I never said you have to like or support Russia. I said it is coward centrism to be fence sitting on this specific issue on Ukraine-Russia war.
In what ways?
Also, Gaza has been invaded since 2023, and many times before that by the Israelis.
You don’t like to like Russia to know that intervening to stop ethnic cleansing even at the expense of risking global sanctions that wrecked your economy just 7 years ago was the right thing to do.
Same as understanding that you don’t have to like people like Gaddafi to know that what is being done to Libya is absolutely abhorrent.
Fence sitting here is just coward centrism and taking the same pro-imperialist position as Natalie here.
and why even pick a side in the russia/ukraine thing?
Are we both-sidesing Russia and Ukraine now???
Are we going to condemn if a country intervenes for Gaza as well?
Nobody has more Nobel Prizes than me. Nobody. Every year they kept telling me that I’m the best president ever. Thank you, President Trump, they told me, for keeping the world peaceful.
Not marmite but I’ll answer nonetheless.
Modern air defense systems like S-300s can absolutely hit those aircrafts even at their maximum altitude, however if they have been suppressed or neutralized, the short range air defenses and AAs can still operate but they won’t be able to hit the higher targets.
In Ukraine, the Ukrainian pilots had to fly their planes at barely above ground altitude to avoid radar detection because they could not eliminate the Russian air defense network, but that also meant that those planes have to fly closer to their targets to release their payloads, and made vulnerable to short range/portable air defenses like MANPADS.
So, if Iran wants to hit Israeli jets, or deny air superiority entirely, they need to have a more robust networked long-range air defense systems complemented by a diverse range of medium and short range defenses to maximize coverage. This is how Russia has been able to keep out NATO air forces, not surprising considering that Russia is the global leader in air defense systems.
John “I used to live in Russia so I know a lot about Russia” Helmer came in with the hot sauce yesterday lol:
CW: an inappropriate word insinuating SA censored
“So what you see is obvious,” says a well-informed Moscow source. “This is not a Sino-Russian alignment but a US-Russian alignment with the Chinese claiming to join the troika. The message to Trump is very clear — we [Putin] want to make deal; we want sanctions lifted; we want our airline flights and Boeings back; we are ready for compromises. Look what we have done! We have been good boys, haven’t we, in Syria? We have made no new troubles in Libya. We have not made trouble in Venezuela. We are only focused on fighting in our front yard. We accept that you [Trump] are the hegemon. We’ll complain about it, but we won’t fight to make you weaker. Your strength, dear Uncle Sam, is our economic survival. It’s fine that you r**e a few small boys every once in a while, but we are still being good boys, aren’t we? This is the reality. And the main media are saying this now — Beijing has abandoned Teheran. Moscow has abandoned Teheran. I add that Teheran has abandoned Iran with too little and too late, so what’s left to fight? For us, it’s Ukraine.”
lmao. I usually take Helmer with a grain of salt but if this is true I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
Trump is going to win the Nobel Peace Prize for the next 4 years.
It is illegal but enforcement is very lax, because of the way the revenue structure works in China.
Value-added tax forms the major tax base of both the central and local governments, and so the economy is already predisposed to be reliant on those companies to generate as much revenue as they can. Strict enforcement means lower output, less revenues and less tax revenues for the governments to spend on public utilities. That’s not the only reason though and we can write an entire essay on it.
If China wants to stop this behavior, then a complete revamp of its fiscal and monetary systems will be needed.
Ironically, it is the foreign companies like Apple and Tesla that are most compliant to Chinese regulations and give the best salary and benefits, because they don’t want to infringe on Chinese labor laws and risk having their access to the Chinese market revoked. On the other hand, Huawei, the darling of Hexbear, is well known for giving zero day of annual paid leave. ZERO.
That’s the cost of getting cheap goods.
The US has stopped developing its uranium extraction industry following the Lisbon Protocol because Russia can supply tons of cheap uranium by dismantling their huge stockpile of nuclear warheads.
As a result, even with the Russia-Ukraine war going on and unprecedented Western sanctions against Russia, the US still continues to import uranium from Russia!
Having said that, I don’t think there will ever be a hot war with China. The post-1991 US military industrial complex is all about grifting and profit. The US is not under threat as long as it has nukes.
And the wars it sponsored are more about creating chaos and destabilization to reshape regional politics and economy to its interests rather than conquering land. And having an advanced enemy like during the Soviet times means trillions of dollars more funding for the military industrial complex and completes the loop of perpetual grifting for the defense contractors.
This guy talks a lot about Petrodollar nonsense and how China’s going to create their own dollar-denominated financial system to kill the US dollar lol. I don’t even know how these people can be taken seriously, but apparently it is quite easy to gather a following on Youtube and social media if you say what people want to hear.
The effect was more pronounced in countries with larger Communist Parties. Capitalism did not reduce working hours on its own.
Saw this on twitter.
Link to the book pdf: Reforming to Survive: The Bolshevik Origins of Social Policies
Honestly no idea. Also you might notice that I almost never talk about Chinese military stuff haha. Not that I am privy to any sensitive information, but better safe than sorry.