Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

hn_throwaway_99

If it is the start of WWIII, just goes to show how stupid the rationale for the end of the world will be.

I mean, in the whole buildup to the Ukraine invasion, I just keep thinking "what is the purpose of this?" I've read tons of background articles about the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and I have a pretty good understanding of Russian-Ukrainian history that is not often presented in Western media (e.g. the history of Crimea in the 20th century). But literally none of that points to a logical reason for this invasion, of this scope, now:

1. Russia is upset about the expansion of NATO. A very fair point, but the last expansion of Nato that Russia really had a reason to be mad about happened in 2004. Ukraine isn't really any closer to being a NATO member now than 10 years ago.

2. Protection of separatists in the Donbas region. Even if you did buy all of the Russian propaganda about what's going on in Donbas, in that case I could at least see an argument for annexing Luhansk and Donetsk, but not invading the whole country.

3. Keeping Ukraine within the Russian "sphere of influence". Again, I can understand the rationale for Russia wanting to do this, but I see invasion as extremely counterproductive to that goal.

Honestly, I see a ton of parallels with the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 at least made sense to me from the perspective of having a purpose; I remember the rush to war in Iraq in 2003 and the whole thing just seemed really stupid to me, like "well, we attacked one country, we're not done yet, so we have to find another country to invade." Similarly, while perhaps an unpopular viewpoint in the West, I understood the rationale behind annexing Crimea, but the invasion of Ukraine just leads me to believe "all outcomes will be bad, for Russia".

It's just good to remember that many times war happens for really, really dumb reasons.

You missed what I think is the big one:

4. Continued access to the Black Sea. Russia needs a warm-water port, so their navy doesn't get stranded in the winter. Geographically, both Crimea and Ukraine are critical for that purpose. If those countries turned NATO, and NATO went aggro then Russia would lose that access. So it is critical for them that they secure it. And securing it after Ukraine joins NATO is an invitation for WW3.

You may be thinking "NATO is a defensive pact, they will never aggress." That may seem self-evident to you, but it's a lot harder to accept on faith for the country that happens to be NATO's raison detre.

Doesn't Russia already have access to the Black Sea ?

A toehold on the eastern-most edge of the Black Sea, yes. They clearly want more. They tried for Georgia in 2008, succeeded with Crimea a few years later, and now are attempting Ukraine.

Each of the above increases (or would increase) their contiguous coastline.

All geopolitical goals are just an optional cherry on top of the main internal objective which is deliberately put Russians into besieged fortress survival mode to keep Putin in power.

Or as George Orwell wrote in 1984 about perpetual war in the totalitarian state: “The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.”

Yes. This is an incredibly stupid aggressive blunder. Totally seems like Iraq to me too. Except here nukes could be involved.

Honestly, I wish the world had reacted to Iraq the way they are to Ukraine. A million people died in Iraq for nothing. It's totally unacceptable and highly dangerous.

Does of any of this make sense? We have all the general plebe outlets claiming Russia is losing badly. Over at CFR's publication, Foreign Affairs, they are impressed with the efficiency of the Russian operation.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2022-02-26/man-behin...

In another thought-space by a former Indian diplomat, we read about how Germany is dropping the peacenik facade and assuming its role on the world stage:

https://www.indianpunchline.com/germany-can-no-longer-be-put...

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One thing we can be 100% certain about is that we plebes are not fully informed and we have 0 clue as to what precisely is going on. The question that is begging to be asked is why now? Why not a year ago, or next year? The mad Putin narrative asks us to believe that the entire Russian stakeholders are shaking in their booties because of fear? The army is clearly on board. Lavrov is on board.

And for an 'interesting' twist on all this, please note:

"[Sergei] Shoigu was awarded the highest award of the Order of Malta. July 7 2012. The Governor of the Moscow Region, former Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu, was awarded the highest award of the Order of Malta - the Knight's Military Cross for mercy, salvation and help. The award ceremony took place today at the Italian Embassy in Moscow."

