I’m sure this will end well.
Was it going to end well before this?
Finland should have a chat with the Kurds. Fins love their land and the Russians may love it, too, but what is the strategic value to Russia? The future is in the east: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeriepieris_circle
This is a very confusing comment. What do the Kurds have to do with this, and what does the distribution of the world’s population have to do with it?
Russia has no advantage from conquering Finland. It’s a buffer zone that is useless to conquer if the conquering triggers a war that has to be fought without that zone.
Further access to the Baltic Sea is also useless if Nato can shut down everything in the Danish Straits.
Instead they have a huge opportunity in Asia where half the global population is situated which is poised to become the most productive economic zone in the world.
The US on the other hand gains very much by being able to flatten Saint Petersburg in minutes.
To me it looks like a bad trade, much like the Kurds are constantly taking all the risk in the Middle East.
its so pointless for russia to even try get more land. they have so much already and so much of it is unutilized or just badly/unefficiently utilized. all they have to do is develop better cold resitance tech and all of siberia would be there.
if russia utilized all they already have with as much efficiency possible with current tech, they would likely be dominant country in the whole planet. At least this is what I assume, since just statistically within that much land there must be tons of untapped resources still.
Despite all of that land they’re largely land locked and at the mercy of their neighbors. The either need to use friendly intermediaries to transload onto ice rated containers/tankers/bulk carriers ($$$expensive) or they get a warm water port (why they took Crimea) and hopefully where they can take land that also isn’t blocked by the Bosphorus Strait.
FYI this is why Russia technically doesn’t have any aircraft carriers. Beyond the fact that their doctrine doesn’t use it as heavily as the Americans (fight close to home in reinforced areas, well supported by other elements and land) Turkey has blocked the passage of any aircraft carriers through their strait.
Russia technically only had a heavy cruiser with a ramp on it.
You’re right that they have too much land though. They just have the wrong kind of land to have a more maritime outlook on the world. If Russia could trade directly through a warm water port all year their outlook would be vastly different. Shipping is 100X cheaper than rail, which is multiple times cheaper than road transport. You really do need constant sea access to trade in order to be invested into globalism to the point you stop viewing foreign nations as puppets or competitors exclusively.
I doubt they’d be that dominant. Having lots of land is great, but having the technology to exploit harsher land only means that you’re bringing that harsher land up to (economic) parity with less harsh land
You also need people to actually do the work, and Russia’s population is large but not that large. It’s about the same as Mexico or Bangladesh, or to Germany and France together. Compare that to some of the world’s heavy hitters; the US has more than twice what Russia has, the EU has three times, and China and India have ten times
To make a comparison: how dominant is Canada in the world? It’s also huge, cold, and resource-rich. It’s wealthy enough to develop basically whatever it wants in its territory. It’s doing great. But is it massively out-competing Germany, France, or the UK?
There is a political analyst I listen to and he mentioned that before the war in Ukraine and anyone could travel to Russia before the sanctions, he mentioned that Russians told him in hush hush manner that they secretly feared the Chinese more than the West. Siberia is still a contentious issue between the two countries.
Before the Olympics they settled their border issues. There still can be betrayal but they have chosen to trust each other.
Trump tried to build on the Russian fear. But I think it is too late. Russia wanted to be part of Europe but since the start, Europe is stalling. E.g. chancellor Kohl’s notes show that many empty promises were made. Russia has moved on.
In my opinion, that was bad judgement years ago. Europe and the USA must have thought that they don’t need Russia to contain China. Now we struggle to stay ahead.
Threatening indiscriminate mass murder (ie “nuclear deterrence”) says more about a government than about what they believe they’re up against.
yeah, threatening with nukes is definitely an overblown response to *checks notes* threatening with nukes
I’m against nuclear proliferation but Ukraine gave up theirs and Iran gave up their program. And look what happened to them.
Well, it may have been better if we had never invented nukes.
Howeverrrrr, now that we do have them: countries don’t get nukes to actually use them. They are a major stabilising factor because they are the single most deterring force in the world.
That’s the paradox of the nuclear weapon, a most destructive force that can bring peace, a weapon that is most effective when not being used.
this works up until the decision to launch them is in the hands of madmen like trump or putin. both are insane, though in different ways. putin could just decide to fuck up the planet as last fuck you before he dies, trump could decide to do it in narcissist fit. or the rich could conspire to do it to “reset” the world and rule the ashes from their bunkers.
though personally i dont even give a fuck, i doubt even nuclear war could do more damage than we are already doing without it.
