My Woke Military thread has aged well.

Well, this thread predictably devolved into abject stupidity. 

 

14 minutes ago, Kz! said:

And it'll be fun to watch retarded ishlibs like yourself scream into the abyss about orange man when it happens. Entertainment for all!  

No one brought him up until you retards made the ridiculous claim Trump would have stopped Russia frm invading the Ukraine. 

Why is this old F still around 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Vlad67 said:

Well the history repeats itself all over again...Appeasement policy didn't stop Hitler and it didn't stop Putler as well...The West could have choose between shame and war and again we chose shame...and again we will get war...Too bad there are no Churchill type of politics anymore...Also by failing to help Ukraine in any meaningful way aside of empty words US(as a main ally) is basically giving Taiwan to China as well because after they see this it will be just a matter of time untill they will do the same...As I said, the history repeats itself all over again..

Agreed. The entire situation is just sad. Russia would have been terrified at even the thought of trying this 25-30 years ago. 

3 minutes ago, Gannan said:

 

No one brought him up until you retards made the ridiculous claim Trump would have stopped Russia frm invading the Ukraine. 

Wahhh Orange man! No one cares, boomer, get new material.

Good thing we have serious people running things at this perilous juncture

 

Quote

 

Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on BBC Arabic: The Ukraine Crisis Could Distract the World from the Climate Crisis While Having Massive Emissions Consequences #RussiaUkraineConflict #UkraineRussie #UkraineRussiaCrisis #ClimateCrisis @JohnKerry @ClimateEnvoy pic.twitter.com/nsOC1iZeGm

— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) February 24, 2022

 

 

1 minute ago, Bacarty2 said:

Oppenheimer was an actual genius who killed millions. 

 

Oppenheimer didn't "kill millions" any more than Smith & Wesson did.

Oppenheimer created a weapon that ended the war. And the death toll of those bombs wasn't anywhere near a million let alone "millions".

1 hour ago, Bacarty2 said:

Too late. 

We (as americans) cant touch Russia or go after them. They have the money, the power and the respect. We just have to let them have most of Europe basically. and no im not kidding

Nothing like some Putin dick swinging to bring all the feeble minded trumpbots out of the woodwork. 

 

Just now, Kz! said:

Wahhh Orange man! No one cares, boomer, get new material.

I'm not that old

It's put up or shut up time for the west. It appears the EU is balking at cutting Russian banks off from SWIFT, given their exposure to Russia. This would be the most crippling thing we could do -- Biden needs to get the EU on board.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/eu-unlikely-cut-russia-off-swift-now-sources-say-2022-02-24/

EDIT: When we threatened this in 2014, the Russians thought it would cut GDP by 5%. It's that impactful.

Quote

When Western nations threatened Russia’s access to Swift in 2014, Alexei Kudrin, a onetime finance minister close to President Vladimir Putin, estimated that it could reduce Russia’s gross domestic product by 5% in a year. Cutting Russia off from Swift could have ramifications for other nations as well, since Russia is a key energy supplier to Europe and countries rely on the Swift system to pay for fuel.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/all-about-swift-one-possible-path-to-sanction-russia/2022/02/22/f5cc9c80-9425-11ec-bb31-74fc06c0a3a5_story.html

2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

It's put up or shut up time for the west. It appears the EU is balking at cutting Russian banks off from SWIFT, given their exposure to Russia. This would be the most crippling thing we could do -- Biden needs to get the EU on board.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/eu-unlikely-cut-russia-off-swift-now-sources-say-2022-02-24/

Agreed. If they don't have sanctions with actual teeth this is just going to embolden Russia.

If the EU doesn't accept the short-term pain that would come with it, they're going to have to accept further military action by Putin as he tries to get the band back together.

4 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Agreed. If they don't have sanctions with actual teeth this is just going to embolden Russia.

If the EU doesn't accept the short-term pain that would come with it, they're going to have to accept further military action by Putin as he tries to get the band back together.

In a weird way, we can blame the Japanese for all of this. Why? After the 2011 meltdown at Fushima (wow, they really filtered this??), the Germans decided to overreact and shut down all nuclear energy. Without nukes, they needed natural gas, and since LNG capacity was lacking (and still is), they had no option other than Russia. So now they are so intertwined with Russia, they are resisting measures like banning them from SWIFT, because that would mean they couldn't buy gas anymore. This is the fissure in NATO Putin is hoping to exploit. 

Thanks Japan...

12 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

Why is this old F still around 

 

 

Freudian slip.... maybe she just wanted a snack?

And for all the people screaming "durr...why did we let the Russians control German energy instead of supplying it ourselves," please realize that you can't ship natural gas unless you liquify it. In 2011-2012, LNG (liquified natural gas) was really more of a concept than a reality. Even today, we don't have nearly enough terminal capacity to export the level of LNG that would be needed. Germany banned nukes because of what happened in Japan, and they have been anti fossil fuels for a while now (so no shipping them oil or coal). So really, there was no option other than gas that could come via pipeline from Russia. There was nothing that we could do once the Germans abandoned nuclear energy.

Backing my earlier comments about "wHy DoEZ pUtiN iNVaDe wHeN dEMoCrAts aRE iN ThE wHItE hOusE HmMmMMMMm??!?!" that resident mouth breathers seem to think is some kind of gotcha, Putin and Xi met 20 days ago just before the Olympics. 

Quote

Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society and former Australian prime minister, called Beijing’s backing of Moscow over NATO expansion "highly significant.”

"It puts at risk China’s wider relationship with the Europeans,” Rudd said. "But Xi believes he is now powerful enough and has sufficient economic leverage with Europe to get away with it. It also signifies that China now sees itself as a global, not just a regional, security actor.”

