New figures from SIPRI have been released.
At $66.3 billion, Russia’s military spending in 2017 was 20 per cent lower than in 2016, the first annual decrease since 1998. ‘Military modernization remains a priority in Russia, but the military budget has been restricted by economic problems that the country has experienced since 2014,’ said Siemon Wezeman.
This makes Russia an exception to the global rule of rising military spending.
China continues to gain rapidly on the US, even while spending a lower share of its GDP. Adjusting for PPP, total Chinese military spending might be close to approaching American levels.
With that decrease, a bunch of middle powers – India, France, and Saudi Arabia – have now nudged ahead of Russia in military spending.
PS. Need to make an update to the CMP.
PPS. Scale on the left axis should ofc be millions, not billions.
Looking at the graph, I can tell you that it’s Iran which is the biggest danger to world peace. And of course Russia.
I think Pakistan should be kept in mind when thinking about military spending. It has basically achieved fairly reasonable deterrence capability within $10 billion a year – not bad.
Nobody wants to invade it.
Now it also helps to keep your nation not worth the price of attacking in the first place.
“We will stop you at the beaches of Karachi for the land of the chapli kabab shall not falter!”
Peace.
Someone needs to come up with a better metric than this, and there’s more to it than just PPP.
The US for instance spent $13 billion on the USS Gerald Ford (why did this nonentity get a carrier named after him?), which does not have a functional catapult or arresting wire. Meaning it can’t launch or recover aircraft.
Then there’s the $22.5 billion spent on a class of three destroyers, the F-35 debacle, and of course the generational failure of the Army to procure replacement infantry rifles and self-propelled artillery.
There seem to be issues in Russia’s M-I complex as well (a lot of late deliveries, but it does seem to consistently deliver new weapons systems that perform as advertised other than obvious vaporware. The only major exception I can think of is the MiG 1.44–which was cancelled on cost grounds.
China’s M-I complex is too opaque for me to monitor at all.
Personnel is another issue. Largest cost item for the Pentagon, but almost certainly not in China with its conscription and low wages. Russia somewhere in between. And money spent on female personnel in fact detracts from military power.
Russia’s problem is oil prices, and those are very dependent on Saudi Arabia which has repeatedly tried to weaken post revolutionary Iran by driving down the price of oil. The forthcoming destruction of Iran by America will be good for Russia, but bad for America.
Oil is very important to Russia, but let’s not exaggerate. The country is as about as oil dependent as Norway, and unlike the USSR it is self-sufficient in agriculture (actually a major exporter). Unlike the USSR, the Russian Federation also doesn’t have to provide oil to a network of client states at below world market prices (it has done so by choice in some cases, but it amounts to far less oil).
There are a number of other problems with this article. Putin indeed did try to integrate with the West, only to be rewarded with W scrapping the ABM Treaty in 2002.
The article then repeats the outright lie that Russia invaded Georgia, when in fact Georgia invaded South Ossetia.
The reset went sour over America’s bizarre hatred of the Assman and Victoria Jewland launching a coup d’etat in the Ukraine.
And incidentally, oil prices have been low since 2014. Since then we’ve seen endless Russian “aggression” in the Ukraine and Syria, no?
Typical trash propaganda from the Ecommunist.
I would also suggest that oil might not be such a good thing for Russia as it serves as a disincentive to develop other globally competitive industries. Norway, while a lot wealthier than Russia per capita, is noteworthy in that its only other globally competitive industries are shipping, fishing, and aquaculture. Canada and Australia are if anything even worse than that, though Canada has a growing tech sector (which outrages me).
Interesting. Maybe, I’m too US-centric in my thinking but I always thought of the Saudi moves as a strategy to destroy fracking in the US, not something in anyway aimed against Iran, a country that they compete against through proxy wars and buying influence abroad.
I attempted a better index here, before you became a regular commenter: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/top-10-militaries-2015/
That graph is misleading as shit, using a pseudo-logarithmic Y axis for spending when it should be linear. The US is spending so much more than everyone else and SIPRI is obviously trying to hide this fact.
More on why this is absolute garbage.
Oil prices were also low for the entire century preceding the First Energy Crisis.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Crude_oil_prices_since_1861.png
Oil also lacked any strategic importance until the Royal Navy adopted it as a fuel source, as motorization was not significant anywhere outside of the United States until the 1920s. Initially the main purpose of oil was to refine kerosene to run lamps, which replaced whale oil.
During that time we saw the following actual Russian aggression:
• Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78
• Conquest and annexation of Central Asia
• The “Great Game” played with Great Britain
• Russia turning Manchuria into a protectorate and subsequent political penetration of Korea
• Mobilization in support of Serbian terrorism in 1914, leading to World War I
• Bolshevik (re)conquest of most of the former Russian Empire less Finland and the Baltics
• Polish-Soviet War
• Sino-Soviet Conflict of 1929 (sort of)
• Soviet intervention in the Spanish Civil War, including the cartoonish robbery of Spain’s gold reserves
• Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
• Winter War
• Annexation of the Baltic States and Bessarabia
• Ethnic cleansing and annexation of Konigsberg
• Operation August Storm
• Annexation of North Sakhalin and the Kuriles
• Berlin Blockade
• Turning more or less all of Eastern Europe into a gigantic concentration camp
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Whatever shit the USSR pulled in the Turd World up through 1973 (who cares)
Strange how the gas station with nukes was so aggressive during the century of falling oil prices.
The Gorbachev period should rather be understood as a special period in Soviet history, and given that the oil price didn’t collapse until 85-86 it couldn’t have had anything to do with Gorbachev’s appointment as dictator.
The sad thing is that the Ford probably cost significantly more than $13 billion.
There were about $4 billion in research costs. Additional billions to train the crew. Do they even count the planes? How much if you amoritized the research on the planes into the pricetag?
I think you are looking at at least $20 billion, and how much does it cost to sink? Most likely, a lot less. And China has achieved basic economic parity, so what you are left with is the ability to intimidate third world countries. Not particularly useful, at that price.
I think you’re correct.
This was a period of thawing relations between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia purchased some weapons from Russia, and it seems like they together attempted to destroy our fracking industry. Putin also intervened to help save the military dictatorship in Egypt, likely as a friendly gesture to the Saudis. Saudi Arabia also allegedly attempted to bribe Russia into abandoning the Assman in exchange for massive imports of Russian weapons and the creation of a Russian-Saudi global energy cartel.
Honestly that sounds like a pretty swell deal, but I can understand why the Russians didn’t bite (if it’s true).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Harold_Hamm_2012_Shankbone.JPG
Nobody can stop Harold Hamm. 🙂
Destroying Russia’s so called ally Iran will reinvigorate Russia. According to Micheal Stuermer, in 1985 Saddam’s Iraq looked as if it was about to lose the war with Iran, so Saudi Arabia drove the oil price down and Iran suddenly bereft of hard currency, had to come to terms. This is a rerun, the Saudis fear Iran, and Saudi action to weaken Iran is the key to understanding oil prices. The Saudi action to weaken Iran in 1985 was a terminally catastrophic for the Soviet Union, Without Iran to worry about the Saudis will reduce supplyand prices will go up all across the globe. Russia on a rising oil price high will be like the protagonist of Crank 2 getting tasered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWfgtDh4T0c&t=0m40s
Pakistan is in a sort of happy geographic position, IMO. Some people would laugh at me now – being right next door to Afghanistan has its drawbacks. But the only regional power they are concerned with is India. Meanwhile, India is concerned with Pakistan and China, but Pakistan is far enough away from China not to feel threatened by them.
Then there is the additional element of India being a very fractious country.
Of course, all that is probably superfluous because of nukes, which is why I’ve never felt threatened by NK having them.
I’m thinking he may have been driven by puns of his name.
The program cost is apparently $37 billion.
Subsequent ships in the class will not cost $13 billion.
Bottom line is it was very stupid to start building the ship before its advanced electromagnetic systems were proven to work.
Carrier airwings are accounted for separately, but that’s fair imo as they can operate from land bases as well. No new aircraft were developed for the Ford-class so it definitely wouldn’t be reasonable to include that in the price.
I don’t think this is a fair way to think about it, as carriers can do things that carrier-killers can’t. A infantry squad can for instance destroy a tank for less than it costs to build a tank, but you still build tanks for some very good reasons.
Now whether or not it’s a good idea to keep building carriers I am not entirely sure. In light of our global network of bases, tankers, heavy bombers, and nuclear subs it seems like we could do without carriers and in fact increase our striking power. And certainly we could do without a dozen of them (maybe you keep a small force for areas with no basing or to reinforce certain areas).
The program cost of $37 billion would (allegedly) pay for 72 B-21 Raiders for instance.
Honestly the best use I can think of for a carrier is convoy defense, but even then continuous convoy coverage by land-based aircraft might be feasible.
Having said that, the situation is worse then you think. Our carriers only carry about half the aircraft they’re capable of, largely because the navy is obsessed with hulls (and, by extension, having as many flag officer ranks as possible). The range of the Super Hornet is quite short, and carriers have very limited aerial refueling capability. So to get carrier-borne aircraft within striking range of hostile airspace, Air Force or allied tankers are needed anyway.
The whole thing is a joke.
China and Saudi Arabia probably spend a lot on internal security.
The 85-86 oil price collapse was certainly negative for the USSR, but “terminally catastrophic” is an exaggeration.
The root of the problem was that the USSR had to pay for grain imports. I can think of many ways it could’ve solved that problem:
• Rationing and/or substitution
• A reduction in other imports (USSR was a major importer of capital goods)
• Increase in prices of exports, including oil, to COMECON countries
• Agricultural reform (e.g. Hungarian model)
• Reduction of the bloated foreign aid budget
• Increase non-oil exports
Soviet collapse is complex but ultimately down to a loss of morale.
Saudi Arabia can’t control the oil price anymore. It is not able to cut its production very much owing to its budget situation.
I agree, Pakistan is in a fortuitous area – after all the Indus Valley civilization didn’t pop up there for no reason. To a certain degree, it is an extension of Persianate (influenced by Turkic) culture also of Afghan culture – it’s like those two got married and had a kid named Pakistan that was fostered by India for a while until it grew up. That area was always a staging area for Persian or Turkic invasions into deeper Indian territory until they finally went full gusto.
Pakistan is protected from China by large mountains which helps immensely. It also helps that they have reasons for regional cooperation.
Nukes are certainly extremely helpful for deterrence, but even without them Pakistan has been able to make someone think twice about the cost of invading it (which is all you really need unless you have imperial designs which Pakistan does not – the only issue I ever see coming up is supporting Kashmir in its bid for independence – and that deterrence has been achieved fairly on the cheap.
Peace.
Any realistic military index should also include:
1.) average national IQ (China strength, Saudi weakness)
2.) amount of diversity (diversity=weakness)
Unless you’re modelling a long war neither are actually appropriate.
What’s relevant is the human capital and morale of the armed forces itself, and perhaps relevant political leadership (head of gov’t, war ministry officials, etc.).
If you’re modelling a long war or comprehensive national power (the concept, not the Chinese scale) both are appropriate.
Now I very much doubt that Saudi pilots are chosen on merit, but let’s say they are. I’m sure the Kingdom could at least find a few hundred people capable of being talented pilots and send them off for training in the West.
With regard to Saudi Arabia, pilots were actually my primary concern. Word of mouth says Saudi Arabia has long had a significant problem in this area. Maybe that is reduced with automation – I don’t know.
With regard to diversity, I knew an older guy who was under the impression that blacks had saved his life because he was drafted during Vietnam but kept in the States, in order to help safeguard against any potential unrest. China has long written off India as a serious threat because of this issue.
But diversity also effects unit morale. Maybe, you can guard against this by keeping units unmixed, but political forces drive mixing them. I’m guessing the US has lower morale than China, with its gender neutral bathrooms, weirdos in uniform, and affirmative action promotions. Diversity lowers the IQ of your leadership.
Then there’s espionage. China has a lot of spies in the West tied by blood. The reverse is absolutely not true. They range from low level to high tech. Technological parity/superiority helps determine the length of your war.
Land was power for the early part of that period, and Russia was growing prodigiously in territory. Then the French loaned them massive amount of money to build (mainly military-purpose) railways, to the extent that the most influential, preWW1 German foreign policy statesman wondered whether it was worth planting trees on his estate as “the Russians will be here in a few years”.
The pre (WW2) war incorporation of the Baltic states and a bit of Finland was a drain on Soviet Russia that was imposed by Germany. Stalin was probably planning to grab the oil of Romania once the capitalists were exhausted fighting each other in the war Stalin had facilitated (the Soviet border with Romania was where where the strongest Soviet forces were encountered during the early part of Barbarossa). Hitler was obsessed with grabbing and hold every kind of resource but especially oi– Operation Edelweiss was aimed at Baku.
Russian fear of Eisenhower and then JFK’s plan to let Germany have some say in the use of Nato Nukes (so US taxpayers didn’t have to pay for everything) was responsible for the crisises of the Cold War. But Soviet Russia ultimately backed down in those confrontations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_governor
I think countries are a bit like endurance athletes inasmuch they instinctively down-regulate massively when their wherewithal begins to fall even slightly. Just a slight fall in energy is enough to make you feel overwhelmingly tired during a marathon say, but a little candy is enough to get let you go on, even though the candy is trivial in calorie terms and the actual balance is extremely negative. The feeling that power is increasing stokes you to perform extraordinary exploits. Or try to like Mikheil Saakashvili, whose country had some oil money I believe.
Mearsheimer Tragedy :-
I agree “the Soviet collapse is complex but ultimately down to a loss of morale”. nevertheless, money rolling in from oil would have helped everyone’s morale, including the military industrial complex when they got resources to keep up with the US. Ordinary Russians’ pride in the country being seen as a formidable superpower is important.
The Saudis fear for the security of their realm at the hands of an Iranian backed fifth column, so not only will the primacy of foreign policy dictate weakening Iran abroad, holding onto power domestically will too. They will have to continue to drive down oil to weaken Iran and Saudi will run it into the ground as soon as CO2 fracking becomes feasible
Thats a logarithmic graph, better would be to show the real difference in spending to show how absurd the US spending is.
Canada has a growing tech sector (which outrages me).
Because Canada is one of your countries that shouldn’t exist?
Pakistan is protected from China by the fact that both are natural enemies of India. China gave Pakistan parts of a Chinese missile to copy and maybe some indirect help with nuke warhead development
Yes, but they can always get Pakistani pilots on loan – as they have before. It may be possible that they might even be able to get Turkish pilots. Or even mercenaries from either nation. They can do a lot with the money they have to throw around.
I have read of a quid pro-quo between Pakistan and Saudi and a couple of other Gulf nations; they will support Pakistan financially in the case of any war with India (this can be huge if Pakistan is allowed to borrow Saudi jets) and Pakistan’s nukes are thus made available to them to ensure survival of their states.
Peace.
They’ve also jointly developed tanks and aircraft.
Peace.
With $66.3 billion military budget in 2017 – Russia’s military expenditure has increased by 87.2% comparing to 2007 SIPRI data.
87.2% increase in the size of military expenditure over 10 years, is nothing minor – even if it has fallen from 2016 peak.
(Ok this 87.2% increase is not factoring inflation – but even after it will be a very significant increase).
I meant to address diversity but forgot to do so.
Diversity is generally negative, but it can be managed via segregation. This is no longer used in Western militaries of course, but it had a good historical record.
I’m not sure how the Indian armed forces are organized with regard to the issue. Probably they are also not segregated as the founding fathers of the Republic of India were pozzed faggots.
Diversity of course is also an espionage issue, but it’s not the only one. There are probably pozzed faggots embedded in Chinese state, party, and military structures who would be willing to betray their motherland for instance. Or, knowing the Chinese, for cash.
Stalin didn’t seize Rumania’s oil fields when he had the opportunity to do so, nor did his successors.
The Ecommunist article is simply rubbish.
While it is of course objectively correct that Canada should not exist, a fact that cannot be disputed by anyone, that is not the problem here.
The reason is that Canada’s economy is supposed to be based on lumber, oil, “hydro”, wheat, and maple syrup.
The newfangled existence of a high tech sector in Canada is objectionable.
The Soviet rouble was not convertible. Soviet oil exports paid for imports, not the Soviet military-industrial complex which was nearly completely self-sufficient.
Main Soviet imports from capitalist countries were capital goods and grain, with the grain largely used to feed livestock.
Gorbachev was selected prior to the oil price collapse and had already decided on reform even before coming to power.
I’m highly skeptical of Saudi Arabia’s ability to increase oil production further without new discoveries.
No, because my aim is not to make some propaganda point about US militarism (you have Sputnik and RT and dozens of alt sites for that), but concisely display how spending trends in some of the Great Powers stack up to each other.
That is a good point. There is a certain cohesiveness to the Islamic world that is severely lacking in the secularized West, and in many other areas (like East Asia) filled with local antagonisms. Of course, that is a double edged sword with the Sunni-Shia split creating proxy wars.
Meanwhile, there is a certain strength beyond dollar numbers in being a juggernaut like China or India, or in having your own oil reserves like Saudi Arabia and Russia. It seems as though there is factor piled on factor, and the dollar numbers only give a very rough idea. For instance, I personally would much rather take on Saudi Arabia than Iran, even though Iran is nowhere on the graph.
Chinese domestic security spending is actually quite low. This is one of the “Great Lies” oft repeated by the usual Liberast media that is repeated ad infinitum until it is accepted as gospel truth. Chinese defense spending as a percentage of GDP is lower than “domestic security” but that is not because Chinese “domestic security” is excessive, but rather China’s spends on defense like a complacent Western European state. Chinese GDP in 2017 was 82.7 trillion yuan with government revenues around 17.5 trillion and expenditures at 20.5. Announced defense spending for 2018 was only 1.11 trillion yuan. Not even 5.5% of total government expenditures and only 1.35% of GDP. As a proportion of total GDP and total government expenditures, China is officially spending like Canada or Portugal. Even using the SIPRI pulled out of ass numbers only raises Chinese defense spending to that of France.
The thing with so-called Chinese “domestic security” spending is that it really is a catch all super category that accounts for numerous budgets. For example, it includes the national, provincial, and local police, procuratorate and court system, prison system, customs/immigration, border security, disaster relief, fire fighting, forestry, mines and dams, and the people’s armed police (Gendarmerie, aka the crackdown). To make China seem like a police state, this mass catch all category is usually only compared to US police spending alone which is usually cited as approximately 160 billion or so. This is an apples, pineapples, coconuts, mangoes, oranges, bananas, pears, and oranges to apples alone comparison. The US has about 1 million uniformed police officers compared to China’s roughly 1.6 despite the latter having more than 4x the population. More than that though, that 160 billion or so basically only covers federal, state, and local police and doesn’t even begin to touch all the spending for the US court system and the US prison system (Prison spending alone is another 80 billion USD per year) let alone all the other categories such as the National Guard which is in the US defense budget. If anything China is under policed, with basically twice as many cops as Russia but 10x the population.
The West at the moment appears to be more cohesive and unified than it has ever been before in our history.
Unfortunately what we are united on is nearly all bad, whereas many past instances of Western unity have been very good.
I would too if the Saudis were all you had to worry about – I don’t believe they are that solid. If they were, they wouldn’t have had to invite like a gazillion foreign troops when they were afraid Saddam might invade after Kuwait. Again, if you have read the public statements from Pakistani officials, they consider Saudi to be a very strong ally:
“‘The Pakistan Army holds defence of the KSA at par with its own,’ General Qamar told Saudi Envoy to Pakistan Abdullah Marzouk Al-Zahrani, who met the army chief at the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi on Friday, according to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).”
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2017/01/21/saudi-defence-at-par-with-our-own-gen-bajwa/
This goes way back to King Faisal’s time when Saudi was much less in the hands of crazies. It is a very strategic alliance and one that could bear fruit if the Saudis weren’t constantly doing stupid things. I believe it was the advice of Turkey (which Pakistan has very close ties to going all the way back to when Muslims from the sub-continent supported the caliphate) that helped keep Pakistan out of the idiotic war in Yemen.
If Saudis get closer to Pakistan and Turkey (in some of the security and defense cooperation arrangements that are being talked about), my hope is that they influence Saudis to become more sane rather than the other way around – otherwise there is going to be very serious trouble.
Peace.
This looks like it was a fun exercise and is better than judging by military spending, but it’s not something that could be called scientific. The assumptions made are generally reasonable, but you know how it goes in economic and climate modeling with this.
A word on the German Army since you gave the Germans an edge. The success of the Prussian and later national German armies were down to the following factors:
• The House of Hohenzollern and the Junkers, in particular the East Elbians, were Marcher Lords with a military tradition stretching back to the Teutonic Order
• Close contact with slavs gave Prussians a much stronger ethnic identity
• Pervasive militarism, both culturally and politically
• The Army was the most prestigious institution in the Kingdom and Empire and recruited the best men
• Extremely thorough and rigorous training, as an example the Wehrmacht suffered a 2% casualty rate…in peacetime
• The Prussian War Academy selected only the very best officers for staff education, which was not the case elsewhere in the 19th century
• A doctrinal and cultural emphasis on attack
• Extreme emphasis on speed of movement, see for instance the Battle of Rossbach
• Very rapid mobilization capability, especially after the reforms of von Roon
• General orders and mission tactics–officers and even NCOs had more initiative than in any other armies
None of these things are true of the German Army today, though it’s my understanding that the Bundeswehr had a decent reputation in the Cold War.
Some other factors unrelated to the army itself but that contributed:
• Miracle of the House of Brandenburg
• Prussia was the first country with universal, compulsory education (the first teachers were of course retired army officers)
• The Prussian railway system was better developed than the Austrian and French systems–this was particularly decisive against Austria
• Krupp chose to center its business on artillery after losing the American railroad market, and Wilhelm II had war ministers who didn’t buy the latest Krupp guns sacked
• The superior German university system made the country #1 in science and maybe engineering as well until 1945
None of these things are true either anymore. At most you can say that Germany continues to excel in engineering.
Would be interesting to see a study on the combat efficiency of German units based on where they came from. How did Austrian officers and units do in WW2 for instance? How did soldiers from Rhenish Prussia (the Rhineland is Catholic and only passed into Prussian possession in 1815) do in the Wars of Unification? How did troops from Bavaria, Baden, Oldenburg, etc. do in WWI?
Informal truces on the Western Front were relatively common. I’ve heard it said that British troops could never get a truce out of Prussians (Bavarians were supposedly amenable), and German troops could never get a truce out of Scots (another martial race).
If you’re going to keep the 25% edge for Germany might want to consider edges for Sweden, Finland, Canada, and Australia as well (if you ever redo this exercise). Perhaps Japan as well (at least in naval conflicts).
Thanks for the substantive comments.
When it comes to doing the next iteration of the CMP, I am going to:
(a) Drop unquantifiable cultural factors, replace them with average national IQ.
(b) Hopefully move all the data online.
Culturally, yes, but it was innate to Prussia (and previously the Teutonic Order State). And the culture in Prussia was created by the Great Elector. His predecessor was better known for hapless, ineffective rule during the Thirty Years War and paying feudal vassage to a Polish king (doesn’t get any lower than that for a Prussian).
During the Thirty Years War Germany was a playground for foreign armies. The most elite armies were then considered to be the Swedish and Spanish armies, though Spain’s reputation was shattered at Rocroi in 1643. Absolutist Sweden was kind of prototype Prussia, except it also had a powerful navy.
