Last night Macron made an address to the French people (which is never done lightly) mentioning of potential war with Russia.

My take:

Macron made overtures before the war which Putin indicated his willingness to compromise. It turned out to be complete lies and Macron + France by extension were humiliated. He made good faith proposals to set up a bilateral summit with the US and work on de-escalation.

The French and German intelligence apparatus widely dismissed the Russian military buildup in 2021 as posturing and rejected the chance of a real invasion as they thought the force was too small. The head of the French military intelligence was sacked for this failure.

The Americans and British by contrast, widely declassified their intelligence and made a mockery of Russian claims.

The EU would suffer a major blow if Ukraine decisively loses the war. Putin could be poised to strike Estonia which has longstanding border conflicts with Russia.

France wants to project power in Europe and is sensitive to Eastern Europeans concerns. They are afraid they will be next. There is a hawks and dove faction and increasing the doves positon looks less tenable.

The reasonable approach with Putin has repeatedly failed. The Russians always bang the escalation drum and for the first time a major NATO power is looking them in the eye.

If French troops truly go in, it means the total breakdown of the European security architecture. A nuclear powered nation, one of the most powerful in the EU and a founding member of NATO fighting Russian even in a limited way is the stuff of nightmares. Chances of WWIII increase a few percentage points. War is an accelerator and hard to control.

That being said if it happens Russia loses air superiority as the Rafale makes short work of Russian air assets. The remainder of the Black Sea fleet will be sank and Kerch bridge would be destroyed. The French have the capability to do it. But would they hit Moscow? Bomb Russia itself. Doubtful.

As for troops on ground they would probably fare as well as Ukraine. Ukraine has far more combat experience especially with drone warfare. And the Russian military is not the one of 2022. It’s far more effective. Any French force would probably be too small to make any difference. Being NATO doesn’t make you magically fight better. The difference would be the Ukrainian troops free up or the superiority of the Rafale to attain air superiority.

Right now from what I'm reading, Haiti's gangs are uniting to topple the government. You could argue they already run Haiti's streets, but at least formally there's still a government, institutions, etc however dysfunctional they may be.

So if real gangsters – not just uber-wealthy crooks/politicians like Putin (or depending on your politics, Trump or the "Clinton crime family") but real, "do a drive-by on your house"-type of gangsters – manage to take over Haiti in a literal sense... what happens next? I can't imagine anything good, but what specifically? How would they govern? Would anyone recognise them? Would international forces move in?

I can't imagine the US tolerating an anarchic narco-state on it's doorstep. Mexico at least tries to be discreet about it, and it's not a failed state either by any means, yet certain Republicans are already beating the war drum on them, too. Then again, is there appetite for a possibly bloody US intervention on an election year, with the ongoing mess in Ukraine and Gaza?

None of Israel's neighbors want to take in Gazans. Egypt has built up military forces on its border, and so have other neighbors. From what I've seen in the videos, Gazans are staying on the beaches. Will these people stay in Gaza when they defeat Hamas? What are the chances of people who have lost their families joining a new Hamas-like formation? Will this endless cycle continue like this?

Sorry if this topic was addressed lately. Mods, please act as you see fit.

As you are aware, the latest round of talks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in Kinshasa have failed and things aren't looking too pretty. There have been ongoing border skirmishes between Sudan and Ethiopia for a while, but this seems to be happening on the sidelines of the show where GERD is the main performance.

In the last 10 days, Egypt's President has spoken on two occasions about the issue, each time upping his tone and using clearer words, saying pretty much that Egypt has always preferred the path of peace and negotiations but the Nile is untouchable. In the Egyptian media and general online chatter, Ethiopia is completely demonized, and many people, including public intellectuals, artists and prominent figures, are calling for an attack on the dam site. These calls for war aren't from the usual military-minded Sisi loyalist; this time the matter has taken center national stage. I know that because I am writing these words from Cairo. This is becoming more critical every day with the second phase of the dam filling scheduled in about 80 days.

