Yes, I'm talking about the totalitarian governments of China and Russia.
https://news.liga.net/en/politics/news/china-appalled-by-tru...
China has been mostly concerned about economic links with other countries and it has few oversea bases comparing to any of the other 4 big dogs.
It doesn't have the mindset to be a region police, let alone a world one.
Let's all be honest here. At the end of the day, what China wants is for everyone to shut the F up and buy a big screen TV.
Preferably on credit.
Anything that moves the world towards that goal will receive China's tacit support. Trump's moves are seen to move the world away from that goal, so we're seeing some signs of discomfort coming from China.
But believe me, it ain't because they're concerned about Ukraine or freedom or "ideals". Or even because they do or do not want to be world police.
We can't think about their goals in Western terms because the fundamentals of the thinking are just completely different.
China plans ahead in decades. US plans ahead less than 12 hours, and depending on the moodswings in the Oval Office are pretty much the definition of unreliable right now.
There was a fascinating quote that some friends around Singapore told me once: "When China comes, they build roads and infrastructure. When US comes, they destroy, enforce and leave emptiness"
And, given what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa and other shitshows I tend to agree.
China learned that cultural influence is playing the long game, and they're very successful with it.
The statement of the named Chinese official is either a psyop, or he is, in the parlance of intelligence agencies, "going native". I'm leaning towards the former hypothesis.
Or more likley China wants to sell to people, and thats hard if they are in a trade war, and spending money on a crash re-militarisation drive.
It also serves China well to be on the side of the EU as they can mop up some of the trade thats being destroyed by the USA.
As of February, China’s actions with working with Europe and standing against America cemented its position as world power focused on stability.
Their decision to find a way to work with India, is yet another sign of their decision making.
In sharp contrast, America is dismantling itself in flight.
every article, when directly quoting, uses weasel words like this. "Ukraine" decided they didn't want to participate because Europe wasn't involved, or Ukraine "didn't get a paper invitation". even though Zelenskyy was supposed to be in country at the time, he decided not to.
I will source the actual facts later, but keep downvoting stuff you don't like.
Downvote this comment too, here, i'll help:
Russia was promised by the US that NATO would not expand. by someone named Baker. Stuff shifted, but under no circumstances was russia going to let Ukraine "join NATO". When Ukraine started saying they were in talks to join NATO and get their own nukes, russia perked up and started fucking with the border. Russia warned Ukraine about the murders occuring in "ethnically" russian "speaking" areas of ukraine, near the border. I bet you can name them. Russia waited eight years to actually respond to this injustice, and it was after Ukraine started talking about joining NATO. Again.
So if you are pragmatic, and you don't want an all out war in europe, you withdraw the US support for NATO. Simple as. Now you don't get to threaten russia with US forces anymore. The US doesn't want to fight Russia, and certainly not for a leader that "loses" hundreds of billions of dollars. "whoops, we can't find half of it" is bad enough when it's an amazon order, it's a lot different when you're talking about sending nearly 400,000,000,000.00 USD to ... Ukraine.
The thing that gets me though, is does anyone really believe this is all russia is capable of? moving a front line 10 meters, or a kilometer?
Europe needs to stop prepping for a war, because Europe is the most war-hungry population on the planet, historically. They can't help themselves.
The rest of the world is about to find out what it's like to not have the US backing up your stupid decisions. We, as taxpayers, are tired of paying for the EU experiment, for sabre rattling from the UK and France and Germany.
It boils down to the need to "read between the lines" and not just accept any article put forth in the last 4 years. there is a lot more nuance than "orange man bad" and "Comedian War Hero", ok?
This is Russian propaganda. Russia claims this was promised verbally. Surely if this was something that Russia wanted why didn't they demand in writing, like they did about many other concessions made to them? The answer is that Putin made that up. It never happened.
Same with the Ukraine "coup", I always ask: So which dictator did they install in 2014?
I'm sure you'll disagree with the above, so here's a thought experiment. What would the Euromaidan protesters be called if they had lost?
