4 ms·
Why would they ever give them up? Unless they get so thoroughly routed in a war that they have no choice, it just won't happen because it is the end of sovereig
by bagels 5y ago
Why would they ever give them up? Unless they get so thoroughly routed in a war that they have no choice, it just won't happen because it is the end of sovereignty.
- jacquesm 5y agoThere are plenty of sovereign countries that do not have nuclear weapons. It would be the end of the imperialist ambitions.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI feel like Russia breaking up into smaller states and then each state joining the eu on a long timescale once they meet various civic legal and economic targets is the kind of boring solution that will be fought for years and then happen once all other options have been exhausted. This war is really about Ukraine (even the Russian speaking parts, the anti-Nato, Anti-EU people in Ukraine) thinking they'd rather be part of the EU once they get their civic society sorted than immediately be a corrupt part of Russia.
- raverbashing 5y agoI'd favour putting the eastern Russia parts under the umbrella of China if they weren't happy to go buddy buddy with Putin. So I dunno, give it to Japan. Or Korea. Gift Koningsberg to Ukraine.
- jacquesm 5y agoYou may well be on to something here: that Russia is doing this as a warning to other states still under its control that if they flirt with the EU they will get turned into rubble. That would at least make some sense.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI thought this was the generally accepted rationale? What other explanations are there?
- jacquesm 5y agoThat Putin was given faulty intelligence that Ukraine would roll over and welcome the invasion because of their urge to return to the Russian fold.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI don't think I've seen that take and you may be mixing up what he says with what he thinks, always confusing when talking about blatant liars. I've seen people saying that he thought he could force them to install a pro-russian regime (or further split the country) with shock and awe and merely the threat of great violence and underestimated the will and ability to resist, and overestimated his ability to project power, but not that he's totally disconnected from the reality of public opinion in Ukraine. The whole point, whether the invasion worked really well or not, is that he needs to overule their democratic opinion by force. He seems to grasp that or nothing he's doing makes any sense.
- jacquesm 5y agoWhat Putin thinks only Putin knows, everybody else is reading the tea leaves.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoYes, but when people like Meirschiemer predicted this a decade ago, and blame the US and Ukraine for it because this is the obvious response to Ukraine trying to leave the Russian sphere of influence and other people who blame Putin also predicted it a decade ago for basically the same reasons, and also correctly predicted it last month when the "don't blame Putin" side was wrong, it seems theres a general consensus on what's happening even if who to 'blame' is apparently up for debate.
- jacquesm 5y agoYes, we know, whatever Putin does is also the fault of the West. Clearly, Europe and the USA are responsible for Russia invading Ukraine. /s 'Look at what you made him do'... > Yes, but when people like Meirschiemer predicted this a decade ago Seriously: I'm getting a a bit tired of people who can't even spell "Mearsheimer" are trotting him out at every opportunity to make it clear that he predicted all this and more, and that therefore 'the West is at fault here'. So what? Seeing Ukraine and the Baltics as the obvious potential flashpoints in Europe does not require any degree of genius. The question that you forgot to ask was: was it inevitable or not? And if it was then whatever the response the West made was irrelevant, dictators do as they do. I predict that Russia will at some point attempt to take over the Suwalki gap. When I'm proven right that won't amount to a thing, it is as logical as the sun coming up tomorrow morning.