Scrutable

Herainestold wrote: Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:51 pm if you are down at the pub, you don't provoke the lout who is looking for a fight. You might have to swallow your pride and keep your mouth shut. It might be humiliating to you. But you should do it.

You're not down the pub. He's just come to your house and kicked the door in. What now?

You complain the West aren't fighting Russia, the Ukrainians are. But then you tell us how afraid you are of nuclear escalation, which for decades had been a very good reason for NATO and Russia not to fight each other directly. Make your f.cking mind up.

jimbob wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 11:57 am https://www.jpost.com/international/article-698890

Russian invasion a 'solution to Ukrainian question' - Russian state news
A quickly deleted article referred to the independence of Belarus and Ukraine as a "terrible catastrophe."

"Russia is restoring its historical fullness, gathering the Russian world, the Russian people together — in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians (a term used before the 20th century to refer to what is now Ukrainian territory)," continued the article.

"Vladimir Putin has assumed, without a drop of exaggeration, a historic responsibility by deciding not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations," wrote Akopov.

Blimey. "Quickly deleted"? Yeah I bet it was. A "solution to the X question" is just about the most horribly sinister form of words you can use when you're attacking X.

Herainestold wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:54 am

Chris Preston wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:37 am On Foreign Policy in Russia, this article makes some interesting (and I think valid because I agree with them ) points.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/3 ... -pub-84845

You have to think if NATO had backed off a bit, all of this could have been avoided.

OK, I'll bite. What do you think NATO have done that instigated this? I don't recall NATO invading anywhere.

JQH wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:45 pm OK, I'll bite. What do you think NATO have done that instigated this? I don't recall NATO invading anywhere.

I didn't learn until recently that there are folks who believe that UN backed military interventions are the same as invasions. And that therefore, to their view, NATO and the west have committed war crimes simply because there was non-zero collateral damage from their involvement.

To the point that a view I saw was that NATO invaded Libya...

Fooking bonkers.

Martin Y wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:20 pm

Herainestold wrote: Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:51 pm if you are down at the pub, you don't provoke the lout who is looking for a fight. You might have to swallow your pride and keep your mouth shut. It might be humiliating to you. But you should do it.

You're not down the pub. He's just come to your house and kicked the door in. What now?

If he's armed, I surrender and let him steal my stuff.

Maybe that easy success will encourage him to raid some house over the road next week. But I'm still going to surrender.

I mean, it's a dud analogy, but from the viewpoint of staying alive to fight another day you don't consider wider geopolitics.

JQH wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:45 pm

Herainestold wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:54 am

Chris Preston wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:37 am On Foreign Policy in Russia, this article makes some interesting (and I think valid because I agree with them ) points.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/3 ... -pub-84845

You have to think if NATO had backed off a bit, all of this could have been avoided.

OK, I'll bite. What do you think NATO have done that instigated this? I don't recall NATO invading anywhere.

NATO has backed off a bit on quite a lot of things about Russia. Russia has complained about military things being put in places like Poland, etc, and NATO has cancelled things and so backed off. It also held back and let Russia get away with breaching its red lines over Syria. We all know it held back and let Russia get away with Crimea and Donbas. But before that, NATO also let Russia get away with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And arguably even Chechnya was something NATO held back over. And there have been less well-publicised conflicts in other parts of the Russian Caucasus, such as Dagestan. NATO has taken quite a hands-off approach repeatedly.

I've read the kind of attitude in that US article a few times. The trouble with it is that it is based on an assumption that large powers can reasonably push smaller countries around and tell them what to do. It posits that places like Poland and Latvia joined NATO primarily because the USA wanted them to, not because they themselves wanted them to. (And that's exactly what Russia is asserting, in fact - but I don't really believe. I have absolutely no reason to think that the USA pressured them to join - I think they were clamouring to join.) Once we sign up to that view, that it comes out of USA/NATO expansionism, rather than self-defence, then we acknowledge a world of super-power influence. In such a world, the USA can say to places like Poland, no Poland, you are in Russia's sphere of influence and Russia as the right to tell you what to do. So you go away and forget about talking to us. So the policies that the US writer there is promoting is to allow Russia to order its neigbours around treat them as satellites, etc. Ultimately, it isn't very different from allowing Russia to invade them.