The protests started when he switched his stance on getting closer to EU. The protesters got him out and had a new election. How can you compare that to not accepting an election result?
Edit: To answer your question: if the Euromaidan protest didn't succeed, it was just a protest like it was now. They would have had another election a bit later, possibly pissing off Russia again (In 2004 Russia poisoned a pro-EU candidate).
The storming of the capital in US was under false claims that the elections were stolen.
There is both evidence that the elections were not stolen, and evidence what Yanukovuch said during his election campaign were not his actions. You can't tell the difference between the two?
Plenty of protests ended in the fall of a government and electing a new one. Why would that be the same as the US storming of the Capital?
If you would have said to compare it to the Georgian protests that don't accept the election results, that would be more difficult. But Euromaidan? That's easy.
To put it better, what year would be an acceptable answer? Is the year that they loudly claimed "we should have never given up our nuclear weapons" not acceptable? the year "we need Nukes or NATO"?
I also remember sabre rattling in 2014 and either 2016 or 2017. NATO already has missiles pointed at Russia, and Ukraine joining NATO would allow missiles to be launched from even closer to Russia.
I don't understand why people don't get the nuance. The US did dirty. I don't know how to solve that, but the answer isn't "war with russia" or "proxy war with russia" the answer is closer to "get the fighting to stop, and tell russia to chill out and report issues to the world, not sit and stew for 8 years over their ethnic brothers, sisters, and children being 'rained down upon' with death and destruction."
I'm asking for a reference and a date when they said that. And obviously, it must be before the Russo-Ukrainian war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War
> So his campaign officers have been conveniently running a message of “Tiahnybok is pulling for our side,” but so far managed to get only 1.6 percent of polled voters to declare support for him. A broad-shouldered and towering leader of the right-wing Svoboda Party, he positions himself as a knight on the yellow-and-blue horse – the country’s national colors – on a mission to save Ukraine. His program almost immediately mentions that a section “nationality” should be introduced into Ukrainian passports – a sign of pride to some, yet prejudice to others. Should he be president, Ukrainians will have to obtain visas to travel to Russia and pass a Ukrainian language test to work in civil service. Ukraine would pick up nuclear arms again and take a hard line approach towards Russia. Serving as a lawmaker twice before, Tiahnybok’s ideas have been better received in the more nationalist west. Once allied with President Victor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine faction, he was expelled for anti-Semitic and xenophobic statements.
2010 hope the kyiv post is good enough source https://archive.kyivpost.com/article/content/ukraine-politic...
58652dd5e1d83157ae78ed96cb2fd53ee98dba25b3b5c0dbda11b83a17035ba5
"\nI bet this isn't going to be good enough, which is why i didn't want to do this. I have more, i just want to prove this point."
to my prior post, the sha256sum will match.
I merely asked what sort of proof you were looking for, buddy. Evidently a Ukrainian politician saying the exact words you said no Ukrainian politician said prior to 2014 isn't good enough.
here, about the party in Ukraine he's led for decades:
> The party gained increasing popularity in the late 2000s and early 2010s, winning 10.45% of the vote in the 2012 parliamentary election. Between 2009 and 2014, it was an observer member of the far-right Alliance of European National Movements. It played a role in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Euromaidan protests but its support dropped quickly following the 2014 elections. Since then, the party has been polling below the electoral threshold, and it currently has one seat in the Verkhovna Rada.
oh look, they win parliamentary votes, and hold a seat.
also incaseyoumissedit:
> It played a role in the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and Euromaidan protests
WHOOPS.
guess i'm "too stupid" :-)
But yes, congratulations on predicting that nobody would be impressed by such a stupid irrelevance. The non-stupid thing would not to have posted it in the first place...
I wonder if we can have this same argument about Freeland in Canada saying canada needs nukes to defend itself against the USA, in 15 years ;-)
ps https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1741301040.34_chrystiafreelan...
page 5. also in other documents.
