BahBiden and the Pentagon have already been laying the groundwork for who is to blame for their own foreign policy failures since last year:
-It’s Orangeman’s fault, a guy who hasn’t been president in 4 years
-It’s Mike Johnson’s fault, because he is a tool of Orangeman
-It’s Zelenskys fault, because he didn’t use our arms properly during thier failed counteroffensive
This country has a history of propping up foreigners, then discarding them when they no longer serve a purpose:
-Saddam Hussein
-Manuel Noriega
-Muammar Gaddafi
-Osama Bin Laden
Make no mistake about it, they will not accept blame and will blame someone else. This all could have ended with negotiations but Biden+Pentagon+resident armchair keyboard warriors wanted to ‘stick it to Russia’. It’s blowing up in their faces and now they’re in a panic.
Ukraine was supposed to get its aid in Dec and now we’re in April. It’s also amazing how the European warmongers have convinced these tools that a country 7000 miles away with an ocean between them should be providing the bulk of the funding for this war instead of the continent that borders Russia.
In the end, Russia will come out of this stronger militarily AND financially, and they will serve as an example of a country who successfully rid itself of western hegemony for other countries who want to move on from the dollar.
And once enough countries move away from the dollar, now the waiting game kicks in for hyperinflation. It’s not a surprise gold is along with the stock market. No sense in keeping dollars around, better to buy up assets.
More Russian soldiers have likely died seizing Avdiivka than in the entire Soviet-Afghan war, ISW says
Russian forces seized the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka earlier this month, suffering heavy losses in the process.www.businessinsider.com
It couldn't have happened to a better country.
Russia ~150 million Orcs.Another copium article. Gotta give the Ukraine cheerleaders SOMETHING to feel good about right?
‘We’re losing territory on a daily basis, the Russians have turned $100 billion of our tax dollars into ruble, but at LEAST we killed a bunch of orcs in the process!’
You can’t make this stuff up.
Another copium article. Gotta give the Ukraine cheerleaders SOMETHING to feel good about right?
‘We’re losing territory on a daily basis, the Russians have turned $100 billion of our tax dollars into ruble, but at LEAST we killed a bunch of orcs in the process!’
You can’t make this stuff up.
The level of wishcasting here is frankly hilarious.Biden and the Pentagon have already been laying the groundwork for who is to blame for their own foreign policy failures since last year:
-It’s Orangeman’s fault, a guy who hasn’t been president in 4 years
-It’s Mike Johnson’s fault, because he is a tool of Orangeman
-It’s Zelenskys fault, because he didn’t use our arms properly during thier failed counteroffensive
This country has a history of propping up foreigners, then discarding them when they no longer serve a purpose:
-Saddam Hussein
-Manuel Noriega
-Muammar Gaddafi
-Osama Bin Laden
Make no mistake about it, they will not accept blame and will blame someone else. This all could have ended with negotiations but Biden+Pentagon+resident armchair keyboard warriors wanted to ‘stick it to Russia’. It’s blowing up in their faces and now they’re in a panic.
Ukraine was supposed to get its aid in Dec and now we’re in April. It’s also amazing how the European warmongers have convinced these tools that a country 7000 miles away with an ocean between them should be providing the bulk of the funding for this war instead of the continent that borders Russia.
In the end, Russia will come out of this stronger militarily AND financially, and they will serve as an example of a country who successfully rid itself of western hegemony for other countries who want to move on from the dollar.
And once enough countries move away from the dollar, now the waiting game kicks in for hyperinflation. It’s not a surprise gold is along with the stock market. No sense in keeping dollars around, better to buy up assets.
I know several others have pointed this out before me. Thank you to those who did.. . . we're not even in overt attack mode/crushing mode, . . .
Goddamnit, attrition to the end.
Those poor sods are just going to get grinded down for nothing.
If we're not even in overt attack mode/crushing mode, that means that they'll just keep going slowly and methodically until there's barely any response/anyone alive on the Ukr side.
War is hell and I'm reminded every time I have to write something like that.
Yes, I would be very interested to know who ‘we’ refers to. I suspect he will never answer, while complaining about the lack of substantive debate.I know several others have pointed this out before me. Thank you to those who did.
Well, that didn't take long. Less then three days after that one joined?
