Russia and American elections, now featuring radical republicans as co-stars

[956 Worldwide 34728]

Russia will come to PLAY at NATO- Russia Council.  Jens Stoltenberg is a technocrat and functionary with no decision making authority, but that’s the job description.  NATO operates on consensus and decision making lies with the members.  Russia is brutal in multilateral forums and will be looking to leverage their friends, scare members that can be scared, and generally split the alliance. The forum isn’t a good venue for advancing a positive agenda, but because of consensus it’s a great venue to obstruct.  If there’s something Russia REALLY doesn’t want the alliance to do after bilats with the United States, this is where they try to kill it. 

[956 Worldwide 34728]

23 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

As to your last point, yep. When we were in Berlin, we spent a day with a senior producer at one of the bigger German news outfits. I asked him in particular about Annalena (because duh, I have a crush on her….and ALSO because it’s interesting to have a Green “in charge” of foreign affairs), and the conversation was kinda short. His take was to the point: when it comes to the foreign affairs that really matter, like relations with Russia, the US makes the decisions, and Germany is on the periphery. His tone was a good bit annoyed by that truth, but it is what it is.

It was an interesting perspective, as I tried to push back a little and give Germany more agency, but he was firm in not pretending the truth was anything but the US driving the bus and everyone else being along for the ride.

If only. Germany has kind of voluntarily made itself less of a player in some areas by refusing to invest in defense. But Germany is absolutely a brake on Russia policy and look at one of the biggest prizes— Nord Stream 2.  Germany may not be behind the wheel— but think of them as one of those drivers ed cars, where they can stomp on the brakes from the passenger seat. 

[Shady Ray 1633]

35 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

As to your last point, yep. When we were in Berlin, we spent a day with a senior producer at one of the bigger German news outfits. I asked him in particular about Annalena (because duh, I have a crush on her….and ALSO because it’s interesting to have a Green “in charge” of foreign affairs), and the conversation was kinda short. His take was to the point: when it comes to the foreign affairs that really matter, like relations with Russia, the US makes the decisions, and Germany is on the periphery. His tone was a good bit annoyed by that truth, but it is what it is.

It was an interesting perspective, as I tried to push back a little and give Germany more agency, but he was firm in not pretending the truth was anything but the US driving the bus and everyone else being along for the ride.

Yeah, he is right. Particularly on anything involving potential military conflicts. The Germans will generally defer to the US on Security Policy, until it impacts the ability for Big German Industry to thrive and dominate within the European block, of course.
 

That’s why you saw the typically-deal-making Merkel remain completely immovable on discussions with the US on NS2, despite a massive amount of pressure by the US to kill it. And that’s why even behind the scenes at the moment you see Scholz starting to be somewhat soft regarding honoring Merkel’s summer 2021 “compromise” with Biden which said “if Russia invades, NS2 is off the table”.
 

In the periphery political gossip, it is now becoming a loootttt more “Clintonian” ….”well, yeah, but it depends on what the definition of ‘invasion’ is”. A full-on invasion, yeah…but if they have the chance to pawn this off as indirect Russian activity through lets say the Donbas republics, or a limited action, they’ll welch on killing it. That’s why Scholz took it from your girl.

Edited January 9, 2022 by Shady Ray

[Shady Ray 1633]

22 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Russia will come to PLAY at NATO- Russia Council.  Jens Stoltenberg is a technocrat and functionary with no decision making authority, but that’s the job description.  NATO operates on consensus and decision making lies with the members.  Russia is brutal in multilateral forums and will be looking to leverage their friends, scare members that can be scared, and generally split the alliance. The forum isn’t a good venue for advancing a positive agenda, but because of consensus it’s a great venue to obstruct.  If there’s something Russia REALLY doesn’t want the alliance to do after bilats with the United States, this is where they try to kill it. 

That is a valid point. I don't think they view NATO as having any form of true power here, as they are still very much stuck in the mold of Great Power Politics, but I could see your point in them using the forum to create havoc within the Alliance.

[Eastwood 4394]

On 1/8/2022 at 10:43 AM, Baconboy said:

Supposedly Clinton and Putin actually discussed this, though I doubt either side was truly sincere or that Putin had noble intentions when he raised the subject.

Putin likely did it as a stall tactic because he wasn't firmly entrenched into a position of power until the very tail end of Clinton's presidency.

[Shady Ray 1633]

Aaaaand just now...right on cue as though they were reading this thread. Berlin ain't even going through the motions of playing ball anymore, invasion or not.

 

Concern among some big European nations about economic fallout raises the risk of a split with the U.S. on how strongly to hit Russia with fresh sanctions if it invades Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter.

...
European nations also fret that Russia would likely retaliate, possibly even cutting crucial gas supplies to a continent already grappling with record high energy prices. The bulk of any EU-wide response would also have to be unanimously agreed by all 27 member states, a group with differing views on Russia in general.
...
One former official with ties to the current U.S. administration said a point of concern is how much Germany, which has just completed the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, would be on board. The recent departure of Angela Merkel as German chancellor after 16 years has also left a gap in terms of a European leader who can both navigate the EU into an agreement and engage directly with Putin, the person said. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has not started pumping gas and is still awaiting regulatory approvals from Berlin and Brussels.

 

Article is paywalled, but full version is quoted below.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-09/europe-frets-about-economic-hit-if-russia-is-sanctioned-heavily

Quote

Europe Frets About Economic Hit If Russia Is Sanctioned Heavily
Alberto NardelliJanuary 9, 2022, 6:29 PM GMT+1

Concern among some big European nations about economic fallout raises the risk of a split with the U.S. on how strongly to hit Russia with fresh sanctions if it invades Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter.
 

Western allies are united in their desire to prevent a war as they enter high-stakes talks this week aimed at defusing tensions with Russia, warning it faces massive penalties for any incursion. Actions that have been discussed include export controls, curbing Russia’s access to technology, and even cutting it out of the global system for financial payments.
 

But while the major Western European members of the European Union remain committed in principle to a significant response, some have also aired worries with the U.S. about the potential for damage to their own economies, the people said. The group is still working through economic and legal assessments of the potential sanctions, they said. 
 

European nations also fret that Russia would likely retaliate, possibly even cutting crucial gas supplies to a continent already grappling with record high energy prices. The bulk of any EU-wide response would also have to be unanimously agreed by all 27 member states, a group with differing views on Russia in general. 
 

The U.S. has been consulting with various European nations ahead of the Russia talks, including what is known as the Quint grouping in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which involves France, Germany, the U.K. and Italy. It has also held talks with Eastern European states.
 

Translating well-coordinated words into a joint agreement on some of the specific measures being explored could prove tricky, the people said. The differences underline the challenge the U.S. and its allies face as they try to pressure President Vladimir Putin into reversing his massive troop buildup near the Ukraine border.
 

The countries have discussed options including cutting Russia out of Swift, the international payments system, limiting Russian banks’ ability to convert currencies and imposing export controls on advanced technologies used in aviation, semiconductors and other components, as well as computers and other consumer goods in more extreme scenarios.
 

The curbs could hit everything from aircraft avionics and machine tools to smartphones, games consoles, tablets and televisions, another person familiar with the discussions said. Under some actions, Russia could face export controls as stringent as those for Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria, which have been largely cut off from global trade and financing, according to the person. 
 

One former official with ties to the current U.S. administration said a point of concern is how much Germany, which has just completed the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, would be on board. The recent departure of Angela Merkel as German chancellor after 16 years has also left a gap in terms of a European leader who can both navigate the EU into an agreement and engage directly with Putin, the person said. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has not started pumping gas and is still awaiting regulatory approvals from Berlin and Brussels.
 

“We are coordinating our approach closely with transatlantic and other like-minded partners,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Sunday in a blog post. “There is no security in Europe without the security of Ukraine.”
 

Officials from Russia and the U.S. gather in Geneva from today, with a Russia-NATO council meeting also on the slate for this week, plus talks in Vienna under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Putin has said he does not currently plan to invade Ukraine, but is also demanding NATO provide him security guarantees.
 

U.S. officials are pinning their hopes for common ground in the talks on issues such as arms control and greater communication between their militaries, according to people familiar with the plans, given the NATO guarantees that Putin seeks are a non-starter. They’re willing to explore reciprocal restrictions on strategic bombers and ground-based military exercises, a senior administration official said. 
 

U.S. Takes Thorniest Ukraine Issue Off Table in Russia Talks
 

Still, the U.S. will hold off on making firm commitments during the talks, and plans discussions with allies before any agreements, the official added. It won’t negotiate scaling back troop deployments in Eastern Europe, they said, denying an NBC News report.
 

Russia isn’t optimistic ahead of the meeting, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Interfax, adding the country’s negotiators want a quick resolution. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also told ABC News on Sunday he didn’t expect a breakthrough. 

Intelligence assessments and satellite images show there are now more than 100,000 Russian troops in the vicinity of Ukraine. Russia has also developed capabilities to deploy more units in a short period of time, from one to two weeks, according to a military assessment seen by Bloomberg. Russia has shown no sign of de-escalating, officials have said, and is ramping up efforts to target Ukraine with disinformation. 
 