Living closely to enemy ethnic groups selects for martial valor, as does dominating other ethnic groups domestically. Certainly culturally, and possibly biologically as well. Hence why I noted that the Hohenzollerns and East Elbian Junkers were Marcher Lords. The Sonderweg theory that Germany is special or took some kind of fatal wrong turn in being unified by Prussia is wrong. Marcher Lords very often take over states for obvious reasons. This happened frequently in the Roman Empire, and the House of Tudor came from the Welsh marches.
It’s an interesting idea that should be researched (not by me). Scots, Ulstermen, American Southerners, India’s Rajputs, Finland Swedes, Spartans, Normans, Cossacks, and Order knights all come to mind.
A great last gasp example of Scottish military valor is Colin “Mad Mitch” Mitchell of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who happily called himself a “nigger-bashing imperialist”.
That still leaves the question of why Canadians and ANZACs were better soldiers than Englishment in WWI, though maybe that was just down to better health and nutrition.
The question could be researched by looking at marcher populations who moved elsewhere. Like I suggested earlier, a good starting point would be comparing the relative combat efficiency of German units based on region from 1864-1945. Then look at the military enthusiasm and records of various martial populations who emigrated.
I still assume that the Bundeswehr in the Cold War was worse than its predecessors as it was no longer the most prestigious institution in Germany (far from it), and the destruction of the Junkers was certainly devastating to the German Army.
That said, in the Cold War the government encouraged the Clean Wehrmacht myth and even partially rehabilitated the Waffen SS’s image. The Bundeswehr was organized and led by former Wehrmacht officers with sterling war records. Still, discipline and personnel recruitment were not even close to what they had been previously. This was incidentally quite difficult for Adenauer as he hated Prussia and considered it to not really be German.
Today of course there’s a new “scandal” every month about finding that some remote barracks was named after a Prussian officer who said mean things about Poles or some other such nonsense, and like every other Western military women are admitted. I would expect the German military to perform worse than other Western countries, at least initially.
Another thing I forgot to mention in the previous post was military discipline. At the end of 1918 the German armed forces basically collapsed, especially the navy but to some degree also in the army. The officer corps drew the lesson from this that much harsher discipline was required. As a result in 1944-1945 something like 15,000 deserters were executed, and military police were an elite unit (requiring three years of service on the front). They were right, hence why German soldiers kept resisting and fighting fanatically right down to the end against hopeless odds. No discipline like that today obviously.
Stalin of course had similar ideas. And he wasn’t wrong (though blocking battalions maybe not the best way to go about it).
There are no doubt quantifiable factors other than IQ however. A lot of them in fact.
At the HBD level you could incorporate diversity (or lack thereof), degree of inbreeding, and big five personality factors.
On the non-HBD level you can look at time spent training, munitions expended in training, exercises conducted, etc.
The way it is usually presented by the opposition media (ethnic Chinese living overseas), is that Xianjing and Tibet are really expensive to control and that, if you could somehow visit those regions you would see a very great presence of security officers on the street. Some really crazy ratio, like, perhaps even 1:10.
I’ve always been suspicious of the general idea. If it is ethnic tensions, Han seem so much more numerous than Uighurs or Tibetans, that I don’t think it would cut into the GDP. I also don’t believe you’d need such a high ratio for law and order. Besides, which, India would probably be more of a powderkeg-type environment than China.
However, the one example that is called to mind is East Germany. The communist regimes in Eastern Europe were pretty obscurantist when it came to their budgets. The East German state spent a truly massive amount on internal security. I once read a fairly fat book about the German-German border. It came out in the ’80s, before the Wall fell, and there wasn’t even the slightest mention of cost, which leads me to believe it was successfully obscured.
I’d guess the Chinese border doesn’t require the same level of security, but that still leaves the internal component. Still dubious, but, as far as I know, a tourist can’t easily travel to those places, which naturally invites a certain amount of suspicion.
I’d be curious of your take, Talha: do you think the House of Saud coming to power was bad for Arabia? In other words, would the Hashemites have done a better job? Or is it just something particular about the desert that makes Saudi Arabia into Saudi Arabia?
I view it more as a formlessness, but you are quite right, the political class are united in a way they arguably never were before. One malign example being the EU; another, likely NATO. Foreign aid may be another indicator.
The Russian 2016 budget included early pay off of a 700 billion ruble military industry bank loan in addition to the 3145 billion actual military budget. It was added at the end of the year and had no impact on the military activity etc. The budget for 2017 was supposed to be 2840 billion rubles, but in October it was reported that the government wanted to boost it to 3050 billion. Of course there is also some inflation to consider, but still the difference shouldn’t actually be too significant. Inflation overrall slowed seriously last year, but I don’t know how it was specifically in the military sphere.
You have to think about how dangerous they would be if the U. S. didn’t spend on defense. Well, on second thought, I guess some of you don’t think about that.
hence why German soldiers kept resisting and fighting fanatically right down to the end against hopeless odds.
Yeah, and you certainly didn’t want to end up wounded.
I think you yourself can answer this; even the Hashemites in Jordan would easily be preferable. The establishment of the Saudi monarchy was bad for the world.
Remember, they came out of the Najd area; Ibn Saud was the king/emir of that region. Read Islamic history; nothing that has ever arisen from the Najd has ever been positive – though there are some individuals that are good people there – as a whole, it is lacking in blessings:
Ibn Umar said: ‘The Prophet (s.w.s.) mentioned: “O Allah, give us baraka (blessings) in our Syria, O Allah, give us baraka in our Yemen.” They said: “And in our Najd?” and he said: “O Allah, give us baraka in our Syria, O Allah, give us baraka in our Yemen.” They said: “And in our Najd?” and I believe that he said the third time: “In that place are earthquakes, and seditions, and in that place shall rise the devil’s horn [qarn al-shaytan].”’ -reported in Bukhari
The scholars mention that the word used in Arabic is qarn; which can mean ‘horn’ or ‘generation’ – in this case, the ‘generation of the devil’. After the collapse of the Umayyads, the Najd area has generally been a backwater no man’s land, left alone for ages by the succeeding caliphates. They are not fit for leadership and have had ample time to prove to everyone why.
Anybody but the Najdis would have been preferable.
Peace.
Anatoly Cucklin still never answers how an Indian Army composed entirely of Sikh, Jat, Rajput gets -50%.
It’s w/e these inferior races conquered by the descendants of a literal incestuous pimp will always be hateful in grates।।
No point explaining the details of an entire continent to them let them keep worshipping chosen people kek
Yep, and that is how it looks like compared to past and future budgets.
http://forum.keypublishing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=251942&d=1489741075
I think it’s a bit of a false dichotomy to envision “the US spends a third of the world military budget on defense and yet Russia and Iran are painted as extremely dangerous” vs. “the US spends nothing on the military and we all hope to sing Kumbaya with Iran and Russia.”
I mention the Jewish Bhenchod Abraham because ultimately these I’m not religious I’m just gonna be a space pirate cool doodz like Karlin, are ultimately infected with the Monotheist virus।।
https://twitter.com/EPButler/status/987375413700816896?s=20
So it’s to be expected that they hate Heathens,
O well, the Dharma will rule the world & the founders of the Endian Republic were not pozzed faggots. They were worshippers of the Cut Dicks & knew very well what they’re doing।।
Obviously a people unaccustomed to warfare।।
https://youtu.be/x5iSuUG42bk
Afghan culture – it’s like those two got married and had a kid –
But, Pakistanis only marry their relatives।।
Dollar:Rouble price massively changed in the last 3 years, 2007 is pre-financial crash data ( many western countries are still either only slightly ahead of their GDP level then or not even reached it at all)….plus the war against Georgia and greater and quicker development /application of military tech research back into the civilian sector than before………..this sugests to me not a big deal, and all mainly because of the rouble devaluation
Yeah, marrying into extended family is big there…needs to change:
“According to a study conducted by Dr Muhammad Aslamkhan, founding head of the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Health Sciences Lahore, nearly 82.5% of parents in Pakistan are blood-relatives of first, second or third generations (and so on). Out of these, 6.3% hail from the same extended families or castes while 6.8% are immediate cousins.”
My brother and I broke with that since I married a convert and he married a Memon. It’s not big in the US within Pakistanis, though I read the UK is different.
Peace.
Didn’t watch the video, only looked into it, but aren’t these Sikhs? I think the stereotype of Sikhs is that they are a martial people. A Sikh Army would get bonus points. But obviously not an Indian Army, which is far more diverse and probably has a lot of soldiers from less martial peoples or cultures.
At that time Poland-Lithuania was still quite a regional power. PLus there were actual people inside Prussia who wanted Prussia to become one of Polish voivoidships.
I think it’s a bit of a false dichotomy
Which part of Soviet tanks in Budapest was false?
I’m not sure that Karlin (he can speak for himself) has ever heard of Rajputs or Jats. Sikhs are kind of well known, but their history isn’t to white people.
I only learned of Rajputs when I first visited India in 2016 and visited Udaipur, Rajasthan. I even got to see the last Maharana, who was a jerk and refused to wave back to me.
Your post is literally the first I’ve heard of “Jats”. I’ll look into it.
Point being is that white people are generally ignorant of India and its history for reasons that should be obvious.
I’ll take your word for it that half the Indian Army is these three martial races (I’m assuming the Jats are martial?), but I really have no idea.
As most Hungarians are aware, the Soviets weren’t kicked out of Hungary by anyone. We tried it in 1956, but it didn’t work, and no one sent military aid to us. Budapest was apparently not as important as the Donbas. Anyway, they left out of their own volition.
But what do Soviet tanks in Budapest have to do with the false dichotomy you posed? Except of course that’s it’s also a part of that false dichotomy.
A good analogy. The Russians had no good reason to butt into Hungary in ’56 as today in Donbas.Their spin doctors today are equally uninspiring in finding solid ground for their unwanted incursions into Ukraine, as they were back during the Hungarian unrest. The difference between then and now is that the Soviet Union, with Russia controlling the imperial center, was a much more solid behemoth than the Russia of today.
But what do Soviet tanks in Budapest have to do with the false dichotomy you posed?
It is my refutation of your proposed false dichotomy which I do not accept.
What a stupid remark.
The USSR had an obvious reason to butt into Hungary in 1956–preventing one of its satellite states from exiting the Soviet orbit.
Similarly noting that Russia’s incursions into the Ukraine are “unwanted” is idiotic. Why would Moscow care if the Ukraine wants these incursions? For that matter why would anyone other than the Ukrainians themselves care?
With regard to Iran and Russia vis-à-vis the U.S., there is some value in sticking with the devil that you know.
Why should one country dictate the policies of another? Hungary finally broke away, and Ukraine is following suit.
Why? Ukraine is a relatively large country within an important geographic zone. It’s also a country that has been a satellite country for Russia and would fit nicely into Russia’s Eurasian schemes, if it were cooperative. It’s importance ha been noted by the cynical grandmaster of international chess, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as the key to controlling Eurasia. Thus, it has become an important piece of diplomacy (not a pawn, I may add) being contested between Russia and America. Who do you think is winning at this point?
Three steps to a roughly accurate measure of a country’s real military spending (PPP):
1) take nominal military spending, minus arms imports*
2) multiply by ratio of PPP-adjusted GDP to nominal GDP
3) add arms imports
This produces the following rankings for 2017:
USA $610 billion
China $433 billion
India $219 billion
Saudi Arabia $192 billion
Russia $178 billion
France $57 billion
UK $47 billion
Japan $45 billion
Iran $44 billion
Germany $44 billion
The aim is to become self-sufficient in agriculture in 2023. Until the last couple of years, 40% of food was imported, although this is now changing (with the move to self-sufficiency finalizing in 2023).
Either way, the multi-year increase is very, very significant increase in military expenditure. 87.2% increase in military budget in nominal terms, over ten years. I’m not sure if the increase is more or less in real terms – but either way a very significant increase.
The annual fluctuation of 2017 compared to 2016 – whatever accounting cause – seems minor in this perspective.
As he’s explained many times and you clearly are daft not to understand by this point, he considers Ukraine as “country” like unicorn is an “animal.” Only the latter actually can exist as heraldry and mythology to provide beauty and grace, while the former just cultivates gay parades.
The reality is that there are over 40 million people that inhabit the very real country of Ukraine, that want it to exist in the family of world nations, and are willing to give their lives to see that it continues to exist. It has its own language, history, literature and its own governments, universities, mail system, news sources, television and radio stations and armed forces. It really doesn’t matter what a few flakes like you or anybody else thinks is real or is not. The insane asylums are full of lunatics that see the world in their own unique way.
Eisenhower, I think, was very practical. In 1956, I don’t think that one could realistically give aid to Hungary. If armies had been sent in that would have caused WW3, so you can’t send in armies. Eisenhower was left with the mess that Churchill and FDR had created.
What can you send in? Maybe, you could get away with sending in guns – of course they would be traceable. But what use are guns against tanks? And then it is important to remember the dynamic: it was not just the USSR that wanted to crush Hungary, it was all the quislings of all the puppet states in Eastern Europe.
That I believe is why Gerald Ford later made his infamous remarks in 1976 “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.” I don’t think it is remotely possible that he could have literally been that bone-headed. I think he was trying to maneuver away from being manipulated into fruitless and dangerous conflict by the press. His answer was stupid, but how could he have answered smartly? By saber-rattling?
The CIA acted to help the Tibetans, but that was purposeless, since they stood no chance anyway. In Hungary, it would have only been a repeat of that. Another example would be the Bay of Pigs.
Aside from Daniel Chieh’s well advised rejoinder, there is no “why” here at all.
This is simply how the world works.
Traditionally it was not a satellite country of Russia, but actually part of Russia (and, previously, Poland).
That said your point is fair and well taken. Similarly the Kaiserreich was interested in cultivating a nominally independent Ukrainian satellite state, as was Pilsudsky.
Ford’s remark was allegedly meant to be anticommunist, in that he meant the USA did not accept Soviet domination and that the spirit of Eastern European nations remained unconquered. At least that’s what the administration claimed in the days ahead.
Probably the man who signed the Helsinki Final Accords and continued Detente tacitly accepted Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and blurted it out in an odd way.
Ukraine has about 4 x more people than Hungary is more of a strategic assett worth having, than is Hungary. Denying Russia 40 million people is more significant than is denying it Hungary’s single digit millions.
Speaking of Ukraine, the final round of testing of its Vilkha missile is finally complete and mass production is set to begin. This missile is fully produced in Ukraine (closed production cycle) and is analogous Russia’s current modernized Smerch system:
http://defence-blog.com/missiles/new-ukrainian-high-precision-rockets-system-completes-final-test.html
It’s a remarkable achievement, given the sad state of Ukriane’s defense forces and industry in 2014.
Russian nationalists who hope that Ukriane is forever in 2014 will be dissappointed.
There are also over 40 million people who reside between New York and Washington. I guess that’s now a country.
There are people in Oregon who are convinced they are their own country that should exist in the “family of world nations”.
Ukrainian language–dialect of Russian
Ukrainian history–cradle of Russian civilization, followed by domination by Poland and Russia
Ukrainian literature–have never heard of it, likely doesn’t even exist
Ukrainian government–exists because Boris Yelstin found it was the only way he could replace Gorbachev
Ukrainian universities–established by Poland and Russia, and in any case the fucking city of New York has universities
Ukrainian mail system–established by the Russian Empire
Ukrainian news sources–fake news
Ukrainian television–established in the USSR
Ukrainian radio stations–established in the USSR
Ukrainian armed forces–nice T-72s and MiGs
Maybe it’s not us brah. Maybe it’s you.
Ukrainian statehood is an anomaly which only exists in the event of a power vacuum between Poland and Russia.
You could compare the Ukraine’s contemporary “independence” to the long-time efforts of France to turn the Rhineland into an “independent” French satellite state.
But you won’t because you’re a brainwashed petty-nationalist Ukrocuck who wants to be a loser member of a loser country that doesn’t exist.
KIEV
KIEV
KIEV
KIEV
KIEV
If AP is reading apologies in advance, but Mr. Hack really is…a hack.
What? For the great all-dancing, all-gleaming gay disco of liberalism?
This is good. I hope they get their wish soon.
Karlin deserves praise for forecasting this and reporting accurately on it despite his own nationality and ideology.
To be precise, it was for most of its history a somewhat separate/autonomous part of Poland – when it was run by mostly local princes/magnates with their private armies – and Russia, when it was mostly an autonomous Hetmanate (with its own courts, and even military) and in the end its own SSR. It was fully integrated with Russia for only 130 years or so. The relationship with Russia was not particularly stable, indicative of its unnatural nature.
He does. He is among the most honest and perceptive of Russian nationalists; perhaps his time away from Russia has given him the quality of objective detachment.
No.
http://contropiano.org/img/2017/11/UzdiaXo.jpg
For Super Mario Galaxy (note the t-shirt). 🙂
I was just thinking that by the very the logic of Russian nationalists (i.e. that Ukrainians are in fact Russians), then logically an independent Ukraine should develop in similar ways to an independent Russia. Thus recent improvements in the Ukraine should have been predicted by them.
The main reason that the Ukraine is so much poorer today than Russia is simply because Ukraine didn’t get its own Putin and the oligarchs continued to run the country into the ground (plus no oil). The reason for this is obviously that the siloviks were for obvious reasons centered in Moscow, so in the Ukraine they were and are much weaker than the oligarchs.
I’m not going to forecast this as I lack knowledge on the ground, but if Ukrainian independence and Western hostility to Russia both persist it’s possible that the Ukraine will become wealthier than Russia in time owing to Western capital, technology, and management.
Eisenhower, I think, was very practical. In 1956, I don’t think that one could realistically give aid to Hungary.
This is undoubtedly true. What is unfortunate then is that the his government, through the CIA, gave encouragement to the Hungarians to resist by leading them to believe that they would receive outside support.
At the end of the day, if this is a civil war – then it is settled out of court. The South wanted to split – they weren’t really a different nation. The Federal government was willing to go gangbusters on them:
http://fighting-the-earth.leadr.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2015/04/Shermans-marsh.jpg
Various regions weren’t willing to pay the zakat to the Hijaz after the Prophet (pbuh) passed away, so they sent in Khalid ibn Walid (ra) to put them in check. Sometimes, that’s what you gotta do – that’s how it works – which side is willing to sacrifice more.:
Ridda Wars in concise, stick-figure history…brilliant!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1w0Y-7BiEY
Peace.
That is interesting, but the UN connection is kind of weird. On Korea, the USSR foolishly made a mistake in the UN. I don’t think they would have done the same regarding Hungary, but perhaps Hungarians at the time would not have had the knowledge to understand how the Security Council worked.
Please tell me more about Europe, yank
indicative of its unnatural nature.
That’s it?
Natural or unnatural?
Do we have to confine ourselves to the Ukrainian question as to what is natural? Because if we can apply this criterion to other situations, I have a list.
Ukrainian language–dialect of Russian
Ukrainian literature–have never heard of it, likely doesn’t even exist
This argument is weak because the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian intellectuals were suppressed at various times.
Not at all. Think about why Occitan and Low German no longer exist.
Meanwhile in Great Britain, the continued and unnecessary existence of hideous Gaelic tongues that sound like a cat being strangled has been slowly unraveling the United Kingdom for the past century.
This is why it’s crucial to terminate the Ukraine’s independence as soon as possible. The longer the Kiev regime exists the greater the danger of a real Ukrainian language and identity.
Just look at Canada. The failures of 1776 and 1812 have led people on both sides of the 49th parallel to accept the bizarre, disgusting existence of Canada as something natural.
Native English are being derided and marginalized as “white English”, while Nigerians and subcons are being called “English.” IMO, the continued existence old Britannic languages is important to the survival of any kind of true nationalism in the UK.
You want me to check white on the census? Fuck you, I’m ____! (fill in the blank: Cornish, Welsh, Scottish, Irish.)
If Ireland had continued to speak Irish as their first language, they would not be as pozzed as they are today. The same is even truer for most of Europe. Local languages and dialects were a barrier to globalists. Shakespeare and Dickens can be translated.
Hitler with extra oil was much more dangerous. Stalin did not understand the effect of sending Soviet oil to Nazi Germany right up to the begining of Barbarossa, eh?
The globalists also like this. Because this is fragmentation. The Irish are different from the Scots, who are different from the Welsh, who are still different from the Cornish. And all of them are different from the white English.
The Nazis gave some privileges to some Jews in the ghetto: all of them were worse off than before, but some of them not as much as others. Those who received some privileges clang to them, and helped the Nazis round up the rest of the Jews. In the end, all of them were deported and killed.
The moral of the story is that such differences are bad, not good. The privileges given to the Irish over the “white English” (in England, I suppose; in Ireland they would be “white Irish”) is by design, and the globalists want it that way.
Apparently he didn’t.
Or actually, he did, in the sense that he did understand how Hitler needed the oil. What Stalin couldn’t comprehend is how Hitler was willing to risk everything when all he had was the Romanian oil and some synthetic production, plus the reserves he bought from him (Stalin). Stalin thought that would be insanity. So Stalin thought that Hitler would do as he (Stalin) would do if he were in Berlin: first finish of the British Empire, and only after that turn on the USSR. So Stalin thought he still had some time.
Ebonics for all!
No, it is a false dichotomy: either Soviet tanks in Budapest, or US military action against Iran and “vital US interests” in Ukraine.
Eisenhower was wise. I didn’t say otherwise.
Ukraine is a “strategic asset worth having” only if you are
interested in attacking Russia or
interested in colonizing Ukraine
Otherwise, a neutral Ukraine would be just fine. The irony is that by giving Ukraine the (false?) hope of joining the West, the Russians felt compelled to do something. In other words, if Russia was sure that Ukraine was to stay neutral forever, it would probably not have annexed Crimea etc.
Stuermer has spoken with Putin about these issues repeatedly and he says Putin’s objective is a Russian led international energy order with moderately high prices.
Gazprom has not been included in the sanctions because the West (Germany) needs those supplies. Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline is being built to make sure it gets them, come what may. Putin aganda would seem to preculde him supporting Iran. Now that the they are no longer needed in Syria.
The UN as such had only existed for 11 years in 1956, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that the communist Hungarian press didn’t go out of its way to explain to Hungarians what kind of mistake in 1950 the USSR made. So I think many Hungarians didn’t fully understand what was and what was not possible in the UNSC. But people were vaguely aware that Korea received military assistance with some kind of UN blessing. So it sounded realistic, especially because under communism people trusted Radio Free Europe, which provided supposedly objective news, as opposed to the official communist propaganda.
74.40 or fight!
I don’t see any good reason to think that the US would be better off with Canada as a part of the US.
Although, I have thought that it might be nice to have the prairie provinces, maybe BC if they would keep Vancouver.
They are a “martial” race in the context of the Indian subcontinent. Which is to say they are more manly than the average Pajeet.
The total number of Sikhs in the British Armed Forces is less than 150, out of a total force of 150,000. There are over 430,000 Sikhs in the UK from a total population of 65 million. That means on average they are nearly 7x under represented compared to the national average. The same sort of under-representation is true in Canada as well, they are only overrepresented in India itself.
I actually watched the video, or rather two thirds of it. I understand the intention was to impress the viewer of the Sikhs as a manly virile people but all I got from it was the usual hollow posturing machismo that is endemic to South Asia.
Are the North Koreans less formidable soldiers because the have the smallest penes in the world? Richard Lynn can’t be wrong about everything.
…more like 22-25 million you idiot
…very fake, abnormal, artificial country whose fathers are Stalin and Lenin mainly
…you mean leave by the millions…or if they do try and “help” it….then they invariable fuck it up even more. How’s that daft retard Canadian Nazi bitch doing with the health there?(poorly) ..Jaresko has gone very quickly back to the US …the “Ukrainian” “patriot” that she is
…no it doesn’t..you remember that Yushchenko clip I linked here?
