Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine
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I fear that you are right. And with Kaliningrad pretty much ideally positioned to pull another Donbass the stage is set for a lot of misery in Poland, Lithuania and possibly even Latvia and Estonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Security_and_Defence_Po...
They also collaborate on NATO exercises, and the reverse is also true: NATO partakes in Swedish and Finish military exercises.
I understand your pessimism but we are talking about the most powerful military organization on the planet. If for some strange reason they decide they give up protecting their borders, they might as well not exist. If Russia decides to invade Latvia and NATO does nothing, the whole pact might as well dissolve itself as it serves no function.
There is little tourism and not that much in terms of import or export from that region where people will associate whatever product they are looking at with the Baltics.
A co-defense pact makes sense from a military perspective, especially because the Baltics are pretty useful as forward bases. But from a 'hearts and minds' perspective there isn't all that much there. And I'm saying that as someone who has a very direct connection with the Baltics and who has spent collectively probably close to a year (or even more by now) there.
Ask any Western European in which country Riga is situated, or Vilnius or Kaunas or even Tallinn and you're likely going to get a wrong answer or no answer at all. By contrast even Finland would do quite well.
Even Romania sees more tourism than all of the Baltics combined, and Romania is pretty far down the list of tourist destinations. I don't know how you define 'popular' but in my circle I'm the only person that has visited the Baltics for something other than work.
Of course France and Germany - the two countries traditionally closer to Putin and trying to keep a bit warmer diplomatic relations than the rest - will hesitate a bit, but rest assured that all other countries will join a NATO defensive operation in order to protect a member state from Russia. Putin knows this, and realizes he can win a conventional war with one small state, but not with many bigger ones. Therefore his main focus is on Ukraine that is not protected by NATO, and as for the Baltic states, he's just performing some minor non-military operations like bringing migrants to the border.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War
Imagine a future with Russia in the EU, best timeline.
Nobody wants nuclear war, maybe some kind of super-sanctions would be the only recourse for the west, cut them off everything, and I mean everything.
This exit was a big mistake. Netherlands are rushing up to build new nuclear plants. Belgium seeks ways to reverse its exit plan. France has never stopped beefing up its nuclear industry.
Only Germany is behaving irrationally.
NATO is first and foremost a tool of American power in Europe and against Russia. If the geopolitical landscape changed so much that Russia decided to join the EU and was accepted, I think it would have to mean that the EU/Europe had shifted (back) to standing up on its own.
> with the economy of the similar size to Germany
Russia's economy is not that big. Nominal GDP is between Spain and Italy.
Sure, but that's only because Russian and US foreign policy goals are so opposed.
Other than their territorial ambitions in Europe this need not be the case.
The US want to keep control of Europe, that's partly what NATO is for. There's no reason for Russia to be OK with that. In fact no European country should be OK with that but for historically reasons I think they reckon that this is better than the fear of letting the "good old ways" (i.e. France or Germany trying to take over) come back, although Germany has pretty much taken over by peaceful means at this point, especially since Brexit...
It's not correct to say that all Western European countries were/are OK with US power and presence. The major powers were divided on that. Germany obviously did not really have any say, France did not want the US to stay, the UK thought that it'd help them look more important than they had become. But smaller countries may see the US as a guarantee against larger neighbours trying to invade again, as I mentioned, a bit like South Korea does.
Germany, and also that other country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
Your parents were alive during that time, so it's not that old school.
I find it hard to imagine that in this environment there's much of a middle-class that cares about the best 3rd wave coffee in Moscow and which is the best Montessori school (e.g. the petty problems that remain once you feel safe in your society). Those Russians left for Germany or the US long ago, is my impression.
Basically, nobody in their right minds want a war. In order to create favorable conditions for war, you need to create quite a few provocations, a lot of tensions, some murders, especially on children. At some point, people on the other side will get very emotional and demand a revenge. At that point you reached your aim: you changed the collective mind of the population and they crave for war now, they want "justice." This happened to a small degree in the USA after 9/11 - Bush did have some internal support although it was by no means unequivocal. I saw the same in the initial stages of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia: at some point people really hated each other.
But it is very, very far from it in Ukraine. There are many, many Russians in Ukraine, and many Ukrainians in Russia. In many parts of the country they speak Russians (I mean almost exclusively). Putin is trying some provocations and is also getting soldiers from distant areas of Russia so that they have less problems killing Ukrainians, but the spirit of "let's invade Ukraine" is just not there among Russians.
I don't actually know anything about Russia or Europe or politics in general first hand. However, from listening to a few episodes of the Economist podcast, my impression has been that Putin is stuck. He can't quit because even though he might be above being punished for his crimes, his cronies who have amassed billions are not. These folks will do everything in their power to keep Putin in power or find someone who is better at diverting people's attention from the problems affecting the people in their regular lives. Chechnya, Crimea, Ukraine, ... all these are (in my understanding) in service of the government's attempt at consolidating power at home.
> Nobody wants nuclear war, maybe some kind of super-sanctions would be the only recourse for the west, cut them off everything, and I mean everything.
What is a super sanction? In my (uninformed) opinion, a sanction is a complete sealing of a nation backed by political will and military might, preferably consensus from all the neighbors of the nation. No person and no goods go into or out of the country. No funds get transferred into the country or out of the country. All communications get cut off.
Correct me if I am wrong but Europe (I am speaking geographically, so including Ukraine) relies a lot on Russian petroleum and gas? And even if we weaned ourselves off of everything Russian, there is a border between Russia and China PR (mainland China under control of the CCP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Russia_border
tl;dr a sanction not enforced by military might is not really a sanction, it is just a silly little non-binding resolution.
It’s all fundamentally dead simple. Russia views Ukraine as a buffer country between itself and the West and will do anything to keep it that way.
[0] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2019/02/05/russias-new-s...
Their actions from 2014 until now show otherwise. Ukraine is not a part of NATO but Putin decided to grab Crimea, Donbas, and keep the military activity for over 5 years in order to destabilize the country.
Current conflict is rooted exactly in Ukraine trying to aligning itself with the West. It would’ve been the EU first, Nato second for them. That would’ve created a massive headache for Russia, including the loss of its only warm port, hence the annexation and the invasion. And now Ukraine is in limbo, because the EU won’t touch it with a wooden pole while it is in an active conflict.
Which was, funnily, in response to US military presence in Turkey, which is still there. It's understandable that Russia doesn't want to see itself surrounded by "enemies".
They should probably stop invading more and more of it over time, then.
They should do it for the sake of security of Europe. Ukraine is not capable of controlling "own" territory.
Of course I wouldn't like a power vacuum in a country with nukes.
I think Egypt was the last place that was gifted one of these. I hear it went well for them /s
The same goes for China, for instance. It is naive to think that a democratic government in China would fundamentally change anything to the geopolitical situation or China's international policy and goals.
The government's leanings may influence the means by which a country pursues its geopolitical interests but do not change those interests. Just observe the US.
Destabilizing Russia or China means the West can grab more from the Russian or Chinese people. Look what the West did in China in the 19th century.
There's flights from the US to Cuba now.
You could say, ban any airline that flights to Russia from flying into EU/US, heck, do it on an airplane basis to avoid shell companies and such. Any airplane that touches Russian soil, banned from ever entering any US/EU airspace/soil ever again.
And, with China being blocked off, talk about pushing two allies even closer together. Who needs 'the west'?
- The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect.
- North Atlantic Treaty is legally binding. Also, the Baltic States already host a small multi-national contingent of NATO troops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence
- It is also worth noting that the EU has mutual defence clause as per Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union. Nobody knows what legal or practical effect it would have though.
Russia is as unpredictable as they ever were at the moment and there is a fair chance of this leading to some kind of escalation in the near future.
Will try to return post-soviet countries back to «USSR 2.0».
Will capture Belarus somewhat.
Will station army across Ukrainian border.
Will try to circumvent Kyiv, while distracting Ukrainian army at the South.
1. Hostile military block on the borders (expansion of NATO or any moves that may be treated as towards the expansion or challenging the status quo, as in Ukraine with Crimea).
2. Status of Russian population and Russian language (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine - Donbass, Baltics - low intensity information war).
For the neighboring states they are the keys to their own security: addressing those fears of Russia by diplomatic means, those countries can bring more peace than arming themselves against the invasion.
Based on what we know from the history, yes, USA could do it, as they did in the Bay of Pigs. In fact, USA invaded with military forces in Latin America so many times that by now they should have lost any credibility in democratic world.
The Russian Empire was known as «Jail of Nations», because they captured so many different nations across a huge area. To consolidate them, they are erasing their identity by forcing all of them to speak a single invented language, called Russian, which is based on Old Slavonic Church language, which is based on South Slavonic dialect as spoken near to Salonika (Greece) a thousand years ago. This is somewhat different from behavior of some other empires (Spanish Empire, Great Britain Empire, etc.), because the language was invented, so it was not native language for anyone, so nobody had an upper leg and nobody can be clearly blamed as invader.
