There is only way for country’s protection and it’s Israel’s way where whole country is also an army. Especially for countries near unfriendly countries like Russia in this submission. Because all the treaties and documents signed by politicians are absolutely worthless. Ukraine got rid of all the Soviet nuclear weapons and got lots of promises: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur... Now they are in endless war with Russia trying grab bigger and bigger chunk of the territory. Will NATO come for let’s say Latvia or Lithuania? I honestly don’t think so. Politics with all the politicians are really disgusting.
there are already NATO battalions in Latvia and Lithuania. Albania, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain contribute to the Canadian-led battlegroup in Latvia; Belgium, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway provide contributions to the German-led battlegroup in Lithuania; France and Iceland contribute to the UK-led battlegroup in Estonia; and Croatia, Romania and the United Kingdom are part of the US-led battlegroup in Poland. etc. it's so funny how many people comment without knowing anything about NATO or EU
It is rather well known that the deployment of Nato soldiers to other Nato countries in peacetime serves more purposes than just training together and showing support.
Russia knows well that if they do something on the borders of the eastern Nato countries they will anger not only that nation but they also risk killing young people from a number of other Nato countries at the same time, meaning that broad support for counter action will hopefully build very quickly compared to if only "some people in a former east block country got killed in an unfortunate accident" or "there was a border dispute" like in Ukraine.
Some notes:
- I support this. I am a trained soldier and if my country asks me I will come although I am old enough to realize it will hurt. I have read my history and history is not kind to pacifists - but see also my next point!
- I absolutely do not like how Nato meddled in Afghanistan for about two decades. Defense allianse, not "attack alliance" or "do something vaguely good"-alliance is what I support.
- I'm not sure if it will help in the short term. Russia is unpredictable and they are making a point of it.
- On the other hand however maybe what we see is that it already works: Nato countries sees far less Russian aggression than Ukraine.
The question is less about NATO deployments and more the will of NATO leadership to go to war with Russia over its more minor members.
I hate to say it but the Afghanistan withdrawal really showed what happens when Americans stop giving a shit, and they probably don't give that much of a shit about Latvia. Who's going to step into that gap for NATO? Poland recently ran a military exercise simulating a war with Russia that was, in the words of one of the Generals managing it, "worse than 1939". In the simulation the Polish forces held out for less than a week.
Meanwhile attempts for an ex-US EU military organization are little more than vague proposals, in part because the EU started out as a peace project and, frankly, much of Europe isn't used to seriously worrying about its military security (the most notable exceptions being France, the UK, Sweden and Finland, perhaps Greece but they have other issues). Some NATO members ran out of bombs during the freaking Libya campaign. They've been under the US umbrella for more than a generation, in some cases 2 or 3 generations.
Honestly I'm not sure Europe can fight these days. It certainly doesn't want to (and after the 20th century who can blame them?). Sure almost every European nation (Poland included) has some badass special forces. Too bad those won't be enough if Russia decides to act with impunity.
> hate to say it but the Afghanistan withdrawal really showed what happens when Americans stop giving a shit
America as a country never really gave a shit about Afghanistan. Nobody was standing in a ration line or anything. The military was at war, and that should actually give you confidence because if America can sustain a 20-year war in Afghanistan which turned out to be completely pointless while also fighting a war in Iraq which they also do not care about imagine if the U.S. did care. Unless you were in the military or knew someone who was if you turned off the news there was absolutely 0 evidence that the United States was at war in Afghanistan or Iraq or even both.
And I'll also say pulling out of Afghanistan was 100% the right call. We spent 20 years there and it collapsed in like a week when we left. That should be all the evidence you need that it was time to get out. It was a money and attention pit and we gained nothing for it strategically. (Not commenting here on the atrocities committed by the Taliban)
And Americans will start standing in a ration line to kick Russia out of Estonia? Or Ukraine?
I agree that getting out of Afghanistan was the right call, it was the horribly mismanaged manner of our leaving that I'm pointing out. We left our own citizens and allies in the country behind almost overnight, with the senior leadership rationalizing that the Afghan national army was going to actually fight, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Our leaders just stuck their fingers in their ears and pulled the plug.
I don't see how Eastern Europe ranks any higher in the minds of said leaders, outside of the remnants of the retiring Cold War generation and the dwindling number who still believe in NATO.
> And Americans will start standing in a ration line to kick Russia out of Estonia? Or Ukraine?
Oh yea I doubt it, but if the military goes to war and people start dying who knows how the public will react. If Russia, idk, bombs a US base in Germany that's a totally different ballgame (hence why small contingents of US forces will be deployed to various locations).
> We left our own citizens and allies in the country behind almost overnight, with the senior leadership rationalizing that the Afghan national army was going to actually fight, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Eh I think people are overreacting to this. We don't know all of the details and I think people probably got lulled into a false sense of security that America would never leave Afghanistan so when you actually do it they're like wait what? When you have Democrats and Republicans criticizing you, you probably did the right thing. Also war is messy. Frankly this could have gone better but could have went much worse.
> I don't see how Eastern Europe ranks any higher in the minds of said leaders, outside of the remnants of the retiring Cold War generation and the dwindling number who still believe in NATO.
Oh yea I think NATO is already gone and nobody told France who is probably the only remaining EU country with any fight left in it. The EU just wouldn't commit to US interests hard enough (China/Russia) so the US has pivoted and it took the EU by surprise, but France prefered to throw its lot in with the EU and Germany instead of the US and UK. With that being said, an invasion of select EU countries won't be tolerated by the US and allies either, so there's a limit to what Russia could invade.
On the US side it's the US, Australia, UK, Canada, Japan, and a few others but I'd say that's the core alliance for the US now. South Korea is committed but I don't know how they'll react to various scenarios. New Zealand is trying to keep the US and co. at arms-length.
>If Russia, idk, bombs a US base in Germany that's a totally different ballgame (hence why small contingents of US forces will be deployed to various locations)
Since Iran launched a ballistic missile attack at US bases in Iraq[0], and pretty much nothing happened in response, I wouldn't jump to conclusions about US response to attacks on our bases.
Not a single US soldier was killed as a result of that strike which was in retaliation for the US bombing one of Iran's generals on Iraqi soil. The US decided not to escalate because what's the point? If Iran had killed US forces it would have been a different story. And attacks on US forces in Iraq are different from attacks on US forces in Europe, particularly in NATO countries and even more so in the countries most considered allies (Germany, etc.).
What rational reason would Russia have to invade the Baltic States (or even for example Poland)? Even in best case scenario if the west does not directly intervene, they would get an additional few million people almost all of whom absolutely don't want to live in Russia and whom Russia could barely afford to police and a lot of additional economic sanctions. Also we're totally ignoring the internal political fallout (whatever their political views but I'm pretty sure most Russia would not support risking a full-scale war with the west).
Wars usually seem rational to the people starting them. Conceivably attainable goals for short- or medium- term political purposes. But war has a way of escalating, dragging the participants along to a fate none of them really control.
As a hypothetical -- Russia does invade Ukraine and the Western forces offer substantial but indirect military support. Russia strikes at a supporting NATO military installation just metres over the border in a NATO country, on the assumption that NATO will not respond to that as an Article 5 attack on their territory. But they assume wrong.
Consider how the Japanese assumed the Americans would be amenable to sue for peace after Pearl Harbor at some point. They had a mental model where it was risky, yes, but rational. But they deeply misunderstood their enemy. History is full of this pattern.
Japan was already fighting a massive war in China, after the US oil embargo Japan basically had no choice (besides a completely changing their geopolitical goals) they had to invade Indonesia and other oil rich European colonies in the pacific which would likely result in a war with the US, so yes, they choose relatively rational option of attacking first hoping if not to knock out US out of the Pacific but at least to significantly weaken their presence there. They might have underestimated the industrial capacity of the US, but they hardly had any other options if they wanted to continue their imperialistic expansion.
I don't see how is that relevant in the case of Russia though, they have little to gain and a lot to loose from any war with NATO or invasion of any NATO countries and so far Putin or anyone did not indicate in anyway that they think otherwise.
Crimea is in no way comparable to the Baltic States. It has a Russian speaking majority, while the referendum they staged there was likely falsified to an extent, most of the people living there did not really support the Ukrainian state and weren't particularly opposed to it Crimea being a part of Russia. In 2014 Ukraine was basically a failed state, economically and politically. At the time the average income in Russia was several times as large as in Ukraine (they are almost even now).
Geopolitically it made sense for the US and the West to largely ignore it. Due to their military presence there no one could argue that it wasn't Russia sphere of influence anyway. It was a small price to pay for ensuring that the the rest of Ukraine would shift it's alignment from Russia to EU/NATO (not having a Russian fleet stationed in one of your ports would likely make this move easier).
None of this in any way applies to the Baltic States.
Border security (same reason the Soviets held onto their gains), paranoia, and Putin needing an external enemy to galvanize his power. Plus they've taken the Crimea and effectively a large chunk of Ukraine with little effective pushback. They may believe that Europe and US lack the will for harsh punishments, particularly with Germany (among others) reliant on Russian natural gas. There are also a lot of ethnic Russians in the former Warsaw pact nations who might welcome a closer relationship.
I can't speak to the will of the Russian people, but anti-western propaganda has been common there for well over a decade. If it's even been marginally effective they may be more geared up for conflict than people expect.
Would you ask what rational reason China has to invade Taiwan?
From a more cynical, pragmatic "realpolitik" perspective one can view Russian actions in Ukraine as largely defensive. From the collapse of the Soviet Union Ukraine largely functioned as a semi-protectorate of Russia, even before 2014 Russian probably had significantly more troops stationed in Crimea than Ukrainians themselves since their black sea fleet is stationed there. After the events of 2014 Russia saw that long-term they are likely going to loose Ukraine anyway and basically decided to cut their losses and at least maintain the control of Crimea. It's not like Russia actually wants to fully annex the regions in eastern Ukraine their currently fighting over, they just want a semi permanent conflict which would destabilize Ukraine politically and to ensure that the Ukraine could never join NATO (and likely the EU), since NATO accepting Ukraine would be basically equivalent to them declaring war on Russia..
No, but they want to. Reclaiming Taiwan is linked to the CCP maintaining its power. If the US wasn't around they would have taken it back by now.
What you say about the Russian actions in Ukraine is true, the question is would they prefer full annexation if they knew NATO wouldn't intervene? I'd say they probably would. If the goal is security, not many things more secure than saying "this is our territory now", it would also enable a lot of direct control instead of relying on manipulated chaos that can always blow up in your face.
I'd say that claiming that they want to "Reclaim" Taiwan is linked to CCP maintaining its power. I'm pretty sure that they don't really want to militarily conquer it even if they were certain it would not result in a full scale war with the US. Any such invasion, assuming Taiwan resists, would result huge damage to the Chinese and the global economies and likely result in China completely losing western markets (at least long-term). They would much rather continue increasing Taiwan's economic reliance on China and eventually peacefully take it over (even without necessarily full integrating it into their state). Any saber rattling it basically to deter foreign government's from recognizing Taiwan in any way which would strengthen the independence movement there and decrease it's reliance on China.
>prefer full annexation if they knew NATO wouldn't intervene
You mean of the entire Ukraine? Because it would cost them more than it's worth. No Russian actions since 1991 have so far indicated that they actually want to conquer any foreign area not inhabited by a Russian speaking majority or whose population would be likely to actively resist such occupation.
The rational reason to invade East Ukraine was to up the stakes and make everyone forget about annexation of Crimean peninsula. And it mostly worked, unfortunately
> I hate to say it but the Afghanistan withdrawal really showed what happens when Americans stop giving a shit, and they probably don't give that much of a shit about Latvia.
The US is facing severe internal crises. It's weakening the country's ability to conduct a consistent foreign policy.
(I'm deliberately not saying what the crises are, because there is pitched disagreement about that. The point is that no matter what, infighting is hampering foreign policy.)
And when the cause of that internal crisis is the rise of far-right populism (either actively funded or at least tacitly supported by Putin), then it really doesn't take much effort to put two and two together. There are no mysteries here, only evil working in plain sight.
That is one perspective. As an exercise, could you articulate a sympathetic reading of a different perspective, to the extent that someone who holds that perspective would approve of your rendering? Think of it as following Sun Tzu's advice to know your adversary.
Again, the point in this context is that no matter what the crises are, the foreign influence of the US is in decline because of severe domestic distractions.
> foreign influence of the US is in decline because of severe domestic distractions
I agree that much of the domestic chaos is a distraction, and that the U.S. should be focusing on longer term existential issues that affect the whole world, but I wish more people realized how much of the distraction and chaos is intentional.
It's difficult to keep your eyes on the road when someone just tossed a beehive into the car.
> the U.S. should be focusing on longer term existential issues that affect the whole world
Should it? Many US citizens believe that the country is at risk of betraying its fundamental values and becoming something they cannot countenance. Resolving our differences will be hard.
Foreign instigators are poking an existing wound. They may be aggravating the injury, but they didn't create it.
There's no question that the long term interests of the US would be served by staying vigorously engaged in foreign affairs, including in the Ukraine. But does the US have the capability to do so when it is so riven, internally?
Or maybe the internal distractions are war being waged on a different battlefield. Sun Tzu talked of fighting wars politically before actually fighting...
One side is having Open calls to remove the police. Let men take over woman’s sports. Decriminalize theft. Oh and attempting to bring back segregation.
Disagree with any of that and you get labeled a far right lunatic.
That is one perspective. Are you up for the same challenge I asked of another poster?
> As an exercise, could you articulate a sympathetic reading of a different perspective, to the extent that someone who holds that perspective would approve of your rendering? Think of it as following Sun Tzu's advice to know your adversary.
> The question is less about NATO deployments and more the will of NATO leadership to go to war with Russia over its more minor members
This is the point of putting NATO troops in the country: if Chad from Nebraska and Juan from Madrid get shot by Boris it’ll significantly alter public/political opinion much more than if Igor gets shot by Boris.
They put these troops in the Baltics so that the Russians would end up shooting kids from a wide range of influential NATO partners.
And the Russians just need to surround/pin down those troops with minimal casualties while they secure the rest of their objectives. We're talking battalions, not divisions. Their practical ability to fight an invasion is limited.
We didn't re-invade Afghanistan because some US soldiers were killed during the withdrawal.