Russian economy - $2.2 trillion
US economy - $25 trillion
Like what are you morons telling each other.
I know several others have pointed this out before me. Thank you to those who did.
Well, that didn't take long. Less then three days after that one joined?
Hardforum is the exact opposite. Their soapbox section reads like a q anon fan site. It’s all the crazy.- Are we on some sort of FSB psyop bulletin or something what the fuck is going with all the Russian troll farmers on AT?
That said, as I've participated more on Techspot and TPU forums, there seems to be a lot of uh... unusual political beliefs that go along with interest in PC hardware so dunno what that's about. AT is actually far more left leaning than some of the other tech sites out there.
So then:your first post in this thread, just opinion
Opinion
Claims to be able to post facts but can’t be bothered.
Opinion no facts
whining
Whining
Still no facts on Ukraine.
Discredited info, no response to fact check.
Still no Ukraine facts
Conspiracy theory and opinion no facts
Opinion but does self identify as a Russian.
Still looking for facts
Opinion
More whining
More opinion
More opinion
More opinion
Just weird
Opinion and an attempt to ignore who invaded who
Deflection
Sure are a lot Russians dying to weapons from countries that have no militaries. Also ignores significant increases in European military spending
Opinion
Whining
OpinionSo then:
- demand facts
- get told facts
- claim the facts are all "opinions" or "whining" or "not facts enough"
- demand facts
rinse and repeat until we reach another 36000 messages of collective denial. All the facts that don't fit your propaganda's narrative are instantly not facts but opinions, all the opinions that fit your narrative are facts.
The funny thing is, your war is lost and it's an unavoidable result. It's about waiting for the result of this sad affair, and the sooner the better. I could tell you "we can just wait and see who's wrong and you can come back to me when I'll be proven wrong" but, you won't, because I won't. The game is already set. We may not even see a single card left to play yet. Ukraine just going to be a sad, slow murder of men who die for a lost cause. And I can't stop it, clearly even just trying to spread some knowledge about the situation online is a lost cause.
@Young Grasshopper has also already mentioned the deepest of the horrible mistakes of this war, the death of the Dollar as the monopolistic global currency, which you have done entirely by yourselves. The Empire managed to pick what was its greatest tools of pressure and control, dollar global monopoly for international trades and SWIFT, and shot both of them by kicking Russia out of it in the hopes that it would kill their economy. In the end, Russia is doing quite well without them, and this move will have the same effect as..................................I actually can't find one. I can't think of a moment in History where a move this absurdly bad was ever played.
You had a way to tax the entire world through inflation thanks to the petrodollar. You had a way to control, monitor and block all international transfers in the banking system, or nearly all.
And you've shot them both by showing to the entire world that not using the dollar anymore would turn out fine, and giving Russia the incentive to create a SWIFT equivalent that they can just grow and provide to the world as an alternative.
You have taken a highly gas and petrol rich country, Russia, and forced it away from its natural economic and political partners in Europe, which you fully control as vassals, towards an alliance with a highly industrialised and populous country, China, that is thoroughly independent of you politically. And whose official goal is to retake its status as Greatest Empire on Earth after 150 years of humiliations (1830-1980).
The depth of this strategic mistake is beyond staggering, I can't think of a historical precedent this bad. Maybe firing Minister Calonne, which eventually led to the French Revolution. And that's peanuts compared to this.
While having every single card to play in hand, the U.S Empire has played them in a way that will destroy its global currency monopoly, its naturally dominant status, and its ability to control global trade. And you've offered China a forced partner that happens to have a ton of oil, when their lack of oil was one of their last resource issues along with lack of water. It's a self-own of tremendous proportions that will take decades to be truly felt to the last of its ripples.
I merely have to watch the rest unfold as it unavoidably will. And suffer the consequences as someone who lives in a vassal state to the Empire, but at least I know what to expect. In 10 or so years, Europe will be a shadow of what it was economically, the U.S will be suffering massive inflation (if you think TODAY's inflation is bad, wait for 2035), and there will be absolutely no walking back. And it'll only get worse from there.
