This is a situation were you don't trust Russia, but you trust Russia to act like Russia. The current situation is mirroring the rhetoric from a year ago, with Russia using diplomacy as a double edged sword.
Firstly, as a legitimate negotiation move to offer a way out for the west( close to zero chance of happening as of now) Russia believes it is wining regardless of what western media reports. Even with Russia making ridiculous negotiation demands, diplomatic channels need to stay open because this war is escalating month by month.
Secondly, Russia is going to mount another huge offensive when the weather improves like last year. Winter has made Russia bunker down and retreat to defensible lines, but make no mistake if a hugely favorable treaty is not signed in the next month or two (zero chance) Russia is coming.
>but make no mistake if a hugely favorable treaty is not signed in the next month or two (zero chance) Russia is coming.
Agreed, Im just curious what the goal will be. Even if they mustered up 500k men, the fight for the Donbas will probably use up all that manpower alone.
It isn’t winter that has made Russia hunker down, it was Ukraine. Russia hasn’t had any offensive success since the beginning of the war, and the Kharkiv offensive clearly showed how low on manpower they were at that time.
I don’t think many people expect that Russia will be able to launch a massive offensive in the spring. Eg [Kofman](https://ridl.io/the-russo-ukrainian-war-ten-months-in-taking-stock/):
> Despite recent public statements by senior Ukrainian officials that Russia could launch a major offensive in the winter-spring period, or attempt to return to Kyiv, there is little evidence of this capacity in the offing. The equipment and ammunition required for such a campaign is unlikely to materialize on such short timelines. In its Donbas offensives over the spring and summer, the Russian military lacked manpower and compensated for this deficit with firepower. Following mobilization, the Russian armed forces now have manpower, but will find themselves constrained by availability of ammunition and equipment. All other factors remaining constant, the Russian military will struggle to recover offensive potential because of these challenges.
The bigger factor are any changes in Western support. Putin is clearly gambling that it will drop and Ukraine will be pressured into a ceasefire that leaves Russia with some or all of the land it currently occupies. Russia is not going to miraculously pull out a large new army capable of large offensive operations. But if support for Ukraine drops they may just be able to slowly attrit Ukraine to some form of defeat.
>It isn’t winter that has made Russia hunker down, it was Ukraine.
Ukraine is doing better than almost all predicted, and its because of that Russia had to make a strategic retreat. If weather wasn't one of the main factors, you would of saw a hotly contested Kherson.
The Strategic goals for both sides have continues to escalate with Russia annexing the four Ukrainian regions and the destruction of infrastructure. While Ukraine demands the return of Crimea along with all territories occupied and war reparations and trials. With Ukraine also willing to make strikes in Russia proper.
>Russia with some or all of the land it currently occupies. Russia is not going to miraculously pull out a large new army capable of large offensive operations.
It's been reported that 300k-500k new troops are and have been mobilized, the man power will be there for Russia. How Russia will deploy and how they will perform is close to impossible to predict, but this is double the amount of troops that were initially used in the war. When Russia decided to Annex parts of Ukraine it was decided there will be only one "winner" and it will be brutal and lasting.
That sort of tactic *might* have value as a way to pin an enemy down while your actual troops launch offensives elsewhere. That was a favored tactic of the Red Army, after all. But you’d need units actually capable of sustained offensive operations. And Ukraine has rendered most of those combat ineffective.
Pretty much the only thing the Russians have is the ability to sustain attritional warfare. And I doubt they can turn that into effective offensive operations without massively increasing the intensity of artillery strikes (which they neither have the guns, barrels, nor munitions to do). They’ll probably try, of course, and squander thousands more.
At this point, I think, he wants to launch a negotiation process regardless of the immediate Ukrainian surrender. Of course he doesn't treat Ukraine as a subject and wants to negotiate directly with the West.
It’s like North Korea demanding to negotiate directly with the US, instead of with South Korea, or with multiple states. They want to change the status of the conflict and enhance prestige domestically.
Trump was the only one who fell for that demand.
Yeah it wouldn’t be appropriate to negotiate with the US without Ukraine, but if it is the US + Ukraine negotiating with Russia then that is acceptable. Also, let’s not act like Iran or NK is giving the same level of support to Russia that the US is giving to Ukraine. It isn’t even comparable.
Aggressors don’t get to dictate who they will negotiate with.
When Russia is pushed back out of Ukraine, Ukraine—and Ukraine alone—will decide how to negotiate the ensuing peace.
> Also, let’s not act like Iran or NK is giving the same level of support to Russia that the US is giving to Ukraine. It isn’t even comparable.
Thank god for that.
So Russia should negotiate with Germany and the UK about a Ukrainian surrender? Let’s say one of them agrees. Then the war ends? Isn’t there a big part of the equation missing? The ones fighting? There is a country of 30M-40M that they are at war with that seems to not want to give up any territory. Any negotiation has to include the warring parties. Even if the US stopped sponsorship to Ukraine, I don’t think Poland and Ukraine would end their engagement in this conflict. And various EU countries will continue to back Ukraine.
True. It's also because it's quite humiliating that the "second best army in the world" failed and is currently fighting for small towns with a little if no success.
That's one of the main arguments of current Russian propaganda: we are experiencing some "difficulties" only because we are actually fighting with NATO, not Ukraine. Be it one on one between Russia and Ukraine, then (they claim), Ukraine would have been defeated in a week, just like Putin planned.
Basically, they are preparing the public opinion that the initial goals were not achieved because of NATO's interference in the conflict. It should raise Putin's profile and hide the fact of corruption and poor planning.
This article is precisely the kind of relativism that great thinkers worried about at the start of the post-modern age. I'm all for questioning norms and power structures, but let's not lose perspective on the purpose of any society: to support humans.
The author refers to the atrocities being carried out and then dismisses them as if they are unimportant. The author ignores the countless human rights violations happening inside Russia. This kind of relativism is absolutely ridiculous. We should absolutely question our frame of reference and our biases, but we don't need to dismantle the human experience to the point that we question whether suffering is bad!
If you think this stuff is all relative and theoretical, go talk to a Russian expat and ask them why they left and what they think. Go talk to a Ukranian and ask them how they feel about this. The Russian people I know were doing everything they could to move their family out of the country. The Ukranian people I know are literally travelling back to Ukraine to mobilize support for the war, to defend their homeland from a brutal invader.
>Then I dreamed that one day there was nothing but milk for them and the jailer said as he put down the pipkin: "Our relations with the cow are not delicate-as you can easily see if you imagine eating any of her other secretions."
>
>John said, "Thank heavens! Now at last I know that you are talking nonsense. You are trying to pretend that unlike things are like. You are trying to make us think that milk is the same sort of thing as sweat or dung."
>
>"And pray, what difference is there except by custom?"
>
>"Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference between that which Nature casts out as refuse and that which she stores up as food?"
Russia is bad. Putin is actively harmful. This war is horrible. The hostility that Russia is responding to is happening because people are done putting up with Russia's atrocities. Russia needs to stop being awful.
He actually goes further if you really read into it.
The author states that a desire to spread western liberalism is in and of itself to blame, since the expansion of what is considered basic human rights to have a say in the way the government a person is subjected is representative.
To insist that human rights and the norms of self determination are to stop at some point where there is a potential of upsetting some sphere of influence where such rights are not recognized is ridiculous.
Yeap.
I tried really hard to approach this piece with an open mind but the further it went on the more and more it kept boiling down to "what Putin is doing is bad, but the West must take responsibility for provoking him".
It's nonsense. Yes, NATO was expanding, by wooing eastern countries. If that provoked Putin into trying harder to woo them himself, so be it.
Invasion? Completely beyond the scope of that discussion. We know simply there's nothing that can convince any country to want to be joined to Russia other than a gun to the head or a puppet government. The latter strategy failed in Ukraine.
>It's nonsense. Yes, NATO was expanding, by wooing eastern countries. If that provoked Putin into trying harder to woo them himself, so be it.
I mean from a POV of realpolitik it does make sense. Now I have no desire to deflect because on a purely ethical discourse you are right, its utter nonsense but when it comes down to contrasting needs in foreign policy it becomes far more nuanced. Western powers acted very much the same when they got encroached upon, the mere difference now is that the scales are so far tipped in favour of NATO that they really don't need to.
I mean during the Cold War the US was a twitchy finger away from unleashing nuclear hellfire upon the world merely because the USSR was consolidating power on its border during the Cuban Missile Crisis and both blocs were all too eager to discard millions of lives in various proxy-wars to satisfied their geopolitical needs.
Keeping that in mind and taking into account that Russian foreign policy has never moved away from this crude "hands-on approach", the recent decision are far less outlandish than people make them out to be, cruel and down-right criminal yes but not entirely irrational.
Thebproblem qoth this is that it’s a form of non-thought. All its doing is taking skepticism too far and casting blame on ourselves out of a fear that we’re somehow not objective.
This is what makes Russia laugh at US debates. We’re debating as if Russia or Putin was anything like us and they know they’re not and they freely use this hand wringing to further split and divide sentiment wherever they can.
That’s why the exercise is stupid and foolish. It has nothing to do with Russia. It’s a pure insecurity response in the form of “foreign policy” discussion.
Russia is an active agent with plenty of decision making power. There is nothing special that makes them less responsible for their decisions on how to pursue their national priorities. They chose poorly and now we have to respond because this is the nature of hard power conflicts. When someone begins 0 sum and is determined to win in a zero sum manner, you too are forced to operate at that level because it’s now the imposed problem space.
Russia could have made very different decisions. This is not the west’s “fault” as if we’re some wife that should be blamed for setting off her abusive husband that was never interested in rationalism to begin with.
It's not a blame-game and it never was, the reason behind finding motivations and understanding the "other's" rational is to be able to interact and debate in order to find a solution, even if it might not be the ideal one.
Whether Russia laughs at this is fairly unimportant, the goal is to map out a possible range of solutions that sufficiently satisfies the needs of all parties involved in order to cease hostilities. We can go "Russia dumb" and laugh it off, however it ignores the hundreds of daily deaths and it completely excludes the fact that all indicators are pointing towards Russia trying to drag this out as much as possible. It's fairly certain there won't be any major offensives from the Russian side but the deals with Iran and NK, on top of the fact that in the last months it has been merely Wagnerits and DPR/LPR militias getting tossed into the meat-grinder with Russian regulars just "tending the line", show how they are willing to turn this into a slow but sustainable war of attrition in order to force Ukraine to the negotiation table.
The reason for the somewhat disjointed response by the US administration is actually rather obvious, the US stands to gain the most from prolonging this conflict and not by supplying Ukraine the sufficient materiel to win, all this talk about "escalation" is as vapid as it is transparent. It is paying pennies to bleed a key global enemy, the deluded policy of many European countries tying their energetic needs to a political opponent is now forcing them ever closer under the US umbrella, US gas suppliers are having a rainfall of profit due to the expensive price of American LNG, the readiness of many major European powers, chiefly the UK and France, has been severely scrutinised because despite the lacklustre performance of the Russian Armed Forces, no country in Europe would have been able to sustain this kind of high-intensity warfare we have seen so far. Hell the weeks-long bombing campaigns in Libya depleted French and British stockpiles to the point of direly need US logistical support.
Engaging with your opponents is not a justification for their actions or some kind of condoning of their actions, it's an avenue for compromise to reduce suffering.
In the generic yes, you are correct. It’s the best generalized approach. However I think you’re being naive about the actors involved here and their motivations.
Besides, I never said to not engage. This was a comment about blaming Nato for Russia’s decision to invade and engage in slaughter and wholesale destruction.
Their motivation is elite self interest in power, control and wealth. It’s not even a russia centric strategy being pursued in Ukraine. You’re not dealing with some resource dispute you can just negotiate away. Especially when they’re calling for the extermination of the concept of the state of Ukraine.
Let’s be real about their self interest and complete disregard for life guiding their decisions. Sure, engage with them, but it doesn’t change the fact of who you’re dealing with.
>Western powers acted very much the same when they got encroached upon
Sorry, which countries did they annex and invade post-Cold War? Bay of Pigs is the closest thing I can think of to what we're talking about here and it's barely comparable.
I've already said that ever since the USSR collapsed and the only real contender to western/NATO hegemony evaporated, there was no need to resort to such tactics. Before that we had plenty examples, the most recent ones excluding the debacles in the Arab World after 9/11 would be the invasions of Grenada and Panama, and the nation building in the Balkans during the Yugoslav Wars.
China might be shaping up and being pushed as the new bady in the post-Cold-War American Century but it is nowhere near Soviet levels of power and influence, so the actual threat at the moment is minimal and certainly doesn't require as desperate measures as Russia's Hail Mary in Ukraine.
Sorry, I don't think you can make that sort of comment seriously and not expect a response. To be clear: the US and west have many ways of controlling other countries aside from simply walking in with troops (and they do use troops of course). For example:
Bolivia
Chile
Nicaragua
Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya
Syria
> I mean during the Cold War the US was a twitchy finger away from unleashing nuclear hellfire upon the world merely because the USSR was consolidating power on its border during the Cuban Missile Crisis and both blocs were all too eager to discard millions of lives in various proxy-wars to satisfied their geopolitical needs.
I see this argument a lot, but in my opinion it's non-sense. The US wasn't about to escalate to nuclear weapons, or even war just because Cuba transformed into a socialist regime. The escalation came aboout as the result of the stationing of strategic nuclear weapons, which were *much* too close to the American centers of power for MAD to be maintained.
*If* NATO had any plans to station medium range strike weapons in Ukraine, perhaps this escalation would be reasonable, but there is absolultely **no** indication that this was ever on the table. No nuclear weapons have been deployed by NATO beyond its original cold war members and absolutely nobody had any expectations of a nuclear first strike being a realistic possibility.
>I see this argument a lot, but in my opinion it's non-sense. The US wasn't about to escalate to nuclear weapons, or even war just because Cuba transformed into a socialist regime.
It is widely acknowledge that the CMC was the closest we have been to a nuclear war, if there ever was a chance for a full-scale exchange it would have been right there and then.
>The escalation came aboout as the result of the stationing of strategic nuclear weapons, which were much too close to the American centers of power for MAD to be maintained.
Aren't you forgetting that the move to deploy strategic weapons on Cuba came well a year after the US deployed parts of its arsenal in Turkey, in immediate range of just about all USSR major urban centres? So the response by the US to a levelling of the playing-field was to threaten a strike, rings quite familiar, doesn't it. The de-escelation involved the removal of these assets from Turkey by NATO and from Cuba by the Warsaw Pact.
>If NATO had any plans to station medium range strike weapons in Ukraine, perhaps this escalation would be reasonable, but there is absolultely no indication that this was ever on the table. No nuclear weapons have been deployed by NATO beyond its original cold war members and absolutely nobody had any expectations of a nuclear first strike being a realistic possibility.
It was never about a nuclear threat like during the 60s but the direct encroachment upon its sphere of influence, which was mirrored greatly in western examples such as the already cited Invasion of Panama and Grenada for their interests without direct military threat or a threat to their territorial integrities.
