Russia's War Against Ukraine

[Gusington]

^Very NATO-like. SEATO-like...even 

[Sir Slash]

Russia should pick-on someone their own size. Like Detroit.

[JasonPratt]

Relevant to China's (rather floundering) Silk Road project, and its relation to Russian claims on and around the Black Sea: China and Russia are part of a group with the (notably 'English') nickname of BRICS, which is supposed to represent a team-up of third-world "emerging" economies in order to create an economic super-power -- the team being Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Russia should pick-on someone their own size. Like Detroit.

Slash's quip is also relevant!    Russia's economy back in, let's say, January of 2022 was on par with that of Florida. Now, having been gutted by their own invasion of Ukraine, they might really be more like Detroit! (And with news of revolutionary unrest popping up today, maybe more literally like Detroit soon...) China should be an awesome economic power on paper, but their economy has been imploding and self-destructing even without COVID.

So they've agreed to team up with truly emerging-world economic powers, which sounds at first kind of hilariously sad: China and Russia now rank themselves with emergent third-world economic powers! Whatever your opinion might otherwise be of India or Brazil or South Africa, they do at least arguably represent growing economic power, not powers which have constantly kept trying to bray about their awesome world-beating strength and now have to sit in the fuvela...

("...on the lips would be fine." -- Chevy Chase, as one of The Three Amigos)

...{cough} hoping that these other powers will save them if they all team up together!

But then comes the kicker. They've announced plans to set up a new currency shared among themselves, backed by hard assets like gold, rare-earth minerals, and/or land.

Land, huh. Reeeeaaallly... Even the other two things could be considered a part of China's Silk Road strategy. But land? Nations trying to call other nations off the American dollar standard swirling down the drain, by the value of a currency backed by real estate rights??

China and Russia, especially China, mean to hustle themselves some land expansion DIRECTLY.

This, combined with China's signal about what amounts to staking a sphere of interest in the Crimea via Ukraine, instead of Russia, could actually signal Russia's coming agreement to give up on Ukraine AND on ceding Crimea, stopping the war! -- because Russia desperately needs a way to gain land control (and all the people-control which comes with that), without fighting a war anymore. That's true for China, too, pre-emptively looking to get out of kicking off (a hopefully conventional) WW3 to soft-sell their unavoidable economic failure to their own people.

In strategy game terms, they've decided to go hard on the strategy of buying up provinces in Field of Glory Empires rather than conquering them.

[Gusington]

whoa 

[ArizonaTank]

Operation Mincemeat Redux? Minus the dead bloke.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/documents-detailing-secret-u-s-ukraine-war-plan-against-russia-leaked-on-social-media/ar-AA19z1VB?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=1d50f601ceac4c418c0ee3e35bbc5cef&ei=26

[GDS_Starfury]

according to Blinken, Sweden will join NATO on July 11.   

[GDS_Starfury]

the ruble is collapsing like a porn stars butthole.   

[GDS_Starfury]

I know, eloquent as ever. 

[GDS_Starfury]

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1644231935667978242

[Gusington]

^Even before this war, the Ukrainians were close to last on my list of people I would like to piss off. Just past the Japanese.

[GDS_Starfury]

[Sir Slash]

I'm sure parents all over Finland are proud for their kids to go outside and see that as representative of their nation's commitment to Peace and Freedom.

[GDS_Starfury]

the average age in Finland is just shy of 43 years old and a far cry from the demographic found along Floriduhs southwestern coast.   

[GDS_Starfury]

its been forever........

https://twitter.com/JominiW/status/1644436075526463488

[GDS_Starfury]

pretty much the same as Arizonas post.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pentagon-says-it-is-reviewing-social-media-posts-that-purport-to-reveal-classified-documents-on-ukraine-4d7524f?st=6pqp6yo6qq3v9cs&reflink=share_mobilewebshare