The Empire held a crushing army, international trade control, could tax the world at will through money printing and the petrodollar paying for it, had strategic depth equal to what the British had in 1840, leaderless vassals across all Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa, a dominant position in the Middle East and held a massive advantage in the most advanced technologies, particularly weaponry, telecoms, chipmaking and pharmaceuticals.
By its incredibly poor moves in the Ukraine war, the American Empire has taken the dollar's hegemony and destroyed it. This and a certain Nordstream "accident" will suck away Europe's economies back to the U.S, since the vassals are always sacrificed before the Master, much like how Hungary, Czechia, Poland and East Germany were sacrificed before Russia fell in the late USSR. But when Europe, particularly Germany, will have been utterly spent, the U.S will face the hyperinflation that it can't dampen through international exchanges anymore, since any alternative will not suffer the same level of inflation and will be increasingly preferred.
The loss of the "free inflation" will mean that the U.S state will have to start facing its expenditures more strictly, which means that the massive army, massive navy, massive research expenditures, money that flowed into the biggest state-supported companies...everything will grow, for a lack of a better word, narrower. Giant pipes of money will become funnels. Funnels will become dead ends. The crushing military-industrial complex, state sponsored R&D, and whatever else that relied on the dollar not being Monopoly money, it's all going to go so painful as time goes on. All the while China irrevocably recovers its N°1 status with Russia in tow, as the West falls into an increasingly visible state of decay.
And much like the strategic situation in Donbass or Luhansk, that game is set. No credible amount of effort or plays will overturn this. You have moved History's gears into a position where the sheer weight of the world, that used to go your way, the "expensively inflationist, extraterritorial but oh-so-unavoidable Dollar" way, will now increasingly go to the competition that you forced to exist. And that's just the Russia moves. The China moves, getting them out of advanced chip/AI availability, is spurring even more efforts to get them to produce advanced chips and lithography. Sure, they rely on ASML, but for how long? 5 years? 10? Geopolitics is a long game, but the idiots who did this have somehow built a perfect block, with the industry, money, natural resources, and every single pillar necessary, against themselves.
SWIFT alternative and international trade currency to Russia, high volume industry and advanced technologies in semiconductors to China.
The Ukraine war will be marked down as the seminal event of the downfall of the U.S Empire, not because of what Russia will have done, but because of what the Americans will have done to themselves.
I still can't believe how poorly this was played. It's like having a perfect deck and somehow playing every card wrong. I would laugh if I wasn't going to be skewered and cooked along with the "This is fine" supporters.
The only silver lining is that two powers will not work as well as one, and that neither Russia or China are much interested in being a beacon of free trade. But the sheer weight of the world will push them into it.
I was going to answer to the rest, but frankly, I've already given you a lot, and got pretty much nothing but denial and insults for it. Trying to make you all think about the reality of what's going on is like feeding a pitbull with veggies. The pitbull vomits everything back, and you get your hands bitten for trying. So this'll be the last bit of wisdom from me. Spit at it, insult me, ignore it, call it "opinions", or whatever you please. Everything I said here, whether about the proxy war in Ukraine or the greater state of the U.S Empire, will come to pass nonetheless. It is only a question of time.
So then:
- demand facts
- get told facts
- claim the facts are all "opinions" or "whining" or "not facts enough"
- demand facts
rinse and repeat until we reach another 36000 messages of collective denial. All the facts that don't fit your propaganda's narrative are instantly not facts but opinions, all the opinions that fit your narrative are facts.
The funny thing is, your war is lost and it's an unavoidable result. It's about waiting for the result of this sad affair, and the sooner the better. I could tell you "we can just wait and see who's wrong and you can come back to me when I'll be proven wrong" but, you won't, because I won't. The game is already set. We may not even see a single card left to play yet. Ukraine just going to be a sad, slow murder of men who die for a lost cause. And I can't stop it, clearly even just trying to spread some knowledge about the situation online is a lost cause.
@Young Grasshopper has also already mentioned the deepest of the horrible mistakes of this war, the death of the Dollar as the monopolistic global currency, which you have done entirely by yourselves. The Empire managed to pick what was its greatest tools of pressure and control, dollar global monopoly for international trades and SWIFT, and shot both of them by kicking Russia out of it in the hopes that it would kill their economy. In the end, Russia is doing quite well without them, and this move will have the same effect as..................................I actually can't find one. I can't think of a moment in History where a move this absurdly bad was ever played.
