> The hi-tech equipment on board was abnormal for a merchant ship and consumed more power from the ship’s generator, leading to repeated blackouts, a source familiar with the vessel who provided commercial maritime services to it as recently as seven months ago.
Am I having a stroke or is this article translated?
I'm not a Russia defender but this is comically inept if true. Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
Comically inept does sometimes seem to be the country's MO, due to corruption and miscommunication (the latter often deliberate to hide the former) between the various levels of control. People get away with it for quite some time, until a mistake/accident too big to successfully cover up occurs or there is other reason for an audit from above, at which point some are removed from their positions (often to particularly unpleasant penal arrangements, or perhaps being moved on via a defenestration "accident", as an example to others) and things improve for a while. This is often the case in other autocratic or anocratic countries too, but it seems particularly endemic in Russia (perhaps due to its wide geographic spread?).
> Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
As others have said, other reasons of the article are that the ship has recently been used as a ship for spying, but equipment relating to that was not present at the time of the sabotage mission it was intercepted during.
I'm not suggesting the ineptness is present at the top or in key organs of the system, particularly parts responsible for enforcement and espionage.
It naturally forms in the wider system through layers of control with people at each point doing the minimum required (well, the minimum they think that they can get away with) and creaming off any remaining resources.
The obviousness of reactions from the near top when enacted, against those that are too close to failures or deliberately act against the system, while often difficult to directly link to the top, yes, is very deliberate, and generally not ineptly executed.
In fact the individuals further down are often not really inept: they are can very good at doing what must be done with what little resource filters down while benefiting from what they can cream off, passing actual responsibility downwards, and keeping apparent responsibility for themselves (and their circles) when things go well. The comical ineptness is an emergent behaviour of the overall system that results from these behaviours.
This is in stark contrast to some other regimes, for instance the UK under BoJo the Clown and his next couple of replacements where the ineptitude was at times frighteningly and obviously present at and near the top, or over the longer term things like the post office scandal & cover-up which has dragged on for so long through an apparent endemic immorality rather than localised manipulation at each level.
I cite in evidence of Russian ineptness the entire history of their invasion of Ukraine.
Given their vast and extensive advantages at the beginning of the invasion, if they were even vaguely competent they really would have been holding a parade in Kyiv within a few months.
A competent military wouldn’t have lost their flagship, or let Ukraine counter-invade taking thousands of square kilometres of Russian territory. A competent regime wouldn’t have dismissed US warnings of an imminent terrorist attack on a specific music venue in Moscow and just let it happen.
Loading up a tanker with power hungry kit it’s not able to properly support without discussing the idea with the crew, while threatening the crew if they don’t keep quiet, is par for the course.
Before the invasion Ukraine had a total military force (including reserves) of 1.2 million backed by sizable numbers of highly motivated and heavily armed 'nationalist' forces. Since 2014 the West had been gradually arming Ukraine and various cities like Bakhmut were essentially fortified citadels enabling a defensive force to pose extreme resistance.
There was 0 chance Ukraine was going to just flop over. Iraq and Afghanistan were humble villages by contrast - one which we lost to, and the other which our 'victory' amounted to bombing the government then hiding out in tiny little ultra fortified 'green zones' while waving a victory flag. In both cases with the wars dragged on for decades. Now imagine if Russia had decided to jump in one of those invasions and start shipping hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to them, providing intelligence, and so on.
Russia obviously just thought they were ambushing Ukraine and could get some agreement for them to not join NATO without a real war. Then the West decided to get involved, similarly thinking they were ambushing Russia and that the first sight of HIMARS or a Panther tank would send the Russian army scattering.
Everybody was wrong, so we got a real war that nobody wanted.
> There was 0 chance Ukraine was going to just flop over.
That's a huge hindsight bias. Even the most optimistic scenarios from various secret services / think tanks predicted only weeks / few months of resistance at the most. If you read Ukrainian accounts, most weren't very optimistic either. You can also read up how many commanders in the south defected - having more such defectors could flip the war quite quickly. The question of whether to defect or not (or simply run) is something which many did on the spot based on their personal circumstances and outlook, it's extremely difficult to predict.
There was no news article where I lived (or international) that predicted that resistance would only last weeks or months. Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes. As long as people have access to weapons there will be enough resistance to make an area a constant war zone.
In the past you needed large armies standing in a line, and tanks to crush that line. When armies made enough progress the remaining soldiers either surrender or ran away. Today you can have a handful people operating a drone to sink a warship, or fire a missile against a plane, or just planting random explosives and mines. They get killed and a new group pop up elsewhere doing the exact same thing. The only method to actually win by eliminating resistance becomes burning down every building and killing every person who used to live there, which obviously is immoral and hurts military moral, takes a lot of time, a lot of resources and people, and diplomatic resources. For a country like Ukraine or Russia it would take decades or centuries.
It's a roughly equal part of underestimating Ukrainians and overestimating Russians.
> Those that did make any prediction about the length of the war pointed towards modern wars like those in the middle east, which demonstrated that modern wars do not end suddenly regardless of what progress either side makes.
You mean like Crimea where the resistance never died down and was an active battlefield with daily activity of partisan groups? /s
That article doesn't offer much in the way of citations - instead assuming the claims and mocking the implied makers without clearly stating who they are. I think that's probably because the original quote about Kyiv falling in days didn't come from Russian political or military leaders, but from Mark Milley [1] - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
After that claim was demonstrated to be clearly less than brilliant, the propaganda machine then began subtly (and then not so subtly) suggesting it was actually Russia that was making such claims.
But that was always plainly absurd. The last normal war Russia had was against Chechnya, another country that was tiny and practically unequipped relative to Ukraine, yet that war lasted a decade and had tens of thousands of deaths with a huge culture of great music [2] perpetually reminding people how brutal that war truly was.
You won't find a single source from a Russian political/military leader saying it'd be short, because they all knew it wouldn't be if there wasn't a quick agreement reached. The one quote people were able to find was from some television personality in some segment. But I hope Russia(ns) aren't citing e.g. Rachel Maddow to get insight into American positions on issues !
My original comment was mainly about the western agencies / think tanks making such predictions. Russians were denying the invasion till it actually began, so there aren't any public statements, of course.
But what Russians expected can be inferred from what they did - their initial Kyiv offensive, Hostomel landing, it's a clear attempt at a decapitation strike. It's actually a carbon copy of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia which fell without a fight which is apparently what Russians expected here as well.
I completely agree that was an attempted decapitation strike, but where we may disagree is that I don't think they were banking on it succeeding - but it was rather just a high risk, high reward play. For instance they also tried something similar in the first Chechen War, and it failed there as well.
But in this case I'd emphasize that even if that was successful they would have known it would be far from the end of the war. The 'nationalist units' and at least some regular forces would resist, the West would predictably back them endlessly (and probably bring in proxy forces) and the most likely scenario (absent a quick settlement) would be something like Afghanistan 2.0.
The point isn't what Russia said. The point is Russia didn't prepare for a war longer than a few weeks. After the initial attacks stalled, they've had to improvise logistics, drafts, equipment, moving in troops from other directions, making deals with Iran and North Korea, long-term economic solutions to sanctions, etc.
Putin assumed that those 1.2 million are just "forcibly separated brothers" that will if not support the "reunification" outright, then at least refuse to fight for a country they don't believe is real. Ukrainian nationalists before the war were presented in Russian agitprop as an extremist minority holding the rest of the country hostage.
Ships are often balanced between providing power and consuming it. Excess power gen is wasted fuel. Excess power draw is a blackout so it’s very typical of a ships captain or owner to max out power consumption while minimizing power generation. Its a cost index.
I do this on my own sailboat with a solar power source and battery setup.
Not exactly. A diesel engine uses less fuel at 80% load than 50%. At maximum load it uses the most fuel but in general as load increases the engine gets more efficient and so the calculations are weird.
Note that generators need to run at constant rpm to provide the correct ac frequency. Your car has gears so that it can run at lower rpm at low loads and so you won't see the same effect.
An independent diesel generator could have been loaded onto the ship as easily as the spy equipment. It was a tanker, there was plenty of room for a genset and its own fuel. Then the ship's power plant wouldn't be taxed at all.
Then you have radio equipment in addition to an independent diesel generator and fuel to explain…
Yes it was a tanker. The bigger the ship doesn’t mean it has more people or more power generation like a cruise ship. A tanker has a crew of 4 plus captain, maybe?
You've got the spying equipment to explain if boarded. An extra generator is hardly a concern. If anything an auxiliary generator can be explained as a backup/replacement for the ship's mandated backup generator.
Generally the people ordering radios don't think about that. They are used to land where you have more power to the building than you could possibly use.
Whilst basic, its a critical and valid point. It is being made on a forum where shipping, ships, and related engineering issues are not well known (at all).
It does lead to questions about how backup and failover power work on large ships. Secondary generation? Central batteries? Per device battery failover?
Batteries, yes. And there's an emergency generator that runs on diesel (big ships run on "bunker oil") which can be started with batteries or manually.
> Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
Perhaps it wasn't brazen sabotage, but incompetent attempts to attach something to the lines?
Or conflicting agendas trickling down to the same ship, where the left-hand of "go cause some mayhem" didn't know what the right-hand of "collect signals intelligence" was already doing with that asset.
I don't think it was incompetent attempts to attach something to the lines. It severed 4 data data cables and electricity cable called Estlink 2. If it hadn't been stopped, it would have severed also Estlink 1 within half and hour later perhaps also Balticconnector gas pipe.
About year ago Balticconnector gas pipe was already damaged by a Chinese ship, which had been dragging the anchor for long time in a very suspicious manner:
And again in August several data cables were severed by a Chinese ship. According to one analysis, that time they may have dragged the anchor for 400 kilometers:
What do you consider 'exact'? Approximate positions are drawn on nautical charts, so that ships don't accidentally go and try to anchor in the vicinity. Plenty accurate enough for a ship to 'accidentally' drop an anchor and drag it along the seabed for miles.
The strategy of the shadow fleet has historically been about using disposable and cheap commercial ships for dual purpose of military and economical operations, with plausible deniability as a bonus.
Ducktaping spy equipment onto barely operating merchant ships fits perfectly for this purpose. It is the peace time version of the merchant raider.
Russia has many of these types of boats. They are inexpensive. The "equipment" is portable in suitcases. There is a lot of marine traffic in the Baltic Sea. They may have thought they could do it during the holidays and move the equipment to another ship nearby without detection. Or, a Russian port is very close, perhaps they thought they could take off and make it to Russian waters before Finland intercepted them. Check out the route on marinetraffic.com. The cable is between Helsinki and Tallinn, St. Petersburg Russia (the "destination") is about 200 km away to the east.
Why not? Let me remind you the Russian capital ship of the Black Sea fleet during this war had most of it's self-defense systems inactive and half of them broken and was destroyed with 2 missiles. And the only Russian carrier - Kuznetsov - is famous for sailing everywhere with tug boats in escort because its engines are broken more often than working :)
Carriers are great at projecting power against poor people but sitting ducks against a near peer. And you probably know about the UKs recent propulsion system boondoggle…
Anyways, they just launched this very potent sub yesterday as well as several other hypersonic carrying boats this year (4 subs, 7 surface ships - all fake according to Reddit):
And it's not like the ships are badly designed. The Kuznetsov sister ship that was a casino for a while and now is Chinese works perfectly well.
The problem with Russian navy is lack of maintenance, total disregard of safety and procedures, 0 fucks given about human life, uneducated, drunken crews and widespread corruption.
I recommend reading about K-429 - a nuclear submarine that sunk not once but twice. First time because it was ordered to do exercises while the hull was in maintenance. Despite protests of the crew. Second time in dock during repairs after it got recovered. Worker negligence apparently.
Fun fact - it's not the only Russian nuclear submarine that participated in 2 disasters.
Where do you think those big missile barrages are coming from - Black Sea dolphins? You clearly spend too much time on reddit - sure, their carrier, Mosvka and that sub were ancient. But their recent boats are capable and pack a lot of offensive punch. One of their new corvettes could probably disable a carrier battle group. Only fools and immature people play the "the other side is incompetent and has shitty gear" game. I can assure you, the Pentagon and other Western militaries take it all very seriously.
For one simple statistic - USA has about 2 times the number of nuclear submarines Russia has. Despite that Russia/USSR has lost 7 nuclear submarines and USA have lost 2. You cannot dismiss accident rate higher by order of magnitude as propaganda or bias.
Russian fleet is good enough to launch missiles at a country without fleet from long range. It's not good enough to do it without significant loses. It's also not good enough to do it while keeping the sea in question under control.
There's a reason Russian Black Sea fleet left Crimea and rebased to a port in occupied Georgia.
The US has more than twice the population of Russia and didn't collapse in 1991 and have to crawl back from sub-Saharan Africa economic conditions, so of course America has more. And there's a reason the US Navy backed off from Houthi antishipping missile and drone range. All surface ships are sitting ducks to antishipping missiles (read about the boats the UK lost in the Falklands). In in a hot war, all of the carriers and other capital ships in the theatre would be sunk with a week, probably faster (on all sides).
> there's a reason the US Navy backed off from Houthi antishipping missile and drone range
Well, yes. If I can shoot you without your shooting me, that’d obviously better. Just because you have armor and defences doesn’t mean you want to always use them (or broadcast their capabilities and limitations).
I'm Russian, and I agree with them. It's not even exactly a secret in Russia itself. The country has always seen itself as a land empire, not a sea one. You can even see it in little things like, which parts of the armed forces are considered more "elite" compared to the common infantry (it's paratroopers in Russia, not the marines). See also Dugin with his "tellurocracy vs thalassocracy" etc. From this perspective, it makes sense that center of gravity of its military is the army, not the navy.
The task of Russian navy was to invade Odessa and sabotage Ukrainian grain trade. They didn't even attempt Odessa desant, because they knew it was futaile. And they failed at sabotaging Ukrainian grain trade, but not for a lack of effort.
Otherwise these ships served as missile lunchers, but even then they had to widraw to ports far away from Ukraine, because of drone attacks.
Ukraine won the naval battle at tiny fraction of the Russian navy cost.
I'm having a hard time believing that "a few suitcases" of equipment would strain the generator of a large ship. There's also no way _three_ countries (one of which is a member of NATO, further straining credibility of the article) would be using the same super secret spy equipment.
The article said “huge portable suitcases” which in my mind went to those giant rock concert equipment suitcases with caster wheels. And then the article is talking about how these ships are ancient and in poor repair. The power was probably going on and off long before they overloaded it.
I guess it's long enough for poor maintenance to let salty water do its thing. AFAIK even cars sent across the Pacific show damage when they arrive and special care is put to coat them.
Turkish "monitors" had _their own keyboards_ if the article is to be believed. Nobody foreign would be anywhere near any real spy equipment, let alone someone from a NATO member country, whether "mercenary" or not. It just doesn't make any sense.
> I'm having a hard time believing that "a few suitcases" of equipment would strain the generator of a large ship.
Perhaps it's a mistake in reporting, and the added equipment strained the local wiring/breakers of the bridge area it was installed into, causing "blackouts" that weren't ship-wide.
In the year of our lord 2024 russians are assaulting using Mad Max modified Ladas and push bikes, its no longer a meme! USSR stocks of armor are finally running out.
27 Oct 2024 'THE ARMOR RAN OUT - THEY WENT IN PICK-UPS. They reach the trenches and the assault ends.' - Combat group K-2 54th brigade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uy2KpKj0t8
Patriot batteries have shot down every missile type that isn't an IRBM like Oreshnik, and those are closer to Mach 11 than Mach 5.
Kinzhal and Zircon have been at least semi-reliably shot down. Iskander is very reliablly shot down. The main issue is that Ukraine just doesn't have enough Patriot batteries to defend the whole country, so the Russians stopped shooting where the air defense is.
They also use a bunch of S-300s as ballistic missiles (a secondary capability to their primary role as air defense) but primarily against cities that don't have air defense. But they're too inaccurate and inexpensive for the Ukrainians to bother attempting to intercept even if they had enough of the appropriate air defenses.
Their wonderweapons are artisanal products. That Mach 5 missile needs several days of preparations by specialists from the manufacturer before it is ready for launch. In tech terms: it doesn't scale. And such long preparation leaves ample time to destroy launch sites at any indication of preparations for an actual attack. When Russians fired one without a warhead at Ukraine, they made sure to notify the Americans in advance to avoid exactly that.
It's just a PR stunt. Notice how troll farms tried to hype doomsday scenarios, and how little traction such fears got in the actual national security circles.
Unlikely to happen. In Russia, all the modern weapons - from Armata tanks to Su-57 stealth planes to doomsday missiles - are mocked as "multiki" (cartoons), because they don't really exist beyond a few barely functional prototypes that are paraded around on national holidays.
