Ukraine War

[Biff Tannen 46175]

1 hour ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Consider this: Mongolia, long the buffer state between Russia and China,  has a GDP per capita of $4000. Despite having vastly more resources, that of Ukraiine is $3,700.

I mean, Mongolia has got nothin'. The national diet is meat, roots, and the milk of beasts we don't drink from. Maybe some cheese from same. Ukraine on the other hand is the breadbasket to the world and yet their people are among the poorest in Europe. A lot of that has to do with corruption....And then of what trickles down after that, they have to pay more for a national defense budget that would go away in large part were they neutral. 

This is a Costanza bit, I'm pretty sure.

[Dahobbs 18335]

22 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

 

Quality responses! Bravo! 

What do you two propose we do now?

See below - tell us again how Russia wants a neutral Ukraine while it goes around saying it wants to liquidate the population and eliminate the Ukrainian ethnic identity, oh and not only does it say it, but has actually been doing it:

On 4/4/2022 at 2:23 PM, Dahobbs said:

They stated their intent here:

 

I highlighted some of the translation earlier in the thread. It is attempted genocide by definition: 

"Denazification is necessary when a significant part of the people - most likely the majority - has been mastered and drawn into the Nazi regime in its politics. That is, when the hypothesis "the people are good - the government is bad" does not work. Recognition of this fact is the basis of the policy of denazification, of all its measures, and the fact itself is its subject matter.
Ukraine is in just such a situation.

* * * 

However, in addition to the top, a significant part of the masses, which are passive Nazis, accomplices of Nazism, are also guilty. They supported and indulged Nazi power. The just punishment of this part of the population is possible only as bearing the inevitable hardships of a just war against the Nazi system, waged as carefully and prudently as possible in relation to civilians. Further denazification of this mass of the population consists in re-education, which is achieved by ideological repression (suppression) of Nazi attitudes and strict censorship: not only in the political sphere, but also necessarily in the sphere of culture and education.

* * * 

Denazification will inevitably also be a de-Ukrainization - a rejection of the large-scale artificial inflation of the ethnic component of self-identification of the population of the territories of historical Little Russia and New Russia, begun by the Soviet authorities.

* * * 

Ukrainism is an artificial anti-Russian construction that does not have its own civilizational content, a subordinate element of an alien and alien civilization. Debanderization by itself will not be enough for denazification - the Bandera element is only a performer and a screen, a disguise for the European project of Nazi Ukraine, therefore the denazification of Ukraine is also its inevitable de-Europeanization.
The Bandera elite must be liquidated, its re-education is impossible. "

 

 

 

[Macanudo 13328]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

What. An utter load. Of mainlined bullshit.

The entire thing can be dispelled with a single question: is it more likely that Russia pushed for a “neutral” Ukraine because a) Russia just had regular old security concerns and wanted a truly neutral buffer, or b) Russia wanted a neutral - and thus neutered - Ukraine that it could then just t invade and conquer at will, fully assimilating it into Russia and exterminating any spark of Ukrainian independence it found?

Jesus, the Pollyanna bullshit is DEEP with this one.

Russia he made it plain and clear, for a long-ass time, that it views Ukraine as something with which they can do as they please, because Ukraine is just Russia, and any Russians who think otherwise aren’t really people. When did these fucking genius academics decide to utterly ignore what Russia a) actually does and b) actually says, when it’s being honest and internal?

FFS, this “poor Russia, if we only treated them more nicely, they wouldn’t be abusive” is sick poison. It’s the exact same insane self-destructive bullshit spit at battered spouses - “you just need to understand HIS perspective. And you really shouldn’t have provoked him - you know how he hates it when you talk while the Cowboys are on.” You should be embarrassed to post such garbage.

Yeah, but didn't you see how Ukraine was dressed?  Wearing an outfit Ike that is just asking to be dragged into an alley and being violated and defiled.  

[Brisketexan 106951]

Consider this: Mongolia, long the buffer state between Russia and China,  has a GDP per capita of $4000. Despite having vastly more resources, that of Ukraiine is $3,700.
I mean, Mongolia has got nothin'. The national diet is meat, roots, and the milk of beasts we don't drink from. Maybe some cheese from same. Ukraine on the other hand is the breadbasket to the world and yet their people are among the poorest in Europe. A lot of that has to do with corruption....And then of what trickles down after that, they have to pay more for a national defense budget that would go away in large part were they neutral. 

1 — so you don’t seen ANY differences in how Russian might look at non-Slavic, Asian Mongolia, and Slavic, European Ukraine? None? Not a single relevant one? Again, stop being this dense, you’re embarrassing yourself.

2 - see a lot of folks around here chatting up how Ukraine was the model of Democratic functionality before? No? Huh. However, if you want to look at the biggest support mechanism for a continuing kleptocracy in Ukraine….look to the very country you are excusing. The Russian attempts to insert govt officials it can control are built entirely on corruption. Your approach is like blaming the lake for being polluted and ignoring the guy pouring barrels of waste into it….even worse, using that as an excuse for the current behavior of the polluter who is saying “that lake is awful - it’s polluted!”

For fuck’s sake, stop.

[WhatTheBuck 28932]

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

Even as a kid, I never gave Reagan full credit for bringing down the Soviet Union...my late father and a few decent schoolteachers educated me enough on that topic.  But Reagan distrusted them, he knew the menace they were, he knew their internal vulnerabilities and inward pointed daggers.  He knew their treatment of humanity was a farce, he knew their imperialism would not stop---particularly among vulnerable nations.  And he knew above all else, they had very little to lose and thus had to be kept on a short leash.  Reagan understood their strength came from the illusion of their strength.  And here I am, watching 25 million Americans jerk off to Putin, blaming us for this crime against humanity in Ukraine.  All because their dear leader thinks Vlad is just a misunderstood genius protecting his borders. 

Reagan sucked. Your late father and schoolteachers didn’t know what they were talking about. The results from the “Reagan revolution” are in. They’re not good. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26870]

7 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

Mariupol:

 

Bucha

Kharkiv

 

Donetsk

 

What to expect as the Russian army withdraws:

I sorta don't care about presidents and foreign policy gaffes from last century. Not today at least.

 

Another win for the burn-it-all-down guys.

[Guest Lobo]

Okay sweetheart.  My point was, he was very vocal in his distrust of Soviet Russia.  Even when he was friends with Gorby.  He would shit himself into a chocolate suit if he knew how far our nation had regressed with regard to our distrust of Russia.  Never fucking mind.  tell Columbus I said hello and to go fuck itself.  

[immamac 44386]

@MaybeACoordinator @Anastasis last warning - find another thread, this one isn't for you. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

How anyone can come to the conclusion we provoked Putin to invade Ukraine is a monumental mind fuck of stupidity. Putin is exactly what every leader in Russia has been with the exception of Boris Yeltsin: despotic, autocratic, militaristic, repressive, mafioso type rulers.

Gorbachev was a reluctant peace maker. He was at least intelligent enough to see the writing on the wall. Reagan does deserve a great deal of credit as one of several factors for the USSR's ultimate downfall. Star Wars for all its impossibilities was a straw that broke the camels back because the Russian military knew it couldn't financially compete with that technology, and continue to design, and build its others military resources.  That's direct comment from several of the old guard, Russian military leaders in interviews several year back on some cable documentary.   So take it for whatever value you want. 

My opinion of Russia is it's always been a paper tiger. Their nuclear capability has been the only thing getting them a seat at the table of super power status.  Their main line military capabilities, technologies, and tactics have always lagged behind ours, even with some of the more nasty shit they've developed the last 20 years.  When you rely on unschooled, conscripts as a major component of your standing army you're gonna have trouble projecting military might thru intelligent, and motivated means.