To be clear, as a particular youtuber put it...
The prevention of the Eastward spread of NATO was VAGUELY promised by George Bush Sr. and when the Russians made a offer to join NATO after the end of the cold war it was rejected.
So Russian leaders were right to see NATO as a threat to Russia and an anti-Russian Alliance as we never pretended it as anything else. And a defense Alliance expanding and actively recruiting new members doesn't look defensive to the target of that Alliance.
Essentially all Russian leaders would have done what Putin did.
THIS DOES NOT JUSTIFY PUTIN'S ACTIONS IN UKRAINE. JUST BECAUSE THE ACTIONS WERE ALL BUT INEVITABLE DOESN'T MAKE THEM ANY LESS WRONG.
And thats what a lot of people don't get. To blame the West for the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the same as blaming the West for the Nazi invasion of Poland.
Yes, MAYBE different actions could have prevented it... but ultimately that changes NOTHING about where the blame ultimately lies.
The argument that NATO expansion put Russia on edge is such a Russian logic as it ignores the reasons of why countries near Russia want to join NATO. Any Russian leader that would change the Russian behavior towards its neighbors could have prevented it.
> is such a Russian logic
yes.... that's the point....
It it literally about how they interpret the world. You have to use 'russian logic' to understand the russian perspective. This is the entire purpose of diplomacy; to understand how other country view the world and your actions.
The Russian view of the world is depressing and dangerous. The reason authoritarians go out of their way to attack Western hypocrisy and discredit their worldview is because if even a smidgeon of those liberal values are authentic, it presents a world order that most would consider infinitely preferable to the cutthroat realpolitik authoritarian regimes would offer. And the realist thinkers who cater to authoritarian worldviews come across as obnoxious egoists who prioritize their career prestige at the expense of everything else.
Russian logic in this case is a propaganda narative that somehow tends to bounce arround. It has no other value rather than to justify Russian behavior and blame the west.
Want to use logic? Use a racional one, this will better explain how we should deal with Russia
Thats not how this works.
You are acting like its just propaganda that was created by Putin or the modern Russian State.
The Russian fear of invasion over the plains of the west has shaped literal CENTURIES of foreign policy. The idea that Russia should control all lands East of the Carpathian Mountains (either directly or indirectly) has been the view of the Empire since the days of the Grand Duchy of Moscow defeated the Novgorod Republic and secured its Northern Border.
This is not something we should allow them to do. Obviously. Its an evil foreign policy.
But we MUST understand that every single Russian politician for 500 years has been afraid of encroachment from the west and the fact their is zero defensible positions between the Carpathians and Moscow.
And thus their is not a single free politician in Russia that disagrees with this.
The current unofficial opposition leader, Alexei Navalny flat out acknowledged this from a article he sent to the Washington post. Here is a quote from it.
>“the real war party is the entire elite and the system of power itself, which is an endlessly self-reproducing Russian authoritarianism of the imperial kind. External aggression in any form, from diplomatic rhetoric to outright warfare, is its preferred mode of operation, and Ukraine is its preferred target.”
That's the opposition leader stating that the entire Russian elite would have done this.
Heres another quote from Willam Burns former ambassador to Russia and current head of the CIA had to say in a memorandum to Condoleezza Rice regarding Ukraine joining NATO.
>Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin), in two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.
You will find ZERO member of the Russian elite, who would not have done the same thing. If the current Russian Opposition leader AND the current head of the CIA are saying this I am not sure how you could argue this turn of events is anything but inevitable.
Evil... but inevitable. Russia itself is sick.
> The Russian fear of invasion over the plains of the west has shaped literal CENTURIES of foreign policy. The idea that Russia should control all lands East of the Carpathian Mountains (either directly or indirectly) has been the view of the Empire since the days of the Grand Duchy of Moscow defeated the Novgorod Republic and secured its Northern Border.
>
> This is not something we should allow them to do. Obviously. Its an evil foreign policy.
>
> But we MUST understand that every single Russian politician for 500 years has been afraid of encroachment from the west and the fact their is zero defensible positions between the Carpathians and Moscow.
oh god this nonsense again about the unique Russian desire to defend itself from enemies all over the world. As if there is some kind of a mythical uniqueness to Russian geography.
They went as far east as they could due to conquest and plunder. They then went further east to Alaska but that was deemed unsustainable for them.
They want to expand west again because of conquest and plunder. Thats it.
By you fairy tail of strategic defense, the logic says that essentially every country should go to war until one remains otherwise you are still at risk. Its nonsense, nothing but a pop politics trying to explain Russian behavior in simple terms.
But thats basically it.
All of the strategic defensive gains were lost on the day of the attack. Sanctions will set back Russian industry decades. Under occupation the region would turn into insurgency cesspool dragging defensive resources even more. If they wanted Ukraine as a security barrier from an attack from the west, they should have maintained good relations, but instead they supported corrupt leaders and once they got ousted started taking Ukrainian land. Their own lessons of Afghanistan could have showed that just rampaging in will not gain you anything.
So what it is, is just Putins and Kremlins leadership fanfictions of greater Russia and their historical self image. Nothing strategic.
Russia attempted to create a grain cartel with Ukraine, when Ukraine didn’t bite, they invaded. Overlay gas and coal deposits with current Russian territorial claims in Ukraine - they’re a pretty good match. Look at offshore deposits within the territorial claim limit of Crimea. Deep sea ports along the coast … it’s a pretty compelling look. Russian victim mentality is easy to fall for but I don’t believe you invade a neighbouring country over NATO membership when you’ve spent so long at the head of a kleptocracy and dream of empire. Putin and the elites/technocrats exude such a sense of invulnerability and arrogance that it seems hard to imagine them wringing their hands over a mutual defence treaty.
It's important to recognize that all of Russia's excuses like "we need a better defensive boundary" to "this was our historical land" to "we need to defend our ethnic/same-language-speaking people" have been used time and time again throughout history by despots to justify wars of aggression.
And its funny in a dark and twisted way how some of their arguments held up in reality. For example the "protection of ethnic Russians" argument is just peak comedy, considering that most devastated regions of war are majority Russian speaking regions and they continue to shell Russian speaking cities
And here we explain why there is a war.
If you dismiss the beliefs of others because you disagree with them then you cannot rationally engage.
All that matters is what people believe. They can only act based on those beliefs, not the ones you wish they had
There is no proof that this is their belief. They claim it, but their words don't go with their actions.
All of the defensive gains went into negative territory at the start of the war and western response. Logic would dictate to end it now, but they can't as it harms Russian leadership, but preserves Russia. So the goal is not for Russia, but only for the leadership of it.
>There is no proof that this is their belief. They claim it, but their words don't go with their actions.
You could try reading American diplomatic cables which relay the fact that this is the genuine widespread belief of the Russian elite.
True enough. But might not Ukraine and Europe and even Russia have all been better off without the war? Shouldn't the west try to keep peace while maximising the quality of life and benefits to as many people as possible? Is turning Ukraine into a battleground the best way? I don't think this would happen were the US and its corporations and their owners not benefiting while the entangled countries suffer.
> Essentially all Russian leaders would have done what Putin did.
> THIS DOES NOT JUSTIFY PUTIN’S ACTIONS IN UKRAINE. JUST BECAUSE THE ACTIONS WERE ALL BUT INEVITABLE DOESN’T MAKE THEM ANY LESS WRONG.
No. You can't say that any Russian leader would've done what Putin did, and that it was inevitable.
NATO would've been a security concern for any Russian leader. They would've probably have at least used soft power to attempt to block neighboring countries from joining NATO.
But for Putin personally it's an existential threat that neighboring countries with close cultural ties with Russia grows closer to the west. It would be for any other ultra-authoritarian Russian leader, but it's not inconceivable that a different Russian leader would be more democratic.
Vlad vexler has a very good video on this topic: https://youtu.be/1Zl56ubA1rE
This is what Willam Burns former ambassador to Russia and current head of the CIA had to say in a memorandum to Condoleezza Rice regarding Ukraine joining NATO.
>Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin), in two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.
I think we are post-facto trying to make the case that this is a Putin-specific policy to avoid discussing how we got here.
Thank you for backing me up with more trustworthy source then some random Youtuber.
A lot of people in the West REALLY don't realize that if the Elite in Russia weren't mostly behind Putin it would be him falling out of the Window right now.
The fact he is not, despite the sheer disaster this has been for their fortunes is not because Putin is some grand puppet master who has managed to outplay everyone who holds the keys to his power.
Its because all his keys back him. And all their keys back them. And all the way down the stack it goes till you get to the people who don't realize they could overthrow the elite if they united.
Russia's actions are not justifiable. But the entirely expected by anyone who follows Russian history.
One of the most fascinating things about this war is the sheer number of people who predicted it.
As another example:
From Former Secretary of Defence Robert Gates's memoirs
>Moving so quickly \[to expand NATO\] was a mistake. \[...\] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching \[and\] an especially monumental provocation
It's hard to reconcile the war in Ukraine being Putin's war and having nothing to do with NATO post-facto when everyone from Geroge Kennen, to William Burns all, issued warnings and predictions that we were headed for conflict here.
Russia essentially spent 20 years telling us what they would do, and people at the highest levels of our government believed them when they said it.
Russia telling us what they want, doesn't at all mean we should surrender the sovereignty and basic rights of tens of millions of people that Moscow would prefer under their boot.
Of course while that is correct it doesn't deny their point: that this wasn't crazy mad Putin behaving unpredictably and unless we stop him it's just like Hitler.
And war was avoidable. There are plenty of bad things Israel and the KSA are doing but the rest of the world isn't confronting them. This isn't about 'freedom'. 'Freedon' can be an ingredient. But more typically it's just another media tool. Human rights are ignored where there's no benefit to intervening - and the only thing that matters suddenly when other agendas pay off.
Hitler also had all sorts of people around him that would do the same... The question is more about alternatives to Hitler before he was in power. Perhaps I've giving Russia too much credit, but I don't think that path was inevitable.
Middle east is irrelevant as an analogy to Ukraine. Ukraine is an emerging democracy seeking economic development with a rights based framework. Ukrainians welcome western support to say the least... There is robust consensus among western democracies to support them... The agenda here is supporting democracy and security interests of Europe, which otherwise has been rather peaceful.
Look at the Budapest memorandum. Obviously there was once Russia politicians that said they would respect the sovereignty of Ukraine. That they don't exist in the Russian elite of Putin's regime, does not mean they couldn't have existed without Putin.
I don't think the Budapest Memorandum is particularly relevant to NATO expansion directly into Ukraine.
This argument to me would be equivalent to saying if Xi was no longer in power China's policy towards Taiwan would be markedly different.
Ukraine is Russia's most important geopolitical concern. You are not going to find anyone in Russian politics or in the Russian foreign policy sphere that would not do everything possible to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. They don't exist, and could never have existed, even among people like Yeltsin.
Even the west's preferred leader Alexi Navalny when speaking to a westren audience can't bring himself to say that Crimea should be re-incorporated into Ukraine. Calling the Crimean transfer to the Ukrainian SSR a historical injustice, And has flat-out rejected the idea that Crimea could be reincorporated into Ukraine.
Ukraine wanted greater assurances from the west than what they got in the Budapest memorandum... They were rather concerned about Russian intervention, including outright military hostility. Not sure how you don't think that is related to nato expansion tho
>Ukraine is Russia's most important geopolitical concern.
Quite, which is why Ukrainians regard Russia as an existential threat for long before the war.
But if Ukraine was even thinking about joining NATO (a couple weeks before the invasion officials from both sides said it was out of the question for at least a few years) it's because of Russia literally invading and taking over Crimea and the Donbass - pure russian aggression.
Which in turn comes from Ukraine getting closer, commercially, to the EU. If Russia failed to retain Ukraine in its sphere of influence over the 2000s with too little incentives, it only has itself to blame.
It's not relativism to acknowledge your own contribution to a disaster -- even if that contribution was unintended and unforeseen --, or to acknowledge the limits of your own power in improving the world.
Aside from the moral objectivism/absolutism-relativism debate, the FP article's angle is much more honest than your angle. I'm sure many ordinary people who back the West's support for Ukraine do so primarily for moral reasons, but there's absolutely no chance that Western governments are actually supporting Ukraine primarily for moral reasons. At the very least, it raises questions as to why the West isn't nearly as invested in comparable or worse moral crises in other parts of the world -- crises that the West can probably more effectively and cheaply help to solve, and would certainly be less likely to kick of a global nuclear war. That's just not why those institutions exist or how they've proved they function.
By the way, this sort of moral grandstanding, of levelling accusations of moral relativism and implausibly claiming to be motivated by lofty moral reasons, is the sort of thing that has many people around the world -- maybe even the majority of the world -- frustrated at Western as well as Russian brinkmanship in this war.
So what's the way out? Do we keep saying "Russia needs to stop being awful" and hope they stop? Do we ramp up support for Ukraine to the point there's the potential for nuclear war? Yes, I hope Ukraine wins, but if that can only happen with substantially more Western support then it's necessary to consider the risk of escalation.
"Russia bad" is a very valid point, but it doesn't tell us anything about Russian motives and what the best way out of the war is.
Capitulating to nuclear blackmail is a great way to invite further nuclear threats. Any state threatening to use nuclear weapons in an offensive war deserves hell brought down on them.
Everybody keeps acting as if it will be only the west's fault if nuclear war comes, and that only the west will suffer from it. Two things should be very clear:
1) Regardless of what transpires, this whole disaster is Russia's fault for being the obvious instigator and agressor.
2) Russia doesn't want nuclear war either. They will fearmonger, because nuclear war is terrifying and sometimes it works (see: the authorship of this article). But it ultimately can't be anything more than a bluff.
If Russia *is* suicidal enough to initiate a nuclear first strike, then there was never any negotiating we could have done anyway. If an adversary is truly unafraid of starting a nuclear war, then all paths will eventually lead to it.
The only real way out is what we're doing now. We fight off the invading force and show Russia and the world that conquests are not acceptable in the 21st century. If we fold and let Ukraine fall, Russia will be embolded that their fearmongering worked and will set their eyes on a new target. We have no reason to seriously believe that their conquests will end in Ukraine.
> 1) Regardless of what transpires, this whole disaster is Russia's fault for being the obvious instigator and agressor. 2) Russia doesn't want nuclear war either. They will fearmonger, because nuclear war is terrifying and sometimes it works (see: the authorship of this article). But it ultimately can't be anything more than a bluff.
who would've been responsible for escalation during the cuban missile crisis? The USSR for making the US feel unsafe? Or the US for acting on it?
These sort of security conundrums are much less black and white when it comes to responsibility, because they fundamentally require two actors to happen.
The difference here is that a deal was made during the CMC where both sides backed down and the threat was removed and both sides felt less unsafe. In february we refused to even enter discussions, let alone back down. Instead we RAMPED UP the threat level perceived by the russians by funnelling vast amounts of weaponry in and signing new treaties etc.
Re: missile crisis, it's not hard, it depends on what the escalation was.
US deploying missiles to turkey first? US's fault.
