even when it was an autocracy, so it's not about that. And China was a communist autocracy for over half a century now, yet the tensions have risen only in recent years (and not with Xi taking power either - that happened in 2012, the tensions rose in 2017, from the Americans under Trump). Rather if China had remained poor and weak, there would never have been a need to "contain China". This is just classic Thucydides Trap stuff.
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  983.  @yougoslavia  The only side the navy comes from is right between Kaliningrad and Russia's own naval bases. Ditto the air force. Whichever forces you use, the fact of the matter is it'll be surrounded on 3 sides, and the other side is water that'll likely just be mined to hell and back. And keep in mind that over 2/3 of NATO, especially its navy and air force, is just the US. Which will be preoccupied with China and North Korea here. There's little left to push into a known trap.
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  984.  @deadlock_problem  Europe hasn't managed to match the production of just North Korea so far, let alone Russia - the hermit kingdom delivered in one month what Europe couldn't in over a year. It also does not have double Russia's military lol, again it compares poorly even with North Korea (albeit only in numbers, not tech). Ukraine hasn't been desperately waiting for Europe to supply it, which never stopped, but for the US which did. As for your tech bro dreams of remotely disconnecting the Russians via some hacker wizards, just lol.
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  985.  @deadlock_problem  Oh and btw, since apparently the number of STEM grads is a key factor in your version of this war, guess who has the most STEM grads by far? Not Europe, which has failed to make much of tech sector despite decades of trying btw. Not Russia either, although STEM is more popular there than in Europe. Not even the US. It's China. Guess who's side they're on. If these magical hacker wizards are a thing, they'll have more of them than anyone else.
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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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  987.  @HailAzathoth  You obviously haven't read the comment chain. I said nothing about landing anyone, and indeed don't expect that to begin with. Next time, read fully.
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  988. Did you seriously just make a geopolitics video about resources in order to promote a shifty investment offer? This is low Shirvan..
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  989.  @caioalmeida4139  Also the west was highly racist towards Japan back then too. Didn't stop Japan from still managing to leverage their trade and even advice to shoot up to global power status, and all without losing power in their nation either. So even your own example contradicts you.
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  990.  @CaspianReport  The background music choice was amazing, tho. Saw it was copyright free so I downloaded it too.
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  991.  Radev4  This isn't about whether Pakistan is a failed state or not. It's about unnecessarily inserting controversy into a thread that didn't have any. All the OP said was that he was a fan of Shirvan. Hugo just felt like ruining the mood. He's free to express that opinion on a thread that was actually discussing that topic, but in this thread all it amounts to shitting over an otherwise positive chain of people from all over the world.
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  992.  @gwyn.  Uh huh. And I suppose the Confederates are the real America, until those pesky Unionists put them down. History is history bub. Learn to accept it.
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  993.  @OptimusWombat  Sour grapes? It's okay bro. It know it must smart to have been outwitted so completely. There there. ;)
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  994.  @OptimusWombat  Lol! So sad... xD
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  995.  @OptimusWombat  Lol, so mad. xDDD
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  996. That saying is ascribed to the Romans. Guess what? They were at war for most of their history, including over 700 YEARS of war with the Persians. Some 'peace' they achieved. Even the famous 'Pax Romana' was hardly peaceful, just more relatively peaceful
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  997. Most of this video is Caspian projecting his rather old fashioned take on what China intends to do. Old fashioned cos he seems to live in a world where nothing changes apart from China's navy getting larger and everyone is still fighting wars the conventional way. That's fine for 2030 maybe, but 2050 lol? It's like everyone is talking about the world shifting in a matter of days following Russia's invasion, but apparently nothing is going to change across several decades wrt China or the West.
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  998.  @Bajtjr  No, the effect will be the opposite. This isn't about land grabs. You think the biggest country on Earth by far needs more land? Lol. This is over US hegemony, and Russia isn't the only one opposed to that. Just as NATO is expanding, so too are new alliances forming on the other side. Their common enemy? The US of A. And soon all of them will have nukes. This war, like the ones that will follow it, will all be about one thing - pushing America back, by any means necessary.
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  999. ​ @Zeen-2000-Vox  Privatisation was begun in the first place under the previous govt. This is nothing new. And India's growth also peaked under them, and has declined under the new one. The new one has mostly just embarked on harebrained economic policies (demonetization, for example), incompetently rolled out schemes envisioned by the previous govt. (GST, for example), pushed for divisive social policies in order to shore up its base (CAA, for example), renamed and obfuscated a bunch of already existing systems (PM Cares versus PMNRF, for example) and even wound up with egg on its face right when crisis hit and decisive leadership was called for (its lackluster and delayed Covid vaccine response). Apart from the odd positive policy (the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, for example), it's just been one long litany of big words and extensive branding, belied by virtually every socio-economic indicator being far lower than their predecessors.
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  1000. ColdFusion also has a great video on the global economic ramifications that avoids all the childish posturing rhetoric.
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  1001.  @oblivionzzzmike  Ironically the biggest scammers on Earth are the west, specifically the UK (for once, not the US) that facilitates tax evasion across the world
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  1002.  @bluecanary5191  Lol Turkey to the south has worse inflation that that, indeed a lot of nations do, without any war or sanctions. And brain drain is common to all nations outside the first world. Think they're going to collapse? Fact is it's not keeling over like you folks said it would at the outset of the war. And plenty of nations with smaller economies have eaten sanctions and all of that for years without keeling over. Even the memes about their currency that were all over the internet in the early days now look silly. So yes, they're holding up a lot better than the west would ever care to admit. Meanwhile have you looked at how your boi Ukraine is performing economically? Aid isn't going to rebuild their nation, which is expected to contract by over 50% in 2022. They'll stay independent but be poorer than ever, with an even bigger brain drain to boot
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  1003.  @HedgehogZone Lol no! Do you know how many would-be conquerors have thought that and tried it, only to be utterly ruined in the attempt? Hell Russia GREW from some of their overconfident invasion follies. You want to conquer Russia? Have fun trying to resurrect Genghis Khan, and then try to convince yourself it was a good idea.
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  1004.  @ten_tego_teges  Turkey doesn't need to be a threat to the EU. It has no interest in taking over the European heartland. A more realistic question is - is Turkey a threat to Cyprus? And can and will the EU both be able to and choose to take hard action to prevent that? Considering it'd be fighting in Turkey's backyard, I rather doubt the EU has either the capability or even more so the will to fight off a full takeover. Turkey was even weaker in the 1970s, and still got their way. Same with any Greek islands they decide they're interested in (Greece itself is another matter). Ditto with Russia on its borderlands. Etc. The EU heartland isn't even on anyone's radar for conquest - it wouldn't even be worth it considering how hard it'd be to hold on to. The European response would most likely be a rash of sanctions and hopes that the locals will throw off the occupying force for them. Much cheaper, much easier, much lazier. It might even work, but that still doesn't say much for the EU's military relevance. The power of the EU isn't to be judged by how effectively it defends its heartland, as it's fringes. And your lone Falklands example doesn't sound too convincing either, for several reasons including that it was the sovereign territory of a major European power, while the EU borderlands, in Douglas Adams words', "somebody else's problem." They aren't even key to the EU economy.
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  1005.  @matt1sullivan318  Alright I stand corrected on that. Fair enough.
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  1006.  @jakedee4117  Well, I can at least respect him for putting dates to it. It makes his predictions falsifiable, which is much better than most other commentators who make such predictions. Of course, as you note, it also leaves him vulnerable to being wrong, which is why so few of his peers do the same.
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  1007.  @19trwind82  And btw, Guantanamo Bay is far from the worst of America's crimes. That affected a few hundred people, but even just one of America's wars this century killed many TIMES all of Russia's wars in the same timeframe COMBINED. THAT'S the real blood they've got on their hands. For example, the Russian Donbass war in 2014 killed about 13000 people. The US war in Afghanistan killed about a quarter of a million. And the Iraq war was over double that...
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  1008.  @JIMMYUNKNOWN  If you think American wars have anything to do with democracy, you're deluded. Not only has America happily allied with many a dictator, they've even helped install dictators multiple times (Chile, Gautemala, etc.). Democracy has nothing to do with it. Democracy and freedom are just the latest rhetoric used to provide moral justification for war, just as the "white man's burden" to "civilize" the world was the bullshit excuse for colonialism before it.
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  1009.  @JIMMYUNKNOWN  As for "raising the living standards of folks", the biggest rise in living standards in the last half century has been in China lol, which raised basically three America's worth of people out poverty (and don't bother disputing that, you'd not just be denying the CCP but also every global institution including the bloody World Bank). I bet you bought into the whole 'women's rights' narrative that sprung up just as America was pushed out of Afghanistan, and never thought to look into the horrendous death toll from the war that your media kept pretty mum about. Stop buying the bullshit, nations don't risk their soldiers for silly ideals - those ideals are just convenient cover to fool people like you.
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  1010.  @CoverBydAn  What, do you want to hear only the immediate reason and damn the context? Well in that case Hamas itself gave it on Day 1 - it's called operation Al-Aqsa Flood in response to earlier Israeli provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. There, does that teach you anything? If so, you don't think very hard. There's more to this than proximate events.
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  1011.  @Red-Magic  The UK, or rather just London, sells financial services. And...little else. Half of that is just helping rich folk manage their personal money too, not any kind of broader based finance in public companies.
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  1012.  @FakenameStevens  Yes, and this is also why the UK is basically an offshoot of London rather than a full-bodied country.
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  1013.  @PASTRAMIKick  Philippines says hi.
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  1014.  @abdiganiaden  Mississippi also has less than a TENTH of the UK's population, so...
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  1015.  @me0101001000  Wouldn't work. Even before the formal division there was already a strong political movement that would have, had the country stayed united, bogged it down and prevented anything from getting done. If we were lucky, we'd at best have managed to be like Indonesia. If not, we might've ended up akin to Lebanon. India would have been a highly fragmented, federalized state with very weak central authority and dysfunctional politics. You need some level of national integration for a state to function, and they would have prevented that. Also we didn't have all that much infrastructure to offer at independence either.
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  1016.  @manojnani1785  This would be suicide for the invading country as they can't able to administrate the invaded territory" - that isn't why you invade a country, at least not in the modern era. You invade it in order to put a more friendly govt. in power, then leave. The west knows this better than anyone, it's why they keep boasting about how they don't annex territory anymore - yeah, ofc you don't, that's needlessly cumbersome, you just settle in a new regime and exit. But anyone can do that, not just the west.
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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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  1018. What ongoing Beijing one? Care to reference that claim?...
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  1019. Just wait until the us armtwists nato into setting up a base in japan. THEN look at who you're going to have on your doorstep. The Ru will be only too happy to oblige them. There's plenty of reason to be pessimistic, but not for the reasons you think. All of you keep defining yourselves by the grand moral narratives of ww2, and hence following a thought process that only makes a big war more, not less, likely. You're actively turning away pathways to peace in favor of ever more confrontation and hostility.
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  1020. The EU isn't the problem, the US is. Good luck arguing the most trigger-happy country on Earth is 'chill'. Russia may even be okay with a European army, if the US isn't part of it (nor tied to it).
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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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  1022. ​ @burningphoenix6679  Also it isn't your business what regime sovereign nations have. You've launched many a war using that paternalistic excuse. It harkens back to the old 'white man's burden', updated for the 21st century but still catering to western egos and justifying their aggression. But worse than that, you aren't even honest about it - the US has happily had many an autocratic ally, and has even supported some of their wars (Indonesia in East Timor, Saudi Arabia in Yemen now, etc.). Hell it's even installed autocrats of its own (Gautemala, Chile, etc.), and opposed popular forces if they were inimical to its interests (communists, islamists, etc.). You take the fact that you get away with all your shit entirely too much for granted, imagining that means said shit was somehow ethical. Just as Russia could have befriended Europe, the US could have stopped impinging itself all over the globe anytime. But it never did, and continues to not do so. Before this war, it was busily provoking China, and that's right after it finished trashing the ME (and has a storied history in Latin America). The US could also choose to be 'friendly', but it doesn't. It gets away with it cos its strong, and then we have hypocrites like you blaming other nations for caring about strength. If the US were as strong as Canada it'd never get away with even a tenth of the shit it does.
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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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  1024.  @blackpowderuser373  Tiananmen Square killed about 3000 people (and that's not the Chinese figure). That's peanuts compared to any of the US' wars.
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  1025. They're usually not "restricted", so much as 'relieved' of it, or 'facilitated' in doing their job without it. You typically don't need to use threats of force to coerce them, when you can simply offer to 'help' them do their job more easily instead. Or, in other words, they're usually willing participants in the perversion of their own profession.
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  1026.  @georgekostaras  Look up the How China Lends report for an analysis of that. There's also another one by the Rhodium Group, which is an economic advisory firm.
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  1027. Nothing will come of this because the west is continuing with its same old practice of caring more about how to sell its grand plans to domestic voters than the actual clients themselves - two of those focus areas (health and gender equality) aren't even what African nations turn to China for in the first place (in fact they often finance both via western aid, so turning them into an 'investment' represents a step DOWN in terms of the wests' offer to Africa). The West continues to paint themselves into a corner by putting ideological marketability at home over listening to the actual desires of the African nations themselves. China's BRI's doesn't have a 'mandate' - when they go to a country they simply ask what the local administration would like to see (how sound an idea some of those projects are is besides the point, and no most of them aren't that bad). But the West insists on maintaining its usual 'We Know Best' attitude and moral grandstanding by telling Africans what to do, a strategy that is the major reason why Africa turned away from the IMF and western financing in the first place. This initiative will barely displace China at all, even if the multinational partners can actually coordinate to deliver it (another ace in China's hole - it can deliver what it says it will).
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  1028.  @Homer-OJ-Simpson  "them to take on any western value" - is this white man's burden 2.0? The 'civilizing mission' and 'manifest destiny' all over again? Why exactly should nations with millennia of cultural history of their own take on 'western value'? Expecting nations is to stay away from your borders is one thing (which China has done btw - their last war was in 1979), but to expect them to validate your universalist cultural hegemony by turning themselves into a mirrors of yourself is nothing but egoism and hegemonic high-handedness. They have no obligation to take on your values, and nor do any of the other nations on Earth. Even your examples are bad - Japan for instance was literally destroyed and remade in your image. China, for what it's worth, hasn't Sinicized the world with the BRI, but you are determined to westernize it owing to your inherent belief in the West as the 'obvious' pinnacle of humanity. Others beg to differ.
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  1029.  @rottingdog6798  So you're so dedicated to pissing off Indians that you just randomly post comments like this that're completely unrelated to the vid they're under? I kinda think that says more about you than anything else...
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  1030. The US is kinda a counter-example to this. The nation is rich with resources of all kinds, both relevant to modern economies (such as oil) and old ones (plentiful fertile farmland). Russia also has a lots of resources, and while it ain't wealthy it is powerful.
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  1031. ​ @MionMikan They are rational, and to this day the only one to have ever used nukes on people is America. Rationality means they respond to THEIR circumstances, not yours. It is perfectly rational to lash out if you're being surrounded and undermined.
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  1032.  @Name-t9fbd  The attack was rational. The Russians have literally warned about NATO expansion for 30 years, to no avail. It expanded during the 20 years when they hadn't attacked those nations anyway, so they saw it as inevitable. When was Ukraine attacked? Right after the 2014 Maidan revolution, when it turned to the west. They see encirclement as just a matter of time, and protestations have gone nowhere, so might as well act before it's complete. Same thing is happening with China in Taiwan. They haven't invaded it for over half a century, so why now? Cos of the US - Taiwan is to China what Cuba was to the US when the Soviets put forces there. Both nations are going to strike out rather than submit to American hegemony.
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  1033. That's cos the 'do by this year' part is mainly Caspians' invention. The Russians aren't in any hurry to get it done.
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  1034.  @ShrekMeBe  Scientists have already looked into whether Covid is a human-designed virus, and not simply by asking the Chinese but literally by looking at the virus' own genome. Conclusion: It isn't. But of course you people never care what scientists say unless it suits your own biases. Let me guess, you also think climate change is a leftist hoax?
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  1035. @crazywarlord777 Oh look! He's using a scary-sounding word - genocide! And for some reason 'war' is not a scary sounding word to me, cos I'm so used to hearing it all the time. Never mind that their 'genocide' has killed multiple orders of magnitude less people than my own country's wars. No, what matters is how scary the word sounds, not who's killed more people LOL! (inb4 you rack your brain for something, and finally hit back with 'but Mao!' from over half a century ago lmao!).
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  1036.  @dr.winner2516  Have you checked where China started from? China is still a middle income country, and started out as an extremely poor one. The US has been a developed country for a century, and the richest nation in the world too. Still full of poverty. And LOL if you think poverty lines chosen by economists are universal rather than contextual. You're arguing with institutions like the World Bank bro. Good luck presenting your thesis to them, assuming you're not too lazy to bother.
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  1037. ​ @SavageHenry777  More self-serving excuses. When one can't debate with data, apparently one falls back on imagination. The US prison population compares poorly to almost every other nation on Earth bruh, not just China. Especially other developed nations, but also plenty of other developing nations - many of them democracies. Your system sucks, and you don't really have a leg to stand to on to defend it, save your own self-serving creativity. It's around 1.5 times the size of the prison population of a country with over 4 times its total population, and is highly racially biased to boot. As for the US in general, once more the numbers are overwhelming - even speculative reports of China's mortal crimes barely compare to the numbers of dead thanks to US wars, for the period post-Mao i.e. half a century. On the flipside, the increase in prosperity is also clearly against you - China has raised a population around 2.5 times the size of the entire US population out of poverty in just around 30 years while starting from a desperately poor position (and this isn't from Chinese propaganda - it's from the friggin' World Bank), against the US being the richest country in the world and yet also boasting one of the highest poverty rates among developed nations despite all its wealth. Ignorance is an ironic accusation to throw by someone who can't seem to produce any information himself, just empty ideas. Either up your game or go home.
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  1038.  @_vae  "why would they want to do that? to reclaim face" - is that as far as you're capable of thinking? Disappointing. You don't think a country would be concerned over having an island that's friendly to a hostile power (the US) just off its shores? It's ironic how much concern there is over Taiwan, which has so far suffered little but provocations and threats, compared to a very similar nation that's been crippled - and even invaded once - by the US: Cuba. The US has actually taken aggressive action (not just threats) against Cuba for having the gall to ally itself with their rival for decades, and no one bats an eye. But the moment the Chinese make a statement against a US ally, everyone loses their minds. 'Do as we say, not as we did' must be the watchphrase of western hegemons. Not that I support China being aggressive against Taiwan mind, it's just that the US has no moral standing to lecture them.
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  1039. No thanks. After the elections, not before. It's going to be messy and complicated, as is typical of Indian elections, and I'd prefer CR present a clear-eyed picture for the rest of the world. And that'll only be possible post-elections.
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  1040. It isn't a nice place. You won't hear a video about his home country from Shirvan precisely because of that - he'd get into trouble if he did one and it was in any way unfavourable to the regime. The nice thing about it is that it's about as politically uninvolved with the rest of the world as you could realistically get, so he's able to stay fairly neutral when reporting on other places, but his own country is a different story.
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  1041.  @jamesn0va  They won't use their own troops lol! There's no shortage of men there. They'll do the same thing the US is doing to Russia - send vast quantities of weapons to the area to prolong the conflict as long as possible to lock the US in another quagmire of a war. And they'll have plenty of willing support from the nations all along the path, no need for ships.
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  1042.  @realenew  It's like you think borders are just idle lines on a map rather than territories with actual people in them. Or that people having to move from the homes and lives they've always known is no big deal for them. Or, alternately, staying, but with a new possibly hostile government. That isn't the real world. Redrawing those lines is only easy in games. You need enormous amounts of trust and practically brotherly relations to redraw major borders without issue. It's a LOT easier to just get them right to start with, at a time when all parties are up for a major transition. And both India and China have felt that pain - China when the British forcefully 'acquired' some of their towns, and India when the lines they drew for Partition led to the deaths of over half a million people. They understand better than the Brits (who come from an island, which has natural borders) ever could how tricky those lines can be.
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  1043.  @jackgray305  The British left two sovereign nations LOL. That assumes Britain did nothing, leaving the question open. They didn't. They made a mess, which both nations are now having to clean up, except without the benefit of a major transition moment. Can the nations resolve the issue? Sure, albeit not as easily as you'd like to pretend it is. But that doesn't change the fact that it's still a British mess that they'd be cleaning up. And that goes also for a whole lot of other messes the British left all over the world.
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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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  1045. ​ CinemaVenatorITA  Funny you say that, cos Beyonce has held concerts in Moscow multiple times. And even in Donetsk, the very place that's being fought over now. They're also no strangers to American culture via Hollywood, videogames, etc. Hell even China isn't isolated from any of it - even now amidst all the heightened tension, Barbie (a very woke film) was a hit in China. But none of that is going to detract from nations pursuing their national interests. For most nations the idea of becoming as irrelevant relative to America as Canada is is not an appealing prospect. Not for their leaders, not for their people either. Hence why democratic India's Modi refused to bow down before the west, with plenty of public support btw, despite even having millions of Indian diaspora in the west. To many Canada is just America's little bitch.
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  1046.  @CanaryKin  Please watch the body of the video. Are you one of those people who just sees the title of a post or article and then rushes off to the comment section? Cos you sure sound like it. And your alternatives are silly and, once again, already mentioned in the video. The Euro is no alternative cos everyone knows who Europe serves. Precious metals were actually mentioned in the video, as were other things that you likely wouldn't know about because you didn't bother watching the video before commenting on it.
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  1047. Man Caspian is really milking this war for all he can. People wanted coverage on the Ukraine war, and now it's practically all he covers. Also an ironic narrative to choose for this video considering that the Russian economy is holding up (with the central bank even bringing interest rates back down), Ukraine itself saying Russia can continue the war for another year and, most pertinently, CR itself having misjudged how events would play out in its pre-war video on how this war would play out. At this point CR is just telling western viewers what they want to hear.
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  1048.  @jgw9990  Lolwut? You think they can't even make a goddamn pipeline without you? You guys really do have an inflated opinion of yourselves.😅I wonder what you think anyone, not just Russia but any nation that isn't western or a western ally (like Japan), can make without your precious knowhow. The pipelines are still planned fyi, despite the supposedly fatal lack of skilled labour from the west. And btw, the pipeline is to China, which makes far more complex stuff than pipelines.
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  1049. Nowadays there's more people on the internet who circle like vultures and make comments about them expecting flame wars, than there typically are of actual flame war comments.
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  1050. How is that a bad thing, tho? :)
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  1051.  @delgermuruntsagaankhuu6951  Selective blockades are a lot easier said than done, and much more vulnerable to circumventing. In any case, even just blockading China will still affect them, and hence they'll still be nervous about playing ball with it.
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  1052.  @cyberninjazero5659  Poorer populations tend to have higher birth rates. This is true all over the world.
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  1053.  @WhatAboutYou123  Another one who knows nothing about demographics I see. I bet you pat yourself on the back telling yourself you're so enlightened for not having many kids, never realizing just how determined your 'choice' was by your circumstances. Go learn economics kid.
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  1054.  @WhatAboutYou123  Oh and I'm also now suggesting that you have bad reading comprehension, as evidenced by your lack of it in your reply to me above. So consider learning english as well as economics.
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  1055.  @WhatAboutYou123  I'm suggesting you know nothing about demographics. You want people to stop having many kids? Go educate yourself on when people actually stop having many kids.
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  1056.  @Oleca-ej7qo  Also you still don't acknowledge why they have more kids and you don't. Cos real economics is foreign to you lot. All you know is cultural stereotypes
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  1057.  @lawjef  It was never about them needing the oil in all those places, it was about them controlling the market. Especially in order to weaken the soviets back then, but it helps globally.
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  1058.  @calc1657  It was never about them needing the oil in all those places, it was about them controlling the market. Especially in order to weaken the soviets back then, but it helps globally.
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  1059.  @dhuryodhankaurav8487  "it never takes off because of issues with each country that needs to be involved" - the main reason it never took off is because of the US sanctions on Iran. So it's ironic but also revealing that the US is now pushing this corridor instead, which happens to bypass Iran.
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  1060.  @MoeHaider  "All what i heard here is almost the headlines already everywhere" - headlines in France maybe. This was a good overview for people beyond France, and especially those beyond Europe.
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  1061. ​ @royxeph_arcanex  It very much exists in my society and I know quite well what honor killings are. Hell we even have further systems of social stratification, like castes. I can tell you what region I come from and caste I belong to and I doubt either would mean anything to you since you wouldn't even have heard of the names. So yeah I'm well versed in the traditional concept of tribes. Indeed your "rightfully so" early in your comment after calling it racist suggests to me that you're probably less familiar with it than I am, likely cos of being an emigrant who looks at it from a western lens. I'm not. And yet I still think the comparison is illuminating. Not cos it'll ever be accepted in an anthropological paper, but cos it's illuminating to see how readily the behavior patterns emerge, even if the basis for the discrimination is different. I'm not some western ideologue using tribalism to attack the other side without familiarity with what I'm talking about, I live with it everyday. And still find it curious how societies that have seemingly moved beyond it and whose oft touted social visions exhort dialogue and diversity fall easily into the same old patterns of behaviour as soon as they're confronted with what that truly means.
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  1062.  @heyho4770  No. There have been govt. programs to address all those issues all over the world, including in Korea. None of them worked. It's never been about how tough life is. The poor have the toughest lives of all, and yet they have the most children. And this holds even in urban environments where none of them farm, and even all when they have access to public schooling and healthcare. While the super rich have the easiest of lives, and yet tend not to have any more children for it. This is not being caused by the economics. You can literally see a natural experiment showing this all over the world - orthodox religious communities, who abide by traditional gender roles even as the particular religion in question differs between them, all have higher birth rates than their liberal peers in similar socio-economic conditions.
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  1063.  @kidobutai27  The judiciary at least I'll agree with, for now, that's why I didn't mention it. Not so the media, and even less ngos. And there seems to be a lot of political money flopping leaders around. I didn't claim he was a despot, but the country is still decidedly more autocratic than it was at any point before, apart from the Emergency.
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  1064.  @Destroyer4700  'Whatever the Japanese built in their 30 years of occupation' - tell this to a person actually in Korea and enjoy a free trip to the hospital. Your username is closer to what Japan did than your words.
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  1065.  @Destroyer4700  You talk as if this is only a thing of older generations. Not at all. Korea and Japan still don't get along, and that's despite the US' efforts to unify them. Also you not caring about what others do care about is just admitting callousness.
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  1066.  @david-o6s3n  I'm sure your mom can direct you to the nearest elementary school to learn reading comprehension again.
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  1067.  @david-o6s3n  Lol easy to 'act smart' when ones' interlocutor acts so dumb..
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  1068. "do not have an imperial policy"...read some history, please.
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  1069.  @bananasplit3805  In that case Yikrin is fine too. You don't get to excuse yourselves while attacking others.
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  1070.  @MrDosonhai  Lol what a long-winded and impassioned speech you just made, all to say that might makes right lmao! 😅 That too you don't even have much nuance in your thoughts on what makes places mighty either. Like how old are you kid? 😂
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  1071.  @KN-xl6lw  He's not an advocate for it, he's a realist. All he says is that this stuff never went away, like it or not. And a realist would never suggest that Britain should retake the US, simply because Britain is far weaker. That's just a stupid comparison.
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  1072. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
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  1073.  @JB-yz7th  The Mongols weren't particularly interested in governing in the first place, at least until some of them converted to Islam and settled down. They got what they wanted from their conquests. Also if it were easy to conquer the world, why have so few done it?
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  1074.  @jeidikei  If you want to be irrelevant again, just hop next door to NZ.
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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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  1076.  @CakePrincessCelestia  It's more negotiating than not negotiating at all. Hell Russia even began with negotiations - even before the war they sent a message to NATO. It even had very little to say about Ukraine, mostly just insisting on the same things they've quietly asked for for 30 years now. NATO dismissed it, and hence the war began.
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  1077.  @CakePrincessCelestia  See also another even more famous quote - 'war is just a continuation of politics by other means' by Clausewitz. If you can't negotiate the usual way, you do it in other ways. Perhaps also an idea you could be inspired by.
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  1078. Americans' China obsession is hilarious. The country has barely dipped a toe into Afghanistan so far. Why don't you spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of dead Afghans thanks to your war, before wringing your hands over China?
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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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  1080.  @zelyadimon  Germany trying means nothing, because it's America that concerns them. And America was actively trying to undermine German efforts, and more broadly Russia itself. They even still see the Maidan revolution in Ukraine as having been American backed. And China kinda bears out their fears, as even without a war the US has begun trying to undermine them. Neither country is ever going to be content having to bow down before Washington, and neither of them see America's allies as actually having a truly independent foreign policy either, but rather as client states.
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  1081.  @Afrologist  You seem to be advocating primitivism, a return to a rural agricultural society centered around religious authority and traditionalist conformity. No thanks. I don't envy the Amish, large families or no.
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  1082.  @joeledj  That's true, however Russia's crimes are already being punished. The wests' crimes never are. Consider that just ONE of America's wars this century has orders of magnitude more deaths than ALL of Russia's wars in the same period. The west gets away with its crimes scot free, and then has the gall to make claims to moral virtue.
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  1083.  @paybacksuper3670  I have. He predicted they would have difficulty annexing the whole country and maintaining control of it. He didn't predict them struggling against Ukraine's military close to their borders. Tbf to CR, he isn't the only one who was wrong.
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  1084.  @trogdor8942  Competing for the moral high ground in war is beyond childish. It's the adult equivalent of "but he started it!". You're supposed to be trying to end wars, not justify more fighting. And it gets even more ridiculous when it's done before a war i.e. to set the stage to have one, as is currently being done with China. Even after millennia of wars of faith, and literally just after a supposed war AGAINST a war of faith (I.e. jihad aka the 'war on terror'), we still haven't absorbed that moral wars are just actual wars waiting to happen, and are always incredibly destructive and intractable. 'Let justice be done even should the heavens fall' is the craziest philosophy ever endorsed, and will lead to our collective doom if we keep swearing by it. War is not moral, war should never be seen as moral. It only leads to more war, and prolongs existing ones. Politics allows for maneuvering, morality does not.
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  1085.  @thepax2621  Argue all you want about who'll be junior or senior, they certainly don't seem to be. Cos they have bigger concerns. They're focused on their common adversary, not petty pecking orders. Both of them want to take you down, and I doubt either cares who plays the bigger role in doing that. It didn't have to be that way, but you've managed to piss them both.
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  1086.  @miladeskandari7  The people of Iran have already overthrown a govt. - that's literally how this one came to power in 1979. So they can do it, if enough of them want to do it. Evidently not enough of them wanted to do it last year. Iranians aren't all liberal feminists you know.
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  1087.  @luddity  This includes a railroad. It's a corridor for both trucks and trains.
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  1088.  @wendten2  A lot of those quotable quotes aren't his. They're sayings of other people that he fails to give attribution for.
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  1089.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  1090. Has it not? Their inadequate welfare state has raised nearly 3 times America's whole population out of absolute poverty in a span of a few decades (the largest poverty reduction in human history), starting from a state of utter destitution. Meanwhile the US' welfare state, despite belonging to the nation that's been the richest country on Earth for over a century, has resulted in it having the highest poverty rate among developed nations. Dunno about you, but the Chinese one looks to have done a lot better.
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  1091.  @royhuang9715  Federal govt. aid comes from tax revenue. And richer states send in more tax revenue than they receive back in the form of federal spending, while poorer states are the opposite. Hence the richer states are effectively paying for the services enjoyed by the poorer ones. This is how it happens not just in the US, but China as well - those richer provinces don't send money directly to the poorer ones, it's done via the central government.
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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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  1093.  @viva5208  It isn't analysis either, it's opinion.
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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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  1096.  @mimas165  Lol I am on topic. You're the one who went off on a tangent claiming they needed to steal toilets - in response to me talking about NATO. Ironic that you then accuse me of going off topic, what you yourself did. So I followed your dumb argument by pointing out that they're already better off than the country they supposedly need to steal toilets from.
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  1097.  @mimas165  As to your original comment, you wanted to try forcing a comparison between them and Venezuela. I pointed out how that doesn't hold up. Their situations aren't at all similar. In fact you were the original party guilty of going off topic, as your original comment dragged Russia into the discussion despite both the OP and this video being about Venezuela. You just want to indulge your pet hate boner all over the internet rather than staying on topic. Probably start yapping about how much Russia sucks even under cooking vids lol.
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  1098.  @DanielMousavi1  It's the same sanctions. The nuclear deal lifted pre-existing trade sanctions, its collapse re-established them. Iran has dealt with sanctions for nearly half a century already. And it's hardly the only one. It also still trades with other nations who don't let the US tell them what to do, some of whom are among the biggest economies in the world.
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  1099.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  Bruh, are you gonna keep repeating that line in every comment chain? I thought it was China that was meant to be employing bots. Or is Modi learning from Xi now?
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  1100.  @ac_pejk3113  Yeah, it was Russia that invaded Iraq too. Oh wait... And that's just one example. Angola, Argentina, Afghanistan, 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. And that wasn't even all of them lol, not even close.
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  1101.  @32523Bwahahaha  An interesting alternative way things could play out is that the US assists Taiwan in getting nukes as a cheap alternative to going up against China in their own backyard. That would make them second country the US has armed with nukes, destroying what's left of their credibility in being anti-proliferation. Something the world, and particularly NK and Iran would take cognizance of. Which China would be happy to leverage and assist them with. And who knows who else might get ideas from that? More nukes for everyone! \o/ Should make for an interesting new world. ;)
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  1102.  @Eastern_Egale  Actually I think he's a bot. Elsewhere he's bringing up Russia randomly. Literally everything he's said is in line with western positions, even on topics that're not Iranian.
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  1103.  @SamPashmi  A certain democracy has been in more wars than any other nation, of any political stripe...
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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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  1106. @Kaushal Batavia And neither Japan not Taiwan can project power into the Strait, and increasingly neither can America - even their own naval analysts have said so. China's area denial systems dwarf theirs. When people say China will have difficulty conquering Taiwan, they're not referring to their navy or even airforce, both of which China easily outmatches. They're talking about their army and the challenge China will face in landing on the island and taking its cities from a dug in enemy. But that means nothing beyond Taiwans' landmass.
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  1107. @Kaushal Batavia Bro we've fought five wars already, including one with China, without the US. On the contrary the US has actually used its navy against us before, during the Bangladesh war, and has sanctioned us before as well. We've never relied on the US, as our relationship has been very rocky. We have the world's 4th strongest military precisely so we don't need to. Right now Russia is struggling against Ukraine, a far weaker nation, so I don't think we're going to need the Americans to hold off the Chinese for us. As such, we DO have a choice. It's only countries like Japan that don't.
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  1108.  @timkey_4542  "If the russian people see their "brother" peoples in eastern europe" - lol this is such a stupid idealistic argument. Firstly Ukraine is much poorer than Russia. Secondly the Baltic nations that're already in the western alliance haven't really had any effect on Putins' regime. He was as popular as ever for the last two decades.
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  1109.  @PizeFish  Lmao! In that case I guess China really does own that little island. ;)
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  1110.  suburben yobbo  And you're an idiot whose sole argument here has been name-calling. Firstly, Indians were even more oppressed than the British plebeians, especially in later years as public services in the UK improved. Secondly, no British people today are being punished cos no one's asking for that - the only demand people are making is that colonial empires are recognised for being as rapacious as they were, regardless of whether you want to ascribe that to the British people or British elites. And you having a poor impression of the Empire is irrelevant - fact is polls have shown that a lot of the British public see it in a positive light, and books extolling the Empire have been eagerly lapped up as bestsellers. Tharoor even mentions this as the reason his book is needed.
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  1111.  @thomaskalbfus2005  "Russia and the US are of the same race, and it's time we banded together to defend ourselves" ... "I notice Putin is mainly starting wars with European countries, a lot of whites are being killed and our population is being reduced by him" etc. Bruh, you're just screaming 'I'm a white supremacist' at this point. No wonder your worldview is so deludedly simplistic. Not to mention you even got the race thing wrong - Russia is mainly Slavic, the US isn't. But of course to you people not only is race a meaningful category, but there's only a couple of them, defined simply in terms of skin color. You can keep dreaming if you think global foreign policy is going to be determined by something as childish as a shared epidermal hue.
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  1112. ​ @thomaskalbfus2005  "so are you saying its racist to be opposed to the killing of white people?" - nice strawman you got there. But no, I said it's dumb to imagine that Russia is going to ally with the US simply on account of having a similar racial majority i.e. both are majority white nations. And implied that only a white supremacist would be silly enough to imagine such a scenario. And just cos you want to dismiss Russia's past political goals as illegitimate, while the US' political goals in Russia are conveniently taken as legitimate, doesn't mean the Russians are gonna see it that way. The US has stood in opposition to Russia for literal decades, and still does, and neither side is going to forget that anytime soon. Whose global agenda you identify with changes nothing about that - they're still not gonna like the US, or the US them, any more just cos you promote "freedom".
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  1113. ​ @thomaskalbfus2005  Uh huh, sure. It was all about serving and protecting the greater good. Right... Man, you really are out of date if you think territory is what matters for superpowerdom these days. Hell, even Russia just ostensibly installed puppet regimes in place in most cases rather than outright annex them. And the US' own approach to global power management is, to their credit, even more subtle. Doesn't change what it is though - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism Also, either you're a troll or you're practically medically deficient when it comes to viewing things through any perspective other than your own. Like literally this is coming across as a real psychological deficiency at this point. So I'll repeat in big letters for you, in the vain hopes you'll get it through that thick skull of yours - IT IS IRRELEVANT WHAT YOU THINK OF RUSSIA'S AMBITIONS, ALL THAT MATTERS IS THAT THAT WAS WHAT THEY WANTED AND THE US STOOD AGAINST THEM (AND CONTINUES TO DO SO). Russia allying with the US is a prospect they have to like, not you. Cos newsflash - the world doesn't revolve about you, and neither does Russia.
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  1114.  @thomaskalbfus2005  Bruh, the US has literally launched wars in the last 20 years, let alone 120. And your logic that not having started a war lets you off the hook is laughable. If I come across a bunch of hoodlums duking it out in an alleyway and jump in with an AR-15 to butcher one side to "end" it...well, good luck arguing in court that you're in the clear just cos 'you didn't start it'. And ironically, Russia was a bigger deal in ending WW2 Germany than the US.
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  1115.  @thomaskalbfus2005  Anyway, this is getting tiresome. I don't expect to change your mind, but luckily I don't have to. Ultimately, this is what the rest of the world thinks of you guys, and that's what matters - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
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  1116.  @thomaskalbfus2005  Bruh, that's a Gallup poll. It's literally just conveying what survey respondents said. And must be nice to be able to simply dismiss everything that doesn't fit in with your worldview as anti-American media. Your immigration point is also silly - the poll is on which country disturbs peace most, not which country is the best place to settle. The US is richer than Russia and has more jobs available - of course more people want to live there. Meanwhile Uruguay is a far more peaceful nation, yet people don't move there en masse, because it's not as well off. Talk about bringing oranges to an apple fight.
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  1117. Iran was literally fighting to out a leader who was installed by the (opposite of east).
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  1118.  @eskil6096  "Most of India’s population is indoeuropean" - you know who the last people to emphasize this were? Hint: It's Polands' neighbour, over half a century ago...💀☠
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  1119.  @eskil6096  I didn't contest the fact, I pointed out who else cared a lot about that fact. Most of Europe doesn't, but they did. And they invaded Poland...
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  1120.  @adex7038  Bruh in order to 'beat' me he'd have had to have made an argument to begin with. He didn't, and neither have you. Neither of you have ever explained why the US needs to be involved in far away lands that aren't invading its territory. You both just take that for granted, which is telling cos it isn't taken for granted for any other country. In other words both of you equate hegemony with the state. If you want to claim you don't, then you're going to have to actually back that up by explaining all the interventions in terms of how they were a threat to the US' own territorial integrity. Saying 'you lost cos I say so' is nothing but empty posturing.
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  1121.  @kameronjones7139  The only one acting smart is you, as opposed to actually being smart. You still haven't shown how the US needed to be in those conflicts. You moan about not wanting to fight wars, you CHOOSE to go enter wars that don't involve you all the time. And also launch many of your own. You don't have an explanation for why those wars were not your CHOICE, so you just shrug that off and attack your opponents directly instead. And then pretend to take the high road so you don't have to defend those accusations either.
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  1122.  @kameronjones7139  You're not even consistent with your hegemonic ideology. You claim it's normal for allies to help each other, yet attack your enemies for doing so (for example, wrt Ukraine). It's always one rule for you, another for your everyone else. That's typical hegemonic thinking.
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  1123.  @patrickbrady519  can't what?
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  1124. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  1125. Afghanistan wasn't part of the BRI anyway. And if anything the US' military presence in the region is far more antithetical to China than anything the Taliban or even ISIS-K could muster. They would've been more than happy to see the US kicked out. Now they're literally making deals with the Taliban, something that wasn't as feasible with the previous puppet govt. in Kabul.
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  1126. The Baltics only like NATO cos the US leads it, and Russia hates NATO cos the US leads it. Which means NATO relies on the US maintaining its hegemony. If that ever falters, NATO will fall with it. A new European Army may arise to replace it, but it'll be highly divided by infighting and mistrust. Btw, China's issues also center around US hegemony. The entire western house of cards revolves around and relies on US hegemony, and ever more non-western nations are increasingly against said hegemony.
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  1127.  @kurianjose9088  The Malacca Strait is an offensive move that the US wishes India would contribute to, it has no bearing on India's own security since it's well past most of the shipping to the country. India is more concerned by the Siliguri Corridor, which is an actual military vulnerability. India already knows China can't carry out a full scale invasion of the country, or vice versa, nor can it blockade it. So the main focus is on securing the north-east. Everything else is American wishful thinking.