You had a way to tax the entire world through inflation thanks to the petrodollar. You had a way to control, monitor and block all international transfers in the banking system, or nearly all.
And you've shot them both by showing to the entire world that not using the dollar anymore would turn out fine, and giving Russia the incentive to create a SWIFT equivalent that they can just grow and provide to the world as an alternative.
You have taken a highly gas and petrol rich country, Russia, and forced it away from its natural economic and political partners in Europe, which you fully control as vassals, towards an alliance with a highly industrialised and populous country, China, that is thoroughly independent of you politically. And whose official goal is to retake its status as Greatest Empire on Earth after 150 years of humiliations (1830-1980).
The depth of this strategic mistake is beyond staggering, I can't think of a historical precedent this bad. Maybe firing Minister Calonne, which eventually led to the French Revolution. And that's peanuts compared to this.
While having every single card to play in hand, the U.S Empire has played them in a way that will destroy its global currency monopoly, its naturally dominant status, and its ability to control global trade. And you've offered China a forced partner that happens to have a ton of oil, when their lack of oil was one of their last resource issues along with lack of water. It's a self-own of tremendous proportions that will take decades to be truly felt to the last of its ripples.
I merely have to watch the rest unfold as it unavoidably will. And suffer the consequences as someone who lives in a vassal state to the Empire, but at least I know what to expect. In 10 or so years, Europe will be a shadow of what it was economically, the U.S will be suffering massive inflation (if you think TODAY's inflation is bad, wait for 2035), and there will be absolutely no walking back. And it'll only get worse from there.
The Empire held a crushing army, international trade control, could tax the world at will through money printing and the petrodollar paying for it, had strategic depth equal to what the British had in 1840, leaderless vassals across all Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa, a dominant position in the Middle East and held a massive advantage in the most advanced technologies, particularly weaponry, telecoms, chipmaking and pharmaceuticals.
By its incredibly poor moves in the Ukraine war, the American Empire has taken the dollar's hegemony and destroyed it. This and a certain Nordstream "accident" will suck away Europe's economies back to the U.S, since the vassals are always sacrificed before the Master, much like how Hungary, Czechia, Poland and East Germany were sacrificed before Russia fell in the late USSR. But when Europe, particularly Germany, will have been utterly spent, the U.S will face the hyperinflation that it can't dampen through international exchanges anymore, since any alternative will not suffer the same level of inflation and will be increasingly preferred.
The loss of the "free inflation" will mean that the U.S state will have to start facing its expenditures more strictly, which means that the massive army, massive navy, massive research expenditures, money that flowed into the biggest state-supported companies...everything will grow, for a lack of a better word, narrower. Giant pipes of money will become funnels. Funnels will become dead ends. The crushing military-industrial complex, state sponsored R&D, and whatever else that relied on the dollar not being Monopoly money, it's all going to go so painful as time goes on. All the while China irrevocably recovers its N°1 status with Russia in tow, as the West falls into an increasingly visible state of decay.
And much like the strategic situation in Donbass or Luhansk, that game is set. No credible amount of effort or plays will overturn this. You have moved History's gears into a position where the sheer weight of the world, that used to go your way, the "expensively inflationist, extraterritorial but oh-so-unavoidable Dollar" way, will now increasingly go to the competition that you forced to exist. And that's just the Russia moves. The China moves, getting them out of advanced chip/AI availability, is spurring even more efforts to get them to produce advanced chips and lithography. Sure, they rely on ASML, but for how long? 5 years? 10? Geopolitics is a long game, but the idiots who did this have somehow built a perfect block, with the industry, money, natural resources, and every single pillar necessary, against themselves.
SWIFT alternative and international trade currency to Russia, high volume industry and advanced technologies in semiconductors to China.
The Ukraine war will be marked down as the seminal event of the downfall of the U.S Empire, not because of what Russia will have done, but because of what the Americans will have done to themselves.
I still can't believe how poorly this was played. It's like having a perfect deck and somehow playing every card wrong. I would laugh if I wasn't going to be skewered and cooked along with the "This is fine" supporters.
The only silver lining is that two powers will not work as well as one, and that neither Russia or China are much interested in being a beacon of free trade. But the sheer weight of the world will push them into it.
