Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Jacob]

I suspect that Putin believes, and has always believed, that Ukraine should be part of Russia.  When it comes to geopolitics, sometimes you have to wait for a very, very long time to right the wrong, and he thinks that Ukraine becoming independent was a wrong that was inflicted on Russia.  Why does he think that now is a good time to strike?  As I said before, I fear that he thinks that way because he knows that China is planning to right the wrong that Taiwan inflicted on it.

I wonder if he's thinking Russia + China together can just brazen it out vs a decadent West or whether he figures he might be able to pull a "if you accept me annexing Ukraine, I'll work with you on China - or at the very least not go all in to support China." Or maybe he figures either may work and he'll shift as conditions suggest.

That said, he might find it that he's in a somewhat weakened position by sticking his neck out first and relying on China to be the second mover. But maybe they have solid deals that he feels he can rely on, or really good intelligence.

Super fascinating stuff from an intellectual perspective. More frightening if you live in potential harm's way - or have people you care about who do. Then again, if China and Russia both decide to thumb their nose at the US and the West via outright territorial aggression then we may all ultimately be living in harm's way.

[Admiral Yi]

That line has already been crossed with the annexation of Crimea.

[Jacob]

That line has already been crossed with the annexation of Crimea.

Which line?

[Admiral Yi]

Outright territotial agression.

[DGuller]

Outright territotial agression.

It had implausible deniability.  If you ask most Russians, they'll tell you that Crimeans voluntarily voted to rejoin Russia after the Russian army protected them from Ukrainian fascists.  It's going to be hard to dress up the total invasion of Ukraine as anything other than invasion, and I don't think the Russians are even trying as they're fabricating their CB.  I think the story would be that it was an inevitable preemptive strike against NATO aggression.

[Sheilbh]

I guess that is the big question mark:  how close are Ukrainian people to Russian people, really?  I think the answer is super boring:  they're closer to Russians than people in the West believe, but not as close as Russian believe.  In EU4 terms, I think they're definitely in the same culture group. 

I'm not convinced that Ukrainians outside of the Western part would fight the Russians to the death.  Western Ukrainians definitely would fight the Russians, but I imagine that Russians don't want them anyway.

Do you not think that's maybe shifted since 2014-5? I feel like one thing that might give you a bit of national cohesion/identity is being invaded and (still) fighting to re-assert your control over your territory.

[Sheilbh]

Listened to podcast by a Russia expert - his view was this is probably a massive starting exercise to coercive diplomacy as is the very broad demand list because no-one starts haggling with a sensible compromise and Russia's quite comfortable with present asymmetries as victories.

But he did a thought experiment of if there is an invasion - why?

His take was Putin's 69 and, while in the US that means he'd just be considering a Presidential run, even if he runs in 2024 he is coming to the end of his time in office. He stopped the collapse and decline of Russia. He stabilised the country and returned in some sense to the top table after the 90s. But things look less certain now. China is growing in assertiveness which is currently a problem mainly for the West, but will become an issue for Russia. Navalny's in jail but the coalition of the dissatisfied still exists and is just waiting for someone else to take over - and even the Communists are back to such an extent that they need repressing.

Public polls in the Russian media indicate that only about 30% of people want to vote for Putin again, so the private polls are probably even worse. In the background while the economy was stabilised and there was strong economic growth from the chaos of the 90s, it's now stagnant and it's not a good time to be a hydrocarbon economy. So chances are your best years are behind you and you're either going to preside over the decline of the system your built or in some way lose control of it - the medium term prospect for Russia or Putin isn't great. It's problems, half-successes and increasingly difficult (without growth) to please people and elites.

Regionally you've got Belarus which is only in Russia's sphere because of your money and Lukashenko's willingness to use violence. Ukraine is drifting to the West which is a failure of the project of re-establishing Russia if it's not even a power in its own backyard. And, he thought that Putin genuinely believes that the West will keep expanding NATO (and the EU eastward) - and, in fairness, the West broke a lot of promises that were made about non-expansion of NATO so it's not irrational to fear that.

But at this moment Europe is weak, the US is distracted, China is focused on the West so this may be the moment for one final gamble. It would be bloody and lead to sanctions. But Russia could properly Ukraine - probably not full annexation, but that's a possibility - but that Russia has the force and will to force it back into your sphere and show the West won't help. It would also, probably, definitively end further NATO expansion (and no NATO assets in Ukraine, even if it's not a formal member). It would also highlight NATO's potential weakness/ineffectiveness to other former Soviet states (more in wider Eurasia than necessarily Poland or the Baltics but I think it would plant a seed of doubt everywhere).

