He believes almost the exact same thing as Elbridge Colby, except that he puts the emphasis on other areas. Mearsheimer is as hawkish on China and Taiwan as you and Colby are.
Good to hear he is hawkish on China, but he & Colby sound nothing alike on Russia/Ukraine. Mearsheimer's problem is that he legitimizes Russian aggression as being natural, proper, & correct, instead of being the failed attempt at empire-building that it is. Mearsheimer's base problem is that he contends that Russia is ENTITLED to an empire & so we should let it rebuild the Soviet Union, which is laughable.
A cursory search showed that he works for an organization that receives funding from the USG.
Ad hominem. Actually listen to his War on the Rocks podcast. I've read tons of sources on Ukraine and Kofman is the best. Period. He's the gold standard.
https://warontherocks.com/2023/06/ukraines-offensive-and-russias-localized-counterattacks/
5:1 means that if Ukraine suffered 15,000 deaths, which was a claim by the Ukrainian high command blindly copied by the USG in those leaked documents, Russia suffered 75,000 deaths, and with the 4:1 ratio of wounded to deaths, makes for 375,000 casualties. That's basically 100% of the Russian forces. Along with minimal casualties for Ukraine, that would have meant Russian collapse a long time ago.
No, that's not what that means. I hate that I have to explain this to you since you're supposed to be smarter than this, but 5:1 was only early on, not for the whole fight.
The deaths - 16-17.5k KIA - were for the whole war. Russia was assessed at 35.5k-43.5k KIA whole war, yielding a Ukraine overall K:D of about 2.5:1.
That makes perfect sense being in-line with the estimates I gave you.
I find it very hard to believe that Russia, with 4 times the population, many times the industrial capacity, can't easily outproduce a corrupt puppet shithole non-country by a long shot.
Russia is outproducing Ukraine. It is also outproducing NATO in some areas like artillery ammo. https://twitter.com/dekach1n/status/1662222051854422018
Ah, so I guess this is an idea that's in the ether. Why were you interested in Russian politics back in 2012 though?
No but I would have read about it with all the Euromaidan/Crimea stuff when that happened.
No doubt you would like that, and to be fair, your puppets in Europe are so slavish that they'll probably say "yes, Master, we'll defend your other puppet".
You've got that backwards. The Euros care a lot more about Ukraine than the US does, because Ukraine is THEIR buffer state against Russia. Russia doesn't pose any direct threat to the US.
Who is suffering more from the war, Russia or the US puppet?
Ukraine is fighting for its freedom. Russians are fighting for Putin's ego. One motivation is stronger than the other.
LOL! Are you serious? Why on earth would Russia evacuate those areas that it shed blood for and which it can easily defend? Like I've told you before, this would result in Putin's execution. The siloviki would never allow it.
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Because it cannot "easily defend" them.
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Because the cost of the war + sanctions will impoverish & hollow out Russia in the long term & that low-value land isn't worth the incredibly high cost that must be paid to continue to rent it.
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As the whole Wagner debacle just proved, nobody is in any position to "execute" Putin. There is no such thing as some hard-liner elite in Russia invested in this war. They do not exist. Putin is the driving force for the war & his oligarchs would rather he end it so they can go back to making money. This isn't August 1991, there are no hard liners. The head of the military Shoigu will gladly do whatever Putin says without complaint.
More European subjects were killed last winter due to the energy crisis
LOL no. It was a historically warm winter & heating gas demand was far lower than stockpiled supplies.
Or Russia could "surprise" (you at least) by pressing on to Odessa, Kharkov, take Kiev and leave a demilitarized, Vichy-like Galicia rump state as a buffer with Poland. If that were to happen, you'd blame Biden and the "libs" for being weak or something.
False in every respect. You have left the land of the sane & are walking the path of delusion hand in hand with the trannies. Russia tried its best to attack for over 6 months with all it had, & took only a tiny amount of land.
The only way Russia could win is if Europe decides to stop supplying Ukraine & Ukraine runs out of ammo the way the Finns did in the Winter War. Short of that Russia has no prospects for any offensive success.
The problem is that wokeness is not pushed by the Democratic Party, but by all the elites. They push it in every organization while brainwashing kids in public schools. I support what DeSantis has done, but I don't think it's a cureall.
No, wokeness is not pushed by the right wing elite, though most of them are somewhat agnostic on it & don't care to fight against it either.