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  1128.  @ofthecaribbean  See above comment. There's also been a lot of different marketing approaches used but, as you'd expect, it's just pretty dang hard (if not impossible) to convince people to have kids if they didn't already want to. And as mentioned above, you need them to have quite a few of them too. It doesn't work.
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  1129. ​ @FireDragon16180 You don't speak for all humanity bub.
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  1130.  @plc3653  "compared to the shit happening there, I can't imagine the country can go any worse" - then you have a very limited imagination. Here's a good rule of thumb for life - things can ALWAYS get worse. ALWAYS. Hell, Venezuela isn't even the worst place right now. Places like Congo, Syria, etc. are there for competition, so apparently your imagination is more limited than even reality.
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  1131. @Apsoy Pike Who is 'most people'? The Chinese economy size is acknowledged by international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. If you're claiming they're wrong, you'd have to back that up. And that would also call into question every other country's figure as well, so you'd better have strong evidence.
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  1132.  Gen Rom  Bruh, you're a regular old garden variety conspiracy theorist. There's only one nation that's dropped nukes on people - the US in 1945. If you've got reputable evidence that China has dropped nukes or "bio-chemical" weapons on people, go ahead and share it here.
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  1133.  @BlackPill-pu4vi  Can confirm, as I'm getting notifications of new comments here, but my own comment was poofed.
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  1134. ​ @liammarra4003  The Chinese have already have already taken care of it - https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/taliban-call-china-a-friend-promise-not-to-help-uyghurs-muslims-from-xinjiang-report/ar-AAM0J0d
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  1135.  @Pietervandebuurt  Europe and the EU are largely irrelevant really. This is about America. Russia can threaten Europe just as Europe can threaten Russia, if they were strong enough. The same isn't true of America. The US, via NATO, has forces close to Russia. The reverse isn't true. When Russia did put forces close to the US, in Cuba, they US flipped out! And they've harshly punished poor Cuba ever since. Russia will not tolerate the US having more leverage over it. If they had forces in Canada and Mexico, it might be different. But they don't. As such, they will never let the US get any closer.
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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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  1137.  @moscuadelendaest  It has taken it up with NATO. They've literally warned NATO against expansion for 30 years now, to no avail. For around 20 of those years they hadn't attacked any of those nation either, but it happened anyway. Ukraine was attacked in 2014, right after the Maidan revolution when it turned to the west. They see NATO expansion as inevitable, and all peaceful options against it as exhausted and futile.
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  1138.  @moscuadelendaest  They wanted to join NATO for the same reason India is in the SCO - to constrain American control of it. Instead it is still dominated by America. If Russia had joined NATO it would look very different today.
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  1139. That said, Trump is merely building on (and, admittedly, also building further) the foundations of his predecessors - both Obama and Bush greatly strengthened, and used, the power of the presidency. The establishment doesn't like it only cos he doesn't follow decorum i.e. he isn't discreet in how he throws his weight around. In that sense, he's better (even if he's terrible) - better a naked demagogue than the 'politically astute' bs people like these authors usually prefer. They speak of 'norms', what they really mean is 'tact'.
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  1140.  @ognargormsby7121  Lol! If you think the US gives a rats ass about ideology, you're naive. The US is right now courting Vietnam, a communist country, in order to counter another communist country - China. It's never had anything to do with communism, simply hegemony aka power. Vietnam has 2 million people killed to preserve that hegemony, and now they're a potential key ally for the same goal. Even Russia would be an ally when useful. Hell, so would China. Cos power is all.
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  1141. @Ladey Babey The US doesn't give a shit about the Chinese govt either. The CCP has been in power for over half a century, and it didn't bother them. It's also not the only communist or authoritarian govt out there - America actually supports many authoritarian govts itself. The CCP became a problem only when China became powerful i.e. when superpower America found another country muscling onto its turf. And that will continue to be the issue even if it wasn't the CCP in power - as long as China threatens American hegemony, they will continue to be antagonistic towards it.
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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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  1143. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
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  1144. They'd both be far more interested in Kazakhastan than Mongolia... Mongolia is largely a wasteland. Kazakhastan is ... well, also a wasteland, but a very resource-rich wasteland.
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  1145. ​ @J_X999  "The reason behind low birth rates is obvious. People can't afford to" - no, it isn't. First off, poor places have more children, not less. And no, it's not just free labour. Secondly, cash incentives and other public policies to reduce costs have had negligible impact on birth rates. Thirdly, there are groups that have large families still even at the same income and expense levels. One is highly religious communities - they tend to have more kids than their peers in similar economic situations. Fourthly, the ultra-rich also have few kids.
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  1146.  @J_X999  "Kids are free labour on the farms." - no. Poor people have more kids even in urban areas. They have more kids even if there's compulsory schooling provisioned by the state that denies them those kids as workers.
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  1147.  @andreg4575  There won't. You think Ru is concerned by any of those nations? Nope. This about the us. If not nato, then anything that may be there won't include the us. That's the big issue, that it brings the us close to them, just as Cuba was for the us.
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  1148.  @andreg4575  Indeed it'll likely fall in on itself if that happened. Those countries don't get alone with france and germany either, they like nato cos of america. If us wasn't in charge, it'll all fall into fractious infighting as they chafe as the idea of having to humor the big europeans. This suits Ru fine, as it'll be back to the good old days prior to the nineteenth century. They're used to playing politics in europe.
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  1149. I have no idea why this comment is even getting so many replies. It did nothing but blandly wish ppl a good weekend lol. 😅
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  1150. Wagner was created for a reason. That rationale has somewhat lost its power since they came out into the limelight in Ukraine. But that's nothing a bit a clever rebranding can't fix. Fun Fact: Did you know that Dove (the uber-feminist hygiene brand) and Axe (the hyper-masculine grooming brand) are owned by the same company? Well now you do.
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  1151. At that point Russia would have to bow down to the US. They're not gonna do that. Neither will China btw, which is similarly being surrounded by American forces. And China hasn't been to war since 1979, the US' last war ended barely 2 years ago. I'm sorry but who's supposed to be the peaceful one here? They're both not gonna become the US' little bitch like the UK or Japan is.
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  1152.  Burning City  Eh, he probably is anti-colonial, but that's hardly a fringe position (even in the West). Anti-European? Not seeing it.
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  1153. Ideally, you want an independent and subscription-based cooperative media. We actually have similar things to this already, it's just that they don't figure at the top of the public consciousness due to being more 'background' actors, so to speak. The Associated Press would be a common example, and there are usually other national equivalents. But these things tend to be more along the lines of wholesale news distributors one step removed from the 'retail' end that consumers actually watch/read. But ultimately, you want a media as independent from both commercial and political pressures as possible, and a private cooperative (NOT corporate) enterprise financed by subscriptions rather than ads is likely the closest to the ideal new provider. And of course, preferably a whole bunch of them, to keep an eye on each other. Unfortunately, these things tend to get grossly outcompeted by corporate ad-financed media houses, as well as public tax-financed media. They're the most ethically good, but not competitively good.
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  1154.  @kafon6368  Doesn't change the fact that people aren't having kids much anymore, which means any conservatives who're concerned about the coming demographic decline are gonna have to do some heavy birthing to even slightly offset that. Which they won't of course, and that's the point.
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  1155. ​ @miroslavdusin4325  It is NATO, not Ukraine. And frankly it's not NATO either, it's America. They see NATO as little more than a front for American power projection. A view that isn't exclusive to Russia btw, as many around the world see it that way. Including most notably China. Ukraine can 'will' all it wants. There's a popular saying liberals love spouting whenever someone's life is destroyed by an online mob for something they said - the 'consequences of their actions'. It's how they justify suppressing freedom of speech. This is the harder geopolitical version of that. 'Consequences' is a wonderfully vague and flexible word after all, it can literally be anything you like. Well here's another version of 'consequences'.
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  1156.  @vibesanm  I said "at just around replacement rate - and still falling". India's TFR is currently at 2.2 (and that's from 2017). Replacement level is 2.1. And it is indeed steadily falling further, and has been for a long time. Its population is expected to plateau at around 1.6 billion, and be young for a long time after. As for robots, Japan has been pinning its hopes on them for over a decade, then on working women and now finally is tentatively taking steps to let in a trickle of immigrants. Point being that apparently even the most advanced nation on Earth isn't able to do without people quite yet, which explains why economists almost universally see an aging population as a negative national indicator. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=IN
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  1157.  @vibesanm  "so have nothing other than cities and corporate farms, no forests, mountains." - where did this picture come from? Which (non-citystate) country is even like this? Even densely populated Japan isn't. The point of my analogy was to show that there was plenty of space for everyone, not that it was necessary to live as you describe. Classic example of stretching an argument to absurdity.
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  1158.  TheCrazyKid1381  White people are the most sought after racial group in the world lol. Mostly cos they tend to be richer on average wherever they are, but still. You may not have been able to get a gf, but that's hardly because you're white. The difference is that white people don't seem to want to actually have kids as much, and even that's not about race - richer people in general (across races) don't want kids much.
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  1159.  @kaio37k  Encouraging child-bearing has been tried in loads of places around the world. With very limited results. At most it gets some people to have the kids they wished to have already but were financially unsure of, but that's it. It doesn't raise your birth rate above replacement levels. Few people actually want more than two kids, and most are happy with one (or none). About the only exception to this are a few highly conservative religious communities, and they're not typically the most economically useful types of people.
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  1160.  @alex1695lopez  Encouraging child-bearing has been tried in loads of places around the world. With very limited results. At most it gets some people to have the kids they wished to have already but were financially unsure of, but that's it. It doesn't raise your birth rate above replacement levels. Few people actually want more than two kids, and most are happy with one (or none). About the only exception to this are a few highly conservative religious communities, and they're not typically the most economically useful types of people.
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  1161. @herrynovri1648 Lol you think they won? Lmao Afghanistan taught you nothing. xD
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  1162.  @condorb7756  Victory is solving problem not creating them. I bet you think you 'won' Afghanistan too. You were only trapped there for 20 years, Isr has been for over 75.
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  1163.  @condorb7756  Lol sure. The most powerful country on earth still couldn't beat one stuck in the dark ages. What a hoot! That not even your only loss either. The most powerful country on earth has lost repeatedly. Some power. xD
    2
  1164.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Good guess I guess, as insulting as it is. But no. Close tho. Very close, but not quite. :)
    2
  1165. @herrynovri1648 Oh yeah sure, YOUR preferred dictatorship was the nice one..
    2
  1166.  @seekingtruth9304  Were all the US wars in the Middle East and Latin America meant to protect Taiwan?
    2
  1167.  @seekingtruth9304  It matters in the context of my comment. The video was about the US wringing its hands over a potential war started by China, while ignoring all the actual wars already started, or ongoing, thanks to the US. The amount of attention given to a country that hasn't launched an invasion in decades versus one that's repeatedly done so is telling...
    2
  1168. ​ @seekingtruth9304  If you think the US cares about democracy, you're the one deluded. This myth of democratic brotherhood is pernicious indeed. The US has toppled democracies when it suited them, and propped autocracies up when it suited them. Nations don't risk their armies for idealism lol. Taiwan is defended by the US simply because it's strategically useful to them, as yet another lever against China. It's position is no different from that of Cuba to the former USSR. and guess how America reacted when the Russians tried to 'help' Castro. I come from a democracy myself - one that you'd expect to have always had close relations with a fellow democracy like the US (India). Guess what, the Russians have been far more reliable allies, while the US has outright sanctioned us before. I don't like China, but I have no illusions about the US either. And right now a lot of the media is already attacking China, while the US goes scot free despite having a much longer list of wars to its name. So I've no interest in joining that bandwagon. I'd rather point out the hypocrisy of the so-called 'champion of democracy' that's killed more democracies than even "Communist China". China doesn't need more hate - it gets plenty already. The US could do with a lot more.
    2
  1169. ​ @seekingtruth9304  "the US is not forcing Taiwan to be a democracy" - kindly point out where I said it was. The US was an ally to Taiwan even when you guys weren't a democracy as well, cos it suited them. Your democratic govt. is just a nice bonus, useful for the PR any war will need. "If you bully someone, that person is certainly going to hate you." - I neither expect nor desire the people of Taiwan to start liking China. Of course you guys will hate them. My own countrymen, and me, also have a bad impression of China. I'm not telling the Taiwanese to do anything different. What I do take exception to is the broader global narrative painted by the west, which always paints them as the good guys and countries all over the world in various shades of grey or black. Hell, my own nations' former colonisers - Britain - like to pretend they did us and all their former colonies a big favor by ruling over us. You guys can keep disliking China, and more power to you for that. But I'm not interested in letting the broader global narrative once again try to paint the west as the worlds' saviors. My comments aren't trying to change the Taiwanese, they're trying to challenge all the other ideologues globally who try to make this look like some great moral conflict instead of one simply based on selfish geopolitical interests.
    2
  1170. You're naïve if you think Russia could ever do that. They have decades of resentment built up. Look at China and Japan - they haven't been at war in generations, and still hate each other. And besides, friendly relations with its neighbors would do nothing about the 800-pound American gorilla in the neighborhood. You'd be delusional if you thought that would ever get them to expel the US. Friendly relations is simply not an option - there's no way it could ever get Russia what it wants i.e. to make the US leave.
    2
  1171. This sounds suspiciously like a romanticization of your own people, and demonization of those who took over. Hardly unbiased.
    2
  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.
    2
  1173. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
    2
  1174.  @thetzarofthemountain8222  Yes there is, specifically to point out how ONE part of the country has benefited itself from all of this all this while - London.
    2
  1175.  @mbahremuk  Bub Ukraine themselves have said Russia can continue the war for another year.
    2
  1176.  @scott2452  It's hard yes, but the British also have a storied track record of not really caring all that much about the borders they drew as their empire started to shrink. The Middle East is the most infamous example of this, but hardly the only one. They drew borders with little in the way of proper local consultation or buy-in.
    2
  1177.  @woohay  China doesn't give a shit about their religion. They also happen to belong to a different ethnicity fyi. And there are Muslims in other parts of China too. Mostly they're doing it cos those provinces are restless and have organized resistances and even staged some attacks before. And, as HK also shows, China doesn't stand separatists and/or campaigns for greater liberty and autonomy lightly. The Chinese govt. couldn't care less if they stay Muslim, so long as they stay good little citizens. They put a toe out of line, so the govt. is responding as it typically does - with a very hard boot to their face.
    2
  1178. You think this is good? 'Precarious' might be a more realistic description of it. It's only good for as long as you can keep it up. If you watch this channels' previous Afghanistan video, you'll see they tried something similar, and it really bit them in the ass.
    2
  1179.  @mrberzerk8411  Err...what? Indonesia is nothing like China. It's a democracy. It's more diverse. It's more decentralized. It's more spread out. It's less powerful. It's majority Muslim. It's got a different set of resources in its territory. It's got a different economic mix. It's basically got almost nothing in common with China.
    2
  1180.  @willywonka4340  And the US' own admirals have also said they're wary of fighting in that region because of how much China has fortified the area by now. Even if they do act, it's an open question whether they can secure it. They'd be in range of not just China's navy, but also its missiles, air force and even parts of its army. At risk would be not just Taiwan, but the US' own fleet. There's also the oft-mentioned Malacca Strait option, which is a non-starter cos not only would the nations in the region not appreciate that, but China would simply up the ante by fully blockading Taiwan and even perhaps Japan if it did.
    2
  1181.  @willywonka4340  "that doesn't deter us Navy from not acting when the shooting starts" - that will only be known if the "crap hits the fan". No article proves that. Besides, you talk as if that would make things better, when the effect would be the opposite. You'd turn a semiconductor shortage into a global economic disaster.
    2
  1182. ​ @GowthamNatarajanAI  Blocking the Malacca Strait would make the war worse for everyone, not better, and gives China more than enough reason to escalate. And Japan can't do a thing about it, as their military is in no position to counter China. They've shredded their military industry over the years, and lack manpower too. There's only so much they can do to improve it at this point, especially since their own public also opposes it. That's why I mentioned Japan rather than South Korea, which maintained a strong military. And no, those two aren't allies - they hate each other
    2
  1183.  ODA 595  India has always had a closer relationship with Russia than the US. For good reason. Russia has been a much more reliable ally through the decades, whereas Uncle Sam's behaviour has always been highly opportunistic. They've even favored our arch enemy Pakistan when it suited them, not to mention have sanctioned us before too. Our eyes are open!
    2
  1184.  @ngolong4070  It's not about Scotland staying silent about Hong Kong, it's about both Scotland and the UK being weaker. Who cares what they say then? Also it's just nice to see England getting a taste of its own medicine, given their history with China.
    2
  1185.  @abubakrmuhammad4164  The video went on about Russia not liking being the junior partner to China. Why would you think they'd be happy being the junior partner to their old nemesis America instead?
    2
  1186.  Binnaz Husain  No, the comment section is full of people predicting it'll be a shitshow, who seem to vastly outnumber the actual shitshow comments. Quite the irony...
    2
  1187.  @fearlessleader343  Intervening in foreign nations is now the US' 'fiduciary duty'? Spoken like a true warmongering neocon. Venuzuela can sort its own affairs, and if it can't then its Latin American neighbors ought to shoulder that responsibility. Yet another US' intervention is the last thing anyone needs or wants, either in Venezuela or in the US itself (outside its military industrial complex).
    2
  1188.  @drunkensailor3736  Quit advertising your own channel using a string of fake accounts. It's tiresome. Advertise if you wish, but at least have the decency to do it openly in your own name.
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  1189. You seem to think development happens overnight. India's development indicators are far better today than they were at independence. It took Britain way longer to develop, with way fewer people and challenges. Or take America, which gained independence in 1776, yet became a world power only well over a century later. China has been more aggressive about its development, at cost of human rights, and it still took them close to 40 years to graduate to just middle income status. Independent India has only existed for a little over 70 years, and substantially shifted its economic model only 27 years ago. It's a highly fractious, diverse in every sense (economically too), non-resource rich and militarily vulnerable (don't forget it's fought 5 major wars since independence, and so has to maintain a strong army and political unity) nation. Yugoslavia faced fewer challenges, and still collapsed. India's not doing bad at all. And the caste issue is separate thing. No one's accused the British of bringing that to us, but then again it's not the primary reason for underdevelopment either. We were still a quarter of the global economy prior to the British even with the caste system. Abolishing caste is more of a social and humanitarian i.e. ethical cause, not especially significant economically.
    2
  1190.  @chrisbutler1668  It was fought on 3 continents, not 4. It barely touched America at home, and the rest of your examples of 'war' are so minor (or in the case of Antarctica laughable) that they barely count. Of those three continents, Asia was part of it cos of Japan and Europeans having colonial holdings there. While Africa was part of it cos of European colonial control of it. I see a common element there - European colonialism. If that wasn't present, the war would've been primarily a European conflict with a Japanese offshoot in China and SE Asia. And also neither Africa nor the rest of Asia started it or had a bone to pick in it. It was started by Europeans against Europeans, and Japanese against Americans, Chinese and...Europeans.
    2
  1191.  @WTFisDrifting  Oh get over yourself! The Afghan war was not a war for women's liberation - that narrative only got peddled widely when the west left in order to paint an invasion that killed a quarter of a million people as a good thing. You know what's worse than women not being 'liberated'? Women dying. And children. And the elderly. And men.
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  1192. They're doing the same with China, and will similarly pretend 'containment' is somehow an innocent thing to do, when China finally has enough and decides to try to break out of the cage the US is putting around it.
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  1193.  @delfinenteddyson9865  It doesn't become untrue by repeatedly denying it either.
    2
  1194.  @ChronicAndIronic  I remember when people had basic levels of imagination, and were aware of the platforms they're on. The different spellings were deliberate, to get my comment through.
    2
  1195.  @thepax2621  'much of eastern Europe, applied for NATO membership, following the USSR's collapse, precisely because of what Russia is doing right now' - lol yeah right. It didn't attack them for 20 years, so they're going to apply based on an event that happened a decade after they joined. I think you need to work on your model for cause and effect bub.
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  1196.  @thepax2621  And you don't know what whataboutism is. Even its wiki page would teach you, particularly on how it's been criticized as a way to avoid owning up to charges of hypocrisy.
    2
  1197.  @thepax2621  But guess what, they haven't worked. Literally the entire history of sanctions is of them failing to achieve their stated goals (with the only, highly disputed, success story being apartheid south africa, which already had a strong domestic resistance). In every case it just begets more defiance.
    2
  1198.  @thepax2621  Imagine punishing that poor island for over half a century now, and thinking you've 'left it alone' lol! Literally the whole world disagrees with you, and has for decades now.
    2
  1199.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
    2
  1200. Hence why the talk means little. The east is a barrier that lets other members continue as before since they're at no risk, and they know it.
    2
  1201.  @Martin-ri4fg  'they legally don't have a way to prevent other countries to apply' - they very much have the ability to not accept any of the applications they get.
    2
  1202.  @Martin-ri4fg the state with the most 'adventures' to its name since WW2,
    2
  1203.  @Martin-ri4fg  The closest thing to such would be the UN.
    2
  1204.  @Martin-ri4fg  Tell me, who is policing your 'police' then?
    2
  1205.  @Martin-ri4fg  Missing line (altered) - 'has 'reformed leadership' and even 'let its warriors play in other people's playgrounds' without UN sayso,'
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  1206.  @Martin-ri4fg  In case you're confused, that was all one comment. We're so 'free' here on this US site. Yes sirree!
    2
  1207.  @enoch9468  Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
    2
  1208.  @T_M_E_8  "many people in the US disagree with war in the first place." - Tbh, I'd rather the country have more of those people, and less of their opposites. For everyone's sake - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
    2
  1209.  @Bitchslapper316  They are cracking whips on the non-western world though. The west has sanctioned plenty of nations, and even individuals - most of those targets were not over wars. Hell America sanctioned the previous head of the ICC - a black woman - for daring to launch a war crimes investigation into Afghanistan. You're naive if you think that ever went away.
    2
  1210.  @juch3  Except Russia didn't invade Finland, for generations, cos Finland kept itself neutral. When did Ukraine get invaded? When it stopped being neutral.
    2
  1211.  @juch3  I see someone doesn't know how long a generation is. That's okay, I can see English isn't your first language lmao
    2
  1212.  @juch3  12 year old huh? Is that your own age? Wouldn't surprise me, since you still seem confused how long a generation is.
    2
  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.
    2
  1214.  @lordmike9384  The US still lost the war, as much as you people keep trying to deny it.
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  1215. Nothing will come of this because the west is continuing with its same old practice of caring more about how to sell its grand plans to domestic voters than the actual clients themselves - two of those focus areas (health and gender equality) aren't even what African nations turn to China for in the first place (in fact they often finance both via western aid, so turning them into an 'investment' represents a step DOWN in terms of the wests' offer to Africa). The West continues to paint themselves into a corner by putting ideological marketability at home over listening to the actual desires of the African nations themselves. China's BRI's doesn't have a 'mandate' - when they go to a country they simply ask what the local administration would like to see (how sound an idea some of those projects are is besides the point, and no most of them aren't that bad). But the West insists on maintaining its usual 'We Know Best' attitude and moral grandstanding by telling Africans what to do, a strategy that is the major reason why Africa turned away from the IMF and western financing in the first place. This initiative will barely displace China at all, even if the multinational partners can actually coordinate to deliver it (another ace in China's hole - it can deliver what it says it will).
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  1216.  @CodyBlaise  If you think everything was fine on oct 6, you know nothing. Reap what you sow indeed - that's the whole reason it happened in the first place. And why it'll happen again, and again, and again. Until you realise that you can't stop it with your kind of thinking.
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  1217.  @MovieRiotHD  As opposed to being actually colonial? China has demanded a lot less of Africa so far than the west traditionally has. If it ramps up its demands, that'd just be the return of an old friend - exploitation. They're used to that. It'll make them hate the Chinese, but I don't see why they should hate them any more than the west, which already did that, and worse, to them. In the meantime, what would you have them do? They need someone to do business with, and the west is a much more demanding partner, even in modern times (the SAP's aren't colonial era policies, for instance). So yeah, they might as well bet on China. It's the best option they've got.
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  1218. 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.
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  1219.  @kurousagi8155  Canada is mostly seen as the US' little bitch anyway, even outside of Russia. They don't need to invade it. Just as many former Soviet states are seen by many as Russian puppets, Canada is oft seen as one of the US' cronies. Note that Russia had far less issue with Ukraine before the 2014 Maidan revolution, when it had more influence on their govt.
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  1220. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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  1221. @ishouldbeonmountrushmore6831 In the long run that would not be good for Israel. They'll end up as even more of a pariah than they already are, utterly dependent on the US to shield them. And if that shield ever turns away...
    2
  1222.  @OgJusttrippin  No, you need to look outside YOUR bubble for a change. None of his opponents were ever very popular. I'm just stating the facts, you're making up excuses for them that cater to your own preconceived biases. And those biases mean so much to you that it doesn't even strike you how self-servingly convenient your presumed explanations are. If you knew anything about Russia itself, you wouldn't be so in denial, but that's expected from the people who feted Yeltsin (who Russians hate, and is a big reason for Putin's popularity, yet the West celebrated).
    2
  1223.  @Customercf  99% is an exaggeration, and you know it. We don't have proper data for opinions on the war yet. While it seems to be unpopular, it isn't at all clear how much.
    2
  1224.  @95Bartlett  And yet geographic determinism is loved when it says things western audiences DO like, such as celebrating the greatness of the USA in works like those of Peter Zeihan. When it says things they don't like, suddenly they doubt its validity.
    2
  1225.  @Ali_Haji_SouthAfrica  Bub I didn't even say anything to you.
    2
  1226.  @SamPashmi  says the faker 😏😂
    2
  1227.  @SamPashmi  Well right now it's disrespectful to the over a million people who're attending his funeral. So much for your pretense that all Iranians are celebrating. As if the failure of your weak protests last year wasn't proof enough.
    2
  1228.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  Pfft! Bots aren't worth responding to.
    2
  1229.  @SamPashmi  You tried that last year and failed. And we've already done it before - it's why the shah isn't in power anymore. But you failed, cos those million mourners are more support than you likely have, and those are just the people who've came out to mourn. You lost liberal. Most of Iran doesn't want him back.
    2
  1230.  @SamPashmi  'if only 1 million are mourning' - lol! Over 1.5 million is just the ones attending the funeral. That doesn't mean they're the only ones mourning. Keep raging about not being popular, failure. ;)
    2
  1231.  @SamPashmi  Yeah keep making excuses for your failures, failure. ;)
    2
  1232. You often hear people lamenting the lack of honest politicians. If only being an honest politician was enough...
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  1233. You're basically saying this has nothing to do with securing an independent state but just continuing with your aggressive fight against communism ala Cold War days. So much for caring about the plight of the Taiwanese. No, apparently they're just tools for you to push the global western agenda of ending communism (notwithstanding whether China even counts for that nowadays).
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  1234. Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
    2
  1235.  @ihatecabbage7270  Europeans tend to have a poor opinion of America too. They just stick by you cos of military necessity. And how brave of you to show the Turks American power via sanctions. Cos everyone knows the US is too weak-minded to stomach actually losing a significant number of its own people in a war (but no matter how many of the enemy's people they kill, including civilians). Here's what the world thinks of America, btw - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
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  1236.  @AW-zk5qb  Bruh, Pax America has hardly been peaceful, only peaceful for the west. America still has the most wars to its name. Even now, even a single of America's wars this century have orders of magnitude more deaths than ALL of Russia's wars this century. While China hasn't been to war in decades. The world literally voted America as the greatest threat to world peace just a few years ago, an in an American poll lol! It wasn't even close - second place was literally about a quarter of their score.
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  1237. Tell that to a Norwegian (oil). Or a Brit (oil). Or an American (oil and...well, everything really). Or an Australian (oil, coal, uranium, etc.). Or a German (iron). Or a Canadian (oil, metals, timber). Or an Indian (coal, bauxite, thorium). Etc.
    2
  1238.  @tomo_xD  In that case China isn't doing anything untoward either. Also keep in mind that France organizes their money supply.
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  1239. Russia has other options. India is also a friendly nation to Russia, and a rival of China. And there's no claims to worry about there. So they can always forge military pacts with both - with China against America, and with India to balance out China. Works for Russia against America and China, works for India against China, and works for China against America again. Meanwhile the only one of those that America can ally with is India, and that'd be against China, not Russia.
    2
  1240.  @unboundcuriosity  I did find it informative. Cheers!
    2
  1241.  @marcobencini9941  your comment is irrelevant to the subject of her comment.
    2
  1242. ​​ @adamtash2891 None of those countries has as many foreign wars to their name as the US does. Only Russia comes close, but is still second place to the US.
    2
  1243.  @aryanpokharel1181  Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan have issues with India. Maldives is minor. Sri Lanka is just playing both sides to benefit the most. And Bhutan? Seriously? India has been Bhutans' closest ally since ever
    2
  1244.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  its hysterical to see a bot calling others bots
    2
  1245.  @BasiliskEyes  That's his own video. He uses throwaway accounts to advertise his channel.
    2
  1246.  @vanlao6367  Prigozhin is an old friend of Lukashenko. If he were to kick the bucket, he may actually like Prigozhin to replace him lol. He won't be changing anything fundamentally in Belarus if he did. Of course Lukashenko wouldn't want to be replaced earlier, but he's as good a successor as he could ask for. For Russia it's not clear. He's just so much of a loose cannon.
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  1247.  @GustavoJua15  No. Firstly they're not all going to Belarus, and secondly Belarus' own army is larger than Wagner. If Russia wanted to do that, they could just ask Lukashenko, which they haven't as it's better for them for Belarus to remain stable.
    2
  1248.  @yoavmor9002  Lol, bro thinks war is an arena shooter where winning is based on frag counts. 🤣War is politics by other means - wars have political goals, and you patently failed at yours. The very people you ousted are back in power.
    2
  1249.  @thedude828-ed2nn  Sounds like they recognized they'd failed. They couldn't win, just as 20 years in Vietnam also failed.
    2
  1250.  @MimOzanTamamogullar  That just means you're too irrelevant to matter to anyone.
    2
  1251.  @kitrichardson2165  Considering that China hasn't been to war in decades, while the US has been at it almost continuously since WW2, I'm not sure who comes off as more ego driven here. Hell, their ego is so important to them that they can't even own up to their losses, as I'm seeing all over the internet now wrt Afghanistan - and some even denying Vietnam was a loss. Despite that the US isn't a so-called "generalissimo". Also China hasn't made any threat to annex Mongolia. Sounds like typical Sinophobia.
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  1252. Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
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  1253. ​ @NUCLEARxREDACTED  Oh really?! How idealistic of you. I wonder why Australia is upset about China forging a military partnership with the Solomon islands then? I wonder why America created a diplomatic crisis just cos Cuba hosted Russian forces? I wonder why Iran can't be allowed to have its own nukes? Where do you people get off huh? Lol. As for your silly independent countries logic, it takes two to tango. It doesn't matter how much any of those nations want to join NATO, they can't join if NATO says no. Which they said they would, yet didn't. By your dumb logic, 'independent countries' can join the UNSC as well simply by asking for it. Hell per your argument, independent people can expect a place at Yale simply by sending in an application. If only the world worked as easily as your childish idealism would have us believe it does. But no, this is the real world kiddo. You don't get to keep poking a bear and expect it to just keep quietly taking it. One day your maximalist idealism is gonna lead to WW3, and you're going to cry about it cos all you care about is who's right, and to hell with the issue of how many are dead.
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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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  1255. ​ @davidspiller7977  1961. And US nukes are far closer to Russia than Russian nukes are to the US. Hell you're talking about the nation that fought even bigger wars with far bigger death tolls just a decade ago (or less than a year ago for the other one) for a completely made up reason (Iraq fyi). And your pathetic attempts to deny all that wrongdoing by simply rolling out a label you barely understand doesn't change that. I bet you haven't even looked up the Wikipedia page on that term, else you'd know it's been criticized as a term used to brush off accusations of hypocrisy. And the west has no shortage of hypocrisy. We'll see it again when it comes to Taiwan, an island whose situation is even more directly comparable to Cuba, 'cept China has still treated them better than the US did Cuba. Or for that matter the rest of South America. Funny how conflicts on opposite sides of Earth, and in the middle, still involve the US.
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  1256.  @fearlessleader343  Most major cities were established by someone at some point. There is typically some rationale for the location, but that is true of new cities being built today as well. They're not just dumped where they are for no reason. The video report even mentioned one of the pros of the location they chose.
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  1257. "Part of the BRI is the countries have to use Chinese firms and labour to build what they are funding in most cases" - this is also the case for this western proposal fyi, the video even mentions as much. The money will simply be moving from a western public bank account to a western private bank account.
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  1258.  @aeternavictrix7861  'Whataboutism' is just a convenient word to sidestep accusations of hypocrisy. Hell I bet you people haven't even looked up the word, just heard it in the media. Even its wiki page is honest enough to acknowledge criticisms of its use.
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  1259.  @FLKRM  Lol, this has nothing to do with Ukraine. This is about NATO and the US. Playing nice with Ukraine does nothing for Russia, because Ukraine isn't the issue. Here, I'll offer you a deal. Russia becomes friendly with Ukraine, and in exchange all NATO bases east of Poland are abandoned, and all US forces on the continent are pulled out. NATO does not expand anymore. Russia even signs a permanent non-aggression pact with Ukraine to seal the deal. You interested? ;)
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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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  1263. Yeah right. You think flooding tunnels is a new idea lol? We've known about that tactic for literally millennia, and we still built tunnels. Did you know we also build tunnels for handling floodwaters? Yeah, we kinda know a thing or two on managing water. They may win the war, BUT at the efficiency they're going at it looks like it'll have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians before it finally succeeds. They've already exceeded Russia's toll over nearly 2 years in as little as a month. Good luck getting the world to meekly accept that. And at the end of it the Palestinians will still be there, and more radicalised than ever. It's already a loss.
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  1264.  @magesalmanac6424  Ironically most of the international support for Russia comes from people who blame the ones who bootlick the USA i.e. NATO. As for 'freedom' - 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. would like to have a word. Have fun looking up all those interventions, and how much 'freedom' they involved.
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  1265.  @Raphael4722  Also, to suggest that colonialism died out cos the US and Russia opposed it is to completely discount the actions of the locals, as well as the still significant power of the UK and France. France still manages to maintain the CFA system, for instance, despite that not really serving Uncle Sam or the Big Bear's interests. Cos they could, and the locals haven't yet managed to get rid of it. American or Soviet disapproval isn't going to get a major world power to completely abandon properties often several times their own size and worth, unless said territories were already judged by their holders themselves as no longer worth it.
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  1266.  @arii1987  'You don't sanction your ally' - you'd be surprised. India has been under us sanctions before for instance, despite how they court it now. Not to mention Vietnam, which they court now but whose history you well know. Neither has forgotten. But an even better case study would be the Plaza Accords. While technically not sanctions, they did ruin Japan's economy.
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  1267. That aphorism wasn't invented by Shirvan. That line is a quote from John Kenneth Galbraith.
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  1268.  @JohnGeometresMaximos  Russia and China will likely stay out of the conflict as long as there are no US troops fighting. If the US does deploy men in support of Israel, then yes all bets are off.
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  1269. @Will Aden Already do. A large portion of Taiwan's chips go to China, where they get put in the computers and phones you're using. In addition, China makes much of the lower end chips that go into the appliances (internet of things), medical devices, cars, etc. (along with Thailand and Malaysia). Most likely if their supply is cut, the west will just build their own fabs. However, the cost of doing so will be enormous so price will skyrocket. Meanwhile the rest of the world will just buy cheaper from China
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  1270.  @kauswekazilimani3736  No they weren't. Prior to 2014 yes, but the Maidan revolution changed all that. Russia invaded after said revolution ousted the sitting govt.
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  1271.  @samblackstone3400  Taiwan has the best chance of remaining an independent nation rather than a bombed out husk by not acting like the Chinese equivalent of Cuba to the US. Remember how the US treated Cuba for fraternizing with the enemy? And yet you wonder why China does the same. For 70 years Taiwan has mostly avoided trouble, and even trades substantially with China. But the more the US uses it like the Russians used Cuba, the less secure it becomes. Even China stands to gain more from a prosperous trading partner, but they will never let a national security threat remain literally on their doorstep.
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  1272. ​ @user-nc9pc3gr4c  Lol, why am I not surprised? Typical white mans' burden talking points. Or maybe you're just trolling us all. Feel free to try presenting your thesis on how colonialism was a great thing to actual academics. You might have a few like Ferguson nod in agreement, but the rest will laugh you out of the room. But go on, keep telling yourself that you whiteys' were the best thing since sliced bread if it makes you feel better. Since you 'know history' lol!
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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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  1274.  @b2as302  Would you prefer America go to war over Hong Kong? A war they cannot possibly win, which is why the Brits left in the first place, but that will result in reckless devastation nonetheless. Do you really think that'll do Hong Kong any good?
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  1275.  @jonb914  Actually China is far further from 1930s Germany than Iraq ever was. China is actually less of a dictatorship than Saddam's Iraq, and actually has rising standards of living to boot. China has also not invaded any neighbouring countries in decades, while Iraq had done so just a decade earlier (Kuwait). As for picking off democratic countries...are you sure you're not confusing China with the US? Cos if not, then you might want to take a look at the US' foreign policy history, particularly in South America, North Africa and the Middle East. There hasn't been anything equivalent done by China for about half a century (you'd need to go all the way back to Mao's time), whereas the US has been at war all over the world almost continuously.
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  1276.  @jonb914  If you think annexing territory matters in this day and age, then you're living in the wrong century. Even China's interests in Taiwan aren't primarily over the landmass. And the US has invaded aplenty, despite no territorial interests, so evidently territory isn't important to them either. It's funny how the country that HASN'T gone to war yet concerns you more than the one that's constantly doing it (including here). And for a 'nearly identical nation', it's ironic that the Nazis themselves would've hated China, given that it's communist (whether in truth or mere branding) - their arch enemy. The historical parallel is stretched and pointless - not everything needs to compared with Hitler. By this point, we'd probably all be better off if the claim was simply outlawed online, given how everyone and their dog seems to raise it for every issue under the sun. It even has its own name, for heaven's sake! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
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  1277.  @bobw1678  The death toll from even a single one of America's many wars exceeds even the speculated death tolls of any group in China in the last several decades. It's a convenient excuse to palm that off just cos it happened during a foreign war rather than domestic policy (and of course happened to poor brown people, who no one seems to give a shit about). It's still deaths, hundreds of thousands (Iraq, for example) to even millions (Vietnam, for example) of them. You'd have to go all the way back to Mao's time to find numbers like that for China. Here's another big number btw - over 800 million people raised out of absolute poverty, by a poor country. Meanwhile, the richest country on Earth still has the highest poverty rate among developed nations. They also have more people in prison btw (2.3 million v/s 1.6 million), in case you didn't know, despite having just a quarter of China's population.
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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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  1279. Tbf the West does the opposite of this - assume those nations will just let their waters be occupied by the US Navy and their trade suffer for a war that they're not part of. Japan sure and the Philippines maybe, but the rest? Unlikely. It isn't just China's invasion that's played up, but the way the US can just have its way with the region is also assumed. And no, if the US forces its way into their waters, that is an act of war - not just on China, but on them too.
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  1280. He also leaves out the entire non-western world...
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  1281.  @erikthehalfabee6234  And those one-liners are almost always borrowed, without attribution. Ditto in this case.
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  1282. ​ @stafer3  The Soviets had comparable casualties in Afghanistan too, until the US entered the picture. They're not just fighting Ukraine in Ukraine. You fought the Taliban alone, and still lost. If Russia or China had decided to back them, it would've been far worse. You already experienced that in Vietnam and Korea, retreating both times. With its low losses America still backed down, now scale those losses up to account for a great power conflict. The US shies away from those, even in Ukraine. Russia usually does too, but China didn't. Be careful you don't forget the old rule that has kept things stable for generations now - discretion is the better part of valor. Both nations have shown themselves far more willing to tough it out than America has. You lost Afghanistan - take the L and walk.
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  1283.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  1284. Indians know what Pakistan is like from long experience, but it's hilarious to see them being attacked by a westerner for double crossing lol! I'm gonna stick my neck out for Pakistan on this one - the west, especially the US, UK and France are no one to judge their trustworthiness. You've double crossed aplenty yourselves. And btw you had no business being in the region to begin with, so blame yourselves for them double crossing you. Pakistan may deserve some of this, but you guys deserve plenty of punishment too.
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  1285.  @bossybill7437  Typical. That's as far as your history knowledge goes it seems. Do you know how the Taliban came about? Do you know what Afghanistan used to be like? It wasn't always ruled by them. Do you know anything beyond 'OBL' lol?! This channel has some old videos on the history of Afghanistan from the era of the British through the Cold War. Go watch them. The Taliban are hardly a core part of the Afghan fabric - you guys helped make them that. Btw, you also have a poor history in other parts of the region too, from Iran to SE Asia to Pakistan and India and so on. It's YOUR history too - go learn some of it. These messes didn't happen on their own. Your stupid geopolitical games created them. And then you had the gall to be outraged when it came back to bite you in the ass.
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  1286.  @Guplk  Yep, you haven't looked it up lol! Talk about being an apologist for hypocrisy. First off it isn't changing the subject, it's literally pointing out how the one making the accusation themselves fail at the subject. Secondly your claim that it's about seeking for someone blameless is a classic minimization tactic. You'd have a point if it was firing back about some lone US murder versus a full scale military invasion, but that's not typically the charge being made. Rather it's pointing out US invasions that've resulted in hundreds of thousands dead versus a Russian one with far fewer casualties - in other words, it's a straight comparison. And your laughable claim that this is impossible cos no one is blameless lol - how guilty of aggression is Costa Rica pray? Or Bhutan? Or Ireland? MOST nations on Earth aren't vulnerable to such a callout, not to a comparable extent at least. You know the only ones who are? If we're talking only post-WW2 west, then mainly it's just the US, UK and France. But then hypocrites hate being called out on their hypocrisy, and will invent any word to avoid owning up to it.
