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So Donald Trump said today that the US may not defend the Baltics in the case of a Russian attack if he doesn't feel like they've done their part for the alliance. I can't imagine Eastern Europe is going to take that too well.
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Jul 21, 2016 04:20
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If Russia does something now, I have to imagine part of the reason will be to get it done before the US election. Not everything is about us, but Hillary's definitely more of a hawk than Obama.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:57
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Young Freud posted:Oh hell, come the gently caress on, Russia... Mark Ames was pushing that narrative on Twitter this morning. I really don't understand why some leftists love Putin so much. https://twitter.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/763377772739780608
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Aug 10, 2016 23:12
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Best Friends posted:Mark Ames is hard to pin down. He's a leftist sure but he's also a crazy person. He's lived his life trying to be hunter s Thompson. He has a lot of the right enemies, and I like the War Nerd, but Ames seems pretty personally loathsome and is so far up Putin's rear end that he defends Trump from accusations that he's too close to Putin by calling his critics Russophobes and McCarthyites. I'm sympathetic to the realpolitik view that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a natural response to continual Western encroachment on what they at least see as their sphere of influence, and to the idea that the West (even if by accident) did a lot to gently caress over Russia in the 90's, but it's still really weird to see someone lurch to the extreme contrarian position that right-wing Russian nationalism and militarism is somehow good instead of just an inevitable consequence. He really strikes me as one of the most bitterly nihilistic people I've encountered on social media.
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Aug 11, 2016 02:32
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Cugel the Clever posted:Isn't Kadyrov seen as the most likely successor, if only because he has the highest likelihood of being the last man standing once the bodies stop dropping? There's no way in the world the Moscow elite would hand over the presidency to a Muslim from Chechnya. He's too useful to them where he is to give that up anyway, though he'd make a solid ally for anybody who did want to be president. Ethnic background and religion aside, there's also no way in the world they'd risk a new Stalin. Putin's an authoritarian, but he plays by a set of rules they understand. Kadyrov doesn't at all. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 15, 2016 17:33
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I do think it's safe to say Russia has the strongest military of any European country, but it isn't inevitable that it should remain that way, and scaring Western Europe is a really good way to upset that balance. Russia has by far the largest population, which is more than double any country's but Germany (or Turkey if you count them), but it's a poor country which could be easily outspent if anyone cared enough to do so. The US is still the single most powerful country in the world by far too, and wouldn't be happy to see the demise of Ukraine, though it would still be crazy for the US to actually go to war over it. More importantly, having the strongest military doesn't mean you're really capable of taking and holding territory anymore in the way that it used to, and economies are more vulnerable to sanctions. If the Russian people fully supported it, Russia could probably digest Ukraine, but the cost and consequences would be staggering.
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Aug 16, 2016 16:16
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Torrannor posted:Still clinging to the fantasy of somehow being a Latin people Part of what is now Ukraine was stolen from Romania by the Soviet Union in 1940.
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Dec 9, 2016 18:25
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This is depressing. https://twitter.com/ARothWP/status/844916244042203136
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Mar 23, 2017 15:25
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Charliegrs posted:So Putin is blowing up trains now huh? I guess he wants a 3rd chechen war? I guess it's just totally unimaginable that anyone else would want to organize an attack on Russia at this point given how popular they are internationally. Must be a false flag.
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Apr 3, 2017 14:37
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Grouchio posted:Has there been any response from Putin yet over Trump's alleged plans to attack his bases in Syria? Stop trolling every thread with the same stupid question.
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Apr 6, 2017 23:54
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Grouchio posted:I'm loving scared you asshat. We're not going to bomb Russian bases, jfc. The plan you're worried about said we were going to bomb Syria's air defenses, where some Russian technicians happen to be present. It's not good, but recklessly killing Russians isn't quite as bad as actively targeting them.
