Master-Debater131

I dont think he sucks. If you watched the Seahawks last year it was clear that he was constantly running for his life. Outside of a couple of receivers he had absolutely no help around him. You put him on our team, with our weapons, and we can put up 30 a game pretty easily.

I think he instantly makes us a playoff team and a potential contender. We have a ton of really good pieces already, we just were missing the QB. Now that we have a really good QB we are going to be a really good team.

Oh Im good. Really really good

Its ok, its not like there are a shitload of assassins trying to take him out or anything. Because that would make this move just supppeerrrrr dumb.

Majority of Swedes want to join NATO now. Putins threat to Sweden and Finland are pushing both nations closer to joining NATO than ever before.

Russia really is going to wind up back in the stone age with these sanctions and corporate actions.

Sounds like all sorts of websites are being blocked across Russia. Lots and lots of social media is down and so are news sites that had previously been reporting on the war. Sure looks like Russia is going full blown lock-down mode.

That was my thought as well. How dumb is it to give a rifle to someone who doesnt want to be there and is against the war? They get close enough to someone important and BAM, no more important person.

Well thats more than a little disconcerting. Putin called Macron to warn that things are going to get worse. You combine this with the news out of Russia of mass discontent among the Religious leaders, the protests, and now rumors of martial law and things are getting bad. There is talk of a new law being drafted where protestors would be conscripted and sent to the front lines. Putin is being backed into a corner, and theres no way to know how someone as unstable as he is is going to react.

Now theres an image I didnt expect to be thinking about today.

One of the problem with indiscriminately firing weapons into civilian areas is eventually you are going to kill civilians from friendly nations. Russia isnt going to stop until they have pissed off everyone. Really starting to wonder when someone in the Kremlin isnt going to do the math and realize that taking out Putin is the better option.

The national sanctions are huge, but the pure number of corporations who are completely leaving Russia may wind up being bigger. It doesnt matter if there are sanctions if no one will do business with you. Russia is going to be completely isolated from all the major corporations, and who knows when, if ever, they would go back.

Cant think of a better way to really turn the heat up and guarantee decades worth of insurgency than to strike at the heart of a national religion. Its like putin is trying to ensure that the Ukraine is a battlefield for decades to come.

Pretty clearly targeting civilian infrastructure.

The other thing to keep in mind is that India and China do not have good relations. India-Russia might, but if Russia falls into Chinas orbit then India is going to bolt. There is zero chance that India starts to support China. Bush started to make inroads with India to try and pull them to the West. If a new Russia-China axis develops after this then whoever is POTUS needs to aggressively court India.

Elon promised that he would send a ton of Starlinks to Ukraine, and it appears he has delivered.

Russian leadership is about to face a real interesting decision. Stop the madness, or face the very likely case that they will never again be allowed to leave Russia because they would be arrested and tried for war crimes or crimes against humanity?

Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. He clearly stated as much when he was talking about the invasion to Ukraine. That idea is 100% dead. If they cant handle Ukraine, he cant handle the rest of the old soviet bloc countries. Not to mention the ones that are in NATO. His lifes work has been to splinter NATO, and thats also an unmitigated failure. Germany has woken up and is spending a ton on modernizing and improving their military. If anything, NATO is more united now than at any point in the last few decades. Its really hard to look at this and think that Putin is in any way going to win. He may take Ukraine, but its going to come at such an extreme cost that it will eventually cause him to lose the war.

Thats a really good point. If he somehow retains power thats a pretty bad outcome. I do have to wonder how likely that is though. We arent going to take him out, but theres a growing amount of rumbling from the Oligarchs who are pissed off. If anyone would take him out, its them. Even if he stays in power, how much power is he going to have? I dont know what sort of apatite the powers in Russia will have for letting Putin keep his power after this. China is arguably gaining the most of anyone with this. Russia is being exposed and China can just sit back and watch as their sphere of influence grows. Central Asian countries wont look to Russia anymore, they'll look to China.

And the pipeline they want to use isnt even designed yet. Its going to take months, if not years, for the pipeline to be operational and deliver gas. Which means that the deal is a whole lot of meaningless right now for a country that is seeing its economy absolutely crater. If this was all part of Putins plan then it must be some Trumpian 4d chess, because its pretty damn dumb. There really is no grand design here. He thought he could steamroll Ukraine in a few days and that the West would just roll over. Now that neither of those are happening hes fucked his entire country to have to occupy Ukraine for years against a very determined, and well armed, insurgency. The biggest risk at this point is that he becomes completely unhinged and either expands the war or deploys tactical nukes against Ukraine. Hes already started to shell residential areas, theres not a whole lot further he can go. The idea that he will be able to occupy a peaceful Ukraine with a relatively intact economy is completely gone.

Its also showing how powerful soft-power really is. We are destroying a country (Russia) without firing a shot.

The backfire heard round the world.

I dont know. At this point Im not sure he is capable of thinking of some sort of grand scheme to draw nations like China closer to him. I really think he bought into his own BS about Ukraine being part of Russia. The leaks from hacked communication sure make it seem like they really thought they would have Ukraine under control in a few days. Instead hes looking at a quagmire that drains his country for a very long time. Ukrainians arent about to just roll over. An insurgency can do a lot of damage(Iraq/Afghan) and that was against our military. Now imagine an insurgency backed by NATO weaponry against what appears to be a very concomitant Russian military. China is absolutely learning a lesson here, I just dont think its the one they expected. I dont think anyone truly expected the entire world to rally to Ukraine like this. Even the usually neutral Swiss have agreed to apply sanctions. Japan and S. Korea are jumping into the mix as well. Now that its become clear that the economic price for taking Ukraine is to basically become a hermit state, China has to recalculate their willingness to take Taiwan.