It’s sad but my father always told me that the good times we’ve had are unprecedented and they can end faster than we think.
I never believed him growing up, institutions and America seemed infallible. It’s sad to say but I think with global warming, covid, and the general decline of American soft power we’ll see more and more global turmoil
Is this any different than any other military intervention America watched idly over the past century? Not really. In the "infallible" 1970s-1990s you might be remembering, we were casually ignoring plenty of similar actions around the world that make this present intervention seem pretty benign and slow moving. American soft power was over when the failure of the Korean war made it clear that all that could be done against a major nuclear power is a stalemate.
Right, just "separatists" who happened to start fighting to expand Putin's empire and give him the region that supplies Russia's military with raw materials. From 2014,
> Nevertheless, following its actions in Crimea, there is justified concern that Russia could now aim to annex eastern Ukraine. Unlike on the Crimean peninsula, there is not a large majority here who feel like they belong to Russia - and only about a quarter of the population of the east overall are ethnic Russians.
There's only been one president in recent times to complain openly about NATO and America's participation in it. Why start a conflict when that one president might give you exactly what you want without a single shot fired.
I'm not a Trump fan at all, but one of his major complaints was that Europe isn't allocating enough money to defence. Which is quite a reasonable thing to demand.
Primary responsibility to defend Europe should lie with Europe. The ability to defend oneself is just as important as climate. One has wide public support, the other is taken for granted (thanks to Nato).
I believe that was a goal for a future date that has not yet arrived. Trump complained about it, but it wasn't due yet and was going to happen anyway. So it can look like he made it happen. He's full of cons.
The 2% commitment was originally agreed to in 2006. After member nations continued to fail to spend enough, in 2014 it was a set as a goal to increase towards that goal year over year until 2024:
The reason why the EU can afford social programs is because the USA and NATO provide them with military defense so it doesn't come out of their military budgets. After Ukraine gets invaded they might want to build up their military again.
Welcome to World War 3. watch the FOSSIL fuel prices, ouch!
The war is over Ukrainian NATO membership. If NATO membership was off the table, or if Biden was strong and had the conviction to defend Ukraine there would be no war.
Instead he entertained Ukrainian NATO membership and tried to fend Putin off with finger wagging.
I don't think its at all reasonable to suppose that the US simply saying they would oppose Ukraine joining NATO would have in any universe enough to avert war when merely preventing the expansion of NATO can seemingly be obtained far easier with their influence on NATO members who must be unanimous to induct a new member.
That is to say they have every reason to believe that they could without invasion keep Ukraine out of NATO for the foreseeable future so the invasion isn't about that issue.
> I don't think its at all reasonable to suppose that the US simply saying they would oppose Ukraine joining NATO would have in any universe enough to avert war
No, of course not. What NATO should have done was to accept Ukraine as a member. Anybody think Putin would invade a country that can refer to §5?
Trump forced the hand of unwilling NATO countries to spend their 2% for their defense budget. How is this against the alliance? I would say it's the opposite.
And, the quote is onjectively bs. Hard times create hardened people who create hard time for others. And suffering.Good times are created by people who care and have right values.
The hard times in Ukraine now won't make anyone better. Men in west won't be inferior for not going through it.
> And, the quote is onjectively bs. Hard times create hardened people who create hard time for others. And suffering.Good times are created by people who care and have right values.
And then you go on to express a not-so-objective viewpoint? OP is stating an idiom, a saying, a phrase. Let it be. There is nothing objective about it.
OP is stating ideology and an worldview. The one that is seems more and more wrong, the more you read about history. Generations that grew in hard times have more issues and those go away only slowly.
People regularly use this one as argument or to imply inferiority of those they look down at. Therefore, it is 100% alright to not that idiom stand.
We were in a comfy peaceful era and yet we saw rise of extremism, neo nazis in germany, in the US even. Good times allow for forgetting the extent of what reality can be and then people start to have weird ideas when small problems come, only to react in shallow reflexes like nationalism, and war.
I may be dumb but I assumed people who saw wars just didn't want any of that anymore and would actually know what 'right value' means, not just school books or worse .. network propaganda.
Now sure, it can all be twisted, people can be brainwashed during and after war, there can be bad wounds for long too.
> I may be dumb but I assumed people who saw wars just didn't want any of that anymore and would actually know what 'right value' means, not just school books or worse .. network propaganda.
Yes. I too recall the many decades of peace after WWI. And the great leaders that arose in Europe after that conflict.
It’s used as a common far-right/neo-fascist dog whistle, and to justify their ideology and actions. It’s vaguely based on the idea of cyclical history (which is of course not true), as presented by Oswald Spengler and others during the 20th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West
I seriously think declaring something "far-right dog whistle" is a leftist dog whistle, signaling good progressives should oppose that something. After saying this, usually no serious arguments are given. Because they are not needed after declaring an idea the enemy.
Cycles in history is of course not "of course not true". in any complex system, there are oscillations. Most famous is economical boom and boost cycle.
Meme is not without merit. The reason we are able to discuss things like gender/race equity in marine corps promotions is precisely because these are good times. And this lack of focus may lead to bad times eventually.
Cyclical history as theorized by Spengler and other is a fringe type of historical analysis rejected by historians. And it is actively used as a neo-fascist dog-whistle. That’s not a way to show my moral superiority, it’s what they do.
I agree that it's sort of a fashy dog whistle, but the concept of cyclic history did not originate with Spengler. This was probably the dominant view of the nature of time and history up until at least the last thousand years, maybe later.
I don't think you should be downvoted for saying what you said, but I feel that you missed the point my comment was trying to make.
My point is: the dog whistle/modern meme is basically a reference to Spengler and others, because their ideologies align relatively well with the patchwork of neo-fascist ideas. That's what they hint to and promote. That's why I explicitly mentioned Spengler and the 20th century. Lot of other people developed some form of a cyclical history but that's not really relevant here.
Cyclical history isn't false. Population boom/bust cycles exist in humans just like they do in every other animal. Humans reach the carrying capacity of their environment and then reach out via war for more resources.
Ascribing any fixed time scale to the cycle is going to be fallacious as it depends on environmental factors.
"Cyclical history" as theorized by Spengler and others during the 20th century is a whole set of bullshit. That's what my comments are explicitly about, I don't understand how people can miss this.
“Naturally, because this is me, the case study will be (trumpets blaring) Rome, which fought a lot of poorer, less settled peoples and is frequently used as the example of wealthy, ‘civilized’ and ‘decadent’ military failure. I’ve opted to pick these two sets of examples to start out because these periods – classical antiquity and pre-history – ought to be the periods where our Fremen perform the best, as the technological and industrial gap between them and their richer ‘civilized’ opponents is the smallest – in some cases, practically non-existent.”
Comparing Rome to its enemies in this way as if “the toughness of the people” is THE variable that determined success, compared to say, coordinated mobility-based warfare tactics, is a stretch at best.
I actually read most of this, but i think it only debunks a strawman.
From my reading of history, the typical pattern is:
- Some set of tribes exist on the fringe of civilization (if one already existed). They have access to the bare minimum resources for survival. These are not strong men, yet, but relatively weak savages, probably not even worth conquering by the civilization closeby. What they do have, is an every-day reminder to stay efficient in what they do, so they don't starve to death.
- After a while, one or a few of these tribes grow in competency and competitively useful cultural values. (Often, but not necessarily military.) They start trading with the nearby civilization, and learn from them, but maintain their focus on what is essential for survivial. Also, during this phase, this population is still facing survival pressures, often military ones. Gradually, these people become "strong", meaning they have competencies and a culture that makes it increasingly effortless to survive and prosper. Much of this comes from becoming cultured in ways that increase productivity or martial prowess.
- Only at this stage, when survival is no longer a concern (and especially if all competetion has been eliminated), does the weakening stage start. Gradually cultural values seep in that reduce productivity/efficiency of the population. Meanwhile, essential survival skills fade to the background and are forgotten. Still, during most of this phase, this more civilized population has economic advantages and perhaps access to specialists that allow them to fend off nearby populations, often for centuries.
- Eventually, though, some event (or series of events) occur that bring a shock to the sturcture of this civilization. Maybe a few bad harvests, maybe some barbarian invation, maybe a plague. At this point, the civilization has become brittle, and shatters easily.
I'm pretty sure I see this pattern repeat itself for the Greek, Roman, Muslim Caliphate, Ottoman and many Chinese civilizations. Then there are some cases that doesn't really go through all the stages. For instance, Mongols, Huns, Goths and some others spread themselves too thin to really build their own civilization, so they inherited whatever civilizations (including their corruption) they conquerd. Similarly, Europe form about 1000AD to the end of WW2 was always in a state of countries competing against each other, so they were constantly facing survival pressures that kept most of them from becoming _too_ corrupt.
It is originally a thesis from works of Ibn Khaldun, 14th century Muslim scholar from Tunisia who is considered a father of sociology and athropology..
Ibn Khalodoun had described a cycle of four generations of rulers and his theory echoes in Fourth Turning theory nowadays.
Well we certainly have a surplus of weak men. We’ve been hard at work creating them here in the West. I don’t suppose anyone who requires a safe space or trigger warnings is going to volunteer to defend the moral high ground they love so much.
We (the west) are not what we once were. I’m so sorry Ukraine.
What an ignorant and unempathetic take. The West is evolving in the right direction and we should be doing everything we can to recognize more of the human condition (intersectionality, gender identity, institutional racism, etc).
Dismissing those efforts because of a vocal few or because it's people you don't like is a disservice to those actually struggling.
Recent times were largely the result of an unusually unipolar (read: US) world after the USSR collapsed.
In more normal bi- or multi- polar periods (50s - 90s), international order often submitted to great power politics. What was right or legal was less important than who wanted what.
I'd argue the good times were a result of the massive transfer of wealth from the wealthy to the middle classes that was caused by the two world wars. Since the neoliberal shift of politics in Western powers in the 70s, we have been on a slow return back to the crazy levels of inequality that rival any of those ever seen prior to 20th century. We are now reaping what was sown by the Thatcher/Reagan privatisation and financialisation of everything in the economy. Takes a while for the effects to really kick in but I think much of the geopolitical dynamics we are seeing can be traced back to this.
putin is not entirely to be blamed for the decline, but the signs of covert manipulations is all there. The very election of trump, and his poor foreign policies, are all smoking guns.
American institutions have only themselves to blame for the decline. People like Putin are taking advantage of the weakness but American politicians could behave more reasonably anytime but instead they are consciously choosing to make it worse. It’s all home made by the “greatest country in the world”. No need to blame anybody else.
When I came to the US in 2000 I already saw how insane US politics was. Political ads had no connection to any kind of reality and were basically purely attack and distortion. And since then it got only worse.
I'm sure some people are mistaken and think Trump himself is anti-vaccine, but most people (that I am aware of) that put some measure of responsibility on him do so not because of his specific stance on it, but for his part in the flywheel that created the current political climate.
He has been closely in bed with the sections of media that have pushed the narrative, generally celebrated paranoia towards experts, and consistently pushed the idea that you can't trust the government. If you lose control of the bolder you helped push onto the slope, it doesn't mean that you don't have responsibility in pushing it to begin with.
He has given credence to the vaccine-autism link early in the 2016 debates and in tweets.
He was also instrumental in pushing early treatments that didn't pan out as hoped. These often became the subject of conspiracy theories about a whole slew of medical professionals avoiding real treatment, and the pandemic being some authoritarian plot. Trump was there sowing doubt in medical professionals. He may have encouraged vaccination itself, but his actions on the whole produced distrust so that there is a pronounced deficit of vaccination in his electorate.
Trump just sang Putin's praises for all the world to hear, and trashed Biden in the same breath. The Republican party has shown time and time again that loyalty to Trump outweighs yesterday's strongly held convictions. Loyalty to Trump has replaced loyalty to the nation in many Republican hearts -- pols and voters alike. Whatever poll you got that 5% number from, it's outdated in light of Trump's latest opinions.
He didn't sing Putin's praises, he pointed out that Putin's methods are, to quote, "savvy". War is confusing and Trump may turn out to be wrong but so far Russia seems to have come up with a plan then executed the plan. While facing no organised opposition. It does look like a well organised operation.
In short, it is entirely possible that Trump is correct. The political discourse can't keep shutting down in emergencies, there are too many emergencies these days for that to be an option. People have to talk calmly about what they think is happening.
Have you not been paying attention to how Trump talks about tyrants? His love letters with Kim Jong Un? Endorsements of Viktor Orban and Bolsonaro? He's a "big fan" of Erdogan? For years now, he's been positively gushing about how much he admires Putin. He tried his damnedest to pull a coup last year, because he wants to join the league of tyrannical dictators. And sure, he badmouthed Biden and insisted that things would be different if he was at the helm, but has he ever shown real opposition to any actions of Putin? Or did he deliberately soften eastern Europe's defensive stance against Russia when he pulled American troops out of Germany?
He pulled troops from Germany (which is not the front anymore) and put troops in Poland and other eastern countries. How is this a move to help Putin? He moved troops on the front and started more bases.
Exercises and bases in all Eastern Europe intensified under Trump.
He likes to talk nicely about people that he's going to strike. Like he always says he likes Xi, but then start a trade war anyway.
He blocked NS2, Biden opened it in his first week in office.
If Trump was so weak toward Putin, Putin would have invaded with Trump in the White House...but Putin invaded with Biden there(and previously woth Obama). Makes you think, doesn't it?
I'm more of an optimist. I think Putin just proved the need for Nato and how dangerous he is. Trumps support of him might be the thing that brings down Trumpism.
> the general decline of American soft power we’ll see more and more global turmoil
I have argued, tons, that America is making the world more peaceful. It was hard to sell especially to Arab/Muslim countries but without a unipolar power, it's lots of small powers fighting each other for territory.
> institutions and America seemed infallible
Couple that with recklessness. Fatca, CRS, Trade deals, etc... lots of countries got screwed bad and treatment from the masters was as bad and discriminatory as it can get. If people sympathies with Putin, you are doing something wrong.
I wonder how you can believe that knowing all the coups organized by CIA, wars waged by US military everywhere in the world, countries US split in two or more ...etc. it was only safe for USA and its allies. Only difference is war is getting close to western Europe so it's felt more
Sure. There was chaos perpetrated by the Americans. On the other hand, most countries remained peaceful as a result of the American hegemony. The country I live in and its neighbors will go to war immediately if there was no UN/USA. Now think about the rest of the world. Every country will want a piece of its neighbor and there you have it: Total world chaos.
When you compare it to the world before an engaged America (so early 20th century), it was worse. Quite a bit worse. Instead of the US causing regime change, you had European countries conquering and annexing most of the world.
Peace for who? that's the question. No one denies it brought peace to the west.
The reason developing nations want a multipolar world is to have room to manoeuvre and develop themselves, to be able to bargain with multiple powers, there is not much bargain in a unipolar world, when the USA does not want you to get too big, or your interest conflicts with theirs you're fucked.
USA (and the west) has learned that colonialism with a foreign army does not work efficiently, so they colonize countries by choosing who gets elected or performing coups and putting people that serve that interests even on the detriment of their nation.
African nations make a good example for countries that are officially independent but have no sovereignty whatsoever.
It's a monopoly of power, what's worse is it thinks it's interests are what defines good and bad.
You don’t understand, they are “nazi” because they are nationalists and support their country. So Russian nazis are going to attack Ukrainian nazis do “denazificate” them.
Azov battalion is full-on white nationalist neo nazi and they’re a large and legitimate player in this war. And they’ve been wiped off the map tonight. I guess it depends on your definition of a made up word but I’d certainly call it denazification.
NATO (the US) is funding Nazi nationalists that wear swastika tattoos and think Bandera was good. They are doing this because Ukrainians don't want a civil war, so it's hard to find people to fight and die. Therefore, we pick the moderate rebels as we are so fond of doing.
I just learned about the Azov battalion about 15 minutes ago, but I can't find any sources online that indicate them having more than a few hundred volunteers.
The US has a knack of dumping weapons on countries and having those weapons eventually end up in the hands of reactionaries, but I think at present those reactionaries make up a vanishingly small fraction of the weapons recipients.
I can't claim to be intimately familiar with Ukraine, but based on the US's history of funding the most violent psychopaths imaginable, I really doubt it's an accident.
I will also note that in the past, several elements of NATO's high command were former Nazi generals, so I really doubt there's a ton of angst about it internally.
Absent any evidence that NATO arms were specifically directed towards neo-Nazi groups (and not just groups affiliated with Ukraine's national police, which Azov unfortunately seems to be), I think there's nothing to support anything except it being an accident.
And again, this is from someone who exercises extraordinary skepticism in the context of US international action.
Azov was folded into the military proper as a precondition of securing western military aid, as the Ukrainian government needed to be able to show proper chain of command to get help and Azov wanted the shells, so they came to an agreement to integrate.
But these hardcore Azov guys are anarchists by nature and a lot of them hate the Ukrainian government as much as they hate the separatists, so they still act independently without having to answer to the government. Some did eventually just merge into the military.
Putting a number on the size today of Azov is difficult because of how the two melded together. Some people joined Azov because they just wanted to help fight and didn’t care about the neo nazi stuff. Some are true believers. But one thing for certain is that it’s not some fringe group that exists on Wikipedia only.
> Putting a number on the size today of Azov is difficult because of how the two melded together. Some people joined Azov because they just wanted to help fight and didn’t care about the neo nazi stuff. Some are true believers. But one thing for certain is that it’s not some fringe group that exists on Wikipedia only.
This might be true, but it's not evidenced by the video. The video documents two independent groups, one of whom (the first) look like they might belong to Azov. I counted 7 people at the most.
OTOH, it's clear (from the end of the video) that there are protests in Kiev itself with reactionary (or at least hypernationalist) themes. It's not clear to me where the line is on those, probably because I'm not Ukrainian. But those protestors are in the capital.
In sum, it's not clear to me that we should discount NATO's current arms distribution because one of two groups in a video from 2019 has far-right members, members who cut a deal with the overarching military chain of command to secure arms for the broader military.
That's been the narrative since the beginning, except for the big long stretch of Putin’s recent speech where he blamed the problem on the USSR, and Lenin and Stalin specifically, for existence of Ukraine as a modern polity occupying land that, in Putin’s view, is rightfully Russian.
The propaganda is a rescue operation not no invasion at all: I've already seen "Russian operation to protect people from Kiev regime" headline on an Indian news site.
Do not forget the "useful idiots' who will whitewash anything the enemies of the west do just because they align with their ideology better than the free world does.
My response to that is the same as it has historically been. We don't need a wall to keep our people in. If you wish to go to North Korea, you are free to do so.
Fair warning though, it doesn't work the same way in reverse.
Please don't take HN threads further into hellish flamewar. This is the last thing we need here, and with comments like this one, what chance is there to avoid it?
I just woke up to this news and I'm wondering if it's possible for Apple and Google to brick all Russian phones? This would probably be more effective on their population at large than any form of sanctions.
Kapersky? If it's running Kapersky it's not running anything that critical. The cyberwarfare capabilities of the US, EU and allies are not to be underestimated, even if they have used more precisely and conservatively than Russia's sphere.
Both Apple and Google offer remote wiping of devices as features, and they both have root access on all of their devices. They can do whatever they want to on anyone's phone.
As history shows again and again, attacks against the civilian population only serve to strenghten the support for the local tyrant. This would be just as counter-effective as the sanctions.
OTOH, why does china even allow Apple or Google devices today? Because Chinese people want to purchase these products and at this point there would be pushback if they were suddenly banned.
China doesn't allow Google devices today, Android the open source operating system is allowed but the Google services that make up Google devices are not. China allows Apple devices because Apple collaborates with the CCP, as do all businesses who operate in China.
Again why does china even bother to play ball with Apple? They could just have Xiaomi phones, not worry about apple holding up their own end of their bargain, and ensure they have total control entirely. The answer is because the Chinese consumer today might want to purchase an apple iphone over a xiaomi phone, and it would be unpopular for the regime to crack down on a freedom seen as established in the Chinese nation today.
Just like it would have been unpopular for the regime to ban the most popular search and services company in the world?
I don't know why you think China needs to worry about Apple, Apple has been a faithful and lucrative partner to them. They don't just faithfully collaborate on censorship and cede control of encrypted Chinese iCloud data directly to a state-owned cloud provider, we now know that Apple has signed a $275B omnibus deal with China that includes Chinese startup investments, Chinese worker training, and R&D collaboration with Chinese tech firms. There is no government that Apple invests more into or collaborates more closely with than China's.
Why not just have Xiaomi phones where you have total control? Well, because you can have that and total control over a global tech giant that pours foreign money and technology into your regime. Why not have both?
> Russian tanks and artillery don't use the Google Play Store.
But the wives and children of those who move them do. People in the West don't seem to notice a crucial aspect of modern Russia: extended families of those in charge live in the West. They study in Stanford and Harvard, mingle in Aspen, have holiday homes in the Hamptons. Russia is merely a piggy bank to finance that lifestyle. They are at the mercy of Western governments, because they've turned Russia into a stagnating shithole that even at its best is far below the upper-middle class standard in the West. Without access to Western resources, from mansions in Knightsbridge to accounts on Instagram, all that looted money becomes worthless.
All you need to do is let them sleep in the bed they've made. Freeze bank accounts, confiscate property, deny visas. Make them live that global jet-set lifestyle in Rostov oblast.
Congratulations! You bring an idea to brick all Russian phones including phones of opposition, people who against the war, political prisoners, and other people who just live in the country.
I don't fault OP for brainstorming ideas, especially since I assume its done with the intent of finding ways to protect civilians, but you point out what is critical here: the west cannot give up on the Russian people. By-and-large they do not support this act of war and the best way to further our interests is to continue to foster a desire for change in them.
If the war is seen as something distant that has no impact at all on the average Russian's life will they actually care about it or will they just ignore it?
To be clear I don't wish anything bad for the general Russian population, among which I have many friends, let alone Putin's opposition. And this may not be the best strategic idea, but it's a possible one that fits the theme of this community - so I think the snarkiness is uncalled for.
Yeah, idk if it would end the conflict exactly. But making more of the citizens there mad about it could help. Let's cut their cable feeds and internet services. I know they have some of their own, but imagine not being able to Google stuff.
Even if it's possible, for Apple, it would be an utterly disastrous thing to do. Imagine the damage to its reputation. If they were to do it in this situation, the argument would go, what about other situations? What about all the phones they sell in China, for example. Are there circumstances where they should brick all US Democrat or Republican phones? It would be the end of Apple, and that's why it would (hopefully, thankfully) never happen.
Parent wasn’t making a slippery slope argument FWIW. They were making a PR argument based on the propensity of the general public to fall for slippery slope arguments.
if only the tank's control system ran on ios/android ..jokes aside, doing such a thing would actually galvanize the russian civilian population to support the government.
They can, but they will not. If they have any direct dealings with the Russian government then they should probably stop (which they probably already have to due to sanctions), but otherwise it's best for large corporations to stay out of geopolitics.
What you are suggesting will backfire. IDK why people have such cynical thoughts to make people's life more difficult. Many Russian don't support Putin, so why even try to punish them?
Two US-owned companies remotely accessing peoples' mobile Internet devicces/cameras/personal document storage and disabling them throughout a country that just went to war?
How does that possibly sound in any way like a good idea?