Those, who switched to the new language, invented reasons about why Gorgeous and Mighty Russian language is superior to their laughable and weak native languages, so they have strong beliefs that they need to help those minor nations to escape the hell of speaking them and join the Great Russian Civilization.
Russia(now Ukraine) used Russian (now Ukrainian) language, which was a modernized version of Old Slavonic language, so they refused to accept archaic language. In 1912(?) Folk Assembly of All Russia (now Ukraine) declared rename of Russia (now Ukraine) to Ukraine to avoid confusion with Russian Empire or its language. (It's well hidden fact). Ten years after that, Great Ukrainization started, so millions of Russians (now Ukrainians) switched to Ukrainians, then Great Ukrainization aborted by Russians. 20 millions of Ukrainians were recorded as Russians again, 7 million adults (and 23 million children) were murdered by starvation in Holodomor.
Russian language, Russian culture, etc. are very new. For example, there are 0 (zero) folk songs in Russian language. Russians are studying history of Russia (now Ukraine) instead of history of their own nations. This makes them wonder why Russia now called Ukraine, and why their motherland is captured by Ukrainians. This makes them mad about Ukraine and Ukrainians. Nobody tells them real history, of course.
Baltic countries are better connected to Russia and Belarus via rail, road, electricity grid, etc than to the rest of the EU.
EU was reluctant to fund infrastructure projects to change that, e.g. the railway from Poland through all the three Baltic capitals
EU grants Baltic grids 720 mln euros to unplug from Russia
And the main point stands. Baltic countries were part of USSR for 46 years from 1945 until 1991. EU had 30 years to fix the problem but it did not.
I don't think it is possible to keep such secret from Russia for 30 years. Ukrainian president deflected to Russia in 2014, and that means that any secret that he might've known is available to Russia.
They will not. They gave up Crimea almost without fight. Many people at Ukraine are russian speaking and many of them don't mind becoming a part of Russia, just like Criemea people. Just compare with Chechen war in 90's.
Because money spent in an efficient and effective system has more power than money spent in an ineffective and bloated system. One example - Germany doesn't actually have enough helicopters operational to meet their needs, so they used civilian contractor helicopters in Afghanistan.
The structures are just so different that it's hard to make good comparisons. Germany can't keep its troops and equipment equipped or repaired _at home_, while Russian is capable of doing so thousands of miles from beyond its borders.
The German military in particular is "neither structurally capable nor equipped" to meet its defense obligations, according to the German parliamentary commissionor for the armed forces. Their helicopter readiness is something like 15%, they don't have the funding to keep their navy seaworthy, for most of 2018-20 they only had enough operational armaments to keep 4 of their eurofighter jets armed. They don't have enough body armor for all their troops, so they rotate it out to whichever battalion is active. Current bundeswehr projections are that they'll be able to equip all their troops in 2031.
It's gotten so bad that the German 2019 readiness report was kept secret, after the 2018 report was so bad.
Long story short, the German military is fundamentally incapable of meeting its basic defensive goals (defending the home territory of the nation), while Russia is a near peer competitor with the United States, and is capable of offensive force projection thousands of miles from it's home territory
Links for the quotes and numbers.
https://dsm.forecastinternational.com/wordpress/2019/01/31/g...
https://sofrep.com/amp/specialoperations/germanys-military-r...
https://www.strifeblog.org/2020/07/03/the-german-military-mu...
- EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below.
- Would EU have political might and unity? That is a big question. However, the situation with the Baltic States is not so simple: these countries are well integrated parts of the EU, including the membership in Eurozone, Schengen Area, financial and banking system (banks are mostly Scandinavian in the Baltics), etc. Any threats to them would have significant consequences e.g. to Euro as a currency.
- While some EU countries might be reluctant to do anything, there would be other EU countries which might take unilateral action as they might feel threatened too. In particular, Nordic countries and Poland (which, by the way, recently is getting very heavily armed).
It is actually the second, but only just, and China will surpass it very soon. This doesn't detract from your point at all.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/26/erdogan-turkey-coul...
With this in mind, the west's strategy of economic pressure makes some more sense. The economic pressure will help this strength window last for less time, and perhaps even cause some internal issues that will distract away from foreign adventures.
I'm pretty well connected to the Baltics and have spent a lot of time in that part of Europe, both in North Eastern Poland, Lithuania and Latvia (less so in Estonia though I've been there a couple of times I never spent a lot of consecutive time there). From what I gather there is some fierce nationalism there, and a pretty strong cultural identity, in spite (possibly because) of years of Russian efforts to destroy those. At the same time, and in spite of financial/cross border integration with the rest of Europe those countries are an island surrounded on their land borders by borderline hostiles with a tiny little bridge to the rest of Europe.
But you have a point about the Nordics and Poland who definitely would have a big stake in this. But for your average person from Madrid, Paris or Rome it likely would not be something they even realize is in play, they might not even know Kaliningrad exists and they might not know much about the Baltics and their history or present day role in Europe.
I will also have a very negative posture on the EU military spending/capability unfortunately after working for a Baltic government and being familiar at a high level at capabilities in the region and somewhat familiar of Germany/France. In the EU today now that Britain has left, France is the only real military power who has 1) the forces to deploy and 2) the will to do so. German forces are in a terrible state of disrepair and the new government does not seem like one to invest further (Ulrike Franke has a great writeup and is worth a twitter follow) and even the old gov is under fire for blocking military aid as they have supported nonlethal NATO equipping only to Ukraine, I would guess partially because they are addicted to Russian gas but there are some rumors that Merkel will join some Russia affiliated boards (gotta love a little government graft). Poland I am less clear about but I have never heard anything about them having a really solid air force and anti-air capabilities which is one of the most critical things Ukraine needs (at this point Ukrainian ground forces are actually pretty good and are well versed in how to fight; what they need is to be able to ward off incursions by sea and air).
https://www.airforcemag.com/ukraine-says-it-can-deter-a-russ... https://www.ft.com/content/1336c9be-f1c9-4545-9f85-3b07fcb74...
This however makes the relationship somewhat symbiotic, as Russia also depends on EU money. I remember reading recently (somewhere?) that Russia had transitioned from a failed industrial state to a failed Petrostate sometime in the 90's since that's currently their biggest source of foreign currency.
Another point I'm surprised I don't see anybody making is the impact of drones on armoured assaults. The recent conflict (Tajikistan / Kyrgyzstan ?) showed that they could really devastate attacking armour, and last time Russia 'holidayed' in Ukraine it was their stronger armour that pushed the Ukrainians back. This could really tip the balance back to the defenders. Also, it's hard to deny you've invaded a country if 100 of your tanks are smouldering wrecks on the wrong side of a border.
I totally agree on German forces being deplorable. Regarding Poland:
- MIM-104 Patriot (air defense): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43574308
- JASSM-ER (cruise missiles): https://defence24.com/70-jassm-er-missiles-for-the-polish-f-...
- F-35 figher jets: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2020/01/31/poland-...
- M142 HIMARS rocket launchers: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/02/11/poland-...
- M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 tanks: https://www.defensenews.com/land/2021/07/14/polish-defence-m...
.. and there are plenty of smaller scale projects. Poland is arming to teeth.
NATO doesn’t need to position planes in the Baltics when they’re within range of its air bases in Germany (airbases should be well behind the front lines anyway).
I really would not see this put to the test, not only because of the potential outcome but because such an exchange has the potential to spiral out of control really fast.
1. Those nations' ability to sell military hardware to the leaders of resource-rich nations.
2. Those nations' politicians ability to avoid a governing coalition between the radical far right and newly-angry moderate conservatives.
Yep, nobody will be sued when Ukraine will nuke RF in violation of Budapest memorandum. So what?
"The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States. China and France gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.
The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan."
2. Hitting Moscow from across the border with a real late 80s ICBM isn't exactly complicated for a country like Ukraine. Especially in this day and age. You drastically overstate the role of centralized C&C here. I want to stress that Ukraine demilitarized MODERN facilities. These aren't 60s hold overs.
The West, of course, lied too. That doesn't absolve Russia however.
--
1) Respect Belarusian, Kazakh and Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.[16]
2) Refrain from the threat or the use of force against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
3) Refrain from using economic pressure on Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to influence their politics.
4) Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
5) Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
6) Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments
--
I don't see any commitments being violated here on the part of "the West." Most of the list is about not attacking Ukraine, rather than some commitment to proactively come to their defense. Maybe we can quibble about the wording on 4) a bit... but I would imagine it only covers concrete nuclear threats.
I should be clear, this is the Wikipedia summary. The actual wording seems pretty similar (although it is a bit wordier).
I'm a Pole living in the west and the perspective of Putin's greedy gaze turning so close to my motherland is quite terrifying. I think your conclusion that I somehow "conveniently" forgot about Russia being the culprit here is a bit too far fetched here.
“Legally binding” makes sense within a system where a mechanism of enforcement exists. Once you rise above the state, nothing exists, at least on a permanent basis.
