vacuumflower comments on Team Trump Is Actually Drawing Up Attack Plans for Mexico

[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

For that supposed 20% he reinvigorated NATO (prior to the full scale invasion countries started questioning if we still need NATO), got EU to increase defense spending and got Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

Don't you see how this works both ways?

He measured NATO's response, he found a way to fight wars and not break (in the sense of popular outrage at loss of life and economic effect) for Russia, and which categories of population can be recruited for money and which shouldn't, he confirmed that the resource exports money source can be reoriented to other countries than the West, and he made unofficially NATO-aligned countries officially that.

EU's defense spending increasing is at the expense of other things.

They also proved they’re a paper tiger and their arms manufacturing is crap. Oh and of course sanctions and the war completely wrecking the economy.

They proved that to themselves too and reacted. Changed the military doctrine, evolved new tactics and strategy, built new MIC production chains. Russian army was inexperienced and thoroughly rotten, now it's not. Russian weapons were expensive and untested, now there are cheap drones of various kinds produced on scale and used, well-tested and constantly improved.

The economy is not completely wrecked. It really seemed to be going there many times over these years. Some of the people who told me it's going to crumble are professors. It's not even approaching that anymore. I live in Russia.

People working in the Russian Central Bank are very competent. One can talk and talk about good and evil, but their work has been perfect basically since 1999 till now. And people making actual decisions too understand a lot.

It seems intuitively (incorrectly) that the way Russian society is built, with its inequality and injustice, it can't bear a big war. But if slaveholder agrarian societies and feudal societies could fight wars with their plutocratic contemporaries, then Russia's mafia feudalism can fight Western societies. Which are honestly too slowly changing to mafia feudalism ; perhaps some will flip to fascism.

Considering what all those western nations have shown themselves, I'm honestly not sure there are good guys here, and if there are none, then I'm kinda almost feeling patriotic. But I don't understand why Putin had to invade Ukraine, Zelensky was fucking elected because of his promises to make peace and restore ties, and for the national interest it made much bigger sense to just do that, Ukraine would still be naturally dependent.

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[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

He measured NATO’s response

To attacking a non-NATO country. NATO's purpose is not to defend random places and support random revolutions and occupations around the world - despite what the US thinks, and despite how much we sympathise with Ukraine - but to defend each other. Poland just bought hundreds of tanks, and we got to see where we are missing things. And as shitty the rift is with the US, Russia now has a rearming EU to worry about.

he found a way to fight wars and not break

He put the country on a war economy which is going to cause an insane recession if not an outright collapse if the war ends. They won't even be able to go back to their pre-war military strength. This was always an option, coming back from it is not.

he confirmed that the resource exports money source can be reoriented to other countries than the West

At insanely low prices, and by creating even more dependencies on untrustworthy partners. Who's to say China won't use the new dependency to invade Russia? Can Russia depend on that?

They proved that to themselves too and reacted. Changed the military doctrine, evolved new tactics and strategy, built new MIC production chains.

It went from an army that could threaten Europe to one that could threaten Ukraine. I know, drones are the new thing, but all of Russia's adversaries have much greater manufacturing capabilities than Russia, Russia is not going to outproduce the West or China in drones. Just to mention, Ukraine and Russia are largely peers in drone warfare, except all those drones are being blown up in Ukraine. Europe is stockpiling. In the meantime, they lost their whole Soviet stockpile of armor, and a sizeable chunk of their airforce.

EU’s defense spending increasing is at the expense of other things.

This is the new big lie of Russia. No, defense spending is coming from loans, basically a credit line we didn't use because the Germans were jacking off to austerity. How that works is that if we overdo it, we'll see more inflation, so you can check when we overdid it. Social spending is not being cut, there are maybe some programs somewhere, but that neolib shit has been going on forever, we've been fighting it forever, it's just now Russia saying "you'll all be poor". Inflation is back to normal levels, and if anything, increased public spending will increase wages across the EU.

The economy is not completely wrecked.

Just look at the numbers. It's a war economy. 40% of the Russian budget is going towards the army, and if the war ends or this money runs out - that's 2027/28 if we're being generous - you're going from a labour shortage to 10% unemployment. That's "dissolution of the USSR" level economic turmoil.

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[–] vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

To attacking a non-NATO country. NATO’s purpose is not to defend random places and support random revolutions and occupations around the world

Yeah, well, attacking a NATO country with the military Russia had in 2022 would be suicide.

And as shitty the rift is with the US, Russia now has a rearming EU to worry about.

A rearmed EU will be less dependent upon the US. If we are expecting the US to go bad in the following decades, then EU less dependent upon it might be less likely to partake in pummeling Russia when that happens.

He put the country on a war economy which is going to cause an insane recession if not an outright collapse if the war ends.

