Ukraine Part 2: Playing chicken with Kiev

[Falcon2909]

Can Russia invade already? I'm getting bored and need to be entertained

[Larry of the Lawn]

9 minutes ago, Falcon2909 said:

Can Russia invade already? I'm getting bored and need to be entertained

Real fucking classy.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

14 minutes ago, Falcon2909 said:

Can Russia invade already? I'm getting bored and need to be entertained

When people start being killed will you continue to be smug?

[Arakan]

20 minutes ago, Werthead said:

NATO allowed Turkey to join, which has caused unending headaches due to Turkey's sabre-rattling and propensity to stick its nose into the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, its own internal problem with the Kurds and its interventions in the Syrian conflict not to mention occasionally winding up Israel and Saudi Arabia and then hiding behind NATO's skirts (to the point that NATO has had to tell Turkey if Turkey starts a conflict deliberately, NATO will do nothing to protect them). If Turkey can be a NATO member, then so can Ukraine, quite easily. Of course, if Turkey was applying for NATO membership in 2022, it's quite likely it would be turned down or kicked into the long grass indefinitely.

The situation is also comparable to the Baltic States. Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia (my dad spent some time in Riga almost immediately post independence, as part of a bunch of EU companies looking to help develop it in the post-Soviet period) were not in a good shape at all in 1991 and had similar problems with endemic corruption - the Russian Mafia basically still openly ruled large parts of their economies for years - and Russia making angry noises at the idea of them being allowed into the EU and NATO. Since then, all three countries have developed well, corruption has been reduced and their economies have boomed hugely (Estonia has a vibrant tech sector, spearheaded by Skype being created there).

I think there is a genuine will in Ukraine to stamp out corruption and become a more developed country and economy. It certainly has all the ingredients for it, such as a young population, a huge amount of and resources and tremendous tech/IT potential. There's a video game developer, 4A Games (developer of the excellent Metro franchise), founded in Kyiv who started off running five-year-old hardware balanced on old school benches in an unheated former Soviet workshop and transitioned in just a few years to modern, comfortable offices with all the amenities and hardware of any modern video game studio anywhere else in the Western world. They did move their headquarters to Malta in 2014, partially in response to the conflict in the east of the country and partially because operating outside the EU was a major logistical headache, but their Kyiv studios remain active.

Transparency International Corruption Index

Ukraine is at place 117 out of 180 with a score of 33/100.
For comparison:

1. Denmark 88
9. Germany 80
25. USA 67
129. Russia 30
160 Iraq 21
179. Somalia/South Sudan 12

Now the problem is: applying for NATO membership is nowadays basically synonymous with applying for EU membership, see Joe Lieberman today.  But the reality is: no one in Western Europe wants Ukraine in the EU. Olaf Scholz made it very clear: after the West Balkans that’s it for EU expansion. 

 

[polishgenius]

A friend of mine from Russia- round Buratya way- is genuinely worried he might get drafted if Russia starts some shit and it goes on too long (and being a minority he's not high on his prospects if he does end up in the army), and of course millions of Ukrainians are worried for their lives, but I'm glad to see it's a joke to some people.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just now, Arakan said:

Transparency International Corruption Index

Ukraine is at place 117 out of 180 with a score of 33/100.
For comparison:

1. Denmark 88
9. Germany 80
25. USA 67
129. Russia 30
160 Iraq 21
179. Somalia/South Sudan 12

Now the problem is: applying for NATO membership is nowadays basically synonymous with applying for EU membership, see Joe Lieberman today.  But the reality is: no one in Western Europe wants Ukraine in the EU. Olaf Scholz made it very clear: after the West Balkans that’s it for EU expansion. 

 

Which is not unreasonable.  The problem is that Russia wants to say not in NATO/EU that means you belong to us.  Hell, the Russians have repeatedly demanded NATO/EU be rolled to its 1997 membership.

[Arakan]

17 minutes ago, Falcon2909 said:

Can Russia invade already? I'm getting bored and need to be entertained

Even if that was meant in a sarcastic way, it’s classless and shows a degenerate lack of empathy. 

