In the case that Russia actually collapses as a state ... which is not likely, but cannot be ruled out if they lose this war badly (lost wars are an enormous stress test for authoritarian regimes where the ruler gets all the blame, just look at the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917) ... a lot of territory would be up to grabs.
Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its territorial contiguity.
Various Kavkaz ethnicities could vouch for independence.
Tuva (ironically, where Shoigu comes from) is a Buddhist nation that fits into the Mongol-Chinese cultural sphere better than into Russian one.
Vladivostok used to be a Chinese fishing village once, and the Chinese hate the old Unequal Treaties.
Sakhalin is a part of the Japanese archipelago.
Vyborg (Viipuri) and Pechenga (Petsamo) are formerly Finnish territories and even though the irredentism has subsided, they could still be valuable economically. Vyborg is a major port and Pechenga gives access to the Arctic Ocean. Their reconstruction would be a huge money sink, though. Much like reconstruction of the DDR after reunification of Germany.
This would require military action by Moldova/Georgia/Ukraine because the territories you mention are ethnically different and do not want to be part of those countries to start with.
Abkhazia fought a war in the early 90s to split from Georgia. South Ossetia also fought several wars to become independent. So both those territories might strive to become fully independent but will absolutely refuse to be re-absorbed by Georgia.
Moldovans are actually a minority in Transnistria, which has also seen open tensions since the fall of the USSR.
Lastly, Crimea, which was Russian until 1954, will definitely require a war and ethnic cleansing if Ukraine want to take it again and to keep it.
> This would require military action by Moldova/Georgia/Ukraine because the territories you mention are ethnically different and do not want to be part of those countries to start with.
Curious that, at least in the case of Georgia and Ukraine, those territories only decided they didn't want to be part of their countries when Russian troops rolled in and made totally non-threatening offers.
Well, from the Wiki: "a militia composed of ethnic Georgians who lived in Abkhazia and Russian-backed separatist forces".
Sure, there may be a slice of population that wants to leave but how can that be gouged properly when Russia keeps influencing the people and supplying weapons to separatists? There's a cause and effect here.
The fact is that Abkhazians haven't been fans of the idea of being part of Georgia, even before they were forcibly incorporated into Georgia by the Soviets, and the ethnic strife started before the collapse of the SU, and before the armed conflict (and Russian military assistance) has started. In Spain's Catalonia separatist sentiment can be gauged properly, but does that help with an actual realization of that sentiment? Not much. And that's a highly developed European country, from which Georgia is still very far institutionally, and was even farther in the 90ies.
Crimea could turn into an independent, mostly Russian speaking, fully demilitarized country living off tourism. Possibly joining the EU later.
I bet they would be much richer than today. Being a part of Russia sucks from the economic point of view. IDK if Crimean Russians are so nationalistic that they would rather live in a semi-starved, heavily sanctioned, economically isolated country.
Why can't they remain part of Russia like they historically were (well, I mean since Russia took over form the Tatars, of course) and seem to want?
It's not because Russia has taken Crimea back in a rather cavalier way that they should be split again just to weaken Russia. This can only perpetuate resentment and problems.
Speaking only as an American, I don't think we really know what Crimeans want. Russia isn't well-known for legitimate democratic voting, and the Crimean referendum has never been acknowledged by Western Democracies.
I would not be starkly opposed to Crimean independence, nor even Russian-integration, but in essence it looks like Russia took Crimea and then held a fake referendum to legitimize it.
But the question always goes - where do we draw lines. Should we support the concept of the Confederate States of America seceding from the United States? If California or Texas wanted to secede, should we support it? Wales? Okinawa? Quebec?
How should governments determine actual stake and determination over a specific part of land?
> Should we support the concept of the Confederate States of America seceding from the United States? If California or Texas wanted to secede, should we support it?
Yes. The Tenth Amendment reads, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.' There is no power delegated to the United States by the Constitution to eject states, therefor the power to leave the union is reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Secession was and is perfectly constitutional. The fact that the Confederate States did so for a truly bad reason doesn't change that fact. The right thing would have been to … let them go.
Brexit is a great example of how things should work: a state freely decided to leave a suprastate body, and that body let it.
