Stay safe, brother, my thoughts and prayers are with you. I'm Russian and wholeheartedly despise this outrageous war crime act of our so-called government.
Hi Russian friends. Good to see you here and good to read your view.
You might see me se me support Ukraine or be angry about Russia, but rest assured that I have nothing against Russians as a people, only the ones who tries to invade Ukraine etc.
I'm living in the shadow of Russia too and I've just filled my spare water tanks with clean water and I'll fill my car and get some extra fuel for my cooking stove later today.
I've already been training for a few months now, but I'm still hoping for a good miracle to avoid a full European war.
For the rest of HN, don't forget the thing most preppers seems to ignore: as far as possible, be friendly towards everyone. If others want you to survive that should help a lot.
Have a nice day everyone.
Edit: when/if this ends maybe we can meet at the server again and play CS:GO or something :-)
Edit 2: if anyone wonders, the official rule for prepping here in Norway includes stocking up with 9L of clean water for each person in the household, keeping some food that has long shelf life, radio, lights, batteries, some way to heat food and rooms even if the electricity disappears and to cooperate with neighbors if you cannot fix everything yourself (e.g. not all houses here have alternative heating sources except electricity).
I am from one of the other countries bordering Russia. FWIW I have a lot of friends and relatives there, and don't know a single person who supports what's happening. The bald lunatic seems to have went completely insane. The problem is your voice doesn't mean much in that country.
I nearly teared up reading the news this morning. Stay safe.
I think sometimes when talking about Russia or China it’s mistaken for the people of Russia or China when in reality it’s not criticism of the people but of the governments. We know majority of the people in those countries are good people and really just want to live their lives in happiness.
It's all identity politics, and it's nothing new. Putin and his clique of oligarchs and criminals require a story that regular folks can identify with. It's the same in any sort of state, but in democracies due to the ability to actually participate, people can see for themselves that this identity is not entirely fiction. The so-called Russian state has not much more to do with average Russians than any other state. We might as well say that a Russian state does not exist. Russians do, but they don't have a state.
I hope that somehow they are someday able to grab their sovereignty into their own hands, and out of the hands of people who only see them as resources for their own gain.
People really fear war and economic sanctions, everyone around me are watching live currency exchange quotes and stock markets. Noboby around me supports the invasion or even understands why it's happening. It's like an abbyss between the head of the state and the people. Can't say for everyone of course.
Most people just want to live a relatively normal life with friends and family in their own little corner of the world. Unfortunately the vast majority of us are subject to the whims of those with greater power and ambitions.
Like many other famous quotes, it appears Trotsky himself never actually said this – although he did say something similar about "dialectics", which later got transferred to the more enduring topic of "war" – https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/08/02/interested-war/
It's a fair translation since the dialectic to him meant all countries would eventually become communist by revolution which in most cases meant some sort of civil war.
We live and benefit from nation-states. We didn't choose that structure, but it is "natural" and just the way it is -- until we have some major technological breakthrough that changes that.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state#History_and_origi..., "Most theories see the nation state as a 19th-century European phenomenon, facilitated by developments such as state-mandated education, mass literacy and mass media. However, historians[who?] also note the early emergence of a relatively unified state and identity in Portugal and the Dutch Republic."
Humans have been burying their dead for 100,000 years, living in cities for 12000 years, organizing states for 5700 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Age_state_societies), and organizing nation-states for 200 years. That is, for roughly the first 94000 years of humanity, there were no cities and no states; for the first 6000 years of cities, there were no states; and for the first 5500 years of states, there were no nation-states.
Even today, many people live in non-nation-state countries like the United States, Bolivia, and India.
It's not "natural", it's not "just the way it is", we probably don't benefit from it, and it's probably not even technologically determined.
I do wonder, though, if scientific and technological progress (at least on the scale and speed we've seen in recent centuries) does require a higher level of civilization centralization. How do you get enough people to agree to work on a particular avenue of research, and fund that research to a degree that it is likely to bear fruit, when you just have random unaffiliated, unassociated people wandering around hunting for food.
Certainly there was technological progress thousands (and tens of thousands) of years ago: tools for hunting and later farming, making fire, the wheel, and so on. But could a society organized like that eventually progress to discovering how to generate electricity from nuclear fission? Could they ever have built rockets and traveled to the moon? I'm skeptical...
> Even today, many people live in non-nation-state countries like the United States, Bolivia, and India.
For the purposes of this particular discussion, I think "nation-state" and the slightly looser-organized nations you describe can be lumped together in the same category.
I don't think it's at all true that the current United States is more loosely organized than nation-states like Poland and Lebanon, and if you want to lump nation-states together with their diametrical opposites like Belgium I have no idea what distinction between categories of polities you are trying to discuss. "Random unaffiliated, unassociated people wandering around hunting for food" is not a fair description of any state of human existence that has ever been documented by anthropologists or, to my knowledge, suggested by archaeologists. Certainly it isn't a fair description of the Holy Roman Empire.
Moreover, the particular way in which the United States discovered how to generate electricity from nuclear fission and traveled to the moon with rockets crucially depended on it not being a nation-state: it was consequently able to assimilate foreign immigrants like Fermi, von Braun, von Neumann, and Einstein.
Certainly it's possible for a nation-state to make such advances in theory, but in practice they seem to depend on the kind of diversity of intellectual and cultural traditions that is anathema to nation-states. Neither the Soviet Union nor the United States nor the countries of the European Space Agency were or are nation-states.