[Arakan]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Which is not unreasonable.  The problem is that Russia wants to say not in NATO/EU that means you belong to us.  Hell, the Russians have repeatedly demanded NATO/EU be rolled to its 1997 membership.

Agreed. And that’s where we must oppose Russia. Ukraine should be free to go her way but bloc-free. Ideally as a bridge between West and East. It doesn’t help that certain hawks still push the EU/NATO narrative. It doesn’t help one iota. 

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Arakan said:

It doesn’t help that certain hawks still push the EU/NATO narrative. It doesn’t help one iota. 

Again, acting like the "EU/NATO narrative" is just being raised by the hawks from the west is irrelevant at best.  It's what the Ukrainian people want -- and that's entirely of Putin's own doing.  And it hasn't been a part of US policy for a considerably long time.  Bringing up what happened in 2007 is like saying the US currently wants to go back into Iraq, Afghanistan, and probably invade Iran.  It's as useless as bringing up the fact Putin wanted to join NATO himself early in his tenure.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Agreed. And that’s where we must oppose Russia. Ukraine should be free to go her way but bloc-free. Ideally as a bridge between West and East. It doesn’t help that certain hawks still push the EU/NATO narrative. It doesn’t help one iota. 

Yes, and EU/NATO supporting Ukrainian self determination by saying “Ukraine is independent and may make its own choice.  We will sell arms to Ukraine and vociferously support Ukrainian independence.” Is what Russia claims is justification for its belligerence toward Ukriane.  It is the Russian position that is a false dichotomy.

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Americans are such blood thirsty freaks. Even progressives who will claim to be doves can't wait to get a little taste when the war drums begin to sound.

NOBODY ON THIS BOARD WHO IS EVEN THE TEENSIEST ANGLE TOWARD LEFT FROM THE RED EXTREMIST AUTHORITARIAN JERKWADDIE REICHLICAN WANTS A WAR. NOBODY. Grow up.

[Lord of Oop North]

4 hours ago, Falcon2909 said:

Can Russia invade already? I'm getting bored and need to be entertained

So edgy. 

Grow the fuck up.

[Zorral]

Moreover, reputable, responsible journalists and historians cannot deal in counterfactuals, so what isn't being discussed though the speculation that Putin wouldn't be playing these games if the orange demon hadn't had the White House for 4 years has entered the minds of 'progressives' who:

1) Still are reeling from the horror show of January 6, 2021 when the orange demon's forces (who are allied with Russia) attempted a coup on the government of the US, and are still working to overthrow it;

2) Still believe reporting and history should deal in what is there, not projections of what didn't happen.  You betcha we get to discuss this.  And again, none want a war at all, not if we have any sensibility, compassion, understanding and knowledge of WHAT WAR IS. 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

@Falcon2909

Why should Ukraine be denied the right to self determination?

[horangi]

13 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Yes, they are reacting to the same information as everyone else, but unfortunately their default reaction is to start salivating at the prospect of tens of thousands of people dying half way across the world in the name of combating THE RED MENACE and seeing just how far they can fit NATO's boot in their mouth. Russia is bad, no doubt about that, but NATO is the military arm of western imperialism, and I was pretty sure there was a pretty broad consensus on the left (using that term very broadly here) that imperialism is bad no matter who is doing it.

Of course lets not even go into how uncritically people are approaching this, and have just been lapping up America propaganda of the villainous Russki swooping in to devour tiny innocent Ukraine, but that is not what is happening here, the reality is much more nuanced than the picture we are being presented with.

For the record, I'm not talking specifically here, but what I have seen more broadly

I got to give you credit Grim, you've really honed the North Korea Propaganda style pretty well.  My advice though, if you really want to get on the KCNA's radar, you need to sprinkle in more animal references.  e.g. "western imperialist dogs" or "NATO pigs" etc.  That and see if Gowron can get his hair done up in a nice curly perm. 

[Clueless Northman]

7 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Which is not unreasonable.  The problem is that Russia wants to say not in NATO/EU that means you belong to us.

Which is why the less antagonistic position is to state that Ukraine isn't ours, and isn't Russia's either.

