remzem
1yr ago
Because what was written doesn't make sense
If you indirectly force or empower someone to wage a conflict they could not, or would not, do without your support, that's a proxy war.
Let's pick out parts of this by excluding some of the not relevant or's.
If you empower someone to wage a conflict they could not do (wage) without your support, that's a proxy war.
If someone wages a conflict that they would want to as long as you were not outright stopping them, that is not a proxy war.
These statements contradict, the second is too broad. If you're enabling them or encouraging them but they want to do it anyways it's both not a proxy war and a proxy war.
Reduces to basically any conflict in which a powerful foreign country influences the conflict, while w/e party within the state they're enabling wants to wage a conflict, not being a proxy war. So nothing can be a proxy war as long as you can find some faction within a country that doesn't like current leadership.
remzem
1yr ago
By that definition there has never been and can never be a proxy war, as no one has zero agency, all groups the US has employed in its proxy wars had a choice to say no. Convenient for someone that is such a US foreign policy apologist.
remzem
7mo ago
I generally skim the top levels and am just here for the comments. Much like media posts on reddit. We don't all derive the same utility from the same things.
remzem
1mo ago
It's continually baffling to me how the majority of this forum thinks that defending your own lands from a hostile foreign invader somehow makes you a puppet.
and it seems like bad faith to me when globalists are suddenly completely certain that nationalism is universally supported and good. Even the more right wing people I chat with aren't purely line on a map nationalists that ignore cultural differences. Ukraine is an especially poorly partitioned country where you have entire regions that are mostly Russian speaking, then others that are Ukrainian speaking, and still more that are heavily Hungarian. The place is a complete mess. It doesn't matter if they fix the "conscription issues" (which is a very clinical way to say that 10k+ a month are dying and their older male population is so exhausted the only way to keep the front from collapsing is to lower the conscription age and get rid of any opportunity for long term conscripts to demobilize)
credibledefense bans all opposing views... it's an echochamber like most of reddit.
It gives me 2000s edgy atheist vibes. Come on my podcast and offer hard evidence that god exists! That sort of thing.
Of course there isn't hard evidence. That's how the secret ballot works, if you manage to make the switch successfully no one can prove otherwise because you can't trace the votes back. The evidence simply doesn't exist unless one of the conspirators leaks it or fucks up. If they fucked it up the evidence would already be out there. It's not really a debatable issue, you could flip it on OP and ask him to provide hard evidence that the votes that were counted were in fact the votes cast by the voters and they wouldn't be able to prove that either.
You can point to other things like motive, ability, etc. Talk about how institutions and 3 letter agencies were openly coordinating against Trump and even foreign government spy agencies like mi6 appear to have coordinated with them. It's not hard evidence though, so OP can sit around and twirl their fedora all day.
remzem
3mo ago
Higher courts typically defer to the trial court's fact-finding
Surely this doesn't apply when the judge is openly partisan and basically making stuff up out of thin air? In other words that has to have actually been an attempt at fact finding for them to defer to.
remzem
7mo ago
Well thanks for the PSA to posters to edit out posts in addition to deleting them like on reddit.
remzem
10mo ago
It seems bizarre to me that the paleocon sorts, after having been cast aside by their masters, so quickly fall back into nationalism. They endlessly complain about how identity politics are wrong because they treat groups as monolothic blocs when in fact those groups are made up of individuals that may or may not benefit from the policies being pushed, or are often just being used by grifters for cynical gains. Then they seem to completely lack the ability to take that same perspective and apply it to international relationships. It's almost like they aren't truly protesting identity politics, they are just sad that the masters hand is on a different dog.
There is no foreign poilcy that benefits Americans. There is no policy that benefits Americans because America is broken divided place full of different factions that have competing and contrary interests. The enemy of my enemy is my friend might be an exaggeration, but in these situations the enemy of my enemy is useful seems like a fair statement.
The average anti-nato person isn't rooting for Russia to take over the world and create a universal empire. They are simply rooting for their local elites to lose a bit of face and power. Yes that means the foreign pawns of those elites might also lose power, no that doesn't mean that every Ukranian is going to be tortured to death, because anti-nato sorts are capable of nuance and recognize that Ukraine, much like the US, isn't a monolith with a lockstep populace.
