Putin’s Challenge to Western Hegemony
adamtooze.com
adamtooze.com
The same people who built the Berlin airport would also build the power plants.
Nuclear power plant construction is not a huge industry, and there are only a few companies globally that do it.
Now he’s the chairman of the board of Rosneft and the chairman of the shareholders committee of Nord Stream. You figure it out.
1. NATO is a military coalition that sits outside the regular National framework of war making.
2. NATO agreements are fair or ridiculous depending on the outcome one expects. If a member is attacked, that is a declaration of war on ALL members. Consider a rogue state/leader member picking war with a nuclear power and escalating to the point of no return. What then?
3. The objectives that NATO seem to want have become largely aggressive extensions of one political sides policies rather than what is right for "keeping the peace in Europe" or the world.
If you disagree with the statements above, i'd ask you to consider that China and her allies, Iran, Turkey, North Korea and Pakistan suddenly moved Radar equipment and denial of airspace missile batteries to Mexico, Canada and Cuba tomorrow. What would the United States consider such an act to be? Defensive?
For all the dick waving that Putin has done, the threat of war with severe consequences has been initiated by and continues to be advertised as the only choice by the unelected bureaucrats at NATO.
We are all supposed to sit here and watch while these morons pick a fight on the behalf of the world and then give us no choice but to send our kids off to die in another pointless battle?
Should we nuke them? Surely not?
Let Europe handle her political disagreements. We have no place there. The present breathless escalation of tensions only leads to one place and it's not good at all.
Why is the United States taking the lead at all in a conflict between countries with a history of conflict longer than the US has been around? European powers routinely engage financially with Russia in the form of pipeline contracts, friendly coordination on multiple other areas such as environmental protection etc.
This is all just a proxy fight for the natural resources (Oil) in Crimea and Ukraine and that's disgusting.
Everyone talks about Article 5, but you can't forget about Article 1:
>The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.
A state in violation of Article 1 might not be granted Article 5 protections.
The situation in Ukraine currently is that Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances by fomenting a rebellion in Crimea in 2014:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov basically admitted violating the Memorandum when he lied about its content:
>In February 2016, Sergey Lavrov claimed, "Russia never violated Budapest memorandum. It contained only one obligation, not to attack Ukraine with nukes."
https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/status/692321689254830080
Of course this is not consistent with the actual text:
>The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine
Now if Russia wanted to argue that admitting Ukraine into NATO would violate the BMSA, they might have a decent argument... if, that is, they hadn't flagrantly ignored it and denied that it even says anything about independence in the first place.
Article 5 standing on its own only commits members to actions within the scope of individual and collective self-defense as permitted under Article 51 of the UN Charter, anyway.
And no, Lavrov didn't lie about what's said in the document, you just need to read its text, not interpretations in mass media.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170312052208/http://www.cfr.or...
False.
> If a member is attacked, that is a declaration of war on ALL members
Also false.
> Consider a rogue state/leader member picking war with a nuclear power and escalating to the point of no return. What then?
Sucks to be the rogue state, but assuming you meant for the rogue state to be a NATO member, I don't see even a theoretical problem for NATO, but perhaps instead of posing a question you’d like to actually make an argument that makes sense given the actual text of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and the scope of the right of self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
> The objectives that NATO seem to want
Well, “seem to want” is rather amorphous and subjective, and so is your description, which doesn't even say what objectives you think NATO “seem to want”.
> For all the dick waving that Putin has done, the threat of war with severe consequences has been initiated by
...Russia, each time they've actually invaded another section of Ukraine. Which isn't just a threat of war with severe consequences, but an actual war, and crime of aggression, with severe consequences.
That’s not just “dick waving”, which is a better metaphorical description of the NATO response to date than the Russian action.
> unelected bureaucrats at NATO.
The top decision-makers at NATO are the heads of government of the members, who are, though indirectly in some cases, all elected.
This would be seen as extremely destabilizing. But the key for me is: who agrees to uphold international law, respect borders?
The reason Russian missiles in Mexico should worry Americans but NATO forces in Lithuania should not worry Russia is simple: NATO doesn’t have a history of annexing countries. This is no trivial difference.
The dialog playing out is really
Ru: promise to stop putting forces on our borders
NATO: would you promise to never move a border by force in these neighbors?
