[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I am just appalled at the senseless violence unleashed against civilians. Yesterday a 4 year old child Lizy died in a missile attack. The child was heading towards a child treatment center when the Russian missile struck.

And this thread will have you believe that this missile attack is also America's fault. This is the post-truth society we live in.

[Gansan]

^^ Same kind of things happened during the US invasion of Iraq and Syria too. Americans are no angels. War is ugly business and innocents will get killed. Americans invented a new term for such deaths - "Collateral damage". Damage, mind you, kind of making them inanimate and impersonal. Now they are making sermons to everyone.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The disturbance in the status quo of power balances could be exploited in India's favour if we play our cards right.

Originally Posted by DonHyd

Could you please elaborate on this? What should India's foreign policy ideally be? Pardon me if you have already explained it in your previous answers as I have not gone through the entire thread.

India's foreign policy should be, and in fact is, that as the 2nd most populous country, the 5th or 6th largest economy, the 3rd largest in purchasing power parity terms, the 3rd or 4th largest military, and the fastest growing large economy we don't need to be in anyone's corner of the global boxing ring. We are in our own corner based on our priorities and interests. The forces that enable India to demand its own corner and hold firm have been brewing up for several years. The Ukraine war, the USA-China rift, Europe's energy confusion all provided the spark that enabled this to happen. And we have the ideal External Affairs Minister in the saddle to pull it all together.

Any crises in international relations creates a vacuum - big or small, regional or global, economic or military etc. Geo-political power moves to fill the vacuum and drive change simultaneously. With the Ukraine war our moving swiftly and boldly despite pressure, innuendoes and threats has finally created for us our own corner in world politics. It has shaken a 200-year old colonial mindset that a developing nation's foreign policy needs to be on one or the other side of a Euro-centric or West-centric point of view. This has been followed up with amazing speed with the UAE-USA-Israel-India I2U2 Quad* to hopefully bring stability to the volatile Middle East and give us a bigger say in our neighbourhood.

In my 45 years of reading and avidly following foreign policy matters it has never been better for India and we have never ever had a more competent External Affairs Minister.


*https://www.business-standard.com/ar...1401466_1.html

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by Gansan

^^ Same kind of things happened during the US invasion of Iraq and Syria too. Americans are no angels. War is ugly business and innocents will get killed. Americans invented a new term for such deaths - "Collateral damage". Damage, mind you, kind of making them inanimate and impersonal. Now they are making sermons to everyone.

Yes, the Americans are no angels (I must've said this atleast 10 times in this thread) but two wrongs don't make a right. The difference is that when such incidences happened in Iraq/Syria, people didn't justify it by saying that the Russians did the same in Afghanistan (1979-89) or something to that order. If this were a thread on American war crimes, there wouldn't be a single mention of Russia or any other country in that thread, then why are we talking about American war crimes and digressing on that and that alone when the thread is about the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Committing war crimes isn't any country's birthright, not for the Americans and certainly not for the Russians (again, no one ever used previous Russian/Soviet actions to justify US war crimes but why is it the case when it comes to Russian war crimes?) About your statement that "War is ugly business and innocents will get killed", no-one forced this war on Russia, infact it was the Russians (or rather Putin) who chose to invade Ukraine.

[Gansan]

War need not necessarily be thrust on Russia. Russia was forced to go to war because of Nato expansion and possibility of Nato missiles on their borders. They have repeatedly said they will not allow it under any circumstances.

America nearly invaded Cuba a long time ago for similar reasons. They got the jitters thinking of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

When America invaded Iraq the whole west was applauding the brave Americans, leave alone criticizing death of innocent civilians. Remember the famous picture of the vietnamese girl running in terror with napalm burns?

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by Gansan

When America invaded Iraq the whole west was applauding the brave Americans, leave alone criticizing death of innocent civilians. Remember the famous picture of the vietnamese girl running in terror with napalm burns?

