What do you think? How do you cope?
PS: pls don't make this into another warzone. The question is just the last one really. How do you cope if you have this view on things.
EU citizen here.
If you're the leader of Russia, you have a good way of preventing this. If you're not, it's out of your control, so just focus on the things you can control.
How do you cope?
If you're like me and sleep better with fewer unknowns, understand Russia's and the US's military capabilities—I highly recommend Russia's Military Revival—and read about some modern nuclear strategy. We've evolved past "fire everything at every population center." Matthew Kroenig has publish some good stuff, and elucidates ideas like "warhead sinks."
If you don't sleep better the more you know, get real into sports and another hobby–something you enjoy you can talk about with others that occupies your time. Most people can get by just fine without following the news.
You can manage your own anxiety.
It started with, in response to, or not later than, the 1999 NATO-Yugoslavia War, and was widely recognized to have started at or by that time.
That's literally what the (clearly, failed) famous 2009 “reset button" was about.
Their military remains a complete mess, but that's largely irrelevant to the existence of a Cold War, which doesn't have to rely on both sides engaging in direct military confrontation with proxies of the other. One side doing their bit primarily by sponsoring, aiding, and instigating asymmetric threats against the other is a way a Cold War can happen, especially when it is shielded from many of the direct consequences that would otherwise be imposed by a large nuclear arsenal and a UN veto.
During the Korean War, we believed WW3 was just around the corner.
... and during the Berlin Crisis.
... as we did when Vietnam got hot.
... just like we did when the Jom-Kippur-War broke out.
... or when Able Archer 1983 was a bit too realistic for soviet tastes
... then there were several rounds of Gulf Wars...
... remember 9/11?
What you are feeling is the "normal" state. In fact, between 2001 and 2022 is probably the longest time Europeans have not been expecting to get turned into nuclear ash by the madmen of the two superpowers. At least we can live calmly knowing we are the designated primary target and likely won't have to die slowly like the rest.
Putin aims for territorial expansion to reclaim the USSR plus some buffer space, and to secure Russia's place as a world power again. This must happen by force since Russian economic and cultural influences are insufficient.
Nothing will dissuade Putin from his aims, as he believes this to be an existential crisis that threatens the very existence of Russia if he doesn't act now.
He started on this adventure because of bad intel from the FSB about his armed forces, Ukrainian resistance, and world reaction. The plans were modeled after Operation Danube ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czecho... ), and were supposed to become a fait accompli so that there'd be nothing for the West to do, like all the other times before. Except it didn't work out that way this time. It's far too late to stop now; either he wins, or Russian ambition is destroyed forever. Granted, the ambition has been reduced to only Donbas, but he still needs to walk away with territory and then prepare for his next slice.
You can read it in Karaganov's own words here: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2022/04/ru...
But even if this goes so far that actual nukes start flying (an iffy proposition even for him), the first ones will land in Ukraine as a warning.
If there's gonna be a WW3, it'll be because the West wants a WW3.
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/03/26/sir-adam-...
Take this part:
"These factors suggest that the 2008 proposal to expand NATO to include Georgia and Ukraine is just one among many developments that have made the current crisis so acute. It is arguable, indeed likely, that the NATO expansion proposal made matters worse, as may some other Western actions, but to assert that “the West is principally responsible for the Ukrainian crisis” goes too far."
Or this gem:
"It’s questionable whether Mr Putin was right to say NATO posed a threat to Russia’s sphere of influence. From the start in 2008 there were different interpretations of what was meant by “will become members”. "
Putin made it very very clear where he stood, and yet you still see armchair psychoanalysis being done. It's all pretty shoddy. There is certainly nothing of substance here that even begins to address Mearsheimer's iron-clad arguments.
Mearsheimer's argument boils down to: Russia thinks it has the right to do what it wants in Eastern Europe, and the West caused this problem by not saying "ok."
Putin violated the Bucharest Memorandum by moving into Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Russia created this mess.
I see too many people these days being reflexively contrarian, like they're on a next level of understanding, simply by being opposite of the "current thing." Mearsheimer's arguments are widely known, it's not an "aha" moment to name drop him, stick to the arguments. Personally, I prefer info from people that actually predicted the invasion months ago.
Even Clinton is perplexed at Russian reactions: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/bill-clint...
Mearsheimer is absolutely wrong in suggesting that Russia is not interested in absorbing Ukraine and the other satellite states. But then again he's framing it in some sort of Afghanistan-like invasion and ensuing quagmire, which of course Putin would never (knowingly) do.
Here's a nice quote from 23:41: "In fact if you really want to wreck Russia, what you should do is encourage it to try and conquer Ukraine. Putin again is much too smart to do that."
I think there is still a ton of time for these intentions to play out, and I think they the quote is still accurate. Russia can not conquer all of Ukraine, and never attempted to do so. If they invasion went better than their wildest dreams, they might have taken what is east of the Dnieper, but would be unlikely to hold on to that.
The invasion did and still lines up with the intentions of regime change, and taking some boarder regions.
Russia did absolutely attempt to do exactly that. This invasion was modelled after Operation Danube, intended to:
- Cut off all major airstrips by landing planes in friendship and then unloading paratroopers to capture them.
- Quickly enter the major cities and capture the "illegitimate" government.
- Crush the pockets of resistance among the mostly pro-Russian populace.
- Install a Russia-friendly government.
- Execute the old government as a warning against other countries.
Of course, none of it went according to plan. The upper government was misinformed about their own military strength and preparedness, the supposedly already "pro-Russian" Ukrainians who would just stand by and let this happen, and the world response. Also, the Ukrainian military was forewarned, so the airstrip captures ... didn't exactly go according to plan :P
And since this was expected to take half a week tops, nobody bothered to set up proper supply lines or airforce + ground + artillery coordination. After all, why bother with all of that on a milk run?
