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Understanding the War in Ukraine

429 points by picture 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago
This is a super good article.
screwgoth 5y ago
What a great read.
_trampeltier 5y ago
>Why Didn’t We See This Coming? Actually, we did. NATO – and especially US intelligence – was remarkably effective at predicting what Putin had planned before he did it, down to predicting the day the assault would begin.< After Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, there was no reason to trust western intelligence just for 1 second.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Actually, there was, but like with any other intelligence source you'd want some independent verification. What was special about Iraq was that there was conflicting intelligence, the WMD inspectors had it right, and Colin Powell lost the respect of the rest of the world when it turned out that he'd effectively lied. As for Afghanistan, that was/is an outright failure, but still not enough to automatically disbelieve everything that comes out of the intelligence services. The important thing is to realize that intelligence can be wrong.
mikewarot 5y ago
[EDIT] While I agree, STRONGLY with this action, I also worry that kicking Russia out of SWIFT, could make them partners with China and others in hastening the demise of the PetroDollar.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  We'll deal with that when we have to, until then it would really hurt Putin's chances to wage this war for long.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  You don't have to worry about that. They have been reducing their reliance on USD for everything over the past couple of years[1][2]. The West has been asleep and drunk on its ignorance for a while now. China has been selling services to Iran for oil for years now. Instead of actually paying for it in currency. You can only threaten sanctions so many times when the other side is a world power. Trumps America showed that the US a bit of a toothless tiger when they didn't retaliate after Iran shot rockets at their Iraq military base. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/russias-bid-to-ditch-the-us-dollar-is-slowly-working-but-obstacles-remain.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/russias-bid-to-ditch-the-us-... [2] https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/russia-s-583-billion-reserves-now-hold-more-gold-than-dollars https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/russia-s-583...
  - roenxi 5y ago
    Trump had a top Iranian general missiled. And Iran sat there and took it with laudable stoicism because they aren't stupid and could see they had nothing to do. America was anything but toothless in those years and Iran wasn't about to call any bluffs. And funny you should bring up Iraq in these troubled times, because I think the recent conflict Russia->Ukraine is most comparable to - outside of Russia->Other Neighbours - is US->Iraq. Assuming the situation calms down rather than escalating.
    - roca 5y ago
      I think US/Iraq is not a good analogy. The USA got rid of a really bad dictator and the majority of Iraqs were happy about that --- but social divisions crippled the aftermath. OTOH Ukraine has a democratically elected government and is pretty unified against Russia right now.
MattyRad 5y ago
It's been difficult to find the operational objectives[1] of the war laid out plainly, which ACOUP once again does expertly (as best as any expert can do at this stage, anyway). The Siege of Gondor writeup[1] is worth reading by itself, but I think rereading it with Putin juxtaposed to Sauron would retroactively give LotR that much more relevance and gravitas. [1] https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondor/ https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondo...
- cwillu 5y ago
  I'd say that this makes Xi Jinping Sauron, but that puts the Shire (Taiwan) in the wrong place, no?
rado 5y ago
NATO attacked Libya in 2011, with disastrous consequences. It's not a defence alliance.
- wesleywt 5y ago
  Strange comment.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  At the behest of the UN security council, and the Libyan government afterwards asked NATO to extend their mission which they refused.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    Based on lies https://www.salon.com/2016/09/16/u-k-parliament-report-details-how-natos-2011-war-in-libya-was-based-on-lies/ https://www.salon.com/2016/09/16/u-k-parliament-report-detai...
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    Sure but that still means NATO is not exclusively a defensive alliance. Libya was not attacking any NATO member and got attacked by NATO. It seems silly to pretend it's a defensive alliance just because you can justify all of the times it was the aggressor?
- smackay 5y ago
  I can't say anything on whether NATO attacked Libya but it's members certainly dabble in the various conflicts trying to extract advantage. I had a conversation with a "systems thinker" of British origin who straight out said that he was involved in a group that were distributing cell phones to members of the population of Libya so they could call in air strikes against government forces. Apart from the obvious problem of getting NATO to do the dirty work to remove your enemies no matter that faction they belonged to the most striking thing was the arrogance and ease with which this person justified their position. It was a reflection of the thinking from 100 years ago where the British assumed everything they did was with God's blessing and Johnny Foreigner needed to do what they were told or suffer the consequences.
jchoelt 5y ago
> the idea that Ukraine has a Nazi government is a farce; for all of its considerable problems with corruption, Ukraine’s current government was democratically elected... So were the Nazis, though. I'm not arguing that Ukraine's government are "Nazis", just that despots and extremists can be elected too...
- antupis 5y ago
  Ukraina president is Russian speaking Jew so this Nazi rhetoric is just stupid.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Yeah. And it is not like Russia did not had its own considerable white supremacist movements - more successful then those in Ukraine.
  - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
    “Nazi” is often used as a general slur against nationalists.
    - ajuc 5y ago
      There is nationalist party in Ukraine and they got 1% in elections. The elections were free and every term somebody else is in the government. Surprisingly never the nationalists tho. Also they want to join EU (as all nazis do of course). Meanwhile actually nationalist and imperialist Putin invaded 3 different countries during his 22 years of governing Russia. And he hasn't held fair elections there for a long time. So yeah Ukraine is nazi.
      - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
        I didn’t say that Ukraine is Nazi.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      No, it usually isn't. It is usually used to talk about white supremacists of a particular ideological bent.
deutschewelle 5y ago
This might be an unpopular opinion obviously being part of the l'occident world but NATO/US alignment of conflicting regional interests of EU members dependant on Russia's energy goods might be to blame. Eastern portion of Ukraine is heavily in favor of joining Russia as most speak Russian while he central and western parts want to join the EU but this is largely a one sided love affair. EU has repeatedly stalled and delayed Ukraine's membership seeing that it would be the second poorest member state after Greece, and thus would be against the interest of Germany, who stand to gain a lot by using Russia's gas pipeline. Enter Maidan revolution, while not outright instigated by the US, one does raise questions about the role of Facebook in previous revolutions namely the Arab Spring movement, Syrian rebellion, etc, and how quickly they were able to spread a the Maidan propaganda that EU/NATO membership was imminent when it couldn't be further from the truth. The 2014 invasion was relatively well restrained campaign at reminding who the master of Ukraine is which was promptly ignored by the following administrations. Rather than choose peace with Russia by remaining neutral, they chose to go down the impossibly difficult act of trying to gain NATO membership with a border dispute in Donetsk/Lukansk region. It might very well be said that Putin planned to take Ukraine anyways and 2014 was a test run and a good platform to encircle and hook into Moldova, another potential hotspot. The fact remains that leaving the Ukraine flatlands to NATO troops would open up Moscow to an indefensible flank, the upkeep cost of maintaining a wide frontline the size of Ukraine-Russia border would bankrupt Russia. Simply put the cost of inaction was calculated to be far greater than the risk of action. Imagine if you will, Mexico wanted to join China's security umbrella and it was receiving Chinese troops, tanks, hardware right across the US-Mexico border. Next Canada joins the party. How quickly do you think the US would put down such strategic positioning?
- hef19898 5y ago
  Actually a good write down, I think it's not to far from the mark as far as Putin's perspective is concerned. Since more than one thing can be, and usually is, true at the same time, I think one part is exactly as you described. The other is that Putin simply really wants Ukraine back in the fold, among other countries that used to be part if the USSR. Again, all of that is just a, potential, explanation. It is not, by any means, an excuse or justification.
bllguo 5y ago
His answer to "why is the war happening" is "Putin wanted it to." I won't claim to have greater insight but can't help but think that if this is the best we can do to explain Putin's actions, it's no wonder things have devolved this far. The analysis of how the war could have been avoided also seems lacking, in the sense that sure, there was probably nothing that could realistically have been done in the last few months. But the post itself says: "the conditions which would have resulted in a Russian invasion of Ukraine were likely decided on weeks or months ago." What could have been done differently in the last few years, even decades? I find the implied answer of "nothing" suspect.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Welcome to dictatorship 101. This is exactly how it goes in countries like that, there may be some showpiece meeting or even legislation but in practice the ruler determines what happens next.
  - bllguo 5y ago
    Dictators are people, they have goals and motivations and fears like anyone else. Imo saying it was an unavoidable act of Putin's madness is a cop-out. There's nothing for international relations to learn from this situation? I sure hope that's not the case, Putin won't be the last dictator with military power in human history.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Unfortunately, dictators trend to paranoid and have a habit of murdering any remotely plausible opposition. And they have a coterie of yes men/enablers around them. If not for that no dictator would ever live longer then 30 minutes.
sinyug 5y ago
> though the majority in both regions oppose secession. They held a referendum.[1] > Over the weekend, citizens in two east Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted to become independent in a referendum that only the Kremlin seems to be on board with. Separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk report that 89 percent and 96 percent, respectively, said they wanted to break free of Kiev's authority. You may not like the results and might have issues with the process, but to claim that the majority oppose secession is a joke. No country in the world will tolerate secessionist sentiment in any part of it and will prevent it with all its might. If it has the ability. In this case, Ukraine doesn't. [1] Referendum on Self-Rule in Ukraine 'Passes' with Over 90% of the Vote (https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070829/http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/05/referendum-on-self-rule-in-ukraine-passes-with-over-90-of-the-vote/362062/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070829/http://www.thewir...)
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > You may not like the results and might have issues with the process The issues with the process include (among many other issues) the fact that the borders that the separatists claim and to which they claim these referenda apply (and whose borders have been recognized by Russia, though given the decapitation strike Russia is making on Ukraine, that’s less important than it would otherwise be) are much larger than the areas they actually controlled at the time and conducted them in.
- gehatare 5y ago
  How does this show anything? Yeah, if after years and years of low level war and displacement of political enemies and being de facto controlled by Russian troops you hold a referendum that is boycotted by all but the separatists, of course the separatists will win! But that is so far from any valid referendum that accepting it as such seems dubious at best.
vandermik 5y ago
To get better understanding what's really driving Russian government and Putin I strongly recommend to watch this talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ
- leobg 5y ago
  Can you give a few highlights? Why was that memorable to you?
  - vandermik 5y ago
    The good analogy on Ukraine crisis. Imaging if Mexico joined Russian military alliance (created specifically against US) and decided to put Russian troops and bases on their territory. What would happened to Mexico? Would US allowed that?
    - throwrqX 5y ago
      Well that will never happen because the US seems to care about Mexico (and has a substantial population of Mexican heritage people in the US) unlike Russia with Ukraine so it's a moot point. It's like saying imagine if Ireland joined Russia and decided to put Russian troops on their territory, it's ridiculous and has little meaning just like making up any other geopolitical fantasy. I can understand how thought experiments might be useful in physics but in geopolitics we have realpolitik not wild fantasies. If you want to go in that direction then I assume Nazi Germany concerns at the beginning of WW2 about the spread of globalist capitalism and communism would become legitimate concerns too then and justify invading Europe over?
      - vandermik 5y ago
