Vucic is an opportunist who has an advisor working for him who also worked for Satanyahu (Yisrael Einhorn)
Yeah except people were pretty disappointed considering the fact that it is simply a remake of the first game. Really don't understand why for 3 they didn't build on the excellent battle foundations of 2, added a better base building and economy system with new graphics and called it a day. Although they did say that they're gonna work on 4 now since they've released stalker 2. Hopefully they'll add all that with a remake of 2, and could maybe even add the american independence war, seven years war, russian and austrian conflicts with the ottomans etc. Maybe even naval warfare, considering that the first game had it.
Cossacks 2! I genuinely don't understand how this gem of a game doesn't have a not so large but extremely hardcore community that fixes all the bugs and QoL with mods. Now I haven't really played any other RTS games within the Napoleonic setting, but from what I've seen this one easily takes the cake in terms of historical accuracy.
Even though it has quite a few aforementioned bugs and the economy management system mostly focuses on capturing nearby villages for raw resources, I implore all history nerds to play this shit and bring it to life. Morale, fatigue from extended marching, effective range of fire, troop variety, different formations give different bonuses etc. But also the little things like the trees and hills giving cover and range bonuses, being able to capture enemy cannon, troops marching faster on roads and even troops being demoralized if a formation is broken near them.
Although this depth is absolutely amazing for a game that's literally 20 years old, it's probably the reason why the game isn't as popular as it rightfully should be.
E: Also, be aware that if you do play it, it might not work on windows 11 or 10. Strangely enough it runs well on 
over wine for me.
Yes, I told you that I asked you a very straightforward question about what happens after the war.
And I'm clearly explaining why there isn't a straighforward answer, because that depends on how the war ends, when it ends, who ends it etc.
And you could have just said you weren't even going to engage with my arguments, since it would have saved me some precious fucking time on this planet.
That was not said either.
You literally said you didn't ask me, as if you don't care because it doesn't matter.
There was more than one demand. All others were long term. Only one is short term. You only focused on the short term goal because you envision a different world and sees the short term goal as detrimental to that new world, even though it isn't. Sanctions relief provide short term relief to the common people of Iran who need food, medicines and other consumer goods. It does not in any way preclude the future shape of asian geopolitics.
Yes, there is more than one demand, but only abandoning US bases is one that I see Iran can enforce in such a way that it definitively hurts the US. I also suggested other demands be of a more military nature, since they would also be more detrimental to the US in a realistic peace. The yuan one is just unrealistic, and makes it so that the US wouldn't want to sign a peace treaty, meaning it is in fact detrimental to the actually realistic ones.
Sanctions relief also provide an additional attack vector on Iran's people and it's government, to be conquered by the imperialists if they let their capitalists go haywire. Let me express this in the plainest possible terms at this point so we can put this shit to rest
Iran does/doesn't indicates the end of sanctions and Iran trading with the world and therefore the west. China does/doesn't indicates it abandoning it's export model.
As you can see, for Iran personally, the most secure option is to not indulge in trading with the west (this is of course on the assumption that they don't have full control of their economy). The problem with economic demands is that they go both ways, in a way that doesn't really impact the US. But weakening it's capabilities in the middle east is something that is detrimental to the US nevertheless, even if they break their promises, since it actually requires time to build back up.
Point is, if the problem is 'what happens when the US puts sanctions on Iran anyway or tells Germany not to trade with Iran', then the problem is not about sanctions relief. If this war is not conclusive, then no demand matters until the next Iran War. At which point there's no use criticizing sanctions relief because there's no point demanding anything out of the Epstein Axis.
Absolutely nothing is definitive in life. That is, in fact, the basis of dialectical materialism. The first and second world wars had definitive ends, if you look at your schools history books. But then there are people like Losurdo who bunch those two together and call it the Second Thirty Year's War. This war right now will have a definitive end, but the conflicts with Iran will not be over unless Israel is destroyed and America loses the ability to project it's power abroad. Extracting concessions right now is important, not because they cannot ever be regained, but because it is then harder to regain them. Military bases are a loss for the US, pure and simple. Dropping sanctions on Iran can indeed look like a loss, which is why I have argued that the US can actually turn that part to it's advantage in a future conflict. It is important for Iran to make the calculation based not just on the pure short or long term, but on maximizing both. They should do everything that is in their power to reduce the equation to the least amount of unknown variables. Of course, for the best case scenario for everyone to happen, it is absolutely vital that China step it's game up.
I did not ask you what the US will do on the long or medium term, or what China should do. I asked you what happens if the United States goes back on any of the demands set forth by Iran. Presuming, of course, that Iran actually achieves them, de facto or otherwise.
So you don't care what the US does in the long term, but do care what happens if the US breaks the treaty (which is most certainly not going to include oil being traded in yuan, and would require the US actually having it's mainland militarily occupied), which is assumed to be in the long term?
