[RD] Surrender Summit

Neither Ukraine nor the West has anything to gain from that.
Ukraine and the West will obviously oppose the idea of referendum in pro-Russian regions. Whether it's fair or not, they won't like the results.
But the idea of proposal is not necessary to persuade them.
 
Ukraine and the West will obviously oppose the idea of referendum in pro-Russian regions. Whether it's fair or not, they won't like the results.
But the idea of proposal is not necessary to persuade them.
Let’s be real here, having a referendum after an invasion strains credibility and legitimacy.
 
He also supported (possibly initiated) an attempted (if failed) coup d'état in Montenegro.

And? All of this is supposed to make me think he's like Hitler? He's very obviously not like Hitler. He's not a genocidal ideologue, he's a bandit chieftain.
 
Or not to give it to Ukraine back in 1954...
All these are alternative history, not solutions to existing problems.
 
Or not to give it to Ukraine back in 1954...
All these are alternative history, not solutions to existing problems.

Okay, then the solution is for Russia to withdraw entirely and restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
 
Civ 4 was lower than Civ 5 and Civ 5 was lower than Civ 6.

I'll chalk this to developer inefficiency; you can buy great games made in the past 5 years for less than Civ 4 retail on release per your numbers.

I don't think it is effective at all. As I said, the US is best served by making other governments compliant...and the way to do that is "guarantee their security" by effectively making them satellite states.

You might be right about this, I don't know enough to try to refute it.

Many of these countries have histories of seriously malignant militarism and should not be encouraged to have their own militaries anyway in my opinion. People talk smack about the US all the time and rightly but compared to the French, Belgians, Dutch, arguably to England, and definitely to Germany we've been downright benign as an imperial power.

That's not really fair; native American populations probably wouldn't feel USA was so benign, and each of those countries + nearly every other country in existence with enough regional resources + pop to be capable of mounting an offensive has some blood on its hands. French imperialism is even pretty old...old enough that economically, culturally, etc. it's not the same nation as it was when invading Russia.

It's not like China and India are actually much better. These countries comprise such a large amount of territory and population that conquest inside their borders mirror all but the largest historical offensives. They're not Mongolia or Great Britain, but after that it's increasingly less clear...though they're notable for still actually being unified for long periods.

Malpractice claims account for less than 1% of healthcare spending in the U.S. This is a non-issue.

Forget the claims, what about the constant dosh that gets routinely pushed out for malpractice insurance, and its influence on practice? It might not be the largest component of cost disease for medicine in the USA, but it's pretty wild to say it's "non-issue".

Educated Ukrainians vs uneducated Russians, right?

Only if the propaganda is working properly. When it is, both sides enter the macroscopic quantum state of "educated and uneducated".
 
See, Hygro said "let's be real" and we are already having a very productive discussion and making good compromise proposals.

Edit: I mean, the advice to "be real" and proposed solution "Russia must withdraw" are not very consistent. Russia won't withdraw and the West won't recognize Crimea.
 
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The Ex-Soviet republics and Russia's borders should have been redrawn when the Soviet union collapsed.
 
The Ex-Soviet republics and Russia's borders should have been redrawn when the Soviet union collapsed.
That would probably have made the collapse more violent than it actually was. In the one place where the borders kind of were redrawn in 1989-91, the area between Armenia and Azerbaijan, there's been a low-level conflict simmering for decades, resulting in a militarized border and a nonzero number of deaths.

Problems then or problems now: take your pick.

EDIT: yes I know the border issue there actually started earlier in the eighties, don't @ me
 
Edit: I mean, the advice to "be real" and proposed solution "Russia must withdraw" are not very consistent. Russia won't withdraw and the West won't recognize Crimea.

The advice to "be real" was in the context of your ludicrous suggestion that the Crimean referendum be taken seriously by anyone.
 
The advice to "be real" was in the context of your ludicrous suggestion that the Crimean referendum be taken seriously by anyone.
I was neither talking about Crimean referendum here, nor proposed anybody to take it seriously.
Perhaps you should read what I'm actually posting before making "ludicrous" comments?
 
At the press conference which followed, Putin was asked flat-out if he had compromising materials on Trump. He could have answered, "Nyet," but instead he referenced a single conference attended by 500 businessmen and claimed Russia doesn't have enough security agents to watch them all. A) This is not true and B) this ignores all the other times Trump was in Russia.

You accuse him of lying about the security agents thing, but then you're willing to take his word at face value on the whole compromising information on Trump thing? Odd that you would believe anything Putin says given that he is a known liar and manipulator.
 
And? All of this is supposed to make me think he's like Hitler? He's very obviously not like Hitler. He's not a genocidal ideologue, he's a bandit chieftain.
And because he's not Hitler it's all hunky-dory?

At this point this is a different form of "argumentum ad Hitlerium", one that allows deflection of what's actually going on.

I'm deathly tired of how people dive behind Hitler to give Putin's Russia a pass. Russian games of false-equivalency works like this, except in this as a kind of false-non-equivalency. It's deflection about what Russia has been doing, and continues to do.
 
I have a counter-proposal - the West recognizes Crimea as part of Russia.
At best only after Russia accepts an international process of actual arbitration of the issue. Not one where Russia retains vetos and hold strings attached. Suggest such a process. What would it look like, a real one that is?

The problem is that Russia has set a precedent for annexation after military take-over. One that few are actually particularly happy to confirm. It's potentially very dangerous.

Whataboutism will generate a number of other examples that also highlights risky behavior of course. The problem is just that confirming the Russian precedent on the basis of how it might relate to other risky behavior just erodes principles and agreements that need strengthening, not rescinding, which would be a likely outcome if Russia was simply rewarded here. (The question isn't just why don't we want to reward Russia here, but IF we reward Russian, who else should be consider similarly rewarding down the line?)

What's Russia offering other than everyone take a risks and shoulder costs on Russia's behalf here — that does not include the potential line of arguments that Russia will be unhappy and make everyone pay for it (i.e. threats)? Provide an actual carrot for arguments sake.
 
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