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Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

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Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#111

Post by tobias3 »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #22
blargthorwars wrote: post #8

Europe is buying billions of Russian gas and petrochemicals. https://energyandcleanair.org/financing-putins-war/ The first step when finding yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

Except they can't. Europe is struggling with soaring energy costs and a lack of alternatives. Whether it's red tape or unfortunate geography, Europe cannot afford to turn off the Russian gas tap. A benevolent US would see this and find ways to bridge the gap for Europe and lower its energy costs, further choking Russia. A less benevolent US would see this and encourage it to continue, weakening both parties and sowin…

We already turned off the tap (look at the link above). It is just unimportant countries like Hungary and Slovakia that still import pipeline gas (and they're not making any friends...) . Would be great to pressure them more. Till this year Ukraine still imported nat gas from Russia btw.

LNG is a fungible commodity that is traded world-wide. Don't see much beyond symbolic value here in refusing it. Trying to enforce a price cap would be great there, but needs coordination.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#112

Post by js8 »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #103
js8 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which war? Yes, between Russia and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor, and bigger. Between NATO and Russia, NATO is the aggressor (from Russian perspective) and bigger. Russia started the war in Ukraine to stop the NATO expansion. It's against the international law, but this intent was made pretty clear also in Georgia. EU and NATO then reacted with more NATO expansion, and supporting Ukraine militarily. They didn't of…

NATO has not expanded into Russia. Russia has expanded into Ukraine. People join NATO in self-defence against Russia. They wouldn't have to if Russia didn't keep attacking its neighbours.

> NATO has not expanded into Russia. Russia has expanded into Ukraine.

Morally you're correct, but on a practical level, Russia didn't want the NATO to be in Ukraine. Morality (or international law) doesn't always win - look at the Cuban missile crisis.

> People join NATO in self-defence against Russia.

Yes, the motivation of the joining countries is clear. What is less clear (and you should question), why they should be accepted - if such offers pose a risk of eventual escalation into a war. (I know it's not fair, but that's geopolitics.) It was the U.S. announcing in 2007 NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, despite Germany and France being against and no public/democratic discussion of this in Ukraine and Georgia (or any other NATO member). Is it hard to believe this is done for any reason other than imperial vanity?

> They wouldn't have to if Russia didn't keep attacking its neighbours.

U.S. have attacked unprovoked countries all over the planet, why trust them more than Russia? Seems quite shortsighted.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#113

Post by saubeidl »

throwaway_dang wrote: post #77
saubeidl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France has a nuclear arsenal as well, making Moscow's kind of useless unless they want to provoke retaliation.

France has about 290 nuclear missiles in its arsenal compared to Russia's ~5500. This is an order of magnitude of difference. Could you please come back to reality?

It really doesn't matter if you could cause 10x apocalypse or 100x apocalypse. At some point it just becomes a dick measuring contest.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#114

Post by AndrewDucker »

js8 wrote: post #112
AndrewDucker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO has not expanded into Russia. Russia has expanded into Ukraine. People join NATO in self-defence against Russia. They wouldn't have to if Russia didn't keep attacking its neighbours.

> NATO has not expanded into Russia. Russia has expanded into Ukraine. Morally you're correct, but on a practical level, Russia didn't want the NATO to be in Ukraine. Morality (or international law) doesn't always win - look at the Cuban missile crisis. > People join NATO in self-defence against Russia. Yes, the motivation of the joining countries is clear. What is less clear (and you should question), why they shoul…

Yes, the bully who keeps attacking their neighbours didn't want anyone to protect their neighbours.

Going along with this seems like a terrible idea, if you value the bully not slowly expanding until they're your neighbour.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#115

Post by cindyllm »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #84
newsclues wrote: post #4

No one listened, no one prepared. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Munich_speech_of_Vladim... It’s not like there was any warning signs… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17 Bullies exploit weaknesses. Time to grow a pair.