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Apr 7, 2017 00:01
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Any realistic prospect of the people forcing the government to back down here? This looks pretty intense. https://twitter.com/golaszewskimar/status/889184959004639233
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Jul 23, 2017 22:52
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Russia's busy making friends today. https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/909002397397200896
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Sep 16, 2017 12:36
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A Buttery Pastry posted:The truth doesn't always make friends. Poland doomed Europe to suffer the horrors of WW2 by preferring to stab Czechoslovakia in the back rather than support the Soviet-Czech anti-German alliance. Poland more than paid for that, and Russia making GBS threads all over a country it effectively occupied for decades after stabbing it in the back in turn, in order to make its own crimes seem less awful, isn't exactly a brave stand for truth and justice.
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Sep 16, 2017 13:18
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2017 hot take: Stalin did nothing wrong.
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Sep 16, 2017 16:49
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Lightning Lord posted:I wonder if Putin would purposely lose to cement his handpicked successor as having power and being worthy of respect? He probably has too much ego for that. Doing anything that weakens his perceived power would work against his interest in maintaining an aura of invincibility heading into retirement. He certainly doesn't want anyone getting any ideas about investigating his behavior as president, and I think his paranoia alone will keep him in the game in some form or another for quite a while.
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Sep 18, 2017 00:13
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:If Putin wins the Ukrainian gable he stands to greatly move the direction of his sphere, a lot of moves become open that would be otherwise deadly because Americas resources were in play. Ukraine falling would be signal the end of American global superpower status as it would mean that we cannot stop a regional power from doing as it wishes like we've been doing. The US and Soviet Union were both superpowers despite both being incapable of preventing the other from doing some stuff. The total American post-Cold War dominance is already dead, but Russia clawing back a bit of their former sphere of influence, at great economic and diplomatic cost, wouldn't be all that big a blow to the US imo. Sure, it would leave some Western allies like the Baltics and even Poland feeling more nervous than they did before, but it would still be a far cry from divided Germany and the Warsaw Pact or anything. Obviously it's a bigger issue if the US extends idiotic security guarantees to Ukraine that it fails to back up (which is why the US should agree to a deal that Ukraine will never join NATO if it helps to secure peace), but so far I don't think that sort of commitment remotely exists. Russia's obviously a bigger deal than the regional power Obama dismissively described them as, but I don't think they're anywhere near reclaiming superpower status themselves, let alone toppling the US from that position. That's China's job. Or domestic political poo poo in the US maybe.
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Jan 15, 2022 04:04
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Morrow posted:Russia is a regional power, it just so happens that Ukraine is in their region. Within living memory, the area they're currently preparing to invade wasn't just part of their sphere, it was considered some of their core territory. They punch above their weight because of a disproportionate investment in military and cyber systems and vast natural gas reserves, but their economy is on partner with South Korea. I'd consider them a great power, not a superpower or a regional power. They have some power projection capabilities that extend beyond their immediate borders, as we've seen in Syria. They obviously lack in major external economic ties except for natural gas, but that's a pretty big 'except for' in Europe, and the Soviet Union was always poorer than the US and itself was pretty dependent on natural resource wealth too, at least toward the end. Back to the Ukraine crisis specifically, I thought this was a good thread about how NATO's operating based on principles rather than pragmatism in this standoff, so I'll include the first few tweets: https://twitter.com/OlyaOliker/status/1481676417993744394 https://twitter.com/OlyaOliker/status/1481676422100000769
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Jan 15, 2022 13:50
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Tuna-Fish posted:The problem with this is that in economic strength they are about halfway between Italy and Spain. Any of the top 5 European countries could be more than a match to Russian in conventional strenght, if they chose to. On top of that, most of Europe is part of that pesky supranational union that economically surpasses Russia by an absurd degree. The economic part is true, but I genuinely don't think any European country could match Russia militarily even if they tried super hard to do so for a decade, though the EU as a whole probably could (and has the potential to be a superpower under those circumstances). Russia has a ton of banked expertise/logistics/industry/etc., and a larger population, and a large state slush fund they can tap into due to the country's dependence on natural resource wealth. Then Russia also obviously has a completely insane amount of nukes, which hopefully can't/won't be used, but do have something to do with maintaining Russia's power ranking on the global stage. If Russia's not a great power, who is? Other than the US, I think only China and France have any significant power projection capabilities at all at this point. Turkey's working on it, but so far they're a lot more limited to their region than Russia. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jan 15, 2022 |
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Jan 15, 2022 16:48
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TipTow posted:People keep saying how small Russia’s economy is, that it’s smaller than South Korea or Italy. It looks like they have the sixth largest GDP in the world by purchasing power parity? Only the US, China, India, Japan, and Germany are larger. Yeah, one benefit of being relatively cut off from the rest of the world economically is that they can have their own little bubble where being poor kind of works out because it keeps costs super low. It's what makes them far more resistant to sanctions pressure than pretty much any other country too.
