RLL does a really good job of presenting a genuinely good visualization of Zeihan's interpretation of Russian geopolitics and offensive/defensive strategies in the west, and then points out the giant flaw in Zeihan's theory -- Russia and China aren't good enough allies to consider the eastern front secure.
@7 Stalin and Churchill would like a word
@7 how do you think the rest of the global south would react to China placing such pressure on Russia?
@7 no, genuine question, how do you think the global south would react?
@7 not sure on the timeline of the *googles CSTO* thing, Russo-Sino tensions being what they are, don't you think the calculus has changed post-SMO/Slavic Tango?
Or at least, that's what I think because nations, like people, are prone to falling back on old patterns.
@7 I don't see why China would come for the border stans when *see post above*
To my chagrin and probably yours, none of the countries that have the semiparasitic relationship with the US actually want out of it -- even if their people voice the desire to be out of it. Not in the current geopolitical climate. Germany, Germany has done more to escape parasitic relationships than anyone else, for better or for worse; you don't see any states or banks making the same hard decisions. Even Pakistan is pussying out.
@7 I don't see your reasoning
nothing has really changed post-SMO, the post-Cold War world works as it is and countries such as India, Turkey, Suadia Arabia etc. are just gonna sit quietly while the Chinese gobble up the 'stans because they support Russia in their war in Ukraine? Why? because Chinese people don't like Russians?
I see why the US might like such a turn of events but it appears to assign no sense of agency to anyone other than China who want to ditch Eurasian integration because the stans are tasty?
I think most people pushing for a multi-polar world seems to be more of a return to form for human kind, particularly when the only people who lose are neocons, there's no reason why the US has to lose on this any more than the rest
if anything it's Europe that get's fucked by the multi-polar world because we'll have to compete without Uncle Sam's finger on the scales
Of course all these nations have agency, but it's nowhere near as interesting as I think you want it to be. Their agency is in trade relations, interesting deals, and taking what benefit and advantage they can from the US while the US is in a strong military-support but weak economic condition. India will probably boom all on its own from this, and find a way to shed itself of BRICS, but it won't be directly because of the confict of interest.
@7 why can't China, Russia or anyone else for that matter make interesting deals?
I don't see why China and Strait of Malacca and Pakistan and and and and has anything to do with a general dissatisfaction with US hegemony and the propensity for people to work things out amongst themselves when left to their own devices
your argument seems to rely on inertia and past US hegemonic status sprinkled with a little niche tactical Indo-Sino foreplay
Dissatisfaction with US hegemony seems to be your only point, and that doesn't buy LNG or barrels of oil or any of the things that hold this godawful globalized world tenuously together instead of risking independence.
@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.
@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 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 ( 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 > Russia crossing into Poland before next winter
wait what
@7 can't up the tempo in Ukraine but invading Poland in September?
@7 lost the knack of schizo-posting intelligibly so good luck with parsing that