It's ok, it was only declassified 9 years ago.
and if we're going to point at everything trump says and react with gusto - like canadian politicians saying they need to arm themselves with nukes to prevent invasion, just to name one - then i question the validity of "oh they didn't sign it so it doesn't matter" The secretary of state said to Gorbachev multiple times "not one inch to the east" of the "NATO" base in Germany.
But none of this matters, because Ukraine is 250 miles from Moscow, and that's a lot different than the nearly 600 miles away Poland is. the closest nato point to moscow as it stands right now is 350 miles away.
if you can't see the difference, i'm sorry. A big point of contention for Russia is the "Ethnic Russian" portions of Ukraine, near the border, who would "gladly" be part of russia, but because of an arbitrary border, they cannot.
Here's infamous socialist George Galloway explaining it better than i can, and with a better accent: https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1740955477.979_georgegalloway...
The relevant article:
ARTICLE 5
Until the completion of the withdrawal of the Soviet armed forces from the territory of the present German Democratic Republic and of Berlin in accordance with Article 4 of the present Treaty, only German territorial defence units which are not integrated into the alliance structures to which German armed forces in the rest of German territory are assigned will be stationed in that territory as armed forces of the united Germany. During that period and subject to the provisions of paragraph 2 of this Article, armed forces of other states will not be stationed in that territory or carry out any other military activity there.
As you can see, it has nothing to do with whether NATO would accept new members or not. Gorbachev and many other top Soviet/Russian officials have directly refuted this myth, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43149963
Where baker said "not one inch east of the Elbe."
I am not sure how much clearer it can be than declassified documents. "That is a lie putin told, it's propaganda!"
no, it's right there. has been available to look at for 9 years.
I really do not give one WHIT what happened afterward, all i care about is refuting falsehoods.
to wit:
A United States Secretary of State named Baker, gave a "cascade of assurances" that NATO would not expand EAST of the Elbe. Repeatedly, the same message was given to the russians.
That is literally all i said. You're arguing something completely different now and like i said, good for you, i don't care. it wasn't what i was talking about or responding to.
As the Soviet foreign minister stated in a 2014 interview, there was simply no reason to discuss NATO beyond that. They did not expect the Warsaw Pact to dissolve. The idea that the world would change so drastically that the Warsaw Pact would dissolve and its members would seek to join NATO was unimaginable at the time.
You are clinging to an erroneous understanding of a few transcript snippets against the words of the direct participants and their actual written agreements.
I want you to answer the simple question, because you have refused.
Is the statement:
Baker verbally assured gorbachev that there would be no eastward expansion
True or false?
That is literally, and when i say literally i mean literally the only thing i was talking to, above.
Baker verbally assured gorbachev that there would be no eastward expansion
True or false?
And it's obvious if you follow the historical context.
In 1990, Germany was still formally under Allied military occupation (since 1945). In the final 2+4 treaty, East Germany and West Germany - the "two" - negotiated with the four Allied powers (UK, France, USA, and USSR) to determine the terms of reunification. Their discussions centered on whether a unified Germany would be fully neutral, partially neutral, or entirely integrated into NATO. In the end, they agreed that reunified Germany could remain in NATO, provided that no foreign troops were stationed in East Germany until Soviet forces had fully withdrawn by the end of 1994.
That's it. There was never any discussion about the broader future of NATO because there was no reason to have one. Germany bordered the Warsaw Pact, and no-one on the Soviet side expected it to dissolve.
so you just ignore the declassified documents, making this whole thing a waste of my time.
i'd like to thank you for that.
Shevardnadze, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, was as clear as one could be:
SPIEGEL ONLINE: At the end of March 1990, Genscher and the then US Secretary of State James Baker, talked about the fact that there was interest among "central European states" about getting into NATO. You knew nothing of this?
Shevardnadze: This is the first I've heard of it.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did you have a conversation with your colleagues in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary about a possible eastward expansion of NATO in the spring of 1990?
Shevardnadze: No, that was never discussed in my presence.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The German documents give the impression that Moscow counted on the dissolution of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Did you really think that would happen?
