As a general rule, I tend to view with deep skepticism the reasons given by political leaders for their actions, especially when they go to war, since they usually justify the decision in lofty but vague terms while what drives their actions is usually more concrete and far less noble. So when Russian president Vladimir Putin said prior to the invasion of Ukraine that the west was threatening Russia by bringing NATO forces ever closer to his country and that Ukraine entering that western military alliance would be an intolerable threat to their security, I tended to think that there must be at least some other factors driving his decisions.
Whatever one might think of Putin, he does not strike one as an impulsive and reckless risk taker. He strikes me as someone who does careful cost-benefit calculations and he had to have known that the cost of invading Ukraine would be huge, even if a military reaction by other countries were left out of the equation. The US and its western allies have a stranglehold on the international banking, finance, and credit systems, the institutions that drive commerce around the globe. The US in particular has been ruthless in using that power over and over again against countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Afghanistan and other nations that the US has decided to undermine economically, even if it causes immense hardship to the people of those countries. Being shut out of that system would cause massive harm to the Russian economy and Putin had to have anticipated that. He also had to know that if his takeover of Ukraine failed, that country would almost definitely accelerate its push to join the EU and NATO, the very things he wanted to prevent.
So Putin clearly thought that the benefits of invading Ukraine would be worth the risk. But what are the benefits? As far as I am aware, there is nothing particularly special about Ukraine. As far as I am aware, it is not a source of valuable raw materials that Russia needed access to. I am sure that it is a nice country with lovely people but so are all countries. True, it is a large country (about the size of Texas) and is one of the major exporters of grain to the world but that seems hardly sufficient to justify the costs of invading it and risking the global fallout.
So maybe Putin did what he did because of what he actually said, that Ukraine edging closer to the west and eventually joining NATO and adding to the growing military encirclement of Russia did constitute an existential threat to the existence of his country and that if the west did not give guarantees that it would not happen, then he had to take steps to prevent it. I cannot think of any other factor that would tip the equation in favor of an invasion.
I am encouraged by the emerging reports that there are ceasefire talks currently underway between Russian and Ukrainian diplomats, although not at the highest levels.
As talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials ended early Monday evening, CNN reporters in Kyiv heard several large detonations, followed by sirens going off across the city.
Both sides discussed a potential “ceasefire and the end of combat actions on the territory of Ukraine,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhaylo Podolyak told reporters.
Without going into detail, Podolyak said that both sides would return to their capitals for consultations over whether to implement a number of “decisions.”
“The parties discussed holding another round of negotiations where these decisions can develop,” he said.
But it made me wonder why such direct talks did not take place before the invasion. Leading up to that fateful event, we had various world leaders, most visibly France’s president Macron, shuttling back and forth between those two and other European countries relaying messages but I do not recall hearing of any direct talks between the two countries that are at the center of this conflict.
Putin is said by some to have dreams of reinstating the Soviet days of satellite nations, and has been on a kick for years that Ukraine culturally and socially is a part of Russia. I can’t think either of any other importance Ukraine has.
Rachel Maddow’s theory was that Putin has failed in Russia, their economy is so small (same GDP as Texas?), and that he can’t endure a culturally-similar country that has so recently left the russian puppet sphere, and is becoming more of a european democracy, with the greater wealth and freedoms that entails. That Putin needs to have failed states on his borders, to demonstrate to the Russian people that they have to accept their lot in their failed state.
Whatever. It still just seems irrational.
While not an impulsive and reckless risk taker, he is very much a calculated risk taker. I suspect that in this case he grossly miscalculated — he thinks the EU and US are weak and divided (and they are… partly due to misinformation campaigns led by him) and he thought he could take Ukraine while the EU and US were still squabbling over what the proper response should be. If Ukraine had fallen before the EU and US had gotten their act together we would be having a completely different discussion now.
However, Putin is also a megalomaniac and he’s risking his reputation on this. I’m worried that if he starts to realise the situation is unwinnable (hard to say now if that’s really the case) he may not act rationally.