I would make a counter point and argue that the history of the USA is one of building a nation state out of immigrants from various European countries (mostly).
It's an interesting point of view, even if it's not the mainstream political-science meaning of "nation state". Certainly the USA has a strong national identity, shared traditions, a couple of nearly unique dialects (though GA and AAVE are also spoken in Canada), and a state religion in which schoolchildren are forced to pray daily to the Flag, and to a significant extent the USA grew out of a tribal invasion and colonization of America by English colonists with shared descent.
Still, I think the US is better understood as a multiethnic, profoundly racist society, not a single tribe: 41 million people (12% of the population) speak Spanish, another 13% speak AAVE, and 2% belong to various Native American and Alaskan Native nations. In all cases most speakers also speak the language of the dominant GA-speaking tribe, and there are identifiable musical, culinary, religious, political differences associated with their varying descent, along with striking segregation in housing, schooling, and education. Subsequent to the initial English colonization there was also substantial immigration from Ireland (9% of the current population), Scotland (8%), Germany (15%, already 9% by the first census in 01790), the Netherlands (1%), Italy (5%), and Poland (3%), China (1.5%), India (1%), France (3%), as well as other countries. Some of these immigrants were also Romani (0.3%) or Jewish (3%). But, in the US system of racism, these differences are largely submerged in generalized "[non-Hispanic] white American" and "Asian American" (7%) ethnic identities.
Since only 62% of the US population belongs to its hegemonic "non-Hispanic white" nation, which is as you say built out of immigrants from various European countries, I don't think it's reasonable to describe the USA as a nation state. It's not even officially white supremacist, although its historical foundations are in genocide and slavery, and in practice its government treats its ethnic minorities very badly indeed even today. It's at least two more major genocides away from becoming a nation state, although Obama's horrifying mass deportations of "illegal immigrants" and their weaker continuation under Trump were a significant step in that direction, as is the ongoing GULAG-scale mass imprisonment of mostly African-Americans, many of whom are enslaved in prison.
That is an extreme liberal viewpoint, which often flourishes on Wikipedia. Not everything authoritatively stated on Wikipedia is fact, even if there is a link in the footer to someone who says so.
Nation-states were by far the dominant political entities up until the age of exploration, around the 15th century. Name any ancient society, with the stark exception of the Romans they are all nations or nation-states. The Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Ethiopians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Greeks, all nations or nation-states.
Today, it is fashionable to pretend that race doesn't exist as an effort to remove racial barriers. The goal is noble, but the rewriting of history is profane.
You are confusing tribes with nations. None of those examples you gave had any nation-states especially greeks, persians and you can add ottomans, ming, mogul so on, they all had empires with tribal ruling with a dynasty and tribes, with extremely diverse ethnicity impossible to form a coherent nation with a common denomination. There is hardly ever a turkish grand-vizier in Ottoman catalogue to give a trivial example contrary to what you would expect from a "national" point of view.
Race exists but not nearly relevant as you claim and has nothing to do with nation-states. I don't claim to side with the parent but you are not nearly correct either. IF there is a footnote to a source, you better read it next time. Wiki is not authoritative but not complete junk either.
Your point about the Ottoman grand viziers is well taken.
However, I don't agree with some of the distinctions you're making. Tribes are nations. Like, literally, "nation" is the Latin word for tribes that weren't one of the the three tribes of Rome. "Race" is another synonym; Webster defines "nation" as "A part, or division, of the people of the earth, distinguished from the rest by common descent, language, or institutions; a race; a stock." If a tribe or a race is roughly coextensive with a state, that state is a nation-state. So race has everything to do with nation-states; this is one of the main reasons I think it's important to point out that countries like the United States are not nation-states, despite the efforts of groups like the Ku Klux Klan, and that nation-states are something we can do away with.
Consider ancient Greece. Classical Athens was considered to consist of four tribes, and the state of Athens only governed a tiny minority of Greeks, so the political division into states just didn't coincide with a division by common descent, language, or institutions even very roughly; and Greece remained divided into such city-states until being conquered by the Romans. Mycenaean Greece was far more politically unified, but much more diverse in terms of ethnicity, language, and institutions; archaeological evidence confirms Homer's hearsay on this count. Biblical Israel was classically divided into twelve tribes, and the myths of Abraham and the Exodus was used to falsely claim a common descent for what archaeological evidence tells us were Canaanite people who spoke the same Semitic language as their neighbors but began to distinguish themselves by the cult of Yahweh; and we have both documentary and archaeological evidence of their subsequent divisions and reunions, continuing through the intertestamental period.
The meaning in Latin is almost irrelevant here. I know it’s confusing, but in American usage, the meaning of the word “nation” has largely shifted to mean the (entire) state or the country - as opposed to the “state” which is part of a “union.” So, the US and by extension Britain, Germany, France, Albania, etc. are all “nations” whether they consist of “states” or not.
It is counterproductive to try to apply that local vernacular meaning of the word "nation" to understand the term "nation state", which describes a particular kind of state that is different from other kinds of states. It will only confuse you. It would be like trying to understand the term "laser cooling", which describes a refrigeration process, by using the vernacular meaning of the word "cool" that is "in fashion". Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state.
But that particular "vernacular" is important, and not only because American audience has a large presence here on HN, but also because it is influential and is imported into other world languages - one example being the term "national park" which has nothing to do with a nation-state (or a park, for that matter) but simply means what should be easily expressed in any language as "a state nature preserve."