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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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  1288.  @artongar  Russia didn't invade neighbours for nearly two decades after the fall of the USSR and NATO expanded anyway. This is classic post-facto justification. There was no Russian war on the Baltic states that put them in NATO for instance. NATO expansion was happening no matter what Russia did, and Russia has warned about its effects for over 30 years. Which fell on deaf ears.
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  1289.  @RainKing048  He didn't say the war is fake, he meant a certain media narrative is being spun. It's not reporting on Ukraine's problems, only Russia.
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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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  1291.  @randomdude9135  Tbh, his 'logic' was already dead in the water the moment he pulled a demographic statistic out of his ass.
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  1292.  @No1sonuk  "NATO builds defences within its OWN BORDERS" - this actually plays perfectly into Russian concerns. Cos Russia is mostly concerned about America, and views the rest of NATO as little more than client states. So when you say 'NATO's own borders', that's kinda how Russia sees it - except to them that just shows how irrelevant NATO's member states are, as they're just further expansion of the US' presence in Europe. You might as well call it America's own borders.
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  1293. ​ @No1sonuk  "until the invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden were happy to stay outside NATO" - that argument broke down over a decade ago when the Baltic trio joined NATO despite not having been invaded. Russia protested strongly against that, but it achieved nothing. Ever since they've seen NATO expansion as an inevitability, just waiting for a govt. to come along that takes their nation closer to the west. That happened in Ukraine in the Maidan revolution of 2014. If they can't prevent NATO expansion with a strongly worded letter, as they couldn't for the Baltic trio, then evidently words aren't enough and more 'kinetic' options are needed to make the point. Finland and Sweden were already very close to NATO. They could join anytime they wanted. The problem for Russia is that they wouldn't be able to deny it. So it's just a matter 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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  1295. Why are you so desperate for views that you keep returning to the Ukraine well to shore up more subs? It's not your strong point because it's getting so much coverage already. All it's done is make CR seem rather outdated compared to the focused war channels. Your last video on Bolivia was the kind of thing you should be doing more of - stories that are less covered, and preferably not recent events. The Ukraine stuff only makes this channel look bad due to all the competition from all corners of the media.
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  1296.  @jaroslavhancovsky8265  The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  1297. China doesn't have to invade. All they need to do is blockade Taiwan to draw the US into the area, then bombard the American navy with their home field advantage. Once the Americans are neutralized, Taiwan doesn't matter. Offer a peace treaty whereby their independence is recognized as long as they agree to never host any foreign military forces and the CCP wins without Taiwan losing any of its economic value to them (which an invasion would do). Taiwan doesn't really matter much, the US does. Taiwan is to China what Cuba is to the US. So if the US can't use it (like the Russians tried to with Cuba), then leaving it alone makes more sense than risking a costly invasion.
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  1298.  @TheiowahellsAngelsChannel  Middle Eastern reporting would be Al Jazeera.
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  1299. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  1300. ​ @nataliamundell6266 Funny you mention that border clash - do you know what the border dispute is about? The lines drawn on the map by, yep, the British. Which the Chinese weren't party to and Indians weren't consulted on. This isn't unique. The world is full of these colonialist lines that have kept haunting countries even after independence. Plenty of wars in Africa are cos of that. The Kuwait war is a famous example of it btw, one that the west chose to get involved in.
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  1301.  @miamithijs3579  You obviously haven't read a word I've written nor, ironically, looked deeper into anything. You don't know the first thing about how India was managed, how much 'industrial' Britain had to do in India so as to actually take over its industry. It's easy to make up self-serving stories. A little harder to look at things deeper. Go READ what has already been explained. Go READ about the tariffs, the trade restrictions, the taxes, the targeted laws, currency swaps and all the rest. Take your own advice and ACTUALLY look at things deeper. This is all recorded and explained by historians.
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  1302.  @castor3020  Funny thing about that "genociding National socialist dictatorship" - in the last half century, they've killed far less people than the West that's trying to stop them. inb4 you reach all the way to Mao in order to try painting yourselves as the good guys. Here's an idea - maybe stop thinking it's okay to kill people just so long as you call it a "war". Then maybe try learning to count.
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  1303. Drain it to where? Outside the wall? So the rest of the Atlantic Ocean can rise even further and encroach upon millions of people in the rest of the world? Actually yeah, that does sound like something Europe would do...
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  1304. People seems to really like his voice. Its monotonous tenor adds to his impression of neutral, unbiased analysis. A more...personable...voice runs counter to that, and hence isn't as popular.
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  1305. To be fair to China, the one-child policy wasn't some wacky idea. Back when it was adopted, population panic was in vogue in the West too (in many communities today it still is) complete with support for stringent countermeasures, and China's burgeoning numbers were at the heart of it. It was just that this was one problem the West wasn't responsible for (which is also why it's still such a popular clarion call today) and so the steps to combat were encouraged in places like China as well as India and much of Africa. What economists and demographers have since learned is that such draconian measures typically backfire i.e. do more harm than good - the West was able to comfortably learn that lesson merely theoretically since it never needed the changes to begin with, while places like China are now learning it the hard way. Population alarmism has been an albatross around the worlds' neck ever since Thomas Malthus first put forward the idea, and so far has never actually been borne out.
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  1306.  @piotrkijak1774  And it hasn't been tested since, so that 70y ago record - as well as numerous other aggressions against Poland from the west further back in history - is all there is go on. And America being there means little - they're easily the least invested in Polands' security cos they're literally not even on the continent.
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  1307.  @oe1164  Also you're more than welcome to try that. I'm sure Ru and Chi will be more than happy to lay out a red carpet welcome for you there. Should be a real party. ;)
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  1308.  @jf3457  If it's so good in your opinion, then why don't you move there? ;)
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  1309. No. The US allied with Taiwan back when it was an autocracy as well. Just as it supported South Korea when it was an autocracy, Cuba under their previous autocrat, Chile under an autocract, Gautemala under an autocrat the US itself installed, Saudi Arabia under an autocrat against a more democratic Iran, Pakistan under a military dictatorship against a fully democratic India, etc. etc. The democracy shtick is just a marketing tactic meant to rile up the naive. This has never been about democracy, just power geopolitics.
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  1310. That's just because you're grossly misinformed. The previous Russian war in Donbas has about 13,000 casualties. Meanwhile the US war in Afghanistan has around 300,000 casualties. But guess which one got the west more concerned. And the Iraq War toll is even higher. None of Russia's recent wars come anywhere close to the casualty figures of America's recent interventions. So in terms of wars of greatest magnitude, you should really be looking at where America's forces are, not Russia's.
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  1311.  @Nazar_Melnyk  China has been threatening Taiwan for over 70 years, and done nothing about it. On the contrary, they're Taiwan's largest trade partner, by far. They have very little to gain from capturing a bombed out wreck with a restive populace. But one thing they won't ever tolerate is having yet another American force close to their shores. Just see how the US reacted when Russia did that to them in Cuba - Cuba has been harshly punished ever since. That's why the current tensions in Taiwan started in 2017. Xi had been in power for over half a decade by then, nothing changed in China. What did change? The US. A certain orange gorilla won an election there and then went on a crusade. If there's a Taiwan war, it'll be cos the US pushed it too far. Just as this Russian conflict isn't about Ukraine, but NATO - or more specifically, America. Russia won't let them closer.
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  1312.  @toshi-ki6016  I didn't say Singapore's military has no importance or value. I said the main security value it has is disaster response. It is far too weak to provide any meaningful defense. Singapore's defense is nothing like Israel, but rather like Switzerland - it has simply made itself a country that others likely would not wish to invade. Pretty much every nation in the region could easily defeat it in battle, they'd just piss off a lot of others if they tried. You said countries' "must have strong armed deterrent to prevent extinction, survive as a country", but Singapore (unlike Israel) doesn't. That isn't how its deterrence mechanism works. Yes, Singapore's military participates in military exercises, but that hardly intimidates anyone (they'd be more intimidated by its army partners).
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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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  1314.  @robertsaget9697  And here you compound your list of dumb arguments. First false dichotomy, and now strawman.
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  1315.  @caesarsalad1170  I'm the only one actually making arguments bub, based on actual history. He's making claims off of presumption and bias.
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  1316.  @Waludka  Also this was not the longest civil war. Not even close. So your comment is doubly wrong.
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  1317.  @tauceti8060  Yeah that's not happening. Not only do they have their own differences, they also have different backers with their differences with each other. The best case scenario is something like in Lebanon, and we've seen how well that turned out.
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  1318.  @KevinJohnson-cv2no  That...doesn't sound very sustainable. More like a ticking time bomb.
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  1319.  @nicolomatias2223  It doesn't justify it, it trashes the people currently trashing them. The people who're now making a big play of moral outrage, when it's conveniently their enemy killing (fewer) people. And, more importantly, it corrects the narrative - it, and this is being incredibly optimistic, hopefully leads to the US being sanctioned. You can keep the sanctions on Russia, I don't care. But the US deserves punishment, and it NEVER gets it. Ever.
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  1320.  @robertsaget9697  "war is peace" - Nah bro, war is 'freedom and democracy'. Oh wait, that was your line. 😅🙃
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  1321.  @kd6788  "Gigafactory" is a stupid marketing term pushed by Elon. There's big factories and smaller factories, he just wanted a way to make his factory seem cool cos being cool is half his brand (much like Apple). We shouldn't be adopting that term.
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  1322. NATO without Turkey would be even more clearly an American front, whose other members are just meh.
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  1323.  @JD..........  The US won't really face this kind of problem. Yet another way in which the US is fortunate is that most of its rivers are internal - right from origin to end. Those that are international mostly involve Canada, a close ally and, even if it wasn't friendly, much weaker nation. So international water disputes aren't a concern for Americans.
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  1324. North Korea isn't desperate - the regime is more stable than ever. And ironically the country with the most wars to its name since WW2 isn't a dictatorship, but the USA.
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  1325. Tbh I think it's sad that the top comments on this video are takedowns of the sponsor rather than a discussion of the actual main subject of the video. Shows how little people care about this. I bet there'll be fewer views and comments overall as well. :( This is the kind of less reported content that I WANT to see more of by Caspian, instead of the umpteenth video on Ukraine or China that already get tons of coverage from the rest of the media. But no, it seems others only want him to follow the media herd. -_-
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  1326. Africa has far better relations with China than the west. And the west has its own demographic issues, only somewhat masked in some case due to immigration - that they themselves are trying their best to turn away.
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  1327.  @romazone101  South America doesn't get along with North America, for pretty extensive reasons.
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  1328.  @fjooyou  "it's a fair assumption" - considering you don't seem to know what 'fair' even means, I wouldn't trust your 'fair' assumptions either if I were you. Also gotta love you unilaterally declaring that I 'failed' for not having a good understanding. Talk about irony lol. You're just paranoid about commies bub. Go back to the Mcarthy era.
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  1329.  RULE BRITANNIA  Lol someone doesn't know much history either, besides already having shown he doesn't know what guns, germs and steel was about, or likely even is.
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  1330.  RULE BRITANNIA  "takes skill to have guns and steel" - lol! We had both guns and steel before Britain did. xD They didn't come to India and find a land without guns, our armies had already been using them for ages. The west also got the idea of vaccination from variolation, which had been practiced in India, China and many other countries for ages. There's a nice recent series called Vaccine here on YT that goes through its history. So much for immunity. Like I said, go read some history lol.
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  1331.  @fjooyou  "Literally only you (and me) have mentioned the word "fairness" in these replies" - lmao! You need to get your eyes checked. The very first comment that started it all says both 'fair' and 'unfair' i.e. it says the word twice. Several others have too as well as another one of your critics here using the related term 'unjust'. Trolls be trolling lol. Don't try to gaslight me bub. xD
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  1332.  @Kintabl  Nothing 'went wrong'. That implies there were major changes, which wasn't the case for the majority of the population. That picture of a 'modern Afghanistan' was confined to an urban elite, not the country as a whole.
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  1333. They'd both be far more interested in Kazakhastan than Mongolia... Mongolia is largely a wasteland. Kazakhastan is ... well, also a wasteland, but a very resource-rich wasteland.
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  1334.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  1335. Channels are targeted by algorithms, not people. Doesn't matter if Caspian would pass by any human viewer who watched even just one of their vids, the algorithm doesn't understand what it's seeing. It only looks for programmed markers and acts accordingly. Then getting YT to reconsider the decision is tough simply because there's millions of vids they have to evaluate, with limited staff.
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  1336. It's a lot easier, and often even cheaper, to build a brand new city than to overhaul an existing one.
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  1337.  @JojohnWick  Meh. Don't see an issue with it. Guy needs to eat.
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  1338. ​ @leowan  That's for the best, since the 'debt trap diplomacy' thing is a myth to begin with. It doesn't stand up to scrutiny if you look even marginally closer. And note that this isn't even from the Chinese - "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” "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." https://amp.scroll.in/article/997715/why-bangladesh-has-been-ignoring-indias-warnings-about-the-chinese-debt-trap
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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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  1342. Worked for Prussia...
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  1343.  @Barwasser  Also let's not forget that beacon and perennial idol of western civilization - the Roman empire. A state built by its army (including literally), with an economy heavily centered on its army, and even a leadership oft placed by its army.😅And which lasted for a very, very long time.
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  1344.  @alesh2275  Few wars have been lost from overestimating the enemy, but many have been lost by underestimating them.
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  1345.  @sis1296  "It is consequent that no Belarusian soldier is in Ukraine at this momment" - not really. Their standing army is pretty small anyway. Russia hasn't used Belarus in Ukraine cos it'd be pointless to do so. Using their territory is more than enough.
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  1346.  @ShadowWolfRising  Because it's too expensive to ever be worth it. Plus there's already plenty of space available on land. It's just not in demand, cos it's outside cities. But that'd affect oceanic settlements even more so, besides all the other issues. The only viable undersea settlement would be some luxury hotel for the super-rich (similar to space hotel proposals), who'd pay top dollar for the novelty. Which there probably already is.
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  1347. Virtually every US President, left or right, in the last century at least is responsible for crimes in the Middle East and/or South America. That's par for the course for the US, and not something they've ever thrown out a govt. for.
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  1348.  @POCLEE  Ever thought of America doing that? Russia might even do so itself if America did that too.
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  1349.  @elnur0047  No that's just what you lot try to get away with your shit with. Nothing happens when you do your shit, and then you complain when people remind you of it when you act all high and mighty when attacking them. You're conveniently mum when it's your turn to face justice, which never comes. The biggest wars this century weren't Russian, but American. And they were before this war, yet you still haven't been brought to book for it. And now you act like Russia has to face justice at once, when you haven't faced justice for decades. Whataboutism is just a convenient label for you people to dodge being called out as hypocrites. Even the Wikipedia page for it has a section pointing out that tactic, not that you'd know that since you seem only good for repeating standard buzzwords.
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  1350.  @Moepowerplant  What about Indonesia then? Say, under the Majapahits. "Pristine" enough?
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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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  1352.  LagiNaLangAko23  sigh And Carthage never made it far beyond the Mediterranean. The farthest it got was Spain. Why are you people being deliberately dense? The book doesn't concern only the 17th century on. If it did, it's choices would make more sense (well, then it'd have to drop Carthage). His definition of seapower states fits the Majapahits (for one, and there are others) - how much impact they had on the other side of the world isn't part of it. It's about the character of the state - what it was centered on and where it drew its power from.
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  1353.  LagiNaLangAko23  If that were the case, 60% of his examples wouldn't apply. As per the video itself, he uses Athens, Carthage, Venice, Britain and the Netherlands as examples. Athens, Carthage and Venice did not have a global reach, if global refers to major impact even on the other side of the world. Only Britain and the Netherlands would count. Those three were major regional powers, which was as 'global' as things got in their times (though Venice was already at a time when many other nations would soon venture further), but hardly worldwide ones. No different, then, than the Majapahits or any number of other maritime powers elsewhere in the world. The only thing that does distinguish Athens, Carthage and Venice is that they're European (or, in the case of Carthage, tied up in European narrative ala Rome).
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  1354.  @rejvaik00  The US doesn't need to take control of more oil, but that doesn't mean it doesn't stand to gain from having more control over the oil MARKET. Venezuelan oil, if properly developed, is potentially much cheaper. Saudi Arabia is the same, but they're already under the US thumb. And any oil that the US doesn't have influence over is a threat to its dominance.
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  1355.  @terencekwong3033  Or the next Francis Fukuyama, who had the gall the predict not the mere collapse of China, but the literal 'end of history' lol.
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  1356. Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
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  1357. 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.
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  1358.  @naveenpalanisamy9730  No. Europe and/or Turkey can respond. The US should mind its own business. And yes, that means Europe ought to pay more into defense.
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  1359.  @21972012145525  If you want a more accessible synopsis of it, albeit of course it's simplified a fair deal, Extra History has a short series on it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkMP328eU5Q
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  1360.  @thelakeman2538  That's not how probability works. If something has a likelihood of happening once in 500 years, that doesn't mean it's only gonna happen 500 years later. It could just as well happen tomorrow. And our predictive capacity isn't as great as you think - currently we'd have hours of warning, for a global event that requires countries all over the world to switch off their various power grids (which is not exactly something you do at the drop of a hat)
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  1361.  @TheReaper569  Err...and you didn't use any examples? All you did was make some general claims about why you think calamity won't happen. My statement countered that with the opposite argument. The examples only served for illustration, which is better than how thoroughly you made your point i.e. sans any kind of proof. If you don't like the examples, ignore them - the point still stands, at least as well as yours.
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  1362.  @johnzuijdveld9585  Bruh, Afghanistan has literally lost HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people, including women, to the war. That isn't better, unless you see mass death as a good thing. Also, they didn't go there to improve the lives of women or any of that other nonsense that's trotted out now as excuses - the US invaded following a terrorist attack on them, not some grand humanitarian campaign. Find me any major women's rights organization that advocates war as a methodology to uplift women. This is pure ass-covering, trying to sell some bullshit positive legacy of the war right as the US pulls out in disgrace.
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  1363. Iirc Context Matters did a video awhile ago on why the US wouldn't fare well if it tried to wage a war against North Korea.
    2
  1364. So us is still buying Chi goods, just indirectly. This is true of many other much hyped alternatives as well, like Vietnam, with the only significant exception being India. In fact they did it even before tariffs, to benefit off of lower labor costs.
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  1365.  @meandmetoo8436  Because Spain, like England, didn't maintain control of its language. South American nations have long since made Spanish their own. Though frankly I doubt this vids thesis that France is gonna reap much benefit from the strategy. Also, don't forget the 800-pound gorilla up north that dominates South America, thereby limiting Spains' potential influence there. France is only now facing competition in Africa, and still losing. Lastly, Spain is poorer than France, and also has less direct influence on its former colonies than France has retained over theirs.
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  1366. At the end of the game, both the king and pawn OF BOTH SIDES end up being in the same box. ;)
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  1367.  @vinniechan  There already is a non-dollar international reserve. It's called the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) of the IMF. And a permanent reserve can be created if enough political will exists. Which will come if the dollar ever suffers a major setback.
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  1368.  @My_Take  Nice to see you finally promoting your channel honestly in your own name. Kudos! :)
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  1369.  @bratbrata4974  The 'West' SHOULDN'T react to Russia, the EU should. The US half of the West would just muck things up, making conflict MORE likely, not less. And there's a Gallup survey from a couple years ago that backs that up btw - the US was overwhelmingly voted the greatest threat to world peace.
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  1370.  @tmdwu5360  Tiananmen Square killed around 3,000 to at most 10,000 people, and that's according to non-Chinese figures. US wars have killed millions (inb4 you once again fall back a half century old dead man, while the US wars to this day...). And Taiwan has been threatened for 70 years, with little coming off of it and is today a rich nation with China as its largest trade partner by far. Meanwhile Cuba, the US' hostile island nation just off the coast, has been blockaded, sanctioned and embargoed for over half a century, against almost universal international condemnation (even by the US' own allies), was even actually invaded by the US before, and is all the poorer for it. inb4 you claim it's all for democracy, despite their previous dictator, Batista, having US support. Yeah China has sure treated Taiwan badly lol.
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  1371. ​ @tmdwu5360  Ah yes, the US not invading its...how many is it now? Ah yes, TWO weak neighbours, somehow makes its better despite having invaded dozens of countries it doesn't neighbour. Lol. The US has the least reason to invade anyone - it's got the safest borders of any non-island nation on Earth, and way more resources within them than any of those islands or indeed almost anyone else. It also doesn't have any ethnic diaspora to speak of to spur any irredentist claims. And yet it somehow finds reasons for war. The fact is that China still hasn't been to war in decades, the US has continued to wage them. You're clutching at straws lol.
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  1372. ​ @Musicdudeyoutub  And to shrug off the already existing Cuban embargo isn't just simply naïve, it's downright callous. The US only ever seems to care about the poor people their enemies threaten, not the victims of their own aggressions. What's more, one of the biggest reasons for the recent rise in tensions over Taiwan wasn't the Chinese or the Taiwanese, but the US - specifically that an orange gorilla appeared there in 2016 and launched into an anti-China crusade, using every lever he could find to attack them and, even after being ousted, has successfully turned the whole American populace against the nation such that that pressure has continued even with his successor.
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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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  1374.  @Musicdudeyoutub  If you didn't want war, you'd focus more on the nation that's been warring aplenty right upto the present and all over the world, than the one that's not been to war in decades and only ever close to its home territory. You'd push for containing the one with over 800 foreign military bases than the one with barely any. You'd campaign against the nation that spent the second most in the world per capita on its military, despite having probably the most secure borders in the world (with two massive oceans separating it from danger, and only two weak neighbours to its north and south). No, what you really WANT now, is to avoid admitting to or even just defending your own BIASES. What you want is to be bigoted, against all evidence, and to be allowed to be lazy while you're doing it. Laziness and biased thinking aren't highly thought of traits even in the west, fyi.
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  1375.  @Apodeipnon  Practically half the worlds' tax havens are a product of, and beholden to, just one OECD member - the UK. And the UK does nothing about it, and will probably worm its way around any such international treaty as well, if it even ever eventuates - https://youtu.be/np_ylvc8Zj8
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  1376. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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  1377.  @oleglovky  That doesn't change anything. They lived there. That is their home, not the Nile banks.
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  1378.  @lucaslabarca  Oh we're accepting that there's 'rightful conquering' now, are we? Care to apply that logic to Ukraine then?
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  1379.  @lucaslabarca  So if the Russians win then the west will recognize the land as theirs? Yeah right. They did win Crimea nearly a decade ago, and still haven't got recognition for it. And that's hardly the only example of such things, beyond just Russia. Also ironically 'might makes right' is the exact opposite of the rhetoric the west is spewing right now, so does that make them hypocrites to you?
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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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  1381.  @orthotuber  They're far more dependent on China than they even could ever be on that little island.
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  1382.  @theliato3809  They literally have the largest navy in the world. Marine corps? Lol, they can just blockade the island.
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  1383.  @Bayard1503  Which is precisely why they'll never let you have it. This has never been about chips. If the island is reduced to rubble, that's still a win for them. Anything so it doesn't end up as an American proxy.
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  1384. And if you lose imports from its big neighbour instead, literally everything in the country would actually come to a grinding halt. They supply you with far more than that little island could ever even hope to.
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  1385. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  1386.  @MacTac141 "The nuclear taboo didn’t really start until the 1950’s with the idea of MAD coming" - good to know the only thing holding America back from nuking cities is fear of retaliation. What a nice nation!
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  1387.  @JadeoftheGlade  I didn't thank you bub, and you guys are arrogantly presumptuous for pretending as such. Go preach Americana to the original Americans you decimated.
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  1388.  @Jordanthecool7  "They didn’t use it again since 1945" - meanwhile everyone else hasn't used them ever, and they've been in wars since then too. You're still two up.
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  1389.  @altrag  Fair enough.👍👌
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  1390. It's funny how their audience like to think of Youtubers as somehow immune to the same pressures and scruples as mainstream media, who they endlessly attack (sometimes with the encouragement of their favorite Youtubers). Media thrives on controversy, negativity and hyperbole - and Youtube is no different. Just cos Youtubers aren't beholden to a major media studio doesn't mean they're magically going to be less sensationalist than the nightly news. In fact they face even fiercer competition pushing them to it.
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  1391. ​ @robinthehood00  "they make the opposite assumption, that we're going in with nefarious intentions" - yeah people will do that when you take hostile actions like war or the like, go figure. Why is that surprising? Were you surprised that the Ukrainians didn't welcome the Russians as saviors from Nazis? Then why do you imagine others will act differently, just cos you're American? You've also got plenty of history behind you, both American and world history, which teaches us that nations DON'T go to war for noble reasons. Why should your wars be seen different? Also don't confuse your values with theirs. Just cos you consider a thing to be good doesn't mean they do. Every religious war claims to be 'doing good', for instance. The further away your activities are taking place from the western sphere, the more likely is this to be a mistake.
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  1392.  @lensman5762  You just did bub, and yet said nothing. "Verbal gesture" lol...
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  1393.  @andrespodra8459  "Since 1918 to 1991 they had like tens of conflicts" - I see your 'tens of conflicts' over 73 years, and raise you 37 conflicts over the last 75 by the US. https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051
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  1394.  @dana8503  Lol they have a larger navy today, let alone a couple decades from now lmao!
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  1395.  @dana8503  Lol they have 4 TIMES your labour force now. Keep salivating at your demographic dreams. And I know what facing up to China is far better than any spoiled western internet warrior does. We've stood up to China from right next door for decades, without a massive ocean to run behind whenever a war doesn't go our way. We know what courage is far better than the nation who's only ever known how to pick on weaker nations, but is full of bombast about its willingness to take on anyone. So don't call me the troll, miss freedom 'warrior'. Maybe consider that if can't imagine people thinking differently from you as anything other than trolling, it's probably just you who's got her head in an echo chamber, with no diversity nor even an imagination.
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  1396.  @AL-lh2ht  Like you mass starved Iraq you mean? Oh yeah worked so well didn't it? Lol. Have fun also starving Taiwan and Japan too, while royally pissing off Indonesia while you're at it. Or do you think they'll just take that lying down? Meanwhile they have one of the world's largest food producers just to their north who also hates the US and will be only too happy to export to them. Really the tactic isn't just ineffective, it's also plain cowardly. You might as well just wave a white flag admitting you're too scared to take them head on, choosing to mess up the whole region rather than face them like men.
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  1397.  @nicheva417  Lol even the US' own generals aren't as confident in their takes on fighting China in their water as you internet warriors are. Displacement is a measure of weight, not power. They have far more weapons in the area. And not just on their ships lol.
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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.
    1
  1399.  @WednesdayFin86  I agree with that. I just pointed out those places as closer analogues, since people here wanted to use the metaphor. So I suggested that even if such an analogy were true, there are far better candidates.
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  1400.  @tranquoccuong890-its-orge  I think you'll really like the Baalbuddy universe. Solus Astorias' channel animates many of his comics. :)
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  1401.  @ImperialDiecast  "he is also indirectly implying there would be no conflict if they hadnt been the ones drawing the borders" - no he's implying there likely would've been less conflict had the borders not been drawn like that, and they were the ones who drew it. And this isn't an isolated case - European drawn borders are the source of tensions all over the world.
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  1402.  @ImperialDiecast  Cute attempt to evade responsibility for drawing shitty borders bro. It's almost like you didn't even watch the video for what this is about. Anything to defend your precious imperialism, eh? 😏
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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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  1406.  @The-Real-Ando  Lol, now you're just going off the rails. Projecting much? Cheerio Greg
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  1407.  @The-Real-Ando  As I explained for you above, I didn't call you a crusader based on religion. So that's irrelevant Greg.
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  1408. "France has maintained an informal suzerainty over over several African countries" - this isn't news. This has been pointed out for decades, and this channel also has several videos on the topic. Hell the current Italian PM even attacked them over it, while going as far back as Charles de Gaulle they were basically admitting to it.
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  1409. @@A_R_B_G Opposition to Russia hasn't brought anyone together, quite the opposite. It's divided the world more than any other country except Israel.
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  1410. How they think they're entitled to Afghan money for 3000 people killed by a separate organization, when their govt. presided over 200,000 being killed in an official war is beyond me. And even they seem embarassed by it, cos when they left no one was talking about 9/11. The media coverage of the event last year would lead one to believe this was a 'humanitarian war' for women's rights lol.
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  1411. It's difficult to grasp because it's not easy to abide by. The Russians DID try to win over the Afghan people - they built schools and hospitals in all the major cities. It made no difference. The resistance distrusted both, and their tribal ties were stronger than any 'hearts and minds' military doctrine could ever hope to overcome. So they turned to scorched earth. That actually worked for a while, until the Americans stepped in to arm the buggers. Point being that it's easy to read quippy little life lessons into these historical tales, but ultimately stuff needs to get done.
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  1412.  @filipeleal6667  Bruh, you're still just spouting idle - not to mention idealistic - rhetoric. Is that all you've got? Cos if so, you're basically throwing in the towel.
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  1413.  @filipeleal6667  So that is all you've got. Good to know. Really sad, as it not simply shows you can't find the data to back yourself up, it shows you're too lazy to even try. You've convinced yourself of one sides' rhetoric, and aren't gonna let a little thing like reality interfere with that. All the corpses don't care about your lazy rhetoric though. And neither btw, does the rest of the worlds' living - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
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  1414.  @koyba3747  Yeah, it is. :)
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  1415.  @fgqgqlfqsfsffeff  War doesn't disturb people in the west anywhere near as much as the people outside of it. Cos its remote - apart from the families of soldiers, it really IS something they only see on TV. Take America for instance - they haven't faced war on their home soil, threatening their own homes, for literally over 150 years! Which goes a long way to explaining why they're the country that's been to war more than any other in recent history. Even now, as they're supposedly retreating from the world, all they're really doing it pivoting to the Pacific theater. There's nothing cautious or nervous about that.
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  1416.  Hernando Malinche  America isn't tired of war lol! They're just switch from intervening in the Middle East to flexing in the Pacific. While Russia is pushing things in eastern Europe, America has been heightening tensions in East Asia since 2016.
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  1417.  @charlesbronson8662  Meanwhile your explanation is childish, amounting to nothing more than 'cos bad people exist, so the only answer is to 'end the existence' of the bad people (in your eyes)'. Yeah, real insightful...
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  1418. ​ @tokevarvaspolvi8999  It's his own channel. The guy in those videos uses a bunch of throwaway accounts to link his vids under other geopolitics videos in order to get more viewers. 'The Annihilator' is the same guy whose voice you hear in those vids.
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  1419. Tbf the West does the opposite of this - assume those nations will just let their waters be occupied by the US Navy and their trade suffer for a war that they're not part of. Japan sure and the Philippines maybe, but the rest? Unlikely. It isn't just China's invasion that's played up, but the way the US can just have its way with the region is also assumed. And no, if the US forces its way into their waters, that is an act of war - not just on China, but on them too.
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  1420. The West also assumes those nations will just let their waters be occupied by the US Navy and their trade suffer for a war that they're not part of. Japan sure and the Philippines maybe, but the rest? Unlikely. It isn't just China's invasion that's played up, but the way the US can just have its way with the region is also assumed. And no, if the US forces its way into their waters, that is an act of war - not just on China, but on them too.
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  1421.  @benzpinto  Yep, that's what I pointed out in my comment. Everyone assumes the nations involved will just step aside and let the major powers do whatever they want in their waters. Which is the height of hubris.
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  1422.  @laststand6420  The US doesn't tend to fight in South America using overt means like a naval bombardment, but covert operations.
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  1423. ​ @laststand6420  Blockading who? South America, or China itself? Blockades are an act of war, so that would trash the US' global standing if they did it to third parties like LATAM - why do you think they use covert operations to begin with? As for China itself, you'd be waging war in their backyard, fighting an even larger navy close to its supply lines and backed up by its air force, missile defenses and even parts of its army. That's precisely where they'd want the fight to be. Even the US' own generals have expressed misgivings about fighting there. You could try blockading them from far away, say the Malacca Strait, but then you'd once again be dragging third parties into your conflict. Also a distant blockade of third parties is more than enough reason for them to do the same to Taiwan or even Japan - both of whom are far more at risk than China is. Keep in mind that they're not an island, and in fact have the worlds' largest repository of resources just to their north and who is on very good terms with them - and very bad terms with the west. Oh and also don't forget that your own economy would crash in the process.
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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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  1425.  @ATownDown32  China's biggest ally doesn't rely on it for defence to begin with. And they'll stand with China just cos they hate the US-led world order too.
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  1426.  @JesusOrDestruction  They absolutely should. He was a puppet put in place by the west.
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  1427.  @curtisrigs5627  No he wasn't. He was a puppet put in place by the west.
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  1428.  @olympia5758  The Shah being a marionette put in place by the UK and US is documented history. Even they don't deny it anymore - they admitted to it decades ago. It's literally even on wikipedia already.
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  1429.  @olympia5758  The shah being a marionette put in by the west is documented history. Even they don't deny it - they admitted to it decades ago. It's even on wikipedia
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  1430.  @olympia5758  The shah being a marionette put in by the west is documented history. Even they don't deny it - they admitted to it decades ago. It's even on wikipedia
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  1431. The thing is, the Iraq war was steady and systematic - it took about six weeks to win. They didn't try a mad dash for the capital. But that's cos they didn't have sanctions to worry about, so they could afford to take their time. Russia wanted this over quick so they could win before Germany had a change of heart. They didn't...
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  1432.  @drunkensailor3736  We know that's your own video. These endless temp accounts to advertise your channel are getting tiring. Kindly be open with your potential audience for a change.
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  1433.  Metallus Zorax  India doesn't want a war with China at all. The one they did fight decades ago was a loss, and that was against a much weaker China. US intervention would primarily come in from the east, which doesn't help India one bit. And no, the country is independent-minded enough to not allow itself to be turned into a client state with American bases everywhere.
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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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  1435.  @michaelmoorrees3585  Taiwan became a much more contentious issue since 2017. Xi came to power well before that - in 2012. What changed wasn't China, but America. Specifically Trump decided to launch a crusade to drum up popular support by finding a new enemy now that Americans were sick of the ME wars. And Taiwan has ended up less secure for it. China stands to gain a lot more from Taiwan from trading with it than from controlling a bombed out wreck with a restive population, and they know it. But one thing they'll never tolerate is yet another American staging ground just off their shores (when America faced that with Cuba, it flipped out and has punished Cuba for over half a century now - much worse than Taiwan by China).
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  1436.  @AB-nm7vy  There is no balance of powers atm. There hasn't been since 1990, and currently the reigning hegemon is doing all it can to ensure China can't change that fact either. Which means there's no peace to look forward to.
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  1437. Iran was literally fighting to out a leader who was installed by the you-ess and you-kay.
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  1438.  @antoniojosecacho8100  Yeah sure, and as well Columbus first reached out to Portugal to sponsor him. They let that opportunity pass by, resulting in Spain scoring gold just as the video shows. Doesn't matter if they had the tech, they didn't make the best use of it.
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  1439. ...meets David Ricardo.
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  1440.  @Morristown337  "We did not overthrow any governments in those countries" - Neither have the Chinese overthrown the Afghan govt., or installed the Taliban. Just because the two have come to a tenuous agreement doesn't make them puppets.
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  1441.  @frank031  The 'garrison' here is the Afghan army, which just lost. Like it or not, the Americans didn't want to stay forever - and never intended to. So claiming that they 'theoretically' could've done is moot. They did what they intended to - not just now, but even at the outset of the war - and it didn't work out in the end.
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  1442.  @eyeofhorus1301  Sure it would. They'd hide, conduct hit-and-run attacks, wait for you to exhaust yourself or your mandate, and then come right back after. Welcome to asymmetric warfare school, where simply throwing money at a problem doesn't solve everything...
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  1443. ​ @eyeofhorus1301  Good luck with that lol. Methinks you're struggling to understand what the concept of 'hiding place' even is - it isn't some big building with a billboard outside saying, "come and get us!". There's a reason guerilla warfare has stood the test of time. It's far cheaper and actually way more sustainable, especially in home territory, than conventional war. You think highly educated army generals have lost to it over and over cos they're idiots? Jets/tanks aren't 'waiting for you' lol, they're cumbersome and slow and you're long gone by the time they get there. They're also horribly overkill - an air to ground missile is both expensive, and will likely kill a dozen civilians for every fighter, if they even manage to hit the fighter at all - stop being so overawed by the big fancy tech toys. Most of them are fairly useless against such tactics, which is why boots on the ground are so important. Look up any of the strategies that comprise the umbrella of 'counterinsurgency' - the most tech they use is a few helicopters, not jets lol. Asymmetric warfare isn't some damn pitched battle with a bunch of dudes with AKs lining up against jets and tanks.
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  1444.  @eyeofhorus1301  Oh, and don't underestimate the sustainability of suicide attacks either. Guerrilla armies have kept those up for literal decades without breaking a sweat. Both the Afghanistan and Vietnam wars lasted about 20 years for instance, and yet look who left both theaters in disgrace. It wasn't the guerilla forces, no matter their losses.
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  1445. ​ @frank031  Afghanistan was conquered by the British, and they later left with their tail behind their legs. Here's a description of it by British army chaplain G.R. Gleig, who was part of it - "a war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war. Our eventual evacuation of the country resembled the retreat of an army defeated." #HistoryRhymes You'll find that trying to 'conquer, convert and colonize' Afghanistan today will be an even worse undertaking than what the US aimed for, which is why it wasn't the goal.
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  1446. China doesn't really want territory, for the same reason America doesn't. They don't need it. Influence and power matter more, land is more of a headache as you have to manage it and its people. A 'friendly' govt. is far preferable. Even Russia was happy with Ukraine back when they had a friendly regime, and the US invades nations for that express purpose, not claiming territory. China has claimed Taiwan for over half a century, yet done little about it. Until 2017, when the number of incursions skyrocketed. Guess what changed then? It wasn't China (Xi came to power in 2012), it was America. Trump came to power and launched an anti-China crusade, which Biden has continued. Now for China the issue is Taiwan is the same as Cuba was to America when the Russians put forces there. The US isn't even keeping it secret - Taiwan is part of their 'first island chain' aimed directly at China, just as NATO is to Russia. Hence the uptick in tension. Just as America wouldn't stand an enemy nearby, neither will China. In fact they're likely more interested in kicking America out of the Philippines and Japan, even without claiming the islands those bases are on, than Vladivostok or AP.
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  1447.  @Alex.af.Nordheim  Hardly. It's a needless distraction that serves China's enemies far more than it's worth to them. And they likely know that. Why ruin a useful partnership with a nation you share a common agenda with? Vladivostok isn't a threat to China, Taiwan is. Not due to its own forces, but due to who its ally is. It'd be stupid to attack Russia over kicking out the US.
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  1448. OMG!! Will you people stop all asking about Shirvan? You're going to be the death of this channel if you insist Caspian Report is all about Shirvan, with no replacement possible. What would you do if Shirvan wasn't available anymore? If he needed a break, or fell sick, or god forbid had a fatal accident? Will you unsubscribe? The core of this channel is and should be about its content, with the narrator serving as only a means of delivery. Else it is limiting itself, and vulnerable.
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  1449.  @daxflame4743  Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains arose from Hinduism - they certainly don't consider themselves as part of it. Indeed, all three pretty much arose as reform movements that separated from Hinduism. And in the case of Buddhists, were even largely driven out of the country for it.
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  1450.  @daxflame4743  That's cute. Love how you just know so much about me, from so little. So how about you enlighten us all as to what is a Hindu then? Let's see how far you get before feeling the need to brandish your ideology / rubbish some other ideology.
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  1451. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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  1452. Russia has other options. India is also a friendly nation to Russia, and a rival of China. And there's no claims to worry about there. So they can always forge military pacts with both - with China against America, and with India to balance out China. Works for Russia against America and China, works for India against China, and works for China against America again. Meanwhile the only one of those that America can ally with is India, and that'd be against China, not Russia.
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  1453. Russia has other options. India is also a friendly nation to Russia, and a rival of China. And there's no claims to worry about there. So they can always forge military pacts with both - with China against America, and with India to balance out China. Works for Russia against America and China, works for India against China, and works for China against America again. Meanwhile the only one of those that America can ally with is India, and that'd be against China, not Russia.
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  1454.  @Teporame  Perhaps. But he's also working with far less resources than his rivals, and is constantly on thin ice.
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  1455.  @scottdoesntmatter4409  Corroboration of what? The data they choose or their choice of data? The same could be said of China itself fyi. When it claims to have raised over 800 million people out of poverty, even the World Bank agrees with it. Do you? Penning narratives isn't so much about lying, but choosing what to talk about, focus on and how to frame it i.e. what lens to present it through. This is true of media everywhere. What makes channels like his unreliable is that they've clearly established the lens they like to look at everything through. His videos are meant to lead to one conclusion, and his community reflects that. Even mainstream western media tries to present itself as more neutral than he does. That's why I called him a polemicist, not a fraud. You might as well listen to some Marxist listing all of America's many wars - they'd be telling the truth too, but you know why everything on there is all America bad.
    1
  1456. Tbf the West does the opposite of this - assume those nations will just let their waters be occupied by the US Navy and their trade suffer for a war that they're not part of. Japan sure and the Philippines maybe, but the rest? Unlikely. It isn't just China's invasion that's played up, but the way the US can just have its way with the region is also assumed. And no, if the US forces its way into their waters, that is an act of war - not just on China, but on them too.
    1
  1457. ​ @anhduc0913  The US absolutely wants war, just a war they can blame the other side for. They've been consistently antagonizing China since around 2016, while pushing for NATO expansion since 1990 to surround Russia. You're talking about the country that's spent most of its history in one war or another,
    1
  1458. ​ @forte609  It isn't an act of war, it's an act of power projection. That is very much a hostile act, even if no shots have been fired, just as putting someone in a cage is a hostile act even if you don't beat them up.
    1
  1459. They've had to spend a lot more money on those refugees than the EU has been giving them. It's still a major drain.
