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One reason that sanctions haven't had an apparent immediate effect is that the Russian economy was already in a slow downward spiral. The Russian economy peaked in 2013 and has been going down hill since then. The Russian society has already been hardened by these 9 years of "hard times" and not to forget the much harder times in the 1990s.
Another reason is that Western companies stopped their sales in Russia while the West continues to buy natural gas from Russia. Short-term macroeconomic numbers will regard this as an improvement of Russia's trade balance even slightly boost their GDP.
> The Russian economy peaked in 2013 and has been going down hill since then
Do you have anything substantial to back this claim?
Cuz to me (actually living in Russia) it seems like exactly the opposite - the economy had been slowly decomposing up until the financial crisis of 2014, when the exchange rates had shifted so that roubles became cheaper.
Until then it was extremely hard to build a sustainable business in Russia, due to the fact that it was just cheaper to buy something from abroad and the only reliably sustainable industries were food production and unprocessed resources.
After 2014 - in my impression - quite a lot of entrepreneurs seem to have seized the opportunity of cheaper expenses, as I personally saw quite a lot of new businesses rising and blooming.
So I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly had peaked in Russian economy in 2013. Sales of unprocessed resources? This is hardly a success.
Also, I don't get why are trying to reduce all the complexities of real world economics to some single number. This just feels kinda blunt. Why specifically GDP? GDP doesn't tell you anything about sustainability and self-sufficiency of some economy. Hell, all it basically tells you is how much money had changed ownership over the observation period.
Why not PPP, for example? Cuz GDP number makes Russia look weak, but PPP makes it one of the world leaders, leaving behind GB, France and Italy? :P
> Why specifically GDP? [...] Why not PPP, for example?
PPP is effectively a currency conversion rate, it's not a meaningful metric by itself anymore than $1USD ~= 1000won or ~= 100 yen tells you anything about the South Korean or US or Japanese economies.
So I'm assuming you're comparing nominal GDP versus GDP by PPP. To a first approximation, nominal conversion rates give you an idea of how an economy can interact with others on a trade basis, whereas PPP conversion rates give you an idea from the perspective of a domestic consumer. For what you tend to use total economic size for, nominal GDP tends to be a better reflection of the size of the economy, whereas PPP works better for something like GDP per capita.
Yeah, and consider the effect that it has on the rouble: with lots of sales (of mostly energy) but nowhere to spend that money the rouble is actually likely to appreciate rather than depreciate. I'm referring here to the premature celebration of the "death of the rouble", you may remember this narrative. This is still a bit obfuscated by the ongoing sale of the Russian foreign reserves (the ~50% that wasn't frozen). But generally speaking the rouble needn't decrease in value, despite the sanctions taking the intended effect.
If you're still unconvinced then look at the granddaddy of all deflations, the great depression. Caused by the freezing of trade it was (in most countries) experienced through the appreciation of the value of currency - deflation, rather than inflation.
Heh. I sometimes wonder how vulnerable the US would be to a squeeze appreciating USD. You could probably even get large parts of the US political class to go along with it, as (in the short term) they'd be benefiting relative to their countrymen.
This whole “Squeeze” thing is a function of liquidity. The reason that stocks like GME and AMC can experience the effects of a short squeeze is because of how relatively illiquid they are (i.e. point $1bn of consumer capital toward a $3bn stock with thin trading and you can do wild things).
The USD is the currency in which nearly all middle eastern oil is priced, the currency in which $16tn of consumer spending is done, quadrillions of stock trades, etc etc etc.
There’s no individual or group who can point enough capital at that to make for a squeeze, and even if they could, then why wouldn’t the treasury take advantage and start printing more dollars (see: Hertz issuing new shares and ruining wallstreetbet’s day)
It has happened in the 80s though. Soros (for example) has written a lot about this phenomenon and traded extensively on it, making a small truckload of money. It peaked in early 1985: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/currency
It was bad for a lot of countries that had dollar-denominated debt, which is a bad idea precisely for this reason. Countries never learn though, it seems. But it was not too bad for the US actually.
In 1985, Soros bet that the Plaza Accord (a market manipulation among a cartel of leading economies to weaken the dollar for political reasons) [1] would work and he was right.
That has nothing to do with shorts or squeezes and everything to do with collusion among the Treasuries and Central Banks of something like 75% of the world economy at that point.
Soros 'won' the trade because he realized how impactful this collusion would be while the rest of the market didn't.
Maybe you can answer a different question of mine: what, if anything, did Japan get out of the Plaza Accord? By weakening USD (and hence USD-denominated commodities?) West Germany got a strong DM and hence could LBO East Germany and reunify. Japan got a strong JPY and ... what, besides stagflation?
edit: am I calculating this right? to do a Plaza today would need, not the G5, but pretty much the entire G20?
Japan got the opportunity to go on an international asset-buying spree (which is always less impactful to real GDP than it seems cough Belt and Road cough) [0] [1]
Aha, so the japanese didn't really care about domestic stagflation because they'd internationally diversified? Seems like that might lead into "absentee landlord" moral hazards at some point?
> Heh. I sometimes wonder how vulnerable the US would be to a squeeze appreciating USD.
Not very; it faced two (not deliberate) recently and dealt with them through QE; our monetary policy system is tuned to deal with that problem, the main failure mode is overshooting into inflation on the tail end.
I don't believe so in the long run (but RC_ITR might have something much more accurate to say; thanks very much for the sibling analysis!).
We're a much smaller economy than the US, and have a big problem that whenever there's geopolitical instability, flight to quality appreciates our currency massively (despite negative nominal rates; we've broken pegs before because although they would've been nice to keep, the cost would've been prohibitive), which then hoses our innovative sectors, because they had been counting on being competitive in global exports.
