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In 2019 a US military funded think tank wrote a prescription for how the US could provoke Russia into over-extending itself. Ukraine plays a central role. Not

In 2019 a US military funded think tank wrote a prescription for how the US could provoke Russia into over-extending itself. Ukraine plays a central role. Notably, the "risks" section explicitly says that implementing these provocations could result in Russia feeling the need to push further into Ukraine. It's an interesting read. I recommend as you read through the recommended provocations, try to figure out which ones we implemented and what was the result. There's quite a few such as withdrawing from peace treaties, arming Ukraine with lethal weapons, and performing military exercises on Russia's border. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html If anyone perceives this as being "pro-Putin" don't bother responding. He's an evil dictator who should be in prison for the rest of his miserable life and I'm uninterested in hearing you parrot the regime's propaganda that if you criticize them you must be pro-Putin.

xadhominemx 5y ago
This is pro-Putin because you believe his outrageous perfunctory justification for the invasion.
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  Putin said he invaded Ukraine to kill the Nazis. The Rand paper describes why the US military funded report believes Russia invaded Ukraine, and it's as a result to the provocations we implemented. It's fair to disagree with it, but it didn't come from Russia, it came from a US military think tank.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    No, by your own words the paper describes how a US-military-funded report believed the US could provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. You still have to show that the US did in fact take those steps, and take them with the intent of causing Russia to invade. Also note that the paper is from 2019. Russia's invasion of Crimea and Donbass was 2014. So Russia was perfectly capable of getting there without the US having to figure out how to "provoke" them.
    - Consultant32452 5y ago
      I invited you in the OP to do your own research if you aren't aware of all the sanctions we added, the multiple treaties we withdrew from, or how much deadly weapons we provided Ukraine as just a starting point. I'm not going to bother with semantics arguments around whether the US intended for Russia to go further into Ukraine vs intentionally kept escalating the behaviors that they knew would increase the risk of Russia going further into Ukraine but they didn't "want" it to happen. In 2014, you mean when the US openly supported revolution in Ukraine and cherry picked the new administration? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia... Ukraine had previously had a long-standing agreement with Russia to guarantee access to the only warm water port Russia had. After the new regime that was picked by the US came in, they revoked that relationship. That is the reason why Russia took Crimea (warm water port), because it was unwilling to be nerfed by the US in this way.
      - rgbrenner 5y ago
        Ukraine had previously had a long-standing agreement with Russia to guarantee access to the only warm water port Russia had. After the new regime that was picked by the US came in, they revoked that relationship. That is the reason why Russia took Crimea (warm water port), because it was unwilling to be nerfed by the US in this way. If you couldnt make it anymore obvious that you're pro-putin... you bring up the Kharkiv pact and then re-order historical events to blame putin's actions on the US. The pact that was terminated BY RUSSIA, AFTER they took Crimea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact
      - lalaland1125 5y ago
        > In 2014, you mean when the US openly supported revolution in Ukraine and cherry picked the new administration? The idea that the US cherry picked the new administration is bonkers. The only "evidence" of this is a phone call where some diplomats talk about how effective they think the opposition are. If there a phone call where US officials say that they think Macron is better than Le Pen is that evidence that the US chose Macron to be the leader of France? It's an especially silly accusation when you realize that the temporary government just ruled for 6 months until they held an election and made no major changes during that time.
  - oneoff786 5y ago
    Putin lied. Obviously.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    In my opinion the war is a success if Putin can get his hands on luhansk and donetsk. That's the only way this can end well for Russia. They take some more coal and oil territory, make a few billions of dollars more money and then go back to being a dormant threat and gas station for Europe. Who cares if you are ruining your country if you end up richer in the end? If Putin actually wanted to get his hands on Ukraine to turn it into a puppet state or kick start a neo soviet union then he completely failed.
lalaland1125 5y ago
> performing military exercises on Russia's border The primary purpose of those exercises was to signal a strong commitment to NATO defense for the Baltics and Eastern Europe. That seems to have been successful as Russia has not touched Poland and so the overall scope of conflict of this war was reduced to Ukraine. > arming Ukraine with lethal weapons This seems to also have been successful. Without those weapons, Ukraine would have been overrun and we would have seen Bucha 2.0 in Kiev. I find it hard to believe that giving Ukraine fewer weapons would have resulted in no invasion, especially given the fact that Russia only invaded because they believed Ukraine was weak. I do agree that this one was risky, which is why we made sure to get consent from Ukraine's democratically elected government for this policy. > withdrawing from peace treaties I assume this is referring to "Withdraw from the INF Treaty", which is an arms control treaty, not a peace treaty? Or is there some other treaty you are referring to? I highly doubt this has had any real effect, given that nuclear escalation is so far off the table anyways and any missiles of this variety would have been stationed in the Baltics / Poland anyways.
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  The US openly supported a coup in Ukraine (note the language, I did not say we executed the coup) which replaced the democratically elected pro-Russian government with a pro-Western one. The paper explicitly calls out providing lethal aid to Ukraine as one of the highest risk actions and most directly tied to Russia feeling pressure to go further into Ukraine. It's a chicken and egg situation. Yes, the lethal aid was helpful, but would the lethal aid have been necessary if we weren't interfering so much there? Let's not forget Operation Timber Sycamore where we did execute a coup attempt in Syria, one of Russia's biggest allies. And our dealings with Iran, another Russian ally. We signed the Charter on Strategic Partnership signaling our intent to let Ukraine into NATO, which would obviously be a red line for Russia. The weird thing about this one is that after the invasion Zelensky revealed that publicly the US was saying Ukraine would be joining NATO but privately the US was telling Zelensky it would never happen. So it was a psyop specifically to provoke Russia. We also pulled out of the Open Skies Treaty. One clarification here. None of this is to say that Russia is justified in doing anything. Putin is an evil dictator. End of story. Also, the US repeatedly escalated tensions with Russia knowing that the Ukraine invasion was a likely response Russia would take.
mrep 5y ago
Please explain how the US provoked Russia with "risks". Nato is too scared to send in our massively bigger military to Ukraine because of how many nukes they have. NATO is a defensive pack and our wealth is way bigger than Russia meaning we have way more to lose so why do you think we would ever risk our lives attacking Russia for their shit economy?
- Consultant32452 5y ago
  The 300+ page document lays out the possible provocations along with their relative cost/benefit analysis. I gave you several hints on the big items we did to make it easy to search on your own. It's not my job to link a reference for each of those items for you if you are ignorant of them.
  - mrep 5y ago
    Do you honestly expect to convince anyone when you argument is essentially "I'm right, you're wrong, now go spend an entire day reading a 350 page document that I cannot be bothered to spend 2 minutes summarizing it but trust me, it's in there"?
    - Consultant32452 5y ago
      I did summarize them. I'll do it for you again here: we withdrew from multiple peace treaties with Russia, provided lethal arms to Ukraine, and performed large scale military exercises on Russia's border. There's plenty more but those are some highlights.

