If we thought UK politics was bad, across the pond it’s really bad. Democrat commentators now starting to ask why Dem administrations have done nothing to codify Roe v Wade in law for decades.
Here’s the brilliantly named Krystal Ball, with an eight-minute evisceration of cynical Washington politics.
Have actually watched the start of the video. My brain is leaking out already.
She ascribing incredible powers of political machivalianes to the Dems for failing to pass legislation that there was not the votes to pass. The conservative wing of the Dem senators has been really quite conservative.
"Why haven't the Dems passed this thing popular with the left wing of the party?" The right wing of the party won't vote for it.
It isn't manipulation of the proletariat, it's a lack of votes.
One common explanation in the Seattle area for Boeing's problems is that the merger with McDonnell Douglas brought in bad values. (I have no idea whether that theory has any truth to it, but it is certain that some top managers paid no attention to explicit warnings from their engineers and programmers.)
Kind of.
It's misses out quite a bit of blame for long term Boeing employees - it's a handy externalisation of the problem.
It's more about the corporate culture that can't accept that they are fucking up.
They took the out sourcing paradigm to the limit and beyond. They tried to turn Boeing into a hedge fund that owned some IP and paid other people too make planes. They lost control and understanding of their business. And they never learn to do modern software.
There was a hilarious leaked email (have to find it) about SpaceX, NASA and Boeings failures in the Commercial Crew program. The author of the email took the success of SpaceX to prove that the problem was with the horribly unfair Commercial Crew program. Because otherwise Boeing would have won. By Divine Right, as the greatest aerospace company ever.
When you reach the stage where your failures are evidence of your genius.....
Jim Miller still has a point re; Northrup. Kindly respect our Pacific Northwest folk wisdom!
And clearly you WOULD be an adornment to the Boeing board, no joke.
At least you know it's possible to lie (esp. to one's self) with statistics!
So that's 106% of the shareholders voting for me.....
I fear that I would make Elon Musk look boring as CEO. Things like my ideas for offering private nuclear deterrence on the open market.....
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Germany doesn’t give a monkeys about Ukraine. Everything they’ve done has required external pressure, and they would still rather the whole ‘war’ thing just went away and they could return to cheap Russian gas.
But the war is there, right on the border of the EU and affecting millions of people. It’s not going away, so they need to pull their weight.
Johnson and Biden are very clear, that the war doesn’t end until there’s no Russian forces in Ukraine, and are sending arms and training to effect that goal.
And despite criticism they've done more and more quickly than many would have thought, which is good. Frankly, the cost to us and them now in materials and Russian economic retaliation seems like a fair deal, though how long governments will sustain that if things bite I do not know, as I am personall more comfortable than many others.
Need a few volunteers to help with data collection tonight - most importantly seat winners but also ideally vote totals for more detailed graphics and analysis down the line.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Which is why the Russians should surrender at discretion, immediately.
They should, and I wish they would. However, it seems improbable. I think that both sides now are more concerned with revenge against the other party than stopping the killing.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Germany doesn’t give a monkeys about Ukraine. Everything they’ve done has required external pressure, and they would still rather the whole ‘war’ thing just went away and they could return to cheap Russian gas.
But the war is there, right on the border of the EU and affecting millions of people. It’s not going away, so they need to pull their weight.
Johnson and Biden are very clear, that the war doesn’t end until there’s no Russian forces in Ukraine, and are sending arms and training to effect that goal.
And despite criticism they've done more and more quickly than many would have thought, which is good. Frankly, the cost to us and them now in materials and Russian economic retaliation seems like a fair deal, though how long governments will sustain that if things bite I do not know, as I am personall more comfortable than many others.
I agree that others are less comfortable with the price than you or I might be. But the comparison of the cost now to how things were is the wrong one. It is to how things would be if Putin wins. It is to avoid those consequences that we should be prepared to pay, and Germany more than most, a very high price.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
And in this case, since the stated aim and clear actions of Russia are genocidal, the Ukrainian resistance ends in their victory or in their deaths. Because they won't be allowed to survive defeat.
So they may as well keep fighting.
Your position would be logical for a territorial dispute - the Yom Kippur war springs to mind. This isn't one.
The bigger problem is that it's still difficult to see a path to victory for Ukraine absent a major black swan event in Russia.
If we thought UK politics was bad, across the pond it’s really bad. Democrat commentators now starting to ask why Dem administrations have done nothing to codify Roe v Wade in law for decades.
Here’s the brilliantly named Krystal Ball, with an eight-minute evisceration of cynical Washington politics.
Without getting out my matchsticks, don't think that Dem admins since Roe v Wade have had the votes in Congress to codify it into FEDERAL law.
On state level, numbers of states - including WA State - have done just that.
With the possible exception of the very start of Carter's term I think it highly unlikely that the Dems every had a veto proof majority in favour of codifying Roe. Obama's incredibly brief window of a veto proof majority (due to death and delayed seating of some of the Dems making up the majority) was used to land Obamacare and there was almost certainly a number of anti-Roe senators amongst that 60 so no actual chance of passing it.
What difference would it have made? The current court are perfectly capable of declaring it not a federal competency and setting aside the Ninth Amendment if it had been a federal law.
Absent a constitutional amendment, this court would still have found a way round abortion rights.
I agree with you totally, the ideological activist Roberts court has managed to completely gut the Voting Rights Act in contravention to the constitution. Shelby County vs Holder is an absolutely disgusting decision that should have caused riots. You are correct that they would have done exactly the same for abortion rights.
I'm responding to the notion that the reason the Dems didn't do anything to codifying Roe was due to cynical political machinations rather than there not being the votes for it.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
Ukraine faces an existential threat. In that context your assertion that "there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable" is meaningless.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Genuine question - what do you think is the UK's national interest with respect to Ukraine-Russia? Because I think it's Reagan's idea of lobbing one in the mens room in the Kremlin.
That was Goldwater.
Yes. And George Wallace advocated throwing federal bureaucrat's briefcases into the Potomoc River.
Believe LBJ talking about "throwing a turd in a punch bowl" but don't know context; but he did NOT coin the phrase.
Re: Reagan, he DID lob a few passes IIRC as "the Gipper" in "The Knute Rockne Story".
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Germany doesn’t give a monkeys about Ukraine. Everything they’ve done has required external pressure, and they would still rather the whole ‘war’ thing just went away and they could return to cheap Russian gas.
