If enough human rights abuses show up in media, NATO will grow a pair and get directly involved. That's probably Putin's biggest fear, and why he blusters so much. He thinks the west is decadent and cowardly. So far, in this case, he's been right.
The thing about western democracies is that they respond to public sentiment. If the populations are seething with anger, they will want blood. Especially the Americans.
Putin threatens nuclear war whenever he wants something. Nobody believes it. You think Putin will commit suicide - both for himself and his people - over Ukraine, which by now quite obviously doesn't want him, even to his own citizens?
You assume too much about Russia and Putin. Historically, the wests lack of understanding of motives and hard lines for Russia has almost caused several nuclear annihilation events.
People sometimes have hard lines that are surprising, and will cause them to do things that no rational person would do. Militaries and organizations do too.
War causes confusion, stress, anxiety, etc. which magnifies everything.
It doesn’t require ‘sane putin’ to push a button for someone somewhere to THINK it makes sense for him to and push the button in their exhausted and freaked out state of mind.
Putin didn’t start this invasion because he was bored.
Dictators generally do things because their internal power base demands something, but that is rarely visible to us, so we don’t know if a series of hardliner generals need this, or the base of paranoid hardline folks is getting angsty and he knows if he doesn’t appease them he is in trouble.
Near as I can tell, the senior leadership has already seen the writing on the wall re:getting frozen out of the west (sanctions and other stuff), and is seizing Ukraine for it’s strategic importance to Russia - food, energy, year round port, buffer against a land invasion to Moscow.
They probably see this as now or never. We don’t know how desperate the leadership or Putin may be.
Ukraine, like Poland has historically been caught in the middle of these kinds of things, which sucks. it also isn’t their first time.
> seizing Ukraine for it’s strategic importance to Russia - food, energy, year round port, buffer against a land invasion to Moscow.
Wow, that's literally the worst take I've heard on this.
- Russia has food to spare, exports tons of wheat, and has declining population
- Russia produces tons of energy and exports tons of oil and gas
- Russia already has several year round ports in the Black Sea. You think upgrading one of them to whatever they wanted is more expensive than waging fucking war?
- How much of a speed bump do you think a "demilitarized and neutral" Ukraine would be to forces that are doing a land invasion on the largest nuclear power? Also, Baltics are already in NATO, and the drive from there to Moscow is same distance on similarly flat terrain. Also, Finland and Sweden might join NATO too now thanks to this war. Also, nobody is ever doing a land invasion on a nuclear Russia. If the nukes didn't even assure that, nobody would keep spending billions on maintaining them.
It is not only about what you have, but also about what you don't want your foe/customer to have. Lots of natural gas was discovered in Ukraine around 2011-2016. Donbass is famous for its coal mining too and you should also consider the numerous NPPs that provide about half of Ukraine's electricity. Imagine all these assets in the hands of US/EU companies. Now that sounds like becoming less energy dependent from Russia. You should inquire about some of the reasons for Syrian war too. It all looks like a big blatant chess game and you will be very lucky if you are just a spectator. Btw current mainstream media reporting from both sides is mostly useless.
I appreciate your perspective. Yet, the west is playing the same game that Putin is - what line is too far to cross? The west has already armed and continues to supply Ukraine, which is probably part of the reason Putin's assault is struggling. I'm sure the west is also supplying satellite and other intelligence to Kyiv. So the "intervene and I nuke you" line has already been crossed, depending on your definition of "intervene".
AFAICT nobody is suggesting putting troops on the ground in Russia. Nobody in the west has any desire to conquer Russian territory.
There's a big spectrum between "stand back and watch" and "march troops to Moscow". Obviously "supply Ukraine" is already in progress. "Bomb Russian logistics convoys in Ukraine" could be too. Hell, the west doesn't even have to admit it. "We have no idea why your tanks are flaming wrecks, maybe their car warranty has expired?"
I'll go out on a limb and call that cyberattacks prove to have zero benefit other than emotional catharsis. They will have no effect in the outcome of this war.
