The War in Europe

What is wrong with you? I wasn't vague. I was admitting I don't know. You don't know either. The difference between us is that you think you know when you don't, and you abuse people who try to determine if any actual knowledge or reasoning lies behind your seeming certainty about what are at heart unknowable things full of variables and uncertainty. Can I take this pronouncement to the bank? Does it really not occur to you that this is just one of many, many, many ways things could play out?And what does "suicide for Putin" mean? Are you using "Putin" as just another way of referring to Russia, because until these last couple posts it was Russia you said would be committing suicide, not Putin. If you do mean Putin the man, then by suicide do you mean he'd lose his position of power in Russia? Something else?The reality is that NATO provides a deterrent for Russian aggression. The deterrent isn't because a Russian attack on NATO would result in their or their leader's suicide, whatever that means. The deterrent is because NATO power is sufficient to thwart any Russian military effort against NATO countries.--Percy

You needn't quote numbers at me, I looked them up before I posted.That post from me, like the previous, was in the context of your claim that a Russian attack on a NATO power would mean suicide for Russia, which means any air war would be over Russia. As I explained, Russia's sheer size and fighting within their own borders would make it very difficult for NATO to win that air war. Yes, precisely. Finally, a recognition that you can't know what will happen. And then you revert right back to near certainty again. Inconsistent much?--Percy

This is becoming very boring. Neither of us know anything about military strategy, we're both guessing about what would happen when.My position is that Russia driving tanks into a NATO country could ultimately be the beginning of ww3.Only a mad man would do it because it would be an obviously suicidal thing to do. I have no idea what you think would happen.

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Article 5 provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.

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​ I think they'd be as confused by that as you seem to be. Um...yes, strangely that had occurred to me.
​ For god's sake man, it's a metaphor, work it out. Do you think that I'm imagining Putin in the first tank across the border? Russia could not possibly succeed in invading a NATO country and in all likelihood it would result in the end of Putin one way or another too.
​ Do you really think I've missed this point? Could that be the reason that I keep saying that Putin will not drive a single tank or put a single boot in NATO territory? No shit! Well I never! Who knew etc etc.
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That's what Hermann Meier said about Britain in 1940.

There's a pattern emerging where you won't explain what you mean, but if someone else puts it into words you'll often acknowledge that that's what you mean, but not without issuing some snark, like how bloody obvious it was, etc.I still have no idea what you mean by suicide, and maybe you don't either. You call it a metaphor later in your message, but that makes no sense. If there's a way in which that makes sense then you'll have to explain. Perhaps you mean it in the exaggerated way that a losing team might say to the other, "We'll kill you in the next game." But you're remaining oh so pleasant. Good show. If you're truly becoming bored then just explain what you mean instead of spending all your effort avoiding it. This misstates the case. You don't guess but declare, often with a fair amount of certainty (and ambiguity). I haven't guessed about anything. If I don't know what will happen then I say I don't know, or maybe list some likely possibilities, or perhaps say what I think most likely. It depends on context. This a bundle of ambiguity. What does "could ultimately be the beginning of ww3" mean? That WW3 is one of the risks, one that could be avoided if things began moving in that direction? But then your next sentence calls it suicidal, which would only make sense if WW3 were inevitable after sending in the tanks. In the end I cannot figure out what you mean with any degree of confidence. There's a reason for that. I don't know what would happen. I could only discuss this as an array of possibilities. But we know exactly what you think would happen because you've told us, e.g., from Message 502: I sincerely hope our initial responses would be much more considered and measured than that. Do you really think it would be deemed necessary that "the very first NATO act" be all the things you enumerated above? I grant it's one of the possibilities, but certainly one of the more extreme ones. Yes, of course, abuse me instead of explaining why your certainty about what would happen. Then why is it not reflected in anything you write? I guess no one should expect anything but mocking absurdity from you as a response to inquiries about what you actually mean. You seem to enjoy watching people struggle with your crypticness while you poke fun at them as they do. It does feel unlikely, but to analogize with American sports, it seemed unlikely that the Mets would beat the Orioles in 1969, or that the Patriots would beat the Rams in 2001. No doubt soccer and cricket have their long lists of unlikely victories. Saying "Russia could not possibly succeed in invading a NATO country" is typical of your kind of exaggerated overstatement. Yes it's unlikely, I agree, but "could not possibly succeed"? No. He *is* a dictator, you know, where job performance isn't usually the most important factor in retaining the position. What have you ever said that would lead me to believe that is something you grasped? Maybe you should look up deterrent.--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

Hermann Meier? Thats an Austrian Skier! Surely you mean Goering.