It's a great example of handling a peaceful exit from a political union, but in terms of maintaining the existence of "The United Kingdom" it remains to be seen. There was no civil war, but it was polarising enough that it could well have lit the fuse that ultimately tears the country apart over time.
Scotland voted against its independence referendum in no small part due to fear-mongering about an independent Scotland being barred from joining the EU. The independence issue was then considered absolutely settled for a generation at least. However post-Brexit that has rightly called this into question, with still strong SNP support Westminster will have to reckon with that soon enough. Irish reunification isn't something I'm too familiar with the intricacies of, but they were pro-EU too and the Irish Sea border doesn't exactly strengthen the unionists case.
Crimea it at least 70% ethnic Russian and was Russian until moved to Ukraine without consultation.
So I think this is a case where Putin's actions did align with what the people actually wanted even if that's too hard for the West to acknowledge publicly (I'm sure that they accept that Crimea is not going back to Ukraine).
So are parts of Ukraine who are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion.
Identity is tricky. Many once ethnic and/or linguistic Russians may choose to identify differently, to be governed differently, and that’s their right. The modern “Russian” ethnicity, as one distinct from e.g. Ukraine, is only a few hundred years old [1].
>So are parts of Ukraine who are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion.
To be pedantic, Ukraine's regular military forces are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion, not parts of Ukraine. Regarding the ethnic and identity composition of Ukraine's military forces -- I have no idea.
> Ukraine's regular military forces are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion, not parts of Ukraine
There is widespread protest and limited insurrection in occupied cities, together with mass enrolment by the population in the military. The Ukrainian people, perhaps more than the state, are repelling this invasion. (In strong alliance with Moscow’s military incompetence.)
> I would not be starkly opposed to Crimean independence, nor even Russian-integration, but in essence it looks like Russia took Crimea and then held a fake referendum to legitimize it.
> But the question always goes - where do we draw lines. Should we support the concept of the Confederate States of America seceding from the United States? If California or Texas wanted to secede, should we support it? Wales? Okinawa? Quebec?
Why drawing a line? It's either you allow everyone to choose their country, or noone. Allowing Crimea but not California, or allowing Kosovo but not Mexico and allowing Slovakia and not Catalonia is the worst solution. Right now, it's completely arbitrary, and this arbitration is what leads to wars and conflicts.
I would say, let them all decide for themselves.
Do you want to allow Ukraine to be independent? Then also allow Donbas republic to be independent of Ukraine, and consequently allow cities in Donbas that wish to stay in Ukraine to secede from Donbas. And even within those cities, allow neighbourhoods that want to stay in Donbas to stay.
Why not, if that's what people want? And that would mean no war. Yes, it may be complex in an administrative way. Who wants to show passport to cross the street and go to the store. Or to cross borders twice when going to work? Or to apply for a work permit? But exactly that complexity would quickly lead to different agreements and territorial rearrangements if people decide it's better for them. Again, why not? If they agree, they can change the state every year or so. If you let people power to decide, they will be more responsible for purely selfish reasons. That's how capitalism works, why not politics?
As soon as you draw a line who can and who can't decide, you are creating a conflict that may or may not lead to war and other atrocities.
Wanted to edit the previous comment, but it won't let me anymore. I usually don't comment about downvotes, but here I'd really like to know the reason?
What is so controversial about giving the right of self-determination to everyone?
If everyone, regardless of the colour, race of gender has equal right, why some people should, and some should not determine if they want to live in one country? You can even choose your gender now, but can't live in an independent state?
Maybe I am missing something obvious. I Would really like a counterargument here instead of simple downvotes.
I didn’t downvote but one glaring issue is that you’re well of the mark here:
> Allowing Crimea but not California, or allowing Kosovo but not Mexico and allowing Slovakia and not Catalonia
Slovakia had a popular recognised referendum and decided to vote for the velvet divorce
Catalonia had an informal referendum that was not legally recognised, but afaik there is still technically a path to do so.
Kosovo - I do not know a great deal about Kosovo.
California can secede and there doesn’t seem to be a huge interest in doing so.
Mexico … idk where you’re going with this one.
But importantly in Crimea the Russian “little green men” showed up, took over, hastily ran a referendum that was very dubious and happened to just coincidentally deliver the result that said exactly what the Russians wanted. It was a fix.