> We didn't re-invade Afghanistan because some US soldiers were killed during the withdrawal.
And the failure to do that was very explicitly the basis of massive domestic criticism of the Administration; it took executive commitment to weather popular opposition to maintain the withdrawal policy.
So, while the facts you recite are accurate, they don't actually support the argument about political support you are making.
”The question is less about NATO deployments and more the will of NATO leadership to go to war with Russia over its more minor members.”
Not acting on this would completely destroy NATO and also permanently destroy US credibility on the world politics and in terms of military power.
Realistically speaking NATO and US could not afford not to go to a war or at least armed conflict with Russia.
Like I said, you're assuming the US gives a shit. The Cold War ended a while ago, the last Cold War generation is aging into retirement. Europe/Russia is now a secondary concern in the US next to China. NATO blowing up would destroy American diplomatic credibility, but we've already kinda done that in multiple ways over the last few years, and our military is still more than potent enough to look after our interests.
Granted Russia is still seen as an adversary, but if Russia manages to quickly steamroll the Balkans/Poland/Ukraine and then challenges NATO to do something about it, I'm not sure there's the stomach for a bloody, protracted invasion of the continent to reclaim the lost members.
There's also a large swath of the US that sees NATO as a waste of US time/money, with members that largely don't pull their weight and are just mooching off the US, hell that was part of Trump's platform. And Secretary Gates under Obama complained, more diplomatically, about the same thing.
There's a substantial chance that a Russian invasion of any part of Europe would be seen as a "European problem" by a large chunk of Americans. None of this is to say I support that position, but that's where we're at IMO. America is largely turning inward for the first time since WWII, the question is whether Europe will figure that out before Putin does.
USA will have to give a shit for one reason: the war against Baltics or Poland is the war against whole Europe. Germany will not stay away and observe, as will not do France or Italy. EU is the largest trade partner of USA, the biggest market for its exports etc. Regardless of the strategic games in the Pacific, USA cannot afford to lose it or to allow it to be devastated by a big war.
I am all for international trade. But can we let the European countries grow up and provide their own defense? USA can't really afford another decade of aggressive military meddling. Deficits are running away from any plausibly realistic plan to balance spending and tax receipts, so we are economically killing our future.
Grow up? US used NATO article 5 to get European NATO partners to join US wars in the middle east. The soldiers went there and died in US conflicts to help you with your ”war on terror”.
How about pay your fucking debt and keep Russia at bay.
How does MAD and France/UK nuclear arsenal fits into this ? It is my impression Russia (and maybe the EU but since I live in the EU I suppose we are the goodies) is waging an attrition small skirmishes war (don't really know what the end game is though).
Perhaps the comment was edited, but there is no wording in the current post that states battlegroups are in Iceland just that Iceland contributes to battlegroups in other countries.
Well... tis true that there is a mine clearing group to deal with the occasional mine that drifts in from the old WW2 mine fields in the North Atlantic. And they did send one of them over to participate in the Gulf War...
- The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect.
- It is also worth noting that the EU has mutual defence clause as per Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union. Nobody knows what legal or practical effect it would have though.
Anything in international treaties is only as legally binding as the enforcement measures behind them. As a small country, no international treaties are ever legally binding. After all, what could the government-in-exile of Latvia do after a Russian invasion if the US president or UK PM decided after a focus group session that going to war with Russia over the Baltics is not a vote winner?
That's irrelevant, their purpose is to act as a deterrent. By invading Russia would also directly attack American, British, German, Canadian etc. soldiers which not something their governments can just ignore. Anyway it's not the 1930's, considering the current political and economical environment there is absolutely no rational reason for Russia to invade the Baltic states (unlike eastern Ukraine or Crimea). What would they gain by doing that, 5 million people none of whom want to be a part of Russia and a shitload more sanctions (assuming if it does not escalate into a full-scale war with the west which is again something Russia has nothing to gain from).
True, currently Americans seems to be only stationed in Poland (while Germans are mainly in Lithuania, Canadians in Latvia and the UK in Estonia) but I don't see how that fundamentally changes anything.
I'm not really sure, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence they don't have a permanent presence there, but I assume there should still be some fluctuating number of American soldiers in Lithuania due to some temporary reasons of the time.
Being the US politician responsible for using those sons and daughters as human shields is something that could backfire spectacularly. It's not a given that the US can dump soldiers into any conflict and then use their deaths as a tool for support. It's possible, and I suspect quite likely, that the politicians will bear the brunt of the damage from creating the situation where those sons and daughters were killed.
Armored ground vehicles in a frontline role are largely worthless against a modern military; it’s too easy to take them out with drone-fired missiles or kamikaze drones.
NATO doesn’t need to position planes in the Baltics when they’re within range of its air bases in Germany (airbases should be well behind the front lines anyway).
Most of which are pushing 50 years old. Russia has a lot of military assets, and has developed some advanced capabilities, but has not been able to field them in any meaningful quantity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The same story is true with their air superiority / denial capabilities. They have advanced weapons, but not enough of them to go toe-to-toe with NATO and the bulk of their military is obsolete Soviet-era hardware.
Yes, but they run just fine. Russia can field massive amounts of heavy materials, far more than any other Western European country, and they have plenty of mobile launchers and other annoying hardware that can throw a spanner in the works for a fairly large surface area, and the number of airplanes they can field is quite impressive. It may not be the latest and the greatest, but it's not as if F35s are thick on the ground (or in the skies) in Europe either (less than 100 in total, most for training purposes).
I really would not see this put to the test, not only because of the potential outcome but because such an exchange has the potential to spiral out of control really fast.
Most of NATO equipment is not exactly sparkling new either, am not sure what that proves. Does it not count if the battletank that runs you over is from 1980s?
It's not just about votes. Modern wars can be endless as we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Russia is not foolish enough to do a full scale invasion. They will just send in proxies. No nation wants to commit resources to such wars.
Russia's development and production costs for military hardware is also much smaller than any Western nation's. They get much more for their money in that respect.
Some other people also never realise that "broke on paper" means nothing when you are an energy-independent state with arms and a nuclear capacity to protect its territory.
“Legally binding” makes sense within a system where a mechanism of enforcement exists. Once you rise above the state, nothing exists, at least on a permanent basis.
Ukraine is basically in a situation of “you don’t own what you cant defend through violence”.
The Ukraine will lose another chunk of territory. Western nations will “decry this violation of sovereignty” and the UN will condemn it, but Russia will own it.
People don’t like it, but in the end the US motto of “might makes right” is correct. If you cant defend it, it’s not yours.
That US war-motto doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the rest of the developed world. They haven't actually had any battles at home, except for the ones where they attack themselves. It's a relatively young country anyway, so it's hard to pin any value on any war-motto that's not about a far-from-home war (which is what they do have experience with).
People are jumping on your phrase "legally binding" for some reason, but I think they are missing the point.
The Budapest Memorandum has no enforcement mechanism.
It has no obligation on the part of the other signatories to defend Ukraine, other than the requirement to bring it up at the UN security council should Ukraine be threatened by nukes.
> The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect.
Yep, nobody will be sued when Ukraine will nuke RF in violation of Budapest memorandum. So what?
They gave them up for empty promises from Russia and the West*. I like how you conveniently "forgot" that Russia signed that too.
"The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.
The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan."
Just a comment, while the west's lack of support here angers me to no end (Russia I don't blame because how could you trust Russia, especially at that moment when so much was changing) while Ukraine had nukes physically, the actual control capabilities were all in Russia and it would have cost Ukraine a lot (money they didn't have at the time) to convert/maintain them to something usable anyways. Not that this is an excuse, but the situation isn't as clear cut as 'they had nukes and could have used them for their own defense if only the west hadn't taken them away'
1. You can absolutely blame Russia. When the nukes were taken away, new launch facilities were dismembered, and TU-160s (Jet strategic bombers, very large ones, which are always a serious threat for people who don't know) were cut OR TRANSFERRED to Russia. Russia knew exactly what it was doing.
2. Hitting Moscow from across the border with a real late 80s ICBM isn't exactly complicated for a country like Ukraine. Especially in this day and age. You drastically overstate the role of centralized C&C here. I want to stress that Ukraine demilitarized MODERN facilities. These aren't 60s hold overs.
The West, of course, lied too. That doesn't absolve Russia however.
Is this some sort of weird hint that Russia is not violating anything? Or some weird hint that the US is not violating its commitment? "The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan."
I was wondering where you getting these quotes from, but I managed to find some of them in the Budapest Memorandum Wikipedia page. The provide a helpful list of the obligations as well:
--
1) Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.[16]
2) Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
3) Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.
4) 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".
5) Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
6) Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments
--
I don't see any commitments being violated here on the part of "the West." Most of the list is about not attacking Ukraine, rather than some commitment to proactively come to their defense. Maybe we can quibble about the wording on 4) a bit... but I would imagine it only covers concrete nuclear threats.
I have to admit - I trusted sources saying the US promised to defend Ukraine as part of these agreements, which is nowhere in this list. Thanks for posting the actual wording.
> I like how you conveniently "forgot" that Russia signed that too
I'm a Pole living in the west and the perspective of Putin's greedy gaze turning so close to my motherland is quite terrifying. I think your conclusion that I somehow "conveniently" forgot about Russia being the culprit here is a bit too far fetched here.
And therein lies the rub: the EU would not be able to do much of anything without the rest of NATO to back them up. And in spite of Europe being dragged along in many American adventures in the middle east I wouldn't count on NATO sticking together either. Way too much 'realpolitik' going on to count on that for long term stability.
You suddently jumped to conclusion that EU could not do much without NATO, but that's just your speculation.
- EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below.
- Would EU have political might and unity? That is a big question. However, the situation with the Baltic States is not so simple: these countries are well integrated parts of the EU, including the membership in Eurozone, Schengen Area, financial and banking system (banks are mostly Scandinavian in the Baltics), etc. Any threats to them would have significant consequences e.g. to Euro as a currency.
- While some EU countries might be reluctant to do anything, there would be other EU countries which might take unilateral action as they might feel threatened too. In particular, Nordic countries and Poland (which, by the way, recently is getting very heavily armed).
Just a note, while Baltic banks are well integrated into the EU (especially after the Danske bank scandal and others before it made integration with Russia politically toxic) the energy grid of the region is still very tied into Russia which is of a critical concern right now (see EU energy prices and issues with the harmonization across the union).
I will also have a very negative posture on the EU military spending/capability unfortunately after working for a Baltic government and being familiar at a high level at capabilities in the region and somewhat familiar of Germany/France. In the EU today now that Britain has left, France is the only real military power who has 1) the forces to deploy and 2) the will to do so. German forces are in a terrible state of disrepair and the new government does not seem like one to invest further (Ulrike Franke has a great writeup and is worth a twitter follow) and even the old gov is under fire for blocking military aid as they have supported nonlethal NATO equipping only to Ukraine, I would guess partially because they are addicted to Russian gas but there are some rumors that Merkel will join some Russia affiliated boards (gotta love a little government graft). Poland I am less clear about but I have never heard anything about them having a really solid air force and anti-air capabilities which is one of the most critical things Ukraine needs (at this point Ukrainian ground forces are actually pretty good and are well versed in how to fight; what they need is to be able to ward off incursions by sea and air).
>the energy grid of the region is still very tied into Russia which is of a critical concern right now
This however makes the relationship somewhat symbiotic, as Russia also depends on EU money. I remember reading recently (somewhere?) that Russia had transitioned from a failed industrial state to a failed Petrostate sometime in the 90's since that's currently their biggest source of foreign currency.
Another point I'm surprised I don't see anybody making is the impact of drones on armoured assaults. The recent conflict (Tajikistan / Kyrgyzstan ?) showed that they could really devastate attacking armour, and last time Russia 'holidayed' in Ukraine it was their stronger armour that pushed the Ukrainians back. This could really tip the balance back to the defenders. Also, it's hard to deny you've invaded a country if 100 of your tanks are smouldering wrecks on the wrong side of a border.
The Baltic States have electricity links with Finland, Sweden (subsea cables) and Poland (with another cable link planned). They are scheduled to pretty much disconnect from the Russian/CIS electricity grid by 2025: https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/baltic-states-and-poland-sign...
I totally agree on German forces being deplorable. Regarding Poland:
The EU has downsized their military capability steadily over the last 40 years, so I wouldn't count out Russia based on spending alone, the size of the army that you can field, and how far afield you can support it is a pretty important factor and Russia is within that zone at the moment as good as unopposed. Russia has historically been able to hold their own surprisingly well when it came to Dollars spent versus Rubles spent. Bluntly: they would be able to use Belarus as a base and connect that to Kaliningrad in a very short time. They might not be able to hold it over the longer term but the damage would be done: it would require the EU to declare where their loyalty lies and if the interaction so far is any guide I would not want to bet on the outcome.
I'm pretty well connected to the Baltics and have spent a lot of time in that part of Europe, both in North Eastern Poland, Lithuania and Latvia (less so in Estonia though I've been there a couple of times I never spent a lot of consecutive time there). From what I gather there is some fierce nationalism there, and a pretty strong cultural identity, in spite (possibly because) of years of Russian efforts to destroy those. At the same time, and in spite of financial/cross border integration with the rest of Europe those countries are an island surrounded on their land borders by borderline hostiles with a tiny little bridge to the rest of Europe.
But you have a point about the Nordics and Poland who definitely would have a big stake in this. But for your average person from Madrid, Paris or Rome it likely would not be something they even realize is in play, they might not even know Kaliningrad exists and they might not know much about the Baltics and their history or present day role in Europe.
> EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below.
It is actually the second, but only just, and China will surpass it very soon. This doesn't detract from your point at all.
However what does detract from this point somewhat is that this neglects relative purchasing power. At purchasing power parity, Russia's military spending is actually higher than perhaps people realise.
Yes! And their defense industrial base is massive, not only are they just spending for internal use, but they also are making improvements constantly because they sell these weapons abroad (e.g. S-400's which piss of America to no end)
This all comes with a time limit however. Because of the demographics of Russia, they will not be able to keep this military industrial base up for more than a couple of decades. It is really a case that Russia are currently at their strongest militarily (unless something drastic changes).
With this in mind, the west's strategy of economic pressure makes some more sense. The economic pressure will help this strength window last for less time, and perhaps even cause some internal issues that will distract away from foreign adventures.
