I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
That's why I support an option I like to call "Time-Reverberating Smackdown."
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
...there were over a dozen pogroms before the Shoah.
And more places than the USA have racism in their veins. Exacerbating the problem is worse than mollifying it. Race baiters are, if anything, more of a problem than stone racists. However, it isn't creating it from whole cloth, and that makes combatting it require a different tact than just trying to neutralize Russian influence.
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
...there were over a dozen pogroms before the Shoah.
And this disproves my point how? I rather think it supports it!
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
That's why I support an option I like to call "Time-Reverberating Smackdown."
War against Russia? Bad idea, as any child of the '80s fearful of nuclear doomsday could tell you.
This is an intelligence problem, not a military problem. We just need to crack down on the influence certain Russian Oligarchs have, accepting that they are agents of the state rather than private businessmen. Obama was starting on that and Clinton would certainly have gone further (which is why Russia wanted Trump.)
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
...there were over a dozen pogroms before the Shoah.
And this disproves my point how? I rather think it supports it!
I'm surprised to see how little weight you give to the prior, repeat genocides.
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
...there were over a dozen pogroms before the Shoah.
And this disproves my point how? I rather think it supports it!
I'm surprised to see how little weight you give to the prior, repeat genocides.
This seems disingenuous. I'm not making a point about pogroms being fine or whatever horrible thing you are trying to imply.
I'm just pointing out that the existence of a fault line does not mean that widening it is inevitable. Without Social Media, the hateful old shitbags would probably have continued to think that their views were of the past and no-one agreed with them any more. Social media (and the advantage of it that Russia discovered) has meant that they have all discovered each other, and discovered that they are numerous. And what's more, they've been able to spread their hate to a new generation (the alt right) who probably would have been individual sad sack weirdos without their conversion to the far right through various social faultlines.
Badger, I think the thing is your argument feels like it's kind of a "great man" theory of history, but for horrifying genocidal tragedies.
What moniker is pointing out is that these issues are much more systemic and goes beyond Putin attempting to stir up discord. That the crises in question were already in the making without him, because of the various social systems at work.
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
That's why I support an option I like to call "Time-Reverberating Smackdown."
War against Russia? Bad idea, as any child of the '80s fearful of nuclear doomsday could tell you.
This is an intelligence problem, not a military problem. We just need to crack down on the influence certain Russian Oligarchs have, accepting that they are agents of the state rather than private businessmen. Obama was starting on that and Clinton would certainly have gone further (which is why Russia wanted Trump.)
Oh I agree it's an intelligence problem, not a military problem.
But the bolded is weak tea. There's scope for so much more.
This oil thing is an absolute disaster for foreign perceptions of the US. It's solid proof that the US is 100% about what its critics have always said, and completely undercuts any future attempts by the US to counter authoritarian regimes by supporting democratic forces. If I was a dictator I would be pinching myself just to check this isn't some wonderful dream.
Beyond that, it's a propaganda boon to to all militant islamic organizations that have said that america hates the middle east and only wants oil.
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
That's why I support an option I like to call "Time-Reverberating Smackdown."
War against Russia? Bad idea, as any child of the '80s fearful of nuclear doomsday could tell you.
This is an intelligence problem, not a military problem. We just need to crack down on the influence certain Russian Oligarchs have, accepting that they are agents of the state rather than private businessmen. Obama was starting on that and Clinton would certainly have gone further (which is why Russia wanted Trump.)
I think the trick to beating putin is by inverting it's inherent strength; people do things for putin to curry his favor without him having to expressly ask for them.
A good intelligence op that focused on taking action against the oligarchs and/or political officers while making it look like it was done by the FSB could very quickly cause putin's control to crumble as the upper echelons begin to try and replace putin and he's forced to take more overt actions against allies.
Badger, I think the thing is your argument feels like it's kind of a "great man" theory of history, but for horrifying genocidal tragedies.
I think being too skeptical of "great men" existing is as foolish as assuming all history is dependent on them. (Assuming we are talking about influential persons rather than admirable or amazing men, which Hitler and Putin are most certainly not.)
Electing Trump is undeniably changing the USA's future. It will be different than if we elected Clinton. Seeing all history as a push of impersonal forces is not really the way it works. Individuals have influence.