Yes and anyone from that generation would tell you that America was regarded as an imperialist in much of Asia because of the Vietnam war. In the Iraq war, the siege of Fallujah angered most of the civil society within the west itself.

Coming to Vietnam, going by the prevailing logic in this thread that US is fanning this war by supplying weapons to Ukraine, didn't the Soviets and Chinese also supply weapons to the North Vietnamese - weapons much more lethal and state-of-the-art, so do they share responsibility in that war?

America nearly invaded Cuba a long time ago for similar reasons. They got the jitters thinking of Soviet missiles in Cuba.

"Nearly invaded". And no one is defending America here, just that while criticizing America, no one used Russian actions as a justification - ever!

War need not necessarily be thrust on Russia. Russia was forced to go to war because of Nato expansion and possibility of Nato missiles on their borders. They have repeatedly said they will not allow it under any circumstances.

If you want to go further down the rabbit-hole, those countries joined NATO because they were threatened by Russia itself. Should Russia have the privilege of keeping their neighbors under their thumb without any positives to offer (please don't reply to this statement that the US did the same somewhere else since that's clearly wrong as well)? By that logic, every major country - India, China, US, EU etc should be invading atleast one of their neighbors right now, it's going to be a world of anarchy!

[vishnurp99]

Originally Posted by dragracer567

And this thread will have you believe that this missile attack is also America's fault. This is the post-truth society we live in.

Dear dragracer567, I actually agree with you on this. We live in a post-truth world.

Post-truth essentially means that objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

Let me give you a great example of this. This incident happened in march 11 and was one of those high profile war crimes ( as defined by Ukraine and western media) and an evidence of the genocidal nature of Putin's army. Close to 100 civilians passed away in this sad incident.

https://www.outlookindia.com/interna...ns-news-208110

Excerpt from the article.
But a new UN report has found that Ukraine's armed forces bear a large, and perhaps equal, share of the blame for what happened in Stara Krasnyanka, which is about 580 kilometers (360 miles) southeast of Kyiv. A few days before the attack, Ukrainian soldiers took up positions inside the nursing home, effectively making the building a target.

the battle at the Stara Krasnyanka nursing home is emblematic of the human rights office's concerns over the potential use of “human shields” to prevent military operations in certain areas.
The aftermath of the attack on the Stara Krasnyanka home also provides a window into how both Russia and Ukraine move quickly to set the narrative for how events are unfolding on the ground — even when those events may still be shrouded by the fog of war. For Ukraine, maintaining the upper hand in the fight for hearts and minds helps to ensure the continued flow of billions of dollars in Western military and humanitarian aid.

The investigation and conclusions came out in second week of July. The western media really pushed through Ukraine's claims on this incident in March & April including photos & all.

Now coming to the recent attack, I don't know what the truth is. However I wouldn't jump to a conclusion that all of these targets are purely civilian and Russia is just trying to kill Ukrainians.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

In my 45 years of reading and avidly following foreign policy matters it has never been better for India and we have never ever had a more competent External Affairs Minister.
*https://www.business-standard.com/ar...1401466_1.html

I agree with you on this but it will just take one bad day for him to look like a very ordinary minister. The friction between US/West & China/Russia has really put a lot of focus on India. Keeping fingers crossed and hoping that Mr S Jayashankar continues the good show.

[Foxbat]

Originally Posted by vishnurp99

Dear dragracer567, I actually agree with you on this. We live in a post-truth world.

Post-truth essentially means that objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

Thats precisely whats happening to many people who get their news from sources like CNN, BBC and NYTimes and never question whats being told to them.

We see countless comparisons of Putin to Hitler and the Nazis. Ukraine is a saint and all these rumours of the far right and white supremacists in Ukraine are supposed to be Russian conspiracy theories.

But just take a look at what western media was saying about Ukraine years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy910FG46C4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiBXmbkwiSw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY

When the West says white supremacists and Nazis in Ukraine its true but if Russia says it its a conspiracy theory!