Ukraine’s Army Is Underfunded and Not Ready to Stop an Invasion
 

One of the people said a separate military assessment pointed to the possibility Russia moves into the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine before the northern hemisphere spring, rather than a large-scale invasion from multiple locations.
 

Ukraine and Russia have been in conflict since Putin responded to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that ousted the pro-Moscow president by seizing Crimea. Russia also backed separatists in eastern Ukraine by sending personnel and weapons, helping stoke a conflict that has killed more than 14,000 people.

 

 

[Shady Ray 1633]

And now a full court PR press on the issue through the national German press, as a whole slew of NS2 stories have suddenly come out in the evening before the big discussions.

 

Some context here. The Greens' big domestic play here re derailing NS2 was to split "Boomer Olaf Scholz" from the younger, wayyy more left-wing/idealistic "Young Socialists of the SPD" ("Jusos"). The longtime head of the Jusos is a 32 year-old dude named Kevin Kühnert. However, Kühnert was actually just elected as General Secretary of the full SPD, so he has a massive amount of power over the SPD party apparatus, as well as the following of the young lefties in the party. He essentially has more power in the Party now than anyone but Scholz himself...he acts essentially as the Party whip, the resource allocator to candidates AND to the grassroots across Germany, and as the voice of the SPD Parliamentary faction all rolled into one. Kühnert has kept really quiet on this topic as it has played out, and there was a question as to whether he might actually split from Olaf, as even by Jusos standards, he was a hard-core leftie when coming up.

 

Welp, Kühnert just came out in an interview saying that regardless of what happens this week, it is the official position of the SPD -young and old- that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal and that it is time for "political and legal peace" on the issue. He goes on to say that opening the pipeline "is the position of the vast majority of Germans" and that opening up the pipeline "does not constitute a concession to Putin" and that "the moment it goes online does not mean that the German Government has made a statement regarding Russian government policies." He closes by saying, "Diplomacy offers alternatives to simply shutting down gas pipelines and the German Government has made its position clear with respect to human rights violations in Russia and our support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine."

 

Looks to me like the Germans don't anticipate this week going well and they are laying the groundwork to move ahead with the pipeline regardless of what happens, as no one in the new government has ever been so unequivocal on NS2.

 

Link below...only thing I could find was in German. Focus is one of the two big boys in German periodicals. 

 

https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/ende-des-zoffs-mit-putin-waehrend-baerbock-bockt-spricht-spd-general-kuehnert-klartext-zu-nord-stream-2_id_36685321.html

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Shady Ray

[Hornius Emeritus 12473]

Willie had it right in 1980. Let the Russians play with themselves!


 

[atomheartbevo 89735]

4 hours ago, Shady Ray said:

Looks to me like the Germans don't anticipate this week going well and they are laying the groundwork to move ahead with the pipeline regardless of what happens, as no one in the new government has ever been so unequivocal on NS2.

There was a book a few decades ago, about some pipeline shenanigans causing problems....

[956 Worldwide 34728]

Former Polish Foreign Minister and current European Parliament member brings the heat.

Edited January 10, 2022 by 956 Worldwide

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

I really like this Radek dude, but that's dangerous talk.

 

The more countries that can stymie Russias latent imperialism the better.

[Gap03 3308]

1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Former Polish Foreign Minister and current European Parliament member brings the heat.

[Telegraph_it 3358]

2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Former Polish Foreign Minister and current European Parliament member brings the heat.

I hope that guys windows are secure and he doesn't sip any bad tea. 

[Blotto 23560]

Kind of a side point, but its somewhat fascinating that diplomats will have these types of interchanges on f'n twitter, lulz. With the amount of social media fuckery that goes on (similar handles, accounts hacked, etc...) it seems like a less than ideal vehicle to enact foreign policy, but I guess that's another thing we can thank dotard for. 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Blotto

[Shady Ray 1633]

11 hours ago, Blotto said:

Kind of a side point, but its somewhat fascinating that diplomats will have these types of interchanges on f'n twitter, lulz. With the amount of social media fuckery that goes on (similar handles, accounts hacked, etc...) it seems like a less than ideal vehicle to enact foreign policy, but I guess that's another thing we can thank dotard for. 

Meh, he's not really in the mix anymore in any consequential way wrt foreign policy (at least in any way more than any other of the 705 MEPs) and he has kind of built his current brand on this kind of positioning re Russia. He is married to American author/hawkish ex-WaPo commentator Anne Applebaum, so if the missiles actually started flying over Warsaw, he'd have the luxury of avoiding the hardships of war by taking one of the many opportunities that have been offered him in the US (Harvard, AEI, etc).

 

Although, he actually had a really strong position to become a major player in the larger European diplomatic scene in 2014 when Catherine Ashton was finishing her term as EU Foreign Policy Grand Poobah, but he got caught on tape saying a bunch of shit that didn't play well in the big leagues of European diplomacy about the Polish relationship with the US being worthless/used some racial slurs for Africans, so that opportunity kind of fizzled out for him and Italian Federica Mogherini got the gig. Which was a shame, as until that time he had a ton of backing for the post, even in Western Europe. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/22/poland-foreign-minister-alliance-us-worthless

 

The diplomats/politicians actually involved in influencing negotiations/policy over here are pretty formal, releasing general statements for/against something, but generally speaking they keep it pretty bland and boring, even on Twitter. Which is a shame sometimes, because I would love to see some wild ass Trumpian shit from time to time. "LOL at these Finns and their forced austerity proposals for the OG Democracy! They are just jealous of our relaxing way of life with their sunless days and the unavailibility to view bare titties on Meditteranean beaches year-round! SAD!" --Greek PM

[bolverk 29694]

U.S. Charges Russia Sent Saboteurs Into Ukraine to Create Pretext for Invasion
The intelligence said the operatives were “trained in urban warfare and in using explosives,” and could try to stage an incident.

Jan. 14, 2022
Updated 12:40 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration accused Moscow on Friday of sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to stage an incident that could provide President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with a pretext for ordering an invasion of parts or all of the country.

The White House did not release details of the evidence it had collected to back up its charge, though one official said it was a mix of intercepted communications and observations of the movements of people. In an email, a U.S. official wrote that “Russia is laying the groundwork to have the option of fabricating a pretext for invasion, including through sabotage activities and information operations, by accusing Ukraine of preparing an imminent attack against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.”

John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, called the intelligence about the operation “very credible” when asked about it at a Pentagon briefing on Friday.

The U.S. official who described the intelligence, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, added that the assessment found that “the Russian military plans to begin these activities several weeks before a military invasion, which could begin between mid-January and mid-February. We saw this playbook in 2014 with Crimea.” Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, a part of Ukraine, that year. It also sent military forces, who operated without wearing uniforms, into the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where the war has been grinding on.

The accusation came a day after the conclusion of a week of diplomatic encounters with Russia, moving from Geneva to Brussels to Vienna, in an effort to de-escalate the confrontation. But those talks ended without any agreement to pull back the approximately 100,000 Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, and without U.S. or NATO agreement to demands from Moscow that it pull back all forces from former Warsaw Pact countries that have joined NATO.

The release was clearly part of a strategy to try to prevent the attacks by exposing them in advance. But without releasing the underlying intelligence — some of which has been provided to allies and shown to key members of Congress — the United States opens itself up to Russian charges that it is fabricating evidence. In past years, Russia frequently recalled the deeply flawed intelligence case the United States built for invading Iraq, as part of an effort to discredit the C.I.A. and other American intelligence agencies as political operatives.

The official said that the United States had “information that indicates Russia has already pre-positioned a group of operatives to conduct a false-flag operation in eastern Ukraine,” where Russian-backed forces have been fighting a grinding war of attrition with the Ukrainian government. The operatives “are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy forces.”

Two other American officials said the U.S. assessment was the result of a combination of intercepts and movements on the ground of particular individuals. That could explain the administration’s reluctance to declassify granular information, for fear of alerting the Russian operatives whose movements are being tracked.

“This is a page out of the Russian playbook,” one of the officials said. “We’re very mindful that Russia will try to invent some pretext to carry out a coup attempt.”

One senior administration official said there was concern that saboteurs or provocateurs could stage an incident in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, prompting a possible pretext for a coup. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine declared several months ago that he believed a coup attempt was underway, but it never materialized.

The U.S. accusation also embraced disinformation operations, charging that in the media “Russian influence actors are already starting to fabricate Ukrainian provocations in state and social media to justify a Russian intervention and sow divisions in Ukraine.” Those include, the official said, “emphasizing narratives about the deterioration of human rights in Ukraine and the increased militancy of Ukrainian leaders.”

In his briefing, Mr. Kirby said that when “we talk about Russian operatives, it could represent a blend of individuals inside the Russian government, whether it’s from their intelligence communities, their security services or even their military.”

He said that the Russians frequently worked in ways where it was “not necessarily really clear who they specifically report to in the conduct of some of these more covert and clandestine operations.”

[Anastasis 23479]

Seems inevitable that this thing is going to go hot. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html

The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.