I think you know this though, and that you’re engaging in what’s known as “sealioning” :-)
Thanks for the clarification. In my previous comments, I assumed that everyone should have the right to organize a referendum and show a clear will for the independence, but didn't write the assumption down. And the examples are a bit unrealistic.
> I think you know this though, and that you’re engaging in what’s known as “sealioning” :-)
I learned a new word today. Thanks, although I don't think I'm engaged in it, since I idealistically think that everyone, with the accent to everyone, should have a right of association and disassociation with willing partners, and that our current state system is not the healthiest way of governing humans.
On what basis are you fantasizing about demilitarization of a nuclear state? How would that work? I hate Putin as much as the next person, but nothing will happen to the Russia proper -- they'll start throwing nukes, tactical first, then strategic.
Counties sign such peace treaties when they lose hard enough to start losing their territory proper, or they are forced to capitulate, are occupied. How would a nuclear state lose their territory proper? There were indeed various peace treaties in the past, but not a nuclear state losing their territory proper.
I don't know much about Crimea and its situation but I've spent considerable time in both Abkhazia and Transnistria; I have a number of businesses that I have based out of Tiraspol and Sokhumi. While far from a fan of Russia's interventions in both regions, I have long felt, form talking to as many people as possible in both nations, that the majority (although not necessarily an overwhelming one) support the countries being independent from Tbilisi and Chișinău, respectively.
I'm more than happy to have my priors re-adjusted here.
This is inaccurate information, Russia fought both wars in Georgia, currently Abkhazians and Ossetians are Russian citizens (they grabbed Russian passports as soon as they become available) so they will go back to their motherland Russia, Georgia will re-absorb it's own historical territory.
Looks like you are spreading Russian propaganda in bad faith.
Abkhazians and Ossetians aren't "Russians" ethnically, culturally, or linguistically though. Why would they want to go "back" to Russia (not their homeland)? The whole point of their struggle is ultimately to get their own countries just as other ethnic groups have. They merely accepted Russian aid and citizenship as a way to get out of Georgian rule. Which of course may ultimately be going from the frying pan into the fire.
You are confusing the motivation of Russia (which was indeed to build military bases) with that of the oppressed minorities. Again, these people are not "Russians". They are traditionally Muslim peoples who speak languages completely unrelated to Russian.
There are gazillion of people in Russian federation who are not "Russians" culturally, Abkhazians speak Russian and South Ossetians are invaders into Georgia from North Ossetia which is... Part of Russia.
Also, there are no "oppressed minorities" in Georgia, never was. That would be part of Russian propaganda.
Abkhazians speak Abkhazian (a Circassic language) and Ossetians speak Ossetian (related to Farsi). Sure, many of them may speak Russian too. But so do Georgians. All these areas were part of the Soviet Union which imposed Russian as the standard language. But people still kept their native languages. The point is that these people want to live where they do, speaking their own languages -- they have no desire to go "back" to Russia, but on the other hand they have no desire to be assimilated into Georgian culture either. Why is this so hard to understand?
They speak both, but Abkhazian and Ossetian is dying language, they are Russian citizens and speak Russian first.
Georgian language on other hand is the most widely-spoken of the Kartvelian languages and serves as the literary language or lingua franca for speakers of related language.
Before Soviet Union, it was Georgian territory for thousands of years, South Ossetia - is Russian name, in fact it is named Samachablo, Ossetians migrated there from North Ossetia en masse during Soviet Union times and re-named area to South Ossetia to give it impression as if two Ossetia's where same area.
The point incorrect, Chechens do not desire to go back to Russia and fought war over it, but they lost because Russians committed their genocide.
You can not simply settle somewhere and then want to break-away, Why is this so hard to understand?
Oh so you're saying that Georgia wants to forcibly take those territories and go full ethnic cleansing (That's how I read what you wrote, I'm not trying it on)? If so, they might indeed prefer to have the Russian army around...
I've hosted Ossetians (well, my mother did) back in the days. There is actually a huge diaspora in France, and even when they are deeply religious, they do hate Russia with a passion I've never felt with anyone else. So I'm quite disbelieving this kind of statements, maybe my vision is skewed by my experience.
