5 ms·

Good question. My hope is: Putin doesn't want lose face, so he pumps more money into it than his supporters are okay with and their patience runs out befor Uk

by k__ 5y ago

Good question. My hope is: Putin doesn't want lose face, so he pumps more money into it than his supporters are okay with and their patience runs out befor Ukraine loses. His end game would be Ukraine getting leveled, the west being angry and remilitarizing, and he can sell a new cold war for the next decades to keep support.

teniutza 5y ago
That's a very chilling thought.
saiya-jin 5y ago
That would mean sanctions on Russia forever, I don't think their state or military can keep up for that long. How do they want to build any sophisticated war machines without access to high tech technologies? Their current tanks can be fried with just Javelins. Its not China with 1.5 billion people where you have endless sources of fresh young men, Russia is slowly dying on a bad side of demographic curve. China may provide them some, but that is end of Russia as world power (if that didn't happen already as we can all see).
- k__ 5y ago
  I'm not saying it's likely. I'm just saying that this might be a last hope for Putin to keep things going.
throwaway290 5y ago
There are people who would tangibly benefit from a new cold war everywhere, possibly except Ukraine. Imagine how much of a useful distraction it is all around. The only people losing are regular citizens who just want to live and prosper.
- catchclose8919 5y ago
  ...yeah, EU can definitely use this as "motivation" to become "a real thing" with proper integration army and all, closer to an European-federation. I'd personally like this tbh, probably the only way to really be productively competitive against China and US. But we need to thread carefully here. The other side looks that it might involve non-rational actors. Hopefully they're also incompetent and not very united amongst themselves.
  - throwaway290 5y ago
    Yes. Could be some solace that current events appear to more or less hand Russia over to Xi, who appeared reasonably rational so far. Of course, medium term this puts China at EU's doorstep, so I would say caution (army, etc.) is more than warranted. What a world.
  - koonsolo 5y ago
    I was always hoping that Russia would grow closer to EU. That way we would really have a strong union to cope with China, and compete with US. I'm pretty confident that when Russia would be a real democracy, it would have grown closer to EU. I know some Russians (the same as I know some Ukrainians), and I'm sure they would prefer our countries doing more collaboration. But now we are all stuck with this KGB-er that still thinks he's living in Soviet days. It's become very clear by now that the west shouldn't do business with non-democratic countries. We made the mistake with Russia and with China, and our money only makes them stronger. It doesn't push them towards democracy at all.
    - throwaway290 5y ago
      What would be an objective metric for deciding whom democracies should be allowed to do business with? If you use e.g. the democracy index, you leave most of Africa (which, remember, is bigger than it may look on a typical map projection) and Middle East, which fare as bad or worse than Russia, to China. Try suggesting that to US corporations or foreign policy lawmakers. Once more than half of the world gathers behind China due to sanctions, give it time to snowball and soon EU/US/AU may just become unable to compete with Chinese offers, meaning any remaining country will have no economic reason to continue dealing with the Western bloc (except if you threaten them, bribe top officials personally, or do a coup). Edited to clarify implications.
      - koonsolo 5y ago
        I probably went too far to say to completely not do business with those countries, you are right. But I think we've been a bit too free with sending our money to those kind of states.
mschuster91 5y ago
> His end game would be Ukraine getting leveled, the west being angry and remilitarizing, and he can sell a new cold war for the next decades to keep support. Doubt that is Putin's desired end-game. His entire justification for the invasion was to re-unite what was formerly Great Russia... blasting Ukraine to the stone age runs completely counter to that. He's not Xi Jinping and the Ukrainians are not Tibetans or Uyghurs. Unfortunately it may be what the future brings as an end-game - justified by "the Nazis of Ukraine forced me to do it" or similar bollocks.
- k__ 5y ago
  Yes, sure. His desired end game would have been to do his "special operation" thing and puppeting Ukraine, but I guess that ship sailed, if it ever even existed outside of Putin's mind...
- akomtu 5y ago
  The end game looks like WW3 in ten years started by the China-Russia-NK alliance using Taiwan as a pretense. The real reason will be the desire to change the order of things, so China is the new capital of the world. I feel like the west is in denial right now, hoping that this far away war will get resolved by itself in a month or so.
  - hnbad 5y ago
    > China-Russia-NK alliance > change the order of things, so China is the new capital of the world Don't be daft. China has long figured out that it's easier to subjugate the West through economical power than military power. Russia has been trying to do both and NK has been stuck with the latter due to its isolationism and pariah status. China already strongly hinted that they don't have Russia's back in this conflict and they have demonstrated that they view NK more like an underage sibling they have to rein in from time to time. There's no point in starting WW3 for China because China is already winning. The real rivalry will likely be something most Americans aren't even thinking of: India. For all the posturing, the US heavily depends on China far more than the EU ever depended on Russia.
catchclose8919 5y ago
This only makes sense under the framework of "you're negotiating with a country that is overall similar to other (western) countries in thinking/functioning" or worst case with a "authoritarian but rational & calculating regime that has some of the interests of its own people as core driving force" (eg. China). We might be wrong! Even if Putin fails his successor might be even worse, and there's a weird quasi-religion thing jumping from mind to mind across Russia and not only: https://youtu.be/IAVZ3XsqIL4 https://youtu.be/IAVZ3XsqIL4 (the source is biased but can't think of a better one now). We might be talking to something closer to a cult, and we are generally bad at dealing with these by applying western negotiation and de-escalation techniques (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege). We don't want the nuclear equivalent of the Waco massacre! (Also, historically, the last "nation level cult" we've dealt with resulted in a world war, so there's a grim track record here. Something is weird here and both sides are playing mind-games - captured Russian soldiers look like they're on acid or something, military tactics seem weird and maybe they're targeted to induce reactions that can drive behaviors more than to secure military objectives... s's not right here, this feels like neither Kosovo nor Iraq nor Syria. We shouldn't try to out-cult a cult, that's how you get WW3. We need to figure out how to DE-BRAINWASH people and get them to negotiate constructively and FAST!*
- k__ 5y ago
  You really think so? Sounds unlikely to me, Russia is an oligrarchy, even Putin said so. The elite isn't that dumb to risk their wealth for some cult.
  - catchclose8919 5y ago
    How much power do these oligarchs actually have? Can't they be disappeared or put in line, like Xi did with Jack Ma? Damn, we're in a weird timeline here... where russian oligarchs are actually the hope for a better solution :)