        Mexico was used in that analogy just because it's on US borders. If this analogy seems unrealistic to you, try replace Mexico with Cuba. Could two independent countries (USSR and Cuba) agreed to place nukes close to US borders in the 60's? Legally, sure they can. Does US agree with it? Even if WW3 was the case they will never allowed it. Same thing now with Ukraine. If Ukraine joins NATO, their troops will be on russia south border, which is unacceptable for Russia. And russian government thinks about it as an existential threat. Invasion is the direct result of failed negotiations between Russia and NATO about Ukraine neutrality.
jchoelt 5y ago
> First, Putin is likely to carry this war to its conclusion. The reputational cost of turning back now, with blood already shed, would be catastrophic. Putin’s only way out is through, unfortunately. I don't totally agree, Putin called this a "special operation": this is vague enough so he can claim "mission accomplished" cherry picking any "war accomplishment" he wants. To people claiming he failed his invasion, he can just say "you called it an invasion, it was never an invasion, I said it wasn't an invasion from the beginning."
- pindab0ter 5y ago
  For someone who likes to keep everything so vague in words to cover his ass, that simply doesn’t sound strong enough, I think.
  - avmich 5y ago
    He can also easily lie, Trump style, manufacture facts etc. Doesn't have much of restraints. And that's in the case he wants to talk to you at all - usually that's reserved for political appearances for the people, via TV.
- roca 5y ago
  Putin turning back now, saying "actually I never intended to take Kiev", would be a clear admission of defeat. Everyone outside Russia would understand that, which matters because fear of Russia is an important goal for him.
ordu 5y ago
I'm a little confused. The article argues that Ukraine is not a Nazi country (for clarity: I agree with it) and the argument is "the president of Ukraine is Jew". But it does't contradict to Putin. I'm not sure where my confusion comes from, but it seems to me it is because of different ideas named by the same word. It seems to me that the author defines Nazi as anti-Jewish, while Putin has in mind more broad definition "anti-ethnos, for any ethnos". Being Russian I'm sure that my understanding of Putin is correct. Putin talks that Ukraine supposedly anti-Russian, prosecutes and kills Russians living in Ukraine, dreams of genocide of Russians and so on. So the argument of the article seems to be a non-sequitur. But if we defined Nazi as anti-Jewish that the argument would cease to be a non sequitur, it would be completely logical and conviencing. But maybe I do not understand something else? I'd like to clarify one more time, because it is a hot political topic. I do not think that Ukraine is anti-Russian-ethnos. I'm sure it is now strongly anti-Putin and even anti-Russian Federation, and rightly so. So regardless of what definition of Nazism we used, Putin declaration is a lie.
- rapsey 5y ago
  The article in general completely ignores the US role in all of this. The entire saga happened with the US interference in the last ukranian revolution. https://original.antiwar.com/rick_sterling/2022/02/24/how-the-us-instigated-the-ukraine-crisis/ https://original.antiwar.com/rick_sterling/2022/02/24/how-th...
  - Bronze_Colossus 5y ago
    I disagree with the article you posted in almost its entirely. > president, Viktor Yanukovich, was forced to flee for his life. What Ukraine experienced in 2014 was not a coup. The Ukrainian parliament deposed him after he left the country and after the parliament had order the security forces to stand down and leave the capital. I could go on how factually and biased that article is. What's next? You're gonna claim Cuba is the fault of the Soviet union?
    - Moru 5y ago
      It's called propaganda and it actually works I'm affraid.
Jerry2 5y ago
I've read a bunch of articles on this conflict and this video by Prof Mearsheimer from University of Chicago explained it the best to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
- jacquesm 5y ago
  https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/vladimir-putins-apologists-spread-dangerous-message-20150129-130snb.html https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/vladimir-putins-apologists-sp...
  - propagandist 5y ago
    [Before downvoting, please consider whether you prefer debate or an echo chamber] Let us please not be so passive aggressive and dismissive. Serious diplomats have been warning about this for decades. Just because what's happening is evil and revisionist does not mean we should sweep all of that under the rug and buy into the mainstream a la the 2003 WMD hysteria. Pointing at one person and yelling "he's a bad man" has not been helpful and yet we can't help but do the same thing every single time.
    - the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
      The situation is not that complicated. Ukraine is an independent country and can decide what alliances to join or not. It’s not Russia’s business and it surely does not give it the permission to invade it. Anything else is highly irrelevant. Russia is a repressive dictatorship and has a combination of a brainwashed and scared population. We don’t need unnecessary nuance there.
      - propagandist 5y ago
        Great to know. Thank you for sanitizing this discussion and shutting out trolls and apologists (like myself). I'm sure that if Cuba or Venezuela entered a pact with Moscow that placed ICBMs on their territory, we would respect their sovereignty the same way. There are a few things I'd like to respond to below but the rate-limit hammer has dropped. What I will ask is that we refrain from calling the brave people who stood against the grain apologists or naive. They warned of the dangers decades ago. We owe them better than that; they were prescient.
bigcat123 5y ago
izietto 5y ago
To me Putin attacked Ukraine because from Russian government point of view they can't afford to have a western democracy (aka US) in that world zone. I feel that they fear that if they don't conquer Ukraine with bombs now US will conquer it with Secret Services later. Probably it was already happening. Poor Ukraine people. They're between two fires.
- izietto 5y ago
  Downvoting rather than contesting is sad to me.
  - ausudhz 5y ago
    There's nothing to contest, just people Don't like the truth here. If you say something against the US you get down voted. Your comment is too sided, US to good to have secret services that influence elections elsewhere (after all, it never happened :) )
    - noahtallen 5y ago
      No one said the US has never interfered in an election. But in this case, the commenter suggests that the US was already attempting to overthrow the Ukrainian government?? That’s complete conspiracy and certainly deserves a downvote. Not only is there no evidence to support the claim, it doesn’t even fit anyone’s narratives (except perhaps Russia’s) about US/Ukrainian relationships. It just doesn’t make any sense in relation to US politics, especially considering the current leadership was elected in a landslide and is already relatively pro-EU/pro-NATO. Compare to, say, Iraq, and you can see how that would fit into US politics much better. Is it outside of the realm of possibilities? Of course not, but at least provide some kind of theory or narrative and phrase it as conjecture instead of just tossing it out as a conspiracy.
      - izietto 5y ago
        I'm just saying that Russian can't afford to have NATO at 2000km from Mosca. If Ukraine joins NATO Ukraine becomes US territory, that's not conspiracy, that's reality.
acqbu 5y ago
What a great read, thanks for sharing!
olalonde 5y ago
Pardon my skepticism but are there really politicians and media personalities in the US that support Putin's attack on Ukraine?
- makomk 5y ago
  Not just in the US. There's a very real possiblity that Jeremy Corbin could've been Prime Minister of the UK when this happened, and he's quite openly siding with Putin over this invasion and arguing the UK is actually to blame for it - as is the Stop the War Coalition and the broader left which he represents, much like their equivalents in the US are.
- croes 5y ago
  https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/02/23/tucker-carlson-putin-russia-ukraine/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/02/23/tucker-carls... https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/02/jen-psaki-slams-donald-trumps-effusive-praise-vladimir-putin/ https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/02/jen-psaki-slams-donald-t...
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Direct quote from Trump: "I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful. So Putin is now saying it's independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said, 'How smart is that?' And he's going to go in and be a peacekeeper."
  - psyc 5y ago
    That clearly reads to me as cynical admiration of the strategy, not support for its actual execution. And no those aren’t the same thing.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      And footage from a Wednesday fundraiser in Florida showed Trump calling Putin "smart" for moving in on Ukraine "for $2 worth of sanctions. Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/24/1082954761/republicans-are-condemning-putin-for-the-invasion-of-ukraine-and-criticizing-bid https://www.npr.org/2022/02/24/1082954761/republicans-are-co... Link to footage: https://twitter.com/american_bridge/status/1496682759208775683?s=21 https://twitter.com/american_bridge/status/14966827592087756... If admiration, cheerleading, and calling an invader "smart" - isn't support... What is?
elSidCampeador 5y ago
> Now on the one hand, NATO is a purely defensive alliance The author doesn't get it
- skrebbel 5y ago
  Yeah this part disappointed me too, as NATO done things in the past that I struggle to explain as "purely defense" (eg Serbia, Libya). I still think the article holds true, but I think the author should've been more nuanced here because Putin apologists are going to use this mistake to undermine the whole article.
- bspammer 5y ago
  No one in the west wants to invade Russia. Everyone wants to not be invaded by Russia. That sounds pretty defensive to me.
  - ailef 5y ago
    Yes, if we only consider definitions and ignore NATO actions for the past 50 years.
    - yardstick 5y ago
      (Serious question) What have they done in the last 50 years to make you think they would invade Russia?
      - ailef 5y ago
        I was contesting the definition of NATO being a "purely defensive alliance", as is often described also here on HN. For example, NATO intervention in Serbia can hardly considered defensive.
        dgregd 5y ago
        Serbia is not a part of Russia. It wasn't even in Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was an independent country.
dtx1 5y ago
Understanding it is easy. A war-mongering murderous autocrat decided he can take Ukraine and so he did. Don't fall for the Russian divide and conquer strategy and look for imaginary complexity when the reasons are simple. Putin has stolen what he can from the Russian people and now he tries to steal what he can from Ukraine just as Hitler and Stalin did before him. And every Russian that is not on the streets protesting this war, either out of cowardice or because they support it (and don't be fooled, a lot of them do) is guilty of waging an expansionist, criminal war.
k__ 5y ago
For a long time, I really thought Putin to be a smart man with motives beyond his own gain. That he really tries to make Russia better and works for the common person. But after he renounced Ukraine's status as country and after I saw that many people protest in Russia and even part of his army is abandoning him, I'm not so sure anymore.
- hilbertseries 5y ago
  > of his army is abandoning him I haven’t heard this, what’s happening?
  - k__ 5y ago
    Some platoons layed down arms. They were sent to Ukraine under false pretenses to gather information, later they found out a invasion was starting and they didn't want to attack Ukrainen people.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Do you have a link to a source for this?
      - pqwEfkvjs 5y ago
        https://censor.net/ru/news/3318827/rossiyiskie_okkupanty_sdayutsya_v_plen_etogo_nikto_ne_dumal_chto_my_edem_ubivat https://censor.net/ru/news/3318827/rossiyiskie_okkupanty_sda... It is in Russian, but Google translate does more-or-less ok job translating it.
        jacquesm 5y ago
        Thank you!
        tim333 5y ago
        That's good - I was wondering if we were going to see some of that, or them just being half hearted and camping out more than fighting. I get the impression most Russians are not very keen on this venture.
m12k 5y ago
Another what-if option that I wish had been discussed here: What if the EU had placed a peacekeeping force in white uniforms in Ukraine? (in theory a week ago, but that might just have prompted an even faster Russian attack, so it probably needed to have been done last year). I realize that many EU countries are also NATO countries. But still, if it was done under an EU banner, and the soldiers were not there to fight Russians, but to act as a neutral peacekeeping force. I know many of us did not expect Putin to be crazy enough to launch a full scale invasion, but is he also crazy enough that he would have attacked an EU peacekeeping force? I realize that it's way too late to do anything about this - going in now would be seen as an attack - but still, knowing what we know now, what would have been the best possible way to try to prevent this? It might also inform what to do later, if after the dust has settled, there is still a democratic Ukraine to help.
- throwaway290 5y ago
  > going in now would be seen as an attack Send in people, give them Ukrainian passports, deny everything. Not only Russia can perform false flag operations, deny responsibility and not get flak. (The only problem being sidestepped above is that when there is a madman with nukes there is no semblance of fairness and all bets are off.)
- dmurray 5y ago
  The EU doesn't have a military or any mandate to put one together under an EU flag. Probably it will happen eventually, but previous attempts to establish one have been rebuffed by the citizens of smaller countries with a policy of neutrality, who still get a veto on questions like this. Maybe there could have been a combined French/German (or whatever EU countries you'd like...I imagine there'd be no shortage of volunteers in the Baltic) peacekeeping force.
  - m12k 5y ago
