[Winstonm]

NATO Expansion

It is being reported that Finland will apply for membership in the next few days, and Sweden won’t be far behind. Putin’s war has accomplished the opposite of what he intended. How will this effect the west going forward?

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-May-12, 09:52, said:

NATO Expansion

It is being reported that Finland will apply for membership in the next few days, and Sweden won't be far behind. Putin's war has accomplished the opposite of what he intended. How will this effect the west going forward?

As with so many things today, the results are unforeseeable. A year ago expanding NATO could reasonably have been seen as an aggressive move by the West. Now it is a completely reasonable response to Russian aggression. Scary but reasonable in the "well, what else would we expect" sense.
It's not like we were ever going to be great friends with Russia, but, before the invasion of Ukraine, we were not sitting around with a finger on the button. Now it is scary.
I can confidently say "scary", saying anything else is, for me, a guess.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-May-12, 10:12, said:

As with so many things today, the results are unforeseeable. A year ago expanding NATO could reasonably have been seen as an aggressive move by the West. Now it is a completely reasonable response to Russian aggression. Scary but reasonable in the "well, what else would we expect" sense.
It's not like we were ever going to be great friends with Russia, but, before the invasion of Ukraine, we were not sitting around with a finger on the button. Now it is scary.
I can confidently say "scary", saying anything else is, for me, a guess.

The EU is in the most difficult position. It appears to me that Putin has two types of weapons to employ: nuclear and natural gas. I hope he chooses neither, but he is too much in the mold of Donald Trump it appears. I only hope he is way smarter than Trump, which is a higher bar than most allow credit.

[pilowsky]

Unforeseeable until it's inevitable - because of the fog.
After the War of Northern aggression as the people in NC that I met called it, and after WWI and then after WWII and after the special military operations in Korea, Cuba, Viet Nam, Grenada, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Serbia, Bosnia etc etc everyone said that the situation is completely under control.
It wasn't and it isn't.

FWIW, I predict that:
1. The Soviets will take the Donbas, Finland, Sweden AND Switzerland will join NATO.
2. Europe will stop all imports of Soviet gas.
3. The Soviet economy will collapse (for the umpteenth time this century) reinforcing the grip of authoritarianism.
4. The US, UK and Australian media will continue to devote more time to sport and other important news such as (from this morning's news): will Ange Postecoglu will stay with Rangers (no), will Amber or Johnny win (who cares), will sperm donor survivors (yes you heard it right) be able to locate their "genetic father", who will win the Archibald prize.
5. Investment in research will continue to decrease as publication of unimportant non-science continues to rise.
6. More money will be spent on Twitter and pointless lawsuits in the USA than on preventing destruction of the climate.

[Cyberyeti]

Quote

3. The Soviet economy will collapse (for the umpteenth time this century) reinforcing the grip of authoritarianism.

Something I don't understand, the rouble has strengthened significantly against the pound recently - why ? start of war 100, just after start 109, now 79 roubles to the pound.

[pilowsky]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-May-13, 01:29, said:

Something I don't understand, the rouble has strengthened significantly against the pound recently - why ? start of war 100, just after start 109, now 79 roubles to the pound.

Putin is manipulating it @Blinken.

[cherdano]

Cyberyeti, on 2022-May-13, 01:29, said:

Something I don't understand, the rouble has strengthened significantly against the pound recently - why ? start of war 100, just after start 109, now 79 roubles to the pound.

Russia is earning Dollars from oil and gas, and can spend it to buy up Rubles to keep the price high. Companies earning foreign currency are also forced to convert at least some of it. Meanwhile, it is difficult for Russians to buy dollars using their Rubles accounts - even those leaving the country, due to the bank sanctions, and limits on carrying cash.

Basically, Russia is using dollars to buy Rubles instead of mobile phones, and it's difficult to use Rubles to pay foreign goods, so the price of Rubles isn't falling.

[pilowsky]

Its D-Day. Again.
Here's a geographic history of WWII from the moment that Chamberlain announced that:

Quote

I am speaking to you from the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more, or anything different, that I could have done and that would have been more successful. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland. But Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened, and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement. The proposals were never shown to the Poles, nor to us, and though they were announced in the German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier the next morning.

His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force.

We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace. But the situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted, and no people or country could feel itself safe, had become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage.

[hrothgar]

cherdano, on 2022-May-13, 04:54, said:

Russia is earning Dollars from oil and gas, and can spend it to buy up Rubles to keep the price high. Companies earning foreign currency are also forced to convert at least some of it. Meanwhile, it is difficult for Russians to buy dollars using their Rubles accounts - even those leaving the country, due to the bank sanctions, and limits on carrying cash.

Basically, Russia is using dollars to buy Rubles instead of mobile phones, and it's difficult to use Rubles to pay foreign goods, so the price of Rubles isn't falling.

Another important point:

The ruble isn't free floating right now
The Russians put massive currency controls in place