On Ukraine’s resource ranking in the world, see:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/why-does-ukraine-matter/
As for the ceasefire talks, from the Russian side, they are just a PR diversion tactic.
* Ukraine is “the bread basket” of the area and a major exporter of food to Russia.
* Ukraine is edging toward western thinking and wanting to join the EU even before the invasion, which could mean in the future Russia paying a higher price for food
This has been years in the making. Remember when Putin got Trump to try to bribe Zelensky to claim Hunter Biden was…doing something (anything) wrong? Trump thought it was a win-win; had Zelensky caved to the Mango Mussolini, there’d be dirt on the Bidens. Zelensky refused to be bullied and Trump tried to fine him $400k, which would hobble Ukraine’s ability to defend itself from Putin.
The obvious unstated reason for taking territory in Ukraine is the long standing goal of a warm water port for the Russian navy. If they can control coastal territory along the Black Sea then as long as they are friendly with Turkey they can get military ships into the Mediterranean. They already have some from territory they have taken from Ukraine but it’s all disputed territory. A treaty with Ukraine handing over the territory or a puppet government in Ukraine is better.
Well, he also said that Ukrainians are not a distinct people. He also said that the Ukrainian government is neo-Nazi and genocidal.
The threat isn’t to the existence of his country. That’s utterly nonsensical. The threat is to his own power.
@Rob Grigjanis
*this*
Putin is calculating and ruthless, but he is also aging. He might have wanted to seal his “legacy” as the unitor of Great Russia before he dies. Or he might have become finally bonkers. Who knows.
We can discuss his motives until cows come home, but NATO would never be a threat to Russia that is trying to coexist peacefully within Europe. If Putin actually build up his country and tried to work with the EU instead of covertly doing his best to undermine it, Sweden, and Finland would never consider joining NATO for example if he did not invade Ukraine, and that shows us something.
Mano, with all due respect, IMO you have the causality backward. It is not NATO pushing its sphere of influence closer and closer to Russia that has led to the escalation. It was Russia’s relentless aggression (both passive and active, overt and covert) that has led its neighbors to try to join NATO.
Beau of the Fifth Column (YouTube) has a video up about this. A Russian news agency mistakenly published an article that was meant to be published after the glorious invasion and successful takeover. Beau has a link to the article under the video.
It’s all about re-establishing the Russian empire, changing the world order, and reuniting holy (well, almost) Ukraine with its real country, Russia. Power, in other words; Russia is returning! Very boastful and very racist. Worth reading.
It was Russia’s relentless aggression (both passive and active, overt and covert) that has led its neighbors to try to join NATO.
It’s more complicated than that. I’ll go out on a limb and argue that analyzing one nation’s actions as “aggressive” is probably meaningless. That meaninglessness is being filled up with propaganda, but its all he said-she said bullshit.
For example, was the CIA sponsoring an overthrow of the Ukrainian government, in order to have a more NATO-friendly pawn -- was that “aggressive”?
Putin miscalculated. He did not expect Ukraine to be able to fight back, nor did he expect effective diplomatic and economic response. So he thought there would be little risk. Whatever he expected to gain needs to be measured against the low level of risk he expected rather than the high price he is incurring in reality.
I understand his personal measures to avoid COVID caused him to be even more isolated than before and may have driven him a bit adrift from reality. Macron said Putin had changed a lot in personality since 2019.
Power. Imperialistic power, pure and simple. The rest was propaganda and lies.
By taking over Ukraine, Russia’s power would be increased. Same with Belarus, but in their case, the Lukashenko government appears willing to go along.
As part of the invasion planning, the Victory Propaganda was written and scheduled to be released, but somebody forgot to cancel it when the war went badly:
https://mil.in.ua/en/news/brave-new-world-of-putin-an-article-by-the-propaganda-publication-ria-novosti-which-was-to-be-published-after-the-occupation-of-ukraine/
As for Putin predicting the reaction of the West, keep in mind that previous sanctions have been wrist slaps. Nobody anywhere expected Germany to cancel Nordstream 2, so it is not surprising that Putin would not expect it. Or SWIFT.