Is there any particularly strong desire within Abkhazia to return to being part of Georgia proper? I'm sure in the event of a Russian collapse it would likely be reintegrated by Georgia anyway, but my naive understanding was that they'd always considered themselves a distinct people and separate territory and that being allied to Russia was convenient for both (with the Abkhaz being able to largely self-rule on paper at least, and Russia getting a pliant neighbour it can exert a lot of power over and perhaps annex at a future convenient date)
> Lots of countries are obviously positioning themselves to (re-)integrate some territory just in case.
Can anybody confirm this? I haven't seen any state official talking about getting Königsberg or Karelia back. Where has this positioning been hinted? I might have missed something.
I haven't heard an official statement about Kaliningrad either, but I am acquainted with a few MEPs and their assistants, and there is some excited backroom talk about it.
The Kaliningrad exclave is a huge territorial and security headache for the EU.
Germany isn't going to take it back. It already had the chance, I believe, during the 1990s in exchange for a large sum of money but refused. Germany's eastern boundaries are formally set by treaty. Germany does not want jokes about the "return of German revanchism" and "East Prussia". More seriously, Germany would not want to absorb so many Russian speakers.
A small, Russian-speaking nation under EU's influence (and presumably future EU member) would be a good thing for the EU, to show off to the world (and specifically to Russia, as a positive example).
> Vladivostok used to be a Chinese town once, and the Chinese hate the old Unequal Treaties.
Could you provide some links? I would like to learn more about that. As far as I knew until just now the treaties between russia and china aren't all that old and the PRC has no claims on any currently russian land. But I am not well informed about the topic at all.
(After some research: The ROC and freer press were quite unhappy with the treaty and ROC still formally claims those areas if I understand it correctly.)
Overall it is an interesting (albeit very unlikely) scenario, maybe because it reminds me so much of old EU4 matches I had.
I corrected that. Apparently, there was just a fishing village there.
As of March 8, 2022, China has no claims on Russian land, but history shows that if a juicy opportunity turns up, countries start to come up with claims that were previously forgotten.
Yes, this scenario is unlikely. But not beyond reasonable doubt. Multinational empires have imploded and disintegrated before (Tsarist Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire), and a lost war was the usual cause.
Vladivostok/Primorsky Krai is ethnically Russian though. If Russia ceases to exist as a mutli-ethnic empire, it would unlikely be the part that breaks off.
There are many Chinese citizens present in Vladivostok.
I guess that a potential takeover of the territory would look more like the takeover of Tibet in 1950. A fait accompli executed on a very short timeline.
How many? One thousand? Two thousand? According to the 2010 census there were 2446 ethnic Chinese individuals, right behind 4192 Koreans. Let's suppose it's 5000 now. It would still be less than 1%
All this talk about taking over Russian territory is just pure fantasy. Russia, on a liberal / anti-imperialist wave, even in a bankrupt, extremely weakened state could only become kind enough to detach Yakutia, Caucasus, and some other distinctly ethnically different autonomous regions, but it won't allow anything to happen to the ethnically Russian regions, nor these regions themselves could imaginably see themselves separate. Russia would still be a nuclear power, and I doubt the Chinese would risk a world apocalypse for a piece of tundra.
That would have lot of interesting consequences. The big question is what happens to siberian oil.
What happens if western russia gets politically split off from siberia and can't be a petrol state anymore? Who gets the nukes? Can they even keep track of the nukes?
Siberia is enormous and closer to china. An oil rich china sounds scary.
IF the breakup happens (and I personally think this is very unlikely) in the near term it will likely be contracted to oil major that gives highest bribes. Which should be a minor change to the outside world. My 2c.
>Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its territorial contiguity.
EU is not a country and to my knowledge none of the neighbors wants to join that territory. It's quite a poor region with Russian population... Germans effectively left in the late 40s'
>>and to my knowledge none of the neighbors wants to join that territory
Well, let me expand that knowledge then - Poland would love to integrate that bit of land, because currently the fact that the only entrance to the Polish port of Elbląg is controlled by Russia is a major ballache that stops the development of the region, enough so that the Polish government has agreed to spend billions of Polish zlotys to dig a canal that will allow ships to skip going through Russian controlled waters.
