Insert Eagle Noises
Ultimately - success is measured financially.
How well a country is performing.
Countries can monetise primary industry - mining, farming, energy production simple processing / manufacturing.
Secondary industries such as intermediate and advanced manufacturing, clothing manufacture, material processing, commodity trading etc; Tertiary industries such as education, development and innovation, services and consultancy….
But… all of this is being up-ended by the way certain companies / corporations are managing to avoid taxation…
Eg Facebook, Amazon, Tesla, Apple etc - who are ALL squirrelling exceptional profits away - literally hoovering up money and removing it from the economy.
Historically - the most powerful, have been those who have achieved either a monopoly or tight hold of desirable resources: eg sugar, slaves, tobacco, oil, utilities, precious metals annd “opportunities” such as stock markets etc.
Modern wars have been fought over access to resources - Gulf War (oil and Saddam’s threat to move the trade of Iraqi to Euros instead of Dollars);
Afghanistan - was a smokescreen to exploit Rare Earth Metals & Lithium; required for the 21st Century electric vehicle / renewable energy storage revolution.
Ukraine - is the “breadbasket of Europe”, a key global producer of food as well as those Rare Earth Metals, Lithium & Coal etc mentioned above…
Afghanistan was seen as totally exploitable - little in the way of environmental protection to be avoided, in an effort to remove, process and export material - except the tribal dispute and disparity between them made it impossible to secure “conventional” contracts… so the “powers that be” figures - fine, we’ll take them by force…. Then got their bottoms handed to them.
Ukraine - Russia annexed The Crimea with little to no resistance - The West literally ignored the invasion…
Compare the USSR with the European Union, from a trade and economic model - Russia HAD access to everything they needed… lesser states were exploited but there was at least “balance”.
USSR collapses - states achieve independence and flock to the EU for protection - and you know the rest…
In the meantime - everyone is still looking at how to corner and control vital resources: energy, minerals, food.
At the same time - a generation of billionaires have grown up, with the inspiration of space travel and “conquering / colonising” space and beyond…
Musk & Bezos are happily spending gazillions of dollars making this dream possible - while also not supporting any kind of philanthropy… At least Bill & Melinda Gates were supporting aid and medicine in Africa!
Only stable economies and nations can afford to spend money in such volumes.
With this in mind - consider that the most “stable” economies are those with Dictatorships such as Russia, China, North Korea…
Unimpaired by democratic processes, they can focus on doing as they please - they are not hampered by timeframes set by periods of governance… they can genuinely play a waiting game.
Russia is prepared to get dirty - but China is trying to maintain an air of legitimacy…
I don’t doubt that Russia has a copy of the Epstein Files - and I suspect video of the much rumoured Moscow golden shower…
Hence the ability to create the turmoil we’re seeing in the US.
Epstein, Trump, Witkoff AND Farage are all on record of making multiple trips / connections to Russia.
It’s rather “blunt” and “overt”.
Whereas the Chinese influence feels more subtle - but yet also more nuanced. Notice the recent dropping of the case against the two alleged Chinese spies by Starmer - in an effort to “protect” Chinese investment and trade…
Yet China has been identified as one of our greatest threats to national security…
China, Russia and N Korea ARE at war with the west - it’s just not a war with conventional weapons. The financial impact and devastation is still being felt - but because there’s no “bodies”, we, “the people of The West”, don’t feel that WE are being attacked.
Musk & Bezos are capitalising on the our nations being distracted and filling the gap…
Let’s not forget Musk’s provision of Starlink for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
100% This is why I make extra effort to avoid contributing towards the Chinese economy wherever I can.
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Great marketing opportunity, with very little “cost” to him / Starlink.
The infrastructure was already there…
…but also, let’s not forget that he turned it OFF, when Ukraine started winning back territory!
Almost as if he doesn’t want Ukraine to win!
My guess is Musk reckons he can either get a better deal on Lithium / Rare soils etc from Russia, than he can from Ukraine…
…or, he’s simply hedging his bets, in an effort to be able to use Eastern Russia as prospective launch / recovery areas - or better yet, a “target” for any remaining debiting space debris…
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I believe it was turned off when they started using it as a military tool rather than support/emergency comms
That was back when everyone was being sensitive about providing aid that could only be used defensively and not offensively. And he turned it back on again.
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Yeah can remember it was turned back on shortly after.
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The cynic in me suspects otherwise.
So the US has proposed their peace plan, and it’s basically full pander to Russia, them then take everything they want. Deny Ukrainian NATO membership. And forze them to have an election within 100 days.
Utter nonsense. I hope Ukraine rejects it. And I hope in doing so, Europe stands up and does what is needed to help them, of the US isn’t going to.
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As has become customary with Trumpleton; zero forward thinking.
It will look good to end the war now, but it’ll bite us all in the backside in 5-10 years when Russia regroups and goes again, this time with a more forward starting position.
It’s already happened before! Am I not right in thinking when the US took their nukes away, they swore to protect them if Russia ever invaded?!?! So how can the USs guarentees be trusted now?
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them being Ukraine or Russia?
silly me - of course Ukraine.
so the country that got invaded, and has defended its borders legally, has to have a change of Govt because…..the illegal invader doesn’t like the incumbent Govt and so gets their way?
if it were to happen (and I hope it doesn’t) I hope Ukraine offer Russia the 
by voting in Zelensky again
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Don’t get me wrong, they do need to have that election once the war has stopped. It’s just mad that it’s part of the agreement. Just shows what side the US is really on.
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I’m working only off my own memory, but I believe the guarantors were Russia…
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So did the UK as part of the Budapest Memorandum.
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So we all agreed to not attack them, and defend them if anyone does? And here they are, attacked, and America is pulling away.
Which is non-binding, has no real legal standing and the only action it says the signatories should do if the agreement is broken is to tell the UNSC.
Ultimately, as time has shown, not worth the paper it’s written on.
Read the plan, utter tosh.
Basically gives Russia what they want, it’s a capitulation plan plain and simple.
I cannot comprehend the depths that Trumpleton will plumb.
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For me, it’s the “I can’t believe he manages to go even LOWER”.