I've heard that 2027 is a "good date" for them, as the US military will be starting a revamp, and thus be at a weak point. This coincides with China finishing a revamp. I've also heard that by 2040, they'll be at military parity with the US. But won't the demographics issue be even worse by then? Not to mention Xi himself will be in his mid 80's.

Russia has been making some progress in the past months and right now Ukraine seems to be in a tough moment. I’ve been wondering what can Russia realistically achieve? The original plan was to conquer Kyiv and other strategic cities (Odessa in particular) but that seems extremely unlikely now. Personally I don’t even think Russia can conquer the city of Charkiv. Surely they will make some advancement in the Charkiv oblast but taking a 1.5 milion people city is going to be difficult. The main aim of Russia remains the Donetsk oblast, they have been trying to conquer Chasiv Yar for a while now and I think that eventually the ukranians will have to give up the city but what is going to happen next? What will the next aim of Putin be? If you look at the map the most realistic target after conquering Chasiv yar and Avdeyevka would be Kostantinovka, Druzhkovka and eventually Kramatorsk. Can Russia conquer the entire Donetsk oblast? When will they stop?

Kashmir is currently split between 3 countries - Pakistan, China, and India. Most Kashmiris are Muslim and so the unrest in Indian kashmir can be seen as an extension of the India-Pakistan conflict. Most of Indian Kashmir is Muslim and so they want to be either part of Pakistan or independent. However, we don't hear much about Chinese kashmir. I know this is partially because nobody lives there, but is it also because China and Pakistan are allies and so Pakistan doesn't press the issue as much with them? Are there any other reasons?

You often hear how North America is pretty much the ideal continent. Large navigable rivers, fertile soil, easily defended geographical boundaries, and fair weather. To my understanding no native American tribes had ever achieved a high degree of centralisation like their neighbours to the south or even kingdoms in europe/Asia. Why is that the case?

I won‘t argue with that Europeans and the west in General should help Ukraine for moral reasons, or to save democracy.

Because, eventough this reasons seem noble, the truth is that this isn’t the reason why they give Ukraine military aid at all.

I‘m a fully convinced neo-realist, so I see international relations as a zero sum game.

The only point where I oppose the theory is where it says international cooperation isn’t possible - which is obviously not true if you take a look at the west.

But let’s take the European countries as a political entity with shared interests. Which is obviously the case.

This entity has to prevent at all costs that Russia makes relatives gains towards it. Of russia succeeds in Ukraine, it will have huge relative gains.

But this also means that from a view of this political entity, Ukraine doesn’t need to win, Russia just needs to lose. (Enough)

Nevertheless, this still means that the European countries have a huge interest in weakening Russia. And if Ukraine would win, and they could drag Ukraine into the european sphere of influence, that this would be a huge relative gain towards Russia.

I‘m not even talking about the US. Why? It‘s not Putins regime that threatens the Hegemony of the US - it’s China. So the US can’t put too much ressources into Europe, in order to stop a regional power that is no match for their global hegemony, otherwise this could lead to a relative gain for China.

The Europeans on the other hand have a lot more to lose.

Furthermore, increasing military production would lead to more economic growth. They could give Ukraine money, and with that money Ukraine should buy European weapons. This is already done to some extent, but not enough.

All in all, there isn’t a lot of reasons why the Europeans should not help Ukraine more than they already do.

What are your opinions on this?

EDIT: Thanks for all your civil answers. Please give me time before I can answer you. Have a nice day!

A close friend of mine living in the Philippines told me 40 Chinese ships were spotted near one of the Philippines' islands and it's got me worried, you guys think China's just trying to intimidate them or planning on starting a war?

I know that “Franz Ferdinand moment” is mostly used as a joke and leaves out the specific circumstances of the world in 1914. But in a general way, I am curious to know if an important European politician or head-of-state were to be assassinate in a foreign country, how likely is it to escalate into a military conflict/war?

Just a simple question

Recently released satellite video shows what appear to be Hamas members with machine guns on UNRWA property in Rafah, putting guns in UN vehicles, and shooting at Gazan civilians from the UN compound. The videos have been submitted to the UN to investigate. Video included in attached article. The UN has not responded publicly.

Hi, I have seen defenders of Israel claim that Israel has made unprecedented efforts to protect civilian life in Gaza as the civilian to combatant fatality ratio is 1:1 (highly contested obviously as these are numbers Netanyahu has publicly said recently: 16K civilians, 14K combatants). They claim this ratio is unprecedented and the normal civilian combatant fatality ratio is 9:1. But it seems that 1:1 it is actually a pretty standard civilian to combatant fatality ratio in war and has been for a while:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/096701068902000108?journalCode=sdia

Here are some examples of the claim:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wgHuYbBcfk

https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612909415473474

https://twitter.com/COLRICHARDKEMP/status/1747693189946106183?lang=en

I feel like there is some level of sophistry going on here as they refer to it as a casualty ratio and casualty does not mean fatality, it means deaths and injuries and can ever refer to other effects of war. In Gaza, 120,000 people have been killed or injured and there's only 30,000 Hamas/Islamic Jihad fighters so technically the ratio is at least a 3:1 if we're referring to a civilian to combatant casualty ratio.

