Ukraine's European Revolution?

[DGuller]

A lot of this relates to gender disparities in the Post-Soviet sphere and the complete disaster that is Eastern European childcare.  It's despicable on all sides.  I don't know the specifics, though.

Eastern European childcare was more than good enough when I was a child in Eastern Europe.  The childcare system there was a hell of a lot better than it is in US.  It was actually designed around the reality that both parents usually worked full-time.

[Queequeg]

When were you born?

[DGuller]

When were you born?

Three decades ago.

[Queequeg]

Pretty much.  Soviet childcare was actually pretty good, but like a lot of things it's declined continuously since independence.  There is also no longer a Soviet patina of gender equality, which reduces fertility rates in industrial societies. 

[CountDeMoney]

I enjoy it; you guys are smart and are good at finding wholes in my argument.

That's our Spellus. 

[Sheilbh]

Integrating Ukraine in to NATO sounds like a completely, totally horrible idea though.  Article 5 would mean that we'd automatically be involved if Eastern Ukraine ever tried to rebel against a Svoboda-esque nationalist party in Kiev.

More importantly I, for one, in the nicest possible way, wouldn't willing to see Britain in a shooting war over Ukraine.

However given what's happened NATO should be asking the Scandis if they want to join up now.

And reassure the Baltics, especially as Russia's started expressing concern about the Russian minority in Estonia.

5) Minimized or no period of shock or austerity.  Ukrainian political system can't handle it, and instability would be big red sign "RUSSIA PLEASE INVADE US".

This would undermine everything else though. Though, of course, they should be helped by the EU and US as far as possible. Personally I think it'd be helpful if the West put as much thought into how we can help Ukraine as how we can punish Russia. Especially given that we're apparently going to do fuck all on the latter anyway

[Admiral Yi]

Why would you be willing to be in a shooting war over Sweden and Finland but not the Ukraine?

[Queequeg]

And reassure the Baltics, especially as Russia's started expressing concern about the Russian minority in Estonia.

Yeah, this is pretty key.  Estonia has not treated its ethnic Russian particularly spectacularly since independence, though I find it fucking bizarre and horrifying that an actively Russophobic monster like Lenin is now a symbol of Russian ethnic pride. 

More importantly I, for one, in the nicest possible way, wouldn't willing to see Britain in a shooting war over Ukraine.

If Putin goes in whole hog and starts slaughtering entire towns in the Carpathians I think we'd have some kind of duty to support the occupied peoples short of nuclear war.  I don't think that's particularly likely, though.

This would undermine everything else though.

That's what I have been arguing.  You can't really have reform without the Donbass and Kharkiv being out of work.  It's not pretty. 

Especially given that we're apparently going to do fuck all on the latter anyway

I find it pretty fucking sad that the birthplace of Liberty is now too chickenshit to take a stand against Russia because the oligarchs all send their kids to Public Schools and own tacky Victorian mansions. 

[CountDeMoney]

I find it pretty fucking sad that the birthplace of Liberty is now too chickenshit to take a stand against Russia because the oligarchs all send their kids to Public Schools and own tacky Victorian mansions.

They stay out of Mexico, we stay out of the Ukraine.  It's part of the deal.

[Sheilbh]

Why would you be willing to be in a shooting war over Sweden and Finland but not the Ukraine?

I don't know. I just would.

I suppose think they're a more coherent country so you wouldn't have Queequeg-ish scenario happening. We've already got Norway and Denmark in NATO. Also more confident they're going to be responsible alliance members. And like the West Balkan, Switzerland and Austria it seems like an oversight - if they want in we should get them in.

Same sort of reasons I support Baltic membership, Polish membership, Hungarian membership but wouldn't support Georgia, Moldova or Ukraine. They're expansions that make sense and perhaps Ukraine could've been in the 90s, but couldn't now.

[Sheilbh]

If Putin goes in whole hog and starts slaughtering entire towns in the Carpathians I think we'd have some kind of duty to support the occupied peoples short of nuclear war.  I don't think that's particularly likely, though.

But that's rather different. NATO is a defensive alliance. It's entire purpose is if that anyone's invaded, we all act. It doesn't depend on how brutally we're invaded. And if you're not willing to do that for a country then I think getting them into NATO is the worst sort of gesture politics it invites a test and undermines the entire alliance.

Of course what you say is still possible if Ukraine's not in NATO.

I find it pretty fucking sad that the birthplace of Liberty is now too chickenshit to take a stand against Russia because the oligarchs all send their kids to Public Schools and own tacky Victorian mansions.

Actually France's issue is the arms trade.

But it is rather awful that the sanctions the West could agree on were so underwhelming they caused a huge rally in the Moscow stock exchange.

It's where the UK is now though. Not just with Russia. I remember reading an American officials quote after a recent visit to China that it's mind-boggling that British Prime Minister would have an official trip to Beijing with no other purpose than to sell stuff.

[Capetan Mihali]

Fine, fine.

1) Breakaway Georgian areas were economically marginal, and populated by ethnicities completely distinct from Georgians.  Georgians have been around since the Ice Age.  Georgians as a whole are supportive of greater EU and NATO ties.
2) Related.  Tblisi isn't the birthplace of the Rus'.  Tblisi is Tblisi.  It's vaguely in Russia's sphere of influence but the vast majority of Russians and a substantial number of the people of the other country don't look at Russians as countrymen. 
3) Georgia and Armenia were the Soviet equivalent of California.  A lot of tech industry, well educated people, resorts. 
4) Georgia has substantial expat and emigre community and is already pretty well integrated in to global economy after Saakashvili's reforms. 

Georgia has a lot more in common with Estonia than it does with Ukraine.

5) Totally different physiognomies.  Georgians display a classic Dinaric bridged nose with a relatively ample but underdeveloped brow, and are in some ways the last remaining sample of the original Iranic-Mediterranean Caucasoid expression.  Ukrainians, by contrast, are the prime exemplars of the Slavic i.e. East-Alpine type, as seen in their elevated cheek-to-chin ratio, fair complexions, and the somewhat higher preponderance of the Mongolic-Turkic eye indentation variable.

[Queequeg]

  I laughed.

[Ed Anger]

And unibrows.

Yes, I remember your unibrows bullshit.

[Queequeg]

But that's rather different. NATO is a defensive alliance. It's entire purpose is if that anyone's invaded, we all act. It doesn't depend on how brutally we're invaded. And if you're not willing to do that for a country then I think getting them into NATO is the worst sort of gesture politics it invites a test and undermines the entire alliance.

Of course what you say is still possible if Ukraine's not in NATO.

I completely agree with you, I just wanted to suggest a possible scenario where I think NATO intervention in Ukraine would be warranted and where I would support it.  Keep in mind, half this board thinks I am basically an unpaid RT schill.

Actually France's issue is the arms trade.

Fine.  Birthplace of Parliamentary government and modern market economics.

But it is rather awful that the sanctions the West could agree on were so underwhelming they caused a huge rally in the Moscow stock exchange.

It's where the UK is now though. Not just with Russia. I remember reading an American officials quote after a recent visit to China that it's mind-boggling that British Prime Minister would have an official trip to Beijing with no other purpose than to sell stuff.

How much of that was Cameron being a piece of shit though?