    1
  1460.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
    1
  1461.  peter michalski  "that fact still remains" - it isn't a fact until you demonstrate it as a fact. Things aren't facts just cos you say so. Stop being lazy. Go do the work of backing up your claims. As for assasinations, google Qasem Soleimani. But I'm not going to argue with you over that until you back up your claims first. I'm not interested playing your lazy ass game of exhausting your interlocutors while doing no work yourself. I don't humor trolls.
    1
  1462.  peter michalski  LMFAO I knew you were going to continue to fail to back up any of your claims, while questioning whatever data you don't like. Such standard troll behaviour. It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to be biased and lazy. And so far that's all you've revealed yourself as.
    1
  1463. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
    1
  1464.  @Rampart.X  Lol have you seen the history of the CCP in China? They've weathered far worse than anything the US could ever hope to do to them (and no, nothing like what happened to Japan is possible - an invasion of it is laughable and the big boom option will see the same happen to them). The best the US could hope to do is shield Taiwan and maybe try to block the Malacca Strait, neither of which compares to what they've seen through before. As for Russia, it's literally conducting a new operation right now, and even just NK seems able to produce more shells than all of Europe lol.
    1
  1465.  @BluffyMoo  Europe can't handle Russia on its own unless it extends into Poland. The Baltic states will be a giant trap, and any attempts to cross via Finland will likely result in a literal firewall to stop it (which would likely tank the Finnish economy too, which heavily relies on lumber). Just the turf they have in Ukraine is the size of the 3 Baltics, so it'll likely be them just sitting and waiting there for a doomed counteroffensive that will be surrounded on 3 sides (from Belarus, Kaliningrad and Russia itself). As for Taiwan, it'll be naval operation that occurs in China's backyard - directly in range of all of its assets, not just its navy but its airforce, missiles and parts of its army too. All of which dwarf everything from all those nations save for the US and South Korea - and South Korea won't be able to do much cos of North Korea. They can try ye olde siege tactic with the Malacca Strait, but that'd hurt EVERY nation in the region and do nothing to save Taiwan. Not to mention the nations who actually surround the Malacca Strait would be strongly opposed to having the war foisted on them like that as it hurts their economies severely and all of them have China as their majority trade partner.
    1
  1466.  @Rampart.X  Lol have you seen the history of the China? They've weathered far worse than anything the US could ever hope to do (no, nothing like what happened to Japan is possible - invasion is laughable and using THOSE weapons would just result in the same happening to them). The best the US could hope to do is shield Taiwan and maybe try to block the Malacca Strait, neither of which compares to what they've seen through before. As for Russia, it's literally conducting a new operation right now, and even just NK seems able to produce more shells than all of Europe.
    1
  1467.  @NLTops  And the more US enemies. It's telling how all of this seems to revolve around the US...
    1
  1468.  @JABN97  I implied nothing of the sort, you just read that into it. Taiwan being just an island off of their coast means almost all of their navy is able to be used to block it i.e. it's not a distant blockade like that of Malacca, but one very close to home and resupply. And to suggest that them taking over means 'certain dead' for everyone is just empty demonizing. Starving does mean that though. Hell, while I agree that a 'Finland style relationship' is unlikely, history has other kinds of relationships. Like that of a protectorate. Whatever you may think of that, it isn't 'certain dead'. Even full reintegration isn't 'certain dead'.
    1
  1469.  @JABN97  'the primary problem for the US navy in regards to China is, as I understand it, (land based) long range anti-ship missiles' - that's only one of the problems. The Chinese navy is literally bigger than the US navy. A fair chunk of that isn't long range ships, but that's why the battle taking place in their own backyard matters. And besides the missiles, it'll also have its entire air force and even army air contingents to call on. China is also the worlds' largest shipbuilder, while the US' shipbuilding industry is mostly gone (after them is Korea, then Japan as a distant third place). And this is where Taiwans' missiles have a problem - their ships will be close to repair and resupply, by the nation most capable at that. And Taiwan won't be able to produce too much more while it's under blockade. Not to mention that China can fire missiles of its own, and conduct the blockade from as far out as it wants if the major battle with the US is over with.
    1
  1470.  FATHOLLYWOODB123  If the Russians weren't involved, D-Day would've been nipped in the bud cos you'd have had over 3 million more soldiers to deal with. You underestimate just how much the Germans had committed to the east - it was the bigger part of the war, by a large margin.
    1
  1471.  FATHOLLYWOODB123  If the Russians weren't involved, D-Day would've been nipped in the bud cos you'd have had over 3 million more soldiers to deal with. The east had long been a bigger battle
    1
  1472.  @boomerhgt  Of course they won't. They'll walk right into the trap. That's the point. Those three are surrounded on 3 sides, with the sea on the 4th, by the Rus. Just retreat and draw the allies in, then pounce from below and pin against the sea.
    1
  1473.  @woolyl  Wagner has its own revenue streams. It's even literally paid to do what it does by its client govts. As for Russia, its economy is expected to return to growth either this year or at most by next year.
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  1474.  @thesenate8477  I tend to be skeptical of the general assumption that nuclear weapons means states won't fight each other. We've already fought a war with Pakistan when both of us were nuclear. All it does I think is put a cap on how all out states will go in a war, but total war isn't the norm anyway. Most warfare both before and after nuclear weapons were developed was not total war. I don't see India being able to use the nuclear option even if the US were to attack us, unless it was a full scale invasion of the whole country. Which none of our enemies have ever been interested in anyway. MAD is a powerful deterrent even during an open war.
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  1475. The US hasn't followed an isolationist policy for most of its history, and I don't see that changing. They have claimed to at various times, but nevertheless continued to interfere aplenty (and especially in South and Central America). I'd rather they don't, simply because they won't anyway and so as long as they don't announce as much at least they won't get to pretend they're doing that. In that sense, Trump is nice - he openly blurts out all the interfering nonsense the US gets up to which more 'establishment' politicians carefully avoid mentioning (despite still doing it). https://bostonreview.net/politics/jeanne-morefield-trump%E2%80%99s-foreign-policy-isn%E2%80%99t-problem
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  1476.  @yes12337  There are. Even my original comment didn't mention only Africa. You heavily underestimate the number of border disputes present in the world, from which in any year you'll find small and large conflicts over them. You're living in one hell of a bubble if you think Africa is the only continent with wars. In addition, although I didn't mention it originally, there were also other impacts Europe had on the continent both socially and economically. The latter of which isn't even merely a legacy as it continued after decolonisation too to a certain extent. This too affects other continents in varying levels.
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  1477.  @huaiwei  Whataboutism is indeed an easy concept to understand, just as its self-serving nature as a defense of hypocrisy is also an easy concept to understand. You won't understand the latter though, as you're too immersed in motivated reasoning. There's another term for you to look up. Doesn't matter though, as that misuse of the term has been pointed out aplenty, so much so it's even on it's wikipedia page. See, two can play this game. As well as your other game. That's a cute attempt at sealioning you got there bub. Go look that up, cos you're doing it. Between that and your weak 'god of the gaps' style question begging, your whole answer is a textbook case of exhaustion tactics. I ain't fallin for your attempt at poking and prodding at the historical record to try deflecting blame. You want to question it? You go do the hard work of research rather than trying to trick people into having to do it for you just to seemingly meet your challenges. You won't be satisfied anyway, sealion trolls never are. All in all your use of multiple known trolling tactics here makes it clear that's all you are. Hence bye bye troll. Feel free to emptily declare 'victory' if you want
    1
  1478.  @jascrandom9855  I know, but it doesn't matter. I was referring to the channel. If it helps, I'll switch every "him" to "the channel" in my comment. Edit: Done.
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  1479.  @noamnoam16  no. It was YOU who made the islamic revolution happen. YOU created the leadership they revolted against. As YOU have done aplenty all over the world.
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  1480.  @noamnoam16  no. It was YOU who made the islamic revolution happen. YOU created the leadership they revolted against.
    1
  1481.  @noamnoam16  no. It was YOU who made the islamic revolution happen.
    1
  1482.  @noamnoam16  no. It was YOU who made that revolution happen. YOU created the leadership they revolted against. As YOU have done aplenty all over the world.
    1
  1483.  @noamnoam16  no. It was YOU who made that revolution happen. YOU created the govt. it revolted against.
    1
  1484.  @gvibration1  found the right winger
    1
  1485.  @farn1991  Lol you wish. Try it, go on. Go in there. Ru and chin will LOVE that. They'll pounce on the opportunity. Did you enjoy spending 2 decades in Vietnam? ;)
    1
  1486.  @lo1lawl  Lmao! Yeah sure. This is literally on wikipedia bruh, and every other encyclopedia. It's not secret, it's openly stated there what they did. The revolution? Lol that was in 1979. It toppled a regime established in 1953. By YOU. So much for not know about them before the revolution lmao.
    1
  1487.  @lo1lawl  Lmao! Yeah sure. This is literally on wikipedia bruh, and every other encyclopedia. It's not secret, it's openly stated there what you did.
    1
  1488.  @lo1lawl  The revolution? Lol that was in 79. It toppled a govt. established in 53. By YOU. So much for not know about them before the revolution lol!
    1
  1489.  @lo1lawl  You should be apologizing for Pahlavi. All for the sake of your precious oil. Hypocrite.
    1
  1490.  @lo1lawl  You really don't know your own history. It's pathetic.
    1
  1491.  @lo1lawl  It isn't unique either. There's a LONG list of countries you've done the same bs to over the years. This is your history, that you don't know.
    1
  1492.  @lo1lawl  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..
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  1493.  @ft7037  It's not that easy. Cos there's over 700k settlers who would need to be evicted to do that. Any govt. that tried to do that wouldn't last long.
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  1494.  @anenticingsquid9219  That's your legacy, like it or not. The past shapes the future, and you shaped a big chunk of their modern past. This is the result. Also it's not like this was unique, I gave a long list of places where similar interventions were carried out. So it's not just your past, but also your present. Little has changed. The see-aye-eh is still doing its thing as before.
    1
  1495.  @anenticingsquid9219  Here - 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.
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  1496. Well, they need to do something. Cairo (and Alexandria, in case switching there is your solution) are overcrowded and struggling to cope. Simply upgrading existing cities is often harder than just building a new one from scratch. So what do you propose as a solution?
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  1497.  @russell6075  Wanted war? Do you also go around telling women they wanted rape?
    1
  1498.  @kiro9257  Then I don't see any reason the US, which isn't even a successor state but the same state, shouldn't be paying reparations to...let's see here - Angola, Argentina, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Savador, Grenada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan, Vietnam, etc. Have fun looking up all those interventions. :)
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  1499.  @Halcon_Sierreno  The US was responsible for twice as many deaths in Iraq with its sanctions, let alone the later war, and no one gave a crap about that either. Such is hegemony.
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  1500.  @NGRevenant  No, arguing per capita is the only way to make a just comparison. Fact of the matter is the average American is far more responsible for this mess, and has also been doing it for and benefiting from it for far longer than the average Chinese has. So how is it fair that said average Chinese is to be penalized for it? And if you're going to argue that the climate doesn't care about human justice, then show your great concern for the climate by agreeing to foot the bill for them to transition faster (they're already changing btw, at a faster rate than western nations ever did). After all, you've benefited the most from creating the mess, you ought to pay the most for cleaning it up as well.
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  1501. He does mention the Sikhs tho, albeit he doesn't talk about their kingdom. As for the Marathas, they're not relevant to this narrative. This is centered on Afghanistan, not the history of India. India is only covered insofar as it's relevant to that.
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  1502. The Nobel Peace Prize has long been a joke, and Abiy isn't even the worst example of this. At least in his case you could argue they didn't know how the future would go. But then we've got people like Peres and Arafat and Kissinger getting it, all of whom were already known warmongers. Or Obama getting it, to even his own surprise, without even having done anything for it yet.
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  1503.  @OptimusWombat  Lol, those are some cute projections from the guy whose 'contribution' was a stale meme, and who's now butthurt over that stale meme being called out as stale. You wanna have a mature conversation? Try not starting out with stale memes. Or don't, but then don't get mad when people point it out. It just makes you look even more like a kid.
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  1504. Free currency movements have hurt more nations than free migration ever has. Also, most free trade agreements are only in small part about actual trade of goods. They're more accurately described as investor rights agreements aka allowing govts. to be sued, even if they're just carrying out their democratic mandate.
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  1505. Lol not a chance. The Chinese are never going to attack Russia as long as America remains the primary thorn in their side. That'd be incredibly stupid and they know it. Russia is far more useful to them as a partner against the US, which is only antagonizing them more each year. Indeed they're far more likely to pally up with Iran as well than turn against Russia.
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  1506.  @richardgilman4602  Even if we accept all that, you're not going to impress the public by influencing a couple local leaders. All you'd achieve is antagonizing an ally for little gain. Especially since according to surveys the Chinese have a positive impression of Russia. If they wanted to pick a fight, they'd be better off waving a stick at Japan. Or the US, which is already doing it to them anyway, so may as well reciprocate
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  1507.  @richardgilman4602  I didn't claim they were natural allies, I said they have a mutual enemy - one that's a far bigger issue for both than each other. If Russia is uniting the west, the west is also uniting its enemies. Like I said, they're not going to spoil their relationship while America is still around. Hell even this war is more about America - Russia's list of demands prior to the war had very little to say about Ukraine, most of it centered on NATO, which China also dislikes (they even opposed Finland and Sweden joining, despite neither nation being anywhere close to them). US hegemony unites its enemies more than even any formal treaty ever could. Oh and btw, your caricature of the way Russia views non-Russians is cute and all, but in that case I wouldn't say the west is any better in its view of non-westerners. The sense of superiority runs deep in the west, be it by race or just 'culture'.
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  1508.  @ibrahimbello5546  Income. It's got a higher gdp per capita than the African average.
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  1509.  @bluemountain4181  It's expected to be passable in the coming years thanks to global warming.
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  1510.  @EngineerMFB  Yes in Asia. Growth is mostly in Africa atm, and even that is trending downwards slowly.
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  1511.  @jasc4364  Keep dreaming. Russia has been invaded conventionally - it ended in disaster every time.
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  1512.  @mr.mercury4247  Those incidents were during peacetime, not open war. Don't tempt fate by relying on luck during war. And the way things are heading nowadays, war looks likely to be coming.
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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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  1514. ​​ @MerryMerryGold You can't join NATO if NATO doesn't accept you. And Russia was told NATO would hold off on accepting new members. It didn't, even before any war in Ukraine happened. And you're now seeing the same happening with China, with the same result expected which you people will blame on China even as you continue to 'innocently' surround her. Meanwhile you'll pretend the US was totally justified in all the shit it's put poor Cuba through when they faced the same thing. Fyi Cuba also voluntarily invited the Russians in, not that America cared. They've brutally punished that nation ever since for daring to do it.
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  1515. ​ @thetapheonix  They have the moral high ground simply by virtue of the fact that the revolution overthrew a puppet regime that was itself installed over the democratic one. Guess who put that that puppet in place?...
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  1516. ​@thetapheonix They have the moral high ground simply by virtue of the fact that the revolution overthrew a puppet that was itself installed over the elected leader. Guess who put up that puppet?...
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  1517. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  1518. If they'd just have the courage to put a damn date to it, we could be done with this business. Forget a year, at least choose a decade! Every nation falls eventually, you can't just claim credit for making a prediction if you simply leave it vague enough to be right no matter the time.
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  1519. ​ @electrosyzygy  Vlad Vexler lol! You mean that Russian emigre who waxes on like the modern day Ayn Rand? Yeah, very neutral. No wonder you're a fan of his. And I suppose you'd recommend serpentza or china uncensored for insight into china then lol!
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  1520.  @ramadansteve1715  Keep being good with throwing your weight around then - until it comes back to bite you in the ass. Your arrogant moralistic crusading - you could literally just replace dictator with heathen or infidel there - is only going to make you ever more enemies and lead to endless conflict, but moral supremacists like you will never learn as your whole identity is wrapped up in that pedestal you place yourselves on, preventing any sense of restraint or caution. Or wisdom.
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  1521.  @Telltalesign  Which people pray? You don't have influence over a whole region cos everyone hates you. Besides, the video mentioned a lot of factors, not just Iran. That you fixated on them for your hate says more about you than anyone else.
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  1522. You think flooding tunnels is a new idea lol? We've known about that tactic for literally millennia, and we still built tunnels. Did you know we also build tunnels for handling floodwaters? Yeah, we kinda know a thing or two on managing water. They may win the war, BUT at the efficiency they're going at it looks like it'll have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians before it finally succeeds. They've already exceeded Russia's toll over nearly 2 years in as little as a month. Good luck getting the world to meekly accept that. And at the end of it the Palestinians will still be there, and more radicalised than ever. It's already a loss.
    1
  1523.  @realsemig  What demand? Care to explain how mostly poorer immigrant workers are capable of driving up prices for housing that they themselves can't afford? The only housing demand they can spur is of the cheap variety. You seem to be the one struggling with "basics" - ordinary people don't contribute demand for private jets, only Toyota Corollas, no matter how much they might want it or how closely they share a city with people who can afford that stuff. In 'basic' economics that's called the ability to pay, and there's no demand without it.
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  1524. As another Indian, shut up. They're still much richer than us, so don't embarrass us by getting cocky.
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  1525.  @Joker-yw9hl  That was turned down over a decade ago. They do it for their own projects. We've told them we don't want it.
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  1526.  @frankyyaggabot6222  That was turned down over a decade ago. They do it for their own projects. We've told them we don't want it.
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  1527.  @clambert608  Much of it is finance, which is just more London. Meh. What's the point being a country when everything revolves around one city?
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  1528.  @tiagomd3811  Nah. This is too opinionated for PC (politically correct) GPT.
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  1529.  @TheRezro  China trades with everyone. They have a multitude of fossil fuel suppliers. However they see Russia as a useful ally, not a likely threat. There's currently no conflict atm for Russia to weaponize pipes over, but there IS a conflict already with the west. And that looks set to continue. And so China is happy to align with Russia cos the west has already shown itself just as ready to weaponize every economic lever it has against its enemies, and is already doing so to China unlike Russia.
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  1530. Interestingly, the biggest beneficiaries from this are the very people the Democrats themselves are nervous about - Sanders and Warren. Trumps' image is hurt, but then so is Biden. So when the mainstream Dem candidate is vulnerable, who to turn to but the non-mainstream ones? They might have just ended up playing themselves out of pulling off another Hillary in 2020 i.e. this time the radicals will have to come to the fore. The fight that plays out then should be fascinating to observe - Trump fighting Sanders / Warren, while Sanders / Warren also fight their own party establishment. Fun times! ;)
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  1531. Not happening. There was already a good precursor to the idea that could've set the stage for such an agreement - the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty, which sought to ensure parity between the major nuclear powers by ensuring their deterrence effect remained as development of defensive countermeasures was curtailed. George Bush pulled the US out of it in 2002, resulting in a new arms race as the US' rivals sought to ensure they had a credible threat against America. And it's much cheaper for them.
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  1532.  @The_Midnight_Bear  If you want to split Pakistan into 4, what the hell would you do with India? Or Papua New Guinea? Or even the UK? Multicultural states are a thing. Just endlessly splitting them up into a multitude of ethnic enclaves, if that is even doable, isn't much of a solution to anything. Most modern states wouldn't exist with that kind of defeatist thinking.
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  1533.  @DalitShiv_Nagwanshi  That corridor is kinda a capitulation. India has had plans to have a corridor through Iran for decades, but US sanctions on Iran kept undermining it. And now we're giving in and going for a corridor that goes through US allies, bypassing Iran.
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  1534.  @michaelhenault1444  Considering that the whole point is avoid becoming beholden to the US, this ain't gonna happen. Russia toyed with the idea once, but only for the purpose of preventing west German rearmament and keeping the US away. The US rejected the idea, as they would today. The only form of NATO possible with both of them in it would be a dysfunctional one where both have equal influence over it.
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  1535.  @matpk  Not happening as long as both have a common enemy - America.
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  1536. @Al I wasn't implying anything about how they got them, just that that doesn't give them the ability to use nukes. Both Pakistan and North Korea spent years developing their own nukes. In any case, like I said, if Ukraine gets to have nukes to protect from invasion, then so does everyone else. They aren't the only country in danger. In fact at the time they weren't in any danger to begin with - Ukraine had a good relationship with Russia all the way till 2014. Iran, by contrast, already faces existential threats.
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  1537. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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  1538.  @justhuman3886  Russia shares a border with China, but notably NOT with India, and has had its own fraught relations with them in years past. They aren't going to ditch India to go all in with China, cos that'd be stupid. They'll likely stay neutral, while continuing to do business with us, just as both we and China are doing the same in regards to their current conflict. You're not going to see Russian forces backing up a Chinese offensive against India the way they might if it came to a war between China and the US. As such, we're not being used, any more than we are using them. In contrast the US has already acted against us on numerous occasions, both directly with sanctions and even military threats, as well as indirectly by arming Pakistan. You want us to go all out ditching Russia to join those guys'?!
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  1539.  @stephenjenkins7971  Lol you had to go all the back to the Mongols to find success? Russia barely even existed at the time. If you want to believe Russia's conventional army is a joke, feel free. That's likely what they'd want. As the saying goes on pride...
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  1540.  @stephenjenkins7971  4 paragraphs all to repeat the same empty assertion. You acknowledged the prior defeats, and even earlier acknowledged that the US would be kicked out as well. So what're you even arguing for? Oh right, few casualties. Yeah right. Try it and find out. You'd be marching on the graves of millions who've failed before. Plus the US has shown that it can't stomach much casualties. So maybe you're right - they probably would have few casualties, cos they'd turn tail and pull out as soon as casualties start rising.
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  1541.  @crispybacon261  It's hard to successfully invade Russia, which is different from being able to invade it. And anyway it isn't so much that NATO will invade Russia as it is that America will strangle it, which they already did to the Soviet Union before and are trying to do to China now. From their perspective it's important that the west be told to back off as death by a thousand cuts i.e. a relentless encirclement, is still death. Ironically a full scale invasion would likely work out better for them, and terribly for Europe, although America as usual gets to sit pretty far away no matter how it goes.
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  1542.  @stephenjenkins7971  Oh they'll be secure until WW3 eventually breaks out, likely involving China as well. However that war goes, they'll all be targets. Meanwhile neutral nations will likely escape the devastation and reap the benefits after. You can keep playing with fire if you want. Don't complain when you end up burned for it.
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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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  1546.  @crispybacon261  Not really. Those numbers hold even for international surveys of the population. Statista, which is German, put his approval at over 70% even before the war. Those aren't the sort of numbers to ever threaten any kind of popular rebuke. And even now it's holding up. And this is in an autocratic nation, where the leader is even less vulnerable to being unseated. For comparison Biden's approval rating sits at about 40% i.e. less than half the country likes him. Putin's position was very secure. I mean sure, it could be a reason for the war, but it just doesn't seem very likely compared to the myriad other possible reasons for them going to war.
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  1547. I've seen a lot more serious news from the BBC than from, say, The Daily Mail. Or any other British news agency.
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  1548. There are bigger news empires, including private ones, than the BBC internationally (I'm not British, so I've hardly been 'conditioned'). And I've seen them. And "plunder"? Is that what you call taxes? I suppose that tells me plenty about what to expect from arguing further from you, I guess.
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  1549. Everyone except Spain lol.
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  1550.  @protorhinocerator142  Pride comes before a fall as they say lol. You can't blockade China from thousands of miles away without massively disrupting global trade for literally half the worlds' population. Plus if you want to play it that way they'll simply starve the US' allies in the region in turn. You want to fight them? Be ready to get your hands dirty. There is no easy option that doesn't result in massive reprisals for nations you're claiming to be there to protect.
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  1551.  @farzana6676  The west has already long since invented new threats. You think Russia is the only country that doesn't like the west? Russia, China, Iran - all these countries have almost nothing in common, and yet somehow the west has managed to make enemies of all of them. Hell right now in Brazil BOTH opposing candidates in the upcoming elections support Russia, not cos they have a problem with Ukraine, but cos they want to see the west brought low. Across the Muslim world there are calls for the west to be beaten. Africans, facing food shortages due to this war, still aren't rallying around the West. Even India, courting the west to counter China, hasn't stood by them. That so many disparate people all have a problem with the west should be cause for some introspection. The west isn't running out of enemies without Russia, it's just making more of them.
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  1552.  Reactionary Populist  Bias or no, they have to be at least accurate and honest. Cos they're checked for that. Academics can choose what to study, but their findings have to stand up critical scrutiny. Unlike anonymous online comments and/or blog posts.
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  1553. Pakistan wasn't even in this video, so err...why?
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  1554.  @mansari7310  Ironically many Iranians themselves - the ones IN Iran - would object to being called Persians. Persian is a western name for the Iranian people, now used by westerners as well as the diaspora that don't like the current regime.
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  1555.  @mansari7310  I never said they were Arabs. I said they're Iranian, not Persian or Arab. You're the one trying to say they're something besides Iranian. Being Iranian goes further back than the modern state of Iran. Persia was never its own name, it was the name others gave it.
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  1556. ​ @lordpepe2927 Stalin was the most ruthless leader, as was Mao. No nukes were used. This is just self-serving moralism to try to pretend the only nation to have ever nuked people is somehow the restrained one.
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  1557. "In case of annexation Russia will face new international santions." - there's not much in the way of sanctions left for the west to use.
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  1558.  @andrejjovanovic02  Bruh, that would make his bias Turkish. And Turkey is opposed to Russia here. If anything, he should be trashing the invasion, yet he didn't.
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  1559.  @emildavidsen1404  Ah lmao! You literally did exactly what I said you people always do lol. Unsurprising, given how much you people absolutely LOVE that war cos of how much you've turned it into a fairy tale. Meanwhile ww1 sits forgotten and ignored. Ww2 is indeed going to be the seed of why the next one happens, but not directly - it'll be cos of how much it's taken over your psyche and crowded out all perspectives but the ones centered on it, blinding you. And so you'll all walk blindly into it, thinking you're doing the right thing cos that's the only war you've always got on your mind for inspiration.
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  1560.  @emildavidsen1404  Ah lmao! You literally did exactly what I said you people always do lol. Unsurprising, given how much you people absolutely LOVE that war cos of how much you've turned it into a fairy tale. Meanwhile ww1 sits forgotten and ignored.
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  1561.  @emildavidsen1404  Ww2 is indeed going to be the seed of why the next one happens, but not directly - it'll be cos of how much it's taken over your psyche and crowded out all perspectives but the ones centered on it, blinding you. And so you'll all walk blindly into it, thinking you're doing the right thing cos that's the only war you've always got on your mind for inspiration.
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  1562.  @emildavidsen1404  Ah lmao! You literally did exactly what I said you people always do lol.
    1
  1563.  @emildavidsen1404  Unsurprising, given how much you people absolutely LOVE that thing cos of how much you've turned it into a fairy tale. Meanwhile the first one sits forgotten, ignored.
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  1564.  @emildavidsen1404  That thing is indeed going to be the seed of why the next happens, but not directly - it'll be cos of how much it's taken over your psyche and crowded out all perspectives but the ones centered on it, blinding you.
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  1565.  @emildavidsen1404  And so you'll all walk blindly into it, thinking you're doing the right thing cos that's the only war you've always got on your mind for inspiration.
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  1566.  @emildavidsen1404  Also lol at your idea of what 'appeasement' is. Apparently them not wanting bases of yours all around them is 'appeasement'. Funny that request was perfectly 'reasonable' when the us insisted on it in cuba. Nearly led to another great war, only prevented by them appeasing you - tho you still punished poor cuba anyway. Despite universal global condemnation.
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  1567. @Totally not the flash :3 Keep it in your pants there, Joker. Not everyone just wants to watch the whole world burn.
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  1568.  @sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986  Lol, has it? What hole did you bury your head in? The world has seen plenty of wars in recent years, and there's even multiple other wars going on right now alongside this one. This isn't even the deadliest war currently. You just want to paint Russia as being exceptional, when it really isn't. The only thing exceptional about this war is that a WESTERN country was attacked, not that there's a war.
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  1569.  @dr.winner2516  What article? You haven't even linked anything. The world bank itself has said that China has raised over 800 million people out of poverty. Right here - https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/overview
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  1570.  @yuantingkung378  Yes, Taiwanese are allowed to be anxious. They've got reason to be, since they're actually under threat. Westerners are not, as they're just spoiled children bemoaning the loss of their global hegemony rather than being in any actual existential danger. The issue in this thread is that we've got a handful of scared Taiwanese, but a metric fuckton of warmongering westerners.
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  1571.  @durianjaykin3576  Vietnam is another example of a place with good reason to be against China (alongside Taiwan above). Yet another would be India. But the US? No. They're just spoiled hegemons with no moral justification for their actions that're seeking to use these places to reaffirm their destructive hegemony. These places are not there to be pawns to serve the American agenda. And the rest of the world, outside of the west, has plenty of reason to look forward to the rise of other power centers - not just China, but also Russia, India, even the EU - that can help to curtail the US' warmongering ways. A multipolar world order is better for all.
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  1572.  @SuperCrow02  Not only that, but they're incredibly ignorant. Most haven't even heard of the actual biggest conflict since WW2, even though it's only 2 decades old - the Second Congo War. They see some war being hyped up by the media and think it's big when it's nothing compared to that. It's known as Africa's world war for a reason.
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  1573. America's massive military dominance was built by enormous national resources dedicated to the project thanks to two world wars that happened to not touch it the way they crippled the colonial powers. Russia did it despite its massive war losses. China hasn't dedicated the same level of commitment to its military...yet, since it doesn't face any equivalent military power in its local region. But you can bet if the Americans pushed them to it they'd soon build up just as impressively. They may lose the first big confrontation, but you'd only end up shifting their focus such that they'd thrash you in the second. Of course, the US doesn't care about this as much because "thrash" here still doesn't mean the American mainland would actually be threatened, just its power abroad. Would that all countries had the geographic gifts of the United States...
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  1574. The center of Leh was overhauled just a few years ago. I was there when it was happening. India is NOT "maintain[ing] the sanctity and spirituality of Ladakh and Ladakhis", it just doesn't have the sheer speed and scale of transformation that the Chinese usually implement. Fortunately, Ladakh is still very much preserved as the homeland of the Ladakhis, in that they're still the dominant group there, but it's certainly not being maintained like some sort of nature reserve. And just as well, since (some of) the Ladakhis themselves aren't interested in being 'preserved' as effectively tourist attractions in a human zoo - they're hungry for modernity and development. I imagine some Tibetans feel similarly, although not so happy about the demographic and political shifts that've come along with it.
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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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  1577. There have been govt. programs to address all those issues all over the world, including in Korea. None of them worked. It's never been about how tough life is. The poor have the toughest lives of all, and yet they have the most children. While the super rich have the easiest of lives, and yet tend not to have any more children for it.
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  1578. Subjugation what lol?! They don't need to subjugate any of them, merely to be enough of a threat that those nations would rather not be part of a war than join one. Which they already are, since Chinese missiles can reach all their territories. Nuclear powered ships only matter if you're fighting on the other side of the world, not close to your own ports. China's activities are primarily in, as even Caspian puts it, it's own backyard. China isn't even focusing on aircraft carriers all that much, but on cruisers and other 'anti-carrier' measures. Cos aircraft carriers are designed more for power projection than counter naval operations. Most of this video is Caspian projecting his rather old fashioned take on what China intends to do. Old fashioned cos he seems to live in a world where nothing changes apart from China's navy getting larger and everyone is still fighting wars the conventional way. That's fine for 2030 maybe, but 2050 lol? It's like everyone is talking about the world shifting in a matter of days following Russia's invasion, but apparently nothing is going to change across several decades wrt China or the West.
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  1579.  @michaelthompson9548  US drones also cost a lot more than the drones they're using lol.
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  1580.  @Annae_xs  Who said the west has a monopoly on electronics lol? You people seem to live in this weird fantasy world where the west makes everything and the rest of the world does nothing but export oil or grains. They're still pumping oil fyi.
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  1581.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  1582.  @Ze_Moose  They have better things to worry about than Israel. Besides Israel is tied to the west, which ruined them.
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  1583.  @Oleca-ej7qo  'Stop having 10 kids per family' - you obviously know nothing about birth rates. You want them to stop having kids? Throw all that wealth of yours their way. Also 10 kids is so obviously ignorant.
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  1584.  @WhatAboutYou123  I'm suggesting you know nothing about demographics. You want people to stop having many kids? Go educate yourself on when people actually stop having many kids. The only reason you don't have many is cos of where your life is most likely, not cos you're any better than the supposedly ignorant ones who do.
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  1585.  @WhatAboutYou123  The only reason you don't have many kids is cos of where your life is most likely, not cos you're any better than the supposedly ignorant ones who do.
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  1586.  @Oleca-ej7qo  Data contradicts you. The fertility rate of Iraq is 3.4. Stop spreading ignorance please. Also you still don't acknowledge why they have more kids and you don't. Cos real economics is foreign to you folk. All you know is racial stereotypes.
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  1587.  @Oleca-ej7qo  Data contradicts you. The fertility rate of Iraq is 3.4. Stop spreading ignorance pls.
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  1588.  @Oleca-ej7qo  Data contradicts you. The fertility rate is 3.4. Stop spreading ignorance pls.
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  1589.  @WhatAboutYou123  Lol. Keep being guided by your stereotypes kiddo. Good for feeding your ego at least.
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  1590.  @JruKfg  so, you guys are still planning to continue being economically illiterate? While also feeding your bloated egos.
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  1591.  @omairshafiq1998  There's not much room for that. They can't get too friendly with Pak or else India will get upset. And they can't intimidate as Chi is already there as an ally of theirs, as is Iran.
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  1592.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  1593. Doesn't matter for the west. Whatever happens internally, they aren't looking for another foreign takeover. They experienced that already in 53, and hated it so much they overthrew it. They won't cave to an invasion.
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  1594. They experienced foreign takeover already in 53, and hated it so much they overthrew it.
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  1595. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  1596.  @docken11  What it's been made very clear from your comment is that you believe in America setting the 'parameters' for people's all over the world i.e. hegemony. So what you think of Israels' actions is irrelevant. It was a western power - Britain - who made this mess in the first place, as well as so many others elsehwhere. The US has its own share of messes that it has made and is still making. The US is at the heart of the recent conflict as well, as explained in the video. So pushing an American ultimatum that the Palestinians were 'wrong' for rejecting as their fault says more about you than anyone else. This is not your world to shape how you like it.
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  1597.  @andriusdi  You're talking about China warmongering when it hasn't been to war in nearly half a century, while ignoring that it's naval buildup is directed towards a nation that's been warmongering almost continuously right up to this day. Those nations are building up their militaries to counter a possible threat to themselves, not to seek it out. They're not US poodles that'll go to war just cos the US says so, especially since it's their necks on the line not America's. They'll fight alongside the US if China attacks them, not necessarily if the two are fighting elsewhere.
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  1598.  @andriusdi  Oh China is aggressive sure - I know that far better than spoiled westerner does. That still isn't war. What is? Their war with Vietnam in 1979, or with us in 1962. Or the US' wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and (lol!) also Vietnam (which was also much bigger btw). As for carriers, they actually aren't as focused on carriers. The majority of their fleet buildup has been on cruisers and subs and other anti-carrier systems, because carriers are primarily designed for power projection not anti-naval operations. Caspian even kinda acknowledges that at the beginning of the video, but then goes on to masturbate about carriers for the rest of it lol. And btw this isn't unique to China - plenty of nations, including my own, don't go gaga over carriers, as they're expensive big targets with limited defensive utility. It's America that is carrier crazy, as their needs are entirely about distant power projection.
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  1599.  @andriusdi  And also you've ignored my main point, which is that ASEANs' military exists to protect itself, not to be led along on a merry way by the Americans. Even Quad is such, with our own foreign minister clarifying that it is NOT an 'Asian NATO'. And we're member of it, the most powerful one in fact, apart from the US. We're not here to fight their wars, we're here to defend ourselves. It doesn't matter how friendly or hostile relations with China are for ASEAN nations, they're in the area (unlike America) and so don't want war if they can help it. So American attempts to rope in countries into a war with China will be mostly futile unless China has actually attacked them. They're more likely to get support from the UK lol.
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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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  1601.  @andriusdi  As opposed to the US dominating the seas and already exercising power lol? Funny how that's taken for granted. There is no military alliance to do any of that, only for defense. They'll fight the Chinese if they get attacked, nothing more. Call it whatever you want, but they won't be roped into any American conflict in the area that doesn't already involve them. And America's pretensions to global idealism aren't that, especially since several of them have already seen the ugly side of that already. They know China isn't going anywhere, it's the Americans who're new to their history and have already shifted focus globally multiple times already. They have to live with each other one way or another, not the US.
    1
  1602.  @andriusdi  And btw, ASEAN isn't new. It's existed for decades, and yet hasn't evolved into a military alliance in all that time despite there actually having been wars in its region (and not just with China). It is not designed to, and its members very reluctant to. It's certainly not going to do so just cos an outside power tells them to. It's got enough issues to deal with without that being dropped on its plate. ASEAN exists for itself, not to serve your agenda.
    1
  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.
    1
  1604.  @louganshahn2620  Technically they aren't tribes sure, but the comparison does show how similar the behaviour patterns can be. Only the basis for said behaviour differs, but that it arises so readily is illuminating. And this comes from someone who lives in such a society.
    1
  1605.  @Moepowerplant  There's a big difference between Al Jazeera Arabic and their English news outlet. The latter basically just copied the BBC, even poaching a lot of their staff, just without the UK-centric bias. So much so that there's apparently even a running joke in the BBC about it saying that it's only a matter of time before anyone who gets a job there receives an offer from Al Jazeera. I'm not saying this is wrong or bad mind, but it is derivative and draws little from Qatar and its culture.
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  1606.  @Rikimkigsck  "French and Germans have high IQ while Russians don't. As an Indian" - ironic to find a fellow Indian peddling that racist idea. Bhai just shut up about the IQ shit. It doesn't whether it's Russians or Africans, it's still a pile of shit. We've no right to complain about white westerners saying the same about us with folks like you in our midst. You're just like them. It's literally your kind of essentialist mindset that kept our caste system in place long after Ambedkar wrote the Constitution.
    1
  1607. Russian and Ukraine aren't old enemies. The one they'd need to find peace with is America, cos their concerns over NATO are primarily about America, for whom Russia just sees NATO as a front. This isn't exactly helped by the fact even without them launching a war the US still doesn't get along with China. To them it seems the only way to 'get along' with the US would be to become like the UK, the US' poodle (and it wasn't the Russians or Chinese who gave it that name). They won't ever accept that.
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  1608.  @iamaheretic7829  Only from the Saudis. Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan is in any position to do much to them. Both have plenty of problems of their own. Even the Saudis aren't doing well in their own war down south in Yemen. But really the main problem won't be from outside, most likely it'll be the Kurds and/or Azeris.
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  1609.  @micha2909  'can and should solve this without outside help' - they haven't even asked for outside help. The US is just sticking its nose in anyway, as is its habit. They just treat it as the default that they have to be involved in everything.
    1
  1610.  @绿巨吗  1962 Indo-China war.
    1
  1611.  @muraddagWTFBBQ2  Mostly it's cos women were expected to settle down and raise a family. Now they aren't.
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  1612.  @thearpox7873  'to get that higher pay, they pour more of themselves into their work' - No. Even rich heirs who don't need to work at all still don't have many kids. Lottery winners don't have many kids. No one rich does. You know who do? Orthodox religious communities - regardless of how well off they are. They have more kids than do other populations of similar economic standing. And this holds for a variety of religions, so it's not about which one you believe in. Guess what all of them have in common? It sure isn't that they're all rich..
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  1613.  @dallysinghson5569  The poor have massive housing costs. You just don't think of them as high cos you only see the raw amount and compare it to your own income, which isn't relevant. As a proportion of their own income, housing and everything else is much bigger expense for them than it is for the middle class. Yet they still have more kids. Even in cities, where they can't send them off to farms but have to send them to school.
    1
  1614.  @trog7986  How many kids would you and your partner have, if money was no issue? People have been polled on this. Answers are always 0, 1 or 2, very rarely 3 and near never more. Replacement rate is 2.1 fyi. Ask your great grandparents how large families used to be. Mine was one of 10!
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  1615.  @kidobutai27  He was elected sure, but then so is Putin. But they also undermine and weaken several of the institutions that strong democracies need to function well, and which keep those votes free and fair. Such as the election commission, media and politically inclined ngos.
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  1616.  @jeffreyokun2355  In terms of land annexation, Russia has done more. In terms of invasions of nations and casualties, the west has. For instance, the Afghanistan war alone has a death toll over 20 times that of the Crimean war. The west doesn't claim land sure, but they still insist of shaping the world to their liking. Militarily, if need be.
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  1617.  @Distress.  In that case you also get to take the blame for both the devastation caused at the time AND the future that arose from it due to your sordid past. Which means the west owes the rest of the world trillions in reparations for colonialism - we'll be awaiting our cheque in the mail!
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  1618.  @SidMajors  His audience is mostly westerners. That should answer your question...Also see👆
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  1619.  @visvamkandadaisrinivasan5190  China isn't a victim at all, hence why they're not participating in this task force despite being asked to. They're happy to let the US take the fall. On the contrary the cargo ships going through the zone have so little faith in the task force that they've taken to broadcasting 'ALL CHINESE' to the Houthis so they'll be left alone. Cos the Houthis aren't at war with China.
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  1620.  @gideonmele1556  One of the biggest investors into Mexican manufacturing, ironically, China lol! Ditto for Vietnam.
    1
  1621. Malaysia is specialized towards memory chips, which isn't even an industry unique to it. It'll face tough competition even holding its own in its own industry, AI and robotics are a lot farther up the value chain.
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  1622.  @jascrandom9855  Way to be pedantic...Were you trying to show off how realpolitik you are? 'Allies' then. Or whatever you'd prefer to call it. Point is they're working together for now.
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  1623.  @tsubadaikhan6332  They had a govt. You destroyed it. They even had a govt. before that, and you helped the man who ruined that so as to establish his own govt. that you then went on to destroy again. The only one who needs to look in a mirror is you.