Ukraine is basically in a situation of “you don’t own what you cant defend through violence”.
The Ukraine will lose another chunk of territory. Western nations will “decry this violation of sovereignty” and the UN will condemn it, but Russia will own it.
People don’t like it, but in the end the US motto of “might makes right” is correct. If you cant defend it, it’s not yours.
The Budapest Memorandum has no enforcement mechanism.
It has no obligation on the part of the other signatories to defend Ukraine, other than the requirement to bring it up at the UN security council should Ukraine be threatened by nukes.
This situation is obviously amplified 10x in Lithuania (population 30% of Israel) vs Russia (population 170% Iran).
Now, Lithuania has only a relatively small number of ethnic Russians compared to the rest of the population, and in Estonia the it's somewhere in the middle (15% or so). Latvia is roughly 50/50.
And yes, the governments of those countries are well aware of the risk, but that is not the same as not having that risk in the first place.
I don't know about NATO, but I strongly hope that EU defends its territory integrity. And I am not sure Russia wants to find out either…
EU would have to deploy immediately at least two heavily armed divisions to be able to protect Polish-Belarusian border (which is in reality Polish-Russian border and would be first attack direction to cut supply chains from Polans) and attack Kaliningrad, what is the key in Baltic countries defense.
Nothing happens in EU without Germany agreement, so the question is: will German army going to engage? Germany is busy cutting trade deal with China and starting Nord Stream 2 which would provide Russian gas for Germany, so the answer is clear.
More details on the logistical issues within the Russian army: https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-...
That's just not true. Even if Germany decides to not help, they couldn't stop individual countries, like France or Italy from helping.
Also, I would not underestimate Poland. The country spends 2.2% of its GDP on military and has been gradually increasing the expenditures further. Moreover, Poland has been making very major acquisitions of modern equipment and capabilities (something Ukraine is currently just dreaming of -- see one of my posts above) as separate budget lines. It is on the track to become one of the main military powers in the EU and is certainly a very credible power to resist Russia.
NATO as a whole might not engage in such a war, but members of EU certainly can, even without NATO.
The combined firepower of France, Germany, Italy and Spain is not something Russia can handle by itself. So the question is would Russia gets backing from China and/or Turkey to start invading portions of the EU?
This is right in the EU's backyard. If it were to heat up they'd actually have to deal with things like refugees and the possibility of war spreading to their members. They probably also want to be very explicit about their (lack of) obligations in this case, I mean people are already acting as if this calls into question how steadfast they'll be in defense of eastern EU members.
Another option is that both the EU and Putin know Russia does not have the conventional strength to attack the EU, but does have the manpower to attack other unaligned countries. And so, the EU has decided to prioritize their other interests over standing up to Russia.
But don't take it too seriosly, that was long ago, now our brand new and most competent foreign affairs sock-puppet goes with the flow.
Yeah, imagine whole Russia is an army.
And USSR was twice as big and populous as Russia is today.
It's like saying Turkey has nukes...Does it? Or Turkey hosts US's strategic bombers armed with nuclear bombs.
"how Ukraine can pull itself from the current hole it dug in" What do you mean by digging a hole?
I hate to say it but the Afghanistan withdrawal really showed what happens when Americans stop giving a shit, and they probably don't give that much of a shit about Latvia. Who's going to step into that gap for NATO? Poland recently ran a military exercise simulating a war with Russia that was, in the words of one of the Generals managing it, "worse than 1939". In the simulation the Polish forces held out for less than a week.
Meanwhile attempts for an ex-US EU military organization are little more than vague proposals, in part because the EU started out as a peace project and, frankly, much of Europe isn't used to seriously worrying about its military security (the most notable exceptions being France, the UK, Sweden and Finland, perhaps Greece but they have other issues). Some NATO members ran out of bombs during the freaking Libya campaign. They've been under the US umbrella for more than a generation, in some cases 2 or 3 generations.
Honestly I'm not sure Europe can fight these days. It certainly doesn't want to (and after the 20th century who can blame them?). Sure almost every European nation (Poland included) has some badass special forces. Too bad those won't be enough if Russia decides to act with impunity.
Russia largely doesn't care about people as much as about territory.
I can't speak to the will of the Russian people, but anti-western propaganda has been common there for well over a decade. If it's even been marginally effective they may be more geared up for conflict than people expect.
Would you ask what rational reason China has to invade Taiwan?
From a more cynical, pragmatic "realpolitik" perspective one can view Russian actions in Ukraine as largely defensive. From the collapse of the Soviet Union Ukraine largely functioned as a semi-protectorate of Russia, even before 2014 Russian probably had significantly more troops stationed in Crimea than Ukrainians themselves since their black sea fleet is stationed there. After the events of 2014 Russia saw that long-term they are likely going to loose Ukraine anyway and basically decided to cut their losses and at least maintain the control of Crimea. It's not like Russia actually wants to fully annex the regions in eastern Ukraine their currently fighting over, they just want a semi permanent conflict which would destabilize Ukraine politically and to ensure that the Ukraine could never join NATO (and likely the EU), since NATO accepting Ukraine would be basically equivalent to them declaring war on Russia..
What you say about the Russian actions in Ukraine is true, the question is would they prefer full annexation if they knew NATO wouldn't intervene? I'd say they probably would. If the goal is security, not many things more secure than saying "this is our territory now", it would also enable a lot of direct control instead of relying on manipulated chaos that can always blow up in your face.
>prefer full annexation if they knew NATO wouldn't intervene
You mean of the entire Ukraine? Because it would cost them more than it's worth. No Russian actions since 1991 have so far indicated that they actually want to conquer any foreign area not inhabited by a Russian speaking majority or whose population would be likely to actively resist such occupation.
Stirring up ethnic border wars is a cheap way of sapping the strength of regional powers. The British Empire honed it to a fine art.
As a hypothetical -- Russia does invade Ukraine and the Western forces offer substantial but indirect military support. Russia strikes at a supporting NATO military installation just metres over the border in a NATO country, on the assumption that NATO will not respond to that as an Article 5 attack on their territory. But they assume wrong.
Consider how the Japanese assumed the Americans would be amenable to sue for peace after Pearl Harbor at some point. They had a mental model where it was risky, yes, but rational. But they deeply misunderstood their enemy. History is full of this pattern.
I don't see how is that relevant in the case of Russia though, they have little to gain and a lot to loose from any war with NATO or invasion of any NATO countries and so far Putin or anyone did not indicate in anyway that they think otherwise.
Always the first misstep.
Geopolitically it made sense for the US and the West to largely ignore it. Due to their military presence there no one could argue that it wasn't Russia sphere of influence anyway. It was a small price to pay for ensuring that the the rest of Ukraine would shift it's alignment from Russia to EU/NATO (not having a Russian fleet stationed in one of your ports would likely make this move easier).
None of this in any way applies to the Baltic States.
Not acting on this would completely destroy NATO and also permanently destroy US credibility on the world politics and in terms of military power. Realistically speaking NATO and US could not afford not to go to a war or at least armed conflict with Russia.
Granted Russia is still seen as an adversary, but if Russia manages to quickly steamroll the Balkans/Poland/Ukraine and then challenges NATO to do something about it, I'm not sure there's the stomach for a bloody, protracted invasion of the continent to reclaim the lost members.
There's also a large swath of the US that sees NATO as a waste of US time/money, with members that largely don't pull their weight and are just mooching off the US, hell that was part of Trump's platform. And Secretary Gates under Obama complained, more diplomatically, about the same thing.
There's a substantial chance that a Russian invasion of any part of Europe would be seen as a "European problem" by a large chunk of Americans. None of this is to say I support that position, but that's where we're at IMO. America is largely turning inward for the first time since WWII, the question is whether Europe will figure that out before Putin does.
How about pay your fucking debt and keep Russia at bay.
This is the point of putting NATO troops in the country: if Chad from Nebraska and Juan from Madrid get shot by Boris it’ll significantly alter public/political opinion much more than if Igor gets shot by Boris.
They put these troops in the Baltics so that the Russians would end up shooting kids from a wide range of influential NATO partners.
We didn't re-invade Afghanistan because some US soldiers were killed during the withdrawal.
And the failure to do that was very explicitly the basis of massive domestic criticism of the Administration; it took executive commitment to weather popular opposition to maintain the withdrawal policy.
So, while the facts you recite are accurate, they don't actually support the argument about political support you are making.
The US is facing severe internal crises. It's weakening the country's ability to conduct a consistent foreign policy.
(I'm deliberately not saying what the crises are, because there is pitched disagreement about that. The point is that no matter what, infighting is hampering foreign policy.)
Again, the point in this context is that no matter what the crises are, the foreign influence of the US is in decline because of severe domestic distractions.
I agree that much of the domestic chaos is a distraction, and that the U.S. should be focusing on longer term existential issues that affect the whole world, but I wish more people realized how much of the distraction and chaos is intentional.
It's difficult to keep your eyes on the road when someone just tossed a beehive into the car.