In fact, I'd be curious to see how Putin would react if EU just went out of NATO, basically disbanding it, and then offered to Ukraine to join EU. I wonder to which extent he'd be opposed to it, since having a big potentially hostile military on his doorstep, with missile bases in Ukraine, is his main worry.

That said, integrating tiny Baltic states into EU is way easier than integrating Ukraine, and I don't think this would have much more popular support across EU countries (at least in the Western half) than to let Turkey in.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

56 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Which is why the less antagonistic position is to state that Ukraine isn't ours, and isn't Russia's either.

In fact, I'd be curious to see how Putin would react if EU just went out of NATO, basically disbanding it, and then offered to Ukraine to join EU. I wonder to which extent he'd be opposed to it, since having a big potentially hostile military on his doorstep, with missile bases in Ukraine, is his main worry.

That said, integrating tiny Baltic states into EU is way easier than integrating Ukraine, and I don't think this would have much more popular support across EU countries (at least in the Western half) than to let Turkey in.

It’s an interesting idea absolutely thinking outside the box.  However, Europe has depended upon US big guns for decades.  A phased draw down of NATO forces that are replaced by an EU military arm might make sense.  That said, right now, informally, NATO is the EU military arm with the added bonus of having the US as an ally.

[Padraig]

45 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

In fact, I'd be curious to see how Putin would react if EU just went out of NATO, basically disbanding it, and then offered to Ukraine to join EU. I wonder to which extent he'd be opposed to it, since having a big potentially hostile military on his doorstep, with missile bases in Ukraine, is his main worry.

He'd be bitterly opposed.  This conflict is about more than just NATO, otherwise a solution would probably be found by now.  NATO is the best angle to spin from a Russian point of view though.

When you read the history of Ukraine, it was balanced between the EU and Russia for the early part of this decade, with the Presidency shifting back and forth between the two sides.  It was very possible that the pro-EU side would have won the 2015 election and then the pro-Russia side would have been back on top in 2020.

At the same time, the whole situation was fundamentally unstable.  Something had to give and Yanukovych's rejection of an EU association agreement in 2014, choosing closer ties with Russia instead, was the impetus for change.  (By 2014, Ukraine was already well on its way to swinging back in the EU direction).  Russia probably thought seizing Crimea and inciting the Donbas in the fallout was clever but it also ensured that the rest of the population turned largely against it.  That's Russia's problem now.  It sees little hope that Ukraine will naturally turn back into its sphere of influence.  And I do believe Russia requires Ukraine to be in that sphere.  Sure, pride is involved but there is a lot of money too.  If a Ukrainian naturally trades west and not east, the money will follow westwards.  The Russian oligarch's would like to carve Ukraine's resources up without Western meddling.

8 hours ago, Arakan said:

But the reality is: no one in Western Europe wants Ukraine in the EU. Olaf Scholz made it very clear: after the West Balkans that’s it for EU expansion. 

That's too simplistic.  Very few people in Western Europe spend any time contemplating Ukraine joining.  If there is no real cost, most people wouldn't care if Ukraine joined.  Right now, their obviously would be a huge cost.  But Ukraine also needs to spend a couple decades working at getting its rule of law to the appropriate standards (that is where Turkiye ultimately fell down at).  There probably is a feeling now at political levels that earlier expansions were too rushed.  That's unlikely to happen again.

So when Scholz says no, he is not thinking beyond 10 years.  Who knows where we'll be then.

[GrimTuesday]

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Yeah it's really deflating that some of this "US imperialism" and consequently sympathetic-Russian propaganda is permeating the left - or at least people purportedly representing the left.  I expect it from the Trumpist crazies on the right.  In a way I take comfort from it coming from them.  But framing Putin and Russia's aggression as anything other than exactly what is - Putin and Russia's entirely unjustified aggression - is symptomatic of a social media sphere where far too many people unthinkingly latch onto anything that conforms to their interest in advertising their "hot takes" no matter where the blatant propaganda is coming from.  Which is exactly what authoritarians want.