But the war is there, right on the border of the EU and affecting millions of people. It’s not going away, so they need to pull their weight.
Johnson and Biden are very clear, that the war doesn’t end until there’s no Russian forces in Ukraine, and are sending arms and training to effect that goal.
You're not the only person to post something like this. There are many people who believe that Germany (or at least the German political leadership) had very secretly hoped for a quick Russian victory. "Oh dear, how sad, never mind." before going swiftly back to buying Russian gas and oil and squashing any talk of sanctions. It really pissed them off that Ukraine didn't fold.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
Hmmmmm.....
Fight and maybe die, or see my wife and daughter raped and then murdered before my eyes before I'm shot in the back of the head.....
Rather interesting comment from MiniPutin of Belarus. No, not the nonsense about how Ukraine had provoked Russia (you'd have to be a member of the Stop the War coalition to be that silly, though they'd pretend that was not what they meant when they bang on about NATO being beastly), but that he is even hinting at the idea that things are taking longer than he was probably told it would.
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies. He has long given his backing to Russia's invasion, allowing troops to advance from his country's border when it began.
But he has said he hadn't expected the operation to "drag on this way".
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency Mr Lukashenko said that Russia's leader had had no choice but to act because Ukraine was "provoking Russia".
But he said: "I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it.
"I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on."
Mr Lukashenko also said he wanted the war to end, saying Belarus had "done and are doing everything" to stop it.
Strongly suspect the chance of Johnson leaving in 2022 will be barely affected by the locals but significantly affected by the upcoming by-elections. But time will tell.
It's a good time to lay his exit in 2022.
I'm actually backing a 2022 exit.
There was a great big red flag recently.
The PM has a majority of nearly 80 and he could't whip his side to stop Labour's amendment on investigating the PM.
They may have close to the 54 votes for the challenge, but do the rebels have the 180 votes required to force him out?
We saw the same with Mrs May in 2018, who was challenged but won comfortably.
I agree. They don’t have anywhere those sort of votes needed at the moment in my opinion to complete the defrenstration
And much as I like to believe Screaming Eagles is 100% right with the failure to whip being weakness, I think partially true though alternately they may have not been worried by investigation into something hard to categorically prove by a committee stuffed with Conservative majority anyway. Is That committee reporting back something we expect to cause Boris a problem this summer?
This summer, Ukraine is the thing I think could cause Tory’s most problems. There have been so many posts on PB suspecting the awful refugee programme is something a little more sinister, and despite Salisbury outrage, the Tory relationship with Kremlin and Oligarch money right to the night of Putins invasion appears at first glance awfully cosy, I suspect a lot of anti-Tory journalism currently deep diving into both those things for continued bad headlines for Boris throughout summer.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
And in this case, since the stated aim and clear actions of Russia are genocidal, the Ukrainian resistance ends in their victory or in their deaths. Because they won't be allowed to survive defeat.
So they may as well keep fighting.
Your position would be logical for a territorial dispute - the Yom Kippur war springs to mind. This isn't one.
The bigger problem is that it's still difficult to see a path to victory for Ukraine absent a major black swan event in Russia.
If the Russians keep on feeding the meat grinder, they will run out of meat (and machines).
As I pointed out the other day, the latest package from the US, alone, is probably equal to the Russian spend on land and air forces. Per year.
The Russians are fighting an adversary armed to peer levels. Even more importantly, re-supply means that in terms of machinery, Ukraine is getting stronger, while Russia is getting weaker.
So the Russians will find their current offensive stalls, regroup and push again on an even smaller front. Maybe. If they have enough left for that.
What happens when they start to abandon their incursions in parts of the East? Damned if I know.
One common explanation in the Seattle area for Boeing's problems is that the merger with McDonnell Douglas brought in bad values. (I have no idea whether that theory has any truth to it, but it is certain that some top managers paid no attention to explicit warnings from their engineers and programmers.)
Kind of.
It's misses out quite a bit of blame for long term Boeing employees - it's a handy externalisation of the problem.
It's more about the corporate culture that can't accept that they are fucking up.
They took the out sourcing paradigm to the limit and beyond. They tried to turn Boeing into a hedge fund that owned some IP and paid other people too make planes. They lost control and understanding of their business. And they never learn to do modern software.
There was a hilarious leaked email (have to find it) about SpaceX, NASA and Boeings failures in the Commercial Crew program. The author of the email took the success of SpaceX to prove that the problem was with the horribly unfair Commercial Crew program. Because otherwise Boeing would have won. By Divine Right, as the greatest aerospace company ever.
When you reach the stage where your failures are evidence of your genius.....
Jim Miller still has a point re; Northrup. Kindly respect our Pacific Northwest folk wisdom!
And clearly you WOULD be an adornment to the Boeing board, no joke.
At least you know it's possible to lie (esp. to one's self) with statistics!
So that's 106% of the shareholders voting for me.....
I fear that I would make Elon Musk look boring as CEO. Things like my ideas for offering private nuclear deterrence on the open market.....
Move Boeing HQ back to Seattle, so you can pass the bong around at board meetings!
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Which is why the Russians should surrender at discretion, immediately.
They should, and I wish they would. However, it seems improbable. I think that both sides now are more concerned with revenge against the other party than stopping the killing.
Well, if the invading Russian forces get the hell out of Ukraine, the fighting will stop.
Until then there’s a war going on, that they started.
If getting the Russians out of Ukraine means that the whole summer is spent blowing up the other 2,000 Russian tanks, one by one, then that’s what’s going to happen. Russia has lost 20-30% of her entire military capability in 70 days.. give it until the autumn, and there will barely be a Russian army.
Rather interesting comment from MiniPutin of Belarus. No, not the nonsense about how Ukraine had provoked Russia (you'd have to be a member of the Stop the War coalition to be that silly, though they'd pretend that was not what they meant when they bang on about NATO being beastly), but that he is even hinting at the idea that things are taking longer than he was probably told it would.
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies. He has long given his backing to Russia's invasion, allowing troops to advance from his country's border when it began.
But he has said he hadn't expected the operation to "drag on this way".
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency Mr Lukashenko said that Russia's leader had had no choice but to act because Ukraine was "provoking Russia".
But he said: "I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it.
"I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on."
Mr Lukashenko also said he wanted the war to end, saying Belarus had "done and are doing everything" to stop it.
