The United States(!) of A
How does this reflect poorly on Zelensky? He was obviously bullied by a narcissist asshole who abused his power for personal political games.
Okay, looking bad and hypocritical for some US citizens/politicians. Still not sure what's it got to do with Zelensky fighting the Russians within the last week or so?
flollo wrote:Okay, looking bad and hypocritical for some US citizens/politicians. Still not sure what's it got to do with Zelensky fighting the Russians within the last week or so?
The point of the initial post was purely trump supporter hypocrisy I imagine, not Zelensky.
Good friend of mine in Germany, her and her boyfriend have been fixing up their camper for weeks to head to the French coast. Had it ready yesterday and started driving for France. A snap decision and next minute they're driving towards the Ukraine to deliver supplies to those fleeing. The authorities told them to turn back, it's too early to do that as they're not prepared logistically to accept so many donations, however, so good to know that there's literally millions like these guys looking out for each other over there.
"The point of the initial post was purely trump supporter hypocrisy I imagine, not Zelensky."
of course it was... and aside from being ridiculous... its a can of worms ya really dont want to open....
but some just can't let it go, even though he's gone gone gone... the big t, living rent free...
again...
still!
tds
Listened to this on Podcast today interesting take on things from a Russian born Englishman
good germans...
as Im wondering... what's germany's fuckung story?
resisted the swift sanctions thingy, again and again, ...until their resistence became incredibly lonely and unbeareble...
now EU supplying finances for weapons to ukraine... after germany belatedly... finally... come on board...
about 4 days too late... or 4 weeks... or more...
gsco copped a berating for his comments the other day, but he was right... so many fails of various systems have lead to this shitshow
Was thinking the same re. Germany @sypkan, but i don't completely understand the situation to know the why's except for the gas situation i'm guessing.
Oh and my friend is about as un-German as a German gets! Definitely more like an Aussie.
it's all about money bluediamond
and a reluctance to accept you put all your eggs in a stinking basket of corruption and contradictions...
not just the gas, apparently german banks lend billions to russians, which kinda needs the swift system too
seems germany economy about to take a major hit
heard of it, but have no interest at all... because its not my world at all...
so no idea whats going down
but yeh, you're right, he's not gone gone gone technically....
because you guys just a keep a willing on his return
you really cannot help it
sad
just sad
"Oh and my friend is about as un-German as a German gets! Definitely more like an Aussie"
Austrian?
haha. Nice one Zen!
"There are no kangaroos in Austria." Say it in your best Arnie voice.
Econ sanctions: I think etarip asked that one: honestly the stats were really good in the article linked. Further news of interest in the last few days: if the EU and Japan froze their Russian overseas holdings, that's about half of them. A huge amount. Moscow stockmarket said it would open at 10 today, further put back to 3pm. 3-4 would be an intense day's session. It was predicted to fall hard, rouble has fallen precipitously, Russia has banned foreign asset holders from redeeming - basically, shitshow. The old adage "if you can't hold it in your hand now, do you really own it?"
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1498137793003929601
Other things of interest:
It appears the invasion is not going well. Air superiority has not been achieved? Armour is looking very vulnerable to handheld missiles.
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-fight-for-ukraine?utm_campaign=post&utm_...
This was also interesting:
The tankers are leaving. And nothing coming to replace them. pic.twitter.com/D5wS7hBYtu
— Evergreen Intel (@vcdgf555) February 28, 2022
I guess it would be nervous being a tanker pilot over Poland about now. Turn off the transponder and hit the deck if things get hectic.
Potential aftermath in Russia, and before the quote, I will note most of the tweets/news I am seeing are from the Western/pro Ukranian side at present. It will be difficult establishing reality from this alone. That Russian forces have advanced, shows they have taken ground. It's bizarre seeing very young Russian men whose tanks have run out of fuel, being offered lifts home by joking Ukranian drivers; or stopped and turned around by villagers - a much nicer way to end this, one where the young Russians survive, too. Anyway, here's history again:
"Russia's problems multiplied. Admiral Rozhdestvensky's fleet was destroyed in the Strait of Tsushima on May 27, 1905, (VJ note: there's a tragic/tragicomic tale...) and a peace treaty with Japan was made at Portsmouth, New Hampshire under the eye of President Theodore Rooseveldt. Protests against the mismanagement of the war swept across the country. Troops fired on a crowd marching to the Winter Palace with a petition for the Tsar; by mid-October, the nation was paralyzed by a general strike. On October 30, Tsar Nicholas II issued an Imperial Manifesto, transforming Russia from an autocracy into a semiconstitutional monarchy. The principal embodiment of the change was to be an elected parliament, the Duma."
