Putin: War Criminal; Trump alliance

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

That's the central point for anyone trying to understand what Putin and modern Russia are trying to do. Putin wants his country to be treated like a Great Power, despite the fact that all they have really to back up that claim is nukes, a reasonably large army (with cutting-edge equipment in a couple of fields and fairly obsolete equipment in a lot of others) and a willingness to force-project where most nations don't. In terms of economic might, they are way down the list, far below the United States and many individual European nations, but with the potential to do a lot better. Putin basically wants Russia to have the respect the Soviet Union used to, just without the massive economic base and population of the old USSR backing it up.

Yes, precisely. Putin has no interest in being at the level of world influence that Italy currently occuppies - which is more or less where Russia would be placed if measured in pure economic terms. So he uses every other arrow in Russia's quiver to elevate its influence above the level that its economy would warrant on its own. These, as I said, include Russia's Security Council veto power, Russia's control of European energy supplies, Russia's strong military, and of course, ultimately, Russia's nuclear arsenal.

These factors, combined with the ability to control his country with far greater central authority than a Western leader ever could, allow Putin to punch at a Great Power level on the world stage, well beyond what Russia's pure economic strength would otherwise dictate.

[Werthead]

There was a discussion on another site about this, which led to the following, which is where I think Putin is right now:

(someone was saying that Putin was about to send Russian tanks into Eastern Europe again)

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Putin doesn't want to be in East Berlin. He remembers what a headache it was last time and how expensive it was for Russia. His game is a lot more straightforward.

Putin projects a tough guy image, an image of decisive, strong leadership that does not bow down to foreign powers and works alongside long-standing partners like Assad. He also knows that most Russians feel annoyed by how they were treated by other world powers in the 1990s and early 2000s. Russia still belives in realpolitik, spheres of influence and things that the West believed collapsed with the Berlin Wall. It sees the Western move into the Baltic States as an insult (never a real threat, but certainly a conveniently perceived one) that can be borne but it regards a potential incursion into Georgia and Ukraine as crossing the line. So when it looked like Ukraine might flip and go to the EU, Putin intervened in a manner that projected strength, resolve and decisiveness without bogging Russia down in a full-scale war with Ukraine, having already dealt with Georgia in a manner that made the West look utterly impotent (I'd argue that didn't entirely pan out because the West also accepted that Georgia had acted like idiots by using force to start with).

I don't think he was expecting either the sanctions regime that followed, or how badly it bit into the finances and travel plans of his primary supporters. It turns out that Russia in the 2010s is not as financially self-supporting as the USSR in the 20th Century, and the country had plugged itself into the world financial system more firmly that he'd liked. So now if Putin sits back and does nothing, he risks losing support from the oligarchs and ultimately losing power. He doesn't really want to wade into Kiev with tanks and aircraft and touch off a war that might dwarf Chechnya in casualties and bad PR, but he also can't back down and withdraw without looking weak, so he needs to do something else.

Then Syria blows up and the UK and US decide - narrowly - not to bomb Assad into the stone age. That gives Putin his window. He deploys the Russian military to aid Syria, all but goads the West into doing something that looks like a confrontation and sees them back down (despite Clinton and Johnson's bluster, there will be no no-fly zone), like they already have in Georgia, Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The civil war means that Syrian soldiers can fight and die on the ground, Russia gets to show off it's sweet hardware by parading it through the channel (ignore the fact that the aircraft carrier is old, slow and verging on the obsolete, it's still a show of strength) and show that it's still a player.

Putin's endgame isn't WWIII or invading Eastern Europe. For all his faults he is a rational actor and he isn't an idiot. He knows Russia does not have the long-term economic foundation or manpower to wage any kind of war against Europe and the United States. What he wants to do is pull out of Syria once Assad has gotten the upper hand and can win. He probably wanted to do that after Palmyra, but Aleppo still showed that Assad can't find his backside if he goes looking for it with both hands, so Putin has now doubled down there. If Assad can retake Aleppo that will likely cause such a reversal of fortune for the rebels that Syria can either win the war outright or negotiate a settlement from that point that keeps Assad in power (especially if they promise to help retake Raqqa and end IS as a problem, which Turkey might go for). The Russian military gets to come home in triumph, the West looks like it's been humiliated and Putin looks like a mastermind. And if he then makes a deal with the West that (very, very quietly) sees Russian troops pull out of Eastern Ukraine and the sanctions regime end, the oligarchs love him as well and Putin goes down as the best Russian President ever (because he has to be thinking legacy as well).

tl;dr - Putin is playing a master game of poker and realpolitik with the ultimate aim of making himself and Russia look awesome and the sanctions lifted.