The CIA-trained forces could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion. The U.S. and Russia started security talks earlier this week in Geneva but have failed thus far to reach any concrete agreement.

While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.

[bolverk 29694]

17 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Seems inevitable that this thing is going to go hot. 

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/cia-trained-ukrainian-paramilitaries-may-take-central-role-if-russia-invades-185258008.html

The CIA is overseeing a secret intensive training program in the U.S. for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel, according to five former intelligence and national security officials familiar with the initiative. The program, which started in 2015, is based at an undisclosed facility in the Southern U.S., according to some of those officials.

The CIA-trained forces could soon play a critical role on Ukraine’s eastern border, where Russian troops have massed in what many fear is preparation for an invasion. The U.S. and Russia started security talks earlier this week in Geneva but have failed thus far to reach any concrete agreement.

While the covert program, run by paramilitaries working for the CIA’s Ground Branch — now officially known as Ground Department — was established by the Obama administration after Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and expanded under the Trump administration, the Biden administration has further augmented it, said a former senior intelligence official in touch with colleagues in government.

I really, really hope this doesn't turn ugly. But, if so, your article was laden with some very low-hanging fruit suitable for the Surl:

The program has involved “very specific training on skills that would enhance” the Ukrainians’ “ability to push back against the Russians,” said the former senior intelligence official.

The training, which has included “tactical stuff,” is “going to start looking pretty offensive if Russians invade Ukraine,” said the former official.

One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. “The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.”

[Ghost of LL 15539]

And The New York Times has an article on something similar this morning.    It appears the defense and intelligence apparatus wants the Russians to know that they're going to have an American-backed fight if they invade Ukraine.  

Spoiler

U.S. Considers Backing an Insurgency if Russia Invades Ukraine

Conversations about how far the United States would go to subvert Russia in the event of an invasion have revived the specter of a new Cold War.

WASHINGTON — For years, U.S. officials have tiptoed around the question of how much military support to provide to Ukraine, for fear of provoking Russia.

Now, in what would be a major turnaround, senior Biden administration officials are warning that the United States could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia invade Ukraine.

How the United States, which just exited two decades of war in Afghanistan, might pivot to funding and supporting an insurgency from fighting one is still being worked out. But even a conversation about how far the United States would go to subvert Russian aims in the event of an invasion has revived the specter of a new Cold War and suddenly made real the prospect of the beginnings of a so-called great power conflict.

In Afghanistan, the United States showed itself to be dismal at fighting insurgencies. But when it comes to funding them, military experts say it is a different ballgame.

President Biden has not determined how the United States might arm insurgents in Ukraine who would conduct what would amount to a guerrilla war against Russian military occupation. Nor is it clear what Russia’s next move might be, or whether Mr. Putin intends to launch a cyberattack. On Friday, hackers brought down several Ukrainian government websites, after days of talks between Russia and the West about the crisis.

But Biden administration officials have begun signaling to Russia, which has massed about 100,000 troops at its borders with Ukraine, that even if it managed to swiftly capture territory, Mr. Putin would eventually find the costs of an invasion prohibitively expensive in terms of military losses.

“If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, U.S. and NATO military assistance — intelligence, cyber, anti-armor and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles — would ratchet up significantly,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”

He pointed to American support for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion there in the late 1970s and 1980s, before the rise of the Taliban. “The level of military support” for a Ukrainian insurgence, Admiral Stavridis said, “would make our efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union look puny by comparison.”

Both Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have warned their Russian counterparts in recent telephone calls that any swift Russian victory in Ukraine would probably be followed by a bloody insurgency similar to the one that drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. In discussions with allies, senior Biden officials have also made clear that the C.I.A. (covertly) and the Pentagon (overtly) would both seek to help any Ukrainian insurgency.

Administration officials interviewed this week said that plans to help Ukrainian insurgents could include providing training in nearby countries that are part of NATO’s eastern flank: Poland, Romania and Slovakia, which could enable insurgents to slip in and out of Ukraine. Beyond logistical support and weapons, the United States and NATO allies could also provide medical equipment, services and even sanctuary during Russian offensives. The United States would almost certainly supply weapons, the officials said.

Since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, successive U.S. administrations have taken pains to limit military support to Ukraine largely to defensive weaponry. The United States has provided about $2.5 billion in military aid to Kyiv, including anti-tank missiles and radar that enables the Ukrainian military to better spot sources of artillery fire. The assistance has also included patrol boats and communications equipment.

The United States is also moving toward providing Ukraine with battlefield intelligence that could help the country more quickly respond to an invasion, senior administration officials said.

But all of that aid has been calibrated not to provoke Mr. Putin, officials said. If Russian troops crossed the border, the officials said, the United States could offer offensive weaponry and training.

“Given the right equipment and tactics, Ukraine can dramatically reduce the chances of a successful invasion,” a former Ukrainian defense minister, Andriy P. Zagorodnyuk, wrote in an op-ed for the Atlantic Council on Sunday that reads like an instructional manual for how the United States can support an insurgency. “By combining serving military units with combat veterans, reservists, territorial defense units and large numbers of volunteers, Ukraine can create tens of thousands of small and highly mobile groups capable of attacking Russian forces. This will make it virtually impossible for the Kremlin to establish any kind of administration over occupied areas or secure its lines of supply.”

But it is difficult to know whether Ukrainians would be willing to start an insurgency campaign that could drag on for years or even decades. Some Ukraine experts point to Crimea, where there has been little armed resistance since Russia invaded. And Mr. Putin could limit his siege to the eastern parts of Ukraine, which lean more pro-Russian than the west.

A Western military adviser to the Ukrainians said that details of a specific resistance there remained a closely held secret. But already, particularly in the west, Ukrainians are joining territorial defense forces that train in guerrilla tactics.

The Biden administration and its NATO allies want to capitalize on any distaste the Russian body politic might have for troop casualties, U.S. and European officials said in interviews. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss planning.

Funding and supporting an insurgency is difficult, defense planners and military experts said. It requires developing a long-game mind-set and keeping up morale among fighters in the face of a state-sanctioned enemy that is backed by heavy weaponry.

Russian retaliation against Ukrainian insurgents is likely to be “swift, direct and very brutal,” said Seth G. Jones, the director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s likely to get bloody.”

Mr. Jones also suggested that Russia might start to build some type of wall along Ukraine’s borders with NATO countries, putting a new Iron Curtain in place.

But Evelyn N. Farkas, who was the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration, when Russia invaded Crimea, recalled a debate at the time about how tough the United States could be with Russia without provoking further action. Eight years later, she noted that Mr. Putin is still threatening the country’s sovereignty.

In an interview, she said that this time around, “I think the gloves should come off.”

 

[Post Oak 20251]

Close enough

 

[Cacti 191]

36 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

But Evelyn N. Farkas, who was the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration, when Russia invaded Crimea, recalled a debate at the time about how tough the United States could be with Russia without provoking further action. Eight years later, she noted that Mr. Putin is still threatening the country’s sovereignty.

In an interview, she said that this time around, “I think the gloves should come off.”

Ms. Farkas also recently authored: The US Must Prepare for War Against Russia Over Ukraine

[WhatTheBuck 28789]

7 hours ago, bolverk said:

The Biden administration accused Moscow on Friday of sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to stage an incident that could provide President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with a pretext for ordering an invasion of parts or all of the country.

Let me guess. Putin will blame it on Antifa. 

[Brisketexan 105161]

And The New York Times has an article on something similar this morning.    It appears the defense and intelligence apparatus wants the Russians to know that they're going to have an American-backed fight if they invade Ukraine.  
Spoiler

U.S. Considers Backing an Insurgency if Russia Invades Ukraine

Conversations about how far the United States would go to subvert Russia in the event of an invasion have revived the specter of a new Cold War.

WASHINGTON — For years, U.S. officials have tiptoed around the question of how much military support to provide to Ukraine, for fear of provoking Russia.

Now, in what would be a major turnaround, senior Biden administration officials are warning that the United States could throw its weight behind a Ukrainian insurgency should President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia invade Ukraine.

How the United States, which just exited two decades of war in Afghanistan, might pivot to funding and supporting an insurgency from fighting one is still being worked out. But even a conversation about how far the United States would go to subvert Russian aims in the event of an invasion has revived the specter of a new Cold War and suddenly made real the prospect of the beginnings of a so-called great power conflict.

In Afghanistan, the United States showed itself to be dismal at fighting insurgencies. But when it comes to funding them, military experts say it is a different ballgame.

President Biden has not determined how the United States might arm insurgents in Ukraine who would conduct what would amount to a guerrilla war against Russian military occupation. Nor is it clear what Russia’s next move might be, or whether Mr. Putin intends to launch a cyberattack. On Friday, hackers brought down several Ukrainian government websites, after days of talks between Russia and the West about the crisis.

But Biden administration officials have begun signaling to Russia, which has massed about 100,000 troops at its borders with Ukraine, that even if it managed to swiftly capture territory, Mr. Putin would eventually find the costs of an invasion prohibitively expensive in terms of military losses.