It's just embarrassing to see people rooting for an empire that hates them. All so they can continue with some empty moralizing, the illusion that the country has some kind of benevolent ideology and there is more to politics than power.
remzem
10mo ago
Maybe I'm just burnt out on 4d chess takes after the Trump era, but I feel like it's real, even as someone that is entirely anti-nato to the point I would turncoat in a second if i had a chance to damage the alliance. Prigozhin actually reminds me of Trump after following the war the last year. Issues with emotional regulation that border on mental illness, or maybe drug issues, or both. Something goes well and he's singing everyones praises, something doesn't go well and he jumps on telegram and calls everyone names and goes on a rant.
Seemed like earlier in the war he banked on the successes of Wagner relative to the rest of the Russia military and Shoigu who fucked up the initial invasion and took forever to reorient. Used his successes in Bakhmut as currency to keep himself afloat after his outbursts and tirades.
Then going into the Ukrainian Counteroffensive he seemed to be banking on continued Russian failures to keep him untouchable but when they didn't materialize and even western sources started to comment that Russia is starting to adapt and get the rust off he's now found himself in a corner. All the insubordinate outbursts were remembered but now he is losing his pull due to the regular Russian military finally (sorta) getting it's shit together.
Think it could be real and he is just that desperate. Seems more straightforward than all the other theories, Occam and what not.
remzem
1yr ago
I mean you should take this write up with a grain of salt as Dean is pretty openly a pro US neocon, who regularly argues pretty loudly for US foreign military interests. Before I get dogpiled just read their posting history, it's almost all they comment on while staying out of all the other juicy western culture war topics the rest of us are suckers for. All countries involved in proxy wars have their own internal issues and politics that factor.
On the other hand there are 3 places in the world in which Russia has / plans to have a foreign naval base. Sevastopol in Crimea, Tartus in Syria and a planned base in Sudan. Syria was clearly a proxy war, Ukraine is, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...
The red sea sees a trillion dollars pass through each year and is of huge geostrategic importance. I think the 1st and only foreign naval base China has in in Djibouti. So there is plenty of incentive for the US to be manipulating things behind the scenes. Even if they haven't clearly backed a specific separatist force yet.
ah yes, "KYS" nice to see the motte's standard of petty insults in as many words as possible is still around.
remzem
7mo ago
They have around 4x the population of Ukraine, for Russia to run out of manpower before Ukraine they would need to have a more than 4:1 loss ratio. I don't think even the Ukrainians are claiming that and they're been claiming absolutely absurd things the whole time.
The military production is up in the air, but so far Russian production appears to be up significantly from what it was prior to the war. They might've exhausted soviet stockpiles but they're producing 1k tanks per year, we're sending 31 Abrams. The US is trying to up artillery shell production but it costs 10x as much to make a single shell here. We've gone and strong armed basically every ally we have to provide them with their spares and even sent cluster munitions when that ran out.
It's just not realistic thinking. It's cynical as hell to boot, basically saying eventually enough Ukrainians will die that Ukraine will win.
remzem
30d ago
just a puppet state and source of expendable shock troops for the new Russian Empire.
So if they lose they end up being in exactly the same place they are now but for the Russian Empire instead of the Atlanticist Empire?
remzem
3mo ago
If border patrol and the national guard are already siding with Texas what makes you think the 101st would side with the globalists?
remzem
7mo ago
The Arab spring was the US as well... Saying Iraq would've been destabilized anyways because the US would start destabilizing MENA countries again a decade later doesn't really make US foreign policy look better.
remzem
5mo ago
I will go with the "good things are good, and bad things are bad, actually" over this galaxy-brained advocacy for letting people starve to death or die of malaria.
Which is a lazy dismissive assumption. You have faith that lives are good or that they are in aggregate good and therefore maximizing them is positive, you don't know that. As far as I can tell you can't know that.
I'm not arguing against helping people, just that helping people you actually know is better, especially en masse (what if everyone logged off social media and did that?), than industrial philanthropy or w/e.
remzem
7mo ago
I'm not claiming that Russia = USSR.
USSR controlled Ukraine more or less directly up until 91.
Ukraine was then it's own state on paper, but in reality a Russian satellite state up until 2014. "A russian satellite state for 20 years" Technically 23.
It only entered the western orbit after the coup in 2014. (Well the western part of it)
Russia isn't trying to expand its sphere of influence to USSR levels, that would mean going as far west as Germany. It's just trying to maintain it at post USSR levels and even that is seen as some extreme aggressive act while NATO bombs and murders everyone outside of the west indiscriminately and people that think they're civilized make endless excuses for the abuse.
remzem
7mo ago
Russia has plenty of AD systems but Ukraine can still hit them. Problem right now is that drones are too cheap relative to the cost of any of the intercept systems. Can easily just over saturate and overwhelm them.