I had been imagining that keeping a currency too elevated for too long would eventually stifle growth, and that would defo be more harmful than inflation. (for a loan-based economy, for example, substantial appreciation might mean that many borrowers would just default, for lack of any other option)
Edit: see the cousin comment: ...it was extremely hard to build a sustainable business in Russia, due to the fact that it was just cheaper to buy something from abroad
It would be so fun to be in IT in Russia right now. Software and film piracy is now completely legal because, if they aren’t selling it, it’s not theft. I could put pirated Windows on every workstation with no fear…
> It would be so fun to be in IT in Russia right now
Yep, that's me.
> Software and film piracy is now completely legal
No it isn't, sadly. The one immediately good thing I had hoped to happen out of all this mess, sadly didn't happen. What a disappointment, really.
Complying to some arbitrary "copyright" rules, enforced by enemy state and lobbied by corporations, that had practically bought "rights" to all the human culture they could get their hands on (especially if they are refusing to license!) is completely ridiculous and fucking stupid.
In the current political situation at least they could have legalised SciHub - they couldn't even do that! That's just weak.
A friend told me how their Adobe licenses got revoked, but the company just imaged the working version and disabled Internet access for anything Adobe related - it works, but it also means no AI tools or further updates for now. I doubt there will be straight out pirated versions of most products, especially because of the rootkits floating around.
Office 365 cancellations are another story. Lots of movement to onprem or relocations of IT abroad are in progress right now. Yandex for example is moving part of it’s operations to Israel.
You buy the licenses for legal insurrance, then you of course use cracked software. The DRM in most products is downright dysfunctional, they want you to use warez to get out of any liability clause. So the incentives are there to make the most horrific software that money can buy.
An unfortunate Russian citizen here. I left Russia in 2006, but the passport is still like an iron beam on my neck.
And you would also get the exit ban. FYI, people who worked for Russian biggest banks are now banned from leaving the country, and that is not only IT, real bankers are banned from leaving as well.
Owners of biggest commercial enterprises, and their children were also forbidden from leaving.
Russian FOREX, and crossborder transactions are nominally still open, but any outgoing transaction over $10,000 triggers an automatic account freeze.
People are also unable to sell their property. There is no official ban, but the necessary paperwork for property sale is impossible to do now.
Stock market is bust, but brokerages are also effectively shut down without declaring it publicly. Dividends are frozen because the electronic system controlling dividend transactions simply been physically switched off for months.
Russian customs enforcement always been draconian, but now it went into total overdrive, with Russia-Kazakhstan border seeing kilometres long queues because now 100% of all cars, and cargo goes through full search. People been trying to save their last money by trying to get it over the border as gold bars, only to have them seized with zero paperwork.
You can easily buy cash in those small stores with surprisingly good exchange rates. Also I have converted my Rubels to Euros for months now on the stock market and sent them via Swift into an EU bank (in total above 10k€). So no problems there either. But the customs do question you rather aggressively about cash. Although he didn’t seem to believe me that I didn’t have cash with me, he didn’t search me either.
> Meanwhile the domestic economy has been hit hard by a collapse in the workforce as millions have either fled or been drafted. Official figures show the workforce shrank by 600,000 in October alone, most likely some of the most qualified. That creates a long-term hit both to the demand and supply side of the economy.
While many have been drafted,“millions” is an exaggeration. Yes, Yerevan is full of Russians at the moment. But likely most are from IT, those who need to get payments from international clients. Doubt that its “millions” though.
It's millions[1] between the number the have been drafted and the number that have fled, and that's taking the Kremlin at their word about how many people they drafted.
Also Russia has a brewing demographics collapse, similar to what Japan is experiencing. This is going to royally fuck them for the next 50 years.
I think the Ukraine invasion might be the beginning of the end for Russia as we know it, I wouldn't be surprised to see parts of Russia break away going forward.
I doubt that countries bordering Russia are keen to have failed chaotic states with economic problems on their borders. The refugee situation that will create is pretty intense.
I will reiterate. Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, are constantly harassed and reminded that Russia doesn't really see them as sovereign states. They fly bombers into their airspaces (oops), deploys military manoeuvres at their borders, rambles about aiming their nukes at the capital cities. It actually invaded Ukraine for the second time in a decade! And even as this is all going on, Russia happily says, "hey Latvia, or Finland, you guys better stand to attention or you are next".
Refugees on the border suddenly seems like a nice problem to have.
Is there a citation for the threat of invasion apart from unhinged Russian TV commentators?
For example, the most hawkish interview with Dugin (Pozner is the interviewer) is from 2014. The interview is in Russian and Dugin is clearly enraged about the Maidan events, so he is more straightforward than in English interviews.
If the English subtitles are correct, Pozner explicitly asks which countries should be part of the "Greater Russia". Dugin unambiguously excludes the Baltic states, Poland and Finland.
He wanted the eastern Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan in a Eurasian union.
So if even the hawk who is always cited as an expansionist does not want Latvia/Finland/Poland, who does?
The U.S. does military manoeuvres and close fly-by missions in the South China sea.
The people in charge in Russia grew up during the cold war and believe that NATO is a threat. It does not matter to them what people on Twitter who were born in 2000 think.
I don't think either that NATO is a threat in the case of Russia (unlike for Kosovo, Iraq, ...), but they don't care. If someone is in the business of foreign policy, he has to take the opponent's thoughts into account.
Russia's unlimited expansionism is a narrative that is supposed to obfuscate the mistakes that foreign policy has made since 2008.
> They fly bombers into their airspaces (oops), deploys military manoeuvres at their borders, rambles about aiming their nukes at the capital cities.
Your argument would be valid, if this was something exclusive to Russia, and not a common mutual thing between Russia and NATO.
NATO bombers just as well fly into Russian airspace, NATO deploys military manoeuvres at Russian borders, and NATO states politicians are just as keen to ramble about nukes as anyone else.
