How does the Russo-Ukrainian War end?
snyder.substack.com
snyder.substack.com
The 1990 revolution peeled away from the Russian imperium a thick layer of oppressed non-Russian nationalities. A springtime for sovereignty. A new Russian internal power struggle, occurring in conjunction with the crippling of Russia's armed forces, might (just) enable the peeling away of another layer of oppressed non-Russian nationalities from the Russian imperial core. 'Twould be something to see.
> Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
So, except for "far right", the Russian regime meets ever point.
For example, I see very little difference in terms of character; the variations between essentially boil down to respective levels of access to effective weaponry, geographical access to their enemies, and specific “enemy” groups.
However, there's a spectrum. And Putin is definitely farther along towards authoritarian than any present day liberal democracy.
> [...] far-right politics now include neo-fascism, neo-Nazism, the Third Position, the alt-right, racial supremacism, National Bolshevism (culturally only) and other ideologies or organizations that feature aspects of authoritarian, ultra-nationalist, chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or reactionary views."
Look like Russian regime meets that point too.
The rest of those qualifications certainly exist in Russia but I don't think it's to the extent where it's a characteristic of the regime.
Fascism seems to be a "I know it when I see it" thing and I just don't see Putin as any more than a strong man ala Saddam Hussein. Somehow I feel like somewhat of a cult of personality is a key aspect of fascism and an much more oppressive suppression of subversive ideas, more like North Korea. In Russia, we hear about Pussy Riot rather than them dissapearing before we do.
Hmm, there is definitely a cult of personality in Russia, but maybe not directly started by Putin, I think it's organic. Otherwise I fully agree with you, it's not really fascism because there is no "belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy." All those examples of "far-right politics" look very similar from my point of view, so I think it's normal for people to get confused to the detriment of discussion.
Like, this just reads like a "far left" person wrote a long list of negative slander to throw at their opponents. I don't think anyone on the right would agree with essentially any of it.
The "ultra-nationalist" I guess maybe sort of works, if hyperbolic, in that I think you would get right-wing people to agree that they would prioritize their nation over others, but I think if you asked a random right-wing person on the street "do you support ____" for anything else on your list, they'd say no.
I'm solidly on the left by contemporary American standards, but I just wish we'd actually have honest discussions about what people believe and want, rather than slinging insults that our opponents are evil, vile people who intentionally want bad things because they're bad.
[1] https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content...
The word is being used as part of a general rhetorical escalation. That's why the word "genocide" is also being bandied about, as if Russian war crimes were comparable to the Holocaust. It's insane, but people with no historical knowledge fall for it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61017352
No one is saying the situation is as bad as the Holocaust. However, among other war crimes, large numbers of Ukrainian children have allegedly been abducted and forcibly transported to Russia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_child_abduction...
According to the United Nations, that is a form of genocide.
Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. That's why the word ends in "-cide," like "homicide," "suicide," "regicide," "fratricide" and other words that have to do with killing. When you say that Russia is committing genocide, everyone thinks you're saying that Russia is attempting to kill every single person in Ukraine. That's what the word means in the English language, as understood by the gobal community of native speakers.
The people using the word "genocide" are doing so precisely because the word has such a strong connotation. They want people to make the connection to the Holocaust, Rwanda, and other cases of mass murder of an entire people. However, that comparison is obviously absurd, because Russia isn't trying to wipe out the Ukrainian population.
So when pressed, defenders of the use of the term "genocide" retreat to a much narrower argument. They argue that according to a particular reading of the Genocide Convention, Russian actions fall into some technical definition of "genocide" - a definition that has absolutely nothing to do with how normal people understand the term. Now, that reading of the Genocide Convention is an enormous stretch, but people who want to use the word "genocide" fall back to it.
But of course, nobody is interested in a highly tendentious, dubious reading of the Genocide Convention. People are interested in whether Russia is committing "genocide" as the word is actually understood by real people.
I'll also add that even going by the Genocide Convention, the claim that Russia is committing genocide is still absurd. I don't want to get into it in detail, because it's a technical argument that's unrelated to what people actually care about. However, I'll just point out that the Ukrainian government is claiming that literally every Ukrainian child in Russia is abducted. Anyone who knows anything about Ukraine and Russia knows how absurd that claim is. There are very tight familial connections between Russians and Ukrainians (they were part of the same country for most of the last 400 years, after all). Because of that, Russia is the #1 destination for Ukrainian refugees. A lot of people escaping the violence have gone to live with family in Russia. Using that to accuse Russia of genocide is a really bold rhetorical gambit.
It doesn't mean that. It means to annihilate a culture or people. That can be done by killing them or it can be done by destroying their culture and making their language, religion, holidays, culture, and cultural identity illegal or otherwise unable to exist. That includes forced assimilation.
> Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group.
Etymologically, the word genocide comes from "genus" (roughly meaning "race") and "-cide" (meaning "killing"). It was invented to describe the Holocaust, and every event that is widely accepted as being a genocide has been an attempt to murder an entire group of people.
