dominix.bsky.social
Lawyer in Warsaw, historian.
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Very bad luck on their part-there was a series of weird, vaguely authoritarian candidates for high office in the post-communist countries in the mid 1990s. Tyminski lost in Poland, but Meciar won in Slovakia and Lukashenko in Belarus. Russia was too close for Belarussians to change this dynamic.
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He was not always a puppet-for a very long time. It’s just when you and your cronies are utterly corrupt, it’s not in your interest to join EU, where there are strict rules about state contracts. That said those guardrails fall off, once country joins, hence people like Orban come out.
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It’s complicated: there are parties like them and there are populist-right parties that are nothing like them (one ruled Poland for 8 years until 2023). AfD is pro Russia, and it’s a really hard (extremely in fact) sell in Poland and Czechia, but they can still win in Slovakia for example.
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This was a really insidious regime, when it came to maintaining control-no other Warsaw Pact country came close in the number of people recruited as secret police informers. Western Germany thought that just economic integration would be enough to heal this, but they may have been wrong.
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40 years of authoritarian rule is not easy to root out-especially as insidious as DDR (I lived on the other side of the Iron Curtain, and their level of the secret police control was still on the another level in comparison)
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Dopóki są ich wojska, ochrona jest. Że to jest teraz na poziomie mafijnym, to inna bajka.
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The stupidest timeline.
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(No i Rosja ma ultimate defense card-broń nuklearną, jeśli ktoś zbyt mocno zagrozi terytorialnej integralności).
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Siły na Ukrainie będą zbyt małe, żeby realnie zagrozić Rosji, natomiast Rosja nie potrzebuje bardzo dużych sił, żeby zagrozić krajom bałtyckim, plus może z marszu zająć sporą część wschodniej Polski.
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Tak, plus Duda żebrzący u Trumpa o amerykańskie wojska u nas, jest na plus-pewnie jedyny powód, dlaczego nie było jeszcze u nas serii tajemniczych eksplozji i katastrof kolejowych, czy powietrznych. Ale jesteśmy na pierwszej linii i wysyłanie wojsk nie jest dla nas.
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Tak-i dlatego część sił setki kilometrów od kraju, gdy kraj może być bezpośrednio zaatakowany, byłaby szaleństwem-szczególnie, że strategiczna rezerwa NATO, przy międzynarodowych siłach w Ukrainie, przestanie istnieć.
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My first thought was that this must be something to be checked in the urban dictionary.
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Jeśli zaatakują nas, gdy część naszych sił będzie zupełnie gdzie indziej, to nasi decydenci będą pośmiewiskiem historii, jak Francuzi w 1940.
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I like those semi-realistic sims of this era, but they introduce random chance elements-in this case weapon effectiveness-that in a mission where you have to single-handedly defeat 10+ fighters, some of them firing anti-ship missiles, is really, really annoying.
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Reality check: już w tym momencie toczymy wojnę z Rosją, tylko pośrednio-nie jesteśmy krajem neutralnym w rozumieniu prawa konfliktów zbrojnych. Mamy z nimi granicę, mamy także granicę z ich państwem-klientem.
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Coś może politycznie wyglądać ładnie i słusznie w czasie pokoju, ale gdy realnie zacznie się konflikt zbrojny, to te kwestie będą miały wartość zużytego papieru toaletowego.
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Pisałem już tu, ale jesteśmy na pierwszej linii frontu, plus na nas spadnie też obrona krajów bałtyckich, bo inne kraje które teraz to ogarniają, nie będą w stanie, jeśli dojdzie Ukraina. Więc z tego punktu widzenia ma rację.
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Amerykańskie wojsko ma zostać, więc główną rzecz uzyskał (inna kwestia, na ile trwale). Reszta to bonus.
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It’s a really weird game, btw. Quite realistic on higher settings, and if you eject, you can observe other participants fight, and there is a chance that your allies complete objectives on their own and you still win.
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Ha! Didn’t know that was her. Replayed the game (PC version) about 2 years ago-up to the final mission at least, because it’s ridiculously difficult and I don’t have patience these days for 40-50 repeats.
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He’s exceptionally ruthless and cunning, quite probably in his own league in this regard-how this relates to his IQ level is a bit pointless exercise.
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And there are Hellenistic monarchies, where „father-his heirs” rivalries were complemented by „groups of siblings by a single mother” rivalries. Polygamy ftw.
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And one of the main reasons why Roman republic crushed every other power in the Mediterranean basin and it’s environs. That said, survived as an empire for quite a while, even with weirdos like Caligula and Nero at the top early on.
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She’s one of those rare people in his circle that is not a looser: had a respectable career and made a choice to turbo-charge her standing/fame by hitching herself to him.
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Creepy, but fully cynical in this case
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Nihilist careerist. She really spooked me, when I first saw her (back when she represented Trump at a trial) and it was obvious that she made herself look like Melania.
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Po inwazji były Ukrainki na Tinderze, które otwarcie składały ofertę od drugiej strony. Teoretycznie wiedziałem że wojna tworzy takie sytuacje, ale gdy sam zobaczyłem „w zamian za pokój dla mnie i dla dziecka, bardzo się odwdzięczę ;)”, to mocno mnie wtedy zdołowało.
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Plus state/federal duality makes totalitarian capture far more difficult if not nearly impossible to achieve, even with a more competent/cunning crew in charge. That said, I don’t think that this will end bloodlessly.
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Caesar famously wrote that Gallic warriors were larger than Roman legionaries and German warriors were even larger than the Gauls-tactics, discipline and stamina mattered more than sheer strength even then.
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Heh, I wondered about this myself.