I doubt that anyone in Putin’s inner circle thought that the West could or would take down the Russian economy. Seen as weak, self-centered and greedy, they forgot that the best way to unite disparate groups is to present them with a common dire threat. When Putin mentioned nukes, the response from the West intensified.
There is an old Ukrainian saying I learned as a wee pup: Don’t touch shit and it won’t stink.
@Marcus Ranum, true, I should have written “Putin’s” aggression, not Russia’s.
Putin was working towards having Belarus and Ukraine as puppet states all along. What the CIA did or did not do has only had an influence on his success in this regard, not on his intentions. He wanted and wants to build a Russian Empire and to hoard power and he has been working towards that goal for decades now. But the Maidan Revolution has removed one of his puppet dictators so he had to change how he is about executing that plan. Note that it was Janukovich who tried to play both sides by engaging in talks with the EU (not NATO, EU) and covertly with Putin. I do not like playing “what-ifs” with history, but what do you think would happen, if Janukovich remained in power? There probably would not be war now, sure. But there probably would be another nation under the rule of a ruthless dictator, and the sphere of influence of that dictator would be greater than it is now. If the CIA did nothing, If NATO did nothing, if the EU did nothing, if everybody just minded their own business, Putin would still try to build an Empire, because that is what he wants.
Blaming his imperialistic ambitions and actions on those who oppose him is just bullshit.
On another forum, someone brought up the cultural aspects, in particular that Kyiv is the center of the original Russian culture.
https://jazzfanz.com/threads/the-official-russia-is-about-to-invade-ukraine-thread.158860/page-31#post-2133559
Doesn’t at least one of the natural gas pipelines used to bring Russian gas to sell to the rest of Europe still run through Ukraine? I seem to recall that was behind even some pre-Putin Russion attempts to ensure puppet governments in Ukraine… particularly since Ukraine wasn’t really paid for using their territory to build that.
Marcus @9:
By all means, pop over to Kyiv and explain this to the residents.
So when Russian president Vladimir Putin said prior to the invasion of Ukraine that the west was threatening Russia by bringing NATO forces ever closer to his country and that Ukraine entering that western military alliance would be an intolerable threat to their security, I tended to think that there must be at least some other factors driving his decisions.
The whole mess is complicated as all get-out but the main reason is that that NATO is moving to close to Moscow and Putin/Russia sees no reason to trust the USA or NATO. When the USSR broke up Gorbachev received verbal assurances that NATO would not extend eastward past the Germany’s eastern border from, IIRC, the USA and the UK. Now, if NATO puts troops or weaponry in Narva, Estonia it is 100km to the centre of St Petersburg. NATO claims it is a defensive alliance but Russia has seen it spend ~75 days bombing Serbia and helped create the new country of Kosovo, reduce Libya to a failed state and go on to invade Afghanistan, Iraq,and Syria.
NATO also has established missile sites in Poland and Romania claiming somewhat improbably they are for air defence from Iran but it takes very little time to equip the missiles (Tomahawks I think) with nuclear warheads.Flight time is about 5 minutes to Moscow, i.e. too fast for a Russian response. From the eastern Ukrainian border it is about 450km to Moscow. This is getting way to close.
The proposed treaty Moscow presented back in December, 2021 proposed that troops, equipment, etc. should move back to the countries that were members before the last last NATO expansion in the 1990’s. Membership would remain the same so Estonia would still be a member but it would not have troops or missile on site.
Also, Ukraine seems to be a defacto but unofficial member of NATO. Ukrainian troops train with NATO troops and reportedly Kiev has a US embassy with about 900 staff, making it the largest in Europe. From the Russian viewpoint, since NATO was created to defend against the USSR and it no longer exists. why does NATO not only exist but keeps expanding eastward towards Russia? Since Russia usually is invaded from the west the Russians tend to be a bit paranoid.