Catastrophizing. There's no indication that China is at all interested in dominating anyone beyond its immediate neighborhood. And if the US gets to have a Monroe Doctrine, why shouldn't China? I think it's bad, but the US is no better - and actually a good deal worse.
Yes there is. China banned the NBA because 1 guy tweeted something about supporting protests in Hong Kong.
China's foreign policy model is to export its internal model of repression. The only reason it is not doing so more aggressively right now, is because it lacks the power to do so. The moment it has the power, it will do so.
China also needs to do so, to prevent the US from striking it down. It needs to seize all the empire it can so it can exclude the US & grow China while holding the US down.
Also the US has not used the Monroe Doctrine in forever. I never hear the term outside of people like you. If the Monroe Doctrine was real, how does Cuba exist? Venezuela? These are hostile enemy states that the US tolerates.
China has spy bases in Cuba & is building a huge new spy base costing billions right off the Florida coast. Where is your Monroe Doctrine now?
Wait, weren't you berating the "selfish Euros" for supposedly wanting to stay out of this?
Yes, and? They are selfish. I will add "cowards" to the list given your response.
Euros: "We want the RBIO"
America: "Okay, are you prepared to fight for it?"
Euros: "lol no, you do that for us, lol suckers"
You once said that a peace agreement (which I supported) with Russia getting Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, no NATO no EU would be a loss for Russia.
Yes of course it would. That was the status quo before the invasion. It would mean the invasion was all for nothing.
Do you have any idea how weak European militaries are? If Russia were to attack or provoke NATO, maybe China should simultaneously land in Taiwan to prevent the US from doing anything. That would probably lead to economic collapse in Europe and the US as well.
China can't just "land in Taiwan", it would take a 6+ month buildup during which the US would have full knowledge that China was planning to attack, just as we knew 6+ months in advance that Russia was attacking Ukraine.
Those of the 1990s and ongoing. If paper strength is important, then it means something. You guys keep saying that Russian troops attack with shovels, but somehow, they keep gaining territory and beating back US-sponsored sorties with shovels.
No one I see is saying shovels but then against I don't look at tweets from people with dog icons on twitter. Watch this: https://youtu.be/olH2-_Gtczw I think it is a very good summary of the state of the war. Perun is my #2 after Kofman.
/roll
Donbass & Crimea are within Ukraine's internationally recognized borders.
Zelensky has every right to refuse to cede them to Russia.
This means he will need Ukraine's army to take them back by force, since Russia obviously isn't just going to leave.
Can he do it? Probably not, but you never know. He might as well try over the next several months. There are a few scenarios in which Ukraine could pull it off.
no, because like all these hate speech laws, the law is careful to say that it only applies if you are in one of their lib intersectional tribes:
(a) Race or color. (b) Religion. (c) Sex. (d) Sexual orientation. (e) Gender identity or expression. (f) Physical or mental disability. (g) Age. (h) Ethnicity. (i) National origin.
I hear every sort of K:D claim from 10-1 in favor of Ukraine to 10-1 in favor of Russia. Miraculously, those who support one side or the other always come up with more favorable ratios for their own side. The more objective observers like Mearsheimer claim that there is a 3-1 ratio in favor of Russia, because Russia has more artillery. Is it true? Who the hell knows?
Mearsheimer is a dumbass & not objective at all.
The best source is Michael Kofman. His best info was I believe that Ukraine was getting 5+:1 in favor in Russia's attacks elsewhere, but in Bakhmut this progressively fell to 3:1 then 2:1 as Bakhmut was progressively getting encircled & thus in an increasingly vulnerable position.
Beat in mind this Ukraine's big K:D advantages come from Russian ATTACKS specifically. The "background killing" of the war favors Russia, not Ukraine, because of the large disparity in artillery fire, but not by a large margin. Less than 2:1 somewhere. Probably in a range around 1.5:1 in Russia's favor. This is so horribly inefficient though that it can't be "scaled up". Russia will never again see the huge advantage it had in May/June 2022 when it was firing 10x-15x what the Ukrainians were.
Did you get that idea (about his ethnicity) from Walter Russell Meade or come up with it independently?
