More and more I'm beginning to feel that you cannot really win being against the collective west. You may have victories, but the framework for anything economically is tailored to suit the west, therefore it works in its favour, particularly over the long-term. And if the west decides to turn the screw, you lose.

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but I also feel this is what is going to hurt Erdogan. He hasn't been playing ball with the west over the last few years. He's been cozying up to Putin and now he's stopping Sweden from joining NATO ... and suddenly his 20-year reign is under threat.

Same with China. They are hostile towards the west, they keep threatening invasion of Taiwan, plus a hundred other issues they have started ... and suddenly they no longer have semiconductors, and the Japan/South Korea have put their issues aside to fight a common enemy. The US has more military camps closer to Chinese shores now, too (in the Philippines). It just all seems like you cannot win against the west / democratic allies.

Russia is facing it as well. Slowly, bit by bit, the west is chipping away at Russia, and they are losing in Ukraine. They're still in the fight but just the fact that they've achieved almost nothing in 15 months when they said it would be a 3-day cakewalk is an astonishing fail, and it's all thanks to the west's support for Ukraine. And that's only going to get worse for Russia.

Now the west is putting pressure on South Africa because they gave arms to Russia. Apparently Putin is visiting South Africa sometime later this year ... and SA should arrest him. They probably won't but that would be an awesomely quick way to end the war, and South Africa does need to show loyalty to the U.S. otherwise they're economy is [even more] toast than it currently is - they greatly rely on the U.S.

wouldn't that be something

The US military budget is so massive they could spend one billion dollars per day funding other people's wars and barely hit half of the year budget ($705B.)

Putin probably figures he just has to hold out until January 2025 though. If Trump wins then Ukraine's sugar daddy will go away and I can't imagine they last long against even a heavily weakened Russian army after that.

There's no way Trump will ever be president again. That was a one-time experiment that failed. Sure, he got almost half the votes upon re-election but that wasn't because people loved Trump, that was about keeping a Republican in office. Now he's not there at all, Biden will remain. I don't even think Trump will get the Republican ticket.

But anyway, it's all moot because there won't be a Russian army by January 2025.

The Russian air force suffered its worst day of losses in 14 months on Saturday after two fighter jets and two helicopters crashed in mysterious circumstances, lol

Ok, suddenly I don't feel too confident about this statement. It's gone to a run-off that will take place at the end of May. Erdogan had 49% with the other guy having 44%. Looks like Erdogan will probably take it eventually, which is sad, but it was closer than one might expect from a dictatorial-minded regime that's currently in place in Turkey.

I also love how the media still uses Turkey when about a year ago they declared they wanted to be known internationally as "Turkiye". It's so similar, and many places still use Burma and Holland so "Turkiye" hasn't got a chance of catching on.

I use to think DeSantis was a slam dunk, but his war with Disney has been super unpopular outside of the internet’s army of anti-woke goons. I know don’t see anyone challenging Trump who will always have a nice pocket of people who will support him no matter what.

How about Marco Rubio? I don't know about U.S. politics, but can a senator run for president or does it need to be a governor?

Anyone can run which is what led to Trump

Oh yeah, of course. D'oh

I'd maybe want to see Greg Gianforte get the nomination, if not then Rubio. Anyone but Trump. But ideally I'd want Biden to stay in office for another term. There isn't really a possible candidate that feels presidential to me, so might as well stick with Biden. He's done a fantastic job so far.

I think 3rd most likely is excel's call Pence, there is a world where he becomes Republican Biden. Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are in the 4th/5th position as probably running to audition for VP, Kristi Noem could join them. Some of the other names (Youngkin, Cruz, Rubio, Tucker, etc.) are not running.

There will be a decent number of other candidates at first, but almost all will drop after the first primary. Trump crushes people in debates, so there's not much of a reason for people like Rubio and Pence to do it since their names are already well known.

DeSantis is being portrayed as a literal Disney villain right now. He needs to be seen as both the successor to Trump and a reasonable moderate if he wants to be President. Going the distance with Donald in the primary, but eventually losing puts him in exactly that position. It sets up his real campaign in 2028 very nicely.

I'd like Mike Pompeo to win the Republican ticket. That'd be good.