I don't care about Putin's claims. There's a lot of Russian-speaking Ukrainian refugees where I live (there's hundreds thousands of them), I still haven't found one who felt like they were in any way targeted by the Ukrainian government or that their culture was being replaced. Now they hate Russia and every single one I asked has vowed to learn Ukrainian and erase any parts of Russian culture from their lives.
I know a few Ukrainian refugees. They speak Russian as their native language, and I've often seen them hanging out and chatting with Russians. I've talked to one of them quite a bit about his political beliefs. He obviously doesn't support the Russian invasion of his country, but he's also very unhappy with the Ukrainian government (particularly since what happened in 2014), and he doesn't like Ukrainian nationalists (partly because of the way they try to restrict minority languages in the country, including Russian and Hungarian).
I think this is a classic "you dont know what genocide actually means" argument.
> Everyone knows what "genocide" means. It means an attempt to murder an entire group of people. That's why the word ends in "-cide," like "homicide," "suicide," "regicide," "fratricide" and other words that have to do with killing. When you say that Russia is committing genocide, everyone thinks you're saying that Russia is attempting to kill every single person in Ukraine. That's what the word means in the English language, as understood by the gobal community of native speakers.
But thats not what the word _actually_ means, people using a world incorrectly does not change its _actual_ meaning.
> The people using the word "genocide" are doing so precisely because the word has such a strong connotation. They want people to make the connection to the Holocaust, Rwanda, and other cases of mass murder of an entire people. However, that comparison is obviously absurd, because Russia isn't trying to wipe out the Ukrainian population.
People use the word genocide because thats exactly what Russia is committing, its a heinous act and hard to face, just like raping and torturing children, but Russia is doing all of these things in Ukraine.
It's how virtually every native speaker of English understands the word. It's what the people accusing Russia of genocide want people to think.
The word "genocide" carries enormous weight, precisely because it is understood as meaning mass murder on the scale of the Holocaust, one of the most evil crimes ever committed. That makes the word very attractive as a rhetorical tool, particularly for people who don't mind massively exaggerating.
It's a Motte-and-Bailey argument because the people using the term want others to think of the Holocaust, but when challenged, they retreat back to arguing a much narrower position. They argue, as you're doing, that everyone misunderstands the word "genocide," so it's fine to use it for things that have nothing to do with what everyone thinks of as genocide.[0] Once the argument ends and they feel they've defended their narrow position, they go back to shouting "genocide," knowing that everyone will understand it to mean mass murder. The narrow position is only used as a fallback when the broad, shocking claim they want to make comes under attack.
0. Their argument isn't even technically correct - they're misreading the Genocide Convention - but that's largely beside the point.
That the reason we see so many ancient pieces of gear and vehicles in Ukraine is not entirely due to shortages and the kleptocracy.
Rather that the various elements (Prigozhin, Kadyrov, army officers, etc) are intentionally holding back the good stuff for the eventual knife-fight for power after Vlad.
If true, then the collapse of the Russian Federation is much further along than I had realized. I would have thought that these consolidation moves would occur in the spring after the last gasp of Russian offensive power had been exhausted. That they may have been occurring this whole summer points that Vlad's doom may occur before the end of the year.
Ive been following the author's currently ongoing Yale course on the history of the Ukrainian state on youtube, it's excellent. The latest lecture dropped yesterday and I just finished it a few minutes ago, so it seems weird to see his name again here so soon. Here's a link to the first of them.
if by no one you mean the layman.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-possible-invasion-ukra...
It has a scale of a war but it is not officially a war yet.
The US has not declared war since World War 2.
The past 20 or so years of conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places was officially "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" [1], not a war. (Notwithstanding the frequent use of the term "war on terror".)
Under the US Constitution, war declarations are typically made against opposing nation-states and are performed by the US Congress [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Milit...
Most if not all opposition has been either imprisoned or killed.
And shortly after this was published, security forces publicly (dramatically) arrested Wagner Group's social media guy, who would fit both criteria:
Move away from Europe/USA/Russia while you have time.
South America is consistently on the brink of revolution, and Africa (broadly) crawls along on the coattails of China.
I don't think there's safe refuge anywhere.
I doubt apocalypse would improve any of them.
Putin would end up having to nuke the new territories themselves if the Ukrainian army continues to advance. However, that's not realistic either.
What's realistic is a sort of showing-off gesture, a nuclear attack on a city in Western Ukraine. The political consequences for Russia would devastating, though, and it would serve almost no military purpose.
People can debate all day on whether Putin is a genuinely and popularly elected President, a totalitarian dictator, or a mafia boss.
But what’s not up for debate is Putin’s absolute consistency.
Putin does what he says, and says what he does.
If Putin threatens to use nuclear weapons, he likely will, the only debate is when.
The real threat of Putin using nuclear weapons shouldn’t stop efforts to shape the desired end-state.
A realistic hope may be HOW nuclear weapons are deployed.
