Jump to content

J.R.

Legacy Members
  • Posts

    274
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by J.R.

  1. 42 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


    This. It took decades for China to become the particular entity and problem that it is today. It will take decades for them to change materially, to our betterment and their detriment. The demographic crash is coming, and they can’t stop it.
    Patience, young bull….let’s WALK down there and screw ALL of them.

    I dont think it will take decades.  The next 10 years will be rough on them, but do agree with the sentiment.  Almost always better to walk down there and make sure you dont miss any choice meat.

  2. On 1/13/2023 at 12:08 PM, Eastwood said:

    I think China played the primary role in COVID destroying the world as we know it, but we’ll have to be more patient than the excruciatingly patient Chinese to punish them. China essentially boiled the American frog over the last 4 decades by taking advantage of our “perpetual growth paradox” approach towards business. Substantial year over year growth became the expectation for American businesses and China was a conduit to lower costs, so we started relying heavily on them for manufacturing to the point where even components in critical military equipment and infrastructure are made in China with unknown hardware backdoors that could shut that equipment down if a hot war broke out.  
     

    China is our friend as much as a drug dealer is to a junkie. They kept life cheap long enough for us to get addicted. The solution is to use the same “boiled frog” approach toward breaking away from them, but at a quicker pace because the Chinese government is temperamental and prideful. The moment they catch on that significant change is occurring, they’ll turn the screws on us in an attempt to inflict as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. There is no diplomacy, there are no beneficial deals to be done. It’s a deal with the devil every time, so we need to find Jesus, so to speak. The moment we stop playing ball is the moment they turn overtly hostile, economically first. But if we can position ourselves well enough, we mitigate the damage and let them flail until they burn out, much like post-Soviet Russia has been doing. 
     

    It needs to be done, but we still lack the willpower, both politically and economically, to do it. To borrow from a popular phrase uttered during the last major global conflict, we’ll do the right thing after exhausting all other options. 

    There is no action required here other than to extract what we can while China's own existential demographic issues inexorably play out.  

    • Hook 'Em 3
    • Like 1
  3. On 7/26/2022 at 10:26 PM, Buzzrock said:


    I’m with you. They could completely ignore the logistics of refueling and reloading and I’d watch. Loved this movie as a kid, saw it in the theater with my dad.

    They wouldn’t have had any problem whatsoever making jet fuel in 1942. It’s just kerosene. 

    • Hook 'Em 3
    • Like 1
  4. The shortsightedness here is the assumption that there are limited investment dollars for anything that makes economic and reliable sense. While I would say the investment landscape is tilted somewhat in favor of renewables (probably wise) trust me when I tell you that Americans are very industrious and if there is some nook or cranny anywhere in this giant economy that hasn’t been exploited like an instagram model on Pee in Her Butt, they will find it soon (fossil or renewable) with TONS of newly printed capital to follow. It is really amazing to watch. 

  5. 39 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

    That is not what Mearsheimer is saying. He has pointed out that this war has been brewing for eight years, we've egged Ukraine on all along with false promises, Ukraine has acted recklessly in aggravating the gorilla next door...His contention is there was a time when Ukraine could have accepted its place in the world as a buffer state and it would not have been that bad. At the heart of all of this thought is Thucydides: Strong nations do what they will, weak nations suffer what they must. Ukraine is a relatively weak nation but one of their bargaining chips is neutrality. Instead of using it they listened to America's crack foreign policy team (almost all of y'all agree about our other recent disasters -- why is this different?) and now we are teetering on the brink of nuclear holocaust over a country of no strategic import to us.

    Great job everybody well done.

    He also points out that is useful when thinking of global strategy to be able to put yourselves in the shoes of the enemy. When Khruschev tried to put missiles in Cuba, we almost went to nuclear war. Imagine if China or Russia brokered some deal to put their military on the ground in Mexico or Canada. That is what NATO Ukraine is to Russia. To us, Chinese Naval Station Veracruz; joint operating base Monterrey. 

    We have a Monroe Doctrine. Russia has something similar and Ukraine is the centerpiece of it. 

    Mearsheimer acknowledges that Putin is a thug who in his heart of hearts would love a "Greater Russia" or Soviet Union remix but he believes, as I do, that Putin is smart enough to know that he simply cannot pull that off. Not today, not tomorrow, not in any of our lifetimes. How the fuck is he going to manage Ukraine as a client state with his army in shambles and then launch fresh invasions on three Baltic states who hate him maybe even more than the proudest Ukrainians thereby triggering a NATO heymaker? 

    It is just not possible. He doesn't have the juice. 

    I don’t think a discussion of Thucydides is too political but I think it’s wishful thinking on Russia’s part to imagine itself as a strong nation who can do it will.  Nukes included, there are much stronger nations and the long arc of history does not suggest that significant even superior weaponry makes you somehow immune from catastrophic nation state collapses. 

  6. 37 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    I could see China as non-committal in both helping and not helping Russia.  Don’t say no but don’t say yes.

    Agree that they are going to play the middle. Do not underestimate their desire for fellow travelers on the road away from democracy and western ideals. They certainly will not overtly fuck over Russia. It’ll be a 100+ year plan. 

  7. Could you sum up the last couple pages by saying: never underestimate a small, unconstrained force with excellent leadership (and I mean both internally and from foreign “advisors” in this case) against a large, inept bureaucracy. None of this is very surprising in that context, except perhaps the extent of the ineptitude. 

    • Hook 'Em 3
  8. 2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Just my opinion, but it is, and it isn't.  Putin wants tension with the West.  A more palpable tension than has existed of late.  That tension serves his political/personal interests, which are inseparable.