The way a lot of the western news is tilted, the ‘madman with nukes’ line is pretty clear. If Russia hits a nuclear waste storage depot (oops, already happened), or hints at using nukes (well, moving them to Belarus, that already happened) - when does it seem to make sense to ‘intervene’ by marching troops to Moscow? Many folks on the internet clearly already are.
It’s easy for that to get way out of control, very very quickly.
> It’s easy for that to get way out of control, very very quickly.
I generally agree, but there are emotional limits to this kind of thing. Americans have historically been very willing to commit airplanes and bombs to righteous causes, but marching to Moscow would be a very different matter. I assume the same thing is happening with Russia's conscripts: "Why the fuck are we doing this?"
Also, 100% agree they definitely are playing a similar game - but one is doing it via social influence, the other via active military invasion and an ‘unsolicited’ one at that.
Not that the US (with occasional other Allies) hasn’t done similar, they just aren’t in this case.
I expect a negotiated peace where the world gives away the eastern third of Ukraine and the west goes home patting themselves on the back but Ukraine is left with losing Crimea and it's eastern third. It's then just a matter of time before we repeat this whole mess and Ukraine is chipped away at until it's gone.
It's difficult for me to imagine a negotiated peace that doesn't involve NATO guarantees of sovereignty for the remaining parts of Ukraine. Otherwise, what's the value from Ukraine's perspective?
So one way or another this will end in short order. Or it will be WW3 (not necessarily nuclear, but it's a risk).
Governments and organisations do tend to violate agreements if and when it suits them. Look at NATO expansion...
"After speaking with many of those involved and examining previously classified British and German documents in detail, SPIEGEL has concluded that there was no doubt that the West did everything it could to give the Soviets the impression that NATO membership was out of the question for countries like Poland, Hungary or Czechoslovakia."[0]
Not a Russian apologist here, but is that the worst outcome? It does appear that there is some separatist movement in the disputed territories, right? In the spirit of self-determination, why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? These borders are less than 30 years old, it's not inconceivable that there could be adjustments, right? Just trying to think of a way out of this mess with the fewest casualties.
Yes. History has shown that you need to stop conquerers at the earliest opportunity. Famously, both Western Europe and Russia made deals with Hitler, thinking they had bought peace.
> Not a Russian apologist here, but is that the worst outcome? It does appear that there is some separatist movement in the disputed territories, right? In the spirit of self-determination, why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia? These borders are less than 30 years old, it's not inconceivable that there could be adjustments, right?
Those are some of the Russian talking points, FWIW. It has nothing to with such movements; Russia just uses them (and creates them to a large extent) as excuses to invade - following the exact tactics of many conquerers throughout history: 'We have people living across the border!' Many Americans live in the north of Mexico, and many Mexicans live in southwestern US. We could do the same with every border in the world, just about. And then there are the Russians living in the rest of Europe, who no doubt need protection. What about Cyprus and London?
If they didn't (create and) use those excuses, they'd create and use others.
> why shouldn't they be allowed to cleave off and join Russia?
We have no evidence that it's desired. But most of all, countries aren't smartphone brands - 'I'm tired of Apple, I'm switching to Samsung!' There's a reason that you ever (hardly ever?) hear of such a thing happening. We already have neighboring conquerers using the excuse described above; now we give a big carrot to neighbors fomenting rebellions. And the chaos of international borders changing, with all the geopolitical issues and crises involved. The clearly better solution would be people moving themselves to the other country.
> It does appear that there is some separatist movement in the disputed territories, right?
'Technically', yes, but that's not the problem at stake here. That's what everyone assumed was the problem at stake before Thursday.
If it was about the Donbass provinces, Russia would just be invading them. (It already has, they have been largely 'rebel'-controlled for a very long time - an invasion would have been more of a formality than a practical change in the status quo.)
Instead, it's invading them, and the entirety of Ukraine, including all the parts that have very few ethnic Russians.