NATO did exactly what it should have done with invites to the former eastern block states.  Does Putin invade Ukraine if they're a NATO member ?  Doubtful, highly, highly, doubtful.  That does help explain their constant meddling in the region, keeping Ukraine in a continual state of agitation, and semi conflict keeps that invite in the back pocket of NATO. 

The only threat NATO (a defensive, military alliance) poses to Russia is being a bulkhead against Russias/Putins empire building fantasies, that bring the glory of the old Soviet empire back to reality.  I bet Putin sees hi self as the lost czar,  a particularly long lived, Russian fantasy of a ruler who saves the empire, and the people.  

NATO is not invading Russia, nor any other sovereign state without some pretty exceptional reasons (SEE Iraqs invasion of Kuwait).  The way we released intel staying one or more steps ahead of Putins moves into Ukraine was pretty damned smart. It gave Putin nowhere to go with his lies, and alibis for invasion.

CONCLUSION:  Fuck Putin.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Onboard 2.0

[Bozo_Casanova 26870]

2 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

How anyone can come to the conclusion we provoked Putin to invade Ukraine is a monumental mind fuck of stupidity. Putin is exactly what every leader in Russia has been with the exception of Boris Yeltsin: despotic, autocratic, militaristic, repressive, mafioso type rulers.

Gorbachev was a reluctant peace maker. He was at least intelligent enough to see the writing on the wall. Reagan does deserve a great deal of credit as one of several factors for the USSR's ultimate downfall. Star Wars for all its impossibilities was a straw that broke the camels back because the Russian military knew it couldn't financially compete with that technology, and continue to design, and build its others military resources.  That's direct comment from several of the old guard, Russian military leaders in interviews several year back on some cable documentary.   So take it for whatever value you see want. 

My opinion of Russia is it's always been a paper tiger. Their nuclear capability has been the only thing getting them a seat at the table of super power status.  Their main line military capabilities, technologies, and tactics have always lagged behind ours, even with some of the more nasty shit they've developed the last 20 years.  When you rely on unschooled, conscripts as a major component of your standing army you're gonna have trouble projecting military might thru intelligent, and motivated means.

NATO did exactly what it should have done with invites to the former eastern block states.  Does Putin invade Ukraine if they're a NATO member ?  Doubtful, highly, highly, doubtful.  That does help explain their constant meddling in the region, keeping Ukraine in a continual state of agitation, and semi conflict keeps that invite in the back pocket of NATO. 

The only threat NATO (a defensive, military alliance) poses to Russia is being a bulkhead against Russias/Putins empire building fantasies, that bring the glory of the old Soviet empire back to reality.  I bet Putin sees hi self as the lost czar,  a particularly long lived, Russian fantasy of a ruler who saves the empire, and the people.  

NATO is not invading Russia, nor any other sovereign state without some pretty exceptional reasons (SEE Iraqs invasion of Kuwait).  The way we released intel staying one or more steps ahead of Putins moves into Ukraine was pretty damned smart. It gave Putin nowhere to go with his lies, and alibis for invasion.

CONCLUSION:  Fuck Putin.

And yet you voted for normalizing him. Twice.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Bozo_Casanova

[Bozo_Casanova 26870]

9 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

And yet you voted for normalizing him. Twice.

This post was uncharitable.

[MaybeACoordinator 8350]

16 minutes ago, immamac said:

@MaybeACoordinator @Anastasis last warning - find another thread, this one isn't for you. 

Well, you booted me off the CR and now here, too. Not very charitable to the First Amendment's principles, but it's your board, and if you want everyone in lockstep, so be it. 

[Anastasis 23723]

31 minutes ago, immamac said:

@MaybeACoordinator @Anastasis last warning - find another thread, this one isn't for you. 

Texags indeed. 

[immamac 44386]

13 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Well, you booted me off the CR and now here, too. Not very charitable to the First Amendment's principles, but it's your board, and if you want everyone in lockstep, so be it. 

Super weird that GOOGLE sent out this email especially for fucking idiots like you and anastasis. I don't use google ads or ad manager (I sell inventory directly). 

YOU are the problem, not the rest of the community.

[WhatTheBuck 28932]

25 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

This post was uncharitable.

Like the Trump Foundation?

[Brisketexan 106951]

Well, you booted me off the CR and now here, too. Not very charitable to the First Amendment's principles, but it's your board, and if you want everyone in lockstep, so be it. 

Things that people are in lockstep on often happens because it’s the not fucking stupid thing. For example, we’re pretty lockstep around here about not putting our hand on a hot stove, not shooting yourself in the dick, not guzzling gasoline, etc.
Sometimes, the different take is just really stupid. And when it has a nice whiff of victim blaming, that makes it even worse.

[Hookah Horns 3089]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

What. An utter load. Of mainlined bullshit.

The entire thing can be dispelled with a single question: is it more likely that Russia pushed for a “neutral” Ukraine because a) Russia just had regular old security concerns and wanted a truly neutral buffer, or b) Russia wanted a neutral - and thus neutered - Ukraine that it could then just t invade and conquer at will, fully assimilating it into Russia and exterminating any spark of Ukrainian independence it found?

Jesus, the Pollyanna bullshit is DEEP with this one.

Russia he made it plain and clear, for a long-ass time, that it views Ukraine as something with which they can do as they please, because Ukraine is just Russia, and any Russians who think otherwise aren’t really people. When did these fucking genius academics decide to utterly ignore what Russia a) actually does and b) actually says, when it’s being honest and internal?

FFS, this “poor Russia, if we only treated them more nicely, they wouldn’t be abusive” is sick poison. It’s the exact same insane self-destructive bullshit spit at battered spouses - “you just need to understand HIS perspective. And you really shouldn’t have provoked him - you know how he hates it when you talk while the Cowboys are on.” You should be embarrassed to post such garbage.

It's pretty clear at this point that @MaybeACoordinator is incapable of embarrassment. 

[956 Worldwide 35598]

7 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Not really sure that it would matter in the context of this exchange. Prior posts referencing people like George Kennan and his perspective on the missteps in American post-cold war policy and their inevitable consequences were met with "we can forgive him being old and wrong". You don't really care about the credentials involved. A few snipes to one or two excerpts really doesn't address the scope of the article. The reality is that if something runs contrary to your chosen orthodoxy, you simply dismiss it as Kremlin talking points. And plenty of people will lap that shit up. 

 

So serious question.  If you were to recommend a set of articles or white papers specific to a critical examination of American policy wrt Russia in the period following the fall of the Soviet Union, the things that we did right, the things that we did wrong, what we can learn and take forward, written by people that meet your requirements, what would they be?

 

The single best explainer on the persistent myths and misconceptions about western policy to Russia is not American but British and was published by Chatham House:

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/05/myths-and-misconceptions-debate-russia

Stephen Kotkin has a fantastic and deeply informed piece on why blaming the West for Ukraine is off base:

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/stephen-kotkin-dont-blame-the-west-for-russias-invasion-of-ukraine

 

Anything by Masha Gessen is worth reading but especially her 2008 Vanity Fair profile of Putin is accessible and insightful and prescient. 
 

A highly critical look but one written by someone deeply familiar with Russia is Stephen Cohen’s Failed Crusade. 
 

Keir Giles’ Moscow Rules is a good short read on what to expect in a relationship with Russia.

William Taubman wrote the best book on Gorbachev and his times.

Very specific but vital to understanding Russia’s way of war after the fall of the USSR: Sebastian Smith’s Allah’s Mountains about Russia’s brutal war and defeat in the first Chechen War.

Michal McFaul’s articles and books, especially from Cold War to Hot Peace for a look at the inside of U.S. foreign policy in the middle of the Putin reign. But his books on the 1990s are more academic and wonky. 
 

