darkcalling

Meh. You're silly if you think western strategic planners see eastern European NATO members as any less fodder than they see Ukrainians as. They don't want to invite a strike on NYC for the sake of avenging a military base in Estonia. They don't want to invite a strike on Guam, Pearl Harbor, or Rammstein in return for avenging Estonians.

Now could the deranged, incompetent, thoroughly senile, prone to aggression and unable to think clearly Biden do so anyways? Possibly but that's not to be taken as doctrine or strategic thought of the US so much as one angry, mentally unstable old man who bought into too many conspiracy theories (Russiagate) and vaguely hates Russians because he lived through the cold war.

In many ways the nuclear umbrella is a bluff. I mean thinking logically assuming your vassal gets wiped out by nukes, why would it make sense for you then to commit suicide by cop by attacking the same country and getting wiped out yourself just to punish them? There might be some white solidarity with western Europe and I wouldn't test it by trying to wipe out Britain or France or Germany but Poles, Estonians, Baltic fascists, most Americans don't know much about them or care. A minor retaliatory gesture maybe. Handing out nukes so countries can "defend themselves" maybe. But striking back and inviting your own demise for someone you were using as a pawn anyways? Eh. I'm just not entirely convinced.

It might have made some sense during the cold war when the Soviets had massive tank and troop divisions and could convincingly sweep into Europe and take over France, Germany, etc, where the idea was if you didn't nuke them then, it was but the opening gesture of a wider war and invasion, but with modern Russia which they know couldn't stand against NATO's combined forces without paying a terrible and too high price which they simply aren't willing to do, and which they know deep down has no intentions of trying to occupy or liberate western Europe, it makes little sense.

Tactical nuclear weapons are typically just lower yield devices for use on the battlefield. The utility of such a weapon against an airfield/base versus a full sized non-tactical warhead is obvious as it limits damage outside the strike area. It's brain-worms to shit on the term as it does have a meaning. It's more moral to use tactical lower-yield weapons in strikes on military installations because it minimizes civilian casualties in areas nearby.

Russia has not ruled out use of nuclear weapons. They have very clearly stated they will be forced to use nuclear weapons if their existence is threatened. A NATO member attacking them could rise to meet that criteria though I grant this is a very weak fitting of that.

It does however if true put NATO directly participating in carrying out attacks. Under US own doctrine they're long past culpable and even by the rules of war under international law a strike from within a country at another country (with the assent and agreement, participation of its military and government) does constitute an act of belligerence, aggression, and war and invites and allows for retaliation against that country in whole which is de-facto engaging in war on the victim country (Russia). Legally, their ass is covered I think at this point. That's what I'm saying.

One last thing. The Obama admin held a war-game that simulated a Russian tactical nuclear strike on a European NATO installation. Their response was to nuke Belarus, not Russia because they feared it invited retaliation. This was before the Belarus/Russia union state and stationing of nukes in Belarus occurred by the way so it was more swatting at a random ally state and partner.

The real problem around using a nuclear weapon against eastern NATO vassals is not necessarily any kind of doctrine-led spiraling escalation but the PR situation and Biden being a senile, belligerent, humiliated fool who reacts irrationally. You can kill ten thousand civilians with firebombs and cluster munitions and people shrug and call it war, but kill 5000 soldiers with a nuclear weapon and suddenly it's a monstrous act or barbarity. Pfft.

Right now there's less to gain than lose in using nuclear weapons for Russia.

However, if the deranged Biden regime keeps pushing and escalating as they seem intent on doing, there's going to come a moment of decision. The deranged Eastern European NATO members may host strikes from their countries (we could be here now), Russia may conventionally retaliate, they'll deny they were doing that and attempt to invoke Article 5. At that point even if the US/UK/France/Germany don't commit, if they get Poland on-board Russia will need to use nuclear weapons and the west and their media will still say they did it for no reason and call them monsters. And at that point if the US allows Poland to go marching in or fully unleashing their air force, they won't launch a single nuke in retaliation if Russia nukes their military because they're using them as canon fodder at that point which was the whole point of bringing them into NATO in the first place (so the western Europeans wouldn't have to die, a free crumple-zone for conflict with Russia full of people the west doesn't consider fully human). That's my assessment.

I do have another thought. RT claimed in a story a week ago or so that Ukraine had no working airfields in pristine enough condition to allow them to take-off and recover F-16 fighter jets they were going to be given. The implication being they would have to take off and land from surrounding countries and that would be uh an escalation. If that is true and the facts on the ground don't change (Ukraine getting airfields pristine enough in the far west to service them and dealing with strikes to damage them) then a provocation like this could be a minor test of that type of thing.

If they really are doing this, and Russia really needs to prove it if so. There is a good argument for Russia making good on their threat and letting fly tactical nuclear weapons against these military installations that are participating. The rub of course being that could draw NATO into things directly and may be something they're hoping for to rally people. The flip side being, if they don't and let them walk all over them, cross that line, they'll keep crossing lines forever. The most positive outcome of using such weapons is it could shock the west into backing off. The worst of course is it brings NATO including the western nations and not just the nuclear crumple zone ones in the east, into the fray directly and/or leads to a retaliatory nuclear strike on a Russian installation and spiraling escalation from there.