I was going to answer to the rest, but frankly, I've already given you a lot, and got pretty much nothing but denial and insults for it. Trying to make you all think about the reality of what's going on is like feeding a pitbull with veggies. The pitbull vomits everything back, and you get your hands bitten for trying. So this'll be the last bit of wisdom from me. Spit at it, insult me, ignore it, call it "opinions", or whatever you please. Everything I said here, whether about the proxy war in Ukraine or the greater state of the U.S Empire, will come to pass nonetheless. It is only a question of time.
It...Is...alive!So then:
- demand facts
- get told facts
- claim the facts are all "opinions" or "whining" or "not facts enough"
- demand facts
rinse and repeat until we reach another 36000 messages of collective denial. All the facts that don't fit your propaganda's narrative are instantly not facts but opinions, all the opinions that fit your narrative are facts.
The funny thing is, your war is lost and it's an unavoidable result. It's about waiting for the result of this sad affair, and the sooner the better. I could tell you "we can just wait and see who's wrong and you can come back to me when I'll be proven wrong" but, you won't, because I won't. The game is already set. We may not even see a single card left to play yet. Ukraine just going to be a sad, slow murder of men who die for a lost cause. And I can't stop it, clearly even just trying to spread some knowledge about the situation online is a lost cause.
@Young Grasshopper has also already mentioned the deepest of the horrible mistakes of this war, the death of the Dollar as the monopolistic global currency, which you have done entirely by yourselves. The Empire managed to pick what was its greatest tools of pressure and control, dollar global monopoly for international trades and SWIFT, and shot both of them by kicking Russia out of it in the hopes that it would kill their economy. In the end, Russia is doing quite well without them, and this move will have the same effect as..................................I actually can't find one. I can't think of a moment in History where a move this absurdly bad was ever played.
You had a way to tax the entire world through inflation thanks to the petrodollar. You had a way to control, monitor and block all international transfers in the banking system, or nearly all.
And you've shot them both by showing to the entire world that not using the dollar anymore would turn out fine, and giving Russia the incentive to create a SWIFT equivalent that they can just grow and provide to the world as an alternative.
You have taken a highly gas and petrol rich country, Russia, and forced it away from its natural economic and political partners in Europe, which you fully control as vassals, towards an alliance with a highly industrialised and populous country, China, that is thoroughly independent of you politically. And whose official goal is to retake its status as Greatest Empire on Earth after 150 years of humiliations (1830-1980).
The depth of this strategic mistake is beyond staggering, I can't think of a historical precedent this bad. Maybe firing Minister Calonne, which eventually led to the French Revolution. And that's peanuts compared to this.
While having every single card to play in hand, the U.S Empire has played them in a way that will destroy its global currency monopoly, its naturally dominant status, and its ability to control global trade. And you've offered China a forced partner that happens to have a ton of oil, when their lack of oil was one of their last resource issues along with lack of water. It's a self-own of tremendous proportions that will take decades to be truly felt to the last of its ripples.
I merely have to watch the rest unfold as it unavoidably will. And suffer the consequences as someone who lives in a vassal state to the Empire, but at least I know what to expect. In 10 or so years, Europe will be a shadow of what it was economically, the U.S will be suffering massive inflation (if you think TODAY's inflation is bad, wait for 2035), and there will be absolutely no walking back. And it'll only get worse from there.
The Empire held a crushing army, international trade control, could tax the world at will through money printing and the petrodollar paying for it, had strategic depth equal to what the British had in 1840, leaderless vassals across all Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa, a dominant position in the Middle East and held a massive advantage in the most advanced technologies, particularly weaponry, telecoms, chipmaking and pharmaceuticals.
By its incredibly poor moves in the Ukraine war, the American Empire has taken the dollar's hegemony and destroyed it. This and a certain Nordstream "accident" will suck away Europe's economies back to the U.S, since the vassals are always sacrificed before the Master, much like how Hungary, Czechia, Poland and East Germany were sacrificed before Russia fell in the late USSR. But when Europe, particularly Germany, will have been utterly spent, the U.S will face the hyperinflation that it can't dampen through international exchanges anymore, since any alternative will not suffer the same level of inflation and will be increasingly preferred.