    I mean, a UN peacekeeping force would have worked too. A neutral banner instead of NATO, that Putin sees as a direct threat. We don't even need the force to be able to actually fight off a Russian invasion, we just need them to be there to force Russia to declare war on everyone in order to be able invade.
jim-jim-jim 5y ago
> The major variable here is political will; consequently if you are a citizen of one of those Western countries, one thing you can do here is signal to your representatives that you, in fact, are willing to accept a degree of economic pain in order to send the message to Russia that wars of conquest will not be tolerated. I know armchair generals are peeved about what's going on right now, but suggestions like this are psychotic. I urge anybody on HN who might be entertaining this idea to look at some of the numbers in this article. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq Putin will be fine if the Russian economy is deliberately tanked. Normal Russians won't.
- deniscepko2 5y ago
  Following your logic sanctions are useless. I think this is ok because nothing will affect Putin. Russian people should eventually not reelect him or somehow remove this government. And for others I think its very reasonable to not do business with such an unpredictable/hostile country.
  - jim-jim-jim 5y ago
    Has a brutally sanctioned populace ever overthrown its government? This is an honest question; I don't have enough samples to draw upon. In the case of Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela, it seems like the misery just trickles down.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      Yes. Czechoslovakia.
      - jim-jim-jim 5y ago
        Thank you. Do you honestly expect them to have a similar effect on Russia? I imagine there's key geographic, cultural, and temporal differences at play. Czechoslovakia isn't even a country any more, which says something.
hardlianotion 5y ago
“ What Should I Think of Pro-Putin Politicians and Media Personalities in the West? You should despise them.” Precisely.
osynavets 5y ago
As a Ukrainian can confirm that this is really well-written article on this point
Helmut10001 5y ago
German here. I am fairly pro-US. Had a discussion yesterday with my neighbor. He argues that Russia invading Ukraine (and putting a pro-Russian government in its place), it is the same as USA invading Iraq. In his view, both of these invasions where motivated by own interests: Russia is motivated by their own interest to unite old Soviet Union again and USA was motivated to secure their resource interests (oil). How do you defend against this? I argued that both conflicts cannot be compared. USA was reactive (against the threat of 9-11), whereas Russia is proactive, invading an independent country with shallow arguments (Nato is a defense alliance that would never invade Russia, yet Putin calls Nato a threat).
- watwut 5y ago
  Both were proactive. USA attacked Iraq with shallow arguments and a bunch of lies.
- wolf550e 5y ago
  The worst thing about the US invasion of Iraq is the civilian casualties of the war, occupation and political instability that followed. But the 2nd worst thing about the US invasion of Iraq is that it is indefensible. This weakens the US position on other conflicts, where the US position is just. Anyway, any German that is in favor of the Russian border moving closer to Germany is an idiot, and possibly too stupid and ignorant to be helped.
  - roca 5y ago
    I basically agree, except the US invasion of Iraq is far more defensible than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The USA got rid of a really bad dictator in Iraq. Ukraine's government was democratically elected and much better. The USA did not annex Iraq (directly or by proxy), take Iraq's oil or establish permanent military bases in Iraq. Putin has explicitly said he sees Ukraine as part of a new Russian empire.
    - wolf550e 5y ago
      Let's assume the US had better intentions toward Iraq than Putin has towards Ukraine. But the people of Iraq are not thankful for the results of the US invasion. It did not bring peace and prosperity to Iraq.
baybal2 5y ago
No point talking about that. You, Westerners, have too many MBA types in positions of powers, where they shouldn't be. Listening to an investor relations specialist for a military analysis is not what you should do. You need to stop trying to understand it, and take it for what it is. A long staged military invasion of a country Russia been attacking for 8 years. Act accordingly. Analysis paralysis is what Russian KGB actively tries to cause in the West, and no wonder they fund tons of garbage think tanks to pump what is called "фуфло" https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fuflo https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fuflo . It's jamming basically, but for the brains of people in power. Mental warfare.
icare_1er 5y ago
- pySSK 5y ago
  Why would you say that? There would have been less to lose for Russia since he would have supported any move by Putin as he is doing now.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
leobg 5y ago
I found this a very helpful article to make sense of the current situation. What it does seem to leave out is that Cuban Missle Crisis argument: Wouldn't the U.S., too, consider military intervention if a direct neighbor country of the U.S. was preparing to essentially become a base for Russian missiles? This article here [1] makes that point. And some commenters here have also made similar comparisons. The question here is not if Putin's actions can be "excused". Let's not make the mistake of thinking that to explain someone's behavior was equal to approving of it. On the contrary. No amount of disapproval will have any effect unless one first has a good handle on what is truly causing that behavior. And telling yourself stories like that the other party is just "a bad person" or is just "acting irrationally" are really just a band-aid on one's own helplessness. They can comfort, but they distract from defusing the actual problem. One can say that Putin is just following a kind of salami tactic. Taking one small slice after another, making sure that each individual slice is small enough for him to get away with it. Just like Hitler did in 1938 (and before, internally, in 1933). But I do find that the counter-point also "computes". Namely that Putin's main goal is to stay in power. And that he feels threatened in this regard by an ever-encroaching NATO at his borders. And that he isn't acting much different than Kennedy acted in 1962, when nuclear war became a possibility because the U.S. could not tolerate Russian missiles at their doorstep, in Cuba. The blog I linked to also points out another curious similarity. The crisis in 1962 was defused by Kennedy agreeing to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey. But this concession had to be made in secret, without the public's knowledge. Because any concessions to Russia would have been political suicide. And I do find that a little odd. I mean, take marriage counseling. That you have to compromise, and take at least part of the responsibility for the problem, that is the only thing that can save a relationship. That other strategy, where you claim you are right and the other person is wrong, that is called stonewalling. And if you do that, the relationship is fucked. It is one thing to say "What you're doing inside of your country is not democratic, and we don't like it". But to translate this into "We're not going to make any concessions, ever, because doing that would mean that we become like you" - that's irrational. Making concessions to a dictator doesn't necessarily mean giving up democratic values. But a refusal to even discuss ways of compromise does. When everybody seems to agree that Putin is "just another Hitler", and opinions that do try to make sense of the situation do not get discussed, but flagged and ousted instead, that does make me concerned. When a question becomes taboo, we're no longer being that free and democratic society that we're claiming to protect. I do not know what the right answer is. But I do think that this one question should not be brushed aside, but openly discussed. Which is: What merit, if any, is there to the claim that the actions of NATO and the U.S. are putting Putin in a position where what we're seeing now becomes inevitable when you factor in his need for self-preservation? And sure, I get it: Dictators shouldn't want to preserve their power. Just as thieves shouldn't steal. But they do. This is the real world. That Putin will act in ways that preserve his power is a known fact which any rational actor cannot leave out of his calculations. I admit, there's a fine line between not pushing a dictator into a corner and provoking an escalation on the one hand, and drawing clear boundaries without falling prey to salami tactics on the other. Everyone who is a parent here knows what I'm talking about. Thanks for the discussion. [1] https://lt3000.blogspot.com/2022/02/russia-update-road-to-war.html https://lt3000.blogspot.com/2022/02/russia-update-road-to-wa...
dostick 5y ago
It is quite simple and dont require a long winded blog article: war is required so putin stay in power. He is out of moves. Putin is old but can not retire - he will lose power and will be jailed or executed for his crimes. Only one move left have a war that will keep him in control, and have population distracted. - that’s why he is so unreasonable in negotiations and ready to throw Russia’s economy under the sanctions bus. There’s no deal he will accept because any deal would mean end of war. Likely this happens next: russians priority number 1 is to change government. They will either capture Zelensky or he will be able to escape and hide. They install puppet government. But all Ukrainians furiously hate everything about this situation. Unlike Russia where population is divided into police and brainwashed mass, in Ukraine he can not recruit police enforcers from population. So the army will stay to control the population. Indefinitely, that is until putin dies. That’s his goal right there.
- spopejoy 5y ago
  > So the army will stay to control the population If this is the goal/expected outcome, this would support the stories that this is the FSB's war and not the army's, as this sounds like an impossible task.
ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
The overall analysis is very good, but the matter of Putin's motivation is still underexplained. I get why so many people find Mearsheimer's reasoning to be correct - it really fits Russia and the wordviews of Russian ruling class (Post WWII upbringing in a totalitarian state + professional deformation of intelligence officers). However, it's limiting in the same way the whole Offensive Realism theory is. Let me try to explain. I'll use "Putin" as a substitute for "Russian government and ruling class" below. Yes, Putin sees NATO as an existential threat, even though he understands there's no real risk of any military action coming from NATO unless provoked. Yes, Putin wants "regional hegemony" and thus wants to get to control Ukraine, probably indirectly, by almost any means. But the war in the Ukraine only makes NATO stronger? Yes, however, the threat from NATO, as Putin sees it, is not only military, it's also cultural. Even though his actions will probably lead to Finland and Sweden, for example, to join NATO in the nearest future, those countries are already classified as "the West" so their military status is of lesser concern. Ukraine, on the other hand, has extremely strong (probably, the strongest of all other countries, Belarus being the second contender) cultural ties with Russia, this includes family ties, language, traditions of policy practice, etc. Why does Putin care about cultural changes in neighbouring sovereign countries? This is where offensive realism falls short. The answer is internal politics. The main motivation for Putin is self-preservation. Ukraine "choosing West" is unacceptable for Putin, as if it works out even slightly net-positive for Ukraine it will be almost impossible to maintain the illusion it can't ever work in Russia. If it's so important for Putin, why didn't he do it 8 years ago? You can take only so much risk and economic damage. Annexing Crimea was a guaranteed easy and swift operation and it didn't look like a military intervention for the Russian people, which is good for the ratings. As the consequences hit Russian economy pretty hard, it took whole last 8 years to hammer down to the population it's all "our enemy's fault". It also took 8 years to explain to the business elites "the confrontation with the West is for real, prepare". But the economic damage? Putin's well off regardless. Prosperity of Russians is of no concern - Venezuela shows how low you can go and still keep your seat. Poor people and non-existent middle-class means less political activity, which is a bonus. Speaking of elites, there were some rumours of a considerable dissatisfaction with the economic situation and the lack of the development momentum brewing up lately. Making all the top officials and close businesses complicit in War and some of them receiving direct losses from the sanctions leaves them no choice but to double down on supporting Putin's regime, as there's no alternative for them. This could also additionally explain the timing for the decision to break the status quo, but we have no info on this. So, to sum up: - No NATO in the Ukraine means you fully control the region. This is a good feeling for the paranoid character. - War means mobilization and mutual responsibility of the elites, which is essential to maintaining the mafia state. - Economic damage to Russia will totally obscure the poor management of the Russian economy by Putin's government and total incompatibility of the policies with economic growth for most of the citizens. - Preventing the sovereignty of culturally close countries means Russia looks the strongest and the most successful of the bunch and this is good for the general support. - Putin personally is a violent bully, his close company are mostly the same. You need to demonstrate the decisiveness for violence to be on top. - Putin might be additionally stimulated by his messianic delusions of restoring USSR being the prime directive of old-school KGB officers. Although, it's impossible to know the truth here. The only serious risk Putin took is with his own people: did he manage to dumb and oppress us all down to accept and offensive War and still maintain the required level of support? Only time will tell. I personally despise it all. I saw the writing on the wall but couldn't believe it, a fool. Now I can only hope. Peace.
paulus_magnus2 5y ago