The "in fashion" meaning of the word "cool" is also important and influential (and imported into other world languages!) but it is not the relevant meaning in the phrase "laser cooling". At best you can say that the American audience has a propensity to be confused about the term "nation state", compounded by its general historical illiteracy.
> in American usage, the meaning of the word “nation” has largely
> shifted to mean the (entire) state or the country
So in American usage nation-state means what exactly?
In any case, no matter how Americans call their political entities, the word "nation" in the term "nation-state" has a clear, unambiguous meaning, referring to a race/tribe/nation.
You don't sound mean, rather, I would appreciate enlightenment. I'm familiar with some of them, such as the Hebrews (I'm a Hebrew), Greeks (studied a bit, but not in an academic setting), Ahmans (which I call Persians for a modern audience), but I don't pretend to be an expert.
I called them nations because they were a people of a common race. For instance, the ancient Greeks have described the features of the Perisans whom they fought at Marathon - and from this description it is clear that a Greek could identify another person as Greek or Persian. Hence, they are different nations. And even today the Ethiopians retain very distinct features. My country (Israel) has many Ethiopians, I believe that we are the only Western nation to welcome African immigrants as equals. And would any Westerner argue that the Chinese have physical features distinct from those with European heritage? Does that not qualify - for you - as a different race?
If you are referring to the Proto-Indo-Iranian ancestors, then I counter that their descendants have diverged.
If you meant something else, I am always grateful for corrections or enlightenment.
I'm no expert on the time in question, so I may have some things wrong, but here's how I understand the situation.
I agree that the Greeks who fought at Marathon were a nation, but they were not a state; they came from Athens and Plataia, which were different states, allied with the Lakedaimonians, another state, also of the Greek nation but missing in action that day. The Persians, by contrast, were a state but, as you surely know, they included many nations: Datis was Median, Artaphernes ruled the Lydians (though he himself was also Median), and Hippias was actually Greek; the Persian forces also included Thracians, Mysians, Phrygians, Hebrews (!), Macedonians, and so on, though I don't know if they were present at Marathon. You can surely forgive Herodotus for not dwelling on the internal ethnic divisions among the Persian troops his interviewees were facing. (However, he did mention the Sakai alongside the "Persians" (Persai), Simonides called the Persian force the "army of the Medes" (Medon), and Aiskhylos also spoke in his epitaph of facing the Medes (Medos) at Marathon rather than the "Persians".)
So that's the sense in which neither Greece nor Persia was a nation-state at the time: Greece was a nation but not a state, while Persia was a state but not a nation. Or, rather, there was a Persian nation, but the plurinational Persian state was immensely larger than the Persian nation to which its rulers belonged.
If we consider Homeric Greece instead, the Greeks look more like the Persia that fought at Marathon: Homer's Akhaioi are, perhaps, all ruled from Mykenai by Agamemnon, but they worship different gods, speak different (but related) languages, and have different descent. And, although we know many things in Homer are historically wrong, modern archaeology does back up this plurinational picture of the Akhaioi. So Mycenaean Greece, like the Persian empire of Darius, was a state but not a nation.
As I understand the situation, we can make similar arguments about most of the ancient history of the Hebrews: beginning with ethnic and religious unity with neighboring Canaanite peoples subjugated by Egypt (despite the later invention of myths like Abraham and the Exodus, which are not supported by the archaeological evidence) and proceeding through many historical political divisions --- not just the division between Israel and Judea of which the Torah makes so much, but also, at various times, Samaria, various city-states in Palestine, the Maccabee state, and the Phoenician cities, as well as subjugation by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, and finally Romans. The Torah narrative of 117 years of a united monarchy preceding the Israel/Judah split is generally not accepted by modern scholars, though the debate is certainly open, but even in the Torah most of the historically plausible action happens at times when the Hebrew nation was either divided into separate kingdoms or suffering under the yoke of foreign powers.
So I don't think it's accurate to describe any of the ancient Israelite states as nation-states.
After a day digesting the ancient and modern situation, I've come to a conclusion that might be comfortable.
I don't know how diverged e.g. the Scythians were from the Amyrgians (of whom I'd never heard of until yesterday), but it is clear that they distinguished one from another. However, would an Athenian distinguish between them? Would a Scythian distinguish between a Spartan and an Athenian?
It seems to me that there are no clear boundaries between "peoples" or "nations". For me a Han and a Manchu are both Chinese, but they might see a Polish Jew as no different than a Lithuanian Jew. And yet the Polish Jew from Loz will see his identity distinct from the Jew from Warsaw.
So back to the conflict at hand, from the perspective of Slavic history there is merit to considering the Ukrainian and Russian peoples as the same people or nation. From the perspective of wishing to live under different systems of values and authority, there is also merit to considering them as distinct. Note that the gift of Crim to Ukraine during the 1950s was "a gift from the Russian people to the Ukrainian people" so at that time the Russians were making a distinction between the two.
As usual when considering human relationships, it's complicated )). There's an old joke about the Irishmen talking about how close they are - until the end. You've probably heard it.
Of your list, the ones I know about (the Hebrews, the Persians, the Chinese, and the Greeks) were plurinational (and frequently not states), though sometimes not in exactly the same way as the Romans.
It's true that I'm an extreme liberal! But I think the Wikipedia article gives a neutral point of view.
