Skua

Busby should probably not be considered a reliable source

That’s not to defend Israel’s actions in Gaza. They still killed all those people and destroyed their homes, regardless of the weapon they used to do it

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/21/christopher-busby-radiation-pills-fukushima

Busby has form for spreading conspiracy theories about nuclear stuff and trying to profit off of it

Exercise Formosa

Well this certainly wasn’t the “Chinese troops in Taiwan” headline that I worried I might read. Apparently there’s a Formosa in Brazil and it’s not just the old name for Taiwan

For Civ 6, I’d say winning each victory once. Try to do it with different civs each time too. You can set your goal as winning a game on the highest difficulty if you want, but personally I don’t find that to be as interesting as the shift in gameplay necessary to win the different victories without just militarily crushing everyone else.

ahh yeah that’s literally exactly what I said, thanks. Why bother commenting that? I did not even slightly imply that America’s overseas bases were a good thing. I said that they don’t justify invading Ukraine and that Russia is making its neighbours want American bases.

This is exactly what I mean. America’s overseas bases do not justify invading Ukraine. If anything Russia is making every Eastern European country that already has those bases feel like having them is beneficial.

I don’t think we should expect any given offensive by either side to completely overturn the whole war. A move also does not have to do that to be worthwhile. All it has to do to be worthwhile is cost Russia more than it costs Ukraine (relative to the resources available for each side). Given that Ukraine is destroying bridges, I don’t think that they intend to push much further unless a remarkable opportunity presents itself

Welcome to the world of looking at every single world event through the lens of “America bad” and literally only that

Capturing Russian conscripts and territory is a useful card in negotiations, whether that is for a ceasefire or just a prisoner swap. Bringing the war into Russian territory also makes it more difficult for the Russian government to sell to the population

Other people have mentioned Paradox several times, and they are unquestionably the big name of the grand strat genre. Their main games are:

• Hearts of Iron. WW2 setting, pretty much exclusively about war. If you want to flex your strategic skills, this is the one to get.
• Victoria. The 100 years before WW2. Primarily about industrialisation. Victoria games have by far the most in-depth economy systems.
• Europa Universalis. These ones are about the era of European colonialism, spanning three to four hundred years with the Napoleonic wars at the end. EU4 is pretty the most like a Total War campaign map in feel.
• Crusader Kings. 700 years of feudalism. The map in these ones is limited to Europe, the western half of Asia, and the north of Africa. Distinct in that you play as a dynasty rather than a country. These ones are the most roleplay-heavy
• Stellaris. This is the only one I haven’t played, so I’m afraid I can’t say much about it

To be fair when Trump is quite pissibky about to be elected again and his entire party seems to have bought into his general way of doing things, I don’t think Iran would be wrong to doubt that claim of him being an anomaly. How would Iran meaningfully enforce penalties upon an America with a second Trump presidency, or a DeSantis presidency, or a Vance presidency?

Doesn’t that turn of phrase imply that it’s untrue (or at least misrepresentative) though? It’s not meaningfully “an Israeli line” if it’s actually just true

1 - I didn’t say it was? I’m allowed to express an opinion without expecting the world to conform to it

2 - Disliking Iran’s government doesn’t imply liking opposed governments

3 - They do, I agree

Is it an Israeli line? I don’t doubt that Israel says it, but it seems to me like Iran developing nukes is a pretty rational response to America ditching the agreement. I certainly don’t like a government like Iran’s having those weapons, but it’s very understandable for it to want them and the country has the capacity to make it happen

That is a very strange article. The headline is “How Boris Johnson Sabotaged Ukraine Russia Peace Deal In April” and the bulk of it is about how a former US National Security Council officer didn’t say that.

Frankly the NYT one seems a lot more convincing to me. That addition to the security guarantee clause is obviously completely unworkable.

Maybe find an article that says that then. The one you linked says that yes, they were close to an agreement, but at the last minute Russia inserted a clause that was a dealbreaker

What that link actually says:

To the Ukrainians’ dismay, there was a crucial departure from what Ukrainian negotiators said was discussed in Istanbul. Russia inserted a clause saying that all guarantor states, including Russia, had to approve the response if Ukraine were attacked. In effect, Moscow could invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Ukraine’s behalf — a seemingly absurd condition that Kyiv quickly identified as a dealbreaker. Russia tried to secure a veto on Ukraine’s security guarantees by inserting a clause requiring unanimous consent.

With that change, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating team said, “we had no interest in continuing the talks.”

No, but obviously all you know how to do is to make ridiculous straw man arguments.

If ethnic cleansing didn’t happen before the war started, ethnic cleansing did not cause the war.

Nobody made the argument that simply using cluster munitions equals ethnic cleansing on its own.

Saying “they’re doing ethnic cleansing” and backing it up with a link that’s just “they’re using cluster munitions” is literally exactly this

It is predominantly ethnically Russian, and those are the people who are being targeted.

The point I was making was that the only person who described themselves in terms of identity in that link called himself Ukrainian. This makes it very poor evidence for Ukraine targeting ethnic Russians.

Bad faith is arguing about something you have no understanding of and wasting everyone’s time. See this is what a bad faith argument looks like.

What exactly do you think I’m trying to convince you of that I haven’t been open and honest about? I said exactly why I do not think that that source is worth my time based on the five other sources you put it with and how you used them.

Clearly you didn’t watch the lecture if you need to ask that question as it clearly explains the demographics in Ukraine

I know what the demographics are. I have watched Mearsheimer’s lecture, but it really is not necessary to get an overview of something as basic as where different ethnicities are concentrated in Ukraine. The fact that there are a bunch of ethnic Russians living in that part is not evidence of ethnic cleansing by Ukraine. Neither is Russia feeling threatened by eastern European countries joining the EU or NATO.

the ethnic cleansing that western backed fascists started doing after the coup in 2014.

So your position is that the ethnic cleansing happened in the ~two months between Yanukovych fleeing Ukraine in February and the declarations of the DPR and LPR in April?

Under this interpretation, the headline could then read “New Polling Shows Significant Ukrainian Support for War to End the War”