Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory
twitter.com
twitter.com
From the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/europe/russia/territory/overvi...
Out of the three major nuclear powers, I’d say only Russia would ever get sanctions for invading and occupying land. When was the last time US got sanctions?
Ultimately the US contributed well over 90% of the combat force in 2003.
One million excess deaths in Iraq as a result. We removed the Baathists and put Shiites in charge instead. Baathists joined up with ISIS and gave them American tanks and humvees, which then spilled violence over into Syria, and other regions.
Invading and occupying was actually better than invading and leaving a failed state like Libya. There, ISIS and Boko Haram were able to establish strongholds and millions still live under violent gangs. At least we stabilized Iraq somewhat — until we also left abruptly.
The last time we occupied land with our army was 2 months ago, when we withdrew from Afghanistan (also extremely abruptly).
But I see Russia invading and occupying, not annexing (unless you mean stationing troops in the “independent” regions). They specifically disavow annexing unless the government refuses to negotiate and sign a peace agreement. They already did this exact playbook in the Russo-Georgian war, down to defending the two breakaway republics, the provocations, the “peacekeeping mission”, the invasion, and demilitarization (through defeating their army). And that war was also immediately after a NATO related escalation.
Spot the difference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
The differences were:
1) NATO countries didn’t send endless amounts of fighter jets and drones to Georgia
2) France helped broker a peace agreement
A few months later, Russia’s troops withdrew and Georgia is an independent country.
On the other hand, a lot of lessons were learned by USSR in Afghanistan — a quagmire for 10 years where USA trained Mujahideen against the Soviets. Russia+China+Pakistan returned the favor in Afghanistan with arming the Taliban when USA occupied it for 20 years and spent trillions. Afghanistan has never been defeated, but has become a war-ravaged country with a shitty economy.
As Ukrainians say: the West is ready to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian!
Crimea was unambiguously annexed in 2014 [1]. The U.S. hasn’t annexed territory since WWII (the Marshall Islands) or WWI (the Virgin Islands and Kingman Reef).
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_...
Grenada- response to a coup d'e´tat with a multinational force
Panama- technically Noriega declared a state of war first (not the brightest move)
Desert Storm - response to Iraqi invasion/aggression
Haiti - restore democratically elected president
Bosnia- UN sanctioned response to Serbian aggression
Afghanistan- response to Twin Towers - 9/11 aggression. The worst thing we did was actually trying to be 'virtuous' and nation build when we weren't wanted. Get in, decapitate government, make it clear we will rinse and repeat as necessary as long as they host terrorists, leave them alone, with maybe one air base to carry through on the threat if necessary.
Iraq take 2- this is the most questionable one and definitely the most unwise one. Iraq/Saddam had continuously been aggressive post Deseret Storm and hadn't abided by peace terms, so in a legalistic sense, this was justifiable, from pretty much every other sense, moronic.
Libya- National Transition Council was the recognized government at the time of Gaddafi's killing. Supporting any particular faction in the civil war before it played out though, was worse than useless.
Killing of OBL in Pakistan - considering we started an invasion of Afghanistan over him, going after him on Pakistani soil seems rather mild.
Generally it is a pattern of being the world's police and/or avenging attacks, not wars of aggression to capture territory.
Now if you're talking Cold War CIA, then the list of nasty manipulations justified by fear of what the 'bad guys' were doing is a long and not defendable list...
In the case of Korea at least, they were fighting off the Soviet installed dictator, but in Vietnam they were fighting off the longstanding indigenous anti colonial movement.
Puerto Rico has referendums to join the US pretty often. Crimea had one and voted to join Russia. The international community could have placed more observers there, they just didnt do it in protest of the legitimacy of the very referendum itself. The international community just doesn’t recognize the principle of self-determination for any regions other than countries. That’s also why they accept Hong Kong being gifted top down by one empire to another.
Back during USSR days one guy (Khruschtchev) unilaterally gifted Crimea to Ukraine. Why is that more legitimate than an entire referendum? It’s not surprising how Crimea voted. It’s far more Russian than Ukrainian ethnically. If you want to blame anyone, blame Stalin who deported the vast majority of Crimean Tatars, otherwise they might have voted differently.
Puerto Rico is already part of the US.
The referendum in Crimea was run by Russia as a pretext after it had already invaded. It is extremely doubtful that it represents the actual views of the people living there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Kurdistan_Region_independ...
The key is whether the referendum actually got held and there was a large enough turnout that it was meaningful. No one was stopping more observers from coming and overseeing it, including whether coersion was happening. And anyway, what difference would guns make in how people voted? Because I don't see how the soldiers could possibly know the way people voted in a closed booth. So even if there were people with guns out there, that by itself wouldn't affect how people vote. The most they could do is try to force people to the voting booth, as they do in Australia for example, or try to keep them from showing up, as they do in Southern US states.
And besides, when it comes to Russia or Belarus, it doesn't matter that the legitimate government is dominant in the region instead of "an invading force", you don't trust the outcome of the referendums anyway. For example, Belarus just had one a week ago, do you trust the results?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Belarusian_constitutional...
Finally, a technical point: Russia had 25,000 troops in the Crimean peninsula, which it was allowed to have according to the Partition Treaty about the Black Sea Fleet, so it wasn't an "invasion" there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_Treaty_on_the_Status....
