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

[barbos]

I meant W. Not his father.

Well, his father presided over Germany unification and refused to throw a bone to Russia.

 

[Elixir]

@barbos
At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union occupied Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland and eastern Germany.
Instead of returning those Countries’ sovereignty, Stalin occupied, suppressed and plundered those countries but…

They overextended themselves and the Soviet Union became a failed State. Pootey wants to imagine it as glorious. Without NATO he’d be trying the same stunt he’s pulling in Ukraine.

Sorry you weren’t able to read and understand it the first time you were informed.

 

[laughing dog]

Bush in fact may prove to be the ultimate destruction of the United States

Well, according to records it was Bush who, when don't remember his name told him that US need to throw russians a bone, famously replied "We fucking won Cold War" or something to that effect.

Clinton could have thrown a bone too. And another Bush after 9-11, instead he started georgian war. US have lost all good will and trust in Russia.

Problem with your presidents is that they are all idiots who know nothing except how to get elected, they defer all foreign policies to neocon cunts.

To be fair, in the case of Russia, we are dealing with cunts.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Russia 1.486 Trillion USD

Don't want to embarrass you but Russian GDP is 3 times of that.
And before you protest, nobody use nominal GDP anymore, only PP GDP

Google economy of Russia:
GDP 1,647.6 Trillion USD
4,447.5 Trillion USD PP if you want it that way.

Still think Russia can occupy a hostile nation of 44.5 millions for years on end for cheap? Pootie is desperate to keep Ukraine out of the EU and NATO. Taking a chunk of Ukraine and leaving the rest will get Russia what it least wants. It is all or nothing.

The only way Russia could deal with Chenya was by almost levelling that nation. 1.7 millions. Think Russia could get by with that in a nation of 44.5 million? How to pay for occupying Ukraine for possibly decades?

The Russian gambit of supporting break away pro-Russian dissidents in a nation and using that as an excuse for a naked land grab is going to make just taking the Dombass region a non-starter. The pro-Russians in the rest of Ukraine will be utterly and totally unwelcome there. Russia will have to welcome millions of unwanted Russian ex-Ukrainian citizens as refugees or use that as an excuse to attack the rest of Ukraine. Russia will soon be a pariah nation sliding deep into a third world mud hole. I am sorry about that but that is what Pootie and his cronies have set Russia up for and Pootie does not seem to understand what the inevitable outcome of all of this will be and must be. I feel deeply sorry for all those Russians who do not approve of Putin, his kleptocrats and fellow buffoons leading Russia off the edge of a deep cliff, but then I cannot even get my fellow American buffoons to get vaccinated and wear their steekin' masks. Common sense is almost dead world wide.

 

[laughing dog]

Russia 1.486 Trillion USD

Don't want to embarrass you but Russian GDP is 3 times of that.
And before you protest, nobody use nominal GDP anymore, only PP GDP

Google economy of Russia:
GDP 1,647.6 Trillion USD
4,447.5 Trillion USD PP if you want it that way.

Still think Russia can occupy a hostile nation of 44.5 millions for years on end for cheap? Pootie is desperate to keep Ukraine out of the EU and NATO. Taking a chunk of Ukraine and leaving the rest will get Russia what it least wants. It is all or nothing.

The only way Russia could deal with Chenya was by almost levelling that nation. 1.7 millions. Think Russia could get by with that in a nation of 44.5 million? How to pay for occupying Ukraine for possibly decades?

They couldn't do it in Afghanistan.

 

[Elixir]

I feel deeply sorry for all those Russians who do not approve of Putin,

I feel even sorrier for those who do approve of Poootey. They are the ones most abused by propaganda.

 

[repoman]

Tucker Carlson wants you to know that Putin doesn't eat dogs, unlike the implication that the Chinese do.

 

[Copernicus]

...
You are right. It is not just Putin. Schollars and diplomats have been trying to warn us about this toxic agressive culture in Russia for a long time.

Did you know that back in 1994 Barbos's lauded John Mearsheimer predicted the crisis in Ukraine we are witnessing today? Well before Putin came to power? It is true. He understood Russia well enough to predict that if Ukraine was foolish enough to abandon her nuclear weapons then she would innevitably wind up on the defending side in a war of Russian aggression.

Mearsheimer didn't need to know who Russia's leaders would be because he knew Russian culture. So yes. Putin is only a small part of the problem. Russia herself and her people's toxic culture is the main problem.

Mearsheimer did not predict it in 1994. He predicted it in 2014.
So, try again.

