Russia to U.S. -Lift sanctions on space sector or we'll exit space station
reuters.com
reuters.com
good luck selling that line
ISS has questionable scientific value, all those vibrations prevent most scientific experiments like crystal growth. And NASA runs it like flying hotel for space tourists and now "disabled astronauts".
> The United States and other Western countries began imposing sanctions against Russia in the wake of its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Is there any chance they would cede Crimea back at this point? Or, are there other conditions they would have to satisfy for the sanctions to be lifted. Because it seems they can do something too to lift the sanctions.
The last time I remember a statement by Rogozyn was when he said the hole in the space station was deliberately drilled from inside [1]. Presumably, blaming American or other astronauts. It seems like he is purposefully trying to provoke a conflict.
[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/science-enviro...
Their goal is simple, chip away at the spheres surrounding them and carve their own sphere. Classic zero sum.
I'm not saying the USSR was great for eastern europe or anything but it's also unfair to call them aggressors for the couple of times they've resisted this continual inward push from NATO.
Why do so many countries choose to partner with NATO? I will answer with a question: how many people has Russia killed or enslaved in the Eastern Europe over the past centuries?
A large number. But then again not nearly as many as the Ottoman Empire, which enslaved 10 million Europeans and brutally occupied a large chunk of Europe. Yet the U.S. does not exploit anti-Turkish sentiment or anti-islamic sentiment in order to build military bases in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Greece, which were all under occupation for centuries. And then we have Germany, with its own history of killing and brutality that makes its neighbors -- Poland, Czech Republic, France, Belgium, etc -- weary of German influence and yet the U.S. does not exploit anti-German sentiment in these nations for its own power politics. We could go on, with rivalries between different nations and ethnic groups throughout the region and hurt feelings of past oppression. So yes, the anti-Russian sentiment is real and has a real basis in history, but encouraging and benefiting from these historical animosities is still considered a hostile act.
What are the odds that Germany invades France tomorrow?
What are the odds that Russia invades Ukraine tomorrow?
That's why people are concerned about Russia. It's not historical animosity. It's current behavior.
Their reaction to losing it was arguably a defensive reaction rather than an offensive reaction, if you're taking the perspective that Crimea is part of the Russian empire.
How this won't lead to endless conflict is not understandble to me.
The US Constitution is younger than the Russian claims on Crimea and we're going to try and tell them about it? In between sponsoring coups in Latin America and the Middle East whenever we feel it's in our interest?
You are turning this upside down. You are presenting Russia's reaction to NATO expansion as the reason for NATO expansion. It's a circular logic. George Kennan, the architect of the containment policy, has predicted such rhetoric in 1998.
''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. … I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. … It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.
THIS IS JUST WRONG.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/02/opinion/foreign-affairs-n...
The rhetoric of rebuilding its sphere of influence, role in international affairs, regaining its 'colonies' as much as possible is very profitable domestically. As such, it is natural that such former satellite states would wish to protect themselves, i.e. by joining NATO and closer integrating with the EU.
In other words, it seems likely that Russia's foreign policy would be very similar even without NATO expansion. One could argue it would be less aggressive because they would not feel a need to hurry, or more aggressive because they would feel less resistance to their actions. But the general policy trends would likely be very similar.
Perhaps to some extent. The reason for that is that the US took advantage of Russia's weakness in the 90s[0]. There was a lot of admiration for the US in Russia[1], 80% view it positively. Eltsin and Putin were talking about Russia joining NATO[2][3] and a free trade zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok [4]. People in Russia thought they shook of communism, adopted democracy and market economy and were joining happy European family. They were told they don't belong -- most importantly excluded from the common security system. That didn't go too well in a country that remembers that the USSR 50 years before lost 26 million people in an invasion from the West.
"The rhetoric of rebuilding its sphere of influence, role in international affairs, regaining its 'colonies' as much as possible is very profitable domestically."
Where did you get that idea? People in Russia want the government to spend money on improving life standards.
"it seems likely that Russia's foreign policy would be very similar even without NATO expansion"
There is no reason to think so.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-is-the-bully-the...
[1] https://www.ridl.io/en/russians-changing-attitudes-to-the-us...
