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A Buttery Pastry posted:Also, you can induce demand. Would there be this "very real demand" if the Russian state behaved differently?
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Feb 18, 2022 08:16
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A Buttery Pastry posted:What's Europe supposed to do when the very real demand of Englishmen for the UK to dominate Ireland again manifests as political demands? Ireland has a long history of neutrality, though - it's never been part of NATO. Neither has Sweden. And I don't think governments can actually induce demand, so much as they can heighten it by pandering to it, or channel it in different directions. Propaganda is an effective tool, but it can only do so much. The disastrous results of the U.S.' restructuring of Russia's economy in the 90s were always going to result in demand for a strongman leader who could return the country to greatness. If the state had behaved differently, it might have channeled that demand in different directions, but I think that demand was always going to be there. quote:NATO doesn't cover overseas/colonial territories though, so I think it makes sense to ignore that poo poo. Russia could literally invade Hawaii and the US wouldn't be able to call on NATO. Hawaii's a state, not a territory. More importantly though, Article V is one of those things that kind of functions how the alliance's member-states interpret it. It's only been invoked once, in the aftermath of 9/11, to pledge broad (but ultimately limited) support for the GWOT. Cugel the Clever posted:Where Putin has doomed his country to economic decline and relative isolation, left with minimal avenue for reasserting its imperial power beyond harassing its former subjects? And the West has tried time and time again to bring Russia in from the cold, only for Putin to foolishly refuse anything but a position as a regional hegemon? That's on Putin and we just have to handle him where he's at, unfortunately. Do you really think the West has tried time and time again to bring Russia in from the cold? To them, it seems like the West humiliated and immiserated them in the 90s - and they would know, a lot of them were alive for it. Putin hasn't doomed the country to economic decline; the Russian economy is considerably stronger today than it was before he came into office. It's stronger military, too. quote:Former Soviet subjects seeking and being granted protection from their former overlord is hardly a "neoconservative" American ploy. No, but the U.S. actively and loudly pushing for states that border Russia to join an anti-Russian alliance in order to encircle them certainly is. We're not doing this because we care about the autonomy of Ukraine and Georgia, or care about the well-being of their people. GWB didn't promise them membership out of the goodness of his heart. He did it because they were chips in his pile. quote:Than we can what? The West is hardly exerting itself and its done a lot to make Ukraine too spiky to take a real bite out of and had aligned erstwhile allies on responses that are better than most would have expected. Meanwhile Putin's blowing through his declining economy's budget to strut and puff out his chest to threaten a weaker neighbor. The reason he's doing it now is because he knows his power can only wane in the long term barring drastic returns to the Russian economy. We absolutely can outlast him if he keeps playing chicken and, even if he makes the atrocious decision to invade, he's likely hitting the accelerator in his country's decline The West isn't exerting itself because there's really not much more that the West can do in this scenario, beyond threatening sanctions and selling more weapons. There's no political will in our countries to do more, while there is political will in Russia to bring Ukraine back into their sphere of influence. Beyond that, Putin's approval rating has rebounded over the past half-year, and the economy is likely to only improve as Russia draws closer to China. Budzilla posted:You could also argue that US and the UK were in the Korean war at the time when NATO was founded. To nickpick Vietnam is below the Tropic of Cancer. NATO is largely seen as a anti-Russia bloc and having Russian forces or subjects causing a conflict would make joining a non-starter. You're right, that's a better example. I was trying to come up with one that didn't directly involve the U.S., but Korea is better. Majorian fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 08:21
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I thought political thinking in Russia left you in prison on charges of corruption / tax evasion? Who’s political thinking are you referring to here, and how are they independent to the Russian state
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Feb 18, 2022 08:25
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Cugel the Clever posted:This is a very important counter to the laughable idea that Putin is just a natural manifestation of the Russian public's alleged "innate" demand to be a great power "free from Washington's boot on its neck". The Putin regime has aggressively developed a sophisticated propaganda machine that amplifies this narrative to distract from and excuse failings by political leaders at home. According to all polls, including those conducted by the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center, the majority of Russians are more concerned with domestic economical issues, not with geopolitics. Russia's propaganda machine aims first and foremost to disengage general population from political life, and it succeeds in that. If they it converts a dozen of people to kvass patriotism, it's just a nice bonus.
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Feb 18, 2022 08:31
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no struggle but kvass struggle, etc.
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Feb 18, 2022 08:36
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Majorian posted:That's a requirement that has been interpreted extremely loosely throughout NATO's existence, though. France was involved in the Vietnamese revolution when it acceded to NATO, for example. They've accepted members with active insurgencies and exclaves, and piles of violent unsettled territorial disputes, even with each other ie Turkey and Greece. It doesn't really mean anything - Ukraine is indeed NATO eligible.
