This obvious opinion that many people have held for going on two years is valid now because the Economist says so

For the first time since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, it looks as if he could win

I've thought Putin could win since day one, do I get a column in the economist? Fuckin' welcome to reality, dipshit

Also this is the power of innovation moving at the speed of business. America can now recognize that a forever war is doomed in less than 2 years. It took over a decade for Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan

His biggest asset is Europe’s fatalism, complacency and shocking lack of strategic vision

Yeah, that's the exact reason that Europe is being vassalised by the US in the first place, people were predicting this for decades now.

The phase of the global deployment of capitalism, which began in 1945, but was impeded until the collapse of the post-war social orders (welfare state, Sovietism, national populism in the South), is characterized by the emergence of a collective imperialism. The ‘triad’ (that is, the United States plus its Canadian external province, Europe west of the Polish frontier, and Japan – to which we should add Australia and New Zealand) defines the area of this collective imperialism. It ‘manages’ the economic dimension of capitalist globalization through the institutions at its service (WTO, IMF, World Bank, OECD), and the political–military dimension through NATO, whose responsibilities have been redefined so that it can in effect substitute itself for the United Nations...

In the immediate term, the United States enjoys an evident strategic advantage: its project is the only one that is clearly and openly formulated and, by virtue of the initiatives taken by Washington, the only one that is actually in play. Up to now its partners in the international community – the triad allies and the rest – have done nothing more than respond to those initiatives, whether by falling into line, accepting with bad grace or seeking to limit some of the consequences they find most troubling to themselves. None has a really positive alternative to guide its strategy, and in a thoroughly disorganized manner each places the immediate emphasis on what it considers to be the defence of its own interests...

The main instrument in the current US drive for hegemony is therefore military. Such hegemony would in turn guarantee that of the triad over the global system, but the allies of the United States would have to accept their subaltern status... This means, however, that the talk of economic strength with which European politicians regale their local constituencies would lose all purchase on reality. If Europe places itself entirely on the ground of mercantile disputes, without advancing any project of its own, it will have been defeated in advance. People in Washington are well aware of that.... As things stand today, there is no European project. It has been replaced with a North Atlantic (or triad) project under American command.

• Beyond US Hegemony? Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World - Samir Amin, 2006.

Mechanicus Putin goes hard

Wondering when we are officially throwing Ukraine under the bus?