They've already lost strategically. In very short time they've managed: German rearmament, unified all parts of Ukraine, permanent stationment of US troops in frontier countries, pushed Sweden and Finland to Nato membership, started the real process of energy diversification in Europe, unified EU countries and destroyed Russia economy.
This is so plainly obvious these days that I can't help but ask, what the Russian elites' goal even is from a "grand strategy" POV. Do they really hate the West so much that they're willing to destroy their country's long term strategic positioning for the sake of being so visibly anti-West? It's like they literally took all that early-2000s rhetoric about "rouge states which hate us for our freedom" at face value and thought delivering on it would be a great idea. It's hard to come to terms with such seemingly irrational behavior.
What Russian elites? Nobody in Russia holds enough power over Putin to change his mind. Since the start of COVID he has closed himself off and basically only talks to a club of ideologues who read and write alternative history.
In one week they've freed the US from the burden of defending Europe against non-atomic war with Russia: rearmament of Germany, forced Poland to reorganize and modernize their army (going up to 300k), Sweden, Finland, forcing Turkey to get of their fence.
This allows US to concentrate on Pacific theater. I'm sure China is furious.
The sanctions will be lifted. Gotta have that methane gas, companies gotta sell their stuff there. And this will happen in a few years again, but then with Macedonia or one of the other "unimportant" Baltic states (even if NATO).
Lets hope its 4D chess. Putin wants to destroy Russia so it can be reborn as a pacifist winter tech wonderland, because everyone finally did the math and having a giant military and a stack of nuclear weapons is more expensive than peace.
Sadly I don't think it'll play out that way,
From General Sir Richard Shirreff, who served as NATO deputy military commander until 2014, when Putin last invaded Ukraine.
Not so quick. Finland and Sweden have not (yet?) joined NATO. There has been quite some discussion, especially in Finland. The public opinion has tilted towards joining NATO, and maybe we will. Such things take time.
It does matter. Putin can invade Finland and Sweden now, and NATO can’t do anything other than supply weapons. If Finland and Sweden are in NATO, article 5 is automatically triggered and NATO will have to respond militarily immediately.
The clause says "members must assist with all the means in their power" or similar wording.
Whatever lawyers decide that clause means, I think the odds of outright invasion of an EU member _not_ leading to open european/world war is basically zero
I didn't. EU mutual defense is loosely defined by lawyers. If EU wants to declare war on Russia, they need NATO and most importantly, Americans. I don't want to knock on Western Europe on military, but without Americans' command and control, as well as logistic support, I don't think EU can mount any substantial military troop movements quickly in respond to an invasion.
The way Russia put in their lousy equipment and untrained staff (if all the reports are to be believed) then his better troops and weapons are not yet there / ready for other use.
Hear me out. Russia is corrupt to the core with leadership that's only focused on enriching themselves.
It wouldn't surprise me if their conventional military proved to be way less capable then they're presenting it to be.
Sure, they have enough smart people that are able to design advanced weaponry, but do they have the industrial capacity to actually build? And do they have the capability to maintain it? How about troop training?
They probably don’t. As with almost all modern dictatorships, the military is there to protect the elites from the general populace, and is not fit for much more purpose. Besides Russia doesn’t have to worry about external invaders, because they have their nuclear deterrent. So the state of their military makes perfect sense.
No one knows for sure. Also, if Putin survives this whole Ukraine mess, who's to say he won't try again in 5 years? The point being, the narrative of business is usual is gone. All the countries that are next to or depend on Russia can no longer count on money or appeasement.
Nordic and countries next to Russia have to rethink their strategy. Maybe they decide to wait and see the next strong man from Russia will be and negotiate with them. But PEACE based purely on the words of a mad man is precursor for war.
I can understand that he was lied to, and/or he miscalculated the power of his own army. But at this point it should be clear even to him it's a complete mess and they are being ridiculed by the whole world - outdated equipment, weak morale, soldiers without food, no fuel, sinking tanks. Do they really want to be humiliated by the Nordics? I really doubt so.
My take is that Finland and Sweeden will wait a bit to see how the situation develops, and if Putin starts to bark about enlarging the invasion, they will join in a blink.
We (everyone) have a pretty good look on what is happening, and even propaganda can't hide that. This was designed to be a fast invasion. Everything is pointing into that, relying on the surrender of Ukraine's citizens and military. It failed and we can see consequences.
They have rockets, hundreds of aircraft, thousands of tanks and yet the advancement is so slow. Their logistics have failed and there is clearly no proper communication. Well, eventually you win which such a force.
Take a note that US came from overseas, yet they had superior logistics. They also advanced hunderds of kilometers in week inside Irak, Russia is still quite stuck close to thr borders. They just got their fist major city.
"just got their first major city". after not even a week
also, did you notice that they rarely kill civilians? i am by no means trying to defend them, but I have the feeling (!) that this is on purpose. and this might slow down operations. for instance today, they agreed for ceasefire and a refugee corridor. that will again take days probably. We should not forget that Ukraine is the birthplace of Russian culture. Ukraine is essential to the identity of Russia. They won't just carpet bomb it and call it a day. If anything of the stuff that Putin and his professors have written is what they truly believe, then we can assume that Russia doesn't want to annihilate the Ukrainians.
lastly, ukraine is HUGE. its bigger than France. And tanks roll slowly. Still, Russia will very soon circle Kiew and then its a siege until Ukraine gives up. No matter how many weapons they get. No stuff will get in and out. Civilians will hopefully have left already so women and kids don't have to starve.
all of this is my own opinion and I might be totally wrong.
And it is very dangerous question right now. What will Putin do if they consider joining, just before agreenment? Instead of eliminating one country, he might have lost three countries for Nato instead. Will he send some small warning Nukes into Finland as last hope?
Because of the geopolitics and strategical requirements of missiles, Russia loses nuclear war (in terms of response time ) if Sweden and Finland joins to NATO. Russia might go very far to prevent that.
There is a little seed of truth in their security claims, that Ukraine should stay neutral.
Missiles around country in close positions means, that West has better likelihood to win nuclear war with first strike, eliminating the most nukes from Russia. Especially, since they think that US is the enemy. And they want to hit US which is very far.
Russia loses their nuclear threat advantage, if other countries can position their missiles better, to reach far better damage with first strike.
