Posted on 07/17/2022 3:00:06 PM PDT by AndyJackson
Is Russia worthy of being called a “great power,” let alone a superpower? Not to kick someone when they’re down, but it’s difficult to argue that Vladimir Putin represents anything other than a middling regional state, albeit the largest country in the world and one with nuclear weapons.
In the first place, until the Russo-Ukraine War, consider how irrelevant and inconsequential Russia was. For the most part, regarding international relations, Russia scarcely mattered. Moscow has nary a footprint in the Middle East (mainly Syria) and is nonexistent in Asia and other parts of the world. Russia has lost influence in India, Venezuela, Africa, and even North Korea.
Russia is barely a developed country. The most generous economic data gave the country a GDP of around $4.4 trillion in 2020, putting it behind Canada and South Korea, and barely ahead of Brazil and Mexico....
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
Read a novel recently where a Russian character says 'Russians cannot live like normal people. It will always be one extreme or the other with them'. Maybe that 's true. They've gone from the autocracy of the tsar to the totalitarianism of the Soviets and now back to the despotism of Putin, in just over one century.
Is America worthy of being called a “great power” ?
NYET on all accounts.
Russia can’t even keep the wheels on its military equipment from falling off and lost its flagship cruiser to a nation with no navy. The idea they could defeat Nato is gut bustlingly laughable. Only the most brain dead Putinist would believe such gaslighting nonsense.
Between Germany and Russia, Russian supermarkets are better. And guess what? There is no shortage of tampons and baby formula.
We must be paying dangerous fools like this because the people listening to him in the Pentagon are dangerous fools.
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Yes, I will keep advancing the notion that the vax is rotting out the brains of of the human spies as I read this clap trap.
Unfortunately for the Falun Gong and the Epoch Times, Russia is neither Marxist Communist nor Marxist Prog Socialist, so the only option they have is to Hate Russia because Russia Ignores the Falun Gong Cult as they deserve.
How Dare Putin not give Lip Service to the Falun Gong?
LOL. How worthy is the “expert opinion” given that they were wrong on every point about the Ukrainian thing?
The obvious disadvantages of the American doctrine are reliance on the oversized logistic train, air supremacy, and light infantry. USMC didn’t even have tanks anymore.
How do you plan to defeat the Russians when they are going to blow your forward based and deny air superiority? How the truck-hopping light infantry is going to fight against the Russian combined arms?
The propaganda you see in media in one thing, the reality is another thing.
Plus a society where the powerful and connected get rich with no path to success for the average Ivan, a culture of theft develops. It’s been present for ages.
I think that speaks more to the stupidity of Europe than it does the might of Russia.
Trump tried to warn them about making themselves dependent on Russian oil.
Also, most of Russia is an uninhabitable wasteland and ringed with ethnic groups that mostly hate Russians - who by the way are a dying breed demographically speaking. Far more Russians are dying than being born and so their future prospects are looking bleak - even with the BRIC arrangement.
Thus the invasion of Ukraine (and quite possible other places before they are through). They are running out of time to restore the rump buffer states that they so desperately feel they need.
“There is not any Military analyst that would agree that Russia would defeat the US/NATO in a nonnuclear conflict.”
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Perhaps you should refrain from speaking for other people. In fact, one of the specific military analysts I was referring to specifically said that the U.S. would BEGIN with air superiority, but that Russia’s EXCELLENT air defence would quickly result in negating our air advantage.
I have seen the same thing. Too many people here are living in the past concerning Russia. They underestimate the Russians because that is what they have been led to believe.
They still think it is the USSR.
Then move to Russia, please.
I recently saw a couple of youtube videos surreptitiously recorded of grocery shopping in Cuba. I guess some people assume nowadays Russia is like that.
Seems like Victoria Spartz let the cat out of the bag regarding Zelensky. She probably knows they are black market selling US weapons.
The problem is Ukraine has leadership who sells out to corrupt foreign politicians and is willing to watch their own people die while fighting for the interests of other countries who couldn’t care less about Ukrainian people.
Are you Russian?
“Russia can’t even keep the wheels on its military equipment from falling off and lost its flagship cruiser to a nation with no navy. The idea they could defeat Nato is gut bustlingly laughable. Only the most brain dead Putinist would believe such gaslighting nonsense.”
I agree. That’s why I challenged Cathi on her comment. BTW: She (he, it; whatever) is a cut-and-paste poster; nary an original thought.
There is no way Russia can defeat the US in a land war. And Russian apologists would respond to that by saying, “The US can’t defeat Russia in a land war in RUSSIA!” To which I’d reply: “We wouldn’t have to.”