Putin is by trade a spy. Is it any wonder his foreign policy focuses on intelligence? It's really very rational, since Russia got a lot of experience at it during the Cold War, and Russia and the USA don't want to actually go to war for nuclear apocalypse reasons.
Economic uncertainty tends to bring out the worst in people. As do demographic shifts. I'd label those as the main issues Europe and the US have been going through, albeit I would say I think the current far right movements in the US and Europe are pretty different with unique origins. Regardless, combine the above factors with a generally lack luster response from American-European governments and it isn't hard to see why there's been so much political instability. The biggest difference nowadays is probably that far right groups in different nations can cooperate across national lines, although due to the nationalist bent of such movements such support is necessarily extremely fickle.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Economic uncertainty tends to bring out the worst in people. As do demographic shifts. I'd label those as the main issues Europe and the US have been going through, albeit I would say I think the current far right movements in the US and Europe are pretty different with unique origins. Regardless, combine the above factors with a generally lack luster response from American-European governments and it isn't hard to see why there's been so much political instability. The biggest difference nowadays is probably that far right groups in different nations can cooperate across national lines, although due to the nationalist bent of such movements such support is necessarily extremely fickle.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Why is the bolded the better option? Why not what Gaddez put forward?
The US has a lot of tools in its tool box. Some of those tools have been weakened. But still, a lot of tools. Why do people leap to the military and sanctions as the only things America can do?
Economic uncertainty tends to bring out the worst in people. As do demographic shifts. I'd label those as the main issues Europe and the US have been going through, albeit I would say I think the current far right movements in the US and Europe are pretty different with unique origins. Regardless, combine the above factors with a generally lack luster response from American-European governments and it isn't hard to see why there's been so much political instability. The biggest difference nowadays is probably that far right groups in different nations can cooperate across national lines, although due to the nationalist bent of such movements such support is necessarily extremely fickle.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Why is the bolded the better option? Why not what Gaddez put forward?
The US has a lot of tools in its tool box. Some of those tools have been weakened. But still, a lot of tools. Why do people leap to the military and sanctions as the only things America can do?
Depends on how hard it is to have other people do all the heavy lifting.
Economic uncertainty tends to bring out the worst in people. As do demographic shifts. I'd label those as the main issues Europe and the US have been going through, albeit I would say I think the current far right movements in the US and Europe are pretty different with unique origins. Regardless, combine the above factors with a generally lack luster response from American-European governments and it isn't hard to see why there's been so much political instability. The biggest difference nowadays is probably that far right groups in different nations can cooperate across national lines, although due to the nationalist bent of such movements such support is necessarily extremely fickle.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Why is the bolded the better option? Why not what Gaddez put forward?
The US has a lot of tools in its tool box. Some of those tools have been weakened. But still, a lot of tools. Why do people leap to the military and sanctions as the only things America can do?
Depends on how hard it is to have other people do all the heavy lifting.
Can you elaborate? I'm not getting much from this statement.
Sanctions targeted at the oligarchs can be the public face while intelligence networks do things in secret. I guess Europe can also keep transitioning away from oil and natural gas.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
Sanctions targeted at the oligarchs can be the public face while intelligence networks do things in secret. I guess Europe can also keep transitioning away from oil and natural gas.
Green New Deal! It's a good idea in more ways than one.
Economic uncertainty tends to bring out the worst in people. As do demographic shifts. I'd label those as the main issues Europe and the US have been going through, albeit I would say I think the current far right movements in the US and Europe are pretty different with unique origins. Regardless, combine the above factors with a generally lack luster response from American-European governments and it isn't hard to see why there's been so much political instability. The biggest difference nowadays is probably that far right groups in different nations can cooperate across national lines, although due to the nationalist bent of such movements such support is necessarily extremely fickle.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Why is the bolded the better option? Why not what Gaddez put forward?
The US has a lot of tools in its tool box. Some of those tools have been weakened. But still, a lot of tools. Why do people leap to the military and sanctions as the only things America can do?
Depends on how hard it is to have other people do all the heavy lifting.
Can you elaborate? I'm not getting much from this statement.
By sending in the military or levying sanctions means people (the citizenry) don't really have to do anything. Elected officials can say they've done something without needing to commit to, let alone suggest, a course of action the local voters decide they don't like.