Targeting the population at large only even has the potential to have an effect in a democracy (and even then it seems plausible it would only create a stronger national sense of an external enemy). I don't understand what you want to accomplish by hurting innocent russians. The strategy so far seems to be to target the economy and ogliarchs, which actually has an effect on decision makers.
Basically all companies should seize any economic activity in Russia and with Russia. And all of the properties of Russian companies should be nationalized by respective countries and all Russian citizens involved in ownership of those should have their visas revoked and be deported.
Any reclamation or reversals should be only made possible after last Russian soldier leave Ukraine.
I've worked at tech companies that despise helping the US military. Please understand that the world is complex and although all superpowers have done terrible things, helping the US is the only way our children will live in a peaceful world. This isn't about democrats or republicans, the future of humanity will be decided in the next decade.
Nuclear proliferation, like it or not, has done more for global peace than US military/trade hegemony. Ukraine gave up all its nukes in the 90s which is why this is happening now.
Seems like an exageration. Do you think any country armed with nukes is dominating people as much as British empire, Romans, Mongols did? The fact that Russia (or China with Taiwan and Hong Kong) actually has to fight so hard for one country kind of shows they can't dominate whoever they want.
This reminds me very much of the slow motion train wreck leading into WWII. Germany had to fight hard in the same kind of political way back then, too. That was obviously pre-nuke. It takes a long time to build the many (logistical, psychological, political) facets required to lead your country down this path. With or without nukes.
To answer your question, yes. A country with nukes is dominating people as much as the British empire, Romans, and Mongols did? How is that even a serious question? With military forces spread through Korea, Japan, Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Poland, Lithuania, Arizona, Alaska, Dominican Republic, Cuba, you name it. From sea to shining sea, then another sea and another sea.
It's funny, or maybe sad, how so many people did not see this coming. All the propaganda and social engineering to get Biden associated with Ukraine so that when he tried to throw his hat in the ring, his own country will be alarmed.
Going to end up looking like a fucking 9000 IQ play by Russia here, but hopefully the world proves me wrong.
The US would not retaliate militarily if Russia used nuclear weapons against Ukraine. That is not part of US nuclear doctrine. Ukraine is not a treaty ally.
There are 6 things on the list. This one is the closest to promising to defend Ukraine:
>Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
I don't know exactly what "Seek immediate Security Council action" means. What if the US seeks it and doesn't find it? Is that in compliance with the memorandum?
While that is technically correct based on the UN Charter, it's meaningless in practice. None of the permanent Security Council members are willing to take direct action on this issue.
# 1 Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.
#2 Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Both violated in the Krimean annexion 2014. Since Russia could easily violate this treaty, they could easily invade Ukraine now. And they got no weapons from signatories, only a few from the Baltics.
Treaties with these signatories are not worth the paper, otherwise Ukraine would have kept the nukes, and would have somehow got the codes also eventually.
The premise is not just that nukes are a deterrent against nuclear warfare, but also that nukes are a deterrent against conventional warfare. I'm not sure any country except israel is super explicit about this (cf Samson Option) but presumably the implicit or quietly explicit threat is there.
What I do see is a promise made by both the US and Russia to "[r]efrain from the threat or the use of force against [...] Ukraine." So Russia definitely broke the promise, and I don't see where the US broke it.
It does a lot for global peace right up until our extinction. We don't need thousands of nukes to maintain deterrence. We should reduce our nuclear stockpile to the smallest number that still maintains deterrence.
Of course. You would have to be insane to agree to denuclearize at this point; it's clear that this is the only strategy to avoid being steamrolled by US/Russia/China.
This is happening because the sanctions put in place on Russia during the Trump admin were undone haphazardly by Biden. Russia is moving strictly because it knows it has the EU by the short hairs on energy and after the afghanistan exit the US is in a very strategically weak position.
We should be grateful Ukraine does not have nukes. 12 hours ago the world might've gotten 4000C hotter if they did.
> in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Afghanistan again, Iraq, Syria, and others, one or more parties in the conflicts had nukes.
I don't care about the other parties in the conflict. Nukes stop you from getting invaded, not from invading. Afaik, none of these countries were nuclear when they got steamrolled.
The original argument was that nuclear proliferation has brought peace. Even if you argue that it has brought peace to countries that own nukes, you'd be wrong. Israel does not have peace. USA does not have peace. Russia does not have peace. Argentina tangled with the UK despite the UK's nukes. The Taliban has no fear of USA nukes.
I live in Montenegro. The country was part of Yugoslavia.
I spoke with a guy who fought that war. I asked him "do you think the war would have ended without American intervention?" and he responded "no, I don't think it would".
I wouldn't describe the country as a blooming economy, but it's peace here, for more than 20 years and counting.
I would argue the US needs to batten down the hatches and become more isolationist. Let Europe deal with European problems. It's clear from the last 70 years, since WW2, that the US meddling in others' affairs only leads to death, destruction and more negative sentiment against the US.
If LBJ stuck to his promise, we could have avoid a ton of mess in Vietnam: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."
We don't have a dog in this fight.
Edit: Apparently arguing for the US to not get involved in yet another foreign war warrants my comment being flagged.
Many have argued that it was US intervention in WWI that created the economic and political situations that allowed such a bad outcome to take place in WWII.
I'm talking about WWI here and the unintended consequences of US intervention there.
The US getting involved in WWI arguably extended that conflict, the action that made WWII possible, and had many drastic unintended consequences for humanity.
The very short version is this.
* During WWI, there were lots of peace overtures being pushed in Europe because a lot of people were sick of fighting. Because a lot of powerful people were hoping to drag the United States into that relative stalemate, these peace offerings were not taken as seriously as they otherwise would have been.
* Because the US's entrance tilted the scales at the end of WWI so dramatically, Allies were able to enact a little revenge in the Treaty of Versailles and impose punitive and humiliating economic and political measures. Rather than a normal, face-saving peace-treaty, Germany was punished harshly and this tilting of the scales is what led to conditions for the Nazis to take power.
* If Russia's economic and political attention wasn't directed externally at the time, it's likely the Russian Revolution would have failed and the world would have been spared a great deal of grief from Communism.
Obviously this is all alternative history speculation, but there's a strong case to be made that absolute US neutrality in WWI would have ended WWI sooner, not created the economic/social conditions that led to Nazis taking power in Germany, and Communists would have never taken root.
Russia is a openly currupt oligarchy dictator state and China runs slave camps and genocides. It seems to pretty much just be helping the US or the EU at this point. Honestly I would say EU over us in a ideal world, probably.
Give it 72 hours. The news cycle is leading the announcements tomorrow and the announcements that will inevitably come next week. If the news is already talking WW3 (and yes, they are) then it won't be long before the UN deploys it's own "peacekeeping forces" and the world goes hot.
I think right now in the west in general the appetite for getting hands-on in Ukraine is just not there.
As sad as it may be for Ukraine, they're going to have to do what they can to defend themselves with aid and supplies.
The one thought I have around this is Canada. Spitballing: There's a huge Ukrainian population there and the deputy PM has personal ties to the region. It's entirely possible, especially given recent events, that Trudeau decides it's politically expedient to get involved directly in some meaningful way. They'd also have to try to convince the other parties helping them maintain government. Even if that happens though, I suspect that won't make a difference to the outcome and the rest of NATO would look at it as a Canadian solo operation. I'd give this about a 0.001% chance of happening, maybe less. Any politician who got boots on the ground (barring some unforeseen change in circumstance) would probably be skewered public opinion-wise and be essentially kissing re-election goodbye.
> I think right now in the west in general the appetite for getting hands-on in Ukraine is just not there.
I hate to say it, but I agree. Germany sent Ukraine a few thousand hats to help them resist Russian aggression, for Christ's sake.
Western powers will drop a strongly worded letter in the mail and implement economic sanctions that'll do diddly squat to the Russian authorities, besides maybe push them into a closer alliance with China.
Honestly, the least they could have done is massed NATO troops in Poland, the Baltics, etc. and kept strategic ambiguity about whether they planned to actually use them (instead of explicitly announcing, like dumbasses, they weren't going to get involved in any way that would bother Putin).
> It's entirely possible, especially given recent events, that Trudeau decides it's politically expedient to get involved directly in some meaningful way....I'd give this about a 0.001% chance of happening, maybe less.
Definitely less. IMHO, if they were going to have to get involved, they would have needed to have been moving troops and equipment for quite some time. I don't think they've done that.
Wasn't that the intel estimate on how long it'd take Russia to take over? I saw Biden's statement that he was sending thoughts & prayers while he watched this and would talk it over with world leaders tomorrow. Since the last few rounds of sanctions did nothing after Crimea, I don't see this changing things.
The territory is relatively easy to overrun with speed - the defensible choke point is on the wrong side of Ukraine (for the Ukrainians). It is only occupation that can prove to be difficult, or even intractable.
It's been 1 day, they're already in Kyiv and discussing surrender. I don't know the future, but it looks like the rest of the world had their pants down on this one so far, which seems surprising given the repeated warnings something was going down.
By the time there is a real response, it's looking like this may be over. Given that their urgency was "I'll talk to world leaders about what to do tomorrow" rather than "let's enact the plan we already prepared during the weeks of warnings" I think we know which way things are headed.
Tangentially: Russian Federation and PRC never should have gotten the P5 seats. The USSR's P5 veto should require unanimous consent of former Soviet republics, and ROC's P5 veto should still be with ROC.
What you're witnessing right now are the deathroes of the dictatorships like Russia and China with its aging leaderships. These dictatorships know that their time is limited; the democratic countries are getting stronger and more united. China, the one dictatorship that is supporting all the other dictatorships like Russia or Iran, is going into the final stages of debt/demographic/economic collapse. This is a pivotal time for the citizens of the free world to fight against these dictatorships.
And you can help by asking your government to sanction China. And stop buying goods from China
Any abject suffering that occurs over the next hours, days, and weeks doesn't excuse the historical record of abject suffering imposed by the US military.
It's perfectly consistent to be opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and also reject the myth that the US's military is the only thing that maintains world peace.
> "abject suffering" And what about some of the most peaceful decades in human history? That means nothing, eh?
The US, in a brief moment of national clarify, participated in exactly two just wars in the last century. The outcome of one of those wars was the establishment of liberal democracies across Western Europe, which is indeed a tremendous stabilizing force. But it's not clear to me that the US gets to claim outsized credit for the subsequent years of peacemaking under those nations.
Us participated in Vietnam War too which would made it third War. In Korea War too, four. Plus, supported various guerrilas (taliban) and dictators materiály.
And that is me being lazy to lookup whether there were other conflicts.
Also because what Russia is doing right now is the same thing that US tried to do in the Bay of Pigs, settling a puppet government in a portion of a country then make it ask for help? That's CIA 101
Yeah but my point was that the declared invasion is happening due to the rebels that took over Donetsk and Lugansk asking for help from Putin to defend themselves from the ukrainian govt
That is a very naive take. It's abundantly clear that Kremlin orchestrated the rebel areas to "ask for help" so they have a pretext for the invasion. I mean that was so transparent that I honestly thought it was only meant for Russian local audiences and absolutely nobody would buy that in the West.
Yes, you're right, but it could be interesting to understand that for the living in order to prevent to be made dead by regular armed forces or intelligence in the future, in fact right now it's mostly the living that are trying to understand what happened/is happening
It's not a declared invasion. I've read headlines that said Russia had "declared war"; in the body of the article, it turns out that Russia has sent a "peacekeeping force" into Donbas. There's been no declaration of war. Russia has responded to requests for help from the rebel leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk.
I mean, there is a war; Russia has been bombing and rocketing Ukrainian military installations all over the country. But it's not a declared war.
And that's what's great about the western world, you can't have a maniac at the top moving 200k soldiers without congressional approval and discussion? That's why if I have to pick between a country like US that is intermittently maniac and a country like Putinstan where a maniac has to decide that million of people have to suffer in and out the borders, then I would always pick the US
> And that's what's great about the western world, you can't have a maniac at the top moving 200k soldiers without congressional approval and discussion?
I guess we're ignoring the 200k+ troops sent to Iraq w/o a declaration of war by Congress? I will agree with you on one point though...the President wasn't a maniac.
Excerpt:
"At 5:34 a.m. Baghdad time on 20 March 2003 (9:34 pm, 19 March EST) the surprise[130] military invasion of Iraq began.[131] There was no declaration of war.[132] The 2003 invasion of Iraq was led by US Army General Tommy Franks, under the code-name Operation Iraqi Freedom,[133] the UK code-name Operation Telic, and the Australian code-name Operation Falconer. Coalition forces also cooperated with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the north. Approximately forty other governments, the "Coalition of the Willing," participated by providing troops, equipment, services, security, and special forces, with 248,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from Special Forces unit GROM sent to Kuwait for the invasion.[134] The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 70,000.[135]"
I think your idea of lack of a declaration of war ignores that a year before it was voted by congress, on the basis of:
The resolution cited many factors as justifying the use of military force against Iraq:[3][4]
Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, including interference with U.N. weapons inspectors.
Iraq "continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability" and "actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability" posed a "threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region."
Iraq's "brutal repression of its civilian population."
Iraq's "capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people".
Iraq's hostility towards the United States as demonstrated by the 1993 assassination attempt on former President George H. W. Bush and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones following the 1991 Gulf War.
Members of al-Qaeda, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq.
Iraq's "continu[ing] to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations," including anti-United States terrorist organizations.
Iraq paid bounty to families of suicide bombers.
The efforts by the Congress and the President to fight terrorists, and those who aided or harbored them.
The authorization by the Constitution and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism.
The governments in Turkey, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia feared Saddam and wanted him removed from power.
Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement.
And I would put some emphasis on the state of the relation on:
Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, including interference with U.N. weapons inspectors.
The Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 was similar to Bay of Pigs (with the difference that the former succeeded, while the latter failed miserably). The current situation is a full blown war and nothing less than that.
It's not a 'myth' that the US maintains world peace, it's a most obvious reality and it's disturbing that anyone wouldn't be able to see it plainly.
The world is not a 'peaceful place' with a bunch of wars now and again.
It's held together by force.
Peace is a balance of, and righteous management of power.
The US+NATO+Allies form the basis of that power. Unfortunately, without the US, that 'Team' would basically be dysfunctional and wouldn't really work.
The Panama Canal, Suez Canal, the Gulf, S. China Sea - all of it would be controlled by various regimes if it were not for US power basically keeping it all open for everyone.
Israel and Egypt the 'lynchpin' of peace in the ME is kept that way because of US power. All of he Middle East would be like Syria were it not for US/West.
Obviously Taiwan would be in China and Korea would be vanquished by N. Korea.
It's hard to know exactly how the cards would fall, but they would definitely fall one way or another.
Unfortunately, we don't have a solution for Ukraine, but thankfully, this will be mostly contained in Ukraine thanks to NATO.
> Unfortunately, we don't have a solution for Ukraine, but thankfully, this will be mostly contained in Ukraine thanks to NATO.
The same sentences were written two weeks ago with respect to Ukraine. You can't make any assumptions about what Russia will or will not do. Taking over the Suwalki gap could easily happen. The frog is best boiled slowly, and with ample time to get used to the new temperature.
I think you're just repeating what the parent comment said. Some big tech companies refuse to work with the American military.
I don't know if that's a good idea or not. I'm conflicted by my own hatred of the American government. At the same time, the obvious consequences of big tech refusing to work with the American military is a relative loss of power compared to countries like Russia.
It's certainly different from Afghanistan. The invasion of Afghanistan by the United States was preceded by an attack by Al Qaeda on New York City. The attack by Russia on Ukraine is completely unprovoked.
It's a closer match than Afganistan at least, although I don't think that Ukraine under Zelenskyy is remotely similar to Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Let's hope that Ukraine backfires on Russia at least as severely as Iraq did on the US.
I'm not aware of Ukraine kicking out weapons inspectors from known previous WMD sites, or bluffing about having CBRN weapons. The invasion of Iraq was bumbling and based on piss-poor intelligence, but the belief in a threat wasn't groundless. https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/Global-Ne...
The current Russian claims about Ukraine, however, do appear groundless, based on the consensus of international media.
The belief in a threat was manufactured by cherry-picking any weak scraps of intelligence that could be assembled into a believable marketing pitch for an invasion. Your average mouthbreathing intel analyst wouldn’t recommend invading a taco stand based on the shady sources and thin reporting used to justify this war.
Although I am certainly not well informed, as I could not predict this scale of military operation, I'd like to say that "consensus of international media" is not worth much at times of war. Because I feel like there is never a lot of disagreement in media during such crises. Maybe after, when the situation calmed.
I also feel like I'm being obvious here: Al Qaeda was sheltered by Afghanistan during and after the attack on NYC. (I agree that there were essentially no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.)
Actually reminds me a lot of the run up to Iraq ca 2003, which was a disaster for all involved. Who in the world looks at the US invasion of Iraq and thinks it was a good idea that should be emulated?
US the only way for a peaceful world? You should read a bit on the USA history and its military conflicts and you may change your mind. Wikipedia is a good starting point.
The period of US hegemony from WW2 until today has by far been the most peaceful time in the history of civilization. Unlike previous super powers, the US did not take over any other countries or colonize by force. We have done many horrible things, like support dictators, invade Iraq based on lies (to depose a dictator), etc., but we have also supported people all over after natural disasters, helped with foreign aid to relieve famines, policed global trade to enable fair markets, and many other good deeds. It's definitely not the only way, and we could do much, much better, but show me another major country that you would prefer hold the reigns of global power?
Peaceful for who?? Certainly not for Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, South East Asia, Middle East. The US has absolutely imposed "peace" by force and by pushing its own agenda everywhere.
I beg your pardon? Eastern Europe is eternally grateful to the US that they won the cold war allowing them to break free from the Big Bear. Nations comprising 100+ million people from Estonia to Bulgaria are living their golden ages right now, because of US.
The US moto is the same as that of the fictional character Peacemaker: "I cherish peace with all my heart. I don't care how many men, women, and children I need to kill to get it."
I resent the implication that the US military is the only reason the world is at peace, and I bet plenty of NGOs feel the same - if anything, the US military is the one that has been pushing for new conflicts. And while it's true that all superpowers have done terrible things, the difference with the US is that plenty of them have stopped doing terrible things since.
I was not born yet when Germany started WWII, but I was alive to see the US declare torture as a valid means of interrogation and bomb civilians with no repercusions. And my living relatives who suffered under a US-backed military coup may not be as quick to forgive either. Maybe your children will live in a peaceful world, but for many of us that's cold comfort.
The US was an occupier of Afganistan. The US agreed to a withdrawal in exchange for a truce with the Taliban under the previous administration, which was honored by the next administration.
This is an invasion of a peaceful country by its neighbor. They are complete opposites.
I’m sure if you ask public servants in Afghanistan and Russia, they’ll both agree that they have the overwhelming support of the citizenry and any statements to the contrary are obviously lies.
Russia argues that it's defending the self determination of ethnic Russians in the Ukraine.
Maintaining the current borders does not advocate for self determination. War might not either, but the Ukraine isn't going to give up that land peacefully
First, it's not exactly clear that those ethnic Russian regions wish to be ruled by the Russian state. Second, Russia is in the midst of a full-blown invasion of all of Ukraine, and Putin has claimed that all Ukrainians are in fact Russians:
Al-Queda attacked New York city unprovoked. Not an invasion and not defending US, just that it was not American expansionism that led to invasion of Afghanistan. US has no interest in imperialism.
> just that it was not American expansionism that led to invasion of Afghanistan
US presence, aka expansionism in the MENA region, was very much the declared motivator for AQ and OBL. Thus the demands were also to pull US troops out of these countries, those demands already existed before 9/11.
The US rather prefers to vassalize countries instead of straight up annexing as it used to, like with Hawaii or Texas.
Already got enough states trying to take care of and some territories existing in weird places, so I doubt there is much incentive to add even more of that, except maybe Cuba.
And were the Taliban, a democratically elected regime? Granted, they were (are?) less corrupt that the government that the US had installed, but they don't represent the interests of the people of Afghanistan, either.
That's good and I'm sorry they are in that situation. But most of us have no ties to Ukraine and buying some shares is going to have exactly zero impact on you or anyone else
Not trying to make anyone feel guilty or make it seem like I'm doing anything either. Just pointing out that there is very little any of us can actually do and getting so emotional about somebody buying shares is a little silly because what are the alternatives?
> Just pointing out that there is very little any of us can actually do and getting so emotional about somebody buying shares is a little silly because what are the alternatives?
The alternative is to pause and think of the human on the other side of the screen. You might consider that perhaps while they are frantically trying to evacuate their parents from an active warzone, it might seem crass to swap trading tips to seemingly profit off their misery.
Furthermore, it might seem crass to confront them with a "What are you doing to help?" in an effort to win an internet debate. While this may seem like a distant conflict to you, it has hit close to home for many on Hacker News (and many of my colleagues at work as well).
Give me a break, they are on HN. If they don't like what somebody is talking about then they can ignore it instead of engaging them especially since they are so busy "frantically" trying to evacuate people.
If they felt guilty by my reply they should evaluate why since that wouldn't make most people feel guilty
No innocents are being maimed or killed at the moment. They are striking military targets.
Also, just because an all out war breaks out doesn’t mean life stops. Even during WW2 when Nazis were killing off Jews, people still had to wake up everyday and go to work and make a living just like always. They didn’t just sit around and wait for the war to pass. Hell they even went to parties and danced and fell in love, even as Jews rotted in concentration camps. Life doesn’t stop.
Soldiers still fought and even died on bright sunny days perfect for going to the beach.
We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
This war is about more than just Putin.
Research: George Friedman, Peter Zeihan, John Mearsheimer, Peter Hitchens, Noam Chomsky (more of an ideologue), etc. on this issue. You can start on YouTube OR read their books, I guess.
These are all PhDs or experts in some fashion that I just cited. You could just read their books too.
"F* the EU" said Diplomat Victoria Nuland -- knowing full well that the Germans and French would be against a coup in then-neutral Ukraine.
Meanwhile, once again, soon after the Iraq debacle: here we are getting dragged into another "war for democracy".
Russia and America turned Ukraine into a "if we can't have, burn it to the ground" situation. Further American intervention in Ukraine will just turn it into another Syria.
Will the people downvoting this comment mind telling me what is wrong with it? I'm not a Russian apologist, just a fan of history, and am trying to understand why so many people reject this narrative.
edit: Now I am downvoted too just for asking..? This just makes me think that there is not a solid answer?
That's a really literal way of looking at the world. For major decisions, usually there is discussion and understanding (and possibly carrots thrown in) before an application is submitted. It's not like sending resumes into an HR black hole.
This makes some sense, thank you. I still do not know why the original commenter was flagged, it does not sound like his theory is completely ridiculous.
According to that article, Putin wanted Russia to join NATO, but NATO told him "join the queue with all the other countries". Russia argued it should get special treatment (for obvious reasons) but NATO didn't agree with that.
I wonder, how would the world have turned out if NATO had made a different decision here?
(Just to be perfectly clear, I'm not arguing that NATO decisions justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine.)
> --New members must uphold democracy, including tolerating diversity.
NATO's founding members in 1949 included Portugal, at the time ruled by a right-wing dictatorship (1926–1974). Turkey and Greece both joined in 1952, and both have gone through periods of brutal military rule even while remaining NATO members. For the majority of NATO's existence, most of these "requirements" you cite have been mere lip service at best.