Poland has not expressed any wish to integrate that, nor any other territories. I can imagine it getting separated from Russia and even joining the EU at some point, but only as a sovereign entity.
EU is not a country, but it has its own economic and security interests.
The region is poor, but adding a statelet with 1 million people into a union of 450 million is a negligible burden. And local economy is already sort-of semiintegrated with the Lithuanian and the Polish one. There used to be quite a lot of cross border trade in peace times there.
I still can't imagine Lithuania agreeing to have a massive influx of Russians with an open border. In certain regions in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania the population speaks Russian exclusively.
"Germans effectively left in the late 40s" - Germans quickly evacuated in the face of the Red Army, because bad things happened to the ones who didn't.
My father-in-law's family considered themselves very lucky to have had distant relatives in Niedersachsen (West Germany) and to have gotten out of Tilsit (now called Sovetsk) at all. He's never been back.
Kaliningrad is of strategic importance for holding the Suwalki corridor, a.k.a. NATO's most vulnerable choke point. It doesn't matter whether it's poor or not.
I don't know about that. A lot of anti-Brexit folks really seem to have felt loyalty to it the way others feel to their states. It sends ambassadors to other states, so it has its own foreign policy. It doesn't have its own military, yet, but it does have a common defense framework. Seems to me that it is at least a semi-state.
Not a direct reply but I read a fantastic book about post-WW2 Europe that basically argued the wholesale redistribution of populations after the war turn Europe from a mixed, multiethnic set of countries to a group of countries dominated by specific ethnic groups.
Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) being a great example with Germans fleeing/being expelled and replaced by ethnic Russians wholesale.
I am reading Iron Kingdom, a history of Prussia, and was struck by how often it gained and lost territories. After every war (and Prussia fought a lot of wars), it won/lost chunks while also gaining/giving up chunks elsewhere. Silesia, Hanover, Saxony ... the various states that it absorbed/traded lands with are difficult to keep track of. Heck, "Prussia" was originally the term for land east of the original land, centered around Berlin, that the Hohenzollern monarchy ruled; after annexing it the term for that bit of new land somehow became applied to the country as a whole.
The Silesians, Hanoverians, Saxons, etc. all viewed themselves as different people from the Brandenburgs/Prussians and each other. As toyg said, ethnic-based nationalism—viewing themselves as "Germans" and thus deserving a single German nation—is a 19th-century phenomenon; further, the various German states (not excluding Prussia) viewed and suppressed such nationalism as subversive. Mutual cooperation nonetheless grew during the century, notably the customs union.
It's something that really started mid-XIX century, with the emergence of the concept of ethnic-based statehood in France and Prussia. The process continued unabated for about 100 years, until the populations were divided "cleanly enough" in most of the continent. The end of WW2 was just the last chance for big moves in that direction, and some countries grabbed it with both hands.
Obviously the EU is not a country legally but one of the things that makes this invasion into a spectacular geopolitical backfire is that Putin's war in Ukraine seems to have suddenly made the "EU" kick into life over defense.
> lost wars are an enormous stress test for authoritarian regimes where the ruler gets all the blame, just look at the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917
This just brought to mind the idea that it's remarkable that America has weathered at least one and possibly three (depending on the definition of success) lost wars in the past 50 years without severe political consequences: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It wasn't without consequence but it did not cause anything like Russia in 1917 or Germany in the 1930s. The worst we got was a shirtless jackass wearing horns on the Senate podium.
The reason is probably because the average American didn't go hungry because of the loss. Also, Americans are, for all their diversity, fairly mixed and culturally similar.
OTOH, if you commit a behemoth like Austria-Hungary where 40 per cent of the country belongs to disadvantaged minority ethnicities and then you lose the war and the population is reduced to digging roots from the ground and making soups out of leather boots (I am not exaggerating), there isn't any reason to continue the existence of such a structure left. Only fear that the uprising may get you killed, but if the soldiers are demoralized too, they won't shoot.
Just out of curiosity, are there a fair number of democratic countries (outside of the US) deciding to go to war and then lose it ?
On the contrary it looks like democracies have a hard time even deciding to defend themselves, because people will never decide risk a war on their country. And Putin is exploiting just this, IMO.