If the United States will inevitably fight a third war against Iran and renege on everything Iran may or may not achieve now, why focus on sanctions relief to the detriment to everything else? Why not call upon China to build their own bases across West Asia to keep the US shut out?
Idk, ask the Iran government. They are the ones who have been negotiating with Israel and the US, let their important leaders get killed, issued a religious decree against building a nuke etc. Of course there is reluctance from China involved there too
Iran isn't going to set forth demands without the confidence that they can be achieved with some degree with solidity. I started this conversation stating that if the war is in any way definitive, then of all of Iran's demands sanctions relief provides the best improvement for the common people in the short term. That is all.
And I'm saying that the key term here is short-term. Long term, if Iran doesn't have complete control over it's economy, that is to say it's exporting industry, it will be an inevitability that they will gravitate towards the west, and then get rug pulled once the US deems it pertinent to attack (this all of course because they're not communists). The US will of course coordinate this economic crisis with a bombing campaign, and then after having made sure to build up it's own oil exporting capacity, negate Iran's trump card of closing the strait, being able then to wage a war similar to all the other wars it has waged in the 21st century so far. Without any major repercussions to it's own or the world economy.
If Iran's future requires China to no longer be an export oriented economy then none of the demands matter. What matters is wether Iran can survive this war as well as future ones. The question is not which demands to make at all. The question is if Iran, unlike Syria, can survive 15 years of hybrid war against it.
They don't matter in the sense of the world, but they absolutely do matter in the sense of Iran itself, being able to weaken American and Israeli capabilities of waging war with them. That's why they should primarily focus on military concessions, rather than economics ones. And the ability of Iran to support itself for those 15 years require a stable base which should be built up, not a high and mighty house of cards that can go belly-up at any second.
In the time after this war and the next one, if there exist more than two braincells between the lot of them, they will use it to build up the capacities for crude oil exports of their own companies in Venezuela. They will also incentivize the gulf states to build pipelines to the red sea and towards Oman, away from the gulf. You could say the Americans definitely weren't wise to enter into a war prematurely, underestimating their opponent and letting hubris get the better of them. But that doesn't mean you should underestimate them when their interests are on the line.
But that could of course be offset if China actually took a proactive approach to it's political economy and foreign relations. If China became the primary partner of countries in terms of their export markets, they could easily steal America's position. Therefore creating a new order not dependent on America, being able to financially protect it's allies and enforce certain countries to even trade with America on it's own terms.
And what do you think happens if they conclude those deals? Once Iran has allocated labor through the market to satisfy these new export markets, hundreds of thousands of people being employed in them, educating themselves for these profession. What happens when Uncle Sam forces Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Sudan and India to pull the plug? These hundreds of thousands of Iranians lose their jobs practically overnight, and they obviously get upset. Then you will see real turmoil, this time not one manufactured by the Zionists.
Iran is demonstrably worse off if they can't freely and safely negotiate deals with India or Europe or South America.
It would also be quite good for Iran to have reliable partners from whom it doesn't expect to get news of any surprise arrangements with the imperium. Sure, trading with everyone is good, but whilst smaller countries are disunited and pursuing their own material interests, it leaves pretty much only Russia and China as the only countries who can conceivably shake off these threats coming from the US. Iran wants to negotiate with Germany? Oops! Uncle Sam has threatened tariffs on Germany if they do that, and the deal falls through. You are assuming the US will just do nothing and let these deals happen without their supervision.
If there is one thing which the America excels at, it's practicing divide and conquer on both it's enemies and allies alike. In the 1971, when Nixon suspended paying gold to in exchange for dollar-dominated assets, the European countries were enraged, and it looked like they could legitimately shake the foundations of the established international monetary system. Instead of an earthquake, we got a whimper. The US issued tariffs, buy-american tax credits and forced the exporting countries to impose quotas upon their industries. And of course it floated the idea of withdrawing troops from Europe and Asia, leaving the ruling classes of these countries to their own devices against the "Communist threat". In the end, it forced them to basically give up their real material goods not for something as shiny as gold, but as boring and mundane as a US Treasury security. The US reversed the established paradigm from having the control of these countries through issuing debt in dollars that forced countries to support american exports, to giving financial instruments such as bonds for real material goods, making these countries dependent on their consumer markets. The US picked off countries both large and in established economic unions, let alone countries who have nothing of the sort, which are the majority of the countries of the global south.
Not creating a sort of "axis" leaves countries vulnerable. And in this context, China needs to step up big time and actually be proactive for once, instead of letting a Home Alone character take the initiative. You fundamentally have to give up these cheap material exports and let your currency appreciate, reallocate labor from these industries into ones of greater technological innovation and boost domestic consumption. Simultaneously letting countries from the global south thrive by exporting to you, removing yourself from the rat race to the bottom. China giving up neoliberalism is the best thing that can happen to Iran and countries of the global south.
