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Incidentally, I've been saying that Russia would annex the productive eastern regions, leaving a rump state in western Ukraine that Europe would be forced to prop up with billions, or face a massive refugee crisis from the very start. The mainstream press has finally caught up. https://lemmygrad.ml/post/480378/348104

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[-] darkernations@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Even now Europe could enact a "Marshall plan 2.0" for West Ukraine but this is from an idealist perspective not a materialist one - the original one was to stave off domestic socialist revolutions and explicitly stated to stop the spread of communism in West Europe from the perceived socialist threat of the USSR, no equivalent pressure exists at present - the PCR having learned the mistakes from the USSR of overleaveraging socialism abroad have taken a more nuanced foreign policy with an eye on long term win of international socialism.

Furthermore the vassalisation of Europe was only in the early stages during the Marshall plan, and NATO was still in its infancy as a vehicle for the USAmerican military indsutrial complex outside the US at that time. Now there appears not even the pretence of sovereignity at times with European leaders.

And Europe's domestic productive capacity and imperialist leverage abroad have both been gutted increasing the tendancy of the above vassalisation and subordination to deepen while they cling on to their idealist-"garden" against the foreign materialist-"jungle".

Your essays as usual are on point. Well done and well written!

[-] fort_burp@feddit.nl 21 points 17 hours ago

I love called its from like a month or 2 in advance but

☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ to GenZedong 3 years ago

takes the fucking cake bravo homey

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 17 hours ago
[-] Darkcommie@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 1 day ago

If Ukraines war led to this then what was the point of that war?

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 27 points 23 hours ago

My cynical take on the whole thing is that the US is conducing a scorched earth strategy in Europe. They realize that economic gravity naturally pulls Europe towards the east now, and that would necessarily translate into a geopolitical realignment away from the US. Better burn the whole thing down so nobody gets it. Why Europeans are going along with that is the real question.

https://dialecticaldispatches.substack.com/p/the-us-pivot-to-asia-and-europes

[-] demerit@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 15 hours ago

I everytime I tried to communicate this to others they coped with something along the line of "oh the us would want a prosperous EU that is able to defend itself on its own" - no they only need the physical access to the continent for their military bases, a bunch of divided squabbling nationalist dictatorships which can be played against others, are hostile to each other due to nationalistic landgrabs and jocky for us money & weapons to be the biggest kid on the playground is a far more acceptable solution. A united prosperous EU with an united army is just as much of a threat to washington as russia is.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 14 hours ago

Exactly, once the EU is broken up then the US can approach individual countries from the position of absolute power. And it's basically going to engage in the exact same type of colonialism that the west has been doing in the rest of the world.

[-] demerit@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 13 hours ago

Jup and with the end of the soviet union, the need of a united wealthy europe became obsolete. Nationalists are not a threat to the usa, because they are much more easily set on their neighbors and bought off with promises of "great national rejuvenation".

[-] Darkcommie@lemmygrad.ml 13 points 22 hours ago

I think the US has been successful in that regard

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Oh yeah, I think Europe is going to be by far the biggest loser when the dust settles. A follow up to that one incidentally.

[-] Maeve1@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 22 hours ago

I don't know how you keep track of all these wild policies and developments, but I'm glad you do and avail us of thoughtful analyses like these!

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 22 hours ago
[-] Lenins_Dumbbell@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 19 hours ago

GOATed analysis. Subscribed! Looking forward to reading more stuff by you

[-] haui@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago

Sarcasm? I'll use this to just apeak some thoughts:

To reduce the population of ukraine, redirect tax money to the rich, keep ukraine from being neutral or god forbid side with russia once the empire collapses, prepare for war with russia. Many reasons. None of them had to do with the normal people living in ukraine.

The answer would have been to back down, invite a delegation from russia and europe and have them discuss this, staying neutral, booting the putschists from power and holding elections with international observation.

[-] Darkcommie@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It was a reference to this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p93w7MpbZRw but regardless theres no way the eu came out of this whole thing not looking like a joke and in an even more precarious position

[-] Maeve1@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 day ago

Oh weird, Duckplayer worked for that, not for the internet weed video.

[-] haui@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 1 day ago

I didnt know that one but it was pretty cool to watch.

[-] TankieReplyBot@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

[-] Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml 29 points 1 day ago

If EU didn't want a black hole on their border maybe they should have held up their end of the minsk agreements.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 1 day ago

Look a war with Russia was supposed to be a quick in and out adventure, 20 minutes tops. Nobody could've possibly predicted that Russia wouldn't just crumble like a house of cards when the west decided to blow really hard.

[-] huf@hexbear.net 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

look, that one time russia crumbled like a house of cards in ww1 immediately after germany fought them for like 3 years, and by gum we're going to try to recreate this until the end of time.

also, that one crumbling was a great success for the west. they really really loved having the soviet union emerge.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

It's not so much WW1 they're looking at, it's 1991. They believe that they were responsible for defeating and shattering the USSR. They believe if they keep "containing", "overextending" and "pressuring" Russia it will eventually implode like the USSR did. Then they can repeat the wave of plunder and colonization that they enacted in the 1990s in Eastern Europe but this time across the entire corpse of the Russian Federation.

You have to remember that at the time, the international capitalist system itself had been in a deep crisis since the 1970s. The wave of neoliberalism in the 80s was a response to that crisis, a way to kick the can down the road just a little longer while hollowing out the social and economic base. They desperately needed that infusion of plunder that they got in the 90s, the expansion into new markets, new sources of cheap labor, newfound access to raw materials to exploit that were previously locked behind the iron curtain.

That allowed them to stave off the crisis for a good two decades, right up until the 2008 financial crisis.

But now, with the rise of China and the global south, they are in an even more desperate situation than ever before, hence the reckless urgency with which they are trying to recreate that 90s situation, to bail out the capitalist crisis in the West by getting their hands on the wealth, labor force and markets that they again lost their easy and cheap access to after Putin pulled Russia out of the 90s catastrophe.

If they don't succeed, then the Western capitalist system will have to begin to self-cannibalize. The US core will need to begin to consume the peripheral European vassal economies to keep the US's own system afloat. I believe that this process has already begun. The moment the US blew up Nordstream it became clear that this is what would happen.

[-] Maeve1@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 9 hours ago

Excellent analysis, thanks. I can't disagree.

[-] Darkcommie@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 day ago

Or that it would make china stronger well done Europe

[-] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 19 points 1 day ago

Never trust a yankee

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 1 day ago

They thought they could make it a black hole for Russia. Russia played the Uno Reverse Card.

[-] Lenins_Dumbbell@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 19 hours ago

They didn't underestimate Russia, they VASTLY underestimated the Soviet Union. Russia is an industrial powerhouse because it inherited Soviet Union's legacy.

Europe failed to account for the fact that since their first defeat of Tsarist Russia, a socialist revolution happened that turned the country into a powerhouse that was on the path to surpassing the US. Even though it fell, a lot of its industries, workforce due to policy, and educational institutions remained and were inherited (even if they're slowly being devoured by capitalism). Russia was never going to go down easy.

All this without factoring in China which is now the leading global super power in everything but military bases around the world

[-] demerit@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 15 hours ago

Tsarist Russia, despite its later economical backwardness, was also a power in its own right. Germany fought WW1 because it feared Russia surpassing it, just as UK fought WW1 because the very same year germany's economy surpassed the british one (not including the dominions)

this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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