In the last decades, no. If they enter a war, it is usually because it is forced upon them by an external power.
But many important Western European countries were at least flawed democracies since approximately the last quarter of the 19th century. For example, Italy was a democracy when it launched an abortive attempt to conquer Ethiopia in 1896.
A big part of this is due to them not being military losses. In each engagement the American military closed with and destroyed the enemy repeatedly. The nation building part failed in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Iraq did a bit better in that respect, but it isn't a new Japan.
A quick glance at Tuva specifically on Wiki has an extremely short period of time in Russia’s political sphere. I’m not sure if the predominately Buddhist parts of Russia have that deep of a Russian history.
Well, just look at any US area, and you'll notice an extremely short USA history, compared to the Native American history and population. And yet, not a single person in the USA talks about Native Americans claiming back their historical and cultural territories. Why? The only reason that comes to mind is Native Americans being effectively extinguished by the USA, while Buddhists/Mongols in Russia are integrated and accepted as a part of the society.
I wouldn't count on it. It may have been possible in the past that a failing empire implodes and let the incumbents grab their parts around, but today, it may be very dangerous.
I don't think Russia is even unique here, all major nuclear powers, that have an ability to destroy the whole humankind multiple times, would rather see the whole humanity disappearing, then only their empire collapsing.
Russia, as any empire can be dissolved only from within, by the wish of Russian people. But that's dangerous too, since instead of one nuclear power, we would end up with 5, 6 nuclear powers all having the ability to destroy the whole world.
Let's not forget all the territories Russia invaded and currently occupy: Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Easter Ukraine and Crimea in Ukraine, Transnistria in Moldova and so on.
According to a video I found linked on another thread (https://youtu.be/b4wRdoWpw0w?t=119) Russia has moved around 75% of its principal combat units to the Ukraine border. The Ukraine invasion appears to be using a significant portion of their conventional military power.
They are using the fraction of their power that they are capable of supporting and supplying, and that is not needed to guard their long borders and coast.
Five million reservists called up into barracks are useless if you cannot transport them into the theater and keep them supplied.
We are using our aviation too accurate for conventional war. As result, we've lost some (2..4) of our decent aircrafts. What supply chains do we need to use more (not ~15) bombers on higher altitudes, e.g. sacrificing precision for being protected from almost-dead Ukrainian ADS ("Buk"s or Stingers, maybe some S-300 near Kyiv)?
AFAIK, they are resupplied with Stinger ADS only, if you know more, pls tell me.
Yesterday we lost 1 aircraft in Kharkiv, which was bombing on terribly low altitude to preserve precision.
Two days ago we lost one AC in Chernigyv, same situation here.
Oryx reports 11 lost aircrafts during war, there are some listed whose nobody can prove (IMO about a half). Im not telling you that its a fake, but that resource definitely sometimes agrees with official Kyiv information.
I guess it depends on how you define "losing". I don't see any scenario where Russia actually "wins". Thus, in turn, I think it's ok to say they will definitely lose this.
This will very likely end by both parties pronouncing they are the victors here.
For Ukraine the victory might be that Russia will most likely be unable to take Kiev and need to "withdraw" closer to their own borders i.e. the victory is not submitting in the "heroic" sense. However with a staggering economic loss and loss of life (including the refugees that might never return).
For Russia their victory will be claiming they "secured" the 2 rebel republics/Crimea. Also at a staggering loss - some of it army but mostly incredible economic sanctions. It remains to be seen if Putins regime will be able to survive that in the long run.
In terms of the classical definition I guess you could call it a stalemate - don't see how either of them can win - everybody loses. Who loses less - arguably I'd say economic sanctions still do not hurt as much as the decades Ukraine will need to rebuild. And Russia still has a huge amount of natural resources that others need and are willing to pay for.
I don't doubt that once this is over, the US and the EU will launch a generous reconstruction plan. Ukraine may end up with much better infrastructure in place of the destroyed one.
This could be financed from seized oligarchs' wealth. No need to spend taxpayer money. And Western construction companies will like those contracts, doubly so after Covid.
Way more than a fraction. The true proportion? I have no idea, but the losses seem to be way too high for this to be just a few guys who were sent to Ukraine for a laugh.