Sending in masked troops without insignia to overthrow Crimea's Supreme Council, install a Russian puppet government and run a farcical independence referendum is as far as you can get from following the terms of that treaty.
Meanwhile, I look at Crimea and say Russia isn't shy about annexing. And this particular thread was trying to talk about if China could invade Taiwan without sanctions, using examples of Russia and the US as similar powers. My point is that wars of annexation are met with sanctions.
By your logic PRC "reunifying" with TW wouldn't be met with sanctions because it's a civil war where TW is de jure recognized as part of Chinese territory, at least by parties who can do meaningful sanctions. After all PRC can't annex what's already legally hers.
It's not an international law driven by unflinching rules. It's a democratic choice, or a series of them.
What 'NATO related escalation' immediately preceded Russia's invasion of the Ukraine? I don't believe that there was one. As far as I can tell, Putin's casus belli is 'the Ukraine exists.'
A more relevant question would be "from whom?" You can't sanction someone much, much larger than yourself.
FTFY. I mean sure we only have another 50 years before the planet is unlivable for us, but why desperately try to accelerate it?
EDIT: here is Russias military doctrine from 2000 https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000-05/russias-military-doc...
sending waves of migration into the richer countries.
at some point we are all in this together.
> some massive and unpredictable ecological collapse could conceivably happen by then, which would I guess have the potential of severely damaging food production, but I’m not sure if that’s considered especially likely.
unlikely that we get an unpredictable ecological collapse.
predictable ones, however, are already taking place. Insect populations down 80%, bird populations down 50%, general extinction rate at levels that make me cry, ...
how long until this affects food production? Hell, at current rates of erosion, the US is predicted to run out of dirt by the end of the century.
The richer countries still have the mass transportation in their hands. Its railroads, planes, ships and cars of richer countries which bring the migrants.
PS: firebombing is more effective, more ash after all :-P
Is it though? Russian conventional army has clearly been devastated by corruption and bad administration, as the generals and staff didn't anticipate that it would actually be used in a real all-out war. What makes you think that nuclear forces are in better shape?
Additionally, even if their nuclear forces are in shambles, it really only takes a single launch to set off nuclear war. It's not like their entire nuclear force needs to function in order for the world to see a very bad outcome.
Not really - a single launch order has to be communicated and obeyed. No one single person can launch it.
Then where is it launched to ? Uninhabited area, high altitude or a population center of a non-nuclear power?
You think Russia is cancelled now - imagine after firing off a nuclear weapon - China’s existence would be at risk too
Although we’d be so much closer to nuclear war there are still a few degree’s left.
When I say "shambles" I don't mean "0% functional, can't even launch a missile."
The system would have to be minimally functional to at least launch something. But at that point, even if the warhead is a dud or the rocket explodes immediately after launch, or goes off target, etc - the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.
And since Putin is talking about restoring old borders, could the Ru visitors in Livland go home now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Empire
Putin is not the only one who could play this game, and make demands on historical grounds. More modern problems, like Chagos Island should really be solved though. The way UK is acting, and treating the Chagos exiles is quite ugly. IMHO.
How far along your sewer pipes does your domain extend?
None is superior to their guerilla and sabotage tactics
Edit: Of course as follow-up to this accidental event of 6 days ago...
"Japan says Russian helicopter violated airspace, scrambles fighter jet"
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/03/02/japan-rus...
From the linked article, described by the Swedish airforce as '"particularly serious" given the current situation, [who] called the Russian actions unprofessional and irresponsible.'
"NATO says Russian aircraft violated European airspace nearly 300 times in 2019" https://taskandpurpose.com/news/russian-aircraft-violate-eur...
However I cannot recall any incidents of the type:
"French Mirages violate Russian Airspace"
"Swedish Grippens's buzz Russian Cruiser..."
or
"UK Jets cross into Russian airspace"
Not saying they do not happen, just that I can't recall any. Do you have some examples?
You're gonna have to search for news from those countries instead. Try "нарушение воздушного пространства россии" on yandex, or "侵犯中国领空的行为" on baidu. English news hardly ever write about English-speaking countries violating other countries airspace, while the opposite is true too, you won't find news about Russians violating other countries airspace in Russian news.
Do you have a specific event?
The U-2 and SR-71 flew deep into Russia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident
We repeatedly enter Russia's ADIZ (https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/26/politics/russian-fighter-jets...) and China's (https://breakingdefense.com/2013/11/chinas-new-defense-zone-...) and explicitly do not acknowledge other nations' ADIZs for military aircraft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Identification_Zon...)
https://twitter.com/SCS_PI/status/1373886128177041410
Well inside China's ADIZ.
(I'd also note the article with the headline "Russian aircraft violated European airspace nearly 300 times" actually uses "flying close to NATO airspace" in the text. Russia's doing the same thing we do - fly close, violating ADIZs, and testing responses.)
Tribunal Rejects Beijing’s Claims in South China Sea https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/world/asia/south-china-se...
I'm talking about the one labeled "ADIZ China" along the coast, seen on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JADIZ_and_CADIZ_and_....
Mixing up ADIZs with national airspace muddies the waters.
Even if a number of those 300 occurrences were 'near' NATO airspace and only a portion were actual violations, that's still far more violations of NATO airspace by Russia than there have been NATO violations of Russian airspace.
Yes, I know. That's what I think the article is doing.