I didn't get it from anyone specific but I've seen it mentioned several times over the years [Shoigu's big rise was back in 2012]. Obviously he doesn't look Russian so I looked it up when I 1st saw him & honestly it's the obvious conclusion that has happened a number of times throughout history where empires would use "outsiders" in high positions of authority since their legitimacy was owed entirely to their masters. Also the whole concept of eunuchs.
True, but you should be cheering if he got taken down due to intrigue, rather than saying 'unfortunately'. Or maybe that was just a turn of phrase.
Unfortunately for him. I don't care really either way, but honestly as far as I'm concerned the Ukraine war is over. It's just a bloody stalemate now in a maintenance phase similar to the later Korean War. I want the US role to taper off to the point where we are only helping Ukraine with ISR spotting & artillery ammo, while leaving the rest to Europe, as we shift everything that isn't nailed down to Japan & the Philippines.
Eventually Russia will tire of the war & stop. It might take 1-2 more years and 1-3 more failed offensives. The constantly loss of money & lives will demoralize the Russian leadership & people until something eventually gives way & Putin starts looking for an exit strategy.
It is unlikely that Europe & Ukraine will let Putin keep his new conquests, but I think a peace agreement based on the pre-invasion Feb 2022 borders is a likely result.
Ukraine could surprise with a breakthrough & Russia could surprise with a collapse, but I'd say the odds of that are less then 30%. Most likely defense will continue to dominate thanks to Russia taking its defense industrial base more seriously than Europe.
When even your vaunted optimism fails, there is big trouble.
Liberals responded to Reagan kicking their ass by moderating temporarily, finding their footing in the 90s, then getting progressively more liberal in the 00s until they broke out into full hysteria in 2012-2020.
If history repeats & they moderate again, DeSantis will buy us 8 years of a golden age & perhaps a generation free from wokeness.
If not, the US will fracture into a national divorce of some kind as Americans - including me, relocate to red/blue states on partisan lines. The determining factor is whether the "moderate" neolib Democrats are willing to knife the wokes in the back.
What is a worse case: China establishing regional hegemony or the US and China getting into a nuclear war and dragging Europe into it?
Chinese hegemony over Asia & multiple major, bloody wars as the US & China engage in a Punic-War-style struggle over the future of the world.
Unlike the US, China will use every ounce of leverage it has to crush down the US & anyone else opposed to it, in order to prevent them from ever challenging it again. This is existential so we will have to fight our way out.
The world has never seen anything like this. The Cold War was cold. This will be a hot war, or many hot wars, between nuclear powers. It is not impossible that tactical nuclear weapons will be used, normalized, & thus warfare radically changed into some Fallout-style dystopian shit.
There's our difference in fundametal assumptions. I don't think public attitudes matter, only elite attitudes do. But if Ukraine aid fails, then I will have to reconsider. If it's close, then I will not reconsider, becuase that's just the "rotating villain" at work. They'll give some people leave to vote no so they can say they TRIED to stop it, but couldn't because democracy n sheeit.
The mediator of the Left elite's power is the media. Think about that. Think about all the power the media has lost since 2016. Times are changing. The media still has power, but its slipping. I don't think liberal elite power will survive a DeSantis administration. DeSantis is their Waterloo, Gettysburg, Saratoga. Trump, while he was a threat, was one they could undermine & defeat over time. Trump did play an important role in exposing them & enabling the next wave to fight them better than he did.
Given the frozen conflicts, the odds of that happening are 0. And the odds of NATO admitting Georgia are also quite small, because there is no way they can even defend Georgia, or retake it if it is overrun. The current Georgian government, not the treasonous foreigner who has been installed as their president, [is quite friendly to Russia (from your POV) or recognizes realities from my POV.
Interesting. I think Europe will actively look for ways to spite Russia once it realizes that Ukraine will not "win" the war by retaking Crimea & such.
You just have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will collapse, innit? AFAIK, Russia has the best artillery and anti-air in the world. It would be interesting to see NATO try a Retard Strike and lose hundreds of planes, and then receive Kolzhirs in return.
Not at all. Russia's paper strength was a joke. NATO SEAD would demolish it. Jamming alone & wild weasel tactics would be enough. Stealth just makes it a joke. Poor Russian troop quality is an ongoing problem that has only gotten worse.
If you think NATO would lose hundreds of planes, you simply are ignorant of the state of the art of NATO SEAD. Just read about it in Gulf Wars 1 & 2. US non-stealth aircraft like F-16s routinely defeated Russian SAM systems kinetically even when ambushed without stealth or jamming.
