Ukraine 12: When is this an existential threat?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

That really does have to be triggering cognitive dissonance in at least few minds, right?

The remains of Russian soldiers coming home has to be producing that too.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Russia, on paper, still has the second largest nuclear arsenal on the planet.  It also hasn’t been behaving particularly rationally.

It's still a bit early to say.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It's still a bit early to say.

Who thinks the invasion of Ukraine was rational?

[Fez]

18 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The remains of Russian soldiers coming home has to be producing that too.

Except for the issue that a lot of Russian soldiers are not ethnic Russians; instead being Central and East Asian. And it's far easier to ignore wailing parents in small villages in Siberia and Khabarovsk than in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

[Werthead]

Apparently the United States has been conducting hypersonic missile tests in secret for the past couple of years, and has now confirmed it had a successful run of tests last month, but kept them quiet to avoid escalation. Australia and the UK have confirmed they are also working on them and also on defences. Simultaneously, it sounds like there's some discussion beginning about limiting hypersonic missiles in future treaties, but in the short term this is going to be the New Thing.

China has said the images from Bucha and other towns in Ukraine are "disturbing," and only managed a fairly lukewarm, "We must establish facts on the ground," as a defence of Russia's position. China seems to still be trying to take the middle ground, but it seems to be finding it harder to do so.

1 hour ago, Kalibuster said:

I do not see how Ukraine accepts donetsk or anything of donbas going to Russian hands and I don't see how the west will refuse to give Ukraine what they need to take it back or even start attacking Russia directly. 

Agreed. I think now the absolute bare minimum Ukraine will accept is a return to February 23 borders in return for NATO neutrality. Anything less than that I think will not really be acceptable, because they will assume civilians on the ground in those regions will be subjected to the same kind of thing.

22 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Who thinks the invasion of Ukraine was rational?

The invasion of Ukraine was rational (again, only from Russia's particular lens) if you accept the assumptions - Ukraine would collapse quickly or the war could be won in three or four days or under a month - as facts.

The facts running afoul of reality has exposed the invasion as being wholly irrational, but on the eve of the invasion even the most optimistic western analysts had Kyiv falling relatively quickly, and the best-case scenario for them was a long insurgency bleeding Russia dry for years. Ukraine has done far better than I think they expected (or Russia has done far worse, to the same end).

What is obviously irrational is killing civilians for no apparent reason. One of the reasons for invading Ukraine is Russia's own demographic decline (not that Ukraine is faring much better) and adding an extra 44 million people to Russia's population and hundreds of thousands to a potential future enlarged army (in the event of installing a puppet government or conquering the country outright). That does sound like it needs some kind of hearts and mind campaign, not just killing people outright. That will just ensure the fight going on to some kind of bitter end, and people in the region absolutely hating the occupiers and taking every opportunity to resist.

[Rippounet]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Who thinks the invasion of Ukraine was rational?

I'm afraid I only have it in French, but this article analyses Ukraine's natural resources to see if they could constitute a rational reason for invasion - besides nationalism and international politics "realism," which I don't view as being 100% irrational.
To be clear, this specific article concludes on a no, but it's still an intriguing question in my book.
And let's not forget that this was supposed to be quick and easy...

 

[Kalbear]

I think it's an interesting conversation about rationality. 

I still think the best lens to view this is to take Putin largely at his word. He viewed Ukraine as part of Russia. He saw them going against Russian puppet rule and joining the EU as an existential threat to Russia. It is 'rational' to stop that. Was that basis reasonable? Not remotely. But based on that framework, it makes sense for Russia to do this.

Similarly, they believed that Ukraine was ruled by nazis who were hated by their populace. If you believe this, it's rational to have a quick blitz to kill leaders and take over the country. Is that basis right? Not remotely! But if you believe that, it's rational to do what you did.

Now, here's where it breaks down - was it rational for Russian soldiers to murder civilians? Not from a strategic standpoint. But that assumes a very top-down decision framework and leadership. I don't think that's accurate at all for the way Russia has been working. They've been working under tons of leadership chaos and lack of coordination, so it's possible that what they did in Bucha was not remotely what general operating practice was. 

Or that's what they want to do, and the only rational viewpoint on this is that they want Ukraine to keep fighting for the foreseeable future, and have zero interest in any peace. 

[Corvinus85]

21 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Apparently the United States has been conducting hypersonic missile tests in secret for the past couple of years, and has now confirmed it had a successful run of tests last month, but kept them quiet to avoid escalation. Australia and the UK have confirmed they are also working on them and also on defences. Simultaneously, it sounds like there's some discussion beginning about limiting hypersonic missiles in future treaties, but in the short term this is going to be the New Thing.

