skells @skells@social.cleverlibre.org

@11112011 @7 remind me what m2 is again

@11112011 @7 changed my mind this is an interesting take

@xue @7 that's why they're doing the hybriid warfare thing, it's always been the eastern way "never fight the Franks directly, bleed them strategically" was the rough take of the Strategicon

@7 I could have been more patient, it's been a while since I had an ~informed and critical discussion on this, thanks

@7 so confused here

@7 on a long enough time frame it's tough to beat

@11112011

@7 jokes aside I don't think this Ziehan Dalio stuff is worth a shit, Lockheed just want to test out their new stuff on the US taxpayers dime

@7 I'd appeal to common sense before Zeihan and Dalio but perhaps I'm just a boomer before my time

@7 Scholz and the Greens are very much on the US side of this, only Scholz's sensitivity to how the Germans feel about militarism has kept him fairly doveish.

which also brings in Macron who, lip service aside, has been true to the French's avowed foreign policy of a multipolar world.

the guys a wanker, not least for his vaccine comments, but I've grudgingly given him credit for intermittent attempts at a peacemaker role

@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?

@7 can't up the tempo in Ukraine but invading Poland in September?

@7 > Russia crossing into Poland before next winter

wait what

@11112011 @7 only an insecure one

@7 ( I mean we all know it's Charles in charge but it doesn't help to rile up the Yanks they're good fellas all told)

@7 so you're basically betting that DC and Brussels can hold the rest of the globe up because, I dunno, printer go brrr and aircraft carriers

@7 fundamnetally I don't think even the US want hegemon status, the only people who win from that are the people bombing german pipelines

@7 I see where you're coming from, yet that leverage only lasts as long as the weakness does.

so it depends if the greener grass is judged to be on a more multipolar world than a unipolar one.

every country will have a different take, and 10 years ago people's answer may have been different than the one they give today.

post-covid, post-afghanistan, post-ukraine etc. etc. etc. my suspicion is that lot's of people are weighing their options.

See Hungary.