The same happens on coverage of China and Taiwan - the incursions always wind up just being going into the ADIZ (and Taiwan's ADIZ extends over mainland China, for extra complexity), but are breathlessly covered as if China's breaking the 12 mile limit.
I agree that media reports that mistake the Taiwanese ADIZ for airspace are wrong and should be strongly criticised, but you're wrong to assume the same context is true for Russia and Europe.
Articles should distinguish between them, then. A headline of "Russian aircraft violated European airspace nearly 300 times" with "flying close to NATO airspace" in the actual copy is irresponsible journalism.
In your response you wrongly asserted that was the case and you did so by confusing ADIZs with airspace.
It’s not a terrible failing to be mistaken, but refusing to acknowledge an error is the wrong approach.
"Tactics typically deployed by Russian pilots include a practice of deliberately failing to report flight plans, ignoring civilian air traffic controllers and switching off their on-board transponders that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg refers to as "flying dark" an approach which he said was inherently unsafe and poses a serious risk to civilian air traffic."
"Russia has long history of airspace violations" https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/russia-has-long-history-of...
> Military aircraft are not required by international law to file flight plans with a country’s Air Traffic Service before flying through their Flight Information Region (FIR)...
We violate airspace from time to time: https://www.cnn.com/2014/08/02/us/us-spy-plane/index.html
> The quickest route away from the Russians took them into Swedish airspace. The U.S. official acknowledged that was done without Swedish military approval.
> As a result of this incident, the United States is discussing the matter with Sweden and letting officials know there may be further occurrences where American jets have to divert so quickly they may not be able to wait for permission.
And we fuck around with transponders: https://news.yahoo.com/u-spy-plane-impersonates-malaysian-13...
> A U.S. Air Force aircraft electronically impersonated a Malaysian plane while flying over the South China Sea this week. The RC-135W Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft flew off China’s Hainan island on Tuesday, coming within 55 miles of the Chinese mainland.
While Russia routinely violates the national airspace (not ADIZs) of European countries there are few to no similar cases of European (or even American) military aircraft doing the same to Russian airspace in the past 30 years. This is a very asymmetric escalation & intimidation.
It seemed slightly delusional (but mostly harmless) to me at the time, but now - who knows?
I don't think even the Japanese government wants them back at this point, Hokkaido (the nearest big island) is already rapidly depopulating and having to administer a bunch of semi-frozen islands with random Russian pensioners and no resources aside from fish would be a logistical nightmare and permanent drain on the treasury.
> Although by the terms of Article (2c) of the 1951 San Francisco treaty, Japan renounced all rights to the Kuril Islands, the treaty did not apply to the islands of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and Habomai since they are not included in the Kuril Islands. Also, the Soviet Union did not sign the San Francisco treaty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuril_Islands_dispute#World_Wa...
The islands are barely inhabited.
It's not about the inhabitants, it's about the 200 nautical mile radius around the islands that becomes yours for economic purposes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone
Just rolling back to pre-2018 status quo, before Japan was seemingly willing to resolve the dispute at last.
You can read it as forbidding offensive war, but if Japan has claimed that those islands are part of Japan for a while then there’s enough of an argument for it being defensive war that no one will much care.
And get a nuke in response?
why for the love of god would the West support Russia and not the wishes of the Ukrainian people?
I don't understand this reasoning and have even heard it among some of my ultra-religious friends or extended family members. None of them has any skin in the game other than steep gas prices and lot of fear, so they just parrot "war is bad please stap!". But none of them contributes how that would impact the people. If you force them to comment it always turns out to be a trolley-problem that they have pulled the lever on for others: with silly arguments like we must do it because "claiming 100K dead people is still better than 10MM".
And this is where this hypothesis gets hairy because that decision is easier to make for others but a lot harder to say: "I and my partner with 2 toddlers will volunteer to be in the pool of those who die."
I'm only speaking for myself but there isn't a thing in the world I wouldn't do if I'd have to defend my own family even that means wiping out half of humanity. If I'd think very hard about I'd even wipe out part of my own blood to ensure survival of my own offspring. Luckily this is only a hypothetical scenario. Sure I'd never recover from it emotionally or psychologically but it is what I would do. This is obviously flippant and hypothetical but no better way to illustrate the hypocrisy at play here.
Edit: The only part I agree is the rest of the world will be massively hurt by it too. Egypt, Tunesia, Yemen, etc are totally screwed as it's the biggest consumer of UA/RU grain https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/07/w...
First, the people of Ukraine are free to decide to do what they think is best and "we", as in the West, are free to decide to do what we think is best. Those things do not need to coincide.
Secondly, two million Ukrainians have already decided to forfeit the game outright rather than stay and/or fight. All throughout history a minority decides on war and a majority either huddles or flees. So you tell me what it is that "the Ukrainian people" wish.
Aside from that, while 2 million refugees is a lot, it's still very far from a majority in a country of 45 million people.
Mostly women, children, and the elderly. All Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 are prohibited from leaving the country.
>All throughout history a minority decides on war and a majority either huddles or flees
2 million is far from a majority of Ukrainians. I don't know if this includes the number of people held up at border crossings, and doubt it includes those waiting for transportation. But it's still unlikely the majority, even if counting those groups.
>So you tell me what it is that "the Ukrainian people" wish.
They tell us. Right before the invasion, very few Ukrainians wanted to join Russia[0]. Another poll[1] conducted last week showed:
>>Only 11 per cent of Ukrainians agreed “if I could leave Ukraine safely tomorrow for another country I would.” Nearly seven in 10 (69 per cent) strongly disagreed. Only one in 20 (five per cent) of those aged 65 or over said they would leave if they could.
