Do you think Putin will name a "heir" in the next years to secure his influence or there will be a civil war?

With Armenia essentially pulling out of the CSTO and becoming more chummy with the west, I'm curious is y'all think Putin could do anything in order to gain more support from Armenia. I'm also curious about how could this affect Azerbaijan's relationship with the west, could we end up with Greece and Turkey like relationship where bilateral tensions remain high despite both being close with the US?

I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that the European Union nations and the UK refrain from declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) a terrorist group! I mean, these governments are clearly and indirectly supporting the Islamic regime in Iran. The IRGC is a powerful paramilitary organization in Iran, with significant influence and control over various aspects of the country. Many Iranian women, men, and children have been killed by the brutal Islamic regime in Iran, all for their basic right to freedom. The people of Iran have explicitly asked Western nations to put the IRGC on the terror list, but unfortunately, their plea has fallen on deaf ears. We consider this matter domestic, and as the people of Iran, we want to restore democracy to our country without expecting any foreign interference. However, we feel let down by nations that continue to support this cruel and barbaric regime!

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Mahsa Amini protests - Wikipedia

2019–2020 Iranian protests - Wikipedia

2017–2018 Iranian protests - Wikipedia

2009 Iranian presidential election protests - Wikipedia

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Additionally, the Iranian regime (or rather, the non-Iranian regime) has waged war against many nations through its proxies, including Israel, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Ukraine, and more. The Iranian regime supports terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.

What steps should the people of Iran take to regain their freedom?

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French troops were ejected and seemingly replaced by Wagner mercenaries. Russian presence is now proven in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Tchad + Sudan and republic of central Africa. I know that Ukrainian special forces are fighting them in Sudan. But what's the situation in other countries ? Is the west definitely leaving the area ?

Poland and Hungary have historically been friendly towards each other. Both countries experienced suppression of the independence by the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Warsaw pact, both countries joined the EU and NATO. It seems that Hungary and Poland supposed to have similar approach towards Russia, but in reality their positions are quite different.

Poland is strongly determent in their support of Ukraine, and this war is considered as a sign that the same can happen to Poland. Whereas Hungary seems not to be threatened by Russia. Hungary supports lessening sanctions on Russia, and very reluctant when it comes to sending arms to Ukraine.

Given the similar history of relations with Russia, why their attitude today is so different?

So what would happen if the Global South only traded with each other and largely excuses The West.

Even if it was just South, Central and North (minus usa and canada) trading within and joining Brics. How beneficial would that be. Ignoring sanctions and living their best live. The time is now innit

With the way China is working with every sanction country and Lula wants a South American valuta it would be a one more falling domino stone against The West. Lol

Canada has a policy geared towards increasing immigration levels in order to support the country's economy. In 2023, Canada welcomed 471,550 new permanent residents, as such the country's population grew by a whopping 3.2%. In 2022, Canada boasted a population of 38.9 million, in 2023 that number had grown to 40.77 million. So in terms of demographics by pure numbers, the policy has been a complete success.

What has been less succesful it seems, is those numbers translating to professed economic gains. Annual productivity in Canada declined by 1.3% in 2023. Amongst the OECD, Canada is ranked close to the bottom in terms of productivity at only 29 out of 38, so much so the Bank of Canada is considering the problem an emergency.

So why is it that despite Canada succeeding in one of the key areas demographers attribute to continued economic prosperity, growing its population, that instead its productivity has only declined commensurate to its increasing population? Is there more to demographics or is it simply that demographers have focused too much on numbers and not on how countries utilise their human capital?

Hi i want to know what you think about this.

And if you can, separate dictator and democratic leader.

Let me know what you think.

(Please forgive my ignorance, I don't have much knowledge about military operations in general. I've tried to read up but didn't find a satisfying answer)

I'm wondering why so many European countries (e.g. Polish prime minister Tusk) seem to fear a Russian invasion / direct confrontation with Russia. If the war on Ukraine proved anything, its Russia's inability to even conquer a relatively small country (by population, not geographical size) that has no NATO protection. According to different news outlets, the weaponry used is more and more outdated (with some exceptions) & the combat losses are high. Isn't Russia relatively weak right now?

So how would Russia pull of a war against the combined military forces of France, U.K., Poland, Italy,... (not to mention the U.S.) when even Ukrainians kinda manage to kick their asses & most importantly drain their budget + simply kill a lot of soldiers?

Im from Ireland we have many challenges in how we spend our money to support our citizens but when we became part of EU trading/freedom of movement we went from the poorest in europe to one of the richest.

Mexico has an insane tourist trade, low cost employee base, important metals and free trade woih Canada and USA.

Considering the America has an influence everywhere from Germany to Israel to Ukraine how has Mexico not flourished?

I know corruption, Cartels etc but I am pondering more America influence on this. Some of my pondering questions;

• Has it always suited USA to have a country that supplies cheap labour( despite what politicians say and fox etc say)?