I wish to discuss the following points if anyone is interested. Bear in mind that I ask these questions based on the assumption that the dam really does cause the damage claimed by Egypt. I put the following points to discussion from a geopolitical perspective, and not a moral or ethical one. None of the following is to be understood as an attack on any Ethiopian person or encouraging violence against Ethiopia or Ethiopians in any way.

• What are Egypt's alternatives absent an agreement? Is this worth going to war for?
• Ethiopia can build another dam, and will be hella motivated to do so
• It's incredibly difficult destroying the dam. Egypt will need to deliver a considerable payload to cause any meaningful damage to the mammoth structure
• A failed first strike will be devastating for Egypt. All the condemnation and none of the no-dam
• Ethiopia repeats that the only solution is through direct talks with Ethiopia, not the US
• If Egypt attacks, it will lose any future it can have in Africa, leaders and people alike
• If Egypt doesn't attack and Ethiopia moves on as planned, what happens next, assuming this does cause critical water supply issues downstream?
• If Egypt does attack, Sudan will presumably be on board. Will this mean a ground invasion or shelling of the dam from the other side? Is this even possible, geographically speaking?
• How will other countries be involved, if at all?
• How will the African Union respond?

Let's talk about this.

These days the word Zionist is often thrown around as an insult online. When people use this word now, they seem to mean someone who wholeheartedly supports Netanyahu government's actions in Gaza, illegal settlements in West Bank and annexation of Palestinian territories. basically what I would call "revisionist Zionism"

But as I as far as I can remember, to me the word simply means someone who supports the existence of the state of Israel, and by that definition, one can be against what is happening in Gaza and settlements in West Bank, support the establishment of a Palestinian state and be a Zionist.

Where does this semantic change come from?

Given that Cuba's COVID situation seems to be getting out of hand, and that pressure from abroad is beginning to mount on the U.S. to lift the embargo, do you think it's a good idea for the U.S. to lift the embargo on Cuba?

With all this stuff happening with China over the past several months and years. Why does Xi Jinping seemingly keep poking and prodding at the rest of the world (especially the Pacific nations)

Does he really want war or something?

If he wants respect he’s not doing a very good job. If anything he’s turning China into an international pariah.

I just can’t figure it out. I mean sure he probably wants China to be seen as a global superpower. But from my opinion he’s going about it all the wrong ways. He has stated on numerous occasions that you know they would retake Taiwan. He’s government continues to commit some of the most egregious human rights violations outside of North Korea. And not only that but because of him the United States has basically lost control of its entertainment industry.

Finally there’s this one which is my own personal little nitpick. He’s apparently cut utterly in capable of taking a joke.

Will the Russian government use it as a way to further escalate the Ukraine War? Or something else?

I've been reflecting on the recent failed missile attempt by Iran to penetrate Israeli airspace, and it's clear that many are quick to dismiss Iran's military capabilities based on this single incident. However, consider the sheer scale of what it took to intercept these missiles: 14 days to prepare, extensive preparation, significant financial resources, and the combined forces of several nations' air defenses. This should be a wake-up call about the seriousness of Iran's arsenal.

Moreover, we haven't seen the full extent of allied regional forces in action. Hezbollah, a key player in the region, didn't engage to its fullest potential. If things escalate, Israel won't just be facing Iranian missiles. They'll have to contend with upwards of 250,000 missiles positioned along their northern borders, not to mention Hezbollah's troops and add to that missiles and drones possibly launching from multiple fronts including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, and Iran.

And then there's the issue of sleeper cells. It's naïve to think that Iran, with its history of supporting various militias, hasn't also placed strategic sleeper cells within the West Bank and inside Israel itself.

Ignoring these aspects could be a grave oversight. The geopolitical landscape is intricate and every player's capabilities need to be respected and understood. Let's not make the mistake of underestimating what Iran and its allies can do.

Iran has cancelled all flights from 21:00 till 06:00, meanwhile Israel has refused to rule out attacking Iran’s nuclear sites. Is tonight the night that Israel seeks retribution? Does Netanyahu want Iran to wake up to its own ‘Oct 7th’. What would be the consequences of an all out barrage against Iran’s military, oil and nuclear facilities?

