Alexei Navalny has died
reuters.com
reuters.com
Some people do. If you believe the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and you truly believe your death will significantly help others, then maybe you do make that (incredibly hard) decision knowing full well the consequences.
I could probably stand in the Krasnaya Ploshchad and yell "Vladimir Zelenskiy Sucks!" without repercussion, but that wouldn't make it effective criticism.
1. it's only a copy, paste, and click to get to Red Square
2. it fits with the .ru transliteration of Volodymyr Zelenskyy
3. it retains any original ambiguity between "red" and "beautiful"
4. it avoids confusing the Union with the Federation
5. it complies with dang's suggestion not to overly spoon-feed each other
Toppling governments doesn't do much good if no one manages to provide effective replacements running on new lines afterwards. See also Reconstruction in the US, or the CIS/CSTO/etc. in the former Soviet Union.
I don't have that strong of a will to give myself over to Putin the way he did. Navalny is immensely brave and principled and while his sacrifice ultimately will likely end in vein, I hope beyond hope that it inspires and motivates those in Russia who prefer Putin be eliminated from power. Time will tell.
Russia really tightened control over its part of the internet. If you are a normal russian citizen you can't visit twitter or instagram or linkedin, you need to know what a VPN is first and also you need to install it.
Still probably better than Iran. (I assume) in Iran some websites are blocked by iranian government and some (dockerhub, github) are blocked by US government.
Navalny calculated that this process would be watched and documented through to the very end. He hoped that might be significant, perhaps even sufficient.
> Только синие они и не крапа золота.
Do you remember the guy who flew over Belarus and his plane was redirected to seize him? Any news? I do not even remember his name.
Going back to Russia was a stupid move, he could have had much more visibility from the EU.
He was pardoned by Lukashenka last year, since then there was little news, but this week he showed up in a video stream. I found out in Polish media, was very hard to find an English article about it, found just one:
https://www.txtreport.com/life/2024-02-14-%22i-ve-built-the-...
Lukashenka is not better than Putin, many oppositionists are rotting in prisons, but for some reason (young age?) he let Roman go, probably after some devil's deal.
Not all bravery is stupid. When people point to so-called inevitabilities of human character, as Putin and his ilk often do, I'll recall Navalny's name.
I'll also recall the victories that were only possible thanks to people of similar courage. Things looked as helpess for Václav Havel, but without him we wouldn't have had the Velvet Revolution.
I remember their names.
Prigozhin, technically?
He wasn't doing that for the amusement of the West; he was doing it for the Russians.
They lack secure communication tools in the first place. I believe Telegram is backdoored by FSB and Whatsapp just bent over without fight.
If Russians had any of that, they won’t even need the communication means in the first place, to overthrow their dictator. When there’s a mass of people enough to fight the regime, the regime won’t even fight. They only fight the battles they believe they can easily win.
The truth is, Russians are, en masse, don’t care or even support all that. Those folks aren’t on Hacker News, they aren’t in any English-speaking communities as well. They barely speak even their own (complicated enough) language.
The so-called ‘liberal’ Russians try to persuade us that Russians en-masse don’t support all that, ’Putin’s war‘ they say [1], etc. But there are literally hundreds of thousands of Russian fight against Ukraine right now, and there are 400,000 dead [2]. They are Russians, aren’t they? Russians have the very long history of wars they started on their neighbours.
Is it Telegram being (possibly) backdoored or lack of Signal being too popular among Russians that stops them from growing in-house dictators and other murderers?
[1] As a very simple illustration, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39395697
[2] You may need a translator for this, casualties is the first number: https://www.mil.gov.ua/news/2024/02/16/za-dobu-sili-oboroni-...
To get the mass to act together requires clean comms. Dirty comms result in eliminating (jailing) of activists before they organise.
And don't forget no free press for 22 years.
Today was predictable, but that only accentuates Navalny's bravery. He knew persecution was highly likely, and he did not flinch.
From a practical point of view it may not be wise, but as a principled decision, it sends a very powerful message.
What is this even supposed to mean?
For reference, 516,000 Germans left their country during the last 2 years [1] and Germany’s population is roughly 60% the size of that of Russia’s
[1] https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Society-Environment/Popula...
Alexei believed in doing what’s right, not what’s easy. In his honour, let’s all do our part to help the truth prevail.
Barred anti-war Russian presidential candidate [Boris Nadezhdin] fails in two legal challenges [0]
[0] https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/barred-anti-war-russian...
I replied to comment claiming a candidate was invented by our gov to collect PII of people who signed for him. Until people who donated/signed for Navalny are in trouble I don't see why that can be true
What you call legal attack is actually called legal proceedings against a criminal.
But I guess why would he pretend to have democracy? The Russians certainly don't buy it, and the countries that might care have already cut all ties. I wonder why he bothers to have the election charade?
If he wouldn't be able to regularly display that he has control over the country, it'll be easier for some opportunistic group to organize a coup..
There simply aren't enough young men there to keep the Russian population growing and the population there doesn't value diversity enough to consider producing more Russian children with immigrants.
This is what many believe (e.g., Peter Zeihan) to be the real reason behind the invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is "Russian enough" in their eyes, so combining the two populations would help stave off demographic collapse.
This does not make any sense. Banning birth-control would be the most cost-effective way to increase the birth-rate, stronger social programs being a strong second.
Much of what I've heard from Zeihan sound memey – like camp-fire stories or what your older brothers friends would tell you – without anything meaningful to back it up.
Still sucks it had to come to this. But I agree, this wasn't the unexpected outcome.
I truly hope his death will not be in vain.
It's not as if we collectively refused to do business with the murderer (correction, butcher) of a journalist in a f'ing embassy. That stood pretty much unchallenged besides some finger wagging.
Navalny all but certainly was aware of his likely martyrdom, and appears to have won that. I have my doubts that he will be more effective as a martyr than he would have been acting in exile. In addition to whatever organisation remains, he does leave both a wife and daughter, though whether or not they'll carry on his fight I don't know.
The news today is not unexpected, but disappointing all the same.
As I mentioned earlier - does anyone remember the guy who flew over Belarus and had his plane redirected to the capital, and he was seized there. He also was a protester, now forgotten. I do not even remember his name and never heard of him since then.
Navalny on the other hand has done many notable things and was in the news all the time before his death. His is the first name you think of when you think of Russian opposition. This is not a valid comparison.
Same for Protasevich - it is because his plane was diverted that it made it to the news.
The only time we hear about these people is when they do something visible. I am not saying that this is OK, it is just the sad reality of our world where one news pushes another.
Navalny could have had protested and there would be a chance he would be heard then. When he was in prison it was over until he dies.
The west needs to wake up, we're slowly sliding towards a world conflict. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
Edit: Russia is pushing westward not eastward!
Is there any examples in history of appeasement leading to less bloodshed?
I'm proposing we wake up and start doing the same, planning and drawing "do not cross" lines in the sand to hopefully limit the total/final scope of the conflict.
Yes this will force an earlier confrontation -- but WWII would have been a lot less bloody if Europe had stood up to Hitler earlier -- problem was everyone thought that appeasing him would make things better.
It's clear both Russia and China can't be appeased at this point. Both need to be checked.
The irony here is unreal. Yes, drawing red lines is a good way to avoid runaway escalation, if only world powers are willing to honor them.
Europe still prides itself for having female ministers of defense in every major country (who remembers them? We give the job to women when we just need to maintain things; Men traditionally seize the head-of-war position by force when someone wants to get things done, the position of Minister of Defense is figurative and should not exist) and feminist warfare (=give priority to women in war). Europe also prides itself for its glorious occupation by … ahem… by the thing I’m not allowed to talk about because we’re under occupation. Our kids get smashed at school, that’s for sure, under the eye if teachers who forbid them from responding with force.
If I were Russia, I’d pay all the leaflets and papers on which the “Vivrensemble with enemey people” posters are printed. We’re vegans, we’re trans, we’re using non-violent communication, we’re in discord on our soil, we destroy every trait of masculinity during education: We’re incapable of war, and we’re incapable of being a threat to Russia.
For as long as I’ve been hearing Macron’s minister say we’re “doing a total economic war” with Russia (literal words), for as long as I hear the West is winning and Russia is on its knees, I see that every battle is one step closer inside Europe.
We’re losing.
> We’re vegans, we’re trans, we’re using non-violent communication, we’re in discord on our soil, we destroy every trait of masculinity during education
Remind me what exactly do these have to do with Russian aggression again?
Going by your post, French men are so masculine that their masculinity feels threatened by pretty much everything.
Xi might go, but that party isn't going anywhere.
Lol
Geographically probably not, but politically the Chinese Communist party already covers a very broad spectrum with Xi and others currently at the top being the most insular, paranoid, and economically impractical of all the various factions. A "fix" to the situation is unlikely, but changes that yield improvements are all but inevitable at this point.
Painting a great picture of party unity - and national unity - is a key propaganda goal of the CCP, so if that's what you see then they are succeeding. In practice, the party has almost 100 million members so naturally it is composed of people with many different points of view, although those differences are rarely expressed openly and they're all still shaped by the overall political and educational environment of the PRC.
It's generally accepted that Xi Jinping has used his anti-corruption drive to wipe out rival factions, and one unlikely conspiracy theory is that he somehow orchestrated Bo Xilai's fall from grace in 2012 so he could take control of the party. The whole thing could provide material for stacks of palace intrigue thrillers... and in fact it did, which resulted in the Causeway Bay Books disappearances of 2015. Gotta control that narrative, after all.
If you're interested in the propaganda side, I recommend reading China Media Project: https://chinamediaproject.org/ If you just want to know about the party maneuvering, all the usual thinktanks (CSIS, Brookings, CFR etc) publish a ton of English language content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_clique
I am not a historian, but I have always found diversity of thought inside large political bodies: Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Jimintou, etc. Surely if you have a large political party where you are from, you have also seen that they have factions as well?
We overthrew communists in 1991, USSR crumbled, in 1992 Pentagon declared that America's "first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival" [0] and 17 years later NATO, after multiple rounds of expansion, announced that it would expand into Georgia and the Ukraine [1] despite all the promises given by Western leaders [2].
The trust between Russia and the collective West will not be rebuild for a very long time.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/excerpts-from-penta...
[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_8443.htm
[2] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017...
This gets repeated a lot, but who on the Russian side has ever confirmed it? Many people from that time are still around. Both the USSR's last minister of foreign affairs (1985-1990) and the first Russian minister of foreign affairs (1990-1996) have called that bullshit, with the latter adding in a recent interview that people believing this are "chumps and useful idiots"[1].
[1] https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/russias-ex-foreign-ministe...
I gave a link to the documents, not to hersay.
"who on the Russian side has ever confirmed it"
You mean apart from 'nationalists', 'hardliners' and 'communists'?
It's a speculation that has been categorically refuted by the very persons it mentions.
> You mean apart from 'nationalists', 'hardliners' and 'communists'?
Apart from people like Putin, who at the time was nowhere near the foreign policy circles, but served as an enforcer for St Petersburg's mayor, collecting protection money and bribes from businesses.
While the West failed to seize the opportunity and some diplomatic mistakes were made on both sides, the United States and NATO were on the right side of history by admitting new democracies to the Alliance and being willing to find an accommodation with Russia. It was Moscow that returned to its antagonism toward NATO, which has been intensifying ever since. Yeltsin’s chosen successor president, Vladimir Putin, tried to hinder the West with a charm offensive in the early years of the 21 century and even hinted that Russia might join NATO. In the meantime, domestic anti-American and anti-NATO propaganda has continued to gain momentum. Today the Kremlin has left little doubt about its attitude toward the Alliance in words and in deeds.
NATO remains the main power to safeguard the liberal world order. It is under attack from autocratic, populist and extremist forces who claim that the organization is outdated. The Kremlin’s champs and chumps in the West portray NATO as a bloc promoting American hegemony, expanding to the East and cornering Russia. It is reassuring however, that the U.S. Congress continues to display firm bipartisan support for NATO.
The prospects of a new opening in Russian–NATO relations will depend on the resilience and firmness of the Alliance and on deep changes in Moscow’s domestic and foreign policy. I believe that sooner or later the Russian people will follow the suit of other European nations in finding their national interest in democratic reforms and cooperation with NATO and other Western institutions.
"On July 1, the delegationhad a meeting with M. Woerner—NATO Secretary General. ... Woerner stressed that the NATO Council and he are against the expansionof NATO (13 out of 16 NATO members support this point of view). In the near future, at his meeting with L. Walesa and the Romanian leader A. Iliescu, he will oppose Poland and Romania joining NATO, and earlier this was stated to Hungary and Czechoslovakia. We should not allow, stated M. Woerner, the isolation of the USSR from the European community."
"didn't pressure it enough towards becoming a civilized country"
That was rich.
[0] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/16144-document-30-memoran...
There is nothing in the document confirming an eternal commitment to not accept new members into NATO.
Until late-1990s, the position of most NATO countries was indeed that Eastern Europe was too underdeveloped and unstable for membership, and the document accurately reflects that. This undermines the narrative of how NATO has always wanted to surround Russia.
By the time new members were accepted into NATO almost a decade later, Wörner was long dead, the USSR was long gone, Russia had started its descent into a totalitarian dictatorship, and all 13 opposing countries had changed their position.
"By the time new members were accepted into NATO ... Russia had started its descent into a totalitarian dictatorship"
The decision to expand NATO was made in 1997 [0]
And by the way, here is a passage from wikipedia on that first round of NATO enlargement [1]:
"That year, Russian leaders like Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev indicated their country's opposition to NATO enlargement. While Russian President Boris Yeltsin did sign an agreement with NATO in May 1997 that included text referring to new membership, he clearly described NATO expansion as "unacceptable" and a threat to Russian security in his December 1997 National Security Blueprint."
And a bit from "What Eltsin heard" [2]:
"On December 1, Foreign Minister Kozyrev unexpectedly refused to sign up for the Partnership of Peace; and on December 5, Yeltsin lashed out about NATO at the Budapest summit of the CSCE, in front of a surprised Clinton: “Why are you sowing the seeds of mistrust? ... Europe is in danger of plunging into a cold peace …. History demonstrates that it is a dangerous illusion to suppose that the destinies of continents and of the world community in general can somehow be managed from one single capital.” "
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Madrid_summit
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_NATO#Visegr%C3%...
[2] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018...
I am not inventing anything. I have not seen a single source that would indicate a commitment not to accept new members into NATO until the present day. Nor have you cited any high-ranking Soviet or Russian officials from those times saying that they had a firm commitment. The constant unmet Russian demands that you cite also point that way.
> The decision to expand NATO was made in 1997 [0]
By that time, liberals had lost influential posititions in Russia and hardliners had been consolidating power for several years. Putin had risen from St Petersburg's mayor's errand boy to presidential staff in the Kremlin, to become the head of Russian security service (FSB) a year later.
The first Chechen War started in 1994 and Russian atrocities committed there were a key turning point in taking Central and Eastern European security concerns seriously:
The First Battle of Grozny was the Russian Army's invasion and subsequent conquest of the Chechen capital, Grozny, during the early months of the First Chechen War. /---/ The battle caused enormous destruction and casualties amongst the civilian population and saw the heaviest bombing campaign in Europe since the end of World War II.
> "On December 1, Foreign Minister Kozyrev unexpectedly refused to sign up for the Partnership of Peace; and on December 5, Yeltsin lashed out about NATO at the Budapest summit of the CSCE, in front of a surprised Clinton: “Why are you sowing the seeds of mistrust? ... Europe is in danger of plunging into a cold peace …. History demonstrates that it is a dangerous illusion to suppose that the destinies of continents and of the world community in general can somehow be managed from one single capital.” "
Kozyrev is who wrote the three paragraphs I cited previously. In the PDF I linked to, he gives a description of NATO-Russia relations during his tenure (1990-1996). In the end, he concludes that Russians were on the wrong side of history and Americans and Europeans were on the right side of history. The outcome - peace and prosperity in Europe, death and destruction in Russia and everywhere they go - certainly supports his view.
You are inventing a strawman again. 1997 isn't present day. Bye.
In fact, western governments can't give such informal guarantees further than their election term even if they wanted to, because unlike in Russia, governments change every 4-5 years and the current president, prime minister or cabinet ministers can't promise what their successors will or won't do, because the successors are often completely different people from different political parties with vastly different political platforms. That's why we have written treaties. Soviet and Russian diplomats are without any doubt educated enough to know that.
There's a lot of things the West can do without throwing nukes at the problem:
- arming ourselves and our allies (especially Taiwan) to the teeth
- supporting exiled and in-country opposition
- intervening against hostile operations (such as "police stations") on our own soil
- strengthen links with "global south" countries to minimize Chinese/Russian influence on them, support local rebels against regimes that have already fallen towards Russia/China.
These games played by global powers hurt a lot of the smaller countries. Lot's of Ukrainian civilians have needlessly lost their lives
Russia does not honor the rules of law so we should not negotiate with them in good faith. They are a terrorist state.
UN Charter
Budapest Memorandum
INF Treaty
Minsk 2 / Minsk 1
...
Generally you avoid conflict by being scary, not agreeable.
As a rule of life, that's a pretty bad idea. I don't avoid conflict with family, friends, neighbors, coworkers by being scary.
In international relations, it's by far more effective to be agreeable. Alliances are far more stable than competitive balance between 'scary' countries. Look at the EU; look at Korea - which relationships are more stable, the scary or the agreeable ones? Look at Israel, where by far the most stable relationships are the agreeable ones with Egypt, Jordan, and the US, even now. Look at the US and Canada. The list goes on forever.
Also, this is how russia was defeated - mix of US being simply too strong and one sane russian leader who realized how bad this is (Gorbachev, he is deeply hated by all russian elites who now try to bring good ol' times back).
What you propose is a position of weakness, that leaders of russia see as a sign of weakness and will act accordingly.
I just wish all these naive commenters would spend a decade living in russia to understand what we're actually dealing with and what kind of conflict is inevitably coming to the western Europe.
Shrewd tactful negotiation can be valuable, but I think people are mainly emphasizing the need for strength and clear emphatic boundaries, not for being a "monster."
Are they trying to conquer and kill you? If not, your analogy doesn't hold.
There is time and place for both.
Some people live in much rougher environment, where you must demonstrate strength, if you dont want to be eaten. (Not in the family, but once you go outside)
Russia is not a guy that you met at a library, Russia is a gangmember that runs a “protection” racket.
Things were set in motion years ago and they are slowly unraveling. When the West rejected Russia's deeper integration into its structures after the Cold War ended and expanded NATO towards the East this path was set in stone. The late 2000s were the absolute breaking point.
Major Eastern players are asymmetrically breaking US hegemony through proxies and internal conflict. They cannot face the US conventionally but it doesn't mean they cannot face the US. They can, they do and they will continue to do so.
Brexit, MAGA, Mideast conflicts, Ukraine, EU refugee crisis, inflation, energy crisis, recent development in North Korea, social media disinformation etc. etc. etc.
The BRICS countries (and others) are pursuing a multipolar, non-democratic world with heavily reduced US influence over Asia and Europe, who are now discussing defense independence and their own nuclear umbrella after Trump strategically placed some Russian talking points (again).
Like the multi-generational families some of their members living in Ukraine, some in Russia? Didn't seem to stop the war sadly.
Boris Yeltsyn was proposing to Bill Clinton to admit Russia into NATO. This way Russian ambitions would be tamed and channeled into something more constructive.
But a few red flags - Russia just barely held together at that time and had its own civil war. Also, there's the risk of Russia joining just to walk away with the keys to the kingdom at any later point. If the CFE inspections (1) were anything to go by, Russia didn't exactly play fair.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_F...
Your own link says: "The treaty proposed equal limits for the two "groups of states-parties", the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact" and later "most former non-USSR Warsaw Treaty members subsequently joined NATO, followed later by the Baltic states and the states of the former Yugoslavia".
"CFE-II took into account the different geopolitical situation of the post-Cold War era by setting national instead of bloc-based limits on conventional armed forces. NATO members refused however to ratify the treaty..." [0] What a surprise.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Conventional_Armed_F...
I just don't think Russia joining NATO is an apparent slam dunk success. Maybe it would have been great, we can never know for sure, but I can understand the suspicion.
With what goal?
Nobody in Russia would've supported such an unthinkable war.
It took a coup in Kiev in 2014, burning people alive in Odessa, all the slogans 'Hang the Russians', dozens of streets named after Nazi collaborators, the war of the new Ukrainian government on the separatists in the East and eight years for people in Russia to start thinking that not all Ukrainians are brothers.
The tone struck by Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, head of the Social Democrats (SPD), contrasts with that of conservative Merkel who has pinned responsibility on Russia for exacerbating the crisis, which has soured ties between Russia and the West.
"Certainly, the European Union has also made mistakes, although this does not justify Russia's behavior," Gabriel told the German daily Rheinische Post.
"It was certainly not smart to create the impression in Ukraine that it had to decide between Russia and the EU," the Economy Minister added." [0]
[0] https://www.newsweek.com/german-official-says-it-was-wrong-m...
Nobody would be against, in the same way there isn't anyone against this unthinkable war now. Why are you on HN. Maybe you should go and try to denazify some other website instead?
https://www.politico.eu/article/how-the-us-broke-kosovo-and-...
Things like student exchanges, etc, were also severily limited in scope. Russians only ever saw EU as tourists, not as neighbours. And tourists can sure swap one destination for the another. Russians knew that they live in Europe, but did not feel the neighbourly presense of the EU.
This is not accurate. In the USSR and after its collapse, Russians generally don't consider themselves European. I also think this aligns more or less with how the rest of the world sees Russia if you consider the standards of living and the freedoms citizens have in Russia (e.g., no freedom of speech; not being able to freely travel to most of the world). On top of that, don't forget that geographically, most of Russia is in Asia.
> standards of living
Comparable and exceeding some countries in EU (e.g. Bulgaria)
> freedoms citizens have in Russia (e.g., no freedom of speech)
Some freedoms are there, some are not. Before 2022 it was similar to some parts of Europe.
Also, freedom is not synonymous to Europe.
> able to freely travel to most of the world
It is not that bad. 127 visa-free countries, more than e. g. Montenegro, Moldova, Albaina - all of which are 100% European.
> geographically, most of Russia is in Asia
This is a meaningless argument. Britan was 90% not in Europe in the year 1912. But no one would say it was not European.
The current conflict is going to break it up into smaller chunks sooner or later. I'm going to enjoy watching it burn.
No more tariffs. No more visas. Vastly more economic cooperation between Russia and the European Union. That's the vision presented by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an editorial contribution to the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Thursday.
"We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of euros." [0]
[0] https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-v...
Your point would have been better made without weaseling in a Mearsheimer apology for authoritarian states. Russia snatching Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with NATO's expansion. Indeed, had NATO expanded earlier, we wouldn't have found ourselves in this mess, with Ukraine left to fend for itself.
NATO grew because of the desperation of former USSR satellites to shelter themselves from their abuser.
As to the other bit here about rejecting Russian integration as a cause for war: I think that point has been proven quite wrong with Merkel's absurd fantasy that trade with Russia would bring peace.
Of course part of the goal was to give Russian rocket scientists a more peaceful task to work on than spreading out to Iran, North Korea etc, but it was also a great chance for Russia to integrate further with the West and expand their historical prominence in space technology.
Instead, they've done everything to ensure that they never get such a deal again, and have allowed their space industry to atrophy significantly.
There's talk about how if Russia had been allowed into NATO they'd have been able to channel their energy into more constructive pursuits, but they were given an opportunity to do that for space technology and did not do so.
