How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[pood]

Russia has never been a free country. Thirty years of relative freedom does not correct for centuries of its absence. Russia has no legacy of freedom. I wish it did, as do you. But it does not. That is it's misfortune and it's present condition. Maybe that will change.

It changed everything for Ukraine, the Baltic republics, and the former Warsaw bloc nations. You cannot write off Russia's problems with such a simplistic analysis of their history.

Sure, but the Wasrsaw bloc nations and the Baltics had had centuries of contact with the West and in many cases prior democratic incarnations to speed their conversions. The Baltics and Eastern Europe in particular never wanted anything to do with the Soviet Union. They were kept in place at gunpoint. Apart from the Baltics and to some extent Ukraine, none of the ex-Soviet Republics achieved anything even approximating democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most of them, including Russia, are authoritarian dystopias.

But how important is that in the rise of Putin to power? I see a greater parallel with the rise of Hitler, whose regime signaled the end of a more or less liberal Western democracy in the heart of Western Europe. Hitler was able to play on the sense of economic chaos and helplessness in a population that had experienced a humiliating defeat. Putin was also able to play on the sense of economic chaos in the 1990s and a feeling of humiliation after the collapse of the Soviet empire. The Ukrainian invasion was largely driven by a vision of rebuilding part of that lost empire and sense of power, not just an inability to handle democracy. Russia did have a very active pro-democracy movement before Putin succeeded in cowing it. We also have cases in Eastern and Western Europe where the rise of authoritarianism has been noticeable and somewhat scary. I don't think that Russia can be dismissed on the basis of some kind of authoritarian stereotype of their past. The rise of tyranny can happen anywhere, especially when a population feels weak and helpless.

Everything you say is correct, and I’d go even further and say that the U.S. and the West in general must bear a good deal of responsibility for the chaos in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. This is because we contrived, with Boris Yeltsin’s assent, to impose “economic shock therapy” on Russia and the other former republics, basically a hard swerve to the cowboy capitalism that had come into vogue during the Reagan years. The results were predictably disastrous, and the privations imposed on those countries no doubt soured tens of millions of their residents to Western models of “democracy” and especially economics. Even before the Soviet collapse, many Russians, apprised of the many benefits of Western freedoms, responded to the effect: “Yes, you have the freedom to sleep in the street if you are poor.” As a resident of New York City where I see dozens of homeless people sleeping in the streets every day, I find that this sentiment was and is entirely apposite.

I’d say that we should not hold up the West, particularly the U.S., as paragons of democratic virtue. As Louis D. Brandeis said, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Guess which one we have here?

Still, it is a fact that Russia has no tradition of democratic impulses or institutions in all its hundreds of years of existence. The brief fling with democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union ended in tears, not just because of the shock-therapy economic model but because Yeltsin proved to be another drunken dour Kremlin bureaucratic lout who in short order launched a bloody war in Chechnya. In sum, Russia’s entire history has been under the yoke first of the czars, then the Communist gargoyles, and now the neo-Nazi Putinistas.

Does this mean that Russians are incapable of achieving some sort of democracy? No, it just means that without some relevant historical context to fall back on, democratizing is going to be a fraught business likely to fail, as it failed under Yeltsin and yielded to Putin. That the majority of Russians have supinely yielded to Putin in this barbaric war leaves me rather bereft of charitable thoughts toward them. A great many of them at least had the guts to rally under Yeltsin’s banner against the Communists when the latter deposed Gorbachev with an eye toward undoing his perestroika and glasnost reforms. Now, just a great silence emanates from the masses. I’m having trouble much giving a damn what happens to them.

 

[Elixir]

The Ukrainian invasion was largely driven by a vision of rebuilding part of that lost empire and sense of power, not just an inability to handle democracy.

Yup. Without Trump to carry his water, Pootey came to his now or never moment, and chose now. When it became apparent that he should have chosen “never”, he hung his hat on the possibility that Trump might come back into office. Now he’s hanging on by his fingernails in case Cheato succeeds in stealing the next election.

The rise of tyranny can happen anywhere, especially when a population feels weak and helpless.

Yup again. It’s alarming to see how weak and helpless are the American victims of RW conspiracy peddlers. They’re well convinced that they need a big fat bigoted conman mob boss to save them from the myriad boogeymen manufactured by right wing spinmeisters.

