How do you propose the west avoids conflict with Russia and China?
Is there any examples in history of appeasement leading to less bloodshed?
Is there any examples in history of appeasement leading to less bloodshed?
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
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."
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.
Are they trying to conquer and kill you? If not, your analogy doesn't hold.
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
...
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.
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?
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.
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.