I hope, but other high ranking officials making statements and not explicitly mentioning Maduro isnt a good sign. If Maduro is safe they'd just say so.
Stylistillusional
joined 4 years ago
This whole saga has once again underlined how desperate and detached from reality the Europeans are. It had to come down to a last minute marathon session to come to the obvious realisation that touching those assets would completely destabilise Belgium and leave them on the hook for billions more than the total of those assets?
I don't have any real romanticized notions about the EU, but this had me feeling like I was losing my mind. How willing some EU countries were to throw under the bus one of its founding members and the host country of many EU institutions.
How could guarantees from the EU for Belgium ever have been believable? The whole reason they want to touch those Russian assets is because they don't have the money for Ukraine. So why would they suddenly have the money to bail out Belgium? It's completely incredulous.
All because it would have endangered the political career of von der Leyen to break the rules to force through Eurobonds. So instead, let's try to break the rules in an objectively worse but convenient way because you only need a qualified majority. Truly, the german mind is incapable of understanding the world around it.
When it comes to rearming Europe, most of it has been plegdes to do so. Even if they actually succeed in securing funding, it could easily take a decade plus to produce and integrate new weapons and personnel.
So much could change in those years. Trump will be gone and who knows what the state of the US will be afterwards. Cuts to social safety nets to fund defense is going to cause massive and constant political instability in the EU.
Even if you assume that a resumption of conflict is inevitable, it wouldn't be the worst thing to freeze it for a few years if you're Russia. Neither the EU nor the US is likely to become much more of an effective actor in those years.
More than range of missiles, it's the integration of weapons platforms with each other that's the key. It's not that the Chinese missiles or aircraft performed particularly well, but that those systems where fully integrated into an ecosystem of satellites and radars designed by the Chinese from the ground up to work together. As opposed to the hodgepodge of suppliers that make up the inventory of the Indian forces.
The platonic ideal European politician
Pakistan won't reconsider their relationship with China. Not after the recent episode with India where China's networked military systems proved their effectiveness. China showed up for Pakistan. The West is not going to sell them comparable capabilities. Even if they did, it would take decades to restructure the armed forces. After having just fought their neigbours, that's not a risk any country is going to take.
Aren't all those tariffs supposed to start again in about two weeks? Or at least the beginning of July?
Imagine the price of oil skyrocketing and all those tarrifs going into effect around the same time. What chaos that would create. Or is a war with Iran the off-ramp for those sanctions. I'm sure the Europeans would gladly join in a war on Iran in exchange for lifting of tariffs.
How is Iran China's 'second most important ally'? The Iranian economy is not that important to China, nor is their strategic cooperation particularly deep.
Hell, the Saudis are probably more important to China, yet they're not really allies either.
I remember a war nerd episode where they were talking about how westoids say Russia is run by oligarchs, but that the SMO demonstrated that Putin is not wholly beholden to them. Most of the oligarchs got in line (or they got their shit confiscated). Imo, we are seeing a similar dynamic play out in the US.
Trump's tarrifs are basically a fait accompli. What could the capitalist class do at this point to stop this? The cat's out of the bag.
I'd guess the main target of this operation is still Lebanon. They're going to have another go at Hezbollah once they've consolidated their positions in Syria. Trying to take over Damascus at this time is pointless, they already seem to have the compliance of HTS.
I always try to keep a 'wait and see'-approach but you were right about the assassination of Nasrallah and you were right about Syria.
It makes sense, unlike most of us, you actually know the region intimately. There's good reason to take seriously your insights, particularly when it comes to the region in question. Your contributions to the news mega are invaluable if you ask me.
Alright, enough with the glazing. Like kittin said, hope you and yours are safe.
Look, of course I don't agree with the US taking over Greenland, but the Danish are colonial dictators and their removal should be celebrated.