Hesitation will be taken by the west as weakness and a sign to escalate further.

Then again I’m not certain much as the US is sacrificing Ukraine and it’s people and already sacrificed Germany’s economy that they wouldn’t like to grab and throw the more deranged fascist eastern members of NATO into a hot war with Russia. Which could get very bad. The Biden regime I think may not be accepting of a defeat at all and think they can get into a direct war with Russia slowly, destroy them and push them out of all of Ukraine.

Quite honestly with these maniacs I can’t be certain they want an excuse for a full nuclear strike on Russia but thinking they can catch them with their pants down and come out on top for round two with China.

So using a nuclear strike could be playing into their hands but I’m not sure what options Russia has.

Disney will pay for everything.

JJ Abbrams and the abomination of new Trek. I swear if I live to see the revolution that those jerks will pay (with 20 hour day hard labor or worse) for fucking with our series.

Russia today is potentially a model for the US in 10-20 more years. Both states have lost a lot of the first/bestest/mostest superlatives that made them admired world leaders. Among the major ones remaining for both nations is their military strength.

I disagree. Fundamentally they're arriving at these places from different historical trends and in different material situations. Russia as much as it might have tried to move beyond it has and will have forever its history as the Soviet Union for 70 years. It has the connections to and loyalty of the global south it helped. It does not have friendship among the Atlantacist western european nations who form the former major colonizing nations of the 18th through 20th centuries and who have as their defender, champion, chosen successor and rescuer (in WW2 from the Soviet forces who would have liberated all of Europe, instead these colonial powers were saved from communism but occupied by another capitalist power and bent the knee, becoming its vassals, retaining wealth but diminished influence and power). There are other things but that's a very big one. The US just shot one of Germany's knees off with the Nordstream sabotage and they took it and asked for more. Russia could not do that to China or any other country really and not have a major incident where they have to either make it right with reparations and an apology or relations would deteriorate and they'd be at the edge of war with them or certainly sour the region against them. The US not only did it, it's now planting misinfo to point the fingers at Ukraine so when all the dust settles and they're destroyed they'll be saddled with the blame and the US can walk away with clean hands.

Fundamentally the US is the last in a line of consolidated inheritors of the white supremacist anglo-colonial-capitalist project of imperialism, domination, racism, colonialism (including neo-colonialism via the world bank and other funds) that goes back at least 300 years to the beginnings of capitalism and global empire. It has subjugated western Europe, Ukraine situation has proven they will bend the knee and take any whippings or punishments the US pleases to inflict on them. Russia on the other hand is stuck. It has no friendships among these colonial powers, it is not their inheritor or guarantor, it benefits from their overthrow in trade with Africa which would be denied it as long as Africa is subjugated to the French.

Comparing the US to Russia is like comparing Apples to Olives.

So the problem with the soft-landing idea and I hope for it myself but I must recognize this. The US is the last of a line. Britain peacefully handed over the reigns and allowed their empire to slip from them to the US because it would continue the white supremacist capitalist project. China will not do that. Russia will not do that. For the first time in over 300 years that project is in danger of completely imploding and being lost forever. This is unprecedented for them. They are panicking in a way none of them ever did when the European empires slipped to become controlled by neo-colonialist means with US capital taking most of the lion's share because they were still part of the family of whiteness, of the trans-Atlantic bourgeoisie elite, though many didn't realize they'd become junior partners they can accept even that without bitterness because their interests will be looked after before those of colored folk, before those of the proles.

Indeed the Vietnam war was perhaps in a way the US signaling to all the European empires it was taking up the slack, it would carry their burden in controlling these post-colonies for them one way or another and though the US eventually lost they punished Vietnam and hurt them, made a huge show of what they do to those who stand up to them and a huge show to their European vassals what they would do for them despite the fact they were now junior partners.

Thing is Russia never had world hegemony. The USSR was a super-power yes but they had challenges. They had shortages, they were besieged and embargoed and attacked their entire existence. They never got a decade or two on top as sole hegemon as the US did and they certainly never had a situation where they inherited colonial holdings and shifted them to the new neo-colonial model only for that to begin to slip through their fingers. Russian bourgeoisie certainly wish they could find themselves in that position but alas they do not. The Americans and Europeans shut the doors of their Atlantacist bourgeoisie club to them in their face every time they approached. They will not share the plunder, the methods, the intelligence, anything. They will rebuff them at every turn. They missed out on the 19th-20th century colonial grabs and the neo-colonialism that followed, there is no room for plunder in the modern world with the Atlantacist set sucking up all the oxygen in the room.