Some of those losses are the Russian military revealing itself to be incompetent and quasi-unequipped, but the number of losses is just too high.
They are already using 100% of the forces they originally lined up on the Ukraine border.
This appears to be something like 75% of their total operational power, with obvious, serious problems, like relying on civilian GPS, being evidently wholly unprepared for the mud, the fact that there's no comms chain back so they rely on Ukrainian comms networks staying up, the lack of a supply chain, the fact that the domestic population is finally catching on to the fact that Putin is illegally using his conscripts on the front line, the consequent astonishing rate of desertion from an army who weren't told they were invading until they crossed the border to "keep peace", the death of two generals, more aircraft losses than they expected, etc.
It's quite a big fraction of their power and what is very striking is that they appear unable to fully support it
The only people really surprised by this attack appear to be essentially all ranks of the Russian army -- an army spoiled by corruption and grift.
The bigger question is which ends first? The war, or Putin?
When I was at the military we "learned" that encrypted communication makes no sense when the transmitted content effects events no longer than half a day into the future as the opponent cannot take effective countermeasures anyway.
The Russians confirmed the death of air-force general Andrei Sukhovetsky. The Ukrainians claim to also have killed army major general Vitaly Gerasimov.
>> The intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defence ministry said Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of the 41st Army, had been killed outside the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, along with other senior officers.
>> Andrei Sukhovetsky was the commanding general of the Russian 7th Airborne Division and a deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army, and by far the most senior Russian figure to have died in the conflict so far.
>> Mr Putin confirmed that a general had been killed in a speech updating the Russian people on the progress of the conflict, eight days into the deadly invasion.
You are either misinformed or lying. Even relying on Russian sources it is clear that they have a substantial commitment in Ukraine. Trying to label it as a tiny fraction is honestly ridiculous.
What is happening is quite opposite to what you propose.
NATO will increasingly be seen as an ineffective formulation for security of Europe as it has been demonstrated by Russia to Europeans. (The choices [it affords] are roll over or start a nuclear war. That's not a 'security' framework.) Sovereign European states will definitely (re)consider reaching 1-to-1, direct, security and treaty arrangements with Russia. Some may object to my prognosis here, and we'll soon find out after the Baltic States matter takes center stage. (Yes, imo Ukraine will surrender and accept terms.) NATO may actually go the way of Warsaw Pact sooner than you think.
US Dollar dominance has been, apparently by US itself, dealt a fatal blow. UK's ill-gotten "oligarch" wealth safe kitty has also suffered. The Swiss too pissed on their neutrality. Powerful entities and individuals will be seeking alternative safe havens. What many Americans fail to recognize is that US Dollar dominance is what permits this nation to manage stupendous levels of debt. What they also fail to recognize is that non-American elite in US orbit were OK with the political arrangements as long as they got to get a cut of the global financial arrangement and lived in "security", but being forbidden to invest in other countries and a rapidly shrinking non-sanctioned global pie is most certainly affecting these long standing calculations.
The intelligence services of the West have also suffered a huge blow. They still have no idea of where this will stop as far as Russia is concerned, and far more importantly, US apparently has NO IDEA as to the level of agreement between China and Russia. They keep probing and asking. No one knows! Yesterday there was literally a flurry of articles in WSJ, FT, Asiatimes, etc. directly addressing China. Asiatimes did its best to put the fear of being cutoff from EU in top article.
Biggest losers in all this will be us little people in every country. Heavy handed security posture by states, surveillance, economic stress, and even greater jingoistic media in guise of "journalism" will be the order of the day. Looks like the 1984 vision was ultimately chosen over Brave New World.
You're not saying things that make sense to me. The only currency that has depreciated lately is the Ruble and the Lira (4x that of the 3rd place). So to say that USD has suffered a "fatal blow", sounds to me like propaganda, either by being convinced by it, or generating it. It should be easy enough to look at this data for yourself.
When nations are forced to trade around Dollar sanctions for strategic resources that they need, they will use alternative currencies and alternative trade and financial mechanisms. I said nothing about the Ruble, which is a local national currency. We're discussing global reserve currency and mechanisms for global trade.
> propaganda, either by being convinced by it, or generating it
A rather cheap shot. You prove my final point about even greater pressures coming to bear on free speech and exchange of ideas.
