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I think you can definitely make an agument that NATO could have / should have simply disbanded after 1991 as a gesture of goodwill towards Russia, or America dropped out and left it as a European defense treaty. However, what's done is done, and at this point that was 20 years ago, so I think it's not really useful to focus on it. America hasn't been pushing back against Russia in any way really besides Bush saying a few dumb things. Eastern Europe is, and that isn't America's fault at all.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:37
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Cliff Racer posted:Well if that is true then it also must be accepted that bad relations with Russia HAVE to happen, because corruption to the extent that they have is bad for the whole world and cannot be contained within Russia's borders. If the choice is between signing over eastern Europe to corrupt oligarchs and having bad relations with Russia then the choice should be obvious. I don't know - when you're dealing with a country that has a permanent Security Council veto, lots of nukes that can easily "go missing," and the ability to prop up anti-US rogue regimes, I think the choice is a little less obvious.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:39
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Majorian posted:I don't know, a lot of very smart political scientists who have been studying Russia for a very long time are saying Russia saw NATO as a big threat as well, chief among them Mearscheimer and Walt (hell, George Kennan predicted that Russia would react precisely this way in response to NATO expansion). You're definitely right about the Color Revolutions, though, and about Putin and other oligarchs being the hypothetical targets of one in Russia. Of course, the problem there is that Russians don't like anybody overthrowing their leaders but them, so they'd better not catch a whiff of the US and its allies trying to help them. (I never said they weren't a stubborn people) It's less the nature of the people and more that there frankly aren't enough disaffected middle class Muscovites to go around. This is also why Russia's paranoia over color revolutions domestically is kind of that, paranoia (though not completely unfounded as color revolutions are perfect for lovely oligarchic regimes as they allow out of favor oligarchs to be reshuffled for more favorable ones). But Belarus and the other kelpto-states that would make up the hypothetical Eurasian Union are going to be much more prone to this than Russia is.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:42
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Berke Negri posted:It's less the nature of the people and more that there frankly aren't enough disaffected middle class Muscovites to go around. This is also why Russia's paranoia over color revolutions domestically is kind of that, paranoia (though not completely unfounded as color revolutions are perfect for lovely oligarchic regimes as they allow out of favor oligarchs to be reshuffled for more favorable ones). But Belarus and the other kelpto-states that would make up the hypothetical Eurasian Union are going to be much more prone to this than Russia is. I definitely agree with you on that. I'm kind of amazed at how resilient ~Batka~ has turned out to be. He's easy to laugh at, but he must be doing something right, as far as authoritarian shitlords go.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:44
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Majorian posted:I definitely agree with you on that. I'm kind of amazed at how resilient ~Batka~ has turned out to be. He's easy to laugh at, but he must be doing something right, as far as authoritarian shitlords go. He rounds up and imprisons people who organize against his rule. You think the Maidan people had it rough in their early days? Look what he did to his version after the last election. It didn't last 24 hours before the lot of them were off the square. I guess you could say that he also keeps enough lines to Europe open that he has some leverage in negotiations with Russia. He can't survive on his own, obviously, but at the same time he has the ability to demand concessions and bribes in exchange for things like the economic union and even did a good job resisting pressure to recognize Abkazia and South Ossetia.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:56
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It's kind of a confluence of factors, such as the US not really caring as Belarus provides no threat or bounty to reap, Batka, as lovely a person he is (this will change once Koyla is in charge I'm sure) is fairly harmless as brutal dictators go, and in the modern world there is plenty of resources to go around. China can play this game in Africa and the US for the time is fine with that as long as they don't interfere with SEA where its interests are, but Russia admittedly is more limited in outlets. Russia's arms and historical ties due to the cold war leave it open as a spoiler to the burgeoning US/China tensions we'll probably see throughout the 21st century and while I am sure this will enrich select few in Russia I don't think it will really catapult Russia back to being a major power again unless they really want to go down the path of threatening MAD which none of the other nuclear powers since the Cold War ended have pushed. Nukes mean you don't invade but we've at least had a steady unspoken truce since then that that means you push around non-aligned actors but not major ones. Russia really prodding NATO changes that.