And:
>>Indeed, 67 per cent said they would be willing to take up arms to defend the country against Russian troops, with a further seven per cent saying they were already doing so. 85 per cent of men and 63 per cent of women said they had already taken up arms or were willing to do so.
[0] https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2022/02/europe/russia-ukrain...
[1] https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2022/03/lord-ashcr...
The Russian army has no interest in harming your family. It wants to achieve a set of political aims using violence, and to achieve those aims they are perfectly willing to harm your family. So it's those aims you need to make up your mind about, while considering the possible harm to your family that you will likely be unable to stop.
I also need to remind you, that even Ukraine's combatants that would be deemed non-civilians were forced to fight by the invasion, and are therefore also innocent, and are also "families".
It will be awful for Ukraine, and for the Russian soldiers sent to fight it. But the West's only alternative would be to encourage Ukraine to surrender, which would only tee up Putin's next invasion (Moldova, then the Baltics, then Poland).
Be careful what you wish, because it might come true :-)
so what we see here is a 20%, max 25% drop of the rubble to the dollar. bringing people's view towards reality is a difficult but much needed change to wish for.
So is it negative now?
Would save us a whole lot of historical grievances, revanchism and war by retconning the past centuries into a new issue.
Suggesting that "it's never an issue for them" is just ignorance of the highest order.
"Why Are Japan And Russia Still At War?" https://theowp.org/why-are-japan-and-russia-still-at-war/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet–Japanese_Joint_Declarat...
From its text:
> The state of war between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Japan shall cease on the date on which this Declaration enters into force and peace, friendship and good-neighbourly relations between them shall be restored.
The article claims it was never signed. This appears to be entirely made up. There are photos of the signing. https://twitter.com/urdailyhistory/status/131810082428807577...
Yes they are. Japan never signed.
That there were to be further negotiations after that didn't conclude doesn't invalidate that agreement.
Text is quite short, and clear: https://worldjpn.grips.ac.jp/documents/texts/docs/19561019.D...
Full text: https://worldjpn.grips.ac.jp/documents/texts/docs/19561019.D...
It agrees to negotiate on various trade and territorial issues, which apparently fell through, but that doesn't invalidate its terms.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20263/v2...
You reference says
"...no peace treaty has yet been signed, and the islands remain under Russian administration"
Edit: Ok. Per this reference it seems the view of the Japanese government is that they ended the state of war.
"...The Joint Declaration by Japan and the USSR of October 19, 1956 ended the state of war and reestablished diplomatic and consular relations between the two countries. In the Joint Declaration, Japan and the USSR agreed to continue negotiations on the conclusion of a peace treaty after the reestablishment of normal diplomatic relations, and the USSR also agreed to hand over the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan after the signing of a peace treaty..."
https://www.mofa.go.jp/region/europe/russia/territory/editio...
Bit I think we are missing in both desks the paper saying Peace Treaty.
Both parties agreed to end the war, and signed the agreement. It doesn't have to have the words "Peace Treaty" in the text to be one.
"A peace treaty is an agreement between two or more hostile parties, usually countries or governments, which formally ends a state of war between the parties" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_treaty
(They do claim territorial seas around it, but that’s 12nmi instead of 200nmi.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island
"In 1984, the Danish Minister for Greenland planted the Danish flag on the island and left a little message saying "Velkommen til den danske ø" (English: Welcome to the Danish Island).[12] It is also said he left a bottle of brandy;[12] however, this seems to have been Schnapps,[13] which, unlike brandy, is a traditional Danish spirit. It is commonly told, internally in the Danish Navy, that it was specifically a bottle of Gammel Dansk, which translates literally to 'Old Danish'. The Canadians have reciprocated with their own sign, the flag of Canada and a bottle of Canadian Club.[14]"
So much comes down to natural resources.
We can expect more countries to test territory with Russia while it is embroiled, distracted, and weakened by current endeavor.
Just an opportunity to remind the world about it while Russia is getting all the negative press. It wouldn't even beep in the world of PR if they had said it any other time.
Or Belgium or France or Spain or Holland for that matter...
I love Japanese people, they paid and suffered much more than deserved for their past mistakes, contrary to many other empires of the past.
It might not seem like much compared to other world events, but it means everything to the people concerned. No real punishment to the perpetrators, and a very late, reluctant, and muted acknowledgement from the Japanese government.
Also, here's a list of Japanese war apologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_and_pro...
Did Kubrick invent "me love you long time" or was it a thing in Vietnam?
Two atomic bombs dropped on civilians and their capital city burned down to hashes with hundreds of thousand of casualties in few hours doesn't sound as "No real punishment" to me...
YMMV
Can those traditionalist views be separated from those atrocities or do those views, given no restraint, inevitably lead to the atrocities? If they would, would that Japanese people allow them to stay in power if they undertook steps in that direction?
Important questions that would need answers before I would revert my opinion to one I might have held if alive 80 years ago.
That is what I was alluding to when I mentioned that they do not admit their wrongdoings even today. Disputes with e.g. South Korea prove that they still believe they own places they invaded during the war. Educating their citizens on the past and rebuilding trust with the countries who suffered under them would be signs they have changed as a government. Neither of those things take place.