There also is the issue of the US sponsored coup in Kiev in 2014. This was not really appreciated in Moscow, increasing distrust. Then the rather nationalist government passed language laws outlawing the use of Russian in any official use. Since a goodly part of eastern Ukraine have Russian as their native language this help lead to the two oblasts Lugansk & Donetsk to declare independence and there has been a relatively low grade civil war between them and Kiev ever since. So ar about 13000 people Donbass citizens have been killed and a lot of them were Russian citizen. Crimea voted to leave leave Ukraine at the same time but in what appear to have been a fair referendum voted to join Russia—It had been part of Russia from ~1780 til Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine in the early 1950’s
The major Russian navel base on the Black Sea is Sevastopol in Crimea and there was a strong suspicion that the new Ukrainian Gov’t would try to break the lease with Russia and sign a new one with the USA.
My guess is that after roughly 20 years of watching NATO encroachment and having every UN president NATO Secretary ignore his concerns he decided that he had no real choice but to clean out the merry band of thieves in Kiev, declare the Lugansk and Donetsk Peoples Republics independent and try to set up the rest of Ukraine with a slightly friendly government.
The Ukrainian Govt is the most corrupt in Europe.
Marcus:
jrkrideau:
I call bullshit on both claims. Marcus just desperately needs the US to be the villain, always. Comes with the territory of being an anarchist (aka the second most worthless ideology of them all after fascism, coincidentally its polar opposite). Meanwhile, jrkrideau is just a bootlicker, Putin’s apologetic lapdog and maybe even paid disinformation-spreading shill. Probably just as sexist, homophobic and transphobic as Vladimir, too.
@jrkrideau
A fair referendum. issued and overseen by an armed occupying force in occupied territory. I might have a bridge to sell you, jrkrideau.
jrkrideau @17:
Citations, please. From what I’ve read (I’ll look for references), some highly placed officials in the US and UK speculated about dangling that carrot, and were promptly slapped down by their respective heads of state. Of course, Putin has transformed these hypotheticals into solemn promises. And for some reason beyond all understanding, some people in the West believe him.
Putin is one of the biggest thieves in the world. Gimme a fucking break.
Further to my #20:
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/
Why not Ukraine? Dictators gotta dict. It’s what they do.
History shows me that any sanctions will not continue. It would be great if it happens. Not expecting it.
“I am encouraged by …..”
I am not. At the moment a cease fire is to Putin’s disadvantage, exactly because (I think -- we can’t be completely sure) you are right about his reasons.
“But it made me wonder why such direct talks did not take place before the invasion.”
Because the EU, the NATO and the USA had nothing to offer from the Russian perspective in terms of the fear for encirclement you mentioned. Call it paranoia if you like, but the fact remains that Russia has had four major invasions (1708, 1812, 1918 and 1941) plus a few minor ones; the Battle of the Neva and the Battle of the Ice were fought as early as 1240 and 1242.
“I do not recall hearing of any direct talks between the two countries”
Because according to Putin Ukraine is a puppet state of EU, NATO and the USA. He wants to talk with the man in charge -- Biden. I knew that already two years ago, which is why I wrote that JoeB becoming president would increase the risk of war. Nobody paid attention to me of course, because you all thought of nothing but getting rid of Donald the Clown. You all are excused in this respect because the EU didn’t do any better. A lame excuse, but an excuse nevertheless.
@1 Garnetstar: “Putin is said by some to have dreams of reinstating the Soviet days of satellite nations”
Why do you think the Russian czars occupied Poland, Cis-Kaukasus and parts of Trans-Kaukasus? What do you think, from Russia’s perspective, the Great Game of the 19th Century was about?
Longing for safety, safety, safey and never really get it. As long as Americans politicians repeat your mantra “it just seems irrational” over and over again the problem will persist.
@6 RobG: “That’s utterly nonsensical.”
How unsurprising that you with your own version of MAGA are incapable of even considering Russia’s perspective. Yeah, understanding your opponent is suuuuuch nonsense when someone like you is morally on the right side. Which you perfectly illustrate in @20:
“Putin is one of the biggest thieves in the world.”
