War is expensive. It is impossible to hide the preparation for it
bbabo.net
bbabo.net
> It is impossible to hide such preparations from modern reconnaissance means
Yes, which is why exactly everyone has noticed the massive troop concentrations on the border to Ukraine. QED.
But you could hide it really really well, the information about these preparations could be known by lots of people and we, the readers simply be oblivious to it. Overall, I agree with the thesis, but not the conclusion.
I'm a Ukrainian living in the US, but these ^ kind of things have always made me curious. What's the US's business? I mean, it's Russia's territory. Neither Russia nor Ukraine is bordered with the United States. Training is happening on the Russia's territory, so, in theory, they can do whatever the hell they want. The US is on the other side of the globe. Why do they have an opinion? Why should any other country even care about what the US thinks or recommends, let alone explain anything? I obviously don't want my country to get into a full-blown war with Russia, but just curious about the US's business in this whole situation.
What casus belli would that establish?
A lot of the former soviet states outside of the NATO and EU sphere are furthermore already defacto under Russia's thumb, so there is little incentive for Russia to invade, and NATO/EU/US who could invade wouldn't either because they lack the ground to justify this internationally and/or to their own populations and really would have very little gain from it. Aside from recent (partially) failed campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the West in general considering China the bigger threat anyway, all of which would make any politicians think trice about invading former soviet states.
If Russia invaded the main Ukraine, things would still get pretty "interesting". It might push the Baltic states and even Poland over the edge, in turn resulting in a NATO and EU casus foederis, and open war against Russia at worst. An invasion of the Ukraine by Russia thus could become a casus belli, just in the other direction.
Collective self-defense in the presence of indications of aggressive action by Russia which appears to be rapidly approaching imminence; the US (and other partners of Ukraine) are communicating how Russia can do to show that that appearance is in error if, in fact, it is.
> The US is on the other side of the globe. Why do they have an opinion?
The US and Ukraine are security partners short of formal allies via the OSCE, NATO’s special bilateral partnership with Ukraine, direct US-Ukraine bilateral partnership, etc.
Sure, but that's only true from the US's perspective. From the Russia's perspective, NATO is trying to expand, which would also expand the US's military bases. And THAT can also be treated as aggression. Unless I'm missing something, but despite me being a Ukrainian, I kinda understand why Russia is doing what they do.
You asked what the US interest was, that is a question about the US perspective.
> From the Russia's perspective, NATO is trying to expand, which would also expand the US's military bases.
So?
Even assuming that's true, trying to expand a defensive alliance isn't an aggressive act under international law.
> And THAT can also be treated as aggression.
That's true in the trivial sense that any nation can treat anything as anything else, ultimately constrained only by the willingness of other parties to use force to constrain that behavior and the willingness of its own subject population to obey the leadership, but there's not even the beginning of an argument from international law that that is valid.
(The usual argument that it is even a cognizable wrong—and which still wouldn't make it actual or imminent aggression—is that it both violates a commitment the US made at the time of German unification not to expand NATO further East and that it would put Russia in an indefensible position and later be used to enable aggression against Russia. The first part of that, though, is just simply false: no such promise was ever made. The second part is speculative and distant.
Am I missing something, you are low-key justifying Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Its funny how you twisted the whole thing to 'show' this from russian point of view.
Kremlin always was messing with Ukrainian democracy in the first place, but maybe you heard about Donbass region and all of those poor lost russian soldiers coerced into up helping Russian separatists for almost TEN YEARS!
I wonder why would Ukraine want to join Nato... hmmm it makes no sense. It must be to spite Kremlin.
Yes, you are missing something.
> Kremlin always was messing with Ukrainian democracy in the first place.
That is simply not true. Messing with Ukrainian democracy has started on April 3, 2008, after the Bucharest Summit, with the NATO's Declaration that it welcomes Ukraine's and Georgia's Europe Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. That was a direct threat to Russia and they made it perfectly clear, same as the Monroe's Doctrine makes it perfectly clear that nobody, not a single country, is allowed to move military forces to the western hemisphere (say in Cuba), because it becomes a threat to the US. The decision at the Bucharest Summit led to a war in Georgia and Maidan in Ukraine. Prior to that, there was zero threat from Russia whatsoever.
Since the west keeps pushing on the NATO's expansion (which is part of their strategy, along with promoting democracy and expanding the EU), Putin gives the US two choices: either Ukraine goes back to a pre-2014 state of being a neutral player OR Russia will wreck the country. So the root cause is not Putin being out of his mind, but the aggressive US's strategy to expand NATO. Once again, despite me being a Ukrainian, Putin's strategy is perfectly clear to me.
Aha, checks out. Welcome to HN Internet Research Agency employee
Basically it comes down to mistrust. I suspect that thinking on the Russian side is symmetric, and they don't actually have any plans to attack Western Europe but are worried that a NATO-aligned Ukraine could be a base for Western aggression against Moscow.
...And then that relates to another issue. For the average citizen, rules are rules, borders are borders, and why would you want to attack another country that's minding its own business? For rulers of these countries, rules are just guidelines, and the only thing that matters is power, because how do you think they got to be rulers of those countries in the first place? They're the ones that make the rules, after all, so of course the rules are mutable. And that's why military & political leaders worry about things like balance of power, because at that level power is what determines what does and doesn't happen.
http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/my-books/balance-of-power-...