While officially they were secret, I don't think they were able to keep the tests fully secret as there have been rumors for years now, with largely failures. So I suppose since they have now been successful, they have revealed the tests. The possibility of a a nuclear war with Russia has had me thinking that the US may be forced to use all of its secret advancements to attempt to mitigate Russia successfully using its arsenal. So all the secret stuff from Area 51 may have to be revealed in such a scenario.

[Werthead]

5 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Now, here's where it breaks down - was it rational for Russian soldiers to murder civilians? Not from a strategic standpoint. But that assumes a very top-down decision framework and leadership. I don't think that's accurate at all for the way Russia has been working. They've been working under tons of leadership chaos and lack of coordination, so it's possible that what they did in Bucha was not remotely what general operating practice was. 

Or that's what they want to do, and the only rational viewpoint on this is that they want Ukraine to keep fighting for the foreseeable future, and have zero interest in any peace. 

I agree. Murdering civilians does not help you from the perspective of trying to take over the country, trying to stop dissent or trying to instill any goodwill. It's worth remembering that the Russians said they will withdrawing from this very region in part to help foster goodwill for the peace talks, which is insane if they knew this would be exposed (so maybe it was a local decision by soldiers on the ground; or they didn't care).

The only explanation I think is that the Russians took all that talk of a years-long insurgency funded by the west at its word (note: we should probably stop talking about our military plans openly on television) and decided to kill anyone who could remotely be a threat, and a whole ton of other people as well. It's worth noting that in the southern front this seems to have happened less: the FSB whistleblower said a while back that Russian forces in Kherson had refused to use lethal force on peaceful demonstrators, and as of two days ago were still doing that. I wonder if that's because there's a lot of troops down there from Crimea, and until recently they were effectively Ukrainians.

The thing is, the global public is kind of used to wars where people fire indiscriminately into cities and hit many more civilians than military personnel (Aleppo, but other places as well), so if it turns out (as is probable) that thousands of civilians have been killed in Mariupol, or hundreds in Kharkiv, as a result of indirect fire, I suspect Russia would "get away" with that (for all the anger there would be over it). Deliberately executing civilians for no reason is a step above that.

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

Similarly, they believed that Ukraine was ruled by nazis who were hated by their populace.

I'm really not a fan of "rationality" discussions as they almost always are entirely useless outside of formal modeling, but if Putin actually believed Ukraine was ruled by nazis (which he almost certainly doesn't), that in and of itself is not rational.

[Werthead]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'm really not a fan of "rationality" discussions as they almost always are entirely useless outside of formal modeling, but if Putin actually believed Ukraine was ruled by nazis (which he almost certainly doesn't), that in and of itself is not rational.

A while back there was a lengthy discussion of what that word historically means in Russia and the very specific definition of what a Nazi was in Germany before and during WWII was not it. Instead it means someone who is "anti-Russian" or an enemy of Russia. "Denazification" in that sense can mean killing someone, but it can also mean "Russifying" them, or making them a friend or ally of Russia, or even just a neutral. Thus "denazifying Ukraine" did not mean destroying the country or killing everyone in it, but it could be achieved by neutralising Ukraine through military or diplomatic means, making them neutral or even friendly etc. During the more optimistic moments of the negotiations the term essentially vanished from discussions, as it seemed to be that the act of just striking a deal making Ukraine neutral could count as "denazification." So in that sense the use of the term (from Russia's historical POV) is semi-rational.

However, the usage of the term now does seem to be moving around, and recent comments in the Russian press suggest it might be swinging back to the more sinister connotation.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

A while back there was a lengthy discussion of what that word historically means in Russia and the very specific definition of what a Nazi was in Germany before and during WWII was not it. Instead it means someone who is "anti-Russian" or an enemy of Russia. "Denazification" in that sense can mean killing someone, but it can also mean "Russifying" them, or making them a friend or ally of Russia, or even just a neutral. Thus "denazifying Ukraine" did not mean destroying the country or killing everyone in it, but it could be achieved by neutralising Ukraine through military or diplomatic means, making them neutral or even friendly etc.

This clearly wasn't what Putin was going for when he described the Ukrainian leadership as "neo-nazis and drug dealers."

[Werthead]

14 minutes ago, DMC said:

This clearly wasn't what Putin was going for when he described the Ukrainian leadership as "neo-nazis and drug dealers."

No, clearly not. And the drug dealer bit was particularly random and inexplicable.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

And the drug dealer bit was particularly random and inexplicable.

