The transition

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The US has more than it's share of missteps, blunders and just plain bad decisions.
But when you factor in the outcome of WWI/WWII and that places such as Ellis Island existed... I think when all things considered, there is no equal and no better. You gotta take the crooked with the straights.

That said.. the current a_hole in charge is doing a pretty good job of negating all. 🙃
 
Gionnirocket said:
No... Why/How could you think that?
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The USA has a demonstrable majority of ignorant people, many of them in power. Like many ignorant people, they do not realize what they do not know.

Current US policy is on track to make the USA irrelevant. Nobody is paying attention to us anymore or expecting us to do anything useful.
 
I never meant to imply that the US is the best educated country.... But equating us to Russia I find a bit simplistic in thought.
Just imagine a sequel to It's a Wonderful Life and that the US never existed.
I'm just glad that the bell rang.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
You've never visited Russia, obviously.

In Russia serious criminals do all of those things and more. And they get away with it as long as none of their victims are powerful and they keep up on their bribes. What's more, many of the worst criminals wear uniforms.

If you go to the doctor in Russia, you'll often have to pay a bribe to get them to see you, another bribe to get them to prescribe decent medications, and still another bribe to the pharmacist to not water down or substitute the medication prescribed.

I'd have to wonder how a society so dominated by bribery, extortion, and theft could manage to maintain any number of nuclear weapons over a period of three decades. That's one big reason Putin won't press that red button: he can't know how reliable his own arsenal is and he can't know which weapons are working and which ones are duds.
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Then you must be very happy how similar to Russia that America has become.
 
jabberwocky said:
I think I'll take the crime rate and justice system here in the US to the one in Russia. But you do you.



Lol. Ok. You're probably right that his regime hasn't been seriously damaged, but thats mainly because hes a dictator who is largely insulated from any consequences. But even dictators have political considerations. The idea that oh, they could swat this annoying tick whenever they want kinda flies in the face of observable reality. Russia has been expending tremendous effort to conclude the war for 4 years now. Its been incredibly costly. If they could do something they thought would hand them a win, they would have. They haven't started tossing nukes around because their calculus is that the first nuke that goes off would unite the western world against them and almost certainly draw very direct aid. The fact that lots of Russian hardware turned out to be in much poorer shape than it was on paper once it was put into use probably is on his and his military leaders minds as well. I'm sure they've spent to maintain their nuclear arsenal, but was that money actually used to maintain it? Or would they find that the commander of that base has a new dacha and a mistress and maybe that tactical nuke doesn't go off when its supposed to...
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My response was to the ridiculous statement that Russia has no way out of this war. They most certainly do have multiple ways out of this war. Putin has already used chemical weapons in Ukraine, just not the scorched earth kind. They have the brains to sort out any kind of weapons "issues" that some of you are assuming they have.

Optics and world relations are obviously a factor, but they were part of the calculus when he invaded Ukraine to begin with. Where was "the western world" when that happened? Where was the overwhelming NATO response? NATO is a joke.

This conflict has hurt Russia economically, but, like China, they are masters of creating black markets for their goods. More of their goods are being sold than the western media is reporting. I'm sure of it. Putin also has no reservations about making his people suffer to achieve his goals.
 
Chargeride said:
Putin surrounded Kyive in three days.
Everything now is Nato, hundreds of billions of dollars, worlds greatest intelligence network, UK Storm cruise missiles sent in by Biden, that changed everything.
Europe energy grids powering Ukraine which goes on my gas bill.
Patriot missile defence, which is now pretty well overun.
And the icing on the cake, all Ukranian opposition in jail, all critical media outlets shut down.
Zelensky is now a dictator and welcomed Goldman Sachs and Blackrock in to run Ukraine.


Thats the money shot there
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He still says that he does not know where $100B that the US pledged to him went. I can tell you, right back into the pockets of American politicians. Zelensky is the greatest grifter of all time.
 
stompandgo said:
Then you must be very happy how similar to Russia that America has become.
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That's a cheesy ad hominem attack. Just because I have traveled to other screwed-up countries and have developed an eye for the symptoms of a failing society doesn't mean I'd want any of those things to happen here. And in truth I have no super-powers that make what I want or do not want relevant to what will likely happen anyway.
 
DaveMatthews said:
So... Russia sends rockets, missiles, and drones to demolish residential buildings and kill innocent people, where Ukraine targets military, industrial, and oil/fuel infrastructure.
But Ukraine is just as bad or worse than Russia...
Um... No...
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Well what can you expect? They have already blown up all the ukraine's military and industrial targets and they still refuse to surrender. It's like the US in WWII, when they killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people when they bombed the cities with nuclear weapons. It's the fog of war. Are you suggesting the US was likewise guilty of mass murder? The Japanese only ever targeted the US military, never it's civilians. You have a strong opinion about the ukraine, but was it even in your consciousness before the war began, before the TV told you how think on the matter?
 
