I think the 98 crisis will be pale in comparison. Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis
I wrote a thread comparing 98 with this: https://twitter.com/mmaunder/status/1498105293493792771?s=21
I wrote a thread comparing 98 with this: https://twitter.com/mmaunder/status/1498105293493792771?s=21
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
Putin is trying to go all-in with his last few chips. If he succeeds, he'll be in the game for a few more rounds. If he fails, he'll be out.
Hitler had allies. He had what was when he took power the best mathematics universities in the world (with comparable success in other areas; he eviscerated German academia, though), and (IIRC) the second or third-largest economy. Putin has a doomsday device that he doesn't actually want to use.
Or he tries the nuclear option. I would not longer rule that out. He has already lost the first round.
One thing that might be tricky is if he deploys tactical nukes, though. They're small enough so that the other nuclear powers won't go for all-out annihilation (probably), but still a step towards further escalation.
Most oligarchs are completely silent on politics, some are even in prison for corruption. Which of course is not difficult to accuse anybody rich or powerful in Russia. They probably don't have to dream up the evidence like in other cases of political (in)justice.
It would require many oligarchs to form a conspiracy and remove him and several others from power. I have no insight, but my feeling is not enough people trust each other to do it. One leak or the slightest mistake and they are all dead.
Set up a $100M 'assassinate Putin' fund and watch the fun.
The other oligarchs learned the lesson.
He certainly expected some symbolic sanctions, but not the massive consequences Russia is facing now. He expected vast support from the Russian public (90% when occupying Crimea 6 years ago).
None of those have happened. At the moment he looks like a loser. However, I am not convinced he will just give up like this. He will continue the war. And once he has nothing to lose, danger is that he uses the nuclear option. He has been sitting in a bunker (as Navalny expressed it) for 2 years in fear of the virus, meeting only very few people. It has made him lose contact with reality at least, if not even more severe mental consequences.
Lmao, Navalny wouldn't miss a chance to say something ridiculous like that. Practically all world leaders had engaged in similar anti-COVID measures. And obviously there was no real bunker.
I wonder what you base your assertions regarding Putin's expectations on?
To me it looks like he only expected more support from people in Ukraine, but it's not that clear, as Russian government seems to have decided to skip the informational warfare part altogether.
Most of them have been showing up in parliament many times a week, many wearing a mask. (Of course that depends a bit on the government model.) Some of them like Trump, Bolzonaro or Boris Johnson had Covid. Especially Trump grossly ignored scientific advice and had huge campaign events. Trump and Johnson had infamous garden parties. Not that I would call that smart, but that practically all leaders had similar measures is not true.
It's said that especially oligarchs lost direct contact to Putin because he stopped meeting people. Whether that is true I can obviously not prove.
How do you know this?
I'm not so sure about that. I feel it depends on whether Putin still has at least some marbles left. If he does? Yes, he realises that leaving a legacy of "war criminal who nuked Ukraine" isn't actually what he wants so the threat of nukes is making a point to NATO to stay out of it. If he's lost all his marbles, though, or if he's so far out of touch with reality as makes no difference? I could see him nuking Ukraine out of spite if it's clear he won't get what he wants, in a sort of "If I can't have you, no one can!" move. Assuming that there isn't a coup before that, or that him giving that order doesn't trigger a coup, etc, etc.
I do honestly suspect this is about delusions of historical grandeur. Ukraine is after all the historical home of Kievan' Rus (with whom most peoples in the region claim historical antecedence). In its "golden age" Vladimir the Great (Volodymir I, Prince of Novgorod) united the Rus peoples under his reign.
Not "medically insane", I'm talking like "Hitler insane" (who IIRC, was never actually proven to be crazy or with an actual medical disability). Attacking peaceful nations for no reason is warmongering and clearly evil... but doubly so when they're effectively brother countries.
Weapons were too good in the early 1900s, and the wear-and-tear on soldiers would scar them for the rest of their lives. The Axis powers didn't get the message in the 1930s/1940s, so one more ass-kicking was needed, but its overall not a good idea to initiate wars of conquest in today's society.
It’s why China doesn’t invade Pakistan or India, aside from small skirmishes that are in borderlands that are effectively proxy wars.
You'd have to be an idiot to accept a CIA puppet regime sharing hundreds of miles of border with you, particularly one that commits systematic terrorism against its Russian-speaking population.
It's pretty shocking how well FVEY IC have run their propaganda campaigns for everyone to believe Ukraine is in any way "neutral". Very impressed.
Interested in knowing about this. Any proof?
People in southern and eastern Ukraine, eg Odessa, and Kharkiv I think, speak Russian primarily more often than Ukrainian
I don't think that disputes anything you wrote though. Just being additive.
https://theconversation.com/how-russias-un-vetoes-have-enabl...
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/does-russia-s-veto-mean-c...
https://news.un.org/en/story/2017/02/552362-russia-china-blo...
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soviets-boycott-...
Not to say that other countries have not pulled some shit with UN veto power, but it's pretty much a meme with USSR/Russia
He has always been a killer,but his problem now is different & significant
It would be a mistake to assume this Putin would react the same way he would have 5 years ago" Source: https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1497393912821915648
Later, Rubio says: "Let me stress again that we are NOT dealing with 2008 #Putin
It is a grave error to assume he will make the same calculations & decisions today that he would have made in the past
The old Putin was a cold blooded but calculating killer
This new Putin is even more dangerous" https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1497968757091807234
Obviously, he's not going so far as to say that Putin has "lost his marbles" and Rubio definitely has his own agenda. My impression is that either Putin's cognitive state has changed over the last five years or Russia's doctrine of "escalate to de-escalate" has changed the playbook.
