Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[OttoVonBismarck]

2) Although sanctions clearly will damage the Russian economy, the reality is that there have been few historically successively sanctions regimes.  South Africa is one but it took a long time to work and the circumstances were quite different.  Iran was a limited success, and then a failure after Trump walked away from the return.

The main export earner for the Russian economy - the energy sector - remains open for business.  Since the government has ordered that 80% of export earnings be exchanged for rubles, that provides a base level of support for the domestic currency. China, India, and Pakistan are not participating the sanctions regime.  China in particular is obviously a big hole as they likely have the means of setting up facilities for exchange that circumvent the Western-centered financial system.

I disagree with this assessment mostly because I don't see it as a sanctions regime (which I broadly agree rarely have worked.) I think it's more like a return to the Cold War. The USSR did not lose the Cold War because of sanctions, however there is a difference between active sanctions and simply "finding Closed for Business signs" in front of you with most of the world's major economies. The latter was the situation the USSR was in for most of its existence, the West broadly did not do a ton of traditional business with the USSR. Oh, it did some business, often times pilot programs would pop up, special business relationships etc, but it was a trickle compared to what Russia had before this.

The USSR was always involved in the global commodities trade, and Russia will be as well, but a country that simply sells oil and wheat, when you are both the size (population wise, and strategic ambition wise) as Russia, that's not going to be an engine for amazing economic growth, it also is not going to be a great engine for modernization and other development. The USSR always sold oil and frequently sold wheat (other than the bad years where it had to import grains due to crop failures), the cost of not being well integrated with the Western economic world was simply that the USSR's economy developed more slowly and in far fewer areas. We know all the old jokes, there were Soviet "versions" of nearly everything we had in the West, but almost to a one they were hilariously terrible in every way.

Russia is staking out a position that not only will it undermine democracies with soft power, but that it is willing to use military force to eliminate them, I think this has created a sea change in how the West sees Russia, including among Western countries that had historically been willing to pretend everything was going well in the Russian relationship.

Unless some sort of mediated peace happens soon, I really see this not as a sanctions regime, but the beginning of a second Cold War. Just like in the first Cold War, Russia will not be shut off from the world's economy, but it will find that the sort of business relationships open to it will have diminished significantly, and its access to a great many things that help make a country modern, sophisticated and culturally and economically developed will dry up, meaning Russia will have to adopt a Soviet model of doing all these things in house--or possibly worse for Putin's ego, will have to get those things from China, which will fundamentally shift the Russian/Chinese relationship into one of vassalage for the Russians.

[Sheilbh]

I agree that Russia and by proxy, Russians, must be punished severely economically and culturally, with no remorse. The only alternative way to stopp Putinist Russia is nuclear war.

This also shall -hopefully- serve as an example to other "adventurous" countries on the backlash they may see.

I think part of it is that I've spent the last 10 years being pretty hawkish on Russia (and China). In the last fortnight I've seen people who are broadly herbiverous liberal centrists go from being very small specks of dust in my rearview mirror to absolutely zooming past me, calling for the expulsion of all Russians from the UK and enforcing a no fly zone even if it risks war with Russia.

It's a little disconcerting

My take is always the Reagan approach of absolutely confronting the state, of cultural boycott and isolation but open-ness to the Russian people and Russian culture. I do not think that cancelling an exhibition on Faberge eggs or seminars on Russian writers given the current context is significantly helping anyone

Incidentally on not going as planneed Max Seddon is reporting that a bill's been introduced to the Duma to send anyone arrested protesting the war in Ukraine to "perform military service on the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics".

[Duque de Bragança]

Update from Macron after his latest 90 minute call with Putin. Reportedly Macron believes the "worst is yet to come" and Putin "intends to control the whole of Ukraine". I think this is not a surprise but still concerning to see it being the view at the highest level

Yeah I saw a piece about cocktail bars renaming Moscow Mules and an academic journal proudly announcing they were stopping publishing in Russian (a language also used in Ukraine). It just made me think this is dumb and not the point of a cultural boycott/sanctions.

Heh, I read in one of Edwin Newman's books that Cuba Libre was (briefly) renamed the Puerto Rico Libre in some bars during the missile crisis.  (Which is still much better than 2003's Freedom Fries.)