The only fly in this ointment is Trump winning. If Trump becomes President and does everything he says he will - pull out of NATO, recall US troops from Europe and the Middle-East - then all bets are off. Putin may well be tempted to retake at least the Baltic States and maybe Ukraine.

[Mr Fixit]

What Free Northman Reborn posted is only a part of the puzzle. Putin and the current Moscow elites want to bring Russia back on the world stage in a big way and want others to respect and acknowledge what they view as Russian national interests. But it also has to be taken into account that in many ways Putin is only reacting. His strategy in Ukraine and Syria wasn't planned from the get-go, and is seen in Moscow as a forced move necessitated by what they consider Western flagrant disregard for their legitimate national interests. 

Please note that I'm not supporting or excusing his political agenda; I'm simply trying to put it in context. While Russian actions in Ukraine in particular are in my view needlessly aggressive, it is important to understand that among Russians there is a deep feeling of betrayal by the West and predominantly US. And truth be told, much of that feeling is warranted.

US had a key role in the destruction of the Russian economy during the 90's and the establishment of the oligarch system; they helped Yeltsin pull off a coup and then a few years later poured billions of dollars to help him steal elections; they broke the promise (yeah, yeah, not written, yadda-yadda) given to Gorbachev that NATO wouldn't expand east; without the UN mandate they bombed a close Russian ally in the Balkans and then enabled unilateral secession of Kosovo (where they promptly installed a large military base); they were the first to start dismantling long-standing nuclear treaties by withdrawing from ABM treaty in 2002; they practically enforced (or at least let happen) a coup in Kiev less than 24 hours after an agreement was signed between the government and the opposition that would have led to a peaceful transition of power; less directly tied to Russia, US has been on a bloody "regime change" crusade in the Middle East for the last 15 years, directly financing, training, and arming a bunch of shady people who often turn out to be hardcore islamists in disguise.

Speaking of Syria, there was a recent interview by the ex-Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari where he flat-out states that years ago, when the crisis in Syria was getting started, Russians proposed to the West a plan which included Assad ceding power. They ignored the proposal because they believed they could get rid of him on their own terms, presumably without having to come to some kind of compromise with Russians regarding their interests in Syria. Essentially, Russians were prepared to compromise -- just as they were in the case of Libya when they agreed to the no-fly zone -- only to have the door slammed in their face.

I don't know about the others, but I can kinda see why Russians don't believe in Western good intentions toward them.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Assad's father was always allied with the old Soviet Union. Their sphere of influence with Syria is much deeper and goes back decades. The U.S. at the 11th hour wanting to dictate terms and force regime change has went over like a lead balloon because they are viewed as the meddling outsiders in a society that has long heard themselves being lumped into an axis of evil (with N.Kore and Iran, according to the previous administration). The U.S. doesnt now, nor has it ever, spoken for the Syrian people.

As this Syrian lady points out, while she isnt a fan of Assad, he at least has a secular government that is thwarting Al Quaida and she very much resents further U.S. intervention in her homeland 

 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

On 11/1/2016 at 11:06 PM, Werthead said:

There was a discussion on another site about this, which led to the following, which is where I think Putin is right now:

(someone was saying that Putin was about to send Russian tanks into Eastern Europe again)

The only fly in this ointment is Trump winning. If Trump becomes President and does everything he says he will - pull out of NATO, recall US troops from Europe and the Middle-East - then all bets are off. Putin may well be tempted to retake at least the Baltic States and maybe Ukraine.

An interesting post you linked, although I wonder if Putin would really dare to straight up annex the Baltics and Ukraine even if Trump allowed him to. The Russians had so huge problems with pacifying a dump like Chechnya back in the day, which even little Eesti should be able to bite back harder than (considering that they actually have a real military with reasonably modern equipment and training, as well as a state sponsored guerilla movement), nevermind a pretty big country like the Ukraine. Even if the initial invasions worked out, which they could well do I suppose, if their goals were to actually stay and occupy those countries then they'd probably end up fighting insurgencies that'd make Afghanistan look like a walk in the park in comparison. Especially since Western countries could pump in modern anti-tank and anti-air weapons like they've done in Syria, but on an even greater scale. 

