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Putin confirms Russia ready to mediate Middle East conflict — Kremlin TASS

MOSCOW, June 18. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed Russia's readiness to mediate a dialogue between Iran and Israel in a phone call with President of the United Arab Emirates Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Kremlin said.

"Vladimir Putin confirmed Russia's readiness to provide mediation assistance in promoting dialogue between the parties to the conflict, informing about contacts with a number of foreign leaders in this regard," it said in a statement.

Ryabkov reported on Russia's contacts with the United States on the conflict in the Middle East. Interfax

Moscow. June 18. INTERFAX.RU - Moscow is in contact with Washington on the topic of the Iran-Israeli conflict, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax.

"Yes, we are in contact," Ryabkov said when asked whether Russia is in contact with the United States on the conflict in the Middle East.

Maybe there is still a slim chance of preventing a disaster from happening.

what is the need for everything to be open in the middle of the night?

In many countries close to the equator where it is hot and humid all year round (e.g. Southeast Asian countries), it is unpleasant to hang out in the sun during the day. Most people spend their time indoor in air conditioned buildings during the day. Nightlife is important for people living in those places. Also, people hang out late to watch European soccer, which is part of the social life there.

Similarly, there are many cities in China along Changjiang/Yangtze River like Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Chongqing etc. that are just way too fucking hot and humid during the summer. Except for Hangzhou where people go to bed at 9pm (lol), in many cities people prefer to hang out at night due to the unbearable heat during the day.

After WWII, NATO aligned factions focused on developing the offensive capabilities of their air force.

Stalin, fearing exactly such air superiority from NATO air force, focused on the research and development of air defense systems and ICBMs, including their mobile variants.

As a matter of fact, the US was far behind the USSR in rocketry until they acquired the Nazi V-2 rockets in 1945. The USSR already had the solid fuel Katyusha rockets in service during WWII, a fearsome piece of weaponry, though still rudimentary compared to the V-2.

The first mobile-tracked ballistic missile, R-11M (Scud-A) was put into service by 1956, even before the launch of Sputnik (R-7) in 1957. Most subsequent ballistic missiles are derived from this lineage.

Israel is NATO aligned and thus inherited the air offensive capability.

Iran, DPRK and many other developing countries post-war owe much of their armaments to the various lineages of Soviet weaponry and therefore have a more developed ballistic missile/rocketry capability.

It’s a distributional problem. If most of the money went to rich defense company shareholders’ pockets and not invested back into the real economy, then it’s regressive. If the spending goes to the workers and suppliers, who then spend them on the real economy, it can be productive.

In fact, that’s how a war economy works. The US pulled itself out of the Great Depression simply by massively investing into war production during WWII. In many ways, Russia’s economy today is being propped up by the huge government contracts on military spending.

I hope we don’t get into another world war. But there are some serious parallels with the 1920s-30s right now…

A problem easily solved by having a recession.

This was what happened during the build up to WWII in Nazi Germany and Japan.

In fact, Europe is already doing so with their militarization budget. In China, anecdotally, I am already seeing more and more military recruitment ads. Not surprising given the high rate of youth unemployment in China right now.

We are going to see more and more military build ups across the world as the global economy enters a recessionary phase.

To be clear the US is never going to run out of money. It is all about the capacity to replenish those armament and munitions as you said.

But some defense contractors are going to make a killing just from these new orders alone. And that’s what’s important here.

You are talking about a time when China was extremely poor and far weaker than what it is today. The China between those two eras are not comparable at all.

And you underestimate the Chinese libs’ ability, ever since the PRC has entered this marriage of convenience with the US, to convince the latter of its indispensability in whatever plan the US has for itself.

Trump tried very hard to decouple from China, and the more he does, the more he finds the US unable to do so. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: there will be a rapprochement between the US and China simply because of such material factors. The two cannot live without the other, and that gives China a lot of leverage.

Are you ready to pay that price?

Nearly half a million Chinese volunteers died fighting in Korea, without whose sacrifices the modern state of China would not have survived. Do you seriously think that Chinese people aren’t taught about their own history and know nothing about sacrifices?

I think some perspective is in order.

The US in the 1970s was in a far worse predicament than it is today:

• Years-long military embroilment and eventual defeat in Vietnam
• Nixon abandoning the Bretton Woods and literally told the European “allies” that the dollars they had accumulated were worthless (no longer convertible to gold) - far worse than the reaction towards Trump’s sanctions today
• Diplomatic isolation from the world following the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Yom Kippur War
• Unprecedented domestic dissent caused by the anti-war movement, Civil Rights and trade union movement at home, which included armed militant groups
• The oil crisis that caused US industries to lose competitiveness to Japanese manufacturing that was more energy efficient for the first time - Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, Canon, Sony, Yamaha etc. were destroying American manufacturers at the export sector
• By 1980, Japanese car export overtook American cars for the first time, ending the reign of American automobile dominance
• Volcker’s shock that raised interest rate to 20% in 1980 sent the US economy into years of stagflation, which further killed off the remaining competitiveness of American industries

Nixon had to go to China for a reason.

People keep underestimating American imperialism as if Nixon wasn’t the bumbling idiot at the time. It isn’t over until it’s over, and it’s not going to be over until a new economic framework emerges that is capable of displacing the role of the US empire in the global economy.

Deng advocated for an NEP-style reform and opening up, not joining the WTO and giving up labor protection rights.

That happened in response to the 1995-1996 economic crisis, which resulted in unemployment and inflation never seen before under Mao (and partly caused by Deng’s price reforms a few years back but that’s another story). That period pretty much signaled the end of Dengist reform era. We are now wayyy past what Deng had in mind when he initially called for the “liberalization of China’s economy” ever since joining the WTO.

If that’s the play then nobody should do anything. Literally every country should just not respond to anything that the US wants to do even if there is a genocide going on.

plans and strategies they have been implementing since Deng

What current plans and strategies are China implementing since Deng? Was joining the WTO part of Deng’s plan as well?

I swear Western leftists have this blind spot of China from 1996-2018 where absolutely nothing happened during this 20-year gap and simply a homogenous and single-minded execution of this nebulous well-oiled strategy that Deng personally planned decades ago.