Japan's only crime is speed-running the "major nation of Europe" experience.
Develop central government, industrialize, colonize, fight "real wars" with other "real nations", etc.
Europe is just as bad. They just spread it out over 400yr instead of 80yr so the history textbook gets a chapter of feel good stuff to isolate the genocidal religious wars from the hand cutting and the opium.
There's a joke about the difference in work ethics in there somewhere.
That's quite different from the 2003 invasion of Iraq which was on much shakier grounds.
Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its territorial contiguity.
Various Kavkaz ethnicities could vouch for independence.
Tuva (ironically, where Shoigu comes from) is a Buddhist nation that fits into the Mongol-Chinese cultural sphere better than into Russian one.
Vladivostok used to be a Chinese fishing village once, and the Chinese hate the old Unequal Treaties.
Sakhalin is a part of the Japanese archipelago.
Vyborg (Viipuri) and Pechenga (Petsamo) are formerly Finnish territories and even though the irredentism has subsided, they could still be valuable economically. Vyborg is a major port and Pechenga gives access to the Arctic Ocean. Their reconstruction would be a huge money sink, though. Much like reconstruction of the DDR after reunification of Germany.
South Ossetia and Abkhazia which would probably be reintegrated into Georgia and pave the way for potential NATO or EU membership.
Transnistria integration into Moldova.
LDR / DPR maybe even Crimea back to Ukraine.
Abkhazia fought a war in the early 90s to split from Georgia. South Ossetia also fought several wars to become independent. So both those territories might strive to become fully independent but will absolutely refuse to be re-absorbed by Georgia.
Moldovans are actually a minority in Transnistria, which has also seen open tensions since the fall of the USSR.
Lastly, Crimea, which was Russian until 1954, will definitely require a war and ethnic cleansing if Ukraine want to take it again and to keep it.
I bet they would be much richer than today. Being a part of Russia sucks from the economic point of view. IDK if Crimean Russians are so nationalistic that they would rather live in a semi-starved, heavily sanctioned, economically isolated country.
It's not because Russia has taken Crimea back in a rather cavalier way that they should be split again just to weaken Russia. This can only perpetuate resentment and problems.
Having Russian military bases on their south flank is a major security problem for Ukraine.
I would not be starkly opposed to Crimean independence, nor even Russian-integration, but in essence it looks like Russia took Crimea and then held a fake referendum to legitimize it.
But the question always goes - where do we draw lines. Should we support the concept of the Confederate States of America seceding from the United States? If California or Texas wanted to secede, should we support it? Wales? Okinawa? Quebec?
How should governments determine actual stake and determination over a specific part of land?
So I think this is a case where Putin's actions did align with what the people actually wanted even if that's too hard for the West to acknowledge publicly (I'm sure that they accept that Crimea is not going back to Ukraine).
So are parts of Ukraine who are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion.
Identity is tricky. Many once ethnic and/or linguistic Russians may choose to identify differently, to be governed differently, and that’s their right. The modern “Russian” ethnicity, as one distinct from e.g. Ukraine, is only a few hundred years old [1].
To be pedantic, Ukraine's regular military forces are vigorously resisting the Russian invasion, not parts of Ukraine. Regarding the ethnic and identity composition of Ukraine's military forces -- I have no idea.
There is widespread protest and limited insurrection in occupied cities, together with mass enrolment by the population in the military. The Ukrainian people, perhaps more than the state, are repelling this invasion. (In strong alliance with Moscow’s military incompetence.)
> But the question always goes - where do we draw lines. Should we support the concept of the Confederate States of America seceding from the United States? If California or Texas wanted to secede, should we support it? Wales? Okinawa? Quebec?
Why drawing a line? It's either you allow everyone to choose their country, or noone. Allowing Crimea but not California, or allowing Kosovo but not Mexico and allowing Slovakia and not Catalonia is the worst solution. Right now, it's completely arbitrary, and this arbitration is what leads to wars and conflicts.
I would say, let them all decide for themselves.
Do you want to allow Ukraine to be independent? Then also allow Donbas republic to be independent of Ukraine, and consequently allow cities in Donbas that wish to stay in Ukraine to secede from Donbas. And even within those cities, allow neighbourhoods that want to stay in Donbas to stay.
Why not, if that's what people want? And that would mean no war. Yes, it may be complex in an administrative way. Who wants to show passport to cross the street and go to the store. Or to cross borders twice when going to work? Or to apply for a work permit? But exactly that complexity would quickly lead to different agreements and territorial rearrangements if people decide it's better for them. Again, why not? If they agree, they can change the state every year or so. If you let people power to decide, they will be more responsible for purely selfish reasons. That's how capitalism works, why not politics?
As soon as you draw a line who can and who can't decide, you are creating a conflict that may or may not lead to war and other atrocities.
What is so controversial about giving the right of self-determination to everyone?
If everyone, regardless of the colour, race of gender has equal right, why some people should, and some should not determine if they want to live in one country? You can even choose your gender now, but can't live in an independent state?
Maybe I am missing something obvious. I Would really like a counterargument here instead of simple downvotes.
> Allowing Crimea but not California, or allowing Kosovo but not Mexico and allowing Slovakia and not Catalonia
Slovakia had a popular recognised referendum and decided to vote for the velvet divorce
Catalonia had an informal referendum that was not legally recognised, but afaik there is still technically a path to do so.
Kosovo - I do not know a great deal about Kosovo.
