So an injured migrant (how did he get injured?) was on the Mexican side of the border. Was approached by a guy on a motorcycle. And the Texas guard decided to shoot the guy? Because, according to the Texas Guard, e was trying to harm the migrant?
So… Obviously made up story to justify what is still an illegal act.
These guys have abandoned all pretense of adhering to the rule of law.
Thats two people under the same command, and the entire command wants to make it go away ASAP so it doesn’t look bad.
Rape is a huge issue in the military, but it’s a lot different when something happens to a foreign national and both countries press catches wind of it.
Sexual assault is a systemic issue in the military mainly due to chain of command. There have been recent pushes to change the process on how it is handled since there have been too many reports of the issue being swept under the rug due to team cohesion. These are two separate issues though and should be approached as such.
People complain about the UN doing nothing, but it’s also important to remember it was literally designed to not be able to do anything if one of the security council nations – USA, UK, France, Russia, or China – vetoes it. And USA always vetoes anything against the Israeli government.
Considering the UN’s hands are tied, I’m very glad they’re at least using their figurative microphone and international influence to call attention to how fucked up the treatment of Palestinians is.
I don’t know for others, but growing up American, Israel and its friends in Washington had done a terrific job of conflating any criticism of Israel with anti-semitism. What finally got me to re-evaluate my stance on the Israeli government a few years back was when well-known, respectable organizations like the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International started using the word “apartheid” to describe the situation of Palestinians.
Hearing sources like the UN Office for Human Rights, the UN Secretary General, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International calling out the Israeli government’s actions in strong, unequivocal terms like “war crime” and “apartheid” is a start. I wish they could do more, and I sure as heck am angry with US foreign policy in this, but I’m just glad the UN has the balls to actually call this a war crime.
Aren’t they the leading political “party” if you will in Gaza? Weren’t they elected like over a decade ago? (Before they got rid of elections.) Or maybe I’m not remembering correctly.
No what’s worse is they used the attack as an excuse to go to war. I’d argue that 9/11 was just incompetence but this is too nefarious. They had a warning multiple times including by Hamas. Israel is a terrorist state and will always be one after these events.
Israel has the military might to solve this issue right now with no risk to their soldiers, and had this capability for the better part of this 70 year old conflict, but you know why it doesn’t use that military might to spare its own people?
Because we’re not fucking terrorists! We care about human lives, even those who fucking vowed to kill us and elected a terrorist organization as their government to accomplish this task for them
That’s how you imagine yourself as. Realistically it just feels like a mask has slipped of your face and a lot of people in the world realised you aren’t the oppressed anymore.
That’s a disingenuous statement designed to manipulate people, you never in your life sincerely thought Israel is oppressed and you’re trying to make it seem like you did.
It’s hard to imagine one self in Israel’s shoes, but I can say with high certainty you never tried.
“Members of [the US’s] U.N. delegation reiterated Monday that the Palestinian Authority needs to exert control over all of the Palestinian territories and negotiate statehood with Israel before it wins statehood”
The PFLP definitely represents Palestinian interests the best. Their Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine is the best book I’ve read on the subject; highly recommend.
As it is now though, even an Islamic fundamentalist organization like Hamas is a far more progressive force for Palestine just by being against the occupation, and the PFLP agrees. Their strategies are also pretty much identical to other armed resistance groups that have been successful in the past, like the Viet Cong (guerilla warfare, tunnels, hostages, etc)
The PFLP used to be the most influential Palestinian organization; that’s no longer the case now since the USSR — their largest supporter — was overthrown and the capitalist Russian Federation has no reason to fund socialist movements anymore (same reason why they don’t directly fund Vietnam, Bangladesh, DPRK, Cuba, etc now).
It’s also why Hamas is the most influential one now — because have the Iranian government’s support.