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Sep 13, 2014 08:59
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Discendo Vox posted:Eastern Europe: It's not Homonazi if the Spheres don't Touch Thread name change please?
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Sep 13, 2014 09:13
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Disco Infiva posted:Thread name change please? Holy poo poo, seconded. I missed this first time around.
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Sep 13, 2014 09:19
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Majorian posted:I'm sure. Trying to understand your adversary is always a sign of weakness and duplicity, after all. Like, back when I first started posting in the Eastern Europe thread I was actually sympathetic to the argument you present, and even promoted it to some degree. It's just that I was eventually swayed away from it by facts brought up in this thread (or that I found myself), the actions of Putin, and the fact that Russia's biggest defender in this thread couldn't even muster up any sort of defense which didn't rest on a rather abhorrent worldview. If NATO/the West truly bore a lot of responsibility for this situation, it really shouldn't be that difficult to show, and you know someone would've, given that D&D (rightly) loves to tear into the US if given half a chance.
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Sep 13, 2014 09:20
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Yeah, that would be an excellent new title.
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Sep 13, 2014 09:24
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Disco Infiva posted:Thread name change please? Yesssss 
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Sep 13, 2014 09:27
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A Buttery Pastry posted:You seem to be operating under the assumption that Putin/the Russian leadership can't be the aggressive assholes many other people in this thread believe them to be, Really? I mean, it seems like I say that Putin is the big bad guy in this situation every three posts or so. I'm not saying that snarkily either; I really feel like I've demonstrated that I do think Putin and his government are aggressive assholes: Majorian posted:I am sorry, by the way, to hear that so much of your family is in a dangerous situation. It's incredibly unfair that their lives and livelihoods are threatened so directly by Putin's underhandedness and aggression. quote:so anyone coming to the conclusion that they are must obviously not be trying to understand them. Have you considered the possibility that people did try to understand them, and just arrived at a difference conclusion than you? It's one thing to say that Putin's government is acting in an underhanded, aggressive, illegal manner, though; it's quite another to characterize the situation as black-and-white, good vs. evil. That's when I start objecting to things: when nuance goes out the window, and people start trying to apply simple answers to super-super-super complex problems. quote:If NATO/the West truly bore a lot of responsibility for this situation, it really shouldn't be that difficult to show I think Mearscheimer and Walt did a pretty good job of that already, though.
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Sep 13, 2014 09:29
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All of this does make me kind of regret that there isn't a proper Mexican politics thread in D&D. I mean, I get it, that SA slants Northeast US and Western Europe, but there's a good deal what we're talking about in Eastern Europe that is familiar with the country directly south of America's border. I reject all the lazy "what if China moved into Mexico" hypotheticals, but the issues of oligarchs, sectarianism, violence, etc., are just as much issues down there and sorry if this is an out of blue comment but it's one of my genuine peeves with D&D. The next election won't be until 2018 though so I guess it is going to be awhile to really start a thread on it to get any attention.
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Sep 13, 2014 09:46
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I'm really sorry that Ukraine maybe sort of thought about signing a piece of paper and making friends with other countries. Totally justifies killing thousands of them and dismantling their nation.
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Sep 13, 2014 10:09
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Sergg posted:I'm really sorry that Ukraine maybe sort of thought about signing a piece of paper and making friends with other countries. Totally justifies killing thousands of them and dismantling their nation. Listen right here you smartass, that piece of paper would mean that Russia couldn't invade them with impunity. We need to invade them now so that we can invade them later.