Your key problem is embedded in your question:

Quote

  If you were to recommend a set of articles or white papers specific to a critical examination of American policy wrt Russia in the period following the fall of the Soviet Union, the things that we did right, the things that we did wrong, what we can learn and take forward, written by people that meet your requirements, what would they be?

You don’t want to understand Russia. You want a cast of characters you know, engaged in a morality play where you have already chosen sides. And you want someone to blame, who is not Russian.

American foreign policy WRT to Russia is a massive topic with plenty to praise and criticize.  It is endlessly fascinating, but it is not where you should start if you want to know why Russia is what it is, who Vladimir Putin is and why he is in the Kremlin,  why it is fighting in Ukraine, and why an endless series of Western Powers, the United States being the latest, have been frustrated in any attempt to reach a productive accommodation with Russia in any of its forms.  
 

Russia spans a continent and holds hundreds of millions of people and has shaped the history and political geography of the world at least as much as the United States has. Try centering Russia and Russians for a change instead of seeking an American explanation. 
 

This is what’s meant by “Westsplaining.”

[Thatguy 9395]

4 hours ago, immamac said:

@MaybeACoordinator @Anastasis last warning - find another thread, this one isn't for you. 

  Please allow them to stay. The dialogue, as far as I am concerned, can be helpful to some who are just learning how we got here in life. With no opposition view a lot of that info wouldn't come up.

[Thatguy 9395]

8 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Not really sure that it would matter in the context of this exchange. Prior posts referencing people like George Kennan and his perspective on the missteps in American post-cold war policy and their inevitable consequences were met with "we can forgive him being old and wrong". You don't really care about the credentials involved. A few snipes to one or two excerpts really doesn't address the scope of the article. The reality is that if something runs contrary to your chosen orthodoxy, you simply dismiss it as Kremlin talking points. And plenty of people will lap that shit up. 

 

So serious question.  If you were to recommend a set of articles or white papers specific to a critical examination of American policy wrt Russia in the period following the fall of the Soviet Union, the things that we did right, the things that we did wrong, what we can learn and take forward, written by people that meet your requirements, what would they be?

 

 

5 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

The most concise argument I've seen yet for a neutral Ukraine and it doesn't even mention Mearsheimer but rather shares the opinion of scholars more focused on the region.

 

Spoilered for length:

  Reveal hidden contents

Even without downplaying the shock and disappointment most felt when Russia invaded Ukraine, it is perhaps more disheartening how many astute and highly-respected analysts/academics around the world deftly argued for a strategy that should have worked but was roundly shoved aside by Western powers: pushing for and explicitly formalizing Ukrainian neutrality might have entirely avoided this 8-year morass that has engulfed Ukraine since the Crimean conflict.

Stephen Walt, even before the current incursion, lamented what he saw as Western hubris, wishful thinking, and liberal idealism as powering an arrogance that dismissed Russian security concerns even when they were fairly conservative and rational.

Anatol Lieven talked of a “golden bridge” left by Russia for the West to positively capitalize on…if only it would.

Hall Gardner pulled no punches in going all the way back to strategic mistakes made with the initial dissolution of the Soviet Union, but also emphasized how NATO’s strategy of “double enlargement” was basically a diplomatic thumb to the nose of Russia that should have been seen as causing inevitable blowback.d

Pascal Lottaz, while still calling Russia a “rational crook,” astutely pointed out how it was impossible for Russia to not recognize NATO membership offerings to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008 as a direct provocation (or worse, confirmation of Western indifference to Russia), but also highlighted something many in the West have ignored: that failing to get Ukraine to implement the Minsk II agreement was tantamount to the West telling Russia that its strategic needs and opinions just didn’t matter.

Perhaps more importantly, Lottaz also highlighted something I have argued for more than 15 years: that Russia has always studied American international behavior carefully and will follow the realism-power principles it displays (note, this is different from the international governance normative principles America often publicly espouses). Consequently, for the current crisis in Ukraine, it matters to Russia that it can highlight an American display of invasive power backed by dubious provocation claims (Iraq), an American acknowledgement of territorial status change without larger international consent (Kosovo), or unilateral American recognition of border changes that resulted only through a non-internationally approved war (Golan Heights). While Lottaz went on, as the list can truly be made expansively if not exhaustively, the strategic relevance is unquestionable: as America behaves, so Russia feels justified in pursuing like-minded behavior aligned to its own security interests. That the West has routinely rejected this fact or simply ignored it seems based on the dubious idea that no one should have a problem with American actions because America deems itself the “good guy.” Russia, in this world view, is obviously the “bad guy” and therefore cannot be allowed to utilize the same strategic security largesse. Not surprisingly, Russia has always rejected this rather weak “good guy/bad guy” theory of international relations.

Which is why the concept of pushing for a formally recognized neutral Ukraine is so important. In the most basic of terms, it means Ukraine is off-limits to everyone. Russia would have no authority to forcefully assert its interest over Ukraine just because it is more powerful and the bigger regional player. The West would also be obligated to end all the flirtation (real and imagined) when it comes to Ukraine being part of NATO. Thus, just as Switzerland has been with so many major powers surrounding it historically in Europe and Mongolia in greater Asia, Ukraine would be an effective buffer state that is able to openly and prosperously engage both sides to its own advantage, but never for the purpose of setting both sides on edge and against each other. While the above-mentioned fine scholars have argued for quite some time as to the mutually beneficial nature of such a strategy, a nod of acknowledgment again has to go to Lottaz, who graciously recognized that in many ways, before the incursion, Russian policy on Ukraine pushed the basic structure of neutrality for years, but to no avail.

This fact leads to an uncomfortable diplomatic elephant in the room: if so many astute Western scholars can agree on a policy direction and some even explain how it likely aligns with professed Russian security perspectives, then why did the idea go ignored until after Russia actually felt compelled to invade? The answer to that awkward question is what needs greater examination and far greater airplay across international mainstream media. Arguably, this idea of Ukrainian neutrality went ignored because the West was simply unwilling to admit that it needed to let Ukraine be neutral. In other words, why let Ukraine go neutral (which would be to most a semi-acceptance of Russian priorities) when it could be brought at least symbolically into the Western fold (which delivers a much more satisfying slap to the Russian security/diplomatic face)? So, when one accepts that Russian policy on Ukraine since the 2014 Minsk II agreement has pushed for de facto neutrality and the precedent for accepting neutrality exists (Russia basically gives the same consideration for Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Mongolia within what it considers its natural sphere of influence), but that neutrality has never been seriously acknowledged by either Ukraine or the West, then it suddenly starts to be a little less murky as to why Russia might feel a more radical (and unfortunately more violent) maneuver was needed to get their attention.

The fact that the neutrality argument is finally being spoken by Ukraine and Russia to each other (even if it is still just the very beginning of bargaining at a formally-recognized negotiating table) and the West seems diplomatically amenable means three things for the global community: first, whatever the overall loss of life in Ukraine because of the incursion, it could have been easily avoided; second, this new status for Ukraine is likely the superior option not because it is the best for any one side but exactly because it leaves all sides a little dissatisfied but able to claim political contentment; third, it is finally time that all sides abandon their Cold War instincts when it comes to dealing with each other and start recognizing the need to establish a new 21st century relationship that isn’t stubbornly frozen onto the logic and suspicions of the 20th. That stubbornness sacrifices innocent lives and prevents innovative peace in favor of familiar discontent and mistrust. It is time the world became disenchanted with this familiarity.

A long snippet:

Pascal Lottaz, while still calling Russia a “rational crook,” astutely pointed out how it was impossible for Russia to not recognize NATO membership offerings to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008 as a direct provocation (or worse, confirmation of Western indifference to Russia), but also highlighted something many in the West have ignored: that failing to get Ukraine to implement the Minsk II agreement was tantamount to the West telling Russia that its strategic needs and opinions just didn’t matter.