-The CIA has supported non government actors in places like Colombia, has the Cartels become so powerful inspite of CIA or because of it?

• Is USA just more weary of creating problems on their own doorstep than in Middle East or South America?

• With focuson removing China as reliant source of manafacturing will Mexico now become economic super power?

It’s looking like SA’s election in May will either result in a hung parliament or an ANC-EFF coalition. This is combined with the fact that Johannesburg is already running out of water when they’re not even officially in the dry season yet. Is South Africa done for? I realize that as an outsider any information I get could be very skewed, so I’m wondering what you all think.

So, I'm sure there is much debate surrounding this. I wondered what some more informed people might be able to tell me.

Surely, west sanctions work because the target nation is in some way reliant on the west. In the short term this seems fine.

But the longer they are in place and the more people they are applied to, are the west not making there adversaries no longer reliance on them. Potentially helping create a seperate finicial and trade system where they have little influence.

To an uneducated person in this field, such as myself, as the sanctions lately are only broadening in scope and applying to more nations, it would seem that the west is harming itself.

People assume that Ukraine is a shoe-in for immediate ascension into the EU bloc. I am offering some thoughts on why it could be the most complex ascension ever in the EU's history. And perhaps why it might never happen.

Border Disputes

While it is very probable they will join eventually, significant issues remain which could make it essentially impossible despite the desires of all parties.

The biggest immediate blocker is you cannot join the EU with a border dispute.

Normally in the EU this is resolved through tortuous court cases and endless haggling. Current examples are the talks with Serbia. The biggest issue blocking Serbian ascension is their refusal to formally renounce their claim on Kosovo despite endless prodding by the EU and endless bilateral summits.

A recent examples is Macedonia which had to rename themselves to placate Greece. The reason is their name implied historical claims on Greek terroritories and Greeks resented Macedonian claims to their historical past (Alexander the Great etc).

An older additional example are the Croatian-Slovenian border disputes which was resolved via negotiation. To join the EU you need unanimous agreement and one country can veto the enlargement.

The EU will never allow the border disputes rule to be removed as it would unlease Pandoras box on the Continent and many nations still remember that it was border disputes that kicked off WWII. Countries such as Luxembourg, Belgium and the Baltics are very sensitive to the risk of Border conflicts spiralling out of control as they were directly occupied because of border conflicts.

For Ukraine to join the EU they must defeat either Russia and clear all the occupied terroritories and return to a state of ante bellum and regain Crimea. I won’t speak on the likelyhood of this but only that is what is needed for a best case outcome. And that is what the current Ukrainian government are officially committed to pursuing.

Worst case they accept terroritorial losses. To truly spike the deal Putin could create a Transistria situation and have a decades long simmer or it could become a Korea ending where the Donbas becomes split off and an unresolved state of war remains fixed in place. This means Ukraine will never join which would be the worst case outcome for them.
You need unanimity from all member states to join the EU. There can be no disenting voices and no veto.

Resources and Farming

The other issue is Ukraines position as a resource and agri superpower. You would think this would be an asset to the EU but it actually generates vast tensions inside the bloc from competing interests. The principal blocking point is agriculture. Despite its relative small size to the wider economy, only 1.7%. It has vast support of both the common people and national governments.

The average farm size in Ukraine is reportedly 1,000 hectares which is simply staggering compared to the EU average of 50-100 hectares. I cannot succintly summarize how big a sway agriculture holds in Europe but simply google farmer protests in Netherlands, Poland, France and Germany and they have immediate and huge political influence. Many have agri parties who are riding a wave of soft Euro sceptic sentiment. For the small villages and forgotten areas in each country agriculture is very important politically and farmers are very mobilized and backed by effective farming lobby groups.

Macron (an ardent neoliberal free trader) has blocked the Mecrosur deal for years to protect beef farmers.

Ukraine is such an agri superpower thats ascension is far more complex than other nations and the nature of politics would see it significantly blocked. Their joining would flood the EU market and lead to probably mass bankruptcies and overproduction if allowed too quickly.

The famous wine lake's of the 1970s and 80s would rear its ugly head. It is hard to understate how massive Ukraines potential to generate food is. Theres a reason successive empires sought to control its fertile lands. The EU would become an even stronger agri superpower. Imagine if all the Great plains region of the US joined Canada and you are getting an idea of the vast potential of this region.

The other issue is CAP. CAP is the oldest financial program in the EU that the EU sort of hates and regards as unsexy. It is the agri subisdy budget that keeps affloat the entirety of the EUs agriculture and ensures stable food production. It still to this day consumes a huge portion of the EU budget and its jealously guarded. Countries like Poland and France get back a lot from it. Ukraine joining would totally upend the negotiations for it and likely see its replacement by a new program. They would hoover up most of the funds. It’s very complicated to explain how it works but it’s essentially funded based on farm size + productivity with added incentives for following various rules and environmental protection regulations. Ukraine is off the chart’s in those calculations.