Economic uncertainty tends to bring out the worst in people. As do demographic shifts. I'd label those as the main issues Europe and the US have been going through, albeit I would say I think the current far right movements in the US and Europe are pretty different with unique origins. Regardless, combine the above factors with a generally lack luster response from American-European governments and it isn't hard to see why there's been so much political instability. The biggest difference nowadays is probably that far right groups in different nations can cooperate across national lines, although due to the nationalist bent of such movements such support is necessarily extremely fickle.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Why is the bolded the better option? Why not what Gaddez put forward?
The US has a lot of tools in its tool box. Some of those tools have been weakened. But still, a lot of tools. Why do people leap to the military and sanctions as the only things America can do?
Depends on how hard it is to have other people do all the heavy lifting.
Can you elaborate? I'm not getting much from this statement.
By sending in the military or levying sanctions means people (the citizenry) don't really have to do anything. Elected officials can say they've done something without needing to commit to, let alone suggest, a course of action the local voters decide they don't like.
Aaah. The old "For the love of God, don't let me go on record making an unpopular decision" problem. Exactly why Congress has been handing authority over to the Executive hand over fist for decades.
Economic uncertainty tends to bring out the worst in people. As do demographic shifts. I'd label those as the main issues Europe and the US have been going through, albeit I would say I think the current far right movements in the US and Europe are pretty different with unique origins. Regardless, combine the above factors with a generally lack luster response from American-European governments and it isn't hard to see why there's been so much political instability. The biggest difference nowadays is probably that far right groups in different nations can cooperate across national lines, although due to the nationalist bent of such movements such support is necessarily extremely fickle.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Why is the bolded the better option? Why not what Gaddez put forward?
The US has a lot of tools in its tool box. Some of those tools have been weakened. But still, a lot of tools. Why do people leap to the military and sanctions as the only things America can do?
I would have thought the past fifty odd years of American history would have illustrated that attempting to incite coups in nations to solve foreign policy issues is not a great methodology but I guess not.
To be frank, while I'm not an intelligence analyst I think that line thinking is insanely optimistic and such an attempt would likely just blow up in the US' face, giving Russia a massive international PR victory. And if such an operation were to succeed the outcomes could be even worse. In a best case scenario Putin would get replaced probably someone in his own political sphere who would likely continue Russia on a similar course. In a worst case scenario you start a civil war in Russia which could get insane fast. And that's all assuming that such an operation could have the effect of toppling Putin from power which I think is, against, just absurdly optimistic.
Also clandestinely trying to subvert a foreign government is literally the exact reason why so many countries have been seeking to economically and diplomatically isolate Russia so maybe we don't follow in their footsteps?
I feel like putting most of the cause of political instability in the US and Europe as Putin's doing is probably giving him too much credit, even if yes he is obviously constantly trying to fan the flames and start new fires.
Yeah I'm pretty sure there is just a shitty regressive streak from older people "rising up" to exert the last of their influence. At least that's how it feels like in the US.
Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
Scale matters though, supposedly a third of the planet is apparently on Facebook and it's a system designed to connect as many people as possible. The divisions have always been there, but the fulcrum to exploit them as been supercharged recently. The adoption of the printing press wasn't a gentle process, and this is that on a international scale, orders of magnitudes higher.
Great point, Tastyfish. The printing press caused untold amounts of chaos as ordinary people could suddenly hear about what was happening outside their social circle. 18th Century Pamphlets were the Facebook share of the day.
Sanctions targeted at the oligarchs can be the public face while intelligence networks do things in secret. I guess Europe can also keep transitioning away from oil and natural gas.
Like seriously: putin's whole aparatus works because he's able to control the government which gives greater freedom and luxury to the oligarchs which putin collects kickbacks on to spread around to enough people in the military, government and intelligence network that the corruption engine is able to keep right on chugging.
If things (use your imagination for this) start happening inexplicably to the components of this machine, then trust begins to give way to paranoia and from there questions begin to be raised by these people who have wallowed in decadence; why is putin doing these things? Is he coming for me? Some of these men were more loyal then me, so why are these things happening to them?
They keep asking these questions until someone asks "do we really need putin?"
Whether this takes him down or not hardly matters. What it will do though, is cause enough internal strife that putin is forced to stop fucking around with other peoples countries in order to try and hold his together.