Should it? Many US citizens believe that the country is at risk of betraying its fundamental values and becoming something they cannot countenance. Resolving our differences will be hard.
Foreign instigators are poking an existing wound. They may be aggravating the injury, but they didn't create it.
There's no question that the long term interests of the US would be served by staying vigorously engaged in foreign affairs, including in the Ukraine. But does the US have the capability to do so when it is so riven, internally?
One side is having Open calls to remove the police. Let men take over woman’s sports. Decriminalize theft. Oh and attempting to bring back segregation. Disagree with any of that and you get labeled a far right lunatic.
> As an exercise, could you articulate a sympathetic reading of a different perspective, to the extent that someone who holds that perspective would approve of your rendering? Think of it as following Sun Tzu's advice to know your adversary.
America as a country never really gave a shit about Afghanistan. Nobody was standing in a ration line or anything. The military was at war, and that should actually give you confidence because if America can sustain a 20-year war in Afghanistan which turned out to be completely pointless while also fighting a war in Iraq which they also do not care about imagine if the U.S. did care. Unless you were in the military or knew someone who was if you turned off the news there was absolutely 0 evidence that the United States was at war in Afghanistan or Iraq or even both.
And I'll also say pulling out of Afghanistan was 100% the right call. We spent 20 years there and it collapsed in like a week when we left. That should be all the evidence you need that it was time to get out. It was a money and attention pit and we gained nothing for it strategically. (Not commenting here on the atrocities committed by the Taliban)
I agree that getting out of Afghanistan was the right call, it was the horribly mismanaged manner of our leaving that I'm pointing out. We left our own citizens and allies in the country behind almost overnight, with the senior leadership rationalizing that the Afghan national army was going to actually fight, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Our leaders just stuck their fingers in their ears and pulled the plug.
I don't see how Eastern Europe ranks any higher in the minds of said leaders, outside of the remnants of the retiring Cold War generation and the dwindling number who still believe in NATO.
Oh yea I doubt it, but if the military goes to war and people start dying who knows how the public will react. If Russia, idk, bombs a US base in Germany that's a totally different ballgame (hence why small contingents of US forces will be deployed to various locations).
> We left our own citizens and allies in the country behind almost overnight, with the senior leadership rationalizing that the Afghan national army was going to actually fight, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Eh I think people are overreacting to this. We don't know all of the details and I think people probably got lulled into a false sense of security that America would never leave Afghanistan so when you actually do it they're like wait what? When you have Democrats and Republicans criticizing you, you probably did the right thing. Also war is messy. Frankly this could have gone better but could have went much worse.
> I don't see how Eastern Europe ranks any higher in the minds of said leaders, outside of the remnants of the retiring Cold War generation and the dwindling number who still believe in NATO.
Oh yea I think NATO is already gone and nobody told France who is probably the only remaining EU country with any fight left in it. The EU just wouldn't commit to US interests hard enough (China/Russia) so the US has pivoted and it took the EU by surprise, but France prefered to throw its lot in with the EU and Germany instead of the US and UK. With that being said, an invasion of select EU countries won't be tolerated by the US and allies either, so there's a limit to what Russia could invade.
On the US side it's the US, Australia, UK, Canada, Japan, and a few others but I'd say that's the core alliance for the US now. South Korea is committed but I don't know how they'll react to various scenarios. New Zealand is trying to keep the US and co. at arms-length.
Since Iran launched a ballistic missile attack at US bases in Iraq[0], and pretty much nothing happened in response, I wouldn't jump to conclusions about US response to attacks on our bases.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Martyr_Soleimani
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/iceland-featured-the-dail...
...but there are still no battalions in Iceland. There isn't even a permanent US air base any more, they cleared out in the 2000´s.
Russia knows well that if they do something on the borders of the eastern Nato countries they will anger not only that nation but they also risk killing young people from a number of other Nato countries at the same time, meaning that broad support for counter action will hopefully build very quickly compared to if only "some people in a former east block country got killed in an unfortunate accident" or "there was a border dispute" like in Ukraine.
Some notes:
- I support this. I am a trained soldier and if my country asks me I will come although I am old enough to realize it will hurt. I have read my history and history is not kind to pacifists - but see also my next point!
- I absolutely do not like how Nato meddled in Afghanistan for about two decades. Defense allianse, not "attack alliance" or "do something vaguely good"-alliance is what I support.
- I'm not sure if it will help in the short term. Russia is unpredictable and they are making a point of it.
- On the other hand however maybe what we see is that it already works: Nato countries sees far less Russian aggression than Ukraine.
And, more to the point, because of the most recent invasion by China, after the wars with western colonizers.
Military training as a part of the basic high school curriculum went away a whole ago. Vietnamese youth are about making money now.
I don’t disagree the govt is prepared to counter China but they are also investing in a lot of other things.
Russia is extremely sensitive about foreign military activity adjacent to its borders, as any other country would be and the United States always has been. It has signaled repeatedly that it will stop at nothing to prevent NATO membership for Ukraine. Nevertheless, eventual Ukrainian membership in NATO has been an avowed objective of U.S. and NATO policy since the Bush-Cheney administration. This makes absolutely no sense. It is also dangerous to confront a nuclear-armed power with military threats on its border.
When I hear comments now such as, “Russia has no right to claim a ‘sphere of influence,’” I am puzzled. It is not a question of legal “rights” but of probable consequences. It is as if someone announces, “We never passed a law of gravity so we can ignore it.” No one is saying that Ukraine does not have a “right” to apply for NATO membership. Of course it does. The question is whether the members of the alliance would serve their own interest if they agreed. In fact they would assume a very dangerous liability.
I point this out as a veteran of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. At that time I was assigned to the American embassy in Moscow and it fell to my lot to translate some of Khrushchev’s messages to President John Kennedy. Why is it relevant? Just this: in terms of international law, the Soviet Union had a “right” to place nuclear weapons on Cuba when the Cuban government requested them, the more so since the United States had deployed nuclear missiles of comparable range that could strike the USSR from Turkey. But it was an exceedingly dangerous move since the United States had total military dominance of the Caribbean and under no circumstances would tolerate the deployment of nuclear missiles in its backyard. Fortunately for both countries and the rest of the world, Kennedy and Khrushchev were able to defuse the situation. Only later did we learn how close we came to a nuclear exchange.
As for the future, the only thing that will convince Moscow to withdraw its military support from the separatist regimes in the Donbas will be Kyiv’s willingness to implement the Minsk agreement. As for the Crimea, it is likely to be a de facto part of Russia for the foreseeable future, whether or not the West recognizes that as “legal.” For decades, the U.S. and most of its Western allies refused to recognize the incorporation of the three Baltic countries in the Soviet Union. This eventually was an important factor in their liberation. However, the Crimea is quite different in one key respect: most of its people, being Russian, prefer to be in Russia. In fact, one can argue that it is in the political interest of Ukrainian nationalists to have Crimea in Russia. Without the votes from Crimea, Viktor Yanukovich would never have been elected president.
One persistent U.S. demand is that Ukraine’s territorial integrity be restored. Indeed, the U.S. is party to the Budapest Memorandum in which Russia guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in return for Ukraine’s transfer of Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia for destruction in accord with U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. What the U.S. demand ignores is that, under traditional international law, agreements remain valid rebus sic stantibus (things remaining the same).
When the Budapest memorandum was signed in 1994 there was no plan to expand NATO to the east and Gorbachev had been assured in 1990 that the alliance would not expand. When in fact it did expand right up to Russia’s borders, Russia was confronted with a radically different strategic situation than existed when the Budapest agreement was signed.
Furthermore, Russians would argue that the U.S. is interested in territorial integrity only when its interests are served. American governments have a record of ignoring it when convenient, as when it and its NATO allies violated Serbian territorial integrity by creating and then recognizing an independent Kosovo. Also, the United Sates violated the principle when it supported the separation of South Sudan from Sudan, Eritrea from Ethiopia, and East Timor from Indonesia.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_F._Matlock_Jr.
[2] https://www.krasnoevents.com/uploads/1/1/6/6/116679777/krasn...
>argue that it is in the political interest of Ukrainian nationalists to have Crimea in Russia. Without the votes from Crimea, Viktor
>Yanukovich would never have been elected president.
This is actually a very interesting point, and would explain Ukraine's recent shift to more nationalist politics, and pivot away from Russia - which (unintended consequences for Russia) sparked all these problems in the east.
Seemly Poland in the run up to WW2 got parts of it conquered by URSS, and later when WW2 was over, some territory that was part of Germany became part of Poland to "restore" its territory, effectively shifting Poland westward, this means that eastern Ukraine had polish people inside it.
The guy then explained that Ukraine east side is full of ethnic Russians, even if they consider themselves Ukranians, while west side is filled with ethnic Polish and related groups.
He predicted then (the violent protests didn't had started yet when I read this) that the ethnic EU people would be pro-EU, and would oust Yanukovich in violent protests, and the ethnic Russians would retaliate in some form, either trying to retake the capital by force, or splitting away.
