Russian media shows chilling footage of mushroom clouds 'in anticipation of nuclear conflict'

Actually weakness is dangerous. RuSSia has never understood anything but strength. It would have conquered most of Europe had not the US and Europe stood up to it for 70 years. Instead, because they did, they only took half of it. And the half that they took lived a living hell for half a century.

We’ve been at risk for nuclear war since the damned things were invented in ‘45. Now is not the time to start cowering in fear due to bullies. Blackmailers have no good intentions.

Nervous Nellies are weak, and we don’t need more weakness.

“...Now is not the time to start cowering in fear due to bullies. Blackmailers have no good intentions.

Nervous Nellies are weak, and we don’t need more weakness...”

That is well stated. Putin worked hard to destroy the goodwill of the Yeltsin era and now we have a cold war yet again.

You won’t get any arguments from me on this.

Definitely all the time Poroshenko was in charge there was a massive rise in neonazism, Russophobia and antisemitism.

And while it is abundantly clear some of that was a response to separatism within the Russian community and Russian interference in elections and its sabotage of EU association, it was entrenched before that.

A phobia is inherently irrational. Every time Russia threatened Ukraine, Russophobia became less irrational. With the SMO in effect, even previously pro Russian folks still in Ukraine will give a hollow laugh if you mention it. To them Russophobia is now as rational and justifiable as visceral anti-nazism.

Ukraine is triggered by anti ukrainian, massively genocidal talk AND BEHAVIOR the exact same way Russia gets triggered by hardcore Russophobia and Israelis get triggered by Hamas antisemitism.

The last point you raise about Ukes wanting Russians out of Ukraine. That’s not racist, it’s classic ‘fifth column’. Closer to McCarthyism than racism.

Being Russian and being pro Russian was fine, as long as you accepted Donbas is part of Ukraine.

People wanting the ending of security guarantees given to Ukraine by Russia in the 1990s in return for surrendering the nukes, in order to move entire regions out of Ukraine and into the Russian federation, was far more controversial than Irish separatism. Ireland was subjugated by Britain.

All of Ukraine voted almost completely to keep the borders from the 60s AND Russia gave multiple undertakings to respect those borders, at the establishment of the CIS.

The long term fallout of this crisis is, every one of the dozen or so countries created around the former USSR now knows Russia couldn’t give a shit what it agreed to in the 1990s; if it decides to redraw another country’s borders for its benefit, whatever the reason, it will do.

Was Georgia a hotbed of corruption and Russophobia with NATO knocking on its door?

At the minute Kadyrov is playing along but he’s simply waiting for Russia proper to be hollowed out with a sizeable proportion of its young men pushing up sunflowers. When he moves, and he will, the ‘Stans will join in.

Imagine Al Qaeda or Isis in control of Russia’s nuclear arsenal, and then think Kadyrov is the one calling most loudly for use of nukes against the west.

And don’t forget China.

It isn’t in our interests for Russia to win this war because the war afterwards is more existential to us.

Putin needs to lose, but Russia needs to be much stronger under new leadership. Putin is literally inviting a war on twelve fronts inside his own sphere, a new leadership needs to restore all the bridges that Putin is burning.

Yes, as anyone with an ounce of commonsense can see, Putin is the real victim here!

/mordant sarcasm

Regards,

Actually weakness is dangerous. RuSSia has never understood anything but strength. It would have conquered most of Europe had not the US and Europe stood up to it for 70 years. Instead, because they did, they only took half of it. And the half that they took lived a living hell for half a century. We’ve been at risk for nuclear war since the damned things were invented in ‘45. Now is not the time to start cowering in fear due to bullies. Blackmailers have no good intentions. Nervous Nellies are weak, and we don’t need more weakness.

Well said!

Russia will need a half-century to regain the good will of the international community.

Regards,

Putin needs to lose, but Russia needs to be much stronger under new leadership. Putin is literally inviting a war on twelve fronts inside his own sphere, a new leadership needs to restore all the bridges that Putin is burning.

Excellent analysis, MalPearce!

Always looking at the "Bigger Picture!"

Regards,

China is not going to coordinate any military attack on the USA or Taiwan.

It is doing well enough conquering by trade - why ruin it?

Taiwan - or rather by its official name, the Republic of China - is already heavily integrated with the People’s Republic of China. China is Taiwan’s largest trading partner, accounting for 25.2 percent of total trade and 21.6 percent of Taiwan’s imports in 2021. In terms of total trade, other major Taiwan trading partners include Japan (10.3 percent), Hong Kong (7.8 percent), and the Republic of Korea (6.1 percent).

If you consider that Hong Kong is de-facto part of the PRC, then Taiwan-China trade accounts for 33% of all Taiwanese trade. the economic conquest of Taiwan will happen in the next 50 years (caveat - 50 years is too far to predict, 20 years is the horizon, after that it is guesswork)

I don’t see the PRC remaining even the “fake communist” that it is today - it is a fascist state (with industries relatively free but subordinated to the party and with a sense of racial superiority as evidenced in their crushing of the TurkiC Uyghurs and the Mongols and Tibetans. I see the PRC being what China has been since the Qin dynasty - a mandarin/bureaucratic state influenced by Confucionism with a strong sense of superiority.

btw, neither is Iran going to stick its neck out for Russia - and Israel is strongly monitoring it. Iran’s goals are gaining more control over Iraq and Syria and it is not going to jeopardise THAT for the 19th century enemy - Russia (remember that Russia fought many wars with Iran in the 19th century and took a lot of territory_)

Thanks but you may have misunderstood me.

Russia needs to be stronger as in more internally confident and resilient.

Under Putin it’s earned its reputation as a paranoid basket case gas station of a state, run by incompetent gangsters with delusions of godhood. That isn’t a position of strength, it’s a sandy foundation.

If it got its shit together Russia could be like China, leading the world’s tech innovation and mass production. Instead it’s obsessed with some whacky ideology based on antique maps and Slavic ethnocentrism. Great music, literature and poetry aside, Russia produces very little to inspire.

I can’t buy a nuke, I can’t buy a new Lada Riva, there’s no computer on the mass market that’s Russian. Oil, gas and grain? Don’t care where it’s from.

What do all these things have in common: Tetris, Kaspersky, Rubik’s Cube, ballet, and a classical music collection including Prokofiev, Rimsy Korsakoff, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky? They all existed before Putin’s presidency.

I’ve got a collection of Russian TV and movies, which is great. Their CGI is really advanced. Not much of that creativity exists because of Putinism. Khodorkhovsky did more to promote that industry than Putin. Heck, Russia wouldn’t have troll farms if Khodorkhovsky and others hadn’t bent over backwards to sell it to Putin.

We invited Russia in from the cold in the early 90s. Rejoicing in the collapse of the USSR is not the same as wishing ill on Russia.
It’s not our fault Putin and his oligarchs rejected that open opportunity.

Russia is weak - culturally and politically - because Putin and his backers are stuck in the 1980s with their heads stuck in the 1880s.