This is the core of Cuban crisis, and why there are so many bombs, in submarines as well. Russia needs to believe that there is a balance.
> Because of the geopolitics and strategical requirements of missiles, Russia loses nuclear war
Nothing Russia can do changes that. They know that. We know that. They know we know.
It's all just a game of chicken. And for Russia to win they would have to go all in 100 times in a row. Whereas NATO wins if nothing changes.
So they won't go all in. It's just a matter of NATO deciding where the final line on sand is. I think we're witnessing it being drawn and Putin mistakenly thought he can do a few more steps.
> Nothing Russia can do changes that. They know that. We know that. They know we know.
They need at least a little illusion that there is at least balance. This is about Putin’s power and their narrative. All decisions are based on the fact that Putin will stay in power and looks strong leader.
> Russia loses nuclear war (in terms of response time )
Could you elaborate on that?
NATO will not strike first. I understand you can respond to ICBMs but there's very little you can do to protect your cites against them. So what do you mean by "losing nuclear war"? Even if 10% of Soviet nuclear equipment still works, that still means hundreds of nukes. The only "winners"* would be China, South America and Africa, not Russia.
> NATO will not strike first. I understand you can respond to ICBMs but there's very little you can do to protect your cites against them.
It does not matter from Russian perspective. Anyway, cities are just third priority. Opponent’s nukes and command centers are the fist priority.
If you can place enough nukes close enough, so that response time is very low, then first strike might paralyze nation and there is no response at all.
Russia needs to consider this, regardless of narrative who strikes first.
There is no 'winning' a nuclear war, once it starts everyone loses. Retaliation from either side will be immediate because no one knows what will be left once the other sides nukes land. The submarines are not going to be asked to wait and see if enemy nukes make it.
I'm assuming Russia's incentives weren't to prevent them from happening altogether, but rather to position themselves in a way that would allow them to manoeuvre when they did happen.
The fact their actions have caused these to happen sooner is certainly relevant, but whether they "lost" or not to me is simply a matter of whether their actions have placed them in the above position of better manoeuverability or not.
Whether this is the case or not, no idea.
Also, "win" and "lose" are highly relative terms here.
Disagree. May happen, even soon, but hasn't happened yet. Dependency on Russian gas, oil, wheat and raw materials in inexorable. China may have to intervene in some manner to prevent regime change in Moscow that degrades the relationship with Beijing. With India and China remaining pro-Moscow at present, its hard to make the case for true isolation of Russia yet.
That said, Putin and his crew are gambling with their lives on this one, and I almost think they were led into this by forces that would like to see them gone (count me among those forces).
I wonder what they looked toward as a possible successful outcome? It seems like most of the things you’ve written should have been seen in advance as either likely or at the very least possible risks, so what was the gain they sought?
They were planning on quickly taking Kiev and forcing a regime change. Relatively bloodless operation would have allowed the west to yet again impose some irrelevant sanctions (e.g. Crimea) and wait for everything to go back to normal.
> German rearmament, unified all parts of Ukraine, permanent stationment of US troops in frontier countries, pushed Sweden and Finland to Nato membership, started the real process of energy diversification in Europe, unified EU countries and destroyed Russia economy.
OTOH, for a dictatorship, of a just plain bad economy with no external actor to pin the blame on and a miserable economy with a clear external actor to blame and a grievance narrative, the latter can at times be more politically useful, though its obviously worse for the people: Russia may have lost strategically, but Russia-as-actor is a anthropomorphistic fiction. The harder question is has Putin lost strategically. And while there may be hope for that, I don’t think it is anywhere near as clear.
Lets not forgot pushing themselves into the arms of China who ideologically hates them. They hold Manchuria... if the '1 china policy' is such a big deal... shouldn't they want manchuria back asap?
How the hell is Russia and China allied at all? China is basically the one protecting Russia and allowing them to invade Ukraine.
Nope. China and Russia share an oligarchic & mercantilistic ideology. They share a common adversary. They are economically interdependent. They conduct military exercises together. The countries support each other diplomatically. One even wonders if the West's preferred outcome is regime change in Moscow that weakens the Sino-Russian relationship.
>Nope. China and Russia share an oligarchic & mercantilistic ideology. They share a common adversary. They are economically interdependent. They conduct military exercises together. The countries support each other diplomatically. One even wonders if the West's preferred outcome is regime change in Moscow that weakens the Sino-Russian relationship.
This is something I don't quite understand.
After Crimea happened, nobody really did much. 70-80% of Crimea is Russian and it probably should have been their own republic after USSR fell. However, Ukraine just kind of got to keep that land? It was ultimately a problem. It's fine for Crimea to be self-determining.
NATO has never threatened Russia. A defensive alliance is never a threat. Obviously you only find it a threat if you have plans to invade like they do. Yet China and Russia feel threatened?
Even more unusually... it is NATO who feels threatened. They are worried China and allies are about to invade various entities. Taiwan is the first one, but Japan and South Korea are immediately next. India shortly after. Australia is not long after India. Obviously the USA will be involved in all of those.
Lets also look at the tally card. Russia is the one doing the invade thing. Not anyone else. What has been the response? Everyone united against Russia's aggression. Said, 'no thanks we're out, you can go play with yourself from now on' Where's the threat from us? We ultimately dont care about who is in power. We said, nope, we are closing our borders to you and your trade. We cant ethically or morally support Russia in their actions.
Mind you, who am I? I'm nobody and know nothing. China's own actions will reveal the truth in the near future.
If China truly believes in world peace and the end of cold war mentality. Building tall is far more intelligent than invading for land. It is china's ally right now who is breaking this. It is their ally whose actions are justifying the 'west' to be so defensive and feel threatened.
You know what the west wants? They want the sanctions to work. If such powerful sanctions can cripple a nuclear power's ability to wage war. The threat to the rest of the world is that the same will happen to you if you declare war. It would mean we are post-war. People can feel safe within their borders. Nobody is threatening anyone else anymore.
Sure militaries must still exist. Civil wars, insurgencies, etc are still going to exist. United Nations peacekeeping will always be a thing in the world.
china could lead the way. recognize taiwan as a country within a country. see quebec in canada. Then hold russia up to their diplomatic commitment to ukraine. dispell the rumours they are about to invade and demand immediate peace.
