Lots of discussions on #Ukraine end up in predictions of a "Korean scenario", implying division of Ukraine into two parts, one independent and one controlled by #Russia like South and North #Korea. This is mostly voiced by "realists" both in Russia and the West.
However, there's a catch: in Korea, the communist invasion army supported by USSR and People's Republic of China captured almost all territory of Korea! At the peak of communist invasion, only a small part of Korean peninsula was left under control of Republic of Korea, at the peak of ROK & Allies counteroffensive only a narrow strip at the North was controlled by the communists. In 1953 they were ultimately pushed back to 38th parallel but in the process Seoul changed hands five times, and the net territorial gain for North Korea was none. So the "Korean model" doesn't really sound well for the supporters of Russia, as it implies freezing the conflict at the 23 February 2022 border, which means nullifying all territorial gains except for Crimea and parts of Donbass.
A fun part which you can use to poke Russian vatniks today: in 1950 #USSR boycotted UN to protest its recognition of #Taiwan as #China. How come? Well, UN recognized it as Republic of China (ROC, 1912-1949) as opposed to People's Republic of China (PRC)...
I would totally get lost in endless pictures of #soviet#tech. Do you know of any good book to buy or account to #follow about that? Like this Agat, a soviet 8-bit #computer first introduced in 1983.
The National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan constatation^1 on US loss of competitiveness self-inflicted by the neoliberal ideological bias that free market will always choose optimal path:
> The People’s Republic of #China continued to subsidize at a massive scale both traditional industrial sectors, like steel, as well as key industries of the future, like clean energy, digital infrastructure, and advanced biotechnologies. America didn’t just lose manufacturing—we eroded our competitiveness in critical technologies that would define the future.
Was there anything preventing US from " subsidize at a massive scale" these sectors, apart from ideological choice? No, just like there's no physical principles preventing UK from electrifying its trains fleet whene everyone did that 30 years ago, rather than run diesel trains (!) well into 2020's. Except for maximizing their return on investment, which hampers new investments even when they're desperately needed.
Soviet ideological obsession on criminalization of any private trade (literally, see article 154 of the criminal code of the #USSR) led to shortages of everything, including toilet paper and eventually collapse of the regime. The system wasn't flexible, because ideology is by definition rigid.^2
Free market is on the opposite end of the scale, but it doesn't guarantee immunity to ideological rigidity on its own — a truly free market also includes freedom to use subsidies when they make sense, which neoliberal ideology prevents.
In St Petersburg, Russia, the authorities raised the flags of the Russian Federation, the Russian Empire and the USSR on 180 meter tall flagpoles. This is very bizarre. Combining the uncombinable. (twitter.com)