Skua @ Skua @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

Oh I'm sorry, I must have mistaken your comment backing up the accusation of modern Germany doing Nazi stuff to be criticism of Germany's actions.

If it's a free for all, Germany and its friends can do what they want and send Ukraine as many weapons as they like, can't they? Why have you got a problem with it? Under your logic they're just doing what world powers do

Hot take but if the USA invaded Mexico because the CSTO refused to stop accepting members then I would, in fact, think that that was bad actually

I see this Stoltenberg quote confidently thrown out so often in defence of Russia's invasion. Do you think Russia has some kind of actual right to invade countries if NATO doesn't do what it says? Would you be defending Germany if it sent a similar letter to the CSTO and then invaded Serbia?

I treat Russia as an ordinary liberal democratic state led by ordinary human people with rational self-interested motives

It means I judge them by the same standards I’d use to judge any similar state with a similar political and economic system in similar circumstances.

Do you? So let's say the UK decided to funnel weapons in to Ireland to restart the Troubles and then sent tanks in to annex Donegal. Would you be similarly opposed to arming Ireland against a much larger and better-armed neighbour? After all it'd hugely expand the UK's exclusive economic zone at sea and significantly reduce the length of the border to defend against Ireland, it seems beneficial for Britain. I don't know about you, but I'd hope someone would back Ireland up in that situation.

If you’re an American as I am

I'm not

the 2014 coup of Ukraine

Good job Ukraine has had two elections since then huh

the ongoing war on Donetsk and Luhansk

It is interesting how so many of Russia's neighbours have pro-Russian separatist movements that always seem to have Russian backing

prohibiting a negotiated end to the ongoing conflict

What leverage do you think Ukraine's supporters actually have to prevent a peace? They'd stop supplying it weapons? Well you apparently want them to do that anyway. Presumably that's because you think Ukraine can negotiate peace without being armed enough to fight Russia. In which case these peace-blocking supporters have no leverage with which to block peace.

Of course they have even less leverage over Russia, which could end this war tomorrow by literally just fucking going home

You’re not some unbiased neutral observer

I didn't claim to be unbiased in the slightest. I am openly pro-Ukraine here. Because I'm generally against countries invading their neighbours and killing hundreds of thousands in order to annex territory, no matter how beneficial it might be to the invader.

Absent continuous US intervention for over a decade, this war never happens.

This is literally just American exceptionalism for people that don't like America. Other countries also do things. Russia has a track record of exactly this kind of thing.

I'm imagining an alternative version in which Slavoj Zizek completely ignores the fact that he is in the shower and just continues doing his usual thing

Many German Nazis went right back to work at NATO, the West German government, and various US intelligence and military projects.

Fun fact, they went to the Soviet Union too. Paperclip was very much mirrored by Osoaviakhim. So whatever point you're trying to make by bringing this up, I'm afraid it's very much a both sides thing. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make though. None of what you said makes the comparison I was responding to any less ridiculous. Hitler and his party, funnily enough, were not defined as fascists by protecting the sovereignty of Vichy France, not least because they didn't actually do it.

some cartoon fantasy about how there was peace in the world until Putin and his orcs arbitrarily decided to blacken the land with their unclean hordes and wipe out the good, clean, pure Men of the West for absolutely no reason and with no strategic objective beyond embodying the metaphysical concept of evil.

Thanks for at least confirming you're not operating in good faith. No, I think Putin has a variety of goals here that include securing a more defensible land route to the peninsula that Russia previously stole in 2014 and attempting to place a puppet (or at least friendly) regime in charge. That you're uncritically buying the justifications of a warmongering dictator is proof positive to me that you based your entire opinion here on "whatever the opposite of America is" as if it's a playground football game. I don't need to like how America acts to also not like how Russia acts.

Ahh yes I definitely remember when Germany created modern Ukraine by invading Russia in 2021.

We're doing a fair job giving Trump a run for his money. At least the Americans haven't fucking re-elected him yet, like we repeatedly have with these miserable bastards

Fuck me I totally misread the title. My bad.

Cape of Good Hope. Horn is the one at the southern end of South America. That said you're still right that it remains a dangerous route, even with all the advantages of modern shipbuilding and weather forecasting ignore me I am apparently illiterate

It's a signed integer, meaning it has the same amount of space for negative numbers as it does for positive ones. Late 1901 is the same amount of time away from Jan 1st 1970 as early 2038 is

Romanov Russia

1682 is the start of Peter the Great's reign, but he didn't proclaim the empire until 1721 and he inherited the tsardom before it from family that had ruled it since 1613. Nothing special happened upon Peter's accession itself. 1916 is one year early for the end of Russia as it collapsed in to civil war during the First World War, but one year isn't much. Russia should be either 303 or 196 years depending on how you count it.

British Empire

Not sure why he picked 1700 as the start date when there's the obvious 1707 as the actual creation of the kingdom of Great Britain. 1950 seems a fair date for the end of Britain as a leading world superpower though

All in all I don't understand how this ever got popular when something as simple as the dates he gives for his foundational examples are so questionable. Never mind that he only uses examples from Europe and western Asia either. China and India, famously places with no large empires ever of course. How about Aksum, undisputed top dog of eastern Africa for 800 years?