There are two primary reasons we think the Russians did it.
Putin has gone full conspiracy theorist, nostalgic, delusions of grandeur, fear of dying. He has locked himself away with alternative history since the start of covid. If Russia wants to defend its borders, capturing Ukraine decrease the length of the borders significantly. In a 100 years who knows? NATO might try to expand.
Personally, i don't see how anybody under the age of 60 can be persuaded with this logic. But it does explain part of the failure so far. Putin beliefs it had to be far easier and cheaper than it turned out so far.
I think the economic reason to do it is far more plausible.
Ukraine as a sovereign nation is an existential threat to Gas/Oil Russia. Since 2012 it has become clear that they hold enough gas and shale oil that it would break Russia's monopoly to the EU. That's could half their state budget, in a time the social security for the baby boom needs to be paid out.
I personally think they could have figured it out, but Putin is obsessed with gas and oil. To him they are the foundation of a Great Russia.
>I think the economic reason to do it is far more plausible. Ukraine as a sovereign nation is an existential threat to Gas/Oil Russia. Since 2012 it has become clear that they hold enough gas and shale oil that it would break Russia's monopoly to the EU. That's could half their state budget, in a time the social security for the baby boom needs to be paid out.
That doesn't seem right. The EU is intending to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Recent events probably hugely accelerated this roadmap. Even if they had started building infrastructure now Ukraine's gas fields won't be production ready for quite some time. That leaves them with a 10 year time window where Russia would have to compete for a slice of a dwindling cake.
Natural gas is a big deal, but so is food; isn't Ukraine a major exporter of wheat? Crimea got Russia the port access they wanted, with few consequences, and this is a time when the West appeared particularly weak.
I don't buy this. Once you get a country in the mood for war, the marginal cost to them of more war gets less and less. In for a penny/in for a pound as they say.
If anything, I bet China has had to think twice about Taiwan after seeing the way the world has reacted to Russia. China has not been tested against a determined, capable enemy and their credibility as a superpower is at stake. They could lose to Taiwan even if no one helps Taiwan.
This is an oversimplification. China can't support Russia directly for couple of reasons (from Taiwan perspective). Even neutral is a kinda bad.
* Russia is foreign country, invading other country. China respects sovereignty. Their claims for Taiwan are based on that - Taiwan is not independent according to their narrative. Huge military invasion into Taiwan is against this ideology. It proves that Taiwan was not part of China.
* If they are OK with invasion of Ukraine, then other countries have arguments for invading China, and help Tibet, Inner Mongolia or Xinjiang to be independent nations. China really does not want that.
Also they remind us all the time, that what happens in the country, happens in the country (China). It is country's business and nobody else should take part for that.
I'm not sure China is as motivated about the logical consistency of these positions as much as their strategic impact on China. In their defense, most countries only bother holding consistent positions when it is advantageous for them to do so.
As Mao Zedong put it, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun".
They certainly engage in public relations efforts to burnish their public image and I agree that Xi is not crazy and would not make that task any more difficult than necessary.
But it does not seem like logical consistency is the driving force of their foreign policy.
Oh ya, like I totally dont get the relationships going on in asia. Pakistan, who typically hates Russia, is supporting them? China has a no limit alliance that apparently has limits. The 3 of them are seemingly dunking on India. India used to be good friends with Russia. Then you have border issues between India and China.
> Pakistan, who typically hates Russia, is supporting them
A rival for influence in Central Asia backing you committing to a fight in Europe that aligns the rest of the world strongly against you as long as it persists might not be doing it because they support you in any meaningful sense of the word.
He believes, and I agree, that it might be enough for Russia to have "ruined" Kyiv, etc., and to have significantly degraded Ukraine's military. And, militarily speaking, Russia lacks the precision weapons to do much else. Put another way, I think Russia has made its point, that perceived (or contrived) threats on its border will be addressed. One hopes, having made the point, they will withdraw; otherwise Putin is facing regime change or worse IMHO.
EDIT: I should probably add that Russia has a point-of-view on Eastern Europe that shouldn't be ignored. Not as a justification for its invasion, but as a legitimate security and *influence* concern. Much was imposed on Russia after WWI, after the Kosovo conflict, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Again, not an invasion justification, but an important consideration for a lasting diplomatic resolution... that doesn't require further fighting, escalation or heaven forbid WMD use.
Protests means that a minimal discontentment exist. But not necessarily more than this. The fact that there are protests do not mean that the manifestants are the majority or have much power. They can be, but they can be not.
There’re people who support war because the Russian government maintains an information blockade about the topic. Saying anything about the war that was not previously said by the government is going to become a criminal offence tomorrow. Two independent media (TV Rain and Echo of Moscow) were recently banned for telling too much. At the same time, every state-controlled media is spreading propaganda non-stop.
Many citizens genuinely think that Ukraine is ruled by Nazis, and Russian military is successfully removing these Nazis without damaging non-combatants. It’s hard to spread the truth because government is going all-in on stopping opposition.
CNN showed a pro-war protestor who said something to the effect of "Ukraine today, the rest of Europe tomorrow". There's definitely a faction that wants to see a new Soviet Union.
Not Ukraine, but NATO. US and NATO knew since 2008 that an invasion, civil war and Ukraine being split in two were a probable outcome of trying to expand NATO there: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html
While I wouldn't call Russia justified at all, Ukraine presented a number of threats to Putin's desire to be a superpower. The main threat to Putin is Ukraine's growing but still undeveloped natural gas resources. One of the biggest parts of the Russian economy is fossil fuels. There's large amounts of underwater gas right around Crimea that are now under Russian control. And there's large deposits of shale gas in the eastern edge of Ukraine that Russia could at least disrupt long term with the war. On top of that, Ukraine charges Russia tariffs on the Soviet era gas pipelines running through it.
If considering NATO a threat, the further west Russia can put it's troops, the easier time it would have defending it's territory. The flat open lands of northern Europe expand the further east you go, all the way to the Urals. If they have troops at the western end of Ukraine, then it's a smaller front line to guard with the Carpathian mountains to the south and the Baltic sea to the north.
The largest threat to Russia becoming a superpower was Putin allowing himself and the other ultra rich to take so much out of the Russia economy and keep it for themselves. Had they not down this and actually grown the economy he might have been able to get what he wanted.
