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Appreciate the props, I was starting to question my rhetorical chops. ;) Regarding the distinction between soft and hard power, however, I think both Machiavel

Appreciate the props, I was starting to question my rhetorical chops. ;) Regarding the distinction between soft and hard power, however, I think both Machiavelli and Sun Tzu would disagree: "Necessary wars are just wars, and the arms of a nation are hallowed when it has no other resource but to fight." https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm "Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." https://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html https://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html The almost unescapable conclusion is that the Neocons' soft power forced Putin's hand, perhaps by design.

dralley 2y ago
This is all total sophistry. Realists try to wrap Putin's decisionmaking in layers of geopolitical reasoning, when the dude literally compares himself to Peter the Great and uses 17th century maps to claim that Ukraine is an illegitimate nation. This is bog-standard nationalist stuff. Tucker Carlson literally sat down with Putin and did everything he could to tee up this nonsense about NATO that Westerners want to hear and believe was the real reason, and instead Putin dropped 45 minutes worth of nationalist pseudohistory on him that had nothing to do with NATO. Nobody in Russia pretends the war is about NATO. It's just not really part of their narrative at all. In summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/1amqoq9/live_tucker_reaction_2_hours_of_revisionist/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/1amqoq9...
- ioblomov 2y ago
  Please clarify how NATO encroachment is non-threatening to a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age. And I would appreciate backing evidence beyond Office memes.
  - dralley 2y ago
    Please explain how a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age is not a legitimate threat to all of Europe but especially Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Ukraine, such that NATO expansion is fully legitimated. You can't blame NATO expansion for Russian aggression (and call it "threatening") while at the same time literally admitting that Russia is strongly nationalist and would love to reclaim all of its former territories (which is why all of those countries desperately wanted to join NATO). Fuck dude, Russia is the largest country on earth (see: expansionism) and has the first or second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. They have no right to feel "threatened" by their smaller neighbors banding together.
    - ioblomov 2y ago
      Europe is as much Russia’s historical sphere of influence as the western hemisphere is ours. From the time of the Monroe Doctrine to the Cuban missle crisis and beyond, we have not tolerated any foreign incursion in North or South America—even to the point of removing democratically-elected socialists and installing pro-US dictators such as Chile’s Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet. Don’t be fooled by our own propaganda. Seen in that light, a US strategy of overt and steady NATO encroachment combined with covert action to foment rebellion in multiple ex-Soviet states isn’t far fetched. And even if we didn’t secretly fund the latter, a paranoid Putin certainly wouldn’t doubt it and would react accordingly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution
      - mopsi 2y ago
        The attempt to rewrite history into "foreign encroachment" is either utterly ignorant of the actual facts, or just bad faith trolling. The reasons why Eastern Europe was very passionate about joining NATO are clear from their history. And getting accepted into the organization was a major and very widely documented struggle. The Polish government went as far as threatening to sink Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 by urging Polish-Americans to vote for Republicans unless Clinton agreed to admitting Poland into NATO. Now, people like you are trying to depict this as some sort of grand anti-Russian masterplan laid out in Washington. Nobody, not even Russians from that era, support this fringe story.
  - mopsi 2y ago
    Please clarify how NATO encroachment is non-threatening to a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age. That's exactly the point: almost all of Eastern Europe rushed into NATO to prevent becoming unwilling participants in another "golden age of the Russian empire". NATO is a massive pain in the ass for those who dream of enslaving the peoples of Europe, and not a problem at all for those who are free from this sick desire. One of the pre-Putin foreign ministers of Russia has maintained for decades that NATO offers free security on Russia's western border. Its rules, especially those related to civilian oversight of military affairs, ensure that NATO members remain stable and predictable. The mutual defense guarantee acts as a moderating force that reduces the likelihood of unexpected moves by a single country. What normal country wouldn't want to border a military alliance dominated by overly cautious pacifists?
    - ioblomov 2y ago
      Sure, the mutual-defense guarantee can be a moderating force, or it can be a ticket to rapid escalation (case in point WW1) and, potentially therefore, nuclear war. The fact that the Cold War ended peacefully, and with the USSR‘s dissolution to boot, is one of history’s great miracles. With the world’s return to its default multi-polar state, we really shouldn’t press our luck. Give Russia and China their spheres of influence while we protect our own. The tail risk of nuclear war just isn’t worth whatever gains Neocons promise. After all, how did their Iraqi and Afghan experiments in democracy turn out?
      - mopsi 2y ago
        Russia already has its sphere of influence, but it is rapidly shrinking because aligning with Russia offers neither peace nor prosperity nor anything else of value. Politically, economically, scientifically, and culturally, it is a dead end. Russia is not the first country to slip into irrelevance and struggle to accept the loss of its influence, and no amount of temper tantrums has ever changed that for anyone. The UK, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Mongolia, and many others were vast empires at some point in history. They have all had to adopt a self-image that reflects their true political, cultural, and economic weight in the present world. Russian ambitions are too detached from reality, given that they account for only a percentage or two of global GDP and population, and are in a downward trend.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
I don’t agree much with Machiavelli for one, but more importantly he and Sun Tzu lived during a time when war was very common and just happened all the time with little provocation. In the post WW2 world the goal should be to avoid war at all costs and achieve goals by other means.
- ioblomov 2y ago
  I'd argue war is as common now as in the times of Machiavelli or Sun Tzu. Even after WW2 and only considering US boots on the ground, how many military conflicts have there been? There are five major ones: Korean War (1950-1953) Vietnam War (1955-1975) Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) War in Afghanistan (2001-2021) Iraq War (2003-2011) If you count proxy wars, it wouldn't be such a stretch to say we've been fighting almost continuously since we dropped the bomb.

