If Russia was going to attack NATO the place to do it would be on the Swedish border. As NATO not deployed that many forces in that area, mostly to avoid antagonising the Russians.
In the absence of any explicit threat though I don’t think NATO really needs to do anything very much.
If im being really nice maybe theyre talking about a strike from the bit of Prussia the Russians own over to Gotland and then using that foothold to attack into mainland Sweden. But im pretty sure the Swedes fortified Gotland specifically for that issue so IDFK.
This dude is going by pre-20th century European borders lol
I know it’s a meme we don’t exist, but we actually do. We’ve also got the biggest and arguably most accurate artillery in Europe.
Homeland defence willingness against a superior enemy is at 83%, one of the highest rates in Europe.
And seeing what we managed in WWII against Russia without allies or gear (now we have both), when the Soviets were well armed, it’s understandable Putin would be a bit apprehensive about opening up a new front on the Finnish border.
This is where the drive to withdraw from NATO comes from. Because if you withdraw before your puppet master would trigger article 5 you have no problem.
The US withdrawing from NATO would make NATO pretty much meaningless, since most other NATO members are part of the EU, which has its own military alliances. Notable exception being the UK.
I don’t know if that is true. For the short term … most definitely. But in the end a lot of countries still benefit from the mutual defense clause. NATO would have to reinvent itself for sure, but it is not an unsurmountable problem. It might cause the UK and Canada to withdraw too meaning it will be the defacto European military.
In the Long run the US would lose so much in their power position towards China. Because if Beijing can just keep trading with the EU and make money there, the US will have a much harder time doing their powerplay. China will annex Taiwan and noone will be able to prevent it.
The UK is not going to leave the European security architecture, no chance in hell: It would contradict a good millennium of UK foreign policy, they’d rather leave the Commonwealth than have France and Germany, much less the rest of the mainland, united without them.
It’s the US which is the odd one out in the Anglosphere.
Inverted yield curve has predicted every previous recession and it’s as inverted as it was before the 1980s recession. Now people are simply saying it’s no longer reliable. 🥴
My opinion is that the COVID pandemic wasn’t the recession it should have been. We should have entered a recession alongside the pandemic, but instead the government printed a fuck ton of money and pumped it straight into the economy. This led to increased inflation and the situation we’re in now. That’s why the grey line in 2020 is so thin, and why the yield curve is so deeply inverted now. They basically postponed it by about 4 years.
The total public debt helps explain why there wasn’t a recession:
Interesting. How soon after an inversion does a recession need to happen for it to be considered “predicted”? It looks like the longest in your chart is the recession ~2 yrs after the 1978 inversion. The most recent inversion was July 2022. If we’re not in recession by this summer, will that still be “predicted”? 2025? 2026?
It’s never been the same amount of time since the beginning of the inversion, but there has always been a recession after the inversion goes back to normal. There are a lot of events that are building up that will bring the recession, it will happen over time. My guess is within the next 6-12 months.
I don’t think that really answers my question. Saying “there is always a recession after an inversion” is incredibly vague. The only scenario that wouldn’t happen is if we somehow fixed the economy perfectly & never had a recession every again ever. But if a recession happens 100 years after an inversion, it’s farfetched to say the inversion predicted it. Where’s the line?
Anyone else think Biden and Sunak are incentivised to take US and UK put boots on the ground over Israel-Hamas-Houthi conflicts? Tories face wipe-out, and Biden faces a close call with Trump, and nothing helps guarantee re-election like being at war.
But it is all political. Houthis are funded by SA and Iran. They are attacking because of Israel’s genocidal treatment of 2 million people in Gaza. I mean the Houthis are awful, as are Hamas, but there are lots of other awful groups doing awful stuff around the globe 24/7 that impact UK and US interests but don’t prompt severe military retaliation. Russia tried to shoot down a RAF jet last year - nothing happened, diplomacy won out. So why the sudden need to approve these strikes on a weekend? Attacks have been happening for months. Why didn’t they do an emergency recall to put the decision before Congress and HoC? They are playing with fire and they know it.
