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To anyone following... it was clear from the start that he wanted to expand territory and power. It was never about just Ukraine either.

gringoDan 4y ago
Recommend following Peter Zeihan, who has been talking about this for months: https://zeihan.com/a-ukraine-war-and-the-end-of-russia/ https://zeihan.com/a-ukraine-war-and-the-end-of-russia/
- mcgin 4y ago
  He even talked about it in his book Accidental Superpower nearly 10 years ago. His writings/videos have been instrumental in helping me to make some sense of what's going on in Ukraine
  - TrainedMonkey 4y ago
    Yup, was going to say the same thing. Here is a secondary source from 2014 confirming this: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/is-putin-risking-world-peace-because-russia-is-dying https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/is-putin-risking-world-pe...
- sixstringninja 4y ago
  He’s the guy that convinced me
gigatexal 4y ago
This expansion will only end with WW3.
- the_biot 4y ago
  Or Putin's death, whichever comes first. I doubt there are any structures left in Russia which could or would want to dethrone him.
  - WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
    You wish. The current Kremlin is a loony bin, any guy will take his place with the world being none the wiser. A more competent loony may take Putin's place, and it's somewhat frightening.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > more competent loony may take Putin's place, and it's somewhat frightening More competent would be fine. Well, not for Russians. It will be terrible for them. But a competent Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine. The risk and historical pattern is the people surrounding a paranoid autocrat tend to be more zealous, not less. They've internalized the propaganda. And they never had to drop the act to make the good decisions that got o.g. autocrat onto the throne. Putin was and likely remains a competent spook. His cronies are good at embezzling.
      - WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
        I mean, a more competent, but still batshit crazy.
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      From this outsider's perspective, it seems clear that if Putin was assassinated and there was a clear successor or unity in the Kremlin, that candidate would almost certainly take over and almost certainly continue Putin's imperialist stance. However, as I understand it, Putin has undermined any obvious successors and stoked divisions in the Kremlin to secure his grip. If so, infighting may let a united opposition under Navalny succeed. Another alternative would be the breakup of the Federation. Some of the republics in the federation like Komi, Tartarstan, Ossetia, Sakha and Karelia have strong national identities and may unilaterally declare independence during the choas. Many of those will end up like the 'stans, but many would at least try to follow the example of the Baltics. To be clear I'm being more hopeful than realistic here, but one can always hope. But the clear prerequisite for the hopeful scenarios is a resounding defeat in the Ukraine war. We in the west need to strongly support Ukraine not just to save Ukraine but also on the off chance that it might save the Russian people too.
- kspacewalk2 4y ago
  Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3. A forceful response (something akin to what's happening now, only more and faster) can forestall it by ensuring Russia loses. It has to lose, and it has to be unequivocally seen to lose, for this fascist fantasy to end. I'm a fluent Russian speaker and sometimes I watch a few Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur, that I honestly think it's possible for the regime to lose control. They are convincing the riff-raff that they're about to take on NATO and win. Maybe they don't have intentions of starting WW3, but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? Even authoritarian dictatorships are affected by the mood of the mob.
  - lupire 4y ago
    What is the difference between a forceful response (Russia vs the world) and WWIII?
    - kspacewalk2 4y ago
      The difference is not engaging in the fight openly, but otherwise giving Ukraine everything it needs to fight. e.g. what the Soviets did in Vietnam (which is even more than what the West is doing for Ukraine right now).
    - hedora 4y ago
      I'm surprised they haven't seen core infrastructure within Russia collapse due to "independent" actors. (E.g., power grid shutdowns in Moscow; refineries venting poison gas into populated areas; perfectly timed forest fires; pretty much everything the DHS says would be trivial for terrorists to do in the US.)
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
- robonerd 4y ago
  Decent chance the history books will say it has already started.
- Koshkin 4y ago
  Not the WW3 perhaps, since it looks more like a "WAR" ("World Against Russia") kind of war. (Well, not quite yet, but anyway.)
  - rektide 4y ago
    War Defending Against Russian Aggression, perhaps.
  - slowmovintarget 4y ago
    When Xi Jinping hits Taiwan it'll start looking like WW3.
dragonwriter 4y ago
I mean it started with Georgia, not Ukraine.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  The practice round was Estonia (cyber war and testing if NATO would respond). Georgia added physical war to the cyber part. Ukraine repeated that
sixstringninja 4y ago
Absolutely. The signals were there but most of us choose to ignore it. For those who still put out podcasts who still claim that supporting Ukraine is supporting nazis, I get that you’re thinking of preventing a nuclear war but you’re not seeing the big picture. You’re completely full of BS and if you’re thinking that you’re doing journalism, you should go back to school