I agree that Putin and co are the primary cause of Russia not prospering. I honestly think that Russia joining the EU would be great for the Russian people and the EU, but it's not great for plutocrats.
On one hand yeah but on the other it would require a ludicrous amount of change that we won't see for the forseeable future.
Additionally Russia and Turkey's populations are too big would create power imbalances in the EU that Italy, Germany and France wouldn't like. Oh and eastern EU countries are absolutely (and justifiably) paranoid over Russia of course
The west only perceives Russia as a threat because it makes itself a threat. Russia’s biggest enemy is its own paranoia and tendency towards unprovoked attacks on other countries e.g. the Litvinenko attack on UK being a prime example of Russia attacking another country for basically no reason whatsoever.
The west is perfectly happy to have Russia as a friend and to respect its autonomy if it would just stop attacking other countries.
If they tried to join NATO, absolutely. Russia has tremendous national interest in not allowing a hostile military alliance to absorb states on its border.
I guess I just wonder if you have any arguments that would be persuasive to those who believe Finland should be its own sovereign country, rather than a client of Russia's with fully devolved domestic policy authority.
Any dissatisfaction the Fins have with that answer has to do with the facts of life--they're a country with a smaller population than Maryland--not my argument. If you're a border state to a major power, you don't get to adopt a foreign policy that antagonizes your neighbor. Bangladesh doesn't get to do anything that would cause India to feel threatened; Mexico (and realistically speaking, all of Latin America) doesn't get to do anything that would cause the United States to feel threatened; etc.
That's just straightforwardly not true, right? You can't park nuclear missiles in Cuba, but you can do everything short of that. Cuba remained a COMECON member after the crisis. The USSR ran SIGINT missions out of Cuba. They were treaty partners in all but name --- far more involved than the US is with Ukraine in 2022, or, really, than they would be as a NATO member.
John Mearscheimer said the same in 2016[1]. Stephen Cohen apparently said the same. They don't need to "take" Ukraine. They just want it as a buffer zone. The Q/A at the end of John Mearscheimers talk is actually quite interesting.
Ukraine is not of vital interested to the West. If it had been they would have integrated it into NATO already. They tried the same with Georgia and right away Russia attacked Georgia.
More importantly he said that the west actually needs Russia against China, because once China becomes an actual threat it will become incomparable to any previous threat. Throwing Russia into China's arms over something that is not of vital interest to the US is insane.
I argue that the preservation and expansion of democratic societies and the diminution of autocracies is a vital interest to the US. A free Ukraine strengthens the power of people to rule themselves rather than be ruled by elites without jeopardizing the people of Russia. It does threaten those that wish to give autocracies more of a chance in the modern world.
Not invade with conventional troops vital but publish all the intel around the invasion and send money missiles and veterans.
> They don't need to "take" Ukraine. They just want it as a buffer zone.
They want it tho, the argument is not that they need it. The argument is that they want it. And the "just want it as a buffer" is completely unsupported and hard to believe.
> Ukraine is not of vital interested to the West.
When they decide they want part of Poland and Estonia too, will you say those countries dont matter for the west too? Will their membership in NATO then matter?
Damaging a few buildings and killing some civilians and then leaving seems like the worst possible outcome for Russia, unless the goal is to appear so weak that Ukraine don’t join NATO because they believe they can beat Russia just with their citizens. I like your optimism but it seems unmoored from reality. I hope you’re right though.
The whole point of the war was to sabotage Ukraine prosperity on the long term and increase Putin's approval on the short term. Ukraine and Russia are very close culturally and it's prosperity is a powerful message against Putin's regime.
Undeniably this war is ravaging Ukraine but the sanctions will be far much worse for Russia on the long term. He already lost on all his goals. If Russia doesn't agree or at least move forward with a ceasefire today this will be a signal that Putin is really insane.
The timing of these regular border transgressions, or the simulated bombing runs on radar stations along the Swedish coastline, have never been accidents. They always follow Swedish political decisions and statements that disgruntle the Kremlin.
This stuff happens all the time in Scandinavia. The timing for the deliberate airspace violation is definitely on purpose, but Russia has been probing the airspace boundaries of Sweden, Finland and Norway like clockwork since the 1960s. It's just a minor escalation of the play-fighting their doctrine dictates.
There was a military exercise with Sweden and Finland in that region at that time, they could have just wanted to have a little look and see and their signal recon from a distance probably sucks like everything else.
It's of course provocative but still less than 2013 when 4 fighter jets and 2 bombers flew in attack formation against Sweden in a simulated nuclear attack.
It's quite rare, it makes headlines everytime they do it. If you think that it's a common occurence and just shrug you shoulders then you are wrong. Especially since it was political this time.
It's not terrain you ever want to be invading through, though.
Check out the "winter war". Invading would be a crapshoot both ways.
The Ukrainian border has no geographic features that would impede an invasion though, and would let NATO cut Russia off from its oil fields, form a land bridge to the caspian sea and cut Russia off from the black sea entirely all within about a day.
Its strategic significance cant be underestimated.
If Russia withdraws, Ukraine is going to join NATO the second it's not in hostilities.
And it'll be accepted, because what Europe wants is not to have to sanction Russia so it can continue buying its gas. And that is now easier to do when Russia is locked out of being able to prosecute border wars.
That's the thing: the only interest anyone had in Ukraine not being in NATO was if Russia didn't cause more problems because it wasn't. That's gone.
>If Russia withdraws, Ukraine is going to join NATO the second it's not in hostilities.
Ukraine has spent the last two years begging NATO to hurry up and approving their accession and Putin sitting on the border with tanks for three months only served to make Zelensky more insistent.
I suspect NATO would be a lot more willing to let them in in one piece than if they were militarily destroyed, but who knows.
Ukraine was kept out because the theory was Putin would leave them be (since he kept saying that was the issue), and that that would be better for everyone.
But Putin has shot the hostage now: Russia occupying Ukraine means Russia has a NATO border anyway, Europe has a refugee crisis again, and no one can sit around and just get rich off of gas pipelines.
Ukraine wasnt "kept out". They just hadnt progressed to full membership yet.
NATO had already expressed its desire quite clearly both in Bucharest in 2008 and in Brussels in 2021 to put and keep Ukraine on the path to full membership.