I’m just saying that a war declaration against a much less well-armed militia in Yemen for a prolonged military campaign and something they can claim to be in aid of a ‘good’ cause could be convenient to both Biden and Sunak for a boost in the polls. It also comes with fewer risks as they arent a nuclear power like Russia, Iran, SA, or Israel (yay proxy war). Sadly, I wouldn’t put it past either leader to have considered this.
but there are lots of other awful groups doing awful stuff around the globe 24/7 that impact UK and US interests but don’t prompt severe military retaliation
Name one that is blocking a major transport lane by firing missles at ships. We took action when a US Navy ship was attacked by 24 Houthi drones. You don’t attack US ships in international waters and not expect blowback. To parapharse Godfather, it’s not political, it’s business.
houthis are at war with saudi arabia for better part of last decade, and more broadly for almost three decades. it’s a part of proxy iran-saudi conflict
They are attacking because of Israel’s genocidal treatment of 2 million people in Gaza
they are attacking because iran told them so. houthis, like hezbollah, are iranian proxies
Russia tried to shoot down a RAF jet last year
and turks shot down a russian jet couple of years ago, and ultimately also nothing happened
Why didn’t they do an emergency recall to put the decision before Congress and HoC? They are playing with fire and they know it.
bs. airstrikes are easy and low-risk, the real, permanent solution to this problem would be boots on the ground and/or high intensity airstrikes on iranian weapons manufacturers. neither are gonna happen, but airstrikes provide that “something is being done” vibe
Based on what I’ve read today, it seems as though the Biden administration is running out of patience with Netanyahu. I’d be surprised if anything real came of that, but at the very least, I highly doubt he has any interest whatsoever putting US troops in Gaza.
That theory doesn’t make much sense to me. The military conflicts have been political losers for Biden. Polling consistently shows that Americans believe (for some insane reason) that the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts wouldn’t have happened under Trump. Gaza in particular has split Biden’s base. The best thing that could happen for Biden is if all the conflicts end before the election.
It seems there are some in the UK Government willing to game the Israel Gaza conflict to their electoral advantage. Not boots on ground, and thankfully its being called out by the opposition as wrong, but shows they are at least considering this in their deliberations for calling for a ceasefire. feddit.uk/post/9265224
Hey Trump’s think tank said the same thing yesterday!
But The Telegraph is a highly respected news source, isn’t it?
The Daily Telegraph is politically conservative and has endorsed the Conservative Party at every UK general election since 1945.[48][49] The personal links between the paper’s editors and the leadership of the Conservative Party, along with the paper’s generally right-wing stance and influence over Conservative activists, have led the paper commonly to be referred to, especially in Private Eye, as the Torygraph.[48]
Yea, and Jerome Powell is a Republican. If you think I’m trying to make this seem like Biden’s fault, it has nothing to do with the Executive branch of the government.
Oh it’s here, but the economists most news agencies talk to only look at rich people metrics like stock prices and meaningless poor people metrics like unemplyment %.
Except Real Wages, incidence of home ownership, full-time employment, and GDP per capita are all up. This all while inflation continues to drop and has never risen anywhere near the levels seen abroad.
China is threatening US global dominance and the US is freaked out and very motivated to cast suspicion on anything Chinese. Remember that “spy balloon” that turned out to be a nothing burger? I wouldn’t pay attention to anything so insubstantial as “fears raised”. That’s all they’re doing - raising fear.
Believe it or not, sometimes real people actually disagree with you. It must be difficult to imagine independent thoughts that don’t align with the narrative you follow, but they exist.
Believe it or not, there is no “both sides” when it comes to Chinese spy programs. They do it. They don’t want it done to them. Their economy is collapsing. Their social manipulation teams are required to remain in denial while their country falls apart at the seams. They are not allowed to have independent thoughts.
China is threatening US global dominance and the US is freaked out
The US is “freaking out” because everywhere we look we find yet another Chinese back door that wasn’t known about and isn’t necessary. These things represent a fucking enormous security risk, especially when they are embedded in critical infrastructure…and yes cargo handing cranes are critical infrastructure.
I wouldn’t pay attention to anything so insubstantial as “fears raised”.
The US was all too happy to ship manufacturing over to China when US corporations could exploit cheap Chinese labor for juicy profit margins, but now that China is making their own things, suddenly China is a major threat. You’re exactly right, but you’ll be downvoted and criticized by people sucking down western propaganda while labeling you a shill, funnily enough.
telegraph.co.uk
Active