Perhaps more importantly, Lottaz also highlighted something I have argued for more than 15 years: that Russia has always studied American international behavior carefully and will follow the realism-power principles it displays (note, this is different from the international governance normative principles America often publicly espouses). Consequently, for the current crisis in Ukraine, it matters to Russia that it can highlight an American display of invasive power backed by dubious provocation claims (Iraq), an American acknowledgement of territorial status change without larger international consent (Kosovo), or unilateral American recognition of border changes that resulted only through a non-internationally approved war (Golan Heights). While Lottaz went on, as the list can truly be made expansively if not exhaustively, the strategic relevance is unquestionable: as America behaves, so Russia feels justified in pursuing like-minded behavior aligned to its own security interests. That the West has routinely rejected this fact or simply ignored it seems based on the dubious idea that no one should have a problem with American actions because America deems itself the “good guy.” Russia, in this world view, is obviously the “bad guy” and therefore cannot be allowed to utilize the same strategic security largesse. Not surprisingly, Russia has always rejected this rather weak “good guy/bad guy” theory of international relations.

Which is why the concept of pushing for a formally recognized neutral Ukraine is so important. In the most basic of terms, it means Ukraine is off-limits to everyone. Russia would have no authority to forcefully assert its interest over Ukraine just because it is more powerful and the bigger regional player. The West would also be obligated to end all the flirtation (real and imagined) when it comes to Ukraine being part of NATO. Thus, just as Switzerland has been with so many major powers surrounding it historically in Europe and Mongolia in greater Asia, Ukraine would be an effective buffer state that is able to openly and prosperously engage both sides to its own advantage, but never for the purpose of setting both sides on edge and against each other. While the above-mentioned fine scholars have argued for quite some time as to the mutually beneficial nature of such a strategy, a nod of acknowledgment again has to go to Lottaz, who graciously recognized that in many ways, before the incursion, Russian policy on Ukraine pushed the basic structure of neutrality for years, but to no avail.

This fact leads to an uncomfortable diplomatic elephant in the room: if so many astute Western scholars can agree on a policy direction and some even explain how it likely aligns with professed Russian security perspectives, then why did the idea go ignored until after Russia actually felt compelled to invade? The answer to that awkward question is what needs greater examination and far greater airplay across international mainstream media. Arguably, this idea of Ukrainian neutrality went ignored because the West was simply unwilling to admit that it needed to let Ukraine be neutral. In other words, why let Ukraine go neutral (which would be to most a semi-acceptance of Russian priorities) when it could be brought at least symbolically into the Western fold (which delivers a much more satisfying slap to the Russian security/diplomatic face)? So, when one accepts that Russian policy on Ukraine since the 2014 Minsk II agreement has pushed for de facto neutrality and the precedent for accepting neutrality exists (Russia basically gives the same consideration for Moldova, Turkmenistan, and Mongolia within what it considers its natural sphere of influence), but that neutrality has never been seriously acknowledged by either Ukraine or the West, then it suddenly starts to be a little less murky as to why Russia might feel a more radical (and unfortunately more violent) maneuver was needed to get their attention.

The fact that the neutrality argument is finally being spoken by Ukraine and Russia to each other (even if it is still just the very beginning of bargaining at a formally-recognized negotiating table) and the West seems diplomatically amenable means three things for the global community: first, whatever the overall loss of life in Ukraine because of the incursion, it could have been easily avoided; second, this new status for Ukraine is likely the superior option not because it is the best for any one side but exactly because it leaves all sides a little dissatisfied but able to claim political contentment; third, it is finally time that all sides abandon their Cold War instincts when it comes to dealing with each other and start recognizing the need to establish a new 21st century relationship that isn’t stubbornly frozen onto the logic and suspicions of the 20th. That stubbornness sacrifices innocent lives and prevents innovative peace in favor of familiar discontent and mistrust. It is time the world became disenchanted with this familiarity.

 

5 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Consider this: Mongolia, long the buffer state between Russia and China,  has a GDP per capita of $4000. Despite having vastly more resources, that of Ukraiine is $3,700.

I mean, Mongolia has got nothin'. The national diet is meat, roots, and the milk of beasts we don't drink from. Maybe some cheese from same. Ukraine on the other hand is the breadbasket to the world and yet their people are among the poorest in Europe. A lot of that has to do with corruption....And then of what trickles down after that, they have to pay more for a national defense budget that would go away in large part were they neutral. 

 

4 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

How anyone can come to the conclusion we provoked Putin to invade Ukraine is a monumental mind fuck of stupidity. Putin is exactly what every leader in Russia has been with the exception of Boris Yeltsin: despotic, autocratic, militaristic, repressive, mafioso type rulers.

Gorbachev was a reluctant peace maker. He was at least intelligent enough to see the writing on the wall. Reagan does deserve a great deal of credit as one of several factors for the USSR's ultimate downfall. Star Wars for all its impossibilities was a straw that broke the camels back because the Russian military knew it couldn't financially compete with that technology, and continue to design, and build its others military resources.  That's direct comment from several of the old guard, Russian military leaders in interviews several year back on some cable documentary.   So take it for whatever value you want. 

My opinion of Russia is it's always been a paper tiger. Their nuclear capability has been the only thing getting them a seat at the table of super power status.  Their main line military capabilities, technologies, and tactics have always lagged behind ours, even with some of the more nasty shit they've developed the last 20 years.  When you rely on unschooled, conscripts as a major component of your standing army you're gonna have trouble projecting military might thru intelligent, and motivated means.

NATO did exactly what it should have done with invites to the former eastern block states.  Does Putin invade Ukraine if they're a NATO member ?  Doubtful, highly, highly, doubtful.  That does help explain their constant meddling in the region, keeping Ukraine in a continual state of agitation, and semi conflict keeps that invite in the back pocket of NATO. 

The only threat NATO (a defensive, military alliance) poses to Russia is being a bulkhead against Russias/Putins empire building fantasies, that bring the glory of the old Soviet empire back to reality.  I bet Putin sees hi self as the lost czar,  a particularly long lived, Russian fantasy of a ruler who saves the empire, and the people.  

NATO is not invading Russia, nor any other sovereign state without some pretty exceptional reasons (SEE Iraqs invasion of Kuwait).  The way we released intel staying one or more steps ahead of Putins moves into Ukraine was pretty damned smart. It gave Putin nowhere to go with his lies, and alibis for invasion.

CONCLUSION:  Fuck Putin.

  Bottom line. Ukraine gets to do what Ukraine wants to do. It doesn't matter what Russia wants. It doesn't matter what we want. It doesn't matter what scholars think is the right thing to do. This is the world equivalence of telling a woman how to dress.

[Captainant 28573]

3 hours ago, Thatguy said:

  Please allow them to stay. The dialogue, as far as I am concerned, can be helpful to some who are just learning how we got here in life. With no opposition view a lot of that info wouldn't come up.

I think it's moreso a warning to stop carrying Putin's water and actually fucking acknowledge that Russia alone is responsible for this aggression. That and those two posters are derailing the thread constantly. 

It's the Ukraine War thread, not class time for useful idiots

[cactusflinthead 27628]

4 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Stephen Kotkin has a fantastic and deeply informed piece on why blaming the West for Ukraine is off base:

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/stephen-kotkin-dont-blame-the-west-for-russias-invasion-of-ukraine

Posted this yesterday too. I'd really like to get a follow up with him. That was from 3/11? He was not convinced Ukr could take back Kyiv and rather cynical of their chances. I wonder what he thinks of the last few weeks.

[Nivek 17416]

OK. Happy to consider your perspective on how Vladimir Putin rose to power.  I am not sure how you can get there without the context of post-cold war policy wrt Russia, a little light election interference, and the West's push to reshape Russia's economy resulting in the rise of the Russian oligarchy, but happy to consider it. 