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  1624. Bruh, you can find literally thousands of articles by traditional media explaining the Israel-Palestine conflict and its history. This idea that traditional media produces nothing good while Youtubers are the only decent source of news is just willful blindness in order to align with an internet meme narrative. Like literally just a Google search will show how wrong it is.
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  1625.  @seantrevathan3041  I love how Americans love telling themselves this myth lmao! What a conveniently self-serving story. Security from what? Pirates? Modern piracy is a joke that even a minor nations' navy can handle, let alone a bunch of nations. You don't need the stupidly large flotilla that is the US Navy for that. The reason the US Navy is as large as it is is for one purpose and one purpose only - the projection of American power against enemy states. Not to ensure maritime security lol!
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  1626. Tldr Global did a fairly unbiased video on another aspect of this conflict that isn't covered in this video - demographics, and its impact on the politics in the region. Pretty nice added info to accompany this video imo.
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  1627. ​ @bnfcj8987  Chinese propaganda tool would not be dismissing China's ability to take on the US Navy. This vid resembles US propaganda more than China.
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  1628. It literally just happened. Give him some time.
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  1629.  @wp12mv  What do you expect?! It's a very recent developing situation. Frankly, he should've waited even long to make this video, but everyone was pestering him about it below his last one. CR isn't a news channel, so expecting him to cover breaking news is stupid. Imo he should appraise the war once things have calmed down and become clearer, not now. But ppl just can't wait.
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  1630.  @Morgan-gd5rg  They didn't trust it, they expected it. There's a difference. That expectation was not lived up to, so here we are.
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  1631.  @OttomanSultana  The difference is that Shirvan DOESN'T cover emerging topics. Almost all his videos are about stuff that's not brand new, just underappreciated. He's covering this one cos people kept badgering him about it below his last video. CR isn't a breaking news channel, and yet so many here wanted him to act like one.
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  1632.  @OttomanSultana  Perhaps. But that probably would've resulted in all the other videos he might have planned (on other topics) being similarly pestered and, more importantly, not being watched cos they weren't on the current hot button topic. At least now one can say he's said something about it, so they hopefully move on and show some interest in other things besides war reporting.
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  1633.  @dan7564  I mean, the west annexed a whole lot more than one city in its time. And killed many more than China is locking up now. So your argument is moot. And don't even bother trying to accuse everyone who disagrees with you of being Chinese.
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  1634.  @Student0Toucher  India has far better relations with Russia than it does with America. And the country is far too independent to submit itself to America's will.
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  1635.  @charlesburgoyne-probyn6044  You know in 1971 the US sent warships to threaten India? Worlds largest democracy. Never mind the innumerable democratic but socialist leaders across Africa and Latin America that they've helped to replace.
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  1636.  @User-jr7vf  I suspect it'll soon look very bright, just not in the way that phrase is usually used. Brighter than the sun in fact...
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  1637. Well, tbf, the Mongols did get stopped at Eastern Europe. But also, the Mongolian Empire would probably have expanded over time, had it been a proper empire and of course if it hadn't collapsed in on itself first.
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  1638.  @deusmachinima1189  There's no such thing as destiny either.
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  1639. Einstein said that in an even more pithy form that the way he phrased it.
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  1640.  @scottdoesntmatter4409  We can do without people who root for us just in order to spite others they don't like thanks. Either root for India cos you love India, or don't bother.
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  1641.  @CakePrincessCelestia  Bad comparison. The Russians have said they're willing to negotiate, Ukraine is the one that's ruled it out.
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  1642.  @gvibration1  They aren't 'all' threatened by Iran. Ironically it's Israel they all hate much more than Iran - they're making peace with it now after half a dozen multi-state wars to get rid of it that failed. Iran is mainly disliked by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as it challenges their supremacy in the region. And it has nothing to do with their nukes - everyone knows the only nation Iran might nuke is Israel. The nukes are more of an issue for the west and Israel (in fact the west BECAUSE of Israel) - the other Arab nations are simply using it to get the west to help them curtail Iran more so they can remain on top longer.
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  1643.  Gaurav Khanna  It's not a white elephant, it's just more modest. It's no grand masterplan to counter China no, but it does still stand to benefit India and all the participating nations. And it would've been even better had we been able to enact the original plan of going via Iran.
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  1644. Russia isn't worried about her neighbours, or even Germany or France. She's worried about America, and having to bow down to America owing to being at a major disadvantage, unlike the power balance between Germany and France. As far as Russia is concerned NATO is just a tool for American power projection. China feels the same about the US' allies in the Pacific.
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  1645.  @Afrologist  How does that do anything about declining fertility rates?...
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  1646.  @iminyourwalls8309  "The Reason the US intervenes so much is to protect global shipping routes" - this is laughably untrue lol. Almost all the countries the US has intervened in don't even have significant navies. Some are even landlocked lol! Trying to reduce US intervention to any one single objective is a fools' errand. And anyway it doesn't say anything about the fact that the US is part of only a small club of nations that has bothered to build this capability to begin with, meaning other powerful nations still can't exert (military) power much beyond their neighbourhoods
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  1647.  @militantcapitalist4606  Hi hypocrite! 💩🤡
    1
  1648.  @mookosh  Sure. So how about you get started doing that? It's been decades now.
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  1649.  @mookosh  First off, you're not putting a stop to this invasion, you're sitting on the sidelines and jeering at them for it. And secondly, to answer your question, I'd like to see that punishment RIGHT NOW. You can do it concurrently with Russia. You can also copy the punishment of Russia btw - the US deserves as much, if not more, as what Russia is getting. So same level of sanctions, cutoff from SWIFT, the works.
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  1650.  @mookosh  No, I don't. And you're disingenuous for putting it like that, hypocrite. If you're not going to take any action action against the West, then I'd rather nothing be done to other countries either. I'm not interested in facilitating you getting away with your crimes even more. Hypocrite.
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  1651.  @mookosh  And before you hypocritically try to frame that as a defense of warmongering, I'll point out that you're the one actually doing that - you're unwilling to submit the West to your vaunted justice even if it includes Russia as part of the package. You just want to let the West get away, without explicitly saying so. That's classic "justice" for thee, but not for me treatment. I'm not defending an aggressor here, but YOU are. Disingenuously.
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  1652.  @Maximiliano896  Funny you say that about China. The same logic applies to the west. China literally just rose back up. The west is already overdue, if such a thing can be said to be overdue, for its comeuppance Sure every empire will fall, but you've no business feeling you know which falls first. One day it'll happen to them. But also, one day it'll happen to you. When's your day?...
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  1653.  @ayyygfym8245  GTBT is just as biased tho.
    1
  1654. They don't have an endgame, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  1655.  @LeoMajor1  In that case, here's a bigger reason to not push this too far - the Outer Space Treaty and nuclear non-proliferation. The former prohibits offensive weapons in space, the latter constrains new nuclear states from arising. Both Russia and China are easily capable of rubbishing both, aiding new nuclear weapon development in places like Iran and pulling out of the OST to hang the sword of Damocles over America's head. Don't even try pretending you can defend against that. These conventions have mostly held (the OST has completely held) for generations. Since 'all is fair', push too hard and you might end up in a world far worse than anything even during the Cold War.
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  1656.  @chobai9996  "the Western world actually has done a lot to prevent climate change" - nope, most western countries continue to underperform on their climate targets. And while China has the highest gross current emissions, both emissions per capita and its cumulative total emissions are still lower than even just America - by a large margin. It's the west that's majorly responsible for creating the climate crisis - China and India are just convenient targets to attack at present as they develop. The majority of temperature rise that's been seen so far is because of the west, and the average westerner releases more CO2 as well. Meanwhile both China and India have already invested heavily into renewables, with the former already dominating solar.
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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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  1658. ​ @Janoip  Sanctions having a negative effect is different from the sanctions being crippling. None of those outlets claim Russia is going to fold. From their perspective it's worth it for achieving other aims. Your figure is still an early result of market adjustment immediately after the sanction on oil, just as people cheered on the collapse of the rouble last year. Like I said, countries have eaten sanctions for years. You want something to look up? Go look up the history of sanctions. They have almost no success stories. The only very contentious claim of success some bring up is that of South Africa, which is highly disputed cos it already had a major domestic movement for change already underway. Other than that, nothing. Hell the Iraq war was launched to finally do what supposedly crippling sanctions failed to.
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  1659. Afghanistan tried to do that. It didn't work out well for them...
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  1660.  @AminAzimi-l2e  Lol good luck with that. You think Yikraine is a shitshow? Just try pushing into Iran. Both Russia and China will clap their hands with glee, and open their stocks. It'll be EXACTLY what they'd want.
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  1661.  @AminAzimi-l2e  I'm sure China and Russia would LOVE you to try that. Indeed they'll be rubbing their hands in glee...
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  1662.  @AminAzimi-l2e  Oh it'll change things alright, just not in a way you'd like lol...
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  1663.  @sinaa8652  What if he has, but different ones from who you want to side with? The people of Iran have already overthrown a govt. - that's literally how this one came to power in 1979. So they can do it, if enough of them want to do it. Evidently not enough of them wanted to do it last year. Iranians aren't all liberal feminists you know.
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  1664.  @miladeskandari7  It's already been done before. Sounds like you're just making excuses for failing, for not being as popular as you like to think you are. Iran has 90 million people, while the military is much less than a million. If you were popular enough, you would have won. Evidently you weren't. Unsurprising, given your protests were mostly from a smaller subsection of just half that population i.e. feminist women. Meanwhile conservative women and most men weren't too big on your cause.
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  1665. They don't have an endgame, cos this is all basically to keep one man out of jail. The longer it goes, the longer he stays free.
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  1666.  @Icarus07c  They've tried that already multiple times, and failed each time. Last time in Lebanon was in 2006. It failed.
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  1667. Colonialism is hardly necessary to explain the problems of Africa. While it left a terrible legacy, few people seem to note that it hasn't even left in the first place - more money gets siphoned out of Africa each year even today. Even Caspian Report itself has covered a book that explains this phenomenon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRMDMNSsTDU Not to mention all the wrongheaded loan-enforced IMF 'Structural Adjustment Programs' (SAPs) in the latter half of the last century, right as the African nations gained their independence.
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  1668. ​ @donaldhysa4836  Lol you choose Europe, the biggest beneficiary of US hegemony, as your standard? Yeah no shit the Europeans are fine with that. I said "outside the west". And you might want to check your history - Europe did have trade ties with Russia during the Cold War, and it benefitted significantly from that. You're echoing the same dumb argument we hear from the west wrt China as well - that trade is somehow comparable to aid. It isn't. Trade is trade, it's done out of self-interest, not charity. I could just as well turn that around and declare that Russia traded with you out of the goodness of their hearts, but I won't cos it's dumb. But not anymore dumb than your take, which is just the mirror of that.
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  1669. Both the US and China are building up their own semiconductor sectors so that Taiwan's isn't as big of a deal.
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  1670. ​ @wendten2  There's a lot of things everyone 'can' google, few things they actually do. Exploiting that to sell yourself is hardly praiseworthy. Your argument is like saying anyone else 'can' turn off the faucet in a public bathroom, so it's okay for you leave it running. No, the onus is on you to save water by turning it off when you're done. Since the solution here is simple and easy enough for him to do, much like putting the sources for your info in the description of the video (another practice few on YT do, but should), not doing it even after multiple reminders crosses the line from negligent to intentional. YOU get a hobby bucko. I'm not obligated to indulge your fanboyism. Sources matter, your irrational desire to dismiss honesty and openness doesn't.
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  1671. ​ @TheEinharjar  NOTHING that has happened in Africa since their independence compares to the absolute HORROR of what the west did there. Literally NOTHING. Congo for instance had HALF its people unalived by the west in as little as 20 years. That's a tenth of ALL Africans at the time.
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  1672. ​ @TheEinharjar NOTHING that has happened in Africa since their independence compares to the absolute HORROR of what Europe did there. NOTHING. Congo for instance had HALF its pop unalived by them in as little as 20 years. That was a tenth of ALL Africans.
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  1673. ​ @darksector1389  It hasn't done so yet, but there's still plenty of heightened emotions about it simply for Ukraine, not WW3. And basically what you're saying is that war is okay so long as it's weaker nations getting targeted. Good to know. In that case, leave Russia to do its war in Ukraine and there's no risk of escalation. Simple. After all, the US' wars could also have risked escalation if another superpower had decided to get involved. They didn't, so do the same here. Btw, your argument also says nothing wrt the blatantly racist refugee favoritism. We literally hear from journalists about how these refugees are different cos they are 'Christians and white' (NBC), 'civilised and European' (CBS) and you get zingers like “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair being killed" (from Ukraine itself lol!).
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  1674.  @Lord_Juvens  Yugoslavia wasn't invaded by 200k, but the Middle East sure was. Oh, but those were your wars, so I guess it's okay!
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  1675.  @darksector1389  "both super powers have been changing the regimes of Ukraine for their own good multiple times" - good to see this admitted from you. Doesn't change the fact that the screeching over this war has been far higher pitched cos it's struck holy Europa though, nor that the refugee policy has been highly skewed (which I notice you conveniently ignored).
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  1676. It's not about developing it, it's about avoiding losing market share. It matters less that Venezuela has it than that their competitor doesn't. Also Guyana's oil is cheaper to process than Venezuela's oil. The latter has 'heavy' and 'sour' oil, which basically means it requires much more extensive processing to be usable for anything beyond asphalt. Guyana's oil is cheaper to work with. Prior to this move, it was actually going to be Exxon that was expected to profit the most from their reserves.
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  1677. Bruh, the US stayed in Afghanistan for 20 goddamn years in order to save face. Also, since we're going with those comparisons, just one of those wars (say, Afghanistan) has orders of magnitude more deaths than ALL of Russia's wars this century COMBINED. And I chose the smaller one. The Iraq death toll is over double that of Afghanistan. Of course, I'm talking of their victims, not soldiers.
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  1678. 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.
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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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  1680.  @rexsceleratorum1632  If you knew anything about India's history, you'd know we don't count on the US for anything. That's why we have one of the world's strongest armies ourselves. Contrary to the US supporting us, they've literally opposed us (both via sanctions AND militarily) when it's suited them. Look up the 1971 Bangladesh independence revolt for an example of the military part. True to hypocritical form, they've never been a reliable ally, only an opportunistic one. As for the vaunted 'rules based world order', that's a farce. The Iraq War, for instance, was described the UN Secretary General himself as "illegal", but that didn't stop them. More recently, Azerbaijan annexed Nagorno Karabakh. That rhetoric is just that, rhetoric. It's used when convenient, forgotten when not convenient.
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  1681.  @rexsceleratorum1632  I said India isn't opposed to Russia, NOT China. There's a difference. We are against China, but that does NOT mean we're against Russia as well. We're not American stooges to dutifully take their side on everything. They're using us to oppose China, and we're using them. But that does not mean we'll sacrifice Russia for them.
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  1682.  @QueenHeather-TD  Armenia is fine. The territory they lost wasn't in Armenia proper, it just had a lot of them.
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  1683.  @mgntstr  Ah yes, 2022's favorite western fad of blaming Russia for everything shows up again. Eventually replaced I'm sure with a return to the previous favorite western fad of blaming China for everything. Apparently these countries are so powerful as to be able to mind control your leaders. Makes you wonder why they even bother with war when they can just use mind control to get their way.
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  1684. That's cos people only care about some places and people and not others. In fact the biggest war humanity itself has had since WW2 is African, and most people have never even heard of it. It's the Second Congo War, with over 5 million deaths. It's not even some ancient conflict - it occurred just over two decades ago. And yet most people don't even know it happened.
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  1685.  @ice_sea5527  Fair enough. Cheers!
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  1686.  @sideshowbob  Sure, keep telling yourself that to justify the policy. Next you'll tell us the US invaded Iraq to 'free' the poor Iraqis. And Afghanistan to promote women's rights lol. 😂
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  1687.  @mimas165  Bruh, Russia is richer than Ukraine. Like it's not even close. This was true even before the war. And I don't mean rich in natural resources, I mean their per capita income is higher. You're the one selling a story that flies in the face of the data just to sate your hate boner.
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  1688.  @mimas165  Bruh Russia is richer than Ukraine. It's not even close. This was the case even before the war. And I don't mean rich in natural resources, I mean their per capita income is higher. You're the one selling a story that flies in the face of the data just to sate your hate.
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  1689.  @mimas165  Bruh Russia is richer than Ukraine. It's not even close. And I don't mean rich in natural resources, I mean their per capita income is higher. You're the one selling a story that flies in the face of the data just to sate your hate.
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  1690.  @mimas165  Bruh Russia has a higher per capita income than Ukraine. It's not even close.
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  1691. Both the US and China are building up their own semiconductor sectors so that Taiwan's isn't as big of a deal.
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  1692.  @KhushalBadhan  The British Museum has been asked many times. They refused. What would you propose be done then? Invasion? Cos ain't no legal proceedings gonna work here. International law only covers a limited set of things - we don't yet live under world govt. - and so the UK can safely prioritize their national laws in regards to this.
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  1693.  @TheSwedishHistorian  Lol right! Keep telling yourself that right upto and even beyond WW3. Present a map of NATO expansion to any past nation and ask them how they'd see it if it was surrounding them, see how many see it as not an issue. Why cause an international incident when Russia put forces in Cuba then? Why when China signs a security deal with the Solomon Islands? NATO is and always has been an extension of American power, not merely a 'harmless defensive alliance'.
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  1694. ​ @gotohyoshihisa3971  "Why would Finland, Sweden, Ukraine and Georgia want to join NATO"? Cos it puts them under US protection duh. That doesn't change what it is for the US' enemies. Might as well ask why the countries in the CSTO are in it lol. I didn't say NATO was US imperialism, I said NATO was an extension of American power. There's a difference. "Russia shouldn't have a say in foreign affairs in other foreign countries" - lol, if this is how you think the world works, you're beyond naive. Do you know why the US doesn't annex territory of the countries it's invaded? Cos it doesn't need to, it just puts in place a friendly govt. instead. It's also just cheaper to just put a friendly govt. in power, either overtly or covertly. In a sense that's almost like taking the whole place. Russia would be happy to do that too btw - it's what they tried to do in February, and why they had no issues with Ukraine before the 2014 revolution. Nations have always had a say in the affairs of those they can intimidate, be it Russia or the US or any others past and present. It's not even always violent, nor restricted to just foreign policy (for instance, look up how the US forced its own ally Japan to tank its own economy via the Plaza Accords, to serve US economic interests).
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  1695.  @franzjoseph1837  Funnily enough, the previous owner of most of Africa's debt was the west, but curiously that wasn't a problem for you guys lol. It was for them mind you, the terms of those loans were so far reaching that it ruined them when it all went wrong. Look up the IMF's Structural Adjustment Programs on that. Meanwhile that debt trap narrative has been thoroughly debunked. From serious reports like How China Lends to actual African policymakers like Gyude Moore to even Youtubers like Polymatter, it's been critiqued aplenty. Most of the time it's just renegotiated, like any business would. Meanwhile in terms of building, China is unmatched. It's building infrastructure all over the continent. The west didn't build much in Africa apart from extraction tools. The only transportation was from the mines to the ports, and not much industry.
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  1696.  @draphotube4315  When Iran was last 'free', they had a puppet in power put in place by the UK and US. You made it like this with your meddling.
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  1697.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  The sanctions were in response to Iran throwing off a puppet the US and UK installed there so as to protect their claims on its oil lol. But you're probably young, and likely never even learned of the Shah.
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  1698.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  Lol! Definitely not an Iranian. Likely not a human even.
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  1699. ​ @SirCheezersIII  "You of all people shoulf know" - what I know is that the Taiwan issue has been ongoing for over half a century, with no attack forthcoming. The current tensions began in 2017 - China didn't change then, as Xi came to power over half a decade prior to that. The change was in America - Trump came to power and launched a crusade against them, which his successor has continued cos it was one of Trumps' causes that caught on with the US public. We're used to dealing with China - unlike America, we actually have fought a war with them before. We're not looking for war, cos again unlike America - but like Taiwan - it's our necks on the line aka we don't get to just run back home if things go south. There's a delicate balance in the region and we're not looking to rock it (neither is Taiwan btw - their own surveys show less than 10% favoring a rush to independence). American boldness is built on the back of being far away from any ramifications, unless nukes are fired. That balance wasn't broken by China - indeed while you speak of hawkishness, China hasn't been to war for nearly half a century, yet in the same time America has been to several (resulting in more dead than the Russians btw, just not lily white European dead). China may be more aggressive today, but the west isn't one to talk.
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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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  1701. ​ @SirCheezersIII  Btw, I'll remind you that there's been another resolution passed each year for decades now, with near unanimous global support - it demands the lifting of the US sanctions on Cuba. Even the US' allies, save notably for Israel, have voted for it. And what has the US done? Nothing. They've ignored it for decades. The sanctions continue, mostly just cos they sell well in Florida, a key swing state. Indeed Cuba makes for a nice contrast with Taiwan - another island nation that chose to align with a great power against their bigger neighbor. Except China is Taiwans' largest trade partner, while Cuban trade with the whole world is curtailed by the US (other nations are under an ultimatum - trade with Cuba and be shut out of the US market). China hasn't invaded Taiwan yet, but Cuba has already been blockaded, embargoed, sanctioned and even invaded before. And don't bother with the democracy schtick - Castro may be a dictator, but the US had no issue with Batista, his predecessor who was also a dictator (but a friendly one). Not to mention all the South American dictators either supported by or allied with the US over the years. It's not about democracy. Plus Taiwan was itself an autocracy back when the US first lent it their support.
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  1702. "It's determined by causality like everything else" - you know this effectively says nothing, right? You're literally just saying it's just cos (cause aka causality). That's like someone asking you why you bought a car and you answer 'just cos'. What the hell kind of answer is that? The point is WHAT cause? Geography is also 'causality' i.e. the cause could be their geography. Or something else. But whatever it is, of course it'll be 'causality', cos literally ANY ANSWER is causality. -_-
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  1703. Oh yeah sure, NOW you people want to hear from the locals, when you suspect they'll be on your side. Back when the borders were drawn and you had the power to avoid these messes all over the world you didn't give a shit to what the locals thought.
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  1704. Oh yeah sure, NOW you people want to hear from the locals, when you suspect they'll be on your side. Back when the borders were drawn and you had the power to avoid such messes all over the world you didn't care what the locals thought.
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  1705.  @Gabber-w2g  Russia is literally the most resource rich nation on Earth, a major agricultural producer and their demographics are literally better than Ukraine's (not just in terms of total population, but also fertility rate and dependency ratio).
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  1706.  @RickDeckard6531  lol this is such a stupid idealistic argument. Firstly Ukraine is much poorer than Russia. Secondly the Baltic nations that're already in the western alliance haven't really had any effect on Putins' regime. He was as popular as ever for the last two decades.
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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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  1710. ​ @RickDeckard6531  Also "EU countries will be bending over backwards to rebuild UKR" - have fun with that lol! Have you seen the bill? Ukraine gets a lot of assistance now that things are exciting, but when the war dies down you're gonna be staring at an expenditure of half a trillion dollars without the excitement of a grand war to sell it to voters. Let's see how long that lasts. You people love imagining yourselves as loving and compassionate. That lie was already exposed by the difference between your treatment of Ukrainian refugees versus Syrian refugees just a few years prior. And it's likely not gonna stand up for Ukraine after the cries of war die down either. They'll get assistance yes, but from people very much NOT LIKE you - from boring bureaucrats in Brussels, who don't think like the excitable public that you're part of. But that assistance will be minuscule cos any large packages need public support to pass - and the public will likely have moved on. The serious adults will do what they deem enough, while the Marvel flick children will be awaiting the next blockbuster instead. So while the EU will send some assistance, it won't be 'bending over backwards' lol. Their own expenses will take priority, after the media hype cycle dies down. Ukraine will have a year or so post-war to get lots of assistance, after which it'll be a footnote. Russia doesn't even need to rebuild lol.
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  1711.  @chipschannel9494  Lol no you don't. That depends on how far the target is - Taiwan is right next to them. Japan was going to be invaded by a country all the way across the ocean, which Taiwan isn't.
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  1712. Whenever you hear the phrase "rules-based order", you should roll your eyes. The only rules that count are that of the dominant power. Australia isn't even the worst offender in this regard - at least they didn't straight out invade nations for not playing ball (unlike a certain superpower...). The rest of the world isn't gonna be fooled by sanctimonious moralism from storied imperialists.
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  1713.  @gmeme9252  If China fights the US, they won't be the attackers/invaders at all, the US will. The US would be fighting on their doorstep, far away from its own territory. And they won't be fighting in Taiwan either, as they'll never let American troops land in Taiwan before striking at them. And they wouldn't bother fully invading the island until the US was neutralized, likely just blockading it to start with, so they wouldn't be depleted when facing the US. So that leaves you fighting an enemy with every advantage they could ever ask for, and you with every disadvantage.
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  1714.  @amit6468  Who asked them to do everything before Oct 7? You know Oct 7 was called operation Al-Aqsa Flood - there's a reason it had that name. There are repercussions to actions indeed. And there will be for this as well. It's not gonna end.
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  1715.  @kurtwinslow2670  Don't try to pretend the Afghan war was launched to serve some noble goal of freedom or women's rights - it was an offensive war meant to get back at the whole country for 9/11. The narrative that tried to paint it as a moral cause was curiously peddled widely right when the west was leaving, to cater to their egos as the 'good guys'.
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  1716.  @thomaskalbfus2005  Btw, the country at war the most in the world is neither Russia nor China, but America. There's a reason global polls give results like this - https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/
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  1717. ​ @thomaskalbfus2005  You can find plenty of articles and lists of literally scores of American wars all over the world throughout its history, or even just in the last century if you want to restrict it to that. It dwarfs the tally of every other country on Earth, at least for the period following the fall of colonialism. Or, you know, just try getting to know the people and places in the rest of the world that apparently falls outside your notice i.e. beyond Europe and American allies. Specifically try learning more about with the histories of Latin America, the Middle East and Africa. Also, LOL at you resorting to arguing about who started shit. To use just one of your examples, the Vietnam war cost over 2 million lives - and was still a loss. You might as well have stayed out of poking your nose in where it wasn't wanted, and literally prevented millions of pointless deaths as a result. This is such an infantile defense lol.
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  1718.  @theliato3809  That's the us. Doesn't give them an excuse to target europe. Nato otoh would do that. It's a lot easier for them to fight the us from ru than across the sea, and that'd give them the excuse for it. They can blockade the island later.
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  1719.  @davidblair9877  I'm not overlooking anything. Ru didn't tell countries not to ask to join, it told nato not to accept. By your logic anyone could join any club just by asking - that's not how stuff works. The us said all the way back in the 90s that they wouldn't, and didn't keep that promise. And don't make laugh about that defensive nonsense, show a map of us bases to any past political leader and they'll laugh you out of the room claiming it's all innocent. Do you think chin also protesting them is a coincidence? Speaking of asking to join, you know who else asked for military forces to be stationed in it? Cuba. Guess who didn't care about your cute argument then? Who nearly went all out and made a huge fuss about it, and has punished poor cuba for it daring to do so for over half a century now, against global condemnation? You lot take the presence of us bases all over the world for granted. Well they won't. The more you try to surround them, the more they, not just ru, will lash out at them. If you want to claim innocence, have the us leave nato and sever all ties with it, ditto for japa, sk and taiw. No more us forces at all.
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  1720.  @davidblair9877  'strictly speaking, the invasion of Afghanistan was a defensive war' - great, so iran is well within its rights to do so as well now, and don't you dare try to call foul on them for it. Oh wait, you already toppled their leader before just for refusing to let you have their oil, so I guess that never matter to you anyway. Anyway how many folk were unalived in that attack? 3k. How many were unalived in the response? Closer to 300k. Never mind iraq, which was even worse. Even now your ally unalived more civilians in 2 months than ru has in over 2 years, and you support them. Btw, since sovereignty matters so much to you, by what right are you not allowing iran to have the weapon it wants? That's none of your business. But then again the list of places you've intervened in for not acting how you'd like is long and infamous. Here's just a few of them - 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.
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  1721.  @davidblair9877  The populations of georgia or the baltic states is irrelevant. Just as the population of cuba was irrelevant to the us. Their location being convenient for the us is all that matters. They don't even have to send anyone.
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  1722.  @davidblair9877  Oh and the above is also the case with sk, japa, taiw, the philipines, etc. They don't have to participate either, just lend their turf to the us to use. Cos, as you have failed to notice, ru isn't the only one protesting like this. Not even just the two of them, every us enemy does. As the west does too, whenever it happens to them. Or have you not noticed the contest playing out in the pacific, and the hue and cry every time is looks like chin has gained a footing on one of the islands? You think they're concerned by the islanders lol? Your naivety is rooted in your idealism, blind as it is to your own extensive hypocrisy.
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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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  1724.  @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.
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  1725.  @davidblair9877  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.
    1
  1726.  @davidblair9877  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.
    1
  1727.  @davidblair9877  And 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.
    1
  1728.  @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.
    1
  1729.  @davidblair9877  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 do so, twice!) despite all the fights you've got into.
    1
  1730.  @davidblair9877  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 worse. 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 confirmed once again as a dead end.
    1
  1731.  @Clerry1  Tell me about it. One solution though is to break up your comment into several. Sometimes that confuses it, and it lets them all through. But even if it does trigger, it'll only censor one section and so the rest gets through. Also helps to isolate what is triggering the dumb ai they use.
    1
  1732.  @davidblair9877  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 new ones joining matters either.
    1
  1733.  @davidblair9877  Your hubris is showing, so much so that it blinds you to your own self-own. If you don't need those states, then you can't claim new ones joining matters either.
    1
  1734.  @davidblair9877  What right do you have to dictate to cuba? To iran? To topple govts. and back rebellions in 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. What right do you have to demand others justify themselves when you never have?
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  1735.  @davidblair9877  You don't get to take your position for granted and demand others justify theirs. No, your position needs to be justified first. And your crimes are long overdue for punishment first too. You haven't answered, merely taken your own position for granted. Justify yourself.
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  1736.  @davidblair9877  As you note, that deal is torn up. But it isn't just Isr that's stymying them, so is the west. Especially ironic that in so many instances Biden has continued with the policies of his predecessor. If they're within their rights to do it, then you aren't in trying to punish them for doing so.
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  1737.  @davidblair9877  You can turn this on ru all you want, but you hold the record. And as you note, many of those interventions are old enough that reparations should long since have been paid. Yet they haven't. It's always others who have to be punished, never you. Them to be first in line, not you. You hold the record, so you get to go first.
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  1738.  @davidblair9877 1) 'By what right, pray tell, does Russia claim control of her neighbors’ foreign policy?' - exactly the same right you use - globally. 2) And they could do the same, in both case it wouldn't win anything. 3) I said THEY i.e. those states, wouldn't have to send anyone, not you. The value of the bases is their location. Much like cuba.
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  1739.  @davidblair9877  Cuba asked for a military presence too. Ever asked why that was? Did it ever matter to you? Nope.
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  1740.  @davidblair9877  'strategic move' was a euphemism fyi. It was directly responding to your claim. I called it that cos YT doesn't like talk of knewculore...toys. So yes, it was an answer, you just didn't understand it. As for 2), lol. Cuba. cuba cuba cuba cuba cuba
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  1741.  @davidblair9877  Both Sweden and Finland were already well aligned with nato, so it makes little difference. There was no 'wide open' flank, as they could change on a dime. Was ru supposed to just let all the other states join, for fear of pushing them to take that final step? That makes no sense. As if Sweden and Finland are the only states that matter and Ukr doesn't.
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  1742.  @davidblair9877  Btw, I wonder how accepting nato would be of chin setting up some bases nearby? It already has an office in japan, take that further and they may consider doing that. I'm sure ru would be happy to facilitate it. But hey, it's in ru territory, so who're you to complain? And yet I think we both know they will - hell there's already controversy in the pacific anytime it looks like they've won over an island. Maybe a quarter of a million men to start with. For 'defensive purposes'
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  1743.  @davidblair9877  You can go on about agency till the cows come home. It rings hollow when it never mattered to you. This has little to do with imperialism, merely a distaste for hypocrisy and those who try to claim the moral high ground. Which you do. I'm merely sending your imperial history back at you. And it's not just history btw.
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  1744.  @davidblair9877  I said you go first. You have the record. There is no 'just as soon as you' - you're up. And haven't done so. Oh as for what ru claims, that isn't unique. It's literally the same claims you've made too. For instance most famously in Vietnam. In fact you literally just made that claim above as well.
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  1745.  @davidblair9877  'when Cuba invites Russia to plant a base in America's front yard, that's fine, but when Estonia invites the U.S. to do the same thing, that's evidence of American imperialism' - lol no! Cute strawman tho. You happily missed the point, which is the hypocrisy. You're denying the legitimacy of ru wanting what you insisted on. You didn't let it happen in cuba, they're simply doing the same. See, that's the thing you haven't got about everything I'm saying. This isn't about ru for me, it's about you. I said it above - it's about a distaste for hypocrisy and those who try to claim the moral high ground. I'm not here to burnish ru's image, I'm here to tear down yours. To show you're no one to lecture them, you did the same. And don't even bother using that silly word your media invented to deny accusations of hypocrisy. It has its own wiki page you know, which has an entire section on its criticisms of misuse. I'm not pointing at racism or something to deflect, it's like for like. Like you didn't want them near you, and they don't want you near them either.
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  1746.  @davidblair9877  'As I mentioned, most of those interventions were staged in order to counter Soviet-friendly movements in those countries' - k. Well guess when ru turned on ukr? 2014. Guess what happened in 2014? That's right. Oh and it's not about the us having the right or not, it's about what they did. They did attack, right be dammed. Ru is merely doing the same. I do apply the same standards. YOU don't. You take your actions for granted, and demand others justify theirs. Indeed I actually don't talk about whether it's right or not, you do. I merely reflect your actions back at you. If you want to claim ru is wrong, well so were you and you didn't care. Again, hypocrisy.
    1
  1747.  @davidblair9877  'As I mentioned, most of those interventions were staged in order to counter Soviet-friendly movements in those countries' - k. Well guess when ru turned on ukr? 2014. Guess what happened in 2014? That's right. Oh and it's not about the us having the right or not, it's about what they did. They did attack, right or not. Ru is merely doing the same.
    1
  1748.  @davidblair9877  I do apply the same standards. YOU don't. You take your actions for granted, and demand others justify theirs. Indeed I actually don't talk about whether stuff is right or not, you do. I merely reflect your actions back at you. If you want to claim ru is wrong, well so were you and you didn't care. Again, hypocrisy.
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  1749.  @thedripkingofangmar6778  He said, "Considering the rate of extinction is 1,000 to 10,000 times the normal rate" - that acknowledges natural extinction, while specifying that we're well beyond it.
    1
  1750.  @thedripkingofangmar6778  It is, tho. The planet has only had around 2 dozen extinction events, however only 5 are considered "major". And the 6th occurring right now is large enough to have been added to that series, not the many smaller ones. And all the major natural extinction events have had some pretty noticeable causes (it's hard to not notice giant space rocks or continent scale volcanic activity), while the only really notable change this time around is due to us. As for the effects, few would claim the Earth is going to become permanently unlivable, but it took millions of years to recover from each major extinction - that's pretty final on our time scale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event#Major_extinction_events
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  1751. That didn't sound like a sponsorship. Are you sure he wasn't just recommending that channel?
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  1752. The Chinese are doing fine. They're smartly weathering the American storm in order to leverage it for foreign policy gains elsewhere. The less the world trusts the US, the more China and Russia gain. And they know it. They'll take some economic losses in exchange for that, just as the US did post-WW2.
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  1753.  @naveenpalanisamy9730  Because westerners forget that not all nations have to bow down to America. But they take that for granted so much that they don't even notice that they have that expectation. Even when America launches the largest wars since the turn of the millenium, it suffers no sanctions and it never even strikes them that it should have. Russia knows better than to let itself get into that position. If anything happens, the West won't even realize it, cos they take their actions for granted so much they're practically blind to there being any other way of being. It's just 'natural' to them. So Russia will be the villain regardless, there's no way it can't be since it's not part of the West. Hence it may as well just play into that role to protect its interests since the supposed 'good guys' will always think of themselves as the good guys. They just can't even imagine themselves any other way. And then they talk about Russian propaganda lol. The most effective propaganda is one that turns the message into your dearly held beliefs. America's taking for granted all its foreign interventionism all over the world, far beyond even Russia's reach, is the most successful indoctrination ever seen. Russia can't fight that narrative, but it can prevent being another victim of it. By keeping NATO aka America far away.
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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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  1755.  @LoneWolf-wp9dn  China is the most secure partner Russia has just after Belarus. Their designs are focused elsewhere and both of them share a common enemy. China isn't gonna turn against Russia as long as America remains global hegemon.
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  1756.  @Oblivisci........  Lol no they haven't. 😂 China has refused to turn on Russia for over a year now despite western pressure, and even their peace plan for the war has actually been supported by Russia while condemned by the West, making it pretty where the sides are. China wants to end the war in a settlement that reduces western power, not preserves it. Hence why the West keeps rejecting it.
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  1757.  @comradecetacean1927  Iran was literally fighting to out a leader who was installed by the you-ess and you-kay.
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  1758.  @boulderbash19700209  Russia has a good relationship with China, both among its leaders and people. Also, Russia's focus is on Europe, that China has no territorial interests in but the US does get involved in. China is also still less of an issue for them than the US, and China stands to be weakened as well in a war with the US anyway. Why hobble one when you can hobble both? They have no reason to allow the US to use nukes. And the US used nukes before nuclear norms were even a thing, when the weapons themselves were new. America using nukes without a single enemy soldier on its territory is only gonna turn them into a pariah. Not to mention open the door to pretty much any kind of retaliation, nuclear or otherwise. However this goes down, it ain't gonna be nuclear.
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  1759.  @LOL-zu1zr  You wish. It's funny how much you doubt nations that are friendly, but don't question nations that have long been enemies. The US is a longtime rival of Russia. You really think they're going to happily play along with American interests just cos they might be having misgivings about China? Russia supporting India against China is believable. Russia supporting the US? Lol!
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  1760.  @CripplingDuality  He's just making stuff up to discredit you lol. Stop falling for it by playing ball with him.
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  1761. ​ @obligatoryusername7239  Same reason the US doesn't engage in territorial expansion, despite having launched numerous wars all over the world - the time of territory mattering is long past. As long a country plays by your rules, who cares if it's not absorbed within your borders - modern economies are not based on how much land you have. Taiwan is far more valuable to China intact than as a bombed out husk, and an invasion risks billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives and potential humiliation. Why bother with all that if you can nullify the only real reason to invade it in the first place - its potential for being used by rival powers against you. As long the island is kept out of the hands of the US, China has little to fear from it. Those who keep repeating the meme of Taiwans' govt. being the 'real China' are deluding themselves - the mainland has little to be concerned about wrt the Taiwanese govt. as long as it can shape who said govt. is allied with, as well as arrange some extradition agreement so that Chinese dissidents can't just escape there. Taiwan has zero chance of making a comeback in China, even if at some future date political reform takes place on the mainland. The US is China's real rival, not Taiwan.
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  1762. ​ @obligatoryusername7239  Trade IS the reason it's more valuable. What does China stand to gain from acquiring a ruined island with a rebellious population? And I'm not saying Taiwan would be expected to remain neutral, I'm saying they'd be in certain respects a puppet state - their domestic affairs would be left alone, but their foreign policy highly curtailed. IF China can achieve that - by removing any potential for powerful outside help to aid them - then there's little reason to take direct control of them. And if they don't play ball and decide to renege, a blockade would be a far easier option than invasion to make them comply - while Taiwan can put up a fight against invasion, it can't really do much against a blockade. And of course Taiwan wouldn't trust China - my point is that if the US is neutralized (via being drawn into a war right on China's doorstep that doesn't go well), they won't have much choice. It's either endure severe hardship or accept a deal that at least preserves domestic autonomy.
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  1763.  @President_Mario  That's just what you tell yourselves. The only ones who consistently keep demanding you come out of your shell are the Europeans. Other than them, some scattered liberals elsewhere. Most of the rest of the world is fine with you 'abandoning' it. There has never been any pressure on the US to be world police, you grabbed the role yourselves.
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  1764.  @President_Mario  That's just what you tell yourselves. The only ones who consistently keep asking you to come out of your shell are the Europeans. Other than them, some scattered liberals elsewhere. Most of the rest of the world is fine with you leaving. There has never been any pressure on the US to do what it does, nor could there be. You choose to do it.
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  1765.  @adex7038  My point is that the US is choosing to do this. There's no point moaning over it then. Also if it's okay as per you, then you have no basis for, for example, attacking Russia for doing it now. They too were okay with Ukr until the 2014 maidan revolution, which similarly flipped sides. Ofc they're an enemy, so you'd respond for pure geopolitical reasons. But moralizing about it is hypocritical. Like I said, you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. If the US wants to be hegemon, don't whine about it.
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  1766.  @CStone-xn4oy  Fair enough. There's several other comments saying that tho, which is what I was criticizing in general.
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  1767.  @bioethan1  Indeed.
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  1768. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  1769.  @allangibson2408  You missed an 'imo' there.
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  1770.  @utuberme1  If you want objective analysis, you won't get it fast. That takes time to prepare.
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  1771. ​ @CoryPchajek Taiwan ALSO has fertility issues fyi. Worse than China in fact.
