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'A good quick bloodless war will make everything better' is very channeling the spirit of Kaiser Wilhelm.
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Feb 14, 2022 20:30
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Nenonen posted:Or maybe Russian Empire's Interior Minister, von Plehve Yeah but you could sneeze loudly in Russia in 1904 and it would lead to revolution.
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Feb 14, 2022 20:44
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according to one critic of his, at least, he said that "What this country needs is a short, victorious war to stem the tide of revolution" in support of going full steam against the Japanese in 1904. It could have been just made up afterwards to discredit him, though, as the war was long, lost and gave way to revolution.
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Russia didn't just put troops in the Donbass, it shot down a passenger jet with its troops in the Donbass. e: ^^ I think that isolationism is a legitimate position to take, but you might find it goes down better if you make a nod to the fact that the people crying out for help definitely aren't going to interpret US non-interference as being good for them Alchenar fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Feb 14, 2022 |
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Feb 14, 2022 22:13
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It's as if if you assume that NATO is a nefarious selfish US hegemony project then it makes no sense at all to bring in the Baltic states, but if it is a defensive alliance of liberal democracies born out of the repeated experience of the 20th century that non-aligned democracies that do not take defence seriously find themselves prey to authoritarian neighbours then it makes a lot more sense.
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Feb 14, 2022 22:24
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TipTow posted:I mean, other than the loaded language, this seemed like a good-faith effort at trying to bridge the understanding gap. I do believe NATO to be an arm of U.S. (and by extension French and British at least) hegemony. That in no way excuses Putin's actions right now, though it certainly does help to inform why he's acting the way he is. More informative than "Putin lusts for Ukrainian blood." I think we are reaching consensus (approaching each other with loaded language) but if we accept NATO is an extension of hegemony of the Western Liberal Democratic market system then we come back to the fact that Putin isn't actually militarily threatened by NATO, it is that an arc of prosperous liberal democracies around Russia makes his oligarchic security state inherently less stable and at risk of popular revolution. And that is ultimately why Putin's actions now and general policy are bad and should be opposed - he can't reform Russia to be less poor so he needs to make the peoples around Russia also poor so they don't look good by comparison. It's not even a zero-sum worldview, it's a worldview where he needs to make the world a worse place in order to survive and that should probably be opposed. e: like there's a reason that every country that's had a free choice between being part of the Russian economic system and the European economic system has chosen the latter. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Feb 14, 2022 |
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Feb 14, 2022 22:36
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Conspiratiorist posted:That while the magnitude of force build up makes it a possibility, it'd be a very costly course of action for Russia (that is beyond pressure subsequently applied by ensuing sanctions etc), so most likely hostilities would be limited to Eastern Ukraine and avoid major urban fighting beyond perhaps Mariupol. Armchair generalling: the forces west of the Dnieper and in Crimea just have to sit there and Ukraine has to deploy defensively to take them into account. Even if they do absolutely nothing their presence would make a push into the Donbass and eastern Ukraine easier.
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Feb 14, 2022 22:42
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Arms control was probably a concern that was limiting Western support to Ukraine to non-lethal aid for much of the last 7 years, it's Russian aggression that has changed the risk calculus to prompt a flood of lethal aid support.
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Feb 15, 2022 00:37
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Given the reporting of the Putin-Lavrov meeting yesterday it seems like the off-ramp option they are going for to protect Putin is "I was totally going to do it, but then Lavrov talked me down". But the framing was very much 'gosh it looks like war is inevitable unless there are last second concessions'. E: looks like today is the day of truth then: https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1493502755440570370?t=HxzzCUwq221UgTecRgddHA&s=19 Either demobilisation will look real or it won't. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Feb 15, 2022 |
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Feb 15, 2022 09:25
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Spending a few billion dollars and tanking your stockmarket 10% to own the libs e: yeah as I said, by the end of today we will know if this is actually happening. Also the real question is not what the West or South Districts are doing, but what happens to all the Eastern District kit and personnel. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Feb 15, 2022 |
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Feb 15, 2022 11:22
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There will be at least one speech about how NATO matters because it managed to project stability not just among member states but in its neighbourhood.