Russia has a military budget of 60bn, Germany and France spend 52bn each. Within the EU they are on home turf, with existing rail and road infrastructure. The EU isn't equipped to fight in Russia or to fight a nuclear war (even though France has nukes), but I don't see why the EU shouldn't be able to defend it's own territory in a conventional war.
>but I don't see why the EU shouldn't be able to defend it's own territory in a conventional war.
Because money spent in an efficient and effective system has more power than money spent in an ineffective and bloated system. One example - Germany doesn't actually have enough helicopters operational to meet their needs, so they used civilian contractor helicopters in Afghanistan.
The structures are just so different that it's hard to make good comparisons. Germany can't keep its troops and equipment equipped or repaired _at home_, while Russian is capable of doing so thousands of miles from beyond its borders.
The German military in particular is "neither structurally capable nor equipped" to meet its defense obligations, according to the German parliamentary commissionor for the armed forces. Their helicopter readiness is something like 15%, they don't have the funding to keep their navy seaworthy, for most of 2018-20 they only had enough operational armaments to keep 4 of their eurofighter jets armed. They don't have enough body armor for all their troops, so they rotate it out to whichever battalion is active. Current bundeswehr projections are that they'll be able to equip all their troops in 2031.
It's gotten so bad that the German 2019 readiness report was kept secret, after the 2018 report was so bad.
Long story short, the German military is fundamentally incapable of meeting its basic defensive goals (defending the home territory of the nation), while Russia is a near peer competitor with the United States, and is capable of offensive force projection thousands of miles from it's home territory
100% and I think in the case of an actual war, the most likely scenario is that EU member states basically scramble and act independently to defend themselves. The idea of a joint EU military response to Russian aggression is absolutely a fantasy. It's just too big and slow of an organization to do anything on the timescales needed to decisively win a war.
Well, let's just hope that that will never be put to the test. As they say: Europe is the battlefield of the world, and Poland is the battlefield of Europe.
Russia is as unpredictable as they ever were at the moment and there is a fair chance of this leading to some kind of escalation in the near future.
RF is extremely predictable. Its behavior was well predicted two decades ago. If you are predicting «happy path» only, then anything that deviates from «happy path» will surprise you. Peace time job for military headquarters is to predict «unhappy path» and prepare for it. Russian tactic is well known among former USSR and Eastern Block countries, so it was easy to predict what they will do:
Will try to return post-soviet countries back to «USSR 2.0».
Will capture Belarus somewhat.
Will station army across Ukrainian border.
Will try to circumvent Kyiv, while distracting Ukrainian army at the South.
This is just fearmongering based on XIX century thinking. There is no expansion drive by default, however there are couple strategic "red lines", which, when crossed make Russia react aggressively.
1. Hostile military block on the borders (expansion of NATO or any moves that may be treated as towards the expansion or challenging the status quo, as in Ukraine with Crimea).
2. Status of Russian population and Russian language (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine - Donbass, Baltics - low intensity information war).
For the neighboring states they are the keys to their own security: addressing those fears of Russia by diplomatic means, those countries can bring more peace than arming themselves against the invasion.
Where does this obsession with the external come from. Russia has the largest national landmass yet still they look outwards despite the many improvements that they could make internally. It's bizarre to me.
The goal of Great Russian Civilization is to protect and expand the Gorgeous and Mighty Russian Language.
The Russian Empire was known as «Jail of Nations», because they captured so many different nations across a huge area. To consolidate them, they are erasing their identity by forcing all of them to speak a single invented language, called Russian, which is based on Old Slavonic Church language, which is based on South Slavonic dialect as spoken near to Salonika (Greece) a thousand years ago. This is somewhat different from behavior of some other empires (Spanish Empire, Great Britain Empire, etc.), because the language was invented, so it was not native language for anyone, so nobody had an upper leg and nobody can be clearly blamed as invader.
Those, who switched to the new language, invented reasons about why Gorgeous and Mighty Russian language is superior to their laughable and weak native languages, so they have strong beliefs that they need to help those minor nations to escape the hell of speaking them and join the Great Russian Civilization.
Russia(now Ukraine) used Russian (now Ukrainian) language, which was a modernized version of Old Slavonic language, so they refused to accept archaic language. In 1912(?) Folk Assembly of All Russia (now Ukraine) declared rename of Russia (now Ukraine) to Ukraine to avoid confusion with Russian Empire or its language. (It's well hidden fact). Ten years after that, Great Ukrainization started, so millions of Russians (now Ukrainians) switched to Ukrainians, then Great Ukrainization aborted by Russians. 20 millions of Ukrainians were recorded as Russians again, 7 million adults (and 23 million children) were murdered by starvation in Holodomor.
Russian language, Russian culture, etc. are very new. For example, there are 0 (zero) folk songs in Russian language. Russians are studying history of Russia (now Ukraine) instead of history of their own nations. This makes them wonder why Russia now called Ukraine, and why their motherland is captured by Ukrainians. This makes them mad about Ukraine and Ukrainians. Nobody tells them real history, of course.
They are not looking for expansion outwards. The only real expansion that has happened so far was Crimea, which was part of Russia before, has significant Russian population which at least once voted for independence, but more importantly it is vital for Russian defence on the south.
This is not the same. Imagine a different situation: in 1950 USA gives Florida to Mexico. In 2010s as a result of political transformation, Mexico wants to leave trade agreements with USA and join economic and military alliance led by China, opening possibility for Chinese military base in Miami. Would USA invade in this case?
Based on what we know from the history, yes, USA could do it, as they did in the Bay of Pigs. In fact, USA invaded with military forces in Latin America so many times that by now they should have lost any credibility in democratic world.
Russian budgeted costs are far higher in 'cross border equalisation' terms than 60 billion - Russia probably get 2-3 times as much purchasing power.
If Ukraine is attacked they will fight to the death - they know what life under Russia was like and the killings.
In addition, almost all cross border shipments of all kinds to Russia will stop, as the USA/EU will go to maximum embargo state. China will supply stuff by rail, but it will only take a few flying bombs to cut so many bridges that it grinds to a halt. Trucks will not help - many large tracts are rail only.
All the while China pretending to be a friend - but China wants Siberia for China.
Russia can do far better with good trade with Europe than a Ukrainian land grab.
An what if rumors are true and Ukraine secretly hid enough nukes to wipe out over 20 Russian cities by truck bombs.?
>`And what if rumors are true and Ukraine secretly hid enough nukes to wipe out over 20 Russian cities by truck bombs`
I don't think it is possible to keep such secret from Russia for 30 years. Ukrainian president deflected to Russia in 2014, and that means that any secret that he might've known is available to Russia.
> If Ukraine is attacked they will fight to the death
They will not. They gave up Crimea almost without fight. Many people at Ukraine are russian speaking and many of them don't mind becoming a part of Russia, just like Criemea people. Just compare with Chechen war in 90's.
Neither Germany or France have a conscript army. So neither can field any big numbers and it also inflates the cost of the armed forces for the comparison.
Correct me if I am wrong but the more I digged into this story more I find it is much more nuanced than this.
So briefly here is what I think had happened:
- Russia had a huge strategic deal to sell Germany petroleum and natural gas. This was years of diplomatic work and finally got to the point where this looked like a reality.
- The settlement of the above deal would be in EUR bypassing the typical petrodollar settlement.
- Ukraine was proposed to be added to NATO by US and other allies.
- Russia started moving troops to Ukraine.
- the above mentioned deal with Germany is now under question.
One has to wonder if the last three points are correlated and second and the third points are correlated i.e. to keep the petrodollar dominance US is crafting this conflict by adding Ukraine to NATO.
USSR (and then Russia) were selling gas via existing lines to Western Europe since 1970s. The new pipeline is a bypass around Ukraine to remove any leverage against an invasion.
Ukraine would love to join NATO (and no, you are not proposed there by other countries that's not how it works). However the US and other allies have cold feet to avoid pissing off Putin.
Fair but you are not arguing why the events are not to be thought of being correlated. So if the natural gas deal with Germany is settled in EUR that seems to be a good enough reason to piss US off and start a proxy war. Why is the momentum for getting Ukraine to EU so strong now?
EUR (unlike say China's RMB, Cuban pesos or whatever they have in NK for money) is a freely convertible currency. Can you explain the mechanism by which settlements in Euros undermine anything, such that three (mutually confrontational) US administrations engage into conspiracy against Mother Russia?
(For the reference, the old pipeline gas was also paid for in Euros)
As to momentum for Ukraine ascension to NATO, I would love to live in that reality. Over here, Germany, France and several other NATO members strongly oppose even allowing Ukraine onto the roadmap.
Settlement in a non reserve currency sets a precedence for other countries to follow the suit (for example Russia, China and India) to settle using their own currencies and therefore threatens USD monopoly. For example China is already doing the same thing with Iran outside the SWIFT system. Without foreigners buying US treasuries to fund the ever increasing US sovereign debt, the US treasury will increasingly have to rely on Federal Reserve monetizing their social security and other deficits and eventually prompting a collapse of USD as a reserve currency and runaway inflation since that will make USD worthless at its face value. I would argue this will happen someday regardless but this just makes it happen sooner. Especially at a time when debt is exploding, printer is still on, and GDP isn’t exactly growing.
I think Germany opposed the reality of Ukraine being in NATO because they understood the reality that this pisses off Russia, their large natural gas provider which benefits no one at this point especially in a world where US sphere of influence isn’t exactly as big as it used to be. Just look at how it all panned out in Afghanistan and Yemen.
"Currency conversion" is not free. If a deal is to be settled in the USD then it means that the buyer is likely to acquire USD directly (by selling something for USD or taking loans in USD) and the seller is likely to spend the USD, skipping any conversion and strengthening the USD. Likewise, if the deal is to be settled in EUR the same is applied to the EUR and strengthens the EUR while weakening the USD.
> There is only way for country’s protection and it’s Israel’s way where whole country is also an army.
Significant chunks of the Israeli population are de facto exempted from conscription (and with a low rate of voluntary enlistment from those communities as well)-most Haredi Jews, and most Israeli Arabs. Those two minorities together make up over 30% of Israeli citizens, and both minorities have an above average population growth rate (due to having more children and starting families at a younger age). The long-term risk this situation poses to Israel’s military security is a perennial topic of concern in Israeli media and politics
There's also the issue that many in that 30% don't have the same outlook on the form or even existence of the Israeli state. In a conflict, they can become a problem from within. Many western countries likewise face a similar internal demographic structure that's ready to fracture the state and act against it for their own perceived benefit. Probably every large state has this to some extent but some are in denial while others already have systems of control in place to account for it.
I think people are not thinking this through well enough. Realize the Russians are willing to go to war over this.
In no way would cross my mind to justify Russian actions, a regime I absolutely abhor. But maybe would be a good moment to not forget about the 40 years of strategic agreements, that supported peace in the last few years, and ask why these are being disturbed.
Or are we to ignore the CIA operations in Ukraine of the last few years:
What would be the reaction of the US if Russian forces would deploy to the other side of their border? Lets says Canada or Mexico? Because that is what would happen in Ukraine would join NATO. We know what happened when they tried Cuba.
Paradoxically, the USA seems more active in the current conflict over Ukraine than the rest of the EU. And it was Germany who blocked the delivery of NATO weapons to Ukraine.
This is right in the EU's backyard. If it were to heat up they'd actually have to deal with things like refugees and the possibility of war spreading to their members. They probably also want to be very explicit about their (lack of) obligations in this case, I mean people are already acting as if this calls into question how steadfast they'll be in defense of eastern EU members.
We have two options. First, Putin is bluffing. This is what most people believe (and hope). In this case giving Ukraine more weapons won't hurt anyone. Option two is that he is really planning some offensive action this winter. In this case sending weapons to Ukraine could help in slowing the Russians down. It could also help in decimating their army - if they unmask as a ruthless aggressor, it is in the interest of the whole civilization, not just the EU, to limit their impact.
Another option is that both the EU and Putin know Russia does not have the conventional strength to attack the EU, but does have the manpower to attack other unaligned countries. And so, the EU has decided to prioritize their other interests over standing up to Russia.
How EU will do this? NATO is very clear about not being able to defend Baltic countries, they just don't have sufficient militarily presence. Polish army is currently even to weak to protect Poland, maybe this will change in next 10 years, as there are significant investments into army and military industry planned, but not now.
EU would have to deploy immediately at least two heavily armed divisions to be able to protect Polish-Belarusian border (which is in reality Polish-Russian border and would be first attack direction to cut supply chains from Polans) and attack Kaliningrad, what is the key in Baltic countries defense.
Nothing happens in EU without Germany agreement, so the question is: will German army going to engage? Germany is busy cutting trade deal with China and starting Nord Stream 2 which would provide Russian gas for Germany, so the answer is clear.
The Polish army isn't meant to be able to defend Poland, it's meant to provide enough time for NATO to respond (which they're capable of within 72 hours). That, combined with the logistical challenges of a Russian invasion and the lack of motivation for the Russians to do so makes it very unlikely that they would attack.
NATO has more than enough military power to defend, as long as it has enough political will and freedom to act. I think that is what the debate is about.
Also, I would not underestimate Poland. The country spends 2.2% of its GDP on military and has been gradually increasing the expenditures further. Moreover, Poland has been making very major acquisitions of modern equipment and capabilities (something Ukraine is currently just dreaming of -- see one of my posts above) as separate budget lines. It is on the track to become one of the main military powers in the EU and is certainly a very credible power to resist Russia.
You forget about this country called France that has a better/bigger army than Germany, has nuclear weapons and likes to think of itself as equal and not subordinate to Germany in the EU.
NATO as a whole might not engage in such a war, but members of EU certainly can, even without NATO.
The combined firepower of France, Germany, Italy and Spain is not something Russia can handle by itself. So the question is would Russia gets backing from China and/or Turkey to start invading portions of the EU?
I'm certain that Israel's nukes and their strategic air strikes against Iran's nuclear/military facilities (preventing Iran from having nukes) contributes much more to their protection than a standing army.
This situation is obviously amplified 10x in Lithuania (population 30% of Israel) vs Russia (population 170% Iran).
