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International Security and Estonia 2023

raport.valisluureamet.ee

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Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#241

Post by skeletal88 »

luckylion wrote: post #75
m2fkxy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian-speaking*. An interesting 2014 read on their inclusion re: national defence matters: https://icds.ee/wp-content/uploads/2014/Juhan_Kivirahk_-_Int...

They use the term ethnic Russian-speaking minorities , but from those minorities, it's ~89% Russians, ~8% Ukrainians and ~3% Belarusians. Not sure how much Pro-Russia sentiment there is among Ukrainians in Estonia but I'd be surprised if it's significant, so it's really "Russians" in 2023, even if it was broadly "Russian-speaking" in 2014.

For context: there were about 2-3% russians of the total population before WWII. Russia imported hundreds of thousands of them, with the explicit goal of replacing us local estonians. Unfortunately we now have this.. large minority and a part of it yearns for the time when they, the russians were the master race in the empire, everything could be done in their language and all others were below them.

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#242

Post by skeletal88 »

enaaem wrote: post #76
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>a former USSR country (although not willingly) Was the process of a joining the the USSR ever a willingly thing a country could choose to do or not to do? AFAIK, the process was something more like Russian army invades your country and says "Congrats comrades, you are now liberated and part of the Soviet Union", rather than "Hey, would you like to have a democratic vote on joining our Soviet Union? No hard feelings…

Interestingly, the USSR also held a referendum in the Baltics, but similar to Ukraine, it was after they invaded them and installed a puppet regime. The more you study history, the more you notice the same old tricks.

Referendum? Which one?

After they had forced their military bases on us, there were elections where only one candidate for each district was allowed and of course only candidates who supported the soviet union could be elected, it was a totally fake election. Then the new "parliament" voted to join the soviet union. So some stupid russians still say "but you joined voluntarily!!" and so on.

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#243

Post by red-iron-pine »

rmind wrote: post #149
CalRobert wrote: post #2

The executive summary at https://raport.valisluureamet.ee/2023/en/executive-summary/ may be the more useful link

Interestingly, they didn't talk much about the information domain this year in the executive summary. However, an example from the report: Russia uses cyberattacks to support its strategic objectives (e.g., causing fear and weakening society’s resistance to the aggressor, disrupting the functioning of the state, and creating information noise to make it difficult to distinguish reality from disinformation). The Russo…

HN is notably easy to abuse though; barebones compared to other social media operations. Which is, perhaps, part of the charm...

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#244

Post by somenameforme »

ceejayoz wrote: post #236
somenameforme wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The referendum in Crimea has been repeated by numerous Western organizations, including Gallup. [1] The results are nearly identical to what Russia said they were. Russia claimed a 97% "yes" with an 83% turnout rate. Gallup found that 82.8% of Crimeans agreed that the poll reflected the will of the people. It's two ways of saying, more or less, the exact same thing. The minority that opposed joining Russia chose to b…

There's a whopping bit of selection bias in that Gallup poll; it polls only people still living in Crimea. Some of those are Russians who immigrated in, and there's a big missing chunk of people who left because of the invasion. It should be unsurprising that the folks who stayed tend to be the folks who support the Russian annexation. The opinion of those who fled matters, too.

That's definitely a factor, though I'd also add across all ethnicities. Remember we're looking back with hindsight. Imagine you're an ethnic Russian in Crimea in 2014. "Your" president has just been overthrown, there's been intermittent ethnic conflict rising, and now your territory just declared their independence. Your future is not looking peaceful, to say the least.

We can look at past populations though. [1] Ethnic Ukrainians have never been more than a sizable minority in Crimea. Their peak was 26.5% in 1970. And indeed there was a sharp drop in Ukrainians from 2001 to 2014 (going from 24% to 16%), though that was following a downward trend from the 1989 to 2001 census as well.

So if we take a high end estimate and say the real number was 25% Ukrainian, you'd still likely end up with a poll result of ~74% instead of 83%.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Crimea

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#245

Post by ceejayoz »

somenameforme wrote: post #244
ceejayoz wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a whopping bit of selection bias in that Gallup poll; it polls only people still living in Crimea. Some of those are Russians who immigrated in, and there's a big missing chunk of people who left because of the invasion. It should be unsurprising that the folks who stayed tend to be the folks who support the Russian annexation. The opinion of those who fled matters, too.

That's definitely a factor, though I'd also add across all ethnicities. Remember we're looking back with hindsight. Imagine you're an ethnic Russian in Crimea in 2014. "Your" president has just been overthrown, there's been intermittent ethnic conflict rising, and now your territory just declared their independence. Your future is not looking peaceful, to say the least. We can look at past populations though. [1] Eth…

Now do ethnic Tatars, and account for the influx of Russian immigrants, and the numbers get quite a bit shakier.

I'm skeptical of any referendum of a large group of people that gets a 96.77% result. Mr. Rogers wouldn't poll that high.

