Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 310 posts

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#111

Post by mhh__ »

thiagoharry wrote: post #61
inglor_cz wrote: post #35

In the case that Russia actually collapses as a state ... which is not likely, but cannot be ruled out if they lose this war badly (lost wars are an enormous stress test for authoritarian regimes where the ruler gets all the blame, just look at the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917) ... a lot of territory would be up to grabs. Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its ter…

I think that the probability of Russia losing this war is negligible. They are using just a tiny fraction of all their personal and power.

Way more than a fraction. The true proportion? I have no idea, but the losses seem to be way too high for this to be just a few guys who were sent to Ukraine for a laugh.

Some of those losses are the Russian military revealing itself to be incompetent and quasi-unequipped, but the number of losses is just too high.

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#112

Post by JoachimS »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #42
Freak_NL wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When asking the question “what is the value of those islands/rocks-in-the-sea?” the answer is always 'EEZ boundaries'. I.e., having extra bits of land in the middle of the sea enlarges your exclusive economic zone where you can exploit resources in the ocean and below the ocean bed (oil) significantly. Which is why so many disputes exist over really boring bits of rock jutting out of the water.

See also: Rockall, a rock in the North Atlantic which is "25 metres (80 ft) wide and 31 m (102 ft) long" all of which gets wet in a storm. The UK claims it as territory. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockall

Another good example is Hans island. Though the two parties are arguing in a quite civilized manner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Island

"In 1984, the Danish Minister for Greenland planted the Danish flag on the island and left a little message saying "Velkommen til den danske ø" (English: Welcome to the Danish Island).[12] It is also said he left a bottle of brandy;[12] however, this seems to have been Schnapps,[13] which, unlike brandy, is a traditional Danish spirit. It is commonly told, internally in the Danish Navy, that it was specifically a bottle of Gammel Dansk, which translates literally to 'Old Danish'. The Canadians have reciprocated with their own sign, the flag of Canada and a bottle of Canadian Club.[14]"

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#113

Post by mellavora »

jakeinspace wrote: post #32
rjzzleep wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday I was thinking: What if we piss off a nuclear power all around the world now? Wouldn't that be fortunate timing to solve global warming? FTFY. I mean sure we only have another 50 years before the planet is unlivable for us, but why desperately try to accelerate it? EDIT: here is Russias military doctrine from 2000 https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000-05/russias-military-doc...

The planet will not be unlivable in 50 years. Larger areas of it will be, but most of the landmass will still be hospitable. There may be significant collapse of agricultural production, but again, that will affect the poorer countries mainly. I suppose some massive and unpredictable ecological collapse could conceivably happen by then, which would I guess have the potential of severely damaging food production, but…

> that will affect the poorer countries mainly

sending waves of migration into the richer countries.

at some point we are all in this together.

> some massive and unpredictable ecological collapse could conceivably happen by then, which would I guess have the potential of severely damaging food production, but I’m not sure if that’s considered especially likely.

unlikely that we get an unpredictable ecological collapse.

predictable ones, however, are already taking place. Insect populations down 80%, bird populations down 50%, general extinction rate at levels that make me cry, ...

how long until this affects food production? Hell, at current rates of erosion, the US is predicted to run out of dirt by the end of the century.

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#114

Post by nullifidian »

WilTimSon wrote: post #98
mytailorisrich wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would require military action by Moldova/Georgia/Ukraine because the territories you mention are ethnically different and do not want to be part of those countries to start with. Abkhazia fought a war in the early 90s to split from Georgia. South Ossetia also fought several wars to become independent. So both those territories might strive to become fully independent but will absolutely refuse to be re-absorbed…

> This would require military action by Moldova/Georgia/Ukraine because the territories you mention are ethnically different and do not want to be part of those countries to start with. Curious that, at least in the case of Georgia and Ukraine, those territories only decided they didn't want to be part of their countries when Russian troops rolled in and made totally non-threatening offers.

>Curious that, at least in the case of Georgia

That's not entirely true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhaz%E2%80%93Georgian_confli...

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#115

Post by unfocussed_mike »

thiagoharry wrote: post #61
inglor_cz wrote: post #35

In the case that Russia actually collapses as a state ... which is not likely, but cannot be ruled out if they lose this war badly (lost wars are an enormous stress test for authoritarian regimes where the ruler gets all the blame, just look at the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917) ... a lot of territory would be up to grabs. Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its ter…

I think that the probability of Russia losing this war is negligible. They are using just a tiny fraction of all their personal and power.

