Best of luck to all Ukrainian ranters. Buffer states are awful places to be.

This is not the politicoRant app...

@PonySlaystation war is not only about politics

@electrineer Why not? I my opinion, war is mainly a political thing.

@PonySlaystation the decision to have a war can be political, but so can the decision to do anything else.

@PonySlaystation @electrineer Everything is political, particularly war, and I agree that we should not start arguing about the politics of it. I'd say keeping it as a neutral "I hope you're doing fine because war sucks" is fine. That is political as well, but in way that shouldn't be polarizing, I hope..

@PonySlaystation war is mainly a "people=shit"-thing.

@PonySlaystation @electrineer @saucyatom @tosensei

War is never about politics. It's about resources and control.

Politics are the excuse, a method of grooming populations to find war acceptable.

"Look at those corrupt socialists/bigoted conservatives/hedonistic liberals—you disagree with their lifestyle and opinions, right? They don't deserve the rich soil upon which they live! They're destroying what was rightfully ours to begin with!"

You can think one political ideology is better than others. And in daily life, that's relevant.

Redistributing wealth to the poor or not, allowing individual freedoms or valuing duty to community—it affects your life.

But in war, it's rarely really about politics.

It's about access to nice harbors that don't freeze over, about fertile land, and of course about oil.

Syria for example had nothing to do with Shia/Alawite government vs Sunni rebels —it was a way to block UAE gas pipelines from reaching Turkey & Europe.

@Nanos most probably sanctions will fall on those who deal with the republics. Which won't make it better for the republics at all.

Speaking as a citizen, I am actually relieved that the stalemate was broken. Not the best way, but the govs were extremely reluctant to do anything else anyway.

@PonySlaystation Anything can be politicized and for some things a political perspective is very useful. Arguably war is one of these. However, it also has a practical everyday aspect, and I restricted myself to that perspective.

Greetings from the ex-bufferstate of Belgium!

@webketje

Ah yes the southern Dutch renegade province... I hereby declare Flanders an independent republic, and will send peacekeeping troops.

We need to secure our strategic beer and mayonnaise supplies from falling into French hands of course.

Well... I was wrong expecting everything to remain relatively civil

@iiii Stay safe 😓

@bittersweet you know I love you sometimes?

And sometimes I love you long time.

But mostly I'm here to use you for your amazing comments.

@bittersweet there seems to be some misnaming - if war is about control, why wouldn't it be called "politics"?

Wars nowadays are not about the resources - most commodities are so globally abundant and have such thin profit margins that even in peace times most aren't worth extracting. That includes oil and gas and wheat and gold.
The exact location of a port is way less relevant than the ground transportation infrastructure behind it, an expensive and disruption-sensitive industry at the best of times
So war cannot make resources cheaper. But it is very efficient at making them more expensive.

That's why wars are a foreign policy affair, used to leverage trade negotiations with foreign powers into a more favorable balance. I.e. making sure Europe has to supply Russia with Euros otherwise oil and wheat would be as expensive as their price in the USA + a transatlantic freight. It's about making oneself easier to swallow than the alternative. And that's the very definition of politics.

@JsonBoa a very cogent and insightful comment.