Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Admiral Yi]

Tucker Carlson really maxing out talking out of both sides of his mouth. I wonder what stage of agreement with Russian concepts for US importation/useful idiot/paid parrot he's on to now. I sometimes hope there is a Hell so that people like him can end up there. 

Tucker: "Good for them for fighting back and shame on Russia for invading them"
Seconds later: "Is Ukraine really a sovereign country? That's not an attack on Ukraine, it's an attack on the Democratic Party."
Also: "Is Ukraine a sovereign country or a corrupt client state of the US ruling class?"

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1502461588242313216

With all due respect, who the fuck are you?

[celedhring]

Related, with all the rumors that Belarus might be joining the war directly, people on the Spanish EUOT have been going through Belarrusian politics/law. That place looks like a true hellhole 

Lukashenko announced a new law in 2014 that will prohibit kolkhoz workers (around 9% of total work force) from leaving their jobs at will—a change of job and living location will require permission from governors. The law was compared with serfdom by Lukashenko himself.[173][174] Similar regulations were introduced for the forestry industry in 2012

Belarusian judicial system is characterized by the high conviction rate: in 2020, 99.7% of criminal cases resulted in conviction and only 0.3% — in acquittance. This rate is stable for several years

In May 2021, Belarusian parliament amended the laws on the legal profession (law 113-Z issued on 27 May 2021 signed by Lukashenko on 28 May and came into effect on 30 May).[90] The amendments banned individual advocates and law firms (bureaus), making the state-regulated judicial consultations the only form of provision of advocate services

[Josquius]

Interesting ideas.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60697261

https://twitter.com/Konrad03249040/status/1498350631232356357?s=20&t=k1j67CJzVZav-22fcR-hbQ

21st century version of dropping leaflets on enemy territories.

[Admiral Yi]

Joe Squeeze old buddy, how the hell you been!!?? 

[HVC]

Joe Squeeze old buddy, how the hell you been!!?? 

*Pst* it's tyr. Name changes are open and the forum is starting to run a muck. It's madness I say!

[Admiral Yi]

*Pst* it's tyr. Name changes are open and the forum is starting to run a muck. It's madness I say!

That's the joke.

[HVC]

*Pst* it's tyr. Name changes are open and the forum is starting to run a muck. It's madness I say!

That's the joke.

Sorry it's early

[Sheilbh]

Wtf who is this John Mearsheimer, his name keeps popping up about this crisis I remember some lecture of his reached me from someone in the early days of the war where he was explaining the same thing, how it is the West's fault because Russia does deserve to be given Eastern Europe because of reasons.

It's impressive that his handlers not only pay him but manage to make him appear influential, when clearly he is a moron.

He's an international relations professor in the US - and probably the most prominent advocate of great power/"offensive" realism.

I think Adam Tooze's critique is interesting:
https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2022/03/john-mearsheimer-and-the-dark-origins-of-realism

A key point for me:

Morality and legality are one reason for opposing war. The other is simply that over the last century at least, it has a poor track record for delivering results. Other than wars of national liberation, one is hard pressed to name a single war of aggression since 1914 that has yielded clearly positive results for the first mover. A realism that fails to recognise that fact and the consequences that have been drawn from it by most policymakers does not deserve the name.

[Tamas]

Yeah I saw he was labelled a "realist" who then proceeds to lick up Russia's self-delusional projected self-image. 

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I saw he was labelled a "realist" who then proceeds to lick up Russia's self-delusional projected self-image. 

I think there is, sadly, some truth to it - especially around the 2008 declaration which was hubristic. As Tooze says "part of the rage against Mearsheimer is deflected frustration on the part of liberals" because his frankness is accurate about the actual limits of Weestern commitment which we've seen - and the US and UK have been very vocal (because the media keep asking about it). There won't be a no fly zone. We will support Ukraine and help to a limit, but we will not intervene militarily. And I think liberals especially find conversations about actual power troubling because it denies universal ideas like human rights etc. And it leads to some really awful situations.

But as Tooze points out even if Mearsheimer's right on the causes of tension - even if it's grim reading for Ukraine - but it still doesn't explain why war. As he pointed out aggressive war as a policy tool hasn't got a great record in the last 100 years, wars tend to be unpredictable and very risky. In the post-Cold War era the "offensive" realists have actually been very doveish: the US was overextending and committing to areas outside its core interests for ideological reasons like liberal universalism or neo-conservatism and this was a mistake.

[Tamas]

Yeah that's the thing none of that security worry or LARPing Victoria 2 provides any sort of justification for the war, morally or rationally. Internal Russian power plays and Putin's pet peeves are the only "realist" explanations.

[Admiral Yi]

The one weakness I see in Mearsheimer's argument is that he doesn't analyze Russia's view of Ukrainian NATO membership as an "existential threat."  NATO is a defensive alliance.  It is not in the conquering business.