Absolutely false. We cannot prevent wars if we refuse to engage with reality as it is not as we wish it to be. https://twitter.com/battleforeurope/status/17000929447142730...
In any case, the full quote with the missing section emphasized in italics is:
> Then lastly on Sweden. First of all, it is historic that now Finland is member of the Alliance. And we have to remember the background. The background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.
> The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
> So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member. Because at Vilnius Summit, we agreed a statement where it was clearly expressed how Sweden will do more, follow up the agreement we had in Madrid on fighting terrorism, and also address issues related to export of military equipment, and then Türkiye made it clear that they will ratify as soon as possible.
For those who don't see the problem with removing military infrastructure from every former satellite state that fled the USSR it's this: throwing your allies back to the wolves who hunted you is as about as morally bankrupt as it comes.
And just to really make it clear which countries Russia wanted put back to the wilds, it's Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Finland.
For anyone who is interested, the full speech is available at https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_218172.htm
We know this is true from a map the dictator of Belarus was seen in front of showing more conquest after Ukraine, specifically of Moldova. We know President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called the collapse of the Soviet empire “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” His desire for a return to the days of empire is obvious from every aggrandizing speech he makes.
His intentions have been obvious for a very long time for anyone who wants to see them.
The recent Tucker Carlson interview confirmed that Putin has an uncontrollable obsession with a made up version of history, and he gets visibly upset when his long rants about Ukrainian statehood being an anti-Russian conspiracy by the Austrian General Staff and the Pope get interrupted. Nazis running Ukraine is only a small part of that persecution complex.
Putin's speeches deserve as serious consideration as Hitler's. Until tanks started rolling, his speeches were also dismissed as rhetoric.
However, it does not change how the Russians perceived NATO expansion which matters in todays conflicts:
> "The final assurance was Clinton’s agreement (despite Russia’s brutal Chechen war and multiple domestic pressures) to come to Moscow in May 1995 for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the victory over Hitler. In Moscow, Yeltsin berated Clinton about NATO expansion, seeing “nothing but humiliation” for Russia: “For me to agree to the borders of NATO expanding towards those of Russia – that would constitute a betrayal on my part of the Russian people."
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2021...
The Russians see the developments of the early 1990s as humiliating and as the spark of the modern conflict. It became much more serious in the late 2000s under Putin but the developments of the mid-90s already set things on a rotten path regarding the relationship between the West and Russia.
As if the west hasn't already destabilized the middle east for many decades now.
> The west needs to wake up, we're slowly sliding towards a world conflict. This is going to get worse before it gets better.
I think there's an essential connection there: The West's values and their power, and peace and freedom. The West's power comes from its values, not only because it captures the hearts and minds of others but because the power freedom and universal human rights gives to its own people.
As many in the West disparage or undermine those values, they are doing the work of Putin and Xi (at times, I'm sure, led by their disinformation campaigns).
No more time for games. It's time, as you say, to wake up and stand up for our values.
This makes a nice tweet. But what does it actually mean in practice?
Everyone and every institution is a hypocrite. If that's going to stop us, we might as well have submitted to the Nazis or Bolsheviks or someone long before that - after all, we were hypocrites then too!
But who am I to say that - I'm a hypocrite. No hypocrites allowed on HN!
Generally speaking, the west has been significantly improving the living conditions and human rights protections for its citizens over the last several hundred years, many times in direct response to some horrible mistake that was made and then subsequently learned from (slavery, Vietnam, etc.)
The same cannot be said at all about Russia. All the intelligent, brave people who could see through the propaganda or who had the bravery to do something about it have largely either been killed off or emigrated away at this point. The country has been in a continuous cycle of totalitarian suffering for hundreds of years, with no end in sight.
I don't have evidence, but my gut says that's not by accident. This slippery slope we've been heading down for the last few decades (no more right and wrong, all values are equal, anyone who says otherwise is a problem/oppressor/colonizer) look to me like a well funded / coordinated / long term political warfare campaign in order to build a country of "appeasers". People who refuse to stand up for anything -- we all know that's how bullies win.
I often wonder how much of what we're doing to ourselves is actually being funded by bad actors, fake patriots, etc.
I don't trust any free news. Someone is paying for a message to be delivered to my eyeballs, and I don't know who that is. Maybe 1% of stories are from bad actors, maybe it's 25%. Who knows? The answer matters -- a lot.
No one trusts anyone anymore. We've lost faith in our government and each other. No better way to conquer a nation than from within.
But that whole view is self-contradictory. If all values are equal, what's wrong with being an oppressor or colonizer? By calling people oppressors and colonizers, they are saying that some things are wrong. Their position destroys itself.
You see this in formal philosophy. If the conclusions of an argument disprove the premise, then the premise is wrong.
In this case, we aren't dealing with a formal position. We aren't even dealing with the clearest-spoken advocates of a position. We're dealing with culture warriors whose specialty is yelling, not clear argument. Nevertheless, there are people out there who say that, if you say one culture is better than another, then you are a Nazi. This is not taking their argument to a logical extreme. This is listening to their words. And based on that, you can say that that position shows that they aren't thinking, because it's absurd.
But you're right, you can't go too far with it. The worst, most thoughtless advocates of a position only let you say that those advocates' position is flawed. They don't tell you anything about the steelman version of the position.
We are screwed in the long run because there is no antidote to this that is compatible with our constitution.
How can an individual have both the critical thinking and still have the gut to contribute to this?
I grew up in rural russia. It's much much worse than what you see on the facade. My neighbour was a police man. His 15 years boy raped a kid from local orphanage and captured it on a video. No justice followed, because his dad is a policeman. No one spoke up. Everyone just accepted it, as they always do. When he grew up he became a policeman. It's not even the most screwed up story that I witnessed. This is beyond fucked up.
It's a case of mass inheritable PTSD. All males I knew in my family tree were violent drunks, all females were bitten up housewives. This place is surreal and should not exist. And my family was somewhat functional compared to some neighbours.
I abandoned everything there and got out as soon as I could make any money. I wish every person capable of critical thinking just leave this dreadful place and let it descend to the middle ages.
Personal experience has taught me that critical thinking does not nessecarily go hand in hand with the ability and/or the guts to push for change.
Many who move through corporate worlds do so for personal gains, and will not speak out against or put them selves in the spotlight to fix issues that might reflect badly on their upward progress in the hierarchy.
And from my interaction of these kinds of people, they have often been very intelligent.
I believe the same behaviour and motives sadly exist for many in modern day societies.
It is very hard to put myself in their shoes, and contort my brain to make their actions feel like a thing I could do.
I don't begrudge you for doing that, as I would have done (and basically did) the same. But that also highlights how a lot of these places get more fucked up over time.
The same thing is happening/has happened in the US. Basically, nearly all of the opportunity has moved from rural areas to urban and suburban ones. So basically anyone with the slightest modicum of ambition gets up and leaves. So all the people that are left are the people (a) without ambition or (b) are stuck there for other reasons (e.g. lots of early pregnancy). But the end result is those rural areas fall further behind, and many of the people that stay there become even more embittered about their lot. In the US the effect is even more pronounced because rural areas have outsized voting rights due to the way the electoral college and Senate work.
Humanity must ensure that an individual has the way to realize their potential. Freedom to raise and freedom to fall.
The internet changed everything. The information flowing freely and allowing critical thinkers to get out of a swamp they found themselves in. At least this gives everyone a chance to see.
The other thing is immigration. Your case about the US is thankfully different because one can get on a car and leave to another state or urban area. It's not as easy to get out of russia. Get a visa first. Maybe. If you have education and fit into a category. Do not fit? Too bad, there are great places like Kazakhstan that are available though.
It's a very niice.
I think it might've already...
In the following wikipedia article Russia's murder rate is near the world's avearage, close to the US, and 8 times lower than Jamaika. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intenti...
As for the rates raising in 90-ies and then falling back down, that's understandable, if you know what were the 90-ies there. The same happened in all other post Soviet states.
About 8% of the world suffers from PTSD symptoms. There was a recent study done in Poland that said over 15% of population has symptoms. It is generational PTSD from WW2.
Then submit it to authorities: investigative commitee, child ombudsmen, prosecutor's office, etc. Not local, but higher, maybe even central.
If the video is available, submit it too.
If not adressed by all authorities (unlikely), go public with the specific and detailed information.
Make sure to protect the victim's info from public.
This thread is in the midst of discussion of a public person tortured for 3 years and murdered and the whole country knows that.
What authorities are you talking about? It's criminals upon criminals.
Also slowly folding. It is not happening only in little countries like Slovakia. US has relevant party that is now openly pro-Putin.
I assume you don't know much about Slovakia besides the few headlines that pop here and there, right ?
I have mentioned Slovakia because I constantly hear about 'US bad Russia Good' there.
I mentioned Slovakia because that is my home country.
So tell me why would you assume my lack of knowledge?
Unless you evolve in very weird circles you probably know that it's infinitely more complex than 'US bad Russia Good'
> So tell me why would you assume my lack of knowledge?
Hard to tell if you're part of the "Slovakia should be kicked out of EU because they voted bad" crowd that popped up out of nowhere (and disappeared as quickly apparently). It's much less black and white than people make it look like, for example: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27331.jpeg
Not sure why you went that far with your assumptions. I just stated that situation in Slovakia changed. It is not black and white - I agree with you. I mentioned Slovakia where it happened and US where it is starting to happen. It is not going to be black and white there either but that should not be excuse to stay passive.
The pro-Western people are over-represented in Bratislava and among the university-educated people. So if you are a smart person living in the capital city, it is easy to forget how the rest of the country thinks... and then you always get surprised when they elect an anti-Western alpha male: previously Mečiar, now Fico.
For reasons I do not understand, Russian propaganda (Slobodný vysielač, etc.) is extremely popular here. I have never actually listened to it, but I don't even need to, because people quote them on internet all the time; it is the source of all popular conspiracy theories.
Luckily for us, Fico lies to everyone, including his own voters. He promises them to side with Russia against the Ukraine... but most of that are just empty words. The actual policy probably will not change a lot, because his main concerns are somewhere else: staying out of prison, remaining popular, stealing more money. Otherwise he will give up under the slightest economical threat from EU. His voters only care about rhetoric, and at home he is going to give them exactly that.
What relevant party in the US is openly pro-Putin?
It's not full pro-Russia yet, but he's certainly moving in that direction. Unfortunately, Trump is currently the republican party.
Please help us by selecting Trump.
Trump thinks that the US pays too much into NATO and others not enough. This his tactic for getting other countries to pay more for the security we all enjoy which isn't free.
I'm not a Trump fan but I see through his words to his tactics.
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/cnn-poll-ukraine/ind...
I am not sure I can be charitable enough to think you really don't understand this. The reaching is extreme.
I must admit I also don't have the charity in me to believe you made any attempt at being charitable before responding to only the first of my three sentences and calling me deliberately obtuse. 'You sound so stupid that I am convinced it is because you are a bad person' is a lot ruder than I think people realize. I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I'm above average; is it really so inconceivable that a random stranger is as dumb as half the people on the planet that you must immediately accuse them of malfeasance?
I believe that you are smart enough to understand the power dynamics in the House, and you understand that I don't think you're stupid. Quite the contrary.
Although... maybe you're a political "centrist"? That would explain a lot about your comments. Then I am sadly compelled to agree with you about what I think about you! I mean that means I'm an idiot myself for engaging with you. Sorry! Look around on the intertubes for what people who study this stuff think about US political "centrists".
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
Tucker Carlson is on there too, he's now a full time Russia shill.
The writing is on the wall for a while now, the only problem is that people talking about it are promptly labeled as not worthy of being listened to
For example, while the catastrophic ineptitude of the Russian forces at the start of their invasion has caused me to believe 80% of their nukes don't work any more, even just one nuke detonated as a HAEMP would destroy a continental-sized power grid — and the same visible signs of corruption that gave me the previous 80%, that also means there's a substantial chance at least one of the warheads ended up on the black market.
Exactly, did people forget Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014? Let's not be naive here.
Could more have been done? Probably, but effort was definitely put in.
I had a friend who kept saying that we needed to do something back then, and kinda ignored him, and now looking back, it's depressing how right he was.
https://visitukraine.today/blog/3375/navalny-is-dead-what-wa...
>After it becomes clear that "3 day" invasion of Ukraine is unsuccessful As far as I am aware of, Navalny always consistently opposed agression against Ukraine, from the very start, including the annexation of Crimea
The Ukraine war is a tragedy and I hope it ends soon.
But they have no economical & military power to really do any harm the Europe & the US. Putin makes a lot of noise but really can't even win a few km's in Ukraine.
But the real threat is further east. China is slowly building it's empire, and it's a scary one. Taking over parts of Africa. Migrating it's people. Integrating it's tech worldwide. Making the world dependent while building it's own full independence.
Let's see how the situation in Avdiivka develops in the next few weeks. Ukraine is reinforcing the area, but it doesn't look good.
We've seen plenty of blunders by the russian army. But you should not underestimate your enemy.
Putin (and the Russian (leaderhsip) culture in general, see Stalin) is this:
What are a 100M (of our) people dead if we own Ukraine/Baltics/East Poland/Georgia/... for the next hundreds of years?
Stalin had the same blunders, thats priced in, the Red Army had meat wave attacks in WW2 and lost millions, but achived all it's war goals (Poland, Baltics, Eastern Europe including half of Germany - only the US achieved all it's war goals too, everyone else lost, sadly Poland had the biggest loss).
The fertility rate more than halved since then, they're not playing with the same cards anymore
Poor people had plenty of kids because they had no standards nor accessible birth control or they come from a conservative religious culture where having kids is the norm.
But once people taste the good life, like westerners had it so good a while a ago, they don't want to bring kids in economic conditions worse than before, so the poorer you make them, the less kids they'll have.
So to compensate, you don't focus on improving the conditions for the locals to convince them to procreate, but you open the immigration gates to people from poor places with no standards, happy to bring kids in conditions that are way better than what they have in their own country, even though they're worse than the locals had a few decades ago.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-urges-russians-ha...
Any success?
And I must remind that Russia is having an electoral event this March, so the repressions were temporarily put on a back burner - but unpopular changes will come shortly afterwards. Check back in May or June.
Or are the Baltics and her people immune to propaganda?
For a nice Baltic example, Lithuania: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-baltic-elves-taking-on-pro...
> Facebook is where the light skirmishes take place; the mortal combat is reserved for the comment sections of Lithuanian news articles, where the trolls loose a constant drizzle of falsehoods and complaints, each comment helping to construct an alternate reality version of life in this Baltic country of 3 million. Rather than a thriving and patriotic post-Soviet success story, which it is, the image the trolls cultivate is that of a demoralized and angry society whose people are ready for regime change, be it through internal democratic mechanisms or through “liberation” by a friendly neighboring army.
Russia will support and radicalize those.
If the Baltics dont react it will lead to unrest and Russia is forced to intervene and "protect" their fellow Russians.
If the states react this will be seen as suppressing the Russian minorities and Russia will be forced to intervene and "protect" their fellow Russians.
Realistically there's no (strategic) benefit to even defending Kaliningrad in case of a war (and the thing is surrounded by NATO so it would be taken immediately if not heavily defended), so stationing lots of troops there is just a pointless drain on resources. If the Kaliningrad secession movement picks up steam, then they might just let them leave.
And for all the time Putin has to lay out his master plan..what did it buy him? A river of Russian blood in Ukraine?
And the US couldn't win against a few thousand goat farmers with Ak47s, or maybe there this is a bit more complex...
I don't think it's a convincing narrative that that's what Putin wants, and also that that's something he could reasonably accomplish. But I do hear it often as a powerful narrative to help Ukraine more, and I understand why, but from my point of view it's not very convincing.
At the same time I agree with the sentiment that heavier the losses in Ukraine, the more he will have difficulties in starting similar drama in other countries with large Russian communities.
The last thing they need now is a fight for supremacy, similar to what we have in Ukraine, that would cripple their war effort and benefit only their enemies. The death or one of the opposition leaders may be considered as a small price to pay to avoid the 1917 like catastrophe. Today, with the abundance of nuclear weapons, the stakes for the whole world are much higher than then.
Personally I have great hopes that an outsider like Kasparov could become President of Russia once Russia is defeated. He did attempt to run for presidency in 2007.
You do read the news? Ukraine is sinking the Russian Black Sea fleet ship by ship with cheap sea-drones. Ukraine is destroying Russian oil refineries and Russia has to reduce it's crude oil production now that India seems to saturated with cheap Russian oil.
On Ukraine ceding territory, I assume that's in case of a peace deal? Putin will sell that as a victory to the Russian people and prepare the next attack a few years later. This simply isn't an option for Europe to allow. Russia will crumble.
* Lukashenko is president since the post was created, his position is quite solid and will be useful when Putin's time is over.
* just two years into his presidency he signed a Union treaty with Russia, then still ruled by Yeltsin. Russia always understood that treaty as Belarus becoming part of Russia, something Putin is very keen on, extending Russia by force has happened more than once since 2000 but Belarus joining peacefully would push Putin's popularity. Lukashenko again and again promised things like introducing a common currency by 2004, 2005, 2006 and "maybe" 2007. Didn't happen. For Lukashenko it's a carrot he dangles in front of Putin.
* Belarus didn't join the war against Ukraine, and Lukashenko profited a lot when he got Wagner to stop their rebellion.On what are you basing this assertion? I'm going to assume it's a flawed understanding of the oft-cited "3:1 rule", which a) isn't a rule, but a planning guideline b) never referred to casualty ratios, but to force ratios suggested for a successful attack.
>> Personally I have great hopes that an outsider like Kasparov could become President of Russia once Russia is defeated.
What influence does Kasparov have with Russia's security establishment? In other words, why would any of the men who actually wield power in the country support him?
He was just a useful figurehead to attract sympathies from the west, but he never posed any threat to Putin and even if he somehow got into power he would do nothing to change Russia for the better.
He died (was killed) because he no longer served a purpose for Putin.
They aren’t the majority but are influential.
Xi Xinpeng should take a lesson here. Apparently all you have to do is dunk on gay people and pay lip service to right wing culture war stuff and they’ll roll over. You don’t even have to mean it. (Every core statistic the right claims to care about is worse in Russia like birth rate, divorce, abortion, etc.)
I've yet to meet a single one who "actively supports Russia and praises Putin as savior of the West". Like, literally not one. The only time I've _ever_ heard this viewpoint uttered in North America is when people online are sketching it out online as a bogeyman. Even on the trashier, more marginal sides of Twitter it's still America First - I just don't know who these people are that you and others in this thread are so concerned about.
Have you personally met someone who believes that crap? Who, given the option, would prefer a world of Russian hegemony over American? I think we're getting mad at a population that in North America doesn't really exist in any meaningful way.
He's not even a fringe case either, just your standard old dude who parrots whatever crap Fox News is spewing.
I’m talking about ideologues and movement people. I have run into a few of these people in the wild, mostly neoreactionaries, trads, and neo-racists who use terms like “race realism.” I haven’t personally run into really hard core neo-Nazi types in my circles but those exist too.
A lot of the above either admire Putin directly or at least see him as an example of the kind of strong man ruler they think we should have.
It’s not clear to me whether the ideological affinity is mutual though. Putin’s Carlson interview seemed dismissive but Putin has dog whistled to these crowds. Maybe he’s just doing it for propaganda reasons and could personally care less.
There’s also a big claim about Putin being heavily influenced by Alexandr Dugin but I’ve heard others claim this is hugely overblown.
I’ll hold hope that the Princes will be less homicidal maniacs. I think there is something extra psychotic about Putin that you don’t find in normal people.
In 2008 the Pentagon authored a study that claimed that Putin had Asperger’s disease.
In 2010 there were more rumors about his bad health after being photographed with a black eye.
In 2012, more rumors after he postponed a visit to Japan.
In 2014 "sources" reported that he had cancer of the spinal cord. Other "sources" denied that report, and instead said it was pancreatic cancer.
In 2018, more health rumors, more "sources" saying that Putin was about to resign for health reasons.
In 2020, he still reportedly had cancer, along with Parkinson's disease. And also, leprosy.
Clearly a very, very sick man.
I hope I never get cancer. But if I ever do, I hope I have access to the very obviously incredible Russian medical facilities.
More seriously, you do realize this is the same propaganda that is rolled out every time there is a leader the US does not like? Putin may actually be ill, but you can't determine that from reading US news reports. They tell lies over and over and over.
Have you ever thought about what Russia's influence in the AI sector would be by now if they would have focused on developing it instead of starting a war? Developing it while pretending a peaceful cooperation with the West?
It might well be that China supports Russia's war effort so much because it knows that this way Russians will have zero time and resouces to focus on being an AI leader, and through it, a threat to China.
The biggest win for the US and China is that Russia will now never be at the cutting edge in AI development. The longer this war goes on, the better it will be for both the US and for China.
Even Europe will be more advanced than Russia during the next couple of decades.
Russia is not gaining noteworthy traction. Avdiivka is a tiny pointless place aside from the fact that Russia is willing to impale itself at horrible odds to achieve any victory it can for optics.
If the U.S. were still supplying Ukraine they'd be in a much better place.
“Sustain” is a really funky term that’s hard to define. Like, they can keep refurbing tanks. They can keep funneling out meat. But they can’t replace the ships. They can’t replace the sovereign wealth fund.
Not to say the US shouldn’t be sending every last bomb it can find
That is something I heard ... since the beginning of the war, yet I see no signs of it. Russias economy is in full war mode, producing way more tanks and shells than the west. Ukraine has serious ammunition and manpower problems and the front can collapse. Also Ukraine prepared for a succesful offensive, and neglected the defense.
"It’s a really small place with minor strategic value"
And that small place was one of the best fortified places and succesfully defended since 2014. The fallback positions are not nearly as good prepared. And the chances are low, that they can even fallback with no more roads under their control. It is really not looking good at the moment.
The rest of the post is fiction
That is effectivly the same. They can bring more tanks (100+ every month according to british intelligence) in, than they loose. Not the case for Ukraine.
And if you mind telling me, what of my post was fiction in your perception, I might consider giving you sources.
Now they try to fall back through the mud.
Some dark highlights:
"The second line of defense, a few kilometers behind the front, is still being built, according to nearly a dozen interviewed soldiers."
"To reinforce infantry units after heavy losses, Ukraine has transferred soldiers from units specialized in artillery or logistics to infantry positions, according to the soldiers interviewed by the Kyiv Independent. This means soldiers deployed on the first defensive line may not even know the basic survival skills of an infantryman"
The withdrawal is already complete. It went pretty well.
https://kyivindependent.com/avdiivka-defense-uncertain-as-uk...
Because I did not made up anything, you can claim that the Kyivindependent did, but they are probably closer to the events than you.
"The withdrawal is already complete. It went pretty well. "
Information is still chaotic, but apparently they left the injured and many men and equipment behind. Not my definition of "pretty well".
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/17/world/europe/ukraine-avdi...
The institute of war daily updates is the only source I care to trust. News media is often hyperbolic in both directions.
"Ukrainian forces will likely be able to establish new defensive lines not far beyond Avdiivka, which will likely prompt the culmination of the Russian offensive in this area. "
If there would have been a second line truly ready and prepared, there would be no need to write it this way.
And all they wrote about the retreat, is that they have not seen pictures of large groups of ukrainians surrender. They do not deny, that the order came to leave the wounded behind. Or that lots of equipment had to be left behind. They just do not mention it. But they do not wrote the retreat went pretty well, like you did.
"Russian forces have not yet demonstrated an ability to secure operationally significant gains or conduct rapid mechanized maneuver across large swaths of territory"
And this is correct - but they are aware and state the possibility, that the front can collapse.
the question is who will starve faster: Ukraine or Russia.