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Sep 13, 2014 10:15
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Majorian posted:Really? I mean, it seems like I say that Putin is the big bad guy in this situation every three posts or so. I'm not saying that snarkily either; I really feel like I've demonstrated that I do think Putin and his government are aggressive assholes: Majorian posted:It's one thing to say that Putin's government is acting in an underhanded, aggressive, illegal manner, though; it's quite another to characterize the situation as black-and-white, good vs. evil. That's when I start objecting to things: when nuance goes out the window, and people start trying to apply simple answers to super-super-super complex problems. Majorian posted:I think Mearscheimer and Walt did a pretty good job of that already, though.
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Sep 13, 2014 10:25
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Majorian posted:I don't think the wedge between the EU and Russia will last long, though. Cheap fuel, unfortunately, sways votes in places like Germany and France. Fuel price in France is mostly taxes. (E.g.: basic car fuel like SP95, also known outside of France as EuroSuper or EuroPremium according to this table, costs about €1.5 per litre. €0.60 go to the oil tax, €0.30 go to the VAT. So 60% of the cost is taxes. Diesel engines are very popular in France because it's taxed less than regular gas, only around €0.43 per litre.) The government wants to make it cheaper, they can. They already have temporarily lowered the oil tax before when various crises caused a price increase on oil imports. Furthermore, France's gas imports come mostly from Norway. Russia is still a big source but provides less than 15% of French imports. Germany, though, gets about 40% of its gas from Russia, and also imports oil and coal from them.
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Sep 13, 2014 10:29
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Time is running out for Russia. More and more power plants in Germany are being closed because renewable energy makes them unprofitable. And because of Russia's behavior even the biggest idiots now see how being energy independent is important and should be advanced faster.
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Sep 13, 2014 10:33
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Lucy Heartfilia posted:Time is running out for Russia. More and more power plants in Germany are being closed because renewable energy makes them unprofitable. And because of Russia's behavior even the biggest idiots now see how being energy independent is important and should be advanced faster. You're suggesting renewable is self-sustainable w/o sanctions? e:Jesus I'm tired. Subsidies, not sanctions. Rinkles fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 10:42
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Rinkles posted:You're suggesting renewable is self-sustainable w/o sanctions? It depends on the political will. On the one hand there are higher costs. Those are diminishing rapidly! Especially since China is ramping up production of renewable energy technology massively. And over the long term renewable WILL be competitive. There is no doubt. On the other hand there is dependence on Russia and the whims of Putin. How costly is this dependence? Unknown, but Ukraine has shown that being dependent on Russia is not a good situation to be in. Then there is transportation and heating: More and more houses are being insulated and basically all new houses only need very little energy to be heated. So in this sector of the energy market time is also running out for Russia. Finally in the transportation sector the prices are either stable or going down over the past couple of years. And at least in Germany there is a focus on reducing street traffic and transitioning to trains. So even in this sector over time dependence on Russia will be reduced. Lucy Heartfilia fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 10:53
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And here I thought that 200 unread posts overnight may indicate that something has actually happened somewhere in Eastern Europe. 
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Sep 13, 2014 11:40
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Majorian posted:I definitely agree with you on that. I'm kind of amazed at how resilient ~Batka~ has turned out to be. He's easy to laugh at, but he must be doing something right, as far as authoritarian shitlords go. One thing I ran across (years back) is that unlike the rest of the former Soviet bloc, the heavy industry sector in Belarus didn't collapse, which guaranteed some stability to the lives of the average citizens. Apparently, Belarus has been doing pretty well export-vise and a significant number of farming equipment and tractors used in developing countries come from Belarus.
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Sep 13, 2014 11:44
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kalstrams posted:And here I thought that 200 unread posts overnight may indicate that something has actually happened somewhere in Eastern Europe. Reports of heavy bombing around Donetsk airport. Certain pro-seperatist people that I've spoken to (taking the anti-fascist line rather than the pro-Russian line) made some comparisons between the seperatists and Ukraine to Palestine and Israel, which is pretty hilarious now considering the extent to which this particular ceasefire is holding despite all the actual fighting.