'Russian national self-determination' is just the excuse for a land grab in the west.
Very good point. I just want there to be a simple answer to stop the bloodshed, but there isn't one. The alternative, the reality, is just so gruesome I wished there was a way out of this for all involved.
The ‘simple’ answer is for Ukrainians to universally take up arms and repel Russia.
Russia will either have to capitulate (which will likely result in Putin’s ousting and likely death), or get stuck in a intractable guerilla war that will be quickly impossible to prosecute due to economic issues.
It’s very, very unlikely Putin or anyone else could nuke the Ukraine due to both proximity, cultural history, and lack of any conceivable threat from Ukraine that could justify it.
Even obliterating Kiev through traditional means would be very, very difficult to do - it has a lot of history for Russia and many Russians have strong emotional ties there. Desertions, defections, and insubordination would be difficult to counter.
It will cost lives, but all available options will. That Russia has been pretty blatant here will make it easier than if they’d been subtle.
It's not a simple answer for people who aren't men under the age of 25.
It's easy to talk about how other people should resist an invasion to the death, but if I were living in Ukraine right now, I'd either be getting the hell out, or strongly prioritizing survival.
For people who have to actually live with it[1], a bad peace is in most cases preferable to a good war. That's why so much political effort goes into avoiding war in the first place.
[1] States, unlike people, have a vastly different view on war. A state can often cease to exist because of a war, even if the people it governed don't go anywhere. What is an existential struggle for a state or an ideology is often not one for its subjects... But the subjects are the ones who have to fight for the state.
Most of my family is military (multiple generations), and all but one of them have purple hearts.
I have kids who will (relatively) shortly be military aged, and have been through some really shitty life experiences that have surprising corollaries to this situation.
I personally am 'not of fighting age', but know that despite how wise it would be personally, I would have to take up arms in this situation.
I hate war. My family does too. But what you are describing (and the individual incentives), while 100% true, with a strong and hungry adversary lead to a situation where the society overall will be conquered, and everyone's individual situation will be worse.
Sometimes far, far worse. It's the short term safe option that feeds into the long term disaster.
Overlooking corruption because confronting it is too painful often leads to the same outcome - suffocating corruption everywhere.
That it is possible for some to live in those situations doesn't take away from what is truly being lost.
Because it almost never stops at whatever border they thought crossing would keep them safe. Giving in means they'll take more, and more, and more - and be stronger each time they do.
The kind of hunger this type of diseased mind and government has can never be sated. Only stopped.
Good fences make good neighbors, because firm boundaries that are firmly defended keeps everyone honest and normal people from turning into opportunists and predators.
Something that happens surprisingly easy for a very large portion of the population when enabled.
If no one is going to stand and protect what is theirs when something like that happens, they won't have it for very long. And when a lot of people in a society won't do that, that society won't last for long.
Zelensky knows better than most what he is dealing with - his grandfathers siblings were murdered in WW2 by the Nazis for being Jewish. But Ukraine overall has long experience being abused by Russia, especially USSR Russia.
He's putting his ass on the line and leading the way he is, because he truly knows the stakes and what he is dealing with, and has the courage to face it, and the love for himself and the people to do what needs to be done to keep them truly safe.
If you research the Holodomor, understand the impact that the years behind the iron curtain had on eastern Europe, and the crushing of the East German (and many other countries) spirit and it's long term consequences, you might better understand the stakes.
If you think Putin is going to be better than Stalin and the rest, that is very, very unlikely.
And if you think these refugees are going to be safe one border over - I appreciate the optimism. For those staring something like this in the face, understand, but appreciate what they're really facing.
Stalinism isn't a realistic outcome of this conflict. You have a poor understanding of what modern Russian repression looks like.
If the war goes on for any length of time, though, all the mass death and destruction that comes to fighting a modern war in urban areas will take place. See - literally any war zone in history, but I'd like to draw particular attention to Chechnya. It wasn't the peacetime repression that killed two hundred thousand people, there, and displaced half a million more. It was the war.