Last point is simply cost. The current costs to rebuild is approaching 500 billion dollars. This could be a lot more by the time the war ends possibly approaching a trillion dollars. Obviously this is through no fault of their own but the EU is currently undergoing a productivity and competitiveness crisis.

There is a large gap between the EU and the US in economic performance and paying a trillion dollars / euros to rebuild Ukraine at a moment where the EU is lagging in key economic indicators would pose a huge blocking point. There is no ideological stick (such as Communism) to spur a second Marshall plan. Accepting a new member without pushing through structural reform to regain competitivity will be a massive sticking point.

There is a sense in Europe that fiscal displine is needed and deficits brought in line post covid. The EU is desperate to regain competencies in chip production, AI and green technologies to power their economy. The EU is creating a report to find out why the gap is so pronounced and how to fix it. The guy (Mario Draghi) creating this report holds huge influence in Europe as he is credited with rescuing the Eurozone and stopping the Euro sovereign debt crisis. His reccomendendations will inform Eurozone fiscal policy for the five years / next decade or so

Internal Ukranian issues

This is too lengthy and speculative to get into and obviously they are at war. So I will mention significant issues unique to Ukraine that far superseed any other previous ascension nature. They are not impossible as the Yugoslavian wars have shown but exist on a scale far bigger than those wars. Many are unique to Ukraine.

- Chernobyl and the exclusion zone itself is a unique problem as the EU has certain rules on countries and since Chernobly is so catastrophic and unique that the entire rulebook would have to be rewritten to accomodate this.

- Ukrainian suppression of minority rights. I understand this is very controversial to say but the Romanian and Hungarian governments lodged official diplomatic complaints against Ukraine for what they considered suprresion of minority rights. Romania, Hungary. Needless to say they will block Ukranian ascension if they feel like their minorities are not being looked after. It is mostly being not raised as those governments think the war is more important but they have absolutely not forgotten it and will veto and ascension until its resolved.

- Large far right paramilitary groups. Football holiganism has distinct ties to paramilitary groups in Ukraine. Most notably the Right Sector. These groups will need to be disarmed and possibly even prosecuted. The closest example is Croatian where many paramilitary groups were suppressed post war. The history of this is very murky and its hard to find sources in the English speaking media. Serbia’s ascension was totally blocked until they started prosecuting war criminals and opening proceedings in The Hague. The leaders in Brussels are very wary of paramilitary groups and they wont allow ascension if they are openly active or if the State tacitly ignores it.

Russian Puppets

Hungary has blocked much aid to Ukraine and is more than likely will remain as a large opponent of Ukranian ascension to the EU. Romania could also emerge as one as well. One other risk is Europe sceptic pro Russian politicians could seize power across Europe and block Ukranian ascension. Slovakia elected a pro Russian PM and has publicly called for Ukraine to give up land.
Austria traditionally is very pro Russian and has dragged their feet a lot regards santions on Russia.

Marine Le Pen who could be poised to be the next President of France was sympatheticto Russia up until the time of the invasion. They also received a Russian loan in the past (which has been repaid). She has reiterated that Crimea is Russian. Bar such huge volte-face it is unlikley she will completely disavow her views.

I'd like to have a better understanding of the pros and cons from the CCP's point of view, and what the international response (or lack thereof) might be. I've lived in East Asia for a few years here and there so I can definitely understand Taiwan's existence as a thorn in the CCP's side from a face saving culture perspective. Taiwan makes them look weak. But surely that alone doesn't justify invasion?

Does anyone have a favorite article or video they can recommend? It would be great to learn about it from the perspectives of multiple different experts from all around the world. Feel free to provide your take as well, of course.

Thanks.

I know that people are worried about Israel potentially provoking a wider regional war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

But what will happen after that? I don’t know.

This is a common talking point I see: Netanyahu is doing everything in his power to prolong the war in order to hold onto power. The motivation for doing so is obvious; corrupt politicians like power–but I haven't seen an explanation for how anyone knows this is actually happening.

While I understand that Netanyahu is incredibly unpopular, I'm currently under the impression that his lack of popularity is due to corruption and a failure to protect Israel on the 7th, and not so much due to his handling of the war since then.

Netanyahu wanted to invade Gaza immediately following the 7th and was pressured into delaying an invasion so that civilians could be warned and the area evacuated. That same dynamic seems to be playing out again in regards to the upcoming invasion of Rafah. With these delayed invasions in mind, it seems like an argument could be made that Biden and the US have done more to prolong the war than Bibi has.

This post isn't meant to be a defense of Netanyahu, I have no love for him, but I would like to better understand this talking point and the extent to which it's a real problem. What concrete actions has Netanyahu taken (post Oct 7) to prolong this war?