As the author correctly noted the role of Preemptive Sanctions is not as a deterrent but his argumentation agains it is based on a nof far-sighted enough analysis of the consequences of sanctions. (1) Russia is a state on brink of bancrupcy. Deplatforming Russia from SWIFT, Visa, Mastercard, stopping gas pipelines, etc etc. cutting any trade swhatsover would degrade Russia's finances enough to prevernt them from being able to finance a prolongued military offensive operations. Helicopters, tanks, planes are very expensive. (2) Russia is a also a very oligarchical state with regular people having zero power or assets. Therefore preemptive sanction should have been imposed on Russia's oligarchs in order to "motivate" them into questioning their support of Putin himself. Again degrading his ability to order risky military missions, degrading his ability for prolongued war and perhaps the oligarchs would overthrow Putin altogether. With perhaps the war itseelf already being Putin's preemptive tactic to escape being overthrown. Forthermore, again, preemprively NATO should have supplied Ukraine with vast amounts of defensive antitank and antihelicopter weapons which wold inflict very costly damage and perhaps stop the invasion altogether - there were ideas to supply these weapons but Germany opposed. NATO could also have ordered massive militaty training in Ukraine and again did have this idea but again Germany was against.
- rossmohax 5y ago
  > Russia is a state on brink of bancrupcy. Proofs? AFAIK it is exact opposite: very low debt, stable source of income from resources export, large gold reserves.
  - paulus_magnus2 5y ago
    They are a petrolstate with no real economy going and producing virtually no tradeale goods other than raw resources[a] [b] 70% of their trade is with Western countries [c] so if cut them off, their deficit quickly pushes them hard into debt and with no external financing they will go into internal debt. With no credibile ways to pay off debt they have hyperinflation and people on the streets demanding Putin out. Modern war is super expensive [d] [a] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russia_Export_Treemap.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russia_Export_Treema... [b] https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=undefined&year=2019&productClass=HS&target=Product&partner=undefined&startYear=undefined https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=un... [c] https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=undefined&year=2019&productClass=HS&target=Partner&partner=undefined&startYear=undefined https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=un... [d] https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/08/16/the-war-in-afghanistan-cost-america-300-million-per-day-for-20-years-with-big-bills-yet-to-come/?sh=55e8cf207f8d https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/08/16/the-war-i...
artem247 5y ago
gdy 5y ago
"Meanwhile, it is not entirely clear that Putin’s war has widespread popular support in Russia" Russian living in Russia here. I don't know anyone around me who supports this. Many people in Russia have friends or relatives in Ukraine and we are horrified about what is happening right now.
bbojan 5y ago
Stating things like "NATO is a purely defensive alliance" makes me question the accuracy of this analysis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
- mopsi 5y ago
  > NATO's intervention was prompted by Yugoslavia's bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Albanians Yes, should've just turned eyes away from genocide in Europe.
  - bbojan 5y ago
    So you agree with my point that it's not a purely defensive alliance?
    - th3byrdm4n 5y ago
      Let’s make an agreement called YCTO - such that I promise if someone attacks you in comments, I will defend you by attacking your aggressor, and if someone attacks me in comments, you’ll do the same. … that agreement is purely defensive. If you and I see some vile rhetoric that is directed at someone else, we can both decide to attack it, even though it’s arguable our actions are offensive. That action is independent and not bound by the YCTO. We just both agree, independent of the YCTO, to act. It’s a function of like-minded values that made the decision.
  - throwA29B 5y ago
    Yes. By entering the conflict: 1.a) NATO declared that "defense only" claim is a lie. 1.b) Other countries will now ask themselves what else in NATO charter is a lie. 2. USA, the permanent member of UN Security Council(which is de-facto enforcer of all UN decisions), severely undermined UN authority.
- altgoogler 5y ago
  I think the article was pretty well-informed and sourced analysis. Yes, as you point out, NATO has undertaken offensive campaigns. I think the author made a mistake of saying "alliance" here when they meant to say "treaty". AFAIK, none of the NATO articles were invoked as part of the operation in Yugoslavia. That is to say, though it was a NATO operation, members were not bound by treaty to participate. This fact muddles some of the points the author made, but the author speaks broadly of the ramifications of invoking Article 5, so I would say their analysis is well-reasoned.
jerome-jh 5y ago
I think the reasons for Russian invasion is somewhat simpler: - Ukraine military equipement is aging and of Russian origin. It is mostly useless to defend oneself against Russia. One day or another an independant Ukraine would have bought military equiment to the west or China. This is inacceptable to Russia for the next reason. - traditionnel defense paradigm of Russia is "defense in depth". Refer to Napoléon Wars or WW2 for applications of this paradigm. Since Putin seems to stick to it, Ukraine is merely a buffer for Russia, so long it is an ally. Hence the urge to replace the Ukrenian government with dummies as in Belarus. - Allies can only have compatible weapon systems.
- jerome-jh 5y ago
  And I would had "defense in depth" still applies as of today. The further your ennemies are, the more difficult it is for them to eavedrop communications, spy on military exercices, train their radars on your planes.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
Question: war comes down to us vs them. Even the most racist, xenophobic Canadian will consider Ukraine to be "us". But Canada houses 1 million people who have Ukrainian roots and many of those have been here long enough that they are considered "Canadian". A good analogy would be the Italians in the US. At one time they weren't considered real Americans, but that time is long past. Yet xenophobic Canadians would not consider Georgia or Moldova or Chechnya to be on our team. Is this a uniquely Canadian thing, or would it be common to the rest of the West?
_nalply 5y ago
Infosperber is an independent Swiss online news platform where I can read about strange things (in German). To be clear, I don't know whether the things they tell are true, but often I find these things interesting and plausible. One of them is that Gorbachev has been promised that the NATO doesn't expand in Eastern Europe. So perhaps this is one of the causes Putin invaded Ukraine. He is afraid of the NATO and deems the EU and the USA untrustworthy partners. I don't know. Seems plausible. https://www.infosperber.ch/politik/darum-fordert-russland-den-stop-der-nato-osterweiterung/ https://www.infosperber.ch/politik/darum-fordert-russland-de... Edit: This doesn't exculpate the invasion. An invasion of a country is a violation of international law. I just try to understand the rationales.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  > He is afraid of the NATO and deems the EU and the USA untrustworthy partners. Think about this a bit more and you will realize that this explanation makes less than zero sense. NATO members in the Baltics have bordered Russia for almost two decades with zero sign of interest in invading Russia. Even right now, in the aftermath of Russia performing imperialist conquest not seen since WW2, there is zero interest in military intervention against Russia. Stable democracies are simply not going to go to war with a nuclear power.
  - _nalply 5y ago
    https://therealnews.com/putin-has-launched-the-most-senseless-of-all-the-wars https://therealnews.com/putin-has-launched-the-most-senseles... > The conquest of Russia by NATO, by contrast, is the personal fear [...] It doesn't matter what people do, it matters what people think what people do.
chernevik 5y ago
Not an expert, but I think the real motivation is intolerance of anything looking like a democracy adjacent to Russia. If Ukraine can develop a functioning economy in communication with the West, and a functioning government more or less accountable to the electorate, that is a huge embarrassment for Putin's regime. The Russian economy is basically oil and gas extraction, the Russian polity is basically "support Putin or go to jail". If Ukraine were to begin to prosper in other activities, and well they might given decent governance, the Russian model would be exposed as an authoritarian sham. Additionally, Putin gains politically by Great Power rhetoric. We are simply protecting our interests, everyone is against us, we must be strong and united! It's nonsense, no one in the West gives a damn what happens within Russian borders so long as they don't bother anyone else, but it unites the country behind Putin. The Putin regime is a nasty mix of oligarchy, corruption, propaganda, media control and intelligence and police services. It's sadly enabled by modern information technology, which can be used for ill as well as good. The Chinese Communist Party is a similar contraption. The question is, how long can regimes like this perpetuate themselves? It would be great if these ugly contrivance were contained within their own borders, but current events show us they are everyone's problem. It isn't for us to tell the Russians, or the Chinese, how to govern themselves. But we shouldn't be enabling these regimes by our trade or technology. The hope that trade and communication would make them more democratic and accountable and law-abiding has been tried, and failed. If anything, those connections are making us less democratic, as we see Chinese censorship filtering into American entertainment and marketing. It's time to decouple from these countries. Economically that's very painful, but over the long term it is much less painful than feeding these cancers.
credit_guy 5y ago
> As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other. Wow. Powerful. Ukraine, keep fighting. You are fighting for the ascendency of justice over injustice in the affairs of mankind.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Thats why we left them without any real support, the west could have given them real antiair systems at least - a couple batteries of patriots would have made a world of difference. Or at least support them with a fat bank account. We had 8 years. If ukraine falls, border with russia will be our headache, and it will cost more than helping ukraine would.
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
> Thus, the war happened because Vladimir Putin wanted it to happen and he wanted it to happen to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine; it is as yet unclear if he then intends to annex the country or place a puppet government in charge of it (which given the diminished independence of Belarus, might amount to the same thing in the end). This is a little bit of a let down. "It happened because Putin wanted it to happen". Looking at the way Putin talks and behaves, his actions are like actions of a child who has a tantrum. He's very emotional, probably someone pissed him off very much on an inner child level. Maybe someone threatened taking his toys away. The man seems to be very irrational, he says words that to him are reasonable, but they're so shallow that someone with half a brain can read through it in a split-second. I think this is all personal. There could be things happening within a very small circle of people causing his childish reaction. We have to remember that those at the top of world politics know each other for decades. Putin ain't a superhuman, he's simply like a 12 year old bully but unfortunately he has 850k active military personnel, a fuck-ton of tanks, artillery and air force. Without justifying anything Putin has done, let's consider an alternative narrative. Let's accept that what American intelligence is saying, that he was preparing this for 15 or 20 years. Putin once before the invasion said something along the lines that "Americans (rest of the world?) have done similar things". Maybe his actions are as simple as "look, they've done it so many times and THEY won't let ME do X, they profited here and there and they forbid me from doing the same, I will show them" where that X maybe even wasn't about Ukraine in the first place? Although, it probably was. He watched USSR collapse under drunk Yeltsin. But from Putin's perspective: Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush and co. Unjustified war backed by totally falsified evidence, no idea how a regular person in the USA benefits from those but I'm sure military industry made a killing on it. Iraq alone was, depending on the source, from 460k to over 1m "excessive casualties". Libya? What was the point? Proxy war in Syria? What's the point? Are the alternatives we have now better? I'm not saying "but look what the other side did", whataboutism isn't what I'm doing here. I'm saying: this is how Putin maybe sees it. As Putin was getting more and more isolated, he felt ignored, frustrated, angry. That he cannot finish his plan because the guard has changed and those who did similar things alongside him are no longer in power. And like an ignored and frustrated bully, he waited around the bush and smacked the victim right in the nose. Unfortunately, this victim is the people of Ukraine and the smack is tanks and bombs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay how severe this situation is. Innocent people suffer and die. Putin is a criminal and he will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. He will stand in the same line as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the rest from this list: https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html.
templarchamp 5y ago
what if it is a news that Putin has a serious disease like cancer and wants to initiate or consolidate his legacy?
rasengan0 5y ago
Giles, K. What deters Russia: Enduring principles for responding to Moscow. Chatham House, 2021 https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021-09-23-What-deters-Russia-Giles-pdf.pdf https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/202...

