Something is done only if and only there's a threat of implied violence.
But for the threat to be real, you have to be 100% certain that violent retribution actually awaits.
Covid has shown that violent retribution is just not coming. And so the destruction of our society and liberty will continue
Seems like most of Russia is more and more convinced that it's fighting a war against NATO.
And they're mobilizing. It's half-assed and a mess. But.
NATO is not. Half-assed mobilized is still way better that zero mobilized.
We literally need to mine minerals for hundreds of years at 2019 rates to get enough material to just build the current gen renewables enough to replace hydrocarbons.
And that's assuming that there's enough of the stuff in the ground in the first place.
You do if your country is run by an actor and media production company CEO.
It's all a show made from the tragedy of real war, created for stupid EU and American viewers so that they allow themselves to be robbed by supporting Ukraine.
That is very highly unlikely.
Russian opposition has proved itself to be completely incapable of anything, they literally all ran away to the West as soon as the war started.
The only opposition Putin has now are Russian patriot nationalists who want to escalate the conflict into a full out war with NATO and to stop pussyfooting around like Putin has been doing, while Russia still holds the hypersonic advantage.
Putin is literally the most tolerant and moderate version of this conflict.
Ukraine has dozens of trillions of dollars worth of natural resources and the most fertile land in all of Europe.
Germany has been trying to get at them for literal centuries, for example. Nazis literally sent trainloads of Ukrainian topsoil back home.
I mean, literally:
What Putin really wants is for the West to back down first.
He threw a challenge to the collective West. If the West backs down, he is now much more closer to being the alpha guy in the world. African countries, the Middle East, Asia will all be looking at this and thinking that the current hegemon is really kind of getting old and decrepit and we don't have to listen to him anymore.
This is why the US is perfectly willing to destroy the EU to try and stop Putin. In fact, way more willing than Putin himself, who wants to save Europe if possible because they have always been the best markets for Russian goods. Russia will only lose long-term from the destruction of the EU while the US has trillions to gain.
Right, but the paper lays it out so nice and clear:
- Goad Russia into war with Ukraine using puppet regime;
- Germany stops importing Russian energy;
- German economy collapses;
- German "green" party too stupid and ideological to save the situation;
- EU economy collapses after Germany;
- US gains $7-9 trillion within 4-5 years from this collapse.
Of course, the whole "controlled collapse" is bullshit. It's not going to be controlled and will bring down everything.
That's just delayed violence.
No one will let you just leave and take territory.
You try that, and you'll have a fight to the death on your hands 100%. And then you have to win to leave on your terms. We've seen it once before in the US.
If you're not ready to defend yourself given this course of action, might as well just not do it in the first place.
The other option is to build and ark. I.e. go off grid and build an (exclusive and secretive) parallel society. This is also delayed violence because you cannot hide forever from the goons, but you might be able to hide long enough that the goons destroy themselves before they get to you.