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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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  1773.  @pekkoh75  Btw, Germany gets criticized now, in light of the war, for the NordStream 2 pipeline, yet it's worth noting that the US has been against that pipeline for a long time. You talk about Russia being welcomed and prospering in peace - that has never been true. France and Germany may have been willing to do that (and mind you France has its own skeletons in Africa, even today, so they're hardly virtuous, just focused elsewhere), but the Baltic states, the UK and most of all the US has never been welcoming. The Baltics may have reason for that, but when it comes to the UK and US it's worth noting that they've picked fights with nations that haven't been to war in ages as well, and regularly attack nations even on internal policies that are none of their business. In essence, if you want good relations with them, they expect you to do a Japan or Germany - completely remodel yourself in their own image and turn yourself into one of them. Even now they're actively peddling the coming conflict in the east in blatantly ideological terms. Realpolitik can only head things off for so long, eventually everyone is gonna paint themselves in a political corner and shits gonna hit the fan.
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  1774. ​ @pekkoh75  "NATO and the US are inseparable" - if NATO and the US are inseparable, then WW3 is inevitable. Better pack some warm clothing. As for it being a 'social club between democracies', that just more ideological spin doctoring. There's plenty of democracies not in NATO, not to mention America has had plenty of allies that're not democracies (including setting some of its own autocracies up - Chile, Gautemala, etc. - as well as supporting others in war - Indonesia in East Timor, Pakistan in Bangladesh, KSA in Yemen, etc.). Russia actually did precede the war with a list of demands for NATO, which were pretty much the same things it's been asking for for 30 years. NATO dismissed it. Since there is no room for negotiation cos NATO believes itself infallible, war it is. The same will happen elsewhere time and time again, cos the west treats its hegemony as a fact of life that can never bend. And so its detractors are left with no option but to break it. And the whole world will suffer for it, regardless of who wins. Meanwhile the west will go to war as it pleases, and treats it as normal that all should just accept that. No sanctions for you apparently. You can keep playing the good guys all you want, your enemies don't care. The only result will be ever more conflict and suffering, since there's no real point to talks anymore.
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  1775.  @pekkoh75  Lol it won't be with Russia. But I do love how blase you are about another world war. I suppose it's been a long time since the West has really experienced deprivation and suffering, so I can't really expect anything else. That and their belief in their own untouchability. All for America.
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  1776.  @FrostWolfPack  Russia did try talking with NATO, even just prior to this war. They've been talking for over 30 years now. NATO didn't listen.
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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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  1778.  @colastineregina7730 They probably do, but I doubt those biases are anywhere near as strong as most other institutions that may put out these kinds of things instead.
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  1779.  @eduwino151  Keep dreaming lol!
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  1780.  @renanvinicius6036  If you want more on the economic effects, check out ColdFusions' latest video.
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  1781. ​ @frankmueller6522  If this was simply a matter of democracy, then why have the Baltic states not been attacked? NATO? Okay, then what about Finland, which has never been part of NATO? Stop being a brainless ideologue and think for a bit. This kind of liberal drivel is exactly what brought us this war to begin with, because it denies realist geopolitical analysis in favor of silly idealistic fundamentalism. The very kind of fundamentalism that would celebrate the firing of nukes all for the sake of its dogma.
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  1782.  @sohampendokhare5357  Pretty sure the Chinese are far more concerned by the American navy, which operates much closer to its shores, than the Indian one. India isn't going to go to war against China if they can help it, as they'd face a two-front conflict, but the Americans might, as they're so well protected by the worlds' two largest oceans that they feel confident throwing their weight around (and have for decades, all over the world).
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  1783.  @kurianjose9088  Well yeah, the Russians have been far more reliable allies, although they're too far away to help in defense, and currently have a friendly relationship with China anyway. Which is why India handles its own defense, similar to Vietnam, and unlike many other nations in the region which seem to be hoping the Americans will protect them (Philippines, for example). Unfortunately, it has so far still failed to develop a robust defense manufacturing industry, so it has to go shopping all over the world for weaponry. Which is a resource drain the country really needs to plug.
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  1784. No, the comment section is full of people predicting it'll be a shitshow, who seem to vastly outnumber the actual shitshow comments. Quite the irony...
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  1785.  @Bayard1503  No, 8. That's now, during the war. It was less before. Your 35% is the same creative estimation that tries to claim the world's largest creditor's debt is 3.5 times gdp by using a different method than is used to generate debt stats for every other nation i.e. just tally up all debt rather than just national debt. By that metric the us' debt is over 7 times gdp. And spending on the military also shoots up. Under the standard method it's 8%, not 35 lol.
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  1786.  @quisqueyanguy120  You're gonna have to link some proof of that. A representative poll from a respected major polling organization of Venezuelans in Venezuela (not general Latin Americans in the US, btw) showing that the majority support a US military intervention.
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  1787.    Spoken like someone who's never had to face rebuilding after a war. The US wouldn't know much about that. While they've certainly necessitated many other countries having to rebuild following an American intervention, the US itself hasn't had to deal with the pain of rebuilding a shattered nation since 1865. No one on the receiving end looks forward to their world coming crashing down.
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  1788.  @sergiocazzaro4571  20 years? Didn't you guys used to love Chavez? Sure Maduro may be deeply hated, but have Venezuelans actually rejected Chavez as well for having established the system and stagnated the economy in the first place? Else all that removing Maduro will achieve is a growing nostalgia for Chavez and eventually someone will come along to do all the same things he did again.
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  1789.    "A Civil War is far superior than accepting a dictatorship." - spoken like someone who's never experienced either. And also doesn't know the proper use of the word 'objectively'. Since you're tossing around accusations of me being "emotionally charged", allow me to return the favor by pointing out how you're being ideologically driven. For only someone steeped in an ideology (in your case, probably fundamentalist libertarianism) can be so confident of which is worse between civil war or authoritarianism - to the point of being able to decide that, with universal applicability, for others as well. For anyone actually in touch with the real world and real people, it'd be common knowledge that the answer to that question differs a great deal between people, both in choosing one or the other and in regards to the extent and intensity of each that might flip their choice (i.e. how violent the civil war would have to be, and how intrusive and controlling the dictatorship could be). But no, for you it's a clear choice with no nuance, which apparently everyone would make. That's what being ideological blinded is like. All I can suggest is that you consider one day paying a visit to a place like, say, the sultanate of Brunei, and talk to the people there. Maybe then you'll get some sense of perspective and proportion.
    1
  1790.  @sergiocazzaro4571  Interesting. I'm used to hearing that Chavez was really popular thanks to all the freebies (at least during his time, haven't heard much about him after Maduro took over of course). Thanks for the insight.
    1
  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.
    1
  1792. ​ @MrProIsrael  They haven't won anything. All they've done is exceed Russia's civilian toll after 2 years in as little as 2 months. Their toll is now nearly 3 times that of Russia. Some 'winning' that is. Their enemy is just hunkering down and letting Israel torpedo its international standing.
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  1793.  @DroneStrike1776  It isn't holding back 'a much larger military'. Russia's army may be larger overall, but they have only around half a million men in theater. They first went in with even less - about 200k. Ukraine is using its full army of 800k.
    1
  1794. ​ @Cunning_Trout  Russia's issue isn't that all people drink too much, in fact a quarter don't drink at all. It's the high proportion of heavy drinkers among those who do. The average is lowered by the former people. It also doesn't help that Russia and other east European states drink more alcoholic spirit like vodka, as opposed to wine or beer. The result is that more people actually die or have health complications from drinking in Russia than in France. Drinking is okay so long as people don't overdo it. In Russia more folk overdo it than in the west.
    1
  1795.  @kenroylarmond7736  Well, to be fair to her, not particularly. Doing it behind closed doors wasn't an extraordinary choice - it's the norm. Most international agreements are done that way. For example, the infamous Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement that Trump pulled the US out of was facing public opposition partly because of how secretive it was. And recent events in the UK Parliament as they suss out some alternative to her deal show the pitfalls of doing things consultatively as well - they've literally rejected every kind of arrangement, as well as 'no deal' itself. There's a good chance that if Parliament had been fully involved from the outset, we may have had no agreement to vote on at all. It's a difficult situation, and May seems to have proven herself not upto the task (but no one else is willing to take it up either). Ultimately, the one who really deserves everyone's hate is David Cameron - the man who landed the country into this mess in the first place, and happily skipped off for a plum position in the private sector.
    1
  1796. Nuclear was never the intermediary step, simply because most countries don't have enough nuclear power to make up the shortfall from switching away from coal and oil. Germany made it worse for itself by shutting down what reactors it did have, but the usual intermediary step that every nation is switching to is and was always meant to be gas. Which makes sense cos nuclear isn't an intermediary step at all - it's already green. We can use nuclear power even in 2050, there's never any need to switch away from it.
    1
  1797.  @soheilrhnvrd965  Their education system produces quite a few more engineers on average than the west does.
    1
  1798. Why am I not surprised that a European colonial empire had its hands in this mess too? Smh...
    1
  1799. @Ice "T"esla The Taliban have been in power before. Not as many people died. They'll definitely be a lot of deaths, no doubt widely reported in the press now that it's the bad guys doing it rather than the west, in the short term as they impose and solidify their rule. But eventually, if they manage to regain control (which is now stronger than ever, as the northern alliance has been shattered this time), things will settle down. Wars usually kill far more people.
    1
  1800.  @PropaneWP  "There were legit claims that NATO had outlived its role a couple of years back" - funny how NATO still grew despite those 'legit claims'. It grew even before Russia went to war. NATO doesn't exist because of Russia, it exists cos of America. Without American dominance, Europe would've been far more cautious (as they tried to be, but the US didn't care).
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  1801.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
    1
  1802. To be fair to China, the one-child policy wasn't some wacky idea. Back when it was adopted, population panic was in vogue in the West too (in many communities today it still is) complete with support for stringent countermeasures, and China's burgeoning numbers were at the heart of it. It was just that this was one problem the West wasn't responsible for (which is also why it's still such a popular clarion call today) and so the steps to combat were encouraged in places like China as well as India and much of Africa. What economists and demographers have since learned is that such draconian measures typically backfire i.e. do more harm than good - the West was able to comfortably learn that lesson merely theoretically since it never needed the changes to begin with, while places like China are now learning it the hard way. Population alarmism has been an albatross around the worlds' neck ever since Thomas Malthus first put forward the idea, and so far has never actually been borne out.
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  1803. ​ @altrag  "It is not a stretch to believe that he would have assumed the rest of Ukraine would have the same mindset" - it is a stretch, considering that these are literally known as separatist territories. Sure he could have assumed that the rest of the country was the same, but that is still more of a stretch than him simply having more limited goals than taking the whole country, as explained in my original comment here. Destroy the current govt., capture the strategic territories, and leave the rest of the country as an incapable (possibly federalized) wreck makes more sense given his invasion force than believing he ever thought to control it all.
    1
  1804. ​ @altrag  "especially when that's what he wants to believe" - it's what you want to believe he wants to believe. I prefer not indulging in long-range psychoanalysis. It's wont to play into our own biases. There's a reason most psychologists insist on actually talking to their patients in order to diagnose them. Long range - and amateur i.e. pop - psychoanalysis is how we ended up with the media tossing out grossly misused terms like 'gaslighting' at the drop of a hat. I don't know what's on Putin's mind, and I don't pretend to. My case was simply based on what seemed most feasible given their invasion forces. Putin is human sure, but I don't know that human. And neither do you.
    1
  1805. He's done India already
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  1806. @Zol z I was speaking of fundamentalism in a more general sense, not only (or even mostly) religious. More cultural, ethical and political (used to be economic too, but that's a bit muddied now).
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  1807. OMG!! Will you people stop all asking about Shirvan? You're going to be the death of this channel if you insist Caspian Report is all about Shirvan, with no replacement possible. What would you do if Shirvan wasn't available anymore? If he needed a break, or fell sick, or had a fatal accident? Unsub? The core of this channel is and should be about its content, with the narrator serving as only a means of delivery. Else it is limiting itself, and vulnerable.
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  1808.  @Ilyak1986  'hegemony is the intent, yes' - well at least you're honest. Best of luck getting anyone to sign up to your idea. Even the west will likely have misgivings about it, as it'd be an absolutely terrible look whose only major result may very well be turning the rest of the world against them. The G7 gets enough hate as it is, and this'd be even more blatant.
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  1809. ​ @peterroe2993  It is relevant to the conversation cos the person I responded to tried to claim the reason Russia invaded was cos Russians were gonna be tempted to overthrow Putin from seeing Ukraine. There was never anything tempting about Ukraine to begin with, and they've already had the examples of the Baltic states to look at (a point you conveniently skipped). It's a stupid argument pushed by people who want to moralize the conflict in favor of their own liberal worldviews, as if the whole world is liberal. It just feeds their own egos. Next time try reading the whole comment chain rather than just the one you don't like.
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  1810.  @steppe7214  Sorry. Didn't mean to diss your homeland, merely to point out that there wouldn't be much incentive to conquer it. My apologies if I came across as mean.
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  1811. ​ @J_X999  "children is expensive and adults don't like that." - An interesting point for you to ponder might be to ask some of your middle or upper class friends who say they'd like to have children just how many kids they'd like to have. This is just the subset of people who want kids, so it's already skewed. Still, you'll mostly hear 1, 2 or in a few cases 3 kids (unless they're highly religious or something). Now ask your great grandparents how large families used to be in the old days. You'll hear numbers like 5 - 12 or even more. Mine had 10 siblings! Yet almost no one wants such large families anymore even if money was not a factor. And keep in mind that the replacement level birth rate is 2.1, so fewer people choosing to have 1-2 kids is already below replacement. And you can see this in the ultra rich - money isn't a problem there, but they still usually have only small families.
    1
  1812.  @J_X999  "Previous generations had much cheaper housing and education when compared to now." - they also had much less money to spend on it. Life wasn't easy during your ancestors times bro. Geez, how many people in this thread are calling you out and you're still insisting it's just money. There's literally a class of people who have money to support hundreds of kids who still mostly have small families. Offering ppl money has also not worked. The one blundering here is you, to the point that I question if you have an ulterior motive of just wanting that to be true for more handouts.
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  1813.  @joshklaver47  "because they want to use them for free or cheap labour" - no. They have more kids even if there's compulsory schooling provisioned by the state that denies them those kids as workers. Poor people have more kids even in urban areas btw. These things are never simple. We wouldn't have an entire field dedicated to demography if it was.
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  1814.  @joshklaver47  "We should be working to lower birth rates globally." - most of the births in the world are in poor nations, where their impact on the climate is negligible. As these places develop their birth rates already tend to plummet.
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  1815.  @andreg4575  In fact nato will collapse on itself if that happened. Those countries don't get along with france or germany, they like nato cos of america. If america wasn't in charge, it'll all fall into fractious infighting as they chafe as the idea of having to humor france and germany.
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  1816.  @gazpachopolice7211  Just usa actually. Only issue with nato is that the us is in it.
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  1817.  @gazpachopolice7211  Why not? It's a dumb non-argument at the best of times.
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  1818. ​ @gideonmele1556  That just shows how little economic knowledge you have. "Germany is recognised for its specialised small and medium enterprises, known as the Mittelstand model. SMEs account for more than 99 per cent of German companies." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany "SMEs account for six in every 10 jobs in Germany and more than half of economic output." https://www.dw.com/en/the-small-but-surprising-secret-to-germanys-economic-success/a-46301399 Big business is NOT the only path to economic success, nor even the best one.
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  1819.  @CaspianReport  And you know that how exactly? You talked to all of them?
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  1820.  @MDP1702  Bruh, "luxury" doesn't simply mean everything besides food and gas. Also if your economic downturn is caused by a foreign power, the people are going to blame that foreign power, not you. And China is already at the forefront of green technology, indeed it has a commanding position on it, so even the "new" energy the west is moving to is vulnerable.
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  1821.  @abdourahmanealkhalifa191  They won't. Mearsheimer is a realist. A lot of these people will just violently reject him cos they're all a bunch of starry-eyed liberal idealists, the exact people Mearsheimer is criticizing. Since they can judge from afar instead of actually have to deal in real geopolitics themselves, they can afford to be.
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  1822.  @JohnSmith-vg6hb  The Russians attacked Ukraine with about 200,000 men. The US-led invasion of Iraq used about 600,000. I'm sorry but who's relying on numbers more here? If anything, the Russians paid the price for NOT using quantity more early on.
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  1823.  Relentless Frags  CR may have his limits, but he's at least better than pandering hacks like Zeihan.
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  1824.  @MrMediator24  You people latch onto anything you can to cater to your biases, don't you? Public surveys and dozens of meetings against one little social media storm in a teacup, and you choose the latter. Care to compare that with their relations with the US? They're both still a damn lot more likely to work together than betray the other for America. If shit hits the fan, you're not likely to see them turn on each other as you seem to be hoping.
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  1825. I find it telling how the vast majority of the video focuses on the intertribal and regional politics that shape Qatar, and here in the comments all people are interested in spamming is a reference to ONE LINE that occupied a few seconds of the video but that gets talked about ad infinitum by other videos on Qatar. Shows how little people are interested in actually learning something new, versus just regurgitating popular media narratives ad nauseam.
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  1826. @God Bless America Columbia might help with an invasion (primarily as a staging ground), but they certainly won't want to help with the rebuilding. The US might want them to, but they've got enough of their own problems. If the US invades, it'll be expected to rebuild, not Columbia - and they'll take full advantage of that if they're smart.
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  1827.  @elvenkind6072  Polite IS bland bro. 😌
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  1828.  @elvenkind6072  Indeed that definition is accurate. I didn't say it's bad, I said it's boring. This is the internet bro. We're not here to discuss the weather over tea and crumpets. Bo Burnhams Welcome to the Internet can be your guide to the web.
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  1829. Germany was flattened and millions died. Good luck justifying to the world the killing of millions as a solution to the issue of people you can't stand in your region. Quite the irony there...
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  1830. Nuclear power is only important to patrolling far away oceans, not fighting close to your homeland. It matter more to the US than it does where China plans to fight.
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  1831.  @4tress300zx  Yes I know.
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  1832.  @parveskoyes9937  Yeah my bad. Was really just more focused on arranging the list in alphabetical order lol. 😅
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  1833. What haste lol? Most of this video is Caspian projecting his rather old fashioned take on what China intends to do. Old fashioned cos he seems to live in a world where nothing changes apart from China's navy getting larger and everyone is still fighting wars the conventional way. That's fine for 2030 maybe, but 2050 lol? It's like everyone is talking about the world shifting in a matter of days following Russia's invasion, but apparently nothing is going to change across several decades wrt China or the West.
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  1834.  @historycenter4011  You make a valid point, but I don't think all of those qualify. Cos some of them were locals i.e. they weren't foreign powers - they came from that territory (or close to). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
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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.
    1
  1836.  @vibesanm  "You said we have so much space and increasing population is a good thing" - I said space for people was not a problem, the second part is your own invention. All I've added afterwards is that your concern regarding population is pointless as it's going down anyway, not that it we should try to raise it.
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  1837.  @vibesanm  Well yeah, the rate of growth is going down. It's shrinking in some places, albeit that's made up for by the growth in other places - but those places growth rates are also slowing and will eventually cease. The global population is expected to plateau out within this century. How we sustain that population will depend on how we structure our consumption and distribution patterns as well as technological development, but the problem certainly isn't going to be about having enough space for everyone.
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  1838.  @vibesanm  I have been to Bengal, as a matter of fact. Also, I'm not talking about us ruining the planet in other ways due to how we choose to do things, merely about whether it's possible to sustain the population we have and can expect in future. Whether we will get our act together to do that is a different issue, I only speak of whether it's possible for a population that size to work. And to my knowledge it is, and yes that includes forests and food supply. Put another way, if things don't work out, my point is that that wasn't inevitable. There's plenty that needs fixing, but the absolute number of people isn't one of them. That's taking care of itself.
    1
  1839.  @vibesanm  "If we had a functioning brain, we would probably inform the poor in 3rd world nations that they dont need to have 7 kids" - they don't need to be told that. They stop having those kids of their volition as soon as you provide them with good healthcare, women's rights and education. You want to know why people don't seem to talk much about population? Cos they really don't to (and often make things worse if they do). It fixes itself, if you just stop harping on about it and focus on making the world a better place - https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/26/16356524/the-population-question Meanwhile, the real looming crisis we face isn't too many people, but too few kids (and too many old people) - https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
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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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  1841.  @vibesanm  I didn't call you a genocidal maniac right now, I asked you to become one. Because right now all you are is a broken record spouting a vacuous idea that is trying to pretend it's different when in fact it's nothing of the sort. "I have literally said, by means of education" - so basically nothing new. Good to know. Maybe they'll one day institute an award for people making the most unoriginal and redundant policy suggestions, but I'm not aware of such a thing existing now. So I guess we can all go back to what we were doing already, since you apparently don't have anything new to add, even if you'd like to imagine you do.
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  1842. China doesn't need to equal US consumption patterns. Indeed, no one needs to equal US consumption levels. US consumption outstrips even that of even developed nations, partly because of excess and partly because of inefficiency (this latter especially thanks to it being such a 'spread out' nation, rather than densely populated).
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  1843. @herrynovri1648 Lol you actually think they've won? Lmao! You know little about asymmetrical conflict then. All they need do is outlast you, which is what they're doing. Afghanistan taught you nothing.
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  1844.  @condorb7756  Who are you talking about? Cos the same could be said of Isr.
    1
  1845.  @condorb7756  Lol can it now? Why don't you go show that then? Iran is your current bugbear, right? Go on then. Go in. Should be fun. I'm sure Ru and Chi will love it! As for my country, we don't go to war unlike you, but we have had it come to us nearly half a dozen times, forcing us to defend. And we've won all but one. So we have both a nicer and better track record than you lmao!
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  1846.  @condorb7756  Oh I'm leaving it out on purpose. I want to test that infamous American world knowledge. I already told you we've had half a dozen defensive wars. Here's another hint that should help narrow it down - we also have our own nukes. You weren't too happy when we got them, but defied you anyway. Come on boiyo, show me how much you know of the world. ;)
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  1847.  @condorb7756  See there boiyyo, someone almost got it. While you didn't even dare try. And btw, you also haven't gone in to Iran like I dared you to. ;)
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  1848. @herrynovri1648 Bub Cuba before Castro was just under another dictator, supported by the muricans. That's WHY they revolted. Take off your rose-tinted glasses and learn some history. Batista was terrible lol.
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  1849. @herrynovri1648 Bub Cuba before Castro was just under another dictator, supported by the muricans. That's WHY they revolted. Take off your rose-tinted glasses and learn some history. Batista was terrible lol.
    1
  1850. @herrynovri1648 I bet you think Iran was a democracy before 1979 too. Lol! Go look up what their actual history is, and who put their previous autocrat in power. The revolution was against YOUR man lmao!
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  1851.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Yep. :)
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  1852. @herrynovri1648 Bruh Cuba prior to Castro was just under another dictator - Batista. Go check supported him. Drop the rose-tinted glasses and learn history.
    1
  1853.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Ye
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  1854. @herrynovri1648 Bruh Cuba prior to Castro was just under another dictator - Batista. Go check who supported him.
    1
  1855. @herrynovri1648 1959 lol. I suppose the autocrat who the us liked was all sunshine and roses in your view of Cuban history.
    1
  1856.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Y
    1
  1857.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Correct
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  1858.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Indeed
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  1859.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Affirmative
    1
  1860.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Yes
    1
  1861.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Right
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  1862. @herrynovri1648 You also left out the fact that that was YOUR dictatorship btw...
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  1863. @herrynovri1648 You left out the fact that it was yours btw. How convenient.
    1
  1864.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Something something yes you're right something something.
    1
  1865.  @user-hn8ll2rw7i  Nods head up and down
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  1866.  @seekingtruth9304  What nations should do and what they do do are two very different things. Morality is a PR tool for countries going to war. As this very channel will often emphasize, nations act in their own interest
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  1867. I'm guessing you're one of the protestors there, or at least on their side, judging by that 'free' bit in your comment. In which case, I don't think you represent the views of the Iranian govt. or its supporters. Irans' economy has relied on both India AND China to keep it afloat fyi, against the 'free' worlds' sanctions.
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  1868. @A B Ironically the current largest economy in the world, America, is also the most religious country in the west.
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  1869.  @samthesuspect  You can't beat China like that without also sacrificing your allies like Taiwan and Japan, because they'd just blockade them in turn and you'd look like a coward. China is also not an island and also has one of the worlds' largest oil exporters just to its north with whom it has good rapport. If you want to actually do what you claim to be trying to do - defend nations actually IN the region - you're going to have to enter the dragons' den and fight them right in their backyard, going against not just their navy.
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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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  1872.  @fuxkag3908  Ukr isn't nato. This is extra support for a European debacle, so Europe should pay.
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  1873. @Imran A Afghanistan has been won. That whole 'graveyard of empires' bit is overstated, based on just two relatively recent empires that failed to control it - the British and later Russians. The Persians conquered it. Macedonians / Greeks successfully swept through it. Mongols. Sikhs. Etc. Etc. Even Afghanistan's own culture has been shaped by some of these past losses.
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  1874.  Symon Mailhot  Technically, he didn't exactly say it is a confederation, but more of a confederation than a federation. It was a turn of phrase, just meant to indicate how much autonomy the provinces have relative to the capital.
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  1875. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  1876. ​ @bolsa3136 This isn't deterrence, it's suicide. Taiwan wouldn't be conquered if it did this, it would be utterly destroyed. China would survive.
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  1877.  @Vzzdak  What you call "protecting international trade networks" (lol, from what?) others just see as enforcing their hegemony. And that's not just Russia. The idea that the world should be 'grateful' to America is about as sound as those who claim the colonies should be grateful to their former European masters. All you're doing is repacking the white man's burden as the hegemon's burden and telling yourself a cute self-serving story about how good the US is. Meanwhile more people have died in America's wars this century even taken individually than from all of Russia's conflicts in that time combined.
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  1878. China isn't even focusing on aircraft carriers all that much, but on cruisers and other 'anti-carrier' measures. Cos aircraft carriers are designed more for power projection than counter naval operations. Most of this video is Caspian projecting his rather old fashioned take on what China intends to do. Old fashioned cos he seems to live in a world where nothing changes apart from China's navy getting larger and everyone is still fighting wars the conventional way. That's fine for 2030 maybe, but 2050 lol? It's like everyone is talking about the world shifting in a matter of days following Russia's invasion, but apparently nothing is going to change across several decades wrt China or the West.
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  1879.  @golagiswatchingyou2966  "When Trump speaks against the "global warming" narrative," he is stating that it is a hoax in respect to the fact that progressives and the socialist-globalists blame AMERICA for "climate change." - bruh, he hardly sounds like a leftist. Quite the opposite in fact...
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  1880.  @recoil53  'Russia or maybe China would like to add another country' - first off, the west is hardly innocent in Africa, quite the opposite. Its history there is horrendous. Secondly, you answered your own question - if the latter two take an interest, the west will too, if only to wrest the country away from them.
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  1881. "the biggest threat to Russia is probably China" - not a chance while they both share a common enemy in the US. As for the other NATO members, as far as Russia is concerned they're irrelevant. Russia sees NATO as just a front for American power projection.
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  1882.  @MrAyuub22  It isn't Somalia helping Fano, it's the RSF - you know, the guys the Somali govt. is itself at war with.
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  1883.  @terdragontra8900  That's the 'Golden Arches' theory of conflict prevention of Thomas Friedman, who's an idiot that's been proven wrong once more with the Russia's attack on Ukraine. If nations see threats to their security, they will go to war. Period. Even if it hurts them to do so. National security is the first and foremost concern of the state.
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  1884.  @Hamlet137475  Bruh we had a territorial grab just last year, with Azerbaijan beating Armenia. And that's hardly an isolated case. We've even had entire countries come into existence through war, like Bangladesh for instance. Your examples only show how limited your conception of the world is, where only the West and its rivals count at all. As for 'small wars' not involving annexation - the Vietnam one killed over 3 million people, despite no territory being taken by the Americans. This idea that land is what determines how bad a war is is nothing but self-serving piffle, as the US has settled its borders already, yet still finds excuses to go to war aplenty.
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  1885.  @S.J.L  You know the US is literally the only nation on Earth to have EVER nuked people - twice! - and yet here you are trashing other nations that haven't ever done that, despite having nukes? And your 'defense' is that the US could've been ever worse?!
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  1886.  @kartikeykasniya6971  As another Indian, need I remind you that we haven't been threatened by Russia, but have by America (and defended by Russia). We've also been sanctioned by them before, and were threatened with sanctions again recently for the 'crime' of who we trade with. Your assertion flies in the face in the face of even your own nations' history, let alone that of nations in the Middle East, Latin America, Central Asia or Africa.
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  1887.  @ParallelComparison  You can easily find Chinese Youtubers, if you just bothered to look. And no, not just govt. mouthpieces (before you jump to that assumption), but people just making a living off of it the same as Youtubers elsewhere. Try Naomi Wu for some 'aesthetic' appeal for instance. Or Liziqi for actual aesthetic appeal. Stop forming your worldview off of simplified memes. Tho it kinda helps explain your military tierlist tbh.
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  1888.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  Again? Seriously, I hope Modi pays you guys well...
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  1889. Whenever you hear the phrase "rules-based order", you should roll your eyes. The only rules that count are that of the dominant power. Australia isn't even the worst offender in this regard - at least they didn't straight out invade nations for not playing ball (unlike a certain superpower...). The rest of the world isn't gonna be fooled by sanctimonious moralism from storied imperialists.
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  1890.  Horizon585  This video hardly makes Indonesia look good anyway. And that resource politics resulted in the deaths of thousands of people...
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  1891.  @mrberzerk8411  Democracy is not the only thing that makes Indonesia different from China. I pointed out a whole bunch of differences, and there's many more. It just isn't simply 'island China', any more than Japan is 'island China' (in fact Japan even has a few more similarities with China than Indonesia does, but it still wouldn't be accurate to call it that even then).
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  1892.  @nishant54  No it isn't. What makes sense depends on context. And your context is very different from the people there.
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  1893. ​ @willywonka4340  If they do block the Malacca Strait, you'd turn it into an even bigger global economic disaster. And would look cowardly while doing it, since there is a less disruptive option, just one that risks the US' forces. You won't just hurt China, you'll implode Taiwan and Japan. And if you try blocking food to 'starve' them, you'd have committed war crimes that might well likely lead to nuclear war. That hasn't been done even in the case of Russia. You sound just like those idiots who kept screaming 'impose a no fly zone!' with no appreciation of what that even is. These are the sorts of things you do in situations of total war, and total war is not something even the US wants to face. If you think the Chinese or Russians will take that lying down, you're beyond naïve. These are the sorts of fever dreams folks like Zeihan feed into, even if any serious academic would never buy it. No, if there is a conflict, it'll be a limited naval engagement, not your WW3 fantasy.
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  1894.  @cxzact9204  Between 91 and '08 NATO expanded significantly. The Russians had made it clear right from 91 that they didn't like that. Apparently saying so had no effect, so harder measures were tried.
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  1895.  @cxzact9204  Don't call me Vlad bub, it only reveals how limited your perspective is where you can only imagine Russians would see the world different from you, with everyone else aligning. And while NATO expansion was certainly unexpected, you shouldn't be celebrating. Cos you haven't just turned Russia against you, relations are rock bottom with China and Iran as well. One by one you're just putting in place the blocks for another great conflagration, and regardless who wins you're going to feel the pinch as the whole world economy crashes. All just to revel in hegemony instead of recognizing the value of caution. Oh and it doesn't matter what those countries are like - you can't join NATO if NATO won't have you. France and Germany understood the value of restraint for a while, but NATO has always been a US-dominated institution, and the US has never cared to limit itself as it sees no threat thanks to its massive oceans and navy. The wars will happen elsewhere anyway, so who cares about a bunch of Slavs or Taiwanese amirite?
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  1896.  jeremy Lyons  That's a throwaway account. The owner of that channel has a bunch of them which he uses to advertise his videos under other geopolitics vids in order to grow his channel.
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  1897.  @solfennell8981  Thing is, just free trade and free movement doesn't sound very impressive. The impact will be very limited, owing to the 4 nations mostly not trading with each other much. There's far better markets for all of them, and much better sources of labour too, so CANZUK ends up looking pretty pathetic as just a free trade agreement. Hardly the shot in the arm Britain needs right now.
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  1898.  @mmhoss  Also Washington Post.
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  1899.  Horizon585  A dam can be blown up a lot more easily than it can be built. Plenty of countries are at the head of rivers. That doesn't automatically them overlords of downstream nations.
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  1900.  @realjo733  It doesn't cause as much issue if the dam wasn't wanted to begin with i.e. if it was being built just to hold them to ransom. You can prepare for the initial water release, and then the levels return to what you already wanted them to be. And it's not easier to defend - it only takes a few bombs or missiles to blow a dam, and an army of SAMs and anti-missile systems to stop a concerted attack. If shooting down barrages was easy, the Americans wouldn't have invested billions into failing to neutralize Russia's nuclear arsenal threat (including in space!). And that was for missiles that they'd have plenty of warning for, unlike storms coming from just across the border. And building new dams, or redirecting rivers, IS a lot slower and more expensive than just blowing them up. Countries come to agreements on dams, cos both sides have bargaining chips - the dam builders control the flow sure, but their downstream counterparts can still ruin their day. This may not quite hold for nations with massive military differentials - such as China versus Laos or Cambodia - but it very much does hold for contests like China versus India.
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  1901. Ukraine is irrelevant. Ukraine was poorer than Russia even before the war. Soft power won't get Russia what it wants. Friendly relations with its neighbors would do nothing about the 800-pound American gorilla in the neighborhood. You'd be delusional if you thought that would ever get them to expel the US. Friendly relations is simply not an option - there's no way it could ever allow Russia to convince them to push the US out, leaving them with only the hard option. Btw, the same is true for China, so be ready.
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  1902.  @farzana6676  Lol, 'typical Indian pro Russian biases' says the one from the US. I'm in a far more neutral position than you are bub. As for sanctions, their history is well known. Even before these ones, ppl have pointing out for years that sanctions have failed time and time again, with the only 'success' story that gets mentioned being South Africa that had a domestic movement already underway. They're not just not a magic bullet, they've almost never worked. But the US would never admit that, as for one thing that'd mean they starved half a million Iraqis for nothing (never mind the other half dying from your war). You're right that sanctions take years to show their full effects, you're wrong in imagining you have any idea what those effects will be. The world isn't so neat.
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  1903. ​ @farzana6676  "sanctions are a form economic warfare" - in that case, you're at war. And using inhumane siege tactics to boot. In which case, at least have the balls to say as much. But no, you won't. You'll keep trying to pretend restraint and peace while waging, in your words, economic warfare. If anything, this only makes you look worse. Coupled with the fact that you're doing it without having the balls to risk your men. Your enemies see it for what it is though, and at this rate it's going to blow up in your face - violently - when the next big war happens. And then you'll shamelessly pretend you did nothing and they were the bad guys. And you wonder why the US is so widely disliked around the world. At least the Russians and Chinese are more straightforward in their methods. Oh and btw, I do know it bub. We've been sanctioned by you guys before. For much the same 'crime' as Iran now. We still have our nukes, and now are the fastest growing economy in the world. Yeah, they really worked alright lol. Meanwhile you guys got humiliated last year by the very country you've supported (even unto the point of genocide) for decades (Pakistan, via their meddling in your failed Afghan war).
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  1904.  @alvydasjokubauskas2587  Works fine for most of the world, where Russia has been more dependable than the US. The west can use all that money they've made everywhere all these years to go seek other solutions.
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  1905.  @chrisbutler1668  Fair enough. Cheers!
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  1906. ​@Sam Wallace The US is hardly the only nation with the capability of fighting wars away from its borders, especially against a weaker enemy (and the US has itself picked on weaker nations btw, not directly fought rival powers). Yet it, and formerly colonial Europe, are almost the only ones who've ever done it. Your Lesotho example is a strawman and you know it.
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  1907. @Sam Wallace "What other countries could wage expeditionary warfare, and have chosen not to?" - How about any of the top 20 militaries in the world, at least if we're speaking of attacking weaker states. According to Global Firepower, excepting the US and Europe, that'd be China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Some of those nations are at war (Saudi Arabia, for example), most are not, but none are fighting away from home. Hell, even if their reach isn't fully global, they're not even fighting one country over in most cases. Almost all warfare, which most of them aren't in to begin with, is literally AT their borders.
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  1908. ​@Sam Wallace Lol, you really are loath to admit how aggressive you are, aren't you? Between dismissing nations because they don't meet some arbitrary criteria of yours to ignoring where I pointed out they mostly don't even fight even just one country over. Anything to avoid the fact that you stand out for even non-adjacent aggression. Hell, some of those nations even DO have aircraft carriers, and you haven't made anything of that. And you've compounded your regional bias with an online one, your cute little baseless Reddit ad hominem, that mainly just reveals a frankly unsurprising level of condescension and hubris, and tendency to make assumptions sans evidence. That hubris extends to your assumptions about how well read I am, when you've shown no evidence of being well read yourself. You're not all that bro. You're certainly not worth conversing with, for anyone imo.
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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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  1911. @Sam Wallace I wasn't referring to your aggression, but to the US'. I was referring to your i.e. you specifically, hubris though. You like to imagine yourself smart without feeling the need to prove it. So yeah, there's no point discussing with an idiot cursed with a vaunted opinion of himself.
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  1912.  @wlee9888  What exactly do you propose I do if you can't see my comments? Write them all out again, so you don't see them again? I can't help you there, blame Youtube for its errors.
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  1913. @Sam Wallace Looks like the idiot also has a deep-seated need to have the last word as well. Typical. Alright then kiddo. I'll indulge you. Spout yet another bit of empty insulting drivel in reply to this comment and then be on your way.
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  1914.  @wlee9888  Btw, in case you can see this, here's some more info for you from my side (as opposed to just responding to yours) - 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. 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.
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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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  1917. @Sam Wallace Did you just try to have the last word TWICE?! Lmao, you sure are insecure kid. Run along now. Keep telling yourself you know what you're talking about without actually showing it.
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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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  1919. @Sam Wallace What? Again?! You really are desperate little kid aren't you, always crying out for attention? I've no idea what prompted this latest comment from you, but I can't say I'm surprised that someone with a big head like you is a Nietzschean.
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  1920.  @deezeed2817  "took the female voters out" - bruh, that's literally half the electorate. Of course it would change the results. Wtf kind of conclusion is that?!
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  1921.  @racheddar  It doesn't counter the Belt and Road, as it's just a way smaller project. It does benefit the participating nations though.
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  1922.  @trihard7323 If US doesn't want to see war then maybe they shouldn't be creating the conditions for it for the last 30 years.
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  1923. This isn't survival, it's suicide. Taiwan wouldn't be conquered if it did this, it would be utterly destroyed. China would survive.
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  1924.  @PhilipOConnell  It would cost them near nothing to blockade the island for as long as they want. Short of Uncle Sam stepping into the lion's den there'd be nothing they could do about it. Why bother invading? As for how much Taiwan is worth, it's worth anything. You think China needs more land? Or some chip fabs that'll be most likely trashed even if they win? Lol no. They want it for the same reason the US flipped out when Russia stationed forces in Cuba - and has punished Cuba ever since. The Americans have also been open about their strategy to 'contain' China, and the Chinese won't have it.
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  1925.  @rizkyadiyanto7922  Ironically India has had plans for a trade corridor to Europe for literally decades now - even this channel has covered it. The irony is that that trade corridor went through Iran. But the plans never went anywhere BECAUSE of America's sanctions on Iran. Now the Americans are trying to shift India by shifting the corridor so it bypasses Iran.
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  1926.  @afanasymarinov2236  It's worth noting that the US and Canada were never unified until their native populations were decimated and replaced by foreign settlers with a broadly similar political vision based on their common history as immigrants. A better example of many disparate peoples coming together is India, which is a unified state despite those differences, albeit we too had a common enemy to 'thank' in doing that. But the OP's point about the Arabs not being one people would apply just as well to us, and yet it's held together successfully for approaching a century now here. And remember that they used to be united for long stretches of their history (literally centuries) already, despite all those differences. So it's hardly impossible.
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  1927.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  Maybe the west should stop suppressing Iran first.
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  1928.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  Maybe the west should stop sanctioning Iran first.
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  1929.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  Maybe the US should stop sanctioning Iran first.
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  1930.  @user-sh3cf7kd6e  According to your dumb logic nothing is being done to Cuba. Year after year, for decades, almost the ENTIRE world has condemned the policy of ONE country towards it. Even some of that country's allies have voted against it. They all want it to be able to trade freely. And yet it doesn't. Cos of ONE country, and the power it wields. They give the world an ultimatum - trade with us or them. And everyone knows who the bigger market is. The bigger you are, the more you're able to convince nations to resist that pressure. Hence why it's biggest victims aren't even its chief rivals, but the small and weak nations that dare to cross it. Like poor Cuba, punished for decades for defying it.
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  1931.  @thepax2621  'Which is the right of a sovereign nation to decide to do.' - it's also Cuba's right as a sovereign nation to host Ru forces then. Guess who didn't care about that when it suited them. Your idealistic nonsense is just that. Show a map of us bases to any historical political leader and they'll laugh you out of the room claiming it's all innocent. They know what power is about, and it isn't your cheesy idealistic PR. Power is realist, and always has been. Oh btw, it's also Irans' right to have the big caboom if it wants to. They're a sovereign nation too, so who're you to tell them otherwise. Then again, given you literally deposed their leader just cos he didn't let you have their oil before, I guess it's nothing new.
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  1932.  @thepax2621  Oh and btw, it's also Irans' right to have the Big B if it wants to. They're a sovereign nation too, so who're you to tell them otherwise? Then again, given you literally 'switched' their leader just cos he didn't let you have their oil before, I guess that's nothing new for ya'll.
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  1933.  @thepax2621  Then again, given you literally 'upgraded' their leader just cos he didn't let you have their oil before, I guess it's nothing new huh.
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  1934.  @thepax2621  'Left alone' lmao! I guess the whole world voting against you at the UN for decades now was all about nothing. Every year they vote on...nothing lol. Yeah right. You've punished that poor island for over half a century now for daring to defy you, and you think you've 'left it alone' lol!