California can secede and there doesn’t seem to be a huge interest in doing so.
Mexico … idk where you’re going with this one.
But importantly in Crimea the Russian “little green men” showed up, took over, hastily ran a referendum that was very dubious and happened to just coincidentally deliver the result that said exactly what the Russians wanted. It was a fix.
I think you know this though, and that you’re engaging in what’s known as “sealioning” :-)
> I think you know this though, and that you’re engaging in what’s known as “sealioning” :-)
I learned a new word today. Thanks, although I don't think I'm engaged in it, since I idealistically think that everyone, with the accent to everyone, should have a right of association and disassociation with willing partners, and that our current state system is not the healthiest way of governing humans.
Yes. The Tenth Amendment reads, 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.' There is no power delegated to the United States by the Constitution to eject states, therefor the power to leave the union is reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Secession was and is perfectly constitutional. The fact that the Confederate States did so for a truly bad reason doesn't change that fact. The right thing would have been to … let them go.
Brexit is a great example of how things should work: a state freely decided to leave a suprastate body, and that body let it.
Scotland voted against its independence referendum in no small part due to fear-mongering about an independent Scotland being barred from joining the EU. The independence issue was then considered absolutely settled for a generation at least. However post-Brexit that has rightly called this into question, with still strong SNP support Westminster will have to reckon with that soon enough. Irish reunification isn't something I'm too familiar with the intricacies of, but they were pro-EU too and the Irish Sea border doesn't exactly strengthen the unionists case.
Looks like you are spreading Russian propaganda in bad faith.
The whole point of their struggle was Russian invasion so Russians could build military bases there (which they eventually did)
Also, there are no "oppressed minorities" in Georgia, never was. That would be part of Russian propaganda.
Georgian language on other hand is the most widely-spoken of the Kartvelian languages and serves as the literary language or lingua franca for speakers of related language.
Before Soviet Union, it was Georgian territory for thousands of years, South Ossetia - is Russian name, in fact it is named Samachablo, Ossetians migrated there from North Ossetia en masse during Soviet Union times and re-named area to South Ossetia to give it impression as if two Ossetia's where same area.
The point incorrect, Chechens do not desire to go back to Russia and fought war over it, but they lost because Russians committed their genocide.
You can not simply settle somewhere and then want to break-away, Why is this so hard to understand?
Curious that, at least in the case of Georgia and Ukraine, those territories only decided they didn't want to be part of their countries when Russian troops rolled in and made totally non-threatening offers.
That's not entirely true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhaz%E2%80%93Georgian_confli...
Sure, there may be a slice of population that wants to leave but how can that be gouged properly when Russia keeps influencing the people and supplying weapons to separatists? There's a cause and effect here.
I don't know much about Crimea and its situation but I've spent considerable time in both Abkhazia and Transnistria; I have a number of businesses that I have based out of Tiraspol and Sokhumi. While far from a fan of Russia's interventions in both regions, I have long felt, form talking to as many people as possible in both nations, that the majority (although not necessarily an overwhelming one) support the countries being independent from Tbilisi and Chișinău, respectively.
I'm more than happy to have my priors re-adjusted here.
Can anybody confirm this? I haven't seen any state official talking about getting Königsberg or Karelia back. Where has this positioning been hinted? I might have missed something.
The Kaliningrad exclave is a huge territorial and security headache for the EU.
A small, Russian-speaking nation under EU's influence (and presumably future EU member) would be a good thing for the EU, to show off to the world (and specifically to Russia, as a positive example).
EU is not a country and to my knowledge none of the neighbors wants to join that territory. It's quite a poor region with Russian population... Germans effectively left in the late 40s'
The region is poor, but adding a statelet with 1 million people into a union of 450 million is a negligible burden. And local economy is already sort-of semiintegrated with the Lithuanian and the Polish one. There used to be quite a lot of cross border trade in peace times there.
There's no good solution for Koningsberg.
Well, let me expand that knowledge then - Poland would love to integrate that bit of land, because currently the fact that the only entrance to the Polish port of Elbląg is controlled by Russia is a major ballache that stops the development of the region, enough so that the Polish government has agreed to spend billions of Polish zlotys to dig a canal that will allow ships to skip going through Russian controlled waters.
That won't last forever, but as of now, the EU is quite a cohesive force - for the first time in this century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_of_East_Prussia#K%C...
My father-in-law's family considered themselves very lucky to have had distant relatives in Niedersachsen (West Germany) and to have gotten out of Tilsit (now called Sovetsk) at all. He's never been back.
Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) being a great example with Germans fleeing/being expelled and replaced by ethnic Russians wholesale.
The Silesians, Hanoverians, Saxons, etc. all viewed themselves as different people from the Brandenburgs/Prussians and each other. As toyg said, ethnic-based nationalism—viewing themselves as "Germans" and thus deserving a single German nation—is a 19th-century phenomenon; further, the various German states (not excluding Prussia) viewed and suppressed such nationalism as subversive. Mutual cooperation nonetheless grew during the century, notably the customs union.
I don't know about that. A lot of anti-Brexit folks really seem to have felt loyalty to it the way others feel to their states. It sends ambassadors to other states, so it has its own foreign policy. It doesn't have its own military, yet, but it does have a common defense framework. Seems to me that it is at least a semi-state.
Is the United States one state or fifty plus one?