Ru: No. We don’t really recognize “borders” or “sovereignty” of other countries.
No war is going to be started here until someone crosses a border.
We don't need to imagine it. Just look at the Cuban missile crisis, which can trace its roots by putting nuke-tipped missiles in Turkey and Italy, stone's throw from the USSR.
When the USSR parked its nukes 90mi away from the US, US committed an act of war by blockading Cuba, wordsmithed it to a quarantine; dropped signalling depth charge on a Russian submarine in international waters, which had nuclear-tipped torpedoes. The world's lucky that someone senior on that boat vetoed the launch.
I'm not saying one has to like Russia for its moves, but the west should at least look at itself in the mirror for once. Admitting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO amounts to blocking off the warm water port for Russia. That alone should explain why they would react against it.
Why?? Because some idiot picked a fight we have no part in. The Bush Dynasty and the endless wars of the middle east, The Clintons and Europe/Russia. Right now in the present, the bi partisan scum skirting the laws of our nation to send Troops and armaments to places like Syria and killing and displacing MILLIONS of people that we as a nation have to carry on our conscience.
This should disgust everyone regardless of nationality, political affiliation or any form of "justification" they may have formed as being the international keeper of peace.
Creating what is essentially a Shell Company in the form of NATO with ridiculous amounts of warmaking powers, whatever cosmetic protections there may be to guard against abuse, and then allowing that entity to run feuds and foreign policy of the United States WELL PAST THE POINT of an administrations tenure should never be allowed.
International treaties should NEVER be allowed to derive in perpetuity, the constitutional powers and duties entrusted to National institutions. And this is precisely what is and has been happening so far.
It’s likely from a perception that the Biden regime is weak, and so, this is the “time to act”. Ukrainians can understand that too and hence are trying to get closer to NATO, to seek protection. Putin sees that in turn as NATO aggression.
From Putin’s point of view annexation of Crimea went swimmingly well, internally at least. He sees a golden opportunity to repeat it again.
From a propaganda point of view, I think it will be challenging to get Americans to care about Ukraine. With the pandemic, and other domestic issues, worrying about it is not a priority. And, unsurprisingly, Putin understands that as too, which makes him bolder.
Well, it hasn't played well, has it? The first shipments of weapons landed in Ukraine, and more are to follow, together with training teams. The only thing that Putin gained by his threats is more firepower in Ukraine.
The annexation of Crimea went well because most people there were Russians. When I went there some years ago I was surprised everybody was speaking Russian, to the point they called hryvnas (local currency) "rubles"... So before the annexation actually happened you could feel local people would actually welcome it as a chance for a positive change (this is no longer the case and the same people feel betrayed).
Also most people in Donbas were Russian. The folks there were very poor. My colleague's family stopped paying their rent, electricity and so on many years ago - and this was the case in many blocks of flats. They felt that any change for them would be a positive one.
Now the Ukrainians are extremely motivated. They know that if Putin invades, they will be slaves forever. They are determined to protect their country, and every day have more and more weapons. There is no way Putin could invade Ukraine without extremely high casualties.
> When I went there some years ago I was surprised everybody was speaking Russian
This is true for most of Ukraine. The western rural areas do still speak Ukrainian and there's been some push to keep that culture alive, but the entire east and south are very Russian, and it's by far the most common language used - even among ethnic Ukrainians - even in Kiev.
> ...if Putin invades, they will be slaves forever.
They probably expect the setup of a puppet Russian client state, similar to Belarus. "Slavery" is a bit hyperbolic. My point is that I'm not sure how many soldiers are willing to die over what seems like an unlikely victory.
One of the main problems with Ukrainian defense is that the largest cities, and hence the majority of the population, lives of the population lives in one of a hand full of cities that is within 50-100 miles of the Russia or Belarus border (Kiev, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Marpiol. Ironically, Odessa is the western most large city - but it has a massive Russia population.
If the advance is quick and takes these cities, the Ukrainian will see their capital and the majority of their population under the Russian military. Given that, I think the Ukrainian military will capitulate rapidly. I think the Ukrainians know that as well, so it really demotivates units to stay and fight. I don't think any strategist believes Ukraine can win a fixed conventional battle.