That depends on the expected outside conditions. If there's a worldwide crisis coming, then doing this before it is even advantageous.

At insanely low prices, and by creating even more dependencies on untrustworthy partners. Who’s to say China won’t use the new dependency to invade Russia? Can Russia depend on that?

China doesn't generally invade anyone. Peace works in their favor. They are even catching up as an innovating and not only manufacturing nation. China already controls Russia though its industries' supply chains. Also China controls much of the world through its rare metals.

So yes, Russia can depend on the Chinese "roof", so to say, being stable.

Insanely low prices are regrettable, but one of Russia's biggest exports is grain. Grain demand is different from oil and gas demand, - I don't think I have to explain why, - so that falling or stopping being profitable is highly unlikely.

It went from an army that could threaten Europe to one that could threaten Ukraine. I know, drones are the new thing, but all of Russia’s adversaries have much greater manufacturing capabilities than Russia, Russia is not going to outproduce the West or China in drones.

From one that boasted threatening Europe to one that actually threatens Ukraine. Also you are writing this as if Ukraine were weak.

It's not about capabilities, it's about a whole functioning well-tested system. Russia doesn't have to outproduce China, Russia simply can't fight China, it's dependent upon China in everything. But the good news (for Russia) are that all its potential adversaries are western or western-aligned.

Like training an LLM on a dataset (sorry).

This is the new big lie of Russia. No, defense spending is coming from loans, basically a credit line we didn’t use because the Germans were jacking off to austerity.

You weren't using it, now you are using it. That's too "at the expense of everything else".

Just look at the numbers. It’s a war economy. 40% of the Russian budget is going towards the army, and if the war ends or this money runs out - that’s 2027/28 if we’re being generous - you’re going from a labour shortage to 10% unemployment. That’s “dissolution of the USSR” level economic turmoil.

They are making rules for labor migration stricter, and the number of labor migrants in Russia is enormous, I'd say it's more than 10% workforce. I don't have the current numbers, but it's a few millions of citizens of Tajikistan alone. So - they are slowly impeding labor migration, and making it less attractive. Might be a preparation for this exactly.

OK. I don't know where the ship is going or what its captain thinks. I'm just seeing that it's been promised things completely different from what transpired for all my life.

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[–] HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

A rearmed EU will be less dependent upon the US. If we are expecting the US to go bad in the following decades, then EU less dependent upon it might be less likely to partake in pummeling Russia when that happens.

To be honest, if the US and Russia started a war in eg. Kazakhstan or Afghanistan, the EU would most likely not care and I also think it shouldn't. IMO we should stop trading with Israel as well, and I'm not alone here. I doubt after Ukraine even Poland would deign to help with a new war, and even the Israel thing is more of an inertia issue in the EU rather than anything else - not like that absolves anyone.

Ukraine was a European thing because Ukraine was attacked because it was aligning with the EU. Nobody sane in the EU wants war with Russia for the sake of antagonizing Russia. In fact, even the people who don't like Russia are mistrustful and not hateful, as in nobody wants to see Russia fall apart, it's just that its leadership broke so many promises that people think that it is a good idea to expect it to honor any deal or stay at peace.

You weren’t using it, now you are using it. That’s too “at the expense of everything else”.

Sorry, but this is a pet issue of mine, and not even because of the Russian war or even rearmament. Public investment is taking loans from corporations, and giving it to people as wages to do stuff. This drives inflation somewhat, but since it increases wages the people don't feel it, but the loans given to corporations also inflate. This all drives the economy, since people having more money means they spend more, which makes companies compete more for that money, it's all in all a good thing.

What I mean is that even if nothing like this was happening, if we paid a bunch of people to dig a hole, and another bunch of people to fill it up, it would still fuel the economy and make more money for everyone in the EU. Now if we spend that money on not pointless things, like the new military bill that includes a ton of money for infrastructure, building roads, railways, bridges, etc. that's even better.

What I mean is that this is an investment, even if it doesn't look like it. And we wouldn't be doing it since German conservatives would rather we hoard money than spend it, so the same companies can keep winning in the market. Public investment actually makes corporations richer as well, just not always the same corporations, as it also increases competition, so the current winners don't like it.

Think of the New Deal and its results on the US economy. It didn't take money away from other public services, in fact it produced more taxes to fund them. Or look at Russia, it's the same deal as with the war economy, except if done in moderation, inflation won't run away so much that the EUR won't stay convertible like the RUB, and wages, taxes and profits will go up.

OK. I don’t know where the ship is going or what its captain thinks. I’m just seeing that it’s been promised things completely different from what transpired for all my life.

Don't we all, man. The scary part about Russia is that there does not seem to be an endgame, there doesn't seem to be a next chapter to the plan. I wish you guys all luck and a better future.

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