Could you provide some links? I would like to learn more about that. As far as I knew until just now the treaties between russia and china aren't all that old and the PRC has no claims on any currently russian land. But I am not well informed about the topic at all.
(After some research: The ROC and freer press were quite unhappy with the treaty and ROC still formally claims those areas if I understand it correctly.)
Overall it is an interesting (albeit very unlikely) scenario, maybe because it reminds me so much of old EU4 matches I had.
As of March 8, 2022, China has no claims on Russian land, but history shows that if a juicy opportunity turns up, countries start to come up with claims that were previously forgotten.
Yes, this scenario is unlikely. But not beyond reasonable doubt. Multinational empires have imploded and disintegrated before (Tsarist Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire), and a lost war was the usual cause.
I guess that a potential takeover of the territory would look more like the takeover of Tibet in 1950. A fait accompli executed on a very short timeline.
All this talk about taking over Russian territory is just pure fantasy. Russia, on a liberal / anti-imperialist wave, even in a bankrupt, extremely weakened state could only become kind enough to detach Yakutia, Caucasus, and some other distinctly ethnically different autonomous regions, but it won't allow anything to happen to the ethnically Russian regions, nor these regions themselves could imaginably see themselves separate. Russia would still be a nuclear power, and I doubt the Chinese would risk a world apocalypse for a piece of tundra.
For Ukraine the victory might be that Russia will most likely be unable to take Kiev and need to "withdraw" closer to their own borders i.e. the victory is not submitting in the "heroic" sense. However with a staggering economic loss and loss of life (including the refugees that might never return).
For Russia their victory will be claiming they "secured" the 2 rebel republics/Crimea. Also at a staggering loss - some of it army but mostly incredible economic sanctions. It remains to be seen if Putins regime will be able to survive that in the long run.
In terms of the classical definition I guess you could call it a stalemate - don't see how either of them can win - everybody loses. Who loses less - arguably I'd say economic sanctions still do not hurt as much as the decades Ukraine will need to rebuild. And Russia still has a huge amount of natural resources that others need and are willing to pay for.
I don't doubt that once this is over, the US and the EU will launch a generous reconstruction plan. Ukraine may end up with much better infrastructure in place of the destroyed one.
This could be financed from seized oligarchs' wealth. No need to spend taxpayer money. And Western construction companies will like those contracts, doubly so after Covid.
Five million reservists called up into barracks are useless if you cannot transport them into the theater and keep them supplied.
Some of those losses are the Russian military revealing itself to be incompetent and quasi-unequipped, but the number of losses is just too high.
This appears to be something like 75% of their total operational power, with obvious, serious problems, like relying on civilian GPS, being evidently wholly unprepared for the mud, the fact that there's no comms chain back so they rely on Ukrainian comms networks staying up, the lack of a supply chain, the fact that the domestic population is finally catching on to the fact that Putin is illegally using his conscripts on the front line, the consequent astonishing rate of desertion from an army who weren't told they were invading until they crossed the border to "keep peace", the death of two generals, more aircraft losses than they expected, etc.
It's quite a big fraction of their power and what is very striking is that they appear unable to fully support it
The only people really surprised by this attack appear to be essentially all ranks of the Russian army -- an army spoiled by corruption and grift.
The bigger question is which ends first? The war, or Putin?
So their _own_ GPS-system Glonass, not the US GPS.
When I was at the military we "learned" that encrypted communication makes no sense when the transmitted content effects events no longer than half a day into the future as the opponent cannot take effective countermeasures anyway.
>> The intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defence ministry said Maj Gen Vitaly Gerasimov, chief of staff of the 41st Army, had been killed outside the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, along with other senior officers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/andrei-sukho...
>> Andrei Sukhovetsky was the commanding general of the Russian 7th Airborne Division and a deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army, and by far the most senior Russian figure to have died in the conflict so far.
>> Mr Putin confirmed that a general had been killed in a speech updating the Russian people on the progress of the conflict, eight days into the deadly invasion.
Mongols/Buddhists have a long history in Russia.
This just brought to mind the idea that it's remarkable that America has weathered at least one and possibly three (depending on the definition of success) lost wars in the past 50 years without severe political consequences: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It wasn't without consequence but it did not cause anything like Russia in 1917 or Germany in the 1930s. The worst we got was a shirtless jackass wearing horns on the Senate podium.
OTOH, if you commit a behemoth like Austria-Hungary where 40 per cent of the country belongs to disadvantaged minority ethnicities and then you lose the war and the population is reduced to digging roots from the ground and making soups out of leather boots (I am not exaggerating), there isn't any reason to continue the existence of such a structure left. Only fear that the uprising may get you killed, but if the soldiers are demoralized too, they won't shoot.
On the contrary it looks like democracies have a hard time even deciding to defend themselves, because people will never decide risk a war on their country. And Putin is exploiting just this, IMO.
But many important Western European countries were at least flawed democracies since approximately the last quarter of the 19th century. For example, Italy was a democracy when it launched an abortive attempt to conquer Ethiopia in 1896.
Iraq did a bit better in that respect, but it isn't a new Japan.
What happens if western russia gets politically split off from siberia and can't be a petrol state anymore? Who gets the nukes? Can they even keep track of the nukes?
Siberia is enormous and closer to china. An oil rich china sounds scary.
I don't think Russia is even unique here, all major nuclear powers, that have an ability to destroy the whole humankind multiple times, would rather see the whole humanity disappearing, then only their empire collapsing.