 

[Copernicus]

Does this mean that Russians are incapable of achieving some sort of democracy? No, it just means that without some relevant historical context to fall back on, democratizing is going to be a fraught business likely to fail, as it failed under Yeltsin and yielded to Putin. That the majority of Russians have supinely yielded to Putin in this barbaric war leaves me rather bereft of charitable thoughts toward them. A great many of them at least had the guts to rally under Yeltsin’s banner against the Communists when the latter deposed Gorbachev with an eye toward undoing his perestroika and glasnost reforms. Now, just a great silence emanates from the masses. I’m having trouble much giving a damn what happens to them.

I would hate to be judged as an American by the history of what my country has done to harm others in the past, and I wouldn't want people elsewhere not to give a damn about the fate of other Americans because of a sense that Americans could have somehow collectively prevented the bad things that their country did. It is hard not to judge people on the basis of common stereotypes that we harbor. I get that. But Russians are not so different from other populations that have "supinely yielded" to the acts of their leaders. I don't remember being able to do anything about US forces dumping cluster bombs, napalm, and agent orange all over Vietnam. Did they sit back and just let Truman decide to obliterate two Japanese cities with atomic bombs? There are lots of things that a country does which its ordinary citizens have no control over, except in some kind of vague collective sense. We could have stopped global action, if we had just listened to the early warnings and changed our lifestyles, couldn't we? Maybe we shouldn't give a damn about ourselves either. I'm still going to give a damn about Russians and think about all those people who are losing family members, relatives, loved ones, and friends to the murderous war in Ukraine regardless of their nationality. And that is not because I disagree with the fact that the Russian side is the true aggressor in this war and in the wrong. We all live in nations that have been in the wrong before. Some have committed fewer atrocities than others, but perhaps only for the lack of opportunity to do so.

 

[pood]

You’re addressing somone who doesn’t think so very highly of the United States, either. I certainly don’t think we’re some kind of paragon of democracy, whatever exactly that would look like. See the Brandeis quote. My point about Russia’s past is that democracy, however defined, is going to be really hard when the only historical context your country has to fall back on is czardom, Communism and neo-Nazi Putinism.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Holly crap. You are still thinking that you are winning.

You took a bunch of territory at the start but since then it's basically continually you being pushed back and your army hollowed out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Bullshit. Why should Russian aggression be rewarded at all? They agreed to respect Ukrianian boundaries decades ago. Russia can end this war easily. Turn around and go home - even Crimea.

Agreession is all yours and it should not be rewarded. Therefore Ukraine becomes Russia again. NATO goes back to 1991 state.
Scratch that, NATO should be disbanded and their leadership for the last 25 years tried and executed.

Who crossed the border in 2014? Russia.

Who crossed the border in 2022? Russia.

And what crime has the NATO leadership committed besides not kowtowing to Putin?

This whole mess is because Ukraine threw out your puppet.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Ukraine has not claimed to have it surrounded. Rather, that they can hit anything going in or out. Russia has a bunch of troops basically cut off from supply. They either starve in place or run the gauntlet. Think of the infamous Highway of Death in Desert Storm. That's what happens when you have to run through territory the enemy can bring fire on.

Ukraine's defense minstry has said they have "fire control" over all GLOCs to Bakhmut. But that's highly doubtful. There are many routes to the city, and they're not flanked from either side. Basically Ukraine can fire on the roads over the city. But they don't necessarily have eyes on the targets, because Russia will most definitely have jamming devices and will shoot down any UAVs they can spot. I don't think Ukraine really has fire control over anything but the city itself, and maybe the neighboring settlements.

Compare that to the situation last winter when Ukraine was trying to defend Bakhmut. Russia was trying a pincer movement from north and south, and had basically cut off everything but unpaved dirt roads, and Ukraine was still able to supply their troops in the city.

We provide the eyes in the sky. They're not going to be able to move enough supplies without us seeing it.

Satellites can identify potential fixed targets, but they aren't useful in giving artillery "fire control" over logistic routes. First, because satellites aren't always over the area of interest. And second, because Ukraine isn't getting a real-time satellite data. The US intelligence probably vets the images and even if they pass it on to Ukraine, it's not available to artillery crews immediately for targeting purposes.

I was thinking of aircraft, not satellites. Vehicles moving on the ground can be detected by doppler. We can't ID them but we can tell Ukraine that there is traffic on the road and they can eyeball that traffic with a drone and fire if appropriate.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I think that it's stunning how many on the left

Bullshit. Why should Russian aggression be rewarded at all? They agreed to respect Ukrianian boundaries decades ago. Russia can end this war easily. Turn around and go home - even Crimea.