It’s actually more something that was invented in the treaties of Westphalia and which allowed the idea of the nation-state to scale in a way that prior forms of government could not. (With a few notable exceptions! Ancient Rome was basically a nation state, as was the Islamic empire in its height. Not coincidentally these both became large, stable empires.)
Something to create international connections, kind of a network, where people meet and exchange opinions or knowledge, without any border, no matter what nationality. Yeah, that would be great. I would call it "Internet"!
Long-time Russian HN user here, under a throwaway account and a VPN.
The majority public sentiment hasn't formed yet. The war started in early morning, and many people are still hung-over due to yesterday holiday (the Russian Army day, BTW).
My prediction is that there won't be a patriotic hysteria. People will be wary of possible consequences, which -- and I think everyone understands that -- may be severe. Medical drug prices will certainly go up, due to the fact that most drugs are imported. A high-tech / chip / electronics exports to Russia may be restricted. An oil & gas embargo may be imposed, which means that we're back to the 90's (though I think that Europe will be difficult to get on board, due to their dependency on Russia's energy).
My personal current sentiment is that we may get completely isolated from the west, and that we'll have to form a closer alliance with China -- which I don't like.
(A small consolation prize is that our corrupt "elites" will finally get what they deserve -- I expect heavy personal sanctions and foreign asset seizures).
Throwaway here. I work for a large US investment company that has a lot of Russian assets and staff. They are sticking their fingers in their ears and not even discussing this. I expect the sanctions will have minimal effect because there is such a complex web of investments. Individual staff are discussing exiting the company regularly over it rather than profiting from blood money. That’s all we can do.
Do keep in mind that, according to the official interpretation of events in Russia - which is all you get if you stick to the TV - it was Ukraine that started shooting and shelling civilians, and Russia is "peacekeeping".
From some of my own relatives, I can attest that at least some people sincerely believe this.
It’s interesting how US intelligence has countered Russian misinformation campaign by exactly predicting what was going to happen. For months Russia has denied they intended to invade. After finishing military preparations and the encirclement of Ukraine they suddenly changed tone in the course of a week.
Just 5 days ago Putin was claiming that their military exercises near the border were over and the Russian military was withdrawing. Putin's withdrawal seems to be going quite poorly.
Вижу горы и долины, вижу реки и поля.
Это русские картины, это родина моя.
Вижу Прагу и Варшаву, Будапешт и Бухарест.
Это русская держава - сколько здесь любимых мест!
Вижу пагоды в Шри Ланке, и Корею, и Китай.
Где бы я ни ехал в танке, всюду мой любимый край!
Вижу речку Амазонку, крокодилов вижу я.
Это русская сторонка, это родина моя!
Недалече пирамиды, Нил течёт — богат водой,
Омывает русский берег! Русь моя, горжусь тобой!
Вижу Вашингтон в долине, Даллас вижу и Техас
Как приятно здесь в России выпить вкусный русский квас!
Над Сиднеем солнце всходит, утконос сопит в пруду.
Репродуктор гимн заводит; с русским гимном в день войду!
Вот индейцы курят трубку, и протягивают мне -
Все на свете любят русских, на родной моей земле.
“Sincerely” is a deceptive word for such entrenched positions. People actively self-deceive (by, e.g., choosing their media sources) to beliefs that they think are personally beneficial.
I live in Crimea. People are sad, angry, and disappointed. And fatigued. Nobody wants war, but a lot of people feel like we're screwed either way. We avoided a war in 2014, and we can probably avoid it today, but that just means it will come tomorrow. And because people don't see a good way out of the situation, it feels like, whatever happens, just let it happen fast. "A horrible end is better than endless horror".
I don't know how to explain all this to my kids. And how to keep them safe. I feel really sorry for everyone involved on all sides.
Depends on where people live, how much do they make etc.
The general sentiment in this country for the past few decades is "it's not for me to decide".
Many people do agree however that while this kind of solution is not really a great one and likely not in our best interest - something has to be done regarding the NATO problem.
A number of former Soviet satellite states joined NATO, but they chose to do so of their own volition. NATO does not prevent their self-determination. In contrast, Russia is denying self-determination to Ukraine.
Sure, but what Russia was constantly telling NATO is that while Russia respects other countries' desire to join NATO - Russia believes that NATO should not allow those countries to join.
Russia does not care about Ukraine's self-determination as long as NATO's systems are not there.
I believe the take from John Mearsheimer after the Crimean crisis in 2015 [1] to be a bit more elucidating based on realpolitik than just the reductive take based off Russian imperialism, the issue is larger than just a madman trying to regain control of past territory.
I have to admit that this video made me extremely sad and angry. I grew up in one of those countries occupied by Russians that later joined NATO and what upsets me in this kind of argumentation is that it talks about countries like us as if we had no agency, no say in the matter, no right to decide about ourselves. Mr. Mearsheimer uses the same language ("expansion") as if there is no substantial difference between a country asking to join NATO and a country attacked and annexed by Russia. It seems to me that the logic he uses to argue that Ukraine is the West's fault is indistinguishable from "it is your fault that bully beats you up because you refuse to give him your lunch when he wants it".
He is not correct though. I think it was 2003 when the US wanted to install a missile shield in Poland and Czechia. Obama did cancelled it again though.
> What we see happening in #Ukraine right now is, to put it bluntly, Russian (or more precisely, the Kremlin's) imperialism.
I read that thread and found it very persuasive. I took his advice and read some of the translations of Putin's rhetoric, and I found his characterizations accurate.
