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

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

#281

Post by throwaway_4ever »

cool_dude85 wrote: post #189
throwaway_4ever wrote: post #29

Here’s a good heuristic: if the only people alive for the past change of hands are old enough to physically be incapable of being the ones sent to fight for it, the dispute is over as-is. (Why send the young to fight over something that’s never been an issue for them?) Would save us a whole lot of historical grievances, revanchism and war by retconning the past centuries into a new issue.

Let's bring war for territory back, baby! Just gotta hold it for 20-30 years.

Back? You must've missed Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, Israel-Palestine, the Cyprus issue, Taiwan, Western Sahara, need I go on? You can settle old tinderboxes while ensuring fidelity current boundaries for the indefinite future.

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

#282

Post by TMWNN »

rambojazz wrote: post #12

Russia can't afford to open another front

Even in the worst days for Russia during the German invasion, when it seemed like Moscow would be overrun, the Soviet Union kept substantial forces on the border with Japanese-occupied China. Although the two countries having a nonaggression pact, the Soviets remained fearful of the Japanese invading from the east. By 1945 the situation had changed, of course, with the Soviets being the ones to abrogate the pact and then formally entering the war against Japan in August 1945.

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

#283

Post by TMWNN »

jcmontx wrote: post #188

What are all these comments about not _necessarily_ returning Crimea to Ukraine? Is HN being spammed by Russians?

It's a fact that Russia's military is still superior to Ukraine's. A plausible outcome of the current war is

* Ukraine formally acknowledging its loss of Crimea and the Russian-heavy east, all under Russian occupation since 2014

* Ukraine formally declaring neutrality (i.e., no joining NATO)

* Rump Ukraine's borders formally guaranteed by Russia/US/NATO

This gives Putin something that he can plausibly sell to Russians as a win, and codifies US/Western military intervention on Ukraine's behalf (not just the current flow of supplies) from further Russian revanchism, while not losing any/much territory that wasn't already out of Ukrainian hands before the invasion began.

Now, if the indications that Russian logistics have broken down and Russia's losses are unsustainable are true, that's a different story. But I am not ready to conclude that yet.

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

#285

Post by TMWNN »

inglor_cz wrote: post #190
HidyBush wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of countries are obviously positioning themselves to (re-)integrate some territory just in case. Can anybody confirm this? I haven't seen any state official talking about getting Königsberg or Karelia back. Where has this positioning been hinted? I might have missed something.

I haven't heard an official statement about Kaliningrad either, but I am acquainted with a few MEPs and their assistants, and there is some excited backroom talk about it. The Kaliningrad exclave is a huge territorial and security headache for the EU.

Germany isn't going to take it back. It already had the chance, I believe, during the 1990s in exchange for a large sum of money but refused. Germany's eastern boundaries are formally set by treaty. Germany does not want jokes about the "return of German revanchism" and "East Prussia". More seriously, Germany would not want to absorb so many Russian speakers.

A small, Russian-speaking nation under EU's influence (and presumably future EU member) would be a good thing for the EU, to show off to the world (and specifically to Russia, as a positive example).

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

#286

Post by okamiueru »

eternalban wrote: post #272
okamiueru wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"unless Russia collapses first". Yes, that is the very likely outcome indeed. You are aware that the GDP of Russia is less than that of several individual European countries? And I mean individual. Germany alone has twice the GDP. You are woefully overestimating the Russian economy in the first place.

I know little about Russian economy but note that when sanctions were announced some in this forum were predicting Ruble going to 0 within a day. That said, my thoughts on this have factored in a limited time window for Russian Federation. A lot hinges on how the situation in Ukraine is finalized. Will UN mechanisms like JCPOA, UN peacekeepers, lifting of sanctions etc. be on the table? All TBD. US will prefer a long…

I'm just confused. I feel like I'm having a conversation with a cnn text generator. Neither half makes much sense, and the latter half isn't contextually relevant.

Point to the "some in this forum were predicting Ruble going to 0 within a day". I don't buy it for a second. Or, I'm sure someone could have said it, but that too would be ridiculous. And, what is your point? Like, you said that the USD received a "death blow", which is bonkers. It makes zero sense in the global scale of things. And you can verify all of it. The index has had no short term negative effect, and the longer trend is still rising. That was the discussion. Some kind of ridiculous talking point about the dollar being unstable. I was keen to hear your thoughts regardless.

What I instead get is impressively, a complete board of geopolitics bullshit-bingo in a couple of sentences:

"civilizational context", "du jour posits a “Thucydides‘s Trap”", "ready and applicable historic paradigms", "global order", "‘Three Kingdoms’ period of Chinese history", "complex and subtle calculus for the Chinese leadership"

What on earth are you talking about? From your post history, it seemed like you were very interested in Russian economy, and Putin for that matter. Which is why I mentioned the Ruble. As for the other ramblings, if it wasn't auto generated, I don't know how that is relevant to anything. But, you do you.

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

#287

Post by TMWNN »

refurb wrote: post #137
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'

Not a direct reply but I read a fantastic book about post-WW2 Europe that basically argued the wholesale redistribution of populations after the war turn Europe from a mixed, multiethnic set of countries to a group of countries dominated by specific ethnic groups. Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) being a great example with Germans fleeing/being expelled and replaced by ethnic Russians wholesale.

I am reading Iron Kingdom, a history of Prussia, and was struck by how often it gained and lost territories. After every war (and Prussia fought a lot of wars), it won/lost chunks while also gaining/giving up chunks elsewhere. Silesia, Hanover, Saxony ... the various states that it absorbed/traded lands with are difficult to keep track of. Heck, "Prussia" was originally the term for land east of the original land, centered around Berlin, that the Hohenzollern monarchy ruled; after annexing it the term for that bit of new land somehow became applied to the country as a whole.

The Silesians, Hanoverians, Saxons, etc. all viewed themselves as different people from the Brandenburgs/Prussians and each other. As toyg said, ethnic-based nationalism—viewing themselves as "Germans" and thus deserving a single German nation—is a 19th-century phenomenon; further, the various German states (not excluding Prussia) viewed and suppressed such nationalism as subversive. Mutual cooperation nonetheless grew during the century, notably the customs union.

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

#288

Post by MaxBarraclough »

jcmontx wrote: post #188

What are all these comments about not _necessarily_ returning Crimea to Ukraine? Is HN being spammed by Russians?

From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

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

#289

Post by Giorgi »

jhbadger wrote: post #173
Giorgi wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They rushed to took Russian passports thus they are Russian citizens and can go back to their homeland Russia. The whole point of their struggle was Russian invasion so Russians could build military bases there (which they eventually did)

You are confusing the motivation of Russia (which was indeed to build military bases) with that of the oppressed minorities. Again, these people are not "Russians". They are traditionally Muslim peoples who speak languages completely unrelated to Russian.

There are gazillion of people in Russian federation who are not "Russians" culturally, Abkhazians speak Russian and South Ossetians are invaders into Georgia from North Ossetia which is... Part of Russia.

Also, there are no "oppressed minorities" in Georgia, never was. That would be part of Russian propaganda.

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

#290

Post by nullifidian »

antiterra wrote: post #203

There’s no question in my mind that this is Putin continuing to follow the Foundations of Geopolitics playbook: > Russia should manipulate Japanese politics by offering the Kuril Islands to Japan and provoking anti-Americanism From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Dugin has no power or influence on the Russian elite. Only clueless westerners post links to this book. Putin's imperialism is of his own biographical origins, and there is no shortage of other nationalist/pro-imperialist authors. Dugin is just one of the more intellectual ones, which isn't actually helpful in getting him popular among the Putin's "elite".
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