Pakistan won't reconsider their relationship with China. Not after the recent episode with India where China's networked military systems proved their effectiveness. China showed up for Pakistan. The West is not going to sell them comparable capabilities. Even if they did, it would take decades to restructure the armed forces. After having just fought their neigbours, that's not a risk any country is going to take.

I am once again and eternally embarrassed to be Dutch. A country filled with naive, pearl-clutching, know-it-all's with a massive superiority complex.

My new cope theory is that Macron is talking about sending troops to increase Ukrainian morale.

The Ukrainian army needs manpower but there's a lot of internal resistance to lowering the age of conscription and Zelensky dares not openly press the issue. Companies don't want to lose their younger workforce and people aren't feeling good about Ukraine's performance on the front right now. They need something to point to so they can make the population more amenable to conscription.

They can't achieve success on the front right now so Macron steps in and offers a (seemingly) strong commitment that they are willing to go all-in. Then the regime in Kiev can push through new waves of conscription. The French announce they are standing back and standing by now that the manpower issue has been resolved.

I don't know, I think the French would, out of all the European states, understand that it is not a good idea to send forces into Ukraine. I feel similar about the idea of France sending troops to how I felt before Russia invaded: I thought they wouldn't do it because it wasn't a smart idea. So I could definitely be wrong.

I'd guess this is a corruption thing and not offical policy. Not paying your mercenaries when you're already having manpower issues seems like a bad idea.

China has gone woke, now they will go broke. The Chinese economy is going to collapse from this.

Can't stop thinking about the mad lads in Yemen and how much respect I have for them.

Oops, wrong thread but close enough.

Generally I've been able to compartmentalise my insanity when reading mainstream sources pretty well. But with Gaza I just can't take it. Even though Isreal is openly run by genocidal far-right ghouls, the idea that maybe their intention is to do ethnic cleansing doesn't even get entertained. Eventhough they mostly agree that taking Hamas out militarily can't be done. Do they think the Isrealis are stupid and don't know this?

I'll here people go on about how dangerous and crazy the Iranians and their 'proxies' are because they are fundamentalists. Motherfucker, that's Isreal, that's the US too. Israelis are literally using genocidal bible quotes to justify their actions. Maybe, just fucking maybe they want to do ethnic cleansing.

People that used to go on about how horrible the Russians were for bombing civilians will now call Isreal's actions 'impressive'. Fucking imperialist pigs.

I swear to God, this place is the only one I can stomach to visit for updates without it cometely ruining my day.

One funny wrinkle to recent events in Isreal that I haven't seen mentionied much is that back at the G20 meeting the India-Middle-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), meant to counter China's BRI, was inaugurated. The idea being to facilitate the constructing of things like rail networks and hydrogen pipelines. This initiative finds its origins in the I2U2 group, consisting of India, Isreal, UAE and the US. Notably, Israel proposed the idea of increased interconnectivity through rail.

The inevitable reliance on risk-averse private companies makes the financing of such projects hard for the West under normal circumstances. But with Isreal's genocidal policies flaring up tensions in the whole region, it seems dead in the water.

This whole thing is such a massive strategic failure for the US. They wanted to pivot to East Asia, pull back from West Asia, improve relations in Africa, focus on containing China. But instead they are overextending themselves with Ukraine and Isreal. Their focus completely opposite of where they wanted it it be.

I suspect a some of the other players in the region that are taking the position of intervention if Israel starts a ground offensive in Gaza are doing so because they hope or believe it is unlikely the IOF will want to go into Gaza.

Obviously such a scenario would be terrible for the Palestinians and it is good that it is clear such an act would come at a high cost to the zionists. But realistically, the IOF would suffer heavy casualties regardless of the involvement of anyone other than the Palestinians. Israel has to understand that, one would think.

What's more, the addition 'if Isreal starts a ground offensive into Gaza' allows for Arab nations and groupings to not get involved further if Israel is content to just bomb the shit out of Gaza.

What I'm getting at is that I wouldn't be surprised if these countries, while genuinely sympathetic towards Palestinians, would very much prefer not to get involved directly and will look for excuses not to if things escalate. Ofcourse this is all speculation over things that still feel up in the air.

God I fucking hate westoids so much. Living ccomfortably in their sheltered little lives, built over the backs of the global south, pontificating over how they are not anti-Palestine, just anti-violence.

As much as people like to mythologise resistance to the Nazi occupation in WW2, I am once again reminded that most of my fellow countrymen, almost especially the so-called progressives, would rather collaborate than offer resistance, as did their grandparents.

I go in at night and upvote everything, but by the next day they've redownvoted the whole field again, sometimes stacking their downvotes on top of eachother.