Russian artillery, while numerous, had laughably obsolete kill chains with a total lack of sophisticated counter-battery radars, shoot & scoot doctrine, & adequate ISR.
Ukraine, even now, is WINNING the counter-battery artillery duels in K:D despite being outgunned, because Ukrainians are trained & equipped to better follow basic NATO artillery doctrines that have been around for 40+ years. Russia has slowly improved its glaring weaknesses, but still remains far, far behind NATO equivalents.
They it should dismantle the nukes instead of making massive investments in them.
What massive investments? Russian nukes are probably overwhelmingly in a decrepit state except for a small number of newer prestige systems. Paper strength is very important to Russia, though, & it leans heavily on its nukes to pretend it still is a "Great Power".
I agree, but I've dated many, many women & in my experience gold diggers are not only very obvious, their general personality traits will be diametrically opposed to the things a rich, successful man ought to be looking for anyway [emotional attachment, empathy, submissive, agreeable, supportive, etc] that there should be no chance any woman like that makes it past a few dates.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State CEO Rachel Laser
That's not an expert, it's an atheistic lib activist. https://www.au.org/about-au/people/rachel-laser/
And as a religious minority – she was raised as a Reform Jew ... deputy director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC) ... Her religion is an important part of her identity... At the same time, many in her immediate family identify as atheist or agnostic.
every. time.
Rachel Laser is a lawyer, advocate and strategist who has dedicated her career to making our country more inclusive... She is an advocate for racial justice... She also ran interfaith campaigns on a number of critical issues, including LGBTQ equality, immigration reform, gun violence prevention, and paid sick, family and medical leave... Before the RAC, Rachel directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a Washington, D.C., progressive think tank... As senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Rachel founded and ran the Pharmacy Refusal Project which challenged pharmacists who were refusing to fill women’s birth control prescriptions in the name of religion.
No, a woman is not a gold digger because she gives you credit for your success.
A "gold digger" only refers to a woman whose sole purpose is to extract money from you.
You're looking for a supportive, submissive partner who is willing to boost your ambitions instead of having her own.
it was still pretty out of line, in my opinion
Absent outright violence or something, I don't stick my nose in people's relationship dynamics.
I've dated crazy women & said very mean things to them - which they 100% deserved - but if you had me on hidden camera you'd think I was a monster because you wouldn't know the evil shit the girl did to deserve it. Just like if I was setting up hidden cameras on hoes, I could paint them as monsters, too, but men don't play the little hidden camera game - manipulative bitches do.
Women are good at manipulating & men who have aggressive alpha personalities are very easy to cast as abusive when they're not.
Crowder is an alpha male who leads a very stressful & highly successful life. He didn't get there by being a "nice guy".
That little video she leaked wasn't abusive or wrong at all. He was being kindof a dick to her, but she was baiting him & setting him up.
Alphas respond to being emotionally hurt by being dicks. That's just how personalities are. Little pussy ass bitches online judge them & go "omg so abooosive". Nah.
Anyway Crowder's mistake was getting with this chick too early & staying with her after he got rich. Never do that if there is the slightest doubt she won't be on board to support you.
Instead, upgrade to the superior supportive woman after you get rich who you can knock up & who will raise your kids.
I used rich & poor as proxy words since I couldn't fit the whole concept into the title.
The concept is just who is statistically likely to have a productive kid vs a burden kid.
If red states ban abortion and are effective at it, they'll slowly become blue.
Yes that will certainly be a negative result.
Hell, without Roe and the tens of millions of abortions, there probably wouldn't be a single red state, all other things being equal (which they wouldn't be of coures).
We would have had a huge schism in society since crime never would have fallen from its 1980s highs. America would be some kind of police state.
Then I don't get why Ukrainians were complaining about the defense of Bakhmut, and that they were losing men in the meat-grinder for no benefit as the city would fall eventually. A psy-op?
Because the K:D ratio got progressively worse in Bakhmut later on. It was never worse than 1:1 but it was much worse than other sectors, hence the complaints.
It's funny that you support Ukraine and yet have such respect for Surovkin that you think it's 'unfortunate' that he may fall victim to these machinations. The Ukraine supporters I've seen want Shoigu to remain in place because they think he's incompetent.