Israel has been in many conventional wars with it's neighbors since the day it was founded. In recent times their nukes protect them, but historically it was more about every man and women being either active military or reserve, along with an economy that is able to pay for being the best military in the region.
I disagree in Estonia and Lithuania. I think that 1) many ethnic Russians have seen the quality of life get much better living in these countries and while they may still hold many similar cultural values, would not want to live in Russia and 2) that the governments of the countries are well aware of the risk and have plans to counter it. Not so sure about Latvia.
The degree with which the Russian propaganda regarding vaccine safety has permeated the Russian populations in Estonia and Lithuania (and Latvia as well) has opened my eyes considerably into how strongly connected those communities are still to Russia. They are Russian first, and Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian second.
Now, Lithuania has only a relatively small number of ethnic Russians compared to the rest of the population, and in Estonia the it's somewhere in the middle (15% or so). Latvia is roughly 50/50.
And yes, the governments of those countries are well aware of the risk, but that is not the same as not having that risk in the first place.
Yeah sure, but the risk of taking a vaccine and deciding not to take it or holding up a sign outside of a hospital (I mean, plenty of hesitancy in the US too with no or very little Russian propaganda) is super different than taking up arms to support little green men coming across the border and I don't think really comparable. If we were back in '07 with the situation in Estonia, maybe, but now I'm super skeptical.
Yes but Israel operates under the US defense umbrella at least implicitly even despite their extraterritorial attacks against Iran. If Lithuania or Estonia started hitting Russian military targets, I'm pretty sure they'd be booted from NATO asap. Also, if they used nukes against Russia or even postured like they would it'd be a disaster. St. Petersburg is super close to Estonia, Belarus borders the baltics, so if you did even a first strike you'd probably end up with a nuclear cloud hanging over your own country a few hours later.
IIRC, it was NATO that signed an agreement that they won't expand to the east when Russia / USSR agreed to withdraw its army from the East Europe.
It was the Russia / USSR that agreed to let Ukraine alone as long as they guarantee human rights and equal status of ethnic Russian / Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine (but majority in East Ukraine and Crimea).
It was the Russia and USA that agreed to restrict usage of the nuclear missiles in Europe.
Guess who broke all those treaties and agreements and now has balls to accuse the opposite party for the current situation.
Even thousands of years ago, Sun Tzu said you should not push your enemy to the wall where his only choice is to fight to death or just die, and NATO is still doing that.
It's not how you de-escalate things, and I hope the reason would overcome, unless we want to experience a nuclear winter.
And the source of the analysis of the "myth" is Chatham House, an "independent" organization led by two ex British prime ministers and one ex MI5 member.
Just look at the list of the Chatham House Prize winners [1] and try to find one person there that is not anti russian.
I guess one could find State Department press releases less biased than this organization.
It says US secretary of state James Baker told Gorbachev NATO forces would not move east from Germany. Then it goes into that there is a lack of formal, legal enforcement of these promises, and how the US changed its mind later. So even this source with its leanings does not say what you say.
Vietnam is a better example here. They are continually afraid of Chinese invasion based on nearly a millenia of war preceding the wars with western colonizers. They are at huge disadvantage economically and technologically to China. So every single high school student and college student is trained in guerilla warfare tactics, the entire country is outfitted with secret military installations, and they are ready to resist any invader so intensely that there is no hope of a meaningful occupation no matter the seeming military asymmetry. This has protected them for the last 50 years other than a brief border war with China in the late 70s and some ocean territory incursions by the Chinese navy. Most of those were fought off by swarming them with fishing boats.
I have been to Vietnam right before the pandemic and witnessed with my own eyes active training of high school and college students using mock AK-47s. The cultural focus of the students of course is their economic future in peace time, but the foundation of that peace for a small and otherwise vulnerable nation is the maintenance of their strategic deterrence, which continues to this day.
Maybe it’s more regional then. My sister-in-law grew up there and said they dropped it back in the 1990’s, but I suppose that’s just where she grew up.
But did Ukraine really had nukes? Physically yes, but not operationally.
"Ukraine had the world's third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile,[2][3] of which Ukraine had physical, but not operational, control. Russia alone controlled the codes needed to operate"
It's like saying Turkey has nukes...Does it? Or Turkey hosts US's strategic bombers armed with nuclear bombs.
Ukraine had the people and means to make them operational. It also currently has the means to create new nuclear weapons with uranium mines, research reactors and nuclear physics expertise. Also expertise to create ICBMs. Russia has ensured that no nuclear nation will ever disarm because treaties are just a piece a paper and world will just sit back and do nothing when it is violated.
That's just a pure speculation, could or could not.
Ukraine is a semi-failed state with an ongoing civil war(and was for decades), it can't create anything new unfortunately. Improve some old Soviet technology maybe, but ICBMs...
The discussions should not be about weapons but on how Ukraine can pull itself from the current hole it dug in.
"Ukraine is a semi-failed state with an ongoing civil war(and was for decades)"
It is a pure lie, there was no conflict in 1991-2014.
What's a semi-failed state? How do you define it?
"how Ukraine can pull itself from the current hole it dug in"
What do you mean by digging a hole?
For a much more evenhanded -- and hence rare -- take, you may wish to read this very recent commentary from Jack Matlock, the last US Ambassador to the USSR[1]. He has the advantage of being an observer who is (a) very informed and (b) disinterested. The following paragraphs are worth reading, even if you fundamentally disagree with this viewpoint[2].
Russia is extremely sensitive about foreign military activity adjacent to its
borders, as any other country would be and the United States always has
been. It has signaled repeatedly that it will stop at nothing to prevent
NATO membership for Ukraine. Nevertheless, eventual Ukrainian
membership in NATO has been an avowed objective of U.S. and NATO
policy since the Bush-Cheney administration. This makes absolutely no
sense. It is also dangerous to confront a nuclear-armed power with
military threats on its border.
When I hear comments now such as, “Russia has no right to claim a
‘sphere of influence,’” I am puzzled. It is not a question of legal
“rights” but of probable consequences. It is as if someone announces,
“We never passed a law of gravity so we can ignore it.” No one is saying
that Ukraine does not have a “right” to apply for NATO membership. Of
course it does. The question is whether the members of the alliance
would serve their own interest if they agreed. In fact they would assume a
very dangerous liability.
I point this out as a veteran of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. At that
time I was assigned to the American embassy in Moscow and it fell to my
lot to translate some of Khrushchev’s messages to President John
Kennedy. Why is it relevant? Just this: in terms of international law, the
Soviet Union had a “right” to place nuclear weapons on Cuba when the
Cuban government requested them, the more so since the United States
had deployed nuclear missiles of comparable range that could strike the
USSR from Turkey. But it was an exceedingly dangerous move since
the United States had total military dominance of the Caribbean and under
no circumstances would tolerate the deployment of nuclear missiles in its
backyard. Fortunately for both countries and the rest of the world,
Kennedy and Khrushchev were able to defuse the situation. Only later
did we learn how close we came to a nuclear exchange.
As for the future, the only thing that will convince Moscow to withdraw
its military support from the separatist regimes in the Donbas will be
Kyiv’s willingness to implement the Minsk agreement. As for the Crimea,
it is likely to be a de facto part of Russia for the foreseeable future,
whether or not the West recognizes that as “legal.” For decades, the U.S.
and most of its Western allies refused to recognize the incorporation of the
three Baltic countries in the Soviet Union. This eventually was an
important factor in their liberation. However, the Crimea is quite different
in one key respect: most of its people, being Russian, prefer to be in
Russia. In fact, one can argue that it is in the political interest of
Ukrainian nationalists to have Crimea in Russia. Without the votes from
Crimea, Viktor Yanukovich would never have been elected president.
One persistent U.S. demand is that Ukraine’s territorial integrity be
restored. Indeed, the U.S. is party to the Budapest Memorandum in
which Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in return for
Ukraine’s transfer of Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia for destruction in
accord with U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. What the U.S. demand
ignores is that, under traditional international law, agreements remain
valid rebus sic stantibus (things remaining the same).
When the Budapest memorandum was signed in 1994 there was no plan
to expand NATO to the east and Gorbachev had been assured in 1990
that the alliance would not expand. When in fact it did expand right up to
Russia’s borders, Russia was confronted with a radically different strategic
situation than existed when the Budapest agreement was signed.
Furthermore, Russians would argue that the U.S. is interested in
territorial integrity only when its interests are served. American
governments have a record of ignoring it when convenient, as when it and
its NATO allies violated Serbian territorial integrity by creating and then
recognizing an independent Kosovo. Also, the United Sates violated the
principle when it supported the separation of South Sudan from Sudan,
Eritrea from Ethiopia, and East Timor from Indonesia.
Great read thank you. As someone completely disinterested in any of the affected parties, it sometimes gets annoying how loud is the "pro-American" / "Anti Russian" propaganda in the internet. It's always "America is good, Russia/China/Whoever else is bad" as if the USA was full of saints. Truth is, every country and government is willing to protect their interests, and it has been historically proved that the USA is willing to go the "extra mile" through CIA and other back channels (Pinochet and other South American dirty wars).
I cannot imagine the scandal that it will be if my country (Mexico) would allow Russia or China to place some weapons and troops in say, Tijuana or Cd Juarez. And yet, the USA has bases stationed all around the globe.
> It's always "America is good, Russia/China/Whoever else is bad" as if the USA was full of saints.
The world is not some grand scale intended to be balanced. No one argues the USA is full of saints. Whether the USA is full of saints or not is immaterial to Russia/China being "bad". The truth is, a world Order led by the United States looks a lot kinder than a world led by Russian or Chinese regimes. Resorting to false equivalences (guys, they're all bad) in fact hurts all of us interested in a world that respects basic human freedoms.
I've stated this before, as have many others on this site: the US and the knowledge of its genocides and other violent acts committed on people across the world is only possible when a free press is guaranteed and when we do not need to worry about being whisked away into that eternal night for bringing those atrocities to light. You cannot discuss the Tienanmen Square massacres in China without severe reprisals. Indeed, in Russia, doctors have simply repeatedly fallen out of windows for daring to toe the official line on COVID. It's happened so frequently, it's become something of a meme.
So please, criticize the US all you want (and there's much to criticize) but stop at drawing these false equivalencies because it is easy or because you believe in some global scale that must be equalized.
>The truth is, a world Order led by the United States looks a lot kinder than a world led by Russian or Chinese regimes
But that is a preconception you have due to your background. A world order the China way may mean no more narcos and narco killing in my country, no more each-to-its-own culture that is permeating my country.
You have to be aware that in my country we like socialism. We like social healthcare, social help for people. A lot of people believe that it's wrong that 10% of the people has 90% of the wealth.
Thing is, living in a bubble prevents people to see that there is more than what we learn from our country and its social constructs.
I was fortunate to live in 3 very different countries for a long time. It allowed me to both value watch I had at home but also to see other ways to do things. Again the narrative of "russia china bad" is a subjective idea that is given to us by our society.
> Again the narrative of "russia china bad" is a subjective idea that is given to us by our society.
I have already outlined a few examples for why it is not. If you insist on this damaging false equivalence, and for a taste of something on your continent, you need only look to the illegal violation of the territorial waters of Argentina by Chinese fishing vessels en masse. That is happening today.
The ruthless genocide of the Uyghur people is happening today. The illegal seizure of Hong Kong happened last year. I have personal experience here as a woman I grew close to openly wept for the loss of her freedoms happening in real time.
The Great Leap Forward killed between 13 and 55 million people of which it is estimated at least 2.5 million of these deaths were caused by beatings, tortures, or summary executions. Your vaunted CCP denies and distorts all of these events.
> You have to be aware that in my country we like socialism. We like social healthcare, social help for people. A lot of people believe that it's wrong that 10% of the people has 90% of the wealth.
I live in Denmark. I am quite familiar with socialized healthcare. Denmark and the rest of the EU are good examples of the benefits of what sharing the wealth looks like. China and Russia are authoritarian superpowers who treat history as a story of convenience and you have fallen for it.
Thanks for the one sensible take. You can bet that the USA would invade if say, Mexico or Canada decided to engage in a NATO-like alliance with China or Russia. In fact, you only have to look as far as Cuba, a mere 90 miles from the continental USA; a country the USA failed to invade in violation of international law during the Bay of Pigs invasion in the 1960s. It is pretty rich when Western countries whine about sovereignty when they would do exactly the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot.
>However, the Crimea is quite different in one key respect: most of its people, being Russian, prefer to be in Russia. In fact, one can
>argue that it is in the political interest of Ukrainian nationalists to have Crimea in Russia. Without the votes from Crimea, Viktor
>Yanukovich would never have been elected president.
This is actually a very interesting point, and would explain Ukraine's recent shift to more nationalist politics, and pivot away from Russia - which (unintended consequences for Russia) sparked all these problems in the east.
I dunno how accurate this is, but back when protests against Yanukovich started, I saw people on reddit predicting his ouster and civil war, because of the history of Poland...
Seemly Poland in the run up to WW2 got parts of it conquered by URSS, and later when WW2 was over, some territory that was part of Germany became part of Poland to "restore" its territory, effectively shifting Poland westward, this means that eastern Ukraine had polish people inside it.
The guy then explained that Ukraine east side is full of ethnic Russians, even if they consider themselves Ukranians, while west side is filled with ethnic Polish and related groups.
He predicted then (the violent protests didn't had started yet when I read this) that the ethnic EU people would be pro-EU, and would oust Yanukovich in violent protests, and the ethnic Russians would retaliate in some form, either trying to retake the capital by force, or splitting away.
The part of Poland that was annexed during WW2 had 3 major ethnic groups there - Polish people, Ukrainians and Jews. Most of the Jews got executed during the war, Polish were sent back to Poland by Stalin.
Yet culturally Western Ukraine has much less ties with Russia, due to not being a part of Russian empire.
Again and again, I read this 'ethnic' treatment of conflict in Ukraine. That is not true, for example Kyiv is majority (even today) Russian-speaking, yet it always supported pro-West politicians in elections.
Here's the direct quote from Ambassador Braithwaite's letter. Braithwaite was UK’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Russia until 1992.
The assurances Russians point to the following:
Assurances given in 1990:
• James Baker, US Secretary of State, 9 February 1990: “We
consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the
reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of
NATO’s military organization to the East”;
• Helmut Kohl. German Chancellor, 10 February 1990: “We
consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity.”