[2] https://www.latimes.com/la-oe-meier20-2008aug20-story.html
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/17/russia.iantray...
[4] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-v...
[0] https://www.doingbusiness.org/en/data/exploreeconomies/russi...
Have you seen news recently? It is happening every few months. Bulgaria had to call army to secure and enforce borders. There were new barriers installed, Turkey used bulldozers to demolish them.
So the US only knows how to exploit anti USSR sentiment because that's the only sentiment it has institutional knowledge of.
Europe however has multiple millenia of various institutional knowledge and history.
It is fascinating to me how the generations transfer, but these strong institutional and cultural memories continue in such seemingly vivid fashion.
Russia is not entitled to any "sphere of influence" outside its own borders. Personally I would gladly cut Russia out from the rest of the world with 2000 feet tall wall made of ice, so that Russian zombies can't get out.
It's complicated. Russian government is the enemy number one to Russian people, as it's common for autocracies.
Russia did invade Ukraine.
My country was occupied by USSR (aggressors). Now is free and it is not their business anymore. Complayning about that is bullying.
Hundreds of thousands are dead over last 30 years because of Russian invasions. Millions are dislocated. Be it Chechnya, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova etc.
Russia is burthurt on this, that cannot and should not be the concern of the rest of us.
Why should Western companies not be able to develop the countries bordering Russia if the countries want them to come in?
The problem is that when Western companies come in to Ukraine etc with rules and audits etc, it makes it tougher for the corrupt oligarchs with ties to Russia to operate and extract their wealth through corruption.
If these countries adopt western norms in elections/governance, and adopt western business practices, it leaves very little room for the old corrupt guard of Russia/Soviet origins to operate and squeezes them out of any piece of the pie.
That's why Putin is at odds with it.
There is a literal 0% chance that Crimea will ever go back to Ukraine unless there is a major collapse of the political power of Russia. It would have to be a collapse worse then the collapse of the Soviet Union with a ruler who was beyond desperate to get Western support.
The Western world can sanction Russia (and likely will for the next 50 years) non of that matters to them nearly as much as Crimea.
The only reason why it was part of Ukraine in the first place is because of inter-politburo power-struggles that lead Khrushchev to simply assign it to Soviet Republic of Ukraine because that was his power-base. For political reason all the post-Soviet states had to accepted their boarders that they had within the Soviet Union.
Sevastopol has been one of the most important power bases of Russian power for hundreds of years, and even while it was officially part of Ukraine, practically it was only just barley so and the easy of witch the Russians took it showed that quite well.
For Americans to get some context on that, when the US declare its independence the Russians annexed the Crimea. Ask yourself how much sanctions the US would endure in order to protect Norfolk Virginia and then realize that Sevastopol is basically the one practical harbor, while the US has 100s on multiple coasts.
> Rogozyn
Rogozyn is targeting a Russian audience, blaming everything on Western conspiracy is basic Russian communication. He is basically fighting to pretend that Russia is relevant in space while the actual institution is being destroyed with corruption.
Under him Roscosmos has continued to collapse and the whole industry is continuing to go down the drain.
In this hypothetical what made the US give up Norfolk Virginia to Canada?
In other words if this port was so important to the USSR why did they give it up to Ukraine, why didn't they take it back from Ukraine when they split up, and why did they wait until 2014 to take it back?
When the USSR dissolved... well, it was definitely a period of chaos. As for why wait till 2014? I have no answer for that.
There's no clean US analogy, since the US doesn't have a singular state that completely dominates its political landscape.
They are clearly within the boundaries of New Jersey, yet a part of New York (state and city). These also fall under federal jurisdiction as they are homes to national monuments. Yet control has been contested in the federal government at least five times since the 1800s, most recently in 1998 (Ellis Island) and 1987 (Liberty Island).
Because the Ukraine didn't want to give it back and at that time using military force against Ukraine was unthinkable.
"why did they wait until 2014 to take it back?"
Because in the 2014 the US 'mid-wifed'[0] a coup in Kiev which unconstitutionally[1] deposed a democratically elected president of the Ukraine and the threat of losing access to Sevastopol in Crimea had become real.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych#Parliamentar...