Many political scientists classify Erdogan's Turkey as an anocracy – a hybrid form of government which is part-way between dictatorship and democracy, mixing elements of both systems. Yet, Turkey remains a full member in good standing of NATO. Putin's Russia is also often classified as an anocracy. Why demand genuine democracy as a condition to join NATO when its current membership includes a state which isn't one? Indeed, according to the Polity data series [0], Putin's Russia is actually more free than Erdogan's Turkey.
Don't get me wrong, democracy is a truly wonderful thing – but if welcoming non-democratic Russia into NATO might have prevented this war, wouldn't that have been a wonderful thing too?
While there was talk of Russia joining NATO prior to the rise of Putin, Putin's specific comments on this matter were just empty political rhetoric done as a throw away sound bite to score a few points, not an actual genuine request to join NATO.
If NATO and its leading members (such as the US) had made a serious overture to invite Russia into NATO – laying out the welcome mat, without imposing any significant conditions, maybe even offering some inducements – would Putin have said No?
My understanding is that no one (serious) is defending Russia, but claiming that Ukraine is a new battleground for the West vs. Russia and that the NATO membership proposal/the 2014 coup was antagonistic like the annexation of Crimea. What is wrong with that claim?
Of course what is happening is tragic. We can all agree it should have been avoided, and I am curious if it could have been avoided.
1) Some parts of the Ukraine (the Crimea and Southern regions of the Ukraine) have a significant pro Russian population, e.g. they wouldn't protest a lot against Russian influence.
2) On the other hand the Western parts of the Ukraine are more EU/Western aligned, hence they don't want to do anything with the Putin's regime.
From Putin's perspective an independent Ukraine is no-no.
And the West isn't willing to start WW3 over the Ukraine.
All of that seems sensible, but I am not sure it clears up my confusion: if Putin never would have allowed an independent Ukraine, why would NATO reject his demands to reject Ukraine's NATO application? If Russia was going to invade anyway, why not at least try to de-escalate and negotiate for a sovereign Ukraine?
I think that this is the primary argument of people claiming that the USA MIC is partly to blame here. I do not have a good response to it.
Ukraine has made no NATO application (they last had a membership action plan in 2009). They've been told that they would not succeed or meet the criteria currently.
Yah. One can't really let Russia make NATO promise to never let a certain country in. But NATO wasn't really eager to admit Ukraine.
Of course, Ukraine really wanted to be in NATO, for obvious reasons...
Here's the deal, from my standpoint. Russia is declining in relevance.
* Demographically, they're shrinking and aging.
* Economically, post-Crimea sanctions have blunted any growth.
* Trade / exchange--- petroleum becomes less relevant with time.
* Diplomatically, they're already pariahs from many past misdeeds.
* Culturally/socially, they've stagnated as well.
Clawing for land around them-- through proxy conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, etc-- offers them a small chance of continued relevance. It's probably not a winning strategy, but it's at least one which could be winning. When you're in a bad situation, if you want to keep playing the game, you need to make the moves that at least could lead to a win.
>if Putin never would have allowed an independent Ukraine, why would NATO reject his demands to reject Ukraine's NATO application?
Euromaidan happened 2013. Putin already lost the Ukraine back then. By annexing the Crimea and sending Russian troops now he is taking the Ukraine back.
I may be mistaken but I think whether the Ukraine was actually joining NATO or not wasn't really relevant in this conflict IMHO.
>If Russia was going to invade anyway, why not at least try to de-escalate and negotiate for a sovereign Ukraine?
For the couples months there were negotiations. Was there a possibility to avoid the current conflict?
I think unless you're the U.S./Russian diplomat it's impossible to answer this question.
We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
"F* the EU" said Diplomat Victoria Nuland -- knowing full well that the Germans and French would be against a coup in then-neutral Ukraine.
Meanwhile, once again, soon after the Iraq debacle: here we are getting dragged into another "war for democracy".
Russia and America turned Ukraine into a "if we can't have, burn it to the ground" situation. Further American intervention in Ukraine will just turn it into another Syria.
I can only vouch so much, I agree with you. The post may be insightful or irrelevant, but I see no reason it should be flagged. I suppose some view message boards as an information battleground and find it's their duty to maintain a single narrative.
Nobody likes seeing Realpolitik in action. When you have been drip fed ideology about the LIO your whole life, it is very difficult to accept anything else. Unfortunately, today Thucydides wakes. It is unfortunate that international relations is not a part of the engineering curriculum of your typical HN user. Through the lens of realism, Ukraine is but another Cuban missile event. Pretending that joining NATO is a strictly defensive alliance and therefore more morally "right" will not change geopolitical realities. This is a failure of leadership on every side. Media soundbites and cool reprimands were chosen over recognising the harsh truth of Great Power politics. When it becomes more important to be an ardent defender of ideology on tiktok and television than to negotiate and compromise, this is what happens.
Buffer, yes. But the Maidan protests started because Russia made the first power grab. The very openly pro-Russian government of the time had just passed legislation that put Ukraine on a direct path towards becoming what is now Belarus. TBH, if that hadn't happen, we'd just have Ukraine more or less locked by Putin now. So no, we're not talking about a buffer zone, sorry. Not even in the strict military sense - the invasion today came from Belarus as well, and some reports even claim Belarusian troops, not that it matters much. So without that regime change, we'd most likely see Ukraine as part of the Russian Federation in a military capacity as well.
We _had_ a buffer zone until yesterday. NATO was supporting Ukraine without much real intention of having it join, while Russia had Crimea and half of Donbass. This could have gone for decades - see Transnistria, which does exactly the same for Moldova for 30 years.
From his wikipedia page, copy/paste the section "Exile in Russia". Nothing added or deleted:
According to Russian politician Oleg Mitvol, Yanukovych bought a house in Barvikha for $52 million on 26 February 2014.[215]
On 27 February, a report stated that Yanukovych had asked the authorities of the Russian Federation to guarantee his personal security in the territory of Russia, a request that they accepted.[216] Yanukovych claimed that the decisions of the Rada adopted "in the atmosphere of extremist threats" are unlawful and he remains the "legal president of Ukraine". He accused the opposition of violation of the 21 February agreements and asked the armed forces of Ukraine not to intervene in the crisis. The exact whereabouts of Yanukovych when he made this statement remains unclear.[217][218] He later thanked Vladimir Putin for "saving his life".
On 3 October 2014, several news agencies reported that according to a Facebook post made by the aide to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, Anton Gerashchenko, Viktor Yanukovych had been granted Russian citizenship by a "secret decree" of Vladimir Putin.[219] On the same day, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he didn't know anything about this.[220]
In 2017, Russian media suggested that Yanukovych is apparently living in Bakovka near Moscow, in a residence owned by Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.[221][222]
On 26 November 2015, Yanukovych received a temporary asylum certificate in Russia for one year; later extended until November 2017.[223] In October 2017, this was extended to another year.[224] According to his lawyer Yanukovych did not consider acquiring Russian citizenship or a permanent residence permits but "Only a temporary shelter for returning to the territory of Ukraine".[224]
Now the original comment is flagged and gone. I will still leave this reply here because it expands on the original comments claim with more sources than just Wikipedia;
> We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
This is an aspect to this that way too many people just ignore as "Russian misinformation".
The Orange revolution was a prior US attempt [0] at facilitating a regime-change in Ukraine from pro-Russian politics to pro-Western politics, which failed.
In 2014 there was the next attempt McCain not only riling up protesters [1], but meeting with the future PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk and leader of right-wing militias Oleh Tyahnybok [2] that were the muscle behind the 2014 revolution [3].
Arseniy Yatsenyuk was already declared the US's "man" during the leaked "Fuck the EU Nuland" calls [4], same Victoria Nuland that was literally handing out cookies to Ukrainian protesters [5].
Yatsenyuk wasn't even too shy about these connections; His OpenUkraine foundation's list of partners reads like the who is who of US regime change actors, down to the CIA's a National Endowment for Democracy and literal NATO itself [6].
Tho it was a bit too blatant, so they ended up putting his wife in charge of the foundation and removing the partners list.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk is not in power since 2016, what that has to do with invasion of Ukraine?
And only power he got was that in autumn of 2014 his party got a fairly good numbers, that's why he became a PM, not because Americans have put him there.
> Arseniy Yatsenyuk is not in power since 2016, what that has to do with invasion of Ukraine?
It has to do with the fact that the country has been in a civil war [0] since he came into power after the "revolution of dignity", not only him, but literally Americans who were fast tracked Ukrainian citizenship [1] so they could act as minister.
But a whole lot of people in those East Ukrainian territories liked the old government, they voted for it, and they saw their votes burned in a revolution to be replaced with Americans and people sponsored by them.
Which prompted them to do the same in their parts of Ukraine, leading to the separatists territories and a low to high intensity civil war that has by now been lasting 8 years.
> And only power he got was that in autumn of 2014 his party got a fairly good numbers
In elections where the old party was not even allowed to be voted for anymore, consequently, those elections were boycotted in territories that voted for the old government.
Are you seriously giving me links on this? I was there, I participated in those elections.
Yanukovych was nearing the end of his term, he ordered snipers to shoot at protesters, it was only right for him to step down. The next step was re-elections.
And believe me, people never really liked Yanukovych so much to take arms. The leaders of “separatists” were literal nobodies, nobody knew who they are.
Members of Yanukovych party themselves did not en masse supported separatists.
Second, politicians from Party of Regions participated in both 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections. Same politicians, top Yanukovych lieutenants, with the same oligarchic sponsors.
Third, those elections were not “boycotted” people still participated, on territory controlled by Ukrainian government.
You were there and then missed the following 8 years of civil war, complete with separatist territories, to now ask "What has any of that to do with the invasion?"?
> Yanukovych was nearing the end of his term, he ordered snipers to shoot at protesters, it was only right for him to step down.
Afaik there was no order for government snipers to shoot protesters, those sniper shots hit protesters and police alike, using hunting cartridges, and the government probe into those shootings was extremely flawed [0]
Just like to this day nobody was ever charged for shooting police officers.
> The next step was re-elections.
As somebody who was apparently there, do you remember who provided "security" for those elections at the Rada?
> The leaders of “separatists” were literal nobodies, nobody knew who they are.
Quite an accomplishment for "nobodies that nobody knows" to be representatives of state parliaments, like that of Crimea.
The narrative of NATO expansion is a PR meme. It was created by Russians for the 2007 Munich security conference, where Putin made a speech.
NATO is a defensive pact and existing members have always been very hesitant about accepting new members, because it is intended as a cooperation platform between equals and not a substitute for building up own defense force. The initiative to join NATO has always been driven by Eastern European countries seeking to maintain independence and reduce the risk of Russian invasion. Together with EU membership, it's the holy grail of foreign policy.
The referenced Mearsheimer et al are irrelevant. They depict everything as a grand Russia vs USA standoff as if it were a board game, and ignore the delicate histories and current relationships between countries in Europe.
If you are a fan of history, I recommend rejecting grand narratives and reading a general history of every country in Europe. How has Sweden fared in the past 500 years? Why Russians have an inferiority complex with Finns? Why isn't Austria in NATO? The more you read, the more you'll see the complex network of relationships and understand what every country seeks to achieve. To treat all of them as pawns of the US or Russia is unbelivably ignorant. Even countries as small as Iceland have their own foreign policy, and sometimes have a great impact on international relations.
Now do you understand the neo-McCarthyism raging through our country?
If you even say something other than "Putin is Satan" or "Russia bad", you get downvoted to oblivion. Enjoy. Don't bother mentioning the complexities of this situation or once again, you'll be downvoted.
It is pretty wild. When engaging with the same people downvoting you, they do not even seem to disagree with this take violently, but think you are pro-Russia just because you bring up problems with how NATO/the West reacted to this.
We still continued in order to destabilize all of Europe and prevent them from merging Central European industrial capital with Eastern European natural resources. It's the same old policy -- everything else is just bread and circuses.
Well, we still have Russia by the throat, now I just think we shouldn't squeeze so hard that they collapse -- which would lead to a complete and utter destabilization of a huge chunk of the world, and it would be detrimental to our short and long-term interests. Miscreants would take over and have a field day.
To some extent this situation feels analogous to a street mugging happening in very slow motion
The thug accosts the victim, threatens and then proceeds to assault the victim in full view of a large number of bystanders who are numerous enough to defend the victim and alter the outcome but not convicted enough to take on the inconvenience of doing so.
Nevertheless all the bystanders voice words of encouragement and sympathy and even offer to sue the aggressor in court after the fact if the victim is harmed or killed.
which part of your own country are you willing to risk to be hit by nukes first? It's easy to be militarily bold at someone else's expense, more so if you don't serve in a regular army.
Which friend or family member are you willing to sacrifice first so that you’ll be spared?
It’s easy to try to appease aggressors thinking that somehow they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
I'd try really hard not to get into a situation that requires taking this kind of choice in the first place. It means taking measures of reasonable appeasal. Diplomacy used to be a virtue, nowadays it's being replaced by acts of daring: Russia does it, the US does it, the Ukraine does it.
> they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
There's such a thing as a lifespan. People come and go, and everyone should be proactively seeking long-term beyond-personality diplomacy and statesmanship.
> In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
this is no longer a WW2 era, you can't just stand up and fight, nukes don't care if you stand up or lie down.
Nukes are an ultimate weapon, equally destructive for both sides no matter who's using them.
Threatening with nukes on the other hand is an almost as good weapon but only effective of you convince the other party you mean it and only countered by the others also being willing to use them. It's the MAD policy and it worked quite well during the cold war.
I disagree that it worked well during the Cold War, numerous declassified archives suggest a different picture of continuous escalation and bringing the world on the brink of total annihilation. The main reason it did not happen was a presence of people who were willing to de-escalate the peril by all means at key moments, including sacrificing their military ranks, political stances, and sometimes integrity of borders of their own countries. Borders have been moving and they will be moving in the future, a long-term strategy should be to never let politicians stake the humankind for the sake of the current polygons configuration on a world map.
I am guessing you are not in one of those "polygons" close to Putin on the map, so that is why you are so willing to sacrifice others for your well being.
Did not work out that great for the appeasers in WW2 in the end.
> so that is why you are so willing to sacrifice others for your well being.
are you really suggesting that threatening Putin with NATO nukes servers your wellbeing better than giving him a part of East Ukraine for a time being? Are you suggesting that your government won't be capable of negotiating a peaceful gradual transition of the region back to Ukraine in the post-Putin era? Such cases were possible in the past, if you read history. But it required skilled statesmanship and diplomacy instead of quick emotional reactions to intimidate and retaliate.
We know Putin by now. What you are proposing did not work since he's in power. He kept escalating. MAD worked on dictators just like him before. Actual power is the only language his ilk understands.
Or in 10 year you'll see the entire Europe in his hands while the rest of the world is being carved between him and Xi.
There is no way he doesn't stop at Ukraine. He doesn't have enough troops to hold it against a population which will be against him. He has already bitten off more than he can chew. The idea of Russian tanks marching on Germany is delusional fantasy and hyperbole, even apart from Article 5.
It is by no means clear that Russian military/state will “win” long-term in Ukraine. When there is significant local opposition to military occupation, it is indeed hard to maintain control.
But in the mean time, they’ll be able to kill a whole lot of people and destroy a whole lot of lives, and wreck Ukrainian democracy and economic prosperity for years if not decades.
The US has a major security advantage in terms of mutually assured destruction in that its home to many people from around the world. There are like tens of thousands of Americans living in all of Russia or China. Meanwhile, there are millions of both Russian and Chinese Americans in the U.S.. This provides safety. Good luck finding morale in your military after you've just told them to nuke millions of their own people.
mutually assured destruction will not leave you any functioning military to have morale after nuking US. And in this case we will test the nuclear winter theory. Hopefully we can avoid that.
I'd say in this case everyone has nuclear weapons i.e. thug and bystanders with abundant second strike capabilities and also a healthy desire to live. With that level of mutually assured destruction, conflict if any would almost certainly stay conventional.
In fact if NATO had moved in about 50 to 100K troops at the invitation of Ukraine sometime over the past 3 months, its really unlikely that Putin would have upped the ante.
If anything the multiyear patience and planning on his part suggests he absolutely wants to win and wont take a chance if he thinks he might lose or draw
I don’t know. Mr P would have made that the excuse to invade. In war perception and public sentiment is very important too. Biden would easily lose popular support in this hypothetical scenario. As is there doesn’t seem to be much support from the right at the moment.
> In fact if NATO had moved in about 50 to 100K troops at the invitation of Ukraine sometime over the past 3 months,
Meanwhile Russia being right on the border quickly invades Ukraine before the NATO troops can arrive and now we have NATO troops entering a war zone or pulling back and looking even weaker. Also, this sounds eerily like the start of WWI although then it was Russia mobilizing and Germany then decided to move quickly into Belgium and North into Russia.
Often I wonder which of our leaders has ever played poker. It seems like Putin has figured out that we won't push all-in, ever, so he steals another pot.
If the west really cared about this, the only way now is to retaliate way out of proportion to what's happened.
Before this happened, the west also didn't act like it wanted to contain the Russians, so the Russians got brave. If there had been some sort of response the Russians would have backed off. It's somewhat stable for both sides to bluster about this or that minor victory. Can't do that now.
That was something great about Trump; he could not be easily predicted, not even by his own circle. Although in this case I’m not sure he wouldn’t have sided with Putin.
I'll give him that, you don't know what DJT would have decided. Maybe he'd fold, maybe he'd go direct to nuke. That baseline unpredictability is actually useful strategically (there's even an essay about how being rational isn't necessarily a good game theoretic strategy, can't recall the name now).
There's at least one other world leader who clings to power because of this trait.
Recent mutterings suggest Trump thinks highly of Putin though, so it's hard to tell.
You are, unfortunately, mistaken. The President has sole authority over launch decisions. There is a requirement that those orders be verified as authentic by the Secretary of Defense, but assuming POTUS gave the orders, it's not within SecDef's authority to countermand them. What would actually happen if an insane POTUS were to give a launch order that made no sense is probably up to chance and the quality of those willing to break the law and refuse the order.
Hey, wasn't this the EXACT argument Democrats made about removing Trump from office before the election? Floating the idea he'd risk WW3 instead of losing an election?
Turns out Trump's general hard line on everything was useful for something.
"However, the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief is not unlimited and US law dictates that the attack must be lawful and that military officers are required to refuse to execute unlawful orders, such as those that violate the Laws of Armed Conflict."
Those laws are very very vague and like you said, it's possible someone in the chain of command could argue it's against the law since a nuke would likely cause collateral damage one way or another. I think it's technically incorrect to definitively say that the US president has complete and total control over nuking a target.
the President can order nukes to launch. there's no law curtailing that power, and military orders are the purview of the Executive under the Constitution, so it's doubtful Congress could even prevent that.
the nuclear football is basically a fancy sat phone though, so it's less clear if the generals who get the war order would actually obey.
Thinking highly of opponents of the US and spouting off about how smart and savvy they are never seemed to stop Trump from treating them like opponents and using his power against them back when he was president, so I'm not convinced it would if he was still in charge - and it certainly wouldn't be safe for them to rely on that.
> Recent mutterings suggest Trump thinks highly of Putin though, so it's hard to tell.
Care to provide a source for this?
If you're referring to the podcast where Trump mentioned that Putin's move (annexation of Lugansk & Donetsk) is "genious", that's not some sort of fanboyism or admiration, but simply admitting that the move, tactically, was really good - a lot of people (myself included) did fall for it!
>“He’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher and video footage obtained by the pro-Democratic group American Bridge. “He’s taking over a country, really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, just walking right in.”
To anyone with basic reading comprehension, it's obvious that Trump isn't praising Putin, he's praising Putin's tactics, which, judging by the (lack of) response from the West, is pretty smart!
But it's also the case that the west is straddling strategies here. Either do as Kennan says and just leave NATO the way it was and don't poke the wounded bear, or actually encircle Russia completely, stick nukes in their back yard and show them who is boss.
Don't pretend to do both and neither, that is the worst of all worlds.
> If there had been some sort of response the Russians would have backed off.
Are you sure about that? Are you really willing to risk your chips betting on a retreat? This sort of geopolitical chicken would be incredibly dangerous.
Please explain why you think the West (Americans) ought to go die for Ukraine. If you want the west to go all in for this, I hope you've signed up to serve already.
This is too simple. Ukraine and Russia, Orthodox and Catholics, Polish, Ukrainians and Russians have had a varied history in the proximate territories.
Despite the bluster of "I'm the only one who's gone toe to toe with Putin" there is only so much anyone can do in this situation. If KSA decided to invade one of its neighbors, there is only so much anyone could do because doing anything would severely disrupt energy. But in the Caucasus and Dnieper areas there, I mean you have nukes involved. Like India and Pakistan.
Then there is the promise we made not to station missiles in territories bordering Russia and the whole Orange Revolution Obama thing. That's a big deal to them just as it would be a big deal if Russia stationed missiles in Mexico or Cuba. We'd throw a fit too. Just as China would throw a fit if we stationed missiles in Taiwan.
The US could do the same thing. People like to complain about how much a bully the US has been (Chile, Guatemala, Vietnam, etc)... Now they are seeing how real bullies act in Russia and a lesser degree China (but they are on the sidelines biding their time) They can do what they want because they have little constraint --with big players it's self-imposed.
I have a strong feeling that the US has missiles stationed in both Japan and Korea, which is about the same as putting them in Taiwan for this comparison
Any missiles there have historically grown up with the CCP. Japan had an SDF --so the US's presence was added deterrent. In Korea we have the excuse of N Korea being a menace. As part of the negotiations during the collapse of the USSR, US officials acknowledged the Russian request that there be no NATO missiles in proximity of the RU border. GW Bush laughed it off and so did Obama.
Even Canada does not share nuclear weapons with the US. That genuinely surprised me. US and Canada have unbelievably interconnected militaries -- see NORAD and various Artic zone military bases.
Are you suggesting that neighboring countries should go to war to defend Ukraine? If I see a street mugging then I'll call the police but I'm not going to risk getting shot in order to intervene in a random street crime.
This is obviously a terrible situation for the Ukrainian people but at the same time they could have done a lot more to prevent it. They essentially let their military deterrent collapse years ago through a mix of corruption and apathy. If they had had a real combat effective military back in 2014 then Russia probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place.
> at the same time they could have done a lot more to prevent it.
I'm skeptical. Russia has been harrying and undermining Ukraine for many years. Remember Viktor Yanukovych and all the turmoil of that era? It's not like Ukraine has been through a period of decadence where they slacked off — they've never caught a break.
And now the full force of Russian imperialism is crashing down on them.
Does it need to be "go to war"? How many NATO aircraft would it take to give the Ukrainians on the ground the upper hand? For all his bluster, do you think Putin really wants to escalate beyond Ukraine? He's playing a game of chicken with the west and winning.
Hitler did the same thing right up until 1939. From what I've read he was actually surprised that the allies finally called his bluff after Poland, considering they just rolled over after the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.
> do you think Putin really wants to escalate beyond Ukraine? He's playing a game of chicken with the west and winning.
Have you read his recent announcement? He warned every foreign nation not to meddle or else:
> To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside - if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,’ he said on a television broadcast around 6am Moscow time.