You are correct that nothing happens in a vacuum, but incorrect that all outside forces bear responsibility for the passivity of the Russians with respect to their police state despot.

This would be akin to blaming Henry Tandey for WW2 because he didn’t kill Hitler in WW1.

[SKJ 1322]

18 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I think that it's absurd to not appreciate the role that the failures of our post-cold war policies play in where we are today. 

You and others might find this article interesting: https://prospect.org/world/was-putin-inevitable-feb-2022/

The Western officials who inflicted raw, uncushioned shock therapy on Russia’s economy and needlessly treated Russia as a defeated enemy rather than a new security partner virtually invited a nationalist reaction likely to produce a Vladimir Putin or someone like him. This observation doesn’t make Putin a good guy. Quite the contrary: He is a thug, an autocrat, and an ally of kleptocrats. But the history shows that the twin conceits of America as sole superpower and abrupt marketization as the cure for communism interacted to create a needless catastrophe that ranks with the Treaty of Versailles. The fact that an American president has been enlisted as Putin’s agent only deepens the disaster. The rise of Hitler, at least, paralleled the ascent of Roosevelt.

As the Russia scholar Michael Mandelbaum observes, looking back at two centuries of great wars, there were two postwar settlements that basically got it right and two that got it disastrously wrong. After the Napoleonic Wars crushed the French, the 1815 Congress of Vienna nonetheless recognized France as a great power with legitimate interests. There was no such treatment of Germany after World War I. After a second world war, the victorious Allies made sure to help promote German economic recovery and bring Germany into both the Western alliance and the Western economic system. But after the Cold War, the triumphalist Americans repeated the folly of Versailles, with similar results.

This winter happens to be the 100th anniversary of the publication of the book that launched Keynes as the world’s leading critic of dumb geopolitics and misguided economics. It’s also the 30th anniversary of the collapse of communism and the bungled effort to help Russia rebuild as a democratic market economy, as well as the 20th anniversary of Putin’s rule. At 67, he is now the longest-tenured leader of any major nation, having served longer than any Russian ruler since Stalin. This is a good moment for a sorting-out. In an effort to assess whether U.S. policy and Russian history might have been different, I reviewed dozens of memoirs, books, documents, and articles from the period, and interviewed more than a score of former senior officials. The record shows there was a better road not taken.

Ha ha ha Michael Mandlebaum...

The same guy who wrote this gem...

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/02/04/meaning-super-bowl/

Among other worldview history professor bloviations on how their worldview history bloviations can explain everything by riffing

[SKJ 1322]

4 hours ago, Thatguy said:

  Please allow them to stay. The dialogue, as far as I am concerned, can be helpful to some who are just learning how we got here in life. With no opposition view a lot of that info wouldn't come up.

Or they could just start a different thread showing The Competitive Theories of  Everything through A History Professor's Means of Explanation of the World Through Minutiae and Weak Links.

 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Putin came to power as a fully baked, ex KGB operative with delusions of grandeur, and one thing on his mind, the restoration of the Soviet empire. There isn't a damn thing the west could do to change that course.  How people gin up reasons to hate the west is mind boggling. There are enough actually dumb things it's done without making up fantasies about tea parties with Putin.

That Putin sees Ukrainian independence as a security threat to the Soviet Union...........errrrr........Russia should tell you all you need to know about his mindset.

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13629]

Was listening to this yesterday and thought it was fairly insightful of particular aspects of Russian society. 37 minutes long.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deeply-held-religious-beliefs-cant-be-easily-eradicated/id1237796990?i=1000555796029

"The Russian Revolution is thought to have everything to do with the writings of Karl Marx. He predicted in the 19th century that history was marching inevitably toward a proletarian revolution and workers would overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist one. To many observers in Moscow, that’s exactly what was happening. But one Russian scholar disagrees. He believes the Russian Revolution had nothing to do with Marx and everything to do with, paradoxically, the Russian Orthodox Church. Namely, Russia’s century-old history of Orthodox monasticism.

 

Today’s guest is Jim Curtis, a Russian scholar, professor emeritus, and author of In Stalin’s Soviet Monastery. The story begins with the young Iosif Djugashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, who was studying to be a priest in an Orthodox seminary. He took on the role that defined his political career, that of a sadistic elder who imposed fiendish vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on hapless Soviet citizens. This led to Stalin’s policies essentially copying passion-suffering, a practice in which one takes on the sufferings of Christi to achieve sanctification, which he used to force gulag slave labor to work on useless infrastructure projects to purify them as a proper Soviet.

 

Applying Russia’s heritage of Orthodox monasticism to Soviet history gives coherence and meaning to what is often portrayed as a chaotic and contradictory period. Thus, by ignoring Marxist rhetoric and emphasizing Russia’s monastic heritage, it arguably makes sense that Russians would perceive Lenin as a Christ figure with appropriate symbolism."

[WhatTheBuck 28932]

30 minutes ago, SKJ said:

Ha ha ha Michael Mandlebaum...

The same guy who wrote this gem...

https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/02/04/meaning-super-bowl/

Among other worldview history professor bloviations on how their worldview history bloviations can explain everything by riffing

Mandlebaum! Mandlebaum! Mandlebaum!

[Guest Lobo]

Go ahead, pick out any country in Eastern Europe and I'll lift it up, clean over my head!  

 

Don't where to put this, but register for this if you're in Austin.  Clements Center talk regarding Russia next week: 

https://www.clementscenter.org/events/item/2391-threat-of-the-first-throne-russia-s-challenge-to-european-security-and-political-order

[Macanudo 13328]

6 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The single best explainer on the persistent myths and misconceptions about western policy to Russia is not American but British and was published by Chatham House:

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/05/myths-and-misconceptions-debate-russia

Stephen Kotkin has a fantastic and deeply informed piece on why blaming the West for Ukraine is off base:

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/stephen-kotkin-dont-blame-the-west-for-russias-invasion-of-ukraine

 

Anything by Masha Gessen is worth reading but especially her 2008 Vanity Fair profile of Putin is accessible and insightful and prescient. 
 

A highly critical look but one written by someone deeply familiar with Russia is Stephen Cohen’s Failed Crusade. 
 

Keir Giles’ Moscow Rules is a good short read on what to expect in a relationship with Russia.

William Taubman wrote the best book on Gorbachev and his times.

Very specific but vital to understanding Russia’s way of war after the fall of the USSR: Sebastian Smith’s Allah’s Mountains about Russia’s brutal war and defeat in the first Chechen War.

Michal McFaul’s articles and books, especially from Cold War to Hot Peace for a look at the inside of U.S. foreign policy in the middle of the Putin reign. But his books on the 1990s are more academic and wonky. 
 

Your key problem is embedded in your question:

You don’t want to understand Russia. You want a cast of characters you know, engaged in a morality play where you have already chosen sides. And you want someone to blame, who is not Russian.

American foreign policy WRT to Russia is a massive topic with plenty to praise and criticize.  It is endlessly fascinating, but it is not where you should start if you want to know why Russia is what it is, who Vladimir Putin is and why he is in the Kremlin,  why it is fighting in Ukraine, and why an endless series of Western Powers, the United States being the latest, have been frustrated in any attempt to reach a productive accommodation with Russia in any of its forms.  
 

Russia spans a continent and holds hundreds of millions of people and has shaped the history and political geography of the world at least as much as the United States has. Try centering Russia and Russians for a change instead of seeking an American explanation. 
 

This is what’s meant by “Westsplaining.”

This is a great post with lots of good reading.

