Russia Surrounded
- Thread starter Woebot
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- craner boobs disco dasha nekrasova good old obsessive antiamericanism gullfire over leningrad j. h. prynne jamaican voodoo gang from predator 2 my indian mate in year 11 with downs syndrome oliver ukrainer sanctuary of apollo shaka's secret mission snake island the black sea the good old party spirit of desert storm the gust of kiev the russo-ucranerian war wagner man falling out of the sky we're all neocons now whatabouastic whataboutery whataboutish whataboutism whataboutistic who controls the serpent
shakahislop
Well-known member
This is the crux of a lot of these kinds of discussions I think. When you're an observer you can afford to believe whatever takes your fancy as you say. If you're involved then you have to be careful to get to the reality, which is generally very complicated and confusing, and your beliefs have consequences. It's one way in which it's helpful to have a kind of neitzschean perspective on how opinions are formed.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
It's hard to say, esp since he's been in like Howard Hughes style isolation since COVID
I don't think the point of the article is really that is control is ironclad so much as that there's no power base separate from Putin himself, which is what defines a personal dictatorship. The media has been gutted (or just murdered), Duma etc is subservient, he got rid of the oligarchs, controls the security forces, etc. Even if underlings don't execute his every order perfectly, everything is done in his name. There's no one who can say "this is a bad idea" and offer constructive criticism, i.e. that incredible meeting right before the invasion.
Even that has to be speculation in some part - anything does - but it yunno jives pretty darn well with the last week or so
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
What is certainly true is the messiness of reality
Look no further than the most infamous regime in all of human history. The degree to which the Holocaust was carried out top-down or bottom-up was long one of the most furious debates in all of historiography.
Assuming there are still humans around writing history in 50 years, undoubtedly some subset of them will be arguing about the degree to which Putin did or did not exert personal control over Russia
luka
Well-known member
i havent read this yet becasue it's very long but here you are yyaldrin, he said since it was you that asked and your his favourite
'
Well for the past 3 months I’ve been reading Michael Kofman, Rob Lee and Dimitri Alperovitch and shamelessly passing their analysis off as my own- so my understanding of war aims and strategy and all that is basically just a composite of what they say really.
As I take it, Ukrainians have become increasingly Western-oriented in recent years, which manifests politically in their aspirations to join the EU and NATO. Putin, both out of perceived national security concerns and a kind of ideological irredentism, wants to keep Ukraine in the Russian sphere of influence. Given that it’s the democratic will of the Ukrainians to Westernise politically, the only way for Putin to get what he wants is to reach a political solution in which Russian proxies in Ukraine can veto foreign policy. Initially Putin attempted to create a federalised Ukraine in which Russian-backed authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk* could, for example, veto trade agreements with the EU or NATO cooperation or whatever. After it became apparent that Zelenskyy (or any other democratically elected leader) wouldn’t accept Minsk II, Russia then decided that a puppet government needed to be installed in Ukraine, because even if a Ukrainian government were to accept Minsk II at gunpoint they’d rescind as soon as they could. Putin's calculated that this needs to happen as soon as possible, before Ukraine develops deterrents (weapons that could hit Moscow for example), before its military becomes too strong and in the longer term before Ukraine potentially comes under the NATO nuclear umbrella.
It looks like Putin's decision making is being compromised by a general hubris acquired after two decades of military successes and by the fact he’s now surrounded himself with sycophants and those fearful of him (judging by the way he’s publicly berated senior intelligence figures for example). He seems to have thought that he could rapidly take Ukraine with very little resistance, the government would collapse, the population would greet the Russian’s as liberators and the West wouldn’t react decisively. Instead, the operation has been botched logistically, with Ukrainians resisting effectively and the West showing far more resolve than anticipated. So now Russia will revert to how it fought in Chechnya and Syria- by the intense indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations. I imagine Putin now no longer feels he’s only fighting for Ukraine, but fighting for his premiership- the basis for his popular support was that he was perceived as fixing the economy after the 90s and given how he’s fucked everything, I can’t see Russia’s political elite now have much faith in him.
Morally, my instincts aren’t particularly sympathetic to the Kremlin on this one. Russia ostensibly fears NATO’s eastward expansion, based on their history of being invaded by Western powers, but given the size of their nuclear arsenal I don’t buy the idea that Russia is now under any realistic threat, whereas their non-NATO neighbours on the other hand clearly are under threat from Russia. If the Kremlin feels that it can only guarantee it’s own security by denying the democratic self-determination of it’s neighbours then, morally if not pragmatically, that’s fundamentally an illegitimate position.
* it’s worth pointing out that any available polling we have shows that the majority of people living in the ’separatist’-controlled areas actually want to be a part of Ukraine; the separatist movements are controlled by people with ties to Russian intelligence who fight using (unacknowledged) Russian soldiers- the separatists are better understood as Russian proxies, rather than a genuine grassroots movement supported by the local population. I believe even Igor Girkin said that without Russian support the movements would have fizzled out.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Barty OTM here.
A common theme in commentary is that NATO is a "threat to Russia", which - at an existential level - is obviously not true. I mean, what are we going to do - invade Russia, for no particular reason? That would be totally insane even in the absence of the nuclear deterrent. France and Germany both tried it, when each country was the world's foremost military power, and both failed. And since the advent of thermonuclear weapons and ICBMs, it would be not just insane, but suicidal. As would any other kind of direct attack on Russian territory.
What NATO represents is an obstacle to Russian imperialism.
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Russia are worried about US/Ukraine biolabs on their border, given the US' in/advertant release of the Wuhan sneeze
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Ahh, well it turns out there is a neat explanation for everything, after all.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Have to say, this surprises me. I thought Barty was quite popular?