I think probably a genuine underlying cause of this war is a point Joseph Stiglitz made at length in his book Globalization_and_Its_Discontents. There is a whole chapter called "Who lost Russia?" There is a lot of criticism of this book, and it is a book that I think has some deep weaknesses. But I think the chapter on Russia has a point.

When the Iron Curtain came tumbling down and the Soviet Union fell apart, the West was very careful to help Poland to stop it collapsing financially. It was propped up financially with lots of money. But we didn't do that with Russia. We could have done. But we didn't because security, corruption, huge amount of money poured down a big black hole, blah blah. We lent it money, but lending money to those who are so destitute they probably can't repay merely puts off the moment, and was far less than what was done for Poland. So Russia moved into hyper-inflation, the rouble collapsed, the economy had a liquidity crunch leading to a large short term reduction in GDP. And every middle-class Russian who had financial savings lost it all. So, that sent the message to the Russians, the West don't really care about you. Unlike the Poles.

And Poland is now so healthy politically

IvanV wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:46 pm
When the Iron Curtain came tumbling down and the Soviet Union fell apart, the West was very careful to help Poland to stop it collapsing financially. It was propped up financially with lots of money. But we didn't do that with Russia. We could have done. But we didn't because security, corruption, huge amount of money poured down a big black hole, blah blah. We lent it money, but lending money to those who are so destitute they probably can't repay merely puts off the moment, and was far less than what was done for Poland. So Russia moved into hyper-inflation, the rouble collapsed, the economy had a liquidity crunch leading to a large short term reduction in GDP. And every middle-class Russian who had financial savings lost it all. So, that sent the message to the Russians, the West don't really care about you. Unlike the Poles.

It is a failure of capitalism. If the Russians had had been allowed to hold onto their socialist economy during the breakup of the Soviet Union, we wouldn't be in this situation today.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:17 pm And Poland is now so healthy politically

Where are there such politically healthy places these days?

The present self-interested and narrow-minded rulers of Poland keep Poland in the EU only because they know that the Polish voters would never stand for leaving. In Poland's case, unlike Britain's, the economic advantage of that is sufficiently clear and extremely obvious to the typical Polish voter. And the level of democracy there is such that the government can't do what might be convenient for the rulers' narrow interest against the will of the voters. And I suspect that with Russia invading the Ukraine, the pro-western stance of the typical Polish voter will be strengthened further. And in a few years time, those rulers may well be replaced with others of a different attitude. As may also happen in Britain.

The attitude that led to the Munich Agreement - Germany negotiating with Other Great Powers, rather than Czechoslovakia (as was then) over the fate of Czechoslovakia - is surely unacceptable today. But Russia currently gives the impression that its negotiation is with the Other Great Powers, not with Ukraine itself. And the article cited by Chris Preston, and others of that ilk, give succour to such an attitude.

TopBadger wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 10:07 am When addressing causes and motivations I generally try to turn the situation around for a moment...

If Scotland, home to the UK's naval base of Faslane, split from the UK and several years later were later led by some government totally at odds with the UK government (communist dictatorship, whatever), then could you imagine the UK invading Scotland to 'protect their interests'? I could.

Russia is doing the same... Crimea was a strategic naval base it had to get back. That was in 2014.

From there, how many options do you have? They've spent eight years in contesting this region, and there are only two options with closure, push on or pull out. They don't plan to give up Crimea and so they push on, for the naval base and because if you're an unelected dictator having yet another former soviet satellite making a success of democracy is bad for home rule. Making the Ukraine revert to a satellite state is an understandable aim for Putin.

It's f.cked up and wrong, and Putin deserves to be shot, but it's all entirely understandable, from Putin's point of view.

He's miscalculated the resolve of Ukraine (and the resolve and capability of his own ground forces) and the Russians are getting a bl..dy nose, I'm hoping the Russians will replace him as a result. I suspect most Russians don't share his hated or fear of the west, and would prefer to live a western life than the hardships they currently face. I think there is an 80% chance he's ended his own reign with this incursion. Lets hope his General's don't let him do anything more stupid than he has already before putting him down.