I mean. By all means, explain further what is meant by "death blow", and how that somehow applies to the currency used by the global market. The rest of the world will be able to trade just fine, as far as currency exchange is concerned. The only issue is for those who have halved their buying power.
The the rest of the world clearly disagrees with your assessment, as if they did not, it would be reflected in the evaluation of the USD.
What it doesn't mean is a "collapse", which is how you are framing it. It won't be overnight. I assume you are a fellow geek so picture moving a huge infrastructure off of AWS and/or going "multi-cloud". It's not a switch that you flip and definitely not something upper management would want unless AWS keeps crashing and its fabled SLAs don't hold up. Assurances.
Entire supply chains (and everything that goes to make such things happen between nations and international corporations) have substantial inertia built in and will require adjustments. My prognosis is a terminal trajectory ("death blow") unless Russia collapses first, which would then force the hand of China, India, and the rest of fence sitters (which also include Mexico, Brazil, Israel, UAE, KSA, btw.)
"unless Russia collapses first". Yes, that is the very likely outcome indeed.
You are aware that the GDP of Russia is less than that of several individual European countries? And I mean individual. Germany alone has twice the GDP. You are woefully overestimating the Russian economy in the first place.
I know little about Russian economy but note that when sanctions were announced some in this forum were predicting Ruble going to 0 within a day. That said, my thoughts on this have factored in a limited time window for Russian Federation. A lot hinges on how the situation in Ukraine is finalized. Will UN mechanisms like JCPOA, UN peacekeepers, lifting of sanctions etc. be on the table? All TBD. US will prefer a long enough period to deploy conventional defenses. Russia a bit less, but long enough for it to address the giant holes in its economy.
But the global economic picture really requires understanding of how China decides to act. People tend to view the world according to their own civilizational context, so for example, the Western geopolitical analysis du jour posits a “Thucydides‘s Trap” vis a viz US and China. Chinese, on the other hand, have their own ready and applicable historic paradigms to apply to the global order. The ‘Three Kingdoms’ period of Chinese history is how the Chinese view the world. You will also need to understand that the fabled Chinese “century of humiliation” includes Russians in the list of offending nations. It’s a complex and subtle calculus for the Chinese leadership and having a very aggressive and successful RF on their border is not entirely in their interest in the long term. [but p.s. going “multi-cloud” definitely is what they want.]
I'm just confused. I feel like I'm having a conversation with a cnn text generator. Neither half makes much sense, and the latter half isn't contextually relevant.
Point to the "some in this forum were predicting Ruble going to 0 within a day". I don't buy it for a second. Or, I'm sure someone could have said it, but that too would be ridiculous. And, what is your point? Like, you said that the USD received a "death blow", which is bonkers. It makes zero sense in the global scale of things. And you can verify all of it. The index has had no short term negative effect, and the longer trend is still rising. That was the discussion. Some kind of ridiculous talking point about the dollar being unstable. I was keen to hear your thoughts regardless.
What I instead get is impressively, a complete board of geopolitics bullshit-bingo in a couple of sentences:
"civilizational context", "du jour posits a “Thucydides‘s Trap”", "ready and applicable historic paradigms", "global order", "‘Three Kingdoms’ period of Chinese history", "complex and subtle calculus for the Chinese leadership"
What on earth are you talking about? From your post history, it seemed like you were very interested in Russian economy, and Putin for that matter. Which is why I mentioned the Ruble. As for the other ramblings, if it wasn't auto generated, I don't know how that is relevant to anything. But, you do you.
Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its territorial contiguity.
Various Kavkaz ethnicities could vouch for independence.
Tuva (ironically, where Shoigu comes from) is a Buddhist nation that fits into the Mongol-Chinese cultural sphere better than into Russian one.
Vladivostok used to be a Chinese fishing village once, and the Chinese hate the old Unequal Treaties.
Sakhalin is a part of the Japanese archipelago.
Vyborg (Viipuri) and Pechenga (Petsamo) are formerly Finnish territories and even though the irredentism has subsided, they could still be valuable economically. Vyborg is a major port and Pechenga gives access to the Arctic Ocean. Their reconstruction would be a huge money sink, though. Much like reconstruction of the DDR after reunification of Germany.