So when the US declines it will not look like Russia in the 90s or the 2000s or now. It will look different because of the connections, material interests, forces, and existing concentrations of capital, influence, multi-national spy operations (eyes alliances), blackmail and power it exercises over many other first world global north countries. If Russia falls China will be in trouble. If the US falls its vassals worry they will be destroyed, that western Europe, Israel, Japan, occupied Korea, etc will all now be weak so they will prop it up to some degree, maybe even to their dying breath at knife-point who knows. That is why the US is stronger too. It is not simply a bunch of cowboy yankees, it is the will, collected loot, influence, heritage of centuries of colonialism and plunder from a dozen nations that it guards and ensures continue on a certain scale. It is a collective stay rich and on-top club for whites generally (labor aristocracy) and for the Atlantacist bourgeoisie set.

Okay but really the sources for the surveys should be included in the meme. At the very least their urls would pad out the text to be closer to the staggering walls of text that all good Marxist memes must aspire to be. (Also because I'm too lazy to find them myself)

Yeah that's the real problem with these types. People say well they might further the conversation and maybe, but all that progress is thrown out the window and you get regression in fact the moment that candidate sheepdogs and says the election is the most important or our lives, we all must hold our noses and vote for Biden and the Dems who are the lesser evil. Because that keeps people in the paradigm, they vote him this time and then whoever the next bozo is next time and every time there's a new sheepdog to herd these people out to pasture to sate their desires for the aesthetic of radicalism before dutifully herding them back into the electoral system and hopes for incremental change someday.

She's alright last I checked which admittedly was last major election. I admit I haven't looked in recent years that deeply into all her positions which I suppose I would if I planned on stanning her.

He may also not agree with China’s politics but he’s anti-war and critical of NATO.

And understatement and an overstatement IMO.

He said the fall of the USSR was a good thing (praised fucking Reagan). Is against China, not critical of certain politics or policies, he's anti-communist, muh persecution of religious people atrocity nonsense. Muh nonsense about muh authority, etc, etc.

He's critical of NATO in the same way some honest Marxists are critical of AES states while still supporting them. He to my knowledge says Russia is the aggressor (repeating the NATO line is not being nearly critical enough, it's a lack of thinking) in the Ukraine situation, does a both-sides cowardly condemnation and the usual coward's prayer for peace without assigning blame. Neither Washington nor Moscow was a CIA line we must recall.

Compared to like Code-Pink who afaik correctly identify US aggression as being responsible for the Ukraine war, blame the US, and aren't critical of NATO so much as denouncing its existence.

Being anti-war is meaningless, he's not going to win, or take and exercise power. So the only point is his platform, if his platform is vulgar, liberal, non-materialist, doesn't show real solidarity (not meaningless, vague "war bad" which is dropped at moment's notice for a situation like Ukraine or a Taiwan incursion), then what worthwhile message is he spreading?

And yeah maybe he could do some of what Bernie did. I'm just not so sure that wasn't a fairly special moment coming off Obama's nonsense and disillusionment over his false promises, the rise of the alt-right and so many things just seeming wrong to young people who'd been promised Obama would change things and we would never go back to the Bush years and the country was moving forward. Thing is the Democratic party openly sabotaged Bernie so that really caused a lot of people to question things further, they're just plain not going to platform Cornel, maybe one wacky debate with low tier candidates by the media where he gets a few free quips and is mostly ignored by the moderators so I'm not sure the radicalizing potential is there the same as Bernie who was thrown under the bus not once but twice in a row visibly and who had that massive platform on the debate stage with Hillary Clinton. And there was a real feeling "Bernie could have won" vs Trump who did actually win whereas If Biden wins again you won't have that and if Trump wins I don't think you'll have that either. The type of people who Cornel attracts are mostly Democracy Now type rad-libs, green party libs, CIA-synthetic left types who are already safely firewalled from moving onto Marxism and just kind of caught being shepherded around by third party hopes and wasting their lives and efforts organizing around electoralism and a few meaningless protests a year (half of which align with CIA objectives or are not objectionable anyways to them).

Because lets face it. For every former Bernie person (I was one) who became a Marxist by 2020 or 2021 there are probably 10 who became anti-communist, US state dept spouting anarchists.

Maybe I'm being a pessimist, I just think a lot of stars aligned for what happened with Bernie in a perfect storm of shock, rising disillusionment, and blatant bias and manipulation by the media. I think most of the liberals have accepted what's happening, are clinging to Biden and a return to normalcy, institutions, norms, blah, blah, blah. It's a coping mechanism born of trauma and desperation and they've fully bought the Russia-gate myth and fully believe they have to circle the wagons, prioritize saving the institutions above all else. They've been successfully terrorized against the prospect of dramatic change via Trump and fearmongering against him and insinuations anyone pushing for anything too radical is a Russian provocateur and threat to our democracy. And that is intentional, this has been very carefully crafted as the CIA and bourgeoisie are freaked out by the happenings of Bernie and Trump.

I think they might even actually throw Trump in prison and keep him there and the Republican party will rail against it but secretly be relieved. Because they didn't want Bernie, they didn't want Trump, they want to back to Bushes, Biden's, and so on. Usual, reliable suspects who implement reactionary terror at home, reactionary terror abroad but do so with dignity, are seen as reliable, stable, predictable, respecters of institutions and norms, a steady rock for allies (vassals) to moor themselves to.