I took the time to educate myself and read more about the government situation in Palestine before forming an opinion on this. The last Palestinian election was in 2006, so I think it’s pretty uncontroversial that the current government of the Palestinian Authority holds no mandate from the people of Palestine. I think a good starting point would be to hold immediate elections, then hopefully there will be a change in government and negotiations can begin for peace in Palestine after Netanyahu goes to jail
What is their to negotiate with Israel? The Peace Process has been going on for 30 years and Israeli settlements only accelerated since then. The UN should take a decision and enforce it, of course the US will veto it because it never truly supported a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu going to jail won’t fix anything. Leaders don’t come into power by their merit, but by the system in place and its material conditions; the very existence of the fascist colony here means only hitlerite people like Netanyahu can come into power.
So long as this western proxy exists in Palestine as a separate state, it will continue to colonize it and serve the US’s imperialist interests of destabilizing the Middle-East. The only permanent solution is to drive out this foreign force entirely and revert it to the Palestine before zionist colonization where Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc lived together — this is also what the PFLP advocates.
There is nothing to negotiate with a colony. You would be legitimizing it by doing so.
Here’s a third one: They have a Welcome Stamp visa program where you can work remotely from there for a year, and it’s renewable. You can even bring your family. Under this program you only pay income tax on your country of origin.
Yeah, after all, this softening of oil sanctions in an environment where the oil revenue is flowing into state coffins it’ll be refreshing to see pensions and salaries adjusted beyond the current $5/month.
As someone with several family members in Venezuela and many more who fled the country: The only awe inspiring thing about Maduro’s regime is how someone so incompetent and uncharismatic can stay in power this long.
Medicine is in short supply and if you want any chance of surviving a serious illness you go to private clinics, which always only accept dollars.
A 40 year old cousin of mine died because they didn’t have medicine that would have been in most hospitals in other countries. A 28 year old cousin of mine died of covid because there were no spots available in any clinic near her. My 60 year old uncle lost both his legs from a diabetes-linked infection because the state of his mental health didn’t allow him to take the meds prescribed by a private clinic at home and we didn’t have money to commit him.
Everyone there is fucked, even those who work for state companies.
A 35 year old cousin of mine worked for years for the state oil company and bought a very nice, big house in a brand new development. But when inflation was at infinity% and food was hard to get and she decided to leave the country for the sake of her children, she couldn’t sell her house for any amount of money to anyone, because everyone in the country was trying to leave(and still are, 6 years later).
If you want to keep believing that communism could possibly work before a post scarcity world, fine. I guess the fact you haven’t seen any communist country be socially liberal as well as having high wages for the average worker is just a byproduct of not trying it enough times. But if you want some shred of evidence that communism works don’t look to Venezuela. Look to Vietnam or China or something. Venezuelans are only saved from starvation thanks to oil and charity.
And if you want to paint the US as the source of all evils and praise those who do well while being cut off from it, then mention Cuba. They actually have some redeeming qualities.
All of Venezuela’s policies since Hugo Chavez would be considered at most center-left in most of Europe. Venezuela is at most a social-democratic country with a lot of populism.
And you talk about China when saying “communism” doesn’t work? Bro, China never said it was communist first of all, and China isn’t working? Are you insane? China is by far the country with the biggest increase in quality of life and purchasing power in the world. Have you even seen a Chinese city nowadays?
When China sucks it’s communist, but when it’s the fastest growing, strongest economy in the world it’s capitalist?
And CUBA? Bro a country that has been basically under economic siege for the past 60 years and STILL has better health outcomes than the US?? The country with the most sustainable economy in the planet? The country that just last year passed democratically the most progressive constitution in the history of humanity??
You are a brainwashed liberal, like so many of the shitheads I’ve met that left Venezuela. You have 0 material analysis, it’s all vibes and ideology and parroting US think tank talking points. You don’t understand the reality of your own fucking country AT ALL.
As long as Venezuelans keep blaming the US for Venezuela’s problems instead of looking inward, especially to their own corrupt government, things won’t get better for them.
Using the US as an external enemy is great for holding onto power but it doesn’t improve people’s lives. Transparency, democracy and accountability improve people’s lives. These are things most of Europe have and Venezuela does not. Venezuela has vastly different policies from center-left European countries and I’d know because I live in one.
You don’t have to defend China or Cuba because I don’t want to attack them. I wish Venezuela would be like China or Cuba. At least my family wouldn’t go without power, starve or die needlessly.