I'm not rushing to disagree, just thinking more about the scenario. I take it we are going to assume that Scotland gave up the nuclear weapons based on its soil to RUMPuk, in return for suitable guarantees. I do find it hard to imagine that RUMPuk would invade Scotland several years later over its Government, even if it had very unsympathetic leadership.

One analogy might be with the RoI and WW2. It would have been very much in Britain's interests to have naval and air bases in Ireland, and Britain did indeed regard itself as fighting a war of survival at the time. But they didn't invade Ireland from Ulster, which they certainly could have done in 1941.

If I have indeed invented RUMPuk as a term, I quite like it.

lpm wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:40 pm

Martin Y wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:20 pm

Herainestold wrote: Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:51 pm if you are down at the pub, you don't provoke the lout who is looking for a fight. You might have to swallow your pride and keep your mouth shut. It might be humiliating to you. But you should do it.

You're not down the pub. He's just come to your house and kicked the door in. What now?

If he's armed, I surrender and let him steal my stuff.

Maybe that easy success will encourage him to raid some house over the road next week. But I'm still going to surrender.

I mean, it's a dud analogy, but from the viewpoint of staying alive to fight another day you don't consider wider geopolitics.

Unless your surrender just allows him to rape, torture and kill you.

To state the obvious- this analogy only works if you have a realistic chance of stopping the perpetrator. In some situations total surrender is the only available option. The bad guy MAY at that point take what he wants and go or he may go on to do terrible things.

If Putin actually go on to invade Moldova, Latvia, Estonia etc is there any reason we have to think that he would stop at the borders of the former Russian Empire?

Herainestold wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:36 pm

IvanV wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:46 pm
When the Iron Curtain came tumbling down and the Soviet Union fell apart, the West was very careful to help Poland to stop it collapsing financially. It was propped up financially with lots of money. But we didn't do that with Russia. We could have done. But we didn't because security, corruption, huge amount of money poured down a big black hole, blah blah. We lent it money, but lending money to those who are so destitute they probably can't repay merely puts off the moment, and was far less than what was done for Poland. So Russia moved into hyper-inflation, the rouble collapsed, the economy had a liquidity crunch leading to a large short term reduction in GDP. And every middle-class Russian who had financial savings lost it all. So, that sent the message to the Russians, the West don't really care about you. Unlike the Poles.

It is a failure of capitalism. If the Russians had had been allowed to hold onto their socialist economy during the breakup of the Soviet Union, we wouldn't be in this situation today.

Wasn’t the socialist economy a principal reason for the breakup in the first place?

Stranger Mouse wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:46 pm If Putin actually go on to invade Moldova, Latvia, Estonia etc is there any reason we have to think that he would stop at the borders of the former Russian Empire?

Stalin was in a position to take all of Europe at the close of Second World War. He didn't because he was more interested in security than conquest.

Grumble wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:54 pm

Herainestold wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:36 pm

IvanV wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:46 pm
When the Iron Curtain came tumbling down and the Soviet Union fell apart, the West was very careful to help Poland to stop it collapsing financially. It was propped up financially with lots of money. But we didn't do that with Russia. We could have done. But we didn't because security, corruption, huge amount of money poured down a big black hole, blah blah. We lent it money, but lending money to those who are so destitute they probably can't repay merely puts off the moment, and was far less than what was done for Poland. So Russia moved into hyper-inflation, the rouble collapsed, the economy had a liquidity crunch leading to a large short term reduction in GDP. And every middle-class Russian who had financial savings lost it all. So, that sent the message to the Russians, the West don't really care about you. Unlike the Poles.

It is a failure of capitalism. If the Russians had had been allowed to hold onto their socialist economy during the breakup of the Soviet Union, we wouldn't be in this situation today.

Wasn’t the socialist economy a principal reason for the breakup in the first place?

Not really. The Soviets got sucked into an arms race with America and diverted investment from domestic consumption to military development.

...Military development only necessary because of their own paranoia and their decision to base the defence of the USSR on a offensive into Western Europe.

Herainestold wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:36 pm It is a failure of capitalism. If the Russians had had been allowed to hold onto their socialist economy during the breakup of the Soviet Union, we wouldn't be in this situation today.