I don't see much signs of starving from Russian side at the same time.
"Both sides regard Avdiivka as key to Russia's aim of securing full control of the two eastern "Donbas" provinces - Donetsk and Luhansk. These are among the four Ukrainian regions Russia says it has annexed but does not have full control of. Avdiivka is seen as a gateway to Donetsk city, whose residential areas Russian officials say have been shelled by Ukrainian forces, sometimes from Avdiivka."
-- Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/why-does-russia-want-ca...
I don't understand your point about optics. Why does Russia care about optics in this case? Ukraine has to care about optics because they are completely dependent on NATO aid for their survival at this point.
Russia cares immensely about optics because Putin has demanded a military victory in time for the march elections. This has been publicly reported on since at least October.
Funny, the world had the same thought in 1936.
Russia got bogged down because Russia doesn’t want this fight. Russia’s Kremlin does.
It's not a good idea to broadly think "nazis are stupid, they won't get anything done". Sometimes they get things done and then we're fucked.
Letters like these are written today as well:
"027 – Letter by guard Hugo Behncke to his wife, 28 January 1945
Today I’m on duty from 10 to 12, though without anyone relieving me and without the NCO [non-commissioned officer], so I’ll be able to cut a few corners. I can sit down and that makes the work fairly easy, so two hours are bearable. In the SS, everything apart from breathing is forbidden, but if you don’t break a few rules you’re not a soldier. But I always take care that nothing happens. Anyway, in the winter time the prisoners are disinclined to “travel” [escape]. I haven’t heard of a single case all the time I’ve been here. But in spring and summer we have to keep a really close eye on things.
All they were good for was to be burned
The war situation is still gloomy, of course, but I’m putting my trust all the same in our counter attack after our enemies’ latest offensive. As I see it, everything is ready. […] So we’re hoping we’ll have victory soon, first over the Russians and then over the western powers. After we’ve won my comrades want to carry on […] as soldiers but not me! I want to get home to you and my children. "
Not even close. US had many times Germany’s industrial output in the 1930’s.
That proves nothing about the present.
That's the purpose of NATO. In exchange for giving up some autonomy to the US (letting the USA build military bases in your territory, not acting overtly against our interests), and paying us for our fancy weapons, NATO members get the immeasurably valuable power of a nuclear red line border, and protection by the most powerful military the world has ever seen. It's a very, very good deal, and the most stabilizing force in history.
Given the NATO membership of most of Europe, the only wars possible in Europe are small, regional conflicts between non-member states.
You are right on the former, incorrect on the latter. Invasion looks different now that warfare has changed. You might have been invaded and not even know it. When was the last time you looked at your ssh logs?
- You don't get it. An alliance of china, russia, iran and north korea will be enabled to do whatever they want. Including invading or, more likely, hitting with missiles critical infrastructure in any Nato country with the exception of US and UK
As much as it is incomprehensible for America, there are societies that do not value freedom from the very bottom to the very top - and Russia is one of them
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-war-eu-aid-funding...
Also are we just ignoring Vladimir Kara-Murza in terms of opposition figures fighting for regime change?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/14/putin-ukr...
and how is he still relevant?
Modern Russia is far better at political subversion than it is at outright conquest. Every country in Europe has captive politicians and far-right parties being funded and enabled by Moscow.
Like Germany's AfD which - as a matter of record - has been cultivated, promoted, and steered in a pro-Russian direction.
Scholz is clearly playing the same game, obstructing aid to Ukraine in every possible way.
Geert Wilders in NL makes anti-Russian noises in public while threatening to cut support to Ukraine.
Portugal has Chega, France has National Rally and Le Pen, the UK had Brexit and Boris Johnson - who installed the son of a top KGB operative to the House of Lords.
The US has Trump and Maga.
And so on.
Every single one of these has proven Russian links.
Ukraine is just a distraction. The real war has been happening elsewhere. Many leaders - and most voters - still haven't realised what's happening.
And should Le Pen win in France and Trump in the US, that would leave the UK's one active nuclear submarine as Europe's sole protection against Russian nuclear threats.
1) Germany ultra weak militarily, you really can't let intellectuals drive whole nations since they have 0 clue about realpolitik, warfare and all those ugly aspects of it, and currently bundeswehr is a pathetic underfunded joke with rotting helmets that even current russian army would roll over without breaking a sweat.
2) a massive push for critical fuel dependency on russia
3) never standing up to that murderer in any way, even as he was killing and invading Georgia and Ukraine
He played her and similar to her very efficiently. Of course its nothing compared to masterclass he pulled/will yet pull on Trump.
As somebody coming from cca eastern Europe, being enslaved by russian troops after their bloody invasion, western Europe is... to keep things ultra polite - ultra pussies. You simply don't grok how depraved and hardened to cruelty russian mind is, things like fair game are an insult. Also their incredible durability to withstand absolutely horrible treatment, just buckle up and continue. Western sanctions my ass, just make sure any good chips don't work for them somehow because they don't care for the rest.
This is the case when you are dealing with mobsters who kill and know only rule of stronger, and you come with your polite smile and handshakes and expect things like keeping their word or contracts. I don't even have such a problem with EU dumb naivety in the past, but what is shocking that they didn't wake up right after invasion and starting putting 10% of GDP into army, to see some effects in 5 years just in time when real stuff starts happening. Every single post-soviet country keeps issuing very strong warnings due to previous horrible expereiences with russian terror, but these are completely ignored on EU level. This is a major long term weakness that will not get unpunished.
Yeah, when SHTF its very easy to be ashamed to be from Europe, for quite a few generations.
It's pretty sad that the EU now has to look to Lithuania for their moral compass because they seem to have lost their own.
I can’t speak as much to the situation in Europe aside from the obvious conflicts of interest for former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Aside from him, I don’t know where to attribute Germany’s fecklessness: it could just as easily be the same weak-kneed pacifism that led Germany to disarm themselves. (Also, I’d point out that, contra your narrative, both Scholtz and Schroeder are members of the center-left SPD and not any far right party.)
I suppose there is some narrow definition of links for which that is true.
> What’s more, Trump maintained sanctions against Russia
He signalled plans to weaken them, and then Congress, by massively veto-proof majorities in both Houses (419-3 House, 98-2 Senate), passed a bill limiting his ability to lift existing sanctions while also adding new sanctions on top.
> and provided military aid to Ukraine.
He held up Congressionally-mandated aid to try to force a quid pro quo from the Ukrainian government for propaganda to support Trump’s personal political efforts, releasing it only after he became aware that someone had blown the whistle on it.
That’s certainly one possible interpretation of events.
Nationalism is having a renaissance since Trump won in 2020, but it turns out overall to be a terrible way to run a country.
* Undermining our Supreme Court by trying to force through a migrant deportation scheme which the court has ruled unlawful
* Eroding the Police Force's independence by claiming they are biased in their approach to protests
* Trying to defund and delegitimise the BBC
It might be because I'm fairly left wing myself, but I think you have go pretty far into authoritarian-left territory (think Stalinism) before you start becoming seriously anti-democratic. Before that point most leftists are pretty keen on giving power and choice to ordinary people and communities.
The fact that LePen has done as well as she has twice now is in and of itself horrifying.
And into the chaos, strongmen came in, and promised and gave some stability.
That's naive. Russia allowed Germany to unify, but not Romania. It was very clear to eastern Europeans that they needed to join NATO before Russia can attack them again.
Ever since the 1500s Russia has always sought to expand under the excuse of being encircled. Listen to any Russian propagandist now and they sound no different to ones from hundreds of years ago. They say Russia needs natural bothers. Well, there are no borders until the Carpathian mountains.
If they do conquer the Carpathians, they'll just move the goal posts, just like they didn't stop at the Ural mountains.
It's naive to not see Russia as the enemy because it has always been so.
Edit: I'm being throttled so I'll respond to similar comments here. TheOtherHobbes similarly notes:
> The EU. France and Germany used to be deadly enemies. No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon.
In particular, France and Germany weren't peacefully reconciled through economic integration. There was a war, and the victors of that war installed democratic governments in both France and West Germany and inducted both countries into a broader alliance.
> Same with US states. Texas etc keep muttering about secession, but the economic complications make it an insane idea.
It took about two decades after Texas was admitted to the union for the states to fight a civil war against each other.
genman says:
> Remember WW1? WW2?
Not personally (I'm not that old) but those were not instances of economic integration easing military tensions; they were instances of extremely bloody world wars. And the First World War in particular was already deemed impossible because of the degree to which European economies were already economically integrated. That theory did not pan out.
wolverine876:
> The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. The EU was specifically intended to prevent another war.
Again reversing cause and effect. The Allies won the Second World War and installed friendly governments across western Europe (and also in Greece); following this, those friendly governments formed the EU.
The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. The EU was specifically intended to prevent another war.
Not quite, the Western Union (predecessor to the EU by way of the was formed by the BeNeLux countries, the UK and France. Some of those were at war in preceding centuries but they were on the same side during WWI and WWII. It didn't have a lot of clout because very rapidly afterwards other more powerful institutions were formed and it was superceded. But it was more of a continuation of some of the collaboration that stemmed from being allies/liberators in the war than that they were on opposing sides. Later institutions included Germany and Italy as well.
As I recall, Churchill was a strong proponent of the EU's [edit: I can't believe I used the wrong word:] ancestor (the European Communities? Some oil and coal community?), as a way to prevent further wars. Churchill blamed nationalism specifically.
You're saying the EU wasn't required? That seems like a bold statement, but probably too much to sort out in HN comments.
I'm a bit confused by "but" in that sentence. I'm not sure if a 'not' or another word is missing there. Certainly many saw unification as beneficial - again, it was the key to many. Many still do.
Unification was underway prior to the EU, the EU is the eventual larger body but it took some steps to get to the point where it could be properly established, mostly on account of the various countries still reeling from WWII and being very busy with reconstruction efforts (and piss poor to boot, the first years after WWII were almost as bad as the last years of the war and in some places even worse besides the reduced immediate risk to life). Doubly so for those countries that ended up on the far side of the Iron Curtain, but then again, they weren't part of the EU for many years to come. But for many of them the only thing that changed is that German uniforms became Russian uniforms and usually that wasn't accompanied by a higher degree of civility by the occupiers.
How do you establish the arrow of causality (and of course, to some degree, it points both ways)? Objectively, we know that a major intent and design of the EU (and its earlier iterations) was to prevent another war.
Same with US states. Texas etc keep muttering about secession, but the economic complications make it an insane idea.
It's not inherently a bad strategy, but it tends to fail when you're dealing with huge would-be hegemons - which certainly applies to China and Russia.
Ukraine and Russia were same country like almost forever. No one sane was expecting a war between them.
Don't underestimate ability of polititians to screw things up.
Various types of Germans also did have a large number of wars agains one another.
Russian position is indeed that Ukrainian claims on the statehood in 1991 or even 2014 borders are absolutely bogus.
Personally, I also find it hard to respect the immutability of international borders that are younger than I am.
Compared to that, Russians have super great attitude towards southwestern Russian variety. They do recognize the existence of Ukrainian language (dialect continuum) and that some people might want to speak it unharmed, for starters.
Ukrainian state rewrites history like there was no yesterday, but you could definitely study Ukrainian in any UkrSSR school from 1960s to 1991. I wonder if you could find a school that will teach any Languedoc, anywhere in Languedoc.
I'm also pretty sure that Germans from different parts of Germany aren't big fans of each other as a group.
(Note: It was published before the war so the statistics of where what languages are commonly used have changed dramatically.)
Nobody really cares what these far western ukrainians are up to. Russians don't really want them. Maybe with the exception for one dude from Vinnitsa.
Valuev Circular [3] (1863), Ems Ukaz [4] (1876) banned the use of the Ukrainian language in print. Religious books on Ukrainian were banned century before [5].
Census [6] (1897) maps Ukrainian language majority far beyond Ukraine current borders. Annexed by RSFSR, Russified by force. Continuum of ethnocide by Moscow.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eneida
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Kotliarevsky
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valuev_Circular
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ems_Ukaz
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Ukrainian_langua...
Еней був парубок моторний
І хлопець хоть куди козак,
На лихо здався він проворний,
Завзятіший од всіх бурлак.
Nationalists like to draw fantasy maps. Want to see mine?
Roma, Romania, do you claim Italian is "Romanian dialect"? Muscovy was Rus colony, grew under Golden Horde, renamed in 1721. Rus Grand Prince Володимѣръ Свѧтославичъ — Ukrainian name Володимир (Volodymyr) not Moscow Владимир (Vladimir). Language of Kyiv can't be dialect of its former colonies language.
Slav languages are mutually intelligible. I've checked spoken Slovak, Polish, Croatian, Bulgarian. Do you claim these are "dialects" of Moscow language?
Eneida translated to Polish:
Eneasz rzutkim był młodzianem,
Podobnym całkiem do Kozaków,
Radzącym z każdym złem spotkanym,
Zawziętszym nawet od burłaków.
I don't understand a word of Polish text.
So it makes sense that everyone who is fluent in both Ukrainian and Russian will be consuming Russian content 90% of time. Hence people no longer use Surzhik anywhere east of Kharkov (or Khabarovsk), even if some of their ancestors actually spoke it. It just don't make sense to do that anymore.
It does not help that literature Ukrainian has a lot of borrowings from Polish, Romanian and Hungarian and is not really accessible to people who did not visit Ukrainian state schools. However, Russian is very accessible to basically everybody in Ukraine and the rest of ex-USSR.
Regarding folk songs, people actually did a lot of digging in this area starting with late Soviet times, and now there's huge revival of folk music in Russia. Many contemporary pop or rock bands use Russian (Slavic, maybe even Ukrainian) folk motives in their songs, which are usually in Russian. By doing so, they enrich Russian culture, which I've started this comment from.
Use of Russian language shrunk by 2x in last 30 years, while Ukrainian language increased by 2x in last 30 years. At some point, it will flip.
Regarding folk songs, just name one Russian folk song in Russian language, for which I will not be able to found author by 5 minutes of googling.
And it is also obviously in Russian: https://forum.d-seminar.ru/threads/zhuravel-xor-ukrainskaja-...
The rest of the offensive Ukrainian chauvinism I will skip.
For example, Ukraine holds word record by number of folk songs, while I was able to found none of folk songs in Russian (Russish) language after years of searching. Folk songs exists in Russia Federation, but they are not in Russian (Russish) language. Cuban Cossack Choir - folk songs are in Ukrainian language, Ural Cossack Choir - Ukrainian, for example.
That has nothing to do with Russia vs Russian conquered territories, besides, France has Occitan, there is the German based dialects, Catalan, some Basque and a whole raft of others.
> Since they held absolute political powers nobody was even there to question it.
Except that that didn't quite happen in the way you suggest. You could make a similar statement about Fries in NL or maybe Limburgs or Diets. And it would be just as much wrong.
> Compared to that, Russians have super great attitude towards southwestern Russian variety. They do recognize the existence of Ukrainian language (dialect continuum) and that some people might want to speak it unharmed, for starters.
Sorry, are we on different planets or something? You mean: those very same Russians that are currently bombing the shit out of anything Ukrainian and who wish to eradicate the Ukrainian nation and culture?
> I'm also pretty sure that Germans from different parts of Germany aren't big fans of each other as a group.
They are as alike as the Dutch and the Belgians, we joke about each other but at the end of the day there is no hate and zero chance of a war.
No assimilation and cultural genocide policy in any form. It has just dwindled to these numbers on its own. Also has no relation to the topic that we discuss. Don't forget to call whataboutism.
I gather that reflection is not a strong side of Western Europeans.
> those very same Russians that are currently bombing the shit out of anything Ukrainian
That's called "a civil war", and that's how it viewed by many Russians and some Ukrainians. Indeed that's not a great condition to be in.
> who wish to eradicate the Ukrainian nation and culture
Again, this accusation is coming from a proud member of a nation who eradicated a couple of cultures very recently. "While I had already been born" recently.
People of Donbass were fed up with Ukrainization to the extent that these two Republics do not have Ukrainian as co-official. But Crimea, and the "new territories" of Kherson oblast and Zaparozh'ye (whatever left of them, arguably) have Ukrainian as co-official. Crimea also has Crimean Tatar as co-official. If anybody wants they can study their language and their culture, including in schools. That's what was not permitted to Russians in many, many ex-USSR countries.
12.04.2014 Moscow occupied Slovyansk, "referendum" a month later.
February 2022 Moscow occupied Kherson, "referendum" half a year later.
Do you claim "people of Kherson was fed up, started civil war"?
It is un-civil-ized genocidal war, by calling it civil war you are denying the existence of Ukraine as a state it's the same as saying you support this war and atrocities Ruzzian Federation commits and occupation of Ukrainian territories. Go and preach this on runet instead.
After Belarusian, Ukrainian is also closer to Slovak, Polish, and Czech than to Russian – 38% of Ukrainian vocabulary is different from Russian.
You may want to read some on that. Start with:
What does that have to do with hypothetical hatred of Ukrainians?
As far as I know, Russian peasantry was absolutely not spared in the collectivization, making for the bulk of immediate casualties. And why would Stalin care about them? Was he Russian?
No, there is no comparative study of the effects of repressive policies, because starving millions of people to death and not allowing outside help in (read "The Russian Job" by Douglas Smith) is not practiced on such scale anymore, even by Russia. The Wikipedia page on Holdomor quotes orders to subjugate Ukraine regardless of cost. That in itself negates any notion of Russians having a "super positive attitude" towards Ukraine. Do you know why "(...) you could definitely study Ukrainian in any UkrSSR school from 1960s to 1991."? Because it was not possible while Stalin was alive. It was not possible, because it was Stalin who gave orders to subjugate Ukraine at any cost.
[edit] more on the history of the freedom to use the Ukrainian language in Ukraine under Soviet rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainization
If you have any complaints about Stalin, you can mail them to Georgia, and indeed I'm the first one to do the same.
Stick and carrots. Both are required.
not to mention that china was on a reasonably good trajectory until a certain yellow bear ascended to the throne
It's the US won't stand for anymore wars like that. And for 50 years after WWII they could enforce that. You can note the general absence of large wars in North and South America as evidence of that.
EU leaders mistakenly thought that they can have the same success with Russia but they didn't take into account the fact that Russian new president had completely misaligned interests.
It mostly worked within in the EU because you needed meaningfully adopt certain standards to join the market.
Russia didn't have to do any of that and by the time more people started to understand the problem developing they already had leverage.
It’s like thinking the scooter kids are gonna be hanging with the skater kids. It’s not that they are inherently that different, but they have such different mindsets that it means they see their positions in the world differently.
Maybe you should look at the map before writing such nonsense.
1. Russia does have borders both with EU and NATO. Norway, Finland, Baltic states, Poland.
2. Russia is geographically in Europe too. Most of its population and the capital are in Europe.
Among European countries it does have the largest territory, population and nuclear arsenal, but it is not even the biggest economy. Ex-superpower is not a now-superpower. Mindset-wise it has a lot in common with other EU members.
But Russia isn’t Germany whose borders are completely dominated by Europe.
Putin obviously thinks Russia should still be a superpower. People get that mentality when they see the past and think they deserve it again. Holy shit people love the “glory days.”
There are conflicts that have been going on for millennia like in the Middle East and they fight today because their ancestors fought.
People have a hard on for the past.
You’ll teach someone command line Git starting out and they love it and they will never bother with a GUI because they value their experience more than practicality.
Apart for these, which Bush considered a retaliation for 9/11, the USA is very careful not to start any conflicts and not to get involved - see Syria for example.
Now due to Russia's actions Germany has signed on with Qatar on a million dollar deal to get the pipeline done. I am sure this will result in more pressure on Syria.
I suppose you will say the U.S became the "good guys" only under the Trump administration ? I suppose all the targeting and intelligence advice and weapons given to the Saudi's for bombing Yemen weddings were for "freedom" and thus completely justified ?
My positions/opinions are not based from Putin - but from middle-east citizens who have faced the brunt of American warfare. But the general tendency of war-loving American neocons/neo-liberals who wish to deliver "freedom" by War is to always blame Putin Propaganda when a citizen not of the NATO sphere holds a position opposed to their own. The U.S. are the real masters of propaganda- the Russians are a laughable footnote.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_civil_war_(2011)
In every country ruled by some dictator there are beneficiaries who will complain afterwards that the bloodshed was caused by some foreign intervention. They feed from his hands, receive generous giveaways while others suffer. Did you talk to those people to get your opinion?
The some beneficiaries is a joke. You check your own sources - under Gaddafi, per capita income in the country rose to more than US$11,000 - the 5th highest in Africa. Universal free healthcare did exist and was not limited to "some beneficiaries" as you claim. Now, most Libyans suffer extreme poverty and deprivation. A nation that was utterly decimated - all thanks to NATO under the Obama administration.
The funny thing is that Gadaffi was willing to step down from power and hold elections under international observers. The U.S. rejected that. That would mean not having a war and hawks like Victoria Nuland wanted the Libyan government destroyed - not merely brought under democratic leadership. They were aware that if real elections were held and monitored with observers - Gadaffi would likely win and NATO legitimacy for the War would be lost.
Economic integration wasn't what kept the peace, it was probably the military integration.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Germany
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-mili...
I believe the problem is that the premise is false. It works OK for a part of the population that feels comfortable with it. When you look closer at the root causes they are not immaterial and often boil down to people not wanting immigrants around them. If you are progressive you can just dismiss their outdated attitude - and this is what center- and left-wing politicians were doing for decades. Ignoring and ridiculing these folks caused the radical right to grow stronger in several European countries. Putin knows that and that's why he is sending more and more of them to Belarussian borders.
I think the democratic and developed countries need to change their game plan pretty soon. The countries that are willing to join the club should be offered actual help to develop. By actual help I mean trade treaties that are designed to benefit those countries, not developed countries. Includes IP vaiwers, duties that protect local industries etc.
The countries that do not want to join, (including China and Orban's Hungary) then again, should be punished in all ways possible. Massive duties to commodities and other products imported from those countries, as a starter.
Open democracies do not need to be nice guys if they are threatened. Must not be, to be more precise. See Popper and paradox of tolerance.
Do you mean the war between Argentina and England? Argentina was not only under a military dictatorship then, but the war was definitely triggered by the military junta.
1. karabakh war (at least the first one)
2. six day war
3. turkey's invasion of cyprus
4. some yugoslav wars
Off the top of my head -- a war of 1812 between Great Britain and United States. Both countries were democracies at that time.
By what definition the British Empire, a constitutional monarchy, had been a democracy in 1812 if all (and not just the fourty-shilling freeholders) men aged 21+ with some women aged 30+ only became allowed to vote in 1918, 106 years later, and all women aged 21+ were finally allowed to vote in 1928?
But, historically, democracy was not considered to require universal suffrage. Athens is often cited as one of the world’s first democracies - and it is from Ancient Greece that we get the word - yet in ancient Athens, most adults couldn’t vote (either due to being female, due to being slaves, or due to being non-citizen resident aliens)
Members of Parliament (MP's) were often elected in rotten and pocket boroughs where a single patron could (and unashamedly did) buy up the votes in one or multiple boroughs and essentially dictate the outcome of elections. Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk controlled 11 boroughs, as an example.
The rotten boroughs were only disenfranchised by Reform Act 1832 which granted seats in the House of Commons to large cities instead.
In the pocket boroughs, the landowner could evict electors who did not vote for the two men he wanted, the practice that did not cease to exist until secret ballots were introduced in 1872.