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  1935.  @thepax2621  And you don't know what whataboutism is. Even its wiki page would teach you, particularly on how it's been criticized as a way to avoid owning up to charges of hypocrisy. Not that you'd know that, as you likely only heard of it via media pundits or the like, who revel in their own hypocrisy (across multiple fields usually).
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  1936.  @thepax2621  'The "smart thing" would have been trying to woo eastern european countries' - yeah like that's ever going to work. Naïve as usual. Hence why South America loves the us. And Vietnam likes China. Oh wait, they don't. For good reason - both the us and chin have done the same 'dumb' strat. Why do you think Cuba was so happy to have Ru forces stationed in it to begin with? 'Every problem looks like a nail' applies equally as much to you, cos you've done the same shit as they have. But you hold the global record - most interventions since ww2. So even more than they have. Which makes it clear who mordor is...
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  1937.  @thepax2621  Ultimately you're blinded and biased by the same idealism that will eventually be used once again to goad you into supporting yet more war by politicians who understand the usefulness of idealists like you. Hell they're already doing it - what do you think 'democracy versus dictators' is? It's a cute slogan, tailormade for folk like you. The naive, and arrogant, who love thinking they're part of some grand moral crusade. So much so that they unironically use Tolkien analogies lmao! When you're understanding the real world through the lens of a very obviously black and white work of fantasy, it's obvious you know nothing of the real world and how it works.
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  1938.  @thepax2621  Oh look, you just proudly boasted of your bullying. Nice to see the true colors come out. They've already had to live with your sanctions btw, despite not having them. As has over a third of the world, simply for daring to not fall in line. But guess what, they haven't worked. Literally the entire history of sanctions is of them failing to achieve their stated goals (with the only, highly disputed, success story being apartheid south africa, which already had a strong domestic resistance). In every case it just begets more defiance. Anyway, you should be hoping you don't have to go in there soon, at the rate at which things are going in the region. Cos you can be both Ru and Chin will love that.
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  1939.  @thepax2621  Oh and Iran is also another example of you not understanding cause and effect. Their govt. now is a direct result of your messing about there to begin with. It was literally established by overturning the bloke you put in charge that they hated.
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  1940.  @thepax2621  'The "smart thing" would have been trying to woo eastern european countries' - yeah like that's going to work. Naïve as usual. Hence why South America loves the us. And Vietnam likes China. Oh wait, they don't. For good reason - both the us and chin have done the same 'dumb' strat. Why do you think Cuba was so happy to have Ru forces stationed in it to begin with? 'Every problem looks like a nail' applies equally as much to you, but you hold the global record. 'mordor' indeed.
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  1941.  @thepax2621  Ultimately you're blinded and biased by the same idealism that will eventually be used once again to goad you into supporting yet more war by politicians who understand the usefulness of idealists like you. Hell they're already doing it - what do you think 'democracy versus dictators' is? It's a cute slogan, tailormade for folk like you. The naive, and arrogant, who love thinking they're part of some grand moral crusade. So much so that they unironically use Tolkien analogies lmao!
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  1942.  @thepax2621  Oh look, you just proudly boasted of your bullying. Nice to see the true colors come out. They've already had to live with your sanctions btw, despite not having them. As has over a third of the world, simply for daring to not fall in line.
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  1943.  @thepax2621  Anyway, you should be hoping you don't have to go in there soon, at the rate at which things are going in the region. Cos you can bet both Ru and Chin will love that.
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  1944.  @thepax2621  'its a theocracy established by revolution' lmao! Shows how little history you know. I suppose the name Reza Pahlavi doesn't even register for you. Tiktok kid I guess. All short term memories.
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  1945.  @thepax2621  'The "smart thing" would have been trying to woo eastern european countries' - like you do lol? Naïve as usual. Hence why South America loves the us. Why do you think Cuba was so happy to have Ru forces stationed in it to begin with? 'Every problem looks like a nail' applies equally as much to you, but you hold the global record. 'mordor' indeed.
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  1946.  @thepax2621  Ultimately you're blinded and biased by the same idealism that will eventually be used once again to goad you into supporting yet more war by politicians who understand the usefulness of arrogant idealists like you.
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  1947.  @thepax2621  Hell they're already doing it - what do you think 'democracy versus dictators' is? It's a cute slogan, tailormade for folk like you.
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  1948.  @thepax2621  The naive, and arrogant, who love thinking they're part of some grand moral crusade. So much so that they unironically use Tolkien analogies lmao!
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  1949.  @thepax2621  Oh look, you just proudly boasted of your bullying. Nice to see the true colors come out.
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  1950.  @thepax2621  They've already had to live with your sanctions btw, despite not having them.
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  1951.  @thepax2621  As has over a third of the world, simply for daring to not fall in line.
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  1952.  @thepax2621  Khomeini? You mean the guy who overthrew YOUR guy? Yeah it means something - it means your guy wasn't in charge anymore.
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  1953.  @thepax2621  Oh don't mind that. That isn't about you. It's cos of this supposedly 'free' platform. Which is totally not like the much criticized internet in chin. Despite that it censors all sorts of stuff too.
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  1954.  @thepax2621  That's just me pasting individual lines from my comments as separate comments. Cos this platform isn't just censorious, it's also really dumb. Also why I'm saying ru and chin, etc.
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  1955.  @thepax2621  Such a 'free' platform this is. Which is totally not like the much criticized internet in chin. Despite that it censors lots of stuff too.
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  1956.  @thepax2621  'As opposed to what?' - look down south. The continent that hasn't had a major war the longest of anyone. And who mostly all have problems with you. Meanwhile you're the opposite - most wars.
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  1957.  @thepax2621  Imagine thinking this was about celebrating ru. Lol no, only crusaders like you think in those terms. No, this is about trashing your crusade. About puncturing that ego you have. About showing how all the rest of the world is more peaceful, externally at least, than you.
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  1958.  @thepax2621  Also it's typical of crusader types like you to fall into Tolkien analogies lol. Imagine using fantasy for real life lmao.
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  1959.  @thepax2621  Imagine thinking this was about celebrating ru. Lol no, only crusaders like you think in those terms.
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  1960.  @thepax2621  No, this is about trashing your crusade. About puncturing that ego you have.
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  1961.  @thepax2621  About showing how all the rest of the world is more peaceful, externally at least, than you.
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  1962.  @mimisor66  Lol yeah. It's amazing you ppl spout arguments like that, and then go on about how ru should just be a good neighbour and then nato wouldn't expand. Like that'd ever work. They know it won't, so they do what they have to. There is no world where it can prevent expansion by being nice, so it has to act with force. That's why they never bothered trying to prevent it by talking to you, they directly addressed the us to prevent it happening. They played nice, with america, and were promised it wouldn't happen. A promise that wasn't kept. So now they fight it back.
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  1963.  @thepax2621  Tell that to 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. Sauron. You hold the world record, therefore mordor fits you better.
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  1964.  @thepax2621  Yeah South America. The continent with the longest period of no interstate war. While you hold the record for the most interventions since ww2 lol.
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  1965.  @thatoneguybutYT  Lives of your own soldiers? Lol, you lost a few thousand men, in your invasion. They lost 200,000. Don't fish for sympathy here.
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  1966. 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.
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  1967. "Ukraine wouldn't be allowed to join NATO had Putin not invaded (again) in february 2022" - this is not how Russia sees it, and the reason is because of the Baltic trio i.e. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They joined NATO despite not being invaded, and Russia strongly objected to it. It wasn't heeded. That was the end of any hopes in Russia for a halt to NATO expansion. As far as they're concerned, it's only a matter of time - NATO will surround Russia if it doesn't push back more forcefully. Ukraine may have to push for years to make it happen, but they will succeed eventually - unless Russia forcefully stops it. They simply have no faith in NATO containing itself any longer. So they have to replace strongly worded letters with more 'kinetic' responses. Ukraine wasn't a major worry before 2014, when its govt. was more pro-Moscow. But after the Maidan revolution, Russia saw the writing on the wall. And Zelensky was even more determined to push for NATO membership. That's why, prior to the 2022 invasion, Russia sent an offer not to Ukraine, but to NATO, with the same demands as it always had. NATO pull back and stop expanding. Again it wasn't heeded.
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  1968.  @MatoVuc  Indeed. We've already seen how the US reacted to Russia doing the same to them during the Cuban crisis.
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  1969. ​ @jlopez0941  "In the west, we've not exactly been subtle about the deeply embedded Russophobia running through our culture" - the same can be said about China, which hasn't even had to go to war to earn the wests' ire lol. AJ+ (Al Jazeera) had an episode of Backspace about a year ago that delved into the long history of that.
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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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  1971.  @bannedeverywhere  'korean dudes there wanted wifes and girlfriends' - but did the women want husbands and boyfriends? And I don't mean filthy rich or famous husbands and boyfriends. Can't work if only one side wants a partner.
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  1972. Which is why Trumps' ultimatum is so ineffective. He'll have to defend them, and as long as the US defends them, they can act as a wall that allows all the western NATO countries to continue to freeride as before since they're in no danger.
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  1973. Which is why Trumps' rhetoric is so ineffective. He'll have to defend the east, and as long as the US defends them, they can act as a wall that allows all the western members to continue to do as before since they're at no risk.
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  1974. Which is why Big T's rhetoric doesn't work. He'll have to defend the east, and as long as they are defended, they'll act as a wall that allows all the western members to continue to do as before since they're at no risk.
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  1975.  @Martin-ri4fg  You know what else leads to inflation in the US? Conflict with China. Guess what both Trump and Biden share in common...
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  1976. Which is why his rhetoric doesn't work. The east can act as a wall that allows the western members to continue to do as before since they're at no risk, and they know it.
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  1977. Hence why the rhetoric doesn't work. The east is a wall that allows western members to continue as before since they're at no risk, and they know it.
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  1978. Hence why the rhetoric doesn't work. The east is a barrier that lets western members continue as before since they're at no risk, and they know it.
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  1979. Hence why the talk doesn't work. The east is a barrier that lets western members go on as before since they're at no risk, and they know it.
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  1980.  @ewoudalliet1734  In that case, don't complain about China doing the same. Taiwan is their Cuba. Or anyone else for that matter. The moment you accept that 'security' extends beyond one's territory, you do so for everyone. And as a result, proliferate insecurity and war.
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  1981.  @Martin-ri4fg  Let me guess. You unironically see the US, the nation with the most military actions to its name since WW2, as the world police. Lol. The closest thing to such would be UN intervention. The US never cared for it, doesn't recognize its jurisdiction, has supplanted regimes and even launched wars without its approval and established paralel organizations more under its thumb. And you people unironically think it's the police lmao! Tell me, who is policing your 'police' then? Cos we certainly seem to need someone to do it.
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  1982.  @Martin-ri4fg  Let me guess. You unironically see the US, the country with the most interventions to its name since WW2, as the world police. Lol. The closest thing to such would be UN intervention. The US doesn't recognize its jurisdiction, has supplanted regimes and even launched wars without its approval and even established paralel organizations more under its thumb. And you people unironically think it's the police lmao!
    1
  1983.  @Martin-ri4fg  Let me guess. You unironically see the US, the nation with the most military actions to its name since WW2, as the world police. Lol.
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  1984.  @Martin-ri4fg  The closest thing to such would be UN intervention. The US never cared for it, doesn't recognize its jurisdiction, has supplanted regimes and even launched wars without its approval and established paralel organizations under its thumb. And you unironically see it as police lmao!
    1
  1985.  @Martin-ri4fg  Let me guess. You unironically see the US, who has the most 'adventures' to its name since WW2, as the world police. Lol.
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  1986.  @Martin-ri4fg  The closest thing to such would be UN action. The US doesn't even recognize its jurisdiction, has 'established friendly govts.' and even 'embarked on adventures' without its approval and even established parallel 'clubs' more under its thumb. And you unironically think it's the police lol!
    1
  1987.  @Martin-ri4fg  Let me guess. You unironically see the US, the state with the most 'adventures' to its name since WW2, as the 'police'. Lol.
    1
  1988.  @Martin-ri4fg  The closest thing to such would be the UN. The US doesn't recognize its ju₹isdi¢tion, has 'made nicer govts' and even 'gone on adventures' without its nod and established parallel 'clubs' more to its liking. And you unironically think it's like the cops lol!
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  1989.  @Martin-ri4fg  Let me guess. You unironically see the US,
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  1990.  @Martin-ri4fg  as the 'police'. Lol.
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  1991.  @Martin-ri4fg  The US doesn't recognize its jurisdiction,
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  1992.  @Martin-ri4fg  has made 'friendly govts' and even 'gone on adventures' without its approval
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  1993.  @Martin-ri4fg  and even established parallel 'clubs' structured more to its liking.
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  1994.  @Martin-ri4fg  And you people unironically see it as the 'police' lol!
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  1995.  @Martin-ri4fg  Cos we certainly seem to need someone to.
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  1996.  @ewoudalliet1734  Bub the US has already violated intl law and begun wars elsewhere - hell it doesn't even recognize the intl law's jurisdiction over it. Neither will anyone else if they have similar power to get away with it. Indeed in practice there is no such thing, it's a proxy for hegemonic law. Hence why the US has never been punished for wars that even the UN secretary general has declared illegal, but others are. You just don't want to own up to hypocrisy.
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  1997.  @ewoudalliet1734  And there's no false analogy. The US openly admits to Taiwan being part of its 'containment' strategy. The only one that sounds innocent to is the west. Try telling anyone you meet on the street that you're going to lock them up and see how they take it. Fitting for the nation with the highest prison population on earth tho. They will never accept that, and you know it. Which means all you're doing is setting the stage for war. Which suits you fine as it lets you take down a growing rival. You know what will set your enemies off - and do it anyway cos your hegemony matters more than having peace.
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  1998. Lol no. They already have trade ties with them. They have no need to lay claim to the waters. If anything, the us meme applies.
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  1999.  @TorianTammas  Oh they'll be 'safe' until WW3 eventually breaks out, likely involving China as well. However that war goes, they'll all be targets. Meanwhile neutral nations will likely escape the devastation and reap the benefits after. You can keep playing with fire if you want. Don't complain when you end up burned for it.
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  2000.  A piece of fucking sliced white bread!  Hmm...so I guess now at least I've an idea of where you come from. Good to know.
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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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  2002.  @l.h.tnguyen4916  Not even close lol. You'd get stuck there, and Ru and Chi would jump in to supply them and see you suffer another Vietnam. They'll be rubbing their hands in glee at seeing you make that mistake.
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  2003. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  2004.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  2005. Iran is a multi-community state, like most states. Of course there's divisions, but this isn't unique to Iran. There's plenty of divisions they can exploit abroad as well. Don't tempt fate by opening the hornets next. Any attempt to do so will backfire.
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  2006.  @jf3457  I wonder if you'd say this if we were discussing Ukr. Double standards.
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  2007.  @carmaster95  Lol. A couple parties versus entire national movements and govts. formed in rejection of western (via the IMF) impositions. I never said Africans love the Chinese. They choose them because they need someone to work with, or think they do, and the Chinese are both the easier option (less demanding) and don't already have a history of fucking things up yet (at least in Africa). Sure going it alone would be ideal, but evidently they (or at least some of them) don't think that's viable yet. You need to switch targets - in order to convince me you don't need to prove the Chinese could be bad, but rather that the west wouldn't be. Good luck with that, given that they already have an extensive history of being very bad (even if we only consider the modern era).
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  2008.  @PapaOscarNovember  Latin America is the US' backyard. Didn't stop them from messing with it. Ditto for China in east Asia, or Russia in east Europe. Being a big powers' backyard is usually a bad thing.
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  2009. Oh yeah sure, the Chinese should've just emulated the Japanese emulation of the West by modernizing and joining in with all the pillaging. How about instead, you know, you just don't pillage to start with? Oh, but of course that's not "realistic" in you people's eyes. It always just has to be dog eat dog, right? Expecting anything better is 'wishful thinking'...-_-
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  2010.  @leodarksam6230  Costa Rica. Bhutan. Estonia. There's 3 examples, from 3 different corners of the world. And there's many more I could name. Of course none of them are major world powers, cos being a major world power tends to be corrosive of morality. But it is possible, if the world was organized differently.
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  2011. ​ @stephenjenkins7971  "whether he realizes it or not" - how the hell would he take it into account without realizing it? If anything, that just makes him look even more incompetent and hence unreliable, cos then it just looks like he's talking out of his hat. The man has an audience cos he tells Americans about how great America is, which is not unlike Russian jingoists who also bang on about Eurasian geography. And why use the same geographic analysis as Russia for the US? The two countries aren't copies of each other. Apart from both being large and resource rich (and even this is in different ways, with the US having far easier access to its resources), they're not similar geographically or demographically. Much is made of the US' diversity, but the country was established and built by a set of fresh and heavily Anglo-Saxon settler colonials, with its native diversity being crushed out of existence and further immigrants having to integrate into that. That is nothing like any nations' from the old world, who have to deal with deep pre-existing ethnic tribes they may or may not even want, rather than just importing talent from abroad as per their own preferences. Russia, like much of the old world, is like modernizing an ancient city. The US is more like Canberra or even Neom, a new artificial construct built on a clean (cleansed) slate.
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  2012.  @95Bartlett  Fair enough. My apologies.
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  2013.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  The one least likely to be an actual Iranian, or even actual person, here is you lol. Your west simping is all over this comment section.
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  2014.  @FATHOLLYWOODB123  Yeah America just invades countries instead lmao!
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  2015.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  You aren't even a real person lol, let alone an Iranian one.
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  2016.  @SamPashmi  You mean YOU want your puppet back. The rest of Iran is glad to be rid of him
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  2017.  @SamPashmi  You tried that last year and failed. And we've overthrown govts. before - that's how your precious shah was removed. But you couldn't do it cos you just aren't that popular. Those millions of mourners are probably more support than you have, and that's just the people who came out to mourn. You lost liberal. Most of Iran doesn't want your puppet back.
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  2018.  @StoliTheWise  The private sector also gives out holidays for the new year, bruh...
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  2019.  @accountname9506  There's dozens of groups. There is going to be a
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  2020.  @c3caine  The leader leaving doesn't mean anything is over. Indeed the mess is just getting started...
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  2021.  @jaredjosephsongheng372  Saying it twice doesn't help. Try breaking it up into several comments. That sometimes confuses the algo they use to delete.
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  2022.  @Mygg_Jeager  Myanmar isn't a people's resistance, that's just a romantic view of it. The civil war there goes back over half a century, the ousted govt. just joined it. It's a whole bunch of inter-ethnic separatist movements, just as this will likely be. In fact that was why aung san didn't bother fighting the military so much when she was in power - she had bigger priorities.
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  2023.  @Z4r4kiKenpachi  The royal navy is far from the strongest navy lol. Not even close
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  2024. Interestingly, the biggest beneficiaries from this are the very people the Democrats themselves are nervous about - Sanders and Warren. Trumps' image is hurt, but then so is Biden. So when the mainstream Dem candidate is vulnerable, who to turn to but the non-mainstream ones? They might have just ended up playing themselves out of pulling off another Hillary in 2020 i.e. this time the radicals will have to come to the fore. The fight that plays out then should be fascinating to observe - Trump fighting Sanders / Warren, while Sanders / Warren also fight their own party establishment. Fun times! ;)
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  2025. Well the govt. that pushed for the idea changed. So hey, all you need to do is vote that guy back...😉
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  2026. The US is kinda a counter-example to this. The nation is rich with resources of all kinds, both relevant to modern economies (such as oil) and old ones (plentiful fertile farmland). Russia also has a lots of resources, and while it ain't wealthy it is powerful.
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  2027. Just goes to show that all the money and advanced weaponry in the world can't beat a determined enemy with a home field advantage. The US should keep this mind when launching their next war. They've lost like this several times already...
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  2028. Russia has never caused trouble for India lol, rather the UK and US have and Russia has actually helped India beat them off. Meanwhile China doesn't need to ensure 'the tail causes little trouble', cos both it and Russia have common cause anyway. While the west masturbates to the question of who'll be boss in that relationship, they themselves never say or even suggest such rhetoric. It's irrelevant. They're united by both opposing western hegemony, and hence can cooperate without needing to order the other about.
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  2029.  @gabbar51ngh  "Such tactics will lead to Nato like alliance of USA, japan, india, Australia,etc." - Tbh, none of these countries like China anyway, so there's really no reason for China to not punch. What do they stand to gain from playing nice? This alliance was going to form anyway, conditional only on how much the relationship between the US and India could be smoothed. So China might as well poke and prod to weaken each of them.
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  2030.  @MajinLiveTV  Peter Zeihan is a hack who traded in a respectable career in academia (back when he wrote books like Accidental Superpower) for a new career preaching America's infallibility to adoring American fans. He left the more critical environment he began his career in for a much easier to please crowd of non-experts to become a celebrity.
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  2031.  @MajinLiveTV  Peter Zeihan is a shill who traded in a respectable career in academia (back when he wrote books like Accidental Superpower) for a new career preaching America's infallibility to adoring American fans. He left the more critical environment he began his career in for a much easier to please crowd of non-experts to become a celebrity.
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  2032. Another regional organisation?! Why? Why can't they just form a bloc within the African Union or something?
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  2033.  @Cats_and_Dogs_in_Farsi  Lmao the shah was a puppet, and this is so well known that even Wikipedia has it. He literally was chosen to kick out Irans' democratic PM. And mentioning Russia now? Yeah, you must be a bot. You're literally doing nothing but licking the wests' boots.
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  2034.  @SidMajors  It's clear that you haven't, except maybe with expats in the west. They remember what the US and UK did to them in the 50s, and won't let another puppet take charge again.
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  2035. There's already a ridiculous amount of media coverage of Russia and Ukraine, plus he's already covered it in prior videos and the present situation is still developing. Best to leave it to the regular media for now and do other stuff. He can assess the Ukraine situation later when things are more settled and clearer. Remember Caspian Report is NOT a news channel. Never has been.
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  2036.  @Iamwolf134  You haven't given them any kind of pounding. The Russians lost there, and so have you. You just won't accept it.
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  2037.  @Iamwolf134  Lol, the guy talking about trade deals with the Taliban is tossing around accusations of 'brain dead trolls'. With jokes that bad, no wonder you bought into the words of the people who used to fight your enemies and then went on to whittle you down too. The Taliban said whatever the US govt. wanted them to say so that it could save face (at least in the eyes of blinded nationalists like you), since it serves both their ends. And now they can go back to doing whatever they want, while righteous "patriots" such as yourself can pat yourselves on the back imagining you actually achieved something for all your troubles.
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  2038.  @Iamwolf134  Weak. Apparently you could neither come up with an actual rebuttal nor even a fresh insult. You're really that unimaginative, huh? Sad.
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  2039. He mentioned that in the video. He didn't dwell on it much because there wasn't much change to talk about wrt the rural hinterlands. All the big changes were happening in the cities, hence this summary of events focused on that.
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  2040.  @ibrahimbello5546  No one is leaving tribalism behind. Hell in the west they're basically inventing and sorting into new tribes nowadays, displaying all the downsides of tribalism but without even its historical basis. Tribalism seems ingrained into the human psyche. If people can't do it on the basis of ethnicity, they just find new bases upon which to form tribes.
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  2041.  @ibrahimbello5546  Fair enough.
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  2042.  @TheGreatOne-gw7xh  Lol what a copium interpretation. 🤣You lost bub, just like you lost Vietnam.
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  2043.  @killman369547  All that would have achieved is prolonging the inevitable, as happened in the case of Afghanistan. The South was never going to hold, so it would have fallen as soon as the US left. And ofc even more millions would have died.
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  2044.  @yoavmor9002  Lol, keep telling yourself that. 🤣 I bet you never extend the same interpretation to your enemies either. 😏
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  2045.  @joserios2703  Afghanistan is seeking friendly relations with China, and is rich in resources. Some 'win' that is. Did you imagine they'd raise a stink over the Uighurs like the west does? Well they're not. That's ironically more of a talking point for China's geopolitical enemies than anyone else, for obvious reasons.
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  2046.  @joserios2703  Afghanistan is seeking friendly relations with China, and is rich in resources. Some 'win' that is.
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  2047. Is that meant to be criticism or praise?
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  2048.  @sogerc1  You don't need to imagine any secret conspiracy with new sponsors or any other such explanation. There's a much simpler reason why he would keep going on about this topic - cos it sells. Not just with sponsors, but with viewers. He's not the only one. The media, both mainstream and on Youtube, keeps banging on about this topic cos their audiences love it. It's no different from sex or sensationalism selling - in both cases it doesn't need a cabal or agenda, just looking at audience metrics. In other words, pandering. Just like so many companies nowadays are going 'woke' in their marketing. Do you think it's cos they're part of an elite cabal with a woke agenda, or actually care? Nah, it's just a tactic to try making more money off of the naive.
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  2049.  @LovePrayGame  Azerbaijan.
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  2050. Nvm. Seems it's another of those American megachurch pastors. Who tf cares what they think (apart from their sheep)?
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  2051.  @scottdoesntmatter4409  We can do without people who root for us just in order to spite others they hate thanks. Either root for India cos you love India, or don't bother.
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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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  2053. ​ @blackbox9641  Bub American wars are not 50 years old, they literally left their last war just last year. And considering that you consider the Cold War over, it's strange then how much you're raising heat over China, a country that hasn't been to war in nearly half a century. Also, you evidently have never heard of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Like I said, America's wars just in THIS century i.e. since the turn of the millennium, a full decade after the Cold War ended, still outrank ALL of Russia's wars in that time period (Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, etc.) in terms of their death toll even if taken individually i.e. Afghanistan OR Iraq, not even together. You people just don't care about that cos it isn't your holy white European untouchables being affected, just as you don't give a shit about what your ally Saudi Arabia is currently doing in Yemen. When did you get angry with Saudi Arabia? Oh right, when a Washington Post journo was killed, not cos of the Yemen war. Your Cold War mentality is alive and well, you were just shifting it to China before this war, and that's after trashing the ME.
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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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  2055.  @davidspiller7977  And Cuba wanted to host Russian forces, it wasn't forced. So why did America turn that into a huge issue, AND invade it, AND sanction it for over half a century now despite global disapproval? Also nations asking to join NATO doesn't let them join NATO any more than people wanting to join the mile high club lets them do that. NATO has to consent. And they said they wouldn't, then did anyway. Btw, Iran wants to have nuclear weapons. It isn't being forced either. So why're you guys punishing them for it? It's their right as sovereign nation after all. Or do you not believe in sovereignty? Or is your big talk about it only for when it serves you? See I'm not blaming the people who wanted to join NATO, I'm blaming NATO itself. And especially its de facto leader, America.
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  2056.  @evilleader1991  $31 trillion. Or about 120% of its GDP. Yep, they're already over 100% debt-to-GDP ratio already, and still climbing.
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  2057.  @ajoajoajoaj  Lol the US doesn't annex territory cos it's halfway across the world. The US just invades and puts in place friendly client govts., assuming it can't do that covertly. In a sense that's kinda like annexing the whole country. Russia would be happy with that too btw, it's what they tried to do at first in February. They got along fine with Ukraine until the 2014 flip.
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  2058. The recent conflict? Give it time to develop and be examined.
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  2059. ​ @FLKRM  The same can be said for the rest of Europe. But here's the thing - Russia can hit back hard as well. Perhaps not as much against the UK, but certainly Germany is within their reach. The reason the US is key is because Russia can't hit back at them, except for with nukes, but they can hit it even with just conventional forces. There's some semblance of balance in Europe, there's no such thing for the US. Like I said, Russia would probably feel a lot more comforted if it had bases in Canada and Mexico to hit America, but it doesn't. And this has tangible effects. Consider this - the Russian invasion of Donbass resulted in about 13,000 or so casualties. It saw them being sanctioned as punishment. You may think those sanctions are too mild, but consider the US situation in comparison. The Afghan invasion has around 300,000 casualties and the Iraq War even more than that. Where's the sanctions on the US? The west just takes these discrepancies for granted, but outside the west people do note the double standards. Since American actions are evidently untouchable, Russia is never going to let them get close to it.
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  2060. ​ @MrMabloom  Keeping up for what? Its reach has only grown over the decades of low level conflict, so it's doing fine there. In case of invasion it's not just their proxies who'll be backing them. They'll also the next two military powers in the world on their side, just to see the US humbled.
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  2061. No. Most western countries lose population to emigration, not gain it from immigration. You're just too used to thinking of the west as the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Australia. That leaves out the majority of western countries, from whom those five draw out even more people.
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  2062.  @cryptic7791  The video never claimed the Yuan would replace the dollar, it's only you people who assumed that. Nations all over the world want independence from US financial control, why would they replace it with the Yuan? It's de-dollarisation, not Yuan-isation.
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  2063.  @cryptic7791  Also it's telling that you want English here to 'make a case', while blindly accepting the OP's claim. Biased much?
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  2064.  @Wildboy789789  Facebook is a slave to most large nations lol. They need those markets to survive, not the other way around. Facebook has no presence in China, would be easy to replace in Russia and is only in India because Orkut was outcompeted by them - but if India were to ban it, another Orkut would arise in no time. Hell, Facebook-owned Whatsapp recently had to fall back on one of its data policy agreements because people in India got angry, so it dropped it. That's how much 'teeth' Facebook has in India, never mind China lol.
    1
  2065. ​ @SerginhoPMoura ​This isn't deterrence, it's suicide. Taiwan wouldn't be conquered if it did this, it would be utterly destroyed. China would survive.
    1
  2066.  @b3r3nd  Bruh, your taste is just that. For him, it's literally the money he needs to eat. It doesn't really harm anyone, so get over it.
    1
  2067.  @steephanroy8461  In the monetary union, nothing. China just offers all these countries an alternative investor they can turn to if they want to ditch France. But even then the Chinese have no control of the currency.
    1
  2068.  @sobitasadullah4517  If the US so much as stationed one platoon of soldiers at China's doorstep, war would commence the very next day. The bases would never be established. As soon as any such agreement was signed, the islands would be taken over. Or do you think the USSR was right in putting nukes on Cuban soil earlier?
    1
  2069. Without your oil money you would still exist as a state, sure, but virtually no one would care about you (except pilgrims).
    1
  2070.  @GuyShōtō  The only one wanking himself is you bub. You get off on your imagined sense of moral superiority. Gotta love your cute American reference at the end too, typical for an American to apply his perspective onto everything. You're not even capable of recognizing nuance lol, given your lame attempt at a strawman by claiming this is about you criticizing Qatari slavery. No this is about your ego, the only thing said criticism makes a difference to. Cos it certainly isn't helping the slaves lol. "pathetic of a human being" - talk about projecting lol. Only one of us here needs to constantly reassure himself and anyone who'll listen about how morally upright he is, and it sure isn't me.
    1
  2071.  @Hippy_rocker_poper  No wonder Hillary lost the election then.
    1
  2072.  @d34dw0od5  No. The Swiss govt. for instance is very in touch. Cos they use a form of direct democratic governance. Govts. are mostly out of touch cos they've made themselves that way, but there are ways to govern that involve the people.
    1
  2073.  @Hippy_rocker_poper  Probably the most 'in touch' in the world is a western one - that of Switzerland. Direct democracy ftw!
    1
  2074.  @jonstark7106  Not in Switzerland. Cos they use a form of direct democracy.
    1
  2075. You know aircraft move even faster than ships, right? WAY faster. And yet we still manage to take them down. Anti-ship missiles are specifically designed to counter ships which, hard as it may be to believe, their makers are well aware are moving. And did you see where the US carriers were during the Taiwan Straits crisis? Right off China's coast. You can't simply sit in the middle of the Pacific and wage war with any effectiveness. You'll just be providing them with ever more room and time. Russia had to get so close they lost a ship. And amphibious assault ships are designed for amphibious operations, which is about as close as you can get lol.
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  2076. Bruh the US isn't even giving them their own money back. Tens of billions of Afghan central bank money lies stolen in America. Forget international assistance, try first giving them their own money back. As for air force assistance, as the video says they literally are already getting that simply cos the US hates ISIS-K even more. Women's education and the rest of that rhetoric is just empty words - no one cares about that, they'll 'help' the Taliban as and when it serves their interests. War is never moral.
    1
  2077.  @chrisw8011  You could say that about most geopolitics channels lol. Or even Youtubers in general. It's a cutthroat market.
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  2078.  @melburnian  That is still 'rare' in practical terms. No one's gonna open a huge mine to get at a few pebbles.
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  2079.  @Raphael4722  Depends on how you define "empire". If you mean direct territorial control, then the main reason that doesn't happen anymore is due to it usually no longer being profitable, indeed often a lot more trouble than it's worth. And this vid was quite clearly not talking about that possibility. If you use the word more loosely to simply mean hegemonic domination, then empire never died. The current biggest empire would be, ironically, American.
    1
  2080.  @Nemausos  "There is no alternative to nuclear" - there's plenty of alternatives for investors to invest in to get better returns. They don't even have to invest in energy, could be anything. They just follow the money, and nuclear isn't good money. And this matters - nuclear is in the doldrums not cos govts. aren't willing, but cos investors aren't investing. Govts. can't pay for all of it.
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  2081.  @rioluna6058  Lol no. The world isn't gonna fall for your false dichotomy bs. No one HAS to choose. As for making trouble, guess who's had the most military operations since ww2? Yeah, the us. And China? Their last war ended in 1979. The us' last one was as recently as 2021. And don't bother with that democracy bs either - the us has supported and continues to support autocracies aplenty. It's even helped set some up, like in Gautemala. Even Saddam Hussein was ironically assisted by them when he came to power. So don't try pretending you have the moral high ground. The us' history belies that.
    1
  2082.  @rioluna6058  Lol no. The world isn't gonna fall for your false dichotomy bs. No one HAS to choose. As for making trouble, guess who's had the most military operations since ww2? Yeah, the us. And China? Their last war ended in 1979. The us' last one was as recently as 2021.
    1
  2083.  @rioluna6058  Since you say you love history, and are from Costa Rica, try looking up the history of one of your neighbours - Gautemala. Or just the names Carlos Castillo Armas, and operation PBFortune.
    1
  2084.  @rioluna6058  As you're from Costa Rica and say you love history, PBFortune will find you what I spoke about. Some more history for you, quite close to your home.
    1
  2085.  @rioluna6058  If you're interested in the history, PBFortune will get you going. It's the history of your own region.
    1
  2086.  @rioluna6058  As you're into history, PBFortune should pique your interest. It's the history of your own region.
    1
  2087.  @rioluna6058  Carlos Castillo Armas. PBFortune.
    1
  2088.  @rioluna6058  Carlos Castillo Armas. See who put him in power...
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  2089.  @rioluna6058  PBFortune
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  2090.  @rioluna6058  PBSuccess
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  2091.  @drunkensailor3736  Quit advertising your own channel using a string of fake accounts. It's tiresome. Advertise if you wish, but at least have the decency to do it openly in your own name.
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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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  2093.  @TheBobVova  The Imperium of Mankind was established 10000 years before 40000 actually.
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  2094.  @Ryanowning  In that case, they should do a video about how Europe was also buying Russian fuel at a higher markup from out of excess Chinese stocks lol. They're not the only ones being subtle here.
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  2095.  @Ryanowning  Caspian Report isn't a tool to be used to further any nations' goals. It doesn't exist to drive Europe to do anything. If you want that, use a US govt. mouthpiece.
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  2096.  @UsualYaddaYadda  Fair enough
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  2097. He can do that once they're over. I'd rather he not speculate on them before the fact.
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  2098.  @weirdshibainu  China doesn't need Taiwan at all. They get more from trading with it than they'd ever get from conquering a bombed out husk with a rebellious population. The reason they want it is cos it's a convenient staging post for their rivals aka the US, much like Cuba was for Russia. Remember how the US treated Cuba? Yeah, that's Taiwan and China now. What China will likely do is blockade them into submission in order to get them agree to distance themselves from the US, with possibly even the offer of recognition of some sort to sweeten the deal. China's already concerned by the American presence in Korea and Japan, they're not going to let Uncle Sam take hold of Taiwan as well.
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  2099.  @dianapennepacker6854  "Can't compete with basically slave workers" - ironically China's wage growth is one of the big reasons why it's not as competitive for low cost manufacturing and hence those industries are moving elsewhere. Doubly ironically the US has far more actual slave workers in its massive prison system.
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  2100.  @flowertowerrr  The only reason they'd fail is cos the conflict wouldn't be left alone. Left to fend for itself Singapore stands no chance. They even have to rely on foreign nations for their air force lol. 😆
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  2101. @@iloveevil86 Extinction? Lol, like what? Nukes? Bioweapons? Neither requires a nation to be really advanced, so that doesn't give you an edge. Rather it'd be a millstone around your neck cos it would violate international conventions and therefore invite trouble rather than preventing it. You'd end up isolating yourselves in those bunkers, as your neighbours gobble up all the trade and business that would soon bypass you as a pariah state. You're not the US or China to be able to do whatever you want and have the globe look the other way.
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  2102. ​ surinamesurname  Lmao! You people see one war, that isn't even over yet, and think you know everything about Russian equipment. We've used Russian equipment for over half a century, and have a better record of wins - 4 out of 4 lol - than our enemy (Pakistan) that uses American weapons. Hell our military record is better than America itself lol. It isn't about the equipment, which is perfectly fine and currently stopping Ukraine's western supplied tanks cold. It's about the strategy of the army that uses it. Russia was overconfident and chose a poor strategy for its invasion, but their equipment has held up all over the world for over a century now. Russian equipment is also far more economical and easier to maintain, so it's well suited to drawn out conflict if needed. And btw, Ukraine is a big country - it lost about a fifth of its territory to Russia's attack. That is a far larger area than the whole of Singapore. It's also far less geographically isolated than Singapore would be, surrounded as it is by its attackers.
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  2103.  @ZontarDow  Putin thought it would be a good idea cos of the Maidan revolution. As far as US actions are concerned, he still thinks it's a good idea cos of the Baltic trio being let into NATO. That happened long before Trump.
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  2104.  @ZontarDow  Georgia was after the Baltic trio was let in. That act was THE proof they needed that there was no diplomatic way to get NATO to stop expanding. All they could do was take action if ever any more nations turned to the west, as Ukraine did in 2014. You're going to see the same pattern play out soon enough with China, if not already. The US has the Monroe Doctrine, enacted most notably with Cuba to this day. They won't allow America in their backyard either.
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  2105.  @ZontarDow  Ah I see you aren't even trying to pretend you have an argument.
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  2106. ​ @ZontarDow  Do you how one joins a club? You don't just apply, you have to be accepted. There's a reason they asked the US not to expand NATO, not every potential applicant. Your defense is meaningless - as you yourself admit, NATO expanded. And keep your egotistical imaginings about the obvious superiority of your point of view to yourself, as too your delusions in thinking you know anything of my mind. Btw, funny thing about arguments against NATO being 'destroyed' - they never actually resulted in NATO itself being disbanded, despite having had decades to do it. An institution without purpose doesn't expand. If you ever meant them, NATO would have had to be re-formed, not merely wake up. Your claims are hollow, as they always have been.
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  2107.  @ZontarDow  Lol NATO is already well east of east Germany. And the US has had more intervention than Russia since WW2. So I guess Russia was vindicated in Cuba then. Funny how that didn't make a lick of difference to the US. The only fools are those who pretend surrounding a nation is ever going to be perceived as innocent. The US literally even calls its strategy for China 'containment'. While disparaging China for its 'string of pearls' and the like. Fitting for the nation with the highest prison population. Any past ruler or general would look at the map and laugh you out of the room in claiming it's innocent. They'd know what you don't - that it's going to provoke a reaction eventually.
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  2108.  @ZontarDow  NATO is already well east of east Germany. And the US has had more interventions than Russia since WW2. So I guess Russia was vindicated in Cuba then. Funny how that didn't make a lick of difference to the US. The fools are those who pretend surrounding a nation is ever going to be perceived as innocent. The US literally even calls its strategy for China 'containment'. While disparaging China for its 'string of pearls' and the like. Fitting for the nation with the highest prison population. Any past ruler or general would look at the map and laugh you out of the room in claiming it's innocent. They'd know what you don't - that it's going to provoke a reaction eventually.
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  2109. ​ @bnfcj8987  Bub the "world" isn't even all sanctioning Russia, let alone China. Only the West and Japan is sanctioning Russia, the vast majority of the nations on Earth aren't. This is even less likely with China.
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  2110.  @25Soupy  It's not 'so-called Imperial Europeans', European imperialism is an established fact of the last 400 years or so
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  2111. ​ @stafer3  "change their areas of interest and shift their focus" - lol! Nice euphemism for losing lmao. The US hasn't lost interest in the ME, nor has it gained an interest elsewhere (no its antagonism towards China didn't begin in 2021). It lost. Hell Americans themselves like to boast about their global hegemony and how their military is able to operate in multiple battlespaces at once (as it would have to if fighting China and Russia together). So splitting your focus between them and a bunch of guerillas in the desert should be easy. And yet, without any war to fight elsewhere, they still lost Afghanistan. As they did several other conflicts before it.
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  2112. ​ @stafer3  "what was your reason they left if not lack of interest?" - cos they couldn't win. Contrary to your simplistic view of war, they aren't just about killing a load of people - in fact they're never about that. Wars have actual political goals, hence why they were famously called politics by other means by Clausewitz. You haven't won a war until you achieve those goals, and your goal had shown itself beyond your capability. Just as it had in Vietnam. As shown by how quickly all you'd spent 20 years trying to achieve fell apart as soon as you left. Of course you people like to blame the Afghans for it, but they were YOUR goals for the country. Your goals failed, ergo your war failed. The 'it was the Afghans fault' excuse is just that. And this despite the fact that you faced no foreign opposition from any other power. Where you did, like in Syria, you lost even more so, as Assad remained in power. Ditto Korea, Vietnam, Bangladesh, etc. (China pushed you off in the first, China and Russia in the second, India and Russia in the third)
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  2113. Russia has other options. India is also a friendly nation to Russia, and a rival of China. And there's no claims to worry about there. So they can always forge military pacts with both - with China against America, and with India to balance out China. Works for Russia against America and China, works for India against China, and works for China against America again. Meanwhile the only one of those that America can ally with is India, and that'd be against China, not Russia.