That's Massie, "Dreadnought," pp 596-7. A great book.
For a war in the Information Age, there’s certainly a lot of fog.
Great bit of analysis, Twitter format is a bit hard to read and I hope he puts it on sub stack or a thread reader, but it’s way more insightful than most of the clickbait that’s on the main news sources.
Why Russia will lose this war?
— Kamil Galeev (@kamilkazani) February 27, 2022
Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's *guaranteed*. But how do we know it is?
I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political goals🧵 pic.twitter.com/pXpfIcq3Zs
Thanks Eta, and this also..
Long thread about how I think the first 96 hours have gone, still very early/incomplete impressions. The initial Russian operation was premised on terrible assumptions about Ukraine’s ability & will to fight, and an unworkable concept of operations. Moscow badly miscalculated. 1/
— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 28, 2022
When Hungary and Turkey criticise your invasion…friends not friends.
Trust your mechanic. And boycott.
https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1055929...
And
Abc news
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-28/dan-murphys-bws-russian-products-...
Ignore that it the shitty DM. The story is real, I would not like to have these thugs after me. Scary times for the Ukraine leader and his family. Hopefully some crack guys are there helping to protect him. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10562321/Squad-tasked-assassina...
Roadkill wrote:Ignore that it the shitty DM. The story is real, I would not like to have these thugs after me. Scary times for the Ukraine leader and his family. Hopefully some crack guys are there helping to protect him. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10562321/Squad-tasked-assassina...
Horrifying.....
Russian forays into (for them) atypical operational methodology are over.
They’re going back to what they know. Starting up the meat-grinder. This is going to get ugly. Real ugly.
Yes, you also have this psychopath pushing for it.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ramzan-kadyrov-russia-too-slow-in-ukrain...
Wow, I'm not sure if this article has already been linked but back in 2014 John Mearsheimer seems to have predicted exactly what is happening right now in Ukraine. It seems that everything he said has come true. He even provided a way to avoid the current situation, but his suggestion was ignored: Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault. A fascinating read, unbelievable that he predicted things so accurately.
gsco wrote:Wow, I'm not sure if this article has already been linked but back in 2014 John Mearsheimer seems to have predicted exactly what is happening right now in Ukraine. It seems that everything he said has come true. He even provided a way to avoid the current situation, but his suggestion was ignored: Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault. A fascinating read, unbelievable that he predicted things so accurately.
Yeah watched that several times. I agree with the analysis for back then however, he had made some serious miscalculations on the whole situation. For example, in this interview from 15/2/22 so just 2 weeks ago on the question of will Putin invade Ukraine he answered (30:51 mark):
"he has no intention to invade Ukraine and there are 2 reasons for that: Cost and benefits. On the cost, if he invaded Ukraine he would own it, he would be an occupier. As he surely knows, if you occupy the country in the modern world it invariably leads to huge resistance and all sorts of trouble. Putin is surely smart enough to know that invading Ukraine and owning it would be a prescription for huge trouble..."
Well, what happened is quite the opposite. Putin is definitely not that smart and he's showing that he's not just keen on protecting separatists in Donbass but destroying the state of Ukraine from multiple directions, even attacking Kyiev through Belarus, a separate sovereign state. Many have miscalculated his intent to start a full-scale war and thought that he would not take this terrible step. It's coming to the point where mercenaries are on a mission to assassinate the Ukrainian president and his family (if this report is true - https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-orders-mercenaries-assassinate-uk...). That's just sick.
You should listen to the whole interview as I just shared a snippet, I fully agree with him in 90% of what he says. However, one remark I have is that he is sharing insights through the lens of US/allies' foreign policy and saying what they should/shouldn't do. There is very little about what Ukrainian people actually want. That's the part I am personally trying to get to. They always expressed the desire to join the EU and I am personally supportive of that. I truly believe in the EU, it is one of the most amazing projects in human history and at the end of the day, you cannot join unless it passes on the referendum. So get people into a position to hold a referendum so they can decide for themselves.
thanks for the video flollo, I hadn't seen it yet and I'll get a chance to watch it in full tomorrow.
One thing off the top of my head is this comment:
"he has no intention to invade Ukraine and there are 2 reasons for that: Cost and benefits. On the cost, if he invaded Ukraine he would own it, he would be an occupier. As he surely knows, if you occupy the country in the modern world it invariably leads to huge resistance and all sorts of trouble. Putin is surely smart enough to know that invading Ukraine and owning it would be a prescription for huge trouble..."
I'm still not sure if Putin actually intends to invade and own/control/occupy Ukraine. It definitely seems that he's interested in demilitarising it and regime change (well this is just his same demands for the past decade or so).