There were also «open boroughs» where the vote was more competitive but still limited to male property owners only.
Since «demos» in «democracy» stand for «people», calling Britain a democracy in 1812 is not even a stretch.
And in 2024, it still is a constitutional monarchy - how is that relevant to the question of whether it is or was a democracy?
> Since «demos» in «democracy» stand for «people»,
The meaning of words isn’t determined by sum of parts like that. The people who coined the word “democracy” used it to refer to systems in which only a small percentage of “the people” counted. Herodotus used the word in the 5th century BCE, whereas universal adult suffrage didn’t exist in most places until the 20th century, well over 2000 years later. If you want to argue that everyone was using a word incorrectly for over 2000 years, well, you can define words however you like, but other people aren’t obliged to accept your novel definition
> In 1812, Britain was a constitutional monarchy […]
[…] a parliamentary system dominated by landed aristocracy and gentry – 3% circa of the population […]
That was the key point that was conveniently or otherwise omitted. 3% of the entire population being landed aristocracy and gentry is not the rule of people by any measurable account, and, no, it does not constitute the British Empire a democracy in 1812. There was also a reason why I originally emphasied «Empire» – empires do not place a focal point on the power of people as there are no people in an empire, there is only the empire.
> The meaning of words isn’t determined by sum of parts like that.
Yes, the modern defintion of «democracy» is multifaceted and elastic, it has evolved to mean much more since its inception, including universal suffrage as a fundamental property of a functional democracy today. Yet, democracy in Ancient Greece is not what most would call a democracy today. I am accutely aware of that.
> […] other people aren’t obliged to accept your novel definition
That is an opinion, and it is not that of mine.
This is a hard one since the guy managed to do his trick once Hungary already joined all clubs. On the other hand, there's little hope anybody can manage to overthrow him anytime soon, and in any case restoring democracy in Hungary will take decades.
It's also IMHO the most productive and ethical way to reduce/prevent war. Maybe they shouldn't have allowed something so fundamental as energy to become a dependence, but generally speaking the principles are sound.
It's a saying whose truth has been greatly exaggerated, and the people who foolishly believe it have a tendency to make themselves vulnerable.
> That doesn't necessarily mean that it stops all war, but it definitely raises the cost of war and costs matter.
Costs apparently matter less than you think.
Costs obviously do matter, but no-one is saying it's a fool-proof means of control.
Also I think part of the problem in this case is that Europe failed to make Russia sufficiently financially dependent on Europe. Instead Europe made itself dependent on Russia for energy, which means that the pacifying forces of trade are leveraged more towards Europe than towards Russia.
Geopolitics are complicated and messy. The more I think about them the more my head hurts.
Is that because of economic integration, or other reasons? Since WWII, Germany and France sat on the same side of a military alliance for more than a generation against a formidable foe (which would obviously change some attitudes), and there have been other ideological developments in those countries at well (e.g. the degree that Germans are pacifists as a reaction to Naziism).
Probably both. In any case, in spite of political tensions there haven't been any armed conflicts between EU members so far, and the attitudes of people are very friendly.
After WWII, the allies learned from their mistakes and instead of saddling the German people with mountains of debt and economic punishment, they sought to rebuild, quickly established trade and economic integration. It went substantially better the second time, and to this day seems to be working.
They did unlearn that lesson by the time Cold War ended...
I agree I think the main problem here is that Russia isn't nearly as dependent on Europe as Europe is on Russia.
But that said, it's also very early to conclude that Russia has plans on Europe. Especially given how Ukraine went, even if the Russian leadership fully wants to invade Europe, they surely know how that would go the moment they touch NATO. Their military will be crushed and they'll be assassinated or executed if they don't end up in prison. Europe has time to correct this imbalance. Awareness of the issue seems to be one of the hardest steps however, and coming up with solutions after that is of course quite a challenge as well. It's messy and I'm glad I don't have to be responsible for it :-)
Yes, this was the widely believed theory prior to 1914 for why another large, Europe-wide war wouldn't break out.
But look at how WWI ended with Germany getting heaps of crippling debt placed upon them and economic devastation. That totally paved the way for Hitler and WWII. Contrast with the end of WWII where Germany was rebuilt and economically integrated, and today it would be ludicrous to consider Germany invading Europe with designs on the world! The genetics of the people didn't magically change in a couple generations. Their economic situation did, and economic-related needs are at the base of everybody's hierarchy of needs.
Economic lifting isn't a surefire win either. What works in Germany/Japan didn't work elsewhere.
It probably also helped that both countries were so thoroughly devastated that their own “might makes right” ideologies had been clearly discredited by events. You can’t really claim to have racial or spiritual supremacy over your enemies when your enemies have reduced your cities to rubble, driven your people before their armies in vast refugee columns, and occupied your cities with soldiers. Obviously if you take this too far you run the risk of revanchism, so there’s another balance to be struck between domination and mercy.
Another big difference is that both Germany and Japan were accustomed to authoritarianism. Germans and Japanese were very governable peoples, and still are to some extent. The people of rural Afghanistan were ungovernable to begin with, more ungovernable than the people of any developed country. For example, I’m going to guess that your way of life does not involve grabbing your rifle and joining in this year’s season of warfare without any consistent ideological commitment to which side you want to fight for. But this is how many tribal Afghans have lived for centuries. There’s a core of devoted fanatics within the Taliban, but most of the actual fighters literally showed up and treated the war like a pickup basketball game. That’s why we seemed to win so quickly and easily in the beginning—nobody wants to be on the losing side. But as time went on and American commitment diminished, the dynamic shifted before ultimately and dramatically reversing.
Yes, it's a pain to read through essays and all the details of various circumstances. But the nuance is helpful sometimes... And seems to be important to elaborate in this case.
People don't need to agree or disagree with previous posts. Simply stating more facts and going into details (especially on complex matters of history and culture) is good and helpful.
One of the many failures of nation-building has to do with property disputes. In a WEIRD society like our own (or Germany, or Japan) there’s an office in the city that has survey records and the question of who owns a piece of land is decided by paperwork. If there’s a dispute or a transaction or an agreement that changes someone’s property rights in some way—perhaps you have an easement or you agreed to move the property line-those changes are also duly recorded in the paperwork in the office in the city.
This is not how human cultures work by default. In fact, the process of writing down everyone’s property deeds for the first time is a massive undertaking that is hard to do well and easy to fuck up. The Ottoman Empire made a hash of this when they did it in Palestine and recorded property rights at such a high level of granularity that a single land deed with a single owner might cover a massive expanse of land that spanned multiple villages. Which made no difference to any of the people in Palestine until those “owners” ended up selling that land to Zionists.
Afghanistan, likewise, had lots of land records, many of which dated back to before the Soviet war. Of course, in the intervening decades, a lot of the tribal peoples had property disputes and settled them in a perfectly normal pre-modern way, involving verbal agreements and codes of honor between extended kin groups. And as long as nobody tried anything like governing them from Kabul based on those written land records, it worked for them. Everyone remembered and respected the traditional agreements. Of course, when the US installed a government in Kabul and backed it up with American troops, eventually everyone who had been on the losing side of a property dispute and realized they could get more or better land based on some dusty old paperwork decided to sic the US-backed Kabul government on their neighbors, completely upsetting the balance of life.
Simply put, a human culture that has been urbanized, governable, and legible to a paperwork-based central authority for centuries is an extremely sophisticated thing that takes a ton of effort to invent. If you grow up in that kind of society centuries after the initial work was done, those institutions are almost invisible to you. How else would society function?
That's an odd idea. The people in Afghanistan aren't magically different -- instead, they're being oppressed by a comparatively small group of violent uneducated men (the Talibans).
This is how it used to be:
https://www.google.com/search?q=afghanistan+before+1978&tbm=...
That's more like in southern Europe.
But the Cold War and the US helping the Talibans take the power destroyed all that.
I wonder how life was in the countryside -- maybe I can find something about that.
> They’re closer to normal baseline human. We’re the WEIRD ones
Yeah, it seems to me that tribal violence is much more natural and common than ... than what I could ever have believed 10 years ago
Why past tense? Still walking...
It is quite problematic as it appears the US and China are slow crawling to a direct confrontation.
So defense spending as prevention of war isn't really a thing either. Nor is winning them (forget Afghanistan?)
If we wanted to 'win', it would require taking over afghan which no one wanted to do.
Do you think those stereotypes are really helpful in understanding geopolitics? Traditionally what russia has always done(after it conquered its east), was being invaded, loosing lots of land, let the invader bleed out in the winter and then push back and win new territories.
Then russia as a monarchy was quite different to the sowjet union, the result of a marxist revolution with marxist agenda. And russia after the sowjet union was first weak and now they try to find strength in the traditional empire values again, religion and tsar. But it is not a given, that they will keep that, only if it works out for them. I hope it doesn't.
In some kind of way, yes. Cultures differ, sometimes drastically so. It is important to evaluate stereotypes based on history and their merits.
You said it yourself. Historically, Russia has faced many cyclic periods of expansion and reduction. They are currently being reigned by a patriotic figure with a record of dwelling on Russia‘s great past. Given enough time or an effective military response, chances are high that their next leader will be more favorable of peace.
"Russia is doing what they've always done and always will do."
What part of history implies, that russia (unlike e.g. Germany, France, UK, US,..) always started wars and always will be?
It seems quite clear that the German elite class had been wholly corrupted by Russia who offered them enrichment at the cost of Ukrainians and ultimately long term German security.
It makes a lot more sense when you look at how America's own elites sold out America to China.
All of this (charitably assuming good faith) was founded on the idea of inevitability. People thought peace was an inevitable result of trade, liberalization was an inevitable result of prosperity, and democratization an inevitable result of capitalism.
The question to me was more what happens after? Terrorism inside Russia for years? Low bip for decades?
Nato setting a clear border
¥ modulo international recognition, which Russia does not care that much about.
Trump winning would be bad news for Ukraine, but in practical terms they've already been thrown under the bus by Republicans in Congress.
He was only against the war in Ukraine when it became obvious it was not going to be a three day one and done operation.
He did recant any notion of Ukrainians being Russian. He also asserted ukrainians Right to independent self-governing.
(Majority of) Russians are 'different'. They don't care to change. They don't understand the "modern" way of life. They don't understand the new/modern approaches of 'diversity'. (Understand = it conflicts with their ideology, traditions, mindset - of course they understand and simply disagree).
In Russia, historically, the easiest way to solve a problem is to eliminate the person behind the problem, and the problem will solve itself. I has been done like that for centuries, and I don't feel that this will change anytime soon.
> He did recant any notion of Ukrainians being Russian. He also asserted ukrainians Right to independent self-governing.
I never followed Navalny very closely, but my understanding was he opposed Putin but he was also a Russian nationalist, so (at least pre-2022) there wasn't tons of distance between them on the topic of Ukraine.
Since Trump and especially since the more recent invasion of Ukraine, I think there's been a tendency for Western liberals to concentrate on Putin, oppose him, and therefore idealize his opponents as being and thinking just like themselves. So the liberals would tend to avoid thinking about certain uncomfortable facts, and Navalny may have been incentivized to conform to their views (given he was in prison and his main protection was the attention and sympathy of foreign liberals)
Has happened over and over again that the Western political class prioritizes alignment with some entity on some short term goal over checking that the entity shares any other sentiments. And then being all surprised-pikachu when they dont.
US funding mujahideen against the Soviets.
Israel funding Hamas to keep the PA weak.
Europe lauding Aung Sang Suu Kyi in Myanmar
etc.
Any time you see a puff piece in mainstream Western media about some leader abroad that "we find we can work with" or has similar cheese, beware.
Seems to depend on whether someone believes Russia's security interests have some level of legitimacy. If the war is unfounded then it is an act of madness and the motivation is probably attributable to a single charismatic individual (and Putin must be that person). The view is part of the "Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine!" narrative.
If Russian has legitimate security interests in the region then it doesn't matter so much who the president is and Putin's role in events is important but it is likely others would have made the same choice.
In 2007, in a Russian "Gun Rights" video, Navalny compared the Chechen muslims to "cockroaches and flies" and said he wanted to exterminate them. A picture of a Chechen muslim appears on the screen and he shoots it with a pistol. In another [2] video it featured Navalny dressed as a dentist, presenting a slightly confusing parable that likened interethnic conflict in Russia to cavities and argued that fascism can be prevented only by deporting migrants from Russia. Navalny closed his monologue with “We have a right to be [ethnic] Russians in Russia. And we will defend this right.” This is an allegory to killing all non-ethnic Russians.
In 2008 when Russia invaded the country of Georgia. He said[3]:
Of course, there is a big desire to fire a cruise missile at the General Staff of the [derogative name for Georgians], but they are just waiting for this.
In an interview with Echo of Moscow radio station in October 2014, Navalny admitted that the peninsula had been seized through “outrageous violations of all international norms”, and yet asserted that it would “remain part of Russia” and would “never become part of Ukraine in the foreseeable future”.
His statement was not simply an assessment of the developments around Crimea. When pressed on whether he would return Crimea to Ukraine were he to become Russia’s president, Navalny wrapped his “No” in an odd question: “What? Is Crimea a sandwich or something that you can take and give back?” His position on Crimea was basically, "finders keepers."
Also in 2014, here[4] he is using one of the worst ethnic slurs for Ukrainians making fun of them.
In 2016, Navalny said that he intended to hold a "normal" referendum in Russian-occupied Crimea if he won the Russian presidential election. Note that Russia has forcibly killed or deported many/most ethnic Tatar peoples and native Ukrainians from Crimea. They've allowed Russian people to come occupy it and settle the lands, so by definition, any referendum would be with invaders on invaded territory. It would be a sham.
In 2023, he offered a 15 point "manifesto"[5] where he changed tac quite a bit, but this was after some prominent navalnyists were pissing off western journalists with their staunch anti-ukraine message, all in line with Russkiy Mir.
I can go on and on and on, but his support of violence and cleansing the world of non-russians goes back a long time. I just spent a few minutes to find these but if you dig in you can find the same and more.
[1] https://dgap.org/en/events/russkiy-mir-russian-world
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICoc2VmGdfw
[3] https://navalny.livejournal.com/274456.html
Also in the USA congress makes the budget but the president always gets blame or credit for the economy(it's more complicated sure, but it all falls on the POTUS).
It should in theory be able to export much more than just energy products to the west. America has a virtually infinite appetite for consumption and labor costs in Russia are quite low due to different standards of living.
The problem of course is infrastructure rot and corruption have gutted much of the non Muskovy areas of the Russian federation. It’s a pipe dream that will never happen, but it would be a wonderful world where Russia is actually friendly with the west and loses their imperial ambitions.
Export infrastructure is in a very good shape (e.g. railroads, which are used for export of coal, grain etc, pipelines and container terminals) and there’s plenty of new manufacturing capacity there across the country. Russia does have industrial policy for import substitution since 2000s and managed to localize some production, so this is not really a problem.
The real problem is the shortage of labor, the unemployment is already very low there. Just like in USA and Europe it is partially solved by the immigration from Global South, in this case from Central Asia. But this also means that skilled labor is not super-cheap. Russia can be a strong partner on some markets (energy, aerospace, IT) and can bring a lot of value in entrepreneurial culture and customer service (unknown to the West, but superior to anywhere else in Europe).
Although I would add that I personally think Russia has not really developed much in the last 10 years under him. He really needs to invest into changes.
Because he is dead.
"Nobody cares about Che Guevara personality or political views, when they wear a t-shirt with his portrait."
But I have never seen anyone wearing it, without them thinking it is somehow connected to good socialism and revolution. Mostly in ignorance of the actual person and events, sure, but not ignoring the political views.
I don't see how Russia is culturally part of "the West" in any meaningful way. We can debate whether, say, Poland or Hungary is, but Russia is, to me, surely not part of any meaningful definition of the West (in a cultural sense)
Why not? The roots are probably in norse/viking people mixing with the locals and it later became a christian country by force, like the rest of europe, though orthodox (like greece is for example). It always was more off, sure, but for example Alexander II greatly invested in connections into the rest of europe. Russian thinkers and writers were greatly influential in europe, like Tolstoi and Dostojewski, or more to my liking: Bakunin and Kropotkin.
The whole east and sibiria always was and is different, but west of Ural traditionally had strong connections with the rest of europe.
Russian (Rossian) Federation doesn't contain a region named "Russia". Russians (Russish, русские) are believers of Russian Orthodox church and not a nation at all, like Catholics are not a nation. Rossians (россияне) is.
Many nations, such as Tatars, Mordva, etc., were turned into Russians (Russish) by a process called "Russification", when stolen Russians Orthodox Church was used as tool to enslave peoples and erase their identity by giving them Russian names and forbidding to use their native language in favor of Russian Church Slavonic language. Scratch a Russian and you find a Tatar[1].
[1]: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/978019...
Agreed with most of your points on Navalny though.
It's because you are Russian.
See it there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tat...
Just read the article you quoted. Are you referring to 1944? We can go all the way down to Crimean war if you want. Your original statement made an impression that you were referring to recent events?
1. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/crimea-tatar-persecutio...
The article refers to human rights violations documented by Crimean Tatar Resource Centre. I had a quick look at this organisation and here is the list of its “partners” - all openly stated: https://ctrcenter.org/en/o-nas/nashi-partnery - NATO Information and Documentation Centre, USAIDS, PACT Ukraine, etc. - all huge friends of Russia, obviously seeking unbiased views on the situation. Can you trust that source? Maybe. I remember those “human rights organisations” from my teenage years when they suddenly started to pop up all over the peninsular after the USSR collapse, telling me about my rights that were apparently violated. I had not invited any of them and never appreciated any of their business, all targeted to destroy the state rather than protect human rights. Personal opinion of course.
As for those cases mentioned in the article 1. Roman Osmanov is currently facing an administrative charge of online petty hooliganism. Sorry, this is neither killing nor deportation. Not even a criminal offence. 2. Leniye Umerova – from what I understand from the article, she didn’t accept the choice of the majority of Crimean people on the referendum and fled to Kyiv in 2015. Her parents are still in Crimea. Again, nobody deported or killed. In the same article the author says that she freely crossed the border to visit her parent in Evpatoria (eastern Crimea) and had been doing so since 2015 until she was eventually detained in December 2022. So she crossed the border freely every year until that detention when FSB accused her of having sensitive information about Russian forces locations in Kyiv region on her phone. True? False? Who knows.. It’s a wartime and so entirely possible. No killing or deporting still. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/5/7400834/ https://www.interfax.ru/russia/901646
3. Appaz Kurtamet - According to the investigation, he transferred 500 hryvnias (US$13.67) to a member of the Krym Battalion. Krym Battalion is an interesting one, it was created by Ukraine to perform terrorist attacks in Crimea and is declared a terrorist organisation in Russia. Did the Russians have rights to arrest him? Sounds like it. Was it too much for a young boy? Probably. No killing or deporting.
To your second article 2. https://spectator.org/the-unseeing-years-russias-ethnic-clea... Ervin Ibragimov was probably exactly what it says in the article. What can I say? Appalling and disgraceful behaviour of Russian DPS. Bless this guy. Situation in Crimea in 2014 was very very dangerous. It was a miracle that the war didn’t break back then. It does appear that this was a violation.
3. times.co.uk - apologies the page won’t open without registration, and I am not prepared to subscribe to Tories’ propaganda.
Crimea is a complicated case. Ukraine has always tried to play on the tension between us and the Russians. Especially so after 1992 when Crimea declared independence and tried to adopt its own constitution. Among other things Ukraine allowed organisations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir (recently declared a terrorist organisation by UK btw) to operate on the peninsula.
Since 2014 Crimea has three official languages - Tatar, Ukrainian and Russian. Before that it only had one – Ukrainian. We were granted amnesty for “unlawfully seized” lands and were allowed to privatise those territories. I am not trying to say it’s black or white, but I do believe those Tatars who chose to remain on the peninsula are a lot better off now compared to pre-referendum time.
United Nations monitors (who had been in Crimea from 2 April to 6 May 2014) said they were concerned about treatment of journalists, sexual, religious and ethnic minorities and AIDS patients.[115] The monitors had found that journalists and activists who had opposed the 2014 Crimean referendum had been harassed and abducted.[116] They also reported that Crimeans who had not applied for Russian citizenship faced harassment and intimidation.[115]
According to Human Rights Watch "Russia has violated multiple obligations it has as an occupying power under international humanitarian law – in particular in relation to the protection of civilians' rights."[117][55]
In its November 2014 report on Crimea, Human Rights Watch stated that "The de facto authorities in Crimea have limited free expression, restricted peaceful assembly, and intimidated and harassed those who have opposed Russia's actions in Crimea".[118] According to the report, 15 persons went missing since March 2014; according to Ukrainian authorities 21 people disappeared.[67]
They have been following the same playbook since 2014. I'll tell you how it will go; Salami tactics.
Invasion of crimea, Annexation of parts of georgia, Annex Belarus, Annex Kiev, expand military and mining presence in the artic, Incite war in serbia with other baltic states, annex a modern yugoslavia.
At this point they will be the only major power who has been on a war footing for 10+ years. (US Skirmishes do not really count). They will have the inhouse manufacturing capabilities and knowledge to execute a ground war with the EU and will start by taking Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. I believe once they accomplish the above, they will be happy... for a generation or so.
Rest in peace.
Umm... why?
He was given a choice. Either he returns or his family gets assassinated.
Clearly he believed that his family’s lives were exceptionally safe, probably way more safe than they actually were.
The only explanation for his return that fits with the manner of his return is that he wanted to martyr himself.
Highly recommend reading this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blowing-Up-Russia-Return-KGB/dp/190...
He was a Russian politician and was intending to stay one. In the eyes of Russian public opinion, a politician who fled abroad - opposition or not - is not a politician anymore, but some foreign guy living in comforts of some Germany or England, either on money stolen from Russians or on the payroll of CIA, not worth listening to. Interests of polit-emigrants and interests of Russians in Russia do not align, and the general public knows that.
This is why Navalny returned and Yashin never left.
Public gives no shit where politician sits unless they have influence on politics.
His death and the circumstances will remain in your mind (buried, perhaps) for years to come and affect your decisions and thinking. And you're not alone.
In the end it's advertising for change, and we have data on advertising's usefulness. It can change minds.
Earlier murder attempt by the state, plus an arrest afterwards -- were still arguably unprecedented (Nemtsov 2015 murder being a bit different), plus his all-in investigation on Putin's palace, could theoretically end people's patience, and that protests would have been even broader than in Belarus in 2020.
Plus, his team were all die-hards, no skeptics.
That was all-in move, and it turned out wrong.
I also went to those protests, it was -23°C, and there were more SWAT police than us. I got a harsh reminder as well of the sad truths sociologist Yuri Levada had described in his work "Simple Soviet man".
And then two decades later after the war, when people aren't so vehemently biased one way or the other, then everyone agrees again "war is stupid - why did everyone fall for it?"
This isn't the bullshit Bush pulled in the desert, this is defending a mostly free nation from hostile action of it's neighbor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_...
https://www.voanews.com/a/ukrainians-start-f-16-training-in-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67135163
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/06/world/europe/ukraine-patr...
Patriot and NASAMs batteries have been defending Ukraine for a while. ATACMS have been used against Russian air fields. F-16s aren't being used there is a lot of training first, but they have been delivered.
I don't remember whether the Patriot batteries came from the U.S. or were traded out of some European countries.
The U.S. could have supplied a lot of the advanced weapons much sooner, but Biden dithered. Supposedly Ukraine will get F-16s any day now.
