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  • footfaults
    ·
    edit-2
    1 month ago

    deleted by creator

    • supafuzz [comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The official cited the little-known and rarely discussed deployment, authorized by Biden, of two brigades with thousands of America’s best army combat units to the region. A brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division has been intensively training and exercising from its base inside Poland within a few miles of the Ukrainian border. It was reinforced late last year by a brigade from the 101st Airborne Division that was deployed in Romania

      Excuse me, what

      • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Oh shit you didn't know that NATO is already on the front line in Ukraine? There's a running joke that it's the international battalion of Ukrainians who are the only ones actively fighting in Ukraine, everybody else is mostly just sitting around or shifting supplies hoping not to be killed.

        • supafuzz [comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          a plausibly deniable "international battalion" is one thing, US brigades are quite another thing

          • spectre [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I had an acquaintance of a friend talk about how he was on the ground actively shooting people in Ukraine in like 2019 (he talked about it in 2021). I'm just like "are you sure that's not classified or something?"

          • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
            ·
            2 years ago

            My point is that it likely won't change the outcome, just that the situation will basically become a total occupation of Ukraine by both NATO and Russia. If anything, having actual American battalions on the ground will motivate Russian soldiers more, which is incredibly fucked up, but true.

            • supafuzz [comrade/them]
              ·
              2 years ago

              the outcome I'm worried about is :nuke: and if the US finds an excuse to explicitly enter the war that becomes a near-certainty

              I don't even necessarily think it would be Russia that launches them, there are no meaningful restrictions right now on American bloodlust

              • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
                ·
                edit-2
                2 years ago

                Right now, Russia and China are the only nuclear powers with functional hyper-sonic missiles, meaning that they can absolutely hit the U.S. if the U.S. decides to hit them through other ICBM tech. The only thing the U S. has going for it is that it has a whole submersible fleet that is likely undetectable. That being said, there have been multiple instances of these subs being hunted down and nearly run aground in the South China Sea, so it's unclear how 'undetectable' they actually are.

                These factors act as a restriction on American bloodlust, although the biggest factor is that the wealthy are winning in the U.S. and so are not willing to let the military pull the trigger on nuclear Armageddon.

                • supafuzz [comrade/them]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  I don't think America could win but I also don't think that matters right now? The empire in its death throes is picking fights and alienating people all over the place in ways that do not make rational, strategic sense

                  • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    It makes sense if you think of it as a way to further alienate the American public from the rest of the world. Can't escape hell world if everybody hates you and won't accept you into the country.

      • 7bicycles [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Isn't this how every major conflict works? I feel like as far back as Vietnam where you had soviets fighting americans and it didn't trigger nuclear armageddon this sort of things works out on a sort of "I'm not touching you you can't be mad" type thing because, as noted, nobody wants the global nuclear apocalypse

    • emizeko [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It has lost billions building its wildly ambitious Belt and Road Initiative aimed at linking East Asia to Europe and investing, perhaps foolishly, in seaports around the world. “

      there's that imperialism brain again, only able to think in terms of direct profit extraction

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I've always wondered, is reddit-brain reflective of U.S. foreign policy brain, or has U.S. foreign policy brain just been infected by reddit brain.

            • TreadOnMe [none/use name]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Yeah, but OG reddit culture prior to direct U.S. domestic intelligence ops is also an abstraction and derivation from SA and 4chan, which has always been 'anti-normie'. Unless those cultures are also ops. I really think it's one of those dialectical 'chicken-egg' situations.

    • emizeko [they/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The intelligence official told me that everything Putin has been “doing in Ukraine is counter to Russia’s long-term interests.

      yeah right sure, find it pretty glaring that this is just nakedly asserted with nothing to back it up

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I can see it. It's basically a "what are they doing, this is stupid" statement, which I hear all the time from people telling me about someone they're working with.

        • emizeko [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I can believe he said it, it's just that thing where there are two realities I guess

          • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Ahh you mean you find it hard to see how that official actually believes this?

            • emizeko [they/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              yeah. either they really thought they'd yell "Russia will invade" for weeks, and then Russia would just sit back and get destroyed by sanctions* while allowing a massive pogrom against Donbas, or he's lying

              *(most of which went into effect on the 22nd in response to recognition of DPR and LPR, not the invasion, and were planned at least six months before that)

              • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                2 years ago

                The question of our time: "Do they really believe that shit??"