Putin's gamble is that reducing the country to rubble now makes it unviable as a member and hence lowers the likelihood of him ending up like Gadaffi and Russia ending up like Libya.
It could backfire and it may be the worst gamble anybody ever made but it's not irrational.
Putin ending up like Gadaffi and Russia like Libya was never going to happen, because Russia has nukes. Just like the US hasn't taken out the Pakistani government despite them literally harbouring Osama Bin Laden.
The buffer states argument is dead. Russia killed it. Europe now has to logistically support Ukraine, pivot it's energy market and disrupt its economy because Russia just showed the world it views buffer states as consumable components for future Russia.
>It's better strategy to have buffer states adjacent to major powers
I am not a strategist so why is this? And why for example wouldn't Russia tried to sign an alliance with this countries where they promise to respect each other territories and not participate in aggressive actions against each other. Isn't this a good enough buffer? it won't work if you don't want to renounce at teritory claims though
So I am biased since I am from Romania, but IMo is clear Russia wants the natural resources and the strategical position from the Black Sea not to defend itself from the small easter European countries but just from pure greed, like in a cmputer game you rush to grab the natural resources to prevent the others to use them and grow, after you grow you invade and destroy their shit until they surrender. Defensive alliances would make sense if you want to protect yourself and this is what the eastern european countries want from NATO.
Neither are Bangla speaking Indians or Muslim Indians, but nonetheless this sort of thing is an extremely common basis for regional conflict that has nothing to do with anyone else.
Be cautious not to fall for propaganda. From both sides.
I've read conflicting statements about how Russian speaking Ukrainians are treated in Ukraine but it's also not obvious to me why it should be so much worse in Donbass versus the rest of Ukraine.
Just because there is a different language doesn't mean that there is automatically a cultural divide.
There are many countries that have similar conditions, minorities outside theyr borders, historical claims but when we entered EU and NATO we all had to make peace with our neighbors and give up or old grudges, I hope the young Russian generation would prefer to enter EU then reviewing some old empire.
The notion that entering the EU is some magic thing that will make those go away is incredibly naive. I think more likely is the EU ceasing to existing within the next 50 years as the US continues its withdrawal from the world.
There are many factors that make it so the new generations are more connected and emphasize better. EU membership makes it possible for students to study in different places and learn more, from my experience younger generations are less racist/xenophobic/nationalistic. It will take time to fix the issue but it things improve and with less Russian propaganda and dirty money in our politics it will improve even faster.
If some great of English people think they’re different enough from some other group of English people to want to be a separate country, that’s a regional conflict that doesn’t warrant the involvement of anyone else. Same as Ireland separating from Britain or Bangladesh separating from Pakistan or India/Pakistan border disputes.
We did go to war with Mexico and took a bunch of their land. And if our military power wasn’t so overwhelmingly superior we absolutely would have border conflicts with Mexico.
That ship sailed in 2008 with the Bucharest conference. The membership process was stalled and unstalled but it's been underway for a while now. The NATO incursion in Libya leading to Gadaffi getting a rusty bayonet up his backside in 2011 seems to be the point where Putin viewed further expansion as red line though.
Zelensky has spent the last two years begging them to hurry the membership application up.
But NATO does require that there are no outstanding territorial disputes. So Russian occupation of part of Georgia is a tactic. Furthermore, to say that this NATO "requirement" was papered over when Greece and Turkey were admitted would be an understatement.
Is it really a formal requirement? I’ve only heard of Cyprus as an example, but this Cyprus is a flawed example, because NATO accession vote has to be unanimous, and Turkey is likely to veto it.
Also if that was the case, then Ukraine’s NATO aspirations were dead as soon as Russia took Crimea, making this entire ordeal completely pointless.
It wouldn’t be renouncing claims, it would be de jure ceding territory (that is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine) to Russia, and there’s no way that would be okay.
I was Ukraine, if I got NATO I would drop Crimea like its nothing. Crimea was always practically controlled by Russia anyway. And its by far the most pro-Russian part of Ukraine.
See no reason why Russia should not be forced to withdraw completely - leaving Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk.
It's Ukraine time to retake their lands from the occupier.
Not really, Russia's previous aggressions in 2014 are the reason Ukraine even has a military in the first place and from the past few days it appears that said military's existence came as a shock to the invader. It is fair to say that Putin expected another special operation like in Chechenya, Syria, etc., where he would just bomb the terrorists for a while with no actual opposition showing up. There's a decent analysis thread outlining the background and doing a lot of historical legwork. [0]
This is a real problem and a cause for worry though since insane escalation may very well occur with the singular goal of saving faces of russian heads of state.
> I should probably add that Russia has a point-of-view on Eastern Europe that shouldn't be ignored. Not as a justification for its invasion, but as a legitimate security and influence concern.
Now, there is of course point of view of Eastern European countries who see Russia as legitimate security and influence concern. These are NATO members and became NATO members specifically to be protected against what you call legitimate security concern of Russia (read inability to expand).
> Much was imposed on Russia after WWI, after the Kosovo conflict, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Now, how much of that "imposition" is Poland not wanting to be occupied by Russia anymore?
you can probably open in web-telegram and have google translate do its work.
there are a lot of unique information you wont find anywhere else.
lots of fake news debunked as well.
the "both sides" ceased to exists once Putin started the aggression against the whole country, and specifically its population. While it is true that there had existed a Donbass issue, it doesn't matter right now as under excuse of that issue, Putin started an ethnic cleansing and genocide against Ukrainians. There is no other side in genocide. Putin is extremely clear laying his approach and goals specifically in his 2 last Ukraine speeches.
The possible NATO expansion/Ukraine joining is also just an excuse (solving it is a kind of "nice-to-have" side effect) and the West attention's misdirection. Putin's direct goal in the current action and a major corner stone of his overall policy is non-existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians (in the idiosyncrasy of the "Russian world" philosophy the Ukrainians are the traitors who chose West side and thus have to be punished a-la "Taras Bulba" style). According to him only Ukrainians who are ready to deny their ethnicity and recognize themselves as Russians are allowed to exist. It is a great tragedy that many Russians do partially or fully subscribe to that view without fully recognizing the catastrophic reality it leads too.