If the Russian army collapses, Lukashenko has 24 hours to survive. If that.
I am not surprised he's getting nervous and hoping for Russia to stop throwing those soldiers and weapons they could be using to terrorise Belarussians into supporting him into Ukraine.
One common explanation in the Seattle area for Boeing's problems is that the merger with McDonnell Douglas brought in bad values. (I have no idea whether that theory has any truth to it, but it is certain that some top managers paid no attention to explicit warnings from their engineers and programmers.)
Kind of.
It's misses out quite a bit of blame for long term Boeing employees - it's a handy externalisation of the problem.
It's more about the corporate culture that can't accept that they are fucking up.
They took the out sourcing paradigm to the limit and beyond. They tried to turn Boeing into a hedge fund that owned some IP and paid other people too make planes. They lost control and understanding of their business. And they never learn to do modern software.
There was a hilarious leaked email (have to find it) about SpaceX, NASA and Boeings failures in the Commercial Crew program. The author of the email took the success of SpaceX to prove that the problem was with the horribly unfair Commercial Crew program. Because otherwise Boeing would have won. By Divine Right, as the greatest aerospace company ever.
When you reach the stage where your failures are evidence of your genius.....
Jim Miller still has a point re; Northrup. Kindly respect our Pacific Northwest folk wisdom!
And clearly you WOULD be an adornment to the Boeing board, no joke.
At least you know it's possible to lie (esp. to one's self) with statistics!
So that's 106% of the shareholders voting for me.....
I fear that I would make Elon Musk look boring as CEO. Things like my ideas for offering private nuclear deterrence on the open market.....
Move Boeing HQ back to Seattle, so you can pass the bong around at board meetings!
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
And in this case, since the stated aim and clear actions of Russia are genocidal, the Ukrainian resistance ends in their victory or in their deaths. Because they won't be allowed to survive defeat.
So they may as well keep fighting.
Your position would be logical for a territorial dispute - the Yom Kippur war springs to mind. This isn't one.
The bigger problem is that it's still difficult to see a path to victory for Ukraine absent a major black swan event in Russia.
There are some pretty good military analysts who see continued attrition of Russian forces as leading to culmination - the point at which Russia not only can no longer persist in attack, but will find it hard to hold what they have.
I am not totally convinced, but I strongly hope that to be the case. In any case, the Ukrainians getting Western artillery with a 40km range with which to counter Russia's artillery with a 28km range will, hopefully, have a big impact in how the Donbas struggle pans out. And let's hope the UK and Norway provide Ukraine the long range anti-ship systems that will clear confine Russian warships to the Sea of Azov.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
There are no exit polls in Northern Ireland. However, turnout seems to pretty consistent as at 5 pm, ranging from 28% in South Anrim, to 35% in West Belfast. A rough rule of thumb is that overall turnout is usually twice the figure as at 5pm.
Turnout is suprisingly high in South Belfast (34%) and North Down (35%) which are the two poshest constituencies. Anecdotally, reports suggest that turnout has risen quite signficiantly in posh areas, compared to 2017, which should help Alliance, UUP, and SDLP.
Strongly suspect the chance of Johnson leaving in 2022 will be barely affected by the locals but significantly affected by the upcoming by-elections. But time will tell.
It's a good time to lay his exit in 2022.
I'm actually backing a 2022 exit.
There was a great big red flag recently.
The PM has a majority of nearly 80 and he could't whip his side to stop Labour's amendment on investigating the PM.
That may be but it's technical and a long way from losing a VoNC.
I think most people are betting on what they want to happen not what will happen.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
And in this case, since the stated aim and clear actions of Russia are genocidal, the Ukrainian resistance ends in their victory or in their deaths. Because they won't be allowed to survive defeat.
So they may as well keep fighting.
Your position would be logical for a territorial dispute - the Yom Kippur war springs to mind. This isn't one.
The bigger problem is that it's still difficult to see a path to victory for Ukraine absent a major black swan event in Russia.
There are some pretty good military analysts who see continued attrition of Russian forces as leading to culmination - the point at which Russia not only can no longer persist in attack, but will find it hard to hold what they have.
I am not totally convinced, but I strongly hope that to be the case. In any case, the Ukrainians getting Western artillery with a 40km range with which to counter Russia's artillery with a 28km range will, hopefully, have a big impact in how the Donbas struggle pans out. And let's hope the UK and Norway provide Ukraine the long range anti-ship systems that will clear confine Russian warships to the Sea of Azov.
Agree, on all points.
I hope my analysis of Russia's resilience is even less accurate than my cricket predictions, and comes true faster.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
The progression from the B-18 to the B-17/24 (yes, I know) to the B-29/32, to the B-36 illustrates the strategic thinking of the US at this point.
Strongly suspect the chance of Johnson leaving in 2022 will be barely affected by the locals but significantly affected by the upcoming by-elections. But time will tell.
It's a good time to lay his exit in 2022.
I'm actually backing a 2022 exit.
There was a great big red flag recently.
The PM has a majority of nearly 80 and he could't whip his side to stop Labour's amendment on investigating the PM.
They may have close to the 54 votes for the challenge, but do the rebels have the 180 votes required to force him out?
We saw the same with Mrs May in 2018, who was challenged but won comfortably.
Agree. 2022 is not much more than a 30% chance - which is of course not negligible. There are three hurdles to 2022: the effluxion of time and delaying tactics, of which Boris has proved so far a master; the 54 votes; and the 180 votes. They all have to be overcome/happen and succeed in 2022.
The 2018 formbook shows that the 180 votes is hard to come by. I would put the 54 happening in 2022 at 60% and 180 votes, if it happened, in 2022 at 45%. So probability about 27%.
Rather interesting comment from MiniPutin of Belarus. No, not the nonsense about how Ukraine had provoked Russia (you'd have to be a member of the Stop the War coalition to be that silly, though they'd pretend that was not what they meant when they bang on about NATO being beastly), but that he is even hinting at the idea that things are taking longer than he was probably told it would.
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies. He has long given his backing to Russia's invasion, allowing troops to advance from his country's border when it began.
But he has said he hadn't expected the operation to "drag on this way".
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency Mr Lukashenko said that Russia's leader had had no choice but to act because Ukraine was "provoking Russia".
But he said: "I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it.
"I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on."
Mr Lukashenko also said he wanted the war to end, saying Belarus had "done and are doing everything" to stop it.