But he hasn't gone in heavy yet. Although everyone seems to say he has underestimated Ukraine and is not moving as fast as expected etc, it seems that a possible scenario is he has done this intentionally to show he's serious but give Ukraine/the West a chance to negotiate and compromise?
So in this sense John Mearsheimer may be roughly correct except in his use of the word invade.
My main concern is that the same patterns of behaviour that have occurred over the past 10 years or so are just repeating themselves again, in terms of Putin repeating the same demands and Ukraine/the West flat dismissing them and not compromising and further beefing up NATO's and Ukraine's militaries (and all the sanctions and asset freezes etc), which then enrages Putin and causes him to take military action...
It seems like no-one is learning the lessons. Repeated demands...flat dismissal...military buildup...Russian military action...sanctions...Western military action...what's next? When/how is this repeated pattern of behaviour going to end? Who's going to budge and at what cost?
gsco, have you read any of the stuff I’ve posted from Kamil Galeev?
I know that you’re very critical of Western views of China, so am very interested in your critique of Kamil’s perspectives.
Also: “It definitely seems that he's interested in demilitarising it and regime change (well this is just his same demands for the past decade or so)”
Explain to me again how this is Putin’s god-given right to demand that a sovereign nation accede to these demands? And then, if these completely unreasonable expectations aren’t met, to invade said country?
If he hasn’t invaded it, what has he done? And if he intends to change the government to one that is subservient to his will, doesn’t he de facto ‘occupy and own’ it?
I’m seriously struggling to follow your logic here.
Finally, I think there’s an element of brinksmanship and provocation in Putin’s actions now. After dismissing the opportunity for negotiations numerous times, he’s almost ratcheting up the actions to raise a direct response / reaction from NATO.
Etarip I think you’re misunderstanding me.
I’m not making judgement on whether it’s his god given right or about any of his actions, or whether his demands are reasonable, etc.
I’m just trying to understand the chain of events, decisions, reasons and actions etc of the major players involved that led to this situation.
Of course the other thing he might also be intending to do to Ukraine is if he can’t have it then decimate It so there is no Ukraine for anyone to have. (But lots of people are speculating about that as well, not my original idea..)
Gsco, I follow you now. I just think there’s a danger in ascribing some basis to his demands as a justification for war. I think he’s prepared to decimate Ukraine rather than lose it. The old Vietnam adage: we had to destroy the village to save it… on a national scale.
Is that OK?
Have you read any of the articles?
This is pretty good. I’ve skim read it initially. Will reread it again tonight.
Cool. Yes been reading everything you’ve been posting and finding it very useful.
All I know is Europe needs a circuit breaker asap.
If you want, and you can read Russian (or you have google translate…), then you can go the source.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220226051154/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossi...
We’ll, actually, you can’t go to the source because it’s been deleted off the website of RIA, a Russian state-owned newspaper, after it was published by accident immediately after the invasion on 26 February. Perhaps this was based on an expectation that Putin’s ‘Special Operation’ had worked and that Ukraine had folded. But they didn’t.
As the BBC described it: “The article, published by the state-owned RIA-Novosti news agency on Saturday (26 February) and described by Christo Grozev of fact-checkers Bellingcat as "extremely shocking, even for Kremlin standards", was quickly deleted from its website.”
Now, I get that you might not want read it, and you might prefer a western perspective, but this is literally Russian state media, from the article. Here’s a taste:
“Now there is no problem - Ukraine has returned to Russia. This does not mean that its statehood will be eliminated, but it will be rebuilt, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world. Within what borders, in what form will the alliance with Russia be fixed? This will be solved after the end of the history of Ukraine as anti-Russia is put. In any case, the period of split of the Russian people is coming to an end. And this is where the second dimension of the coming new era begins - it concerns Russia's relations with the West. Not even Russia, but the Russian world, that is, three states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, acting in geopolitical terms as a whole. These relations have entered a new stage - the West sees Russia's return to its historical borders in Europe”
So, this has less to do with Russian security as it does about re-establishing a Russian empire. Against the will of the Ukrainians, mind you, and screw their national self-determination. Because y’know, who doesn’t want to “ be rebuilt, re-established and returned to its natural state of part of the Russian world.”
(Here’s the tip: the Ukrainian people!)
So, is this an example of Western propaganda, or is it an articulation of a Maximalist foreign policy?
Ref Europe: I’ve said it a few pages back. This has less to do with the binary US/Russia lens that is often presented. The Europeans are shitting themselves about Putin. There’s more unity in Europe than there has been for years. They’ve grown cojones. Putin’s actions have, on that metric, been completely counterproductive.