Putin's policy is clear fascism. It isn't well recognized on the West as West plays coy when it comes to fascism and isn't yet direct target of Putin. In Ukraine and other directly targeted countries the term "russism" ['rashizm'] for "russian fascism" has been a normal everyday word as they have been feeling its threat for years.
> it might be enough for Russia to have "ruined" Kyiv, etc., and to have significantly degraded Ukraine's military.
Well, that's more or less what Putin said he wanted to do, right? De-militarize and "de-nazify" (he actually means change the regime to one that, like the Ukrainian government prior to 2014, supports Russia) Ukraine.
"The second pillar of Russia’s power is, of course, its nuclear arsenal. Nuclear bombs do not win a conventional war, but one can destroy a country with them, in the blink of an eye. And here lies a great risk for the rest of the world. What will a dictator do when he realises that he cannot win the war by conventional means but by other means? That remains the most terrifying question today."
--
I do wonder how operational Russia's nuclear arms currently are, though. The US has spent many billions on the maintenance of its nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War. I'm highly skeptical that the Russians have been anywhere near as meticulous in keeping their own in good working order.
Having read about this some years ago, I'd suggest that the majority are in a very poor shape because of lack on investment in maintenance, upgrades,etc. However, even if all their bombs are rusty and barely work, It'd be enough to drop just one of them on my country that would make it completely inhabitable.
I'm not sure it's that simple. The bombs probably don't "barely work" at 10% of explosive power. It's more likely that 90% of them do not work at all, and 10% of them do. Numbers made up without basis.
Russia starts to look very awkward if they launch a nuclear attack and it does not work. What happens next? The loss of credibility drops substantially with each attack. I think, for this reason, a nuclear attack on ukraine is not likely to happen.
This is a better view. It’s not just about what happens if it works but also about what of it does not. In both the scenarios though, Russia itself be facing an existential crisis since nuclear powers are dime a dozen at this point in the world and they will fight back.
Edit: As spywaregorillla corrected me, there are only a few countries with nuclear weapons. 8 in number other than Russia.
Wont a conventional explosive wrapped around a nuclear payload (ie a dirty bomb) do a whole lot of damage from the radiation? The blasts don't concern me, cities can be rebuilt, but not if the land is radioactive for a hundred years.
Chernobyl was effectively a "dirty bomb." It was bad, but not nearly as bad as was predicted. Many people have visited the Chernobyl exclusion zone (legally and illegally) and found it is doing pretty well. (Most recent visitors were Russian soldiers - Russia actually invaded Ukraine through the Chernobyl exclusion zone.)
Not an expert but I think no, that's not how that works. You can't detonate a nuclear weapon without the mechanism to enact the fission. A dirty bomb meaning just a normal explosion with some radioactivity in it, is probably... not actually that bad? At least, not in the context of how bad things are already. Hundred years sounds far too long.
This view of decaying Russian military predominates, but they're smart scientists and engineers. They also steal tech through spying. They're the pioneers of hypersonic weapons.
Lithuania. Area:65000km2. Some mentioned Chernobyl plant explosion - we had identical nuclear plant that has been decommissioned since. If the same would have happened here,more or less entire country would be exclusion zone even today
Strategic Rocket forces as well as Long Range Aviation (the strategic forces that carry nuclear deterrent), and the boomer forces, all have much stricter overview and for years had priority over everything else in terms of funding (as resources dried up in wake of soviet union collapse, Russia fell back on nuclear deterrent as the method of ensuring nobody attacks, so they were first for everything).
I expect that corruption endemic in the ground forces (especially infantry) is much more in check with nuclear forces.
Before ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 2000, Russia and formerly the USSR carried out a total of 715 nuclear tests. Since 2000 the US has regularly made allegations that Russia has been secretly carrying out various low yield nuclear tests. This was part of the justification stated for our pulling out of the intermedia rate nuclear forces treaty. They have also been developing novel nuclear weapons such as the Poseidon torpedo system [1] the creates artificial radioactive tsunamis through targeted underwater nuclear detonations.
There was also a report from the Congressional Research Service about Russian arms exports and development from October 2021 [2]. It's filled with lots of interesting data, but a couple of interesting points: Russia is the world's second largest arm's exporter, behind only the US, accounting for 20% of all sales. Russia was also the driving force behind the modernization of the Chinese military. The only downside mentioned is that, "Despite producing modern and technologically advanced systems, Russia’s defense industry has numerous challenges, such as inefficiency, low production capacity, lack of a modern machinery base, limited innovation, and efforts to diversify into civilian and dual-use technologies."
We're currently in the middle of a ongoing information war. Take everything you read, from any source, about current events with a grain of salt. Remember how different Iraq looked before, during, and then long after the war. Ironically, slightly dated sources can provide the most relevant information.
I wouldn't bet on it, out 4k+ that Russia has in their arsenal, only dozens are needed to trigger a MAD scenario.
Also they have been investing in the nuclear program as well, creating devices like Poseidon[0] which could theoretically make an entire US coast unliveable.
The only winning move in nuclear brinksmanship is not to play.
The US didn't just spend billions on maintenance, they've been improving them. And in 2019 under Trump they pulled out of the nuclear treaty with Russia[1]
Although why did Trump do it? To look tough? Or could it because he's owned by Putin, and Putin wanted to improve his nukes, but didn't want to break the treaty, but oh look, there's currently a supremely useful idiot/useful supreme idiot at the other side of that treaty. (Too harsh? This is a guy who makes decisions based not on pages of analysis but on what the last person whispered to him)
Geez, you guys are really deep in your conspiracies aren't you? Trumps advisors were plenty warhawks themselves. Remember John Bolton and Pompeo?
They wanted it torn up and there was no secret agenda of Russians involved. The way they justified it was to say that Russia doesn't abide by it anyway, therefore we're just making it official.
But that's just the US perspective. It's possible that Russia was looking forward to it as well, who knows. But in John Boltons book he wrote that the Russians were surprised and he was quite proud of it as well.
I think if western intelligence truly believed that Russias nuclear arsenal was all talk, they would be less hesitant to use NATO troops to defend Ukraine. Why hesitate otherwise?
No, they can win the war. The question is whether they can win the peace and/or survive the fallout from starting it. Assuming others don’t forget it happened in 6 months.