…you really want to claim ownership of the freakshow?
Even if you did…this government set-up directly or behind the scenes of Gruzians, Poles,Lithuanians,Canadians and the Americans(of whom they are a puppet state of now) is really not “Ukrainian”…the oligarchs though who control even more % of a much smaller pie of shit now , thean 4 years before…..you can have them…they are “Ukrainian? in the truest sense
…errm no it doesn’t…SHARED history of the Russian peoples yes
….before the bans, Russian television shows on state tv were the most watched in Ukraine, radio followed keenly, most Ukrainian media publications have the same titles as you would only find in Russia/Belarus ( hmmm..I wonder why?), pretty much every Russian music group, singer, tv health doctor is famous in Ukraine and vice-versa…and these same people are virtually anonymous outside the post-soviet space ( not even post-Warsaw pact countries)..this is because Russians and Ukrainians are the same people
..yes the ones in Ukraine with the rich Soviet history do offer academic excellence
..hahahahaha! You want to claim ownership of these suicidal, war-crime loving dipshits ?( except the true patriots who have defected by the bucketload)
Stalin sent oil to facilitate the attack on the West, because was a Marxist who thought capitalist powers would fight each other to exhaustion, whereupon he could walk in. However, Russia’s fate is to do the West’s fighting for it. A war with China would be the same.
You seem to have the mistaken idea that Ukraine is to Russia as Taiwan is to China.
Ebonics is for people who don’t know how to speak a language. There is no poetry or epic literature in ebonics. Still, maybe it is a good strategy to promote ebonics. Maybe, blacks should be encouraged to speak a different tongue in the West. It might limit the egalitarian impulse, and the decadence of rap, etc. Or perhaps better yet, they should be immersed in real African languages. Maybe, sports terms should be replaced with African ones, once the players reach a certain threshold. Even on national teams.
What is that test they give in Africa to hide their PISA results? Maybe, we should give that in America to prevent people from constantly talking about “closing the gap.”
Could not some or all of the underrepresentation be due to their requirement to wear their funny headgears?
Are you are impaired? It’s in an even worse and more failed state now then it was then. This is worse then the post-Orange situation…..that is, unless you think cleaning toilets in the EU is a wonderful life choice
The Polish elites disagree, for good reason. Pilsudski was right, you know. He did not want Ukraine on his side as a first step to a conquest of Moscow. Ukraine and its 40 million make central Europe more important and viable as an independent historical actor. Conversely, a Ukraine linked to Russia expands “Russia’s” population by about a third.
This is a fantasy. It was possible in the 1920s. Impossible in the 2020s. The Russians didn’t dare do it in 2014.
What would have been possible is a neutral Ukraine. It’s no longer possible.
Absorbed and snuffed out centuries earlier.
You are writing 200 years too late.
Even in 1917 most Ukrainians voted for Ukrainian nationalist parties and during the Civil War there were no pro-Russian military formations or commanders from Ukraine. There were mostly a bunch of disorganized nationalists, anarchists and a small number of Commies, all of whom despised Russian patriots.
Indeed, whenever there was a war or invasion people in Ukraine behaved as do occupied peoples like Poles or Balts, and not like “other Russians” as in Oryl or Pskov. Join the invaders, rebel, “betray.” If Occitania were analogous to Ukraine Occitanians would joined the Germans during various wars.
If Ukraine were an organic or natural part of Russia its people would behave like people from Oryol or Volgograd or Pskov. Instead they act like Balts or Poles, rebelling or joining any western invader when given the chance. Deluded Russian nationalists who really believe that Ukraine is Russia think this is “betrayal.”
Putin’s Power of Siberia pipline, biggest project in 25 years. Biggest mistake since Stalin sent oil to Hitler
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/ft-ig-content-prod/v2/ft-interactive/gas-pipelines/video/drone-footage.mp4
There are already said to be several million Chinese who have moved to Siberia.
And I thought that you were doing so well after just one treatment?…It looks like a follow-up treatment is looming on the horizon….(#145, you know the one!)
Never stopped the Brits from using them before. The problem is; why would any person want to join the British (or US) forces other than out of some misplaced patriotism? They don’t defend Britain – they ride shotgun with the US on any imperial adventures it goes cowboy on across the world.
And it’s not easy either, the people fight back, it’s not like Grenada or Panama – you want to come back missing a leg to help make sure this guy’s guarantee works out?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHmhf_wrcrM
And then you wrestle with demons for the rest of your life until you take the shotgun-to-the-face exit:
“Roughly 20 veterans a day commit suicide nationwide, according to new data from the Department of Veterans Affairs — a figure that dispels the often quoted, but problematic, ’22 a day’ estimate yet solidifies the disturbing mental health crisis the number implied.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2016/07/07/new-va-study-finds-20-veterans-commit-suicide-each-day/
Peace.
On Korea, the USSR foolishly made a mistake in the UN
This is certainly the conventional wisdom, but apparently it was not a mistake but a calculated decision.
Unlikely. Like Ivy League educated blacks, visible underrepresented minorities in the armed services are magic pixie dust to recruiters and the turban has never been a deal breaker. Uniform and equipment regulations are for the native plebes, exemptions have always existed and it doesn’t really preclude a Sikh from joining, particularly those that aren’t super devout which is the vast majority of them. The turban, like similar Jewish and Muslim illogical behavioral norms, is not important in and of itself, it’s primary purpose is for intentional social segregation and signal that this is an outsider (and thus part of his own particular ingroup) and oh “fuck you” to the rest of society.
You have to understand Sikhism for what it is, a failed Hindu reformist movement, like Jainism and Buddhism before it, that tried to end Brahmanical casteism yet ended up defeated and marginalized. Ending up as an endogamous caste in and of itself.
The Ukraine now has positive economic growth, and its armed forces are in better condition.
The worst is clearly over for the Maidan regime.
Cleaning toilets in the EU is positive for the Ukraine as it will reduce unemployment and lead to an inflow of remittances.
Besides, Ukrainians also have the choice of cleaning toilets in Russia and Canada! 🙂
The Ukraine has done worse than any other post-Soviet state other than the extremely fake country of Moldova, and this was the case long before the Maidan. It will be a long time before living standards converge its neighbors. Certainly the Maidan was an “own goal” that did not help matters, of course.
Sounds like a classic ex post facto rationalization to me.
Polish elites disagreed for the simple reason that Poland in the 20th century no longer had the power to challenge Russia at all, unlike Germany.
Polish elites in the 17th century had a decidedly different take on the matter.
The big Polish idea in the past century is that all the third and fourth rate states in between Germany and Russia should band together for mutual protection. Poland, having the largest population of these “intermarum” states, would be primus inter pares.
Completely failed owing to numerous squabbles between these lightweight states, and Poland then went on to feast on scraps of Czechoslovkia thrown to it by the H-man as a practical joke.
The benefits are legion. Annexation of English Canada (Quebec should be an independent protectorate) include:
• Immediate addition of 20-million English-speaking whites to America
• USA becomes world’s largest country by land area (suck it Russia!)
• US oil production immediately increases by one-third
• Major increases in cereals, timber, steel, aluminum, electricity, etc. production
• US EEZ increases by 50% and overtakes France to become #1
• Major increase in Artic shoreline, and can turn the Northwest Passage into territorial waters (something Canada currently claims but America currently rejects)
• American exposure to Canadian medicine might de-pathologize the incredibly stupid healthcare debate in America
• Sets in motion the possibility of other Anglo settler countries joining America (Britain I assume is a bridge too far with its monarchism and presence in Europe)
• Most importantly, I will no longer have to fill out NAFTA certificates or explain to Canadians that no, they do not in fact require CSA approval
There are also major benefits for Canadians such as:
• Canadian per capita GDP would rapidly converge with America’s
• Talented Canadians would finally be able to escape the Canadian jail and join the big leagues instead of pretending like Bay Street is a big deal
• “Hate speech” laws immediately eliminated
• Target will return to Canada, and Canadians finally get Jet.com
• Cheaper postage
• No longer need to use stupid looking Canadian money
• Lower-cost investing options
• Cheaper goods in general
• The endless softwood lumber trade dispute finally ends
• Canadians gain the right to pack some serious firepower
• Americans know how to put the “First Nations” in their rightful place
• The new olympic hockey team will be more competitive, and in general the national team will be more competitive at the winter olympics
It is interesting to contrast the psychology of today with that of the past.
The sheer numbers of Chinese used to seem an enormous threat. Many calculated they would pour into Russia and through Russia into Western Europe, drowning all in their path. Obviously, despite current alliances and falling birthrates, China still remains a massive strategic threat to Russia, although the scenario probably isn’t as apocalyptic today, even though the Chinese army is arguably much stronger.
Today, we are facing an even more apocalyptic threat – the population bomb in Africa, which threatens the whole of Eurasia, including China. But political correctness has hampered the dialogue. Few are speaking about it openly, even though it is known that they want to come.
Possibly, if you’re older, and alcoholic or unemployed, but not among the younger (25-45) year olds that I’m acquainted with in the states. Most are pulling 6 figures or more as systems operators, two gals are making almost as much in the banking sector (strong math backgrounds). Where I’m at it’s lunchtime, but I notice that you write here, it seems like day and night, you’re not working are you? 🙂
The real failure was the CIA and State department inability to heed clear indications and understand the Chinese would come in and do the lion’s share of the fighting. In Nam the Chinese sent 300,000 rear echelon troops to free North Vietnamese for killing American and the threat of a Korea style Chinese intervention was responsible for the paralysis of US military strategy in Vietnam war.
The trade talks with China are ongoing just after Trump apparently successful negotiations with North Korea. The idea that Kim’s sudden nuke and missile progress was facilitated by and is being used by China to make their help necessary and a wedge on trade is funny. China defeated the US in Korea and Vietnam, it will win the war for wealth too. There is a Chinese factory complex making laptops that has more people than the entire British army–economies of scale makes such installations unbeatable. Elon Musk has the supposedly biggest factory in the world, but the products have to be dumped on Mars.
This was in reference to previous poster Gerard2, who mentioned toilets. I’m aware that many Ukrainians are skilled.
Karlin’s blog has been quite good lately so I make sure to keep up with the comments. This can be my vice (if one can call it that) as I am not on social media (other than LinkedIn) and generally don’t comment elsewhere.
It is daytime here and I am in my private office.
Trebek is already a citizen and John Candy died years ago. Who else is there?
Terrance and Phillip?
I admire Alex Trebek too. He’s another one of those Ukies that can bee seen eating his share of pierogies at Ukrainian festivals in North America. We can be found everywhere, and we’re proud of our ethnicity!
https://youtu.be/CtUO_UkvSHw
Tupac was a bit poetic. And his life a bit of an epic literature.
I wonder if Surkov was joking when claimed 2pac as the only interesting thing Americans have produced in the cultural sphere of the last twenty years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyKDhhyIGNQ
There seems to be a apocryphal story about Surkov keeping a picture of Tupac on his desk next to Putin. Without knowing much about the man, I’m inclined to think it is one of his favorite jokes to rib the US with Tupac, and, in so doing, to also mess with gullible journalists.
When sanctions were put on him in 2014, he said, “The U.S. I am interested in is Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work. So I lose nothing.”
I’d never speak the name of anyone I secretly revere in the same breath with Ginsberg or Pollock, but that is the spin some facetious journalists have put on it – that he is secretly a fan of all three.
Correct, and under such conditions Poland’s approach was the most reasonable one.
In the 17th century “Polish” elites weren’t Polish in the modern sense. They were simply nobles, some would nowadays be Ukrainians or Lithuanians as well as Poles. Nobles thought of themselves as a different people than peasants (there was the idea that they were descendants of Sarmatians, while the peasants were Slavs, good for nothing but servitude).
The punishment they received for their squabbling brought them some wisdom. This, plus the relative weakness of both the West and Russia than in the mid 20th century, makes the project much more viable now than it was before.
Most Sikh are Jat.
https://twitter.com/i/moments/886381027622621184?s=13
We technically Chandalas not even Ksytria, still out fighting everyone।। xD
भगवन् सर्वं भूतेश सर्व धर्म विदांबरः।
कृपया कथ्यतां नाथ जाटानां जन्म कर्मजम् ।।12।।
Translation – Pārvatī asks Shiva, O Lord Bhutesha, knower of all religions, kindly narrate about the birth and exploits of the Jat race.
का च माता पिता ह्वेषां का जाति वद किकुलं।
कस्तिन काले शुभे जाता प्रश्नानेतान वद प्रभो ।।13।।
Translation – Pārvatī asks Shiva, Who is their father?, Who is their mother? Which race are they? When were they born?
श्रृणु देवि जगद्वन्दे सत्यमं सत्यमं वदामिते।
जटानां जन्मकर्माणि यन्न पूर्व प्रकाशितं ।।14।।
Translation – Having read the mind of Parvati, Shiva said, “O mother of the world, I may tell you honestly the origin and exploits of the Jats about whom none else has so far revealed anything to you.
महाबला महावीर्या, महासत्य पराक्रमाः Mahābalā mahāvīryā, Mahāsatya parākramāḥ
सर्वाग्रे क्षत्रिया जट्टा देवकल्पा दृढ़-व्रता: Sarvāgre kshatriyā jattā Devakalpā dridh-vratāḥ ।।15।।
Translation – “Shiva said, They are symbol of sacrifice, bravery and industry. They are, like gods, firm of determination and of all the kshatriyā, the Jats are the prime rulers of the earth.”
श्रृष्टेरादौ महामाये वीर भद्रस्य शक्तित: Shrishterādau mahāmāye Virabhadrasya shaktitaḥ
कन्यानां दक्षस्य गर्भे जाता जट्टा महेश्वरी Kanyānām Dakshasya garbhe jātā jattā maheshwarī. ।।16।।
Translation – “Shiva said, In the beginning of the universe with the personification of the illusionary powers of Virabhadra and Daksha’s daughter gani’s womb originated the caste of Jats.”
गर्व खर्चोत्र विग्राणां देवानां च महेश्वरी Garva kharchotra vigrānam devānām cha maheshwarī
विचित्रं विस्मयं सत्वं पौराण कै साङ्गीपितं Vichitram vismayam satvam Pauran kai sāngīpitam ।।17।।
Translation – “Shiva said, The history of origin of Jats is extremely wonderful and their antiquity glorious. The Pundits of history did not record their annals, lest it should injure and impair their false pride and of the vipras and gods.”
More on this.
Not modern, but an interesting dataset which certainly suggests Bundeswehr skill during the Cold War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Army_Trophy
German units won the Canadian Army Trophy 35% of the time, and the platoon/section trophy 55% of the time.
USA’s performance is notably appalling.
Russia has a modern-day equivalent in which a number of countries participate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_biathlon
War games are another highly useful dataset. International war games are sufficiently high profile that it should be possible to build a comprehensive dataset.
You can probably fine tune military capital in a number of ways as well. As an example, what’s the total payload capacity of a given country’s air force?
Toxic masculinity goy।।
I just happened to be listening to the song at the time.
Listening to this song Jigri Yaar off Rupinder Gandhi now, but not gonna post it when posting GurBani।।
Idk, I think it’s Sikh duty to be strong/warrior. If they not then they not real Sikh।।
If they’re weak then they should go lift।।
https://i.imgur.com/7cKMPtN.png
Agreed.
Even if this is correct, they were still a ruling class who controlled a state and an army. My point was that Poland’s policy in the past century was a reflection of its weakness.
And I’d be interested in @Polish Perspective weighing in if he’s reading this. Lots of pinko faggot “intellectuals” claim nationalism is a 19th century invention, which is complete bullshit. But national consciousness develops at different times in different places so you may be completely correct.
I don’t know about wisdom–Poland’s leaders today strike me as boneheads, even if they generally have the right idea. Kind of like DJT without the razzle dazzle.
Rather WW2 successfully ethnically cleansed all of Europe, so now there’s nothing to squabble about and these states can focus on their common interest of avoiding falling under German (now Western perhaps?) or Russian domination. Plus they all quietly accept German economic domination anyway, as in fact many of these states did in the interwar period as well.
I don’t think the Duke of Qin’s example is relevant, as in Britain Sikhs are an alien element and obviously don’t identify with the country they’re more or less invading. So we can’t look at the diaspora of any of India’s martial races. They have to go back. 😉
But we can look at martial European groups that emigrated to the New World.
Another interesting possibility would be to study the “Confederados”, the ex-Confederates who emigrated to Brazil. It would be especially helpful if some of the Confederados happened to be Scotch-Irish, who are known to be the most martial of all Americans.
…..already 10% of the Ukrainian population, that’s without factoring in the toilet cleaners and prostitutes from Ivano-Frankovsk.
….it’s the over 45-50’s who are cleaning toilets and into prostitution? What is wrong with you. And I wouldn’t tolerate an alcoholic toilet cleaner…it requires sobriety….but evidently alcoholism is a “virtue” for illegal Presidents in Ukraine.
Even if we take your ( clearly BS ) claims at face value…then it’s most likely Soviet people definitely not identifying as “Ukrainians” and/or their first generation kids (incidentally “Ukrainian” immigrants in US are on the lowest pay-level historically compared to the other many ,many migrant groups from Europe) ….what we are not talking about here is Ukrops who have suddenly gone to North America after February 2014 and are now suddenly making these fictitious amounts of money
He’s half-Black, figures.
So what? That’s completely irrelevant..whoever said it was going to be a bottomless pit of descent in Ukraine’s GDP? The fact is this “growth ” is absurdly abysmal, 0.2% in last quarter of 2017 ( they cheated and changed the figures to slightly higher but still very low figure)industry nowhere in practically all sectors, likewise services, huge population loss, FDI nowhere, trade nowhere, crime?…at skyhigh levels throughout the country, corruption? through the roof–and it was already obscene before. After a 20% loss in GDP , they should now be experiencing at least a 5-7% increase in GDP per annum…they are so far away from this it’s beyond a joke.
Libya is in growth ( and their population still earning more than ukrops…as are Iraq’s), Iran under sanctions has still been growing nicely, even Syria’s is growing…and all of these at much higher rates than Ukraine’s failed economy is doing. All those facts still don’t take away from the fact that all those countries, with the exemption of Iran are in a dreadful position. Almost all countries have faced a fight to get to their pre financial crash 2008 GDP levels…but Ukraine is struggling to get to their pre-1991 levels, before that it ,must get to it’s 2013 levels ( which should about take 15+ years) ..and in turn must get into it’s still inadequate 2008 levels ( which would have been still much lower if Yanukovich had not been PM at the time to try and repair the farce from the Yushchenko/Tymoshenko idiot competition)_
….don’t make me laugh…this is probably worse for them then it was for the Gruzians in 2008
…well here’s the thing…this absymal “growth”, is pretty much down to the increase in remittances over the same period….that’s it! Nothing to do with the internal dynamics of the Ukrainian economy
I would take it that Priednistroviye has made more of a success of itself , much more, than Ukraine has since Independence. Ukraine has had every possible positive thing going for it to be not just the most successful ex-USSR country…but even the most successful ex-Warsaw Pact country ( with the exception of perhaps Czechs/Slovaks & maybe Hungary)…in a much more advantageous position than Moldova in 1991….but it has failed spectacularly.
Thanks, this is pretty interesting. And I agree that it’s much better than nothing.
I notice that the Wiki also links to this. For all the stories of Germans practicing with brooms instead of rifles, it appears that the Germanics continue to do very well: Germany came first in 2016, and second in 2017 (Austria was first).
Tank biathlons organized by Russia are only interesting in that they show Russia is consistently ahead of China, which is usually 2nd, and that India does very badly.
….again…more attention-whore lies from a sociopathic retarded scumbag who would commit suicide due to shame if anonymity as a POS was lost.
In terms of “differences” promoted by fucktard,spambot propagnda algorithm accounts….here are the actual facts :-
reading habits, music habits, education habits, criminality habits, eating habits, temperamental habits, television-viewing habits, social-media habits (well until their authority retards decided to ban Russian popular sites).inter-marrying habits, the style,temperament and wisdom of a babushka in a “Ukrainian” village is identical to that of a Russian one, the occasional bad-driving habits, comedy habits, historical idols, architectural habits and..of course…language …. and zillion more things are identical for Ukraine and Russia like they are for no two other states, because they are the same people you fucked in the head time-wasting spambot troll cunt
Your original claim was:
Let’s unpack this.
First–low growth after big GDP loss. Completely true, but point being it seems the worst is over. We’ll see what the Ukrainian government does from now. Low hanging fruit would be permitting the sale of agricultural land, at the very least to other Ukrainians.
Huge population loss is at this time useful for the Ukraine for reasons I mentioned earlier.
I don’t know the FDI levels for the Ukraine (I assume they are nonexistent) and am not going to look them up, but if the Ukraine can create some reasonable certainly for foreign investors there is obviously great potential here. And since the Ukrainian regime is more or less a Western puppet government I don’t see why that would be impossible.
And bear in mind that I am not a Ukrainophile or a Russophobe. In fact if you read many of my other comments you’ll see that I am annoyed by Ukrainian independence.
None the less, I get the impression that Ukrainian state capacity has improved since the Maidan.
Libya has recovering oil production, and the fact that Arabs outbreed whites is not exactly newsworthy. Iran has been under sanctions since 1979 and has adapted.
As for Syria the IMF has this to say: https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/SYR#featured (no data)
The CIA claims -10%, but the latest year is 2014.
The World Bank also doesn’t show recent data.
That said I would expect a recovering economy in much of Syria as so much of Syria has recently been reconquered from various jihadists. The Ukraine on the other hand did not retake the Donets Basin (let alone Crimea) and has obviously lost a lot of the Russian market.
The Ukraine is indeed fighting (hopefully?) to restore its economy, but note that I said that the Ukraine’s entire post-Soviet experience has been dreadful. The Maidan was an own goal which made things worse, but the deterioration from that appears to have now ended.
I had to look up “Gruzians”. Is this what Russians call Georgians?
I have no way of assessing this and rely on Anatoly Karlin’s observations, which I generally trust.
If the two of you wish to debate that would be interesting.
Something like one twentieth of Moldova’s GDP was recently stolen by criminals I heard. This isn’t a rumor or anything, I just don’t recall the details or the exact sum. And the per capita GDP of Moldova is lower than the Ukraine, though the development since 1991 I do not know. I assume the Ukraine was one of the wealthier parts of the USSR based on its agriculture, industry, mines, etc. No clue how Bessarabia rated in the USSR.
I had to look up “Priednistroviye” as well. I don’t know much about Transnistria.
One eighth of their GDP! 🙂
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/color-of-theft/
Its color revolution was called the “Twitter Revolution.” Ponder on that for a moment.
It is indeed hard to imagine a country that is more fake and gay than Moldova.
Austrians are just Germans, no need to refer to them as Germanics which is a much more expansive term.
The results of the Russian tank biathalon in fact strike me as quite interesting. A shame more countries don’t participate.
I was not aware of the Strong Europe Tank Challenge, but indeed it seems Germans are doing well. I always assumed the broom stuff was just goldbricking. Small sample size however and limited number of entrants. Let’s hope it continues.
There’s also some kind of global special forces competition, but I don’t remember what it’s called or where it’s held (not talking about the one in Jordan). I believe GSG 9 has done well in it many times.
Some people think that the Ukraine is to Russia as Tibet is to China.
whenever there was a war or invasion people in Ukraine behaved as do occupied peoples like Poles or Balts
If this is true, and is not just isolated incidents, this would be a double plus good point for your side.