Even then, operation Danube is more akin to regime change than conquering and occupying a country, which was mersheimers point
>"In fact if you really want to wreck Russia, what you should do is encourage it to try and conquer Ukraine. Putin again is much too smart to do that."
This is true if you are talking about military occupation. obviously not true for a coup, assassination, or quick regime change.
What is this claim even based on?
> NATO leaves all the post-Soviet and post-Warsaw Pact states
Are those equivalent?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/22/putin-...
https://notesfrompoland.com/2019/12/23/putin-blames-poland-f...
I know people in Poland who are alarmed at the threat to their country embodied in by this rhetoric. To say nothing of Finland, Estonia etc and Ukraine.
It's not too late to put up a no-fly zone. If it was ok then, why is it not ok now?
If implemented now, a no-fly zone would require NATO aircraft to behave offensively, and would require strikes on Russian air defenses on the ground as well as aircraft.
> it would have required Russia to be the aggressor
toward NATO*
That makes it really hard to stop. If he thinks he's already at war with us, then he can make that a reality how and when he wants. But I'm not sure we're sleepwalking into it. We're aware; we just have very few options of avoiding it if Putin is determined to make it happen. We are, however, trying to avoid direct confrontation while also avoiding appeasement and "peace in our time". I don't know that we have a better option.
How do I cope? Well, I'm a Christian. I believe that God is in charge of history - this isn't all at the whim of random human folly. And I believe that, even if I get killed, that's all right too, because I have something better that I'm going to.
If that's not where you're coming from... yeah, it's scary. I don't know what to tell you in terms of how to deal with it.
If you're asking what I think God's position is on sanctions, I'm going to follow Obama and say "That's above my pay grade".
If you're asking about God's position on the existence of oligarchs, I'm pretty sure I've read some stuff about greed and covetousness and exploitation somewhere. I suspect God's got a problem, if not with the existence of billionaires and oligarchs, at least with the process most of them used to become billionaires (and their motivations).
OTOH, I also desperately want the denial to turn out to be correct.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-...
Fiona Hill (without question the smartest person in the room on this topic) says that we're already in WWIII, in the sense of a global spread of conflicts with a handful of competing power centres.
What gives me hope is that nobody is really taking Putin's side here outside a few of Russia's neighbors which are already in shambles because of Russia's military excursions into them. Germany had more and stronger allies going into the previous two world wars; right now it's pretty much Russia vs the West and it seems that China doesn't want to get involved.
I'm somewhat dismayed at the non-involvement we're seeing. My heart-sinking prediction is that Russia will nuke Kiev (or perhaps something of more tactical value) and that still won't move the needle. That would define a new era in nuclear tactics; one which I'm terrified to contemplate.
Keep doing whatever you're doing - things like the course of world wars are completely out of your control so there's no point in worrying about them.
Secondly there is way too much asymmetry between NATO and Russia. Russia is in no state to fight a war against a major power which has become obvious given their military performance in Ukraine.
So the next escalation would be nukes and I have my doubts that they're more likely than the Russian military apparatus straight up deposing Putin should that seem like a credible threat. Russian's top brass has survival instincts too, and not to mention a lot of offspring in Europe and the US.
I think history has shown that nothing could be further from the truth. The outbreak of WW2 after the devastation of WW1 deserves particular study. We can zoom out and look at the gradient of events unfolding in order to know if the situation if improving (probably not) or getting worse (likely) but that's pretty much all we can do. A few key actions is all it will take for the cascade of events to turn into a runaway scenario that nobody has any control over.
Things happen and we react. There are no masterminds pushing buttons and pulling levers that have any kind of deliberate control over what happens to the system as a whole.
I'm a little bit tired of people whose entire headspace is WW I and WW II analogies because frankly it's not the world we've been in any more for a long time. And it's actually what has made the world more unsafe, because it has made leaders reluctant to act and confront aggressive powers.
Here's some folks who also think exactly that:
"Luck, in this context, seems to mean the exact opposite of control. It’s all that prevented bad outcomes when things could easily have gone in a different direction, no matter what anybody wanted. The historical policymakers who have invoked “luck” have included Robert S. McNamara, who was defense secretary during the Cuban missile crisis; Dean Acheson, special envoy of President John F. Kennedy at the time; ambassador Gerard C. Smith, chief U.S. delegate to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks in 1969; former defense secretary William Perry, former secretary of state George Shultz, former national security adviser and secretary of state Henry Kissinger, former chairman of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn, and former head of Strategic Air Command and Strategic Command, Gen. George Lee Butler."
From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/10/reason-we-...
I disagree that everything seems pointless. If anything there is much more at stake and actions are even more important.
Lately I have been reading papers from ALLFED[1-2]. They have found quite a few alternative ways we could produce food during a sun blocking crisis and they would be enough to feed more than 8 billion people if needed through a severe nuclear winter, even if we lost all of our current agriculture. But they have also found that only few would survive if we only try to survive on stored food.
Another excellent resource for planning for the initial few moments/weeks of a nuclear war has been [3] which provides practical instructions for rapid construction of expedient fallout shelters.
Understanding these I at least have a feasible and actionable plan, and better understanding of what would be involved if worst case scenarios were to happen. It is a lot less hopeless than most believe, although still terrible.
I suggest reading through these and you can find things you can do at the individual level. Also consider supporting ALLFED as their work has potential to be highly impactful if such a scenario is ever realized.
[1] https://allfed.info [2] https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/david-denkenberger-s... [3] https://www.oism.org/nwss/