All the weapons actually fielded in large numbers are either directly from the Soviet era, or endless upgrades of upgrades of obsolete designs - like their T-90 tank, which still has a fatal flaw that sends turret flying when the tank gets hit. Russian weapons industry has for more than three decades consistently shown total inability to produce anything new. I'd start worrying as soon as Russia finally produced a decent car; that would be an indication that something has fundamentally changed.
The transmitting and receiving devices were used to record all radio frequencies, and upon reaching Russia were offloaded for analysis.
...
They said no further equipment returned to the ship after it was offloaded for analysis, to their knowledge, but other devices were placed on another related tanker, Swiftsea Rider.
What seems implied is that the ship was previously used for spying back in June, then the spy equipment was offloaded from the ship and it was later repurposed to cut the cables.
Power on a ship isn't like power on land. It may be that this gear was all on one phase of the 3-phase generator output, which would make sense if this was radio equipment. Overloading a particular phase/circuit with unplanned-for equipment can quickly trip switches and other safety system, cascading into a blackout.
> Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
That part seemed odd to me too.
Spy folks aren't the ones conducting sabotage? If one division has installed apy equipment then surely they don't want that fact plastered all over documents, so perhaps the sabotage guys just saw a suitable ship in the harbor and presuaded/replaced the crew?
The way I read it, this is reportage from a person who worked with the ship about things which happened some months ago. There is nothing to say this equipment was still on board.
> They said no further equipment returned to the ship after it was offloaded for analysis, to their knowledge
> I'm not a Russia defender but this is comically inept if true.
I mean it's the 1000+ day of the 3 day special military operation, we've seen Russians with ww2 era rifles and gear, ww2 era tanks, &c.
Being inept is the only thing the Russian army seems to achieve consistently.
Aaah..the usual brain-dead and brain-washed response. Eyerolling and tiresome quips about Putin and Moscow. Never been to Moscow nor Russia and I don't have their Visa, so not sure how I can even "return" to it.
Are you referring to your statement about how russia is innocent and is being targeted for no reason since they never invaded another country and there are many sources for their attempts at sabotage and even assasinations, as braindead? Yes, you are indeed speaking braindead comments. Just re-read what you wrote, and then think about the events of the last 2 years. Try harder comrad.
No such statements/claims were made. Congratulations sir! You have won an award at the "Strawman Argument". Just re-read what you wrote and then refresh your knowledge of basic logical fallacies. Try harder at reading comprehension.
It's been long time coming, Russia needs to be dealt with.
Give Ukraine a couple hundred longer-range missiles, let them attack the oil fields, powerplants, refineries etc. Seize the shadow fleet tankers. Sanction Russia for real.
It will be cheaper and safer than the alternative. If we did this 2 years ago this war would be over by now and hundreds of thousands of people wouldn't die for no reason.
Every month of delay makes the costs higher and larger-scale war more likely.
This. You cannot fight a purely defensive war, you must attack the enemy's logistics and command infrastructure. These are slways behind the ftont lines.
>Give Ukraine a couple hundred longer-range missiles
while it would make a lot of pain to Russia, it wouldn't change the strategic situation. Russia is ok with taking the pain (more precisely Putin and his ilk are ok with subjecting Russia to the pain)
You need strategic hits, a knock-out, making it physically impossible for them to continue as it is the only language they currently understand. So, for example, Russia has like 10K of S-300/400 missiles. That is key part of the strategic defense of Russia (notice how Russia recently had a hysteric meltdown when just one drone hit their strategic defense radar thus slightly impacting their defense against ICBMs/etc. and also notice that just a drone was able to hit such a valuable target) Ukraine can build several thousands of large drones (cheap, simple, like say German V-1, can be built for less than $5000 each including modern navigation, Germans built 20K of V-1 in year in just one factory inside the mountain) and fire them to the targets in Russia choosing routes, altitudes and targets such that Russia would have to use S-300/400 instead of say shorter range BUK/Tor/Pantsir (Russia is big and most of the coverage is naturally by the S-300/400). After several thousands of such drones Russia would be put into impossible situation - either to let those large drones (original V-1 had 850kg warhead, ie. double that of Tomahawk/Storm Shadow/SCALP) fly and hit the targets or to run out of strategic air defense.
Can Russia really not build counter-drones with the same capabilities?
Or is your suggestion more of "do something along these lines, choosing specifically something Russia cannot currently defend against and complete this attack before Russia even knows it needs to build the factory to make the counter drones to defend against it"?
counter-drones for 650km/h drones (taking V-1 as an example) is basically supersonic air defense missiles, much more costly and complicated and take more time and resources to build (and requires radars/launchers/etc. in addition to the missiles - all that is cost and complexity and there is very limited production capacity for that hardware). And to cover even just European part of Russia isn't really possible with short-range ones. So, you need something fast and long-range and being able to hit moving target in the air. And even if short rage were enough - I don't see Pantsir missile price, and the TOR missile is $800K. S-300 is much north of it. So even if all your drones, say 20K drones, which cost you $100M, were to be shot down just by TOR/Pantsir, your enemy is out at least, bare minimum, $10B - and to build all these missiles significant portion of military production capacity should be dedicated to it (basically no way to build 20K such missiles in a year, and also hitting each target 100% by one missile is not real).
If you look at the map you'll see a strategic problem of Russia waiting to be exploited (and no plausibly possible factory building would help to prevent it) - when moving from the Ukraine/Russia border the Russian territory becomes more and more vast, and there is no good way to defend it from mass cheap attacks.
Ah, so it's an inherently asymmetrical force, with the advantage to Ukraine to perform the attack? It can't just be defended against by pairing (or even 10-to-1-swarming) identical V1-class drones from Russia to be used as interceptors?
>Ah, so it's an inherently asymmetrical force, with the advantage to Ukraine to perform the attack?
yes. Before cheap modern electronics, the costs of attacking vs. defending missiles didn't have such orders of magnitude difference. Drones, ie. cheap electronics, changed the game.
>It can't just be defended against by pairing (or even 10-to-1-swarming) identical V1-class drones from Russia to be used as interceptors?
To intercept you still need to be faster (transsonic and especially supersonic doesn't come cheap/simple), to have radars, a large one on the ground for detection, and seeker on the interceptor (that is cost and complexity) or to guide interceptors using the ground radar (that would mean much less simultaneously attacked targets by your interceptors, less distance and other issues like with intercepting low-flying targets, etc.)
I think the poster refers to NATO countries. Considering you are a Russian citizen, it's safe to say you're not included in this "we". Although frankly I think you would also benefit in the end.
Their policy is to do whatever putin wants, they were never particularly strict about their policies (for example half the things Prigozhyn did were against the Russian law). Policy changes are just posturing.
Also - tactical nukes won't significantly change anything on the battlefield. There are no big concentrations of troops in this war. It's 20 guys storming a village defended by 100 guys repeat 100 times in a month. If you want to nuke 100 guys to get that village - sure, it could work. Will be hard to establish a base there, but you can kill these 100 guys. But then 3 km further there are other guys. You'll nuke them too?
> Also - tactical nukes won't significantly change anything on the battlefield.
its not about Ukrainian battlefield, its more if western missiles will be destroying Russian infra, Putin will strike objects/bases/infra in Eastern Europe, he was very clear about it during initial invasion message.
Ukraine is receiving outdated, underequiped and limited inventory. I won't be surprised if there are some direct negotiations with Russia about what is allowed and what is not.
There is line after which Putin will launch nukes, destruction of major foundational infra totally could be it:
1. Putin will want to suppress Nato from further steps.
2. Population will likely demand this as an act of revenge.
3. There will be some self defense justification.
It won't be massive attack, first nuke to be launched on Ukrainian infra, and second on some EU military base, after which NATO will stop and suck it up(likely after first nuke) if Trump won't decide to escalate which is very unlikely.
China will likely support this, to legalize their own similar potential actions
> A tactical nuke on NATO would likely have the automated chain reaction of all out war.
how do you see this? Trump likely will decide to not engage, and EU is weak disorganized, and don't have teeth for major escalation against Russia's nukes.
"China will likely support this, to legalize their own similar potential actions"
Not at all, because chinas legal angle with Taiwan is the opposite - the holy territorial integrity. Which is why they critiziced russia for invading officially and don't give really support. The support they do give, is still doing lucrative buisness with russia. That is in their own interest and they like NATO attention split. But the legal situation they don't like as russia is clearly violating territorial integrity - which is their argument for annexing Taiwan.
And Trump is an old man and most of the nuclear response is pretty hardcoded into the military institutions. Meaning, so many people will tell Trump he will be seen as weak if he does not react, that he will push the red buttons.
> Not at all, because chinas legal angle with Taiwan is the opposite
we are discussing hypothetical situation of Russia nuking military bases if western missiles produce large damage on Russian core infra. China will likely also want to nuke bases in Japan, S.Korea and Philippines as act of self defense, regardless if Taiwan will be the reason or something else.
> And Trump is an old man and most of the nuclear response is pretty hardcoded into the military institutions. Meaning, so many people will tell Trump he will be seen as weak if he does not react, that he will push the red buttons.
I don't believe this. He and his appointments likely will say Russia is Europe's problems, lets better build wall on Mexico's border instead of mutually annihilate each other.
The US and its allies would destroy Russia’s troops and equipment in Ukraine – as well as sink its Black Sea fleet – if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, uses nuclear weapons in the country, former CIA director and retired four-star army general David Petraeus warned on Sunday.
Petraeus said that he had not spoken to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the likely US response to nuclear escalation from Russia, which administration officials have said has been repeatedly communicated to Moscow.
He told ABC News: “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.”
NATO can do several levels of conventional response that is at once completely in accordance with international law, more destructive to Russia than tactical nukes will be to Ukraine, and not threatening proliferation.
And Russia will be nuking shit left and right each time in response? What do you think this will achieve?
China will invade them at that point :) After their conventional army is destroyed in Ukraine and they are tossing nukes around - why not?
If your only card is "I'll commit extended suicide" - you're done.
NATO can destroy russia conventionally in a response to a nuclear attack.
You can't sell a first strike nuclear attack to the rest of the world as "justified".
And a tactical nuke won't change anything significantly military or economically-wise. It would be a political statement (and a completely braindead one).
> NATO can destroy russia conventionally in a response to a nuclear attack.
they cannot destroy Russia because Russia will hit by even more nukes
> You can't sell a first strike nuclear attack to the rest of the world as "justified".
They sold invasion to Ukraine to the world to some extend, they still are in UN security council, plenty of countries trading with them. If they mass hit by western missiles, it will be even easier to sell.
> And a tactical nuke won't change anything significantly military or economically-wise.
it will make NATO countries to reconsider their actions.
I'd add to that confiscation of all property in Europe owned by private and corporate owners of Russian origin (houses, securities, cars, jewellery, works of art, etc.), including those who have acquired European citizenship/residence permits after 1939, their families, next of kin, spouses, partners, children, and grandchildren, including those still to be born. Send them back on foot to Moscow, revoke their non-Russian citizenship, and do not allow them to ever obtain European citizenship or residence permit.
This is insane clown town stuff and echos "not-see" ideology. One of the core tenants of western democracy is we don't do collective punishment (racial, language, cultural or otherwise).
As you can see it can be done, is being done, and ought to be done across the whole of EU given the number of unexplained fires and explosions of factories, warehouses, and shopping centres in Europe, explosives planted in packages sent via DHL, an attempt to assassinate the CEO of Rheinmetal, cutting undersea cables, and disruption of GPS signal used by civil aviation.
Oh, those poor Russians. If they loose something they cherish maybe they will want to change their own country and run it in some sane fashion without being a constant threat to its neighbours. If they stay in the West they'll bang on about Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and be a constant vector for Russian propaganda.
In terms of international law and international maritime law, this is a fascinating case. Without directly applicable precedent, an actor does what it can/must within existing law.
Finland has always been very conservative in such matters, and you can be sure that they thought long and hard about what their public legal position will be before they boarded the ship.
The Russians will be conservative here too, because obviously the existing body of law has worked in their favor, giving them space to operate a "black fleet" - and to use it to execute sabotage. Or so they thought...
> the ship was boarded in Finland's EEZ and then escorted INTO Finnish territorial waters
You have misread. At least here in Q2 (https://yle.fi/a/74-20133775) Yle writes that first the ship was asked to move to Finnish territorial waters, and only then it was boarded.
Its not very sneaky, they got caught rather easily.
The damage is annoying, but deep sea cables have problems from time to time, its not like it created critical downtime or is unrepairable damage.
Is this just russia trying to give some sort of warning? A sort of, you have lots of exposed infrastructure, if you keep calling my bluff i might start going after it for real-zies?
The estimated time to fix the electric cable is over 6 months. Underwater fibers have been quicker to repair as was with another recent case. Electricity exports from Finland to Estonia went down pretty significantly due to this. Estonia was to stop importing electricity from Russia within 1-2 months so this is Russia being Russia as we (Finns, Estonians et al.) know here living next to it.
EDIT: Hamuko basically said the same thing earlier, did not notice
It takes the Finnish–Estonian transfer line offline for about six months when it's still cold, and Estonia (with the other Baltic states) is about to disconnect from the Russian electric grid.
The data cables are gonna be fixed in weeks. Yi Peng 3 got detained for over a month for creating a 10-day downtime on two submarine data cables.
Neither Finland or Estonia have socialist governments at the moment though, most of Europe is run by centre-right liberals these days. They are generally fine with anything that doesn't directly affect the economy so I guess Russia still has a wide margin of escalation.
Difficult to say but I'm guessing some kind of military response with adequate previous warning would have happened. There's no way NATO would have let slipped an assassination like this, this would open up the path to more assassinations if unanswered.
A warning would be 'lay off or we might hurt your cables'. Attempting to break all the things counts as an attack, a crime, or if you don't want to say crime you might say, an act of war.
I wasn't aware Russia was at open war with NATO, but perhaps their desperation has grown to the point where they are at open war with NATO now.
They want to damage NATO members' infrastructure without resorting to an overt kinetic attack, which would likely be answered with a precision hit against Russia's own infrastructure/ships.
Incrementally stir shit to desensitize everyone to their doing shit. It is basically them mocking and openly defying the US-led rules-based world order. It sends a "see, what a useless world order if I can just do this with no recourse" message.
Seriously, confiscate the ship, charge everyone on board with espionage, give maximum jail sentence, and close all maritime corridors going through NATO territory for Russia. Putin always tests for a response, and if there is none, he doubles down.
Russia violated Turkey’s airspace only once, the jet was shot down immediately, and, save to say, Putin was on the phone with Ankara to prevent an all out escalation with a NATO member that can trigger article 5 at any time for self defense after an apparent aggression. Turned out, no more airspace violations happened again.
As long as the West fails to respond with strength, Putin will never stop.
> close all maritime corridors going through NATO territory for Russia.
Probably too extreme for maritime law. OTOH a tighter inspection regime might fly. There is a precedent in ports of call that enforce their own inspection regimes.
Profile and optionally board boats entering the Skagerrak. Registry? Condition? Incident history? Hazards of declared cargo? Too many suspicious antennas?
"charge everyone on board with espionage, give maximum jail sentence" won't help: most of the crew has no choice in those operations, some might not even know what is going on. They also have dozens of ships that can do such damage, so no way to scare them by seizing or jailing one.
As I recall, Russia was making a habit of cutting across Turkey's airspace and they were officially warned before the shoot-down.
I may be misremembering.
> Russia violated Turkey’s airspace only once, the jet was shot down immediately, and, save to say, Putin was on the phone with Ankara to prevent an all out escalation with a NATO member that can trigger article 5 at any time for self defense after an apparent aggression. Turned out, no more airspace violations happened again.
I was on the same page as you for a long time, but aggressively defending your airspace also increases risk of collateral damage, leading to, for example, your military shooting down Azeri passenger jets. Or Malaysian ones. Or Iranian ones (to name one not committed by Russia).
Russia proved incapable of invading all of Ukraine in 3 years. They do want all of former USSR but it is clearly impossible. And with that in mind, it is criminal and on the Western side to not provide Ukraine with enough military assistance to decisively defeat Russia. I don't know what West is doing, honestly.
So true. In Germany alone are about 250000 Ukrainian men of fighting age eager to get back and crush the Russian invasion as soon as the west gives them some gear and a gun. How hard can it be?
So, because Russia has nukes we should let them do whatever they want?
With that logic we should let them takeover the entire Europe, continuing their genocide until the Holocaust seemed like a small-scale event. Then you can give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done.
> Woodward writes that Biden's national security team at one point believed there was a real threat, a 50 per cent chance, that Putin would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
Hopefully they are exaggerating for effect. A strategy of actively probing for Russia's breaking point is ruinously stupid; when you find it the odds are pretty good that it will be because they are at the point where they are willing to go nuclear. They might try some sort of escalate-to-de-escalate strike on NATO but there must be a pretty decent chance that would just escalate and the Russian command would be aware of that.