Mercenary used to be an honorable profession. I guess it’s just another indication of how degraded civilization had become.
(Britain I assume is a bridge too far
Forget the bridge, we could build a tunnel.
Compared to average population, being Russian nationalist would show some degree of correlation with being more pro-Ukraine, everything thing else equal.
It’s not that all or even most nationalists are pro-Kiev. But they will be in higher frequency than in a non-nationalist sample group.
Mr. Karlin,
Unless the Russians are sourcing, both, their weapon systems and their rank and file guys from abroad, perhaps you should have re-conciliated for that dollar figure you are presenting to us. How much has the budget changed in terms of their national currency, is what I am trying to ask.
I assume Russians practice more for it since it’s their event.
Consistently strong performance of China is impressive, and suggests its soldiers are plain better than India’s, apart from also being much better equipped these days (though we already knew that based on low Indian IQ and indeed the consistently poor Indian military performance against China). I have noticed that both Western and Russian (no, not just Admiral Martyanov) military experts have a persistent habit of belittling Chinese military capabilities. I suspect they may be in for a surprise.
Just Googled, spec forces competition may be this one.
2009 – Jordan: General Intelligence Directorate
2010 – United States: United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance
2011 – Austria: EKO Cobra
2012 – Germany: GSG9
2013 – China: Snow Leopard Commando Unit
2014 – China: Snow Leopard Commando Unit
2015 – Russia: SOBR
2016 – Lebanon: Black Panthers
2017 – China: Sky Sword Unit of the PAP
China seems to absolutely dominate this: https://www.popsci.com/blog-network/eastern-arsenal/chinese-special-forces-take-1st-2nd-and-4th-place-%E2%80%9Colympics%E2%80%9D-elite
Actually rather surprised about this, my Sinotriumphalism regardless. Driving a tank and firing rounds from it accurately would appear to cater to Mongoloid strengths (visuo-spatial acuity), while spec forces performance would seem to be more of an Indo-European thing (the grit, brawn, teamwork, and spirit of a band of battle brothers). But perhaps they just don’t send their best.
“Soviet collapse is complex but ultimately down to a loss of morale.”
Having lived through those times in the Eastern Block, I cannot agree more. The so called “collapse” took place, mainly, in the psychological plane. Oil crises, military spending, etc. did not have a whole lot to do with the socialist system’s internally-directed breakdown (materially speaking, most people were quite well off during the end of the 80’s). Our elites simply believed that they could be a part of the boys’ club (they were wrong, their allocated place was with the servants) and the rest is history..
I really don’t think this is accurate.
You could say that Russian nationalists would have a strange bipolar distribution, with well higher than average numbers of both anti-Ukrainians and zaukraintsy relative to the population at large (this would be correct).
However, since zaukrainets Russian nationalists make up no more than 20% of their numbers – frankly, I think it’s no more than 10% – net “anti-Ukrainian index” would still be way higher than the population at large.
It is Ilan Shor, an Israeli local politician, has stolen 12% of Moldovan GDP.
At the time when he was running away from the police, he entered and succeeded in winning an election to become mayor of a city in Moldova.
I guess this is the definition of ‘low state capacity’.
3 years ago – Moldova has given him punishment of 7 years in jail.
However, still today, he did not spend any time in jail, is allowed to live free, and does not tell Moldova where the money is.
It seems last month he is a renting an airport from Kyrgyzstan
http://www.gezitter.org/economics/68897_aeroport_manas_otdan_v_arendu_ilanu_shoru/
No, Duke of Qin is right.
He is a friend of the Sikhs as he offers honest criticism।।
If his comments make even one Arya take up arms to protect his name, he has done more than 99% politicians today & this is commendable.
A Ksytria is only one bout of cowardice from losing his Warriorship।।
http://www.guns.com/2013/03/15/sikh-files-lawsuit-against-california-assault-weapon-ban-violates-freedom-of-religion/
https://i.imgur.com/vNooGHZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/2UstGIH.png
You carry forward the Lineage as well as the name associated with it।।
Most Ethno Nationalist have it backward, as even a man from a contemptible Lineage should consider it an honor to be born there।।
He now has the opportunity to bring it to Greatness Through Battle।।
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾ।।ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ।।
Karlin already covered this:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukrotriumph/
Loss was mostly in the warzone. In 2014-2015 Ukraine’s economy shrank 16%. It collapsed 60% in Donbas (!) but declined only 5% in Lviv.
Lviv is already ahead of where it was in 2013, as are several other regions. Ukraine-outside-Donbas will get there if not by the end of this year than next year. The Sovoks in Donbas, OTOH, are screwed for many years to come.
In summary, “celebration of Ukrainian economic hardship was mostly celebration of economic hardship in the most pro-Russian areas of the Ukraine.”
Russian nationalists who celebrate Ukraine’s supposed hardship and blame the rebellion for it, are really talking about the consequences of rebellion upon the Donbas. The parts of Ukraine that rebelled against Yanukovich are doing relatively fine. The parts that rebelled against Kiev are in squalor.
Well, Ukraine has very low real unemployment now. This is causing some local wages to rise. If you can’t find a job in Ukraine, go to Poland for 6 months and send money back. It is not far – Warsaw is a lot closer to Kiev than Chicago is to New York. You can come home for holidays.
Not much, but not zero. $2.3 billion in 2017:
https://emerging-europe.com/in-brief/perceived-corruption-continues-hold-back-ukraine-fdi/
It screwed the Russian-dependent regions in the East but was good for the western regions. Ukraine had been stagnating prior to Maidan.
It was the poorest of the three Slavic republics. It still has that position, although it has fallen further behind the other two.
More like an 18th century invention. It’s not just a leftist idea, the reactionary Lukacs had the same conclusion.
Correct, in some places it arrived in the 18th century, in others in the 19th century. Tribalism is related but not the same thing – it would be odd to consider Sitting Bull to be a “Sioux nationalist.”
The key time to assimilate peoples is before there was such a thing as national consciousness. That’s when the Provencals were assimilated into the French, it’s how tribals get assimilated. Once a national consciousness develops and is widely adopted, it’s game over. I can’t think of a single example when a nationally conscious people took on a different identity. Can you?
They’ve taken lots of EU money and avoided taking in any Muslims. Trump in contrast has not accomplished much at all. He slowed the flow of illegals a little.
Polish government is reversing this, which is why there are all those Western squeals about Polish “anti-democratic” reforms.
“Pierogies” are Polish, not Ukrainian.
American second- and third-generation immigrants should be banned from ever posting about the Old Country, the results are usually too stupid for words. Just stop.
I also like Lukacs, and read many of his books, but his peculiar ideas might have something to do with him being half-Jewish. Usually a rule of thumb is that the more rootless a person is, the more likely to subscribe to the “nationalism is a Romantic/Enlightenment/[whatever recent] invention” theory.
The origins of nationalism are a bit more complex than that. Most people recognized, for example, if their dialects were closer to one neighbor than another. Often there was some sort of (usually ill-defined) ethnic identity, which in some cases (ancient Greeks, at least some ancient Jews, etc.) was somewhat similar to modern nationalistic feelings (the ideal of unity, at least in the face of outside danger, self-sacrifice against foreigners, a sense of superiority over others, especially neighbors, etc.)
Now such pre-nationalist ethnic solidarity was still relatively malleable, in no small part because people often were unaware of the size of the wider world. It was possible for people to be extremely parochial and petty tribal against other tribes of their own ethnicity, but the appearance of foreign conquerors often changed the sentiments. I have read a few writings of Hungarian aristocrats from the time of the Ottoman occupation (roughly 1526-1686), and they pretty much had a sense of some kind of Hungarian national feeling. Not just “Christians,” because they were often opposed to “German” (i.e. Habsburg) policies. After liberation, there was an insurgency against Habsburg rule in Hungary, and (surprise, surprise) it had most support in ethnically Hungarian areas. It was led by an aristocrat, many aristocrats (it’s unclear if it was most of them; many remained Habsburg loyalists) and the majority of the nobility joined it, and so did apparently the peasantry (which provided the mass of its soldiers). It was only successful in ethnically Hungarian areas, with the most strongly opposed being ethnically German areas. (No surprise, in a freedom fight against “German” rule…) Although it’s difficult to prove, it might have reinforced the idea of repopulating the country after the devastation of the Ottoman wars (and the unsuccessful rebellion against the Habsburgs…) by inviting ethnically German settlers.
The book I read on the topic is Azar Gat’s Nations. He claims that it was only the modern form of nationalism which was invented after or during the enlightenment, but some kind of raw pre-nationalism did often exist, and some kind of vague ethnic solidarity always existed against outsiders. Basically, nationalists only had to reinforce the sense of ethnic solidarity (which was easy, unlike internationalist solidarity, which usually fell on deaf ears), and sometimes had to convince two or three ethnic groups that they really belonged to the same nation (like the French with regards to Occitanie, or Russians – unsuccessfully, in that case – with regards the Ukraine).
I know you give the Galician Slaughter as a counterexample, but I think there are many examples of people feeling ethnic solidarity and putting their lives on the line in support of it, so I’d think the Galician Slaughter was an exception that proves the rule.
I know a Ukrainian woman here (offshore Portugal) from Lviv who’s son fled Ukraine to avoid military service and is now living and working in Poland. Is this a common situation?
I can’t think of a single example when a nationally conscious people took on a different identity. Can you?
They try.
I assume this number includes population of “people’s republics”, which is rather funny, because for the last 4 years the locals have been giving their lifes fighting Ukrainian occupation.
LMAO, Ukrainians are “doing well” trying to live on $200 average monthly wage. Between 2013 and 2017 the value of US dollar in Ukrainian currency went from 8 to 26. In a country that doesn’t produce anything of what its people need, this caused a lot of hurt. For example, car sales in the Ukraine fell from 200.000 in 2013 to 80.000 in 2017.
This is the effect of losing Donbass: that region used to be a major moneymaker for the Ukraine. It provided export revenues and paid lots of taxes to the government in Kiev.
This is Russian and Ukrainian olygarch money from offshore tax havens. It is only “FDI” in the most technical sense. In reality this investment isn’t actually foreign.
And you could do this before Yanukovich was overthrown. That’s the funniest part for me!
The commenter Mitleser shared this interesting link: https://www.ft.com/content/c1721646-4d51-11e8-8a8e-22951a2d8493 (To circumvent the paywall, you need to search for the title: “Putin looks at mending fences with west to revive Russia’s economy”, then open it from Google.)
I guess we’ll know more next week, but it seems that Putin’s unwillingness to fight the West is now read in some Western circles as a sign of weakness and they now see the possibility of a capitulation. (I’m still struggling to see how the capitulation would work in practice. OK, appoint Kudrin. What then?)
Here’s a more confrontational scenario:
http://www.atimes.com/article/popular-putin-prepares-for-cold-war-2-0/
I think there are pro-Western (Jewish) elements within the Russian elite, who sincerely want a reset to happen. They are the one’s talking to the Western press and spreading these rumours. They would happily give away Crimea and drop support for Assad, but the problem for them is that they are in no real position to shape Kremlin’s policies.
The article in Financial Times is quoting some guy named Gontmacher. I don’t know who he is, but ‘Gontmacher’ is sure as hell not a Russian name, if you get what I mean.
If you mean the Donbas Battalion, then yes,the vast majority of its fighters are native Ukrainians:
If, however, you mean the separatist forces, not so much:
The only thing that is not ‘fictitious’ in your reply is your hatred of all things Ukrainian. Imagine, another Ukrainaphobe at Karlin’s blog venting his impassioned hatred for all things Ukrainian, how unique. Get a life you looser! 🙁
Ukrainian Neo-Nazi paramilitaries such as the so-called Donbass and Azov “batallions” are indeed Ukrainian, but they are not native to Donbass. They originate from Western parts of the Ukraine. You know, the same way Panzer Army Afrika was not actually African. lol
In any event the size of these Ukrainian Neo-Nazi formations is dwarfed by the size of LDNR army.
No, millions of Chinese in Siberia is just wishful thinking. I’ve noticed that some westerners absolutely love jerking off to the idea that Chinese are moving to Siberia en masse, even if this does not correlate with reality.
Well said.
Western commentary on China has been persistently abysmal as far back as I can remember. The following things have been boldly proclaimed:
• You can’t censor the internet (the same people now censor the internet)
• China will not surpass America economically b/c Japan and West Germany didn’t (nice math skills)
• China will not surpass America economically because China will collapse (Real Soon Now)
• China just copies and can’t innovate (genetic engineering, supercomputing, quantum computing, etc.)
• As China gets wealthier it will inevitably become a liberal democracy (on this basis we gave away the farm)
Perhaps the worst I’ve seen is Stratfor. Because of China’s “geopolitics” and the fact that it apparently takes centuries to build a “naval tradition”, China will never pose a threat to America. So in other words an allegedly premier analyst has never heard of the Kaiserliche Marine, which despite no naval tradition at all developed technically superior ships and had mostly better tactical performance than the Royal Navy in WW1. I bet if you pressed Friedman on this he’d rationalize it with some bullshit about the Hanseatic League.
The reality is that these people just want America to remain #1, which is of course entirely understandable, but then just make up nonsense to support their emotions. And this is taken seriously in policy circles.
I don’t get the sense that the Victorians and Edwardians were this childish in analyzing rising powers.
Hey, did you take off your shoe and slam it on the table in front of you when you completed your moronic rant, Krushchev style (for emphasis)! Bliad, what an impressive rant! 🙂
True. Those parts of China that border Russia are probably better off by now in terms jobs and living stardards. They also have very, very low birthrates, so there is no demographic pressure. This isn’t US-Mexico situation.
You realise Krushchev was an ethnic Ukrainian? His colourful style is really a part of Ukrainian “national character”. We see it every day among Ukrainian politicians.
I’m surprised (baffled) why Karlin doesn’t seem to share your point of view when it comes to Russia and Ukraine? It is after all a totally accepted axiom , that Ukraine and Russia are two separate countries that host two separate nationalities. Instead, he tries to cling to some outdated ideas of ‘triunism’, which even he is loathe to discuss more fully within his blog. I think that its really his own way of conceding that the whole thing is a bunch of malarkey, no more than a privately held whimsical belief founded on preferences and not on facts.
Why would anyone want the hassle of running a failing state like Pakistan? They don’t even have any oil.
It’s common but not majority. Figures vary widely but IIRC it’s around 30% avoidance rate, with up to 50% in some specific areas (it’s particularly easy to avoid the draft in western or eastern Ukraine where you can just drive an hour to the border and get a job in Poland or Russia). So about 70% of people who are mobilized do join. The government is largely incapable of stopping mobilized people from not showing up or leaving the country if they want.
Draft dodging seems to have been more common earlier when the war had more casualties and the military was much less competent; at that time, there was a sense that the officers didn’t know what they were doing, or worse they were secretly feeding the Russian side information, and sending conscripts into dangerous situations needlessly.
I only have one cousin, from central Ukraine, who was mobilized and he did his duty. He was indifferent to nationalism before but after serving has become anti-Russian.
There is a “no true Scotsman” problem inherent to such a question – any example given to you would likely be dismissed as merely being a people who had not been sufficiently nationally conscious, or nationally conscious in the right ways, or one that didn’t really “take on a different identity” sufficiently, to count. Clearly the example of Britain suggests that even quite well established national identities can still be shifted up to a point. British national identity was essentially created to replace the English, Scottish, and Welsh identities and align them with the governmental structure, with considerable success for a reasonable time, albeit declining again in the C20th.
The kind of national consciousness that arose in the C18th/19th was mostly just a way of thinking that said a nation should have a state. Nationality as a wider concept is much older and more fundamental, but also inherently fluid.
An interesting case seems to me to be the shifting loyalties in the American crown colonies in the C17th and early-mid C18th, where originally most simply considered themselves British, or at any rate British subjects if they were of non-British origin, but there was a gradual rise of a separate identity. Scholars differ about to what extent this was a nascent American identity or a patchwork of more locally-focussed identities, and the truth is that both probably coexisted to varying degrees across the populations of the colonies. Most likely if the American elites had not decided they could do better for themselves without external rule and precipitated the American secession, there would have been a less clear cut American nationality, and loyalty to states would have competed with American and British identity on a much more even footing for much longer, rather than getting so easily crushed a few decades later in the ACW.
You are wrong as usual. He was from Kursk oblast, Russia, the son of two ethnic Russian peasants. He moved to Donetsk at age fourteen and his third and permanent wife was an ethnic Ukrainian but he himself was not. According to Khrushchev’s great-grasnddaughter “He was ethnically Russian, but he really felt great affinity with Ukraine.”
“British” is a pan-national identity, like “Soviet” or “Austro-Hungarian.”
Scottish people didn’t become English, after all.
Russian nationalists hope that Ukrainians will become Russians but it has never occurred that a nationally conscious people have switched identities. A pan-national project like the Soviet Union was the way to unity, but even that failed.
The ‘Butcher of Ukraine’ a Ukrainian? He was born in Russia, his name is Russian sounding, not Ukrainian (in Ukrainian, his name would simply be ‘Khrushch’). Having a fondness for borshch and Ukrainian women doesn’t make one a Ukrainian!
Your record of being wrong continues.
Azov battalion is not native to Donbas but it is not from western Ukraine either: it is a Kharkiv project.
The Azov Battalion has its roots in a group of Ultras of FC Metalist Kharkiv named “Sect 82” (1982 is the year of the founding of the group).[18] “Sect 82” was (at least until September 2013) allied with FC Spartak Moscow Ultras.[18] Late February 2014, during the 2014 Ukrainian crisis when a separatist movement was active in Kharkiv, “Sect 82” occupied the Kharkiv Oblast regional administration building in Kharkiv and served as a local “self-defense”-force.[18] Soon, on the basis of “Sect 82” there was formed a volunteer militia called “Eastern Corps”
It’s leader is a native of Kharkiv, born and grew up there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andriy_Biletsky_(politician)
Born in 1979 in Kharkiv, Soviet Union, Biletsky’s father Yevhen Mykhailovych Biletsky hailed from an old Cossack family that founded the village of Krasnopavlivka (Lozova Raion), while Biletsky’s mother Olena Anatolivna Biletsky (née Lukashevych) descended from a noble family from Zhytomyr region, to which belong the Decembrist Vasiliy Lukashevich (Vasyl Lukashevych) who founded the “Little-Russian Secret Society”.
It’s deputy commander, now in charge of Kiev oblast’s police, is another Kharkiv native:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vadym_Troyan
Troyan was born on 12 September 1979 in a village Orylka, Loziv district, Kharkiv region. In 2000 he graduated in Law from Kharkiv National University. Until 2003 he served as an investigator at the Loziv district police station in Kharkiv region.[1]
Its patron Avakov is a Kharkiv politician (born in Baku to Armenian parents, came to Kharkiv at age two).
::::::::::::::
Your track record of screwing everything up is impressive, Felix 🙂
Exactly!!! Pure genius!
Peace.
Remember your stupid claim about Ukrainians in America?
Why did you run away from that conversation, Felix?
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/no-solzhenitsyn-did-not-ask-the-us-to-nuke-the-ussr/#comment-2306969
Ukrainian diaspora are a lot wealthier than most other white people, in some of the richest countries on the planet. They have avoided assimilation to a greater degree than have others, retaining their identity after generations. Some have achieved positions of considerable influence (i.e, Foreign Minister of Canada). And Ukraine is becoming more like what they want it to be.
So rather than lie like you did last time Felix, why don’t do try to honestly answer the question –
How are they “not at all successful”, as you claimed?
:::::::::::::
As for your latest nonsense:
Outside Kiev, depending on region, average salaries are $250-$300 per month, depending on region. So you are off by a quarter to a third – wrong as usual.
$300 in Lviv oblast is probably at least like $1000 in Moscow.
Ukraine has around 40 million people and produces its own food, clothing, construction materials, medicines, etc. I-phones and cars have become a lot more expensive but these are not essentials.
Also salaries have adjusted somewhat. About a year ago Lviv oblast’s average salary was $250 (it’s probably around $300 now).
In summer 2013 it was $364.
In December 2009 it was $243.
That’s all that matters really. Українство is more of a state of mind, than an actual ethnicity anyway.
Now look at this circus of Ukrainian politics, and tell me these people are nothing like him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhrLfoEkTVo
The big problem with this logic is that “strongly held” is not a scientific definition. How do you define it? Even if there is a strong national identity, that identity can of course weaken.
We do have lots of examples of identities changing.
In the modern world it happens all the time owing to immigration for instance. My grandparents had strong Swedish identities, whereas mine is mostly sentimental. In a few generations no one in my family will even speak Swedish, and we’ll be as Swedish as American Plastic Paddies are Irish.
Do we have any proof that the inhabitants of Provence didn’t have their own identity and resented a French identity being imposed on them? After all what was even written in their language? Did it even have a standard orthography?
But I can think of a number of real examples.
The creation of a Roman identity almost everywhere the Romans ruled for long periods of time, for instance. The Roman identity was initially confined to the City of Rome itself, and first spread to the Sabine women (by kidnapping and raping them). From there it spread first through Latium, then throughout the Italian Peninsula, and finally across the entire Empire.
By the 3rd century all free inhabitants of the Empire were citizens (Edict of Caracalla) and saw themselves as Roman. Septimus Severus established the Severan Dynasty in 198–the first dynasty from the provinces. In fact Septimus Severus was of Carthaginian descent. This would be like if the Russian Empire had conquered Germany and four centuries later an East Elbian Junker became the Tsar.
In more recent times I can think of Scania in Sweden. Scanians originally had a strong Danish identity (Scandinavian national identities are quite old), now they have a Swedish identity. This is quite relevant for the East Slavs imo, as Scandinavians are another cluster of extremely similar nationalities.
We do know that the inhabitants of the Mezzogiorno had strong identities and resisted Italianization. After the Piedmontese conquest of Two Sicilies the conquered “Italians” launched a guerrilla war. Today the inhabitants of the Mezzogiorno speak Italian and identify as Italian, though now ironically there are often not readily recognized as Italian by Northern Italy. 🙂
In general I suspect you will find that many nations have absorbed people with other identities, and those identities were often strongly held. Since a good number of nations are very old we lack records of this.
Frisians are today German or Dutch, but what did they think of themselves?
How did the Romano-British think of themselves, and how about their Saxon conquerors who successfully imposed their language on a Latin (and perhaps Celtic) speaking population? Did the inhabitants of the rival Heptarchies think of themselves differently? The truth is we have no idea.
We also have examples of conquerors being assimilated by the people they conquered. Chinese history is littered with this, but it also applies to the Normans almost everywhere they went.
I generally agree with your comment. I think we need to be careful not to apply modern ideas such as nationalism to pre-modern peoples. By modern ideas all Greek-speaking people were Greeks, so an Athenian “nationalist” opposed to a Spartan “nationalist” would be impossible.
All Europeans recognize that they are more like each other than they are like Africans, or Chinese, and they once felt that they were superior to all of those other peoples. That does not imply that the Europeans are all one nation, just as Greek unity in the face of the alien Persians did not imply a sense of ancient Greek nationalism.
You are correct that vague ethnic solidarity existed long before modern nationalism, but this was not nationalism.
…the kreakl bitch currently living in the US and frequent critic of Putin?…about as non-credible as a fucked in the head maggot like yourself.