In fact, my guess is that the defeat in Armenia due to drone warfare, and the subsequent agreements between Ukraine and Turkey to arm with drone, might have hastened Putin's sense of urgency.
But my feeling is that Russia is honestly on the fence between taking all of Ukraine by force, or simply extracting a humiliating negotiated settlement from the west.
If I were a psychopath, and I were Putin, I would demand NATO troop withdrawal from the Baltics (maybe offering similar withdrawals on the Russian side), all of the territory east of the Dniper river (+/- some anomolies), formal recognition of the annexations, and a new lucrative Germany natural gas deal. ...and then be willing to settle for just "most" of the land east of the Dniper (but it would need to include the coast and the Crimea water canal).
Is it? After the last elections in Belarus thousands of people were risking their lives and some of them actually died as they were fighting for their freedom and independence from Russia. And in Ukraine, even worse happened at Maidan: people decided freedom is more important than their lives. Paradoxically, Putin made this spirit stronger. Normal people feel this is just unfair and cruel to invade a country just like that. It doesn't matter if you're Ukrainian or Russian (living in Ukraine), this kind of bloodshed would have no justification. I
I think it's going to play very well in the hands of Putin in the end. The more equipment lands the more he will capture. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War the "Equipment losses and cost". I remember them making a big spectacle of driving the captured American Humvees. Here one such segment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcH02Z4DYO8
Now don't get me wrong, I am not on Putin's side. I want Ukraine to stay independent and want it to win. I just don't see it easily happening and am starting to see the same thing as with the Georgian war happening again.
35% of budget income is from VAT only. I'm not counting other taxes.
That's a neat idea. I can say that North Dakota's recovery since 2008 contrasts painfully with that of Texas. Is it time for a Canadian Challenge to Midwestern Hegemony?
We shouldn't have pushed the coup a few years back, and we should leave our mitts off now.
Oh, and lets stop starving Afghanistan while we're at it. The last time we screwed them over, Bin Laden came back at us.
Surely that was a decision to be made by the relevant countries themselves and not Bush Sr of the United States.
Until then, the 900# red white & blue gorilla of NATO is driving. Folks don’t like it? Well, time to stop whistling “The Yanks Are Coming” every time they want to tussle with their neighborhood.
What do you propose as punishment?
Why is the US or NATO justified in doing the same to Russia then ?
[Edit] Since the algo won't let me post too many comments too fast.
Sanctions/War/whatever . . . the point is that the actions of the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are many orders of magnitude worse than anything Russia has done to Crimea or is planning on doing to Ukraine, so any retort saying "We are not going to war, we are applying sanctions" is about as paradoxical as it gets.
If those actions justify sanctions or war, surely the US should be first in line to sanction itself?
[edit] I mean look, call it what you will. The United States having invaded other countries on no pretext is an explanation for why Russia thinks it can get away with this, but it’s not a justification in the moral sense. They are still agents. And sanctions are not war. Threatening war would be saying we’re going to tell our soldiers to kill Russian soldiers if they invade, and we’re not doing that.
Ever stop to wonder what triggered the change in Russia's force posture?
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11014-us-anti-missile...
In the early 2000s they were entirely focused on counter-insurgency in the Caucasus. They had restructured their military to be brigade-based, so they could deploy small formations easily. What convinced Russia to re-focus on larger, nation-state threats in their near abroad? There was a really good article on the subject which I can't find now, written when Russia reformed the 1st Guards Tank Army in 2014. That reformation meant they assessed a serious risk of a peer conflict from their Western border, and needed a powerful combat formation optimized for such a fight. Russia has eaten 3 nation-shattering invasions along the Western axis of approach to Moscow (1812, 1915, 1941), where there are few natural geographic/terrain barriers. Do you see how sticking weapon systems in their near abroad that undermine their nuclear MAD deterrence, while expanding your military alliance ever-closer to their territory, might make them paranoid?
The actual security of Russia re: NATO is not really in question here, though you're right that he may not believe this, and we can't be sure that he does. However given the lukewarm international response to his annexation of Crimea, I'm inclined to believe the economic explanation more. He has just decided (probably correctly) that Ukraine is not a country that NATO will go to war to save.