Yet culturally Western Ukraine has much less ties with Russia, due to not being a part of Russian empire.
Again and again, I read this 'ethnic' treatment of conflict in Ukraine. That is not true, for example Kyiv is majority (even today) Russian-speaking, yet it always supported pro-West politicians in elections.
It's a myth perpetuated by Russia
You may find the accounts from two Ambassadors presented in this write-up interesting: https://transatlanticrelations.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/1...
Here's the direct quote from Ambassador Braithwaite's letter. Braithwaite was UK’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union and Russia until 1992.
The assurances Russians point to the following:
Assurances given in 1990:
• James Baker, US Secretary of State, 9 February 1990: “We consider that the consultations and discussions in the framework of the 2+4 mechanism should give a guarantee that the reunification of Germany will not lead to the enlargement of NATO’s military organization to the East”;
• Helmut Kohl. German Chancellor, 10 February 1990: “We consider that NATO should not enlarge its sphere of activity.”
Assurances given in 1991:
• John Major. British Prime Minister, Speaking to Defence Minister Yazov, 5 March 1991: “He did not himself foresee circumstances now or in the future where East European countries would become members of NATO;
• Douglas Hurd, British Foreign Secretary, speaking to Foreign Minister Bessmertnykh, 26 March 1991: “[T]here were no plans in NATO to include the countries of Eastern and Central Europe in NATO in one form or another;”
• Francois Mitterrand, speaking to Mikhail Gorbachev, 6 May 1991: “Each of the [Eastern European] countries I have mentioned will seek to ensure its security by concluding separate agreements. With whom? With NATO, of course. ... I am convinced that is not the right way forward for Europe.” This was, of course, a prediction, not an assurance.
[Author’s note: recently declassified material published by the National Security Archive contains some additional references to similar “assurances.’]
This factual record has not been successfully challenged in the West. The remarks by Major and Hurd are confirmed by British records. I was present on both occasions.
I cannot imagine the scandal that it will be if my country (Mexico) would allow Russia or China to place some weapons and troops in say, Tijuana or Cd Juarez. And yet, the USA has bases stationed all around the globe.
The world is not some grand scale intended to be balanced. No one argues the USA is full of saints. Whether the USA is full of saints or not is immaterial to Russia/China being "bad". The truth is, a world Order led by the United States looks a lot kinder than a world led by Russian or Chinese regimes. Resorting to false equivalences (guys, they're all bad) in fact hurts all of us interested in a world that respects basic human freedoms.
I've stated this before, as have many others on this site: the US and the knowledge of its genocides and other violent acts committed on people across the world is only possible when a free press is guaranteed and when we do not need to worry about being whisked away into that eternal night for bringing those atrocities to light. You cannot discuss the Tienanmen Square massacres in China without severe reprisals. Indeed, in Russia, doctors have simply repeatedly fallen out of windows for daring to toe the official line on COVID. It's happened so frequently, it's become something of a meme.
So please, criticize the US all you want (and there's much to criticize) but stop at drawing these false equivalencies because it is easy or because you believe in some global scale that must be equalized.
But that is a preconception you have due to your background. A world order the China way may mean no more narcos and narco killing in my country, no more each-to-its-own culture that is permeating my country.
You have to be aware that in my country we like socialism. We like social healthcare, social help for people. A lot of people believe that it's wrong that 10% of the people has 90% of the wealth.
Thing is, living in a bubble prevents people to see that there is more than what we learn from our country and its social constructs.
I was fortunate to live in 3 very different countries for a long time. It allowed me to both value watch I had at home but also to see other ways to do things. Again the narrative of "russia china bad" is a subjective idea that is given to us by our society.
I have already outlined a few examples for why it is not. If you insist on this damaging false equivalence, and for a taste of something on your continent, you need only look to the illegal violation of the territorial waters of Argentina by Chinese fishing vessels en masse. That is happening today.
The ruthless genocide of the Uyghur people is happening today. The illegal seizure of Hong Kong happened last year. I have personal experience here as a woman I grew close to openly wept for the loss of her freedoms happening in real time.
The Great Leap Forward killed between 13 and 55 million people of which it is estimated at least 2.5 million of these deaths were caused by beatings, tortures, or summary executions. Your vaunted CCP denies and distorts all of these events.
> You have to be aware that in my country we like socialism. We like social healthcare, social help for people. A lot of people believe that it's wrong that 10% of the people has 90% of the wealth.
I live in Denmark. I am quite familiar with socialized healthcare. Denmark and the rest of the EU are good examples of the benefits of what sharing the wealth looks like. China and Russia are authoritarian superpowers who treat history as a story of convenience and you have fallen for it.
You're a little late, the Russian military moved into the Crimea back when British red coats were still stationed in New York City, and they have been there ever since.
On the contrary, the grab is the other way, the West is trying to push out Russian military bases in the Crimea which have existed for centuries.
When is the US going to close up the Guantamano Bay military base, something the Cuban government has been asking for decades?
It was the Russia / USSR that agreed to let Ukraine alone as long as they guarantee human rights and equal status of ethnic Russian / Russian-speaking minority in Ukraine (but majority in East Ukraine and Crimea).
It was the Russia and USA that agreed to restrict usage of the nuclear missiles in Europe.
Guess who broke all those treaties and agreements and now has balls to accuse the opposite party for the current situation.
Even thousands of years ago, Sun Tzu said you should not push your enemy to the wall where his only choice is to fight to death or just die, and NATO is still doing that.
It's not how you de-escalate things, and I hope the reason would overcome, unless we want to experience a nuclear winter.
Just look at the list of the Chatham House Prize winners [1] and try to find one person there that is not anti russian.
I guess one could find State Department press releases less biased than this organization.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House#Chatham_House_Pr...
It says US secretary of state James Baker told Gorbachev NATO forces would not move east from Germany. Then it goes into that there is a lack of formal, legal enforcement of these promises, and how the US changed its mind later. So even this source with its leanings does not say what you say.
So briefly here is what I think had happened:
- Russia had a huge strategic deal to sell Germany petroleum and natural gas. This was years of diplomatic work and finally got to the point where this looked like a reality.
- The settlement of the above deal would be in EUR bypassing the typical petrodollar settlement.
- Ukraine was proposed to be added to NATO by US and other allies.
- Russia started moving troops to Ukraine.
- the above mentioned deal with Germany is now under question.
One has to wonder if the last three points are correlated and second and the third points are correlated i.e. to keep the petrodollar dominance US is crafting this conflict by adding Ukraine to NATO.
USSR (and then Russia) were selling gas via existing lines to Western Europe since 1970s. The new pipeline is a bypass around Ukraine to remove any leverage against an invasion.
Ukraine would love to join NATO (and no, you are not proposed there by other countries that's not how it works). However the US and other allies have cold feet to avoid pissing off Putin.
(For the reference, the old pipeline gas was also paid for in Euros)
As to momentum for Ukraine ascension to NATO, I would love to live in that reality. Over here, Germany, France and several other NATO members strongly oppose even allowing Ukraine onto the roadmap.
I think Germany opposed the reality of Ukraine being in NATO because they understood the reality that this pisses off Russia, their large natural gas provider which benefits no one at this point especially in a world where US sphere of influence isn’t exactly as big as it used to be. Just look at how it all panned out in Afghanistan and Yemen.
Same thing for Hussein.
Yugoslavia had that and a lot of good it did them.
Significant chunks of the Israeli population are de facto exempted from conscription (and with a low rate of voluntary enlistment from those communities as well)-most Haredi Jews, and most Israeli Arabs. Those two minorities together make up over 30% of Israeli citizens, and both minorities have an above average population growth rate (due to having more children and starting families at a younger age). The long-term risk this situation poses to Israel’s military security is a perennial topic of concern in Israeli media and politics
Poland may, because they see Russia as a nr 1 threat. USA have to because they(NATO) will lose any credibility. If they won't Germany, Japan, Poland, Ukraine, South Korea and Taiwan will start nuclear programs right away.
Nobody wants nuclear proliferation.
This Russia-Ukraine issue is a negotiation tactic from Russia. There will be no invasion because it's too expensive to occupy a large country.
Short term: Russia would like a land connection to Crimea, cause they have a problem with water. They don't want Ukraine in NATO.
Long term: Russia negotiating position is weakening. They have army and natural resources. As world will be less dependent on carbohydrates, oil and gas in Siberia will be too expensive to extract.
In no way would cross my mind to justify Russian actions, a regime I absolutely abhor. But maybe would be a good moment to not forget about the 40 years of strategic agreements, that supported peace in the last few years, and ask why these are being disturbed.
Or are we to ignore the CIA operations in Ukraine of the last few years:
"Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU" https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape-idUSBREA...
What would be the reaction of the US if Russian forces would deploy to the other side of their border? Lets says Canada or Mexico? Because that is what would happen in Ukraine would join NATO. We know what happened when they tried Cuba.
Often things are very obvious, even notorious, but because we do not want to face the eventuality, we do things like negotiate or perseverate our denials all while the situation escalates.
