From one of the many western experts who saw this coming years ago.
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Realist analysis on Ukraine-Russia conflict
From one of the many western experts who saw this coming years ago.
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(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
23:00-24:00
(Site Administrator)
why would you listen to 1 minute of an hour-long presentation?
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
To hear how this expert was wrong.
Don't really blame him though, I think a lot of people thought Putin would be smart enough not to invade.
(Site Administrator)
he was right though - he said that Russia would "wreck the country" if given no alternative
the part you want people to listen to doesn't finish for another 45 seconds & it shows he was accurate in his analysis.
I was one of those who didn't think Russia would invade but I think it's too early to say whether it was "smart". It's quite subjective unless their economy falls over in major ways &/or there's a political crisis in Russia as a result. Neither of which seem likely.
IMO what we can say with more certainty was not smart was the Europeans going along with the economic war against Russia. Even the Britbongs are balking now, seems like.
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
It's pretty clear what he said, invaiding is off the table for Putin.
" if you really want to wreck Russia what you should do is encourage it to try and conquer Ukraine Putin again is much too smart to do that ".
His analysis might be right for most parts but thats a big miss. He thought Putin would be able to stay cool-headed. Maybe this was the wests plan all along, to encourage him to attack and Putin played right into it.
Wrecking the country, yes, but in a more subtle way, since an invasion was not likely in his analysis.
(Site Administrator)
Russia's not looking to conquer Ukraine really - just look at their demands ... neutrality, demilitarization, denazification, no nato.
They've said from the start this isn't an occupation & the level of force they've brought isn't enough to occupy or pacify (aka conquer) the country. It looks like they're not stopping before liberating Donbass & possibly plan or planned to take Odessa & the entire coast but time will tell. They're super unlikely to head over to Western Ukraine I'd say. We'll have to wait & see what's in store for Kyiv, they're not pushing hard towards it yet & likely it depends a lot on how the negotiations go.
If you listen to the section you highlighted for another 45 seconds, the gist of what he's saying is that Russia will do what it takes to prevent Ukraine becoming a pro-West NATO country. He says they won't seek to reestablish the Russian Empire or USSR. This is exactly what they're doing. He doesn't say Russia won't use their military to get it done, that's just your interpretation.
IMO what's happening is right inline with what he's saying - prevent Ukraine becoming a western bulwark at all costs. Once diplomacy & any other covert action had failed the only option was overt hard power but the political goal hasn't changed. Preventing a pro-west, anti-Russia state from controlling Ukraine is the goal, just as Mearsheimer said.
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
"Russia's not looking to conquer Ukraine really"
Technically no, in practise yes. "You're a free sovereign nation, as long as you do as we say, otherwise you'll see tanks rolling in".
(Site Administrator)
"do as we say" is doing a lot of work there
not having Nazis in the govt & military who are killing ethnic Russians with the help of a hostile military bloc & not joining said military bloc aren't exactly unreasonable demands of a neighbour when you're a major power with the largest nuclear arsenal. IMHO it's in all our interests for Ukraine not to be a US/NATO proxy & it was a major fuckup to overthrow their govt in 2014.
it wasn't even "do as we say" it was "honour the Minsk agreement you signed" at the least & that's not an unreasonable demand either. You can't pretend history started on Feb 24 & Russia all of a sudden decided Ukraine needs to be conquered. Russia showed they could even accept a west-leaning govt but shit was going from bad to worse & Kyiv had become a real problem for Russia. Ukraine is a de facto NATO state (without the mutual defense treaty), Russia saw it as a real existential threat & tried basically everything else before sending in the tanks.
there was loads of effort on Russia's part for the past few decades to figure out a defense cooperation arrangement with the Europeans & Americans too, including asking to join NATO, which was of course refused as were all their proposals. Too much to get into but you get the idea. It's not like they didn't try other ways to protect their security interests & just wanted to control Kyiv for the sake of a power grab.
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
"IMHO it's in all our interests for Ukraine not to be a US/NATO proxy"
I agree, just not the way Russias going about preventing it.
They want to prevent a war against them (highly unlikely one - NATO attacking Russia) by waging a war against another. It's basically creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
BTW, Finlands NATO application seem more likely by the day. That's 1300km of new NATO border with Russia.
Should Russia have a say in this too? How about other countries wanting to join?
(Site Administrator)
"not the way Russias going about preventing it
I've yet to hear a convincing argument about another approach they could have taken.
The only almost viable one I've heard is forcing European leaders to force Kyiv to rein in the Nazis & implement the Minsk accords by way of weaponizing their energy dependence on Russia but that would be at a huge sacrafice of becoming an unreliable energy supplier & possibly worse for Russia than the outcome of this miltiary operation.
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
And I've yet to hear a conving argument of what would have happened if Russia didn't attack.
NATO taking over Russia of course.
As I said, self-fulfilling prophecy. They are creating more NATO expansion by trying to prevent it by force.
(Site Administrator)
That's still not a solution to the problems Russia & ethnic Russian Ukrainians were facing in Ukraine.
I don't know Russia's calculus but Crimea being kept in their hands is pretty high priority. Maybe Finland potentially joining Team Cuckistan is acceptable exchange for clearing them out of Ukraine *shrug*
It's possible they have a plan for the Finland situation too, the resolution to this conflict would want to be a more stable relationship between NATOstan & Russia for both of their benefits, surely. Remember we're watching NATO back down as Russian nukes are on the table. Possibly Russia intends to try & muscle a solution with Finland too? I've never heard them say publicly that they fundamentally object to Finland joining. It's not like Ukraine apparently.
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
Finland isn't anything like Ukraine to Russia. In the past years Putin has played it cool with our NATO conversations because he knew we don't really have a reason to join. There never was huge support for it and he knew it.
He has said something along the line "it's our business if we join NATO. Currently, we have friendly Finnish soldiers behind our lines, if you join NATO we will have enemy soldiers behind our line." A very Russian way of hinting, "don't fucking do it".
Our wars with Soviet Russia back in WW2 have a lot of parallels to what's happening now.
Stalin wanted our country as a buffer state in case the Nazis come rolling in through our land.
They thought they would invade our land in a matter of weeks. By some miracle, our grandparents were able to stop the advance with poor equipment, a hand full of soldiers, and very little help from other countries. We lost some land to them (Karelian Isthmus) and they got their buffer for st Petersburg. Around 300 000 finns lived there and had to find a new place to live.
In 41' we got a chance to get our land back when Hitler launched operation Barbarossa and tried to take Russia.
We let the nazis come through and attack Russia. We successfully pushed back to our old lines and further, where they were held for a few years. When the axis started losing, we were again forced to retreat to the lines after the first war, loosing Karelia again. To this day it's still part of Russia.
Anti-russian sentiment has slowly gone down after generation and it pretty amazing we haven't joined NATO, but I guess theres always been a fear of what will Russia think if we join. It certainly has taken a turn in the last month.
NATO support has gone from 16% to 53%.
(Site Administrator)
apparently it's a decision the parliament is allowed to make?
or would it be based on a referendum?
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
As far as I know this is still an open question how they will go about this. Talks are on the way.
Some polls showing 62% support.
(Site Administrator)
yeah I heard it was up around 60
makes me wonder if it'd be a referendum which sometimes can require 75% or whatever
I don't think they should rush into it, making the final decision 6-12 months after the dust settles on Ukraine crisis is probably optimal
there's advantages to not being too dependent on western hegemonic interests
(Dixie Normous: Image specialist)
They aren't rushing it and even if they wanted to, it's gonna take a while.