For now, U.S. aid is being blocked by Republicans in Congress who insisted that Ukraine and Israel aid be lumped into a border bill, but then they abandoned the border bill and speaker Johnson is blocking a vote in the House. There's no policy reason for this, it's just that they want to make Biden look bad in an election year and a lot of representatives are afraid of angering Trump and his supporters.
Two from US, one (mobile version) from Germany
Somehow this got me flipping through a book by Anna Politkovskaya, Russian journalist extraordinaire who covered the Second Chechen War and was shot dead in Moscow in 2006, on the birthday of Putin. [2]
I want to think that the age of massive online information does make at least a slight difference as to how much of the reasons behind events like these see the light of day eventually. Rest in peace, Alexei Navalnyi.
1: https://news.err.ee/1609255851/historian-navalny-s-death-wil... (Interestingly, the paragraph on Navalnyi being more of a disturbance now, after being declared dead, was not included in the English version of this news story. This is quite surprising, since ERR is actually a very well balanced source of news. All in all, that story includes interesting takes on Navalny as a politician, too, by another highly respeced Russia expert from Estonia.)
Of course we The West jump to the fantastical conclusion that he, an opposition leader in Russia, wants everything that we want and would be the seedling of prosperity of Russia but also (most importantly) wants to be friends and buddies with The West.
Not surprised to see your comment at the very bottom of this thread by the way.
Navalny being a Russian chauvinist should be utterly unsurprising: it would be significantly stranger for Russian opposition to be a stereotypical '60s hippie as opposed to, you know, Russian.
Oh, that reminds me about people in russian internet who said that Navalny was managed from Kremlin. They kept saying this even when he went to prison.
Do you as well believe in the shadow government which controls every public figure?
This is a trademark of the people who call themselves "free thinkers", or as the rest of the world commonly knows them, "tankies". I'm solely talking about the russian society: the same society that is unironically congratulating women for getting a new free coat after having their children killed. The same society that's gloating about 4 year old girls having their legs blown off by their rockets. The same society that left their country by the millions in recent years, not because they are against what they country is doing(and had been doing for centuries btw), but because they personally don't want to be sent to the front lines. Navalny was no different and you can easily confirm all that for yourself if you spend 5 minutes googling. Was he managed by the kremlin - unlikely. He just wished to be the next dictator and get his own mansions filled with golden toilets. Had he managed to achieve it though, nothing would have changed but the face of the operation. Navalny had 0 redeeming qualities.
But why? I lived in Russia and even I can't be that certain. It's hard to talk about war with random people to understand their attitude. Because they live in environment where at some point you could be punished for calling this war a war.
And yes, look him up on google, swap the face and the voice and you won't be able to tell the difference between the dictator and the dictator wannabe - they say the exact same things.
American news media is all about the narratives and they love heroes and martyrs. I imagine in the next couple of weeks this guy will be turned into the Russian MLK of some kind, some comment here already made the comparison. It's just unreal how blatantly manipulative the whole thing is.
- There's also a lot of other business with Russia that is not sanctioned.
- Ukraine does not have enough ammunition.
- There are so called neutral countries that should not be neutral.
Why?
I believe the strategy that the powers at be are attempting is to keep Russia occupied in Ukraine for as long as possible without major escalation. Without assigning morality, it seems like a tough balancing act to achieve.
Arming Ukraine, tighten sanctions.
The world has been treating Russia with kids gloves while it should be treating it as the drunken nuisance it is.
"We are not confiscating your money from the bank but when you call to withdraw them, we will pretend we can't hear you on the phone".
Business is separate from war (see Sweden's metallurgy industry during WW2).
I support sending Ukraine more ammo to defend its sovereignty. Appeasement is also bad.
Military intervention is not required. Just give Ukraine what it needs to repel the Russian invasion and let Putin face his Russian czar fate.
But no one wants a nuclear state to fail. Moscow must be terrified of another coup d'etat, hence Navalny's death.
[1]extracting, insurance and delivery cost for Saudis are about $17 and for Russia it maybe as high as $40 now.
SA is on a lookout for allies: Defence partnership with Pakistan which probably end up in a nuclear technology transfer or purchase of atomic weapons.
If USA would give better security guarantees to SA (similar to Jordan) with some tech transfer, SA would increase the output by 2x, which would result in $45 per barrel.
As for Iran, seems like recently there has been a rapprochement(mediated by China), will need to see where it leads. It's pretty clear to me SA is on the lookout for allies, but US is low on their list, as they realised(correctly) that all the human rights issues in Russia exist there as well and might get tackled by the West in a decarbonised future.
Not anymore after MBS came to power. Wahabhi missionary worm was a King Fahd policy (and why so many foreign mosques are named after him).
> it is not at all appealing to the citizens of one of the best welfare states in the world
Not to most, but it's definetly appealing to a small subset similar to how White Nationalism is appealing to a small subset of Americans.
The religious reforms post-2017 have been massive [0], and the fact that shows like Masameer or Bait Tahrir are being openly produced is a testament to that fact
> As for Iran, seems like recently there has been a rapprochement(mediated by China)
Only limited to Yemen. The relationship post-rapprochement was still fairly shaky and went down the gutter once 10/7 happened [1]
> pretty clear to me SA is on the lookout for allies, but US is low on their list
Yea no. Saudi is still continuing with US lead Israel-Saudi normalization [2] along with pushing for a US Defense Pact similar to what Japan has [3]
[0] - https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/07/saudi-arabia-s-reli...
[1] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/12/saudi-iran-rapprochemen...
[2] - https://www.mei.edu/publications/saudi-israel-normalization-...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-pushe....
The reason why I say this: Around the time of the price cap on Russian oil US was already asking Saudi to pump supply so that Russian budget would suffer, and of course Saudis didn't do anything. I think MBS is going fully down the Erdogan/Orban route where he is nominally "West aligned" but is going to be playing both sides as much as he can. When I said allies I meant someone who they would have reciprocal relationships with(which IMO isn't really the case with US atm).
You're overreading into what is a fairly routine demand and response.
Saudi is in the process of implementing MBS's Vision 2030 [0], which requires a lot of financing, and oil prices have been dropping significantly over the last few years.
Most US allies outside of Europe are indifferent to Russia because the bigger bad to them is China or local rivalries.
Even in the US, Ukraine (and Israel and China) almost never comes up in conversations outside of Reddit. Adviika and much of the Russia-Ukraine war is barely mentioned in any mainstream American news because it doesn't hold much relevance to most Americans compared to domestic concerns [1]
> allies I meant someone who they would have reciprocal relationships with(which IMO isn't really the case with US atm)
Nothing you've said is proof to the contrary. Oil price decreases are always a no-go for Saudi given that 75% of state revenue is financed by oil.
[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Vision_2030
[1] - https://apnews.com/article/2024-top-issues-poll-foreign-poli...
>Oil price decreases are always a no go for Saudi
Factually false, remember 2015? Saudis tried to kill US shale pretty aggressively.
You could argue that if the Russian state failed then a group of nations could literally just buy their nukes from whatever gangsters ever up in charge.
It may come as something of a shock to some, but US constitution effectively guarantees gridlock if the various blocks are unable to agree. It is a feature and not a bug.
In other words, obstruction, such as it is -- last time I checked there were still talks about aid package slowly making it through house with pieces being cut out -- is a valid form of political expression.
I think I understand where you am coming from, but the post I see from you are all unnecessarily 'angry' presenting an opinion as an axiom. It may be worthwhile to take a step back and consider whether those contributions are useful to the community. Frankly, it may be detracting people from the message you intend to spread.
edit: second paragraph spelling errors
Ah, ok so until things really derail you shouldn't be upset. Sorry but I'm not 'angry', I'm ANGRY and that is mostly because I spent a long time working through my various family's stories about WWII, what led up to it and how it all ended up and that nobody that could have done something about it acted when they still could. This isn't some kind of abstract mental exercise. If you're not angry that simply means you haven't thought it through yet.
I do not want to seem dismissive, but I am from the old country and, well, we all have family stories about WW2. I am not going to delve deep into into it though.
<< If you're not angry that simply means you haven't thought it through yet.
I personally think it is a common misconception. Yes, anger can be a good catalyst and may force a person to act, but I am not entirely certain anger is a good advisor. On a personal scale, I rank it just below fear in terms of usefulness.
My actual point: If you are angry, you are not thinking clearly. I tend to remove myself from conversations if I find myself so.
Proceeds to be dismissive.
> I personally think it is a common misconception. Yes, anger can be a good catalyst and may force a person to act, but I am not entirely certain anger is a good advisor. On a personal scale, I rank it just below fear in terms of usefulness.
I don't want to be dismissive, but you are giving undue weight to your own opinion over those of others when you probably should at least give them equal weight, on the off chance that you are simply wrong.
> My actual point: If you are angry, you are not thinking clearly. I tend to remove myself from conversations if I find myself so.
What you meant to say: "If I am angry, I am not thinking clearly. I tend to remove myself from conversations if I find myself so."
Are you sure you not projecting a tad bit here?
<< Proceeds to be dismissive.
Would you feel better if I wrote 'too dismissive'?
<< What you meant to say
Heh.
<< you are simply wrong.
What exactly am I being wrong about?
We established we share some ww2 background with its survivors and their descendants and, as a result, your opinion is, at best, as unimportant as mine.
I think we established that emotion ( anger ) may not such a great way to establish whether one is paying attention.
What did I miss?
Friend, I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but so far your responses are not very inspiring. Hell, I am not even sure what you are angry about.
I mean, I can talk generalities too you know. People suck. See?
We might eventually get to a place where we can dramatically increase support for Ukraine, but there’s a lot that has to happen first.
In a platonic ideal world, sure. But in the world as it stands, this is not possible. The constraints on the system prohibit it as surely as if the Constitution specifically forbade it.
Western countries could deliver planes, Germany could deliver Taurus cruise missles, countries could give submarines in the atlantic to target Russian oil rigs etc.
If it invades Poland. Finland joining NATO makes such an invasion less likely, because (I'm told) that membership gives NATO enough logistics to encircle Kaliningrad without going through the Suwałki Gap, and this in turn changes Kaliningrad itself from an asset into a liability. No, I'm not sure why Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia were not already sufficient for this.
> Western countries could deliver planes, Germany could deliver Taurus cruise missles, countries could give submarines in the atlantic to target Russian oil rigs etc.
Yes, though I've heard convincing arguments that part of the current Russian strategy is to keep NATO sufficiently worried about escalation that they focus on building up their own forces instead of donating those same resources to Ukraine.
This is a nice idea but thanks to the shale revolution the US is now a net exporter of fossil fuels, and I suspect the will is not there.
> insurance
What percentage of energy is going out insured? It was my understanding that the transportation was moving to state owned vessels.
Supply more weapons to Ukraine? No matter what, Ukraine lacks resources everywhere. Tanks, long-range missiles, anti-air defense, artillery, ammunition.
Alternatively, we can do whatever we can to assist the Russian opposition. A lot of them have been forced into exile. Give them money and access to even a bit of the juicy stuff the CIA is bound to have on the entire Russian elite...
Let's not pretend that Russia is the only country on the planet that houses political prisoners in its jails.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted to hell for this, but seriously, the west isn't any better.
We still need to fight -- or at the very least, call out -- injustice when it happens.
Pointing out Russia's misdeeds doesn't mean one thinks the West is innocent. It certainly is not. That's why you're being downvoted.
The sanctions don't look that crippling from where I'm standing. Russia keeps intensifying their war effort in Ukraine
Support Ukraine more.
Support refugees from Russia.
Enact personal sanctions against 6000 war-enablers that Navalny team prepared:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6000_List
And their families and kids who all keep their money in US, UK and EU.
EU still provide visas to tons of people who continue to live in Russia and pay taxes in Russia, but dont give any visas to people who left and dont support Putins regime.
Meanwhile in Moscow, you have a good chance to get a 5-year visa from France.
Fun fact: the exact same phenomenon was being ridiculed by the White Russians, back in the 1920s. European countries were suspecting them of being Bolshevik, yet the actual Bolsheviks could come just fine.
Now, of course tourist visas are not really relevant for emigration, but it's an example of the attitude shown towards us.
EU is much closer, but it does nothing. Putins regime could've lost 30-50% of it's high-skilled workforce if EU or UK just made it easier to immigrate. E.g literally 100,000s of Russian IT workforce left due to war and political situation, but getting actual work visas is hard process and outside of country of citizenship it's only gets harder if not impossible.
But honestly west can't even help Ukraine efficiently. How can one expect EU to actually do anything to cripple Russia economy...
Collective punishment is still a war crime.
> Article 33 - Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals
> No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
> Pillage is prohibited.
> Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.
Freezing someone stolen wealth has nothing to do with a war crimes.
> And their families and kids who all keep their money in US, UK and EU.
Let's just say, for arguments sake, there is a child who is genuinely estranged from his war-enabling parents, living in Europe on his own dime. Should they fall under these sanctions? I would say no.
A couple of months (more like years, maybe?) ago it was fairly easy to find many articles about FSB money being laundered through Vivid. But, lo and behold, a search for "FSB" and "Vivid" returns some very ...strange articles: https://imgur.com/VOCNvna
Did Vivid create specific articles to thwart any specific results from appearing? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz8RjPAD2Jk
In Germany only, the company "lost" 60+ millions euros (the information for Netherlands is not available/public?) - https://www.northdata.de/Vivid+Money+GmbH,+Berlin/Amtsgerich...
[edit on my previous comment: it seems Vivid moved from Germany to Netherlands, one might think that BaFin is doing something after all?]
[later edit: searching some more https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/ot5guf/vividmoney_...]
You are surely joking...
"IMF raises Russia growth outlook as war boosts economy - New 2024 forecast of 2.6% rise doubles previous prediction and prompts questions over sanctions against Moscow" - https://www.ft.com/content/21a5be9c-afaa-495f-b7af-cf9370931...
But those tanks are going to burn, they don't add value to the economy, won't be exchanged for foreign goods. If you dig a hole into the ground, you increase the GDP, war destruction is not much different in its value creation. GDP is not a perfect measure of an economy.
An often-used example of this is the crash of oil tanker Exxon Valdez, which in terms of GDP is one of the most productive sea voyages of all time.
It's business as usual in Russia.
The Moscow malls are full of people.
Russia is not something anyone can solve from the outside; they have to figure it out themselves. Same for the Europe & the US, there are enough things to figure out here.
To do it because of Navalny would just be a out of a wish to punish, not out of knowledge it would actually change the situation. And is it the role of the West to dish out punishment?
Besides it would just be used by Putin to empower the internal story of the threat of the West & NATO.
And it turned Russian people more more away from the West and enforced the us against them story of Putin.
Putin is where he is because he doesn't hesitate to kill each and every person that questions his authority, you can't expect people in an environment like that to go out onto the streets to demand the dictators head because it will end in a very predictable way. But the general impression I get is that people are broadly visibly supportive but in private a lot less so if not outright against it. This makes it very hard to measure the temperature in Russia. There is a good reason why Putin keeps murdering the opposition (or removing them in other ways): he knows that if there is a fair election and a half decent challenger that he's history.
But Russia is big and I also know a handful of people where he is the one who gave stability & although they are not stupid the idea that he is fully lying or wrong is hard to accept for them.
They generally accept the Ukraine narrative the Russian Media portrays, since it's all they know; and they have no reason to trust the West more then mother Russia.
"67 percent approve of how Putin is handling foreign policy, fewer, 58 percent, approve of his management of domestic affairs."
https://www.norc.org/research/library/new-survey-finds-most-...
It's also the humane thing to do. Accept any LGBT and any Russian who lives outside of Moscow or St Petersburg who are being forcibly conscripted for the meat grinder at 10x higher rates (effectively murdered).
Half-done it could be very dangerous - getting many well-connected and affluent people with nothing against in principle to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but who don't like the practical consequences for themselves.
Maybe disallow them from voting in local elections for 8 years after immigration so they have no political influence. And spread them around many countries so they're less than 1% of the general population.
Even if they're pro-Putin it might still be a net good getting them out of Russia. It's now a war of attrition, the #1 thing that matters is manpower (manpower for conscription, and manpower for industrial production).
You want someone able to keep things organized when the state cracks.
Russians tried to do that. Got labeled murders and told in words and actions to 'get back to their shithole' or outright to just die.
Quite surprising, that wasn't viewed favourably by other Russians.
As a Russian emigre myself, I can say that when you are calling for sanctions, you're calling for people like me to get screwed. Putin and his cronies don't seem too much damaged, on the other hand.
What doesn't stop to surprise me is that in every occasion that such dictators rise to the top of the foodchain there there is a whole cadre of enablers that can't wait to be part of the machine. Without them it wouldn't get off the ground. But they always exist and they always seem to exist in large enough numbers that these assholes get to make their play, to the bitter end in most cases.
Done on paper ;) Then europe looks the other way while their exports to kirgizstan and other stans mysteriously quadruple starting 2022
I guess a politician is worth more than an Arab-American teenager?
USA was able to gradually turn from some positions to different others. For Russia it seems the current situation is still the fall to the deeper chasms of self-destruction.
If you are comparing him to MLK, you've not seen Navalny's videos on Central Asians I guess (in case you need a summary: compares them to insects that need to be exterminated then kills one with a handgun).
Actually very carefully designed, he never calls anyone inferior or talks about extermination.
To me, even if he was proudly racist (which I'm not sure he was) he still is a hero. Anyone tortured and murdered by Putin is a hero
- Annexation of Crimea (2014)
- MH17 Downing (2014)
- Intervention in Syria
- 2016 U.S. Election Interference
- Skripal Poisoning (2018)
- Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws
- Navalny Poisoning (2020)
- Wagner Group Activities
- Invasion of Ukraine (2022)
- Killing of Yevgeny Prigozhin (2023)
- Killing of Alexei Navalny (2024)
What is necessary for US and European Laws, to specify any type of contact, endorsement, indulgence even, of such a regime, is an intolerable criminal offense?
Edit: Its difficult to keep track...
- Killing of Alexander Litvinenko
- 1999 Russian Apartment Bombings
- September 2022 — Ravil Maganov's fatal fall from a hospital window. He was chairman of Russian oil giant Lukoil. Lukoil was the first major Russian company to call for an end to the war in Ukraine
- July 2009 — Natalya Estemirova found dead in a ditch
- October 2006 — Anna Politkovskaya murdered in an elevator
- April 2003 — Sergei Yushenkov murder was never solved. Yushenkov was one of the harshest critics of the Chechen war and the KGB's successor organization, the FSB.
- Invasion in Georgia (2008)
- blowing up ammo storage in Czech Rep.
- Beslan school siege
- Keystone Pipeline and Freeport LNG fire
- electricity and internet cable sabotage
* instantly removes the need for oil and gas * instantly protects half of the world from nukes and radiations
(if possible, that would have done this 15 years ago.)
Now, as much as everyone, I loved reading the headlines in HN that told me about the new "energy breaktrough that will change everythin" - meanwhile, in the real world, we're stuck with oil & gas, and the countries owning it are basically free to behave as they please. Understandably, they behave... badly (except for Norway, I suppose ?)
But it's good that Silicon Valley stopped caring about producing energy, and is now mostly worried about to worst spend it in VR helmets and training AIs to generate fake porn.
Given the state of "reality", it's only fitting that we deal mostly in lies and head-burying.
For the second point, I don't think there is even anything in sight, so Putin's opponents are bound to only tread carefully with Putin.
With the Republican delaying aid, Trump almost certain to get back at the WH, and the fall of Adviivka just a couple of days away - this is, in objective terms, a good time to be sitting in the Kremlin.
The only certainty, however, is that, through diplomacy, artillery, or biology, the tides will turn. Navalny probably wished he would be there to see it. Fate decided otherwise.
"To the beggar: This, too, shall pass.
To the emperor: This, too, shall pass.
This, too, shall pass."
And I mean this in sad, sombre way. Russian imperialism has never really stopped, it just had an interregnum in the form of a drunkard President, who was promptly replaced.
Pentagon estimates 300,000 Russian casualties so far. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/world/europe/russia-invas...
In concrete terms what would you suggest the US do now in order to respond to Navalny's death?
Ukraine and Russia are at war.
In advance, one assumes.
How are these events viewed internally in Russia? Is it just widely known that the government arranged it and it was “good, because he was a traitor”?
I hope we don't have similar news about Julian Assange someday soon.
2. Lithuanians are not Slavs.
This is not an undeserved sentiment. Russia's every neighbour will tell you that.
He still has ~20 years.
At this stage, I also wouldn't be that surprised if he amends their constitution to allow his uploaded intelligence to continue in the role after his physical death.
Putin is not in that place because he's somehow an extremely talented (or extremely lucky) person. Putin is there because that's what most of the Russian elite wants. Once he's gone, the Russian elite will put there somebody else who will fit them the most. It would not be reasonable to expect any drastic difference given the unchanging circumstances.
I'm sure any of the original Russian elites left that weren't brought in by Putin regret him being put there would secretly love to see him gone. That doesn't mean they wouldn't end up in the same situation, countries where nobody trusts each other just waiting for the next dictator hard to get out of that cycle
Any elites that are there since before Putin, of whom there was notably more in 2012, could simply nominate someone else for the elections in 2012, or failing that, just keep that Medvedev guy for the second term. For some reason, they decided to move Medvedev away and put Putin back.
I am afraid that the set "any of the original Russian elites... that weren't brought in by Putin [and] regret him being put there" is an empty one.
The whole reason was to reset the counter of 2 consequent terms of presidency without touching the constitution since "The Party" didn't have 2/3 of parliament to be sure.
Navalny, on the other hand, never had a chance, unless the vote for Russian president was done among the US voting populace. In that case, he would no doubt win a landslide victory. In Russia outside of the Moscow intellectual spheres, he's simply unknown — it's not that the people in Vorkuta hate him, they don't know who he is (was) to begin with.
In the USSR media of 1980s, there was a lot of talk of Angela Davis, she was the undoubtful "opposition leader" in the USA, as presented by Soviet media. Navalny is in the same position.
You're talking to a guy outside of Moscow who knew Navalny from his LiveJournal blog. Republic of Komi - the region Vorkuta is in - has 0.5% of Russia's population.
I also don’t think that reductio ad Stalinum is in place here. Putin got a full blessing from the retiring guy, and by that proxy from the elites as well. It’s not that he deposed the king in a coup d’etat or something.
Putin's Russia is nothing like that and Xi's China is leaving that pattern as well. Putin is an absolutist leader with no checks in place.
How do you explain that Putin, who was virtually nobody, was nominated as a prime minister in August 1999, declared Yeltsin's successor in December 1999, and then was elected as the president in March 2000, less than eight months after the broad populace first heard of him? How do you explain that the Kremlin nominates a governor, the populace who (at times) never heard of that governor comes and votes for him?
Russia doesn't work the way Western democracy does.
"Disregard the wars that the US gets into, have you seen their cars and houses?"
And it did work for a long time. People would give you a lot of leeway if you had a nice house and a car.
Well, here's another example of the thing that most of those who grew up in that culture know or feel subliminally: the hero always crushes evil and triumphs at the end of the story. But in real life, for every success there are thousands that wither along the way.
<< the hero always crushes evil and triumphs at the end of the story. But in real life, for every success there are thousands that wither along the way.
I think even in US kids learn really fast that there are no heroes; especially these days. One could argue this is one of the factors so many have withdrawn to easier past times.
"learned helplessness" yes
"calling them weak, docile, etc." - I'm not aware of this going on in any meaningful scale.
About the "learned helplessness" and general apathy it's true and the product of many things, one of them a very targeted effort to make the people internalize this during a whole century. China is very similar in this regard too.