That thread is the actual situation and it's a travesty we have so many on this very site and the American far right that are Kremlin war apologists.
We have fools believing the Kremlin is actually afraid of NATO, the defensive alliance, when Russia has NUKES. Kremlin isn't even afraid of NATO confrontation when they're invading another country, because of nukes. They're sure as hell not concerned about NATO confrontation in their own territory. The whole argument is schizophrenic.
Again, why would Russia be concerned about NATO imposing themselves on Russia, when NATO won't even defend a Ukrainian invasion?
You're missing a small thing - NATO had had various plans for antimissile defences in countries in Central and Eastern Europe ( Poland, Czechia, Romania if memory serves me right). Those defences would potentially invalidate Russia nukes, and that's scary. ( Which is why there was a treaty limiting antimissile defences during the Cold War, to avoid one side thinking they can win a nuclear exchange). So Russia has plenty to be scared of, and then there's the imperialism, exporting problems, having a cause for the people to rally around, etc.
War crimes and abhorrent nonetheless. I hope at least this time the responsible end up in The Hague.
I think the defences would be useful against countries will very limited nuke arsenal. For example Iran. The is probably no defence that would protect you against hundreds of nukes. In a real nuke strike the attacker would probably fire many simultaneously, accompanied with decoys.
Regarding the last part, Putin is trying to find out. Nukes or not, if the "defensive" alliance, that used to be your sworn enemy for almost 5 decades (Putin used to be a KGB Colonel) sets up shop right across your border I understand why you might get worried a bit. Don't forget, that defensive alliance was invading countries as well since the 90s. Usually under the pretext of spreading democracy.
Does that justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine? No, absolutely not. Does it mean NATO could have been a tad more cautious when it comes to Russians security interests? Yes. Now it's to late for that so. And as usual it is innocent people, just wanting live their lives in peace, that pay the price.
> Regarding the last part, Putin is trying to find out.
Ok, so when Putin finds out NATO won't confront an invasion, then the Kremlin will back off their aggressions now, right? Now that they've found out there's no way NATO threatens the motherland? Does that sound right to you?
I'll make a guess. I've been on side "Russian invasion is imminent" for the past four months. I've been hearing a whole lot of "nothing to see here. Russia has no plans to invade. Just military drills. West should stop being threatening." for months. They were all dead wrong (sooo many on this site as of just days ago). So I'm inclined to believe I'm a bit more prescient on these issues.
Putin still won't back off, knowing Russia is safe from NATO, because that's not the issue.
Oh, you got me wrong. If Putin finds out NATO won't got to war over Ukraine, he will try again with other non-NATO countries. Or even smaller NATO countries like the Baltics. China might try too, with Taiwan. Just to name some of the more obvious candidates.
But isn't the real threat against Putin that the ideas of democracy spread via word of mouth?
I think problem with Ukraine is that Ukrainians and Russians have close ties and if Ukraine succeeds in becoming a western country their relatives in Russia will want to do so to.
That sure plays a role. Not that this word of mouth spreading of democracy worked out so well lately. But yeah, if I were Putin I would prefer a war in Ukraine over a potential civil war over my rule in Russia any day of the week.
One cannot ignore the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in this whole mess so.
You have to give it to the Finnish people that they have - what should I say - some institutional knowledge when it comes to Russia.
After all they still have around 200 000 Russian troops at their borders. (6 feet under the ground but still very alive in their memories.)
For anyone who isn't aware:
- The Finnish are the ones who said - as Kremlin sent a million poor troops towards them - we are only a small country, were should we bury them all?
- The "Molotov cocktails" started as a Finnish joke about their practical invention to stop Russian vehicles. Russian diplomat Молотов (Molotov) had started the wittiness by telling that their bombing raids were just friendly Russians dropping suppplies.
That was the USSR under Stalin. Quite different story. Not to forget, Finland was part of the Russian Empire before WW1. Doesn't justify the Russian attacks on Finland, context usually does matter so.
Putin is, in many ways, among the most dangerous and skilled world leaders. And the most daring one. That none of his actions have been seriously checked by anyone since he came to power surely didn't help either. If Putin had his way, it would not just be Finland, the Baltics and most of Eastern Europe as well.
IMHO, appeasement never worked with people like Putin (or Bush sen. & jun. or Napoleon,...). Thing is that war seems to be the only alternative. And most don't want that. At least not a shooting war against an opponent that can actually shoot back immediately.
He doesn't really need to grab some land, physically. He only needs a puppet government like in Belarus, that's all. Once he knows he can control a country, he will leave it in peace.
Unfortunately, this means misery for the citizens, and nobody sane wants that. Ukrainians want to have an independent modern country, not to be Kremlin slaves.
> Russia does not care about Ukraine's self-determination as long as NATO's systems are not there.
NATO does not have "systems". NATO is a cooperation office between militaries of member countries, despite relentless Russian propaganda that makes it sound as if tanks and missiles magically pop up after signing the membership agreement.
Russia can’t respect other countries’ desire to join NATO while holding the position that they shouldn’t be allowed to join NATO. That’s patent nonsense.
> Sure, but what Russia was constantly telling NATO is that while Russia respects other countries' desire to join NATO - Russia believes that NATO should not allow those countries to join.
It's funny how hard it is for Russia(ns) to get their head around the concept of self-determination: It's none of Russia's fricking business what alliances other countries join; and it's none of Russia's fricking business which countries other alliances accept as members.
See? It's not really all that hard.