Yes I forget. Russia is the bullied one here. And is constantly attacked by NATO, in Georgia, Ukraine... Seriously poor Russia for being so unfairly treated.
Even now, if only those pesky Ukrainians would stop shooting back at them, peace could be introduced overnight.
Russia has, in my lifetime, conducted no fewer than five invasions, all of which could be fairly characterized as driven by naked territorial aggression ("this land deserves to be ours"). In the same time, the US has invaded three times, none of which could be characterized as naked territorial aggression, even if you squint at it really, really hard.
Well, that depends on what you consider to be worse: pushing neo-colonial policies by installing puppet governments through war and staged coups on the other part of the world, or resolving local conflicts created by dissolution of the SU along the administrative (instead of historical, ethnical, or national) borders, while granting citizenships, providing social infrastructure, or at least allowing states to gain sovereignty (if Kosovo can be independent under UN's self-determination principle, why can't Ossetia, who had been at odds with Georgia for ages and was only territorially related to it, because at some point the Soviet Union decided that budgeting that way is easier?)
Besides, considering the US geography, it's kinda hard for it to have territorial disputes, even if it really wanted to. On the other hand, you can ask Mexicans what they think of US law enforcement openly operating in Mexico.
I don't see how is this possible, are you counting each operation as a separate "invasion" so you get two invasions in Ukraine (2014 and in 2022) for Russia, then I imagine Syria and Georgia? But what is fifth - is it Transnistria/Abkhazia/Ossetia in 1990s? Then the US had 20+ invasions in the same sense (Yugoslavia, multiple ops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and various countries in Africa) over your lifetime.
It is safe to assume that they just never even heard of the half of those US military actions. Ironically, things like "Nothing happened in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989" (nothing happened in Yugoslavia, nothing happened in Yemen, nothing happened in Syria, nothing happened in Somalia) are extremely common in Western info-bubble.
In 1994 Chechnya was legally a part of Russia. By that principle, are you considering that Ukraine had invaded Donetsk? Not trolling, just wondering if it is a point of principle or doublethink.
In 1999 Chechnya had invaded Russian Dagestan, which triggered a military response - exactly how does this consitute as "Russia invaded"?
> Georgia once (in 2008)
Georgia attacked Russian peacekeeping corps in 2008:
I am really puzzled by how people are so reinforced in their ignorance, despite facts being easily available for anyone who cares to spend 5 minutes to learn something.
Chechnya is a region of Russia and always has been, how can Russia invade itself? And let's say Chechnya is some kind of independent country that Russia really invaded, in 1994. So you had been born before 1994 and only recall three US invasions since then???
> I doubt that countries bordering Russia are keen to have failed chaotic states with economic problems on their borders.
You're somehow ignoring that countries bordering Russia have already a failed chaotic state with economic problems on their border which also is systematically threatening with invasion, destruction, and genocide.
There are very good reasons why Baltic states are the highest per-capita providers of military and economic support to Ukraine.
The Baltics probably would, but Georgia is literally swamped with Russian émigrés right now. By the Georgian official data, more than 100k Russians arrived in 2022 alone, which is 2-3% of the country's population.
Lithuania and Poland have been coordinating to keep the migrants coming in via Belarus out of their countries, although these are Middle Easterners and Africans. And all of the Baltics have placed a travel ban on Russians. I don't see them caring about the misfortune of Russians in such a scenario.
>Not so sure about this. That a handful of aggressive and hungry Russo-Warlords with Nukes is any improvement over Putin.
They will fight between them with their remaining soviet weapons, since they are not competent to fight any large country. Maybe some of those would actually become a democracy.
> They will fight between them with their remaining soviet weapons
Says who? They can just as well harass non-Russian neighbouring states. Or quite likely form some kind of
> since they are not competent to fight any large country
That doesn't prevent them from trying though.
> Maybe some of those would actually become a democracy.
Democracy in such states is an illusion. You are either USA with sustainable, refined over time, extremely restricted (2 parties, electors, strong continuity of the government of the selected few) and deeply rooted in tradition mechanisms of democracy, or you are just a vassal to a state with a good propaganda.
Да ну. A 2 party state is barely better than a 1 party state, and electors are a fancy way to circumvent 1 person 1 vote. It's deeply rooted mechanisms of something, but not exactly democracy )))
Ex sovitet/communist states prove that democracy is possible. Go ont hose countries subrteddits and ask them if they feel they are vassals or if they would prefer to be part of USSR,
I know imperialists prefer to see the small countries as brainwashed nations that need to be put back in their place and probably this is the reason Putoin is threatening this countries all the time, they show non brainwashed Russians that democracy works, that you can live better then during Stalin or Putin regime, that cooperation works.
Wow, what a rant. You don't really travel much, do you? Given that you srsly experience the world through "countries subreddits". JFYI, Reddit is something rather obscure in ex-soviet states, especially to non-teens.
Sorry, but when just a few of many countries had managed to barely setup an election process, but can't go on without some violent political crisis every 10 years, that is hardly a functional and sustainable democracy.
What does this have to do with Russians anyway? It's a general principle, which works all ways with all actors. The fact that some west-leaning ex-soviet states are hard on censorship and restriction of Russian media illustrates my point perfectly.
Americans loosing sleep over the idea that TikTok is a threat to national security is another good illustration of this general principle.
See, one really doesn't have to be an imperialist to assess how popularity-based systems can be hijacked in the era when internet and targeted propaganda exist.
Russia seems to be throwing it's entire war machine at Ukraine. It deployed units, and conscripts, from all over Russia, including the Far East (in fact sourcing conscripts predominantly from poorer regions, and preferentially not ethnic Russians). Chop that machine into 4 or 5 pieces and it's far less scary.
Even the nukes, scary as they could be, are less of a threat when the individual actors are smaller and weaker. They may not even be able to maintain these nukes. And even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.