Maduro has to go, and chavistas need to stop blaming everyone but the government for their problems. But I suspect even after everyone has left and only chavistas remain, they’ll still blame someone else. Don’t encourage them.
Venezuela has a legitimate reason to complain about the US, they are under economic sanctions imposed by them that directly impact their ability to develop and fucking kill people. This rhetoric that they should pull themselves by their bootstraps is nonsense, lift the sanctions and then you could have an argument that they’re inefficient.
I wonder why those Americans were shooting people in a river in the first place. That’s their solution to everything, shoot people. Got a problem? Shoot at it.
I guess that you are joking, and I disagree with their stupid policy, but it’s not really that weird for policies to be different in the border of a country with inter country borders. It’s not a double standard, they are clearly two well defined different standards.
That’s the thing, no? US has laws against immigrants and acts according to those. Now, the dude didn’t follow it’s own laws and yeah we know that they are corrupt and he won’t get shit, but what I’m saying is that laws about interacting with fellow citizens will always be different than laws interaction with external people
Sure but then I don’t get which double standard you were mentioning with this incident and the issue that the rest of the US has with texas.
I’m not defending this fact at all, I genuinely don’t understand why is there a double standard with Mexico-us policies and non texas us-texas policies, they are different laws, double standards exist where reality works differently with how it should happen.
Are you saying that you should be allowed to shoot texas that try to go to anywhere on the US that is not texas? People jump quite fast to aggressive comments as if I was implying that what happened is remotely okay, I just don’t get how your double standards comment makes sense.
It’s worse than that. The shots were fired across the river into Mexican territory. The national guard should know their authority on that type of situation. This was a major fuck up and they are definitely being chewed out for the mountains of paperwork he just created. Stuff like this isn’t easily swept under the rug, especially if our southern neighbor pushes the issue.
I’d love to know what the domestic spin is on this.
What specifics is he promising this will deliver domestically? I can’t imagine Buenos Aires is on Putin’s shortlist even without the threst of NATO, and it’s not like Americans are goung to start beating the doors down for Argentine imports.
There’s tactful good relations, and then there’s “sempai notice me”. Although, the Cosplay Crusader may well be familiar with that trope.
That’s easy, communist dictator overthrew the corporate friendly dictator so the big, rich land owners and industrialist lost their investment. So fled to Dominican Republic, most to Miami.
Their descendants represent an important Latino vote that grew up hating Castro’s regime. To the point of some of the most extreme took down a Cuban cargo plane without consequences from the US. The US sucks up to them for their votes in exchange for continued anti Castro policies.
Obama actually started reversing this but guess which orange bozo undid most of it in a single term? Not that Biden did much to try it again.
I still never understood what Cuba actually did that makes the US sanction them to this day. As far as I can tell they were a neutral country actually leaning slightly in favour of the US right up until they were suddenly branded communist (in the soviet sense) and more or less pushed into Russias arms.
They are living proof that communism works. The capitalist global hegemon can’t have people knowing there are alternatives to the exploitation it relies on to keep itself going.
Well Castro came to power via revolution in 1959, which pissed off the US, and started the push towards the Soviet Union. The nation also hosted Soviet nukes for a very brief time in 1962.
More detailed timeline found here, if you’re interested.
That was in response to the US placing similar missiles in Turkey and Italy and threatening the USSR in 1961.
I don’t see Russia putting an embargo on those two now 60 years later. Though ig that’s not a one-to-one comparison since Russia’s ruled by capitalists now.
I am not here arguing for or against sanctions. I am saying that there is a specific historical incident which is the current justification for the status quo.
This was 62 years ago, if just the crisis was the reason, it would be gone long ago, at least since 1991. No, the true reason is that thriving socialist state in a beret toss distance from USA would undermine US imperialism greatly. Remember that entire capitalism hinges on the propaganda that “socialism don’t work”, and while it demostrably do work, it’s always some far away so it can be propagandized and demonised to hell and back, so when they got one right beside them, they must sabotage it with all strenght.