    I'm not sure Ukraine leads to Poland/Latvia/Estonia or _________________________.  I think his basic aim is to stir the pot, not to make it boil over.  Because his military is fucked, this attempt to stir the pot has come mighty close to causing it to boil over and may yet still.  He expected a rapid conclusion to the Ukraine matter and a hostile negotiation to bring things away from the brink but maintain and exacerbate tension with the West that he desperately needs to hang on to power at home.

    As long as he remains in power, I think we can count on him doing something outrageous with respect to "the West" every few years whether that be invading or sword-rattling at a NATO country (seems unlikely now that he has to know that he would get his shit pushed in)  or fomenting another Brexit or destabilizing the US, or whatever.  I'm not sure that will intentionally include WWIII, or a nuclear conflict, but he's sufficiently unstable that it might regardless of his intentions.

    If this is his aim (which I do not think it is) his execution is comically bad. This on-off methodology will only push his neighbors towards the west and democracy during the off times which is the opposite of what he wants. I do agree he expected a rapid conclusion to this matter and now that is obviously off the table but I think the final objective was much larger and I doubt this setback stops him. I expect his to go whole hog now and who knows where it leads us. 

  9. 2 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    What's your solution?

    Prepare for global conflict and make it clear to Putin and everyone near him you are prepared to totally destroy his country if he doesn’t come to the table. Do everything possible to limit his ability and willingness to use nukes but be ready to go all in. I don’t like it but if he’s determined to be the next major enemy of democracy than he’ll need to end up like his predecessors and the cost to us is not really up to us. We will pay the price regardless. 

  10. 11 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    Maybe I'm missing something, but I feel like there is. I mean, we're isolationist by default, so most people don't really have a good grasp of what's going on. That's not limited to Putin and Ukraine. That's anything outside our borders. But to the extent there can be a consensus about anything in this country, it feels like there's a pretty good consensus that the West and the US specifically needs to step up here. 

    Do you not agree?

    I do not agree. It seems that most simply believe arming the brave Ukrainians will drag Putin into an unwinnable quagmire and he will retreat to his lair to plan another, probably worse, offensive in a few years. He hates, and more importantly, fears democracy and he can see things slipping away from him towards western influence as he nears his sunset years. I believe he will try to set things way back and, if not, go out with a big, big bang and I don’t think people have wrapped their minds around this seemingly likely outcome. 

  11. 14 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    I'm going to assume you're truly looking for an answer, rather than asking a rhetorical question. I've posted about this multiple times, but it's 300+ page thread at this point, so I'm not expecting anyone to have read my other responses. Simply apologizing for those of you who are tired of my posts.

    I know we like to think of evil as evil, and to an extent I agree with it, but unfortunately there's also perspective and context. For a variety of reasons Putin has been able to set himself up as a sort of hero to the disenfranchised white male, and the supporters of that particular tribe. Not just in the US, but in Europe as well. He's conscious about it, and sees himself in that sense, too. 

    As we continue to demonize one another in this country among progressives and arch conservatives, we'll continue to find surprising fault lines that distinguish the two from one another. The support for Putin seems shocking if you're not aware of how he's been framed by the disenfranchised white male tribe, but regrettably this is the result.

    I really wasn’t after an explanation of the feelings of the proto-mongoloid uninformed jerkoff but this is a spot on answer to that question. I am more wondering why there is not mainstream acceptance that we are likely confronting another Hitler. 

    • Hook 'Em 1
  12. 2 hours ago, Doc Reeves said:

     

    Yup. Had a convo with a military veteran who asked “What’s so bad about Putin?” 

    Its just, daymn. Its not about politics either, buddy he’s our enemy. For good fucking reason.

    I’m having a hard time understanding why, looking at history, we cannot accept that evil is real, hasn’t suddenly gone out of style, and that it is exceedingly likely that Putin will need to be smashed, hopefully by Father Time but if not, and more likely, before then by a cataclysmic conflict that will result in immense death and destruction. While we can and should do everything we can to avoid it, please help me understand why everything is different this time?

    • Hook 'Em 3
  13. 2 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

    Ding, ding, fucking ding.  This whole thing has been handled off our back feet.   All these supplies arrive NOW is testament to this.   The Ukes have been stellar, but their success has also been predicated on a SHIT Russian operation amd inferior military.  

    I think we knew the Russian military was shit and knew that Ukraine had enough armament to make things very ugly, we didn’t want to dissuade Putin from invading or be seen as provoking him and also wanted to make sure Ukraine was ready and able to fight before we loaded the boat with the good shit. That’s my guess anyway because I cannot believe we would have overestimated the Russian capability to the extent it appears in the mainstream right now. 

  14. 28 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

    Laid a trap and overthrew Putin without firing a shot.  

    Masterclass.

    I’m with you here. There is no possible way we were overestimating his military capabilities by this much. No way. That explains quite a bit of the lukewarm response to his escalation in the run up to this conflict. Didn’t want to dissuade him. Of course the big winner will be China in the ass raping of a new trade deal they get with Russia since they will be the only bidder. 
     

    I know it seems a bit Machiavellian but by what other more peaceful means was  the world going to finally topple this Evil Empire. 

  15. 6 hours ago, Parliament said:

    You could say their real instability is demographic.  It's been posted a few times here that Russia is literally DYING.  Low fertility and zero immigration.  This is a last gasp for them.  Viewed that way they look even more dangerous.

    ETA

    I agree with BT.  If Putin sees NATO being soft on him re: his Ukrainian adventures, he might test a NATO member outright.  Go after...Hungary.  Doesn't matter who.  Rattle the saber, harass them and see what NATO does.  Worst case for him he gets his hand burnt.

     

    Refer to the The Accidental Superpower for compelling detail on this point 

×
×
  • Create New...