The loss of the "free inflation" will mean that the U.S state will have to start facing its expenditures more strictly, which means that the massive army, massive navy, massive research expenditures, money that flowed into the biggest state-supported companies...everything will grow, for a lack of a better word, narrower. Giant pipes of money will become funnels. Funnels will become dead ends. The crushing military-industrial complex, state sponsored R&D, and whatever else that relied on the dollar not being Monopoly money, it's all going to go so painful as time goes on. All the while China irrevocably recovers its N°1 status with Russia in tow, as the West falls into an increasingly visible state of decay.
And much like the strategic situation in Donbass or Luhansk, that game is set. No credible amount of effort or plays will overturn this. You have moved History's gears into a position where the sheer weight of the world, that used to go your way, the "expensively inflationist, extraterritorial but oh-so-unavoidable Dollar" way, will now increasingly go to the competition that you forced to exist. And that's just the Russia moves. The China moves, getting them out of advanced chip/AI availability, is spurring even more efforts to get them to produce advanced chips and lithography. Sure, they rely on ASML, but for how long? 5 years? 10? Geopolitics is a long game, but the idiots who did this have somehow built a perfect block, with the industry, money, natural resources, and every single pillar necessary, against themselves.
SWIFT alternative and international trade currency to Russia, high volume industry and advanced technologies in semiconductors to China.
The Ukraine war will be marked down as the seminal event of the downfall of the U.S Empire, not because of what Russia will have done, but because of what the Americans will have done to themselves.
I still can't believe how poorly this was played. It's like having a perfect deck and somehow playing every card wrong. I would laugh if I wasn't going to be skewered and cooked along with the "This is fine" supporters.
The only silver lining is that two powers will not work as well as one, and that neither Russia or China are much interested in being a beacon of free trade. But the sheer weight of the world will push them into it.
I was going to answer to the rest, but frankly, I've already given you a lot, and got pretty much nothing but denial and insults for it. Trying to make you all think about the reality of what's going on is like feeding a pitbull with veggies. The pitbull vomits everything back, and you get your hands bitten for trying. So this'll be the last bit of wisdom from me. Spit at it, insult me, ignore it, call it "opinions", or whatever you please. Everything I said here, whether about the proxy war in Ukraine or the greater state of the U.S Empire, will come to pass nonetheless. It is only a question of time.
Russian economy - $2.2 trillion
US economy - $25 trillion
Like what are you morons telling each other.
So then:
- demand facts
- get told facts
- claim the facts are all "opinions" or "whining" or "not facts enough"
- demand facts
rinse and repeat until we reach another 36000 messages of collective denial. All the facts that don't fit your propaganda's narrative are instantly not facts but opinions, all the opinions that fit your narrative are facts.
The funny thing is, your war is lost and it's an unavoidable result. It's about waiting for the result of this sad affair, and the sooner the better. I could tell you "we can just wait and see who's wrong and you can come back to me when I'll be proven wrong" but, you won't, because I won't. The game is already set. We may not even see a single card left to play yet. Ukraine just going to be a sad, slow murder of men who die for a lost cause. And I can't stop it, clearly even just trying to spread some knowledge about the situation online is a lost cause.
@Young Grasshopper has also already mentioned the deepest of the horrible mistakes of this war, the death of the Dollar as the monopolistic global currency, which you have done entirely by yourselves. The Empire managed to pick what was its greatest tools of pressure and control, dollar global monopoly for international trades and SWIFT, and shot both of them by kicking Russia out of it in the hopes that it would kill their economy. In the end, Russia is doing quite well without them, and this move will have the same effect as..................................I actually can't find one. I can't think of a moment in History where a move this absurdly bad was ever played.
You had a way to tax the entire world through inflation thanks to the petrodollar. You had a way to control, monitor and block all international transfers in the banking system, or nearly all.
And you've shot them both by showing to the entire world that not using the dollar anymore would turn out fine, and giving Russia the incentive to create a SWIFT equivalent that they can just grow and provide to the world as an alternative.
You have taken a highly gas and petrol rich country, Russia, and forced it away from its natural economic and political partners in Europe, which you fully control as vassals, towards an alliance with a highly industrialised and populous country, China, that is thoroughly independent of you politically. And whose official goal is to retake its status as Greatest Empire on Earth after 150 years of humiliations (1830-1980).
