I was talking to a friend from francophone Africa and they were extremely against Ukraine because it is accused of funding rebel groups in Mali to get at the Wagner Group. I missed this totally.
So we now have a Russia - NK - Iran - China axis going on.
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You know the amount of time I spend trying to understand geopolitics and still get surprises is unbelievable these days.
It’s going to be interesting because Trump is weak on Russia.
Sort of, but just of convenience. An interesting article in the economist about Russia needing to defend the rouble because it buys so much military gear off China with a parallel to the lend lease program, except in that instance the US was just giving it away so the sterling FX rate didn’t matter
It’s really fascinating to see business being conducted out of the office off the president-elect.
Trump met Zelensky in France and now Trump is pushing for an immediate ceasefire. Just the other day the secretary of defense had pledged 1 billion in arms to Ukraine.
I think the Biden govt need to sit Trump down and get him to stop doing backseat driving.
ETA: to clarify.
Who is they? No one is going to convince Trump to act differently. It’s just a demonstration of the silliness that is the long gap between election and inauguration days.
Traditionally, Presidents and Presidents-elect have done a great job of maintaining a public front of there being only on President at a time. Changes the President-elect intend might be widely known…but at least publicly they’ve tried to present a unified, continuous front.
Trump, however, doesn’t care…and his cult rather like his adhd-bull-in-a-china-shop antics.
Remember that it does occasionally take time to finish counting votes, and you do want incoming administrations time to get their people lined up to step in at the handover.
You could possibly shorten the time by a few weeks, but with holiday season…
I think the only way you could realistically shorten the transition is if we had a parliamentary system of government.
Yeah I recall great discussion about what a problem it was that we didn’t know the winner in 2000 for so long. They both had to start vetting and choosing a cabinet (I wonder who Gore chose) and such.
Clinton started including W on security briefings just in case he ended up winning (even though he was obviously hoping for Gore) and set up a training for W & Cheney on how to use the nuclear football, again, just in case…
I assume shortening the lame duck period would further exacerbate an already tight timeline.
Anything’s doable, obviously… in the UK I think it’s a matter of days, not months. But it’s a whole different setup that’s not entirely analogous.
This wouldn’t be a problem at all if they just detailed out the role of the president-elect during the rundown period. All this needs is for Biden to stand his ground on something then everything gets awkward.
Found this very interesting. Gives a broader context of what got us here.
The Ukranian SBU (itself an off-shoot of the KGB) assasinated a Russian General deep inside Moscow.
They are scarily competent at this stuff given that the FSB is kown for having strong counter-intelligence capabilities, and any Russian caught helping Ukraine will no doubt be executed.
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I read somewhere that they have a suspect in custody.
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There is a suspicion that the person that was arrested was just a patsy, as the FSB was under pressure to show it was not losing its control over internal security. He was Uzbek (non-ethnic Russian).
Still preliminary, but it seems that Russia shot down yet another commercial aircraft
Bad example. It might give some Putin-fanboy crackpot the idea of shooting down an Air Canada or Aeromexico.
I’m flying to Costa Rica in less than three weeks on Air Canada going down and Aeromexico coming back. You have me thinking I should switch to United or Delta!
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