Many of those glorious and brave people of Ukraine are well known to be Nazi sympathisers, such as the Azov battalion, whom Zelensky embraced and did not condemn when it was brought to his attention. That says a lot. They also openly brought in discriminatory laws to oppress the native Russians (prior to invasion). Ukraine never existed until not long ago. What is a Ukrainian besides a western proxy?
In reality the west has no hope of stopping Russia with its current focus, it really does not matter who holds the moral high ground here (as much as we like to think that we do), there are some basic facts that we need to understand.
Russia has, - Large population = large manpower, much of which has embraced the anti-west cause. - Huge oil, gas and coal reserves to propel the military machine with some left over for export. - Large arable land to feed its population and be self-sufficient in food stuffs. - Tight control of leadership, along with close ties with Belarus, China and Russia. - Strong military industrial complex which churns out more ammunition than is consumed (west has the opposite problem) - Large hard currency (gold) reserves, strong economic rebound following sanctions with rising GDP.
Show me one other Euro country that can even come close to matching Russia in these areas? NATO is not an alliance but a vassal contract to the US military complex. It is extremely dangerous that we have a broad consensus that they are useless and that we, the west, have all the power and technology to keep Russia down. Underestimating the enemy is the first mistake of a losing side. It may help some sleep at night, but not until there are bayonets prodding their bedsheets, ignorance is not an effective way to deal with a problem.
USA is the only one to match Russia in military strength, but they are so thinly spread as it is and facing huge internal problems leading up to the 2024 election with huge discontent to current leadership. Their financial state is poor compared to Russia if one were to take the dollar away as the reserve currency. The only thing propping up USA is their reserve currency and without it their whole economy is uncompetitive on a global standard.
The European west has been so focused in the lavish all-inclusive and peace-loving way of life that they have forgotten that lasting peace is only a bi product of a military presence as a deterrent. Western military (except USA) is weak but has still chosen to spit in the face of Russia while it voiced its concern. We are not fighting a bunch of soft sandal jihadis hiding in a cave this time, now is the real deal. Do we really expect to stop the world's second largest and most sophisticated military with a few extra tanks to Ukraine? Those few that are sent by the way, diminish existing stocks of supplier countries quiet drastically but will make minimal impact on the front because the quantity is simply not enough to match the enemy's dominance of numbers, artillery and dominance of the air space.
There is a broad ignorance towards the Rus. This war could have been avoided quiet easily by a few simple binding words such as, "Ukraine will never join NATO". Those words, just 5 words, would have avoided the death and serious injury of some 200,000 people over the last 12 months. But they were too hard to say so it seems, our leaders chose to place our necks in the bears mouth and expected him not to bite.
We can see that conflict and military build-up is intensifying across Asia and Europe with the two sides being drawn up. But what effect does this have? As stated above oil and coal are integral to fuelling the military industrial complex. England, Germany and France are militarily infantile compared to Russia and the USA at the moment. That was not always the case, we know that those three used to have some of the most powerful militaries in the world. The reality will hit them soon, to regain any strength capable of resisting the Russian bear will require extensive investment in coal, oil and gas mines locally and internationally to power the war machine. This must be accompanied by the dismantling of any and all policies which take away energy, money and manpower from the goal of providing security for the people of this country.
I would not be surprised that the green global tree hugging, coal hating movement was planted by the Russians in the west. Because if we look at what it has done it is clear that it is all advantageous to the Rus. - It has diverted resources from military spending to social spending. - France for example spends a sizeable portion of it GDP subsidising its nuclear power plants. - Increased ESG pressure has increased fossil fuel project red tape barriers, increasing cost, delaying completion. - Gov subsidies for renewables severely limiting available funds for military spending. - High energy prices forcing Gov to extend its welfare state duties to personal electric bills (Russia has cheap energy for reference) - High energy prices discourage economic activity, further reducing GDP and available military spending (it is a self consuming cycle) - Forced closure of coal mines further reduces the underlying military and economic strength of a nation. - Reduced coal, oil and gas development has reduced global trade volumes making existing Rus exports more valuable. - Green movement indirectly increases profit margins of existing high-volume exporters, notably Rus. - Western "what's best for the individual" centric governments fail when faced with a society that values "what's best for the collective".
Oil was the driver in determining the outcome of WW2, largely because it was not as abundant as coal was at the time. Today we seem to have a two-edged sword where both oil and coal (due to underinvestment) are scarce commodities. The strength of the mechanical slaves that we gain from exploiting coal, oil and gas cannot be underestimated but through weak leadership it has been neglected.
Ultimately, war fuels the need for fossil fuels. Increased demand for fossil fuels is on the horizon due to military conflict.
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