I was going to say "Fat Hermann" but I decided to add another layer of mystery.

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"Russia cant match us in the skies."

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While Hermann Meier was a ski racer, he was undoubtedly talking about ski jumping.

The Ukrainian conflict drags on. Many of us in the West were galvanized by the drama, spun into empathetic pleas of justice, from Vladimir Zalinsky. The villain--Putin--whose "special military operation" was directed against "Nazis in Ukraine." It seemed clear who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Looking at our planet from a larger lens, the conclusion about who is good and who is "bad" seems to get murkier at times.There are dissenting contrarians. Opinions. Articles that get me to think.I will discuss two.One is from a professor.Why Mearsheimer is wrong about Russia and the war in Ukraine. Five arguments from Alexander Stubb.John Mearsheimer has famously argued that the problems in Ukraine are the fault of the West.Im looking for something that he wrote rather than videos. He seems to make sense, though I have yet to listen to the rebuttal from Alexander Stubb. (Both are professors)

not in this case. The good guys are the ones who are defending their homes from the bad guys.

I was stunned at this. Articles? You read articles? Then I checked the link. It's a YouTube video. Leave it to you to find Mearsheimer. This is the guy who said, "Ukraine is going to get wrecked" in the same lecture where he later said, "If you really want to wreck Russia, what you should do is to encourage it to try to conquer Ukraine. Putin is much too smart to try that."It seems odd that you summarize Mearsheimer's views but post the video rebuttal from Stubb. Here's a link to the Mearsheimer lecture that Stubb is commenting on: The causes and consequences of the Ukraine war A lecture by John J. MearsheimerYou're still playing the game of "How do I choose who to listen to?" and your criteria is whoever catches your interest by getting you most excited. You're driven by emotion instead of information.--Percy

To more fully summarize Mearsheimer, he says that we need to understand the History of Russian cultural differences and to also realize that Ukraine was trained by NATO for years on how to fight.It would be the equivalent of Canada seeking to join BRIC. The US would NOT put up with it.
​ Guilty as charged, though I think you are driven by politics over substance. As an example, you totally vilified Peter Schiff simply because Irwin was his Father. That prevented you from even desiring to hear what Schiff has to say---chiefly because he dealt in Gold and was a Libertarian. None of that information should have caused you to reject hearing out Schiffs argument.And Financial Apologetics has a lot to do in a larger context with the War in Ukraine and global financial restructuring. Though true that I am driven by emotion, I end up finding information that is swept under the rug and ignored by mainstream economic (Federal) information.I dont mean to sound like a whacky conspiracy theory advocate, but I stand by my gut instinct over who has the correct explanations and understanding of global finance. Another financial apologist, George Gammon, spells it out on a whiteboard in exquisite detail. The problem is, I cant get anyone here to actually watch the explanation but only to dismiss it and go around it to arrive at Fed.Gov website or some other mainstream source. Sorry, but its not enough.
I challenge you on what you really "know". Granted, I request that the information I get be at least considered to be true or not.

My response to this lie hasn't changed: You're still a lying little shit. See Message 434. You are the perfect rube.--Percy

And yet that's exactly what you do sound like. From what I know of you Phat, your gut doesn't have much of a track history to be proud of does it?

The war goes as the world allows it to go.To me, the military industrial complex centered in the west has themselves the best possible war. Led by a relentless madman (pretty much of their own making) there is now a limited regional conflict involving the best, latest and greatest land war technology modern forces can procure.Not only are governments politically willing to pay the costs they are willing to fund the new innovations being tested.Raytheon, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Thales Group and friends have a continuing flow of revenue providing the expensive, expendable weapons modern militaries need. They also have a ready lab, in a somewhat controlled open territory, in which to test and refine their latest cluster munitions, anti-air/anti-artillery systems, smart munitions, new command and control tech … shoulder-fired battleship killers (wtf?). All on live, or soon not to be live, humans.Humans have found a new weapons technology playground. We are now testing the latest innovations in the conduct of bloody combat where the destruction, body count, soldier or civilian, is the only metric. Go humans.