Your entire family fought in wars, but how many of them have lived in the middle of one? There's a staggering difference of perspective between bringing war to foreign soil (which, if your family has been receiving purple hearts, they've been doing), and living through one fought in your back yard.
The separatists have been heavily subsidized by Russia to the point it's sometimes been difficult to tell who is who.
Not meaning to sound hostile, but what you just wrote has been the goal of Putin's strategy with subsidizing the separatists all along. It's to create the appearance of a genuine resistance movement that's really just an arm of the Russian military. It's Putin's MO.
Part of the reason for this recent invasion is because the typical espionage and information warfare that has brought Putin success started failing.
Completely agree ; Personally, I think this was all about Odessa, and really Putin's plan was to seize the eastern territory along with Odessa, as truly he is after the port, and believed that he could turn immediately to negotiations and "peace" so long as he keeps Odessa (the Crimea playbook)
and it COMPLETELY backfired on him...
Which I think ties to my other theory ;
What if the reason it is backfiring in such a spectacular way, is that, perhaps, Putin was not playing along with the WEF great reset agenda. While Putin was planning the Crimean Copy for grabbing Odessa, the NWO took this as the opportunity to knock him out of the way?
If Putin wanted Odessa, he and his military leadership didn't design the offensive to support that goal.
IMHO, that was never in the cards, because an effective amphibious assault would have required obscene and internationally-outrageous damage to civilians and shipping. Or unexpectedly optimistic progress on the Crimean front, which by its positioning needed to fight north and east. Odessa would have added west.
That depends on how likely the next couple layers below him are to recognize it, and think that ignoring him is better than not. I don’t know how that would shake out.
I had this conversation the other day, but my friend did make a good point in that he could seek asylum and retire. He knows the day he steps down and stays in Russia though that he is a dead man walking. He has too many enemies to stay alive very long.
Putin can't do much if other people aren't convinced that their least-bad course of action is following him.
You seem him calling on the Ukraine military to overthrow the government (which is probably not a great sign of how well his “demilitarize Ukraine” operation is going)? That option isn't available on only one side of the conflict.
It has nothing to do with cowardice. If a hostile nation state is willing to burn resources holding territory that contains insurgent forces we would be stupid to discourage it. As americans well know, it is really hard to maintain an extended occupation without a loss of money, moral, and life.
At this point ideally we let Russia flood Ukraine with its mediocre ground forces while very aggressively arming the Ukrainians, then cut the Russian troops off from their supply lines, make it difficult to get back out of Ukraine, and let the Ukrainians slaughter the captive invading force (which will promptly surrender as they realize what has happened).
The Russians are primed for this setup, they've walked into it. It's the last thing Russia expects. NATO should execute it in the guise of a peacekeeping no-fly zone over Ukraine.
It would risk an open war with Russia. That's acceptable if it happens. NATO can cripple half of Russia's army trivially in the field.
Putin will push the nuclear angle as this unfolds. So simultaneously encourage Putin's inner circle to kill him or otherwise depose him before he leads them (and their families) into senseless nuclear destruction, by offering peace to the Russia state if it removes Putin (and no military figures from Russia will be tried for war crimes for what they've done thus far re Ukraine). The Russian state will suffer no other losses post agreement, it'll be a neutral peace.
It’s actually more or less the public expert consensus too. Albeit the expert consensus has a lot of nuance. We know from OSINT sources that they US Military taught the Ukrainian military Taliban tactics that they learned from fighting the Taliban.
This was going to be an asymmetric war from the very start.
As far as the nuke stuff goes, well that’s much harder.
Important caveat, we don’t know what the “real experts” i.e. people with access to classified information think. Because they aren’t talking to anyone but themselves and the long lens of history.
Those don't say that NATO should directly attack Russian forces, and that the risk of nuclear war is overblown and NATO should ignore it. If I'm missing something, please provide a quote.
Based on what I've read and on a lot of such reading in my past, I'm pretty confident nobody credible is saying anything like that.
