"...Chinese internet users called it a “proxy war”: three weeks ago, two pensioners in a Shanghai park got into a fight over the Ukraine conflict that left Russia-backing Shen Jianguo, 70, bleeding from the ear and trending on social media..."
"...The discussions are pretty intense. There are a lot of different points of view on this, the debate is extremely diverse,” said Zhao Tong,
senior fellow at Carnegie Tsinghua Center in Beijing...
...The fiercest arguments are raging about basic beliefs. “It is about right and wrong,” said Yun Sun, a China foreign policy expert at the Stimson Center in Washington. “I am struck by how intense the debate is, not just among policy folks, but also among ordinary people...”
«Mainstream scholars and opinion leaders see the war as a plot instigated by the US to weaken Russia, strengthen Nato and make Europe more dependent on Washington again.»
I'll abbreviate that. «Mainstream … see … a plot instigated by the US to weaken Russia … and make Europe more dependent». That's either an assessment error by the FT… or else a mainstream believes that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington are able to carry out a ten-year campaign requiring secrecy, finesse and an understanding of foreigners. What a compliment.
yeah, I wish the CIA was clever enough to do that, but if they did, why couldn't they just transition the russian government? I was amused to see that Chubais left Russia yesterday; he was part of my russian politics class in the mid 1990s.
In fact most of the names are the same.
A short comment on the inadequacy of static model of this situation. The developments internal and external in Rus., the military aspect of the conflict as well as economic force-fields are in a state of very intense flux (and that is an understatement on the magnitude of how dynamic the situation is). So, there are going to be real and justified shifts in opinion, morality and facts (as they will be incorporated into models of reality) as time goes on, and, as well as in the final analysis when all is done.
If the objectives Rus. declared were achieved in one week (basically regime change of Ukr. along with Donetsk+Luhansk+Crimea territorial concessions) not only the (geo) politics but also morality of the conflict would be most likely looked at a different angle (academically speaking). It looks like now that the conflict enters stalemate with guerilla warfare with lot inevitable atrocities (which will be counted for an aggressor) then objectively and subjectively the morality including all the other analysis layers will be in a yet different angle.
If there is yet more escalation and the conflict will turn into global military conflict, then the actions preceding it as post-facto will be interpreted yet in a different manner.
In other words, facts can only be interpreted within a context of a model (of the world - in a largest possible context including the subject itself). So, it is clear (and there are plethora peer-reviewed papers in for.aff. journals calling "NATO expansion a gross error in maintaining peace" starting in 1999-2000 already, and more published every year. They are trivially easy to find for those interested). However, these will be most likely looked at differently (as one commenter already demonstrated that tendency already).
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 19.1 ms ] thread"...The discussions are pretty intense. There are a lot of different points of view on this, the debate is extremely diverse,” said Zhao Tong, senior fellow at Carnegie Tsinghua Center in Beijing...
...The fiercest arguments are raging about basic beliefs. “It is about right and wrong,” said Yun Sun, a China foreign policy expert at the Stimson Center in Washington. “I am struck by how intense the debate is, not just among policy folks, but also among ordinary people...”
I'll abbreviate that. «Mainstream … see … a plot instigated by the US to weaken Russia … and make Europe more dependent». That's either an assessment error by the FT… or else a mainstream believes that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington are able to carry out a ten-year campaign requiring secrecy, finesse and an understanding of foreigners. What a compliment.
If the objectives Rus. declared were achieved in one week (basically regime change of Ukr. along with Donetsk+Luhansk+Crimea territorial concessions) not only the (geo) politics but also morality of the conflict would be most likely looked at a different angle (academically speaking). It looks like now that the conflict enters stalemate with guerilla warfare with lot inevitable atrocities (which will be counted for an aggressor) then objectively and subjectively the morality including all the other analysis layers will be in a yet different angle.
If there is yet more escalation and the conflict will turn into global military conflict, then the actions preceding it as post-facto will be interpreted yet in a different manner.
In other words, facts can only be interpreted within a context of a model (of the world - in a largest possible context including the subject itself). So, it is clear (and there are plethora peer-reviewed papers in for.aff. journals calling "NATO expansion a gross error in maintaining peace" starting in 1999-2000 already, and more published every year. They are trivially easy to find for those interested). However, these will be most likely looked at differently (as one commenter already demonstrated that tendency already).