> Even the nukes, scary as they could be, are less of a threat when the individual actors are smaller and weaker. They may not even be able to maintain these nukes. And even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.
I'm not sure "the people with nukes would be in a precarious position" is the comforting statement you intended it to be.
Big, united Russia with lots of nukes can afford to use them much more than 5 small, weak post-Russias, each with some nukes.
If nothing else, these post-Russias would struggle to afford even more to upkeep and upgrade the stash of nukes. And would be easier to neutralize too...
>Chop that machine into 4 or 5 pieces and it's far less scary.
Ask the people living on the Borders of Latvia, Estonia or Georgia what they think of that. These warlords won't respect borders.
>even if they are capable of using them, they are at a more precarious position than eg. Putin at the helm of Mighty Russia.
I think they have even more incentive to use them, far less consequences if they do. Losing your position as warlord of some Fiefdom is a lot less scary then losing your position as the Dictator of a nation with a top 10 GDP, a permanent UN Security Council seat and having personal wealth in the Hundreds of Billions?
Milosevic of Serbia was taken to court. Gaddafi was captured and killed before any court could protect him. Putin is never going to stand trial, unless somehow Russia rats him out (but I struggle to imagine that).
Isn't that pretty much what happened when the USSR crumbled ? That collapse peeled away an outer ring of subjugated nations.
My armchair analysis tells me that there might be coming another round of peripheral nation(alitie)s peeling away.
Not such a bad thing. And let the center - the Burkina-Faso-with-nukes - keep the comfort of their nukes, if it's what it takes to keep them from actually using those weapons in fear or in anger.
It's also the only scenario that guarantees long-term stability. Also, it's not like we've hadn't been through this twenty years ago already, and the result was quite good.
Something that makes this a little harder to analyze is that there is robust demand for the "Russia will collapse tomorrow" thesis, and pushing back gets coded as pro-Putin stooging. I worry that it makes the public conversation a little unmoored.
He drafted 300,000 in the partial mobilization. There were I believe three other call ups before then that didn’t quite reach into 100k range but were close. Also relatively comparable numbers have left Russia during the partial mobilization, so losing a million able workers from the workforce is not an unreasonable estimate.
ISW had verified independent reports that while they didn’t quite meet the goal, they were close. And tens of thousands of the poorly trained call ups had already shown up on the front lines.
The simplest version of the story is this: Russia has gained tremendously thanks to the unusually high price of oil. Should the price of oil fall back the average of the last 10 years, then Russia's situation will appear far more precarious.
Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut and eyeballing 1980-1990, it seems plausible that the Union had been doing OK with oil at USD 30 but became far more precarious indeed with oil under USD 20?
OPEC+ doesn't seem to be in the mood to replay the 1980s, though.
Call it what you want. Russia is switching from export to internal consumption. Getting something like 30 years mortgage on house, was unheard of until recently. If West can run quantitative easing for 15 years, why not Russia?
A country can QE forever, but this will not put food on the table or shoes on people's feet. If people want those things, they must either be produced or imported. QE doesn't help with either of those. Production is a physical act, not a monetary one.
And if you want to import from somewhere, then you need that nation's currency to do so. Which means that in turn you must have produced something to exchange for that currency.
They have more than enough food to eat (except of course things that don't exactly grow there). They have surplus in energy and fertiliser.
What they would lack in the short and medium term are high tech products like chips, advanced medicine.
Given enough time and drive any energy and food surplus society can reinvent the high tech stuff.
Of course it doesn't mean they would, seeing how corrupt the whole ruling class is. But it is theoretically possible for them to be totally independent of the rest of the world. They are blessed with too many natural resources to not be able to do it.
It absolutely, definitely does. And it's a shame that we (I'm a United Statesian) never examine our policies from this perspective. We focus a lot on solving money problems (inflation, inequity, etc), but never consider how our solutions to these issues affect production, which is what matters most. If we solve inflation and kill productivity, what have we gained?
Russia produces lots of these things as you're saying, and as long as they continue to do so they'll be fundamentally fine. I don't think QE will help though.
I don't know anything about whether or not Russia is doing any QE. I was responding to the question: "If West can run quantitative easing for 15 years, why not Russia?" by explaining why, even if they could do QE forever, it would probably not help.
Because that won't help them...Russia's is an "emerging economy" (or was before the war), basically all they do is selling commodities...but that's not the issue here, the issue is how it is governed...this country sold Alaska for $140 million and now are trying to get their hands on land the size of Washington for already 100k lost soldiers (and counting)...so historically a disaster of governance with the luck of its natural resources
> If West can run quantitative easing for 15 years
Who did that? US did 6 years starting in 2008 due to the Great Recession and less than 2 starting in 2020 in response to the unusually deep, if quite short, pandemic recession, and the latter of those, because it wasn’t tapered quickly enough for the circumstances, triggered the highest inflation seen in a long time.
> why not Russia?
Russia can do QE as long as it wants, but QE is just self-inflicted inflation. It is a band-aid for incipient deflation, which isn’t a problem Russia has.
Some people argue if the US were to lose its reserve currency status, this is likely how it would start. Nations doing QE, against a tightening dollar, and starting to seek doing international trade in currencies other than dollars. Russia is doing this now. China is also seeking to do the same with Saudi Arabia (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/dollar-...).
> if West can run quantitative easing for 15 years, why not Russia?
Is it the West or specifically the US. United States can do this because of the dollar's role in global economy: essentially everyone else will be paying for it.
Obviously, Russia can't do that. But might you have had something else in mind, since you've said "West" and not specifically "the US"?
They're running out of things like missles and bombs though IIRC?
Why don't we honor the Budapest agreement and let the Ukrainians finish off Putin's regime with US made weapons if we are going to play word games about the difference between NATO and a firm and unambiguous promise to defend a nation if they give up their nuclear weapons?