> Russia does not care about Ukraine's self-determination as long as NATO's systems are not there.
Russia obviously does not care about anyone's self-determination except their own. (And even that only if "self" is defined along the "one man, one vote" principle: The dictator is The Man, and The Vote is his. The only people with any appreciable degree of "self-determination" are the dictator's cronies, and even that is fraught with risk.)
Putting myself in Russia's shoes for a moment, I understand why they are worried about NATO expanding East. Would be like, Mexico maybe, joining a revamped Warsaw Pact under Russian leadership. NATO, naturally, wouldn't be that thrilled by that prospect. Depending on leadership, war would definitely be on the table. We, as in the West, went to war and invaded sovereign countries for all kinds of reasons since the 90s. Some of those reasons were also completely made up.
All that is water under the bridge so. I think if the "free" West (I mean that non-ironically, just to acknowledge that there are various ways to define freedom, not all of which are compatible with Western views. And that the West usually doesn't have problems ignoring those freedoms when needed (Saudi, China, UAE, Turkey,...)) doesn't act now, we will have to either roll over later against an aggressor or react much harsher then we would have to now. If Putin can redraw the maps now, China will be next to try. Followed by any other large country that has territorial interests against a smaller one.
> In the essay, Putin argues that Russians and Ukrainians, along with Belarusians, are one people, belonging to what has historically been known as the triune Russian nation. To support the claim, he describes in length his views on the history of Russia and Ukraine, concluding that Russians and Ukrainians share a common heritage and destiny.
> The essay denies the existence of Ukraine as an independent nation...
There's no need to imagine, look at the treatment of Cuba, including the Cuban Missile crisis for daring to join "the other side". It's still under sanctions, decades later, for that..
I don’t understand “the NATO problem”. Even if Ukraine became part of NATO, all it would mean for Russia is that there will be consequences if they invade. How hard is it not to invade other countries, unprovoked?
Ukraine gave up its working russian-inherited nuclear warheads. So, no. This is not the same.
Putin is just another authoritarian ruler, a dictator. He will use any excuse he wants to invade; in this case he is using NATO membership and separatist movements.
In the practical sense, the "NATO problem" is that Ukraine is not going to give up on Crimea, and once it becomes a member of NATO that will lead to direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Yes, the "NATO problem". The "problem" that is actually defending countries from invasions instead of letting their people, in a country that is not even close to being in NATO, die at the hands of tyrants.
To make the metaphor correct, what would the US do if Mexico or Cuba asked Russia to build a military base just after the US took some of their territory and Russia continually said no.
Because Russia just took Crimea a few years ago and NATO refused to allow them to join. And Russia has agreed Crimea was part of Ukraine as recently as 1994.
Ukraine? No idea. Poland, the Baltics, the southern former Soviet republics (most of which end at -stan) to support the invasion of Afghanistan, a lot.
If you can't supply one the logical conclusion is that there is no good reason and all the reasons that flow from simple observation are terribly unsupportable morally and legally. You know that. You are vague because giving a better answer is impossible and the actual answer is unpalatable.
Yet the reason is an important subject, and in questions like that different reasoning lead to lost lives. So it's a serious, justifiable subject to discuss.
Everyone bombs everyone, it seems. NATO bombed Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq,... Sent "peacekeepers" to loads of African countries (funny enough those countries sit on tons of raw materials). Russia bombed Georgia (not the US state of Georgia), Ukraine. China isn't bombing as much with actual bombs for now, money seems to work just fine it seems. Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemen, Israel is bombing Palestine, while Palestine is bombing Israel.
No need to justify any of that, because it all sucks and is ultimately utterly pointless. It does help so, to understand the other side. Because it makes it easier to find a solution that doesn't lead to all out war between nuclear powers. And no, I don't consider just handing Ukraine to Putin to be that solution. Or Taiwan to China, as far as that is concerned.
NATO did not go to war in Iraq as an organization. That was done by an independent coalition. After Saddam's fall, they did however take part in training the new Iraqi military.
thanks, I suppose the NATO problem is that as the sole purpose of the forming of NATO was to act as a deterrent and implicit threat to the Soviet Union having a possible NATO country next to Russia itself, as opposed to having some buffer is seen as aggressive in itself?
Pure speculation, but maybe it’s calculated aggression based on an assumption that the west doesn’t have an appetite for war [with Russia] and will avoid doing so if possible.
How so? Hitler got away with it. The Allies declared war on him only nine months later when he also invaded Poland.
And even then, they only did it half-heartedly, and the French pretty much threw away their weapons when the first German panzers arrived. Hitler knew that he had the stronger will to fight. Had it not been for a few other factors (Churchill, Russian winter, and the Hitler's obsession with the jews), he could have taken the whole of Europe.
The NATO "problem" wasn't the continued existence of NATO after the collapse of the USSR, but rather the expansion into traditional USSR/Russian areas of influence (Slavic areas). That's what they resent. Of course, given economic realities, many of those areas would prefer to have better ties with the West than the kleptocratic alternative, but that's neither here nor there.
Sure, but two things. No one is contesting their Central Asia client states that's in their pocket --we're not trying to expand NATO there... and two they have a special affinity to Slavic peoples due to culture. (they treat them like an "ex-" with a certain amount of jealousy.
Central Asia, no (although China is actively making inroads there).
But there's still Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia to consider. These aren't Slavic, but they are of interest to both NATO and Russia. Well, Armenia is pretty firmly aligned with Russia for historical reasons and some semblance of security against Azerbaijan and Turkey. But the other two are already Western-oriented, and Georgia has applied for NATO membership in the past.