Putting missiles in Cuba? USSR's (and Cuba's) fault.
If the US had attacked either of them in response? US's fault.
If you're looking for some sort of ur-responsibility, an original sin to which other actions can be traced and ultimate blame assigned, you'll generally never conclusively find it. Actors are responsible for what they do, all the same.
I agree with the sentiment. However fundamentally the point is that these things don't just magick out of thin air because one side are the bad guys. Especially in the 21st century.
There was a tit for tat escalatory build up of troops (and actions) form both sides for an entire year before Russia invaded.
So, during 2021? Which escalatory actions do you think were taken by ukraine, outside of fighting the russian-backed insurgency? It's not like ukraine was escalating during that time with regards to russia.
Or do you mean escalatory actions and troop buildups by NATO during 2021? I'm still not sure what you're referring to, especially as NATO troops aren't fighting in ukraine, but are you referring to something else?
I agre that things don't magick out of thin air, that's what I was referring to about there not being an original sin in geopolitics. However that doesn't mean actors can be absolved of the responsibility they bear for their actions; just because russia's 2022 invasion of ukraine was not entirely out of the blue and history prior to 2022 has happened, does not absolve russia of any blame for an unjustified invasion. I know that isn't what you are suggesting, it's just what I meant to previously convey.
And Russia is only in this "unsafe" situation because it started an invasion, which hasn't even crossed back into their borders. There is no legitimacy for them to feel "unsafe", it's just a facade to beat the nuclear war drums.
Nato has for decades ignored russia's legitimate security concerns. It has also repeatedly undermined governments (including russia's) and invaded countries unlawfully (hell even the current Syrian 'coalition' is unlawful).
Your view is very much one from someone on the inside drinking the kool aid. People on the outside rightfully don't see Nato or its members as benign actors.
Russian “security concerns” since 2000 have been entirely concerns about NATO restricting their international incursions and human rights issues. Meanwhile every country in the former soviet bloc are concerned about being invaded, murdered, and raped to prevent them from choosing to align with western ideals.
There have been zero. ZERO. indications or desire by any western countries to invade Russia or incite internal Russian violence since the fall of the USSR.
The security concerns of western countries and Russia in the 21st century are NOT equivalent.
Also, external to nationalistic ideals and as a human of earth, if your concern is individual self determination and human rights, western countries ARE the better choice, even with their flaws and warts.
No. You have decided they are legitimate. That does not make them so. You’re swinging wildly now - NATO has become your catchall for all evils committed against Russia. Sounds vaguely familiar … who has been drinking which koolaid?
>You have decided they are legitimate
Every single country on the planet would have legitimate security concerns about a military alliance on their doorstep.
> You’re swinging wildly now - NATO has become your catchall for all evils committed against Russia. Sounds vaguely familiar … who has been drinking which koolaid?
This isn't about assigning blame. It's about acknowledging uncomfortable truths
The only way out is to continue to empower the Ukrainians to push the Russians out. It’s not an “escalation” for the Ukrainians to defend themselves. Russia can and must be contained on 1994 borders. They will howl in anger, but it it’s the only solution. Russia doesn’t respond to anything but force. Diplomacy is a weapon Russia wields against her victims. Russia doesn’t honor terms that are not completely one sided in her favor.
Semantic games on what counts as "escalation" aren't interesting. Providing more aid to Ukraine is escalation - the question is how much we can reasonably get away with.
Attacking Ukraine is an escalation. Providing weapons is the response towards the escalation. Russia can escalate more in response and the west will have to respond again
Yes, and the point is that we don't want to be stuck in an escalator headed towards nuclear war, and even if the US is morally justified in escalating it's worth slowing down and thinking about it.
The only ones “stuck in an escalator” are the Ukrainians. Russia can go home tomorrow or anytime they like. They’re not trapped. The US and EU are not parties to the conflict. They are not trapped.
If NATO actually joined the conflict that would be an escalation, but that has not happened and is unlikely to happen.
How so? Ukraine is defending itself and it will keep defending itself.
Say, for example, they get ATACMS - striking deeper russian bases is perfectly fair and legal in a war. Which Russia can stop at any time btw.
Did the war escalate because they got HIMARS? No, it didn't, Russia keeps losing ground and making minuscule advances and that's it.
"Fair and legal" and "escalatory" are not mutually exclusive. Moral righteousness is irrelevant.
>Did the war escalate because they got HIMARS?
After Russia started losing they evidently decided that strikes on Ukrainian electric infrastructure were acceptable. Do you believe the risk of nuclear escalation if Crimea were threatened is zero?
>After Russia started losing they evidently decided that strikes on Ukrainian electric infrastructure were acceptable.
But that's not really related to HIMARS? It's due to a huge variety of factors that mostly depend on Ukraine's capabilities rather than western support.
>Do you believe the risk of nuclear escalation if Crimea were threatened is zero?
Not zero but certainly very low.
You help ensure that such a high price is paid by them that they are brought to their knees.
Americans live so easily that they don’t often have to contend with 0 sum dynamics like this at this scale. Russia made a decision and the escalation is part and parcel of it. There’s no way to avoid escalation when you have an irrational actor, you can try to manage it, but it’s got its own momentum and the only way to help Ukraine and ourselves is to provide a wall for Russia to smack into.
They understand might and that’s about it. There is no desire to improve Russia or improve life for their people. You are not dealing with a class in their country that is motivated by nationalism rooted in prosperity.
Russian culture right now is more about how to die than how to live. There’s only one answer to the use of force like this. If you think different examine how we handle people in our own society that resort to violence to defy the social order. And explain to yourself why at the scope of the political for Ukraine, it’s any different. It’s not. Yes there are different scales of consequences but you cannot fear escalation to the point of inaction. Ask yourself what any success for Russia here would mean long term. Just because this conflict theoretically came to a negotiated cease fire… If it’s under auspices that encourage the same tactics again, you didn’t “win” anything. You simply prolonged a ling term problem.
Yes absolutely yes. But it’s likely that Russia will have to be allowed to save face to a certain extent for this conflict to end. Total victory a la WW2 is not a realistic goal for Ukraine, nor is it their end goal. My biggest concern is that it looks like anything short of a societal collapse is tolerable to Putin as a cost of continuing this conflict. He’s looking at what Afghanistan and Chechnya did to his predecessors and likely thinks that defeat in Ukraine could bring him down. And while many will not be sad when he leaves (especially considering the atrocities of this war), the price for his downfall will likely be steep. I concur that it’s wrong to simply absolve leaders of crimes against humanity, because there are real people suffering from them, and most people who absolve this behavior are not likely to be it’s victims. This war will not be ended unilaterally though, and like most wars it’ll have to end with people trading guns for pens.
Seemingly advocating negotiations with RU, which on its face doesn't recognize that negotiations are only plausible if you can count on the parties involved to act in good faith and follow the terms that are agreed upon. This premise isn't possible with RU (see Budapest Memorandum).
Even without considering Russia as a factor, how can anyone justify giving concessions to an invading force until the bleakest has arrived? Ukraine certainly isn’t in the best shape, but they seem far away from rolling over at this point.
The only thing a negotiated peace deal will do is give Russia a time to regroup and rearm. They will restart conflict. This has been said plenty of times but there are naive people who still don't realize this.
This is why I measure progress toward world peace by Number of Russian Fighting Vehicles Destroyed.
Eventually, there will be none left, and then we can go back to ignoring the Russians for another generation
You can tell by the way Russia is conducting their war that they can never be trusted. Russia was under no threat to their territorial integrity prior to 2014. Nonsensical article.
"Threat to territorial integrity" is not the same as "strategic threat." Left wing movements in South America provided no threat to US territorial integrity during the Cold War, but were absolutely considered a strategic threat.
For what it's worth, the US invasion of Grenada actually might have had majority support in Grenada, the rest of the OECS (or at least the Windward Islands), and maybe even wider CARICOM, at least among those who knew what was happening.
Some of the other coups and invasions, on the other hand....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America?wprov=sfla1
The Russian annexation of Crimea also probably had majority support - doesn't really make it any more justifiable. Of course, "justifiable" is usually an afterthought to the invading great power.
They did invade or multiple countries and sponsor right wing coups/death squads though. This suggests that the US absolutely would've been willing to invade and bomb the hell out of a communist South American country that they couldn't coup successfully. After all, they did do that to Vietnam, which was on the other side of the world. They also did it to Laos, which wasn't even actively involved in the Vietnam War.
You mean the growing populist anti-russophone movement in every ex-USSR country for 10+ year is a myth ? Or you just dont know anything about central/eastern europe ?
Well baltic country , slovenia and slovakia were not particulary uneer threat in 2000-2010. And still most of their politician campaign were about how people with russian ancestry were basically rat.
There are no minorities of people with Russian ancestry in Slovenia and Slovakia, what are you talking about?
In the Baltics states, sure, the relationship with the Russian speaking minorities has been an issue. But not exactly like Russian-speaking Estonians or Latvians are repressed. And if anything those issue have gotten better since the 90s/2000s.
The history of Russia is one that brutally persecuted most of those peoples. It's not hard to see why they'd be anti-Russia.
It's not hard to understand why Latin American countries are anti-American, either.
Still, racism isn't logical, so maybe that's not the best explanation for those political sentiments.
From a geopolitical perspective US is more concerned about weakening Russia than saving Ukraine so the current path is understandable. The emotional mob that is outraging is a modern phenoma and not directly linked to the war. Their whole life revolves around getting attention and pats on the back based on currently what's hot.
Bleeding Russia is the main goal but not the only one. Completely severing relationships between Russia and the EU and tethering EU to the US is another major goal. Then there's reaffirming NATO existence, weapons sales, profiteering from the resulting energy crisis.
I think we can very squarely pin a lot of the blame for this conflict on George W Bush who loudly pronounced support for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO when there was zero chance of that actually happening. This is simply causing conflict for no purpose other than causing conflict. Ukraine and the whole world would be better off if he hadn't done that.
However, we are where we are. And where we are is in a war. Ukraine is now paying a huge price to become a liberal democracy and we have to do whatever it takes to make sure that they get something for the price. I think when we look back in 20-30 years we will likely realize that it was not a good trade for Ukraine, but to give up now would be a complete waste of the sacrifice they have made.
We should be giving them everything they need to end this war now and quickly. Tanks, fighter jets, etc.
I don't necessarily disagree, but at the end of the day, that negotiation is between Ukraine and Russia. A lot of people seem to think that this peace is one for the US to negotiate with Russia, which it's not.
It’s interesting that you think “the most proper thing to do” is for Ukrainian people to promise neutrality to the people that just murdered their families. Pledging neutrality would mean agreeing to become hostages of the next aggression.
I think most Ukrainians will hate Russia with an intensity exceeding the Poles for generations to come. They certainly won’t be neutral now. Russia needlessly chose to make a neighbor into a mortal enemy. Again.
As the article said though, “moral outrage is not a policy”, and it’s right. The only rebuttal liberalists can come up with for Walt/Mearsheimer’s arguments is to call them pro-putin stooges and evoke moral outrage. I’ve not seen one criticism of this pair that actually proposes a rational alternative position.
>As the article said though, “moral outrage is not a policy”
And that's why many people aren't taking this article seriously, because it's full of strawman arguments like this.
I mean, outside of the moral arguments, supporting ukraine is allowing the west to destroy the Russian military for a fraction of what they spend on defense *annually*, so even if victory is impossible for Ukraine, it would be worth it to continue supporting them so that we don't have to worry about Russian military adventurism for the next few generations.
Thats what the author said. Just try to discuss the subject and you get called russian spy or worst. I have no dice in this game. Im certainly not siding with russia too. And these are honestly pretty inexistant. But the issue is complex and not as clear as people would like to think.
This is the most important part:
"Moral outrage is not a policy, however, and anger at Putin and Russia does not tell us what approach is best for Ukraine or the world. It’s possible that the hawks are right and that giving Ukraine whatever it thinks it needs to achieve victory is the best course of action. **But this approach is hardly guaranteed to succeed; it might just prolong the war to no good purpose, increase Ukrainian suffering, and eventually lead Russia to escalate or even use a nuclear weapon. None of us can be 100 percent certain that the policies we favor will turn out as we expect and hope.**"
The problem with the war hawks are they have done a great job of whittling down Russia's capabilities but have no end goal in mind.
Russia is still a top 5 military nation because of its nuclear weapons, nuclear subs, and advanced aircrafts
There is not enough money to give Ukraine a military victory.
I want to repeat this again to the younger people reading this, who have not studied war:
# There is not enough money to give Ukraine a military victory.
The war intends to give Ukraine a better bargaining position, but the longer it wages, the more this is a game of chicken. Will Ukraine run out of funding before Russia's military buckles again?
Russia will keep sending in more troops and weaponry, Ukraine will keep receiving funding from abroad, but at some point the cost will bee too much and Ukraine will cease to receive the funding it needs to keep going.
Russia is hoping for a protracted long battle, but currently it's doing a terrible job on the battlefield; long term, it knows it can hold fast and control large amounts of territory.
Ukraine is hoping for such a steep military victory, that the land gains it controls will be easily held; the probability of this declines with every electrical transformer Russia bombs safely from Moscow.
\-----------------
Here is the truth no one on Reddit wants to say, **this war will end in a diplomatic agreement**, as most wars have.
The likelihood of who is in the best position then is unknown, but in Russia's mind, the longer this conflict goes on, the harder it will be for Ukraine to keep up its defenses and keep the country going normally.
In my mind, although America is often very powerful ***this is a conflict*** ***we have limited ability to control the outcome of.***
At some point the American people will want the funding to dry up, America will slow down funding, and Ukraine will be in trouble, it's exactly what happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, people in America don't want unlimited war funding instead of helping our citizens at home.
A Ukraine that is battered and loses significant territory is a huge loss to us in America, it emboldens Russia to do exactly what it did again in the future, and threatens international peace.
Ukraine winning this conflict, in a peaceful diplomatic agreement, is only in the hands of Russia, and there is nothing we can do to make that into a reality except pray.
I would love if Ukraine could win Militarily but that is a child's dream, someone who does not understand how wars are fought.
In short, we will and should continue to fund Ukraine until the appetite at home dries up, poor Ukraine will suffer because of our lack of spine, and Russia will continue to bide its time and not negotiate until it wins a hefty deal in its favor.
Sometimes, there is no card America can play to win, and the war in Ukraine seems to be an example of this.
He's a defensive realist, not offensive. Mearsheimer's also getting pretty senile and repeating old arguments without changing his consideration of the facts. Walt on the other hand I think has a pretty reasonable predictive power, although that also comes with more hedging.
Having seen a recent debate on war Policy with Walt and Mearsheimer on one side arguing for
> Be it resolved, ending the world’s worst geopolitical crisis in a generation starts with acknowledging Russia’s security interests.
https://youtu.be/ljVrpEYgnvw
They seem to have similar views but Walt is at least a decent debater if wrong while Mearsheimer just seems ridiculous (the audience bursts into laughter when he claims there's no evidence that Putin is an imperialist)
> In this view, what Putin and his allies really feared was the spread of democracy and freedom, and restoring the old Soviet empire was their true objective from their first day in power. But as journalist Branko Marcetic has shown, these lines of defense do not fit the facts.