Your region is already at stake? What's the chance that Putin is interested in "just this one piece of land" and is also willing to escalate to WW3 to get it? If he's truly that dedicated, this is just the beginning. Estonia shares a nice long border with Russia.
How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO? How would he even do that? You think he's going to launch ICBMs?
> How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO?
Putin is not elected by a popular vote, the voice of the people does not matter there.
Estonia is a NATO member already, the current conflict has been escalated because of the previously announced red line demands (Ukraine never getting into NATO) that the US diplomats discarded. It is their job to negotiate peace in the region too. Negotiations is a nasty business and the outcomes are nasty too. Those who seek easy and pretty solutions that satisfy all parties in one step are destined to escalate the situation further up.
The voice of the people always matters to some degree. Especially if said dictator wants you to risk your life or the life of your loved ones for his conquests.
> The lesson learned should be that if you don't stop the thug with force, then he will eventually become strong enough to stop you.
this is a lesson of a past war, the world has moved, this is no longer a WW2 era, if you try to apply a similar foreign intervention now the chances are you'll get a nuke on your lawn.
I think you can call the bluff. Putin wants to build an empire not have Russia leveled. Of course you are playing a high stakes game in actually doing this though.
No one, and I mean, no one... Wants to ne the first firer of nukes in anger. I could see a State nuking themselves before nuking anyone else to keep that fuse from getting lit.
You don't get to put that one back in the bottle, and you're going to have to have more faith than the Pope to think that no one will respond.
Nuclear War isn't like Civilization. It's a momentary bang followed by a lot of whimper.
I'm pretty confident that Putin doesn't want to go down in history as the guy who started the nuclear war that ended Russia (and much of the rest of the world). We can call that bluff.
They could have kept the lid down on the situation and prevented the East European nations from inflaming the situation further. They could have offered to veto Ukraine. The new government did not defend German interests and let it become a pawn in great power politics.
What can they realistically do? Send German troops there? It won't happen ever, we both know it. Shutdown Nordstream 2 earlier? It's unlikely to have any effect. Direct supply of weapons into Ukraine? Earlier and preemptive sanctions? None of that will deter Putin, in fact it will probably just encourage him to act faster.
You also have to take into consideration the last 2 times Germany entered a conflict it didn't work out too well for them, so they have all the more reasons to be reserved.
They trusted the American guaranty of their safety in exchange for them becoming a nuclear non-proliferation country and giving up their inherited nukes. American's failure to stay ahead of the situation and deliver on the guaranty we promised them caused this, and I think is going to lead to nuclear proliferation going up now.
And yet you have to wonder, on an alternative timeline, what if Ukraine says it won't join NATO and stays under Russia's sphere of influence? It would suck for national pride but maybe under that alternative timeline they won't get invaded now and possibly wouldn't even lose Crimea earlier?
Practically speaking, perhaps you should avoid poking the aggressive neighbor next door, especially when you can't have definitive assurance from the police station three blocks over?
There was little support for joining NATO before Crimea was annexed. Ukraine wanted to join NATO precisely because it realized that it will be devoured piece by piece by its imperialist neighbor unless it does.
It's not just Putin; Russian leaders through most of the 20thC have feared encroachment on their western borders, and have launched invasions and installed puppet regimes to create a buffer. The fact that Ukraine has clearly expressed its desire to join NATO, and NATO's refusal to reject that possibility, means that Russia perceives a threat that their greatest enemy will suddenly appear right on their border.
Georgia also wanted to join NATO; so they got invaded.
The West has played this hand very badly. Instead of declaring that under no circumstances would they send troops to Ukraine, they should have kept silent, or possibly sent a division of ground troops, to be dispersed around the country. They should also have leaned hard on Ukraine to make Donetsk and Luhansk officially autonomous regions. The Donbas would then become Russia's buffer zone, making them feel a bit less paranoid about NATO encroachment.
FWIW, I think NATO should have dismantled itself following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The modern NATO is a global organisation, not restricted to the North Atlantic. It's no longer a mutual defence pact for countries at risk of Russian attack; its main purpose now is simply to intimidate Russia.
I am curious, what do Russians think of this. Does anyone support him? Is it completely just one maniac with his friends running this.
Is his propaganda that effective that Russians agree with any of it. I think if anyone can stop him, it has to be ordinary Russians. I don’t see sanctions or warnings from Biden or EU doing anything. And they will never directly step in and protect the Ukranian people.
Russians (some of them, to clarify) associate the current Ukrainian regime with Nazism/fascism. After all, far right groups were a major part of the 2014 revolution/putsch.
Why are you saying that? Not all Russians are brainwashed by state propaganda. I think very few Russians who read Hackernews actually support what is going on right now, if any.
To be honest, me and all of the people around me thought that this is too crazy to happen, but here we are.
Russians who read HN are probably in the minority though, right?
And yeah not everyone listens to propaganda, and there is going to be a lot of diversity of opinion, but propaganda does work and a large percent of the population are going to get duped.
Corollary (because I’m not sure I was explicit enough): propaganda most certainly has worked on me without my even realizing, a great many times I am sure, and it most certainly has worked on you as well, dear HackerNews reader. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re immune, or too clever.
I say this with much affection and no presumption: I think Russian nationals on HackerNews are probably not a representative sample of Russian nationals generally speaking.
Yes, that’s what I said and meant. I was only more specific because the context was more specific. There was no intended suggestion that this would not also be the case for other nationalities.
This reminds me of "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup":
> What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country.
> And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.
You could live in a circle that unanimously opposes the war, and still be in a country that's 60% for it.
Thing is, given the propaganda machine in Russia and the lack of free (even non-guvernamental) organizations we can't really tell if that percentage is 6% or 60%.
"Yes/No" support is a bit of an over-simplifaction of the situation.
There's two major axes, here.
The government is pushing the 'Ukranian neo-nazis' propaganda, because it's a convenient bullshit excuse (as is all the spilled ink in Putin's essay about long-dead history). Some soft-headed people obviously believe that wholesale. What isn't an excuse, though, is that Ukraine did take steps to restrict its Russian minority. Many Russians who don't swallow the neo-nazi nonsense are sympathetic to that view on the situation (for, uh, obvious nationalistic reasons).
Now, whether or not sympathy for that is sufficient grounds to do nothing and respect Ukrainian sovereignty, to prosecute a proxy war, a limited war, or a full war all depends on how much of a warhawk you personally are.
My highly unscientific feeling is that public support rests somewhere north of 'most Russians believe that Ukraine has been repressing Russians, and would support a proxy war', and somewhere short of 'drive the fascist swine out - prosecute a full war and occupation of Kiev'.
Take steps like completely restricting Russian language in schools, public spaces, TV, etc? Considering that 100 years ago Ukrainian language was a dialect for peasants, that’s quite a leap. Communists started “rooting” - korenization - program in 1920s when Russians were wholesale written as Ukrainians in their ID papers, another 20 years of these steps and there will be no Russians left in Ukraine, same thing happened to Turks in Bulgaria. People remember and the current regime in Kiew is controlled by ultra-nationalists from Volyn and Galicia, with their worship of Bandera, OUN/UPA and the rest of the scum. When they came to power during Maidan, people hear the chant all the time - “Moskalyaku na gilyaku”. Do you know what it means?
Current regime — is a Russian speaking comedian Vova Zelenskiy (who is a Jew) and his party, which won elections. There is no nationalist party in Ukrainian parliament.
There is Russian language in public spaces and TV. There are more then 600 schools with Russian language of instruction.
"Dialect for peasants" has its roots in Ruthenian language, that was a main language in Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
And no, Russians were not written wholesale as Ukrainians, anyone who can check Soviet records can attest that.
>> people hear the chant all the time - “Moskalyaku na gilyaku
Well, if they would listen to Russian TV, they would hear that.
Yes, thank you for making the point about how Russians may be sympathetic to that direction.
But exactly how many people are you ready to kill over your sympathies? Could you give a ballpark order of magnitude estimate? 10? 100? 10,000? [1] 100,000?
On a scale of cultural repression, I can't say that this situation elicits even a small fraction of sympathy from me as what's going on with say, the Uyghurs in China.
It's complicated, because the government position on it is a few 'valid' concerns backed up with a lot of irrelevant bullshit about long-dead history. Practically, nobody is going to be stopping this. By deciding on sanctions, everyone in the west made it clear that it doesn't want to fight a war, and the regime is currently too secure to be threatened by internal dissent.
The best realistic outcome at the moment is something similar to what happened to Georgia - occupation of the two territories, a referendum, annexation, and an end to the proxy war.
Whether we are going to get that outcome, or something worse, is, of course, unclear.
Putin has been busy cracking down hard on any descent for the past two years of his bunker dwelling. This round included not only the usual opposition organizations but independent news orgs and even the elites. I believe whatever his plans are it’s been at least a few years in the making
A Russian here under a throwaway account. I've seen very few open supporters of the military invasion on social media. But most Russians, reached by TV or social media propaganda, carry on 3-5 factoids regarding Ukraine that somehow invalidates Ukrainian position completely.
For example, just from today's talk (face-to-face):
* that Ukrainian forces supposedly committed crimes in Donbass region -- when I ask who in particular and how, these people fail to answer. When I say that they had full right to suppress armed riot of Girkin & co, they switch the topic.
* that the government were illegally overthrown in 2014. I challenged that with the fact that Yanukovich's own party voted to introduce an president interim and start new elections.
Both times I pushed the interlocutor and asked if I lied, and they have nothing to say, nor have more facts, but jump between topics all the time, switching from facts to questions -- like "did they start living better?" or "what about those who died in Odessa protest?" I guess this demagogy is enough for those who want to justify their stance, and to claim own moral superiority.
I asked if they support the invasion, and they say they don't. I'm sure they'll have to make up their mind, but I'm afraid people can choose whatever more convenient to feel ok.
A recent sociological surveys made in January showed about half of population being on Putin's side, even 40% of those in political opposition to him. Sociologists confronted people with evidence of Russian military buildup, and respondents usually answered that this was "Western propaganda" and tried to avoid further discussion.
I can't read minds of the elites and secret service generals who constitute the Security Council, but it seems this is partially what they think -- secret services are very suspicious of everyone and treat everything as a threat. This leads to believing in conspiracies, and justifies agression.
As for me and many others who value the open world borders and don't want back to USSR, I'm most worried that we're going to be under severe sectoral sanctions, with many industries in serious crisis, like in the 1990s.
Now, I forgot to mention that all this "they're bad" sentiment is part of so-called post-imperial syndrome. Many are really dissentful.
Also, I'm old enough to remember the popular dissent with the USSR in the late '80s. We as kids would repeat the adults' discussions about how bad the country was, and our parents weren't political dissidents at all, just common dwellers, absolutely non-ideologized. Many wanted friendship with the West. Only very ideologized communtists wanted to keep the status quo when the USSR collapsed, and obviously even secret services where Putin served wanted to open the country and the economy and did not resist the collapse, nor support the GKChP coup.
The economic crisis of the '90s and the war in Yugoslavia where what changed people's minds. I remember seeing a woman carry a white plastic bag with large US flag on it, probably in 1991 or 1992, but that became unthinkable in 1999-2000. Even a liberal pro-Western TV presenter Parfyonov showed some sort of dissent in his historic program when he described the events of 1991.
Those years many changed their minds about the past, and went all way from complete discontent with the communist regime to believing that it was good and that it was destroyed intentionally.
I wouldn't expect many people here to know who John Mearsheimer is and honestly the conversation appears to be that you must unequivocally support what the U.S. and West in general have done or else you're some kind of Russian propagandist/puppet.
Mearsheimer is extremely pro-Kremlin pundit though, he's even welcomed [1] at Valdai Discussion Club ("The Valdai conference is closely linked with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has met with the participants of the Valdai Club’s annual meetings every year since its founding." [2])
He is neither pro-Kremlin nor anti-Kremlin. Mearsheimer is a political scientist with 50+ years of experience. He relies on pure facts and explains why things are the way they are. Nothing more, nothing less.
He tells you the facts that you want to hear, that is all.
His view is Kremlin-apologist.
You are not in Ukraine, you rely on second-hand account. So for any 'facts' you have to rely on someone. Ukraine is a complex topic, and 'things the way they are' is extremely hard to get, there is an ideological lens to everything.
His lecture was shared recently on some Ukrainian forums and widely derided as just repeating Russian state propaganda talking points.
It is not a binary world. You absolutely do not have to support the Western interference in Ukrainian politics. You do not have to support Putin either.
This is not good vs bad.
It is great powers exploiting weaker countries.
Russia too did interfere a lot in Ukrainian politics, with methods similar to Western.
It's like people live in a paradigm "West good/Russia bad" or "West bad/Russia good", yet miss the real picture - "West bad/Russia bad".
> Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.
Finland gets the next worst treatment, simply saying it should be “absorbed”.
Interesting that it says military action is to be avoided and that Russia should use it’s natural resource dominance to extract concessions from other countries.
How horrible for those that will die now, and over time for anyone in Ukraine who wants the right to express dissent with government policies without being bullied, harrassed, harmed or killed for it. This is a right worth fighting for, for ourselves and others, and always will be.
> who wants the right to express dissent with government policies without being bullied, harrassed, harmed or killed for it.
This is the whole reason we have separate countries and government. Setting your own policy as a country is not supposed to result in war.
Ukraine is standing firm on its sovereignty. A belligerent adversary has started a war because it feels the sovereign country isn't sovereign and can't be friends with certain countries. That upends the whole concept of countries, which further erodes Putin's credibility, if he had any left. He first upended self-determination in his own country, then internationally, and now seeks takeover of an entire foreign country.
China already stated they support Russia 100% because they need Russia to defend against the west. There was a document posted by Chinese media yesterday stating how to censor Russia content. Anything pro Russia to be promoted and anything against to be scrubbed.
Edit: This was screen grabbed from Weibo which was posted by Horizon News. (sorry got the wrong news agency)
China has said Russia should respect Ukrainian territory publicly.
Personally I guess they will support Russia via trade and not partake in sanctions.
Form this I feel the west has to put tariffs or reduce trade on nations that trade with Russia for maximum effect. It could also be a useful way to rebalance the trade with China which is the aim of some western governments.
China is also in a bind as if they recognise the break away regions this gives political credit to Taiwan's independence. From this I suspect they will continue to publicly offer Ukrainian support, and appear as the peace makers, but do little in actual effect.
China's ambassador to UN Security Council today, 45 minutes after the invasion, basically said "we call on all parties to stop escalations and proceed diplomatically." (no shit) Honestly, I'm baffled that this type of trite platitude makes it into the highest important discourse in the world, but here we are, for insane political shirking reasons.
EDIT: China now calling West to blame for situation and there isn't an invasion.
If anyone had any doubts as to the morality of Chinese leadership these days...
I believe order and chaos are the two most predominate forces in nature. Russia is a very chaotic nation (granted they made the RD-180 rocket engines, but they murdered Korolev) Life favors the ordered.
> "To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: if you do, you will face consequences greater than any of you have faced in history. All relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me."
The reason Putin is invading is because he knows the U.S. is weak, its leadership is politically weak, and there's very little it will do, and even if it does, it doesn't have popular support. It's the effect of clear incentives.
If the U.S. intervenes, a retaliatory cyber op from Russia against critical infrastructure would make america amish again. Then, wait until midterms when the president loses the house and senate and doesn't have the power to muster a draft when China takes Taiwan. This is one of those happening slowly and then all at once events in history I suspect.
Post-Vietnam the US hasn’t engaged in large scale active combat against communism or Russian-backed forces. It has instead favored selling weapons to Eastern European states and building the NATO alliance.
Putin has been clear about the breakup of the USSR being a mistake in his eyes. He’s been annexing territories (or in his eyes, re-annexing) since 1999. He looks for countries with strong Russian cultural and linguistic backgrounds and props up allies that will take over. If that doesn’t work he ratchets up the pressure until he feels comfortable using military force. See: Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and now Ukraine.
The US is far stronger militarily than Russia, but with nuclear weapons in the equation, no one wins.
It’s easy to be an arm chair hawk and say we should go fight, but it’s another thing to look you kids in the eye and explain they’re going to die from radiation fallout.
Instead, the US will likely prop up the resistance once Ukraine falls and try to make occupation as costly as possible just like we did in Afghanistan.
> Instead, the US will likely prop up the resistance once Ukraine falls and try to make occupation as costly as possible just like we did in Afghanistan.
a band-aid solution at best. The fact that putin has desires to resurrect the soviet superpower, is the problem, and i doubt there would be any possible diplomatic solution to that.
Nobody likes war (least of all nuclear war), but if the threat of such weapons is shown to be a bluff, the peace brought about from it's use in WW2 would all but be in vain.
Somebody must back down, and i would say putin and his ambitions must be the one to back down, or the US & allies must escalate. Otherwise, the next authoritarian country is going to want in.
The moral of this era seems to be: no one attacks a country with nuclear weapons.
France has nukes, so this isn’t going to be Hitler 2.0 with Putin posing by the Arc de Triumph.
There are several ex-Soviet countries that are NATO members, so that’ll be the real hot spot if it gets there as the US et. al. will be required to act militarily in their defense (in theory).
Doesn't even make sense for Putin strategically because the alliance will get consolidated by this. On the other hand there are just few diplomatic tools. They were all used up more or less.
the alliance is already pretty consolidated. I think putin sees a NATO ukraine as more dangerous imho - esp. if ukraine becomes more and more democratic.
The invasion would be successful if the west does not deploy troops and intervene. I say the west has already failed, and this sets a precedent to which china would follow.
And if the west waits for too long, the military edge that the west has would diminish. Unfortunately, the public is reluctant to commit to war, because in the minds of those who are used to peace, diplomatic solutions seems to be the only cost they're willing to pay.
It is out of respect to those that have to fight the wars that those that are not on the front lines should do everything to prevent it from breaking out in the first place.
I agree that there are difficulties in developing arms in peace times, war can be a driver of innovation. But it is not the only one and there are preferable alternatives, even if arms suppliers see that differently out of egoistic ambitions.
A civilian population rejecting involvement in arms manufacture is preferable to one that calls for a war.
The West has failed at what, though? All wars are tragedies, but nobody promised they were going to protect Ukraine in the first place, and it’s a long standing international precedent that two countries can go to war without everyone on the planet sending troops.
Ukraine got a raw deal, there's no doubt about that, but they didn't and don't think that it was ever a mutual defense pact. A lot of us have skewed perceptions, because a lot of us live in countries that have never in our lifetimes been invaded, but the general expectation on the international stage is that countries can fight wars without friendly third parties sending in their own troops.
I don't think Putin has a single reason, the reason you stated is one in particalur an US one. From a Western European view, my best guess is, he also wants to destabilize EU (with a lot of NATO memebers). Remember Syria an the refugee crisis? This gave TailWind to a lot of right wing parties, which are mostly ProRussia (AFD, FPÖ etc). Incidentally left wing parties, "Die Linke" comes to mind, are also Putin fans. So any polarization within EU will help Russia to sell its resources and don't get sanctioned to much. IMO Putin is playing the divisor.
> If the U.S. intervenes, a retaliatory cyber op from Russia against critical infrastructure would make america amish again.
Cyber crimes with significant impact are still in the realm of fiction. Scare mongering about it does not help.
That said, one should not make stupid decision how to connect and control such infrastructure and you should prepare with working backups instead of another security product.
Have family that are vp cybersecurity in infrastructure; I wish you were correct, but the free market went for quick and cheap implementations, not secure.
Basically, no one wanted to bear all the costs of having secure infrastructure components, this is the tragedy of the commons that government is supposed to solve, but when all the leaders are over 70, it’s hard for them to grok the new reality.
Sure, it could happen. There were hospitals that got knocked out for weeks with as simple ransomware attack.
If you have a dedicated hacker with means to acquire exploits, security is probably almost impossible. This is why effective mitigation is very likely the safer approach. Manual overrides or air gapped systems would help too.
But it is wrong to panic about it. The best mitigation is boring, but yes, some investment in IT could really help.
Maybe you missed Stuxnet / Olympic Games? Not sure how much ICS/SCADA security work you do, but there's a whole field dedicated to it. Can't tell if this is just someones narrative shaping work or sincere ignorance.
Is it in the realm of science fiction because nobody has pulled the trigger yet? Or is it because the gun doesn’t exist?
Ukraine has been subjected to Russian cyberattacks for nearly a decade now. They’ve accomplished knocking the power off multiple times. It would seem the gun exists.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine they could have some success with cyberattacks against the US. How impactful that would be to disrupting day to day life though is a question that remains to be answered. When the power was out in Texas recently, there was quite an impact. Imagine millions losing power in the rust belt in the winter. There would no doubt be loss of life and significant physical damage.
>Cyber crimes with significant impact are still in the realm of fiction. Scare mongering about it does not help.
I wish. The gas pipeline shutdown last year was just a rehearsal I imagine. If the Russian government went full send on a cyber attack, we would probably be completely fucked for months at this point.
You mean "fought their draft" in the sense of "avoiding being sent to Vietnam"?
Sure, that would make hypocrites of those who were draft dodgers back then, and advocate the draft now. But how many of those are there? I'd guess the vast majority of baby boomers who now advocate the draft weren't draft dodgers.
And AFAIK, compared to those who went, draft dodgers were a small minority.
>You mean "fought their draft" in the sense of "avoiding being sent to Vietnam"?
No... fought their draft as in "We think the draft is bull, this war is bull, and we don't want to go."
Hey, I could be wrong - I wasn't there to observe first hand what happened in the 60s and 70s. I only assumed the Vietnam draft was unpopular based on pop culture. Maybe boomers didn't sit around college campus blocking up traffic, chanting slogans, and smoking pot? Maybe there were never peace marches? The soundtrack of Boomer's youth? Largely works of fiction! 80s anti-war films? Anti-American propaganda!
If you're telling me only those who actively avoided the draft were against it, I believe you.
I should have just used my own eyes and ears to observe what Boomers have done since then. Baby Boomers in Congress and in the White House sent troops to Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with overwhelming approval at the time. Yes, there was lots of backtracking and second guessing after we stuck of fingers in those pies, but I guess that's a development that's arisen after Vietnam. Maybe the problem with those wars was there were no Commies to shoot.
I just didn't realize how much blood-lust Boomers held deep inside.
I stand corrected. Thank you for setting me straight.
> Maybe boomers didn't sit around college campus blocking up traffic, chanting slogans, and smoking pot? Maybe there were never peace marches? The soundtrack of Boomer's youth? Largely works of fiction! 80s anti-war films? Anti-American propaganda!
Cut it out with the bullshit: You know very well I never said or meant any of that.
But how many people does it take to sit around and smoke, chant, and block traffic? It's not as if it was necessarily new people at every sit-in, is it -- they could very well have been the same pot-smoking, slogan-chanting, and traffic-blocking protesters at most of those protests, right? Sure, they became the cultural phenomenon remembered from the time. To a large degree because, as you point out, of those 80s Hollywood blockbusters... And how many tens or hundreds of thousands of Hollywood blockbuster producers and directors did it take to make thoseand leave this huge imprint on the collective consciousness of posterity?
OTOH, AIUI a majority of draftees... didn't dodge the draft. The USA sent what, half a million young men? (or more?) over there. I'm not saying they all went willingly -- far from it, AFAIK -- but at least, those who went cannot, by definition, have been "draft-dodgers". So by my reckoning, compared to active protesters quite possibly, and compared to actual draft dodgers almost certainly, there were more non-draft-dodgers.