The discussions mark the two leaders’ first in-person meeting since 2019 and come as China and Russia increasingly align their foreign policies bilaterally and in world bodies such as the United Nations, in opposition to the Western bloc and other major powers.

...

Putin and Xi accused NATO and the U.S.’s Indo-Pacific strategy of building closer military ties with other countries in Asia as destabilizing and threatening regional security.

"The parties oppose the further expansion of NATO, (and) call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon the ideological approaches of the Cold War,” the joint statement said.

...

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a call last week that Moscow’s security concerns need to be addressed, a statement that marked a notable policy shift for Beijing.

 

In Xi and China, Putin had the strong backstop he needed to take this action now. China and Russia have long been friendly, but the geopolitical coordination and economic support between the two countries had not been strong enough until recently to allow Putin to take this sort of move.

I know this doesn't feel as satisfying as "it's because Biden is weak!", but facts are unkind to Republican's lizard brain needs of late.

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

In a weird way, we can blame the Japanese for all of this. Why? After the 2011 meltdown at Fushima, the Germans decided to overreact and shut down all nuclear energy. Without nukes, they needed natural gas, and since LNG capacity was lacking (and still is), they had no option other than Russia. So now they are so intertwined with Russia, they are resisting measures like banning them from SWIFT, because that would mean they couldn't buy gas anymore. This is the fissure in NATO Putin is hoping to exploit. 

Thanks Japan...

To be fair while the nuclear issue is certainly a problem,  Germany barely hesitated to cancel Nordstream 2 which will cause massive problems to their economy. the UK is dragging it's feet because their Government has f'ed up it's energy plans for decades, even longer than it's turned a blind eye to the floods of Russian money swilling round it's financial centres, that's where the resistance to financial measures will come from. 

5 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

In a weird way, we can blame the Japanese for all of this. Why? After the 2011 meltdown at Fushima (wow, they really filtered this??), the Germans decided to overreact and shut down all nuclear energy. Without nukes, they needed natural gas, and since LNG capacity was lacking (and still is), they had no option other than Russia. So now they are so intertwined with Russia, they are resisting measures like banning them from SWIFT, because that would mean they couldn't buy gas anymore. This is the fissure in NATO Putin is hoping to exploit. 

Thanks Japan...

Yup. And while there is some sentiment out there now that Germany can and should reverse course on the plants they plan to shut down and even (if possible, I have no idea) bring the ones they already took offline back online, with Russia and Ukraine engaged in fighting around Chernobyl I have my doubts that they will feel comfortable doing so.

20 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

Why is this old F still around 

 

 

Got to say, we really need term limits.

2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

In a weird way, we can blame the Japanese for all of this. Why? After the 2011 meltdown at Fushima (wow, they really filtered this??), the Germans decided to overreact and shut down all nuclear energy. Without nukes, they needed natural gas, and since LNG capacity was lacking (and still is), they had no option other than Russia. So now they are so intertwined with Russia, they are resisting measures like banning them from SWIFT, because that would mean they couldn't buy gas anymore. This is the fissure in NATO Putin is hoping to exploit. 

Thanks Japan...

Easier to blame Germany and their overreaction to the nuclear disaster in Japan... And how they complicated today's response when they entered energy agreements with Russia.  How frequent are major earthquakes in Germany?

10 minutes ago, Bacarty2 said:

Putin is going to be picking up any guns and killing people either. 

There's a difference between the mob boss who orders a killing and the manufacturer of the gun used to do it. 

But clearly you've shown intellectual honesty is not a principle you value.

1 minute ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

To be fair while the nuclear issue is certainly a problem,  Germany barely hesitated to cancel Nordstream 2 which will cause massive problems to their economy. the UK is dragging it's feet because their Government has f'ed up it's energy plans for decades, even longer than it's turned a blind eye to the floods of Russian money swilling round it's financial centres, that's where the resistance to financial measures will come from. 

2 points:

1. They didn't cancel NS2. They delayed approval. The pipeline is already built and just waiting final certification from the Germans. 

2. NS2 isn't about incremental gas flowing to Germany, it's about Russia sending gas around Ukraine to avoid paying something like $1 billion per year in fees to Ukraine. The Germans are still getting all the gas they need through existing pipelines. The point of Gazprom building NS2 was to avoid the toll payments to Ukraine in order to boost long-term profitability. 

So all the Germans have done so far is stop the Russians (Gazprom) from increasing cash flow by $1 billion. But...if you invade Ukraine and install a puppet government, you can cancel the $1 billion in annual payments and get the same thing. Which is what Putin is doing.

5 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

And for all the people screaming "durr...why did we let the Russians control German energy instead of supplying it ourselves," please realize that you can't ship natural gas unless you liquify it. In 2011-2012, LNG (liquified natural gas) was really more of a concept than a reality. Even today, we don't have nearly enough terminal capacity to export the level of LNG that would be needed. Germany banned nukes because of what happened in Japan, and they have been anti fossil fuels for a while now (so no shipping them oil or coal). So really, there was no option other than gas that could come via pipeline from Russia. There was nothing that we could do once the Germans abandoned nuclear energy.

Just trying to follow.  Germany just sanctioned the pipeline from Russia., so who will supply their LNG now?  Or will they go back to fossil fuels

1 minute ago, toolg said:

Easier to blame Germany and their overreaction to the nuclear disaster in Japan... And how they complicated today's response when they entered energy agreements with Russia.  How frequent are major earthquakes in Germany?

Not very frequent, but more frequent than tsunamis.