Like about all Russian head of states before him. Congratulations, you are in the same camp as president Reagan; you’re even asking for a Godwin with your Evil Empire rhetoric.
@7 Charly: “NATO would never be a threat to Russia that is trying to coexist peacefully within Europe. ”
Sure. You just saying this will cure Russian politicians from their fears. Brilliant contribution -- not.
@17 jrkrideau: hammer, nail.
The problem with Putin and earlier Russian leaders’ fears of aggression and encirclement is that they are often a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you try to dominate or outright attack the nations around you, you make it much more likely that they will band together against you, or at least be unfriendly. NATO almost certainly would have never existed at all if Stalin hadn’t insisted on total control of Eastern Europe after WWII. There might not have been any Cold War at all, although that’s a little more iffy given that Soviet and US/Western European interests clashed in other parts of the world.
He does now.
JM (#5) --
Not just the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, but also the Baltic Sea. Remember the exclave of Kaliningrad, bordering Poland and Lithuania? Belarus and Lithuania separate it from Russia. St. Petersburg is a Baltic Sea port, but it is usually locked with ice during the coldest months. Lithuania’s port of Klaipeda is ice-free in winter. Had Ras-Putin’s plan to absorb Ukraine succeeded, Belarus and Lithuania would likely be next, followed by (or including) Latvia and Estonia.
When the USSR existed, it was policy to forcibly move ethnic Russians into the other SSRs and gradually outpopulate and absorb the ethnic groups there, eradicating language, culture, and national identity. That’s why there are so many ethnic Russians in former Soviet republics like Ukraine. China, the UK and others have done the same things, but the Soviets did it mostly behind closed doors.
Kind of sad that some commenters are still making excuses for Putin after everything that’s happened, and managing to blame the war on Biden. Oh well, I’m sure that in 1939 there were people around blaming Poland for starting WWII …
I call bullshit on both claims.
The leaked Nuland call indicates that the US was actively planning who was going to wind up where in Ukraine before the revolution. The revolution enjoyed remarkable positive coverage by US media/Twitter; maybe draw your own conclusions from that. The CIA has been working Ukraine since the 50s, when their sponsored insurgency failed. And the usual codewords: “provide intelligence support for Ukrainian resistance” means that the CIA already has established networks and relationships. But hey don’t believe me, do your own research. It oughtn’t take you long to read between the lines.
From what I’ve read (I’ll look for references), some highly placed officials in the US and UK speculated about dangling that carrot, and were promptly slapped down by their respective heads of state.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
James Baker was a “highly placed” person indeed -- Secretary of State. There were multiple reassurances including from the Germans, who were the main concern (the Soviets had some concerns about a reunified Germany, let alone a reunified Germany joining NATO)
You could have learned this with a tiny effort at research; it’s quite well documented.
Apropos… (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#European_occupations_and_agreements)
A striking parallel.
I’m pretty sure the original plan was to use “salami tactics” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine#2014_Russian_armed_interventions_in_Luhansk_and_Donetsk_and_invasion_of_Crimea), but for whatever reason (I don’t really think it was a cold, calculated risk) Putin decided to go full throttle.
I know I’ve seen plenty of informed speculation about his state of mind and of his health.
Putin is a isolated dictator simply indulging his fantasies -- that’s it. There’s no strategy worth a damn, no clever cunning -- Putin sits alone and controls Russia personally and he wants Ukraine back as part of Imperial Russia.
He thought, after years of evidence the west was fatally weak, lazy, corrupted and cowardly but he done fucked up and united it (Ukraine has done a brilliant job of winning hearts and minds) -- he’s even put the hurt on anti-vaxxer, fascist wannabes on completely unrelated issues by being such a shining example of what they want.
He just found out that democracies, unlike totalitarian monoliths, can turn on a dime.
His time is done, no matter what else.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2014/04/16/why-cia-director-brennan-visited-kiev-in-ukraine-the-covert-war-has-begun/amp/
Well, while link posting…
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340
Preamble:
Marcus @30: How about at least referring to a comment number so that people can follow the conversation?