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Feb 18, 2022 08:46
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FishBulbia posted:we've unfortunatly reached the dashcam stage of the conflict again Has anyone geolocated this?
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Feb 18, 2022 09:15
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I'm not gonna speak for France, but Germany would absolutely veto Ukraine's entry to NATO. Any German government that would attempt to votes yes would be ousted within 2-3 business days. And Russian gas is the least of the issues. There is just no political will to enforce Ukraine's independence through force and everyone knows this, so there is no point in pretending and damaging trust in NATO's resolve.
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Feb 18, 2022 09:16
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Majorian posted:That isn't actually a requirement to get into NATO; it is a requirement to get into the EU, though. It isn’t a requirement to get into EU. Balkans are getting special treatment in this regard, to avoid Croatia 2.0 - in other words, you must not have territorial disputes with EU member states. Edit: KillHour posted:The US wouldn't need to rely on NATO rules to get Europe to mobilize if that actually happened but I'm still gonna need a citation on that because Hawaii is a state, not an overseas territory. Majorian posted:Hawaii's a state, not a territory. More importantly though, Article V is one of those things that kind of functions how the alliance's member-states interpret it. It's only been invoked once, in the aftermath of 9/11, to pledge broad (but ultimately limited) support for the GWOT. cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 09:26
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Paladinus posted:According to all polls, including those conducted by the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center, the majority of Russians are more concerned with domestic economical issues, not with geopolitics. Are you serious? You really mean to say that just like every other right minded individual around the globe, the average Russian wants peace and prosperity over constant threat of war, waged by a bunch of rich blokes in their 60’s+? Not sure…
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Feb 18, 2022 09:38
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cinci zoo sniper posted:
Answer sidesteps the full text of Article 6 cause its a little embarrassing these days.
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Feb 18, 2022 09:41
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cinci zoo sniper posted:It isn’t a requirement to get into EU. Balkans are getting special treatment in this regard, to avoid Croatia 2.0 - in other words, you must not have territorial disputes with EU member states. Oh yeah, that's right - the whole "Stabilisation and Association process" for the Balkans! I had forgotten about that. But that just goes to show how ad hoc the justifications can be. In reality, if the EU or NATO really wants a country to join, they'll find a way - as long as the member-states believe that the benefits to themselves outweigh the potential costs. The problem for Ukraine is, neither organization wants Ukraine to join enough to risk either an economic backlash from, or a war with, Russia.
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Feb 18, 2022 09:45
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Even the US official position is that Hawaii is out of NATO bounds but protected by some other treaties.
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Feb 18, 2022 09:46
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Majorian posted:Oh yeah, that's right - the whole "Stabilisation and Association process" for the Balkans! I had forgotten about that. But that just goes to show how ad hoc the justifications can be. In reality, if the EU or NATO really wants a country to join, they'll find a way - as long as the member-states believe that the benefits to themselves outweigh the potential costs. The problem for Ukraine is, neither organization wants Ukraine to join enough to risk either an economic backlash from, or a war with, Russia. I disagree. In my opinion, EU views Ukraine quite favourably, and a serious economic war with EU is not something Russia can sustain for more than a few years, without selling out to China the same way Belarus did to Russia.
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Feb 18, 2022 09:55
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Grape posted:But that's already the status quo since 2014. Aside from actual recognition anyway. what's going on now is imo that the russians are trying to force a formal conclusion to the conflict. there's a few ways that this can happen to russia's satisfaction: 1) russia gets a formal guarantee with some kind of enforcement mechanism from NATO that they're not going to let ukraine join. NATO has made it clear that this isn't going to happen 2) russia's interpretation of minsk 2 gets fully implemented, giving russian proxies an effective veto on NATO expansion and various internal affairs. this is probably not politically possible for a ukrainian government based in kyiv to accept 3) the border republics get a sort of quasi-formal status, permanently sundering ukraine's territory and ideally establishing some kind of border which doesn't have permanent low-grade warfare. ukrainian government also cannot accept this, but it can be done unilaterally all of these are significant wins for putin, though they're very much in a descending order. this has very little to do with democracy. in the nagorno-karabakh conflict, the russians are the friends of the more democratic side and NATO is aligned with the azeri strongman regime. it has a lot to do with energy and commercial interests, and with domestic political posturing. for NATO, this whole deal has been a godsend because they get to emphasise how important they are and how they're the good guys and europe should totally increase their defense budgets to 2% and allow NATO greater basing rights because the spooky russians fear democracy and are sure to invade any of their neighbors who aren't on a permanent high-level vigilance. in fact, europe should stop with the gas imports from russia and go over to US-supplied LNG shipments as a means of energy independence! and so it goes. note that the russians are clearly the assholes here. the maidan revolution or coup or whatever you want to call it spooked them and they outright stole a whole province - it was a province which was very amenable to being stolen, but that kind of thing is not generally considered polite in international relations, and it involves a transition into a pure hard-power stance wrt ukraine. this has been very costly; the russian economy took a serious hit in 2014, which has driven a bunch of unpopular austerity measures from putin's government. they probably would not have done this had they felt they had other reliable ways of securing certain important interests (putin's popularity at home, sure, but also stuff like the sevastopol naval base and trade lanes through the black sea). the issue is that "who's the rear end in a top hat" is only actually relevant in a limited number of circumstances. saddam hussein was a huge rear end in a top hat, but invading iraq was incredibly stupid all the same.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:01