Allowed. ROFL. It collapsed of its own accord. And I don't accept your "we wouldn't be in the situation today" conclusion either, in the impossible case you hypothesize.

Suppose in some world that couldn't possibly exist that western finance had financially propped up the Soviet Union so its economic collapse didn't happen, and it could carry on being the Soviet Union. How would that work out?

Let us recall that such hard-line centrally planned socialist economies can only be maintained in place by heavily repressive arrangements. Such economies require the absence of many basic economic rights such as to arrange your own livelihood, markets to buy and sell stuff (which existed even in Lenin's Soviet Union before Stalin closed them down), etc. And how are the foreign relations of countries that operate in such a heavily repressive manner? Pretty much uniformly terrible. So I don't think that propping up the Soviet Economy was at all a plausible way for the West to obtain good foreign relations with Russia. They would surely want some removal of repression, and that inevitably leads in the direction of an economy with a much larger private sector, such as we see in China.

One bit of the former Soviet Union has pretty much maintained its economic and institutional arrangements since the collapse. That would be Turkmenistan. It doesn't call itself communist any more. But it is basically the same place as before, except controlled locally rather than from Moscow. It holds itself together economically because it has an awful lot of gas to sell for such a small population.

Ironically another bit of the former Soviet Union did retain more of its Soviet economic structures for rather longer than Russia. That would be Ukraine. It resulted in the even more appalling eventual economic collapse of Ukraine. The coal-mining sector was absorbing something like 20% of the government budget, and holding the rest of the country to ransom. It couldn't carry on.

Herainestold wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:57 pm

Stranger Mouse wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:46 pm If Putin actually go on to invade Moldova, Latvia, Estonia etc is there any reason we have to think that he would stop at the borders of the former Russian Empire?

Stalin was in a position to take all of Europe at the close of Second World War. He didn't because he was more interested in security than conquest.

That's a bit of a stretch. The Americans had just shown that they had atomic weapons and a modern mechanised army in Western Europe.

We have since discovered that the Soviet military planners weren't sure what side Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary would take if the Warsaw Pact were to try invading Western Europe

Stranger Mouse wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 2:46 pm

lpm wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:40 pm

Martin Y wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:20 pm

You're not down the pub. He's just come to your house and kicked the door in. What now?

If he's armed, I surrender and let him steal my stuff.

Maybe that easy success will encourage him to raid some house over the road next week. But I'm still going to surrender.

I mean, it's a dud analogy, but from the viewpoint of staying alive to fight another day you don't consider wider geopolitics.

Unless your surrender just allows him to rape, torture and kill you.

To state the obvious- this analogy only works if you have a realistic chance of stopping the perpetrator. In some situations total surrender is the only available option. The bad guy MAY at that point take what he wants and go or he may go on to do terrible things.

If Putin actually go on to invade Moldova, Latvia, Estonia etc is there any reason we have to think that he would stop at the borders of the former Russian Empire?

The idea about resurrecting the USSR must be making a lot of the former neighbours nervous.

Chris Preston wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:58 am

Iron Magpie wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:05 am Considering this thread is titled, Causes of invasion of Ukraine, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the mistreatment of the ethnic Russians in the east of the country. Now I get it has echoes of Hitler and the Sudetenland but it also has some merit if we think that going against Saddam Hussain for his treatment of the Kurds was ok. Nor has the overthrow of the previously elected President been mentioned.

Personally I think there are no good guys in this war. The Ukrainians do seem to have a high number of actual neo nazis and they don't even try to hide it. Some of their armed forces literally have SS insignia on their shoulders. The BBC had a piece where some military dude was showing some granny how to shoot and it's there in full view yet it didn't get a mention.
Along side that I've been reading reports today where black Ukrainians have been ordered off of busses transporting people out of the area and left behind and made to walk.
As I said, no good guys.

Cue the Putin apologist screams.....

Significant parts of Putin's regime are indistinguishable from fascism as well, but for obvious reasons the Russians don't indulge in Nazi symbolism.

Utkin does. This is him. Note what he's got tattooed - SS rune collar tags on his neck, Reichsadler on his chest.