If NATO and the west are ready and willing to defend Ukraine (I suspect we are not), in which case a significant increase in our own presence would have made sense much earlier.
If we are not willing, then the Ukrainians really should be told that and given an opportunity to negotiate or find their own way.
I'm not sure that Cold War style standoffs via obscurity work the way they used to, there is just too much information available. The job is not to hide information or turn a blind eye to it, but rather to create as much or more activity and information as the opposing side.
I'd say no one ever really wants to defend an ally, it's more of a pros-and-cons balance. For smaller countries, solidarity within NATO is building goodwill capital for when they need help (e.g. with allies following US into Afghanistan). For large countries, this is part of their empire-building: showing allies you support them makes them more favourably disposed to you. All-around, even for the US, it raises the bar for anyone contemplating an attack on a NATO member.
Ukraine is a colleague but not an ally, so these don't really apply as much.
That said, the West wants an independent, pro-western Ukraine (just not enough to fight a direct war with Russia over), and seems unusually resolute, so I wouldn't be surprised if some truly punitive actions were to be taken. Exclusion from SWIFT was one proposal, interfering with Russian energy exports would be catastrophic for Russia. The latter is very difficult for Europe in winter, but who knows; the US could open the tap with their gas, also if the whole thing gets delayed by a few months, it could be a very different perspective.
The latter is very difficult for Germany in winter.
Let's call a spade a spade and stop bundling the EU27 with Germany's energy policy and geo-political failures.
I get it, from Spain it looks very different, but this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_in_the_European_energy_... shows how many countries depend on Russian gas.
This should have been scary to Europe for at least a decade now, but sadly wasn't.
In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made with Russia. A Europe united with Russia would be the one superpower even China could do little to contain ..
Its certainly not going to be possible for as long as member citizens of Western nations think they have the moral authority to tell Russia what to do .. they really, really don't have that moral authority, especially given the last twenty years of massacring of innocent people that the West continues to sweep under the rug and justify with bleats ..
The Russian people know how many innocent human beings are massacred by American war machines every day, even if Americans don't.
Anything less is just a failure to understand basic ethics. You can call anything a fallacy - the idea that Americans have a higher moral authority on the subject of human rights is just ludicrous and worthy of a great deal of ridicule in light of the statistics of "Americans killing other innocent people for fundamentally racist/bigoted reasons" .. the real fallacy is that the American people think their nation has a 'right' to act with moral authority over any other nation. They really, really don't.
So? Which 'side' you pick is mostly a matter of national identity and how your personal views on world peace align with the military industrial complex of your own personal nation state. A lot of Europe is really sick of America's shit and want them to leave, too.
I suggest you ask your relatives how they feel about NATO encroaching further and further towards Russias' borders, and what do they think about the recent NATO exercise that flew armed nuclear missiles within 20km's of Russias borders. If the tables were turned, Americans would be having kittens - but somehow, Russians are supposed to take these threats lightly?
NATO is a defensive alliance. A country can join or leave NATO alliance. Nobody forces a country to join alliance. The higher threat RF creates for others, the more other countries are wanting to join an alliance to get protection from RF threats.
I highly suspect that your colleagues in Slovakia are invented.
NATO is the threat that Russia is responding to by buffering its borders and protecting its nuclear-armed naval base on Crimea. Its not Russia putting American bombs within strike distance - its the USA and its criminal NATO partners.
There are two major parties in Germany who oppose NATO membership: The far-right AfD and the left to far-left Linke. They have less than 20% of the national vote together. In 2019 there were 54% of Germans in favor of the NATO membership and 13% opposed it. [1]
Can't talk for the other countries, but given that you have no sources other than "I heard someone say that", I'm not inclined to believe it.
[1] https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/r/52/YouGov%20Eurotrac...
From outside the American media bubble, it is quite clear to see which nation is committing the majority of crimes against humanity and war crimes today, and they don't speak Russian. They commit these crimes like cowards, hiding in Arizona strip malls, remotely controlling their death robots and raining hell and fury down on utterly innocent people, every single day. Germans know this and care. Americans either don't know about it, or don't care - or both.
Places like Poland and Slovakia are similar only somewhat less so.
These are just not vocal enough to warrant attention in Western media, nor does it serve the purpose of giving the American-led NATO powers a new purpose for existence.
You don't know "a lot of Ukraine and Georgian expats." I have family from both and have been all over Georgia. 2012 Gallup Poll had Georgian approval of US policies at 51% and disapproval at 15%. There's a damn good reason Georgia and Ukraine mutually consider each other their #1 ally.
I thought after the 2014 annexation of Crimea, surely international supporters of this crap would be nowhere to be seen anymore. Now I found myself thinking the same thing when Ukraine or the Baltics boil over, but I'm sure somehow you'll make up some other "But US and NATO (a defense pact that has never entered into unrequested territory) also yada yada, Russia not so bad."
I can count the # of pro-NATO/pro-USA bootlickers in my professional circles on one hand, whereas the people who are categorically opposed to America's continued committing of crimes against humanity cannot be so simply counted. You seem to be aligned with the "might makes right" theory of geopolitics, but this is not the case among the people of the states I'm familiar with. Most of them want the criminal human rights violations to end - on all sides - but are not so stupid to ignore the American side, just because its shiny and plastic.
And you said the Ukrainian and Georgian expats were here in Austria. I'll leave it to others to decide if you're telling the truth.
> You seem to be aligned with the "might makes right" theory of geopolitics.
Actually I was explicitly saying that Russia annexing Ukraine (might) isn't right. ???
>Russia annexing Ukraine (might) isn't right. ???
Well, that depends if you think fascist Ukraine should have access to ex-Russian nuclear-armed naval bases or not. I personally would rather have Russia have control over the significant population of Russians in Crimea than have fascist Ukraine gain access to those nukes.
But, we peons rarely get what we want. I guess we should learn to wield our democratic power better ..
I know a lot of Ukrainians. They absolutely hate Russia.
Russia tries to invade their country, US isn't. Don't you think that makes a difference?
My family in law is from Slovakia. Needless to say, especially the older generation really hates Russia.
Do you have any idea what Russia did to Ukraine, or Slovakia or any of the other ex soviets satellite states? Don't you think that would leave any marks?
I don't think Americans hate Russians at all, in my experience. Just Putin and a handful of oligarchs.
> probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry.
Some of these Russians just happen to carry Novichok or polonium and assassinate dissidents living in Europe, no big deal right?
> In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made with Russia. A Europe united with Russia would be the one superpower even China could do little to contain ..
This is a glorious fantasy
Whereas every single American tourist can be trusted not to be a gullible fool and just believe everything they've been told to think about Russia by talking heads on the television? Come on, we know that all states assassinate their enemies, including the USA. This standard is no longer relevant.
In Western democracies we don't assassinate our dissidents, we simply throw them in a dark room for a few decades and throw away the key, like we are doing with Assange, and would have done with Snowden if someone like Putin wasn't around to put the smug hypocrisy, propaganda, and corruption on public display.
> Europeans don't hate Russians as much as Americans do -
I seriously doubt Americans really hates Russia, and at least not more than any eastern country who has been crushed by USSR for some decades.
> probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry.
Seriously, again. We want peace with Russia, but don't pretend it is the West who creates this situation.
> In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made with Russia.
Yep, but hopefully we remember what happened how much we got out of Britains deal with Hitler. A deal with Russia must always be backed by power.
> A Europe united with Russia would be the one superpower even China could do little to contain ..
The only advantage China really has on us is ruthlessness.
It is the West that creates this situation:
https://www.geoawesomeness.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Ri...
>Britains deal with Hitler. A deal with Russia
These are not equivalent by any stretch. Putin is not Hitler.
What am I supposed to read out of this that supports your argument?
> These are not equivalent by any stretch. Putin is not Hitler.
Absolutely true.
Sadly it seems that one similarity is that both of them - and others as well - didn't/doesn't respect treaties, agreements or what I think of as basic expectations of decency.
For this reason I voice my clear support for Nato - as long as we don't overstep our boundaries like we did in Afghanistan. This includes sending troops to the borders og our friends in the alliance. As long as they don't cross the border this is fair game.
Russias problem isn't only that they exercise on the Ukrainian border, but also that they have a history of:
- sending advanced gear to troublemakers in east Ukraine who choose violence over democratic participation.
- sending troops.
- has a history of not only meddling like USA (I don't like this either) but also occupying.
Which country is having its territorial sovereignty threatened by the encroachment of hostile states strategically positioning nuclear weapons within strike distance? Which country actually belongs in the region, and which are setting up remote bases from which to operate, far, far from home?
If you don't think NATO aggression is a reality that Russia must deal with, there's not much point in further discussion. Only one side in this argument has a long history of committing war crimes and further crimes against humanity, for the last twenty years ..
>doesn't respect treaties, agreements
This is the biggest problem that Russia has with NATO and its puppet states: they don't respect treaties or agreements. Lets next discuss the Minsk Protocol and what Ukraine has done to render its participation utterly useless and not worthy of any respect, whatsoever ...
