World News Random, Random

[mick1303]

I'm still in one piece and apartment is not damaged. There is still electricity and water. But artillery explosions continue. They are not targeting residential areas, but there is always a human error. And then another human's life is destroyed. Pray for us...

[patrick]

I'm still in one piece and apartment is not damaged. There is still electricity and water. But artillery explosions continue. They are not targeting residential areas, but there is always a human error. And then another human's life is destroyed. Pray for us...

Be safe.

[patrick]

China is not ready yet, will take another 5-10 years. No need to hurry, though.

Why 5-10 years? This is a very good time to invade Taiwan:
The USA can't fight or get involved in two wars that are so geographically distant.
Europe has no stakes in Taiwan other than financial and, if I recall well, the reliance on chips that (I believe) you posted about a long time ago.
Europe could not care less about democracy in Taiwan. It is one thing that was made clear with the war in the Balkans: as long as it is not happening within the EU borders, they care very little for anything happening outside. They issue statements and nothing more.
China does have economic leverage against the west. All the American and European manufacturing that is done there would be at stake.
China has been building, for years now, solid supplies for raw materials from Africa and S. America. Several countries in my continent are, at a minimum, partial to China over the USA (Venezuela Argentina, Mexico and all the other leftist buffoons). None of them even recognize Taiwan as an independent nation (as neither does the USA or the EU). So they are not exposed to sanctions related to embargoes.
Vlad and Xi truly see eye to eye. No need to believe that Xi is not looking at the USA/EU response and saying "I can deal with that easily. We are the world's second largest economy".

Your ideas are truly expected (and I am not joking there).

Think Xi and Vlad may have updated each other on their ideas in Beijing a few weeks ago.

[Suliso]

China is not ready yet, will take another 5-10 years. No need to hurry, though.

Why 5-10 years? This is a very good time to invade Taiwan:
The USA can't fight or get involved in two wars that are so geographically distant.

Because I think China is not yet militarily ready for an amphibious assault like that. Taiwan is a harder target.

[JazzNU]

[ti-amie]

I can hear those explosions myself, right now. I'm in Kharkov.

Be safe Mick!

[ti-amie]

TFG was talking about an amphibious assault on Faux last night. Maybe he got his autocrats mixed up?

[ti-amie]

POTUS remarks P1

[ti-amie]

P2

[ponchi101]

Russia will be limited to doing business in the four major currencies. Because they were doing business in the past in Rubles? They weren't, right?
And if you don't cut them from SWIFT, they can move all the money they want.

[ti-amie]

P3

[ti-amie]

Russia will be limited to doing business in the four major currencies. Because they were doing business in the past in Rubles? They weren't, right?
And if you don't cut them from SWIFT, they can move all the money they want.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[JazzNU]

Every general and colonel that I've seen in the last 48 hours has said the same thing about SWIFT - you do not use that as sanction right now, it's a terrible strategic play. It's the nuclear option. You use that as your Plan A and you have no Plan B where sanctions are concerned.