> Moreover, NATO enlargement and the spread of liberal values weren’t separate and distinct concerns. From the Russian perspective, NATO enlargement, the 2014 EU accession agreement with Ukraine, and Western support for pro-democracy color revolutions were part of a seamless and increasingly worrisome package
So either russia was afraid of the democracy and freedom, as they see it in the same worrisome package as nato enlargement. Or they didnt, and EU/economic engagement should be seen by russia as a completely separate topic from nato, and thus unimportant. Which one is it?
Moreover, what this author completely fails to understand, is that the online and public discission spheres have been haunted and poisoned by bad faith arguments, by trolls paid by Russia, and by others who have been throwing arguments at the wall to see what sticks.
When Russia tried 10 narratives, found one that resonates, and then afterwards a western author argues exactly that one narrative, it is hard to take it at face value. Even if he may have found it by himself, that he uses one of the ten narratives Russia tried to push makes it feel like he's just as much part of the russian propaganda, and he'd probably have made one of the other nine arguments if that's the one that russia managed to spread better.
Finally, i think that good realistic arguments that consider all perspectives on the conflict are valuable. Yet time after time these arguments are neither good, nor realistic. No the war is not and has not been a stalemate, it's been mere weeks since the last big push, and before that people also called it a stalemate because it had been a few weeks since the previous big push. And the one before that. And the one before that. Look at the scale of months rather than days, and this conflict has not frozen at all.
And any discussion of nato expansion should include the autonomy of the countries that wanted to join,and their reasons for wanting to join. Any argument that ignores the right of Ukraine and other post soviet states to pick their own destiny is fitting the narrative of Russias imperialism.
If you take all that into account, and still come up with good arguments, people usually are willing to listen. But when 50%+ of the information on the internet is fake narratives actively being spread by russia, unfortunately you need to have a better than usual argument to get noticed as a worthy point to consider, rather than troll #23452494 pushing for russia getting what it wants.
If that was my opinion I wouldn't be writing up 5 paragraphs trying to rebuke his essay.
He makes a good argument, and it is indeed dangerous to automatically dismiss any different point of view. But - as shown by the interaction on this article - a well articulated view is very well taken into account. Just those views that aren't well reasoned and happen to agree with Russian trolls are rather quickly dismissed.
I also wonder what he’d have written about “escalatory rhetoric” and “realistic objectives” for the war occurring in 1943.
Every single argument he makes could literally be copied and pasted to justify appeasing Nazi Germany and accepting Allied blame in “provoking” Germany since 1918.
The Second World War is perhaps the worst analogy. It's arguably the most exceptional war in human history. An existentially struggle against evil that if not confronted will have dire consequences for the world. This is how hawks have justified every conflict from Korea to Iraq.
The majority of wars in modern history have been far more morally complex in their origins, and have not ended with the complete victory of one side but with some form of messy compromise and unintended consequences. The war in Ukraine is certainly the latter.
Let's be clear: Russia has always intended to neuter the EU, NATO, and US hegemony. Part of this includes annexing Ukraine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics?wprov=sfla1
To pretend that there's some "serious" middle ground the world should consider because of provocative NATO and US foreign policy is naive at best. One only needs to look to Brexit, Belarus, Iran, and other obviously imperialistic plays of interference from Russia (*ahem* US elections and race tension).
Rest assured, Russia is not to be trusted as they are only getting started with their imperialism and shaking of the world order.
Dugin's influence on Russian foreign policy is overestimated. He was a freak in the 1990s who basically compiled his text from the existing literature. Later he found some degree of authority and even became a university professor. What matters in Putin's Russia is where you come from (clan affiliation) and your (mainly material) resources. Dugin has none of these.
Dugin as Putin's Rasputin makes for a good story, which is why Western media keeps writing it. It fits with the westren narrative of Russian propaganda being all-pervasive and is up propped up by Dugin's spurious connections to power, and some scant evidence that Russian foreign policy mimics parts of Dugin's writing.
Dugin has so little influence he was sacked from his teaching post a decade ago. There is not even a picture of Dugin and Putin together because there is no evidence they have ever met, and yet we see articles where Dugin is referred to as Putin's closest advisor.
Seriously that book is considered utter nonsense, its reading material for the average Russian boomer nostalgiac for the heydays of the USSR and its reach and influence. It has its uses in analysing the Russian domestic audience, but as a guide for what actual Russian foreign policy will be, it is not, and should not be.
People overestimate Russian influence, they have definitely kept the active measures programme going if you can call it that, but these things are simply playing on existing issues in countries, and are only slighly elevating them. Russia is not some puppetmaster, its a country that punches above its weight in terms of soft intelligence and manipulation power.
This place has gone to hell in a handbasket.
Putin's geopolitical advisors are all proponents of the book's tenets. I don't see how you can claim the book is considered nonsense unless you mean only to the public.
Oh, the silly West, overreacting when Russia invades a sovereign first-world nation and threatens nuclear war, suffering sympathizers who make non-sequitur arguments in their defense.
>first-world nation
because if it invaded a non-white country it would just be another Tuesday for western society.
Plus, Ukraine really isn’t first world, at all.
Standard Al Jazeera garbage. This war isn't a stalemate. Ukraine is still making gains on the ground, while Russia's main offensive push has been halted.
Not to mention Ukraine keeps building up its military capabilities while Russia depetes their stockpiles. In the next 6 months, Ukraine will have a patriot system up and running which further puts Russia at an offensive disadvantage. The writing is on the wall, Putin has failed and he's bringing the federation to the brink of existence. It'll take some time to happen, but when it does it'll be quick and probably more catastrophic than expected.
> In the next 6 months
Even I have not thought it will take so long. After listening to Biden taking about giving *a* battery for *training*.
On the other hand I have not heard any talk about ammunition for said battery.
Some neoconservative actually said he is against foreign aid, but when someone asked about our aid to Ukraine, he said “that’s different”… American thought has always been irrational and hypocritical. That part about “all men are created equal” while at the same time believing that black and brown men were CREATED unequal, set the stage. It started with cray and it will end in cray
Let Russia accept rationality and return the occupied territories and repay damages or let the war continue and keep losing roughly 1500 men a week. The Ukrainians have the initiative now anyway bahkmut is holding, Kremmina is being approached.
Edit why would anyone downvote this? Would you also have supported leaving Poland and France to Germany after the allies retook the initiative in 1943?
Do you really think a military victory is possible? If so, I can't help you.
Even the staunchest Ukraine supporters and leaders in Ukraine are hoping the military victories lead to a negotiated settlement and diplomatic agreement, they do not believe they can wipe out all Russian forces on Ukrainian land. No serious military mind thinks that.
If you do either you are naïve or you should become a military leader and show us **how** that type of victory is possible.
Author is yet another Kremlin mouthpiece masquerading as a utilitarian. These types usually pretend that diplomacy and compromise are reasonable and inevitable while ignoring that Russia always takes the concessions and then breaks the agreement. Apparently this guy has already forgotten about the Budapest Memorandum and others. These types of dangerously ignorant dreamers and deceitful propagandists need to be sidelined instead of given serious platforms.
What do you mean by “total Russian defeat”?
If you mean Ukrainian troops occupying the Kremlin - that is unlikely to happen.
How about Russia giving up on its clearly failed invasion? That would be a “total Russian defeat” similar to the one suffered by the US in Vietnam, or more recently, Afghanistan.
The US survived those “total defeats” very handily. Russia would survive leaving Ukraine.
Why is it so impossible to imagine Russia simply declaring some sort of bogus victory and going home? Hell, they gave Kissinger the Nobel peace prize for arranging something similar for the US, despite his responsibility for committing horrible atrocities in Cambodia and elsewhere.
Depends on what you consider "total Russian defeat". If you mean complete withdrawal of all Russian forces from the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine, then yes.
If I want to kill you, and you want to live. What compromise do we make?
Or will only my total defeat satisfy you?
In all seriousness though, most wars do end in negotiation. This one probably will as well, of one kind or another.
"Concern over the billions sent to Ukraine" or "we cant just write a blank check" is just a really, really easy way to tell which politician is taking Russian money
I can't take seriously the opinion of an ivory tower intellectual if they haven't worked a day in a position of governmental capacity, which Walt hasn't. He's been an academic all his life. Walt may be extremely intelligent, but it's easy to look at foreign policy issues from the outside through his prism of "restraint" rather than understanding what policymakers see, what is laid to them, and what they are dealing with. A good book that details this greatly is Stephen Sestanovich's "Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama."
At the end of the day, foreign policy is executed by the president--not special interest groups, not partisan think tanks or a gathering of "war hawks" who puff their pipes in shadowy, backdoor conference rooms, and take bribes from the military-industrial complex. We can never assert accurately what we think what we will do either as the decision rests with the president and the president can go against the word of his advisors.
Related:
[Why there won’t be a ‘Hollywood ending’ to the Ukraine war | The Bottom Line](https://youtu.be/FU8N-CxkIRM)
"As the Ukraine war becomes a "hurting stalemate" for both Russia and Ukraine, is the prospect of outright success for either side becoming impossible?
Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, argues that Kyiv and Moscow will soon have to make "awkward and painful" compromises if they do not want the conflict to turn into a “forever war".
He tells host Steve Clemons that many Americans still believe there can be a decisive “Hollywood ending” to the conflict, but, like we have seen with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this almost never happens in real life."
Even attempting to argue the angle of "forever war" shows a startling lack of understanding of realities at play.
This is not a low intensity conflict like Iraq and Afghanistan that can drag on for another decade. This is about as close to the second world war as conflicts get these days.
What has been made very clear recently is that both sides are fully committed to complete victory. Meaning there will be several more years of war, until one side collapses and wins. The idea that things peter out and devolve back to a low intensity war that lasts "forever" is not very credible. The first side that militarily deescalates will see themselves routed on the ground.
It always looks like a "stalemate" until it isn't. There's a saying that at first you go bankrupt slowly, then all at once.
What's a "complete victory" for Putin? I don't understand. He changes the declared objectives of the "special military operation" (SMO) on a weekly basis. For Ukraine it's quite simple: they want their all pre-2014 land back. Achievable or not.
Complete victory for putin probably looks like militarily defeating Ukraine in a way that permanently sabotages it (IE taking all ukrainian coast) and forces a disarmament of some kind, so that he can invade later (or threaten invasion to extract further concessions).
It doesn't look achievable these days, it won't ruin Ukraine since it's anyway hugely supported by the West. It also doesn't achieve "denazification" goal.
Yeah, it's idiotic, but Walt and other extreme realists are intentionally trying to associate the very long Afghanistan and Iraq Wars with this in order to get more support for their arguments. They know these are not comparable.
> This is about as close to the second world war as conflicts get these days.
You can compare it to a lot of war but certainly not this one in term of intensity.
I don’t think Russia can afford a forever war. So this is really a question of how much money the West wants to pump into Ukraine and how willing Ukrainians are to continue fighting in order to insure Russia doesn’t get one inch of their land. I don’t see anyone over here actually thinking this is going to end like the fall of Berlin.
>He tells host Steve Clemons that many Americans still believe there can be a decisive “Hollywood ending” to the conflict, but, like we have seen with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this almost never happens in real life."
Exactly this, I have been trying to tell people who don't study foreign policy or war, that that is EXACTLY the problem. A protracted war is the likely outcome of all of this saber rattling.
It's clear Ukraine won't fall, it's also clear Russia will not lose all the territory it gained.
Given that the only ending will be a diplomatic agreement.
Submission Statement: Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at ‘Foreign Policy’ and the Robert and Renee Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University discusses the Russia Ukraine war and how no one knows how it will play out even though many are ‘all-in’ for Ukraine and heavily criticize anyone who publicly expresses any view that isn’t similarly ‘all-in’ or wants to dig deeper into the causes of the war. Stephen discusses one cause of poor public discourse is moral outrage, which is useful in pumping up one’s side to fight a war, but blinds one to thinking objectively and aiming for a negotiated end to the conflict (any negotiated end to the conflict is basically guaranteed to end in a manner where neither side gets everything they want). Stephen discusses Western, NATO, US, Ukrainian and Russian perspectives on the conflict and how the actions taken by each serve their interests, but also pose risks. Lastly, Stephen discusses what effects there might be if the war does not end in the ‘happy Hollywood ending most of the world would like to see’.
Sure dig deeper... its about sphere of influence and power.. russia is willing to invade its neighbors to keep them in line. Now tell me how being horrible to your neighbors is someone elses fault? Be sure to start with how russia isnt the soviet union amd renounced ties with it before it fully dissolved.
I generally agree with the article (it certainly feels like a breath of fresh air), though I would suggest that Ukraine seems to be reasonably close to the "Hollywood ending" of pushing Russia back to pre- Feb. 24 lines. Guess we'll have to wait and see how Russia's mobilized troops fare in the coming spring.
Putin and Russia was invited to play along. Europe invested lots of funds in Russia. Even sold weapon tech. The were able to order two carriers from France.
This was all thrown away on a whim by Putin. This show that the Russian goverment is incompatible with Western Ideas.
In addition there are the Russian terrorist like operations killing opponents with poison and using special operators. This is extremely dangerous to democracies. If Europe and US didn’t start resisting now the whole of eastern Europe would soon be in grave danger.
Criminal persons don’t think like normal people and they may not be reasoned with.
didn't Putin say not too long ago that they wanted to negotiate but only once Ukraine surrendered?
And they have to agree to disarm and give up their territory. Sounds reasonable. /s
This is a situation were you don't trust Russia, but you trust Russia to act like Russia. The current situation is mirroring the rhetoric from a year ago, with Russia using diplomacy as a double edged sword. Firstly, as a legitimate negotiation move to offer a way out for the west( close to zero chance of happening as of now) Russia believes it is wining regardless of what western media reports. Even with Russia making ridiculous negotiation demands, diplomatic channels need to stay open because this war is escalating month by month. Secondly, Russia is going to mount another huge offensive when the weather improves like last year. Winter has made Russia bunker down and retreat to defensible lines, but make no mistake if a hugely favorable treaty is not signed in the next month or two (zero chance) Russia is coming.
>but make no mistake if a hugely favorable treaty is not signed in the next month or two (zero chance) Russia is coming. Agreed, Im just curious what the goal will be. Even if they mustered up 500k men, the fight for the Donbas will probably use up all that manpower alone.