He's one of Putin's thugs, head of a PMC called Wagner, run out of the Kremlin. The list of warcrimes they've committed is as long as my walking stick. He's been used against Ukraine repeatedly.

Edit to add: not disagreeing, good post, but a lot of people don't realise the role of absolute c.nts like Utkin.

Iron Magpie wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:05 am Considering this thread is titled, Causes of invasion of Ukraine, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the mistreatment of the ethnic Russians in the east of the country. Now I get it has echoes of Hitler and the Sudetenland...

That's the point where you should have looked at what you typed, thought a moment - it would only have taken a moment - realised, and deleted the post.

"But what about Azov?"

What about them? A militia self styled battalion that have never reached battalion strength and only exist around Mariupol. Compare and contrast Wagner Group, open neonazis who get sent to all sorts of interesting and exotic places to do warcrimes for Putin.

And what repression of Russian speakers? Because Ukraine elected a moderate, Russian-speaking Jewish man to be their leader, some anti-Russian-speaker nazis they are. There is one far right member in the Rada, which has a 5% threshold for seats. By contrast, the Duma has twenty one LDPR members, and United Russia are openly the party of the tyrant Putin. In practise, of course, pretty much the entire opposition is controlled by the Kremlin.

Like a typical Corbyn-defender, you insist the mote in the eye of one side must be the equal of the beam in the eye of the other, and so at best do nothing in the face of injustice.

lpm wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:40 pm

Martin Y wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:20 pm He's just come to your house and kicked the door in. What now?

If he's armed, I surrender and let him steal my stuff.

Maybe that easy success will encourage him to raid some house over the road next week. But I'm still going to surrender.

Easy success is more likely to tempt him to return rather than try somewhere else that might not be so easy. But people are not countries and you always have the option of surrendering now and calling the police. If it's some sort of anarchic society without police, you can later track him down, take him by surprise and recover your stuff (while, of course, killing him as well to ensure no repeat).

I mean, it's a dud analogy, but from the viewpoint of staying alive to fight another day you don't consider wider geopolitics.

Indeed. People and countries are quite different.

headshot wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 12:08 pm A friend on mine has a theory:

Putin is being badly advised by someone close to him on purpose…in order to undermine him and either take his place, or install someone.

I tend to think that Putin has just overestimated his own ability, but there is a little comfort in thinking that there’s a plan to overthrow him.

Bad advice is a common supposition for when someone seems to be acting foolishly, but in the case of a leader like Putin, part of leadership is choosing advisers and advice, so it makes little difference whether he's doing it because of bad advice or not.

jimbob wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:59 pm We have since discovered that the Soviet military planners weren't sure what side Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary would take if the Warsaw Pact were to try invading Western Europe

Ooh, have you got a reference for that? I wasn't paying much attention in the early 90s. I remember a story about how each WP country was going to be assigned a NATO country to occupy, so for example Hungary had a ton of Occupation Guilders printed up for running the Netherlands or whatever, but I was only half listening to the radio and this is probably bollocks.

sTeamTraen wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:07 am

jimbob wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:59 pm We have since discovered that the Soviet military planners weren't sure what side Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary would take if the Warsaw Pact were to try invading Western Europe

Ooh, have you got a reference for that? I wasn't paying much attention in the early 90s. I remember a story about how each WP country was going to be assigned a NATO country to occupy, so for example Hungary had a ton of Occupation Guilders printed up for running the Netherlands or whatever, but I was only half listening to the radio and this is probably bollocks.

TV programme ages ago.

The 1981 Gdansk strike made them more nervous.

sTeamTraen wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:07 am

jimbob wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:59 pm We have since discovered that the Soviet military planners weren't sure what side Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary would take if the Warsaw Pact were to try invading Western Europe

Ooh, have you got a reference for that? I wasn't paying much attention in the early 90s. I remember a story about how each WP country was going to be assigned a NATO country to occupy, so for example Hungary had a ton of Occupation Guilders printed up for running the Netherlands or whatever, but I was only half listening to the radio and this is probably bollocks.

Ah but the bureau responsible for liberation administration planning was not responsible for monitoring Pact morale, and in fact it would have been disloyal and weak of them to allow western propaganda inspired defeatism to deflect them from their duty.