And sorry to labour the point, but from the same article, the following quote pretty much makes a mockery of the ‘security’ angle that Putin’s been stressing. (** and Capitals are mine for emphasis)
“After all, the need to solve it would always remain the main problem for Russia - for two key reasons. **And the issue of national security, that is, the creation of anti-Russia from Ukraine and an outpost to put pressure on us in the West, IS ONLY THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT among them.**”
The first? Re-establishment of the Russian Empire. Russians and ‘little Russians’ (ie, Belarusians and Ukrainians). Their words, not mine. I mean, who DOESN’T want to be a ‘little Russian’. Sounds fkn grouse hey!
@etarip Some great insights in the stuff you shared.
This epic speech from Kenya’s ambassador to UN sums it perfectly!
https://m.
this article is almost a bit dated in this fast moving moment, and 'woke' gets a hamnering, so sorry about that... but it does seem to make some good points, many already mentioned pages above, all compiled together here...
"The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked,” said John Mearsheimer, about Ukraine’s push towards NATO and non-neutrality. And at the time of writing, Ukraine is indeed getting wrecked. The dies were cast, Dnieper was crossed, and the post-Cold War order shattered due to a mix of idealism, woke politics, and a misguided sense of history. A great power’s massed forces entered without direct provocation and crossed the borders of a sovereign neighbor in a declared act of war. History’s march isn’t inherently progressive, and time can be turned back by sheer force.
As Michael Kofman wrote recently, Russian forces will not focus too much on air assaults, and a majority of Russian firepower is concentrated on a ground push, compared to the Western way of war. There’s a certain truth to that, as I noted during the intervention in Syria. The Russian bombing campaign that started last night was far more concentrated and targeted than the relentless Shock and Awe against Iraq that one observed in 2003. Russians use their airpower economically, given their limited supply of smart bombs. That does not mean that Russia will not have air superiority, far from it, but that Russian forces will prefer to capture important entry points and then push armor columns in various axes. At the time of writing, Russian paratroopers are battling for airports, and after a night of missile strikes, Russian armor has started moving in from Belarus, next to Kharkiv, and from the south, trying to connect and then cut off Kyiv. Kyiv will likely fall soon....
...because Russians know they won’t face any anti-air fire. It’s unthinkable that Russians will use Su-25s against a hypothetical Western force, and it is equally unthinkable why Ukrainians were not given anti-air weaponry in preparation for an insurgency...
...Given that this momentous epoch-defining event will result in chaotic noise, it is time to consider some hard truths. First of all, anyone who talks about the need for a no-fly-zone (NFZ), or armed support to Ukraine, or cover to support refugees and shoot down Russian jets, does not understand the realities of power distribution, “escalation dominance,” and the most important lesson of Cold War—avoiding Mutually Assured Destruction. A complete dilution of international relations schools and studies with nonsensical theoretical frameworks in the last forty years resulted in this fake expertise and the “experts” who led to this. Anyone who is suggesting such a course of action doesn't have the patience, restraint, and wisdom of previous generations; lacks independent thought; and is opposed to the majority of the American public and the will of the nation...
...Great powers don't go to war with nuclear rivals—that is the key to surviving in modern international relations. But, in the last few days, we have seen current British ministers of parliament and former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense argue for a NFZ which will result in a shooting match with a nuclear rival.
It is unbelievable to ponder how close these guys are to power and matters of war and nuclear conflict. In an incredibly dangerous era, great power cannot afford hyper-emotional juveniles. Bad theories, the university to NGO pipeline, Critical Race Theory and toxic social programs in the military, that led to such fake expertise, must be reversed in an era of great power competition. Second, Putin isn’t a mad man. Rational choices give competing policy suggestions, based on miscalculations...
...Third, the most powerful country in Mittel Europa has essentially neutered itself, and Europe. Every time anyone talks about Germany being pacifist due to the legacy of World War II, they should be reminded that Germany had twelve divisions up until 1989. The reason Germany does not pay more for defense is because its frontiers moved east and are guarded by others. Those days are gone. The era of peace is over. Hard power is in, soft theories are out. Gazillions spent in universities should be rechanneled to research on deterrence and military. If this invasion does not lead to Europeans paying for their own defense and increasing hard power, then the future is going to be dark. America cannot take the security burden of both the Atlantic and Pacific, with a rich continent doing nothing for its own security. And a Chinese war or invasion in Asia is going to be far more brutal, and soon China might force that choice of which theatre to prioritize on the United States..."
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine-demands-transatlantic-cours...