As far as Slavic affinity, it's a bit more complicated. For example, Bulgarians are Slavic, and Eastern Orthodox even, but being on the wrong side of WW1 and then WW2 vis a vis Russia/USSR overrides that. OTOH with Ukrainians, many Russians outright deny that they even are a separate nation or ethnicity, and claim that it's just a sub-branch of Russians who speak a dialect of Russian. From that perspective, occupying Ukraine is described as "re-unifying" Russia.
I wouldn't make it about ethnicity. Making it about former Soviet republics and members of the Warsaw pact is the problem, from Russia's point of view. A problem that, in hindsight maybe, is so obvious and so guaranteed to come (Russia complained about NATOs eastern expansion for decades) that it seems surprising that NATO doesn't seem to have an answer. Hell, when Russia annexed the Krim and tried to annex parts of Georgia one would think NATO would have gotten a clear wake up call.
Germany makes deals with Russia to get their gas (NS1 and NS2) and only recently they declined NS2.
Basically we (EU) are giving Russia money to create army, instead of ditching their gas, oil etc. and buying one from Scandinavia and US (now when Russian gas prices are higher than the ones form the mentioned countries). And destroying NS1 and 2.
Russia considers NATO's presence at its borders a national threat.
On one hand - NATO protects its members from our possible aggression, on the other hand Russia sees NATO's assets (lets say AA systems) as means to degrade country's capabilities to respond in case of attack from the West (no matter how are the chances of such an attack).
Russia is a like an abusive man with PTSD - always expecting an attack that doesn't come and victimizing himself while abusing others.
Has Russia perhaps thought for a moment why are countries making an alliance to defend against Russia? Why aren't countries in NATO worried about being attacked by other countries in NATO? Because *all the countries there don't want war*.
NATO is not to attack Russia, but to defend against it. The idea of protecting against counter attack from the West is like saying "I can't leave my house to protect against the possibility of a meteorite against my head."
> Has Russia perhaps thought for a moment why are countries making an alliance to defend against Russia?
Yeah, there's a lot of rhetoric coming from Russia denouncing "NATO expansion". NATO isn't some belligerent expanding force, annexing territory; countries are actively asking to join NATO. Perhaps Russia should ask themselves why all these countries feel safer being aligned with NATO and the West than with Russia.
What Putin actually considers casus belli isn't important for the moment - it could be anything, reasoned or not. Can we, here, present arguments that the desire of Russia to be able to attack neighbor countries should be honored? Do we extend MAD doctrine to non-nuclear matters - that is, everybody should refrain from defense, as defense reduces their neighbors' abilities to fight back in case those neighbors are attacked? Is it reasonable - for the moment - to think that countries, improving their defenses, actually offend neighbors?
Does Russia really think the West will attack them? Russia has nukes. The West doesn't want a nuclear war with Russia.
The West isn't even defending Ukraine from a Russian attack. Did Russia think the West would defend Ukraine? If so, why did Russia still attack? If not, then why would Russia think there's any chance the West will attack Russia unprovoked?
so the bottom line is that russia (or more correctly, putin) is unable to accept that their state cannot and would not be allowed by the west to become a superpower.
I think the inevitable result is war. I think the west should've decisively defeated the soviets when they broke apart, and prevented this, but instead, the optimism that an autocratic state would not do so is the true reality. But of course, it doesn't have good optics at the time to do this. I guess the future will tell if this war escalates.
> I think the west should've decisively defeated the soviets when they broke apart,
That wouldn't have been feasible given military realities (nukes, the total impossibility of invading and occupying Russia), and even if it had been what would it have achieved? The age of imperialism is over. The west has won allies by respecting the right of their populations to self-determination. (And when it hasn't respected self-determination, it has often lost ground.)
The West (I live in a Western country by the way) did not respect self determination of people when it didn't suit the Wests interests. Not before WW1 (when there was no West), not between WW1 and WW2 (Austria wanted to join Germany and wasn't allowed to, the whole former Russian Empire as engulfed in a civil war over that very question, not to mention the colonial empires) or after WW2 (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Arab Spring, Syria,...).
The war that is on the horizon is not about the "good" vs. the "evil". It is about one revisionist, power hungry leader going toe-to-toe with another power-hungry block over territorial dominance. And about those people just wanting to live in peace caught in the middle.
You're thinking of all the times the West waged war, while I was thinking of the times that it didn't. First in my mind were the countries joining NATO after the end of the Cold War: Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Albania.
Those countries became allies, not through force, but because we were able to devise a mutually beneficial relationship.
Personally, I'd attribute that more to the European Union. But yes, NATO certainly helped. Only shows that there are no simple answers. I only want to point out that NATO, and the EU for that matter, despite all the good the did in Europe are by no means the "good" benefactors in other countries. Also, just because I think some of Russia's actions are understandable, I don't think they are even remotely justified or acceptable. Same goes for the war on terror, the EUs handling of refugees, basically all NATO interventions with the possible exception of Yugoslavia (not the Kosovo) when they tried, and kind of failed, to prevent genocide.
In what way did the West not decisively defeat the soviets? Communism died, the Warsaw Pact disbanded, and several former Russian client states joined NATO. The current crisis is a revanchist attempt to revert that defeat.
Cold war is much more likely than hot war, I’d expect.