To get to exist as a people
See this right here makes no sense to me. Are you claiming that all of Ukraine will be killed if Russia wins? Some kind of Nazi concentration camps but on an even grander scale? That seems incredibly unlikely, probably not even possible given logistics of attempting to round up all of the Ukrainians to exterminate them, unless Russia goes total mobilization or something.
If you're claiming some kind of more hazy spiritual collective sense, then I think you really misunderstand how divided things are in Ukraine.
remzem
7mo ago
I don't think they have to push further into Ukraine though. They have the combat power to maintain the pressure they're putting on Ukraine, whereas Ukraine does not. Ukraine lacks any industry to produce more weapons so without western support they'd be short on those. They also lack people, so even with western support if its just a long war of attrition eventually Ukraine collapses. Attritional wars are ugly and boring, which makes western public interest less likely to stay high. If Russia were to make big gains the western MIC could sell that as a threat and push for more support, if Ukraine makes gains people keep supporting them because they think they can win. Long ugly stalemate of a meat grinder with Ukraine eventually collapsing seems the most likely outcome with current western support.
I don't know that they'd go for a peace treaty after the last one was just used to arm and organize Ukraine. If they did it'd be seen as just a pause in the war while both sides reorganized imo, not a real peace.
remzem
7mo ago
and with what pilots would the planes fly? A massive airforce requires even more massive logistics to keep it running, Ukraine has had difficulties even keeping their tiny airforce from being targeted and is forced to regularly fly them from place to place so they don't get taken out by Russian missile strikes. There is no way we can just park a few 100 f16s somewhere in Ukraine and maintain them without them being targeted even if there was such a location where they could be kept and maintained which there isn't...
This is the problem with all the wishful thinking of the pro Ukraine side. There is no depth to it. It's just endless handwaving away all the issues. How do you completely and unanimously win against Russia? Oh just give them airplanes. Wow. Insightful. Meanwhile 200-400k Ukrainians are dead up to 50k just from this doomed summer offensive and all those fancy western Leopards and Challengers are useless because war has evolved and between drones and remote mining they are sitting ducks. Ukrainians are crawling through tree lines at night to lead assaults on trenches after softening them up with artillery. That's so far the only strategy that gets them any progress. So forgive me if I doubt that America winning against 3rd worlders via airplanes isn't a guaranteed win.
remzem
8mo ago
It's a bit of a first they came for Russel Brand feeling situation I guess? Though we're well past 1st.
I think pushing back against power is just a constant. Everyone has their grand solutions for the perfect political system, but none of them actually are perfect. Eventually loopholes are found and power begins to accumulate. I don't think it's wrong to always be opposed to that and it's different from just always being contrarian. It's why people like Tucker and Brand can find common ground despite having very little in common ideologically.
remzem
8mo ago
Isn't Greenwald that as well? I mean maybe not as far left as Brand. Brand always seemed more of an anarchist to me, anti corporation but anti-state as well, so I don't see it as reaping what he sowed, as he was opposed to communist style centralized power iirc. I mean he was a celebrity not a politician though so I don't know how consistent he was with his ideology.
remzem
1yr ago
I thought it was clear that I don't think he is wrong he is just being misleading. Like a magician that draws attention to something else while they put a card in your pocket or w/e. He's infodumping a lot of factual information that is true, but leaving out that there are some pretty big incentives for foreign powers that are currently not on best of terms to be getting involved. And also the nature of these situations means that the bare facts are never the whole story. Countries just don't announce to the public their coup attempts or w/e. Unless it's on accident or leaked it's not information that ever gets out. So I felt it needed context.
I mean he's wrong on other things like Syria not being a US proxy war, but that was further down thread and not part of the initial post.
It's only peanuts because youre comparing it to the world's most inflated and ridiculous military budget. 100 billion is more than any country other than China spends on defense. Also both the US and China are rather larger countries than Ukraine with more people to defend.
2023 population estimates for Ukraine are around 36million. The US alone has spent 113 billion according to cnn 6 days ago.
Per Ukrainian we're spending 3138 USD
2023 population estimates for the US is 332 million. Budget is 773 billion a year.
Per American we spend 2328 USD x 1.5 since the war has been more than a year. 3492. We're spending nearly as much per Ukrainian as we are per US citizen, and realistically most of that budget isn't defending us, it's supporting imperialist projects abroad.
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