It’s the threat of a good example right at the US’s borders. Even with the embargo, Cuba has free healthcare, housing, better LGBT rights, higher life expectancy, and a proper democracy unlike the US. A thriving Cuba might threaten the US capitalist class and force them to make concessions to the working-class, like the Scandanavian countries’ capitalist states had to for being near the USSR (though those have started being undone with the example overthrown).
And it’s not just sanctions, the embargo also prevents companies of other countries from trading with Cuba if they also do so with the US. Which the vast majority of them obviously have to if they want to survive competition.
There’s a really good podcast season (2) from Blowback on the history of Cuba and why things are the way they are today. But essentially, it’s what another user posted below. It’s that communism existing is a threat to capitalist rule.
Cuba repossessed land that foreigners in the US (Florida) were making money off of so they could support their own people. The dispossessed Americans turned this into a voting issue and have had the US leadership by the balls over it since. Other countries in the region who want to suck up to the US uphold the embargo on their end as well. This keeps Cuba in a constant state of extreme poverty. It’s violence.
So this article is thin on details and lacking any mention of historical or political context. The only cited sources it has are “witnesses” (unidentified). It’s pretty clearly designed to give the reader a simple impression lacking in nuance or understanding. And in fact, it is a copy of propaganda articles being pushed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry as described in this article by Radio Free Asia. And here is the media bias rating for RFA.
This is a propaganda piece, and it’s a poorly written one that doesn’t even attempt to back up its claims with any other sources or explain the broader context of the conflict in Syria. The funny bit is, it’s stale propaganda from 15 months ago, though it seems to have been updated with a new picture of a single truck on a road somewhere.
Adding to the general comic value, there are lots of pictures of trucks on unidentified roads in unspecified locations, but in spite of all the finger-pointing at the “US occupation forces” there isn’t a single US soldier or vehicle pictured anywhere.
This article from SANA is the same. It cites nothing except “local sources” and it’s even shorter. It’s literally a copy of the Chinese Foreign Ministry talking points described by RFA.
RFA was created under the directorate of the CIA, and later transfered to the State Department (aka foreign policy influence). The fact that MBFC fails to mention that is huge red flag and shows their own bias.
I swear it’s MBFC’s job to not understand that. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair
It looks like most outlets carrying this story are just re-reporting this one from SANA: sana.sy/en/?p=329527
And that seems a bit light on details. And the details it does have seem slanted, like painting the US presence as an occupation, a border crossing as an illegal settlement (I can’t even find any other references to Mahmoudiya in Syria with a quick Google), and the photos just show pictures of random tanker trucks, nothing that would indicate location, direction, contents, or operator.
My sense is that the US is supporting a rebel faction in the Syrian civil war, and the ruling faction (Bashar al-Assad’s) is trying to paint them as the bad guy, for something that may or may not be legitimate, and may or may not even be happening at all. There’s not enough evidence here to draw any conclusions.
A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. In this case, that area is under the control of the SDF.
The US is supporting SDF, a primarily Kurdish group. This is no secret, they have been since 2015 against ISIL (you remember, the guys that were posting videos of beheading people on YouTube).
The Kurds have lived in this area for millennia. They have just as much right to the natural resources there as the Assad government, probably more.
Which is why the Navajo Nation controls land that would have otherwise contained the Hoover Dam, if it were not for the rights that the Navajo held to the natural resources there.
what definition of occupation does not include the deployment of the US military, which proceeded to build a dozen military bases in a territory of another country, which has continuously made filings to the UN about this occupation?
Regardless of your opinion of RFA, it’s the way this article is written that makes it propaganda. It makes a direct political attack, but it doesn’t actually substantiate any of its claims. You are expected to believe what it tells you and not ask any questions. There are no corroborating sources, no cross references, and not even names of the witnesses they claim to have.
No matter what your political point of view is, you shouldn’t believe anything presented in an article of this quality. It’s an insult to your intelligence. It’s not information, it’s just opinion.
The Syrian conflict is 13 years old. It’s ridiculous to expect every article to give you the whole context every time, especially since anything anyone will write about said context will be extremely biased. This conflict had massive misinformation campaigns from all sides.