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Jan 15, 2022 17:21
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Cugel the Clever posted:Yeah... no offense to Ukraine, but there's zero context in which it might come up in a primary or secondary curriculum outside of Eastern Europe. Excepting in a "memorize all the countries in the world" week in geography class. It comes up when discussing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and the whole thing about Ukraine being the bread basket of Europe, but that's about it.
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Jan 17, 2022 18:47
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Randarkman posted:I don't really see the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk getting mentioned at all in primary and secondary education outside of Eastern Europe. It came up in my classes.  Not by name necessarily, but Russia dropping out of the war and Germany picking up territory like Ukraine.
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Jan 17, 2022 19:03
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From liveuamap: White House National Security Council spokesperson says "no option is off the table" - in response to Handelsblatt report that Western countries are considering scaling back Russia sanctions package by stripping out a cut off from Swift
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Jan 17, 2022 21:23
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Cugel the Clever posted:In brain worms land, the West is the impetus behind the crisis and Russia's done literally nothing at all but for defensively stationing troops on its borders to deter Western aggression like missile bases in Poland. Anti-Russian sentiment in the Baltics is proof positive that they're 100% nationalist neo-Nazis and, by the way, Crimeans are ethnically Russian and just invited Russia to reclaim the territory, which is cool and good. I think it's rational for Russia's former satellites to seek the protection of an outside alliance like NATO, but I also think Russia's rational to view the US admitting all of those states who clearly bring more liabilities than assets to the table as being motivated by continuing anti-Russian animus and a desire to contain/rollback Russian power and influence to the greatest extent possible. Is that actually why the US does it? I think it's at least part of the calculation, where the US does often have high-minded reasons for doing things...that just happen to coincide with utterly cynical foreign policy objectives, as when we engaged in humanitarian interventions in locations that just happened to be friendly to Russia rather than to the West, while overlooking the crimes of regimes we support, or even of other NATO allies like Turkey. If Russia does think the US is pursuing a maximalist rollback strategy against it, it then makes sense for Russia to push back to the greatest extent that it can without provoking an even bigger disaster, since calmly watching while it happened just invited more of the same. Does that mean it's right for Russia to invade Ukraine? Not if you're most Ukrainians, obviously, but I do think Ukraine and the West are being unreasonable by not being willing to offer any kind of security guarantees about future alliance membership. I get why the West is resisting, because Russia will presumably shift to 'okay, now that we've established that you won't invite Ukraine, here are other states we won't allow to join,' but if Ukraine actually does get invaded, I think the Ukrainian leadership's unwillingness to be pragmatic will look like a pretty big blunder. As the thread I posted before discussed, NATO membership for Ukraine isn't realistic in the first place, and Crimea is probably going to be Russian for the rest of our lives, so while I don't think they should give those chips away for nothing, I do think accepting those realities in return for some kind of security guarantee makes a lot of sense, and that the West should probably remove some of the sanctions for that invasion in return for reduced tensions and ideally a return of the Russian-occupied portions of eastern Ukraine (obviously not including Crimea). Of course there's a chance Russia comes back demanding more later, but them's the breaks, sucks to have a more powerful neighbor while being sufficiently removed from the Western core that they can't/won't provide reliable guarantees on your behalf I guess. Finland found a way to placate the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and I think a rational Ukrainian leadership could do the same now. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 03:09
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Probably some NATO members do want Ukraine to join, and more would if circumstances allowed, which is part of why it's hard to disavow the idea entirely. Like if you're in Lithuania or even Poland you probably want things to keep moving in the direction of pushing back Russian influence so you're not on the front line, even if you're already a full member of the alliance, at least if that can be done peacefully, while some of the older members who already feel that the alliance brought in buffer states probably feel like they're safe enough as it is and don't want to risk economic relationships over it. The US obviously tends toward the maximalist approach as much by default as anything imo, and has disproportionate influence in the alliance for obvious reasons, which is why I'd ideally like to see Ukraine blink, because I think some Americans would rather see Russia invade Ukraine and give NATO a continuing purpose in standing firm against future Russian aggression while trying to cripple Russia economically than concede that NATO has any reason to limit its expansion anywhere.
