GDP is basically a measure of how much work is getting done. So, if you save your money, you’re not contributing to it. The moment you spend some, that spent money goes into the calculation.
Whether this constitutes any kind of real “growth” or not in your economy is a different topic. There are already debates on how useful GDP is as a useable measurement.
Spending lots of the money you have saved up in your sovereign wealth fund is a good way to keep your economy afloat. Can also just do what the WW1-2 powers did and just borrow a lot if necessary, assuming there are people you can borrow from.
Once an authoritarian state reaches a certain degree of power, they’re no longer vulnerable to their own populations. They just have too much control over the information, domestic security, economy, etc. Hypothetically you can imagine: if everyone who stands up gets their head cut off, and that goes on for 500 years, this will create a very different sort of population than we are accustomed to.
At that point they can only really be toppled by a foreign power or an uprising from their own elites. The peasants are simply no longer a factor.
A peace plan was always a foolish promise, the two sides remain too far apart in what they are willing to accept. There is no amount of pressure that Trump is willing to exert on the two parties combined that will overcome all the hurdles to some sort of compromise, unless we want to get directly involved with our own troops.
Ukraine requires a hard security guarantee, something with more teeth than the Budapest Memorandum. (which specified no actual actions from the signatories, just a vague promise) That is non-negotiable for them, not getting one leaves them in pretty much the same position they were in when the war started, except with less land–not good prospects for future survival. Trump has been unwilling to promise this, though, because it could pull the US actively into a war in the future with no benefit for him. This, of course, is exactly what would be so appealing about one to the Ukrainians, it would be a formidable security arrangement.
Putin requires a significant victory he can bring home, not something half-assed. His support among his fellow elites, who have made sacrifices for this war, hinges on making that worth something. He needs more of the land, at very least the 4 Oblasts he has formally annexed into the Russian Federation. Otherwise he is literally leaving what they now see as formal parts of Russia in enemy hands and saying “ok I guess we’re done now”. If he can’t secure them (he has around half currently), it means all these losses were basically for nothing, and that is a dire threat to an authoritarian leader. This would put him in an absolutely horrible, nigh-suicidal position where he would have to stay away from windows for the rest of his life.
So, it’s basically existential for both sides. They also both retain possible routes to victory, it’s not out of the question for either of them. Ukraine could try to outlast the Russian war economy, war economies are not sustainable forever. Russia could try to continue their slow progress on the ground, they still have more troops. It’s not easy to bridge these two sides, no amount of money or resources or soft pressure could bribe them away from their primary objectives.
Some of my favorite war clips. Saves ammo, free source of intel, and the guy doesn’t even have to die and might get prisoner exchanged.
I wouldn’t want to be a marine period, but between the choices of higher risk of drowning vs higher risk of being stabbed in the lung, I’d take the armor if it was offered.
It’s because we never had actual Counts governing subsections of our country as their own fiefdoms. Instead its an engineered system to suit our desire for decentralized, individualized and fairly inefficient government.
You should see how our education system is governed, it’s even worse.
Ooh, Estonia could control access to the port of St Petersburg if they felt like it. I wonder if this indicates a broader ramping up of pressure, or is more of a one-off.
They have f-16s now too. This allows them to use western air-to-air missiles in addition to air-to-ground, increasing the variety of options people have for giving them stuff.
You very well might be able to, actually, though I’m not going to guarantee it. Regardless though, if the line is commonly parroted by a certain group, then the claims are not particularly wild, are they?
And yes, there are lots of very useful tips that can identify most propaganda based off of common traits. This is not foolproof though. Still very good to know, though.
Nothing about the term tankie does or should deny their right to live. Advocating for the deaths of people who disagree with you is profoundly against everything liberalism (the freedom-based guiding principle of what we’d call “the west”) stands for.
To the contrary, as a pretty standard liberal American I fully support their rights to advocate for whatever they wish. Since there is no realistic way to accurately and objectively determine what is or is not propaganda, I support their right to create that as well.
Regarding the utility of recognizing where propaganda comes from, it can occasionally be useful to know, as it tends to follow certain patterns based on the goals of whoever created it.
Actually the goal of terms like that is efficiency. We could say “supporter of aggressively implemented authoritarian communism” if we wanted, but tankie is shorter.
Helps if you have the background to understand the specifics of what different “isms” support and thus what they disagree on that leads them into genuinely fighting each other. A fascist, a lib and a tankie really do have very core disagreements that cannot be realistically compromised on. At the most basic, a fascist wants a unified society with a strict hierarchy, the tankie wants a unified society with no hierarchy, the lib doesn’t want any kind of unified society. If any one of these people gets their way, the other two do not, which leads to conflict.
Left/right are more economic arguments with some wiggle room due to being more or less a spectrum, but also tend to feature significant real world disagreements.
Anyways, I do agree that it’s important to have conversations about these underlying details, but when you’re talking amongst other people who know the background already, some shorthand terms are going to start appearing. Since these are overarching governance philosophies that any person can adopt or discard at will, they’re also a little different from more inherent divisions, like ethnicity for instance. Being a tankie, lib or fascist is a choice, where being Arabic or gay or something is not.
Somebody needs to put this guy in charge of all the branding elements.
Made New York even richer and more influential, while nerfing most of the competition.
Part of it was Ukraine wanting to avoid angering some of the Europeans that weren’t weaning themselves off of Russian NG quick enough. Had they cut it off earlier, it would have given people like Orban in Hungary ammunition to say to his own people “look how the Ukrainians don’t care about us!”
Y’know, I was of the opinion that destroying vodka factories would be a good way to apply more discomfort to the Russian people, helping turn them against the war.
On the other hand, though, maybe just let them drink.
San Fran vs LA is pretty fascinating. A whole lot of extra variables should be closer to constant in that particular case.
Yeesh. I almost feel bad for those guys. They don’t even get golf carts.
It’s modern rocket artillery. These aren’t exactly the top-of-the-line in advanced hypersonic cruise missile technology.
Wow. Honestly kinda surprised they were that vulnerable. Doesn’t Russia have any sort of CWIS systems to defend their ground based nuclear bombers and advanced radar command and control aircraft? Seems kinda important, don’t you think?