I wouldn't believe a word that lying shit said, and if he said water was wet I'd check before I believed him (he's certainly done nothing to stop the war, in fact by allowing Russian troops into Belarus before the invasion, he positively encouraged it). However, it is interesting that he's going off record somewhat. I suspect he's started to realise that his fate is tied in with the war itself. Still time for Putin to declare, "Victory, we've denazified Ukraine and are leaving now.... and Belarus was so impressed with us they've decided to join Mother-Russia once again" *shoots Lukashenko in the head and dumps the body*
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
The progression from the B-18 to the B-17/24 (yes, I know) to the B-29/32, to the B-36 illustrates the strategic thinking of the US at this point.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Germany doesn’t give a monkeys about Ukraine. Everything they’ve done has required external pressure, and they would still rather the whole ‘war’ thing just went away and they could return to cheap Russian gas.
But the war is there, right on the border of the EU and affecting millions of people. It’s not going away, so they need to pull their weight.
Johnson and Biden are very clear, that the war doesn’t end until there’s no Russian forces in Ukraine, and are sending arms and training to effect that goal.
Yes they are, and to me that seems wrong. Crimea is certainly part of Ukraine, but the situation there seems fairly settled frankly, with little evidence of a populace that is strongly motivated to rejoin Ukraine, despite the hardships of the water supply situation.
Demanding that Russia leaves Crimea or it is still war is an escalation. As a British subject who sees the primary purpose of British military ordnance and personnel being to defend Britain, I don't see that our cash-strapped island should be expected to continue to fund a project for which there seems such a deafening lack of demand. If the people there have full bellies and colour TVs, I'm afraid don't give a fuck who owns it.
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
Rather interesting comment from MiniPutin of Belarus. No, not the nonsense about how Ukraine had provoked Russia (you'd have to be a member of the Stop the War coalition to be that silly, though they'd pretend that was not what they meant when they bang on about NATO being beastly), but that he is even hinting at the idea that things are taking longer than he was probably told it would.
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies. He has long given his backing to Russia's invasion, allowing troops to advance from his country's border when it began.
But he has said he hadn't expected the operation to "drag on this way".
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency Mr Lukashenko said that Russia's leader had had no choice but to act because Ukraine was "provoking Russia".
But he said: "I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it.
"I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on."
Mr Lukashenko also said he wanted the war to end, saying Belarus had "done and are doing everything" to stop it.
I wouldn't believe a word that lying shit said, and if he said water was wet I'd check before I believed him (he's certainly done nothing to stop the war, in fact by allowing Russian troops into Belarus before the invasion, he positively encouraged it). However, it is interesting that he's going off record somewhat. I suspect he's started to realise that his fate is tied in with the war itself. Still time for Putin to declare, "Victory, we've denazified Ukraine and are leaving now.... and Belarus was so impressed with us they've decided to join Mother-Russia once again" *shoots Lukashenko in the head and dumps the body*
Latest stat I saw was 631 missiles launched at Ukraine from Belarusian soil.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Genuine question - what do you think is the UK's national interest with respect to Ukraine-Russia? Because I think it's Reagan's idea of lobbing one in the mens room in the Kremlin.
UK prosperity depends upon geopolitical security in the European neighbourhood so it can secure its shipping lanes and and pursue free and open trade worldwide, and protect its values by projecting them.
The UK has a strong strategic interest in preventing Russia from dominating or even destabilising the European continent.
In theory*, Russia has nukes, tanks that could roll all the way to Paris, and a navy that could block the Suez, the Skaggerak, or even create havoc in the North Sea.
Russia has been by far our biggest threat since 1945, with only a few years in the 90s when they seemed a bit cuddlier. Since around 2010 it has been clear that they are an ideological enemy of Western values.
*Clearly the Russian threat will need to be re-estimated following their crap performance in Ukraine.
Rather interesting comment from MiniPutin of Belarus. No, not the nonsense about how Ukraine had provoked Russia (you'd have to be a member of the Stop the War coalition to be that silly, though they'd pretend that was not what they meant when they bang on about NATO being beastly), but that he is even hinting at the idea that things are taking longer than he was probably told it would.
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies. He has long given his backing to Russia's invasion, allowing troops to advance from his country's border when it began.
But he has said he hadn't expected the operation to "drag on this way".
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency Mr Lukashenko said that Russia's leader had had no choice but to act because Ukraine was "provoking Russia".
But he said: "I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it.
"I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on."
Mr Lukashenko also said he wanted the war to end, saying Belarus had "done and are doing everything" to stop it.
I wouldn't believe a word that lying shit said, and if he said water was wet I'd check before I believed him (he's certainly done nothing to stop the war, in fact by allowing Russian troops into Belarus before the invasion, he positively encouraged it). However, it is interesting that he's going off record somewhat. I suspect he's started to realise that his fate is tied in with the war itself. Still time for Putin to declare, "Victory, we've denazified Ukraine and are leaving now.... and Belarus was so impressed with us they've decided to join Mother-Russia once again" *shoots Lukashenko in the head and dumps the body*
Latest stat I saw was 631 missiles launched at Ukraine from Belarusian soil.
Including the one that means I need to buy new windows for my house, as does my father-in-law.
Lukashenko’s surprise, was that the Western sanctions were put on his country as well as Russia. No sympathy.
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
Malmesbury - I was mostly amused by the logic of Boeing defenders in this area, which came close to "No true Boeing employee . . . " Though I will admit they might be correct.
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
Pah, is that all.
I am hoping for a seizure of Crimea and the degradation of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
Pah, is that all.
I am hoping for a seizure of Crimea and the degradation of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
The Western anti-ship missiles are due to arrive any day now, and some of them have sufficient range to take out Sevastopol from Odesa.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
And in this case, since the stated aim and clear actions of Russia are genocidal, the Ukrainian resistance ends in their victory or in their deaths. Because they won't be allowed to survive defeat.
So they may as well keep fighting.
Your position would be logical for a territorial dispute - the Yom Kippur war springs to mind. This isn't one.
The bigger problem is that it's still difficult to see a path to victory for Ukraine absent a major black swan event in Russia.
There are some pretty good military analysts who see continued attrition of Russian forces as leading to culmination - the point at which Russia not only can no longer persist in attack, but will find it hard to hold what they have.