Thanks for the link; very interesting. From that interview, the general seems to like the idea but also notes seemingly impossile obstacles to it ("PB" is retired U.S. General Philip Breedlove):
PB: I am actually a proponent of it [a no-fly zone]. But let me now tell you why it will probably not happen, because the reality of a no-fly zone is, it is an act of war. There are a lot of people who don’t understand no-fly zones. You don’t just say, “That’s a no fly zone.” You have to enforce a no-fly zone, which means you have to be willing to use force against those who break the no-fly zone. The second thing, which nobody understands, is if you put a no-fly zone in the eastern part of Ukraine, for instance, and we’re going to fly coalition or NATO aircraft into that no-fly zone, then we have to take out all the weapons that can fire into our no-fly zone and cause harm to our aircraft. So that means bombing enemy radars and missile systems on the other side of the border. And you know what that means, right? That is tantamount to war. So if we’re going to declare a no-fly zone, we have to take down the enemy’s capability to fire into and affect our no-fly zone. And few understand that. And that’s why, if you talk about a no-fly zone, it is a very sober decision because many in the world would interpret it as an act of war.
FP: Yet, in spite of all of that, you said you would actually support the idea of a no-fly zone?
PB: Are we going to sit and watch while a world power invades and destroys and subjugates a sovereign nation? Are we just going to watch? I mean, a friend recently said, “This is like biblical times, and the whole Colosseum is watching the lions and the Christians, and they’re pulling for the Christians, but they just watch.” So the question is, is the West going to tolerate Russia doing this to Ukraine? What if the Russians do what they did in eastern Syria and they drop barrel bombs and make rubble of cities and terrorize citizens and force them on the road and make them refugees across Europe? Where is the line that Russia crosses in its inhumanity such that the rest of the world reacts?
The analysis I was reading and where it was coming from was their experience in Syria where American and Russian forces have come into contact. But there's an asterisk here. They were Russian solders, but they were disavowed Russian soldiers acting under the Wagner group at an arm's length relationship, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham
I need to read up on how the no-fly zone was set up in Syria, but IIRC there were active clashes between American hardware and the Russians.
But that was a different context. It was a space far away from Russia's borders. It's another kettle of fish and it's not a good idea to do what was done in Syria here.
I apologize if I sounded too firm earlier, this is not my place of expertise. I am not an expert on geopolitics or foreign policy. It's not my area. I just like to read.
> cut the Russian troops off from their supply lines
> NATO should execute it in the guise of a peacekeeping no-fly zone over Ukraine.
NATO is absolutely not fighting Russia directly, as they've made clear. Both of the above would require direct conflict with Russian forces, who would resist very aggressively.
I actually understand how reality works, rather than drowning in the irrational, hyper emotionalism of: the world is gunna end if we face off with der Russia, The PuTin will Killeded us all ten times overs with the big nukes. Aka ignorant Reddit thinking.
The most important thing that can happen right now is to aggressively begin confronting Russia. They are weak, the invasion was a very bad idea, and they have zero global support for what they're doing and mediocre support at home for the invasion.
There is only one way to stop Putin and that's military confrontation. NATO is vastly superior to Russia's forces, now is an excellent time to cripple them in the field.
Every time war doesn't go Russia's way they're going to nuke the world? Yeah, sure. Good luck living in that universe. You know, we really can't defend Finland or Sweden or the Baltics (NATO), because hey Russia will nuke everybody, so they just get to keep taking territory at will. Time to go ahead and shut down NATO (you know, the organization that was originated specifically to stand off militarily with Russia, its primary reason for existing). No, time to start standing up to Russia in the field: this is what NATO is for.
Ukraine is doing the job that NATO ought to be doing. At the very least we should be helping them dramatically more than what we are now. Don't like the idea of direct confrontation (no-fly zone) - fine, then flood Ukraine with weapons at a much faster pace and put Russia in a position of having to declare war on NATO to stop it.