I am sorry, Zorq, but I must correct your egregious screw up on the date. It was not 1994. It was 1993. Here is a link to the source for the article where he made that predition:

The case for a Ukrainian nuclear deterrent

Abstract​

Conventional wisdom argues that Ukraine should be forced to give up its nuclear weapons to ensure peace and stability in Europe. This is quite wrong. As soon as Ukraine declared its independence, Washington should have encouraged Kiev to fashion its own secure nuclear deterrent. The dangers of Russian-Ukrainian rivalry bode poorly for peace. If Ukraine is forced to maintain a large conventional army to deter potential Russian expansion, the danger of war is much greater than if it maintains a nuclear capability. U.S. policy should recognize that Ukraine, come what may, will keep its nuclear weapons.

BTW, since barbos put me on his ignore list out of fear that he might have to address anything I posted, he may not see this. So you may have to post the link for him. He likely won't have access to the source, since JSTOR is primarily through subscription to a library, but he can read the abstract.

 

[lpetrich]

Ukraine is far from the only nation with regional divisions. Let's look at Poland. Which party people favor is strongly associated with which 19th-cy. empire ruled where they live.

• 2007: Polish Election Map Reveals Old Imperial Border - Big Think and Polish election results overlaid on a map of the former German Empire : europe on Reddit
• 2019: Maps Mania: The Polish Imperial Election and Polish 2019 parliamentary election on detailed maps : europe on Reddit

Poland's two main political parties:

• PiS - Prawo i Sprawiedliwość - Law and Justice - nationalist conservative - clerical - Donald Trump
• PO - Platforma Obywatelska - Civic Platform - internationalist moderate conservative - secular - Hillary Clinton

PO is most favored in the former German areas of Poland, while PiS is most favored in the former Russian and Austrian areas of that nation. A division sometimes called  Poland A and B

There are other such regional scars, like in Germany, where former West and East Germany are still recognizable, and in the US, where the former Confederacy is also still recognizable.

I've yet to find any similar diagrams for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Ukraine, but from the looks of it, the former Polish parts are the pro-Western parts and the parts outside the Commonwealth are the pro-Russian parts.

 

[Copernicus]

This is the existential problem that Ukraine has. View attachment 37362
The eastern part is pro Russian. The west is fundamentally not. By letting those regions go, they could effectively become pro western With little interference from other regions of Ukraine that Pootey hasn’t taken. The problem is that Pootey can’t be trusted not to start grabbing more of Ukraine. I suspect he’ll stop for now. But 5 years from now he may start creating problems in other Russian areas of Ukraine such as Dnipropetrovsk or Odessa. It will be a delicate balance to stop him.

The problem with your argument is the date that this map reflects. That election was four years before the Maidan revolution and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And let's not forget that Yanukovych campaigned on a promise to seek closer ties with Europe, not Russia. What led to the Maidan protests was him reneging on that promise, and what led to the Russian invasion was the overthrow of Yanukovych by a popular uprising. IOW, a map from almost twelve years ago is misleading as a reflection of what Ukrainians want now, because they were not voting on whether to become part of Russia or join the Russian sphere of influence.

Nowadays there are a lot of Ukrainians who are Russian-dominant speakers that are struggling to learn Ukrainian simply because of what Putin has done in Ukraine. The Russian invasion led to an upsurge in Ukrainian patriotism and support for the spread of the Ukrainian language in the eastern sections of the country not under Russian control. Pro-Russia sentiment and nostalgia for the Soviet Union is still strong in the eastern portions of the country, but mainly in the older population. (Nostalgia for Soviet times is weaker among young people in Russia, as well.) However, it is a serious mistake to think that ethnic Russians and Russian-dominant speakers are in favor of becoming part of Russia. A great many want stronger ties with the EU, but not necessarily NATO membership.

 

[steve_bank]

There are divisions and cultural divides everywhere.

Kurds vs Turks
Arab vs Persan. Shiite vs Sunni
Basque separitsts in Spain
Chechnya
Kosovo War
North Ireland
Yemen
Sudan
Rwanda
Pakistan vs India, Muslim vs Hindu

The Brits went to war with Argentina over the tiny meaningless Falkland Islands. The image of British empire was at stake. Proxy wars like Vietnam and Korea. Stupid wars like Afghanistan and Iraq, but no large scale massive wars.

When you think about it the post war stability in Europe and the world meaning no large scale destructive war is remarkanle. You woud think logically we would all bend over backwards to protect that relative peace and economic growth.

China is more of a threat than Russia. They built a fortified artificial island in the South China Sea and say everybody needs to get permission to enter what is considered international waters and airspace.. That potentially threatans directly global trade and economics.

 

[steve_bank]

Post war Stalin went on a land grab

What land he grabbed? do you know?

