Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean in this situation
Well so far no one started the war.
Do you still feel this way?
Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
251–260 of 267 posts
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#252John 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
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300259933/not-one-inch
M. E. Sarotte wrote a whole book on it.
I haven't finished reading the whole thing, but it starts with the fall of the Berlin wall, and reunification, where US and Germany figured that it was possible to have their cake and eat it - Soviet troops out of East Germany, NATO being allowed to stay, Warsaw pact falling apart, and NATO enlarging as a military alliance instead of pan-european (Atlantic to Urals) security arrangement. Russia was at its very weakest, and not in the position to object much; plus missteps by Gorbachev and Yeltsin contributed to enlargement.
You've got Yeltsin wanting Russia to join NATO, back when US enjoyed quite a bit of good will, only for them to slowly realize that plans like Partnership for Peace is meant to enlarge NATO; the US is not going to let Russia join NATO, despite some wishful-thinkng; NATO membership being dangled in front of Ukraine to encourage them to return the soviet era nukes back to Russia or have them destroyed; NATO's enlargement policies is basically neo-containment of Russia at the get-go...
I'm sure it's only going to get more colourful as the book goes on.
In any case, it's rather disingenuous for US and NATO to dangle membership to Ukraine. They know even in the 80s and 90s that Russia would strongly object to a military alliance that has Article 5 in it, not to mention a NATO member state would generally be required to have foreign troops and weapons (among other things nukes) on their soil. At the end of the day, US is probably not going to risk nuclear war over this, but at the same time, it just keeps using Ukraine to try and stick it to Russia. Regardless of what Ukraine's wishes actually are (and it's more diverse than the media generally likes to portray), realistically it's not something that Ukraine has the only say in the matter - US will continue to find any which way to further is neo-containment aims; Russia would continue to oppose that.
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really not. NATO doesn't want Ukraine now that Russia is serious about opposition, but in the 2006-2009 the US was fighting really hard for Ukraine to join NATO despite opposition by France and Germany. Eventually Ukraine had a change of mind, but not before NATO formally stated Ukraine was welcome. The move away from NATO/EU ambitions was unpopular domestically in Ukraine and led to Euromaidan, after which it t…
The US is not the same thing as NATO, even if it is the leading country in it.
Oh please, US would push back against UK's .280 British small arms cartridge[0] for NATO harmonization, despite there was already ample testing shown that the more powerful 7.62mm cartridge was nigh-uncontrollable in automatic fire. Only for the Vietnam war to demonstrate the deficiencies of 7.62NATO, and then US and NATO adopted 5.56mm, proving the initial UK testing right.
If the US can make all its members adopt a small-arms cartridge despite it not being particularly ideal, the separation between the US and NATO is merely a facade.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9751mm_NATO#T65_series...
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
The average US town has 6k people, so this is like relocating the population of 25 US towns to new, temporary housing. Then you have to set up logistics to provide continual daily food and fuel to the new location for all those people. Then you have to relocate tanks which get about a mile per gallon of fuel, as well as people carriers, weapons, aircraft, missiles, ammo, field hospitals, blood and medical supplies, e…
Russia does multiple large scale exercises an maneuvers each year. Russia also has a lot of basing nearby. For them, they're really only moving the units a few dozen kilometers from already established bases. So for example, you mentioned a gallon per mile for a tank, which is indeed a realistic fuel consumption. The tanks are shipped by rail to nearby bases which is very shipped, and they then have maybe 200km to co…
Looks like they decided to conduct their large scale exercises in Ukraine.
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#255"Elites have hijacked Russia and conflated the country's interests with their own" Um... Replace "Russia" with the name of any nation on earth, and the sentence remains true. As an individual with an Economics graduate degree, The Economist strikes me as such a flimsy propaganda rag, it's sad and pathetic it has any attention at all.
Nonsesnse. That's a false equivalency. Elites have power everywhere. True. But Russia is right now a dictatorship where the elite who kiss the ring of Putin are protected. The others get jailed or worse. There's an inner circle that decides to go to war and can make that decision without congressional approval. They can mount false flag operations (as they are doing right now) and literally attack unprovoked against…
Sounds just like every nation...
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#256The information war on this is already very hot. Diametrically opposed viewpoints coming from each side. US: The russians are about to invade. Russia: No we aren't. Honestly, as someone on the outside of this I really have no idea what to believe. Is Putin just putting up a show of force but not actually going to pull the trigger, or is this the real deal preps for imminent invasion?
Yeah, looks like it was the real deal.
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
GP: >> People talking about how NATO "shouldn't expand" (why not, if the nations involved want to join a voluntary pact?) You: > but do you really not know why Russia doesn't want NATO to expand to Ukraine Why would Ukraine want to align with NATO instead of the country that just invaded it? > While I may not agree with the Russians, I can absolutely understand why they think war is justifiable Why? > it might be pru…
> The why go to war over something symbolic? They are not going to war. They just expand their presence on the borders to make a point. If NATO feels menace with those deployments, they are expected to understand that Russia feels the same. If NATO is not making commitment on paper not to expand and to scale down their current presence, Russia will not make commitments to stop those annual military exercises they hav…
Have you rethought these comments at all, Ivan?
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US is not going to fight a war over Ukraine and has ordered all its troops to leave Ukraine. Russia will invade Ukraine and leave it broken for even suggesting that it could join NATO and then leave. The US is only sending troops into Eastern Europe in case Russia stays and feels like causing trouble in bordering NATO countries where the US has Article 5 obligations.
The US military industrial complex is left wanting, Biden has sinking approval ratings and nordstream 2 is about to be turned on. All signs point to needing to start a conflict by the US.
This comment did not age well.
Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#259Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The why go to war over something symbolic? They are not going to war. They just expand their presence on the borders to make a point. If NATO feels menace with those deployments, they are expected to understand that Russia feels the same. If NATO is not making commitment on paper not to expand and to scale down their current presence, Russia will not make commitments to stop those annual military exercises they hav…
Have you rethought these comments at all, Ivan?
Yes. They remain valid as a way of thought for many Russians before the war and should be kept for history. Hardly anyone in Russia was considering real war as a possibility, so when Putin made the orders it came as a deep shock. Before the recognition of separatist territories, his strategy seemed at least rational if wrong. He could be understood, even if his actions were not approved.
Not anymore. I do not know when this transition happened, when the last red line was crossed by him in his mind, but now it is total uncertainty. Whatever he planned with this invasion, his calculations are so obviously mistaken, that it is hard to understand how this decision was made at the first place. It will not help Russia to achieve any long term or short term goals and it will jeopardize his own rule. Now he is certified crazy. And this is scary as shit.