Russian inability to militarily threaten Ukraine and nibble away at its territory is not equivalent to ceasing to exist.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfRcmJTAouM

Ambush of Russian column north of Kiev.

This is exactly what I was talking about.  Hide a small team in cover, zap a tank and run away.  Rinse and repeat.

[Tamas]

The one weakness I see in Mearsheimer's argument is that he doesn't analyze Russia's view of Ukrainian NATO membership as an "existential threat."  NATO is a defensive alliance.  It is not in the conquering business.

Russian inability to militarily threaten Ukraine and nibble away at its territory is not equivalent to ceasing to exist.

Exactly. In other words, its a BS excuse, and any "realist" should call it out as such.

[Sheilbh]

The one weakness I see in Mearsheimer's argument is that he doesn't analyze Russia's view of Ukrainian NATO membership as an "existential threat."  NATO is a defensive alliance.  It is not in the conquering business.

Russian inability to militarily threaten Ukraine and nibble away at its territory is not equivalent to ceasing to exist.

But I don't think that's relevant in that article/his view. There's two points - one is that Russian leaders have repeatedly said that they view NATO moving into Ukraine or the Caucus as an existential threat. So there's a bit of a credibility issue of needing to enforce what you've repeatedly stated is a red line otherwise it will lead to your opponents pushing further and further (see Obama's "red line" in Syria - which I think is important in where we are).

The other is that it doesn't matter whether an alliance of an opposing great power is offensive or defensive. If its presence is growing on your borders - and if it were to include Ukraine and Georgia (plus Turkey already in) that is across the Black Sea/Caucus as oppposed to just the Baltics and Poland. The purpose of the opposing alliance is not relevant. It's existence is a threat because alliances constrain actions and escalate wars.

I think Mearsheimer's point is Vicky 2 as Tamas put it, but specifically the run up to WW1 - where you had Russians making commitments/promises they couldn't keep to fellow Slavs without going to war and domestic pressure (at least at elite level) to protect those Slavs. On top of that alliance structures that may not have been designed for offensive perhaps create mutual obligations that turn the July crisis into a world war. The issue that I have with his take is even if that explains the situation between the powers and the cause for tensions etc (which I think it does) - it still doesn't explain why war. Again Tooze's conclusion:

In light of war's hazards, it is tempting to say that if Mearsheimer's glib talk about the logic of great power conflict did indeed provide Putin with an excuse for Russia's disastrous invasion, rather than a servant of Russia, Mearsheimer is a secret weapon in the armoury of the West, helping to lure Putin to disaster on the rocks of a grisly new Afghanistan. If we want to understand what happened in the Kremlin to precipitate the criminal folly of the invasion, what we need are not platitudes about the security dilemmas of great powers, but a forensic account of an epic failure of decision-making and intelligence. And we need to understand not only Russia, but also how Ukraine, a state that seemed so weak, has so far been capable of mounting such effective resistance. Above all, we need to start by acknowledging that for the vast majority of analysts, this war has delivered a shock that does not confirm, but puts in question our sense of reality.

It drives home the point that adopting a realistic approach towards the world does not consist in always reaching for a well-worn toolkit of timeless verities, nor does it consist in affecting a hard-boiled attitude so as to inoculate oneself forever against liberal enthusiasm. Realism, taken seriously, entails a never-ending cognitive and emotional challenge. It involves a minute-by-minute struggle to understand a complex and constantly evolving world, in which we are ourselves immersed, a world that we can, to a degree, influence and change, but which constantly challenges our categories and the definitions of our interests. And in that struggle for realism – the never-ending task of sensibly defining interests and pursuing them as best we can – to resort to war, by any side, should be acknowledged for what it is. It should not be normalised as the logical and obvious reaction to given circumstances, but recognised as a radical and perilous act, fraught with moral consequences. Any thinker or politician too callous or shallow to face that stark reality, should be judged accordingly.

He added elsewhere that basically Mearsheimer is very glib about war  - it is just what happens with great powers, and God help you if you live in a small country in the way. They battle each other for hegemony and power over the states near them or that they can secure far away because that's just the nature of the world. Tooze linked to a piece Mearsheimer wrote in 2001 about the rise of China. He argued (I think correctly) that the US keeps troops in Europe and Asia to prevent the rise of other powers and then asked whether it might not actually be in the US's interests to withdraw those troops. There would be, in his view, almost inevitable emergence of competing powers such as a war between Japan and China - but would that really hurt the US? And it might sap China's strength for a long time, which is in the US' interests. I think that - as much as the Economist piece - gives a sense of his approach, I'm just not sure where nukes fit in because I think the world is very different from the run up to WW1.