To run through the examples given by Glubb one by one:

Neo-Assyrian - 859 - 612, 247 years
Achaemenid Persia - 538 - 330, 208 years
Macedonian - 331 - 100, 231 years
Roman Republic - 260 - 27, 233 years
Roman Empire - 27 BCE - 180 CE, 207 years
Arab Empire - 634 - 880, 246 years
Mamluk Empire - 1250 - 1517, 267 years
Ottoman Empire - 1320 - 1570, 250 years
Spanish Empire - 1500 - 1750, 250 years
Romanov Russia - 1682 - 1916, 234 years
British Empire - 1700 - 1950, 250 years.

Neo-Assyrian Empire

859 BCE marks the start of the reign of Shalmaneser III, by which point Shalmaneser's two predecessors have already made Assyria the dominant power of the region. Perhaps it would be fair to place the date sometime in the previous reign, but I understand this one. 612 BCE is the fall of the capital Nineveh to a combined campaign of Babylonians and Medes. Fair choice.

Achaemenid Persia

550 BCE is Cyrus' victory against the Medes, at which point he assumed control of the Medean empire. 538 BCE might have been chosen instead as the date of Cyrus' defeat of the Babylonians, perhaps marking that as Persia removing its last challenge to hegemony. Not sure about this choice, but if we do take the earlier one it actually moves the empire's span closer to 250 years. 330 BCE is when the Achaemenid capital fell to Alexander the Great.

Macedonian Empire

Now things get weird. 331 BCE is the battle of Gaugamela, which more or less marked Alexander's defeat of Persia. Seems odd to pick a different marker for this and the end of Persia, but it's only one year apart so whatever. The end date is a problem though. Alexander's empire shattered within a few years of his death in 323 BCE. By 100 BCE Macedonia had already been a Roman province for 46 years. I'm honestly not sure of anything that happened in 100 BCE that might mark the death of the Macedonian empire. The Seleucid empire, one of the most powerful successors, had been more or less broken by the Parthians a few decades earlier, and the other big successor in Ptolemaic Egypt still had 70 years to go before Rome annexed it. Either way, Alexander's empire broke in 323, lasting just 8 years, and if you include the Diadochi its either less than 200 or more than 300 depending on which you count.

Roman Republic

The author gives some attempt at justification for splitting the Romans in to two empires like this. I don't think they're very convincing, but let's take him at his word. 260 BCE is the battle of Mylae, the first time Rome defeated Carthage at sea. It seems to me that if you're going to mark Rome's ascendancy to empire status by when it defeated Carthage then you should pick the victory in in the second Punic war. If the first one made Rome hegemon, there wouldn't have been a second in which Hannibal tore up Italy for 15 years. Hannibal's defeat in 202 BCE seems a better marker to me. 27 BCE is the proclamation of the Roman empire under Augustus. With Hannibal's defeat as the starting point, it lasted 175 years.

Roman Empire

180 is the end of the period known as the "five good emperors". The author writes: "It is true that the empire survived nominally for more than a century after this date, but it did so in constant confusion, rebellions, civil wars and barbarian invasions." the western half of the empire would last for almost three hundred more years, and the eastern half for well over a thousand more, including reclaiming most of the western half under Justinian. Roman hegemony in Europe and north Africa would not be challenged for centuries and this date makes no sense at all.

Arab Empire

I think this is mashing up the Rashidun caliphate, Umayyad caliphate, and the Abbasid caliphate prior to the Anarchy at Samarra. This entire listing is ridiculous to call a single empire when he counts Rome as separate for the republic, the empire, the western empire, and the eastern empire.

Mamluk Empire

This one is fine, running from the mamluk overthrow of the Ayyubid sultanate to the Ottoman annexation of the Mamluk sultanate.

Ottoman Empire

Not sure why the author picked 1320 specifically, but the rise of the Ottomans isn't well-recorded and it was around this date so it's fine by me. The end date is utterly baffling though. In 1570, the Ottomans launched a war against basically every naval power in Europe, and they won it. How is that end of their power? They would, of course, survive until their defeat as a major power in the First World War for 600 years.

Spanish Empire

Not sure why 1500 specifically was picked, but it's roughly when Spain got a foothold in the Americas so okay. Nothing of particular significance happened in 1750 either, though, and it would be another 58 years before the wars of independence from its colonies started (and Spain's defeat by Napoleon soon after). Spain's "lifetime" as an empire should be over 300 years.

The idea is that they have to be given a chance to surrender. If they don't do so, the Geneva Convention (specifically Protocol 1, Article 42) has no issue with you gunning them down. They just have to be given the chance to surrender, which they obviously can't do while parachuting

What does that mean in English?

The Taiping Rebellion. Basically a Chinese guy claims to be the brother of Jesus and leads a pro-Christian rebellion against the Qing government that results in more deaths than the first world war

Climate change is already bad for India. Between it already being a hot country that is being hit by worse heatwaves every year and retreating Himalayan snow and ice being the source of water for huge numbers of people, India is already being hit harder than almost anywhere else on Earth

Which version of EU4 are you on? I've been playing it with some friends for a while (on a converted save from CK2), but because we have limited time that we're all free together we've been getting through it very slowly. As such, we're still on v1.33, although I have modded in some things from 1.34. Having fun, but it has been interesting seeing the newer versions. It looks like there's an awful lot of power creep and the proliferation of mission trees seems to make it less of a sandbox, but I haven't actually played the up-to-date version of the game so I'm very much just looking in from the outside

It is in the UK! I fucked up a couple of times in Germany because it's the other way round there