429 points by picture 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

This is a super good article.

screwgoth 5y ago

What a great read.

_trampeltier 5y ago

>Why Didn’t We See This Coming? Actually, we did. NATO – and especially US intelligence – was remarkably effective at predicting what Putin had planned before he did it, down to predicting the day the assault would begin.< After Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, there was no reason to trust western intelligence just for 1 second.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 5y ago
Actually, there was, but like with any other intelligence source you'd want some independent verification. What was special about Iraq was that there was conflicting intelligence, the WMD inspectors had it right, and Colin Powell lost the respect of the rest of the world when it turned out that he'd effectively lied. As for Afghanistan, that was/is an outright failure, but still not enough to automatically disbelieve everything that comes out of the intelligence services. The important thing is to realize that intelligence can be wrong.

mikewarot 5y ago

[EDIT] While I agree, STRONGLY with this action, I also worry that kicking Russia out of SWIFT, could make them partners with China and others in hastening the demise of the PetroDollar.

jacquesm 5y ago
We'll deal with that when we have to, until then it would really hurt Putin's chances to wage this war for long.
rjzzleep 5y ago
You don't have to worry about that. They have been reducing their reliance on USD for everything over the past couple of years[1][2]. The West has been asleep and drunk on its ignorance for a while now. China has been selling services to Iran for oil for years now. Instead of actually paying for it in currency. You can only threaten sanctions so many times when the other side is a world power. Trumps America showed that the US a bit of a toothless tiger when they didn't retaliate after Iran shot rockets at their Iraq military base. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/russias-bid-to-ditch-the-us-dollar-is-slowly-working-but-obstacles-remain.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/russias-bid-to-ditch-the-us-... [2] https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/russia-s-583-billion-reserves-now-hold-more-gold-than-dollars https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/russia-s-583...
- roenxi 5y ago
  Trump had a top Iranian general missiled. And Iran sat there and took it with laudable stoicism because they aren't stupid and could see they had nothing to do. America was anything but toothless in those years and Iran wasn't about to call any bluffs. And funny you should bring up Iraq in these troubled times, because I think the recent conflict Russia->Ukraine is most comparable to - outside of Russia->Other Neighbours - is US->Iraq. Assuming the situation calms down rather than escalating.
  - roca 5y ago
    I think US/Iraq is not a good analogy. The USA got rid of a really bad dictator and the majority of Iraqs were happy about that --- but social divisions crippled the aftermath. OTOH Ukraine has a democratically elected government and is pretty unified against Russia right now.

MattyRad 5y ago

It's been difficult to find the operational objectives[1] of the war laid out plainly, which ACOUP once again does expertly (as best as any expert can do at this stage, anyway). The Siege of Gondor writeup[1] is worth reading by itself, but I think rereading it with Putin juxtaposed to Sauron would retroactively give LotR that much more relevance and gravitas. [1] https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondor/ https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondo...

cwillu 5y ago
I'd say that this makes Xi Jinping Sauron, but that puts the Shire (Taiwan) in the wrong place, no?

rado 5y ago

NATO attacked Libya in 2011, with disastrous consequences. It's not a defence alliance.

wesleywt 5y ago
Strange comment.
jacquesm 5y ago
At the behest of the UN security council, and the Libyan government afterwards asked NATO to extend their mission which they refused.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  Based on lies https://www.salon.com/2016/09/16/u-k-parliament-report-details-how-natos-2011-war-in-libya-was-based-on-lies/ https://www.salon.com/2016/09/16/u-k-parliament-report-detai...
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Sure but that still means NATO is not exclusively a defensive alliance. Libya was not attacking any NATO member and got attacked by NATO. It seems silly to pretend it's a defensive alliance just because you can justify all of the times it was the aggressor?
smackay 5y ago
I can't say anything on whether NATO attacked Libya but it's members certainly dabble in the various conflicts trying to extract advantage. I had a conversation with a "systems thinker" of British origin who straight out said that he was involved in a group that were distributing cell phones to members of the population of Libya so they could call in air strikes against government forces. Apart from the obvious problem of getting NATO to do the dirty work to remove your enemies no matter that faction they belonged to the most striking thing was the arrogance and ease with which this person justified their position. It was a reflection of the thinking from 100 years ago where the British assumed everything they did was with God's blessing and Johnny Foreigner needed to do what they were told or suffer the consequences.

jchoelt 5y ago

> the idea that Ukraine has a Nazi government is a farce; for all of its considerable problems with corruption, Ukraine’s current government was democratically elected... So were the Nazis, though. I'm not arguing that Ukraine's government are "Nazis", just that despots and extremists can be elected too...

antupis 5y ago
Ukraina president is Russian speaking Jew so this Nazi rhetoric is just stupid.
- watwut 5y ago
  Yeah. And it is not like Russia did not had its own considerable white supremacist movements - more successful then those in Ukraine.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  “Nazi” is often used as a general slur against nationalists.
  - ajuc 5y ago
    There is nationalist party in Ukraine and they got 1% in elections. The elections were free and every term somebody else is in the government. Surprisingly never the nationalists tho. Also they want to join EU (as all nazis do of course). Meanwhile actually nationalist and imperialist Putin invaded 3 different countries during his 22 years of governing Russia. And he hasn't held fair elections there for a long time. So yeah Ukraine is nazi.
    - LudwigNagasena 5y ago
      I didn’t say that Ukraine is Nazi.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    No, it usually isn't. It is usually used to talk about white supremacists of a particular ideological bent.

deutschewelle 5y ago

This might be an unpopular opinion obviously being part of the l'occident world but NATO/US alignment of conflicting regional interests of EU members dependant on Russia's energy goods might be to blame. Eastern portion of Ukraine is heavily in favor of joining Russia as most speak Russian while he central and western parts want to join the EU but this is largely a one sided love affair. EU has repeatedly stalled and delayed Ukraine's membership seeing that it would be the second poorest member state after Greece, and thus would be against the interest of Germany, who stand to gain a lot by using Russia's gas pipeline. Enter Maidan revolution, while not outright instigated by the US, one does raise questions about the role of Facebook in previous revolutions namely the Arab Spring movement, Syrian rebellion, etc, and how quickly they were able to spread a the Maidan propaganda that EU/NATO membership was imminent when it couldn't be further from the truth. The 2014 invasion was relatively well restrained campaign at reminding who the master of Ukraine is which was promptly ignored by the following administrations. Rather than choose peace with Russia by remaining neutral, they chose to go down the impossibly difficult act of trying to gain NATO membership with a border dispute in Donetsk/Lukansk region. It might very well be said that Putin planned to take Ukraine anyways and 2014 was a test run and a good platform to encircle and hook into Moldova, another potential hotspot. The fact remains that leaving the Ukraine flatlands to NATO troops would open up Moscow to an indefensible flank, the upkeep cost of maintaining a wide frontline the size of Ukraine-Russia border would bankrupt Russia. Simply put the cost of inaction was calculated to be far greater than the risk of action. Imagine if you will, Mexico wanted to join China's security umbrella and it was receiving Chinese troops, tanks, hardware right across the US-Mexico border. Next Canada joins the party. How quickly do you think the US would put down such strategic positioning?

hef19898 5y ago
Actually a good write down, I think it's not to far from the mark as far as Putin's perspective is concerned. Since more than one thing can be, and usually is, true at the same time, I think one part is exactly as you described. The other is that Putin simply really wants Ukraine back in the fold, among other countries that used to be part if the USSR. Again, all of that is just a, potential, explanation. It is not, by any means, an excuse or justification.

bllguo 5y ago

His answer to "why is the war happening" is "Putin wanted it to." I won't claim to have greater insight but can't help but think that if this is the best we can do to explain Putin's actions, it's no wonder things have devolved this far. The analysis of how the war could have been avoided also seems lacking, in the sense that sure, there was probably nothing that could realistically have been done in the last few months. But the post itself says: "the conditions which would have resulted in a Russian invasion of Ukraine were likely decided on weeks or months ago." What could have been done differently in the last few years, even decades? I find the implied answer of "nothing" suspect.

jacquesm 5y ago
Welcome to dictatorship 101. This is exactly how it goes in countries like that, there may be some showpiece meeting or even legislation but in practice the ruler determines what happens next.
- bllguo 5y ago
  Dictators are people, they have goals and motivations and fears like anyone else. Imo saying it was an unavoidable act of Putin's madness is a cop-out. There's nothing for international relations to learn from this situation? I sure hope that's not the case, Putin won't be the last dictator with military power in human history.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Unfortunately, dictators trend to paranoid and have a habit of murdering any remotely plausible opposition. And they have a coterie of yes men/enablers around them. If not for that no dictator would ever live longer then 30 minutes.

sinyug 5y ago

> though the majority in both regions oppose secession. They held a referendum.[1] > Over the weekend, citizens in two east Ukrainian regions overwhelmingly voted to become independent in a referendum that only the Kremlin seems to be on board with. Separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk report that 89 percent and 96 percent, respectively, said they wanted to break free of Kiev's authority. You may not like the results and might have issues with the process, but to claim that the majority oppose secession is a joke. No country in the world will tolerate secessionist sentiment in any part of it and will prevent it with all its might. If it has the ability. In this case, Ukraine doesn't. [1] Referendum on Self-Rule in Ukraine 'Passes' with Over 90% of the Vote (https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070829/http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/05/referendum-on-self-rule-in-ukraine-passes-with-over-90-of-the-vote/362062/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160304070829/http://www.thewir...)

dragonwriter 5y ago
> You may not like the results and might have issues with the process The issues with the process include (among many other issues) the fact that the borders that the separatists claim and to which they claim these referenda apply (and whose borders have been recognized by Russia, though given the decapitation strike Russia is making on Ukraine, that’s less important than it would otherwise be) are much larger than the areas they actually controlled at the time and conducted them in.
gehatare 5y ago
How does this show anything? Yeah, if after years and years of low level war and displacement of political enemies and being de facto controlled by Russian troops you hold a referendum that is boycotted by all but the separatists, of course the separatists will win! But that is so far from any valid referendum that accepting it as such seems dubious at best.

vandermik 5y ago

To get better understanding what's really driving Russian government and Putin I strongly recommend to watch this talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X7Ng75e5gQ

leobg 5y ago
Can you give a few highlights? Why was that memorable to you?
- vandermik 5y ago
  The good analogy on Ukraine crisis. Imaging if Mexico joined Russian military alliance (created specifically against US) and decided to put Russian troops and bases on their territory. What would happened to Mexico? Would US allowed that?
  - throwrqX 5y ago
    Well that will never happen because the US seems to care about Mexico (and has a substantial population of Mexican heritage people in the US) unlike Russia with Ukraine so it's a moot point. It's like saying imagine if Ireland joined Russia and decided to put Russian troops on their territory, it's ridiculous and has little meaning just like making up any other geopolitical fantasy. I can understand how thought experiments might be useful in physics but in geopolitics we have realpolitik not wild fantasies. If you want to go in that direction then I assume Nazi Germany concerns at the beginning of WW2 about the spread of globalist capitalism and communism would become legitimate concerns too then and justify invading Europe over?
    - vandermik 5y ago
      Mexico was used in that analogy just because it's on US borders. If this analogy seems unrealistic to you, try replace Mexico with Cuba. Could two independent countries (USSR and Cuba) agreed to place nukes close to US borders in the 60's? Legally, sure they can. Does US agree with it? Even if WW3 was the case they will never allowed it. Same thing now with Ukraine. If Ukraine joins NATO, their troops will be on russia south border, which is unacceptable for Russia. And russian government thinks about it as an existential threat. Invasion is the direct result of failed negotiations between Russia and NATO about Ukraine neutrality.