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I disagree. In my opinion, EU views Ukraine quite favourably, and a serious economic war with EU is not something Russia can sustain for more than a few years, without selling out to China the same way Belarus did to Russia. They can view Ukraine quite favorably and still decide that it's not in the EU's interests to let them in, though. Member-states can veto other countries' accession - France has done this on multiple occasions. You're correct that Russia wouldn't be able to sustain a serious economic war with the entire EU, but they wouldn't need to. They'd just need to make it more worth another country's while to keep kicking the can down the road another few years. \/\/\/yup\/\/\/ Majorian fucked around with this message at 10:05 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 10:02
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I disagree. In my opinion, EU views Ukraine quite favourably, and a serious economic war with EU is not something Russia can sustain for more than a few years, without selling out to China the same way Belarus did to Russia. there would be actual riots in germany over energy prices
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Feb 18, 2022 10:02
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Majorian posted:They can view Ukraine quite favorably and still decide that it's not in the EU's interests to let them in, though. Member-states can veto accession treaties, since they need to be agreed upon unanimously - France has done this on multiple occasions. I’m aware of history of my home, thanks. I thought it was relatively obvious that I implied sufficient political will for accession treaty to be ratified, provided parties do their homework.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:05
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I honestly don't think there is, there might be a lot of sympathy with Ukraine but I don't see the EU unanimously accepting a member with a semi-active invasion by Russia. Unless that's what you meant by homework but I don't think Ukraine has a lot of say in stopping that.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:09
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also european commercial interests are very deep into russia and would absolutely prefer access to russia than to ukraine. major industrial concerns have very profitable business ventures in russia, and the EU basically exists to represent those concerns' interests. also also i don't think that another large influx of skilled labour with very low expectations of earning power in the single labour market would play very well there's not a lot of reason for the EU to let ukraine in other than to stick it to russia, and a lot of reason to *not* let them in. this, of course, is before we start being critical about the state of democracy in ukraine itself, which is not *super* great these days considering that even a basically decent guy like zelenskij has taken to actively prosecuting political opponents using the judicial system
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Feb 18, 2022 10:11
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Hawaii is not covered under a NATO Article V invocation if it is attacked.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:12
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V. Illych L. posted:what's going on now is imo that the russians are trying to force a formal conclusion to the conflict. I'm not sure that's actually the case. I think it's plausible that Russian behaviour has been triggered by the fear that they set up a frozen conflict in Ukraine to lock it out of the EU/NATO, but the EU might just muddle through to a place of membership or membership in all but name anyway. e: I mean obviously Russia would like conclusion on it's interpretation of Minsk, but I think that a conclusion that formally annexed the breakaway regions is not on the cards because then you risk a Ukraine that waits 10-15 years and then says "okay you know what, fine, we accept the annexation. Hey ho no border disputes now we are NATO". Alchenar fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 10:19
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Alchenar posted:I'm not sure that's actually the case. I think it's plausible that Russian behaviour has been triggered by the fear that they set up a frozen conflict in Ukraine to lock it out of the EU/NATO, but the EU might just muddle through to a place of membership or membership in all but name anyway. it's hard for me to countenance any such acceptance being politically feasible within a humiliated and revanchist ukraine but it's not technically impossible, no
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Feb 18, 2022 10:23
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Has anyone geolocated this? https://www.google.com/maps/@48.0601435,37.7498231,3a,75y,341.7h,84.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sof6NMbYpmO2xzoYpPxXryQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
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Feb 18, 2022 10:24
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The EU has the same problem with Ukraine as NATO. The Lisbon treaty has a collective defense clause, so most EU countries would be legally obligated to assist it in case the conflict with Russia escalated (intentionally or unintentionally). It's the major purpose for the continuing existence of NATO. NATO integration is how the EU implements this collective defense clause.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:26
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V. Illych L. posted:it's hard for me to countenance any such acceptance being politically feasible within a humiliated and revanchist ukraine but it's not technically impossible, no Yeah I think it's an extremely unlikely possibility, but ending the conflict on anything other than having the regions be a part of Ukraine with a veto over foreign relations would be a lose for Putin. Annexation might be a face-saving loss, but it would still be a loss. e: ^^ the EU's collective defence clause is a 'send a thoughts and prayers' clause. What it really does is create the rationale for how the EU can organise and implement economic and diplomatic measures in parallel to NATO military measures (NATO not being the forum for talking about any of that stuff). Alchenar fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 10:27
