Russia Surrounded

[Mr. Tea]

the question is whether Russia is a rational actor

Perfectly rational, if your aims were to create Lebensraum and solve a population crisis in Russia by forcibly converting non-Russians into Russians, humiliate old enemies by a show of daring and military strength, and stoke nationalistic fervour at home to distract from rampant corruption and ongoing economic stagnation.

The execution has been a bit shaky, to say the least, but for someone in Putin's position, I would say those were rational aims.

Are you now going to ask droid if he thinks there was a reason for the Iraq war other than evil for evil's sake?

 

[luka]

droid and vim teaming up to bully poor old danny is not something i would have expected

 

[luka]

so, another words, if russia respected these norms, then you would view its invasion of Ukraine in a similar manor?

manner

 

[Mr. Tea]

manner

He should of spotted that a mile off!

 

[luka]

he only posts now when hes pissed out of his fucking nut

 

[luka]

which happens to be most nights

 

[DannyL]

so do we agree that the opposition in the us to the invasion of iraq and Afghanistan was not great? but you dont view them as belonging to a different IR category - states that cant be analysed rationally or negotiated with

Levels of opposition or support for a war and imperialist aims more broadly are just one of the metrics here.

 

[shakahislop]

sure, but I don't think that detracts from my main point, which is that Russia can be understood in a similar way to the us

yeah, that was intended as an additional minor fact, rather than a contribution to the main discussion you guys are having

 

[shakahislop]

Well for one thing, OBL was actually holed up in Afghanistan, at least at the time, while a lot of people either knew right away that the claims about AQ and Saddam were bullshit, or fairly quickly came to that conclusion.

yeah. while they're two seperate invasions (iraq and afghanistan) which come out of the same historical period and the same set of people in the US government, they're two pretty different conflicts, particularly in terms of the intentions of the US in both of them

in retrospect the afghanistan war was an absolute catastophe. but there wasn't much resistance to it from western publics until about 2007, when western soldiers started to get killed in the insurgency. one interesting aspect of that is that from what I can tell there was quite a broad consensus on the part of publics and in decision-making circles at that time, five or six years after the invasion itself, that it was a just war. which seems utterly inaccurate in retrospect.

edited to add in response to your actual point tea: the idea that you're referring to, that coz osama was in afghanistan NATO had to wipe out the taliban, is like the original sin of that war. it was a huge mistake.

 

[DannyL]

the question is whether Russia is a rational actor

There's a couple of questions which maybe foreground claims about rationality - one, is what is Russia engaged in in Ukraine?What are the stated intentions? And a big part of it ithe destruction of national identity, and Ukraine's right to exist as an independent nation. Thus the mass kindapping of children, the attempts to eradicate spoken Ukrainian etc. Is that rational?

(I can accept the invasion of Iraq is a greater crime (if we want to do comparisons) but it didn't involve the erasure of a people and a culture in that way. You could argue the opposite in a way - I doubt the people behind knew shit about the complexities of Iraq, might've been better if they'd known more, they wouldn't have to tried to impose their template on the country).

The second point is how are they - Russia - going to engage wrt diplomacy? Is it going to be engaged with sincerely, with the act of building relations with other nations or is it just a hedging device, that's regarded by them as weakness, while strength is built to further territorial aims by force? I'd argue it's the latter, clearly. Just look at the last 8 years.

 

[Mr. Tea]

edited to add in response to your actual point tea: the idea that you're referring to, that coz osama was in afghanistan NATO had to wipe out the taliban, is like the original sin of that war. it was a huge mistake.

Oh sure - I wasn't saying that taking down the whole Taliban government was justified on the basis of the 9/11 attacks, just that they were undeniably harbouring and assisting jihadis who'd been instrumental in those attacks, so the US had a good claim to have been materially injured by the Afghan government's actions, and potentially at risk of further injury. Contrast that with Iraq, where Saddam was an annoyance (from a US POV - obviously he was a fucking monster) who occasionally lobbed a few missiles at their Saudi and Israeli allies, but was in no way a threat to America.

 

[wild greens]

I always thought Iraq 2 was because they were going to switch their oil pricing from dollars to euros, did I make that up

 

[vimothy]

manner

I'm blaming that on my phone

 

[wild greens]

I always thought Iraq 2 was because they were going to switch their oil pricing from dollars to euros, did I make that up

Russia Added Yuan, Euro to Reserves Before War, Cut Dollar Share

Russia has enough holdings in yuan and gold even after the U.S. and its allies imposed sanctions on its reserves in dollars and other currencies, Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina said in her annual report to parliament Monday.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[wild greens]

& from today

China Takes the Yuan Global in Bid to Repel a Weaponized Dollar

A string of new deals promote the Chinese currency as geopolitical risk spills into international finance

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Mr. Tea]

NGL, feeling quite self-conscious about being a robot right now.

 

[IdleRich]

One extra consequence of the Iraq War is the damage it did to the reputation of those involved and the left as a whole. A situation where whole swathes of people and their ideas and opinions (often good ones) can all be dismissed with a "yeah but what about Iraq?". A whole group of people and the policies they wanted to bring in all undermined by this one collosal, catastrophic scar on their characters and credibility. I always wonder what might have been accomplished if all that effort had been directed in a worthwhile way. In that respect similar to Brexit.

 

[Mr. Tea]

One extra consequence of the Iraq War is the damage it did to the reputation of those involved and the left as a whole. A situation where whole swathes of people and their ideas and opinions (often good ones) can all be dismissed with a "yeah but what about Iraq?". A whole group of people and the policies they wanted to bring in all undermined by this one collosal, catastrophic scar on their characters and credibility. I always wonder what might have been accomplished if all that effort had been directed in a worthwhile way. In that respect similar to Brexit.

And, conversely, some people with truly terrible values and opinions have been dining out on having been "right about Iraq" for the last 20 years.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Perfectly rational, if your aims were to create Lebensraum and solve a population crisis in Russia by forcibly converting non-Russians into Russians, humiliate old enemies by a show of daring and military strength, and stoke nationalistic fervour at home to distract from rampant corruption and ongoing economic stagnation.

The execution has been a bit shaky, to say the least, but for someone in Putin's position, I would say those were rational aims.

Are you now going to ask droid if he thinks there was a reason for the Iraq war other than evil for evil's sake?

@vimothy

 

[vimothy]

rational in the sense that you dont need an entirely new category or frame of reference to understand them. its falls under the heading of powerful states doing what they often do, rather than being an eruption of something belonging to our primitive past