Toward the end of the meeting, Trump intimated that he had Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "standing by ready to write a check."
"It was almost as if he let it slip out," said family spokesman Radd Seiger. "When he said, 'We've got the driver here', he basically meant we're all going to have a big hug and a kiss and I'll get my Treasury guy to write a check. That's how it was. On the day it just didn't register with me, but the more I think about those words, the more shocking it is."
Toward the end of the meeting, Trump intimated that he had Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "standing by ready to write a check."
"It was almost as if he let it slip out," said family spokesman Radd Seiger. "When he said, 'We've got the driver here', he basically meant we're all going to have a big hug and a kiss and I'll get my Treasury guy to write a check. That's how it was. On the day it just didn't register with me, but the more I think about those words, the more shocking it is."
Of course he did.
"How much will is cost to make this thing go away?"
Toward the end of the meeting, Trump intimated that he had Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "standing by ready to write a check."
"It was almost as if he let it slip out," said family spokesman Radd Seiger. "When he said, 'We've got the driver here', he basically meant we're all going to have a big hug and a kiss and I'll get my Treasury guy to write a check. That's how it was. On the day it just didn't register with me, but the more I think about those words, the more shocking it is."
Of course he did.
"How much will is cost to make this thing go away?"
Of course he thinks this way.
I would wager big that he's already put a figure on his own spawn for just such an eventuality.
The man is a sociopath for whom all relationships are transactional.
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I ZimbraWorst song, played on ugliest guitarRegistered Userregular
I've seen reports that the President of Bolivia has resigned after being urged to do so by the military, which followed extensive evidence of electoral fraud in his re-election (which he was not supposed to be eligible for anyway due to term limits). So I'm not certain it qualifies as a coup?
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
Evidence of electoral fraud is debatable since one of the first things the protesters did was start burning ballot boxes.
Essentially, at least is my understanding, the evidence as is points to his vote share as being legit and the inciting incident is the election authority were incredibly sketchy about whether or not he had the 10% margin to keep a runoff from happening.
The term limit part is also a bit sketch in that it was reaffirmed via referendum but the supreme court struck it down.
The problem was trying to fix the election to avoid a second round. People, surprisingly didn't like that, and the opposition leadership was willing to go until the last consequences (unlike in other countries, and yes I'm bitter).
I wonder if you could tell when the picture was actually taken - if they would have left the metadata in it that has the various settings used to take the picture, along with the date and time?
Evidence of electoral fraud is debatable since one of the first things the protesters did was start burning ballot boxes.
Essentially, at least is my understanding, the evidence as is points to his vote share as being legit and the inciting incident is the election authority were incredibly sketchy about whether or not he had the 10% margin to keep a runoff from happening.
The term limit part is also a bit sketch in that it was reaffirmed via referendum but the supreme court struck it down.
in any case this is absolutely a coup.
It's only a coup if the military takes power. If they are just like no we won't run a police state to prop you up, do the second round or a new election, I would not call that a coup.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I've seen reports that the President of Bolivia has resigned after being urged to do so by the military, which followed extensive evidence of electoral fraud in his re-election (which he was not supposed to be eligible for anyway due to term limits). So I'm not certain it qualifies as a coup?
they were removed in 2017, according to CIA world factbook anyhow
This feels like the kind of thing that would defy a solid "yes its this" when like someone tries to do a coup themselves and then the military says "no that's not how this will go" that feels a little too black and white to call it a coup.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I wonder if you could tell when the picture was actually taken - if they would have left the metadata in it that has the various settings used to take the picture, along with the date and time?
Evidence of electoral fraud is debatable since one of the first things the protesters did was start burning ballot boxes.
Essentially, at least is my understanding, the evidence as is points to his vote share as being legit and the inciting incident is the election authority were incredibly sketchy about whether or not he had the 10% margin to keep a runoff from happening.
The term limit part is also a bit sketch in that it was reaffirmed via referendum but the supreme court struck it down.
in any case this is absolutely a coup.
It's only a coup if the military takes power. If they are just like no we won't run a police state to prop you up, do the second round or a new election, I would not call that a coup.
The coup is them overthrowing the president. Whether or not it turns into a military junta is irrelevant to whether or not this is a coup, which it is.
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Something provoked those fearful, reactionary older folk. That something is social media. And Russian intelligence was the first to weaponize it.