xadhominemx 5y ago

This is pro-Putin because you believe his outrageous perfunctory justification for the invasion.

Consultant32452 5y ago
Putin said he invaded Ukraine to kill the Nazis. The Rand paper describes why the US military funded report believes Russia invaded Ukraine, and it's as a result to the provocations we implemented. It's fair to disagree with it, but it didn't come from Russia, it came from a US military think tank.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  No, by your own words the paper describes how a US-military-funded report believed the US could provoke Russia into invading Ukraine. You still have to show that the US did in fact take those steps, and take them with the intent of causing Russia to invade. Also note that the paper is from 2019. Russia's invasion of Crimea and Donbass was 2014. So Russia was perfectly capable of getting there without the US having to figure out how to "provoke" them.
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    I invited you in the OP to do your own research if you aren't aware of all the sanctions we added, the multiple treaties we withdrew from, or how much deadly weapons we provided Ukraine as just a starting point. I'm not going to bother with semantics arguments around whether the US intended for Russia to go further into Ukraine vs intentionally kept escalating the behaviors that they knew would increase the risk of Russia going further into Ukraine but they didn't "want" it to happen. In 2014, you mean when the US openly supported revolution in Ukraine and cherry picked the new administration? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia-ukraine-war-kiev-conflict https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/russia... Ukraine had previously had a long-standing agreement with Russia to guarantee access to the only warm water port Russia had. After the new regime that was picked by the US came in, they revoked that relationship. That is the reason why Russia took Crimea (warm water port), because it was unwilling to be nerfed by the US in this way.
    - rgbrenner 5y ago
      Ukraine had previously had a long-standing agreement with Russia to guarantee access to the only warm water port Russia had. After the new regime that was picked by the US came in, they revoked that relationship. That is the reason why Russia took Crimea (warm water port), because it was unwilling to be nerfed by the US in this way. If you couldnt make it anymore obvious that you're pro-putin... you bring up the Kharkiv pact and then re-order historical events to blame putin's actions on the US. The pact that was terminated BY RUSSIA, AFTER they took Crimea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kharkiv_Pact
    - lalaland1125 5y ago
      > In 2014, you mean when the US openly supported revolution in Ukraine and cherry picked the new administration? The idea that the US cherry picked the new administration is bonkers. The only "evidence" of this is a phone call where some diplomats talk about how effective they think the opposition are. If there a phone call where US officials say that they think Macron is better than Le Pen is that evidence that the US chose Macron to be the leader of France? It's an especially silly accusation when you realize that the temporary government just ruled for 6 months until they held an election and made no major changes during that time.
- oneoff786 5y ago
  Putin lied. Obviously.
- imtringued 5y ago
  In my opinion the war is a success if Putin can get his hands on luhansk and donetsk. That's the only way this can end well for Russia. They take some more coal and oil territory, make a few billions of dollars more money and then go back to being a dormant threat and gas station for Europe. Who cares if you are ruining your country if you end up richer in the end? If Putin actually wanted to get his hands on Ukraine to turn it into a puppet state or kick start a neo soviet union then he completely failed.

