kittin
Carefully drawing Russia into a trap along the Dniepr river???
Sex with communists is always orgy because you need an entire committee to be the top
It’s called “first past the post”.
This method of counting, common in voting systems that were formed prior to the Industrial Revolution that enfranchised a small class of wealthy land-owners such as the UK and USA, drives what is called “strategic voting”.
Insisting on your most preferred Candidate A could mean your least preferred Candidate B wins, which drives a strategic choice of supporting Candidate C instead of A.
First-past-the-post is a system in which each voter will naturally converge on just two parties since each voter is incentivized to not vote for their “most preferred” candidate but to instead vote against their “least preferred” candidate to minimize the possibility of their votes being “wasted”.
That is to say, the candidate with the fewest downvotes wins.
I disagree with 90% of genocides
The Ukraine War is Lost. Three Options Remain
- WW3
- Ukraine as a failed state
- Negotiate
Beebe says the West has an erroneous idea as to the very nature of the conflict. The US and the Europeans defined the Russian invasion as a “deterrence model problem” rather than a “spiral model problem”. In the former, the adversary is a kind of Hitler that must be stopped at all costs.
“We have internalised that model as a universal truth in international relations. We believe every problem that we’re facing is that deterrence model problem and we can’t possibly negotiate.”
In reality, Beebe says, the conflict conforms to what Robert Jervis defined back in the 1970s as a “spiral model problem” – where you have one state that attempts to enhance its own security by taking measures (for example, Ukraine joining NATO) that another state (Russia) believes are threatening. You get into a dynamic of action and reaction that can spiral to the point where you get into a conflict.
“When you attempt to deal with a spiral problem by refusing to negotiate, you make the problem worse on both sides. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire,” Beebe says.
The former head of the CIA’s Russia desk argues that if we are to think our way out of the disaster that is Ukraine, the West needs to rediscover diplomacy and the ability to negotiate with geostrategic opponents. US triumphalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall led, he says, to the US feeling it could abandon statecraft.
“We no longer felt that we had to engage in normal diplomatic give-and-take, attempting to balance interests as well as balance power – the kinds of things that statecraft has involved for thousands of years. We thought that wasn’t necessary. Number one: we know we’re right.
And number two: US power was just so disproportionately greater than any other country’s power, we could simply impose our views, whether they liked it or not.”
The Ukrainians face a terrible dilemma. Most seem to realize the war is lost. Any attempt at negotiation with the Russians, however, would unleash internal pressures inside Ukraine that could lead to a coup, assassinations or other upheaval. The US won’t want the war to end before President Biden leaves office in January 2025 – and may prolong the agony, loss of life and the ceding of yet more territory to Russia for US domestic reasons rather than the best interests of Ukraine. Where is all this leading?
George Beebe sees three options. NATO escalates and becomes directly involved in the fighting – action that could have unspeakable consequences. More likely, Ukraine could suffer a collapse – a combination of military and political failure as the ability to put an effective army in the field is lost.
“If I am wearing my analyst hat, I would say the more likely scenario is Ukraine collapses and becomes some sort of dysfunctional ward of the West. We then have more or less a security black hole in the middle of Europe that causes real problems.”
Absent an agreed framework, other hot spots could flare at any time – including Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, Kaliningrad.
The third option, and clearly the preferable one for Beebe, is that the West changes course and “picks up the phone”, ending its refusal to negotiate.
“The West has got to recognize that it is important for us to find a negotiated settlement,” Beebe says.
“We can’t simply say to the Russians, let’s freeze the conflict in Ukraine, and someday we’ll get down to talking about broader European security – ‘trust us’. That’s not going to work. We’re going to have to indicate that we understand that these issues are important and that it is in our self-interest to address them in a way that accommodates Russia’s core security interests. The Russians are not going to get everything they want out of this. Neither will we. Both sides are going to have to get their most vital interests protected in all of this. That’s a truism in diplomatic agreements.”
And that is how grown-ups talk.
Is a language spoken at school worth the horrors of war?
Then why tf did Ukraine walk away from the deal they signed in Istanbul right at the start of the war?
Obviously to the people of Donbas it was worth fighting for. It was their language rights, apparently it meant a lot to them.
You know who actually tried to make peace?
The only real demand was to not join nato and to let the ethnic Russian majority in the east use Russian at school.
Was Boris Johnson right when he convinced Zelensky that was worth going to war over?
It was a bad choice to let the hard right steer the ship.
Im glad you suffered this medical emergency in a civilized first world nation OP get well soon and drink more tea
Jill Stein @ 3% calling it now
Welcome to our non-stop election coverage we will be speaking into this camera nonstop for the next 24 hours not a single space no full stops barely any grammar at all just non stop live election coverage we break now to my colleague Julia Julia what are you seeing where you are thanks Greg what an exciting day and we are seeing lots and lots of excitement and energy about our non stop election coverage ok thanks Julia now to Raymond who has prepared some visuals for us thanks Greg as you can see in this chart our coverage is truly non stop and if we run the simulations now these are very early numbers less than 1% into our non stop coverage but we are already seeing one minute and if coverage continues this way over the next 24 hours then our coverage will be truly non stop but there are some very important hours still to come so we will have to see if this trend continues that’s amazing to see thanks Raymond isn’t great to have some maths nerd in a bow tie explain some little pie charts to us it’s really shaping up to be a tight race can our coverage really reach 24 hours? Whoa I need to interject there Greg because that question mark while grammatically required in that instance was some punctuation and I think that might represent a real turning point in this race as some might see that as an early sign of this being an unsustainable exercise and frankly I think our audience are already getting tired of this bit well now just wait a bit Bill we will come to you soon but I’m hearing that Julia has another update for us, Julia?
I am yet to hear what they’re even going to do to protect or restore abortion rights beyond having the rights vibes