And also by definition, pretty much exactly all of those young men who were sent to Vietnam to fight -- the non-draft-dodgers -- were baby boomers.
So "boomers are hypocrites because they all advocate the draft now but dodged it back then" just doesn't make mathematical or logical sense. For one thing, even if many of them advocate the draft now that's not all of them; maybe the ones advocating it now are the same ones who obeyed it then, and maybe they've been quite consistently and non-hypocritically in favour of it all their lives. And for another, of course the bit about "they all dodged it then" is BS: If they had, there wouldn't have been any of them there.
Your rantings and ravings about Boomer Bloodlust aside, all I was pointing out was the bullshitness of this collective-hypocrisy accusation.
How long do you think Russia can hold out if the entire world sanctions them? Do you think they'd trade Ukraine for trade with every world partner? Bottom line: Russia can only win a physical war - they cannot win an economic war.
This is bait and bad bait at that. The longer Russia continues to provide us with video evidence of their bullying only makes it easier for us to convince undecided countries to sanction Russia to submission.
> How long do you think Russia can hold out if the entire world sanctions them? Do you think they'd trade Ukraine for trade with every world partner? Bottom line: Russia can only win a physical war - they cannot win an economic war.
Forever? Look at North Korea: Kim Jong-un is doing fine.
> China on Wednesday criticized the expansion of economic sanctions against Russia, saying that they were unlikely to solve the Ukraine crisis and that they had the potential to harm average people as well as the interests of Beijing.
> Their intentions are different from ours too. Putin’s goal is not a flourishing, peaceful, prosperous Russia, but a Russia where he remains in charge. Lavrov’s goal is to maintain his position in the murky world of the Russian elite and, of course, to keep his money. What we mean by “interests” and what they mean by “interests” are not the same. When they listen to our diplomats, they don’t hear anything that really threatens their position, their power, their personal fortunes.
60% of the North Korean population lives in poverty[0]. Kim Jong-un wouldn't still be leader if his people knew how much better they could have it without his policies.
> 60% of the North Korean population lives in poverty[0]. Kim Jong-un wouldn't still be leader if his people knew how much better they could have it without his policies.
IIRC, Russia media is basically like having pro-Putin Tucker Carlson on all the channels all the time. And if, despite that, anyone in Russia has even a small chance of actually undermine Putin, they'll find poison in their underwear and get an all-expenses paid trip to a gulag.
The thing I don't understand about these sanctions is - aren't they meaningless when it comes to shaping policy? Russia is not a democracy - Putin doesn't need the support of the targets of sanctions to act however he wants; Russia controls the energy supplies in Europe and sits on a huge pile of currency - hitting them economically will hurt Europe much more than Russia.
Yes, but apparently some of those are soft-walked because the banks and other creditors of Russia are afraid they won't get their money back. As if that should even be a concern at this point.
Take a big dose of Realpolitik and leave the "ought to"s behind. There's no nanny to tattle to. Nuclear war is a losing move for us all. Don't encourage it's happening out of some sense of moral justice that will kill billions.
Everyone saying "but we should let Putin do whatever he wants with lives of innocents because otherwise nuclear war" is Putin supporter, whether they know it or not.
This is very unfortunate, but true. The reality is this: the window to deal with Putin in a non-confrontational manner has already closed, there are no 'good' options that do not carry a very hefty price tag in front of us right now, but people are - understandably - still having trouble adjusting to that reality.
But Putin - and Russia - are being dealt with, via international sanctions and being cut off from the world's economy. That's a big source of attrition. Russia is self-sufficient to a point and may still have (financial etc) ties with China, but it will hurt them badly.
But that's as far as it will go at this point. Russia invading Ukraine (again) has been universally declared a Dick Move, but since Ukraine is not an EU or NATO member and as far as I know there's no defense pacts either, there's nothing that they can do that would not be considered an unnecessary escalation.
> But Putin - and Russia - are being dealt with, via international sanctions and being cut off from the world's economy.
Putin can be faulted for many things but not looking ahead isn't one of them and you can bet that he has priced this in already. If anything he is probably amazed at the lack of response.
> Russia invading Ukraine (again) has been universally declared a Dick Move, but since Ukraine is not an EU or NATO member and as far as I know there's no defense pacts either, there's nothing that they can do that would not be considered an unnecessary escalation.
Yes, there will be all kinds of justification for letting Ukraine burn, this one will be near top of the list for sure.
If sanctions worked the first few times, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Why think it will work this time?
EDIT: of course, my opinions are shaped by being in non-nuke-equipped country in Europe, so depending on West's response this time, we're next. I'm sure it looks differently for someone sitting in New Jersey or Australia.
Things will have to get really bad for that to happen. I mean it didn't happen / isn't happening in the US despite the people getting royally fucked left and right.
Oh wait there was an attempt, people didn't accept a democratic vote and decided to go and find politicians to lynch. I'm still pretty shocked that there hasn't been a more severe reaction to that one.
The only way to stop a monster from destroying you is make him afraid you'll crush him back. If you let him know you are willing to let him do anything to save your skin, he will do it. Including destroying you, in the end.
where do you have that from? you can obviously predict human behaviour very accurately, so you must base that on something. this is a serious situation after all. are you a psychologist?
Putin is turning 70 soon. He knows he's not immortal and his latest moves look to me that he really wants his position in the history books.
He's shown time and time again that from within Russia, he's untouchable and everyone who tries will either be killed or deported to gulag. No sources needed, just look it up quickly on your own.
I do not see an easy solution for dealing with him - left alone the assassination route.
Your moral certainty is laudable and impossible to dispute without sullying one’s own ethics with hypocrisy, and inviting charges of moral and literal cowardice.
But. Nuclear weapons are far beyond the ken and capability of humans’ intuitive game theory, the hueristics we apply in escalatory conflicts of all scales. Applying such intuition risks thoughtless apocalypse; MAD is a novel idea because such weapons required either an entirely new paradigm in power politics, or humanity’s rapid suicide.
Nuclear weapons are a deus, or devil, sprung from the machine of human civilization.
The possibility of their use, even by a bully who wields them especially to intimidate us, must inspire some cowardice in any soul who cherishes humanity’s potential.
The west must find its moral courage within the contraints of antiquarian post-Congress of Vienna style Realpolitik, as others have stated. Partition of Ukraine and many decades applying a new strategy of containment is the most realistic ‘victory’ that can be sought.
We might hope that Russia’s once promising liberal civil society will revolt and save this decade for peace - in vain, I expect.
If we don't initiate nuclear war, a nuclear war would be on Putin. He can do that with or without us defending Ukraine, I don't see how you could blame nuclear war on anyone but the aggressor. Put this pathetic dog down.
He says no. Probably enjoying one last sunset outside before closing the hatch! I can't help but wonder about our h n founders, safe in their bunkers in NZ, reading dog eared copies of The Soveiregn Individual. And then I wonder about all the Ukraine war news stories leading up to this being and flagged and burried here. I hope it's just coincidence. As I have said before, they think they can survive nuclear winter, no problem. But those assumptions are built on test of single small bombs. 10,000 going off at once is an order of magnitude worse, and might easily produce surprising effects. Science is always finding surprises in old experiments when they crank the power way up.
And I am no HN founder, but I live in Eastern Europe. NATO planes and helicopters kept flying overhead all day and my house doesn’t even have a basement.
So I bet we are closer to the danger than you are. And I also bet that the ones doing the flagging and burying are other brave "class warriors" and "eaters of the rich" who can’t accept that their beloved ideology has created monsters like Putin while the capitalism they despise has given the world prosperity, (relative) peace and Elon Musk (the last one's a mixed blessing, I admit).
PG if you are reading this, I love you really, man. And if there's any room left down there for a resourceful fella, I will work for bunk and board. (In fact, I've been stockpiling tins since Feb 20, so I only need the bunk ;)
We are dealing with "insane" people. If he is willing to use nukes over Ukraine, I can guarantee he does not plan just taking Ukraine. When should we react? Ukraine, Romania, Poland, Austria, Germany?
It's completely irrelevant on who would be the nuclear war. A nuclear war will wipe out an absolutely humongous part of humanity. Even if you survive, you will be doing much much worse as essentially all supply chains will get broken.
You are missing the point which is: your greatest fear will be turned and used against you by your enemy. So the only actual solution is to stand up and confront what you fear. Then you have a fighting chance to avoid that fate.
But, fine, let's play this game. The US is sends troops into the Ukraine. You do understand this is right at Russia's border. What does Putin do? He'll engage. Great, now we're in a shooting war with our nuclear rival. Now do you want to roll the dice this doesn't escalate further. Does Putin go after neighboring NATO countries? Now the US has to escalate further to defend an ally. And if the US/NATO pushes into Russia, does Russia go nuclear?
This is why the Cold War stayed COLD. We didn't directly engage Russia on anything close to their borders. Yes, we fought two proxy wars in Asia and just look how that turned out.
Do you really want to roll the dice and hope your neighborhood isn't a parking lot in the next five years?
If Putin directly attacks the West you'll get your dream. Until then you might actually stop advocating nuclear Armageddon. If you are really willing to do this you are no better.
We gave them assurances; their translation said guarantees. They aren't the first to be let down by an agreement with the west, only the latest.
It is up to Biden now to live up to his tough talk of Putin fearing him (from during the election, if you have forgotten) and other western leaders to find an end that doesn't involve bending over.
What's your proposal? Let Putin eat Ukraine? Baltic states next? Sit tight, run for the west and hope Putin stops at sooner than we run out of places to run to?
Baltic states might be next, yes. I can't see NATO going in on a full blown war to defend the baltic states, as it would very much lead to the destruction of the world we know.
But that doesn't really matter. Article 5 was drawn up when nuclear weapons already existed, and presumably everybody that is a signatory to the NATO treaty knew full well what they were getting themselves in to.
There's NATO troops in the baltic states. 0 chance Russia sends in combat troops and if they did 0 chance NATO backs down.
What's happened in the last ~10 years was that Ukraine was Russia's proxy, then the West's, and now it will be Russia's again. That's a very different story than one that starts with "was a member of NATO".
Yes, when you are in defense pact with nuclear powers, you have way better detterence on your side. Why is that so hard to understand?
People are also forgetting that you can't just instantly admit Ukraine into NATO and instantly teleport all the alliance armies onto the battlefield. Trying to make it quicker would very likely just hasten the Russian invasion (because the head douche apparently wanted Ukraine all along), so it really boils down to "do you want to start throwing nukes for state that you never made nuke-backed promises to?"
It's appalling how many people here are not seeing bigger picture and would love to just try to end humanity just because some nation got dealt _really_ bad cards. Economically Russia is cratering, so the impatience to end it all here (or in 2014) is just irrational. They were already losing technology (e.g. see how their space program is faltering), this will just accelerate Russia's slide into irrelevance. Even their weapons tech is not keeping up, see the latest kerfuffle in Caucasus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war
Also the wording is fuzzy when it comes to conventional war, but maybe the wiki has wrong wording. Either way, that is nowhere close to full defense pact which NATO is (with forward allied military bases and such).
If you want to find a way to not defend an ally, you'll always find one :)
NATO treaty itself does not talk about rapid response forces, joint bases and so on. All of that comes beyond the treaty. What stops key states from retreating back to basic treaty and then finding an excuse when Article 5 comes? E.g. if Russia comes as non-marked „rebels“?
But there was no defense alliance between NATO and Ukraine, right?
Maybe NATO has also weak wording in the treaty itself. So ask yourself - why did Ukraine want so badly to be accepted into it? Why is Russia opposing NATO expansion so much?
Budapest treaty is pretty damn close to defence alliance in it's wording.
Why did Baltic states or Poland wanted into NATO so much? It's one more treaty you can show to media when shit hits the fan. One more treaty your supporters can use debating governments for help.
In reality, if Russia attacks a NATO member, it won't be automatic full-on NATO response. It will still be debates. But certain people will be much more uncomfortable saying „no we won't defend NATO allies“. Yet some will still say it.
Russia wants it's own NATO, with black jack and hookers. And countries joining the real NATO obviously won't join theirs.
The agreement literally says "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" on page 3. What is fuzzy about the wording?
How can the treaty be read to not apply to conventional war? Are you saying that one can invade Ukraine and still "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine"?
NATO has no obligation to Ukraine and it'd be a huge defensive liability. And, as we see, Putin would go to war before seeing Ukraine a part of NATO. The chumps here are the Ukrainian leadership and people. NATO made it clear they wouldn't be admitted. Russia made it clear that he'd invade if they tried. Ukraine did it anyway and this is the unfortunate result.
Baltic states are undefendable, even compared to Ukraine. If Ukraine is down, Poland is as indefendable as Ukraine. Then we are back to Cold War state where Germany is barely defendable.
Wow, not really. Putin lies all of the time and he is a bully, but he's not kidding when he says there will be retaliations.
Anything the West does directly they have to expect a response.
That said, I think the west should be using 'distance power'.
There are US Global Hawk drones over Ukraine right now doing surveillance, I think it would be reasonable for the US to launch cruise missiles at Russian targets in Ukraine.
The Russians could make things very difficult for ships in the Black Sea however as one opportunity for retaliation.
We just have to hope that Ukrainians can leverage the Javelins and Stingers to great effect and make it painful enough for Putin that he has no choice to step back, but it's impossible to tell, it's just as likely Russia may be able to just smash through Ukranian defences and leave them to some insurgency skirmishes.
> We just have to hope that Ukrainians can leverage the Javelins and Stingers to great effect and make it painful enough for Putin that he has no choice to step back,
Putin won't step back. This is his endgame and he has very little - if not actually nothing - to lose. Going back as a loser is not on the table as a viable option.
Putin is not all powerful, no leader ever is. He has to face realities of the situation, and also populism at home.
And he has a lot to lose, this is a risky manoeuvre. If Russia fails in it's publicly stated objective it will look really bad on him and Russia. Russia could feasibly fail entirely and lose some occupied territory. Unlikely, but it could happen. And then there's the 'overhead' cost of economic disruption.
If the Ukranians can hold off the main thrust of the attack, and especially if Russians start to come back in body bags - he will lose the momentum and have to make serious adjustments.
This is 'extremely expensive' for him in every way: political, populist, economic to conduct such operations and he can't do it for very long.
Or if they do actually 'win' and but then Urkanians can mount material insurgent attacks, it won't work.
Russian Oligarchs just had their wealth cut in half (they are pissed), a lot of Russians will be facing financial pressures, they were never really behind this war in the first place - this will take it's toll at home.
Russia lost 6 fixed wing and 3 or 4 rotary wing just this morning - that's not a good start and if those loses continue at that rate he won't be able to keep it up - he can't risk his Air Force for Ukraine.
Ukranians have 1K+ Javelin and hundreds of Stinger missiles. Those weapons do not require central coordination and can nullify air support and amour advantages, which makes it an ugly ground fight which will be bloody, and it's possible Russians don't have the veracity to fight. Russians soldiers are doing it 'because it's a job' - not because their homeland is under threat.
Russian paratroopers have taken Kyiv Airport this morning, but they are alone without armour or real support, Ukranians shot down 3 of their transport craft. It's entirely feasible that Ukranians take back that airport .
Although it would be risky, the West, particularly could cause serious damage to Russian forces in Ukraine.
I don't really think Ukraine will hold out, but they definitely could and Russia will have to eventually withdraw in some way.
My guess is that he would mostly withdraw to the Donbas region and then make some kind of 'declaration of objectives met' and then sue for a truce, making permanent claims to Donbas recognized by the West (which won't happen, but his claims will make him appear strong).
If you're really clever, get all Sun Tzu on him and feed his fears until he chokes on them.
Most bullies are cowards. Threats and ultimatums like that come from a place of weakness. Did you hear America saying anything like that when they invaded Iraq? No, because they weren't scared.
Putin is a symptom of a much deeper problem, and I'm fairly sure that even if you did manage to do that he would be replaced by something similar, possibly even worse.
Having a rogue state with nukes is a serious problem.
I find this take very reductive. I would rather see something more concrete like:
Putin's pre invasion speech has a striking amount of blood and soil rhetoric. And in addition just like Hitler he denies the right of existence of East European states between Germany and Russia.
Well he did all of that too. He brought up "grievances" going back almost to the 1800s. He denied that Ukraine and other Eastern European countries were real countries. He said that Lenin and Stalin were too soft.
He all but said that controlling these countries was Russia's "Manifest Destiny".
He is hinting that he can nuke everyone who will stand against. This is a typical tactic of bullies – to hint death threats, without directly stating them. Also they want to assure you that they can definitely do it, even though they know about the consequences.
Strongest practical resource you mean? What else would be a stronger offense than a barrage of nukes crippling a country for hundreds of years to come and effecting the entire global environment with radiation, fallout, complete civil destabilization, etc.
Nuclear contamination doesn't tend to stay put and respect borders. Russia knows that, so I don't think Russia would drop a nuke anywhere in their own vicinity.
Correct, hence the entire reason I suggested the qualifier of practical. Nuclear attacks are clearly impractical by any sane individual, but in terms of strength and damage, aside from some sort of biological weapon, I'm not sure what could have similar impact.
Forget nuclear contamination. If Russia nukes a NATO country, nukes are coming back to land on Russia. And Putin, personally, will die, and so will Russia as a nation.
So, it was an impressive threat. I doubt he actually would follow through... but he might. That's his leverage - that we wonder if he might. Rationally, though, it's a crummy threat, because rationally his own downside is far too big.
Hypothetically: your precision-guided munitions killing only family members of only military officers who haven't yet surrendered to you would be a stronger offense. Your enemy's anti-aircraft guns firing only at their own aircraft, and their tanks driving under your control to destroy their munitions depots, the crews helplessly imprisoned within. Your enemy's civilian populace becoming convinced that their own leadership is crucifying babies and mass-murdering anyone who speaks their language, your soldiers treat civilians well, and their family members are urging them to surrender to you.
Compared to those things, the power of nukes is trivial; all they can do is destroy. You can't surrender to a nuke, and the point of warfare is to convince the enemy to submit, not to damage the ecosystem. Damaging the ecosystem is just a side effect, so it's the wrong way to measure the strength of offensive resources.
Putin is a 69 year old dictator who is realizing his life is over. He's decided to go out with a bang. He obviously does not care about his country since this war will only hurt Russia, it's already had multiple consequences that are directly opposed to his stated goals. He wants to play with his army and tanks.
"Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
And build them a home, a little place of their own.
The Fletcher Memorial
Home for Incurable Tyrants and Kings.
...
Boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead."
Putin (and his kgb clique) is loosing grip on the power, the war started to be the only way to rally local support and remain in the power. Small scale, local conflicts are growing in size to appease common people to give them taste of USSR former glory, taste of world power, not decay of corruption riddled aristocracy ruled former empire.
Putin is at the top of the pyramid but he is not the sole ruler of the Russia. Its not like if he dies Russia will magically become exemplary democracy.
There were and still are people lining up and aiming to take his seat, but as long as Putin appears to be strong and gives his underlings enough he will remain on the throne.
Why would Putin think his life is over? He's 10 years younger than Biden. And, have you ever heard the expressions, "better dead than Red" and "give me liberty or give me death"? People often believe that deeply held principles are more important than mere survival. Similarly Putin might believe that establishing Russia's strength and border security is more important than any short term pain Russia endures. In other words, there's other ways to look at this than as just a pure boss move for his own ego and pleasure.
He might think his life is over because there are very obvious physiological effects that occur when you are 69 years old. As a person who does not have problems and gives problems to other people it may frighten him to realize he is going to die.
Sure there are other perspectives and possible motivations for his actions. But it's the idea that he may not care any more and might do anything that I find scary. If he's willing to risk full scale invasion across all of Ukraine after the international focus that preceded it, would he also be willing to launch supersonic nuclear weapons? In his televised statement he said Russia is ready for all outcomes.
For the USA what probably worries me most is cyberattacks. The USA is such a soft target. Our government can't even secure it's systems after a decade of laws, warnings, bad reports, and actual attacks.
I do hope I'm wrong and Putin is actually sane and has a strategic plan that makes sense for his country.
This is a tragedy. This is what we get for enabling weak willed leaders and appeasers. People like to joke when basketball players go and visit dictatorships and companies do business with mass murderers. Well here is the result. Another war and more death. We need to have zero tolerance for these psychopathic dictators and their families. Full embargoes. Isolate them to their tiny hell holes and never let them leave.
Fuck the "economy". Freedom is the most important thing, how many more millions need to die before we understand this?
Does anyone wish for or expect that? We saw people go up against tanks during the fall of the soviet union, but it's rare. If Russian people have such a mindset it should be entirely their own decision. Let's not speculate.
"Protecting Donetsk and Luhansk" literally means sending troops into Ukrainian territory to fight against the Ukrainian military. That's called an invasion.
EDIT: though the wording might still be significant. If the question is worded "Should Russia support the sovereign, Russia-aligned republics of Donetsk and Luhansk", that might poll significantly differently from a question that's worded "Should Russia invade Ukraine" even though both mean the same thing. Just like how >50% of Americans answer "no" to the question of "Should schools in America teach Arabic Numerals" because they're misled by the question, not because they're opposed to teaching people about numbers.
Donetsk and Luhansk have declared independence, and Russia has recognised them. Secession is not a new phenomenon; Texas seceded from Mexico. Several regions seceded from the former Yugoslavia, and were rapidly recognised (and reinforced militarily) by western countries.
I think it's perfectly legitimate to argue that Russia is not invading Ukraine, but rather supporting the Donbas republics. I mean, I don't agree; and I think there's a fair chance that Russia will invade Ukraine, and install a puppet. But they haven't done it yet. I suspect that for the next few weeks, they'll restrict themselves to air and missile attacks on Ukrainian military installations, with troops-on-the-ground restricted to Donbas.
Beyond a few weeks, who's to say? No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 601 ms ] threadI never believed him growing up, institutions and America seemed infallible. It’s sad to say but I think with global warming, covid, and the general decline of American soft power we’ll see more and more global turmoil
My heart goes out to Ukraine and its people
> Nevertheless, following its actions in Crimea, there is justified concern that Russia could now aim to annex eastern Ukraine. Unlike on the Crimean peninsula, there is not a large majority here who feel like they belong to Russia - and only about a quarter of the population of the east overall are ethnic Russians.
https://www.dw.com/en/the-significance-of-the-donbas/a-17567...
Trump did not want to stand up to Putin, so the early work to annex eastern Ukraine didn't make the news very often. Trump had no response to it.
Primary responsibility to defend Europe should lie with Europe. The ability to defend oneself is just as important as climate. One has wide public support, the other is taken for granted (thanks to Nato).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm#:~:text=....
Several countries hadn't made real any moves towards reaching that goal, and even now are still falling far short (see page 3):
https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2020/10/p...
Welcome to World War 3. watch the FOSSIL fuel prices, ouch!
The war is over Ukrainian NATO membership. If NATO membership was off the table, or if Biden was strong and had the conviction to defend Ukraine there would be no war.
Instead he entertained Ukrainian NATO membership and tried to fend Putin off with finger wagging.
That is to say they have every reason to believe that they could without invasion keep Ukraine out of NATO for the foreseeable future so the invasion isn't about that issue.
No, of course not. What NATO should have done was to accept Ukraine as a member. Anybody think Putin would invade a country that can refer to §5?