lalaland1125 5y ago

> performing military exercises on Russia's border The primary purpose of those exercises was to signal a strong commitment to NATO defense for the Baltics and Eastern Europe. That seems to have been successful as Russia has not touched Poland and so the overall scope of conflict of this war was reduced to Ukraine. > arming Ukraine with lethal weapons This seems to also have been successful. Without those weapons, Ukraine would have been overrun and we would have seen Bucha 2.0 in Kiev. I find it hard to believe that giving Ukraine fewer weapons would have resulted in no invasion, especially given the fact that Russia only invaded because they believed Ukraine was weak. I do agree that this one was risky, which is why we made sure to get consent from Ukraine's democratically elected government for this policy. > withdrawing from peace treaties I assume this is referring to "Withdraw from the INF Treaty", which is an arms control treaty, not a peace treaty? Or is there some other treaty you are referring to? I highly doubt this has had any real effect, given that nuclear escalation is so far off the table anyways and any missiles of this variety would have been stationed in the Baltics / Poland anyways.

Consultant32452 5y ago
The US openly supported a coup in Ukraine (note the language, I did not say we executed the coup) which replaced the democratically elected pro-Russian government with a pro-Western one. The paper explicitly calls out providing lethal aid to Ukraine as one of the highest risk actions and most directly tied to Russia feeling pressure to go further into Ukraine. It's a chicken and egg situation. Yes, the lethal aid was helpful, but would the lethal aid have been necessary if we weren't interfering so much there? Let's not forget Operation Timber Sycamore where we did execute a coup attempt in Syria, one of Russia's biggest allies. And our dealings with Iran, another Russian ally. We signed the Charter on Strategic Partnership signaling our intent to let Ukraine into NATO, which would obviously be a red line for Russia. The weird thing about this one is that after the invasion Zelensky revealed that publicly the US was saying Ukraine would be joining NATO but privately the US was telling Zelensky it would never happen. So it was a psyop specifically to provoke Russia. We also pulled out of the Open Skies Treaty. One clarification here. None of this is to say that Russia is justified in doing anything. Putin is an evil dictator. End of story. Also, the US repeatedly escalated tensions with Russia knowing that the Ukraine invasion was a likely response Russia would take.

mrep 5y ago

Please explain how the US provoked Russia with "risks". Nato is too scared to send in our massively bigger military to Ukraine because of how many nukes they have. NATO is a defensive pack and our wealth is way bigger than Russia meaning we have way more to lose so why do you think we would ever risk our lives attacking Russia for their shit economy?

Consultant32452 5y ago
The 300+ page document lays out the possible provocations along with their relative cost/benefit analysis. I gave you several hints on the big items we did to make it easy to search on your own. It's not my job to link a reference for each of those items for you if you are ignorant of them.
- mrep 5y ago
  Do you honestly expect to convince anyone when you argument is essentially "I'm right, you're wrong, now go spend an entire day reading a 350 page document that I cannot be bothered to spend 2 minutes summarizing it but trust me, it's in there"?
  - Consultant32452 5y ago
    I did summarize them. I'll do it for you again here: we withdrew from multiple peace treaties with Russia, provided lethal arms to Ukraine, and performed large scale military exercises on Russia's border. There's plenty more but those are some highlights.