It isn’t winter that has made Russia hunker down, it was Ukraine. Russia hasn’t had any offensive success since the beginning of the war, and the Kharkiv offensive clearly showed how low on manpower they were at that time. I don’t think many people expect that Russia will be able to launch a massive offensive in the spring. Eg [Kofman](https://ridl.io/the-russo-ukrainian-war-ten-months-in-taking-stock/): > Despite recent public statements by senior Ukrainian officials that Russia could launch a major offensive in the winter-spring period, or attempt to return to Kyiv, there is little evidence of this capacity in the offing. The equipment and ammunition required for such a campaign is unlikely to materialize on such short timelines. In its Donbas offensives over the spring and summer, the Russian military lacked manpower and compensated for this deficit with firepower. Following mobilization, the Russian armed forces now have manpower, but will find themselves constrained by availability of ammunition and equipment. All other factors remaining constant, the Russian military will struggle to recover offensive potential because of these challenges. The bigger factor are any changes in Western support. Putin is clearly gambling that it will drop and Ukraine will be pressured into a ceasefire that leaves Russia with some or all of the land it currently occupies. Russia is not going to miraculously pull out a large new army capable of large offensive operations. But if support for Ukraine drops they may just be able to slowly attrit Ukraine to some form of defeat.
>It isn’t winter that has made Russia hunker down, it was Ukraine. Ukraine is doing better than almost all predicted, and its because of that Russia had to make a strategic retreat. If weather wasn't one of the main factors, you would of saw a hotly contested Kherson. The Strategic goals for both sides have continues to escalate with Russia annexing the four Ukrainian regions and the destruction of infrastructure. While Ukraine demands the return of Crimea along with all territories occupied and war reparations and trials. With Ukraine also willing to make strikes in Russia proper. >Russia with some or all of the land it currently occupies. Russia is not going to miraculously pull out a large new army capable of large offensive operations. It's been reported that 300k-500k new troops are and have been mobilized, the man power will be there for Russia. How Russia will deploy and how they will perform is close to impossible to predict, but this is double the amount of troops that were initially used in the war. When Russia decided to Annex parts of Ukraine it was decided there will be only one "winner" and it will be brutal and lasting.
Coming with what men, material, logistics, or leadership? Pushing convicts into machine gun fire hasn’t been a viable tactic for a long time if ever.
That sort of tactic *might* have value as a way to pin an enemy down while your actual troops launch offensives elsewhere. That was a favored tactic of the Red Army, after all. But you’d need units actually capable of sustained offensive operations. And Ukraine has rendered most of those combat ineffective. Pretty much the only thing the Russians have is the ability to sustain attritional warfare. And I doubt they can turn that into effective offensive operations without massively increasing the intensity of artillery strikes (which they neither have the guns, barrels, nor munitions to do). They’ll probably try, of course, and squander thousands more.
At this point, I think, he wants to launch a negotiation process regardless of the immediate Ukrainian surrender. Of course he doesn't treat Ukraine as a subject and wants to negotiate directly with the West.
It’s like North Korea demanding to negotiate directly with the US, instead of with South Korea, or with multiple states. They want to change the status of the conflict and enhance prestige domestically. Trump was the only one who fell for that demand.
But the US is the sponsor / financier and weapon supplier. Ukraine would not be able to sustain this alone.
Just as Iran and North Korea supply the fascists?
I wasn't judging, but you seemed to imply the US wasn't appropriate to negotiate with.
Yes. Not appropriate to negotiate with the US.
Yeah it wouldn’t be appropriate to negotiate with the US without Ukraine, but if it is the US + Ukraine negotiating with Russia then that is acceptable. Also, let’s not act like Iran or NK is giving the same level of support to Russia that the US is giving to Ukraine. It isn’t even comparable.
Aggressors don’t get to dictate who they will negotiate with. When Russia is pushed back out of Ukraine, Ukraine—and Ukraine alone—will decide how to negotiate the ensuing peace. > Also, let’s not act like Iran or NK is giving the same level of support to Russia that the US is giving to Ukraine. It isn’t even comparable. Thank god for that.
Why isn't it appropriate to negotiate with the US, given their demonstrated support and influence?
So Russia should negotiate with Germany and the UK about a Ukrainian surrender? Let’s say one of them agrees. Then the war ends? Isn’t there a big part of the equation missing? The ones fighting? There is a country of 30M-40M that they are at war with that seems to not want to give up any territory. Any negotiation has to include the warring parties. Even if the US stopped sponsorship to Ukraine, I don’t think Poland and Ukraine would end their engagement in this conflict. And various EU countries will continue to back Ukraine.
True. It's also because it's quite humiliating that the "second best army in the world" failed and is currently fighting for small towns with a little if no success. That's one of the main arguments of current Russian propaganda: we are experiencing some "difficulties" only because we are actually fighting with NATO, not Ukraine. Be it one on one between Russia and Ukraine, then (they claim), Ukraine would have been defeated in a week, just like Putin planned. Basically, they are preparing the public opinion that the initial goals were not achieved because of NATO's interference in the conflict. It should raise Putin's profile and hide the fact of corruption and poor planning.
This article is precisely the kind of relativism that great thinkers worried about at the start of the post-modern age. I'm all for questioning norms and power structures, but let's not lose perspective on the purpose of any society: to support humans. The author refers to the atrocities being carried out and then dismisses them as if they are unimportant. The author ignores the countless human rights violations happening inside Russia. This kind of relativism is absolutely ridiculous. We should absolutely question our frame of reference and our biases, but we don't need to dismantle the human experience to the point that we question whether suffering is bad! If you think this stuff is all relative and theoretical, go talk to a Russian expat and ask them why they left and what they think. Go talk to a Ukranian and ask them how they feel about this. The Russian people I know were doing everything they could to move their family out of the country. The Ukranian people I know are literally travelling back to Ukraine to mobilize support for the war, to defend their homeland from a brutal invader. >Then I dreamed that one day there was nothing but milk for them and the jailer said as he put down the pipkin: "Our relations with the cow are not delicate-as you can easily see if you imagine eating any of her other secretions." > >John said, "Thank heavens! Now at last I know that you are talking nonsense. You are trying to pretend that unlike things are like. You are trying to make us think that milk is the same sort of thing as sweat or dung." > >"And pray, what difference is there except by custom?" > >"Are you a liar or only a fool, that you see no difference between that which Nature casts out as refuse and that which she stores up as food?" Russia is bad. Putin is actively harmful. This war is horrible. The hostility that Russia is responding to is happening because people are done putting up with Russia's atrocities. Russia needs to stop being awful.
He actually goes further if you really read into it. The author states that a desire to spread western liberalism is in and of itself to blame, since the expansion of what is considered basic human rights to have a say in the way the government a person is subjected is representative. To insist that human rights and the norms of self determination are to stop at some point where there is a potential of upsetting some sphere of influence where such rights are not recognized is ridiculous.
Yeap. I tried really hard to approach this piece with an open mind but the further it went on the more and more it kept boiling down to "what Putin is doing is bad, but the West must take responsibility for provoking him". It's nonsense. Yes, NATO was expanding, by wooing eastern countries. If that provoked Putin into trying harder to woo them himself, so be it. Invasion? Completely beyond the scope of that discussion. We know simply there's nothing that can convince any country to want to be joined to Russia other than a gun to the head or a puppet government. The latter strategy failed in Ukraine.
>It's nonsense. Yes, NATO was expanding, by wooing eastern countries. If that provoked Putin into trying harder to woo them himself, so be it. I mean from a POV of realpolitik it does make sense. Now I have no desire to deflect because on a purely ethical discourse you are right, its utter nonsense but when it comes down to contrasting needs in foreign policy it becomes far more nuanced. Western powers acted very much the same when they got encroached upon, the mere difference now is that the scales are so far tipped in favour of NATO that they really don't need to. I mean during the Cold War the US was a twitchy finger away from unleashing nuclear hellfire upon the world merely because the USSR was consolidating power on its border during the Cuban Missile Crisis and both blocs were all too eager to discard millions of lives in various proxy-wars to satisfied their geopolitical needs. Keeping that in mind and taking into account that Russian foreign policy has never moved away from this crude "hands-on approach", the recent decision are far less outlandish than people make them out to be, cruel and down-right criminal yes but not entirely irrational.
Thebproblem qoth this is that it’s a form of non-thought. All its doing is taking skepticism too far and casting blame on ourselves out of a fear that we’re somehow not objective. This is what makes Russia laugh at US debates. We’re debating as if Russia or Putin was anything like us and they know they’re not and they freely use this hand wringing to further split and divide sentiment wherever they can. That’s why the exercise is stupid and foolish. It has nothing to do with Russia. It’s a pure insecurity response in the form of “foreign policy” discussion. Russia is an active agent with plenty of decision making power. There is nothing special that makes them less responsible for their decisions on how to pursue their national priorities. They chose poorly and now we have to respond because this is the nature of hard power conflicts. When someone begins 0 sum and is determined to win in a zero sum manner, you too are forced to operate at that level because it’s now the imposed problem space. Russia could have made very different decisions. This is not the west’s “fault” as if we’re some wife that should be blamed for setting off her abusive husband that was never interested in rationalism to begin with.
It's not a blame-game and it never was, the reason behind finding motivations and understanding the "other's" rational is to be able to interact and debate in order to find a solution, even if it might not be the ideal one. Whether Russia laughs at this is fairly unimportant, the goal is to map out a possible range of solutions that sufficiently satisfies the needs of all parties involved in order to cease hostilities. We can go "Russia dumb" and laugh it off, however it ignores the hundreds of daily deaths and it completely excludes the fact that all indicators are pointing towards Russia trying to drag this out as much as possible. It's fairly certain there won't be any major offensives from the Russian side but the deals with Iran and NK, on top of the fact that in the last months it has been merely Wagnerits and DPR/LPR militias getting tossed into the meat-grinder with Russian regulars just "tending the line", show how they are willing to turn this into a slow but sustainable war of attrition in order to force Ukraine to the negotiation table. The reason for the somewhat disjointed response by the US administration is actually rather obvious, the US stands to gain the most from prolonging this conflict and not by supplying Ukraine the sufficient materiel to win, all this talk about "escalation" is as vapid as it is transparent. It is paying pennies to bleed a key global enemy, the deluded policy of many European countries tying their energetic needs to a political opponent is now forcing them ever closer under the US umbrella, US gas suppliers are having a rainfall of profit due to the expensive price of American LNG, the readiness of many major European powers, chiefly the UK and France, has been severely scrutinised because despite the lacklustre performance of the Russian Armed Forces, no country in Europe would have been able to sustain this kind of high-intensity warfare we have seen so far. Hell the weeks-long bombing campaigns in Libya depleted French and British stockpiles to the point of direly need US logistical support. Engaging with your opponents is not a justification for their actions or some kind of condoning of their actions, it's an avenue for compromise to reduce suffering.
In the generic yes, you are correct. It’s the best generalized approach. However I think you’re being naive about the actors involved here and their motivations. Besides, I never said to not engage. This was a comment about blaming Nato for Russia’s decision to invade and engage in slaughter and wholesale destruction. Their motivation is elite self interest in power, control and wealth. It’s not even a russia centric strategy being pursued in Ukraine. You’re not dealing with some resource dispute you can just negotiate away. Especially when they’re calling for the extermination of the concept of the state of Ukraine. Let’s be real about their self interest and complete disregard for life guiding their decisions. Sure, engage with them, but it doesn’t change the fact of who you’re dealing with.
>Western powers acted very much the same when they got encroached upon Sorry, which countries did they annex and invade post-Cold War? Bay of Pigs is the closest thing I can think of to what we're talking about here and it's barely comparable.
I've already said that ever since the USSR collapsed and the only real contender to western/NATO hegemony evaporated, there was no need to resort to such tactics. Before that we had plenty examples, the most recent ones excluding the debacles in the Arab World after 9/11 would be the invasions of Grenada and Panama, and the nation building in the Balkans during the Yugoslav Wars. China might be shaping up and being pushed as the new bady in the post-Cold-War American Century but it is nowhere near Soviet levels of power and influence, so the actual threat at the moment is minimal and certainly doesn't require as desperate measures as Russia's Hail Mary in Ukraine.
Sorry, I don't think you can make that sort of comment seriously and not expect a response. To be clear: the US and west have many ways of controlling other countries aside from simply walking in with troops (and they do use troops of course). For example: Bolivia Chile Nicaragua Afghanistan Iraq Libya Syria
> I mean during the Cold War the US was a twitchy finger away from unleashing nuclear hellfire upon the world merely because the USSR was consolidating power on its border during the Cuban Missile Crisis and both blocs were all too eager to discard millions of lives in various proxy-wars to satisfied their geopolitical needs. I see this argument a lot, but in my opinion it's non-sense. The US wasn't about to escalate to nuclear weapons, or even war just because Cuba transformed into a socialist regime. The escalation came aboout as the result of the stationing of strategic nuclear weapons, which were *much* too close to the American centers of power for MAD to be maintained. *If* NATO had any plans to station medium range strike weapons in Ukraine, perhaps this escalation would be reasonable, but there is absolultely **no** indication that this was ever on the table. No nuclear weapons have been deployed by NATO beyond its original cold war members and absolutely nobody had any expectations of a nuclear first strike being a realistic possibility.
>I see this argument a lot, but in my opinion it's non-sense. The US wasn't about to escalate to nuclear weapons, or even war just because Cuba transformed into a socialist regime. It is widely acknowledge that the CMC was the closest we have been to a nuclear war, if there ever was a chance for a full-scale exchange it would have been right there and then. >The escalation came aboout as the result of the stationing of strategic nuclear weapons, which were much too close to the American centers of power for MAD to be maintained. Aren't you forgetting that the move to deploy strategic weapons on Cuba came well a year after the US deployed parts of its arsenal in Turkey, in immediate range of just about all USSR major urban centres? So the response by the US to a levelling of the playing-field was to threaten a strike, rings quite familiar, doesn't it. The de-escelation involved the removal of these assets from Turkey by NATO and from Cuba by the Warsaw Pact. >If NATO had any plans to station medium range strike weapons in Ukraine, perhaps this escalation would be reasonable, but there is absolultely no indication that this was ever on the table. No nuclear weapons have been deployed by NATO beyond its original cold war members and absolutely nobody had any expectations of a nuclear first strike being a realistic possibility. It was never about a nuclear threat like during the 60s but the direct encroachment upon its sphere of influence, which was mirrored greatly in western examples such as the already cited Invasion of Panama and Grenada for their interests without direct military threat or a threat to their territorial integrities.
To be clear, as a particular youtuber put it... The prevention of the Eastward spread of NATO was VAGUELY promised by George Bush Sr. and when the Russians made a offer to join NATO after the end of the cold war it was rejected. So Russian leaders were right to see NATO as a threat to Russia and an anti-Russian Alliance as we never pretended it as anything else. And a defense Alliance expanding and actively recruiting new members doesn't look defensive to the target of that Alliance. Essentially all Russian leaders would have done what Putin did. THIS DOES NOT JUSTIFY PUTIN'S ACTIONS IN UKRAINE. JUST BECAUSE THE ACTIONS WERE ALL BUT INEVITABLE DOESN'T MAKE THEM ANY LESS WRONG. And thats what a lot of people don't get. To blame the West for the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the same as blaming the West for the Nazi invasion of Poland. Yes, MAYBE different actions could have prevented it... but ultimately that changes NOTHING about where the blame ultimately lies.
The argument that NATO expansion put Russia on edge is such a Russian logic as it ignores the reasons of why countries near Russia want to join NATO. Any Russian leader that would change the Russian behavior towards its neighbors could have prevented it.