...if,
'...Great powers don't go to war with nuclear rivals...'
...it raises the question... what the hell do you do when a nuclear power acts so ruthlessly and immorally?
putin has certainly messed up what was the contemporary considered 'norms'
Interesting thoughts on the defence of liberal democracy in Ukraine’s fight to take its place in the liberal international order.
"On October 25, 1956 President Dwight Eisenhower gave a campaign address to cheering supporters in Madison Square Garden in New York City. He defended his time in office, he attacked the Democrats, and he devoted half a vague sentence to the topic of eastern Europe. America, he said, would never forget the people of Poland and Hungary. And that was it.
Which would have been fine, were it not for the fact that a day earlier 30,000 Red Army troops and 1,000 tanks had entered Hungary. Hungarian citizens were fighting them in the streets with rifles and Molotov cocktails. Eventually Moscow would order Operation Whirlwind, bomb Budapest, kill 2,000 Hungarians, occupy the country’s parliament and arrest, and eventually execute, Hungary’s reformist leader.
The West, in any case preoccupied by the Suez crisis, decided there was nothing it could do. Two weeks after it was all over, Eisenhower told a press conference that he didn’t recommend armed revolt by people against “force over which they could not possibly prevail”.
There seem to be two lessons from this miserable episode. The first is a sobering one. Eisenhower saw what happened in Hungary as one part of a longer war. The United States would be committed to the security of Europe but would not risk a hot war and a nuclear confrontation over countries within what it had conceded was the Soviet sphere of influence. It took almost 35 more years for Cold War policies to help liberate Hungary.
The second is that fears that the West is now so demoralised and “woke” and decadent that it cannot respond to a challenge are misplaced. The West has been far tougher, more united, less distracted, better able to see what is at stake than it was in 1956. And less willing to wait 35 years.
We will need this resolve. It has been said that Vladimir Putin has started a war he doesn’t know how to finish. But this has implications for us, too. It means that today’s battle for Ukrainian cities is just a skirmish in a long war, and one that will require sacrifices and an attention span greater than a few news cycles.
We will need a patient strategy. A direct military engagement with the Russians threatens a nuclear conflict. That is what we would be risking if we tried to end Russia’s invasion through imposing a so-called no fly zone. And there is no point pretending otherwise. But not doing that will mean a lengthy campaign of containment and resistance.
Through it we will have to maintain a strong sense of who we are and what we stand for. We must resist Putin’s autocracy with self-confidence about the principles we are defending.
This war is a rebuke to those people who think that western liberal democracy is so flawed as to be almost worthless. This is a view held on the left by those who argue that its institutions are corrupt and inequitable, and its instincts imperialist. Yet in Ukraine people are dying to advance the dream of being a western liberal democracy, which they correctly see as liberation.
The skeptical view, however, is also held by some on the right. They see liberal democracy as having been fatally weakened by overindulgence. When the head of MI6 posted his support for LGBT+ history month, it was regarded as a preposterous thing to be doing in the week of Putin’s attack. What better example could there be of the triviality and self-absorption of the modern West?
This criticism shows ignorance about the past and present. Homophobia has repeatedly proven a serious security threat to this country, as it left those guarding our secrets open to blackmail. And we are now facing an enemy who despises precisely the modern civic equality that the MI6 statement represented. On both grounds the post was entirely appropriate.
It is Putin’s argument that our tolerance and openness make us weak and vulnerable. We must robustly respond that we are proud of our openness and modernity and his failure to embrace that will ultimately be his downfall.
Ukraine is a society in which there is still a great deal of prejudice of all sorts but its leadership understands in which direction progress lies. It knows what it wants for its future, even though it isn’t there yet.
The war is also a rebuke to those people who argue that commitment to national identity is always, and everywhere, reactionary and backward looking. Those who dislike the waving of the Union Jack should reflect that when, over these last few days, we wished to demonstrate our support for peace and resistance and democracy we waved the flag of Ukraine or wore its colours. Defending the integrity and independence of Ukraine has been the cause around which President Zelensky has united his people and rallied world opinion. National feeling can be a powerful liberalising force.
Yet what the Ukrainians are fighting for is not simply national independence. It is for an independent Ukraine to take its full part in the liberal international order. Its government wants membership of the European Union and of Nato. Victory in the long war against Putin must involve strengthening international institutions and the rule of law.
The war is a rebuke to those who think that national pride and solidarity are embarrassing. But it is also a reminder about the power of truth and of rigorous honesty about history.