All those "decadent" western democracies went through periods of very violent internal wars, centuries of constant internal "cold wars" where the main objective was "democracy" that includes many things like separation of State/Justice/Free Speech, a minimum standard of living ( not just economic ) that society itself does not tolerate existing below that, etc. I'm talking about the real practical thing, not the "cerimonies" or the theatrical plays of "democracy" authoritarian regimes like to show.
Russia never had that, it had a lot of violence, but for other reasons. One of the main one is Imperialism.
"Russia" in reality is pretty much just Moscow and nearby lands, but Russians have imperialism in their psyche. That's why the Baltics, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, etc are considered "brother" nations. Because most people in Russia would see no problem if they were somehow "peacefully" integrated in Russia.
But when it comes to pay the price, Russians are "apathetic" because even with all those big speeches and grandiose imperial ego, they know anyone who shows initiative becomes a target.
I don't think it will happen anytime soon, but the best thing to happen to Russia would be to breakup in other states as much as this stupid brutality has been to keep it's internal integrity. That's also why they are always inventing evil external enemies.
That is a shame because they actually are. I feel the same coward and pity venal attitude with the Hungarian people - being a soulmate of Russians in this regard - whom I grown up with. They would be very vocal about being proud and brave but the actions only show shortsighted submissive conformity to ruthless tyrants for pity same day breadcrumbs - from the wealth taken away from them. Or just liking if others take charge, instead of the freedom to act that comes with taking responsibility for own actions. Smart people using their talents to screw with others, or just laying low in the hope to get by, whatever happens. Whatever! (a good few even participating for similar reasons, and of course there are scores participating, since Putins and Orbáns would just be laughing stock without the complicity and active support of masses)
Submissiveness that you mention implies that people understand their interests, what's just (in broad sense), and just don't want to act. And we expect that finally they'll wake up and rebel. I also went to street protests in 2021 when Navalny was enjailed, expecting something to change, but was reminded of what I knew from sociology earlier.
Studies showed that it's not submissiveness in post-totalitarian people that stops them. It's rather immoralism and double-think. People see status-quo challengers as suspicious, and discredit them. They distrust the government -- that's why Russian opposition speakers insist that "Putin has no broad support". But they also hope the state will take care of them, and constantly seek signs of this. They hate state officials, but discedit those who challenge them and goes in politics -- especially those trying to pursue interests of common folk.
These traits of character developed as defense to totalitarianism -- interference with private life and demand of loyalty, and daily hardships.
This was describen in a book "Simple Soviet man" (1993) by sociologist Yuri Levada, summarizing his studies of post-Soviet people's views and their contradictions. There are brief descriptions of it in Englihs, try searching for them.
Putin's support is so broad that he never dared to prove it with some real elections. But for some reason he only competes with candidates who were hand-picked by his administration and posses a very questionable reputation. And even against them he resorts to cheating and adding himself votes via various tricks. Broad support, right.
But what are the rest of people doing? They passively accept the elections. There's a curious poll results by Levada team showing that 2/3 of people distrust the elections, yet 2/3 accept the results afterwards as legitimate. They don't rebel and so on. And the reason is what I wrote above.
You may even suggest that Levada's pollsters are manipulating people with questions, and theorize that in some way you could find what people REALLY think. The problem is why don't they assert it? Is it a real opinion that is not told and that not turns into action? And also, unlike sociologists who try to correct for bias and not influence the answer, the government actually does manipulate people all the time, and makes the undecided middle be loyal.
So insisting on this, "Putin has no broad support", you ignore the mode complex and sad reality.
So, people not rising in rebellion barehanded against Putin's well funded, armed and organized occupation army counts as Putin's broad support in your book. Serious talk, right.
However, you motivated me to do a more thorough evaluation of your claims. You cite Levada's poll as some kind of evidence, and draw your conclusions from their data. However, we all know for a fact that all independent organization have been either squeezed out of country, or banned, or destroyed/closed. TV Rain, FBK, Ekho, Novaya Gazeta have all ceased operations in the country. Facebook and Twitter are outright banned. So the only reason Levada continues operating it that its reports are acceptable for Putin's administration. No, they don't use it as bluntly as their other instruments, but it's foolish to think of it as anything else but of yet another propaganda tool at Putin's disposal.
So no, just as we can't trust the election results numbers produced by elections officials, we can't trust Levada polls either.
The rest of your argument that 'if people don't rebel against Putin, they support him' is not only flawed, but also deeply immoral. Never having lifted anything heavier than a computer mouse, you, sitting on a comfortable sofa, have no moral right to accuse people for refusing to perish in an unarmed suicide attack vs a military force. Unlike you, I do have an experience of confronting Putin's police, being beaten and detained by them, but I too do not consider myself in position to ask anyone to rise in a doomed rebellion. The regime will fall only when it'll run out of money to pay for its security - when even the riot police and rosgvardya thugs will be hungry, only then there will be a window of opportunity for the regime change. No sooner.
* - or was it 'ad hominem' attacks? You have to forgive me, I'm relatively inexperienced confronting demagogues.
Regarding Levada's data -- as they say, don't trust science and the world will be full of surprises.
> Russia never had that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution
Look I know it's been 100 years and we understand now that the Soviet Union ended up being a force for authoritarian evil. And that all the communist republics having "Democratic" in their name sounds as ridiculous as North Korea doing it today.
But it didn't have to be that way. The ideals of communism and marxism are pretty inspiring and humanist - on paper. They'd never been tried. That they were corrupted by Lenin then Stalin - if they were even incorruptible in the first place - noone knew that at the time. The only objection the west had to any of it for the entirety of the 20th century was that it intervened with the flow of capital and economics. The proof of that is China which, is obviously the main global competitor to the west, and the risk of an actual war over something like Taiwan is non-zero, it is a far cry from the constant imminent threat of thermonuclear annihilation.
And just because the Soviet Union became the symbol of everything that stands against freedom for 50 years in the 20th century, doesn't mean that in the moment the Russian Empire was any better. Ordinary Russians at the start of the 20th century were some of the most repressed and unfree people in the entire world.
They fucked it up but they did try.
Then "real" democracy came in, and turned out to be in many ways worse for the median Russian. The median Russian quality of life was worse in the 90's than in the 80's. While the oligarchs got richer and crime took over the country. The people turned to a powerful leader like Putin and legitimately reinforced his power because he made the country safe.
In the end your conclusion is correct. "Russia" needs to die, needs to end as a concept. It needs reinvention from the ground up. And I don't know if the median Russian is capable of creating something better.
Anyone with an ounce of brain or integrity left a long time ago.
I think the triumph of good over evil is a bias we all share, to recognize the complexity, well, that involves a healthy amount of skepticism. I think underlying it is probably a decent ethic, once we define good/logos/love/god. Defining something doesn't mean we still aren't influenced by it
My assumptions: 1) He was killed, but why now? 2) He died because Russians' prison has a really bad conditions of detention - so his health was declining over time
And plausibility seems a good reason for "why now". You need to be very naïve to not strongly suspect foul play here, or in other cases of people falling out windows and whatnot, but you can also never be quite sure. Not really. So there is at least some plausibility that it was "just" an accident, or "just" illness, at least when trying to sell this to the Russian people.
It will be interesting to see what they do now. This is definitely a loyalty test for them. Those who speak out against Putin at this point will be excised from the party.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68309496
and this:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68266447
My country is spending around 1.4% of GDP for defense, therefore it made into the list of countries he would encourage Putin to invade. The guy apparently doesn't know about the over 100 (publicly known) USA military bases and the American people working there (around 13000).
A raft of politicians block Ukraine aid.
Then they go on the air to say how strong Putin is, and how his victory is inevitable.
Then Tucker Carlson airs footage of himself in Moscow saying what he sees there will “radicalize you against your government, seeing how much better Russians have it, I know radicalized me at least”
Trump argues in court that presidents have the right to assassinate political rivals.
Trump says on national TV multiple times that he would encourage Putin to invade NATO countries.
Now Putin assassinates his already imprisoned political rival.
Also, Reuters is really showing its bias here by incessantly referring to Putin as "the former KGB spy". Imagine if an article about Reagan while he was president referred to him constantly as "the former Hollywood actor".
It's why he's being compared to Putin. It's a typical Russian tactic: you can't make Putin seem like an angel, but you can portray everybody as corrupt. Make them think that "everybody is the same" and the indifference is more powerful than repression because most people won't even revolt.
Navalny was far from a saint, but his death is still a Kremlin job by any measure, and I suspect will only accelerate Putin's decline, as the state of Russian affairs continues to degrade.
And then a lot of angry Poles doing a blitz across Bielorussia.
At that point shit either goes Nuclear or Russia retreats.
I just don’t see Russian tanks across Berlin.
PS: hopefully now of this ever happens
And while it's easy to armchair guestimate Russia and its future, we western folk simply cant truly understand the nation and its people. They've endured WWII, USSR and some say take pride in how much they've suffered.
But Europe certainly should get its act together, especially regarding its ammo production. There was plenty of time to ramp up after Crimea,now the improvements are predicted to finish in couple of years. And US is again proving its indecideness in maintaining foreign policy.
The war in Ukraine is existential to Putins Russia and I am wishing the democratic nations win. However, I'm not holding my breath. It's the same as having a street fight. Without outside inference, the one who is more willing for absolute violence most likely wins.
That's not the problem. Here we are all batting our eyes, but that doesn't help. Thousands of Russians went out to the streets to protest the war and got arrested without making a difference.
I'm very unclear on what kind of sacrifice would be required at this stage to change the situation in Russia.
This article "The Majority Never Had It So Good", was enlightening for me about the situation in interior Russia: https://russiapost.info/regions/majority
Effectively a lot of stuff we talk about (no more travel, hard to get money outside of Russia) is meaningless to many Russians, many of which are getting good money to go fight in the war.
You don't "just" protest these kind of authoritarian regimes; there's tons of examples for this.
In Nazi-occupied Netherlands there was a large general strike to oppose the Jewish deportations ("February strike"). This worked out about as well as one would imagine. It was stopped in about a day by force, with several casualties. Most of the organizers were summarily executed days later without much of a trail, dozens others were sent to prison for a decade, and the Germans warned "we let you off easy this time, but next time the consequences will be serious". So that was the end of that kind of protest for the rest of the war.
There's an old Iraqi joke from the 90s (controversy surrounding Bush's Iraq war notwithstanding, it genuinely was an authoritarian regime and atrocious by any standard): "Congratulations mister President, 99.98% of the people voted for you in the election! Only 0.02% of the people voted against you; a fantastic result! What more could you want? The President growls: "their names". It's pretty funny, and also describes the kind of fears people have. Often these fears are very realistic.
Lots of things you and I can "just" do in free democracies just don't apply to authoritarian regimes. I never lived in those kind of circumstances, and I think it takes some amount of effort to really understand what it's like.
Even if Putin dies, whatever replaces him will certainly be just as bad. There will be a power vacuum, then a power struggle among oligarchs etc, and then the next Putin will emerge.
The one to replace him will probably not have the same backing from the citizens nor the Kremlin itself. And although I hate to say it, Putin is quite intelligent, which is one of the factors that has enabled him to stay in power. His replacement may not be.
"There's this new guy, Flapin. Good strong name, let's make him our leader! What could possibly go wrong?"
We just need to get our act together, not every country building or buying it's own incompatible weapons (like tanks, planes, frigates). The war in Ukraine shows how bad it is to run a war with ten different models of tanks etc.
And we can - at last - close Ramstein, Landstuhl and Weilerbach in Germany, no longer supporting US wars in the Middle East and beyond.
Living as a kid through the 70s and 80s with the PershingII/NATO Double-Track Decision I also would not have thought this threat is coming back the way it did.
[0] I'm sure Germany will not proceed on it's $10b F-35 plans
source?
Then the US has an extreme left wing government compared with Germany
I get it may feel so for an American, since America is the strongest exporter if culture in the world - the whole world for example consumes American movie and songs, with the consequence that most people have some kind of approximate idea how it is to live in the US, what moves Americans etc .
On the other hand, by this same fact, that Germany isn't such a strong cultural exporter, few Americans really know what moves Germans, since these topics are rarely talked about in movies, songs, radio that Americans consume.
From this vantage point, I think it's hard for Americans to imagine just how left-wing Germany became compared to the US. For example, the US doesn't have a system for wide social security benefits, relaxed border controls (I never understand what the US is fretting about in terms if immigration, you can basically just walk in over the to Germany and register as a refugee - as millions have since 2015), and all other amenities that are typically "left" causes.
Furthermore, while Germany may not have a legal framework regulating what you can say, it has a lot of implicit rules, how to talk about foreigner, an implicit "speech police" so to say.
(The issue is actually not having all of thr above -because, after all, they are very nice things to have- but it's that they were allowed to be abused and overused at the expense of the general population, who keep paying more and get less if these services, and these initially nice ideas end up hurting now many more people. )
They voted time and time again for unpragmatic solutions and nanny state approaches, to the extent that the head state, Angel Merkel, become informally called "mother Merkel" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Angela_Merke...).
Except perhaps for the Dalai Lama who enjoys adoration out of religious reasons, I know of no other state (and definitely no other big economy) other then Germany where public infantilization reached such advanced states.
Imagine calling Biden "Uncle", Macron "Cousin" or Meloni "Aunt". Strange world.
I said it before, if Trump gets a second term, he will have a third. And then democracy as we know it in the Western world will be dead.
Because if we end up with Presidente Marine Le-Pen, President Trump and an AfD-let German government, well, things look grim. Poland gave me some hope so.
Interesting times indeed.
It’s not so simple. The Democratic party strategy has been to use hypothetical situations like this to justify (to the public) the arrests, ballot disqualification, deplatforming, and any other unprecedented means to hinder the chances of Trump winning in a fair election.
They already spied on his campaign in 2016 without repercussions (you probably don’t understand how serious that is), and lied about the Russia hoax, and countless other examples. I don’t know if a third term will happen, but a large portion of the public is mad about this.
So I can’t take this argument seriously, but a significant portion of the public apparently does. That’s an actual, not hypothetical failure of democracy. Rules for thee, not for me.
And you were sooooo close... A pitty, really...
While I agree that European countries should start to take their defense seriously I don't see how you fault US support of Ukraine.
We remember the decades of mocking for our choice of investing in defense. Enjoy your “free” healthcare while it lasts.
Exactly!
This crisis will probably bring nukes to Poland and hopefully Germany (Macron offered nukes several times, to safe costs, the German public sadly is anti-nuke) to make the EU independent of US protection. We then can close Ramstein, Landstuhl and Weilerbach and close air corridors for US military machines to no longer support US wars in the Middle East. European countries will stop buying US weapons and create jobs in Europe instead of US voting districts.
This is not true for some time now.
First google result (but there are more charts, numbers and sources): https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...
Yet whoever provided more aid is irrelevant, since it's not enough anyway. We, as a world, are observing (and doing nothing, for the most part) fourth reich coming into action.
Pick "Military" only in the chart, add up the numbers of, Germany, UK, Denmark, Norway, and Netherlands, and you'll get a higher number than the US.
Does that diminish my point?
I guess that means the US cannot be trusted.
That "bigger" is bought, and has been every year. We could spend that money on other things: social welfare, health care, etc.
So, excusing Europe's inability to deliver mass military aid, when they've willingly underinvested in their defense industry and equipment for decades, rings a bit hollow.
We police the world because being the world police is fabulously profitable. You want to maintain the largest economy in the world? Well then you want to keep up the status quo of "you can do business between most countries, and can ship anything across the world for pennies per pound with near zero risk".
Arguably, the biggest beneficiary of the US Navy's protection of commercial shipping has been China.
Especially considering China doesn't pay for any of that protection.
Yet again it's the US explicitly spending money to keep someone dependent, similar to Russia's selling cheap gas to put economic pressure on the west.
China and the US really really really don't want to go to war, because even an unsteady "peace" between us is so goddamn profitable. But the US wants everyone to be able to sail by the Chinese coast without harassment, and China wants to own the entire sea north of Australia so.....
USA is not the only crucial partner for Ukraine in this war, they are the crucial partner in a specific area. That's why it's unfair to undersell the crucial partners in other important areas. Everyone is doing their thing to support in the areas they can give support. But not everyone can give the same support, and not everyone should support in areas already covered by others.
> The US has provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined by a large margin, and the lesson you take away is that the US is somehow at fault.
No, it has not provided more funding to Ukraine than the world combined, the EU by itself has provided more military aid than the US already.
You're just wrong. It's not hard to admit that, trying to save face just made it worse...
If it escalates, it will escalate bigly. If Russia attacks a NATO country, article 5 will / should kick in and the combined military force of 31 countries (with or without the US) will combine their strengths.
But nobody wants this to escalate further, because nukes. Nothing will matter anymore if Russia decides to use them. It doesn't matter if they lose hundreds of thousands of people, material, and are completely humiliated, as long as they have nukes, "we" cannot strike back.
At this point, wishful thinking that the Ukraine conflict seizes up again, keeps the Russian army occupied, and things cool off slowly. Or that the Russian leadership is replaced, but there's no guarantees it would be replaced by someone who would stop the war.
France and the UK will not use nukes when Poland is invaded.
Russia will not use nukes when invading Poland.
Russia might not even use nukes when losing Kaliningrad (but I'm not so sure there, if Ukraine gets back Crimea we will see).
If you don't, Russia will politely ask to have its territory back and would get that eventually.
Bottom line, stop thinking about the land as if it was not full of people settled there.
And the argument was about nukes, in the event NATO invades Kaliningrad because of missle sites, not if it should or would.
Funnily the staunchest supporters of Putin in Germany (Nazis) would also be the only ones who would like to have Königsberg back.
https://bellenews.com/2013/12/16/world/europe-news/russia-de...
The promise[1] was to not invade it, it was not to provide defence.
The Budapest memorandum is not a defense pact. The only obligation the US has is to e escalate to the UN security council if Ukraine gets nuked.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170312052208/http://www.cfr.or...
Or the one where Russia guaranteed Ukraines sovereignty if they would give up nuclear weapons? (Russia playing the long con, got what it wanted, Ukraine free of nuclear weapons, ready to be invaded).
That deal was just about nuclear proliferation. It was well reasoned at the time and had no special conditions.
That being said - the idea that Ukrainians are a "fake nation" has been a prominent talking point in Russia my entire life.
I didn't say "grant" I did write "guarantee".
Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum [0] ("guarantee Ukraines sovereignty") so Ukraine would sign the Lisbon Protocol [1] ("give up nuclear weapons").
Ukraine gives up nuclear weapons, Russia guarantees Ukraines sovereignty. Simple:
"The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises three substantially identical political agreements [..] to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of [..] Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [..] Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders" [0]
What about the next war? Have you listened to Putin? Ukraine is an artificial nation according to him and Russia has the right to reabsorb "Little Russia". How do you compromise with that view?
Russia has a long tradition of treating treaties as scraps of paper, and they have a recent history in this regard with Ukraine.
Their long-term aim is to absorb Ukraine and exploit its industrial and agricultural potential for further imperial expansion. The next will be the Baltic countries and after them Central Europe.
Whatever peace will be signed now will last precisely as long as it takes Russia to rebuild their offensive capabilities for the next round of war.
All the dead are fault of Putin and his imperial ambitions. Our only choice is whether to submit and become serfs in a neo-Russian empire, or fight back and help Ukrainians fight back.
Bush, Obama / Hillary, and Biden are no different than Putin, if not far worse. They deserve no more trust from Americans than a serial killer who took out members of your family for fun. They are reckless abusers, for greed and continued power.
(With one huge caveat, both the Middle Easterners and the South Americans are perfectly capable of starting various shit themselves. Don't deprive them of agency by painting them as blind and obedient puppets of Washington. Especially the Middle East is a very ancient civilization with a tradition of backstabbing and betrayal going deep into the Antiquity. They don't have to learn that from some Westerners.)
But in the context of European security, the main problem of the last decades was either the USSR or Russia, not the US. It was Soviet tanks that rolled through Czechoslovak cities in 1968 to crush our attempt at political independence, not American ones.
Context matters, and for former Soviet Bloc nations, Americans are an ally against potential reestablishment of Russian rule.
In 2023, a trusted, world-renowned expert — Bill Gates — stated that Ukraine is one of the single most corrupt nations in the world, and that he feels very sorry for the people there. [1] That says a lot, doesn't it?
Zelenskyy shuts down churches, imprisons political protestors and American journalists, and launders money back to the U.S. war machine after we "fund" them every month or less — to the order of $113 million per day now. How could anyone not see clearly what's happening there? It seems that people are so blinded by their hatred for Russia, that what the people are suffering in Ukraine on Ukraine's own accord isn't enough of a problem, despite how gaping it is.
Ukraine is corrupt. So what? Ukrainian corruption is a threat to no one. Not a single nation from Finland to Bulgaria considers itself vulnerable to Ukrainian military aggression, because they aren't an imperial nation and don't seek to dominate others. They were perfectly fine within their 1991 borders and never attempted to annex any extra territory by any means.
It is Russia's problem, in the words of great Václav Havel, that it does not know exactly where it ends.
All the hatred for Russia stems from their former heavy-handed rule of other nations. If they sincerely tried to make amends, it would slowly go away. They are now trying to rebuild their former imperial system. OF COURSE that nations which escaped their tyranny once are going to hate them.
It is freaking simple: we, as in Estonians, Latvians, Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, Ukrainians, Georgians etc. DON'T WANT TO BE THREATENED OR ATTACKED BY RUSSIA. That's it. We have had enough experience with Russian rule. It is primitive and brutal at the same time. Never again.
Exactly. Last time Russia and Germany signed a deal to cut Eastern Europe in half, then each invaded countries on their side of the line (and cut Poland in half). Sadly this is not how it is teached in Russia. Which is one of the reasons for what is happening now.
Russias goals haven't changed. Luckily Germany (currently) wants nothing of it.
As a "Middle Easterner" (a colonialist term by the way), I didn't realize that the "Middle East" was one conglomerate culture. Thank you for teaching me about my history /s
We also speak of Western civilization, even though it doesn't equal to one conglomerate culture either.
As for 'colonialist' term ... sigh, do I care how people call Europe on Arabic or Turkish forums? Every cultural region has some lingo that reflects its history.
'Europe' itself is a Phoenician word that means "country of sunset". From their perspective, it was. Hereby I am forgiving old Phoenician colonialists (and they indeed colonized much of the Mediterranean) for naming some continent according to their local perspective. That is what people tend to do.
And honestly it was the European's fault to believe in this pipe dream.
Having lived through Reforger exercises, with US tanks everywhere and sonic booms every few minutes, I believe up and including Reagan it was clear the US would not let Soviet Russia invade Western Europe b/c of the resulting shift in world power.
After the EU got more powerful and expanded, dynamics changed.
It's unclear with the Bushes and clear that Clinton/Obama/Trump would not aid Europe.
https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...
Military help from EU countries is higher than US, humanitarian help is multiple times higher and so is financial help.
If US passes the bill then it will somewhat catch up. IF it passes. Perhaps it decides to degrade its international standing even more instead, who knows.
Based on what number? You tell other people not to make things up, then throw out outlandish claims without citation.
And as for the "by GDP number" - you all seem to be failing to take into account overall military spending by GDP. Most of Europe spends almost nothing because they rely on the US to present a threat to their potential enemies. It's a lot easier to spend 5% of your GDP on military spending for a year or two when the rest of the last 40 years it's been less than 1% because the US has been spending 4-8% YoY for the duration on top of the direct aid.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303432/total-bilateral-...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64656301
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-aid-has-us-sent-ukraine...