What do you need money for when you can dig everything you need out of the ground?
Aha: the article explains further down. It’s all very well being able to dig up thousands of tonnes of oil and iron but that’s no use when your citizens want TVs and jeans.
So I wondered this as well... Given the vast resources within Russia there's no reason why they can't build their own TVs or make their own Jeans. Obviously that's currently not the case, but a society that has a space programme can surely achieve this?
A fairly large amount of the Russian space program was designed (and maybe built) by Ukrainians in Ukraine. Russia doesn’t have much capability to update their designs anymore.
There's little incentive to start a business when the government or mafia-like oligarch can shut down or take your business or profits at their whim. Also capitalism and startups are a culture. People who don't grow up around others that think like that don't ever learn how to think in that way.
The recent behaviour from Russia is idiotic, but makes sense because they are in panic mode. It (Russia) will need to be seriously declawed and this only makes sense because of that.
You cannot have imperialistic ambitions of this scale in 2022 via warlike means, only possible are via US-like "export" of the Silicon Valley ethos all over the world.
The US has two big nations at it's borders I do not think they believe they can win over Canada and Mexico. It is implied elsewhere in this thread that "win" might not be what Russia expects to do either.
> Moreover, these high commodity prices are a temporary phenomenon. “What goes up must come down”. Gas prices, oil prices and commodity prices will fall again and will shrink the resources available to the Russian government and make a protracted conventional war impossible.
That's kind of a weak argument imho. Artifical shortage (sanctions), uncertainty (war), and peak oil (someday) don't seem unlikely to raise the oil price continuously.
It's against my intuition that a switch to renewable energy will compensate for that.
What's the reasoning behind „What goes up must come down”?
I think that the author is wrong in trying to estimate military force by economy size. What matters in the war is not how many dollars you have but how many soldiers, bullets, tanks, bombs you have.
And the costs to produce them might be different. In the West its high wages and strict safety requirements inflate the cost of production, but if in your country people are motivated to work for food for the victory then you can produce much more with the same expenses.
It took > 19 days to win the conventional phase of GW2. For the non-conventional phase the US / UK lacked the will to do what was required to win that. Exemplary executions, retaliation, assassination.
Putin does not lack that will.
He has longer than 19 days. If the conventional phase of the war takes 40 days then he will see that as fine.
He can see the summer in and wait for the Europeans to return to chasing butterflies and playing with their children. He will wait for another year. All the while the Ukrainian resistance will be being dragged into carparks and playgrounds to be executed. All the while the Russian army will be repairing, refueling and restocking. What comes next is in Putin's hands.
All the wishing for a good outcome in the world does not change this. What could have changed it is if the Dutch, the Belgians and most of all the Germans had acted like adults in the world. Instead they have been dancing on the edge of a disaster. Now they have fallen off into the chasm and we all will have to pay for those happy summer afternoons and heady evenings of dance, drugs and song now.
>What could have changed it is if the Dutch, the Belgians and most of all the Germans had acted like adults in the world. Instead they have been dancing on the edge of a disaster.
Vague and weird words that could mean almost anything.
4. Belgium : 0 (read it straight) 0 MBT. 0. 1 Self propelled gun I think.
These are rich and powerful countries. They have been utterly delinquent for the last 20 years. When you see unanswered Russian aggression in the east it's because these people who should be the core of European power have pretended that everything will be alright if they let their martial capabilities rot.
It's not only their forces (and foreign policy, particularly Germany's and the EU's in Ukraine and the Balkans). The near evisceration of the European military infrastructure and production capability has screwed everyone. Where is the Tornado replacement? Let alone the Eurofighter replacement? How many F35's has Germany bought (spoiler :0) how much more expensive has that made F35 for everyone else (spoiler : alot).
Now the Germans are going >2% on defence - how many years will it take for that kind of money just to repair the barracks? Where is the Dutch emergency budget? (https://nltimes.nl/2022/03/01/dutch-armed-forces-facing-russ... --- let's grow towards 2%!)
Also the wording is an allusion to the first world war.
But what's happening in the Ukranian theatre validates all of that. The Russian military is being revealed as a paper tiger. It makes no sense to invest heavily in defence when your enemy doesn't have any real forces they can deploy.
Unless you choose to believe that the Russian military, for some reason, is throwing green units and third-tier armor into the field - and holding back battalion after battalion of elite troops equipped with elitely-maintaine vehicles - it seems very hard to criticise European levels of defence spending given the reality of the enemy forces it appears to face.
I think that they blinded themselves with their warped world view. More importantly they blinded the military with it - leading to early blunders. If I was an airborne general in Russia I would have a fairly large grudge about what happened in the first three days which I would nurse for a long, long time. I think that they've also had a long history of stealing from defence procurement which has not helped either.
But now the kit that doesn't work is discounted and parked and no one expects cheering flower throwing welcome. The Russian Army will deliver - even if the airforce won't / can't, if boys die doing what they were trained to do then that's expected. The Motherland is grateful.
There will be a reckoning though. They won't forgive or forget this. Unfortunately they all do agree with the war aims, but the set up will not be allowed to happen twice. I expect adults wearing uniforms to grab the reigns when this is over.
They can certainly win militarily. Whether that results in a tenable, stable reality is another matter entirely. Taking over Ukraine won't allow their country to function in economic isolation.
Do they have 40 days? Their economy is crumbling beneath them. I guess if they can convince the Russian people that even more poverty is worth it but I have my doubts. I have my doubts that they can even continue to function at all with the amount of economic isolation their invasion has inspired.
Putin doesn't win when a tank is at a specific place in Kyiv.
Putin doesn't have the economy, the material nor the young men for a prolonged occupation of Ukraine.
Without a prolonged occupation, there is no win for Putin. He may install a puppet regime, but that will fall as soon as Russian forces leave the country.
Indeed they can't, the only question is how much senseless slaughter they're willing to inflict before they admit it.
The Ukraninians are extremely motivated and they'll have an unlimited flow of advanced weapons and local support. What does it mean for a town to "fall"? All someone has to do is smuggle in a Javelin within 1 mile of an armoured vehicle and destroy it. Parking your APC in the middle of a town after you've "captured" it isn't going to make the Russians safe.