For me and many other leftists, it's not about being sympathetic to Russian propaganda, it's a matter of opposing imperialism in all its forms, which I believe includes The US/Nato, though I understand you have a disagreement with that characterization. I don't like Russia, but I understand why they are acting in the manner that they are. When the Soviet Union fell, and Germany was reunited, Nato and the US said they weren't going to expand eastward, which was a lie, considering they proceeded to expand into almost all the former soviet aligned nations with the exception of Ukraine and Belarus with a stated policy of expansion.

I know your a poli-sci guy, so I assume you have a working knowledge of international relations, and if so you probably understand the notion of a Security dilemma specifically the spiral model. Nato's expansion was always going to be met with a heightened response from Russia, which then ratchets up the tension with the US/Nato. THis cycle repeats over and over again until war inevitably breaks out. Both parties have an assumption of each other being expansionist in nature, and seeking to undermine the other, and as such, unless there is a significant deescalation, war is probably all but inevitable. I say all this because this is the basis for my earlier statement of the nuance that exists in this situation. THis is not the result of a single individual event but rather a series of choices on both sides that set this spiral in motion many years ago. Russia is trying to protect their borders and Nato/the US are trying to ensure Ukraine remains a state on Russia's border that is sympathetic towards the west. To my mind, the solution to all this is to come to some sort of agreement where Ukraine will not be part of Nato, but also assurances that Russia will not impinge upon the sovereignty of Ukraine, and to not take further actions to annex parts of Ukraine.

I really wish it was as simple saying US good Russia bad, but in reality it is an everyone sucks situation.

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

NOBODY ON THIS BOARD WHO IS EVEN THE TEENSIEST ANGLE TOWARD LEFT FROM THE RED EXTREMIST AUTHORITARIAN JERKWADDIE REICHLICAN WANTS A WAR. NOBODY. Grow up.

For the record, as I said in another comment, this was not directed at anyone on this board specifically, I am more so talking about the public at large, and especially the media.

[Larry of the Lawn]

16 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

For me and many other leftists, it's not about being sympathetic to Russian propaganda, it's a matter of opposing imperialism in all its forms, which I believe includes The US/Nato, though I understand you have a disagreement with that characterization. I don't like Russia, but I understand why they are acting in the manner that they are. When the Soviet Union fell, and Germany was reunited, Nato and the US said they weren't going to expand eastward, which was a lie, considering they proceeded to expand into almost all the former soviet aligned nations with the exception of Ukraine and Belarus with a stated policy of expansion.

I know your a poli-sci guy, so I assume you have a working knowledge of international relations, and if so you probably understand the notion of a Security dilemma specifically the spiral model. Nato's expansion was always going to be met with a heightened response from Russia, which then ratchets up the tension with the US/Nato. THis cycle repeats over and over again until war inevitably breaks out. Both parties have an assumption of each other being expansionist in nature, and seeking to undermine the other, and as such, unless there is a significant deescalation, war is probably all but inevitable. I say all this because this is the basis for my earlier statement of the nuance that exists in this situation. THis is not the result of a single individual event but rather a series of choices on both sides that set this spiral in motion many years ago. Russia is trying to protect their borders and Nato/the US are trying to ensure Ukraine remains a state on Russia's border that is sympathetic towards the west. To my mind, the solution to all this is to come to some sort of agreement where Ukraine will not be part of Nato, but also assurances that Russia will not impinge upon the sovereignty of Ukraine, and to not take further actions to annex parts of Ukraine.

I really wish it was as simple saying US good Russia bad, but in reality it is an everyone sucks situation.

For the record, as I said in another comment, this was not directed at anyone on this board specifically, I am more so talking about the public at large, and especially the media.

It is pretty funny how expressing even the slightest amount of skepticism towards the veracity of anonymous US intelligence sources [essentially] can designate people as Russian trolls or Putin pawns by a few uncharitable contributors.  

I'd not take it to heart.  Like, even asking "what's the story that we're not getting" between two impressive propaganda hall of famers gets you labelled as "hating the West" or whatever.

It's probably a good thing to have our analysis criticized, even in clumsy rock-to-the-cranium manner.  They will always build a better idiot and a little introspection never hurt anyone too much, Narcissus* excluded. 

*Ok actually I've thought of like a dozen other examples of people hurt by excess introspection but this is a much smaller consideration.