Money:
- EU - 85,0 Mrd. €
- USA - 67,7 Mrd. €
- Deutschland - 22,1 Mrd. €
- Vereinigtes Königreich - 15,7 Mrd. €
- Dänemark - 8,8 Mrd. €
- EU: nur gemeinsame Hilfe
- Quelle: Institut für Weltwirtschaft / Ukraine Support Tracker
Tanks, promissed and delivered:
- Polen 324 Stück 264 Stück
- Niederlande 104 Stück 23 Stück
- Tschechien 90 Stück 90 Stück
- USA 76 Stück 23 Stück
- Deutschland 55 Stück 48 Stück
This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe. No matter what we do, it's either wrong or not enough. Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy and neglecting its defense spending and then turned around and told the US that we don't do enough to stop Russia.
You: "How dare you ....!?"
Later You: "This is why a large portion of Americans could care less about the defense of Europe."
That was easy.
Q.E.D.
Similarly, if you look at surveys of Germans, you will see that a large % do not support Military aid of Ukraine, not a majority, but a large percentage. By your logic, does that mean that Ukraine cannot trust Germany?
That comment comes off as surpisingly ignorant of the benefits that the US gets by having a buffer zone between it self on either side (Europe on it's eastern flank and the indo pacific on the western flank).
Your whole foreign policy revolves around keeping these areas armed and protected in cooperation with local governments in an effort of keeping conflict from reaching US shores (an evolution of the Monroe doctrine, which started back in the 19th century with keeping European conquest out of the immediate surroundings).
I would highly recommend picking up 'The Grand Chessboard[0]' by Zbigniew Brzezinski, former counselor to Presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Jimmy Carter. It is an excellent light read on the landscape in the mid 90's in regards to US foreign policy and national security. It even forshadows much that has happened recently.
It will truly fill in some gaps.
> Meanwhile, Europe spent the last few decades enjoying cheap Russian energy
Let us not forget that for a long time the US was hooked on foreign imported oil from the middle east, and even in 2021 Russian energy made up a total of 4% of the domestic US energy usage (up since Venezualian sources were not available as readily).
Please don't paint the US as some white knight that does what ever it can to please others on the world stage for altruistic reasons.
At worst it is disingenuous, and at best signals a massive ignorance of the world stage, history and the actors playing on it (again, highly recommend the book[0]).
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
edit: spelling.
Thanks for explaining that every country has motives behind its actions. I'm familiar with realpolitik it has nothing to do with what average Americans feel about Europe.
I'm just relating the feelings a lot of people I know have towards the region. You might not like it or agree with it(I don't) but lecturing Americans on how bad they are probably isn't the best way to bring them around to your side.
No need to be unreasonable. Educating one self should be sufficient as a start, before moving on to the immediate surroundings.
> Thanks for explaining that every country has motives behind its actions. I'm familiar with realpolitik it has nothing to do with what average Americans feel about Europe.
Of course not. The average anyone is not guided by theory. That wasn't my point.
My point was that the comment clearly did not come off as being written in good faith as an objective statement of the sentiment of the general public in the US alone. And as such it deserved to be answered in tone.
> You might not like it or agree with it(I don't) but lecturing Americans on how bad they are probably isn't the best way to bring them around to your side.
Persuading citizens of the US to the benefits of their own government's policies is not on the priority list for me. Frankly if anything, it should be the task of those citizens with knowledge of the theory that guides the making of those policies to educate their country men of the benefits. Yes, further military spending is not popular. But boots on ground is even less so.
To be honest I do not like the way the US conducts it self on the world stage, and believe that the world would be much better for it if the playing field was more even (rather than the modern day hegemony we have).
Cooling European/US relations with the EU taking steps to become more self reliant militarily, but still with the US as an equal partner, can only be considered a good thing.
This chart shows EU outspending the US.
https://www.statista.com/chart/28489/ukrainian-military-huma....
Looking at Military add only:
The US has provided: ~$42.2B Germany + United Kingdom + Denmark + Norway + Netherlands + Poland + EU inst.: ~$51B
[1] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...
This also includes long-term commitments that have not yet been delivered. EU promising to provide 1 million artillery shells two years from now doesn't help Ukraine at this time.
Also, it's not even close to a certainty that the spending bill will pass, and the chance of that happening diminishes every single day while this stupid presidential election doesn't happen.
As World = EU + X and X>0 => The world is spending more on military aid then the US.
Military spending no.
In fact this war has highlighted that NO ONE was ready for the fight that came about.
Skip the money for a moment. Ukraine right now is marginally fucked for one reason: 155mm artillery shells.
There isnt enough global production to have a war. The US is far and away the largest producer. EU can not keep up and did not bring on anywhere near enough capacity to defend itself in a future conflict.
I would also like to point out that without that humanitarian aid flowing INTO Ukraine those folks flee TO the EU. Sending money there avoids bringing the problems to Poland and Germany and having to spend it there. After taking in so many refugees in recent history the EU is gunshy about another migration.
The US has provided: ~$42.2B
Germany + United Kingdom + Denmark + Norway + Netherlands + Poland + EU inst.: ~$51B
[1] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...
I‘d argue that refugees, 50% of whom intend to stay, are the reason why EU is the only party to win something from this war. I actively support Ukrainian refugees by giving them some work and talk to people: those who will stay, want to integrate and they offer some relief to the job markets.
I agree and have done the same with Syrian refugees.
My landlord (and by far the best landlord I've had in Sweden) is another refugee doctor, a very laid back Iraqian pulmonologist, to the point I even invite him over to have some beers during summers.
The US defence industry has seen a minor win, too. It will reap the long-term win of new NATO accessions.
The EU got a wakeup call (not so much a win, but hey) to seek energy independence from belligerent petrostates, so that could be seen as a future win.
U.S.defense industry will also depend on that. If Trump wins and commits to do everything he promised, they will be in a weaker position, loosing foreign markets one by one.
There are controls in place (or at least on the paper) that prevent a crazy president from running amok with the nukes.
A war-mongering, propaganda-spewing, dystopian corporate empire beheld entirely to the military-industrial complex and megacorps?
You're right, I don't think he can turn the ship around.
How do you "actively support refugees by giving them some work" in a way that's legal, without hiring bias?
Besides, using only specific recruiting channels to select candidates from certain demographics is not a discrimination. If locals would apply this way, I would consider them, but honestly… In Germany, esp. in Berlin hiring locals? The market is so tight, that by just removing the German language requirement you will find some immigrant faster.
What way do you mean, how exactly should they apply?
Even though Russia has got the bigger air force on paper (https://rlist.io/l/european-countries-with-the-largest-air-f...).
Because Soviet (and ex-Soviet) armies were heavily built around massive numbers of lower-trained conscripts.
It's difficult to conduct maneuver warfare without highly trained troops.
It's a lot easier to throw a lot of artillery at the problem.
The reason is that neither side has air supremacy. Ukrainian AA defense is good enough to keep the Russians at bay, but Russian AA defense is also good enough to prevent Ukrainians from taking out their frontline defenses.
So with classic air forces being all but taken out, the only way either side can make progress is by using tanks and artillery.
It definitely could provide much more to Ukraine if both parties were aligned to the common cause of sustaining America's hegemony by being a reliable ally, right now there's one party which the whole ideology centers on going against whatever the other party does and/or supports. Even if that means allowing Putin's Russia to gain more power and influence.
I don't think the vast majority of Americans understand the long-term consequences of allowing the USA to become unreliable to its closest partners (the West in general). You will be feeling this over the next few decades, America's soft power is waning.
It's even worse. The 45th is actively calling for Russia to take what they want.
[0] https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapo...
[1] https://www.eurasiantimes.com/hamrless-missiles-us-supplied-...
This could only end with tactical nukes starting flying and with the strategic ones if the US attacks Russia. Things won't 'improve' no matter what happens.
He can lie about why the Russian army is leaving Ukraine and Russians will buy it.
He can stop this war at any moment.
> Just like the US can stop this war at any moment by dropping support for Ukraine and pressuring them to negotiate.
Just like So you admit Putin could stop the war at any moment ? Good. Why don't you petition for that ? (oh wait, what happened to that guy that submission is about and who wasn't completely on board with Putin's leadership ?)
What prevents him from stopping this war anyway ? Why won't he ? What terrible outcome would he or Russia face if he just declared "okay, we showed the world we ain't no pushovers, we are now confident Ukraine and NATO won't try to invade us because we showed them how strong we are" ?
Anyway, that Putin guy has made it pretty clear he wants to knock off all of Ukraine. Only Russian shills and useful idiots believe otherwise. But that's not what you are, aren't you ?
Done.
"According to Tamila Tasheva, Zelensky’s representative in Crimea, if it were liberated tomorrow, at least 200,000 residents of Crimea would face collaboration charges, and another 500,000 to 800,000 residents would face deportation. Refat Chubarov, the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars, says that more than 1 million people—more than half the current population—will have to leave “immediately.” "
[0] https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/12/18/ukraine-russia-war-civi...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea#Ethnici...
There have been multiple strikes using western weapons on Russian soil... with zero response. One of the most recent being shooting down an Il-76 near Belgorod.
The other issue is that merely because you did get that radar to turn off, doesn't mean that the launching aircraft is safe. Russia (and Ukraine as well) has a true IADS, so it's very risky to get within position to launch the HARM in the first place, let alone stay in position long enough to actually use your sensor package and give more capability to your missile.
Besides, Ukraine had Soviet antiradiation missiles that are extremely similar to the HARMs and that are integrated into their airframes. They weren't hugely effective.
How is an F-16 going to get close enough to Russian SAMs to be able to fly a conventional SEAD mission anyways? The traditional US way of using them is to jam enemy radars while flying F-16s as a wild weasel. The F-16 itself is not a capable SEAD platform - it needs and entire package with EW aircraft and air superiority fighters to defend them.
Besides, the problem in Ukraine is that Ukraine just can't fly even close to the frontline, and can't fly high. That's not just due to air defences - Ukraine used to be able to do this until Russia started using their extremely long range air to air missiles.
Basically the problem is that to avoid AA you have to fly low or far from the front lines. If you fly low, you can't give enough energy to your missile to threaten even just Russian bombers.
If you fly high but far away, there is no way to deal with Russian planes carrying R-37s that will be able to fire their missiles far before you.
The only way to even the playing field would be to give Ukraine modern Gripens with the Meteor missile, as the F-16 cannot fire the Meteor.
To be fair, the MiG’s Ukraine does have were not supposed to be capable of firing storm shadows either.
But that problem got resolved, and they are now firing them well outside the expected operational envelope and scoring solid hits.
For the Meteor you would need deep integration into the fire control system, and even into the data links to be able to use it's range as the F-16 radar is not powerful enough.
If it was easy to do, MBDA would have done it and made a lot of money that way.
Their role will most likely be to fly far behind the frontlines and fire NATO weapons Ukraine's airframes can't.
While Ukraine is training F-16 pilots, this will take a lot of time and money to achieve and sustain, and is vulnerable to parts supply chain issues, maintenance program sophistication gaps, and puts expensive-to-train pilots at risk of loss by being shot down. Vipers will barely move the needle on the course of the current conflict, but will enable Ukraine to defend its territory and airspace without direct NATO intervention.
The domestic Ukraine drone and missile industry is another leg of the table on which Ukraine will advance and sustain self-defense by striking strategic Russian military logistics, naval, army, and air force targets.
> Even though Russia has got the bigger air force
Russia's military is barely functional due to corruption and complacent reliance on being a nuclear superpower. The % of operational jets is barely enough to sustain territorial defense much less a sustained "special military operation". Russia's air assets total 3000 pieces of equipment but with only 7 regular air bases close enough to launch strikes and could only muster around 250 operational strike aircraft given the limitations on maintenance, storage, and the few pilots.
185 fighters
264 attack aircraft
415 multirole
119 bombers
1000+ helicopters
1000 transport
177 others (EW, a few tankers, c3)
Country Military
EU Total 49,67
United States 42,22
Germany 17,70
United Kingdom 9,12
Denmark 8,40
Netherlands 4,44
Norway 3,80
Poland 3,00
And if we take % of military budget, the US is last on the list.
Sure about the 152mm? Not 155mm?
I'd have to double check but its quite likely. 152mm being the popular Soviet/WP large artillery caliber which Ukraine no doubt has (or had, at the beginning) a lot of legacy Soviet-era heavy artillery.
The only thing I could find about Greece is Germany giving 40 Marder APCs to Greece so Greece could give 40 BMP-1 to Ukraine.
It's more messed up than that. The ROI on US dollars vs Euros is stupefying. There has been a fairly significant spend IN the us retooling for this war. The ramp up of 155 production ISNT aid to Ukraine but is going to benefit them.
And I called out 155 for a reason, the ebb and flow of it has been at the forefront of Ukraine being successful or failing. It is the the most consistently asked for and consumed large item as it in combination with drones has proven effective beyond anyones expectations.
They need USAs 155mm production the most. the fact that we cut off our specialty is ridiculous.
[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/live/2024/02/16/en-dire...
Quoting and translating the best I can (any translation error is mine):
Ground - Air
SAMP-T : 1 system and ASTER 30 missiles
CROTALE NG : 2 systems and some missiles
MISTRAL : 5 systems and hundreds of missiles
RADAR : 1 GM 200
SCALP : about a hundred missiles
A2SM : several hundred bombs starting in February 2024
CAESAR : 30 canons and tens of thousands of munitions
TRF1 : 6 canons and tens of thousands of munitions
LRU : 4 systems and hundreds rockets
AMX 10 RC: 38 AMX 10 RC and tens of thousands of 105mm shells
VAB: 250 (including VAB SAN)
VLTT P4: 120 vehicles
MILAN: 17 launch positions and hundreds of missiles
Anti-tank rockets: several thousand
Anti-tank mines: several thousand
Assault rifles: several thousand
12.7mm machine guns: several hundred
Other ammunition: several million
Drones: several hundred reconnaissance drones and small tactical drones
Jet fuel: tens of thousands of cubic meters
Wish Germany would send long range Taurus.
"The U.S. has become the biggest exporter of LNG to Europe [..] U.S. President Joe Biden last week paused approvals for applications to export from new LNG projects to review the climate change and economic impact of such projects." [0]
The only energy the EU can really control is solar, but probably has not enough room for panels to replace LNG with green hydrogen.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-lng-export-pause-...
Which is something new, until yesterday I was in with OP.
> No idea how important / relevant it is. Just posting
Here's some background: https://www.politico.eu/article/france-germany-macron-scholz...
There's also plenty of M1 tanks in US.
The question arrises, when people start to realize that the storage of those wasn't up to the required standards.
The worst part was that multiple countries dragged their feet on providing arms and realizing that 2022 was the start of a new arms race. And multiple countries are still reluctant to commit to refill the arms stockpiles.(hence the inability to even start mass production 2 years after it's clear what's going on)
> whoever thinks Russia is a threat is to be laughed at and needs their head checked
As a Lithuanian - I know this all too well. My mother tongue is Russian and Russian political class had been dominated by anti-western, revanchist and militaristic rhetoric for at least the last 17 years. No one in the west bothered to listen.
I'm mean it's a nitpick, but you're kinda nitpicking.
EU Total 49,67
United States 42,22
With the argument, the list implies the UK being part of the EU b/c it is listed below, would be the same as the "United States" are part of the EU, because it is listed below.
This war is also a display of weapons produced by defense industries in the USA and increase the spending of foreign countries in the USA. So, the netto effect might be actually turn out to be possitive, if it were not chilled by the current position of the USA in not providing weapons. This is definitely not making European countries happy and might actually result in the EU on putting substantial effort in developing it own weapon systems in the coming decades and reduce the spending the USA.
for example, true or false: The US started a war against Europe and Russia by blowing up the pipeline. If we look at it like that it is a great success?
Why would that perspective be entirely wrong?
If you can not deliver personal, delivery is fine as long as no cannon go hungry.
That's an absurd premise. That gets endlessly repeated on Reddit and elsewhere with absolutely zero proof. If so much of the US Government (the world's richest nation and the only superpower) is purchased by a weak and poor enemy nation (Russia), where's the proof of that? Not supporting a war isn't proof. So a US politician against the Israeli war is bought and paid for by Hamas or Iran? It's laughable and quite obviously so. Nobody would dare float that premise, but somehow for Ukraine it's the go to propaganda.
Why isn't the Biden DOJ + FBI + CIA + FBI + NSA running a large sting operation against all these bought and paid for US politicians that Russia owns? Because it doesn't exist. It'd be a huge win for the Biden Admin to bring those people down and get them arrested. And yet, crickets.
All you really have are US politicians that are opposite of Biden looking to jab him any way they can, because it's a partisan battle and they're looking to score points. It's no more complicated than that. They're taking up position opposite of Biden.
And with the military industrial complex, the issue is nobody is paying for that gear. Ukraine is a hyper poor nation, they are barely surviving. Anything advanced has to get Biden Admin and or Congressional approval. Ukraine isn't getting the very best US weapons (eg F35s) and should not.
Good thing Bulgaria is able to supply Ukraine with plenty of 152mm shells for their old soviet artillery.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/AFG/afghanistan/popula...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1072400/population-us-us...
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UKR/ukraine/population
And if they loose the war, they won't exist at all. Despite Russia having demographic and economic issues too.
For instance, if Russia loses e.g. 20% of their population then the economy will utterly tank, and if the economy tanks then Putin will lose support for the war and risk falling out of a window.
Ukraine doesn't actually need to win here, they just need to stall the war out for longer than Russia is willing to stay. Russia doesn't need to wipe out Ukraine, they just need to kill Western support of Ukraine and dry up the flow of military aid.
So if Ukraine just needs to stall then why did they go on a counterattack? Because it brings in more military aid now while Russia still has a materiel shortage. If Ukraine has a harsh materiel advantage over Russia then they can push Russian casualty rates far harder and force Putin into political strife much sooner.
Putin crippled the Russian economy by refusing to sell gas to the EU and by extension hurt Russian materiel production, but the tactic makes sense when you consider his win conditions: break Ukraine's western support, so that Russia has a materiel advantage.
>"Russia will soon attack us" rhetoric
I think that's actually Russian propaganda - Russia wants the West afraid to give Ukraine aid, so they play up the nuclear threat every time new milestones in aid are suggested (e.g. when the first F35 is given to Ukraine), then fold the moment the milestone is reached. Russia does this because slowing western aid to Ukraine is vital for their theory of victory.
Not at all. Are you joking? Multiple governments in Europe issued warnings to the population that they should prepare for war. Sweden is even re-opening Cold War era bunkers for the population to hide in case of attacks, and old military bases are re-opening.
And this seems like a functional loss for Russia. The Eastern provinces Russia holds aren't that valuable in any objective sense. Crimea provides an extremely valuable Black Sea port, but only if Russia can safely keep warships there -- which Russia currently is not able to do. Russia has certainly proven that if they rebuild their entire economy around the goal of holding these assets they can, indeed defend them indefinitely. But they haven't demonstrated that this is worthwhile or sustainable without a very generous peace deal from Ukraine.
There is no need to fire tens of thousands of shells with this equipment, and no one would ever do that. These shells cost thousands of dollars each.
The upside is that they are incredibly accurate, with an error radius of something like 100m at 25km, using the standard dumb shells. (Things like Excalibur are markedly more accurate, but cost $100k each).
Add in counterbattery radar, and there's just no reason Ukraine would ever need to fire 25,000 shells a day like Russia does.
Clearly Ukraine needs more 155mm ammunition, but there's no reason to directly compare the numbers of shells launched by Russia and Ukraine.
And this is all without counting the "externalities" of the war in Ukraine which Europe had to absorb all by itself, such as higher energy prices, selling assets in Russia at very discounted prices (for comparison, the US and the UK didn't have that much stuff to sell there anyway) and the material help and assistance provided to the millions of Ukrainian refugees.
Do you always write like this? It reads like something from the 19th century.
USA can claim that one Bradley is 2mln, but what is a real value? Polish T-72 can be worth 1mln, but it's much more valuable than Bradley. UA army knows how to fix it and operate.
Just like the Ukranian crews were trained on leopard, Abrams, etc
If you're talking about the autoloader - the kind of munition that would detonate the munitions on a modern T-72 would completely eviscerate any IFV.
If it really was more survivable than a modern tank, why would anyone even bother making tanks, when IFVs have about as much firepower when using ATGMs?
In the era of ATGMs IFVs can engage tanks and win, no matter the tank. In fact, an infantry soldier with an ATGM can engage basically any tank and win. That doesn't mean a soldier is more survivable or more capable than a tank.
A Bradley would be disabled or destroyed by many weapons any modern tank would shrug off, and it cannot provide sustained heavy fire as it has a very limited number of ATGMs.
The US provides a huge military shield in Europe and it costs a lot and none of it gets counted toward helping Ukraine. That shield enables European nations to shift resources relatively safely into helping Ukraine. If you remove that shield, those nations can no longer safely give to such a great extent, they'd have to think with far greater scrutiny of their own defense.
US spending on European defense makes it possible for smaller European nations to give military funds and weapons to Ukraine.
Our massive air force protection enables European nations to provide their F16s to Ukraine, as one example.
Go ahead and staple $100 billion more to that military figure for the past two years.
I've said the US can't be trusted to keep support up. Don't twist my words.
Numbers? Source?
The US's economy suffering more than Russia's sends the opposite message.
Didn't EU just now agreed on future aid of the same amount the USA is still struggling to get through?
The US really can't win. If we didn't support Ukraine we would be blasted. If we do it's because we are just trying to enrich ourselves.
Today the US has two strategic enemies - Russia and China - and two strategic partners, Nato in Europe and everyone in pacific except China.
The US can spend peanuts - it really isn't a lot of money in US defence terms - backing Ukraine and using Ukrainian casualties to defeat it's strategic enemy, Russia, whilst making it's other strategic enemy, China, fear it.
Or it can waver and show it's no longer the leader of the democratic world and make all it's allies in Europe and Asia not believe in it.
My big fear is that it is empowering China to dare to have it's go at Taiwan in a couple of years.
A few more quotes by Trump might change that though.
It certainly seems that the US is unsure whether it wants this role. The Congress is putting US credibility at huge risk right now.
Nevertheless, if the US abdicates its leadership, the free world will shrink. Even democracies have domestic enemies and all of these will be encouraged to push autocracy as an alternative to the messy parliamentary system.
When viewed by how they act? Unquestionably.
Europe is probably uncomfortable/ashamed by how dependent they are on the US for maintaining the western-centric global power axis. But on the same hand are unwilling to make the sacrifices their societies would need to in order to pick up the slack. Especially now that European economies tend to be in a slump.
Quite a lot of those are older weapons that need to be either spent or securely disposed of within a decade or so.
Don't take me wrong, I am happy that the US helped Ukraine and I certainly wish that the next package passes the House, but the economic cost of your help isn't easily calculated in dollars. (Or, for that matter, our in Czech crowns.)
Stockpiles need to be either spent or renewed/replaced. Perhaps you could have used some of that older stuff in training, but not all of it. Military equipment has an expiration date, you would need to refresh your stockpiles anyway.
You write in the past tense, and in that sense you're right.
But the US is no longer providing that help.
There is nothing in the parent post to even hint that they are saying that the US is to blame for what happened.
The US cannot be trusted to fulfill it's approved upon role in NATO if and when the push comes to shove (that damage to the US reputation is done).
I want to make it clear that the US does not sholder this responsibility alone. Every signatory to the convention is required to come to it's allies need if needed.
Europe has to get it's act together when it comes to securing its own borders, with tech and armaments produced inside said borders but in a cooperation with the US. As partners.
