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Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

economist.com

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Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#121

Post by zeepzeep »

pbronez wrote: post #84
throw0101a wrote: post #13

See also Anne Applebaum: > Putin is preparing to invade Ukraine again—or pretending he will invade Ukraine again—for the same reason. He wants to destabilize Ukraine, frighten Ukraine. He wants Ukrainian democracy to fail. He wants the Ukrainian economy to collapse. He wants foreign investors to flee. He wants his neighbors—in Belarus, Kazakhstan, even Poland and Hungary—to doubt whether democracy will ever be viable…

[flagged]

> the alternative is strong men using cruelty to extract wealth at any cost.

That sounds like America now...

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#122

Post by gus_massa »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #95
jcranmer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he thinks the west precipitated the crisis by pushing to have Ukraine join NATO NATO doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO (at least, not for the foreseeable future). That's why, even now , when Ukraine is more or less begging to join NATO, NATO has done diddly squat to do so. A lot of the pressure to join NATO within Ukraine has increased since Russia invaded Georgia and then Crimea. Russia only has itself to blame fo…

NATO cannot admit any country that is involved in active combat. Otherwise it would automatically trigger article five, and doom the world to nuclear armageddon. Even the Bunker Boys in New Zealand may not survive all-out nuclear war with thousands of atomic and super-atomic bombs going off at once. I would lean toward avoiding that situation, if possible.

Nuclear winter is apparently not so extreme as initially thought https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Criticism_and_d... Anyway, it would be nice to not try it.

[I'm not in a bunker, but in case of a global thermonuclear war I hope everyone forgets to nuke Argentina.]

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#123

Post by ptr »

rdtsc wrote: post #102

The scare of the attack is a great revenue generator for media companies. People in those parts are quite baffled why all of the sudden American media started caring about Ukraine. It’s not bad that they do, but it’s almost like they are goading Putin to attack. Bloomberg even had a headline prepared that the attack already happened. Then they “accidentally” released it, and then of course, apologized. But they still…

Who cares what Biden will say? If Russia does something as drastic as a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, what's next? European basic security is threatened. I don't care whether something will make Biden look good or not.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#124

Post by [deleted] »

valyagolev wrote: post #64
rosndo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misremembered to such an extent that the article actually said the exact opposite of what you thought it did? Impressive.

if i write an article saying “is elon musk alien?.. no” it would be reasonable to say that i wrote an article about him being an alien. it’s not their conclusion that is idiotic, it’s the hypothesis itself

[deleted]

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#125

Post by dragonwriter »

VictorPath wrote: post #101
jcranmer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia also signed a treaty that said it agreed that Crimea was part of Ukraine, not Russia. It tore that treaty up and invaded Crimea because Ukraine was thinking about not extending Russia's lease on Sevastopol.

The US secretary of state, James Baker, promised Russia that NATO would not expand eastward if Russia withdrew its military from the Warsaw Pact countries. This sounds like a broken promise to me.

> The US secretary of state, James Baker, promised Russia that NATO would not expand eastward if Russia withdrew its military from the Warsaw Pact countries

No, he didn't.

And even if he did promise the USSR that, I don't see a signed international agreement. Any such personal assurance with no formal agreement could not reasonably be viewed by anyone as anything more than a statement of policy of the then-current administration, not an open-ended binding commitment. I do see a signed treaty, signed much later, committing Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, that was in force when it invaded and occupied much of Ukraine.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#126

Post by BossingAround »

valyagolev wrote: post #5

my favorite hot take from the economist about this war was that one article that considered if Russia might lose because the roads in Ukraine during spring are just dirty and bad from one of the worst publications to get one’s opinions from this graduated into comedy edit: for some people it was a serious enough proposition to entertain that i had to check and indicate that no, the analysis shows that russia won’t lo…

The "mud could complicate things for Russia" is one of the statements that the White House officials made, e.g. [1].

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-...

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#127

Post by VictorPath »

throw0101a wrote: post #45
iqanq wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NATO, which shouldn't be expanding eastwards, wants missiles in Ukraine pointing at Putin's face.