Mikhail Mikhailovich Khodarenok - military observer, retired colonel.
Graduated from the Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School (1976),
Military Command Academy of Air Defense (1986).
Commander of the S-75 anti-aircraft missile battalion (1980–1983).
Deputy commander of an anti-aircraft missile regiment (1986–1988).
Senior officer of the Main Staff of the Air Defense Forces (1988–1992).
Officer of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff (1992–2000).
Graduate of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (1998).
Columnist for the Independent (2000-2003), editor-in-chief of the Military Industrial Courier (2010-2015).
During the Vietnam war, the US was so ill informed on history they thought the Vietnamese would join forces with China. However, Vietnam and China have had a very tumultuous past and this was never on the table - far from it. A quick reading of history would dispel those fears. Amazingly, McNamara only learned of this decades later.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US made similar errors. They thought installing a democracy would simply replace the tribal power structures Saddam had kept in check for decades. But obviously with him gone, rivalries came right back. 20 years later…
Now that’s not to say Russia is not playing the usual smoke and mirrors games to extract concessions from NATO and West. But it’s good to have this perspective before anybody gets too trigger happy.
Of course, it's worth knowing what the journalist's biases are, but I think this apparent quest for pure objectivism is misguided.
In other words: "what is his/her bias?" is a more interesting question than "who is unbiased?".
I don't think the concern is some sort of cold war era major offensive where Russian tanks storm forward and take territory. The modern approach seems to be stirring up local trouble/guerrilla warfare/slow escalation/bringing in some (elite?) forces to bear locally to make progress. Generally with some local support.
If the author's point is something along the lines of Russia isn't set up right now for a major offensive to conquer the entire Ukraine in a week that's sort of a moot point I think? They don't need that to completely destabilize things, saw some chaos, and eventually in the medium term take over without resorting to a full scale attack.
There's plenty of examples of Russia being able to shift resources around pretty quickly. How much does it really take to destabilize Ukraine to the point where they'll get invited in?
The concern explicitly cited by the US government is exactly a major ground offensive, quite likely launched within the next month, following the recent escalation of cyber attacks and with the notional justification provided by a false flag action engineered by Russia for the purpose.
What happens to Europe’s natural gas supply if there is some kind of conflict with Russia? I can’t really imagine the pipelines would just be left running as they do normally, and isn’t Europe pretty dependent on that supply for heating and stuff?
I'm also getting the sense that the reliance on Russian natural gas is somewhat overstated at times. Only about 1/3 of the gas supplies of Europe come from Russia. That's a lot, but it is not unthinkable to compensate for in case it is lost. Between increasing local production, replacement with other fuels, or improvements in energy efficiency, it would be annoying but doable. For Russia, however, it would be financially devastating both in the short term as well as into the future, since Europe as a market would be lost for good once they achieve independence of this fuel source.
That said, imports of liquefied gas via tanker are possible, if you have the infrastructure to receive them.
Nordstreams connecting Russia directly with Germany means Germans not only wont do anything, they will actively torpedo any support initiatives in the name of "stability".
They expect that if Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 will be dead and they will weaponize natural gas supply. So emergency gas supplies will be coming from Netherlands, US etc in accordance with their action plan:
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/2019....
Saudi’s Arabia’s values are in direct opposition to everything America values. Yet look at the relationship. They can even kill a US citizen journalist and get away with it.
Minor correction: to everything America says that it values.
Actions speak a lot louder than words, and the rest of the world doesn't believe anything America says any more. Torture camps, mass surveillance, economic espionage, illegal wars - you know all this.
And if you think that's just American leaders, I suggest you try making up a fictional country and asking Americas if you think they need to be bombed. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/18/republican-v...
Not flaming. Just keeping things real here.
Ukraine is not part of NATO and US/EU have no interest in fighting.
Instead the most severe set of financial sanctions, possibly ever seen, will be implemented e.g. disconnecting Russian banks from SWIFT. And we saw in Iran these measures do work to severely harm the economy.
Over time Europe intends to move to more renewable sources, not only for electricity generation and heating, but in industry too. So the value of this bargaining chip may be reduced over time.
Anticipating the future is difficult. But it seems unlikely that Germany will become even more dependant on Russian gas in say, 2032 than today, so, this seems like as good a time as ever to threaten.
I don't think this article is credible, but my question above is asked in good faith. There do seem to be informed people who doubt the veracity of American claims of increasing Russian hostility.
And the 100.000 troops stationed near Ukraine are almost a dozen times the number claimed in the article.
I do feel a certain remorse since we've forsaken on our promise not to expand NATO towards the Russian border and have continually tried to undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent with our BMD system. I also fear there's a certain amount of disinterest in the U.S. government towards the sensitivities involved. The U.S. doesn't see Russia as an equal, even though it's the only nation that can completely wipe the it off the map, which brings with it a certain degree of resentment.
No such promise was ever made, and even Gorbachev who started the myth by saying he felt tricked by the West when NATO expanded into former Warsaw Pact countries (beyond the United Germany where East Germany had been a Pact country) later specifically admitted that no promise was ever made and the issue of potential expansion beyond United Germany was never even discussed one way or the other.