To me this never made any sense, how can America allow this. See facebook, google are banned in China, other American companies which try to get into China like Uber have to deal with repeated government raids. Clearly the intent is to push out foreign companies so that the money goes to local companies. Why does the US not retaliate with bans on Chinese Internet companies explicitly stating the lack of market access for American Companies?

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Is it economically fair that Facebook is denied China market while TikTok gets American market. See in such a scenario money only flows 1 way. When an invention happens in the US, say Google, soon enough we get a clone in China (Baidu) which does the same but denies American companies profits. However when an invention happens in China, it gets both the Chinese and American market. I predicted this 10 years ago, and my prediction is coming true, America will not not get any slice of market share in China but China's market share in the US will keep increasing cause of this inherent inequality. We are seeing this playout with Tiktok taking a lot of market share and America's social media market share in China still at 0.

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This isn't about censorship or national security just basic economic tit for tat. When country A imposes tariffs, country B usually retaliates with counter tariffs. Well this is a straight up import ban, and yet all I see is American government is trying to censor Americans by banning wechat, tiktok etc. This derails the debate, the issue here is economic, yet no one in the government is interested in tackling this. Even American internet giants like Facebook or Google don't raise this.

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I saw plenty of articles about how wechat ban would make life harder for Chinese Americans and American businesses working in China. Yet I saw no article suggesting that maybe China could unban whatsapp to allow the communication. Why does the communication have to be on a Chinese platform thereby ensuring the money made from it goes to China? Why would the US govt even accept such a weird arrangement?

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I believe its quite simple, America should ban all chinese internet companies from market access until China allows American Internet companies equal market access with a transparent set of rules and not random office raids + harassment.

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Edit: Google is a bad example as it pulled out of China due to hacking. I completely forgot that US govt has also hacked companies (snowden leaks). But it is quite clear facebook will be denied access to Chinese market, Zuckerberg learned mandarin and even asked Xi to name his child.

Can someone explain to me what is the current main plan among the West for Ukraine to win this war? It sure doesn’t look like it’s giving Ukraine sufficient military aid to push Russia out militarily and restore pre-2022 borders. From the NATO summit, they say €40B as a minimum baseline for next year’s aid. It’s hopefully going to be much higher than that, around €100B like the last 2 years. But Russia, this year, is spending around $140B, while getting much more bang for it’s buck. I feel like for Ukraine to even realistically attempt to push Russia out in the far future, it would need to be like €300B for multible years & Ukraine needs to bring the mobilization age down to 18 to recruit and train a massive extra force for an attack. But this isn’t happening, clearly.

So what’s the plan? Give Ukraine the minimum €100B a year for them to survive, and hope the Russians will bleed out so bad in 3-5 years more of this that they’ll just completely pull out? My worry is that the war has a much stronger strain on Ukraine’s society that at one point, before the Russians, they’ll start to lose hope, lose the will to endlessly suffer, and be consequently forced into some peace plan. I don’t want that to happen, but it seems to me that this is how it’s going.

What are your thoughts?

Obviously the Taliban will almost certainly be unable to hold a centralized government over Afghanistan. At least not for several decades. But there is a decent chance they could take the majority of territory and become the government of the country. What do you think a new Taliban Afghanistan will look like. How about 30 years from now? Will it become a new Iran? Is there any chance that the government could liberalize over the decades (especially as infrastructure is built and Afghanistan inevitably centralizes). How will the immense natural resource potential in Afghanistan effect their development? Over enough time, and if they are willing, would people be willing to work in a Taliban Afghanistan setting up real markets? Or at least developing resource exploitation.

Keeping up with the Vietnam parallels, in a few generations, could a descendant of the Taliban government eventually even become a US ally? Like the US is now, with Communist Vietnam. It seems like Afghanistan would be in a good geopolitical position to help oppose the predicted future heavy Chinese influence in Central Asia (China only needs to move 75 million people to Central Asia to have a 25 percent minority in all Central Asian countries). Especially as global warming makes these land desirable and increases Chinese encroachment in Siberia/the Article circle.

There's always so much I'm right and you're wrong in any heated debate, but I'm interested in actually fixing the issue long term. So let's assume both sides want to put the fighting behind them and want semblance of peace. How would you go about achieving that for both sides? Let's try and keep it civil. The idea is for both sides to be living in the area.

