

Wake Up, Europe - rouma7
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/20/wake-up-europe/

======
jpfr
> Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence.

Nonsense. Europe is winning big time. Soros even gives the arguments for this.

\- Europe has expanded its outer borders towards Russia for the last 25 years.
Ukraine was once considered part of the Soviet "heartland". Well, it isn't
anymore.

\- The trend towards democracy and freedom is led by the young generation. In
another 20 years, even in the worst case, the defenders of the status quo will
have been replaced "by nature".

\- Given structural reforms of Naftogaz and incentives for better thermal
insulation of houses, Ukraine would become independent of Russian gas. And
that is what they will do. And what every other European country already does.
You think the German all-in for renewable energies (and the smart-grid this
requires) is about pretty flowers and climate change?

Also, Russia has maxed out their military options already. They sure wanted to
stage a full-out war (like the occupation of neighboring Georgia in 2008), but
somehow couldn't. The economic ties with the EU and EU-friendly countries are
too strong now.

When the dust settles in 10+ years, Ukraine will be out of Russia's reach and
the EU more indepenent from Russia's natural resources. And that will happen
irrespective of who bails out whose debt next week.

~~~
lotsofcows
Yeah, the whole article is based around the statement... "The collapse of
Ukraine would be a tremendous loss for NATO, the European Union, and the
United States." ...which he fails to justify in any meaningful way.

If I was a cynic, I'd suspect the entire thing is an attempt to justify more
military involvement.

------
probably_wrong
> The argument that has prevailed in both Europe and the United States is that
> Putin is no Hitler; by giving him everything he can reasonably ask for, he
> can be prevented from resorting to further use of force. (...) These are
> false hopes derived from a false argument with no factual evidence to
> support it.

So, according to Soros, Putin is literally Hitler?

I'm not really comfortable with the idea of fighting the "deflationary forces
that are already at work" by going to war against Russia. And I'm not
comfortable either with fighting Russian power through a proxy country.

At risk of being labelled a troll, I'll say: go back to sleep, Soros.

------
yarrel
"The bureaucracy of the EU no longer has a monopoly of power and it has little
to be proud of."

The need to reform the EU bureaucracy is desperate, but it is very difficult
to argue this when the debate around the EU being so all-or-nothing serves
both pro- and anti- EU groups so well. I'm not using "reform" as a codeword
for dismantling the EU here, quite the opposite.

------
dismal2
> It is high time for the members of the European Union to wake up and behave
> as countries indirectly at war. They are better off helping Ukraine to
> defend itself than having to fight for themselves. One way or another, the
> internal contradiction between being at war and remaining committed to
> fiscal austerity has to be eliminated. Where there is a will, there is a
> way.

Just a way out of the bullshit austerity programs instated in many European
countries that helps the globalists instead of people in their respective
countries. Yay to being part of the EU!

------
quonn
Soros is always uncomfortable for conservatives and liberals alike, including
me. I don't agree with half of what he suggests here. For example, in my
opinion, this conflict is simply about power and not about right or wrong.
Furthermore the tone feels quite aggressive.

The key point he makes is correct, though: The west can't achieve its goals,
if it is not willing to fight, either by investing enormous amounts of money
into Ukraine, or by a military intervention. We should probably go for the
first or accept that Ukraine is lost.

~~~
zoner
Ah, So this one was written by Soros itself. I just overlooked the little red
line below the title. Well even worse, but still have to disagree with him.
But again, why is this post appearing on hacker News?

~~~
quonn
I think it's ok that it appears. Things on HN don't have to be related to
technology and he points out some interesting facts in the second part of the
text. It has been worth reading for these alone.

------
dijit
Wow, this reeks of bias.

Putin has done a lot of good for post-soviet Russia. Russia in the 90's was
full of murder and unpoliced brutality that people who grew up like us
couldn't imagine.

the EU is not facing a threat, the US was- the US has funneled millions in
trying to get Ukraine away from Russia and has succeeded, what they didn't
count on was the fact that the extremists that were appointed power would
galvanise Russia by outlawing Russian as a spoken/written language, this, of
course prompted action because a _lot_ of Russians live in Crimea.

Russia has enough to worry about on it's own, it's not interested in
expansion, every move we've seen them make has been to protect it's people
from what it see's as harm.

Now, every time this topic comes up I'm chastised for being biased myself, but
I very much see the US and Russia as two sides of the same coin, except we
allow America to brainwash us and forbid Russia from telling it's side of the
story.

Edit: My family are mostly from Eastern Ukraine, so I know what they tell me-
there's no "Russian Troops" although they really wanted support- there are
some supplies (water, generators etc; because the Ukraine government turned
off the water and power) the people you see are using anything they could
find- raided military bases and stolen gear.

~~~
piranha
> outlawing Russian as a spoken/written language

Are you kidding? When was Russian outlawed? Everything that happened in
Ukraine happened not because Ukraine did something, but because Russia did it
- their forces invaded Crimea (and did a laughable 'referendum' there), and
then they invaded Donetsk and Lugansk regions. That's not something that
happened because of local unrest, it happened because of foreign military
force.

~~~
dijit
Their forces didn't invade they had no new troops, the troops where there as
part of a rented military base to practise water maneuvers on the black sea,
and I dread to think what would have happened if they hadn't been.

the referendum was legitimate and acknowledged by the EU.

and yes, Russian language was not allowed anymore.

officially it's supported by their constitution, but that was rectified when
the new government got to power.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine)

also, lets not talk about her phone call with the Estonian prime minister
urging them to "nuke all the fuckers".

doesn't reek of stability to me.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/25...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/25/in-
latest-wiretapping-leak-yulia-tymoshenko-appears-to-say-nuclear-weapons-
should-be-used-to-kill-russians/)

~~~
piranha
> Their forces didn't invade they had no new troops, the troops where there as
> part of a rented military base to practise water maneuvers on the black sea,
> and I dread to think what would have happened if they hadn't been.

You have no idea what are you talking about. They brought much more troops
there than were on rented military base. But even without that, it's still a
breach of international borders and an invasion. It's not an uprising. And
obviously Russia had no bases in other parts of Ukraine!

> the referendum was legitimate and acknowledged by the EU.

It wasn't.

> and yes, Russian language was not allowed anymore.

How so?

> officially it's supported by their constitution, but that was rectified when
> the new government got to power.

Stop spreading bullshit. I live in Ukraine. The law which they tried to remove
was just not working. Nobody stops you from speaking Russian (in fact, I
mostly speak Russian - at home, at work, and at government organizations), it
was never oppressed.

> also, lets not talk about her phone call with the Estonian prime minister
> urging them to "nuke all the fuckers".

"her"? Who is "her"? What are you even talking about?

> doesn't reek of stability to me.

Stability? Of course not, our shitty president was just overthrown, Ukraine
was in crisis, and Russia's attack was surely just in time.

------
zoner
Not sure why an aggressively political post should appear in Hacker News. This
one has no relevance with IT in any manner.

------
waps
I guess someone thought Ukranian government bonds were a real bargain a few
weeks ago ...

Sorry but I do not believe George Soros has any sympathy at all for either
Europe's, America's or Ukraine's problems, only if it affected his own
investment outcomes. Besides, if he wants to play interventionist, he's in the
wrong party.

~~~
quonn
He claims that his political advice is independent of his financial interest
and I'm inclined to believe that.

~~~
mikeash
Why? I have a hard enough time separating my political opinions from my
financial interest, and both my political influence and financial interests
are negligible compared to his.

------
igl
Shut up, America.