[Chaircat Meow]

On ‎01‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 6:34 PM, Werthead said:

That's the central point for anyone trying to understand what Putin and modern Russia are trying to do. Putin wants his country to be treated like a Great Power, despite the fact that all they have really to back up that claim is nukes, a reasonably large army (with cutting-edge equipment in a couple of fields and fairly obsolete equipment in a lot of others) and a willingness to force-project where most nations don't. In terms of economic might, they are way down the list, far below the United States and many individual European nations, but with the potential to do a lot better. Putin basically wants Russia to have the respect the Soviet Union used to, just without the massive economic base and population of the old USSR backing it up.

Is that all ...

The size of a nation's economy is the most useful indicator of its latent power, but the size and effectiveness of the armed forces represent its actual power. So it is not immediately relevant that the Russian economy is about the same as Germany's (in PPP terms), because Germany's power is only latent. And European nations are very unlikely, in the foreseeable future, to match Russia in terms of military spending or preparedness.

Also Russia has been one of the 'Great Powers' of Europe since the eighteenth century, but has only had an economy superior to the other big European states from the end of WWII to 1990. Historically Russia's 'Great Power' status has not been dependent on relative economic might, in the way that, say, the USA's has been. I suspect this is to do with the Russians being primarily a land power. For a country that needs naval power to maintain its position, like the USA, economic superiority is more important.

 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

9 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Is that all ...

The size of a nation's economy is the most useful indicator of its latent power, but the size and effectiveness of the armed forces represent its actual power. So it is not immediately relevant that the Russian economy is about the same as Germany's (in PPP terms), because Germany's power is only latent. And European nations are very unlikely, in the foreseeable future, to match Russia in terms of military spending or preparedness.

Also Russia has been one of the 'Great Powers' of Europe since the eighteenth century, but has only had an economy superior to the other big European states from the end of WWII to 1990. Historically Russia's 'Great Power' status has not been dependent on relative economic might, in the way that, say, the USA's has been. I suspect this is to do with the Russians being primarily a land power. For a country that needs naval power to maintain its position, like the USA, economic superiority is more important.

 

Very true. Although I feel that Putin's ambitions might not be just to have Russia treated as a "Great Power" again (which it arguably already is), but rather as the global superpower that it was during the Cold War. The latter may no longer be achievable, for the structural reasons Werthead mentioned in his post. It is also not something Russia has really been historically, aside from those fifty-ish years after WW2.

Because while they as you alluded to were certainly one of the big players in Europe since they defeated Sweden during the Great Northern War in 1721 (), they were by no means the biggest player of the bunch. Britain, France, and Germany (since the creation of their Empire during the 1800's) were hardly less powerful than Russia. In fact Germany beat them pretty soundly during WW1 for example. 

[maarsen]

17 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Is that all ...

The size of a nation's economy is the most useful indicator of its latent power, but the size and effectiveness of the armed forces represent its actual power. So it is not immediately relevant that the Russian economy is about the same as Germany's (in PPP terms), because Germany's power is only latent. And European nations are very unlikely, in the foreseeable future, to match Russia in terms of military spending or preparedness.

Also Russia has been one of the 'Great Powers' of Europe since the eighteenth century, but has only had an economy superior to the other big European states from the end of WWII to 1990. Historically Russia's 'Great Power' status has not been dependent on relative economic might, in the way that, say, the USA's has been. I suspect this is to do with the Russians being primarily a land power. For a country that needs naval power to maintain its position, like the USA, economic superiority is more important.

 

Russian projection of power has always been a limiting factor in their attempt to be a great power. They have literally almost no access to the world's oceans with warm water ports. Any country that became a great power did so by way of naval force. Germany always had the same issue. Their navy was too easy to bottle up.

[Werthead]

19 hours ago, Chaircat Meow said:

The size of a nation's economy is the most useful indicator of its latent power, but the size and effectiveness of the armed forces represent its actual power. So it is not immediately relevant that the Russian economy is about the same as Germany's (in PPP terms), because Germany's power is only latent. And European nations are very unlikely, in the foreseeable future, to match Russia in terms of military spending or preparedness.

Presuming Trump doesn't destroy NATO, European nations don't need to. They just need to provide significant back-up to the American military, which they can already. If Trump wins and refuses to support his NATO allies, then everything goes tits-up for that reason.

The big problem with having a big army but a relatively small economy is that you can't easily replace that army or its equipment if it is lost, as you can gradually build up your military over years or decades but you can't replace it in a hurry. That is the problem Germany faced in both global conflicts. That's why Russia sailing its antiquated aircraft carrier down the Channel didn't actually pan out the way it wanted. France's one aircraft carrier is more experienced and our two new aircraft carriers are far more modern and superior. If something happened and Russia lost it - just by accident or age, let alone action - they'd be a long time replacing it, as they have no carriers under construction or apparently even in the planning stages.

