Russia Surrounded

Clinamenic

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Leo said:
what should he be doing different?
Click to expand...
I think the argument here, that I don't ultimately agree with, was that the big deficit spending bills shouldn't have been passed, because of how they could have effected (?) inflation. I really don't know the economic details of the impacts of these bills, but I'm inclined to believe they were warranted.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
luka said:
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.
Click to expand...
This is just the standard take I know shit about Eastern Europe and I knew all of this, anyone who reads papers or Twitter knows this, Barty come back on Dissensus and put some effort in, this slacking off doesn't suit you
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
As per usual America is divided into those who are saying "thank fuck Trump is gone and Biden is in charge cos otherwise this horrible thing - which obviously is a direct result of Trump's policies and (in)action while president - would be a million times worse and Trump, who is terrified of Putin, would have allowed him to waltz right in" and those saying "If only Trump were still President to continue his policies which prevented this occurring while he was leader cos Putin would have been too scared of him to try anything like this".

Analysis that is good should be based on looking at what is known and what has happened and following to see where that leads one. If someone sees Russia invade Ukraine and then, in line with their allegiance, sets about trying to find a way to explain why it is entirely the fault of Trump/Biden then it's not true analysis and can be pretty much disregarded. Now of course it's possible that someone followed the first method in a genuinely unbiased way and concluded that the blame falls squarely on one of those two, so maybe it's unfair to assume that all writing of this kind is just bollocks, however I reckon that a good proportion of it is. While there may indeed be blame to apportion, perhaps it's not the most pressing issue and - as a way to separate the wheat from the chaff - I tend to be wary of any writing by those who appear to think that it is.
 
subvert47

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
luka said:
dont fuck up afghanistan, russia, world economy, peace on planet earth etc
Click to expand...
A little disingenuous there, maybe? Since Biden simply happened to be president when the incredible "deal" that Trump "negotiated" with the Taliban - by totally sidelining the Afghan government and giving the Taliban everything they wanted while asking for virtually nothing in return.

US-Russia relations would certainly be "better" if Trump were still in charge, but that's only because Trump would be perfectly happy with Putin establishing a Russian Empire Mk III stretching as far as Germany's eastern border.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
suspended said:
This is just the standard take I know shit about Eastern Europe and I knew all of this, anyone who reads papers or Twitter knows this, Barty come back on Dissensus and put some effort in, this slacking off doesn't suit you
Click to expand...
the whole point of bartys politics is that it is the standard take. that's his thing. it's his dark secret.
 
yyaldrin

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
suspended said:
This is just the standard take I know shit about Eastern Europe and I knew all of this, anyone who reads papers or Twitter knows this, Barty come back on Dissensus and put some effort in, this slacking off doesn't suit you
Click to expand...
yeh i agree. i was hoping he could give us an interesting russian perspective seeing as he have spent weeks in st. petersburg.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
we've talked exhaustively about this though. everything is already mapped out. there's no position on the board you
haven't seen. twitter maps them all and encourages you to pick your square and start shouting. no one is going to
twist your melon.
 
?

...

Beast of Burden
craner said:
I was just respectfully pointing out to version that he shouldn't be so surprised by the extent of contemporary Ukrainian antisemitism, because that kind of poison doesn't disappear very easily. Poland has never really managed to exorcise its cultural antisemitism either, despite the fact that the Nazis and their collaboraters successfully murdered 90% of the Polish Jews. It's not helped by the fact that Eastern and Central European countries have never had to fully account for their own role in the Holocaust because the focus was always on German culpability (quite rightly).

This is not the same as saying that Ukraine is now ruled by neonazis, which has been the Russian propaganda line since 2014 and is a bit rich considering Russia's political culture is closer to classical fascism than Ukraine's was (until today).
Click to expand...

My friend Sean Shapiro wrote a post on Facebook last week with direct relevance to the point above:

I don’t like to wade into politics on social media. I don’t need the aggravation.

But occasionally, as with Brexit, I find I want to say something to those who might listen.

Ukraine is a strange beast.