Felix is correct as usual…in fact for a retarded swine as youself, you’re that pitiful that Felix’s annihilation of your lies, still makes him the closest thing to a friend a retarded lowlife like yourself has got
Thats how only the internet can produce such psychiatric messed-up , sociopath , attention-whore scumbags as yourself. Zero knowledge, whereas everyone here has life experiences, is a professional and so on …the only tactic for a moronic hellish creature as yourself, is to write these lies and nonsense en masse and bore people into submission with the shee stupidity and insidiousnouss of your idioticness, basically copy and paste state Department directives from the Motyl section of Wikipedia ( literally)
I’ve not been on here for 4 hours, and in that time you’ve done thousands of words, dozens of posts ( that I know of)…all lies, spammed garbage…a sick freak in every sense of the word…and that’s not including the hours before I posted on here…and the millions of hours worth of garbage troll excrement as you has done on here in the weeks and years preceding this
As for Khrushchev , he was 100% Ukrainian you moron…as with numerous heads of the Soviet Union and security services…….but it must also be noted again that the twin fathers of “Ukraine” are Lenin and Stalin.
British is a national identity all of its own, pan-national or not, and many (perhaps most) English and Scottish people became British before its decline in the C20th. Even today, few English and by no means all Scots would identify as English or Scottish ahead of British, if asked without some kind of pre-shaping of their response. My impression is that neither Soviet nor Austro-Hungarian achieved any such level of general acceptance, perhaps because neither was around as long.
There’s a lot of reality dysfunction when it comes to China prognostications. First and foremost, what no leaders in the West seem close to grasping is that the West is in decline, and it is difficult to acknowledge this fact in a “democratic” system.
Against this, China might be said to have several weaknesses:
1.) CCP retains control of large chunks of the economy and will never give it up
2.) low fertility rate (better than importing hordes of hostile savages)
3.) perhaps, an Asian mindset? (communal => socialistic)
#3 is really a question. The question is, why does Japan have the highest debt to GDP in the world? South Korea and Taiwan don’t, but they face the constant threat of invasion, so have different incentives.
My thoughts: China is clearly in a better current position. It is unclear if they will ever achieve higher per capita than the current US figure, but they don’t need to do so in order to supplant the US. They are on track, and I can’t think of a realistic scenario where this will change. Of course, the elites seem to be planning to try and turn the US into India (high pop density), but, IMO, that will just make it weaker, as for India itself as a counterweight, I’ve never drunken the India will be a superpower Kool-aid.
I did a googlesearch, and it’s $283 as of March 2018. Once again, I sincerely hope that you’ll get to experience this lifestyle:
*$283 wage
*wearing Ukrainian clothing, using Ukrainian medicine
*no car, cause it’s not essential anyway.
*and don’t forget the new utility tariffs, which are rising much faster, than wages in the Ukraine. It takes a toll on disposable income!
So I want to you experience all that, smile, and say that you’re “doing well”. I mean, wouldn’t that be fun? 🙂
Thanks. Next time I see her I’ll get her view (non-intellectual) on where Ukrainian lies on the Polish-Russian language continuum.
By Greek ideas at the time all Greek speaking people were Greeks, as well, and the rest were barbarians. The fact that Athenians fought with Thebans or Spartans didn’t make either not Greek.
On the contrary this is precisely nationalism, just not modern nation-state nationalism. The latter is built upon the former, not a new creation out of nothing. We are arguing over terminology mostly, but the terminology is important to ensure recognition of that continuity and underlying reality.
Those who emphasised a sense of European unity and superiority over non-European peoples, and who in some cases even identify as “European”, were and are voicing a nascent Euro-nationalism, much as those who voiced early ideas of American identity in the C18th were the first builders of the future American nationalism which came to dominate.
This is double-edged. The cons are well known (SOEs tend to be less productive), but there are pros as well. SOEs can be used for politically important but uneconomic (or too grand/risky) projects–OBOR for instance. And it prevents the bourgeoisie from controlling the state, which is probably a good thing in the era of cheap travel (and thus immigration).
Not optimal but a problem faced by all industrial peoples, and China will still have a workforce of ~750 million people by mid-century anyway.
Double-edged once again.
The basic reason is a failed policy response to the collapse of the famous 1980s bubble. If Japan had done what the Swedes did it would have a “normal” (state) debt to GDP ratio.
Anyhow this is not really a problem as evidenced by Japan’s ultra-low interest rates. The debt is also completely Yen-denominated, half-owned by gov’t agencies, and Japan is the world’s largest creditor nation.
People just get worked up into knots about government debt (and, frankly, debt period) because they don’t understand money.
I meant national identity, not ethnic or tribal identity. A national identity is achieved when the majority of the population become literate in their national language and through universal schools adopt and take for granted a national identity and story. All of the modern European nations have such national identities.
It’s not the same thing as “we are locals who speak different from those other guys.” That situation involves much more malleability. And it is not the same thing as when local elites (but not illiterate peasants, the masses) have achieved this – the elites can be arrested, killed or exiled.
Despite attempts at Russification Poles, Balts and Ukrainian never became Russians because these peoples achieved mass literacy as Poles, Balts and Ukrainians. Russia could have assimilated all of these peoples had it engaged in aggressive Russification in, say, the early 1700s. But the Russian state itself was not nationalist at that time so this is an impossible scenario. And even by 1910 it was too late. Galicia was 100% literate among young people, with Ukrainian orientation (it’s why Polish attempts to assimilate Galicians just resulted in a violent murderous backlash), and the Ukrainian countryside in the Russian Empire was full of activists spreading the Ukrainian nationalist gospel, setting up reading rooms, etc. In the 1917 elections 70% of people in ethnic Ukrainian regions were voting for Ukrainian nationalist parties.
I was not aware of Scania’s situation. It may indeed be a counterexample. Scania had been part of Denmark but were the masses (not just local elites) conscious of themselves as Scanians or Danes, literate in the Danish language (not just speaking it), believers in a Scanian or Danish national history? In other words, was it a population with a strong Danish national idea? Or were they just villagers who happened to speak a Danish dialect and who had a crude sense of being different from the Swedish outsiders.
I don’ think the Roman Empire was some sort of proto-Italian nationalist state.
Wiki says most Sicilians still speak the local dialect amongst themselves, not Italian which they learn in school. Sicily had its own old pre-nationalist kingdom but it didn’t seem to have a “Sicilian national identity” of its own prior to integration with Italy.
The ancient Greeks themselves agreed with modern ideas, which is why they called non-Greeks barbarians and had pan-Hellenic events like the Olympic Games.
That’s also why the Greeks successfully united to defeat the Persian invasions, and then happily joined the barely-Greek Macedonians to launch a pan-Hellenic invasion of the Persian Empire.
This didn’t preclude them from being patriots to their polis and constantly warring with eachother. Besides, everyone knows Greeks love arguing.
another bizarre and straightforward lie. All adjustments made, the average Muscovite makes 3, 3-4 times more money than the average person in Kiev, in shithole Lvov that figure goes to 4 or between 4 and 5 times….and this is not including the cheaper and more plentiful consumption of oil and gas, extra subsidies on more extensive public transport network, Mat-kapital that Russia offers and Ukrop having double the unemployment rate of Russa and so on.
Your idiocy is further exacerbated when we factor in that Lvov is not even top 9 in wages in Ukraine….add is only supplemted to a still shit level because of people in different regions of the very poor western Ukraine moving to Lvov, as most of the least populated and/or lowest wage areas are in the non Novorossiya part
Ukrainians learn less then every ethnic group in America…..that’s a fact , you insecure imbecile.
..Felix was ..again..bang on target with this
Sorry about that!
As for FDI. they are effectively zero for Ukraine, Russia which has terrible FDI but stll 12 times more
Correct, just as up to the mid 20th century Europeans all saw themselves as Europeans and most others as barbarians or savages. This does not imply the existence of Greek or European “nationalism.”
Nationalism is by definition nation-state nationalism. The term nationalism was first used in the 1830s and coincided with the rise of nation-states.
It grew out of and overlaps older ideas such as patriotism or tribalism but is not the same as those things. The fact that modern nationalists look to pre-nationalist figures as heroes and incorporate them into their mythologies does not mean that those people were nationalists. Frederick the Great was certainly a devoted patriot of Prussia but he was no German nationalist, though German nationalists used him.
To quote Lukacs:
Patriotism is the love of a particular land, with its particular traditions; nationalism is the love of something less tangible, of the myth of a “people”, justifying many things, a political and ideological substitute for religion. Patriotism is old-fashioned (and, at time and in some places, aristocratic); nationalism is modern and populist. In one sense patriotic and national consciousness may be similar; but in anther sense, more and more apparent after 1870, national consciousness began to affect more and more people who, generally, had been immune to that before—as, for example, many people within the multinational empire of Austria-Hungary. It went deeper than class consciousness. Here and there it superseded religious affiliations, too.
:::::::::::
In pre-nationalist Ukraine, Orthodox Ukrainians slaughtered Uniate Ukrainians. Ukrainian magnates (Orthodox as well as Catholic) fought Ukrainian peasants and lesser nobles. But the era of nationalism, Ukrainian Orthodox and Uniates of all social groups have been united against Russians (and before that, Poles).
The European powers came together to crush the Boxer Rebellion, demonstrating pan-European solidarity. Yet this does not imply the idea of a “European nation.”
Normally I don’t respond your nonsense but:
Medium household income for non-Hispanic whites in the US in 2016 was $65,041. Source:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/233324/median-household-income-in-the-united-states-by-race-or-ethnic-group/
In 2016 median household income for Ukrainian Americans was $72,449.
Source:
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk
It’s well above the white average.
Remember Felix had claimed, in his words, that Ukrainians in America “are doing better than niggers and Mexicans, but overall it’s a picture of mediocrity.”
When he was exposed he ran away from the discussion.
You’re describing literacy rather than nationality. And yes, I realize that schooling was used (and is still in some countries) to build nationality.
Do you think Joan of Arc, who was almost certainly illiterate, lacked a French national identity?
Russification efforts started very late compared to earlier efforts in other countries and did not last very long, so the failure is not surprising.
Sicilians themselves resented being incorporated into Two Sicilies and revolted. And the Sicilian dialect continues its decline.
The Ukraine today would be a lot more like Sicily had the tragedy of 1917 not occurred.
If the EU weren’t run by people who hate Europeans (and also enact very stupid monetary policies) a European nation would one day be feasible.
China and India have been described as “civilization-states” before.
Schooling is a necessary building block for creating a nationality.
I would not describe her as some sort of French nationalist. She was aware of not being English, and of outsiders coming in, and she opposed them. As such she was more like Sitting Bull or Arminius than a nationalist.
Modern nationalists certainly use these figures for their purposes when building up nationalist histories.
In east Slavic there is a term “tyteshny.” “From here.” When pre-literate peasants were surveyed about their “nationality”, many of them didn’t know what to say and simply claimed to be “tuteshny.” Such raw material, in Ukraine or Belarus or even Poland, could have been transformed into Russians or Ukrainians. But it hasn’t existed since the late 19th century and even then only in isolated pockets.
Too late by then – there was already a widespread Ukrainian national idea. A that point you would have at best, from the Russian nationalist POV, a Catalonia situation.
Debt is an important indicator in general. Modern examples: Venezuela, Greece, Zimbabwe. The US has its own public liabilities (like pension shortfalls) that will have enormous future political consequences.
Japanese debt obviously is not equivalent, for various reasons, but regardless of how one views it, I think it really serves as an important reminder of the incredible bubble that was created. Japan seemed set on a stratospheric rise. If I recall, with incredible absurdity, Tokyo real estate was valued more than the whole of California. How could such a thing even be possible? I don’t mean mathematically; I mean psychologically. The distortion was obviously bigger than the Japanese political leadership.
If there is any chance this is a special Asian susceptibility, then China has similar factors to 1980s Japan, with some (from Communism) obviously much worse.
Yes it does, or more precisely it reflects the existence and centrality to modern nation-state nationalism of what modern Greek and European nationalism was built upon.
Though European identity has never been a significant force culturally or as widely and self-consciously adopted as was Greek identity in ancient Greece. But it could be, given the right policies and circumstances over a few generations. (I don’t mean by that to endorse it – it would be anathema to me, but it’s foolish imo to dismiss the potential danger of it).
At root it is the same thing, just manifesting in a different context. But imo it’s important to maintain the connection, because otherwise nationalism can be dismissed as a modern innovation with no real roots.
I think distinctions between patriotism and nationalism, such as the one you quote, are of questionable utility. Mostly they are created, in my experience, to allow people to draw a distinction between “good” nationalism (what they like) and “bad” nationalism (what they don’t like).
When the priority is an external enemy, nations unite as the Greeks did (with notable exceptions generally regarded as traitors or at any rate as people who bowed to force majeure) against the Persians. When that priority is not there, they fight amongst themselves. I see nothing different there between what you describe as the nationalist and the pre-nationalist eras.
To further your point, Japan was also involved. Not only in the crushing, but also in the cooperative defense of the foreign civilians and converts who were trapped. It was in Japanese interests.
Nationalism certainly has roots. And there are worse things than nationalism.
In pre-nationalist Ukraine, Ukrainian Uniates and princes were allied with Poles in slaughtering Ukrainian peasants and lesser nobles; Ukrainian peasants and lesser nobles were allied with Tatars in slaughtering Uniates.
My knowledge of German history is fuzzier, but it seems to me that in pre-nationalist Germany German Protestants united with Swedes in slaughtering German Catholics.
Such actions would be hard to imagine in nationalist times.
I suppose the idea that some external force has to be the primary enemy is itself a product of nationalism.
If your semantics depend on the leadership being in favor of co-ethnics, then by that definition the West is clearly post national. The leaders may not be slaughtering their own people, but if you take the view that coercive extraction is violence, then there is still a high level of violence involved.
The days we are living in are quite like the King of Leinster inviting the Normans into Ireland to help regain his crown. There is less killing and maiming, but the political aspect is largely the same.
It’s not the overall level of debt that’s the problem, it’s the ability to service that debt. In Japan the ability to service the debt is not in question at all.
Greece, as a member of the Eurozone, is not a sovereign currency issuer. Therefore Greece faces a budget constraint comparable to what countries on the gold standard did. As a country with a current account deficit it therefore required a capital account surplus to balance its books and service its debt. After the financial crisis that capital disappeared, hence the debt crisis and endless austerity. Such a thing is not possible in Japan. The constraint there is instead inflation, which obviously is not an issue.
Venezuela and Zimbabwe aren’t even worth discussing as they are countries run and inhabited by simians.
The bubble was indeed incredible, and I’ve heard it said that the imperial palace alone was valued more than all land in California. Such a thing is possible because of the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and as such asset price manias are fairly common. People see others around them getting rich (on paper) and feel anxiety about not getting rich themselves. So they convince themselves that “this time it’s different”. Lenders feed the bubble as they don’t want to lose out to competitors and tell themselves the same thing, and to lenders every loan they make is an asset. Look at crypto recently.
Hyman Minsky explained this in considerable detail. Stability itself in fact produces instability, because long periods of stability cause people to become more tolerant of risk. Regulation is not necessarily a solution, because stability also leads to the promotion of market-friendly regulators and the election of market-friendly politicians.
Asians do love gambling, but asset price manias and speculation are hardly unique to them.
Gerad here.This is really dumb. If we go on this idiotic logic then Russia has had Ukrainians in charge of Saint Petersburg, numerous other governors in different regions,mayors,security services,PM…..and I don’t know where to start if we do russian names in positions of power in the fictitious country of ukraine, because the list is so vast.
The level of intermarriage is that high it makes your argument particularly dumb and all but confirms there is no separate ethnicity
And khrushchev was obviously ukropian you clown
I suppose that the prolonged loss of much of Iran’s oil production / export will raise prices so much that it would be a net benefit to those regions of the USA where a major volume of oil and gas is produced.
Namely Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Alaska, and Wyoming, and to a lesser extent Louisiana, Colorado, and Utah.
Then again, taxpayers in those States — meaning the disproportionately white and Asian 50% of the population who actually pay federal income tax — will be paying big time for the increased unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid, and crime costs in the other States, where fuel, groceries, and other goods will inflate in price at least for a time, perhaps substantially.
ffs, this isn’t a war, this isn’t some sort kind of battle or tournament, and I’m not obligated to respond to everything you write. Grow up, dude! There is no big prize for you to win by “defeating” me on the internet.
You want to argue about minor technicalities, without really adressing any of my points. It doesn’t matter if the average Ukrainian earns $200 or $250, the bottomline he is still dirt poor. Being off by “a quarter or a third” in this situation does not make me wrong since the numbers we’re talking about are still ridiculously low.
PS:
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk
This link you submitted doesn’t open for me, and I have to say, the fact that you felt the need to use one source for White American income, and a completely different source for Ukrainian American income looks suspicious. You should be using numbers from the same data set, when making comparisons, to make sure it’s the same methodology.
AP might be somewhat correct about the debate on nationalism, where he says it is dependent on literacy.
It reminds me about the story of illiterate peasants in WW1, who were trying to feed imprisoned Austrian-Hungarian soldiers who were being transported to Siberia.
Peasants in Russia often did not see the Austrian-Hungarian prisoners as enemies, but rather just as some hungry guests passing through the country area.
Alternate possibility: the peasants were Christians and considered it their Christian duty to feed the hungry.
Okay Do Do bird! But try explaining that to the smart guys running the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. They all must be laboiring under false pretenses? You should write them a letter and ask them to close down their three chairs in Ukrainian studies. Good luck with that!
http://www.huri.harvard.edu/
You know what, don’t waste your time writing that letter, and I wont waste my time trying to have a dialogue with a dope like you.
Joan of Arc described England as violating France. France was nearly five centuries old (with far older origins of course) in her lifetime and its Frankish predecessors almost a milennium old. Joan was from core France were the Langues d’oïl were spoken and Frankish manorialism was first practiced (Kingdom of Austrasia).
The lady was French and proud of it:
Meanwhile the war which the Angevins began as a dynastic war of Norman nobles ended up unifying the English once more and establishing a solid national identity based on hating the French, something which persists in English culture to this day. Note that the Law of Englishry was repealed three years after the start of the war.
You’re projecting Eastern Europe’s history on Western Europe. Agriculture, civilization, and identity are much older in Western Europe.
Take “Macedonians” for instance. These south slavs just suddenly decided like a 100 years ago that they were “Macedonians” for some bizarre reason. Since many of their lords would’ve been Turkish Moslem Beys no doubt there was not much consciousness there until recently.
Scanians were literate Danes who felt themselves Danish. Scanians kept signing up for the Danish Army or otherwise worked to assist the Danes in post-1658 wars. Ethnocide was a success regardless.
You might want to try reading the Bible. The Old Testament is after all a legendary chronicle of the Jewish nation in the Bronze Age, and in it are described other nations such the Caananites. Chapter 10 of Genesis provides the Table of Nations.
IMO, a lot of the militarism came from schooling – actually state schooling (being more top-down in Europe than in the US). But the hatred itself was something else. There is the example of the Christmas Truce of 1914. The hate came later from all the killing – the truce was not repeated.
Sicily probably isn’t a good example because they practised a lot of first cousin marriage.
I wouldn’t put Italy fourth as having old national roots either. It is a very strange nation with a large north-south axis and deeply varying people – it was cobbled together recently. There are large differences in local culture as well as stature, skin coloration, and probably at least small differences in IQ. In WWI, when the Italian army retook a rural area of North Italy, they were attacked by elderly men with pitchforks.
Work of a Israeli businessman
http://candu.md/files/doc/Kroll_Project%20Tenor_Candu_02.04.15.pdf
I realize I missed some things here, though I kind of covered this in another reply.
National identity is much older in Scandinavia than it is in Eastern Europe. The Danish flag is seven or eight hundred years old for instance. Scandinavians even attempted Karlin’s “triune nation” in the medieval and early modern period, which fell apart owing to Swedish rebellion (Norwegians and Danes are much more fraternal and continued to happily share a state for several more centuries). Literacy was relatively high already in the 17th century owing to the Protestant Reformation. Scanians initially resisted Swedish rule and Swedification, but Swedish persistence and power overcame them in time. Scanian elites shifted their allegiances quickly (unsurprisingly), whereas the lower orders resisted longer.
Russian nationalists interested in the triune nation concept should look at this history as a model, frankly.
It is worth nothing that there remain cultural and linguistic differences between Swedes and Scanians. Scanians are more likely to vote for anti-immigrant parties (just like Danes), and their Swedish dialect sounds more different from rikssvenksa than any other Swedish dialect.
So if Russian nationalists/imperialists managed to Scanianize the Ukraine, some differences would remain. Not those those differences are bad–regional variation is fun.
It wasn’t Italian. It was Roman. That a Carthaginian with a Latin name became Caesar is frankly amazing.
Your point was that Ukrainians outside Ukraine were failures, and provided the fact that they are one of the wealthiest white people in one of the wealthiest places on the planet.
First link was one you provided, second link was from the US census. I couldn’t find “all non-Hispanic whites” on the second link but it was from 2016, same as your link.
You can try this:
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk
And go to 2016.
Ukrainian is higher than almost all white groups: German, Finnish, Czech, English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, French, Italian, Irish, Polish, Hungarian. It is lower than Latvian and Lithuanian, Swiss and Slovenian, Russian and Israeli.
Thank you. You have successfully provided an example where a nationally conscious people lost their identity. And given me an interesting history lesson.
If there were a Sweden-Denmark war do you think many Scanians would “betray” Sweden? Or have they been fully Swedified?
The problem here is that Danish and Swedish are much closer than Ukrainian and Russian. Swedes started the Swedification process in the early 1700s, Russians started Russification in the late 1800s. Also, Scanians were outnumbered 1:9 by Swedes, , whereas Ukraine outnumbered a little less than 1:4 by Russians.
And Sitting Bull was a proud Sioux and there were African chieftains proud of their “kingdoms” – I suspect that these were not all Nationalists.
Weren’t the “English” against whom Joan of Arc was fighting – still linked to France due to their Norman heritage? Henry VI was the son of a French princess and married to a French aristocrat. He claimed the French throne. His political allies included Henry Beaufort, born in France, and William de la Pole (of Norman descent). French clergy had Joan burned at the stake.
Also, the English aristocrats were still French-speaking at the time of Joan or Arc’s resistance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Norman_language
When William the Conqueror led the Norman conquest of England in 1066, he, his nobles, and many of his followers from Normandy, but also those from northern and western France, spoke a range of langues d’oïl (northern varieties of Gallo-Romance). One of these was Old Norman, also known as “Old Northern French”. Other followers spoke varieties of the Picard language or western French. This amalgam developed into the unique insular dialect now known as Anglo-Norman French, which was commonly used for literary and eventually administrative purposes from the 12th until the 15th century. It is difficult to know much about what was actually spoken, as what is known about the dialect is restricted to what was written, but it is clear that Anglo-Norman was, to a large extent, the spoken language of the higher social strata in medieval England.
It was spoken in the law courts, schools, and universities and, in due course, in at least some sections of the gentry and the growing bourgeoisie. Private and commercial correspondence was carried out in Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French from the 13th to the 15th century though its spelling forms were often displaced by continental spellings. Social classes other than the nobility became keen to learn French: manuscripts containing materials for instructing non-native speakers still exist, dating mostly from the late 14th century onwards.
:::::::::::
I think latter-day nationalists turned this into more of a national war than it really was.
That may be true for the royal court (though Henry IV was the first English king after the conquest to have English as his first language) and maybe the highest levels of the aristocracy, but for the mass of the aristocracy this had almost certainly ceased to be the case in the 13th century. The English kings lost Normandy in 1204, and iirc consequently aristocrats with cross-channel holdings had to choose between their possessions in France and England which greatly facilitated the adoption of English among an aristocracy now largely confined to England.