by k__ 5y ago

teniutza 5y ago

That's a very chilling thought.

saiya-jin 5y ago

That would mean sanctions on Russia forever, I don't think their state or military can keep up for that long. How do they want to build any sophisticated war machines without access to high tech technologies? Their current tanks can be fried with just Javelins. Its not China with 1.5 billion people where you have endless sources of fresh young men, Russia is slowly dying on a bad side of demographic curve. China may provide them some, but that is end of Russia as world power (if that didn't happen already as we can all see).

k__ 5y ago
I'm not saying it's likely. I'm just saying that this might be a last hope for Putin to keep things going.

throwaway290 5y ago

There are people who would tangibly benefit from a new cold war everywhere, possibly except Ukraine. Imagine how much of a useful distraction it is all around. The only people losing are regular citizens who just want to live and prosper.

catchclose8919 5y ago
...yeah, EU can definitely use this as "motivation" to become "a real thing" with proper integration army and all, closer to an European-federation. I'd personally like this tbh, probably the only way to really be productively competitive against China and US. But we need to thread carefully here. The other side looks that it might involve non-rational actors. Hopefully they're also incompetent and not very united amongst themselves.
- throwaway290 5y ago
  Yes. Could be some solace that current events appear to more or less hand Russia over to Xi, who appeared reasonably rational so far. Of course, medium term this puts China at EU's doorstep, so I would say caution (army, etc.) is more than warranted. What a world.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  I was always hoping that Russia would grow closer to EU. That way we would really have a strong union to cope with China, and compete with US. I'm pretty confident that when Russia would be a real democracy, it would have grown closer to EU. I know some Russians (the same as I know some Ukrainians), and I'm sure they would prefer our countries doing more collaboration. But now we are all stuck with this KGB-er that still thinks he's living in Soviet days. It's become very clear by now that the west shouldn't do business with non-democratic countries. We made the mistake with Russia and with China, and our money only makes them stronger. It doesn't push them towards democracy at all.
  - throwaway290 5y ago
    What would be an objective metric for deciding whom democracies should be allowed to do business with? If you use e.g. the democracy index, you leave most of Africa (which, remember, is bigger than it may look on a typical map projection) and Middle East, which fare as bad or worse than Russia, to China. Try suggesting that to US corporations or foreign policy lawmakers. Once more than half of the world gathers behind China due to sanctions, give it time to snowball and soon EU/US/AU may just become unable to compete with Chinese offers, meaning any remaining country will have no economic reason to continue dealing with the Western bloc (except if you threaten them, bribe top officials personally, or do a coup). Edited to clarify implications.
    - koonsolo 5y ago
      I probably went too far to say to completely not do business with those countries, you are right. But I think we've been a bit too free with sending our money to those kind of states.