It's not a fantasy at all, which is of course why you have no greater retort than flinging ad hominem responses.
Russia's poorly organized, poorly funded, poorly trained military will be hyper exposed as they go fully into Ukraine (it already is). We also have the intel on the ground in Ukraine to help us out, we can maul Russia's tanks, artillery and mechanized forces and wipe out their supply lines, trapping their ground forces inside Ukraine with no supplies (aka they're dead). Russia can't project effectively outside of their borders when confronted with vastly superior NATO air power, so they won't be able to provide cover or resupply for their soldiers trapped in Ukraine. Their hardware will be wiped out. We can dismember their air force at the border as needed. And it'll be Ukrainians killing the Russian soldiers inside of Ukraine, not NATO soldiers. What else does Russia have?
They'd have one fall back: I'm gunna nuke you, I'm gunna nuke everyone, I'm gunna nuke the moon. [insert Putin turned Gollum snarl here] Bullshit. It's not sovereign Russian territory and they're not going to kill everyone in Russia for it.
That is quite a claim for anyone, especially about interational relations and war, which are especially opaque and unpredictable. Why do you believe that, and why would we believe it? Are you an expert or practitioner?
I'm seconding this, if air cover is provided, Ukraine has enough resources to trim off Russia's south, and its access to two seas.
South Russians don't feel pretty much any affinity for Moscow. This can potentially launch a chain reaction of Russia's disintegration.
Russia's Far East will almost certainly secede for its ethnic makeup, and the only ethnic Russian stronghold in the region being uniquely anti-russian (as a state) for so many reason, the latest being harsh draft, and using Far Eastern youth as a cannon fodder for the last 8 years.
Urals, and Siberia are uniquely resource rich, and they will want the money for themselves. There was a precedent: "The Republic of Urals" was a semi-functional regional autonomy for a few months in 1991.
Kalmikia, and Tatarstan can secede as well.
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Militarily wise, Russia is at its weakest since its loss in first Chechnya war.
They just wasted at least 50% of Russia's current standing force on Ukraine, most of which is now stranded in Belarusian woods without supplies, and fuel, or destroyed in Ukraine.
Their bases near Ukraine are now standing empty.
My many contacts in Vladivostok report the same thing: military brass there "is thinking"
That is too calculating. The public responds to emotions, and for better or worse that narrative is being driven by TikTok and Twitter in realtime. Flattened cities, corpses, and streams of refugees will force the western leaders to do something. It won't look good at home in Russia either, which is probably why it hasn't happened (yet).
> I wonder how much he cares about his reputation.
Displaying disregard for reputation, morals, etc. is a common negotiating tactic in everything - in professional business, kids selling baseball cards, interational relations, family squabbles. That's what anger is: A display that you are willing to act out and cross lines.
Don't believe it; it's just a tactic. Ironically, it indicates the opposite to a degree: By making the display, they show that they care about what you think. For professional communicators like Putin (and anyone else in international relations) it's not a mistake:
The Russian government invests enormous effort in their reputation, from their public propaganda to social media disinformation campaigns. It's not at all because they don't care - they care very much. Every government ever needs legitimacy, the consent of the governed, who outnumber the government leaders a million-to-one. (They also need sufficient international relations to trade, to receive essential goods, and not to be destroyed.)
As it is rumored that Putin is actually (aside from the top 13s), the richest person in the world.
He seized all the oligarch's assets for himeself and his cronies, then requires % and payment in every endevour...
Just like Xi...
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I personally thought he was just going after getting eastern Ukraine in order to obtain Odessa for the port.
I'd like to get confirmation on the bombing of the US Biolabs, though.... even though after it was reported that they were bombed, the US removed the documents from the site which talked about the US funding the joint Biolabs
Thankfully all the documents were archived prior :-) [0]
Now I am really unsure where the heck this is heading -- these are some really unprecedented events...
Is it that the world saw that the Bear was actually weak and everyone is turning on Russia because he was not playing along with WEF and the Great Reset?
