Many of us, myself included, are a bit tired of ignorant people arguing with us as though they aren’t ignorant. People who are clearly ignorant do not have a position to argue from except propaganda and vibes. And it’s patently obvious who is ignorant because each person who is ignorant when they argue about a topic use the exact same talking points over and over again.

The things you said about Taiwan are things that have been said for years now. They never change. They are repeated ad nauseum. They are part of the big lie. And no matter how many times some of us study the issue and then share what we’ve learned, another person shows up, sometimes a whole clusterfuck of them, and just unashamedly parrots talking points they got from the same sources the last clusterfuck of people got them.

On this topic, and many others, the debate isn’t about facts at all. It’s about opinions, values, morality, ethics, and often violent intervention and those things are all based on false beliefs and ignorance. So when people come in saying “Taiwan deserves independence and the USA should protect them”, it’s not a problem of you need to learn so much as you’re willing to come in here and tell people that you support violence on the basis of some narrative that you have not examined, have not spent time researching, and have not struggled through the difficulties of learning about. If you came in arguing facts, the conversation would be very different, but you, like many of us raised in liberal society, lead with vibes that we delude ourselves into thinking are facts.

It’s exhausting. Apologies for being harsh with you. I highly recommend learning more.

What a ridiculous position to hold, and my god the brainworms you must have based on your exchange with @yogthos@lemmygrad.ml

Russia actively responds to threats and has been doing so for quite some time. First, it took Crimea. Then it sent lethal support to the Donbas. Then it sent mercenaries into a bunch of countries in North Africa fighting against the West. Then it launched an SMO to militarize the border with Ukraine. Then it attacked Western Ukrainian infrastructure. Then it built an Africa Corps. Then it created economic alternatives to the West. Then it materially supported the West’s adversaries. Then it made a change to its nuclear protocol. Then it launched an IRBM.

Russia responding to Western salami slicing with its own salami slicing. Just as the NATO escalations are nuanced, so are Russia’s responses. NATO countries still live in peace because they have not declared war on Russia yet. Every time they make another thin slice of the salami, Russia finds a way to respond that is just as thin. However, Russia launched the capture of Crimea and no one could stop it. Russia launched the SMO to secure the Ukranian border and no one could stop. Russia worked to support decoupling of Africa from the West and no one has been able to stop it. Russia is working with partners to work around Western economic dominance and sanctions and no one can stop it.

The Russian military has not made many mistakes and it has not been strategically inactive. From this, we have to conclude that Russia understands its own limits, and I don’t think anyone, especially Russia, believes they can or need to fight all of Europe. Likewise, I think Russia is aware, as NATO is aware, there is no way NATO could defeat Russia. The risk, therefore, is that NATO chooses to engage Russia in a long-term war of attrition, and that risk is very very real. Russia’s strategic imperatives are therefore 1) to not become encircled, 2) to maintain counter-intelligence supremacy, and 3) to avoid a protracted war of attrition with NATO.

1. is why Russia took Crimea and subsequently invaded Ukraine
2. is why Russia is being judicious with deploying its technology and why it is operating in Africa
3. is why Russia is supporting the opening of additional fronts in Africa, building material support with military powers aligned against the West, building economic alternatives to the West, and most importantly, not giving the West sufficient casus belli to launch an all out war of attrition

You’re requirement that for Putin to be strong he must be irrational is ridiculous.

Ukraine is free to determine that NK, China, and Iran are all parties to the war due to their material support of the Russian operation. Ukraine can decide to declare war against those countries. They can go and prosecute that war, if they so choose.

Russia attacked Ukraine because of threats to Russian national security. The “legal framework” or “rules based order” that allowed NATO countries to create those threats to Russia created the conditions under which Russia had two choices - follow the rules exactly and let their belligerent opponents (the North Atlantic empire) continue to build up the threat level, or break the rules and protect itself.

This is why for years the conversation around Russia has been a debate between people who say a security framework must guarantee security for all, on the one side, and on the other side, people who said we only need to guarantee our security and we can threaten the security of others and they can’t do anything about it.

ATACMS relies on targeting data that can only be obtained from NATO sources as Ukraine doesn’t have its own satellite and airborne recon platform. You could give ATACMS to Ukraine and they could only use it in short ranges because they don’t have the data they need to target deep into Russia. That means NATO is literally providing everything except the button pusher - they are providing the missiles, the launchers, the trainings, the satellites, the spy planes, the data infrastructure, the data itself. Ukraine pushes the button.

This is funamdentally different than using a bullet made in one country to kill a person in another country.

It literally has always been part of the nation-state of China. Literally the only thing that allowed the losers of the civil war to create a separatist society is UK/USA intervention, and they intervened because they knew the Red Army would support China’s independence from Western hegemony and that the KMT did and would support Western hegemony. Taiwan exists as a separate entity because the North Atlantic empire is using it as a proxy.

Do you realize how close China is to Taiwan? China doing military exercises on the mainland is within striking distance of Taiwan. It is not violent for China to exercise in its own territory. The show of force is intended for the USA, you know, that state who was literally publishing military strategy about using Taiwan to complete its Pacific Kill Chain?

Your vibes don’t really matter. Nor do the vibes you get when celebrities apologized for supporting a formerly-fascist currently-vassal community that exists primarily as a means to maintain Western hegemony over the region and particularly over the people and resources of China - a nation-state that includes the island of Taiwan.

LOL, your brain is so rotten with propaganda. You believe China arrests people for speaking out, then you see people speaking out and not get arrested, so your first thought is - obviously this isn’t China.

Mate, China imprisons far fewer people per Capita than the USA does. China handles protests far more peacefully than the USA does. China has a much more vibrant democracy than the USA does.

Taiwan is the equivalent of “the South will rise again” Americans who wave the Confederate flag. They are Chinese people living on an island after their leaders lost their civil war and the only reason it wasn’t immediately brought back into the union is because UK and USA literally sent warships to prevent it from happening. Can you imagine if the confederates retreated to Long Island and then Germany and Russia sent warships to New York harbor to stop the union from integrating Long Island back into the union?

Learn some history.