@skells That's a big misrepresentation of... everything from the conversation. One, the tempo-upping you mentioned was regarding Taiwan, which is of no strategic interest to Russia, whereas I'm describing Germany making the worst-case decision immediately when faced with de-industrialization, based on the west's understanding of Russian geopol. Nor did I say they were invading Poland next year, I said "a next year" which I probably should have worded "a coming year". I did my best to couch it in "worst case" and should have left in the "god forbid", but seriously I'm not here to jerk you around, you don't have to play gotchas.

@7 a little banter never hurt anyone

r.e. tempo upping I meant in general, i.e. invasion of Ukraine pushes up everyone's timeline.

I hadn't thought of it before but if Russia was getting edgy about it's long term position regarding China then forcing everyone's hand makes sense, classic "The Prince" stuff. Not saying that's what happened, just struck me during this conversation.

anyway, I find it basically impossible to believe that Russia would invade Poland. It's guaranteed NATO mobilisation and possibly WWIII... for what?

@skells Re: Russia invading Poland, I'm not saying they will and I don't have any idea whether they will, but Germany's decision-makers aren't in a position to risk the possibility is what I'm saying. The East Eurasian Plains are Russia's greatest weakness on the western front; if Putin is doing what Stalin and Nicholas and Ivan did, then after securing the Carpathian gap (past Ukraine) he's then going to set his eyes on the East Eurasian Plains, which stretch all the way into Germany. And I only bring this up because the West seems to only be working from two geopolitical philosophies -- Zeihan's, and Dalio's.