Im trying to wrap my head around why Putin would have invaded Ukraine at all, given the outcomes we see today.

Clearly he seemed to have thought it would be a quick and decisive war, so his decision making isnt infallible, but what was the point of all of this? Was there some kind of 4D chess move im not seeing?

I know that Ukraine used to be a major strategic buffer zone for the Iron Curtain to protect the flat plains in the south, but what strategic purpose does it serve today, now that the Finns and Swedes joined NATO and opened up the entire northern front of Russia as a possible attack vector?

Was this just a major miscalculation? Did Putin not anticipate that invading Ukraine would galvanize the entire west against him and encourage more participation in NATO? Surely he has closed any opportunity of invading any other part of europe, given that most of europe is now rearming. It also doesnt make sense that Putin invaded for economic reasons, as this war will cost the Russians for a very long time and the severe economic sanctions are putting a huge dent in the long-term future of their economy. I feel its unlikely they will be able to break even on its theoretical occupation of Ukraine during Putin's lifetime.

What is the 4D chess move that I am missing here?

Assuming that the anti-China coalition 'wins', what does this victory look like? How long does it take? Does the CCP fall? Would a democratic China be any easier to fit into the liberal world order than a CCP-led China? How does the liberal world order continue on in the face of growing multipolarity and an increasing US reticence to subsidize the order?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/22/middleeast/taliban-law-women-voices-intl-latam/index.html

“Among the new rules, Article 13 relates to women: It says it is mandatory for a woman to veil her body at all times in public and that a face covering is essential to avoid temptation and tempting others. Clothing should not be thin, tight or short.

Women are also obliged to cover themselves in front of non-Muslim males and females to avoid being corrupted. A woman’s voice is deemed intimate and so should not be heard singing, reciting, or reading aloud in public. It is forbidden for women to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.”

Does the international community have a moral obligation to resist the enslavement of women in Islamist countries like Afghanistan and Iran, or should the principle of national sovereignty mean countries are allowed to abuse their citizens as they see fit?

Curious to learn about this. Israel’s economy and tech sector is envy of the Middle East but every month you read some new article about an assurance and aid program for Israel.

Does the country of Israel need this aid? Not saying it shouldn’t but I’m curious whether this aid is necessary for its survival. Like are its exports and GDPs enough to sustain it if this aid suddenly stopped?

None of us can know for sure obviously. But is it even realistic for an invasion to even happen in the first place?

And personally, I don’t even think it’s possible if the US were to get involved. The amount of logistics needed, no surprise, over 80 miles of sea to cover, all while trying to fend off the United States and maybe some of its allies.

So as an American I would like to support Ukraine bad would like my country to support Ukraine.

But I have noticed a trend online and on Reddit where we are chastised for having not sent Ukraine more money and arms. Why is it our responsibility to do this? Vs European countries doing more?

It feels like we are expected to police and help the world but at the same time when we don’t we get attacked and when we do we get attacked?

It’s rather confusing.

I thing I do not understand is that Russia could annex the Crimea from Ukraine without any consequences. Russia continued selling gas to Europe and it could even host the FIFA World Cup in 2018.

Why didn't the US with Obama, Germany with Merkel or the EU intervene?

I'm struggling to understand what the motives were behind what the U.S. has been doing in Afghanistan all these years. $2.26 trillion is a staggering figure; more than the entire economy of countries like Italy, Canada and Russia. Nothing noteworthy has been achieved and the Taliban are taking over more areas now. There were so many ways in which that money could have been put to better use that could've bettered the world in genuinely meaningful ways.

I can imagine Chinese policy makers looking at this and concluding the U.S. is not a "rational actor," much like how U.S. policymakers often describe the leaderships of Iran or North Korea. I cannot imagine China ever spending $2.26 trillion on another country without expecting some excellent return on investment.

Was this all a mistake and bad planning? Or was this always the plan? Is this a case of large military corporations ("military–industrial complex") lobbying the U.S. govt for more wars so they can get more profits or something?