dralley 2y ago

This is all total sophistry. Realists try to wrap Putin's decisionmaking in layers of geopolitical reasoning, when the dude literally compares himself to Peter the Great and uses 17th century maps to claim that Ukraine is an illegitimate nation. This is bog-standard nationalist stuff. Tucker Carlson literally sat down with Putin and did everything he could to tee up this nonsense about NATO that Westerners want to hear and believe was the real reason, and instead Putin dropped 45 minutes worth of nationalist pseudohistory on him that had nothing to do with NATO. Nobody in Russia pretends the war is about NATO. It's just not really part of their narrative at all. In summary: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/1amqoq9/live_tucker_reaction_2_hours_of_revisionist/ https://www.reddit.com/r/NonCredibleDefense/comments/1amqoq9...

ioblomov 2y ago
Please clarify how NATO encroachment is non-threatening to a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age. And I would appreciate backing evidence beyond Office memes.
- dralley 2y ago
  Please explain how a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age is not a legitimate threat to all of Europe but especially Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, and Ukraine, such that NATO expansion is fully legitimated. You can't blame NATO expansion for Russian aggression (and call it "threatening") while at the same time literally admitting that Russia is strongly nationalist and would love to reclaim all of its former territories (which is why all of those countries desperately wanted to join NATO). Fuck dude, Russia is the largest country on earth (see: expansionism) and has the first or second largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. They have no right to feel "threatened" by their smaller neighbors banding together.
  - ioblomov 2y ago
    Europe is as much Russia’s historical sphere of influence as the western hemisphere is ours. From the time of the Monroe Doctrine to the Cuban missle crisis and beyond, we have not tolerated any foreign incursion in North or South America—even to the point of removing democratically-elected socialists and installing pro-US dictators such as Chile’s Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet. Don’t be fooled by our own propaganda. Seen in that light, a US strategy of overt and steady NATO encroachment combined with covert action to foment rebellion in multiple ex-Soviet states isn’t far fetched. And even if we didn’t secretly fund the latter, a paranoid Putin certainly wouldn’t doubt it and would react accordingly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolution
    - mopsi 2y ago
      The attempt to rewrite history into "foreign encroachment" is either utterly ignorant of the actual facts, or just bad faith trolling. The reasons why Eastern Europe was very passionate about joining NATO are clear from their history. And getting accepted into the organization was a major and very widely documented struggle. The Polish government went as far as threatening to sink Bill Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 by urging Polish-Americans to vote for Republicans unless Clinton agreed to admitting Poland into NATO. Now, people like you are trying to depict this as some sort of grand anti-Russian masterplan laid out in Washington. Nobody, not even Russians from that era, support this fringe story.
- mopsi 2y ago
  Please clarify how NATO encroachment is non-threatening to a Russian nationalism that sees the Russian Empire at its height as a golden age. That's exactly the point: almost all of Eastern Europe rushed into NATO to prevent becoming unwilling participants in another "golden age of the Russian empire". NATO is a massive pain in the ass for those who dream of enslaving the peoples of Europe, and not a problem at all for those who are free from this sick desire. One of the pre-Putin foreign ministers of Russia has maintained for decades that NATO offers free security on Russia's western border. Its rules, especially those related to civilian oversight of military affairs, ensure that NATO members remain stable and predictable. The mutual defense guarantee acts as a moderating force that reduces the likelihood of unexpected moves by a single country. What normal country wouldn't want to border a military alliance dominated by overly cautious pacifists?
  - ioblomov 2y ago
    Sure, the mutual-defense guarantee can be a moderating force, or it can be a ticket to rapid escalation (case in point WW1) and, potentially therefore, nuclear war. The fact that the Cold War ended peacefully, and with the USSR‘s dissolution to boot, is one of history’s great miracles. With the world’s return to its default multi-polar state, we really shouldn’t press our luck. Give Russia and China their spheres of influence while we protect our own. The tail risk of nuclear war just isn’t worth whatever gains Neocons promise. After all, how did their Iraqi and Afghan experiments in democracy turn out?
    - mopsi 2y ago
      Russia already has its sphere of influence, but it is rapidly shrinking because aligning with Russia offers neither peace nor prosperity nor anything else of value. Politically, economically, scientifically, and culturally, it is a dead end. Russia is not the first country to slip into irrelevance and struggle to accept the loss of its influence, and no amount of temper tantrums has ever changed that for anyone. The UK, France, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Mongolia, and many others were vast empires at some point in history. They have all had to adopt a self-image that reflects their true political, cultural, and economic weight in the present world. Russian ambitions are too detached from reality, given that they account for only a percentage or two of global GDP and population, and are in a downward trend.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

I don’t agree much with Machiavelli for one, but more importantly he and Sun Tzu lived during a time when war was very common and just happened all the time with little provocation. In the post WW2 world the goal should be to avoid war at all costs and achieve goals by other means.

ioblomov 2y ago
I'd argue war is as common now as in the times of Machiavelli or Sun Tzu. Even after WW2 and only considering US boots on the ground, how many military conflicts have there been? There are five major ones: Korean War (1950-1953) Vietnam War (1955-1975) Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) War in Afghanistan (2001-2021) Iraq War (2003-2011) If you count proxy wars, it wouldn't be such a stretch to say we've been fighting almost continuously since we dropped the bomb.