Not lobbing missiles in to Russia is an entirely reasonable red line. We got all the way through the Afghan war and the Iraq war without anyone launching missiles into the US and that restraint didn't seem to cause any long term problems. Extending similar courtesies to Russia is appropriate.
FWIW the US is also 100% aware of this. See the Proud Prophet wargames. [1] It was one of the most extensive, largescale, and 'realistic' wargames ever executed. It was essentially working out a variety of military strategies to try to gain an edge over the USSR - demonstrative nuclear strikes, limited-scale nuclear war, decapitation strikes against leadership, and so on.
The outcome of literally every single scenario was essentially the end of the world with billions dead and the Northern Hemisphere rendered largely inhospitable. This wargame was carried out in 1983. Its conclusion lead the US military and leadership to change course from the previous pattern of escalation as a means of victory, to de-escalation and collaboration. By 1991 the Soviet Union would collapse with their leaders holding hands with American leaders.
By 1991 ... yes, I remember, it was an exciting time, The Scorpions wrote a song, everybody was very positive. This lasted about eight years.
They've apparently changed the lyrics now. The opening lines are changed to "Now listen to my heart / It says Ukrainia, waiting for the wind to change." Meine stated, "It's not the time with this terrible war in Ukraine raging on, it's not the time to romanticize Russia."
I'm pretty sure the military industrial complex has had those leaders replaced with ones of the "let's hit them, they're bluffing" variety. The fact they're even testing the limits they've already broken through seems like a case study in strategic incompetence. AFAIK there is literally nothing in this for the US apart from an opportunity to set China up for greater success. Which, while a noble move, is probably not intentional.
Bear? It is more like a stray dog that keeps shitting on your living room carpet. You don’t need to hate the dog, you just keep it on the outside where it can run around and have a great time on it’s own.
This obviously isn't their goal anymore than the Russians are running out of missiles, the ruble is rubble, this 'game-changer' will imminently end the war (instead of obv just escalating it), and so on endlessly. Russia started negotiations to end the war 4 days (!!!) after the war began when, at that point, it wasn't even a war, but little more than some performative demonstrations!
And the main thing they wanted is what they've said all along - Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO or host foreign military bases. Everything else was negotiable - they were even willing to compromise on the exact status of Crimea! Then we got good ole Boris Johnson telling Zelensky to 'just fight'. One brilliant leader offering wisdom to another, with the outcome anybody could expect when such minds come together.
Notably Putin has also somewhat uncharacteristically shared the details of conversations he was having with Biden shortly prior to the war. And it was again all about Ukraine's NATO status. Biden refused to budge beyond agreeing to delay Ukraine's entry by 10-15 years (which was probably a defacto sort of 'we'll wait until you die' offer). Russian began amassing forces relatively shortly after that conversation.
This Russian agitprop always invites the question: why does Russia care if Ukraine is in NATO or not, if it actually respects its independence and territorial integrity? Russian claims all boil down to the notion that NATO wants to "move its forces to the borders" so as to ultimately invade and occupy Russia proper. If you don't believe that this is the purpose of NATO, then the entire construction makes zero sense. The reason why Ukraine wants to be in NATO is not because they like the logo, it's because they want to be safe from being invaded by Russia - and the same goes for every single country in Eastern Europe that has joined since USSR fell.
Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the border. I assume you obviously agree that even in this scenario China is not planning to literally invade the US, yet the US would obviously never in a million years allow this - and if China did not back down there would, with 100% certainty, be a war over it.
Come to think of it, this isn't even much of a hypothetical as this is essentially exactly what the Cuban Missile Crisis [1] was about, but the US was freaking out about weapons that were not even on a shared border, merely 'too close', bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war over it.
If Mexico was constantly threatened with an invasion from US, I would expect them to try really hard to join some kind of military alliance that could counter that, and if US were to respond to that the way Russia did, it would absolutely have been in the wrong. But this hypothetical, while amusing to consider, is not what we're dealing with, and ignoring this whole part about historical occupation and forced assimilation that ended recently enough that many people alive in Ukraine today still remember it, is extremely misleading as analogies go.
And yes, this whole bullshit about "they're not a real nation" etc was very much a thing in Russia before 2022, and before 2014 even. I should know; I grew up there. I remember reading "Эпоха мертворожденных" in 2008, and that's pretty much what Russia actually did in 2014 (except of course the whole "NATO occupation" of the non-separatist parts turned out to be imaginary). But I remember hearing similar sentiments in the 90s as a kid, as well. And since Ukrainians are well within the Russian cultural orbit, they were aware of those trends, too - and took appropriate precautions. This notion that invasion wouldn't have happened if they didn't seek NATO membership is wrong.
Haha, you might want to look at the history of US-Mexico relations. If you're going to speak of historical things it's relevant that the relations there have an oddly large amount in common. Texas was a part of Mexico! A reasonable wiki page to start the crawl would probably be Mexican Texas. [1] You've got all the good stuff: ethnic conflict, weaponized migrations, separatist movements supported by a foreign government, brutal wars, annexation referendums, and so on. And Cuba indeed - one of the compromises at the end of the nuclear stand-off is that the US would stop trying to invade Cuba!
Reading Plato and other great philosophers is interesting (The Republic in particular is an amazing read) because they can often sound like prophets - predicting the future with such extreme accuracy at a time that ostensibly had basically nothing in common with ours. But I think their 'secret' is simply that they were great objective observers of the behavior of humanity. Because history is not especially creative, it keeps repeating itself endlessly, because humanity doesn't change except as a product of technology changing.
I'm well aware of the history of US-Mexico relations, but no, it's not an equivalent. For one thing, there is not a multi-century history of attempts by US to fully occupy and annex Mexico (there were people advocating for this back during the Mexican-American War, but they were a minority even then, which is why it didn't happen). For another, Mexico is itself a colonizer state in all the territories which US took away from it. But, most importantly, last time there was an armed conflict between the two states was over century ago.
Well there's not a multi century history, because the US hadn't existed for multiple centuries, or even a century before it started going to war with everybody around it! We even went to war with Canada! Literally every single nation which has ever had power is a "colonizer state". Friggin Sweden and Norway used to be sprawling empires! You have "colonizer states" and you have "vassal states."
And this reality of the world remains true to this day. It's just that the means change. Alexander the Great wisely stabilized his massive empire largely by letting areas under his control maintain an exceptional degree of sovereignty, minimizing overt resistance to his control. The US took this to the next step by not even directly claiming nations, but instead simply remotely controlling the governments of these nations, and simply overthrowing/replacing them when they became uncontrollable - and repeating the process. Made even easier with democracy, which has a paradoxical tendency to elevate unpopular people on the take, rather than popular ideologues, to power.
Whenever there's any need - we can easily compel the various defacto vassal states under our control to act, even when directly against their own self interest. See: Germany for the most overt illustration of this. Extracting wealth from vassals became somewhat less relevant with the introduction of fiat currency. So long as we force the world to use our money, we can simply print money as needed, export the inflation to other countries, and it effectively functions as real growth - at least until the whole system inevitably collapses in on itself in a debt filled void.
Imagine if China managed to convince Mexico to join a military alliance and then moved to deploy troops, military bases, and likely nuclear weapons right on the border.
You can imagine all you want, but that's not what happened in regard to Ukraine.
What did happen is that Ukraine formally renounced its NATO aspirations in 2010, but Putin invaded anyway in 2014.
In 2014 Ukraine overthrew their (democratically elected) pro-Russian president with extensive support from the US, leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence. Western efforts to try to show the Crimean referendum was faked ended up doing the exact opposite [1] - and confirming that it was indeed reflective of the will of the overwhelming majority of people.
In 2019 Ukraine added joining NATO as a goal to their constitution, and the US was obviously rapidly moving in that direction with them. It was widely predicted that doing this would lead to war, and well here we are!
> In 2014 Ukraine overthrew their (democratically elected) pro-Russian president with extensive support from the US
Wrong. The Ukrainian parliament voted 328-vs-0 to hold early elections after the sitting president got over hundred protesters killed and ran away from the country fearing criminal prosecution.
> leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence.
Wrong again. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that it was an operation by Russian military and security services. They could not find any evidence of an actual separatist movement.
> In 2019 Ukraine added joining NATO as a goal to their constitution
... which is 5 years after Russia invaded Ukraine.
> the US was obviously rapidly moving in that direction with them
Again, obviously wrong. Three years later, by the time Russia launched the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was still nowhere near joining the NATO. We saw rapid timeline with Sweden and Finland. Informal negotiations started early 2022, formal invitation issued June 2022, all ratifications complete by national parliaments by April 2023 (Finland) and March 2024 (Sweden). To this day, Ukraine has not even been invited to start talks. The process hasn't even begun yet.
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What's the point of posting obvious lies and excuses? These are not even valid arguments, but clear factually incorrect statements.
Leading numerous regions that are heavily ethnic Russian, including Crimea, to declare their independence.
I have three questions for you:
(1) Can you name one of the regions Putin is attempting to annex, aside from Crimea, that was "heavily ethnic Russian?"
(2) Can you explain the circumstances which caused that particular region to have a majority Russian-identified population? (In just a sentence or two, please).
(3) Something else happened in 2014, in between the two events that you claim happened. Why is this missing from your chronology?
(1) Donbas - though Russia was not initially attempting to annex this area. The negotiations scrapped by the West would have left these regions as something like special administrative regions under Ukraine, akin to what Russia had already been trying to relatively peacefully achieve for a decade with the Minsk accords.
(2) Coal + industrialization + peasants seeking a better life.
(3) Actually quite a lot happened, but I assume you're referencing the fact that a small number of Russian forces were deployed to Crimea. A practical issue when territory "peacefully" changes hands is deterring the former "owners" from simply coming in and trying to kill everybody to immediately reclaim it. The important issue is whether those forces drove coercion or otherwise manipulated the outcome of the referendum in a way outside the will of the people. This is what the West tried to prove, but they instead ended up proving the exact opposite! Incidentally, a comparable referendum held in Donbas was likely outside the will of the people, and consequently - Russia did not recognize it.
#1 is not accurate. Here [1] is a visual map of the last census showing the percent in each region where Russian is the native language, which is a reasonable proxy for Russian ethnicity. This [2] shows Ukrainian ethnicity by region. That census is also from 2001. It's unclear what happened in the 13 years to 2014, though after 2014 it's safe to say it became majority ethnic Russian due to the constant conflict going on. That area in the East/Northeast is Donbas of course.
Crimea is far easier on #2. Crimea has never been majority (or plurality) Ukrainian. Prior to the Russians it was Tatars, but they were exiled after WW2 by Stalin for collaboration with the Nazis. The reason Crimea ended up under Ukrainian control is because in 1954 Khrushchev 'gifted' it to Ukraine to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Pereiaslav Agreement. That agreement is when the Cossacks that lived in 'the ukraine' (Ukraine translates to something like at the borderlands/frontier) signed a treaty swearing allegiance to Russia. At the time of the gift it was mostly just a token gesture, because Ukraine was just another normal part of the USSR and so basically nothing changed.
And the main thing they wanted is what they've said all along - Ukraine agreeing not to join NATO or host foreign military bases. Everything else was negotiable - they were even willing to compromise on the exact status of Crimea!
That wasn't what Putin said in his December 2021 ultimatum.
My comment is based on what was happening during the negotiations before the west tanked them.
But more generally when skilled leaders want "X" they generally instead say they want "X, Y and Z." The goal is so that you can then 'compromise' by withdrawing your desire for Y and Z. And in the best case, you may even get at least some of Y and Z.
You're leaving out the part where the "skilled leader" says "We want X, Y, Z, W, and the kitchen sink. And if you don't give it to us, we're going to blow your pretty little head clean off, motherfucker."
It is odd. I don't think throughout Biden was willing to say he wanted Ukraine to win and take back it's territories. The drip feed of aid seemed more aimed at having a stalemate. I've seen the theory they were worried that if Putin was defeated his government would collapse and the US was worried what would then happen to Russia's nukes.
All their warfare that's effective is the methods used to produce Brexit and elect Donald Trump. That's been way more effective than WWII munitions, and if they were satisfied with that, the world would be 'the Zone' for our lifetimes. But those who control Russia are old, and want land, territory. They've already spoken of wanting Alaska, and once you concede Crimea and Ukraine as 'really first', they'll be wanting to surprise everybody by taking the United States.
This is not realistic. They've got the power to destabilize to a shocking extent, but only while unobserved. To actually take territory, formally, from the United States would change a lot, and yet that's their dream.
By contrast, they're not fighting Finland first: not because Finland is that much tougher than the US, but because Finland knows them and is prepared.
You can have extremely hostile rhetoric from the neocons in the US, that does not mean it is official government policy. So you have a statement of Putin to showcase instead?
There's a key difference: Russia does not have freedom of the press nor freedom of speech. TV channels and newspapers get talking points from their coordinator in the presidential administration in the Kremlin and then do their best to hit the desired notes, or face takeover or closure. No independent mass media exists in Russia anymore. The Kremlin serves as the editorial board for every major outlet. This is the Russian government speaking.
Russian Media Monitor channel on Youtube maintains a collection of that speech. One of the most recent examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hULOZDqxv1Q In this clip from a prime-time TV show, propagandists keep repeating how they need to nuclear blackmail Trump into handing Europe over to Russia, with "Russian troops in Berlin, Paris and Lisbon" (02:12). Russian outlets hammer garbage like this into their population every single day, such rhetoric is everywhere. And words certainly lead to actions: when Russian POWs captured in Ukraine are asked what the hell they are doing in Ukraine, they can't come up with anything and fall back to repeating the same things word for word as if the were robots.
Russia under the tzar was imperialistic, Russia under communism was imperialistic, why is it extraordinary to believe Russia under Putin is imperialistic? Especially given what it did in Georgia Ukrain and Belarus etc.
There is a massive difference between belief and fact, and I would expect someone on this forum to know that. If you don't have a source, and you can't find one, then please make clear in your comment that that's your belief, not a fact. This goes for the OP, too
> Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more or less formal empire.
I'm German, please don't try to belittle someone's point just because you believe them to be from someplace, that's not how it works on this forum. Please go read the guidelines linked at the bottom of the page. Specifically, respond to the strongest possible interpretation of what someone says, not the weakest.
Your mean strong evidence like if Russia started invading and annexing its former-USSR neighbors?
Or perhaps you're confusing "clear" with "explicit": Consider a mob-boss surrounded by associates, casually observing into the air that "Example Ezio needs a fitting for concrete overshoes since I expect he'll be sleeping with the fishes."
> > invading and annexing its former-USSR neighbors
> Is Russia invading Poland and the Baltic states?
What goalpost-moving nonsense is this!? Why narrow it to those other areas while pretending the ongoing invasion of Ukraine doesn't exist, or forgetting the 2008 invasion of Georgia?
Must Russia attempt to attack or puppet every discrete former-USSR holding including Takijistan before you'll finally admit that Putin has revanchist dreams?
Russia annoying both Finland and Estonia may be unwise. Look at the geography.
There's only 20km of water between Helsinki and Tallinn.
If those countries act together they can cut off sea access to St. Petersburg.
Or just slow things down by inspecting every ship for cable-cutting capability.
NATO has already stepped up patrols in the Baltic Sea.[1]
Right now, Russia doesn't have all that much military capability near St. Petersburg.[2]
Some units are off at the Ukraine war. The Baltic Fleet is weaker than ever.
There's a "Free Ingria" movement that wants to make all of Leningrad Oblast a separate country. It's not going anywhere without outside support. It might get some.
Every large ship with an anchor has cable cutting capability, at least in shallow waters. They just drop anchor near the cable (locations of which are clearly marked on regular nautical charts) and then run the ship's engine to drag the anchor across the cable until it breaks.
In terms of potential hybrid warfare targets, Kaliningrad looks soft. Many of the residents have little loyalty to Russia. A partial blockade combined with some sabotage and support of separatist organizations could accomplish a lot.
NATO is now patrolling that area, probably looking for that. Finland joined NATO in 2023, after seeing what Russia was doing in Ukraine.
It's a narrow corridor to patrol. Small boats watching large ships can tell if an anchor is run out. An ordinary fish-finder sonar should be able to tell if a ship is dragging something. Finland has many small coast guard vessels, and a long history of pushing back against border incursions from Russia.
The most recent incursion was [1]. "Since the beginning of August 2023, more than 1,300 third-country nationals have arrived in Finland from Russia without a visa. According to the authorities, it was clear that foreign authorities or other actors were facilitating instrumentalised migration. This phenomenon and the risk of its escalation posed a serious threat to national security and public order in Finland."
Migrants who escaped Afghanistan, etc. and ended up in Russia are apparently being given a hard choice - join the army and fight in Ukraine, or leave Russia.
So Finland closed the land border with Russia completely. Russia objected. Finland did not give in.