Agreession is all yours and it should not be rewarded. Therefore Ukraine becomes Russia again. NATO goes back to 1991 state.
Scratch that, NATO should be disbanded and their leadership for the last 25 years tried and executed.

Who crossed the border in 2014? Russia.

Who crossed the border in 2022? Russia.

And what crime has the NATO leadership committed besides not kowtowing to Putin?

This whole mess is because Ukraine threw out your puppet.

Oh come on man! We were big meanies to Russia. Very mean.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Russians are getting a better picture of their history than they had in Soviet times, when the Party simply rewrote textbooks to edit out what they didn't want taught in the schools. That said, the US isn't really all that much better, especially given all of the effort to rewrite history in large states like Florida and Texas. But K12 students in the US have always been taught a bowdlerized history. In fact, most countries do that. Russians are not really as ignorant or uneducated as many American youth end up being after high school graduation. As in the US, history was taught more realistically in the universities, where students would engage in lively debates.

I have never seen Russian education to compare. However, I would presume it's much like what I'm aware of from China. I have noticed gaping holes in her knowledge of anything in world history that would portray China as anything less than equal or greater than the other world powers. And as late as the turn of the century I still saw that any such things were simply not for discussion. (I have had no data points since then to evaluate.)

 

[Elixir]

Who crossed the border in 2014? Russia.

Who crossed the border in 2022? Russia.

And what crime has the NATO leadership committed besides not kowtowing to Putin?

This whole mess is because Ukraine threw out your puppet.

WTF do FACTS have to do with it?
This is the Baghdad Barbie show!

 

[Jayjay]

We provide the eyes in the sky. They're not going to be able to move enough supplies without us seeing it.

Satellites can identify potential fixed targets, but they aren't useful in giving artillery "fire control" over logistic routes. First, because satellites aren't always over the area of interest. And second, because Ukraine isn't getting a real-time satellite data. The US intelligence probably vets the images and even if they pass it on to Ukraine, it's not available to artillery crews immediately for targeting purposes.

I was thinking of aircraft, not satellites. Vehicles moving on the ground can be detected by doppler. We can't ID them but we can tell Ukraine that there is traffic on the road and they can eyeball that traffic with a drone and fire if appropriate.

The closest US or NATO can fly their surveillance planes is Poland or the Black Sea. I suspect that's way too far away to detect anything in Donbas or Zaporizhzhia.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The Ukrainian invasion was largely driven by a vision of rebuilding part of that lost empire and sense of power, not just an inability to handle democracy.

That's KGB propaganda that the KGB is glad to have people swallow. The reality is that the closer democracy and accountability arrive at Russia's borders the worse things get for gangsters like Putin. He will kill every living soul in his country to save his hide. There is nothing honorable or moral about the man and men like him.

 

[Copernicus]

The Ukrainian invasion was largely driven by a vision of rebuilding part of that lost empire and sense of power, not just an inability to handle democracy.

That's KGB propaganda that the KGB is glad to have people swallow. The reality is that the closer democracy and accountability arrive at Russia's borders the worse things get for gangsters like Putin. He will kill every living soul in his country to save his hide. There is nothing honorable or moral about the man and men like him.

First of all, it's now the FSB, not the KGB. And there is nothing I said that could be construed as FSB propaganda, unless you think that the FSB wants people to believe that democracy would be a good thing for Russia. Putin is an ultranationalist whose "One People" party is explicitly devoted to absorbing Belarus and Ukraine into Russia's sphere of influence if not simply annexing both countries. I don't agree with all of your hyperbole about Russia, but I've already said my piece on that subject.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Russia has never been a free country. Thirty years of relative freedom does not correct for centuries of its absence. Russia has no legacy of freedom. I wish it did, as do you. But it does not. That is it's misfortune and it's present condition. Maybe that will change.

It changed everything for Ukraine, the Baltic republics, and the former Warsaw bloc nations. You cannot write off Russia's problems with such a simplistic analysis of their history.

Sure, but the Wasrsaw bloc nations and the Baltics had had centuries of contact with the West and in many cases prior democratic incarnations to speed their conversions. The Baltics and Eastern Europe in particular never wanted anything to do with the Soviet Union. They were kept in place at gunpoint. Apart from the Baltics and to some extent Ukraine, none of the ex-Soviet Republics achieved anything even approximating democracy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most of them, including Russia, are authoritarian dystopias.

