Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Barrister]

Some early "results" from the Russian-occupied Ukraine referendum are starting to be reported.  Not exactly what I expected.

https://r.mtdv.me/16oaj0B2FL

[The Minsky Moment]

Viewed from a purely realist national interest perspective the cost of America's security investment in Europe is far lower than the benefits.  And it is important to keep in mind that although the Pacific is the most important single theater in the strategic competition between the US and China, that competition is global in nature and having Europe more on "our side" is a very substantial advantage.  When one considers the enormous financial resources expended by China to attract relatively marginal players into its sphere of influence, the value of America's trans-Atlantic partnerships is striking. 

With respect to US involvement in the Ukraine war specifically, Russia under Putin has been a troublesome actor that has caused mischief across several continents.  While US assistance has been costly, relatively speaking it has been a inexpensive way to facilitate a very substantial degradation of Russian military capability and prestige, all to American advantage.  Again, the cost-benefit appears to be highly favorable.

[alfred russel]

We are talking about different things.

Obviously the USSR doesn't exist.  If you define the postwar order in terms of spheres of influence exercised by the US-led alliance and the USSR-led alliance, then by definition that order ended when the USSR ended. That's just stating a defintional truism.

In you define the postwar order in terms of institutions like the NATO alliance and the Bretton Woods institutions and in terms of animating principles of economic and cultural cooperation and exchange and collective security, then the postwar order is not only alive, it has been reinvigorated.

Bretton Woods has collapsed and NATO has been transformed from an anti soviet alliance to an anti russian one with an operating framework to allow for its participants to adventure further afield from europe. The complementary institution to the NATO alliance, the warsaw pact, completely collapsed.

The post WWII was defined by communist and democratic spheres of influence which were led by the USSR and US respectively. States were aligned with either block or nonaligned. If anything, the current conflict can be seen as Russia interpreting itself as the inheritor of the (diminished) USSR sphere of influence, and the current war an ample demonstration that the post WWII order that was established has sense collapsed as their sphere of influence is not being respected by the international community.

[The Minsky Moment]

Bretton Woods has collapsed and NATO has been transformed from an anti soviet alliance to an anti russian one with an operating framework to allow for its participants to adventure further afield from europe.

Well that's just like your opinion, man.

[Grey Fox]

If the US can keep Europe supporting its position in the international system without committing to European defense, then perhaps it is in the US' interest to save the money & effort. But I'd think that the risk of letting Europe slide out of the US' camp and the risks of a new international order being less favourable to the US makes it not worth it.

Of course, that's for the US to decide, but that's how I see it.

This touches on the lack of agency issue that seems to crop up over and over when discussing the US's role in the world order.

Even if the US were to withdraw from NATO the countries of Europe, one would presume, have a self interest in protecting the international rule of law and free trade, and a humanitarian interest in prevention of violence to solve disputes and human rights in other countries.

I as an American have no interest in "managing" the alignment of lesser states but I do have interest in a partnership of like minded states each pulling their weight.

Obama once said that everyone wants the US to not do anything yet always need it's leadership to do anything.

A US less NATO disappears and Europe will be engulfed in nuclear fires within a generation.

[Barrister]

Here's a fun tidbit: through private fundraising the Ukrainians have rented a privately-owned satellite for one year.  This satellite, owned by Finnish company ICEYE, generated images through some kind of radar imaging.

Here's the Kerch bridge as seen through Ukraine's rented satellite.



https://www.iceye.com/press/press-releases/iceye-signs-contract-to-provide-government-of-ukraine-with-access-to-its-sar-satellite-constellation

[The Larch]

That's a much curvier bridge than I could have imagined.

[DGuller]

Defending Ukraine is in the US's interest because it's part of defending the entire post WWII international order.

that order is gone and was obsolete long ago.

Russia is a dysfunctional country with an economy roughly the size of canada. Its military spending is not especially significant. The US is not needed to provide a counterweight to russia in europe, excluding in the nuclear realm, and even then only because it isn't in anyone's interests to have nuclear weapons proliferate across the countries of europe.

It wasn't that long ago that things were looking bleak for Ukraine, before HIMARS arrived.  That was the case despite Russia being a basket case and Ukraine being extra-motivated not to leave their population behind for Russians to torture.  As disorganized as Russian army is, it still exists and is still capable of shelling cities to rubble.  That's more than can be said for most European armies.

[OttoVonBismarck]

On many other areas of concern, the revanchist, authoritarian, anti-democratic and anti-rules behaviors of Russia and China would make deeper cooperation between them and Western democracies very difficult regardless of what the U.S. did with NATO and its commitments to Europe.

I think you are gravely mistaken on this and far too optimistic that Western democracies would not co-operate more with Russia & China. It's been pretty obvious in the last 10-15 years that Putin has tried to Finlandize Europe and to some success especially with their energy policy and to the political elites. In fact I think that has been the reason why Europe has not stood up more to Putin, because of their addiction to Russian oil & gas.  Even now after all that has happened in Ukraine, there are still support / sympathy for Putin in all over Europe. Hell we've seen it with the US under Trump.

And again, that is economic cooperation. There has been little to no increase in political cooperation with Russia, essentially you have just restated my point for me. After some initial hesitation Europe has also mostly coalesced around Lithuania in its dispute with China. That shows precisely why it is just not realistic to think European countries can easily become deep allies with countries like Russia and China.

