Putin’s Strategic Failure and the Risk of Escalation | Hacker News Reader

Putin’s Strategic Failure and the Risk of Escalation

themoscowtimes.com

75 pointszepearl29 comments

When discussing with my students the pros and cons of different political enterprises, I would often bring up the observation that authoritarian technocratic systems can indeed benefit from focus. (see: China’s rapid infrastructure progress, state backed technology capture, etc.)

I then immediately point out downside: the increased risk of horribly bad decisions. These occur because a monoculture tends to form and such decisions are less likely in the painfully slow framework of democracy where everyone is ’allowed’ to voice their concerns (see: Parks and Rec).

Putin’s incredibly poor decision completely negates (and then some) the gains made over the past many years.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

It seems to me that Putin invasion is stepping on egg shells because, as they stated, they are only interested in military targets, and a quick surrender. Although the war propaganda is scaring everyone and making this objective more difficult

The Russian demand of a neutral Ukraine outside of NATO is not unreasonable

US/UK/EU leaders seem really interested in escalation doing everything they can to antagonize everyone against each other, they really don't care how much regular people suffer as long as Russia is "punished"

Russia has no interest or capability of taking Ukraine or the EU. Say no to war

>The Russian demand of a neutral Ukraine outside of NATO is not unreasonable.

Ukraine is not Russia's vassal. The ones who get to decide what alliances Ukraine is part of are the Ukrainians. Any "demand" on that question on the part of another nation is unreasonable on its face.

Agree,

But is understandable how NATO troops and ballistic missiles at their doorstep could be a worry for them. Same as USA would not accept if Canada and Mexico joined some kind of Russian defence union, as we still remember from the 'Cuban missile crises'

And we also still remember US/UK/EU... invaded and bombed Iraq, Libya and Syria and demanded their leaders to step down. And specially in Syria all US made polls indicated that the population was happy with their leader. All those countries population live in worse conditions today

And Ukraine is also in a civil war since 2014

So I would prefer that there was no invasions anywhere, and Ukraine had said no to NATO. But weighting everything I say I am not interested in a world war 3

Other countries doing unreasonable things does not make Russia's demands "reasonable".

I am not saying it is reasonable in itself

I am saying it does not justify world war 3

It does not justify higher energy prices. It does not justify disenfranchise regular Russians. I don't want to pay for it, I will not fight for it

> Other countries doing unreasonable things

Ukraine itself was part of the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Are we rambling unrelated points of history now?

"Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge had long been supported by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong"

I think you might mean “understandable” when you’re saying “not unreasonable”. Putin/Russia wanting a buffer state between them and nato makes sense, but forcing those people to be a buffer state without their consent isn’t reasonable.

For instance, they could have achieved an alliance with Ukraine by offering a better deal than Nato, but they decided to take control via warfare

No.

This "Ukraine civil war" bullshit is purely Russian propaganda. The "civil war" is Russia invading Crimea.

> And Ukraine is also in a civil war since 2014

Well, a "civil war" inspired, organized, and supported by "peace-loving" neighboring country, which now tries to "peacefully" topple democratic government just to finish up the job.

The same way US/UK/EU... funded the Syrian civil war, before invading. And fueled "revolutions" in many places including Ukraine

I am going to call BS on NATO's threat to Russia. How many wars/conflicts has Russia engaged in without NATO interference? It is time to move on. If Russia doesn't plan to invade NATO territory, the most most NATO will do is criticize actions, not put warheads on foreheads. If anything, this is Putin creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Invade non-NATO members will make non-NATO members want to join NATO. Putin's response is equivalent to screwing for virginity. If Russia refuses to invade NATO territory, then NATO is doing its job. If any country refuses to invade NATO territory because of NATO's strength, NATO is accomplishing its goal.

Russian-Georgia War, Donbas/Donetsk, Chechnya, and the most NATO has done is member states providing arms to Ukraine and words of distaste.

Those Russian invasions happened after NATO officially invited those countries to join, so it is not self fulfilling

Those countries are right at Russia's border, US other NATO members invading countries thousands of miles away

NATO members are by far the biggest aggressors in the world, always in and out of countries, claiming to spread "freedom". The population in all the countries, they intervene, live in worse conditions today. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Kenya, Afghanistan, Uganda, Ethiopia...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bucharest_summit

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia%E2%80%93NATO_relatio...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_mili...

Putin’s decision could make sense if he just got into power and got handed this situation.

But he’s been in power for a long time. He created the situation that he is in. Other countries don’t trust Russia and want to join the other side.

Thus if you consider the long view, he fucked this one up big time.

> The Russian demand of a neutral Ukraine outside of NATO is not unreasonable

Talk of Ukraine joining NATO or the EU was significantly influenced by Russia's invasion of Crimea. Russia was not demanding neutrality, it is demanding Ukraine be a vassal state under the threat of .. making it a vassal by force.

> Russia has no interest or capability of taking Ukraine or the EU. Say no to war

They literally invaded Ukraine, and are deliberately using illegal munitions on civilian targets.

> Talk of Ukraine joining NATO or the EU was significantly influenced by Russia's invasion of Crimea

It was long before that. Ukraine was practically pushed towards joining NATO during Bush Administration using any "soft" means possible.

Euromaidan (which the US had actively engaged in) also happened before Crimea, not after.

> deliberately using illegal munitions on civilian targets

Any solid source to that? Doesn't seem like there is any possible reason for that, other than completely demonizing someone's image.

>Any solid source to that? Doesn't seem like there is any possible reason for that, other than completely demonizing someone's image.

Those https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/t27gu7/butterfly_l... lovely things were found at second day around bombed school or kindergarten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1 . It's usually been delivered by uragan system

Also there are video recording of cluster munition exploding in residential areas in kharkiv and empty uragan sized rockets with cassets for munition stuck in ground near by.

Sorry, but r/ukraine has hardly been a solid source for the last few years.

I've already seen a few older videos of Ukraine Armed Forces attacks on Donetsk being presented as "new videos of Russian armed forces bombing civilians", just as Arma 3 gameplay videos: https://www.pcgamer.com/arma-3-clips-masquerading-as-footage...

Reports of soviet munitions, coming from the country that has been one of the centers of soviet military-industrial complex, raise some skepticism.

Why is this post not flagged as off topic?

Because it is interesting to people on this platform?

Because it is on-topic.

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