Assurances given in 1991:
• John Major. British Prime Minister, Speaking to Defence
Minister Yazov, 5 March 1991: “He did not himself foresee
circumstances now or in the future where East European
countries would become members of NATO;
• Douglas Hurd, British Foreign Secretary, speaking to Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh, 26 March 1991: “[T]here were
no plans in NATO to include the countries of Eastern and
Central Europe in NATO in one form or another;”
• Francois Mitterrand, speaking to Mikhail Gorbachev, 6 May
1991: “Each of the [Eastern European] countries I have
mentioned will seek to ensure its security by concluding separate agreements. With whom? With NATO, of course. ... I
am convinced that is not the right way forward for Europe.”
This was, of course, a prediction, not an assurance.
[Author’s note: recently declassified material published by the National Security Archive contains some additional references to
similar “assurances.’]
This factual record has not been successfully challenged in the
West. The remarks by Major and Hurd are confirmed by British
records. I was present on both occasions.
As someone who live in Russia and who lived there in 90th I can confirm that this is what Gorbachev publicly announced that time. Putin has nothing to do with this. Perhaps he use this broken promise in his speeches but he has not invented it.
> Russia trying grab bigger and bigger chunk of the territory
You're a little late, the Russian military moved into the Crimea back when British red coats were still stationed in New York City, and they have been there ever since.
On the contrary, the grab is the other way, the West is trying to push out Russian military bases in the Crimea which have existed for centuries.
When is the US going to close up the Guantamano Bay military base, something the Cuban government has been asking for decades?
> Will NATO come for let’s say Latvia or Lithuania? I honestly don’t think so.
Poland may, because they see Russia as a nr 1 threat.
USA have to because they(NATO) will lose any credibility. If they won't Germany, Japan, Poland, Ukraine, South Korea and Taiwan will start nuclear programs right away.
Nobody wants nuclear proliferation.
This Russia-Ukraine issue is a negotiation tactic from Russia. There will be no invasion because it's too expensive to occupy a large country.
Short term:
Russia would like a land connection to Crimea, cause they have a problem with water. They don't want Ukraine in NATO.
Long term:
Russia negotiating position is weakening. They have army and natural resources. As world will be less dependent on carbohydrates, oil and gas in Siberia will be too expensive to extract.
There is also another way: building a nuclear weapons/ICBM arsenal. That's why there's always the topic of nuclear non proliferation among countries that already have this capability. But if Ukraine had nukes, it wouldn't have been invaded by Russia. Just like how Noth Korea isn't going to be invaded by anyone anytime soon.
> Will NATO come for let’s say Latvia or Lithuania? I honestly don’t think so.
I fear that you are right. And with Kaliningrad pretty much ideally positioned to pull another Donbass the stage is set for a lot of misery in Poland, Lithuania and possibly even Latvia and Estonia.
We'll see about that. I wouldn't put too much stock in that if that country is Latvia, Lithuania or possibly even Poland. If it were Germany, France, Finland, Sweden or the UK it would likely be a different matter. Article 5 of the treaty is nice in principle, but those principles have never been put to a real test (in some circles this is called the 'Riga test' for a reason).
I understand your pessimism but we are talking about the most powerful military organization on the planet. If for some strange reason they decide they give up protecting their borders, they might as well not exist. If Russia decides to invade Latvia and NATO does nothing, the whole pact might as well dissolve itself as it serves no function.
The problem is that the rest of Europe doesn't really 'know' Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, they are just names to them. Possibly some people would be able to point them out on a map but the vast bulk of the people has absolutely no link with those countries on account of them being geographically isolated. Their only direct connection is a less than 50 km wide strip of border between Poland and Lithuania with exactly two roads running through it and relatively little cross border traffic.
There is little tourism and not that much in terms of import or export from that region where people will associate whatever product they are looking at with the Baltics.
A co-defense pact makes sense from a military perspective, especially because the Baltics are pretty useful as forward bases. But from a 'hearts and minds' perspective there isn't all that much there. And I'm saying that as someone who has a very direct connection with the Baltics and who has spent collectively probably close to a year (or even more by now) there.
Ask any Western European in which country Riga is situated, or Vilnius or Kaunas or even Tallinn and you're likely going to get a wrong answer or no answer at all. By contrast even Finland would do quite well.
I completely agree about hearts and minds, but this is not how NATO works. When the USA asked their partners to help them in the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq etc., nobody asked about hearts and minds. Many f not most people in the EU were against the war. There were demonstrations in most capitals[0]. But everybody sent their troops even if they didn't care about the war, because this is how NATO works in practice. Moreover, the EU did much more, and some of these things are unknown to the general public. Just some of these leaked, like illegal CIA prisons in Eastern Europe.
Of course France and Germany - the two countries traditionally closer to Putin and trying to keep a bit warmer diplomatic relations than the rest - will hesitate a bit, but rest assured that all other countries will join a NATO defensive operation in order to protect a member state from Russia. Putin knows this, and realizes he can win a conventional war with one small state, but not with many bigger ones. Therefore his main focus is on Ukraine that is not protected by NATO, and as for the Baltic states, he's just performing some minor non-military operations like bringing migrants to the border.
I'm quite concerned that this is a one way street. The United States is the first to lean on other countries to support them in their adventures but I somewhat doubt if the Baltics were in need that the US (for instance: under Biden or god forbid another run of Trump) would step in. They just pulled out of Afghanistan, a mess of their own making, without any consideration for the consequences.
For sure it won't be easy, because it would be the first time NATO would have to engage in a conventional war with a country with nukes. That's the whole point Russia counts on: that the nukes will scare NATO partners away. But this would be a suicidal move that would make no sense. And in a conventional war Russia stands no chances against the armies of NATO.
Popular tourist destinations for Europeans are France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Germany, the UK, Austria, Greece, Russia, Portugal, Poland etc.
Even Romania sees more tourism than all of the Baltics combined, and Romania is pretty far down the list of tourist destinations. I don't know how you define 'popular' but in my circle I'm the only person that has visited the Baltics for something other than work.
Except it actually did. Yugoslavia managed to stay reasonably independent during the cold war from both blocks. That the militarization of society cam home to roost after the breakup along the ethnosocial fractures is another topic tho.
That was pretty much the case for USSR in Cold War. A country can last this way for several dozens of years at the cost of depleting economic resources.
And USSR was twice as big and populous as Russia is today.
Russia doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine for as long as it’s not in Nato. Just like the US didn’t like Russian military presence on Cuba, they don’t want the US presence in Ukraine.
It’s all fundamentally dead simple. Russia views Ukraine as a buffer country between itself and the West and will do anything to keep it that way.
> Just like the US didn’t like Russian military presence on Cuba, they don’t want the US presence in Ukraine.
Which was, funnily, in response to US military presence in Turkey, which is still there. It's understandable that Russia doesn't want to see itself surrounded by "enemies".
That's falsified by Russia's ongoing metre-by-metre invasion of Georgia[0]. Not a NATO member, and won't become one either. Still Vova Putin saw some Lebensraum and decided it's his for the taking.
Their actions from 2014 until now show otherwise. Ukraine is not a part of NATO but Putin decided to grab Crimea, Donbas, and keep the military activity for over 5 years in order to destabilize the country.
Current conflict is rooted exactly in Ukraine trying to aligning itself with the West. It would’ve been the EU first, Nato second for them. That would’ve created a massive headache for Russia, including the loss of its only warm port, hence the annexation and the invasion. And now Ukraine is in limbo, because the EU won’t touch it with a wooden pole while it is in an active conflict.
Current war of RF with Ukraine is about natural gas. Ukraine tried to drill natural gas near to Slovians`k by contracting Shell, to export natural gas to EU, to block RF from selling to EU. Also, Ukraine won a dispute with Romania about a natural gas field in the Black Sea. These actions threatened Gasprom plans to be $1 trillion company, so Gasprom owners started the war. Everything else is secondary.
Yes, even if they didn't make it into the EU, Putin's loss of political cronies at the highest level of government is dangerous for him, he has talked about the end of the Soviet Union being a tragedy so I wouldn't be so sure he doesn't want to re-unite the countries, and totally agree on the ports (plus it was insanely popular domestically, at least at first to annex Crimea)
I guess the OP referred to the exit from nuclear power.
This exit was a big mistake. Netherlands are rushing up to build new nuclear plants. Belgium seeks ways to reverse its exit plan. France has never stopped beefing up its nuclear industry.
> The only good outcome for the whole world is Putin and allies being ousted out of power and replaced by actual non-warmonger democrats.
I don't actually know anything about Russia or Europe or politics in general first hand. However, from listening to a few episodes of the Economist podcast, my impression has been that Putin is stuck. He can't quit because even though he might be above being punished for his crimes, his cronies who have amassed billions are not. These folks will do everything in their power to keep Putin in power or find someone who is better at diverting people's attention from the problems affecting the people in their regular lives. Chechnya, Crimea, Ukraine, ... all these are (in my understanding) in service of the government's attempt at consolidating power at home.
> Nobody wants nuclear war, maybe some kind of super-sanctions would be the only recourse for the west, cut them off everything, and I mean everything.
What is a super sanction? In my (uninformed) opinion, a sanction is a complete sealing of a nation backed by political will and military might, preferably consensus from all the neighbors of the nation. No person and no goods go into or out of the country. No funds get transferred into the country or out of the country. All communications get cut off.
Correct me if I am wrong but Europe (I am speaking geographically, so including Ukraine) relies a lot on Russian petroleum and gas? And even if we weaned ourselves off of everything Russian, there is a border between Russia and China PR (mainland China under control of the CCP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Russia_border
tl;dr a sanction not enforced by military might is not really a sanction, it is just a silly little non-binding resolution.
Russia in EU would mean also Russia in NATO. Russia wanted to join NATO in 1990s and the answer of the alliance was "No".
IIRC, one of the reasons behind that was that this means direct border with China. China is more important and there were hopes that China will democratize as it integrates itself into global economy, so that was an unnecessary risk. The times have changed, now everyone talks about containment - having Russia as part of the biggest military and economic alliance in history would mean a lot for it. But this also means including a right wing conservative power with the economy of the similar size to Germany, twice more people, nuclear weapons and ideology similar to the one of Poland or Hungary. Making Putin leave (or waiting until he dies) will not be enough to change this.
NATO is first and foremost a tool of American power in Europe and against Russia. If the geopolitical landscape changed so much that Russia decided to join the EU and was accepted, I think it would have to mean that the EU/Europe had shifted (back) to standing up on its own.
> with the economy of the similar size to Germany
Russia's economy is not that big. Nominal GDP is between Spain and Italy.
Not 'only'. That's key. Different countries have different interests. Powerful enough countries can remain independent and pursue them as they see fit.
The US want to keep control of Europe, that's partly what NATO is for. There's no reason for Russia to be OK with that. In fact no European country should be OK with that but for historically reasons I think they reckon that this is better than the fear of letting the "good old ways" (i.e. France or Germany trying to take over) come back, although Germany has pretty much taken over by peaceful means at this point, especially since Brexit...
> In fact no European country should be OK with that
Russia's brutal annexations in the east following WWII pretty much assured that all European countries were, in fact OK with it.
WWII was the result of Germany trying to take over the continent. That led to Eastern Europe being invaded/liberated by the USSR and Western Europe being invaded/liberated by the US.
It's not correct to say that all Western European countries were/are OK with US power and presence. The major powers were divided on that. Germany obviously did not really have any say, France did not want the US to stay, the UK thought that it'd help them look more important than they had become. But smaller countries may see the US as a guarantee against larger neighbours trying to invade again, as I mentioned, a bit like South Korea does.
Cuba is not cut off from "everything", though their massive media campaign has made it appear so.
There's flights from the US to Cuba now.
You could say, ban any airline that flights to Russia from flying into EU/US, heck, do it on an airplane basis to avoid shell companies and such. Any airplane that touches Russian soil, banned from ever entering any US/EU airspace/soil ever again.
You sound pretty naïve. Putin holding on to power is likely the best outcome for the world vs unknown power vacuum & chaos that will ensue after Putin's gone.
There are a lot of Russians who don't support Putin yet will fight to make sure another one of these peaceful transitions doesn't happen in their home. Rampant crime, addictions, brain drain, internal wars - no thank you, please keep this peaceful transition.
I think Egypt was the last place that was gifted one of these. I hear it went well for them /s
But is Russia a warmongering nation? I'd say most Russians hate war. Maybe more than anyone else because they were the nation that suffered most casualties in World War II. An emergence of a peaceful leader and friendly reactions with the West would mark the beginning of a completely new era in the history of our civilization. And would help both Russia and the West in the face of increasing Chinese power.
The individual people probably not, but the politicians at the top seem pretty obviously willing to engage in conflicts. Just think about Crimea for a second - when was the last time you saw a country actually annex territory? That is some old school shit (pardon my french) and a real shock to the IR community. Plus their actions in Georgia on a super flimsy pretext, troops in Moldova, etc. I'd say they're pretty warmongering...
We're lucky to live in time when figuring out what foreigners think is just a few clicks away, thanks to the internet and Google Translate. Please try to do it - even if you won't like what you see at first you can surely find some other sources that will confirm your view.
Well, that really depends on what kind of site you visit. I'm sometimes shocked seeing what comments my compatriots write under some articles. People tend to group around certain topics. So in order to understand what "Russians in general" think I'd have to survey many of them. For now, I rely on the opinion of my Russian friends.
Basically, nobody in their right minds want a war. In order to create favorable conditions for war, you need to create quite a few provocations, a lot of tensions, some murders, especially on children. At some point, people on the other side will get very emotional and demand a revenge. At that point you reached your aim: you changed the collective mind of the population and they crave for war now, they want "justice." This happened to a small degree in the USA after 9/11 - Bush did have some internal support although it was by no means unequivocal. I saw the same in the initial stages of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia: at some point people really hated each other.
But it is very, very far from it in Ukraine. There are many, many Russians in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians in Russia. In many parts of the country they speak Russians (I mean almost exclusively). Putin is trying some provocations and is also getting soldiers from distant areas of Russia so that they have less problems killing Ukrainians, but the spirit of "let's invade Ukraine" is just not there among Russians.