The people of Russia don't seem to want this war, they are conscripted. (From what I've read from afar.)
It's time to stop letting totalitarians use people like pawns -- let them fight it out 1 on 1 like the thugs they are. I want to see Putin personally running up on Ukraine like it's the American civil war if he's such a history fan, rather than hiding in a spider hole like the rude little pedophile he is.
According to what I am reading on Russian-in-exile liberal media with persistent anti-war agenda [1], just several months ago polls (both state-backed and "independent" ones) suggested that more than half of the Russians were in favour of the war. The article I am citing suggests that there has been a change in opinions recently, but still.
> The people of Russia don't seem to want this war, they are conscripted. (From what I've read from afar.)
My understanding of Russian politics is that it is primarily driven by apathy: the population will support what the government does, so long as it doesn't affect them. Russian mobilization is a violation of that tacit agreement, which is why it seems that mobilization is being targeted more at marginal groups with less political voice (e.g., ethnic minorities).
Why would I trust RAND on anything policy related? The last time we crossed paths, the woman who referred me for an interview had to move to Switzerland, and they made a show of hazing me. (The last interviewer literally said the words "Autistic people can't work for RAND")
They need to retool their insider threat program, at least the employees at SEI know how to lock down their devices :-)
Because nukes. If Ukrainians push into Russia (which to be clear, they can’t for many other reasons aside from weapons), Russia would launch nukes and that could make the entirety of Europe uninhabitable for centuries.
Ah that. Sort of. Ukraine has carried out a few deep strikes inside Russia so far. Military targets are not off limits even hundreds of miles inside Russian borders. But a ground assault is a different thing because then yes Russia can claim that it is being invaded and resort to nukes. But this also isn’t necessary to win the war.
>Military targets are not off limits even hundreds of miles inside Russian borders. But a ground assault is a different thing because then yes Russia can claim that it is being invaded
Ah gotcha. My thinking was why make them use consumer drones? (But I shouldn't joke about serious things when I'm not an expert on these matters)
I've tried to stay mostly ignorant about the war for my own health - what has been released or talked about that makes people think Putin will launch nukes and destroy a bunch of land and cause untold death and destruction to numerous countries not involved in the conflict?
I'm not trying to be facetious or incidious with my question, feels like I need to worry more about paying bills and keeping my family fed but with nukes being talked about maybe I should be paying more attention.
Russia’s been threatening to nuke everybody on a regular cadence for a decade. What’s different now is their threats are being broadcast more to western audiences who are not used to nuclear threats. Nobody in Eastern Europe has been phased by the threats for years already, so Russia’s been trying to find a new, more “naive” audience.
> I've tried to stay mostly ignorant about the war for my own health - what has been released or talked about that makes people think Putin will launch nukes and destroy a bunch of land and cause untold death and destruction to numerous countries not involved in the conflict?
Most of the military analysts I have read have essentially dismissed the idea that Russia was planning to use nuclear weapons--there's been no force posture changes that would precede imminent use of nukes. The worry instead tends to come from pundits and politicians, and are probably driven more by a desire to support (or not) Ukraine.
The biggest concern is that Russia has consistently threatened nuclear responses to military incursions of its territory (which is not unusual, all nuclear states do this), but the territory that is included in this nuclear threshold is... unclear. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk in September, but essentially nobody recognizes those annexations. Immediately after the annexation, Putin did another round of reiterating nuclear threats. Note that Russia did not control much of Zaporizhzhia (including its largest city and administrative center), and Russia lost control of much of Kherson last month--if you took Russia's claims extremely literally, Ukraine was already in a position to trigger nuclear threshold response.
Realistically, no one believes that Putin will use nukes in response to military failure in Ukrainian territory, with the possible exception of Crimea. The annexation may have been intended to try to extend the strategic ambiguity of nuclear response that exists right now for Crimea to the rest of Russian-controlled Ukraine, but it probably had the opposite effect (which is to say, people find nuclear response to a Crimean incursion less likely as a result of the annexation). My sense is that a lot of these messages are directed towards trying to get the West to force Ukraine to the negotiating table and ratify the status quo in lieu of being able to achieve military victory.
Putin diplomacy level is in the negative, he and his dogs always threaten the neighboring countries all the time.
So when targets inside Russia are hit like his precious bridge they always tell us that this means Russia is invaded and they have the right to use nuclear weapons in defense.
For us in Easter Europe the bigger concern is the nuclear plants, this bastards will sabotage them in some false flag operation to get revenge on their incompetence and inferiority.
That doesn't actually debunk the point; it potentially implies they've already ripped through the older ones in the stockpiles and are down to just the new, recently-produced ones. They don't have the production capacity to produce at a fast enough rate to keep the pace of cruise missile strikes in Ukraine.
The argument made by the West, including the US Secretary of Defense, was that Russian missile production would be significantly curtailed due to trade restrictions on advanced technology like microchips. If they are using missiles produced in recent months then that argument seems debunked to me.
What basis is there to assume that Russia lacks the ability to mass produce the less sophisticated components of these missiles?
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Edit (can't reply):
> They've also apparently been canibalizing consumer devices
Based on an anecdotal report from the leadership of their primary belligerent in this conflict. Why is that easier to believe than the idea that they can produce the (very much not advanced) chips required in these missiles?
> Historical. Iskanders have been produced in the dozens-per-year quantities pre-war, Kalibr in the ~100 range. They're using that many cruise missiles in a single day's attacks now; that isn't be sustainable long-term for anyone.
Why would peacetime production represent their maximum capacity? They inherited a Cold War military-industrial complex which was preparing for a large scale global conflict.
> You should re-read the NYT article you cite; it openly states it's not debunking what you claim it debunks.