When I visited Ukraine last autumn I was involved in many discussions, both formal and informal, about its troubled history. Its relationship with Poland, its past under the Nazis and its experience as part of the Soviet Union. Some of these conversations were very difficult for the Ukrainians. They involved accepting the truth about the involvement of the Ukrainian people in collaboration and mass murder.
Yet there was an understanding that the progress of the country, its future as a modern nation, depended on having these discussions and learning from them.
Putin rejects that discussion. His war is about rewriting history, allocating crimes to everyone else save the Russians. He even blames the Poles for Stalin’s invasion of Poland. He gives long speeches which skip lightly over hundreds of years of inconvenient history. He overlooks the story of Ukrainian nationalism, except where he feels he can blame it for the Nazis.
An open, truthful discussion of history would be a disaster for him. And it must be part of our ideological war with him and other autocracies. But it cannot be unless we are honest and unafraid about confronting our own history. We are entitled to pride in our nation, to celebration of our achievements, even to enjoyment of our national myths. But only if accompanied by the frankness we demand from others.
In the war that Putin has started, he must discover that the light of western liberalism has not gone out."
Some good discussion points gents. Keep them coming.
flollo wrote:@etarip Some great insights in the stuff you shared.
This epic speech from Kenya’s ambassador to UN sums it perfectly!
Such a good speech, and love that baritone delivery!
It seems that Putin is not going to back down and is willing to go all the way with this one.
I can't help but think that there is still a very easy way to end this conflict, and that the current reaction of the US/EU/NATO (the "West") is not working.
The West is posturing up militarily, imposing sanctions and asset freezes etc to crush Russia (and its people) and ostracise it from the world, providing military to Ukraine, talking about no-fly zones, etc. Is this only dangerously escalating things and further enraging Putin? Will it only lead to an unimaginable conflict and the complete destruction of Ukraine? Also, is Zelenskyy's actions and calls to the West extremely dangerous and badly inflaming things too?
What's wrong with the idea of actually negotiating with Putin, compromising with him, and basically letting him have his way somewhat here with Ukraine by establishing a demilitarised state unaligned with the US and NATO, in the interests of immediately defusing the situation, preventing the complete decimation of Ukraine, and then playing the patient long game of undermining Putin and Russia in the usual way that the West does with all kinds of other regimes and nations?
Is it now simply time for realism and pragmatism?
gsco wrote:It seems that Putin is not going to back down and is willing to go all the way with this one.
I can't help but think that there is still a very easy way to end this conflict, and that the current reaction of the US/EU/NATO (the "West") is not working.
The West is posturing up militarily, imposing sanctions and asset freezes etc to crush Russia (and its people) and ostracise it from the world, providing military to Ukraine, talking about no-fly zones, etc. Is this only dangerously escalating things and further enraging Putin? Will it only lead to an unimaginable conflict and the complete destruction of Ukraine? Also, is Zelenskyy's actions and calls to the West extremely dangerous and badly inflaming things too?
What's wrong with the idea of actually negotiating with Putin, compromising with him, and basically letting him have his way somewhat here with Ukraine by establishing a demilitarised state unaligned with the US and NATO, in the interests of immediately defusing the situation, preventing the complete decimation of Ukraine, and then playing the patient long game of undermining Putin and Russia in the usual way that the West does with all kinds of other regimes and nations?
Is it now simply time for realism and pragmatism?
The problem in compromising with Putin is that Europe has another 100 situations like this and it will set a dangerous precedent for many other regions. Kosovo being the first one, Serbia can surely invade Kosovo with Russian support if the so-called West does little about this situation. I can only praise the foresight of including Montenegro and Albania into NATO to secure some stability in that region.
I strongly consider myself an Australian these days but I also grew up and lived my younger teenage years in Europe. So, also as a European I strongly reject what you wrote in here.
Some great posts. Upnorth, you wrote some pretty interesting and thought provoking stuff that i think banged a few nails on the head.
It doesn't seem to have an easy solution. When you have the mix of Putin, the personal version, mixed with Putin the military/political strategist, it's damn hard to predict/understand his ultimate motives.
I'm enjoying reading these posts and links to gain a better understanding of the bigger picture. Thanks to all.
I hope they do find some kind of solution to put their weapons down soon and negotiate. The fact they are talking at all, is some kind of positive.
Still interesting browsing the Russian media. The angle is still 'military operation' and the headlines aren't necessarily dwelling on what's happening in the Ukraine. In fact, it comes across as a formality, just like you'd expect with an 'operation'.
etarip wrote:The first? Re-establishment of the Russian Empire. Russians and ‘little Russians’ (ie, Belarusians and Ukrainians). Their words, not mine. I mean, who DOESN’T want to be a ‘little Russian’. Sounds fkn grouse hey!