Worth watching: You won't believe what Estonia just built to stop Russia https://youtu.be/DMRQW18COv4 The Baltics, Poland, and northern European countries don't have any illusions that NATO is already in a de facto state of asymmetric war with Russia already: hacking, sabotage, and election meddling of all sorts. The surface of concerns extend beyond that to Ukraine-like hot war scenarios especially for neighboring c…

[dead]

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#116

Post by slaw »

mafribe wrote: post #59
slaw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is mostly Germany. Once Germany stops buying oil from Russia other countries will be forced to stop too.

Could you give some evidence for this claim? Here is some counterevidence: [1] says that the top buyers of Russian energy include: • Hungary: 416 million euros ($488m) • Slovakia: 275 million euros ($323m) • France: 157 million euros ($184m) • Netherlands: 65 million euros ($76m) • Belgium: 64 million euros ($75m) [2] suggests that China and India are the main buyers. I don't how reliable those sources are. There is…

Looks like I have old data. Germany stopped buying officially oil from Russia. We will see now pressure on other countries to follow.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#117

Post by tim333 »

ajross wrote: post #107
chvid wrote: post #25

Europe should be leading the diplomatic efforts towards Russia, not the US. This sort of rhetorics leads nowhere useful.

There have been literally (not figuratively literally, literally literally) zero diplomatic resolutions of military conflicts or tensions with Russia during the Putin era. None. The closest one you can see, if you squint extremely hard, is the detente of 8 years that that followed the invasion of Crimea. And then we know what happened. Conflicts in Putin's Russia end militarily, always (usually in victory or stalemat…

Negotiated peace can be a thing if there is enough of a threat behind it. I imagine Putin would like to be able to nuke Ukraine but the US have threatened bad things if he does. I think if the west had made more of a threat before the 2022 invasion Putin may well have backed off but Biden was like if you only invade a little bit we won't do much which is kind of how it went.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#118

Post by dgfitz »

whiplash451 wrote: post #88
fastball wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feels kinda like you're removing Europe's agency here. "Red tape" is just another way of saying "terrible policy decisions for decades". If they dug themselves into a hole before, what's to stop them from doing it again when after you help them fill in the hole a little bit?

Because it takes decades to stop digging a hole you've taken decades to dig. It's not like we can make dozens of nuclear power plants appear out of thin air.

Best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second best time is today.

What is the plan today?

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#119

Post by js8 »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #108
js8 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless we deescalate this won't end well for anyone. Except maybe mil-ind complex shareholders.

Nah. Russia is boxing way beyond it's weight. It will collapse like in 1991 if we would even just put some tanks at the border ( eg. At Finland, Poland). ( Russia's banks are pretty vulnerable atm. )

I don't think so. I have russian coworkers who visited their family in Russia recently. They say there is more investment in infrastructure in Russia since the war. Basically, Russian oligarchs cannot invest abroad so they have to do it at home.

So there are signs that the war helped Russia to resolve its "dutch disease" (a situation where a state relying on natural resource such as oil stunts its economic growth in other areas).

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#120

Post by general1465 »

js8 wrote: post #100
af78 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia is the aggressor in this war; if it stopped its aggression and withdrew from Ukraine, the war would stop. So the responsibility for deescalating falls squarely on Russia. Russia has no intention to stop; on the contrary it is ramping up the production of military equipment. As only military means can stop a military aggression, it makes every sense for European leaders to support Ukraine militarily. If anythin…

Which war? Yes, between Russia and Ukraine, Russia is the aggressor, and bigger. Between NATO and Russia, NATO is the aggressor (from Russian perspective) and bigger. Russia started the war in Ukraine to stop the NATO expansion. It's against the international law, but this intent was made pretty clear also in Georgia. EU and NATO then reacted with more NATO expansion, and supporting Ukraine militarily. They didn't of…

NATO is not expanding on it's own. It is expanding because states around Russia does not want to be attacked by Russa.

Or you think that Putin would be trying to swallow Ukraine, if Baltics would be outside NATO? Of course not, he would be going after Baltics. Easier prey.

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