PS: I agree about the feeling of infaillible institution and international order..
Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times
The hard times in Ukraine now won't make anyone better. Men in west won't be inferior for not going through it.
And then you go on to express a not-so-objective viewpoint? OP is stating an idiom, a saying, a phrase. Let it be. There is nothing objective about it.
People regularly use this one as argument or to imply inferiority of those they look down at. Therefore, it is 100% alright to not that idiom stand.
Hmm, I disagree. I've seen it used as a statement of dysfunction in our society.
We were in a comfy peaceful era and yet we saw rise of extremism, neo nazis in germany, in the US even. Good times allow for forgetting the extent of what reality can be and then people start to have weird ideas when small problems come, only to react in shallow reflexes like nationalism, and war.
I may be dumb but I assumed people who saw wars just didn't want any of that anymore and would actually know what 'right value' means, not just school books or worse .. network propaganda.
Now sure, it can all be twisted, people can be brainwashed during and after war, there can be bad wounds for long too.
If wars _prevented_ extremism you’d think we’d have evidence of it by now.
Also I wonder what happened after “The Great War”? Did extremism decline then?
Yes. I too recall the many decades of peace after WWI. And the great leaders that arose in Europe after that conflict.
People with grit who struggle through puberty often produce children who wouldn’t bother to lift a finger to improve their lot or get a job:)
https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
Cycles in history is of course not "of course not true". in any complex system, there are oscillations. Most famous is economical boom and boost cycle.
Meme is not without merit. The reason we are able to discuss things like gender/race equity in marine corps promotions is precisely because these are good times. And this lack of focus may lead to bad times eventually.
> Ibn Khaldun, 14th century Muslim scholar from Tunisia
My point is: the dog whistle/modern meme is basically a reference to Spengler and others, because their ideologies align relatively well with the patchwork of neo-fascist ideas. That's what they hint to and promote. That's why I explicitly mentioned Spengler and the 20th century. Lot of other people developed some form of a cyclical history but that's not really relevant here.
which historians? And why should we pay any attention to their consensus?
Ascribing any fixed time scale to the cycle is going to be fallacious as it depends on environmental factors.
Comparing Rome to its enemies in this way as if “the toughness of the people” is THE variable that determined success, compared to say, coordinated mobility-based warfare tactics, is a stretch at best.
From my reading of history, the typical pattern is:
- Some set of tribes exist on the fringe of civilization (if one already existed). They have access to the bare minimum resources for survival. These are not strong men, yet, but relatively weak savages, probably not even worth conquering by the civilization closeby. What they do have, is an every-day reminder to stay efficient in what they do, so they don't starve to death. - After a while, one or a few of these tribes grow in competency and competitively useful cultural values. (Often, but not necessarily military.) They start trading with the nearby civilization, and learn from them, but maintain their focus on what is essential for survivial. Also, during this phase, this population is still facing survival pressures, often military ones. Gradually, these people become "strong", meaning they have competencies and a culture that makes it increasingly effortless to survive and prosper. Much of this comes from becoming cultured in ways that increase productivity or martial prowess. - Only at this stage, when survival is no longer a concern (and especially if all competetion has been eliminated), does the weakening stage start. Gradually cultural values seep in that reduce productivity/efficiency of the population. Meanwhile, essential survival skills fade to the background and are forgotten. Still, during most of this phase, this more civilized population has economic advantages and perhaps access to specialists that allow them to fend off nearby populations, often for centuries. - Eventually, though, some event (or series of events) occur that bring a shock to the sturcture of this civilization. Maybe a few bad harvests, maybe some barbarian invation, maybe a plague. At this point, the civilization has become brittle, and shatters easily.
I'm pretty sure I see this pattern repeat itself for the Greek, Roman, Muslim Caliphate, Ottoman and many Chinese civilizations. Then there are some cases that doesn't really go through all the stages. For instance, Mongols, Huns, Goths and some others spread themselves too thin to really build their own civilization, so they inherited whatever civilizations (including their corruption) they conquerd. Similarly, Europe form about 1000AD to the end of WW2 was always in a state of countries competing against each other, so they were constantly facing survival pressures that kept most of them from becoming _too_ corrupt.
Ibn Khalodoun had described a cycle of four generations of rulers and his theory echoes in Fourth Turning theory nowadays.
So nihil novi sub sole...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Khaldun
We (the west) are not what we once were. I’m so sorry Ukraine.
Dismissing those efforts because of a vocal few or because it's people you don't like is a disservice to those actually struggling.
In more normal bi- or multi- polar periods (50s - 90s), international order often submitted to great power politics. What was right or legal was less important than who wanted what.
He has been closely in bed with the sections of media that have pushed the narrative, generally celebrated paranoia towards experts, and consistently pushed the idea that you can't trust the government. If you lose control of the bolder you helped push onto the slope, it doesn't mean that you don't have responsibility in pushing it to begin with.
He was also instrumental in pushing early treatments that didn't pan out as hoped. These often became the subject of conspiracy theories about a whole slew of medical professionals avoiding real treatment, and the pandemic being some authoritarian plot. Trump was there sowing doubt in medical professionals. He may have encouraged vaccination itself, but his actions on the whole produced distrust so that there is a pronounced deficit of vaccination in his electorate.
In short, it is entirely possible that Trump is correct. The political discourse can't keep shutting down in emergencies, there are too many emergencies these days for that to be an option. People have to talk calmly about what they think is happening.
Exercises and bases in all Eastern Europe intensified under Trump.
He likes to talk nicely about people that he's going to strike. Like he always says he likes Xi, but then start a trade war anyway.
He blocked NS2, Biden opened it in his first week in office.
If Trump was so weak toward Putin, Putin would have invaded with Trump in the White House...but Putin invaded with Biden there(and previously woth Obama). Makes you think, doesn't it?
I have argued, tons, that America is making the world more peaceful. It was hard to sell especially to Arab/Muslim countries but without a unipolar power, it's lots of small powers fighting each other for territory.
> institutions and America seemed infallible
Couple that with recklessness. Fatca, CRS, Trade deals, etc... lots of countries got screwed bad and treatment from the masters was as bad and discriminatory as it can get. If people sympathies with Putin, you are doing something wrong.
- Pax Britannica
- Pax Americana
Of the three periods of peace, Americana is the most peaceful.
That's not to say there aren't faults, but there are far fewer faults than previous eras.
The reason developing nations want a multipolar world is to have room to manoeuvre and develop themselves, to be able to bargain with multiple powers, there is not much bargain in a unipolar world, when the USA does not want you to get too big, or your interest conflicts with theirs you're fucked.
USA (and the west) has learned that colonialism with a foreign army does not work efficiently, so they colonize countries by choosing who gets elected or performing coups and putting people that serve that interests even on the detriment of their nation.
African nations make a good example for countries that are officially independent but have no sovereignty whatsoever.
It's a monopoly of power, what's worse is it thinks it's interests are what defines good and bad.
Fuck Russia :(
Edit: They're a far-right/neo-Nazi group in the Donbas, apparently.
The US has a knack of dumping weapons on countries and having those weapons eventually end up in the hands of reactionaries, but I think at present those reactionaries make up a vanishingly small fraction of the weapons recipients.
I will also note that in the past, several elements of NATO's high command were former Nazi generals, so I really doubt there's a ton of angst about it internally.
And again, this is from someone who exercises extraordinary skepticism in the context of US international action.
But these hardcore Azov guys are anarchists by nature and a lot of them hate the Ukrainian government as much as they hate the separatists, so they still act independently without having to answer to the government. Some did eventually just merge into the military.
Putting a number on the size today of Azov is difficult because of how the two melded together. Some people joined Azov because they just wanted to help fight and didn’t care about the neo nazi stuff. Some are true believers. But one thing for certain is that it’s not some fringe group that exists on Wikipedia only.
Edit: watch this: https://youtu.be/wMMXuKB0BoY
> Putting a number on the size today of Azov is difficult because of how the two melded together. Some people joined Azov because they just wanted to help fight and didn’t care about the neo nazi stuff. Some are true believers. But one thing for certain is that it’s not some fringe group that exists on Wikipedia only.
This might be true, but it's not evidenced by the video. The video documents two independent groups, one of whom (the first) look like they might belong to Azov. I counted 7 people at the most.
OTOH, it's clear (from the end of the video) that there are protests in Kiev itself with reactionary (or at least hypernationalist) themes. It's not clear to me where the line is on those, probably because I'm not Ukrainian. But those protestors are in the capital.
In sum, it's not clear to me that we should discount NATO's current arms distribution because one of two groups in a video from 2019 has far-right members, members who cut a deal with the overarching military chain of command to secure arms for the broader military.
Fair warning though, it doesn't work the same way in reverse.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
I don't know why you think China needs to worry about Apple, Apple has been a faithful and lucrative partner to them. They don't just faithfully collaborate on censorship and cede control of encrypted Chinese iCloud data directly to a state-owned cloud provider, we now know that Apple has signed a $275B omnibus deal with China that includes Chinese startup investments, Chinese worker training, and R&D collaboration with Chinese tech firms. There is no government that Apple invests more into or collaborates more closely with than China's.
Why not just have Xiaomi phones where you have total control? Well, because you can have that and total control over a global tech giant that pours foreign money and technology into your regime. Why not have both?
But the wives and children of those who move them do. People in the West don't seem to notice a crucial aspect of modern Russia: extended families of those in charge live in the West. They study in Stanford and Harvard, mingle in Aspen, have holiday homes in the Hamptons. Russia is merely a piggy bank to finance that lifestyle. They are at the mercy of Western governments, because they've turned Russia into a stagnating shithole that even at its best is far below the upper-middle class standard in the West. Without access to Western resources, from mansions in Knightsbridge to accounts on Instagram, all that looted money becomes worthless.
All you need to do is let them sleep in the bed they've made. Freeze bank accounts, confiscate property, deny visas. Make them live that global jet-set lifestyle in Rostov oblast.
Also this will mostly affect relatively poor people who will just carry on with their factory jobs or whatever. They will just use landline.
To be clear I don't wish anything bad for the general Russian population, among which I have many friends, let alone Putin's opposition. And this may not be the best strategic idea, but it's a possible one that fits the theme of this community - so I think the snarkiness is uncalled for.
How does that possibly sound in any way like a good idea?
Any reclamation or reversals should be only made possible after last Russian soldier leave Ukraine.
To answer your question, yes. A country with nukes is dominating people as much as the British empire, Romans, and Mongols did? How is that even a serious question? With military forces spread through Korea, Japan, Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Poland, Lithuania, Arizona, Alaska, Dominican Republic, Cuba, you name it. From sea to shining sea, then another sea and another sea.
That trick of ours won’t work again.
Going to end up looking like a fucking 9000 IQ play by Russia here, but hopefully the world proves me wrong.
"Biden only wants to intervene because of Hunters business dealings!"
>Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
I don't know exactly what "Seek immediate Security Council action" means. What if the US seeks it and doesn't find it? Is that in compliance with the memorandum?
#2 Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Both violated in the Krimean annexion 2014. Since Russia could easily violate this treaty, they could easily invade Ukraine now. And they got no weapons from signatories, only a few from the Baltics.
Treaties with these signatories are not worth the paper, otherwise Ukraine would have kept the nukes, and would have somehow got the codes also eventually.
I don't see that in the list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
What I do see is a promise made by both the US and Russia to "[r]efrain from the threat or the use of force against [...] Ukraine." So Russia definitely broke the promise, and I don't see where the US broke it.
It should not be a surprise that North Korea refuses to disarm.
We should be grateful Ukraine does not have nukes. 12 hours ago the world might've gotten 4000C hotter if they did.
When you say "world peace", do you mean European peace? California peace? Where is your world?
And yes, in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Afghanistan again, Iraq, Syria, and others, one or more parties in the conflicts had nukes.
I don't care about the other parties in the conflict. Nukes stop you from getting invaded, not from invading. Afaik, none of these countries were nuclear when they got steamrolled.
I spoke with a guy who fought that war. I asked him "do you think the war would have ended without American intervention?" and he responded "no, I don't think it would".
I wouldn't describe the country as a blooming economy, but it's peace here, for more than 20 years and counting.
If LBJ stuck to his promise, we could have avoid a ton of mess in Vietnam: "We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."
We don't have a dog in this fight.
Edit: Apparently arguing for the US to not get involved in yet another foreign war warrants my comment being flagged.
Many have argued that it was US intervention in WWI that created the economic and political situations that allowed such a bad outcome to take place in WWII.
The US getting involved in WWI arguably extended that conflict, the action that made WWII possible, and had many drastic unintended consequences for humanity.
The very short version is this.
* During WWI, there were lots of peace overtures being pushed in Europe because a lot of people were sick of fighting. Because a lot of powerful people were hoping to drag the United States into that relative stalemate, these peace offerings were not taken as seriously as they otherwise would have been.
* Because the US's entrance tilted the scales at the end of WWI so dramatically, Allies were able to enact a little revenge in the Treaty of Versailles and impose punitive and humiliating economic and political measures. Rather than a normal, face-saving peace-treaty, Germany was punished harshly and this tilting of the scales is what led to conditions for the Nazis to take power.
* If Russia's economic and political attention wasn't directed externally at the time, it's likely the Russian Revolution would have failed and the world would have been spared a great deal of grief from Communism.
Obviously this is all alternative history speculation, but there's a strong case to be made that absolute US neutrality in WWI would have ended WWI sooner, not created the economic/social conditions that led to Nazis taking power in Germany, and Communists would have never taken root.
When people are convinced that there is only one way, then the propaganda worked.
As sad as it may be for Ukraine, they're going to have to do what they can to defend themselves with aid and supplies.
The one thought I have around this is Canada. Spitballing: There's a huge Ukrainian population there and the deputy PM has personal ties to the region. It's entirely possible, especially given recent events, that Trudeau decides it's politically expedient to get involved directly in some meaningful way. They'd also have to try to convince the other parties helping them maintain government. Even if that happens though, I suspect that won't make a difference to the outcome and the rest of NATO would look at it as a Canadian solo operation. I'd give this about a 0.001% chance of happening, maybe less. Any politician who got boots on the ground (barring some unforeseen change in circumstance) would probably be skewered public opinion-wise and be essentially kissing re-election goodbye.
I hate to say it, but I agree. Germany sent Ukraine a few thousand hats to help them resist Russian aggression, for Christ's sake.
Western powers will drop a strongly worded letter in the mail and implement economic sanctions that'll do diddly squat to the Russian authorities, besides maybe push them into a closer alliance with China.
Honestly, the least they could have done is massed NATO troops in Poland, the Baltics, etc. and kept strategic ambiguity about whether they planned to actually use them (instead of explicitly announcing, like dumbasses, they weren't going to get involved in any way that would bother Putin).
> It's entirely possible, especially given recent events, that Trudeau decides it's politically expedient to get involved directly in some meaningful way....I'd give this about a 0.001% chance of happening, maybe less.
Definitely less. IMHO, if they were going to have to get involved, they would have needed to have been moving troops and equipment for quite some time. I don't think they've done that.
Honestly, while I admire the courage, it might be the better solution to lay down weapons.
Wasn't that the intel estimate on how long it'd take Russia to take over? I saw Biden's statement that he was sending thoughts & prayers while he watched this and would talk it over with world leaders tomorrow. Since the last few rounds of sanctions did nothing after Crimea, I don't see this changing things.
By the time there is a real response, it's looking like this may be over. Given that their urgency was "I'll talk to world leaders about what to do tomorrow" rather than "let's enact the plan we already prepared during the weeks of warnings" I think we know which way things are headed.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
Given that it's apparently not urgent enough to do anything but watch this on TV until morning, it doesn't look like a priority to me.
Does that even matter? Isn't the more significant fact that Russia has veto on the Security Council?
And you can help by asking your government to sanction China. And stop buying goods from China
I see no evidence for this statement in western Europe countries. EU negative interest rates are an indicator of failure not success.
It's perfectly consistent to be opposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and also reject the myth that the US's military is the only thing that maintains world peace.
"only thing" Not the only thing by any stretch... but definitely a major reason and a hugely stabilizing force.
The US, in a brief moment of national clarify, participated in exactly two just wars in the last century. The outcome of one of those wars was the establishment of liberal democracies across Western Europe, which is indeed a tremendous stabilizing force. But it's not clear to me that the US gets to claim outsized credit for the subsequent years of peacemaking under those nations.
And that is me being lazy to lookup whether there were other conflicts.
The US has been in lots of wars over the last century; what I said was that only two were just.
I mean, there is a war; Russia has been bombing and rocketing Ukrainian military installations all over the country. But it's not a declared war.
Is not the same thing.
I guess we're ignoring the 200k+ troops sent to Iraq w/o a declaration of war by Congress? I will agree with you on one point though...the President wasn't a maniac.
Excerpt:
"At 5:34 a.m. Baghdad time on 20 March 2003 (9:34 pm, 19 March EST) the surprise[130] military invasion of Iraq began.[131] There was no declaration of war.[132] The 2003 invasion of Iraq was led by US Army General Tommy Franks, under the code-name Operation Iraqi Freedom,[133] the UK code-name Operation Telic, and the Australian code-name Operation Falconer. Coalition forces also cooperated with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the north. Approximately forty other governments, the "Coalition of the Willing," participated by providing troops, equipment, services, security, and special forces, with 248,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from Special Forces unit GROM sent to Kuwait for the invasion.[134] The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 70,000.[135]"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
And I would put some emphasis on the state of the relation on: Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, including interference with U.N. weapons inspectors.
The world is not a 'peaceful place' with a bunch of wars now and again.
It's held together by force.
Peace is a balance of, and righteous management of power.
The US+NATO+Allies form the basis of that power. Unfortunately, without the US, that 'Team' would basically be dysfunctional and wouldn't really work.
The Panama Canal, Suez Canal, the Gulf, S. China Sea - all of it would be controlled by various regimes if it were not for US power basically keeping it all open for everyone.
Israel and Egypt the 'lynchpin' of peace in the ME is kept that way because of US power. All of he Middle East would be like Syria were it not for US/West.
Obviously Taiwan would be in China and Korea would be vanquished by N. Korea.
It's hard to know exactly how the cards would fall, but they would definitely fall one way or another.
Unfortunately, we don't have a solution for Ukraine, but thankfully, this will be mostly contained in Ukraine thanks to NATO.
The same sentences were written two weeks ago with respect to Ukraine. You can't make any assumptions about what Russia will or will not do. Taking over the Suwalki gap could easily happen. The frog is best boiled slowly, and with ample time to get used to the new temperature.
I don't know if that's a good idea or not. I'm conflicted by my own hatred of the American government. At the same time, the obvious consequences of big tech refusing to work with the American military is a relative loss of power compared to countries like Russia.
Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine is much more equivalent to America's unprovoked attack on Iraq.
The current Russian claims about Ukraine, however, do appear groundless, based on the consensus of international media.
Source: Former mouthbreathing analyst
I beg your pardon? Eastern Europe is eternally grateful to the US that they won the cold war allowing them to break free from the Big Bear. Nations comprising 100+ million people from Estonia to Bulgaria are living their golden ages right now, because of US.
I was not born yet when Germany started WWII, but I was alive to see the US declare torture as a valid means of interrogation and bomb civilians with no repercusions. And my living relatives who suffered under a US-backed military coup may not be as quick to forgive either. Maybe your children will live in a peaceful world, but for many of us that's cold comfort.
The End of History? Not so fast. Free people not having a good run here.
This is an invasion of a peaceful country by its neighbor. They are complete opposites.
Maintaining the current borders does not advocate for self determination. War might not either, but the Ukraine isn't going to give up that land peacefully
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Rus...
US presence, aka expansionism in the MENA region, was very much the declared motivator for AQ and OBL. Thus the demands were also to pull US troops out of these countries, those demands already existed before 9/11.
Not to dig into this too much, but what I meant was that US wasn't there to permanently make Afghanistan a territory of USA.
Already got enough states trying to take care of and some territories existing in weird places, so I doubt there is much incentive to add even more of that, except maybe Cuba.
There is an invasion with innocent people in the the line fire and you’re worried where to be invest to profit from it.
Kinda hoping it was sarcasm, but suspect it wasn’t…
Seeing if I can get my parents out. Thanks for asking. Good to see someone cares.
But you seem so worried why I wasn’t helping. Made me even feel guilty. I assumed you’re right on the frontlines.
The alternative is to pause and think of the human on the other side of the screen. You might consider that perhaps while they are frantically trying to evacuate their parents from an active warzone, it might seem crass to swap trading tips to seemingly profit off their misery.
Furthermore, it might seem crass to confront them with a "What are you doing to help?" in an effort to win an internet debate. While this may seem like a distant conflict to you, it has hit close to home for many on Hacker News (and many of my colleagues at work as well).
If they felt guilty by my reply they should evaluate why since that wouldn't make most people feel guilty
It's a valid concern, but probably no point in asking here since there's no guaranteed safe haven.
Also, just because an all out war breaks out doesn’t mean life stops. Even during WW2 when Nazis were killing off Jews, people still had to wake up everyday and go to work and make a living just like always. They didn’t just sit around and wait for the war to pass. Hell they even went to parties and danced and fell in love, even as Jews rotted in concentration camps. Life doesn’t stop.
Soldiers still fought and even died on bright sunny days perfect for going to the beach.
NATO proposed Ukrainian and Georgian membership of NATO in 2005-2008, in the clear knowledge that this would destabilize the situation.
France, Germany, and others were against this. The proposal began the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJBQikfYyKs
We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
This war is about more than just Putin.
Research: George Friedman, Peter Zeihan, John Mearsheimer, Peter Hitchens, Noam Chomsky (more of an ideologue), etc. on this issue. You can start on YouTube OR read their books, I guess.
These are all PhDs or experts in some fashion that I just cited. You could just read their books too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mearsheimer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Friedman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Zeihan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hitchens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky
"F* the EU" said Diplomat Victoria Nuland -- knowing full well that the Germans and French would be against a coup in then-neutral Ukraine.
Meanwhile, once again, soon after the Iraq debacle: here we are getting dragged into another "war for democracy".
Russia and America turned Ukraine into a "if we can't have, burn it to the ground" situation. Further American intervention in Ukraine will just turn it into another Syria.
edit: Now I am downvoted too just for asking..? This just makes me think that there is not a solid answer?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-s...
I wonder, how would the world have turned out if NATO had made a different decision here?
(Just to be perfectly clear, I'm not arguing that NATO decisions justify Russia's invasion of Ukraine.)
--New members must uphold democracy, including tolerating diversity.
--New members must be making progress toward a market economy.
--Their military forces must be under firm civilian control.
--They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.
--They must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces.
NATO's founding members in 1949 included Portugal, at the time ruled by a right-wing dictatorship (1926–1974). Turkey and Greece both joined in 1952, and both have gone through periods of brutal military rule even while remaining NATO members. For the majority of NATO's existence, most of these "requirements" you cite have been mere lip service at best.
Many political scientists classify Erdogan's Turkey as an anocracy – a hybrid form of government which is part-way between dictatorship and democracy, mixing elements of both systems. Yet, Turkey remains a full member in good standing of NATO. Putin's Russia is also often classified as an anocracy. Why demand genuine democracy as a condition to join NATO when its current membership includes a state which isn't one? Indeed, according to the Polity data series [0], Putin's Russia is actually more free than Erdogan's Turkey.