The depth of this strategic mistake is beyond staggering, I can't think of a historical precedent this bad. Maybe firing Minister Calonne, which eventually led to the French Revolution. And that's peanuts compared to this.
While having every single card to play in hand, the U.S Empire has played them in a way that will destroy its global currency monopoly, its naturally dominant status, and its ability to control global trade. And you've offered China a forced partner that happens to have a ton of oil, when their lack of oil was one of their last resource issues along with lack of water. It's a self-own of tremendous proportions that will take decades to be truly felt to the last of its ripples.
I merely have to watch the rest unfold as it unavoidably will. And suffer the consequences as someone who lives in a vassal state to the Empire, but at least I know what to expect. In 10 or so years, Europe will be a shadow of what it was economically, the U.S will be suffering massive inflation (if you think TODAY's inflation is bad, wait for 2035), and there will be absolutely no walking back. And it'll only get worse from there.
The Empire held a crushing army, international trade control, could tax the world at will through money printing and the petrodollar paying for it, had strategic depth equal to what the British had in 1840, leaderless vassals across all Western Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa, a dominant position in the Middle East and held a massive advantage in the most advanced technologies, particularly weaponry, telecoms, chipmaking and pharmaceuticals.
By its incredibly poor moves in the Ukraine war, the American Empire has taken the dollar's hegemony and destroyed it. This and a certain Nordstream "accident" will suck away Europe's economies back to the U.S, since the vassals are always sacrificed before the Master, much like how Hungary, Czechia, Poland and East Germany were sacrificed before Russia fell in the late USSR. But when Europe, particularly Germany, will have been utterly spent, the U.S will face the hyperinflation that it can't dampen through international exchanges anymore, since any alternative will not suffer the same level of inflation and will be increasingly preferred.
The loss of the "free inflation" will mean that the U.S state will have to start facing its expenditures more strictly, which means that the massive army, massive navy, massive research expenditures, money that flowed into the biggest state-supported companies...everything will grow, for a lack of a better word, narrower. Giant pipes of money will become funnels. Funnels will become dead ends. The crushing military-industrial complex, state sponsored R&D, and whatever else that relied on the dollar not being Monopoly money, it's all going to go so painful as time goes on. All the while China irrevocably recovers its N°1 status with Russia in tow, as the West falls into an increasingly visible state of decay.
And much like the strategic situation in Donbass or Luhansk, that game is set. No credible amount of effort or plays will overturn this. You have moved History's gears into a position where the sheer weight of the world, that used to go your way, the "expensively inflationist, extraterritorial but oh-so-unavoidable Dollar" way, will now increasingly go to the competition that you forced to exist. And that's just the Russia moves. The China moves, getting them out of advanced chip/AI availability, is spurring even more efforts to get them to produce advanced chips and lithography. Sure, they rely on ASML, but for how long? 5 years? 10? Geopolitics is a long game, but the idiots who did this have somehow built a perfect block, with the industry, money, natural resources, and every single pillar necessary, against themselves.
SWIFT alternative and international trade currency to Russia, high volume industry and advanced technologies in semiconductors to China.
The Ukraine war will be marked down as the seminal event of the downfall of the U.S Empire, not because of what Russia will have done, but because of what the Americans will have done to themselves.
I still can't believe how poorly this was played. It's like having a perfect deck and somehow playing every card wrong. I would laugh if I wasn't going to be skewered and cooked along with the "This is fine" supporters.
The only silver lining is that two powers will not work as well as one, and that neither Russia or China are much interested in being a beacon of free trade. But the sheer weight of the world will push them into it.
I was going to answer to the rest, but frankly, I've already given you a lot, and got pretty much nothing but denial and insults for it. Trying to make you all think about the reality of what's going on is like feeding a pitbull with veggies. The pitbull vomits everything back, and you get your hands bitten for trying. So this'll be the last bit of wisdom from me. Spit at it, insult me, ignore it, call it "opinions", or whatever you please. Everything I said here, whether about the proxy war in Ukraine or the greater state of the U.S Empire, will come to pass nonetheless. It is only a question of time.