“If Putin invades Ukraine with a major military force, U.S. and NATO military assistance — intelligence, cyber, anti-armor and anti-air weapons, offensive naval missiles — would ratchet up significantly,” said James Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who was the supreme allied commander at NATO. “And if it turned into a Ukrainian insurgency, Putin should realize that after fighting insurgencies ourselves for two decades, we know how to arm, train and energize them.”

He pointed to American support for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion there in the late 1970s and 1980s, before the rise of the Taliban. “The level of military support” for a Ukrainian insurgence, Admiral Stavridis said, “would make our efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union look puny by comparison.”

Both Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have warned their Russian counterparts in recent telephone calls that any swift Russian victory in Ukraine would probably be followed by a bloody insurgency similar to the one that drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan. In discussions with allies, senior Biden officials have also made clear that the C.I.A. (covertly) and the Pentagon (overtly) would both seek to help any Ukrainian insurgency.

Administration officials interviewed this week said that plans to help Ukrainian insurgents could include providing training in nearby countries that are part of NATO’s eastern flank: Poland, Romania and Slovakia, which could enable insurgents to slip in and out of Ukraine. Beyond logistical support and weapons, the United States and NATO allies could also provide medical equipment, services and even sanctuary during Russian offensives. The United States would almost certainly supply weapons, the officials said.

Since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, successive U.S. administrations have taken pains to limit military support to Ukraine largely to defensive weaponry. The United States has provided about $2.5 billion in military aid to Kyiv, including anti-tank missiles and radar that enables the Ukrainian military to better spot sources of artillery fire. The assistance has also included patrol boats and communications equipment.

The United States is also moving toward providing Ukraine with battlefield intelligence that could help the country more quickly respond to an invasion, senior administration officials said.

But all of that aid has been calibrated not to provoke Mr. Putin, officials said. If Russian troops crossed the border, the officials said, the United States could offer offensive weaponry and training.

“Given the right equipment and tactics, Ukraine can dramatically reduce the chances of a successful invasion,” a former Ukrainian defense minister, Andriy P. Zagorodnyuk, wrote in an op-ed for the Atlantic Council on Sunday that reads like an instructional manual for how the United States can support an insurgency. “By combining serving military units with combat veterans, reservists, territorial defense units and large numbers of volunteers, Ukraine can create tens of thousands of small and highly mobile groups capable of attacking Russian forces. This will make it virtually impossible for the Kremlin to establish any kind of administration over occupied areas or secure its lines of supply.”

But it is difficult to know whether Ukrainians would be willing to start an insurgency campaign that could drag on for years or even decades. Some Ukraine experts point to Crimea, where there has been little armed resistance since Russia invaded. And Mr. Putin could limit his siege to the eastern parts of Ukraine, which lean more pro-Russian than the west.

A Western military adviser to the Ukrainians said that details of a specific resistance there remained a closely held secret. But already, particularly in the west, Ukrainians are joining territorial defense forces that train in guerrilla tactics.

The Biden administration and its NATO allies want to capitalize on any distaste the Russian body politic might have for troop casualties, U.S. and European officials said in interviews. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss planning.

Funding and supporting an insurgency is difficult, defense planners and military experts said. It requires developing a long-game mind-set and keeping up morale among fighters in the face of a state-sanctioned enemy that is backed by heavy weaponry.

Russian retaliation against Ukrainian insurgents is likely to be “swift, direct and very brutal,” said Seth G. Jones, the director of the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It’s likely to get bloody.”

Mr. Jones also suggested that Russia might start to build some type of wall along Ukraine’s borders with NATO countries, putting a new Iron Curtain in place.

But Evelyn N. Farkas, who was the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in the Obama administration, when Russia invaded Crimea, recalled a debate at the time about how tough the United States could be with Russia without provoking further action. Eight years later, she noted that Mr. Putin is still threatening the country’s sovereignty.

In an interview, she said that this time around, “I think the gloves should come off.”

 

Ms. Farkas also recently authored: The US Must Prepare for War Against Russia Over Ukraine

Huh….CSB time. My son knows Ms. Farkas. Senior year of high school, he had to do a semester-long project focusing on an area he was interested in as a career. He is very interested in international relations. We called upon a family connection, who realized that the boy’s interest in European affairs matched up with Ms Farkas area of expertise, so he put them in touch.

They had several lengthy conversations. I wasn’t privy to them, but the boy thought she knew her shit, and she was very forthcoming about her thoughts on the dynamics among various powers in Europe. I’ll have to forward that piece along to him, he’ll find it interesting.

[atomheartbevo 89735]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

Huh….CSB time. My son knows Ms. Farkas. Senior year of high school, he had to do a semester-long project focusing on an area he was interested in as a career. He is very interested in international relations. We called upon a family connection, who realized that the boy’s interest in European affairs matched up with Ms Farkas area of expertise, so he put them in touch.

They had several lengthy conversations. I wasn’t privy to them, but the boy thought she knew her shit, and she was very forthcoming about her thoughts on the dynamics among various powers in Europe. I’ll have to forward that piece along to him, he’ll find it interesting.

Yeah well she doesn't think much of my strategy to smuggle John Hinckley Jr. into Moscow with a pistol and fake images of Putin fucking Jodie Foster, so what does she know?

[Shady Ray 1633]

16 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

And The New York Times has an article on something similar this morning.    It appears the defense and intelligence apparatus wants the Russians to know that they're going to have an American-backed fight if they invade Ukraine.  

 

Thanks for this. I am curious about the timing of this publication in the grand scheme of the intra-European developments this week. I imagine that the Russians have always planned on the US backing the Ukrainians in such a manner, given that it is to some degree our standard M.O., and so IMO this is probably something that is more meant for domestic consumption. We have trained/funneled weapons to one side or the other (or both, in some circumstances) of almost every major conflict around the world during the past few decades, so I would be surprised if the Russians were approaching any action in Ukraine with any ideas that a Ukraine invasion would be any exception to this long-standing strategy.

 

On the other hand, I think the West is struggling to present anything meaningful in the way of deterrence right now. Unity is critical here, and unfortunately we are wildly disunited. The Germans have now made it all but official that they will not be killing NS2 under any circumstances, with now the German Defense Minister explicitly stating on Thursday that the territorial issue in Ukraine should be completely de-linked from projects like NS2 "that have no connection to the conflict." That makes almost the entirety of the federal government who have now said no-go on killing NS2, with the exception of Environmental Minister Robert Habeck and Brisket's Sidepiece, who have been essentially castrated on the issue. The Germans also came out last week and said to the Ukrainian ambassador here, "yeah, we aren't unblocking weapons shipments to you all" after the Ukrainians came to Germany and said that Germany has the "same moral obligation towards Ukraine that it does to Israel," which went over here like a lead balloon, specifically of the Hindenburg variety. 

 

Quote

 

Don't drag Nord Stream 2 into conflict over Ukraine, German defmin says

BERLIN, Jan 13 (Reuters) - German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht on Thursday warned against drawing a link between the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, meant to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany, and the differences with Moscow over Ukraine.

"We should not drag (Nord Stream 2) into this conflict," Lambrecht told the broadcaster rbb in an interview.

"We need to solve this conflict, and we need to solve it in talks - that's the opportunity that we have at the moment, and we should use it rather than draw a link to projects that have no connection to this conflict."

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/dont-drag-nord-stream-2-into-conflict-over-ukraine-german-defmin-says-2022-01-13/

 

 

Additionally, the idea of putting crippling sanctions on Gazprom or cutting Russia off from SWIFT seem to have also lost a lot of steam, with even US agencies advising that the economic blowback of doing this would not just massively impact Europe, but could even risk the economic recovery in the US.

 

Quote

 

At least two analyses done in recent weeks by the Treasury and State departments found that the sanctions that would be most crippling for Russia -- like penalties on the Russian energy giant Gazprom or its Central Bank -- could also damage economies throughout the rest of the world by potentially spiking gas prices or hampering European trade and investment with Russia at a particularly delicate moment for the bloc.

One concern is that those negative effects could boomerang back onto the US during an election year, sources told CNN. But others in the administration believe the tough sanctions being weighed would have a manageable impact on the US, and would be worth it to impose severe penalties on Russia.

...

"The problem with discussing these countermeasures is that if you take a strong sanctions action that has a big impact on the European economy, that will in turn rebound to the US economy," he said.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/07/politics/russia-us-ukraine-sanctions/index.html

 

Causing a disruption of 40% of European gas supply by depriving Europe of the ability to pay for its imported energy from Russia is a massive, massive gamble in a global economy that is as interlinked as ours. Then they floated that the SWIFT cut-off might only apply to larger state banks in Russia, but that is a hollow threat. If Russian large banks are cut off from SWIFT, I estimate Russia themselves will take the step of voluntarily unplugging the medium and smaller ones as part of retaliatory measures. If Russia has to tie into the alternative SPFS "SWIFT Alternative" that they have set up with China and India for the larger Russian banks, they will tie in their entire banking sector, resulting in a dire situation in Europe, and potentially encouraging the rapid increase in non-dollarized deals by big players in Asia, which the US doesn't want to see happen. That would be a major own-goal.