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Sep 13, 2014 12:45
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namesake posted:Certain pro-seperatist people that I've spoken to (taking the anti-fascist line rather than the pro-Russian line) made some comparisons between the seperatists and Ukraine to Palestine and Israel, which is pretty hilarious now considering the extent to which this particular ceasefire is holding despite all the actual fighting. Palestine certainly has a superpower on its border and gets major arms, manpower and media support from it! Claiming anti-fascist stance regarding any of the sides is useless, since grunts from both sides have swastika tatoos and the rhetoric of leaders (field commanders mostly) is far from socialistic internationalism/liberal multiculturalism that one would want to ascribe to them. Conflict so far has been a good litmus test to separate sane leftists from stalinist/pro-Kremlin scum.
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Sep 13, 2014 12:55
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namesake posted:Reports of heavy bombing around Donetsk airport.
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Sep 13, 2014 12:59
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Disco Infiva posted:Thread name change please? Look it's just that Russia, being exposed to the homonazis of NATO, became temporarily insane because of homosexual panic and HAD to invade Ukraine.
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Sep 13, 2014 13:25
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kalstrams posted:And here I thought that 200 unread posts overnight may indicate that something has actually happened somewhere in Eastern Europe. We got fishmeched again. Sorry. There has been heavy bombing in Donetsk region overnight. Russian forces stormed Donetsk airport overnight. https://twitter.com/StateOfUkraine/status/510511072462508032 The first batch of trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Russia have arrived in Luhansk. The Red Cross had not opportunity ot inspect any of these trucks. http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/1212676/ In Poland, 5th graders are learning about nations and their flags ... Hey is that Belarus?   http://belsat.eu/be/wiadomosci/a,21874,u-polskim-padruchniku-stsiagh-bielarusi-bielchyrvonabiely-fotafakt.html There are reports of militants attempting to get into Vasilevka. http://tsn.ua/politika/blizko-200-boyovikiv-z-bronetehnikoyu-namagayutsya-prorvatisya-do-vasilivki-368386.html HUGE PUBES A PLUS fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 14:38
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Welp, so much for that ceasefire...
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Sep 13, 2014 14:59
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:We got fishmeched again. Sorry. It wasn't Fishmech. It was Majorian continuing to insist that Russia invading Ukraine is NATO's fault.
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Sep 13, 2014 15:03
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Deteriorata posted:It wasn't Fishmech. It was Majorian continuing to insist that Russia invading Ukraine is NATO's fault. I thought he said it was a consequence. There's a difference between cause and effect and moral culpability, right?
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Sep 13, 2014 15:06
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Deteriorata posted:It wasn't Fishmech. It was Majorian continuing to insist that Russia invading Ukraine is NATO's fault. He never said that. He was expressing a Realist view on Foreign Policy to explain Russia's actions. Russia is pursing what it see as it's interests in Ukraine. Putin is a bastard but he's not crazy or evil. There was the possibility of the West and Russia coming to a mutually beneficial agreement on Ukraine's status. Which would have been better for Ukraine than having Russia and the West engage in a proxy battle on it's territory. It would have made sense for the West to do so because we don't have any desire to use force to defend Ukraine. All we've done is give them empty promises that lead them to fighting a battle they can not win. Is it NATO's fault for Russia's response in Ukraine? No, but it shouldn't be a surprise at all. Actions matter not the intent behind those actions. axelord fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 15:19
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axelord posted:Putin is a bastard but he's not crazy or evil. Maybe not crazy, but definitely evil. How can you say he is not evil after what he has done to Ukraine and even to his own people.
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Sep 13, 2014 15:21
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Lucy Heartfilia posted:Maybe not crazy, but definitely evil. How can you say he is not evil after what he has done to Ukraine and even to his own people. Because Russians like him a lot and support what he's doing?
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Sep 13, 2014 15:27
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Kurnugia posted:Because Russians like him a lot and support what he's doing? ... And? Nations supporting brutal policies in bouts of nationalistic fever is not exactly an unusual event.