MediaKiller
We decided to make a small selection of “cutting” humanitarian aid and weapons in Ukraine over the past couple of months. As a conclusion, let’s say right away: they are stealing and selling Western aid throughout Ukraine, and the military, officials, as well as people proudly bearing the title of “volunteers” are involved in this.
What we found:
▪️In Kalinovka (Vinnitsa region), a “volunteer” organized a warehouse of weapons and humanitarian aid in his garage. An F1 combat grenade, a fuse for it and more than 100 rounds of 5.45 mm caliber were stored in the garage. There were also several dozen sleeping bags and first-aid kits that came with humanitarian aid - for sale.
▪️In Kyiv, a volunteer sold off-road vehicles brought in as a humanitarian aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The police detained the businessman at the moment of selling one of the two cars imported in this way for $6,500.
▪️In Lviv, the head of the Vitamin ADV advertising company, Vitaliy Sobolevsky, is suspected of stealing 3,000 bulletproof vests worth UAH 25 million. According to investigators, Sobolevsky, together with his accomplices, brought body armor as humanitarian aid, and then sold them for 10,000 hryvnias apiece. So, one of the participants in the scheme was detained during the sale of the next batch in the amount of 500,000 hryvnia.
▪️They tried to smuggle computer equipment, telephones, branded clothes and shoes from Poland to the Lviv region from Poland under the guise of humanitarian aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Documents for the cargo of the people transporting it were forged. According to preliminary data, the total value of the seized goods is 70 million hryvnia.
▪️In Kyiv, law enforcement officers seized more than 10,000 units of humanitarian aid that arrived in Ukraine, which were unpacked for further sale. During searches in warehouses, law enforcement officers found food products of foreign production without the necessary documents. Warehouse tenants equipped premises for shops for the production of goods - they unpacked foreign food products and packed them in packages of Ukrainian manufacturers.
▪️The head of the Center for Humanitarian Aid in the Odessa region “sawed” humanitarian aid from the EU countries, as well as donations from caring Ukrainians. The suspect received food, clothes, medicines, as well as military goods (helmets, body armor, first aid kits, walkie-talkies, etc.). The man sold the collected humanitarian aid. The attacker was detained while receiving almost 500,000 hryvnia for the sale of medical goods, military ammunition and devices.
▪️In Transcarpathia, representatives of a public organization sold humanitarian military equipment, which was transferred by foreigners. On their website, “volunteers” collected money supposedly for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but they came to the personal accounts of the head of the organization. Since February 24, compassionate Ukrainians have transferred 3 million hryvnias. Of these, the head of the public organization spent almost UAH 600,000 on buying T-shirts and applying patriotic prints on them, and then selling these same T-shirts.
▪️A “volunteer” was detained in Dnipro, who was selling bulletproof vests via Telegram, which he received from Poland as humanitarian aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The “volunteer” was detained while receiving about 500,000 hryvnia for 16 body armor.
▪️In Odessa, a court dismissed a military man who is suspected of illegally selling humanitarian aid worth 800,000 hryvnias: a 39-year-old serviceman received free aid for the army from the warehouses of volunteer centers: medical supplies, military ammunition and equipment. However, the humanitarian cargo did not get into military formations - the man sold it.
▪️In Zhytomyr, the head of the Do Good Give Hope Foundation organized a scheme for the supply of products for military purposes under the guise of humanitarian aid. Foreign organizations provided equipment to the “volunteer” for free - the head of the fund gave part of it to his relatives, and sold the rest of the humanitarian aid below the average market price. We managed to figure out the businessman by “buying” a batch of goods from him: a quadrocopter, tactical gloves, knee pads, turnstiles, etc. for 236,000 hryvnia.
All this information is not unfounded rumors or suspicions, but only a SMALL PART of what has been included in the reports of law enforcement officers over the past 2 months. The war has been going on for 5 months, but there is no control system.
104.3K
There, the Chinese government has one set of economic numbers that are publicly reported, with a second line of internal reporting to the highest levels that is secret. Even worse, without mark to market rules and honest accounting of impaired lending, the financial sector is so deeply compromised as to make much of the value of loans on the books and construction questionable.
If the critics are correct, China is due for a massive writedown of its GDP numbers. Russian GDP numbers also have problems but are considered more reliable.
With the rise of the neocons that term does not mean what you think it means. I am not sure when and if Pax Americana ever actually ruled, but the nail in the coffin was pounded in when we invaded Iraq.
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