Current Affairs Ukraine

[stipe]

Very true.

But despite the justified resentment towards UK for colonialism and more recent grudges against US I just feel that culturally and politically they are much more aligned with the West than with Russia or China.

India's place in the world has never been more important in my opinion.

I think India gonna play this for their own benefit, nationalism is strong there, they really don't care for European wars, and any side that try to command them (like recent USA messages about them "not liking" India-Russia ties) just pushing them even more away toward Russia.

India is just too big and to nationalistic for threats and "gunboat" diplomacy to work. This recent quite hawkish messages coming from USA toward them don't really helping, in my personal opinion.

 

[Diogenes the Cynic]

An issue we have is the foreign aid budget.

We send billions of pounds of foreign aid a year however this shouldn't just be given as a humanitarian display, for example we send foreign aid to India who have a space programme.

We need to see actual political benefits and alliance for this aid.

China has turned Africa into a huge trading partner in which it would be hesitant to turn against. There's no point in aimlessly giving these nations which are rife with corruption (not that ours isn't) money if they are not going to serve your interests.

We need to work smarter not harder in some respects. Although it is more difficult to set yourself up as a major trading partner when you aren't a major producer obviously.

 

[stipe]

An issue we have is the foreign aid budget.

We send billions of pounds of foreign aid a year however this shouldn't just be given as a humanitarian display, for example we send foreign aid to India who have a space programme.

We need to see actual political benefits and alliance for this aid.

China has turned Africa into a huge trading partner in which it would be hesitant to turn against. There's no point in aimlessly giving these nations which are rife with corruption (not that ours isn't) money if they are not going to serve your interests.

We need to work smarter not harder in some respects. Although it is more difficult to set yourself up as a major trading partner when you aren't a major producer obviously.

China just exploiting Western mistakes. Huge parts of this planet got massive grudges and hate against Europe and America, hell even today France for example doing a lot of [Poor language removed] in their former colonies in West Africa, and French currency exploits holding several African states by the balls. Something that often gets ignored here in Europe, for example a month ago, Mali kicked French out from their country.

China simply using stuff like that, they build stuff, they invest, of course they doing it for their own interests, but they are careful in what they doing, especially with using military power, something that Western states using far too often.

 

[Goat]

China just exploiting Western mistakes. Huge parts of this planet got massive grudges and hate against Europe and America, hell even today France for example doing a lot of [Poor language removed] in their former colonies in West Africa, and French currency exploits holding several African states by the balls. Something that often gets ignored here in Europe, for example a month ago, Mali kicked French out from their country.

China simply using stuff like that, they build stuff, they invest, of course they doing it for their own interests, but they are careful in what they doing, especially with using military power, something that Western states using far too often.

Cos Western countries are too busy fighting their own people.

China, great bunch of lads, dont take any crap from white knights.

 

[spectateur]

Very true.

But despite the justified resentment towards UK for colonialism and more recent grudges against US I just feel that culturally and politically they are much more aligned with the West than with Russia or China.

India's place in the world has never been more important in my opinion.

India may be more politically and culturally aligned with the west but that is only due to it being the jewel in the crown of the British empire.
It may wish to shake off that mantle.

 

[The Gueye Science]

Just an fyi that map is the one being pushed by Russian propaganda sources.

Edit: Looking at Ritter's twitter it seems that he is pro-Russian completely lol

Straight out of the Kremlin PR dept.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

 

[Robert Heenan]

China just exploiting Western mistakes. Huge parts of this planet got massive grudges and hate against Europe and America, hell even today France for example doing a lot of [Poor language removed] in their former colonies in West Africa, and French currency exploits holding several African states by the balls. Something that often gets ignored here in Europe, for example a month ago, Mali kicked French out from their country.

China simply using stuff like that, they build stuff, they invest, of course they doing it for their own interests, but they are careful in what they doing, especially with using military power, something that Western states using far too often.

I just don't understand the hate and grudge which much of the world has for the West. Africa shouldn't be so hateful since the Arabs and Romans were already trading their people long before the Western Europeans came and besides. With regards to India.. We enriched their country since throughout history they were invaded by the Arabs and Mongols etc. Its Western globalisation and technology that brought the mobile phones and Internet to all the Indians and Africans not yo mention enrichment through other cultural influences.

What I would say about many of these countries is that they are extremely corrupt and if they feel Russia and China have their positive interests at heart then they are very sadly mistaken

 

[JimmyJeffers]

 

[Glasshalffull]

Not sure about that - there is a lot about this war, the motivation for it and what it was meant to achieve - that we don't understand. A lot of what we think of as failures really could be intentional, especially it becoming a prolonged conflict that starts to cause other global issues that could be exploited by the participants (a crisis in global food prices / production especially).

edit: I should however say I don't agree with much of what Ritter said either, especially this plucky 200,000 vs 600,000 thing

Well, I have to agree that nobody truly, truly, knows the original plan except a very few at the absolute top of their command structure. On the other hand, even though Russia has always had both capacity and willingness to incur large-scale losses in wars, I can't believe that they'd have simply accepted losses on the very large scale generally reported, just on a feint. On top of that, all reports purporting to be from intelligence gathering indicate that Putin is hugely displeased with events.

Definitely no chance that anyone would seek to influence economic conditions by pushing a major war, because war is far too unpredictable in outcome and effect.

Mostly, the simplest answer is the most accurate. Putin wanted to empire-build, while feeling hugely threatened by NATO and the west, and saw Ukraine as a strategically important acquisition, and easy meat.

 

[woodsyni]

I just don't understand the hate and grudge which much of the world has for the West. Africa shouldn't be so hateful since the Arabs and Romans were already trading their people long before the Western Europeans came and besides. With regards to India.. We enriched their country since throughout history they were invaded by the Arabs and Mongols etc. Its Western globalisation and technology that brought the mobile phones and Internet to all the Indians and Africans not yo mention enrichment through other cultural influences.

What I would say about many of these countries is that they are extremely corrupt and if they feel Russia and China have their positive interests at heart then they are very sadly mistaken

Hoping this is satire. Excellent if it is!

 

[peteblue]

Not sure about that - there is a lot about this war, the motivation for it and what it was meant to achieve - that we don't understand. A lot of what we think of as failures really could be intentional, especially it becoming a prolonged conflict that starts to cause other global issues that could be exploited by the participants (a crisis in global food prices / production especially).

edit: I should however say I don't agree with much of what Ritter said either, especially this plucky 200,000 vs 600,000 thing

Yep it was definitely intentional to lose over 600 tanks, hundreds of planes, helicopters and artillery as well as about 15,000 men plus another 30-40,000 wounded…Also to show the world that the Russian military could ensure that a couple of dozen generals and commanders could die and that the head of the Russian armed forces would go sick. This is in addition to the heads of their intelligence and security services being removed from their positions. Yes, a cunning plan indeed….

 

[peteblue]

Welcome to the forum Vlad…..

 

[Haydn]

Yep it was definitely intentional to lose over 600 tanks, hundreds of planes, helicopters and artillery as well as about 15,000 men plus another 30-40,000 wounded…Also to show the world that the Russian military could ensure that a couple of dozen generals and commanders could die and that the head of the Russian armed forces would go sick. This is in addition to the heads of their security services being removed from their positions. Yes, a cunning plan indeed….

I don’t think the Russians will be using the strap line, “as seen in Ukraine”, on their tank sales stand, at any forthcoming arms fairs.

 

[Yarrgh]

I don’t think the Russians will be using the strap line, “as seen in Ukraine”, on their tank sales stand, at any forthcoming arms fairs.

Are they that bad or just manned badly using subpar tactics?