But how important is that in the rise of Putin to power? I see a greater parallel with the rise of Hitler, whose regime signaled the end of a more or less liberal Western democracy in the heart of Western Europe. Hitler was able to play on the sense of economic chaos and helplessness in a population that had experienced a humiliating defeat. Putin was also able to play on the sense of economic chaos in the 1990s and a feeling of humiliation after the collapse of the Soviet empire. The Ukrainian invasion was largely driven by a vision of rebuilding part of that lost empire and sense of power, not just an inability to handle democracy. Russia did have a very active pro-democracy movement before Putin succeeded in cowing it. We also have cases in Eastern and Western Europe where the rise of authoritarianism has been noticeable and somewhat scary. I don't think that Russia can be dismissed on the basis of some kind of authoritarian stereotype of their past. The rise of tyranny can happen anywhere, especially when a population feels weak and helpless.

Everything you say is correct, and I’d go even further and say that the U.S. and the West in general must bear a good deal of responsibility for the chaos in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s. This is because we contrived, with Boris Yeltsin’s assent, to impose “economic shock therapy” on Russia and the other former republics, basically a hard swerve to the cowboy capitalism that had come into vogue during the Reagan years. The results were predictably disastrous, and the privations imposed on those countries no doubt soured tens of millions of their residents to Western models of “democracy” and especially economics. Even before the Soviet collapse, many Russians, apprised of the many benefits of Western freedoms, responded to the effect: “Yes, you have the freedom to sleep in the street if you are poor.” As a resident of New York City where I see dozens of homeless people sleeping in the streets every day, I find that this sentiment was and is entirely apposite.

I’d say that we should not hold up the West, particularly the U.S., as paragons of democratic virtue. As Louis D. Brandeis said, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Guess which one we have here?

Still, it is a fact that Russia has no tradition of democratic impulses or institutions in all its hundreds of years of existence. The brief fling with democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union ended in tears, not just because of the shock-therapy economic model but because Yeltsin proved to be another drunken dour Kremlin bureaucratic lout who in short order launched a bloody war in Chechnya. In sum, Russia’s entire history has been under the yoke first of the czars, then the Communist gargoyles, and now the neo-Nazi Putinistas.

Does this mean that Russians are incapable of achieving some sort of democracy? No, it just means that without some relevant historical context to fall back on, democratizing is going to be a fraught business likely to fail, as it failed under Yeltsin and yielded to Putin. That the majority of Russians have supinely yielded to Putin in this barbaric war leaves me rather bereft of charitable thoughts toward them. A great many of them at least had the guts to rally under Yeltsin’s banner against the Communists when the latter deposed Gorbachev with an eye toward undoing his perestroika and glasnost reforms. Now, just a great silence emanates from the masses. I’m having trouble much giving a damn what happens to them.

Jesus that's a lot of blaming of the west. The Soviet economy was an utter and complete mess. Worse than just broken. It had to be reshaped completely. Slow change is usually better than fast change. But the situation for Russia was catastrophic. So slow change was not an option. No matter how things were changed it was going to hurt.

The biggest problem in the late USSR is that there was no sensible political player any pro-democratic movement could ally with. Yeltsin was a complete windbag. He just said stuff to allow him to get and keep power. He had no intention of making Russia democratic, or financially healthy. He just wanted hookers and blow. Well... hookers and vodka. But anyhoo. Putin was most likely the least bad option. At least he wanted a strong and healthy Russia. Yes, it was just as a vehicle for him to create a new Russian empire. But he at least gave a shit about the Russian people. A little bit.

The Soviet system had destroyed the cultivation of good leaders. It had been in power for so long, that at the time of the fall, nobody alive had had to manage a system that had working sensible incentives.

"Politics is the art of the possible"
/Otto Von Bismarck.

As far as the west was concerned, if they couldn't get what they wanted, they did their best to get something they might want at all. Anything was better that USSR. And that's what we got.

BTW, can we just rename NATO, the "anti-Russian defence pact" now? All pretences are gone now. The lines have been drawn in the sand and we can stop being polite. It was always just a pact to contain Russian imperialism, at the expense of Western democratic freedoms.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The Soviet system had destroyed the cultivation of good leaders. It had been in power for so long, that at the time of the fall, nobody alive had had to manage a system that had working sensible incentives.