From the last (chronologically) document in your link;
If you (or Putin) see that as any sort of assurance for the future, you are either incredibly naive, or pretending to be for your own reasons.
@ 30 Marcus
Thanks. It was going to take me an hour tomorrow to track that down. I forgot to bookmark it.
@ 35 Rob Grigjanis
It was the above link @30.
Woerner responds to the Russians by stating that he personally and the NATO Council are both against expansion—“13 out of 16 NATO members share this point of view”
This identifies one of the people who tried to tell the US and NATO why they were crazy. And this is before Russia’s recovery from those so helpful US economists advising Yeltsin. There were several others, usually distinguished and highly competent US diplomats.
@ 19 Charly
I might have a bridge to sell you, jrkrideau.
Well, I might consider a knife.
I say a pretty fair referendum because it fairly closely mirrored the one in the 1990’s. It was clear back then that Crimea had nothing in common with Ukraine. The Tatar population would have more in common with Kazan, and all Tatarstan, than Kiev or Lviv. Russian--speaking Crimeans certainly did not want to be in a country that outlawed the use of Russian.
Large numbers of “Ukrainian” sailors, marines, and soldiers transferred to Russian service at Sevastopol in the time of the “little green men”. There seemed to be no real loyalty to Kiev. Moscow, Kiev, whoever paid on time?
Afterwards, polling by organizations like Leveda gave much the same results as the referendum. . So yes I’d say “a pretty fair referendum'”.
Marcus @29:
And yet, in the transcript I can’t find any references to the people that actually ended up being president of Ukraine, so any intervention obviously failed, making that call a whole nothingburger, a deflection, an excuse to side with Russia. Tell me, how much does Putin pay you? Or maybe he has dirt on you, an equivalent of Trump’s pee tape?
@ 18 No Respect
Meanwhile, jrkrideau is just a bootlicker, Putin’s apologetic lapdog
Ah, thank you for the compliment.
I assume it never occurred to you, that while I am no Russian scholar, I know much more about Russia than you do? Just to be petty who was Абра́м Петро́вич Ганниба́л?
jrkrideau:
Hm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine
That’s not the sense I get, perusing the article.
Tell me, how much does Putin pay you? Or maybe he has dirt on you, an equivalent of Trump’s pee tape?
Clown.
If you (or Putin) see that as any sort of assurance for the future, you are either incredibly naive,
Better watch those goalposts don’t hit you whike they fly by.
The fucking US Secretary of State said “not one inch” in an official capacity, and his statement was confirmed by his German counterpart. It was not a casual remark and Gromyko took it seriously.
I don’t expect anything from politicians except bullshit and main force; don’t take my correcting your remark upstream as my believing anything Baker said one way or another. As if that matters.
The US could promise anything and break that promise. That’s called “statecraft” and the Soviets were experienced in these matters and would have been skeptical -- perhaps even expected the US could not be trusted regarding NATO expansion. That was the fucking point of why they asked repeatedly. Yes, they should have written up a treaty for the US to violate; that would have been a pointless exercise because the US actually has no long-term strategy for NATO to pledge anything about -- it just does whatever it thinks it can get away with, samecad Putin does.
I hate all these people; if you’re pretending I’m a Putin fan simply because I am not a fan of US policy (it was mostly Clinton if you want me to be specific) then you’re not thinking very well.
No, Nuland did not say “muahaahaa we are manipulating the Ukrainian revolution” in her discussion of manipulating the Ukrainian revolution. But how do you think the US was going to put those manipulations in effect? Ask nicely? The CIA playbook for fostering rebellions is one they play so often you’d have to be exceptionally naive to imagine that one particular rebellion was not getting covert support. Also, they usually don’t announce that they’re running the playbook; that would be pretty dumb even for the CIA. But official visits from the CIA director? US special ops troops teaching the locals how to use US antitank gear? They were letting Putin read between the lines, and that’s also one of the things that pissed him off.