Putin's also been prepping the Russian population for seven years or more on the idea of a basic conflict with the West. There will be serious economic harm but probably not enough to really destroy it - in response there'll be martial law and maybe arresting dissidents. It fulfills the message that Russia is beleaguered, hated by the West and the West will try to bring it down. Basically it'd revert to something like the Brezhnev era. But Putin's role and some sense of restoring Russia as a power/Russian glory would be assured. He's a grand historic figure (perhaps as he would've been if he'd not come back in 2012), rather than falling into the trope of all political lives ending in failure.

[Josquius]

It's too bad LNG is so expensive to ship.  I think we have plenty.

Has anyone ever heard anything about fracking in Europe?  I made a bet a while back that the fracking revolution would hit Europe by buying Shlumberger stock, but that went no where.  I wonder if Europe doesn't have any deposits or whether it does but there is political resistance to fracking at home.

I do remember, what, 5 years ago or so? There was a lot of talk about this big plan to setup gas depots in Spain and import it from the US... But yeah. Never came to anything.

Really it should be a win win for Europe in investing heavily in moving away from gas. Not seeing anything like enough movement on this however, just talk.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I won't pretend to know much about the Ukrainian ethnic stuff, but from the very small sample size of ethnic Ukrainian Americans I know, they are all extremely anti-Russian. Of course, Ukrainian Americans (and the ones I know are mostly from the same 2nd generation family) probably select more for being anti-Russian than Ukrainians in Ukraine. The very fact the Maidan Revolution happened also makes me think it is highly unlikely a significant portion of the country would peacefully be absorbed by Russia.

Keep in mind there is no real history of Ukraine and Russia being the same country in a strongly Russian-nationalist state. When Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire, it was a pre-Nationalist era when the Tsars mostly did not interfere with local customs, and the suzerain off in the distance didn't cause issues for most of the ethnic Ukrainians. The USSR, while it did not end up lasting, was actually relatively smart in how it handled nationalism with its system of different Soviet Republics and a focus on an ideology of the pan-national "worker" as being more important than ethnic or religious differences. Putin's style of Russian nationalism would be difficult to square with approaches like this.

[DGuller]

I don't doubt that most Ukrainians would be highly unhappy initially, west of Dnipropetrovsk anyway.  The question is whether they'll be unhappy enough to face near-certain death fighting a partisan war against Russia, or whether they'll be resigned towards accepting their fate after initial resistance.  It took a lot of courage for Ukrainians in Kiev to face down Berkut and the imported thugs from Eastern Ukraine, but that's nothing compared to facing down a foreign army that has no qualms about committing atrocities.

[OttoVonBismarck]

They would not face near-certain death. If Russia had the ability to guarantee certain death for everyone who opposed them they never would have lost in Afghanistan or had to take 20 years to pacify Chechnya.

[DGuller]

They would not face near-certain death. If Russia had the ability to guarantee certain death for everyone who opposed them they never would have lost in Afghanistan or had to take 20 years to pacify Chechnya.

The resistance movements were successful there, but that doesn't mean that individual participants there enjoyed long lifespans.  Russia in particular has a policy of making sure that those who catch their attention resisting them are dead, and that everyone knows it.  They even have a program of assassinating those who volunteered in other conflicts against Russia.  A lot of Ukrainians who previously volunteered in Georgia were assassinated in Ukraine in recent years, and that was when Ukraine was run by anti-Russian government.

[OttoVonBismarck]

You're conflating "some people die" with "certain death." Many thousands of people have protested against Putin to some degree over the past 20 years, only a small number have actually been killed.

[DGuller]

You're conflating "some people die" with "certain death." Many thousands of people have protested against Putin to some degree over the past 20 years, only a small number have actually been killed.

Okay, granted, make it "likely death for notable resisters".  By resistance I mean armed resistance, not civil resistance.  Civil resistance has never been punished by death in Putin's Russia as a general concept, the assassinations were more targeted against those who could do individual damage to the state or important oligarchs (and I presume ignored warnings to back off).  The screws haven't been tightened that much yet against civil resistance, though it definitely is possible that Putin intends to go much further there as well.

[DGuller]

Wishful thinking or reality? https://www.thedailybeast.com/russians-have-suddenly-stopped-buying-putins-anti-american-propaganda