 

So now, we seem to be talking about sanctioning senior Russian officials like Putin and Lavrov...which is a far, far cry from what was originally being touted as possible options, and the Americans are openly upset with the Europeans about the Europeans reluctance to get on the same page on even these sanctions.

 

Quote

The U.S. prodding on sanctions underscores a growing sense of impatience in the Biden administration about the European stance. For one thing, American officials are unhappy that European nations haven’t agreed on the exact sanctions they’d roll out if Russia invades Ukraine. For another, the U.S. worries European leaders are ill-prepared to respond if Putin takes action that falls short of an all-out invasion, such as cyberattacks or stepped-up disinformation campaigns.

...

Some big western European members of the European Union have raised questions about the impact some of the penalties under discussion could have on their own economies, according to people familiar with the discussions. That includes the potential that Putin responds by cutting off crucial gas supplies to Europe.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-13/u-s-pushes-europe-to-sort-sanctions-plan-with-wary-eye-on-putin

 

This article is a very generous and deferential reading by Bloomberg...big western members of the EU haven't just "raised questions about the impact of the penalties"...they are well aware of the "anwers to those questions" and it is much more likely that at least France, Italy and Germany have rather said explicitly that they aren't going to do them.

 

So, with all of that coming out over the last week, what else do we really have but to publicly pledge to support Ukranian resistance? It signals a solid US commitment to Ukraine and aligns with the domestic expectations of the US electorate. Our options here are not nearly as widespread as we may think with respect to economic sanctions.

Edited January 15, 2022 by Shady Ray

[Shady Ray 1633]

A big event that the Kremlin will absolutely be following will occur tomorrow when Ukrainian ex-president/opposition leader/chocolate kingpin/oligarch Petro Poroshenko returns to Ukraine from his “month abroad” in Poland and Brussels, just prior to which he was charged with treason/crimes against the Ukrainian state as a result of a deal made for coal with the Donbas separatists under his administration. 
 

The increasingly unpopular current president, Vlodomyr Zelensky, is politically desperate at the moment and his justice ministry filed treason charges against Poroshenko for the coal deal and then froze the assets of three national TV stations formerly owned by Poroshenko (he is an oligarch in his own right). That brings to the total amount of TV stations Zelensky has seized/shut down over the past year to 7…some of them Russian-linked, some pro-western but anti-Zelensky, the latter of which are much more problematic to the Europeans and their expectations of a free press in potential EU aspirants.
 

American, Western and East European senior officials have been very clear that they do not appreciate this move by Zelensky and that they view it as completely regarded to play domestic political games at the moment, thus turning the two largest anti-Russian/pro-Western parties in Ukrainian politics against each other at a moment when the Russia issue is so critical (Zelensky is polling in the low 20s, down from the low 50s this time last year; Poroshenko in the mid-high teens as of last polls). 

Yes, Poroshenko is corrupt, but he is a leading Ukrainian politician, so that goes without saying. However, he certainly is not pro-Russian and, in fact, he is absolutely despised in Moscow due to his hardline anti-Russian positions during his term. The Russians were openly applauding this move by Zelensky, in fact, calling Poroshenko "America's guy in Kiev". Poroshenko led Ukraine during the most intense periods of war with the separatists before losing overwhelmingly to Zelensky a couple years back. The US State Department has also said they do not like what Zelensky is doing here at all.
 

But Zelensky has fucked himself here. If he follows through and arrests Poroshenko tomorrow, its going to be a major misstep and is going to bring even more attention to the Europeans of the continuous corruption and dysfunction of the Ukrainian government. And this one can’t be laid at Russia’s feet. It plays directly into the widely-held European perception of Ukrainian Banana Republicanism, which is an awful look given the international circumstances at the moment.
 

However, if he doesn’t arrest him after indicting him for such a serious charge as treason/collusion with Russia after saying that his government would do so, Zelensky will look very weak (which is an oft-leveled criticism of him) and he will have a very wealthy, very powerful ex-president who badly wants the presidency back traveling the country, blasting Zelensky as weak and making a mockery of the charges. Poroshenko even said on record from Warsaw that he isn't concerned about being arrested, as Zelensky doesn't have the "courage, forces or will" to follow through with an arrest. This is not the image that Ukrainian's expect in a leader at the moment and it is a PR disaster of Zelensky’s own making.
 

Plus, Poroshenko has widely disseminated his flight itinerary to his supporters all over social media and is flying back with a slew of international reporters tomorrow on a commercial flight basically daring Zelensky to follow through with the arrest. So whatever happens is going to be widely covered here, with neither result looking particularly appealing.
 

And if that wasn't bad enough, to make matters worse, his return is coinciding to the hour with German Foreign Minister Baerbock's arrival in Kiev for her own round of meetings, so all the Western media will be on the ground watching this potential shitshow unfold.

 

From Politico Europe:

https://www.politico.eu/article/poroshenko-fight-treason-charges-russia-ukraine/
 

Quote

 

Supporters of Poroshenko have pointed to comments on Tuesday by Victoria Nuland, the U.S. under-secretary of state for political affairs, as evidence that Washington views the criminal prosecution as the problem.

“What I would like to say to the Ukrainian people and to Ukrainian leadership is that national unity is absolutely essential at this moment,” Nuland said at a State Department briefing.

A senior European Commission official expressed exasperation at both the current and former presidents. The official said Zelenskiy’s government was primarily at fault, but also called Poroshenko’s visit to Brussels this week “a desperate act by a desperate man.”

In the interview, however, Poroshenko said nothing could be further from reality. He noted that he has already pledged to return to Kyiv next Monday, where he potentially faces imminent arrest, and has even publicized his travel plans, on a commercial jet, so that journalists can accompany him.

…

While conceding that he did not know details of the case, Kubilius added, “This is not the first time when in Eastern Partnership countries, politicized justice is used by ruling authorities against leaders of opposition or former presidents and prime ministers. Usually, when those countries start such kind of internal infighting, they forget about external threats and about their ambitions and reforms for Euro-Atlantic integration.”

Poroshenko, in the interview, unleashed a fierce barrage of criticism against Zelenskiy, saying he had mismanaged the country and made virtually everything worse.

https://www.politico.eu/article/poroshenko-fight-treason-charges-russia-ukraine/

 

 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Shady Ray

[JimmyJames 12271]

Here’s something I don’t get and maybe the more knowledgeable posters on this subject can answer, but if putin really was serious about invading Ukraine, why didn’t he do it when he had his hand picked puppet in the white house? Especially towards the end. 
 

Trump probably would have applauded the move and certainly wouldn’t have actively opposed it. I mean he might have been forced to but the dipshit stood next to putin and trashed America with the whole world watching. 
 

This strikes me as a bluff given the timing of it but I guess we shall see. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

2 minutes ago, Bravo said:

Say what? Trump was a much better friend to Ukraine than Obama. He supplied Ukraine with lethal aid. Specifically Javelin anti tank missiles. Does that sound Russia friendly? Obama supplied only humanitarian aid. You Steele dossier too much. Keep spinning your own narrative though. 

I specifically asked for knowledgeable posters, not total idiots. 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33876]

10 minutes ago, Bravo said:

Say what? Trump was a much better friend to Ukraine than Obama. He supplied Ukraine with lethal aid. Specifically Javelin anti tank missiles. Does that sound Russia friendly? Obama supplied only humanitarian aid. You Steele dossier too much. Keep spinning your own narrative though. 

You fucking serious? Which president was impeached because of how he handled dealing with Ukraine?

[JimmyJames 12271]

2 hours ago, Bravo said:

Those were facts. If Trump was a Putin puppet why did he step it up to lethal aid for Ukraine? Easy on the blue pills. 

Just shut up with your trolling stupidity. Nobody gives a rats ass what you have to say about this and your dumb ass questions. Leave it to the adults.

[956 Worldwide 34728]

21 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

Here’s something I don’t get and maybe the more knowledgeable posters on this subject can answer, but if putin really was serious about invading Ukraine, why didn’t he do it when he had his hand picked puppet in the white house? Especially towards the end. 
 

Trump probably would have applauded the move and certainly wouldn’t have actively opposed it. I mean he might have been forced to but the dipshit stood next to putin and trashed America with the whole world watching. 
 

This strikes me as a bluff given the timing of it but I guess we shall see. 

There could be something to the idea that Putin wants to test his boundaries with the the new administrations in both the U.s. and Germany.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33876]

20 hours ago, Bravo said:

Those were facts. If Trump was a Putin puppet why did he step it up to lethal aid for Ukraine? Easy on the blue pills. 

you really should find better sources of information than your hunting buddies and their jizz jars or whatever it is you do with 6 men in a travel trailer

[Cacti 191]

Germany Helped Prep Russia for War, U.S. Sources Say

Quote

“Everyone was looking for a way to cooperate with the Russian military and rushed to find ways to do it, including us,” said Hill. “Whatever we do now, we have to be mindful that the Russians have been preparing for something else.”