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Jan 18, 2022 04:00
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Everyone would prefer not to see Russia invade Ukraine, so NATO should stop pretending it's going to invite Ukraine and continue its advance to encircle Russia.khwarezm posted:Where else could Russia even demand aren't allowed allowed to join NATO if Ukraine is disregarded? Finland and Sweden Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 13:55
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Now point out on the map where Russia's two biggest cities are. steinrokkan posted:"Buffer zone" is just a term for "imperialism I like", hth. So is defensive alliance. Remember when the defensive alliance attacked Russian allies in Serbia and Libya?
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Jan 18, 2022 15:32
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You seem upset, maybe take a breather. Whether Serbia was in the wrong or not though, it obviously wasn't a defensive action by NATO, and as I pointed out in a previous post, it's interesting how the US and its allies only operate based on their high minded principles in defense of life and liberty when it coincides with cynical geopolitical goals. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 18, 2022 15:38
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Again, I never said anything about Serbia being in the right. I was just noting that the US sees some instances of human rights violations and goes wow we must absolutely stamp this out and tear apart the inviolability of international borders (while disallowing Serbian communities in Kosovo to similarly secede back to Serbia despite also being victims of ethnic cleansing), while ignoring or even assisting crimes against humanity in other places like Turkey and Yemen.
Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 15:49
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steinrokkan posted:somebody who's just admitted to thinking that stopping a genocide is worse than genocide itself if it inconveniences mommy Russia I didn't say that, and I think you should try reading the posts you're responding to rather than simply responding emotionally when you see the name of a bad country typed out. Nenonen posted:You aren't saying they were in the wrong, either, just that Nato countries were in the wrong in intervening. I didn't even say they were wrong to intervene, just that it clearly wasn't a defensive action.
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Jan 18, 2022 15:52
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steinrokkan posted:Again, you called it, explicitly, imperialism It was. Like I said, I think these humanitarian interventions always conveniently serve cynical geopolitical interests, which makes them imperialist even if they incidentally do some good along the way. Punishing only your enemies while ignoring or even helping your friends commit similar crimes is obviously imperialist even if intervening isn't inherently wrong. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Jan 18, 2022 |
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Jan 18, 2022 15:54
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BoldFace posted:That's only if both sides agree to play clean. Good luck with Russia's land invasion if Ukraine chooses the nuclear option and turns the eastern border into no man's land with dirty bombs. I think it's safe to say Russia has escalation dominance when it comes to nonconventional weapons, that would be insane.
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Jan 19, 2022 19:33
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The idea of the country where Chernobyl is deliberately creating a radiological disaster to stop a Russian troop advance is pretty funny.