Finland started building a border fence on the Russian border, with surveillance gear, back in 2023.[2]
> Look at the geography. There's only 20km of water between Helsinki and Tallinn. If those countries act together they can cut off sea access to St. Petersburg.
Closer to 90km. If it was 20, all ships to/from St Petersburg would have to pass through Estonian/Finnish territorial waters and we wouldn’t have questions around jurisdiction.
it's 38km from Naissaar to first Finnish islands, and the international waters there are wider than they should thanks to all the wars that were fought over it.
McCain on Putin in 2014. They want Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, and Moldova and the Baltics if they can get away with it. He is rebuilding the Russian Empire.
They are used to playing against a spineless opponent, which in theory could have gone on for quite a long time. In this case, I'm glad to see it didn't.
The EU should treat Putin's Russia like the aggressive evil predator and danger it so clearly is. And they should assume the US under Trump cannot be trusted. They must assume he's Putin's lackey. I'm American so it pains me to say it OTOH I don't want to see disaster to happen among our European allies.
Another sabotage by Russia or its allies on crucial EU infrastructure. I'm happy to see the Finns searching and stopping them, but we need to be serious about our adversary that keeps threatening to nuke major European cities off the map
> we need to be serious about our adversary that keeps threatening to nuke major European cities off the map
Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t. We’re back to realpolitik.
Russian boats should be subject to boarding and searching when passing by Finnish and adjacent waters; for precedent, they can cite China claiming its sovereign waters include vastly adjacent waters to its own.
Russia flirted with Turkish airspace in 2015; Ankara shot it down [1]. Zero further provocations. You can’t appease a bully by lying prostrate. Even if the bully has big guns at home. We aren’t risking nuclear war by drawing clear lines, we’re inviting it by clumsily blurring them.
Europe is doing no such thing. They are preparing for physical war by drastically increasing military spending [1], and some countries are already sending out "be ready for war" information sheets. [2]
Europe isn't a homogeneous block in this question, though. Some parts do what GP said, IMO.
For example, Germany also increased its military spending, true - but from a low starting point, with an army even sometimes lacking basic supplies like dumb ammunition due to massive underfunding since the end of the cold war.
The (possible, maybe!) reintroduction of drafting will be agonizingly slow, as the military doesn't have the capacity anymore (and will lack it for years to come!) to even examine even a small percentage of each year, let alone equip and train them. There are no KWEAs (Kreiswehrersatzämter, drafting centers) anymore, and the new "Career Centers" have abysmal throughput.
We sold a very very significant chunk of our military bases and heavy equipment. Those are gone, the federal government often doesn't even own the land anymore. We have almost no working bunkers anymore, both military and public. Etc, etc.
Those are things which we would have to start to change immediately, as it takes ages until we see results. We do sorta, but on a tiny scale - it's not the massive investment you would expect for a country readying itself for conflict.
German politics / state departments are, IMO, in no way readying the public for the real prospect of military conflict. Pistorius, the German defence minister, basically screams into the void. Yes, many agree in talk, but the walk is quite underwhelming.
The defence ministry says we have to be ready for war until 2029. Most projects which are started now will, based on information by the same ministry, never ever be finished until before the 2030s. And yet, there is no hurry visible. We still have time.
A friend of mine visited Germany and talked to Germans about the threat of nuclear war and what they may or may not be doing. She said there was a very bizarre "it will never happen" vibe wherever she asked. Germans basically laughed at her for taking it as a serious concern worth discussing, even smart Germans with solid academic backgrounds. In the US it is a very different story. Whether a Stanford alumni or a rando at a bar Americans are much less likely to laugh you off for taking the prospect of nuclear war seriously.
You can also ask germans directly here. I would tell you, many people take it serious, judging from HN comments, way more than americans, some just like to remain in their safe space bubble.
Well, how does the answer change for an American? I mean we don't have the same thousands of megaton scale nukes anymore but still enough to fuck uf the world enough via one actor.
We're more realistic. We hope it will never happen. But we fear it might. Strategic nuclear bombardment is something that should be feared, not pooh-poohed.
And how exactly would that change the military strategy of a non-nuclear armed European strategy (save for NBC protection in armored vehicles I suppose...) or even individual people?
For me it just makes zero sense to lose much sleep about it, except for voting I can't do nothing about it
lol we get those pamphlets sent out every now and then. Of course it's related to the increase tension, but it's not the huge call sign you make it out to be. "be ready for war" means "be ready in case something happens", not "be ready for what's about to happen."
Common, everyone cried at all the demons when Trump asked Europe to reach 2% of GDP on military spending in 2018. Had we done it, we’d have DOUBLED our spending.
Russia is at 6.3%, USA at 3.4% (7x Russia’s in absolute spending), Europe at 1.3%.
Culture-wise, it’s unthinkable for Europe to come around and revive the military-industrial complex. We’re basically trying to win this war by crossing our fingers, like the French did in 1936 (the famous Congés Payés were offered in 1936, with beautiful photos of parisians going to the beach, while our German cousins were in factories manufacturing guns. Guess who won the war).
He also wasn't exactly disparaging it. He said we need it, but we must not let it become too powerful or influential. The truth of that hasn't really changed.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
He absolutely disparaged it, in fact he considered it a fundamental threat to democracy.
"Military industrial complex" isn't about maintaining a large, dominant military. It's about industry becoming so entwined with the military that they start calling the shots, and military decisions begin to be made for the benefit of corporations rather than the nation.
> everyone cried at all the demons when Trump asked Europe to reach 2% of GDP on military spending in 2018.
No, that's not what people had a problem with, and it's barely even what Trump said.
Trump claimed (again) that the less-spending-than-recommended nations somehow owed payments to the US, and threatened that the US would violate the treaty if they somehow didn't keep him satisfied!
That's the stuff that was new and controversial, and for damn good reasons.
Other parties were already violating the treaty by not spending 2%. It's simple Tit for tat.
> Trump claimed (again) that the less-spending-than-recommended nations somehow owed payments to the US
The US was shouldering the cost of international security (being a hegemon) You take European stability and welfare for granted, we can't know what the world would look like without pax Americana but I'm certain it would be worse. The 'rules based international community' You couldn't even stop a genocide on the EUs front door.
I'm as frustrated as anyone about Europe not pulling their weight, but it's not in violation of the treaty. The 2% guideline has nothing to do with the treaty itself. It's precisely that, a non-binding guideline.
>Russia flirted with Turkish airspace in 2015; Ankara shot it down [1]. Zero further provocations. You can’t appease a bully by lying prostrate. Even if the bully has big guns at home. We aren’t risking nuclear war by drawing clear lines, we’re inviting it by clumsily blurring them.
Zero further provocations doesn't seem right [1] [2]
Freedom of navigation is a part of international law major powers usually care about, because international trade serves their interests.
Maybe a bunch of small North European countries decide to blockade Russia in the Baltic Sea, and maybe Russia doesn't consider this an act of war, because NATO seems credible enough. Suddenly the Houthi attempt to blockade the Red Sea becomes much more legitimate, and Iran will certainly take note. Maybe Panama goes shopping for allies (since the US is starting to look unpredictable), and maybe China gains the power to decide who gets to use the canal. And maybe Turkey (which is technically a NATO member but not in particularly friendly terms with the West) decides that it is allowed to control access to the Black Sea.
>maybe Turkey (which is technically a NATO member but not in particularly friendly terms with the West) decides that it is allowed to control access to the Black Sea
Interestingly, Turkey is allowed -- by the Montreux Convention -- to close the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean to warships and in fact have been doing so since 2022:
>Turkey has closed off the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to warships from any country, whether or not they border the Black Sea, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The strait closures will still allow warships through if they are returning to a home base in the Black Sea, according to reporting from Naval News. This would include Russian ships in the country’s Black Sea Fleet. However, the decision to restrict warships, a power given to Turkey by the Montreux Convention of 1936, will likely limit Russia’s ability to move ships from its other fleets to the Black Sea.
I don't see how things not being considered legitimate by the West currently stops anyone but the West and even that only a little bit, with exception of US that does whatever it pleases all the time.
International politics is not a war of all against all. It's more like a pre-state society governed by informal norms and expectations and personal relationships between the elites.
People like predictable rules. If the big guy says that the seas are open and they are open, you will probably support the rule, because it allows you to focus more on trade and less on protecting your interests by force. But if the seas are open, except for those the big guy doesn't like, then you may start wondering if you'll also end up on that list.
Big guys also try to enforce the rules. If piracy or an unjustified blockade threatens the freedom of navigation, naval powers will try to restore the status quo.
Reciprocity is an important norm in international politics. It makes things a bit like a mix of little kids arguing and common law. The key principle is that if the big guy and his friends area allowed to do X for their reasons, it sets the precedent that you are allowed to do what you consider the equivalent of X for your reasons. Either the big guy follows his own rules, or everyone is allowed to use their own judgment to break the rules. But if a random nobody breaks the rules, it doesn't set the precedent in the same way.
> International politics is not a war of all against all. It's more like a pre-state society governed by informal norms and expectations and personal relationships between the elites.
If someone violates the expectations but is not strong enough to defend his violation then expectations about behaviors of others towards him might be freely violated as well without destroying whole arrangement between conforming parties.
This discussion has happened a few times with medo-bear here on HN and it's always the same thing. Russia's actions are never their fault and Ukraine should just accept what Russia is doing because otherwise they're being manipulated by the west.
Nah, you don't get under my skin, but there's no point in discussing this with you as all you do is blame the US, the "west", and the bogeyman for Russia's actions and attack anyone that doesn't bend over to Russia. You are today's version of a "tankie" and to be honest, it's a bit sad to see.
There are not many here that 1) are incapable of criticising Russia, 2) blame everyone else for Russia's actions, and 3) struggle to understand why people simply don't bend over to Russia and their wishes. So yes, I do remember your username.
you seem to be proactively campaigning here on russia issues. why? this is a tech forum. i bet some of things i say stings your entrenched world view because they are completely obvious
Considering my only interactions with you here are replies to your blame deflection comments, I should be the one asking why are you campaigning on "Russia issues" on a tech forum.
Again, what you write doesn't get under my skin or "stings". To me, it's just dumb. Makes as much sense as defending a guy who beats his wife because "she made him do it". What's there to sting?
My world view doesn't involve glorifying countries or having double standards. This is not sports where you blindly defend your team and I blindly defend mine. For example, you criticise the US for invasions and for being imperialistic and then defend Russia for doing the same. I don't. You are incapable of criticising a country you support. I'm not. I'm far from being perfect, but I'm not that bad.
But don't let me stop you from doing Russia's dirty work for them. Keep defending their actions, their wars, their resource exploitation in Africa, and so on... blame it all on the evil west and anyone that doesn't accept the "russkiy mir".
> You mean the same Africa that the West enslaved and colonized?
And this is the big difference between you and me. I think that was wrong. You instead use it as a "it's fine because the West did it before".
You don't give a fuck and support it as long team Russia is the one benefiting while I think it's bad independently of who does it and refuse to support it.
> Everyone needs a vent, but you called me out personally whilst i dont care to remember who you are.
That's good for you mate.
> Funny enough seeing my previous engagements it is always the same people arguing the US story, pretending to be Ukranians
I'm not from the US or from Ukraine and have never pretended to be. And unlike you I don't come here to defended the actions of an aggressor.
> You instead use it as a "it's fine because the West did it before".
actually mainly im saying that this is all expected as it is part of the rules of the game set by the West
anyway lets be honnest, you obviously support the US and NATO, and you are simply having a tantrum because someone has an opposite view. what else is the point of this exchange? your guys do so much crap to the world and answer to no one. israel (your side) killed 4x more civilians in a year than russia in 3 years. your lads litteraly think it is their god given right to rule the world. true, i think they are a bigger threat to world peace than Russia, but i would never say that Russia is 'right' or that i support Russian imperialism, but I do think that right now maybe they are less wrong in some sense. if Ukraine had a true independence movement, one that wasnt a lackey for another world power (for example like viet cong, plo, yugoslav partizans, polish resistance) I would support Ukraine completely. unfortunately it does not
as for africa, what on earth do you think uk france and US do there? also ukraine seems to be arming islamists there. what do you think about that?
> actually mainly im saying that this is all expected as it is part of the rules of the game set by the West
From that point of view, since everyone's playing the same game now, you can't complain when the west does it. It's "all expected".
I'm not like you. If it's bad, it's bad. I won't go "oh, the US can invade Mexico because Russia did it too".
> anyway lets be honnest, you obviously support the US and NATO, and you are simply having a tantrum because someone has an opposite view. what else is the point of this exchange? [...]
I support the US and NATO when they deserve my support. I don't support them when they do something I disagree with. Only brainless morons support a side no matter what... With this said, I'm not going to blame the US, NATO, or Ukraine for a war Russia - and Russia alone - decided to start in 2014 and expand in 2022.
I'm fine with different points of view, but you take it so far that you blame everyone else but Russia for Russia's own actions. That's fanboy behaviour, plain dumb stuff. It makes me shake my head, not have a tantrum.
There was no exchange here. I didn't reply to you, you replied to my comment. I warned others that you are a simp for Russia that are incapable of criticising them, thus any discussion with you is a waste of time (yes, I know this is a waste of my time). You'll blame someone else, point at what someone else did, criticise those being attacked, but never, ever, criticise Russia. In one comment you point out the Africa that the "West enslaved and colonized" and on the other point out that it's "all expected" if Russia is doing it. As I've said, based on your comments on HN, you are a modern day tankie, a useful fool for those doing shitty things. And since you like sides, yes, my side also has many useful fools... and I like them as much as I like you.
I don't know what you mean by "your lads". Am I part of some group now and no one told me? And where exactly have I defended Israel and what made you think that I'd be okay with it? Which part of "bad is bad" don't you understand?
Regarding Ukraine... you know what they say about opinions... we all have one. But Russia doesn't have any right to invade and annex parts Ukraine and no amount of "buts", "ifs", and finger pointing at those you don't like changes this. What they're doing is either right or wrong. If you think it's right, then fine, but cut the bullshit and the excuses. I on the other hand think it's wrong and won't defend it.
> as for africa, what on earth do you think uk france and US do there? also ukraine seems to be arming islamists there. what do you think about that?
A turd is a turd, independently of its nationality. Unlike you, I won't call it a nice turd just because it's French... or Russian. Do you get it now or will you ask me again if <something wrong> is good or acceptable to me if done by the west?
What will be your next "what about..."? Who are you going to blame next for Russia's own actions? Can't wait for more victim blaming!
While I'd loooove to discuss how Russia is "less wrong in some sense" when they invade their neighbour and to see you blame a country for not accepting being annexed by Russia, I have more interesting things to do. Bye bye!
> I support the US and NATO when they deserve my support.
that is the difference between you and me. i would never support any imperialist group: russia/usa/nato/israel including their proxies like the current government of ukraine
but tbh at the rate you are going you will start dreaming about MEDO-BEAR
__ __
/ \.-"""-./ \
\ - - /
| o o |
\ .-'''-. /
'-\__Y__/-'
`---`
you replied within minutes of me posting after saying you wouldnt. chill
> Says medo-bear, which supports Russia and their imperialist affairs
not supports but explains. like dont pat a dog from above or else it might bite you. or dont try to bring a sworn enemy to the doorstep of your more powerful neighbour or else it might invade you
This person has said that Ukraine "provoked russia into invading" by talking about joining NATO. It doesn't make sense and it's not going to make sense.
An interesting detail about language that not many people know: the "sense making" involved in language occurs within the mind of the reader, it is not contained within the language itself.
So if something doesn't make sense, it is possible (but not necessarily so) that it is a skills or ideology issue with the reader.
Note also that detecting ideological bias in oneself is a very difficult thing to do, but it seems like the opposite.
It makes more sense than the US going into Vietnam to stop the rise of communism at home. Unfprtunately this is what imperialist powers do, and in this sense Russia was provoked. More importabtly, given the strategic importance of Ukraine as a buffer to Russia, this is also how world wars happen. But many people seem to have this illusion that Russians are stupid orks arriving in zomby like waves with nothing but shovels
This is textbook whataboutism and has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
in this sense Russia was provoked.
Russia was not provoked in any sense.
"I want what you have" as a rationalization for murder would be classified as the trait of a psychopath: A person who engages repeatedly in criminal and antisocial behavior without remorse or empathy for those victimized.
im saying that all imperialist powers are essentially the same and equally bad. including the us (the only country to date to have used nuclear weapons). if you want something closer to the point at hand see Iran Air Flight 655
> Russia was not provoked in any sense
as an imperialist power it was provoked in every sense. the US knew they were provoking russia. maybe they thought russia wouldnt go to war. but its obvious they were provoked
To you envidence doesnt make sense and so you naturally call it nonsense. Kind of like a flat-earther. In the part of EU where I live a solid majority feel sorry for Ukranians because it is common knowledge that only idiots dont see that this is a war being faught for foreign interests. And no we are not pro Putin. But sometimes it is useful to see things how the other side sees things, at least as a sobering effect. We have no interest in further wars and strongly believe this can be resolved diplomatically. Unfortunatelly (ie not something that pleases us) the harsh reality is that Ukraine will have to make huge political sacrifices because it allowed itself to be dictated by interests of island countries
Ukraine wanted to bring Russia's number one security concern (NATO alliance and its eastward expansion) to Russia's doorstep, Russia reacted, and Ukraine is paying dearly for it. What else do you need?
