Modern journalism is just sixty part-time reporters standing around a photocopier.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu used the flypaper theory in that the French attempted to draw the Viet Minh into attacking Dien Bien Phu where the French thought they could destroy them.

But they failed. And their defeat was so horrifying for the French public that the government lost its civilian support and was forced to withdraw from Indochina as a result.

If Ukraine is Europe’s Dien Bien Phu, that doesn’t look good for the Europeans.

War between Europe and Russia would be destructive but Europe has to decide a solution to Russia’s hybrid war against it.

I have no idea how Russia and the rest of Europe can reconcile after the last decade of relational decay. But I have to assume there’s some path back to peace that doesn’t run through a Ukraine-style missile exchange that stretches all the way to the Atlantic. There’s no world in which Moscow trading ballistics with Berlin, Paris, and London ends better for humanity than one without it.

Getting into Berghain with a doctor’s note.

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/7741

Per the language of the legislation itself

“Pornography is vulgar, candid, cynical, obscene depiction of sexual acts, pursuing no other goal, the explicit demonstration of genitals, unethical elements of the sexual act, sexual perversions, realistic sketches that do not meet moral criteria and offend honor and dignity of the human by inciting low instincts.”

So this appears to be a relic of the '00s culture war, spilling into Eastern Europe with the fall of the Soviet Union.

The Battle of Dien Bien Phu is a better example of the Flypaper Strategy

I don’t think that works, as the “Flypaper” in this analogy would be better defined as the WW1 Central Powers.

Ukraine/Russia has much more in common with the European theaters of the World Wars (or the Napoleonic Wars) than the anti-colonial rebellions in their aftermath.

Actually, it would be better to attract Russia to attack Europe where it could be destroyed by the combined European armies

People keep floating this conflict as A) inevitable and B) decisively favoring Europe. But I cannot imagine a world in which any of the central European countries emerge from the conflict without suffering enormously.

Nobody actually wins in this kind of exchange.

What are you? Some kind of Communist?

As long as Russia is fighting in Ukraine, it is difficult for it to turn its attention elsewhere.

That was the Flypaper Strategy pitched by GWB back during the Iraq War.

He’s the Thomas Jefferson of our generation.

Excited for random Internet bot-posts spamming “Release The Tate Files” in another twenty years, while his closest personal friends are running half of Europe.

You should rebut me with another one of your funny memes that makes light of millions of people dying to really undersell your point.

Removed by mod

Okay, now say it in the original Japanese

I doubt Ukrainian drones can even fly that high.

Drones aren’t the only tool in the kit. There’s no shortage of anti-air defenses that can hit commercial airliners, especially as they’re taking off or landing.

This is a kind warning to let people know that russian air defense is going to be so keyed up that they’ll likely shoot down civilian airliners.

If a civilian aircraft is shot down, the Ukrainians will almost certainly insist the Russians did it themselves. Idk how many people will believe them, after Zelensky basically painted a target on every Russian airport.

Millions of dead Ukrainians.

Millions of dead Russians.

Memers Euphoric.

A smart person would recognize that there are degrees of smartness and degrees of immunity.

And I’m the smartest person, therefore I enjoy the maximum amount of immunity.

there is no threshold of smartness that grants immunity to propaganda.

Just be smarter, idiot.

The most important service one can provide to a kind-of-smart person is to tell them when they’ve said something stupid.

Impossible for me to say something stupid. It is actually stupid to suggest what I said wasn’t the Immaculate Truth as Delivered By God.

The only people who would suggest what I said wasn’t stupid are

a) Idiots

b) A vast and sinister conspiracy of malicious actors attempting to destroy me, everyone I hold dear, and my country.

Which is in fact true

It does get very tiresome to see people reject decades of Cold War and post-Soviet collapse history, because the (US-backed) fascist dictator of Russia turned on his western handlers.

Anyway, the general idea for Europe is to take care of Russia, so the US is able to focus on the indo-pacific, meaning China. It‘s the geo-strategic reality of the western block to remain (or regain) world dominance. It‘s capitalism in it‘s highest stage, imperialism.

Okay, but have you considered that China Bad and we need to save all those good-hearted, liberty-loving, free-market Australians and Philippians and Taiwanese from the oppressive yoke of The Red Dragon?

It‘s just that most folks on lemmy are basing their political understanding on vibes and what western corporate media tells them.

Nonsense. I’m immune to propaganda because I’m smart.

Only you idiot tankies have been fooled.

The entire world is taking a hard fascist turn. Trying to single out any one country misses the forest for the trees.

But if you’re wondering why people were extremely leery at Ukraine early on, well… there are reasons. Still, much more of a problem with Canadian fascists than Ukrainian ones.

It’ll be interesting to see what China does.

If the Ukrainians shoot down a Chinese civilian airliner, they would be fucking themselves at a level that has not been seen since Pearl Harbor.

Putin won’t negotiate.

Every war is a prelude to diplomacy.

Putin is a dead man if the Ukraine war ends

This is a mythology the media has invented to keep people titillated with the news.

You’re looking for a storybook ending with a mortality tale. The bitter truth is that Putin’s as cemented in place as any Russian politician has ever been.

This perpetual conflict is entirely ego-driven, with Ukraine caught in the middle of a tug of war. Putin won’t quit because he’s old and stubborn. The EU leadership won’t quit because they need this war as an excuse to rearm, after decades of US occupation.

If the economy contracts hard enough, we’ll see a negotiation. Until then, it seems that everyone in power is playing with house money. So the conflict can drag on indefinitely, because it’s more fun to play at war than manage a peaceful continent in decline.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preemptive_war

Fascists love doing this shit.