1611 definitely on that list - it's no fun when your capital gets captured and destroyed, and possibly 1242 (the Northern Crusades, although that particular time it wasn't nation-shattering)
Punishment is what Germany, Japan received. Stripped of their military power and made to pay hefty fines. Has the US ever paid any country reparations for their invasions of soveriegn states?
[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/22/clash-of-the-titans/
"legitimate" is a loaded word, but the game theory strongly supports one of these options.
“Might makes right”.
Though, to be fair, it's not the most popular theory of legitimacy in international relations.
Who did he promise, when, and did it make it into a treaty? Because it seems to not basically not exist.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/18/bill-clintons-role-i...
> Interviewer: One of the key issues that has arisen in connection with the events in Ukraine is NATO expansion into the East. Do you get the feeling that your Western partners lied to you when they were developing their future plans in Eastern Europe? Why didn’t you insist that the promises made to you – particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East – be legally encoded? I will quote Baker: “NATO will not move one inch further east.”
> M.G.: The topic of “NATO expansion” was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up, either. Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces from the alliance would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement, mentioned in your question, was made in that context. Kohl and [German Vice Chancellor Hans-Dietrich] Genscher talked about it.
> Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled. The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been observed all these years. So don’t portray Gorbachev and the then-Soviet authorities as naïve people who were wrapped around the West’s finger. If there was naïveté, it was later, when the issue arose. Russia at first did not object.
> The decision for the U.S. and its allies to expand NATO into the east was decisively made in 1993. I called this a big mistake from the very beginning. It was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990. With regards to Germany, they were legally enshrined and are being observed.
[1]: https://www.rbth.com/international/2014/10/16/mikhail_gorbac...
And I can't accept the cute redhead turned me down, but just like Putin I will have to suck it up.
No, he didn't. Gorbachev, one of whose vague comments later about feeling betrayed by NATO expansion into the East beyond united Germany is the origin of the myth, subsequently explicitly clarified that not only was no promise about NATO expansion made, but the issue was never even raised by the USSR.
> Russia can not accept Ukraine joining NATO.
Well, it should learn to accept that it's not the USSR any more and its sovereign neighbors have the right to make the security arrangements they choose.
> Oh, and lets stop starving Afghanistan while we're at it. The last time we screwed them over, Bin Laden came back at us.
Bin Laden didn't come at us for anything having to do with Afghanistan (where are policy benefited his interests), but because he was mad that his home country of Saudi Arabia turned to us rather than his network for defense when Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened SA in 1990.
Obama and Clinton (as Secretary of State) very openly supported Ukraine, and the EU sort of played along, although much more apprehensively. They were playing with fire.
In the words of a European ambassador I'm acquainted with: "They don't know what the f** they are doing. This will cause a war.". He said this in 2013.
Losing Ukraine as a buffer zone to the west and even the small possiblity for a direct border with a Nato or EU was way too much for Russia to accept, so they acted aggressively. With the assumption that neither the US nor EU countries would be willing to seriously intervene. Which proved correct, apart from some lackluster sanctioning.
If you let mafia run things, that's exactly what happens.
So this isn't about political science. It's about psychology of a common criminal. That's Putin's level of thinking. Even if some there could think differently, he basically wiped out any kind of alternative ways of doing things in practice.
So it's a typical example of Dunning–Kruger effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
I think it would be naive to assume that he didn't have a close inner circle precisely for that.
So no matter what inner circle he has, it can't be called anything but stupid.
Feel free to do your own analysis though :)
My rationalizing model of that is a sort of Trump-like populist move. He might want to be seen as visibly anti-West, because that's what gives him the best support base - it might just be what some in Russia expect, or want to see. This is of course disappointing to some extent from a Western POV, but not to be altogether unexpected given the lack of support Russia got from the West back in the 1990s (while hit by a deep economic crisis). Those chickens might now be coming home to roost, and if so it would be quite hard to wish for better attitudes towards the West today.
In general though, I do feel much of western analysis on Russia etc is too simplifying, and naive. Cultural and historical context are so vastly different that, I think certainly more nuance is required.
It doesn't mean you should underestimate the damage he can cause. But you shouldn't assign him more value or long term thinking than he actually has. That's exactly what Putin wants - not to appear as sheer mediocrity that he is.
No government ever willingly gives up power.