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Sep 13, 2014 15:35
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I would say certainly Putin is a sociopath, as far as human suffering he really doesn't give a poo poo. However, besides his lack of empathy, I don't think he is a mad man. Remember, that life in Russia is miserable for almost the entire population and Putin has had a big hand in it. If anything one good way to understand Moscow's relationship with the rest of Russia as a form of internal colonization, Moscow gives the orders and takes tax money while the rest of the country has to obey. Siberian federalization isn't about identity it is about political and fiscal autonomy, if anything they would love to have the type of autonomy a US state has. However, war and ethnic nationalism is a good way to suppress those attitudes (for the time being at least). A lot of it is simply rooted in history, the current Russian originated in a single market town that kept on gobbling up territory until it met resistance. and Russian/Muscovite history from the Mongol period onward was about that process with a hiccup in 1917. Moscovy in many ways grew from almost nothing quickly and often violently, and it accrued territory usually though conquest. That said, for a few centuries those vanquished were other Russians and which began the separate histories of the Russian people and the centralized Russian-Muscovite state. (St.Petersburg was entirely a artificial expansion of Moscow in this sense and its identity (until after 1918) was rooted in it). Ardennes fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 15:35
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OddObserver posted:... And? Nations supporting brutal policies in bouts of nationalistic fever is not exactly an unusual event. Yeah, but you see what I'm really asking is What is a man?
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Sep 13, 2014 15:39
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:In Poland, 5th graders are learning about nations and their flags ... Hey is that Belarus? That's actually a grammar textbook, but yes, that's the flag of Belarussian opposition in that lower right corner of the first image.
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Sep 13, 2014 15:50
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Majorian posted:I don't know, a lot of very smart political scientists who have been studying Russia for a very long time are saying Russia saw NATO as a big threat as well, chief among them Mearscheimer and Walt (hell, George Kennan predicted that Russia would react precisely this way in response to NATO expansion). You're definitely right about the Color Revolutions, though, and about Putin and other oligarchs being the hypothetical targets of one in Russia. Of course, the problem there is that Russians don't like anybody overthrowing their leaders but them, so they'd better not catch a whiff of the US and its allies trying to help them. (I never said they weren't a stubborn people) You have over and over again mentioned Mearsheimer and Walt, sometimes together, sometimes individually. I'm aware of their relationship to the Offensive realist school, and the extent to which they have collaborated. They were very right on Iraq, and wrong about most other things. On a personal level, the way they went to bat for Atzmon made it hard for me to continue following them. In the Australian defence community there are "those who will not be named." At some point during just about any lecture or discussion regarding China, you will hear the phrase "I'm not one of those people who thinks strategic competition between China and the US is inevitable." It's kind of a litmus test for seriousness- a basic affirmation that you are not wasting the listener's time. These "people" referred to are invariably Mearsheimer and like-minded offensive realists. I would just advise everyone, as they consider arguments appealing to Mearsheimer and Walt's authority, to read up on these two men. Or better yet- here's Professor Mearsheimer last April, and do keep in mind what was happening in Ukraine at that time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9674pRBm6g
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Sep 13, 2014 15:52
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Lucy Heartfilia posted:Maybe not crazy, but definitely evil. How can you say he is not evil after what he has done to Ukraine and even to his own people. What does evil even mean? Do you think he brushes his hands together while laughing in his lair as he looks at dead bodies? He has nothing of evil, just different interests than most of us. Or if you consider him evil I guess you should not open an history book. I would say much much worse has been done by people noone ever considered evil. It's not a few thousand dead people in Ukraine that will change that, in 10 years most of the world would have forgotten about it.
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Sep 13, 2014 16:09
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Majorian posted:Really? I mean, it seems like I say that Putin is the big bad guy in this situation every three posts or so. I'm not saying that snarkily either; I really feel like I've demonstrated that I do think Putin and his government are aggressive assholes: I assume you're referring to Mearscheimer's article in FP. Did Walt write an article too?
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Sep 13, 2014 16:16
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