Even the Wikipedia article you cited basically has the same outline:
Complete Swedification took about 150 years it seems. Scanians have already fought with Sweden against Denmark, and would do so again. Unless the war was launched by Swedish SJWs to end “racism” in Denmark, in which case Scania would side with Denmark (as would I 🙂 ).
Jemtia was also successfully Swedified and acquired around the same time. However it’s a bit different as Jemtia was less Norwegian than Scania was Danish, and Jemtians have something of a blended identity. Perhaps comparable to the Donets Basin in a way, or elsewhere Alsace-Lorraine.
It’s not really a problem. 4:1 population advantage, and don’t forget the Russian economic advantage. And most Ukrainians already speak Russian as I understand.
It would of course take a long time and require intelligent policy involving both carrots and sticks. First to turn would be the Ukrainian elite for obvious reasons. Galician Catholics possibly a lost cause and not worth the trouble.
Done well it would be to the mutual benefit of both Russians and Ukrainians. Done poorly it would harm both.
An alternative is some kind of pan-East Slavic identity to avoid bruising the Ukrainian ego, perhaps involving some kind of appropriation of handsome Ukrainian symbols like that bird looking thing you guys have going on. Something based on the Rus. You could even put the capital in Kiev.
Why not call the Sioux a nation, honestly? The Sioux today call themselves a nation (though they say Lakota).
But there’s a pretty big difference between nomadic hunter-gatherers and a civilized, agricultural state. A vast difference in fact.
German_reader already wrapped this up honestly, but basically the 100 Years War transformed the nobility of England from Normans into Englishmen.
As I noted in a previous post, a watermark event was the abolition of the law of Englishry in 1340–just three years after the start of the war. I don’t think this is a coincidence at all.
Shakespeare wrote a nationalistic play about King Henry V, who won gallant victories over the French in the later years of the war. It was written fewer than 200 years after Henry V’s great victory at Agincourt and as such was still sort of known in folk memory.
“Complete Swedification” is such a hilariously topsy-turvy term in the context of today. I wish someone would turn it into a skit, with Swedes invading and ethnically transforming Africa to rile up the SJWs.
Some other points I forgot to address.
The royalty of Europe has traditionally always had a multinational background owing to an insistence on marrying within class where possible. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Nicholas II were cousins for instance. Blood of course matters, but it’s not the only thing.
The Normans, incidentally, were vikings originally. So they themselves already serve as an example of changing one’s identity.
Latter day nationalists in both England and France did turn it into a national war, but the war itself increased national identity in both countries.
Compare the 100 Years War to the matter in the Donets Basin right now. The Ukrainian national identity prior to 2014 was weak. Now it’s a lot stronger.
I’d actually say such a process was well underway already in the 13th century; as I wrote above the loss of most of the continental possessions of the English kings in 1204 changed the situation fundamentally. And already during the confrontation between the barons led by Simon de Montfort and Henry III something that can at least plausibly be considered as English national sentiment played an important role, with the king’s favoritism towards foreigners being the occasion for xenophobic outbursts (the rebels also killed Jewish usurers btw). Notably, the Provisions of Oxford in 1264 were published not just in Latin and French, but also in English:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisions_of_Oxford#Linguistic_innovation
I’m too lazy to dig up more details now, but there’s a decent book by John Maddicott which makes the case that Simon de Montfort (ironically enough of French origin himself of course, being the son of the Albigensian crusader) presented himself as a champion of the English, and that proto-national sentiment (not just among the aristocracy, but also with some popular participation) played a role in his movement.
Why look back centuries, almost into the middle ages to look for answers to the Ukraine/Russia dilemma, with some kind of milksop, reconstituted ‘triune’ nation BS? Why not look at Scandinavia today and see what’s going on? I don’t see the Swedes itching to kick the Danes or the Norwegian in the balls and try to recreate some kind of ‘Greater Swedia’, or vice versa with either Denmark or Norway? And they don’t all belong to the EU nor to NATO…and they don’t feel threatened by some kind of imminent anschlus maneuvers by their neighbors?
Maybe it’s because I’m Americanized.
Basiscally, unless conditions are intolerable, why advocate for a weak state?
I happen to support a Nordic federation as I’ve said previously. There was never a “Greater Swedia”, but there was the Kalmar Union.
Why would anyone want to be Ukrainian as opposed to Russian? Or greater East Slavic or whatever. The Ukraine on its own will, at best, be about as important as Spain. Talk about zzzzzzzzzzzz. In union with Russia and Belarus, you can exceed Japan.
No-brainer to me.
As I noted to AP, of course this requires an intelligent policy which involves both carrots and sticks. It would require disincentives to identifying as Ukrainian, but also strong incentives for Ukrainians who cooperate and identify with the union. Why not a capital in Kiev for instance? Kiev is after all the cradle of the Rus.
No disagreement. This discussion however emerged as a result of my introduction of Joan of Arc, hence the 100 Years War.
Yes, and in any case the 100 Years war certainly intensified the process, I just wanted to point out that there had already been antecedents.
I’m also generally skeptical of the idea that nations are just a modern “invention”, but we probably have to recognize that this is an issue where one’s political views about the present aren’t irrelevant and academic detachment isn’t easy…I’m certainly biased, since many of those who push the idea that nations are recent and artificial constructs have an obvious agenda which I’m hostile to.
But people in Kyiv identify as being Ukrainians for the most part and are opposed today with what Russia is doing. The carrot that you keep talking about has to include Ukrainian cultural rights, including the language issue, otherwise it just wont work! You seem to show some respect for Biblical principles and also seem to rely much on the ‘economic benefits’, so keep in mind:
Matthew 4:4
Nations as a modern invention is obvious bullshit given that nations are in the Old Testament, which is about the Bronze Age.
The modern invention is that any given nationality must be governed under the same state, but even then we have some antecedents stretching back to antiquity.
Germany is actually really interesting here, as a German national identity is not only quite old but persisted despite long-term political disunity.
And yes, bias plays a role but that’s fine–provided you admit your bias. I try to always admit my bias. As you’ve observed I have a bias of trying to scale up to the strongest possible state in general.
I will admit to AP that a Ukrainian national identity exists (I will not admit this to Mr. Hack), but I believe this identity should be eliminated.
I am not Russian or Ukrainian, nor do I even speak any East Slavic language.
So this is not for me to solve.
That said, I think that a unified state could completely respect Ukrainian cultural and language rights, while spreading the Russian language. Or one could figure out a way to merge the languages.
As I mentioned earlier, perhaps one could emphasize the common heritage of the Kievan Rus and the Orthodox religion.
Maybe instead of claiming Ukrainians are Russians one could talk about both Russians and Ukrainians being Rus. So it wouldn’t then be the Russian Empire, but a new state of the Rus. Maybe even put the capital in Kiev.
Matthew 4:4 cuts to the heart of this of course, which is why identity is so important.
I have to disagree with you about that…don’t really understand why you feel that strongly about this issue (apart from the enjoyment you get from trolling Mr. Hack) which is totally irrelevant both to the vast majority of Americans and of Swedes (and if it actually were relevant to them, why should any Westerner be in favour of Russia gobbling up Ukraine? Russia is big enough as it is imo).
Of course I understand that you’re in favour of the largest possible power blocs and the eradication of inconvenient local cultures and traditions, but I don’t agree with that…nor will most people. This kind of explicitly amoral power worship is one of the reasons imo why alt-rightish ideas will have difficulty finding a wider audience.
Wiki says: “French was the mother tongue of every English king from William the Conqueror (1066-1087) until Henry IV (1399–1413). Henry IV was the first to take the oath in English, and his son, Henry V (1413–1422), was the first to write in English. By the end of the 15th century, French became the second language of a cultivated elite.”
So at the time of Joan of Arc the English aristocrats spoke French, if as a second language and within living memory (grandparents) as a first language, the English king was the grandson of the king of France and himself claimed the French throne.
The Anglo-Normans lost their own ancestral lands, but the English still had huge lands in France, such as Gascony and Aquitiane and they continued to claim the French throne (100 Years War started when Edward III, son of a French princess, claimed to be heir to the French throne in 1337).
::::::::::
So you have the French fighting against a half-French English king, himself married to a French princess, who claims to be king of France and who has large traditional holdings in France. You have English aristocrats speaking French, the language of their grandparents, as their second language. Joan of Arc is put on trial and burned at the stake by a pro-English French bishop, Pierre Cauchon.
French and English national feelings were developed by this war but at the time, in contrast to much later interpretations, it doesn’t seem to have been such a clear-cut war between peoples.
So why this maniacal campaign of yours to eradicate Ukraine’s right to exist a a separate nation/state?
You seem obsessed with this idea!
The mass of them didn’t in their everyday affairs (and by the mid-14th century most likely even their grandparents already hadn’t done so).
Yes, but the loss of Normandy greatly reduced ties of English aristocrats to the continent, after 1204 there was much less of an elite with holdings on both sides of the channel.
I didn’t claim that, obviously the war was based mostly on dynastic claims. But national sentiment did play some role (certainly in the case of Joan of Arc) and was discernible.
I feel strongly about this because I like categorizing things. This is one reason immigration bothers me so much. Running into a black man speaking perfect Received Pronunciation is extremely upsetting for instance. The Ukraine to me clearly doesn’t have any kind of interesting history or culture, they all speak Russian anyway, and they might as well be Russian.
This is Anatoly Karlin’s blog about Russia so naturally it comes up here. If this blog were instead by Adolf Kesselring I would be fulminating against the independence of Austria and denouncing Herr Hack.
I am not a European so a larger and more powerful Russia is not a threat. In fact it’s a possible asset. America squandered a golden opportunity in the 90s. We could’ve alloyed Russia to our power bloc and thus contained China, but instead we drove Russia into the arms of the Chinese. Obviously the situation is different for you Europeans–an independent Ukraine is positive for you.
Regarding electoral politics I am not running for anything on this blog.
Only because this blog is about Russia and some Ukrainians comment on it.
In reality Canada’s independence outrages me far more for obvious reasons.
As for the Ukraine I think I’ve made this very clear on many occasions. Ukraine doesn’t have anything to brag about so why bother preserving it when Ukrainians already speak Russian? It just doesn’t make sense.
And “rights” are just something people make up. The Ukraine has no right to exist, nor does Russia have a right to control the Ukraine.
Fwiw, I agree with Thorfinnsson on this. In my case it’s because I see supporting nationalism not as a necessary consequence of a faith-based adherence to some kind of nationalism dogma, but rather as a matter of whether it’s useful or appropriate in each particular case. In general, I see nationalism as a useful opposition to the prevailing globalism that is behind a lot of the worst problems we face today – immigrationism in particular. But where I don’t think it contributes anything useful or is actually harmful, such as in the case of the imo pointless leftist, pro-EU and pro-migrant “nationalism” of the Catalans, I am quite happy to oppose it (and in that case support the potentially far more useful Spanish nationalism instead).
In the case of Russia, since my main concern in international affairs is the excess power of the US with its consequent wars, and how to curb it, I clearly don’t agree that “Russia is big enough” and I’d have liked to see the eastern half, at least, of the Ukraine reincorporated if it could have been done peacefully. I don’t see any great reason to support Ukrainian nationalists against Russian nationalists, and clearly Ukrainian nationalism operates in practice as a cats paw for US power, which is of course precisely why it has been extensively supported by the US regime’s propaganda and “democracy promotion” arms for decades now. And it really isn’t as though the eastern Ukraine has existed separately from Russia all that much in recent history, or that the two groups are really incompatible, anyway.
It’s certainly not a case of me wanting “the largest possible power blocs and the eradication of inconvenient local cultures and traditions” in general.
And fwiw I don’t feel any animus towards AP and Mr Hack nor any of the Ukrainian nationalists, no matter how extreme. It’s just business….
This is what the Little Russian Rus nationalists of 19th century Ukraine wanted and the approach they took (although they did not want to move the capital to Kiev from St. Petersburg). They were loyal to the institution of the Tsar and to the idea of Rus but considered themselves, Little Russians, to be equal to and indeed “older brothers” to the more numerous and powerful Great Russians whom they considered to be corrupted by the Mongols. They codified the Little Russian language and planned to make it the language of instruction in schools, gathered folk stories, etc. They teamed up with Great Russian nationalists to oppose the Jews and the Poles – how could it be that in Rus, Polish Catholic landlords could dominate Rus serfs, demanding that lands be taken from Catholics and distrbuted to Orthodox Rus people. The conservative pre-nationalist Russian government didn’t have a problem with Polish landlords, peasants ought to know their place.
The Russian government, probably spooked by Polish uprisings, turned against the Poles but was afraid of any regionalism and thus decided to try to force the Little Russians to become Great Russians. They banned publishing or performing in the Little Russian language, transferred many of these Little Russian activists to scattered parts of Russia far from Ukraine, tried to suppress their life work, etc. The result was complete failure and backlash. Little Russian was retained but renamed Ukrainian, the Tsar became the enemy, Poles became allies rather than enemies, etc. Literate Ukrainian elites shared secret anti-Russian Ukrainian nationalist works amongst themselves, people tried teaching the peasants this stuff, works were smuggled in from Galicia where Ukrainian exiles from the Russian Empire had set up shop. As I’ve mentioned, by the 1917 elections about 70% of the people in ethnic Ukrainian areas voted for Ukrainian nationalist parties. During the Russian civil war there were zero pro-Russian units or leaders from Ukraine, just a bunch of nationalists (Petliura) anarchists (Makhno) some communists.
Essentially, the local Ukrainian national idea developed anyways, and it took an anti-Russian Ukrainian form rather than a Little Russian form. Today, “Little Russian” is rather pejorative and has the connotation of a Quisling in Ukraine.
In 1700 there were 1.5 million Swedes and .5 million Norwegians. This ratio is closer to that of Russians to Ukrainians (~140 million Russians vs. ~40 million Ukrainians).
Do you think Sweden could have done to Norway, what it had done to Scania, had it taken Norway rather than Scania in the late 17th century?
For sure. In general I’m in favour of it.
Isn’t it notorious (if perhaps controversial around here) that members of some eastern European nations quite recently joined with German invaders to slaughter fellow subjects of their own states who were perceived as different, with some enthusiasm?
How is that not much the same thing?
I want to support neither of them.
I generally refrain from commenting on the Ukraine issue, because I don’t read Ukrainian or Russian, and my opinion on it isn’t worth much. My personal view is that Russia has certain legitimate interests there like preventing Ukraine’s NATO membership, safeguarding the rights of Russians/speakers of Russsian etc. (and in that regard, I can’t get agitated about the annexation of Crimea which, it seems to me, merely corrected a historical mistake). Given the rather provocative behaviour of the US and to some degree also the Western Europeans, I can see the reasons for Russian actions since 2014 (even if I don’t entirely approve of the methods).
That being said, regarding the issue of Ukrainian nationhood I have a certain sympathy for Mr Hack’s position. It certainly seems more plausible to me than many of the claims of Russian nationalists.
But ultimately, it’s not my business, and I’m more concerned about other matters closer to home.
I agree with you about fake nationalists like in Catalonia and Scotland. For me the central issue is stopping mass immigration and restricting multiculturalism…these ridiculous quasi-globalist “nationalisms” are worse than useless for that.
It wasn’t just directed at you personally, but a more general statement.
E.g. regarding Richard Spencer: One point where I really thought “This guy has seriously lost it”, was when he tweeted something about how he wanted a “white empire in the northern hemisphere with global power projection capabilities”.
Not only is something like this ridiculous when you’ve got not much more than a Twitter account. The implicit desire to dominate others (“global power projection”), instead of just carving out a space for us and our own kind and defending it, will repel even many people who would otherwise be sympathetic to nationalist causes. One can’t win with such power worship stuff.
I meant nations or large settled regions who have an established literate identity changing their identity, not individuals. Of course individuals do. My own family are descended from Vikings. 900 or so years after they entered Rus, we are still aware of this.
Scania seems to be an example of a region that changed its identity, from Danish to Swedish.
Tellingly, it was very similar to Sweden culturally and linguistically (closer culturally than Ukraine is to Russia). The example may be more relevant to the idea of Latvians being forced to become Lithuanians or vice versa – or Ukrainians and Belarusians.
Again, thank you for the fascinating discussion. When I pick up my Volvo and drive around Sweden I will have more background info.
They were subjects of the same state but seen as different nations.
Well that is quite interesting, and thank you for informing me of that. Seems like a missed opportunity on both sides.
It’s a question of will more than anything else. Given sufficient will, yes.
In the context of Scandinavia however I don’t see that as desirable. Fraternal feelings are strong, and there is an obvious pan-national identity one can work with.
Hence why I am “Thorfinnsson” instead “Richard Spencer” or my actual name.
Trust me, I know.
And really my actual politics are not so much in favor of global imperialism or whatever because the returns to that are not really that good anymore.
That said as a German you’re more repelled than non-Germans are given recent disastrous history for your country.
In America it’s routine for people to get excited about attacking other countries.
But no Ukrainian blood; works for Putler – he can never be a real nigger.
https://i.imgur.com/sW5z3rJ.jpg
He’s being serious – he is a man of culture.
Yes, but as you see yourself, that’s because Americans can get away with it and have never suffered the kind of national disaster that would correct their aggressive behaviour. Actually one of the major problems with the American public imo (the other being the liberalism and demented “antiracism” of many Americans) which seems to be completely unable to learn anything at all from disasters like Vietnam or Iraq.
What’s Hitler (is it Hitler or am I just imagining that?) doing on the cover of Tupac cds?
I don’t think he would have enjoyed rap, not his kind of music.
If I understand correctly, it’s advertising for some film from 2008 (“Hitler kaput”).
Probably makes more sense than claiming that Hitler would have been a fan of 2pac.
India defeated China in skirmishes post 62 & was DQd due to its tanks breaking down but was among the leaders.
Its IQ of low 80s post Flyn would be the same as most of Slavia ie mid 90s so Idk wtf ur on about||
The Chinks thought the 303 Lee Enfields were machine guns based on how fast they fired in 62||
http://www.delhidefencereview.com/2017/08/13/did-indian-army-troops-save-chinese-troops-in-sudan/
‘Mediocre’ is the word I used and you didn’t provide shit. You provided a link that doesn’t open and you expect me to take your word for its contents. 🙂
It’s same fucking link! lol I already told you it doesn’t work. Try harder next time.
Also, the English aristocrats were still French-speaking at the time of Joan or Arc’s resistance.
Not sure your reference fully supports you in this, given that Joan was born in 1412: “From the conquest (1066) until the end of the 14th century, French was the language of the king and his court.”
There is no question though that French, or a version of it, continued to be welll entrenched in the legal domain. Thus an act of Parliament was adopted in 1362 requiring that all court pleas should be “pleaded, shown, defended, answered, debated and judged in English” because “the French language is not sufficiently known”. The Act itself, of course, was in French:
It wasn’t until 1731 that French was definitively abandoned in the law courts, although of course to this day Acts of Parliament are still confirmed in French (“La Reyne le veult”). In the US many court sessions (including the Supreme Court) begin with the invocation “Oyez, oyez, the court is now in session”.
A useful book on the subject is Kibbee, For to Speke Frenche Trewely: The French language in England, 1000–1600. Its status, description and instruction.
Could you provide some details on this?
Why would anyone want to be Ukrainian as opposed to Russian?
Why do you continue to insist that larger states are better? It seems to me that the larger the state, the more dysfunctional the government, in terms of representing the real interests of the people. What possible advantages would a Nordic federation have, other than expanding Sweden’s benign influence?
As a Russian nationalist, I’m strongly against any kind of merging with Ukraine. In Kiev today you see regular torchlight processions, celebrating WW2 Nazi collaborators. This isn’t some actual National-Socialist movement, mind you, it’s a tacky Eastern-European cargo cult. This is what passes for a Ukrainian culture these days. It’s an abomination, and what it really needs is cleansing, de-Ukrainisation if you will.
I think People’s Republic of Donetsk (ДНР, DNR) provides a good blueprint of what is to be done about the Ukraine. All they did was remove the requirement to use Ukrainian language everywhere, and it just died. That and the introduction of Russian school curriculums, Russian TV etc meant that svidomy types found the new regime so objectionable, they promptly self-deported. The city of Donetsk has been effectively cleansed, i.e freed from the plague, which is українство. No Ukrainian мова is heard, no vyshyvankas, and no torchlight processions.
What we need to do is to expand DNR regime into as much territory as possible, ideally covering the entirety of the Ukraine. Let it stew for several decades, while svidomy self-deport, then the territory can be safely annexed to Russia.
So you have the French fighting against a half-French English king,
And of course in further support of your argument is that Joan of Arc was captured by the Burgundians, who were allied to the English
More to the point, they were seen by the perpetrators as out groups who were legitimate targets for aggression based upon cultural, religious or ethnic differences. In all such cases.
As a Jew, I love India, but your army is not even in the same universe as China. Get real.
Why are you here anyway? Shouldn’t you be burning your sister-in-law alive for the insufficient dowry her family paid? I’m eating a huge hamburger right now.
…
oh yeah, keep an eye on Pakistan for us. thnx.
Joan of Arc is well post-Chaucer, so no.
Yes but this is like saying the invasion of Belgium in WWI involved Germans fighting against a German prince.
I am not so sure Germans learned that lesson all by themselves. Germany is after all a vassal state. The reaction to WW1 defeat in Germany was after all not pacifism and non-interventionism. In fact those sentiments emerged in the victorious countries instead.
The American people are getting somewhat better on this. Take this for instance: http://www.pollingreport.com/syria.htm
This is a pretty decent result considering the propaganda that has been going on since 2013, which is even more intensive than the propaganda in 2002-2003 to invade Iraq.
The chemical weapons false flags are sadly quite effective in their intended propaganda purpose.
I am increasingly convinced that if we’re going to save our country (or your country), it will require first taking down the Empire. We thought that perhaps we could first take down the Cathedral and close the borders. The Trump Presidency has proved highly disturbing in revealing how entrenched, powerful, malicious, and evil the Dweeb State is.
Sweden had an asset bubble and banking crisis at more or less the same time as Japan.
Japan’s reaction was to keep zombie banks (banks with massive portfolios of non-performing loans) on life support–just enough to keep them from failing. Thus much of the banking sector could no longer perform its core function of providing credit.
To support economic growth, the state partially replaced the banking system by resorting to large-scale deficit spending.
Sweden instead nationalized the banks, liquidated the bad debts, then sold its shares in the banks when the crisis was over.
Japan’s demographics also mean that it can no longer grow at the rates it did in the past, but neither Japanese business nor the Japanese government appear to accept this. Thus there have long been a number of experiments to try to stoke growth, the latest being “Abenomics”.
I don’t read Russian, but I think it says “Putler kaput”– some sort of hipster joke pprobably.
The number one reason is independence. No Nordic state on its own can resist America, Russia, or Germany. Small states are de facto vassals whether they admit it or not. I realize that Germany is also a vassal state, but it doesn’t have to be.
A larger entity also provides more opportunities for elites (this matters more than you think–you don’t want them emigrating) and greater possibilities of developing globally competitive enterprises, including enterprises with dominant positions that can thus derive monopoly rents from world markets.
The main reason a Nordic federation did not develop is that the European Community appeared to offer a better alternative, and Denmark and Norway had already joined NATO. Finland was also forced in Soviet vassalage after the Continuation War (sort of, it was an odd situation).
It has been fashionable lately to claim that small states are better governed, but I’m not sure there’s much evidence in support of this.