Heh, yeah.  I may have gotten it wrong, was it drug dealers or drug addicts?  If it was addicts you'd think Putin would at least advocate treatment.

[SpaceChampion]

 

 

Same woman "captured" at least 3 times

 

[Gorn]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

I'm afraid I only have it in French, but this article analyses Ukraine's natural resources to see if they could constitute a rational reason for invasion - besides nationalism and international politics "realism," which I don't view as being 100% irrational.
To be clear, this specific article concludes on a no, but it's still an intriguing question in my book.
And let's not forget that this was supposed to be quick and easy...

Russian reasons for the invasion are no secret or mystery, they proclaim them loudly and proudly.

RIA Novosti, a Russian state media, literally published an article about how Ukrainians should no longer have a national identity, that they are an artificial anti-Russian construct, and that their elite must be eliminated: https://ria.ru/20220403/ukraina-1781469605.html

Before that, last summer, Putin wrote a 5000-word essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians", which basically says that Ukraine is a made-up country and that Ukrainians are a made-up people: http://en.kremlin.ru/misc/66182

In the meantime, in the run-up to the invasion a couple of months ago, they published a standardized method of digging mass graves: https://www.mchs.gov.ru/dokumenty/5693

The reason for the invasion is that Ukrainians cease to exist as a nation separate from Russians. They can choose to become Russians, or they can end in a mass grave dug according to the GOST R 42.7.01-2021 standard. I wouldn't call it rational, but YMMV.

All links lead to official Russian government websites (or websites from government-owned entities), to avoid any risk of misinterpretation of inaccuracy.

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

This clearly wasn't what Putin was going for when he described the Ukrainian leadership as "neo-nazis and drug dealers."

That might be some propaganda, but it also might not be. It's kinda hard to say how much actual 'good' info Putin is getting at this point. 

It's not super important mind you - the incompetence of Zelensky was thought to be an absolute, and Ukraine's government had been pretty shitty for a while. That's probably closer to the truth in terms of what Putin (and honestly the rest of the world) thought. His poll numbers were crap, he was seen as a joke, etc. Of all the things that have come out of this that negated previously thought truisms - Russian force superiority, Ukrainian military capabilities, western willingness for supporting Ukraine - I think the biggest surprise was how well Ukrainian leadership has so far done. 

[Rippounet]

21 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Russian reasons for the invasion are no secret or mystery, they proclaim them loudly and proudly.

Thanks, but even if we take the rhetoric at face value, it's too early to say whether it's "rational" or not.
We already have glimpses of translation problems in the last messages here, and I've read that Putin likes to use slang that isn't easy to translate.
I also agree with DMC on this one, that we would need some form of model (or at least, methodology) to assess "rationality." Putin is from a different era in which his actions could easily be seen as eminently rational.

More importantly, from my point of view, the "nationalistic" angle does not exclude other motives.

PS: your second link doesn't work.

[Werthead]

Meanwhile, the Luhansk People's Republic has officially scraped through the bottom of the barrel and is now equipping itself from somewhere near the Earth's core.

 

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 Of all the things that have come out of this that negated previously thought truisms - Russian force superiority, Ukrainian military capabilities, western willingness for supporting Ukraine - I think the biggest surprise was how well Ukrainian leadership has so far done. 

Further to the above, I think something that is up there is just how utterly appallingly both the Donetsk and Luhansk forces have done. Considering they've been in combat for eight years - which has benefited and improved the Ukrainians in the meantime - and got a ton of equipment from Russia, their absolutely woeful performance (failing to penetrate the southern line of contact in Donbas, suffering heavy losses in Mariupol) is probably way beyond what Moscow thought was going to be the case as well.

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Russian reasons for the invasion are no secret or mystery, they proclaim them loudly and proudly.

Something worth noting is that this seemingly runs counter to the Russians saying they were not going to occupy Ukraine, which is what would be required to carry out this kind of near-genocide. They would have required at least half a million troops on the downside and maybe closer to a million, and they never got close to even half of that.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Kalibuster said:

That might be some propaganda, but it also might not be. It's kinda hard to say how much actual 'good' info Putin is getting at this point. 

Again, if Putin actually believes his own propaganda, that is not a rational belief (at least when it comes to this propaganda).  It may be rational for the targets of that propaganda, i.e. the Russian public, to believe it, but Putin does not have that excuse.  That's all I'm saying.  I do think there are a number of other explanations for how Putin's actions are "rational," as others have brought up, but this ain't one of them.