Evaluate the information for what it is, not for whether it gives you a lecture on the history of the conflict.
SANA is primarily a TV channel, and the articles are usually a summary / transcript of the TV reports. They show videos routinely of the trucks that are very clearly carrying oil through Al-ya’rabiya, which is a border crossing from Syria to Iraq that the US controls.
It’s difficult to build lasting peace when the aggressor does not want it. Sure the Russians are open to peace in their terms, but imo that is just escalate things again in few years to come.
Don’t get me wrong, EU is in big part a peace project. That however shouldn’t happen at just any cost. Free, independent and territorially whole Ukraine is important for the future peace, Ukraine, Europe and even good for Russia.
NATO is a defensive alliance and Russia not repositioning troops to defend against new NATO member Finland tells you all you need to know about how threatened Russia really feels about NATO.
Russia is absolutely threatened by NATO because NATO was created to be a transnational military force directed explicitly at Russia. After the Third Reich failed to defeat the USSR, it’s stated goal, the West betrayed their Soviet ally, created NATO and then staffed it with Nazi officers.
Iraq was invaded by 3 of the at the time 20 or so member states of NATO. Still was an illegal invasion in my opinion but it wasn’t NATO.
Afghanistan
If you harbor terrorists that attack the most powerful nation in the world I don’t know what to tell you. But I’m sure the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was totally cool, right?
Yugoslavia
This is the part where you deny a genocide happened, right?
the West betrayed their Soviet ally
Was that before or after the Soviets teamed up with the Nazis to invade Poland? I can share the photos of them shaking hands if you’d like. But again, I’m sure Stalin’s reasons were GREAT!
I would also add that Stalin’s blockade of West Berlin preceded the formation of NATO. Not exactly the behavior of a trustworthy ally.
Last 20 years russia invaded Georgia and twice Ukraine. Any attempt to find peaceful resolution post 2014 invasion was made impossible by russia. They were amassing troops around Ukraine since early 2019 and likely prepared for this since Minsk II was signed in 2015. That agreement eventually ended up with russia deciding that Minsk II no longer existed in 2022 and invading 2 days later based on made up excuses. These are the “security guarantees” they have been asking for. They never had any intention stopping their invasion, they just needed pause to prepare for another offensive. And they are doing exactly the same now.
So what you’re saying is that NATO had decided that Russia’s request to negotiate for decades was not going to go anywhere and everything Russia did poves it but everything NATO did has no bearing on the topic?
Russia is an imperialistic state that thinks it should have influence on the politics of its neighbors. But this is wrong. Every country belongs to itself and is allowed to make its own decisions. What do you think gives Russia the right to negotiate about the fate of other countries that are not Russia?
There was nothing to negotiate with Russia. Russia is not part of the decision making process of other sovereign countries. Especially not those that seek for protection from Russia.
Russia’s “requests to negotiate” were also sprinkled with three hostile invasions of its neighbors. It’s asinine to pretend like the will for peaceful negotiation was sincere. When it all started they still tried to pretend like it wasn’t them (no relation to Wagner, little green men, and so on). Nowadays Russia doesn’t even pretend to be anything but a warmonger.
Every country has influence on the politics of every other state. You are projecting your own Euro-centric atrocities onto Russia. Which countries have violently destroyed the most national movements for independence? Which countries have violently dominated and imposed occupation on the most people in the world? Hint: it’s not Russia. It’s the member states of NATO. Spain, France, England, The Netherlands, Portugal, and their bastard child the USA. If you want to ensure nations can operate independently you should not be supporting the US as it continues it’s decades long hot, cold, and proxy war against Russia.
The idea that you think Russia has no stake in what other countries do means you think about national security like a feudal lord. All we need is a big castle and keep to ourselves, right? Unfortunately, that isolationist fantasy does match reality, nor does it matter the understanding of politics and national defense that has guided world politics for over a century. All security is mutual. Everyone in the security world knows this. Russia’s demands for national security, like ALL demands for national security, requires mutualism in the security structure. And since the dismantling of the USSR, that mutualism has been missing. The imperialist genocidal US along with the imperialist and genocidal European powers made it very clear for decades that Russia’s security doesn’t matter, only their security does. This is quite literally the exact same structure as a hot war and invasion of Russia, just earlier in the sequence.