Well now, this is the question isn't it: what's going on with Russia? They've had a (smarter, more violent) version of Trump in power for 20 years, using violence to repress dissent, using fraud to fake poll numbers, cheated so bad at the Olympics they got a forever ban, and state-run media to broadcast propoganda. For the Russians, communism failed, then capitalism failed, and the national economy is the size of Italy suffering from rampant corruption. So what is it? They are deep in the bad corner of the Nash equilibrium, bitter about losing the Cold War, and determined to achieve some vestige of glory using the two levers that remain to them: nukes and gas? (Plus a 3rd lever: world-class hackers and online propagandists.)
I find it hard to imagine that in this environment there's much of a middle-class that cares about the best 3rd wave coffee in Moscow and which is the best Montessori school (e.g. the petty problems that remain once you feel safe in your society). Those Russians left for Germany or the US long ago, is my impression.
Russia is not in the EU because of fundamental geopolitical differences and diverging interests. Changing the Russian government does not change these aspects.
The same goes for China, for instance. It is naive to think that a democratic government in China would fundamentally change anything to the geopolitical situation or China's international policy and goals.
The government's leanings may influence the means by which a country pursues its geopolitical interests but do not change those interests. Just observe the US.
I think we in the west need something like a 'doctrine of the foregone conclusion'.
Often things are very obvious, even notorious, but because we do not want to face the eventuality, we do things like negotiate or perseverate our denials all while the situation escalates.
If NATO and the west are ready and willing to defend Ukraine (I suspect we are not), in which case a significant increase in our own presence would have made sense much earlier.
If we are not willing, then the Ukrainians really should be told that and given an opportunity to negotiate or find their own way.
I'm not sure that Cold War style standoffs via obscurity work the way they used to, there is just too much information available. The job is not to hide information or turn a blind eye to it, but rather to create as much or more activity and information as the opposing side.
I suspect Ukraine was told quite clearly what they can expect, and as you say, it comes short of NATO boots on the ground, or wings in the sky.
I'd say no one ever really wants to defend an ally, it's more of a pros-and-cons balance. For smaller countries, solidarity within NATO is building goodwill capital for when they need help (e.g. with allies following US into Afghanistan). For large countries, this is part of their empire-building: showing allies you support them makes them more favourably disposed to you. All-around, even for the US, it raises the bar for anyone contemplating an attack on a NATO member.
Ukraine is a colleague but not an ally, so these don't really apply as much.
That said, the West wants an independent, pro-western Ukraine (just not enough to fight a direct war with Russia over), and seems unusually resolute, so I wouldn't be surprised if some truly punitive actions were to be taken. Exclusion from SWIFT was one proposal, interfering with Russian energy exports would be catastrophic for Russia. The latter is very difficult for Europe in winter, but who knows; the US could open the tap with their gas, also if the whole thing gets delayed by a few months, it could be a very different perspective.
Europeans don't hate Russians as much as Americans do - probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry.
In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made with Russia. A Europe united with Russia would be the one superpower even China could do little to contain ..
Coming from a post-soviet country, Europeans certainly have a diverse opinion of Russia, but most of it is negative. I don't see how peace could be made given their aggressive foreign policy and continued advances on all fronts that are acceptable. They're pushing their propaganda very hard across the border, and are leaning in hard on the russian speaking populations left in post-soviet countries to screw around.
Its certainly not going to be possible for as long as member citizens of Western nations think they have the moral authority to tell Russia what to do .. they really, really don't have that moral authority, especially given the last twenty years of massacring of innocent people that the West continues to sweep under the rug and justify with bleats ..
The Russian people know how many innocent human beings are massacred by American war machines every day, even if Americans don't.
I am in no way happy that my native country's sovereignty is hedged on US global hegemony, but Russia is often complicit and just as bad when it comes to military action in 3rd world countries. I'm also not trying to prop up a higher moral position, but I am very opposed to a Russian invasion, much like I would be opposed to an American one. Nobody wants Russia to fail, they just don't want Russia to be a threat.
If you think that America has the moral authority to demand other states stop their human rights abuses, you probably don't know a thing about the extent nor magnitude of America's own human rights crimes. A nation that drops bombs on innocent people every twenty minutes for twenty years has zero moral authority when it comes to calling out other nations' human rights abuses - until their own abuses are appropriately addressed.
Anything less is just a failure to understand basic ethics. You can call anything a fallacy - the idea that Americans have a higher moral authority on the subject of human rights is just ludicrous and worthy of a great deal of ridicule in light of the statistics of "Americans killing other innocent people for fundamentally racist/bigoted reasons" .. the real fallacy is that the American people think their nation has a 'right' to act with moral authority over any other nation. They really, really don't.
There's a huge difference for Europeans in hating Russia vs hating Russians. There's also a huge difference in attitude in Western Europe and Eastern Europe.
Western Europeans are generally ambivalent towards the threat from comfortable complacency. Have you met Ukrainians or Georgians? They're not NATO states. They understand full well the threat and seizures they're under and will tell you so. The closer the proximity to the Russian state, the more the people are concerned.
Places like Poland and Slovakia are similar only somewhat less so.
Here in Austria, I know a lot of Ukraine and Georgian expats who don't have the issue with Russia that they do with the USA.
These are just not vocal enough to warrant attention in Western media, nor does it serve the purpose of giving the American-led NATO powers a new purpose for existence.
I know a lot of Ukrainians. They absolutely hate Russia.
Russia tries to invade their country, US isn't. Don't you think that makes a difference?
My family in law is from Slovakia. Needless to say, especially the older generation really hates Russia.
Do you have any idea what Russia did to Ukraine, or Slovakia or any of the other ex soviets satellite states? Don't you think that would leave any marks?
You moved to Austria from Australia less than 3 months ago (if you're not lying about that also). Austria is 1/1,000 Ukrainian and 1/3,000 Georgian, and the younger crowd is even further US aligned. Please tell me more about how you've made 10,000 friends in 2 months to statistically avg. knowing a lot of them.
You don't know "a lot of Ukraine and Georgian expats." I have family from both and have been all over Georgia. 2012 Gallup Poll had Georgian approval of US policies at 51% and disapproval at 15%. There's a damn good reason Georgia and Ukraine mutually consider each other their #1 ally.
I thought after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, surely international supporters of this crap would be nowhere to be seen anymore. Now I found myself thinking the same thing when Ukraine or the Baltics boil over, but I'm sure somehow you'll make up some other "But US and NATO (a defense pact that has never entered into unrequested territory) also yada yada, Russia not so bad."
Your analysis is faulty, I've lived in Austria for 15 years and have extensive experience working professionally in the Balkan states - Kosovo, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic. I've also lived in the USA for many decades prior to moving to Europe, and I don't have a single nationalist bone in my body.
I can count the # of pro-NATO/pro-USA bootlickers in my professional circles on one hand, whereas the people who are categorically opposed to America's continued committing of crimes against humanity cannot be so simply counted. You seem to be aligned with the "might makes right" theory of geopolitics, but this is not the case among the people of the states I'm familiar with. Most of them want the criminal human rights violations to end - on all sides - but are not so stupid to ignore the American side, just because its shiny and plastic.
Perhaps your reading comprehension needs work. Abandoning my citizenship doesn't mean I can't already be living in Austria and become a full citizen because of what I perceive to be gross violations by the Australian government .. or want to move to a non-bootlicker nation.
>Russia annexing Ukraine (might) isn't right. ???
Well, that depends if you think fascist Ukraine should have access to ex-Russian nuclear-armed naval bases or not. I personally would rather have Russia have control over the significant population of Russians in Crimea than have fascist Ukraine gain access to those nukes.
But, we peons rarely get what we want. I guess we should learn to wield our democratic power better ..
Americans don't hate Russians any longer. They no longer represent a threat to us and most people have no interest in minor eastern European conflicts.
The fact that the media has to try so hard could be a good indicator that they don't, in fairness. Noone I know cares about Russia outside of the Ukrainian invasions, at least.
> Europeans don't hate Russians as much as Americans do -
I seriously doubt Americans really hates Russia, and at least not more than any eastern country who has been crushed by USSR for some decades.
> probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry.
Seriously, again. We want peace with Russia, but don't pretend it is the West who creates this situation.
> In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made with Russia.
Yep, but hopefully we remember what happened how much we got out of Britains deal with Hitler. A deal with Russia must always be backed by power.
> A Europe united with Russia would be the one superpower even China could do little to contain ..
The only advantage China really has on us is ruthlessness.
What am I supposed to read out of this that supports your argument?
> These are not equivalent by any stretch. Putin is not Hitler.
Absolutely true.
Sadly it seems that one similarity is that both of them - and others as well - didn't/doesn't respect treaties, agreements or what I think of as basic expectations of decency.
For this reason I voice my clear support for Nato - as long as we don't overstep our boundaries like we did in Afghanistan. This includes sending troops to the borders og our friends in the alliance. As long as they don't cross the border this is fair game.
Russias problem isn't only that they exercise on the Ukrainian border, but also that they have a history of:
- sending advanced gear to troublemakers in east Ukraine who choose violence over democratic participation.
- sending troops.
- has a history of not only meddling like USA (I don't like this either) but also occupying.
>What am I supposed to read out of this that supports your argument?
Which country is having its territorial sovereignty threatened by the encroachment of hostile states strategically positioning nuclear weapons within strike distance? Which country actually belongs in the region, and which are setting up remote bases from which to operate, far, far from home?
If you don't think NATO aggression is a reality that Russia must deal with, there's not much point in further discussion. Only one side in this argument has a long history of committing war crimes and further crimes against humanity, for the last twenty years ..
>doesn't respect treaties, agreements
This is the biggest problem that Russia has with NATO and its puppet states: they don't respect treaties or agreements. Lets next discuss the Minsk Protocol and what Ukraine has done to render its participation utterly useless and not worthy of any respect, whatsoever ...
>NATO .. don't overstep our boundaries
That horse has left the barn, long ago. It is very clear to those of us that live in the region that NATO is willing to step all over the sovereignty of other nations in an attempt to encircle Russia. Your trust in NATO is clearly either a) uninformed, or b) utterly misguided.
>Exercise on the Ukrainian border
.. on the RUSSIAN side of the border. Nothing at all wrong with that, one bit.
> sending advanced gear to troublemakers
ahem It is the USA actively arming Ukrainian fascists, yo.
> meddling like USA > also occupying
Not at anywhere near the scale of the USA, sir. And if you think this is equivalent, then good day to you - we have nothing else to discuss.
The USA is the #1 violator of human rights and committer of war crimes in the world today. Your attention would be better directed towards the calls for justice for America's war crimes victims and the imprisonment of its numerous war criminals.
Only then can the West find the moral authority to do anything about Russia's perceived acts.
Until then, these arguments are specious at best, or facetious in whole.
And a lot of European countries have no issue with Russia, but see America as the bigger threat to world peace.
So? Which 'side' you pick is mostly a matter of national identity and how your personal views on world peace align with the military industrial complex of your own personal nation state. A lot of Europe is really sick of America's shit and want them to leave, too.
Germans would like to have their country back and kick NATO out. Serbians, Hungarians, Slovakians, Czechians, Slovenians .. even my colleagues in Kosovo are sick of Americas' shit. The reason is, they don't live behind an iron curtain of censorship of America's crimes against humanity, as most Americans/Western Europeans do.
There are two major parties in Germany who oppose NATO membership: The far-right AfD and the left to far-left Linke. They have less than 20% of the national vote together. In 2019 there were 54% of Germans in favor of the NATO membership and 13% opposed it. [1]
Can't talk for the other countries, but given that you have no sources other than "I heard someone say that", I'm not inclined to believe it.
Besides the media, who else do you think could be relied on to gain an opinion on this issue? My German friends and associates - I don't know a single German, after 15 years of living in and around Germany and Austria, who wants US bases in Germany any more - in fact the majority of 'common people' that I know, want the USA to remove all of their bases from Europe, take their war machines, and go home.
From outside the American media bubble, it is quite clear to see which nation is committing the majority of crimes against humanity and war crimes today, and they don't speak Russian. They commit these crimes like cowards, hiding in Arizona strip malls, remotely controlling their death robots and raining hell and fury down on utterly innocent people, every single day. Germans know this and care. Americans either don't know about it, or don't care - or both.
I think the fact that the parties that are in favor of leaving NATO have very little political relevance speaks for itself.
And my anecdotal evidence after living my entire live in Germany is, that most people just don't care, and even the people that care and like NATO outnumber the ones that hate them. It's just my experience though.
And if you're so deep into conspiracies, that your only explanation is that "the media" faked the poll (and possibly even the election, wtf) then I don't think there is any value in continuing this discussion.
I have multiple work colleagues in Slovakia, a stones throw away from me, who are very definitely against NATO bases expanding into eastern/central Europe.
I suggest you ask your relatives how they feel about NATO encroaching further and further towards Russias' borders, and what do they think about the recent NATO exercise that flew armed nuclear missiles within 20km's of Russias borders. If the tables were turned, Americans would be having kittens - but somehow, Russians are supposed to take these threats lightly?
NATO is a defensive alliance. A country can join or leave NATO alliance. Nobody forces a country to join alliance. The higher threat RF creates for others, the more other countries are wanting to join an alliance to get protection from RF threats.
I highly suspect that your colleagues in Slovakia are invented.
NATO is a military alliance, and it is therefore even more dangerous to have it flying armed nuclear weapons close to Russia's borders than if it were an individual country doing it.
NATO is the threat that Russia is responding to by buffering its borders and protecting its nuclear-armed naval base on Crimea. Its not Russia putting American bombs within strike distance - its the USA and its criminal NATO partners.
I really doubt Americans in general dislike the Russian people. If Americans have an issue with Russia it’s with the government at large or specifically Putin and the oligarchs.
I doubt more than a single digit percentage of people in the US could name even one Russian oligarch. Outside of the DC bubble and media pot stirring, Russian "hate" is mostly limited to it being used as a generic boogieman when something politically unappealing to the observer happens.
> Europeans don't hate Russians as much as Americans do
I don't think Americans hate Russians at all, in my experience. Just Putin and a handful of oligarchs.
> probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry.
Some of these Russians just happen to carry Novichok or polonium and assassinate dissidents living in Europe, no big deal right?
> In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made with Russia. A Europe united with Russia would be the one superpower even China could do little to contain ..
