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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

#81

Post by rosndo »

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

I think you’re just failing to comprehend what you’re reading. Nobody is suggesting that this would have a dramatic impact.

During my time in the military I was in the armored brigade, muddy conditions of the spring really sucked.

Nobody thinks that this would lose Russia the war, but it’s still a kind of a pain in the ass.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#82

Post by lern_too_spel »

rapsey wrote: post #12
gfosco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're too cynical, but we can have our own takes. From what I was able to piece together, Russia isn't the one starting this conflict, in action. It's NATO aligned countries trying to get Ukraine to join NATO. Russia made it very clear, that ain't happening and they'll go to war over it. So who's still agitating for war? The zero-evidence claims that Russia was about to invade sure look like pure propa…

> The zero-evidence claims that Russia was about to invade sure look like pure propaganda from the same people who are thirsty for it. The insane media drum beats are exactly like before Afghanistan and Iraq. It is so depressing how absolutely nothing has changed.

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.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#83

Post by VictorPath »

krzyk wrote: post #37
ComradePhil wrote: post #21

Russia has absolutely nothing to gain by escalating war in Europe. America has nothing to lose. Everyone knows who wants war.

Tell that to Crimea people.

The Russian military was in the Crimea two centuries ago, and has been there ever since. The new aspect in the past decade is western calls for them to be removed.

The revival of Ukrainian nationalism in the modern era was actually a major project of Lenin's. The west is picking up and working on Lenin's own project, although in a slightly different form.

The Cuban government has for decades asked the US to remove its military presence from Cuba, including the detention center where it kidnaps people from random countries (again, against protest from those countries) and tortures them. Perhaps white upper middle class western liberals can rally to the Cubans cause.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#84

Post by pbronez »

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]

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#86

Post by ericb »

t-3 wrote: post #32
baremetal wrote: post #2

I read this as why the economist and friends want russia to want war. but maybe im just cynical and jaded?

Quoted post unavailable.

> only the US & allied governments are actually actively promoting the idea of going to war.

It's incredibly costly to park 150,000 troops and armor in a position to invade. But your issue is with the governments saying "excuse me, why does it look like you're positioning your troops for an invasion?" OK.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#87

Post by PedroBatista »

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 War and 50 years under communism can you blame them?

The Cold War never ended, its just that one side was temporarily out of commission and the geniuses from the other side just stopped caring.

Just hope this "Ukraine is West's fault" doesn't turn into some realpolitik's version of affluent white guilt.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#89

Post by oceanplexian »

AutumnCurtain wrote: post #72
stefan_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a popular edgy opinion but I think it's useful to occasionally remember who has thousands of soldiers massed on the border.

HackerNews has a weirdly pro-Russia bent, at least in these comment sections. People talking about how NATO "shouldn't expand" (why not, if the nations involved want to join a voluntary pact?) and how Crimea is and has been Russian, even though the Russians invaded and conquered it in the past decade... Really odd. Not just making arguments against US involvement but flat out repeating false, pro-Russian propaganda.

I mean part of it could be that lots of us have actually been to Russia (I fit in that category) or are Russian. We don’t need to rely on third party sources to tell us how to think. I’ve also been to China and it’s so much worse but the US propaganda machine loves China, in fact we’re watching them trivialize a country that places minorities in concentration camps on primetime TV.

Doesn’t seem odd to me at all. The media has lost credibility and our government is morally bankrupt.

Re: Why Vladimir Putin and his entourage want war

#90

Post by bandyaboot »

iqanq wrote: post #29
unclebucknasty wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia annexed Crimea and has been engaged in a proxy war in Donbas for 8 years. The Kremlin has now amassed 100K - 200K troops at Ukraine's border. Yet, the Russian propaganda machine continues to claim it's the West that wants war. Can you explain how the West is the aggressor here?

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

If countries close to Russia both geographically and historically are more comfortable aligning with NATO rather than Russia, perhaps the problem is with Russia.
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