mschuster91 5y ago

> His end game would be Ukraine getting leveled, the west being angry and remilitarizing, and he can sell a new cold war for the next decades to keep support. Doubt that is Putin's desired end-game. His entire justification for the invasion was to re-unite what was formerly Great Russia... blasting Ukraine to the stone age runs completely counter to that. He's not Xi Jinping and the Ukrainians are not Tibetans or Uyghurs. Unfortunately it may be what the future brings as an end-game - justified by "the Nazis of Ukraine forced me to do it" or similar bollocks.

k__ 5y ago
Yes, sure. His desired end game would have been to do his "special operation" thing and puppeting Ukraine, but I guess that ship sailed, if it ever even existed outside of Putin's mind...
akomtu 5y ago
The end game looks like WW3 in ten years started by the China-Russia-NK alliance using Taiwan as a pretense. The real reason will be the desire to change the order of things, so China is the new capital of the world. I feel like the west is in denial right now, hoping that this far away war will get resolved by itself in a month or so.
- hnbad 5y ago
  > China-Russia-NK alliance > change the order of things, so China is the new capital of the world Don't be daft. China has long figured out that it's easier to subjugate the West through economical power than military power. Russia has been trying to do both and NK has been stuck with the latter due to its isolationism and pariah status. China already strongly hinted that they don't have Russia's back in this conflict and they have demonstrated that they view NK more like an underage sibling they have to rein in from time to time. There's no point in starting WW3 for China because China is already winning. The real rivalry will likely be something most Americans aren't even thinking of: India. For all the posturing, the US heavily depends on China far more than the EU ever depended on Russia.

catchclose8919 5y ago

This only makes sense under the framework of "you're negotiating with a country that is overall similar to other (western) countries in thinking/functioning" or worst case with a "authoritarian but rational & calculating regime that has some of the interests of its own people as core driving force" (eg. China). We might be wrong! Even if Putin fails his successor might be even worse, and there's a weird quasi-religion thing jumping from mind to mind across Russia and not only: https://youtu.be/IAVZ3XsqIL4 https://youtu.be/IAVZ3XsqIL4 (the source is biased but can't think of a better one now). We might be talking to something closer to a cult, and we are generally bad at dealing with these by applying western negotiation and de-escalation techniques (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege). We don't want the nuclear equivalent of the Waco massacre! (Also, historically, the last "nation level cult" we've dealt with resulted in a world war, so there's a grim track record here. Something is weird here and both sides are playing mind-games - captured Russian soldiers look like they're on acid or something, military tactics seem weird and maybe they're targeted to induce reactions that can drive behaviors more than to secure military objectives... s's not right here, this feels like neither Kosovo nor Iraq nor Syria. We shouldn't try to out-cult a cult, that's how you get WW3. We need to figure out how to DE-BRAINWASH people and get them to negotiate constructively and FAST!*

k__ 5y ago
You really think so? Sounds unlikely to me, Russia is an oligrarchy, even Putin said so. The elite isn't that dumb to risk their wealth for some cult.
- catchclose8919 5y ago
  How much power do these oligarchs actually have? Can't they be disappeared or put in line, like Xi did with Jack Ma? Damn, we're in a weird timeline here... where russian oligarchs are actually the hope for a better solution :)