Are there real sources here? Not hypothetical—I’d be interested if you have them-but in their absence, this smells like the sort of thing you want your adversary to believe: “He’s a madman! He could do anything!”
(As a related aside, it’s bizarre and uncomfortable knowing there’s certainly amped-up information wars going on right now, that we’re all likely exposed, and not necessarily being able to differentiate.)
https://www.tiktok.com/@melisa_stewart_2.0/video/70694164468...
Unfortunately as the second largest nuclear power acting as a belligerent, such a threat could plausibly draw NATO directly into the conflict. I don't see a world where a country uses nukes in Europe without triggering a full NATO response. I also don't see a world where NATO negotiates under nuclear threat, to do so would present a long-term risk that Russia believes NATO will cave to nuclear threats and pushes the issue again.
A close example to your scenario was South Africa's nuclear arsenal as well as (potentially) Israel's. The game theory somewhat works out if the belligerent party only has a few nukes and would be unable to escalate to full nuclear war due to lack of weapons. It's considered a dangerous and unstable scenario as such parties could actually use nukes without fear of MAD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_theory#Coercive_cre...
If we believe some of the news, the invasion effort looks poorly coordinated and very risky. There are some units stranded without fuel, some light mechanized units engaged big cities and got repelled, whereas others got destroyed on the roads without proper air cover.
Frankly, Russia has some very impressive military tech but the whole thing does not look well planned at all. It seems more like the product of a delusional leader and some incompetent high ranking officials. Getting into urban warfare, which is where this seems to be heading to will turn to big losses on his side. Reminds me of Croatia '91, but without the secession component. Jugoslav National Army threw shitloads of poorly motivated armor units and they got nowhere.
It is unfortunately the Ukrainians who will suffer the worst of Putin's aggressiveness and the West's foolishness.
I have read this claim hundreds of times, but nobody ever mentions that the Baltic states joined in 2004[0]. Russia has had NATO on its border for over seventeen years, so why would this suddenly be a problem worth going to war over?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Adriatic_C...
West: “dude, poke that bear. I promise we’ll be here to help you in case it attacks.”
Ukraine: “here, hold my beer”
That’s not to say Ukraine didn’t have valid reasons for their actions.
Geopolitics is messy.
Georgia is an even more evident example of destabilisation by foreign military–industrial complex than the Ukraine. At least Ukraine had some reasons for her action after Crimea.
Georgia (or rather, Saakashvili) decided that if the US is selling them weapons and declaring public support, it would mean that they have an option of solving a century old ethnic conflict[0] by force. And that the West would support Georgia in inevitable confrontation against Russia, who obviously still remembers the Sochi Agreement it helped to broker under her guarantees.
Regarding Estonia, I am not sure why you are trying to treat a country like an individual with a single point of view and not a collective of vastly different people. WWII memorials is obviously a sensitive topic, I am not sure why you think Russian government has something to do with it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian%E2%80%93Ossetian_conf...
Last I heard, the governments of China and India were conspicuously refusing to condemn the invasion.
It doesn't seem unthinkable to me that a large part of the globe wants and feels they deserve, a "new world order" where the US takes a less hegemonic role and institutional influence is adjusted to reflect the modern world a bit more.
>It doesn't seem unthinkable to me that a large part of the globe wants and feels they deserve, a "new world order" where the US takes a less hegemonic role
It doesn't "seem unthinkable" because they've been literally saying that for half a century. That doesn't mean they want to work with the second coming of Christian nationalism. Anyone who's worked in diplomacy in the global South knows it's hard enough for them to work with each other.
China has been allergic to the word "invasion", perhaps because they don't want it thrown at them if they attack Taiwan. But China is not happy with Russia over this.
Current events in Ukraine seem like the perfect experiment to see if taking Taiwan is possible.
If it's really, really useful, I don't see how happy/unhappy would enter into it.
What does "actual ally" mean, according to experts? Was the USSR an actual ally of anyone in WWII? The US sent a zillion dollars worth of Jeeps and spam on the basis of shared interests, not true friendship.
"Alley" is misleading in that it sounds as if the dictator there has any choice except than doing what Putin tells him.
I was trying for understatement.
>That doesn't mean they want to work with the second coming of Christian nationalism
No...I suppose not. But if they don't, why be neutral? What if they take the "Christian nationalism" as superficial? What if "want" is immaterial to a reality of working with the existing situation?
>Anyone who's worked in diplomacy in the global South knows it's hard enough for them to work with each other.
You sound knowledgeable. I didn't know that China was part of the global South.
Are you scoffing at the idea that China would work with Russia, or just reacting to the mention of India?
Specifically, is it completely absurd to you to suspect that the fruits of the OPM breach were sent by China to Moscow?
China was ruled out separately; the remaining countries are either opposed to Russia, very small, or reasonably described as "global South". Your other points are similarly vacuous, and your attitude gives me no reason to continue this conversation.
I'm genuinely disappointed not to hear more of your wisdom. I know that being an asshole and being wrong are different things.