I think we should ask Ron DeSantis if it's really better than Freedom Fries. 

[Tamas]

I agree that Russia and by proxy, Russians, must be punished severely economically and culturally, with no remorse. The only alternative way to stopp Putinist Russia is nuclear war.

This also shall -hopefully- serve as an example to other "adventurous" countries on the backlash they may see.

I think part of it is that I've spent the last 10 years being pretty hawkish on Russia (and China). In the last fortnight I've seen people who are broadly herbiverous liberal centrists go from being very small specks of dust in my rearview mirror to absolutely zooming past me, calling for the expulsion of all Russians from the UK and enforcing a no fly zone even if it risks war with Russia.

It's a little disconcerting

My take is always the Reagan approach of absolutely confronting the state, of cultural boycott and isolation but open-ness to the Russian people and Russian culture. I do not think that cancelling an exhibition on Faberge eggs or seminars on Russian writers given the current context is significantly helping anyone

Incidentally on not going as planneed Max Seddon is reporting that a bill's been introduced to the Duma to send anyone arrested protesting the war in Ukraine to "perform military service on the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics".

 

The no fly zone demands (coming from non-Ukrainians) I see as extremely naive. I don't think most people realise that means flying CAP which in turn means pre-emptively destroying Russian air defences. If we do that, we might as well do it with nukes, it's there where it'd end.

[OttoVonBismarck]

For what it is worth, I actually do not believe the most likely outcome of a NATO conventional move into Ukraine to push Russia out is a nuclear exchange. I think that is a possible outcome, which is why the risk isn't worth it, but there is some precedent for such things not leading to the conflict going nuclear. One of the most prominent would-be China's decision to attack the nuclear-armed United States to push it out of North Korea in the 1950s.

[Syt]

Long thread about Russian performance esp. paratroopers:

https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/1499377671855292423

Argues that Russian paratroopers are mostly an intimidation, not combat force and that their use indicates that Putin considered the invasion a case of putting down a mutinous province that can be quickly scared into obedience - explaining their struggles in many areas to make much headway with ground forces.

[The Brain]

For what it is worth, I actually do not believe the most likely outcome of a NATO conventional move into Ukraine to push Russia out is a nuclear exchange. I think that is a possible outcome, which is why the risk isn't worth it, but there is some precedent for such things not leading to the conflict going nuclear. One of the most prominent would-be China's decision to attack the nuclear-armed United States to push it out of North Korea in the 1950s.

And Argentina attacking the UK. While I agree that it going nuclear isn't necessarily automatic, I think there's a higher risk when two nuclear powers are involved.

[Sheilbh]

The no fly zone demands (coming from non-Ukrainians) I see as extremely naive. I don't think most people realise that means flying CAP which in turn means pre-emptively destroying Russian air defences. If we do that, we might as well do it with nukes, it's there where it'd end.

Yeah. It just risks conflict with Russia which is unpredictable and decisions being made faster than the speed of sound by pilots. It's not plausible and I think people naively understand it as something we just announce and Russia follows. In this case I'd also say surely it would need to be a no fly and no artillery zone. I think we might get to agreed humanitarian corridors and safe zones for civilians though, possibly if this goes on.

But it has become quite a norm here - I mean even Keir suggesting it, though not fully endorsing it. The other issue is that the RAF couldn't enforce. I'm not sure European air forces combined could enforce it so it strikes me as another example of people in Europe writing very large cheques they expect the Americans to pay for.

Let's have a run of solid defence budgets and a bit of re-arming in Europe before we push that

[OttoVonBismarck]

In some ways a No Fly Zone is more concerning than an actual NATO ground move into Ukraine, simply because it would likely involve lots of missile exchanges which when things get kinetic could lead to some dangerous decisions being made.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm firmly in the camp of "as bad as this is, the right answer is not a military intervention", but if I was forced to think of the best way to do a military intervention (i.e. the best way of implementing a bad idea), I think it would be akin to maybe Soviet/Chinese strategy vis-a-vis North Vietnam. Move a NATO force in to Western Ukraine and declare it is there to "protect Ukrainian sovereignty" and establish a line past which non-Ukrainian forces are not allowed to pass. This would create sort of a "protected" rump Ukraine from which it could wage whatever form of war it can wage against Russia in the East. The line would have to be somewhere West of Kiev.