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Jan 19, 2022 22:55
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Charliegrs posted:I wonder if Russia would back off if Ukraine turned the water back on for Crimea? I think the best solution to the crisis is recognizing Russia's sovereignty over Crimea, Russian withdrawal from the Donbass, normalizing relations, and maybe saying Ukraine won't join NATO for 20 years or something to kick the can long enough that Putin won't view it as his problem anymore. The US pretends not to believe in spheres of influence, but imagine how much we'd freak out if China started establishing bases in the Western Hemisphere and transferring arms to Mexico while refusing to rule out a full on military alliance. Turkey also obviously views its near abroad as part of its sphere of influence, as it's occupying portions of two of its neighbors (one of which the US is also partially occupying), with regular incursions into the territory of a third, so this NATO solidarity against the concept of great powers having interests outside their borders is absurd. If recognizing Russia's regional influence prevents an invasion, it seems better to me than punishing Russia after the fact, especially since other nearby targets of potential Russian hostility are already in the EU and/or NATO--there's no slippery slope to fall down. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jan 20, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 19:14
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Lord Awkward posted:Sure, rewarding Putin with everything he wanted to get from his actions. I'm sure there won't be any consequences to that. Oh wait, no, this hillside is made entirely of grease and lube. Spheres of influence for me, not for thee isn't really much of a principle to sacrifice Ukraine over. Russia put up with more encroachments on their border than even gung ho optimists would have guessed in 1991, and now that they're drawing a hard line everyone who got drunk off the glory years of post-Cold War rollback is going "where the gently caress is this coming from???" while pretending to be purely innocent pacifists who've never violated another country's sovereignty. From Russia's perspective, the slippery slope is the US making a bad faith pledge about NATO enlargement and partnership with Russia and then doing everything it could to eradicate Russian influence both in its neighboring countries and (more forcefully) beyond its immediate grasp.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:44
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Your suggestion only makes sense if you assume Russia isn't gonna try something else at some point whenever Putin's popularity flags. Making any of his adventures more costly and drawn out makes military adventurism less viable for boosting his numbers, which would encourage him to go a different route. Where else would Russia trying something even make sense? As I said, any other country we give a poo poo about is already in NATO or the EU. I guess the EU still lets Turkey push around Cyprus sometimes, so maybe EU membership wouldn't be a total guarantee against meddling with Finland, but Finland found a way to peacefully manage its relationship with the Soviet Union for decades after World War 2, so I think it can manage to thread the needle with Putin too.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:51
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steinrokkan posted:Once again, countries voluntarily joining up through diplomatic efforts to pursue a common goal and countries being put into vassal-like bondage by force aren't the same thing, and calling them both "creating spheres of influence" is tantamount to arguing in bad faith and parroting Sputnik propaganda. Countries that are threatened by free cooperation of others are the problem and their demands to explicitly harm other countries shouldn't be entertained, obviously. So are you seriously suggesting the US would have no problem with Mexico joining a military alliance with China as long as it was voluntary? Or that Syria and Cyprus voluntarily agreed to have their territory occupied by two and one NATO members respectively? Sekenr posted:What is this nonsense. What encroachments? Russia so far encroached on Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine while simultaniously willingly gave the bloody island Damanskiy to China, who encroached on Russia? I didn't mean that NATO actually invaded Russia, just that it kept extending its guarantees to Russia's border and Russia finally drew the line around Ukraine as off limits.
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Jan 20, 2022 19:54
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:Putin’s in this situation in the first place due to his inability to understand the idea of achieving policy objectives through being nice instead of armies, assasinations, cyberattacks, and weird mind games. Nothing the Ukraine or the US does will stop home from being super aggressive. It’s the only trick in his book. You may as well just pull out the Munich analogy at this point, now that you're presenting him as an irrational actor whose only goal is to grasp for more and more regardless of the actions of external powers. steinrokkan posted:Nobody in this thread has defended American FP, take your whataboutism and shove it The US is explicitly invoking a principle neither it nor Turkey actually believes to justify an extremely punitive response to Russia's actions, so I think pointing out the hypocrisy is relevant. If you think the country that violates sovereignty more than others is a good guarantor of international stability and should have the power to unilaterally destroy the economy of anyone who steps out of line, that's fine; I'm just saying I think it's bad. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Jan 20, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 19:56
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anilEhilated posted:Because appeasing aggressive autocrats has always worked so well. Hey, there's the Munich analogy after all. steinrokkan posted:Since he's and other Russian elites are rational actors responding to actions of others, I can only assume you would agree it's rational to pressure Russia and squeeze Putin until he gives up or somebody finally offs him. I think carrots and sticks instead of just sticks would be better, and would take out the weird part about trying to encourage Russians to assassinate their head of state. When you say squeeze Putin, what you mean is immiserate Russians through economic warfare. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jan 20, 2022 |
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Jan 20, 2022 20:00
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Sekenr posted:everone should support that not Putin's bullshit which they cant back up in any case. I guess we'll find out. I mean hey I'm an American and would rather live in a world with American hegemony than Russian hegemony, so if pushing a hard line with Russia at every opportunity works out for everyone, great. I think there's been some pretty clear negative blowback in the past, but I'm sure this time will be different.
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Jan 20, 2022 20:08
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