Tldr: an advanced missile launcher (one of their most expensive vehicles) was so badly maintained, the tires just shred apart and it was captured. If thats the state of a 15 million dollar piece of equipment, what's everything else like?
If we start from the principle that everything makes sense, there is a hole here - this war makes no sense. There's no upside for either Russia or Putin. It follows that we are missing something. I have no idea of what we are missing, but I'm sure "Putin is an idiot" is not the most plausible explanation.
Basically: Russian people and territory re-unification before letting the cultural erosion making it impossible, which is seemingly insufferable.
Then there is some rambling about a new order due the coordination of Ukraine Bielorussia and russia would make Europe autonomy crumble.
Then the world was expected to be in awe in such a display of power, and that would have made all countries realize that west dominance is in jeopardy.
1. Putin is almost 70 and there are reports he is making decisions differently than he did in the past
2. He's surrounded himself with yes men
3. Those yes men told him Europe wouldn't do anything and Ukraine would fall quickly. They told him it'd be another Crimea
4. Once the war started it became obvious they made a terrible mistake, but now Putin's stuck in a clusterfuck of epic proportions for Putin, Ukraine, and Russia.
This assumes that Russia will not resort to a much more rapid and brutal campaign: large scale destruction, especially or urban areas with concentrated populations of resistance. They can kill, capture, or chase away political leadership. They can buy off or kill capture etc military leadership. Then they can install their own government. There would be pockets of resistance for years, but they've dealt with smoldering conflicts of that sort before.
They problem with that strategy would probably be massively increased sanctions and Europe that gradually weans itself off of Russian fissile fuels, their main source of income. However they could shift to selling all of it to China, along with their new revenue from the agricultural breadbasket of in the Ukraine. At a steep discount I'm sure because they would not be in a bargaining position, and the other sanctions would still hurt a lot.
It would leave them weakened for decades, but they (Putin) may either not believe that outcome or be willing to accept it. Other powerful forces (the oligarchs) might not like this, and could work to remove Puting from power, or maybe they receive assurances that they'll maintain their status and wealth under the new order. Hard to say. It would leave them closer to a North Korea model of existence though, which can hardly be their plan A.
My guess is that right now they're still pushing to see just how much further the west itself is willing to push back. If they can regroup, escalate the violence and rapidly and be done in another week or two then maybe maybe they can still mostly get away with this. If not, I think the most likely outcome (at least more likely than the bleaker one outlined above) is that they, Ukraine, and Europe try to find any figleaf of face-saving they can ti allow Russia to declare their goals accomplished. And Russia will still have succeeded in significantly reducing Ukraine with much more empowered and entrenched separatist groups. Second to that would be an Oligarch-driven removal of Putin. At least, I think those are the best case scenarios. Once Russia's "done in a week and back home to watch football this weekend" plan failed, these seem to be the options they're left with.
> What will a dictator do when he realises that he cannot win the war by conventional means but by other means? That remains the most terrifying question today.
The scenario you're describing is basically the one they can't afford, it's simply too costly in men and weapons, without guarantees of outcome, military is not concentrated is the cities, and can expect a lot of help from the west. The level of incompetence display is incredible, which increases the danger of worse scenario, that don't make sense either.
I agree about the terrifying scenario, but that would end even worse for Russia. But I suppose I can rely on their competent analysis in that area, or that they wouldn't simply do it even knowing it's worse... Loss of face, appearing weak, wanting to take down everything with you that you can...
Isolation from the decadent West, Ukraine crippled, a land corridor to the Krim that secures its water supply, a nuclear warning that is taken serious [1], the coming fallout for Europe and a bleeding wound at its side.
And of course other parts of the world will suffer because of rising inflation, possible short-time shortage of gas, fertilizers and following food shortages.
Planting season is coming.
Like they say in the Marine Corps, create and exploite opportunities on the battlefield.
The bear probably won't go over the mountain long term this time, but he showed up quite angry and vile.
Who knows?
What is a win for Russia from Putins and his cronies perspective?
Or for him and his cronies, in case Russia is just a tool for them.
Surely not from ours, but they don't care about that anymore, anyway.
We obviously should adapt our theory of their mind fast.
One potential scenario that's not being discussed much yet is the possibility of Putin going "Full Stalin" and having his own generals executed. Once the generals consider this a real risk, they might decide to try to move first.
The author underestimates the effects that increased military investment can have.
Russia is already selling a lot of weapons around the world - they are typically not as good as American counterparts (in most fields, at least), but they tend to be cheaper; further investment would see prices fall even further, effectively flooding all markets where the Russians play. A lot of African and Asian countries might well jump at the chance, resulting in profits for Russia and increased worldwide instability. Already the successful Russian intervention in Syria was meant to be a showcase of the latest Russian tech.
Putin's Russia might not be able to afford a 10- or 20-year conflict like the US could, but I fear it can afford more than enough to produce very bad outcomes for the world at large. And I still don't see how they'd fail to take Kyiv, at the very least, which might well be all they want.
Difficult to produce that stuff while the whole world is against you. Hard to make a good profit from weapons when much of their other exports don't go up. Not a winning strategy.
We are discussing what the author of the piece says, i.e. that Russia will invest more in arms manufacturing. This will likely create surplus they can sell even cheaper, hence moving the needle.
Did you even read the article...? We are not talking about a natural evolution of a market, but a change due to various external shocks - which will produce new conditions.
Well then I guess we're relying on the common decency and humanity of the Russia war planners not to start just killing civilians and destroying cities in pursuit of these "radicals".
There do seem to be an awful, awful lot of new radicals having been made in the last week. Lots and lots of ordinary Ukrainians, who last week wouldn't have dreamed of picking up a rifle and shooting at a Russian soldier, have been radicalised and are now prepared to do some pretty radical things. If the aim was to remove radicals, this has backfired horrifically.
Ukraine has huge, untapped gas reserves. If they start mining them - which they were about to before the Crimean invasion - then there's no reason for Germany and western Europe to keep doing business with Russia, effectively bankrupting the Russian state. I don't know what effect western companies leaving Russia now will have, given that the plants are already there - Russia will certainly still keep producing its own gas, with our without the west's help.
This is fundamentally another petro-war, all of the media/ideological stuff about de-nazification or the mighty Russian ethno-state is bullshit. It's money and oil.