>NATO .. don't overstep our boundaries
That horse has left the barn, long ago. It is very clear to those of us that live in the region that NATO is willing to step all over the sovereignty of other nations in an attempt to encircle Russia. Your trust in NATO is clearly either a) uninformed, or b) utterly misguided.
>Exercise on the Ukrainian border
.. on the RUSSIAN side of the border. Nothing at all wrong with that, one bit.
> sending advanced gear to troublemakers
ahem It is the USA actively arming Ukrainian fascists, yo.
> meddling like USA > also occupying
Not at anywhere near the scale of the USA, sir. And if you think this is equivalent, then good day to you - we have nothing else to discuss.
The USA is the #1 violator of human rights and committer of war crimes in the world today. Your attention would be better directed towards the calls for justice for America's war crimes victims and the imprisonment of its numerous war criminals.
Only then can the West find the moral authority to do anything about Russia's perceived acts.
Until then, these arguments are specious at best, or facetious in whole.
Poland and Finland also have LNG terminals with more of them being planned in other European countries. Germany, on the other hand, is still very much on the Russian gas needle.
The fact that one country can shift a marginal gas use from one seller to another doesn't mean, for example, that you could find enough gas in the free market to suddenly prop up 40% of European winter needs.
I think there's a lot that could be done here, but it would require coordination and a united front. Oddly, I feel both these things are in place.
German gas consumption per capita is not much different than most of the EU27 except France (nuclear) and Spain/southern Italy (it doesn't get cold enough to need much heating). All the EU east of Germany imports more of their gas from Russia as a percentage; and the ones to the west of it only don't because the pipes from Norway or Morocco are shorter.
So no, not just a German problem, your electricity cost have gone up too I bet.
1. Russia has gas over Germany.
2. Amassing troops on Russia's boarder without an alliance with Ukraine is politically challenging.
3. America is sick of war and doesn't have a good looking balance sheet.
4. China is the new meta. Taiwan is tough enough.
5. Joining Nato is a process starts with have a certain level of democratic freedom and market economy that Ukraine is in the process of attaining. If we defend them right now, then it undermines the reforms we want them to make before joining. Once they're in, they're our problem.
6. Covid and knock-on effects is still the focus.
Doesn't mean I love it, but it's the reality. Personally I'd do things differently, but I don't exactly have presidential intelligence reports now do I?
Looks like you could just declare you have territorial integrity and you’re set, irrespective of reality.
That said, if there was political will, it would probably be fine, or there would be a special clause, or sth.
For example, West Germany joined NATO (founding member?), even though clearly the country was divided; West Germany didn't, AFAIK, make format territorial claims on East Germany, but they clearly saw themselves as a legitimate state with an occupied territory.
> as more and more countries recognize Crimea as part of Russia.
What? Crimea will return to Ukraine as more countries recognise Crimea as Russian territory?
> It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine
Crimea will never return to Ukraine, Russia historically needs port that doesn't freeze over winter. Now that Ukraine is looking towards EU/Nato and Russia cannot control it as a satellite corrupt state, Russian military will not allow losing control of their most important port.
This whole war in Ukraine is to open up possibility for a break-out state favourable and funded by Russia or even assimilation into Russia, as its a corridor to Crimea.
There was an opinion piece on 9 Dec in The Daily Telegraph which points out that the West have 3 potential flashpoints: - Russia and Ukraine - China and Taiwan - Iran and their nuclear enrichment
The West can only hope that the three foreign countries do not decide to coordinate action.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/12/09/wests-nightm...
'A column of 70 vehicles with food is estimated at RUB130 million Rostov court published a verdict confirming the presence of the Russian military in Donbass
The Kirovsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don issued a verdict in November in a case of corruption in the supply of food, which indirectly confirms the presence of the Russian military in Donbas, where the war is going on. The document was published on the website of the court.
The defendant in the case was the deputy regional manager for military nutrition of one of the commercial companies. He was found guilty of bribing the head of the Center for State Sanitary and Epidemiological Supervision of the Southern Military District with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
It follows from the verdict that the official demanded 90 thousand rubles a month in order not to interfere with the supply of food to the Russian military. And we are talking about the military, who are in the east of Ukraine.
“His responsibilities included organizing and fulfilling obligations for the purchase and sale of food and the creation of the necessary stock in the warehouse <...> The food was intended to be sent to military units of the RF Armed Forces deployed on the territory of the DPR and LPR,” the case file says.
According to the testimony of the accused, food supplies to the DPR and LPR were carried out every two weeks. For this, a column of "more than 70 vehicles with a carrying capacity of about 40 tons and a total volume of more than 1300 tons" was formed. Among the products were flour, canned food, fresh vegetables. “The total cost of food for one delivery was more than 130 million rubles,” the verdict says.
According to various estimates, one such delivery is enough to feed about 25 thousand people. The defendant also said that before the shipment of the cargo, the food was checked by a "Russian in the rank of major", and on the territory of Donbass the trucks were "under the protection of the receiving party."
The Kremlin denies the presence of the Russian military in the DPR and LPR.'
https://web.archive.org/web/20211215174957/https://kirovsky-...
Recent death of 55 miners in Kuzbass shows how common this pattern is. All safety equipment in the mine has been disabled or shortcutted but all inspections considered that mine to be safe to use.
UPD: obvious part of the story is the fact that 10-40% of that 130 million contract has been stolen by militaries and food suppliers.
as a european i tend to be very skeptical of the US involvement in eastern europe. they seem to be exploiting the enmity of some eastern european nations toward russia for own economic gain and to stop russia selling its natural resources to EU. all the while being many many miles away from the danger zone. one has to wonder, how would people of US percieve the situation if Mexico decided to host Russian bases and missiles
PS: The article is in Russian. As an European, I've read it.
That being said, Ukraine just flexes during it's traditional winter gas-price feud with Russia to try negotiate a better price. It doesn't really want Donbass nor Crimea back; those regions always were too pro-Russian. Without them, Ukraine's politics have shifted much further west. But Ukraine needs to remind the west of the Russia boogeyman to get resources from the EU, while threatening Russia to get concessions from them.
The original verdict of the court does not say "the guy declared". The language used there is describing recipients in Donbass as a fact important to the investigation, otherwise it would be a simple speculation irrelevant for the court decision and not worth mentioning there.
Of course, there are ways to "explain" this publication as a mistake, misinterpretation as you already suggested or sabotage, but then it will just undermine the credibility of the supposedly objective and independent court.
It also isn’t a uniquely Russian problem, by a long shot, but the control of media by the state there exacerbates it substantially.
Its beyond shadow of doubt Russia is funding rebels, if not directly leading them.
Russian military equipment did just appear in local grocery store as black friday deal.
Specnaz soldiers dying while on 'holidays'. Selfies of Russian troop with geotags in Ukraine.
Nobody needs concrete evidence of what's know going on and who is behind it.
Russia (IMO)may simply be pressing ahead while it sees the US’s power currently diminished.
The US withdraw of Afghanistan has not helped matters. It demonstrated that although the US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival, this expense does not equal 10 times a more powerful army. Instead we have shown our current military structure is overly bureaucratic and inefficient. Until the US can restructure and gets it house in a bit better order I think we may see Russia continue to press forward in the short term.
It is not true that the U.S. killed a million people in the Middle East. And this is not some sophistic semantic argument either, as it remains not true when you include Afghanistan. The number of civilian casualties is not even close.
It is also not true that the U.S. doesn't care about civilian casualties. The U.S., U.K., and Australia are the only countries I know that put lawyers in air strike operations cells to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed. The French red card holders receive training but don't tend to be lawyers, believe similar is true for Germans and Italians. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who takes this obligation more seriously than the U.S. and closest allies.
The fact that US uses lawyers "to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed" does not mean they care about civilians; it means they care about being sued in case they killed someone whose family can afford lawyers.
Additionally, the link you posted about deaths in Iraq does not say what you think it says.
Almost every country cares about civilians more the US: by not waging wars.
The million excess deaths from the wars is very realistic and plausible.
The claim isn't "there were a million excess deaths in a multiparty conflict," the claim is that the U.S. killed a million people. The vast majority of civilian killings were by ISIS and Shia militias.
Generally speaking, calling US victims “excess deaths” tells something about American state of mind, though.
No. "But for" causation has zero moral import whatsoever. Stop spewing your ax-grindy propaganda.
You still don't see it, do you? You have been brainwashed into believing that war mongering is somehow not pure evil as long as it's done by US.
If you want to criticize, say, President Trump for his actions in the Gallagher case, that would be entirely fair. But it doesn't change the fact that he was prosecuted in the first place. There is no ISIS analogy to the Gallagher prosecution. Indeed, no other nation does as good a job as the U.S. does. I say this as a Marine judge advocate who stood in the face of immense pressure by an Australian "leftenant colonel" who wanted to cover up an unintended CIVCAS by joint forces.