The fact the article reports is that a missile used in November was produced no earlier than October. I'm not required to agree with their insinuated conclusion. I do agree that the status of Russia's missile inventory is unclear since logically different types of missiles will be allocated for different uses based on their cost and capabilities (such as the ability to penetrate modern air defense systems).
> If they are using missiles produced in recent months then that argument seems debunked to me.
Or they had a bit of a chip stockpile; the NYT cites "significant stockpiles of the components before the war began" as a possibility. (They've also apparently been canibalizing consumer devices; https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/11/russia-...)
> What basis is there to assume that Russia lacks the ability to mass produce the less sophisticated components of these missiles?
Historical. Iskanders have been produced in the dozens-per-year quantities pre-war, Kalibr in the ~100 range. They're using that many cruise missiles in a single day's attacks now; that isn't be sustainable long-term for anyone.
> Whether Russia has depleted its inventory of older cruise missiles is unclear. But militaries often use older munitions first in combat because they typically make up a majority of a nation’s stockpile.
The Russian missile in question, the KH-101, has been in service for ten years, is air-launched rather than ground-launched, and has at least twice the range of the North Korean missile described in that article.
Why would Russia need tech from North Korea anyway? North Korean technology is based on what the Soviet Union shared with them.
As far as I can tell, Russia has strong domestic production capabilities for even their most advanced cruise missiles such as the hypersonic Kinzhal and Zircon.
As far as I'm aware, about 70% of Russians polled support the war effort.
I think it's a bad mistake to blame everything on Putin. Russians are not benighted victims of propaganda; they have access to western media and the internet (although maybe they have to use a VPN). I know that older Russians are more likely to support the war; and that the population is ageing.But it seems very unlikely that Russians will revolt, unseat Putin, and force a withdrawal.
It seems to me that Ukraine isn't fighting a dictator; it's fighting a nation. And I don't think Russia will concede, until it's defeated militarily. Russians seem to have strong nationalist and imperialist sentiments. So I reckon that if Putin wants to get kicked out, his best bet would be to end the war.
As people have remarked upthread, the sanctions haven't even fully kicked in yet. Even if they were lifted tomorrow, the effects would continue for a decade. If I were Ukraine, I'd prefer my neighbour to be a stable state; but I can't see it staying inside its borders while remaining stable. In particular, Russians definitely regard Crimea as part of Russia; it's their favourite holiday destination.
While I agree that there really aren't any winners in a war from a humanitarian perspective, it really doesn't feel here like we are losing.
I'm happy to pay a lot for electricity and gas if that means the Russian government will fall and their army will be reduced to shreds (although the gas prices right now are almost the same as they used to be before the war... )
Also to the US, this is an incredibly cheap (it's what, $50B this year?) way of bringing the Russian army to it's knees.
You may be happy to pay more (sounds a lot like "the bread is expensive ? let them have brioche"), but that's not the case for business owners of small restaurant, bakeries, etc, that have an electricity bill which has doubled, tripled, or even more in some cases, not even talking about the state of mortgages.
And I'm also pying the bakeries and business owners more for their services.
Really, talking to people here - even random ones, like a taxi driver, I've literally never ran into anyone that does not want to keep supporting Ukraine.
Because we know that if Russia wins in Ukraine, we are next. What's money against your life and the feeling of safety?
Oh, i'm sure that people want to support Ukraine indeed, and they also want lower inflation and energy prices, just like they want strong social-protections with lower taxes.
But if you're telling me that people are happy with the 10% inflation, the energy bills and the mortgages, then fine, I feel better now, I thought this would not be bearable for very long.
Well life in Russia keeps going on as before with cheap food, gas and electricity - basically all basic needs. And the Rubel is the best performing currency this year. That the Russian gov will fall sounds extremely unlikely as someone who spent the last years in Russia. Life still goes on as usual, while in the EU it seems to crumble a bit.
This means that you would like to see as many as possible Russian people killed.
You started the whole thing in order to plunder Russia, you are indeed monsters though you "think" you are innocent, and I hope you and above all your american lords, will get the Nurenburg tribunal you deserve for creating this war and the hatred for the Russian people to justify it.
This is reductionist. The Pax Americana has been maintained by an overwhelming capability for war by the USA. You need to punish in countries that violate international norms. Russia has been truly chucklefucked by this war, and the Norks, Iranians, etc. are going to be significantly more wary of engaging in new wars going forward.
Capacity for war is not the same as starting wars. Pax Americana is a result of defensive capacity for war. The Middle East situation is a result of starting wars. I have a lot more criticism for the latter than the former.
Yes and no. For most of history, conquest of pre-industrial agrarian societies was generally an excellent idea...politically and economically, that is. See any good history of (say) the economics of the Roman Empire. Or the British Empire.
That's part of why WWI was so hellishly destructive for Europe - national leaders, military planners, educated elites, etc. really didn't get that modern(-ish) industrialized warfare was profoundly different from "the good old days", and they made endless bad decisions based on obsolete "wisdom".
The deadliest war before WW1 was the Napoleonic Wars (which essentially set up the then-existing European system), and before that, the Thirty Years' War and similar wars of religion were incredibly destructive.
When were "the good old days" you were referring to?
For the winners (recall that the ruling classes were rather indifferent to the deaths of large numbers of the less-well-born) many of those wars turned out pretty well. In "let's play Prisoner's Dilemma" terms, the payoff matrix for "Go to War?" was, for the ruling classes, far more favorable back then. (Vs. for modern industrialized warfare.)
Add the Mongol Empire and Russian Empire to my "war & conquest worked out pretty well for 'em" list.
Clarification - by "Russian Empire" here, I mean the old Empire - say, from the Battle of Kulikovo (1380) up until the Crimean War (~1855). The latter was against several modern-ish, getting-industrialized major powers.