They also fund far right groups all over Europe.
https://www.ft.com/content/48c4bfa6-7ca2-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560
Before social media it was chain emails and talk radio. Before that it was pamphletting and the John Birch Society. Fearful reactionary paranoid conservatives have been around long before Putin. Russia is exacerbating our fault lines, but those fault lines are as old as the Republic.
It's not just the USA, as I said.
I'm concerned that pooh-poohing the threat Putin poses is unwise. Every evil dictator had Sensible, Rational People pooh-poohing the threat they posed until it was obvious. Could Hitler really be aiming to conquer Europe? Could Stalin really be covering up millions of famine deaths? It doesn't seem sensible. And yet.
"He just exacerbated existing faultlines" is as meaningless as saying Hitler just manipulated people's existing anti-Semitism. True, but many countries were antisemitic and there was only one Holocaust.
That's why I support an option I like to call "Time-Reverberating Smackdown."
...there were over a dozen pogroms before the Shoah.
And more places than the USA have racism in their veins. Exacerbating the problem is worse than mollifying it. Race baiters are, if anything, more of a problem than stone racists. However, it isn't creating it from whole cloth, and that makes combatting it require a different tact than just trying to neutralize Russian influence.
And this disproves my point how? I rather think it supports it!
War against Russia? Bad idea, as any child of the '80s fearful of nuclear doomsday could tell you.
This is an intelligence problem, not a military problem. We just need to crack down on the influence certain Russian Oligarchs have, accepting that they are agents of the state rather than private businessmen. Obama was starting on that and Clinton would certainly have gone further (which is why Russia wanted Trump.)
I'm surprised to see how little weight you give to the prior, repeat genocides.
This seems disingenuous. I'm not making a point about pogroms being fine or whatever horrible thing you are trying to imply.
I'm just pointing out that the existence of a fault line does not mean that widening it is inevitable. Without Social Media, the hateful old shitbags would probably have continued to think that their views were of the past and no-one agreed with them any more. Social media (and the advantage of it that Russia discovered) has meant that they have all discovered each other, and discovered that they are numerous. And what's more, they've been able to spread their hate to a new generation (the alt right) who probably would have been individual sad sack weirdos without their conversion to the far right through various social faultlines.
What moniker is pointing out is that these issues are much more systemic and goes beyond Putin attempting to stir up discord. That the crises in question were already in the making without him, because of the various social systems at work.
Oh I agree it's an intelligence problem, not a military problem.
But the bolded is weak tea. There's scope for so much more.
Beyond that, it's a propaganda boon to to all militant islamic organizations that have said that america hates the middle east and only wants oil.
I think the trick to beating putin is by inverting it's inherent strength; people do things for putin to curry his favor without him having to expressly ask for them.
A good intelligence op that focused on taking action against the oligarchs and/or political officers while making it look like it was done by the FSB could very quickly cause putin's control to crumble as the upper echelons begin to try and replace putin and he's forced to take more overt actions against allies.
I think being too skeptical of "great men" existing is as foolish as assuming all history is dependent on them. (Assuming we are talking about influential persons rather than admirable or amazing men, which Hitler and Putin are most certainly not.)
Electing Trump is undeniably changing the USA's future. It will be different than if we elected Clinton. Seeing all history as a push of impersonal forces is not really the way it works. Individuals have influence.
Putin is by trade a spy. Is it any wonder his foreign policy focuses on intelligence? It's really very rational, since Russia got a lot of experience at it during the Cold War, and Russia and the USA don't want to actually go to war for nuclear apocalypse reasons.
Russia uses information warfare in this kind of environment because they do not have the resources to win most economic let alone military conflicts. It will always cost more to counter information warfare than they spend doing it. And because Putin is dedicated to being an enemy to the rest of Europe and the United States, it's only logical that they'd take the lowest cost option. That being said it not at all advisable for the US to directly militarily engage Russia. Even discounting their huge nuclear arsenal a conventional invasion of Russia is not something that anybody is probably ever gonna be willing to do. For one thing, we aren't actually prepared to do it and it would take years of military build up if we wanted to. More importantly, the human cost (let alone the financial cost) would be greater for the US (and our allies) than probably any war we've ever fought.