I don't know whether the books cover this but now throw in all of the other countries around the world.   US/Russia relations don't exist in a vacuum.   The actions (or inactions) of the UK, Germany, France, Turkey, China, India, Pakistan, Japan, Egypt, Israel, Iran et al, have an impact on the  situation, how we react and plan.    Toss in OPEC, the G20, UN and any other entity and it just gets even more complex.   

Have there been missteps, mistakes and outright botched decisions.   Hell yes.   But we live in a complicated world.   

 

[AnTiM 1695]

1 hour ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Was listening to this yesterday and thought it was fairly insightful of particular aspects of Russian society. 37 minutes long.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deeply-held-religious-beliefs-cant-be-easily-eradicated/id1237796990?i=1000555796029

"The Russian Revolution is thought to have everything to do with the writings of Karl Marx. He predicted in the 19th century that history was marching inevitably toward a proletarian revolution and workers would overthrow the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist one. To many observers in Moscow, that’s exactly what was happening. But one Russian scholar disagrees. He believes the Russian Revolution had nothing to do with Marx and everything to do with, paradoxically, the Russian Orthodox Church. Namely, Russia’s century-old history of Orthodox monasticism.

 

Today’s guest is Jim Curtis, a Russian scholar, professor emeritus, and author of In Stalin’s Soviet Monastery. The story begins with the young Iosif Djugashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, who was studying to be a priest in an Orthodox seminary. He took on the role that defined his political career, that of a sadistic elder who imposed fiendish vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience on hapless Soviet citizens. This led to Stalin’s policies essentially copying passion-suffering, a practice in which one takes on the sufferings of Christi to achieve sanctification, which he used to force gulag slave labor to work on useless infrastructure projects to purify them as a proper Soviet.

 

Applying Russia’s heritage of Orthodox monasticism to Soviet history gives coherence and meaning to what is often portrayed as a chaotic and contradictory period. Thus, by ignoring Marxist rhetoric and emphasizing Russia’s monastic heritage, it arguably makes sense that Russians would perceive Lenin as a Christ figure with appropriate symbolism."

This reminds me why I no longer place a lot of confidence in religion:  the number of people who are killed in the name of it.

[Brisketexan 106951]

8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The single best explainer on the persistent myths and misconceptions about western policy to Russia is not American but British and was published by Chatham House:

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/05/myths-and-misconceptions-debate-russia

Stephen Kotkin has a fantastic and deeply informed piece on why blaming the West for Ukraine is off base:

https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/stephen-kotkin-dont-blame-the-west-for-russias-invasion-of-ukraine

 

Anything by Masha Gessen is worth reading but especially her 2008 Vanity Fair profile of Putin is accessible and insightful and prescient. 
 

A highly critical look but one written by someone deeply familiar with Russia is Stephen Cohen’s Failed Crusade. 
 

Keir Giles’ Moscow Rules is a good short read on what to expect in a relationship with Russia.

William Taubman wrote the best book on Gorbachev and his times.

Very specific but vital to understanding Russia’s way of war after the fall of the USSR: Sebastian Smith’s Allah’s Mountains about Russia’s brutal war and defeat in the first Chechen War.

Michal McFaul’s articles and books, especially from Cold War to Hot Peace for a look at the inside of U.S. foreign policy in the middle of the Putin reign. But his books on the 1990s are more academic and wonky. 
 

Your key problem is embedded in your question:

You don’t want to understand Russia. You want a cast of characters you know, engaged in a morality play where you have already chosen sides. And you want someone to blame, who is not Russian.

American foreign policy WRT to Russia is a massive topic with plenty to praise and criticize.  It is endlessly fascinating, but it is not where you should start if you want to know why Russia is what it is, who Vladimir Putin is and why he is in the Kremlin,  why it is fighting in Ukraine, and why an endless series of Western Powers, the United States being the latest, have been frustrated in any attempt to reach a productive accommodation with Russia in any of its forms.  
 

Russia spans a continent and holds hundreds of millions of people and has shaped the history and political geography of the world at least as much as the United States has. Try centering Russia and Russians for a change instead of seeking an American explanation. 
 

This is what’s meant by “Westsplaining.”

So much this.  And thanks for teaching me the term "Westsplaining."

American leftists/contrarians have the same disease that the "blame Biden for inflation and gas prices" have -- America controls everything in the world, so whatever happens, America did it.  It's so fucking egocentric and shortsighted, and they don't realize that they are the intellectual equivalent of the guys who put the Biden "I did this" stickers on gas pumps.

Russia has agency.  It has had agency for 1000 years.  The countries all along its flanks have agency -- eastern europe, western europe, scandinavia, central asia, east asia -- They are all real-deal players with significant influence on Russia and Russian thinking, again, for 1000 years.  This idea that Russia's actions are little more than an involuntary reptilian reflex against stimuli arising from the US exclusively/primarily is self-absorbed thinking of the highest order.

Russia is busy, right now, being Russia.  That is, being the Russia that it has been for centuries, LONG before the US had a significant role in world affairs.  Watching an entity with a long history, distinct personality, and plenty of agency, doing what that entity has done repeatedly in the past, and this time, blaming this episode of that consistent pattern of behavior on a relatively novel stimulus is folly from whichever angle you examine it.  Yet that's just what the "no matter what happens on the globe, the US is to blame" crowd does.

That doesn't mean that the US doesn't have agency, power, and influence.  But it's a far greater and more complex system than "whatever the US does controls everything."  We overestimate our importance and power -- most of these critics will say that, or at least nod along when someone else does  Yet in the next breath, no matter what the shitstorm in the world is, they will examine that shitstorm solely through the lens of "and the US caused this."  Cognitive dissonance -- it's not just for Trumpers.

[cactusflinthead 27628]

More horror stories. Neutrality my ass. The Russians want to inflict as much pain as they can.

ht/ ahb

[Blotto 24036]

1 hour ago, AnTiM said:

This reminds me why I no longer place a lot of confidence in religion:  the number of people who are killed in the name of it.

At its roots, organized religion is just a way of controlling large numbers of people. For vast numbers of people, their religious identity is more important to them than their country, which makes that religious identity an incredibly powerful motivator. And those motivations dont have to make sense, because followers are asked to "believe" in some higher power. Its not their place to question god's will(pick your god).

Its why people give their paltry savings to conmen like Joel Osteen and Kenneth Copeland. It should be obvious they are being fleeced, but Kenneth just tells his flock that God wants him to have a new jet, and they provide. Dont think, follow. When religious ideologies collide, people die. And even when ideologies don't actually collide, those in charge of the messaging can massage "the word" until they do. 

[wildcat09 29595]

12 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

Consider this: Mongolia, long the buffer state between Russia and China,  has a GDP per capita of $4000. Despite having vastly more resources, that of Ukraiine is $3,700.

I mean, Mongolia has got nothin'. The national diet is meat, roots, and the milk of beasts we don't drink from. Maybe some cheese from same. Ukraine on the other hand is the breadbasket to the world and yet their people are among the poorest in Europe. A lot of that has to do with corruption....And then of what trickles down after that, they have to pay more for a national defense budget that would go away in large part were they neutral. 

Just try it one time man. "All empire bad." It's easy and has the benefit of being internally consistent and, even more importantly, morally good.

If we're talking about what US foreign policy should be, it's important to be pragmatic. American empire is bad and the justifications usually given for it are usually bullshit. It's fine and good to be critical of policy decisions. But reflexive contrarianism isn't critical analysis, it's just an excuse not to think about something. There's no good goddamned reason for someone who claims to be a progressive to affirmatively endorse Russian imperial ambitions just because you don't like American foreign policy.

[Brisketexan 106951]

2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

There's no good goddamned reason for someone who claims to be a progressive to affirmatively endorse Russian imperial ambitions just because you don't like American foreign policy.

And a whole lot of this.