Precisely. And calling the west some kind of great evil is clearly separating the good from the perfect. There was a period in my young life when I seriously considered emigrating to Russia. I perceived the country as a model economy where everything was planned and well executed for the benefit of the population. In hindsight I would have ended up imprisoned or dead because I dared suggest freedom instead of state terrorism. Centuries of anti-democratic, centralized, imperial rule and relative isolation has produced in Russia a baboon society where the biggest stick or the sharpest set of teeth rules the troop. This defines happiness for the masses in Russia.

 

[SLD]

Interesting article on Kiev’s growing counter battery capabilities. The counter offensive is focusing now on just degrading Russian systems rather than taking land. It will take territory eventually, but it doesn’t need to for now. Just continue to destroy their combat effectiveness. This is what Popov got in hot water for and was relieved.

Ukraine Situation Report: Kyiv's Growing Counter-Battery Advantage

While the counteroffensive grinds on, Ukrainian artillery teams are hunting down their Russian counterparts with increasing efficiency.

www.thedrive.com

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I don’t see the Russian army collapsing completely soon. They are willing to accept far higher casualties, just as they were in WWII. But the question is whether those Casualties will eventually result in a massive defeat. The loss of a significant territory is ultimately what will bring down Putin. Counter battery fire could destroy enough of their artillery to make the playing field far more in Ukraine‘s advantage.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Can't find the articles presently but the top Ukrainian commander says he has no qualms or reservations about striking targets inside Russia that are supporting the killing of his people. He stated that he knows he cannot do it with western supplied weapons but will use Ukrainian ordnance. Meanwhile Russian baboons threaten that if such things occur they will have to escalate. Typical response that they continue to use because the propaganda has been working for them. But it is not working on the Ukrainians.

 

[TV and credit cards]

The Soviet system had destroyed the cultivation of good leaders. It had been in power for so long, that at the time of the fall, nobody alive had had to manage a system that had working sensible incentives.

Precisely. And calling the west some kind of great evil is clearly separating the good from the perfect. There was a period in my young life when I seriously considered emigrating to Russia. I perceived the country as a model economy where everything was planned and well executed for the benefit of the population. In hindsight I would have ended up imprisoned or dead because I dared suggest freedom instead of state terrorism. Centuries of anti-democratic, centralized, imperial rule and relative isolation has produced in Russia a baboon society where the biggest stick or the sharpest set of teeth rules the troop. This defines happiness for the masses in Russia.

Shouldn't this have held true for China also.

 

[Jayjay]

Centuries of anti-democratic, centralized, imperial rule and relative isolation has produced in Russia a baboon society where the biggest stick or the sharpest set of teeth rules the troop. This defines happiness for the masses in Russia.

There is hope:

https://www.science.org/content/article/kinder-gentler-baboon

Nasty, brutish, and short--Thomas Hobbes's famous description of life without government could as easily be applied to baboons. The primates are famous for their bad manners. However, a troop of baboons in Kenya has recently changed its ways. Researchers suggest that the relatively peaceable behavior is a type of culture that's passed on to newcomers to the troop.

Baboon culture is rife with violence. Males fight over females, food, resting spots, and sometimes for no apparent reason. The most serious altercations are usually between baboons of close rank; but baboons low on the totem pole get bullied all the time by higher-ups looking for an ego boost.

Now it appears that one troop has found a better way. Robert Sapolsky, a primatologist at Stanford University in California, observed a troop of savanna baboons, dubbed Forest Troop, from the late 1970s until 1986, when an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis killed off the most aggressive males in the group. After the deaths of so many of the members, Sapolsky abandoned his study and stayed away for 10 years.

(...)

In the 13 April PLoS Biology, Sapolsky and his wife and colleague Lisa Share describe the dramatic changes they found when they returned. Members sat closer together and groomed each other more. The dominance hierarchy remained--Number Two still scrapped with Numbers One and Three as in a normal troop--but the higher-ranking baboons didn't vent their anger on subordinates. And that's apparently improved life for lowlier baboons; they don't have the classic markers of chronic stress--such as elevated levels of stress hormones--found in their peers in other troops.

If baboons can change, so can Russia. All it takes is that the current cadre of assholes that run the society are killed off.

 

[Elixir]

If baboons can change, so can Russia. All it takes is that the current cadre of assholes that run the society are killed off.

Too bad the human version confers unassailable defensive resources upon the bullies at the top. You can’t even gather the baddest baboons in one place let alone kill them all off.