Yes, plenty of parallels can be drawn between the Crimean War and the current Russian "special military operation" in Ukraine. The former ended with the Treaty of Paris on March 30, 1856 - which was a very clear Russian defeat.
The apeish immaturity of decision-makers in power that really do too much misleading for being called leaders.
Neither Ukraine, nor Russia, nor humanity as a whole benefits from Russia's actions. Even Putin's legacy doesn't. It's truly a loser's race to the bottom.
But you know, this is still regretfully humanity's doing.
Imagine if during the cold war we'd have had people like you commenting this way out in the public. Not only would it have been a failure of intelligence but the venue would be shut down.
As a Ukrainian, good! This war should have a long cost to Russia. They are certainly causing long term damage to Ukraine by destroying Ukrainian culture where they can, using rape as a widespread war tactic, and relocating Ukrainian children to Russia “for their own good” (see any recent ISW report for details).
Having said that, the real thing that appears to have happened in this war is that Putin is a KGB stooge, not a military commander. He spent most of 2020 and 2021 in isolation due to concerns for COVID and I believe as a result further lost touch. He is fighting this war and setting up information space in Russia as if this was the USSR fighting Germany’s invasion in WWII, which is the war lore most citizens are familiar with. But obviously that isn’t the case as this is clearly a war of conquest, not defense of one’s own home land. Russian citizens and Putin have more or less struck a bargain that as long as his bullshit doesn’t affect them, he gets to remain in power. But clearly this isn’t the case anymore as military call ups and hard hit economy are having a very real effect on the citizens day to day lives. So the real question is whether this is what will eventually break Putin’a hold on Russia.
Another surprising aspect of this war has been the large community of military bloggers that has developed on Telegram. This nationalist group has an outsized influence on both the Russian overall view of the war and even on the Russian military command. They are often quite critical of the Russian MoD and sometimes of Putin, yet Putin has protected them from consequences of this rhetoric. It appears the Russian information space w.r.t. the war is split into thirds between the MoD communications, the federal news outlets, and the milbloggers and of the three the milbloggers have the most freedom to point out the many problems facing the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Yet Putin protects them because of the three they are the only ones who genuinely are pushing for annexing what they call “so called ‘ukraine’” due to their strong nationalist beliefs. Basically they are the most ideologically aligned with Putin but also the most critical of his failures. The milbloggers often find cover by criticizing MoD officials and generals in the field instead of Putin himself, and it appears that Purim’s frequent staff shake ups have taken at least some cues from this group. I wonder if a Western information campaign could disrupt this critical component of the war effort.
Lastly, Putin’s main ace in the hole is that NATO is trying to invade Russia and Ukraine was the last stop on their way in. The boogieman of the West is so far enough to get at least some older Russians to believe in the war effort. I have relatives there that are convinced that the war atrocities being committed by Russian AF in Ukraine aren’t real and that it is all crisis actors in the TV and internet footage. But at the same time Putin is definitely showing that NATO could clearly crush the Russian armed forces, nukes aside. Russia apparently still relies on trains to conduct its warfare for example, a practice that went away at the end of the last century for most modernized militaries. Essentially the only thing left in Russia is nukes, oil, hunger, and an out of touch dictator who keeps making military mistakes.
>they are the only ones who genuinely are pushing for annexing what they call “so called ‘ukraine’” due to their strong nationalist beliefs. Basically they are the most ideologically aligned with Putin but also the most critical of his failures.
The only loud protest voices coming out of russia seem to be complaining about loses, poor soldier conditions, not killing Ukrainians fast enough etc. Even so called ru opposition turned out to be all in on helping russian soldiers (TV Rain). No anti war/regime protests to speak off, plenty anti mobilization ones tho.
> The only loud protest voices coming out of russia seem to be complaining about loses, poor soldier conditions, not killing Ukrainians fast enough etc
The loudest protest voices I'm hearing are Navalny and Yashin, both very against Russian aggression, both imprisoned for it. Which voices are you referring to?
> Even so called ru opposition turned out to be all in on helping russian soldiers (TV Rain)
There were some in February and March, even though they were not very impressive. But then again, just today a leader of Russian opposition was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for posting a video about Bucha on Youtube.
> plenty anti mobilization ones tho
If there's "plenty" of these, surely you could Google some up very easily?
This is disgusting apologism for Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. No one forced Russia to attack Ukraine. No one forced them to target cities and civilian infrastructure. They are absolutely not victims.
If you didn't flag my comment, and instead ask questions, you would have seen my comment on that matter
Putin did indeed made a mistake in engaging his military in Ukraine, and doubled down with the various nukes, he and his government should be punished for that
That doesn't mean we should stay blind when it comes to the wrongdoings of the western block
It goes both ways, otherwise you are not critical and objective in your analysis
Agree, can we have a better educated and sourced discussion instead of yours?
Your source makes huge overreaching claims by only citing McCain visiting Ukraine and Nuland expressing preference for new leadership to an ambassador.
> Agree, can we have a better educated and sourced discussion instead of yours?
Well, luckily we do not live in Russia, so we can still do our own civil investigation
> Your source makes huge overreaching claims by only citing McCain visiting Ukraine and Nuland expressing preference for new leadership to an ambassador.
It's a documented issue, it's one of the source material
> Sanctions only affects the people, not the governments, you just help develop an anti-western sentiment across the affected regions as well as hurting the life of innocent families
Bombing also affects people and hurts the life of innocent families.
By your logic bombing is a better option than sanctions, as it also affects governments as well. /s
> Sanctions only affects the people, not the governments,
Western sanctions have demonstrably prevented the Russians from obtaining equipment vital for their military-industrial complex. Right now there were supposed to be hundreds of Armatas and SU-57s, but all the Russians have are a dozen prototypes of each.
The fact that they have to get their drones from Iran instead of the obvious choice of China says enough on itself.