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#246

Post by blub »

twixfel wrote: post #223
blub wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point to at least one historical analysis which identifies Russia as a colonial empire? Seeing people draw this parallel was surprising to me, as I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world: Portugal, Spain, France, Great Britain, The Netherlands and Germany. Indeed I’ve gotten this list from a GEO Magazine special issue dedicated to colonialism, showing on a map where each of those coun…

>Can you point to at least one historical analysis which identifies Russia as a colonial empire? Is this even a debate? Do you need an analysis also showing that the UK was a colonial empire? The second bit is trivial, it was called the Russian Empire . The first bit is also trivial, they had colonies in North America, for example. > I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world Russia is (histori…

It’s not a debate, seems more like a fringe theory trying to muddy the waters by making Russian imperialism look like colonialism, because the latter probably sounds worse to the modern average citizen.

If you look at e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism there’s a really long list of countries under British colonialism. Russia has such a short list, it’s no wonder it’s not considered a (former) colonial power.

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#247

Post by blub »

ceejayoz wrote: post #148
blub wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nukes are an irrelevant issue that keeps getting brought up. Ukraine were pressured by Russia and the US and were offered incentives to hand the nuclear weapons to Russia. Furthermore the US even had to help Russia itself with the dismantling and disposing of some weapons over the years. It was in nobody’s interest for yet another country to have nukes when poverty and corruption would have almost certainly led to “l…

> Nukes are an irrelevant issue that keeps getting brought up. The Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agrees to divest itself of nukes in exchange from formal guarantees of territorial integrity from Russia, is hardly irrelevant here.

It seems like it is, but this agreement is typically presented for two reasons:

* as a way to show that a country should never give up its nukes. But they were forced and incentivized to give them up.

* as a way of showing Russia won’t honor its agreements. But this is inconclusive. On one hand, Russia did invade Ukraine, but didn’t invade Kazakhstan or Belarus (other signatories which also gave up their nukes). And the agreement is not an official treaty, is not legally binding and doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism.

At the end of the day, Russia will probably respect an official treaty if the incentives and disincentives are right. Much like China or the US IMO.

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#248

Post by twixfel »

blub wrote: post #246
twixfel wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you point to at least one historical analysis which identifies Russia as a colonial empire? Is this even a debate? Do you need an analysis also showing that the UK was a colonial empire? The second bit is trivial, it was called the Russian Empire . The first bit is also trivial, they had colonies in North America, for example. > I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world Russia is (histori…

It’s not a debate, seems more like a fringe theory trying to muddy the waters by making Russian imperialism look like colonialism, because the latter probably sounds worse to the modern average citizen. If you look at e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism there’s a really long list of countries under British colonialism. Russia has such a short list, it’s no wonder it’s not considered a (former) colonial p…

Well Russia's list is longer than Belgium's on that page, so I don't really see your point, unless you wish to argue that Belgium also wasn't really a colonial power?

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#249

Post by ceejayoz »

blub wrote: post #247
ceejayoz wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nukes are an irrelevant issue that keeps getting brought up. The Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agrees to divest itself of nukes in exchange from formal guarantees of territorial integrity from Russia, is hardly irrelevant here.

It seems like it is, but this agreement is typically presented for two reasons: * as a way to show that a country should never give up its nukes. But they were forced and incentivized to give them up. * as a way of showing Russia won’t honor its agreements. But this is inconclusive. On one hand, Russia did invade Ukraine, but didn’t invade Kazakhstan or Belarus (other signatories which also gave up their nukes). And…

> But they were forced and incentivized to give them up.

Sure. Russia later reneged on the incentives by invading Ukraine (repeatedly!). Thus, relevant.

> But this is inconclusive. On one hand, Russia did invade Ukraine, but didn’t invade Kazakhstan or Belarus.

"What about all the murders I didn't do?" isn't a great defense.

> And the agreement is not an official treaty, is not legally binding and doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism.

Cool, then they can stop whining about the supposed NATO "agreement" not to expand, which was not an official treaty, not legally binding, and doesn't have an enforcement mechanism.

Re: International Security and Estonia 2023

#250

Post by somenameforme »

ceejayoz wrote: post #238
somenameforme wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I've read that 'book' [1] for the Iraq War. The evidence for the mobile weapons laboratories was completely fabricated - they were pictures of weather balloon trucks. The 'high level insider' testimony came from a taxi driver who was just randomly making stuff up, and most of the intelligence community knew was just a compulsive liar. Nonetheless, his assertions made their way into no less than 112 government…

The Bush White House manipulated intelligence to get the result they already wanted. The Trump White House and Senate Republicans definitely didn't want "yep, Russian involvement" to be the conclusion of the 2016 investigations. Very different situation, and a lot more evidence from a lot more venues (including successful criminal convictions).

Read the previously linked article [1]. Powell was initially skeptical of the claims being made by the intelligence community. It was ultimately the CIA that worked to convince him that it was legitimate. And things like the war authorization (and subsequent bills) were generally approved with overwhelming bipartisan support.

I'm not implying that it was only the CIA, but rather that these sort of situations tend to defy simplistic explanations. It's a lot of different people with a lot of different motivations. And those motivations are often going to drive them to come to the conclusions that they want to come to, exactly as happens in literally every other large organization in existence.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_weapons_laboratory

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