If you want to know what a more sucessful campaign in Afghanistan looked like, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and their allied regime lasted over a year until Yeltsin caused the to fall and gave Afghanistan to the Taliban by imposing sanctions.
You'll note that it's not increased brutality that was successful. It was having actually effective allies on the ground that made and broke the Soviet campaign.
What's more, the campaign of shock in the initial stages of invasion was brutal, and did a lot of collateral damage, and didn't work and actually was counterproductive.
It was only when the Soviets and their allies managed to actually get a competent and motivated Afghan military towards the later stages of the war that the war started turning in their favour.
The US was never able to achieve their political goals and the US-backed government was never competent and motivated even after twenty years. It was a failure of the US military to achieve its goals. No amount of additional collateral damage would have done anything, it was simply a failure. In fact, less morals would have made things worse.
Also, see Iraq which was even more brutal and still completely unsuccessful with Iraq veering under Iranian control.
Its a matter of will.
What is in it for the USA to start/finish a hot war with russia?
Russia has has different rules of engagement which means that they are prepared to be a bit more ruthless when it comes to doing a war.
This means that for the US to win, it will need to commit a fucktonne of resources, of which a politically damaging number will be destroyed.
The US isn't going to commit that much because there is no real strategic win for this.
Russia is basically being textbook russia. Its been doing this shit in this region off and on for the last 150+ years. Its far easier to let ukraine blunt russia's fighting force, than it is to loose american troops.
Its not a moral judgement, its raw hard domestic politics.
Let's say the US does intervene in Ukraine. The US still won't be able to take Crimea for obvious reasons. Ukraine itself will be even more of a shithole. In the end, when the US leaves Ukraine, Will things be better or worse? Who knows, and that's why an intervention there is not on the table. If it was easy and straightforward and would deal a decisive blow to Russia, it would already be done.
How so? That's a pretty novel interpretation. Why do you view Afghanistan as a military failure rather than a political one?
The goal of a military operation is to achieve political goals. There is no clear delineation between the two. If the political goals weren't reached then the military failed.
A military is only as good as its leadership, is it not? Well, the ultimate leadership is the president.
The implication of your position is that the only way the U.S. military could have "succeeded" would have been to mutiny. That seems... odd.
This is definitely not novel. I am basically quoting Clausewitz, which is basically as far as you can go from being novel in the military tradition nowadays. For instance:
> We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. ___That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand___, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for ___the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.___
The U.S. military failed to act in a way that, to borrow Clausewitz's words, always includes the object in their conception. They therefore failed in their goals. Just as a foolish attack doomed to failure is a military failure, so is a foolish operation that could not achieve it's goals.
Also, it's far from true that the military knew that what they were doing would fail. They really did believe just as much as anyone else, in the beginning, that they would be able to make Afghanistan into a perfect American puppet and model in the region, and in being wrong, they failed too.
You're saying the opposite. You're saying military success relies on political success. That's an entirely different proposition and one I disagree with.
> The only way for the U.S. military [to succeed] would have been for ... the commander in chief to follow that advice
The only way the U.S. military could guarantee such a thing would be a coup. I don't think we should be blaming the military for not carrying out a coup. Not carrying out a coup does not constitute military failure.
There is no separation in sucess. If you achieve political sucess, your war has been successful. If you achieve military sucess, that means your political goals are achieved, which means you have political sucess.
The commander in chief is a part of the US military. Commander in chief is a military rank. If the commander in chief failed to lead the war correctly, then the military failed.
You are trying to see a hard dichotomy between both. There isn't. War is part of politics, and politics include war.
That is not what you said. You said "the US military is incompetent."
Please do a better job of engaging honestly.
And a decade before that was when the soviet union fell apart.
What time period, exactly, are you referring to that correlates with US influence waning? Russia has always been on autopilot regardless of US influence, when you look back at it.
The answer doesnt rely on talking about other ways influence shifts or trying to convince everyone to be scared of a world without US soft power omg oh noes, its about what it has to do with Russia’s expansionist actions.
I’d just remind the discussion that the US just pulled out of its wars. Also, war has a way of pushing past any debt discussions. Nowadays, people assume kinetic war is out precisely because of the threat of nuclear war and economic integration of economies. Russia is really assuming anything it does won’t trigger nuclear war nor cut off its ability for economic exchange. Same with China.
Taken to a logical extreme, what Russia and China want to do in expanding their borders IS war, they just think there’s fuzziness about what triggers all out kinetics. But of course small steps of expansion are the mechanics of all out war.
Edit-Further, the wide rise of nationalistic forces across the globe are signs of growing openness towards war. This path isn’t as unilaterally beneficial to Russia nor China as those parties believe. And if this were a game of risk, the opposing forces of China/Russia expansionism would be looking to unite the rest of the globe against it by whatever means at least undermine the threat of war or economic integration with R/C.
Ten times more than China's budget? Source, please.
The one thing I'm wondering is, in the horrible event of invasion of Ukraine, is how it's going to affect the markets and how to protect what little wealth I've got saved up. Anyone got any ideas on that? I do know that this sounds a little tone deaf but it's what I worry about, sorry.
I don't think that Russia would be even interested to take control of the rest of Ukraine, as the current situation seems to fit their goals: they're keeping control over Crimea, so they're keeping their access to the sea there. And with the Donbass situation, Ukraine won't join NATO anytime soon, so they won't see US bases and missiles being installed next to their borders
I mean, sure, we can argue will they, won't they. I just don't want to be caught with my pants down if shit really hits the fan.
It’s my opinion that if the West really wanted to end the war in Ukraine they would need to help ending the mobsterism there that’s driving the Russian Ukrainians into Russian hands. Instead it seems that the West are instead supporting these same mobsters as a way of attacking Russia and the poor Ukrainians are caught in the middle of it.
What they want now exactly is a different question, the answer most likely being in one man's head only. A revenge for loss in the Cold War, reclaiming the civilisational roots of "pan-slavic" territories, getting water back to Crimea, or any of the other hundreds of possible explanations.
edit: not "Crimean war", but Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-runs-short-on-some...
This doesn't mean things can't change but currently Russia could roll over Europe in a week unless the USA intervenes.
NATO is over as US is leaving it. I assure you Biden has far more serious issues at home like ~25% PPI (not the end product official number, but for the whole chain) which has to be somehow solved before May for him to look good during the elections in November. Also, he has to do something with military forces at home.
I mean he doesn't give a single shit about Ukraine. The US don't need Ukraine anymore as a weapon against Russia and what will happen has already been more or less settled among the parties presented by Putin, Biden, Modi and Xi.
Now Ukraine absolutely can't exist as an independent state even purely economically. They used to have really great start conditions 30 years ago but they fucked it up really badly. But even if they still had that they'd simply not have enough markets to sell their stuff. EU will obviously not support them. Also there are actually very different parts of Ukraine. Russia doesn't need in any way toxic Galicia where anti-Russian movement has been growing for ages (literally). Having such people for Russia would be a great PITA. On the other hand LNR and DNR are Russian, for instance.
Now taking all that into account just stop talking about Ukraine and find something that really matters.
This is comparable to the Soviet Union debt just before the collapse.
Outside of tech the economical situation prior to invasion was barely better than Ukraine's.
Ukraine GDP is improving from 2016 till now, even with pandemic. Some industries, like software and agriculture are growing at a great rate. Yet, some guy who watches Russian TV is painting absurd picture
Again, you don't know how external debt works, debt had nothing to do with collapse of Soviet Union, learn the history of your own country. Even then, Ukraine has lower debt to GDP ratio then Japan, Italy, Greece, United States, Canada, Spain, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Israel...
Something that Russians tell themselves every day - how everything is very bad in Ukraine, how it is going down. Sure.
Oh, you observe the 'drame', with your all-seeing eye, fucking cockroach.
In conflicts like these, it's always people in the area that'll suffer most.
Ukraine makes this easy for him.
In March 2015 Interior Minister Arsen Avakov announced that the Azov Regiment would be among the first units to be trained by United States Army troops in their Operation Fearless Guardian training mission.[46][47] US training however was withdrawn on 12 June 2015, as US House of Representatives passed an amendment blocking any aid (including arms and training) to the battalion due to its neo-Nazi background.[48] After the vote Congressman John Conyers thanked the House saying
I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions.[47]
However, the amendment has since been removed as of November 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_of_Ukraine
18th Operational Regiment (Reinforced), Mariupol Regimental HQ 1st Patrol Battalion 2nd Special Purpose Battalion "Donbas", Mariupol Special Purpose Reinforced Battalion "Azov", Mariupol Special Patrol Company, Mariupol Support Company
And for Ukraine, the anti-Russian faction does have some facist/neo-nazis groups in it.
Similarly, those fascist/neo-nazi elements, whether in Ukraine or beyond, though supposedly anti-Russian, are to all practical purposes serving Putin's domestic political interests.
Hard to justify saying Ukraine should follow a treaty that Russia also isn't following, after Russia's surprise invasion.