German housing policy is for instance extremely successful. Housing prices are the same as they were forty years ago, they have some kind of system of rent controls that actually works, and the low level of home ownership increases labor market flexibility and prevents NIMBYism.
Meanwhile Sweden has one of the world’s worst housing bubbles despite very low population density. It also suffered from a bad housing bubble a generation ago, and prior to that it stupidly sought to gradually socialize all housing.
Of course there are areas where Sweden is better governed than Germany, just pointing out one example where the Germans are better.
In terms of “real interests of the people” both Germany and Sweden chose to invite the rapefugees in, and Sweden has consistently been worse on this. Denmark (small country) has been decent, but Poland (large country) is excellent. Other factors clearly at work.
The existence of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis is highly amusing in light of the H-man’s views and plans for the Slavs. I assume they will be suppressed the moment they are no longer needed to shore up the Maidan regime. At that point “hate speech” prosecutions and Holocaust museums will be introduced. Ukrainians will be told that they were responsible for the Holocaust because a few Ukrainians volunteered to be camp guards in order to get better rations.
Second link worked. You didn’t try it? Don’t blame others for your failure.
Alternatively, go to the wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income
Click the link to reference number 4:
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk
(it opens through wikipedia, if the above doesn’t work for you)
Go to “2016”, on the left of the screen.
Look at various ethnic groups.
Ukrainian is higher than almost all white groups: German, Finnish, Czech, English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, French, Italian, Irish, Polish, Hungarian. It is lower than Latvian and Lithuanian, Swiss and Slovenian, Russian and Israeli.
Enjoy being shown to be the ignorant person you are.
:::::::::::::::
BTW, I haven’t checked yet – any comment to your ridicukous assertion, debunked here, that Azov battalion are mostly western Ukrainians?
The link doesn’t work. Probably because it’s a “product view” with a “book mark?” as a source and relies on information your browser sent to that website.
Take a screenshot instead.
Following the link through Wikipedia does work, but note that Wikipedia actually gives this link: http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/ACS/14_1YR/S0201//popgroup~-A0
Which then changes to the link you pasted once you get on the site.
Sent into abject poverty, LOL. You gloat about $250 monthly income in the rest of Ukraine but it is $177 in DNR.
Donbas regions that became DNR were already about 50% ethnic Russian and ~85% Russian declared as native language. “Svidomy types” in Donetsk prior to the war were like Russian nationalists or Sovoks in Lviv (who mostly self-deported in the 90s). Situation not applicable to the rest of Ukraine.
Yeah, you have to get there through Wikipedia. Reference number 4. At any rate, it shows that Ukrainians are among the wealthiest white ethnic groups in the USA. “Russians” are the wealthiest but I suspect many of them are Jews.
I am not very technologically competent. How do you take a screenshot and post it here?
Sorry I guess the image on Tupac albums is too small.
It’s Putler Kaput
http://kapterka.com.ua/image/cache/data/maidan/pytler-kaput-max-500.jpg
As the cliche in Ukraine:
http://ua-today.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Putler-Kaput.jpg
http://img.fromuz.com/forum/uploads/monthly_12_2009/post-49055-1261082474.jpg
Some Adobe photoshopping skills to make the original painting:
https://img.tsn.ua/cached/1518092914/tsn-65e5f602e5840498ead47d2707d23e52/thumbs/608xX/15/65/f9316d292d83046f9182af3186656515.jpg
Ah, ok, hadn’t know about that, thanks (to Anonymous [198] as well).
Does Putin have an opinion about rap music?
Please don’t call software “tech”… though I guess that ship has sailed.
Anyway, once you have the page up use the “print screen” button on your computer to copy a screenshot. Then go to Paint or whatever equivalent program you have, “paste” it, and save it. Then go to imgur or some other image-hosting site and upload it. (In fact you can probably skip the previous step and simply paste directly to hosting site.) Finally, post the url of the picture in the comments here. Here is example using another hosting site: https://snag.gy/DBKwF5.jpg
When you see the image you want on your screen – then press ‘ctrl’ key and ‘prtsc’ key (‘prtsc’ key is in the top of your keyboard in the right side).
Then go to program (like Microsoft paint), and click paste.
Then on program (like Microsoft paint) use select function to isolate the part of the screen that you want to show.
Then use ‘crop function’ to remove the part you don’t want to show.
Save as jpeg.
Then go to something like imgur.com, and press new post, and upload the jpeg there.
–
The whole process will take 1-2 minutes of effort.
That’s true, but not completely surprising since at the time of the armistice German troops were still well outside of Germany’s borders. Defeat in WW2 was much more total, undeniable and visible given the bombed-out state of most German cities.
Indeed, though it also has to be said that Trump has just acted on his campaign promises (some of them at least, I know he also said a few things that sounded like scepticism about permanent US interventions in the Mideast). Killing off the nuclear deal with Iran was already a prominent goal in his campaign, and unfortunately he seems to deliver on that.
I’ve heard some take an entirely geo-political approach to this question. According to this theory, France was not the aggressor in WW2 simply because it had a smaller population than the German-speaking peoples.
We are made to think of the French as having hairy armpits to prevent their underarms from getting sunburnt when they surrender, but that doesn’t coincide with the long view of history at all. Not with Napolean (who admittedly wasn’t French); not with the Franco-Prussian war. The name of the country, after all, comes from the Franks, and at an earlier time from the Gauls.
Putin probably has better taste than average even in his generation, and he likes classical music and jazz music.
Although sometimes he pretends to promote some bands like Lyube for political reasons – I doubt he actually listens to that.
Vladislav Surkov is the known hip hop fan in the Kremlin. He keeps in contact with local rap performers, and is often quoting from hip hop songs.
And it’s known by the journalists, Surkov is commissioning viral marketing projects like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDIlQ3_lsKE
I was thinking the face looked too roundish, but since it was obviously stylized and so small I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
The Iran deal isn’t going anywhere.
The American people will not tolerate a war with Iran. Neither will the US military or intelligence agencies. Neither will the US’s Euro allies. Neither will Russia or China. Neither will Saudi Arabia even.
Even the IDF has been reduced to begging the US to stay in the Iran deal. Yes, you read that correctly.
The Iran deal is totally safe. Worst case scenario, the US temporarily suspends it’s participation in lieu of some “clarifications”.
Everything is gonna be fine. Trump has already started the process of leaving Syria and South Korea.
Rejoice at this new era of peace that our savior Trump has brought us!
Horrible…no escape from that kind of rot anywhere. Just horrible. If something like this is even promoted by Kremlin insiders, I suppose Russia won’t offer much resistance to the coming Black planet when AK’s tropical hyberborea becomes reality.
I didn’t know you had such a problem with black people.
You’re constantly telling us that the IDF wants a regional war with Syria and Iran, so this isn’t exactly logical.
We’ll see in a little over a week (May 12 iirc), so far there’s nothing to indicate imo that Trump won’t end the deal.
I’m just telling you what the Israeli press is saying. Don’t shoot the messenger.
Remember, the IDF threatened Bibi with a coup if he ordered an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. That’s totally different then attacking Syria which Bibi can’t stop because Lieberman is taking the IDF’s side.
Yes, the IDF, but not Bibi, want a war with Iran in Syria, but they definitely don’t want a war in Iran.
Bibi, on the other hand, wants an attack on Iran directly but doesn’t want a war with Iran in Syria.
So the current situation is that Bibi (who absolutely nobody respects) is telling Trump to dump the agreement whereas the IDF (who have at least a modicum of international credibility) are begging Trump to stay in.
Maybe the US will temporarily withdrawal, but that’s it. I don’t even think the US will do that.
it will require first taking down the Empire.
And how do you foresee this happening? Collective wisdom of the American voter?
It’s just a viral marketing project. Read the comments in English under it and you can see how effective it was in achieving the political marketing goals.
It’s only original American, rap music, which is so much related to being black or white. Which is probably what made it more interesting originally (until the 1990s – when the genre has died in America).
I’m sure it will be the same in Germany.
Russian rap is not about skin colour.
The problem is the increasing level of banalization and mainstream of the genre and lyrics quality.
Timati is just about love and girls, basically indistinguishable from Dima Bilan. And women in their 30s are listening to both of them.
One of the top newsstories about “refugees” in Germany in recent days is about police trying to apprehend a rejected asylum seeker from Togo for deportation, and being surrounded by a mob of 150-200 other African “refugees” who threatened violence and set an “ultimatum” for the release of the Togolese man. The police caved in.
“Having a problem with black people” is eminently rational given demographic trends and the well-demonstrated behaviour profile of all too many people of African origin. Unless I’m mistaken, even quite a few people in Israel seem to agree.
No Nordic state on its own can resist America
A better solution to the difficulty of small countries existing in a US-led world: break up the USA. In the long run this is perhaps inevitable, but unfortunately it won’t happen soon.
that’s an immigrant problem, not a black problem.
I don’t care if you don’t like blacks, I’m just surprised.
The blacks we have in America don’t behave at all like the African “refugees” in Europe and Israel.
Is that true? What would be the goal of such an operation? Does Netanyahu believe violent regime change in Iran will achieve anything positive?
Getting Iran out of Syria seems at least like a somewhat rational and possibly legitimate security interest of Israel…Netanyahu’s ambitions (which I don’t entirely understand) seem to be more extreme though.
In any case, killing off the nuclear deal is idiotic, it makes it more likely that Iran will develop nuclear weapons which isn’t a desirable outcome.
Please don’t call software “tech”
Assume you are talking about patents?
They’re still in large part a disproportionately criminal and dysfunctional underclass (which is true even of one admits some of their historic grievances are justified).
But anyway, I don’t care about blacks in America, not my problem. What I do care about is that American pop culture with its image of blacks as either the greatest victims ever (of evil white men of course) or the coolest race ever and its global reach makes it much harder the resist the encroachments of Africans. Many Europeans have their perceptions of blacks shaped by the American civil rights narrative and have developed entirely unjustified feelings of guilt and concern about “racism” which is exploited to the max by the invaders. Given Africa’s demographic explosion this needs to end.
I’m not kidding: the first black I recall seeing in Germany (and actually in Europe – though I had only been to one other country) was a stone drunk 12 y.o. boy. He was not 13. It is possible he may may have been 11. He was drunk on the schoolgrounds of a gymnasium at night. I’m not 100% certain, but I don’t believe he even went to the school.
Exactly. Which is why the Israeli media and IDF are losing their minds over this.
Bibi’s “plan” is to strike Iran’s nuke facilities to set Iran’s nuclear program back by 2 years. Yes, 2 years. And just keep doing that every 2 years until the end of time. If you think that sounds insane, imagine how the IDF feels.
When even I’m taking the IDF’s side, that tells you a lot.
I disagree. I think it is motivated by sheer paranoia.
I support the IDF strikes because of the pressing need to troll Russophiles, but from a security standpoint, these bombing raids are retarded.
I’ve read the publicly available documents the IDF has produced about its strategy and trolling Russophiles isn’t even mentioned as a priority.
Netanyahu thinks he has been chose by G-d to prevent a 2nd Holocaust. The IDF thinks he is being too apocalyptic and actually is endangering Israel by setting on a path that will lead to a regional arms race.
It isn’t America’s fault that the EU wants more blacks. Even if you don’t like Trump, he would definitely support a European crackdown on black immigration.
American media has NOT been positive about the refugees in Europe. It’s either been ultra negative or, at worst, neutral.
American’s are more into “negro worship” then Europeans, but something like the refugee crisis you guys are having would never happen here. This one is on you. Possibly because you guys haven’t developed the antibodies that we have in America from having lived with blacks for so long.
I like rap music and black athletes but still oppose black immigration.
“German” rap music (in this case by a “Palestinian-German” and a “Kurdish-German”) produces gems like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z9Izlk_aoc
Notice the undertones of inter-ethnic and inter-class violence in that video.
I’m sure there are dumb bourgeois teenagers who consume that kind of thing, but imo that’s just another sign of cultural degeneracy.
I thought Netanyahu was supposed to be pretty smart…but this sounds really stupid.
As far as we know, Iran doesn’t even have an active nuclear weapons program now, so what would be there to attack? Unless one wants to overthrow the Islamic republic, attacking Iran doesn’t make any sense imo. And overthrowing the current regime in Iran is a megalomaniac project that is likely to end in a horrible disaster.
That seems quite likely imo if the nuclear deal is destroyed and Iran responds by restarting a nuke program (admittedly not a certainty)…Saudi-Arabia and Turkey might also try to acquire nukes, and that would be a very bad development.
No, just annoyed that an obviously skilled worker like whoever “AP” really is would refer to himself as “technologically incompetent” because he doesn’t know how to use a few desktop programs. I probably overstated it though.
Take the cure Dude (#145), you’ll feel so much better and so will we! 🙂
Hell if know. We did our best and elected Trump, who, on a different note, has now been proven right on manufacturing all along: https://qz.com/1269172/the-epic-mistake-about-manufacturing-thats-cost-americans-millions-of-jobs/
Man, it’s almost like those of us in the Midwest who trusted our lyin’ eyes know more about manufacturing than people living in NYC and DC.
The Empire issue is very difficult to tackle as not only is it enormously powerful to begin with, but it’s a classic special interest problem. The benefits to breaking the Empire (to Americans) are diffuse and not obvious. The benefits of the Empire to its many beneficiaries are highly concentrated.
And my suggestion that we must first break the Empire in order to save our country is itself a “3D Chess” theory–or Triple Bankshot as Steve Sailer says.
Trump himself keeps doing useful things on this front to some degree at least. He just pulled funding for the White Helmets for instance: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-freezes-funding-for-syrias-white-helmets/
Trump is also reducing some of the costs of the Empire to Americans. Note here:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/03/the-number-of-refugees-admitted-to-the-u-s-has-fallen-especially-among-muslims/
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/04/12/602022877/the-u-s-has-welcomed-only-11-syrian-refugees-this-year
In general we need more and better propaganda, and no I don’t mean more meme wars on social media (not that I oppose the kids doing that). An interesting example is the grassroots anti-pitbull activism of Wild Goose: https://twitter.com/wildgoose999
If Wild Goose can send video billboard trucks attacking pitbulls through Times Square, what else can we do?
Secession is one of those things which can happen very suddenly.
Possible triggers in America would be the calling of a Constitutional Convention or a federal effort to confiscate firearms.
The former can be called if 34 state legislatures call for it, and already 30 have. State legislatures pass these resolutions under the foolish belief that an Article V Constitutional Convention convened by the states can be limited to a Balanced Budget Amendment (long-going idiotic obsession of American conservatives). It can’t.
Now imagine a national constitutional convention with delegates from all 50 states, with each state delegation equal in number. For the very first time, state & local officials from places like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska and so forth encounter the “vibrant” and “woke” state and local officials from California. Events would quickly spiral out of control.
People who want the breakup of America should make the holding of a Constitutional Convention their immediate goal.
A federal effort to confiscate firearms I predict would lead to Texan secession quite rapidly, followed by many more states.
And overthrowing the current regime in Iran is a megalomaniac project that is likely to end in a horrible disaster.
Disaster for whom? Not for the Israelis — in a world of turmoil, nobody cares what happens “locally” in Israel, as attested by the international condemnation and missile strikes in response to Israel’s killing of unarmed civilians (and journalists) in Gaza.
Isn’t Anglo Texas pretty much finished demographically? Non-hispanic whites were only a third of school children there even a few years ago:
https://blog.chron.com/texaspolitics/2011/02/texas-demographer-its-basically-over-for-anglos/
So Texas’ future looks to be pretty Mexican in any case (unless white right-wingers there get into ethnic cleansing mode which imo is very unlikely). And Hispanics probably don’t care much for ideas of secession (or might they if it meant reunification with Mexico?).
Anglo Texas is finished only if you assume that majority rule continues forever. Anglo-Texans are perfectly comfortable around Mexicans, but they don’t want to be governed by them.
Republicans are slowly figuring this out and as a result have been pushing a wide variety of voter suppression efforts. My state for instance recently implemented a law requiring that one show a government-issued photographic identification document (most commonly a state-issued driver license in America).
An independent Texas wouldn’t be bound by the Voting Rights Act or the federal constitution and could restrict the franchise to ensure Texans continue to govern Texas.
This could even be done nationally.
A nationalist Republican Congress (as opposed to a cuckservative Republican Congress) could dispense with the Senate filibuster and put an end to the Left in an afternoon. Repeal the Voting Rights Act, various Civil Rights Acts, the Fair Housing Act, and enact an immigration moratorium.
Move all federal prisoners (and all state prisoners from Republican states) and all illegal aliens to giant prison camps in deep red states, then count them in the federal census for purposes of Congressional representation. Suddenly North Dakota for instance could have a Congressional delegation as large as that of California.
Encourage deep red states to further sub-divide into additional states, and immediately admit those states to the Union. This is actually the reason there are two Dakotas to begin with.
Then with this lovely 100% gerrymandered and reliable Congress you write a new Constitution, easily ratified.
Show pec and ab pic.
Maybe some Israelis really make such a calculation and think they might be getting away with expelling the Palestinians if it really comes to a great civilizational war between the West and the Islamic world (and chances for that might be considerably improved by invading Iran). If so, it still seems like a pretty deranged strategy to me that could easily backfire even on its proponents.
If Wild Goose can send video billboard trucks attacking pitbulls through Times Square, what else can we do?
Interesting article about manufacturing job loss, although as you say it simply confirms what is obvious to anyone with common sense. It’s a bit like shipbuilding in UK (John Brown) which was allowed to collapse on the grounds that developed countries couldn’t compete with “lower cost” countries like Japan and South Korea.
For some reason the pitbull constitutency seems to be less powerful than the Empire-one. In terms of winning through “propaganda”, this seems to be a lost cause. Virtually everyone I know accepts at some basic level the propaganda of the Empire (Skripal, Syria, etc.), although of course these are not issues of great interest or importance to them. The idea that the Empire can be dethroned through “private” efforts unfortunately seems to me hopelessly naive. Not that I have a better solution, though.
There would probably be major civil unrest over something like this, large-scale riots and eventually probably terrorism, maybe eventually even separatist movements…if American blacks became de facto disenfranchised again, why should they still accept the legitimacy of the US government? And I very much doubt even a majority of American whites would support such a programme.
Your scenarios are interesting, but imo they’re totally at odds with America’s development over the last 50 years, and not very realistic. I just don’t see something like this happening.
Shipbuilding was also allowed to collapse in Sweden (which actually was a larger shipbuilder than the UK at the time) around the same time on similar reasoning.
The US decision to embark on “free trade” was undertaken for the Empire. The idea was that we would trade our own markets for our “security” concerns elsewhere. Specifically dated to 1962 when President Kennedy abandoned the Point of Peril Doctrine, and was first put into practice by President Nixon choosing to sacrifice the American television manufacturing industry in order to retain Japanese support for the Vietnam War.
The decision to grant most favored nation status to China and admit them to the WTO was undertaken on even dumber grounds. American policymakers genuinely believed this would turn China into another pozzed liberal democracy.
Pathetic.
At least with shipbuilding there was the fact that competing with the Japanese in international markets was really, really hard. It’s not very hard at all to protect your domestic market.
The pitbull constituency is indeed less powerful than the Empire, but it’s a more useful propaganda campaign than you think.
The basis of pitbull advocacy is a kind of dumbed down form of anti-racism applied to dogs.
Think about the meta-implications of successful anti-pitbull propaganda.
The main goal of propaganda against the Empire shouldn’t necessarily be to convince people that the Empire’s narratives are false. Too much work. It should instead be to destroy the Empire’s legitimacy.
Much more than just good propaganda is needed, but I felt Wild Goose’s campaign was worth highlighting.
Maybe some Israelis really make such a calculation and think they might be getting away with expelling the Palestinians if it really comes to a great civilizational war
That is certainly the hidden objective of some, but in a general (less apocalyptic) sense disorder allows Israel to continue converting the West Bank into Bantustans. Just contrast the situation today (where the world yawns while Israel murders people in Gaza) with the mid-late 1990s when there was significant international pressure on Israel to follow through with the Oslo Accords and enact a genuine 2-state solution. This essentially disappeared with 9/11, which no doubts accounts why the Israeli “establishment” was literally overjoyed by it:
And of course by the “dancing Israelis” in the US:
https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123885&page=1
Well, nationalism never was truly universal. There were always people who didn’t agree with nationalism, however much they could read and write. Do you seriously think that there was a time in history where the majority (let alone all) of people were nationalists? Perhaps Nazi Germany, though Richard J. Evans has a good point when writes that almost half of the Germans had voted for decidedly anti-nationalist (and anti-antisemitic) parties (Communists and Social Democrats) before Hitler, and they reverted to those voting habits surprisingly quickly after 1945. The implication being that they never ceased to be communist and social democratic supporters under Hitler, they were just oppressed in a dictatorship. Considering how many people supported the Nazis for non-nationalistic reasons, it’s likely that nationalists never constituted a majority in Nazi Germany. Arguably the most extremely nationalistic regime of all times.
Also, ethnic solidarity always takes the back seat when fundamental beliefs are involved:
communism (in Hungary Horthy’s nationalists sided against the communists when they were fighting foreign invaders)
national socialism (Hans Oster was a nationalist who initially welcomed Hitler in 1933)
probably in premodern societies social class was also more important, because people in a Malthusian society were often not very far from starving to death
Anyway, so the examples you give only prove that ethnic solidarity wasn’t the most important thing on people’s minds all the time. That was even true of the Age of Nationalism.
The Age of Nationalism was unique not because people’s beliefs about ethnic solidarity or ethnic government were unique to that age, but because it was a useful idea in the age of universal conscription, so nationalistic states beat non-nationalistic ones, until eventually all of them more or less adopted nationalistic official ideologies. (Even unofficially the USSR.) We’re now back to premodern structures where ideology (then religion, now liberalism) trumps national feelings.
It doesn’t mean those ideas of being governed by your co-ethnics and not by aliens in a unified ethnic state on an as large as possible territory wasn’t present long before people could read and write. The reason this idea can be so powerful is that it’s part of the human condition.
Franchise restrictions in the initial phase would not be explicitly racially based for the reasons you put forth.
There are lots of other ways to restrict the franchise, and after all it’s not like you want all whites to vote either.
Large scale civil unrest is a feature, not a bug. Ideally one would drive California to vote to secede. Then you march the army into California to reestablish federal rule, but don’t readmit it to the Union as a state.
I was hoping that aggressive interior immigration enforcement would spur CALEXIT for instance for this very reason.
And Texas seceding over something like firearms realistic. It’s kind of like the Bavaria of America you could say.
Trump ally Mark Meadows says that Trump is staying in the deal: https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-trump-ally-predicts-iran-deal-will-hold-up-for-now
Trump owes Russia big and he knows it. He may not care, but he knows it none the less.
Everything is gonna be fine.
Doesn’t matter, even franchise restrictions based on property or education are totally at odds with America’s democratic ideology and would probably be strongly resisted by very large parts of the US population. Since they would disproportionately affect blacks (who are much poorer than the average white or Asian in the US), the racial aspect would also be immediately obvious.
Bavaria’s supposedly very right-wing Christian Democrats have shown themselves to be cucked losers over the past few years who think that 200 000 “refugee” invaders every year is somehow acceptable and no big deal. All sound, no fury. I suspect the same is true of most of those patriotic and gun-loving Texans. They didn’t manage to do anything about the Mexicanization of their state (some of them probably even welcomed it as beneficial for their business interests)…gun rights may be an emotive issue, but is it really more emotive than demographic displacement? And it’s not even clear or likely that there will be a general attempt at confiscating guns (which would be almost impossible to enforce, most US politicians must know this).