I am bemused by the idea that being highly critical of the US military industrial complex = an excuse to side with Russia.
I am the same vintage as Marcus, and not trusting the CIA because they are baby killing warmongers just comes naturally to US people who were born during the Vietnam war years.
Peter the Greats adopted Ethiopian godson is relevant because? Google had no trouble with the Cyrillic btw.
Seriously ya’ll, simmer down. These baseless accusations are in no way helpful to the discussion.
To be fair, I didn’t think Russia would invade Ukraine.
Basically, because the expected downsides would obviously greatly exceed the expected upside.
And the fact that the USA was vehemently claiming that it imminently would was not… how to put this… particularly credible. The USA’s geopolitical claims have lost all credibility with me.
But hey, the USA was correct in this case, and I was wrong.
Does that make the USA more credible for me in its future claims?
Mmmm… not really.
(Once proven a liar, it’s pretty hard to come back from that. Boy who cried wolf and all that)
#17 jrkrideau
So the proposal was essentially “sure, you guys can stay in the alliance [ how gracious!], I just don’t want you to act like an alliance.” It’s amazing to see you put it in such terms as if that was ever a reasonable demand.
If that was true, NATO nations would have responded per the terms of that alliance: an attack on one is an attack on all. Tell me, do we see military action as befits an attack on the alliance?
A fair referendum to join Russia. While occupied by Russian military.
How do type this with a straight face??
Had Ukraine broken treaty with Russia, there would have been a legitimate cause for military invasion. Wait, oops, no not even then is military invasion justified. Yet in your world, a putative future breach of treaty required invasion and regime change at the point of a gun.
Encroachment on what? Sovereign nations are free to join if they can reach an accord with the member nations. Why does Putin get a say in Estonia’s membership?
What a doozy of a post.
#23 mnb0
…always preview…
#40 John Morale
Re language.
Nothing like a revolt to change policy 🙂 I think the policy was changed very quickly. There seems to still be complaints about Russians-speakers but, AFAIK, the original policy was changed quickly.
@ 46 Holms
Read a bit about the Crimea situation.
So the proposal was essentially “sure, you guys can stay in the alliance [ how gracious!], I just don’t want you to act like an alliance.”
We believe in an armed response we just do not want you to sleep with a gun under your pillow.
f that was true, NATO nations would have responded per the terms of that alliance: an attack on one is an attack on all.
No, look up de facto vs de jure.
Had Ukraine broken treaty with Russia, there would have been a legitimate cause for military invasion.
You really want to start a world war over a lease?
Encroachment on what?
Area of interest? I am sure that once the USSR had missiles in Cuba and a navel base is Columbia the USA would not have objected to a couple of divisions of Russian troops in Tijuana. It’s over 40 km from San Diego.
@45 John Morales
I do not think anyone expected an invasion outside the Russian Staff. Since US intelligence predicted an invasion about a dozen times I think we can assume they got lucky the last time or got played by Russian intelligence that last time.
Marcus Ranum #29
This I believe. In fact, if they don’t, they’re not doing their jobs. I was wondering to myself if maybe part of why the Ukrainian defense is doing so well is because they’re getting some help, such as satellite intel, training, etc.
Then again, it’s ludicrous to think the Russians didn’t have people snooping around, too. There may well have been a whole secret war in the background, that we’ll only hear about when they make the movie in a few decades, Argo style. Maybe that’s why Putin is so grumpy.
#50 jrkrideau
We agree that Ukraine is not a de jure member of NATO. The fact that no one is fulfilling the central tenet of the NATO agreement now that Ukraine is under attack shows that it is also not a de facto member.
That’s the meaning you got from that paragraph? How did you manage that? I can only guess you stopped reading at that exact full stop.
NATO doesn’t encroach, people join it willingly -- out of fear of attack from Russia. So, encroachment on what?
Marcus @42:
The fucking US Secretary of State did not have standing as the fucking official NATO spokesperson, which Gorbachev certainly knew.