Salient fact! Well put.- demand facts
- get told facts
...since the vassals are always sacrificed before the Master, much like how Hungary, Czechia, Poland and East Germany were sacrificed before Russia fell in the late USSR.
You make some good points but I have to say that crony capitalism, oligopolies and many more are just a big part of most of the so-called capitalist countries, such as America. This is not to say that their opposition is better but we have to acknowledge shortcomings. Russia and Ukraine, and other eastern countries (and Western countries) have oligarchs with too much power as well, and China's wealth is heavily concentrated. Countries such as India have huge wealth inequalities.The American master couldn't care less how many Ukrainians die as long as their deaths give the image that the war is ongoing and so they don't have to show that they've utterly failed.
Yes, it is that base.
That's entirely wrong. The main problem with the U.S Empire is well known and has nothing to do with capitalism, it's a minor element.
The main cause is the form and ambitions of the Empire, particularly in terms of loss prevention and cost of investment.
Take the F-35, americans diddle themselves all the time on how it's the greATeST PLaNe EvRRRRRRR. In truth, it is a textbook example of an overblown project with infinite delays, infinite reinvestments, infinite conflicts between departments arguing about what they want to have in the plane.
The theory is that it's the Bestest Plane Evarrrr. The practice is that it's an incredibly expensive project that allowed itself to waste amounts of money that would have warranted arrests for corruption long ago in almost any country.
When your planes are the most expensive, your missiles are the most expensive, your men's training is the most expensive, your carriers are the most expensive, etc, then an enemy can't beat you in a straight fight. But they can use techniques to make you lose your expensive crap with less expensive stuff. So you have to compensate for that by using multiple low-value, low-quality cannon fodder to preserve your overly shiny toys.
In case you don't get my meaning, the poor Ukrainians are the cannon fodder.
The U.S isn't incapable of fighting Russia. But its entire military-industrial system is focusing on an expensive, high tech, highest tier technology possible. If tomorrow they decided to send 300 80M$ tanks to Ukraine, the Russians would build 100M$ of crappy suicide drones and lose 90% of them, but still do enough damage that 100M$ worth of tech has tore through a large part of 24B$.
And if you told them "we don't need your super shiny stuff, we just need artillery shells, cannons, older, cheaper tech in large quantities", well, there isn't a single part of the military industrial complex that cares. Margins aren't as high, but beyond that, the goal is to be the supreme ruler of the world. You can't be that with equal weaponry, you need better weaponry. So, nobody's going to walk back to mass producing artillery shells if they can be part of the next level Super Laser of Death, or whatever it is that'll bring in the money.
The Ukraine war is a textbook example of a lower funding, lower quality army that still relies on trenches/artillery/tanks/air power/missiles, vs a local proxy that has roughly the same trenches/artillery/tanks/air power/missiles, but has immensely less of them.
Now BEHIND that local proxy is a mighty empire, but that empire isn't going to engage its expensive forces into an escalation. Because at worst, it's mutual nuclear destruction. At best, it'll be cheaper drones, cheaper ground-to-air missiles, cheaper everything, versus their expensive everything. They'll lose more than they win. Pyrrhic victory is never good for anyone.
So the U.S has what it takes. It just won't engage them, because the loss is far beyond what they're willing to pay just for Ukraine. It is the cruelty of this empire that Ukraine can bleed and die between the Russian hammer and the American anvil, but they can't be saved from the americans ceasing to push them onwards, or from the russians that won't stop until they've gotten everything they can. Not even because the americans can't afford to lose, their loss is already obvious and consumed to anyone that paid attention. But because whatever CIA analyst, Pentagon general, or politician somewhere that pushed for the war doesn't want to be associated with defeat.
It's ok to make dozens of thousands of dead, it's not ok to lose face.
All with the obscene screams of the "Slava Ukraini" supporters sitting at home with their Red Bull can and their 4K monitor encouraging "the Ukrainian people" to just go on and keep dying, and trying to shut down anyone who dares criticize the policy.
Ukraine is an affair that must end as soon as possible because the only thing these sods are dying for is an american politician's reputation and whoever's getting paid by the U.S in Ukraine to keep being paid.
Getty was banned?I guess banning Getty was just squeezing the balloon.