The United States and its ten fully-operational carrier battle groups (with one in reserve) are altogether unimpressed, needless to say.

[Chaircat Meow]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Presuming Trump doesn't destroy NATO, European nations don't need to. They just need to provide significant back-up to the American military, which they can already. If Trump wins and refuses to support his NATO allies, then everything goes tits-up for that reason.

The big problem with having a big army but a relatively small economy is that you can't easily replace that army or its equipment if it is lost, as you can gradually build up your military over years or decades but you can't replace it in a hurry. That is the problem Germany faced in both global conflicts. That's why Russia sailing its antiquated aircraft carrier down the Channel didn't actually pan out the way it wanted. France's one aircraft carrier is more experienced and our two new aircraft carriers are far more modern and superior. If something happened and Russia lost it - just by accident or age, let alone action - they'd be a long time replacing it, as they have no carriers under construction or apparently even in the planning stages.

The United States and its ten fully-operational carrier battle groups (with one in reserve) are altogether unimpressed, needless to say.

I responded to your post because I was so amused by the following phrase; 'Putin wants his country to be treated like a Great Power, despite the fact that all they have really to back up that claim is nukes, a reasonably large army ...' It's the fact you've situated the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, capable of reducing the USA to radioactive waste, behind a 'despite the fact' that tickles me so much. I guess that's just my lame sense of humour.

Wrt Trump. Donald Trump is going to make America great again, and root out the cancerous leftism that is doing so much damage to western civilization. There is going to be so much winning you will not believe. Anyway, I think it is a little naïve to assume that Trump is a kind of Black Swan event wrt the USA's relationship with its allies. The argument for isolationism (and Trump is so inconsistent he can't be pigeonholed as an isolationist) must surely appear very strong to Americans. They are protected against invasion by two enormous oceans, and none of the powers in the world that might come to rival them is in their own hemisphere. If Putin seizes the Baltic states he poses no threat whatsoever to the US homeland. Even if the Chinese do eventually frighten or force the Americans out of their side of the Pacific it is still very hard to see why America would be in danger. The Chinese, being situated across the ocean, would need to make an alliance with an American power to threaten the US. The likeliest candidate is Brazil, but this already sounds silly. So withdrawing from Europe and its other commitments is something the USA could well do in the future, regardless of who is President.

You argue that:

The big problem with having a big army but a relatively small economy is that you can't easily replace that army or its equipment if it is lost, as you can gradually build up your military over years or decades but you can't replace it in a hurry.

A pretty decent rule of thumb in general I agree, but it might be more true of some periods than others. Modern weaponry is so expensive, and takes so long to produce, that it could be that no power today, however dominant economically, can replace equipment lost due to battle and attrition in the time necessary to guard against devastating battlefield losses. The 1940s might prove to have been the high point of the ability of states to transmute their overall industrial strength into military strength. If the US became engaged in an aerial confrontation with China over Taiwan, and lost a lot of planes, due to superior Chinese numbers, it might take much longer to replace them than it would in the 1940s. The cost of military weapons systems has been increasing exponentially year on year.

You say:

That's why Russia sailing its antiquated aircraft carrier down the Channel didn't actually pan out the way it wanted. France's one aircraft carrier is more experienced and our two new aircraft carriers are far more modern and superior.

Well I hate to break it to you but the UK has no aircraft carriers. It has two vessels under construction but no planes for them, and may yet mothball one of the them before it sees service. At least the Russians have an aircraft carrier.

In any case, who cares about aircraft carriers. They have been effective in only one conflict, namely the USA's war with Japan. If someone doesn't hope to best the US by engaging them in the middle of the Pacific the carriers are probably not that important and may prove to be, in the next war, what the dreadnoughts were in WWII.  

The Americans may have 10 carriers or so, but they lack the capability to equip all of them with full carrier groups. This is not an issue if they fight Arabs, but it will be a problem if they sail close to Chinese or Russian shores. So the actual number of carrier groups they can deploy against a rival Great Power is considerably less than 10.*

*source, Mark urban, The Edge, passim and shit.

 

[Werthead]

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If the US became engaged in an aerial confrontation with China over Taiwan, and lost a lot of planes, due to superior Chinese numbers, it might take much longer to replace them than it would in the 1940s

If they are F-35s or even F-22s sure. But they can certainly replace F-15s and Super Hornets pretty damn fast, they've been building them for 40 years and had it pretty down pat, and the new versions are quite capable aircraft.