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Feb 15, 2022 21:31
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Clayton Bigsby posted:See, this poo poo bothers me a bit. It's just too obviously staged so you gotta wonder what it's supposed to distract you from. Oh the point of Russian propaganda is really simple: it's just to blitz you with a hundred different possible narratives both fantastical and plausible so that the average person either never hears the true narrative or just can't distinguish it from any of the fake ones. It's not about getting people to believe the Russian line, it's providing a hundred possible hooks for people looking for a reason to doubt the Western narrative.
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Feb 15, 2022 22:07
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Or to put it a way that might resonate with others: think of Russia's misinformation strategy as Manufacturing Consent's evil twin. Every principle in that book completely inverted, with the aim of collapsing an opposing societies ability to come to a consensus around a single policy. e: ^^ for the purposes of brevity, in the context of a contested information environment between the West and Russia, yes Alchenar fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Feb 15, 2022 |
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Feb 15, 2022 22:33
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Biden absolutely does not sound like this is over.
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Feb 15, 2022 23:10
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Yeah this is dumb I think any charitable reading of someone saying 'active invasion' right now is clearly referring to tanks rolling over the border.
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Feb 16, 2022 00:30
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But the 'energy exporting superpower' bit basically ends in 2050 or thereabouts, depending on how seriously everyone progresses on renewables and nuclear. Russia is absolutely on the clock and that's why Putin is being so aggressive now - he knows that the window for coercive diplomacy to reshape the world according to Russia's preferences is closing.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:09
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Majorian posted:
For what it's worth I think your framing is pretty spot on on for Putin and the Kremlin's view of the last 30 years, I just think that on a discussion forum that assessment needs to be balanced against the fact that as long as we are defining Containment as 'stop treating your neighbours as client states' then it's entirely reasonable and in fact good to contain Russia. As people like to point out, you don't actually have to be a democractic state which respects the human rights of its citizens to get along just fine with the Western world. You just have to not be a psychopath.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:23
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In any case I think the whole border >< elections issue over Minsk is shadowboxing. Putin's real endgame objective is obviously an autonomous region that will reliably return a Moscow client and which constitutionally holds a veto over Ukrainian membership of NATO. That's probably the legal guarantee he keeps asking someone to offer him.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:13
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Cugel the Clever posted:This is a weird take. NATO members don't want to be dragged to the defense of... a non-member for which they have zero obligation to defend? That doesn't sound like a surprise and is certainly not a win for Putin. If anything, the resolve major NATO members have shown despite the complete lack of obligation is heartening. Germany especially has been aggressively targeted by Russian soft power for decades to shift its domestic incentives against confronting Russia, but has still made serious commitments to imposing costs on Putin's belligerence. Moreover both Macron and Scholz have now had direct experience of trying to talk to Putin and then having a bruising press conference straight afterwards where they got pretty badly treated. Even if national policy of diplomatic engagement remains the same, it just matters that the people at the top had a terrible experience, know the guy on the other end of the table isn't going to deal with them honestly, and probably don't want to do it again. e: this is not the kind of suggestion that gets made unless allies were happy to say it https://twitter.com/MarkUrban01/status/1493978369993719809 Alchenar fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 16:53
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Generation Internet posted:I don't know if the Daily Beast is a reputable source, but one of their correspondents is saying that Wagner mercenaries who have regularly been killing civilians in Central African Republic are being withdrawn from that country. Any news on what's going on with Putin's personal biker gang?
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Feb 16, 2022 20:22
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CommieGIR posted:I have some bad news for you about the other side as well: Wagner Group, a mercenary which is employed by Russia in Ukraine, is also a far-right group with noted Nazis. Also, Putin's personal state funded biker gang.
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Feb 16, 2022 22:53
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:Is this dominant theme in Russia? "Ukrainian authorities are murdering people on the street indiscriminately we must save them from themselves!" Its a huge, huge part of the state narrative strategy for survival: "your life might suck in Russia, but everywhere outside Russia is a mad-max disaster zone so just be thankful you have a strong government to protect you from the guys and liberals and think twice about protesting"
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Feb 17, 2022 13:51
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steinrokkan posted:I don't know why anybody is still entertaining somebody who has never posted a single post that wasn't a combination of bad faith / trolling rants and outright racism. I don't know why anyone would ask them to post more.