jchoelt 5y ago

> First, Putin is likely to carry this war to its conclusion. The reputational cost of turning back now, with blood already shed, would be catastrophic. Putin’s only way out is through, unfortunately. I don't totally agree, Putin called this a "special operation": this is vague enough so he can claim "mission accomplished" cherry picking any "war accomplishment" he wants. To people claiming he failed his invasion, he can just say "you called it an invasion, it was never an invasion, I said it wasn't an invasion from the beginning."

pindab0ter 5y ago
For someone who likes to keep everything so vague in words to cover his ass, that simply doesn’t sound strong enough, I think.
- avmich 5y ago
  He can also easily lie, Trump style, manufacture facts etc. Doesn't have much of restraints. And that's in the case he wants to talk to you at all - usually that's reserved for political appearances for the people, via TV.
roca 5y ago
Putin turning back now, saying "actually I never intended to take Kiev", would be a clear admission of defeat. Everyone outside Russia would understand that, which matters because fear of Russia is an important goal for him.

ordu 5y ago

I'm a little confused. The article argues that Ukraine is not a Nazi country (for clarity: I agree with it) and the argument is "the president of Ukraine is Jew". But it does't contradict to Putin. I'm not sure where my confusion comes from, but it seems to me it is because of different ideas named by the same word. It seems to me that the author defines Nazi as anti-Jewish, while Putin has in mind more broad definition "anti-ethnos, for any ethnos". Being Russian I'm sure that my understanding of Putin is correct. Putin talks that Ukraine supposedly anti-Russian, prosecutes and kills Russians living in Ukraine, dreams of genocide of Russians and so on. So the argument of the article seems to be a non-sequitur. But if we defined Nazi as anti-Jewish that the argument would cease to be a non sequitur, it would be completely logical and conviencing. But maybe I do not understand something else? I'd like to clarify one more time, because it is a hot political topic. I do not think that Ukraine is anti-Russian-ethnos. I'm sure it is now strongly anti-Putin and even anti-Russian Federation, and rightly so. So regardless of what definition of Nazism we used, Putin declaration is a lie.

rapsey 5y ago
The article in general completely ignores the US role in all of this. The entire saga happened with the US interference in the last ukranian revolution. https://original.antiwar.com/rick_sterling/2022/02/24/how-the-us-instigated-the-ukraine-crisis/ https://original.antiwar.com/rick_sterling/2022/02/24/how-th...
- Bronze_Colossus 5y ago
  I disagree with the article you posted in almost its entirely. > president, Viktor Yanukovich, was forced to flee for his life. What Ukraine experienced in 2014 was not a coup. The Ukrainian parliament deposed him after he left the country and after the parliament had order the security forces to stand down and leave the capital. I could go on how factually and biased that article is. What's next? You're gonna claim Cuba is the fault of the Soviet union?
  - Moru 5y ago
    It's called propaganda and it actually works I'm affraid.

Jerry2 5y ago

I've read a bunch of articles on this conflict and this video by Prof Mearsheimer from University of Chicago explained it the best to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4

jacquesm 5y ago
https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/vladimir-putins-apologists-spread-dangerous-message-20150129-130snb.html https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/vladimir-putins-apologists-sp...
- propagandist 5y ago
  [Before downvoting, please consider whether you prefer debate or an echo chamber] Let us please not be so passive aggressive and dismissive. Serious diplomats have been warning about this for decades. Just because what's happening is evil and revisionist does not mean we should sweep all of that under the rug and buy into the mainstream a la the 2003 WMD hysteria. Pointing at one person and yelling "he's a bad man" has not been helpful and yet we can't help but do the same thing every single time.
  - the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
    The situation is not that complicated. Ukraine is an independent country and can decide what alliances to join or not. It’s not Russia’s business and it surely does not give it the permission to invade it. Anything else is highly irrelevant. Russia is a repressive dictatorship and has a combination of a brainwashed and scared population. We don’t need unnecessary nuance there.
    - propagandist 5y ago
      Great to know. Thank you for sanitizing this discussion and shutting out trolls and apologists (like myself). I'm sure that if Cuba or Venezuela entered a pact with Moscow that placed ICBMs on their territory, we would respect their sovereignty the same way. There are a few things I'd like to respond to below but the rate-limit hammer has dropped. What I will ask is that we refrain from calling the brave people who stood against the grain apologists or naive. They warned of the dangers decades ago. We owe them better than that; they were prescient.

bigcat123 5y ago

izietto 5y ago

To me Putin attacked Ukraine because from Russian government point of view they can't afford to have a western democracy (aka US) in that world zone. I feel that they fear that if they don't conquer Ukraine with bombs now US will conquer it with Secret Services later. Probably it was already happening. Poor Ukraine people. They're between two fires.

izietto 5y ago
Downvoting rather than contesting is sad to me.
- ausudhz 5y ago
  There's nothing to contest, just people Don't like the truth here. If you say something against the US you get down voted. Your comment is too sided, US to good to have secret services that influence elections elsewhere (after all, it never happened :) )
  - noahtallen 5y ago
    No one said the US has never interfered in an election. But in this case, the commenter suggests that the US was already attempting to overthrow the Ukrainian government?? That’s complete conspiracy and certainly deserves a downvote. Not only is there no evidence to support the claim, it doesn’t even fit anyone’s narratives (except perhaps Russia’s) about US/Ukrainian relationships. It just doesn’t make any sense in relation to US politics, especially considering the current leadership was elected in a landslide and is already relatively pro-EU/pro-NATO. Compare to, say, Iraq, and you can see how that would fit into US politics much better. Is it outside of the realm of possibilities? Of course not, but at least provide some kind of theory or narrative and phrase it as conjecture instead of just tossing it out as a conspiracy.
    - izietto 5y ago
      I'm just saying that Russian can't afford to have NATO at 2000km from Mosca. If Ukraine joins NATO Ukraine becomes US territory, that's not conspiracy, that's reality.

acqbu 5y ago

What a great read, thanks for sharing!

olalonde 5y ago

Pardon my skepticism but are there really politicians and media personalities in the US that support Putin's attack on Ukraine?

makomk 5y ago
Not just in the US. There's a very real possiblity that Jeremy Corbin could've been Prime Minister of the UK when this happened, and he's quite openly siding with Putin over this invasion and arguing the UK is actually to blame for it - as is the Stop the War Coalition and the broader left which he represents, much like their equivalents in the US are.
croes 5y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/02/23/tucker-carlson-putin-russia-ukraine/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/02/23/tucker-carls... https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/02/jen-psaki-slams-donald-trumps-effusive-praise-vladimir-putin/ https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/02/jen-psaki-slams-donald-t...
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
Direct quote from Trump: "I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine of Ukraine. Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that's wonderful. So Putin is now saying it's independent, a large section of Ukraine. I said, 'How smart is that?' And he's going to go in and be a peacekeeper."
- psyc 5y ago
  That clearly reads to me as cynical admiration of the strategy, not support for its actual execution. And no those aren’t the same thing.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    And footage from a Wednesday fundraiser in Florida showed Trump calling Putin "smart" for moving in on Ukraine "for $2 worth of sanctions. Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/24/1082954761/republicans-are-condemning-putin-for-the-invasion-of-ukraine-and-criticizing-bid https://www.npr.org/2022/02/24/1082954761/republicans-are-co... Link to footage: https://twitter.com/american_bridge/status/1496682759208775683?s=21 https://twitter.com/american_bridge/status/14966827592087756... If admiration, cheerleading, and calling an invader "smart" - isn't support... What is?

elSidCampeador 5y ago

> Now on the one hand, NATO is a purely defensive alliance The author doesn't get it

skrebbel 5y ago
Yeah this part disappointed me too, as NATO done things in the past that I struggle to explain as "purely defense" (eg Serbia, Libya). I still think the article holds true, but I think the author should've been more nuanced here because Putin apologists are going to use this mistake to undermine the whole article.
bspammer 5y ago
No one in the west wants to invade Russia. Everyone wants to not be invaded by Russia. That sounds pretty defensive to me.
- ailef 5y ago
  Yes, if we only consider definitions and ignore NATO actions for the past 50 years.
  - yardstick 5y ago
    (Serious question) What have they done in the last 50 years to make you think they would invade Russia?
    - ailef 5y ago
      I was contesting the definition of NATO being a "purely defensive alliance", as is often described also here on HN. For example, NATO intervention in Serbia can hardly considered defensive.
      - dgregd 5y ago
        Serbia is not a part of Russia. It wasn't even in Soviet Union. Yugoslavia was an independent country.

dtx1 5y ago

Understanding it is easy. A war-mongering murderous autocrat decided he can take Ukraine and so he did. Don't fall for the Russian divide and conquer strategy and look for imaginary complexity when the reasons are simple. Putin has stolen what he can from the Russian people and now he tries to steal what he can from Ukraine just as Hitler and Stalin did before him. And every Russian that is not on the streets protesting this war, either out of cowardice or because they support it (and don't be fooled, a lot of them do) is guilty of waging an expansionist, criminal war.

k__ 5y ago

For a long time, I really thought Putin to be a smart man with motives beyond his own gain. That he really tries to make Russia better and works for the common person. But after he renounced Ukraine's status as country and after I saw that many people protest in Russia and even part of his army is abandoning him, I'm not so sure anymore.

hilbertseries 5y ago
> of his army is abandoning him I haven’t heard this, what’s happening?
- k__ 5y ago
  Some platoons layed down arms. They were sent to Ukraine under false pretenses to gather information, later they found out a invasion was starting and they didn't want to attack Ukrainen people.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Do you have a link to a source for this?
    - pqwEfkvjs 5y ago
      https://censor.net/ru/news/3318827/rossiyiskie_okkupanty_sdayutsya_v_plen_etogo_nikto_ne_dumal_chto_my_edem_ubivat https://censor.net/ru/news/3318827/rossiyiskie_okkupanty_sda... It is in Russian, but Google translate does more-or-less ok job translating it.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        Thank you!
      - tim333 5y ago
        That's good - I was wondering if we were going to see some of that, or them just being half hearted and camping out more than fighting. I get the impression most Russians are not very keen on this venture.

m12k 5y ago

Another what-if option that I wish had been discussed here: What if the EU had placed a peacekeeping force in white uniforms in Ukraine? (in theory a week ago, but that might just have prompted an even faster Russian attack, so it probably needed to have been done last year). I realize that many EU countries are also NATO countries. But still, if it was done under an EU banner, and the soldiers were not there to fight Russians, but to act as a neutral peacekeeping force. I know many of us did not expect Putin to be crazy enough to launch a full scale invasion, but is he also crazy enough that he would have attacked an EU peacekeeping force? I realize that it's way too late to do anything about this - going in now would be seen as an attack - but still, knowing what we know now, what would have been the best possible way to try to prevent this? It might also inform what to do later, if after the dust has settled, there is still a democratic Ukraine to help.

throwaway290 5y ago
> going in now would be seen as an attack Send in people, give them Ukrainian passports, deny everything. Not only Russia can perform false flag operations, deny responsibility and not get flak. (The only problem being sidestepped above is that when there is a madman with nukes there is no semblance of fairness and all bets are off.)
dmurray 5y ago
The EU doesn't have a military or any mandate to put one together under an EU flag. Probably it will happen eventually, but previous attempts to establish one have been rebuffed by the citizens of smaller countries with a policy of neutrality, who still get a veto on questions like this. Maybe there could have been a combined French/German (or whatever EU countries you'd like...I imagine there'd be no shortage of volunteers in the Baltic) peacekeeping force.
- m12k 5y ago
  I mean, a UN peacekeeping force would have worked too. A neutral banner instead of NATO, that Putin sees as a direct threat. We don't even need the force to be able to actually fight off a Russian invasion, we just need them to be there to force Russia to declare war on everyone in order to be able invade.