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  2114.  @sciencoking  Funnily enough, I disagree with your first sentence, but agree with the last one. Although I also find that last sentence incredibly sad...
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  2115.  @DinoDillinger  You're gonna have to link those studies if you're going to make claims on the basis of them...
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  2116.  @xway2  Finland has protected itself by working out an arrangement with Russia. It's worked out pretty darn well too. Aligning with the US will only increase its insecurity. Even the video understands that, take note of its ending line. Russia isn't the victim of Finland no, but this isn't about Finland. It's not even about Europe. It's about the US, the most warmongering state of all. And that's not an exaggeration btw - just ask the people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Angola, Bolivia, Chad, Chile, Cambodia, Columbia, Cuba, El Salvador, Granada, Gautemala, Honduras, Iran, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Vietnam, etc... oh look, a long history of aggressive actions, and not once has the US been sanctioned for any of them.
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  2117.  @maghambor  Lol, democracy? Nice tangent your brought in there. You're not standing for democracy here bub, you're standing for American hegemony. And Russia doesn't respect the US, nor should it. As long as Sweden and Finland stand for their own security, Russia has respected them. Joining NATO means they stand for a whole lot more, that's antithetical to Russia.
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  2118.  @TheEmadia  sigh Where does race come into this? North Africa isn't considered white. Have you ever looked at the regional divisions used by many international institutions? One of the common ones is 'MENA' aka Middle East and North Africa. That isn't my invention, nor even Shirvan's (and btw, I simply answered the question - Shirvan himself has confirmed to another comment that he's doing them together). Indeed, calling out racism here would be ironic, since I'm not white myself. There's racism, and then there's simply being stupid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MENA
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  2119. Lol learn some history. Myanmar has been caught in a civil war for generations. It was literally Aung-San's primary goal when she was in office to end said war, even above wresting power back from the military.
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  2120. They may seek secularism, but that doesn't mean they're okay with the US doing it. They've experienced that before, and hated it so much that they overthrew it.
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  2121.  Boababa-fn3mr  79 overthrew a govt. created in 53, by London and Washington.
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  2122.  Boababa-fn3mr  You can literally confirm even just on wikipedia that 53 was done by the brits and americans.
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  2123.  Boababa-fn3mr  It got rid of the legitimate PM to put in place a sellout.
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  2124.  Boababa-fn3mr  The legitimate PM.
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  2125.  Boababa-fn3mr  To replace him with a sellout.
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  2126. People still take Fukuyama seriously?...
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  2127.  @00x0xx  It's not so much about sources, as about audience. He likely can see from YT analytics that a big chunk, if not the outright majority, of his audience is from the west. And this video isn't good. Most of it is Caspian projecting his rather old fashioned take on what China intends to do. Old fashioned cos he seems to live in a world where nothing changes apart from China's navy getting larger and everyone is still fighting wars the conventional way. That's fine for 2030 maybe, but 2050 lol? It's like everyone is talking about the world shifting in a matter of days following Russia's invasion, but apparently nothing is going to change across several decades wrt China or the West.
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  2128.  @daszieher  You're conveniently forgetting WW1, which was literally CAUSED by defensive alliances. What Putin understands is that NATO has expanded despite 30 years of warnings about it no matter whether Russia attacked those nations or not (which they didn't for nearly 20 years). He sees NATO expansion to their borders as inevitable, so may as well act before you're completely surrounded. Push a nation into a corner, don't be surprised when they bite back. Same is gonna happen with China btw. Taiwan isn't about Taiwan, but the US.
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  2129.  @daszieher  NATO was LITERALLY set up to counter Russia bruh. It was summed up by its own leaders as being about keeping the US in, the Germans down and the Russians out. NATO has always been well understood as as an American alliance meant to counter Russia both by Russia, its own members and even by people outside Europe and America.
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  2130. The US has done just that for most of modern history, including taking action to 'correct' their mistakes. The regime in charge of one of their chief enemies for instance, Iran, came to power via directly overthrowing the govt. of a western puppet who was installed after they elected the 'wrong' people.
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  2131. The US has done just that for most of modern history, including taking action to correct their 'mistakes'. The regime in charge of one of their chief enemies for instance, Iran, came to power via overthrowing the govt. of a stooge who was installed after they elected the wrong people.
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  2132.  @chrisdziedzic2544  What do you think the locals would say? It serves US interests to do so though. 'Should' depends on what one values. Same way Americans bemoan being blamed for acting as the world police and yet supposedly always having to go 'fix' stuff around the world. No one has or can force the US to intervene - they chose to go to those places, as it serves their interests to do so. If they really didn't want to, they were always able to stay at home.
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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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  2134.  @thelibertyking6735  Likely he isn't doing it, YT is.
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  2135. The parts they currently hold are mostly friendly, close by and/or don't have major population centers (except Mariupol). So they shouldn't have too much trouble holding them, as they have Crimea all this time. The parts they'll find difficult to control they already are having trouble even taking in the first place, so that issue may not even arise in the end. In the end we may end up with things as they are in Korea - with the two technically still at war, but little actual fighting happening. Russia will likely be okay with that.
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  2136. The real question is how many more countries the US would have invaded by 2027...
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  2137. It's funny how westerners keep insisting China is closed off from the internet and deny or denigrate as bots anytime they see them online, but at the same time act like they know the minds of the people of China better than anyone lol. China seems to be far more focused on pushing back America than reclaiming anything from Russia. Which makes sense as the former represents far more of a threat to it than the latter could ever be worth. China moving to reclaim outer Manchuria or any other part of Russia would be a needless and wasteful distraction that'd serve their enemies more than anyone, and they likely know that.
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  2138.  @meilinchan7314  Peter the Great went to war aplenty. EU or no EU, even Peter the Great would've had misgivings about submitting to American hegemony.
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  2139. @Канал Уокера If you include the eastern Roman empire (otherwise known as the Byzantines), which the people of the time certainly would have, then Rome fell only in 1453. Considering that 'institutionally' it continued along similar lines as the 'original' empire, it stands that Rome survived with its institutional makeup for a very long time. But even at your preferred figure of 5 centuries, Rome still puts to shame the authors conviction that 'inclusive institutions' (whatever that means, cos it sounds like a euphemism to me) are necessary for longevity - that's way longer than both modern Britain and the US. And if you want an even better example, consider ancient Egypt. This idea that nations need to be like, conveniently, the countries the authors themselves identify with in order to be successful is just pure triumphalism.
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  2140. This isn't much of a prediction, given that the channel probably has more Indian than Pakistani viewers anyway. Just cos of the difference in populations and wealth, if nothing else.
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  2141.  @SaturnineXTS  He should have. America is a key part of this whole game.
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  2142.  @QWERTY-gp8fd  America does tho. The dollar has even greater reach, and is also used as official currency in many countries.
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  2143. Doesn't matter for the west. Whatever happens internally, they aren't looking for another foreign takeover. They experienced that already in 53, and hated it so much they overthrew it. They won't cave to an invasion.
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  2144. Doesn't matter for the west. Whatever happens internally, they aren't looking for another foreign takeover. They experienced that already in 53, and hated it so much they overthrew it. They won't cave to an invasion.
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  2145. They experienced foreign takeover already in 53, and hated it so much they overthrew it.
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  2146. Doesn't matter for the west. Whatever happens internally, they aren't looking for another foreign takeover.
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  2147. Doesn't matter for the west. Whatever happens internally, they aren't looking for another takeover.
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  2148. Doesn't matter. Whatever happens internally, they won't support another foreign takeover.
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  2149. They experienced foreign takeover already in 53, and hated it so much they overthrew it.
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  2150.  @shaneslr9123  It's more true today than ever, cos they know who it is who's sanctioning them and it isn't anyone else BUT the west. They may have their grievances against the regime, but they don't look at the west as a benefactor lol.
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  2151. ​ @shaneslr9123  anyone else BUT the west. They may have their internal grievances, but they don't look at the west as a benefactor.
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  2152.  @shaneslr9123  isn't anyone else BUT the west. They may have
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  2153.  @a4h426  Text memes take a bit longer to write, and have less impact (and hence less popularity) than a picture would. That is actually a good thing, since it discourages their use somewhat - hopefully in favor of more substantive discussion, but even if not, having less of those useless reactions is still a positive.
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  2154.  @a4h426  Speak for yourself. And this is under a serious geopolitics vid. If you were looking for entertainment, there are far better parts of the internet to frequent, and last I checked they don't lack in fun factor as is.
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  2155.  @a4h426  ......
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  2156.  @abraxas1983  That changes nothing. The west never changed its depiction of Russia no matter how it acted so who cares. If you're always gonna be treated as the villain, may as well make the most of that. Same deal with the Chinese, who're quickly turning into the very hostile rival the west painted them as. If you make your own demons, don't be surprised when they bite.
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  2157.  @KoroushRP  Cos he's Azeri. Your point?
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  2158. It doesn't matter how many times Europeans insist on this, both Russia as well as plenty of other people around the world continue and will continue to see NATO as little more than a front for American power projection. Russia isn't worried about Latvia invading it, it's worried about having to bow down before Washington. And this can happen even without an actual invasion, just by leaving them powerless to counter any American actions they don't like. Or what the US calls 'containment', which is unsurprisingly language China doesn't find too innocent either as the US attempts to do the same to them.
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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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  2160.  @davidblair9877  "Libya destroyed itself. Yugoslavia destroyed itself." Sure bud, just keep blaming everyone apart from yourselves. Then Ukraine destroyed itself too in 2014. Libya had a govt. toppled, with active western intervention. Ukraine also had a govt. toppled WITHOUT Russian intervention, following which Russia took Crimea. You don't get to back rebel govts. you like and actively fight for them, and then blame Russia for reacting to the ouster of a govt. Russia didn't start it either, the Euromaidan did. As for 9/11, Russia is also responding then. Not just to one attack, but continuous attacks on ethnic Russians in Donbas. See, two can the excuse game. Btw 9/11 killed 3000 people, the Afghan war killed around 300000. Some 'defense' that is. By contrast Ukrainian casualties are nowhere as big.
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  2161.  @xa-12musk8  "Boiling pot of ethnics tensions like that was doomed to fail." - India says hi. :) That's all I'll reference in your comment.
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  2162. Would you prefer to be like the French, for whom protest is their national pastime? They're not doing too hot either rn btw.
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  2163.  @conservativedemocracyenjoyer That's what you keep telling yourselves to justify it, which is no different from what the Russians or any other nation would tell themselves to justify what they do. Also wording is funny - you like to pretend you were being smart, plenty of others would just see it as cowardice.
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  2164. The video covers Starlink. It offers only very limited protection, as its capabilities are and will continue to be minimal.
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  2165.  @mallitah  Yes and no. They can hit it sure, but such a strike can't be disguised as anything else. Only a target if hostilities have already begun, not something they can do covertly.
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  2166.  @OptimalOwl  That only deals with one of the reasons cost overruns happen i.e. that they underestimate the cost when making their bids. Plenty of cost inflation occurs during the actual building phase as well, especially if it spans a long period of time and is highly contentious, bureaucratic and complex.
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  2167. @Dimosthenis Karamparpas Why does Europe even need to be bigger? There are other parts of the world that're more crowded yet still work, nor does Europe particularly need more farmland.
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  2168.  @OptimalOwl  Yes, everyone expects such inefficiencies and overruns. Even the people here in the comments are doing that. But notice how no one has been able to provide a proper specific figure for it. Or if they have, it's just a hand-wavey guess. You can't do that on a serious proposal. You need to have a specific figure in mind, and also some at least plausible rationale for it. So another explanation (and it's not necessarily the whole reason, but it does contribute) for why the proper number isn't provided is simply because no one knows it. At least not with any confidence or justification. They know it'll likely overrun. Their client (the govt.) knows it'll likely overrun. They know their client knows. Their client knows that they know that he knows. But no one actually knows how much. That's something that only becomes apparent once the boots are on the ground and the building commences (and keep in mind that there are plenty of genuinely unforeseen circumstances, like public opposition leading to frequent halts), and as stuff goes up (or as the say in the military, no plan survives first contact). So they just present what costs they can account for, with the tacit understanding by all parties (including the watching public, as evident in these comments) that it's going to overrun by some uncertain amount, hoping that that amount isn't too large.
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  2169.  @OptimalOwl  Mind that I'm not saying underreporting costs in order to try to win contracts doesn't happen. It does. But as you've pointed out, that isn't a factor here. I'm simply saying that there's plenty of other reasons why stuff goes overbudget, which would likely still occur for megaprojects like this. So it's still likely to cost more than predicted. This one even has issues that most public infrastructure projects don't face, such as geopolitical tensions and quite possibly active public opposition (and it'll have to run through the terms of multiple different govts. in a multitude of countries, so expect a lot of flip-flopping).
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  2170.  @AlphaOmega461  Counterweight to Iran for what? Irans' ambitions are in the region. They constitute zero threat to America, which is thousands of miles away. Isreal is simply a "valuable ally" to America to...protect Israel. It has no real value beyond that. And it has already proven itself more than capable of defending itself.
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  2171.  @MrAlexkyra  Ukraine is irrelevant. Russia doesn't care about Ukraine. Just look at its list of demands, barely anything about Ukraine. This was never about Ukraine, but about NATO. And frankly, it's not about NATO either, but really America.
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  2172. ​ @JanBruunAndersen  "Any decision by a dictatorship, like in Cuba, is by its nature illegitimate." - lol, this is so idealistically naive. The west has had plenty of dictator allies over the years little one, including today. Even Cuba was led by a dictator ally before Castro - Batista. Some of them have even been put in power by the west, such as in Chile. Others wage war with western blessings, such as Indonesia or now KSA. You think your govts. consider their actions illegitimate? Grow up kid. The real world doesn't operate by your idealistic rules. Btw, Castro cancelled a lot of the decisions that the previous dictator had made for US companies. That's what made the US so mad at him that they even went so far as to invade (something even China has yet to do to Taiwan in over 70 years now). But by your rules, those decisions weren't legitimate anyway, so why so mad? In fact the US had no business being there anyway even during Batista's time. After all, his decisions weren't legitimate. And I can extend this line of thinking to practically every relationship the west has with an autocratic regime, because your ruleset is, to put it frankly, hilariously naïve and impractical. Legitimacy isn't some holy status, it's a function of recognition. And the west is plenty experienced in hypocrisy and realpolitik to know the value of pragmatism. Dictatorships get legitimacy aplenty, provided it serves your interests to do so.
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  2173.  @saltylad2107  They're not 'brainwashed' so much as just hate the other side. Mind you, the other side hates them just as much. This is just classic tribalism circa 2019.
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  2174.  @scroopynooperz9051  India did have an effective military when the British first came, and they did lose to it multiple times. Haven't you ever heard of DIVIDE and Conquer? The British began succeeding in India only as the Mughal empire, whose army they didn't dare take on at its height, collapsed. And they didn't do so with a grand battle - they were a trading company that diversified into a mercenary company. Early on they rarely fought for themselves, they allied with or were hired by other Indian kingdoms, and even used bribery on several occasions to win battles. It wasn't even the British crown that established the Raj, it was the East India Company. The crown only took charge in 1857, after they had done most of the work. Few suspected the EIC of establishing an empire cos they were a mere company, not a king. They also did lose battles, but they were so enormously profitable that they were always able to raise more money from investors. In short the Raj was established incrementally, via business and politics, not thru some grand war in which they beat all of India. They never fought all of India, they played it against itself as it's hegemon - the Mughals - slowly disintegrated. When India actually united against them, they eventually left.
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  2175.  @Bayard1503  "strong country" - you obviously have no idea how India was taken over, nor read my quick explainer above. "more connected" - lmao! Do you have any idea who the two biggest trading powers for most of history right up till the British came were? India and China. India was so connected that you can find its goods all the way on the other side of the world, and its culture shaped multiple entire world regions. You can its influence across Asia, and its stuff across the world.
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  2176.  @ramjam720  Pretty sure Putin would happily trade getting those lands back for kicking the Americans out. Ukraine wasn't attacked before the Maidan revolution, it was attacked only after it turned to the west. Russia has plenty of land, what it wants is to get rid of the US power projection from the continent. Ditto China in Taiwan - they see Taiwan the way the US saw Cuba when the Soviets put forces there.
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  2177.  @VoidOfDarkness9  Do you even have a source for that "millions of Falun gong peoples or Christians or Muslims that died in prison as organ donor" crap? My sources are the World Bank and Prison Policy Institute, which is a US non-profit lol. Care to back up your numbers from anywhere near as well regarded? Or are you just another conspiracy nut pulling numbers out of your ass to suit your own biases?
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  2178.  @VoidOfDarkness9  Ah yes of course. Let's just disregard reputed institutions when they tell us things we don't like to hear, and believe randos online when they tell us things that match our preconceived biases. Yeah, you're a true paragon of objectivity bub.
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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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  2180. Tbf the West does the opposite of this - assume those nations will just let their waters be occupied by the US Navy and their trade suffer for a war that they're not part of. Japan sure and the Philippines maybe, but the rest? Unlikely. It isn't just China's invasion that's played up, but the way the US can just have its way with the region is also assumed. And no, if the US forces its way into their waters, that is an act of war - not just on China, but on them too.
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  2181.  @DedMan516  Yeah
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  2182. ​ @scratchy996  Lol, you people think anything that doesn't match western rhetoric is Russian propaganda, so whatever. The problem with you isn't that you're pro-western, it's that you're an idiot who can't think beyond your childish delusions of dungeons and dragons. You even concoct ideas out of hot air that fly in the face of fact to cater to your imagination of yourself as a crusading hero against evil. Ironically perfect audience for propaganda.
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  2183. Ironically nukes were first invented by - and have only ever been used by - a democracy. But sure, let's worry about what autocrats will do and pretend democracy is some sort of magic straitjacket that precludes their use
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  2184. ​ @stephenjenkins7971  The reason the US lead that poll isn't simply because of its destructive potential, but also its history. They've actually BEEN in more wars than any other nation in the modern age. So the US doesn't simply have the ability, they've also shown the desire to use it. As for its allies, there's also allies the US has sacrificed. Most recently the former Afghan govt, and just before that the Kurds, so they're hardly dependable for anyone who works with them. They've got a pretty chequered history outside of NATO. Meanwhile they've launched several wars of their own that had little to do with helping allies, such as the last two for instance. But those allies have still been expected to provide support for said wars despite them not being defensive engagements. Overall it hardly paints the US as a reliable ally, unless you're part of the old boys' club of former imperial powers. Any new alliances are subject to their utility to US interests, and thus terminated whenever convenient.
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  2185.  @loonowolf2160 Lmao! It's so ironic how the very people who love screeching 'whataboutism' whenever people bring up the US in response to criticism of Russia, themselves resort to whataboutism as soon as the shoe is on the other foot. 😏
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  2186.  @cmdkaboom  Lmao! It's so ironic how the very people who love screeching 'whataboutism' whenever people bring up the US in response to criticism of Russia, themselves resort to whataboutism as soon as the shoe is on the other foot. 😏
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  2187.  @robertsaget9697 "not being under the thumb of the hegemon" - lmao, what world do you live in?! 😅
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  2188.  @robertsaget9697  You work off of assumptions, I work off of history. The US' last war ended in 2021, China's in 1979. Hell even that 1979 war was with a nation the US had just fought a war with - China's war had 60k losses, the US' war had 3 million. Your own record damns you, so YOU need meds. Also classic false dichotomy tactic.
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  2189. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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  2190.  @dehertzbear9588  Switzerland was used as an example to show how important it is to have rich and stable neighbours, which Rwanda doesn't. Also Switzerland as an example of a service based economy is pretty bad. It has banking sure, but apart from that they manufacture and export quite a lot of actual physical stuff. Which, again, Rwanda needs its neighbours for.
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  2191.  @KevinJohnson-cv2no  Other countries have those resources, Rwanda mostly doesn't.
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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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  2194.  @ericbatkhuu8696  Russia wanted this over quick so they could win before Germany had a change of heart. They didn't...
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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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  2196.  @robertsaget9697  No. I don't blame my coffee on the US. It gets a pass on that. 😌
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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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  2198.  @orionstark  Lol, what drugs come from China is peanuts compared to what they went through. Plus they aren't gonna go to war to preserve it.
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  2199.  @patricka.crawley6572  Gee, thanks for not nuking the world (and then being nuked in turn). Lol!
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  2200.  @patricka.crawley6572  See your own comment above.
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  2201. Thing is, just free trade and free movement doesn't sound very impressive. The impact will be very limited, owing to the 4 nations mostly not trading with each other much. There's far better markets for all of them, and much better sources of labour too, so CANZUK ends up looking pretty pathetic as just a free trade agreement. Hardly the shot in the arm Britain needs right now.
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  2202.  @koopo3472  Shirvan isn't Turkish, fyi.
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  2203.  @damian4926  How the hell are his videos Russian propaganda? They're always undermining and downplaying Russia's claims.
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  2204.  @Samirustem  It's his research that has come up short tho. Take a look at the comment sections of his previous videos on Ukraine - you'll find plenty of people pointing out how his info or maps are already out of date. He's not great with developing situations, much better with static ones that don't get enough attention. And it is good for views - these vids get more of them on average than ones on less hot button topics.
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  2205. Your newspaper provides you with the latest daily news, and mostly just the most noteworthy bits of it (rather than the more 'boring' administrative or geopolitical basis for, or analysis of, it). This is more comparable to a documentary, and there are documentaries on stuff like this.
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  2206.  @Volv0x.  The point is self-sufficiency, not competing in the rat race. The US also has lithium, which it doesn't extract.
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  2207. @Let's Travel It's not just Putin who dislikes America you know. The Russian public does too. And they both have a more favorable view of the Chinese. Good luck forming the basis for that alliance...
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  2208.  @unluckytourist  The only regions that caused problems for Britain were their neighbours in Europe. But most of the misery the UK has exported was to the non-European world. That isn't "fair".
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  2209. Imagine if the US went to war with Venezuela. Then Iran, thinking the US was too stretched to effectively fight it, completes its nukes. So the US goes to war with Iran. Then China, seeing the opportunity, fortifies its island bases in the South China Sea, trounces Hong Kong and threatens Taiwan. So the US tries taking them on too. Then Russia moves out further to cement its position in eastern Europe. Have fun fighting a war on 4 fronts, America! So many wars, so little time. ;)
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  2210.  @RangerB66  No you don't. Russia has NATO, an organization it spent 30 years requesting not to expand. It did it anyway.
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  2211.  @HeinrichVenter88  Nah just data. All freely available online - simply compare the number of wars the US has been involved in to any other country. :)
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  2212.  @雷-t3j  European peace is paid for by a dominant empire, the American one. And Russia's issues all center around said empire. As does China's btw. More war to look forward to, as that empire's dominance is attacked again and again and again.
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  2213.  RULE BRITANNIA  Ironically Guns, Germs and Steels' main thesis is that, for geographic reasons, the dominant powers in the world were always far more likely to come from Eurasia. Note the Asia part, it doesn't say it was going to be from the UK. That's treated as more of a fluke of this run of history than anything else i.e. it could've been from somewhere else if we played out human history again. In other words, you were lucky lol. But then everyone loves treating their luck as due to genius.
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  2214.  @fjooyou  "exact word "fairness"' - lmao! Final proof of you being a troll. Cya!
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  2215. ​ @azhariarif  It's telling that YT these days disappears all kinds of comments, even ones that are innocuous, but let your blatantly racist one through.
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  2216. @Suðringa o Britains' economy is actually pretty modest if you take London out of it. Why would you do that? Cos what London brings to the table is financial services. A good chunk of the UK's economy is just finance. And finance doesn't much care about physical trade. In terms of actual goods, it's pretty average as far as developed nations go. And none of those countries have much use for English financiers, a good chunk of whom simply generate wealth by servicing the wealthy.
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  2217.  @srafid2000  India has had more than enough bad history with the us to not blindly ally itself with them. It's a partnership of convenience, nothing more. They haven't forgotten all that the us did to them.
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  2218. What's there to report? There's been no significant changes, have there?
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  2219. In that case Iran should be allowed to have nukes. They have good reason to have it too, as they already face threats from both in the region and from outside of it. And two of those threats - the US and Israel - have nukes of their own.
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  2220.  @sebastianfibes2126  You can't program judgment, only keywords and other such shorthands. If we could do that, then the EU's new Article 13 (or whatever number they've switched it to now) wouldn't be so controversial - the law already excepts memes, critiques, parodies and all the other stuff people are concerned about, but the issue is that determining what qualifies as that or not is just something algorithms can't do well and so people are worried. So that 'screening' ends up resulting in tons of false positives and missing true negatives.
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  2221. Which just ensures they're going to do what everyone wants to prevent them from doing in order to restore deterrence..
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  2222.  @pablodelsegundo9502  Plenty of surveys have shown that He still has majority support, including foreign ones. They don't need to take notes from the likes of U.
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  2223.  @DemonZest  The UN is warning of literally 1.5 million displaced. Seems many of those civilians disagree with you. Assad was an Alawite - he was good for some civilians, bad for others. These rebels are among those others, and so this turn of events will similarly be good for some civilians (theirs) and bad for others. And that's assuming they're in control, which they won't be. There's literally dozens of other groups for them to contend with.
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  2224. @wingeditz41 These aren't liberals fighting for democracy. They literally used to be with Al Qaeda. Only Turkey gains from this.
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  2225.  @DemonZest  The UN is warning of literally 1.5 million displaced. Seems many of those civilians disagree with you.
    1
  2226.  @DemonZest  Assad was an Alawite - he was good for some civilians, bad for others. These rebels are among those
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  2227.  @DemonZest  others, and so this turn of events will similarly be good for some civilians (theirs) and bad for others. And
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  2228.  @DemonZest  that's assuming they're in control, which they won't be. There's literally dozens of other groups there.
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  2229. @Robert Rote Or perhaps that's exactly what they'd want? After all, NATO encircles them ever more with each passing year. Now think about the current situation - a virus is pushing the US into recession (which hasn't hit Russia as hard), the US just signed a peace deal in Afghanistan to withdraw from there, and they have a contentious election coming up. Russia is already trying to hurt their oil industry. Now seems like a great time to drawn them into a war - not to win, but to drain. What if Russia did invade the Baltics, but with restraint? Just enough to draw a full NATO response. Then they don't fight them. Just skirmish and antagonize them. Force the US to expend even more resources to fend the Russians off, while conserving their own since they're close to home. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of the old enemy striking out will likely help Putin's favored presidential candidate with his election prospects, and the resources the US needs to fight off the virus and its economic woes will be stretched thin as they're drawn into yet another far away conflict. Great time to make the Americans pay - through the nose.
    1
  2230. You're naïve if you think Russia could ever do that. They have decades of resentment built up. Look at China and Japan - they haven't been at war in generations, and still hate each other. And besides, friendly relations with its neighbors would do nothing about the 800-pound American gorilla in the neighborhood. You'd be delusional if you thought that would ever get them to expel the US. Friendly relations is simply not an option - there's no way it could ever get Russia what it wants i.e. to make the US leave.
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  2231.  Caleb Ryan Koko  k....
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  2232.  Caleb Ryan Koko  k....
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  2233.  @arnoldshmitt4969  Most of those enemies don't want a war with China. South Korea certainly doesn't. India will defend its borders, but won't attack - China can't really project into the Indian Ocean and it's in India's interest to not have the sea lanes disrupted. Japan will only allow itself to be used as a US base of operations, so they're pretty much just the US. And that leaves Vietnam, pretty much the only nation that might contribute...maybe. Indeed Japan and possibly Vietnam are the only countries the US could lean on in the region, the rest will stay well out of it - and generally be against any kind of escalation.
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  2234.  TurntTablez  "Me, an American: The EU did this." - Are you sure you're not a Brit, even by heritage? ;)
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  2235.  @Alusnovalotus  Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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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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  2237. ​ @arhus12  "It's never justified to invade another country." - and you've done nothing about it to hold yourselves back, or punish yourselves, so why should we be roped into your crusade to conveniently use that supposed principle to undermine your enemies? How gullible do you take the rest of the world for? Your point on NATO meanwhile just betrays your illiteracy since it's irrelevant how NATO enlarged, only that it did. You can keep crowing about NATO protecting the poor defenseless little guys till the cows come home, it doesn't change the fact that it's widely seen as an extension of American hegemony. Lastly your point on Finland is literally contradictory, to the point it makes you seem mentally challenged. If Finlands' 'strong military' is what kept it safe all this time, then it doesn't need to join NATO to begin with. Especially now, given Russia's difficulties in Ukraine. There's never a time when Finland needed NATO less than now. During the heyday of the USSR is when the Finns would've needed to join NATO the most, yet they didn't and nothing happened.
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  2238. ​ @arhus12  Or let me put it this way - you want anyone to take your supposed moral claim that "It's never justified to invade another country" seriously? Punish America for doing it. Sanction it. Put its leaders on a the wanted list. Make them pay reparations. We are not here to meekly follow along with your supposed principles as and when they are convenient for you to crow about and use against your enemies. Else you have no moral pedestal to speak from and the world is free to respond to your hypocrisy with as much indifference and eyerolls as it likes. Oh and don't even bother picking fights with nations that haven't invaded another land since 1979, alongside one that was forced to end its last invasion as recently as 2021. Your rhetoric is just that - empty hypocrisy.
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  2239.  @samukis272  The Kremlin doesn't have power over you, they're a trade partner. Power over you would imply that they can get you to hurt yourselves, whereas here all that's happening is Germany prioritizing its own interests over that of Ukraine. That may be self-centred, but it isn't subservient.
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  2240.  @Barwasser  Also Germany. Which Prussia practically founded. Very successful I'd say.
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  2241.  @RK-cj4oc  Yeah but they did enter the capital tho. Armed. 🙃
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  2242.  @Barwasser  Sure, but you could say that about anything, including the army itself - armies need good generals just as nations need good rulers. Or even companies need good CEOs. Doesn't really say much about the idea of army with a country to point that out.
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  2243.  @Barwasser  The empire lasted for centuries tho. The Marian reforms didn't kill the Roman state, quite the opposite. Plus the republic had plenty of factionalism of its own between patrician families. If anything there was probably less of that later since the only factions that mattered later were the handful of men with sizable legions at their back.
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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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  2245.  @dannyboy-vtc5741  "they just bomb railroad bridges, sink some ships in ports and similar stuff" - bruh, you've already suggested they can just attack other nations ships passing through their waters, and now here you're suggesting they can literally bomb bridges and attack ports of other nations themselves. What fantasy land are you living in? These are literally acts of war. Western sea routes are hostile simply because they can impose restriction there via legal decree without even having to go to war. You can't do that on other nations territory - you have to force it. Have fun justifying going to war with half a dozen nations simply cos of who they trade with. You'll unite most of the world against you as at that point you're undermining the very concept of national sovereignty itself.
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  2246.  @kinngrimm  Those are not official soldiers, they're people who were fighting their own govt. before this war.
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  2247. Tldr Global did a fairly unbiased video on another aspect of this conflict that isn't covered in this video - demographics, and its impact on the politics in the region. Pretty nice added info to accompany this video imo.
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  2248.  @barreloffun10  Russia likely has considered it, as has China. Both concluded it isn't an option as long as America reigns.
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  2249.  @POCLEE  Ah yes, vanity. Now how does the rest of that saying go...? Britain was a "AAA-superpower" less than a century ago, and look at it now. All it took was a world war. And the way things are heading, a world war is looking increasingly more likely as the US accumulates ever more enemies.
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  2250.  @POCLEE  Lol, they didn't 'give it up', they didn't have a choice. They were utterly exhausted by war, and now had two new superpowers to adjust to. They were even shown their diminished status during the Suez Crisis. Even so they have still held on to what power they could, especially France which continues to maintain informal control of west Africa (incidentally not too different from what Russia was content to do with eastern Europe). They simply don't get called out for their shit cos they're in America's boys club. You have a very romanticized view of modern history lol. You're watching a geopolitics channel and yet seriously believe in the idea of nations being ethical entities seeking to be nice? In that case I suggest you look into the history of decolonization for starters. It wasn't sunshine and rainbows. Just like the world wars that finally brought it to a head, it was an often brutal and bloody process, even well into the the 20th century. Change was forced upon Europe, it wasn't allowed.
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  2251.  @natopor  No, but cos the US did bad things it ought to be under heavy sanctions too. So why isn't it? What's your clever justification for that gonna be? And mind that those things precede this war, so the US should've already been punished.
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  2252.  @elnur0047  It isn't whataboutism to point out that the US gets away with all its shit. Where are the sanctions on America? You don't get to let the US off and then pretend the moral high ground against Russia.
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  2253.  @natopor  Bub you can go on about the US being infallible all you want, that's just sidestepping the issue. Plus you just made the case for might makes right, so don't even try criticizing Russia now. You're avoiding admitting to hypocrisy by pretending it's okay cos the US is strong. That's revealing. You can't bring yourself to say it - that the US deserves to be punished just as Russia is being. So you'll dance around the topic with every sidetrack you can think of to avoid admitting to any guilt. I suppose we'll have to wait for the next world war to see if that upturns the status quo and maybe then we'll see the US face justice (not that I'm hopeful of that - it's not like the Europeans ever faced justice for their myriad horrors, save Germany). At least America is making said world war ever more likely as it makes enemies all over the world (Russia, China, Iran,...).
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  2254.  @natopor  Oh and btw that girl should've ratted you all out. And if you had any decency, which apparently you don't since you just admitted to cheating, you'd have stood and admitted to it before she even did so. But no, you enjoyed getting away with it, as does the US. For now...
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  2255. Enough about Ukraine, it's done to death on this channel already. BRICS in 2022 is a worthwhile topic in its own right, and there's plenty enough to cover regarding them even without the Ukraine issue.
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  2256.  @spacecraftcarrier4135  China isn't going to annex any Indian land - they can't and they know it. The purpose of the border tensions is to get India to allocate more of its military budget to its northern army than to its southern navy. There's very little in those lands for China, what is of far more concern to them is India's presence in the Indian Ocean. Specifically via the Andaman and Nicobar islands, which are close to the Malacca Strait. As for Taiwan, the tensions began in 2017 - nothing changed in China then (Xi came to power in 2012), it changed in America with Trump coming to power and launching an anti-China crusade (which has continued after him cos American voters loved it). That situation has remained stable for over half a century, but the Chinese are very against the US gaining influence over the region (much like Russia with eastern Europe).
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  2257.  @fatalshore5068  Ah okay. I was under the impression that you weren't aware of its provenance.
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  2258.  @juanrivera7912  He won't 'build influence' cos he doesn't change anything. He's more a friend to Lukashenko than he is to anyone looking to bring a change to the system in Belarus. Even if he were to take over, it would change little in Belarus.
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  2259.  @hectorestrada3764  Ironically you sound like the kind of thug that westerners love saying Russia is lol. "I can care less how the so called global south sees anything" - the main difference is that western politicians don't say it plain as you did. "Consequences always follow, are you ready to pay the price" - yep, spoken like a true mafia boss. Mayhaps even a Russian mafia boss...
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  2260.  @itayil9319  Sure the people who've literally voted Hezbollah into their govt. supposedly hate it. Lol, cool story bro! 😂
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  2261. The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  2262.  @blindbuddha  His upload frequency hasn't really changed much from before the outbreak.
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  2263.  sfasfasfaf asfasfasfasf  No one has mentioned India here, so get lost with your weakass attempts to troll every thread.
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  2264.  @tero2444  The more you people tell yourself this, the more likely WW3 is. Not just with Russia, but China and Iran too. Western hubris and recklessness is just going to make this world a more dangerous place. Something Caspians' past videos have often said (think every time he talks about parity), yet dick size obsessed viewers like you don't get. The more the US sees itself as master of the universe, the less stable the whole world gets.
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  2265. ​ @afro_princess1671  Video says Ukr, and there was indeed a warrant issued by Germany for a dude from there recently, who Poland conveniently let slip through its fingers back into Ukr.
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  2266.  @inteallsviktigt  Increasingly yes, since the west is turning it away anyway. You're only making them more ready to be hostile.
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  2267.  @inteallsviktigt  Increasingly yes, since the west is turning them away anyway.
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  2268.  @inteallsviktigt  Increasingly yes, since the west is putting up more barriers anyway.
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  2269.  @inteallsviktigt  Increasingly yes, since the west is trying to contain and perhaps even blockade them one day anyway.
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  2270.  @inteallsviktigt  Increasingly yes, since the west is imposing trade restrictions and even ever more sanctions on them anyway.
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  2271. You can't drop nukes on China anyway without letting them - and likely the Russians too - drop nukes on you in turn. And they know it, hence making that 'statement' effectively meaningless.
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  2272.  knoahbody69  Dude, Japan has even worse demographic issues than China does lol. And they're the closest threat. Why would China back down when it has all the advantages, when the fighting is literally in the best battlefield it could ask for?
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  2273. Ironically Russia would likely be fine with a purely European force IF it really was just European i.e. America exits completely. No 'dormant' NATO, but an actual clean split. That's the Europe they're used to from centuries past, and likely want it back.
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  2274. 'Wakanda' owes you nothing. Quite the opposite in fact - you owe it. A LOT.
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  2275. The US has literally intimidated India with its navy (1971 Bangladesh independence, when they sided with Pakistan) and even sanctioned India already (after we declared ourselves a nuclear power). They made this relationship combative, not us. We've learned over the years that the US can be useful, but can never be trusted.
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  2276.  @Embarassedseagrass  If that bothers you, go protest outside your own govt. Cos most of the world doesn't recognize it as such, yes including the US. Stop picking on a damn YT channel that's just sticking to the established nomenclature.
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  2277. Caspian sure is milking this grand geopolitical conflict narrative for all its worth. It certainly caters to his mostly western audience. But no, India is not planning on 'checkmating' China (and this is an Indian saying this), we're simply neutralizing them. There's a difference, a very significant one. The former makes it seem like India is going to wage the US' war on China for them - we most certainly are not. We're just making sure we have something to hit back at China with should they take action against us. We are NOT Ukraine, and will not be used so.
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  2278. Yeah we just finished seeing how well the US won the day on land in Afghanistan lol...
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  2279.  @sjl197  I make no comment on what the pieces get up to when they're all together in the same room. :)
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  2280.  @punkhyena875  That remains to be seen. Flipping the board always looks destructive.
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  2281.  @PoorPakistanisSurrenderwasFant  And yet again we see the bhakt bot slipping into every comment chain...
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  2282.  @bababababababa6124  The Nobel Peace Prize has long been a joke, and Abiy isn't even the worst example of this. At least in his case you could argue they didn't know how the future would go. But then we've got people like Peres and Arafat and Kissinger getting it, all of whom were already known warmongers. Or Obama getting it, to even his own surprise, without even having done anything for it yet.
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  2283.  @BlackDoveNYC  You think China and India don't make anything lol? They literally make probably most of what of you own.
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  2284.  @PeccatorSpePlenus  The most 'toxic' people are the people who throw around the word toxic at the drop of a hat.
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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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  2286. ​ @la3424  That's the thing you people fail to understand but that we do - China will always be there, just as Russia will always be there. Americans especially struggle with this cos they're far away from both. Whatever happens, we know that it's only a matter of time before they're back. Hell Russia DID collapse, and here we are 30 years later. As an Indian I'll confidently state my belief that we can hold our own against them in a war defensively - we don't have the worlds' fourth strongest military cos we're counting on the west to save our asses. But even I will admit we'd fail miserably if we tried to taking them out instead, and not only that but we couldn't hold anything across the border either and so it'd only be a matter of time before it's back once more. Our strategy is simply to deal with China as best we can, not to neutralize it as it seems the west wants. Unlike the US, we don't have examples like Japan or Germany to draw on to fill ourselves with the confidence - or imo arrogance - to believe we can just impose our will and change them to our liking. So we make do, and learn to live with it. Our grand ambitions involve superseding China, not destroying it or remolding it into something else. In other words, the west dreams of a democratic China that follows its dictums like Japan does. We mainly dream of a China that accepts our borders and is a smaller economy than us. Those dreams aren't the same
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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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  2288. No, the comment section is full of people predicting it'll be a shitshow, who seem to vastly outnumber the actual shitshow comments. Quite the irony...
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  2289.  @JamesBond-wv9xz  They're neither liberal nor democratic. They literally used to be with Al-Qaeda.
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  2290.  @mantheman11  No. It was simply taken over by a different warlord. There's nothing liberating about any of these people
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  2291.  @AndresFigari  They want it FOR business, not just so they can plop down beachfront properties and sunbathe.
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  2292.  @lucaslabarca  Fair enough.
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  2293.  @muhdafif2855  Ah okay. Didn't know you'd worked in one of them lol. 😅
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  2294. Oh yeah sure, NOW you people want to hear from the locals, when you suspect they'll be on your side. Back when the borders were drawn and you had the power to avoid these messes all over the world you didn't give a shit to what the locals thought.
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  2295. Nothing like Vietnam. No one is even expecting Guyana to be able to put up a fight. It's more about her neighbours.
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  2296.  @bloodfiredrake7259 Ironically Trump is the only president in the last couple decades who didn't see a war start on his watch. On the contrary he pushed to end the ones his predecessors left him with. Trump is safer precisely because he isn't moral. Moralism has been used to justify all the wars both his predecessors and his successor have gotten America into. Every war needs a cause, and Trump sucks at that. The 'good guys' as they pretend to be are the ones who keep inventing reasons to go on crusade to sell to the US public. Trump just wants to wheel and deal, which actually helps to avoid war. Machiavelli would have approved, even if he'd prefer Trump be more subtle about it.
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  2297. It's not about fixing it, it's about avoiding further deterioration. It matters less that Venezuela has it than that their competitor doesn't. Also Guyana's oil is cheaper to process than Venezuela's oil. The latter has 'heavy' and 'sour' oil, which basically means it requires much more extensive processing to be usable for anything beyond asphalt. Guyana's oil is cheaper to work with. Prior to this move, it was actually going to be Exxon that was expected to profit the most from their reserves.
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