An atmospheric test display over remote Russsian territory that disrupts the test ban treaty and global markets suffer some temporary disruption.
A high altitude atmospheric detonation over Ukraine that disrupts Ukrainian communications, western military support for Ukraine, and global markets suffer longer lasting disruption.
A tactical nuclear weapon detonation over Ukrainian combat units that disrupts Ukrainian offensive, western military support for Ukraine, and global markets suffer lasting disruption.
Western coalitions have disrupted the Russian economy with sanctions, but China/India provide two major energy export customers.
The west is most prone to economic disruption in Q4 Oct-Dec.
In consumer-led discretionary income dependent sectors, Q4 can be 50% of annual revenue with 25% of annual revenue coming from just mid-Nov to mid-Dec.
If I was Putin I would create and amplify tension targeting western markets and consume sentiment from now until Mid-Dec.
Personally, I don’t worry about a Cold War era Cuban Missile Crisis or 80’s Threads/Day After threat of total nuclear annihilation.
But I do strongly believe we are at greater risk of a limited nuclear display or tactical detonation than at any time since August 1945.
Ukrainian forces have a lot of offensive momentum and high morale, which leaves them vulnerable to hubris.
I am sympathetic and in 100% agreement with Ukraine to defend its sovereignty.
But Ukraine attempting to recover 100% of its pre-2014 territory will likely result in nuclear weapons being used.
My hope it that such a nuclear exchange is limited and that the global economic impact is only 1-3x the ‘20-‘22 COVID disruption.
A single tactical nuke would have virtually no impact on Ukrainian military operations. It would only affect a few square km, maybe a battalion strength unit. To decisively influence a significant front like Kherson would take at least a handful of them. To relieve pressure along the whole front would take dozens. Strategic warheads used on the front would do more, but then the radiation and fallout effects would also impact Russian units, and Russia itself. there's also no way to use and EMP pulse to impair Ukrainian front line units without also impairing Russian front line units.
>Western coalitions have disrupted the Russian economy with sanctions, but China/India provide two major energy export customers.
Using nukes would remove all the remaining support Russia has, including that from China and India in terms of trade. It's likely the west would impose a total blockade and interdiction of all Russian ports, sea traffic and air transport anyway.
I agree numerous tactical nuclear weapons would be required for combat operations, but not necessarily for information operations designed to shape western democratic citizenry.
People like us in the west can more easily afford to have opinions on Ukraine.
People in China, and particularly India can’t afford to have as many opinions when they are struggling to afford food and energy,
COVID related fiscal and monetary inflation is eating a chunk of the real gains made in recent decades.
A bit hyperbolic I know, but India has continued and will continue to purchase energy from Russia as will China even if a small number of nuclear weapons are used within Russian territory, within Russian controlled territory, or within Ukraine.
Food and energy price inflation pressures matter more to many countries than whatever is happening in Ukraine, 3rd world problems rather than 1st world privilege.
Just my 0.02c
I just think he has been very consistent in “doing what he says, and saying what he does” over the long-term.
And that his personal credibility is tied to this conflict, so escalation is likely.
Escalation by Putin doesn’t guarantee victory(or the semblance of it), but de-escalation by Putin is a guarantee of failure(credibility).
The US has just leaked its unhappiness with Ukraine conducting targeted assassination in Russian territory(seperate from train/logistics sabotage).
But a dirty bomb detonated in Russian territory is far more likely to be a Russian casus belli, akin to Nazi false flag action in Poland in 1939 and Putin/Shoigu false flag action in 1999 with the Moscow Apartment Bombings.
As for casus belli - against whom exactly? And why would Russia need any casus belli?
Not to mention the fact that Russia probably is just as inept when it comes to maintenance of nuclear forces as it seems to be for conventional ones. And nuclear devices are very complex and precise.
NATO forces haven't fought in this war so there would be nothing for them to parade about. Ukraine has no interest in going further than the internationally recognised borders, and nothing to gain from doing so. There has never been any military threat against Russia itself, except for the harm Russia has foolishly exposed itself to by going to war.
The parade is necessary because the lack of a parade after Russia lost the cold war was what created Putin. Just like the lack of a parade in Berlin after the WWI spawned Hitler decades later. Russians just didn't understand how hard they lost.
On the parade I'd see NATO represented as it fought. So just few few officials and NATO equipment. Operated purely by Ukrainian soldiers. They might be NATO soldiers at this point or just soon to be NATO soldiers (as Ukraine should be admitted into NATO in a blink of an eye after the victory).
I'm fully aware that this ending might not happen because Ukraine doesn't have much to gain from pushing Russian army to Moskov not just to the borders but one might be hopeful.
This war showed that Russia is dangerously rotten and talking about military threat to Russia is completely out of place. It's a saying that a garbage dump might be threatened by a possible hostile takeover by Amazon. Getting in there would be a charity mission not a threat.
The paper is called “The Return of Industrial War,” and it’s quite good, as it befits a person in a ‘think tank’ founded by the Duke of Wellington in the 1830s.
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentar...