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It's really important to remember that these aren't new demands though (well, it's new that they're being explicitly made). They represent the Russian view of the correct state of the world since the end of the Cold War, these are not demands that have been made up just to be rejected as a prelude to a war, Russia genuinely wants a settlement in Europe that looks like this. e: this is not to say that Russia thinks there is a chance in hell of the demands being accepted, only that within Russian international security circles they represent conventional thought Alchenar fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 00:45
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Somaen posted:What the gently caress is this, seriously. We demand NATO stops sending its semi-literate posting forces I mean supporting independent media and pro-democracy organisations is inherently destabilising for an authoritarian system or managed democracy, but that's not actually the same thing as flooding a country with propaganda or organising riots or any of the other things Russia has been caught doing. These things are only 'destabilising' because these regimes are inherently unstable and lack popular support.
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Jan 21, 2022 00:55
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uno.mannschaft posted:Ok but even if they start a war, which they might, doesn't mean they want to. I think they want NATO out of eastern europe and if they can't have that, going inte Ukraine is better than having NATO going into Ukraine. That's just sophistry. Obviously nobody wants a war for the sake of having a war, but not being able to get your policy objectives peacefully and deciding to have a war instead is considered by by everyone to be 'wanting a war'.
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Jan 21, 2022 10:35
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'War is just a tool of geopolitics like any other' is a hell of a take.
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Jan 21, 2022 10:48
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GABA ghoul posted:Could be a miscommunication in the Russian army. Or sometimes armies look bigger on TV due to the lighting an stuff. I don't think we should rule out anything yet. Is the Russian army on our border very big or just very close? Oh poo poo it's both.
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Jan 21, 2022 10:55
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I mean, wider concerns; Putin knows that Russia is on the clock demographically (big decline in working population coming up), economically (if you are a petrostate then you need to be spending the next 30 years pouring every penny you can into restructuring your economy or you are going to have a really bad time come 2050), and personally - he's personally close to being out of time to get the things he wants done. All a bit dangerous. e: and yeah, if you look at the broader picture all of Putin's wars have been bad for Russia - they only became 'necessary' because of disastrous failures of foreign policy, and they've each served to add sanctions and further solidify opposition to Russia across Europe. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 11:24 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 11:22
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lollontee posted:this seems like a weird way to put it, but isnt it kinda good that modern germans do not follow their history by repeating the same mistakes? ukraine absolutely should not get more weapons to pursue escalation of the conflict with the breakaway republics This is a curious position given your view on China/Taiwan.
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Jan 21, 2022 14:47
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One can understand that Russia feels threatened by the US without acknowledging that the nature of that feeling (ie. 'I'm no longer able to bully my smaller neighbours with impunity') is legitimate, or that Russia's methods of pushing back on the US are legitimate (democratic countries willingly signing up to a US-led alliance is not the same thing as Russia invading multiple neighbours and setting up frozen conflicts and client states).
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Jan 21, 2022 16:38
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You should let Lavrov know he's negotiating under the delusion that he's threatening to invade Ukraine, he's going to be so embarrased!
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Jan 21, 2022 17:30
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I mean cinci is right, this is fundamentally a choice about quality of debate. D&D can either be a place where every thread is mired in debunking low-effort disinformation hopefully for the benefit of lurkers, or it can be a place to discuss and learn about what is actually going on. But it can't be both. Oh and everyone hates doing the former. Nobody has been happy with the last few pages apart the very gleeful troll. E: ^^ basically it's a 'final offer, no chance of misinterpretation in the room' Alchenar fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jan 21, 2022 |
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Jan 21, 2022 19:16
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I think that's a key point. If you are in the US state department and you are drawing up your wishlist of things you might actually get out of all this, a Finland and Sweden that are actively contemplating NATO membership is probably up there.
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Jan 21, 2022 19:35
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CommieGIR posted:What, I don't think that's true. You can use your hardware but the systems are recommended to be NATO compatible (i.e. like radios, signals, etc.). Yeah your stuff just needs to meet the standards in the relevant STANAG. Practially you end up buying stuff that has some US equity, because it's almost impossible to procure a piece of modern military equipment that hasn't had components sub-contracted out to companies across NATO. And frankly if you want the best and you can afford the logistical cost that comes with it, piggybacking off the R&D spend that the US does is often the smartest move in the game. e: Russia was a NATO partner for peace and there were even air and naval exercises in the years running up to 2014. The hand was outstretched.
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Jan 21, 2022 20:10
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Regarde Aduck posted:All you're doing here is creating a situation where any poster that falls foul of the majority is declared 'low effort' and removed. You suggested no definition of what is low-effort and i'm not sure how you would unless you are suggesting going back to the bad old days where people broke apart posts by sentence and everyone had to post referrals like a wiki article. As opposed to the bad current days where we spend 4 pages getting trolled until it turns out that the poster in question is using Russian government funded neo-nazi propaganda as their source. Posters should (this is still in the rules) be actually bringing something interesting to the table.
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Jan 21, 2022 23:15
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Fritz the Horse posted:No worries, I'm just sensitive to the feedback during the last day or so with several EE posters clearly communicating they shouldn't be talked about as pawns in some armchair Tom Clancy chat and expressing how tense the situation is. "There were a hundred posts overnight and I don't know if that means hot war with Russia and my friends and family might be in danger, or someone is being dumb in the thread." If people want to do Clanceychat then the CW/Airpower thread in TFR has knowledgeable people talking shop. e: if people want some starter reading on Germany then you need to start with Ostpolitik. There's a German tradition that says that rappoachament and normalisation of relations was the key to ending the Cold War - not entirely wrong and this was probably a key element of preventing the Cold War going hot, but it tends to airbrush out how important credible military deterrence was, or that modern Russia is not the USSR and this is not the same kind of geopolitical conflict that can be addressed in the same way. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Jan 23, 2022 |
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Jan 23, 2022 11:25
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The USA, a country well known for having a policy of mercantilist prioritisation of exports over imports.
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Jan 23, 2022 16:20
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More... interesting ideas emerging from Germany: https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/open-letter-it-s-time-to-invite-russia-to-join-nato-a-682287.html Check out this one neat trick to solve all of your security issues, Atlanticists hate it!
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Jan 23, 2022 21:17
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CommieGIR posted:This is actually worse than the "We'll solve the Ukraine/Russia crises by offering them solar panels and windmill tech" What if we just, like, ask Putin to democratise and stop invading his neighbours? Has anyone tried that?
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Jan 23, 2022 21:27
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I think the problem with the 'it's a bluff' position is that Putin's demands have been so maximalist that nothing he can possibly be offered will make this brinksmanship look like a win for him. Compare and contrast with the Cuban Missile Crisis where the US's starting demands were exactly what they wanted 'remove the nukes from Cuba', and the concession that was made in the end was a reasonable one of reciprocal withdrawal that made everyone feel like a winner (well, aside from the 'we almost nuked each other, that was bad' feeling and the fact that Khrushchev wasn't able to get credit from the widthdrawal of missiles from Turkey so it looked like he'd lost). If this is all a bluff, what's the realistic endgame that Putin is actually looking for? One the one hand he's threatening Ukraine with invasion, on the other all his demands have been about NATO dismantling itself. I don't know at all what happens with Ukraine, but I suspect that regardless of what happens there NATO is going to emerge from this with a new sense of resolve and purpose and possibly a couple of new members.
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Jan 24, 2022 10:25
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Sinteres posted:You're allowed to just post without being weird about me, but just to quickly respond, I don't think there's a secret message, I just think final offers often aren't, and that maximalist demands can sometimes be walked back if a compromise position is on the table. Okay then, make your pitch for what you think NATO could plausibly offer that Putin would consider a win.
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Jan 24, 2022 12:34
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j3rkstore posted:If this ends up being a feint, it has to be a riotously expensive one, right? Oh yeah, there's the immediate cost of this massive mobilisation, there's the damage done to Russia's economy from tanking the Rouble, then there's the foreign relations costs of having given the anti-Russia faction in NATO a massive shot in the arm and kicking Finland and Sweden into a conversation about joining. All that just to get an agreement that kinda-but-not-really legally formalises the status quo is not great.
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Jan 24, 2022 13:08
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GABA ghoul posted:Germany now offering voluntary evacuation to all non-essential embassy workers and their families in Ukraine. Embassy is gonna keep working for now though. UK FCDO and US state department also now doing social media saying IF YOU ARE A NATIONAL GFTO NOW or register with the Embassy so we know that you've diseappeared in a warzone.
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Jan 24, 2022 15:02
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A GIANT PARSNIP posted:Calling in the fuckin Cubans for a reference doesn't strike me as a sign of strength. Yeah this is the bit where Russia's hamfisted international messaging accidentally emphasises that they don't really have any friends in the world.
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Jan 24, 2022 17:56
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The list of leaders on this call is... interesting: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...f085a8aa7ae039fquote:More on the Ukraine situation: Joe Biden will hold a video call this afternoon with European leaders about the possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Jan 24, 2022 18:25
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Reminder that for all the nuance of Turkey's position, it is a country that no-poo poo shot down a Russian fighter in 2015 for crossing the airspace line for a few seconds and convened a NATO Article 4 conference over it.
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Jan 24, 2022 20:24
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https://twitter.com/DarthPutinKGB/status/1485597218719645699 Eastern Europe: Russia is a peaceful country surrounded by ceasefires
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Jan 24, 2022 21:40
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Sinteres posted:I think people are overestimating how much resistance there would be in a post-war Ukraine because they're applying a jihadist concept to Europe. Doesn't pretty much every country in eastern Europe have a lot of young people looking to leave for better jobs elsewhere as it is? That kind of suggests to me that nationalism isn't the top priority on everyone's mind, though obviously war has and would radicalize some. Assuming Russia would allow disaffected youths to leave, and that nations sympathetic to Ukraine wouldn't suddenly cut off all migration from the country, why stay and die for Ukraine when you can get a job somewhere else that pays better than what you made before the war? That's not a realistic avenue for everyone, but I do think it's a critical escape valve. This uh 'muslims are more attracted to violence than christian Europeans' take you have there might be one you want to take away and rethink for a bit. e: also you may or may not have noticed that conflict in the Middle East is a pretty significant cause of refugee/migration flows.
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Jan 24, 2022 23:52
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It's also not like a majority of Afghans joined the Taliban. Or the Vietcong. Or whatever. Insurgencies just need a sufficient pool to recruit from. e; KOSOVO
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Jan 25, 2022 00:12
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Regardless of our origins, I think we would all appreciate it if posters did the minimum bar of 'check wikipedia' before posting takes like 'the russian and ukranian orthodox churches don't appear to be in conflict or anything as far as I know'.
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Jan 25, 2022 10:46
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Hey there's actually a pretty famous example of a foreign imperial power attempting to conspire with Mexico to attack the USA, right after the US had actually launched a punitive military expedition into Mexico and what actually happened was the US ended up just giving Mexico a guarantee that its sovereignty would be respected.
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Jan 25, 2022 11:46
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Al-Saqr posted:If Ukraine itself is saying there’s no invasion on the way whys everyone acting like the Russians are crossing the fulda gap I suspect there's an element of Western MFAs still reeling a bit from the experience of Afghanistan last year and having a policy of getting non-essentials out earlier rather than later. e: also Danilov said that there's no indication of an invasion in the next 24 hours, which is not quite the same thing as what you are suggesting he said Alchenar fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Jan 25, 2022 |
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Jan 25, 2022 15:00
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Al-Saqr posted:Ah ok sorry I didn’t realize he said 24 hours, but overall the Ukrainians seem to be castigating the west for panic mongering and withdrawing embassy staff It looks like the Ukrainian position is 'right now Russia is trying to destabilise us by holding a gun to our heads but not quite being ready to pull the trigger, you pulling people out of the country is unhelpful because it might create a panic which would be destabilising'. 24 hours sounds like a worst case 'Russia goes for a lightning war with what it has now' warning period, most people I'm following on twitter seem to think we'll get 1-2 weeks of very obvious personnel movements and distribution of ordinance etc if Putin gives the go order.
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Jan 25, 2022 15:15
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Pretty decent UK Parliamentary Defence committee hearing going on right now: https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/64d86212-ba5f-40cc-bf31-fe7f2a350844
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Jan 25, 2022 16:12
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This is an extremely good article if you want a single source explanation of how we got here, what's going on, and what might happen: What a Week of Talks Between Russia and the West Revealed I really rate Dimitri Trenin, there's aren't many commentators around who have taught at military academies on both sides.
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Jan 26, 2022 11:47
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QuoProQuid posted:why the gently caress is the lede of this news story in the second last paragraph. And the actual content is 'A couple of House Democrats are mad that a foreign politician had to make a really mild indirect rebuke to their President when he made a gaffe and that has made life a little more difficult for them'.
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Jan 26, 2022 18:57
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I'm not sure the official NATO response was mentioned here :https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_191254.htmquote:So today, NATO has conveyed our written proposals to Russia. A pretty firm 'okay if you want to talk about forces deployed in Eastern Europe, here's our starting point'.
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Jan 27, 2022 13:10
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Fundamentally, Russia's conception of it's own security requirements are that it requires other countries to dismantle their own security guarantees. There just isn't really anything to discuss there. Russia believes it is special. That's obviously not true. The only real ability that Russia has to exert influence beyond its borders is through the threat of force, and that ability disappears once its neighbours join NATO.
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Jan 27, 2022 16:18
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"Only a person with no conscience at all would invade Ukraine!" *winks at camera*
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Jan 27, 2022 17:34
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CommieGIR posted:The last time they did a move like this they invaded Georgia. Nah the last time they did a move like this they invaded Ukraine. The military threat to Ukraine and the negotiating demands to NATO are so asymetric that it's just incredibly difficult to see through it all. If the negotiations are real then threatening Ukraine is actually a pretty bad way to get NATO to agree to anything. If the intent towards Ukraine is real then it comes at a cost of hardening NATO resolve significantly. And if this is all 5d chess playing by Putin to get water rights access for Crimea... well it's come at a bit of a cost.
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Jan 27, 2022 18:05
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I think we should define 'rapid'. In Iraq 2 the US spearheads were advancing ~20km per day, and that was for large stretches of zero opposition. In Ukraine that still implies a campaign that takes several weeks, even if every advance doesn't have to deal with a few javelins being lobbed at it every time it passes a ridge.
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Jan 27, 2022 19:30
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I think it is also worth noting that all through the 90's and 00's Russia never stopped its campaign of Active Measures against its neighbours. Disinformation, subversion, the odd murder of a Russian ex-pat who had sufficiently annoyed the authorities. The fact that Russia's conventional military was not a substantial threat in this period does not mean that Russia was not an awful neighbour in this period, and membership of NATO gave countries access to a range of capabilties to help push back against this activity.
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Jan 28, 2022 11:44
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