Liberals would never secede. Their goal is to exterminate all American whites which they can’t do if the US breaks up. Also they know that their goose is cooked without the bad whites to keep the lights on.
From the article you linked to:
So at best a “short-term extension”, still with the goal of re-negotiating a deal that none of the other participants (well, apart maybe from slimy Macron’s France) want to re-negotiate, and over issues that have nothing to do with the nuke issue itself and which are probably non-negotiable for Iran (why should Iran just give up its missiles? So they don’t have any deterrent at all?).
So this article merely confirms what we already know.
The Russians will be fat and happy, but as I said the US will suffer: good, hard times make hard people and something far greater that cheap groceries is the ultimate objective, which can be achieved thus:-
Iran isn’t giving up it’s missiles and nobody seriously expects them to do so.
Macron has actually been a straight shooter on this one. He’s really done everything he can to save the deal but has accepted that he might not be able to and so the best option is damage control. We should all thank him for his efforts. And I otherwise hate his guts.
The only renegotiation that anybody would accept would be some clarifications of things already agreed to. Neither side has fully lived up to their commitments so there is plenty of room for horse trading.
Remember that Trump doesn’t have a choice. The US military simply will not carry out a strike on Iran even if Trump orders it. Everybody in America recognizes this fact. Europeans have a very unrealistic impression of how much power the US President really has.
what kind of things? My impression has been that US politicians constantly try to bring up issues that have no relevance to the nuke issue itself, like Iran’s missile programme, its supposedly destabilizing role in the region, its support for Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen etc.
? You’re trying to tell me that the US military would simply ignore orders by civilian politicians? That’s a pretty extreme claim, what’s it based on?
US politicians have their own agenda. Just ignore them. Congress has virtually 0 input on US foreign affairs which are done exclusively by the Executive branch.
Europe was supposed to open up it’s banking system to Iran and they have refused to do so. Iran was supposed to allow more thorough inspections then they actually have.
Trump can’t order an attack. He can only order Mathis to order such an attack. Mathis would never carry out that order but would instead resign, along with Kelly. Even the threat of those 2 resigning would be enough to stop Trump cold. But if he proceeded, yeah the Army would refuse to strike Iran because the domestic and media pressure to do so would be overwhelming.
South Korea and China are in it together. China will become a megapower, because Trump is going to make huge concessions to them on the trade takes (that are happening almost concurrently with the takes over the North Korean mini mouse “threat” that the East Asians mercantilism are using to fuck the West. Russia is sending them the oil to make cheap goods that will hollow out the West. The people negotiating these treaties will no be their to face Decepticon Mega-China in a generation when it will dominate the wold with military force. Putin and Trump:-
Who cares?
In a gerrymandered system that no longer matters.
Conservatives in the USA are by and large fine with implicitly racist policies, and conservative-run states always have many such policies. Guess why Tennessee for instance has no state income tax but a very high sales tax. Or why states in the Deep South have by far the least generous social assistance programs.
Liberals calling these policies racist is only any issue when they have the power to do something about it. If you gerrymander the government and pack the courts then they can’t do anything about it anymore.
And unrest? Once again, who cares? Let the blacks burn down Detroit again and try to rebuild it themselves this time.
For the typical Texan or even American conservative, yes, guns are a more emotive issue than demographic displacement.
Conservatives are happy to cherrypick isolated examples of non-white minorities getting into gun rights, the Constitution, etc. and note how BASED said non-white is.
But on gun rights they like to talk about 1776 and overthrowing the government. So if there were moves to actually confiscate firearms you’d immediately hear loud cries for secession in the Texas State House (and many others). Fortunately some moron from California is now calling for confiscation of “assault weapons” and the prosecution of anyone who resists. Sooner or later when they try to enforce that law some NRA member who listens to Alex Jones every day and wears a MOLON LABE t-shirt will make them take his gun from his cold dead hands (popular quip among American gun enthusiasts).
I realize this must seem very strange to a European, or really anyone who is not American, but it’s deeply embedded here.
Perhaps if the German federal government announces the confiscation of brass instruments and repeals the Reinheitsgebot you’ll see Bavaria secede.
Demographic displacement is more emotive to us because we’re dissidents who are steeped in this issue. Normal conservatives don’t think about it much, though they’re starting to thanks to Trump. Immigration is now the #1 issue for Republican voters for instance.
The mainstream hip hop is more and more losing these ‘streetwise’ and ethnic aspects though. Probably the market is still in the early stage in Germany.
All that Drake sings about, is just middle class consumption music that Adorno would not like. And this seems the mature stage of hip hop – the same as pop music.
Timati used pretend to do ethnic/nationality issues a little bit in the lyrics, and more so in the videos, but in the last years it just moved to middle class consumption music, written by a rich man that middle class guys aspire to.
In the lyrics of Timati songs, it’s just became light grumpy stuff, about the problems in the life of rich men (too many women, women too materialistic, etc).
Or typical problems ‘streetwise’ men like Timati suffer, such as about moving to London to forget about a girl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djIAgcCnFmE
The US military disobeys civilian authority constantly. The Navy has been illegally refusing to shock-test the USS Gerald Ford for almost two years now.
Donald Rumsfeld ordered the Army to abandon its German vacation properties back in 2002. They’re still there.
This kind of thing isn’t even new. Eisenhower wanted to inspect Area 51 and was told he didn’t have authorization to do so. They relented when he told them he would invade Area 51 with the 101st Airborne if they relented.
That said I’m not as sanguine as Greasy William about Iran. Let’s hope he’s right.
They just didn’t know who they were, or were hardly even aware of a war. At least according to a documentary I saw about it years ago.
I remember Charlton Heston saying that.
Don’t quite see though how some NRA member gunning down those who want to take his guns away would be politically helpful…wouldn’t liberals spin this as “See, that’s how dangerous these nutcases are! Proves they can’t be trusted with their guns!”.
But it seems very unlikely to me that there’d be any attempt at large-scale confiscation of guns…how would something like this even be enforced? The practical problems would be immense. And there’s also a quite plausible argument that this would only affect law-abiding citizens whereas criminals with unregistered guns (which must number in the millions) would be advantaged.
That’s on a different level though than refusing to carry out military strikes which would be, as far as I know, insubordination of a kind unprecedented in US history. Even powerful and influential generals (MacArthur in the Korean war, McChrystal a few years ago when he privately mocked Obama) have been removed for much less. And every US president who wanted to initiate or escalate a war – Polk in the 1840s, Wilson in WW1, FDR in WW2, LBJ in Vietnam, Bush in Iraq – was in the end able to do so, without any resistance by the military. Given how hated Iran seems to be in the US (certainly also among large parts of the US military, given past history like it supposedly providing IEDs to blow up US troops in Iraq), I don’t see why it should be an exception.
I’d actually find it disturbing on some level if the US military refused to carry out Trump’s orders, it would indicate a new level of political dysfunction.
The audience isn’t liberals. It’s conservatives, in particular conservative members of state legislatures. A guy who decided to go out in a blaze of glory against a SWAT team coming to seize his firearms would immediately become a hero to a huge segment of the population. He’d be comparable to that poor Tunisian schmuck who set himself on fire and kicked off the Arab Spring.
There are indeed many excellent arguments against gun confiscation.
Just like there are excellent arguments against mass immigration. Try using those on liberals.
Liberals hate and fear firearms, and they have worked themselves into a religious frenzy against “assault rifles”. They see they as demonic talismans, and people who advocate for their right to own them are wicked and have blood on their hands. They also bizarrely believe that gun rights advocates are on the take from gun manufacturers.
Here’s the bonehead who wants to confiscate all “assault rifles”: http://ussanews.com/News1/2018/05/04/congressman-wants-to-confiscate-and-ban-all-assault-weapons-in-us/
Notice that he’s from California. Quite typical of California white liberals who are essentially religious fanatics.
Even ignoring the 1776 MOLON LABE fantasies many gun owners have, this would end up completely overwhelming the federal court system. You could literally end up with more than a million federal felony cases, or even ten million.
The army has no love for Iran but it is mostly concerned with Russia and China. This is hardly a secret, they broadcast their animosity towards Russia and China publicly. Go read some US military boards where officers hang out and they are obsessed with how to counter Russian and Chinese power. It is simply a fundamental part of US military culture, and it gets worse the higher up the command chain you go.
A war with Iran would be damaging to the US military’s anti Russia agenda.
If Matthis okayed the Iran attack, the army would go along with it because they trust him. But if Trump ordered it against Matthis’ public objections? No way. They’ve got a new Cold War with Russia to fight.
Mexicans in TX are different from those in CA. Most locals don’t seem to mind them too much; their arrival isn’t causing a flight of natives as occurs in CA. And they are, of course, nothing like the people being welcomed into Germany by the 100,000s.
The attack on Iran will be USAF after sales service for Russian air defense technology.
Maybe, but their numbers seem to be so massive (just read the “It’s all over for Anglos” story I linked above) that in any case they’ll change Texas into something radically different from what it was from the 1830s until the late 20th century. Even if they’d be the most perfect immigrants imaginable, such a drastic change would have to be pretty painful for many in the Anglo population.
Umm, why actually? Russia and Iran may only be allies of convenience with not much love between them, but for the moment they are allies. Smashing Iran without Russia being able to do something about it would be a pretty strong demonstration of American superiority.
I have a friend in TX, loves the state, likes the Mexicans, and he is an anti-migrant Eastern European who hates Merkel.
Article comparing Texas Mexicans to California Mexicans:
https://www.dailysignal.com/2014/09/13/why-hispanics-thrive-in-texas-but-not-in-california/
Not that a flood of them (or of any other type of person) is a good thing, but it’s not like being invaded by murderous “orcs”
I didn’t claim that, and it’s probably true that on the level of crime Mexicans aren’t that bad…I find it interesting that American immigration restrictionists seem to have trouble coming up with the kind of horror stories one could easily come up with about Somalis, Afghans or Arabs in Europe (e.g. gang rapes of native women and the like). The worst even someone like Steve Sailer usually brings up is stuff like the Kate Steinle case (tragic, but probably just an idiot playing around with guns) or drunk Mexican illegals causing traffic accidents.
That being said, the article you linked to seems somewhat propagandistic to me tbh (California Mexicans bad because of “socialism”, Texas Mexicans good because of low taxes and a strong spirit of entrepeneurship).
The article I linked to above didn’t sound that optimistic:
That seems like a potentially very serious problem to me.
Direct escalation with Russia plays into Russia’s strength: credibly threatening the US with genocidal nuclear war. The army wants to drain Russia through proxy conflicts while avoiding direct confrontation.
An attack Iran would destabilize the entire region which would end up being on the US to fix.
Regime change in Iran is impossible without an invasion which nobody is suggesting and the army wants to avoid at any cost. They are still traumatized from the 2nd Gulf War (which they were against). The army also has no interested in enforcing a no fly zone in Iran for the next 10 to 20 years.
In the ME, the military is currently most interested in Syria and Afghanistan. They don’t want anything taking their focus away from those theaters. The military is still pushing for a massive increase in US troops in Syria.
As far as the army is concerned, they got what they want from Iran: no nukes and no trouble for US personnel. Iran continues to cause problems for Israel and the Saudis, but the US army doesn’t care as long as Iran doesn’t present either of those states with a direct military threat to their security.
Low IQ minorities can thrive with free markets (means they don’t get priced out of the labor market, and housing is cheap), harsh criminal justice, low welfare, and religion. As such they do better in red states and often move to them (e.g. lots of blacks have moved to Georgia). In this condition they don’t pose many problems for whites either, especially with residential segregation.
Trouble is of course how they vote, hence why franchise restriction will be needed in the future. In fact probably it will be necessary to resurrect a lot of Jim Crowe type institutions. That seems a lot more realistic to me than RaHoWa 1488 Nazi LARPing.
LOL I pressed agree but the Jim Crow is going too far. I’d compare Mexicans to southern Italian peasants who came over 100 years ago. They did well with low welfare, religion, harsh criminal justice, free market. To the extent that Texas has those things too, Mexicans do okay there.
Mexico is similar in per capita GDP terms, in PPP, to countries like Romania or Bulgaria.
In some areas like life expectancy, they are very high.
Probably they will not become a developed Western level country for some more decades still.
They have that horrible crime problem though, much worse than anything in Romania and Bulgaria (which are pretty bad with organized crime by European standards). The things one reads about those cartels are just horrifying. And state authorities seem to be corrupt/infiltrated by criminals.
Also – notice how all Americas (except Canada), have a much higher murder rate, compared to Western European countries. And even Canada is slightly higher than any Western European countries.
This is particularly the Latin American countries, which includes the highest murder rates in the world in some countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
Shouldn’t you be sucking bleeding baby dicks & selling your sister to the Pharaoh to buy iPhones jew?
The hatred for the Pagan is such that someone saying they are currently burning a Quran or Bible would be reprimanded but desecrating an animal sacred to many is normal.
How about this, tell me where you are & if close I’ll rip your chest open।।
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾ।।ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ।।
Is this Chinese version of Bob vagene or Canada infected you?
Still on cut nigga not time yet.
Lifts currently about 150/250/350/450-500 lost some time to injury. Body weight around 200 height 190cm.
Should add 20-30/40-50/60-70 on each of those in 10 month max.
I think deadlift was closer to 550 but I under count usually.
El Paso Texas has the lowest homicide rate of any large US city:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
It is over 80% Mexican.
2.5/100,000 which is lower than in most Eastern European countries.
In part this is because there is a large law enforcement/border patrol presence, but it still suggests Latin American homicide rate is largely a function of bad government.
Sure I would not suggest anything special about Mexicans, on the national level.
North America also has a high murder rate. Even the country with by far lowest murder rate (Canada) – is still slightly higher than every Western European country (even if in a statistically insignificant way compared to e.g. France), and far higher than East Asian countries.
As for state capacity. Russia has a murder level at Panama and not far from Mexico level (although I sense strong state capacity in most – or the most populated – areas), although all are nothing compared to Venezuela and El Salvador. In Venezuela, there is an often reported collapse of government capability.
You call black people “niggers”. I used to talk that way too… when I was 19.
OT, but I noticed this on another thread.
There are a lot of Poles in Chicago, right? This ring true to you: http://www.unz.com/isteve/sailer-on-semitism-by-jonathan-weisman/#comment-2317470 ?
Yes – lots of Polish folks. Very nice people. I have not noticed anything out of the ordinary as far as family size with them though.
Nor have I noticed anything weird about how they treat their women. Maybe they used to back in the day.
Peace.
Excellent points – agree 100%. I ridiculed this emphasis on “naval tradition” (even including the Kaiserliche Marine comparison) in my old review of George Friedman’s book:
Another obvious point – scale is becoming more important for getting anything interesting done. This has been happening for centuries and it’s now more relevant than ever.
Long gone are the days when a middling Power such as Sweden could develop a top-class fighter (while keeping military spending reasonable), let alone be a genuine Great Power (e.g. the United Provinces, or for that matter Sweden again, in the 17th century; or Portugal in the 15th).
Only two countries with self-sustaining, dynamic IT ecosystems – the US and China. Only two countries with serious space programs – the US and China (Russia is sort of in play, but is coasting on past achievements too much). The EU occasionally manages to stitch up something interesting (e.g. CERN) but much more rarely, and its efforts are usually matched by the US and China anyway. The European nations have both individually and collectively decided they would much rather spent money on infinity minorities than do anything interesting with their wealth. India is enthusiastic, but much too poor and low IQ to amount to much, at least for now; Japan is the most populated high IQ country without a continental dimension, but it’s too old and tired and weighed down by debt servicing.
A polity with 200 million relatively high IQ people will, all else equal, achieve more interesting things than one with 150 million.
More so, at any rate, than the 100 million strong V4+Ukraine/Intermarium variant that AP advocates – assuming that it even gets off the ground – which will have 100 million people, and will be likely opposed by both the EU (for ideological reasons) and Russia (for geopolitical ones).
An additional factor a 150 million entity will find it harder to prosper and (in the long-term) survive in a state of Cold War when Western globalists are united against it. To be sure, this is a good thing so far as neoliberalism.txt supporters are concerned. However, for those who want more in the way of global political heterodoxy than just a binary choice between neoliberalism.txt and the Sinosphere, this is a legitimate consideration.
EDIT: Just realized you covered all these points and more here: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/military-spending-in-2017/#comment-2317605
I know two Americans from the South in Russia. Both middle-aged, well-educated, both call blacks niggers (one by default – though he’s a hardcore nationalist, the other when drunk).
You have been led astray. You have been bamboozled. You have been run amok.
Sweden could easily develop their own F-35, engine included. Easily. It could be done for 100 billion USD, at most. Divide that by the 25 years it takes to develop a 5G fighter and you are looking at 4 billion a year. That would require an 8% increase in Swedish defense spending, so we aren’t exactly talking some major budget buster here.
So why not do it?
The US would put massive pressure on them not develop such a fighter.
A Swedish fighter would never be able to compete with the F-35 on the international market because the US will always be able to “persuade” potential customers to choose the F-35. This means that Sweden would only be able to sell to countries that the US refuses to like Russia, China and Iran. Not appealing from a Swedish perspective.
They are the only countries with budget busting space programs. With the progress of lightweight drones it is possible to do all the meaningful space exploration you want without breaking the bank. It’s just that most countries don’t care because there is no ROI. US and Chinese space programs are essentially vanity projects.
Russian industry struggles to develop the needed subsystems to match western technology because the Russian economy is over 75 percent state owned. The state control of the Russian economy is done for internal political reasons and then justified to the Russian public as being necessary to prevent western encroachment.
If Russia would just sell off its SOEs, including the weapons sector which Putin is basically using as a jobs and patronage program, not only would Russia be able weather any western sanctions with a shrug but the western governments would be forced by their own business communities to drop said sanctions because those businesses wouldn’t be willing to leave all the potential profits the Russian market offers on the table.
It’s okay when American Southerners do it.
Counter-arguments:
1) The Ukraine’s population seems to be firmly against it. It’d take a military conquest, and a difficult occupation regime into the unforeseeable future. It’s probably more entrenched among the educated classes now (as nationalism usually is), so you’d have to chase away (or permanently suppress) large chunks of the highest IQ parts of the population.
2) You’ll have a large hostile population (25%), which will actually make things more difficult than with a leaner (smaller but more loyal) population of just 150 million.
3) There’ll be substantial immediate costs in terms of sanctions and a possible nuclear standoff with a literally insane American leadership.
4) There’ll be longer term costs in terms of further pushing Europeans to American arms – the situation can get substantially worse.
5) It’ll be a drain on the budget for a long time to come – it’s poorer than Russia’s average, and is likely to stay poorer, especially since (as mentioned in point #1) many of the high IQ part of the population will likely emigrate.
6) On the other side of the equation, the benefits of 200 vs 150 are not huge. It’s very likely that you won’t be able to compete with China anyway, and it’s also likely that the US won’t be able to compete with it long term. (Even, perhaps, mid-term.) At least that’s my impression from how even a not yet developed China is able to catch up in the face of increasing American countermeasures (either you or Polish Perspective mentioned the supercomputer, for which AMD refused to sell chips, and then the Chinese went on to produce the chips themselves), what will be possible with their per capita income double its current value? Double their current per capita GDP (PPP) would still be below that of Japan, I think it’s very likely they’ll be there. And then the US will at best be a “near-peer” of China.
Doubling per capita GDP would probably be a more reliable method of making Russia more competitive with the US than reconquering Ukraine.
You make some good points, let me bring up those which I disagree with:
I disagree. Though I think a somewhat smaller government role would be beneficial, it doesn’t matter that much, and the optimal is probably between 30-60%.
It’s more efficient than the privately owned US weapons sector. The F-35 program is Exhibit A of that.
The reason why the F-35 program is so expensive is because it’s based on a mistaken concept (“3-in-1” or rather “4-in-1”), which then needed to be corrected (now it’s basically 3 separate planes instead of just 1), which is extremely expensive (way more expensive to design an eagle, an ostrich, and a penguin based on a duck, rather than just start out from scratch and get your eagle, a cheetah, and a shark from scratch, and the cheetah and the shark will actually perform better for running and swimming, respectively), and then the privately owned firm just bribed the… American electorate by spreading the program to all 50 states (ensuring a Senate majority for the program) and to most congressional districts (ensuring the House majority for same). It’s also very expensive.
In Russia, the program would’ve been cancelled way earlier.
They probably also keep bribing other decisionmakers, obviously by offering them jobs after they retire, and perhaps in some less obvious ways.
Isn’t that the F-22, not the F-35?
Also it’s software has 10 million lines of code. A lot of the overruns were due to software problems.
The F-35 was a boondoggle that came out behind schedule and over budget, but that always happens with major US weapons platforms.
The only major weapons system I can think of that came in ahead of schedule and under budget was the Israeli Arrow missile defense system. However, unlike the F-35 which all customers are raving about, the Arrow was generally regarded as a useless piece of shit and quickly retired.
Congress and the Pentagon, not Lockheed, also saddled the program with a bunch of requirements that made it more expensive.
At the end of the day, it only cost 80 billion and only took 27 years, which really isn’t that bad for a bleeding edge 5G fighter that involves several novel technologies.
Well Russia would never have started such a program in the first place. Even the SU-57 is an evolutionary design.
Though I think a somewhat smaller government role would be beneficial, it doesn’t matter that much, and the optimal is probably between 30-60%.
Russian oil industry is over 60% less profitable since Putin nationalized it (although oil prices are way down). On the other hand, Russia has become the world’s 2nd biggest agricultural super power since it privatized it’s agricultural sector.
Reducing it all to a single equation and a single number is an inherently futile endeavor, but it is an interesting intellectual exercise to see how close you can get to something that approximates reality. Let’s give the results of your 2015 index a basic idiot check:
1) Saudi Arabia ranks higher than Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, and Israel. That right there tells you that military spending is being overweighted and that your attempts to account for personnel quality and military culture were inadequate.
2) Singapore outranks Vietnam, Egypt, and North Korea. Qualitatively? Sure. But would you honestly expect them to be a harder country to conquer than any of those three?
3) Mexico outranks South Africa and Sweden. Both of these countries have a substantial military-industrial complex, Mexico does not. I don’t think military spending is serving as an effective enough measure for military industrial capacity.
4) Portugal ranked above Syria…you sure about that?
5) Azerbaijan ranked above South Africa…they have enough trouble pushing around Armenia, a country half their size with a tenth of their wealth. I don’t buy it.
6) Eritrea tanked 10 places above Ethiopia…that doesn’t jive at all.
7) Uzbekistan ranked above Finland?
8) Libya above Ethiopia? Post-Gaddafi? You’ve got to be kidding, even when he was around the Libyan armed forces were a joke. See Chad, Uganda, anywhere else he tried to exercise military power. This is a joke.
9) Lithuania above Ethiopia? Boy I thought the last one was funny. How long would that brigade sized toy army last against an army with the potential to deploy hundreds of thousands of troops, which has actually been in a lot of real combat over the last three or four decades?
10) Cuba at #122 behind the likes of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Botswana, Cameroon, Zambia, and Congo? LOL!!!!! Again, a functioning state army with decades of institutional combat experience and a credible pool of manpower to draw on is ranked below the likes of toy European countries and some of Africa’s least militaristic countries. The DRC got bullied around by Rwanda, a country a hundred times smaller. Really?
Could probably expand the list out to a couple dozen more points, bottom line is, once you go down past the top three the results just don’t hold water.
Actually, once Congress has declared war on a country or entity, the President CAN directly order an attack. He doesn’t need the order to through the generals or the SecDef, all of whom work for him and for us.