I mean anything is possible if one side is basically ignored. The UN Plan offered was just terrible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annan_Plan

The only reason it even got to where it got was because Turkey wanted to join the EU and Greece wanted to normalize relations with Turkey. But ultimately, Cyprus(greekcypriot state) is an independent and democratic state, so it decided against it(and Greece follows whatever Cyprus decides).

If Turkey was a normal country, you could say that all the disadvantages of the plan wouldnt be relevant in the long term. But Turkey is a mini-Russia and as Russia has shown us, appeasing nations with imperial ambitions doesnt work in the long run.

Imagine any european leader saying to their neighbours “We could come one night”. Or “our neighbours are scared because our missiles can reach their capital”. Both statements were said by Erdogan. Only in the last year, he has chilled, mostly because of the invasion in Ukraine. For once, the West did something good, instead of writing “stern letters” so Erdogan is afraid that the West might actually military support Greece in case of a turkish invasion.

Also because Greece is getting f-35 jets and Turkey needs american engines for their homegrown ghetto “f-35” equivalent(so the US told him to shut up and be nice or else no engines for their “f-35” or upgraded f-16).

There was also a version of Zeus dedicated to “hospitality”(philoxenia, friend of foreigner).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeus#Roles_and_epithets

Zeus Xenios (Ξένιος), Philoxenon, or Hospites: Zeus as the patron of hospitality (xenia) and guests, avenger of wrongs done to strangers

It is down for the over the Mediterranean Sea routes and up for the from Turkey into Greece routes. And through the Canary Islands.

How long the downward trend will hold remains to be seen, however. Smugglers are always quick to adapt and find new routes around border controls. In the Eastern Mediterranean, the second-most-used route, smuggling networks are now using speedboats in increasingly aggressive ways to avoid controls and targeting islands farther away from the Turkish coast in the central Aegean, according to Greek authorities.

The number of migrants arriving in Greece by sea and overland during the first eight months of the year rose by 57%, U.N. data shows.

Doesnt this imply that, for Putin, Crimea and Donbas are not part of Russia? Those have been repeatedly hit by long range western missiles.

Maybe someone should inform the Russians living in those areas that their leader thinks less of them than other Russians.

They are deliberately bad and obvious because they want stupid people. If those messages were more realistic, they would have had a lot more “hits” that would just waste their time because ultimately, they wouldnt be able to scam them as easily.

Because Kursk wasnt an active combat zone and it is part of Russia, most of the military there was conscripts, ie random kids from all over Russia but mostly cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.

One more reason to get out of Athens as fast as possible. If you are visiting Greece, dont spend too much time in Athens. Do the tourist things, like Parthenon, Plaka, etc and get out.

The ancient Olympic Games was literally the biggest and most important political event in ancient Greece(and during the hellenistic period, in the “World”).

Everyone gathered there, wars were temporary suspended so if you had anything important to announce, you did it there. And thats why alliances were often announced there, alongside with shitload of backdoor deals and politicking.

You could argue that what we have isnt true capitalism, since our current system doesnt include the environmental cost. If we could do that, then the cost of doing things would greatly increase, thus forcing capitalism to be more environmentally friendly.

I dont want to defend capitalism, but there is a potential version of capitalism that could work. Kinda how we use the replicative aggressive function of viruses for healing.

The fact that in the West, right wings are often insane, doesnt mean much. 95% of new coal power plants are built in China. Are they right wing? I think they are but tankies think China is socialist.

Obviously China has immense demand for power and it is in many ways a developing country. They took some measures to reduce the negative environmental effect. Their cities were covered in smog till recently, they had to do something.

But despite that, they still value the growth/wealth of cheap electric power.

While capitalism is a big accelerator of climate change, socialism could do the same. Whether you exploit the environment for capitalist profit or the perceived profit of human society, the end result can be the same.

All animals want to exploit nature for their benefit, even if it is a short term benefit but a long term loss. Humans, and arguebly capitalism, are just more efficient. But here is an infamous example of socialism fucking the environment

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

PS People’s issue isnt with socialism, it’s with supporting authoritative regimes, that dont even claim to be socialist(Russia for example)

I replied there.