It is one thing to ally a distant autocrat who is mostly a lesser power doing things you mostly approve of, but perhaps with methods you dislike (i.e. the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia), versus allying a revanchist autocratic superpower. The latter is going to push the boundaries of the relationship in ways that are not easy to ignore or tolerate. Sure, if European countries are fine with true vassalage in which they transform into quasi-autocracies themselves ala Belarus, Hungary etc then they can enmesh deeper, but it is just mechanically not easy for a country like the Netherlands or France to have say, a NATO tier relationship with a country like Russia or China, or even a relationship of meaningful military cooperation at all.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Russia has shown it is likely too dysfunctional to be a significant threat to most of Europe.

With respect it has not shown that.

Russia is dysfunctional, sure.  But it's still a significant threat to it's immediate neighbourhood, including Europe.  It has frozen conflicts in three of it's neighbours.  Ukraine was able to stop the Russians and fight back due to their own tremendous bravery and sacrifice, but through the West supplies billions of dollars of equipment, and invaluable intelligence.

Even weak, dysfunctional Russia could still steamroll the Baltics and make serious trouble for Poland.

And if Russia takes the Baltics it has no relevance to American concerns. It is up to countries like France / Germany to decide if it is relevant to them.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Viewed from a purely realist national interest perspective the cost of America's security investment in Europe is far lower than the benefits.  And it is important to keep in mind that although the Pacific is the most important single theater in the strategic competition between the US and China, that competition is global in nature and having Europe more on "our side" is a very substantial advantage.  When one considers the enormous financial resources expended by China to attract relatively marginal players into its sphere of influence, the value of America's trans-Atlantic partnerships is striking. 

With respect to US involvement in the Ukraine war specifically, Russia under Putin has been a troublesome actor that has caused mischief across several continents.  While US assistance has been costly, relatively speaking it has been a inexpensive way to facilitate a very substantial degradation of Russian military capability and prestige, all to American advantage.  Again, the cost-benefit appears to be highly favorable.

And yet again, the very idea that we need to "worry" about Russia is because we are set up to defend Europe. Remove that relationship, and Russia is literally no threat to America, never has been, and never will be. Other than the meta threat of having nuclear missiles (which is covered under MAD in any case.) If not for our idea that we are solely responsible for European defense, Putin is mostly irrelevant to us.

If there are actual benefits to being European protectors, no one has really laid out a convincing argument.

1. The geostrategic arguments where we were "Map painting" in the Cold War to stop Soviet expansionism just doesn't exist anymore, and so any value in "keeping them on our side" in that mindset just isn't real.

2. European allies largely do not provide any meaningful or useful military help for any of our recent conflicts, aside form some logistical through benefits in Middle Eastern wars, which again--the American public is largely done with us doing those wars to begin with. Also note that countries we don't pledge to defend to the last drop of American blood have provided us logistical support for Middle Eastern wars over the last 20 years too--Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc.

3. Many of the economic / international institution stuff the U.S. and the Euro countries are largely operating around lines of mutual benefit, these aren't "secured" by us pledging to defend Europe to the last drop of blood.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Also you guys are interpreting it as all or nothing. My perception is just that now that we're well into this Ukraine conflict, we have something that approaches very close to "core reason NATO" exists--the safety and security of Europe. We can quibble that NATO also really exists to project American power, but it is undeniably at least majorly concerned with the defense of Europe. In the face of that threat we have seen several major NATO members largely contribute virtually nothing compared to their capacity. This was after we had Trump threatening to leave NATO for 4 years, and general growing sentiment among many in America that NATO no longer serves a purpose.

I have always pushed against that, because to some degree I believed in the "West" as a concept, and felt it was worth defending. But seeing all the talk the last 10 years about Europe stepping up, and now facing its greatest catastrophe since the Cold War to see some of the largest economies of Europe largely doing jack and shit, has me seriously questioning this arrangement and the thinking that has gone into it.

This does not mean, necessarily, the better approach is complete U.S. disengagement from anything touching Europe. But I do think there is logic to focusing more on bilateral relationships and less on multilateral ones. That could frankly be one area where Trump got things right. I would argue the expectations and coordination game are a lot better between the U.S. and the UK, South Korea and Japan, which are all countries where we primarily have strong bilateral military cooperation versus multilateral. We make very specific commitments back and forth, versus NATO is just kind of a big fat open ended commitment from the United States with very little specific commitment back--remember that NATO members have very little true obligations to America at all.

The nice thing about any bilateral relationship it is much easier to fine tune as strategic needs and interests shift over time.

[Legbiter]

Astonishing footage of conscripts being told what to bring with them to the front...

https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/1574743652697620485

I guess high command does not think they'll survive the next weeks anyway. Never mind winter.

[Admiral Yi]

Bretton Woods has collapsed

wut?

The dollar gold anchor has collapsed (good riddance) but the World Bank and the IMF are still functioning.

[Josquius]

BBC News - Ukraine war: Russia claims win in occupied Ukraine 'sham' referendums
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-63052207

Much to everyone's surprise the occupied areas "vote" to join russia.

What I do find kind of surprising though is they're reporting 99% saying yes to annexation.
They're saying we all know this is bollocks but look we are doing it anyway nerr.
Which makes me wonder why bother with the whole sham in that case.