Don't get me wrong, democracy is a truly wonderful thing – but if welcoming non-democratic Russia into NATO might have prevented this war, wouldn't that have been a wonderful thing too?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polity_data_series
And it wasn't the U.S.A. who sent troops to the Crimea and annexed in 2014?
Of course what is happening is tragic. We can all agree it should have been avoided, and I am curious if it could have been avoided.
1) Some parts of the Ukraine (the Crimea and Southern regions of the Ukraine) have a significant pro Russian population, e.g. they wouldn't protest a lot against Russian influence.
2) On the other hand the Western parts of the Ukraine are more EU/Western aligned, hence they don't want to do anything with the Putin's regime.
From Putin's perspective an independent Ukraine is no-no. And the West isn't willing to start WW3 over the Ukraine.
I think that this is the primary argument of people claiming that the USA MIC is partly to blame here. I do not have a good response to it.
Of course, Ukraine really wanted to be in NATO, for obvious reasons...
Here's the deal, from my standpoint. Russia is declining in relevance.
* Demographically, they're shrinking and aging.
* Economically, post-Crimea sanctions have blunted any growth.
* Trade / exchange--- petroleum becomes less relevant with time.
* Diplomatically, they're already pariahs from many past misdeeds.
* Culturally/socially, they've stagnated as well.
Clawing for land around them-- through proxy conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, etc-- offers them a small chance of continued relevance. It's probably not a winning strategy, but it's at least one which could be winning. When you're in a bad situation, if you want to keep playing the game, you need to make the moves that at least could lead to a win.
Euromaidan happened 2013. Putin already lost the Ukraine back then. By annexing the Crimea and sending Russian troops now he is taking the Ukraine back.
I may be mistaken but I think whether the Ukraine was actually joining NATO or not wasn't really relevant in this conflict IMHO.
>If Russia was going to invade anyway, why not at least try to de-escalate and negotiate for a sovereign Ukraine?
For the couples months there were negotiations. Was there a possibility to avoid the current conflict?
I think unless you're the U.S./Russian diplomat it's impossible to answer this question.
NATO proposed Ukrainian and Georgian membership of NATO in 2005-2008, in the clear knowledge that this would destabilize the situation.
France, Germany, and others were against this. The proposal began the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJBQikfYyKs
We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
"F* the EU" said Diplomat Victoria Nuland -- knowing full well that the Germans and French would be against a coup in then-neutral Ukraine.
Meanwhile, once again, soon after the Iraq debacle: here we are getting dragged into another "war for democracy".
Russia and America turned Ukraine into a "if we can't have, burn it to the ground" situation. Further American intervention in Ukraine will just turn it into another Syria.
The good news is that at almost 70, he doesn't have eternal life. The bad news is his replacement will probably be a similar sociopath.
Say, by similar vassalization as Belarus has gone through.
Ukraine was too free of a society for that as many of its members did not want that.
I am not a pro-Putin guy, but, if we don't recognize our part in this chaos, then, we're just promoting more of it.
We _had_ a buffer zone until yesterday. NATO was supporting Ukraine without much real intention of having it join, while Russia had Crimea and half of Donbass. This could have gone for decades - see Transnistria, which does exactly the same for Moldova for 30 years.
According to Russian politician Oleg Mitvol, Yanukovych bought a house in Barvikha for $52 million on 26 February 2014.[215]
On 27 February, a report stated that Yanukovych had asked the authorities of the Russian Federation to guarantee his personal security in the territory of Russia, a request that they accepted.[216] Yanukovych claimed that the decisions of the Rada adopted "in the atmosphere of extremist threats" are unlawful and he remains the "legal president of Ukraine". He accused the opposition of violation of the 21 February agreements and asked the armed forces of Ukraine not to intervene in the crisis. The exact whereabouts of Yanukovych when he made this statement remains unclear.[217][218] He later thanked Vladimir Putin for "saving his life".
On 3 October 2014, several news agencies reported that according to a Facebook post made by the aide to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, Anton Gerashchenko, Viktor Yanukovych had been granted Russian citizenship by a "secret decree" of Vladimir Putin.[219] On the same day, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that he didn't know anything about this.[220]
In 2017, Russian media suggested that Yanukovych is apparently living in Bakovka near Moscow, in a residence owned by Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.[221][222]
On 26 November 2015, Yanukovych received a temporary asylum certificate in Russia for one year; later extended until November 2017.[223] In October 2017, this was extended to another year.[224] According to his lawyer Yanukovych did not consider acquiring Russian citizenship or a permanent residence permits but "Only a temporary shelter for returning to the territory of Ukraine".[224]
> We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irresponsible as a military incursion. CIA John Brennan, Senator John McCain, and Diplomat Victoria Nuland were there in Ukraine when Yanukovych was being overthrown. There is also evidence to show that we were involved through NGOs in overthrowing and promoting an atmosphere desiring the overthrow of Yanukovych.
This is an aspect to this that way too many people just ignore as "Russian misinformation".
The Orange revolution was a prior US attempt [0] at facilitating a regime-change in Ukraine from pro-Russian politics to pro-Western politics, which failed.
In 2014 there was the next attempt McCain not only riling up protesters [1], but meeting with the future PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk and leader of right-wing militias Oleh Tyahnybok [2] that were the muscle behind the 2014 revolution [3].
Arseniy Yatsenyuk was already declared the US's "man" during the leaked "Fuck the EU Nuland" calls [4], same Victoria Nuland that was literally handing out cookies to Ukrainian protesters [5].
Yatsenyuk wasn't even too shy about these connections; His OpenUkraine foundation's list of partners reads like the who is who of US regime change actors, down to the CIA's a National Endowment for Democracy and literal NATO itself [6].
Tho it was a bit too blatant, so they ended up putting his wife in charge of the foundation and removing the partners list.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/15/john-mccain-uk...
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/john-mccain-meets-oleh-tyahn...
[3] https://youtu.be/KfD_CaSIxmQ
[4] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[5] https://euobserver.com/tickers/122437
[6] https://web.archive.org/web/20140407065419/http://openukrain...
And only power he got was that in autumn of 2014 his party got a fairly good numbers, that's why he became a PM, not because Americans have put him there.
It has to do with the fact that the country has been in a civil war [0] since he came into power after the "revolution of dignity", not only him, but literally Americans who were fast tracked Ukrainian citizenship [1] so they could act as minister.
But a whole lot of people in those East Ukrainian territories liked the old government, they voted for it, and they saw their votes burned in a revolution to be replaced with Americans and people sponsored by them.
Which prompted them to do the same in their parts of Ukraine, leading to the separatists territories and a low to high intensity civil war that has by now been lasting 8 years.
> And only power he got was that in autumn of 2014 his party got a fairly good numbers
In elections where the old party was not even allowed to be voted for anymore, consequently, those elections were boycotted in territories that voted for the old government.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Donbas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Jaresko
And believe me, people never really liked Yanukovych so much to take arms. The leaders of “separatists” were literal nobodies, nobody knew who they are. Members of Yanukovych party themselves did not en masse supported separatists.
Second, politicians from Party of Regions participated in both 2014 and 2019 parliamentary elections. Same politicians, top Yanukovych lieutenants, with the same oligarchic sponsors.
Third, those elections were not “boycotted” people still participated, on territory controlled by Ukrainian government.
You were there and then missed the following 8 years of civil war, complete with separatist territories, to now ask "What has any of that to do with the invasion?"?
> Yanukovych was nearing the end of his term, he ordered snipers to shoot at protesters, it was only right for him to step down.
Afaik there was no order for government snipers to shoot protesters, those sniper shots hit protesters and police alike, using hunting cartridges, and the government probe into those shootings was extremely flawed [0]
Just like to this day nobody was ever charged for shooting police officers.
> The next step was re-elections.
As somebody who was apparently there, do you remember who provided "security" for those elections at the Rada?
> The leaders of “separatists” were literal nobodies, nobody knew who they are.
Quite an accomplishment for "nobodies that nobody knows" to be representatives of state parliaments, like that of Crimea.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-killings-probe-sp...
NATO is a defensive pact and existing members have always been very hesitant about accepting new members, because it is intended as a cooperation platform between equals and not a substitute for building up own defense force. The initiative to join NATO has always been driven by Eastern European countries seeking to maintain independence and reduce the risk of Russian invasion. Together with EU membership, it's the holy grail of foreign policy.
The referenced Mearsheimer et al are irrelevant. They depict everything as a grand Russia vs USA standoff as if it were a board game, and ignore the delicate histories and current relationships between countries in Europe.
If you are a fan of history, I recommend rejecting grand narratives and reading a general history of every country in Europe. How has Sweden fared in the past 500 years? Why Russians have an inferiority complex with Finns? Why isn't Austria in NATO? The more you read, the more you'll see the complex network of relationships and understand what every country seeks to achieve. To treat all of them as pawns of the US or Russia is unbelivably ignorant. Even countries as small as Iceland have their own foreign policy, and sometimes have a great impact on international relations.
If you even say something other than "Putin is Satan" or "Russia bad", you get downvoted to oblivion. Enjoy. Don't bother mentioning the complexities of this situation or once again, you'll be downvoted.
(1) https://i.redd.it/iq2zlt0ldrj81.jpg
(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfk-qaqP2Ws
(3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0PPaqnReu8
We still continued in order to destabilize all of Europe and prevent them from merging Central European industrial capital with Eastern European natural resources. It's the same old policy -- everything else is just bread and circuses.
Well, we still have Russia by the throat, now I just think we shouldn't squeeze so hard that they collapse -- which would lead to a complete and utter destabilization of a huge chunk of the world, and it would be detrimental to our short and long-term interests. Miscreants would take over and have a field day.
Do the people in Ukraine want to be 'used' as a buffer? What do they want?
Because without addressing that your comment has a ‘I’m in favour of sacrificing people’ vibe.
The comment above is pushing Russian propaganda.
The thug accosts the victim, threatens and then proceeds to assault the victim in full view of a large number of bystanders who are numerous enough to defend the victim and alter the outcome but not convicted enough to take on the inconvenience of doing so.
Nevertheless all the bystanders voice words of encouragement and sympathy and even offer to sue the aggressor in court after the fact if the victim is harmed or killed.
It’s easy to try to appease aggressors thinking that somehow they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
> they will have enough eventually, but this is short term thinking. In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
There's such a thing as a lifespan. People come and go, and everyone should be proactively seeking long-term beyond-personality diplomacy and statesmanship.
> In the end they will only stop when you stand up and fight.
this is no longer a WW2 era, you can't just stand up and fight, nukes don't care if you stand up or lie down.
Threatening with nukes on the other hand is an almost as good weapon but only effective of you convince the other party you mean it and only countered by the others also being willing to use them. It's the MAD policy and it worked quite well during the cold war.
Did not work out that great for the appeasers in WW2 in the end.
are you really suggesting that threatening Putin with NATO nukes servers your wellbeing better than giving him a part of East Ukraine for a time being? Are you suggesting that your government won't be capable of negotiating a peaceful gradual transition of the region back to Ukraine in the post-Putin era? Such cases were possible in the past, if you read history. But it required skilled statesmanship and diplomacy instead of quick emotional reactions to intimidate and retaliate.
Or in 10 year you'll see the entire Europe in his hands while the rest of the world is being carved between him and Xi.
I hope to avoid a nuclear war. If we get bombed I hope to be in the middle of the first blast or far away. (I'm actually not sure which I'd prefer.)
If it comes to the nuclear option it is that simple.
I've tried to live a good life and asked God to forgive me what I either have misunderstood or haven't been able to do right.
So for now I'll just try to focus on my assigned tasks:
- take care of my family
- take care of my customer
- take care of my neighbors and everyone else
- answer if my home country wants me back in uniform
There's some wisdom in this even if one forgets who wrote it: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A2...
But in the mean time, they’ll be able to kill a whole lot of people and destroy a whole lot of lives, and wreck Ukrainian democracy and economic prosperity for years if not decades.
In fact if NATO had moved in about 50 to 100K troops at the invitation of Ukraine sometime over the past 3 months, its really unlikely that Putin would have upped the ante.
If anything the multiyear patience and planning on his part suggests he absolutely wants to win and wont take a chance if he thinks he might lose or draw
It's useful to remember that "almost certainly" is a synonym for "not necessarily".
Meanwhile Russia being right on the border quickly invades Ukraine before the NATO troops can arrive and now we have NATO troops entering a war zone or pulling back and looking even weaker. Also, this sounds eerily like the start of WWI although then it was Russia mobilizing and Germany then decided to move quickly into Belgium and North into Russia.
Often I wonder which of our leaders has ever played poker. It seems like Putin has figured out that we won't push all-in, ever, so he steals another pot.
If the west really cared about this, the only way now is to retaliate way out of proportion to what's happened.
Before this happened, the west also didn't act like it wanted to contain the Russians, so the Russians got brave. If there had been some sort of response the Russians would have backed off. It's somewhat stable for both sides to bluster about this or that minor victory. Can't do that now.
There's at least one other world leader who clings to power because of this trait.
Recent mutterings suggest Trump thinks highly of Putin though, so it's hard to tell.
I don't think the president of the US has the authority to nuke anything by his own accord.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football
Turns out Trump's general hard line on everything was useful for something.
Those laws are very very vague and like you said, it's possible someone in the chain of command could argue it's against the law since a nuke would likely cause collateral damage one way or another. I think it's technically incorrect to definitively say that the US president has complete and total control over nuking a target.
the nuclear football is basically a fancy sat phone though, so it's less clear if the generals who get the war order would actually obey.
Care to provide a source for this?
If you're referring to the podcast where Trump mentioned that Putin's move (annexation of Lugansk & Donetsk) is "genious", that's not some sort of fanboyism or admiration, but simply admitting that the move, tactically, was really good - a lot of people (myself included) did fall for it!
>“He’s taking over a country for $2 worth of sanctions. I’d say that’s pretty smart,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher and video footage obtained by the pro-Democratic group American Bridge. “He’s taking over a country, really a vast, vast location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, just walking right in.”
To anyone with basic reading comprehension, it's obvious that Trump isn't praising Putin, he's praising Putin's tactics, which, judging by the (lack of) response from the West, is pretty smart!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/putin-ukraine-nat...
It's actually exactly the opposite and the guy who wrote the book on containment called it a tragedy. We don't need to rewrite history.
But it's also the case that the west is straddling strategies here. Either do as Kennan says and just leave NATO the way it was and don't poke the wounded bear, or actually encircle Russia completely, stick nukes in their back yard and show them who is boss.
Don't pretend to do both and neither, that is the worst of all worlds.
Are you sure about that? Are you really willing to risk your chips betting on a retreat? This sort of geopolitical chicken would be incredibly dangerous.
Despite the bluster of "I'm the only one who's gone toe to toe with Putin" there is only so much anyone can do in this situation. If KSA decided to invade one of its neighbors, there is only so much anyone could do because doing anything would severely disrupt energy. But in the Caucasus and Dnieper areas there, I mean you have nukes involved. Like India and Pakistan.
Then there is the promise we made not to station missiles in territories bordering Russia and the whole Orange Revolution Obama thing. That's a big deal to them just as it would be a big deal if Russia stationed missiles in Mexico or Cuba. We'd throw a fit too. Just as China would throw a fit if we stationed missiles in Taiwan.
The US could do the same thing. People like to complain about how much a bully the US has been (Chile, Guatemala, Vietnam, etc)... Now they are seeing how real bullies act in Russia and a lesser degree China (but they are on the sidelines biding their time) They can do what they want because they have little constraint --with big players it's self-imposed.
Even Canada does not share nuclear weapons with the US. That genuinely surprised me. US and Canada have unbelievably interconnected militaries -- see NORAD and various Artic zone military bases.
This is obviously a terrible situation for the Ukrainian people but at the same time they could have done a lot more to prevent it. They essentially let their military deterrent collapse years ago through a mix of corruption and apathy. If they had had a real combat effective military back in 2014 then Russia probably wouldn't have invaded in the first place.
I'm skeptical. Russia has been harrying and undermining Ukraine for many years. Remember Viktor Yanukovych and all the turmoil of that era? It's not like Ukraine has been through a period of decadence where they slacked off — they've never caught a break.
And now the full force of Russian imperialism is crashing down on them.
Hitler did the same thing right up until 1939. From what I've read he was actually surprised that the allies finally called his bluff after Poland, considering they just rolled over after the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.
Have you read his recent announcement? He warned every foreign nation not to meddle or else:
> To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside - if you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history,’ he said on a television broadcast around 6am Moscow time.
How popular do you think Putin will be at home when he announces he's going to full war with NATO? How would he even do that? You think he's going to launch ICBMs?
Putin is not elected by a popular vote, the voice of the people does not matter there.
Estonia is a NATO member already, the current conflict has been escalated because of the previously announced red line demands (Ukraine never getting into NATO) that the US diplomats discarded. It is their job to negotiate peace in the region too. Negotiations is a nasty business and the outcomes are nasty too. Those who seek easy and pretty solutions that satisfy all parties in one step are destined to escalate the situation further up.
The alternative is to let him repeat 1939.
The lesson learned should be that if you don't stop the thug with force, then he will eventually become strong enough to stop you.
this is a lesson of a past war, the world has moved, this is no longer a WW2 era, if you try to apply a similar foreign intervention now the chances are you'll get a nuke on your lawn.
You don't get to put that one back in the bottle, and you're going to have to have more faith than the Pope to think that no one will respond.
Nuclear War isn't like Civilization. It's a momentary bang followed by a lot of whimper.
I think Putin wants to escalate beyond Ukraine and conquer at least parts of the Baltic countries. Hopefully NATO will stand firm against that.
You also have to take into consideration the last 2 times Germany entered a conflict it didn't work out too well for them, so they have all the more reasons to be reserved.
Practically speaking, perhaps you should avoid poking the aggressive neighbor next door, especially when you can't have definitive assurance from the police station three blocks over?
It's not just Putin; Russian leaders through most of the 20thC have feared encroachment on their western borders, and have launched invasions and installed puppet regimes to create a buffer. The fact that Ukraine has clearly expressed its desire to join NATO, and NATO's refusal to reject that possibility, means that Russia perceives a threat that their greatest enemy will suddenly appear right on their border.
Georgia also wanted to join NATO; so they got invaded.
The West has played this hand very badly. Instead of declaring that under no circumstances would they send troops to Ukraine, they should have kept silent, or possibly sent a division of ground troops, to be dispersed around the country. They should also have leaned hard on Ukraine to make Donetsk and Luhansk officially autonomous regions. The Donbas would then become Russia's buffer zone, making them feel a bit less paranoid about NATO encroachment.
FWIW, I think NATO should have dismantled itself following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The modern NATO is a global organisation, not restricted to the North Atlantic. It's no longer a mutual defence pact for countries at risk of Russian attack; its main purpose now is simply to intimidate Russia.
Is his propaganda that effective that Russians agree with any of it. I think if anyone can stop him, it has to be ordinary Russians. I don’t see sanctions or warnings from Biden or EU doing anything. And they will never directly step in and protect the Ukranian people.
https://crimethinc.com/2022/02/15/war-and-anarchists-anti-au... (note: the disinformation section is especially relevant)
I guess you are speaking for majority of Russians. Is there an independent survey to back it up?
And yeah not everyone listens to propaganda, and there is going to be a lot of diversity of opinion, but propaganda does work and a large percent of the population are going to get duped.
See: “principle of charitable interpretation”
> What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country.
> And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.
You could live in a circle that unanimously opposes the war, and still be in a country that's 60% for it.
Thing is, given the propaganda machine in Russia and the lack of free (even non-guvernamental) organizations we can't really tell if that percentage is 6% or 60%.
There's two major axes, here.
The government is pushing the 'Ukranian neo-nazis' propaganda, because it's a convenient bullshit excuse (as is all the spilled ink in Putin's essay about long-dead history). Some soft-headed people obviously believe that wholesale. What isn't an excuse, though, is that Ukraine did take steps to restrict its Russian minority. Many Russians who don't swallow the neo-nazi nonsense are sympathetic to that view on the situation (for, uh, obvious nationalistic reasons).
Now, whether or not sympathy for that is sufficient grounds to do nothing and respect Ukrainian sovereignty, to prosecute a proxy war, a limited war, or a full war all depends on how much of a warhawk you personally are.
My highly unscientific feeling is that public support rests somewhere north of 'most Russians believe that Ukraine has been repressing Russians, and would support a proxy war', and somewhere short of 'drive the fascist swine out - prosecute a full war and occupation of Kiev'.
"Dialect for peasants" has its roots in Ruthenian language, that was a main language in Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
And no, Russians were not written wholesale as Ukrainians, anyone who can check Soviet records can attest that.
>> people hear the chant all the time - “Moskalyaku na gilyaku Well, if they would listen to Russian TV, they would hear that.
But exactly how many people are you ready to kill over your sympathies? Could you give a ballpark order of magnitude estimate? 10? 100? 10,000? [1] 100,000?
On a scale of cultural repression, I can't say that this situation elicits even a small fraction of sympathy from me as what's going on with say, the Uyghurs in China.
[1] We're past that mark already.
The best realistic outcome at the moment is something similar to what happened to Georgia - occupation of the two territories, a referendum, annexation, and an end to the proxy war.
Whether we are going to get that outcome, or something worse, is, of course, unclear.
For example, just from today's talk (face-to-face):
* that Ukrainian forces supposedly committed crimes in Donbass region -- when I ask who in particular and how, these people fail to answer. When I say that they had full right to suppress armed riot of Girkin & co, they switch the topic.
* that the government were illegally overthrown in 2014. I challenged that with the fact that Yanukovich's own party voted to introduce an president interim and start new elections.
Both times I pushed the interlocutor and asked if I lied, and they have nothing to say, nor have more facts, but jump between topics all the time, switching from facts to questions -- like "did they start living better?" or "what about those who died in Odessa protest?" I guess this demagogy is enough for those who want to justify their stance, and to claim own moral superiority.
I asked if they support the invasion, and they say they don't. I'm sure they'll have to make up their mind, but I'm afraid people can choose whatever more convenient to feel ok.
A recent sociological surveys made in January showed about half of population being on Putin's side, even 40% of those in political opposition to him. Sociologists confronted people with evidence of Russian military buildup, and respondents usually answered that this was "Western propaganda" and tried to avoid further discussion.
I can't read minds of the elites and secret service generals who constitute the Security Council, but it seems this is partially what they think -- secret services are very suspicious of everyone and treat everything as a threat. This leads to believing in conspiracies, and justifies agression.
As for me and many others who value the open world borders and don't want back to USSR, I'm most worried that we're going to be under severe sectoral sanctions, with many industries in serious crisis, like in the 1990s.
Also, I'm old enough to remember the popular dissent with the USSR in the late '80s. We as kids would repeat the adults' discussions about how bad the country was, and our parents weren't political dissidents at all, just common dwellers, absolutely non-ideologized. Many wanted friendship with the West. Only very ideologized communtists wanted to keep the status quo when the USSR collapsed, and obviously even secret services where Putin served wanted to open the country and the economy and did not resist the collapse, nor support the GKChP coup.
The economic crisis of the '90s and the war in Yugoslavia where what changed people's minds. I remember seeing a woman carry a white plastic bag with large US flag on it, probably in 1991 or 1992, but that became unthinkable in 1999-2000. Even a liberal pro-Western TV presenter Parfyonov showed some sort of dissent in his historic program when he described the events of 1991.