[cactusflinthead 27628]

Not safe for DT

 

[Brisketexan 106951]

6 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Not safe for DT

 

I presume that the next step is to sign all these devices up for Cat Facts, to slowly drive the rooskies insane.

[Hornius Emeritus 12806]

12 hours ago, immamac said:

@MaybeACoordinator @Anastasis last warning - find another thread, this one isn't for you. 

In my opinion, they should only be banned if they are not arguing in good faith. I believe that Maybe A  Coordinator is arguing in good faith. He may be wrong, but that is not grounds for banning. Again, just my opinion.

[wildcat09 29595]

Just now, Hornius Emeritus said:

In my opinion, they should only be banned if they are not arguing in good faith. I believe that Maybe A  Coordinator is arguing in good faith. He may be wrong, but that is not grounds for banning. Again, just my opinion.

Agreed. I do think Ana has been shitposting, though.

[washparkhorn 9974]

Foreign Affairs has an excellent primer on Putin’s war on the thousand year history of Russian-Ukraine relations (tldr-Putin lies). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/2022-04-06/putins-war-history-ukraine-russia
(free with registration)

excerpt - 

Quote

On the evening of February 21, 2022, three days before Russian forces began the largest land invasion on the European continent since World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin gave an angry televised speech. In it, he expressed familiar grievances about the eastward expansion of NATO, alleged Ukrainian aggression, and the presence of Western missiles on Russia’s border. But most of his tirade was devoted to something else: Ukrainian history. “Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us,” Putin said. “It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” Ukraine’s borders, he asserted, have no meaning other than to mark a former administrative division of the Soviet Union: “Modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia.”

To many Western ears, Putin’s historical claims sounded bizarre. But they were of more than casual importance. Far from an innovation of the current crisis, Putin’s argument that Ukraine has always been one and the same with Russia, and that it has been forcibly colonized by Western forces, has long been a defining part of his worldview. Already during the Maidan popular uprising in Kyiv in 2013–14, Putin claimed that the people leading the huge protests were Western-backed fashisti(fascists) trying to tear Ukraine from its historical roots. (In fact, the protests caught the West by surprise, and although they included a far-right fringe, they were no fascist takeover.) And in July 2021, well before the buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, the Kremlin published a 7,000-word essay under Putin’s byline with the title “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” Both Russia and Ukraine, it asserted, have not only common roots in language and faith but also a shared historic destiny. Since its publication, the essay has become part of the required curriculum for all service members in the Russian armed forces, including those fighting in the current war. According to Putin’s logic, all divisions between Russia and Ukraine are the work of Western powers. From Poland in the sixteenth century to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the nineteenth century and the Nazis in World War II, they have periodically coerced Ukraine or led it astray. In this reading, Kyiv’s pro-Western outlook over the past decade is only the latest form of external interference—this time by the European Union and the United States—aimed at dividing Russia against itself. Ukraine’s “forced change of identity,” Putin wrote, is “comparable...to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.” In Putin’s meaning, “us” included Ukrainians. Ukrainians and Ukraine, in other words, aren’t just naturally part of Russia; they don’t even really exist.

A variation on the “Ukraine doesn’t really exist” theme is the Kremlin’s assertion that Ukraine is a foregone failure. According to this view—long echoed in a more sophisticated form by Western commentators—thanks to its geography and political history, Ukraine is forever destined to be riven by internal division or torn apart by more powerful neighbors. This was the core narrative of Putin’s propaganda the last time he invaded Ukraine, when he grabbed Crimea and the Donbas following the Maidan protests in Kyiv. Then, Russian state media reported that Ukraine was a failed state taken over by a neo-Nazi junta and that Russian forces were riding to the rescue. The close Putin adviser who directed all this propaganda, the bodyguard turned strategist Vladislav Surkov, reprised the theme in an interview with the Financial Times last year. Ukraine, he said, using an odd analogy, was like the “soft tissue” between two bones, which, until it was severed, would rub painfully together. (With Russian journalists, he was more straightforward: the “only method that has historically proved effective in Ukraine,” he said, is “coercion into fraternal relations.”)

As the extraordinary resilience and unity of the Ukrainian population in the current war have demonstrated, these Russian claims are nonsense. Saying that Ukraine doesn’t really exist is as absurd as saying that Ireland doesn’t exist because it was long under British rule, or that Norwegians are really Swedes. Although they won statehood only 31 years ago, the Ukrainians have a rich national history going back centuries. The idea that Ukrainians are too weak and divided to stand up for themselves is one they are magnificently disproving on the battlefield. As for the neo-Nazi insult, this is belied by the fact that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is Jewish and that in the most recent parliamentary elections, in 2019, Ukraine’s far-right party, Svoboda, won less than three percent of the vote. As Putin’s imagined Ukraine has increasingly diverged from Ukrainian reality, the myth has become harder to sustain, the contradictions too acute. But rather than adjusting his historical fantasy to bring it closer to the truth, Putin has doubled down, resorting to military force and totalitarian censorship in a vain attempt to make reality closer to the myth. He may now be learning that reality is hard to defy: the wages of bad history are disaster in the present.

And for anyone attempting to understand the Russian mind, I highly recommend Mother (1906) by Maxim Gorky. 

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 34106]

8 hours ago, Thatguy said:

  Please allow them to stay. The dialogue, as far as I am concerned, can be helpful to some who are just learning how we got here in life. With no opposition view a lot of that info wouldn't come up.

That's not what is happening here.

19 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I presume that the next step is to sign all these devices up for Cat Facts, to slowly drive the rooskies insane.

I prefer "A Dick A-Day"

[Horn Dog 10158]

Having a really shitty day guys.  Forgot to let the dog out last night so she pooped in the hallway.  Also could not find my car keys this morning.   If not for the fucked up US foreign entanglements and policies of the 80's and 90's, none of this would have happened.

[freyguy 4368]

1 hour ago, cactusflinthead said:

Not safe for DT

 

Sergey, why is phone beeping?

[Gatorubet 30746]

57 minutes ago, Hornius Emeritus said:

In my opinion, they should only be banned if they are not arguing in good faith. I believe that Maybe A  Coordinator is arguing in good faith. He may be wrong, but that is not grounds for banning. Again, just my opinion.

Arguing that Maryland is an SEC school in a football thread is wrong.   Continuing to argue that point after being apprised that your position is wrong - eventually - reeks of trolling rather than innocent but a misguided or stupid take.   In this thread he is arguing that the soft drink cups sold in Maryland  were made in Alabama, so SEC. 

At some point he needs to STFU. 

[Macanudo 13328]

2 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

Arguing that Maryland is an SEC school in a football thread is wrong.   Continuing to argue that point after being apprised that your position is wrong - eventually - reeks of trolling rather than innocent but a misguided or stupid take.   In this thread he is arguing that the soft drink cups sold in Maryland  were made in Alabama, so SEC. 

At some point he needs to STFU. 

Tulane left the SEC because of the big bad bullies.   The bullies should burn in hell!

[Huckleberry 34696]

I mean if you really think about it, nothing is the USA's fault because it's really England's fault for taxing the colonies without representation. 

Obviously it was inevitable that we'd commit atrocities after someone wronged us that time. 

[Hornius Emeritus 12806]

Super article:  THE FIRST DIGITAL WAR
 

Spoiler

After World War II, most people were willing to forgive the Germans.  That was because, under the Nazi regime, many Germans lacked access to accurate information.  Though some of them suspected something, their brainwashed minds forced them to dismiss it as false.  It is expected that the consequences of the present Russian-Ukrainian war will be quite different because the vast majority of Ukraine is covered by 4G or 4G LTE mobile networks.

Similar to Ukraine, Russia's mobile networks and Internet coverage are almost 100%, at least in populated areas.  Citizens of Russia have access to truthful information (or whatever remains of it during the war).  Unlike postwar Germany, Russians are not likely to be forgiven this time.  It will no longer be acceptable to say, "We didn't know" or "We just followed orders."