And no, I don’t think you’re a Putin fan just because you agree on one point. Where the fuck did you get that idea? I’m sure you hate Putin almost as much as you hate US governments past and present.
@mnb0 #24
Wherea and when do I propose to sure Russian politicians from their paranoia? If you want to erect strawmen to beat, please leave me out of that, thank you so very much.
@jrkrideau #37
Well, my knives at least genuinely exist, unlike fair referenda or elections issued by Putin’s government.
You seem to be conflating “fair” with “accurate by coincidence”. I was not saying that the referendum did not at least somewhat reflect the momentary wishes of the local population, just that it was not conducted and reported fairly. Neither was annexing Crimea and justifying it ex post facto with a hastily conducted referendum the proper way to deal with the discontent of its local population.
What Russia does with the Russian minority in Ukraine stinks of what Nazi Germany did with Sudeten Germans -- purposefully fomenting resentment and separatist sentiments, exaggerating claims of discrimination, and subsequently refusing any attempts at de-escalation and constantly moving goalposts so peaceful resolution is impossible by design. And then claiming that force was the only way.
Looks like your keyboard struggles with writing cyrilic properly, the accents are off.
But I was able to decipher it. -click-
Here is rather long-winded summary of the events and background history leading up to this situation. Unfortunately I cannot find a transcript.
https://tomwoods.com/ep-2074-russia-ukraine-and-nato/
In the podcast he says that the USA has been renovating a navel base at Ochakiv about 100 km from Sevastopol. The Russians blew it up on the first day of the attack.
See https://gilbertdoctorow.com/ for Doctorow’s blog
@38 No Respect
Yats == Arseny Yatsenyuk one of the opposition leaders at the time. He did not seem to get the job.
I think Mano, and several others, are making the mistake of thinking Putin is a rational agent, “someone who does careful cost-benefit calculations”. Whatever he was 20 or even ten years ago, he is now thinking of His Place In History, which he wants to be The Restorer Of Russia As A Great Power. He has made quite clear that he does not regard Ukraine as entitled to exist as a separate state, unless it accepts subordination to Russia in the way Belarus does. The following is from Putin’s highly selective article (one would think the Russian Empire grew purely by consent!) on the history of Russia and Ukraine:
Moreover, there is considerable evidence that Putin can be accurately described as a Russian fascist. Not everyone with relevant expertise would agree with Snyder’s view, but Putin’s multiple respectful public references to the openly fascist Ivan Ilyin are a matter of record. Another “thinker” he often cites with respect is Lev Gumilov, with his typically fascist notion that nations and ethnic groups have a quasi-biological identity, and a life-history of growth, maturity and decline (in his view, the “West” is far gone in decadence, as shown by its attitude to LGBT+ rights). Putin has spent the past decade and more funding and otherwise assisting far right parties and movements across Europe, the USA and beyond. He has been, in effect, the head of a neo-fascist international -- although his invasion of Ukraine has undermined that position, forcing many of his admirers to do a quick “reverse ferret” and denounce him.
None of the above implies approval of the expansion of NATO, or American interference in Ukraine -- but Putin has done more to make it difficult to argue against them than he could if the CIA had him on its payroll.
@KG, I am sure that Putin’s discrimination of LGBT+ people can be somehow blamed on the “West”. You know, decadent western culture encroaching on good ole orthodox Christian values, would you think of the children yadayadayada….
I am in no way qualified to comment on the sickening invasion of Ukraine by Putin(ic) fascists. But I have noticed something odd in the arguments made above that I cannot remain silent on.
Specifically….
jrkrideau @ 17
Holms @ 46 in response to the above statement by jrkrideau @ 17 (my emphasis)
Jrkrideau @ 50 in response to the above statement by Holms @ 46
jrkrideau, you omitted the important point Holms was making in their counter to your argument.
FY,I, such propaganda powder doesn’t wash the blood stains out of a uniform.
I do like the idea of a navel base though. Perhaps we wouldn’t make war over one?
tuatara @59:
I, for one, welcome our new omphaloskeptical overlords.