jim-jim-jim 5y ago

> The major variable here is political will; consequently if you are a citizen of one of those Western countries, one thing you can do here is signal to your representatives that you, in fact, are willing to accept a degree of economic pain in order to send the message to Russia that wars of conquest will not be tolerated. I know armchair generals are peeved about what's going on right now, but suggestions like this are psychotic. I urge anybody on HN who might be entertaining this idea to look at some of the numbers in this article. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq Putin will be fine if the Russian economy is deliberately tanked. Normal Russians won't.

deniscepko2 5y ago
Following your logic sanctions are useless. I think this is ok because nothing will affect Putin. Russian people should eventually not reelect him or somehow remove this government. And for others I think its very reasonable to not do business with such an unpredictable/hostile country.
- jim-jim-jim 5y ago
  Has a brutally sanctioned populace ever overthrown its government? This is an honest question; I don't have enough samples to draw upon. In the case of Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela, it seems like the misery just trickles down.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Yes. Czechoslovakia.
    - jim-jim-jim 5y ago
      Thank you. Do you honestly expect them to have a similar effect on Russia? I imagine there's key geographic, cultural, and temporal differences at play. Czechoslovakia isn't even a country any more, which says something.

hardlianotion 5y ago

“ What Should I Think of Pro-Putin Politicians and Media Personalities in the West? You should despise them.” Precisely.

osynavets 5y ago

As a Ukrainian can confirm that this is really well-written article on this point

Helmut10001 5y ago

German here. I am fairly pro-US. Had a discussion yesterday with my neighbor. He argues that Russia invading Ukraine (and putting a pro-Russian government in its place), it is the same as USA invading Iraq. In his view, both of these invasions where motivated by own interests: Russia is motivated by their own interest to unite old Soviet Union again and USA was motivated to secure their resource interests (oil). How do you defend against this? I argued that both conflicts cannot be compared. USA was reactive (against the threat of 9-11), whereas Russia is proactive, invading an independent country with shallow arguments (Nato is a defense alliance that would never invade Russia, yet Putin calls Nato a threat).

watwut 5y ago
Both were proactive. USA attacked Iraq with shallow arguments and a bunch of lies.
wolf550e 5y ago
The worst thing about the US invasion of Iraq is the civilian casualties of the war, occupation and political instability that followed. But the 2nd worst thing about the US invasion of Iraq is that it is indefensible. This weakens the US position on other conflicts, where the US position is just. Anyway, any German that is in favor of the Russian border moving closer to Germany is an idiot, and possibly too stupid and ignorant to be helped.
- roca 5y ago
  I basically agree, except the US invasion of Iraq is far more defensible than the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The USA got rid of a really bad dictator in Iraq. Ukraine's government was democratically elected and much better. The USA did not annex Iraq (directly or by proxy), take Iraq's oil or establish permanent military bases in Iraq. Putin has explicitly said he sees Ukraine as part of a new Russian empire.
  - wolf550e 5y ago
    Let's assume the US had better intentions toward Iraq than Putin has towards Ukraine. But the people of Iraq are not thankful for the results of the US invasion. It did not bring peace and prosperity to Iraq.

baybal2 5y ago

No point talking about that. You, Westerners, have too many MBA types in positions of powers, where they shouldn't be. Listening to an investor relations specialist for a military analysis is not what you should do. You need to stop trying to understand it, and take it for what it is. A long staged military invasion of a country Russia been attacking for 8 years. Act accordingly. Analysis paralysis is what Russian KGB actively tries to cause in the West, and no wonder they fund tons of garbage think tanks to pump what is called "фуфло" https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fuflo https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fuflo . It's jamming basically, but for the brains of people in power. Mental warfare.

icare_1er 5y ago

pySSK 5y ago
Why would you say that? There would have been less to lose for Russia since he would have supported any move by Putin as he is doing now.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

leobg 5y ago

I found this a very helpful article to make sense of the current situation. What it does seem to leave out is that Cuban Missle Crisis argument: Wouldn't the U.S., too, consider military intervention if a direct neighbor country of the U.S. was preparing to essentially become a base for Russian missiles? This article here [1] makes that point. And some commenters here have also made similar comparisons. The question here is not if Putin's actions can be "excused". Let's not make the mistake of thinking that to explain someone's behavior was equal to approving of it. On the contrary. No amount of disapproval will have any effect unless one first has a good handle on what is truly causing that behavior. And telling yourself stories like that the other party is just "a bad person" or is just "acting irrationally" are really just a band-aid on one's own helplessness. They can comfort, but they distract from defusing the actual problem. One can say that Putin is just following a kind of salami tactic. Taking one small slice after another, making sure that each individual slice is small enough for him to get away with it. Just like Hitler did in 1938 (and before, internally, in 1933). But I do find that the counter-point also "computes". Namely that Putin's main goal is to stay in power. And that he feels threatened in this regard by an ever-encroaching NATO at his borders. And that he isn't acting much different than Kennedy acted in 1962, when nuclear war became a possibility because the U.S. could not tolerate Russian missiles at their doorstep, in Cuba. The blog I linked to also points out another curious similarity. The crisis in 1962 was defused by Kennedy agreeing to withdraw U.S. missiles from Turkey. But this concession had to be made in secret, without the public's knowledge. Because any concessions to Russia would have been political suicide. And I do find that a little odd. I mean, take marriage counseling. That you have to compromise, and take at least part of the responsibility for the problem, that is the only thing that can save a relationship. That other strategy, where you claim you are right and the other person is wrong, that is called stonewalling. And if you do that, the relationship is fucked. It is one thing to say "What you're doing inside of your country is not democratic, and we don't like it". But to translate this into "We're not going to make any concessions, ever, because doing that would mean that we become like you" - that's irrational. Making concessions to a dictator doesn't necessarily mean giving up democratic values. But a refusal to even discuss ways of compromise does. When everybody seems to agree that Putin is "just another Hitler", and opinions that do try to make sense of the situation do not get discussed, but flagged and ousted instead, that does make me concerned. When a question becomes taboo, we're no longer being that free and democratic society that we're claiming to protect. I do not know what the right answer is. But I do think that this one question should not be brushed aside, but openly discussed. Which is: What merit, if any, is there to the claim that the actions of NATO and the U.S. are putting Putin in a position where what we're seeing now becomes inevitable when you factor in his need for self-preservation? And sure, I get it: Dictators shouldn't want to preserve their power. Just as thieves shouldn't steal. But they do. This is the real world. That Putin will act in ways that preserve his power is a known fact which any rational actor cannot leave out of his calculations. I admit, there's a fine line between not pushing a dictator into a corner and provoking an escalation on the one hand, and drawing clear boundaries without falling prey to salami tactics on the other. Everyone who is a parent here knows what I'm talking about. Thanks for the discussion. [1] https://lt3000.blogspot.com/2022/02/russia-update-road-to-war.html https://lt3000.blogspot.com/2022/02/russia-update-road-to-wa...

dostick 5y ago

It is quite simple and dont require a long winded blog article: war is required so putin stay in power. He is out of moves. Putin is old but can not retire - he will lose power and will be jailed or executed for his crimes. Only one move left have a war that will keep him in control, and have population distracted. - that’s why he is so unreasonable in negotiations and ready to throw Russia’s economy under the sanctions bus. There’s no deal he will accept because any deal would mean end of war. Likely this happens next: russians priority number 1 is to change government. They will either capture Zelensky or he will be able to escape and hide. They install puppet government. But all Ukrainians furiously hate everything about this situation. Unlike Russia where population is divided into police and brainwashed mass, in Ukraine he can not recruit police enforcers from population. So the army will stay to control the population. Indefinitely, that is until putin dies. That’s his goal right there.

spopejoy 5y ago
> So the army will stay to control the population If this is the goal/expected outcome, this would support the stories that this is the FSB's war and not the army's, as this sounds like an impossible task.

ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago

The overall analysis is very good, but the matter of Putin's motivation is still underexplained. I get why so many people find Mearsheimer's reasoning to be correct - it really fits Russia and the wordviews of Russian ruling class (Post WWII upbringing in a totalitarian state + professional deformation of intelligence officers). However, it's limiting in the same way the whole Offensive Realism theory is. Let me try to explain. I'll use "Putin" as a substitute for "Russian government and ruling class" below. Yes, Putin sees NATO as an existential threat, even though he understands there's no real risk of any military action coming from NATO unless provoked. Yes, Putin wants "regional hegemony" and thus wants to get to control Ukraine, probably indirectly, by almost any means. But the war in the Ukraine only makes NATO stronger? Yes, however, the threat from NATO, as Putin sees it, is not only military, it's also cultural. Even though his actions will probably lead to Finland and Sweden, for example, to join NATO in the nearest future, those countries are already classified as "the West" so their military status is of lesser concern. Ukraine, on the other hand, has extremely strong (probably, the strongest of all other countries, Belarus being the second contender) cultural ties with Russia, this includes family ties, language, traditions of policy practice, etc. Why does Putin care about cultural changes in neighbouring sovereign countries? This is where offensive realism falls short. The answer is internal politics. The main motivation for Putin is self-preservation. Ukraine "choosing West" is unacceptable for Putin, as if it works out even slightly net-positive for Ukraine it will be almost impossible to maintain the illusion it can't ever work in Russia. If it's so important for Putin, why didn't he do it 8 years ago? You can take only so much risk and economic damage. Annexing Crimea was a guaranteed easy and swift operation and it didn't look like a military intervention for the Russian people, which is good for the ratings. As the consequences hit Russian economy pretty hard, it took whole last 8 years to hammer down to the population it's all "our enemy's fault". It also took 8 years to explain to the business elites "the confrontation with the West is for real, prepare". But the economic damage? Putin's well off regardless. Prosperity of Russians is of no concern - Venezuela shows how low you can go and still keep your seat. Poor people and non-existent middle-class means less political activity, which is a bonus. Speaking of elites, there were some rumours of a considerable dissatisfaction with the economic situation and the lack of the development momentum brewing up lately. Making all the top officials and close businesses complicit in War and some of them receiving direct losses from the sanctions leaves them no choice but to double down on supporting Putin's regime, as there's no alternative for them. This could also additionally explain the timing for the decision to break the status quo, but we have no info on this. So, to sum up: - No NATO in the Ukraine means you fully control the region. This is a good feeling for the paranoid character. - War means mobilization and mutual responsibility of the elites, which is essential to maintaining the mafia state. - Economic damage to Russia will totally obscure the poor management of the Russian economy by Putin's government and total incompatibility of the policies with economic growth for most of the citizens. - Preventing the sovereignty of culturally close countries means Russia looks the strongest and the most successful of the bunch and this is good for the general support. - Putin personally is a violent bully, his close company are mostly the same. You need to demonstrate the decisiveness for violence to be on top. - Putin might be additionally stimulated by his messianic delusions of restoring USSR being the prime directive of old-school KGB officers. Although, it's impossible to know the truth here. The only serious risk Putin took is with his own people: did he manage to dumb and oppress us all down to accept and offensive War and still maintain the required level of support? Only time will tell. I personally despise it all. I saw the writing on the wall but couldn't believe it, a fool. Now I can only hope. Peace.