I am not totally convinced, but I strongly hope that to be the case. In any case, the Ukrainians getting Western artillery with a 40km range with which to counter Russia's artillery with a 28km range will, hopefully, have a big impact in how the Donbas struggle pans out. And let's hope the UK and Norway provide Ukraine the long range anti-ship systems that will clear confine Russian warships to the Sea of Azov.
Agree, on all points.
I hope my analysis of Russia's resilience is even less accurate than my cricket predictions, and comes true faster.
Good night.
Incidentally, can the UK just buy the Archer Artillery system rather than spending another zillion on ideas to upgrade AS90?
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
Pah, is that all.
I am hoping for a seizure of Crimea and the degradation of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
The Western anti-ship missiles are due to arrive any day now, and some of them have sufficient range to take out Sevastopol from Odesa.
I think most of the fleet has already retreated to Novorossiysk.
It would be gold standard comeuppance for Russia to suffer a major loss, like the sinking of the Moskva say, early on May 9th. Just in time for the news to filter through to the Victory Day celebrators.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
Blowing up the Nordstream2 pipe shouldn't be difficult. What a pity for Schroeder too.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
Strongly suspect the chance of Johnson leaving in 2022 will be barely affected by the locals but significantly affected by the upcoming by-elections. But time will tell.
It's a good time to lay his exit in 2022.
I'm actually backing a 2022 exit.
There was a great big red flag recently.
The PM has a majority of nearly 80 and he could't whip his side to stop Labour's amendment on investigating the PM.
They may have close to the 54 votes for the challenge, but do the rebels have the 180 votes required to force him out?
We saw the same with Mrs May in 2018, who was challenged but won comfortably.
I agree. They don’t have anywhere those sort of votes needed at the moment in my opinion to complete the defrenstration
And much as I like to believe Screaming Eagles is 100% right with the failure to whip being weakness, I think partially true though alternately they may have not been worried by investigation into something hard to categorically prove by a committee stuffed with Conservative majority anyway. Is That committee reporting back something we expect to cause Boris a problem this summer?
This summer, Ukraine is the thing I think could cause Tory’s most problems. There have been so many posts on PB suspecting the awful refugee programme is something a little more sinister, and despite Salisbury outrage, the Tory relationship with Kremlin and Oligarch money right to the night of Putins invasion appears at first glance awfully cosy, I suspect a lot of anti-Tory journalism currently deep diving into both those things for continued bad headlines for Boris throughout summer.
This isn't 'xactly convincing about Ms Patel's (and her boss's) commitment to supporting the Ukrainians.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
If we go with Ukraine's eastern borders on this map, we could have access to Rostov and Novorossiyk too.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
If we go with Ukraine's eastern borders on this map, we could have access to Rostov and Novorossiyk too.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
What good would that serve?
So we have somewhere to land the Light Brigade. Obviously.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
Lend Lease was a bunch of crap kit and a lot of debt.
But it did the job. The Americans basically paid the UK (and others) to stay in the war from 1941.
In 1945 Truman cut the funding very very suddenly, leaving the incoming Labour government with a massive fiscal crisis.
But I think that of all the money lent we really only paid a relatively small proportion back.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
What good would that serve?
So we have somewhere to land the Light Brigade. Obviously.
I thought the "Charge of the Light Brigade" was another name for my electric bill.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
I am not absolving British Governments of blame for anything. I merely repeat the established fact that America (as is it's right) has always adopted an 'America first' policy in its economical and geopolitical actions, and their belated participation in WWII is no different.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
What good would that serve?
So we have somewhere to land the Light Brigade. Obviously.
The state of our navy, they'll have to be the very light brigade.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
To be honest, what we're doing today (see my post upthread) is entirely consistent with empire building in the 18th and 19th Century - because back then there wasn't any other way of doing it.
It's why so much of the retrospective historical mudslinging we do today is self-indulgent and context free horseshit.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
Emblematic perhaps of the US view of original AND current Lend-Lease, is that when Royal Navy took possession of first destroyers transferred over by the US, British sailors found that the US Navy had fully stocked the ships with armament, fuel and provisions, including some rich and rare to Limey tars.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
Lend Lease was a bunch of crap kit and a lot of debt.
But it did the job. The Americans basically paid the UK (and others) to stay in the war from 1941.
In 1945 Truman cut the funding very very suddenly, leaving the incoming Labour government with a massive fiscal crisis.
But I think that of all the money lent we really only paid a relatively small proportion back.
The reason that the supply of weapons (not funding) was cut was the sudden end of the war. Strangely, the Americans thought that providing free weapons was not especially necessary since the war was over. Still they did offer a deal - Hence the 10% price for keeping Lend Lease stuff and the cheap loans to pay for it.
Everyone expected a massive ecumenic crunch at the end of the war. So in America it was seen as vital to reverse the militarisation of the economy and get Detroit making cars again.
As to crap kit - the FAA was still waiting at the end of the war for decent UK made fighters. Seafires were really good at killing pilots..... There was a reason they hung on to as many American planes as they could.
Strongly suspect the chance of Johnson leaving in 2022 will be barely affected by the locals but significantly affected by the upcoming by-elections. But time will tell.
It's a good time to lay his exit in 2022.
I'm actually backing a 2022 exit.
There was a great big red flag recently.
The PM has a majority of nearly 80 and he could't whip his side to stop Labour's amendment on investigating the PM.
They may have close to the 54 votes for the challenge, but do the rebels have the 180 votes required to force him out?
We saw the same with Mrs May in 2018, who was challenged but won comfortably.
I agree. They don’t have anywhere those sort of votes needed at the moment in my opinion to complete the defrenstration
And much as I like to believe Screaming Eagles is 100% right with the failure to whip being weakness, I think partially true though alternately they may have not been worried by investigation into something hard to categorically prove by a committee stuffed with Conservative majority anyway. Is That committee reporting back something we expect to cause Boris a problem this summer?
This summer, Ukraine is the thing I think could cause Tory’s most problems. There have been so many posts on PB suspecting the awful refugee programme is something a little more sinister, and despite Salisbury outrage, the Tory relationship with Kremlin and Oligarch money right to the night of Putins invasion appears at first glance awfully cosy, I suspect a lot of anti-Tory journalism currently deep diving into both those things for continued bad headlines for Boris throughout summer.
This isn't 'xactly convincing about Ms Patel's (and her boss's) commitment to supporting the Ukrainians.
It’s either another home office/government project fail, or behind scenes decision to drag feet isn’t it?
