regardless of any amount of resources given to Ukraine, The length of time Russia has been militarily unable to successfully campaign against one of the weakest European countries was astonishing and extremely enlightening as to the state of their military readiness.

before Russia exposed itself, this sort of matchup very much seemed like if the US decided to invade Colombia, made very little progress for 3 years, and then lost territory to Colombia(imagining they bordered Colombia).

Russia losing to Ukraine would have seemed absurd until all of the weaknesses and false pretenses of Russian military power were exposed.

now it turns out Europe had a paper tiger for 40 years that world leaders were wrongly extolling the military virtues and dangers of.

it’s not to say that Russia is harmless, because they’re willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers, but they simply do not pose the legacy world-power conquering danger that everybody assumed they did for over a generation.

and to belabor the point, they are failing against a single, relatively and especially at the time, unprepared and militarily weak country the Russia had literally signed a treaty not to invade.

the lifelong disabilities will be awful

video? fine.

20 minutes video?

who are you kidding?

truth

“looking like a dick idiot in front of the world.”

thanks that whole article is bananas, i don’t think i could stand to watch the video though

ah, got it thanks.

Europe is already ramping up spending, and several countries have had it explicitly clear that they will be taking up the burden trump is running away from.

it’s nice for then that Russia has more bodies, but it hasn’t helped them so far in any capacity that has been bandied about for the past three years.

i was making this same point three years ago, that on paper everyone was terrified of the Russian military until Russia showed themselves militarily incapable of planning for or executing a campaign against a happy smaller country with badly inferior numbers and equipment.

same point 2 years ago, then 1, same conclusion today.

the however many years it takes Russia to “win”(by this point they’ve lost no matter what in practical terms), the EU will be fully ready to defend itself.

the 1 week it was supposed to take Russia to conquer ukraine has turned into what, 160 weeks and counting?

without making significant progress?

in those three years, multiple EU powers have already changed their policies and now spend record numbers on defense and military equipment production, specifically to deal with Russia if they ever become a threat to the larger European continent.

Russia has used up 20% of their active military personnel and a lot of their equipment fighting one of the weakest European countries to barely a stalemate, even losing sovereign ground to Ukraine.

so it doesn’t really matter how long ukraine can resist Russia; Russia far overplayed its hand and doesn’t seem to have much of a chance of “conquering” any further by letting everyone know how weak Russia is militarily and giving everyone else years to prepare for any more bullshit Russia tries to pull

i caught the bus for the glory of the empire

I’d rather have a toaster than elon.

what’s the specific context here?

mortality rate of 3% for unvaccinated kids.

gonna be a lot of depression-era grieving going on.

I remembered the crossdressing scene, I don’t remember the scene on the right as clearly.

which is surprising, haha, I assumed I still recognized the movie frame for frame.

thanks

what’s the one on the right?

great bill, great work