paulus_magnus2 5y ago

As the author correctly noted the role of Preemptive Sanctions is not as a deterrent but his argumentation agains it is based on a nof far-sighted enough analysis of the consequences of sanctions. (1) Russia is a state on brink of bancrupcy. Deplatforming Russia from SWIFT, Visa, Mastercard, stopping gas pipelines, etc etc. cutting any trade swhatsover would degrade Russia's finances enough to prevernt them from being able to finance a prolongued military offensive operations. Helicopters, tanks, planes are very expensive. (2) Russia is a also a very oligarchical state with regular people having zero power or assets. Therefore preemptive sanction should have been imposed on Russia's oligarchs in order to "motivate" them into questioning their support of Putin himself. Again degrading his ability to order risky military missions, degrading his ability for prolongued war and perhaps the oligarchs would overthrow Putin altogether. With perhaps the war itseelf already being Putin's preemptive tactic to escape being overthrown. Forthermore, again, preemprively NATO should have supplied Ukraine with vast amounts of defensive antitank and antihelicopter weapons which wold inflict very costly damage and perhaps stop the invasion altogether - there were ideas to supply these weapons but Germany opposed. NATO could also have ordered massive militaty training in Ukraine and again did have this idea but again Germany was against.

rossmohax 5y ago
> Russia is a state on brink of bancrupcy. Proofs? AFAIK it is exact opposite: very low debt, stable source of income from resources export, large gold reserves.
- paulus_magnus2 5y ago
  They are a petrolstate with no real economy going and producing virtually no tradeale goods other than raw resources[a] [b] 70% of their trade is with Western countries [c] so if cut them off, their deficit quickly pushes them hard into debt and with no external financing they will go into internal debt. With no credibile ways to pay off debt they have hyperinflation and people on the streets demanding Putin out. Modern war is super expensive [d] [a] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russia_Export_Treemap.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russia_Export_Treema... [b] https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=undefined&year=2019&productClass=HS&target=Product&partner=undefined&startYear=undefined https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=un... [c] https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=undefined&year=2019&productClass=HS&target=Partner&partner=undefined&startYear=undefined https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/explore?country=186&product=un... [d] https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/08/16/the-war-in-afghanistan-cost-america-300-million-per-day-for-20-years-with-big-bills-yet-to-come/?sh=55e8cf207f8d https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/08/16/the-war-i...

artem247 5y ago

gdy 5y ago

"Meanwhile, it is not entirely clear that Putin’s war has widespread popular support in Russia" Russian living in Russia here. I don't know anyone around me who supports this. Many people in Russia have friends or relatives in Ukraine and we are horrified about what is happening right now.

bbojan 5y ago

Stating things like "NATO is a purely defensive alliance" makes me question the accuracy of this analysis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia

mopsi 5y ago
> NATO's intervention was prompted by Yugoslavia's bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Albanians Yes, should've just turned eyes away from genocide in Europe.
- bbojan 5y ago
  So you agree with my point that it's not a purely defensive alliance?
  - th3byrdm4n 5y ago
    Let’s make an agreement called YCTO - such that I promise if someone attacks you in comments, I will defend you by attacking your aggressor, and if someone attacks me in comments, you’ll do the same. … that agreement is purely defensive. If you and I see some vile rhetoric that is directed at someone else, we can both decide to attack it, even though it’s arguable our actions are offensive. That action is independent and not bound by the YCTO. We just both agree, independent of the YCTO, to act. It’s a function of like-minded values that made the decision.
- throwA29B 5y ago
  Yes. By entering the conflict: 1.a) NATO declared that "defense only" claim is a lie. 1.b) Other countries will now ask themselves what else in NATO charter is a lie. 2. USA, the permanent member of UN Security Council(which is de-facto enforcer of all UN decisions), severely undermined UN authority.
altgoogler 5y ago
I think the article was pretty well-informed and sourced analysis. Yes, as you point out, NATO has undertaken offensive campaigns. I think the author made a mistake of saying "alliance" here when they meant to say "treaty". AFAIK, none of the NATO articles were invoked as part of the operation in Yugoslavia. That is to say, though it was a NATO operation, members were not bound by treaty to participate. This fact muddles some of the points the author made, but the author speaks broadly of the ramifications of invoking Article 5, so I would say their analysis is well-reasoned.

jerome-jh 5y ago

I think the reasons for Russian invasion is somewhat simpler: - Ukraine military equipement is aging and of Russian origin. It is mostly useless to defend oneself against Russia. One day or another an independant Ukraine would have bought military equiment to the west or China. This is inacceptable to Russia for the next reason. - traditionnel defense paradigm of Russia is "defense in depth". Refer to Napoléon Wars or WW2 for applications of this paradigm. Since Putin seems to stick to it, Ukraine is merely a buffer for Russia, so long it is an ally. Hence the urge to replace the Ukrenian government with dummies as in Belarus. - Allies can only have compatible weapon systems.

jerome-jh 5y ago
And I would had "defense in depth" still applies as of today. The further your ennemies are, the more difficult it is for them to eavedrop communications, spy on military exercices, train their radars on your planes.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

Question: war comes down to us vs them. Even the most racist, xenophobic Canadian will consider Ukraine to be "us". But Canada houses 1 million people who have Ukrainian roots and many of those have been here long enough that they are considered "Canadian". A good analogy would be the Italians in the US. At one time they weren't considered real Americans, but that time is long past. Yet xenophobic Canadians would not consider Georgia or Moldova or Chechnya to be on our team. Is this a uniquely Canadian thing, or would it be common to the rest of the West?

_nalply 5y ago

Infosperber is an independent Swiss online news platform where I can read about strange things (in German). To be clear, I don't know whether the things they tell are true, but often I find these things interesting and plausible. One of them is that Gorbachev has been promised that the NATO doesn't expand in Eastern Europe. So perhaps this is one of the causes Putin invaded Ukraine. He is afraid of the NATO and deems the EU and the USA untrustworthy partners. I don't know. Seems plausible. https://www.infosperber.ch/politik/darum-fordert-russland-den-stop-der-nato-osterweiterung/ https://www.infosperber.ch/politik/darum-fordert-russland-de... Edit: This doesn't exculpate the invasion. An invasion of a country is a violation of international law. I just try to understand the rationales.

lalaland1125 5y ago
> He is afraid of the NATO and deems the EU and the USA untrustworthy partners. Think about this a bit more and you will realize that this explanation makes less than zero sense. NATO members in the Baltics have bordered Russia for almost two decades with zero sign of interest in invading Russia. Even right now, in the aftermath of Russia performing imperialist conquest not seen since WW2, there is zero interest in military intervention against Russia. Stable democracies are simply not going to go to war with a nuclear power.
- _nalply 5y ago
  https://therealnews.com/putin-has-launched-the-most-senseless-of-all-the-wars https://therealnews.com/putin-has-launched-the-most-senseles... > The conquest of Russia by NATO, by contrast, is the personal fear [...] It doesn't matter what people do, it matters what people think what people do.

chernevik 5y ago

Not an expert, but I think the real motivation is intolerance of anything looking like a democracy adjacent to Russia. If Ukraine can develop a functioning economy in communication with the West, and a functioning government more or less accountable to the electorate, that is a huge embarrassment for Putin's regime. The Russian economy is basically oil and gas extraction, the Russian polity is basically "support Putin or go to jail". If Ukraine were to begin to prosper in other activities, and well they might given decent governance, the Russian model would be exposed as an authoritarian sham. Additionally, Putin gains politically by Great Power rhetoric. We are simply protecting our interests, everyone is against us, we must be strong and united! It's nonsense, no one in the West gives a damn what happens within Russian borders so long as they don't bother anyone else, but it unites the country behind Putin. The Putin regime is a nasty mix of oligarchy, corruption, propaganda, media control and intelligence and police services. It's sadly enabled by modern information technology, which can be used for ill as well as good. The Chinese Communist Party is a similar contraption. The question is, how long can regimes like this perpetuate themselves? It would be great if these ugly contrivance were contained within their own borders, but current events show us they are everyone's problem. It isn't for us to tell the Russians, or the Chinese, how to govern themselves. But we shouldn't be enabling these regimes by our trade or technology. The hope that trade and communication would make them more democratic and accountable and law-abiding has been tried, and failed. If anything, those connections are making us less democratic, as we see Chinese censorship filtering into American entertainment and marketing. It's time to decouple from these countries. Economically that's very painful, but over the long term it is much less painful than feeding these cancers.

credit_guy 5y ago

> As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other. Wow. Powerful. Ukraine, keep fighting. You are fighting for the ascendency of justice over injustice in the affairs of mankind.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Thats why we left them without any real support, the west could have given them real antiair systems at least - a couple batteries of patriots would have made a world of difference. Or at least support them with a fat bank account. We had 8 years. If ukraine falls, border with russia will be our headache, and it will cost more than helping ukraine would.

rad_gruchalski 5y ago

> Thus, the war happened because Vladimir Putin wanted it to happen and he wanted it to happen to overthrow the democratically elected government of Ukraine; it is as yet unclear if he then intends to annex the country or place a puppet government in charge of it (which given the diminished independence of Belarus, might amount to the same thing in the end). This is a little bit of a let down. "It happened because Putin wanted it to happen". Looking at the way Putin talks and behaves, his actions are like actions of a child who has a tantrum. He's very emotional, probably someone pissed him off very much on an inner child level. Maybe someone threatened taking his toys away. The man seems to be very irrational, he says words that to him are reasonable, but they're so shallow that someone with half a brain can read through it in a split-second. I think this is all personal. There could be things happening within a very small circle of people causing his childish reaction. We have to remember that those at the top of world politics know each other for decades. Putin ain't a superhuman, he's simply like a 12 year old bully but unfortunately he has 850k active military personnel, a fuck-ton of tanks, artillery and air force. Without justifying anything Putin has done, let's consider an alternative narrative. Let's accept that what American intelligence is saying, that he was preparing this for 15 or 20 years. Putin once before the invasion said something along the lines that "Americans (rest of the world?) have done similar things". Maybe his actions are as simple as "look, they've done it so many times and THEY won't let ME do X, they profited here and there and they forbid me from doing the same, I will show them" where that X maybe even wasn't about Ukraine in the first place? Although, it probably was. He watched USSR collapse under drunk Yeltsin. But from Putin's perspective: Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush and co. Unjustified war backed by totally falsified evidence, no idea how a regular person in the USA benefits from those but I'm sure military industry made a killing on it. Iraq alone was, depending on the source, from 460k to over 1m "excessive casualties". Libya? What was the point? Proxy war in Syria? What's the point? Are the alternatives we have now better? I'm not saying "but look what the other side did", whataboutism isn't what I'm doing here. I'm saying: this is how Putin maybe sees it. As Putin was getting more and more isolated, he felt ignored, frustrated, angry. That he cannot finish his plan because the guard has changed and those who did similar things alongside him are no longer in power. And like an ignored and frustrated bully, he waited around the bush and smacked the victim right in the nose. Unfortunately, this victim is the people of Ukraine and the smack is tanks and bombs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay how severe this situation is. Innocent people suffer and die. Putin is a criminal and he will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. He will stand in the same line as Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the rest from this list: https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html https://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html.

templarchamp 5y ago

what if it is a news that Putin has a serious disease like cancer and wants to initiate or consolidate his legacy?

rasengan0 5y ago

Giles, K. What deters Russia: Enduring principles for responding to Moscow. Chatham House, 2021 https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/2021-09-23-What-deters-Russia-Giles-pdf.pdf https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/202...