Ukraine balks at signing Trump deal to hand over its mineral wealth

That’s a fair analogy, but even the tributary system had a veneer of mutual benefit—imperial China at least pretended to offer cultural or economic exchange. This? It’s pure extraction with none of the pretense.

The modern empire doesn’t bother with subtlety; it just calls the theft “aid” and expects applause. At least the tributary states got to keep their sovereignty on paper. Here, sovereignty is collateral damage in the race for resources.

What we’re witnessing isn’t just imperialism; it’s a corporate feudalism where nations are reduced to resource farms for the highest bidder. The tributary system had rituals; this has press releases.

China usually gave gifts back to those states which was much more valuable than the tribute itself. Koreans were famously abusing it by sending tribute multiple times a year. China had to put a limit on them because it became a problem.

He operates under the assumption that audacity equals strategy, as if shouting demands into the void will make them manifest. The "Mexico will pay for it" fiasco was the prototype: a hollow threat wrapped in nationalist theater. It's not about anyone laying down; it's about how long they can keep up the charade before the cracks show.

The real tragedy is that these tactics aren't even subtle. It's all brute force masquerading as diplomacy, a sledgehammer where a scalpel is needed. People see through it, but the machine churns on, feeding on apathy and short memories. The question isn't whether anyone lays down—it's whether anyone stands up long enough to matter.

If you're being reductive to the point where you're ignoring the importance of sovereignty and democracy, then it's fair game to reduce communism to being just about some college kids that think Che Guevara T-Shirts look cool.

They deliberately target schools and hospitals, so take that as you will

Only because Russia is failing to do what they've really wanted to do since the beginning, or did you forget Bucha.

They're still stealing children by the thousands though.

For now

Of course it's always difficult counting the dead, and Russia doesn't allow any monitoring of this kind of thing in the territory it controls. But it's likely the number of civilian deaths is around double that of Gaza. The numbers for the military is likely more than double that.

Ukraine does it's best to protect it's civilian population and their soldiers wear uniforms. Hamas does not wear uniforms, and actively prevents civilians from evacuating from areas where there's combat operations. In fact having combat operations happening in populated areas was basically the point of massacring villages while taking hostages, both of which are war crimes. If you want to negotiate a prisoner release you don't massacre villages, if you want a war that minimizes civilian casualties, you don't take hostages to densely populated areas.

Hamas created a scenario to maximize civilian deaths, and it will probably never be known the true number of civilian deaths since they didn't wear uniforms so the number of Hamas dead and number of civilian deaths can't be distinguished. Israel claims half the number you see reported are Hamas, while Hamas claims it's much less.

Note the difference between a military that protects it's civilians and wears uniforms and what Hamas is doing. Larger numbers of soldiers than civilians die in Ukraine because they prioritize protecting civilians, while larger numbers of civilians than soldiers die in Gaza as fodder for their propaganda machine.

Note that Hamas is suddenly wearing uniforms as soon as a ceasefire is in effect. How often do you remember seeing them wear uniforms in combat when doing so would prevent civilian casualties? They have uniforms, they just don't wear them in combat in order to maximize confusion which results in civilian casualties.

The biggest deposit is currently sitting in the White House.

The US promised they would not invade Ukraine, but they never promised they would protect Ukraine.

The US only does things selfishly, so yeah. Though Russia really doesn’t have it better.

Something like this is why I put an if in "if the US ever has another election".

you seem not to understand that the reason zelensky is turning down the deal is in part BECAUSE of the lack of security guarantees... can't even keep the narrative straight in your head

go on and explain why.

lazy, trite, tired... you are the kind of person who offers nothing to any conversation. its your business for you to commit to being wrong and play to the bots and brainwashed dimwits.. you're everything you pretend to hate about your political counterparts in america.