Ok, then there is now the opportunity to say that the quote has always been about always being at war with Oceania.
Ukraine
- Thread starter Silvanus
- Start date
Or that the entire thing is the paranoid imaginings of Winston who has suffered a psychotic break at some point before the story starts... If we're going to dig down to analyse the possibilities, we dig until we reach Philip K Dick levels of existential fuckery.
What if it's all really just the dream of a random child in a coma? Checkmate liberals.
What if it's a work of fiction written by George Orwell as a critique of mid 20th century authoritarian regimes?
As we all know, Bakhmut hasn't fallen yet
The Winter offensive apparently has come and gone and barely anyone noticed.
From the video "If people are asking if your forces are in yet then it's a bit of an embarrassment"
I wonder what the ratio of losses are, it sounds like Russia is just sending 10 people to maybe take out 1 Ukranian. Devastating for both side, but holding it might make some sense from Ukraine point of view just to inflict more casualty on the other side. Then again, it seems like early though that Putin wouldn't be able to mobilise people because it would destabilise his regime and maybe cause people to rebel have been found mostly to be wrong, although I have to wonder how many people are left in jail at this point so maybe they'll have to use more people in the active population from now on.
I've seen it put at about 7 to 1 (at the highest). Which is abysmal for Russia, but remember that an offensive side expects to lose significantly more than a defending side even under ordinary circumstances. And remember also that the attacking personnel in Bakhmut are overwhelmingly recent Wagner recruits on less than a month of training.
The expectation was that mobilisation among the wider population would be unpopular or destabilising for the Russian war effort-- but there's not been any wider mobilisation since the initial announced 300,000, and many of those have yet to see combat.
Xi Jinping is visiting Russia to meet with Putin, and will be meeting Zelensky (via video call) later in the month to promote a negotiated settlement.
He has said China and Russia are "ready to resolutely defend the UN-centric international system, stand guard over the world order based on international law". Xi's government of course is involved in an illegal campaign of genocide in Xinjiang, and Russia is ruled by an international criminal with an active arrest warrant. Russia has invaded and seized territory from existing UN members three times since 2008.
What a joke. Can be taken about as seriously as the United States' risible effort to establish itself as the world's policeman in the twenty-first century, despite its litany of international lawbreaking and war. Yet, at the same time, this is perhaps the closest a negotiated settlement has actually come-- Russia was refusing to negotiate with Ukraine until now, insisting it would only negotiate with NATO.
He has said China and Russia are "ready to resolutely defend the UN-centric international system, stand guard over the world order based on international law". Xi's government of course is involved in an illegal campaign of genocide in Xinjiang, and Russia is ruled by an international criminal with an active arrest warrant. Russia has invaded and seized territory from existing UN members three times since 2008.
What a joke. Can be taken about as seriously as the United States' risible effort to establish itself as the world's policeman in the twenty-first century, despite its litany of international lawbreaking and war. Yet, at the same time, this is perhaps the closest a negotiated settlement has actually come-- Russia was refusing to negotiate with Ukraine until now, insisting it would only negotiate with NATO.
In the immediate battle, maybe, but if an attacker gets it right there's a good chance they take fewer casualties overall, because they break the enemy's line and exploit. Hurling your troops at an obvious strongpoint is just astonishingly boneheaded. Since the dawn of war the idea has been, wherever possible, to go round strongpoints.
Related because RU and even UA are part of BRICS and emerging markets:
www.newsweek.com
China is uniting Middle East—that's bad news for U.S.
Saudi Arabia turned to Beijing rather than Washington to ease tensions with its regional rival Iran.
www.newsweek.com
Meh, the US was never positioned to be a mediator in that conflict. They kinda need a mediator with Iran themself.
That's is a good point, but also, I'm not sure.
Yes, the USA could not effectively broker a peace between Iran and anyone except itself, and China's an obvious pick as mediator because China isn't so judgemental and hasn't yet got to the point where it wants to pick its own winners and losers.
However, US policy under Trump was to isolate Iran, and reconcile the Sunni Islamic states to Israel. What a Saudi-Iranian rapprochement might suggest is that the Trump plan was a big, fat, load of tripe that Saudi Arabia played along with just so long as it took for Trump to depart. Yet Biden hasn't tried to mend fences with Iran very much. That Saudi wants better relations with Iran might cause us to ask what the USA's policy is in the Middle East is and where it's going in the future, because it looks like the USA may be a little out of step.
I think the Saudis will be disappointed if they try to get Xi to touch their glowing orb.
SA has been swayed by US through petrodollar recycling started in the 1970s, but are now moving towards BRICS, which goes against the petrodollar, in turn needed to maintain heavy borrowing and spending in the U.S. that started in the early 1980s, and necessary to maintain its war machine.
Now we know who's going to be surprised when they have a stroke.
It should indeed be eradicated-- though of course Russia itself stockpiles and uses it itself, so this is yet more hypocrisy.