Yeah, but that was in the past, now that they themselves are sanctioned and lines in the sand have clearly been defined, I doubt Russia would care.
Strangely enough decreasing trade with Russia was a rather recent thing which happened, they previously could not give less of a shit, and they will probably be emboldened not to care after a US defeat. With Iran they openly said they're not gonna respect the snapback sanctions imposed by the UN.
Makes imports way cheaper and exports more competitive. Western sanctions don't just cut off trade between a country and the west. They limit trade with the entire world. The mechanisms for bypassing sanctions tend to be more expensive (with lower volumes to boot) than just being on western financial networks to begin with. Although obviously, the best case scenario is to create truly open financial networks that cannot be sanctioned to begin with.
To an extent, yeah. Pressures on prices in terms of the country being sanctioned, and therefore not having access to markets of countries actually respecting the sanctions play a part as well. But as I said in another comment, I fear that because of the nature of capital, there will appear a relaxation in their politics towards the west (much like Lenin talks about when discussing the NEP, and how it must be only a temporary measure).
The question of managing trade gets very complex, but it cannot be wise to only trade with a select few countries. Splitting the world into cold war style blocs would be a mistake, and not what multi-polarity aims for. Diversified trade with the global majority should be on the table. Although in reality, the Iranians should focus on internal circulation as much as possible due to their precarious geopolitical situation.
I mean, it's not like there is really a choice at this point. The west doesn't really need sanctions to enforce it's will upon smaller countries who rely on it's consumer base. But I totally agree on the internal circulation part.
Which would matter a whole lot more if the biggest banks in China weren't state owned.
We even have Baron Trump(onnen)
I mean sure, there is a point in the fact that it is up to Iran how they conduct themselves in those terms. But capital is capital. It will look to realize itself based on the most profitable sphere of production at the moment, and would require therefore require extensive control over it from the government. Not gonna pretend I know how Iran is in it's internal dealings, but it's fucking tough as shit to do that without Communism. Although I guess there is also a point in terms of other Arab states trading more extensively with Iran.
As I said in the comment above, China has already started ignoring snapback sanctions, not sure what could stop them at this point whether the west sanctions Iran or not.
They and Russia didn't however obey the snapback sanctions that were imposed by the UN recently. So if they're already being selective, why not just go all out? Not like America is in any position to retaliate if they already accepted Iran's peace proposal.
And what exactly is the point of lifting sanctions imposed by the west also? If Iran starts trading with them, they're either gonna be more dependent on their consumer market or consumer goods. Literally the reason why the could actually pull the Hormuz closure card is because they're under sanctions. They should rather look into simply boosting their trade with China and Russia, and not allowing any kind of reluctance when it comes to making military tech deals with them. Pretty much their best chance is what @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net has been preaching for the last who knows how long, and that is Chinese fiscal deficit spending allowing Iran to develop their productive forces and start exporting to China, whilst importing technology from them. Don't really get the frozen assets in this context either, not sure what they're made up of, although I guess China would accept them whatever they are (but that would also have the presupposition that China is not planning on dropping their IMF export mindset).
If anything, Iran should demand some kind of military base in Iraq, so their more accurate short-range ballistic missiles can hit Israel.
That would be absolutely hilarious
He's decent. Not really a marxist even though he declares himself as one every so often. Disagree heavily with his whole "techno-feudalism" shtick since those things aren't historically comparable. His analysis whilst good is not really materialist but is materialist-adjacent, like Mearsheimer or Sachs. He has made an interesting documentary about his time as finance minister of Greece, although your eyes might roll to the back of your head when you hear him talk about his father. Guy was in a Nazi concentration camp in WW2, and when the communists asked him to sign a worthless piece of paper denouncing leftism just to get released, he was stupidly stubborn and refused, yet Varoufakis makes this out as some point of unbent pride or something lol. Like damn, I wonder why the communists asked you to do that, it couldn't possibly be because you'd be a helluva lot more useful outside than inside of there.
Edit: He wasn't in a Nazi concentration camp, but in the one established by the reactionary Greek government after the war.
True, and if this genius even attempts to null the contract with Russia when it comes to natural gas and halt oil imports, Hungarians will be singing Orban's praises. These people genuinely think that some kind of bourgeois democracy and the "rule of law" (as if the law is the 10 fucking commandments brought down by god and not a list of rules made by capitalists to reinforce the status quo) matter as much as the economic base.
Also, I just saw this moron suggest Hungary adopt the Euro LMAO. Yes, hop on the sinking ship, give up your monetary sovereignty to own Orban!