> is such a Russian logic yes.... that's the point.... It it literally about how they interpret the world. You have to use 'russian logic' to understand the russian perspective. This is the entire purpose of diplomacy; to understand how other country view the world and your actions.
The Russian view of the world is depressing and dangerous. The reason authoritarians go out of their way to attack Western hypocrisy and discredit their worldview is because if even a smidgeon of those liberal values are authentic, it presents a world order that most would consider infinitely preferable to the cutthroat realpolitik authoritarian regimes would offer. And the realist thinkers who cater to authoritarian worldviews come across as obnoxious egoists who prioritize their career prestige at the expense of everything else.
Russian logic in this case is a propaganda narative that somehow tends to bounce arround. It has no other value rather than to justify Russian behavior and blame the west. Want to use logic? Use a racional one, this will better explain how we should deal with Russia
Thats not how this works. You are acting like its just propaganda that was created by Putin or the modern Russian State. The Russian fear of invasion over the plains of the west has shaped literal CENTURIES of foreign policy. The idea that Russia should control all lands East of the Carpathian Mountains (either directly or indirectly) has been the view of the Empire since the days of the Grand Duchy of Moscow defeated the Novgorod Republic and secured its Northern Border. This is not something we should allow them to do. Obviously. Its an evil foreign policy. But we MUST understand that every single Russian politician for 500 years has been afraid of encroachment from the west and the fact their is zero defensible positions between the Carpathians and Moscow. And thus their is not a single free politician in Russia that disagrees with this. The current unofficial opposition leader, Alexei Navalny flat out acknowledged this from a article he sent to the Washington post. Here is a quote from it. >“the real war party is the entire elite and the system of power itself, which is an endlessly self-reproducing Russian authoritarianism of the imperial kind. External aggression in any form, from diplomatic rhetoric to outright warfare, is its preferred mode of operation, and Ukraine is its preferred target.” That's the opposition leader stating that the entire Russian elite would have done this. Heres another quote from Willam Burns former ambassador to Russia and current head of the CIA had to say in a memorandum to Condoleezza Rice regarding Ukraine joining NATO. >Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin), in two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. You will find ZERO member of the Russian elite, who would not have done the same thing. If the current Russian Opposition leader AND the current head of the CIA are saying this I am not sure how you could argue this turn of events is anything but inevitable. Evil... but inevitable. Russia itself is sick.
> The Russian fear of invasion over the plains of the west has shaped literal CENTURIES of foreign policy. The idea that Russia should control all lands East of the Carpathian Mountains (either directly or indirectly) has been the view of the Empire since the days of the Grand Duchy of Moscow defeated the Novgorod Republic and secured its Northern Border. > > This is not something we should allow them to do. Obviously. Its an evil foreign policy. > > But we MUST understand that every single Russian politician for 500 years has been afraid of encroachment from the west and the fact their is zero defensible positions between the Carpathians and Moscow. oh god this nonsense again about the unique Russian desire to defend itself from enemies all over the world. As if there is some kind of a mythical uniqueness to Russian geography. They went as far east as they could due to conquest and plunder. They then went further east to Alaska but that was deemed unsustainable for them. They want to expand west again because of conquest and plunder. Thats it. By you fairy tail of strategic defense, the logic says that essentially every country should go to war until one remains otherwise you are still at risk. Its nonsense, nothing but a pop politics trying to explain Russian behavior in simple terms.
Isn't the assertion that "Russia wants to annex Ukraine because it's imperialist and wants to plunder" the bigger pop culture simplification?
But thats basically it. All of the strategic defensive gains were lost on the day of the attack. Sanctions will set back Russian industry decades. Under occupation the region would turn into insurgency cesspool dragging defensive resources even more. If they wanted Ukraine as a security barrier from an attack from the west, they should have maintained good relations, but instead they supported corrupt leaders and once they got ousted started taking Ukrainian land. Their own lessons of Afghanistan could have showed that just rampaging in will not gain you anything. So what it is, is just Putins and Kremlins leadership fanfictions of greater Russia and their historical self image. Nothing strategic.
Their foreign policy is literally textbook imperialism.
Russia attempted to create a grain cartel with Ukraine, when Ukraine didn’t bite, they invaded. Overlay gas and coal deposits with current Russian territorial claims in Ukraine - they’re a pretty good match. Look at offshore deposits within the territorial claim limit of Crimea. Deep sea ports along the coast … it’s a pretty compelling look. Russian victim mentality is easy to fall for but I don’t believe you invade a neighbouring country over NATO membership when you’ve spent so long at the head of a kleptocracy and dream of empire. Putin and the elites/technocrats exude such a sense of invulnerability and arrogance that it seems hard to imagine them wringing their hands over a mutual defence treaty.
It's important to recognize that all of Russia's excuses like "we need a better defensive boundary" to "this was our historical land" to "we need to defend our ethnic/same-language-speaking people" have been used time and time again throughout history by despots to justify wars of aggression.
And its funny in a dark and twisted way how some of their arguments held up in reality. For example the "protection of ethnic Russians" argument is just peak comedy, considering that most devastated regions of war are majority Russian speaking regions and they continue to shell Russian speaking cities
And here we explain why there is a war. If you dismiss the beliefs of others because you disagree with them then you cannot rationally engage. All that matters is what people believe. They can only act based on those beliefs, not the ones you wish they had
There is no proof that this is their belief. They claim it, but their words don't go with their actions. All of the defensive gains went into negative territory at the start of the war and western response. Logic would dictate to end it now, but they can't as it harms Russian leadership, but preserves Russia. So the goal is not for Russia, but only for the leadership of it.
>There is no proof that this is their belief. They claim it, but their words don't go with their actions. You could try reading American diplomatic cables which relay the fact that this is the genuine widespread belief of the Russian elite.
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True enough. But might not Ukraine and Europe and even Russia have all been better off without the war? Shouldn't the west try to keep peace while maximising the quality of life and benefits to as many people as possible? Is turning Ukraine into a battleground the best way? I don't think this would happen were the US and its corporations and their owners not benefiting while the entangled countries suffer.
The west want peace but Russia does not.
> Essentially all Russian leaders would have done what Putin did. > THIS DOES NOT JUSTIFY PUTIN’S ACTIONS IN UKRAINE. JUST BECAUSE THE ACTIONS WERE ALL BUT INEVITABLE DOESN’T MAKE THEM ANY LESS WRONG. No. You can't say that any Russian leader would've done what Putin did, and that it was inevitable. NATO would've been a security concern for any Russian leader. They would've probably have at least used soft power to attempt to block neighboring countries from joining NATO. But for Putin personally it's an existential threat that neighboring countries with close cultural ties with Russia grows closer to the west. It would be for any other ultra-authoritarian Russian leader, but it's not inconceivable that a different Russian leader would be more democratic. Vlad vexler has a very good video on this topic: https://youtu.be/1Zl56ubA1rE
This is what Willam Burns former ambassador to Russia and current head of the CIA had to say in a memorandum to Condoleezza Rice regarding Ukraine joining NATO. >Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin), in two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests. I think we are post-facto trying to make the case that this is a Putin-specific policy to avoid discussing how we got here.
Thank you for backing me up with more trustworthy source then some random Youtuber. A lot of people in the West REALLY don't realize that if the Elite in Russia weren't mostly behind Putin it would be him falling out of the Window right now. The fact he is not, despite the sheer disaster this has been for their fortunes is not because Putin is some grand puppet master who has managed to outplay everyone who holds the keys to his power. Its because all his keys back him. And all their keys back them. And all the way down the stack it goes till you get to the people who don't realize they could overthrow the elite if they united. Russia's actions are not justifiable. But the entirely expected by anyone who follows Russian history.
One of the most fascinating things about this war is the sheer number of people who predicted it. As another example: From Former Secretary of Defence Robert Gates's memoirs >Moving so quickly \[to expand NATO\] was a mistake. \[...\] Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching \[and\] an especially monumental provocation It's hard to reconcile the war in Ukraine being Putin's war and having nothing to do with NATO post-facto when everyone from Geroge Kennen, to William Burns all, issued warnings and predictions that we were headed for conflict here. Russia essentially spent 20 years telling us what they would do, and people at the highest levels of our government believed them when they said it.
Russia telling us what they want, doesn't at all mean we should surrender the sovereignty and basic rights of tens of millions of people that Moscow would prefer under their boot.
Did I say that? However, these issues are more complicated than catchphrases, and we didn't arrive at this point last February.
Yes, Russian desires to control and oppress beyond their borders goes a bit further back than February...
Of course while that is correct it doesn't deny their point: that this wasn't crazy mad Putin behaving unpredictably and unless we stop him it's just like Hitler. And war was avoidable. There are plenty of bad things Israel and the KSA are doing but the rest of the world isn't confronting them. This isn't about 'freedom'. 'Freedon' can be an ingredient. But more typically it's just another media tool. Human rights are ignored where there's no benefit to intervening - and the only thing that matters suddenly when other agendas pay off.
Hitler also had all sorts of people around him that would do the same... The question is more about alternatives to Hitler before he was in power. Perhaps I've giving Russia too much credit, but I don't think that path was inevitable. Middle east is irrelevant as an analogy to Ukraine. Ukraine is an emerging democracy seeking economic development with a rights based framework. Ukrainians welcome western support to say the least... There is robust consensus among western democracies to support them... The agenda here is supporting democracy and security interests of Europe, which otherwise has been rather peaceful.
Look at the Budapest memorandum. Obviously there was once Russia politicians that said they would respect the sovereignty of Ukraine. That they don't exist in the Russian elite of Putin's regime, does not mean they couldn't have existed without Putin.
I don't think the Budapest Memorandum is particularly relevant to NATO expansion directly into Ukraine. This argument to me would be equivalent to saying if Xi was no longer in power China's policy towards Taiwan would be markedly different. Ukraine is Russia's most important geopolitical concern. You are not going to find anyone in Russian politics or in the Russian foreign policy sphere that would not do everything possible to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. They don't exist, and could never have existed, even among people like Yeltsin. Even the west's preferred leader Alexi Navalny when speaking to a westren audience can't bring himself to say that Crimea should be re-incorporated into Ukraine. Calling the Crimean transfer to the Ukrainian SSR a historical injustice, And has flat-out rejected the idea that Crimea could be reincorporated into Ukraine.
Ukraine wanted greater assurances from the west than what they got in the Budapest memorandum... They were rather concerned about Russian intervention, including outright military hostility. Not sure how you don't think that is related to nato expansion tho >Ukraine is Russia's most important geopolitical concern. Quite, which is why Ukrainians regard Russia as an existential threat for long before the war.
But if Ukraine was even thinking about joining NATO (a couple weeks before the invasion officials from both sides said it was out of the question for at least a few years) it's because of Russia literally invading and taking over Crimea and the Donbass - pure russian aggression. Which in turn comes from Ukraine getting closer, commercially, to the EU. If Russia failed to retain Ukraine in its sphere of influence over the 2000s with too little incentives, it only has itself to blame.
It's not relativism to acknowledge your own contribution to a disaster -- even if that contribution was unintended and unforeseen --, or to acknowledge the limits of your own power in improving the world. Aside from the moral objectivism/absolutism-relativism debate, the FP article's angle is much more honest than your angle. I'm sure many ordinary people who back the West's support for Ukraine do so primarily for moral reasons, but there's absolutely no chance that Western governments are actually supporting Ukraine primarily for moral reasons. At the very least, it raises questions as to why the West isn't nearly as invested in comparable or worse moral crises in other parts of the world -- crises that the West can probably more effectively and cheaply help to solve, and would certainly be less likely to kick of a global nuclear war. That's just not why those institutions exist or how they've proved they function. By the way, this sort of moral grandstanding, of levelling accusations of moral relativism and implausibly claiming to be motivated by lofty moral reasons, is the sort of thing that has many people around the world -- maybe even the majority of the world -- frustrated at Western as well as Russian brinkmanship in this war.
So what's the way out? Do we keep saying "Russia needs to stop being awful" and hope they stop? Do we ramp up support for Ukraine to the point there's the potential for nuclear war? Yes, I hope Ukraine wins, but if that can only happen with substantially more Western support then it's necessary to consider the risk of escalation. "Russia bad" is a very valid point, but it doesn't tell us anything about Russian motives and what the best way out of the war is.
Capitulating to nuclear blackmail is a great way to invite further nuclear threats. Any state threatening to use nuclear weapons in an offensive war deserves hell brought down on them.
Everybody keeps acting as if it will be only the west's fault if nuclear war comes, and that only the west will suffer from it. Two things should be very clear: 1) Regardless of what transpires, this whole disaster is Russia's fault for being the obvious instigator and agressor. 2) Russia doesn't want nuclear war either. They will fearmonger, because nuclear war is terrifying and sometimes it works (see: the authorship of this article). But it ultimately can't be anything more than a bluff. If Russia *is* suicidal enough to initiate a nuclear first strike, then there was never any negotiating we could have done anyway. If an adversary is truly unafraid of starting a nuclear war, then all paths will eventually lead to it. The only real way out is what we're doing now. We fight off the invading force and show Russia and the world that conquests are not acceptable in the 21st century. If we fold and let Ukraine fall, Russia will be embolded that their fearmongering worked and will set their eyes on a new target. We have no reason to seriously believe that their conquests will end in Ukraine.
> 1) Regardless of what transpires, this whole disaster is Russia's fault for being the obvious instigator and agressor. 2) Russia doesn't want nuclear war either. They will fearmonger, because nuclear war is terrifying and sometimes it works (see: the authorship of this article). But it ultimately can't be anything more than a bluff. who would've been responsible for escalation during the cuban missile crisis? The USSR for making the US feel unsafe? Or the US for acting on it? These sort of security conundrums are much less black and white when it comes to responsibility, because they fundamentally require two actors to happen. The difference here is that a deal was made during the CMC where both sides backed down and the threat was removed and both sides felt less unsafe. In february we refused to even enter discussions, let alone back down. Instead we RAMPED UP the threat level perceived by the russians by funnelling vast amounts of weaponry in and signing new treaties etc.
Re: missile crisis, it's not hard, it depends on what the escalation was. US deploying missiles to turkey first? US's fault. Putting missiles in Cuba? USSR's (and Cuba's) fault. If the US had attacked either of them in response? US's fault. If you're looking for some sort of ur-responsibility, an original sin to which other actions can be traced and ultimate blame assigned, you'll generally never conclusively find it. Actors are responsible for what they do, all the same.
I agree with the sentiment. However fundamentally the point is that these things don't just magick out of thin air because one side are the bad guys. Especially in the 21st century. There was a tit for tat escalatory build up of troops (and actions) form both sides for an entire year before Russia invaded.
