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

[T.G.G. Moogly]

US had to worry about convincing public to go to war

That's called democracy.

from previous link:

Putin’s control comes without legal limits. He and the people around him operate without checks and balances, without ethics rules, without transparency of any kind. They determine who can be a candidate in elections, and who is allowed to speak in public. They can make decisions from one day to the next—sending troops to the Ukrainian border, for example—after consulting no one and taking no advice. When Putin contemplates an invasion, he does not have to consider the interest of Russian businesses or consumers who might suffer from economic sanctions. He doesn’t have to take into account the families of Russian soldiers who might die in a conflict that they don’t want. They have no choice, and no voice.

And yet at the same time, Putin’s position is extremely precarious. Despite all of that power and all of that money, despite total control over the information space and total domination of the political space, Putin must know, at some level, that he is an illegitimate leader. He has never won a fair election, and he has never campaigned in a contest that he could lose. He knows that the political system he helped create is profoundly unfair, that his regime not only runs the country but owns it, making economic and foreign-policy decisions that are designed to benefit the companies from which he and his inner circle personally profit. He knows that the institutions of the state exist not to serve the Russian people, but to steal from them. He knows that this system works very well for a few rich people, but very badly for everyone else. He knows, in other words, that one day, prodemocracy activists of the kind he saw in Dresden might come for him too.

 

[barbos]

That's called democracy.

I call it lying.

 

[zorq]

He knows, in other words, that one day, prodemocracy activists of the kind he saw in Dresden might come for him too.

I doubt it.

I have grown more cynical lately. I don't think Putin has anything to fear. There are enough dullards, gullible sycophants, and comfortable cowards out there that the abuse of a dictator would have to become ridiculous before a resistance movement would gather enough strength to challenge Russia's status quo. Putin is in very comfortabe territory.

Just look at all the blind fools all over the internet.

 

[barbos]

Just look at all the blind fools all over the internet.

Putin certainly underestimates how brainwashed and uneducated average westerners are.

 

[TV and credit cards]

US had to worry about convincing public to go to war

That's called democracy.

from previous link:

Putin’s control comes without legal limits. He and the people around him operate without checks and balances, without ethics rules, without transparency of any kind. They determine who can be a candidate in elections, and who is allowed to speak in public. They can make decisions from one day to the next—sending troops to the Ukrainian border, for example—after consulting no one and taking no advice. When Putin contemplates an invasion, he does not have to consider the interest of Russian businesses or consumers who might suffer from economic sanctions. He doesn’t have to take into account the families of Russian soldiers who might die in a conflict that they don’t want. They have no choice, and no voice.

And yet at the same time, Putin’s position is extremely precarious. Despite all of that power and all of that money, despite total control over the information space and total domination of the political space, Putin must know, at some level, that he is an illegitimate leader. He has never won a fair election, and he has never campaigned in a contest that he could lose. He knows that the political system he helped create is profoundly unfair, that his regime not only runs the country but owns it, making economic and foreign-policy decisions that are designed to benefit the companies from which he and his inner circle personally profit. He knows that the institutions of the state exist not to serve the Russian people, but to steal from them. He knows that this system works very well for a few rich people, but very badly for everyone else. He knows, in other words, that one day, prodemocracy activists of the kind he saw in Dresden might come for him too.

Just look at all the blind fools all over the internet.

Putin certainly underestimates how brainwashed and uneducated average westerners are.

Actually our president can do much of the same but under a thin veneer of democracy. Our checks and balances only work when those doing the checking and balancing do their job. The president can and does go to war, congress just doesn't make it official. Once the guns start going off, I doubt the adversary much cares about the official declaration. And as George Bush the Dumb has shown us, a pretext for war equals a lot of soldiers who die for nothing.

What we can still do is look our powerful leaders in the face and say "fuck you". We don't have to walk through life with our eyes cast down.

 

[ZiprHead]

What we can still do is look our powerful leaders in the face and say "fuck you". We don't have to walk through life with our eyes cast down.

Russians do.

 

[barbos]

Russians do

You seems to be of the opinion that the the only reason Putin is still president is because everybody is scared. It may be true for some in the government but ordinary folk are not involved in politics and support Putin because alternative is what happens in Ukraine - utter chaos. Opposition especially the one US supports is not popular to say the least.
Of course americans are trying to create chaos for and with Putin, but so far it has not been worse than without. So, don't feel so good about yourself. Your system is just different kind of crap.

 

[barbos]

We don't have to walk through life with our eyes cast down.

Yeah, yet you vote for the same thing every time. Nothing changes.

 

[ZiprHead]

We don't have to walk through life with our eyes cast down.

Yeah, yet you vote for the same thing every time. Nothing changes.

At least our votes have meaning. Yours means squat.

 

[Copernicus]

Russians do

You seems to be of the opinion that the the only reason Putin is still president is because everybody is scared. It may be true for some in the government but ordinary folk are not involved in politics and support Putin because alternative is what happens in Ukraine - utter chaos. Opposition especially the one US supports is not popular to say the least.
Of course americans are trying to create chaos for and with Putin, but so far it has not been worse than without. So, don't feel so good about yourself. Your system is just different kind of crap.

