I find it funny how if you marginally, but consistently, offend a geopolitical entity (Europe), you can actually train it to reduce the limits of what it considers acceptable. Just like a dog, or a person, I guess.
If that's what you're hoping for, Ukraine is very grateful for volunteers. There's a bunch of Swedes who did go there to fight. There's a bunch who are there right now.
Or is it "somebody else" who has to show a backbone and take action?
You are right that there are more ways to support. But demanding or asking that somebody else does something is not doing something. A majority of the population consider themselves to be great heroes for making symbolic gestures or for telling their friends over coffee or drinks that "somebody really should do something".
But reality is reality and they have done nothing. They will never do anything voluntarily either – for any cause.
I understand. But I don't know if there's been any lacking in condemnation on his part. As far as I remember, most leaders of nations have condemned the war completely since day one. What do you wish for him to achieve by condemning it harder?
Europe is a case of being crippled by assistance, like a man who uses an electric wheelchair until his leg muscles atrophy. They've leaned on US security guarantees so long that most countries have no functioning deterrent (look up the German air force sometime if you want to be sad).
Usually, good times create agricultural surplus, transport infrastructure, better organization and larger, healthier armies. But in the specific case of being dependant on a larger, benevolent state for protection, that gets undermined. Anyway, hard times create desperate people, not exactly strong ones. And then something about interesting times, but that's a different saying.
>being dependant on a larger, benevolent state for protection,
<benevolent> not really. we bougth a ton of USA weapons and also our soldiers died in USA started wars, it was an alliance and now USA just betrayed us , the blood and money we sacrificed was for nothing, I hope the cheap eggs from Trump satisfies MAGA idiots for this international betrayal .
That trope has been well debunked. It makes a nice saying, but it isn't true. There are plenty of examples of good times creating strong people; and others of hard times creating weak people.
> I have several issues with this quote from the manosphere. The manosphere was infested with both Russians and Ukrainians who were busy "preparing for the big war" with lifting etc. since at least 2014. Now they are in a trench warfare and barely make any progress in either direction.
Could it be that talking up war for so many years leads to a self-fulfilling prophesy?
The people doing most of the talking of course are "public intellectuals" who tell others to go lift and prepare for war. TV commentators on the Russian side, Lindsey Graham and a couple of RedPill folks on the Ukrainian side.
Now the weak EU leaders who barely have 20-30% public support have a big mouth and tell others to go to the gym (metaphorically).
In a thread full of hatred and calls for more senseless violence and calls to sink all ships etc.
I don't know if wealth makes us weaker, but it apparently don't make us less prone to be manipulated by emotions.
Well, implied bothsidism where Ukrainiens are somehow equally to blame for Russian invasion and attempt at genocide would be a good reason to downvote that.
It was an unprovoked aggression from the Russia, made because Russia wants to annex territories. Full stop. That current American or whatever leadership sees annexation and expansive wars as a cool thing is unrelated to that.
And for that matter, Canada did not started issues between US and Canada either. It is purely American made aggression.
The "bothsidism" of this flagged post did not equate the responsibilities of the Ukrainian and Russian government in the current war, which would indeed be worthy of downvotes. It equated the hatred and the willingness to confront each others, and the now equaly miserable position of being engulfed in a muddy trench waiting for death from above.
Meanwhile, people calling for "sinking all the ships" that have nothing to do with that, can freely spread warmongering from the comfort of their distant continent? And on top of that pretend to have the moral upper hand??
> Europe has past its good times phase and is hitting the reality of the hard times.
> The question is if it can overcome the next phase without another Adolf or war.
This whole thread is a joke right? The US is the one who just elevated the modern day Hitler to world leader and is now cheering him on as he collaborates with the Russia to commit genocide in Ukraine, and the Israelis to commit genocide in Gaza.
Sanctions are partial, the shadow fleet is operating, support for Ukraine is partial, China and India are not experiencing notable repercussions for supplying Russia, Europe is buying Russian gas. There's a lot Europe could do to show that it's serious about security, without troops in Ukraine. Oh, troops and training personnel in Ukraine's rear is another one.
My guess is that this is how much they can do before seriously impacting people's cushy lives. Wouldn't want to inconvenience your population in any way, would you? /s
The leaders of free countries have the issue that if they increase the cost of living too much they'll be voted out by voters angry enough to listen to Russian agitprop. The Western narrative is very damaged especially in our own underclasses.
If you aren't willing to move to conflict (or whatever the next step is) at some point, then you are, in fact, just bluffing, and you are being called out on that bluff.
You can choose what that point is, but it's weird not to expect enemies to continually test where your line is, and walk you right up to it.
I'm not sure what you expect to see here?
Let's assume for a second armed conflict is the "natural" next step.
Either you are willing to get into an armed conflict over it or not. If you aren't, and they are willing to accept everything other than armed conflict (sanctions, etc), why should they care at all what you think or do? They already know you won't escalate past a certain point. As long as they are willing to accept how far you are willing to escalate, ....
Russia existed before mongol invasion (Ghenghis Khan was from Mongolia, and not Russian). For example, one of great Russian kings hanged his shield on the gates of the capital of Eastern Roman Empire, the city of Konstantinople in 10th century (it was located where modern Istambul is, but the shield sadly isn't there anymore).
EU is just being out greyzoned by RU in this area - greyzone because under UNCLOS subsea infra regulations, RU suppose to pay for indemnities but we know that's not going to happen unless EU returns siezed RU $$$. TBH RU still has 100B+ more worth of cables to sabatoge and other shenanigans going forward in response to EU shooting firt with greyzone seizing of RU assets. People calling for blockades / shooting ships think that's worth escalating to actual kinetic war, in which case EU will simply be the relative larger loser since a 20T EU economy vs 2T RU economy has much more to lose, i.e. would be fairly easy to just fuck up EU energy / energy import infra.
Yes, this all comes back to Russia calling our bluff on war. They can continue to harass and invade and pursue their territorial expansion, because they have less to lose than the EU.
But, at some point there is a limit. If the EU does choose, as you call it, kinetic war, Russia will be toast. They cannot win a conventional war against a far larger economy. Just like Ukraine cannot win the war against Russia.