The Russian units had been identified before entering Ukrainian territory.  Each commander had been singled out.  Leaks have been reported of a database containing 120 thousand Russian soldiers and officers fighting in Ukraine.  The names, addresses, passports, and military identifications of these individuals have been published.  Additionally, a massive data-mining operation with open (and some illegally obtained but commonly available in Russia) sources revealed every Russian invader's phone numbers, family members, travel patterns, photographs, friends, and parents.  It has never happened before; recall that the Internet does not have a "delete" button.  The world will access everything it knows about the aggressors in perpetuity.  For the first time in history, the victim of the aggression makes sure that every Russian will soon google what their loved one has done in Ukraine.

Today's generation of Russians, like the rest of the world, have no access to the names of those Soviet "liberators" who raped millions of German girls in 1945.  However, the names of those Russians who raped Ukrainian girls (some of whom were under ten years old) are filed and are potentially accessible on the Internet for everyone to see.  Atrocities committed by Soviet troops in "liberated" by Stalin European countries in World War II are not widely recognized but remembered by the locals.  Some countries are familiar with the Russian "liberators" to a greater degree before World War II, such as Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states.

It is a matter of a state secret that the death toll of Russian soldiers is kept confidential.  However, with bureaucratic punctuality, the Russian Ministry of Defense (or rather the Ministry of Offense) publishes a list of military decorations.  Details such as names, DoBs, army units, etc., are included in the description.  The point is that published data indicates whether a medal was awarded posthumously.  There is an established strict numbering system for military decorations.  The sequence of awards' numbers with the posthumous mark provides the best estimate of Russians killed in action in Ukraine, as indirectly confirmed by the Russians themselves.  That number is currently an order of magnitude higher than what Russian propaganda claims.

Shortly after the attack, local carriers canceled the registration of Russia-issued cell phones on Ukrainian mobile networks.  Having robbed the local Ukrainian population of cell phones, the attackers became ecstatic that they could now contact their loved ones for free.  However, nobody told them that Ukrainian intelligence has access to all phone calls via Ukrainian networks.  As a result, it is the first war in which practically all communications among the "liberators" are intercepted and recorded.  Moreover, all telephone calls between the invading units and their relatives in Russia were captured and documented, along with all metadata (geolocation, timestamp, and the two telephone numbers).

Ukrainian intelligence quickly traced calls made from the territory of Ukraine to Russian phone numbers.  These stolen Ukrainian cell phone numbers are made into targets of the Ukrainian digital campaign designed to influence the current smartphone user (presumably a Russian soldier) to defect.  Similarly, the corresponding Russian telephone numbers are intended to cultivate distrust, panic, and diverse anti-Putin narratives.  Russian soldiers are receiving frightening text messages: indeed, after the war, we will find you; revenge by Ukrainians is imminent; neither you nor your family members are safe, even if you never depart Russia.  One message reads, "Maybe not today, but tomorrow or in a year, you will die.  We are coming after you."

The Russians likely had world-class secure communication equipment prior to the invasion.  This equipment, however, is rarely used because of a lack of training.  Thus, virtually no one among the invaders uses scrambled (encrypted) communication modes.  Instead, Russian crews use known radio frequencies operated by inexperienced conscripts.  Ukrainian intelligence received complete knowledge of Russian operations through an open wireless exchange.  At the beginning of the conflict, Ukrainian radio amateurs published known Russian military frequencies, and a worldwide volunteer army of radio amateurs jumped in and drowned Russian radio traffic in interference. 

The practice was later suppressed by Ukrainian intelligence because of the importance of SIGINT information.  After that, the international radio amateur community banned Russian radio amateurs from most international contests for the first time in history.  At this time, Russians are still operating openly on short-wave radio and Ukrainian cellular phones.  However, some are still baffled about how Ukrainian long-distance artillery batteries became aware of their precise positions.

Two factors initially shocked the world: the lack of professionalism of the Russian attackers and the significant level of professionalism of Ukrainian defenders.  Today, the world is surprised that the Russians have not much tried to cover up their atrocities perpetrated on the temporarily occupied (and recently liberated) Ukrainian territories.  It appears no one informed them that targeting civilians is a war crime.  The fact stands that some Russians -- soldiers and officers -- may not have been familiar with the Geneva Convention.  Furthermore, they did not have a great deal of knowledge about Ukraine: nobody in the Russian military was mindful of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986, so they foolishly dug trenches in the still-deadly radioactive forest. 

The atrocities perpetrated in Ukraine are essentially unerasable.  The high-resolution photographs and recorded metadata will be accepted as evidence by military tribunals after the war.  For example, hackers gained access to a security camera in a Belarussian military post office and uploaded the video online.  Therefore, anybody can witness for several hours what Russian marauders brought with them from Ukraine and sent to their families in Russia -- from frying pans to toys to laptops to women's underwear to toilets (including the used ones).

At this point, the war has reached a complete digital internationalization phase.  Prime Minister Winston Churchill assembled a worldwide coalition to combat the Nazis over two tough years.  President Zelensky used 21st-century digital technology to accomplish the same within just two weeks.  Accordingly, it became the first war in which every square inch of battleground territory was filmed either from space or drones.  Furthermore, it is the first war in which most firefights and post-battle dispositions were captured on cell phones and uploaded to the Internet.  In other words, the current conflict is genuine, the First Digital War.

Military historians have noted for some time that in a duel between armor and a projectile, the projectile consistently prevails.  The first large-scale conflict of the 21st century in Europe may produce another adage: in the end, digital truth always triumphs over digital propaganda, despite initial setbacks.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Hornius Emeritus

[Gatorubet 30746]

20 minutes ago, Macanudo said:

Tulane left the SEC because of the big bad bullies.   The bullies should burn in hell!

Got-dang Suwanee sponsored propaganda.  Tulane is their beard. 

[Anastasis 23723]

7 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

You don’t want to understand Russia. You want a cast of characters you know, engaged in a morality play where you have already chosen sides. And you want someone to blame, who is not Russian.

American foreign policy WRT to Russia is a massive topic with plenty to praise and criticize.  It is endlessly fascinating, but it is not where you should start if you want to know why Russia is what it is, who Vladimir Putin is and why he is in the Kremlin,  why it is fighting in Ukraine, and why an endless series of Western Powers, the United States being the latest, have been frustrated in any attempt to reach a productive accommodation with Russia in any of its forms.  
 

Russia spans a continent and holds hundreds of millions of people and has shaped the history and political geography of the world at least as much as the United States has. Try centering Russia and Russians for a change instead of seeking an American explanation. 

I think that it is absolutely important to try to understand modern Russia in the context of its history and intersection with the West. You are correct however that I strongly tend towards critical examination of our own actions in these discussions. We don't control Russia. And generalizing, we don't control Saudia Arabia nor Israel nor Iran nor Syria not any other place that we want to mold to our hegemonic ends. What we do control are our own actions and the manner in which we engage. And we can reasonably anticipate how other actors will respond to the specific actions we take. We can't force these other countries into the mold that we wish they would adopt, and we can't enforce a world order without consideration of the other actors and how they will respond. But that's exactly what we tried to do with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. People who knew Russia intimately raised the flag (e.g., Kennan, Cohen, etc.). We plowed ahead anyways.

None of that absolves Russia for the invasion. It does not absolve war crimes being conducted in Ukraine.  It does not absolve Vladimir Putin. Just tries to promote some self reflection on the role that we played in the world during the unipolar moment and the role that we play in how the geopolitical pieces are currently arranged.

Anyhow, thanks for the cites for additional perspective.  I'll work through some of them. In the meantime, @immamac can have his way.