How is that not true, though? Claiming it’s Ukraines fault for the war is absurd, but joining NATO was always going to be seen as a provocative act. It’s geopolitics and there’s never black and white lines.
Obviously attempts of bullying victim to join a friend group that might protect them is provocative to the bully, as it might limit their capacity to do the bullying.
The question is, why should we avoid doing it rather than let them escalate and use this opportunity to stomp the bully. Which is in the works and will happen in few years.
Because this isn’t the school yard. And the country you label a “bully” has nukes and probably cares more about Ukraine than you do, based on willingness for sacrifices (though in reverse).
There were people talking like you among JFK’s chief of staff during the Cuban Missile crisis. Same argument. Had JFK listened to them, we very likely would not be here today.
School bully might have a gun but if he uses it then it's game over for him too. And russia behaves like a bully. Any step back emboldens them. What might have been true at the height of cold war might not be true now. Befriending the opponent failed. Now it's time to finish the job and actually win the cold war. NATO already knows this and preparations have begun. There's very little chance to avoid the direct conflict unless russia collapses harder than it did when soviet union fell. This time they won't be keeping their nukes or whatever's left of them.
If this was a computer game, I’d see it the same way.
But unlike in a computer game, in the real world, that would you have labeled your enemy, does not simply disappear. If anything, you’ll create a vacuum. And I am not sure where you are taking the confidence that who or what ever feels that vacuum will be better than the status quo. The Americans have tried that in Iraq and Syria. The Vietnam war as well. And I believe the result, in every case, has been anything but that nice clean victory that “finishing off” of your enemy in a computer game promises.
In my view, this comes down to Chesterton’s fence. Before you tear down a fence, it would be helpful to understand how it came to be erected in the first place.
Please do correct me if I’m wrong, but pretty much the only time the strategy of killing of an enemy regime worked was Hitler. That was a man who applied industrial processes to murdering humans - rail networks, assembly line processing, gas chambers. This is not the level of evil we are facing here, at all.
If Putin is anything as evil as you think he is, he will surely have systems in place that will ensure the destruction of major cities in the United States in case of anything happening to him or his regime. You schoolyard, bully, metaphor, while having the benefit of being easy to understand, carries with it a risk - 1%, 5%? - that our children will find themselves in the world of A Canticle for Leibowitz.
Leaving the defeated be turned out to be a terrible idea again and again. Fortunately we have a very good blueprint for civilising rouge states straight out of World War II (as you noticed). Basically you need to divide and control. Indefinitely. Until democratic mechanisms are developed and society gets educated. Until a new generation grows and flourishes. Basically this time russia gets Germany treatment. This will cost money but still less that leaving them be. And some of it is going to be recouped with their natural resources.
Putin is just as evil as hitler and even more stupid and inept. While the West was developing, russia deteriorated. Nuclear capacity of russia is no longer believable. Attempts at demonstrating capacity for delivering icbm payloads ended up with crater on the launch site. The best they could do was Oreshnik that they try to sell as a new weapon which it isn't. The degree they try to lean into it and present it as a credible threat clearly shows that they have nothing else at this point and very few of that. 45 nuclear threats all ignored without consequence don't look good either.
It's even debatable how much of a threat Soviet Union really was at the height of its power because myth of its power was mostly manufactured and reinforced by USA that could use it as an excuse to funnel money to military industrial complex which otherwise would be hard sell with largely isolationistic public. It could be plainly seen when Soviet Union collapsed and USA was briefly aimless until it found new enemy to blow out of proportions in the form of terrorism. It was crap so they switched quickly to China. They no longer have a need for russia so they no longer are going to be doing marketing for putin.
Bully had a gun but he kept in in damp cellar. So the time to stomp him is now, even if there's some risk remaining, before he steals some money, to buy some solvent and oil to clean the gun he thought he won't ever need to use.
Some nukes might fly, and even a few might land but it's the best time there will ever be to turn russia to ex nuclear power. History doesn't stand in place. Thousand of nukes were already detonated on Earth. Few more from russia arsenal that might still actually launch and explode will make a very small difference. And retribution for using any nukes will be more terrible than what anyone can even imagine.
Poster accepts millions of people with their skin burned off just for a couple of square km in Eastern Ukraine. At this stage I feel that Ukrainians and Russian deserve each other. Please keep it an intra-slavic conflict!
I accept everything life brings me and have very little influence over it. I am accepting this only as much as I accepted millions dying in a pandemic. The fact that one did happen and other might happen has very little meaning to me.
> Please keep it an intra-slavic conflict!
Here's that pesky isolationism that had to always be circumvented in order for USA to dominate the globe the way it did and getting rich of this the way it did.
What makes you think russia has any intention to keep the conflict intra-Slavic with constant talk about multipolar world with them in one of the leading roles? Trying to cosplay it a little bit already with BRICS? Why the biggest hit to their ambitions since 2022 was them getting pushed out of Syria? How's that intra-Slavic? Domination over their self-appointed zone of influence is just a stepping stone as it always was.
I suggest you read “The Kindly Ones” by Littell. Or, for a smaller investment of time, “Just Revenge" by Dershowitz.
Putin is not even on the same axis as Hitler in terms of evil. I can only take your words to mean that you have no idea who Hitler was - making you, ironically, much closer to a Chamberlain than a Churchill.
The idea that intelligent people like you can draw such conclusions makes me unspeakably sad.
It reminds me of a passage in Stefan Zweig’s “The World of Yesterday” in which he is shocked to see how, weeks before WWI, peasants in a French village cinema turn into a war hungry mob the moment the German Kaiser appears on the screen.
Quote:
> At the moment when Kaiser Wilhelm appeared in the picture a storm of whistling and stamping broke out entirely spontaneously in the dark hall. Everyone was shouting and whistling, men, women and children all jeering as if they had been personally insulted. For a second the kindly people of Tours, who knew nothing about the world beyond what was in their newspapers, were out of their minds. I was horrified, deeply horrified. For I felt how far the poisoning of minds must have gone, after years and years of hate propaganda, if even here in a small provincial city the guileless citizens and soldiers had been roused to fury against the Kaiser and Germany—such fury that even a brief glimpse on the screen could provoke such an outburst. It was only a second, a single second. All was forgotten once other pictures were shown. The audience laughed heartily at the comedy that now followed, slapping their knees loudly with delight. Only a second, yes, but it showed me how easy it could be to whip up bad feeling on both sides at a moment of serious crisis, in spite of all attempts to restore understanding, in spite of our own efforts.
> The entire evening was spoilt for me. I couldn’t sleep. If it had happened in Paris, it would have made me just as uneasy, but it would not have shaken me so much. However, seeing how far hatred had eaten into the kindly, simple people here in the depths of the provinces made me shudder.
No development for you then. But at some age I guess you no longer need to learn anything new about the world. You'll be dead soon enough anyways. I guess for you it's perfectly sufficient to remain lisp-emacs programmer fascinated with dead philosophers, despots and dabbling in russian atrocity apologetics.
your comments betray some aged guy who hasnt lived, definitely has no children, and compensates by trying to be cool and provocative by having trivially controversial opinions. but even in your post-nuclear world, lisp and emacs still survive :)
The problem is that Ukraine has been trying to join NATO since the early 2000s. The answer was always the same: "we'll consider it". This wasn't going to change in 2014, when Ukraine had no working government and Russia invaded.
It's also a nonsense argument given Putin's aggression prompted NATO's largest expansion in a decade and arguably most-significant expansion since the 1990s.
So what? In a just world, there would no violence or threats whatsoever.
My point was that it was entirely predictable. If you point a gun at someone else, you are likely to get shot. Especially if they tell you repeatedly that they will shoot you if you point a gun at them.
I dont think Russia was threatened by Ukraine, but NATO and more specifically the US.
All of these analogies break down because there is no real world equivalent to a purely defense action like locking your doors.
The idea that NATO and the US especially only engage in defensive military actions is what requires an insane level of reality denial.
At any rate, Im not even trying to claim Russia has a moral high ground, just that the situation was completely predictable. At best, it was like putting your hand in a cage with the rabid dog. You can make a moral point that the dog shouldn't bite, but it is still idiotic to ignore the barking, snapping, and foaming at the mouth.
Now NATO and the US forced russia to invade a sovereign country and go to war with them, killing hundreds of thousands of people?
Also now somehow russia is not full of human people but has the intelligence of a rabid animal with a disease affecting its brain and somehow their borders were crossed with aggression?
I'm guessing there is no explanation or evidence coming for any of these claims because if you had it, you would have put it in your comment.
The analogy with the dog is that you know exactly what will happen, not the biology.
What claim do you want evidence for? That Russia was willing to invade Ukraine and kill hundreds of thousands? I think the evidence speaks for itself. They were willing to do it.
This is how I thought your reply would go unfortunately. I ask for evidence and you act like you don't even understand the concept, conveniently avoiding every absurd claim you just made.
> The idea that NATO and the US especially only engage in defensive military actions is what requires an insane level of reality denial.
Oh? I'd ask for evidence but I think you're just misunderstanding what NATO is. Just because the US is part of NATO does not mean that anything it does is automatically an action of NATO.
Believe what you want. The US global strategy and practice uses NATO bases to transfer and supply its wars, house it's nukes, and intercept retaliation.
> I dont think Russia was threatened by Ukraine, but NATO and more specifically the US.
Russia was threatened by EU actually. The initial 2013 crisis, Crimea / Donbas invasions happened as a consequence of EU association agreement which was pulling Ukraine away from Russia.
Russia isn't threatened in the sense that NATO will invade Russia proper - the nukes pretty much guarantee that can't happen. NATO / EU are "invading" what Putin considers to be Russia's sphere of influence. In case of Ukraine, Putin plans/planned to unite Russia, Ukraine and Belarus into one country - the creeping integration of Belarus serves as a template.
Well for one thing by not placing many troops or building bases despite all the ridiculous claims of NATO invasion I keep hearing about. Also there was a joint council and a treaty meant to hear Russia's complaints and to find ways to cooperate such as in terrorism. It was Russia's increasing push towards authoritarianism and imperialism which undercut relations.
What's there to be concerned about? Look at the number of NATO troops and equipment in Europe in the 1980s and 2013, look at the reduction of German tanks from 5000 to 200 and removal of all US tanks from Europe, removal of missiles, destruction of stockpiles, closure of bases, abolishment of conscription. The continuous and dramatic decline in all areas alone debunks the narrative that blames NATO. There is no way to look at the sharp decline of military might of Europe and claim any threat from it; it's just total nonsense. Until Russian invasion of Ukraine, most European countries funded their militaries far below the minimum level required to maintain existing capabilities. Europe was unilaterally disarming itself.
At the same time, since Putin came to power, Russia has been running massive army reforms and increasing the number of soldiers and equipment on European borders. With each passing day, European militaries were becoming weaker and Russian military grew stronger. Russian "security concerns" are nothing but a cover story for the eventual decision to take advantage of military balance gradually tipping in their favor.
It was extremely predictable with extreme hindsight bias only.
Most of the eastern Europe entered NATO without an incident. Baltics is closer to Russia's power centers (St. Petersburg and Moscow) than Ukraine is. Finland and Sweden entered NATO without incidents. Entering NATO was undeniably beneficial for these countries, since it has a very good safety record of protecting its members. Russia tends to invade countries which didn't yet make it to NATO.
When bush pushed to start the NATO process in 2007, the ambassador to Russia said it would lead to war and strategists agreed.
I agree NATO membership is beneficial for basically all its members. It provides a great deal of security to be under the US umbrella. NATO aspirations did not work out well for Georgia.
I dont really see what rights have to do with it. My point is that the current situation was entirely predictable, and in fact, it was widely predicted.
NATO is a defense pact. And your portrayal of NATO is ridiculous. NATO bent over backwards to satisfy Russian paranoia. NATO had barely any troops(just enough to say if you invade and kill them it's war) in the eastern NATO member countries until the full scale invasion of Ukraine.
NATO has never once been used in a defensive war, and is constantly used in wars of aggression, primarily by the US. It would be too exhausting to even type and link the various countries the US currently bombing and fighting in during 2024.
Ukraine wasn't joining NATO when Russia invaded in 2014 or 2022 when the full scale invasion happened. Ukraine wasn't even seeking NATO membership in 2014 prior to the Russian invasion. The goal of the post revolution of dignity government was stability and taking steps towards joining the EU(and even joining the EU was still seen as a difficult process that would at best take many years). Everyone including Russia knew that there was no chance of joining NATO anytime soon since France and Germany among other countries had and were still objecting. It's clear that the NATO excuse for the war is absurd bullshit
Killing half a million Ukrainians so that a country whose population is a third Russian doesn't vote for the Russian-friendly candidate over some Western-backed candidate who wants to exterminate and expel Russians,
Nowhere near a half a million have been killed.
The country identified as 17 percent Russian in the last census.
No one one from the Ukrainian side was going to, or is ever going to expel or exterminate anyone.
No one from Ukraine I talk to (including people very close to events at the time) gives any credence to the "coup" theory.
You obviously have no understanding of the Language Law, or what it actually does. And anyway it was passed in 2019 and so had nothing to do with events of 2014.
People in the West talk about the Ukraine situation all the time, from every angle, include quite obviously very pro-Russian angles. Not just online, but right there on major channels like Fox and CNN. There are no "allowed" or "disallowed" viewpoints, or any other repercussions or constraints.
Everything you're saying above is sheer lunacy, basically.
completely opposed to it, yes. im an ex refugee. i hate war and especially conscription. and super especially a pointless war that destroys the whole country and sets it back for generations to come.
ive also seen what western interefernce looks like when the west wants there to be a war. for example compare this to boris johnson torpedoing the peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in 2022
On 18 March 1992, all three sides signed the agreement; Alija Izetbegović for the Bosniaks, Radovan Karadžić for the Bosnian Serbs and Mate Boban for the Bosnian Croats. The plan had assigned each of the 109 municipalities to be divided amongst the three ethnic sides. The allocation of the municipalities was mostly based off the results of the 1991 population census that was completed a year before the signing of the agreement. The agreement had stipulated that the Bosniak and Serb cantons would each have covered 44% of the country's territory, with the Croat canton covering the remaining 12%.[3]
On 28 March 1992, after a meeting with US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmermann in Sarajevo, Izetbegović withdrew his signature and declared his opposition to any division of Bosnia. What was said and by whom remains unclear. Zimmermann denied that he told Izetbegović that if he withdrew his signature, the United States would grant recognition to Bosnia as an independent state. What is indisputable is that on the same day, Izetbegović withdrew his signature and renounced the agreement.[4][5]
Ukranians should take note that the Bosniak side came out even worse after that war, while the Serbian side today controls half of the country in a defacto almost independent state
> i hate war and especially conscription. and super especially a pointless war that destroys the whole country and sets it back for generations to come.
Good, I must assume then that you hate Putin for starting war, killing and bombing Ukrainians and surely campaign for Putin to pull back to the internationally recognized Russia borders, right?
correct but since we live on the same planet at the same time i demand for ukraine to never join nato or any other armed alliance, for ukraine to outlaw bandera nazis, for palestine and israel to be one democratic state of equal citizens regardless of ethnicity within historic palestine, for kosovo to be recognised again by the us and satelites as part of serbia (like ukraine does) etc
The "It was Boris" theory in regard to the Istanbul negotiations has been thoroughly investigated and debunked. But we know you will continue to cherish it anyway, no matter what the factual record actually says:
The Zimmerman-Izetbegović protocol is a bit murkier, and it doesn't help that the WP section you cite contains unsourced speculation. However it does seem to have been a genuine blunder from the US side.
That doesn't mean "the West wanted there to be a war", though, and I think that's a very naive and misinformed way of looking at the world. For one thing, it objectively wasn't true in that situation, as the EC and Canada, i.e. a solid majority share of "the West" were solidly behind the agreement. So right there, that perspective turns to mush.
It also essentially ignores (like most of these "torpedo" theories) the agency of local actors. And as such, it reflects an ironically imperial attitude toward the world.
The main reason the Lisbon Agreement failed was that Izetbegović was against it. So fundamentally it was his blunder to make. The US seems to have added to that blunder, most likely by not recognizing the (rather cold-blooded) intent of the Serbs to actually start a war if independence was declared and recognized.
But that doesn't mean "the US simply wants war". Rather, it's just another indication of what has been its primary character flaw for most of its existence since it became a world power: that it just assumes the rest of the world will see things the way it does, and go along with it.