Russia, as any empire can be dissolved only from within, by the wish of Russian people. But that's dangerous too, since instead of one nuclear power, we would end up with 5, 6 nuclear powers all having the ability to destroy the whole world.
NATO will increasingly be seen as an ineffective formulation for security of Europe as it has been demonstrated by Russia to Europeans. (The choices [it affords] are roll over or start a nuclear war. That's not a 'security' framework.) Sovereign European states will definitely (re)consider reaching 1-to-1, direct, security and treaty arrangements with Russia. Some may object to my prognosis here, and we'll soon find out after the Baltic States matter takes center stage. (Yes, imo Ukraine will surrender and accept terms.) NATO may actually go the way of Warsaw Pact sooner than you think.
US Dollar dominance has been, apparently by US itself, dealt a fatal blow. UK's ill-gotten "oligarch" wealth safe kitty has also suffered. The Swiss too pissed on their neutrality. Powerful entities and individuals will be seeking alternative safe havens. What many Americans fail to recognize is that US Dollar dominance is what permits this nation to manage stupendous levels of debt. What they also fail to recognize is that non-American elite in US orbit were OK with the political arrangements as long as they got to get a cut of the global financial arrangement and lived in "security", but being forbidden to invest in other countries and a rapidly shrinking non-sanctioned global pie is most certainly affecting these long standing calculations.
The intelligence services of the West have also suffered a huge blow. They still have no idea of where this will stop as far as Russia is concerned, and far more importantly, US apparently has NO IDEA as to the level of agreement between China and Russia. They keep probing and asking. No one knows! Yesterday there was literally a flurry of articles in WSJ, FT, Asiatimes, etc. directly addressing China. Asiatimes did its best to put the fear of being cutoff from EU in top article.
Biggest losers in all this will be us little people in every country. Heavy handed security posture by states, surveillance, economic stress, and even greater jingoistic media in guise of "journalism" will be the order of the day. Looks like the 1984 vision was ultimately chosen over Brave New World.
(Just my opinion.)
(Not just my opinion, look it up for yourself)
> propaganda, either by being convinced by it, or generating it
A rather cheap shot. You prove my final point about even greater pressures coming to bear on free speech and exchange of ideas.
The the rest of the world clearly disagrees with your assessment, as if they did not, it would be reflected in the evaluation of the USD.
Entire supply chains (and everything that goes to make such things happen between nations and international corporations) have substantial inertia built in and will require adjustments. My prognosis is a terminal trajectory ("death blow") unless Russia collapses first, which would then force the hand of China, India, and the rest of fence sitters (which also include Mexico, Brazil, Israel, UAE, KSA, btw.)
You are aware that the GDP of Russia is less than that of several individual European countries? And I mean individual. Germany alone has twice the GDP. You are woefully overestimating the Russian economy in the first place.
But the global economic picture really requires understanding of how China decides to act. People tend to view the world according to their own civilizational context, so for example, the Western geopolitical analysis du jour posits a “Thucydides‘s Trap” vis a viz US and China. Chinese, on the other hand, have their own ready and applicable historic paradigms to apply to the global order. The ‘Three Kingdoms’ period of Chinese history is how the Chinese view the world. You will also need to understand that the fabled Chinese “century of humiliation” includes Russians in the list of offending nations. It’s a complex and subtle calculus for the Chinese leadership and having a very aggressive and successful RF on their border is not entirely in their interest in the long term. [but p.s. going “multi-cloud” definitely is what they want.]
Point to the "some in this forum were predicting Ruble going to 0 within a day". I don't buy it for a second. Or, I'm sure someone could have said it, but that too would be ridiculous. And, what is your point? Like, you said that the USD received a "death blow", which is bonkers. It makes zero sense in the global scale of things. And you can verify all of it. The index has had no short term negative effect, and the longer trend is still rising. That was the discussion. Some kind of ridiculous talking point about the dollar being unstable. I was keen to hear your thoughts regardless.
What I instead get is impressively, a complete board of geopolitics bullshit-bingo in a couple of sentences:
"civilizational context", "du jour posits a “Thucydides‘s Trap”", "ready and applicable historic paradigms", "global order", "‘Three Kingdoms’ period of Chinese history", "complex and subtle calculus for the Chinese leadership"
What on earth are you talking about? From your post history, it seemed like you were very interested in Russian economy, and Putin for that matter. Which is why I mentioned the Ruble. As for the other ramblings, if it wasn't auto generated, I don't know how that is relevant to anything. But, you do you.
> Russia should manipulate Japanese politics by offering the Kuril Islands to Japan and provoking anti-Americanism
From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics
This does not rely on any current influence by Dugin, who did not write the book entirely on his own.
* Ukraine formally acknowledging its loss of Crimea and the Russian-heavy east, all under Russian occupation since 2014
* Ukraine formally declaring neutrality (i.e., no joining NATO)
* Rump Ukraine's borders formally guaranteed by Russia/US/NATO
This gives Putin something that he can plausibly sell to Russians as a win, and codifies US/Western military intervention on Ukraine's behalf (not just the current flow of supplies) from further Russian revanchism, while not losing any/much territory that wasn't already out of Ukrainian hands before the invasion began.
Now, if the indications that Russian logistics have broken down and Russia's losses are unsustainable are true, that's a different story. But I am not ready to conclude that yet.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.