Shevardnadze: That may have been discussed after I resigned from the ministry of foreign affairs in December 1990. However during my time in office it was not.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Was the eastward expansion of NATO ever discussed in the inner circles of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1990?
Shevardnadze: The question never came up.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Did the subject play a role in the ratification process of the Two-Plus-Four agreement (where the signatories included the two Germanys and the four powers that occupied Germany after World War II) that unified Germany?
Shevardnadze: No, there were no difficulties whatsoever with the ratification process.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Nevertheless, the eastward expansion happened a few years later. Did you feel, at the time, that the German diplomats deceived you?
Shevardnadze: No. When I was the minister of foreign affairs in the Soviet Union, NATO's expansion beyond the German borders never came up for negotiation. To this day I don't see anything terrible in NATO's expansion.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: At the conference in Ottawa on German unity in February 1990, you had five telephone conversations with Gorbachev. Did you discuss a possible NATO enlargement -- beyond the GDR?
Shevardnadze: No. We only had German reunification on the agenda, nothing else.Can you provide an argument why Russia invaded Chechnya?
This is untrue Russian propaganda. There was no independent Russia at that time and Baker didn't promise Gorbachov anything of the sort, as Gorbachov has publicly stated.
> Stuff shifted,
Right this is an important thing to note. Russia isn't the soviet union even if it claimed to be the successor state. And in the 90s Russia under the Yeltsin (the guy who picked Putin to be his successor) agreed that these countries had a right to join NATO. Of course that wasn't needed since there was no such promise but it happened. Oh people will claim that the Poles gave Yeltsin too much to drink but the reality is that Russia needed US support and good relations with their neighbors in the 90s financial disaster just like Ukraine (which agreed to give away its nukes to Russia)
> but under no circumstances was russia going to let Ukraine "join NATO".
First who is this Russia we speak of. It was Putin's decision to invade, a move that many Russians even those who didn't like Ukraine getting closer to the EU were skeptical of.
> When Ukraine started saying they were in talks to join NATO and get their own nukes, russia perked up and started fucking with the border.
That is incorrect. Russia invaded in 2014 when Ukraine was not seeking to join NATO (only became a goal after the Russian invasion). Plus everyone including Russia and Putin knew there was no chance of Ukraine joining nato in 2014 or 2022. Russia must invade Ukraine to stop it from joining NATO is not just propaganda, its stupid and obvious propagnada.
> Russia warned Ukraine about the murders occuring in "ethnically" russian "speaking" areas of ukraine, near the border.
Is it ethnically Russian or Russian speaking? You know there's a difference.
Much of the area was Russian speaking but not all of it. Many of the more rural areas in the east were primarily Ukrainian speaking. And it had an ethnic Ukrainian majority.
Hell a lot more Ukrainians used to speak russian not just in the south and east. The main driver in the change isn't nationalism or discrimination but Russian invasion.
Either way its ridiculous propaganda. Those areas were largely peaceful despite economic issues and crime. Russia invaded and then set up a couple of local thugs and neonazis as warlords pretending this was a local thing or a civil war.
They blamed Ukraine for a war they started and then blamed them for shooting back. Then they massively enlarged the war killing a lot more people (a significant share of whom were russian speakers or ethnic russians because of the part of Ukraine they invaded).
> I bet you can name them.
Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts (sometimes transliterated lugansk via russian)
> Russia waited eight years to actually respond to this injustice, and it was after Ukraine started talking about joining NATO. Again.
Russia could not care less about them or injustice. Russia barely even cares about its own citizens (if it's all for the glory of the modern czar, what does an individuals life or rights matter) and despite claiming area for annexation it does not treat them as citizens. It forced them to be used as a meetshield against their own countrymen(no training and ancient guns).
Did you see how they destroyed the mostly Russian speaking city of Mariupol? Or many smaller cities? But then they changed the sign from Маріуполь to Мариуполь and I'm sure the survivors considered it all worth it /s.