Lastly (and back to cold-bloodedness), let's not forget that the failure of the Lisbon Agreement did not, by itself, cause those SDS snipers to climb to the top of the Holiday Inn in Sarajavo and start shooting into the crowd of peaceful demonstrators below on April 5th, killing 6, which was the actual kinetic trigger of the war. Or to cause the Serbian side to start engaging in massacres in outlying areas shortly thereafter.
In short - the US/West are often stupid/bad; yes. Some of its factions (like Cheney-Wolfowitz and now Trump-Musk apparently) do seem to genuinely want war. But "the West" does not, and most of the actors who manage to grab the steering wheel for long enough to have an impact plainly do not. Thinking that they do is just childish, and won't get you anywhere.
oh boy you want to sound confident but really you have no idea what you are talking about. lol at the sds snipers being cause of war. war in yugoslavia was already one year in by the time it started happening in bosnia. for objectivity reasons when talking about catalysts for the war you should also read about the wedding attack in sarajavo that happened several weeks prior to the sniper event. anyway if you are ukranian, pray that the peace agreement your country signs doesnt result in a type of governing system that bosnia has
the war in bosnia is generally thought to have started due to an illegal independence referendum held at the start of march 1992. if you are ukranian think crimea. also it wasnt a bosnian-serbian war. bosnian is not the same as bosniak. a bosnian is a person from a bosnian region (sometimes also incorrectly referring to people from herzegovina) and not a side in the conflict. you can more correctly say that the war was about bosnians killing bosnians. a bosniak is a nationality, historically slavic muslim, from the region of former yugoslavia. also it was a bosniak/croatian/serbian war, a three side war. moreover it wasnt really a Serbia vs Bosnia and Herzegovina vs Croatia war, as in state vs state, but a civil war faught by people living in bosnia and herzegovina. today bosnia and herzegovina has 3 constituent nationalities: bosniaks, croats, serbs
For this argument to make any sense, Russia would have to be invading and murdering less enthusiastically without the Western support. Which is nonsense.
The US is currently pressuring the Ukranian government to lower the conscription age to 18. In Russia there does not seem to be any conscription at the moment. You make your own conclusion
Russia does not use conscription. All those troops volunteered to be there. At least that is what leader Vlad is claiming. Are you disagreeing with the Dear Leader?
The overwhelming majority are well paid volunteers. The topic of conscription is highly political in Russia. Paying them is a major cost of the war and limitation on manpower. The pro war faction has been pushing for conscription to enable a surge, but meaningful conscription has not occurred.
Yes yes, and if you think this is a senseless war that’ll instantly stop all future Russian aggression once it concludes in Russian favor, like trustworthy Putin has always promised, you can join the Russian army as a foreigner and help! Here’s some information to get you started:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/09/20/moscow-to-open-mil...
It’s a multicultural affair, Nepalese, Ethiopians, North Koreans, Indians, a real who’s who of the most privileged individuals lending a hand in this noble pursuit of saving Ukrainians from themselves. Unsure? Donate to Russian units today, they need vehicles, drones, and tourniquets. We officially don’t need help, the SMO is going great, but every bit helps! Put your money where your mouth is and help end the war!
Can’t do that? Assist the Russian psy-ops by repeating Russian talking points online to nudge your government to help us subjugate a people like it’s 1700! Don’t delay, start today!
Your response comes across as racist even if you did not intend it that way. Very much a "us civilized noble Europeans vs those Asiatic / brown savages" vibe.
I don't blame them. That's why it would have been better to accept the Istanbul agreement while Ukraine had the upper hand. Naftali Bennett (hardly opposed to wars in principle) said that this agreement was sabotaged by the U.S., but he walked back that statement later.
I do blame Ukraine for not holding elections and finding out what people really want.
What's hard to understand? It's Russian financed propaganda, with courier services provided by the far right and far left. The far right happens to be in control of the Republican party at the moment, so we hear more if it with that spin.
Because it is a silly rule. These kind of wars drag on for 10 years. What if the population no longer wants it? Should they have another Maidan revolution?
The last boat used for this stunt was Chinese, this one is registered in the Cook Islands. This is already happening.
There is no way out of the Baltic Sea without crossing the territorial sea of either Sweden or Denmark. Countries have full jurisdiction in those, cutting cables on purpose is at least a criminal act, if not terrorism. There's no problem handling this, even if you're fully playing by the books.
Russia would then need to switch to ships running only to Kaliningrad, which makes it even more obvious that it's an act of war.
> There is no way out of the Baltic Sea without crossing the territorial sea of either Sweden or Denmark. Countries have full jurisdiction in those [...]
I don't think it's as clear cut. Transit passage through straits is governed by special provisions in the UNCLOS; with a few exceptions, states can't just board vessels.
What could further complicate matters here is if infrastructure of states A and B is damaged, but a vessel leaves the sea through a strait bordering states C and D.
That's obviously only the theory, and it's unfortunately not like there is broad international consensus on matters of territoriality at sea at this point.
I don't think there are many penalties for breaking the international law. Clearly, in the environment where Europe's adversaries are flagrantly breaking it on the daily basis, keeping to it meticulously would be foolish and dangerous.
Just like pacifism, abiding by the international law in this case will only serve to embolden the totalitarian regimes, which neither desire peace, nor obey the law.
I think if you wanted to bring up meaningful words, those were not the best examples to give. In the recent years, somewhere amongst the endless nuclear threat screeching and the ignored ICC arrest warrants, they have lost a lot of meaning. The declaration of war is a pretty good example of that, actually, being an outdated and withered concept.
I'm simply pointing out that words do not matter as much, willingness to do something, to respond, to defend yourself, that's what matters. I'm not ignoring the value of laws, and rules, and regulations, but they clearly are not an ironclad defense. Just like Article 5 isn't.
Every nation uses novel words every time, to avoid parallels. In fact ambassadors have to research every historical speech when a president wants to coin a new term. It’s not rare we hear “He said […], a term not used since [last scuffle between countries]”, journalists do notice.
US has Guantanamo and they don’t call them prisoners of wars (PoW). Russia has special military operations. Australia doesn’t keep their illegal immigrants in detention centers but in “administrative residences”.
So declarations of war are very much not outdated, insofar as everyone _avoids_ those terms.
> declarations of war are very much not outdated, insofar as everyone _avoids_ those terms
One, sure, declarations of war aren’t academically outdated. By that measure neither are colonialism or chattel slavery, which are also avoided in modern speechwriting.
Two, we absolutely say we’re going to war with each other. We just don’t formally declare it. Declarations of war are obsolete, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone serious in government or international relations who claims otherwise.
> UNCLOS is ultimately just words, just like the Geneva convention, a formal declaration of war, a country's nuclear doctrine
UNCLOS is being ignored by China. The Geneva Conventions have been ignored by every current, former and emerging superpower, as well as several regional powers--again, without consequence. Nobody declares war. And Putin has been amending his nuclear doctrine by the hour, often with false starts.
Would I prefer these were law? Absolutely. Must I blind myself to the fact that they aren't? No.
> ways of responding to some UNCLOS violations while continuing to adhere to it
Sure. It's still, ultimately, a unilateraly rewriting of the terms. Something states can do in international law that individuals can't in a nation with the rule of law.
> because some states are violating it doesn't mean that we should throw the entire thing overboard entirely
Nobody is suggesting that. My point is we should be more open to such rewritings given they're commonly taking place. It doesn't make sense for Europe to treat UNCLOS as binding law when Russia, China and hell America treat is as nice-to-have guidelines.
International agreements were treated as law in the post-WWII era. That era ended some time after the fall of the Soviet Union. Slowly. Then suddenly.
They're now closer to LOIs. Some countries are realising this quickly. Others more slowly.
Trust is hard to earn and very easy to lose. The appropriate answer to somebody violating hard-won international laws and norms isn't to just also start violating them.
Laws are for participants who willingly obey them. If they don't they automatically shouldn't be covered by them. There might be separate subset of laws on how to treat them but they cannot be treated the same as conforming entities.
You have freedom but if you do a crime your right to freedom is void. Now you have right to get punished.
Not sure what to call a rule that immediately stops applying to any involved party as soon as one violates it, but "law" isn't a word that comes to mind.
Our usual understanding of law has an enforcement mechanism of the nation on individuals, not voluntary agreements sovereign nations enforce on each other.
Well then, maybe Russia is within its rights to punch some of these strawmen so that their heads fall off?
Unilaterally claiming more territorial waters and boarding ships is cool and all. Having a Russian Navy destroyer follow one of these ships and greet the boarding party would also be kinda cool.
> What about if Russia switch to just using Chinese boats as a proxy?
Beijing has no interest in this. If anything, it has an interest in becoming one of Russia’s sole buyers.
> you have to have a rule that says we can board any ship we feel like and that's super problematic
Why? China is literally doing this right now outside its territorial waters. It’s fine. America would too, if foreign trawlers started cutting its lines. Again, if one person is playing by restrictions everyone else has already abandoned, it’s not difficult to conclude who’s the sucker at the table.
It's highly unsociable to ignore international law and agreements just because they're not convenient.
Classic American view point. Win at all costs, ignore the rules yourself but use another countries lack of adherence as an excuse to invade/bomb them.
You really think this is how we get a peaceful and civilised world order? You think this builds trust? Moral leadership? Long term reputation? Relationships?
Ridiculous. Sorry to be controversial but breaking international law should be avoided at almost any cost.
I guess one man's "sucker at the table" is another man's "gentleman who plays by the rules, and can be trusted"
> unsociable to ignore international law and agreements just because they're not convenient
My entire point is this is already the status quo. Nobody—other than Europe—is following the post-WWII rules anymore. There is a new set of conventions being de facto agreed to, and they will be set by the players actually at the table.
Any punishment that involves breaking the same law to administer isn't the correct one. It infers no superiority and just kicks off the race to the bottom.
I’m sure Putin would love it if the west continued to turn the other cheek.
No, if your point is reasonable, it still doesn’t apply when dealing with a psychopath. Who TF cares about moral superiority in the face of an existential threat?
If moral superiority is so important, let Putin lead with it.
in peacetime. It's looking like right now isn't peacetime. When a country is breaking every peacetime rule to conquer its neighbors and not-even-neighbors, the rules saying you can't, become super problematic as they'll be weaponized like everything else.
I started with PHP... 4.3... 20 years ago. And that was just the beginning. Java is for peacenicks.
Alas, I still don't have a single tank to my name, so it's not me that will be doing the shooting. Or even deciding to shoot.
At 45 years I already lived too long and seen too much. I don't mind universe giving me its best shot at mythical thermonuclear war. I fully expect it to be pathetic.
It's an act of war, and invading neighbouring countries is certainly an act of war. Nobody said all acts of war are identical, stop shadow boxing against invented positions nobody holds.
I wasn't aware that it has been confirmed that the Ukrainian government is behind the nord stream pipeline sabotage. Do you have any reputable sources?
Regardless, "country A sabotaged infrastructure owned by country B" doesn't automatically mean "countries A and B are at war", it's not that simple. But when acts of war happen repeatedly between countries in an area, it's a sign that the area isn't exactly in a time of peace.
While I fully agree with your point, and I absolutely _despise_ what Russia is doing, it's pretty well agreed by this point that it was Ukraine that sabotaged Nord Stream.
There was a pretty detailed breakdown by a dutch newspaper that even identified the Ukrainian commandos that did it. And they even have an arrest warrant on the name of one of the suspects.
And let's be honest here, Ukraine benefits the most from that sabotage.
But from a realpolitik point of view, Russia must somehow be slapped for these sabotage acts.
We tried that. This is the 3rd incident in a couple of months. We should just let Russia sever all the cables and pipelines in the Baltic? I’m guessing you don’t live here
I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. Breaking what law exactly? Finland is certainly within rights to capture a vessel that is actively destroying its infrastructure and has an open criminal investigation against it
There is an ENORMOUS gap between "Please don't..." and WWIII Nuke war.
And adhering to "Please don't..." is rightly seen by bullies and authoritarians of all stripes as "I won, I got away with it, I have permission to make even bigger offenses."
The law is the law only if it is backed up with enforcement. Only most of the people play by the rules. Those who don't will rapidly take everything if the law has no teeth. And the teeth must come into play rapidly and reliably when the "Please dont'..." fails to work.
International Law is not a law like city, county, state, national laws. There's no court and enforcement agency that can just enforce it. It's a set of agreements between countries. Enforcement (if any) is done by countries based on the goals of those countries. There's no sense of honor here. Yes breaking international law to punish others breaking international law happens, and is sometimes the only reasonable action to take.
It's the prisoner's dilemma. It's better to cooperate, but if the other party defects, your best option is to also defect (which serves as a motivator to renew the cooperation).
The point in having the International Agreements is indeed to honor it.
But only as long and as fully as is possible in the real world
When bad actors deliberately refuse to live within the agreements, e.g., Putin, who has broken nearly EVERY agreement he signed, there are only two choices. Push back with force, or surrender.
At the end of the day, the agreements work to prevent war, but only so long as everyone agrees to be bound by them. When one party unilaterally decides to break out and try to take territory and rule by deception and force, if we fail to respond, the agreements all become moot; the facts on the ground will be that the one who broke the agreements owns and rules everything.
It's brutal, but the agreements exist only as long as everyone follows them.
Moreover there is an entire body of international law and established practice of proportional response. No, these are NOT necessarily "breaking international law".
Start with sanctions. Impound the ships, study the spy equipment, and sell them for scrap. Prosecute the ship operators (then trade them for our political prisoners they hold).
If that doesn't stop it, take proportional and escalating retaliatory measures. Perhaps start with cyber-attacks. Move to kinetic as necessary.
These are just rough outlines; experts in the area can make more refined suggestions.
Vladimir Lenin famously and concisely described the operational algorithm of every petty bully and global dictator:
— “You probe with bayonets: if you find mush, you push.
If you find steel, you withdraw”
Just observe how Putin operates and it will within become instantly obvious that this is exactly how he operates. Obama took no significant forceful opposition when Putin invaded Crimea, and when Assad w/Russia's backing used chemical weapons in Syria. So Putin invaded Donbas, propped up Assad (until he no longer could), then attempted to obliterate the very idea of Ukraine. In contrast, Finland and Sweden joined NATO despite Putin's threats of nuclear war, and Putin then removed troops from near the Finnish border. Putin has threatened nuclear response to "red lines" in Ukraine and EU at least 45 times in in the past three years, and backed down every single time. There are decades of examples.
Attacking other countries' critical infrastructure is an act that could legitimately trigger a NATO Article 5 kinetic response.
Putin is pushing the edges to do as much damage as possible until he gets a response. Diplomacy means nothing; he has and will break every agreement whenever he sees it convenient. The ONLY response he will understand is force.
That does not mean "you touch a chip on my shoulder and we'll nuke you", it means attacking our (collective) infrastructure, committing open murder on our soil, attacking other countries, etc., etc., etc. will see a prompt forceful response that is somewhat proportional and imposes greater costs on Putin.
THAT is the only thing that will stop dictators like Putin and Xi.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers.
Appeasement is what Europe does when an aggressor comes knocking.
“Appeasement” is what saved the world from nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. JFK was so afraid to be labeled an “appeaser” afterward that he kept the deal he made with Khrushchev secret.
“Appeasement” is such a fake lesson from WW2. Chamberlain’s mistake was not negotiating with Hitler. His mistake was that he let wishful thinking cloud his vision.
Churchill just did much better in understanding his enemy. In this particular case, with an enemy whose goal was the eradication of whole parts of the world population, the result was that negotiating made no sense. But to say this is the lesson from Munich and to apply this as a cookie cutter template to any dictator is barking mad. Even more so in the age of nuclear weapons.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t. We’re back to realpolitik.
Some people, especially conservatives, have loved this narrative for forever: The rules-based order is soft, weak, wishy-washy, ineffectual fantasy; and tough, hard, reality is 'realpolitik'. And everyone knows 'tough' beats 'weak'.
IMHO it rationalizes emotional drives we all have for aggression and, feeling threatened and scared, for anger; and it serves the anti-liberal social/political agenda (because somehow a rules-based order, or any mass, peaceful, beneficial cooperation by humans, is now 'liberal' fantasy). But that pisses me off because it distracts and undermines people doing the real work. It's a person who, while we're under attack, freaks out, satisfies those emotional drives, and disrupts the team with verbal hand grenades. It's lazy thinking, IMHO, leaving the hard work of solving the problem - and now servicing someone's emotional needs and cleaning up their mess - to others, who must have the courage to be calm under fire and the courage to do right and find success.
That narrative also does what Putin wants more than anything, the destruction of the rules-based order: A world based on democracy, human rights, and associated international rules makes it impossible for Putin to carry out his imperial desires. The democratic, human-rights-based countries are powerful, unified, prosperous - Putin can't hope to compete. So he's destroying that order without firing a shot at its power base, because he has found many inside those countries to help him, many unwittingly.