I assure you these will soon be removed from YoutTube for "Policy Violations".

[dragracer567]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

Thats precisely whats happening to many people who get their news from sources like CNN, BBC and NYTimes and never question whats being told to them.

We see countless comparisons of Putin to Hitler and the Nazis. Ukraine is a saint and all these rumours of the far right and white supremacists in Ukraine are supposed to be Russian conspiracy theories.

But just take a look at what western media was saying about Ukraine years ago:

When the West says white supremacists and Nazis in Ukraine its true but if Russia says it its a conspiracy theory!

I assure you these will soon be removed from YoutTube for "Policy Violations".

Feels like we are talking in circles here and hate to sound like a broken record so let me summarize:

1) Having a far-right problem doesn't mean that the country deserves to be invaded - the US, Australia, UK, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, India, Japan, all have far-right and racial supremacy problems. So, why doesn't Russia invade all these countries if they are on a de-Nazification crusade? They might as well invade themselves as it seems they too have a far-right problem.

2) Western media is not the same as Russian media. I recently saw the cover of the Economist magazine from back in May, 2004 where the cover called for the US SoD to resign for the Abu Ghraib torture and prison abuse. Will any Russian media demand the same from the Russian Minister of Defense? Has the Russian media covered any Russian war crime? Or is it that Russia never committed any war crimes in Ukraine? The Russians must be really great occupiers then, the west should learn from them.

[goacom]

Originally Posted by Gansan

War need not necessarily be thrust on Russia. Russia was forced to go to war because of Nato expansion and possibility of Nato missiles on their borders. They have repeatedly said they will not allow it under any circumstances.

Apparently Putin only had issues with Ukraine potentially joining NATO vs Sweden and Finland actually joining NATO. LOL!!

Originally Posted by Gansan

When America invaded Iraq the whole west was applauding the brave Americans, leave alone criticizing death of innocent civilians.

Hmm... I lived in the west at that time. With the exception of the US lapdog, the UK, the US got zero support from its western allies during the second Iraq war. The French, Germans etc provided no support to the US resulting in the then US secretary of defense to come up with the ridiculous claims of Old vs New Europe. The US went so far as to rename French Fries as "Freedom Fries". Furthermore, when the allegations of abuse at Abu Grahaib came up, it served to diminish support for war in the US even more. One will recall that Obama voted against the war and was elected as president in 2008.

Even at its worst, we never saw the kind of refugee problems that we are seeing now. Iraq and Afghanistan actually saw a reverse flow of citizens into their countries during US occupation. In contrast, we have seen an exodus of 5 million Syrians and 10s of millions of Ukrainians thanks to Russian barbarism there.

The US can and will continue to make grave mistakes, but thanks to its open political process, it has some checks and balances.

Originally Posted by Foxbat

Thats precisely whats happening to many people who get their news from sources like CNN, BBC and NYTimes and never question whats being told to them.

We see countless comparisons of Putin to Hitler and the Nazis. Ukraine is a saint and all these rumours of the far right and white supremacists in Ukraine are supposed to be Russian conspiracy theories.

Yeah, apparently Ukraine was so over run with Nazis that 20,000 Indian students chose to put their lives in danger and live in Ukraine instead of the peace loving and non-racist Russia.

There was one small group of Neo Nazis in the Ukraninan Azov division. However, to extrapolate that to all of Ukraine does indeed sound very logical to me.

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

How Germany plans to move away from Russian gas in 1.5 years? I am not seeing much clearer picture from the online reports. Because if Russian gas has to be replaced by another one, who is that and whether they can do pipeline within a year? I thought Germany phased out nuclear power like Japan. Or is it completely renewable energy or going back to coal which may upset green brigade there. I thought Europe still buys minuscule coal from Russia. I have read multiple online news but couldn't get any concrete plans. This is a genuine question and not to challenge anything written by you.