>So if you are pragmatic, and you don't want an all out war in europe, you withdraw the US support for NATO. Simple as.
If you're pragmatic you back them to the hilt and try to prevent Russia starting such a war.
>Now you don't get to threaten russia with US forces anymore.
The one threatening to nuke London is Russia not the other way around.
> The US doesn't want to fight Russia
Right neither does Europe. Neither does Ukraine. So Russia can get get out of Ukraine (including Crimea and Dpnbas) and everyone will be better off.
>The thing that gets me though, is does anyone really believe this is all russia is capable of? moving a front line 10 meters, or a kilometer?
Yes because that's all they have accomplished. And if we had done more to swiftly back Ukraine it would have been less.
> Europe needs to stop prepping for a war, because Europe is the most war-hungry population on the planet, historically. They can't help themselves.
Europe is prepping because Russia started a major war. And sadly we the US are not reliable allies right now even though Ukrainian and European victory us clearly in our interest.
>The rest of the world is about to find out what it's like to not have the US backing up your stupid decisions. We, as taxpayers, are tired of paying for the EU experiment, for sabre rattling from the UK and France and Germany.
Again the saber rattling is all coming from Russia. Do you even understand Russian? Do you watch Russian by to hear the stuff the state propaganda news put out?
>there is a lot more nuance than "orange man bad" and "Comedian War Hero", ok?
Sure but being more nuance doesn't stop both those statements from being totally accurate and important. Total nuance is not claiming the Donbas is just russian anyway or that Ukraine provoked russia when even Russian newspapers (Moscow times, Medusa) posted many articles disproving state propaganda.
"it depends on what story you read" - which is what i alluded to in my other comment. You have to choose to believe Zelenskyy, who isn't acting like someone who wants the war to end, or not. That's it.
It is possible there was "miscommunication" - as that's what they're blaming the White House Zelenskyy meeting a couple weeks ago on. But Zelenskyy was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia at that time, and that's why the talks were planned for that date.
the whole "no paper invitation, and we don't want to participate if Russia is going to be present" is quoted in several stories. So which is it, they don't want to participate, or they weren't invited?
And in that clip it is explained that Kellog nearly immediately went to Kyiv to keep communication open.
I get the feeling that people merely don't like the way this is playing out, and that somehow gives them the right to make claims on shaky evidence.
i think that there is a lot of nuance to this ukraine thing, and a lot of the problem can be directly blamed on the US.
Lindy Hop and McCain in Ukraine in 2016, setting up a proxy war: https://noagendaassets.com/enc/1740092403.145_redux2016linds...
There are factions in the US that are warmongers, and a lot of americans don't like that. We don't want to be the ire of the world by constantly meddling in affairs. "strategic deployments" and "Strategic bases" and all this, yeah. We should have stopped. I don't even know if we can extricate ourselves without completely destablizing the global economy and "peace" - but i think we oughtta try.
More reality - the Muslim world is organized and very wealthy in spots. By confrontational and arrogant (see above) posturing and actions by Westerns, it drives power alliances to the Muslim world. So then there is one third of the actual population of the entire world, embracing the Muslim world economically and politically.
Secondly and perhaps more importantly, the backdrop economically for all parties is substantially about Oil and Gas. In the USA, the Oil and Gas interests have gained the upper hand, and they know very well how to apply it. Oil and Gas industry has all the capital and all the ambition to expand, fortify and entrench for the next multiple decades. It is rarely mentioned in the provocative and divisive social "news" that fills the media in the West each day.
I'm only discussing Trump's behaviour and its effect on totalitarian governments, I don't have enough knowledge to discuss the rest of what you wrote.
I think the recent series of Trump's actions against Ukraine have failed to send a message to totalitarian governments that matches his own words. This has nothing to do with how much of the population Trump rules.
China: 1,419,320,000
Russia: 144,820,000
World: 8,005,176,000
Russia + China = ~1.56 billion
(Russia + China) / World = 0.195 aka 20% or 1/5 of the world population