Russian invasion of Ukraine

FogBlueInSanFran said:
TLDW: An old man rambling and pontificating about another old man rambling and pontificating.

Personally I didn't find this "well worth a watch."

OAT, if Putin decides to go out in a blaze of glory as he's threatening then there is precious little we (the collective "we") can do. There's no "stopping" Putin. He himself, his circle or his people must stop him. In the meantime, we support Ukraine passively (practically and financially) and Ukrainians displaced actively (or at these those with spare capacity in their good-natured hearts do).
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Some old men are quite wise.
 
KS55 said:
Some old men are quite wise.
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And some are not.

I like Biden personally, but his comment was a poor gaffe, scripted or unscripted. Having said that, generally he’s handled Ukraine as well as his very limited options have allowed.

Don’t know anything about the other guy, other than I learned nothing and didn’t understand the insight he was attempting to provide.
 
KS55 said:
Well, you shouldn’t. He argues that the international order is merely the wishes of western democracy and that an alternative view, iterated by Russia’s foreign secretary, is more powerful. This view states that, along with the doctrine of non interference, all states should be free to develop along their own lines in accordance with their culture. Furthermore, he argues that more of the world agrees with this than with the western ideas of the international order. He points out that, of the twenty nations that will attend the upcoming G20 summit, only 9 have joined in sanctions against Russia. These are the nine western states you would expect on the one hand and representatives of 80% of the worlds population on the other.
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I’m afraid you’ve not convinced me to watch it. If all states should be free to develop along their own lines in accordance with their culture, that clearly can’t apply to Ukraine right now and doesn’t do anything to justify the mass killing of Ukrainian citizens by an external aggressor even if Russian culture encourages them to try and subjugate their neighbours. Maybe I’ve missed the point but I can’t bring myself to spend 35 minutes watching some old fool whose knowledge and expertise relates more to the 16th rather than the 21st century as far as I can make out.
 
KS55 said:
Well, you shouldn’t. He argues that the international order is merely the wishes of western democracy and that an alternative view, iterated by Russia’s foreign secretary, is more powerful. This view states that, along with the doctrine of non interference, all states should be free to develop along their own lines in accordance with their culture. Furthermore, he argues that more of the world agrees with this than with the western ideas of the international order. He points out that, of the twenty nations that will attend the upcoming G20 summit, only 9 have joined in sanctions against Russia. These are the nine western states you would expect on the one hand and representatives of 80% of the worlds population on the other.
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What these people (autocrats) never understand is that democracy will always create superior nation states as it creates hierarchies of competence, which in turn create wealth.

Autocracies, on the other hand, inherently create hierarchies of power, which see competence and intellectualism removed as they are considered a threat to the power of those in the hierarchies.

Russia's failed invasion is an ideal example of that: billions of dollars of defence funding has been embezzled by the hierarchy's kleptocrats, skilled competency had been replaced with brutal assault and junior Russian officers/soldiers have been insufficiently trained, equipped with decrepit old rubbish and consequently slaughtered by competent Ukranian forces.

They can scream about western democracy not representing the entire world until they are blue in the face, yet this system is inherently predisposed to world leadership (a world order).
 
Bluewonder said:
What these people (autocrats) never understand is that democracy will always create superior nation states as it creates hierarchies of competence, which in turn create wealth.

Autocracies, on the other hand, inherently create hierarchies of power, which see competence and intellectualism removed as they are considered a threat to the power of those in the hierarchies.
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Unfortunately, we’ve had a fair few democratic leaders recently replicating the exact same behaviour…;)
 
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