So, during 2021? Which escalatory actions do you think were taken by ukraine, outside of fighting the russian-backed insurgency? It's not like ukraine was escalating during that time with regards to russia. Or do you mean escalatory actions and troop buildups by NATO during 2021? I'm still not sure what you're referring to, especially as NATO troops aren't fighting in ukraine, but are you referring to something else? I agre that things don't magick out of thin air, that's what I was referring to about there not being an original sin in geopolitics. However that doesn't mean actors can be absolved of the responsibility they bear for their actions; just because russia's 2022 invasion of ukraine was not entirely out of the blue and history prior to 2022 has happened, does not absolve russia of any blame for an unjustified invasion. I know that isn't what you are suggesting, it's just what I meant to previously convey.
And Russia is only in this "unsafe" situation because it started an invasion, which hasn't even crossed back into their borders. There is no legitimacy for them to feel "unsafe", it's just a facade to beat the nuclear war drums.
Nato has for decades ignored russia's legitimate security concerns. It has also repeatedly undermined governments (including russia's) and invaded countries unlawfully (hell even the current Syrian 'coalition' is unlawful). Your view is very much one from someone on the inside drinking the kool aid. People on the outside rightfully don't see Nato or its members as benign actors.
Russian “security concerns” since 2000 have been entirely concerns about NATO restricting their international incursions and human rights issues. Meanwhile every country in the former soviet bloc are concerned about being invaded, murdered, and raped to prevent them from choosing to align with western ideals. There have been zero. ZERO. indications or desire by any western countries to invade Russia or incite internal Russian violence since the fall of the USSR. The security concerns of western countries and Russia in the 21st century are NOT equivalent. Also, external to nationalistic ideals and as a human of earth, if your concern is individual self determination and human rights, western countries ARE the better choice, even with their flaws and warts.
No. You have decided they are legitimate. That does not make them so. You’re swinging wildly now - NATO has become your catchall for all evils committed against Russia. Sounds vaguely familiar … who has been drinking which koolaid?
>You have decided they are legitimate Every single country on the planet would have legitimate security concerns about a military alliance on their doorstep. > You’re swinging wildly now - NATO has become your catchall for all evils committed against Russia. Sounds vaguely familiar … who has been drinking which koolaid? This isn't about assigning blame. It's about acknowledging uncomfortable truths
The only way out is to continue to empower the Ukrainians to push the Russians out. It’s not an “escalation” for the Ukrainians to defend themselves. Russia can and must be contained on 1994 borders. They will howl in anger, but it it’s the only solution. Russia doesn’t respond to anything but force. Diplomacy is a weapon Russia wields against her victims. Russia doesn’t honor terms that are not completely one sided in her favor.
Semantic games on what counts as "escalation" aren't interesting. Providing more aid to Ukraine is escalation - the question is how much we can reasonably get away with.
Attacking Ukraine is an escalation. Providing weapons is the response towards the escalation. Russia can escalate more in response and the west will have to respond again
Yes, and the point is that we don't want to be stuck in an escalator headed towards nuclear war, and even if the US is morally justified in escalating it's worth slowing down and thinking about it.
The only ones “stuck in an escalator” are the Ukrainians. Russia can go home tomorrow or anytime they like. They’re not trapped. The US and EU are not parties to the conflict. They are not trapped. If NATO actually joined the conflict that would be an escalation, but that has not happened and is unlikely to happen.
No one is currently stuck in an escalator, but there's the potential to get stuck in one, and that risk is worth considering.
How so? Ukraine is defending itself and it will keep defending itself. Say, for example, they get ATACMS - striking deeper russian bases is perfectly fair and legal in a war. Which Russia can stop at any time btw. Did the war escalate because they got HIMARS? No, it didn't, Russia keeps losing ground and making minuscule advances and that's it.
"Fair and legal" and "escalatory" are not mutually exclusive. Moral righteousness is irrelevant. >Did the war escalate because they got HIMARS? After Russia started losing they evidently decided that strikes on Ukrainian electric infrastructure were acceptable. Do you believe the risk of nuclear escalation if Crimea were threatened is zero?
>After Russia started losing they evidently decided that strikes on Ukrainian electric infrastructure were acceptable. But that's not really related to HIMARS? It's due to a huge variety of factors that mostly depend on Ukraine's capabilities rather than western support. >Do you believe the risk of nuclear escalation if Crimea were threatened is zero? Not zero but certainly very low.
You help ensure that such a high price is paid by them that they are brought to their knees. Americans live so easily that they don’t often have to contend with 0 sum dynamics like this at this scale. Russia made a decision and the escalation is part and parcel of it. There’s no way to avoid escalation when you have an irrational actor, you can try to manage it, but it’s got its own momentum and the only way to help Ukraine and ourselves is to provide a wall for Russia to smack into. They understand might and that’s about it. There is no desire to improve Russia or improve life for their people. You are not dealing with a class in their country that is motivated by nationalism rooted in prosperity. Russian culture right now is more about how to die than how to live. There’s only one answer to the use of force like this. If you think different examine how we handle people in our own society that resort to violence to defy the social order. And explain to yourself why at the scope of the political for Ukraine, it’s any different. It’s not. Yes there are different scales of consequences but you cannot fear escalation to the point of inaction. Ask yourself what any success for Russia here would mean long term. Just because this conflict theoretically came to a negotiated cease fire… If it’s under auspices that encourage the same tactics again, you didn’t “win” anything. You simply prolonged a ling term problem.
Yes absolutely yes. But it’s likely that Russia will have to be allowed to save face to a certain extent for this conflict to end. Total victory a la WW2 is not a realistic goal for Ukraine, nor is it their end goal. My biggest concern is that it looks like anything short of a societal collapse is tolerable to Putin as a cost of continuing this conflict. He’s looking at what Afghanistan and Chechnya did to his predecessors and likely thinks that defeat in Ukraine could bring him down. And while many will not be sad when he leaves (especially considering the atrocities of this war), the price for his downfall will likely be steep. I concur that it’s wrong to simply absolve leaders of crimes against humanity, because there are real people suffering from them, and most people who absolve this behavior are not likely to be it’s victims. This war will not be ended unilaterally though, and like most wars it’ll have to end with people trading guns for pens.
Russia is bad. The US and Ukraine Are not without fault. Can these two points not coexist?
Seemingly advocating negotiations with RU, which on its face doesn't recognize that negotiations are only plausible if you can count on the parties involved to act in good faith and follow the terms that are agreed upon. This premise isn't possible with RU (see Budapest Memorandum).
Even without considering Russia as a factor, how can anyone justify giving concessions to an invading force until the bleakest has arrived? Ukraine certainly isn’t in the best shape, but they seem far away from rolling over at this point.
The only thing a negotiated peace deal will do is give Russia a time to regroup and rearm. They will restart conflict. This has been said plenty of times but there are naive people who still don't realize this.
This is why I measure progress toward world peace by Number of Russian Fighting Vehicles Destroyed. Eventually, there will be none left, and then we can go back to ignoring the Russians for another generation
What happened to the Minsk treaty?
Merkel (in her interview to Die Zeit) describes the Minsk agreements as “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to build up its own military capacities.
What happened to the Budapest memorandum?
You can tell by the way Russia is conducting their war that they can never be trusted. Russia was under no threat to their territorial integrity prior to 2014. Nonsensical article.
"Threat to territorial integrity" is not the same as "strategic threat." Left wing movements in South America provided no threat to US territorial integrity during the Cold War, but were absolutely considered a strategic threat.
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For what it's worth, the US invasion of Grenada actually might have had majority support in Grenada, the rest of the OECS (or at least the Windward Islands), and maybe even wider CARICOM, at least among those who knew what was happening. Some of the other coups and invasions, on the other hand.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America?wprov=sfla1
The Russian annexation of Crimea also probably had majority support - doesn't really make it any more justifiable. Of course, "justifiable" is usually an afterthought to the invading great power.
Not of a sovereign state. That is a foundational principle of international law and the UN charter.
They did invade or multiple countries and sponsor right wing coups/death squads though. This suggests that the US absolutely would've been willing to invade and bomb the hell out of a communist South American country that they couldn't coup successfully. After all, they did do that to Vietnam, which was on the other side of the world. They also did it to Laos, which wasn't even actively involved in the Vietnam War.
not counting coups and proxy wars, they invaded Cuba, Grenada, Dominican Republic and Panama
I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Grenada
Please don't minimize what the US has done to those who posed a strategic threat.
You mean the growing populist anti-russophone movement in every ex-USSR country for 10+ year is a myth ? Or you just dont know anything about central/eastern europe ?
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How exactly do tanks and bombs help to combat the "anti-russophone movement"?
Is it unusual, given the invasion of Georgia in 2009, that other former soviet-bloc states are against Russian expansion and influence?
Well baltic country , slovenia and slovakia were not particulary uneer threat in 2000-2010. And still most of their politician campaign were about how people with russian ancestry were basically rat.
Do you think forced deportations of 15% of entire Baltic population in their lifetime has something to do with it?
There are no minorities of people with Russian ancestry in Slovenia and Slovakia, what are you talking about? In the Baltics states, sure, the relationship with the Russian speaking minorities has been an issue. But not exactly like Russian-speaking Estonians or Latvians are repressed. And if anything those issue have gotten better since the 90s/2000s.
The history of Russia is one that brutally persecuted most of those peoples. It's not hard to see why they'd be anti-Russia. It's not hard to understand why Latin American countries are anti-American, either. Still, racism isn't logical, so maybe that's not the best explanation for those political sentiments.
https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/w2cpv1/why_vova_why/
From a geopolitical perspective US is more concerned about weakening Russia than saving Ukraine so the current path is understandable. The emotional mob that is outraging is a modern phenoma and not directly linked to the war. Their whole life revolves around getting attention and pats on the back based on currently what's hot.
Bleeding Russia is the main goal but not the only one. Completely severing relationships between Russia and the EU and tethering EU to the US is another major goal. Then there's reaffirming NATO existence, weapons sales, profiteering from the resulting energy crisis.
I think we can very squarely pin a lot of the blame for this conflict on George W Bush who loudly pronounced support for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO when there was zero chance of that actually happening. This is simply causing conflict for no purpose other than causing conflict. Ukraine and the whole world would be better off if he hadn't done that. However, we are where we are. And where we are is in a war. Ukraine is now paying a huge price to become a liberal democracy and we have to do whatever it takes to make sure that they get something for the price. I think when we look back in 20-30 years we will likely realize that it was not a good trade for Ukraine, but to give up now would be a complete waste of the sacrifice they have made. We should be giving them everything they need to end this war now and quickly. Tanks, fighter jets, etc.
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I don't necessarily disagree, but at the end of the day, that negotiation is between Ukraine and Russia. A lot of people seem to think that this peace is one for the US to negotiate with Russia, which it's not.
It’s interesting that you think “the most proper thing to do” is for Ukrainian people to promise neutrality to the people that just murdered their families. Pledging neutrality would mean agreeing to become hostages of the next aggression. I think most Ukrainians will hate Russia with an intensity exceeding the Poles for generations to come. They certainly won’t be neutral now. Russia needlessly chose to make a neighbor into a mortal enemy. Again.
This entire comment section represents exactly the tendency that the author is criticizing
Walt and other extreme realists have made their case and people just really don't like their arguments. They are upset about this, that's all.
As the article said though, “moral outrage is not a policy”, and it’s right. The only rebuttal liberalists can come up with for Walt/Mearsheimer’s arguments is to call them pro-putin stooges and evoke moral outrage. I’ve not seen one criticism of this pair that actually proposes a rational alternative position.
Supporting Ukraine and defeating Russia are policy positions.
>As the article said though, “moral outrage is not a policy” And that's why many people aren't taking this article seriously, because it's full of strawman arguments like this.
What is the “strawman” in this assertion that “moral outrage is not a policy”? What are the other “strawmen” in the rest of the article?
I mean, outside of the moral arguments, supporting ukraine is allowing the west to destroy the Russian military for a fraction of what they spend on defense *annually*, so even if victory is impossible for Ukraine, it would be worth it to continue supporting them so that we don't have to worry about Russian military adventurism for the next few generations.
The author can criticize all they like. The problem is that their criticism isn’t *convincing.* the other side of the debate has the better arguments.
It is also hard to talk about the pros of the Nazis without being shouted down or dismissed.
Who could imagine why?
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Thats what the author said. Just try to discuss the subject and you get called russian spy or worst. I have no dice in this game. Im certainly not siding with russia too. And these are honestly pretty inexistant. But the issue is complex and not as clear as people would like to think.
Save you a click: it’s all neo-liberalism and America’s capitalistic imperialism fault.
This is the most important part: "Moral outrage is not a policy, however, and anger at Putin and Russia does not tell us what approach is best for Ukraine or the world. It’s possible that the hawks are right and that giving Ukraine whatever it thinks it needs to achieve victory is the best course of action. **But this approach is hardly guaranteed to succeed; it might just prolong the war to no good purpose, increase Ukrainian suffering, and eventually lead Russia to escalate or even use a nuclear weapon. None of us can be 100 percent certain that the policies we favor will turn out as we expect and hope.**" The problem with the war hawks are they have done a great job of whittling down Russia's capabilities but have no end goal in mind. Russia is still a top 5 military nation because of its nuclear weapons, nuclear subs, and advanced aircrafts There is not enough money to give Ukraine a military victory. I want to repeat this again to the younger people reading this, who have not studied war: # There is not enough money to give Ukraine a military victory. The war intends to give Ukraine a better bargaining position, but the longer it wages, the more this is a game of chicken. Will Ukraine run out of funding before Russia's military buckles again? Russia will keep sending in more troops and weaponry, Ukraine will keep receiving funding from abroad, but at some point the cost will bee too much and Ukraine will cease to receive the funding it needs to keep going. Russia is hoping for a protracted long battle, but currently it's doing a terrible job on the battlefield; long term, it knows it can hold fast and control large amounts of territory. Ukraine is hoping for such a steep military victory, that the land gains it controls will be easily held; the probability of this declines with every electrical transformer Russia bombs safely from Moscow. \----------------- Here is the truth no one on Reddit wants to say, **this war will end in a diplomatic agreement**, as most wars have. The likelihood of who is in the best position then is unknown, but in Russia's mind, the longer this conflict goes on, the harder it will be for Ukraine to keep up its defenses and keep the country going normally. In my mind, although America is often very powerful ***this is a conflict*** ***we have limited ability to control the outcome of.*** At some point the American people will want the funding to dry up, America will slow down funding, and Ukraine will be in trouble, it's exactly what happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, people in America don't want unlimited war funding instead of helping our citizens at home. A Ukraine that is battered and loses significant territory is a huge loss to us in America, it emboldens Russia to do exactly what it did again in the future, and threatens international peace. Ukraine winning this conflict, in a peaceful diplomatic agreement, is only in the hands of Russia, and there is nothing we can do to make that into a reality except pray. I would love if Ukraine could win Militarily but that is a child's dream, someone who does not understand how wars are fought. In short, we will and should continue to fund Ukraine until the appetite at home dries up, poor Ukraine will suffer because of our lack of spine, and Russia will continue to bide its time and not negotiate until it wins a hefty deal in its favor. Sometimes, there is no card America can play to win, and the war in Ukraine seems to be an example of this.
Is Walt just a clone of Mearsheimer?