Those years many changed their minds about the past, and went all way from complete discontent with the communist regime to believing that it was good and that it was destroyed intentionally.
[1] https://twitter.com/m_suchkov/status/1483765876310511617
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdai_Discussion_Club
You are not in Ukraine, you rely on second-hand account. So for any 'facts' you have to rely on someone. Ukraine is a complex topic, and 'things the way they are' is extremely hard to get, there is an ideological lens to everything.
His lecture was shared recently on some Ukrainian forums and widely derided as just repeating Russian state propaganda talking points.
It is great powers exploiting weaker countries. Russia too did interfere a lot in Ukrainian politics, with methods similar to Western. It's like people live in a paradigm "West good/Russia bad" or "West bad/Russia good", yet miss the real picture - "West bad/Russia bad".
Finland gets the next worst treatment, simply saying it should be “absorbed”.
Interesting that it says military action is to be avoided and that Russia should use it’s natural resource dominance to extract concessions from other countries.
I don't believe for a second that this represent Putin's strategy in any meaningful way.
This is the whole reason we have separate countries and government. Setting your own policy as a country is not supposed to result in war.
Ukraine is standing firm on its sovereignty. A belligerent adversary has started a war because it feels the sovereign country isn't sovereign and can't be friends with certain countries. That upends the whole concept of countries, which further erodes Putin's credibility, if he had any left. He first upended self-determination in his own country, then internationally, and now seeks takeover of an entire foreign country.
Edit: This was screen grabbed from Weibo which was posted by Horizon News. (sorry got the wrong news agency)
https://twitter.com/lingli_vienna/status/1496097706493816833
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-news-outlet-ukraine-co...
For and article showing their cooperation. I would imagine China is. Wry curious about the actions and resolve of the West in this situation.
Personally I guess they will support Russia via trade and not partake in sanctions.
Form this I feel the west has to put tariffs or reduce trade on nations that trade with Russia for maximum effect. It could also be a useful way to rebalance the trade with China which is the aim of some western governments.
China is also in a bind as if they recognise the break away regions this gives political credit to Taiwan's independence. From this I suspect they will continue to publicly offer Ukrainian support, and appear as the peace makers, but do little in actual effect.
EDIT: China now calling West to blame for situation and there isn't an invasion.
If anyone had any doubts as to the morality of Chinese leadership these days...
If the U.S. intervenes, a retaliatory cyber op from Russia against critical infrastructure would make america amish again. Then, wait until midterms when the president loses the house and senate and doesn't have the power to muster a draft when China takes Taiwan. This is one of those happening slowly and then all at once events in history I suspect.
Post-Vietnam the US hasn’t engaged in large scale active combat against communism or Russian-backed forces. It has instead favored selling weapons to Eastern European states and building the NATO alliance.
Putin has been clear about the breakup of the USSR being a mistake in his eyes. He’s been annexing territories (or in his eyes, re-annexing) since 1999. He looks for countries with strong Russian cultural and linguistic backgrounds and props up allies that will take over. If that doesn’t work he ratchets up the pressure until he feels comfortable using military force. See: Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea and now Ukraine.
The US is far stronger militarily than Russia, but with nuclear weapons in the equation, no one wins.
It’s easy to be an arm chair hawk and say we should go fight, but it’s another thing to look you kids in the eye and explain they’re going to die from radiation fallout.
Instead, the US will likely prop up the resistance once Ukraine falls and try to make occupation as costly as possible just like we did in Afghanistan.
a band-aid solution at best. The fact that putin has desires to resurrect the soviet superpower, is the problem, and i doubt there would be any possible diplomatic solution to that.
Nobody likes war (least of all nuclear war), but if the threat of such weapons is shown to be a bluff, the peace brought about from it's use in WW2 would all but be in vain.
Somebody must back down, and i would say putin and his ambitions must be the one to back down, or the US & allies must escalate. Otherwise, the next authoritarian country is going to want in.
France has nukes, so this isn’t going to be Hitler 2.0 with Putin posing by the Arc de Triumph.
There are several ex-Soviet countries that are NATO members, so that’ll be the real hot spot if it gets there as the US et. al. will be required to act militarily in their defense (in theory).
Though, now that the invasion has started (again),
the alliance is already pretty consolidated. I think putin sees a NATO ukraine as more dangerous imho - esp. if ukraine becomes more and more democratic.
The invasion would be successful if the west does not deploy troops and intervene. I say the west has already failed, and this sets a precedent to which china would follow.
And if the west waits for too long, the military edge that the west has would diminish. Unfortunately, the public is reluctant to commit to war, because in the minds of those who are used to peace, diplomatic solutions seems to be the only cost they're willing to pay.
I agree that there are difficulties in developing arms in peace times, war can be a driver of innovation. But it is not the only one and there are preferable alternatives, even if arms suppliers see that differently out of egoistic ambitions.
A civilian population rejecting involvement in arms manufacture is preferable to one that calls for a war.
Which is why the Ukraine should have been accepted into NATO (and preferably the EU too) in 2015 or so.
If so, expect Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Saudi-Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and so on to test nukes within the next 10 years.
Or, to be charitable, since India and Pakistan both tested nuclear weapons and nothing happened.
We have no will to fight a war over this in the US. Any talk of that is absurd.
I keep thinking about the Scorpions song Wind of Change. That spirit is now completely dead. I just can't believe it.
Anecdotally, I've never seen so many people in my (wildly different) social circles agree on something political.
Cyber crimes with significant impact are still in the realm of fiction. Scare mongering about it does not help.
That said, one should not make stupid decision how to connect and control such infrastructure and you should prepare with working backups instead of another security product.
Basically, no one wanted to bear all the costs of having secure infrastructure components, this is the tragedy of the commons that government is supposed to solve, but when all the leaders are over 70, it’s hard for them to grok the new reality.
If you have a dedicated hacker with means to acquire exploits, security is probably almost impossible. This is why effective mitigation is very likely the safer approach. Manual overrides or air gapped systems would help too.
But it is wrong to panic about it. The best mitigation is boring, but yes, some investment in IT could really help.
So not an actual event.
Ukraine has been subjected to Russian cyberattacks for nearly a decade now. They’ve accomplished knocking the power off multiple times. It would seem the gun exists.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine they could have some success with cyberattacks against the US. How impactful that would be to disrupting day to day life though is a question that remains to be answered. When the power was out in Texas recently, there was quite an impact. Imagine millions losing power in the rust belt in the winter. There would no doubt be loss of life and significant physical damage.
I wish. The gas pipeline shutdown last year was just a rehearsal I imagine. If the Russian government went full send on a cyber attack, we would probably be completely fucked for months at this point.
And rightly so. I don't care enough about Taiwan to instate a draft. I don't care enough about much of anything for that.
Sure, that would make hypocrites of those who were draft dodgers back then, and advocate the draft now. But how many of those are there? I'd guess the vast majority of baby boomers who now advocate the draft weren't draft dodgers.
And AFAIK, compared to those who went, draft dodgers were a small minority.
No... fought their draft as in "We think the draft is bull, this war is bull, and we don't want to go."
Hey, I could be wrong - I wasn't there to observe first hand what happened in the 60s and 70s. I only assumed the Vietnam draft was unpopular based on pop culture. Maybe boomers didn't sit around college campus blocking up traffic, chanting slogans, and smoking pot? Maybe there were never peace marches? The soundtrack of Boomer's youth? Largely works of fiction! 80s anti-war films? Anti-American propaganda!
If you're telling me only those who actively avoided the draft were against it, I believe you.
I should have just used my own eyes and ears to observe what Boomers have done since then. Baby Boomers in Congress and in the White House sent troops to Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with overwhelming approval at the time. Yes, there was lots of backtracking and second guessing after we stuck of fingers in those pies, but I guess that's a development that's arisen after Vietnam. Maybe the problem with those wars was there were no Commies to shoot.
I just didn't realize how much blood-lust Boomers held deep inside.
I stand corrected. Thank you for setting me straight.
Cut it out with the bullshit: You know very well I never said or meant any of that.
But how many people does it take to sit around and smoke, chant, and block traffic? It's not as if it was necessarily new people at every sit-in, is it -- they could very well have been the same pot-smoking, slogan-chanting, and traffic-blocking protesters at most of those protests, right? Sure, they became the cultural phenomenon remembered from the time. To a large degree because, as you point out, of those 80s Hollywood blockbusters... And how many tens or hundreds of thousands of Hollywood blockbuster producers and directors did it take to make thoseand leave this huge imprint on the collective consciousness of posterity?
OTOH, AIUI a majority of draftees... didn't dodge the draft. The USA sent what, half a million young men? (or more?) over there. I'm not saying they all went willingly -- far from it, AFAIK -- but at least, those who went cannot, by definition, have been "draft-dodgers". So by my reckoning, compared to active protesters quite possibly, and compared to actual draft dodgers almost certainly, there were more non-draft-dodgers.
And also by definition, pretty much exactly all of those young men who were sent to Vietnam to fight -- the non-draft-dodgers -- were baby boomers.
So "boomers are hypocrites because they all advocate the draft now but dodged it back then" just doesn't make mathematical or logical sense. For one thing, even if many of them advocate the draft now that's not all of them; maybe the ones advocating it now are the same ones who obeyed it then, and maybe they've been quite consistently and non-hypocritically in favour of it all their lives. And for another, of course the bit about "they all dodged it then" is BS: If they had, there wouldn't have been any of them there.
Your rantings and ravings about Boomer Bloodlust aside, all I was pointing out was the bullshitness of this collective-hypocrisy accusation.
This is bait and bad bait at that. The longer Russia continues to provide us with video evidence of their bullying only makes it easier for us to convince undecided countries to sanction Russia to submission.
Forever? Look at North Korea: Kim Jong-un is doing fine.
It's a fantasy that the "entire world" would sanction them: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/world/europe/china-russia...:
> China on Wednesday criticized the expansion of economic sanctions against Russia, saying that they were unlikely to solve the Ukraine crisis and that they had the potential to harm average people as well as the interests of Beijing.
Putin doesn't care about Russia economy the way you think he does: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/lavrov-rus...:
> Their intentions are different from ours too. Putin’s goal is not a flourishing, peaceful, prosperous Russia, but a Russia where he remains in charge. Lavrov’s goal is to maintain his position in the murky world of the Russian elite and, of course, to keep his money. What we mean by “interests” and what they mean by “interests” are not the same. When they listen to our diplomats, they don’t hear anything that really threatens their position, their power, their personal fortunes.
[0]https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-0417-4
IIRC, Russia media is basically like having pro-Putin Tucker Carlson on all the channels all the time. And if, despite that, anyone in Russia has even a small chance of actually undermine Putin, they'll find poison in their underwear and get an all-expenses paid trip to a gulag.
Everyone saying "but we should let Putin do whatever he wants with lives of innocents because otherwise nuclear war" is Putin supporter, whether they know it or not.
But that's as far as it will go at this point. Russia invading Ukraine (again) has been universally declared a Dick Move, but since Ukraine is not an EU or NATO member and as far as I know there's no defense pacts either, there's nothing that they can do that would not be considered an unnecessary escalation.
Putin can be faulted for many things but not looking ahead isn't one of them and you can bet that he has priced this in already. If anything he is probably amazed at the lack of response.
> Russia invading Ukraine (again) has been universally declared a Dick Move, but since Ukraine is not an EU or NATO member and as far as I know there's no defense pacts either, there's nothing that they can do that would not be considered an unnecessary escalation.
Yes, there will be all kinds of justification for letting Ukraine burn, this one will be near top of the list for sure.
Why think it will work this time?
EDIT: of course, my opinions are shaped by being in non-nuke-equipped country in Europe, so depending on West's response this time, we're next. I'm sure it looks differently for someone sitting in New Jersey or Australia.
What people are saying is that no one wants to get nuked to save Ukraine and I'd be hard pressed to blame them.
This isn't Call of Duty
Oh wait there was an attempt, people didn't accept a democratic vote and decided to go and find politicians to lynch. I'm still pretty shocked that there hasn't been a more severe reaction to that one.
He's shown time and time again that from within Russia, he's untouchable and everyone who tries will either be killed or deported to gulag. No sources needed, just look it up quickly on your own.
I do not see an easy solution for dealing with him - left alone the assassination route.
But. Nuclear weapons are far beyond the ken and capability of humans’ intuitive game theory, the hueristics we apply in escalatory conflicts of all scales. Applying such intuition risks thoughtless apocalypse; MAD is a novel idea because such weapons required either an entirely new paradigm in power politics, or humanity’s rapid suicide.
Nuclear weapons are a deus, or devil, sprung from the machine of human civilization.
The possibility of their use, even by a bully who wields them especially to intimidate us, must inspire some cowardice in any soul who cherishes humanity’s potential.
The west must find its moral courage within the contraints of antiquarian post-Congress of Vienna style Realpolitik, as others have stated. Partition of Ukraine and many decades applying a new strategy of containment is the most realistic ‘victory’ that can be sought.
We might hope that Russia’s once promising liberal civil society will revolt and save this decade for peace - in vain, I expect.
Putin took control of Chernobyl tonight, you know. How do you think he thinks about this stuff?
And I am no HN founder, but I live in Eastern Europe. NATO planes and helicopters kept flying overhead all day and my house doesn’t even have a basement.
So I bet we are closer to the danger than you are. And I also bet that the ones doing the flagging and burying are other brave "class warriors" and "eaters of the rich" who can’t accept that their beloved ideology has created monsters like Putin while the capitalism they despise has given the world prosperity, (relative) peace and Elon Musk (the last one's a mixed blessing, I admit).
PG if you are reading this, I love you really, man. And if there's any room left down there for a resourceful fella, I will work for bunk and board. (In fact, I've been stockpiling tins since Feb 20, so I only need the bunk ;)
How long was it called that, and when did he start in the game?
I'm guessing most of his background is actually not FSB, but KGB.
Avoiding nuclear war is the top priority.
Problem is, "Avoiding all-out war is the top priority" is exactly what Chamberlain thought in 1938, too. And look what that got him: all-out war.
Great analogy.
But, fine, let's play this game. The US is sends troops into the Ukraine. You do understand this is right at Russia's border. What does Putin do? He'll engage. Great, now we're in a shooting war with our nuclear rival. Now do you want to roll the dice this doesn't escalate further. Does Putin go after neighboring NATO countries? Now the US has to escalate further to defend an ally. And if the US/NATO pushes into Russia, does Russia go nuclear?
This is why the Cold War stayed COLD. We didn't directly engage Russia on anything close to their borders. Yes, we fought two proxy wars in Asia and just look how that turned out.
Do you really want to roll the dice and hope your neighborhood isn't a parking lot in the next five years?
https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/1496865471995523080?s=...
It is up to Biden now to live up to his tough talk of Putin fearing him (from during the election, if you have forgotten) and other western leaders to find an end that doesn't involve bending over.
Why are you singling out "the west"?!? AIUI, Russia also signed that agreement.
Then the NATO charter is useless.
What's happened in the last ~10 years was that Ukraine was Russia's proxy, then the West's, and now it will be Russia's again. That's a very different story than one that starts with "was a member of NATO".
Because when you admit state that has part of it's territory occupied into a defense pact, you are effectively declaring war on the occupying state.
Imo it's not quite arsehole thing to not start WWIII due to non-alliance country.
People are also forgetting that you can't just instantly admit Ukraine into NATO and instantly teleport all the alliance armies onto the battlefield. Trying to make it quicker would very likely just hasten the Russian invasion (because the head douche apparently wanted Ukraine all along), so it really boils down to "do you want to start throwing nukes for state that you never made nuke-backed promises to?"
It's appalling how many people here are not seeing bigger picture and would love to just try to end humanity just because some nation got dealt _really_ bad cards. Economically Russia is cratering, so the impatience to end it all here (or in 2014) is just irrational. They were already losing technology (e.g. see how their space program is faltering), this will just accelerate Russia's slide into irrelevance. Even their weapons tech is not keeping up, see the latest kerfuffle in Caucasus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_war
Also the wording is fuzzy when it comes to conventional war, but maybe the wiki has wrong wording. Either way, that is nowhere close to full defense pact which NATO is (with forward allied military bases and such).
NATO treaty itself does not talk about rapid response forces, joint bases and so on. All of that comes beyond the treaty. What stops key states from retreating back to basic treaty and then finding an excuse when Article 5 comes? E.g. if Russia comes as non-marked „rebels“?
Maybe NATO has also weak wording in the treaty itself. So ask yourself - why did Ukraine want so badly to be accepted into it? Why is Russia opposing NATO expansion so much?
Why did Baltic states or Poland wanted into NATO so much? It's one more treaty you can show to media when shit hits the fan. One more treaty your supporters can use debating governments for help.
In reality, if Russia attacks a NATO member, it won't be automatic full-on NATO response. It will still be debates. But certain people will be much more uncomfortable saying „no we won't defend NATO allies“. Yet some will still say it.
Russia wants it's own NATO, with black jack and hookers. And countries joining the real NATO obviously won't join theirs.
EDIT: and wiki wording is unclear whether the treaty applies for conventional war. That's all I meant by "fuzzy"
Baltic states are undefendable, even compared to Ukraine. If Ukraine is down, Poland is as indefendable as Ukraine. Then we are back to Cold War state where Germany is barely defendable.
Yes, Sherlock, that was exactly my point: Dodging that responsibility is what makes NATO an arsehole.
Anything the West does directly they have to expect a response.
That said, I think the west should be using 'distance power'.
There are US Global Hawk drones over Ukraine right now doing surveillance, I think it would be reasonable for the US to launch cruise missiles at Russian targets in Ukraine.
The Russians could make things very difficult for ships in the Black Sea however as one opportunity for retaliation.
We just have to hope that Ukrainians can leverage the Javelins and Stingers to great effect and make it painful enough for Putin that he has no choice to step back, but it's impossible to tell, it's just as likely Russia may be able to just smash through Ukranian defences and leave them to some insurgency skirmishes.
Putin won't step back. This is his endgame and he has very little - if not actually nothing - to lose. Going back as a loser is not on the table as a viable option.
Putin is not all powerful, no leader ever is. He has to face realities of the situation, and also populism at home.
And he has a lot to lose, this is a risky manoeuvre. If Russia fails in it's publicly stated objective it will look really bad on him and Russia. Russia could feasibly fail entirely and lose some occupied territory. Unlikely, but it could happen. And then there's the 'overhead' cost of economic disruption.
If the Ukranians can hold off the main thrust of the attack, and especially if Russians start to come back in body bags - he will lose the momentum and have to make serious adjustments.
This is 'extremely expensive' for him in every way: political, populist, economic to conduct such operations and he can't do it for very long.
Or if they do actually 'win' and but then Urkanians can mount material insurgent attacks, it won't work.
Russian Oligarchs just had their wealth cut in half (they are pissed), a lot of Russians will be facing financial pressures, they were never really behind this war in the first place - this will take it's toll at home.
Russia lost 6 fixed wing and 3 or 4 rotary wing just this morning - that's not a good start and if those loses continue at that rate he won't be able to keep it up - he can't risk his Air Force for Ukraine.
Ukranians have 1K+ Javelin and hundreds of Stinger missiles. Those weapons do not require central coordination and can nullify air support and amour advantages, which makes it an ugly ground fight which will be bloody, and it's possible Russians don't have the veracity to fight. Russians soldiers are doing it 'because it's a job' - not because their homeland is under threat.
Russian paratroopers have taken Kyiv Airport this morning, but they are alone without armour or real support, Ukranians shot down 3 of their transport craft. It's entirely feasible that Ukranians take back that airport .
Although it would be risky, the West, particularly could cause serious damage to Russian forces in Ukraine.
I don't really think Ukraine will hold out, but they definitely could and Russia will have to eventually withdraw in some way.
My guess is that he would mostly withdraw to the Donbas region and then make some kind of 'declaration of objectives met' and then sue for a truce, making permanent claims to Donbas recognized by the West (which won't happen, but his claims will make him appear strong).
To believe that his future acts will be rational is missing what has already happened, clearly this wasn't rational to begin with.
If you're really clever, get all Sun Tzu on him and feed his fears until he chokes on them.
Most bullies are cowards. Threats and ultimatums like that come from a place of weakness. Did you hear America saying anything like that when they invaded Iraq? No, because they weren't scared.
Having a rogue state with nukes is a serious problem.
Putin's pre invasion speech has a striking amount of blood and soil rhetoric. And in addition just like Hitler he denies the right of existence of East European states between Germany and Russia.
He all but said that controlling these countries was Russia's "Manifest Destiny".
I wrote about such tactics in a blog post https://dandanua.github.io/posts/counterfactual-communicatio...
So, it was an impressive threat. I doubt he actually would follow through... but he might. That's his leverage - that we wonder if he might. Rationally, though, it's a crummy threat, because rationally his own downside is far too big.
Compared to those things, the power of nukes is trivial; all they can do is destroy. You can't surrender to a nuke, and the point of warfare is to convince the enemy to submit, not to damage the ecosystem. Damaging the ecosystem is just a side effect, so it's the wrong way to measure the strength of offensive resources.
"Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere And build them a home, a little place of their own. The Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants and Kings. ... Boom boom, bang bang, lie down you're dead."
--- The Fletcher Memorial Home - Pink Floyd
Putin is at the top of the pyramid but he is not the sole ruler of the Russia. Its not like if he dies Russia will magically become exemplary democracy.
There were and still are people lining up and aiming to take his seat, but as long as Putin appears to be strong and gives his underlings enough he will remain on the throne.
Sure there are other perspectives and possible motivations for his actions. But it's the idea that he may not care any more and might do anything that I find scary. If he's willing to risk full scale invasion across all of Ukraine after the international focus that preceded it, would he also be willing to launch supersonic nuclear weapons? In his televised statement he said Russia is ready for all outcomes.
For the USA what probably worries me most is cyberattacks. The USA is such a soft target. Our government can't even secure it's systems after a decade of laws, warnings, bad reports, and actual attacks.
I do hope I'm wrong and Putin is actually sane and has a strategic plan that makes sense for his country.
Fuck the "economy". Freedom is the most important thing, how many more millions need to die before we understand this?
EDIT: though the wording might still be significant. If the question is worded "Should Russia support the sovereign, Russia-aligned republics of Donetsk and Luhansk", that might poll significantly differently from a question that's worded "Should Russia invade Ukraine" even though both mean the same thing. Just like how >50% of Americans answer "no" to the question of "Should schools in America teach Arabic Numerals" because they're misled by the question, not because they're opposed to teaching people about numbers.
Donetsk and Luhansk have declared independence, and Russia has recognised them. Secession is not a new phenomenon; Texas seceded from Mexico. Several regions seceded from the former Yugoslavia, and were rapidly recognised (and reinforced militarily) by western countries.
I think it's perfectly legitimate to argue that Russia is not invading Ukraine, but rather supporting the Donbas republics. I mean, I don't agree; and I think there's a fair chance that Russia will invade Ukraine, and install a puppet. But they haven't done it yet. I suspect that for the next few weeks, they'll restrict themselves to air and missile attacks on Ukrainian military installations, with troops-on-the-ground restricted to Donbas.
Beyond a few weeks, who's to say? No plan survives first contact with the enemy.
1: https://lenta.ru/news/2022/02/24/nonazi/
[0] https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-uk...