Surely they as individuals would be better off saying "look, we cowed the Biden admin into fixing the problems, look how good we are at our jobs re-elect us" but that doesn't work, because they are beholden to the MAGAs. So instead they keep giving awkward comments and going back on their own stated opinions because the only uniting strategy (which was the official Republican party policy BEFORE Trump's own progeny ran the Republican party) is to bootlick Trump.
When they vote how he says, pretty much exclusively, they are not "ignoring or shrugging off" his comments.
What role as the US failed to fulfill in Ukraine? Ukraine isn't a NATO member, the US had no obligation to come to their support, yet we did anyways.
Meanwhile Germany divested their entire domestic energy security and became subservient to Russia for energy - enabling this entire conflict b/c Russia felt Europe became addicted and depended to Russian fuels and wouldn't oppose their dealers.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-lng-export-pause-...
"Europe became addicted and depended to Russian fuels "
Yes like the US was addicted to oil from the middle east. The difference, Europe couldn't invade Russia and take the gas away.
All of that money is being laundered back to the U.S. war machine, yet it's somehow losing this "war"? Mitch McConnell admitted that himself just recently.
Meanwhile, Kiev is in pristine condition while Gaza is a now a wasteland. None of this makes sense.
The downvotes won't erase the truth, so nice try I guess?
all it's cost so far, in direct terms, is a hundred billion dollars or so over a couple of years, in an economy with thirty trillion dollars a year of gdp. 0.2% of gdp, say. contrast with, for example, 2.5% for the apollo program, or 1% for the manhattan project
it sucks pretty bad for the ukrainians tho. and the russians. they're being ground into hamburger by the machinations of putin and the usg, jockeying for power. anyone with a scrap of human feeling is horrified by what is happening. but that's not what animates the cfr
Can you imagine erasing your biggest rival's entire military threat with $300 billion? That's like four whole miles of Californian high speed rail!
IMO, if any random country’s government whom we are not allied with through NATO publicly criticizes the USA’s response to helping them out in a war that we have no obligation to help with, I believe we should immediately cease any and all financial aid and let them feel the squeeze. When they publicly apologize and recognize that the United States is truly the only thing keeping any order in the world, then and only then do we consider resuming whatever support we deem appropriate. This should apply to any NATO-allied nation who hasn’t met their 2% defense spending as well. If your country doesn’t keep up their end of the deal, we certainly shouldn’t keep ours.
It’s not a hissy fit to feel annoyed at blame on the U.S. for Ukraine losing a war that has nothing to do with us. It’s not a hissy fit for wanting European allies to take their own defense halfway as serious as we have. We’ve kept stability in Europe, in spite of Europe’s actions.
It is most notable that all countries who feel threatened by Russia contribute well over 2% of their GDP into defense. Do you understand in US that this stupidity that is going on in the congress and this dangerous rhetoric is especially hurting these countries? Do you realize that for example Spain is not really feeling threatened by Russia and people in Spain (the voters who effectively decide the size of the defense budget) do not really care about US not helping them as they don't see any credible threat? This is only hurting US, what is losing its credibility globally as a serious security partner.
Since Trump, the US might not be the US anymore in the future. It might break its promises, withdraw from NATO, from Paris and any other treaty it has made. War is coming closer to us, we cannot rely on a US that is actively flirting with authoritarianism.
Hopefully not, but it is a very real possibility. And we are not ready for it.
Keep your promises, and we will keep ours. But if you fail to keep yours, I do not believe we have any obligation to fulfill ours, even if it leads to loss of life. That’s not immaturity, that is the most basic, foundational tenets of a pact.
Europe constantly fails to meet the requirements across multiple agreements, wether that’s defense spending, carbon emissions, or whatever else, but the second that the U.S. slightly slows down on handing out free cash to anyone who asks, we are a horrible, evil “mafia” country. It would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing.
Ironically, more countries in NATO are meeting their 2% defense spending bill than ever before, because of a possible Trump presidency on the horizon. They know there’s a chance US funding gets rug-pulled, so they’re actually taking their defense spending seriously. Precisely because he is a poor, unpredictable leader, a Trump presidency is ironically what will save Europe from themselves.
Do they have some explaining to do? Of course. But this is not a reason to threaten military allies of more than 70 years by saying Russia can invade them with impunity. Its like I'm a week late on a payment and the landlord promises to send a pack of mobsters to kick me out if I don't pony up the next day. Let's not talk about the emissions that is absolutely insane coming from the worst offender by far.
Now the GOP is going to block the 'slight' spend of 60 billion in aid because it is using Ukraine as a bargaining chip for its anti-immigrant policies.
This is about Trump, but beyond him the US might become a very unreliable and chaotic partner. I'm worried this will backfire. If it does, on the long term, China will start to look a lot more interesting to some European countries as a force of stability.
If the US prefers the world where Ukraine is not annexed into Russia, then even if our support is not appreciated to your satisfaction, it may still be best _for the US_ to provide the support.
That's the exact way to alienate people and piss away the power projection network you've spent decades to build.
The preferred response of many of its citizens and politicians, is to prove the critics right with no thought of how that affects the world. This vindictive idea is worthy of a 4 year old child that doesn’t know any better.
And I bet you think that the US never benefited from being the world police. You think that the only super power in the world projecting influence all over the globe was all done out of the goodness of their hearts?
Despite much criticism, the US was the country most democracies looked up to or followed. It’s sad and quite worrying for the world that we’re now seeing the end of that.
If anything US should take a view of self interest as they are losing the credibility as an important international power very rapidly and are instead seriously helping their most dangerous adversaries to gain momentum.
Russia was in a very bad position a year ago, Putin's power was crumbling, but US withholding of critical help let him to sustain his power. Where are we now? Russia is threatening US space assets. Authoritarian powers all over the world are becoming more and more cocky as they see that US is becoming week and impotent.
It is sickening for me to watch how US is hurting itself out of stupidity.
Genuine question as someone who has no connection to either government of the Russia-Ukraine war: didn't the US push Ukraine into not accepting terms with Russia, under the promise that it would support Ukraine in case of war? In other words, it pushed Ukraine into the war, using it as a proxy to fight Russia.
The answer is "no" on both counts. The US did not "push" them into anything.
And the US made absolutely no such promise. In fact it made explicit statements to the contrary on the eve of the invasion.
Pushed them into the war. Wasn't Ukraine invaded, unprovoked by any real violence or imminent threat, by Russia?
Pushed them into war. That's like blaming the victim and then blaming the friend for not telling them to cover up.
Trump winning, with his comments about encouraging Russia to attack NATO countries, would not do much to help.
This is an interesting read on the US sending more than half ($47.38b / $88.94b) [0] of the total worldwide military aid allocated so far to Ukraine.
[0] https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/ukraine-support-tracker...
That's absolutely not the sentiments among Poles. If anything, there's a belief we can only rely on US when poo hits the fan.
Suddenly the following scenario, is not far fetched anymore: Russia will find an excuse around Kaliningrad Oblast, and a NATO hostile US president will negotiate a cease fire in the name of stopping a Nuclear conflict...
It's an extremely cynical take but US + EU can pretty much afford to "wage" this war indefinitely as long they give just enough to Ukraine for it not to collapse and both sides continue throwing their men into the grinder. Russia is on a timer; it might take an extra few years and even if they don't run out of shells they'll run out of soldiers sooner or later (of course unfortunately the same applies to Ukraine..).
Poland hoped the UK would safe them from Germany and Russia and was betrayed.
Poland now hopes the US would safe them from Russia, and they will be betrayed.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13/politics/fact-check-trump-nat...
He hasn't cared previously, and more recently... https://apnews.com/article/trump-backlash-nato-funding-russi...
> Speaking at a campaign rally in South Carolina, he retold the story of his alleged conversation with the head of a NATO member country that had not met its obligations. This time, though, he left out the line that drew the most outrage — encouraging Russia “to do whatever the hell they want.”
> “Look, if they’re not going to pay, we’re not going to protect. OK?” he said Wednesday.
The balance of power is not even remotely similar to what it was back in 1939. Even if we ignore the economy and armament production modern Russia has severe demographic issues it barely has enough manpower to wage a full-scale war in Ukraine (considering the massive casualty rate, more in a single year than US lost during the 15 years in Vietnam and Russia has many times smaller conscriptable population than the US had back then).
How could they ever open a "second front" in the Baltics?
Back in 1940 the allies were extremely underprepared materially (mainly the British, the French had an army that could certainly compete with Germany on paper, but they were much too conservative (and in hindsight run by incompetent morons)). It's not like they consciously decided to just abandon Poland outright, the allies expected it to hold out much longer and very way too slow and indecisive to do anything. Then they somehow managed to lose Norway against all odds and the same thing repeated in France.
Stuff like that simply can't happen in modern warfare (as the Russian attempt to capture Kiev has proven)..
Without a doubt the US pushes its might around the world BUT in the case of Europe, European countries do not have the willpower to create a military like the US's. How did the US lose all its trust? Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Europe was frolicking around for decades, most countries with no real economy and making many mistakes a long the way regarding energy security.
Yes, not yet, except Macron.
"long the way regarding energy security."
Germany is switching to US LNG as fast as it can just for the US to signal it will no longer support LNG in Europe. This kind of energy security? [0]
[0] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-lng-export-pause-...
The French betrayed Czechoslovakia in 1938, then got steamrolled by the Wehrmacht themselves, and their credibility in Central and Eastern Europe has been shot ever since.
By first dragging the rest of Europe in a very aggressive position in the Ukraine war. Dont get me wrong I fully support that stance. But it was only possible because the US stood front and center, president and congress hand in hand "as long as it takes".
Now less than two years the US lost interest and left Europe with a half dead crazed Russia running on a war economy on its doorstep. So Europe has to try and fill in for the lack of US support while a possible upcoming Trump presidency makes it rather likely that the US wouldnt honor article 5.
This isn't how it works. You buy expensive and unnecessary weapon system from US not because thye are any good but because this is your designated protection fee. After you spend several bilion dollars US feels more obliged to help... Just a racket..
One thing you're missing in lots of your predictions is that Ukraine had no US military presence. Poland does. There's 10k US troops in Poland right now. There's zero chance other European countries will be closing US military bases with the looming threat from Russia.
No. Germany needs those F-35 only for delivering nukes ("Nukleare Teilhabe") [0] replacing aging Tornados in that role. With Trump as the next president I don't think you find a German politician (except the far left and far right) who thinks sharing nukes with the US is working any longer.
I'd think Germany will rather take French nukes instead of using US nukes in the future.
"There's zero chance other European countries will be closing US military bases with the looming threat from Russia."
With a US president shouting "Russia, go, invade Germany, rape, plunder and torture with my blessing" - US bases will all be shut in the coming decades.
Depending on what happens with the congress. There are still some semi-sane (concerning foreign policy) Republicans in the Senate of course they'll probably struggle a lot more with manipulating him/keeping him inline like in his first term.
But I guess it's not unlikely that the democrats will lose both the senate and the house if Biden manages to lose. So yeah...
One assumes Poland would actually like someone to fulfill those orders in a timely manner, so perhaps not. Germany can afford to "spend" money on weapons and then not produce anything, but it's not going to work for Poland.
The only way for Poland to be safe is having military production in its own country. Because it's easier if everyone has the same weapons, I it should join Airbus and KMW+NEXTER and get production facilities on it's own land.
As seen with AstraZeneca you need physical control to be safe.
> We just need to get our act together, not every country building or buying it's own incompatible weapons (like tanks, planes, frigates).
If "we" means Europe I agree, that "we" need to reintroduce mandatory military service, prepare to fight Russia and its allies on their own turf, defend against Russian terrorists on our own turf. Ans most importantly we must wage war against pro-Russian mouthpieces in our own countries, e.g. Geert Wilders, Marine Lepen, Meloni, Bjorn Hoecke and AfD, the entire Orban government, current Slovakian regime, and anyone who takes money from Putin and spouting their propaganda.
War is already here in Europe. It's just unequally distributed.
As for weapons, well its a market situation, sometimes perhaps having non-us weapon systems is actually better.
A lot of these wars are connected - Russia is working with Iran and North Korea (and China to some extent)
Thinking Europe should only care about what happens in their backyard while criticizing the US for not caring enough about Europe's backyard seems hypocritical.
To be fair it never had that territory in the first place. Prior to 2014 Ukraine was clearly under Russian influence and Western Europeans countries never had any serious thoughts about somehow “taking it over” (despite what putin & al. are saying )
> gain it's own military security
I’m really not sure most Europeans countries (besides those that are very close to Russia like Poland, the Baltics, Finland etc.) are that keen about massively increasing their military spending. Certainly not even close to what US is currently providing.
Other pluses: American equipment is expensive. The recent purchase from S. Korea is significantly cheaper and IIRC entails a partnership agreement that requires that at least some of the manufacturing happens domestically in Poland. This allows the S. Korean defense industry to establish a base of operation in Europe. Also, the Polish armed forces have been investing in a diversity of equipment (American, EU, S. Korean, and domestic) for some time, which, of course, means they're not too dependent on a single country.
Why would that be the outcome? Why wouldn't it result in European countries wanting more US involvement? Who wouldn't want the most powerful country in the world on their side, as their ally?
Also, I strongly disagree with the idea that separately, the US and Europe are somehow stronger. Separately, countries end up in conflict - Europe's own history shows it especially, and that's one of the primary, intentional reasons for NATO and the EU. Together they are far more powerful - NATO is far more powerful than any country alone, including the US.
The EU - which for all its flaws is, if you step back and look from an historical perspective, arguably the greatest international organization in history - still lacks effective, unified international relations. Decisions require unanimity, which is hard for a small organization, and now they have dozens of members. Kissinger famously said (iirc), 'if I have to call Europe, who do I call?' They don't yet have the political structure and institutions to conduct international relations as whole.
Finally, power in international relations ultimately flows from wealth and population. If China continues to grow, it could have an economy twice the size of the EU's (or US's) within decades, and India has potential for similar growth. Together, the US and EU offer a much stronger balance.
prisons are bad for your health
It's wild to me how everyone has a (very energetic) opinion about a conflict nowhere near their home, helmed by people they don't know, fought by people they don't understand, over problems they don't understand.
I wish we could return to when not every conflict between nations was a considered a global emergency.
When a man with a nuclear button savagely kills his opponent just because he can, this creates instability inside the country. And increases chances, that once he dies (which eventually will happen), some radical guy might overtake the power and who knows what happens next.
I understand that a lot of events in the world might have potential global effect, but only few of them might hit as bad.
And due to the way things are going, they're testing the waters in cooperation and friendship.
China is a manufacturing and technology powerhouse.
Yes, it is considered as a bluff. And most likely it is. However so was all the military "exercises" before the invasion to Ukraine in 2022. Only a few really believed it, unfortunately it actually happened.
Violence and questions of justice tend to ignite conversation.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_deaths_of_Russian...
Edit: Practice systemic awareness. This was not a throwaway comment.
Though the percentage of active duty military members has fluctuated since 2001, it has declined by 39% since 1987, its most recent high.
https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-demography-of-war-ukraine-vs-...
If you have a bit more respect for the lives of your citizens, its not so much of a disadvantage.
The US conquered and held Afghanistan for 20 years and we could have done it for another 20+ years, we just lost the political will to do so. I'm in total agreement with getting out of Afghanistan, as ugly as it was.
It certainly did. It took the Taliban out of power and installed our own government. Also, all conquered countries have insurgencies. France, Poland, Belgium, Holland all had insurgencies and they were certainly conquered by Germany in WW2. Insurgencies by conquered people have been happening since before Alexander.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conquer
>Losing political will is quite literally “losing,”
Maybe. Did Britain lose to India because they lost the political will to occupy them? Canada? Australia? Maybe. Did the US lose to the Philippines because we no longer colonized them? Doesn't seem like it. I'd be hard pressed to find any rational historian to say the US lost to the Philippines.
>It was fighting a nonstop insurgency that obviously we couldn’t sustain for another 20+ years as evidenced by the fact we didn’t sustain it for another 20+ years.
Afghanistan didn't force us out. We could have kept doing what we did for another 20 years. It would have been as stupid as the last 20 years, but we certainly had the financial and military means.
Anyhow this is a tangent. If we go to war with Russia, there will be a draft and millions will likely die. This has been a known for the last 80 years. I'm amazed people don't think this would be true. Those who forget history are destined to repeat it I guess. Better start getting in shape.
They’re disagreeing with your suggestion that the way to avoid war with Russia is by not supporting Ukraine now or that Ukraine is necessarily doomed because of a 3:1 difference in manpower.
If you want to talk about repeating history, maybe look up how well appeasement worked with the Nazis, another lying autocratic regime wallowing in delusions about its own greatness.
Show me where I said that.
I suppose it’s ambiguous who you’re referring to “doing more”? But you unambiguously said a 3:1 advantage -> Ukraine will run out of troops.
Ah I see, yes I meant "do more" as in escalating by putting boots on the ground or getting US or NATO troops officially in the war before Russia invades a NATO country, or giving Ukraine weaponry where it can invade Russia. Right now we're in a proxy war with Russia like Vietnam or Afghanistan (1979-1989). The national interest for us is to make Russia look bad and drain Russia to the point where they can't invade a NATO country at the expense of Ukraine, unfortunately. The war has devolved into trench warfare and a war of attrition, which will ultimately lead to Ukraine running out of troops if nothing significant changes.
During peace talks Ukraine has stated they want all the captured territory including Crimea back, which Russia will never agree to because they have the upper hand. Russia just has to sit there and defend like Germany did in the Western front in WWI. Furthermore, Russia can fight a war of attrition much longer than Ukraine can. That's where the 3:1 ratio is important.
I don't see a path to Russia "giving up," and relinquishing all captured territory outside of Putin getting removed and a magical NATO friendly leader taking his place, which is highly unlikely. Had Prigozhin toppled Putin, he would have likely been even more aggressive. A coup in Russia would likely make things worse, too. Nobody wants the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world to become unstable, except maybe Iran.
What else can happen? Ukraine invades Russia? We haven't been giving Ukraine long rage weapons because we don't want this to happen. If Ukraine invades Russia in earnest and makes a lot of progress, Russia will likely lob some nukes, which is very bad.
Ukraine can take over the territory Russia has taken, but they haven't been able to do it and have been repelled from Bakhmut and recently from Avdiivka. It's not looking good. How many more counter-offensives can Ukraine sustain? I don't know, but it's fewer than Russia can repel. Something needs to happen that isn't happening now, but I have no idea what that is.
I just don't see a path that doesn't involve lots of Ukrainians dying and ultimately give up most of the land Russia currently occupies, except a peace treaty, which Ukraine currently isn't being realistic about. Furthermore a peace treaty is no guarantee Russia will not invade a NATO country.
We're walking a tightrope. We want Ukraine to repel Russia, but not threaten Russia's existence. When a non-nuclear power fights a nuclear power, the one with nukes has the upper hand.
So that's the path we're currently on. Ukraine can only commit to so many counter offensives and rebuff Russian offensives before they are drained. Russia hasn't even fully committed to the war yet. What do we do once Ukraine has ultimately "bled out?" Ukraine is a powder keg waiting to explode. It's pretty scary.
"Under end strength levels outlined in the annual defense authorization bill passed by the Senate Wednesday evening and expected to be passed by the House on Thursday, the total number of active-duty troops in the armed forces will drop to 1,284,500 in fiscal 2024. That’s down nearly 64,000 personnel in the last three years and the smallest total for America’s military since 1940, before the United States’ entry into World War II."
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2023/12...
Lawmakers say the reason for the lower target isn’t a decrease in missions or threats in recent years. Instead, the number reflects recruiting challenges across the services and an expectation of what level of personnel is realistic in coming months.
They aren't lowering troop numbers because they want to, they're moving the goalposts to meet the reality of diminished recruiting.
Also, privatization is for non-combat roles, logistics and what not. It allows us to keep more US military personnel in combat roles instead of support roles.
When all of these hack aren't enough to fill ranks in a major conflict, the next step is a draft. Iraq I, II and Afghanistan were not major conflicts in terms of total deployment.
https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_w...
Also, no politician will utter the word "draft," or they will lose all support. If a major conflict arises with Russia, it will get instituted, make no mistake about it. Everyone pushing for war with Russia needs to consider the consequences.
The war in Ukraine only drags on for so long because of the refusal of the west (partly tachnical issues, partly political hesitation) to equip Ukraine with modern weapons in sufficient quantities.
They aren't depleted. They've suffered 300K casualties, they have 24,700,000 left of fighting age. Also keep in mind Russia has no qualms about putting women in front line combat roles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain...
Also, Iran seems like they want to get involved. They've been selling Russia arms during the conflict. They have about 17 million people of fighting age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_global_manpower_fit_fo...
>do it in a weekend
They said that about the US Civil War
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-war-in-america/april-1861...
And WWI
https://www.theworldwar.org/exhibitions/over-christmas
By WWII, we realized it wouldn't be a short war. We seem to have forgotten. Also Russia has a lot of nukes, you know what MAD stands for right?
Best case we're probably looking at a Phyrric victory.
Without equipment, logistics and ammo to support it it's a dead weight. Also, it's very interesting that you omitted Gulf War, which would be the most similar conflict in terms of power dynamics. 4th by strength military in the world in war against large coalition of countries that is led by USA.
Russia is an industrial country. They managed to build more tanks than anybody in WWII and this was while being invaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_industry_in_World_War_I...
>Also, it's very interesting that you omitted Gulf War, which would be the most similar conflict in terms of power dynamics.
Most of the Iraqi soldiers surrendered as soon as they saw coalition forces. Only the Republican Guard remained to fight and they were only around 75K. I doubt the Russians will surrender en masse like the Iraqi regular army did.
Are you suspecting that the law would be changed to enable draft? Or maybe I'm confusing draft and conscription, are those different?
You are correct. Conscription and the draft are essentially the same. I believe conscription is when you enter military service regardless of wartime, while the draft is explicitly to fill ranks. I could be wrong on that though.
>Are you suspecting that the law would be changed to enable draft?
Yes, if we get into a large scale war without the ability to recruit enough volunteers, most certainly. Currently our recruiting numbers are way down. The US has had a draft/conscription throughout most of its history. Current times since 1973 are an anomaly.
Also, the law is already in place. Every male citizen, when they turn 18 must register with the Selective Service, which is responsible for the draft.
However, conscription remains in place on a contingency basis; all male U.S. citizens, regardless of where they live, and male immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, residing within the United States, who are 18 through 25 are required to register with the Selective Service System.[2][3] United States federal law also continues to provide for the compulsory conscription of men between the ages of 17 and 44 who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, U.S. citizens, and additionally certain women, for militia service pursuant to Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution and 10 U.S. Code § 246.[4][5][6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_Sta...
In fact, reinstitution the draft is required by law:
A national emergency, exceeding the Department of Defense’s capability to recruit and retain its total force strength, requires Congress to amend the Military Selective Service Act to authorize the President to induct personnel into the Armed Forces.
https://www.sss.gov/about/return-to-draft
The term for a person who pushes for war without any intention of serving themselves is called a Chickenhawk. I'm just reminding all the people who are pushing for escalation with Russia that if war happens, they will likely be drafted and aren't just sending the mostly poor kids to fight their war. To those people I say, be careful what you wish for.
[1] Anastasia Vasilyeva: Navalny’s harassment and FBK’s deception /// EMPATHY OF MANUCHI https://youtu.be/ei-9Wh_jaCs
[2] YandexGPT a short summary of the video from the neural network https://300.ya.ru/v_6k8mRO4e?t=1063