Russia’s attempts to negotiate for peace since it’s emergence from the USSR have been spurned. At some point, the West must see consequences, they must see that Russia will not appease them. There must be something to negotiate with. You seem to understand this for Ukraine, demanding that Ukraine be sent all the weapons and soldiers needed to completely destroy the Russian military before you think it’s legitimate to negotiate, but you think Russia should just do nothing while the genocidal imperialists continue their 600-year project of total global domination up to and including nuking civilians and undermining MAD so that they can do it again?
Face it. You’re a hypocrite. You’re projecting your white imperialism onto other nations to deflect from the actual threat in the world being your home community. And you are applying both arguments from ignorance and double standards to maintain your dissonance and rationalize your Russophobia and support for the most violent regime the world has ever suffered under.
No, what I’m saying is that russia never negotiated in good will. Whatever cooperation there is, russia will always spoil it.
Interpol is good example, russia abuses that system so much, about 38% of the warrants in the system come from them. Per capita that’s about 2000% more compared to other countries. There’s 194 countries in Interpol to put things into perspective, including China. They use the system to harass opposition abroad to the point that Interpol had to implement special rules for russia and actually review the warrants.
Russia will never stick to any agreement unless they are forced to. Had NATO understood that in 2014, we might have avoided the second invasion completely. The best we can do is to make sure there’s not going to be 3rd invasion after russia breaks Minsk III.
Russia never negotiated in good faith? Really? You think this is aclaim you can reasonably make while the US and Europe behave the way they do? Like, where does this claim even come from except Western moralizing and Russophobia?
LOL, interpol is your example? The US has threatened to militarily invade The Hague if any US person is ever brought to trail at the International Criminal Court, but they constantly invole the court and call for the arrest of world leaders. And you think Russia is the one harassing opposition aboard? You are grasping at straws to rationalize your irrational and hypocritical position.
NATO is the problem here. The Third Reich was founded on the strategic objective to destroy the USSR and dominate Russia and the Slavs the way US dominates the indigenous nations on the land it stole from them. When the USSR destroyed 80% of the Third Reich, the most advanced military ever deployed at that point, and marched through all of the territory they had taken, liberated that territory, and then took Berlin, the allies of the USSR who were focused entirely on maintaining capitalist Imperialism and the violent dominance of 80% of the world, the capitalist built a new nuclear transmilitary force explicitly to contain and ultimately destroy the workers’ state.
And since the Nazis spent all their time fighting and losing to Russia, the US decided to staff NATO with Nazi officers, because destroying socialism was the most important thing. The Third Reich’s industrial genocide was merely an extension of the US’s eugenics programs which continued to sterilize undesirable people through the 1970s (eg, a full third of Puerto Rico was sterilized).
When the USSR was ultimately dissolved by capitalists looking to join the Euro-centric capitalist world order, the US brought Milton Friedman economists to the region and designed and implemented economic shock therapy to bring capitalism to the region. Doing so killed 10 million people.
So now we have millions dead because of the West, and the threat NATO was built and staffed with Nazis to defeat is gone, but what happens? NATO stays, changes it’s mission to countering Russia, and the cold war continues while the US on one side is saying they welcome Russia back to capitalist world and on the other side maintain Russiophobix propaganda, are working to undermine MAD, and killing millions of people in the former republics through economic devastation.
And then the US votes every single time at the UN against condemning Nazis. They say Ukraine is never going to be in NATO and then make plans to get Ukraine back in the early 90s, negotiating in bad faith, literally lying in negotiations. And then they take this defensive alliance and use it to bomb Yugoslavia with depleted uranium bombs under the lie of humanitarian intervention.
My vatnik-o meter is maxing out. Whataboutism, pointing at nazis (ignoring the obvious one with Molotov-Ribbentrop pact), outright lies, victim complex, copypasta of bullshit, rewriting history. Your comment has it all.
It was entertaining, but I have no interest talking to russian drone.