This is very true. Little Rus as they call it. Or White Rus for Belarus. All this is history repeating itself. Gives me instant flashbacks to life under the Serbian invasion in the Yugoslav war in the 90s. Radical Serbs never accepted that Croats can exist. Their argument to this day is that Croats are actually Serbs who stayed with Catholic religion during the Great Schism in 1054 while 'real' Serbs embraced Orthodox Christianity. Therefore, an independent Croatian state should not exist and the proposed territories should be part of 'Greater Serbia'. So under that mantra, they led a bloody war to 'free' these territories from 'Nazis' as they call them (same as Putin). For anyone interested in reading more about this ideology wiki page is good enough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Serbia
I don't think people fully understand how deep and present some of these divisions are in Europe. It doesn't take much to flare up some serious issues. This is why the concept of the EU was born; it puts its member states under the same institutional banner hence minimising the risk of division and conflict.
Everything I've read in the subject goes back to the only thing Putin is motivated by is strength.
Had a Russian work for me for many years, hard worker, but his attitude to others was very different to how most Australians roll. Anyone he thought was superior to him in terms of professional qualifications , money and 'status" he sucked up to big time, and I mean real toady bootlicking stuff. Conversely anyone he regarded as beneath him he treated with utter contempt on the same scale.
upnorth wrote:Interesting thoughts on the defence of liberal democracy in Ukraine’s fight to take its place in the liberal international order.
"On October 25, 1956 President Dwight Eisenhower gave a campaign address to cheering supporters in Madison Square Garden in New York City. He defended his time in office, he attacked the Democrats, and he devoted half a vague sentence to the topic of eastern Europe. America, he said, would never forget the people of Poland and Hungary. And that was it.
Which would have been fine, were it not for the fact that a day earlier 30,000 Red Army troops and 1,000 tanks had entered Hungary. Hungarian citizens were fighting them in the streets with rifles and Molotov cocktails. Eventually Moscow would order Operation Whirlwind, bomb Budapest, kill 2,000 Hungarians, occupy the country’s parliament and arrest, and eventually execute, Hungary’s reformist leader.
The West, in any case preoccupied by the Suez crisis, decided there was nothing it could do. Two weeks after it was all over, Eisenhower told a press conference that he didn’t recommend armed revolt by people against “force over which they could not possibly prevail”.
There seem to be two lessons from this miserable episode. The first is a sobering one. Eisenhower saw what happened in Hungary as one part of a longer war. The United States would be committed to the security of Europe but would not risk a hot war and a nuclear confrontation over countries within what it had conceded was the Soviet sphere of influence. It took almost 35 more years for Cold War policies to help liberate Hungary.
The second is that fears that the West is now so demoralised and “woke” and decadent that it cannot respond to a challenge are misplaced. The West has been far tougher, more united, less distracted, better able to see what is at stake than it was in 1956. And less willing to wait 35 years.
We will need this resolve. It has been said that Vladimir Putin has started a war he doesn’t know how to finish. But this has implications for us, too. It means that today’s battle for Ukrainian cities is just a skirmish in a long war, and one that will require sacrifices and an attention span greater than a few news cycles.
We will need a patient strategy. A direct military engagement with the Russians threatens a nuclear conflict. That is what we would be risking if we tried to end Russia’s invasion through imposing a so-called no fly zone. And there is no point pretending otherwise. But not doing that will mean a lengthy campaign of containment and resistance.
Through it we will have to maintain a strong sense of who we are and what we stand for. We must resist Putin’s autocracy with self-confidence about the principles we are defending.
This war is a rebuke to those people who think that western liberal democracy is so flawed as to be almost worthless. This is a view held on the left by those who argue that its institutions are corrupt and inequitable, and its instincts imperialist. Yet in Ukraine people are dying to advance the dream of being a western liberal democracy, which they correctly see as liberation.
The skeptical view, however, is also held by some on the right. They see liberal democracy as having been fatally weakened by overindulgence. When the head of MI6 posted his support for LGBT+ history month, it was regarded as a preposterous thing to be doing in the week of Putin’s attack. What better example could there be of the triviality and self-absorption of the modern West?
This criticism shows ignorance about the past and present. Homophobia has repeatedly proven a serious security threat to this country, as it left those guarding our secrets open to blackmail. And we are now facing an enemy who despises precisely the modern civic equality that the MI6 statement represented. On both grounds the post was entirely appropriate.
It is Putin’s argument that our tolerance and openness make us weak and vulnerable. We must robustly respond that we are proud of our openness and modernity and his failure to embrace that will ultimately be his downfall.