Ukraine is the big news story in coming months, and people of UK really care about the horror Ukraine everyday (mostly rather poor) people going through - the mess of UK refugee programme and the closeness of Tory party to Putin apologists and dodgy Russian money potentially can be a slow burning problem for Boris and the Tories from here on.
The Panorama specials into the Moggs dumping their Russian portfolio, the websites altered to stop boasting about links to rich Russians, how the Conservative Party was funded by dodgy Putin money, like the money rabb received, these media investigations are going to happen. The Panorama specials on anti semitism in the Labour Party helped to set a lot of media narrative that hollowed Corbyn into an empty shell. And Boris is up to his eyebrows in stuff journalists can spin, hint and twist, like his Putin apologist friend for invasion of Crimea he made a Lord, the Russia report censored, redacted, Boris tried to kick into long grass etc.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
Emblematic perhaps of the US view of original AND current Lend-Lease, is that when Royal Navy took possession of first destroyers transferred over by the US, British sailors found that the US Navy had fully stocked the ships with armament, fuel and provisions, including some rich and rare to Limey tars.
My understanding is that there was in fact a huge desire in the USA after the end of the war to return home, and *not* act as the World's policeman, and to leave it to the UK and France to keep the Soviet Union in check. For a time, the UK in the late forties had the world's biggest navy, by some margin.
It was the fact the UK and France could not afford this role, combined with the Berlin blockade and the fall of China, that pushed the US into taking the lead role in opposing Communism.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
What if the current situation ends up with the Royal Navy having use of Sevastopol?
What good would that serve?
So we have somewhere to land the Light Brigade. Obviously.
The state of our navy, they'll have to be the very light brigade.
NLAWs to the left of them, NLAWs to the right of them, into the valley of death cruised the Russian 18th Motor Rifle Brigade.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Germany doesn’t give a monkeys about Ukraine. Everything they’ve done has required external pressure, and they would still rather the whole ‘war’ thing just went away and they could return to cheap Russian gas.
But the war is there, right on the border of the EU and affecting millions of people. It’s not going away, so they need to pull their weight.
Johnson and Biden are very clear, that the war doesn’t end until there’s no Russian forces in Ukraine, and are sending arms and training to effect that goal.
Yes they are, and to me that seems wrong. Crimea is certainly part of Ukraine, but the situation there seems fairly settled frankly, with little evidence of a populace that is strongly motivated to rejoin Ukraine, despite the hardships of the water supply situation.
Demanding that Russia leaves Crimea or it is still war is an escalation. As a British subject who sees the primary purpose of British military ordnance and personnel being to defend Britain, I don't see that our cash-strapped island should be expected to continue to fund a project for which there seems such a deafening lack of demand. If the people there have full bellies and colour TVs, I'm afraid don't give a fuck who owns it.
The Russian navy is using its Crimean base to blockade Odessa wrecking the Ukrainian economy and creating a global food shortage. And I think quite a few tartars are less than happy about the way things have gone since 2014. Could it be recognised as part of Russia at some point? Yes but only after a proper democratic process which Russia is currently incapable of overseeing.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact. There is certainly a point at which supporting any cause, however just, becomes too high a price to pay. The level of that price is different for different countries. For Turkey, the price is zilch. But they're getting no stick whatsoever. Germany seems prepared to do a lot more than Turkey, but less than the UK. The UK has a little more wiggle room, as we're less dependent on Russian energy, which is great, but over all, it doesn't make me feel terribly comfortable that the current Government is so quick to set aside the national interest to earn some meaningless backslapping in the counsels of the world.
Genuine question - what do you think is the UK's national interest with respect to Ukraine-Russia? Because I think it's Reagan's idea of lobbing one in the mens room in the Kremlin.
Our immediate national interests would be served by any peaceful solution that allows sanctions to be lifted, gas to flow, and to stop having to fund a flood of weapons.
Regarding the project of bringing Russia to heel/to its knees/regime change, personally I am comfortable with Russia's antagonism toward American control, as a believer in the balance of powers approach to foreign policy. What I like a lot less, is Russia becoming a blob with China, the new pretender to world hegemon status, which is effectively what is now happening.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
Emblematic perhaps of the US view of original AND current Lend-Lease, is that when Royal Navy took possession of first destroyers transferred over by the US, British sailors found that the US Navy had fully stocked the ships with armament, fuel and provisions, including some rich and rare to Limey tars.
My understanding is that there was in fact a huge desire in the USA after the end of the war to return home, and *not* act as the World's policeman, and to leave it to the UK and France to keep the Soviet Union in check. For a time, the UK in the late forties had the world's biggest navy, by some margin.
It was the fact the UK and France could not afford this role, combined with the Berlin blockade and the fall of China, that pushed the US into taking the lead role in opposing Communism.
There was an emergent idea for a West European defence force, but much as later, the UK effectively vetoed it. Once the the UK and France had made diplomatic representations to the Americans about also not wanting to shoulder the cost, NATO was born.
Partly from an identication of British with American interests, and partly from a desire to not shoulder the costs which stretched across Europe.
I wonder what the author really thinks about the German intellectuals who wrote that open letter to Scholz?
In a world of death pits and rape gangs there is nothing here but virtue signalling moral mush. Compare this with the clarity and toughness of other European leaders, especially the “warrior women” in charge of Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, and Lithuania.
A lot of people ostensibly opposed to Russian victory but emphasising a quick peace (seemingly at any cost) probably make something like the below point. You know the sort, the ones who think arming Ukraine is a bad thing because it prolongs the fight, and fighting is bad as it gives them false hope.
The authors of this miserable diatribe finally come up with a statement so awful that it would take a new long compound German word to capture just how cynical and patronising it is. They manage to accept that Russia is the aggressor, but claim: “Even legitimate resistance to an aggressor is at some point an intolerable disproportion.
The last sentence is simply unanswerable fact.
If you're going to be tortured and killed whether you fight or whether you give in without a fight, it is not 'unanswerable fact' that it is 'intolerable disproportion' to at least take some of the mofos with you. And that is clearly what is happening in Ukraine.
I don't blame anyone in Ukraine for fighting the invasion. I merely state that there is absolutely a point at which supporting their continued brave resistance becomes untenable. Everyone, and every polity, must decide where their personal and collective point is.
One might very reasonably claim exactly the opposite. That there is a point at which continuing the invasion becomes untenable. I personally think that is a far more likely outcome than the one you seem to prefer.