The better option is to continue putting the economic screws on Putin and his allies until they either collapse or are willing to play ball with the rest of Europe. I view Russia much the same as I view North Korea, a bad faith actor who is so consistently absolutely untrustworthy as to be impossible to really negotiate with at the present time. Probably you'll have to wait for Putin to die before you can try and reach out to Russia again, as Putin doesn't actually seem to care about trading the long-term position of Russia for simply maintaining his current political stranglehold. (or else he's just really incompetent at risk vs. reward calculations which is also possible) Russia has kind of continued to be in a worse and worse position under his government and at a certain point with this same trajectory it might simply become untenable on a basic economic level. Still he'll probably die before he gets overthrown.
Of course, right now I'd also label the US as being a fairly bad faith actor right now so hopefully that'd change at some point before dialogue with Russia opens up again.
Why is the bolded the better option? Why not what Gaddez put forward?
The US has a lot of tools in its tool box. Some of those tools have been weakened. But still, a lot of tools. Why do people leap to the military and sanctions as the only things America can do?
Depends on how hard it is to have other people do all the heavy lifting.
Can you elaborate? I'm not getting much from this statement.
Green New Deal! It's a good idea in more ways than one.
By sending in the military or levying sanctions means people (the citizenry) don't really have to do anything. Elected officials can say they've done something without needing to commit to, let alone suggest, a course of action the local voters decide they don't like.
Aaah. The old "For the love of God, don't let me go on record making an unpopular decision" problem. Exactly why Congress has been handing authority over to the Executive hand over fist for decades.
Yeah. That's going to be a thing.
To be frank, while I'm not an intelligence analyst I think that line thinking is insanely optimistic and such an attempt would likely just blow up in the US' face, giving Russia a massive international PR victory. And if such an operation were to succeed the outcomes could be even worse. In a best case scenario Putin would get replaced probably someone in his own political sphere who would likely continue Russia on a similar course. In a worst case scenario you start a civil war in Russia which could get insane fast. And that's all assuming that such an operation could have the effect of toppling Putin from power which I think is, against, just absurdly optimistic.
Also clandestinely trying to subvert a foreign government is literally the exact reason why so many countries have been seeking to economically and diplomatically isolate Russia so maybe we don't follow in their footsteps?
Scale matters though, supposedly a third of the planet is apparently on Facebook and it's a system designed to connect as many people as possible. The divisions have always been there, but the fulcrum to exploit them as been supercharged recently. The adoption of the printing press wasn't a gentle process, and this is that on a international scale, orders of magnitudes higher.
Like seriously: putin's whole aparatus works because he's able to control the government which gives greater freedom and luxury to the oligarchs which putin collects kickbacks on to spread around to enough people in the military, government and intelligence network that the corruption engine is able to keep right on chugging.
If things (use your imagination for this) start happening inexplicably to the components of this machine, then trust begins to give way to paranoia and from there questions begin to be raised by these people who have wallowed in decadence; why is putin doing these things? Is he coming for me? Some of these men were more loyal then me, so why are these things happening to them?
They keep asking these questions until someone asks "do we really need putin?"
Whether this takes him down or not hardly matters. What it will do though, is cause enough internal strife that putin is forced to stop fucking around with other peoples countries in order to try and hold his together.
Of course he did.
"How much will is cost to make this thing go away?"
Of course he thinks this way.
I would wager big that he's already put a figure on his own spawn for just such an eventuality.
The man is a sociopath for whom all relationships are transactional.
Former WaPo reporter.
Kinda sounds like a coup just popped off in Bolivia. Luckily it appears to be bloodless so far.
Essentially, at least is my understanding, the evidence as is points to his vote share as being legit and the inciting incident is the election authority were incredibly sketchy about whether or not he had the 10% margin to keep a runoff from happening.
The term limit part is also a bit sketch in that it was reaffirmed via referendum but the supreme court struck it down.
in any case this is absolutely a coup.
Sorry, he deleted as situation developed. Same former WaPo reporter:
Video of Morales resigning on TV is later in the thread.
It's only a coup if the military takes power. If they are just like no we won't run a police state to prop you up, do the second round or a new election, I would not call that a coup.
they were removed in 2017, according to CIA world factbook anyhow
pleasepaypreacher.net
The coup is them overthrowing the president. Whether or not it turns into a military junta is irrelevant to whether or not this is a coup, which it is.