>Some of these Russians just happen to carry Novichok or polonium and assassinate dissidents living in Europe, no big deal right?
Whereas every single American tourist can be trusted not to be a gullible fool and just believe everything they've been told to think about Russia by talking heads on the television? Come on, we know that all states assassinate their enemies, including the USA. This standard is no longer relevant.
> Some of these Russians just happen to carry Novichok or polonium and assassinate dissidents living in Europe, no big deal right?
In Western democracies we don't assassinate our dissidents, we simply throw them in a dark room for a few decades and throw away the key, like we are doing with Assange, and would have done with Snowden if someone like Putin wasn't around to put the smug hypocrisy, propaganda, and corruption on public display.
The information in this Wikipedia page is out of date. There are quite a few new LNG terminals in the EU now which diversified the gas supply. High consumption from Russia doesn't not necessarily mean dependency, e.g. Lithuania has an LNG terminal with a capacity to supply itself and the other Baltics states, but the country buys mostly the Russian gas simply because they offer lower market price. However, Lithuania has been shipping gas from Norway, Qatar and USA. It's all free market now.
Poland and Finland also have LNG terminals with more of them being planned in other European countries. Germany, on the other hand, is still very much on the Russian gas needle.
Everything you write is true. I suspect if the tap were to be closed overnight, or even with two weeks' notice, there would be huge disruption.
The fact that one country can shift a marginal gas use from one seller to another doesn't mean, for example, that you could find enough gas in the free market to suddenly prop up 40% of European winter needs.
I think there's a lot that could be done here, but it would require coordination and a united front. Oddly, I feel both these things are in place.
> Let's call a spade a spade and stop bundling the EU27 with Germany's energy policy and geo-political failures
German gas consumption per capita is not much different than most of the EU27 except France (nuclear) and Spain/southern Italy (it doesn't get cold enough to need much heating). All the EU east of Germany imports more of their gas from Russia as a percentage; and the ones to the west of it only don't because the pipes from Norway or Morocco are shorter.
So no, not just a German problem, your electricity cost have gone up too I bet.
The west will not protect Ukraine for two giant reasons.
1. Russia has gas over Germany.
2. Amassing troops on Russia's boarder without an alliance with Ukraine is politically challenging.
3. America is sick of war and doesn't have a good looking balance sheet.
4. China is the new meta. Taiwan is tough enough.
5. Joining Nato is a process starts with have a certain level of democratic freedom and market economy that Ukraine is in the process of attaining. If we defend them right now, then it undermines the reforms we want them to make before joining. Once they're in, they're our problem.
6. Covid and knock-on effects is still the focus.
Doesn't mean I love it, but it's the reality. Personally I'd do things differently, but I don't exactly have presidential intelligence reports now do I?
For joining NATO, isn't there also a requirement on territorial integrity which makes Ukraine joining impossible as long as the Donbass situation persists?
Donbass is a diversion of attention from Crimea. It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine, as more and more countries recognize Crimea as part of Russia. It is hard to imagine Ukraine giving up on Crimea (though it would make a lot of sense by now), so it will never join NATO and it is very unlikely that they will join EU despite promises of local politicians.
> It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine
> as more and more countries recognize Crimea as part of Russia.
What? Crimea will return to Ukraine as more countries recognise Crimea as Russian territory?
> It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine
Crimea will never return to Ukraine, Russia historically needs port that doesn't freeze over winter. Now that Ukraine is looking towards EU/Nato and Russia cannot control it as a satellite corrupt state, Russian military will not allow losing control of their most important port.
This whole war in Ukraine is to open up possibility for a break-out state favourable and funded by Russia or even assimilation into Russia, as its a corridor to Crimea.
That said, if there was political will, it would probably be fine, or there would be a special clause, or sth.
For example, West Germany joined NATO (founding member?), even though clearly the country was divided; West Germany didn't, AFAIK, make format territorial claims on East Germany, but they clearly saw themselves as a legitimate state with an occupied territory.
Territorial integrity of the West Germany was ensured by Potsdam treaty and definition of occupation zones. West Germany could not have any territorial claims for the territory of GDR, because it recognized the treaty and the fact that GDR was the occupation zone of USSR.
Ukraine knows the limits of Western support and is not asking for Western military in Ukraine. What they are asking for is arms sales, training, and economic assistance to deter Russia, which the West is doing, but should continue to step up.
> Often things are very obvious, even notorious, but because we do not want to face the eventuality, we do things like negotiate or perseverate our denials all while the situation escalates.
There was an opinion piece on 9 Dec in The Daily Telegraph which points out that the West have 3 potential flashpoints:
- Russia and Ukraine
- China and Taiwan
- Iran and their nuclear enrichment
The West can only hope that the three foreign countries do not decide to coordinate action.
I don't see Iran being a flashpoint. Israel is clearly capable of defending itself and we want nothing to do with that godforsaken sandbox. I do see Iran capitalizing on other distractions because they know they get cut no slack on slow news days. Frankly it would probably be for the best if they were nuclear armed because it would keep them and Israel from fighting as much.
I think this information and clarity exists and is private in the countries' domains of external affairs. Publicly there is always a facade that needs to be held. I am sure some smart people can prove that it's very hard or impossible for any reasonably sized society to function with complete transparency.
"foregone conclusion" that's a dignifying way to say "walk the walk, as well as talking the talk", or "put one's money where one's mouth is", or "be consistent", "show of will"
The west wants to sell military equipment to Ukraine. It’s the same reason Taiwan being in danger is front page news. The cash cow of Afghanistan is gone.
Isn't this "doctrine of the foregone conclusion" exactly how the west operates? Not too long ago there was an invasion of Iraq over some WMDs that unnamed "intelligence sources" were absolutely certain were about to be used for some horrible things. These were never found. Now these same "intelligence services" are the only source of information that Russia is preparing for an invasion. If you were Russian, hearing this would make you very scared indeed (and it does).
'A column of 70 vehicles with food is estimated at RUB130 million
Rostov court published a verdict confirming the presence of the Russian military in Donbass
The Kirovsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don issued a verdict in November in a case of corruption in the supply of food, which indirectly confirms the presence of the Russian military in Donbas, where the war is going on. The document was published on the website of the court.
The defendant in the case was the deputy regional manager for military nutrition of one of the commercial companies. He was found guilty of bribing the head of the Center for State Sanitary and Epidemiological Supervision of the Southern Military District with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
It follows from the verdict that the official demanded 90 thousand rubles a month in order not to interfere with the supply of food to the Russian military. And we are talking about the military, who are in the east of Ukraine.
“His responsibilities included organizing and fulfilling obligations for the purchase and sale of food and the creation of the necessary stock in the warehouse <...> The food was intended to be sent to military units of the RF Armed Forces deployed on the territory of the DPR and LPR,” the case file says.
According to the testimony of the accused, food supplies to the DPR and LPR were carried out every two weeks. For this, a column of "more than 70 vehicles with a carrying capacity of about 40 tons and a total volume of more than 1300 tons" was formed. Among the products were flour, canned food, fresh vegetables. “The total cost of food for one delivery was more than 130 million rubles,” the verdict says.
According to various estimates, one such delivery is enough to feed about 25 thousand people. The defendant also said that before the shipment of the cargo, the food was checked by a "Russian in the rank of major", and on the territory of Donbass the trucks were "under the protection of the receiving party."
The Kremlin denies the presence of the Russian military in the DPR and LPR.'
The text of the ruling was pulled from the Russian court site, but you can still verify it says the same stuff by hitting the Internet Archive from yesterday:
This is a bit confusing. It sounds like a lieutenant colonel demanded a bribe to not interfere with food delivery and a manager for the food supplier was convicted for paying it. Is that right?
Yes, it's correct and I'd say it's normal in Russia to pay to supervisory authorities to ignore violations. And yes the receiving part is also subject of prosecution but it can be ignored as well or be part of another court process.
Recent death of 55 miners in Kuzbass shows how common this pattern is. All safety equipment in the mine has been disabled or shortcutted but all inspections considered that mine to be safe to use.
UPD: obvious part of the story is the fact that 10-40% of that 130 million contract has been stolen by militaries and food suppliers.
so this article is in russian/ukranian (or another language in cyrillic) and i wonder, did all people liking or commenting here really read this?
as a european i tend to be very skeptical of the US involvement in eastern europe. they seem to be exploiting the enmity of some eastern european nations toward russia for own economic gain and to stop russia selling its natural resources to EU. all the while being many many miles away from the danger zone. one has to wonder, how would people of US percieve the situation if Mexico decided to host Russian bases and missiles
There is this thing called Google translate, it works surprisingly well for getting the gist of articles in languages that you can not read. I use it professionally (with some caveats) and it is quite impressive. It certainly isn't perfect and I wouldn't use it to write stuff but for reading it is ok.
The US thew a tantrum about Cuba, and still penalises them to this day, so you can easily see how hypocritical they are ( US missiles in Turkey are OK, but Soviet in Cuba weren't).
If the US invaded another country just because it has Russian military bases, that would be wrong too. Ukraine doesn't have American bases and, even if it did, that's no reason for its neighbour to attack it. Countries have the right to determine their future without threats of occupation.
PS: The article is in Russian. As an European, I've read it.
This source is pretty shit and doesn't really prove anything.
That being said, Ukraine just flexes during it's traditional winter gas-price feud with Russia to try negotiate a better price. It doesn't really want Donbass nor Crimea back; those regions always were too pro-Russian. Without them, Ukraine's politics have shifted much further west. But Ukraine needs to remind the west of the Russia boogeyman to get resources from the EU, while threatening Russia to get concessions from them.
In real news, not propaganda, Russian court didn't confirmed anything. The guy accused of bribery just declared that he was sending food to Russian army units in DPR/LPR. The same way he could've declared that he was feeding martians.
This local newspaper does not qualify as "propaganda" website by all definitions, so I'm not sure why you are using this language and what kind of "real news" you are referring to.
The original verdict of the court does not say "the guy declared". The language used there is describing recipients in Donbass as a fact important to the investigation, otherwise it would be a simple speculation irrelevant for the court decision and not worth mentioning there.
Of course, there are ways to "explain" this publication as a mistake, misinterpretation as you already suggested or sabotage, but then it will just undermine the credibility of the supposedly objective and independent court.
It seems to be a common view in Russia - I spoke with my wife’s grandmother earlier today, and she said she’d wait to hear the truth about it from Putin. Anything that disagrees with his pronouncements is “fascist propaganda”. She has R1 on in the background 24 hours a day. She isn’t unusual in this.
It also isn’t a uniquely Russian problem, by a long shot, but the control of media by the state there exacerbates it substantially.
Interesting as I think we are witnessing a global shift in power to the East. China’s rise and the US’s fall from hegemony is starting to be felt in geopolitics.
Russia (IMO)may simply be pressing ahead while it sees the US’s power currently diminished.
The US withdraw of Afghanistan has not helped matters. It demonstrated that although the US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival, this expense does not equal 10 times a more powerful army. Instead we have shown our current military structure is overly bureaucratic and inefficient. Until the US can restructure and gets it house in a bit better order I think we may see Russia continue to press forward in the short term.
Russia did the same thing a decade ago in Georgia and US didnt intervene. Followed by Crimea, which sparked uhhh sanctions.
And a decade before that was when the soviet union fell apart.
What time period, exactly, are you referring to that correlates with US influence waning? Russia has always been on autopilot regardless of US influence, when you look back at it.
The answer doesnt rely on talking about other ways influence shifts or trying to convince everyone to be scared of a world without US soft power omg oh noes, its about what it has to do with Russia’s expansionist actions.
I’d just remind the discussion that the US just pulled out of its wars. Also, war has a way of pushing past any debt discussions. Nowadays, people assume kinetic war is out precisely because of the threat of nuclear war and economic integration of economies. Russia is really assuming anything it does won’t trigger nuclear war nor cut off its ability for economic exchange. Same with China.
Taken to a logical extreme, what Russia and China want to do in expanding their borders IS war, they just think there’s fuzziness about what triggers all out kinetics. But of course small steps of expansion are the mechanics of all out war.
Edit-Further, the wide rise of nationalistic forces across the globe are signs of growing openness towards war. This path isn’t as unilaterally beneficial to Russia nor China as those parties believe. And if this were a game of risk, the opposing forces of China/Russia expansionism would be looking to unite the rest of the globe against it by whatever means at least undermine the threat of war or economic integration with R/C.
It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think. The U.S has every ability annihilate any enemy but the collateral damage to do so restricts it heavily. If the goal of the US was straight up imperialism/colonialism it would be a very different story.
Lol. The US is far from that powerful. You don't win wars by annihilation, you win wars by achieving political goals. The US wasn't able to reach these goals in no small part because of too much collateral damage.
If you want to know what a more sucessful campaign in Afghanistan looked like, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and their allied regime lasted over a year until Yeltsin caused the to fall and gave Afghanistan to the Taliban by imposing sanctions.
You'll note that it's not increased brutality that was successful. It was having actually effective allies on the ground that made and broke the Soviet campaign.
What's more, the campaign of shock in the initial stages of invasion was brutal, and did a lot of collateral damage, and didn't work and actually was counterproductive.
It was only when the Soviets and their allies managed to actually get a competent and motivated Afghan military towards the later stages of the war that the war started turning in their favour.
The US was never able to achieve their political goals and the US-backed government was never competent and motivated even after twenty years. It was a failure of the US military to achieve its goals. No amount of additional collateral damage would have done anything, it was simply a failure. In fact, less morals would have made things worse.
Also, see Iraq which was even more brutal and still completely unsuccessful with Iraq veering under Iranian control.
> It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think.
Its a matter of will.
What is in it for the USA to start/finish a hot war with russia?
Russia has has different rules of engagement which means that they are prepared to be a bit more ruthless when it comes to doing a war.
This means that for the US to win, it will need to commit a fucktonne of resources, of which a politically damaging number will be destroyed.
The US isn't going to commit that much because there is no real strategic win for this.
Russia is basically being textbook russia. Its been doing this shit in this region off and on for the last 150+ years. Its far easier to let ukraine blunt russia's fighting force, than it is to loose american troops.
Its not a moral judgement, its raw hard domestic politics.
It’s not about morals - nobody in US seems to care about the million people they killed in Middle East - it’s about dead American soldiers looking bad in the TV.