No, that's undoutedly true too, of course it is. It may or may not be a likelier outcome.
Don't you think that the likelihood of that outcome might be influenced by the level of support Ukraine gets from its allies?
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
US support for Britain afaicg involved selling us what we needed, at full price, for which we liquidated the Empire, and put the rest on our credit card, which we paid over the next decades. Of course that was in their national interest.
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
The Lend Lease stuff was on the basis of send it back, or keep it for 10% of price, plus a loan to pay for it below the market rate. Those loans were some of the cheapest bits of the National Debt - which is why they were kept for so many years.
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
Emblematic perhaps of the US view of original AND current Lend-Lease, is that when Royal Navy took possession of first destroyers transferred over by the US, British sailors found that the US Navy had fully stocked the ships with armament, fuel and provisions, including some rich and rare to Limey tars.
My understanding is that there was in fact a huge desire in the USA after the end of the war to return home, and *not* act as the World's policeman, and to leave it to the UK and France to keep the Soviet Union in check. For a time, the UK in the late forties had the world's biggest navy, by some margin.
It was the fact the UK and France could not afford this role, combined with the Berlin blockade and the fall of China, that pushed the US into taking the lead role in opposing Communism.
There was an emergent idea for a West European defence force, but much as later, the UK effectively vetoed it. Once the the UK and France had made diplomatic representations to the Americans about also not wanting to shoulder the cost, NATO was born.
Partly from an identifcation of British with American interests, and partly from a desire not to shoulder the costs which stretched across Europe.
1941 really marks the hinge point between Pax Britannica and the American century, even if American power and influence had been blindingly obvious since at least 1918.
Did the Americans exploit the situation to get their hands on UK assets? Broadly, yes.
Did they also hasten the end of imperial dreams? Certainly at Suez, and probably in myriad subtle ways too.
I can’t say I know much about how America considers the UK strategically, especially now our job as occasional horse-whisperer to Europe has gone.
I think we’re chiefly seen as a reliable partner for when a show of multilateralism is required, or as a useful voice to sound out various positions which the US can plausibly deny.
I imagine (I don’t really know) that British diplomatic influence in the US is as good as it gets, on a par with the Canadians and the Israelis. To the extent that means much.
Comments
She ascribing incredible powers of political machivalianes to the Dems for failing to pass legislation that there was not the votes to pass. The conservative wing of the Dem senators has been really quite conservative.
"Why haven't the Dems passed this thing popular with the left wing of the party?"
The right wing of the party won't vote for it.
It isn't manipulation of the proletariat, it's a lack of votes.
I fear that I would make Elon Musk look boring as CEO. Things like my ideas for offering private nuclear deterrence on the open market.....
So they may as well keep fighting.
Your position would be logical for a territorial dispute - the Yom Kippur war springs to mind. This isn't one.
The bigger problem is that it's still difficult to see a path to victory for Ukraine absent a major black swan event in Russia.
I'm responding to the notion that the reason the Dems didn't do anything to codifying Roe was due to cynical political machinations rather than there not being the votes for it.
Believe LBJ talking about "throwing a turd in a punch bowl" but don't know context; but he did NOT coin the phrase.
Re: Reagan, he DID lob a few passes IIRC as "the Gipper" in "The Knute Rockne Story".
There are many people who believe that Germany (or at least the German political leadership) had very secretly hoped for a quick Russian victory. "Oh dear, how sad, never mind." before going swiftly back to buying Russian gas and oil and squashing any talk of sanctions.
It really pissed them off that Ukraine didn't fold.
Fight and maybe die, or see my wife and daughter raped and then murdered before my eyes before I'm shot in the back of the head.....
It's a tough choice I gotta admit. /s
The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies. He has long given his backing to Russia's invasion, allowing troops to advance from his country's border when it began.
But he has said he hadn't expected the operation to "drag on this way".
In an interview with the Associated Press news agency Mr Lukashenko said that Russia's leader had had no choice but to act because Ukraine was "provoking Russia".
But he said: "I am not immersed in this problem enough to say whether it goes according to plan, like the Russians say, or like I feel it.
"I want to stress one more time: I feel like this operation has dragged on."
Mr Lukashenko also said he wanted the war to end, saying Belarus had "done and are doing everything" to stop it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-61330132
And much as I like to believe Screaming Eagles is 100% right with the failure to whip being weakness, I think partially true though alternately they may have not been worried by investigation into something hard to categorically prove by a committee stuffed with Conservative majority anyway. Is That committee reporting back something we expect to cause Boris a problem this summer?
This summer, Ukraine is the thing I think could cause Tory’s most problems. There have been so many posts on PB suspecting the awful refugee programme is something a little more sinister, and despite Salisbury outrage, the Tory relationship with Kremlin and Oligarch money right to the night of Putins invasion appears at first glance awfully cosy, I suspect a lot of anti-Tory journalism currently deep diving into both those things for continued bad headlines for Boris throughout summer.
As I pointed out the other day, the latest package from the US, alone, is probably equal to the Russian spend on land and air forces. Per year.
The Russians are fighting an adversary armed to peer levels. Even more importantly, re-supply means that in terms of machinery, Ukraine is getting stronger, while Russia is getting weaker.
So the Russians will find their current offensive stalls, regroup and push again on an even smaller front. Maybe. If they have enough left for that.
What happens when they start to abandon their incursions in parts of the East? Damned if I know.
Until then there’s a war going on, that they started.
If getting the Russians out of Ukraine means that the whole summer is spent blowing up the other 2,000 Russian tanks, one by one, then that’s what’s going to happen. Russia has lost 20-30% of her entire military capability in 70 days.. give it until the autumn, and there will barely be a Russian army.
I am not surprised he's getting nervous and hoping for Russia to stop throwing those soldiers and weapons they could be using to terrorise Belarussians into supporting him into Ukraine.
I am not totally convinced, but I strongly hope that to be the case. In any case, the Ukrainians getting Western artillery with a 40km range with which to counter Russia's artillery with a 28km range will, hopefully, have a big impact in how the Donbas struggle pans out. And let's hope the UK and Norway provide Ukraine the long range anti-ship systems that will clear confine Russian warships to the Sea of Azov.
I think even you would argue that US support for Britain during WW2 was in its narrow national interest so it is possible to combine being on the right side and being strategic.