Russian grand strategy is defensive. Their primary threat is a large-scale invasion. It happened once in the 19th century and at least twice in the 20th century. Maybe three times if you count Russian Civil War.
To counter the threat of a potential invasion, Russia tries to maintain a buffer zone of friends, puppets, and occupied territories. This is a continuous process, as politics change. Today's friends may be tomorrow's enemies, revolutions may overthrow puppets, and the costs of military occupation may prove too high. Russia fights wars and organizes coups to maintain the buffer zone. The rights of their neighbors don't matter to them when national security is at stake.
Russia fears NATO, because NATO has the capability to project power. They fear that NATO could be the next invader. The fact that NATO has no intention of doing so is irrelevant to them, because politics change. It's the military capabilities they are afraid of.
If there is going to be a change, it must come from inside. Russia must stop being afraid and become a member of the international community connected by trade. There was a chance of that in the 80s and 90s, but the chance was lost. Another chance may come after Putin, or the next leader and the next regime could be more of the same.
Why would a country that has so many nukes be afraid of invasion? Genuine question, maybe I am missing something but I see this kind of explanation (Russia afraid of massive land invasion) often and it does not make any sense to me. It feels like applying pre-WW2 logic to world that has fundamentally changed after WW2. Also, if I am mistaken, before Russia attacked Georgia, NATO had like 4 battalions close to Russia and military spending in Europe was going down to ridiculous levels.
Nuclear powers are afraid of invasion because there is a lot of territory between conventional war and the use of nuclear weapons. And because they know that the only real threat of invasion comes from other nuclear powers, meaning once the nukes are fired, the other side fires back and all of a sudden there isn't anything left to defend anymore.
NATO had the local armies of the Baltics, Poland, Slovakia and so on the Russian border (by definition). NATO had the US forces in Germany reasonably close to the Russian border. NATO had the forces supporting the war in Afghanistan on Russians southern border None of that was, as far as anyone not informed about secret NATO planning, can tell geared against Russia. If your neighbor patrols his fence with a huge axe while your children are playing in the backyard, so, you would be worried I assume. Even if it was just to cut wood. Especially if you have bad history with that neighbor.
During the cold war, both NATO and the Warsaw pact conducted war games about invasions of the other side. War Games, because they needed something build their defensive strategies on. As it turned out, both sides, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, never had any real invasions plans for Europe, instead both side focused purely on defense against such an invasion. Turns out that this fear of the other side never died.
Since all that lies in the past, the question where we (as in the West) draws the line. NATO, and the US, kept a ton of unresolved territorial disputes in check since the end of the cold war. Most of those conflicts have the potential to turn really, really bad. If Russia gets away with their attack on Ukraine, others will, potentially rightly so, think they can do the same. And then the World-as-we-know-it might pretty much just end. Well, it might as well if NATO goes to war with Russia over Ukraine as well. Only bad choices it seems.
This is the difference between strategy and grand strategy. Russia is planning not only for 2025 or 2030 but also for 2050 and beyond. Who knows what the world will be then and whether nuclear weapons continue being an effective deterrent. They are falling back to the rules of thumb empires have used for ages. Having a potential enemy at your doorstep can be a bad thing, while having some space between you and potential enemies is probably a good thing.
I am no strategist but I would estimate that right now Russia is generating incredible amounts of hate and fear and turning even those who were kind of indifferent into future enemies. If I naively estimate the probability of this being some rational grand strategy vs probability of this being a move of an old dictator possessed by his ego and some imagined grievances behaving in an irrational way that will damage Russia... I am leaning towards the later one. Of course this is just one example and there are certainly other scenarios/explanations.
I wouldn't make this too much about Putin as a person. Russia has had plenty of leaders with similar ambitions, both in Soviet times and in the empire before it. If leaders like Putin persistently arise in Russia, there must be deeper institutional issues behind them.
That is not how I read Putin. Instead what I'm seeing, is a person who is inherently nationalistic having experienced that his pride was hurt.
I see this tendency within many, if not most countries that have seen a decline in national power over some period, and were nationalists wanted to "Make <their country> Great Again".
Examples:
- Germany under Hitler
- Italy under Mussolini
- France after WW2, when they were quite nationalistic for decades, and certainly did NOT like that English had become the "Lingua Franca"
- Britain under Margaret Thatcher
- Russian under Putin
- MAGA
- And most important of all: China under Xi Jinping
Some of these movements were relatively harmless, some were (and are) very dangerous
This post is strictly personal. I feel like when Dmitry Medvedev was leader of Russia (during the "Putin swap period") that tensions were much lower. Privately: I am such a big fan of him. He is such a geek! I sincerely wonder when Medvedev and (Sergey) Lavrov think about the Crimea and Ukraine situation.
When I look long term, I cannot wonder how Russia will ever leave Crimea. Does that mean that Russia is the next Iran with "forever" sanctions? I cannot see another story, unless Putin leaves and the next leader is more centrist, like Medvedev.
> The fact that NATO has no intention of doing so is irrelevant to them, because politics change. It's the military capabilities they are afraid of.
The change is not in politics - for decades post-Soviet Russia wasn't worrying about NATO. Actually, no - even the point that Russia is afraid isn't correct - it's Putin who's afraid. NATO problem doesn't really exists.
Some people protested. Quite soon they got arrested. The punishment for illegal protests is up to 30 days in prison. There are posts I am seeing on Telegram about some probable protest organizers being arrested in advance. Harsh punishment and lack of organizers means no critical mass.