It is not true that the U.S. killed a million people in the Middle East. And this is not some sophistic semantic argument either, as it remains not true when you include Afghanistan. The number of civilian casualties is not even close.
It is also not true that the U.S. doesn't care about civilian casualties. The U.S., U.K., and Australia are the only countries I know that put lawyers in air strike operations cells to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed. The French red card holders receive training but don't tend to be lawyers, believe similar is true for Germans and Italians. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who takes this obligation more seriously than the U.S. and closest allies.
The U.S. also takes it seriously when whistle blowers and journalists leak a story that tells the opposite. Torturing Chelsea Manning and going after Julian Assange for example.
The million excess deaths from the wars is very realistic and plausible.
Chelsea Manning wasn't tortured. The USG even paid for her gender reassignment surgery, and she was released early from her sentence. No reasonable person can call that torture.
The claim isn't "there were a million excess deaths in a multiparty conflict," the claim is that the U.S. killed a million people. The vast majority of civilian killings were by ISIS and Shia militias.
That isn't how fault works. None of the misfortune I've suffered in my life would have happened if my father had never impregnated my mother, therefore it's all his fault and I'm his victim?
No. "But for" causation has zero moral import whatsoever. Stop spewing your ax-grindy propaganda.
That is not something that happens. There are American mistakes. There are incompetent Americans. There are even malicious Americans. But U.S. drone strikes are not random and the U.S. vigorously prosecutes war crimes violations by its own soldiers.
If you want to criticize, say, President Trump for his actions in the Gallagher case, that would be entirely fair. But it doesn't change the fact that he was prosecuted in the first place. There is no ISIS analogy to the Gallagher prosecution. Indeed, no other nation does as good a job as the U.S. does. I say this as a Marine judge advocate who stood in the face of immense pressure by an Australian "leftenant colonel" who wanted to cover up an unintended CIVCAS by joint forces.
The fact that US uses lawyers "to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed" does not mean they care about civilians; it means they care about being sued in case they killed someone whose family can afford lawyers.
Despite the debacle in Afghanistan, the US military remains extremely powerful with an unmatched capacity to project that power around the world. Russian leaders are under no illusions about that. However, military power is meaningless if you're not willing to use it. President Biden has already clearly stated that the US will not intervene militarily to defend Ukraine, and will only apply economic sanctions.
The debacle in Afghanistan showed that the US military is incompetent when it comes to actually achieving their goals.
Let's say the US does intervene in Ukraine. The US still won't be able to take Crimea for obvious reasons. Ukraine itself will be even more of a shithole. In the end, when the US leaves Ukraine, Will things be better or worse? Who knows, and that's why an intervention there is not on the table. If it was easy and straightforward and would deal a decisive blow to Russia, it would already be done.
The goal of a military operation is to achieve political goals. There is no clear delineation between the two. If the political goals weren't reached then the military failed.
A military is only as good as its leadership, is it not? Well, the ultimate leadership is the president.
Well, no. The only way for the U.S. military would have been for it to produce better advice for its commander in chief, and for the commander in chief to follow that advice. It failed at both levels.
This is definitely not novel. I am basically quoting Clausewitz, which is basically as far as you can go from being novel in the military tradition nowadays. For instance:
> We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. ___That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand___, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for ___the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.___
The U.S. military failed to act in a way that, to borrow Clausewitz's words, always includes the object in their conception. They therefore failed in their goals. Just as a foolish attack doomed to failure is a military failure, so is a foolish operation that could not achieve it's goals.
Also, it's far from true that the military knew that what they were doing would fail. They really did believe just as much as anyone else, in the beginning, that they would be able to make Afghanistan into a perfect American puppet and model in the region, and in being wrong, they failed too.
No. You're saying the opposite of Clausewitz. Clausewitz says that the goals of war are political; that political success in war relies on military success. I agree with that and think it's nearly self-evident.
You're saying the opposite. You're saying military success relies on political success. That's an entirely different proposition and one I disagree with.
> The only way for the U.S. military [to succeed] would have been for ... the commander in chief to follow that advice
The only way the U.S. military could guarantee such a thing would be a coup. I don't think we should be blaming the military for not carrying out a coup. Not carrying out a coup does not constitute military failure.
That is not what I'm saying, nor what Clausewitz is saying. What is being said is that war is a means to an end, the end being political sucess. The goal of war is political, and war is successful if it achieves its goal.
There is no separation in sucess. If you achieve political sucess, your war has been successful. If you achieve military sucess, that means your political goals are achieved, which means you have political sucess.
The commander in chief is a part of the US military. Commander in chief is a military rank. If the commander in chief failed to lead the war correctly, then the military failed.
You are trying to see a hard dichotomy between both. There isn't. War is part of politics, and politics include war.
> What is being said is that war is a means to an end, the end being political sucess. The goal of war is political, and war is successful if it achieves its goal.
That is not what you said. You said "the US military is incompetent."
The talk about the impending russian invasion of Ukraine has been on for a while. Since I'm based in Poland, I'm trying to get as much information as possible, as this makes me nervous and will probably affect me in some ways.
The one thing I'm wondering is, in the horrible event of invasion of Ukraine, is how it's going to affect the markets and how to protect what little wealth I've got saved up. Anyone got any ideas on that? I do know that this sounds a little tone deaf but it's what I worry about, sorry.
The invasion already happened according to the article, it's just Russia lost plausible deniability for it with this document. Full scale invasion to defeat Ukrainian government is very unlikely: Russian military prefers information wars to the offline operations now and makes them part of the strategy. The news about troops deployed on the border are intended to create sense of danger and uncertainty that can be used in the negotiations process to strengthen their position. Public in Russia is now very critical of the government and will not tolerate a new big war: this is the main constraining factor and probably the only one that is really taken into account.
> Full scale invasion to defeat Ukrainian government is very unlikely
I don't think that Russia would be even interested to take control of the rest of Ukraine, as the current situation seems to fit their goals: they're keeping control over Crimea, so they're keeping their access to the sea there. And with the Donbass situation, Ukraine won't join NATO anytime soon, so they won't see US bases and missiles being installed next to their borders
Still, hope for the best, plan for the worst. You guys got any ideas how to protect your assets (no matter how little), how everything will move on the markets if the shit hits the fan?
I mean, sure, we can argue will they, won't they. I just don't want to be caught with my pants down if shit really hits the fan.
As a long term investor, geographic diversification is always a good idea. For example the Vanguard Total World Stock ETF (VT) can be a good way to hedge against risks in Poland. You might not be able to purchase VT specifically, but you probably have access to something similar.
My ex gf is Russian / Ukrainian; While dating I asked her about this. Basically she said: Ukraine is run by mobsters and you can’t build anything without their involvement and they’ll make sure it’s only barely worth your while. The Russians in Ukraine just want to swap Ukrainian mobsters for Russian mobsters who they believe be fairer to them. As for Belarus she tells
me: Lukashenko is often asked if he would reunite with Russia; he responds by saying that’ll be great as he will then lead all of Russia. So it’s actually Lukashenko that is putting off reunification.
It’s my opinion that if the West really wanted to end the war in Ukraine they would need to help ending the mobsterism there that’s driving the Russian Ukrainians into Russian hands. Instead it seems that the West are instead supporting these same mobsters as a way of attacking Russia and the poor Ukrainians are caught in the middle of it.
Question to any geopolitical buffs. The one thing I learned about Russian history is that a great deal of its history was spent trying and never succeeding to get a warm water port in that area. Is that still a big deal?
Not sure what you mean by "never succeeding". I come from on of ports cities and shipyards built by Russian Empire in the south of present day Ukraine in the end of 18th century as a result of winning a war against Ottoman Empire.
What they want now exactly is a different question, the answer most likely being in one man's head only. A revenge for loss in the Cold War, reclaiming the civilisational roots of "pan-slavic" territories, getting water back to Crimea, or any of the other hundreds of possible explanations.
edit: not "Crimean war", but Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792)
Warm water ports in the Black sea are severely restricted ( in military use) by the Montreux convention regulating the use of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.
They have warm water ports, but they don't have warm water ports with unfettered access to the ocean (because Constantinople blocked them). That's not what they're after here, though, because even after the breakup of the Soviet Union they held onto some ports on the Black Sea.
I have nothing to add but just wanted to say that I'm pleasantly surprised how knowledgeable everyone here is on world politics, especially for a tech site.
Yeah and what makes you think NATO in Europe is any different? They still under spend. I'm not a supporter of Russian aggression but the reality is Europe is a joke when it comes to NATO. The only folks today that are fighting for Western Ideals are the Ukrainians and the German cucks block any support anyone wants to give them.
What's important is not Ukraine itself but that global monetary system is restructuring and action in Ukraine only serves the purpose of emergency to renounce someones obligations. Russia doesn't want that. Russia doesn't need another Afghanistan war which was the last nail in the USSR's coffin.
NATO is over as US is leaving it. I assure you Biden has far more serious issues at home like ~25% PPI (not the end product official number, but for the whole chain) which has to be somehow solved before May for him to look good during the elections in November. Also, he has to do something with military forces at home.
I mean he doesn't give a single shit about Ukraine. The US don't need Ukraine anymore as a weapon against Russia and what will happen has already been more or less settled among the parties presented by Putin, Biden, Modi and Xi.
Now Ukraine absolutely can't exist as an independent state even purely economically. They used to have really great start conditions 30 years ago but they fucked it up really badly. But even if they still had that they'd simply not have enough markets to sell their stuff. EU will obviously not support them. Also there are actually very different parts of Ukraine. Russia doesn't need in any way toxic Galicia where anti-Russian movement has been growing for ages (literally). Having such people for Russia would be a great PITA. On the other hand LNR and DNR are Russian, for instance.
Now taking all that into account just stop talking about Ukraine and find something that really matters.
I observe the Ukrainian drama for many years. I strongly suspect that the actual game maybe the opposite of the picture in the media.
Ukraine is looted to the bone and the economy is in downward spiral.
The beneficiaries of the looting may need a war to write it all off.
Meanwhile, if Putin takes Ukraine, he would shoulder a giant pile of debt, plus the responsibility for everything that happens.
So the actual game might be like: how to make Putin take Ukraine.
Okay, have you ever been to Ukraine?
What does it mean - looted to the bone?
Why do you think Ukraine is that much different to Russia?
Ukraine GDP is improving from 2016 till now, even with pandemic.
Some industries, like software and agriculture are growing at a great rate.
Yet, some guy who watches Russian TV is painting absurd picture
Again, you don't know how external debt works, debt had nothing to do with collapse of Soviet Union, learn the history of your own country.
Even then, Ukraine has lower debt to GDP ratio then Japan, Italy, Greece, United States, Canada, Spain, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Israel...
Something that Russians tell themselves every day - how everything is very bad in Ukraine, how it is going down. Sure.
Oh, you observe the 'drame', with your all-seeing eye, fucking cockroach.
You don't think Russia is looted to the bone and is not in a downward spiral? Just look at the tech sector there. Yandex is barely alive, and VK is now a property of Mail.Ru group.
Outside of tech the economical situation prior to invasion was barely better than Ukraine's.
> External Debt in Ukraine increased to 125281 USD Million in the second quarter of 2021 from 123107 USD Million in the first quarter of 2021. source: National Bank of Ukraine
This is comparable to the Soviet Union debt just before the collapse.
We should give Russia Crimea and the water it needs to feed it in order to prevent Russia from siding with China on Taiwan, which we cannot afford to lose.
As if there was any doubt about this. Putin isn't fooling anybody except for maybe a very gullible fraction of the Russian citizens. But even there most people are quite aware of what the score is.
Putin justifies his clumsy adventurism by attempting to paint his enemies as fascists. The rise of the extreme right in the west provides significant political cover for Putin, and should probably be assumed to be a tool of his hybrid warfare strategy.
Anybody speaking against is fascist. Navalny’s organisation is terroristic organisation… Also putting USSR uniforms on hockey players during the games. The only thing which I find funny that a lot of people are getting fed up by this BS both in Russia and outside. And I know people whose parents are living in Russia not getting visas to enter Russia. Old folks and fools maybe fooled that trying to get the might of soviet times is a good idea, but I doubt that guys who saw what ex-soviet countries and soviet satellite countries achieved can tell that they are Top notch country.
It's a mistake to conflate Putin's interests with those of Russia. His continued attempts to bolster hostile far-right strawmen into something more substantial puts his actions in direct conflict with those he claims to represent. His divide-and-rule politics puts him into a state of active, ongoing conflict with all of us.
I don't think the rise of far-right parties and ideologies in the West is something that can be blamed on Putin. He is exploiting it and sometime helping existing groups and factions, but not much more.
And for Ukraine, the anti-Russian faction does have some facist/neo-nazis groups in it.
He clearly isn't exclusively responsible, but he is a big part of the problem, and it is part of a hybrid warfare doctrine that's being actively and aggressively pursued.
Similarly, those fascist/neo-nazi elements, whether in Ukraine or beyond, though supposedly anti-Russian, are to all practical purposes serving Putin's domestic political interests.
Putin finances plenty of these groups. It's a very little bit of money but it has substantial impact due to the asymmetry of destruction, you only need a few thousand people to destabilize a country of millions.
Apparently we can now arm and train these neo-Nazis according to the Wikipedia link:
In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[46][47] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its neo-Nazi background.[48] After the vote Congressman John Conyers thanked the House saying
I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions.[47]
However, the amendment has since been removed as of November 2016.
Realpolitik: it doesn't matter who started it. If Ukraine wants western assistance in this fight, they should stop incorporating neo-nazi militias into their national guard.
Well, considering that we're at war, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we will eventually reach a point where none of us has any choice whatsoever.
Perhaps you should read a bit more Russian sources. There is a Minsk peace agreement, Ukraine was supposed to stop fighting, organise elections, get new government and recognise autonomous regions. Instead it continued fighting. Russia has obligation to those two autonomous regions.
For anyone else reading this, the Minsk Protocol (and, after it failed, Minsk 2) were ceasefire agreements from shortly after Russia invaded, signed 5+ years ago. They failed because they didn't do some pretty important things, like determine who controls what, so fighting continued along disputed territories.
Hard to justify saying Ukraine should follow a treaty that Russia also isn't following, after Russia's surprise invasion.
