And I think you’re seeing this ending up a whole lot differently than I am. I think Trump and Putin carved up Ukraine in their phone call. That Russia isn’t going to allow any troops but Americans into Ukraine to secure the “negotiated peace”, that they will threaten to fire on any NATO country that sets foot in Ukraine except for the Americans. Russia will keep what they invaded and took plus some, the US will get to rape Ukraine of it’s rare earth minerals in the rest using Ukranian ports to export them to the US under the guise of reparations for aid given in the last 3 years. That’s how I see it playing out. Europe is going to have to decide how important Ukraine is to it, and given European history, they talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, they’er going to decided to protect their own borders, rather than forcing their way into the meat grinder between the US and Russia.
Nope, Putin will not allow American troops in Ukraine. Trump is only president for 4 years. Trump gave Putin Ukraine and he probably promised Trump some modest personal monetary concession. That’s it. That’s how cheap of a whore the POTUS is.
The problem here is that the US doesn’t need Ukraine for any of those things. They have their own deposits. The problem is that the US or Ukraine and everyone else does not have any significant capacity to process these minerals – China does. You’re not building a rare-earths refinery in Ukraine during a war or occupation – too easy of a target. So unless the US builds such a beast at home, it’s entirely irrelevant what Ukraine has or otherwise.
Furthermore, as a nervous Canadian, I worry about the same stupid rhetoric being used on us. We don’t produce rare earths, because we don’t process rare earths. But damn do we have a lot of potential deposits. Trump only sees the value of the potential deposit and not the actual produced products. It’s boneheaded but they don’t care.
The problem here is that the US doesn’t need Ukraine for any of those things. They have their own deposits.
Trump doesn’t actually care. That’s just a cover for his real goal, which, just like his idol Putin, is a purely megalomaniacal/narcissistic desire to be remembered in history as “[Trump|Putin] the Great” for expanding the size of their respective empires.
Trump couldn’t care less which of Ukraine, or Gaza, or Greenland, or the Panama Canal Zone, or Canada that he gets a piece of, as long as he gets something. And if he fails at all of those, expect him to make up even more bullshit excuses to send the US on even more imperialist adventures.
My degree is in geophysics, so I’m somewhat professionally connected to the world of resources. So that’s where I get that angle.
Physics, as a degree, is somewhat of the universal bullshit detector, since you learn to take what people say and run back-of-napkin math to figure out what is or isn’t realistic. “Now hang on, that doesn’t sound right… let me check…”
Aside from that, I’m also a fan of historical fiction, geopolitical games (EU4, etc.), and my spare time pursuits tend to send me down research rabbit holes, disentangling the fiction from reality. Largely for my own amusement. But it comes in handy on trivia night if the topic is the Teutonic Knights or something.
In grad school I’d hang out with the philosophers, geographers, and others that were asking large questions with beer in hand. “I’ll buy you a beer if you can convince me the electron is real.” was not a pickup line, but the start to several hours of liquored debate.
I’ve been known to be mildly politically active, and sort of on top of the pulse. But never an activist or anything. Observing and predicting is fun.
Today I was in Google Earth just looking at the continent of North America, looking at it as though I were the US playing a strategy game. The major areas of contention right now for the US are: Greenland, Panama, Mexico, and Canada. It’s like he is establishing future boundaries at the edges of the continent – like it is an affront that borders exist on it. Upon further contemplation, Canada is fucked if this is what they’re doing. So I created [email protected] to start organizing – maybe the space will grow organically.
But, no, I don’t subscribe to higher end geopolitical info sources. That doesn’t mean I eschew them either (ISW was particularly interesting at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). I just integrate or search for info when questions are interesting.
The joke is, there is no rare earth deposits that can be immediately used or it will make sense to exploit. Minerals were just a pretext to gove muskovites everythong they want, problem is it probably won’t work, due to trump and his stellar teams being even dumber then everyone expected them to be.
I agree with everything you wrote, but I don’t think they carved up only Ukraine in that phone call. At least all of Europe, possibly the entire world.
