Stylistillusional

I suspect a some of the other players in the region that are taking the position of intervention if Israel starts a ground offensive in Gaza are doing so because they hope or believe it is unlikely the IOF will want to go into Gaza.

Obviously such a scenario would be terrible for the Palestinians and it is good that it is clear such an act would come at a high cost to the zionists. But realistically, the IOF would suffer heavy casualties regardless of the involvement of anyone other than the Palestinians. Israel has to understand that, one would think.

What's more, the addition 'if Isreal starts a ground offensive into Gaza' allows for Arab nations and groupings to not get involved further if Israel is content to just bomb the shit out of Gaza.

What I'm getting at is that I wouldn't be surprised if these countries, while genuinely sympathetic towards Palestinians, would very much prefer not to get involved directly and will look for excuses not to if things escalate. Ofcourse this is all speculation over things that still feel up in the air.

You're telling me that a constitution is not, by definition, an ideological document?

I don't understand how you can live in this world where you recognise that the parties and people that make up the state apparatus are ideological but the state itself is not. There's no magical step where the functioning of these explicitly ideological people somehow becomes non-ideoligical. Believing otherwise is itself an ideological position, namely a liberal one.

Just because different lib parties have disagreements doesn't mean they aren't liberal. Almost without exception they 'recognise Isreal's right to defend itself'. They all implicitly, if not explicitly, support a settler-colonial apartheid state. And what would be more fitting than liberals supporting such a state? When it was liberal thinkers like Locke who's theory served to justify the British settler-colonial project in the Americas.

God I fucking hate westoids so much. Living ccomfortably in their sheltered little lives, built over the backs of the global south, pontificating over how they are not anti-Palestine, just anti-violence.

As much as people like to mythologise resistance to the Nazi occupation in WW2, I am once again reminded that most of my fellow countrymen, almost especially the so-called progressives, would rather collaborate than offer resistance, as did their grandparents.

Countries that say they are liberal democracies can't figure out whether they are liberals or not?

Probably because they don't really give a shit about Haiti either way.

I was listening to a podcast and they mentioned Russia hit a 'hotel that is no longer in use'. Oh you mean exactly the type of building that you would use to house your personnel in a war?

There's going to be a ceasefire when neither side feels they can afford to make anymore gains on the ground. Both Ukraine and Russia aren't interested in that right now. If that continues, I don't believe Trump has any capacity to force a deal. I'm not a big understander of the American system, but it seems like congress could keep arms flowing to Ukraine with Trump in office. So even just cutting off supplies to Ukraine might be too much effort for Trump.

But that seems like the only viable option: cutting off Ukraine and just giving Russia what it wants. Which is still a hard sell for Trump. Especially if most of the people around him will pressure him against it.

If the war in Ukraine has progressed to the point where both sides are ready to make a deal, I don't think it matters who's in the white house.

Hey, you got to have something to do during meetings.

When it's the US/West doing something there's all this room for 'nuance' but when it is Bad Country it's suddenly clear-cut good vs evil.

I go in at night and upvote everything, but by the next day they've redownvoted the whole field again, sometimes stacking their downvotes on top of eachother.

I mean, if Ukraine didn't put pressure on Kherson the Russians would have happily stayed. Russia made mistakes and Ukraine capitalised on them. 'You only won because I wasn't really trying' is a weak excuse. It takes two to tango.

Not that I don't agree with your analysis overall. But I don't think you have to be completely blinded by ideology to come to see that you have made gains when you were able to stretch Russia's resources (which are highly constrained politically), and to try to recreate that in the future. Even if you know the chances of succes are low, are you not going to try given that you have just received a bunch of weapons and training?

Supposedly training will take 6 months. So maybe somewhere next year, but not unlikely near the end of that year, or the beginning of the year after.

Doesn't seem likely that the war will be over by then. I still feel that it is a possibility the US will try for some sort of ceasefire and make Ukraine receiving F16s conditional on a ceasefire. At the same time, the problem remains of how to maintain an F16 fleet for Ukraine. Where are they going to fly from? Is NATO going to try for allowing Ukrainian F16s to take off in NATO territory and drop their payload in Ukrainian airspace? Especially if neither Russia or Ukraine feel much for negotiations.

My sense of the mood in Europe is that Russia has failed to escalate when Ukraine attacked Crimea, started droning Moscow, and now when it comes to testing the Russian blockade in the Black Sea. They are slowly escalating because they think Russia is unwilling or unable to respond.

Although there is more talk of a failed Ukrainian offensive, there is still an ambient sense that Ukraine is on the winning hand. Because they believe that Russia is running out of options.