They are already using 100% of the forces they originally lined up on the Ukraine border.

This appears to be something like 75% of their total operational power, with obvious, serious problems, like relying on civilian GPS, being evidently wholly unprepared for the mud, the fact that there's no comms chain back so they rely on Ukrainian comms networks staying up, the lack of a supply chain, the fact that the domestic population is finally catching on to the fact that Putin is illegally using his conscripts on the front line, the consequent astonishing rate of desertion from an army who weren't told they were invading until they crossed the border to "keep peace", the death of two generals, more aircraft losses than they expected, etc.

It's quite a big fraction of their power and what is very striking is that they appear unable to fully support it

The only people really surprised by this attack appear to be essentially all ranks of the Russian army -- an army spoiled by corruption and grift.

The bigger question is which ends first? The war, or Putin?

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#116

Post by inglor_cz »

mhh__ wrote: post #102
xxs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its territorial contiguity. EU is not a country and to my knowledge none of the neighbors wants to join that territory. It's quite a poor region with Russian population... Germans effectively left in the late 40s'

Obviously the EU is not a country legally but one of the things that makes this invasion into a spectacular geopolitical backfire is that Putin's war in Ukraine seems to have suddenly made the "EU" kick into life over defense.

Oh, yes, we haven't had this kind of internal unity for years. All the bickering is currently on the back burner.

That won't last forever, but as of now, the EU is quite a cohesive force - for the first time in this century.

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#117

Post by darebak »

WilTimSon wrote: post #98
mytailorisrich wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would require military action by Moldova/Georgia/Ukraine because the territories you mention are ethnically different and do not want to be part of those countries to start with. Abkhazia fought a war in the early 90s to split from Georgia. South Ossetia also fought several wars to become independent. So both those territories might strive to become fully independent but will absolutely refuse to be re-absorbed…

> This would require military action by Moldova/Georgia/Ukraine because the territories you mention are ethnically different and do not want to be part of those countries to start with. Curious that, at least in the case of Georgia and Ukraine, those territories only decided they didn't want to be part of their countries when Russian troops rolled in and made totally non-threatening offers.

Not true.

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#118

Post by spywaregorilla »

inglor_cz wrote: post #35

In the case that Russia actually collapses as a state ... which is not likely, but cannot be ruled out if they lose this war badly (lost wars are an enormous stress test for authoritarian regimes where the ruler gets all the blame, just look at the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917) ... a lot of territory would be up to grabs. Kaliningrad could transform to a puppet state of the EU, removing a serious gap in its ter…

That would have lot of interesting consequences. The big question is what happens to siberian oil.

What happens if western russia gets politically split off from siberia and can't be a petrol state anymore? Who gets the nukes? Can they even keep track of the nukes?

Siberia is enormous and closer to china. An oil rich china sounds scary.

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#119

Post by pjerem »

inglor_cz wrote: post #94
pjerem wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think we can count US as an "authoritarian regime".

Even democratic states tend to reel after lost wars. Perhaps not collapse entirely, but a period of unrest is very possible.

Just out of curiosity, are there a fair number of democratic countries (outside of the US) deciding to go to war and then lose it ?

On the contrary it looks like democracies have a hard time even deciding to defend themselves, because people will never decide risk a war on their country. And Putin is exploiting just this, IMO.

Re: Japan has declared today that the southern Kurils is their sovereign territory

#120

Post by thematrixturtle »

fractallyte wrote: post #72
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about USA or UK then? Or Belgium or France or Spain or Holland for that matter... I love Japanese people, they paid and suffered much more than deserved for their past mistakes, contrary to many other empires of the past.

These women would emphatically disagree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_women It might not seem like much compared to other world events, but it means everything to the people concerned. No real punishment to the perpetrators, and a very late, reluctant, and muted acknowledgement from the Japanese government.

Japan paid out $800M in compensation to the South Korean government in 1965. However, Korea was a military dictatorship at the time, so they used it for funding random projects instead of actually compensating the people who suffered.

Also, here's a list of Japanese war apologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements...

Post reply on HN