The title is clickbait but the gist of the article is that we and our European allies have not only ignored/underestimated Russia’s military modernization, but perhaps facilitated it.  

[Shady Ray 1633]

The West's underestimation of Russia's military and economic situation - at least in public discourse- has been atrocious. It has been oversimplified, at best, and otherwise entirely inaccurate. 

 

Their military cannot project like ours, but it is built for this exact conflict and it is as prepared as anyone on planet when it comes to this situation. And they are much more structually prepared for the coming sanctions economically than people want to acknowledge. 

 

Foreign Affairs had a really, really good article by some experts on this a couple of months back. Outside of a few blog posts by experts in academia, this is the only time I recall seeing an honest and open deep dive into the actual economic, military and societal state of Russia. Long as fuck, but really good and worth the read, IMO.

 

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2021-10-19/myth-russian-decline

 

It is behind the Foreign Affairs paywall, so here's the full article:

 

Quote

 

The Myth of Russian Decline
Why Moscow Will Be a Persistent Power
November/December 2021

The Biden administration came into office with a clear and unambiguous foreign policy priority: countering a rising China. The administration’s public statements, its early national security planning documents, and its initial diplomatic forays have all suggested that pushing back against Beijing’s growing global influence will be Washington’s national security focus, alongside transnational threats such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. The question of how to deal with Russia, by contrast, has taken a back seat, returning to the fore only when Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s border in April. That crisis served as a reminder of the danger of looking past Moscow—yet by July, President Joe Biden was back to declaring that Russia was “sitting on top of an economy that has nuclear weapons and oil wells and nothing else.”
 

Biden is not the first American leader to think along these lines. Ever since the end of the Cold War, American politicians have periodically suggested that Russia’s days as a true global power are numbered. In 2014, John McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona, called Russia a “gas station masquerading as a country.” That same year, U.S. President Barack Obama dismissed Russia as a mere “regional power.” Not long thereafter, Russia successfully intervened in the Syrian war, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and inserted itself into the political crisis in Venezuela and the civil war in Libya. And yet, the perception of Russia as a paper tiger persists.
 

The problem is that the case for Russian decline is overstated. Much of the evidence for it, such as Russia’s shrinking population and its resource-dependent economy, is not as consequential for the Kremlin as many in Washington assume. Nor should the United States expect that Russia will automatically abandon its course of confrontation once President Vladimir Putin leaves office. Putin’s foreign policy enjoys widespread support among the country’s ruling elite, and his legacy will include a thicket of unresolved disputes, chief among them that over the annexation of Crimea. Any disagreements with the United States are here to stay.
 

Put simply, Washington cannot afford to fixate on China while hoping to simply wait Russia out. Rather than viewing Russia as a declining power, U.S. leaders should see it as a persistent one—and have a frank conversation about the country’s true capabilities and vulnerabilities. Rethinking American assumptions about Russian power would allow policymakers to address what will be a period of prolonged confrontation with a capable adversary.
 

FAULTY ASSUMPTIONS

Expectations of Russian decline contain important truths. The country’s economy is stagnant, with few sources of value other than the extraction and export of natural resources. The entire system is rife with corruption and dominated by inefficient state-owned or state-controlled enterprises, and international sanctions limit access to capital and technology. Russia struggles to develop, retain, and attract talent; the state chronically underfunds scientific research; and bureaucratic mismanagement hinders technological innovation. As a result, Russia lags considerably behind the United States and China in most metrics of scientific and technological development. Military spending has largely plateaued in the last four years, and the population is forecast to decline by ten million people by 2050.
 

With such a dismal outlook, it is natural to assume that Russia’s capacity for disruption and hostility on the international stage will soon diminish, too—that the Kremlin will simply run out of resources for its aggressive foreign policy. But those data points miss the broader picture. They highlight Russia’s weaknesses and downplay its strengths. Russia may be “a downshifter country,” as Herman Gref, the head of Russia’s largest bank, complained in 2016. But its economic, demographic, and military potential will remain substantial, rather than entering a precipitous decline.
 

Consider the country’s economy, which, stagnant as it may be, is still larger and more resilient than many believe. Analysts like to point out that Russia’s GDP of $1.5 trillion is comparable to that of Italy or Texas. But that $1.5 trillion is calculated using market exchange rates. Factor in purchasing power parity, and it balloons to $4.1 trillion, which would make Russia the second-largest economy in Europe and the sixth-largest in the world. Neither measure is wholly accurate—one is likely an underestimate, the other an overestimate—but the comparison shows that Russia’s economy is nowhere near as small as the conventional wisdom holds. At any rate, raw GDP is often a poor measure of geopolitical power: it no longer translates easily into military potential or international influence.
 

Washington cannot afford to fixate on China while hoping to simply wait Russia out.
 

To be sure, Russia’s economy has not been kind to its citizens. Real disposable incomes are ten percent lower today than they were in 2013, wiping out nearly a decade of growth. But macroeconomic indicators are stable enough to allow Moscow to project power well into the future. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea and occupation of eastern Ukraine in 2014, international sanctions and falling oil prices caused its economy to tumble. In the years since, however, the government has reined in its spending and adapted to lower oil prices, creating budget surpluses and a growing war chest. The latest estimates, as of August 2021, put the value of Russia’s National Wealth Fund at about $185 billion and its foreign currency reserves at $615 billion—hardly a picture of destitution. A new policy of import substitution, devised in response to international sanctions, has breathed new life into the agricultural sector, whose exports now rake in more than $30 billion annually. The Kremlin has also reoriented trade away from the West and toward China, currently its number one trading partner. Trade with China is expected to exceed $200 billion by 2024, twice what it was in 2013.

 

What of Russia’s dependence on extractive industries? Oil and gas sales continue to account for about 30–40 percent of the government’s budget, meaning that a future shift away from fossil fuels will sting. But it is unclear how near that future really is. And Russia produces energy at such a low price that other exporting countries are likely to get squeezed well before it sees its budget crimped. In addition, Russia is the main energy supplier to the European Union, whose dependency has only grown over the past decade: the EU gets 41 percent of its natural gas, 27 percent of its oil, and 47 percent of its solid fossil fuels from Russia. The problem Moscow faces is that its resources are not infinite. Russia’s oil production will peak in the coming decade—some think it may have done so already—meaning that the country’s capacity to export easily extractable (and thus cheap) oil will hit a ceiling.

 

Meanwhile, although Russia lags behind the United States in technological innovation, it still ranks among the top ten worldwide in research-and-development spending. In the case of artificial intelligence, it may not even matter whether the country is a leader or a follower: given the many applications and the commercial utility of this technology, Moscow will likely realize some second-mover advantages while letting the United States and China take on the costs and risks of pioneering its development. Moreover, Russia has a struggling but viable technology sector and has developed its own analogs to Facebook, Google, and other popular online platforms, all of which are fairly successful within Russia.

 

OF MILITARY AND MEN

Among the most common misconceptions about Russia is that the country’s demographic outlook will dramatically constrain its future capabilities. Such demographic determinism has historically failed to predict Russia’s fortunes. According to UN forecasts, Russia’s population will shrink by about seven percent by 2050; more pessimistic projections see a decline of up to 11 percent. Even in the latter case, Russia would remain the most populous country in Europe and Eurasia by a wide margin. It may lag behind highly developed Western countries in life expectancy and mortality rates, but it has substantially narrowed those gaps since the 1990s. The country is certainly not on the brink of demographic collapse.

 

More important, the relevance of demographics to state power needs rethinking. Modern great powers are defined not by the size of their populations but by their populations’ quality: people’s health, educational levels, and labor productivity, among other indicators. Were it otherwise, countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Nigeria would be among the world’s most powerful states. As the American scholar Hal Brands has written, “All things equal, countries with healthy demographic profiles can create wealth more easily than their competitors.” On this front, Russia has shown considerable improvement since the 1990s, with reduced mortality, increased lifespans, and an improved fertility rate. Until 2015, it steadily rose on indexes such as the UN’s Human Development Index and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s labor productivity measures. An economic recession has since slowed down this trend, and undone some of the progress, but Russia’s overall situation has considerably improved from a demographic crisis in the 1990s and predictions of demographic doom in the early years of this century.

 

Brain drain remains a major problem, with many of Russia’s brightest leaving the country. Its economic impact, however, has been difficult to measure. And even as many middle-class Russians who are essential to the knowledge economy leave, Russia benefits from substantial immigration by job seekers from the former Soviet republics. Russia’s demographic profile is composed of mixed indicators that show qualitative improvements alongside quantitative decline. Meanwhile, the demographic outlooks for many of the United States’ allies and partners are equally problematic, if not more so.

 

MILITARY MIGHT

 

Above all, Russia will remain a military force to be reckoned with. Military power has historically been a Russian strength, compensating for the country’s relatively undiversified economy, technological backwardness, and lack of political dynamism. It is in part why Russia managed to sustain prolonged competitions with economically much stronger states in the past, whether it was the United States or the British Empire. After its nadir in the early post-Soviet era, Russian military power has been revived—and will only improve in the coming decade, even as American policymakers turn their attention to China.