You won’t hear this often in mainstream media but NATO expansionism

Dont sovereign countries have the right to join alliances? Would you support the US invading Mexico if Mexico joins a chinese led alliance? Would you support a cuban invasion during the Cold War for similar reasons?

the involvement of neo-nazi far right paramilitary groups in the Maidan revolution in Ukraine were legitimate grievances for Russia.

Putin is also supported by neo-nazis. The premiere russian military organization in Ukraine was named Wagner. What is your argument here? Shitty people follow shitty ideologies. You fight with the people you have, not with the people you want to have. This is problematic but it isnt as if Ukraine was left with many alternatives.

Ukraine is not that different to Russia in the end. Both have insane corruption issues and both have neonazis. Neither is an excuse to invade anyone or to not help the victims of an invasion.

Russia’s resources are vast and they are supported by China. Ukraine is backed by the deep pockets of NATO.

Russia has the gdp of Italy. Russia is big in terms of geographical area but not really in terms of economy. If you think Russia has vast resources, wait till you find out about the resources the West has. It’s all about political will.

And China doesnt really support Russia, at least not in terms of military help, at least not for the moment. China supports Russia as much as Turkey supports it, ie it facilitates trade and takes advantage of Russia’s lack of alternatives when it comes to trading.

Over half a million troops on both sides have been killed

Casualties are not dead. It is dead+injured.

A diplomatic solution three years ago could have possibly prevented all that.

What diplomatic solution would have prevented Russia from invading? Should have the West pre-emptively sanctioned and cut off Russia from the world economy in order to prevent the invasion? Should the West have said “ok, we wont let Ukraine join NATO and EU”? Should countries not have the right to choose what they do?

Even during the early stages of invasion, Macron legitimately thought he could stop it, he still wanted to keep the bridge with Russia alive. Go back and read some articles. Now Macron is one of the most anti-Russia politicians in the world? Why? Because he eventually realized that there was no alternative and that Putin was bullshitting him the whole time.

In Russia’s mind there are 2 types of countries, sovereign countries where rules do not apply to (the US, China, Russia) and minor countries that are just following what their “master” country tells them. It is inconceivable to the russian mind that 2 countries could freely associate with each other. Hence the whole “NATO expansion” narrative. As if NATO tanks marched in and forced those countries to join it.

The exact opposite happened actually. Eastern Europe was so afraid even after the USSR collapse, that some of them blackmailed NATO to let them join. Poland literally threatened to get their own nukes if they werent allowed to join NATO.

Ask yourself, why would all eastern european countries want to join NATO? Your answer is the Ukraine invasion. They wanted to join because they didnt want to be like Ukraine is now.

So invade your country, grab a few parts, then we have a ceasefire and a diplomatic solution where i keep the land that i already got. And then i repeat it. Is this a “pro-peace” stand? Or is it a “pro-conquering” stance, that enables this behaviour?

Would he have the same opinion about nazi Germany invading and conquering other countries? Maybe a peace for our time kind of deal?

They have US military bases there

There are no US military bases in Cyprus. There are british ones(since Cyprus used to be part of the British Empire).

And there is 0% chance that Cyprus would let israeli military launch attacks from Cyprus.

Nor is there much strategic reason to do so, unless Hezbollah has some s-300/400 and Israel needs to go around them and attack from a different direction. But they dont. And even if they had, Cyprus has basically no reason to allow Israel to do that and there is 0 precedent for that either.

I think it is just Hezbollah being an attention whore.

From what i have read, it was a freelancer dude who wrote 1 article for Al Jazeera, 5+ years ago. I dont know why there is this need to make everything so biased/black and white.

No, it isnt anything like that. The EU elections are different than the national ones and they arent explicitly connected in any way.

But they are implicitly connected. His party just did very badly in the EU elections. He could technically continue to govern till the next national elections or he could go to early national elections and ask the voters “hey, you didnt vote for me in the EU elections, do you still want me to rule this country or not? Please confirm that you still continue to support me”.

Basically Macron is saying “You just saw how fucked things are, with the far right getting over 30% of the votes in the EU elections. Vote for me or the fascists will win”. It is a move intended to rally the voters to his party but he also risks losing the elections(resulting in a fascist government).