I remember the Orange Revolution back in 2004. I had friend who was carried away by how the Ukrainians protested the rigged election process that put Yanukovych back into power. I was cynical. Said it wouldn’t lead to anything. They would be crushed by the state, by the police and military. And besides Putin would never allow it to happen. (Just like Belorussia last year when the Russians sent tanks into Belorussia to ‘restore calm’ after widespread protests against their dictator.) Anyway, I was wrong (or so I thought) and the revolution succeeded and, despite all the usual flaws and duplicities, Ukraine became a more democratic country. It turned its back on Putin and looked to the West.

And then the Putin-backed Russian separatists began their conflict. Which, despite my fears, just seemed to simmer on in the background and didn’t turn into the full scale war I feared.

And I remember when Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine.
It was astonishing. He was young. An outsider. An actor and TV host known for his comedic touch running on a platform that he would do things differently. It was amusing that he was standing up to Putin, standing up to corruption and bad governance.

And he was Jewish.

Unbelievable.

When Jews with roots in Eastern Europe argue over how bad it was for their ancestors—it’s usually the Ukrainians who win.
Before Nazi Germany the biggest massacres of Jews took place in Ukraine. Worse than the massacres of the Crusades. Horrific slaughter.

And the man at the head of it all, still a great hero to many Ukrainian nationalists, was the Cossack Bohdan Khmelnystky. Who led an uprising against the Poles who ruled Ukraine, who united Ukrainians and overthrew the yoke of Poland. But -- history is complicated and national heroes aren’t wise and perfect angels -- he didn’t achieve full autonomy and was sorta-kinda responsible for Ukraine falling under the influence of Russia.

And it was during this uprising that the Cossacks earned their reputation as merciless slaughterers of Jews. Their independence struggle became a pretext for ridding Ukraine of its Jewish population. Massacre after massacre after apocalyptic massacre.

This was the image I had of Ukraine.

And this was the country that elected a Jew as its leader.

Unbelievable.

I watch the news and I hear the names of Ukrainian cities and districts. These names are as familiar to me as the cities in the bible. Hasidism was born in the Ukraine. The founder of the Hasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov was born in the Ukraine. Berdychiv, Uman, Zhytomyr -- these places have an aura of legend to anyone with an interest in Jewish history. This is where that sect came from and this where that Rebbe had his court. These are places that Hasids from all over the world still make pilgrimage. Sholem Aleichem, the bittersweet humorist giant of Yiddish literature -- the Mark Twain, the Herman Charles Bosman of Yiddish -- came from Ukraine. These are places where Jews were returning to, where after the collapse of the Soviet Union (the Nazis nearly destroyed Yiddish language and culture -- Stalin and the Soviet regime delivered the coupe de grace, killed and exiled the Yiddish poets, writers and intellectuals who had survived the Holocaust, wiped them out almost completely) a modest renaissance of Jewish life was happening.

And Odessa! Odessa is Gogol. Odessa is the city with a legendary sense of humour. New York humour is Jewish humour and Odessa humour is Jewish humour. How do I know? I’ll tell you a joke. “Is it true all Odessans answer a question with a question?” “Who told you that?”

I watch the news and I hear the names of Ukrainian cities and districts. And this one is being bombed and that one has Russian tanks approaching.

I did my military service in the Belgian army in 1994. In our base in Germany two flags flew. The Belgian flag. And the flag of NATO. The Soviet Union -- which had persecuted Jews and obliterated Yiddish culture -- was gone. But the alliance of Western nations that had determined that it wouldn’t move any further west, that had preserved our social and ethnic freedoms was still there. Where is Stalin now? Where is Lenin? Where is Brezhnev? I looked at the NATO flag and I swelled with pride.

Today I was scrolling Twitter.

Today I saw Zelensky, his face bearing the weight of an entire nation, saying:

““Today I asked the 27 leaders of Europe whether Ukraine will be in NATO, I asked directly. Everyone is afraid, does not answer. And we are not afraid, we are not afraid of anything.”

Today I was ashamed of my pride.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top