Doc Holliday said:
trey3216 said:
Doc Holliday said:
trey3216 said:
Doc Holliday said:
trey3216 said:
Doc Holliday said:
trey3216 said:
Redbrickbear said:
ATL Bear said:
Doc Holliday said:
ATL Bear said:
trey3216 said:
Canada2017 said:
Doc Holliday said:
Sam Lowry said:
Doc Holliday said:
What do you think happened with the Nordstream pipelines?
A: Russia sabotaged them
B: The USA sabotaged them
C. Some other nation or group sabotaged them
D. Miraculously it wasn't sabotage
Russia could just quit delivering gas any time they wanted without needing to blow anything up. Likewise, the EU can just quit buying gas if they decided it's better to freeze. So what happened here?
The chances of the EU agreeing a peace agreement very unlikely now that there is no gas.
A. Russia
Like burning one's own boats, it's a message of resolve from Putin to his people and particularly his military. It's also an implicit threat to Europe and other pipelines in the vicinity.
So Russia destroyed their own $20 billion dollar pipeline which would make trillions over time, expand their global sphere of influence...as a way to attack the "free world"? How dare they blow up the pipeline that USA/NATO/EU has refused to open or use and has threatened to "shut down" as a threat to Russia.
It's more likely the US or another country shut this off to cut Russia's future money supply.
Gazprom already halted supply of Nordstrom 1 at the beginning of the month. Nordstream 2 was never activated in the first place or in use when it was blown up. This forces an energy problem for Europe because now it's not an option.
Is every narrative "Russia does bad things. Bad thing happened, therefore Russia did it"?
Russia had zero reason to destroy pipelines they could simply shut off whenever they wished.
Biden had made threats against the pipelines just months ago .
So exactly who benefits with western Europe facing a shortage of national gas and a long cold winter coming up ?
Follow the $$$$.
you mean the same Europe lining up contracts with UAE, Qatar, Ukraine, Norway and a dozen other countries in addition to the US? The same Europe that had gas contracts with those countries to more than supply their winter needs now with the new contracts? Follow the threats, and the money. The threat is actually to the pipelines that run through Ukraine. That's Russia's last conventional play.
You don't seem to understand that America is a bad guy here and Putin and Russia are as much victims as anyone. They don't have evil economic interests like the US and West. Russia doesn't have ruling elites controlling their economy or corrupt intelligence and government agencies like the big bad US…. Did I get that right?
Both have ruling elites controlling their economy with corrupt intelligence and government agencies.
You need to stay off the Twitters for a bit.
I wonder if most people realize that twitter skews like 90% to the liberal-left positions.
"ruling elites" & "corrupt intelligence services" is not the kind of talk that usually happens on twitter.
It's Ukraine flags and pronouns in the bios and lots of talk about "upholding international norms" and "protecting our scared democracy from fascism"
I vote center-right about 90% of the time. I've actually voted with you in my life more than against you more than likely. Yet you're falling for the "Ukrainian Nazi" bit and "russia is just defending themselves against NATO aggression" bit. Mind-blowing that you can't understand how disinformation campaigns work, especially by Russia/China.
Nobody here is defending Russia, we just don't want to turn this into WW3 or another 'War on terror' situation where escalation kills more people than brokering peace.
Nor do I. And the path we're on right now isn't going to have that. Russia is getting their ass kicked on the battlefield. ANd it's their own fault.
The more we kick their ass, the more desperate they'll become and they'll resort to desperate measures. Russia has 10-30 megaton nukes.
Would you rather have a peace deal where parts of Ukraine are lost...or would you rather they resort to using these nukes on Ukraine?
Why should Russia get to steal parts of Ukraine to solve their economic/demographic and specifically the Oil/Gas rich areas of Ukraine and then get to settle with some of the theft once they got 28 of their 32 teeth knocked out? They're not going to use nuclear weapons. They'd have done so by now. Their only hope now is being a strip mine for China or quitting, admitting defeat, and more than likely in a decade or so, get back within the graces of the Western world. Neither of those solutions works out well for them if they use nukes.
I operate as if the worst outcome is possible because we're dealing with human lives.
I'm not going to assume, guess or hope Russia tucks their tail and runs.
I operate on more realistic platforms... like the Prisoner's Dilemma and a dozen or so other game theoretical constructs which I've studied.
We're not dealing with the west. We're dealing with absolute psychopaths who will go down in flames and take everyone with them.
We're also dealing with other chess players who have access to information, knowledge of how the game operates, etc. Their gambit is well known, poorly rehearsed, and even more poorly defended. They are trying to trot an 80 year old battle plan out there with 30-50 year old technology and threats from 40 years ago. It's not working well, and they know it. Putin longs for Soviet Russia, but he also doesn't long for a completely broken federation that devolves into 18 or so different vassal city-states or ethnic countries. At some point, the people around him will realize the lot he has cast was burned from the jump and will do what should have been done long ago.
Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man.