At the end of World War II, the Soviet Union occupied Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland and eastern Germany.
Instead of returning those Countries’ sovereignty, Stalin occupied, suppressed and plundered those countries but…

They overextended themselves and the Soviet Union became a failed State. Pootey wants to imagine it as glorious. Without NATO he’d be trying the same stunt he’s pulling in Ukraine.

That says it all. The Soviets failed all by themselves.

They never could figure out how to make a decent car or airplane. A physicist I knew siad they had the best physics in the world.

Their ideology stifled initiative and they never could develop manufacturing, they had no way to translate science into technology.

 

[Copernicus]

Anyway, my read of the lecture is that Putin is genuinely pissed off and Ukrainian government should be worried. I suspect that Russia is most likely not responsible for recent escalation in Eastern Ukraine. Otherwise Putin should be nominated for Oscar.

Of course it's possible that rebels did False Flag by themselves in secret. But that would be hard to do. I think it's your guys. Whether or not US was aware hard to tell.
The end result favors Ukraine greatly.

It's easy for Russia and their Donbas proxy rebels to stage false flag videos that get widely circulated and believed by Russians. They are fairly easy to expose in the West, but you don't get very good fact-checking of such disinformation in Russia itself. And those, like barbos, who depend solely on the internet for their information run the risk of simply feeding their confirmation bias by succumbing to the clickbait. Barbos seems to base his trust in such reports on the basis of incredulity--it "would be hard to do".

The most famous of the fake false flag videos was the  Crucified Boy video from 2014. The DNR turns these things out a lot. See this recent story from the Guardian that is based on a bellingcat report. These videos are designed especially to target older Russians, and they do stoke the anger of a lot of people.

‘Dumb and lazy’: the flawed films of Ukrainian ‘attacks’ made by Russia’s ‘fake factory’

 

[Elixir]

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Tucker Carlson wants you to know that Putin doesn't eat dogs, unlike the implication that the Chinese do.

Some news reports now have the GOP splintering on how to deal with Putin. Do they support dumb SOB's like Trump and Faux Noise? Or support Biden's program to act carefully but forcefully in the case of Russia? Politicized obstructionism, back Biden or go a war mongering?

When the cry "Who Lost Ukraine!" goes up, 4 years of Trump - GOP failure to head all of this off when we could is going to be embaressing for the GOP.

 

[repoman]

At a certain point nations are supposed to be forceful bullies, the Russia and the USA included. That or get knocked down hard in the pecking order, which can have nasty consequences. But often it is best to be a sneaky, conniving bastard as Putin demonstrates.

This is not a question of right or wrong.

 

[Trausti]

At a certain point nations are supposed to be forceful bullies, the Russia and the USA included. That or get knocked down hard in the pecking order, which can have nasty consequences. But often it is best to be a sneaky, conniving bastard as Putin demonstrates.

This is not a question of right or wrong.

Putin isn’t being sneaky. He’s doing everything out in the open. He even gave a speech laying out his claimed justifications. He’s simply aware that Biden is a senile harmless fool and he’s using this “crisis” to humiliate the West.

 

[Elixir]

Business brisk at Kyiv gun shops as Ukrainians rush to buy arms

Threat of invasion, and draft law giving Ukrainians permission to carry firearms, leads to long queues inside weapons stores

It's going to suck to be an occupying Russian soldier if form holds.

 

[Hermit]

We need to acknowledge that might makes right and exploitative expansion is the norm for human nations.

Exactly. Russia is no exception. Empires have expanded whenever or wherever they could as soon as civilisations have gone beyond settling in small villages. The first one we know of was the Akkadian Empire, which conquered one isolated Sumerian city-state after another, starting circa 2300 BCE. Countries have expanded their own territories, developed vassal states, spheres of influence, and so forth ever since by means fair and foul.

The USA acquired Louisiana and Alaska by purchase, other areas via mutual agreement and others again by war. This is a map of Mexico in 1824:

 

[Copernicus]

At a certain point nations are supposed to be forceful bullies, the Russia and the USA included. That or get knocked down hard in the pecking order, which can have nasty consequences. But often it is best to be a sneaky, conniving bastard as Putin demonstrates.

This is not a question of right or wrong.

Putin isn’t being sneaky. He’s doing everything out in the open. He even gave a speech laying out his claimed justifications. He’s simply aware that Biden is a senile harmless fool and he’s using this “crisis” to humiliate the West.

You can't help taking a swipe at Biden because of your disappointment that Trump lost the election, but the reality is that this invasion has nothing to do with Biden. It might well have happened even with Putin's biggest fan, Donald Trump, still in the White House. The difference is that he would be blaming Ukraine, praising Russian restraint, and parroting Russian talking points about Ukraine not really being a country. As it is, all Trump can do now for his Kremlin buddy is call Putin's behavior "genius" in his capacity as a major influencer in US conservative politics.