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It has two vessels under construction

The first ship is finished and launched, but not formally commissioned yet. The other one is about done now and due to be launched next year (but not formally commissioned until 2020). The second one certainly will enter service, the mothballing idea was firmly rejected a couple of years back.

The no aircraft thing - for now - does slightly hinder their operational capability though.

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

On 11/4/2016 at 9:34 PM, Chaircat Meow said:

....

You argue that:

The big problem with having a big army but a relatively small economy is that you can't easily replace that army or its equipment if it is lost, as you can gradually build up your military over years or decades but you can't replace it in a hurry.

A pretty decent rule of thumb in general I agree, but it might be more true of some periods than others. Modern weaponry is so expensive, and takes so long to produce, that it could be that no power today, however dominant economically, can replace equipment lost due to battle and attrition in the time necessary to guard against devastating battlefield losses. The 1940s might prove to have been the high point of the ability of states to transmute their overall industrial strength into military strength. If the US became engaged in an aerial confrontation with China over Taiwan, and lost a lot of planes, due to superior Chinese numbers, it might take much longer to replace them than it would in the 1940s. The cost of military weapons systems has been increasing exponentially year on year.

....

 

I think that's an interesting question which might not be quite as easy to answer as it might first seem. It is definitely true that military systems like fighter aircraft are more expensive today than they were during WW2 (although not quite as dramatically as they first might seem, given that the overall economy has grown significantly since then as well), but it is worth bearing in mind that the military budgets during that war were extremely large compared to what any country in the world is investing today. The Allies seem to in general have spent about 40-50% of GDP per year on the war, and the Axis powers even more. Compare that to modern times where the USA tends to spend about 3.5% - 5% of its annual GDP on the military, Russia somewhat more, and most other countries stay in the 1% - 1.5% range. 

So I think that if the USA temporarily increased its military budget by a factor of ten they could probably still churn out pretty many fighter aircraft and ships, even if not quite as many as during WW2, considering how complex the production chains look nowadays (lots of different parts from different companies from different countries, etc). 

But I'm not sure if this would matter all that much in a confrontation with China. Given that the presence of nuclear weapons on both sides should either prevent a conflict from escalating that far, or, if it does, make the production numbers of fighter aircraft and ships on both sides quite meaningless anyway... 

[Altherion]

Even leaving nukes aside, I don't think any world power currently has the stomach for the kind of war that requires massive replacement of equipment. If you need to replace it, you're probably sustaining massive losses and even Russia very strongly tries to avoid this nowadays. Wiki says that in WW2, the casualties amounted to roughly 3% of the world's population. That's... insane. Today, if a plane or helicopter gets shot down, it's national news.

[Swordfish]

On 11/6/2016 at 9:00 AM, Altherion said:

Even leaving nukes aside, I don't think any world power currently has the stomach for the kind of war that requires massive replacement of equipment. If you need to replace it, you're probably sustaining massive losses and even Russia very strongly tries to avoid this nowadays. Wiki says that in WW2, the casualties amounted to roughly 3% of the world's population. That's... insane. Today, if a plane or helicopter gets shot down, it's national news.

Yeah...  I think the risk of that is vanishingly small.I am curious about the numbers though.  

Just doing a little napkin math, 3% of 7.5 billion(Current population) would be what, 225 million or so?

Crazy.

 

[Wouter]

On 4-11-2016 at 9:34 PM, Chaircat Meow said:

That's why Russia sailing its antiquated aircraft carrier down the Channel didn't actually pan out the way it wanted. France's one aircraft carrier is more experienced and our two new aircraft carriers are far more modern and superior.

Well I hate to break it to you but the UK has no aircraft carriers. It has two vessels under construction but no planes for them, and may yet mothball one of the them before it sees service. At least the Russians have an aircraft carrier.

In any case, who cares about aircraft carriers. They have been effective in only one conflict, namely the USA's war with Japan.

 

I wouldn't say that. Carriers have been effective in other wars - The Falkland War specifically comes to mind as a conflict where carriers were crucial, if Invincible or Hermes had been lost it would pretty much have been over - and the ability to park a carrier off an enemy coastline (like, for example, in Libya in 1986) is a great diplomatic tool (modern gunboat diplomacy).

Having a self-sustainable air force on a mobile airfield that doesn't need any allies to operate (with the possible exception of overflight rights) can be an invaluable capacity.

Even in wars where landbased airforces were available in large numbers, using carriers still increased the options as well as the number of planes (Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm are examples).