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Conspiratiorist posted:https://www.google.com/maps/@48.0601435,37.7498231,3a,75y,341.7h,84.56t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sof6NMbYpmO2xzoYpPxXryQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Source your quotes. What I was wondering if someone has a proper geolocation breakdown for the video or other footage from the incident, not if someone says "yeah it's there". The text under the video already says that.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:34
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Alchenar posted:Yeah I think it's an extremely unlikely possibility, but ending the conflict on anything other than having the regions be a part of Ukraine with a veto over foreign relations would be a lose for Putin. Annexation might be a face-saving loss, but it would still be a loss. yeah i do think that putin would very much prefer a less crude settlement here, but that doesn't seem to be on the table. NATO won't play ball and zelenskij is not in a great spot to make serious concessions of this type.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:37
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https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1494559131180716048 https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1494562584179232774 Gmaps link is where they indicate the explosion happened. You can find the crossroads of the OG telegram clip if you look to the West. Source my own eyes. Compare the buildings.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:37
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In an interview, Dmitri Trenin discusses what Middle Eastern countries will be looking for in the Ukraine crisis.quote:Dmitri Trenin: I think the outside world, including Arab countries, will be watching U.S. and Russian moves in this conflict, and the U.S.-Russian interaction over Ukraine. One takeaway they might have is the unwillingness of the United States to fight to defend its partner state, Ukraine. This means that U.S. security guarantees—for example, by means of NATO accession—cannot be given against a real threat of military collision with the other nuclear superpower. I think this is a really interesting point, and a reminder that the world is more than just the US and Europe and NATO. There are other alliances and partnerships and countries watching to see how everyone behaves.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:44
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But they aren't in NATO or EU, is the point. e: Hence no security guarantees, and certainly none were given by the US. Private Speech fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 10:47
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Conspiratiorist posted:https://twitter.com/666_mancer/status/1494559131180716048 These videos, sure. I have no idea how are they supposed to be connected to the night video, or how anyone can make anything out in the night video, though. For instance, where's the city entrance sign, this is happening like mid-borough.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:47
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cinci zoo sniper posted:These videos, sure. I have no idea how are they supposed to be connected to the night video, or how anyone can make anything out in the night video, though. For instance, where's the city entrance sign, this is happening like mid-borough. https://www.google.com/maps/@48.0600144,37.748342,3a,75y,69.73h,97.23t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBRT1WOtHiLsF73CeXeS5SQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 The night video starts here.
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Feb 18, 2022 10:51
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Alchenar posted:In an interview, Dmitri Trenin discusses what Middle Eastern countries will be looking for in the Ukraine crisis. how the hell did they not get this message from how we've hosed over every single party we've ever allied with in the middle east for the past 20 loving years
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Feb 18, 2022 10:51
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Conspiratiorist posted:https://www.google.com/maps/@48.0600144,37.748342,3a,75y,69.73h,97.23t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sBRT1WOtHiLsF73CeXeS5SQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Cheers. I went that road before posting, but I got fixated on the white settlement entry sign, when concrete posts, fences, and most other “more permanent” objects check out.
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Feb 18, 2022 11:10
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If Ukraine was in NATO would the US really declare war on Russia if they invaded? I think that is unlikely. It's all just games for the big players.
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Feb 18, 2022 11:11
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Flayer posted:If Ukraine was in NATO would the US really declare war on Russia if they invaded? I think that is unlikely. It's all just games for the big players. If they wouldn’t, their international relationships would basically revert a century back.
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Feb 18, 2022 11:15
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If you take a step back, this entire thing is so loving dumb. Russia has beef with NATO and the EU, so they're threatening to...invade Ukraine? just fucken lol it's so petty and childish. I mean sure, I get it, Putin wants to look big and strong and needs some semi-believable cause he can sell to the russian population of why they're invading Ukraine but come on! The collective response from the EU/NATO should absolutely be "gently caress you you loving lunatic".
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Feb 18, 2022 11:22
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The collective response, nevertheless, will be what makes the most relevant people the most money (MIC and petrosector).
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Feb 18, 2022 11:25
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I'm not sure if this has been posted yet. https://twitter.com/shaneharris/status/1494510021366927361?t=PT_WmVui5CVxz1MQeyO8mg&s=19 The idea that an almost defenseless country would launch a chemical attack on a nuclear superpower and the largest troops concentration in Europe since the end of the cold war is absolutely insane. But I've been watching local Russian state news lately and what they are spouting is just beyond batshit insane and this would fit right in.
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Feb 18, 2022 11:36
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