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International relations thread

C j phill

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The BBC programme, Putin V The West was interesting.

The West's political leadership, en masse, completely misread Putin's intentions and their lack of action against Russia over 30 years simply encouraged his actions in 2022. We are all feeling the effects of their incompetence and I see no evidence of this changing in the near future.
 

Alistair20000

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The BBC programme, Putin V The West was interesting.

The West's political leadership, en masse, completely misread Putin's intentions and their lack of action against Russia over 30 years simply encouraged his actions in 2022. We are all feeling the effects of their incompetence and I see no evidence of this changing in the near future.
Sadly a lot of Western leaders are as pusillanimous towards Putin as the appeasers were towards Hitler in the 1930's
 

Spoonz Red E

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Sadly a lot of Western leaders are as pusillanimous towards Putin as the appeasers were towards Hitler in the 1930's
Don't underestimate the pull of big money around democratic governments either.
Across the spectrum from corporate lobbyists, oligarch party sponsors and western multinationals more than happy to engage with, and in fact getting bottom line benefits from, authoritarian regimes.
 

lamrobhero

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Sadly a lot of Western leaders are as pusillanimous towards Putin as the appeasers were towards Hitler in the 1930's
Especially the Rich and Powerful who are kindred spirits.
And especially those that seek to divide the Western Alliance.
 

Phil Sayers

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Back in the day countries generally preferred that their espionage went undetected and, if it was detected, could not be attributable to themselves. See the assassination of Georgi Markov for example - designed to look like accidental causes and only an eagle-eyed doctor established otherwise.

These days authoritarian regimes seem to deliberately want to take the **** and be 'caught but not quite caught'. When the Russians murder people they do it in ways that make blatantly obvious they were behind it but then deny it with mocking smirks on their faces. When the Chinese fancy doing some spying they go beyond their myriad usual subtle ways to also fly balloons that may as well have a banner trailing behind them saying 'From China with love' so as to be seen by the World to be taking the **** but also join the mocking smirk club with an official claim of 'Soz, it was an accident'.

It would seem that internet style trolling has become the way that certain countries wish to interact.
 

Alistair20000

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Back in the day countries generally preferred that their espionage went undetected and, if it was detected, could not be attributable to themselves. See the assassination of Georgi Markov for example - designed to look like accidental causes and only an eagle-eyed doctor established otherwise.

These days authoritarian regimes seem to deliberately want to take the **** and be 'caught but not quite caught'. When the Russians murder people they do it in ways that make blatantly obvious they were behind it but then deny it with mocking smirks on their faces. When the Chinese fancy doing some spying they go beyond their myriad usual subtle ways to also fly balloons that may as well have a banner trailing behind them saying 'From China with love' so as to be seen by the World to be taking the **** but also join the mocking smirk club with an official claim of 'Soz, it was an accident'.

It would seem that internet style trolling has become the way that certain countries wish to interact.
All too true. Sadly :(
 

Phil Sayers

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Phil Sayers

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Pop goes the weasel:


Downing a balloon at 60,000 feet is not an easy thing to do. Few aircraft can reach the necessary altitude, it is difficult to get radar returns on to cue missiles with and the IR signature for heat-seeking missiles is basically just reflected sunlight. Cannon fire is not a great alternative either; as we found out with WW1 Zeppelins, it is difficult to put enough holes in a balloon for it to lose enough gas to start to fall (although shooting the cabin, or in this instance it could have been the payload, works as an alternative). Aside from the deliberate trolling I mentioned up the page, I'm not really sure what China was trying to prove here but if it was laughing at the inability of the US to down it then they lost that gamble.....
 

Mr Jinx

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Pop goes the weasel:


Downing a balloon at 60,000 feet is not an easy thing to do. Few aircraft can reach the necessary altitude, it is difficult to get radar returns on to cue missiles with and the IR signature for heat-seeking missiles is basically just reflected sunlight. Cannon fire is not a great alternative either; as we found out with WW1 Zeppelins, it is difficult to put enough holes in a balloon for it to lose enough gas to start to fall (although shooting the cabin, or in this instance it could have been the payload, works as an alternative). Aside from the deliberate trolling I mentioned up the page, I'm not really sure what China was trying to prove here but if it was laughing at the inability of the US to down it then they lost that gamble.....
And China is threatening "resolute" action against the US for shooting it down. Are the taking the pïss or what?!
 

Phil Sayers

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And China is threatening "resolute" action against the US for shooting it down. Are the taking the pïss or what?!
I think that is entirely the point really - they, as with the Russians, actually want to be seen as ****-takers. Why I really do not know.

In Russia's instance I think part of the reason was that however ridiculous their claims were they knew that intellectually challenged political extremists from both the far-right and far-left would believe their claims over our own government thus sowing division within Western societies. Throughout what limited public debate there was with regards the conflict in Syria this was a highly effective tactic for Russia but I don't think it works so well anymore. A real turning point there was the public backlash against Moscow's useful idiot Mr J Corbyn's stance on the Skripal poisonings. He never recovered from that and neither has the effectiveness of Russian promoted conspiracy theories.

As to why China sees a benefit in publicly mocking US sovereignty is beyond me - perhaps they thought that the US would not actually be able to down the balloon and they would be able to further ridicule for that reason but I still don't get what the end goal would be of angering the US public as well as the govt.
 
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