The posturing would be that this isn't targeted at Russia, but rather at "protecting Ukrainian sovereignty" and that NATO forces would only fire on "non-Ukrainian belligerents" if they crossed the line, not otherwise. It is possible Russia would just immediately attack; in which case we would be fully at war--for what it is worth I believe that would certainly be his immediate reaction to a No-Fly Zone, American planes would be immediate targets anywhere in Eastern Europe.

[Tamas]

I'm firmly in the camp of "as bad as this is, the right answer is not a military intervention", but if I was forced to think of the best way to do a military intervention (i.e. the best way of implementing a bad idea), I think it would be akin to maybe Soviet/Chinese strategy vis-a-vis North Vietnam. Move a NATO force in to Western Ukraine and declare it is there to "protect Ukrainian sovereignty" and establish a line past which non-Ukrainian forces are not allowed to pass. This would create sort of a "protected" rump Ukraine from which it could wage whatever form of war it can wage against Russia in the East. The line would have to be somewhere West of Kiev.

The posturing would be that this isn't targeted at Russia, but rather at "protecting Ukrainian sovereignty" and that NATO forces would only fire on "non-Ukrainian belligerents" if they crossed the line, not otherwise. It is possible Russia would just immediately attack; in which case we would be fully at war--for what it is worth I believe that would certainly be his immediate reaction to a No-Fly Zone, American planes would be immediate targets anywhere in Eastern Europe.

That would probably save Putin's rule. Western troops on Ukrainian soils could turn the propaganda war straight on its head. It just isn't worth it.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Putin's rule is secure regardless of what we do--as I said, quite clearly, military intervention is not a good idea. I was simply going through the exercise of actually thinking about what form of military intervention would actually make sense if we (for whatever reason, possibly a dangerous swell of domestic political pressure) decided to intervene militarily. A No-Fly Zone I think is actually higher risk option than establishing a buffer zone because it is a direct declaration of war against Russia across the entirety of Ukraine--something I think people just throwing the term around may not understand.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Something I see being bandied about a lot is how the world looks without Russian oil or wheat, which I think should be understood as not realistic. I think we are moving back to a Cold War footing with Russia, but the younger people out there or just forgetful old ones may not really know what that means. A Cold War does not delete Russia from interactions with the entire world, remember a huge list of Non-Aligned countries had fairly regularized relations with the USSR for the entirety of the Cold War, and Western powers--including even the United States, had off-and-on trading relationships with the USSR throughout the Cold War. The USSR was an exporter of fuels throughout the entire period of its existence, and it regularly exported wheat when its economy and output allowed for it (there were several instances of crop failures where the USSR actually had to import basic grains to feed itself.)

A Cold War footing however means these tight relationships, where Russian entities own cultural institutions in the West, have major business investments in domestic Western companies, where Western companies are doing joint ventures with Russian companies sharing technology and expertise, where we are trading in almost all types of products including advanced technology, a lot of that likely does not come back in Cold War 2.0 Many ways in which Russia integrated with the West, likely gets rolled back.

There is often a sense in our world that global integrations are permanent affairs, but they are not. Things that can be done, can be undone, and are. I think far too many people simply assumed structural changes of the 1990s that were built upon over the following decades represented some shift in history that bound the nations of the world for all time. That just isn't reality, institution links can be removed or decay over time. Cold War 2.0 is more like a divorce from Russia than a trade war or embargo. I would anticipate certain aspects of the sanctions regime would eventually go away as we settled into a "New Normal", but some elements of it would likely become permanent.

[Josquius]

I do miss the days when different countries had different things.

[viper37]

I don't know...

I don't really consider sports to be different from culture.  They're both for entertainment.

If we boycott Russian athletes and sports teams, why exempt culture?  Some of these athletes may or may not have been supporters of Vladimir Putin.  They may have some pull over him too.  Or they maybe totally against him, never supported him publicly and simply stayed quiet, tried to live their lives.

And I see culture just like that.

We boycotted the Russia games or 1980 for their invasion of Afghanistan, yet, no athletes who had trained for this event had anything to do with this.  Same here, some individuals and businesses will pay the price, even if they have nothing to do with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.