gringoDan 4y ago

Recommend following Peter Zeihan, who has been talking about this for months: https://zeihan.com/a-ukraine-war-and-the-end-of-russia/ https://zeihan.com/a-ukraine-war-and-the-end-of-russia/

mcgin 4y ago
He even talked about it in his book Accidental Superpower nearly 10 years ago. His writings/videos have been instrumental in helping me to make some sense of what's going on in Ukraine
- TrainedMonkey 4y ago
  Yup, was going to say the same thing. Here is a secondary source from 2014 confirming this: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/is-putin-risking-world-peace-because-russia-is-dying https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/is-putin-risking-world-pe...
sixstringninja 4y ago
He’s the guy that convinced me

gigatexal 4y ago

This expansion will only end with WW3.

the_biot 4y ago
Or Putin's death, whichever comes first. I doubt there are any structures left in Russia which could or would want to dethrone him.
- WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
  You wish. The current Kremlin is a loony bin, any guy will take his place with the world being none the wiser. A more competent loony may take Putin's place, and it's somewhat frightening.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > more competent loony may take Putin's place, and it's somewhat frightening More competent would be fine. Well, not for Russians. It will be terrible for them. But a competent Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine. The risk and historical pattern is the people surrounding a paranoid autocrat tend to be more zealous, not less. They've internalized the propaganda. And they never had to drop the act to make the good decisions that got o.g. autocrat onto the throne. Putin was and likely remains a competent spook. His cronies are good at embezzling.
    - WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
      I mean, a more competent, but still batshit crazy.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    From this outsider's perspective, it seems clear that if Putin was assassinated and there was a clear successor or unity in the Kremlin, that candidate would almost certainly take over and almost certainly continue Putin's imperialist stance. However, as I understand it, Putin has undermined any obvious successors and stoked divisions in the Kremlin to secure his grip. If so, infighting may let a united opposition under Navalny succeed. Another alternative would be the breakup of the Federation. Some of the republics in the federation like Komi, Tartarstan, Ossetia, Sakha and Karelia have strong national identities and may unilaterally declare independence during the choas. Many of those will end up like the 'stans, but many would at least try to follow the example of the Baltics. To be clear I'm being more hopeful than realistic here, but one can always hope. But the clear prerequisite for the hopeful scenarios is a resounding defeat in the Ukraine war. We in the west need to strongly support Ukraine not just to save Ukraine but also on the off chance that it might save the Russian people too.
kspacewalk2 4y ago
Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3. A forceful response (something akin to what's happening now, only more and faster) can forestall it by ensuring Russia loses. It has to lose, and it has to be unequivocally seen to lose, for this fascist fantasy to end. I'm a fluent Russian speaker and sometimes I watch a few Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur, that I honestly think it's possible for the regime to lose control. They are convincing the riff-raff that they're about to take on NATO and win. Maybe they don't have intentions of starting WW3, but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? Even authoritarian dictatorships are affected by the mood of the mob.
- lupire 4y ago
  What is the difference between a forceful response (Russia vs the world) and WWIII?
  - kspacewalk2 4y ago
    The difference is not engaging in the fight openly, but otherwise giving Ukraine everything it needs to fight. e.g. what the Soviets did in Vietnam (which is even more than what the West is doing for Ukraine right now).
  - hedora 4y ago
    I'm surprised they haven't seen core infrastructure within Russia collapse due to "independent" actors. (E.g., power grid shutdowns in Moscow; refineries venting poison gas into populated areas; perfectly timed forest fires; pretty much everything the DHS says would be trivial for terrorists to do in the US.)
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
robonerd 4y ago
Decent chance the history books will say it has already started.
Koshkin 4y ago
Not the WW3 perhaps, since it looks more like a "WAR" ("World Against Russia") kind of war. (Well, not quite yet, but anyway.)
- rektide 4y ago
  War Defending Against Russian Aggression, perhaps.
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  When Xi Jinping hits Taiwan it'll start looking like WW3.

dragonwriter 4y ago

I mean it started with Georgia, not Ukraine.

throwoutway 4y ago
The practice round was Estonia (cyber war and testing if NATO would respond). Georgia added physical war to the cyber part. Ukraine repeated that

sixstringninja 4y ago

Absolutely. The signals were there but most of us choose to ignore it. For those who still put out podcasts who still claim that supporting Ukraine is supporting nazis, I get that you’re thinking of preventing a nuclear war but you’re not seeing the big picture. You’re completely full of BS and if you’re thinking that you’re doing journalism, you should go back to school