In the short run, Germany is attempting to replace Russian gas with a)imported gas (70%), b)more coal (5%), c)extending its nuclear plants (5%) d)conservation (10%). This covers most (~90%) but not all of the potentially lost Russian gas.

In the longer term, it is going all in on expanding renewable energy, but this will take time.

Of all these substitution Russian gas and conservation are the two main short term thrusts. Setting up LNG terminals is as much as a 5 year process. It is planning to do this within a year in part by purchasing two pre-fabricated floating LNG terminals which will be linked to its domestic pipelines. However, this will not be ready until early next year so if Russia were to cut off gas this winter, it would be a problem. This is why Germany has been very lukewarm (no pun intended) in its support of Ukraine.

Even after the infrastructure is established (in record time!), it will still need to secure imports of LNG. It is working with many suppliers (US, Australia, Qatar) as well as piped gas (North Africa, Azerbaijan, Norway....) etc. It is uncertain if they will be able to replace all of the lost Russian gas.

For the longer term, it has increased expenditures into renewables by 400%, with the aim to become almost energy independent by 2030, but that is still 8 years from now and will not help in the short run.

Let us remember that the Soviet Union collapsed because of the oil price crash in the late 1980s. It is unlikely that Asia will be able to import the resultant surplus Russian gas in any short period of time as there is no infrastructure to do it. Only China (and perhaps Japan) may be able to do it, if they are willing to spend 10s of billions of dollars. In exchange, they will demand lower prices of Russian energy.

[mygodbole]

Originally Posted by goacom

Yeah, apparently Ukraine was so over run with Nazis that 20,000 Indian students chose to put their lives in danger and live in Ukraine instead of the peace loving and non-racist Russia.

There was one small group of Neo Nazis in the Ukraninan Azov division. However, to extrapolate that to all of Ukraine does indeed sound very logical to me.

I object, I object and I will repeatedly object to this opinion. Please do NOT bring race, religion, or any other human bigotry. Humans are humans. Suffering cannot be diminished by human political opinion.

[goacom]

Originally Posted by mygodbole

I object, I object and I will repeatedly object to this opinion. Please do NOT bring race, religion, or any other human bigotry. Humans are humans. Suffering cannot be diminished by human political opinion.

I sincerely apologize. Can you tell me what within my opinion you found offensive so that I can better understand your issue?
Thanks.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by mygodbole

I object, I object and I will repeatedly object to this opinion. Please do NOT bring race, religion, or any other human bigotry. Humans are humans. Suffering cannot be diminished by human political opinion.

With all due respect did you object when dozens upon dozens of posts in this very thread applauded and metaphorically celebrated the attack on Ukraine and in thinly disguised fashions tried to justify the killing of innocents in the name of war, in the name of "America did that too" . Did you object then? What @goacom has stated are simply the facts. I can't see what is objectionable, unless you are not familiar with the facts.

[m8002?]

Whats the general opinion on the current and future state of Russian economy?

The inflation is very high with food inflation at around 20%. The high Ruble( artificial? ) is not helping exports and the economy is expected to shrink by 7%.

The central bank is now struck between a rock and hard place. They need to decrease interest rates to improve the economy but increase it to control inflation. They choose one and screw up the other even more.

[Gansan]

Originally Posted by goacom

Apparently Putin only had issues with Ukraine potentially joining NATO vs Sweden and Finland actually joining NATO. LOL!!

Originally Posted by Gansan

Wait till Sweden and Finland make firm moves to join NATO. Then Russia will surely attack and occupy a small part of each country. Just a small part. For a long long time. Reason? I read there is a technicality that a country can't be admitted into NATO if any part of it is occupied by a foreign power. Same reason why Ukraine can never be admitted into NATO now.

They have petitioned to join NATO. Not actually joined. It will take time to fructify. And Russia has clearly stated they will attack.