Turnout is suprisingly high in South Belfast (34%) and North Down (35%) which are the two poshest constituencies. Anecdotally, reports suggest that turnout has risen quite signficiantly in posh areas, compared to 2017, which should help Alliance, UUP, and SDLP.
I think most people are betting on what they want to happen not what will happen.
Channeling my inner Sgt. Wilson,
"Do you think that is wise?"
I hope my analysis of Russia's resilience is even less accurate than my cricket predictions, and comes true faster.
Good night.
The 2018 formbook shows that the 180 votes is hard to come by. I would put the 54 happening in 2022 at 60% and 180 votes, if it happened, in 2022 at 45%. So probability about 27%.
However, it is interesting that he's going off record somewhat. I suspect he's started to realise that his fate is tied in with the war itself. Still time for Putin to declare, "Victory, we've denazified Ukraine and are leaving now.... and Belarus was so impressed with us they've decided to join Mother-Russia once again" *shoots Lukashenko in the head and dumps the body*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SOryJvTAGs
Demanding that Russia leaves Crimea or it is still war is an escalation. As a British subject who sees the primary purpose of British military ordnance and personnel being to defend Britain, I don't see that our cash-strapped island should be expected to continue to fund a project for which there seems such a deafening lack of demand. If the people there have full bellies and colour TVs, I'm afraid don't give a fuck who owns it.
This has been the case for hundreds of years.
Right now, Russia is the biggest threat to that.
In theory*, Russia has nukes, tanks that could roll all the way to Paris, and a navy that could block the Suez, the Skaggerak, or even create havoc in the North Sea.
Russia has been by far our biggest threat since 1945, with only a few years in the 90s when they seemed a bit cuddlier. Since around 2010 it has been clear that they are an ideological enemy of Western values.
*Clearly the Russian threat will need to be re-estimated following their crap performance in Ukraine.
Lukashenko’s surprise, was that the Western sanctions were put on his country as well as Russia. No sympathy.
I am hoping for the capture of Kupyansk and the collapse of the Izyum front with all 24 of its BTGs. (yep, I dream big!!)
(I believe there is a parallel saying in the UK.)
What were the odds on that when the draw was made?
I am hoping for a seizure of Crimea and the degradation of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
Jade McGlynn
@DrJadeMcGlynn
A thread of Victory Day and why its celebration is so important to Russia's ongoing war on Ukraine
🧵
https://twitter.com/DrJadeMcGlynn/status/1522174871182229504
Their support after war was declared on them lead to them having bases all over the UK, and created a permanent defence alliance with a junior partner, one that as late as the 30's had been a serious economical competitor and geopolitical player.
I can't see the resemblance to the current situation.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/05/ukrainian-children-at-mercy-of-uk-refugee-scheme-homes-for-ukraine
The skill with which UK post war government blew the oceans of money the Americans threw at us was impressive.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQkVc2VWgAAy5fj.jpg
But it did the job. The Americans basically paid the UK (and others) to stay in the war from 1941.
In 1945 Truman cut the funding very very suddenly, leaving the incoming Labour government with a massive fiscal crisis.
But I think that of all the money lent we really only paid a relatively small proportion back.
A real achievement for a club that was only founded a decade ago.
It's why so much of the retrospective historical mudslinging we do today is self-indulgent and context free horseshit.
Everyone expected a massive ecumenic crunch at the end of the war. So in America it was seen as vital to reverse the militarisation of the economy and get Detroit making cars again.
As to crap kit - the FAA was still waiting at the end of the war for decent UK made fighters. Seafires were really good at killing pilots..... There was a reason they hung on to as many American planes as they could.
Ukraine is the big news story in coming months, and people of UK really care about the horror Ukraine everyday (mostly rather poor) people going through - the mess of UK refugee programme and the closeness of Tory party to Putin apologists and dodgy Russian money potentially can be a slow burning problem for Boris and the Tories from here on.
The Panorama specials into the Moggs dumping their Russian portfolio, the websites altered to stop boasting about links to rich Russians, how the Conservative Party was funded by dodgy Putin money, like the money rabb received, these media investigations are going to happen. The Panorama specials on anti semitism in the Labour Party helped to set a lot of media narrative that hollowed Corbyn into an empty shell. And Boris is up to his eyebrows in stuff journalists can spin, hint and twist, like his Putin apologist friend for invasion of Crimea he made a Lord, the Russia report censored, redacted, Boris tried to kick into long grass etc.
Tories say it’s been a “tough” election.
Labour playing down big gains and say focus is vote share.
Lib Dems “cautiously optimistic” of “modest” gains including in blue wall targets.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-61235136
Source: “It’s not going to be a good election for us - it’s down to Boris and partygate”
Party insiders predicting that they’ll finish 3rd behind Labour
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-61235136
Great news for Greens, Indy's and assorted loonies.
It was the fact the UK and France could not afford this role, combined with the Berlin blockade and the fall of China, that pushed the US into taking the lead role in opposing Communism.
And the lovely piggies got cute names as well 😆
Regarding the project of bringing Russia to heel/to its knees/regime change, personally I am comfortable with Russia's antagonism toward American control, as a believer in the balance of powers approach to foreign policy. What I like a lot less, is Russia becoming a blob with China, the new pretender to world hegemon status, which is effectively what is now happening.
Partly from an identication of British with American interests, and partly from a desire to not shoulder the costs which stretched across Europe.
Partly from an identifcation of British with American interests, and partly from a desire not to shoulder the costs which stretched across Europe.
According to Electoral Commission. As reported on R4 just now.
It’s the stuff of nightmares. Particularly Tory nightmares.
Tomorrow's @telebusiness column, online now. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/05/bank-englands-dismal-forecast-stuff-tory-nightmares/
Did the Americans exploit the situation to get their hands on UK assets? Broadly, yes.
Did they also hasten the end of imperial dreams? Certainly at Suez, and probably in myriad subtle ways too.
I can’t say I know much about how America considers the UK strategically, especially now our job as occasional horse-whisperer to Europe has gone.
I think we’re chiefly seen as a reliable partner for when a show of multilateralism is required, or as a useful voice to sound out various positions which the US can plausibly deny.
I imagine (I don’t really know) that British diplomatic influence in the US is as good as it gets, on a par with the Canadians and the Israelis. To the extent that means much.
Fingers crossed we've got rid of a second Tory from our ward after last year's Labour gain.