Why shouldn't it be expanding eastwards? Seems to me that if a bunch of countries want to get together to protect each other, they have every right to do so. Especially when a near-by country has a habit of being an aggressor: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexatio…

> Especially when a near-by country has a habit of being an aggressor

Some Islamic terrorists use terror to try to form a Qoqaz caliphate on Russian territory, and Russia fighting this development within their own borders is "being an aggressor". Meanwhile the US flies to to the other side of the world to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, which I suppose was a defensive action by its Department of Defense.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#128

Post by ivan_gammel »

PedroBatista wrote: post #87
conradev wrote: post #26

John Mearsheimer has a really great video from 6 years ago about Ukraine that I found fascinating: https://youtu.be/JrMiSQAGOS4 Basically, he thinks the west precipitated the crisis by pushing to have Ukraine join NATO, and he thinks it should remain a buffer state between NATO and Russia

What I fear for folks who watch that video, is they leave with the perception ( most came in with ) that peaceful Putin's Russia was minding their own business and one day there comes big bad NATO bully taking over the "buffer states". At least from the late 90's on, those countries knew what's up and they tried to assure their chances of survival. OF course there are multiple interests as always but after a World Wa…

Well, it is a bit more nuanced. In 1990s there was a surge in various nationalist movements in ex-USSR republics trying to establish national identity on ethnic grounds. In some countries this resulted in armed conflicts with ethnic cleansings. In others minorities were discriminated or pushed to severe their historical and cultural ties. “Alien” passports in Latvia and restrictions on teaching of Russian language in Ukraine were the most notable examples. Russia traditionally protected Russian minorities in Baltics and Ukraine, which resulted in tensions between the countries. Indeed, when you build an ethnic national state and ignore large minority with ties to a nuclear superpower, you may be worried about survival. Whether ethnic national state should be a thing in XXI century is another question (maybe we should also ask Belgians about how do they feel about speaking French).

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#129

Post by hollerith »

BobbyJo wrote: post #67
hollerith wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if 20 years from now, Mexico and Canada decide to align with China and invite Chinese troops to set up on the border with the US, then the leader of the US should explain to US citizen living near the borders, "Hey, I know this makes us vulnerable, and I don't like it any more than you do, but I cannot ethically do anything about it because no country gets a say in the military alliances of any other country," ac…

Did you forget Cuba exists and that the US was regarded a the agressor for trying to get the soviets out of there? Or would it have be totally ok with you if we invaded them?

The US didn't need to invade: President Kennedy instituted a naval blockade and that plus Kennedy's promise to remove US missiles from Turkey in exchange was enough to get the Soviets to agree to remove their missiles from Cuba.

That blockade of course was an agressive act against Cuba, and it was the correct course of action IMO because a rule that says that no country will be agressive towards any other country is unworkable because there is no power above the countries that could enforce the rule. (The UN is toothless.) If a country's leaders adhere to an unenforceable rule and insist on other countries doing the same, that will on average lead to more death and less prosperity for the world than if each country's leaders rationally pursues their country's interests IMO.

Some courses of action at the country level are more ethical than others, but it is more complicated than you imply it is and any ethical framework has to take into account certain realities.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#130

Post by gfosco »

Koshkin wrote: post #118
BobbyJo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, that's still Russia being the aggressor. Ukraine, as a sovereign nation, can align with who they wish, and be lobbied by anyone and everyone to do so, and Russia doesn't get a say in that.

> can align with who they wish Historically, this has never been true. Countless wars were started when the balance of power was threatened, even by such a small thing as marriage (can’t they marry “who they wish”?)

I think many people are unable to consider the whole picture. They want to ideally look at these things in isolation.

There's some set of [reason] the 'west' wants Ukraine to join NATO, and in theory, there's no issue with that right?.... but in reality, the consequences could be severe. It's silly to ignore the consequences when you've been informed upfront.

Most people wouldn't have any idea that it has anything to do with NATO, since the media is doing a wonderful job of misinforming. It's being pitched as 100% unprovoked aggression.

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