Ukraine had a brief flirt with 'independence' after the Russian Empire collapsed and the Germans tried be the sponsor of new entity. Ukrainian nationalism was in its infancy then and once Germany was defeated in the East the idea of independent Ukraine was gone quickly. The allies had no interest in the (foolishly) no interest in the idea.
So basically practically speaking Ukrainian independence was never really a serious reality in basically all of modern Russian history. So for Khrushchev to move Crimea from one Soviet Republic to another was not a big deal. For him it was basically like moving some federal facility from one state to another in the US.
The way the Soviet Union collapsed was basically that the party lost its power, and then the individual states politicians realized that without party control they constitution would basically give them the right to succeed. Of course they did this based on the official borders initially.
This by itself was a very, very contentious issue when the Soviet Union was formed. Stalin actually strongly advocated against the idea of these Soviet Republics like Ukraine and wanted to integrate them into the Russian state the same way it was during the Imperial period. [1]
Lenin however was more willing to give nationalism a bone as first of all he knew the party would control everything anyway and he based on ideology believed that nationalism would simply 'not be a thing' once socialism was in power.
Stalin eventually build the Soviet Union based on Lenin lines from 1917 to 1924 as People's Commissariat for Nationalities. Interestingly enough even after Lenin was no longer capable to impact his choices Stalin did not go back and revisit it.
There were of course many different republics and autonomous regions inside of the Soviet Socialist Russian Republic and those all are still part of Russia today.
So Stalin was right to be wary of the nationalities, once they had an opportunity they did exactly what he feared and broke away and devolved communist party and the socialist institutions for the most part. That is also partly why in Russia today, Stalin is viewed more favorably then Lenin.
> why didn't they take it back from Ukraine when they split up, and why did they wait until 2014 to take it back
Because the new state Russia had little power and no money. In fact, even for any of these topics were relevant in the West Russia attempted in many places to roll the collapse, this lecture goes threw many of them [2].
The Russians did want it back very much and they brought it up in negotiations with the Ukraine and United states. However as they had no power to do much of anything about it. And the US had of course preferred as much territory to be removed from the core Russian state as possible, so there was no chance the US would side with Russia on this.
Like the Germans before them they also were interested in creating a Ukrainian state as a counter balance to Russia. The British tried much the same with the Republic of Texas.
The new Ukrainian government agree that the Russian Army/Navy would continue to use the base and of course Crimea was basically supplied from the Russian side. Practically speaking the Russian state and military had the power there.
Russia in the last 20 years regained a part of its former power, while Ukraine remains a basket case. Worst from Russian perspective is that US and the European have serious efforts to get Ukraine to be closer to them and politicians who became popular based on supporting that. This caused fears about long term viability of operating Crimea within Ukraine.
With this action Russia does two things at once, it makes it impossible for Ukraine to be integrated into NATO (as they did with Georgia) and they made sure that even if the Ukrainian state made serious turn towards the EU they could not influence Crimea in any way.
I hope this helps with understanding the situation.
[1] Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
The Crimea has changed hands over time quite a bit for political reasons and was never really fully Ukrainian but in name. It was Tatar, then others now mostly Russian and some Ukrainian and some others.
Nope. That rationalization is just a really transparent rationalization of an invasion. Rationalize it all you want, it's a rationalization of something that is unjustifiable.
Well, except that Spain has a priority claim to Alta California.
And the rest of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, for that matter.
Russia could cede it under the condition that they were allowed continued use of the port.
That's what it seems like. I think the West saw an opportunity to punish Russia fully understanding there is 0 chance of Russians giving up Crimea. They may decide to lift sanctions in response to some other concessions in the future.
I though the world was reliant on the Russians to maintain/supply the ISS since 2011 when the shuttle died. That was up until May 2020 when SpaceX began making flights?
The time to make demands seems to be when you have leverage, no?
The US needs to move beyond ISS, embrace the new technology that SpaceX is offering and build a station that is 4x the size while being cheaper to maintain and supply.
Drop the ISS by 2024 and reallocate the funding for the new private stations.
And Russia can continue to do what they do best, release press statements about the amazing new projects they are planning.
All that said, I am against these sanctions.