Already said he’s not running

Unless Trump withdraws due to his legal issues (which is possible) I don’t see him not getting the nomination anymore.

Hearing Russia may have finally captured Bakhmut, otoh, I believe it was a mostly pointless and now destroyed city and just a 9 month deathpit for both sides to waste the other's armies, so I'm not sure it's possible to know who "won" without knowing which side took more losses.

Shack why do you root for Russia? Is it because you don’t want Biden to look competent or is because Russia represents the a conservative alternative to the liberal west?

I'm trying to root for a peace deal rather than for one side, it's just having a neutral position looks like rooting for Russia compared to the extreme pro Ukraine bias most people in the West are expected to have.

My post above is acknowledging that the victory Putin will probably be bragging about won't be worth it if what some pro Ukraine sources believe about Russia taking more losses was true. I don't think that's being pro Russia.

Shack would have had a "neutral position" when Hitler invaded Poland. Congrats, you stuck to your principles and all that. The terrible, awful, biased western media never got Shack! He's too cunning for them. But at some point people have to call a spade a spade. Sitting on the fence when there is a clear aggressor that has been killing innocent civilians for no reason, invading another country's sovereign territory, and threatening nukes at every turn ... it impresses nobody how impartial you are.

I get that playing devil's advocate, the contrarian is fun. But do it in a U.S. presidential race. No mature, self-respecting, intellectual person refuses to take a side in the Holocaust, and neither should you here.

If I am not mistaken, Ukraine has a lot of valuable uranium as a natural resource?

My goal is to have an anti war position, this is something I've always prided myself in and would like to be consistent about, and I think the anti war position is a peace deal and stopping hundreds of thousands more people dying, rather than deciding one side is Hitler and must be wiped out no matter what.

Yes I will admit, that the same people who supported extreme covid restrictions, vaccine mandates, are foaming at the mouth to arrest the opposing party's election frontrunner, etc. being 120% in on being pro-Ukraine bias, obviously gave me a gut feeling to trust the Ukraine narrative less, and caused me to at least listen to the pro Russia guys to see what they're saying. But I try to check myself whenever I can that the pro Russia guys are obviously biased too. They haven't convinced me to actually support Putin because I'm still not sure I understand what Putin's motive actually was, it's hard to separate the propaganda in his speeches from the truth. Plus we know from other reasons Putin is too much of an authoritarian to really be one of the good guys.

Then your foresight needs to be called in to question. Where do you think Putin invades next if he isn't stopped here? He's already said this is about a fight for Russia's survival against the west. If you truly cared about stopping hundreds of thousands of people dying, you would care about putting a stop to Putin now while we can so that hundreds of millions don't die in future invasions (and I'm not just talking about Russia here, but what happens in Ukraine will either spur on or halt a load of other dictators and their sinister ambitions).

The whole conscientious objector angle is a bit tired and played out now. History tells us all we need to know, and currently it's people like that that are not learning from it. But that doesn't really matter. As long as the powerful nations in the world are, and they are, that's all that matters. Putin will be stopped eventually, one just hopes it's sooner rather than later.

According to GlobalData, the Ukraine is the world's eleventh-largest producer of uranium, with output of 226Tonnes in 2022, down by 50.26% on 2021.
https://www.mining-technology.com/data- ... 0on%202021.

Russia has more, so with such a small amount I can't see uranium being a factor in anything. It is a shame that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security from Russia, and now Russia is attacking them. Just goes to show, never ever ever ever ever ever ever trust a Communist country. They will always stab you in the back. They only care about their own interests.

As for this Ukrainian counter-offensive, firstly I feel it has been drummed up so much now that whatever happens will be a let down, but also I feel Ukraine are at a bit of a loss at where to start and how to show the most success. It's not like they have unlimited personnel and weapons and ammunition, and they certainly won't want to show nothing to their backers. They have 50 tanks to cover the ground of 1,000km, so their moves will need to be strategic to get the most bang for their buck. I'm no military strategist but I would like to see the Kerch Strait Bridge blown up with the Storm Shadow missiles gifted by the UK. I think that's what Ukraine needs with this counter-offensive, not just gained ground but some headline attacks that are embarrassing for Russia. They've been great at doing it until now, but since Russia has taken Bakhmut they really need to turn the media's pendulum back towards Ukrainian successes.