I agree Shoigu is incompetent as a general. He is a politician in a uniform. That & his ethnicity [being non-Russian means he could never lead a coup, so he's safer to promote] are why he's risen to the top.
I am not sure Surovkin is a great general, but he had enough common sense to come in & correctly asses the situation then take corrective measures to turn the situation around for Russia in late 2022. You can respect generals on the opposing side even if you're trying to kill them, like Rommel or Yamamoto.
I don't see DeSantis succeeding in taking on the security state, even if he desired to (and I think he's too smart to even consider it) - as they have six ways to Sunday of getting back at you.
We will see. He's our last hope. If he fails, then the future has no good endings.
I've seen your tweets about a China hawk GOP claiming that China secretly spends more, but of course anyone who wants to boost war spending to 10 trillion would say something like that.
Possibly, but we have to take the threat seriously & plan for worst case scenarios.
Only 1/4 of GOP voted against it last time. Every last Democrat votes for. I don't see that failing. Even if Gaetz and others threatened to remove McCarthy, he'd just make a deal with the Democrats.
Public attitudes have massively changed since a year ago when that happened.
Georgia is behaving itself, so I don't expect that either.
Georgia has been pushing to join NATO, though, which is supposedly Russia's big red line.
I'd attack NATO supplies through countries like Germany and Poland, because they're engaging in hostile acts, and dare the West to end the world over it.
They'd just respond with conventional air strikes & wipe out your forces quick because NATO ISR & precious weapons are so far superior. They wouldn't use nukes.
NATO knows they have overwhelming convention military superiority over Russia so Eastern Europe is just looking for an excuse to invoke article 5.
Russia isn't going to use nukes. Putin & friends don't want their Dachas nuked.
I'm not entirely sure, I think it's dumb luck - if only European leaders had the wits to help the Confederacy become independent, then we would still be at the top of the world because we'd have a Ukraine on America's doorstep harassing it and keeping it from being great. Still, point taken.
Slavery would have ended eventually & most if not all of the confederate states would have peacefully rejoined the Union. It just might have taken a few more decades. Maybe the deep south never would have rejoined, but honestly it wouldn't be a big loss. Imagine if the US as it stood today had a much smaller black population? Much better place to live.
They won't be able to throw a fit, because America is a peer competitor. China will have to be on its best behavior
You'd think so, but they can't help themselves. Duterte in the Philippines LOVES China & hates the US, he tried super hard to court China. The Philippines has enormous strategic importance re: Taiwan. It was a golden opportunity for China. What did they do? They shat all over him & started bullying him over little islands until he was forced to crawl back to the US.
How do you reconcile such ideas with realism? No realist would say that "loving Europe" or a desire to get one's ass kissed (which your slaves in Europe would do regardless) explains any of thing.
Neocons are not realist. They are IR liberals. They believe in delusions. No realist would behave that way, but Neocons would.
I think Mearsheimer has said the same thing I did: that the Americans are not unhappy with Europeans not spending much on defense, because it givces them complete leverage.
Dependency is not leverage. Europeans are like dating a young girl who is useless & being her sugar daddy. She costs you a lot of money & she can't do anything beyond giving you a young hole. Good allies aren't useless dependents.
dismantling the British Empire with lend-lease
British did that themselves, LL didn't do it.
pressuring countries like France to abandon their colonial possessions
Not only did we not do this, we helped them fight the Vietnamese by giving them lots of aid.
Now China, it's the same old same old. The US wants to break up countries, encourage independence movements in order to prevent an empire or country strong enough that it can challenge the US.
We don't care about the rise of the EU, which is bigger/stronger than China, or Japan's rise, etc.
We don't care unless a hegemon is hostile & wants to harm us.
I think you would be very happy to spend $33 billion to neutralize China as a military power, not?
It never works that way, though. Look at US aid to Israel. Israel takes the money & we don't get anything for it. The moment our bribes stop, Israel will be a huge asshole to us.
Though it's funny that we both think that we're getting screwed. If European leaders were 1/100 as effective at not being worms as you think they are, I'd actually be happy with them.
If the US pulls most troops out of Europe, then the euro politicians will be forced to actually build up their militaries again.
I would happily give up the west coast from San Francisco to Seattle if we could find any other country willing to take them.
No, I'm just stating the obvious.
Yes it's Ukraine's lives, and thus their choice to risk them for victory.