BRICS isn't new and it basically only exists on paper. We're talking about a supposed alliance whose two largest members, India and China, are currently engaged in a conflict over Kashmir.
Speaking of India, as much as they're happy to continue buying Russian oil, they already anticipated Russia's inability to produce modern fighter jets and cancelled their order.
> Visiting the Maidan on December 5, she handed out cookies to demonstrators and expressed support for their cause.
Handing out cookies to people demonstrating against a pro-Russian government! Yes, I can totally see how this is morally equivalent to cluster bombing maternity hospitals.
None of that would happen if Russia was willing to stay within their own borders. If Russia did nor invaded countries around them again and again, this war would not happened.
I would assume that most Wikipedia articles are biased by whatever interests have skin in that game (and deep pockets). For example, I'm sure the sugar industry has their hand correcting "misinformation" on Wikipedia pages related to the benefits of sugar.
Political articles on Wikipedia? I assume they're all biased. Some by groups I agree with, others by groups I don't.
What parts of the Minsk agreements not being fulfilled led to Russia invading and who should be pressured to fulfill them? Since Russia claims they are not bound by the Minsk agreements why would there not being fulfilled lead to the current invasion? Should the current Russian government be trusted to keep their end of any deal involving Ukraine given their blatant breaking of the Budapest memorandum and the Russian-Ukraine Friendship Treaty?
Are you referring to [1]? Cause to me it seems like Russia has been given every chance to establish peace. Peace for an act of aggression Russia initiated because they didn’t like that Ukraine was pro-US and considering joining NATO (which would have put a critical naval port under US control).
Is the “baiting” aspect the US courting Ukraine to be in NATO? That seems rather mild considering that’s a sane strategy given how Russia under Putin has unprovoked invaded neighbors in the past (see Georgia). Putin has also robbed the Russian people through his oligarchs and rampant corruption and acted like a despot reinstalling a dictatorship in effect within Russia, killing or imprisoning anyone who didn’t bow the knee or threatened to expose him. He’s also struck out at the US by trying to sow discord and confusion by having the US elections hacked. Not sure why you’re painting Russia here as the poor innocent victim here, but this line that the US is the cause of the war in Ukraine is kind of laughable when you look at the totality of Putin’s career.
> The reality is that Russia is losing the economic war, just as it is losing the war on the battlefield. Real incomes in Russia are already estimated to be 10 per cent lower today than in 2014, when Putin first invaded Ukraine.
I imagine the average American is doing worse than that since then.
In 2014 USA, things for me and my peers were finally stabilizing after 5 years of financial crisis, housing busts, horrible job market, etc.
Inflation was low, I'd finally found a fair employer at a decent salary, had bought a late model car (3 year old Acura) for about $25K, and my investments had recovered and were now growing again in the stock market. Housing was still modestly priced after the bubble crash, interest rates were low for buyers, but rent prices were doable, with plenty of inventory, too, for those not yet ready to buy.
And there were dozens of 2nd and 3rd tier cities in which any standard worker would be able to move to and likely obtain the "American Dream" of home ownership, a couple cars, etc.
Let's compare that to now:
My salary has grown by about 25% in absolute dollars (2-3% corporate raises don't add up so quickly). Meanwhile, I still own my 2010 car, and it would cost about $40K today to replace it with a similarly low-miled used one, or $50K+ if new. That's if I could even get one since it seems there is now a perpetual "chip shortage."
The same apartment I rented in 2014 would cost at least 50% more now, though probably closer to double with all the extra fees. The same starter homes I looked at then are double in absolute dollars, and at current 7%+ interest rates, might be closer to 3x as expensive per monthly payment. And this isn't just in places like NYC or Bay Area or Miami Beach. Once "cheap" cities like Phoenix and Nashville are now just as expensive, relative to salaries, as the over-crowded and desirable coastal areas were last generation.
Everything else is way MORE expensive, especially food. I eat out less. Food quality is generally lower or smaller portioned.
I take less vacations as airfare seems to have doubled in price in the last 5 years. And let's not even get into health insurance, which has also doubled in price since 2014 (I now have a $3K deductible with the same premium costs as before, thanks to Obamacare).
My retirement savings have lost over 1/3 of their value in the last year.
So Russians should know that it's not just them suffering. Most of us in the west have taken a 10% hit to standard of living in just the last 3 years, IMO.
Do not ever forget what was promised: Russia in rubble in two weeks from sanctions and Russia out of missiles in two weeks. This was the "negotiated" social contract upon which quality of life in other parts of Europe was thrown into a dog shit trash fire. These kinds of articles are just not-so subtle cover for the once again failure of leaders here, and moving the goalposts and rewriting of history.
No one said any such thing in any credible forum. Sanctions were the lever that was available. Quality of life in Europe was not thrown into a "dog shit trash fire", whatever that is supposed to be. Claims Germans would "freeze in the dark", expressed in less credible forums (e.g. here), proved false.
Do you have sources for those claims? I don't remember hearing either - my recollection is that there were warnings that sanctions would have some effect but take a long time to work, and the Russian economy would be supported by China and India, among others.
Nobody on either side with a brain and/or a knowledge of history believed the "it'll be over by Christmas" shit. It NEVER is.
I agree, people were lied to, but that's what politicians do. At some point people need to stop being angry at the politicians and be angry at the enablers.
> Russia in rubble in two weeks from sanctions and Russia out of missiles in two weeks.
I'm not sure I ever heard such promises. In fact, I distinctly remember the opposite being the general zeitgeist of the time - that Russia would rollover Ukraine with little resistance.
You are way off here. It was Russia who was promising that Ukraine would fall in two weeks. The response was always going to be a hard defense. And Ukraine has been incredibly successful with their defense. That defense includes these sanctions and material support of Ukraine. Russia's invasion has been a resource sucking failure for Putin.
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