Mr. Coffee said:
That's a cheesy ad hominem attack. Just because I have traveled to other screwed-up countries and have developed an eye for the symptoms of a failing society doesn't mean I'd want any of those things to happen here. And in truth I have no super-powers that make what I want or do not want relevant to what will likely happen anyway.
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So it is ok for you to post cheesy ad hominem attacks to other people's intelligence because they don't agree with you? OK. If you took my comment as a personal attack, I apologize. My intent was to challenge your point of view, not you personally.

You have no idea where I have traveled, what I have seen in life.
 
stompandgo said:
My response was to the ridiculous statement that Russia has no way out of this war.
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Probably the best way to get out of this war would be to withdraw to the 2014 borders and call it a day.

The reality is that Russia has zero good options when it comes to using nukes and using a nuclear weapon won't improve their situation.

First off, China has made it abundantly clear that Russia must not do that. Since the Rushka economy is largely propped up by China at this point they get a vote.

Second, most likely Russia would deliver such weapons with medium-range ballistic missiles like the Iskander. The Ukrainians have a very modest ability to shoot such missiles down. So Russia would have to launch multiple weapons to have a high chance of achieving anything at all. And because they would have to launch multiple weapons at once with relatively little clue about how many would actually reach their targets and detonate, that makes it impossible to go for any precisely calibrated political or diplomatic effects (see below).

Third, tactically you'd need a lot of weapons to achieve significant effects. In the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War the Pentagon estimated that they would need between 50 and 200 tactical nukes to "significantly degrade" Saddam's Army. In Ukraine in 2026 with modern realities you'd need many more than that.

Fourth, any use of nuclear weapons will degrade the effectiveness of Russia's nuclear deterrent. Partly for the simple reason that every weapon you use against Ukraine is one weapon that can't be used against anyone else in a future war. But the bigger reason is that it will give everyone else precise information about the reliability and effectiveness of Russia's arsenal -- which would be fine if it proved to be very reliable and effective.

I think the risk of very negative responses from Europe and China go up rapidly as more nuclear weapons are used. If only because the winds will blow the fallout right into Europe and that is likely to piss them off. Extremely. On the other side of it if they launch just one as a demonstration and it is either a dud or is shot down, they get 100 percent of the negative consequences and none of the "positive" consequences.

You might wonder why I think I know anything about this topic at all. Well, the fact of the matter is that no living human has any practical experience with using nuclear weapons in a war. What we all rely upon is book learning, mostly from the 1950s with only inconsistent and minor changes since then. I've read enough of the books to be pretty confident that I know as much as most politicians in the chain of command do, if only because most of them are too busy to read this garbage.
 
LandoftheGiants said:
Well what can you expect? They have already blown up all the ukraine's military and industrial targets and they still refuse to surrender. It's like the US in WWII, when they killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people when they bombed the cities with nuclear weapons. It's the fog of war. Are you suggesting the US was likewise guilty of mass murder? The Japanese only ever targeted the US military, never it's civilians. You have a strong opinion about the ukraine, but was it even in your consciousness before the war began, before the TV told you how think on the matter?
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Are you f'n' hi or just delusional?
Do a quick search of what the Japanese did to the Chinese leading up to and during WWII.
They were just as if not more savage as the Germans to civilians and saving our troops by dropping bombs on them was more than strategically correct but damn well deserved.
This is exactly what I mean by the ignorance of irrelevant nations
 
scrambler said:
Whenever someone uses the fact that someone else is doing bad things to deflect and avoid admitting THEY are doing bad things, you know they are guilty and dishonest....
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That has been my whole augment here. One country slandering another for invading it's neighbor, while at the same time it goes around the world overthrowing governments, assassinating leaders and bombing the guts out of whatever it doesn't like. I have no issue with what the US is doing, I just don't buy the whole freedom and democracy BS the media spins to "rally the troops". It's all about securing "Our" resources and naturally as I reside in one of the 5-eyes, I share in that. But when people blind themselves to the truth they set themselves up for a fall. Or at the very least a nasty dose of cognitive dissonance. This is all about Empires, and at this juncture in history, who is going to rule in the century to come.

Whose game was Empire, and whose stakes were thrones;
Whose table Earth—whose dice were human bones?
Lord Byron
 
Gionnirocket said:
Are you f'n' hi or just delusional?
Do a quick search of what the Japanese did to the Chinese leading up to and during WWII.
They were just as if not more savage as the Germans to civilians and saving our troops by dropping bombs on them was more than strategically correct but damn well deserved.
This is exactly what I mean by the ignorance of irrelevant nations
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What they did to the Korean civilian population too.
 
Gionnirocket said:
Are you f'n' hi or just delusional?
Do a quick search of what the Japanese did to the Chinese leading up to and during WWII.
They were just as if not more savage as the Germans to civilians and saving our troops by dropping bombs on them was more than strategically correct but damn well deserved.
This is exactly what I mean by the ignorance of irrelevant nations
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Oh dear oh dear... Why do you insist on spinning things away from the obvious reality. I was talking about the Japanese attacks on Americans, not what happened in China or anywhere else. I couldn't give a FF that they were nuked, but the fact remains that they were innocent civilians. Now Japan is you're allie and China the threat, try to keep up ok.

As for Australia "being irrelevant" You're delusional superiority is duly noted, and you're on the ignore list.
 
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