 

Russia remains the United States’ primary peer in nuclear weapons technology. Aside from NATO, it also fields the strongest conventional military in Europe, reforged following a period of military reforms and investments since 2008. That transformation was largely overlooked prior to 2014, which explains why Russia’s military moves in Ukraine and, later, in Syria took many analysts by surprise. Today, the Russian military is at its highest level of readiness, mobility, and technical capability in decades. NATO remains superior on paper, but much is contingent in war, and NATO’s apparent superiority does not guarantee victory or the ability to deter Russia across the range of possible conflicts. Russia also fields a flexible array of special forces, mercenaries, and military intelligence operatives. This is before considering the country’s status as a leading power in space or its extensive cyberwarfare capabilities, which were recently demonstrated by the so-called SolarWinds breach, in which Russian hackers penetrated and spied on several U.S. government agencies.

 

Adjusting for purchasing power parity and for the peculiarities of autarkic defense sectors such as Russia’s, analysts have estimated that Russia spends somewhere between $150 billion and $180 billion per year on defense, considerably more than the market exchange rate figure of $58 billion suggests. Half of Russia’s annual defense budget is spent on procuring new weapons, modernizing old ones, and researching military technology, which is a far greater share than is spent in these areas by most Western militaries. Those, moreover, are conservative estimates, since some Russian expenditures remain hidden, obscured, or classified. Using these generous budgets, the Russian military-industrial complex has developed many next-generation weapons, from hypersonic missiles to directed-energy weapons (such as lasers), electronic warfare systems, advanced submarines, and integrated air defenses, along with antisatellite weapons of various types.

 

 

The Russian military is not without its problems and remains a laggard in some areas. In practice, however, Russia is well positioned to remain a dominant actor in the post-Soviet space and to challenge U.S. interests in other regions, such as the Middle East. Russia retains the airlift and sealift capabilities needed to deploy its troops at some distance from its borders. Its defense spending looks stable at current levels, despite the triple shock of an economic recession, low oil prices, and international sanctions. The Russian military still sees itself as a relative underdog, but it has grown more confident that it can deter NATO even without nuclear weapons, and the outcome of a prolonged war between Russian and NATO forces is difficult to predict. Under these circumstances, the United States and its allies should stop dismissing Russia as a mere “disrupter” and recognize it as a serious military adversary in both ability and intent.

 

IT’S NOT JUST A PUTIN PROBLEM

 

Tied up in the narrative of Russian decline is the notion that the United States primarily has a Putin problem—that once the Russian president leaves office, his country’s foreign policy will grow less assertive. Yet that is unlikely to be the case. For one thing, Putin can legally remain in office until 2036, thanks to a referendum that he pushed through last year that allows him to serve two more six-year terms after his current term expires in 2024. Research that one of us (Kendall-Taylor) conducted with the political scientist Erica Frantz showed that such longevity is common for leaders like the Russian president. In the post–Cold War era, autocrats who, like Putin, had made it to 20 years in office, were at least 65 years of age, and had concentrated power in their own hands ended up ruling for 36 years, on average.

 

Research on longtime authoritarian leaders also suggests that once Putin does depart—even if earlier than expected—there will be little prospect for substantial political improvement. Most often, the regimes that such longtime leaders create persist, or a different dictatorship emerges. The odds that democratization will follow a regime like Putin’s—run by an older, personalist leader who has clung to power for 20 years or more—are less than one in ten. Extending term limits, as Putin did after last year’s referendum, is also a bad sign. According to data from the Comparative Constitutions Project, 13 leaders around the world pursued term-limit extensions in the period from 1992 to 2009. In all but one case, their regimes either are still in power or simply transitioned to a new authoritarian regime after the leader’s departure.

 

This is not to suggest that Russia is doomed to authoritarianism or that a change in the president would not matter. Nonetheless, the empirical record shows that the actions longtime authoritarian leaders typically take to ensure control—such as undermining civil society and hollowing out institutions that could constrain their power—create barriers to the emergence of democracy. Likewise, a mere change in leadership would likely matter only at the margins. Unless Putin’s departureushers in a significant turnover in the ruling elite, key pillars of Russian foreign policy, such as the notion that Russia maintains the right to a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space, will remain incompatible with the values of the United States and its allies. Simply put, American policymakers must prepare for the possibility that the contours of Russian foreign policy, and thus the Kremlin’s intent to undermine U.S. interests, will endure long after Putin leaves office.

 

THE PERSISTENT POWER

 

The United States should think of Russia not as a declining power but as a persistent one, willing and able to threaten U.S. national security interests for at least the next ten to 20 years. Even if China proves to be the more significant long-term threat, Russia will remain a long-term challenger, too—a “good enough” power, as the political scientist Kathryn Stoner has put it, with the ability to shape global affairs and substantially affect U.S. interests. The former Soviet space remains a tinderbox, still reckoning with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which should be thought of not as an event but as a process, as the historian Serhii Plokhy has aptly put it. No matter how much Washington would like to focus on the Indo-Pacific, therefore, it must consider the prospect of another Russian-Ukrainian war, a military conflict resulting from political unrest in Belarus, or crises akin to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

 

Compared with China, Russia also poses a more significant danger to the U.S. homeland. For one thing, it remains the United States’ preeminent nuclear threat, despite China’s growing arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons. The same goes for Russia’s ability to reach the continental United States with long-range conventional missiles. Russia also has more troops stationed abroad than does China, with bases in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, putting its military in regular proximity to U.S. and NATO forces. When it comes to indirect warfare, Moscow’s record of election interference and hacking demonstrates that it can and will employ emerging technologies against the United States and its allies. It is also worth underscoring that the Kremlin can endanger U.S. interests on the cheap. Russia’s military interventions in Ukraine, Syria, and Libya have been limited and inexpensive. So, too, are its cyberattacks and disinformation efforts.

 

The United States should think of Russia not as a declining power but as a persistent one.

 

It is perhaps in these domains—cyberwarfare and attacks on liberal democracy—where Russia is likely to pose the most sustained threat. Russia has refined a low-cost toolkit that allows it to bolster other authoritarian regimes, amplify illiberal voices in established democracies, poison information ecosystems, and subvert elections and other democratic institutions. Since Moscow believes that weakening democracy can accelerate the decline of U.S. influence, it will persist in its efforts on this front. Other states have taken note of Russia’s success in this sphere and have begun to emulate it, as shown by China’s adoption of Kremlin-style information warfare during the pandemic.

 

A final concern is that Moscow is increasingly finding common cause with Beijing. In effect, the two governments have formed a strategic partnership, exchanging technical and material support to offset Western pressure and focus their resources on competing with the United States rather than with each other. Their defense and military cooperation has grown, too. The impact of this alignment will be greater than the sum of its parts, amplifying the challenge to U.S. interests that each state poses individually. The challenge, therefore, will be not just properly prioritizing China and Russia in U.S. strategy but recognizing that the problems presented by the two countries are not necessarily discrete and separable.

 

RIGHTSIZING RUSSIA 

 

Washington must move past the myth that Russia is a beleaguered or cornered state, lashing out in recognition of its own demise. In truth, there is little evidence that Russia’s leaders see their country in this way—on the contrary, they consider Russia to be the center of power in its own region and an assertive player globally. Events such as the bungled U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan only reinforce Moscow’s perception that it is rather the United States that is in decline. Ignoring that view will create false expectations for Russia’s behavior, leaving the United States and its allies poorly positioned to anticipate Russian actions.

 

The Biden administration has taken steps in the right direction. Among them is its focus on fostering democratic resilience. By elevating cybersecurity as a national security priority, strengthening critical infrastructure, improving information ecosystems, and rooting out the corruption that Russia weaponizes to subvert democratic institutions, Washington and its allies can cut off a major source of Moscow’s influence abroad. Meanwhile, the administration’s efforts to pursue arms control and strategic stability with Russia, which should extend to cyberspace and space, will set up the necessary guardrails for a prolonged confrontation.

 

Moving forward, however, Washington must resist overly focusing on China to the point of neglecting other important issues, such as Russia. The Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, released in March as one of the Biden administration’s earliest national security analyses, discussed China in considerable depth while allocating barely a few sentences to Russia. Future strategic documents, such as the upcoming National Security and National Defense Strategies, should correct this imbalance.

 

Washington must be bolder in its efforts to defend democracy against outside subversion.

The same approach should guide the administration’s defense budgeting. The Russian military threat has not decreased, yet the funding allocated by Washington to deal with it has: successive budget requests since 2020 have cut support for the European Deterrence Initiative (a U.S. effort to bolster its military presence in Europe after Russia’s annexation of Crimea), most recently by 19 percent. Reallocating that money to East Asia, as the Biden administration wants to do, is unlikely to make a marked difference in the military balance vis-à-vis China—the amount involved is too modest for that—but it will create unnecessary risks in Europe. That is particularly true considering the possibility of simultaneous conflicts with China and Russia, in which one of those states takes advantage of a crisis involving the other to pursue its own aims. Washington must hedge against such a scenario and ensure that Europe does not become the weak link in its strategy.