And I think you’re seeing this ending up a whole lot differently than I am. I think Trump and Putin carved up Ukraine in their phone call. That Russia isn’t going to allow any troops but Americans into Ukraine to secure the “negotiated peace”, that they will threaten to fire on any NATO country that sets foot in Ukraine except for the Americans. Russia will keep what they invaded and took plus some, the US will get to rape Ukraine of it’s rare earth minerals in the rest using Ukranian ports to export them to the US under the guise of reparations for aid given in the last 3 years. That’s how I see it playing out. Europe is going to have to decide how important Ukraine is to it, and given European history, they talk a big game, but when it comes down to it, they’er going to decided to protect their own borders, rather than forcing their way into the meat grinder between the US and Russia.
Nope, Putin will not allow American troops in Ukraine. Trump is only president for 4 years. Trump gave Putin Ukraine and he probably promised Trump some modest personal monetary concession. That’s it. That’s how cheap of a whore the POTUS is.
Not a bad take.
The problem here is that the US doesn’t need Ukraine for any of those things. They have their own deposits. The problem is that the US or Ukraine and everyone else does not have any significant capacity to process these minerals – China does. You’re not building a rare-earths refinery in Ukraine during a war or occupation – too easy of a target. So unless the US builds such a beast at home, it’s entirely irrelevant what Ukraine has or otherwise.
Furthermore, as a nervous Canadian, I worry about the same stupid rhetoric being used on us. We don’t produce rare earths, because we don’t process rare earths. But damn do we have a lot of potential deposits. Trump only sees the value of the potential deposit and not the actual produced products. It’s boneheaded but they don’t care.
Trump doesn’t actually care. That’s just a cover for his real goal, which, just like his idol Putin, is a purely megalomaniacal/narcissistic desire to be remembered in history as “[Trump|Putin] the Great” for expanding the size of their respective empires.
Trump couldn’t care less which of Ukraine, or Gaza, or Greenland, or the Panama Canal Zone, or Canada that he gets a piece of, as long as he gets something. And if he fails at all of those, expect him to make up even more bullshit excuses to send the US on even more imperialist adventures.
You’re not wrong. I just like to point out the actual logical folly now and again so that people in the middle (if any are left) can see the folly.
May I ask: where do you and @[email protected] learn yourselves up?
Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Economist, MIT International Security Journal…? Would love a lil digest of all
Long lazy meandering answer.
My degree is in geophysics, so I’m somewhat professionally connected to the world of resources. So that’s where I get that angle.
Physics, as a degree, is somewhat of the universal bullshit detector, since you learn to take what people say and run back-of-napkin math to figure out what is or isn’t realistic. “Now hang on, that doesn’t sound right… let me check…”
Aside from that, I’m also a fan of historical fiction, geopolitical games (EU4, etc.), and my spare time pursuits tend to send me down research rabbit holes, disentangling the fiction from reality. Largely for my own amusement. But it comes in handy on trivia night if the topic is the Teutonic Knights or something.
In grad school I’d hang out with the philosophers, geographers, and others that were asking large questions with beer in hand. “I’ll buy you a beer if you can convince me the electron is real.” was not a pickup line, but the start to several hours of liquored debate.
I’ve been known to be mildly politically active, and sort of on top of the pulse. But never an activist or anything. Observing and predicting is fun.
Today I was in Google Earth just looking at the continent of North America, looking at it as though I were the US playing a strategy game. The major areas of contention right now for the US are: Greenland, Panama, Mexico, and Canada. It’s like he is establishing future boundaries at the edges of the continent – like it is an affront that borders exist on it. Upon further contemplation, Canada is fucked if this is what they’re doing. So I created [email protected] to start organizing – maybe the space will grow organically.
But, no, I don’t subscribe to higher end geopolitical info sources. That doesn’t mean I eschew them either (ISW was particularly interesting at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). I just integrate or search for info when questions are interesting.
The joke is, there is no rare earth deposits that can be immediately used or it will make sense to exploit. Minerals were just a pretext to gove muskovites everythong they want, problem is it probably won’t work, due to trump and his stellar teams being even dumber then everyone expected them to be.
I agree with everything you wrote, but I don’t think they carved up only Ukraine in that phone call. At least all of Europe, possibly the entire world.
We went east two times before. So you can’t say we never tried.
Three times a charm.
The most interesting problem now is, the biggest dependable Nato partner which is left is Turkey. Lets see how that pans out.
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