Carving up Ukraine’s territorial integrity is breeding grounds for further border conflicts. Do you think Ukrainians are going to simply sit and quietly forget about it if Russia steals their territory, or will it remain an open wound that provokes them to retaliate in any way they can for decades to come?
Well I think that ship has largely sailed, unfortunately. At this point I would think Russia is incentivized to hold as much territory as they can. I don’t see it being returned really changing the relationship or border situation too substantially.
You don’t think relations between Russia and Ukraine will not mend sooner, in historical terms, if this war ends in a white peace, rather than with Russia keeping Ukrainian territories? Being invaded will remain a traumatic memory for most Ukrainians for the rest of their lives, but forever losing a chunk of their country will contribute to keeping that wound open and will favor nationalist, anti-Russian rhetoric in their politics, which will absolutely remove the possibility of ever initiating a new chapter in their relationship with Russia.
Well, this is one possible outcome, although not necessary. For example Finland was able to patch it’s relations with Russia after 2 brutal wars with tens of thousands of casualties and a huge chunk of lost land. Of course the friendly relations were somewhat forced and a survival mechanism for a small country in Cold War era (Russia had a hold on Finland while Finland navigated in it’s position to gain as much political freedoms it could) but it genuinely got rid of open hostilities between the countries.
Even after the cold war ended and up to today, majority of the population in Finland has not had a revanchist opinion towards Russians, albeit they were not fully trusted either. Finns learned to live as neighbors and in peace while preparing just in case.
So while it is probably likely that loosing land would cause a negative nationalistic turn in Ukraine and grievances towards Russia, it’s not set in stone. Actually I am way more concerned that if Russia can claim a victory, they expand their delirious imperial/quasifascist project and escalate the conflict with the west further.
You may be right, it’s hard to say. But even then, the benefits of stolen land are substantial and indefinite. I think it’s a hard sell to say that Russia benefits from a total defeat here.
If beaten in Ukraine, there is a chance that the trajectory of the Russian Federation changes. Currently they are trying to fulfill a senseless imperial project which is doomed to eventually fail.
With defeat in Ukraine, there’s a chance that the growing destabilization within Russia leads to abandonment of the imperial dream. It might also force a change in the leadership albeit not necessarily for the better. What it would do however, is to show that the Putinist system is not the only option and that the actions it has taken, are in fact harmful for Russia and Russians. In a way, it opens up a way to politicize the apolitical Russian public.
In the semi long/long term this would benefit the population as it would not only challenge the idea of Russia as an Empire, but also allow for a less authoritarian model of governance.
I think it’s a little too hard to predict what will end up better for the Russian people. As you say, there’s no guarantee that a post-Putin Russia is necessarily a better one. But there are many paths that lead to a more democratic and free Russia, and many that may emerge from any outcome of the war.
The invasion has been such a catastrophic failure that I don't see how "escalate things again in a few years to come" is even remotely plausible, even if they do get some concession at this point.
I think you seriously underestimate Russia. They have a helluva lot of manpower, natural resources and money. They are also able to import western sanctioned materials via China and Central Asian countries.
Russian society is being organized to resemble a war economy. There are new laws that make drafting more difficult to avoid and with more severe punishments. Also they have just raised the age for conscription. They are playing the long game and preparing for future eg. mobilizing the whole society under one delirious cause. Late 20s, early 30s it is totally possible that Russia has a better military capacity than it currently has. Sure, the life of average Russian will suck way more than it does now, but there’s not really an option if you want to keep your job in a tank factory and avoid going to prison. You have no choice but to participate.
Putin has made his mind and the struggle in Ukraine only makes him more determined that He is fighting an existential battle with the west, especially since he believes that democracies and western liberal lifestyle are on a path of inevitable decline.
Sure, if he is stupid enough He might start a conflict with NATO, believing that the alliance will break when under pressure. He might think that He is prepared and the west is weak. And while there’s 95% change that he is mistaken, it doesn’t matter if he himself believes the crap the yesmen around him and He himself are feeding him. That’s the real risk and to me, a defeat in Ukraine makes this scenario less likely to happen.
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