 

NATO will play a central role in that endeavor. The alliance has recently begun updating its official guiding document, and Washington must ensure that Russia, not China, remains the clear priority. The United States should also continue to encourage its European allies and partners to shoulder more of the burden for deterrence and defense on the continent. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has reenergized European calls to enhance its own capabilities. Now is the time, through careful transatlantic coordination, for real steps toward strengthening the European pillar within NATO.

 

Finally, Washington must be bolder still in its efforts to defend democracy against outside subversion. The United States and its allies and partners should step up their collective responses to Moscow’s cyberwarfare, election interference, and other actions that threaten the health of their political and economic systems. They should, for example, agree to take collective action against any foreign election interference that crosses agreed-on thresholds. Russia’s digital ambitions may be overshadowed by China’s, yet Russia is developing its own brand of digital dictatorship, designed in part to undermine democracy worldwide. Addressing that threat also requires working with like-minded democratic partners in international organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union to ensure that it is not Beijing and Moscow that write the digital rules and norms of the future.

 

The gravitational pull of the threat posed by a rising and revisionist China is understandably strong, but the United States is capable of dealing with two powers at once: China, a pacing threat, and Russia, a persistent one. In talking about their approach to Russia, Biden administration officials are fond of saying that the United States “can walk and chew gum at the same time.” Now they will have to prove it.

 

MICHAEL KOFMAN is Director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA and a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

ANDREA KENDALL-TAYLOR is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

 

 

[Jive Turkey 12622]

shit is about to get real.  half of the U.S. will be pulling for Russia.

 

[UTGrad98 2280]

I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat. 

[HRSchenker 2271]

Let the Ukrainians fight their own battle. Is Putin the next Hitler? Maybe. Maybe not. But if you think he is, we will be in a nuclear war.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33876]

Anyone remember when saying anything against the military would get you fucking dragged by the right? Support the troops! Pepperidge Farm fucking remembers

[horn4life 3768]

Putin can absolutely do this.  The only question is the cost.  He is MUCH better positioned financially to weather sanctions, but how long and expensive will war be? 

I think Putin has also underestimated Biden's resolve, and ability to get our allies to hold together.  

The really bad news is Putin has a few chips left to play, if he is bluffing then he's not getting the outcome he wants.  If he isn't bluffing, then he has made a tactical decision that he can take and hold Ukraine, and that over time the allies will fracture in shallow self interest.  

Biden does not make the decision of putting troops in harm's way without a contemplation of the human costs to the military and their families.  I think he also knows that if you do not stand up to a bully, you invite the same behavior over and over again.  I think that surprised Putin.  

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

5 minutes ago, horn4life said:

 I think that surprised Putin.  

 

I don't. I think very little surprises him. Striking while Biden is getting lobs thrown at him daily and with the aid of Fox et.al., Putin will have another authoritarian leader in America with which to pal around with in very short time. Because we're in the kind of free fall where no parachutes are given. Let the sky fall. We've brought this upon ourselves.

[horn4life 3768]

7 minutes ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

I don't. I think very little surprises him. Striking while Biden is getting lobs thrown at him daily and with the aid of Fox et.al., Putin will have another authoritarian leader in America with which to pal around with in very short time. Because we're in the kind of free fall where no parachutes are given. Let the sky fall. We've brought this upon ourselves.

I am half hoping that Biden just starts a fucking war with Russia and gets this shit over with and rolls into another 4 years. Might be the only way to save us from the fascists.

[atomheartbevo 89735]

2 hours ago, horn4life said:

Biden does not make the decision of putting troops in harm's way without a contemplation of the human costs to the military and their families.  I think he also knows that if you do not stand up to a bully, you invite the same behavior over and over again.  I think that surprised Putin.  

American troops are not going to be fighting Russians, at least not outside of Syria.

I've got an idiot in-law who watches way too much Fox News and is under the impression that American troops are going to defend Ukraine, and he's asking why we are supporting Ukraine instead of Russia (because it's totally okay for Republicans to now support Russians!), but we are not doing anything of the sort, and none of our troop movements reflect that.

What we are doing is setting up a pipeline to supply a Ukrainian resistance and make the Russians pay.  The French have been quietly doing this for years (they've funneled well over a billion dollars worth of military equipment/weapons/supplies to them since 2014) and the Brits and others are doing so as well.

And a big chunk of NATO is now very familiar with how insurgencies work, and given how easy it will be to supply Ukraine, it'll be interesting to see if the Ukrainians can put it to good use, and how much Putin is willing to tolerate.

[horn4life 3768]

It will be very bloody over time.  As ultimately if you can't win hearts and minds you simply cannot win.  But I cannot say this in a vacuum as Russian Propaga is not unlike Fox News, people believe lies if they hear them repeated enough times.

My fear is that Putin does not currently see a way to falsely declare "Victory" and that makes me nervous.  

The coming weeks (hopefully not months and years) will be interesting.  There is no doubt that Russia can take the ground. It's the "at what cost" contemplation versus the "save face" contemplation for Putin. That is about the only thing in play.  

IF Russia does invade and China truly allies themselves with them, I think you start seeing a repatriation of chip making.  I did like the mention at the security briefing that Russia and China only make up about 20% of the World's economy.  At the same time China (surprise) did not honor the purchase commitments promised with Trump. So if this shit goes down, it may very clearly draw economic battle lines, and unify the West in a desire to move more and more manufacturing out of China, and limit technology exports. China is a great copier and thief but not great innovators. Russia is operating on a 1950's energy economy, and even with a big financial war chest the costs could add up quickly on both ends.

[David Dennison 18935]

9 minutes ago, horn4life said:

It will be very bloody over time.  As ultimately if you can't win hearts and minds you simply cannot win.  But I cannot say this in a vacuum as Russian Propaga is not unlike Fox News, people believe lies if they hear them repeated enough times.

My fear is that Putin does not currently see a way to falsely declare "Victory" and that makes me nervous.  

The coming weeks (hopefully not months and years) will be interesting.  There is no doubt that Russia can take the ground. It's the "at what cost" contemplation versus the "save face" contemplation for Putin. That is about the only thing in play.  

IF Russia does invade and China truly allies themselves with them, I think you start seeing a repatriation of chip making.  I did like the mention at the security briefing that Russia and China only make up about 20% of the World's economy.  At the same time China (surprise) did not honor the purchase commitments promised with Trump. So if this shit goes down, it may very clearly draw economic battle lines, and unify the West in a desire to move more and more manufacturing out of China, and limit technology exports. China is a great copier and thief but not great innovators. Russia is operating on a 1950's energy economy, and even with a big financial war chest the costs could add up quickly on both ends.

It will be interesting to see how the Russian people react to the inevitable casualties and economic hardships that will follow any ground invasion. 

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It will be interesting to see how the Russian people react to the inevitable casualties and economic hardships that will follow any ground invasion. 

 

I'm rather interested in whether Liz Truss will hold firm on sanctioning oligarchs--lot of money flowing through London, but from an outsider's perspective, it's very enmeshed and sticky in the UK itself.

[Brisketexan 105161]

I'm rather interested in whether Liz Truss will hold firm on sanctioning oligarchs--lot of money flowing through London, but from an outsider's perspective, it's very enmeshed and sticky in the UK itself.

The UK is trash. They chose a different mechanism than Germany, but the same result: they’re a vassal state of Russia because they’re not willing to endure the pain that separating from Russian goodies would cause.

Germany and the UK are vassals. France is irrelevant. And Russia has done such a good job with misinformation and propaganda that half this country actually wants us to get involved in this war….on Russia’s side.

Russians are the greatest chess players the world has ever seen. They can start the match with their K and Q, 3 pawns, a bishop, and a rook…and utterly pants you. They’ve got the West pantsed and bent over a barrel right now, and half the US is gleefully cheering for the moment of penetration. Fucking amazing. If the stakes didn’t matter, I’d be giving Putin a standing ovation.

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

How much credence do you give the rumors that he has Parkinson's? I've not paid much attention to his posse, but he isn't going to live forever.

[Brisketexan 105161]

How much credence do you give the rumors that he has Parkinson's? I've not paid much attention to his posse, but he isn't going to live forever.

I have paid attention to this timeline….ALL the villains are going to live for another 30 years at least.

[David Dennison 18935]

47 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The UK is trash. They chose a different mechanism than Germany, but the same result: they’re a vassal state of Russia because they’re not willing to endure the pain that separating from Russian goodies would cause.

Germany and the UK are vassals. France is irrelevant. And Russia has done such a good job with misinformation and propaganda that half this country actually wants us to get involved in this war….on Russia’s side.

Russians are the greatest chess players the world has ever seen. They can start the match with their K and Q, 3 pawns, a bishop, and a rook…and utterly pants you. They’ve got the West pantsed and bent over a barrel right now, and half the US is gleefully cheering for the moment of penetration. Fucking amazing. If the stakes didn’t matter, I’d be giving Putin a standing ovation.

On the other hand, Putin may very well have moved Russia into check.