[p.s. make a mental of note of "2012" if you read the first cite]

Putin likes to play poker and bluff his way into advantageous situations, but he overplayed his hand. He bet that Ukraine would fold quickly to avoid major military conflict and loss of life allowing him to install a pro-Russian government. This obviously did not happen.

Worse, for Putin, the Russian military is under performing against what should be an over-matched Ukraine.

His favorite tool is to threaten others, but he just lost the ability to threaten traditional military action because if he can't easily take Ukraine how would he take Finland or Sweden, let alone a NATO country? That leaves only one remaining bluff and that is the use of nuclear weapons. He might be desperate enough to use it, but I think his own inner-circle would overthrow him to prevent it. Look at the faces of his high command in recent videos. They are demoralized. I would be surprised if he survives this.

Exactly. Putin personally seems to only have bad choices right now. He is probably hoping that Russia will take Kiev quickly, which could alleviate some of the pressure.

If the losses mount, he might be facing the fate of the Romanoffs pretty soon.

There was no bluffing here. Can we get over this false idea that Putin is some calm strategist.

I never said he was a calm strategist. He is a gambler. It has worked for him in the past, but eventually when you gamble you lose. I associate gambling with a problem, not with strategic genius.

Clearly a calm strategist would never have put themselves in such a disadvantaged situation.

Did you read regular press, or professionals? As in military experts, intelligence, ...

Because I've seen quite a few experts warn since at least December that an invasion will happen. The main reason being the one you didn't list:

4. Putin hates democracy and fears that a successful democracy next to his door will trigger his fall. He also has an obsession that Ukraine is not a real country and that it's essentially a part of Russia.

Precisely. The other reasons are simply buying into Russian propaganda.

Ironically there's talk of the invasion triggering regime change. But... if he's going to lose everything, why not blow up the world?

To be clear, I am not surprised the invasion took place, just like I wasn't surprised the invasion of Iraq took place, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's any less dumb. Taking in pieces:

> Putin hates democracy and fears that a successful democracy next to his door will trigger his fall.

That sounds ridiculously simplistic and caricature-esque. Besides, the Baltic states and Poland have been fairly successful democracies since the end of the Cold War, they all directly border Russia, and Putin hasn't done much about that for the past 20+ years.

> He also has an obsession that Ukraine is not a real country and that it's essentially a part of Russia.

Yes, I fully understand the history of Kyivan Rus and the shared Slavic history of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. But again, "we all used to be the same people 800 years ago" seems like even more of a really stupid reason to invade.

To put my argument in a different context, since the end of the WWII large powers have at least tried to put up a semblance of a noble argument when invading another country. In the US in Iraq in 2003, WMDs may have been bullshit, but it was at least proposed that "we are invading to defend ourselves". I don't even feel like Russia is trying very hard to make that argument - they're doing it a little with the false propaganda of genocide against Russian speakers in the east, but in general it's like Putin's not even trying to hide his "Tough shit, we're a bigger country that can take over a smaller country if we want to" rationale.

The largest threat to any autocrat is the success of a breakaway now-democratic state. Autocrats need their people to think that they are hopeless without them. Otherwise why allow them to have all of the power?

The quality of life of many breakaway former soviet states has been rising rapidly and that makes Putin look bad. The same applies to China and Xi: Taiwan makes Xi look bad. The more successful Taiwan is the more Xi will feel he must gain control. However, Russia's failing here will give him pause. It is a good example of how to lose complete control.

Ukraine isn't one of the former soviet states that are doing well and making Putin look bad though. That would be the Baltic states (Estonia/Lithuania/Latvia). Ukraine has a substantially lower GDP per capita than Russia, whether you look at nominal or PPP.

Estonia, Lithuania, and Lativia are all members of NATO making them untouchable. And each are too small geographically and from a GDP perspective to really be a threat. Ukraine has strategic positioning and natural resources to one day be a relatively large economy.

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