As a general rule, in many countries the governing party does worse in the EU elections, because the EU elections are often used as an opportunity to vote for small/minor political parties or protest vote. The EU parliament isnt as legislatively relevant. They dont make laws, they just approve/reject laws proposed by the EU Commision.

The EU Commision isnt directly elected by the voters. The european country governments appoint EU Commission members(one from each country) and the EU parliament votes for the EU Commission leader. This is a point of contention.

Technically it is “democratic” because eventually everything comes down to either national european governments(who are democratically elected) or the EU parliament(which is also democratically elected). But many people think it is weird to have the most powerful EU institution appointed instead of directly elected. The procedure isnt as transparent as people would like and it involves a lot of backdoor “politicking”.

PS On the other hand, directly electing the EU Commission would give its members a lot more political power, basically on par or higher with the elected country leaders. Being directly elected greatly increases your political power.

I would like to see a more balanced view of the Force and how the jedi’s complacency/rule has been a fertile ground for corruption and injustice. And/or how a lot of jedi concepts especially regarding human relations and emotions are unhealthy.

Basically a more modern approach to how a jedi theocracy is problematic as fuck. Kotor 2 tried to lean a little bit on that and had the option of being “neutral”.

This looks awful. The rifle keeps going up and down while it is walking, no stabilization and they didnt show any accuracy data. You might as well ducktape a rifle to a roomba.

Aiming at targets far away is very hard. Even if it has to stop to shoot, how does it aim? By moving the body of a giant robot dog? That doesnt seem it has the sensitivity it needs. If the rifle is moving that much during walking, how can you accurately aim at anything, since you dont know where the rifle will be aiming when you stop? The camera seems to be on the robot and not on the rifle and everything is jiggling.

Also why even use a full goddamn rifle? You wont have a human holding it, you can just use a modified barrel basically. Are they not embarrassed by how bad this looks? Are they so clueless?

What he is saying is that Gotland is extremely strategically important to Russia(and Sweden/NATO). It is also an island with 50k population, basically deserted, which can be used as an excuse(would countries be willing to go to WW3 over such an island?). An island that Sweden demilitarised in the past.

If Russia wants to fuck with the Baltic States(high probability, especially if things go well for them in Ukraine), Gotland will be part of that plan. Russia wants to deploy anti-air missile systems there that would enable them to air blockade the Baltic States.

This messaging is essential in order to signal to the world that a threat exists so if shit goes down, the world(NATO allies) will be mentally prepared to be involved.

It is “very easy” for Russia(or many countries who dont care about diplomatic fallout) to create a fait accompli and conquer small stuff. And then it is up to the morale of your country and your allies, to see if they have the will to fight back, like Ukraine did for example.

Trump is ahead in polls. If the US doesnt provide help to Ukraine, Ukraine has 0% chance of winning. Europe does not have the military inventory or production to provide meaningful longterm help to Ukraine, only the US has that.

I also struggle to imagine a scenario where Russia puts boots on Estonian ground and the other Baltics, Poland, and Finland don’t step in to help. Czechia would also not be far behind.

If Ukraine is mostly out and US is mostly out, then these countries dont have enough to resist Russia. Poland might have enough, combined with Finland and Sweden, in 5+ years but not atm.

As for your North Korea example, that’s actually a very instructive one, because they have practically zero power projection aside from their hit-and-miss missile program.

Do not underestimate North Korea. Their missile program is legit. In fact, probably some of the ballistic missiles Iran launched were based on North Korean designs. And some were modern iranian designs that are a lot better. These things are expensive and hard to shoot down.

Their psyops have also reached their apex, I think. Trump will not win and people are (slowly) becoming more wise to foreign influence online.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-20-how-us-allies-are-working-iron-out-bugs-2024-04-24/

“Germany is waging a charm offensive inside the Republican Party. Japan is lining up its own Trump whisperer. Mexican government officials are talking to Camp Trump. And Australia is busy making laws to help Trump-proof its U.S. defense ties.”

"Britain’s Labour party, now in opposition but strong favorite to win elections expected by year-end, may have a steeper hill to climb to reach a good relationship with a Trump administration.

Labour’s nominative foreign minister, David Lammy, once wrote in Time magazine, opens new tab that Trump was a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sociopath”. Lammy is now working to build ties with Republicans, said a Labour official."