The rules-based order isn't dead (as the narrative has declared since its birth). It's not wishy-washy fantasy, it was created by who knew 'realpolitik' and warfare far better than anyone living ever will, unless we are very unlucky; your 'realpolitik' fantasy is the wishy-washy and ignorant side. The rules-based order is not weak or ineffectual; 'realpolitik' is weak and ineffectual; it can't achieve anything; it destroys freedom, lives, and prosperity at massive scales; war, it's outcome, is the worst scourage of humanity. The founders of the rules-based order created it in part because, after WWII, they thought another war with then-current technology could destroy civilization - that was the technology of the 1940s. The rules-based order has been arguably the most powerful force ever in international relations, creating undreamt-of freedom, prosperity, and peace.
It was handed to us on a plate; you had to do nothing to build it, to create this incredible world out of the literal ashes of incredible destruction, hate, and violence - perhaps that's the problem, why some have a fantasy that they want to burn everything and return to living in ashes.
> it rationalizes emotional drives we all have for aggression and, feeling threatened and scared, for anger; and it serves the anti-liberal social/political agenda
It also accurately renders the actions of the U.S., Russia and China since the fall of the Soviet Union. I would love to move towards a rules-based world order. But the first step in doing so is admitting it isn't the status quo.
In a way, I agree: The US is one of the the biggest violators of the USLRBIO (US-led rules-based interntional order!), especially in Iraq but also, I think I read Serbia (1990s) wasn't legally scanctioned, and many other less significant situtations.
But at the same time, no institution, law, or legal system is 100%. The USLRBIO is overall extremely effective - almost no international wars (most have been civil wars), and the recent past being the most peaceful in (millennia?). It's an incredible feat of humanity and international affairs, and freedom exploded across the world, though since has retreated somewhat.
Also, beyond a doubt, military power is a necessary part of it. The reason Russia is violating it now in Ukraine is because others have not demonstrated convincingly that they will supply Ukraine with whatever is needed as long as it's needed (quite affordable given the relative size of economies of Ukraine's allies and Russia). If that was clear, Russia would have no choice.
> Europe clings to the hope that the rules-based international order that—at this point—everyone is abandoning, can be resuscitated through hopes and prayers. It can’t.
FWIW this perspective is currently known pejoratively, as "liberalism". As in "conservatives and liberals", not as in "liberty" or "liberal world order" - political labels are weird. Examples of this kind of party are the SPD (Germany), Labour (New Zealand) and the Democrats (USA).
Currently, left wing people are trying to make a big deal out of how liberals are (a) not actually left wing, but centrist at best, (b) generally incompetent (which is still preferable to the alternative most people have, mind you) and (c) enable fascism to take over, by attempting to follow the rules all the time, without updating the rules when fascists learn how to exploit them. (Hitler was given power according to the normal process, even though it should have already been obvious to everyone involved that it was a bad idea, because the most important thing is to follow the process, no matter where it leads)
>Hitler was given power according to the normal process, even though it should have already been obvious to everyone involved that it was a bad idea, because the most important thing is to follow the process, no matter where it leads)
Hitler’s rise was not a product of strict adherence to democratic norms. The Weimar authorities repeatedly broke with "normal process" including banning him from public speaking, suppressing Nazi media, outlawing the SA, relying on emergency decrees, and bypassing parliamentary governance. These anti-democratic measures not only failed to stop Hitler but eroded trust in democracy itself, creating the conditions for his eventual ascent.
Moreover, the KPD (the German Communist Party) played a significant role in destabilizing the Republic. They engaged in widespread political violence, targeting both Nazis and moderate leftists. They fractured anti-Nazi opposition by labelling the SPD as "social fascists" unworthy of cooperating with. The Nazi's Sturmabteilung was hardened primarily in response to KPD attacks through the Rotfrontkämpferbund (attacks that the authorities refused to prevent).
The left's infighting, combined with its own undemocratic tactics, significantly weakened any systemic resistance to fascism and helped paved the road Hitler later marched down.
> not as in "liberty" or "liberal world order" - political labels are weird
No, the core of the beef between leftists and liberals is over "liberty," or something that a liberal would call liberty and a leftist would not. Namely, property rights over financial assets. Liberals see these as a kind of liberty: "you own a farm, property rights over the farm connect the labor you do in upkeep and planting to the rewards you reap at harvest." Leftists argue that this might be a nice but temporary side effect and that the core purpose of financial assets is to ensure that rich people get paid for being rich in proportion to how rich they are, thereby establishing, reinforcing, and perpetuating a class hierarchy where the people on the bottom must constantly pay to exist while the people on top constantly get paid to exist. They would tell a different story: "Bill Gates owns the farmland, you do all the work, you pay him everything he asks for, and if it's not enough he replaces you." In turn, the liberal would contend that market competition keeps this in check and the leftist would contend that ever concentrating capital interests ensure robust competition on the bottom and absent competition on the top, slowly crushing any market competition favorable to the farmer. At this point, if it hasn't happened already, the liberal will start lobbing horrific tales of leftists abusing farmers and the leftist will start lobbing horrific tales of property rights being used to abuse farmers and the conversation descends into "whose atrocities are bigger / worse / more relevant" discourse.
If you haven't seen this kind of infighting, it's not because the philosophical rift doesn't exist, it's because actual leftism has been outside the Overton window of popular discourse in the United States for the last 50-70 years. McCarthy's Red Scare was the first push, dissolution of the New Deal Coalition was the last. Class Warfare rhetoric was frowned upon by the liberal + conservative majority and kept out of polite company. Now that populism is back in fashion, leftists have been looking to change that, but they have been having less success than the populist right. Watch this space, though.
Every authoritarian measure instituted by Eastern Bloc countries was justified by the authorities as a necessary precaution against reactionaries/fascists. The Nazis similarly justified every act of inhumanity as a necessary preventative measure against the takeover of their country by the "Judeo-Bolshevism" of the murderous Soviet regime. The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Fully agreed. They won’t react until Russia invaded them. They somehow expect NATO to hold. While Trump and his Russian leaning politics, has said he might leave NATO.
Even if they don't have American nukes behind them?
Given what we've seen in Ukraine, I agree that Eastern European countries can likely take on Russia in conventional warfare. But that's not the only thing on the table.
Somehow I don't think that either UK or France would be willing to get into a nuclear exchange with Russia over Poland or Finland, especially considering the relative sizes of the nuclear arsenals involved, and then also how much less concentrated the Russian population is.
NATO without the US still has two member countries with nukes. That doesn't guarantee "NATO wins" but it does assure "Russia loses" if that particular cat comes out of the bag.
That’s assuming Trump means anything he says. An assumption that has a pretty poor track record.
As with the last time he was elected Trump has vehemently criticised a policy of his predecessor, and then immediately adopted the same policy as his own on being elected.
He did it over bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons, and he’s doing it over Ukraine now, making it clear he intends to continue fully supporting them, while also pushing for a huge increase in military spending. Both policies he and his party were adamantly against and did everything they could to undermine while in opposition.
Yes, he flipped on Ukraine, yes, it's a promising sign, no, it doesn't mean he can't flop on Ukraine.
The uncharitable scenario is that he's waiting for the RU bribe money to land before delivering -- and no one deserves charity less than this man. Remember when he stopped the Javelin shipments to Ukraine until such time as Zelensky could deliver dirt (real or manufactured) on Biden? This could be exactly like that, though at this time he presumably wants money not dirt.
The charitable scenarios is he’s realised that if he continues his commitment to drop support for Ukraine, he has zero bargaining power with Putin to negotiate a peace as promised.
How that wasn’t blindingly obvious from the start is a question, but not one he or his supporters actually care about because they couldn’t give a fig about Ukraine. It is entirely instrumental to his personal political advantage in the moment. Being utterly opposed to support for Ukraine was politically advantageous in opposition and supporting Ukraine to the hilt is now politically advantageous in power. That’s all that matters.
Chemical weapons in Syria are an informative parallel. Obama’s commitment to bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons was the worst policy ever from opposition, but actually bombing Syria for using Chemical weapons when they did so as soon as Trump gained power was an obvious necessity.
> Obama’s commitment to bombing Syria if they used chemical weapons was the worst policy ever from opposition
Mostly because Assad did use chemical weapons and Obama didn't bomb them. Arguably the fact that Obama backed down set the tone for the invasion of Crimea and the Donbas.
It took a while to confirm they’d used them and Obama made the mistake of asking Congress for authorisation to take out their chemical sites. Mitch McConnell blocked that, which is where Republican opposition to bombing Syria for having or using chemical weapons started.
Until they were in power of course, and Assad mistakenly assumed the Republican position on this was coherent and actually used chemical weapons again.
> ...but not one he or his supporters actually care about because they couldn’t give a fig about Ukraine.
His supporters absolutely would give a fig about Ukraine if Trump hadn't spent years sabotaging the GOP's historical positions on hostile authoritarians.
Oh absolutely, I say all this as a deeply dissolutions British conservative who wonders what the heck has happened to Republicanism. It’s not all down to Trump either, it started before him with McConnell and others as I pointed out in another comment.
You say that, and I recall a guy I know - a gun shop owner, die hard right winger, who in 2014 (i.e. a year before Trump even declared his candidacy) told me that he'd prefer to see Putin rather than Obama as US president, because he "knows how to run a proper Christian country".
Trump's election might be pretty bad for Russia after all. With Democrats already being committed to Ukraine and Republicans committed to Trump, the whole congress is ready for a pretty much unlimited (material) help to Ukraine if Trump wants it. And the threat of exactly that is necessary for successful peace negotiations, which in turn is what would score Trump major political points.
A lot of us in the US don't subscribe to the idea of "either you're with us or against us". I don't expect every single country in the world to drop everything they are doing and rush to help us invade whatever country we want to invade. I think it is ridiculous to say the EU is not with us because they don't blindly follow us everywhere.
In hindsight, it was a bad idea to invade Iraq anyway.
I think you may be misconstruing that comment. I suspect the idea is that the US invading Iraq was a violation of the international rules based order, and the EU was complicit in it.
Probably not, but that’s a separate—if fruitful—discussion. (Better candidates: NATO bombing Yugoslavia.)
What’s not debatable is that it has changed. Given how lightfootedly Europe is playing its hand, it’s surprising it’s taken this long to get Putin at their throats, Trump at their wallets and Xi gutting their industry.
Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO? If they were to abandon it, they would need to replace all their foreign strategy.
> Isn't it their strategy to look cute and thus convince other countries to join EU and NATO
Nobody joins a defensive alliance because it's cute. To the extent a cogent geopolitical message has been delivered, between Bush and Biden, it's that the international order has two castes: nuclear-armed states and everyone else.
From Europe, it looks like Russia has spent the last decade committing assassinations and sabotages in "the West", including using chemical weapons and causing civilian casualties, has shot down airliners and lied about it, invaded Crimea and lied about it, invaded Donbas and lied about it, then triggered the largest war in Europe since WWII after profligate lies about exercises.
> From Russia it looks like that Europe is at Putin's throat supplying enormous amount of armaments and military equipment to the Ukraine, and helping them with the intelligence.
The solution to this problem is straightforward. Putin can get out of Ukraine. All of it.
Simple to do, easy to achieve. No more Russians or North Koreans need to die.
> The solution to this problem is straightforward. Putin can get out of Ukraine.
Or Ukraine can surrender. "Simple" to do, "easy" to achieve, no more Ukrainians need to die.
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting Ukraine should surrender. I'm saying both Ukraine's surrender and the Russian pull-out are equally hard to do from their respective perspectives.
Ukraine limiting irrigation water to Crimea is peanuts compared to historical examples such as Free French Air Force participating in months of severe bombing of road and rail networks, bridges, railyards and other critical infrastructure of occupied France in preparation for the Normandy landings.
Or to to cite a more recent example, like the Russian armed forces mudering thousands of its "own" people in the siege of Mariupol (these being the 80 percent or so of the population who were Russian speaking, across the 5k-20k civilians estimated to have been killed). And damaging or destroying 90 percent of the buildings they used to live and work in.
I'm saying both Ukraine's surrender and the Russian pull-out are equally hard to do from their respective perspectives.
Which is completely ludicrous, of course.
For Ukraine, "surrender" means accepting permanent occupation and subjugation.
For Russia, it means they get egg on their face, basically. It will just go back to its corner and sulk for a while. Definitely very doable, as it's something they've done many times in the past.
There's simply no comparison.
And there's no symmetry at all between the two sides in this conflict.
I said: "from their respective perspectives" - that is, subjectively. You're talking about objective facts. I don't disagree with you, but you're also not (visibly) disagreeing with me: we're discussing two entirely different things. Objectively, an egg on your face is not comparable to subjugation. Subjectively, there might be people willing to die or kill at the mere sight of an egg - it would be dangerous to put an egg on their faces.
Drawing a caricature of a prophet and killing the author of the caricature is objectively not equivalent or comparable. Subjectively, though, you'll find people willing to kill the author and get killed or jailed for life for it.
People and societies have beliefs and values that differ. Without understanding the adversaries' beliefs, no agreement is possible. If no agreement is possible, the only way out is to eradicate one side. It might work out for Israel, but it is impossible in Ukraine.
In any case, I just want people to stop killing each other. I don't think one-sided demands (no matter how objectively justified and no matter which side they originate from) will help end it. Russians won't "just" "simply" pull out, and Ukraine won't "just" surrender.
There was no coup in Ukraine. Russian-backed president got over 100 protesters killed, ran away to Russia to avoid justice, and Ukrainian parliament held presidential elections to replace him.
The EU paid its "protection tax" by implicitly or explicitly endorsing any US actions. It's what always gave legitimacy to any US military action, what gave them the sheen of righteousness. The EU didn't "just watch", they did what they were expected to do.
Going forward, if Trump's anti-NATO agenda materializes, the US will have to find a different source of legitimacy for their actions or be painted as just an aggressor on the world stage.
What's the EU got to do with it? The EU is a glorified trade bloc, it doesn't work for the union on defense; that is handled by individual nations.
The UK did a similar amount to the US per capita in Iraq, even though we had less to gain and, frankly, it has punched above it's weight in practically every war going since well before the US even existed. Including Ukraine for example, where we were the first to arm them in advance of the invasion.
This comes across as american ignorance, I'm sorry to say.
China's ridiculous claims to waters outside it's legal territory are irrelevant to the issue of boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea. In that area there's no doubt that the vessels are sailing through waters owned by various NATO member states. Russia acknowledges this. But the vessels are exercising the right of innocent passage under the law of the sea.
NATO members can and should find some other pretext to stop, board, and search some of those Russian vessels. But if Russia doesn't back down and sends them with Navy escorts what then? It's worth thinking through the various escalation scenarios before acting.
It is not innocent passage if they attack the order and security of the coastal State. Article 19 and 21. Undersea cables are explicitly mentioned under 21.
By attack undersea cables the ship are no longer exercising the right of innocent passage, and thus is not protected under the law of the sea.
Lol, literally a few weeks ago we had NATO leaders talking about how "we need to find a way to shut down the passage of Russian oil" and now how convenient, we suddenly see that Russian taners are apparently doing things which conveniently give NATO a way to shut down the passage of Russian oil.
> if Russia doesn't back down and sends them with Navy escorts what then?
The whole point of doing it with a tanker was deniability. Doing it with a Russian-flagged ship makes it overt. The anti-escalation logic applies in both direction: Russia wants to sabotage as much as possible without triggering a huge escalation, because they're not sure they can win that either (and nobody could win a nuclear exchange!)
> boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea
The ship that was boarded, is registered in the Cook Islands (an associated state of New Zealand), owned and operated by a company in United Arab Emirates. And the ship's crew were Georgian and Indian.
> China's ridiculous claims to waters outside it's legal territory are irrelevant to the issue of boarding Russian civilian ships in the Baltic Sea
China retains the right to board any ship in what it considers its sovereign territory, UNCLOS be damned. A similar reading by Finland would let it legally board any Russian ship transitting "its" straits.
There was a big raid operation in the Turku archipelago in 2018, where a Russian bought a conveniently located property to spy on military installations of Finland: https://yle.fi/a/3-10431313
I appreciate that the Finns have the balls to confront the Russians while the rest of Europe just doesn't do much, or let themselves be held hostage by Orban and Fico.
I think it had helicopter pad, a harbor for relatively large ships etc. I think Russia had planned to use it as a place to land troops or "green men" during war as spying could happen without helicopter pad etc.
Most experts agree that the best way to de-escalate conflict with Russia is to show them overwhelming force.
Diplomacy, compromise and all soft stuff that doesn't work with Russian culture. They see it as weakness, and push further. But when you show them force, that they can respect.
Yeah. Like in 1961. Good the U.S. invaded Cuba to show them Communists force.
