"China learned all they could from Hollywood. Now they make their own big-budget blockbuster films with good special effects, and even good animated films ... They don't need Hollywood anymore," Rosen, who specializes in Chinese politics, society, and film, told CNBC.
This seems quite patronizing, surely you don't need to watch Disney manchildren slop to learn how to make special effects for a movie?
I'm sure there must be other more fundamental aspects at play here other than "the Chinese learned from Hollywood*".
They specifically mean the Russian oil industry and Ukrainian electrical grid. This is both sides bargaining chip.
It makes sense since both sides(US and Russia) benefits from the current oil market status quo too.
If Ukraine does get their way and somehow manages a significant disruption this could send oil on a huge price spike and it could still have effects on the US election, though this was before Kamala I think now it wont matter.
I think the fact is enabling Ukraine to go to these attacks could further de-stabilize Europe heading into the winter again is another factor. Also considering this was happening while there were new fears of a ME wide war.
Either way I don't think there is anything particularly shameful or worrisome, both sides would be looking for their self-interest in the current status quo so a separate agreement around the oil industry could make sense.
However in this case it definitely would give Russia the bad look here so it also makes sense for them to deny it. They already made peace demands previously so this is certainly a clown looking move.
China will do its own thing and at its own pace. No Westerners or countries get to impose their will upon them.
You know how incredibly ironic this sounds when the US literaly does just that in Taiwan(though at least here they'll be forced into a war) or the whole dollar dominance issue you love to talk about so much. And you not even wrong on that either, dedollarization isn't happening yet etc, but at the same time yeah nobody will impose their will on China, except the US Secretary of State or the Fed, then its always a red carpet reception lol.
Would make sense these plans existed even back then but IIRC the major point at that time was the Zaluzhny vs Zelensky conflict that Blinken/Nuland literally went to Ukraine just to reiterate the US support for Zelensky and as a result Zaluzhny was kicked out. This conflict was present since 2022. The PR decisions to hold on to the last man, the whole "to the last Ukrainian" was a real doctrine.
This doctrine was causing real hate for the government. Ukraine postponed elections and in every single poll Zaluzhny was leading by a ridiculous margin, despite being the military leader, the people put their anger entirely on Zelensky's shoulder.
Maybe they planned this 2nd offensive into Russia this time, but on the other hand it definitely felt like the US would never have approved this plan 6 months ago too.
But maybe you know, back in January Nuland said Putin should await some "nice surprises" and then the terrorist attack in Moscow happened. The F-16s are finaly here maybe they realy thought this through and not commit the same mistakes, they'd have some air support(lol), they would attack away from pre-built Russian defenses, they would not announce or make fucking movie trailers about poor man's Barbarossa or something.
Klei Entertainment because Don't Starve was realy good, probably the best single player survival game ever imo. I think they had gold with Invisible inc right when the XCOM era was booming, shame they didn't continue with it for whatever reason.
Urban Games(Transport fever franchise) because they seem to be the only ones that truly understand how to make a modern OpenTTD type game. Transport Fever 2 is realy good, the only "flaw" is its realy bare bones with a bad economy, but just building stuff its the best.
Also years worth of patching, they deserve it.
AMPLITUDE Studios, the endless universe is very unique and interesting, even though their new game is a mixed bag, looking back I do like their community centered style.
Most of the fighting in Donbass is in or around the Ukrainian defenses and trenches they've built since 2014. Likewise Ukraine failed their offensive last year because the Russians built their own defenses.
This is the biggest reason the war seems to be slow, and the fact there is way too much urban fighting. Almost every little village needs to be completely destroyed. The open fields both sides capture are easy exactly because because they're a trap for massive artillery and drone attacks.
a synchronized launch of 2000 state-of-the-art HIMARS rockets
Just on a practical level alone, Ukraine got sent at most around 40 of those systems and each one can only fire a 6 rocket salvo.
The US would need to send almost 5x-10x more HIMARS systems than they did. They wiki says over 540 built so at best you're talking sending like 60-80% of all HIMARS systems to Ukraine.
Considering how many of these are not even in the US...
But sure there are other things the west could have done I agree.
lol Rommel being one of the main figures in the clean Wehrmacht myth. They'll take the nazi detector and say "yep we found one of the good ones".
As I mentioned, the whole "industrialization" discourse comes straight from the mouths of communists and Marxists economists even. Go read Hudson and him rambling about "financialization" as if that is the great evil of out time.
If they'll realize this entirely depends if they continue to eat up this nonsense that the main evil is financial market people and not capitalists as a whole.
And as I also mentioned there is a tendency to fetishizse Chinese policies and their condition as the worlds industrial leader as if that is replicable everywhere else. China dominates based a lot on the mistakes from capitalists 30 years ago(they called it globalization then) when they moved their factories to China.
But nobody got 30 years left and a favorable global trade status quo like China got to benefit from.
As I mentioned, the whole "industrialization" discourse comes straight from the mouths of communists and Marxists economists even. Go read Hudson and him rambling about "financialization" as if that is the great evil of out time.
If they'll realize this entirely depends if they continue to eat up this nonsense that the main evil is financial market people and not capitalists as a whole.
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