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Feb 17, 2022 19:40
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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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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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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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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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Guess we now know what those concentration camp plans were for.
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Feb 18, 2022 14:41
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Remarkable efficient government there to have an evactuation plan to move literally everyone to another country just sitting on the shelf there ready to be activated at a few hours notice.
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Feb 18, 2022 15:52
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Russia does actually do this pretty regularly. A bit of it is signalling but they really do care about testing nuclear readiness.
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Feb 18, 2022 17:06
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Wistful of Dollars posted:can you link that report? It's here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/eur040052008eng.pdf Amensty also did a follow up the next year on the aftermath of the conflict. e: you want section 6, page 26 if you just want to skip to that. The next two paragraphs from the ones quoted are worth reading as well. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Feb 18, 2022 |
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Feb 18, 2022 17:24
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Yeah don't be another story of a goon who travelled into a warzone and then was never heard from again. I suspect even the people still firmly on the side that its all a bluff probably wouldn't stake their life on it.
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Feb 18, 2022 23:49
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Rad Russian posted:Russian media is still full of making fun of invasion dates coming from the west right now, and there has not been any concerted effort to sell that war=good. Although maybe Putin doesn't care to pre-sell anything anymore and can always propaganda after. I think this analysis is good on that point. https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1494730097269563394 https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1494730100021071884 https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1494730102051119107
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Feb 19, 2022 00:34
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Conspiratiorist posted:My appraisal is that, noting I don't care about ~American Credibility~ or Biden looking like a fool, by selling the idea of a large-scale invasion as a virtual certainty to the Western public you grant Putin a bargaining chip he can use to consolidate his gains while negotiating a peace deal. But we're likely past the negotiation phase of this crisis and this didn't happen at all. Calling out Putin's invasion threat early seems to have exactly the opposite effect to the one you fear - alliance opinion has coalesced around imposing costs for aggression, NATO has been clear it won't make any concessions, Western public opinion is pretty unified around there being only one side responsible for tensions. Conversely, Putin has so obviously upped the ante that walking away with minor concessions would be a loss for him. I posted earlier and I still think that even an outright annexation of the donbass would be a failure outcome given the ambition and whats been put on the line.
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Feb 19, 2022 09:50
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Conspiratiorist posted:You misunderstand: I meant after the shooting starts. Oh well in that case I don't think that it's relevant at all. When the shooting starts then the movement of forces will be proof in themselves of what the objective was. Also the Western line has been 'invasion carries costs, also it looks like you've positioned to threaten Kiev'. Nobody has actually linked costs to a defined invasion end state which I think is probably deliberate and gives the West some space to apply leverage and escalating costs for a return to status-quo-ante.
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Feb 19, 2022 09:57
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I dont think that outside of a small group of hard left US people anyone thinks the US is looking bad. Quite the contrary, this is probably one of the most successful uses of declassified intelligence to shape public opinion and events ever.
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Feb 19, 2022 15:14
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"Who can tell what truth is?" Is incredibly tiresome and in this context pro Russia .
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Feb 19, 2022 18:57
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Rodiel posted:Look, I dont want war, but a lot of you seem to. The only way to stop it is to understand that the Russians are humans to. They have the same fears that we do, its not that hard to understand. Point to someone wanting a war.
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Feb 19, 2022 19:29
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TipTow posted:The missiles that could be stationed in Ukraine were it to join NATO? Hypothetical missiles that don't actually exist not actually deployed anywhere. If that's the bar you are setting then all missiles always exist everwhere.
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Feb 19, 2022 19:33
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Sinteres posted:The missiles do exist, you overreached there. Nah land-based TLAMs are still in the trial phase. From what I know it's fairly trivial to make a land based version but the US has only bothered to do the work on this until they lost patience with Russian non-compliance with INF. Once again it's Russia's actions creating the threat it complains about,.
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Feb 19, 2022 19:44
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Nah they did exist in the 80s but were all decommissioned in 1991 to comply with the INF treaty. Okay that's true but my understanding is that it's an easy-but-non-trivial task to make them real again. It's not about dusting old stuff off, it's about making totally new launcher systems and then going through the process of making sure they actually work.
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Feb 19, 2022 19:49
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