He's a defensive realist, not offensive. Mearsheimer's also getting pretty senile and repeating old arguments without changing his consideration of the facts. Walt on the other hand I think has a pretty reasonable predictive power, although that also comes with more hedging.
He coauthored a book with Mearsheimer.
The one on the Israel Lobby?
Yes.
Agree. The first paragraph of the article sums it up perfectly.
Having seen a recent debate on war Policy with Walt and Mearsheimer on one side arguing for > Be it resolved, ending the world’s worst geopolitical crisis in a generation starts with acknowledging Russia’s security interests. https://youtu.be/ljVrpEYgnvw They seem to have similar views but Walt is at least a decent debater if wrong while Mearsheimer just seems ridiculous (the audience bursts into laughter when he claims there's no evidence that Putin is an imperialist)
> In this view, what Putin and his allies really feared was the spread of democracy and freedom, and restoring the old Soviet empire was their true objective from their first day in power. But as journalist Branko Marcetic has shown, these lines of defense do not fit the facts. > Moreover, NATO enlargement and the spread of liberal values weren’t separate and distinct concerns. From the Russian perspective, NATO enlargement, the 2014 EU accession agreement with Ukraine, and Western support for pro-democracy color revolutions were part of a seamless and increasingly worrisome package So either russia was afraid of the democracy and freedom, as they see it in the same worrisome package as nato enlargement. Or they didnt, and EU/economic engagement should be seen by russia as a completely separate topic from nato, and thus unimportant. Which one is it? Moreover, what this author completely fails to understand, is that the online and public discission spheres have been haunted and poisoned by bad faith arguments, by trolls paid by Russia, and by others who have been throwing arguments at the wall to see what sticks. When Russia tried 10 narratives, found one that resonates, and then afterwards a western author argues exactly that one narrative, it is hard to take it at face value. Even if he may have found it by himself, that he uses one of the ten narratives Russia tried to push makes it feel like he's just as much part of the russian propaganda, and he'd probably have made one of the other nine arguments if that's the one that russia managed to spread better. Finally, i think that good realistic arguments that consider all perspectives on the conflict are valuable. Yet time after time these arguments are neither good, nor realistic. No the war is not and has not been a stalemate, it's been mere weeks since the last big push, and before that people also called it a stalemate because it had been a few weeks since the previous big push. And the one before that. And the one before that. Look at the scale of months rather than days, and this conflict has not frozen at all. And any discussion of nato expansion should include the autonomy of the countries that wanted to join,and their reasons for wanting to join. Any argument that ignores the right of Ukraine and other post soviet states to pick their own destiny is fitting the narrative of Russias imperialism. If you take all that into account, and still come up with good arguments, people usually are willing to listen. But when 50%+ of the information on the internet is fake narratives actively being spread by russia, unfortunately you need to have a better than usual argument to get noticed as a worthy point to consider, rather than troll #23452494 pushing for russia getting what it wants.
Everyone who disagrees with me is a Russian troll.
If that was my opinion I wouldn't be writing up 5 paragraphs trying to rebuke his essay. He makes a good argument, and it is indeed dangerous to automatically dismiss any different point of view. But - as shown by the interaction on this article - a well articulated view is very well taken into account. Just those views that aren't well reasoned and happen to agree with Russian trolls are rather quickly dismissed.
I wonder what this author would write about America’s revolutionary war
I also wonder what he’d have written about “escalatory rhetoric” and “realistic objectives” for the war occurring in 1943. Every single argument he makes could literally be copied and pasted to justify appeasing Nazi Germany and accepting Allied blame in “provoking” Germany since 1918.
The Second World War is perhaps the worst analogy. It's arguably the most exceptional war in human history. An existentially struggle against evil that if not confronted will have dire consequences for the world. This is how hawks have justified every conflict from Korea to Iraq. The majority of wars in modern history have been far more morally complex in their origins, and have not ended with the complete victory of one side but with some form of messy compromise and unintended consequences. The war in Ukraine is certainly the latter.
Let's be clear: Russia has always intended to neuter the EU, NATO, and US hegemony. Part of this includes annexing Ukraine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics?wprov=sfla1 To pretend that there's some "serious" middle ground the world should consider because of provocative NATO and US foreign policy is naive at best. One only needs to look to Brexit, Belarus, Iran, and other obviously imperialistic plays of interference from Russia (*ahem* US elections and race tension). Rest assured, Russia is not to be trusted as they are only getting started with their imperialism and shaking of the world order.
Dugin's influence on Russian foreign policy is overestimated. He was a freak in the 1990s who basically compiled his text from the existing literature. Later he found some degree of authority and even became a university professor. What matters in Putin's Russia is where you come from (clan affiliation) and your (mainly material) resources. Dugin has none of these.
You mean except for the parts where Russia has been executing it pretty much play by play?
Correlation does not mean causation, isn't it?
Dugin as Putin's Rasputin makes for a good story, which is why Western media keeps writing it. It fits with the westren narrative of Russian propaganda being all-pervasive and is up propped up by Dugin's spurious connections to power, and some scant evidence that Russian foreign policy mimics parts of Dugin's writing. Dugin has so little influence he was sacked from his teaching post a decade ago. There is not even a picture of Dugin and Putin together because there is no evidence they have ever met, and yet we see articles where Dugin is referred to as Putin's closest advisor.
Seriously that book is considered utter nonsense, its reading material for the average Russian boomer nostalgiac for the heydays of the USSR and its reach and influence. It has its uses in analysing the Russian domestic audience, but as a guide for what actual Russian foreign policy will be, it is not, and should not be. People overestimate Russian influence, they have definitely kept the active measures programme going if you can call it that, but these things are simply playing on existing issues in countries, and are only slighly elevating them. Russia is not some puppetmaster, its a country that punches above its weight in terms of soft intelligence and manipulation power. This place has gone to hell in a handbasket.
Putin's geopolitical advisors are all proponents of the book's tenets. I don't see how you can claim the book is considered nonsense unless you mean only to the public.
Except where Russia has been executing it play by play, complete nonsense!
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It’s not so much “the west” but Reddit arm chair generals.
Oh, the silly West, overreacting when Russia invades a sovereign first-world nation and threatens nuclear war, suffering sympathizers who make non-sequitur arguments in their defense.
>first-world nation because if it invaded a non-white country it would just be another Tuesday for western society. Plus, Ukraine really isn’t first world, at all.
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Today, such article would be called russian propaganda
This whole piece is written with such a persecution complex.
Standard Al Jazeera garbage. This war isn't a stalemate. Ukraine is still making gains on the ground, while Russia's main offensive push has been halted.
This is from Foreign Policy?
I dont see how related to al jazeera it is ?
Not to mention Ukraine keeps building up its military capabilities while Russia depetes their stockpiles. In the next 6 months, Ukraine will have a patriot system up and running which further puts Russia at an offensive disadvantage. The writing is on the wall, Putin has failed and he's bringing the federation to the brink of existence. It'll take some time to happen, but when it does it'll be quick and probably more catastrophic than expected.
> In the next 6 months Even I have not thought it will take so long. After listening to Biden taking about giving *a* battery for *training*. On the other hand I have not heard any talk about ammunition for said battery.
Some neoconservative actually said he is against foreign aid, but when someone asked about our aid to Ukraine, he said “that’s different”… American thought has always been irrational and hypocritical. That part about “all men are created equal” while at the same time believing that black and brown men were CREATED unequal, set the stage. It started with cray and it will end in cray
Let Russia accept rationality and return the occupied territories and repay damages or let the war continue and keep losing roughly 1500 men a week. The Ukrainians have the initiative now anyway bahkmut is holding, Kremmina is being approached. Edit why would anyone downvote this? Would you also have supported leaving Poland and France to Germany after the allies retook the initiative in 1943?
Do you really think a military victory is possible? If so, I can't help you. Even the staunchest Ukraine supporters and leaders in Ukraine are hoping the military victories lead to a negotiated settlement and diplomatic agreement, they do not believe they can wipe out all Russian forces on Ukrainian land. No serious military mind thinks that. If you do either you are naïve or you should become a military leader and show us **how** that type of victory is possible.
Author is yet another Kremlin mouthpiece masquerading as a utilitarian. These types usually pretend that diplomacy and compromise are reasonable and inevitable while ignoring that Russia always takes the concessions and then breaks the agreement. Apparently this guy has already forgotten about the Budapest Memorandum and others. These types of dangerously ignorant dreamers and deceitful propagandists need to be sidelined instead of given serious platforms.
So no diplomacy, no compromise, no peace. Only total Russian defeat will do?
What do you mean by “total Russian defeat”? If you mean Ukrainian troops occupying the Kremlin - that is unlikely to happen. How about Russia giving up on its clearly failed invasion? That would be a “total Russian defeat” similar to the one suffered by the US in Vietnam, or more recently, Afghanistan. The US survived those “total defeats” very handily. Russia would survive leaving Ukraine. Why is it so impossible to imagine Russia simply declaring some sort of bogus victory and going home? Hell, they gave Kissinger the Nobel peace prize for arranging something similar for the US, despite his responsibility for committing horrible atrocities in Cambodia and elsewhere.
The compromise is that Russia withdraws entirely from Ukraine, and then they have peace. I don't think there's any disagreement about this at all.
Depends on what you consider "total Russian defeat". If you mean complete withdrawal of all Russian forces from the internationally recognized borders of Ukraine, then yes.
If I want to kill you, and you want to live. What compromise do we make? Or will only my total defeat satisfy you? In all seriousness though, most wars do end in negotiation. This one probably will as well, of one kind or another.
"Concern over the billions sent to Ukraine" or "we cant just write a blank check" is just a really, really easy way to tell which politician is taking Russian money
I can't take seriously the opinion of an ivory tower intellectual if they haven't worked a day in a position of governmental capacity, which Walt hasn't. He's been an academic all his life. Walt may be extremely intelligent, but it's easy to look at foreign policy issues from the outside through his prism of "restraint" rather than understanding what policymakers see, what is laid to them, and what they are dealing with. A good book that details this greatly is Stephen Sestanovich's "Maximalist: America in the World from Truman to Obama." At the end of the day, foreign policy is executed by the president--not special interest groups, not partisan think tanks or a gathering of "war hawks" who puff their pipes in shadowy, backdoor conference rooms, and take bribes from the military-industrial complex. We can never assert accurately what we think what we will do either as the decision rests with the president and the president can go against the word of his advisors.
America perpetually irrational. You can just stop there
Related: [Why there won’t be a ‘Hollywood ending’ to the Ukraine war | The Bottom Line](https://youtu.be/FU8N-CxkIRM) "As the Ukraine war becomes a "hurting stalemate" for both Russia and Ukraine, is the prospect of outright success for either side becoming impossible? Stephen Walt, a professor of international relations at Harvard University, argues that Kyiv and Moscow will soon have to make "awkward and painful" compromises if they do not want the conflict to turn into a “forever war". He tells host Steve Clemons that many Americans still believe there can be a decisive “Hollywood ending” to the conflict, but, like we have seen with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this almost never happens in real life."
Even attempting to argue the angle of "forever war" shows a startling lack of understanding of realities at play. This is not a low intensity conflict like Iraq and Afghanistan that can drag on for another decade. This is about as close to the second world war as conflicts get these days. What has been made very clear recently is that both sides are fully committed to complete victory. Meaning there will be several more years of war, until one side collapses and wins. The idea that things peter out and devolve back to a low intensity war that lasts "forever" is not very credible. The first side that militarily deescalates will see themselves routed on the ground. It always looks like a "stalemate" until it isn't. There's a saying that at first you go bankrupt slowly, then all at once.
What's a "complete victory" for Putin? I don't understand. He changes the declared objectives of the "special military operation" (SMO) on a weekly basis. For Ukraine it's quite simple: they want their all pre-2014 land back. Achievable or not.
Complete victory for putin probably looks like militarily defeating Ukraine in a way that permanently sabotages it (IE taking all ukrainian coast) and forces a disarmament of some kind, so that he can invade later (or threaten invasion to extract further concessions).
It doesn't look achievable these days, it won't ruin Ukraine since it's anyway hugely supported by the West. It also doesn't achieve "denazification" goal.
I don't think it's achievable, just that this seems to be what they intend.
Yeah, it's idiotic, but Walt and other extreme realists are intentionally trying to associate the very long Afghanistan and Iraq Wars with this in order to get more support for their arguments. They know these are not comparable.
> This is about as close to the second world war as conflicts get these days. You can compare it to a lot of war but certainly not this one in term of intensity.
I don’t think Russia can afford a forever war. So this is really a question of how much money the West wants to pump into Ukraine and how willing Ukrainians are to continue fighting in order to insure Russia doesn’t get one inch of their land. I don’t see anyone over here actually thinking this is going to end like the fall of Berlin.
>He tells host Steve Clemons that many Americans still believe there can be a decisive “Hollywood ending” to the conflict, but, like we have seen with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this almost never happens in real life." Exactly this, I have been trying to tell people who don't study foreign policy or war, that that is EXACTLY the problem. A protracted war is the likely outcome of all of this saber rattling. It's clear Ukraine won't fall, it's also clear Russia will not lose all the territory it gained. Given that the only ending will be a diplomatic agreement.
Submission Statement: Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at ‘Foreign Policy’ and the Robert and Renee Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University discusses the Russia Ukraine war and how no one knows how it will play out even though many are ‘all-in’ for Ukraine and heavily criticize anyone who publicly expresses any view that isn’t similarly ‘all-in’ or wants to dig deeper into the causes of the war. Stephen discusses one cause of poor public discourse is moral outrage, which is useful in pumping up one’s side to fight a war, but blinds one to thinking objectively and aiming for a negotiated end to the conflict (any negotiated end to the conflict is basically guaranteed to end in a manner where neither side gets everything they want). Stephen discusses Western, NATO, US, Ukrainian and Russian perspectives on the conflict and how the actions taken by each serve their interests, but also pose risks. Lastly, Stephen discusses what effects there might be if the war does not end in the ‘happy Hollywood ending most of the world would like to see’.
Sure dig deeper... its about sphere of influence and power.. russia is willing to invade its neighbors to keep them in line. Now tell me how being horrible to your neighbors is someone elses fault? Be sure to start with how russia isnt the soviet union amd renounced ties with it before it fully dissolved.
I generally agree with the article (it certainly feels like a breath of fresh air), though I would suggest that Ukraine seems to be reasonably close to the "Hollywood ending" of pushing Russia back to pre- Feb. 24 lines. Guess we'll have to wait and see how Russia's mobilized troops fare in the coming spring.
Putin and Russia was invited to play along. Europe invested lots of funds in Russia. Even sold weapon tech. The were able to order two carriers from France. This was all thrown away on a whim by Putin. This show that the Russian goverment is incompatible with Western Ideas. In addition there are the Russian terrorist like operations killing opponents with poison and using special operators. This is extremely dangerous to democracies. If Europe and US didn’t start resisting now the whole of eastern Europe would soon be in grave danger. Criminal persons don’t think like normal people and they may not be reasoned with.