If one doesn't, or can't, learn what is really happening outside of their own country, then they can easily fall victim to local propaganda. Ukraine is quite calm and organized these days, but the torrent of anti-Ukrainian propaganda in Russia simply overrides that perception. Putin himself is a victim of his own propaganda, and that is why he seems to have so much difficulty in understanding why his behavior is achieving the exact opposite of what he wants. He has become a poster boy for NATO recruitment, and Ukraine has developed a stronger sense of national identity and derussification. Had he behaved more shrewdly, NATO would be weaker, Nordstream 2 would be bringing in more revenue, and he would have stood a better chance of influencing Ukraine to seek closer ties. If Putin moves to crush Ukraine in the way that our Russian friend here brags about, he will find himself wasting lives and resources on trying to pacify a country that will be in constant rebellion against any puppet government that he installs. And that won't do anything the keep the "ordinary folk" in Russia from getting more involved in their own domestic politics, much to the regret of Putinistas.

 

[TV and credit cards]

We don't have to walk through life with our eyes cast down.

Yeah, yet you vote for the same thing every time. Nothing changes.

In a democracy, things should change slowly. Democracy is hard, to achieve and maintain. There's always another power hungry autocrat conniving in the shadows. Democracy is what all Russians should strive for.
China is not your friend, with an economy a tenth of theirs, not by a long shot. They will use Russia against the US for as long as they need to and then discard you. You know this is true.
Not worrying about the powers that be in your own autocratic government because you personally are too small for the government to care about is no way to live. If these powers decide to turn their attention toward you, what recourse do you have?
Living by someone else's leave is no way to live.

 

[Copernicus]

We are used to hearing that Russia has an economy that is not much larger than that of Italy, but no one really knows the extent of its underground economy, which is fed by Russian organized crime around the world. For example, most of the ransomware attacks seem to originate from Russian criminal gangs, that also sometimes work in collusion with the Russian government. Much of the wealth that Russian oligarchs and criminals amass is laundered in the west, where it is better protected from theft by the banking systems. That could become more of a problem, if western countries start imposing tougher sanctions on Russia for its aggression in Ukraine. Putin himself could find his financial vast overseas wealth threatened by banking institutions.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Putin himself is a victim of his own propaganda, and that is why he seems to have so much difficulty in understanding why his behavior is achieving the exact opposite of what he wants.

That may be just the narrative the Putinator wants us to believe while he pilfers more and more billions. For a guy who was a KGB nobody doing a stint in East Germany when the Soviet Union collapsed and is now a billionaire with state control of the entire government to the point where he can murder and imprison his opponents he's not a dummy.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Putin himself is a victim of his own propaganda, and that is why he seems to have so much difficulty in understanding why his behavior is achieving the exact opposite of what he wants.

That may be just the narrative the Putinator wants us to believe while he pilfers more and more billions. For a guy who was a KGB nobody doing a stint in East Germany when the Soviet Union collapsed and is now a billionaire with state control of the entire government to the point where he can murder and imprison his opponents he's not a dummy.

Well, I think that it would be a mistake to underestimate him. But I think that he's made a lot of shocking bad mistakes and blunders. For example, he wants to split Nato. Instead, he's strengthened their resolve. The Nato countries are united. If you look at the non Nato countries (Finland, Sweden, and of course Ukraine); they were 50-50 for joining Nato; now these countries all want to join! Ukraine has really united. We've exposed many of Putin's tricks to try to start a war. Ukraine was starting to get angry at Biden for overdramatizing the risk of Russian invasion: then we showed them the trucks with supplies of blood being sent to the border. The more Putin threatens, the more he unwittingly makes evident why Russia's neighbors believe they need to join NATO to protect themselves.

 

[Copernicus]

Putin himself is a victim of his own propaganda, and that is why he seems to have so much difficulty in understanding why his behavior is achieving the exact opposite of what he wants.

That may be just the narrative the Putinator wants us to believe while he pilfers more and more billions. For a guy who was a KGB nobody doing a stint in East Germany when the Soviet Union collapsed and is now a billionaire with state control of the entire government to the point where he can murder and imprison his opponents he's not a dummy.

I don't think that Putin is a dummy. You don't have to be stupid to be willfully ignorant, since it takes a lot of mental effort to filter out reality. His historical screed on Ukraine being the Russian homeland is a good example. The shared history of the Kievan Rus' doesn't justify Russia annexing Ukrainian territory. If it justified such nonsense, it would actually justify Ukraine annexing Russian territory, since it was the princes in Kyiv who ruled over the provincial Suzdal-Vladimir-Moscow area historically.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Putin and Xi today issued a joint statement at the Olympics stating that they "oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States," the statement said.

I'm speechless...

 

[Copernicus]

Putin and Xi today issued a joint statement at the Olympics stating that they "oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States," the statement said.

I'm speechless...

Both countries doing a reprise of the Cold War era. Both are fiddling a duet while the climate burns.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Putin and Xi today issued a joint statement at the Olympics stating that they "oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States," the statement said.

I'm speechless...

At least western democratic states can say they have their attention.

 

[Trausti]

Putin and Xi today issued a joint statement at the Olympics stating that they "oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States," the statement said.

I'm speechless...

Biden has done it; pushed Russia into allegiance with China. Excellent work.

 

[ZiprHead]

Putin and Xi today issued a joint statement at the Olympics stating that they "oppose further enlargement of NATO and call on the North Atlantic Alliance to abandon its ideologized cold war approaches, to respect the sovereignty, security and interests of other countries, the diversity of their civilizational, cultural and historical backgrounds, and to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards the peaceful development of other States," the statement said.

I'm speechless...

Biden has done it; pushed Russia into allegiance with China. Excellent work.

Did Biden do anything at all to push "Russia into allegiance with China" before Russia amassed 130,000 troops on Ukraine's border? Note this will be the third time Russia has invaded and annexed parts of Ukraine in recent years.