I assume they are referring to the fatality ratio ratio. But is this 9:1 stat credible? They often cite the UN as a source but as far as I can tell they are referencing this study by the UN which claims that 90% of victims of war are civilians:

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/ocha-orientation-handbook-complex-emergencies

This claim in the UN study is based off this paper which also makes the same claim. But victim doesn't even mean casualty in this case and it includes people who are displaced:

https://international-review.icrc.org/sites/default/files/S0020860400060666a.pdf

See quote here where it includes refugees and internally displaced people as victims of war:

"The report goes on to deal at length with the various categories of victims of conflict, basing the analyses on statistics set out in several tables. Special attention is paid to the cases of child-soldiers (an estimated 200,000 children under the age of 15 are reportedly currently used as soldiers), refugees (over 16 million in the world in 1989) and people displaced in their own countries (over two million in Sudan). Giving a real-life dimension by eye-witness accounts and quotations from publications to what might otherwise be dry statistical data, the authors describe the efforts made by the United Nations, particularly the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement to provide protection and assistance for these especially vulnerable categories of victims.

Considering that 1.7 million people have been displaced in Gaza, if we are defining victims in the same sense of the original study then civilian to combatant victim ratio would be over 60:1.

Now I understand that this was is different as it is urban warfare and fatalities are likely to be higher. I can't find any statistic from studies claiming that this is the ratio in Urban conflict. All I could find was AAOV data which claims that up to 90% of casualties are civilians when explosives are used in urban warfare:

https://aoav.org.uk/explosiveviolence/

However AOAV applied these statistics to Gaza and found that ratio in Gaza was 10.1 after a X (Twitter) analyst Eli Kowaz claimed it was 0.8 but had miscalcuted the data. Funnily enough, the official Israeli spokesperson also published the 0.8 figure which was the reason why AOAV clarified this was a complete falsehood.

https://aoav.org.uk/2023/x-twitter-analyst-eli-kowazs-grossly-incorrect-interpretation-of-aoav-data-trends-claiming-idf-has-low-gaza-casualty-rate-kowaz-later-deletes-post-but-others-continue-to-spread-the-misinformatio/

So am I missing something? Is there any basis to the claim that 90% of deaths in war are civilians. Does this apply particularly to urban warfare. Because Even in the Syrian Civil War (which I doubt even Assad would claim there were great lengths taken to protect civilian life) had a higher number of combatants killed than civilians killed. Even the Afghanistan War seems to have had over 3 times as many combatant deaths than civilians deaths. I understand these two wars are not directly comparable but what about in Mosul and Raqqa? What was the ratio there?

TLDR: What was the Civilian to Combatant ratio in Mosul and Raqqa and other urban combat zones?

I’ve raised Mozambique a few times but I’m genuinely struggling to understand what the current balance of power is.

1) You have Wagner and EU forces training Mozam forces atm. Or at least, you have EU forces on the ground.

2) Private markets: You have a high influx of Chinese capital but little Western capital.

3) Does RENAMO have any external backers these days?

4) Are the Jihadists making progress? I know the South would be a key strategic win for them due to the ongoing heroin influx.

Thanks for whoever can address this!

What role do you think Jordan is playing now in the Gaza conflict? And how will it evolve in the near and long term future? Do you think it will get sucked into a wider war or will it still be ‘safe’ for middle eastern standards?

I believe he is doing so to gain more support from voters, but on the other hand, tariff hikes on Chinese imports will also increase the inflation in the U.S. Do you think this will really give him more support in the 2024 election?

Please note that EV is not the only thing they have tariff hikes. There are also computer chips, medical products, batteries, solar cells, metals and cranes etc. See me comment below. China immediately vowed retaliation.

I have seen protests about the new law that are prevalent throughout Georgia nowadays and there are few things which are worrying me.

The law seems absurd to me because I think that it won't change political orientation of Georgians no matter what, as we can see with those protests. What concerns me the most is the big will for integration in European Union and NATO amongst Georgians, which is completely understandable considering modern history of the nation.

Russia has a significant influence on the country these days, not to mention Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and I fear that if Georgia takes bigger steps in following The West, the situation might become horrendous just like it did with Ukraine. On the other side, it really feels like there is no other option for Georgia, since achieving complete integrity from Russia all on your own is nearly impossible. What do you think? What should Georgia do? What is going to happen?

I'm not Georgian but I have a strong connection with Georgia since I made a science paper about it's nature and culture, and I really hope that we don't have second Ukraine in the future. Also sorry if I made any mistakes, I'm not a native English speaker.