Ukraine is a society in which there is still a great deal of prejudice of all sorts but its leadership understands in which direction progress lies. It knows what it wants for its future, even though it isn’t there yet.
The war is also a rebuke to those people who argue that commitment to national identity is always, and everywhere, reactionary and backward looking. Those who dislike the waving of the Union Jack should reflect that when, over these last few days, we wished to demonstrate our support for peace and resistance and democracy we waved the flag of Ukraine or wore its colours. Defending the integrity and independence of Ukraine has been the cause around which President Zelensky has united his people and rallied world opinion. National feeling can be a powerful liberalising force.
Yet what the Ukrainians are fighting for is not simply national independence. It is for an independent Ukraine to take its full part in the liberal international order. Its government wants membership of the European Union and of Nato. Victory in the long war against Putin must involve strengthening international institutions and the rule of law.
The war is a rebuke to those who think that national pride and solidarity are embarrassing. But it is also a reminder about the power of truth and of rigorous honesty about history.
When I visited Ukraine last autumn I was involved in many discussions, both formal and informal, about its troubled history. Its relationship with Poland, its past under the Nazis and its experience as part of the Soviet Union. Some of these conversations were very difficult for the Ukrainians. They involved accepting the truth about the involvement of the Ukrainian people in collaboration and mass murder.
Yet there was an understanding that the progress of the country, its future as a modern nation, depended on having these discussions and learning from them.
Putin rejects that discussion. His war is about rewriting history, allocating crimes to everyone else save the Russians. He even blames the Poles for Stalin’s invasion of Poland. He gives long speeches which skip lightly over hundreds of years of inconvenient history. He overlooks the story of Ukrainian nationalism, except where he feels he can blame it for the Nazis.
An open, truthful discussion of history would be a disaster for him. And it must be part of our ideological war with him and other autocracies. But it cannot be unless we are honest and unafraid about confronting our own history. We are entitled to pride in our nation, to celebration of our achievements, even to enjoyment of our national myths. But only if accompanied by the frankness we demand from others.
In the war that Putin has started, he must discover that the light of western liberalism has not gone out."
Who is the author of this piece - can posters please acknowledge their source in this important discourse?
Roystein just google a section/passage of it, seems to be an opinion piece by Daniel Finkelstein in The Times UK: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-must-stand-up-for-truths-putin-dis...
some context...
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ukraines-deadly-gamble
"Russian President Vladimir Putin chose this war, Joe Biden said in his Thursday afternoon speech to America regarding the conflict in Ukraine. That is true, but U.S. elites also had something to do with Putin’s ugly and destructive choice—a role that Democrats and Republicans are eager to paper over with noble-sounding rhetoric about the bravery of Ukraine’s badly outgunned military. Yes, the Ukrainian soldiers standing up to Putin are very brave, but it was Americans that put them in harm’s way by using their country as a weapon, first against Russia and then against each other..."
So spykan your saying that America invaded and attacked Russia using the Ukraine. Im not
sure if I actually believe that.
pretty sure neither i or the article said that
it did explain the long road to here though, and possibly why the US is so impotent in its response...
A good read Sypkan …thanks….as I thought it was…I also smell Rome in the background as well as that obvious mess.
How so Rome, Optimist?
Could one nearly say that what is happening here is the following?
The country that will come out of this the best is the US.
The US cannot believe its luck. By Russian invading Ukraine, the US has been gifted by god, handed to it on a silver platter, the perfect pretext and justification to economically and politically crush its long-term cold war foe: Russia.
The single largest existential threat to liberal democracies and our way of life in Australia since the Cold War is the resurgence of Russia and the rise of mighty China. The US, Commonwealth nations, EU, NATO nations, etc, have all suddenly abandoned 40 to 50 years of policy towards Russia to seize this epic moment in history to once and for all crush one side of this existential threat in a single swift move.
The West is going all out on this one, leaving no stone unturned.
Ukraine and its people deserve the opportunity to choose their own destiny for themselves.
But unfortunately they are just expendable pawns to both the US and to Russia. They're just caught smack bang in the middle of a major, monumental global power battle for the ages between absolute giants. They're getting played on every side.
From the US's perspective the end goal is crushing Russia and its people with sanctions, asset freezes, political and economic isolation, etc. That's what the US is focused on here. They could care less about the people of Ukraine.
In this sense the people of Russia are also unfortunately expendable pawns to the US (and seemingly to Putin) and are caught in the middle of this epic power battle: The other objective of the US is to send the people of Russia into squalor, poverty and famine in the hope that they revolt against Putin and there is complete social breakdown and regime change in Russia.
Septic Tanks are going to Septic Tank