I’m being sarcastic. This didn’t happen, though many people advised Kennedy to do exactly that. Had the U.S. done it, we very likely wouldn’t be here today.
Historically US policy towards the USSR up until 1983 was escalation as a means of showing dominance. And it put the world on the brink of nuclear apocalypse that indeed would likely have happened if not for a single man. [1] But in 1983 we ran one of the most elaborate wargames ever played - Proud Prophet. [2] In that wargame a large number of strategies to defeat the USSR were trialed - limited nuclear strikes (or demonstrative strikes), decapitation strikes, and so on.
And literally every single outcome led to the defacto end of the world, or at least the Northern Hemisphere. Following the outcome of those wargames we shifted to a policy of de-escalation and negotiation - by 1991 the Soviet Union would collapse, their leaders hand in hand with American leaders. At one point Russia was even interested in joining NATO. We could be living in a very different timeline had we chosen to maintain positive ties with mutual respect of interests.
I don't think the US is evil, nor any country nice. Rather I think countries are driven by their own self interest. The problem is that sometimes those self interest, at one level, seem reasonable, but at a larger scale lead to catastrophe. That was the entire point of the wargame, to see if the path the US was taking was actually even in its own self interest - and it turned out that it was not.
I feel that in recent times this degree of objectivity, and even humility, has largely been lost. It perhaps started most clearly with the wargames around a conflict with Iran - 'Millennium Challenge 2002'. [1] The problem we had is that the US lost that wargame, badly. So rather than learn from that, we changed the rules and the entire expensive exercise turned into a scripted event where the good guys naturally won and the bad guys naturally lost.
Another issue is I think an increasingly large number of countries being coerced into no longer acting in their own self interest. This is a sure-fire way to enter into catastrophe because the reality is that the coercer often cares very little for the coerced, even more so when the coerced's loss is the coercer's gain.
The current escalation is not only the fault of current Russia, but to a large extent US and European countries which decided to take the current path. Russia and other iron curtain countries didn't need to end up being plundered and left at the hands of oligarchs.
Let's forget about Russia for a moment abd look at eastern Germany. Current voting behavior there cannot be blamed on anything other than failure of the West after the collapse of communism to seize the opportunity to create a better integrated Germany. The west German capitalist choose to plunder it, buy old factories and sell the scrap metal instead of keeping them operational and gradually modernizing. All the wealth of the people there were just evaporated after unification. Now we have the political crisis as a result.
Russia's paranoia of NATO was largely because they were being surrounded by military bases and missiles placed overtly within ranges that would greatly increase the chances/effect of a preemptive strike. Of course we kept expanding because each time Russia claimed something was a redline, they did nothing. Until they did. Though Ukraine is also particularly sensitive for them both from a cultural perspective and a strategic one.
Bringing them into NATO was something that they saw as comparable to how the US might see if China or Russia formed a military alliance with Mexico, set up military bases there, and let alone then inevitably deploying nuclear weapons there. Suddenly the rhetoric about countries being free to pick their own alliances would end up as yet another mockery of the "rules based order."*
So the solution was simple - don't bring Ukraine into NATO. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians would be alive, EU economies would be far stronger, and Russia might even be cooled back into its early trajectories. At one point in time, Putin was even enquiring about Russia joining NATO! This isn't an enemy that we need to have, but we need to be willing to engage in mutual compromise instead of trying to operate as a global hegemon.
Hey kids, look how the Russian propaganda works : they are the victims! And the mean Ukrainians were going to invade them with a first strike! This is gaslighting and victim blaming.
They were being surrounded by military bases and missiles placed overtly within ranges that would greatly increase the chances/effect of a preemptive strike.
Can you point to where these "bases" were, and where these missiles were being "overtly placed"?
Of course you can't, because absolutely nothing of the sort was happening. Western nukes haven't budged from their placements in the 1980s. No new bases were being built that affected first-strike capability in any way. The West was never going to attack or blackmail Russia, and not even its own regime believes it was ever going to.
There's simply no truth in the statement you just mindlessly parroted. It's just a soundbite that somebody came up with, to mess with your head.
Have I missed something or you (who are 'we', btw?) are at war with Germany which owns half of Nord Stream? I think German citizens need to know who is their real enemy.
There is no logic in your statement. If you are even considering something done by Ukraine to be a starting point of these actions then you would have to consider Russia as the initiator of all of this, since, you know they started the war and are constantly destroying Ukrainian infrastructure. Thus, if you were a man of reason, you either wouldn't written something as stupid or you would have written "After the countless committed by Russia?".
Ukraine has the right to defend itself against the Russian invasion. That's not nationalist. It is basic survival. Ukraine cannot be asked to refrain from defending itself in order to secure that Germany has cheap energy import and an export market for its old combustion engine cars.
German economy is facing difficulties because of a number of reasons:
- Closing all nuclear power plants
- Relying on Russian natural gas
- Relying on export to Russia and China
- Being too slow to transition its auto industry to EVs
If we are talking about you reap what you sow ... I think Germany is a sovereign country that is free to choose its own economic partners without judgement from third parties. Ukraine on the other hand signed a bunch of agreements upon its independence that it would never join NATO but started making moves to NATO membership anyway long before this war. Then there was the Minsk agreements that are now openly regarded as 'signed to buy time'. Seems like Ukraine does not take its own signatures very seriously
> Ukraine on the other hand signed a bunch of agreements upon its independence that it would never join NATO
It did not sign any such agreements to never join NATO.
Russia did however sign agreements affirming Crimea as Ukrainian territory and promising to uphold Ukraine's territorial integrity.
What's more, in 2014 there was never any chance of Ukraine joining NATO due to the Russian lease on Sevastopol.
And you accuse Ukraine of breaking agreements? How did Minsk 1 end? How did Minsk 2 end? How did the black sea grain initiative end? How did Prighozin's truce work out for him?
Did you read that in your russian newspaper? What did you read are going better? Inflation? Currency? What did you read in russian news that made you think russian economy is doing good?
So you as a russian cant tell us which economic indicator your tiny economy is beating the much larger german economy in? Most russians dont even own a toilet.
I was just observing that Ukraine committed a blatant and extremely serious act of sabotage against European infrastructure- most probably with the help of the US. You can't be indignant for one sabotage and ignore the other.
Everyone is responsible for their own actions- otherwise you get into an endless spiral of "I did that just because you did the other thing first, so it's ultimately your fault".
I didn’t know about that. I listen French national news radio daily but apparently missed it (!). Googled it and it seems it’s not even controversial. Thanks you to mentionnent it. I’m not trying to troll or putting oil on the fire but I’m quite disappointed it didn’t have more coverage or aftermath analysis like they regularly do for consequences of the war.
> Everyone is responsible for their own actions- otherwise you get into an endless spiral of "I did that just because you did the other thing first, so it's ultimately your fault".
Why are you then mentioning Ukraine in this context if not to send us into this endless spiral?
Given the northstream 2 precedent it is actually the most likely outcome that the same entity / franchise behind ns2 is behind the cable cutting incidents as well.
"two things we're cut, so it's most likely the same people cut both" is not a reasonable assumption without evidence.
And we know the Russian ship cut the data cables, so if your assumption was true, it means Russia also cut nordstream. So why bring up Ukraine cutting nordstream? It makes no sense.
So if everyone is responsible for their own actions, why are you including Ukraine in this context? After all this is in isolation Russia committing (yet another) crime.
>I was just observing that Ukraine committed a blatant and extremely serious act of sabotage against European infrastructure
Even if it was Ukraine (it wasn't - read this about Putin friend's tanker https://www.businessinsider.com/nord-stream-mystery-minerva-... , tankers seem to be the favorite Russian sea-platform for sabotage), the Nord Stream majorly - 51% - owned by Russia thus it would be a valid target for Ukraine.
>You can't be indignant for one sabotage and ignore the other.
You can and should. There is huge difference between valid targets and invalid ones. By attacking Ukraine Russia made itself into a valid target for Ukraine. Finland and Estonia aren't valid targets for Russia.
Europe can enter a war without sending any soldiers to fight. All is needed for all european countries to increase their army budgets, and be prepared to defend if needed.
mate europe (the people living in it) doesnt want a war. most of the eastern countries except those on the north dont want a war and see this very much so as a us provocation
Russia has to have some option other than killing Ukrainian soldiers and immiserating Ukrainian citizens. Ukrainians are the victims of US and European belligerence, and there is nothing any of them could say or do to end the conflict. Nobody asked their permission to go to war, nobody asks them if they want to continue it, and when they're polled, they hate it. They voted for a Russian-speaking Jewish non-politician actor in order to stay as far away from the US funded Nazi militias and politicians as possible. Turns out that playing a ethical innocent in a TV show doesn't mean you're a ethical innocent. Even when Zelensky's had an attack of ethics, the US administration and media immediately starts to marginalize him and question his authority, which endangers& him. If he doesn't make it to that inevitable London apartment that most Western-backed rulers end up in, he's a dead man.
Nothing makes the West happier than the suffering of Ukrainians, because they can use it to market the war to a populace who has absolutely no idea why it happened, or why it's still happening.
Everything else Russia could do is too much of an escalation. They could fire a missile at a Polish base if they can connect it to attacks launched on Russia's soil, but that's an open attack against NATO, and even though NATO wouldn't respond with anything other than thoughts and prayers, the funding tap would open up fully again due to the propaganda value. That's crazy when Trump is coming in, and there could possibly be a big swing in US administration support for Ukraine. No chance after that. Trump doesn't want to look submissive to Putin, especially after watching Biden be emasculated by Bibi. It's better to have Trump wanting to show that he's not submissive to Zelensky (as if Zelensky could stop this train.)
The best target would have been Americans in Ukraine, which is why after the demonstration of the fact that Russia has missiles that can't be stopped and can reach all of Europe, the US immediately closed its embassy and ran. We'll support Ukrainian attacks with satellite targeting now, we're not worried about Russia firing unstoppable missiles into space.
What's left? Immiseration of European citizens to soften their support. What ability does Russia have to do that? They can sabotage cables. The West blew up Nordstream, it's silly to play superior. Nordstream was also* crucial European infrastructure, and its destruction has made the daily lives of Europeans measurably worse.
> we need to be serious about our adversary that keeps threatening to nuke major European cities off the map
What does this even mean? There's nothing anyone can do about it. Making a serious face won't stop a missile. The only thing protecting European cities is Russian rationality.
Maybe we should stop sending NATO missiles their way via our proxy, Ukraine, maybe at that point nuclear de-escalation will become a thing again.
If that doesn’t work, and unfortunately I’m not confident that it will work, then it becomes an open confrontation between us, EU citizens who don’t care one bit about Ukraine and who certainly aren’t willing to die for it, and those EU citizens that are willing to risk conventional and nuclear war with Russia over the likes of Pokrovsk or Kurachove.
Which is to say, don’t assume that you people form the uncontested majority here in the EU, just look at the Slovak prime-minister or at the Romanian pro-peace presidential candidate who’s had his election victory stolen from under him (I’m Romanian myself)
The act of turning AIS off can attract unwanted attention (higher resolution local satellite monitoring), less likely if you are entering waters where piracy is common and many vessels disable AIS.
If a vessel turns AIS off then cuts the cable, but their position is known by other means, they will be giving up plausible deniability.
That's still considered to be primarily Russia's doing, with an interesting new detail:
> On 17 December 2024 the Russian Navy sea rescue tug Yevgeniy Churov[36] was reported to have approached the anchored Yi Peng 3, passing it at very low speed and with its own AIS transmitter turned off.
The next day, investigators were finally allowed to board.
some people in the suitable places are probably already thinking that way - just few days ago a Russian military cargo ship suddenly had explosion and sank in Mediterranean
"As for the equipment on board, the Navy spokesman noted that it was "quite expensive, sophisticated, foreign-made, and that russians do not do not produce such items."
"To understand the importance of this equipment is I remind you that for six months they were unable to load Kalibr missiles in Novorossiysk due to the lack of such equipment," Pletenchuk emphasized."
We really don't need all that pollution in that particular small sea, thank you very much. Confiscated, most likely found lacking insurance, and auctioned off to fund EU defense.
Ah, so there is no conclusion that russia has cut any cables, just speculation, and last I checked having radio listening equipment wasn't illegal. So, there is that.
Is there an issue with Russia spoofing GPS? They are at war. Ukraine does it over their territory and I imagine you are okay with it, and so does Israel, who is also at war.
Are you suggesting that you would be outraged if your country was at war and spoofed GPS? Maybe if you think more you might be more open about why these things happen.
I don't mean to offend you, but I am okay if I do.
No one is forcing you visit HN. I'm sure there is a Russian equivalent site where everyone ignores the destruction and killing in Ukraine and makes themselves feel better by pretending there is nothing they can do about it.
Is this site where everyone ignores the destruction and killing in <insert list of countries that the usa has bombed or invaded> and makes themselves feel better by pretending there is nothing they can do about it?
Plenty of protests by US citizens take place against the bad choices America makes. Russian citizens can't be bothered to even do that, or maybe they agree with the destruction and killing in Ukraine.
No way to get a good read on it with them all staying silent.
The Kremlin is not Russia. There are some extremely valid reasons for that. It's not like everyone just decided to not appreciate poor old Russia.
The Kremlin's behaviour is ridiculous and shouldn't be accepted in Europe. Russoophobia is just another speaking point of the Kremlin that you're feeding into. Objectively they are in the wrong.
It's interesting to watch Russia's posters beginning to get some pushback. My experience is that HN has suffered somewhat Reddit-like conditions, where if you criticized Russia's war on its neighbors and the West, you got botted.
That sort of thing only works when it's not observed, and it looks like Hacker News is starting to protect itself against malicious actions, as are Russia's physical neighbors.
Always curious when I see comments like these whether they're from literal Russian trolls. Or if not, then what exactly brought the person to a place where they will deny basic reality in order to show support for a brutal, expansionist dictatorship for.. some reason.
It's very easy for us to doubt these things because they suspiciously and conveniently fit the "anti-russia" narrative. From there, a simple belief in the corruptibility and money-influence in media makes us question the story. And no amount of "oh it's hard to get hundreds of people to maintain a conspiracy" will reign it back.
And I'm not a paid shill. The above is just a reality of the media landscape and a lot of people's mistrust in it and of the west in general.
It’s very easy to fall into the trap of doubting and disbelieving absolutely everything, because you think you can see through it to the ‘real’ agenda.
But it’s not a sign of intelligence so much as a sign of someone who has lost their ability to evaluate sources, and cannot navigate the information landscape of the modern world successfully.
If Russia is actually doing bad things, reporting on said bad things is not conveniently fitting the anti-Russia narrative, it’s just reporting on what Russia is doing.
I mean, it's also sort of weird that Russia would be called out in the beginnings of a sneak attack, publicly deny it to the world, and then do it anyway.
Or spill radioactive poisons on the streets of London in a a baroque assassination of a British citizen.
Or try to import ground troops from frickin' North Korea.
I have no doubt that there was spying equipment. That is assumed. Curious that this story is only run by Lloydslist and now Breitbart of all places has picked it up.
It seems that someone has discovered tech people as willing amplifiers for war mongering (as chickenhawks, naturally, they won't be in the trenches).
Don't know about the linked site and its reputation. Found it myself quite clickbaity with the spying equipment twist. Here is more in-depth timeline kind of article from Estonia [1] and would recommend that instead.
I guess this is just local news in the world scale amidst current global events and you must find local source for any quality. Surely it has been covered a lot here in Finland nationally because of rather new kind of hybrid warfare escalation - response event.
It took less than a day to determine it was Russia and not only that but this specific ship that cut the cable. Yet years after the largest industrial sabotage and environmental disaster in recent memory (Nord Stream 2) absolutely no investigations into who caused that one and that story has been completely forgotten
Officials are becoming more and more alert to these kinds of situations.
Newnew Polar Bear managed to escape the scene of the crime without any issues, Yi Peng 3 managed to escape the scene of the crime but was later detained in international waters but not boarded without Chinese officials, and now Eagle S was caught red-handed and boarded immediately.
What? No investigation? This is pretty close to the top of the Wikipedia article on the matter:
The Swedish and Danish investigations were closed in February 2024 without identifying those responsible,[16][17] but the German investigation is still ongoing.[18] In August 2024 media reported that in June German authorities issued a European arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national suspected of having used the sailing yacht Andromeda together with two others to sabotage the Nord Stream pipeline.[19] As of June 2024 the suspect is still at large, having reportedly left the EU for Ukraine.[20]
This ship slowed down noticeably before destroying the cables so officials were quick to react. Also, not too long time ago another sabotage ship broke stuff as well so this was probably expected to happen again. Really does not have anything to do with Nord Stream 2 since it was different water areas and methods. But that whataboutism surely gives clue where your message comes from.
Am I having a stroke or is this article translated?
I'm not a Russia defender but this is comically inept if true. Why commit such brazen sabotage with a spy ship?
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